by JG Jerome
“Hello Bernadette, my love,” I greet her. Clarice slides up next to Bernadette’s body on the other side.
She gently shakes her head. She croaks out a response. “Not, Bern’dette. Babette.” She gets better control of her voice as I push more energy. She says, “Stop. No more ener-gy.” She places a hand on my chest as she speaks slowly. “Ber-na-dette is dead. She was Bab-ette and Alö-ise toge-ther. My brain no’ work now. You mus’ le tme die. Save Alö-ise. Home planet. Sis’r Gabi.”
“How, Babette? Can I just summon her?” I ask desperately.
“Try. Prob’ly not. Go get her?” she proposes.
“How?” I plead.
She raises her hand to cup my face. “Do’t know, Love. Re-gard-less.” She squeezes her eyes closed to marshall her energy. She opens them again. “You must. Jus’ you. More will bring sol-diers. Be sneak-y.”
She holds a hand up to Clarice and looks at her. “She love syou...all of heart. You our joy when there was none. You our joy now. Will is your dad-dy, now. O-bey, my ba-by.”
“Oh, Mummy!” Clarice sobs.
“Bab-ette proud to be your Mum-my, dear-est,” the broken zombie says slowly, but sincerely.
Clarice hugs her fiercely. “Don’t go, Mummy! Please!”
Babette says, “Ur Mum-my gone al-read-y, child. I dead for hund-fif-ty years. You my joy. I mus’ go now.”
She looks at me. “You stopped in time. Pull life en-er’y out. Death in. Wounds come back. Like no heal. Jus’ bro-ken dea’ bo-dy.”
Carla dismisses the critters as I nod. I repeat to be clear, “Pull the life out, and push death back in. It will restore the wounds like I never tried to heal you. It will leave just your broken, dead body.”
She smiles, “Yessss. Goo’bye, love.”
I lean over and kiss her lips. Clarice follows my example. Lara, Marissa, Carla, and Jack all come to kiss her goodbye. We all stand around her in a circle, and I follow her instructions. The wounds reappear, and the light goes out of her eyes.
Clarice breaks down and cries again. She wraps her arms around me and sobs into my chest. Slowly she raises her head. “Daddy?”
I kiss her forehead and squeeze her tightly. “Always, my girl. Always.”
I pull everyone into a group hug. I’m surprised, but Monty doesn’t hesitate. He says, “Y’all are one weird fucking family. I’m honored you included me on this.”
“Welcome to the family, Monty. We’ll get Monique read in before too long if you think we should,” I tell him. I look at everyone else. “Okay, I need to break the news to Luis. We need to pack up all those crates and get them out of here. We need to get the living elves out of here, and we need to ensure we don’t leave any fingerprints. All the collars and the relic tiara need to go with us. Let’s get Luis and the zombies in on the planning for this.”
Lara hands me a heavy key on a ribbon. She says, “Valya had it around her neck. I know where she keeps the ribbon. I’ll get you one that isn’t bloody.” I caress her shoulder to show my appreciation. I call Viktorija with a status before I turn to wrapping things up here.
We police up all the artifacts, scuff up my bloody handprints, and use Valya’s discarded gown to wipe down the handles and the door. We make our way slowly down to the thirteenth floor.
7
Consolidate the battlefield
I send one of the zombies downstairs to fetch Raul, the supervisor. I tell him to use the lift.
Then I pull Luis to the side. “She’s gone, Luis. Valya put her in a ritual circle, shot her in the stomach, and when she pulled out of Babette, she was sent back to her sister, Gabrielle.”
“Babette is gone, but Bernadette is on her home planet?” he asks. He’s got a better grasp of this than I anticipated.
I nod, so I won’t freak him out. “Babette says that Bernadette was a mix of Babette and Alöise. Bernadette is gone forever because Babette is gone forever.” I pull him into a hug. “Valya turned her brain to hamburger. Despite my best efforts, she could barely speak when I brought her back. She asked me to let her go, so I did. Now I need to figure out how to rescue Alöise.” I release him and hold his shoulders while I look in his eyes.
Luis sniffs and wipes his eyes. “Thanks, Will. I want to go with you to rescue her.”
I nod at him. “I understand, Luis. It may not be possible. Babette still had many of Alöise’s memories and some last instructions. I’m going to try to summon her, but if that doesn’t work I’ll have to go get her. Babette said one person going alone has a better chance than more. She indicated that more would trigger alerts to summon soldiers. If that’s how I go, it’s going to need to be a stealth mission. Jack is probably ideal from a stealth perspective, but I’m not bad that way. Plus, I have powers Jack doesn’t, so if anyone goes, it will be me.”
Jack walks up and says, “Some of the glyphs on my back would probably make me a beacon on another dimension. I can’t be the one, Will. I’m not willing to knowingly throw my life away and leave my pets alone.”
I nod and tell Jack, “I understand.” I look at Luis. “For now, do what Bernadette would have you do if she were here - protect the family.”
Luis dries his eyes and pulls himself together. “You’re pretty good at this whole patriarch thing, Will. What do you need me to do?”
“We’ve got…” I look over at Jack. “...ten crates of weapons? Plus about one hundred elves that need a home. We’ll probably be hiring the zombies for additional security, but I need to discuss this with their supervisor. His name is Raul Contreras, and I sent one of the other zombies to fetch him. In short, we need a couple of trucks, a storage facility that we can get into tonight, and a large dormitory with cots and accommodations for at least one hundred elves. We’ll need to have humans there to support them, because even if they can glamour to hide their appearance, many of them don’t speak an Earth language. I don’t know how well the ladies will handle having males around, so we need to think about that too.”
Jack says, “I think I can help. I have a farm between Mayer and Dewey. It’s stuck back in the hills, has its own water supply, and I have a couple of big barns and a machine shed. Plus my farm manager is a vampire.”
I look at him. “A vampire? I’m going to assume that’s a good thing or you wouldn’t offer it.”
Jack looks exasperated. “I keep forgetting you don’t really know much about the demon realms. Vampires feed off emotional energy. Unlike a succubus, they feed on all emotional energy. The benefit of that is that it severely reduces the emotions they’re feeding on. Warren used to work at a youth home. He would feed off all the angst, fear, and confusion of the kids. They loved him for it. With a hundred plus elves captured by the group that killed two thousand of their colleagues and their ruler - it might come in handy. We can make beds of hay or straw until we can get blankets in.”
I look at Luis. “Sounds like a good plan to me, what do you think?”
He shrugs, “I don’t have a better idea. I can check with Tori and Clarice. They pretty much run the day-to-day operations.”
I tell him, “By the way. As you might imagine Clarice is very broken up about Bernadette’s death. Babette named me her ‘Daddy,’ I’m guessing foster-father. Once we get all of the immediate stuff ironed out, we need to see if there is some kind of will to that effect.”
Luis waves a hand dismissively. “If not, Tori can just create one, and Mr. George will help us get it right.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I’d rather not tempt fate with any more forged documents than necessary. We may need to do that for the elves, too.”
The elevator pings, and Raul Contreras walks out onto the floor with the zombie I sent for him.
“Hello Raul,” I greet him. “We have cleared the floors and subdued everyone we didn’t kill. This is Luis Montoya. I’ve asked him to take charge of getting the remaining elf refugees and valuable materiel transported out of here. Can you give him a hand coordinating transport and loading?”
&n
bsp; “Yessir,” he snaps to attention.
I frown at him. “You weren’t a marine, were you?”
He frowns dismissively. “Hell no, sir. I was in the military.”
I nod sharply. “Good man. By the way, I was an army sergeant, so I really don’t need the ‘sir’ business.”
“Yessir,” he smirks at me.
I say, “Why did I raise you from the dead?”
Raul says, “Bad judgement, sir.” I chuckle and shake my head and wave him toward Luis. A little levity is nice right about now because my mind is screaming repeatedly, ‘BERNADETTE IS GONE!’
Jack taps my shoulder and says, “Come back and take a look at these crates.” He looks at me like he just found El Dorado or something.
“O-ka-ay,” I agree as we take off toward the back corner.
“Monty is guarding them,” he says. “Once I saw these, I figured I needed to keep them supervised by someone I trust.”
I see five crates of rifles. “Yeah, I saw five more of these downstairs.”
“Not those,” Jack says. “These.” He points to another set of crates. Again they are wooden crates, but inside is something like straw. Nestled in the middle of the straw is a golden, metallic oblong object with a glass panel on the front of it.
“What the fuck?” I exclaim.
Jack lifts up the lid. “I can’t read this, but that,” he points at the oblong object, “looks like a bomb to me.”
I call out, “T’os! Mica! Lara! Come here, please!”
The three elves run over quickly. The elderly gent moves pretty well despite his apparent age. Lara is damn fast, and she has her MP5 in the ready position.
Jack says, “Lara, you look like a special ops soldier. Good form and instincts.”
She nods quietly to Jack. I ask the elves. “What are these?”
Mica looks at T’os. Lara just reads the lid out loud. “It says ‘Neutron Generator,’ Lord.”
T’os coughs into his hand, and I focus on him. The elder elf asks, “You have neutron weapons here?”
I nod. Jack says, “Yeah. We call them ‘enhanced radiation weapons’ or something like that. They generate a lower percentage of persistent radiation than other nuclear weapons with a lower blast to radiation ratio. They allow you to occupy the land shortly after you detonate one.”
T’os nods. “Exactly. This is not a bomb in the sense you use the word. This is a device created by technomancy to generate neutron waves, usually without an explosion at all. The plan was to use these to clear out the population of cities, so we could quickly occupy settlers.”
I look around at the crates. “There are six here,” I observe. That would pretty much kill everyone in the Phoenix valley.”
T’os shakes his head. “No, Lord. I estimated we would need at least ten, and probably eleven to do that. There are supposed to be five more coming.”
I look at him. “T’os, what was your job?”
He has the grace to look sheepish. “I was a slave to the Court Magician. I have some minor talent at technomancy, which allows me to target devices of mass destruction like this and the ability to intuit how technology works.”
I ask, “Do you know how to detonate them?”
“Yes, Lord. You set a delay, and duration. The longer the duration the slower the neutrons escape the device...more of a trickle. Setting them to the fastest setting results in an explosion. Once started, the device runs until all its fuel is depleted. They can also be sent into the sky to rain down radiation.”
“Like an air burst,” I muse. “Where were you targeting them?”
“The first one was to go over the air force base to neutralize that. The second was to go over the army airfield where the rotary wing aircraft are. Then to carpet the city, so no soul was left alive.”
I fume, “Five million people gone, just like that. No big deal.” I ask him, “Do you know how to run the portal?”
He nods, “Yes, Lord. Your squire, Mica, is also trained on the use of the portals.”
“How do they work?” I demand.
T’os looks afraid. “L-lord, it’s very simple. You key in the address for the destination. The portal at the destination opens and you have a doorway through to the other side.”
“What if you want to go someplace that doesn’t have a portal?” I ask, trying to be a little less intense.
Mica speaks up, “Uh, Lord. You can key in relative coordinates from a known point. It’s a one way trip if you do that because there is no portal to let you dial back.”
“If I were at a known point when you opened it, would I be able to come through?” I ask my squire.
T’os and Mica look at each other for a moment. Mica shrugs. T’os nods and says, “You would need to be in position to see the disturbance in the air. It would be more like heat waves on the desert floor rather than a portal you can see through. I guess we could lower a ramp out of the portal to assist the person on the other side. You would also want to enter at nearly the center of the disturbance to minimize risk of injury, so the ramp would be helpful.”
I grasp a shoulder from each of them. “Good information. Thank you, gentlemen. Now to practical matters. If we pushed one of these devices through the portal and ignited it. How much damage could we do to the House Valeran leadership.”
Lara slides up next to me and cuddles into my side. She says, “If you sent it back to the debarkation point, you can probably get nearly half a billion people, but the headquarters isn’t there.”
“Who would be there?” Jack asks.
T’os says, “about 50 million soldiers, and 450 million to two billion colonists - depending on how fast the orders were sent to gather.” He doesn’t look happy about where I’m going with this.
“Is there a portal that we could push one through near your army headquarters or government headquarters,” I ask.
T’os clams up, but Mica says, “Yes, Lord. However, there is shielding specifically on those buildings.”
I look at the elder elf. “T’os, your people came here to kill mine. We did nothing to earn that other than not fuck like bunnies for thousands of years and completely destroy our planet. It’s not that we’re not trying to destroy our planet, but we haven’t managed it yet. Your people could have made that choice, but they didn’t.”
T’os says, “Lord, I don’t feel any allegiance to house Valeran, but I hesitate to kill millions of people simply because they want a better life.”
I stare down into his eyes. “I’m not excited about killing those people either, T’os. Give me an option. I’ve definitely had a lifetime-worth of killing tonight. I really would rather not have to do more of it. However, those ‘innocent’ people are waiting for the five million people of this valley to die, so they can take our place. Want to or not, I need to stop them. Give me options.”
T’os looks at Mica before saying, “Do the staging area, Lord. That will create a setback. Most of the leaders of House Valeran are already on this planet; however, the bureaucrats and functionionaires that make things happen are at the headquarters organizing. The former Court Magician, the one that devised this plan, is living close to the headquarters’ gate. Rather than firing one at the headquarters, irradiate their living quarters. It should still be dark there for about two more of our hours.” He looks at Mica. “I’m sorry, lad.”
Mica shrugs, “My mother and father agreed to sell me as a slave. They fully expected me to be buggered for my dinner. They are dead to me already.”
I nod. “Okay, how many do we need to send?”
T’os says, “Send four to the residential areas around the headquarters and two to the staging areas. Two is overkill for the staging area since they will be closely packed, but there is nothing to be gained by sending five to the residential area.”
Lara says, “Shift change. They do shift change at the government house in about thirty minutes. Can we run one in the front door? We could catch two shifts. Especially if you can make it explode. Didn’t
you say they can be made to explode?”
T’os nods, “They can explode. As I said, instead of a slow generation, set the device for max speed. That causes an explosion. I think I know how we can get them into the headquarters. We’ll have to give up a crate of rifles.”
I agree, “As long as they will be destroyed.”
T’os nods. “I need a couple more elves.”
I look around. “Any particular ones that will help?”
He points at one of the magicians and someone that just appears to be a soldier. “They will work.”
I drag them away from where T’os and Mica are working as they start preparing a crate. They empty one of the rifle crates, and put one of the oblong devices in the bottom of it. T’os powers on the screen and keys in instructions. I can’t follow what he’s doing, but I’ve chosen to trust him. My two new elven retainers cover up the oblong with the straw-like material, and then set a layer of rifles on top.
I raise the two elves. I tell them, “Duchess Valeran and I have made amends. She asked me to raise you specifically to help T’os with a task for the Court Magician. She’s meeting with him and her generals upstairs. Will you do this for your people?”
“Yes, Master,” they respond. I think my lie is necessary to create the mindset. I’m not sure they know I own them, but it seems to be a consistent zombie behavior.
T’os calls out, “Lord, I am ready.”
I guide the two elven zombies over to T’os. The crate for the ‘bomb’ is reassembled and stacked with the others. There isn’t much straw on the ground.
T’os talks to the zombies in Elvish. They hammer the lid onto the crate. I ensure all of the humans are out of the line of site of the portal, and Mica lights it up.
The magician cops an attitude and barks at T’os. Then the two zombies push the crate through the portal. The magician starts barking orders as soon as they crest the ramp.
T’os relates what he sees. “He’s got a couple of soldiers helping load the crate onto a cart. They are hustling away.”
Mica closes the portal. T’os calls out. “Get all the neutron generator crates open!”
