A Rage for Revenge watc-3 Page 2

  "What is the password?"

  "But when it stood up, it just-" And touched the button on my wrist.

  The backpack on the ground exploded. Two rockets smoked straight for the spider. It jerked around to face them. I didn't wait to see if they hit-I rolled backward and into the bushes. The kid was already ahead of me. We crashed through the trees

  Behind us, something went off with a roar. A hammer of air slammed us forward. I heard the sound of a torch-the spider was roasting the backpack! And then a siren! It was coming after us!

  We tumbled into the Jeep and screeched backward up the hill. "Grab the heavy-launcher!" The kid was already digging in the rear. I found a place to turn around and pointed the Jeep up the road.

  "It's following us!" the kid screamed.

  I glanced back. The spider was staggering unevenly across the slope with an uncertain, tentative gait. That spider should have flamed us instantly. Whoever had damaged it had bought us a chance. Its cameras were swiveling frantically back and forth, looking for a target, trying to lock on.

  My phone was screaming in my ear; I pulled the headset off and tossed it aside. I put the Jeep on automatic-a dangerous thing to do; it probably wasn't smart enough to track a dirt road- swung into the back and grabbed the heavy-launcher from the kid. "Get out of the way."

  I braced myself in the back of the Jeep and took careful aim at the spider. We bounced like a spring. I wished for a steady-sight laser. I had to give the rocket enough time to identify its target and lock on-I hoped to God the spider didn't find us first!

  The green light came on. I squeezed the trigger.

  The rocket escaped with a whooosh! It arced down the hill, zigzagging back and forth, only turning at the very last moment toward the target. The spider exploded. It disappeared in three-one right after the other-flowering bursts of orange flame, each one larger than the last, all curling into a mushrooming billow of greasy black smoke. We could feel the heat and blast from here. Pebbles and dirt and hot oil spattered down around us.

  The Jeep was bumping suddenly across the grass. It had lost the road. I turned to leap forward, but the kid was ahead of me. He was already sliding down into the seat, taking over the controls and bringing us to a bouncing, spring-banging stop.

  We sat there for a moment, just breathing hard and wondering at the surprise of still being alive. The day was bright and cold. The air smelled suddenly sweet-even sweeter for the oily scent of the burning spider behind us.

  "Towered?" the kid asked. "The last word is towered?"

  I looked over at him.

  "Get out of the car," I said.

  "Huh?"

  "Get out of the car!"

  "I don't understand-"

  I swung myself over the side of the Jeep, walked around to the driver's side, grabbed the kid by the shirt, and pulled him out of ' his seat as hard as I could. I jerked him rudely across the ground and slammed him hard up against the broken wall of some ; forgotten building. I held him there-my knee braced between his 9 legs, my wrist across his throat, and the barrel of my gun up his left nostril-and lowered my voice. "Your stupidity nearly got us killed," I said. "I told you 'Don't move,' and you came crashing through the bushes like a boar in heat. I told you not to talk and you had to ask why, what was happening? That spider was half blind. We could have faded back into the bushes if you hadn't opened your mouth."

  "We got away okay, didn't we-?" he gasped. "Please, Lieutenant, you're hurting me!"

  I cocked the pistol and put my face very close to his. His eyes were round with terror. Good. I wanted him awake enough to hearl this. "Do you want to be my partner or my enemy?"

  "Sir, Please-!"

  I leaned on his throat a little harder. "Are you my partner or my enemy?"

  "Part-ner," he croaked.

  "Thank you." I eased my grip a little; he gasped for air. "So that means when I give an order, you're going to follow it. Right?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Sir."

  "Immediately-and without question. Right?" He gulped and swallowed and managed to nod. "Do you know why I'm telling you this?"

  He shook his head. The sweat was beading on his brow. "Because I'm trying to save your life. I'm assuming, of course, that you are survival-driven. If I'm mistaken in this assumption, please tell me now so I can get out of your way. I promise I won't interfere. You want to die, that's fine by me. I like paperwork. It's nice and safe. But I won't have you endangering my life too."

  "Yes . . . sir." His words came hard.

  "You remember this and we'll get along just fine, Private. The next time I give you an order you're going to follow it as if your life depends on it-right? Because it does. Because if you don't follow my orders, I'll take your fucking head off, do you hear me?"

  "Yessir!"

  "And I'm not going to hear any more fucking questions either-isn't that also right? You don't have the right to ask them. You are lower than whale shit. The only answer you need is this one: 'Because I'm your superior officer and I say so.' Right?"

  "Yessir!"

  I let go of him and stepped back, reholstering my pistol. He hesitated, then started tucking his shirt back into his pants. He glared over at me, but didn't speak. There was hatred in his eyes.

  "Go ahead, try it," I said. "I know what you're thinking. Go ahead. I don't want there to be any doubt."

  He dropped his eyes. He still hated me, but he wasn't going to swing.

  He came up at me suddenly, swinging with a roundhouse punch that would have knocked the wind out of me if I had still been there to receive it. I was already stepping back on one foot. I grabbed his arm and pulled, tripping him as he came. He sprawled flat in the dirt and skidded.

  I walked over to him, kicked him gently to roll him over on his back, and offered him a hand. He refused it and sat up.

  I grinned. "Want to try for two out of three?"

  He shook his head.

  I offered him my hand again. He refused it again and stood up by himself, brushing himself off. His expression was still smoldering.

  "What's your name, Private?"

  "McCain," he grumbled. "Jon McCain."

  "Well, listen, McCain-" I faced him and realized again how young he was. Sixteen? Fifteen? He really was only a kid. He couldn't even grow a proper mustache-his upper lip just looked dirty-and he needed a haircut. His scraggly brown hair hung down over his forehead, almost hiding his dark shaded eyes. He looked like a hurt little boy.

  "It's like this," I said. "Yes, I'm pissed as hell at you. I always get pissed at people who endanger my life. But that's not why I put you up against that wall. That's just the fastest way I know to teach you the kind of obedience that will ensure your survival. You have to trust me, because what you don't know could kill us both. Do you know my record?"

  "Yes sir, but-" he caught himself. "May I speak, sir?"

  "Go ahead."

  "Well . . ." His resentment faded into a lopsided, almost conspiratorial malice. "I just sort of figured you had to be some kind of colossal fuck-up for them to give you this shit detail."

  "Thanks for your . . . ah, candor."

  "I looked up your record, sir. You've got three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, a Good Conduct Medal, and eighty million caseys in worm bounties. And, according to the military listings, you're one of the five best field agents in California. You're a real chopperbopper-too good for this job. So, I figured you must have really pissed someone off." His grin was infectious. "That's how I got here. "

  "You're half-right," I admitted. "I made a bad guess last year. A lot of people died." I didn't like remembering; I liked talking about it even less. "Anyway, they put me here-where if I made any more mistakes, they'd be a lot more personal. Understand?"

  "Sort of."

  "Yeah, I don't like it either, but so what? This is the job. Let's get it done. I'll do the best I can. And so will you. Understand?" His grin faded. "And whatever else I might feel about it is none of anybody's goddamn business." I headed back toward
the Jeep.

  The phone was still yammering on the seat. I picked it up and put the headset to my ear. "JIMBO," I acknowledged. "All clear. No casualties. And your Vigilante has been removed from service." I answered a couple more questions, signed off, and looked over at the kid; he was standing rigidly, a respectful distance away from the Jeep. "What are you waiting for?"

  "Your orders, sir," he said crisply.

  "Right." I jerked a thumb. "Get in the Jeep and drive." I unclipped the car's terminal and thumbed it to life.

  "Yessir."

  "McCain-"

  "Sir?"

  "Don't be a robot. Just be responsible."

  "Yes, sir." The kid dropped in behind the wheel, snuck a sideways glance at me, then dropped his rigid manner.

  He headed us back toward the main road while I balanced the terminal on my lap and logged the destruction of the Vigilante. The kid waited until I was finished, then said, "Sir? Can I ask you something?"

  "Go ahead."

  "Well, it's about that spider. I thought those things were only supposed to kill worms."

  I nodded. "That was the original programming. But then we started losing units. Renegades were knocking them out and dismantling them for their weaponry, so the army reprogrammed them against guerrillas too. All spiders now assume that any humans in a free-fire area-regardless of the clothes they wear or the ID signals received from their dogtags-are hostiles, until proven otherwise." I added, "And are treated accordingly."

  "You mean-torched?"

  "Only if you refuse to be captured." I shrugged. "Some of the reprogramming must have been a little hasty. Even desperate." The kid didn't speak for a long time. He concentrated on his driving. The narrow two-lane road was twisty.

  After a while, he asked uncomfortably, "Are there a lot of those things around?"

  "McDonnell-Douglas is fabricating three hundred and fifty units a week. Most of those are for export-South America, Africa, Asia-there's a lot of wild country on this planet all of a sudden; but I'd guess we've got at least a couple thousand of them patrolling the West Coast. It's the highway; 101 has to be kept open. But not all of them are Vigilantes-and it's also very unlikely that the next one you run into will be a rogue too."

  "I'm not reassured."

  I grinned. "You sound like me."

  "Huh?"

  "If you knew the statistics on the spiders' effectiveness, you'd be even less reassured."

  "They don't work?"

  I shrugged. "They do well enough." Then I added, "And they do have one real advantage.... "

  The kid glanced over at me curiously. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. You don't have to write letters to their families when you lose one."

  "Oh." He shut up and concentrated on his driving.

  The real problem was that the worms were already learning to avoid the spiders; and there was even a rumor that they had begun to set traps for the machines. Like elephant pits. I didn't know. There was a lot of material I wasn't cleared to see any more.

  "Hey," the kid asked suddenly. "Why'd you use limericks?"

  "Huh? Oh-" I was startled out of my thoughts. "It was the only thing I could think of," I admitted. "When I get bored, I write limericks."

  "You're kidding."

  "Nope."

  The kid pulled the Jeep onto the main road and headed us west toward US-101. "Tell me another."

  "Mm, okay-I'm still working on this one: There was a young fellow named Chuck-"

  The kid giggled in delight. Well, it was pretty obvious where it was going. "Go on," he said.

  "Who expressed a great fondness for duck. Whether gravied or roasted, pressed, sauced, or toasted-" I stopped.

  "Yeah? Yeah? Go on."

  I shook my head. "That's all there is to it, so far."

  "That's all?"

  I shrugged apologetically. "I couldn't think of a rhyme for the last line."

  "You're kidding!"

  "Yep."

  There was a young lady named Susie,

  Who everyone thought was a floozy.

  She liked boy scout troops

  and Shriners, in groups;

  "What the hell?" She replied. "I'm not choosy."

  2

  Mode: Day One

  "Jesus only told us half of it. The truth will set you free. But first it's going to piss you off."

  - SOLOMON SHORT

  The first day of the training was about commitment. I stepped into the room-and stopped to stare.

  I hadn't known what to expect, but this wasn't it.

  The room was very large and very empty. Larger than a college gymnasium. Only college gymnasiums don't have dark gray carpeting. The walls were pale gray. They were absolutely bare. They felt very far away.

  In the exact center of the space was a broad square dais. All four sides of the dais were faced by precision formations of chairs; they were divided exactly into two squares, eight rows deep, eight chairs to a row. The aisle between the squares was three chair wide. On the dais was a podium, a music stand, and a director chair.

  Hanging above the dais were four large screens, one facing each section of chairs. There were loudspeakers too.

  There was a person just inside the door. She was wearing featureless white jumpsuit and a blank expression. Her name tag said SEVEN. Without taking her eyes off me, she pointed at the chairs. "Take the front-most, center-most seat, please."

  "Uh, thank you." I moved slowly toward the chairs. I didn't like the looks of this.

  Another assistant was waiting for me halfway there. He was equally blank-faced. His name was FIFTEEN.

  "McCarthy?"

  "Yes?"

  "Take the front-most, center-most seat."

  "Uh, okay."

  "And don't talk to your neighbors."

  "Yes, sir."

  I found a place in the second row of the north-facing section of chairs and sat down. The sections were filling rapidly. I was between a major and a colonel. I looked around. I didn't see anyone below the rank of lieutenant.

  I noticed that some of the people filing into the room were carrying light brown jumpsuits. I wondered what that meant. Perhaps they weren't in a branch of the service. They were coming into the room from all four sides. Their expressions were . . . apprehensive. I wondered what mine looked like. This didn't seem like such a good idea any more. How many of us were there anyway?

  I craned my head to count the chairs. The rows were eerily precise; the blocks were absolutely and impeccably square. There were 64 chairs to a block. Two blocks to a side. 128 chairs times Wr sides of the square equals 512 chairs. The last of the chairs ere filling even as I watched. There were no empty chairs that I could see. 512 trainees.

  I stood up to look around. There were tables for the assistants placed strategically around the room, mostly along the walls, but there were also tables not too far behind the last row of chairs on each side of the formation. The people sitting behind the tables were expressionless. They too wore blank jumpsuits and numbered name tags. I sat down again, nervously.

  I shivered. It was cold in here.

  At the end of my row, two gray-haired colonels were talking quietly. Their expressions were sour. I didn't recognize either one of them, but it was obvious that they both had some reservations about being here. They were already trading their opinions. One of the assistants came up the row and stopped in front of them. She was as blank as all the others. She said, "Don't talk to your neighbors."

  "Why?" demanded one of the colonels.

  The assistant ignored the question and continued up the aisle. The colonel looked angry. She wasn't used to being ignored. She folded her arms in front of her chest and glared. She exchanged an annoyed look with her companion.

  My watch beeped. It was precisely 9 A.M.

  The Very Reverend Honorable Doctor Daniel Jeffrey Foreman, M.D., Ph.D. strode to the center of the room, stepped up onto the dais and began to look us over. He wore dark pants and a light gray sweater. His white hair floate
d around his head like a halo. His expression was sharp and steely. He turned slowly, checking us out individually and as a group. I had the sense that he was looking into every set of eyes in the room.

  When he finished, he looked to the back of the room and nodded. The screens above his head lit up. They showed a close-up of his face. "Good morning," he said. "Thank you for being here." He smiled as if he were about to tell a joke. "You can say good morning back, if you want to."

  There were a few mumbled responses, grunts that sounde vaguely like "G'mrmble." I didn't want to commit myself either. Foreman smiled to himself, as if he were the only one who had gotten the joke. He turned to us and said crisply, "All right. Let's go to work. The purpose of today's session is to create the context for the course. In your language, that means that today is about preparing you for the rest of the sessions. This is the orientation. Today, we will answer your questions." Almost as an aside, he added, "Tomorrow, we will begin to question your answers."

  "The first thing that we are going to do is make certain that you belong here. The results of this course will be your responsibility so it has to be your choice to be here. If there is something you need to know, don't sit on it-because while you're sitting there wondering, you're stuck. And while you're stuck, we can't go on! Raise your hand and ask. Don't leave the room not knowing. If you have a question, there are at least a dozen other people sitting on the same question, but afraid to ask. Do them a favor and ask, so we can all go on."

  Foreman stepped crisply to the left side of the dais to face the section of the room. The overhead screens cut to a new camara angle; they always showed him from the head-on angle.

  "When you are clear about the purpose of this course and your reasons for being here, then we will ask you to commit yourself to completing the course. That means that you will promise to be here on time for every session, for no other reason except that you have promised.

  "Therefore, you are going to have to look at your ability I make and keep a commitment.

  "If you choose not to make the commitment, you will have I opportunity to leave. That will be the only opportunity to leave. So before you make the choice to stay, you need to be absolutely clear that you are going to be here until the end of the course-or not at all. Everybody got that?"