18% Gray

by Anne Tenino

  “Weren’t you here before? Like when I, uh….” He seemed to get lost.

  “When you set off the disruptor-frag?” Dyson asked, smiling down at him. That little fucker was always smiling. With those fucking cute dimples he inherited from his dad. Slutty little flirt. They were on a battlefield, here!

  “Yeah. That.”

  “Yeah. What happened to you?”

  “Don’ know. Big ball of light, flew through the air, hit my back on something. Seems okay, though. Can’t feel it, anyway.”

  Laslo froze. Shit. Fucking shit. He flicked a look up to Dyson. The kid hadn’t caught that. He looked down at Logan’s restless arms and still legs. Then up at the boulder he was lying in front of. Fuck.

  Nine hundred meters, Major. You have less than ten. Jude’s “voice” floated in his aural net.

  “How fast can Bollinger get back here?” He got the long-click back. Standby.

  Three minutes, sir.

  “Okay, need him with a package.” Laslo turned to Dyson. “Go back and take the remote up when Bollinger comes down. Move, Dyson,” he said when he knew the kid was going to argue. He used his older-brother voice, which had more effect on Dy than his command voice. Mom would fucking kill him if something happened to her baby. Or worse, she’d turn him over to Gramma Anais. Laslo shuddered.

  “’S’wrong?” Logan asked blearily.

  “Some of your friends are moving in, bud.”

  Logan’s momentary confusion cleared up while Laslo moved down to his feet. “Not my friends,” he said, sounding like a stubborn eight-year-old.

  “Logan, can you move your feet for me?”

  “Yeah.” Long pause. “Can you help me find ’em?”

  “Right here, bud.” Laslo tapped on Logan’s boot with his hand.

  “Huh? Where?” Logan was trying to lift his head off the ground, straining his neck to see Laslo, but the c-field held him in place.

  Laslo used the butt of his rifle and tapped harder. “Here.”

  “Can see you, but….” He looked confused as hell.

  “Not a problem. We’ll get it worked out, buddy.” If Logan knew him at all he’d realize how bad things must be for Laslo to call him “buddy.”

  Slowly, Laslo moved up Logan’s legs, tapping. He found a sharp object in his u-vest and started poking through Logan’s armor-camos with it. Nothing. Shit.

  Bollinger came up with the extendable board. The lift must be back at the skimmer. “Bad?”

  Bollinger was a man of few words. With few syllables.

  “Yeah. Spine, I think.”

  Bollinger nodded distractedly, and started poking at Logan all over again. Laslo barely refrained from pointing out he’d already done that. Bollinger was faster at it, anyway.

  “Yeah, nothin’.” Bollinger looked at him, waiting for orders.

  “Package him.”

  Bollinger hesitated. “’S gonna take ten minutes, Major. Can’t do it wrong, or they might never get him hooked up again.”

  He might never have a working spinal column again, in other words. Shit.

  “’S goin’ on?” Logan was starting to look alarmed. It was sinking in.

  “You have a damaged spinal column, looks like,” Bollinger answered before Laslo could take control of the situation.

  Logan’s face paled and his mouth opened, just a little, in shock. His head thudded to the ground. Laslo shot Bollinger a dirty look. It bounced off him.

  Three minutes, Major, came Jude’s voice in his net. “Moving to click only.” He double clicked. Laslo automatically double clicked back.

  “They can do this in Boise, Major,” Bollinger said, looking at him levelly.

  Laslo looked at him a few seconds. They needed to get the hell out of here.

  Fuck!

  “Clean up and cover us.” Bollinger sprang into action, taking off the field AED while Laslo moved to Logan’s head. Then Bollinger was up, covering their position from the south. The rest of the stuff wasn’t critical to recover, but field AEDs were expensive little fuckers, and someone in SpecOps Accounting would have their ass if they left it. Not to mention he didn’t know if it was standard equipment for RIA militiamen, and they might notice it sitting there when they came marching up.

  “Logan, gonna have to leave you, buddy.” Inexplicably, Laslo felt like throwing up.

  “You said I was going to Oregon.” Logan looked like he was about to cry. Not mad or betrayed, just crushed. Something twisted in Laslo’s chest.

  “You will, I promise.” Laslo started pulling off the IV vial and picking up the little med kit detritus. Trying to make it look like Logan hadn’t received help. Like he’d doctored himself. It could happen. Even the c-field. You know, if you were gullible. “Listen to me. You’re the only survivor. You used your own med kit.” Laslo searched Logan’s utility armor until he found it. “And administered your own drugs, okay?” Logan just looked at him while Laslo cleared the med kit of the appropriate supplies. He dumped the drugs out on the ground, leaving the packaging littered around. Logan wasn’t answering. “Okay?”

  Finally, Logan nodded.

  “They’ll grow you a new spine in the vet tech center in Boise, and when you can travel, I’ll come back for you.” Laslo looked him in the eye as he said it. Logan had to know he was sincere.

  “You’re coming? You promise?” He looked so terrified and vulnerable and hopeful, Laslo couldn’t help himself. He leaned down and gave Logan a quick kiss.

  “Promise,” Laslo whispered against his lips.

  Logan’s face relaxed a little, and he shut his eyes. Laslo started to move back. Logan’s hand shot out and grabbed him. “Promise?”

  “Yeah. I promise, Logan. I’m coming back to get you.” Even if he had to do it on his own time. “Then I’m dragging your hot ass out on some dance floor and grinding against you all night.”

  Logan looked startled, but strangely reassured. Laslo pulled back, looking in his eyes. “Bollinger, fall back to the skimmer.” He clicked the fallback signal to the craft.

  He started backing, but Logan’s voice stopped him. “You’ve never seen my ass.”

  Laslo gave him a quick grin. “More to look forward to.”

  Chapter 23

  THEY picked up an unfriendly going back over the Snake. Brownlee Station had gotten their shit together to send out a ground missile. But Holland was not only pilot extraordinaire; he could handle an antimissile laser at the same time. And chew gum. All without a junior pilot.

  At least that’s what James picked up from the chatter around him, both the verbal and the mental. They’d given him a com, but not a weapon. Probably smart.

  He could feel Matt stirring. “Coming to,” he said to the medic, who’d harnessed in nearby. The guy set his e-harness to mobile, coming over. He didn’t talk much, which was currently one of James’s favorite personality traits. Matt’s whole damn family seemed like a bunch of chatterboxes.

  Just as Matt’s mind was hitting conscious levels, the tallish guy with the curly black hair by the door—Jude?—finally said something that caught James’s interest.

  “Th’fuck? Is that a horse swimming the river?”

  James head shot up. Shit. He’d forgotten Miz, and now she was alone. Not that they could have fit her on the skimmer, but maybe he could’ve… what? Given her his address? His head was too muddled to make contact, even though he tried.

  “James.” Matt’s voice re-centered his attention.

  “Matty?”

  “That sounds like a girl’s name.”

  James gave Matt a weak smile and leaned down, giving him a gentle kiss. “Miz is swimming the river.”

  “Don’t worry, babe. She’ll find you.” Matt squeezed his hand and seemed to fade out again.

  Babe. James soaked it up. No one had ever used an endearment for him. Unless he counted “dude,” “asshole,” or “cocksucker.” “Dude” was generally used in the more tender moments. Like, “harder, dude, pound my ass!”


  “Daddy” was not an endearment of any sort in his reckoning.

  He sighed and leaned his head back against the storage wall, letting the medic check Matt over as well as he could with James pressed up tight against Matt’s head, stroking his hair. The medic never complained, and James didn’t offer to move.

  They took the skimmer to Forward Operating Base Joseph, and then caught a Feng Niao to Weimer. Matt came to when they switched aircraft. Long enough to say goodbye to Beni, who was being sent to an NACC convent in the Willamette Valley. She was pissed about it too.

  Until they loaded a still slightly woozy Van Vanos on the same craft with her, so he could head back to QESA HQ. Then she started cooing over him and forgot all about the convent. James wondered idly if Beni was going to join the mile-high club and lose her virginity at the same time. Van looked like easy pickin’s.

  The medic had pumped Matt full of nano-menders for the burns, and James could already see improvement when they hit the brightly lit field at the Weimer Airbase. By morning he would have pink skin and some itching, the medic said. James was pretty sure that was the longest sentence he’d said all night.

  “Works faster in skin,” he added.

  Just before touching down, Matt came to again.

  “We’re almost home,” James told him, leaning in to say it in his ear, brushing his lips against the whorl. Matt shivered a little. He turned his head and kissed James slowly.

  “If my family’s waiting, you might need to back off a little. Give them time at me. You know.”

  “I know.” Even if it sucked.

  “And my dad, he’s kinda weird. Freaks out if I get too touchy with a boyfriend.”

  James started to frown, but Matt quickly went on. “It’s not a gay thing, babe. He’s the same way if Andry has a girlfriend. Freaks him out to think of his kids getting any.”

  “Okay.” James didn’t know what to say. He suddenly felt like time was running out for them.

  Matt was closing off his mind again. James could tell it was habit, now. He didn’t even realize he was doing it.

  “’Sides, your dad will prolly be there, right?” Matt asked. James shrugged, stifling the sardonic snort that wanted out. “And Lance will want to talk to you.”

  “’S’okay, baby. You just worry about your family. We need to talk, soon, but tonight be with them.”

  “Gah. ‘We need to talk’? Those are, like, the four scariest words in the English language.”

  James managed a smile for the joke. Matt looked a little puzzled, and even alarmed. “I’ll come by tomorrow, babe. We can talk then.”

  Matt looked a lot puzzled and alarmed now. “Tomorrow? Um, okay.” He looked like he wanted to ask, and James was hoping he would, Aren’t you staying with me tonight?

  But he didn’t. And then they touched down. Getting Matt off the Feng Niao took work and coordination in the tight space, and there were too many people around and things going on for them to talk again.

  Matt’s family was waiting. His parents, brother, Anais, and the grampas. And some other people James could only guess at. Not to mention the team that had extracted him.

  James let himself get shunted off to the side, away from Matt, when Gabi Viteaux-Tennimore grabbed on to her son. He could see Matt’s dad, Finley, right behind her, reaching in to touch Matt’s arm.

  James looked around. No surprise, but his own father wasn’t there. Probably finding out he had a gay son was too much of a shock for him.

  He looked on for a while, watching Matt’s family chatter away. The love and relief they all felt was so tangible, James thought he could almost see it. It looked like a swirling cloud of red and cream, enveloping them. For a few seconds, James wondered if he was starting to see auras. But he shook his head hard, and the visual went away.

  The feeling of being excluded didn’t leave, though.

  He was so caught up in watching the reunion—with a barely conscious man at its center—that he didn’t realize anyone was standing next to him.

  “Welcome home, James.” James turned his head. It was Lance. He’d never really met the guy, except on the vid hookup.

  “Lieutenant Colonel.” James saluted.

  “Can it, Ayala. Call me Lance. Or Kell if you can’t stomach Lance. You’re as good as discharged and I’m retired. You and Matt have to appear at a hearing tomorrow at 1800, and then it’s official, but the deal’s already been made. Just what we talked about in Cambridge.”

  James swallowed. “So, um, Matt has to go?”

  Lance slanted him a look. “Yeah. Need his testimony. I thought you’d want him with you.”

  “Well, yeah.” Shit. How to ask this. “I just don’t want him to be stuck with me, sir.”

  “Don’t call me ‘sir’, either.”

  “Uh, okay, Lance, sir.”

  Lance rolled his eyes. “Listen, James, Matt needs to be there tomorrow night, and unless he gets barred by his doctor he will be. And if you’re wondering about the future…?” Lance gave an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows. As in “go on, boy.”

  James just kept himself from standing at attention. “Yes. I’d like to make sure that if Matt doesn’t want to, he won’t have to work with me. As a team, I mean. Just in case things, um, change.”

  Lance stared at him. It was a little intimidating. The guy was big, and still vital, even in his seventies. And James was fucking his grandson. “What are you worried about, James?”

  James took a breath. “I’m not sure it’s good for his life expectancy to hang around with me.”

  “I think that’s his decision. Unless you don’t want him to ‘hang around’ with you.”

  “I do want him hanging around.” Jesus, he felt like a teenager, having this conversation with his date’s mildly threatening father figure.

  “Are you going to try to make that decision for him?”

  “No. I’m going to discuss it with him first, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir,” Lance snapped absently.

  James managed not to snort. He watched Lance stare off into his family’s impromptu celebration. Finally Lance refocused on him. “You have a job with QESA, James, no matter what. But if you hurt my grandson I can’t promise to be a pleasant boss.” He paused a second, then softened his voice a little. “Things will work out for the best, James. Give it a chance.”

  Then Lance’s whole demeanor changed, becoming more professional. “Now, there are a few things I need to tell you. I told you already the Boulder Blue cell escapees said the report of your detainment in the re-education camp didn’t come from them. Things there were chaos since right after Boulder fell. No one knows of any extractee reports coming out of there.

  “We still don’t know how you were found or who reported your location. But SOUF has someone in custody. One of the original scientists on the project, McNeel Blau. He’s the scientist who testified to the Pentagon that the implant project was ready for beta-testing in troops. He’s also been the sole oversight for project data and assessment since you and the others were implanted.”

  James felt too out of touch with reality to absorb the significance of what Lance was saying. “So… one guy’s responsible for the whole program?”

  “Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? For one thing, he had to put together the surgical team. They’re being questioned. He almost had to have help, and he’s saying he was following orders, but refuses to give up names until SOUF cuts an immunity deal with him.”

  James felt like laughing. Some fucker potentially ruined the rest of his life, and who knew how many others, and he wanted immunity? “How many others?” James asked roughly.

  “Five. There were six of you altogether.” James could feel Lance’s eyes on him, and he turned to look. “No one knows who any of them are, except you. Anonymity was necessary to protect the data, according to Blau. He claims to not even know the implantee names himself.”

  James was speechless. There were so many things wrong with the picture. It was overwhelmi
ng. “I know about one other guy,” he offered.

  “Anais knows that. Forget about it for tonight, son.” Son? “You and Matt will be debriefing with Major General Selkirk and Anais tomorrow after the discharge hearing. You can think about it then. For now just be careful. I think my grandson cares very much about your life expectancy too.”

  So James did exactly that. He let it all go. He’d deal with it tomorrow. After he dealt with the more important issue of his future with Matt.

  “Someone over there is waiting to talk to you.” Lance gave a chin jerk, indicating someone was standing behind James. He clapped his hand on James’s shoulder and walked away.

  James turned around slowly. He had a bad feeling about this. An entirely justified bad feeling. It was his father. Pop was wearing the same stony expression James often adopted.

  This could go either way.

  Pop shook his hand. That was James’s greeting from the father he hadn’t seen in more than three years.

  “Hey, Pop,” he said uncomfortably.

  “James.” He got a head nod.

  It took exactly seventeen more words to decide that James would first go to the base clerk and get his ID reinstated and Blue chip turned back on, then Pop would take him “back to my place.”

  Apparently, it wasn’t James’s home anymore. James sighed and bounced along beside his father in the old electric flatbed.

  The ID reinstatement took a while, with the instant DNA identification test, and James had to com with the Psi-force duty officer. Even if he was getting discharged and everyone knew it, they all still pretended not to and did everything by regulation.

  James wouldn’t even have bothered, but he had a sneaking suspicion he’d need to be a part of the military machine again, at least for tonight. Morning, whatever. Even if it was just to have a place to sleep after he had it out with his father.

  At the ranch house, Pop was nice enough to offer him a beer first. Then he started in.

  “So, they say you’re a fag.” Pop held himself stiffly, and for a second James could see a flicker of hope in his eye.

  “Yep,” he said casually, then burped. It seemed appropriate. He looked Pop in the eye, waiting for the blowup. He’d been waiting his whole life for this.