“Oh, yeah,” said Lyle, rubbing his arm. “The blowback.”
“I had bruises for a week where the walker got knocked around. I mean, I know you gotta have feedback through your suit pads, otherwise you got no ‘touch,’ but I wish the dampers would react faster than the blowback from impacts.”
“Better’n being hit by a round direct,” I said.
Angel went, “Word up. Sprained my wrist one time when a mortar shell wrenched the manipulator arm on my floater.”
“It’s like having a spasm.” Lyle looked at me. “You remember what it was like during live round training. Must be a lot like what you got now, right?”
I went “right” and didn’t try to fine-tune his opinion. He wouldn’t have believed me anyway. People have a need to reduce things to what they think they understand.
“I whipped that town’s butt good,” Jimmy went on. “Pretty soon, though, Wild Bob figures out that the possemen were just a decoy so’s I could yee-haw, and the ‘away team’ come streaming back from the south pass on their ATVs and dirt bikes. Well, I’d already gotten the range for a couple of landmarks along the county road, and my submunitions were already in place. I watch my heads-up until the column reaches the right point, then I trigger my subs and let loose. Ducks in a barrel. I couldn’t have done better if they’d all held still and said ‘cheese.’ ”
Angel pumped his fist and went yee-haw.
“Pretty,” said Lyle. Jimmy shook his head.
“It’s never pretty. I went in to break them; so of course that’s what I did. But it was a dirty business and I hate those sumbitches for making me do it. Wild Bob himself, he was still functional. He’d been bringing up the rear, in case Badger tried following him to town, and he hadn’t taken a hit. My sensors spotted his bald dome flashing in the afternoon sun and I high-leaped right over to him. I bet that was one day in his life when he wished he had all his hair back. He sees me land and his face twists into a sneer. He’s got a grenade launcher in his hands and the devil in his eyes.
“Now, he knows the Rules of Engagement like he wrote ’em his own self. And who knows? They way they tie us in knots, maybe he did have a hand in the drafting. So he knows if he drops the grenade launcher, I got to switch to non-lethal.”
Angel shrugged. “Me, I got slow reflexes.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t matter, ‘cause he didn’t drop nothing except another grenade in the chamber. I opened a channel and give him his chance, saying, ‘Bob, I come to take you in.’ But he just curls his lip and goes how I ain’t come anywhere and lobs a grenade at my optics.”
“Hell,” said Lyle, “that ain’t nothing to swat away. Artificial Stupid can handle it on automatic.”
“Sure, but the arm swing puts you off balance for a second because it’s automatic; and that’s the second when Wild Bob melts into the rocks. That forces me to run the instant replay so I can see where he went and follow him.
“We played peek-a-boo all across those rocks. He’d pop up and try another round, always going for the optics or the ee-em arrays. Oh, he knew power suits and where the weak points were. Then he’d scurry off to some new position.” Jimmy shook his head and he looked at the wall, except he wasn’t seeing the wall. “I’ll give old Bob this much. He had sand. Not many folks’d buck a suit louie that way. Deep down, he believed in his cause. Had to, to do the things he did. He knew all along this day would come and he sort of looked forward to it, if you know what I mean. Maybe he even welcomed it. I thought about saving the county the expense of a trial—I had some HE in reserve and could have made some mighty fine rubble out of those rocks; but, strictly speaking, this was a police action, not military, and Badger hankered for a trial. He wanted the public to know how Bob wasn’t some damned Robin Hood, but a murdering, thieving traitor. Last thing he wanted was a martyr and a folk-song.
“So Bob and me, we play cat and banjo for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes; and the more Bob backs away from me, the closer he gets to Badger and his posse. I thought maybe he didn’t realize that because a firefight concentrates your attention, you know what I mean? But he knew exactly what he was doing. I call on him once more to surrender, and he goes, ‘not to the likes of you.’ And then, I swear, he hollered for Badger.
“ ‘What do you want, Bob?’ Badger asks him from behind the next rim; and he says, ‘I want it to be you, not him,’ and Badger goes, ‘You sure you want it that way?’ and Bob said he was sure. ‘If a man gotta go down, it oughta be to another man. And Badger, you may suck the gummint tit; but you are, by God, man enough to come for me your own self.’
“So Badger he tells Bob to step out where he can be seen and hold his hands up. Maybe ten, fifteen seconds go by; then Wild Bob steps out from behind a finger of rock—which surprised me, because I had him pegged a couple meters the other way. He’s still holding that grenade launcher. Badger—I can see him now, skylined on the rimrock twenty meters past Bob—he’s got the high ground and a ‘sault rifle. He says, Bob, throw down the launcher,’ and Bob says, ‘Now, Badger, you know I can’t do that,’ and the sheriff goes, Throw it down now, Bob!’ and Bob doesn’t say anything except he works the pump to chamber another round. Badger goes, ‘I don’t want it to end this way,’ and Bob goes, ‘Only way it could. Tell Ma and Natalie good-bye.’ Then he raises the launcher to his shoulder and Badger sprays him with a cloud of flechettes, which rip him up something bad, so I think he was dead before he knew it.”
Lyle the Style shook his head and said, “Jesus.” Angel crossed himself. Jimmy ground his fist into his palm, like a mortar and pestle, and didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, I spoke.
“They were brothers, Wild Bob and the Badger?” Oh, what a story that would make! If I could only find the right words to tell it. Duty versus fanaticism—with love ground to powder in the middle.
“I leaped on over,” Jimmy said, “and grounded next to Badger where he stooped over Wild Bob. Badger looks up at me and says, ‘It was empty.’ ”
“What was?” asked Angel.
“The grenade launcher,” I said. “That’s right, Jimmy, isn’t it? Bob’s weapon was empty.”
Jimmy nodded. “I told Badger I’d carry the body back to town if he wanted. You know those walkers; they can carry a lot in their cradles. A single body wouldn’t be much. But Badger just gives me a look and says if I want so bad to carry the body, I could damn well come up to Spruce Creek and pick it up my own self.”
“Oh, man,” said Angel. “Diss.”
“What did you say to him?” I asked.
Jimmy shook his head. “I didn’t say nothing. I yanked off my virtch hat and threw it to the floor. Lieutenant Serena asked me what I was doing, but I didn’t pay her no mind. I just stared at the walls of the teep room, thinking.”
“Thinking,” said Lyle. That’s always a mistake.”
Jimmy gave him a look, as if he were a stranger. “I left the teep room and checked an ATV from the motor pool. I know I left the walker out there untended—and the colonel chewed me a new asshole over that later on—but I had to go to Spruce Creek. Not just be telepresent. You understand? I had to be there myself.”
“Dumb move,” said Angel. “It’s telepresent fighting waldoes helps keep down body-bag expenses.”
“Our body bags,” I pointed out.
Lyle shrugged. “Those are the only ones that matter to me.”
Jimmy shook his head. “You’re right, Angel. It was a dumb move. By the time I reached Spruce Creek, they were all gone. Badger and his posse. The bandits. Most of the townsfolk. Shit, most of the town was gone. Even the walker. Lieutenant. Serena had teeped it after I went Outside. So I got out of the ATV and retraced the path of the firefight, walking from rock to rim. I had cornered Wild Bob there. He fired his last grenade there. Badger shot him there. The rocks were all splashed red; there were shell casings and sabots all over. I don’t know how long I crouched where Badger had crouched. If any of Wild Bob’s friends had still been around, I would have been easy pickings. Finally, a squall blew up and I hiked back to my vehicle and pulled up the clamshell. I sat there for a while listening to the high country wind. After a while, I drove back down to the firebase.”