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“This was in that building?” Roland’s basso profundo had a dangerous catch to it. Lucia recognized it as the dark, passionless rage that lived in the locked vault of his worst memories. It was the birthplace of the nightmares that still chased him during his rest, and a trauma so deep and personal that he was never likely to truly overcome it. Roland had tried for decades to put it all behind him, tried to outrun the monster with booze, nihilism, and a life dedicated to violence. It was all useless though. The monster was there all the same, just as alive and ready to go now as the moment it had been born. All he could do was keep it locked up and try to live like a person. His life since escaping the Army had never amounted to more than a pantomime of humanity, but he had accepted that and resolved himself to it.
Then he met Lucia, and something inside him woke up. He was forced to take the monster out of the box and confront it. Breach was there and always would be, but Lucia reminded him that Breach was only part of him, and that he had other parts, too.
None of that made watching the videos in Mindy’s pilfered files any easier. He and Lucia were going through them alone at his apartment. Ostensibly, they were trying to find clues that might lead to Manson’s mysterious backers. They already knew The Brokerage was involved, but the existence of these files had added another layer of urgency to the mystery. The name “Reynard” featured prominently in the messages and file swap records, but neither of them had any clue who that could be. The duo surmised it was a code a name for someone on the Brokerage payroll, but other than some cryptic language about a prison term, there was nothing that could identify the individual definitively. He was important, that much was apparent. Just having all these files meant that this Reynard person had serious connections, but other than that ominous clue, they were at a loss. Lucia had given up on gleaning too much helpful insight from the bulk of the data at this point. As they cycled through those files, managing Roland’s emotional stress was becoming the more critical objective.
“Yeah,” Lucia responded. “Mindy found it on the command center terminal. Nothing had been closed out... like someone had been reviewing them recently hadn’t bothered to shut down the machine.”
Roland grunted, but didn’t speak. The file on screen was from a Galapagos incursion. It was before the Golem failsafe had been used, and he and his squad were mopping up a crew of pirates that had overrun a food production facility. The squad of cyborgs were fighting close-quarters, clearing buildings one at a time with mechanical precision. Roland was out in front, that was his job, after all. He knew from memory that the camera was mounted to Private Jasper Wellington, or “Comms” as was his designation. Jasper was the communications, electronics, and medical expert on the team, and his helmet was getting telemetry feeds from the whole squad. The data scrolled down the right side of the view screen, and despite the passage of nearly three decades, Roland could recall all the parameters from memory. He spoke absently, without inflection, narrating to Lucia for no reason he could articulate.
“That’s Jasper’s camera. Right now he’s locked on the LT, designated ‘Lead’ in the HUD,” he pointed to the reticle around a black helmeted head with ‘Lead” blinking in yellow letters above it. Lucia said nothing, but noted that all the visible squad members had unique helmets. Roland’s helmet, she knew, was an all-black skull covering that locked into a gorget around his neck. His faceplate was metallic white with triangular eyes and sculpted cheeks. A flattened bridge ran between his eyes to a blank and featureless facet that connected the nasal bridge to the chin bar with a contoured covering for his lips and mouth. The black helmet and the silver faceplate, worn in conjunction, bore an eerie resemblance to a mouthless skull’s face floating silently above the body of an onyx giant. Roland had been designated ‘Breach,’ and he was always the first thing the enemy saw. His look was no accident; it was a deliberately dramatic and terrifying aesthetic, designed to terrify the enemy.
Lead’s helmet was similar, but the death’s head motif was less prominent. His faceplate covered more of his face, and his eyes were larger and more squared. Lucia assumed that Roland’s tiny triangular apertures were to make it more difficult for incoming fire to exploit the weak point. He was purpose-built to take hits, and it made sense to sacrifice some scanning and data acquisition for more safety.
Roland was still talking, “Sneak had already cut the power and blinded them, and Scout had taken out their armatures and vehicles from two and a half miles away. Bobby could shoot the wings off a fly at a hundred yards before the upgrades, so giving him a railgun and bionic eyes was like cheating.” Roland smiled a small, faraway smile that turned his mouth but never touched his eyes. “We were just cleaning up at this point. This one was a damn cakewalk. Two hundred and forty opposing force, and the five of us cleaned them out in two hours.”
It’s like killing pirates with his friends is a happy memory, Lucia thought with just a hint of sadness, he was born to fight, and having the enemy in front of him and his friends at his back was the only time he felt whole.
She put a hand on his arm, and he shifted, uncomfortable at the touch. “You must miss them a lot,” she offered, trying to get him to open up.
Roland never lied, and when she asked him a question, he always answered it straight. This time Lucia could tell how much his honesty hurt. “I really do,” he whispered.
“I’m so sorry.” It felt cliché and weak, but she was sorry.
“It’s okay,” his voice sounded stronger, “You didn’t do this. It’s just...” His voice caught again, “It’s good to see them again, is all.”
“Do you want to be alone?”
He shook his head violently, “Dear god, no. I was alone for twenty-five years. I’m just not good at...” he trailed off, words escaping him.
“Emotions?” Lucia supplied the answer.
“Yeah. Those.” He agreed with a sheepish head nod. Then he turned somber, “Lucia... I’m uh, I don’t know. Afraid? I think I’m afraid I’ll never be right again.” He pointed to the screen, “I was right back then. It felt right. I was the guy I wanted to be.”
“You were a super hero, saving the galaxy with your friends at your side and the enemy in front of you.” Her smile was warm as she said it. She had known him long enough to understand his post-adolescent heroic aspirations.
“Yeah. I read too many comic books.” It was spoken as a recrimination, she realized, as if somehow his desire to be a hero was a flaw he should have known to avoid. “But they twisted it, perverted it. Even my good memories feel wrong now.”
“You’re still a hero, Roland, and you can still save Dockside.” She slipped an arm around his, hugging his comically swollen bicep, “They didn’t take that away from you. They tried to, but you were too strong.”
“Was I?” he wondered out loud. “I sometimes think that they were stronger.” He was referring to the two members of his squad who committed suicide when they found out that their brains were being shut off and their bodies used to commit atrocities.
Lucia was having none of that, “Bullshit. What they made you do when your brain was shut off has nothing to do with you. What did you tell me once? ‘Don’t take responsibility for anyone’s choices but your own’? That advice helped me a lot not so long ago.”
“I know, I get it. But I get so...” Words failed him again.
“Angry?” Again, Lucia bailed him out.
“It’s so much more than angry. I get cold and dark, and that makes me want to... do awful things. To kill, and smash, and destroy.” He paused, and Lucia waited.
“It’s hard to explain, Lucia. But this whole world, this galaxy? It’s like it’s made of glass, and everything I touch shatters unless I tiptoe all the time. If I have to fight a guy, I can’t even hit him as hard as I want because he’ll explode. I’m always holding back, always restraining myself.” He couldn’t keep the snarl from coloring his words, “That building? The one where Mindy found this stuff?” His voice became a growl, “I could grab my guns and some grenades, walk up to it right now, and level the whole fucking thing. I could kill everyone inside, drag it down by the support beams with my bare hands, and then walk out of the rubble without batting an eyelash.” He stopped again and expelled his mounting rage with a heavy breath. “But I won’t. Because that is not Roland Tankowicz. That’s Breach. Breach is them, not me. But some things really make me want to be Breach, anyway. There’s a, I don’t know. Freedom? A freedom to just letting it all go and being the machine. Like when those guys took you the other night...”
“I know,” she interrupted. “It put you in a bad place. You know, I can tell when you are ready to give in and stop trying to be a hero, and I saw it on your face that night. But let me tell you something, Corporal.” She reached up and turned his head to look at her, “You can’t ever do that. You can’t ever let it happen. Do you know why?”
He shook his head, confused.
“Because those little machines are in my head, too. They are trying to make me like hurting and killing. I can’t go back to who I was, Roland. I can’t be a beverage company executive anymore. This is what I have to be now, and I can’t do it alone. Dockside needs my help. They have no chance against The Brokerage and whoever this Reynard person is. The people here deserve a chance, and without us they won’t have one. But the more I try to help, the more Dad’s nanobots will want me to be like Breach. I won’t give up on Dockside, but I need you. I need Roland. Because if you aren’t strong enough to hold on to your humanity, what hope do I have?”
Roland had never looked at it that way. “I will never give up. But I can’t promise to be perfect all the time, either. It’s just so damn hard! I live in a world filed with glass houses and papier mâché people.” He held up a black fist the size of a melon, “It’s really hard not to break all those delicate things when your whole body is a hammer.”
“Don't overthink it,” She suggested with a squeeze. "All you really need is the right nail to swing at."
“Fair enough.” He looked down at her, “You know, you can't ever give up either. Because if something happens to you?” he shook his head slowly, “I don’t want to think about what I would become.”
“Then we will just have to take care of each other. Just like your squad.”
She crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Like it or not, Corporal. We are stuck with each other. Might as well make the best of it, right?” She planted a firm kiss on his lips and held it there for a long time.
Their tender moment was not fated to last. The door chime came as an unwelcome interruption, and despite his promises to avoid degenerating into fits of wanton violence Roland found himself prepared to commit horrible crimes against the bodies of whoever had picked this moment to come to his door. An entire troop of cookie-selling children could be wiped out in the next moment, and he would have considered it justified. Giant booted feet stomped over to the door accompanied by the musical sounds of Lucia’s giggling. Growling like a hungry bear, Roland checked the screen. Billy, Mindy, Sid, and Manny were all waiting on his landing. Well, this can’t be good, he thought, with a sigh of defeat.
The frustrated cyborg opened the door for his team and ushered them inside. Mindy, wearing little more than skintight green shorts and a white halter two sizes too small, bounced and jiggled across the threshold and called to Lucia, “Hiya, Boss! Got any food?”
“Hello, Mindy,” Lucia replied. “Kind of busy right now.”
“Can’t be that busy. He’s still wearing his pants.”
Roland’s voice rumbled like distant thunder, “No thanks to you.”
Mindy’s eyes danced with girlish glee at that, and she seemed poised to deliver a sharp retort. Manny butted in to rescue the assassin from certain death. “This may shock you, Mindy, but keeping your clothes on from time to time has been known to improve productivity. You should try it.”
“Not my style,” she shot back, “You’re just mad because I don’t like boys. Besides, if I covered all this up,” she spun a pirouette and wiggled her nearly exposed chest at him, “then what you have to stare at all day?”
“I’d get by,” the scout said with a shrug.
“Jesus, you kids are killing me.” McGinty was the last through the door, and he scowled at the two younger members of their cohort and addressed the rest. “They do this shit nonstop, you know.”
Lucia finally noticed Mindy’s ridiculous outfit, and could not marry her bizarre garb to the sudden visit from the four of them.
“Mindy?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Why are you dressed like a junior prostitute-in-training?”
“You mean more so than usual?” Manny quipped and Billy chortled.
“I’ve been a junior prostitute-in-training,” Sid pointed out. “I’d still never dress like that.”
Sid, in stark contrast to Mindy, was wearing fashionable slacks and a shimmery blouse that while modest, did little to blunt the intrinsic grace of her curves. Roland still found the contrast between Mindy’s cartoonish sexuality and Sid’s effortless sophistication to be jarring. They both seemed confident and comfortable with the facades they presented, and Roland envied them their freedom to simply be who and what they wanted to be.
Mindy frowned at Sid and tossed the scout a dark look that promised horrible consequences to come. Then she looked back to Lucia, “It’s a disguise. I was doing recon.”
“Ahhhh,” Lucia sighed, figuring it out. “You were at Hideaway hitting on Kitty.”
“It’s recon!” the blond pouted. “Kitty knows a lot of stuff about what’s going on around town. She hears everything.”
“Mmm hmmm,” Lucia, sounded very skeptical, but she indulged the woman, “And you are all here because?”
“Wade Manson is raiding Malldown right now. He’s hitting all the vape dens and the fight clubs tonight. Kitty says that all the street muscle is talking about it. Rodney’s got extra guys posted everywhere, too.”
“It looks like the shooting war has begun in earnest then,” Roland grumbled.
“That’s why I called everyone and headed over here,” Mindy said.
Lucia flicked the magenta stripe of hair away from her eyes, “Good call. All right, Roland. What’s the plan?”
“Wade doesn’t have enough muscle or guns for a full-scale war just yet. Obviously, The Brokerage is supplying him. We knew that already.” Roland lived for these sorts of tactical problems, “We don’t have to go defend Malldown, we just need to cut off his supplies and he’ll fold on his own.”
Sid spoke up. “He’s getting supplied through the Quinzy shipyards. My people have been laundering all the money that moves through there. Are you going to offer a lady a drink, Roland?”
The barb tossed at his lack of manners missed its mark by a wide margin. “Beer’s in the fridge, help yourself.” Then he pushed on, “Do we know which shipyard? And when the next transfer is?” He tried to keep them on track.
“Yeah. They use the assembly hangar at the Mass-Freight yard. It’s been empty for weeks now. The next cash drop is in two days. Manson usually attends the cash drops personally. Anyone else thirsty?”
Four hands rose simultaneously as Sid went to the kitchen.
“No honor among thieves, eh?” Billy smirked.
“It’s a trap,” Roland observed.
“Huh?” they all said at once.
“Shipyard is big, yet not out in the open. It’s on the tram lines, and far from Uptown cops. It’s also far from Wade’s backup and our own resources. If I wanted to draw me out into a fight, I’d use Wade as bait, too. They know we need him. It’s why they set him up as the front man.”
Lucia’s powerful brain fleshed out the probable details. “The big armature will be there, and all the mercenaries, too. They need room for their ringer to tackle Roland, but they also need the fight contained. Shipyards are tough places to break, I presume?”
“Exactly,” Roland agreed.
Manny had never been in any fight like this before, and his voice betrayed his apprehension. “So, uh... what are we going to do?”
“We spring the trap,” Roland and Lucia said in unison.
“Ah, Roland?” Billy spoke up, “You are all kinds of badass and shit, I get that. But we are talking about a hundred or more heavily armed mercs, and a mech the size of a dump truck. I don’t want to hurt your feelings or nothin,’ but that seems like long odds to me.”
“You’re right Billy. It would take an army to win that fight,” Lucia fixed the redhead with a measured stare. “Perhaps an army of the best street muscle in all of New Boston, I’d wager.”
“Oh. Shit.” He concurred.
“Knew that was coming,” Sid sang out as she returned with cans of lager and passed them out.
“Someone call Rodney,” Roland boomed, “It’s time to send a message to the Brokerage.”
“Wait!” Mindy Squeaked, “I’m still hungry!”
“I swear to god, Mindy,” Roland sounded annoyed, but then again, he always sounded annoyed.
“I’ll call for some delivery,” Billy rescued them all from the impending violence of two bionic combatants brawling in the limited space of Roland’s living room.
“Good idea,” said Lucia, “it’s going to be a long night. By the way Billy, have any of your spies heard of a new player using the name ‘Reynard’?”
“Reynard?” Billy thought for a moment, “No. But somebody thinks pretty highly of himself if he’s using that for a name.”
“Why’s that?”
It was easy to forget that despite his rough manners and salty vernacular, Billy McGinty was an extremely well read auto-didact, “It’s French. It means ‘Fox.’”
Lucia’s eyes went wide, and Roland’s face went slack.
“It fucking means ‘Fox?’” Roland hissed through clenched teeth.
“What?” Billy asked, “What did I say?”
Lucia looked at Roland, eyes pleading, “Don’t you go dark on me now, Roland.”
Black hands balled so tight they could hear the straining of his armored skin under the pressure. Beer poured in a foamy white cascade between his fingers, the crushed can still trapped in the dark heart of that fist.
“Not on you, Lucia. Never on you.”