The Last Photograph
by Wrestlr
14.
Our gear that day was pants and boots, nothing else. That made sense later, when I sat up in the chair with a head-full of advanced programming about hand-to-hand combat.
I drilled them hard that day on hand-to-hand. I think the other Soldiers loved the rough-and-tumble shit like that, the pure testosterone and adrenaline rush, but it was hard to tell with the active mode suppressing their personalities. They were bruised black and blue by nightfall, but they’d become familiar enough with the implanted memories to kick the asses of anybody short of a ninja squad—and even against them I thought they could hold their own. Hell, I was bruised too, ‘cause they’d held their own against me and most had given as well as they got.
I was already sore when I bedded down for the night. Seems I’d just closed my eyes when—
“Get up.”
Mick. Great.
“No time to shower. You got two minutes to piss and get dressed.”
I blinked, waking up. Morning already? My body was almost immobile with stiffness from yesterday’s nonstop drilling in physical combat. The other Soldiers groaned their way back to painful wakefulness too. Soon enough, the haloes would kick in and active mode would take away the pain. Until then, our haloes still seemed to be in standby mode and they’d just have to deal with the aches.
Mick stood above me. “Get dressed,” he repeated as I sat up. He dropped a bundle in front of me.
We were deviating from the routine—no shower-and-shave. We Soldiers double-timed into the head to piss, since our bladders were about to bust.
Mick was wearing civilian clothes, tee-shirt, jeans, serviceable multi-purpose boots that wasn’t military. I hadn’t seen him or anyone wearing civilian clothes in a while. That’s what he dropped in front of me too: civilian clothes. I picked up something, a pair of jeans, and tried to wrap my sleep-addled head around where I’d seen them previously. The pair was one of mine. I used to wear them all the time, back before ... Before when?
I worked out how to pull the jeans on and did so. No underwear—wasn’t there supposed to be underwear? A pair of beat-up multi-purpose boots, also mine, that I remembered I used to love, a hundred lifetimes ago when I used to wear civilian clothes. Why weren’t they issuing us the boots they usually gave us?
The tee-shirt was new. It was not mine. Black. Like Mick’s, it said Security across the front in white block letters. That seemed odd—security was a job for the guards, not us Soldiers.
We stood before Mick. He inspected me with his eyes, pursed lips, evaluating. All he said was, “Come on.”
Another deviation—the haloes had not kicked into active mode yet.
Outside. Mick led me outside. Sunshine, clouds, trees, birds, the works. I wasn’t in the active mode mission head-space. I hadn’t been outside as me in forever. The other Soldiers looked at me. I could see the questions in their eyes, but they followed my lead and kept their faces carefully expressionless.
“You’ve been rented for a job. The Leader thinks you’re ready, and what he says goes. I’ll be watching you. Got that?”
“Got it,” I said, then added, “sir,” because respect seemed appropriate.
He led us to a transport helicopter. Pedro was there too, and he was wearing civilian clothing with Security emblazoned across his tee-shirt too. He nodded, busy conversing with a guy in a jumpsuit. Our pilot, I assumed. I returned Pedro’s nod, as if last night hadn’t happened.
No breakfast? No chair programming? And still the haloes were in standby mode? No group mind? I had a thousand questions, but I kept my mouth shut, kept myself and the other Soldiers out of everyone’s way, and tried to be as inconspicuous as I could, which isn’t easy when you’re as tall, wide-shouldered, and generally imposing as I am.
We climbed into the helicopter and strapped ourselves in.
Mick said to me, “Don’t bother trying to memorize landmarks or plan escape routes.” He pulled out the controller and poked a few buttons. I expected active mode and a mission download, but the halo whispered Sleep mode. I closed my eyes and slept.
A couple of hours later, and I knew it was a couple of hours by the position of the sun, our haloes whispered Standby mode into our heads and we woke up. We were landing at a small airport. We boarded a waiting plane. A private jet. If these people had the resources to swing the complex and all this head-tech, it made sense they could swing a transport helicopter and a private jet.
Mick parked himself in a chair, picked up some magazine, and said, “Restroom’s in the rear.” The Soldiers and I staggered back there because our bladders were about at full capacity.
Angel and I crowded the mini-toilet and emptied our piss. When I pushed out and made way for the next one, I picked up a magazine in the pouch behind the door. Nice of them to provide “reading material” for the john, but the magazine was dated September two years ago. I’d get no useful information from it, not even confirmation of what Paul had said about how long I—we—had been held prisoner.
Something crinkled in my back pocket. I pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it. It was that photo of Paul and his friends, creased and the worse for wear, but he was still recognizable. The Paul I’d met two days ago was someone I didn’t know. But here on this piece of paper, smiling at me from the printed photo, he was the same carefree kid I sometimes remembered. No matter what, I had to stay in our handlers’ good graces so I could see him again.
Back in the cabin, the photo safely stashed again, I took my seat. “This job is part security and part recruitment,” Mick said without looking up from an old news magazine. “Your part is to provide the security. Step out of line just once, and I’ll shut down your heads faster’n you can blink. Got that?”
I answered on behalf of all of us Soldiers: “Yes, sir.” Then, because the questions were nagging at me, I said, “But what—?”
“Always with the questions.” Mick interrupted, rolled his eyes. “I still think you’re not ready for clear-head field assignments. I just told you your job. If it’s not your job, you don’t need to know.”
I kept my mouth shut after that. The other Soldiers followed my example.
“Good. Make yourselves comfortable. It’s going to be a long flight.”
We landed in a major city in the United States. Customs? We bypassed that. These people must have some serious pull. We piled into a carefully nondescript mini-van—“Inconspicuous,” Mick said—and were driven to a convention center. Mick seemed to get progressively nervous, worrying we weren’t ready for a clear-head assignment. As we pulled up to the center, he appeared to make a decision. “Screw it,” he muttered. “We’re doing it my way.” Mick kicked us into active mode as the van pulled up to the curb.
A controversial techno-geek type of apparently some renown, even though his name was unfamiliar to me, was giving a presentation at some conference of big-shot techno-geek types. The controversial one was a prime target. Trouble was expected; threats had been made, an attempt was expected, and the Leader wanted us there to take advantage of the chaos. Our handlers didn’t say how, though. Mick and the other Soldiers would be working general security, but Pedro and I were assigned to work with another agent on the ground as the Techno-Geek Prime’s personal bodyguards and security force. If anything got in the way, we were to take it down.
The “recruitment” part Mick had mentioned on the plane was not explained.
When we got out, the embedded agent met us and looked us over. He seemed impressed. Here where other people were milling about, Mick’s Russian accent was back. If anybody remembered him, they’d say, “It was the Russian security guard.” Great ruse.
I kept my ears open, and I managed to put some pieces together. Techno-Geek Prime worked on a “mind-machine interface,” whatever that was. Tests on animals and prisoners had been promising. Animal rights activists and prisoner rights activists hated him. They found themselves in an uneasy alliance with a bunch of hippies, humanists, and Luddite fringe groups who disliked the technology on “free will” grounds. Prime’s research seemed to have united the whacko element. His fellow geeks were just as rabidly whacko, but in the opposite way; they practically worshipped this guy, like he was going to save the world or something by “ushering in the next phase of human and technological evolution.” Maybe he was. I didn’t care. I stayed focused on getting the job done so I could earn more trust from our handlers.
The embedded agent was Prime’s personal bodyguard and had his trust. He introduced Pedro and me as, “Those buddies I told you about, the ones I served with in the war,” even though he’d never met us—well, me at least—until twenty minutes earlier. Techno-Geek Prime seemed relieved to have us there. With the three of us guards forming a wedge and Prime tucked safely in the middle, we pushed our way through a pack of people who either wanted to touch Prime’s holy vestments or tear him limb from limb. I didn’t much give a shit what they wanted. My job was to keep them away from him, and that’s what I did.
Techno-Geek Prime lived up to his name. His presentation would have gone—Whoosh!—over my head about five seconds after he opened his mouth if I’d been listening to him. Something about a new thought broadcasting technology he had invented. I wondered briefly if the Leader would be interested in that, but that was a distraction. Distractions caused failures. I went mission-focused and sifted through the perceptions I shared with the other Soldiers, looking for threats in the crowd and surrounding area. I could tell who his fans where. They were the ones watching his presentation like it was God Himself handing them the meaning of life. I could tell who his detractors were too. They were the ones hissing about mind control and free will, booing, staring at his presentation like it was the ultimate horror film. I didn’t care, as long as they stayed in their seats and didn’t make threats of themselves. One or two tried to rush the stage, but the general security types handled them before they got close enough to be my problem.
Time to hustle Techno-Geek Prime out the back. The hall led maybe one hundred feet along the side of the convention center, and the wall to our left was fifteen feet tall and all glass. Would have been really scenic too, except for, first, the five hippy-type people coming our way from the other side of the hall and, second, the squad of four paramilitary-types rappelling down from the roof and trying to smash their way through the glass.
In the movies, it’s always ultimate stealth ninjas bursting in. This crew?—Not so much on the stealth or the ninja part. The hippy-types in front of us were more like a bunch of mountain-climbing, tree-hugging civilians who somehow got past security and wanted to make a capital-B Big Splash statement for the media. Except there were no media people around—just Prime and his three body guards. I assessed them as a nuisance but not a threat.
Paramilitary types rappelling in always click high on the threat meter. Rappelling down and smashing through fifteen-foot windows is harder than you think. In movies, the window explodes into tiny shards the moment the ninjas kick it. In real life, reinforced glass means most people bounce off. Two or three times, too. Apparently their mission briefing had not included information about the reinforced glass. Finally, one guy who had to be pushing two-seventy pounds, and not all of it muscle either, pulled out a sidearm and fired three shots, and the pane in front of him dissolved into shrapnel. That was noisy, but the screams from the hippy-types were nearly as loud. Paramilitary tubbo managed a not-ungraceful landing inside, considering his size. His friends bounced their way over to the hole he created, which was probably smart.
One of the hippies yelled, “Fuck! I cut my fucking hand!” Well, that’s what shattered glass does in the real world, you big baby.
All the drama wasn’t wasted on Prime, who collapsed against the far wall, the one that wasn’t glass, squealing like the hordes of hell were upon him.
One of the hippies, a woman, tried to seize the moment and started reading a prepared speech. This was useless, since obviously Prime and us bodyguards weren’t members of the media with television cameras handy and the four paramilitary types obviously weren’t stopping to hear what she had to say. She yammered that her hippy-dippy group was kidnapping Prime to make a public statement and would release him unharmed once the world realized blah-blah-blah. That kidnapping part jumped her up to a full threat in my mind. Prime may have converted to a squealing lump of cowardice, but if my mission was to be his bodyguard then no one was taking that squealing lump on my watch.
The professionals though were still the bigger threat. Two steps and I intercepted the first oncoming ninja-wannabe professional. I assessed them as a paramilitary fringe group, trained, but not military-trained. Apparently they thought this would be as easy as just rushing past the security guards, grabbing Techno-Geek Prime, and zipping him off to wherever. They had the intel to know when we were in the hallway, but they hadn’t planned on the distraction of speechifying hippies intent on hijacking the moment for their own fifteen minutes of self-righteous fame. One of the hippies tried to rush over to Prime, and Professional number one got distracted by the competition. A quick elbow to the face and a blow to the back of the neck, and Professional went down hard and stayed down.
That’s when the six Soldiers arrived through the door behind me. They’d known the minute this started because they saw what I saw through the group-mind connection.
The hippies had delayed the schedule too long. The professionals weren’t expecting to be out-numbered. Two more steps and I was on the next one, the tubby one with the gun. I was faster and taller, which gave me a longer reach. He managed to squeeze off a round, which missed me but caused the hippies and Prime to harmonize on another round of screaming and floor-hugging. Professional number two threw up his arms to guard his face. I slugged him hard in his stomach. He bent forward. I grabbed his head and smashed it against my upcoming knee at a high rate of speed. Number two was unconscious and no longer a problem.
Two Soldiers took care of Professional number three. The embedded guard and Pedro stayed with Prime, though they weren’t trying to shut up his wailing. That would probably be a lost cause anyway.
The gunfire had another side effect: All of the hippies had decided to run—except for the speechifying woman. She wasn’t smart enough to run, even though she saw me coming. She tried to defend herself. She had some self-defense training, but I was still the mad dog that Special Forces made me. I have no problem hitting a woman when she’s the enemy. It was a short fight, and she went down and stayed down.
Two Soldiers were fighting with the last professional, a strong combatant who was nonetheless yielding ground and about to be overpowered. Otherwise it was just us guards and Techno-Geek Prime left standing. Well, cowering in his case.
“I want him conscious,” Pedro yelled at the Soldiers on the last professional. “I want to know who sent him.”
“Don’t worry,” the embedded guard was telling Prime. “It’ll be all right soon, you’ll see.” Then he sprayed Prime in the face with one of those mist bottles, and Prime shut the hell up—finally!—and went limp. The guard looked at Soldier Justin and me and said, “You two—one of you carry him.”
I heard something thump against the floor. The three-man fight with the last professional had degenerated into a rolling brawl on the floor.
Mick arrived and surveyed the scene. He raised an eyebrow at the hippy woman on the floor. “Some fringe group, looking to make a big statement for the media,” the guard explained as Justin hoisted Prime into a fireman’s carry. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Fuck you! We’re ready for you and your tech!” the last professional was yelling. He’d broken free, gotten to his feet, and had backed himself against one of the unbroken glass panes. He waved something in his hand that looked like a silver ink pen. Pedro and four of the Soldiers moved in. This wouldn’t take long.
Then I heard a ping in my head and the world went all whirly. The halo vomited a bunch of indecipherable shit into my skull, and I went down. Angel and three other Soldiers went dark, suddenly no longer part of the group-mind.
I pushed myself off the floor. Justin and I were farthest away from the professional—we were down but conscious. The other four Soldiers were down and unconscious. Pedro wrestled with the professional’s hand, the one holding the silver thingee.
“Weee-ehm-feeee!” Mick yelled, nearly indecipherable to my compromised hearing. I couldn’t focus through all the halo-vomit streaming into my head along with the flickering on-off connection to Justin. He looked at me and his eyes weren’t mission-focused. They were scared, nearly pain-blind.
E.M.P. That’s what Mick had said. The professional had used an electromagnetic pulse device to fuck up our halos.
Pedro and Mick had the last professional down. Mick had a spray bottle and squirted the pro twice in the face.
“Fuck,” Mick growled, stalking back to me. “What a cluster-fuck. What’s your condition, Soldier?”
I thought about it for a second. How did my voice work? How did I make words? The halo was cutting in and out, sometimes there spitting headachy crap, sometimes silent. “I’ll live, sir. I’m good,” I said. And that was plain old me saying that, not the Soldier part of me.
I looked at Justin. He winced as his halo spit garbage into his head at the same time mine did. Justin looked back at me and figured out my unspoken message, nodded slightly. Good man.
Pedro hauled over the drugged-docile professional.
Mick nodded at the pro. “Who’re these clowns? Who knew enough about us to bring an E.M.P.?”
“Don’t know. We’ll have to check him for tracking devices, but I figure it won’t take long for the tech boys to pull who he works for out of his head.”
The other four Soldiers groaned and tried to sit up. They still weren’t reconnected to the group-mind. That was silent except for occasional bursts from Justin.
Mick scowled. “What a cluster-fuck. Okay, we got four men able, four men compromised, and two drugged-out liabilities to manage. Soldier, see to those four. If they’re mobile, get them on their feet. We need to be gone five minutes ago.”
The other four Soldiers were already standing up, shaky but ambulatory. They’d make it to the mini-van. I told Mick that.
Mick nodded at the embedded guard. “He’s staying behind to tell the story. Make it look like there was a struggle. Knock him out, and let’s get outta here.”
I looked at the guard, and he nodded curtly. A black eye, bruised jaw, and minor head trauma would be convincing. I hit him with quick one-two pops to the eye and chin, so fast he never saw them coming. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.