Dangerous Skies

Chapter Nine | Butcher's War Keys

"The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on. He took a face from the ancient gallery." (1967, Morrison)

His eyes like titanium drill bits bored into Colonel Bill Butcher. Syntoris wasn't afraid. He wasn't anxious. Cold coursed through his veins like morning mist. One voice sang to him over and over again, "Victory and nothing less." He neither loved or hated the gray haired man in his green, Army of the Republic issued flight suit kneeling across from him inside the darkened gut of an Osprey, vertical takeoff and lift aircraft.

"What happened?" Syntoris directed his question at Colonel Butcher.

"Nothing happened Sergeant Major." Colonel Butcher didn't look Syntoris in his coal colored eyes instead Butcher heard his commanding general speak to him from a recess inside his mind where spider webs of deceit never die. "Where do the lies end and the truth begins?"

Butcher turned away from Sergeant Major focusing his attention on Jacqueline "The Jackal" Buren. 

A.I. Centaurus unbuckled from his seat and pushed against it with his mechanical legs. The aircraft's analog fuel gauge pointed absolute zero when he tapped on the glass with his steel index finger. Kating. Kating. Kating. Warm wind drawn from the ruffling waters of the Gulf of Mexico pushed against one propeller blade. Swoosh spun black carbon fiber in the remnant air of the Category IV hurricane. His co-pilot spoke a language meant only for machines. A short chirp reminiscent of a bat and a long flat tone like that of a carnival organ. He turned to his mirror image sitting cadaver still in the co-pilot's seat. "That's correct."

In the dark gut of the aircraft's cargo bay, Syntoris didn't give a damn -- "Let it burn. Let it all burn." He listened to his obsessive inner voice repeating over and over again. "Victory and nothing less." He felt insane like a locked away man waiting for an electric chair to relieve him of his insanity. 

Valves and check valves opened by command from the cockpit when the cargo ramp descended by virtue of its own weight. A chill crept over Syntoris like icy fingers of a dead man when a med-doc approached. "You are Sergeant Major Syntoris Warr?"

"Yes." A beam of blue light fanned out from the med-doc's synthetic eye scanning Syntoris' pupil and facial twitch response. He touched Syntoris' carotid pulse located below his chin using an implanted sensor embedded in his middle fingers. Two assisting A.I. nurse-medics approached. One with a thermal blanket. Another with a sedative. 

Syntoris yanked the thin silver colored blanket out of the mechanical hand of one and wrapped it around himself. The second A.I. nurse-medic spoke, "I'm going to inject this."

"The fuck you are," said Syntoris. The white armored robot with red crosses painted on both shoulders replied in a voice selected from a library of surgery recordings. Commanding. Authoritative like someone accustomed to giving orders to subordinates in the surgery room. "Sergeant Major Syntoris Warr. You are distressed. Your cognitive ability degraded leading to incorrect judgement."

"Fuck your sedative! Fuck you." He slapped the syringe from the A.I. nurse-medic's hand. Ting. Ting. Ting. Sergeant Major's chemical sleep bounced across the metal deck landing at the heels of Colonel Butcher. 

The Colonel shook his head and the A.I. nurse-medic turned away. Patches of sunlight dotted the deck of the deep water drilling platform like that of a checker board. The ferocity of the Category IV hurricane subsiding into a soothing shower of rain. Wind morphing into a breeze washing out the acrid smell of burnt electrical wiring from inside the darkened gut of the cargo bay. 

The low frequency hum of an electric forklift jarred Syntoris out of his mental fog. He forced himself to lift his barefoot. Then, another while stabbing pain like that of a knife penetrating his flesh, burned through his legs. The nurse-medic waited at the lip of the ramp. "Put this on."