GRIDER

 

Tuesday January 14 - 1947 MST

Six hours and forty-three minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

The news about the Praetorians acting squirrelly back at the Underground didn't exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Neither did the knowledge of the real owners of the vault we found at the Delta site. Looking at the patch I'd taken from the corpse of one of the defenders there didn't help matters. So I shoved it into a cargo pocket and pushed the thought out of my mind. The implications were far too great to shoulder right now. Not after heavy combat.

A lot of people think that the reason that combat troops exercise so much is because we're expected to carry heavy loads over long distances and need to be in shape for that. While I won't lie and say the Army never forces us to do exactly that, the option of using a truck is always there too. The unspoken other reason that makes physical fitness a necessity is that combat is taxing. The mental state you enter when someone is trying to kill you actually changes your body chemistry and it wears you out quick. Even sitting in a foxhole while bullets are whizzing past you will drain you emotionally and physically more than a twelve mile ruck march. And I was certainly feeling the post combat dump right now.

Looking around the cargo deck of the big MH-53 cargo chopper I could easily see who was still on the adrenaline high. Those would be the people still new to the experience of getting shot at. They consisted of the three Primes, and surprisingly Jake Priestley. All of them were up on their feet jabbering about while their hearts still pumped at high speed. The others, like me and most of the Praetorian bodyguard detail, didn't get worked up about this kind of stuff. As soon as the immediate danger had passed our pulse settled and our brains went into slouch mode. Like everyone in that group, I was slumped against the wall of the chopper taking a load off as our bodies prepared for the next time we had to go to war.

Surprisingly Kuzmin was up on his feet and heading to the Primes. I would have expected him to be used to this and taking a load off. Then I saw the travel case in his arms. There was something in it, and it was meant for the Primes. When he popped it open I saw the escaping mist of cool air. The case was a cooler and inside were ten metal cylinders that looked like travel mugs. That got my attention because if he had drinks I wanted in on them.

Kuzmin held the open box up to the three Primes. "Drink up."

All three of the Primes had their helmets off now and their suspicion was obvious without the opaque face plates getting in the way. One of the males spoke up for the group. "What is it?"

"Is immunization…" Kuzmin replied cryptically. "Against side effects of transient radiation. Drink up."

They hesitated, and I couldn't blame them. Everything that had to do with exos was creepy to begin with and asking someone to drink an unknown chemical concoction wasn't exactly going to put anyone at ease. But one glance over at the Keystone locked away in its Pelican case was enough to push them over the edge. You could practically feel it sucking the energy out of the air and filling the vacuum with some unnatural force instead. We were all stuck inside an enclosed space with it and had no way to escape if it were somehow corrupting our bodies with its emanations.

All three of the Primes grabbed a mug and downed the contents. Again, I couldn't blame them. We were a lot like the early pioneers of the Manhattan project, standing beside an object of immense power that would change the face of the world. Yet at the same time it was a mystery and they didn't know if the invisible rays it was putting out would kill them or not. Any offer of protection would have been taken even if there was a risk involved in its use, because in the end people were afraid of powerful things.

"It doesn't taste bad at all." The female said as she finished her drink.

"Reminds me of homemade lemonade." Another one added.

When I reached out to grab a mug for myself Kuzmin snapped the box lid shut and shook his head at me. "Is not for you or me. Too expensive for normal people. Only Primes get to drink. My friend, you and I are expendable. Instead of drink, we get very nice coffin."

He cackled like he'd just shared a funny joke. I never understood Russian humor, but to him it was all a big laugh, not a slow death at the hands of something alien and exotic. "How expensive are we talking?"

Kuzmin stroked his beard. "They tell me about thirty thousand dollars per cup."

All three Primes stared wide eyed at their cups. Even they were impressed by how far the government was going to keep them alive. "So how was the world's most expensive lemonade?"

One of the males answered. "Honestly? I would have expected a drink that expensive to have a little alcohol in it."

Yeah. Me too.

Kuzmin sat down on the cooler for the rest of the trip to Dugway. Only standing up once more to give the Primes another round. That was smart of him, because we were all afraid of the thing in the box and what its unseen magic could be doing to our bodies. Like radiation from those first atomic bombs it could be cooking our cells and mutating them and we wouldn't know until it was far too late. Even if we didn't know what was in those drinks we wanted every last ounce of defense it could muster against the corrupting influence of the Keystone.