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.”