It was a quarter mile to "The Egg", a circular area with the floor and walls buttressed by springs and shock absorbers, able to withstand a direct nuclear hit on the mountain without collapsing.

A quarter mile.

One thousand three hundred and twenty feet.

It was five hundred meters, so fifteen hundred feet, but basically a quarter mile.

We were at two hundred fifty feet and moving forward, one hundred and twenty-five of my shuffling steps inside the armored J-Suit while wearing a flame thrower.

Not everyone in the military habitually measured their stride under different loads, different paces, the length of their feet, the length of their thumbs, but quite a few did.

You never knew when you'd need to measure something with a slight bit of accuracy.

Two hundred paces, approaching the next corner.

The lizard hissed and got ready, charging my system, helping me ignore the light stomach cramps from all the adrenaline that had been dumped into my bloodstream making its way to my stomach to be disposed of. It made me nauseous, but I swallowed a few times and took a sip off my water tube to try to overcome it.

The water was tepid and tasted of plastic and rubber as I switched modes on the flamethrower.

"Get ready," I told them, counting the steps.

Two-ten. I chinned off my fans then flashed my red LED's twice. We stopped.

"On three," I said softly.

"I'm with you, brother," Bomber said.

"Nigger, trigger," Clarke breathed.

"One."

"Garry Owen," Tucker whispered.

"Devil Dogs," Ross said quietly.

"Two."

"Finish the fight," Nancy breathed.

"You should see what we do," The Blackbriar Bitch giggled. "We take them and rebuild them."

"NOW!" I said, holding up my closed fist.

one-one thousand...

...two-one thousand...

...three...

Rifle fire cut loose then slowly petered out.

The lizard huffed his laughter. He could almost picture them looking at each other in confusion, mouthing "where are they?" to each other through frozen faces and frozen lips.

Three clonking steps forward and I came around the corner, finger already pressing the trigger. I washed the fire across the far wall, the first revealed fighting position, hitting them with the bar of flame that rushed out of the end of the ejector. No longer throwing liquid gel that had passed the ignitor, but instead a pressurized jet of burning areosol napalm that burned at over fifteen-hundred degrees. It wasn't the burning death of the hellfire setting, but it gave me longer life on the fuel and wouldn't take so long to cool off.

The other side had a chance to fire, one hitting my shoulder, the other hitting my leg, the last hitting me center mass on the chest and driving the wind out of me, but then the jet of fire washed over them.

Their intestines, frozen and full of ice, superheated and exploded even as the flame burnt away muscle and skin.

It didn't matter, they collapsed into burning piles anyway.

I wobbled on my feet, a little unsteady, breathing heavy. I didn't think the bullet had penetrated the suit. A quarter inch of Kevlar, a quarter inch of asbestos fiber, and another quarter inch of Kevlar layered over the fireproof and heat-proof padding had more than likely protected me from any bullet penetration.

But the kinetic energy still hurt like a bitch.

"CLEAR!" I shouted, raising the ejector up and waving it. It made the air shimmer and left behind a waft of smoke. I kicked the fans on and inhaled, feeling my chest ache. I'd taken four hits total to the torso, one center mass, directly over the sternum.

I coughed as the others came thudding up. I took a deep breath but didn't feel the grinding pain of broken bone across my sternum, just muscle pain that increased as I inhaled and dropped to a dull ache when I exhaled.

Thank God for built in armor.

A glance at my gauges showed me I was still at 100% on the O2 but I was down to 45% on my fuel.

"Thump my gauges, John," I said as they came up behind me.

Bomber knocked on the case and the gauge jumped back up to 93%.

"I got a loose hose, maybe a blocked one, or maybe one of the tanks lost pressure," I told him.

"I'll check it in the Egg," he told me. "Hit your O2, I can hear you wheezing."

"Chest hurts," I told him.

Nagle moved up in front of me, blocking my vision from the left over napalm still burning, the fat still burning on the bodies.

"You take any hits, Ant?" she asked me. "Not the suit, you?"

"Not sure," I told her honestly.

The buddy system was the best way to work an armored J-Suit.

"Any feeling of flowing heat?" she asked me.

I shook my head, clicking the red LED out of habit. "No."

"Any pulsing feeling to the wounds?" She asked.

I repeated it.

"Good to go?" she asked.

"Good to go," I answered.

"Any defects?" she asked me, frowning slightly. I shook my head and tapped the red LED with my chin. "All right, let's keep going," she looked past me. "How's the floor?"

"Cooling off," Bomber said. "Give it ninety seconds and we can keep moving."

"...reprogram them," The Blackbriar Bitch was telling Ross, who was looking at her like she was a particularly loathesome bug he was trying to scrape off his boot. "We take them and completely rebuild them," she waved toward Bomber and me. "His class was the first one we decided to try the new psychiatric profile rebuilding that DARPA designed for NASA and Special Forces."

Everyone Special Weapons turned and looked at her as she kept talking, rattling off at the mouth, unable to stop herself.

A side effect of the amphetamines in Turbo.

"But Special Forces, they didn't want it, said it was too risky, too experimental," She kept blathering. "They were worried that all the time they'd taken building those guys into high speed low drag mentally hardened killers would get damaged by the new program that we..."

She turned around and looked at us.

"Are we going to keep going?" She asked. She was unaware of the disgusted look that Ross gave her and the look of horror that Tucker was giving her.

"Online, troops," I snapped, bringing my arm up to slide the ejector into the carrying hooks on the fuel pack frame. "We need to move. Double-time, let's not give Alfenwehr a chance to get ready."

"Can you run in..." Tucker started to ask as I chinned my O2 and felt it hiss into the suit. My bladder clenched and I felt urine move through the cath line.

I took off running, pounding my feet, keeping my back straight so I didn't throw off my center of balance.

Welcome, gentlemen, to the Special Weapons program...

only it's isn't program, is it, it's Program...

I wondered what else they'd done to us as they pushed us and pushed us and pushed us till we cracked so they could reforge the steel that Basic Training had produced into something else.

If you fail, we'll drop you from the program...

...The Program...

Two-twenty-five

My breathing was holding steady. They say that oxygen has no smell but I swore I could smell the sweat smell around my mouth and nose as the oxygen wafted through the helmet.

Two-fifty.

My leg hurt but I didn't feel any heat down my thigh or across my knee. I'd taken the impact dead center of the thigh and knew it could handle that. My leg could take it, I could take it.

Twisted steel and sex appeal, all the ladies love a killer.

I felt the adrenaline run down my spine as I pushed it harder, lengthening my stride, pushing it further. I knew it shifted my space from two feet per pace to three in the J-Suit, and the lizard automatically accounted for it.

He was also running diagnostics.

...we reprogram...

...NASA and DARPA...

never trust a suit, they are not your friends, not now, not ever.

Henley's voice.

Two-seventy-five.

We were coming up on the corner and I waved the others forward, Clarke taking the lead with the M60 ready to go. He had the open can hanging from his ruck frame, the belt leading into the M60's mouth, ready to feed the pig when it started chewing down the ammo.

Three hundred.

Slowing down I deliberately dropped back slightly, blinking the green LED as I fell back, letting John, Nancy, and Stokes know I was all right. Bomber dropped back with me, keeping pace as my battle buddy. I heard the newer suits got rid of the external telltales but most of us didn't believe it, they were too useful when you were suited up. They'd spent a week where any verbal conversation was an auto-failure and you were only allowed to use the LED's to communicate with the cadre while suited up.

A week of silence except for the cadre's orders and your own breathing.

we reprogram...

Three-fifty

Fury kicked in, filling my mouth with the hot coppery taste of blood and the tang of raw steel. I didn't mind it, really I didn't, the idea of being programmed. Hell, I didn't mind the idea of putting in safeguards to keep us from going crazy, but something about the way she said it, something about the naked ugly malevolence hiding behind her words, behind her eyes, brought up rage and hatred in equal parts.

we killed each other in the dark and cold, sir...

My voice from the hospital bed as Henley stared at me with black eyes devoid of compassion.

Three-seventy-five

I didn't even mind if she was here to make sure that our programming was holding, that we hadn't been damaged by the fighting and everything that went on at Alfenwehr.

But there was something in her voice, something in her dead eyes.

Three-ninety. Everyone was panting, the air pulled out of the tunnel by using the flamethrower twice in a row. I kicked off the O2 and checked my telltales as I kicked up the fans.

Atmosphere was for shit according to the suit.

As I watched, the O2 kicked down another tenth of a point.

Everyone in front of me slid to a stop as I hit the brakes, my cleats biting in and squeaking at the same time. Bomber keeping pace with me.

Clarke went down and slid, the M60 bouncing slightly as it crossed a joint in the floor. Ross went down on one knee next to him. Parker hung back for a second and I knew part of him was reliving the charge into the chow hall.

"LET 'EM HAVE IT!" Red yelled.

Someone had been waiting.

Aine was hanging back and she turned to look at me, her eyes wide.

we reprogram them...

I heard Clarke fire the Pig, heard bullets clanking off the walls, off the steel floors and ceiling, and could tell by the sparks that the group ahead of me was taking return fire but it was sporadic and unfocused.

One bullet, having bounced off the wall, hit the tempered glass of my face shield, starring it, but not penetrating, leaving the upper corner of my face shield with a spiderweb. It still drove the faceplate into my face, smashing my nose, filling my mouth with blood and flecks of tooth enamel.  I staggered back a single step and Bomber looked at me, turning to face me, lifting up his chemlight.

"You all right?" he asked.

I flicked my green LED.

"CLEAR!" Clarke yelled out, going to stand up but Red kicked his leg.

Red held something up, flexed his hand, then threw it a second later. There was an explosion and I heard blood and gore splash. He repeated it and the sound of a grenade trashing meat and shrapnel whipping around the steel tunnels happened again.

"Now it's clear," Red said, getting to his knees.

I watched everyone get up, shaking my head inside the suit to clear the cobwebs. I pressed the bottom of my nose against the pad, adding pressure to stop the bleeding.

"We clear?" Bomber called out.

"Looks clear," Clarke said.

I shuffled forward, catching up.

"Sprint," I said, shaking my head.

"Push the advance," Clarke nodded.

"DOUBLE TIME," Bomber called out, his voice echoing through the tunnels.

I set my cleats, leaning forward slightly, tensing my muscles.

The Blackbriar Bitch giggled.

"HARCH!" Bomber bellowed.

We all took off running.

We pounded through the tunnels, heading straight up the line. I passed where the bodies were sprawled out, not giving them a glance as we passed the corpses. They were dressed in Korean War era uniforms, maybe Vietnam, but definitely after World War Two.

Alfenwehr was pulling out all the stops for us.

Four hundred.

I was pulling ahead, passing Ross and Tucker, both of who were panting in the bad air, the lack of O2 slowing them down, reducing ATP production, depriving their muscles of the fuel needed to keep up the pace.

Four-twenty-five.

The lizard spotted it.

Code.

Bad code.

Four-fifty.

Red paused, holding his tongue between his teeth, his right hand wrapped around the 30-round magazine and his finger on the M203 trigger, using his left hand to flip the M203 sight into play before grabbing the barrel of the M203. He fired and took off running.

"CS OUT!" he bellowed.

I passed him before he could get up to speed, Bomber following me.

O2 dropped another tenth of a percent. It was getting ugly. We had to turn on the environmental systems and get the whole thing up and running.

Parker crossed the entrance to The Egg, barely visible through the CS gas.

And the wolves hit him.