Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 34: Teammates
The Las Vegas staging area was the parking lot in the back of a Las Vegas High School, the building itself having been turned into a de facto headquarters. Its construction led credence to the idea that the architects who designed prisons were the same ones who did high schools. Its brick-and-stucco walls, painted a chipped and fading tan, were wide and tall and austere. Very few windows, and the ones that were there were small. Too small to jump out of, and even then there weren't any above the ground floor. The parking lot out back was a vast, wide blacktop. Large enough to fit all students and faculty. Behind that was the football field, dry-yellow and dying in the desert heat.
It was weird to see a high school turned into a fortress. Turrets were placed at each corner of the roof, and strategically in between. In addition to that, men, armored and armed, patrolled. The entire building shimmered with a familiar pale-blue field. Not as strong as Taylor remembered. Maybe it was in a passive state? After that there were large sections of the parking lot designated as a landing zone for incoming transports and teleporters, neither of which came alone. It was also a toss up as to which was louder. The rest of it was tents of varying purpose, sprawling out into and taking over the entirety of the football field.
As Taylor was stepping out of the transport a pleasantly female voice burred with a bittersweet-familiar mechanical tone was saying that she and her group should "report to tent B5, where you will receive further instruction." After noting how viciously – if unsurprisingly – hot it was, she saw that each tent had a plastic red placard by each entrance with a white letter-number combination emblazoned front and center. The one closest to her was A1, so the magic of common sense gave her a basic idea of where to go. So she did. But not before checking to make sure that Lisa and Foil were following. Thanking Sabah for making her costume as breathable as possible, she led the way past tents A2, 3, 4, and 5 before turning towards the football field.
Interesting. Was it done this way every time, she wondered? She hoped so. It was an effective piece of organization and, from memories of her dad's grumbling rants on the subject, such a thing was to be lauded. It would certainly cut down on the chaos of having so many people in one place if the setup stayed the same every time it was needed.
Tent B5 was host to a series of folding tables and chairs, laid end-to-end from just inside the entrance to a few feet away from the back wall. The tent was somewhere between forty and fifty feet long, maybe half that wide, and much cooler inside than it should be. There was a three square-foot cube in between the far end of the tables, and standing by it was an unfamiliar woman. A seven foot, mostly naked woman whose modesty was preserved by strategically placed panes of glimmering, iridescent energy. The side of her head was shaved, swirling tattoos decorating that side of her face stretching from jaw to scalp. What remained of her hair was a shimmering, impossible white, braided down over her shoulder. Her eyes had neither iris nor pupil, her eyes an expanse of open-sea blue. An incredible beauty of high cheekbones and smoothly muscled limbs, when coupled with the four foot horn of interlocking planes of energy coming from the air slightly above her forehead, certainly made for a striking first impression.
"Good, you're here." Narwhal's voice was accented. A mix of French and something else. "Take your seats, we've only twenty minutes before the first sortie leaves, and some of you are on it." Her lips curved up. "I would hate for you to go to battle confused."
They sat. Quickly.
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Previously unseen lines on the bottom of the cube lit up, climbing in sharp, 90 degree turns to the topmost panel. It opened, a series of panels sliding away like the opening of a camera lens. It began to hum, the glow from within spilling out and shaping the city of Las Vegas in the air above it. The hologram of the city had been sectioned off in three different colors: green, red, and gray. The center of the city was gray, lightening into red and then green in an unbroken circle around the outskirts. As Taylor watched, the border of the gray and red areas moved. A millimeter at a time, but very definitely moving backwards. Gray advancing, red retreating. Slowly, achingly slowly, but moving.
"What you're seeing is a real-time holographic map of the city, courtesy of the joint efforts of Dragon and the United States military." A series of dots began to appear, scattered around the city. Upon closer inspection, and a bit of narrowed eyes, Taylor saw that the dots were actually several smaller dots very close to each other. They, too, were moving. Sometimes in great leaps, sometimes in smooth, deliberate motions. "These are the sorties currently deployed in the city. They are engaged in evacuation, search and rescue, and scouting for what we are now referring to as 'the hive'. Its exact location has been hard to pin down, but our Thinkers and thermal imaging have narrowed it down to within a half a square mile of this area." A pulsing red dot appeared in the center of the city.
"And the colors?" Someone else asked. Taylor couldn't tell who, she'd never heard their voice before. Male. Coarse. A vague hint of Eastern Europe in the consonants of his words. "I imagine they indicate the sections of the city we control?"
"They do." Narwhal confirmed. She didn't nod, but looked like she wanted to. A learned behavior to avoid braining people with her horn, maybe. Or maybe she thought nodding was unprofessional. Who was Taylor to say? "Green indicates the areas of the city that are under our complete control. Also where the military has established quarantine. Red is the conflicted zone, where civilians may still be in hiding and Nilbog's creatures may be encountered, but not in great number. Usually. The areas in gray are where the enemy is in complete control. They are lost to us for now." She cleared her throat. "Now, for your assignments. I did not choose them, so if you have a problem, do not bring it to me."
The map changed to a roster of every cape in the tent. Next to each name was an icon. As Narwhal spoke the names and icons drifted to different areas where they were absorbed by other rosters that appeared seemingly for that purpose. Taylor was gratified to see that whoever chose the teams was no man's fool. Everyone was being played to their strengths. Lisa was going to the command tent, she and Foil to an attack/scout team. The assignments went on, but she stopped paying attention after that, choosing instead to focus on the memory of the city map.
Narwhal finished up by saying. "Okay, everybody got it? Guardian, Foil, your sortie is leaving in eight minutes. I'm leading that team, so wait a moment and we'll leave together. Those of you in non-combat or search and rescue roles should report to your respective tents, where someone else will take over, and do so now. All hands on deck, from now until it's over."
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"Narwhal?"
"Yes?"
"You said you were leading our team. Is – is there anyone else on it beside us?"
The older – and much taller, which was an experience for Taylor – cape was currently leading the way through the ordered grid of white tents. There wasn't a lot of activity, mostly capes going one way or the other or men and women in uniform carrying important looking pieces of stuff around. Regardless, Narwhal was definite a respected and known presence, garnering nods and stepping asides and even the odd salute. Narwhal nodded. "Yes. Two others. A partnership, I'm told. Until the others started arriving, the teams sent out numbered no more than three. For now, the standard is five. The others of our group are waiting for us by the departure area, which is just up here."
The departure area, which indeed was not far, was one of those covered walkways the students would wait under for parental pick up on rainy days. Rather, it had been. Now it was a gunmetal gray corridor that passed through the field surrounding the school building. There were no windows that Taylor could see, and one entrance: an interlocked spiral of pearlescent metal that bore a more than passing resemblance to the hologram projector cube seen earlier. Standing in front of it were four people. Two of them wore PRT issue body armor from the chest down, full-face helmets reflecting the overhead sun. The rifles they held were sleek, futuristic assemblies of silvered metal and polished wood.
In front of these troopers, talking quietly to each other, were the other two members of the team. The taller of the pair was a man with a mostly shaved head, save for a thin strip of very red hair that was doing its level best to become a mohawk. His face was long and angular and he had a thick, long, ruby-gold beard that he seemed rather fond of. He had the general musculature of someone who exercised for fitness than for purpose and very pale, very clear blue eyes. His costume was an armored vest, arms bare, arm guards, some flatteringly fitted pants, and thick-soled armored boots. All of it dyed a mix of dark yellows and reds. There were two other things of note about this man. The first was that he wore no mask. The second was that he wore upon his back an honest-to-goodness, metal-and-wood shield.
The woman was shorter than her partner, though by no means small. Her blue hair was up in a tail that knotted at the base of her skull. Her face was as angular as his, though the lines of her cheekbones, jaw, and chin were sharper. More elegant. Almost...regal. She had amber colored eyes and the body of a competitive weightlifter a few years into retirement: powerfully and visibly muscled, but without the tautness of skin that was common to a lifter in their prime. Her costume followed the same general medieval theme – a thick metal breastplate dyed vibrant, eye-catching red. Shoulder pads – though Taylor was certain there was a more official word for them – rounded out and made already significant shoulders look thicker. Her arms, legs and feet were more of the same metal armor. She carried no weapon and yet at the end of each of her armored gloves were a pair of spikes. Under an arm she carried a helmet that looked for all the world like the head of a hawk, and again wore no mask. She saw them first, and thunk-ed her shoulder into her partner's chest.
"It's about time you three showed up." Her voice was clear and strong and accented. Not quite Russian, but in that neighborhood. "I was starting to think we would have to do this alone. We could, of course, but it's always nice to do things with friends."
"Indeed." His voice was like hers, only deeper and rough. He said nothing further, only smiling at them, showing very white teeth.
Narwhal stepped into the silence, breaching it. "I'm sorry we kept you waiting. Guardian, Foil, allow me to introduce Skjoldur and his partner Spike. They'll be accompanying us on our mission."
Foil stepped forward. "Nice to meet you both, I'm sure. But about the mission – we still don't know what it is we're doing."
Spike snorted. Narwhal looked sheepish. As much as a woman with a massive horn and entirely blue eyes could. "Right. It's simple. We lost contact with the Las Vegas Police Department about...half-an-hour ago. At last we knew, they had forty-four civilians in their care. We're going to find out why and what – if anything – happened."
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The time between introduction and departure was given over to the group for some last minute preparations. For Foil, that meant tracking down some armor pieces that fitted themselves to her slender torso, arms, and legs. For Spike, Skjoldur, and Narwhal, that meant having a quiet conversation in French in front of the door. For Taylor, it meant tracking down the armory tent and finding herself some ammunition for her pistol. It turned out to be not that difficult. All she had to do was follow her nose, picking out the gradually strengthening smell of gunpowder, until it led her to a relatively isolated tent underneath a basketball hoop. She stepped around a trio of soldiers checking their rifles and into the tent. Like the one where they were briefed, it was cooler on the inside than it should have been. Unlike the tent where they were briefed, it was packed to the gills with long, sleek gun cases and crates marked AMMUNITION in thick yellow letters.
Standing amid the boxes was an old man. White hair, impeccably groomed and with an imposing widow's peak. A huge – huge – mustache, easily the biggest Taylor had ever seen, drooped to either side of his mouth. Green eyes beneath thick eyebrows and behind thicker glasses. He wore, of all things, a double-breasted suit. Very neat shoes, as well. And how weird had her life gotten that she thought a suit a more noteworthy clothing item than a spandex costume? Regardless, as she approached she could hear him grumbling under his breath at the clipboard in his hands. A clipboard, not a tablet. There was a pencil tucked into the clasp, and he fumbled at it with scarred, calloused fingers to make a notation on the grimy papers.
She stopped a respectable distance away and waited for him to notice her. Then she waited a bit more. Then she ran out of patience. "Excuse me?"
"Hm?" the man looked up, eyes huge behind his glasses. "Someone say something?"His voice was scratchy and hoarse. He took her in, and sniffed. "Oh. You. I suppose you're here to complain about my guns not having enough shiny buttons. They –" and he pointed behind her to the troopers. "thought the bullets weren't big enough! Bah! Who hired those idiots!? Who trained them?! I was making guns before they were a disappointing quickie in the back seat of a car!" He stopped to take a breath, and Taylor sensed that if she didn't head him off now, she'd never get a word in.
So she did something unthinkable a year past, and interrupted him. "No, I'm not here about that! I need ammunition for my pistol, and – "
"Ammunition?" Like a bloodhound, his watery eyes focused on the gun riding at her hip. "Oh, yes . This is more like it! Give it here, girl. Go on, give it!" She did, passing it over handle first. He grunted approval and lifted it to near touching his nose. "Yes, yes. This is a classic. Magnum rounds, though I wonder how a stringbean like you could take the kick. Bah. Stay there – stay, I'll be back with what you need." She watched him shuffle off, still holding her pistol and grumbling.
Then she stood around like a stump until he came back. It took a few minutes. He came out cradling her pistol, wheel opened, in the crook of one arm and a pair of small boxes under the other. Breathing slightly hard, he set the boxes down and began to fiddle with her pistol while completely ignoring her. This went on for several long, long seconds until the impatience and awkwardness overwhelmed her. "Sir, I –"
"Shh!" he held up a finger, then returned to whatever he was doing. "I'm almost done. This beauty was in need of some work. It looked like someone used it to hit things! Ha!" He straightened up with a satisfied exclamation. "And that's that! Here you are, girl. And enough ammunition to see you through the day. Don't let nobody say old Victor never did nothing for you. Now get, I got damnable paperwork to sort out. Go on, get!"
Taylor, after collecting her pistol and the boxes, got.
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The time came and there they were, waiting for the door to open. It did, like a camera lens, each panel curling back into its housing and revealing a corridor. Long and windowless and stolid gray, it was lit by a single track set into the ceiling. Wide enough for three to walk side-by-side and, at the end, was another door with another pair of guards.
"It's time." Narwhal stepped in, gesturing for them to follow. With a muttered word in a language Taylor didn't know, Spike almost rushed in. She was followed by Skjoldur and Foil, who moved at a much more leisurely pace. Taylor watched them for a moment, waiting for...something. It didn't come, so she set off after them. As they walked she saw panels, rectangular and horizontal, set into the walls at about head height. They started just inside the entrance and looked to stop just before the exit. Another defense mechanism? It wouldn't be surprising.
Narwhal reached the exit guards first. They nodded greetings and respect. She returned it and one of them asked, "What's your mission?"
"We're on the LVPD assignment. Marked to leave now."
The guard nodded. "Yes ma'am. We'll make sure it's noted and get the door open. Should be clear, last sweep had a pack of...er, screamers...half a mile away and pushing east, towards an empty suburb."
The second guard, who hadn't spoken, touched the side of his helmet and murmured "Open the exit." too quiet for anyone but Taylor to pick up. She also heard the entrance hiss close far behind as the door before them began to open in the same way. The guards moved, turning to put their backs to them and raise their weapons. She saw sunlight, and a curiously shaped shadow, and the two troopers led them out. It was quiet. Cities should never be quiet, it felt wrong. They followed, and she felt a cool readiness fall upon her. She breathed the hot, dry air in deep and let it out slowly.
Here we go , she thought. And so they did.
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