“Somebody get a medic—where’s Saada?”
“He’s been hacked up by a scimitar pretty bad, sir. Don’t know if he’s gonna make it,” a soldier shouted back.
“Well get us someone else then, and hurry!”
Seemingly out of nowhere an Aztec messenger approached. “Your gods favor you,” the messenger said to George, panting hard. His lip plug was loose in its moorings, and sweat covered his forehead in the light of the street lamps. “I bring word from President Guerrero.”
“What is this, the sixteenth-century?” asked Rick. “Why didn’t you just call?”
“I’ve been trying to call you for the past half-hour—doubtless you didn’t hear because of the gunfight.”
“No kidding.” George smiled weakly from below. “What’s Juan want?”
“He wants me to impart to you that Mexico has invaded Aztlan and the United States. A small Mexican army is besetting Los Angeles as we speak, which is thinly defended. A much larger Mexican army group has invaded Texas and is marching toward Washington, we believe to link up with the remaining two Islamic armies.”
Rick felt the blood leave his face. “Tell Guerrero to recall that army group he sent to Washington. Tell him to order it back so we can go down there and face them as one big force.”
“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid. The battlegroup President Guerrero sent there was ambushed last night. Apparently, the Muslim army that we thought was occupying Florida has already linked up with the Washington army group. Together, they wiped out our force.”
“Damn it! And they’re about to join forces with a huge Mexican army?” asked Rick incredulously.
“Yes.”
“God help us.”
Chapter 52
The Muslims called her witch. They planned to strap her to a pine, gouge her eyes, mutilate her genitals, and finally incinerate her so that she would wander blind through afterlife wrought with pain. Let them try, she thought.
She heard these boasts on a television set while foraging an abandoned house several days ago. Over weeks her lean muscles had returned, and despite her recent bout with malnutrition, she had climbed another two inches in height. Her long, black hair was bound in a pony-tail. Her skin was young and bronze. Her eyes bore a luster sparked during her sacrifice—its flicker had been as swift as an extraterrestrial craft slamming into earth. They called her witch for interdicting their supply lines, for gobbling up redoubts and rear guards on moonless nights. Let them call her what they would.
She ascended the crest of a hill, her minions unfolding interminably behind her in loping gates. In her right hand was the plasma pistol she had stolen from the cloak when all eyes were fixed on its owner. In her left she carried the silver controller, also filched from one of the pockets before she fled out the trap door, and the castle detonated in white flame. They had come to her afterward, from all over, it seemed. Before she even pressed a button they were kneeling at her feet, and heralding her reign with whatever fragments of English their retrograding intellects could muster.
She had shadowed the Islamic army for a month now, striking when her budding tactical sense told her it felt right. She relished the headlines of resistance newspapers. The latest proclaimed, “Saracen-Killing Witch Leads Grays To Victory; America Cheers.” She stared long and hard at a photo some aerial camera had snapped of her that was aligned with the article. Who was this woman clothed in heavy cloaks taken from a Hispanic novelty store? Why did she wear the rustling skirt of polished jade rocks strung like beads? Vaguely, she knew one thing—her mind was blown. At least she was self-aware of her madness, if you could call it that.
Tonight was moonless, as she liked it. The skies overhead thundered with jet engines as whole air forces engaged. Amid the dogfights, indirect hits were glorious, streaking fireballs. But when a missile impacted its target directly, the sky was lit as if by a diminutive sun. Beneath her feet, the ground rumbled from artillery shells and gluttonous hundred-ton tanks. Peering from her vantage point on the hill, she appraised the battlefield. There, in a shallow vale and adjacent rolling plane she saw the opposing armies struggling for supremacy in the light of explosions and gunship floodlights. So, tonight there would be no more cat and mouse; each side felt confident enough about terrain and timing that they were ready to deal or be dealt a final blow.
Around her, five-hundred millimeter artillery pieces were soundless and dead. She knew the Muslims had occupied this hill, so had preceded her arrival with a regiment of her minions. They had swarmed over and bolted down the Turkish and Iranian artillerists with gusto. By her leg, a gray was sucking the marrow from a cracked bone. She patted his head and eyed the battlefield below her imperiously. Beyond the slope of thick trees and underbrush lay the Mexican flank. That’s where she’d hit them. She’d drive the Mexicans into the Islamic center. If the center broke, they’d be finished.
She didn’t need to input an order with her device; they followed her wordlessly, abandoning their meals with discipline. Irresistibly, they washed down the forested slope like a gray tide, crashing into the enemy. She was at the fore of her army, plasma dancing from her hand, chipped teeth parted, blood cold as the ice winds swirling round her. With every second that passed more of her servants reached the fray, until nearly all one-and-a-half million of them were ruthlessly engaged. Vast swells of them waved over defenders crushingly. The enemies that broke ranks were caught adrift until they were pulled under and dispatched in feeding frenzies. Slowly, the hell she wreaked on the flank began to ripple into the deep foundation of the enemy. Soon, she predicted, the whole lot of them would nourish her troops. Steady meals mean so much in this world, she thought—it pleased her when her followers were replete.
At dawn, she could no longer feel her ears or her face. But her heart ached—all of her minions lay amid the snow in pained stasis. It was the only way she knew how to stop them, and her gloved thumb still depressed the button responsible for haywiring their deathless advance. She had pressed it an hour ago, when, in the light of an explosion overhead, she saw that her servants had annihilated the enemy and had begun to engage Aztec and U.S. soldiers. She hated pressing that button. It was like totaling a car into a wall to slow it down—surely, somehow, she could devise a brake.
An odd simile, to be sure. What did she know of cars. She cared nothing for them—she cared only for the gun in her hand, and the legions of her faithful. And, admittedly, she fancied the reputation she had authored in the blood of her enemies.
But here, she knew, she was vulnerable. An effulgent sun ascended to the east, and her minions lied in the snow. She could not dive among their infinitudes for refuge as if into a gray forest—not now. To revive them would be to jeopardize the army of her people.
“All you needed was a leader,” she heard herself say, scanning the endless gray bodies. Until her command they had always been routed in battle—in a flash she remembered Hommler bemoaning their martial ineffectiveness. No wonder. He never led them.
“Chalchi . . . Jade . . . Skirt,” one of the followers at her feet moaned brokenly from lips and jaws that were grinding into paralysis. “Why?” he asked. “Why?”
She knelt down and stroked his cheek.
“Fear not,” she soothed. “Chalchi will let you move again soon.”
The pistol felt heavy in her hand. It rarely had left her grasp since she fled the castle; her fingers had contoured to its titanium grip, even at rest. But suddenly, she yearned for a holster. If only her plasma gun were as light as the weapon she used to wield. But what gun was that? She couldn’t remember. Ah, of course—the plastic one from an arcade.
“Ishtarotha.” She spoke the name as if handling a priceless diamond. “No one could beat her in the game. But I did.” She smiled, then gasped. “No, she beat me in the game. Where did I beat her?” Her pistol leveled in the air as she waited for a door to open on the barren field. She was in a room now, her friends squealing in the corner, Teo gesturing madly for her to
throw him her weapon. The door banged against the wall, and there she was, Ishtarotha, invincible in her battle suit.
Rick and President Guerrero hit the ground as a plasma shot blurred over their heads.
“She really is a witch.” Rick frowned, and Guerrero nodded. “Why’s she shooting at us? She really helped us out last night.”
“Maybe she’s crazy. Look at her face—it’s painted green.”
“Nice.” Rick smiled. “And she’s a pretty tall woman—about five-ten, would you say, without the boots?”
“Yep. Okay—it’s time to see just what the hell she wants from us, presuming she’s lucid enough to talk rationally.”
“That’s a big if,” Rick said, as another burst flew overhead. “Hey, why are you shaking so much, Juan? You and I just went through hell last night and you’re shaking over one girl with a gun?”
“Maybe I’m just expecting Muslim nukes to rain down any second, you know? It could happen.”
“It could, but I doubt they’d try. We’ve still got quite an arsenal from the twentieth-century, plus a nuclear defense that theoretically should work somewhat. But I don’t think they were fond of Israel’s mutual destruction directive. I think they’ll think twice before they use unconventional weapons again.”
“Oh, I know Rick. Honestly, I wouldn’t even care if I died. Let ‘em send their nukes.” Guerrero’s face was low, and his moustached lips were almost in the snow. “I’m hoping . . . oh, God you don’t know how much I’m hoping she’s . . .” His teeth chattered.
“I know.” Rick put a hand on the president’s shoulder. “Let me be the one to approach her.”
“No,” Guerrero said emphatically. “This is my job. If that’s her I have to know.”
The president stood up, waving his arms. “Marisela, este es su papa, Juan Guerrero. Baja su arma. Soy yo, Papa!” His voice broke with emotion.
The woman stared at him tensely; her pistol fell to her side. “And I am Chalchiuhtlicue, of the Jade Skirt. My minions call me Chalchi—you may do the same.”
Guerrero approached, open handed, and the closer he drew, the more his face enlivened with hope.
“I need to speak with the commander of the Aztec forces,” she demanded. “I have information to convey immediately.”
“Honey, behind all that paint—I know it’s you. You’re my little girl.”
“Are you the commander of the Aztec forces?” she repeated, her jaw trembling.
“Yes . . . yes, of course I am.”
“Then you should know,” she gulped down a mouthful of air, “that Mexico means you ill.” Her whole body was shaking, and her eyes were fixed on the snow.
“I know, Marisela, I know.” He moved forward and embraced her.
“No, you don’t.” Her lips caved, and deep within her throat a whimper escaped. “They attacked a birthday party. And all of a girl’s friends were murdered.” She struggled to speak, her eyes staring behind glassy panes of tears. “The girl was taken to a castle . . .” She stopped, because her voice had dwarfed to a squeak. “She was beaten and tortured everyday, and given next to nothing to eat. Then, finally, she was sacrificed on an altar.” Her face scrunched up, and the pistol and controller dropped from limp fingers to sink in the ice by her feet. She covered her face with her hands. “And all the girl saw was pain. And all the girl smelled was pain. And all the girl heard was pain. And all the girl became was death . . . because they took her heart away.”
Tears streamed from the president’s eyes as he stroked her hair. She rested her head on his shoulder, but her arms hung mechanically by her sides.
“Shhhh,” he comforted. “No one took your heart away. You’re as kind and as warm as you always were. You’re my girl, Marisela—even though you may be as tall as me now, you’ll always be my little girl.”
Slowly, her arms reciprocated in a hug.
“Your mother and brother will be so thrilled to have you back. Oh, you mean everything to us, Marisela. Oh, God, this is the best day of my life.”
Her body heaved with tears and groans, and her arms tightened around her father. Lazily, white flakes came down, cooling the girl’s face like a damp cloth.
Chapter 53
Blake watched Katrina as she rolled up her poster board, secured it with a rubber band, then returned to her seat. He clapped loudly—the loudest so far for any of the presentations. He wanted her to hear it, and to know who it was coming from. She sat down at her desk next to his, and he nodded at her, smiling.
“That was a great job, Katrina,” he said a bit shyly. “I didn’t know much about ballet until I heard your report. I bet you’re really good at it.”
“Thanks! Maybe you could come to one of my performances sometime.” She smiled back.
“Yeah, that’d be awesome!”
Suddenly, the teacher said sternly, “Is this the fourth grade? I’m beginning to wonder, because you’re acting like a bunch of third graders. There will be no talking during these presentations, do you all understand? So let’s see you act like the mature fourth graders that you are.” She folded her arms, and tried to look severe.
Blake quieted instantly—Mrs. Fields was one of the kindest teachers he had ever had. Sometimes, like the other children, he forgot how lucky he was to have her. She was a black woman, in her thirties, who had lost a husband in the Second Revolutionary War. But she had so internalized her pain that she was quite confident that none of the children knew she was still grieving.
“Blake, are you ready to present today?” She smiled over to the boy.
“Yes.” He stood up, fumbled with his poster board, then walked to the front of the room.
“All right, Blake,” she prompted, “educate us on something you’re very passionate about.”
Slowly, he unfurled his poster board. It wouldn’t stay open, and kept curling in on itself. At a nod of approval from the teacher, Blake’s friend Patrick jumped from his seat and held the poster open so Blake could speak with his hands free. Upon the poster was a map of Europe drawn in marker.
“At first, I wanted to draw a soccer ball and tell about soccer.” He looked down at the floor, then remembered his mother’s coaching, and directed his eyes at the audience. “I also thought about talking about my favorite video game system.” He looked at Patrick and they both smiled. “I’m kind of passionate about a lot of things, but I wanted to pick something that I’m really passionate about—I guess because of what my family’s been through and all.” He looked at the teacher and she nodded somberly.
“I know we should all be fifth graders. But things got stopped with the Revolution last year, so we have to do things over. That’s fine—things are so, so much better this year than last year.
“Anyway, last year I got per . . . persecuted . . . because of my race . . . in this same classroom.” A difficult word and even more difficult memories temporarily broke his concentration. “People should be proud of who they are—no matter where they come from. I’m passionate about people not being treated bad in any way because of the color of their skin.” He set his jaw, closed his fist, and stared off toward the back of the ceiling.
“That’s great so far, Blake. Do you want to talk about your poster now and how it relates to what you just said?”
“Oh, yeah.” He blinked and stared at the map of Europe. “My dad, his friend George, and some other people stood up for white people when no one else would. When it wasn’t popular to do it—when doing it could get you put in jail or killed. But pretty soon, people knew it wasn’t just white people they were helping—it was everyone else, too. Right now, all across Europe,” his finger drew from Ireland to Russia, “European kids our age are being made slaves and even killed. Their parents are being killed. I’m passionate about stopping this when I’m old enough. I want to go to Europe and stop all the killing and persecution. I want to stop it.” His fists closed at his side.
“That was wonderful, Blake.” She smiled. “Stopping slavery and persecution ar
e admirable passions. I wish you the best of luck. And I wish your father the best of luck, too.” She winked.
“Oh, for the election?”
“Yes. Class, as some of you probably already know, Blake’s father, Rick Wilkerson, has declared this morning that he’s running for president of the United States.”
The class clapped without urging by the teacher. Katrina clapped the loudest, and her smile was bright and sweet. Blake rolled up his poster, returned to his chair, and slid low with a sigh of relaxation. So much was already over. He wondered how much had yet to begin.
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