The Tin Man (24 page)

For a long moment, all of them stood and looked at the dark-clothed figure, saying not a word. The figure made one turn, showing itself from all sides, then stood quietly. “He looks like that dude from
Sea Hunt,”
Hal Briggs finally quipped, “except shorter and chubbier. Brigadier General McLanahan, I presume?”

Patrick nodded stiffly. “That’s right, Hal,” came an electronically enhanced voice.

“You sound like the voice coming through the clown’s head at the drive-up window of a fast-food joint,” Hal said with a grin.

On a secondary comm channel, one that Briggs
and Wohl could not hear, Patrick said, “Jon, I felt that power surge again when I landed.”

“Then I recommend we terminate the test,” Dr. Heinrich responded immediately on the commlink. “The problem hasn’t been fixed.”

“Patrick?” Masters asked. “It’s your project, and you’re wearing the gear. What do you say?”

Patrick McLanahan hesitated, but only for a moment: “Let’s go on,” he said. “The shock wasn’t too bad, and I feel fine now.”

“I recommend against it,” Heinrich said.

“We’re on schedule and on budget right now,” Patrick snapped, his voice much more impatient, even agitated. “Any delays would be costly. We go on.”

“So how do you take a dump or a piss in that getup, Patrick?” Briggs asked.

“You finish the mission and go home,” Patrick responded flatly.

“Touchy, touchy,” Hal said. “I don’t mean to crack wise, guys, but it’s not exactly what we were expecting. How did you fly in here like that?”

“A short burst of air compressed at three thousand psi,” Jon replied proudly. “The soldier of the future doesn’t run or march into combat anymore—he
jumps
in. The soldier can jump about twenty to thirty feet vertically and a hundred and fifty feet horizontally. The power unit he wears can recharge the gas generators in about fifteen seconds.”

“It’d be fun to watch a squad of these dudes
hopping
into battle,” Briggs commented. “How long does the power unit last?”

“The specs you I gave us called for durable man-portable power units to last a minimum of six hours—ours can last eight,” Jon Masters replied. “Ours can be recharged by any power source available—a twelve-volt car battery, a home electrical
outlet, a commercial two-twenty line, an aircraft auxiliary-power unit, or even by solar photovoltaic cells mounted on the back. If all power is lost, just drop the backpack, and the suit becomes a standard combat-ready insulated suit and battle-ready helmet. Patrick?”

To demonstrate, Patrick reached up to hidden clips on his shoulders and unfastened the backpack power unit, then passed it around to Briggs and Wohl. It resembled an oval turtle shell, contoured to match the body; it was about an inch thick and weighed about twenty pounds. The helmet’s oxygen visor automatically dropped open when the power unit was detached. Patrick pressed a tiny switch under the left edge of his helmet, and the helmet unlocked and popped open; he took it off and let Briggs and Wohl look it over.

Briggs was interested in the design and features of the helmet but Chris Wohl was more interested in Patrick. He looked at him carefully and asked, “Hot in that getup, sir?”

“A bit.” Patrick was sweating, and his face looked a little red, like a football player who had just finished a difficult series of plays and run in from the field. Heinrich handed Patrick a squeeze bottle of ice water, trying to check him over discreetly at the same time. Wohl’s face showed uncertainty, but he remained silent. When the helmet and backpack power unit were handed back to him, Patrick put them on, slipping on the backpack and fastening the attach points on his shoulders. It automatically snapped into place, locked, and energized …

… and, unnoticed and unheard by Briggs and Wohl, Patrick let out a barely audible moan through the commlink.

“Patrick? Was that you? Are you all right?” Dr. Heinrich radioed.

“I … I felt that shock again when … when I put the fucking backpack on,” Patrick answered, clearly in pain.

“Terminate the test and get that power unit off now!” Heinrich radioed.

“No!”
Patrick shouted.

This time everyone heard him. Hal’s impressed smile dimmed a bit. Chris Wohl, the veteran infantryman and commando, was clearly concerned now. “You all right in there, sir?” he asked. “You don’t sound too good.”

“The system’s environment is completely controlled,” Masters explained quickly. “He can withstand heat to three hundred degrees, cold to minus twenty, and can even stay under ice-cold water, all for up to an hour. The suit uses a positive pressure breathing system, so it is even capable of being used in a chemical- or biological-warfare environment.”

Wohl stepped over to Patrick and looked at the suit carefully. If he looked closely, he could see his eyes through the tinted visor in the helmet. The helmet appeared to be fitted with several sensors pointing in different directions, as well as different visors that slid into place over his eyes. Wohl could see that Patrick had an oxygen mask fitted inside the helmet, plus a microphone and several tiny sensors aimed at his eyeballs. “I see infrared sensors, microphone—what else have you got in there, sir?”

“Complete communications system—secure tactical FM, secure VHF, secure UHF, even a secure cellphone,” Patrick: replied. “I have an omnidirectional microphone that can pick up whispers at three hundred feet. The helmet visor has data readouts and small laser-projected virtual screens that show menus to change the various functions in the
system; the menu items are selected by an eyeball pointing system. Miniature infrared warning systems mounted on the helmet warn of movement in any direction.”

“Is that right?” Wohl remarked. He took a step back away from Patrick. “How does it feel? Can you move around all right, sir?”

“It’s a little stiff,” Patrick said, experimentally flexing his shoulders and knees, “but I can …”

Wohl suddenly reached out and, to everyone’s surprise, gave McLanahan a firm push. Patrick toppled over, landing on his back with a hard
thud!
on the concrete hangar floor.

“You look like a soft, bloated, overbaked Pills-bury Doughboy, sir!” Wohl said angrily, almost shouting. “You look ridiculous! You can’t move, you can’t run, you can hardly stand up, and you look like you’re either going to pass out or sweat to death inside that thing! Do you expect us to spend all that friggin’ money on a soldier my
grandmother
can push over? And where’s your damned weapon?”

Patrick struggled to his feet, very much like a diver in a wetsuit trying to get out of the surf. He seemed a little shaky at first, as if the fall had knocked some wind out of him, but he was up in fairly short order. Masters replied, “He doesn’t have any weapons, Gunny.”

“Say
what
? No weapons? You’re trying to tell me the soldier of the twenty-first century doesn’t have any weapons? You’ve got to be
shitting me!”

“No, we’re not shitting you,” Patrick said, the anger in his voice coming through even in the distortion of the electronic speaker. He was on his feet, feet apart, arms away from his sides, facing Wohl in a challenging stance. “We’re going to develop a new infantry combat system, then have the soldier fire bullets? Get your head out of your ass, Wohl!”

Patrick’s defiant words inflamed Wohl even more. “This is bull, sir,” he said. “Part of the specs on this project included a new series of area and point offensive weapons. I don’t see shit. What is all this? I’ve trained men in seventy degrees below zero without the wetsuit or power unit, and we’ve used helmet-mounted sensors and miniaturized comm gear for years. What’s so special about this system? Because you’ve got compressed air in your boots?”

Patrick held out his left hand, and Jon Masters put a four-foot piece of one-inch galvanized steel pipe in it. Patrick tossed the pipe to Wohl, who caught it easily in one hand. “Take your best shot, Gunny,” Patrick said.

“Excuse me, sir? You mean, hit you?”

“That’s right, Gunny. As hard as you can.”

“Hey, I’m not going to be part of your testing program, sir,” Wohl said. “I came here to see a demonstration, not to get you hurt or injured while Dr. Masters takes readings. Get someone else to …”

At that instant, Patrick leaped off the floor with a sharp hiss of compressed air and slammed into Wohl full force in a flying body tackle. He landed on all fours and got back up to his feet after taking a moment to get his bearings, but Wohl sailed over backward like a small wide receiver hit by a speeding linebacker. “I said hit me, dammit!” Patrick’s electronic voice shouted. “Just do as you’re goddamn told!”

Chris Wohl got on his feet like an enraged grizzly bear. He picked up the steel pipe and swung it with all his might, hitting Patrick squarely in the left shoulder. They all heard the dull thud and Patrick reeled, stumbled slightly over to the right, but did not go down. Wohl swung again. The pipe landed on Patrick’s left rib cage. Again, no effect. He blocked two even harder blows with his forearms. The next
blow, weaker now that Wohl was winded, landed right on his head, across his right temple. His head jerked to the left from the impact, but he remained standing. Then, as if from the depths of a wild-boar pit, Patrick cried out, a loud, almost animal-like cry, and clutched his head in pain.

“Patrick!” Masters shouted. “Are you all right? Doc, help him!”

Carlson Heinrich ran over to Patrick, ready to get him out of the suit and administer first aid, but Patrick swung his left arm and swatted Heinrich away. One of Heinrich’s ribs cracked loud enough for everyone in the hangar to hear it.

As Wohl looked at him in amazement, Patrick stepped over to him and rammed his left hand into his chest. The blow felt like a sledgehammer. The wind gushed out of Wohl’s lungs, and he fell to his knees, grasping his midriff in pain. Then Patrick reached down, picked up the steel pipe—and hit him square on the side of the head with a tremendous swinging blow. Wohl’s head snapped over to the right in a cloud of blood. He landed flat on his face and lay still, blood oozing from his ears, his mouth, his eyes. Then, with another growl, Patrick raised the pipe over the fallen man, aiming one end of it at his skull …

“What the fuck!”
Hal Briggs shouted in shock. Patrick McLanahan, their friend and colleague, was going to
kill
Chris Wohl! He ran over and body-tackled Patrick. They both fell over onto the concrete floor, Briggs on top. “Patrick, what the hell are you doing, man?” He intended just to hold Patrick, to calm him down—but both of Patrick’s arms swung up and hit him in the jaw. Briggs felt as if a steel girder had hit him—the force was no different from being hit by a man, but it didn’t feel like arms striking him; they felt like huge steel rods, completely
unyielding. Briggs’s head snapped upward, blood spattering from a chomped tongue and broken nose, teeth flying.

Shouting like a madman, Patrick struggled to his feet, again clutching his helmeted head. He picked up the steel pipe and turned on the first person he saw: the prone Chris Wohl. He raised the pipe like a woodsman getting ready to split a log and …

“No!”
Briggs shouted. He pulled his 45 Colt from his holster, aimed, and fired three rounds, hitting Patrick twice in the back and once in the helmet. Patrick screamed, the electronically distorted voice sounding like the squealing brakes of a locomotive against the rails, metal on metal. He dropped the steel pipe and again clutched his head, writhing in pain—but still on his feet. He turned toward Briggs, screamed again, and charged.

“Patrick,
stop I”
Briggs fired five more rounds, emptying his Colt. Patrick fell to his knees after the last slug hit him. The air was filled with blue smoke and the walls echoed from the gunshots. The scene was surreal: a costumed figure howling like an animal, writhing in pain, crouched on the concrete floor.

But he still wasn’t down. Patrick crawled to his feet, his chest heaving, his electronically amplified breathing heavy and labored. Briggs couldn’t believe his eyes. Patrick had just taken eight slugs from a 45-caliber automatic from no more than twenty feet away and he was still alive. Or was he
really
alive? Was this some kind of sick, homicidal automaton? Briggs dropped the empty magazine, pounded a full one home, and took aim …

“Wait!” Masters shouted. He ran over to Patrick with Heinrich, plowing into him from the right side and tackling him back to the floor. Patrick swung an arm, clubbing Heinrich painfully on the right
arm. Heinrich cried out in pain and rolled free, clutching a broken arm, but it gave Masters enough time to touch a tiny hidden switch under the left edge of Patrick’s helmet. An invisible seam appeared, and the helmet popped open and clattered to the concrete hangar floor.

What they saw made their blood turn cold. Patrick’s face was contorted in agony. His eyes were bulging, his mouth wide open. The veins on his head and neck protruded so much that they looked ready to burst through his skin, and his neck muscles were horribly swollen. His maddened eyes rested on Briggs. He scrambled drunkenly to his feet, ready to pounce again, ready to rip Briggs’s heart out, ready to spill his blood. Briggs aimed for the contorted head and closed his eyes …

“Don’t, Hal,” Jon Masters said in a remarkably calm voice, holding up both hands. “He’ll be all right now. The power in the suit is deactivated. Just stay away from him.” He stooped to help Heinrich, who was clutching his fractured arm against his body. Patrick got to his feet and charged, but Briggs sidestepped him easily, pushing him away to keep clear of those pile-driver arms.

He watched the way Patrick’s eyes darted from side to side; he’d clutch his head and then they’d flash sideways again. He stumbled about, trying to regain his footing, before finally collapsing to his knees on the floor. “What’s he doing?” Briggs asked. “Why are his eyes doing that?”

“He’s trying to activate the eyeball sensors,” Masters explained. “Trying to activate the systems in the suit. He still thinks he has his helmet on. Don’t touch him, Hal. The effect will wear off, but you might set him off again. Look after Chris.”