see immense piles of metal glowing reddish-orange, like a pool of lava. I see what the term ‘vaporized’ means, because everything looks as fragile and decimated as ash on a cigarette. I apologize to the families of the victims of Kingman City for my harsh graphic descriptions, I’m not being insensitive, it is hard to put this nightmarish scene into words.
“Okay…okay, I understand…ladies and gentlemen, my pilot is telling me that he is getting some high- temperature readings from our helicopter’s engine, so it may be time to turn around; apparently the incredible heat still emanating from ground zero is superheating the air and causing some damage. The military is now warning us that they will shoot us out of the sky if we don’t leave. I don’t care what the military says, but if our helicopter can’t stand this heat then maybe it’s time to leave. We can’t help any survivors if we can’t safely evacuate them. The air is bumpy, obviously from the turbulence created by the heat, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe in these suits, so I think we…hey, Paul, swing around over that way—my God, I see them! There appears to be an overturned school bus about a kilometer east of us, right at the edge of Swan Lake!”
“Oh, Christ,” Chamberlain breathed. And a few moments later, the camera focused on an overturned bus, which appeared to have either been blown over by the blast or the driver had steered or been pushed off the road and the bus flipped onto its side. They could count at least two dozen men, women, and children lying on the ground, motionless or writhing, obviously in pain. Several adults and children were in the lake, trying to stay away from the intense heat, but it was obvious that the water itself was getting uncomfortably hot as well—adults were carrying several children on their shoulders, trying to keep screaming children out of the water. There was a playground nearby; watercraft of all kinds were scattered around the edge of the lake, along with more bodies. The earth was scorched a pale gray, with “shadows” of natural color where larger objects had blocked the roiling wave of heat energy from the nuclear blast.
“Paul, tell him to go over there…yes, set it down over there!” Skyy was saying. “We’ve got to help those children out of there. Maybe if we can get them on the boats we can save them!”
“We’re watching it,” Hanratty said on the telephone. “Get some choppers out there to rescue those civilians in the lake. I want all other aircraft kept away from that entire area—yes, you are authorized to fire warning shots if necessary.” Chamberlain nodded when Hanratty looked to him for confirmation of his order.
“What are their chances, General?” Chamberlain asked.
As if to respond to his question, suddenly the image being broadcast from the SATCOM One news chopper swerved and veered. They heard a man cry out, but at the same time they heard Kristen Skyy say, “Oh, shit, it looks like the engine has seized up, and we’re going down. Paul, drop the camera and hold on, for Christ’s sake!” Chamberlain had to admire her courage—the cameraman was screaming like a child, but Skyy was as calm as ever. She even sounded embarrassed that she let an expletive sneak past her lips.
The image showed the view out a side window as the helicopter headed earthward. They saw the deck heel sharply upward moments before impact, and then the camera bounced free and went dark. “Shit—more civilians in the hot zone. How soon can we get some rescuers out there, General?” Chamberlain asked.
“Several have already tried, sir,” Hanratty replied. “We’ve got more on the way, but they’re running into the same problems. The heat is just too great out there.”
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” they heard Kristen Skyy say. “Paul, are you all right? What? Your back…oh, Jesus…Paul, we’ve got to get out of the chopper, it might catch on fire…if you can move, get out and get away from the chopper…no, screw the camera, just get out…I know you signed for it, Paul, jeez, okay, okay, take it if you can, but just get the hell out and head toward the lake. We’ve got to get out of this chopper, Paul—the heat is getting worse and it might set off the fuel. I’m going to check on the pilot.” They heard rustling and opening and closing helicopter doors. “The pilot is unconscious but alive. Can you help me, Paul? I don’t think I can carry him by myself. We’ve got to get him out of here.” They could see the image jostling about as Kristen and her photographer pulled the injured pilot, wearing no protective gear but a Nomex fireproof flight suit and rubber oxygen mask, out of the cockpit.
The camera was picked up a few minutes later, focusing unsteadily on Kristen Skyy, running toward the playground in her radiation suit. “I’m okay, and I hope you can hear me,” she said via a wireless microphone. The radio connection was scratchy but still audible. “Paul will stay with the pilot in Swan Lake. I’m going to check to see if there are any survivors.” She checked the first body. “Oh God, it’s a teenage girl. She didn’t make it.” She rolled her over onto her face, exposing severe burns on her back. She went quickly to the next. “This one, thank God, is alive. Maybe her boyfriend or brother.” She dragged him to the edge of the lake, where others taking refuge there helped him into the relatively cooler water. Then she went back to check on another.
“She’s got guts, I’ll say that,” someone said.
“The ground feels very hot, like I’m walking on very hot sand,” Skyy said. “The air is very uncomfortable, like a sauna, but not moist—very dry, like a desert, like the Mojave Desert. I’ll go over to the bus and see if…hey, it looks like a rescue helicopter has arrived. Paul, can you see the helicopter coming? It looks like an army helicopter.”
“That was quick,” Chamberlain said. “Who is it, General?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Hanratty said. “I’ll try to get a confirmation.”
The photographer swung his camera up, and they could see a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter quickly approaching. It had a small device slung underneath the fuselage. “It’s carrying something under neath,” Skyy said, “like a raft or maybe a net of some kind of…well, I can’t make it out, but it’s coming toward us fast so we’ll find out in a moment. I wonder if he can land and take all of us out of here in that thing, it certainly looks big enough. We should… ” And then she paused, and then exclaimed, “What the heck is that?”
The officials in the Situation Room stared in amazement as the cameraman zoomed in. The object the helicopter had slung underneath looked like a man…no,ithadthefigureofaman,butit looked like a robot. “What the hell is that?” Chamberlain exclaimed.
“I have no idea, sir,” Hanratty responded. “It looks like someone in a protective suit, but I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s like some kind of high-tech deep-sea diving suit.”
Robert Chamberlain turned to a soldier in battle dress uniform standing behind him, calmly standing at parade rest while the action swirled around the room. He was of average height and build, and his pixilated camo BDUs were adorned with only a few badges—most notable were helicopter pilot’s wings, master parachutist’s wings, a Combat Infantry Badge, and a Ranger tab—but the man exuded an indefinable aura of power that prevented anyone in the room from locking eyes with him or even coming near him, even the three-and four-star generals. “Sergeant Major, get someone from the Pentagon to identify that…thing, whatever it is.”
“No need, sir—I know exactly what it is,” Army Command Sergeant Major Ray Jefferson responded. The blue-eyed, wiry Ranger looked at the monitor carefully, then nodded. “I didn’t know it was ready for the field, but if it is, sir, it might be the only thing that can save those people now.”
“We’re going to redline in about two minutes,” the Chinook pilot said. “Sorry, sir, but we’ve got to leave ASAP.”
“You copy that, Jason?” Ariadna Vega asked on their tactical communications frequency. “The chopper is going to melt in a few minutes. How are you doing down there?”
Jason Richter saw the temperature and radiation readouts in his electronic visor, and he couldn’t believe it. The outside temperature was over sixty degrees Centigrade, even suspended twenty meters under the Chinook by a cable, but inside the Cybernetic Infantry Device’s composite shell it was still a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius. “I feel okay,” he responded. “Everything seems to be working fine so far. Let me down and I’ll get to work.” The helicopter slowed and quickly descended. As soon as Jason’s feet touched the ground, he disengaged the cable. “You’re clear. Get out of here before your engine goes.”
“We’re outta here, Jason,” Vega said. “Good luck, dude—you’re gonna need it.”
God, Jason thought, am I nuts? I’m wearing a contraption that has hardly been tested, let alone ready for exposure in a nuclear environment. Oddly, Jason felt as if he was standing naked, although he was surrounded by forty kilos of composite material and electronics. He experimentally moved his arms and legs and found the limbs remarkably easy to move and control. Jogging was effortless. He saw the survivors down by the lake, about two kilometers away, and started to pick up the pace…
…before realizing he had hit fifty kilometers an hour, and was standing at the edge of Swan Lake in seconds. Kristen Skyy and her photographer stood before him, motionless—but the photographer was not stunned enough to stop filming. Jason scanned the radio bands from his suit’s communications system and found her wireless microphone’s FM frequency. “Can you hear me, Miss Skyy?”
