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THE BITTER TASTE OF blood filled Rogers’ mouth, and smoke choked his lungs. Dust and gravel pattered around him; the last round from the government tank had struck home on the third floor of the building at his back. A brick had clipped his shoulder, and another had hit him square in the butt.
He couldn’t find his helmet.
The tank, more of a glorified armored personnel carrier, had a stubby 5-inch gun protruding from a small turret. Rogers guessed Homeland had modified a four-wheel M1117 to fit their needs, as the vehicle normally carried a grenade launcher-machine gun combination. Small arms fire from 2nd and 3rd Platoon’s position in the complex of apartments along LaRue sparked against the APC’s left side, while the main gun pounded 1st Platoon to hamburger.
The Revivants were being ripped apart by their own incoming fire.
Another shell hit the sandbag barricade to Rogers’ left. The concussion bounced him in the air and made his head ring like a pennywhistle. Dixon? Where the hell was Dixon? Oh. Dixon was splattered across the outside of the sandbag wall in several separate chunks.
Rogers hauled a gasping private to his feet. Covered in brick dust, the kid reminded the major of someone dressing up for Halloween in a zombie costume. “Get everyone back!” he roared at the private, who blinked red-rimmed eyes and saluted. The major set him free and looked up in time to see four of Gainer’s 2nd Platoon break cover from the apartment complex and rush the APC. Three carried Molotov cocktails.
Automatic weapons opened up from the Homeland agents’ position, and one of the Molotov-carrying kids sprawled on the sidewalk. His flaming bottle skittered across the street. The APC lurched forward. Two of the resistance fighters leaped on the vehicle’s flank while the third—Rogers recognized the kid called Domino—scurried aboard the sloping front, near the forward windows. Domino waved his hand in front of the bulletproof glass, and the major goggled. The young soldier was spraying the view ports with black paint.
“No, son, don’t,” he croaked.
The remaining resistance fighters lit the wicks of their own Molotovs, smashed them into the turret and jumped away, only to be cut down by direct fire from the concealed feds. The flames boiled away the paint atop the APC and spewed inky smoke. At best, Rogers figured, the crew might get a little toasty, but the fire would cause no sustained damage.
Blatnik from 4th Platoon landed next to Rogers and grabbed him by the upper arm. “Sir! Are you okay? We need to pull back!”
“Get some more vehicles, Lieutenant,” the major barked. He allowed the younger man to help him up and over the sandbags. “Maybe we can box this thing in and cook it in place.”
The M1117 shifted gears, leaped back with a sudden jerk that sent Domino sprawling in the street. Skidding to a stop, the APC’s barrel declined to aim at the scrambling soldier, tracking him with a fluid ease.
“Get outta there!” Rogers bellowed. “Lieutenant, get that kid to—”
The APC’s gun belched flame and smoke, and the space containing Domino ceased to exist, evaporating in a thunderclap of annihilation. Greasy smoke boiled from the superheated pavement.
The APC’s engine revved, and the vehicle surged forward, splitting through the debris cloud and leaving twin curls of smoke in its wake. With a roar, the armored vehicle sped toward Rogers, its weapon cranking around to settle on him like the eye of a vengeful god.
***
IT WAS LIKE MY ENTIRE head—crown to chin, ear to ear—had been shot full of Novocain, like I had a giant puffball atop my shoulders. Sensory input came by way of a distant, faulty messaging system. Shooting lights flickered in random patterns through the marshmallow between my ears. Triplicate images vibrated—three tunnels, three swinging light bulbs, and six clowns in black suits—bracketed by a vignette effect.
I was on my back.
My back was cold.
For some reason, I needed to be really, really concerned about the scary motherfuckers in Halloween costumes with automatic rifles dancing around at the end of my vision-tunnel. Why? Uh... something about...
. . . About...?
No. Lost it.
Three of the black-suited agents said, “Here’s-here’s-here’s one-one-one.”
“Kill-kill-kill-him-him-him,” rumbled the other guys.
Poor schmuck. Who’d they want to kill? Hate to be that guy.
Rifle muzzles swam in and out of focus. Funny how big they looked from this side. “Hey,” I wanted to say, “is that a big gun, or are you happy to see me?” It came out “Heyzattabegunhappieseeme?”
Triple giants appeared behind the clowns and slammed their heads together like in a cartoon. A weird buzzing sound came from my chest. Laughter? While I was laughing, the triple-giant picked up a group of clowns by the ankles and whirled them in a big circle and let fly. They went waaaaaay far away, and I didn’t see them anymore. Sad clowns. The giants grabbed a handful of clown heads and pounded them into the ground near me, which I got to watch. That was even more fun, because I really didn’t like the clowns too much.
A million-billion years later, a single giant face loomed over me, blocking everything else out.
“Joe? Joe?” the giant said. “Joe, are you okay?”
I waved John back, rolled over and threw up for a while.
“The hell happened here?” Lance Corporal Jackson said.
I let John do the talking and contented myself with turning my stomach inside out. “I found these two Homeland guys about to shoot Joe. I, uh, stopped them.”
“Another one down,” I rasped through an acidic throat. “Tunnel. Down there.” Pointing, so they’d understand it.
“Check it out, Pelham. Martens, zip-tie that guy over there,” Jackson ordered. Boots thudded away. “What happened to you, Joe?”
“Flash-bang.”
“Ah. Yeah, that stings a bit, I’ll bet.”
I snorted something nasty and spat. “Water?”
“Sure.” A canteen filled my hand. “Don’t backwash nothing, Warren, you hear? I like you, but not that much.”
“Bite me,” I told him, but nevertheless splashed water in my cupped hand before tipping it into my mouth and rinsing it out. My ears rang, amoeba-like spots bobbed in front of my eyes, and a giant bowling ball squatted on the end of my neck. Other than that, everything was peachy. John helped me sit up, and I didn’t vomit any more. Progress.
Lance Corporal Jackson had three marines with him. One, presumably Pelham, trotted back from inspecting the tunnel and reported the agent I’d shot was dead.
Jackson showed me his red-tinted teeth. “Good job, Warren.”
“Yeah, woo-hoo. Go me.” I’d killed two federal agents in one day. Pretty soon my face would be on Homeland’s Most Wanted website.
“What about the other one?” the corporal asked.
“Restrained,” Private Martens reported. “Breathing.”
“Good, bring him here and then get set up on the intersection,” Jackson ordered the two privates, who aye aye’d and dragged a bound, black-suited agent by the ankles from the place John threw him. By where the guy landed, he’d flown a good twenty meters via John Marsh Airways before crashing into a wall. They dropped him near us, then went back to settle by the corners, one on each side of the Canal Street tunnel. The corporal knelt by the other Homeland agent—the one whose head John had bounced off the floor a few times. “Is this guy dead? And why are they in CBW gear?”
“I don’t know if he’s dead,” John admitted. “I hit him pretty hard.”
“CBW?” I asked.
“Not hard enough,” Jackson said. “He’s still breathing.”
“Will somebody tell me what the hell CBW means?”
“Chemical and Biological Warfare,” the corporal explained. “Allows them to work in a compromised environmental situation.”
“A what?”
“Like one covered in anthrax.”
***
THE ARMED RESPONSE Lieutenant Singh and the Z-Squad controller, Rao, followed Agent Ramirez to the intersection of the Lake and Canal Street tunnels. Behind them, being driven by commands from Rao’s control panel, a single Revivant carrying a Vx canister marched in glassy-eyed silence. The remaining five nerve-agent zombies had been disconnected from the network and idled in a side tunnel several dozen meters to the rear. Having all their nasty Easter eggs in one basket didn’t seem like a wise idea.
Ten agents jogged up from an adjoining tunnel, having been ordered to break contact and assemble at the intersection. The remaining AR officers kept the marine force pinned down to the east. This gave Ramirez eleven men, plus Rao and his “bug sprayer.”
Ramirez ordered all living personnel to mask up, given the presence of a single tank of Vx in the enclosed space.
“One stray round could ruin everyone’s day,” the agent said. No one hesitated to seal their hazmat suits. Rao twitched his nose behind his mask like it itched while Singh signaled the black-garbed agents to fan out and form a perimeter.
Inspecting the narrow path ahead revealed nothing special—another tunnel with rusted rails disappearing into the diminishing distance. Grimy concrete, curved walls coming to an arched point overhead. Fewer lights than most. Ramirez shrugged and mentally tossed a coin.
“A scout team went this way,” he stated over the command channel. “A few minutes ago there was a ton of chatter and some small arms fire. We have lost contact with the team.” Ramirez touched Singh on the shoulder. “We are committing everyone here, one big push. Advance teams will probe for resistance. When we find a concentration of terrorists, the bug sprayer advances and wipes them out, then we move forward again. Questions? No? Good. Let’s go.”
At the Homeland agent’s signal, the ten-man AR detachment split into tactical overwatch teams and dashed ahead. Rao followed a few moments later, with the Revivant clumping along behind him and Ramirez bringing up the rear. His breath lightly fogged the bottom of his face shield.
Shadows flitted along the walls, and the agent’s heart thudded harder. He had forgotten to pop a stick of gum before locking down the suit; the lack of THC was making him jumpy. “Well, with any luck,” he told himself, “this won’t take long.”
He switched his comm on and broadcast to the team, “Good hunting, gentlemen.”
The release of the video was on him. Proctor had already called him six times, and he’d ignored all six calls. The only way he could save anything from this mess would be to eliminate the Children of Liberty. After that, they would see about restoring order and discipline to the American people. The tumult over this... little snag... would die out soon, as all such incidents did, once the people’s quick temper boiled off. A small group of the political minority would make the right noises about reforming Washington, and the people would go back to leading their lives.
Without the terrorists fanning the flames, the spark would die out.
America would be safe again.
***
GONZALES SHOWED UP with five privates and Staff Sergeant Patrick, all of them out of breath and panting. The lieutenant directed two men to continue beyond Canal, to hold the next intersection to the west, and squatted next to John Marsh and me. She swore in a colorful, multilingual way.
I arched an eyebrow. “Bad day?”
“This place is a cunt-busting maze. I hate this underground fighting bullshit.” Gonzales had shaved the sides of her head to stubble and left a thicker patch on top; when she slipped off her helmet and scratched her head, it stuck up in spikes. “Corporal. Report.”
While Jackson brought his commander up to speed, I used John as a ladder and levered myself into a standing position, hunched over with my back to the sloped wall. The stun-grenade-induced calamity inside my noggin had abated somewhat, and I could almost think again. Neurons were firing faster than horse-and-buggy speed, for a change.
“Where’s the cart?”
“I left it with Millie. I ran, which is why it took me so long.” The big man shifted beside me. “What do you want to do, Joe?”
“Go to sleep in a warm bed.” I twisted my head in a big circle, and my neck crackled. “We better get back to Millie. She’ll have all kinds of chores saved up for us by now.”
“Contact!” yelled a marine, and in the next instant the tunnel filled with hammering guns and streaks of burning light.
***
“GET BACK! GET BACK!” Major Franklin Rogers ordered. Soldiers of Blatnik’s 4th Platoon, and company medics, had poured from the Oak Street apartment, piled over the barricades and sought to separate the savaged remnants of 1st Platoon from the Revivant corpses littering the intersection.
The feds’ armored vehicle roared forward, shrugging off the pinpricks of lightweight automatic rifles from the resistance. Black diesel exhaust billowed behind the lumbering four-wheeled monster. Rogers’ fighters retreated in good order—some dragging wounded comrades while the others expended hundreds of futile rounds in sheets of buzzing fire at the oncoming APC.
Rogers grabbed the last pair of retreating troops by their collars and jerked them backward over the barricade. “Get inside!” He risked one last quick glance to make sure his men were clear, knowing the shell with his name on it was already loaded in the cannon’s breech. Why hadn’t they fired?
The APC idled in the middle of the intersection, its four mammoth tires astride a carpet of the... terminated... Revivants, listing slightly left due to the uneven nature of the piled corpses. The barrel of the big gun was so perfectly aligned with his nose, Rogers imagined he could see all the way down to the conical tip of the high-explosive round nestled therein.
Which still didn’t fire.
“What the hell?” Rogers muttered.
He and the tank watched each other, neither moving. A breeze sliced through the smoke and cooled the sweat soaking Rogers’ neck. The reek of blood and shit and burnt gunpowder hung heavy, despite the breeze.
Lieutenant Blatnik appeared beside him; Rogers becoming aware of him only when the younger man spoke. “What are they waiting for, sir?”
“I... I don’t know.”
The major squinted and tried to see through the half-painted window glass of the driver’s viewport, without the slightest luck at all. A squeal of metal came from the vehicle, and a hatch atop the turret rose up, tipped, and fell open with a clang. A moment later, something popped up that perplexed Rogers more than anything else in his fifty years of military actions.
“Is that...?” Blatnik said, clearly stunned.
“It is, Lieutenant.” Rogers put his hands on his hips and shook his head in disbelief. “It’s a white flag. Apparently, the feds want to parley.”
***
WITH THE VOLUME OF fire the marines poured into the Canal Street tunnel, I could not figure out how a single human could survive more than a second. Marines burned through magazine after magazine, calling out observations, orders, and status updates without pausing the symphony of destruction they played at maximum volume.
“I’m out.”
“Target left, engaging.”
“Reloading.”
“Gonzales,” I yelled to the lieutenant. “We’re heading back.”
She waved without looking at me. Two marines poured fire down the tunnel until their magazines ran dry, then swapped place with two others to reload. Gonzales snuck a peek around the corner and jerked her head back when a bullet clipped the concrete a gnat’s ass over her helmet. Somehow the feds were coming on, even in the face of withering fire from the marine positions.
“Zombie coming, engaging.”
“Come on, John. Let’s you and I slope on outta here; leave the fighting to the pros.”
“I agree.” The giant fell in behind me so we could walk in the center, where the ceiling was higher. At that, he still kept his head ducked low to avoid the occasional dangling bulb. “What do you think—”
A shriek from the rear cut through the small arms chatter, and the blood in my veins turned to frozen slushie. Three marines thrashed on the ground, convulsing, choking, obviously unable to breathe. The remaining soldiers backpedaled away from the intersection; Lieutenant Gonzales the exception. She started forward, but Staff Sergeant Patrick grabbed her battle harness and hauled her back.
“Gas! Gas! Gas!” he screamed.
Private Pelham, on the far side of the intersection, ripped a grenade from a strap on his chest and yelled, “Frag out!”
“Pelham, no!” Patrick bellowed.
The private skidded to a stop in the middle of the intersection, cocked his arm to throw, and the gas hit him like an invisible freight train. He dropped the grenade halfway through a weak throw and collapsed next to his stricken comrades. The egg-shaped explosive wobbled along the rail toward the cluster of marines scrambling in our direction. John and I witnessed a slow-motion disaster, helpless as if we watched a plane falling from the sky.
Lance Corporal Jackson screamed out, “Grenade!” and launched himself through the air. He belly-flopped, covering the weapon with his body. Light flashed under him, and a dull thump bounced the corporal in the air. He didn’t move again.
“Get back,” Gonzales ordered. She consulted her map while being half-carried by the tall sergeant, who dragged another marine to his feet by his battle harness. “Fall back, marines. Regroup, ah... regroup grid location... grid location Charlie Two-Two.”
I forced my feet to unstick and tugged a fistful of John’s shirt. “Shit, John. The feds are gassing the tunnels; we need to get our people out now!”
We ran.