Shallow Graves: Full Fiction Text (Patreon)

People Who Died

Part I

Mathias sat on the balcony of his house overlooking his pool. Beyond the tall privacy fence surrounding it stretched a small forest, and past that — just before the horizon — he could make out the Gulf of Mexico. The sun hung low over the water, not yet a sunset but the promise of a beautiful one.

He glanced to his left at the other chair. It was empty. It had been empty for years — ever since cancer took Julie. Mathias knew his wife would have enjoyed watching the sunset with him.

Gripping the arms of his chair, he hoisted himself to his feet. He was by no means old — not yet 50, with a bare pate covered by a Marlins baseball cap. His hair had been buzzed short his entire adult life, so shaving it once his hairline had begun to recede seemed an obvious choice.

Mathias picked up the empty margarita glass. There was plenty of time to get another drink. He went inside, set the glass on the beautiful granite countertop, and opened the stainless-steel finished refrigerator. He had replaced all the kitchen appliances a year ago, after a particularly lucrative consulting gig.

“Major Mathias Washington,” said a woman’s voice behind him.

He spun, brandishing a half-empty, plastic margarita bottle like a weapon. His guns were in his bedroom, locked in a gun cabinet. The front door had sturdy locks to buy time for him to get them.

If the woman framed in the doorway to his living room regarded him as a threat, she gave no sign of it. She was short and slight, with dusky features and long black hair. She looked to be in her 20s or early 30s and wore a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers.

Mathias deliberately set down the bottle on the counter next to the margarita glass. And the block of kitchen knives, in case it came to that. How had she gotten into the house?

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Me? From you? Nothing.”

He placed the accent as Afghan.

“My friends, however…”

She made a small motion with one hand, and a circular hole ringed in black fire opened in the space between her and Mathias. A white man and a tall black woman, both of them in their 30s, stepped out of the portal. He didn’t bother taking in more of their appearance than that as he reached for the French chef’s knife.

“No,” said the man, and Mathias’s hand struck an invisible barrier.

“Weingarten,” the major said.

Then an unseen fist closed around Mathias, pinning his arms and legs and lifting him a foot off the floor. He wriggled futilely.

The man, who wore crooked black glasses, offered a small, cold smile. “I knew you’d remember me, Major. I certainly remember you.”

“Clarence Weingarten,” Mathias said by way of acknowledgment.

“Monty Weingarten. Clarence was my grandfather’s name.”

Mathias managed a shrug despite the bonds holding him. “Who are your friends?”

“And I knew you wouldn’t remember me,” said the black woman, stepping forward. Her right arm hung by her side, swaying slightly with the movement as though it were a dead thing. “Kenya Moses. One of your Tailored Xenetics buddies’ failed experiments. There were nine of us for every Monty.”

No recognition in the major’s eyes.

“Three hundred soldiers died, sir.” Her fury was thick despite the softness of her voice. “300 more of us ended up like this.” She gestured at her limp right arm.

“Which is why I shut the program down,” Mathias reminded them. When they didn’t immediately respond, he continued. “I assume your Afghan friend is another Tailored Xenetics success story?”

The black fire portal abruptly vanished.

“Yes,” the woman in the jeans said. “After they killed and maimed hundreds of Americans in their experiments, they killed and maimed thousands of Afghans, luring us with promises of giving us the tools we’d need to fight the Taliban. Then they sold those same tools to our enemies.”

“I had nothing to do with any of that,” Mathias told her. “And I had no idea they were in bed with the Taliban. Look, I’m not your enemy here.”

“You’re lying,” Monty cut in. “You’ve never met Zafir, but we know you’re still doing work for Tailored Xenetics.”

“I’m just a consultant,” Mathias stammered. “I know nothing about their inner workings.”

Fear. The fear of the animal as the door to the trap slams shut.

“Ah, but we know you’re working on a project with Michael Swan,” Monty told him.

“You want to know where he lives?”

“We already know that,” Kenya said.

“We want the names of his friends within the organization,” Monty clarified. “We want what you know about his handlers.”

“No one can handle Swan but you, Weingarten. I wish you’d reconsider their offer.”

Mathias grunted as the invisible fist tightened around him until he could barely breathe.

Monty’s voice shook with rage as he spoke. “We’re not doing this again.”

Part II

Fifteen years ago.

The man in the black suit looked up from his clipboard. “Clarence, is it?”

“I go by Monty, sir,” Monty said, feeling extremely underdressed. He didn’t own a suit, and his family couldn’t afford to buy him one, especially not for an interview for a summer job. Jeans and a flannel shirt had been the best he could find.

“Monty, then. I’m James.”

James offered his hand, which Monty took. He was older, with graying hair.

“Would you say you’re reliable, Monty?”

“I follow through on the commitments I make, sir. I do all my homework and am never late to school.”

James grunted, although it wasn’t clear whether he found this answer unconvincing or accepted it at face value. “This business is an unpredictable one, especially in a town this small. Sometimes we only get twenty-four hours’ notice of a job, and we have to deliver one hundred percent of the time.”

“Like firefighters?” Monty suggested.

James smiled, clearly amused by this parallel. “Yes. Like firefighters.”

“I’ve no other summer plans, sir.” In truth, there was little for teens to do in Radleytown that didn’t involve underage drinking, sex, or assorted forms of low-grade mayhem. “I can be here when you need me.”

“I’m guessing you don’t have previous experience digging graves?” James seemed amused by this.

Monty fidgeted slightly. “I’m not afraid of hard work. I baled hay last summer, and I was detasseling corn for four years before that. And I help my grandfather with his garden every year. That involves a lot of digging.”

James shook his head. “We don’t use shovels often. Usually, it’s a backhoe.”

“Oh.”

“Look, Monty. I don’t get a lot of teenagers looking for a job here, and I normally wouldn’t hire you. But I’ve gotten no other takers. So, I’m willing to give you a chance.”

                                        *

Monty got out of the old family van and walked into the cemetery. It was raining, but he had worked in the rain many times before. He spotted James in the western lawn. The man waved to him faintly as Monty walked up.

“This the spot?” Monty asked.

James nodded. He looked oddly pensive. The man had spent decades as a mortician, and working with the dead was just a job that always needed doing. He spent most of his time doing things other than digging graves — arranging obituaries, scheduling wakes and funerals, and embalming bodies.

“I’ll get the backhoe,” Monty said.

James shook his head. “Today, we’ll need spades.” When he saw Monty’s confused expression, he elaborated. “This one is an infant. Adults, we dig large, deep graves — the usual six-foot-deep hole. Tiny coffins need shallow graves.”

That gave Monty pause.

“They’re in the back of the maintenance shed,” James explained.

Monty had been in the shed countless times, mostly to get the lawnmower, so he had seen the collection of tools hanging on the back wall, but he hadn’t needed a spade before. He turned to go.

“Would you be willing to pick up an extra shift tomorrow evening?” James asked. “It’s a little different from your usual work.”

“Sure. What do you need me to do?”

“Carol quit yesterday. She got a job in the city, and they wanted her to start right away.”

Carol was the funeral home’s only other full-time employee — a secretary who performed a lot of public functions like greeting and directing mourners.

“I need someone to stand near the front door, hold it open for Baby Emily’s family, give them directions to the bathroom — things like that. Do you think you can handle that?”

“I don’t have a suit.”

“I have some extras in the storage room. One of them will probably fit you well enough. Come inside and try them on before you get sweaty from digging.”

                                        *

Monty adjusted his tie, trying to loosen it enough that he could breathe without making it look disheveled in the process. The tag at the back of the shirt collar felt scratchy against his neck.

“Monty?”

He knew the woman’s voice at once even before he turned around. She was two years older than him, a cousin on his father’s side. She wore an ankle-length dress of purple so dark it almost looked black.

Monty’s face lit up in recognition. “Hey, Grace. It’s been a long time. How’s college?”

She stifled a laugh. “You’ve been working here too long, cuz.”

Monty bristled a bit at that. “It’s just a high school job. Pays better than McDonald’s. It’s not like I’m going to spend my whole life digging graves.” Monty calmed again and shrugged. “Pop was already old when cancer took Mom. He lived a good, long life. Everyone has to die, and I’d much rather go like Pop did.”

In a small flurry of cloth, she sat down in a nearby folding metal chair. The funeral parlor only had a few comfortable chairs. It rarely needed more. But Pop had been something of a patriarch in Radleytown.

“College is good,” Grace said, ceding the choice of topic to him.

Monty sat down next to her. “Windmills, right?”

“Offshore wind farms, yes. Anything to get away from here. What are your plans now that you’ve graduated?”

“I’ve enlisted in the Army. Basic starts next month.”

They lapsed into an awkward silence, looking in the direction of the lacquered white coffin on the far side of the room. Of the few dozen people here, they were the youngest, and it wasn’t even close. Except for a few aunts and uncles, most were Pop’s age or older.

“Amy and Gary didn’t make it back,” Grace noted.

“They moved to Philadelphia a year ago after that big fight with Gary’s dad. I don’t think they’ll be back.”

Monty sighed and shook his head. He doubted Amy and Gary missed Radleytown. He was sure Grace didn’t. And he probably wouldn’t, either. Anywhere had to be better than here.

Part III

Now.

Mathias thrashed at the bottom of the pool, beating uselessly against the invisible force that held him there. Monty looked down at him, eyes filled with burning hatred. Kenya looked on with interest; she had as much reason to hate the major as he did. Zafir was indoors, no doubt cleaning up the little evidence they had left of their intrusion.

Tailored Xenetics’ experiments on Afghan volunteers had been more ambitious than their plans for the program that had Remade Monty and maimed Kenya. Emboldened by the certainty that deaths among the Afghans would attract less scrutiny, they had grown cavalier about the fates of their volunteers, but the work had yielded interesting — and useful — results. Zafir’s implant allowed her to pass through solid objects effortlessly and without damaging them. It also granted her access to a microdimension the size of a house that followed wherever she went. For a year, she had been a living personnel transport, one unimpeded by obstacles and enemy troops. Many in her role were women — less likely to be seen as a threat, and so more likely to be able to get where they needed to go without raising an alarm. They were utterly fearless, their hatred for the Taliban absolute.

At the bottom of his swimming pool, Mathias stopped moving. It wouldn’t be long now.

When the Taliban fighters gained access to ammunition that could strike fighters like Zafir, it took everyone by surprise. Two dozen died to carefully planned attacks over the course of a week. No one knew what happened to the hundreds of troops who had been waiting in their microdimensions, but it was probably safe to assume they were lost forever. Zafir was one of only a handful left, surviving the ambush by sheer luck, which had given her enough time to deploy her portal and unleash the soldiers waiting within.

Mathias had given them everything — names, passwords, personal details beneath the notice of even a data-hungry company like Tailored Xenetics. He had probably thought they would spare him if he cooperated. Young Monty certainly would have. Remade Monty, however, knew that alive, Mathias Washington was a threat. One phone call, one email, even a quick text, and he could render their carefully laid plans worthless. When the enemy lying in wait for you has shriek guns, that was an unthinkable risk to take.

Monty made note of the time, set the timer on his digital watch for ten minutes. Cellphones and smart watches were too easy to trace.

“Is it done?” Zafir asked.

“Near enough,” Monty told her. “All set?”

“Yes. We should be grateful he lived alone and so far from his neighbors. You could have used your shriek gun without attracting attention. You made it sound like he deserved no less.”

“It’s true,” Kenya said, gaze never leaving the bottom of the pool. “But Monty doesn’t like using that.”

Monty looked away from the pool. He managed a shrug. “When the authorities find his body, Tailored Xenetics will arrange an autopsy. The shriek gun leaves telltale damage to nerves. They’d know exactly how he died. Even if they notice the chlorinated water in his lungs and suspect foul play, plenty of other people hate Mathias, so they can’t be sure it was us. This way works better for the plan.”

“Any cars?” Kenya asked.

“None that I saw,” Zafir said. “The bridge is four miles south of here.”

“That’s a long way for him to walk,” Monty noted. He picked up the Marlins cap from the deck table and put it on. “I saw his keys hanging from a hook in the kitchen. I’ll drive his car to the bridge and meet you there. Should he leave a note, do you think?”

Kenya shook her head. “He never struck me as the type. Let’s leave it to the imaginations of others why he’d kill himself.”

Monty hadn’t exactly returned to countless lucrative job offers, but Kenya had had it worse and for longer. A shady for-profit college had taken her G.I. Bill money in exchange for a worthless degree and a mountain of debt that had forced her to live on the street for a year. Seeing one of the men responsible for maiming her living in luxury had to be infuriating.

“Right,” Monty said simply.

The silence stretched out. At last, Monty’s watch chimed.

Zafir handed him a pair of medical gloves to keep him from leaving fingerprints on the major’s steering wheel. The portal of black fire opened a few feet from the edge of the pool, and Monty used his telekinesis to lift Mathias’s limp body out of the pool and into the microdimension. Kenya followed it, and Zafir let the portal snap shut behind her.

Within minutes, Monty was at the wooden bridge. He parked the major’s Porsche on the gravel shoulder a few dozen yards away and got out. He looked over the side at the water below. It wasn’t particularly deep, wide, or swift, but it would do the job.

Zafir’s Accord stopped in the middle of the road, and she joined him, leaving the engine running. The sun had set, washing the earth in deepening shades of grey.

“I know you want to spend some time…saying your goodbyes,” Zafir said softly, voice full of a compassion that reminded him of their shared experiences. “But we must be quick. If even one person notices us, it could compromise everything else.”

She opened her black fire portal. Monty nodded and ducked inside the microdimension. Kenya huddled next to Mathias’s still body where it lay on a bed of plastic wrap. She was crying softly. She looked up at him as he approached.

This had been her first. Monty remembered how that had felt — the relief, the joy, and then, at the last, the emptiness. Tailored Xenetics had encouraged the Relentless to hate the enemy the way she hated Mathias. Hate them until nothing less than their deaths would do, and each death left a void that only hatred for a new enemy could fill.

Monty took off the Marlins hat and put it on the corpse’s head. With a motion of his hand, he lifted the major’s body out of the portal and dropped it head-first into the black water below.

Part IV

Fourteen years ago.

“Clarence Weingarten?”

The unfamiliar major was in his early 30s. The nameplate on his desk read “Major Mathias Washington”.

“Yes, sir.” Monty saluted.

“At ease. Have a seat. Your record shows you tried to get into the Rangers but didn’t make the cut.”

“Yes, sir.”

Monty didn’t bother elaborating. There was no shame in being passed over for a special forces unit.

“How would you like a second chance? Not the Rangers, exactly, but a new, special unit.”

“I’d like that, sir.”

“I thought you might. What I tell you here doesn’t leave this room. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As you know, the Army works with many defense contractors. Most of them provide munitions, arms, and other equipment — stuff that you carry or wear. This is a bit different. This is equipment that is installed inside you — an implant about the size of the tip of your little finger that goes in next to the shoulder socket of your right arm. If it works, it will make you nearly unstoppable by anything short of artillery shells, and arm you with a weapon that is undetectable when not in use, silent in operation, and never runs out of ammunition.”

The major tapped his desk with one finger.

“You look like you don’t quite believe me, but I’ve seen some of the early results, and they’re impressive. Before you agree, I want to make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into, as there are some risks. First, this is highly experimental technology. It doesn’t work on everyone. Sometimes, it does nothing at all. Sometimes the installation comes with serious side effects — nerve and muscle damage, usually, but death isn’t out of the question. Even when it works, we don’t yet know its long-term effects on the body. Second, the implant is military hardware, which means that before you return to civilian life, you’ll need to have another surgery to remove it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you pass the screening and the installation succeeds, you’ll get a pay grade bump and will be moved to a unit of soldiers with the implant. Are you still interested?”

“Yes, sir.” Monty couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.

                                        *

“Are you comfortable, Monty?” the nurse asked him.

He wasn’t. Ever since his mother’s death he hadn’t much enjoyed going to the dentist or getting shots, and this had that vibe. His heart was loud in his ears. Straps held his arms, legs, and chest motionless, and a wire mesh immobilized his head.

“Yes,” he told her.

A surgeon with a surgical mask and a clear face shield arrived at his side. He wore complicated goggles with a wheel that probably adjusted the focus or magnification or something. “We’re going to use a local anesthetic at the insertion point. You’ll feel a small pinch as we administer that. Because of the way the implant works, the surgery will fail if we use general anesthesia. Don’t worry, though. We’ll make sure the spot between shoulder and chest is nice and numb, so you won’t feel the implant going in or us sewing you shut.”

Monty simply laid there, not feeling that his input was required.

If it isn’t going to hurt, why so many restraints?

Then there was the pinch of a hypodermic needle and a vague sensation of pressure as the surgeon did his work, occasionally calling on his staff for instruments and other necessities. Finally, a needle and thread.

“All done,” the surgeon announced. “Nice work, everyone. You can wait outside.”

The nurses wheeled away carts of medical equipment.

“How are you doing, Monty?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Good. The surgery went well, and the implant is secure.” As he spoke, the surgeon removed a metal disc two inches across from a static-proof metallic bag and placed it on the incision point. “This will activate the implant in about ninety seconds. You may experience some brief discomfort as it comes online. I’ll come back in once it’s done.”

“Why is everyone leaving?”

Despite the mask, Monty could tell the surgeon licked his lips before replying. “The activation nodule emits a small amount of radiation — not enough to be harmful with just one exposure, but we perform many of these surgeries each day, and the cumulative effect would become a health risk.”

“Oh,” Monty said.

The surgeon moved away with deliberate casualness as he spoke. “Just count backwards from 100, and by the time you get to zero, it will all be done.”

“100, 99, 98…”

When Monty got to 20, the pain started.

It began with a slight burning sensation on the right side of his chest, but it quickly escalated into an intense, tearing agony. From his chest it spread down his right arm, leaving him jerking it uselessly against the straps there. A pool of liquid fire more intense than the rest swelled in his forearm, a sensation like the bone shattering and driving fragments into the muscles there.

“15, 14, 13…”

Abruptly, the pain in his chest and arm reached out to the rest of his body, traveling like fire that ignited every nerve along the way. Monty forgot about counting backwards and started to scream. An eternity later, he blacked out.

                                        *

“You’re not quite what we intended, but Major Washington agrees that you’ll still be an asset to the Relentless,” Doctor Adrian Perkins explained. “You have the same weapon they do, but you lack their durability, so you must be more careful. I think you and they will find no end of uses for your telekinetic abilities.

Monty simply nodded. He felt like he could sleep for a month.

“How is your pain on a scale from one to ten?”

Two weeks ago, he would have rated it at eight or nine, but following the procedure…

“Three, maybe four?” Monty suggested.

Dr. Perkins gave him a sympathetic look. “I’ll prescribe something for it.”

Part V

Thirteen years ago.

Monty’s heart was pounding as he slipped out of the back of the truck to join his squad where they hid in alleys and behind crates. Lakeisha waved him back, made a motion with her hand warning him of the sentry on the roof of the hotel building across the street. Like the other members of the Relentless, she didn’t wear body armor or carry a machine gun, just a pack of supplies, a sidearm, and a combat knife.

She spoke softly into a microphone clipped to her shirt. More hand signals, this time to the entire squad.

Everyone was in position. It was go time.

The sentry wouldn’t matter soon. He only mattered if he gave the enemy inside enough warning to make their escape, but there would be no escape now.

With a moment’s concentration, Monty raised a bubble of invisible force around himself before following Lakeisha’s lead. As always, Chris, Bob, and Michael had their shriek guns active before anyone else. The weapon looked like a broken fragment of hollow bone sticking out of the top of each of their right forearms.

Everyone in their squad except Pearl had a shriek gun. Like Monty, she had developed abnormal but useful abilities. Instead of the shriek gun, she could disguise herself perfectly as anyone she met, even absorbing enough of their memories to respond to passphrases and recognition signals.

The sentry spotted them and shouted an alarm. To Monty’s right, Chris raised his arm. The shriek gun didn’t make a sound — not a bang, not a pop, and certainly not a shriek. There was no visible evidence that it had done anything at all. But on the roof of the hotel, the sentry started screaming.

That was why the members of Monty’s unit called it the shriek gun. One hit from it ignited all the pain receptors in the target’s body at once. The pain was agonizing, drawing forth screams and shrieks that would continue for five or ten minutes unless someone put a bullet in the victim’s brain first. Delivering that mercy wasn’t the only reason they all carried pistols, but it was the most common one.

Figures appeared in fortified upper windows, and bullets rained down, hitting several members of Monty’s squad. None of them so much as flinched. Their implants made them as impervious to small arms fire as tanks. Monty, however, took a moment to hoist a nearby truck in front of himself as a shield. Potent as his telekinesis was, it wasn’t completely bulletproof.

Up ahead, Joey had reached the door, shrugging off gunfire. A grenade from the window above fell at his feet and exploded, knocking him backwards and ripping bloody gashes in his legs. He smiled as he picked himself up, seemingly in ecstasy at the pain.

While most of the Relentless had a shriek gun and armored flesh, each had come out of surgery with a unique burden. Monty had grown all too familiar with these weaknesses.

Joey reveled in his own pain so much he had taken to disarming IEDs by setting them off. Chris was obsessed with his shriek gun and looked for any excuse to use it. He preferred shooting insurgents, but he’d use a stray dog as target practice if he hadn’t seen combat for a couple weeks. Deann had been valedictorian of her high school class, but the implant had left her as simpleminded as a large dog. Tom liked to gloat over insurgents in his power, taunting them as they screamed in pain until someone else put an end to his macabre fun.

The staccato sounds of enemy gunfire gave way to a rising pitch of enemy screams. The sentry on the roof threw himself over the side, smashing his skull against the paving stones below to end his pain.

Lawanda couldn’t remember her life before joining the Army. Jonathan spoke to people who weren’t there. Lakeisha wouldn’t willingly go into an elevator or any other tight space. Pearl sometimes forgot that she wasn’t the person she had disguised herself as. And Michael?

Monty’s earpiece crackled to life. “Weingarten, get your ass in here.”

“On my way.”

Not only did Monty lack his compatriots’ heavy armor, but using the shriek gun added to his nightmares. Worse, they were the nightmares of the people he had killed. He knew that didn’t happen to anyone else, and he would have gladly traded away the shriek gun to make the nightmares stop.

But his telekinesis was useful for reining in members of the unit when they lost control.

“Where is he?” Monty asked Lakeisha.

“Fifth floor.”

“Just insurgents?”

She shook her head.

“Shit.”

Monty drew his pistol with one hand and his combat knife with the other and cautiously opened the door. With his telekinesis, he could deflect the blast of a shriek gun if he knew it was coming. Several insurgents writhed on the floor of the hotel hallway, screaming in agony. Monty calmly moved from one to another, drawing the combat knife against their throats.

It was pure pragmatism. Their screams made it harder to tell where Michael was. Michael would be where the screams were the loudest. Monty found the room where Michael’s rampage had carried him. A teenage boy writhed on the floor next to the AK-47 he had dropped while defending the two people behind him — his mother and a little sister no older than eight. Both had been tagged by the shriek gun.

Fuck!

Monty hated when civilians got in the way. It pissed off their commanders and made the Relentless look bad.

Michael turned, arm rising to fire, but Monty was ready. A sweeping invisible arm, and the berserk soldier was on the ground. A twist of the air, and he was pinned against the wall, arm pointed safely down at the floor.

Monty went to the shrieking civilians. Nothing could save them. He fingered his knife and delivered the only mercy he could.

Part VI

Now.

“We’re back, Demetrius,” Monty announced.

“Did you bring me back some chips?” called a voice from the basement of the condemned building they shared.

The doors and windows had been boarded up long ago, but that was no impediment to Zafir. And she could make her portal wide enough to park the Accord, which kept it from being vandalized or stolen.

“Yes,” Monty called back, taking a paper bag from Zafir and going downstairs.

Demetrius sat in a recliner, staring at a blank cinderblock wall as though it were a TV. Monty knew that for Demetrius a blank wall was as good as a high-end desktop and an entire bank of monitors.

Monty handed him the bag. Demetrius removed one of the RAM sticks from the bag and squinted at it, frowning. “Only 8 Gigs?”

“We’ve shoplifted from the Best Buy so many times they’ve moved their RAM behind the service counter. I had to ask the guy to pitch me on a new TV to distract him long enough for Zafir to put her hand through the counter, but she had to grab it blind. Make it last. I don’t think we can go there again.”

Demetrius sighed and pulled down the neck of his shirt. A small port slid open in his chest, near the shoulder. He stuck one of the RAM sticks inside. The port cover slid shut.

“Did you get the other things you were after?”

Monty handed him a battered backpack filled with hanging file folders. “Gerry Graves seems like a promising one.”

Demetrius grunted as he thumbed through the personnel records they had taken from Mathias’s home office. It was a lot, but not nearly as much as the retired major had squirreled away over the years.

“Someone built himself a little insurance policy,” Demetrius noted.

“You know insurance policies. They never pay out for acts of war.”

“Or terrorism.” Demetrius consulted the wall. “Gerry is too clean for what you have in mind, too sincere. This Eli Fernandez, though. He has some secrets that would look really bad if cast in the wrong light.”

“They spend a lot of time together.”

“That’s only a problem if Michael thinks he can trust Eli with his doubts. Plant the right seeds, and he won’t go to him first.”

“But won’t that just lead him to Gerry and his boundless sincerity?”

Demetrius smiled knowingly. “Yes, but Gerry has to know Eli has secrets, too. Plant the same seeds in his mind as in Michael’s. Let them feed one another.”

“Do you think we could get two for the price of one?” Monty asked, excited by the prospect.

“If Gerry sees the truth about Tailored Xenetics because of it? Anything is possible, I suppose, but he’s in tight with the CFO. He has a lot to lose if he turns against them, and he’s not ambitious enough to consider supplanting his boss and reforming the company from the inside.”

Monty shrugged. “This is your area, not mine. They fucked up making me the ultimate warrior and turned me into the ultimate super soldier babysitter, instead.”

Demetrius smiled sardonically. “I’m no super soldier, but you’re still my beloved babysitter, Monty. Without the RAM you kindly and continuously acquire for me, I’d revert to being the loyal servant of Tailored Xenetics.”

Demetrius was the product of yet another batch of experiments. This one lured technophiles with the promise of an implanted artificial intelligence helper brain that overlaid their perceptions with an enhanced reality HUD. The downside was that it turned them into the brainwashed servants of the board of directors. They all worked for Tailored Xenetics, now — designing the next generation of bleeding edge “xenetic technology”. Demetrius had found a way to circumvent his programming, but it involved a steady supply of RAM sticks and an understanding of xenetic principles that Monty didn’t even pretend to have.

“How is Kenya doing?”

“Better than she was, I think. It was good for her to be there. Despite…despite how bad things have been for me, for us...”

“She had it worse.”

“Yeah.” Monty threw himself into a large beanbag chair. “She has all our anger but none of our capabilities. I met some of the guys whose implants didn’t take. They seemed totally normal, just regular soldiers, you know? And I met a couple of the Afghans Tailored Xenetics maimed trying to make operatives like Zafir, and they’re disabled — no question about it — but…”

“They don’t have the rage.”

“Yeah.”

“But she does.”

“Yeah.”

The solitary bulb hanging from the ceiling abruptly went out.

“Dammit, not again,” Demetrius growled. After a few seconds of fumbling, he produced a small flashlight.

They made their way upstairs. Kenya and Zafir had already brought out a camp lantern and were in the process of checking the cord leading to the wall.

“It’s not the power strip,” Kenya assured them. “Do you think the neighbors noticed the cord plugged into their yard outlet?”

“Maybe,” Demetrius said. “At least we don’t have to worry about them running over the cord with the lawnmower since Monty buried it.”

“Not like anyone is mowing the lawn at 10 on Tuesday night,” Monty said.

“Do you want me to go over there and plug it back in?” Zafir asked.

Kenya shook her head. “We should be heading to bed anyway. We’ll plug it in once the neighbors leave for work in the morning.”

“What if it’s a prelude to an attack like the one that got Lakeisha?” Monty asked. “We don’t think we were noticed or followed, but they’ve surprised us before.”

“We’ll spend the night in the microdimension, then,” Zafir said, black fire portal opening next to her.

Demetrius groaned. “Do we have to? There’s no reception in there.”

“You know we should,” Monty reminded him.

“Fuck, it’s times like this I miss Kachi.”

“We all miss him, Demetrius,” Kenya said soothingly. Then chidingly, “And not just because we could plug shit into his arm.”

The four stepped through the portal, which snapped shut behind them, plunging the empty room into darkness.

Part VII

Ten years ago.

“Clarence?” called a nurse.

Monty looked up from the newspaper he had been half-reading. “Yes?”

“Dr. Perkins will see you now. If you’ll just follow me?”

Monty did. After five years in Afghanistan, he was ready for something else — anything else, really. Even Radleytown was looking good these days.

Dr. Perkins was already sitting in the exam room when Monty got there.

“Monty. Have a seat. I hear you’re ready to return to civilian life.”

“Yes.”

“A well-earned rest after serving your country, I’m sure,” Dr. Perkins said cheerfully. “I’m sure you know what this is about.”

“You need to remove my implant.”

Dr. Perkins nodded. “It belongs to Uncle Sam. Moreover, it’s dangerous military hardware we don’t want strolling down Main Street.”

“Makes sense,” Monty told him.

“It does,” Dr. Perkins agreed. He sobered suddenly. “However, there’s a bit of a complication. It turns out that the implants hardwire themselves into your nervous systems. The first few times we attempted to surgically remove one did not go well.”

Monty had a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Are we talking losing an arm?”

“It killed them, Monty. They died screaming. Now, your abilities are an oddity among the Relentless. Maybe that means you’d survive the operation. If you want to go forward with it, we’re willing to try, although you’d need to sign a waiver.”

“Oh,” Monty said.

“I’m sorry. We had no idea this would happen. Experimental technology, you understand.”

“So, what are my options? Stay here in Afghanistan?”

“That’s one, yes. Not even necessarily Afghanistan. Your talents would be an asset in Iraq, too, and nothing says you can’t end up behind a desk somewhere with actual ice-and-snow winters.”

“I suppose not.” Monty couldn’t make the words sound convincing. More time in the Army probably meant he’d have to use the shriek gun again, and that meant the nightmares would get even worse. How bad would they be in five years? In ten? In twenty?

“There’s another possibility I’d like you to consider. Tailored Xenetics has received special permission to hire discharged Relentless without removing the implant. Michael, Lawanda, and Deann have already accepted our offer, but we could use someone of your talents to help manage their peculiarities.”

Stay in the Army and babysit super soldiers, or babysit super soldiers in the private sector. What a choice, Monty thought glumly.

“Can I have a couple weeks Stateside to think it over?” Monty asked.

“Sure. We have a clinic in Philadelphia. If you decide not to return to the sandbox, they can line you up with a job or attempt the extraction surgery.”

                                        *

One year ago.

Monty adjusted his tie, trying to loosen it enough that he could breathe without making it look disheveled in the process. The tag at the back of the shirt collar felt scratchy against his neck.

Both the suit and the interview were probably no more than a formality, but he didn’t want to take any chances. After fourteen years of deployments with no desk job in sight, Monty was tired of pretending he’d ever be allowed to leave. Tailored Xenetics had to pay better, right?

From the direction of the lobby came the unmistakable sound of small arms fire. Monty was on his feet before he could think, telekinetic force field springing up around him as he ran towards it.

The door was locked to control access, and for a moment he thought he might need to force it. Moments before he reached it a panicked office worker burst out, and Monty caught the door before it closed again.

The scene he found when he got there brought him up short. Several people in hospital gowns shuffled towards the lobby door. They all had the hollowed-out looks of a long convalescence, and four of them had missing or prosthetic arms. A fifth was missing his lower left leg and was leaning on the shoulder of a young Japanese man who looked to have a power strip embedded in his right forearm.

An Afghan woman stood near the back, looking slightly panicked, like this wasn’t at all how she expected this to go.

Behind them, facing deeper into the office, Lakeisha stood her ground as half a dozen security guards shot her with pistols, the bullets bouncing off her like sleet. She looked over her shoulder at the others, features composed as always. She spotted Monty, and for a flickering moment, she looked sad.

“Are you here to stop me, Weingarten?”

Monty looked at the group in the hospital gowns. None of them looked like they were being abducted. He looked at the security guards, their service pistols barking, heedless of the panicked office workers fleeing the area.

Before Monty could answer, one of the escaping patients was on the floor, screaming.

He looked around for the source, knowing what he would find. Sure enough, Michael Swan stood at the mouth of a corridor leading into another wing of the office, shriek gun at the ready. An intern jostled him as she tried to flee. Michael suddenly grinned and shot her as well.

“Fuck,” Monty muttered. He knew how this would unfold all too well.

“Weingarten!” Lakeisha barked.

Monty obeyed without thinking. Michael was against the wall in an instant, shriek gun firing uselessly at the bland office carpeting.

“Are we out of range, Zafir?” Lakeisha asked the Afghan woman.

Two more figures were running down the hall Michael had come from. Monty recognized them as Jonathan and Deann, their shriek guns coming online. Those office workers who hadn’t managed to flee now cowered under desks.

A circular portal ringed in black fire opened next to Monty, and the Afghan woman leapt inside. Power strip arm and the remaining patients followed her lead.

“Will you come with us?” Lakeisha asked as she prepared to step through the portal.

He made a snap decision. He trusted Lakeisha’s judgment. If Tailored Xenetics had made an enemy of her, then they were an enemy of his, too.

Part VIII

Now.

“Are you sure he’ll come here?” Kenya asked as Monty got out of the Accord.

“No,” he admitted, opening a black umbrella against the cold autumn rain. “But I think he will.”

The cemetery was peaceful. The ground was wet, the grass soaking Monty’s shoes, but he had walked through the wet grass of a cemetery in his sneakers many times before. Far across the graveyard, he could make out a backhoe next to a small pile of loose earth. It wasn’t moving. Whoever had been operating it had left it out in the rain. Monty clucked his tongue.

It was early evening, perhaps an hour before sunset. Not that the weather promised even a glimpse of the sun before darkness settled over them.

Lakeisha had company today.

“Michael,” Monty said.

His former squaddie whirled, shriek gun at the ready. Monty held up his hands as though that made him any less of a threat.

“You.” His eyes narrowed slightly, but he put away his shriek gun. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“I’ve been on the run from Tailored Xenetics for a year. I know exactly how the news spins it when there’s a massacre at one of their facilities.”

Michael scrubbed his face with one hand, although Monty couldn’t tell whether he was wiping away tears or rain.

“I should’ve stayed in Afghanistan,” Michael said. He sat down in the grass. “God, did I think I’d stop killing people if I came home?”

Monty sat on a nearby grave marker — one of the ones that were just a little too tall to mow over — and listened.

“Did you know I had a wife and son before the surgery?”

“Yes. You used to show us pictures of them. You were so proud.”

“But Tyler will never know his father. I can’t go back to them like this. The first time he talks back to me, I could end up killing him, his mother, and anyone else who happens to be around. Not clean deaths, either. Screaming, agonized deaths where a bullet to the brain or a knife to the throat is a mercy.”

“They fucked us up,” Monty agreed. “They might not have known at the time, but that’s what they did.”

“How many of us are left?”

“I’ve lost track of anyone who wasn’t in our squad, but let me think. Tom tried to rob a casino. He’s in a maximum-security prison out West somewhere.”

“He always thought he was the smartest person in the room,” Michael mused aloud.

“He was a different person in basic. Chris more or less became a serial killer, murdering civilians with his shriek gun until they finally caught him at it. It was bad — really bad. That was a couple years after you left. He’s in a military prison. There was some talk of bringing back the death penalty for him, but I doubt that’ll happen.”

“How would they manage it? Are they going to use tanks for the firing squad?”

“Joey asked for the surgery. He died on the table the same as the others.”

“He probably enjoyed every second of his screaming agony,” Michael joked, but neither of them laughed.

“Pearl and Deann you probably know more about than I do.”

“No idea about Pearl. Deann is some executive’s bodyguard out in Nevada, or so I’ve heard. Not sure what need they have for an unstoppable killing machine out there.”

“We could tell you some stories that would curl your hair. Anyway, Jonathan died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage. That was ruled a suicide, but I’m not so sure.”

“Who would want him dead?” Michael sounded shocked by the suggestion.

“Your employer can show a friendly face when they need to, but they don’t like to take no for an answer. Pearl didn’t go willingly, but she went all the same.”

“Former employer, I guess,” Michael corrected him. “I don’t think they’re going to want to take me back after…”

This time, Michael was definitely crying — helpless, wracking sobs. Monty waited. His pants were soaked through, now, although the umbrella had kept his shirt and hair dry.

“I wish you had come back when I did,” Michael told him. “Then she wouldn’t have…and I wouldn’t have, and they’d all still be… Oh, Gerry…”

Monty waited. He had seen grief before. He had been the cause of it on more than one occasion. And for people like them, damaged as they were by xenetic implants, some kinds of grief cut bone-deep.

“You should have been there to hold me back. This wasn’t the first time it happened. I’m not sure why they tolerated it.”

“Because Tailored Xenetics considers your loss of control useful. They know they can throw you into a situation like a grenade, let someone set you off, and sit back until the fireworks have stopped and their enemies are dead. Never mind the collateral damage.”

Michael considered this. “You’re the only one who could ever keep me from killing people.”

“I never stopped it entirely,” Monty reminded him. “However, I do have a proposal for you. Lakeisha’s friends?”

“Yes?”

“Like I said, Tailored Xenetics had no idea what the implants would do to us. As much as they fucked us up, I could have forgiven them that if not for the people Lakeisha found, the ones who convinced her that the company wasn’t to be trusted. Some are the company’s failures — maimed and scarred by the implants and then abandoned. The rest are the ones they Remade after they fucked us up, when they should have already known their implants killed and maimed and made it impossible even for their successes to return to their regular lives.”

“You want me to join you? Aren’t you worried I’ll kill more of your friends?”

“It’s a risk, but here’s the thing. There’s one of them — Demetrius — who found a way to…not fix the damage exactly, but to change how it fucks him up so it’s more manageable. Maybe he could try something like that on you.”

The hope on Michael’s face was unmistakable, and Monty knew this operation had been worthwhile.