Ex-Isle, Peter Clines [ebook smartphone .TXT] 📗

might be the first strangers they’ve seen in years.”

“Okay,” she said. “Sorry.” She prodded one of the seaweed piles with her boot.

“Don’t be. I’d just love to do one of these that doesn’t involve gunfire.”

This is going to be it, Zzzap said. Did you see how excited all those people were to see us? There’s no way this could go wrong.

“Did you actually just say that out loud?”

Yeah, but I just said it to be funny, so we’re safe. Don’t worry.

They heard the clang of feet on metal stairs, and people came streaming up either side of the pad. They hung back as more bodies spilled onto the tarmac. Their clothes weren’t ragged, but were very well worn.

They were all lean. St. George remembered that lack of body fat from the first year of the Mount. Enough food to survive, but nobody worried about gaining weight.

The crowd and the heroes exchanged glances.

“Hi,” called out St. George. He raised a hand to the dozens of people looking at him.

Then a handful of them marched forward. A tall, heavily built black man with a thick beard. A big, square-shouldered woman with short, dark hair. A bald man with a biker beard and nicks and scabs across his scalp. A wiry woman with strawberry blond hair and leathery skin.

The two men and the leather-skinned woman swung shotguns up to cover the heroes. The dark-haired woman pulled a pair of pistols. More weapons appeared back in the crowd.

“Dammit,” St. George muttered.

Wow. Okay, I guess I shouldn’t’ve said anything.

DANIELLE CHECKED THE bolts for a third time. “Okay,” she said, “I think it’s ready.”

They’d put the exoskeleton together in the small courtyard of the main building. A dusty soda machine that had long since been emptied stood off to the side, next to a wall-mounted first aid kit that had been refilled with some basics. Danielle had wanted to do the initial start-up inside, but Cesar and Gibbs both pointed out the room had standard-sized doors.

The Cerberus Mark II battlesuit stood almost nine feet tall. Without the armor plates, it reminded Danielle of an old man or woman, a bony thing robbed of its vitality. It was a gaunt framework of exposed wiring and components. At more than a few points it was possible to see straight through it, past cables and pistons and load-bearing struts to the sunlit walls of the courtyard. A few wire loops sagged out around the forearms and calves, and Gibbs tucked them back in, making sure they weren’t endangered by gears or hinges. He held out his hand, and Cesar put a roll of electrical tape in it.

Danielle looked up at the battlesuit’s head. The helmet had been finished, but still lacked an armored faceplate. Two large round lenses dominated the gaping hole. The speakers were a set of blocks at the bottom of the opening.

Cerberus hadn’t been whole for almost a year. She hadn’t been strong for a year. A year of being weak and defenseless.

A clang from outside made her tense up. Voices laughed and mocked each other. The Unbreakables had a bunch of barbells, dumbbells, and a bench outside, under the big canopy just outside the courtyard. At least three of them were there working out at any given time. Danielle wasn’t sure where the weights had come from, although she was going to be pissed if she found out later she’d only been allowed one tool chest because they’d brought gym equipment from the Mount.

She walked around and checked the rear camera. It had its raised protective ring, but not the housing that blocked rain and larger objects. The leg joints were exposed, too. Cerberus had always been a “face front” machine, but in this state a six-year-old with a sharp stick could cripple it from behind. She reached down and brushed some imaginary dust from the right knee.

Gibbs watched her move around the titan while he taped an errant bundle of cables in place inside the thigh. “You sure?”

Danielle glanced at Cesar, then took in a slow breath. She looked the battlesuit in its eyes. “Yeah. Let’s bring it online.”

Cesar rubbed his hands together. Gibbs followed a line of cables back to the laptop on a courtyard picnic table. He flicked at the track pad a few times, tapped a few keys, and hit ENTER.

A tremor washed over the exoskeleton as dozens of servomotors and gyros powered up. Tiny lights flickered throughout the battlesuit. The gray circles of the lenses lit up, then surged to full brilliance.

Cesar shrugged his sweatshirt up and pulled it over his head. Underneath was a tight spandex shirt, the type of thing worn by cyclists. Two different shades of green swooshed back and forth across his chest. He tossed the sweatshirt on the picnic table bench and peeled off his driving gloves. His scars were bright pink against his palms.

Danielle looked at the shirt. “What’s with the green?”

“You like it?” He flexed his arms, then set his fists against his hips. “I’m thinking this could be my uniform, y’know?”

“Your uniform?” echoed Gibbs.

“You know, bro, like, my costume. My super-suit. If I’m stepping up like this, I got to look the part, right? Green for go, like driving. Get it?”

“You know,” Gibbs said with a smile, “thanks for the reminder. Every now and then I forget how young and stupid you are.”

Danielle coughed. “You don’t think all the green’s maybe a little…tacky?”

Cesar looked at her. “What’s tacky about green?”

“About green? Nothing.” Danielle pushed her chin up, but still stood two inches shorter than him. “About gang colors? I think there’s still some people who might have a problem with that.”

“Been years since the Seventeens went down,” said Cesar. He reached up and touched his sleeve. Danielle and Gibbs had both seen the tattoo there. Cesar didn’t show it off, but he also never went out of his way to hide it. “Can’t keep judging people off the past. Or ’cause they’re wearing a