2292 UNPC universal calendar.
—
Anton "A9" Schultz
–-
"Oh shit" A private behind me breathed as Brian "B4" Kugler stepped through the door, holding a flamethrower's ejector, his heavy largely analog ECA system's servos and flexors thrumming as he moved.
"What's up?" he asked, stepping in front of me.
"Long story short, we saw what one of them" I gestured towards the group of UNPC marines "describes as a wendigo" I said, flicking my eyes across my hemet's overlay to send him the video clip of the encounter.
B4, who was the so-called "anomaly specialist" even with no such title officially existing in the peace coalition, stood in the middle of the room, unmoving and watching the video I sent him.
His semi-opaque visor let me see into his helmet as the light flicked over his face.
HIs armor was ancient by modern standards, with heavy overbuilt plates of an alloy I couldn't place, and thick heat shielding for his flamethrower layered atop it.
He had large knee, elbow, and shoulder servos. If I had to guess it was to house secondary or tertiary flexor mechanisms, probably hydraulic or vacuum actuated.
His rear main plate was also four, maybe five times thicker than even mine, which used cold cells, their energy density needing a larger "battery box" as it was dubbed.
I now know that it's because he uses absorbed glass mat batteries, which were a design old as sin.
"Alright,'' he said, removing his helmet, "I'll deal with it in the morning," he said, putting his helmet on a canteen pouch mounted on his right hip.
With a start, I realized he had a display of three small dime sized nixie tubes below his WMD.
"I don't work in the dark unless I have to, and wetiko are just as active during the day" he said, wiping a hand over his forehead.
He didn't wear the regular ECA gauntlets, which would provide enhanced grip strength, instead opting for a pair of thick leather gloves.
They had a double layer of leather stitched on the back of the hands, and roughout pads on the fingertips for grip, leaving the weathered gloves slick everywhere else.
His face was scarred, looking like he got swiped across the face four times with a knife in the same direction, or maybe found himself on a bear's shitlist?
Who knows.
He'd been augmented when he was 62, I knew that much, and he showed it by looking like a country mile of bad road, with stripes of gray through his dark hair given to him by his Mexican heritage.
His eyes were like no other, almost dead looking, but with a harsh kindness like he was constantly admiring what he was looking at.
"Everyone hunker down for the night, I don't think I need to tell you not to go outside" I said, looking at the gaggle of six UNPC infantry in the little dilapidated cabin we'd holed up in.
"Take your helmet off honey, I want to take a look at that cut on your forehead" Kate said, just as I was about to add Kugler to the team comm channel.
"I told you, I'm fine" I said, right as she stepped in front of me.
"Take your helmet off" she told me, a little firmer.
I sighed, and did what I was told.
She didn't say anything about the cascade of now gummy half-dried blood on my face, just took her multi use tube from where it hung off of her chestplate, and applied a thin bead of clotting agent to the two inch cut along my hairline.
"Damn" one of the UNPC marines said, making me grin.
Kugler, better known by his nickname of simply "kug" or "the kug", pronounced as "koog" with the elongated "ooh" of the o's, locked up his leg servos with a clack, a sound which had been nullified and been made silent on the 2nd revision of the MK1 exoskeleton legs.
I paid no mind to the ancient augment in older armor, and instead let my eyes linger on Kate, who was looking at my face through her visor, and just staring.
"Yes?" I asked her.
"dumhuvud" she muttered, calling me a dumbass in Swedish, making me grin again.
A low moaning sob came from the other side of the cabin's door, making everybody but Kug jump.
"Ignore it" he said, half glancing toward the door. "And clean off your face" he told me, flicking his eyes over to me and Kate.
She dug a cravat out from her aid bag next to us, and wiped down my face after splashing some water onto it from her canteen.
I knew better than to try and stop her when she was being motherly, so I just sat there with my arms supported by my V-06 and its sling, smiling at her.
"Big idiot" she said, tossing the soiled cravat into the corner of the barebones cabin.
The shitheap had been convenient, the only thing we'd seen in a while after heading through most of a valley with an old unmapped mining town in it.
We were now in a dense forest, standing in a cabin that was little more than wood planks nailed to proper 2x4'' dimensional lumber and topped with the same siding, just with tar poured over it to seal the cracks.
The lumber dated it sometime between 1870 and 1930.
The stove still worked, and a draft test told us it wouldn't kill us all, so I started a fire with the old wood stacked up next to it, evicting a spider when I did.
The fire sat crackling next to us as we stood in the middle of the room.
All of the UNPC marines were talking about it, with their sleeping gear spread out, many of them sitting on top of their sleeping bags with their fold up mattress pads underneath them.
Kate sat down on the floor, and motioned for me to do the same.
I did, and she leaned against me right after she took off her helmet.
"That was scary," she muttered. "Little better now that Kug's here though" she leaned into me a little more.
"Kug," I said.
He looked over at us.
"We're gonna clock out for a while, wake us up at dawn"
He nodded. "I'll stay up"
—
Brian "B4" Kugler
—
I stayed up all night, running a mental checklist in my head, using past experience to weigh my options.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I also took a precursory look of the terrain from satellite photos spanning the seasons, but they were all but useless with the thick forest and tall pine trees covering the terrain beneath.
Judging by how it seemed to act, with its harassment and toying with its "victims" I'd say it wanted the fear.
If it wanted to, it could've wiped out all of them quickly, well, at least everyone but Kate and Anton, they'd go down with a fight.
I'd heard stories about Kate "C7" Schmidt, better known by her nickname, Engel Der Vernichtung, or simply "engel" or "angel" and worse about her companion, who didn't have a nickname I knew of.
If I had to take a stab, I'd say it'd been driven from its homeland, it was most likely bound to the nearby valley, and had been driven out by the influx of people during the gold rush.
Dawn came, and I waited until the sun was just barely hovering in the sky with a sliver of horizon below it before I roused A9 and C7.
They awoke, and we all ate breakfast, being the ever loved Meals Ready to Eat.
At least I didn't mind them, I just considered them fuel for the meat machine.
Anton didn't seem to mind either, whoofing down four before anyone had even finished their first.
I guess you don't grow to be six foot eight inches without eating a lot.
"Leave the trash, I'm burning this shack down when we leave, which will be shortly after I fix our little issue" I said, clicking the ignitor on my flamethrower, making the torch like flame at the ejector tip roar to life, burning the propane with an evil hiss.
"Flamethrower fuck yeah" Anton grinned, making a few of the UNPC marines visibly pale.
"Ever burned down people with that thing?" C7 asked, chewing on a chocolate bar, the meager light from the few windows and the dwindling fire making the braid down the center of her shiny black haired head stand out.
I nodded. "They burn just like everything else" I said. "I just do what I've got to do"
"Isn't that against the Geneva convention?" one of the UNPC marines asked.
"Not if what you're torching isn't technically alive, no" I stroked the length of the ejector's barrel with the tip of my right glove's middle finger
"I reckon that was augment for 'I don't care'" one of the other marines chuckled while I pulled my helmet on.
I leaned back against the outer wall where I'd moved, my knee and hip actuators still locked as I rocked back on my heels, moving only my ankles.
I closed my eyes, thinking about the target.
It was a damn shame really, it probably chose this valley and the surrounding area because of the low traffic, and probably just wanted to be left alone.
On the other hand, there's no doubt it's hostile, and from what I'd seen so far, it's taken a fair few victims, and seemed to take pleasure in torment before taking them.
It liked the fear.
It reminded me of something old and dark, in an old and dark place.
I didn't care to explore that train of thought.
Fuck that mountain, and fuck every hard site with that goddamn picture in it.
"Nothing to it but to do it,'' A9 said, pulling his helmet on and standing up.
He paused to roll his shoulders, setting the angular plate armor of his ECA more comfortably on his large frame.
Kate stood up, and did the same a second later, the two almost a mirror of one another, albeit one had two inches and a hundred or so pounds on the other.
They're a cute couple, I'll admit.
"Comm check" I said over the team channel.
"Good" A9 rumbled in his baritone Austrian accent, which reminded me of someone else, but I couldn't place them in my memory.
"Loud and clear" C7 chipped in, her voice a pleasing tenor with an ingrained, but muddled Swedish accent.
Truth be told, I could get used to working with these two.
I couldn't in confidence say that I wanted to subject them to my day-to-day, that would be downright cruel.
What I'm failing to convey in words is that I don't mind being a third wheel.
Looking around the cabin, I saw plainly that the marines were still apprehensive, and clearly did not want to go outside under any circumstances.
I shrugged "sucks for them" I thought.
I opened the door, and at my feet was a deer carcass.
I looked down at it.
"Bad?" A9 asked.
"No" I crouched down, and lifted its head, which was limp. "Maybe" I added after a moment.
It's neck had been snapped, and it didn't look like anything out of the ordinary.
I stood up, scanning the forest, physically looking and turning, but always keeping my head pointed in a different direction than my eyes, using my 360 degree cameras to my advantage.
I spotted it as I looked to my left.
It was a deer, with proportions all sorts of wrong, standing on its hind legs, with its right upper appendage against a birch tree.
It had inset back beady eyes, and a flat humanoid face, lacking the snout of the deer it was just barely impersonating.
I hoped the rumors about Anton were true, I had only a pistol and couldn't hit it from that range, up close I'd have no issue, in fact up close I was faster than Anton, if just by a small margin.
"Anton, four o' clock, just to the left of the birch tree, don't turn to look" I commed.
"Got it" he replied.
"Can you hit it with your 'ought six?"
He flashed an "affirmative" on my HUD.
"Go for it"
Fast as lighting, he turned on the balls of his feet and brought his rifle up, catching the wetiko with a two round burst.
It moved, as fast if not faster than A9, and disappeared from sight in a blur.
An ear splitting shriek of rage filled the forest, I, Kate and Anton had noise dampeners, the marines did not.
I felt bad for them.
They all jumped, I don't blame them.
I felt my shoulder blades itch before my HUD lit up with "contact rear"
I spun around just as the deer carcass stood up on its hind legs, its neck still flopping off to the side and its eyes still milky white.
"Cover" I said, bringing up my flamethrower ejector in one smooth practiced motion, and keying the lower ignitor trigger before clamping down on the fuel trigger.
The white hot bar of burning magnesium enriched emulsified thermite with oxygenated fuel additive took it in the chest, punching straight through the animated deer carcass and painting the underbrush behind it with burning fuel.
I heard four more two round bursts, and a short burst of full auto fire from C7's rifle in the time it took me to turn the "deer" into ash.
The screaming came in droves, in time with every stint of gunfire.
I let go of the triggers and waved the ejector around in the air for a second to cool it.
I looked down at the fuel display below my WMD, and saw I still had 689 seconds of fuel left on my 3 digit nixie tube display.
Far too many times had LCD or other means of simple 3 digit output failed me.
LED's worked, but they output high frequency noise, which I'd paid dearly for before nailing it down as the cause.
"Are we worried about a forest fire?" Anton asked, scanning the forest with his rifle.
"Negative, too wet, and even if one starts, this valley's overdue for a controlled burn anyways" I replied, glancing behind me using my cameras, making sure we were in a proper formation.
The marines impressed me, they fell into a tight 360 degree coverage movement under fire formation and kept their places.
I was used to national military hammerheads not knowing their ass from their elbow.
"It's slowed down" Kate said as we came upon a sheer cliff face, with both sides extending far off into the forest with minimal visible curvature.
"Aim for it's legs" I commed at the same time as signaling to move left.
"Got it" Anton replied, the group moving near seamlessly to cover our left side as I led, my flamethrower ejector held at low ready, having drawn my pistol, a M1911A1 I had customized to accept 10mm ammunition.
I held the lower trigger of my ejector down, the ignition flame hissing as silence enveloped us.
"I don't hear anything" One of the marines said.
"That's their trademark, they stop all insects, birds, rodents, things like that from making noise, leave you stranded with only the sound of your breathing and a little wind" I replied.
"Where'd it go?" C7 asked, scanning.
"It's waiting, up ahead" I said, looking further ahead, into the forest.
The screaming started again, and I fought the urge to look around, knowing from experience that it would perceive that as fear.
"For the record, your version of the UNPC sucks ass" one of the marines said to no one in particular.
Anton snickered, looking around as he moved, his footing solid and his gait level.
I was suddenly thankful to have the UNPC's fastest shooter on my side.
"Have you seen it yet?" Kate asked.
"No" I said, stepping on a stick and snapping it under the weight of my ECA
My mouth was cottony and greasy, but I didn't dare break focus and take a sip.
The urge from knowing my helmet's drinking tube was right there was palpable.
"What were you doing out here anyways?" I asked.
"Canvassing this valley because the US military thinks there's a hard site somewhere around here" Anton replied. "Oddly enough we're moving in the right direction'
I held up my right fist, letting my ejector fall to rest from its hose.
"That's what it wants" I said, softly, feeling my shoulder blades itch.
I looked straight up, already having laid eyes on it with my cameras, and my pistol followed my gaze.
It almost had a surprised look on its face as I pulled the trigger four times, hitting it twice in each knee cap as it sat crouching on the ridge above.
"Gotcha" I said to myself as it scrambled, falling all the way from its perch, at least 30 feet, and fell in a heap a few paces away from me.
It shrieked, so loud I felt it in my chest through my armor, and I put two more shots into each of its hips as it writhed on the forest floor, the 220 grain hollow points making a softball sized exit wound.
I walked up to it, the rest of the group staring in shock.
I unloaded the rest of my magazine into its chest, the slide locking back with a click.
It started sobbing as I hit the slide release and put my pistol back into its holster, picking up my ejector.
I keyed on the ignitor flame, and clamped down the trigger, hitting it square with a white hot fire hose of flame, right as it tried to raise its hands to shield itself from what was about to happen.
The screaming started again, adopting a weird distorted tone, then stopped a moment after.
I keyed the ejector off after fifteen seconds, waving it around to rid the small amount of still burning fuel from the tip.
The wetiko was but a skeleton now, laying in a charred clearing of underbrush a meter in width.
I holstered the ejector in a smooth overhand motion, hanging it off of the tanks that sat to the left and right of my large RMP, wrapped in aramid padding.
The propane ignition tank for the ignitor flame sat at the small of my back
I swigged from my drinking tube in my helmet, swilling down a few gulps of the clotting fluid I preferred over water, oddly liking the taste.
Licking my lips, I smiled, savoring the taste like Atole, reminding me of my childhood, and went back to the group.
Anton and Kate stood speechless, and the marines were all white as sheets.
"How about we go and find that hard site now?" I said, drawing and reloading my pistol, then reloading it again.
Been a while Triple A