Machine State Read online

  Worthy taps me on the shoulder. “The President pulled the curtain.”

  “Yeah? Save it for later.” Glancing over, he’s giving me that look again. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He looks away.

  “Did we get married when I wasn’t looking?”

  That gets a chuckle. “May as well be. It’s just…” He shakes his head.

  “Yeah. Me, too.” I lower my voice and lean toward him. “This mission has fucked written all over it. A Shanghai flu outbreak, fine, but to send this much firepower?”

  Worthy follows suit, says in a low voice, “The President opened the zones up, Malcolm. All of them, not just LA. Signed the executive order last night.”

  I shake my head and take a few steadying breaths. “So, this is how it ends.”

  “This is how it begins,” he says, gaze penetrating the hull into an unknown future.

  After the nuclear strikes on the homeland a quarter-century ago, Washington gave the stricken areas protected status like the old Indian reservations, making them self-governed and free from most federal control. Citizens and businesses were incentivized to live and work in these reclamation zones, to let the people do what their government, bankrupted by war and bad decisions, couldn’t. And it worked – people flocked to the zones, those willing to risk all in the irradiated wastelands for a better version of tomorrow. And for that noblest of hungers, freedom – zone residents are exempted from taxation, the draft, and most federal oversight.

  The Capital wasn’t all hands-off, though. Our organization, the Department of Recovery and Reclamation, was founded with sole federal jurisdiction to administer the zones. DRR’s role has been vital in supporting the homeland’s restoration, but it’s the zone residents themselves who’ve made reclamation doable on the scale required. I can’t help but admire the hell out of them. Well, excepting the malcontents that like to shoot at me and mine.

  Problem is, the Los Angeles Reclamation Zone will be filled with malcontents today. Granting other federal agencies zone jurisdiction threatens the freedoms enjoyed by its residents for over two decades. Though many will laud us for the help we bring in combating a deadly flu outbreak, most will see our coming as the beginning of the end to their way of life.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  By the silence, it’s clear the squad has been listening in while reading clues in our grim faces. Evans is the only one blatant enough to stare, the rest pretending disinterest. I give her a rare smile, drawing a startled blink. Sideways at Worthy, I say, “Fifty on Evans.”

  “I’ll take that,” he says, playing along. “The boy’s got her beat this time.”

  “You going to eat that?” asks Murphy, pointing to an apple produced by Evans.

  “I’ll eat you if you don’t shove off,” says Evans, crunching into the apple for effect.

  Murphy gives her a wicked smile. “Thought you’d never offer.”

  Anderson clears his throat and makes his move.

  “Go down swinging,” says Worthy, nodding in approval. “The boy doesn’t quit.”

  “Even when he ought to,” adds Murphy. “Detroit, anyone? The cucarachas?”

  Evans smiles – she’s heard the story. Anderson ignores her, focusing on the board.

  We were working the Detroit Reclamation Zone a few years back, prepping radioactive contaminant for transport to a scrubbing facility. The usual. A gang of small boys swarmed us – orphans, most likely, working for one of the local salvage gangs. They swiped some of our gear and Anderson, despite calls by our local brethren to stand down, chased after them. I let him run his leash, let Murphy tag along to keep an eye on him. When they got back, Anderson’s hard suit was coated head to toe with brownish filth. Those boys had him running through the sewers. He means well, but to do what we do, you’ve got to let some things slide. Perfect is a fool’s game.

  The squad bay lighting shifts red as an alarm klaxon sounds throughout the ship. The squad reacts with a chorus of groans and cussing, everyone glancing around at everyone, all eyes asking the same thing: what the fuck now?

  The captain’s voice comes over the intercom, her crisp tone silencing the squad’s chatter: “Attention, all personnel, assume combat positions. We are under attack.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Isurge to my feet and hustle forward, boots clanging down the short corridor to reach the cockpit. Stopping center-deck amidst the constellation of illuminated controls, I peer past the hovership crew at the forward windscreens. By the red glyphs pulsing on the tactical screens overlaying them, we’ve missiles inbound.

  An in-the-clear transmission comes in over the cockpit speakers: “All ships – assume mantis formations and continue on same vector. Weapons free to engage inbound SAMs.”

  “How many?” I ask, watching the red glyphs separate and become more pronounced.

  “Sixty-four hellions inbound,” says the co-pilot. “ETA thirty seconds to lead grouping.”

  “Redeemer, strap yourself in!” barks Spalleti, our pilot.

  I take the one vacant seat in the cockpit and do as she says.

  With a searing whine from the turbofans, the hovership lurches forward and veers to port, the G forces molding my head into the rest. In seconds, we’ve formed a flying triangle with two other ships, ours on the starboard side. The hovership in the lead, RF-217 by the fin markings, soars about a football field’s length away.

  “Captain, permission to slave fire control to RF-217?” says the co-pilot.

  “Permission granted.”

  “RF-217, RF-312, fire control is yours.”

  Our formation levels off as the red glyphs for the inbound missiles continue to spread across the forward screens. Craning my neck around reveals two other flying triangles through the side windshields, visible in the pre-dawn pall by their running lights and bright fin markings. The tactical screens show the rest of our squadron of twenty-four ships grouped behind us.

  “Firing,” says a voice over the cockpit speakers.

  Missiles streak away from our formation, scores of compressed contrails lancing away. The same occurs from the other flying triangles. Then it’s a waiting game, watching as our green glyphs close with the red glyphs on tactical.

  Explosions blanket the forward airspace, flares of light blooming in the pre-dawn sky, stark against the bruised backdrop of the storm beyond. Most of the red glyphs disappear from tactical, but not all. The turrets on our hoverships open up next, filling the gray dawn with pulsing white lines of traced autocannon fire to target the surviving SAMs.

  “Three inbound our formation!” shouts the navigator.

  “Steady,” soothes Spalleti.

  The cockpit screens flash with light, forcing me to squint. As the light abates, my relief gets thwarted at seeing our lead ship, RF-217, with its starboard side aflame. Horror cores my guts as it drops out of sight, burning and billowing black smoke.

  In-the-clear transmissions come over the cockpit speakers, the maydays of downed ships. One of them sounds panicked.

  “The board is green, Captain,” breathes the co-pilot.

  The lighting returns to normal as the alarm klaxons go silent. Spalleti announces over the intercom: “Resume normal stations, the threat has passed. We lost three ships to a SAM attack. Two are attempting emergency landings… That is all.”

  “217?” I ask.

  “He’ll make it,” grits Spalleti. “Status?”

  “No damage, Captain,” says the co-pilot.

  Unstrapping, I get to my feet to ride the deck.

  “Will this have a happy ending?” asks Spalleti.

  Swallowing the sarcasm – yeah, it’ll be great – I settle for glaring past her helmet at the strobing darkness filling the forward screens. I’ve seen my share of endings, but happy rarely describes them. The terminus of our current trajectory is no exception, nose down into hell with little chance of pulling up. Or pulling back. For us, there’ll be no picturesque sunrises or fairy-tale outcomes, our flight through the uncertain
blue of early morning about to descend into the aberrant contours of the murky future we engineered. Zone storms aren’t as fierce as they used to be, but the weather never did normalize after the nukes. Nothing did.

  “Redeemer?” she persists, helmeted head rotating to face me.

  “Will we be changing course?” I say, frowning at the need to deflect.

  “For that system, no. But give the word, I’ll turn us around.”

  “Thanks for the promotion. It as bad as it looks?”

  “LA is at eighty percent coverage,” says the navigator.

  “Gonna be a wet one,” says Spalleti. Through the tinted visor covering her face, I note her eyes directing my attention to a screen icon that she thumbs off. The cockpit recorders. “Blood-in-the-streets wet. Come on, Malcolm, are we flying true here?”

  “We should be grateful they gave us a part to play in this tragedy.”

  She frowns up at me. “It’s not our part that worries me, we’re not driving the boat. With DSS at the wheel, things are bound to turn Chinese.”

  “We need reclaimer boots on the ground. The people down there need us.”

  “If you say so. You’ll be walking the same streets with the enforcers, side by side.”

  I sigh and shut up, wearied by my feeble attempts to justify our presence on this op. Spalleti hit it dead on – we’re not in charge. Nor is Health and Human Services despite what our mission prep says. That honor falls to the Department of Safety and Security, and DSS has us going in guns pointed rather than hands out, with all federal forces weapons free to wipe out any resistance to the zone-wide quarantine. But no matter how I try to steer the squad clear of contacts, we could be forced to defend ourselves. We might end up no better than DSS and its legions of bloody-minded enforcers.

  Blood in the streets? Confining it there would require God to be merciful.

  I hand-signal to Spalleti, and she re-engages the cockpit recorders. I lower my brows and shake my head at her, the message clear: Shut the hell up. It only takes one recorded utterance of perceived treason to get the terrorist label. Free speech is a luxury of the pre-apocalyptic past.

  “They got them,” reports the navigator. “It was terrorists hijacked one of the old missile sites built to deter Chinese landings. Enforcement shut them down.”

  “That was quick,” I say. “Which group?”

  “They didn’t say. The city council is denying any involvement.”

  Of course they are. I tap Spalleti’s shoulder. “How’s Ron doing?”

  “Still on the mend,” she says. “I think he’s glad I got the call. Spending his recovery in virtual reality beats arguing with me.”

  “This makes six, right?”

  Spalleti shoots me a grin. “Seventh. You keep requesting me. Because I’m the best?”

  I shrug. “I like the conversation. Did our birds make it?”

  Spalleti looks to the navigator. “Anything yet?”

  The navigator holds up a hand. “Captain, it’s coming through now… RF-217 made a successful emergency landing. They lost two, though… RF-110, same story, but no word on casualties… RF-160 didn’t make it.” He shakes his head. “All crew are presumed lost.”

  Dead silence in the cabin.

  All at once, the sun crests the horizon behind us, its rays gilding the other hoverships and illuminating the clouds ahead, outliers to the brooding darkness beyond. The storm front stretches from horizon to horizon in the forward screens. Time to get to it.

  “Thanks for the lift, Captain,” I say, turning to go.

  “Be careful out there, Malcolm.”

  “Thanks, but that rarely works out.”

  I return to the squad bay and bang the bulkhead to get their attention. “Terrorists used an old SAM site against us – we don’t know which group – but DSS took them out. We might get a rough welcome on the ground, too, but we knew that going in. Not everyone’s going to be thrilled to see us.” Pausing, I look around at the grim faces. Good, they know what’s what.

  I continue aft, nodding at Worthy in passing and noting the satisfaction on Evans’ face – she’s nabbed Anderson’s queen. Passing by the armory, I glimpse Brady through the open hatch, sitting on the floor in cuffs with his back against the bulkhead. Poor bastard has the look of someone reading his own obituary – sentinels don’t take failure well. Arriving at the launch bay hatch, I crack my neck and take a deep breath to compose myself. Not that it ever works.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  I enter the darkened bay and punch a command sequence into the flight console. With a pneumatic hiss, the flight restraints unlatch on our tactical drones, their sensor arrays and running lights casting hunter-green light across the deck. We’ve got two for this mission, one more than the usual complement. Looking like bulked-up, one-tenth scale stealth fighters –three meters from nose to trailing edge of their retracted, variable wings – each semi-autonomous aerial platform packs enough firepower to deter most attackers. And their titanium alloy airframes – skinned gray green in a nanotube-reinforced polymer – will withstand most small arms fire.

  “Do you want to talk about it, Malcolm?” asks Patton, his customary tone of composed candor modulated with concern.

  “No,” I reply to the green-limned darkness. “Status?”

  The lithium overheads kick on over the far side of the bay, giving Patton’s gunmetal-gray skin a silvery sheen as his blue running lights luminesce. “The tactical drones are powered and ready,” he replies, the three cobalt lenses grouped on his forward fuselage focused on me. At his command, the flight restraints securing his airframe retract, custom installed for his unique configuration. Though similar in size and shape to the others, he’s in a class all his own.

  I cross the bay and stand before him. The guardian that never rests. The eye that never blinks. Justice in a metal shell. Running a hand over his composite skin, I note the imperfections – the dimples, dings, and scratches – telling of the hells we’ve endured. We’ve taken a lot of fire together since partnering up four years ago during rollout of the SMART drone program. He's one of the first Self-Motivated Aerial Reconnaissance and Tactical models. Why they assigned one of the next-gen AI prototypes to me remains mysterious – some story about my psych profile being compatible – but I’ve never regretted it. If Worthy’s a rock, Patton’s a mountain. I trust him more than anyone else in this battered old world.

  “You are disturbed,” he states. Like all SMART drones, he doesn’t miss much. Patton’s sensors and programming pick up and analyze everything, from my heart rate to my neurological activity to my expression and movements. “Is it the mission or something else?”

  “Both,” I say, continuing my inspection around his exterior.

  “Explain.”

  Give us some privacy? I ask with thoughtspeak, our ability to communicate telepathically using the implant in my head. It’s rare, cutting-edge tech, supposedly unhackable, though I don’t toggle it on much, traditionalist that I am.

  Scrambling regimes engaged, he responds.

  Good, now we can talk. I’ve made a habit of not speaking my mind unless signal scrambling is active to disrupt any nearby eavesdropping tech. It’s not paranoia to assume all my communications are being monitored when most of them are.

  “Just keep your eyes open,” I say, “in case Enforcement has any surprises for us.”

  “I monitored the situation with Reclaimer Brady. Do you suspect additional treachery?”

  “More than the usual? I don’t know, maybe, something’s seriously off about this mission.” Deep sigh, resisting the urge to pace. “Bloody politics. They’ve put DSS in charge of what should be our operation to run. My gut tells me we’re going to be used. Badly.”

  “Your gut is usually correct.”

  I stifle a smile. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Eighty-nine-point-three percent success in predicting future outcomes.”

  “Just tell me when I’m wrong, all right?”

  “I alre
ady do,” he says. “I will be vigilant for evidence of treachery.”

  “Be careful about using that word.”

  “Would you prefer I call it operational discretion?”

  That draws a smile. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. You neglected to take your medications today.”

  “Yeah?” Insufferable… I pause and step back, take a deep breath. Just let it go. Taking a reflexive look around the launch bay, I ask, “What do you think?”

  “We should not be here.”

  I start pacing. “Your turn to explain.”

  “Operation Lost Angel has nothing to do with reclamation. No resources are allocated toward radiation cleanup, environmental restoration, or community reconstruction. Reclamation protocols stipulating cooperation with zone residents and their representatives are also not in effect: the city council has not endorsed the use of federal resources attached to this operation.”

  “So why are we here?” I prompt. “The Shanghai flu?”

  “I possess insufficient data to support a conclusion.”

  I stop pacing and face him. “That’s never stopped you before.”

  “True, but I have been unable to corroborate the statistics being promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the outbreak in Los Angeles.”

  “And the big picture?”

  “The body of evidence supports the hypothesis that the acquisition and consolidation of political and economic power drive most policymaking at the highest levels of the Maxwell Administration. Despite the stated goals of disease vector containment and humanitarian relief, this operation will likely conform to this pattern of intent.”

  I frown down at the deck. “And if genuine humanitarian efforts get in the way?”

  “Operational discretion.”

  “Yeah. See you on the ground.” I turn and stride from the bay.

  Moving forward, the headache reminds me again that I’m still alive. I’m trying not to take the meds they keep foisting on me – make it harder to think, harder to lead. A drink would be better. Can’t carry a flask into a combat theater, though. I swear I will shoot the first person in the face who gives me crap today. About anything.