Authors: Shawn Kupfer
“Fuck. Let’s just hope he hasn’t gotten outside the green zone.” Christopher shook his head.
“What the fuck’s the green zone?” Gabriel asked.
“The camp itself. We’ve only taken up about a quarter of the city. If he gets outside of that, he’ll be a lot harder to track down. He may even be able to find a car someone left behind when the place got evacuated.”
“We don’t want that, in case any of you were wondering,” Nick commented.
“So how do we track him down without getting caught?” Anthony asked.
“Hey, Christopher. You said that some convicts—hacker types—made it into the Air Force, right? You know any of them?” Nick started.
“Yeah, one. He’s based out of Moscow.”
“Can he track the chip in Kenneth’s neck?”
“I see where you’re going. Yeah, he could, but we’ve got no way to get in touch with him, unless one of you has a phone or a computer that I don’t know about.”
Nick shot a look at Anthony, but the young man only shrugged.
“Wait, though—” Christopher said. “We may not need to get in touch with him at all. There’s a much easier way to get the info we need, I think. And all we have to do is steal a jacket.”
It took a second, but something clicked in Nick’s brain.
“Right. Captain Neal’s BDU jacket. Has that screen embedded in the left sleeve. That can track the GPS chip?”
“Sure. He has to keep track of his rowdy employees one way or another, doesn’t he?”
“Right. Good an idea as any. Where are they bunking the officers in this town?”
“You have to be shitting me.” Gabriel shook his head.
“I count fifteen guards. For, like, a hundred COs? Maybe? That seems a bit much,” Anthony said.
“They had some problems a while back with some convicts trying to kill their COs. Now they’re under guard. Probably camera surveillance in the building, too,” Christopher explained.
“So how the fuck do we get in?” Gabriel asked.
Nick studied the guards patrolling the front of the large brick apartment building before he spoke.
“Some of those guards are convicts. Marine convicts. Chris, that a pretty easy job? Like, an Alpha job?”
Christopher nodded.
“Where’s the Alpha bunkhouse?”
“No, need for that, boss,” Christopher said, reaching into his left cargo pocket. He pulled out a series of unit patches—two Bravos, a Delta and an Alpha. The patches had Velcro on the back, just as the Echo patches did.
“Great. Now the question—who gets to go?”
“Gabriel and I know that building pretty well. One of our first jobs here at Justice—while you were still comatose, Nick—was cleaning out a bunch of the extra furniture for the convict buildings. Shitty job, but it looks like it may help us out after all.”
“I’ll go,” Gabriel said eagerly.
“No.” Nick shook his head. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, kiddo, but this is a custom-made job for Chris. If anything gets hairy, he’s got a better chance than any of us of talking his way out of it.”
“Shit. You’re right, of course…but I would’ve preferred to let the big guy take all the risk,” Christopher grumbled, pulling off his Echo patch and replacing it with the Alpha one.
Christopher was gone less than ten minutes. He returned to the group still wearing his convict BDU jacket, though the sleeves were rolled down and the jacket was buttoned all the way to his throat.
“Any problems?” Nick asked.
“Nope. Just a good thing Neal’s shorter than I am,” Christopher said, opening his jacket to reveal Neal’s BDU jacket buttoned underneath.
“Well, don’t keep us waiting, man. Where’s the psycho?”
Christopher rolled up the sleeve on his own BDU jacket, revealing the screen embedded in the sleeve underneath. With a few quick taps, the screen flickered to life.
“Shit. Anyone remember Kenneth’s Echo designation?” Christopher frowned at the screen.
“Fifteen fifty-two,” Nick replied instantly.
Christopher tapped the number into the screen. A half-second later, his sleeve beeped.
“Yep. Got him. Already a mile and a half east of here. Dangerously close to getting out of the green zone.”
“We need transport. Gabe, ever steal a car?”
“Learned when I was twelve, boss.”
“Good. Get us something that’ll hold five people, and do it fast and quiet.”
“On it.”
“Chris, keep your eyes glued to that screen. Anthony, see if you can rustle us some nonlethal ordinance. I know we stopped using it before the war started, but there should be some lying around here somewhere.”
Christopher pointed down the street.
“Fifth building down, on the left. Junk storage and shit weapons they assign to convict units. That’s your best bet for something nonlethal.”
“Right on. Any guards?”
Christopher shook his head. “Nah. They really don’t give a damn about the nonlethal stuff anymore. I think they just keep it around in case of a convict uprising.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Anthony bitched as he set off down the street.
“Worst case, Chris,” Nick said as they watched Anthony go, “he gets out of the green zone. What’s he going to find?”
“Couldn’t tell you for sure. I’ve heard rumors that it’s not completely evacuated. He’ll almost certainly find transport and some sort of weapon though, so we probably want to catch him before he gets that far, if we can manage it.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. Hopefully the kid gets us a ride by then, or we’re fucked.”
As if on cue, Gabriel pulled up in a battered, thirty-year-old Humvee. Christopher yanked open the passenger door and hopped in, and Nick climbed into the back.
“Surprised this thing still runs,” Christopher said, wiping dirt off the inside of the windshield with his sleeve.
“Hey, keys were in it and it was unlocked. Time’s of the essence, if I’m not mistaken,” Gabriel shot back.
“You’ve got that right. Straight ahead, fifth building on the left. Anthony’s picking us up some gear,” Nick said.
As the Humvee approached the storage building, the three Echoes saw Anthony walking out the front door with a pistol-grip shotgun and a box of shells.
“I thought I said nonlethal,” Nick said as Anthony climbed into the back seat.
“This is nonlethal, boss. Specially designed rounds to stop suicide bombers without killin’ ‘em. Feels like a battering ram to the chest. I did…
read
an article on them a couple of years ago,” Anthony said, handing the shotgun over to Nick. “I also got these.”
Anthony pulled a pair of pistol Tasers from the cargo pockets of his BDUs. He handed one to Christopher and kept one for himself.
“All right, Gabe. Drive. Chris’ll tell you where you’re headed.”
“Due east. Big psycho’s moving fast, so get as much speed out of this heap as you can,” Christopher told him, staring at the screen on his sleeve.
Gabriel cranked the wheel to the left and pushed the pedal to the floor. The Humvee shuddered at first, then slowly accelerated down the empty street. The engine protested, rattling and clicking loudly as Gabriel slowly brought the vehicle up to speed.
“Great. You stole the one clunker in our entire camp.” Christopher shook his head.
“I was wondering why no one was guarding it,” Gabriel said.
“I thought we sold most of these things to the Iraqis when the Cougars started rolling off the line,” Anthony said.
“Apparently not all of them,” Nick said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were sending Kilo units out in this thing. Seems about as good as the vans they had us in last week.”
“Take your next right, then straight on for almost a mile,” Christopher told Gabriel.
Gabriel nodded and eased off the pedal a bit as he turned—the tachometer needle shot up a bit, and the truck accelerated a little faster. “Choke on this thing’s all fucked up,” he commented, easing the truck up to forty-five miles an hour, “but we should be able to make it work all right.”
“How about headlights? We got those?” Christopher asked, pulling out the knob for the lights. One of the Humvee’s forward lights kicked on, illuminating Kenneth standing in the middle of the road a few hundred feet ahead of them. Gabriel stood on the brakes, and the Humvee came to an immediate stop, throwing Nick and Anthony into the backs of the seats in front of them.
“Well, at least the brakes work,” Nick grumbled, pulling himself off the floor and opening the Humvee’s back door. He racked the shotgun and walked around to the front of the Humvee as he felt his three teammates fall in behind him.
“Kenneth! C’mon, man. Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be, okay, Chief?” Nick yelled. “Just hop on back in the truck, and we’ll all go back to the apartment.”
Kenneth started to run toward the four Echoes.
“Don’t think he’s coming quietly,” Christopher said.
As Kenneth ran, he pulled two butcher’s knives from behind his back. Nick aimed the shotgun and squeezed the trigger. The round smacked dead-center into Kenneth’s chest. The huge man staggered slightly, but kept coming. Nick fired two more rounds, but the effect was the same.
“Shit. Tasers,” Nick hissed. Christopher and Anthony raised their weapons. Nick heard them pull the triggers, but nothing happened.
“Dead batteries!” Anthony yelled.
“Back behind the truck!” Nick ordered, and his three teammates were only too happy to oblige. Nick stood his ground, however, shuffling his right foot slightly behind his left. Kenneth was just about on him when Nick fired his right hand straight into the big man’s nose.
Kenneth’s head snapped back violently, and he dropped one of the knives to the pavement. The big man didn’t fall, however—he turned his head back toward Nick, his nose smashed and gushing blood. The large man growled and swung the other knife at Nick’s face.
Nick ducked under the blade, shooting his right hand into Kenneth’s exposed rib cage. Without waiting for the man to slash at him again, Nick quickly moved around behind Kenneth and jumped on his back, wrapping his arms around Kenneth’s neck and squeezing as hard as he could. Kenneth bucked forward, sending Nick flying onto the hood of the Humvee. Nick saw the knife coming straight down at his face.
He kicked his right leg high and felt it connect with Kenneth’s skull. The knife missed its target, slamming into the truck’s steel hood and breaking in half. Nick quickly rolled off the hood and brought his hands up just in time to block a wild, powerful right-handed punch from Kenneth.
Though his arm took most of the impact, Kenneth’s fist still knocked into the side of Nick’s head. Pain shot through his spinal column as his head snapped to the side, and Nick was immediately thankful Kenneth hadn’t hit him full-force. He’d probably be dead if he had.
The big man’s strike had left him off-balance, and Nick shot his right leg out into the hollow of Kenneth’s left knee. Kenneth dropped to one knee, and Nick fired a quick right hand into the side of the big man’s head. Before Kenneth’s head recovered from the blow, Nick slammed his right elbow into the big man’s jaw as hard as he could.
Kenneth dropped to the ground, twitching.
“Someone get me something to tie this bastard up with,” Nick groaned, blinking rapidly to stave off the headache Kenneth’s hamhanded punch had given him.
After they got Kenneth up the building’s fire escape, Nick ordered Gabriel and Christopher to return the Humvee and the stolen BDU jacket. Peter and Michael helped Nick secure Kenneth to one of the chairs in the apartment with some spare bedsheets.
“All right, kids. We’ve got eight hours until anyone’s looking for us tomorrow morning. There’s nine of us. An hour watch each, and one of us gets a pass tonight. Hopefully, big guy won’t wake up,” Nick said.
“You take the pass, boss,” Anthony said. “I’m still keyed up—I’ll take the first watch.”
“If Kenneth comes around, wake me up. We can always hope he’s calmed down, but I doubt it.”
“Will do.”
Nick’s head was killing him, and he was exhausted. He remembered reading somewhere that if one had a concussion, one shouldn’t sleep—he really hoped he didn’t have one, because he passed out as soon as he hit the bed.
The next thing he knew, it was light out, and the door to their apartment flew open. A quick check showed all of his men were in their beds, except for Kenneth, who was still strapped to the chair.
Captain Neal thundered into the apartment with two MPs behind him. He pointed one thin finger at Gabriel. “That one.”
The two MPs hauled Gabriel to his feet and started dragging him toward the door.
“Hold up, sir. What’s this all about?”
“Two soldiers in Army Foxtrot positively identified our man 1156 here stealing a Humvee last night,” Neal growled.
“Foxtrot needs to have their eyes checked,” Nick said, rising from the bed. “Wasn’t him who stole the Humvee. It was me.”
Nick walked over to the two MPs and spoke softly to the one on the left.
“You want to let go of him now. Let’s not have this get ugly,” Nick whispered.
“Look, you’ve got one more day on leave. One of you is spending it in the box,” Neal said.
“And that would be me,” Nick told him.
“Fine. Take him.” Neal sighed. The two MPs let go of Gabriel and grabbed Nick’s arms. Gabriel moved to say something, but Nick glared hard at the younger man. Gabriel slowly closed his mouth. The MPs marched him out of the room, and Nick heard the door behind him slam shut. As the MPs escorted him down the hall, Neal stopped in front of them.
“You didn’t really steal the Hummer, did you?” he asked Nick quietly.
“Near as makes no difference. I was responsible.”
Neal shook his head.
“Damn. You would have made a good Marine, Nick. A real one. I’m actually sorry I have to do this.”
Nick just shrugged as the MPs led him away. His hands were cuffed and a black hood was thrown over his head, and Nick felt himself pushed into an elevator. As the doors opened, he was bundled outside and thrown into the back of a truck.
The ride was a short one, and Nick felt someone pull him from the back of the truck and lead him into another building. The hood was yanked off, and Nick caught his first glimpse of the box.
It was in a room with about nine others exactly the same shape and size, about five feet high by five feet square. The outside of the box was smooth, gray and featureless except for a small hatch on one side. Each box had a small LED on top. Four of them were on and showing red, but the rest were dark.
The same MPs who had taken him from the apartment were there with him now. One of them raised his sidearm to Nick’s head, while the other released him from his handcuffs and opened the door to the nearest box. A quick shove from the MPs sent Nick stumbling in, and the door closed behind him.
It was completely dark and silent in the box, and Nick wondered if that’s what the punishment was supposed to be—sensory deprivation. If so, he reasoned, he could handle that. He’d just wedge himself up against the wall and try to sleep through it. He hated being bored, but being bored for twenty-four hours wasn’t going to break him.
He quickly found out it wasn’t going to be sensory deprivation or mere isolation. Nick heard a low hum coming from the top of the box. He looked up, hoping his eyes would adjust to the darkness and show him where the hum was coming from, but he didn’t have any luck. There was no ambient light at all.
The hum slowly built into a whine, its pitch rising until it began to hurt Nick’s head. Just as the whine leveled into a long, loud tone, Nick realized it was getting warmer in the box. Warm quickly became hot, and hot became scorching. Nick slumped against the wall, but it burned his back even through his clothes.
Great. So, loud annoying noises, uncomfortable heat, and I have to stay standing. Maybe this isn’t going to be so easy after all
.
Sweat started to trickle down his brow, so he knew the temperature increase wasn’t just in his mind. Nick pulled off his uniform T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead and hairline. The shirt came away soaked in his hands, and he realized he was sweating a lot more than he’d initially thought.
“You don’t have to worry when you’re sweating. It’s when you stop sweating that you’re in trouble,” Nick mumbled to himself.
It was easy to lose track of time without any sort of reference point—no light, no sound other than the long, toneless whine, no one to talk to. Nick forced himself to slowly count to sixty to mark off a minute. Even as he was counting, the one minute felt like ten.
Nick tested the floor with his hand. It, at least, didn’t seem to be heating up, so he lowered himself carefully, crossing his legs in a half-lotus position. The less he moved, he figured, the better off he’d be. He draped his soaked shirt across his lap and felt the sweat from his face and chest dripping into it as he slowly breathed in.
Nick had dealt with heat before. When he was ten, he’d wandered away from his mother and older brother on a trip through Death Valley. It’d been two hours before his brother had finally found him, and he’d been sweating just like this. He’d lived through that, and he’d only been ten years old and asthmatic besides. He could live though this too—the asthma had gone away when he was fourteen, and he’d gotten in a lot better shape in the nineteen years that had followed.
Of course, there hadn’t been this annoying goddamned noise in Death Valley. And at least he’d been able to see. When he was growing up, his mother had tried to teach him all about his culture. She’d made both him and his brother speak Chinese throughout their childhood and taught them about Kung Fu, about Buddhism, and about meditation. Nick had been a good student of the first two, but a terrible student of the last. He wished now that he’d paid more attention to the meditation, had learned how to put his mind somewhere else.
Such a skill would have come in handy in the box.
Nick’s throat started to hurt, and he swallowed hard. He licked his lips only to find them papery and dry. Lifting the shirt from his lap, Nick leaned his head back and twisted one sleeve over his open mouth. The sweat from the shirt did little to slake the powerful thirst he was starting to feel, but it was better than nothing. He’d have to conserve the sweat, he knew, so he only drank the smallest bit. As he swallowed, he felt blood in the back of his throat.
Nosebleed,
he realized. The same thing had happened in Death Valley. His nose had started gushing just before Stan had found him. That had been about two hours, and he’d been in the box for a lot longer than that.
All right. Assuming I’ve only been in here two hours, that means I still have twenty-two to go. The last two hours have felt like five, so I need to do something to keep my brain occupied.
“And talking to myself probably isn’t going to help at all,” Nick mumbled in reply to his own thoughts.
Nick tried to concentrate on the last book he’d read—the specs Gabriel had brought him in the hospital for all of the military equipment. It felt like weeks ago, but Nick knew it had only been a few days. Trying to think of something other than time, Nick slowly repeated, out loud, the first words of the book.
“MQ-19 Aero UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. General Electric/Applied Warfare Inc., U.S. Air Force contract number DB-1812-482-XL,” Nick said quietly to himself. He remembered the words just as if they were right in front of him on the old, battered e-reader—he’d always had an outstanding visual memory.
By the time he’d made it to the Jackal light-combat vehicle, Nick realized he’d stopped sweating.
Don’t panic,
he told himself.
You panic, you’re just going to ramp your temperature up even further.
Nick figured he should try to hydrate as much as he could, but when he lifted the T-shirt from his lap, it was warm and dry. He’d squeezed it pretty aggressively somewhere around “G” in the manual, but it had still been quite damp then. He felt the cuffs of his pants—they were dry as well.
All right. Maybe now it’s time to panic.
Of course, he realized it didn’t matter if he panicked. It didn’t matter what he did at all. His situation wasn’t going to change until his time was up. The best he could do was sit there, stay as still as possible, and hope it wasn’t standard procedure to let convicts die in the box.
He tried not to think of the words
heat stroke
, instead focusing his thoughts on slowing his respiration and bringing down his hammering heartbeat. He’d read somewhere once about lizards going into torpor when the temperature got too hot or too cold, slowing down their systems and going into a state of near-hibernation to survive. He doubted such a thing would work for humans, of course, but there had to be something valid in the principle.
If he could just slow his system down enough, reduce his body’s need for water, it might be easier to get through the rest of the time in the box. Just how much time that was, though, Nick had no idea. It could have been fifteen minutes, or it could have been eighteen hours. He’d given up trying to figure out how long he’d been there.
He was already bored of the manual—he’d pretty much already proven to himself that he had the thing memorized. He started to think about the last TV show he’d seen, but most of the TV back home had been pre-empted by the news months ago. The last report he’d seen before his arrest and trial was the report on expanding the Prisoner Conscription Act to death-row inmates. Military enrollment numbers had been at an all-time low, he remembered, and Congress had abolished the Draft during the second term of the Obama administration. When the war with China broke out, prisoners seemed the only way to go—a force of more than three million men and women who were just taking up space Stateside.
At the time, Nick had shook his head and said “poor dumb bastards.” Two days later, his mother was dead. Two days after that, he was sitting in jail charged with five counts of murder.
Nick was just remembering the feel of the jail cell in the Los Angeles County Correctional Facility, remembering how huge it was compared to the box, when the door slid open. The light that streamed in through the door blinded him, and he threw up one arm over his eyes. Someone used the arm to drag him out of the box and onto his feet.
“Time to go back to work,” he heard someone say from across the room.