Sherlock. They almost had us that time,” Mikki agreed, grimly. “And from now on, we’re suitin’ up fully loaded, no matter what!”
“No argument from me.”
“Now let’s see what we got here.”
Mikki bent over and scooped up the helmet. She had somehow managed to completely miss the chin strap, which was intact. She unclicked the buckle and shook it until the head popped out, then put the helmet on.
“Oooh! That’s nasty!” Floyd cringed.
“Holy shit! Floyd, you gotta see this!” She took it off and tried handing it to him, but he refused.
“What are you, nuts? I’m not putting that thing on my head!”
“Oh, so now you’re squeamish all of a sudden?”
“No, it just kind of…creeps me out. That things head we in there!”
“What? You think it had lice? We live on a planet full of undead everything and you’re creeped out by a freakin’ helmet? Just put the damn thing on, Floyd!”
The way she put it, it did seem like he was being pretty silly, so he grabbed the helmet from her hands and put it on. “Holy shit!” he echoed.
This wasn’t just a helmet, it was one helluva piece of high technology. He took it off and scrutinized the solid black exterior. He couldn’t see any opening for a camera or any other sensor. The helmet appeared to be one solid piece without any seam or other pieces of any kind. And yet, when he put it on, a screen lit up in front of him, showing him the world around him in enhanced, high definition color. Even more amazing, internal sensors somehow recognized his eye movement, and when he looked at a particular part of the screen, it automatically zoomed in! No wonder these Super Zombies could see from so far away!
“I call dibs!” Mikki cried, snatching the helmet back.
“You can’t call dibs like that!” Floyd insisted.
“I can, and I did!”
“Dammit, Mikki! That’s the second time you’ve done that to me!”
“Then you obviously didn’t learn the first time! Come, on. There’s plenty more lyin’ on the ground over there. If you’re not too creeped out!”
“Not any more, let’s go!”
Chapter Eighteen
The helmets turned out to be even more advanced than either Floyd or Mikki had originally thought. Mikki was wearing the helmet when they climbed down the ladder and it automatically adjusted to the lower light. She told Floyd to close the hatch and power off the internal lights. The helmet automatically switched to night vision mode. She could see everything clearly (although with a greenish tint) and Floyd’s body lit up on the screen up like a Christmas tree.
Screen wasn’t even the right word. Even though the image lit up internally, it was projected in such a way that it seemed as if you were looking out at the world through your own eyes. Eyes with enhanced zoom and infrared capabilities, that is. As Mikki looked at Floyd, a tiny computer-generated question mark floated in the air with an arrow pointing at his glowing body for some reason. Mikki tried looking away, zooming in, and even turned on all the lights to cancel the infrared, but the floating question mark remained. She removed the helmet and it automatically powered off.
“Weird,” was all she could say.
She let Floyd play with it a while, as she suited up in her own helmet and gear and headed out to find her sniper rifle. She retrieved it pretty quickly and inspected it for damage. There was no need to worry. It had landed on top of some shrubbery and was none the worse for wear. She surveyed the area through the scope again one last time before joining Floyd inside Behemoth.
Mikki closed and locked the hatch, and Floyd suited up in all his gear as well. She wanted to wear the new helmet but Floyd insisted she wait. For now, they needed the two-way radio communications in the headsets. He said there seemed to be radio communication in the new helmets as well, but they would need to get another one before they ditched the old helmets. As usual, Floyd made sense. As
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
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