The whole fiasco was all over TV: Counter Demon Response Team Baffled in Cultist Attack. Anchors from all over the world documented the debacle in New Changan. “It appears that CDR-4, otherwise known as ‘The Demonbusters,’ has come across a new threat.”
“The terror group, known as the Pentagramists, has claimed responsibility in spawning, what they claim, to be the Beast of Wrath. Whether or not this is true is still up to debate, especially as investigations surrounding the 2030 Transformations still continue.”
Chief Williams shut off the TV. Standing in the breakroom with other high-ranking officers, he scolded the CDR team before him. “I’ll get to the point, this is all a big fuckup.”
The senior officers unanimously agreed. One of them, Captain Jacobs, had some special opinions. “This is why the CDRs should’ve been integrated into the police force from the get-go! It’s an international issue!”
Andrew kept his mouth shut as he surveyed the rest of his team. Singh was already switching dips, Kang was taking notes, Smith was halfway to dozing, and Gutierrez was nodding like he actually gave a fuck. Fortunately, the attention wasn’t on them.
All eyes were on Sergeant Yang. Apart from her imposing height, sharp uniform, and incredible physique, she had the straight aura of someone in charge. Regardless of the medals, which she wore like cheap candy, Sergeant Yang was the person in command. She was the person to blame.
“I understand,” she said. “There were many difficulties with the reaction of the operation. I can personally say that we did not expect such a powerful response from a once unheard-of group. Intelligence wasn’t–”
“So you’re trying to lay the blame on someone else?” Captain Jacobs snapped.
Even as the other officers whispered amongst one another, Sergeant Yang kept her calm. “I am not blaming this situation on anyone in particular. I am saying that this was a calculated strike done for the sake of publicity, thus making the warning signs very difficult to find. The effort shouldn’t focus on who to blame, but rather, how to move forward.”
Nobody could counter that, not even Captain Jacobs. As such, Chief Williams gave a solemn nod. “So what is it that you are proposing, sergeant? To ensure that we don’t have another public humiliation?”
Sergeant Yang looked amazing, Andrew thought, by how she commanded the room like water in her palm. Standing from her seat, she looked like a general without the need for silver stars.
“We’ll need more tools for demon-fighting. If these Pentagramists want to adapt, we’ll adapt. It means we need more men, more weapons, and more open-mindedness towards creatively defeating this threat.”
The crowd of high-level players looked back at her. No objections, not even from Captain Jacobs.
“Very well,” Chief Williams finally said. “But rest assured, if there’s another fuck up, I won’t have a choice but to integrate the CDRs into the police force.”
Sergeant Yang nodded. “You won’t need to.”
***
The team, excluding the sergeant, had a silent meal at some corner pizzeria called Little Macho’s. Like everything in New Changan, it was a funny fusion of Chinese, American, Hawaiian, Filipino, Japanese, and whatever else drifted to this island. It would be shorter to describe what cultures didn’t land here: none.
“Guess we finally earned our break.” Smith took a fat sip from an extra-large cup and belched like a dragon.
“You are fortunate the sergeant isn’t with us.” Kang wiped off the crumbs from his face. It was funny how he acted all civilized, because he just devoured a quarter of the pie.
Andrew, himself, could only swallow a slice or two. His body still ached from the fairly recent fight, and the tomato sauce reminded him of guts. Despite being part of the CDR, he had yet to kill an actual demon. Cultists were still human—their guts still spilled after getting zipped by a machinegun.
“Chino! Make sure to keep eating,” Gutierrez chuckled as he patted the young man on the back. Andrew could see the crumbs that decorated his shirt like a set of fresh dough. Messy eater.
“Chino?” Singh scoffed. “You know, the majority of this city is Asian.”
Gutierrez chuckled. “What? Like you? You’re Indian!”
“Which is where?”
“Uhh… India?”
Singh looked ready to slap her Hispanic counterpart. “South Asia, dumb fuck!”
As usual, the team was back at their strange arguments about strange things. Andrew still couldn’t understand any of it. Frankly, he thought they could argue about the sky being blue. The answer was whatever the other guy didn’t think. Maybe that was why they liked playing this stupid game of word-tag.
“Excuse Gutierrez,” Kang said to Cheng. “It is normal to feel unappetized after your first mission, especially one involving people. I take it that was your first time killing anyone.”
Andrew nodded. He hadn’t thought about it, but that was true. Shooting people was nothing like shooting blank targets. “Y-Yeah… I think it was…”
Kang took a sip from his can of diet soda. Then he gently placed the can back on the table. “They were lucky.”
“Huh?”
“Those Pentagramists don’t know what it’s like to die by the hands of a demon,” Kang added. “Your average demon isn’t rational. They love the feeling of pain in their victims. These supernatural beasts aren’t angels, let alone saviors. If they have their way, let demons roam the world, they’ll be lucky to get a bullet.”
“I second that,” Smith added. “Willing to face death by demons? That’s something…” He paused as he stared at his slice. When he put it down, he finally muttered, “That’s something only Wade could do.”
The room went silent. Even the humming air conditioner went quiet.
“What happened to Wade?” Andrew finally asked. He had always wanted to ask, but there never seemed to be a good time. Well, considering that he went through at least one mission with them, he at least had some leverage.
“Shit…” Smith dryly chuckled. “I think it was a few months ago. Call of our lives. Long story short, a horde of demons stormed onto the railway. Whole cars were getting slaughtered even before we got the call. By the time we got there, all hell went loose.”
“Worse yet,” Kang added, “this was on the same day as an elementary school’s field trip to the museums. Thankfully, the passengers had the diligence to evacuate to the front of the cars, but the horde was inching close.”
“Shit was horrible,” Gutierrez connected. “We had to split up the team. Four of us went to the front, to evacuate the survivors, while Sar'nt and Wade went through the back. Even though Wade wasn’t in that Chinese-American War, Sar’nt still trusted him like a Marine. It was good that she did.”
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Things went silent for a second, until Gutierrez called over the clerk. “Hey, could you get us a beer or something? I think we’re in the mood for a quick drink.”
The bottle was promptly brought over and, silently, everyone took a sip of remembrance. Even Andrew took a sip, out of respect for someone who deserved it. “So… what else happened…?” he asked.
Kang replied, “The Sergeant and Wade made a good push from the rear car. It distracted the horde from the front, which allowed us to unload everyone as quickly as possible. It was a tedious effort, since the police didn’t want to enter–”
“Those pussies at higher said they didn’t wanna be in there without APEs,” Smith growled. “So we basically had to funnel them out by ourselves.”
Kang nodded as he continued. “As to the fate of Wade, only the Sergeant knows the finer details. But, to summarize, they found a boy hiding underneath a collapsed seat. Wade offered covering fire as the Sergeant lifted the debris. That’s when they found that the boy’s leg had been ripped off. If he was to have any chance of surviving, the Sergeant had to immediately evacuate him. But since we still needed a diversion from the rest of the evacuation, someone had to stay to keep shooting.”
One name muttered from Andrew’s lips. “Wade…”
“When everyone was evacuated, we were finally able to clear out the rest of the horde. We found them almost glued to Wade’s body as they chewed on his armored body. I think we all froze for a second, since we didn’t want to desecrate his corpse. Ultimately, the Sergeant came out with a knife and personally cleared through them. I had never seen her fight with such anger before or ever again.”
With the story now in Andrew’s mind, he couldn’t help but reimagine the weight of his APE. Now, it wasn’t just some ironman costume that gave him strength. It was the uniform of a man who had died to save the lives of others. That’s a lot more weight than plain metal.
Gutierrez patted Andrew on the back. “Don’t mind us if we give you a hard time, chino. We all got some big ass shoes to fill. Smith? He replaced a guy named Thomas. Singh? She replaced a girl named Fairfield. Even though it’s only been a few years, this job has learned to kill a whole lot of young boys and girls. Get too friendly with a dumb ass new guy and… well… you won’t have the chance to be friendly anymore.”
The door chimed. “Speaking of being friendly,” a familiar authoritative voice called, “Cheng and Kang. I need you two to come to the labs with me.”
Kang grabbed his coat. “Understood, Sergeant.”
By Andrew’s guess, the CDR team probably ate here on the regular, meaning she didn’t need to give so much as a phone call to find them. “The rest of you should enjoy your break. Remember: Do dumb shit–”
“–Win stupid prizes,” the team echoed.
***
The labs were all part of a huge skyscraper with an armed detail on every floor. They were armed to the teeth with modern rifles as they made continuous roves. It made sense, since the CDRs were armed with some of the most advanced technology known to man—and to kill what wasn’t a man.
The three of them had to badge their way in. “Keep your ID on your person at all times,” the Sergeant ordered. “There’s a whole procedure for unidentified people. It’s bad paperwork.”
Andrew nodded as he followed along. His eyes were more attentive to the sheer tech that surrounded him. Even the look of constant scanners, clean surfaces, and sharp architecture struck awe into him. He wondered if he was living in today, or the future.
They went into the elevator, badged in again, and clicked somewhere on the basement levels. It took a long moment, and a good amount of humming, until they finally reached their floor. “Welcome back: Sergeant Jessica Yang.”
The lights were almost painfully bright as the illuminated floor glowed a faint red. Guards passed by, asked for IDs, and the three of them presented them accordingly. Without any more hitches, they walked into a wide room.
A gun range.
No one else was inside, other than two lab-coated scientists. Andrew assumed they were scientists, at least. One was an older man, probably a decade older than the Sergeant, while the other was a young woman about the age of Andrew. Her smooth blonde hair definitely contrasted the wrinkled brown hair of the senior, especially since he had a glint of grey.
The older man gave a bow. “Sergeant Yang. Officer Kang. And Officer…”
“Cheng,” Andrew replied.
The two shook hands as the older man chuckled, “Very nice to meet you, Officer Cheng. I’m Doctor Shiro. To my right is my assistant: Miss Hannah Kroeger.”
“Hello!” she gleefully waved.
Contrasting the smiling scientists was the straightfaced Kang and the straighterfaced Yang. She was actually looking at her watch, to see how much time these coats were going to waste. “So, are we ready to get started?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” Doctor Shiro replied. “Once again, I thank you for coming on short notice with a senior and newer member of your team. I believe that such inputs will let us gauge the effectiveness of our weapons at all levels.”
“Right.”
They put in hearing protection with microphones. “The design allows for conversations while also deafening higher decibels, like gunshots,” the doctor added. “It’s quite fascinating if you look into the…”
One look from Sergeant Yang’s smolder made him shut up.
“V-Very well!” he nervously chuckled. “On the first weapon, we have an experimental railgun design. It uses magnets to supercharge a projectile into the enemy target at speeds far faster than sound!”
He brought out a rifle that looked almost as heavy as he was. It was massive—as large as a medium machinegun—but would surely be light in the hands of an APE. With a car battery charging the weapon from the rear, it looked like an impressive anti-tank weapon.
“If we could have Officer Kang shoot…”
Without a smile, Kang went behind the weapon and operated it accordingly. Like any other weapon, it used a magazine but with solid metal balls rather than bullets. After all, this machine was operated with electricity and magnets—not gunpowder.
“Range is hot,” Kang declared.
With the butt against his shoulder, he fired onto the metal target downrange. As he pulled the trigger, the weapon blasted with the loud hum of metal parsing through magnets. The projectile definitely broke the sound barrier, as it punctured right through the target.
Kang gave a look at the Sergeant.
She shook her head.
“Range is clear,” Kang called. He returned to the group with his same stone-cold face. They didn’t even give Andrew the chance to shoot before they retired the prototype.
“This would be a good weapon against tanks. But, frankly, demons aren’t tanks,” the Sergeant said. She pointed at the target, specifically how it was punched right through. “Sure, this could punch through some serious armor. But that also means little Timmy is gonna get a haircut from a few blocks away. We have enough trouble diminishing collateral damage as it is.”
The doctor blinked. Then nodded. “V-Very well…”
The next set of weapons were equally unsuitable. One was a flamethrower that spewed thermite—one burst was enough to vaporize the metal target. Then there was an attempt at the opposite, a cryogun, which just blasted liquid nitrogen. Both were definitely unsafe.
“We use thermite grenades when we know, definitively, there’s little to no chance of harming civilians or causing further damage,” the Sergeant said. “That means no careless flamethrowers, or whatever the hell you’ve concocted.”
“Well…” the doctor mumbled. “Do you have any other ideas?”
The Sergeant took a look around, before glancing at an open notebook. She scanned through the pages, at the behest of the doctor’s assistant. “H-Hey! Those are my notes…”
Despite the protests, the Sergeant ripped out several pages from the book. She presented what looked like science fiction to the rest of the group. “This one here looks like a glorified strobe light,” she said. “But I think that could work. Demons are sensitive to flashbangs. This could work as another tool.”
The Sergeant looked up at the doctor. “Why aren’t you taking notes?”
Doctor Shiro frantically jotted down the details as the Sergeant went on. The next page was just some doodle of a robot. “I’m guessing you were just drawing this during a brief, but I think we could use something like this,” the Sergeant said. “We already automate daily chores. We can supplement our manpower shortage with some unmanned units, at least for improved area coverage.”
Then on the last page, they realized they weren’t looking at anything PG. It looked a man was blindfolded as he was tied up and–
“Hey! That’s enough!” Hannah cried. She pulled the sheet out of the Sergeant’s hand before running out of the room. Andrew didn’t blame her; he would’ve run away too.
The Sergeant rolled her eyes. “Bondage aside, we could use some kind of net or material to restrain a lower-level demon. Our usual ROE is to torch them to high hell, which isn’t good for research. Maybe we can get you guys a living specimen, given you don’t fuck things up for the rest of us.”
With that, the doctor had pages upon pages of notes. He didn’t have experience in the field, but he did have the creativity to come up with some ideas. “I think I get what you’re saying!” he enthusiastically laughed. He raised his hand for a fistbump.
The Sergeant didn’t return it. “I want blueprints by the end of the week.”