16


“I’m really not that impressed, Reaper,” Callus said.
“It’s not about you, asshole,” I said, listening for Grady’s answer and getting frustrated. If they didn’t get clear, it limited what I could do next.
One of the spec operators moved closer to Callus. “Why don’t we just erase the girl and witnesses?”
Callus hissed something I couldn’t quite make out.
“Did I hear that right, X?”
“It seems their primary objective is to kill Elise. I’m not sure why he’s fixated on you.” A pause. “I had assumed the objective was to rescue the doctor and reclaim his research, including his daughter.”
“Don’t worry about it, X. I’ll feed you some more data when I can.”
It made sense, in a way. Doctor Hastings claimed she’d been kidnapped and put here to ensure his cooperation on a secret project, which was probably at least partially true. Putting a teenage girl on Dreadmax when they had to know it was failing seemed excessive.
The man had told me part of the truth as he understood it. He’d used technology he lifted from the Lex Project to cure Elise from a childhood illness. She’d been changed and probably singled out for close observation.
Her ability to stay alive in this hellish, man-made world was impressive. Genetic enhancements must have given her an edge. She’d done the rest, I decided, but I also wagered there was more to her story than I’d been told. We had started a conversation we had yet to finish. She’d said something about us not being as different as we thought.
I’d blown off the comment at the time. I was twice her age and had given up parts of my body to cybernetic replacement long before she was born. My enhancements had nothing to do with the Lex Project, as far as I knew, since the original test subject that the doctor mentioned hadn’t existed back then.
“Time to gamble,” I said to X-37.
“Oh, no,” said X.
I moved closer to Callus. “Your failure to plan isn’t my problem.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You can’t get us both,” I remarked
“I can, and if I don’t, we still win. Neither one of you can get off Dreadmax to infect the galaxy.” Callus held up a fist to keep the rest of his team back a respectful distance. They could probably still hear and record the incident with their body cameras, but they had the advantage of being well-positioned to cut me off if I tried to escape in a random direction.
“You should have just nuked the place from orbit,” I said.
“You don’t understand, Cain. This is a salvage operation. Nothing personal. I can bring you in dead or alive and count the operation a success. Everyone on my team knows my preference.”
“Cain, respond,” Grady said, finally breaking through my radio link.
I ignored him, trying to pretend I hadn’t heard his voice. The last thing I wanted was for Callus to know my friends were this close.
“We are coming to you,” Grady said. “I have three grenades. I’ll throw two when you bolt for it, and the last one to cover your movement.”
“This sucks,” I said.
Callus laughed, thinking I was admitting defeat. “Not for me.”
"Grady, it's a trap. Get the hell out of here."
The spec ops team sprang into action. Callus and two others rushed me. I fell back, shooting one in the pelvis. He went down screaming and the other stopped to help him.
“That was dirty,” Callus snarled, looking for a shot.
Other members of his team were swarming toward Grady, unaware of what was about to happen. I threw myself to the ground as two grenades went off. My adversary was a beat slower, but still saved himself from a blast to the face.
We arose from the smoking rubble. Tangles of cheap metal siding and other parts of the deck were scattered everywhere. One of the spec ops guys was completely gone. Stunned silence held both sides of the confrontation until I heard Elise scream.
The missing man had been blown high enough into the air that he didn’t come back down.
“Take your team and get out of here before they all get killed,” I said, waving the barrel of my HDK toward downed soldiers and the one heading toward the environment shield.
Unlike the first man I’d seen this happen to, he bounced off the shield and came back down faster and faster as gravity reclaimed him. He waved his arms and legs all the way down then hit the deck with a sickening crunch.
Callus responded to my warning by firing a stream of bullets at me, then vaulting over his cover to reach the next point between us. “You can’t win, Reaper. I already have reinforcements in route.”
“Grady! Let’s get out of here!”
This would’ve been a lot easier if he hadn’t shown up to help me. The one time I wanted him to hang me out to dry, he came gallivanting into the middle of a battle I had under control—or was at least managing—then stopped answering his radio.
We were close enough to shout now. No need to rely on radio earpieces.
Soldiers groaned in pain and crawled behind cover to apply first-aid. I saw one man applying quick-clotting agent and then a pressure bandage to another man.
Callus ducked out from cover and fired several well-placed shots that hit too close for comfort.
“Grady! Sound off if you can hear me.”
“He’s down,” Elise shouted from out of view. She didn’t have good cover. Instead, she had the youthful flexibility that allowed her to get really low. I also realized she had two handguns now.
“Put one of those in the holster so you can reload,” I shouted, looking for the doctor and my old friend.
A trio of dropships descended behind a nearby building. Moments later, they were back in the air and headed for the UFS Thunder. It wouldn’t be long before Callus had more than enough manpower to storm our position.
“Cover me!”
Elise popped up from behind cover and opened fire on every Union soldier she saw. She missed a lot but forced them to duck down for a couple of seconds, during which time I sprinted to her position.
Doctor Hastings was a quivering mess as he tried to help Grady. His extensive medical knowledge was less useful than it should have been on the battlefield. He’d managed to apply a tourniquet to one of Grady’s legs and keep pressure on a chest wound.
“Just pour the quick-clot powder all over it. I don’t care if it gets infected or burns. We’ve got bigger problems,” Grady ordered between clenched teeth.
The doctor did what he was told, hands trembling so badly that he spilled most of the clotting agent.
I ignored both of them and crouched beside Elise. Staying behind the metal curb for cover was hard, but the position wasn’t bad. We were backed into a corner that we couldn’t escape from.
In that moment, I realized something. If I rescued Elise and her father from all the dangers of Dreadmax, it would only be to sentence them to death at the hands of the Union—once the Union had what they wanted from them, that was.
There was no way to win.
“We’re not going to make it, are we?” Elise asked.
I looked at Grady and Doctor Hastings. They were both white as sheets but quiet now. If we were to have any chance of escaping, I couldn’t have them screaming and giving away our position.
“Hal,” Grady grunted, the effort it took him to speak clearly evident. He waved me over with a hand that looked like it weighed a hundred pounds. “I need to tell you something.”
“Elise,” I said, then pointed. “Watch for the next attack from Callus and his commandos.”
Grady gripped my gear, grimacing in pain.
“Make it quick, Grady. One way or another, we’re leaving.”
“You’re leaving, but don’t worry about that right now. I’ve got to tell you something. You’re going to get the lethal injection no matter what after this mission. No one would tell me why. They led me to believe you had one chance to redeem yourself, but I can read between the lines. You’ve got technology in you that can’t be controlled. They couldn’t generalize it to other test subjects and your field trials went beyond what they expected.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He shook his head, too tired from blood loss to elaborate. “I’ve got one last fight in me. Get out of here. What you do with them,” he said, nodding toward the doctor and his daughter, “is up to you. They’re coming, Hal. Let’s get this show on the road and kill some of these bastards.”
I patted him on the shoulder, unsure of what to say, and slipped closer to Elise. “How many magazines do you have for those pistols?”
She held up the loaded weapon in one hand and a magazine in the other. “One extra. What did your friend say?”
“He just confirmed what I always knew about him. He’s a dumbass who is going to die badly. Get ready. When I start shooting, grab your dad and shove him down that maintenance trench. Once we’re in it, speed will be important because there is no place to hide and it won’t take Callus long to come after us.”
“Your friend doesn’t look very fast.”
“He’s not coming with us.”
A wave of ululating cries swept over the buildings, announcing the arrival of an epic horde of crazies. I also heard engines, horns, and crew-served machine guns. The locals were joining this battle either accidentally or on purpose. Shit was about to get real.
“You’re leaving your friend?”
“Why not? I’ve done it before. You want to stay? All I really need is your dad.”
“You’re so full of shit,” she said. “I hope I’m never like you.”
Callus moved across the deck with his reinforced team. They moved by squads—two laying down suppressive fire each time one of the others moved. I didn’t even try to shoot back.
Crazies jumped from buildings, immediately overwhelming one squad that had been too focused on my position. A machine-gun truck raced through the middle of it all, firing in every direction. The heavy slugs punched through walls that looked solid, but also ricocheted like angry hornets. One of the prison gang members started throwing canisters of rocket fuel with burning fuses. Smoke added to the confusion.
Callus and his squad leaders mostly ignored the chaos, advancing relentlessly toward my position regardless of what the crazies, RSG, and NGs did to each other. The only exception was a Union squad that went after their buddies being dragged into hatches and doorways by cannibals.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Elise said, panic creeping into her voice.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Fuck you. You get used to it.” Some of her fire returned.
“Go!” I shot Callus, hitting his chest armor while he was running flat out toward us, unable to shoot back while maintaining the sprinter’s pace. He fell. Others picked him up. I looked for new targets and chances to reload.
Grady lobbed his last grenade and fired his HDK with one hand.
Elise and her father hobbled into the maintenance trench, both of them looking back through the smoke, steam, and tracer rounds. Both were scared. The difference was Elise was also angry. The doctor looked confused and defeated.
“Go after them, you dick!” Grady shouted.
I tossed my former friend an extra magazine, then took his advice.