by Elin Wyn
“Right. One thing at a time,” I repeated.
Evie and I set our appointment for the following day and I proceeded back to my office. There was a line of potential alpha team candidates waiting at my door. With a reluctant sigh, I ushered the first of many into my office.
Vidia would tell me I wasn’t giving any of the candidates a fair shot. None of them impressed me. Their qualifications were standard at best. Every time a new face appeared before me, all I could think about was the potential danger they brought with them.
The doe-eyed surveillance tech expert could’ve easily been an assassin hired by Dashiell Fox or any number of the anti-alien radicals. The tactile weapons expert that also happened to be built like a brick shithouse could’ve been a spy ready to betray all our classified information.
I flew through the candidates in record time, which wasn’t good. When they were all gone, I walked down to Vidia’s office. Evie was right. I wanted to talk to Sk’lar about everything, but he and the rest of his strike team were out working with Fen. The rifts were still acting up. I didn’t know enough about how the rifts worked to be of assistance. Besides, General Rouhr and I agreed that at least one of us should be near Vidia at all times.
“How’d the interviews go?” she asked when I dragged myself into her office and threw myself melodramatically onto the spare chair. “That bad, huh?”
“I can’t get out of my head enough to see each candidate objectively,” I confessed. “Everyone I don’t know is now officially a threat.”
“That way of thinking is what birthed the radicals,” Vidia warned.
“We both got shot. I’m allowed to be hesitant.”
“I know, I know.” Vidia lifted her hands. “But tell me you at least kept their resumes.”
“I kept their resumes.”
“Good. Don’t think about them anymore today. Go home. Go to bed.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“I’m the mayor, I don’t get to go to bed.”
I sat with Vidia for a short while longer, letting her chat about meaningless things. It made her feel better.
Night had fallen by the time I walked back to my apartment. With every step, I looked over my shoulder, expecting another attack. The person who’d tried to stab me was never apprehended. I wondered if it was Canter Xent.
Once home, I took a lukewarm shower. It was better for my muscles than my usual scalding hot shower.
I climbed into bed and stared up at my ceiling. I should’ve called Sk’lar. More often than not, he’d been spending nights at my place. We didn’t go drinking beforehand anymore. Evie said no drinking while I was still in recovery. I slept better when Sk’lar was here. I liked feeling that there was someone near me to watch my back.
Sleep came slowly. When it did, it was far from sound.
I dreamed that something was in my bedroom. It had long black tendrils of energy that slid over my skin and left behind a tar-like substance. My skin itched and burned under its touch. At the center of the knot of tendrils was a dark shape with no distinct features. I would’ve guessed it was six feet tall. Maybe taller. I didn’t know. It kept shifting in the darkness, winking in and out of existence.
When it touched my forehead, terrible thoughts appeared in my mind.
It showed me an image of myself standing over Vidia’s dead body. It felt good. Right, even.
I saw flashes of the aliens tied up and gagged. General Rouhr was covered in bloody sores. Sk’lar was missing an eye.
Yes, this was right. This was how it was supposed to be.
I then saw images of our world rebuilt at last. Beautiful buildings towered up to the skies. The forests flourished once more. The Puppet Master was gone, the walking trees and other deadly creatures of the forest gone with it. We humans were the masters of the land. We’d built a utopia.
I was there. I had a whole team of perfect soldiers following my every word. No one was attacked in the streets. No one was shot by snipers. Everything was finally back to how it was supposed to be.
Yet, I felt empty. The images in my head should’ve been fulfilling, but they weren’t.
Vidia and I were supposed to help people together. General Rouhr was supposed to be there, too.
In fact, the beautiful future I saw in my mind’s eye wouldn’t be possible without General Rouhr and his men. The humans needed the aliens. We needed their technology. We needed their knowledge of the universe.
I needed Sk’lar with me. I still didn’t understand how I needed him, but I did need him.
I didn’t want that picturesque future if the aliens weren’t there to share it with us.
The images in my head flickered away and were replaced with images of cities burning. General Rouhr stood on a pile of human corpses, laughing. Vidia was bound and chained to his belt. Sk’lar and the other strike team members herded humans like cattle, whipping them just for the fun of it.
It was utterly ridiculous. General Rouhr would never do something like that. Neither would any of the aliens. With a surge of willpower, I shoved the images from my mind.
I sat up in bed. The motion was too sudden for my tender back muscles. With a wince, I fell back down against my pillows, one hand blindly groping for the light on my bedside table. I half expected to see the shadowy being I’d seen in my dreams standing at the foot of my bed.
I was alone in my room.
Even so, something in the air didn’t feel right.
Sk’lar
As the bright light of the sun peeked through my windows and threatened to pierce my brain through my eyelids, I rolled over to my side and tried to rediscover the darkness that came with sleep. I couldn’t find it.
I rolled myself out of bed and made my way through my morning routine. After relieving myself, I took my shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed, then made myself some breakfast. I looked at my calendar to see that it was what the humans called October thirteenth, which happened to fall on a Friday.
Some of the humans around here treated the day as if it was something special, which made no sense to me. It wasn’t a holiday, and it wasn’t anything special based, on what people told me. It was simply a day that dealt with superstitions.
Now, superstitions are something that all soldiers know something about. I had my own superstitions about going into battle, so the idea that Friday the Thirteenth was either a good luck day or a bad luck day for people was believable, but why they made such a big deal out of it was beyond me.
After I ate, I made my way to the general’s office for one of our weekly meetings, sometimes even more often, or whenever the general decided that he needed to talk to us and work things through. Today would mark the third day this week that I would sit and meet with him.
As I walked through the part of the city where most of the Vengeance crew lived, I marveled at the amount of work being done to repair what the Puppet Master’s vines had caused. This particular neighborhood looked untouched by the vines, as did two of the neighborhoods nearby. However, I was about to walk through a small neighborhood that was still working on fixing things, and the construction was loud.
As I passed through the construction area, I waved at several of the people that were working and they waved back at me. It felt good to have them wave back with smiles on their faces, it meant that they hadn’t suddenly changed their minds about us. The number of people that had suddenly flipped their approval of us had grown recently, and it had started to include not just people that were friendly with us, but even some of the doctors and scientists that we had worked with, some of the security personnel that had helped to protect us and the city, and even some of the children that were always friendly with us had shifted their feelings quickly.
As I entered the offices, I looked at Tobias with a bit of trepidation, but when he responded with his usual smile and happy demeanor, I relaxed and smiled back at him. I proceeded to the general’s office, knocked, and walked in.
“Good morning, Sk’lar,�
�� Rouhr said as I entered.
“Morning, sir,” I returned. He directed me to the couch as he rose from his desk and headed over. As I sat on the couch, he sat in his chair and pressed a button on his intercom. He quickly ordered breakfast, looking at me to silently ask if I wanted anything. I shook my head and he finished his order. I had noticed that he’d taken to eating breakfast here more often than not, and I sometimes wondered if he was even sleeping here more than he was at the home he shared with Vidia.
“First of all, how’s Phryne doing?”
I let out a sigh. “She’s not happy. With constantly having to change out her team because people are suddenly changing, it’s making her apprehensive and nervous about things.”
“I can imagine,” he said as he took a drink from the cup of coffee at his side. “I wish I could offer her some of our own people, but we’re spread thin already. I’ve got as many people as I can spare trying to keep an eye on Vidia already.”
I nodded. As I was about to say something, the door opened and in walked Tobias with Rouhr’s breakfast order. “Morning, sir.”
“Tobias? What are you doing getting my breakfast?”
“I had a message to deliver anyway, so I figured I’d bring the food to you,” Tobias answered as he set down the tray.
“Okay. What do you have?”
“Well, sir,” Tobias started as he removed the tray lid. “Zarik wanted to report that there has been a break-in at one of the food kitchens. Nothing was taken, but the inside of the kitchen was vandalized with anti-alien sentiment and two of the range-tops were broken.”
“Skrell. Anything on the surveillance?”
Tobias nodded sadly. “Unfortunately, sir, it was one of the employees. Within minutes of locking up and leaving, they broke in and vandalized the kitchen.”
“Rek,” I said, then immediately held up a hand in apology. “My apologies, sir.”
Rouhr shook his head. “No apologies needed. That was my identical reaction.” He turned to Tobias. “Thank you, Tobias. Let Zarik know that, if possible, I want him to try to find help for fixing the kitchen.”
“Yes, sir,” Tobias said as he headed out of the door.
Rouhr turned back to me. “Rek. This is getting ridiculous.”
“I agree. What are the other team leaders saying?”
“Nothing,” he responded. “They have the same information that we do, and so far, the same ideas that we have. We’re all at a loss here. What if Fen was right? Was the use of the rifts the cause?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“If it was,” he continued on, almost as if I hadn’t said anything, “then I’m responsible because I’m the one that called for the rifts.”
“You are not responsible,” I said forcefully to get him to look at me. “Sir, there could be no way that you knew that the rifts would do this, if they indeed have done this. And, you weren’t the only one to call for the rifts. All three of us, as team leaders, we called for the rifts several times ourselves. Not to mention that Fen was the one in charge of the rift device and she was the one that opened each and every rift we called for.”
“I know that, I do,” Rouhr said over a bite of eggs. “But if the rift is responsible, as General, I could have put a restriction on the number of times we used it and that could have helped to prevent this situation from getting as bad as it’s gotten.”
“Sir, don’t put all the blame on yourself. There could be another reason for all of this,” I said.
“What?”
“What if we didn’t stop the synthetic brain-wipe stuff they were using?” I suggested. “What if someone else continued to make it and found a way to make it work faster? That could be a possibility, could it not?”
He sat there and visibly thought about it for a few moments. “That could be a possibility, yes.” The more he thought about it, the more he nodded in agreement. “That just might absolutely be what is happening here.”
“So, we just need to find out if there is someone creating more of that synthetic stuff and using it on people,” I said.
Rouhr’s face lit up for a moment, then fell. “Wait. If they’re using the synthetic mind-wipe stuff, then what about what happened with Phryne last night?”
“What happened to her last night?”
“Apparently she had a bad dream of something trying to invade her mind,” Rouhr told me. “She told Vidia about it an hour ago. Vidia told me. The thing is, if someone gave her some sort of synthetic juice, they either gave it to her through some food she had, something she drank, or snuck into her place and gave it to her that way.”
An ice-cold chill ran up my spine. The idea that someone possibly targeted Phryne specifically, that scared me. “So, where do we look?”
“What about that compound you said you saw? The one where the ship used to be,” Rouhr said.
It took me a second to remember. “I remember it. You want to start looking there?” Currently, it was the only place we knew of for sure that was anti-alien that was close by. All of the other anti-alien establishments had moved and established themselves far away. Unless they were shuttling in, that compound was the closest place.
“I do,” Rouhr said. “We might be able to find something there that could answer our questions.”
“Might be worth looking into,” I said.
“Good. I want you and your team suited up and ready to go in thirty,” he said as he stood up and made his way back to his desk. “Make sure the pilot is not human, don’t want them switching on us mid-flight.”
“Understood, sir,” I said as I stood up. Then, “Wait, ‘us’, sir?”
“That’s right,” Rouhr responded. “I’m going with you.”
“Are you sure that’s prudent, sir?” I asked. “As much as it pleased me to go into battle with you recently, with everything going on, you would want to come with us?”
“Are you seriously trying to say that I can’t go with you?” The general hit me with a stare, and while I wasn’t normally one to back down, I knew better than to challenge my commander.
Even if I wasn’t entirely happy about his decision.
“Not at all, sir,” I answered. “I am more than willing to take you wherever you wish to go, sir.”
He chuckled. “Good answer. I think it’s important that I go with you till this threat is neutralized. Thirty minutes, clear?”
“Clear, sir.”
Phryne
“I need your help.” Vidia stood in my office doorway with a pleading look.
“What is it?” I was out of my seat in an instant, my hand already reaching for the weapon at my hip.
“Nothing dangerous!” Vidia quickly clarified.
“Oh.” I relaxed my stance. “Then what is it?”
“There’s a tiny problem in some of my reports. I was hoping you’d be able to help me sort it out.”
“Of course.”
I followed Vidia to her office. There were datapads strewn all over her desk. I picked up the one nearest to me and gave it a look over.
“This doesn’t look like a report.” I frowned. “This looks like a budget.”
“It is.” Vidia plopped back into her chair. I took the spare.
“Where are the reports?”
“These are the reports. The budget reports.”
“Budgeting isn’t in my job description,” I laughed. “It’s not an area of expertise, either.”
“I know, but you can read and do basic math, therefore you can help me.” Vidia eyed me over the top of a datapad.
“I still don’t understand.”
“With the surge of anti-alien support, much of my funding has suddenly disappeared.”
“I see.”
“And the security budget has been through the roof for months on end.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” I snorted. “I submit all of my anticipated costs for approval before I arrange anything.”
“We have to do some serious rearranging,” Vidia tutted.<
br />
“Are you sure there’s no one more qualified than me to help you with this?”
“I’m the most qualified person for this,” she laughed. “I don’t need your expertise. I need your hands.”
“My hands?”
“For data input.”
“I’m a very busy person, you know?”
“I know. If you’d rather spend all day finding new members for your alpha team, I’ll happily let you go.”
I dreaded the thought of another round of interviews. Sk’lar had recommended a few members from the city patrol team to stand in on my alpha team until I found the perfect replacements.
“I can spare a few minutes.”
“That’s what I thought.”
For the next three hours, I plugged numbers into various applications at Vidia’s direction.
“The last thing I want is to decrease the budget for the housing construction,” Vidia said.
“We can always cut the food,” I suggested.
“Have you seen the way those aliens eat?” she snorted. “They’d riot.”
“What about the produce? We can start growing our own with those planters. I bet Leena could whip up something to accelerate growth and output.”
“That would mean revoking income from the produce suppliers we already use. We’re their biggest customers.”
“I told you I’m no good at this.”
“You’re doing great. Keep proposing alternatives for me to shoot down.”
“That doesn’t sound as fun as you think it does.”
“Maybe not to you.”
Over the course of the next two hours, I looked through the budgets for places to cut funding while Vidia looked for ways to generate revenue. The problem was that there weren’t many citizens able to give anything. All of Vidia’s projects were designed to provide relief, not generate profit.
“We simply can’t cut anything,” Vidia groaned. “Not without detrimental side effects.”
“Fen and her people are self-sustaining. Maybe she’d be willing to share some tips or loan some tech to help us cut costs.”
“There’s a big difference between sustaining a dozen individuals and sustaining a large city.”
