Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  “Even with a magical kick-start, it’s slow,” I said. “How are things down there?”

  “People are asking how we missed Ms. Dietrich. But the woman worked at Rockstead for fifteen years and had a spotless record.”

  “That doesn’t add up,” I said.

  “It does if you discard the theory that it was Victor’s plan. Rusnak has been inside for over a year. He was likely the one who recruited Victor to the operation. The plan probably came from Dietrich herself, given how much access was required to coordinate it.”

  “You owe me ten bucks,” Donny said.

  “Later,” I said. “You’re not even here to get it. Um, getting back to the mess, who was that within tower seven?”

  “Prisoners one through seven were, and I guess some still are, members of the Cult of Thedron. Back in the sixties, they attempted to manifest the avatar of their God as part of what they saw to be the end times. They were frozen by a rival sect of the cult who had doctrinal disagreements about the proper means by which the Avatar of Thedron is supposed to be manifested. They also regarded the proposed host to be unworthy of the honor. They initiated the stasis field in the middle of the ritual. The field was powered by energy drained from powered individuals, though they used anyone who was at hand. As it was unclear what would happen if the field were to be interrupted, we kept it going. The prison grew up around it, replacing the innocents initially used with criminals we needed to de-power.”

  “Were these seven ever convicted of anything?” I failed to keep the shock from my voice.

  “They were eventually tried in absentia. The Cult of Thedron was not a nice organization, and the seven in there had no shortage of actual offenses to justify their incarceration.”

  “What happened to the rest of the cult?”

  “As far as we can tell, the organization had been destroyed by the early seventies, but a handful of members might still be around, if they kept low-key for four decades.”

  “What’s with all the cults?” Donny asked. “I mean, Final Star, these guys, how many ancient orders can there be running around?”

  “The Cult of Thedron is not ancient. It was founded in the twentieth century. The sects fragmented after their leader died,” Dad said. “Then we mopped them up. Or drove them so far underground that we haven’t heard from them since.”

  “Dietrich seemed satisfied that the one guy crumbled to ash,” I said.

  “I don’t know what to say about that,” Dad said. “We had law enforcement search her home, but there was literally nothing there except the bare essentials. It’s as if she had no life outside of the job at the prison.”

  “You didn’t go yourself?” I asked.

  “We’re running down powered criminals. We had to delegate.”

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “For you, nothing.”

  “What?”

  “You’re on medical leave. Focus on getting better. If you get really bored, take Xiv to Mars.”

  “Are they really going to let us play tourist while they’ve got work to do?” I asked.

  “Eight Beta is cleared for portal access, and the habitat section is fully pressurized. So long as you’re in costume, they’ll let you through.” Dad paused. “Don’t go back to the house. Stay at Gruefield. At least until you’re well enough to not get in trouble if left alone.”

  “So, I can go to another planet, but not the house?”

  “You know exactly what my reasoning is, I don’t have to explain it.”

  Dad was right. Here, I would be around other people, and would get help readily if I tripped and ravaged my injuries. At the house, I’d be alone and penned in with my thoughts. With the portal generator in Gruefield, Mars was effectively closer than the house was. Of course, bothering the scientific team was not high on my list of things I wanted to do.

  “All right, I’ll be good,” I said.

  “We need to let someone else use the comm trailer soon, so we’re going to have to wrap this up,” Dad said.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Donny said.

  “That’s what I’m supposed to tell you.”

  “Oh, Ixa said to get better soon, or she’s voting for me to be team lead next time you’re incapacitated.”

  “You really don’t want the job,” I said. “It’s a lot of paperwork.” The screen went blank, and I tried not to slump. Mostly because the dull ache in my ribs got worse if I strained against the brace. At a light tapping I glanced over my shoulder. Xiv stood by the entrance to the room.

  “You didn’t need to wait outside,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want to interrupt.” He walked up to me holding the phone he’d brought outside with him.

  “So how was your time outside?”

  “It was okay,” Xiv said. “I saw something weird, and I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

  “Okay,” I said, uncertain.

  “Can we get pictures from this on the big screen?” Xiv asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure we can.” I opened a panel on the side of the holograph table. A number of cables were tied up in there. I checked a couple against the interface on the phone before I found the correct one and plugged it in. After the system recognized the device, we pulled up the phone’s stored images. The first showed a lamp post lying in the gutter. The rest were close-ups of the pole and the concrete base it used to reside on.

  “So, what are we looking at?” I asked.

  “Someone chewed on it,” Xiv said. The image on the large display was fuzzy, both from the resolution difference, and Xiv’s amateur photography. The damage did resemble tooth marks of some kind of animal.

  “That’s odd,” I said. I didn’t know what to make of it. Chewing down a lamp post was not the typical behavior for creatures large enough to do so. In fact, whatever did it had pretty large teeth.

  “What did it?” Xiv asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Xiv frowned.

  Getting into a hero suit was easier without the torso brace, though the aches and pains told me what hadn’t healed yet. It was good that the brace was only a precaution, because I couldn’t get it back on alone. I put on my mask and descended to the mess hall. Nick was seated at the table with the sludgy remnants of his breakfast in the glass before him. He glanced up.

  “What are you all dressed up for?” Nick asked.

  “The board’s going to call later.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Educated guess, based on the fact they sent me an e-mail saying they were going to call later.”

  “Do they expect me to be there?”

  “Didn’t say. If you want to be there, I suppose it’s fine.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Nick grumbled.

  “Xiv, breakfast?” I asked.

  “I’m good, I had a sandwich.” I looked up. Xiv was on the ceiling. Given that he could both fly and cling to sheer surfaces, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Are you sure you’re part dragon and not part gecko?” I asked.

  Xiv shot me a look. Before I could figure out if I’d actually hurt him, his expression broke and he laughed. “Geckos aren’t winged,” he said, bounding off the atrium half-wall and to the floor.

  “I’m going to grab breakfast,” I said, moving into the kitchen. I took note of how little was left. My role as team cook had a drawback, no one else bothered to keep the kitchen stocked. With me out of commission, the supplies had run a little low. Well, Nick would be fine given his diet. I grabbed something quick and started scribbling down a list of what needed to be restocked. The flash of a reminder in front of my eye made me put the list down and scarf my breakfast as I crossed the mess hall.

  “If you’r
e in that much of a hurry, I guess there won’t be enough time for me to get changed,” Nick said. “Shame.” The lack of actual disappointment dripped from his last word. I impatiently waited for the heavy blast door protecting the residential dome to open and moved down the tunnels to the command center. I took a seat facing the large screens, and Xiv took up a position beside me. I saw no reason to throw him out, so shrugged it off and woke the system.

  When the call popped up, I expected to see the command center at Sterling Towers, for whatever reason. Probably because it was the only place we’d ever talked to the board from this room. Instead, it showed one of the ordinary conference rooms elsewhere in the structure. Instead of the whole board, it only held Mister Saito. Though I’d met the elderly man of Japanese descent several times, we’d never directly spoken. Probably because, as another board member put it, he preferred to listen. As both of these less than fully expected developments worked their way through my brain, I realized that both the board and the command center at Sterling Towers would be very busy given recent developments.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Good morning,” he replied. Saito sounded like someone who’d grown up speaking American English. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had. “Due to deficiencies in available staff, we’re going to have to transfer you to light duty.” My ribs immediately began to ache.

  “I see,” I said. “I suppose there’s something specific you need me to do.”

  “We need to interview people who may know the whereabouts of some of the escapees. It is one component of a multi-pronged stratagem. The lowest probability outcomes are that you stumble onto the escapee or that the interviewees reveal their location.”

  “I don’t want to second-guess the board, but this does strike me as something that regular law enforcement can assist with.”

  “It is a matter of appearances. The average powered criminal does not take unpowered law enforcement seriously. Word that licensed heroes are doing the inquiries is more likely to flush them into the open. Alternatively, they will hide all the deeper, and refrain from committing additional crimes to avoid the attention. This is also an acceptable outcome while we search.”

  “I see.”

  “As far as we are aware, the people you will be interviewing will not have committed any crimes. They are merely connected to an escapee in some manner.”

  “Is it all right if I bring Xiv along? He’s been suffering from cabin fever down here.”

  There was a moment of silent contemplation as Saito mulled it over. “This should not be a high-risk task. You may bring him along.”

  A grin plastered itself across Xiv’s face.

  Part 14

  “I knew medical leave would end sometime,” Icerazor grumbled. Even though I knew what Nick looked like in civilian attire, the difference in appearance had my mind almost regarding him as a different person. I suppose that was the point. The white and ice blue hero suit and red contact lenses were the most dramatic changes to his appearance. The strip of ice-blue cloth he wore for a mask was tied in a way that imitated a ponytail. Our team had previously had more than one vehicle, but ‘Giant Mecha Attacks’ weren’t covered under normal road hazard, so the Community Fund had to foot the bill for replacements. So far they’d provided one. It was a somewhat used car from the existing fleet, but it still ran.

  “First stop is Edith Steyrs,” I said. “Her son is Marc Steyrs, better known as ‘Little Piggy’.”

  “Really? He got out of Rockstead?” Icerazor asked, incredulity seeping into his tone. “I was under the impression Little Piggy was a joke.”

  “Blue Streak took him down solo not long after getting her class three. But he is still a powered criminal.”

  “Move to one of the normal seats, Xiv,” Icerazor said. “Your head’s blocking the rearview mirror.”

  “Sorry,” Xiv said, moving to behind the driver’s seat. I programmed Edith’s address into the GPS and it looked for satellites. It soon began rattling off directions, and Icerazor started driving. The GPS took us out of the city and a third of the way to Pickman’s Crossing before it stopped at a trailer park. The area wasn’t quite rural, but it was far from urban. Unwashed children gave us annoyed looks as we tried to pull into the drive that served as their play area. With a sigh, Icerazor carefully drove around the obstinate kids.

  “You’d think they want to be run over,” I said.

  Even with its signs of wear, our car was the nicest vehicle in the area. There were several I was certain would never move under their own power again. Even those that looked like they might were held together with duct tape and shock cord. We stopped in front of a blue-green trailer marked “Steyrs”. The woman in a plastic lawn chair by the steps glowered at us. Her expression darkened as we stepped out and she got a better look at us.

  “What do you tights want?” she barked.

  “Edith Steyrs?” I asked.

  “Fuck you.” A mass of leathery skin over an osteoporotic skeleton, the woman looked like she was on the verge of fossilizing in her chair. The shapeless floral print garment she wore looked like it might have dated from the seventies.

  “Are you Edith Steyrs?”

  “If I say yes, are you going to go away?”

  “We’re here about Marc.”

  “Marc ain’t here.”

  “I understand that. Do you know where he happens to be?”

  “You sent him off to some prison in Georgia just ‘cuz he’s different. I know plenty people done worse than him who ain’t gone no further than Stone Ridge.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard he escaped.”

  Edith rolled her eyes. “Just leave the boy be.”

  “He’s still got three years on his sentence. If we have to run him down, they’re going to tack on more for escaping. His best chance for leniency is if he turns himself in.”

  “I ain’t heard from him,” Edith snapped.

  “If you do, will you tell him that the authorities are willing to consider leniency for escapees who turn themselves in, and that he’s a prime candidate for it?”

  “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

  “Ma’am, there are minors present,” I gestured towards Xiv.

  “Well, in that case,” Edith launched into a torrent of blasphemous obscenities and profanity in combinations I hadn’t even dreamt possible. The deluge of derogatory dialect struck with an almost palpable impact. It only relented when Edith had to suck a wheezing breath back into her withered lungs.

  “You have a nice day, Ma’am,” I said. We retreated to our car.

  “That went well,” Icerazor said.

  “Xiv, do me a favor, don’t repeat anything you heard that woman say.”

  “I won’t,” Xiv said, sounding shaken up.

  “Who’s next on our list?”

  “Sidonius Garrett, grandson of Sidonius Colt.”

  “I’m guessing that name runs in the family.”

  “Recently changed addresses to a farm north of here,” I said, punching the address into the GPS. Icerazor worked his way around the children and back onto the road.

  The sign over the front drive read “Promised Land Spiritual Retreat.” The address on the box matched the one from our list. A row of sapling hedges marked the line of the fence. From the disturbances in the soil, they’d been recently planted. Healthy fields of crops were visible just past the gate and to either side of the drive. Our tires crunched on the gravel track as we left the county road and approached the compound. Several large buildings had been recently erected around the main farmhouse. They looked residential, probably housing for the people tending the fields by hand. My mood did not hearten when a withered figure stepped in front of our car. He did not have the sun-baked countenance of Edith Steyrs, instead he had the parchment-thin hide a
nd pallor of someone who’d spent decades indoors. I rolled down my window and leaned out.

  “Outsiders are not welcome among the faithful,” he said.

  “Sir, we are looking for Sidonius Garrett. According to public record, he lives here.”

  “Turn off your vehicle and approach no further,” he said.

  With a sigh, Icerazor killed the engine.

  “I will see if he wishes to speak with you. Stay where you are.” He hobbled off at a slow shamble. I slipped back into my seat and sighed. The ache in my ribs throbbed from having leaned out the window.

  “This place feels rather cultish to me,” Icerazor said.

  “There’s nothing illegal about belonging to a cult,” I said.

  “But they do tend to give us a lot of trouble.”

  “There’s no evidence they’re doing anything but farming. At the moment, I’d rather give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “You can’t say it doesn’t strike you as cultish.”

  “Yes, it looks like these people might be part of a cult to me too,” I said. Indeed, all of them were staring at us with mistrust. The ancient figure returned with a young man built like a windswept twig. He had long limbs and a narrow trunk. His head was topped with a short crop of russet hair. His Adam’s apple was unusually pronounced, and his faded blue eyes moved around the car, taking in all of the occupants. He approached my open window.

  “I’m Syd Garrett, I was told you were asking for me.”

  “It’s about your grandfather,” I said.

  “Which one?”

  I paused for a second and chided myself for ignoring the fact that people tended to have two grandfathers. “Sidonius Colt.”

  “Grandfather Colt has been in prison since I was five,” Syd said.

  “You may have heard about the recent break from Rockstead Prison,” I said.

  Syd made an exaggerated show of looking around the farm. “I’m afraid we don’t keep up with current events much around here,” he said. At second glance, I couldn’t even see a power line going to the compound.