Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

video, tapping his fingers in time with the simple music score. It looked more like a sci-fi film, even when the Army banner flashed across the screen. The latest thing from DARPA—an armed and armored exoskeleton. On the screen the huge battlesuit stomped across an open field. Its armor plates were red and blue, and an American flag was stenciled across one shoulder. An M2 machine gun was mounted on each of the robot’s arms. It turned to look into the camera with large white eyes.

It was impressive, but Freedom believed in men over machines.

Adams was a quiet man. Good soldier, very driven and single-minded. He wasn’t supposed to be there in the office, either, but he accepted it and threw himself into the work. He went at the paperwork each morning like a machine. The only bad thing Freedom could say about Adams was the man kept clicking his pen. He’d write for a few minutes, then hammer on the button for a few seconds like he was back in weapons training doing trigger exercises.

Freedom knew the pen noise wasn’t that bad. No one else reacted to it. Harrison never even noticed it, and the man hated random noises. He said they threw off his internal tempo.

No, it gnawed at Freedom because he was already on edge. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in ages. He kept having stress dreams. Nightmares, almost, where he was still a captain but he was surrounded by the bodies of the people he’d failed.

Dead bodies that walked. That fought. That tried to kill him.

Something moved on the edge of his vision and the electric eye chirped. He looked up. So did Harrison and Adams.

An older man stood at the door. Not old, by any means, but older than the usual people who came into the recruiting office. Freedom guessed he was in his mid thirties and in decent shape for a civilian. He had brown-blond hair that needed to be cut and an old bomber jacket covered with stitches, as if it had been patched and repaired dozens of times.

He shook his head. The man’s jacket wasn’t leather and it wasn’t patched. It was just a trick of the light.

“Can we help you with something, sir?” Freedom asked.

“Hi,” said the man. “Sorry to bother you, but my car just died out front. I don’t suppose any of you have jumper cables or something like that?”

Freedom glanced at Adams, already back to his paperwork. The pen clicked three times to emphasize it. He looked over at Harrison, already watching the television again. “Harrison,” he said. “Help the gentleman out.”

Harrison glanced from the television to the man and back to Freedom. “Yes, sir, Lieutenant,” he said. His eyes jumped back to the screen.

“Thanks,” said the man.

Freedom gave a polite nod.

The man took a few steps and craned his head around to look at the television. “You see that?” said Harrison. “That, my friend, is the future of armed combat. Nine feet tall, fully armored, and it can throw cars like softballs. Its hands are Tasers. Those are fifty-caliber machine guns on the arms. This thing’s a walking tank.”

On-screen the patriotic-colored machine tore apart a concrete bunker, then the film cut to a shot of it throwing what looked like the wrecking ball from a crane. The footage played for another minute before the loop started over. “It’s some kind of robot?” asked the man.

Harrison shook his head. “It’s battle armor, man. Full-on Japanese sci-fi stuff.” He gestured at the screen and grabbed a set of car keys from his desk. “That’s just the engineering team testing it out. Another few years, you’re going to see dozens of those on every battlefield. They want to start cranking ’em out by 2017.”

On the screen, the battlesuit was blasting away targets at a firing range. Someone with a sense of humor had set up pictures of monsters instead of the usual black silhouettes. The shots punched softball-sized holes in each target.

“Wow,” the man said. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s going to be out here next week if you want to see it in person,” said Harrison.

“Yeah?”

The sergeant nodded. “Yeah. Kind of a pain in the ass, to be honest. The project head got some bug up her butt, insisted they had to bring it out here to Los Angeles for a demonstration. Put her foot down and wouldn’t budge until they agre—”

“Sergeant,” Freedom said without looking up. He put a certain emphasis behind the word and Harrison shut up. No need to discuss such things in front of civilians.

Across the room, Adams worked the button of his pen again and again and again while he went through his paperwork. Freedom closed his eyes for another moment. When he opened them, he saw the man giving the pen an annoyed look.

Thank the Lord, thought Freedom. It’s not just me.

The man looked back at Harrison. “Does she ever miss?”

“Who?”

He tipped his head at the television. “The woman in the armor. It looks like she always hits.”

“What?” Harrison looked at the screen again. “That’s not a woman.”

“It isn’t?”

“Pretty sure,” said Harrison. “Why would you think it’s a woman?”

Freedom looked at the screen. The battlesuit was androgynous, but he couldn’t shake the sense the civilian was right. He tried to put his finger on what it was about the hulking exoskeleton that made him so sure the person inside was female.

Then he shook it off. Like it or not, the suit would be here in a week. He could find out then. “Sergeant Harrison,” he said, “would you please get a move on and help the gentleman with his car?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks again,” said the man.

“Not a problem, sir,” Freedom told him.

“If you get by your car, sir,” said Harrison with a wave, “I’ll drive around.”

The man headed out and Freedom realized why he’d looked somewhat familiar. He looked like the man from his dreams. The man who helped him fight the walking dead.

Outside, George popped the hood and glanced at