Raptor – Chapter 8

by john | Dec 4, 2018 | Uncategorized

Are you missing any chapters? Click the Raptor tag at the bottom of the post to get them all!

8

“What the ever-long fuck happened out there, Raptor?” Duke didn’t yell. He didn’t rant, he didn’t pound his fists on the table, he didn’t even look disappointed. He just stood at the end of the rectangular dark cherry conference table and looked at the remaining half dozen TECH Ops team members.

“We got our asses handed to us, sir.”

“I see that, but how? Alpha Team was made up of experienced soldiers. There were no half-assed civilians in that group, nor Beta. So how did our two best teams get turned into sausage by a bunch of home-grown David Koresh wannabes?” Duke looked to Raptor like he’d aged ten years in the last twenty-four hours. Shelia supposed losing half your team in one shot could do that to a person.

“I have no idea, sir. We were in the back of the—“

“They were waiting for us,” Blackout interrupted her. “Sorry, Raptor, but you weren’t up there. We were. Me and Breaker were in the ballroom. I don’t know what happened to Alpha, but they caught us by surprise because they were in the building before we were. So were their weapons.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Duke asked the man.

“I have no idea, sir.” The trim man looked abashed at having to admit to Duke that he got caught with his pants down, but his gaze never wavered. He sat ramrod-straight in his reinforced chair at the table, his hands folded on the dark wood in front of him. “The first shooter I engaged was dressed like part of the catering crew, but I honestly don’t remember if they all were or not. It very quickly turned into shoot at anyone who shot at us, and try to stay alive.”

“Yeah, it was a mess, sir,” Breaker added. “Longshot went down almost as soon as the shooting started. It was like they intentionally took him out first. ‘Dozer held out for a while, laid down cover fire for the Secret Service guys and the candidates to get behind the podium and try to stay out of the field of fire. Me and Blackout were at the back of the room by the sound guy, and we were pinned down by friggin’ waiters with MP-5s.”

“Were you injured badly, Breaker?” Duke asked, taking a look at the man for the first time. He was adorned with bandages, and a strip of gauze wound around his forehead.

He shook his head. “No sir. I got a through-and-through to my left bicep that would be a real problem if I couldn’t hold my gun with my right, but everything else is just scratches.” Raptor looked over at the man, who she only knew to nod at in the breakfast line. He flexed his cybernetic right hand, the gleaming metal catching  the fluorescent light and making him look particularly menacing as he gave Duke a grim smile. Sheila very much wanted to see what he did to the men who planned this attack when he caught them.

“Do we know who the target was, sir?” Raptor asked.

“Not yet,” Duke replied.

“Has anyone claimed responsibility?” Lone Star chimed in.

“Nothing. There’s not even chatter on the DarkNet,” Viper replied before Duke had a chance to speak. “Oh, sorry, boss. My bad.” He motioned to Duke, who chuckled.

“No, go ahead, Viper. I’ll cede the floor to your expertise in all matters cyber.”

“Good idea,” Viper said, standing up. He seemed to never stop growing taller as he unspooled his lanky frame from under the table and turned to address the team. “Usually when something like this happens you get three waves of attention-seekers. First you get the Katos, the people who want to know something about the attack because they think they can get famous. You’ll even have a few false confessions, depending on how high-profile the attack is. The only people that died today are civilians, soldiers, and cops, so you won’t have much of that. Not enough public sympathy for the glory hounds.”

“Then you’ll get the conspiracy nuts throwing their theories around. These aren’t so much people claiming to have perpetrated the attack as people claiming to see a pattern in it, and to know what happens next. They’re every bit as useless as the first bunch. Then, finally, you have the real possibilities. Most of the time you’ll have two or three groups claim responsibility for an attack, especially one that threatens the election coming up. It’s usually pretty easy to figure out who’s a poseur and who’s the real deal, just based on history and ideology.”

“But this time there’s nothing. No chatter about who it might be, no conspiracy nuts, no thrill-seekers, nobody that wants their name in the papers – nothing. And that’s weird.” He finished and sat down, but not before looking around the table at the shocked expressions on the faces of his teammates. “What? You want me to say something about Raptor’s boobs so you’ll remember it’s really me? This is my shit. If it’s online, it’s my world. And nobody knows my world better than me. I want these guys as much as anybody else.”

“So we have no idea who did it?” Blackout asked.

“And likely won’t until the forensics teams are done, or someone comes forward to claim the attack,” Duke replied.

“Or there’s another attack,” Tank chimed in from a specially-built chair at the far end of the table. His enormous frame required special consideration before he added several hundred pounds of exoskeleton to it. Now, even using titanium for most of his parts, he weighed in at nearly a quarter ton.

“Unfortunately, Tank’s right,” Duke said. “And you all know that those words coming out of my mouth feels like putting a tuxedo on a chimpanzee. But the likelihood of another attack is definitely something we need to pay attention to.”

“Where are the candidates today?” Blackout asked. “They were pretty insistent about keeping their campaign appearances. Do we need to deploy the rest of us out there to keep an eye on them?”

“They’re sequestered,” Duke said. “And no. The Secret Service seem to think that they can protect the individual candidates better without us there to call attention to things, and I don’t hate that idea.”

“There’s also the possibility that they weren’t the targets,” Raptor said, a thoughtful expression on her face.

All eyes swung over to her. “What are you suggesting, Sergeant?” Duke asked.

“I’m not suggesting anything, sir, I’m just making sure that we look at this crap from every angle. We lost fully half our operatives in that assault, sir. We’re down to four field-ready operatives and two rookies, one of which is a convicted felon with no field experience of any kind. These bastards scared the shit out of a couple of politicians, and killed some good police officers and Secret Service agents, but they crippled us.”

“She’s right, boss,” Tank agreed. “We’re supposed to be able to respond to two situations in two cities with a swing team at the base for backup, but now we could barely cover one crisis.”

“I’m well aware of the desired operational parameters of this program, Tank,” Duke said. “But I doubt very seriously that anyone specifically targeted TECH Ops by blowing a convention center all to hell and killing a dozen police officers, Secret Service agents, and civilians. Especially when you consider the fact that this entire program is Top Secret, with yesterday designed as the big reveal. Nobody who would want to kill you even knows you exist yet.”

“Good for Viper,” Lone Star said. “Because wanting to kill him is like the normal reaction whenever somebody meets him for the first time.”

“Very funny, asshole. Don’t you have a river to swim across or something?” Viper shot back.

Lone Star gave him the finger, ignoring the racist jab so as not to give Viper the satisfaction.

“So what’s the plan, Duke?” Raptor asked. “We just going to sit here and wait for something else to happen? Or are we going to find out who did this and kick their ass?”

“The FBI is working the scene. In the meantime—“

“In the meantime, I found a few trees for us to shake. Let’s go to Nebraska, and see what falls out.” All heads turned to the door, where a short woman with nondescript shoulder-length brown hair stood. She wore jeans, running shoes, and a US Navy t-shirt, but something about her decried any history of military service. She almost blended into the wall, the way Raptor’s eyes just slid over her, making her hard to focus on. Sheila shook her head, trying to clear her vision, but she still couldn’t get a good look at the woman.

She reached up and pressed something behind her left ear, and her features snapped into focus. Judging by the confused looks and the shaking heads around the table, Raptor wasn’t the only one who had trouble looking at her. The newcomer stepped into the room and took the empty seat at the table next to Viper. He gave her a long look up and down, then sat up a little straighter and pushed his chair away, a predator who suddenly realized he was no longer anywhere near the top of the food chain.

“Hello, Tara,” Duke said. “Raptor, gentlemen, meet Whisper.”

A low murmur went through the experienced TECH operatives, with Lone Star and Viper trading confused glances.

After a few seconds, Blackout leaned forward and asked the question on everyone’s mind. “You’re Whisper? The Whisper?”

“The only Whisper I know of, Gerald,” she replied, her voice completely calm, as if explaining her existence was something she did every day.

“Yes, this is really Whisper. Yes, Whisper is really real. Only about a third of the things you’ve heard about her are real, but she really is our infiltration and surveillance expert, she really is that damn good, and she really is the deadliest member of this program, and that includes Tank on Chili Night.” Duke restored order to the room without moving from his chair, his voice and presence killing the whispers.

“So you’re sneaky,” Viper said. “Good for you. What do you know about the assholes that tried to kill us?”

“Nothing concrete,” Whisper said. “I’ve been on some message boards and chat groups that I monitor, but there’s been nothing.”

“I could have told you that,” Viper grumbled.

“And you did, about ten minutes ago,” Whisper agreed.

“How did you…” Viper looked around. “She wasn’t anywhere near this room.”

“I bugged the table,” the small woman said. “There’s another one in Breaker’s shoe, but Blackout wore his dress belt to the debrief, so I don’t have any devices on him right now.”

“You bugged me?” Breaker pulled off his shoes and started trying to turn them inside out.

“I bugged everyone,” Whisper said. “It’s what I do. The only one I haven’t bugged is Duke.”

“As far as I know,” Duke said.

“As long as you’re paying the bills, you don’t get surveilled,” Whisper replied.

“Simple plan, I like that,” Duke said. “But what brings you here, Whisper? You hate meetings.”

“I hate everything, Duke, I just hate meetings a little more than most things. I’m here for the mission brief.”

“We don’t have a mission,” Raptor said.

“We do now,” Whisper countered, tossing a red folder into the center of the table. “This was authorized fifteen minutes ago based on communication I intercepted. There’s a militia group in Nebraska making noise about taking out a bunch of fascist government enslavers. That’s us, by the way.”

“Even I knew that,” Viper grumbled.

“They’ve only marched up until now, but this new chatter looks like they’re claiming responsibility for yesterday’s attack.” Raptor closed the folder and slid it across the table to Blackout, who started flipping through the few stapled papers.

“There’s not a lot here,” Blackout said.

“There never is,” Whisper replied.

“Is this enough to go after them?” Lone Star asked.

“If that’s not, this sure as hell is,” Viper slid his cell into the middle of the table. One the screen was a video of a man standing in front of a military-style compound wearing fatigues and holding an AR-15. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, largely incomprehensible screaming.

“That’s Harold Manus,” Whisper said. “Leader of the Sons of Freedom. He’s shouting to the heavens that God visited death upon the fascists, and he is the instrument of God’s will on earth.”

“Sounds like a confession to me,” Duke said. “Let’s go light this bastard up.”

Raptor – Chapter 7

by john | Nov 27, 2018 | Uncategorized

Are you missing any chapters? Click the Raptor tag at the bottom of the post to get them all!

7

Except there wasn’t a fight to go back to. When the trio reached the main ballroom, they found nothing but scattered bodies and spent shell casings. The room looked like the set of a mediocre action movie, except for the dozens of dead civilians scattered across the floor. The smell of gunfire and blood mixed together into a miasma of wartime death that Raptor knew all too well. She saw on the faces of the other TECH Operatives that they remembered it, too. She didn’t know the men well, just from occasional sparring and training sessions, but she remembered both were vets, having done at least a couple of tours in Afghanistan or Iraq. She got the impression that Blackout did some wetwork in some unofficial places, too, but he never talked about those things, and she never asked.

“Fuck,” Breaker muttered as he stepped up onto the platform where they’d left the other two Bravo Team ops. Speakeasy, their surveillance and communications expert and a legendary quickdraw artist, lay decapitated in the center of the platform. Their team leader, A heavy gunner named Bulldozer, a thickly muscled white guy with a shaved head and goatee, was bent backwards over the podium at the center of the stage, his throat cut from ear to ear and his chest split open.

“Whoever did this…this shit was personal,” Blackout said, surveying the scene. He waved a hand around, indicating the entire room “Look at this shit. Everybody is taken out clean. One shot, maybe two or three if it looks like crossfire. But our guys? They wanted to hurt our people.”

The ballroom was still teeming with activity, even after the attack. Civilians screamed in pain, shouted for help, and some just sat on the floor crying. Secret Service agents and police officers walked through the room, kicking guns away from the hands of the dead attackers. The cops flipped a few of the living over and cuffed them, but the majority of the terrorists were dead.

Agent Santos caught sight of Raptor and came running. “Raptor, what was the explosion we heard? Did the candidates get evac’d?”

Raptor pulled the woman aside and spoke in a low voice. “Both candidates, their wives, and a couple of other civilians are fine. We’ve got them in the dock master’s office under guard. Two of my team are back there with them, along with some of your other agents.”

Santos let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear. Our comms went down at the beginning of the attack, and our frequency has stayed jammed ever since. What about yours?”

“We’re good,” Raptor replied. “There’s a dead spot that covers most of the corridors, but the dock is good, and we can communicate in here. Whatever jammer they’re using, it must only have enough range to cover the hallways.”

“What about the explosion?” Santos repeated.

“There was a bomb. We reduced the payload, but it still did some damage to the dock. We managed to avoid any casualties, but it was close. How many did you lose up here?” Raptor looked around the room at the scattered bodies.

“I don’t have a good count on the civilian casualties or the police. We have seven agents KIA, with four more wounded, plus whatever condition the men with you are in.”

“None of them are seriously injured. It looks like we lost two in here. Do you have a sitrep on Alpha Team?”

Santos’ angular face was grim when she looked up at Raptor. “I…I’m fairly certain they were all taken out.”

Raptor felt herself stagger, and a sudden weakness passed through her phantom legs. She knew it was purely psychological, her prosthetics couldn’t get weak in the knees, but it didn’t matter. All of Alpha Team killed? That was inconceivable. “What happened?”

Santos took a deep breath. “There was an RPG attack at the far McCain Street entrance, where Cap was stationed. We believe he was killed instantly. The woman on the team, I’m sorry, I don’t remember—“

“Siren,” Raptor supplied. Tansy Grant was a communications specialist and former karaoke queen who lost her legs in a car accident and joined TECH Ops to atone for the harm she caused when her car crossed the center line and smashed into a minivan coming home from the bar one Saturday night. Raptor blinked hard. Siren wasn’t really Sheila’s usual kind of girl-pal, but being two of the women in the program had forged a very unique bond between them.

“Yes, Siren. She ran to help Cap and was killed by a suicide bomber in a followup attack.”

“Get the first responders,” Raptor said. It was a classic, right out of Chapter One of the Fuck Shit Up Playbook. A secondary explosion following an attack can often have greater impact than the first one, because it take out EMTs, Firefighters, and others who are typically considered off the target list. Except nowadays, nobody was off the target list.

“What about Rockstar and Pyro?” Raptor asked after a few seconds. “They were supposed to hold the main entrance.”

“And they did, as long as they could. But eventually they were overwhelmed. You guys are tough, and some of the shit you can do looks like Superman, but your soft bits aren’t bulletproof. Throw enough lead at you, and you go down. That’s what happened to your other two men. Apparently they went down under a hail of automatic weapons fire.”

“Dammit,” Sheila took a deep breath, trying to still the whirlwind of emotion roiling through her. Focus. None of that shit helps right now. Deal with it back at the Bunker. “Okay,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “What’s the plan? This is still your rodeo, so what do we do?”

Santos shot her a grateful look, probably just happy she wasn’t going to have to fight for jurisdiction with anyone else. Raptor didn’t give a single shit about jurisdiction, or credit, or any of that crap. Their people were dead, the men who killed them needed to pay, and the candidates still needed protection. That’s all they could focus on.

“The mission hasn’t changed, it’s just shifted location. We need to make sure the candidates are safe. This is now an active crime scene, so we need to clear out and let the FBI techs do their work. A team has been called in from CITY, they should be here any minute. I need to set up an enhanced detail with the protectees, so let’s pull all your people and all my people back to the dock office until we can get an extraction in place.”

“Sounds good,” Raptor nodded, then relayed that through comm to her team. “But you should know, nothing is getting in or out of that loading dock for a long time, vehicle-wise. We blew up a lot of shit out there.”

“That’s fine. Worst case, I think I can count on you guys to make a hole.” Santos gathered her remaining agents, relayed their intentions to the FBI agent in charge of the scene, and they headed back to the loading dock. Raptor hung back to cover their rear and to watch as Blackout knelt by Bulldozer’s side for a moment before reaching over and sliding the big man’s eyes closed. He fell into step beside Raptor, who could have sworn she saw a glimmer of moisture in his eyes.

*****

“You want us to what?” The incredulous question came from Edmund Carstairs IV, the current Freedom Party Presidential candidate. His red face shifted all the way to purple as he attempted to stare down Agent Santos.

Santos was having none of it. “I don’t want you to do anything, sir. I am telling you what you will do. You will remain inside this office while Tank creates an extraction point on the far wall. Then you and your wife will carefully step through the rubble and make your way, along with Mr. Henry and Mr. Fortuna and their spouses, to the waiting Suburban, which will take the six of you to a secure location. This is not a request, this is not an option, and this is not up for debate.”

“Young lady, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but I’m—“

“Shut the fuck up, you ignorant twat,” Viper’s laconic drawl cut through the room like a machete.

The candidate whirled around, somehow managing to look even more apoplectic than he had seconds before. “What. Did. You. Say. To. Me?” He asked, accentuating each word.

“I said, ‘Shut the fuck up, you ignorant twat,’” Viper replied. “I’ll be a little gentler this time if you need it. Please shut the fuck up, you ignorant twat. Santos is giving you a ride out of here in a bulletproof SUV. Fucking take it. If you don’t want it, in about thirty seconds, there’ll be a big fucking hole in the wall. It’s a lovely day for a walk.”

“Come on, Ed,” Jared Henry, the Republican candidate said. “We’ve all been through a terrible experience, let’s just get back to our airplanes safely and get this place behind us.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Santos said. “But you will all be staying here in Albequerque for at least the next 48 hours while this incident is under investigation.”

Henry, the current leader in every major poll turned to Santos, his million-watt smile undimmed by the carnage he’d witnessed in the past hour. “Young lady, I’m not sure if you noticed, but there is an election in barely two months. This was to be one of our most important stops, but certainly not the only one, and—“

“Do I have to call every motherfucker in here a stupid twat, or can I just issue a blanket goddam proclamation that you’re all fucking idiots and let that be all?” Viper said, stepping to the middle of the room. “You,” he pointed at Carstairs. “You don’t have a snowball’s fucking chance in the first place. Everybody knows you’re in this asshole’s pocket,” here he pointed to Henry. “So this limp-dicked shitweasel,” he pointed at Vincent Fortuna, the Democratic candidate. “Just has to stand around with his wee little cock in his hand and watch you siphon off enough votes to get your twatwaffle pal Jared into the White House so you can ride off into the sunset to a cushy job at some Libertarian think tank or some other useless piece of Washington bullshit.”

All three candidates looked on the verge of aneurisms, but Viper wasn’t finished. “Now, personally, I don’t give a single fuck about any of these assholes. But Santos, she seems like she’s mostly not a moron. She’s lost a lot of friends today in the name of keeping you idiots alive. Same goes for Raptor. Me, I don’t have any friends, and don’t care if you walk out of here into the back of a safe ride, or leave in eight different body bags. But in about fifteen seconds, the big stupid one over there is going to make a hole in the wall. I’d suggest when that happens, that you exit through it. Because I sure as fuck will.”

Raptor just leaned against the wall and watched as her newest team member launched his profanity-laced tirade against the three men most likely to be elected leader of the free world. If they survived to November. She didn’t like Viper. She didn’t trust him yet, either. But he certainly had a way of getting his point across that was unmistakable. The men fell silent, glowering at the skinny hacker and probably mentally composing the emails they’d sent to the Director of the Secret Service and anyone they thought would listen at the Pentagon.

Too bad those emails would get them absolutely nowhere. Viper had evaluated the situation perfectly right from the start. He could do and say almost anything and it would have almost no consequences. He, in fact all of the TECH Ops teams, were simply too valuable to cut loose. At nearly half a billion dollars each, the only thing that was going to get them pulled from active duty and their parts reassigned was a felony, and even then it had to be one of the bad ones.

“Can I please fuck some shit up now?” Tank asked. Santos gave him a nod, and he left the office, walking over to the exterior wall. He made a big show of sizing it up, patting the cinderblocks in a few places, then he walked back about twenty feet and planted himself. He held out his arms and squeezed his fists, extending a pair of shoulder-mounted mini-guns from his back. The barrels spun in the air for the briefest of seconds, then hundreds of 7.62mm rounds spat from the rotating barrels.

The deafening roar was punctuated by Tank’s howls of glee as the bullets chewed into the soft concrete, sawing a rectangular opening in the wall within seconds. Devastation wrought to his apparent satisfaction, he strode over to the wall and kicked it with his right foot. The entire section of brick and concrete collapsed outward, covering him in a cloud of fine gray dust.

Raptor just shook her head, watching the big goof work. He was good with those mini-guns, a real artist, and strong as his namesake. Now she just had to keep him alive.

A black Suburban pulled up to the hole in the wall and the rear doors opened. A black-suited Secret Service agent hopped out of the passenger seat and stopped dead at the sight of the behemoth standing in the newly-created doorway. Tank stepped aside and gestured for the man to enter the loading dock. The agent just nodded at him and stepped up to the hole, waving at Raptor where she stood by the door of the office.

Raptor cleared the door and Santos lead the candidates and her surviving agents out toward the waiting car. They piled in and sped off without so much as a nod goodbye, peeling rubber along the street in their hurry to get their protectees out of the area.

Viper stepped up to stand next to Raptor. “I suppose this is the part where you tell me I’m a dick for talking to those morons like that.”

“No,” Raptor said, looking up at the shocked man. “This is the point where I thank you for saying what I couldn’t. I’m a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, and I always will be. But you’re a civilian, and you don’t care anything about the chain of command, or respecting anything or anyone. That’s what we needed at that moment, and I appreciate it.”

Viper looked a little shocked, but he recovered and a grin spread across his narrow features. “So you’re saying that you want to reward my initiative?” He leered down at her.

“No, I’m saying if you ever use that kind of language when talking to me, I’ll shove your razor blade so far up your ass you can shave with it from the inside of your face. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Raptor – Chapter 6

by john | Nov 20, 2018 | Uncategorized

Are you missing any chapters? Click the Raptor tag at the bottom of the post to get them all!

6

The sound of gunfire echoed through the hall as Raptor and Tank ran toward the fray. They burst through the doors to see a small knot of TECH Ops soldiers surrounding the stage where half a dozen Secret Service agents tried frantically to evacuate their charges, with nowhere to take them. They were pinned to the side wall of the room, surrounded on three sides by men with guns and taking heavy fire.

“Tank, make a hole!” Raptor shouted. She leapt into the air and snapped her wings into place, rocketing toward the stage. Tank ran along below her, drawing a six-foot broadsword from his back and sweeping it in front of him in big arcs.

The armaments team realized very early on that Tank was a terrible shot, and no amount of training was going to make him able to hit the broad side of a barn from anything outside ten feet. But he was fast, and ridiculously strong, so they fabricated a titanium-bladed broadsword with an electrical current generator built into the handle, so when he hit something with it, if it didn’t slice through it instantly, it electrocuted the enemy. Tank loved it, and he trained with it relentlessly. With his power, and the strength of the blade, he could slice through cinderblock and plate armor like butter.

He used it now to slice through a trio of gun-wielding attackers who kept a pair of Bravo Team Ops pinned down. One stroke of his huge sword, and the men’s torsos separated from their legs in a fountain of blood and gore.

“Follow me!” Raptor called from above to the Secret Service agents, who hustled the candidates and their wives in a running crouch after her. Raptor flew above the agents, laying down cover fire as they ran to the back corridor. Tank covered their rear with his sword, and the Bravo Team Ops turned their attention to the four shooters on the other side of the stage.

Raptor set down in front of the open double doors she and Tank had just come through. The lead agent ran up to her and said “Is it clear back here?”

“It was two minutes ago, but keep your head down.”

“Will do.” The agent stood shoulder to shoulder with Raptor, his submachine gun sweeping the room as the other surviving agents hustled their charges into the back hall. Tank slapped Raptor on the shoulder as he went past, and she shoved the last agent through the doors.

Raptor gave one last glance to the stage, where the two remaining members of Bravo Team fought against at least a dozen shooters. She shook her head, offered up a quick prayer for their safety, then ducked into the hallway and pulled the doors shut behind her. The civilians had to be her top priority now, no matter how much she wanted to go help her fellow operatives.

Raptor flew point ahead of the Secret Service agents, with the men from Bravo Team, a Close Quarters Battle specialist named Breaker and a former SEAL named Blackout, leading the group of unaugmented humans in a sprint down the corridor. Tank fast-walked backward at the rear of the group, keeping their backs covered with his sword sheathed and minigun out. Despite his limitations as a marksman, he subscribed to the philosophy of “throw enough lead at something, eventually it will die.”

They made it to the loading dock in moments to find Viper and Lone Star waiting. The sniper was atop an abandoned passenger van, nestled in a blind made of dumpster debris, while Viper took cover behind a stack of pallets. Lone Star just nodded to the new arrivals, but Viper walked over to meet them.

“Where is our exfil, Sergeant?” Breaker asked.

Raptor set down in front of him as Viper broke out laughing. “Exfil? Jesus, son, you sound like a bad Call of Duty sequel! There’s no exfil. There’s just ex-fucked. And that’s what we are.”

“Quiet, Viper,” Raptor snapped. “We need to secure these civilians, reinforce the area, and then redeploy to the ballroom to help the rest of Bravo Team.”

“If there is any rest of Bravo,” Blackout muttered.

“I hated leaving them behind, too,” Raptor said. “But the civilians are our number one priority.” She turned to the Secret Service agents. “Were either of you part of the advance team?”

They shook their heads. Raptor looked around the empty dock. “Lone Star!” She called out. “How secure are we?”

“The dock is empty, I raised the barricade at the entrance and exit, lowered the man-gate, so it’s tough, but not impossible, to get back here. They’re going to have to want to, and I don’t think any vehicle short of a tank can manage it.”

“So pretty good. Alright, Blackout, Viper, go check the dock master’s office, make sure it’s clear. Tank, Breaker and I will cover the civilians until you get back.” It was a testament to how messed up the situation was that Viper didn’t even bitch about going to investigate the office.

As the two men jogged off to check the viability of the dock office as a hiding spot, one of the candidates, a white-haired man with a trim beard, stepped up to her. “Ma’am? My wife needs medical attention.”

Raptor turned to look at the woman, but didn’t see any bullet wounds. “What happened?”

The woman, a pretty blonde some twenty years her husband’s junior, looked up at her. “I twisted my ankle running. I need someone to carry me if we go any further.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tank raise his hand to volunteer, but Raptor shook her head. “Ma’am, I’m sorry. You’re going to have to move on your on power, or get your husband to help you. I don’t have anyone to carry you right now.”

“But it huuuuuurts!” The woman whined.

“She’s obviously in excruciating pain,” her husband said. “I demand that you help her!” He stepped up to Raptor, looking over her with his face turning red. A wisp of white hair escaped his combover to flip down over his eyes. “You listen to me, young lady, you will—“

Raptor put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. He leaned into her, but she moved the man without any noticeable effort. “I will keep you alive. I will work diligently to keep your wife alive. I will do everything in my power to keep everyone alive, but if it comes down to one of these men carrying your wife because she got a fucking boo-boo on her ankle in a firefight where men and women died to keep you people alive, or carrying a gun that will help keep all of us alive, you’d better damn believe that man is going to carry a gun and leave your wife to limp along on her sore ankle. Do you understand me?”

“What is your name, soldier? I am going to report you to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” The man was quivering in anger, obviously unaccustomed to “subordinates” ignoring his demands.

Raptor didn’t say a word, she just walked over to the metal door leading back into the convention center. She held up her right hand, and flicked one gleaming titanium talon from her index finger. Using the hooked claw, she scratched “RAPTOR” into the metal surface, her writing accompanied by the shriek of metal-on-metal. She turned back to the man, then pointed to the name on the door.

“There you go. I even spelled it for you.” She turned to look over the man’s shoulder. “What’s the situation?”

Blackout called back. “Dock office looked good. One door, one window. Easily defensible. I left your man Viper in there trying to establish an internet connection.”

“Sounds good. Lone Star, you stay here and keep this area clear. Tank, move something in front of that office window, then get these civilians in there and make sure nothing comes through that door that isn’t me. Breaker, Blackout, let’s go get the rest of your team.” The team nodded, and Raptor pulled open the door leading back into the dock.

As she started through, one of the Secret Service agents grabbed her arm. Raptor looked up at him, a burly bald man in his fifties. “Thank you, Raptor,” he said. “If it weren’t for you guys, we’d all be dead.”

“That’s the job, right?” Raptor shook his hand and stepped through the door, launching herself into the air in the narrow corridor and firing her jets as Breaker and Blackout filed through the door and sprinted behind her back to the fight.

Raptor – Chapter 5

by john | Nov 13, 2018 | Uncategorized

Are you missing any chapters? Click the Raptor tag at the bottom of the post to get them all!

5

“Hey guys,” Vipers laconic voice came across their comms. “We’ve got a little bit of a situation out here on the loading dock. Think you cold come give us a hand?”

“What’s going on, Viper?” Raptor replied. “There’s a bunch of assholes with automatic weapons shooting up the ballroom, so we’re a little busy.”

“Yeah, but they brought friends, and those friends just ran out of the loading dock, leaving a perfectly good van behind. Only one reason a bad guy does that,” Viper said.

Raptor and Lone Star shared a look, then moved in unison through the door and back out into the hall. They turned right and sprinted for the dock. “Did you—“ Raptor’s question was cut off as feedback screeched in her ear, the sudden pain in her head knocking her off-balance. She slapped off the comm and turned to Lone Star.

“Cover my six,” she said. “I’m faster airborne.” She took a running leap and deployed her wings. They clicked into place, and a pair of mini-jets fired from her back. She rocketed down the hall, slowing at the turn and using her legs to spring off the wall like an Olympic swimmer making the turn.

Lone Star watched her disappear around the corner, a small smile stretching across his face. “I’ll watch your six, lady, but the bad guys better watch their ass.”

Raptor literally burst through the big rollup door onto the loading dock, shredding the thin metal with her talons. She landed on the dock in front of a blue panel van marked “Capitol City Catering.” Tank stood at the front of the van, and waved her around. She hopped off the dock and ran to the back, where Viper stood with his eye pressed up against the rear window.

“What do you see?” She asked.

“There’s a lot of fucking Semtex in there. Enough to turn this convention center and everything within two blocks into a smoking hole. I can’t see a timer, so it’s either buried, or it’s set for a remote detonation.” The lanky man’s former snide humor and lazy demeanor were gone. He was all business, and his focus was razor-sharp.

“Can you defuse it?” Raptor asked.

“I doubt it. The best I can do is probably get the detonator out and contained into a smaller ball of explosive material. If we can separate the electronics from the bulk of the explosive, there’s a chance we don’t all get blown to bits.”

“Again,” Tank said.

“Excuse me, Beefstick?” Viper’s head snapped up at the larger man’s words.

“Blown up again,” Tank corrected once more. “Me and the Sarge already been blown up once. I can’t speak for her, but I didn’t enjoy it. If we can not have that happen again, it’d be great.”

“Well, I haven’t ever been blown up, and it’s not on my bucket list, so I’ll see what I can do to keep it from happening,” the trim man replied. “I’m going to open this back door now and climb into the cargo area. If the van doesn’t explode the second I do that, there’s a chance we live to see tomorrow.” He didn’t wait for Raptor’s approval, he just yanked the door open and slid inside.

Raptor squeezed her eyes closed against the blast, but nothing came. “Asshole,” she muttered, then hopped back up on the dock with Tank.

“What’s the plan?’ He asked.

“Viper’s going to try and cut enough of the plastic explosive out around the detonator so that we don’t all die when the bomb goes off. He doesn’t think he can defuse it—“

“That’s good,” Lone Star said, running up behind them. “That means he’s just a dick, not a complete moron. Defusing a device is way tougher than it looks on TV. Better to reduce the yield of the device as much as possible.”

“I’ll trust you guys,” Raptor said. “I don’t know dick about explosives.”

“My experience was real up-close, but it was only the one time,” Tank agreed. “What do we do while he’s in there, wait to see if we blow up or not?”

“No,” Lone Star said. “Even if he gets the detonator core out of the device, it’s still going to have enough explosive material around it to level this building. We’re going to need to find some way to contain that blast.”

“I’m on it,” Tank said, jogging down the dock to the huge dumpsters. Raptor watched as the big man grabbed a regular dumpster by one of the handles the garbage trucks use to lift it, hefted it over his head, and ran to the back of the van carrying it.

“Ho-lee shit,” Lone Star said, his voice low.

“Yeah,” Raptor said. “I’ve seen him in the weight room. There’s not really a point. They can’t make a machine that holds enough weight to make him strain. But it’s all servos. He powers down, and he’s back to a quad. Drives him nuts, ‘cause he used to be such an active guy.”

“Yeah, like I said, I used to watch him wrestle. He was always real agile for such a giant. I knew the tech made him strong, but I had no idea.”

“You should see Cap. He doesn’t look it, but he’s just as strong. And way faster.”

“I thought you hated Cap,” Lone Star said.

“I don’t hate him, I just don’t fall all over him like everybody else does. He needs more of that in his life,” she said with a grin. “Fuck me, is that his plan?”

“Seems like a good one to me,” Lone Star said, looking at where Tank was now dragging a giant construction dumpster to the back of the van. He flipped the first dumpster on its side and ripped the lid off, then set the bigger dumpster on its side behind it. Then he walked back over to the dock and looked up at Lone Star.

“Think if we put the device under two dumpsters, that’ll absorb enough of the explosive force to keep the building from coming down on us?”

“As long as the explosion isn’t big enough to trigger the remaining plastic explosive, or we get that shit out of here ASAP, we oughta be good,” Guerrero replied.

“Okay, I’ve got the detonator, anybody got any idea what I should do with it?” Viper said, stepping out of the back of the van holding a small orb of grey material. He saw the dumpsters and nodded. “Not the worst idea I’ve ever seen.” He set the bomb guts on the ground, then flipped the small dumpster over on it.

Viper looked at the construction dumpster and just shook his head. “That’s not what this body was rebuilt for. Sorry.” He walked over to the dock and looked at Tank. “I think this is your song.”

Tank nodded, then walked over to the dumpster. One small grunt, and he toppled it over onto the other metal container with a thunderous CLANG. “Got it.”

“Now we need to get the rest of the bomb material out of here,” Lone Star said. “I don’t suppose you noticed if the keys were still in that thing?”

“Who needs keys?” Viper asked.

“Who needs a van?” Raptor countered, locking her wings in place.

“Raptor, that’s about three hundred pounds of Semtex in there,” Lone Star said.

“Good thing most of me is still under warranty…what the hell are you doing?” She shouted at Tank, who was lumbering away from the dock, the van hoisted above his head.

“Keeping you from doing something stupid,” he yelled back.

“By doing something stupid!” She watched helplessly as the big man rumbled along, slowly licking up speed until he was about two hundred yards from the others. He then planted his feet, crouched down, and hurled the van along the wide corridor housing the loading dock. The van flew another fifty yards and smashed into a wall, tumbling to a stop in a mangle of broken glass and twisted metal.

Tank came running back to the others, a big silly grin across his wide face. “Think that’s far eno—“ an explosion ripped through the dock, rocketing the pair of dumpsters up to the ceiling and sending out a shockwave that knocked all four team members to the ground. Tank took the worst of it, being on the ground level with the blast. He slammed to the ground and slid along the concrete for several feet before stopping.

Lone Star, Viper, and Raptor were standing on the dock, partially shielded from the blast by the metal containers and the dock’s own elevation, and they still ended up in a tangle of arms and legs smashed into the nearest wall.

“Get off me, Viper, you’re heavier than you look,” Lone Star said, shoving the skinny man to the side. “You okay, Raptor?” He asked, reaching down to help her stand.

“Yeah, I’m good, even after having both you two idiots land on me,” she said, taking Lone Star’s hand. “Tank, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he called back. “Guess I got the rest of the charge far enough away,” he said with a laugh.

“We’re not dead, so I guess so,” Viper grumbled. “Now what?”

“Now you and Lone Star secure the area, make sure nobody touches anything, and take as much video as you can store while Tank and I head up front to see if the other teams are done with mop up. The comms are still fucked, so if you need us…don’t.”

“Got you, boss,” Lone Star saluted, and turned to Viper. “I’ll cover the entrance to the dock, you go block the corridor by the van.”

Raptor thought for a second that Viper must have hit his head in the explosion, because he didn’t argue with either of them, then she watched him fish a narrow cigarette out of the leg pocket of his pants, and she saw how much his hands shook as he tried to light it. She reminded herself that, no matter what kind of enhancements they put in their bodies, Tank and Viper were still civilians. And untrained, in Viper’s case. This was supposed to be a babysitting mission, with nothing more dangerous than getting blinded by camera flash and tripping on the sidewalk. Suddenly, it was a serious deal, and she had a couple of greenies under her care.

Tank jogged up beside her. “Let’s go see if the other teams left us anybody to crush. I want to see some action!” Seemed like adrenaline hit different people in different ways, she thought as she pulled open the door and started back up the hallway to the main body of the convention center.

Raptor – Chapter 4

by john | Nov 6, 2018 | Uncategorized

Are you missing any chapters? Click the Raptor tag at the bottom of the post to get them all!

4

“I’m bored. Entertain me.” The laconic voice coming across the comm could only belong to one person.

“Keep off comms unless you need something, Viper,” Raptor replied.

“I do need something, Raptor. I require entertainment. The last time I was this bored, the cell block was on lockdown.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t say you were in solitary, Viper,” Cap’s voice cut in. “From what I saw in your file you spent a lot of time there.”

“I was never bored in solitary, Superboy,” Viper shot back. “At least there, I had interesting conversation. All I have out of this neanderthal you partnered me with is a guessing game on the cup sizes of the women in the audience.”

“Hey,” Tank protested. “I’m really good at that game.”

“Stow it, you two,” Raptor’s voice was sharp. “Pay attention to the dock. Lone Star and I are in the western hallway about to turn into the front service corridor.”

“Radio in that area is for shit, Raptor. There’s a ton of interference from the wireless mics the candidates will be using, plus the network feeds are fucking it up,” Cap informed her.

“Fair enough, Cap. We’ll be incommunicado for about five minutes, then. Viper, try to behave for that long.”

“No promises, sweetheart, no promises,” Viper drawled.

“Call me sweetheart again and I’ll rip your nuts off,” Raptor shot back.

“You always say the sweetest things.” Viper clicked off.

Raptor shut off her mic and swore under her breath. She watched Lone Star press the button to silence his mic and turn to her. “Don’t let that asshat get to you, Sarge. The only power he has in the world is getting under people’s skin. With that kill switch in your pocket, you’ve got complete dominance over him, and that’s the one thing guys like him can’t handle.”

“That’s what’s funny about the whole situation, Lone Star,” Raptor said. “I don’t have a kill switch for Viper.”

“What? But you said…” A grin spread across the man’s face as realization dawned.

“Yeah,” Sheila nodded. “I lied. There’s no way in hell Duke would let a kill switch for one of our operatives out into the field. It’s way too dangerous. What if I lost it, or if I got taken out and somebody used the kill switch to force Viper to do something like attack the candidates? This election is huge. With no incumbent, both these guys are almost neck-and-neck for the White House. If somebody could control one of our guys, it would be nothing to make them take out one or both candidates on national TV. That’s the kind of black eye our program would never recover from.”

“Yeah,” Lone Star agreed. “That’s not even taking into account the chaos it would inflict upon the country if both major candidates were taken out just weeks before Election Day.”

“So look alive, soldier. Let’s make sure nothing like that happens.” The pair turned the corner into the front hallway, and sure enough, the comm circuit in their headgear started feeding back almost immediately. Lone Star sagged against a wall, shaking his head against the onslaught of sound. Raptor simply removed her headset, but the commlink was wired into Guerrero’s skull, so it was much harder for him to shut down the noise.

After several seconds of incapacitation, the man pressed a spot behind his left ear, and Sheila heard a soft click. Lone Star took a deep breath and straightened up, shaking his head to clear the residual ringing he no doubt felt in his ears.

“You okay,” Sheila asked.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “The built-in receiver got in a feedback loop somehow, and it fucked my equilibrium there for a minute. I couldn’t even tell right from left to switch shit off.”

“Sorry I couldn’t do it for you. I didn’t know where the commlink switch was embedded,” Raptor said by way of apology.

“No worries,” he said. He ran a finger along the flesh behind his ear. “But it’s right here if that ever happens again. You can feel a lump under the skin right behind my left ear. Press it until it clicks, and my comm will be shut down. That also takes my diagnostics and tracking offline, though, so I only disable it under extreme duress.”

“I think that skull-fucking you just took qualifies,” Raptor said. The phone on her belt vibrated, and she grabbed it and looked at the screen.

LONE STAR COMM DOWN. The screen read. EVERYTHING OK?

Yes. She typed back. Feedback into his comm from wireless mics. We’re both offline until we get out of this hallway. And stop yelling.

WHAT YELLING?

All caps, Duke. It’s rude.

FUCK RUDE.

Classy, boss. Classy. She looked over at Lone Star. “Duke says hi.”

“Why didn’t he text me?”

“I guess he thought you were dead when you disappeared from comm and tracking. He wanted to know if you got blowed up. I told him no such luck.”

“Funny.” Lone Star straightened up and started down the hall, sweeping his rifle side to side in front of him. Sheila had never seen a sniper rifle like that one before. It had a flash suppressor like the big fifty-caliber guns, but it also had a sheathed cable running from the scope to a jack in Lone Star’s helmet. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like it was as much anti-aircraft gun as sniper rifle, with a shroud around the long barrel for cooling, and a drum magazine. She took another look at it, and decided to call it the Platypus. It had a lot of odd pieces, none of them seeming to fit together, and she wasn’t quite sure whether it was fish or fowl. But Lone Star seemed comfortable carrying it, and if he could shoot the eye out of a quarter at half a mile, she didn’t care what the gun looked like.

She stepped in line behind Lone Star and slightly to the left, keeping her MP-5 aimed at the floor. If they encountered any trouble in the halls of the convention center, there were likely bigger problems than the two of them could deal with. Anything that got past the Secret Service sweep and the two dozen agents roaming the building was going to shrug off the 9mm rounds from her submachine gun with no problem. Good thing for her she had other options if the shit went down.

“Hey, what’s that about?” Lone Star said, his voice low.

All of Raptor’s senses went on high alert, and her thumb flicked the safety off her weapon. She brought the small gun up to her shoulder, tight against its sling as she looked where her partner was pointing.

A slender man was walking away from them, head down, moving fast. He was wearing black pants and a black hoodie, and both hands were held in front of his body, as if he was carrying something. Raptor hadn’t seen anyone dressed like that in the halls in any official capacity, so her sense ratcheted up another notch.

“Hey buddy,” she called out. “Hold up a second, we need to check your badge.” The man burst into a run, his booted feet thumping heavily along the corridor.

“Shit,” Raptor muttered. “I’m on him. Set up for a shot, I’ll try to get out of the line.” She broke into a run, her artificial legs reacting to the signals from her brain just like her real ones used to. In seconds, she was halfway down the corridor and gaining on the man. “Stop, or we’ll take you down!” she called to him.

The man stopped in his tracks, whirled and dropped to one knee. Raptor’s eyes widened as she processed what he was holding – an AK-47 rifle.

“Shit,” she muttered. “Gun!” she yelled in warning to Lone Star, then she leapt into the air, her jump fueled by hydraulics and titanium springs. As she jumped, she slammed her elbows into her ribcage, and a metallic click echoed through the hall. Gleaming alutanium wings snapped into place, extending from her elbows to her sides, propelling her toward the ceiling as she flew toward the shooter, now fully taking the form of her namesake, with shining wings and taloned hands.

The black-clad man opened fire with a short burst of automatic fire, spitting 7.62 rifle rounds down the hall where Raptor had run seconds before. Lone Star, kneeling at the far end of the hall, opened fire with his modified sniper weapon and put two rounds in the man’s chest. His shoulder exploded and he collapsed backward, dead before he hit the ground. His errant shots whizzed by over Lone Star’s head, and below the form of Raptor, hovering as she was near the ceiling.

Sheila dropped to the floor by the dead man and kicked the gun away. He was deader than dead, but protocol was protocol for a reason, and her whole program was proof that dead people sometimes got better. She checked for a pulse, found none, and pressed her comm unit to activate it. The feedback spiked through her ears again, and she shut it down with another slap. A quick press of her arms to her sides retracted her wings, and she knelt beside the body to check it for ID.

Lone Star came up, his long gun slung over his shoulder and a pair of nickel-plated Colt 1911s in his hands. “Anything on him?”

“I haven’t searched him yet. You planning on heading over to the OK Corral when we’re done here?” Sheila asked, nodding at his guns.

“Cut me a little slack,” Guerrero replied. “A man’s gotta have some kinda swag, you know.”

“Pablo, there’s whole rap tours that don’t have as much swag as you, pal.” Raptor patted the dead man down, but came up empty. “No wallet. Pockets are empty. I’ll scan prints and face, then send them to Duke to check out.” She pulled the phone off her belt and took a photo of the dead man’s face, then photographed each of his fingers individually, starting with the right index finger and working through them one by one. Then she looked at the screen and muttered, “Shit.”

“What’s up?” Guerrero asked.

“No signal. I guess the interference is worse here than it was at the end of the hall.”

“These convention centers are shit for cell phones. All the metal around us really fucks with the signal.”

“I guess I’ll send these to Duke later,” she said, clipping the phone back to her belt.

“You think he was alone?” Pablo asked.

“I don’t know. We need to report this, but I’m a little surprised nobody came back here at the sound of gunfire,” Raptor replied.

“Really?” Lone Star asked, then jerked a thumb to the wall of the ballroom. “Listen to that shit.” Now that he mentioned it, Raptor heard the strains of loud country music coming from the other side. “I think it’s Toby Strait or something out there.”

“I don’t think that’s a real person,” Raptor said. “How the hell did you come from Oklahoma and not know country music?”

“Look at me, chica,” he said. “Do I look like I go line dancing every Friday night?”

“Fair enough,” Raptor said. “I’m going to go check in with Agent Santos. You stay here and make sure our friend here doesn’t get up and run away.” She stood, looked down at the blood staining the knee of her black uniform pants, and grimaced. “Dammit. I go through more pants from bloodstains…”

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Lone Star said. “At least the blood ain’t yours.”

“Good point,” Sheila agreed. “I’ll be back. If anything bad happens,” she thought for a moment, realized there wasn’t anything she could do if anything bad did happen, then just said, “If anything bad happens, try not to shoot the good guys.”

“I think I can manage that, Sarge.” He snapped off a quick salute, and Sheila turned to run to the door at the end of the hall.

She made it almost fifty feet from Guerrero before the wall beside her exploded, showering her with cinderblock and drywall dust. Sheila bounced off the opposite wall, taking out more drywall, before slamming into the floor. It felt a lot like the little bit she remembered of getting blown up in Korea, loud and decidedly unpleasant. Gunshots rang out around her, and more small explosions followed.

Raptor struggled to her feet, shaking free chunks of wall and looking out into the demolished ballroom. She shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears, and suddenly Lone Star was beside her, pulling her down to her knees next to him.

“Stay down, Sarge!” he shouted in her ear. “We need to find cover, and find the other teams.”

“How the hell are we supposed to find them in that?” Raptor asked, pointing into the ballroom, where several thousand people now ran screaming in every direction, while a dozen or more men with automatic weapons opened fire on the crowd.

Raptor looked at Lone Star beside her, and suddenly everything became clear – this was the moment she had trained for. This was what she had been reborn for. The shit was hitting the fan. It was time to go to work.

Raptor – Chapter 3

by john | Oct 30, 2018 | Uncategorized

Are you missing any chapters? Click the Raptor tag at the bottom to get them all!

Chapter 3

“Okay D-Team,” Cap Rogers said as the quartet disembarked their Humvee in front of the convention center. “Me and Alpha Team will be on the inside of the main ballroom with the candidates. Bravo Team will be in the main concourse, where most of the civilians will be entering and leaving. You four will secure the loading dock and the back hallway, where the candidates enter from.”

“Yes, sir,” Sheila said. “Tank, you and Viper take the loading dock. Lone Star and I will handle the back hallway.”

“Why do I have to go with the big stupid one?” Viper asked, a sneer on his face.

“Because those are the orders and I am your commanding officer. That’s the way things work in this outfit, Viper. Do you understand me?” Sheila said, stepping over and getting almost chest to chest with the lanky man.

Viper smiled down at the shorter Sheila. “Yeah, that doesn’t really work for me. I think I’ll go inside and hang with you. Let the Mexican and the gorilla guard the dock.” He stepped forward to push past Sheila, but she grabbed his bicep.

Sheila pulled the taller man down to speak directly in his ear. “I have your kill switch, you piece of shit. You do what I tell you, when I tell you, or every piece of tech in your body stops working. Your arm, your leg, your lungs – I will shut every fucking one of the them down like throwing a light switch if you don’t shut your goddamn mouth and do your goddamn job. Do you understand me?”

Viper’s eyes went wide. “You bitch.”

“You better believe it.”

The skinny hacker straightened up and glared down at Sheila. “Fine. I’ll go to the loading dock and watch the dumpsters with the idiot. But if you wanted a chance to hook up with Latino Heat over there, you could have just asked me. I wouldn’t have fought you for it.”

“This is the point at which I’d slap you sideways if I had factory-issued arms. But as it is, I don’t feel like killing you just yet. So let’s just do this: I won’t crush your fucking face with my cybernetic fist, and you keep your mundane mouth shut. Now go do your fucking job.”

Viper turned and stalked past Tank toward the convention center entrance. He raised one fist over his head as he walked away, middle finger stabbing the air.

“Great leadership style, Birdie,” Rogers said.

“Go fuck yourself, Cap.”

“Remember who’s in charge of this mission, Raptor,” Rogers replied with a scowl.

“Sorry. Go fuck yourself, sir.” Sheila waved for Lone Star to follow her and walked into the building.

Thousands of people milled around the main concourse of the convention center, some waving signs for one candidate or the other, many wearing t-shirts or hats proclaiming their loyalty to one party or the other. Sheila and Guerrero pushed their way through the throng, dodging souvenir vendors and arguing political supporters.

“This shit is crazy,” Guerrero muttered under his breath. “All these dumbasses cheering for one idiot or another like it’s some kind of football game.”

“You know we can all hear you, right?” Sheila said.

“What?”

“Your comm is open, Lone Star,” Tank’s voice came over the headset each team member wore.

“Shit, I forgot,” Guerrero said, then reached up and pressed a button on the commset on his shoulder.

“Good one, rook,” Sheila said, clapping the stout man on the shoulder.

“I’m an idiot,” he replied.

“Yeah, but we all do it at least once. At least you didn’t leave your comm open when you were having…relations with a young cybernetics tech in the machine shop.”

“Who did that?” Guerrero asked.

“I wouldn’t be the one to say, but maybe you want to bring that up if Tank starts to give you a little too much crap about this little screwup.”

Lone Star gave her a little grin. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Now make sure you don’t do it again, or I’ll kick your ass.”

The pair made their way through the crowded ballroom to the back doors, guarded by a pair of beefy Secret Service agents. Sheila stepped up one of them and held out her hand. “Sergeant Hewson, TECH Ops. I think you were told to expect us?”

The big man looked her up and down. “They told us a bunch of soldiers were coming to provide backup, and that you guys carried special ordinance. You don’t look like any soldier I’ve ever seen.” He was big, with a shaved head, goatee, and a suit cut to hide the bulge of a pistol under his left arm. It didn’t quite do the job.

“You want to take me in the back and search me?” Sheila said, stepping in close to the man. When he took his eyes off her hands for a second, she reached down and grabbed his belt. Hefting the man off his feet without even a strain, she looked up at him and said “I look special enough now?” She dropped him to the floor and stepped back, deploying the razor-sharp talons from each fingertip with a metallic click.

“Whoa, soldier,” the other agent stepped forward, one hand on his partner’s shoulder and the other drifting under his own jacket. “Let’s all step back and remember we’re on the same team. Collins, they told us these were special troops. Looks like they’re more special than we knew. Sorry about Tom, he has some issues. I’m—“

“Jim Beam?” Lone Star said, and the other man laughed.

“No, I’m Reggie. Reggie Stark. But that’s good. If we had another agent named after a drink, I’d make damn sure they partnered with Tom. I’m in charge of the interior of the room. Alex Santos will be your contact for the back of house security.”

“Sheila Hewson. Call sign Raptor. This is Pablo Guerrero. He answers to Lone Star.”

“I’m from Oklahoma,” he grumbled.

“Could be worse,” Agent Collins said. “Whenever I’m on radio they call me Shirley Temple. I tell them they could use my real name and nobody would believe it, but this way they get in another laugh at my expense. You get used to it after the first five or six years.”

“You can go on back. Agent Santos should be in the hallway with her team, but she might be on the dock. She’ll have credentials for you,” Stark said, opening the door and waving them through.

“Thanks,” Sheila said. “Let’s have a good one.”

“Everybody goes home,” Stark said, holding out a fist.

Sheila and Pablo pounded fists with the man as they passed through the door into the back hallway of the convention center. “Everybody goes home,” Guerrero repeated.

The “back hallway” was a misnomer, actually encompassing a huge staging area with makeshift dressing tables, a table loaded down with snacks and beverages, and at least forty people wandering around, talking on cell phones, tapping on tablets, and yelling into walkie-talkies. The chaos was overwhelming for a second, then Sheila dialed in on the mission and got her head in the game.

“Lone Star, identify the entry points into this area, and determine how many agents are at each entrance. Then find a spot in the rafters or some other high ground to make a nest that will cover as many of those entries as possible. Arrange yourself so your blind spots are at one end or another, and I’ll position myself to help cover those.”

“Sounds good. You gonna hook up with this Santos fellow and get a sit rep from him?”

“That’s the plan. Keep your comm open, and your opinions about the candidates to yourself. The last thing we need is an accusation of favoritism.” Sheila pressed the button to activate her own commlink and turned away, walking toward a cluster of men who were obviously government agents, judging by the earpieces and cheap suits. Lone Star clicked on his own comm and strode off to the nearest door to evaluate the security.

Sheila approached the group of four men and one woman standing by the snack table reinforcing every stereotype about cops and doughnuts in the world. The lone woman looked up and gave her a smile as she approached.

“You must be the TECH Ops team. We’ve been expecting you. I’m Agent Santos. I’m in charge of the staging area.” The woman held out her hand, and Sheila gave it a firm shake.

“I’m sorry if I seem taken aback. I was told to look for Alex Santos,” Raptor said.

“They were messing with you. I’m Alex, but I usually go by Alexandra, or my first name, Agent.” She smiled again, and Sheila found herself liking this woman with the firm grip and dark eyes. She seemed to have it together, something Sheila admired in others, as she so seldom felt like she had anything together herself.

“Well, it’s good to meet you, Agent. I’m Sergeant Hewson, call sign Raptor. My partner is Corporal Guerrero. His call sign is Lone Star. He’ll probably tell you he’s from Oklahoma. Feel free to give him shit about that.”

“Will do,” Santos agreed, and there was that smile again. This woman was really pretty, in a rough-hewn kind of way. “We have agents at all six doors, and four men on the dock, but we could use another couple of bodies out there.”

“We’ve got two men on the way back there. Tank and Viper. Tank is our heavy weapons specialist, and Viper…well, Tank is a good guy.” Sheila felt her face flush a little, but she wasn’t ready to endorse Viper just yet. Not until she saw how he managed himself in the field. Not until he made it through today without Tank, or her, murdering the mouthy prick.

Santos laughed. “We’ve got a couple of those, too. Don’t worry. We’ve got the routes into the dock pretty well blocked off. There shouldn’t be anything coming in until long after we’re all gone, and my guys have searched everything that’s already back there. Today should be a walk in the park.”

“Let’s hope,” Sheila said.

“Fuck hope,” Santos said. “We’ve got something better. Preparation, and a lot of fucking guns.” Both women laughed as Raptor and Lone Star turned to start a lap around the perimeter.

Raptor – Chapter 2

by john | Oct 23, 2018 | Uncategorized

Click the Tag for all other chapters

2

“What the fuck do you mean, get ready for a mission, Duke? We aren’t even a full team. Shit, Boss, there’s not even anybody here but me and Tank! I mean, if you want to count Ramirez, but he’s the doc, for Chrissakes. He barely even knows how to shoot!”

“Raptor, if I want any shit outta you, I’ll squeeze your fuckin’ head. Now get Tank and meet me in the goddamn briefing room in ten. I’ll take care of making sure you’re at full strength before you roll out.” Duke glared down at her, and after a few seconds under that withering stare, she turned and took off down the hallway, her brown braid flopping behind her.

Finally. After all this time, she was finally going to see some action. Who gives a shit if it was just her and Tank? That was fine, she was used to working with the big lummox, and she trusted him to keep her safe. Well, as safe as she could be, given the kind of things TECH Ops teams were usually deployed to. She’d been waiting through a year of physical therapy, then six months of combat retraining, then another six months of specialized TECH training with her new arms, legs, and enhancements. Two years of living in The Bunker, the name they all used when talking about Fort Powell, an underground base in the foothills of Eastern Tennessee.

Two years of sparring, target practice, and lectures on everything from Ancient Military Theory to Rommel’s deployments in World War II. She felt like Duke had crammed four years of West Point into her head in two years, plus training for the Olympics at the same time. But she was finally ready, or Duke was finally so desperate that he couldn’t wait to get the other two team members they needed rebuilt and trained up, so he was just throwing them out to the wolves.

Calm down, girl, she told herself. It’s probably just some BS public relations junket or some kind of dog and pony show for the Appropriations Committee. But that was fine. She’d take it. Anything to get out of the Bunker for more than the couple hours topside training time they got every day.

Sheila rounded a corner and banged on Tank’s door. “Get up, you big idiot! We’ve got a mission!”

The door slid open seconds later and Colin “Tank” Dudley filled the frame. The former tight end, former pro wrestler, former bodyguard, former Judo instructor and current only other member of TECH Ops Team Delta stood in front of the door, buck naked. He was a huge man, heavily muscled, and hung like a horse. Sheila shook her head. Answering the door naked was one of Tank’s favorite pranks. It didn’t work out so well for him when a couple of Pentagon generals toured the facility, especially since one of those generals was a woman who didn’t find anything funny about Tank’s junk. Duke had the heavy gunner washing all the base dishes for a month after that stunt. But it’s not like they could fire him. Not with half a billion dollars in tech hard-wired into his body.

“Put away your pistol, Tank. We’re gonna need heavy guns for whatever we’re doing today,” Sheila said. She turned away to walk back down the hall, talking over her shoulder as she went. “Meet me in the motor pool in five.”

“I gotta take a dump, Raptor. I just fuckin’ woke up.”

“Shit fast, Tank, then get your gigantic ass moving!”

***

Tank stomped into the motor pool ten minutes later, buttoning a black tactical shirt over his thick torso. Duke stood at the front of the room at parade rest, not moving, not speaking, not even acknowledging the big gunner’s entrance until Tank stepped up beside Sheila and snapped off one of the worst salutes Sheila had ever seen. Tank was a good one to have in a fight, but nobody was ever going to mistake him for a trained military man. Discipline wasn’t exactly his thing, to say the least.

“You’ve got a mission,” Duke started.

“Fuckin’ finally, boss. I mean no disrespect, but goddamn we’ve been down here a long time. I’m really fucking tired of shooting at targets and beating up practice dummies. And Marines,” Tank said with a sideway grin at Sheila.

“Fuck you, Tank,” Sheila replied with a smile.

“Anytime, anywhere, Raptor,” Tank shot back, his easy grin never wavering.

Sheila sometimes marveled at Tank’s good humor. The man was only standing thanks to the work of TECH Ops team, having suffered a serious spinal injury when a deranged fan sent a bomb in a flower box to the singer he was guarding. The singer made the front page of Newsweek for her terrible experience while Tank got a motorized wheelchair and a very tiny severance package for literally falling on a grenade.

But he never said a bad word about anybody. Not the superstar that fired him, not the manager that screwed him out of tons of money, not the tabloids that reported the explosion as the fault of poor private security, ensuring that he’d never work again, even if he wasn’t paralyzed from the neck down by the damage. Then TECH Ops came along and built him a new spine, and hard-wired an enhanced titanium exoskeleton to it, essentially making him stronger than the Incredible Hulk.

“If I ever want to fuck a toaster, Tank, you’ll be the first cyborg I call.”

“Just think about it, Raptor, we could make little Terminator babies, and they could grow up to be governor of California!”

“If you two are quite fucking finished, I’ll proceed with the mission brief,” Duke said.

“Sorry, Sir,” Sheila said.

Tank said nothing, but he did at least fall silent. Duke went on. “Delta Team is to provide backup and crowd control reinforcement for Alpha and Bravo team at the convention center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“All three teams, sir? What’s going on?” Sheila asked.

Duke glared at the woman, then went on. “The VFW National Conference is tomorrow, and the centerpiece of the event is a televised Presidential debate, right there in the biggest ballroom in the building. With both candidates there, we need to secure all exits, and keep an eye on the crowd.”

“Isn’t that what the Secret Service is supposed to do, sir?” Sheila asked.

“We have received some very credible intelligence that this event may be a target, and since we have some very specific assets, the determination was made to use them in assisting the Secret Service.” Duke replied.

“And if they’re lucky, they’ll never even know we’re there, right Duke?” The new voice came from the door, where Evan Rogers leaned against the frame. Evan, known as “Cap” or “Captain America” to the other team members, was the leader of Alpha Team. Alpha Team was the longest-serving and most capable of all the TECH Ops teams, and Cap was the Alpha dog of Alpha Team. He looked like his namesake, tall, blonde, with sparkling blue eyes and a smile that made most women’s knees go all watery.

Sheila cocked an eyebrow at him. “What are you doing in our briefing, Cap?”

“Just checking in on you, Birdie,” he replied with a wink.

“It’s Raptor, Cap. I think Duke has our brief well in hand. So have a nice day.”

“Oh, you too, Raptor. Have fun with your new squad.” The good-looking man turned and walked off, whistling.

“What is your problem with him, Raptor?” Tank asked. “I like Evan.”

“Tank, you like everybody.” The big man shrugged, then nodded. “I don’t have a problem with Evan, I just don’t fall for his fake smiles and quick one-liners. And he doesn’t like me because I won’t kiss his ass or fuck him, and that puts me in pretty damn rare company around this place.”

“That it does, Raptor,” Duke agreed. “That it does. But back to the point. Your team will be providing backup. You will cover the freight entrances and the service hallway outside the ballroom. Beta Team will provide a visible security presence inside the room, while Alpha Team will be stationed in the lobby to scan people as they come into the facility.”

“And to be out in front where the TV cameras are,” Sheila muttered.

“PR is a part of the gig, Raptor, and Captain Rogers is very good at it,” Duke said. “He is the Mission Leader. You are the leader of Team Delta, but your job is to put your team in place where Cap directs, and fulfill the orders that he gives you. Is that clear?” Duke put a little extra steel in his voice.

“Yes, sir,” Sheila said, and saluted.

“Yeah, I don’t know…” Tank drawled. “I mean, what if his orders are stupid, like to stand on one leg for half an hour, or something like that?”

“You saying you can’t stand on one leg for half an hour, Tank?”

“I weighed two hundred eighty pounds before the government riveted all this titanium to my ass. I haven’t been on a scale in a year, because they all break, but I figure I probably weigh at least five hundred pounds with all this metal.”

“More like eight if you have your weapon and ammunition,” Duke said. “And if you don’t have a weapon and ammunition on you, what’s the damn point of you being there?”

“Yeah, I ain’t the guy you send in to negotiate,” Tank agreed. “My point is, I ain’t the most graceful little gazelle you got in this outfit, so I’m not the dude to stand on one leg. That’s all I’m saying.”

Duke sighed, and Sheila could almost see the words “fucking civilians” roll across his eyes. “Tank, I’ll tell you what. If Cap tells you to stand on one leg, you have my permission to ignore that order, and to tell him I told you so. But any other thing he tells you to do, you do it. Sound fair?”

“I guess it’ll have to to do. When do we leave?”

“As soon as the rest of your team arrives. Which should be right about…” Duke’s voice trailed off as a pair of men walked into the room.

One of them, the shorter man, carried himself with the quiet grace and confidence of a man who has seen combat, who has walked through some serious shit and come out the other side. Sheila’s eyes ran up and down the trim Latino’s form, trying to decide if she could tell which of his parts were cybernetic, and which were “factory,” as the crew tended to call the body parts they had been born with. She couldn’t tell from across the room, the prosthetics were that good. No limp, nothing hanging strangely, just a strong man walking with confidence.

The other guy looked like trouble on two legs, Sheila thought at once. And not the fun and entertaining kind of sweaty trouble that Evan Rogers could certainly be. This one was weaselly trouble, tall, skinny, with a mousy brown ponytail and scraggly beard. It was one thing to be a TECH Ops team member and not be military. That happened, and some of those guys turned out okay. Tank had never gone through basic or eaten an MRE in his life, and he was fine. But this guy, he looked like ten miles of bad road. The kind of guy you did not want to share a foxhole with.

“You Duke?” The stocky man said.

“That’s right.”

“Pablo Guerrero, sir.” He stopped a few feet before he got to Sheila and Tank and saluted. Sheila and Duke returned the salute. Tank, of course, being Tank, flashed the new arrival a peace sign and a quiet “wassup” instead.

“Guerrero,” Duke said. “This is Sheila Hewson,” Sheila nodded. “And—“

“Tank Dudley,” Guerrero said. “I recognize you, man. Your match at WrestleWar a couple years ago was epic, man.”

Tank grinned and shook the new guy’s hand. “That was a fun one, man. Until I came off the top of the cage and broke my leg. That shit kinda ruined my weekend.”

“I bet. But you’re all healed up? They fixed you?” The smaller man asked.

“That shit just made me limp, and guaranteed I was out of the wrestling business for good. The grenade in Katy Perry’s dressing room, that bought me this.” Tank turned around and lifted his shirt, showing the exoskeleton fused into his spinal column. The metal followed his spine perfectly, and articulated at every connecting point.

“Thanks to this thing, I’m not just good as new, I’m better than ever,” Tank said.

“Brilliant, the six million dollar idiot. Could I please go back to prison now? These people are worse than Leavenworth TV.” The skeletal man with the ponytail looked at the crew with undisguised disdain.

“I can send you back to Leavenworth, Landan, but I’ll have to take all my tech back first. So if you like having two working arms, two good eyes and a skull not fractured in six places, I think you need to keep your cybernetic mouth shut.” Duke folded his arms and stared down the skinny man.

“Team, this is Viper, aka Kelvin Landan. He’s an asshole, a thief, and an unrepentant criminal—“

“Stop, you’ll make me blush,” Landan said.

“But he’s also the best hacker I’ve ever seen,” Duke continued. “He’s barely qualified with every firearm we’ve put in his hands, but stick him in front of a keyboard, and he’s a goddamn Mozart.”

“Mozart was a pussy,” Landan said under his breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Sergeant Hewson is your team lead. Her call sign is Raptor. Do not call her anything other than Raptor over comm. Do not call anyone by anything other than their call sign over comm. Some of the people on other teams may have people they care about.”

“Unlike us,” Landan said.

“Excuse me?” Sheila asked.

“Well, given his word choice, we’re obviously the orphan team. The misfits, the abnormal ones. We’re not here to protect the country for our fair-haired sons and daughters. You’re here out of some misguided sense of duty, just like G.I. Pedro over here. The big idiot is here because they told him he could punch things if he signed, and it gets me out of working in the prison gift shop.”

Sheila looked at Duke, whose blank face gave absolutely nothing and everything away.

Duke continued. “Tank is your heavy weapons specialist and door breacher. His job is to knock things down with extreme force. I would strongly suggest you not accept his invitations to spar.”

Tank smiled, and Sheila remembered the last greenie who stepped into the ring with Tank. It took him a month to get his cybernetic arm reattached.

“Mr. Guerrero’s call sign is Lone Star. He—“

Guerrero cleared raised his hand. Duke nodded to him. “I’m actually from Oklahoma, not Texas.”

“Close enough, Lone Star,” Duke said, obviously considering the matter closed.

“Umm…” Guerrero started, but Landan reached out and put a hand on his elbow.

“Dude, be glad they didn’t name you Taco Max or something really racist. Take the Texas BS and call it a win.”

“Lone Star is your distance shooter. His cybernetic eye allows him to make shots from a great distance.”

“And I hack things. With a computer, or with Elizabeth,” Landan smiled and produced a folding razor as if from nowhere. Duke and Lone Star took a step back. Sheila wanted to, but wouldn’t let herself.

“You named your razor?” She asked.

“I name all my favorite tools. Want to see the one I call Big Boy?” Viper said with a smirk.

“That depends. Does Big Boy brush his teeth, or did he learn hygiene from you?” Sheila shot back.

“I like a woman that will play back.”

“One thing you need to learn. Viper, and you need to learn it fast,” Sheila said, stepping up to the skinny man and extending a razor-sharp titanium talon from each finger on her right hand, just inches from Viper’s face. “I don’t play.”

Raptor – Chapter 1

by john | Oct 16, 2018 | Uncategorized

This is a new project. It’s a very rough draft, but I thought I’d float it up here to see what people think. 

1

Sheila Hewson heard them before she saw them. Voices, like down a hallway, or just outside the room. The voices came closer, and she could make out some words.

“Recovery…miracle…time…” This was a woman’s voice, gentle. It made Sheila feel safe, like nothing bad could happen to her. Nothing else, anyway. Where did that come from? Why did she think that? Had something bad happened?

A different voice, now, male, strong, gruff. “No miracle…government property…soldier…”

That’s right, she was a soldier. Sheila. Sheila the soldier. That felt right, felt good, felt…pain? A stabbing pain lanced through her foot and Sheila snapped her eyes open.

“What the fuck?!?” She exclaimed. Or at least she thought she did. What came out of her mouth was more like a very weak “Wafuc?”

“Good, you’re awake,” a voice said. Sheila managed to focus her eyes on the man standing at the end of the hospital bed. Her hospital bed, she realized with a start. She was in the hospital. What the fuck was she doing in the hospital?

“Who are you?” Sheila took her time and formed the words carefully, then looked around the room. She saw a glass of water on a table by her bed and reached for it.

Except her wrists were tied down. Padded restraints made reaching for anything impossible. She pulled against the straps, but the leather cuffs were fastened tight around her wrists and lashed to the rails of her hospital bed. “Why am I tied down? Where the fuck am I? Where is Captain Stillman? What is going on?” Her voice climbed with every question until the man stepped forward and pressed a hand against her mouth.

“Shut. Up.” Sheila glared up at him from over his hand, then tried to bite him. He kept his palm cupped, so she couldn’t get a good grip on his flesh with her teeth. The man leaned in, his aftershave rolling over her like a wave.

“Be quiet and I’ll explain everything.” He stayed there, leaning over her, until she realized he was waiting for her to respond. She nodded, and he straightened up and took his hand away. He turned to a woman standing behind him. “You may go.”

“I can’t leave!” the woman protested. “This patient just came out—“

“Out,” the man said, and the authority in his voice was undeniable. The woman, presumably a doctor, gave a huff, turned on her heel, and walked out.

The man turned back to Sheila, his brown eyes boring into her. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Are you ready?”

Sheila nodded.

“Okay,” the man said. “You were in a jeep riding to the DMZ when your vehicle was struck by what we believe was an RPG. You were thrown from the vehicle, which probably saved your life. The driver and other passenger were killed. You were stabilized in Korea, then eventually flown here, to Fort Powell, once it became clear that your condition was going to requite long-term care.”

“Fort Powell? I’ve never heard of a Fort Powell. Where am I?” Nothing this man said made sense. He had no insignia, not even a uniform. He wore a suit and tie, but he carried himself like a soldier. Mercenary? Civilian contractor? Retired military? None of this made sense.

That must have shown on Sheila’s face, because the man’s expression softened, and he pulled a chair over to her bedside. “Let me start simple,” he said, sitting down. “Your jeep was attacked, we assume by the North Koreans, although there is some evidence pointing to an attack by Northern sympathizers from the South. But that doesn’t matter. You were the only survivor, and that just barely. You were put into a medically-induced coma and brought here. This is Fort Powell, an off-book installation in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. We do a lot of things here, but the reason you’re here is our T.E.C.H. Ops program.”

“Your what?”

“Tech Ops. Tactically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans. We blend technology with organic tissue to create a specialized, high advanced elite strike force. A force that you are now a part of.”

Something ugly was starting to bubble up inside Sheila’s head. A memory, or maybe a series of memories. Riding along, Derek in the front seat beside Corporal Green from the motor pool. A screeching sound, then an explosion. Fire, pain, incredible pain, a sensation of flying, then…nothing. Nothing until that moment when she woke up as…what?

“I think I remember, at least a little. Derek?”

“Sergeant McCoy was killed in the attack, along with Corporal Green. I’m sorry.” He did look sorry, this civilian that looked like military. Something in the way he said it made Sheila believe that he had led men, and lost men, in battle.

She closed her eyes. Derek was dead. Derek was dead, Green was dead, and she was still alive. Where was the justice in that? Derek, with his sparkling eyes, stupid jokes, and three-year-old son at home that he Skyped with every couple of days. And Green. She didn’t really know Green, but she knew he was young, unmarried, and had a weakness for South Korean women that had landed him in hot water with the CO more than once when fathers came to the base to complain.

She opened her eyes. Time to get moving, soldier. Now get these straps off and get your gear. Some son of a bitch blew you up, it’s time to blow him up right back.

“That didn’t take long,” the man remarked.

“What?”

“For you to make the switch from confused to pissed off. You’re ready to hunt down the bastard that shot you and kill him, aren’t you?”

“He killed Sergeant McCoy and Corporal Green, sir. I’m a Marine, we don’t take that shit lightly.”

“No, you don’t, Sergeant. But the man that fired the rocket is dead. What we haven’t been able to do is track down who he’s working for. But we will. And when we do, you had better believe that person or persons will be taken out with extreme prejudice.”

“Who exactly are you, sir?”

“My name?”

“Or anything else would be fine. Like why you’re in civilian clothes, why you’re at my bedside, and why you picked me for whatever project you’ve got going on here.”

“Your CO said you were sharp. Good to see he’s still got a good eye. I’m Franklin Wayne, but most people call me Duke.”

“Because you’ve got the complexion of mayonnaise?” She asked the exceptionally tan man.

“Good one. No, my middle name is John. When that gets out, the jokes start. It saves time if I just tell people to call me Duke. I’m in civilian clothes because I’m technically a civilian. I was injured back in Fallujah. Double amputation below the knee. I came home, spent a year feeling sorry for myself, then got my shit together and starting working on this project.”

“TECH Ops.”

“TECH Ops,” he repeated.

“I got what it stands for, but I don’t know what you mean,” Sheila admitted.

“Would it make more sense if I told you that you were a quadruple amputee after the explosion?”

“Bullshit. I can feel my arms and legs. I can move my arms and legs.”

“You can feel arms and legs, and they are your arms and legs. But they aren’t the arms and legs you were born with. The explosion took off your left leg and arm at the hip and shoulder, shattered your pelvis, broke all but one of your ribs, took your right arm three inches below the shoulder, and your right leg just above the knee. It also blew off your nose, but compared to everything else, building you a new nose was a relatively simple affair.”

“Then how can I feel everything? I know something about prosthetics, we had a guy in our unit who had an arm replaced, and he was still able to shoot, drive, do pretty much anything he wanted. He only said he had to be careful wiping his ass, but I always figured he was joking. But technology is only so good. You can’t fake nerves.”

“We don’t. Fake them, that is. We use almost microscopic fiber-optic wire to replace the severed nerves, and transmit signals just like your real ones. You won’t tell much difference between your new arms and legs, and your old ones. At first, anyway. Once you learn how to use them like normal limbs, then we’ll get to the ‘E.’”

“The ‘E?’”

“Yes, Sergeant Hewson. Once you learn to walk, and throw, and catch, and type, and shoot, and fight again. Then we’ll teach you what your enhanced limbs can really do.”