Bentley

Ch. 37

I woke up the next morning to a sliver of sunlight shining through my window, same as usual. I slid to the edge of my bed, disconnected my legs from the wall-charger and put them on and proceeded to get myself ready for the day. I tried to ignore the sudden return of sensation in my legs. Maybe it was just my brain playing tricks on me. Or maybe, just maybe, my legs actually were starting to repair themselves. Could it be that the motions of walking was stimulating the nerve cells in my lower body? Or maybe it was just that my body had spent enough time recovering and now they were ready to start being used again. Either way, it wouldn't help me now.

I left my room and walked down the halls as I normally did, listening to the near silent wir of the motors in my synthetic legs. I just couldn't help thinking about how sick I was of relying on technology to move. My wheelchair, even these advanced robotic legs couldn't match the pleasure of being able to walk unassisted on my own two feet. So to try and take my mind off of it, I drew my attention to the pictures on the wall as I walked by. The pictures in the hallway leading to the kitchen was different from those in the living room. Here there was only one person in each frame. There were seven pictures, each with a small plaque showing their name and lifespan. Looking at them, I was saddened by how no one of them had lived to age 60. Connor Cooper was the first at the closest end of the hall to the kitchen and my father was at the opposite, closest to my room. I doubled back and stopped in front of my dads picture for a moment. I wonder if he knew that I would end up here, inevitably following in his tracks. Maybe one day I'll see him again, and I could ask him all the questions I was never able to ask. Only if it could be in this life.

I walked back down the hall, holding back a few tears, when I recognized another face just after Connor. In the living room there was a picture that hung over the sofa of a black labrador wearing Vietnam era combat gear riding in a helicopter flying towards a dense jungle coast. The same black labrador stood smiling by a Sentinel with his hands in his pockets. He was tall and very muscular, wearing jeans and a OD green t-shirt that were only able to cover up some of the numerous scars that arced deeply over his arms, neck and face. But even while his body told a story of pain and suffering, he still looked as content as could be. I was mesmerized by the contradicting sub narratives that were subtly written into the seemingly simple picture. I looked down at the plaque and saw something odd that I had not yet noticed. There read;

Steven Algof

1955-2006

But what intrigued me was two small notches made in the frame below it under the last number of each year, making 5 and 6.

Just then the wheels in my brain started to turn. I looked at all the other picture frames and found two random numbers marked on each one. I thought back to the scrapbook. How there were 8 people standing side by side including John and Sierra but excluding Connor. I raced back to my room and grabbed a piece of paper and pencil to write them all down. After looking over them all I got a total of 12 numbers and labeled them with their corresponding names. I raced out of the house and into the bunker to look at the book. My heart was pounding and I hoped that in the sudden early morning adrenaline rush I wouldn't forget the faces of the Warfighters. I reached the computer in the room in the back of the bunker and hastily opened the scrapbook to the inside of the back cover. Without even sitting down, I hurriedly matched the names to the corresponding position in which the Warfighters stood in the picture. Eventually, I was able to reshuffle the pairs of numbers into a new single 12-digit code. From there I went outside to where the flashdrive was still plugged into the console of the TV and took it into the back, plugged it in and inputted the code. Without hesitation, I ran the new code I found and waited while the computer processed it. The screen started to fill with endless streams of code pouring over the TV. I waited in suspense for what could have only been a few seconds but felt like an hour after my adrenaline rush from before. Just as the silence was starting to set in and I could start to hear the blood pumping in my ears, I heard Penelope enter the room.

"Bentley? What are you doing? " she asked curiously. I jumped at her sudden appearance. She was wearing a pair of jeans under a bathrobe she had apparently just put on.

I was about to explain to her my method in finding the code when the monitor went dark. I turned back to see that all the code that was originally there was now gone. Now there was only one line at the top. It read 'access granted' and beneath it was a single thumbnail video link with Sierra facing the camera with her fingers laced on the desk in front of her. Not seeing why not I played the video.

The video immediately filled the TV screen and played. Penelope and I stepped out from behind the counter to stand in front of the couch. The screen filled my field of view as Sierra silently read the papers in front of her on the screen. A minute or two had passed when she finally changed her posture. She let out a reluctant sigh and brushed a hair from her face and her eyes settled on the camera.

"The date is… May 29th, 2003. So you figured out my little puzzle. Not bad," she began in her familiarly calm voice, "I can only assume that you are either someone I personally knew and trusted or someone who knew me too well. In either case, I might as well give you what you came for."

She glanced down at her papers for a moment before proceeding. "I can only hope John isn't watching this. He's been through alot and he has his demons… but then again, we all did. But still, he has a good heart. Not many could see it but I can. I think I'm finally getting through to him," she paused for a moment, staring at the screen, "We all had our roles in the team. Mine was a marksman, EOD and an urban close quarters specialist. John's role was stealth infiltration, data collection and target elimination. When it came down to it, he was both our interrogator and our assassin," she took another pause, "he never took pride in his job, in fact he hated it... but that never changed the fact that he was the best at what he did. So then there comes the question, how do you kill John Puller?"

I rushed back behind the counter to get something to write with and prepared to take notes on what she was about to say and paused the video. I turned looked over the counter at Penelope, looking just as shocked as I felt.

"We need to get everyone down here," she said, "now would be nice."

John

A day earlier...

The plane ride to Alaska gave me plenty of time to come up with my next move. The silence of my solitude was broken only by the constant rushing of air outside the hull. Although one of Archangels engines was still damaged from a few days before, everything seemed to still operate without any major problems. Archangel was designed to take hits much worse than those it took above Switzerland after being retrofitted with a fuselage similar to that of the US's A-10 attack jet, so the C-17 wasn't even losing fuel because of the missing engine. But that wasn't what I was thinking about. I was trying to think of what I would need to do what I needed to do. I had one of the most advanced arsenals in the world on board this aircraft and in Alaska, there was even more. But what I needed was manpower. If Sierra were here it wouldn't be a problem, after all, we had faced similar odds before. But the fact is, she's dead, and no one could replace not only our compatibility and chemistry, but also our combined combat effectiveness. So if I couldn't have my partner, then I had a simple alternative…

I arrived in Alaska at around 3:00 AM on an abandoned airfield just south of Kotzebue Sound in the middle of the forest. The landing was rough, given that no-one had been up here in decades to upkeep the runway, but was otherwise unhindered by any major obstructions. Hector taxied to the end of the runway and into a hangar just big enough for Archangel. Upon entering the hangar though, I could see from the cockpit the seemingly lifeless structure light up with a brilliant white light and the machines and robot manufacturing arms attached to the ceiling and walls started to come to life and pass over the cockpit as Archangel passed through. When the C-17 finally stopped I heard the hangar door loudly rattle as it closed. I walked through the plane, out of the already dropped cargo bay and stepped onto the cold concrete floor. I personally had never been here, but Oscar used to tell me stories of this place. It was were Archangel was modified after it was bought from the US Air Force shortly after the Warfighters was first formed in 1991. It was impressive that a place like this could exist so long ago, back when floppy disks were still a thing...

I briefly stood at under the tail of the cargo jet and marveled at all of the robot arms extending from the ceiling and scanning every square inch of Archangel, moving methodically and precisely over the surface of the aircraft. It was mesmerizing seeing the hangar go from being another abandoned shack in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness to a complex automated facility starting to perform its various functions. But not seeing what I could do, I left the machines to do their job. Afterall, there was another reason I was here.

I went back inside to get a winter jacket and a gun. Since this was bear country, I would be an idiot to go out without any way to protect myself. After that, I left through a large metal door that was just beyond the reach of the right wing of the aircraft and closed it behind me. I was instantly thankful for my decision to get a jacket because even for being at night, it was frigid in the northern air, despite it being Springtime in the northern hemisphere. Although the cold felt nice on my face, perhaps the nicest thing I had felt since I got my scar.

I waded through the melting snow banks through the rusty steel buildings that made up the encampment with my rifle over my shoulder. Some of the lights had come on after the hangar had accepted Archangel for the first time in forever and there were now just enough patches of light to guide me to the building in the middle of the camp. I didn't really know what the layout of the camp was, as it was also under a similar GPS shroud to that of the Idaho base. But I could see the silhouette of a building ahead slightly larger than the others, which mostly looked like shacks. As I got closer, I pulled a flashlight out of my jeans pocket from under my jacket and shone it at the building ahead. It had a few windows and a glass door installed in a wooden structure that stood about three feet above everything else in the camp. But while it looked nicer, than the creepy steel shacks that dotted the terrain, it also looked older with clearly visible signs of erosion and decay.

I got to the door and tried the handle but it was locked. I scanned my surroundings and held as still as I could as to not make any noise myself in an effort to look for anyone who may be close by, and unslung my rifle. I wasn't going to shoot the glass of course. Not only would that be a waste of ammo, but it would also make it abundantly clear to everyone and everything in a four mile radius that there was someone here. So instead I shoved the end of the barrel through the glass door next to the handle, shattering it. I reslung my rifle and reached an arm through the new opening in the broken glass to turn the handle from the inside. I pulled the door open and quietly closed it back behind me after slipping inside. The inside looked to be in significantly better condition than the outside although very dusty. It was lined with desks and filing cabinets that appeared to be mostly cleared out. But looking around the room, my eyes came across a cork newsboard with a map of the mainland US and tacks pinned in a number of states. Among the states were California, New York, Texas and Florida. A number of photos attached to the pins with string lined the outside of the map and below it all was a folder sitting on an otherwise empty desk under a knife. I walked up and picked it up. It was labeled "War Machine Protocol". I took out a small camera, opened the file and started comparing the information to the map, all while taking pictures of everything I saw.

"If I can't have my partner," I said solemnly to myself as I snapped a picture of the map, "then an army will have to do."