St. George leaped thirty feet and landed next to a sign warning all visitors to declare weapons and electronics. He ripped the metal sign post out of the ground. His fingers crumbled the concrete mass at the end like a lump of dried mud. “Cesar, listen to me,” he said, soaring back to the fence. “You want to be part of the team, right?”
“Hell yeah!”
“Here’s what I need you to do.” He bent the post into a large U shape. The sign got in the way so he broke the rivets and tore it off the post. “I need you to find Danielle,” he said. “Doctor Morris. Head back to the workshop. If you find her, your job is to keep her safe. Got it?”
“Got it? What about everyone else?”
He pushed the U through one side of the gate. “If you find soldiers in trouble, help them out. If you find exes, just kill them.”
The titan’s head tilted. “Kill ‘em? All on my own?”
St. George looked up at the armored skull as he worked the sign post around and out the other side of the gate. “While you’re in that suit you’ve got as much armor as a tank and you can rip a Hummer apart with your bare hands. You can handle exes with no problem.”
“Right,” said the titan. “Okay. Still gettin’ used to this. What if I see Zzzap or Stealth?”
“Tell Zzzap to make sure your batteries are good. If he asks, tell him...” He tried to think of a good code phrase while he twisted the signpost like an oversized garbage tie. The posts of the gate squealed and bent in until they touched. “Tell him I said you’re five by five.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s from one of his favorite shows. He made me watch four seasons’ worth of it. He’ll know what it means.”
“Okay. And Stealth?”
For a moment he considered telling Cesar to stay at the gate, but he knew the kid would be more useful searching the base. “Stealth can take care of herself,” he said. “Don’t worry about her. Find Danielle, find Zzzap, keep as many people safe as you can.”
The gate was holding for now. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to open it soon. Close to a hundred exes lined the inner fence, with more pouring through the open outer gates. The soldiers had fallen into a good rhythm and bodies were piling up almost as fast as they trickled in.
Almost as fast.
He banged the titan on the shoulder. “Get going.”
The battlesuit gave him a thumbs up and charged away. St. George spotted Stewart. “Sergeant,” he yelled, “shouldn’t you have reinforcements by now?”
The man gave him an angry glance and continued to direct the soldiers thinning out the dead.
“Hey!” St. George took a small leap and sailed down to the ground in front of the sergeant. “I know I’m not high on the chain of command, but you’ve got a serious problem here.”
“Sir,” Stewart barked, “we have things under control. Please step back.” He had two inches on the hero and he knew how to use it.
St. George took a breath, counted to five, and let it slip out of his nostrils as smoke. “Have you ever seen exes talk before, sergeant?”
It shook the sergeant for a moment, but he recovered. He didn’t answer.
“I have, and nothing good came of it. We lost a lot of people. Friends.” He glanced over his shoulder at the base. “I don’t want the same thing to happen here.”
The sergeant looked at the soldiers. “There should be a hundred men here,” he said. He pointed at Barracks Eight. “They’re the first responders for a perimeter alarm.”
“And they’re not responding,” nodded St. George. “How long has it been since you sent those guys to investigate? About five minutes?”
“Almost, but we haven’t heard anything.”
“If they didn’t radio you, what would you have heard over all this?” The hero gestured at the soldiers picking targets through the fence. “I’m going to go check it out. Can you spare a radio?”
Stewart opened his mouth, then paused. “I’m supposed to keep you under observation, sir,” he said.
St. George gave another nod. “Feel free to observe me heading over to that barracks, then. When Captain Freedom gets here make sure he knows where I am, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
He shot into the air and covered the hundred yards in seconds. Barracks Eight was silent. St. George was pretty sure someone was supposed to be standing guard duty, too. Billie Carter had called it the anti-fuckery patrol. The barracks across the street also didn’t have anyone standing guard.
He stepped inside.