Truelove shrugged. “It’s what we trained for. I’ll be fine.”
“What about Downer?”
“Physically? She’s doing great.”
“Mentally?”
“I don’t know,” Truelove said. “She…she was hurt pretty bad. But she’s not talking about it.”
“What…”
“You got a jump start on your GIMAC,” Fitzy cut him off. “And if you’re done socializing, we might as well get moving with that.”
“We’re gonna MAC?” Britton asked in disbelief, then regretted his tone, as Truelove’s face fell. Truelove was Fitzy’s height and lacked the chief warrant officer’s build.
He struggled to find something placating to say, but Fitzy interrupted him. “Hell, no. Rictus couldn’t MAC with a twelve-year-old girl. This is GIMAC for you, remember? Rictus has integrated MAC of his own.”
Truelove nodded nervously and dropped into a guard.
“We’ve been practicing on our own, while you worked with Fitzy,” he said, his voice apologetic. He raised his arms, and the pallet shuddered. The tarp flew off as ten Goblin corpses jerked their way to circle Britton. Their sightless eyes turned toward him, heads slewing on broken necks. Here, a nose was missing. There, a bit of jawbone protruded. Fresh from some meat locker, the corpses emanated cold. Britton could see traces of frost on what remained of their ears and noses. Truelove closed his eyes, spread his arms, and the zombies dropped into MAC guards of their own. “Hee-yah,” one of them groaned. Truelove smiled.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Britton said.
“No joke,” Fitzy said. “Feel free to gate in and out of Portcullis as needed. Richards’s dog pens are full. Pluck from them as needed to even the odds.”
“Ready or not.” Truelove smiled. “Here I come.”
They swarmed him with surprising speed. The first swiped for his arm, cold, dead fingers brushing his wrist, raising gooseflesh. He leapt backward, and one of the zombies grabbed him around the waist. They were small, but their dead strength was terrible and Britton felt the air squeezed out of him as the withered arms locked over his stomach.
He hammered his elbow backward, cracking the thing hard in the face, while simultaneously twisting his ankle behind it and sweeping its leg. It flew backward into another zombie, and Britton was already turning, pistoning a fist into the face of another opponent, seeking a way to break through the circle.
A zombie leapt into the air, kicking Britton hard in the chin, one frozen toe snapping off as his head rocked backward, knocking Britton into another zombie, which pinned his arms at his sides. Three more rushed him from the front.
He slid a gate open behind him, then pushed off with his thighs, driving himself and the zombie through the portal, crushing it against the hard concrete of the loading-bay floor. Two of the zombies stepped through the gate as he shut it, leaving a heap of half faces and torsos dropping to the concrete.
The thing beneath him ceased struggling and he stood, stomping hard on its face, his stomach lurching at the crunching sound beneath his heel.
He opened a gate beside Truelove and emerged. Fitzy leapt between them, waggling a finger. “He’s off- limits. Go dance with the dead.”
Britton turned just in time to dodge another leaping kick. He slid to one side, opening a gate in midair. The zombie passed through it, and he let it shut, kicking the next one hard in the chest and driving it back into its fellows.
Britton began to find his rhythm, the magic integrating seamlessly into the dance of the MAC. A corpse punched at him, he caught its arm, opened a gate and flipped it through, closing the portal on its shoulder, leaving him holding the limb, which he turned to fling in the face of his next assailant. It fell backward, decapitated by another gate as it tried to rise.
The remaining corpses paused, spreading out to circle him again, advancing more cautiously. Britton backed toward Truelove, careful not to get too close. “Can’t we talk about this?” he asked.
“Not a chance,” Truelove answered, grinning, “unless you want to surrender.”
One of the corpses took a tentative swipe at Britton, who chopped down hard on the wrist. The hand hung askew as the thing backed away. “Nasty,” Britton hissed. “Seriously, Rictus. With all due respect, that’s disgusting.”
Truelove laughed hard, his hands dropping to his knees. The circle of zombies paused.
Britton threw open another gate, pushing the magical current through it. He felt the penned dogs and roped one easily. The gate shimmered and spit it out. It snarled at the alien smell of the animated corpses and sprang, seizing one by the throat. Britton dove over it, scissor-kicking a zombie in the face and sending it rolling. He spun as he landed, sliding a gate like a cleaver down the line of the circle, cutting through three more. He sprang after the gate, shutting it just as he emerged on the last corpse, grabbing it by the throat and lifting it off the ground. Its dead face was blank, its little legs kicked at him. He squeezed the thin neck, like chilled rubber. It stank of chemical preservatives.
He wrinkled his nose. “We done here? I think I’m going to be sick.”
Fitzy nodded, and Truelove lowered his arms. The corpse went limp in Britton’s grip, and he dropped it, wiping his hand on his trousers.
Fitzy began to gather the broken corpses and drag them into a pile in the corner, where two soldiers moved them onto the discarded tarp. A fresh pallet was wheeled in through another entrance. “Give me a hand here, it’ll go faster,” Fitzy said. A few of the corpses had traces of the white paint that dotted Marty’s face and completely covered the Goblin sorcerers they had fought at the LZ.
When the floor was clear, Fitzy called for another round, doubling the number of zombies. Britton flew through the fight, the gates opening and cutting with fluid precision. “Zombies are inefficient,” Fitzy commented. “The real enemy will be smarter and harder. Remember that and don’t get cocky.”
But despite Fitzy’s warning, Britton found it hard not to get cocky. He slid the gates around like giant razors, dispatching his opponents five at a time.
By the end of the practice, he felt as if he were flying. Truelove threw his hands up. “Enough,” he said, “uncle.”
Fitzy clapped lightly, one corner of his mouth slightly twisted. “Adequate.”
Britton nodded gratefully and clapped Truelove on the shoulder. “That was kick-ass, man. Seriously.”
Truelove grinned, transforming his face, showing some of the confidence Britton expected in a man his age. “You made pretty short work of the whole crew.”
“Yeah,” Britton agreed, “but it won’t be like that when you let ’em loose on a real enemy. Man, it’s going to scare the crap out of them!” It wasn’t idle praise. He remembered the dead faces circling him, empty eyes staring.
Truelove grew pensive. “I’ve never been in a real battle. I mean, nothing beyond these little raids.”
Britton clapped him on the shoulder. “Neither have I. I don’t think wars are fought like that anymore. It’s no big deal.”
“I think it’s a big deal,” Truelove said. “We still work for the army, you know? What if we have to fight hundreds of people, like the training we just did, only real?”
“Then we figure it out as we go,” Britton said. “It’s serious, but that doesn’t mean it has to be heavy.”
“What was it like when you rescued those hostages?”
Britton thought about it for a moment. “It’s like what you think it would be like. Shouting, confusion, terror. But you just follow your training, and everything sort of snaps together and works.”
“It works for you,” Truelove said.
“It’ll work for you, too.” Britton nodded. “Hell, it already did.”
