Skyfire (26 page)

“OK, great. Fewer burdens on the social welfare system,” said Jack.  “Get them down off that shit.”

And he’s right back there with them. Talk about unhealthy co-dependence.

              The bodies dropped with a loud, squishy thud on the ground below the escalator. The two boys were unfazed.

             
They have been through so much …

At the top of the escalator the mood turned somber as the newest display of shitty carnage presented itself.  The group had several options, but settled on the idea of the main entry lobby. 

Please let this entryway be barricaded as well as the police station.

They rounded the corner a short distance from the top of the escalators and headed down a hallway. 

Holy shit.  I can’t believe I’ve never been here before.  This is pretty awesome. 

Despite the circumstances, it was difficult not to appreciate the spectacle of two giant dinosaur skeletons in the center of the hall, along with the stunning architecture and artwork.  The vast space had an arched ceiling with recessed carvings geometrically etched into its patterned appearance.  Buttressing the ceiling were immense orange granite columns, resting on equally impressive marble flooring.  A gigantic mural wrapped across the walls behind the columns, marked by brilliant oranges and blues to compliment the columns.  Beside the columns, on a marble wall to the left, was a poem engraved from the floor to the ceiling.  The poem was called ‘Youth.’

JACK

             
I love this poem.  It’s basically everything you need to know to not be an asshole.

YOUTH

I WANT TO SEE YOU GAME BOYS.  I WANT TO SEE YOU BRAVE AND MANLY AND I ALSO WANT TO SEE YOU GENTLE AND TENDER.  BE PRACTICAL AS WELL AS GENEROUS IN YOUR IDEALS.  KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE STARS AND YOUR FEET ON THE GROUND.  COURAGE, HARD WORK, SELF MASTERY, AND INTELLIGENT EFFORT ARE ALL ESSENTIAL TO A SUCCESSFUL LIFE.  CHARACTER IN THE LONG RUN IS THE DECISIVE FACTOR IN THE LIFE OF AN INDIVIDUAL AND OF NATIONS ALIKE.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

            
 
Well, that sucks.  I bet TR’s rolling over in his grave right now.  Sorry we disappointed you, man. 

              Over there by those bathrooms looks like a decent spot.  It says Columbus Avenue exit at the end of the hall.  Fuck, it’s creepy in here.

              Moonlight shone through the massive arched windows following the curvature of the ceiling.  It danced about the stagnant dust, throwing strange shadows over the main hall.  Four flashlights moved through the darkness, all supplementing Ronak’s sphere. 

             
I don’t like straight-shot linear.  No concealment.  We need to stop - I need to walk around real quick to recon this shit.  We could use that machine room if it’s big enough and it isn’t triple dead-bolted.  We need to stop.  I need to get my bearings for two fucking seconds.

             
“Hey Major Rugerman!” yelled Harrison.  “Ya’ll want maps?  I got us all a bunch of maps from this booth over here!”

             
Harrison, what the fuck would I do without you?
  “Good work, man.  Thank you.  Guys, come here for a second.  Callie, Ron, Harrison -  security please, if you would.” 
Hmmm.  This spot looks pretty good. 
“Guys, what about this?”  Jack pointed at a small area to the west labeled “small mammals.”  “I mean, it’s got a long enough hallway that’s crooked instead of a straight shot.  Not too long, not too short, and if you count the number of exfil routes… five… it’s more than any other centrally located area.  That’s a win in my book.”

              “Thank you for that, Dr. Aspbergers,” said Karl.  “Hughes?” 

              “I like it,” said Trent.  “Let’s do it.”

              “At a minimum,” Jack continued, “we have to clear both routes into that hallway from here.  Ultimately, we need to get back here to leave.  We can clear the blockage from either exit on this floor pretty quickly, especially if White Ronnie Coleman helps.  I’ll try to raise Chief Rudich on my MBITR to see how much fuel he’s got left, and whether the front or Columbus Avenue side makes sense for exfil.  I’m sure as shit not going back into that subway.  After we save the world I’m just using Uber.” 

              “So is it hard being on the autistic spectrum, or do you just not think about it much?”  Karl said.

             
God, I feel sorry for him.  He’s so insecure.  I never understood why.  It’s like the doing-badass-shit version of when an eighty-six pound bulimic thinks she looks fat.  Whatever man, I’m a duck and bullshit is water that rolls right off
.  “Two groups of three,” said Jack. “Me and Karl have MBITRS so Harrison, come with me and Ronak.  Hughes, you and Callie go with Karl.  We’ll get the gift shop and you guys get the Hall of North American Mammals.  We’ll meet in the middle.” 

             
“Ronak, if you would?”  Jack gestured to the long hallway-turned-gift-shop that had been trashed by the dead, mutilated victims strewn over its floor.  Karl, Trent, and Callie walked into the Hall of Mammals with the two children in tow.  Their order of movement was Karl and Trent at the front, Callie in the rear, and the children in the center. 

              “Karl, Jack - radio check,” said Jack into the headset clipped to the right shoulder of his body armor. 

              “Got you,” said Karl.  “Moving forward now.”

              “Same with us, but we got some blockage we gotta climb over.”

              “Roger,” Karl said.

              “Major Rugerman, I am sensing a life sign at the end of the hallway, underneath that rather large stack of oddly specific spot-fin porcupine fish insulated travel mugs,” said Ronak.  “It is an older male.  He requires medical attention.”

             
Great.  Another liability.  We have to do the right thing.  After all, hallucinogenic drugs and giant hippie aliens tell me we’re all apparently interconnected. 
“OK, let’s get him out then,” said Jack.

              Harrison ran over to the pile and pushed away small boxes from what was once a large display.  The man underneath was unconscious.  “Sir, can you give me a hand?”

              “Major Rugerman, I can easily,” said Ronak.

              “Legate Ronak, you are a much more effective fighter than the two of us, even combined.  After that little show on the train platform, I’m more than confident in your ability to keep us safe while we carry this dude to the CCP.”

              “Agreed,” said Ronak. 

             
I kind of like Ronak.  I bet he thinks we’re all just a bunch of savages though. 
Jack’s neck was under the man’s right shoulder; Harrison braced the man from the opposite side.  Ronak’s sphere flew ahead to the final section of hallway, illuminating all the grisly sights in its path. 

              “How you guys doing over there?  We ran into a fucking barricade and a half, man,”  Karl called out over the radio.

              Jack used his right thumb to hold down the handset button while clasping its opposite side with his right index finger.  “We’re almost through, but we got another live one.  Older dude, and he’s unconscious.  We’ll loop around to the other side of the barricade and help you clear it in a second.”

              “Roger.”

              “Ronak, what’s up there?  Anything?”

              The sphere shot forward through the gift shop’s doorway, toward the “small mammals” area.  “There is nothing except seven human corpses in the hallway,” said Ronak.

              “Cool,” said Jack.  “Let’s get this dude lying down closer to Karl and Trent’s entrance.  Harrison, you stay here with him. Legate Ronak and I will help secure the back part of this hallway.  You can rove.  Be discreet and peek around corners to make sure no one’s in any of these hallways.  You cool?”

              Harrison hesitated a moment.  “Sir, I…”

              “What’s up, man?”

              “Sir, it’s like literally pitch dark in here, can you leave that ball here for me?”

             
Seriously?
  “You got a surefire and NODs attached to your helmet, right?”

              “Roger, sir.” 
The fucking balls on this kid sometimes.

             
“We’ll be literally right around the corner, twenty meters down.  Don’t worry, man.” 

             
Ronak and Jack moved to the backside of the barricade.  The sphere of light settled on an optimal location to provide maximum illumination.  Taxidermy animals and models of their natural environments were stacked in a menacing-looking pile intended to keep out those touched by the phenomenon.  Some of the items in the pile were recognizable from the gift shop - more spot-fin porcupine fish insulated travel mugs, this time in cases. 

             
This smell is unbearable.

              “Shall we?”  Jack began picking up the debris.  As he did so he peered into the Alaskan brown bear exhibit.  The window had been smashed and the stuffed animal corpses used in the barricade.  A human corpse was slumped against the crappily-painted wilderness background of the exhibit.  The person had used a shard of glass to cut a six-inch vertical slit in his forearm.  In his last moments, no doubt delirious, he used his own blood to smear the words “NO MORE” onto the light blue sky painted at the back of the exhibit.

              It must have been a mess in here.
  Jack doubled back toward the other half of the group. 
Fuck, never gets easier. 
Amid the taxidermy, furniture, props, and garbage, Jack found pieces of human bodies. 
It’s like the wall of dead bodies at the Battle of Thermopylae.  I never thought that could be real.

             
“Guys, you over there?” said Jack.  “Can you hear us?”

              “Yeah, we got you,” Trent’s voice echoed through the rubble.

              “My god.  Are you seeing this shit?” asked Jack.

              “It’s like a gentleman from Atlanta released a pit bull into a fucking day care center!” said Trent.

              Jack chuckled. 
Anything to get through this.  Anything. 

             
More body parts.  More taxidermy.  More horrible smells.  Finally, after several minutes of intense lifting and throwing, they’d cleared a path.

              “Hey buddy!”  Karl said in the douchebag joke tone he used in the most somber moments.

              “What’s up, man?” said Jack.  “Let’s move.  Harrison, we’re coming at you with a total of seven.”  He raised his voice and flashed his Surefire toward Harrison.  Harrison flashed back on the same wall at the end of the hallway.

              “Aww, sweetie!” said Karl. “You guys got a little thing!  How long you two been together?” 

              “A while,” Jack said.

              “MEE-OW.  The fuck is up with you guys?” asked Callie.

              “Relax, this is normal,”  Trent said.  He turned to the other two.  “It’s like a dysfunctional family of emotional infants who are so retarded that they cross back OVER the zero line of retardedness into being idiot savants.  Karl, go run a fucking sub-six mile and do some transition drills right after.  Jack, tell me how many fucking toothpicks I’m about to drop on the ground.  Jesus Christ.”

              The three friends laughed as they walked back into the hall of small mammals.  They began setting up the casualty collection point. 

             
I’m torn about whether to reposition this debris into a series of serpentine obstacles.  I got two kids and an unconscious old man.  Do I want speed of exfil, or do I want restricted enemy movement?
  When he was twenty-five Jack had transitioned from the Infantry branch to Military Intelligence.  He had spent more years of his life in intel than anywhere else. 
Speed.  Definitely speed.  The cost-benefit of setting up some elaborate shit is stupid.  We’ll make even more noise just to stave off a horde for maybe five seconds.  We need speed.

              Harrison knew how his boss’s head worked.  He understood when Jack was analyzing something.  He saw it in the way Jack wrinkled his brow while looking to the top left corner of his field of vision.  It was very odd, but just one of Jack’s many eccentricities. 

              “Sir, you got a second?” asked Harrison.

              “What’s up Harrison?”

              “Sir, when you guys were clearing out the stuff back there, I saw some stuff under NODs.  It was lots of black figures running back and forth across that other hallway down there.  I couldn’t tell exactly what I was looking at because it was completely silent.  I just pulled security next to this guy.  Sir, SOMETHING is in here with us.  It was down there at the end, where it says ‘Northwest Coast Indians.’”

              “You’re really tired,” said Jack.  “I’ve seen some weird-ass shit in the woods at night under NODs on the third night of a field problem, man. Just shake it off.  We’re all here now.  Let’s start the real work.”