View source for To Live Is To Die

Paul's hands fidgeted under the table, away from prying eyes, his only physical betrayal to the maelstrom of emotions that overwhelmed him as he sat there listening to the corporate talking head deliver the sit rep.  His superior was a man of privilege, a man of status, a man who had never experienced hardship beyond watching his portfolio of holdings rise and fall.  Your typical mega-corporate E-VP.  Paul remembered his history classes as a child explaining how once upon a time in a fairy tale land called America men of character, pride, and diligence would spend their lives working ... sacrificing, to make themselves into something.   It sounded like a fairy tale, and Paul sometimes wondered if the historians who wrote those books were actually just making it up.  Could human nature ever allow power to be distributed to anyone willing to take it?  These days things had regressed back to the Victorian days.  The kilometer high ferrocrete skyrakers were their castles, the E-VPs of the world the nobles, the cash-flows their lands, the wage-slaves their serfs. 

But it wasn't the injustices of the world that made his hands quiver now.  It wasn't the commanding presence of the skinny, clueless billionaire barking at him that made his mind race.  It wasn't the consequences of failure or margins of victory or whatever other rhetoric his senseware was recording for him at the moment that mattered.  It was her.  Somehow she had been at the beta facility.  Somehow she had found his team.  Somehow she had survived that fateful night in South America half a decade ago.

''The night had been a terrible one for Paul's unit.  He had lost four men already, four men who's families would receive corporate generated lies about a plane crash that never happened.  Paul knew the odds were very good that in a few short hours that four would grow to nine, the eight he brought with him plus himself.  Zhilly and Davis were the remote team, they'd make it at least.  It had been a trap, but he was still close to the objective, the four men had bought him time.  They were now moving undetected through the sewers and he still had Johnson, their console cowboy, so they still had a chance.  That said Deymenko was gone so they had no talent.  Additionally in twelve minutes the entire site was going to be a crater, the flyboys were already en route with ordinance designed to cut through hardened bunkers.  The math didn't look good.  Johnson's comm lit up his interface, "Thirty meters sir, it'll put us right next to the cooling unit."''    

''His team did what it did best and even with only four plus himself they were still the scalpel and the complex was designed to stop the sword.  They went topside and blew the fuel dump across the complex at the same time, text book distractions.  Zhilly's crawlers were drawing all kinds of heavy fire by the main entrance as well and Davis had his Barrett and two bins of ammo to play with and thermoptics to cover his signature.  The report of the now century old .50 calibers and 81mm mortars being blind-fired by the terrified perimeter guards were cleanly covering the small pops and hissings of Jock's various lock-defeating technologies.  Doors went by and hallways were traversed.  Dead or dying guards, technicians, and wire-jockeys left a trail that would lead straight to his team but the time for discretion was over.  Douglas split off to handle a fireteam that satellite reported was entering the building in the front and Paul took Johnson, Jock, and Alex with him for the datastore.'' 

''Paul breached the control room and only his dive and roll saved him from the shotgun blast that left Jock's corpse falling on top of Johnson.  Paul rolled up and felt the world begin to move in slow motion as his predator swept through the room from target to target to target.  Johnson wasn't stupid enough to stick his head out, that head was too critical to mission success at this point, and Alex was dealing with the squad that had been dispatched to flank them, so it was Paul alone with the men inside.  In the end he was down seven shots and had to close with the last two and to take their long-arms out of the equation.  His resin-coated plasteel armor had deflected two shots and stopped the final one cold millimeters from his heart.'' 

''Johnson quickly moved in and jacked into the console, Paul understood that few could move as fast as Johnson on the otherside and he had as much faith in Johnson's speed in the digitalspace as he had in Douglas's in meatspace.  Paul moved to the door as Alex retreated inside after giving the "all clear" on the hallway.  His armor was shot to drek and one had penetrated into his abdomen but Alex was moving like a man uninjured.  Tough wasn't an attribute anymore, it was a technology, and they all had it.'' 

''Paul had just made a quick look down the hall when he saw a 5.5mm wide hole appear in the wall in front of him.  His interface reported system damage and he looked down at his right breastplate in disbelief and saw a small fractured hole.  In retrospect his reaction was likely comical to watch as he spun to bring his predator to bare but the nerves in his right arm had been severed by the shot and instead his predator merely flung across the room as his rag doll arm hit Alex in his chest.  Paul watched helplessly as the Reuthenium cloaked figure shimmered as it dropped from its perch in the ventilation.  Before the figure hit the ground Alex's brain was trying to process the 5.5mm hole in the right side of his heart.  The figure's optics never left Paul as the weapon was raised towards Johnson and added his name to the list involved in the accidental plane crash that would appear on the scream sheets tomorrow morning.  Just another corporate 'accident'.'' 

''Paul's mind raced, this was a Ghost.  It hadn't killed him and that was on purpose, these guys made no mistakes.  In fact it had deliberately disabled him.  Paul wasn't bad with his left hand but his backup pistol was slung for his right.  It would be easier to get Alex's MP5, but it made little difference, the Ghost was probably as fast as he was, had it's weapon ready, and that APDS wasn't paying his combat armor much respect.  Paul just pushed himself back against the wall and waited for whatever was to happen.'' 

''"You are so predictable Paul.  Always have to be first inside and that dive and roll to the right ... I could have drawn a chalk target on the ground for the goons to aim at and you'd be a corpse right now."  He knew that voice, but she pulled the mask off anyway for his benefit.  "Always have to be the hero don't you?  How long do you think before ... "  And he saw her eyes go wide, could see the calculations racing across that pale face, and his uplink told him what his heart already knew, what her spacial positioning rig was also telling her.'' 

''She spun too late as the 18.5mm slug from Douglas' Spas-22 ripped through her flank.  The second shot hit her center mass and she flew spinning into the corner and collapsed there, motionless.  Paul knew she almost never wore armor, not for hits like this ... "Armor makes you reckless and it slows you down Paul.  The professional knows this.  If you wear armor you're going to get yourself killed."  She loved to scold him and he loved hearing it.  It was her way of showing she cared.  Even here, now, in this place ...''

''Paul was choking back the emotions when Douglas literally slapped him in the face.  "Get the frag up soldier, eight minutes, we've got to fly."  Douglas shoved Johnson's deck into the hardened satchel that Johnson had used for it and threw it over his shoulder and then, realizing that Paul hadn't moved, came back and ripped him to his feet.  Eight minutes later they stood a little over a kilometer away and as the explosions lit up the horizon behind them Paul felt parts of himself he'd never comfortably acknowledged, burn to cinders.''

The E-VP before him had been asking him a question for some time now.  Paul had no idea what it was and didn't have enough care to go back through his recording and find out.  He just looked up at the man and said "Yeah, it's no problem" ... his default response for most questions and it usually satisfied these types.  The man looked at him for a moment, projecting his Hardvard trained "Command Presense" on Paul's unrelenting face, and unsatisfied with his ability to shake Paul, receded and continued on with his next bullet point. 

How she could have lived, he didn't know.  Even if she could take two slugs from the combat shotgun without armor and survive, there's no way  she could have known or even been able to hump the kilometer or so she needed to in eight minutes to survive the airstrike.  And then her haunting words echoed in his mind again.  ''"You are so predictable Paul."'' 

For the first time in five years Paul smiled.