“I’m sorry...?”
“A bunch of the guys are just kind of wondering why a lab professor suddenly decides to be a government-sponsored superhero, y’know? Especially someone with no service history.”
I bit my tongue and nodded. “Makes sense.”
“So how much do you know about him?”
I toyed with a couple crude answers, but settled on “Quite a bit.”
“Like?”
“Genius IQ. Confident. The only person who completely understands how the suit works and can use it with any degree of competence.”
“Arrogant cocksucker, then? You can say it, I won’t tell.”
I smirked. “I think all of you need to keep in mind that suit can flip a HumVee with one hand.”
“For real?”
I nodded. “It threw a three-ton test weight fifty-five meters in one of the early trials, and we’ve made improvements since then.”
“Shit,” he grinned. “That’s bitchin’.”
“Yeah. Also, never say Danny.”
“No?”
“No. It’s always Danielle. Or Dr. Morris.”
“Danielle?” He struggled with it for a few seconds and then his eyes went wide. “Oh, shit. Sorry, ma’am. Dr. Morris. All of us just heard the name on the radio and--”
“Staff sergeant, sir!?” The airman was snapping his fingers again. Wallen gave me a quick glance and swayed across the deck. They talked for a moment and his shoulders sagged. He gave a sharp nod to the Marines as he made his way back to me. They weren’t buying it either.
“What’s going on?”
“Van Nuys has been compromised. One of their fences fell fifteen minutes ago. We’re landing in a hot zone.”
“Can’t we go back to Burbank?”
He shook his head and leaned closer. “Burbank’s gone. Completely overrun. Right now our best bet is to land at Van Nuys and come out fighting.”
“Aren’t there other airports in Long Beach and San Diego?”
“Way too far out of the way.”
“Where’s my team? Are they meeting us there?”
He looked me in the eyes. “Your team landed at Burbank forty-five minutes ago.”
“They--”
“We don’t know anything for sure. The tower there’s gone silent. But we have to assume they’re gone.”
“So we’re fighting?”
He nodded and set his jaw. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re Marines.”
“I’m not worried.” I undid the buckles on my flight harness and stood up. “Let’s get the crates open.”
Wallen blinked. “What?”
“We’re going to fight,” I said. “That’s what I’m here to do. I’ll need ten men for some heavy lifting.”
He looked at the crates and back at me. His military brain was jamming up in an unexpected, non-combat situation. I’d seen it happen before.
I shrugged out of my flak jacket, swayed over to the cases, and yanked on the first ratchet strap. “With my four-person team it takes me ninety minutes to put the suit on. Give me enough men, staff sergeant, especially if they’ve got some basic electronics knowledge, and we can cut that in half. You can circle the airport once and I’ll be ready.”
I thumbed the combination locks, released the clasps, and opened the first crate. It was the helmet. The head. Cerberus glared out of the case at me with wide eyes and a fierce mouth.
It was what Wallen needed to see. “Little,” he snapped, “Netzley, Carter, Berk. You and six other volunteers get over here and help the lady get ready to kick some ass.” Then he reached past me and pried open the second ratchet.
I tried not to think too much about stripping in front of them, but to their credit only two of the male Marines and one woman stared as I dropped my clothes and pulled on the skintight undersuit. Cerberus doesn’t have a spare millimeter for excess clothing. From an ideal, technical point of view, I should be naked, but there are limits to what I’ll do even during the apocalypse.
Just over forty minutes later Wallen connected the last USB cables while Carter and Netzley held the battlesuit’s head over mine. He met my eyes. “Is that everything?”
I nodded. “Good work, staff sergeant.”
“Just show me it was worth it.” He nodded to the two Marines and the helmet dropped down over me. I was plunged into claustrophobic darkness and the tight space of the dead suit pressed in. I had twenty-three seconds while they locked the bolts and the mainframe booted.
Not all my work was stolen. I’d come up with the two elements that had been hindering everyone else.