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

Danielle shook her head. “Seeing green still makes a lot of people nervous.”

“It’s a color. That’s all.” He smiled. “I’m takin’ it back. From here on in, people see green they’re going to think of the Driver.”

“Oh, Jesus,” muttered Gibbs. He turned his attention back to the laptop.

Danielle smiled. “Please just stop talking and get in the suit.”

Cesar winked at her, and her stomach flopped. She couldn’t keep being friendly with him. She had to keep a good, professional distance.

He stepped forward and set both of his scarred hands against the battlesuit’s chest. Static electricity sparked between his fingers and the metal, and the sparks grew into long arcs that twisted up his arm and around the exoskeleton. There was a flash of light, a tiny thunderclap, and Cesar vanished.

Cerberus jerked up. “Ow!” wailed the speakers. The battlesuit hopped on one leg as the hands reached down to grab its shin. “Owww! Left foot, left foot!”

“Watch the leg!” snapped Danielle. “Let go. And stop moving.”

The skeletal titan straightened up and lowered the leg. Metal toes tapped on the concrete again and again. “Oh, jeeeez, that hurts,” said the battlesuit. “Something down in the foot. I think it’s some kind of…crystal? Feels like I got a splinter in my toe.”

“One of the piezoelectric sensors,” muttered Danielle. She glanced over at Gibbs. “Take fourteen through twenty-six off-line, all the evens.”

Gibbs’s fingers danced on the keyboard, and Cerberus sighed. “Ahhhh,” said the exoskeleton. “Thanks, bro.”

“Bring ’em up one at a time,” she said.

The keyboard clicked and clicked and clicked and Cesar yelped.

“Flag it,” she said. “I think we’ve got two spares up here, right?”

“Yep,” said Gibbs as he scribbled on a notepad.

She looked the exoskeleton in the eyes. “Anything else?”

The metal toes hinged up and down. The fingers flexed. The whir of the servos seemed loud without the armor muffling it. “Think we’re good,” said the battlesuit.

She waved at his arm. “Up.” The power cable was still plugged into the exoskeleton’s hip. She gave it a firm twist and unhooked it. The glowing lenses flickered for an instant, and the battlesuit gave her a thumbs-up.

While the teams had been setting the garden up, they’d stripped dozens of solar panels from nearby homes. The roof of the main building was covered with them, as was part of the outside canopy, the greenhouse, and the big steel storage shed. Cerberus would be sucking up four-fifths of Eden’s electricity every day. Not great, but it was only for a week.

The battlesuit took a few steps. Its toes chimed on the concrete. Then it took a few more, ducked its head through the door, and stepped out beneath the canopy. Danielle and Gibbs followed.

The canopy had been a shade area once, forty-odd yards of netting spread between six steel poles, where gardeners met to trade cuttings and seedlings and composting tips. Now a baker’s dozen of crates were stored between the storage shed and the weather-beaten greenhouse. A weapons rack had been set up to hold a squad’s worth of rifles. The canopy area looked like any one of half a dozen military depots seen on the news or in movies. Back when there were news programs and movies.

A weight bench sat just past the crates with a stack of iron plates. The Unbreakables stopped their workout to look at Cerberus as it stepped out under the canopy. Kennedy stood nearby with a set of huge dumbbells. Sergeant Johnson let the barbell clang down against the rests and grinned up at the exoskeleton. Truman gave a thumbs-up. “Good to see that up and moving again,” he said.

Cerberus managed a loose salute that got a few smirks. The battlesuit took a few more steps, its half-armored head brushing against the canopy, and then it was out in the sunlight. The brightness turned cables into curved lines, supports into thin shadows.

Once again, it struck Danielle how many places she could see through the titan.

She took a few steps of her own but stopped at the edge of the building. Any farther and she’d see the chain-link fence off to her left. Bad enough she could hear it from here. The sound of clicking teeth was much clearer outside, like a swarm of enamel crickets. She could see the fence in front of her, too, another long section backed by wooden planks. If she stared at it for a few seconds, she could see flickers of movement between the boards.

She focused on the battlesuit. “Okay,” she said. “Don’t get cocky. You’re strong, but you’re not as solid as you’re used to being.”

“Feels solid,” said the exoskeleton.

“You’re not going to fall apart, but be careful if you run into something or try to hit it with your arm instead of your fist. Just remember, everything’s exposed.”

The battlesuit nodded. “Anything else?”

“Keep an eye on the power levels. You should get a little more battery life because you’re not carrying around all the armor, but you don’t want to get stuck somewhere.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll go with him over to the fence line,” said Gibbs. “We’ll get in a long walk before dark, see if I spot anything in the stride once he gets moving.”

Danielle nodded. “Good. Let me know.”

He glanced up at the lenses. “Here we go. Don’t screw up.”

“Hey, don’t worry about me, bro.”

They walked off together. Gibbs had to take long, limping steps to keep up with the exoskeleton. His mechanical foot scraped in the gravel, its gears whisking as it moved. He was never going to wear the Cerberus suit again. His foot was the wrong shape, and its materials wouldn’t react with the sensors the same way. At best, the battlesuit would have a severe limp when he wore it. At worst…

A hand touched Danielle’s shoulder, and she bit back a scream. The muscles there knotted up. Her arms tensed.

“Looks like a dinosaur,” said Kennedy.

“Sorry?”

“The foot you built him. It looks kind of like a dinosaur, doesn’t it? Long toes in the front, short one in the back.”

Danielle turned. “It’s