Cold War 2395, page 22
“R Company,” Captain barks from atop the snake, “form up.”
McGregor and Cap team up to lift each of us onto the robot’s body. Once everyone’s off the ground, Grimm gives the game plan.
“Delta Squad”—what’s left of it, anyway—“half of you stay here and guard the perimeter. Enemy forces will be swarming the remaining chokepoints, so handle them. Fall back only once you’re out of ammo.” Captain then looks at McGregor. “Sergeant, you and the other half are coming with me.”
After McGregor assigns units to the handful of Marines left in Delta Squad, those not designated posts along the giant snake barricade follow Grimm and me forward.
We slip over the inside edge of the big bot and land smack-dab in front of the tower’s main entrance. McGregor punches a hole in the barricaded doors, then rips it apart until it’s wide enough for us to filter through. As we enter the breach, some grunts from Delta mumble about Beecher, wondering what he’s up to. I catch two whispering about whether the Lieutenant’s gone rogue, pointing fingers at our scowling Captain Grimm. I bite my tongue hard and refrain from slapping the disrespect right out of those Marines’ rosy red cheeks. The only reason we were able to climb over the snake and make it as far as we have is because said robot wasn’t alive to squash our little meat sacks. But no one else seems to have a shred of gratitude for the guy who saved our hides. Even if my fellow soldiers are just frazzled and paranoid from all the bizarre traps and casualties we’ve suffered, that’s no excuse for punk talk.
To maintain control of my slapping hand, I distract myself with the sight of the Spire’s massive lobby, which I’m now deep inside of. It’s huge, and pretty damn fancy. There’s all the standard foyer stuff, like rows of big, comfy lounge chairs that I wish I could take a nap in right now, long desks, coffee tables with those dumb little vases filled with pebbles—nothing overtly communist. But just a bit beyond that is the room’s main decor, and it reeks of the enemy’s pride. Giant paintings of Russian presidents and oligarchs line the walls surrounding every stairwell, and holographic displays on the ceiling project looping footage of the Russian military right over our heads. Needless to say, it’s not the footage I would use; my choices would include slow-motion replays of all the Russkies we’ve blown up on our way here. Actually, speaking of Russkies . . . where are they? I haven’t seen a human enemy in a while.
With no immediate threats in sight, the fatigued R Company drops its guard a bit. Grimm circles the lobby’s main seating area, teasing me with the sight of its soft, cushiony chairs, but pulls the rug out just as I’m about to sink into one and rest my tired, aching body.
“Stand, Lieutenant,” he barks, still managing to make me jump a little even though my fatigued brain barely registers his order.
Everything in here is a cold, cruel shade of blue thanks to the light shining through the tower’s glass walls, and Captain’s eyes are giving off the exact same vibe. The long shadows eating up the room smack across his face, making that frown of his twice as pronounced. All right, Cap, I won’t sit down for a damn second . . . yeesh.
“Delta Two.” He turns his attention to McGregor’s remaining troops. “You station here. Prep a blockade for when Delta One falls back.” He looks each of the Marines in the eyes. “And let there be no doubt. Delta One will fall back.”
He slides his visor down and turns away from the pack. With a hand gesture, he ushers me forward to join him. When I come up alongside him, he pauses.
“Sergeant,” he says, looking over his shoulder at McGregor, “if you don’t hear from me in an hour, abandon your post and come find us at the top of the tower. Bring Delta.”
The sergeant nods, giving us the all-clear to abandon Delta Squad. As we march up the lobby’s main staircase toward the second floor, Grimm lays out his plan.
“We have a little over sixty minutes left on the clock. I’m picking up broadcast frequencies on the floor above us,” he says, analyzing his HUD from behind his visor’s glowing eye lenses. “It looks like they originate from a communications terminal on the next floor. We’ll check there first for anything useful and see if we can get word to Lieutenant Beecher, since he’s ahead of us.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then we take the first working elevator we find and stop the wipe ourselves.”
“Can’t you see his exothermic signature?” I ask, struggling to keep up with Grimm. God, my legs are fucking killing me. I hope nothing’s broken.
“Negative, my outbound pings are jammed in here. We’re on our own.”
“Why aren’t we bringing Delta for backup—”
“What?” The captain’s voice is filled with annoyance; he’s clearly preoccupied with tracking broadcast frequencies and guiding us through the second floor’s maze of hallways. But busy or otherwise, I want answers.
“I mean, why did you only bring me?”
We arrive at a locked maintenance hatch. Grimm promptly busts the bolts off of it and rips it open, revealing a ladder.
“Because our mission is sensitive, and you—we, rather—may need to help Beecher,” Grimm replies, climbing inside the opening.
“Help him with what?” I slide down the short ladder after Grimm, landing beside him in a hallway that looks pretty disconnected from the main route.
“Remembering the mission,” Captain says, his tone unreadable.
We march down the path until we arrive at a locked door covered in yellow tape. I get the impression the Russian characters on the piss-colored warning label spell out something along the lines of “authorized commies only,” but Captain doesn’t care. He gives the door one good ACA-powered kick and sends it flying off its hinges.
As we step inside, Grimm gives the room a scan with his helmet. After a few sweeps, he spots something amidst a stack of computers and walks over to it. He tinkers with a few panels, revealing a touchpad.
“Found something good?” I ask, shuffling over to his position.
“Maybe. Hacking in now.” He scans the pad until his helmet emits a low beep. Then he inputs a few codes, and presto, a speaker module affixed to a foam cube unfolds from one of the wire-covered cases in the wall facing us. It looks like exactly the kind of thing most modern office buildings use for PA systems. If I’m right, we should be able to reach Beecher easy-peasy.
But Grimm doesn’t pay attention to it. Instead, he focuses on the touchpad, inputting more codes until a little chip slides out of a neighboring computer tower.
“Want me to call Beecher?” I ask.
“No, hold in place.” He pops the chip out of its slot and holds it against his helmet, downloading its info.
Man, I really wish I still had my ACA. I feel naked.
A few seconds later, Grimm finishes copying the chip’s intel and slips it into a small storage compartment on his suit. He walks directly past the speaker module, heading in the direction of the maintenance hallway and ladder.
“Got a map file. We’re close to a set of executive-level elevators that’ll bring us straight to the top where the control center is. Closest way is to go two floors up then cut through the data archive hall; the elevators are on the far side of that room. Let’s go.”
I hold in place. “What about a transmission to Beecher?”
“No longer necessary,” Grimm responds, beckoning for me to follow.
My mind tells me I should shut up and follow the leader, but my gut doesn’t feel good about what’s going on. “But Captain, he’s ahead of us—what if he can do something right now? What if something goes wrong and we don’t make it in time?”
He stops moving. Even with the captain’s face hidden behind his visor, I sense his mood shift, and maybe I’m imagining it, but it feels like the room gets colder. Grimm doesn’t say a word. He just tilts his head to the side a bit and looks at me for a good long second.
“Is James Beecher a good Marine, Lieutenant?” he asks after a beat.
I feel his gaze watching me—reading me.
“Best man I ever worked with, Captain.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he replies, his tone souring as he looks me over one more time. “Change of plans.”
He marches back over to where I’m standing and hits the speaker module’s broadcast button. “Lieutenant Beecher, I know you’re in here with us. I’m ordering you to return to the ground floor.” He puts some extra emphasis on his next words. “It’s urgent, and concerns Lieutenant Gourd.” He stops broadcasting and marches back to the room’s entrance.
What was that about? What concerns me?
I hustle after Grimm as fast as my legs will allow, trying to keep up as he makes his way down the hall toward the maintenance ladder.
“Cap, what on Earth-009 are you getting at? If I need to answer for something, I’ll do it myself—”
“We don’t have time,” he says, beginning his climb back to the second floor.
“Excuse me, Captain, but you just used my name to—”
“I know what I did. Do I have your loyalty, Lieutenant?” He pauses to look down at me.
“That’s not what I meant, Cap—”
“I said, do I have your loyalty?”
I lock up for a second.
“. . . Yes, sir.”
“Then you’ll do your job by trusting me to do mine.”
We climb the ladder in silence. When we reach the floor, Grimm turns to me, raising his visor so I can see his face. He’s scowling, but I don’t think his anger is meant for me. At least, I hope it’s not.
“Lieutenant, James Beecher disobeyed a direct order, and I have no way of knowing where he is or what he’s up to. I’m doing what must be done to uphold the mission.”
Given how many years the guy has worked with him, I have a hard time believing Captain has so little trust in Beecher—probably the best lieutenant he’s ever had. Besides me, of course. Anyway, it’s not like Captain to be so . . . jumpy. Something’s definitely off. But now isn’t the time to question it.
“I understand.” The lie tastes bitter. The last time I told a serious untruth to my commanding officer . . . well, I can’t even remember it happening. Maybe it never has.
“Good. We’re not far from the data archive hall, so let’s move.”
We hustle up the next two floors and the scenery changes. The higher we go, the more elaborate the architecture becomes and the bigger the rooms grow. The current area is so tall it’s supported by columns, and I have to squint to see the ceiling. And while the first floors were loaded with office-typical overpriced-coffee-table bullshit, it looks like the dark matter’s influence is what dominates the style choices of the current turf. Take, for example, the shit I’m walking past right now. Gone are the tacky, probably counterfeit paintings from ground level; up here, my flanks are lined with towering sculptures of naked men and women, and something does not feel right about them. It looks like they’re made of black marble or some other kind of rock, but . . . I wonder . . .
I reach for the foot of one of the statues and instantly realize it’s not made out of anything I’ve ever seen before. It goes from frozen statue to animated automaton the second my hand gets close. The other sculptures come to life as well, leaping up and around the columns, defying gravity as they jump toward the ceiling like zero-G ballet dancers, repeating little performances for us. Though I’m too confused to do anything, Grimm’s still sharp as ever and draws his rifle, aiming down its sights at the statues bouncing around overhead, waiting for them to spring a surprise attack.
The attack never comes, and eventually both Cap and I calm down enough to keep moving forward once it’s clear we’re not being ambushed. No time to fret over distractions, after all; especially since living mannequin-things aren’t the only decorations on display here. There are also more of those weird flowers we saw an hour or two ago, the ones that change shape and color. No doubt they’re synthetic . . . but, even so, maybe I could give one of them a sniff. I lean in, hoping the Reds programmed these things to smell like lilacs—
Oof, Jesus, that’s awful. Is . . . is that what the fuel smells like when it’s turned into mulch?
“Quit fucking around,” Grimm says a few yards up ahead.
I do as I’m told and get a move on, but just as I’m about to catch up to him, I pause again, spooked by the living sculptures scurrying down their columns and plucking petals from our overdesigned walkway’s decorative flowers. Then, perfectly synchronized, they run up to the ceiling. They smear the petals above Grimm and me, painting the image of a flag—surprise, the Russian flag. Then all the sculptures, standing upside down on the ceiling, look down at us and start singing some creepy rendition of the Russian national anthem. At least, I think that’s what it is. Just as I start to really listen to the melody, the voices stop. I blink, and all the dark matter flowers have regrown their plucked petals, the flag painting has dissolved into the ceiling, and the animated sculptures have started their whole routine from scratch.
I really don’t like it here. I don’t know if it’s the eerie lighting or ultra-creepy decorations or a mixture of the two; I just know that everything here looks, smells, and sounds like a nightmare I once had. It gives me the heebie-fuckin’-jeebies, and I want out.
“How close are we, Captain?” I ask, silently praying to God we’re almost out of the hall from hell.
“We’re standing on the entrance walkway to the data archives; we’re close.”
He’s right. Just a few short flights of stairs later we find ourselves in front of a door too tall and important-looking to not be what Grimm’s been leading us to. As we get close, the door slides open automatically, revealing the archives within.
The room is so huge that it stretches from one side of the tower to the other. On one side, we’re backlit by the black light coming from the front of the station. On the other, I see the rest of the Red Peril, including all the areas we’ve made it through. What a great view of bad shit.
“I need a minute,” Grimm says, walking to the rows of holo-book racks beside us.
There are dozens of them, each stretching up toward a ceiling so high and drenched in darkness I can’t even see what it looks like—it’s just a speck somewhere hundreds of feet above me, up near where Beecher must be.
Fuckin’ Beecher. I peer out the Spire’s wall at the colony and all the hell he and I have endured to get here . . .
A day ago, he dug me out of a ditch I didn’t think anyone would help me out of, let alone could. And just a few hours ago, he did it again, hauling my sorry ass out of a grave I thought I’d be buried alive in. Hell, from where I’m standing right now, I can see the very ruins where he put his life on the line to save me. Every inch of the way through our journey he’s been by my side, kicking ass and taking names. And now, at the eleventh hour, he’s ditched me and everyone else.
Back in the shuttle, he made a big deal of saying that sometimes, in order to see the bigger picture, I have to see the smaller one. And I think I see it now: our military is only as good as the people who are a part of it, and it’s the ones like Beecher who help make the universe a safer place.
So no matter what the guys below say, or even what Grimm thinks, I trust Beecher. I trust him more than anyone else in R Company. I just hope he knows what the hell he’s doing up there, because time’s running out.
I turn away from the window, from all the fires and smoke rising across the miles of land we traveled to get here, and return my focus to Grimm. Is he ready to go yet? Does he just wanna stand around in the archive all day reading data, or does he want to get a move on and actually save it?
I move to approach him, but stop dead in my tracks as he finally lifts his head from a holo-book screen and speaks for the first time in minutes.
“Damn it!” Grimm shouts, throwing his holo-book’s palm-sized text projector onto the floor before tapping the shelf for another book. A new one slides down into his palm and he starts reading, until he freaks out and throws that one away, too. The hell is his problem?
Grimm yanks a third off the shelf and scrolls through its digital pages, all of them loaded with random numbers, letters, and a whole slew of other shit I can’t make heads or tails of. I don’t understand what he’s reading, but it’s clear that the results of Captain’s little literary detour don’t make him a happy camper. He tosses the latest tiny projector over his shoulder, and it slides across the floor toward me. As it inches closer, its text disappears. By the time it reaches my feet, not a word is left inside the digital frame. Oh no.
Grimm keeps ripping holo-books off the shelves, scrolling through them as fast as he can, recording the texts with his helmet’s scanner as he goes. But the words disappear too fast for him to keep up. He throws another holo-book in rage, and then another, and another.
“They’re still wiping!”
He slams an armored fist into the rack in front of him. It dents the structure, bending its metals and knocking projectors off the shelves. The rack starts to curve in response to the hit, slowly but visibly caving in on itself.
“He’s letting it happen.” Grimm’s tone is a bit too venomous for my liking. I know who he’s talking about, and he’s wrong. He has to be.
“You don’t know what’s happening to him up there,” I fire back, cutting myself off the second I realize my reflexive blabbing just put me on the wrong side of Captain’s mood.
“And you do, Lieutenant? Are you in on it?” he demands, raising his visor and stepping toward me.
“I ain’t in on anything, Cap!” I protest, fighting every safety instinct in my body in order to stand my ground against the pissed-off CO in power armor. “You said the elevators are on the other side of the hall; let’s stop arguing and get going!”
Grimm freezes. His eyes stay glued to my face.
“Why’d we even hang around here? Why didn’t we just keep moving?” I ask, desperate to understand where the hell Grimm’s coming from.
“I . . . wanted to be proven wrong.” He turns away from me. “I’ll go on ahead. You stay here.”
“But—”
“That’s an order.”
