The Seventh Son - Descent, page 33
swered by only one person. He’s six feet away from me, Stone. Just
beyond that door you’re guarding. Six feet, fourteen years, seven
sons. Please. Don’t be the man who denies me the right to ask
those questions.”
With a beeping sound and a gentle whoosh, the doors slid
open. Thomas looked up, past Stone, into the open doorway of
the living quarters.
Into the eyes of his father.
“Let him in,” Hugh Sheridan said, and disappeared back into
the dimness. Stone nodded.
Thomas stood up, dumbfounded. Stone hadn’t opened the
door. Thomas looked at the soldier, amazed. “I thought Kleinman
and Hill . . .”
“Nope,” Stone said. “The request came from Sheridan.”
Thomas stood for a moment, his mouth open in surprise— then
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he threw his head back and laughed. Of course Sheridan had
wanted to keep them away. You’re not my son, he had said. You just
think you are. It’s what you remember. . . . It’s too soon. Too soon.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Thomas asked.
Stone smirked. “You didn’t ask.”
Thomas looked into the soldier’s green eyes. “You were never
going to move. No matter what I said, you were never going to let
me in.”
“No. And you were never going to move, either.”
“No.”
Stone smiled. It looked out of place, there on his face.
“So we have two things in common,” Stone said. “We’re both
black belts, and truly stubborn bastards.”
Thomas laughed again.
“That thing in Oklahoma,” Stone said. “It was business, you
know. Nothing personal.”
The priest nodded, his smile fading. “I’m beginning to under-
stand that more and more.” He stepped into his dead father’s
home.
The doors whooshed shut behind him.
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n Los Angeles, Durbin was screaming. Screaming through
I what was left of his mouth.
Dr. Mike didn’t know when it had happened, but the
horror show unfolding before him didn’t lie. Durbin had been
shot in the face. A bullet— just one? surely more than that, surely
more— had blasted off the man’s lower jaw. Dr. Mike had seen it
happen. One second, Durbin was screaming at Dr. Mike and John
to run like hell for the glass- encased VIP lounge; there was cover
there, tables and couches, and hurry the fuck up . . . and an eye-
blink later, Durbin’s entire chin had exploded in a mist of bone
and blood.
It had taken another second for Durbin to realize something
was wrong. That moment played out in hyper- slow- motion for Dr.
Mike. Durbin’s head rocked from the impact. His eyebrows rose,
as if he were asking himself a question. The man had then looked
into Dr. Mike’s eyes . . . and the pain had taken hold.
Durbin screamed, was screaming now. Screaming without lips,
without a tongue. It was a hollow, rattling noise; a monstrous,
unfocused gurgle- roar.
Dr. Mike shrieked as another bullet blew out Durbin’s left eye.
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And then Durbin the asshole, Durbin the fuckwit, Durbin the
Ben Affleck look- alike who deserved much more than this, fell to
the catwalk floor and lay still.
A bullet droned past Dr. Mike’s head and exploded into the
wall behind him. The world quickly resumed in real time. He
leaped to the floor, next to Durbin’s body. It was sensory overload:
the strobe light and thunderclap of automatic gunfire, the wood
and steel fixtures here in Folie à Deux exploding from bullet im-
pacts. He spotted John’s face in the darkness. He was to Dr. Mike’s
left, also lying low, taking cover, way out of his element, trem-
bling like a leaf in a hurricane. Dr. Mike heard the screams of
other men, from below— from the ground floor. And from the
commlink in his right ear, his marine clone shouting orders to the
men.
“Above! Above!” Michael was screaming. “Two on the second
level! Two more at the skylight!”
Dr. Mike tilted his head up toward the skylight in the center
of the nightclub’s ceiling. What in the fuck is he talking about? he
thought frantically. I don’t see anyone up—
Guttural spurts of machine- gun fire suddenly flickered through
what was left of the skylight windows. Someone screamed below.
“Fuck!” a cry came from the commlink. “He got me! Can’t
see—”
Another explosion of gunfire sputtered from the skylight. The
voice on the commlink fell silent. But Dr. Mike still couldn’t see
the person up there firing the guns.
I should at least be able to spot something up there, he thought
frantically. At least the blast from the gunfire should give me some kind
of glimpse. But . . .
He glanced down at the PDA strapped to his wrist. The thermal
imager on his helmet was still set to night vision. He could see the
ceiling and the skylight in perfect detail, painted in liquid- crystal
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J . C . H U T C H I N S
shades of green. The screen erupted into a flash of bright green as
another volley of bullets was fired from the skylight. A dark gray
shape— barely visible, blending into the night sky— loomed over
the window. Dr. Mike reached to the imager on his helmet and
clicked the rubber button several times. The imager finally switched
to body- heat mode. The shape was still dark gray.
The fuck? How can—
“They’re shades,” a voice whispered. Dr. Mike looked to his
left. It was John. The man’s eyes were wide, manic.
“Do you see them?” Dr. Mike asked. “On your screen?”
“They’re shades,” John hissed. “Dev ils. Ghosts. We’re being
hunted by ghosts. ”
Dr. Mike shook his head. Goddamn civvy’s lost it. The wall be-
hind them exploded in puffs of plaster and wood. Splinters fell
around their faces. We can’t see them, but they can see us, he thought.
Whoever they are.
One of the 7th Son soldiers on the ground level fired up at the
skylight. What few panes of glass that were unbroken exploded as
the bullets zipped through them . . . then the entire frame of the
skylight suddenly sank inward and plummeted forty feet down,
smashing spectacularly into the center of the dance floor.
“Jesus!” Dr. Mike cried.
He stared at the wreckage in the dim light from the full moon
above. Parts of the metal frame flickered. Shimmered. He glanced
down at the screen on his wrist. Hues of orange and yellow were
popping in and out of the screen, like fireworks. Suddenly the
screen revealed the glowing thermalized shape of a man. Mike
looked from the LCD to the floor. A man, dressed in a skintight
black suit, lay dead in the center of the crumpled skylight frame.
His face was covered in a spandexlike ski mask and goggles. A
box- shaped backpack smoked behind his shoulders.
“Shit, that’s what I thought,” said a voice over the commlink. It
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was the marine, Michael. “They’re wearing light- and heat- protective
camouflage. Vaporwear.”
“How do you know?” said another voice. Maybe Lockwood’s.
“Because I was one of the soldiers who test—”
But Dr. Mike didn’t hear the rest of the transmission. Someone
had yanked the commlink from his ear.
It was probably the same person who was now pushing a gun
barrel into his cheekbone.
John tried to stop shaking, but his body had checked out, stopped
listening to the commands his brain was transmitting.
Calm down. Calm down.
It wasn’t helping. Just seconds ago, one of the shades— they’re
men, just men; look at the dead man on the dance floor, that’s what they
all are, just men wearing special camouflage— had pulled John off the
floor. The man’s gun dug into the side of the clone’s face.
A second shade had done the same to Dr. Mike and had taken
his commlink. The two clones were hauled over to what was once,
in a former life, a movie- house balcony. Now it was a dusty VIP
lounge, and just outside the doors of the glass- encased room, the
shades shoved John and Dr. Mike toward the balcony railing.
It was strange, being handled by these things. Even here, up
close, John couldn’t see their faces and could barely make out
their shapes. The Vaporwear really did make these men nearly in-
visible. A subtle distortion of the surroundings was the only give-
away. John’s mind flitted briefly to Star Trek reruns, Romulans and
cloaking devices. Vaporwear was clearly a cloaking device for a
person. But nothing could hide the odor of these men— they
reeked of filth and booze.
Why would soldiers smell like this? It doesn’t make sen—
The shades shoved John and Dr. Mike even closer to the bal-
cony railing. The expanse of the club lay below them, the mam-
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J . C . H U T C H I N S
moth silver statue glimmered directly ahead. John spotted several
bodies in the moonlight.
Christ, how many of us are left?
John felt the barrel of a pistol gnaw into the base of his skull.
One of the shades behind him screamed over the sporadic gun-
fire. “Anyone moves, anyone fires another shot— and they die. Any-
one tries to call for backup or transportation— and they die. There
are two of us up here. There’s another watching from the skylight.
The angles are covered well enough. Try anything . . . anything . . .
and their pretty freak faces go bye- bye.”
Silence. Somewhere, a splintered chunk of metal clanged to
the floor.
From below, Michael’s voice: “What do you want?”
The shade behind John laughed. “To give you a message. A mes-
sage from John Alpha. But to hear it, you have to come out. And
not just you, marine. All of you. Come out. Come out!” A chuckle,
then a whisper: “Wherever you are.”
John squinted past the statue, to the dance floor. Nothing.
Finally, Michael’s voice boomed from the shadows. “I have
wounded down here. Some of them aren’t going to make it. They
need a doctor.”
“We’ve got one up here, faggot— though it’s not the kind you
need,” the shade behind John cried. The clone flinched as the gun
pressed harder into his neck. “Play cowboy, now. Round up your
tin soldiers and bring them out here in the open. We know where
you’re hiding— we can see you. Can you see us? Can you see us
well enough to risk taking a shot when these freaks here are
standing so close? Come out, homo, and bring your wounded.”
More silence. John felt a bead of sweat slide down his nose.
“We can’t trust you,” Michael called.
“Of course you can’t,” the first shade, who stood behind Dr.
Mike, replied. “To wit.”
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Dr. Mike’s right biceps exploded in a shower of blood. The
gunshot was almost deafening at this range.
“FUCK!” Dr. Mike howled. “He shot me! I’m fucking—”
“Shut up!” the shade bellowed. “Don’t you fuckin’ fall down,
Doc. You stand right there, stand straight. Shut your face and lis-
ten. That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? Listening to killers? Writing
about killers? Take notes, pretty boy.”
Dr. Mike clutched his arm now; blood oozed between his fin-
gers, soaking his combat jacket. He breathed heavily between
clenched teeth . . . but he did not fall. And did not speak.
“Blame the cowards!” the shade cried into the darkness. John
could smell the alcohol on the man’s breath. It was nauseating.
“Blame the gutless ones who won’t do as they’re told! You’re good
at following orders, marine, so why aren’t you doing it now? I
need not remind you that the next bullet is going into someone’s
cerebellum. And wouldn’t that be a shame, all those shared child-
hood moments spraying onto the floor?”
In the low light streaming from the hole in the ceiling, John
spotted movement from below. Michael stepped out of the shad-
ows, from behind Folie à Deux’s smashed, shattered DJ booth. He
was covered in dust and grime. He held a XM8 machine gun in
each hand.
“Good dog,” the shade behind John said. “Drop the guns. Or-
der the other mice to come out of their holes.”
Michael tossed his weapons and made a quick motion with his
hands. Slowly, the rest of the squad emerged from their positions.
They, too, threw their guns to the floor. Of the eleven soldiers who
had flown here with the clones, only five were now alive.
“So.” Michael looked up at John, then past him. “We’ve made
one enormous leap of faith with you punks.”
Faith, John thought. We all need a little more of that right now.
The gun barrel dug into his neck again.
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“Aw, you’re all almost ready for big- boy pants,” the first shade
said. “So here we are. Three clones, five soldiers who have a hard-
on for suicide missions, and us. Us. Three men who have your
lives in our hands. Amazing, how so many can be cut down by so
few.”
“Picking off the enemy is much easier when you’re invisible,”
Michael called. “Who are you people? Where’d you get that gear?”
The second shade chuckled from behind John. “When your
employer has a connection with DARPA, there’s plenty to bor-
row.”
From the dance floor, Michael considered this. “DARPA. That’s
what I thought. The suits work a lot better than when I tested the
prototypes a year ago. You know, you’re giving away an awful
lot— how many men you have here, where you got your duds, tid-
bits about who’s funding you. Sloppy.”
“True. But are we giving away an awful lot . . . or are we spoon-
feeding you hints?” the first shade said. “Am I feebleminded, or
are we playing a game? I’m mum on the subject. And speaking of
Mum, let’s talk about her.”
“That’s why we came here,” Michael said.
“Wrong,” the shade snapped. “You’re here because you followed
the bread crumbs. You worked from a supposition that John Alpha
kidnapped your so- called mother and that you’d find her here and
save her. But, as I’m sure you discussed at some point, you had no
proof of any of those things. You made, as you just said, a leap of
faith. Here’s another possibility: you may be here simply because
Alpha wanted an eco nom ical way to murder you. Perhaps the fail-
ure of to night’s mission isn’t that you didn’t find your mother, but
that we didn’t get to kill all seven clones at once.”
“That’s bullshit,” Dr. Mike said from beside John. Sweat was
dripping from his face. “If you wanted us dead, you could’ve killed
us weeks ago. Years ago.”
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The first shade whipped his gun into the back of Dr. Mike’s
helmet. The clone nearly collapsed from the impact.
“Keep quiet!” the shade barked. “Unless you want to eat an-
other bullet.”
“No, he’s right,” Michael called from below. “This isn’t about
bringing us together to kill us all. It’s about playing the game. He’s
testing us.”
“You’re smarter than you look, faggot,” the second shade said.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that. That’s my business,
and my business ain’t the business we’re here to discuss. Is our
mother alive?”
“She is.”
“Is she in this building?”
