CHAPTER 2

Someone once told me that freezing to death was blissful. I’d forgotten who’d said it, but they were clearly an absolute moron. Freezing was like being stabbed with a million tiny knives over every part of your body while having specific parts of your anatomy burned inch by inch, both done very slowly and carelessly. Then things go numb and you worry you’ll never be able to move them again, even if by some miracle were you to survive. It got really scary when your body started shaking on its own. That’s when you knew you weren’t in control anymore.

We were ten klicks outside of Wraith’s End. We were heading toward what had once been Illinois, and I just hoped I wouldn’t have to hobble over the state line in nothing but my boxers and boots.

I had my rifle with me, but I’d been ordered to hold it in both hands above my head, arms straight, until told to do otherwise. The rest of the platoon had been ordered to turn and shoot me in the head if they caught my arms dropping.

I’d been put at the rear with one of our spider tanks, and every other soldier, whether they rode in a tank or marched on foot, kept their eyes forward as we made our way down the road. When I felt it was safe enough, I’d drop my shoulders a bit to release the tension. Sometimes I’d drop one arm altogether and quickly return it to the rifle once the pain had subsided. It quickly returned, though. The soldiers in the spider tank never caught me, but a few of the ones marching ahead would look back often enough that it was risky.

Sometimes I wondered if most of them had joined NUSA for a chance to kill people, or to at least have so much control over their victims they’d wish they were dead. I used to think every person had an underlying, buried bit of humanity, no matter who they were or how badly they behaved. I used to believe the old stories of redemption, where one flick of a magic wand or a song belted out by a mass of innocents would make their hearts grow three sizes and pump empathetic blood. Most people like to think that, but after living and fighting beside these jagoffs, I can tell you redemptive humans are the minority.

But that didn’t stop me from looking for them.

I began coughing so hard it made my lungs ache. Throat full of cotton. It was hard to think of anything besides how cold I was and how difficult breathing had become, but along the road I tried to keep my attention on the few points of interest we passed. The last one was a road sign saying we’d entered Sylvania. Part of the sign had been burned, but not so much I couldn’t read it. Dragons are silly creatures with the things they choose to burn and those they leave alone. In one small town I saw a torched hospital, but the funeral home next door hadn’t been touched by so much as a puff of smoke.

Maybe the scalies had a sick sense of humor.

One of the soldiers ahead of me slowed to allow the rest of the platoon to pass. She paced her steps so she was marching just ahead of me, close enough for a conversation. Her name was Reynolds, and she was about the closest thing I had to a friend.

“How’s your hand?” she said.

“Wha… what?” I said. My damned teeth were chattering and my nipples looked like purple torpedoes.

“I saw you shove 5-90’s flames away from that kid. You need some antibacterial and a bandage wrap.”

“It’s not bad,” I said. “I’m fine, Reynolds. Rather… have my uniform back.”

She glanced at me over her shoulder. Her hair was hidden under her helmet, but her half-lidded, green eyes and thin, crooked lips were out in the open. Her eyebrows were golden brown, like perfectly-baked cookies. I’m sure that’s a strange way to describe thin lines of facial hair, but it’s the first thing I thought of when I first saw them and I loved cookies more than most people love breathing air.

“I told you to call me Sarah,” she said.

There was no way in hell I was going to call her that in front of the other guys. It would have slapped a target on her back. Maybe in the quiet times we shared, talking about our families and where we grew up. Maybe then I’d let a “Sarah” slip once or twice. I liked how it sounded.

She should have known better than to be my friend.

“Sorry,” I said. “Forgot. I’ve just been a little busy freezing my ass off.”

“Yeah, and that’s your own fault. You should have just done what Calhoun told you. He wasn’t really going to hurt any of those kids. It was just a scare tactic. You weren’t at the meeting with their parents. Those people were holding out on us.”

I gritted my teeth. My whole face tensed. I looked down at my boots crunching against the ash and snow. “He was going to have 5-90 burn her. Droids don’t understand bluffing, they just do what they’re told.”

“Colonel would have stopped him in time.”

“I guess it’s going to take something bad happening to convince you,” I said.

“With an attitude like that, you’ll never get to see the Big Base.”

I blinked and shivered, thinking about it. The Big Base was supposed to be the hub of all NUSA operations. To hear the other guys talk about it, the place had all kinds of food long-thought to be extinct, like cheeseburgers, hot wings, and those little packets of ketchup. It also had warm beds and even a ping-pong table. But despite all their talk, none of them had been there. No one besides Calhoun and 5-90. I’d been on the road with the colonel and the First Platoon since they’d picked me up in Illinois. It had been a year of boots against the ground, uncomfortable cots if you were lucky, and roving to a new settlement to keep our bad reputation alive and well. I’d labeled it a pipe dream early on. If the Big Base was real, Calhoun would have been there instead of out here with the grunts. If it was real, I’d never see it.

“I guess not,” I told Reynolds. “Now leave me alone before one of us gets shot.”

She should have marched ahead, but she slowed her steps and walked beside me. “When we stop, I’ll look at your hand. I don’t care what Calhoun said about it. He was just mad at you. You’re no good to the platoon if you’ve got gangrene and can’t hold a rifle.”

“Apparently, I’m no good to the platoon one way or another.” I kept my eyes away from her and bit back a groan when a sudden wind gust sliced at my skin.

“I won’t leave you alone until you say yes,” Reynolds said.

She was taller than me, but her presence wasn’t threatening like some of the other soldiers, and it wasn’t just because she was the platoon medic. Reynolds had a confidence and a demeanor that warded off assholes where I seemed to attract them. She’d been nothing but pleasant with me, but she also never seemed to give a shit when I got hazed by the other guys. A pure neutral, she acted like my friend when we were alone and like the rest of them when it was time to put on the platoon persona. I blamed her for such obvious bullshit, but I understood it enough not to call her out on it. Obviously, we didn’t have any romantic thing going on, but it walked on the same legs as some private affair. I felt cheated and used.

“My hand’s fine,” I said. “I barely touched the fire.”

“Bullshit. I saw it all. Your hand went through that fire stream and connected with Sergeant’s arm. I’m surprised you didn’t scream and crumple into a fetal position there in the snow.”

“But I didn’t, and I’m still able to hold my rifle just… just fine.” My arms shook, elbows bending a bit. She was more concerned about my dumb hand than she was about potential hypothermia.

“Okay,” Reynolds said, sawing a gloved finger across the underside of her nose. “But when you come crying to me later about it. I’ll tell you I told you so.”

“Fair,” I said.

“And I won’t be gentle with you either.”

“For f… fuck’s… s…” I couldn’t finish my sentence – at first because I was shivering so much, but the rest of the words fell from me when a roar boomed through the clouds above us.

“Platoon!” came a shout from the front of the line. “Halt!”

The sky was overcast, gray stretching to every point of the horizon. We hadn’t seen the sun in a few days, but right then, just on the other side of the clouds, I could make out the shadow of a dragon flying over our heads. Its wings were spread, straight and unmoving. It glided without a sound and if it hadn’t announced its presence, we would have never known it was there until it was too late.

It was already too late.

“Get in defensive formation,” Sergeant 5-90 was giving the orders, shouting in a voice that sounded like microphone feedback.

I rushed forward, as fast as my stiff legs would move me. But I kept my rifle above my head. I hadn’t been told to drop it yet.

Our two spider tanks reversed and began circling all of us who were on foot. The tanks’ energy cells went into overdrive as they shifted into attack mode and lifted their turrets to the sky. It sounded like the machines were screaming and the screams got louder with every second. The tank legs rolled around us clockwise while their turrets spun in the opposite direction, searching for the dragon. This position was supposed to protect us, but I felt more like one of several sardines chunked into a bowl for the dragon to fly down and devour. There was safety in numbers but clumped numbers like this also made an easy target.

“Private,” Sergeant 5-90 broke through the platoon and stopped in front of me. “Drop your arms and carry that rifle like a real soldier.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, lowering my arms and cradling my weapon against my bare chest. “Sergeant?”

“What the hell do you want, Private?” His metal frame clanked as he stomped closer. The nearest soldiers looked on. “Don’t you see we have a scaly about to drop on us?”

“I know this m… might be a bad time.” My lips felt like iced rubber. “But do you… think I can get my fatigues back?”

5-90 leaned back on the hinges at his waist. His eyes turned a frustrated glow of yellow. He sliced his right arm into the air and pointed all of his fingers behind me. “Your clothes are in Tank Gx-900I. If you want them, you better get them now.”

I turned and slipped my rifle strap over my shoulder. The rest of us never called the tanks by their serial numbers. We just called them Tank 1 and Tank 2, and they were still hard to tell apart, though Tank 2 had a slightly newer paint job thanks to a town in northern Wisconsin we passed through a couple weeks before. Tank 2 was the one that held my clothes. Calhoun always rode in Tank 1, so I hoped it was a sign my luck had changed for the better.

“Watch it, Contreras!” one of the soldiers said as I made my way through the huddle.

“Get your naked ass off of me,” said another, before shoving rough, gloved hands against my back.

I stumbled toward the rolling tank. The dirt beneath the machine sank and warbled with heat waves. It had already made a circle of melted snow around the platoon, marking its path. A crushing death followed by instant cremation would be the price for falling under its legs.

The good thing about most military vehicles was the overabundance of handles welded into every part of every vehicle. It wasn’t a miracle that my hand found one of the metal bars.

“Open up,” I shouted, running alongside the tank as it dragged me along.

My fingers were so damned stiff, it took me a second to ball them into a fist. I reached back to knock on the side hatch. They’d have to open if I banged hard enough on the door. What did they have to lose? They were swaddled in a cocoon of heavy metal and I didn’t have more than a few stitches covering my ass.

A huge, dark blur dropped out of the clouds. It came with a guttural howl and wings that clapped like thunder. The dragon’s claws dug into Tank 2 as if it was made out of thin aluminum, and dragged it into the sky, ripping the handle from my hand.

I stumbled backward into the nearest guy. Looking up into his startled face, I said, “My clothes were in there.”

“Open fire!” Sergeant 5-90 shouted.

All of us, clothed or not, raised our rifles and began firing lasers into the sky. Some soldiers didn’t seem to give a fuck where they shot. The air above us turned into a chaotic burst of light, like when my Uncle Pedro used to get drunk and take over the Fourth of July fireworks.

We couldn’t see the scaly, but we all could sense it. I heard its wings beating against the air. Its growl. I felt its danger hovering close, like a cone of heat traveling over my body. An unwanted spotlight. It was as easy as feeling someone creeping up behind you – that tingle running over your shoulders and up your neck.

My rifle gave off some heat as it fired and, being the only comfort I could find, I held it tight and discharged my shots toward the east. Most everyone else was shooting toward the north or west. I lowered my rifle for a second and looked to the clouds, just to see if I could catch any hint of the dragon. Just to see if I was right or losing my mind to the winter air.

A metallic groan sailed closer and Tank 2 dropped out of the sky. It hit the ground just ahead of me and began tumbling fast, kicking up huge chunks of dirt and rock. I dove out of the way, but the soldiers behind me weren’t so lucky. The tank plowed over most of them and left red smears across the snowy ground. One guy got a spider leg through his middle before being dragged along into the flurry of the toppling machine.

Flames erupted from the tank as it came to a rest, and the nearest soldiers backed away from it, even though I knew they heard what I heard. The soldiers inside Tank 2 were still alive and crying for help. The platoon looked to 5-90, as if the droid would do anything outside of its programming.

“Defensive positions,” Sergeant 5-90 blurted from his speaker, repeating the same line he’d used before. Back to basics, standard procedure. And that meant leaving the guys inside the burning tank to fry slowly while everyone else watched.

I admit no selfless bravery. Mostly, I thought doing something courageous and stupid would earn me some respect among my fellow soldiers and maybe a reprieve from what I’d done in Wraith’s End.

It was just a bonus that I couldn’t stand to see people in need left to burn.

Brushing off the dirt and snow from my body, I stiff-legged it toward the burning wreckage. If I was lucky, I’d not only rescue the soldiers inside the tank but also retrieve my clothes.

My breath burned in my lungs. All of the other soldiers at my back shouted for me to return to formation. “Don’t be a dumbass, Contreras!”

“He must be cold as shit,” one of them said. “Look! He’s going to the flames just to warm himself.”

Pounding came from inside the tank as I neared, the sounds of boots and fists beating against unyielding metal. If they couldn’t get out, how was I supposed to get in?

The dragon beat me to the tank.

It landed on the underside of the spider and roared from head side to side, almost like it was expecting other dragons to show up and encroach on its kill. The scaly was oily black with splashes of purple curling along its sides, running all the way to the end of its spiked tail. Its wings had sharp points at each angle that looked like they could sever a man’s head. The jaws and teeth looked like they were made out of volcanic stone, and its body had enough thick, stringy muscles that it could easily crack open Tank 2 like a boiled crab.

All of that made me want to crap my boxers and run away crying, but it was nothing compared to its eyes. The dragon’s eyes glowed with nuclear green flames that flowed from its sockets, but they didn’t move like any fire I’d ever seen, dancing slowly upward around its two shiny black horns.

The world turned muffled and numb. Sergeant 5-90 shouted something and then a storm of red lasers began striking the dragon. It didn’t seem to be doing any good. The lasers would hit the dragon’s scaly hide, send up a small puff of black smoke, and that would be it. No blood, no scaly flesh slicing into ribbons. The dragon didn’t move from the tank. It began to heave. And then, raising up on its hind legs, it showed me its underside. A tiny spark of green throbbed from within its black scales. The light quickly grew bigger and brighter.

“Oh,” I said. It came out like an involuntary gag reflex.

I’d told the kids in Wraith’s End about a dragon we’d been tracking. What I hadn’t told them was that we’d never found it. Instead, it had found us.

A rushing sound came from the scaly’s throat as it bent over and spewed steaming neon green acid onto the spider tank under its feet. The tank’s metal melted away like cotton candy in the rain. I didn’t hear any of the trapped soldiers any more. They were no longer there. The tank had become a puddle of green and silver sludge.

I ran toward the rest of the platoon. Our remaining tank skidded in front of me, kicking up snow and dirt. Its turret blasted a quick cone of energy that flew over my head.

The dragon leapt into the air with a high-pitch yelp and landed on the other side of the platoon. It spread its wings, challenging Tank 1 with a hiss. A couple soldiers thought they could get the jump on the dragon from the back, but with a tail flick they were tossed away with a three-foot spike wound through their chests.

Showing their commitment to insanity, the platoon kept shooting their lasers at the dragon with the same result. The big scaly turned its head and heaved again. Its acid spit had a lot more pressure behind it this time, rocketing out of its throat like a fireball. Most of the soldiers in the line of fire got out of the way but some of the acid splashed up from the ground and coated a guy’s arm. He screamed as his flesh and bones corroded and oozed onto the ground.

Sergeant 5-90 charged the dragon. Like everything else he did, his movements were calculated and precise. Each footfall was perfectly timed, and only he would have been able to fire his rifle while in a full run. Sensing the droid approaching, the dragon turned and swiped a claw. 5-90 sprang off the scaly’s arm and landed on its head. The dragon thrashed but 5-90 held tight to one of its horns, riding it like a bull.

But this dragon was smart. It flexed its shoulders and used one of the sharp points at the top of its wings to clip the sergeant and send him tumbling to the ground. The dragon clamped its jaws onto 5-90’s leg and lifted him. The sergeant dangled, shooting his rifle wildly. The soldiers on the ground dropped onto their stomachs to avoid getting hit. I guess the dragon didn’t like the taste of metal. With a jerk of its head, it threw 5-90 away. The metal man soared for twenty feet and landed in a crumpled ball. He didn’t get back up.

I’d never been in a dragon fight before. Most of the ones we’d killed were smaller types that weren’t so hard to beat: Lindwyrms and a small nest of adolescent Poppers. I’d never gotten the chance to shoot any of them. My training had been a half-assed, on-the-job instruction of what certain hand signals meant and to do whatever my superior told me. Turn this way. Shoot that way. Target practice was usually done on clumps of ash and empty bottles after a night of getting fucked up on grape juice.

The Army knew next to nothing about dragons, but I hadn’t known that until I’d signed on. Up until then, I spent my nights reading all of the smoke eater training courses I could find archived on the Feed. I thought my dragon knowledge, limited as it was, would be an asset to the New US Army. That had been my first mistake. When the platoon found a dead scaly that’d broken its neck in a dried-up river bed and couldn’t figure out what kind it was, I tried to show off, tell them the difference between a Drake and a Wyvern. They didn’t like that very much, and I’d been a pariah ever since. But you can’t fight what you don’t understand, and NUSA’s abhorrence for science was about to get us all killed.

Tank 1’s turret spun toward the dragon, tick, tick, tick. If the tank could land one good shot, the dragon would be toast.

My legs were burning and I was sure I’d gotten frostbite on my nether regions, but I shuffled around Tank 1 for a better shot. The dragon puffed up again, its chest swelling bright green, like a bullfrog’s throat about to burst. The rest of its skin shifted away from the chest, looking like armored platelets. No wonder the lasers weren’t getting through. The chest, though, was a soft, stretched-out balloon of glowing acid.

Tank 1’s turret began whining, revving up. It wouldn’t build up energy in time. The dragon would fire first. I raised my rifle, looked down the sights, and pushed air through tightened lips as I squeezed the trigger. Just like I’d been taught.

Three rounds rocketed from my rifle and struck the dragon in its swollen chest. The glowing bulge burst open with a pop. Green acid splattered the ground, oozed from the wound and dripped from the dragon’s jaws. It stood there motionless for a moment, then tilted forward, crashing to the ground. Dead.

I lowered the rifle and blinked at the dragon and the volatile acid flooding the ground around its corpse. A steamy foam formed as the acid ate away at ash and snow.

I… killed the dragon?

It was quiet except for the whine of Tank 1’s turret and even that faded away after a while. The other soldiers stepped cautiously toward the acid dragon and then looked toward me. A few of them did a double-take and one guy blurted, “Contreras killed it? Contreras?”

I was just as surprised as he was.

They were all staring at me.

Reynolds appeared from the other side of the dragon and began clapping. Then she hooted a few times. I was about to tell her to stop before her one-woman show sentenced me to a midnight blanket party where all the guys would hold me down and take turns pelting me with boots and socks filled with roadside stones. But someone shouted, “Medic!” and set her to running across the snow to the guy with the melted arm.

The other guys started clapping.

Rifles were lifted above heads. Smiles were shown. Fingers pointed toward me while appreciative thumbs were raised. I didn’t trust any of it. Not at first. But my skepticism melted away after their praise went on long enough. If you eat nothing but shit for a year, you’re grateful for the stale cracker someone tosses you.

I grinned. But it lasted half a second.

An eerie white glow approached from behind the other soldiers. It had shown up like a fog. First nothing, then a floating torso and gnashing teeth. Then the shrieking and moaning came. Any sense of camaraderie in me left without a note. I turned and started running in the opposite direction. The platoon be damned. My clothes be damned. I’d rather freeze to death than deal with a wraith.

The sound of loose electricity caused me to look up. Another glow sped toward me. White hot sparks flashed from its center. Then it started making noises. Moans of someone in terrible pain. All this from a floating orb – but it took less than a blink for it to form into the shape of a ghostly woman who looked like she’d been burned, drowned, and ripped in half. The wraith had a strong likeness to one of the soldiers in our platoon. One who’d just gotten killed.

These were the result of dragon-caused human fatalities. Vengeful spirits that defended dragon nests and drew other scalies to an area for extra protection and mating.

Wraiths.

I’d say a chill ran up my spine, but I was too cold to know. I skidded to a stop and chugged my legs backward, changing my direction. It didn’t make a difference. Wraiths were appearing all around us. One ghost slashed its sharp fingers at Reynolds while she uselessly fired lasers through its body. Three other wraiths appeared to close the circle. They all began shrieking through their jagged, electric teeth. We were locked in, surrounded. The nearest ghost focused its burning eyes on me. It roared and flew over the snow like a bullet.

Tank 1 swooped in, rolling over the wraith that was chasing me. At the tank’s sides, coiled rods ejected and gave off invisible waves of energy that warbled the air. I’d never seen anything like that on Tank 1. Tank 2 either, for that matter. And I would have known. The platoon had me clean the tanks every time we stopped in a town. Those rods were not standard NUSA weaponry.

The wraith popped out from under the tank, eager to rip my throat out, but it was sucked up into one of the rods poking out of Tank 1. A final flash of electricity spiraled around the coil before blinking out.

Gliding across the snow, the spider tank did the same thing to the other wraiths. The platoon had scattered, every soldier for themselves, giving the wraiths plenty of targets to attack, but none of them got their kill. Tank 1 got there first, sucking up the ghosts like a heavy artillery vacuum cleaner.

When I finally got a chance to look around and tuck my hands under my armpits, every wraith had been taken out.

The platoon really cheered now. Hell, I would have clapped too if I could have felt my hands. But I was also wondering about the rods Tank 1 had used to capture the wraiths. I’d read about people using something similar. That was smoke eater technology. Stuff like that had been banned for ten years. NUSA wasn’t supposed to have it. No one was.

The spider tank slid to a stop and the top hatch popped open. Colonel Calhoun appeared, taking off his beret to wipe the sweat from his head. He scanned the area around the tank, breathing like he’d just run a marathon. I thought he was checking to make sure there were no more wraiths, or maybe even to see how his platoon had fared in the fight. But when his eyes found me they didn’t waiver. Calhoun tightened his jaw, tensed his eyes.

He’d been searching for me. And he had something planned.