Tracer

"They briefed me en route," Tracer announced as he landed next to Field Coordinator Anders. "Are those guys still holed up in there?"

"Yeah," Anders nodded. "They just announced a fifteen minute window to meet their demands. They say no man or machine can navigate their way to the heart of that cave in less than two hours, and even our best spelunkers agree with 'em. Think you can do it any faster?"

"I can bounce off the walls in mid-flight without skipping a beat," Jeff replied. "So long as I keep twisting myself around and follow the general trend of the corridors, I should be able to sustain about 30 or 40 miles an hour all the way through."

"Mmm," the Field Coordinator grumbled, not sure whether to believe him. He picked up a radiation hazard suit and shoved it in Tracer's face. "You'll need one of these."

Jeff glanced up-and-down at the white full-body suit, then said, "You're right." He powered down the generator box on his chest and began prying open the clamps. "My energy-armor'll stop bullets, vacuum, flame throwers, and probably a hell of a lot more — but I don't think it'll shield me from nuclear radiation."

As Tracer clambered his way into the lead-lined suit, Anders commented, "You know, we could let one of our field agents use that alien power-box of yours for this mission instead. There's no reason you have to risk your life."

Tracer gazed levelly at him as he fastened the suit front closed. "Are any of your agents skilled enough in flight techniques with the energy-armor that they can get to the heart of that cavern in ten minutes?"

"Of course not," Anders grunted, "None of our agents has had the opportunity to have any flight time in the energy-armor."

Jeff grinned and shrugged. "See?" He clamped the box back in place and reactivated its wondrous armor field. "Nice try, Anders, but," he patted the box with a wry smirk, "Finders keepers."

The Field Coordinator sighed, then quickly blinked to bring himself back into command. "We'll be in radio contact with you for as long as we can, but you'll be deep underground by the time you reach the terrorists, and it's not likely a signal can penetrate that far. So you'd better take this, too." He handed him a well-folded diagram.

"What is it?" Tracer puzzled, taking the paper and opening one fold to peek inside.

"It's the schematic of an A-bomb we found partially assembled in one of their hideouts. If the same guys built the bomb in that cave, you might be able to use that schematic as a guide to help you disarm it." He cocked an eyebrow. "It's also a classified document, so we'll need it back after you're done." He glanced at his wristwatch. "Get going. We're down to less than thirteen minutes now." Instinctively, he waved Tracer away with a crisp salute, then picked up his two-way radio to bark unintelligible jargon to one of his subordinates.

Tracer was in the air before Anders finished his first sentence.

Tracer thundered over the sand-covered landscape, turning miles into moments.  He'd stopped bank robberies in progress. He'd broken up gang riots and stopped chief thugs dead in their tracks. Just seeing the glowing yellow energy-armor was enough to make criminals freeze in terror. Now, Jeff Boeing was about to put his powers to their best, and most difficult, use.

Before him, the midday sun blazed down on Nevada's desert wasteland, as desolate and peaceful as anything he'd ever known; yet this peace would shatter in a few minutes. Most knew nothing about it, and most of those who did know thought they were nuclear demonstrators. But there were a few high officials, Jeff included, who knew the terrorists' true purpose: they were sent on a suicide mission from behind the iron curtain, bent on destroying one of Nevada's largest nuclear testing grounds.

He neared the mountain the terrorists had set their bomb in. A cave led to the mountain's heart; it would take hours for skilled spelunkers or demolitionists to go through it that far. The terrorists held the bomb at the farthest end of the cave, and had announced twenty minutes ago that it would go off in half an hour. Tracer was the only one around who could fly to the cave's center and disarm the nuclear warhead in ten minutes flat.

He found the entrance and dove in. Though there was no outside light, the glow of his armor illuminated the twisting corridors for about three meters in all directions. He made progress at freeway speed by using this three-meter warning and his heightened reflexes to maneuver through the tunnels.  Occasionally he miscalculated, but his armor invariably sent him rebounding off the wall and back on course. It was less than a four-minute journey to the cave's core.

The two occupants of the cavern started when they saw the entering streak of hissing, yellow light. Instinctively, they fumbled for their automatic rifles and tried desperately to aim. "Impossible," one exclaimed in startled Russian. "No one is supposed to be able to make it in here before the bomb explodes!" Their superiors were wrong.

The other pulled the trigger on his machine gun, and the first followed his example. Tiny arcs of flame leapt from the guns as Tracer's hissing was drowned out by the rat-tat-tat of 9 millimeter bullets.

Tracer stopped in midair and just hovered. Helplessly, the suicide agents watched their rain of bullets deflect off the intruder's flowing yellow surface, leaving behind only instantaneous blips of yellow light where they struck.  Tracer smiled; he'd always wanted to take machine gun fire in stride.

Easing forward once again, Tracer landed in front of the man who'd started firing and yanked the rifle out of his hands. He directed his armor's energy into the gun barrel, which to the amazement of the Russian heated the barrel up to incandescence. At this point, Tracer casually bent the heat-softened gun into a horseshoe shape.

Throwing the rifle to the Russian's feet, he turned to face the other man.  This one had already thrown his rifle away and stretched up his hands as high as they would reach. Tracer ignored him and turned his attention to the armed bomb in the center of the cavern.

The illumination the spies had brought in gave off hardly more light than Tracer's energy-armor, but Jeff's eyes had already adjusted to the near-darkness.  Tracer approached the warhead and stopped less than a meter away to examine it. The casing was unpainted metal with one welded seam down the middle. The bomb was not made to get back into once it was assembled.  This didn't bother him; he drew back his right fist and pounded the skin of the bomb with highly charged kinetic force.

The shell fell away completely on impact, exposing the complex circuitry of the bomb underneath; and then Jeff Boeing's courage faltered. He used to be vice president of a publicly owned non-profit organization, with college work in economics and management under his belt; he'd never received any formal education in electronics. He'd been given a quick run-down on the structure of an atomic bomb before he left, but this wiry mess looked a lot more complicated than the descriptions he'd gotten. What did he know about disarming a time bomb, let alone a nuclear one? A good whack with his powered armor might defuse it, or it might detonate it. Pull out all the wires, or the wrong wire, and the pieces of plutonium might all slam together and harmoniously achieve critical mass.

Well, he'd been lucky in the past, and now it seemed his luck was going to be his only salvation. The big sphere with all the wires going into it, that was probably the core of the bomb. That's where the lead-separated plutonium fragments were encased in a thick layer of explosives, surrounded by the spherical explosive lens. About twenty wires led through the metal lens, any one of which could do any number of things.

As Jeff nervously studied the bomb's interior, one of the Russians surreptitiously retrieved his rifle and snuk up behind him. He swung the rifle in both hands, smashing into the back of Tracer's neck with the butt. The gun bounced off and vibrated for a few seconds, shaking up the man considerably.

"You guys just don't give up," Tracer said as he turned around and punched the Russian, using his right fist unenergized but strengthened. He landed three meters back on the cavern floor. Anxious again, Jeff Boeing turned his attention back to the bomb.

He found the timing device — it displayed a digital countdown — and traced its wires back to the spherical core. This wasn't getting him anywhere; he was still afraid that if he pulled the timing wire, it might set off the bomb instead of disarming it.

The number on the timer changed from 1:24 to 1:23 to 1:22. He had less time than he'd figured on. Somehow, he had to keep the plutonium from getting together; he had to stop the explosives inside the lens from imploding the segments. . . . The lens! Without the explosive lens to guide the force of the explosion, the bomb wouldn't go off.

He hesitated, then stepped back. Shielding his eyes, Tracer charged his right fist to full power and jabbed the metal sphere head-on.

A yellow flash, and the explosive lens shattered; but not without its booby trap. The instant Tracer hit the lens, the explosives went off, just as he'd prepared himself for. Their force alone slammed him against the far cavern wall. But instead of uniting the plutonium, the explosion only blew the explosive lens apart. Metal and ceramic fragments rained down on the cavern floor, pelting the last armored warrior and the two Russians. But a second-and-a-half later, it was all over, and the nuclear bomb was disarmed.

Tracer shut his eyes and smiled, exhaling in relief. As he got up and approached the remains of the bomb, he whooped with joy: "All right! Did it!" The bomb's core was still cased in lead despite the explosion; he picked it up under his left arm as a souvenir. Bulky as the core was, the energy armor's modest enhancement to his bench-press capacity was enough to let him carry it comfortably. He returned to the cavern wall, retrieved both exhausted men, and flung them over his shoulder. Then, executing a ballet leap and becoming airborne, he wafted back down the tunnel he had come through.

He arrived at the test site on top of the mountain fifteen minutes later and set the two spies and the nuclear bomb core down gently. The staff at the grounds, returning from the evacuation, cheered for the man who'd saved their base. Cameras flashed blue-white all around in the hands of people who had never before seen the glowing marvel in person. The entire world would soon hear about his deed, but Tracer knew the best was yet to come.

"Sorry to save you guys and run, but I have a date with the Las Vegas news!"  Tracer pushed off the ground and accelerated away toward the closest major population center, Las Vegas.

Jeff landed on the edge of the crystal city, and touched the off-panel under his charge box's protective hood. His conscience had intruded on the scene, giving him a twinge of reluctance.

'They don't want to see Jeff Boeing in there,' he thought. 'They want to see Tracer. Jeff Boeing just doesn't make any difference anymore.

'Oh well, if they want Tracer, that's what I'll give them. It just seems a shame to sacrifice my identity this way.'

He reactivated his energy armor and took to the air once more. Within the space of a minute, he descended into the heart of the city and the midst of five gigantic television news teams.

The cheering was so thick that it sounded more like an amplified whisper.  Before five TV cameras, newsmen and newswomen were all giving their version of an introduction: "We're here today in Las Vegas where Tracer has just returned from disarming a nuclear bomb set by terrorists (spies, Russians, etc.). . . ."

The instant Tracer's foot touched the ground, a newswoman thrust a microphone in his face and asked, "Tracer, will you tell the viewing audience precisely what went on down there?"

"All right," he replied. "The trip into the cave took me all of three minutes, and went smoothly barring a few rebounds off the walls. When I reached the cavern with the bomb in it, there were only two people standing guard — and they weren't doing a very good job, either. Their superiors probably told them that —" he switched to a Russian accent, "— no one could possibly get to you before ze bomb goes off."

Jeff Boeing stopped. 'I don't sound like that,' he worried. 'I've never mocked a Russian in my life.'

But Tracer let it pass. "The agents were practically unarmed; they only had machine guns. They weren't expecting to see anyone, let alone the Last Armored Warrior."

"Who?" asked one of the reporters. The rest of the people there looked equally puzzled.

"The Last Armored Warrior; uh, that's me. Or rather, it's me right now, but it wasn't me about a month or so ago. Er, look, you can get the whole story from the cryptographer the government appointed to look into the case."

The cheering had long ago lapsed into reverent silence. Even in the hot Nevada sun, Tracer's body glowed with an awesome presence. In the back of Jeff's mind, this seemed like the perfect time for something of colossal proportions to happen. He pushed that thought aside as a reporter asked him another question.

"Do you know what the purpose of this terrorist threat was?"

"Well, I understand it was an attempt by —"

A shadow appeared above his head and cut him short. He looked up to find its source, and saw something rectangular eclipse the sun almost completely.  Blinded by the glare, he couldn't get any idea of the object's scale.

Then, the object began to lower itself, to draw closer, and Jeff began hearing a low rumble originating from it. Its corners started resolving into square-shaped protrusions; harsh lines on its underside became visible; and as the object came as low as it dared, it shocked Jeff into realizing its true size.  The slab had to be at least a fourth of a kilometer long.

The crowd had turned their attention to what Tracer was looking at. Even the hard-pressed reporters were speechless. Jeff Boeing was the only one present who had an inkling of what the object was, and what it all meant. His lips formed four silent words: "They've discovered my presence."

Then, as suddenly as the object had appeared, the air boomed into life with a sound as loud and high as it was incomprehensible. Thousands of fluctuating tones shook the air at frequencies just barely within the range of human hearing.  The dogs of the city wailed in fear.

After twenty seconds the sound cut off, followed by an Earth-shattering silence that lasted only five seconds. Every eye and camera in the vicinity was trained on the bulky object as it hung motionless in the sky. The watching world knew of what true peril it may very well be in.

The air came alive once more, this time with an unseating low rumble. Above the ominous hum, a voice as loud as the former high tones made itself heard.  Though it was mechanical and excruciatingly tinny, the voice spoke the first sentences to homo sapiens from an alien race.

"I have just informed your armored warrior ally, in his own language, that the war is over and he has lost. Whether he forfeits to us will not concern your race, for we cannot trust him to have not spread the knowledge of his technology to you. In order to ensure the survival of the empire, your race must be annihilated."

Tracer, now both stunned and angered, floated upward ten meters.

The voice continued. "We've taken a few hours to analyze your language under cloak of radar-invisibility; we wished for you to know the reason for our committing genocide on you. It would have been nice if you could have joined us, but now we can't take any chances. Just be proud that you were privileged enough to have the emperor himself destroy you."

One of the short sides of the rectangle began shining blue-white, mounting in intensity until, two seconds later, it matched the sun's brightness. From somewhere on the structure came a mechanical whir, and two brilliant red bolts leapt from the whir's source toward Tracer. Startled, the armored warrior tried to swerve around the shining pulses as best he could. He avoided the first shot, which impacted violently against the asphalt; but his dodge put him right in the path of the second. The energy clashed with his armor and forced him to the ground.

Then the monolith, as though its mass was unimportant, sprang away from its own bluish glow and disappeared over the horizon.

Tracer propped himself up on his hands; he'd felt the energy bolt, but it hadn't given him more than a bruise. For the first time since hearing the last armored warrior's log, Jeff Boeing was totally speechless over a story told by an alien. By finding the alien and in turn wearing its armor, he had signed humanity's death warrant. At least, that was what he thought at first, but soon cool logic retained control. As the words of the emperor's speech flooded back to him, he figured that the empire would have eventually come around and asked us to "join" them anyway. Then, when we refused, they'd still have probably decimated us.

The line that Jeff hated the most was the last one; there could be no honor in being killed by some emperor. But the line that stuck out the most was the first one, where it seemed the empire thought that he was the original armored warrior and not just some obscure human using the energy box. With all their super-sophisticated technology, they must have had some device that could tell if the guy under the armor was one of their kind or not; even the outline of his body should've given that away! Yet they never bothered to use whatever devices they posessed — out of arrogance, perhaps — and had held fast to their theory that the armored warrior wasn't human, even down to the first alien-language sentence spoken in front of all humanity.

Tracer knew what he had to do. Frantically, he turned to one of the reporters and demanded, "Where did that craft go?!"

"Huh? I don't know, don't ask me!"

Now more nervous, Tracer glanced quickly around and shouted, "Does anyone know where that space ship went?"

"Yeah!" came a barely audible yell from somewhere in the crowd. Tracer leapt over to where the reply originated, and was cut off before he got the chance to ask his obvious question.

"Emergency alerts just came in from every radio station in the city. They say the ship was last seen heading due west and — oh, wait a minute!"

The radio blurted out the latest report. The space ship, or aircraft, or whatever it was, had just stopped over the Los Angeles area. Without a word, Tracer leapt from the ground in a smeared blur of yellow and was on his way.

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