Ex-Patriots by Peter Clines

Author:Peter Clines [Clines, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: zombies vs superheroes, superheroes vs zombies, romero, permuted press, marvel zombies, Zombies, living dead, walking dead, Heroes, Apocalypse, comic books, Superheroes
Publisher: Peter Clines
Published: 2011-11-16T05:00:13+00:00

* * *

St. George hefted the three hundred-pound array of armored plates. “And you say they’ve got over a thousand of these... what, ex-soldiers?”

“At least,” Danielle said from inside the half-disassembled armor. “I did a sweep before we came back inside. Four other buildings in this section of the base have the same overpowered cooling units, and I saw two more near the far side. At a hundred and fifty per building...” She turned her head back to him and raised her eyebrows. “That’s a lot of exes on this side of the fence.”

He set the back section of the armor down on the work platform, nestling it into the foam cradle. “And this Nest thing makes them docile?”

“It activates enough of their brain to dominate the core behaviors which manifest, yes,” said Stealth. “Or so Sorensen claims.” She was sketching out circuit diagrams.

“If he’s lying he did a great job convincing the exes to fake it for him,” said Danielle.

St. George drifted into the air behind the armor and hooked his arms under Danielle’s shoulders. He lifted her out of the battlesuit and floated down to the ground. She shook out her legs and arms and took a few unsteady steps.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was only in there a few hours. Barely had time to adjust.” She hobbled across the workshop in her bodysuit, each step more confident, and grabbed a thick power cable. She leaned into it, dragged it back with her, and plugged it into a hidden socket above the armor’s hip. “This is going to suck without Barry here. No quick recharges.”

“Another point for you to consider,” said Stealth. She didn’t look up from her notepad.

“Where are your pistols?”

The cloaked woman shifted her head inside her hood. St. George was looking at her. He pointed at the empty holsters.

“They were seized upon our arrival,” she said. “Standard military protocol for civilian guests, and by their definitions we are civilians.”

“It doesn’t bother you? Being unarmed?”

“It does not. Why do you ask?”

“I ask because I would’ve expected not having them to drive you into a rampage.”

She turned her attention back to her sketch. “Colonel Shelly asked for them to be returned to me. I am satisfied.”

He looked at Danielle. The redhead glanced up from the armored helmet and shrugged. St. George returned the shrug and nodded at the cable. “Where are they getting their power?”

“A large solar farm, three miles to the north-north-west,” said Stealth. She pointed her left hand without looking up from the diagram. “It was visible during our approach in the Black Hawk. No doubt an Armed Forces renewable resource project. I would estimate it provides the base with six to seven times the electricity of our own solar resources.”

“For less than a thousand people,” said St. George. “Not bad.”

“But twice the equipment and resources, at least,” said Danielle. She ran a second cable from the battlesuit’s helmet to her laptop. “It’s not bad, but not good. Definitely not great.” A third cable ran out from the laptop to the armored spine on the back section of the torso.

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