by Ran Vant
Katherine stood, shouldered her own pack, and looked down the hill towards Brian hiking away. Maybe he could work on being nicer, she thought. But was he going to change on his own? Brian? Ha! He’d need help. Maybe she was the one to help him work on that. Fat chance he was going to change, but maybe somebody ought to try.
She followed after.
They walked awhile before Brian spoke again. “Listen, the atics are different. That doesn't make them evil.”
Hmph. Maybe Brian was feeling a little guilty about his outburst and wanted to justify himself. “Then how come they kill city escapes?” Katherine asked.
“Cause people aren't supposed to go into the Refuge Territories. It's illegal. Don't be stupid.”
There was that word again that she hated. “You live here,” she pointed out sharply.
“I was born here.”
“Still technically illegal. And the atics are illegally living here, too.”
“They aren't destroying the place with technology. They're just living naturally like the rest of the animals.”
“Humans weren't meant to live like animals.”
“Says who?” Brian asked.
7.
Tag
Lightbringer stood on the edge of the floating castle. If the target was down there, he would find it. But there was only one way to be sure.
He leapt off the edge of Fortress Magritte. Stormcaller, Starmaker, and Suncatcher fell behind him, silver, red, and yellow falling stars trailing the blackness.
He was headed for the grassy plains, the lightly populated place the truds called the Refuge Territories, but which he knew as part of the Wild Lands. It was never hard to find what they were looking for there. With few humans and even fewer structures, everything stood out in sharp contrast on Michael's scanners.
He saw the settlement below. He checked the threat scan. It didn't look as if this settlement was armed with anything more than primitive ballistic slingers. Nothing to be worried about.
Even as the Guardians swooped low on their descent into the settlement, it seemed that no one saw them. This settlement took their safety from the hovering presence of Magritte for granted.
Michael's wings sprung from their pods, tore into the air, and rapidly decelerated his fall. His feet gently brushed the ground as he swooped forward before finally landing on the ledge of a wall. Michael crouched and studied the 360-degree view from his helmet and the swirling scanner analytics. The few people close by who saw him land on the wall stood frozen. His fellow Guardians landed on the outskirts of the settlement, preventing anyone from slipping out.
The scanners completed their work and confirmed what Magritte had estimated before the mission even began: there were four targets of interest. Three of them were in the schoolhouse building to his right, one was in a small house a little further into the settlement.
Michael leapt into the air towards the schoolhouse. He landed just short of the door and opened it. He walked swiftly down a short hallway before coming to a classroom door. He opened it and strode into the classroom.
Most of the children, large and small alike, froze, the most typical civilian response to a Guardian. A few children began to cry. The teacher began to plead but Michael ignored her. He put the scanners to work on the room. The three were here.
He moved closer to them. He held his open hand over each one of them in turn. The first two were rejected quickly. The third did not appear to be a match, but depending on the error parameters, she was worth noting.
Michael extended his finger and placed it on the girl's arm. She felt a sharp pain for a fraction of a second as a small amount of blood was extracted before the tracking fluid was inserted. Then the sharp pain subsided as quickly as it had arrived. Nothing but a slight red blemish remained, which would disappear by the end of the day, though the suspicions of her classmates and neighbors would last a lifetime.
The first part of the mission completed, Michael left the schoolhouse and looked for the fourth. The last target was here, somewhere. He would find her.
**
People were running around the settlement now, clearly agitated. Michael knew he had stirred them up, but it would not be for long. Soon, they would continue on with their primitive trud existence.
He approached the house. The scanner showed that the final target was inside. As Michael reached for the door, a man rounded the corner of the house, assault rifle in hand. The man's eyes grew wide at the sight of the black armored figure. The man lifted the assault rifle to his shoulder and let loose a torrent of fire at the invader.
The bullets plinked off Michael's armor of night. He slowly turned towards the man and calmly raised his gauntleted fist, pointing it directly at the man. The man dropped the gun and fled. “They aren't all completely stupid,” Michael thought.
Michael again reached for the door, opened it, and entered. He found the girl, sleeping, in bed. The scanner indicated her body temperature was well above normal. Most likely it was due to some illness, because none of the other indicators were present. But just to be sure, he extended his finger to her arm. She only rolled over as he took a sample and tagged her in the same manner as he had with the girl at the schoolhouse. The girl continued sleeping.
Having gotten what he came for, Michael left the house. Three more men had now appeared with primitive weapons. Michael ignored them. They had done nothing illegal as far as he was concerned. They possessed no forbidden technology and didn't appear to have any knowledge of fortech, so there was no need to eliminate them. He called “Solid” into the comlink, and the four Guardians of the West flew once more to the hovering fortress above. A hail of lead tried to follow them towards the heavens and failed.
8.
Understanding
The aroma of the eggs, hash browns, and onions smelled fantastic. Meredith stirred the skillet. “Are you learning a lot? Are you having fun this season?” Meredith asked.
“I guess so,” Katherine answered as she scratched behind Thunder the Dog’s ears and patiently waited for breakfast. “Most of the classes aren't too hard this year. Biology is still tough. I can't identify many plants around here. If it doesn't have a flower I think it's really hard. It still feels like I don't know anything.”
Meredith smiled. “It will take a while for it to sink in.” Truth be told, Meredith admitted to herself, lots of people who were born in the R.T. never mastered plant identification, especially as Rick taught it. She supposed it wasn’t her place to tell Katherine what was, and what wasn’t, an essential life skill.
It was hard for Meredith to believe Katherine was the same little girl who had shown up so many years ago. Katherine was practically a young woman now. She had shown up practically a mute, and now they talked practically every morning. Meredith almost felt like Katherine was more her little sister than Brian was her little brother. Katherine seemed to have recovered from the trauma that led them here, whatever it was. Meredith also noticed that Katherine was gradually becoming more assertive. Meredith even noticed that her sometimes almost intolerable ‘little’ brother Brian, who was now ‘little’ only in the sense of relative age, couldn't push Katherine around as easily anymore.
“I know. That's what my dad always tells me. But Brian knows so much more than I do, and he lets me know it.”
Meredith turned down the stove and put a plate of breakfast food on the table for Katherine. Katherine set Thunder down on the floor. The dog cocked its head and stared up at Katherine as she reached for the plate of food. Meredith sat down across the table in the cramped underground room.
“Listen, I know more than anyone that my little brother can act like a know-it-all. Don't let it bug you. That's just the way he is.”
Thunder barked and Meredith hushed him.
“But sometimes I think he's wrong, even if I don't know exactly why. And I can't get him to listen to me.”
“He makes up his mind and it's hard to change. Katherine, it's called being stubborn. He has to
learn some things for himself.”
“But I'm worried that if he has to learn it for himself, he's going to get hurt.” Katherine purposely let a bit of egg fall off her fork, and Thunder gobbled it up.
“Like from what?” Meredith asked, ignoring the ‘accidental’ food drop. Katherine was too good to that dog.
“Oh, I don't know. I guess like atics. He doesn't think they're all that bad.”
Meredith leaned forward across the table, brow furrowed. “What do you mean? Is he talking like a Fanatic?” Her eyes narrowed and her ears listened intently. The dog whimpered, begging for another drop of food.
“No, nothing like that. He just thinks that if he learns their rules, he'll be safe. I try to tell him it's better to just keep your distance, but he won't listen. He watches them whenever he can.”
“Is he telling Odin or Alaric about the atic sightings?”
“I don't know.”
“Well, we need to find out.”
9.
Found Treasure
“Greendust allows it to be aerosolized, essentially. Without it, the compounds will not disperse properly,” Damien explained.
Red picked up the argument, “Listen to me, Blue, that is how Baxter messed up the Cobra Operation. The whole cloud just sank to the bottom of the facility. Minimal effect. The bad guys were all still awake, ready to greet our assault team. Disaster.”
“Red, I don't know how you uncovered this.”
“As I was saying, Damien and I were looking in the tunnels for an appropriate operational site for the Big Project. And when we broke open one of the old bricked-up corridors, we found the stash, tucked away at the far end of a dead-end corridor. Well, actually, to be more precise, Damien found it. The Greendust must have been put there ages ago by an old NHA team, or perhaps it's even older, dating back to the Machine War or before. When the gens cleared out one of the old city units, nobody was left alive to operate it. Just a theory. In any case, everybody must have eventually forgotten about it.”
“And you're certain it's Greendust?”
“Yes, Blue, I am certain. The good doctor confirmed it.”
“What else was hidden down there, Red?”
“A few rocket packs, really-out-of-date rail guns, and a few other morsels of interest. The most relevant fact, though, is that the tunnel complex will in fact work for the Big Project and we're building it out now. But to answer what I think you were really asking: we found nothing else like the Greendust. It’s a gift; I don't know why you think it's such a bad idea. The Greendust is useful. I'll bring up the topic with Chi if I have to.”
“I'm concerned because it could be used in combination with Dreptex. It seems to me the Greendust would do the job as a combo agent. Might have even been designed for it,” Blue said. “Isn't that right, Damien?”
Damien glanced at Red briefly. “Yeah, that's right, Blue. Greendust has multiple applications. If mixed with Dreptex, it would aerosolize it, for lack of a better lay-term.” He answered with just the facts. This argument was above his pay grade, and though his life might depend on its outcome, he did what Red and Blue told him to do. He understood that when he signed up.
Red acknowledged the point on Dreptex. “Yes. It could be, Blue. But Dreptex has been completely suppressed, thankfully. It's all gone and nobody knows how to make it anymore. Nobody's going to kill everybody in a whole sector with a Dreptex and Greendust combination. We aren't talking about mixing it with Dreptex and killing off cities or everyone with a genetic marker. We're just talking about putting a bunch of the Core to sleep, and only temporarily at that. They all will wake up at the end of the day.”
“But you admit it could be used to kill off a sector,” she pressed.
“Theoretically. But, again, nobody knows how to make the stuff that actually does the killing, Blue. Dreptex is dead. It's lost to history. And even if they did figure out how to make it, they wouldn't be able find all the ingredients today. Too much forbidden tech involved. It's not just a poison. And if they had all of the ingredients, they don't have the processing machines. And if they have the processing machines, they don't have a delivery system. And if they have a delivery system, well, yeah, then we need to worry about them getting their hands on this dispersion agent, on the Greendust. But that's way too many 'ifs.' We can use this Greendust now, in a very limited way, and it will save NHA lives. We mix the Greendust with the sleeping agent and it will actively seep into every corner and put the whole Core facility to sleep. We can get in there to take what we need from the Core. Dreptex doesn't have anything to do with it. Dreptex is gone.”
“Everyone thought all the Greendust was gone, too,” Blue pointed out. “But here is a stash, put in place years ago but still hanging around. Nobody knows how to make Greendust anymore, either. But we have it. You haven't convinced me at all that it's safe, Red.”
“Blue, if you insist we go after the True Core database, well, we need this. It's foolish not to use the Greendust. The Core compound is a hundred meters deep. There is no way we can get at the Core's database without it.”
“Saying ‘no way’ is a high bar. You could do it,” she replied.
“It would waste too many lives, both True Core and Natural Human Alliance. Damien here will be leading the operation. He's not crazy about a bloodbath and neither am I. Truds shouldn't be killing truds if we don't have to. Listen, I informed you because you're the intelligence boss around here and thought you should know, and I thought you'd see this Greendust is a godsend. The bottom line is this: I'm not destroying the Greendust stash and General Chi will back me up.” Red had tried being nice. Sometimes he just had to tell Blue how it was.
“Okay, Red. Okay. We'll keep it for now. But I'm moving it to a vault.” Blue knew when she was bettered but wasn't willing to concede total defeat. She'd read in the classified archives about what Dreptex could do if someone solved the dispersion problem, and she wanted to make that as difficult as possible.
“I have no problem with a vault. That's fine,” Red said. He just needed to keep the Greendust compound around for now. Everything else could be straightened out later. This was more difficult than it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be straightforward: Find the stuff, realize how useful it could be, demonstrate its usefulness, and set aside the rest of the Greendust for a time when it was really needed. But Blue didn't always play along with Red's plans. Blue had her own ideas about how to fight and they didn't always align with Red's ideas. Sometimes, it even seemed Blue’s plans were purposely opposed to Red’s. But Red knew that might just be paranoia speaking. Still, one being paranoid didn’t necessarily mean that one was wrong.
“In a few weeks, assuming I haven't changed my mind, someone can pick up just enough for the operation. The rest of it stays locked up,” Blue said.
Red didn't need her permission, but arguing the issue was quite pointless. He’d gotten what he needed. It didn’t really matter to Red whether Blue thought she was being gracious or using her authority. She could think herself Queen as long as Red could still move forward, as far as he was concerned. In any case, Blue now knew about the Greendust and wasn’t going to stop Red from using it and keeping the rest for later. That was enough. “I'll be sending Damien for it. Thank you.”
Blue left the room.
“What's with her?” Damien asked.
“She doesn't like a lot of fortech. Even the non-modology stuff. I understand. I do.” Greendust was in fact dangerous, and Red knew it. Perhaps it was even more dangerous than Blue thought.
“You may understand her opposition, but I don't understand it. We should use every tool at our disposal. Some of those tools are going to be dangerous. If it helps us win, I say we use it, no holds barred.”
“That attitude, Damien, is why I selected you for this mission.”
“I'm glad you did. I'm looking forward to finding out what the Core has been hiding down there.”
Red nodded. But that wasn't exactly the mission Red had in min
d.
10.
Guests on High
Brian walked several paces ahead of Katherine through the wooded flood plain. “Seriously, I'm not letting you come with me if you are going to rat me out to my old hag of a sister. I can't believe you told Meredith that I've been tracking atics. We aren’t children anymore and it’s none of their business what we do.”
“I just want to make sure you are safe. You don't need to be furious.” She was having to jog every once in a while just to keep up. Little Thunder trotted after.
“I can take care of myself. I don't need you to keep me safe. I don't need you to try and change me,” he said, accelerating his pace.
“Hey, wait up.”
“Keep up or get lost.” He went even faster, putting a little distance between them. Thunder stayed with Katherine.
**
Eventually he slowed, and she caught up to him but did not draw even. She remained a few paces behind. The two walked on in silence through the forest for a long time. The only sound was Thunder occasionally pawing in the leaves.
Then Brian stopped dead in his tracks. Katherine froze a few feet behind him. Even the dog froze. She had learned a lot since she came to the Refuge Territories. And Brian only stopped dead in his tracks for a reason. Katherine focused on all her senses. She didn't see anything. She scanned the forest. There was nothing that she could see that was out of place. She strained to listen for anything unusual but heard only the birds. She attempted to see if she could smell something on the air. It had never worked before, but sniffed deeply, trying to smell whatever it was.
