Rita and I hurried to the hangar.
4
By the time Rita and I had made the relatively long trip from the Sky Lounge, U.S. Special Forces had established a defensive perimeter with their hangar at its center.
Two minutes for Rita to put on her Jacket. One minute forty-five seconds to run to Shasta’s workshop. Six minutes fifteen seconds to put down two Mimics we encountered on the way to the Nippon hangar. In all, twelve minutes and thirty seconds had passed since we left the Sky Lounge.
The base had descended into chaos. Tongues of flame shot into the sky and vehicles lay overturned in the roads. Smoky haze filled the alleyways between the barracks, making it difficult to see. The firecracker popping of small arms fire, useless against Mimics, rang through the air, drowned out by the occasional roar of a rocket launcher. Javelins met attack choppers as they scrambled into the sky, shattering their rotor blades and sending them spiraling toward the ground.
For every person running north to flee the carnage, there was another running south. There was no way of knowing which way was safe. The surprise attack had smashed the chain of command. No one at the top had any better idea of what was going on than anyone at the bottom.
There were hardly any Mimic corpses, and of the ten thousand plus Jackets on the base there was no sign at all. Human bodies were scattered here and there. It didn’t take more than a glance at a crushed torso to know they were KIAs.
A dead soldier lay face down on the ground thirty meters in front of my hangar. His torso had been shredded to ground beef, but he was still clutching a magazine with both hands. Beneath a thin layer of dust a smiling, topless blond stared up from its pages. I would know those prodigious breasts anywhere. The guy in the bunk next to mine had been looking at them during all those heart-to-heart talks I’d had with Yonabaru in the barracks. It was Nijou.
“Poor bastard died looking at porn,” I said.
“Keiji, you know what we have to do.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s no going back this time. No matter who dies.”
“There’s not much time. Come on.”
“I’m ready.” I thought I was, for that one second. “Fuck! This isn’t a battle, it’s a massacre.”
The hangar door stood open. There were marks where someone had jimmied the lock with something like a crowbar. Rita thrust one of the battle axes into the ground and unlatched the 20mm rifle slung on her back.
“You’ve got five minutes.”
“I only need three.”
I ran into the hangar. It was a long narrow building with Jackets lining either side of the passage down the middle. Each building housed enough Jackets for one platoon, twenty-five to a wall. The air inside was heavy and moist. The lights set into the walls flickered off and on. Most of the Jackets still hung from their hooks, lifeless.
The overpowering stench of blood almost knocked me off my feet. A huge dark pool had collected in the center of the room, staining the concrete. Enough to fill a bird bath. Two lines that looked as though they’d been painted with a brush extended from the pool toward the other entrance at the far end of the hangar.
Someone had been horribly wounded here, and whoever dragged them away didn’t have the manpower or equipment to do it neatly. If all that blood had leaked out of one person, they were already dead. A handful of Jackets were strewn in disarray on the ground, liked the desiccated molts of some human-shaped beast.
A Jacket was a lot like one of those ridiculous cuddly suits employees dress up in at theme parks to look like some maniacally grinning mouse. When they’re empty, they just hang on the wall with gaping holes in the back waiting for someone to climb in.
Since Jackets read minute muscular electric signals, each one has to be custom made. If you were to wear someone else’s Jacket, there’s no telling what would happen. It might not move at all, or it might snap your bones like twigs, but whatever the result, it wouldn’t be good. No one made it out of Basic without learning at least that much. The Jackets on the ground were clear evidence that someone had ignored that basic rule out of desperate necessity. I shook my head.
My Jacket had been left unmolested in its berth. I climbed in. Of the thirty-seven pre-suit-up checks, I skipped twenty-six.
A shadow moved at the far end of the hangar where the blood trails led—the end of the hangar Rita wasn’t watching. My nervous system jumped into panic mode. I was twenty meters from the door, maybe less. A Mimic could cover the distance in under a second. A javelin even faster.
Could I kill a Mimic with my bare hands? No. Could I deal with it? Yes. Mimics moved faster than even a Jacketed human could, but their movements were easy to read. I could dodge its charge and press tight against the wall to buy enough time to work my way to Rita. Unconsciously, I assumed a battle posture, rotating my right leg clockwise and my left counterclockwise. Then the shadow’s identity finally clicked: It was Yonabaru.
He was covered in blood from the waist down. Dried blood caked his forehead. He looked like a sloppy painter. A smile replaced the tension in his face and he started running toward me.
“Keiji, shit, I haven’t seen you all morning. Was startin’ to worry.”
“That makes two of us. Glad you’re all right.” I canceled the evasion program my body was running and stepped over the clothes I’d left on the floor.
“Whaddayou think you’re doin’?” he asked.
“What’s it look like? I’m going to kill some Mimics.”
“You crazy? This isn’t the time.”
“You have something better to do?”
“I dunno, how about a nice orderly retreat, or findin’ a place the Mimics aren’t and goin’ there. Or maybe just runnin’ the fuck away!”
“The Americans are suiting up. We need to join them.”
“They’re not us. Forget ’em. If we don’t leave now, we may not get another chance.”
“If we run, who’ll be left to fight?”
“Have you lost it? Listen to yourself !”
“This is what we trained for.”
“The base is lost, dude, it’s fucked.”
“Not while Rita and I are here it’s not.”