That one might have worked, if they’d been smart enough to boost their amps. The N2’s coated in a bleeding-edge Faraday weave, specs say you can throw a Lockheed Circuit-Breaker at it and it’ll keep on ticking. But nothing’s absolutely pulse-proof; the only way to keep all EM out is to not let any in, and then you’re deaf dumb and blind. So there’s a chink in the armor there. They could have pulled it off if they’d gone all-out.
But they might as well have used a Taser for all the good that sparkler of theirs did. Fuzzed my tacticals for maybe half a second, put a bit of a jitter into the haptics. Barely even noticed.
Drab Section noticed, though. I sent half those assholes off to party with their friends from Cobalt.
But it’s still no night in Reno, let me tell you. It’s one nasty evil-smelling pile of shit after another. They’re throwing everything at me from bricks to bombs, and the Ceph are all over the map; they’re tying up CELL, which is good, but they’re not going out of their way to make my life any easier, either. And through all of this Strickland keeps shouting Belay that! And Shoot to disable! And Lockhart’s cutting in with Kill order confirmed and Disregard further orders from Special Adviser Strickland and Someone kill that tin fuck for me. I gotta hope that at least they’ve gone their separate ways by now, because I do not envy their pilot if they’re still riding in the same chopper.
And of course I don’t have enough to worry about already so Nathan Gould pops in on his own channel, gives me the breathless breaking news that Lockhart’s people are swarming over the whole Lower East Side looking for me. No shit, Sherlock. And then they’re coming after him, I hear them kicking in the door when I’m still six blocks out and somehow Gould gets away, makes it down a fire escape or something, so now Gould’s warehouse is enemy territory and he’s on the run to an ex-girlfriend’s place where he’s stashed some surplus hardware that might do in a pinch. He sends me the new address and then he realizes that he also left it back at the warehouse—you know, the lab that’s now swarming with CELLulites—and we are totally fucked the moment one of them sits down at the terminal and checks his address book. One guess who gets to storm the warehouse and make sure that doesn’t happen.
At least this chapter has a happy ending, though, right? How many of those boys did I take out when the chopper crashed? Beautiful, beautiful sight, man. Came right down through the skylights, all that glass sparkling and tinkling like winter snow before the Meltdown. And you know, at least one of them was still alive on impact. I could see her mouth move through the bubble as she came down. I could see her screaming. Thank the good Lord for grenade launchers, eh Roger?
You should probably tell those guys to keep better tabs on them, though. They can be holy hell in the wrong hands.
Priority: High (Operation Martyr)
Interviewer: Cpl. Lansing, Analee (CELL HumIntel Acquisition)
Subject: Sweet, Caitlin (Female, Divorced, 38yrs. Term.)
Subject#: 429–10024-DR (biog. database extract appended)
Date of Interview: 23/08/2023 19:25
Date of Report: 24/08/2023 04:45
Subject dosed prior to interview with 130mg chlorpromazine to mitigate onset of Rapture and 65mg GABAbarbitol to ensure compliance. Meds administered via isotonic Glucose IV drip (standard rehydration protocols).
Sweet: Is my daughter all right? Can I see her?
Lansing: Emma’s fine. She’s sleeping.
Sweet: And that—that man, is he—?
Lansing: That’s actually what I’d like to talk to you about, ma’am.
Sweet: Caitlin’s fine.
Lansing: Yes ma—Caitlin. Now—
Sweet: Please, can I just see Emma? Just for a mo—
Lansing: I told you, Caitlin, Emma’s sleeping now. She’s fine.
Sweet: I wouldn’t disturb her, I just want to see—
Lansing: Maybe in a little while. Ma’am, we really need this information.
Sweet: (inaudible)
Lansing: Perhaps you could start by telling me what you were doing in that part of Manhattan.
Sweet: We—we used to live there, you know, before. Last week. We kind of hunkered down when it all started—that’s what they told us to do, right? Stay calm, stay in your homes, let the authorities do their jobs. So that’s what we did, we holed up in the apartment for three days before Mike—that’s my husband—he decided to head out and try to find some food. We were supposed to go grocery shopping, you know, the day it started. We didn’t really have much on hand.
So Mike’s gone for six, seven hours—there’s no cell phone coverage, right, there hasn’t been since everything fell apart, and I start to—is that my . . . that’s my daughter screaming, that’s—Emma!—
Lansing: No, ma’am, that’s not Emma. I told you, Emma’s sleeping.
MedTel Annotation: IV GABAbarbitol increased to 85 ml/l 19:26
Sweet: But . . . who is it, who’s screaming, who’s—
Lansing: It’s not Emma, Caitlin. I promise. Honestly, it’s nothing to concern you. If we can get back to your story . . .
Sweet: It’s—it’s a bit bright in here . . .
Lansing: I can turn down the lights if you like.
Sweet: No, actually the light’s . . . nice . . .
Lansing: So your husband’s been gone for six or seven hours . . .
Sweet: Yes. And the cell phones aren’t working, and there’s this, I don’t know, this muffled whump from outside. Like an explosion, but far away. So I go out onto the balcony, you know, just to look around, just to maybe see what’s happening. And about three blocks down along 15th there’s one of those spires, you know. Just sticking up out of the road, four, five stories high, glowing around the base with this banner of thick smoke streaming out the top. The smoke’s blowing my way and before I know it it’s in my eyes. It’s not like regular smoke, it’s—gritty. So I turn my face away, you know, look away in the other direction and—and I see him, down there in the street.
Lansing: Prophet.
Sweet: Who? Oh, you mean—no. Mike. Facedown. He never even got half a block. He . . .
Lansing: Would you like a moment?
Sweet: No, it’s okay. That screaming’s a bit distracting though, you know? Anyway, that’s when I decided to leave. The neighborhood just wasn’t safe, and Mike was—gone, and Emma and I were on our own. But my folks live in Brooklyn, and MacroNet’s been saying there was this evacuation site downtown, so Emma and I just picked up and left.
Lansing: Just so I understand: A spire’s just detonated three blocks from your apartment. Your husband didn’t make it half a block down the avenue. And you decide to take your child outside.
Sweet: Yes. —What?
Lansing: Nothing. Please go on.
Sweet: So I take Emma down the stairwell and we head out the back way because I don’t want her to see her daddy like that. And I’ve got my iBall out but the realtime updates aren’t working so we’re basically going by memory. And the farther uptown we get, the more dead soldiers we see. Or at least, you know, they had uniforms. Like yours. Not regular army or anything. Are you real soldiers? Armed forces? CSIRA?
Lansing: Yes, ma’am. We’re—for all intents and purposes, we are the armed forces.