Free Swords of Exodus [Dead Six 02] by Larry Correia, Mike Kupari Page A

like an echo. I look down, and now the rifle is in my hands. It’s still hot to the touch. I can feel the heat of the fires, smell the exhaust of the truck, and hear the screams and gunfire clearly.
    No! I protest. It wasn’t me! I didn’t kill all those people!
    The ghastly mirror image grins at me malevolently. “You did kill a lot of people. You’re a natural-born killer, remember? This is your natural environment.”
    The burning village is gone, and suddenly I’m in a helicopter. Dim red lights provide all the illumination I have. My .44 Magnum revolver is in my hand. Rafael Montalban is in front of me, on his knees, with a surprised look on his face. I fire, the gun bucking in my hand. Before he can scream, I kick him out of the aircraft. He falls away into the darkness and disappears.
    The other one is next to me again, whispering in my ear. “It’s what you do. It’s all you do.”
    No . . . please stop. God, please, make it stop.
    He laughs darkly. “God can’t find you here. It’s just you and me.”
    Leave me alone! I scream, in silence. The other is gone then, and I’m alone, floating in a void.
    Is this hell?
    I don’t know how long I wondered that, but I wasn’t afraid. After a while, I felt nothing at all. I drifted alone in darkness for ages, wondering about my state, but only barely. I was detached, wholly separate from myself, and I didn’t have it in me to care. No one else did, why should I?
    Suddenly I was aware of my body again. I’d returned to my corporeal form. My arms and legs began to feel heavy. My back was against warm metal. I was lying on something. Muffled sounds pierced the blackness. Metallic sounds, then voices. Then there was light, blinding white light. With the light, my skin felt cold, and I began to shake.
    I didn’t know what was happening. I still couldn’t see anything. But one clear voice pierced the confusion, a cold, dispassionate woman’s voice.
    “Log that as eighteen hours, thirty-six minutes in the tank,” Dr. Silvers said.
    “That’s amazing,” a nasally man’s voice replied. “I wasn’t sure we’d be able to keep the program going for that long.”
    “Neither was I,” Dr. Silvers said. “Mr. Valentine keeps exceeding our expectations.”
    The last image that crosses my mind, before mercifully losing unconsciousness, is of the sky, on fire.

    LORENZO
    Somewhere over Texas
    February 8th

    I looked up from the file in my hand, rubbed my eyes, and glanced out the window. Brown fields stretched for miles below. Somewhere down there was where I had been born. Somewhere to the east was where I had been taken in and raised by the Lorenzo family. Ling was sitting across from me, the folding plastic table in between us.
    “So, what do you think?” she asked.
    “Tough, but doable. This is pretty detailed information about the security at North Gap.” We had floor plans, an incomplete list of personnel files, and even some intercepted e-mail traffic from somebody named Dr. Silvers. “How’d you get this?”
    “Your brother gave it to me,” she said simply. “Once he found out that we wanted to rescue Valentine, he provided everything. He has been looking into this secret organization, which he referred to as Majestic, for quite some time.”
    “And how exactly did you come into contact with Bob?” Ling was silent. She could tell I was fishing. “Fine. Be like that. What other resources do we have?”
    “You’re looking at them.” She gestured at the others on the plane. “My sword is the only one which can be spared at this time.”
    “Sword?”
    “An Exodus strike team. Most of our people are occupied with other operations.” She didn’t seem inclined to elaborate further.
    “Flight plan?”
    “We will be landing at a small airfield in Montana, approximately two hundred miles from the target. Dr. Bundt and Elvis will stay with the plane.” Elvis was the pilot. I’d only seen him briefly, and he didn’t seem to be the talkative