Villain (Gone 8)

Now he had a steel box with a bulletproof glass wall on one end looking out on gloom and gray, shadowy distorted lab workers in white coats, private guards in uniform, and from time to time big trucks and earthmovers passing. General DiMarco’s “bunker” was up to his left, just a ripple in the glass.

A steel box containing a steel box containing Tolliver, for in addition to losing his freedom and his family and his place in the world, Tolliver had lost his body. He was no longer made of flesh and bone and blood, he was a machine with a human head, a tank with a man’s head encased in an armored steel bell.

I am Master Sergeant Matthew Tolliver, United States Marine Corps. Semper Fi.

After he had suffered a training accident at the Marine base in Twentynine Palms, HSTF-66 had come for him, rushing him away to supposedly expert treatment. They had sliced down his back and pulled out his spine, cutting away the veins and arteries, the tendons and nerves. His spine and his head had been removed in a single piece, and then, in a series of operations—he had lost count—the remaining biological Tolliver was connected to a maze of wires and servers and battery packs.

It had taken a month just for him to learn to control the articulated “arm” on his right side. After that it had taken only days to master the engine that drove his four big, cleated wheels. The weapons systems, already optimized for digital controls, were the easiest. Fully loaded, he was armed with a cluster of three MANPADS (man-portable air-defense system) capable of shooting down most helicopters; he had six rocket-propelled grenades; he had a six-barrel mini-gun that could fire up to six thousand rounds per minute. He could go three hundred miles on a tank of diesel fuel at speeds of up to fifty miles an hour. The tank body was small, dense, and heavily armored, weighing ten tons—about the weight of three cars.

If there was a weak spot, it was clearly the rounded hump within which his head still survived on pumped oxygen and nutrient baths. That hump, with a slit for his eyes, sat where the turret would be on a real tank. And that slit was his world now. He was a sardine in a box atop a box inside a box inside a cave.

Tolliver suspected he was losing his mind. Most days he spent doing nothing, nothing at all, but sitting in his cell. Naturally his weapons systems were all unloaded, or he would, without the slightest question, have tried to blast his way out, even if it meant the shock waves would kill him.

He might be a cyborg, he might be a slave with a pain chip in his head, but still . . .

I am Master Sergeant Matthew Tolliver, United States Marine Corps.

Semper Fi. Always faithful, the Marine Corps motto.

But faithful to what? he asked himself bitterly. To the government that had done this to him?

And he knew he wasn’t the only one. He was a careful observer, and on testing runs either out in the cave or even out in the open air, he had seen others similar to himself, each a bit different, as if each was a new stage of development.

At least, he told himself, he was better off than the new drones he’d heard referred to by the sickeningly cruel term “baby-go-bang-bangs.” These were drones piloted by the brains of infants. The Ranch’s researchers had discovered that no computer could identify a human face with anything like the accuracy of a human brain. So infants had been . . . obtained . . . and the unnecessary parts removed, so that what was left was a baby’s head and eyes as the “pilot” of a small, quick drone that carried no weapons but its own speed and weight. The brain was trained to respond to a photograph and, once launched, would search for that face, and upon spotting it, would accelerate and ram the target with a hardened steel nose cone. The infant brain was not expected to survive. He’d caught a glimpse of an iKaze, like a quarter-scale Predator with a glass bubble nose, within which rested a small pink brain and the globes of two eyes connected to the brain by a tether of nerves and blood vessels.

So many nightmares he’d seen here. That was the worst.

Semper Fi. Always faithful. To men and women—including military officers like DiMarco—who would do that?

I, Matthew Tolliver, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

That was the oath he had taken eighteen years ago when he enlisted at age nineteen.

But back then he’d been fully human. Back then he had trusted. He had been proud to serve. But how to remain faithful when his nation had lost its moral compass? The first part of the oath was to defend the Constitution. It was the Constitution he served, not just the people in the chain of command.

He moved his wheels and crept closer to the glass barrier. Something wasn’t right out there. Something was happening. He could barely see, but he was pretty certain that two guards were in serious trouble.

Something was happening. Something unexpected. Something that had his jailers twisting and writhing in apparent pain. He himself was distantly aware of pain, but it did not quite reach him, as if he was standing next to a rushing river, catching the occasional drop but mostly staying dry.

Once, years ago in Afghanistan, he had been on a patrol that had been cut off. Tolliver and three of his marines were in a narrow defile with snipers on high points all around. Their radio wasn’t working; they had no way to call for help. It had been hopeless, and they all knew it. And then had come the faint sound of a helicopter, and in the space of three heartbeats he’d gone from grim despair to hope.

This was like that.

His weapons systems were not loaded. He had no bullets or missiles. But he sure knew where to find them. And how to use them.

And who to kill if he got the chance.

I am Master Sergeant Matthew Tolliver, United States Marine Corps. And I will kill these bastards with no more pity than they’ve shown.

Semper Fi!

CHAPTER 13

Letting the Animals Out of the Zoo

SHADE WAS IN morph, and Cruz joined her, deciding to mimic the appearance of Dekka—first because she admired Dekka, and second because it would confuse HSTF-66 and whoever else was watching. Sadly she would not have Dekka’s power, but a Dekka sighting here would perhaps help keep the real Dekka a bit safer. Wherever she was.

“Okay,” Cruz said.