away from human. There were tiny fibers or stubby antennae around his mouth, and they twitched like stubby fingers. God only know what sensory information those appendages fed that tortured mind.
“Listen to me,” I said, and my voice cracked a little. I cleared my throat and tried it again. “Collins… listen.”
In the shadows, the other creatures clicked and hissed at the sound of my voice.
“I know you’re in there. I know Corporal James Collins is still in there.”
His mouth and throat muscles worked. Rasps and clicks, a stilted flow that was so alien and unnatural that it was painful to hear.
“J-J-J—”
I kept the red dot steady, my finger inside the trigger guard. I had my trigger adjusted to a five-and-a-half- pound pull and I had about four pounds on it. Bunny was trying not to breathe, trying to sink into the floor, and he looked every bit as terrified as I felt.
“J-J-J-Jimm…J-J-Jimmy,” said Collins.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Holy mother of God,” Top whispered behind me.
“Jimmy?” I asked.
The misshapen head bobbed.
“You’re Jimmy Collins, is that right? Jimmy, not James?”
Another nod. There was a light in his eyes. Fear. Anger. Maybe—relief?
“The docs,” I said “Jimmy—the docs said that you signed up for this.”
His eyes hardened. The others hissed.
“They said that you knew the risks.”
“Risks,” he snarled and I knew that just framing the word had to hurt his throat. He used his maimed hand to touch his face. “Not…this.”
“No,” I said emphatically. Almost a shout. “Not this. There’s no way they told you that this would happen. But did they tell you what might happen?”
He tried to answer, but emotion—or whatever was left for him to feel—stole what little voice he had. Eventually he managed to get it out. Two words.
“They…lied.”
“Yeah, brother, I pretty much figured that. That sucks more than I can describe, but listen to me, Jimmy….I can’t let you hurt my man there. He’s a good man. A friend.”
“A—Army?” Collins said.
“No. He’s Gyrene like you are. End of the day, though, he’s another pair of boots on the ground in someone else’s war.” I eased off of the trigger and slipped my finger outside the guard. He watched me do it. I didn’t lower the gun, though; and he saw that, too. “I know you never signed up for this, Jimmy. Who would? They think that because you enlisted and because you signed a piece of paper that they own you, that you’re just a lab rat to them. If that’s the case, if that’s what we’ve all been fighting for, then God help the United States. Or maybe God help us all, because someone’s missing the whole damn point. You with me on this, Jimmy?”
He paused, then nodded. It was impossible to read his face, hard to know if he was agreeing with me or giving me permission to keep talking.
“You want to know why I’m here? Why me and my team are here? The docs who did this to you called Homeland and said that this facility was being overrun by terrorists.”
“T-T-T-T—.” He couldn’t even get the word out. The stubby antennae around his mouth twitched with wild agitation.
“Yes, sir, Jimmy. Terrorists. How’s that for a thank-you from Uncle Sam? They rang the alarm and we were sent in to drop the hammer on the bad guys. But…here’s my problem, Jimmy, and maybe you can help me out with it.”
His black eyes glittered like jewels.
“I’m not sure who the bad guys are. I mean…you’re killing folks, and you know that I can’t let that happen. I can’t let it continue. But at the same time, I don’t think you’re doing these kills because you’re a terrorist.”
He said nothing. They all waited.
“I think you’re doing it because you’re scared. More scared than I am now and that’s saying something. But you know I can’t let you go on killing these people. Even if I agree with why you’re doing it, I got a job to do and I know you understand that.”
His antennae twitched.
“Now…‘terror’ is a funny word,” I said. “We use it all the time, but we don’t think about what it really means. Right now…I think my man on the floor there is feeling some genuine terror.”
Collins looked down at Bunny and then up at me.
“And you’ve got to be feeling it. All of you.”
The others clicked and hissed.
“And everyone else down here is feeling it because of you. There may not be any terrorists down here, Jimmy, but I have to stop the terror. That’s my job. That’s what I’m really here to do.”
Jimmy Collins’s eyes were wide, and dark, and wet.
“Can you help me with that, marine? Can you give me an out here?”
Collins looked at me, and raised his eyes slowly toward my helmet. Not at the night vision unit, but at the small cylinder mounted on the left side of my tin pot. He nodded at me. At it.
“That’s right, Jimmy,” I said with a smile. “That’s a video camera. We’re on mission time here, everything’s being recorded. Everything we’ve seen and everything we’ve heard since we came down here is saved to memory in our helmet cams. Now how about that?”
Collins bent low until his deformed face was inches from Bunny’s. He whispered something that I couldn’t hear over the alarms.
And then he straightened and pulled his hand away from Bunny. The five little pinpricks still leaked blood, but there was no real damage. Collins took a step back, and another. Bunny scrabbled sideways and scuttled back toward me. He made a grab for his fallen M4.
“No,” I said.
Bunny looked at me in surprise, then at Top, who nodded, and then at Collins.
The hulking figure stepped farther back. His companions clustered around him. They made chittering noises and God only knows if it was some kind of speech or the screams of the damned. Behind them was the door to the secondary generator. Collins turned, looked at the door and then back at me. His eyes were intense, pleading.
I swallowed a lump the size of a fist.
“Boss,” said Bunny, “if we get them out…maybe something can be done. Maybe there’s some way of reversing this…”
His voice trailed off as the huddled monsters chittering and clicked. It wasn’t words, but it was eloquent enough.
I shook my head.
“But…you know what they want to do,” he pleaded.
Top put his hand on Bunny’s shoulder. “If it was you, Farm Boy, what would you do?”
I raised my pistol. “Stand aside,” I said to Collins.
After a moment he and the others moved away
It took six rounds to blow the lock open.
Smoke hung thick in the air. The klaxons continued to bleat.
“Give us ten minutes,” I said.
Collins stared at me, his eyes unreadable in the green gloom of my night vision. Did he nod? Or was it simply the way his body trembled as he turned and slipped into the generator room? The others followed.
I holstered my gun and looked at Bunny and Top.
We ran likes sons of bitches.
(5)
