Mechanical (13 page)

            The general paused and watched his image for a moment before presenting another image, this time a close-up of the Financial District.

            "We think the enemy is in one of the buildings in the triangle between the Lower East Side, the Financial District and Hudson Square. Find it and destroy it. Remember, each of you have a Hellfire bin with four missile, one of which carries a thermobaric warhead. Use it to kill the enemy or transmit the location, and we will use laser-guided bombs to surgically take him out."

            The general turned towards the Serpents.

            "But—but—General, this is a huge area to search. How are we—"

            "Lieutenant Riley, you have the Serpents, the most advanced weapon system anywhere in the world, and you will have three nights to find the enemy. You are the Intelligence Officer. Your job is to use whatever intelligence you manage to gather on the ground. You'll find the enemy."

            "So we trust a desk jockey. Fucking great," Ramirez whispered nearby. In fact, his voice was louder, closer to normal speech.

            "You'll do great," Sergeant Jebadiah said.

            Captain Emerson and the general said nothing; they just looked at Tom.

            Tom looked at the general, then at the captain, and finally turned towards the map.

            "How … how? You haven't told us anything! How am I to find it without any kind of information about the enemy?"

            The general sighed deeply and seemed to fold in on himself, somehow shrinking while he thought deeply, apparently considered something.

           
What's so complicated?
Tom thought.
Why can't they tell us everything they know?

            "Look, Lieutenant Riley. We don't really know much. We interviewed as many people as we could from Detroit, people who had lived months under the enemy’s rule before we killed it. They'd never seen or heard the enemy. They'd been programmed from afar."

            "Or the enemy programmed them not to reveal anything about itself," Tom said.

            "Lieutenant, I can give you several pointers. The first one is this: The enemy wants to protect itself. It's using our own people to do this. When the resistance grows fiercer, you'll know you're getting close. The second thing is this: In no image in the past three years and from the twelve occupied cities, including the debris from Detroit, have we seen anything that might be the enemy. No construction nor structure that could have been used by the enemy. No strange machine nor strange creature or being. Yes, Lieutenant Riley, some people even considered aliens. So, the enemy must be using or must be a normal-looking vehicle, structure or people. Take into consideration that it might be a man, a woman, a group of people, a car or a van. Anything."

            Tom said nothing. He couldn't even think of anything to ask. What could he ask if the enemy could be anything? The whole mission seemed impossible.

            "The last pointer, Lieutenant Riley, is electricity. In all twelve cities, even though we know people stopped watching TV, talking on the phone, and using microwave ovens and almost every other appliance, the total electrical consumption of the city stayed the same or even increased. We know that in New York City, they stopped lighting the huge billboards and the mainframe computers that were used for commerce, along with the communications networks. Even so, the average electrical consumption of the city increased slightly, from five thousand megawatts to five thousand three hundred megawatts."

            Tom started pacing across the room, the slight humming of his engines and electrical conveyers reassuring him. He rubbed his chin with his hand, producing a faint squeaking noise from the black composite armor.

            "So, we do have something after all. The enemy, whatever it is, needs electricity. We can follow the electrical grid, see which lines are being used most heavily." Tom stopped and turned to the general.

            "General, why haven't you cut the power supply to the city or used an EMP blast to burn out all the city’s electrical circuits?"

            "Lieutenant Riley, you've asked that question before. We looked at the electrical consumption of the city the night the war started and there was neither a spike nor anything out of the ordinary. In fact there was a steady decline for three or four weeks before the electrical consumption started rising again. Our conclusion was that the enemy has its own power supply and only tapped into the city's power supply much later. Cutting the power supply will not hamper the enemy for long and will only leave the city's people open for retaliation? Remember, the city's inhabitants are hostages. We considered EMP. We cannot know for sure that the enemy will be affected, but life in the city will become impossible. Think about the people using the elevators when we detonate the EMP blast. They could all die."

            Tom looked at the general, straight into his unblinking eyes.

            "Lieutenant Riley, the President refused to authorize any of these two options. We cannot put troops into the city because the enemy will take them over. Our only viable option is the Serpents. The only hope we have is that you will be able to find the enemy and take it out. That's why we selected a non-combatant intelligence officer for the mission. You are in fact the most important soldier taking part."

            Tom glanced at his fellow Serpents. Captain Emerson stood at the general's side, his huge, gaunt armored monster motionless. Sergeant Jebadiah stood in a perfect soldier's stance, hands behind his back, his Serpent radiating only eagerness and readiness. Ramirez was also motionless but his hands trembled slightly, the long talon like fingers occasionally quivering.

            Tom could feel Ramirez's gaze on him. He could almost feel the phrase “Keyboard Warrior” being transmitted from the Marine Corps lieutenant's Serpent.

            "You will deploy from Andrews Air Force Base on a C-130 Hercules. The flight crew does not have security clearance to know about the Serpents, so you will remain in the cargo hold. The flight crew has been given the flight path, including height and location planned to stay beyond the range of the enemy's control. You will use a modified version of our heavy cargo delivery parachuting system to drop right into Central Park. During the mission, you will use only your short-range radio to avoid detection by any radio surveillance systems the enemy might have. Use the night to reconnoiter the area and find a safe spot to hide during the day, even if it is in the bay's waters."

            "What happens after two weeks when our power and nutrient supply run out?"

            The general looked Ramirez up and down.

            "Soldier, this is it. There is no next time or a second chance. This mission must be a success. You must succeed. You must kill the enemy. In five days, the enemy will have under his control more than twenty million people, even with our evacuation efforts. The New York refugee camps are full to capacity as it is. You four are the best chance the United States of America has to start turning the tables in this Twelve Cities War. You have no backup. You have no time for a second chance. You cannot retreat and try again. You are our only hope."

            The general waited for any more questions.

            Wisely, no one asked anything else.

"We have four infantry divisions and twenty thousand police officers ready to march on New York City the moment you dispatch the enemy. Captain, carry on."

            The general left the hall and Captain Emerson turned to face the three Serpents.

            "In four hours we will begin our final exercise. Live urban combat. Follow me."

            Tom and Sergeant Jebadiah filed last out of the hall.

            "What did he mean about live combat? In addition, they only let us out at night, even on the base. Did you notice that?" Tom asked Jebadiah.

Day Three, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

The the three Serpents entered the urban combat training ground slowly, covering each other with their M82 Barrett heavy rifles.

            The urban combat training ground was actually a whole neighborhood with three parallel streets, two-story brick-and-wood houses, three small playgrounds complete with large, plastic animal-shaped toys for children, working street lamps and cars scattered here and there. Faint music came from several of the houses, accompanied by cheerful human voices. The whole thing was about one mile long and half a mile wide. It looked real, as real as it gets, including traffic lights, trees and the small flowers at the sides of the roads.

            "I sure hope there are no real people here," Sergeant Jebadiah whispered.

            "Shut up!" Lieutenant's Ramirez's command was harsh and terse, even coming over their short-range radio link.

            The three Serpents advanced slowly down the northern street, Tom moving on the right side of the street, Sergeant Jebadiah advancing near the left side, and Lieutenant Ramirez, the commander of the Serpents in this training exercise, moving a little back. The Serpents used the houses on both sides of the street for cover, checking carefully before they crossed every open space, trying to remain inconspicuous the whole time as their black, mechanical shadows moved into the lesser darkness of this fake neighborhood.

It was night, just a little before midnight.

            "Riley?" Ramirez demanded.

            Tom was holding his rifle with his left hand while he played with his computer's controls with the fingers of his right. He was scanning in the thermal range, looking for thermal footprints that might have been left by anything warm that had passed that way. Some of the houses, those with heating, glowed orange, as did a few of the cars that had been left with their engines running or that had had their engines running up to a short time ago.

            Other than that, Tom could detect precious few heat signatures. The three Serpents themselves currently left almost no thermal footprints, their slow, economic movements insuring that their heat sinks absorbed all their excess heat. They were working with minimal power core output now, making sure no heat escaped their black composite armor. Their legs pressed down softly on pavements and concrete, their black claws opening and closing quietly to prevent any noise.

            Tom touched his computer controls again, and now he scanned for any radio transmissions. Every radio communication device, cell phone or cordless home phone sends out radio waves, waves that the aerials on Tom's body could intercept and display. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing which might betray the presence of the enemy.

            Tom raised his left hand and crouched in the shadow of a garage, hoping the other Serpents had taken cover as well. He touched his computer's touchscreen yet again and now he saw a display of various noises around him: another set of aerials on Tom's Serpent were sensitive directional microphones, and his arm computer analyzed their input.

            Everything Tom's computer displayed appeared on a small area in his field of vision, allowing him to check his sensors' output while still being aware of what transpired around him.

            Tom's Serpent detected two replays of old episodes of
Friends
, three washing machines buzzing away in the darkness, several recordings of people talking or laughing, and even the sound of a few nocturnal animals that had probably made the urban combat training range their home.

            Making the training ground a home was not a terribly bright decision on the part of nocturnal animals, Tom thought as he signaled Ramirez that he could find no trace of the enemy. He stopped scanning and brought his rifle up, hand on the trigger mechanism. He didn't like the vulnerable feeling he had when he scanned. Anything might have attacked him then.

            Tom sure was glad he was inside the Serpent and his teammates couldn't see how tense he was. He had done his share of live combat exercises during boot camp and officer training, but he was not a front-line officer. Tom only hoped he wouldn't fuck up too badly. He also hoped Ramirez wouldn’t be around when he did fuck up.

            "Does anybody know what we are searching for, exactly? What the enemy is?" Tom sent.

            "No, Sir, they told me nothing, Sir," answered Sergeant Jebadiah immediately.

            Unsurprisingly, Ramirez said nothing.

"We're too vulnerable out here in the open," Tom sent through the radio link.

            He looked back at Ramirez who was crouching behind a large SUV, about forty feet behind him. The black Serpent hesitated, its viper head turning in all directions, the spike-like aerials on its head twitching.

            "Start house to house search," Ramirez sent and sprinted towards one of the houses on the street, assuming position about ten yards from its entrance. Sergeant Jebadiah sprinted there next, and finally Tom sprung out, his Serpent covering the distance in five large bounds, landing and flattening itself against the wall of the house with as little noise he could manage.

            "Sergeant, move inside. Riley, follow him."

            They broke down the house's solid wood door and stormed inside, making sure they covered all possible angles with their heavy rifles. Tom now felt uncomfortable because they had to fold down their limbs to be able to function inside the human-sized house.

            However, there was nothing here, not even on the second floor. Tom stopped and started scanning again, but found nothing. There was no sign of the enemy, nor any sign that any enemy had ever been here.

            Ramirez pointed at the house adjacent to the one they now occupied. Ramirez raised three fingers, then two, then one, and then the three Serpents leaped the twenty-foot distance to the next house, landing neatly on its tiled roof, their foot claws easily supporting the three monstrous black figures who now balanced there. The Serpents' long legs easily absorbed the impact, folding down before extending again, making the black monsters' ascent eerily quiet for such large and heavy machines.

            They froze, waiting and watching, their viper heads swiveling around. Tom scanned again. Nothing out of the ordinary and no sign of any enemy could be traced.

            Ramirez pointed down, and the three Serpents charged into the house’s second floor, rifles ready. They moved methodically down, also checking the cellar, treating each door and alcove with the respect due to a place that could be hiding an enemy. But they found nothing.

            They moved through several more houses, slowly and carefully, scanning ahead as best as they could before entering. Tom did the best he could to copy Sergeant Jebadiah's movements and actions. So far, so good.

            But through Tom's fear, through his discomfort at being here, and through his feelings of inadequacy, ran elation. It was probably the first time it hit him, the size and the power of the Serpents. It was so obvious now, the Serpents were giants compared to the humans. How small were their houses, their cars and their streets. Everything here is like a toy, soft and squishy, just a plaything to be crushed and destroyed at will by the superior Serpents. Tom had never felt this way before, he had never experienced so much power.

Tom's left hand, acting with a will of its own, reached out to grab a section of a brick wall in a house they had just finished checking. The long curved fingers slowly crushed through the plaster and the bricks, and then reached for and severed a water pipe that happened to pass through that segment of wall. Without any effort, Tom had crushed a section of a wall into dust.

Tom joined his teammates, surreptitiously shaking the dust off his hand. They left the house they had just finished checking through its small garden, their claws leaving deep trenches in the soft earth and green grass, and they climbed the fence to enter the garden of the next, slightly larger, house.

            They froze yet again, crouching there in the garden, long rifle barrels pointed in all directions, blank faceplates looking into the darkness, and long gaunt limbs tense. The spikes and aerials on Ramirez's back twitched nervously.

            Tom had started scanning when, suddenly, his fingers froze over his arm computer controls. He reached over and softly tapped Ramirez's arm, pointing at the house whose garden they now occupied. Tom had something. For a split second, Tom thought he had heard something, something that wasn't among the noises he had heard till now. Whatever it was, it disappeared almost immediately, but it really didn't sound like anything else Tom had heard so far.

            Ramirez motioned for Sergeant Jebadiah to move towards the house's back entrance while he and Tom moved to the front entrance.

            "In position," Sergeant Jebadiah sent through the radio link. Tom and Ramirez assumed positions besides the house's main entrance, Tom trying to mimic Ramirez's expert operating procedures.

             Tom shifted his hold on his rifle, making sure his left hand held it tightly while his right hand grabbed the rifle's trigger mechanism, ready to flick the safety and fire. Tom briefly looked down. His rifle was shaking.

            "Move," Ramirez commanded, and they stormed into the house, breaking down the doors and ready to fire. But they saw nothing out of the ordinary. Further searching of the three sparsely furnished rooms on the ground floor and the two additional rooms on the second floor revealed nothing.

            Tom started to breathe easier. In fact, his breathing hadn't changed at all since all his respiratory functions were taken care off by the Serpent, but he still felt easier now. During the search of this house, Tom had felt he had trouble breathing. It was a feeling of suffocation he couldn't control, even though he realized it was only in his mind.

            Now, he relaxed a little, and he could look at his shaking rifle again. It was fear, plain and simple. He was glad they had found nothing inside. He was really just an intelligence officer. He really wasn't cut out for this house-to-house fighting stuff. He missed his desk and his computer. Tom tried keeping his mind on his surroundings, on his sensors' output, on his own Serpent's functions, on his teammates—

            In a flash, a gargantuan black fist punched down from the roof, scattering splintered tiles, roof beams, debris and dust all over. Tom only had the time to emit a strangled shout before the fist crashed into Jebadiah’s Serpent, smashing its left shoulder and sending it sprawling across the floor of the second floor of the house.

            Quick as a snake, Ramirez started firing, filling the air with his armor-piercing incendiary shots. Debris flew all over from the heavy bullets smashing everywhere, and shredding furniture, walls and the roof above.

            "You're shooting at Jebadiah!" Tom shouted but Ramirez calmly exchanged magazines and continued shooting incessantly, his bullets punching holes in the roof as the black Serpent arm that had punched Jebadiah was pulled up.

            Ramirez now extended to his full length, smashing up through the roof, rifle first. He jumped up and disappeared on the roof. Tom looked at the large hole Ramirez had created in the ceiling and then turned his horrified gaze at Jebadiah, who was twitching on the floor. The blow the sergeant had suffered had ripped through his left shoulder and almost disconnected his left arm from his torso altogether.

            "Are you all right?" Tom asked stupidly. Sergeant Jebadiah slowly got up and looked down at his left arm. He tried raising his left arm but all he got were the sounds of electric motors choking, running on empty and spluttering. He tried again, but now all he got was the sound of futile electric hissing.

            "Sir, pull out my left arm," the sergeant said, turning his left side towards Tom.

            "Wha—what?"

            "Sir, I need you to pull the left arm out."

Tom grabbed Sergeant Jebadiah's arm with both hands and—and—and Tom froze.

           
It's just a mechanical arm. His real left arm is inside the pilot's compartment, perfectly safe. They'll replace it after the exercise. It's just a mechanical arm.

            The sergeant's head swiveled towards Tom and then it turned towards the broken left arm. He grabbed his left arm with his right hand, made sure the long black Serpent fingers had a good grip, and pulled sharply. The left arm came away at the shoulder, leaking some sort of hydraulic fluid and hissing as intermittent sparks flew all over from torn electrical connections.

            "He's a good man, the captain is. I'm sure glad he'll be leading us in the mission. He's the best man for the job," the sergeant said cheerfully, and he threw his torn left arm to the side, picked up his rifle with his right hand and moved away.

            It was the captain, Tom only now realized. The captain was their enemy in this exercise.

            A little shaken, Tom followed the sergeant, throwing a last glance at the torn left arm that was still twitching a little, the motors inside it going crazy, some revving up while others stuttered. Then he looked at three fuming grooves on the back of Jebadiah's torso where the shots Ramirez fired had grazed the sergeant's Serpent.