It all falls down, p.21
It All Falls Down, page 21
part #1 of Birth of Heavy Metal Series
“What are you doing?” he asked in a hushed whisper. There was no way to hide her now that she had exposed herself, so all he could really hope for was that she had a plan.
“They’re here for me,” she said with a small gesture toward the men who shouted commands at Savage and Madigan, neither of whom appeared to understand what was said. The intensity with which it was said, however, could not be mistaken, and neither could the sudden and—to Sal’s mind, anyway—uncalled for threatening brandishing of weapons. They wanted what they wanted, and they clearly wouldn’t take ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying’ for an answer.
A few of them saw Anja descending from the plane, and it looked like she really was who they were there for since they started to move in to intercept her, but Savage stepped in their path.
“I don’t care what they’re here for,” the man said with a small smile. He held his gaze very firmly on the man in front of him and looked calmer than even Molina did back in the plane. “They won’t get you, and that’s final.”
The men had only been speaking Russian up to this point, but they appeared to understand English, at any rate. The man scowled, backed away a few steps, and aimed his weapon at the operative’s head.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” Savage commented but made no effort to move away from where he stood between Anja and the men who appeared to want to apprehend her.
Anja, for her part, looked terrified and like she had begun to regret her choice to step off the plane. Despite this, she remained where she was, her body stiff and expression focused. She stood less than a step behind Savage as Sal moved in beside Madigan and Sam.
Whatever it was that now played out, there appeared to be a plan in the way the three of them inched away from where their teammate made his stand. They could have been moving out of the way of where the other man would undoubtedly take the brunt of the Russians’ fire. It was also as likely that they tried to draw some of the focus away from where he stood much like a meat shield for Anja.
The hacker, to her credit, didn’t move a muscle and appeared to implicitly trust his ability to keep her safe. Either that or she would rather go down in a firefight than be dragged into a torture chamber if they captured her.
Despite the sudden silence, it was clear that things had escalated, especially as the Russians could now see that Savage was armed. He didn’t do anything, though, and simply stood his ground and waited for something to happen.
“Now, Terry,” Madigan snapped.
Her command generated a chain reaction that began with a sharp report that confirmed that Terry had waited for her order to open fire. Sal reacted instinctively and flung himself down and out of any possible line of fire. Madigan had timed it perfectly for the moment when the man’s weapon was not aimed at either of their teammates. The sniper proved his worth and easily felled the man who had waved his weapon at them. A split second was all that was needed, really, as the operative was already in motion almost before the target’s head exploded like an overripe watermelon.
The return fire seemed to be directed primarily at the two at the steps, although the distance between the men with the assault rifle and him was great enough that most of the bullets whistled harmlessly wide and didn’t even strike the plane behind him. The few that did hit the target, though, impacted the dead man Terry had shot, who wore body armor. Savage used him as a shield now and kept himself and Anja behind the body he all but carried as he thrust his futuristic weapon through under the dead man’s armpit and pulled the trigger.
A soft whine and a whomp was all Sal heard before he opened fire on their adversaries, who scrambled hastily into cover behind their cars. They must have hoped that a show of force and numbers would help to avoid any bloodshed and looked woefully unprepared for the fight they currently faced. Their miscalculations were a welcome oversight as it meant that for a while, at least, they weren’t shooting at the group.
Another snap from behind confirmed that their sniper continued to calmly select his targets, and while Madigan laid cover fire down, Sam retrieved two grenades from inside her jacket and pulled the pins from both.
“You had those on you while we were on the plane?” Madigan shouted over the barrage as the woman lobbed the knobbly spheres to where the men had begun retaliatory fire.
“You never know when you’ll need a couple of grenades, love.” Sam grinned and covered her ears. Her two very decent right-handed throws arced the grenades over the cars the Russians used for cover.
“Blyat!” The yelled expletive voiced the confusion as a group of them dived frantically away from the ordnance before they detonated. Some managed to avoid the ensuing explosions, although many did so only to be methodically and precisely terminated by Terry with his little rifle.
It made Sal realize that, while he constantly upped his game when it came to combat in the Zoo, when it came to combat outside of the jungle where he had to deal with actual humans who shot back, he still needed work.
That said, the group he had with him was more than up to the challenge. Even though they were outgunned and outnumbered, their steady stream of aggressive fire kept their enemies on their toes and the dead now almost outnumbered the living. The Heavy Metal Militia hadn’t sustained any losses or even injuries thus far.
Savage was more than willing to press their advantage. He made sure Anja took cover with Sal, Madigan, and Sam before he sprinted toward the Russians while he maintained a steady stream of the needles fired from that weird yet effective weapon of his. While their adversaries appeared to wear some kind of body armor, his ammunition simply drilled through and men dropped quickly, bleeding and dying.
Sal watched, almost fascinated, as the operative vaulted smoothly over the hood of one of the cars and hammered the butt of his pistol into the nearest man’s throat to knock him back. His target choked and coughed for a few moments before he sagged when two holes appeared in his forehead.
Most of the Russians were down by this point, and those who remained looked shocked at the way their plans and purposes had so dramatically unraveled. They realized that while they were supposed to outnumber and outgun the people in the plane, they were severely outmatched. The survivors hastily dropped their weapons and raised their hands.
“What are they saying?” Sal asked Anja. She hadn’t taken any fire herself, but she looked pale and her hands trembled slightly.
“Th…they’re surrendering,” she replied thickly and cleared her throat of a hint of obstruction. “They ask not to be shot…that kind of thing.”
Madigan raised an eyebrow as she focused on the men as they fell to their knees in front of Savage, who collected their discarded weapons. “No shit. I think I could have deduced that from the context.”
“What do you think, boss?” Sam asked and again directed the question to Madigan instead of Sal. “Drop them or leave them be?”
She paused and studied the group she was supposed to be leading. Savage clearly waited for orders too. He held his weapon trained on the Russians with one hand, and the other toted one of the weapons they’d dropped.
“What do you think, Sal?” she asked and turned to face him but kept her weapons aimed at the survivors.
“We still need to work with these people,” he said and narrowed his eyes. “Let them go with the kind of warning that says if they try this kind of bullshit again, we’ll target the motherfuckers who ordered it next. I know this is the FSB, but dammit, they can’t get away with this like this. They need to leave us the fuck alone.”
Anja nodded and seemed to agree with the sentiment. These people were still her compatriots, whether she liked it or not, and he wondered if there wasn’t some lingering sentiment of loyalty to her homeland despite the fact that the FSB had driven her out.
“Savage, we’ll let them go,” Madigan snapped and inched her weapon toward him as if she expected the man to ignore his orders and ventilate the entire group.
But Sal had come to expect better of the people Anderson had recruited, and with only a hint of hesitation, he relaxed his stance, gathered the remaining weapons, and carried them to where Sal, Sam, and Madigan still shielded Anja.
“We can take their vehicles—the ones that are still working anyway—and leave them here to give us a head start,” the operative suggested. Madigan nodded and before she took the weapons, she gestured for those still waiting inside the plane to get the hell out.
Elena was the last to disembark and looked supremely bored as she descended the stairs. “Are we done yet?” she asked dryly. “I think it’s time we get to work, don’t you?”
Savage flipped her off, which elicited a soft laugh from her as they chose the few vehicles that were still in working order, disabled the rest, and drove away from the airstrip.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kiev: Elena Molina’s Warehouse
It was a short journey to the outskirts of Kiev before Elena guided them to what looked like a warehouse district connected to a long-defunct train line. A few of the structures seemed to still be used for vehicle storage, but the remainder appeared to have been abandoned for decades.
“There once was a time when Kiev was the heart of all the trade between the various European states of the Second Soviet Union,” she explained. “It became a center for all the oil barons to export their product to the European Union afterward. Once they went out of business, the politicians around here decided they would rather their city rely more on the legal commerce from the south of the country connected to the Black Sea. They chose not to deal with the criminals who remained from the brutal dictatorships that had held their country hostage for so long. Either way, most of the train lines lost their business here and took it elsewhere, which left considerable vacant space for anyone who wants to store large quantities of product they don’t want anyone else to find.”
“Let me guess,” Sal said. “You’re one of those lucky few.”
“Cookie for the brilliant scientist.” She chuckled and leaned against the seat. While she seemed calm and relaxed, there was a tension about her, evidenced by the way she fidgeted incessantly and tapped her nails on the door. He couldn’t help but recognize it. Too much about the woman’s behavior felt familiar to him—enough to make him worried about what he might face in the future himself.
They arrived at one of the few warehouses that was occupied, which was also surrounded by a troop of armed guards. Sophisticated security systems protected the gates, which Elena knew all the codes for, and one of the mercs hired to guard the building jogged over to greet them as they disembarked.
“Apologies, ma’am,” he said in English with a hint of a British accent, although he looked Indian. “The people who were sent to greet you returned and stated that what looked like government cars were waiting for them and told them to get lost or get shot.”
“It would have been better if they had been shot, but I have no time for that now,” she quipped but sounded like she was only slightly joking. “I’m here to outfit the team hired to head to the lab.”
“Another one?” the man asked and frowned. “I would think that you would have…cut your losses, as the term goes.”
“Are you really questioning my motives here, George?” Elena asked and her expression turned cold. She looked a few moments away from shooting the man with his own sidearm. Sal felt bad for him and did not judge him in the slightest for taking a small step away from the dangerous woman as he raised a hand in apology.
“Not at all, ma’am,” he replied quickly and guided them toward the massive warehouse building. “I merely wondered if we might have better results if we were to rethink our strategy, is all.”
“That’s why I brought in a small team of specialists,” she replied and gestured to the group that moved closer to them. “Experts in Zoo combat in ways the rest of the teams that failed me definitely lacked. Which is why we will arm them with only the best that money can buy in terms of armor and weapons.”
“This I’d like to see,” Madigan stated with an edge of derision to her tone. None of the group looked particularly happy to be there, Anja least of all, who still looked like she needed a drink after her unexpected exposure to the firefight at the airstrip.
They entered the warehouse and stepped into a massive room where a number of suits were set up, Sal assumed, for their viewing. There was a variety, although they were essentially on par with what they had seen displayed elsewhere. The better specs of each individual suit were interesting, though, and as he examined one of the hybrids, Elena glided in beside him.
“It’s a prototype, thoroughly tested and already cleared for human trials,” she explained and motioned for one of the specialists to approach and prepare it for use. “I think you’ll find some of the upgrades quite revolutionary.”
“How so?” he asked and fiddled with the pieces as he started to pull it on.
“Well, there were enough suggestions to make them more compatible to what would be encountered in the Zoo, which demanded some interesting software and hardware upgrades,” the technician explained as he stepped in to assist. Most of the hardware looked virtually the same, but when Sal activated the software, he saw additions to the HUD.
Within seconds, the display showed him exactly what they had meant by revolutionary upgrades.
“The first change, you’ll notice, is the lack of rocket propulsion in the back and boots,” the man continued. “Instead, we’ve used magnetic propulsion. It’s a little like those bouncy stilt boots that are all the rage online these days but increased by a factor of a hundred. Not only would they provide you with similar propulsion from the ground as the rocket packs, they also function as viable weapons. In addition, they assist you to traverse rough terrain, all with a negligible effect on the battery packs of the suit. There is no longer the need to carry that hyper compressed and frankly, rather dangerous rocket fuel inside the suit at all.”
Sal tested the mobility and moved around the warehouse as the team tried their selections on. It looked like all their suits had been outfitted with the magnetic upgrades instead of rocket packs, and they did appear to move far more easily and smoothly. Even Madigan’s tank of a suit actually looked light on its feet.
“What’s this?” he wondered aloud and activated what appeared to be the combat mode. The bounciness of the boots quickly diminished, and while it still allowed him to move faster, it kept him more or less steady and his aim was automatically adjusted to compensate for what added buoyancy there was to his movements. It was a useful and very practical addition, as was the sudden detection of all the other armor around him, evidence of a very advanced friend or foe system implemented. He would have put money down on Anja being responsible for that.
Of course, the change that really had his attention was the additional two sets of arms that connected beside his to create a total of six. They drew weapons from the back of his suit—four in total—and held them out in an open formation to cover all possible points of attack, be it from above, below, or the sides. Better still, they responded intuitively to commands and followed his eye movements as tracked by the HUD, accessed his motion sensors and all the other sensors to create a virtual map of his surroundings, and pinpointed all those who weren’t identified as friendlies.
‘Engage?’ the suit asked him, and he used his chin to nudge the decline option and deactivate the suddenly very hostile extra arms.
They lowered obediently but retained the weapons and simply assumed a passive stance, still ready for combat at a second’s notice.
“Impressive, right?” The techie chuckled and patted the back of the hybrid suit. “That’s the only suit with eight limbs, unfortunately. It’s very much a prototype, although you do seem like exactly the right person to take her out for a maiden voyage. You’ll find it useful for far more than only combat if you look through the options.”
Sal needed no further encouragement. It included climbing options, all-terrain movement that would allow him to skitter across the ground like an insect, and more, with the possibility to combine different programs and mix and match as each arm appeared to have an independent CPU.
“I think I’m in love,” he said, awestruck by the technological marvel he currently wore.
“Careful Sal, you don’t want to get us all jealous,” Courtney warned him jokingly.
He noted that Elena’s interest had drifted to where Savage was currently being fitted into his own suit. From the man’s record, it didn’t look like he’d put in much time in combat suits, so this would have to be unusual for him. Still, folks like him were quick learners, and after a few trial runs to adjust to having to move a little more deliberately to get a combat suit to move as well, he settled into an efficient rhythm. In size terms, the suit he wore looked like a hybrid—lean and agile, and lacked the bulk and power the others had. Interestingly enough, though, it looked like it had been specially designed for the man without the fine-tuned small-movement dexterity of the fingers that allowed scientific interaction with the Zoo without having to get out of the protective confines of the suit.
Still, there were some changes Sal needed a moment to inspect. Something of an endoskeleton followed the form of it and provided the whole thing with a little more structure, but there was a connection to it from the gloves into the two weapons that were held in holsters at his hips. Honestly, it looked like Iron Man watched three weeks’ worth of cowboy movies and decided to make something new and exciting based on them. It wasn’t completely unlikely, of course. The way comic books were desperate to increase sales these days, he wondered why they hadn’t come up with the idea already.
Either way, a pistol-sized weapon fitted snugly in both holsters with the same elongated barrels the man’s own pistol had.
“We watched you in action, and one of our specialists was able to recreate the kind of weapon you used,” Elena explained and ran her hand down the suit. “Then, they turned it up to eleven. The magnetic strip in the barrel is powered by the fusion reactor that drives the suit, which makes it capable of launching those deadly little needles accurately up to five hundred yards. More importantly, you can adapt the barrel to launch more than only the needles. Proper bullets of all sizes, for one thing, and you can even attach a longer barrel and work those babies like rifles. Or you can use them to launch grenades and all kinds of fun things you might need. The last word in versatility.”
