Part 31 (1/2)
”Monk Lin,” the general warned, but there was no longer acid surety in his tone. ”Do not be difficult.”
”General,” Monk Lin said with a cool smile of sudden victory as they all watched the general stand down, ”whatever these gentlemen have developed, I am sure will be helpful. But without the teachings of the Naksong, you might as well turn them on yourselves.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was finally official. Their cover was blown, the Covenant had sanctioned it, and they'd been made by some world scientific organization. No, correction: more than their cover was blown; her mind was blown. If the Covenant gave them up like this, the situation was beyond grim.
”D, you don't have to even say it,” Carlos muttered as they stepped into an all-white room and stared at row upon row of technology laid out before them.
”Night-vision goggles, standard,” Professor Huang said proudly. But his shoulders sagged as the Guardians all glanced at one another, appearing unimpressed.
”Might help in a tight spot,” Rider said, folding his arms. ”But, in a heavy firefight, they obstruct your peripheral vision, and the added weight on your head keeps you from sensing with whatever you've been gifted with.” He glanced at Shabazz and Marlene, who nodded. ”Maybe we'll take a couple of those for the newbies who ain't quite up to speed yet.” His gaze locked on several large semiautomatic rifles and snub-nosed revolvers that looked like fat, retrofitted Glocks. His smile widened as he studied the hundred-round clips. ”I like the peacekeepers, though, gentlemen. Impressive.”
Rider tested the weight of the weapons as he continued to inspect them. ”Light as a feather, feels good-balanced. Very nice.”
Shabazz sauntered over to the table and carefully lifted a thick, short-range bazooka. ”Mike, this looks like you, man.”
”Be careful with that,” Dr. Lee said, removing it from Shabazz's hands and returning it to the table. ”Let me clarify the technology,” he said, seeming somewhat offended. ”The night-vision equipment is not so standard.” He walked up to Rider, affixed the lightweight goggles to his face, and simultaneously pressed two b.u.t.tons on either side of the t.i.tanium frames.
Immediately the frame sent a blue-white beam around the circ.u.mference of Rider's skull, affixing the goggles to his face without a strap.
”Now, tell me what you see,” the older professor said with a tone of triumph as he stepped behind Rider.
A wide smile lit Rider's face and then he laughed while the group of Guardians curiously watched him. ”Hot d.a.m.n! I can see behind me, guys. I've got vamp three-sixty, and the goggles feel light as a feather.”
”Correct,” Dr. Huang said, pointing to elements on the equipment like a male Vanna White. ”They are held to your body by electromagnetic energy fields that the human body emits; and through microfilaments, images are quickly downloaded and sent to the front of the goggles in the bottom part of the lens through a laser pulse, to show you what's behind your head. We've blended special lightweight alloys on all the equipment for easy travel, quick-draw ability, and so that the shooter doesn't use unnecessary energy hoisting his or her weapon repeatedly during a battle.”
The professor then handed Damali a silver stake. ”Put these in the special hip holster we've created. They are silver stakes with a coating of sea-salt crystals and packed with the same element.”
Damali held the silver stake up to the light, watching the crystalline surface s.h.i.+mmer. ”Whoa... If I'd had these when that demon rushed my house, he would have been splatter. Very cool.”
Dr. Lee lifted a gun from the table. ”Each trigger can be smart-mapped to know its owner or the entire team's fingerprints, should you have to throw a weapon to a comrade-but if an aggressor should catch your gun in the air, it will not fire, but will instead backfire, sending the sh.e.l.l into the chest of the wrongful shooter.”
”Oh, that is mad-crazy,” Bobby said, laughing.
”Invaluable in total darkness, these goggles also pick up cold body images and high-pitched sonar transmissions.” Dr. Huang flipped down two small stem wires from either side of the silverhued frames and adjusted them to rest behind Rider's ears. He crossed the room and whispered to Dr. Lee and then looked up. ”Please tell me what I said to Dr. Lee, sir.”
”You told him that you wanted a gla.s.s of water.” Rider glanced over to Big Mike. ”Brother, is that what it's like, your gift? You can just eavesdrop like that? s.h.i.+t.”
Mike laughed. ”I mind my business, and don't speak on everything I hear, though.”
”You should be able to hear anything approaching from behind before it materializes,” Dr. Lee said. ”It must move against the air, or the ground, and disturb natural matter to attack, even if invisible. To keep you from going deaf by a loud blast, the goggles filter out spike distortions. They are designed to shut down any sound above the frequency where normal human hearing can safely detect it. This way, if ammunition rounds go off near you or an ent.i.ty screeches your eardrums will not explode.”
Rider nodded and took off the goggles, thoroughly impressed, but now seeming a little wary of them.”The best minds in the world have been working on this equipment,” the general said, vindicated. ”Nothing in here is standard.”
He smiled and lifted his chin. ”The goggles were developed in China, in coordination with Russia. But I must defer to what j.a.pan has brought to the table.” He stood back and motioned to a large metal case at the end of the equipment row.
Dr. Huang went to the case and nipped it back, allowing his hands to gently caress the red-velvet interior. Both Damali and Carlos whispered a unified ”Wow.” The others gathered around the table, murmurs of approval ricocheting through the room, Shabazz tilted his head and allowed his hand to hover just above the intricate gold-inlaid carvings along the slightly bowed, gleaming ebony-hued scabbard.
”Samurai,” Shabazz said quietly. ”This is a real Sleeping Beauty.”
”Indeed,” the general replied, motioning for a demonstration.
”When we learned that the Isis long blade had gone missing,” Dr. Lee said, ”our counterparts in j.a.pan were very concerned.
Thus they retrofitted one of their most sacred ancient swords from the dynasties of old,” he added, lifting the relic.
Dr. Lee carefully unsheathed the long polished steel blade as Dr. Huang dropped a sheet of paper. With a ringing whoosh, the paper sliced into two clean sections and floated to the floor.
”d.a.m.n...” Carlos murmured. He looked at Damali. ”Baby, that is all you.”
The professors smiled. Dr. Lee held the blade out to Damali upon flat palms, bowing slightly as he offered it to her.
”Thank you,” she said, bowing and accepting it. She gripped the handle and took a fighter's stance. Warmth and familiarity coated her insides. Emotion caught in her throat as the team backed up and allowed her to test the blade with varying degrees of hard swings and short pivots. She closed her eyes and listened to the blade create music with the air. ”Oh, G.o.d, it feels so good to have one of these on me again,” she murmured as she swung with her eyes closed and then tossed the blade to her left hand, caught it, and held it with both palms, firmly gripping it over her head. ”Oh, yeah, this is it.”
Carlos watched her, immobilized by her raw beauty. The sight of Damali working out with her blade tugged at his libido. She had always been poetry in motion, but there was something about watching girlfriend work with her long blade.
”May I show you some of the special features of this weapon?” Dr. Huang asked with an undercurrent of excitement in his tone.
He stepped forward once Damali became still and opened her eyes, and pointed to the ruby-jeweled eyes of two dueling dragons on the sword's handle. ”Press here,” he said, ”and watch.”
Instantly a blue-white light arced down the cutting edge of the sword and rimmed it in an eerie glow.
”UV laser,” Dr. Lee said. ”While you are an excellent swordsman, Ms. Richards, this Samurai relic is still not as lethal against dark ent.i.ties as the legendary Isis. Therefore, the j.a.panese team enhanced it to cut on both the blade side and the dull side, using silver refracted ultraviolet light coaxed along the edge with electromagnetic points.”
Damali touched the ruby dragon eyes, and the light disappeared. ”Oh, this is too cool.”
Dr. Huang walked around the table, displaying a series of jagged-edged Bowie knives, small daggers that could be retrofitted for boot or sleeve extraction, and demonstrated how each had the same light-r.i.m.m.i.n.g technology that Damali's new sword did. He motioned toward larger blades, showing the team everything from battle-axes to broadswords. ”Old-fas.h.i.+oned, but if you are in hand-to-hand combat, a simple stab with a regular blade will not give you much time to react. However, with this improvement, no matter where you cut, the attacking ent.i.ty should either burn or be wounded enough to give you time to escape.”
Carlos nodded and picked up a jagged-edged Bowie. ”This is sweet,” he said, almost talking to himself. ”A nick from one of these, without the enhancement, is just a love bite.” He winked at Jose. ”But with a little somethin' somethin' on it...”
”Right,” Jose said with a smile, and caught the blade Carlos tossed.”Here are small handheld, cold-body-tracking units,” Dr. Huang said, picking up small monitors with tiny screens the size of flip- case cell phones. ”These can fit on your waistbands, and can be set to quiet vibrate or sound alarm when an ent.i.ty is present.
These are also useful two-way communications devices to keep you linked to your team. Unfortunately, in extreme temperatures, the technology experiences glitches. We've tried to modify them slightly to be as resistant to the elements as possible, with small warming strips on the back that can be peeled away. However, after a while, this affects the unit and renders it unstable.”
”For urban transport, we have modified Jeep and Humvee vehicles that you can inspect later, as well as motorcycles.”
”Aw, man,” Jose said slapping five with Rider. ”Tell me you've got a crotch rocket for a brother!”
Dr. Huang nodded with a sly smile. ”All motorcycles and vehicles have supercharged turbo engines and have been mounted with cold-body scanners, artillery, colloidal silver exhaust-expulsion systems-in case you are being chased-along with three- hundredand-sixty-degree front-window panel-imaging systems, satellite-mapping systems, cha.s.sis and hood sensors on the cars, and have been coated with a special silver alloy to make gripping the exterior difficult for an ent.i.ty attacker. The driving, however, still requires expert human skill.”
”Unfortunately,” Monk Lin said, calmly, ”some of the regions we will be traveling to will be pa.s.sable only by yak and horseback.”
”True,” Rider said, unfazed. ”But with some of the serious ammo these guys just unveiled, this will be like the wild, Wild West days, and I couldn't care if I was on the back of a d.a.m.ned donkey. One of those equalizers in the holster makes it not so necessary to have a fast getaway car. Feel me?”
Shabazz nodded and pounded Rider's fist. ”My old girl, Sleeping Beauty, is gonna be jealous when I put one of these next to her on my hip.”