Chapter Five

(Mackenzie)

Invisible hands rummage through the teller’s drawer. Were anyone nearby to watch, they would see twenties, fifties and hundreds crinkle midair before passing an unseen boundary and vanishing from sight. Mack giggles giddily at the magic trick, but he has no audience. Like almost everywhere else on 34th Street, the Wells Fargo is abandoned.

A few rampaging robots, and everyone bugs out. But Mack wouldn’t have it any other way. His new suit comes with many pockets, and he’s been putting them to good use. He moves to the last booth. Like the others, the register’s locked, and so he jimmies it open with his wrist's utility knife to reveal a surprising stash of Ben Franklins. Mack stuffs them into his abdominal pouches, which seal with a silent click.

Already has he hit the Chase across the street, though, like here, the haul was disappointingly meager. Apparently banks don’t like leaving too much cash in their tills, and while the elf girl assured him his particle beam rifle could penetrate the vault doors, that seems like way too much effort. He’s not a greedy man. Forty grand is enough. For now, anyway.

Before Mack reaches the entrance, he steps aside to allow two ski-masked gentlemen lurk through the saw-toothed portals that used to be revolving doors. They pass close enough for the black trash bags in their hands to drag across his boots, but neither so much as glances in his direction.

"Shit, looks like someone beat us to it," one says.

"Maybe they didn't get everything," says the other.

As Mack makes his exit, he sees one turn at the sound of crunching glass.

“What was that?” asks the soon to be disappointed looter, but Mack is gone.

He's been here often, on more mundane days. Now, drifting smoke makes a grimy fog of the street. Shattered storefronts gaze out like blinded eyes. Even through his respirator he can smell the acrid stink of burning fuel.

Straggler pedestrians run by in a quick trickle, some racing headlong, others stalling fitfully to look back at the carnage behind them. But they move always south, always away. A young couple, faces striped with soot and tears, carry between them an old lady by as she moans like a dying cow. For a moment Mack moves to help but stops himself. They’ve got it covered.

What vehicles that could have already evacuated, though a handful of wrecks block the sidewalks and clutter the intersections. On the corner of 34th and Madison splays the ragdoll of a police officer pinned between a taxi and a delivery van. Farther north, closer to 5th Avenue, a crashed helicopter and a cluster of burning army trucks effectively barricade the approach to the Empire State Building. Smoldering flames still crawl out the many rocket strikes that scar the famous skyscraper, but from the tall, arching sprays of water dousing the more fiery wounds, Mack knows the immediate danger has passed. Either the National Guard won or the giant robo-turtle grew bored and flew away.

All’s well that ends well.

A brief stroll from Wells Fargo takes Mack to a Dunkin Donuts. Going by just its appearance, one wouldn’t know there was a warzone a stone's throw away. The windows aren’t smashed, and though the door’s open, the glass counter display remains intact and fully stocked. When the shit’s hit the fan and robotic daikaiju walk the Earth, who has time to loot pastries?

Mack pours a cup of coffee, grabs a fresh baked platter and sits at one of the booths. Retracting his helmet's mask, he becomes a disembodied face devouring a floating apple fritter. In the warped tin of the napkin dispenser he catches his reflection and nearly recognizes what he sees. But the features are far too lean and severe, the eyes too impossibly emerald. His scraggly hobo beard has shed away, leaving the newly slender jaw baby bare.

He knows what he looks like from his time with the egg, but knowing and seeing are very different things. Almost, he feels regret, but the "canvas nanites" can change his appearance back if he wants. Oddly enough, he does not, because something inside him that’s hard yet beautiful, ancient yet young, tells him he will grow accustomed to this new appearance. This is how people are supposed to look.

But which people?

So, you’re an AI, right?

~I am.

Okay, but who made you? Space elves?

~That seems a reasonable hypothesis.

Don’t you know? You’re one of them.

~I’m one of their creations, but my memory does not include who ‘they’ are.

Mack sips his coffee and wishes it were hotter. This is probably a game to them. Pass out toys and watch the fuzzy-wuzzies fight.

~According to news sources, there were over eight hundred meteor impacts throughout the New York metropolitan area. Only four pilots are reported as violent.

Did you see that turtle? That dragon? Four is enough.

~Each pilot has explored their new abilities in their own fashion.

Some by going on killing sprees, Mack replies bitterly.

Though he cannot see her, and there is no delay, he feels her hesitation.

~You said this suit was your second chance.

Oh, this was a windfall for me. I won’t deny that. But if the elves are the good guys, why didn’t they just dump their nanite fairy dust into the atmosphere? Overnight, all diseases are cured, everyone’s an elf.

But the elf girl refuses the bait. ~You said this suit was your second chance . . . yet all you've done is steal pieces of green paper.

Mack scowls at his third fritter before biting defiantly. Two hours ago I was sleeping in a dumpster. Bank robbery's a step up.

~But you disapproved of the mechanized turtle’s actions. You disapproved, yet did nothing.

Part of him so wanted to blast the turtle with his particle beam rifle--and the elf assured him of a fatal strike--but somehow it didn’t seem his place. Wasn't the turtle someone else’s problem? Not to mention the personal danger.

I don't like getting involved with things. I guess you can say I'm a wallflower. A wallflower with a cloaking device.

Even in his own mind, the witticism falls flat, and suddenly he aches with the same hollow pain that, until today, was as ubiquitous a misery as the grime that soiled his face. To stave off embarrassment, he elaborates.

I mean, what if I missed? What if the turtle saw me? I'm no hero. It's best to keep low, stay out of trouble, you know? The tallest blade of grass is the first to get cut.

Implied hesitation stretches into genuine silence. The elf is ashamed of him.

~You should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Mack puts down his pastry. An alien computer quoting T. S. Eliot? But then she's in his brain, isn't she? She knows all that he knows. She knows of his skyward dreams and his abysmal plummet. She knows of the black dog days and the cough syrup nights. She knows who he is: not a has-been, but a never-was, an impostor who let the mask slip and gave up all pretense.

And she knows . . .

~Yes, I know of Ama.

Mack's eyes burn, and he suddenly wants nothing more than to gouge fingers through his skull and claw out the violating circuitry.

But he hears a sound. The loud, whooshing chops of rotors distracts his anguish.

Helicopters have been flittering across the city ever since the eggs fell, but these are close and flying low enough to stir the street's trash. Mack steps to the shop's picture windows and tracks the their southward progress. Before they leave his line of sight, he goes outside, lowering his mask to cloak his face.

There are six of them, grouped in a haphazard flock. His vision zooms and steadies. Four are the big kind the army uses--he's seen them in movies. The other two are smaller but saddled with chainguns and rockets.

They stop shortly before a boxy building a short way down 34th. Mack half crosses the street before he can angle a look at the sign: NYU Cancer Center.

Any idea what's going on?

~Their transmissions are encrypted, but I deduce they've tracked a pilot to this location.

Hmm, should be interesting. A diversion, at least. Mack strolls closer along the broad, abandoned sidewalk. Not having pants pockets for his hands is weird, but he's grown used to the ghostly clumsiness of not seeing his own body. He jogs lightly to the wreck of a taxi, climbs on top and sits to watch the spectacle above.

The little choppers fly around the hospital in wide, hungry orbits while two of the bigger ones ascend to the roof. A third disappears around the back.

The fourth hovers near the top story, a hundred feet up, it's sliding door open to reveal a lantern-jawed man practically leaning out of the cabin as he grips a looped strap. In his other hand is a microphone. A machine gun barrel juts out beside him, covering the windows with anticipatory swivels.

The man raises the mic to his lips.

"ANGEL ZACARIAS! THIS IS SPECIAL AGENT BOYLE OF THE FBI. YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS. REMOVE THE ARMOR AND STEP ONTO THE ROOF WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD. IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY, WE ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE DEADLY FORCE."

Angel Zacarias. That was that Army lesbian, right? The one who won that medal?

~Correct. Sergeant Zacarias won the Silver Star in 2007. She publicly acknowledged her homosexuality in a 2011 interview. The elf computer projects a cached Wikipedia page into Mack's visual field. A short-haired young brunette in desert fatigues scowls from her photo.

Huh, so she has a suit too? Small world. He scans the text faster than he ever could before. Looks like her wife has leukemia. That sucks, but now he can guess why she's here. With a thought, he blinks the webpage away. He remembers there was a bit of controversy about her at the time. Something to do with, "Don't ask, don't tell," and the idea that her orientation was a little too loud for the closet.

The helicopter drifts sideways from the building, granting a better view for Mack, who lies back on the taxi's roof, hands behind his head. Absurdly, Agent Boyle wears body armor over a work shirt and tie. Strange goggles cover both his and the machine gunner's eyes.

"YOU'VE SERVED YOUR COUNTRY. YOU'RE A HERO. WE DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU. SURRENDER NOW AND YOU WILL BE UNHARMED."

Agent Boyle looks down, cranes his head. He lifts his goggles, lowers them and points. It seems almost like he's pointing at Mack.

It's not even that dark. Why are they wearing night vision?

Agent Boyle taps the gunner on the shoulder. The gunner looks down as well.

~Ms. Zacarias may have chosen a Mesh-class suit similar to yours. If she did, and the FBI are aware of its stealth capabilities, they are likely equipped with thermal vision.

Still watching the ground, the gunner now lifts his goggles, lowers them.

Like out of the movie, Predator?

~Yes. Despite hyper-dimensional venting, suits radiate significant heat.

Agent Boyle points again, shouts something Mack can't make out.

Which means . . .

The gunner aims at Mack.

~They can see you.

Mack rolls off the taxi's roof and runs. Even with his augmented reflexes, he still feels the muffled blows as piercing gunfire pings off his back armor. Hornets string his legs; a hammer bang his helmet. His cloaking field flickers, blinking his mirrored suit in and out of existence before giving up the ghost. Behind him, in his extended peripheral, one of the smaller helicopters sweeps from around a corner.

~Light damage to armor. Take cover immediately.

Racing past closed roller doors, he reaches a wide picture window which he leaps through in a shower of glass and Venetian blinds. Tripping over plastic chairs, he sprawls across a hospital waiting room. Bullets from above blast the chairs to splinters, gouge into the tile floor. Patients, families and staff cower and cry. Several point at Mack, the shimmering demon, and scream bloody murder.

Mack only has enough time to stand before four men in full SWAT gear storm through the double doors across the room. They don't threaten. They don't hesitate. They just shoot.

Crossing arms over his face, he cries out as assault rifle fire craters painfully across his silver hide. A spiderweb of cracks sprouts across the right side of his vision. He turns back towards the smashed window.

~No, don't go outside!

He goes outside. Agent Boyle's helicopter hasn't forgotten about him and opens fire as soon as he clears the building. The smaller chopper joins the fun with the deafening buzz-saw of chainguns. Mack charges through the gauntlet of lead, over the sidewalk and across the street. Bullets ricochet off the pavement like rain. The smaller chopper lets loose a long, skinny rocket, and an explosion of heat and flame knocks Mack to the ground.

Somehow, he finds his feet, keeping moving. His side hurts, feels wet. He right arm is numb. His left knee doesn't bend right. His shiny suit lurches with spasms as it dies from a million metallic dings.

~You have a shield. Use it! Retreat to the hospital!

Screw that! I need to get out of here!

Still trying to run, he swivels open his engine plates and folds out his wings.

~No! You're too damaged!

Mack blasts off. Everything is fine until he's twenty feet up. Then he feels a wing snap, and the thrusters along his left side short out. He is spinning, he is turning. Gunfire strafes him from all sides as he flaps his remaining wing in futile compensation. Somehow, he soars upward before crashing through a window near the top floor of the hospital.

He jets across a room, through a door and into a hallway wall. Amid a heap of smashed wood and sheetrock, Mack shakes his head groggily and tries to tease addled limbs into action. His armor looks as if it'd been gang-raped by jackhammers. His visor is a jig-zaw of cracks. Dimly, he is aware of an old woman crying from the floor beside her bed, but this sound is drowned by the rush of incoming rotors.

Mack hobbles arthritically to his feet. The smaller helicopter swings into view through the glass-toothed jaws of the window. Looking for all the world like some giant chimera insect, its twin chainguns are mandibles, its rocket pods stubby claws. Dragging shredded wings behind him, Mack stumbles down the hall and out of sight just as the air screams with staccato gunfire.

~Mack, says the elf in his brain. You're an idiot.[/align]