by Weston Ochse
A vehicle skidded to a stop outside.
“Looks like our ride is here.”
A moment later, a tall thin army lieutenant with his blond hair cut high and tight strode into the store. He wore his starched ACUs like they were a second skin, but there were no unit or combat patches on it, nor was there a name tag. His uniform was sterile. Stone-faced, it didn’t seem like the place many emotions lingered.
“You Starling, May, and McQueen?” he asked.
They stared at him instead of answering.
The shop owner pushed himself back into a corner, unsure if this was a meeting or something closer to the O.K. Corral.
Boy Scout said, “You must be Poe.”
The man nodded. “I am.”
“Good, we’ve been waiting for you.”
“Exactly what I was going to say.”
Chapter Eight
On a Dark Desert Highway
THEY ROARED DOWN the highway in a black Ford Expedition with blacked-out windows. By the feel of the suspension, the vehicle was also up-armored as well, which didn’t make a lot of sense here in the good old US of A. Still, riding in the passenger seat with body armor and a chest rig reminded Boy Scout of all the times they’d ferried diplomats or senior military officials in and around Kabul, Afghanistan. The thousand times they’d been caught in the herds of Toyota Corollas around Masoud Circle or moved through the multiple layers of security in the Green Zone or funneled down Airport Road as they approached the main gate of Kabul International Airport all slammed into a memory sandwich that was impossible for him to digest.
Then the final time they were in an up-armored SUV, at last escaping the dervishes and the horrors of the cistern, heading for safety, only to hit an IED and come under direct fire from an ambush. They’d all been hit. He’d thought McQueen and Preacher’s Daughter weren’t going to make it, but they all did. The worst of it had been inside of him, whispers turning into threats, voices that weren’t his own.
And now they were heading towards China Lake, according to the close-mouthed Poe. For what reason, Boy Scout couldn’t be sure, but he’d be damned if he’d let a sorry US Army first lieutenant decide his fate. He had connections he hadn’t even worked. Escorting and ultimately saving enough general officers had the benefit of future favors, ones he’d banked so that they could accrue interest.
They’d been traveling for two hours when Preacher’s Daughter finally broke the silence.
She never did understand that all the power rested in the person being spoken to. McQueen knew it and had been pretending to sleep this whole time. Boy Scout certainly knew it, and had spent the hundred and twenty minutes trying to internally communicate with the travelers inside of him.
Whether she knew it or not, her patience had finally given out.
“I knew you were looking for us. You left your footprints all over the web.”
Lieutenant Poe glanced in the rearview mirror, then back at the two-lane desert highway unrolling before him. “I meant it that way. You all know what you’re doing. Your history tells me how dangerous you can be. Reports from the monastery indicate you haven’t lost much of your dangerousness in the last six months. I guessed letting you know you were being looked for might be better than surprising you.”
“It was you who dropped the information about preparing to come get us in Twentynine Palms?”
“I knew you’d need to get somewhere quick once the dervishes found your location. This was the closest military base where I could have any semblance of control.”
“Not often an army lieutenant has control on a marine base,” McQueen said.
“I have a letter that gets me pretty much what I want.”
“Signed by your mother, I suppose,” Preacher’s Daughter put in.
“She wasn’t available so I had to a get it from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”
“Was it you who made them deny our helicopter landing?” Boy Scout asked.
“It was. Less red tape if I could get you outside the base.”
“Even with the letter?” Boy Scout asked.
“Even with the letter. Never underestimate the ability of the military to be overly bureaucratic,” Poe said.
Preacher’s Daughter snorted. “Sounds like something Boy Scout would say.”
“Some axioms are universal,” Poe said.
“So what unit are you with?” McQueen asked.
“One you’ve never heard of.”
“Try us. We’ve been around,” Preacher’s Daughter said.
“Special Unit 77.”
“Never heard of it,” McQueen said.
“You got me,” Preacher’s Daughter added.
Everyone was silent for a moment, then she asked, “What about you, boss? Every heard of this Heinz 57?”
Boy Scout noted that the Joshua trees they’d been passing had all but disappeared and now outside the window was all a wasteland of sand and low scrub. “I’ve heard of them. I know they did some work in San Francisco during the sixties and seventies. Not sure what they did after that.”
Poe turned to him and a smile crested his face. “Now I’m impressed.”
Boy Scout shrugged. “Don’t be. I’ve just been around. Seen a few things.”
“About that,” Poe began. “I was hoping you would let me help you. As I understand it you have several entities inside of you and probably want to get them out.”
“You have a dust buster that can do the trick?” Preacher’s Daughter grinned.
“Not exactly. But we do have archives of information you can have access to.”
“Are you taking us to the super-secret Warehouse 13 where you have the Ark of the Covenant and a whole squad of exorcists?”
Poe all but turned around to stare at her, a perplexed look on his face. Then he looked at Boy Scout as if he wanted to ask, Is she always like this?
Seeing it, McQueen answered for all of them from the back seat. “She’s like wine. You either get used to it or spit it out and switch to beer.”
Preacher’s Daughter put her hand on McQueen’s arm. “Aww, that’s nice. You compared me to wine. You… I think you’re like a very hoppy IPA.” She nodded. “Yup. That’s it. You’re the hipster beer that can strangle an unsuspecting drinker.”
McQueen shook his head and offered a rare grin. “Trust me when I say I’ve never strangled any unsuspecting drinkers. They’ve all been expecting it.” Then he looked at Poe. “I think the lady asked a question.”
Preacher’s Daughter fanned her face with her hand. “First wine and then he calls me a lady.”
Poe cleared his throat. “There’s no Warehouse 13 and there’s no squad. The members of Seventy-Seven are dispersed in several remote locations in order to respond to certain events. We determined long ago that there wasn’t any need for an office or a headquarters because most of us were never there.”
Preacher’s Daughter leaned forward and put a hand on Poe’s shoulder. “You’re telling me that there isn’t a giant warehouse somewhere that contains magical and religious artifacts that the US government has determined are detrimental to the health and safety of American citizens?”
Poe glanced at her hand, clearly wanting it removed, but Preacher’s Daughter kept it there.
“I’m not saying that,” he said through a clenched jaw. “I’m saying that that’s not where we are going.”
Preacher’s Daughter flung herself back into her seat. “Ha!” she cried. Then she held out a hand to McQueen. “Pay up. I told you I’d get him to tell me about his secret warehouse.”
McQueen groaned. “Put it on my tab.”
“Your tab’s getting pretty long,” she said.
Poe said, “Seriously? You made a bet?”
Boy Scout smiled for what felt like the first time in a long time. Being back among his team really was what he needed. He’d spent too much time alone—too much time in his own head. His team wasn’t the same as it had been. They’d lost too many of their own. But they st
ill had the three of them as the core and right now that’s all that mattered.
“Why China Lake?” Boy Scout asked after a few moments.
“We have spaces there where we can base until we can discern the apex and terminus of the threat—both internally and externally.”
“Glad you understand the nature of what’s going on,” Boy Scout said. “But I can’t see where you alone are going to be able to assist.”
Now it was Poe’s turn to smile. “I’m not alone. I have access to networks you don’t know exist. I have botnets to conduct searches. I have sock puppets to throw off those searching for you. I can also task click farms or a few super hackers to conduct DNS attacks.”
“What good is that going to be against the dervishes?” Preacher’s Daughter asked.
“Control information and you control the operation.” Poe grinned, an eerie cousin to Preacher’s Daughter’s evil grin. “I’m basically going to weaponize the internet and make it our friend.”
Chapter Nine
China Lake Naval Weapons Center
CHINA LAKE WASN’T really on a lake. Like much of the Western Mojave Desert, it was comprised of dry lake bed after dry lake bed. If one were to look on a map and see all the lakes, one might think it was a place to bring sunscreen and a bathing suit. But the Mojave Desert as a whole was one big beach that had the temerity to disallow the very idea of water. Boy Scout had read that on one occasion during World War II, several Germans in a prisoner of war camp, who had been provided maps of the area, fancied an escape. They built a canoe in secret and were able to escape—primarily because, being in the middle of nowhere, the guard force was intentionally thin. Discovering that the lakes and rivers on the map had long dried up, the Germans eagerly returned to the camp, limping back and almost dead from dehydration.
Such was the Mojave Desert and all of its lakes.
Which was why the US government chose it as a place to conduct weapons testing. China Lake represented eighty-five percent of the navy’s CONUS land holding and was the main place to test all of their aircraft and armaments. Although a town had built up around the main gate, the testing was conducted on ranges far from the homes, where an off-target or stray missile would only create another crater in an otherwise barren landscape.
Armitage Airfield was the main focus of the center. Top-secret plane designs took off and landed at regular intervals. Glimpses of them showed they looked more like artist conceptual spaceships at times than something in any military’s inventory before being hustled into one of the hundred hangers surrounding the runways. It was in one of these development hangers that Special Unit 77 was given space, a suite of three offices and four bunk rooms carved out of a corner. The number 77 on the outside door was the only indication that this was dedicated to the unit, and with no indication what the numbers meant, they might as well have been invisible on a compound with a hundred such doors hiding secret designs and clandestine units.
All four of the bunk rooms had two beds on the floor and an equal number of end tables, lamps, desks and chairs. Each member of the team had their own room assigned.
As cozy as the situation was, Boy Scout felt a little claustrophobic. He wasn’t sure if he was a guest or a prisoner. Before they went any further, he had a question he needed Poe to answer.
All four of them stood in the common area, which contained two couches, four chairs, a card table, a refrigerator and a television.
Boy Scout was dog-tired and he knew it showed. Still, he had to ask. “How is it you figured out our situation? I never did get the story about how you found out about us—how you were able to dismiss our cover story.”
Poe grinned. “The one about where you were captured by Taliban members? Yeah, that was pretty easy to spoof.”
“How come it was so easy for you but not for the other military investigators?” Boy Scout asked.
“They had no reason to believe that there was a supernatural locus. All of their investigation was based on finding evidence of Taliban occupancy. They found some buried supplies, probably used by the dervishes, which the investigators attributed to the insurgents.”
Boy Scout processed this, knowing it made sense. Still, he needed to be careful. “How did we even track on your radar?”
“The location was already known to us as being a supernatural focal point. The Black Dragoons had a mission planned that was eventually cancelled. Seventy-Seven had access to their mission plans and I posited, based on what we knew, what was going on at the location that your version of events was probably false—for all the reasons you needed them to be.”
“Black Dragoons?” McQueen asked.
“Our British counterpart. They had a missing Royal Marine whom they believed the dervishes had abducted. Turned out they tried, and killed him in the process. The Dragoons found his body, but didn’t get a go to take down the compound.”
“Why the hell not?” Preacher’s Daughter asked.
Poe shook his head. “There’s a lot of oversight we deal with that would drive you all nuts. Let’s just say that the highest levels of most modern governments are aware of various supernatural locales and entities, but are careful about how and when to engage them. Not only is there a fear we might lose, but also that the event might be broadcast on every news channel and social media page. No one wants that kind of attention.”
McQueen snapped his fingers. “So those nutjobs on 4Chan were right.”
Preacher’s Daughter snapped her fingers back at him. “That’s the real reason you’re dispersed. Back in the sixties and seventies we didn’t have cell phones. Heck, I’ve been told there were only three TV channels. Back then your missions and various events would have been less likely to make it into the mainstream media. But now—soldiers even take GoCams with them into combat.”
Poe chewed the inside of his lip and gave a reluctant nod. “That’s one of the reasons, yes. It’s frustrating. As much as we know, there’s so much we’re not allowed to do.”
“Did you go to the cisterns, then?” Boy Scout asked.
“I did.”
“What did you find?”
“DNA from an entity that has no comparable reference, with seventy-two chromosomes.”
Preacher’s Daughter jerked her head back. “Wait. Humans only have twenty-three chromosomes.”
“Right,” Poe said. “Which means here was something there that wasn’t human.”
“The daeva,” McQueen said, whistling. “So, it’s real. Part of me was hoping it was all another fugue.”
“Hush your mouth,” Preacher’s Daughter said.
“And then?” Boy Scout asked.
Poe turned to him and looked him squarely in the face. “And then I began to track the dervishes. That’s how I found you. I’d been able to track the other two, but you were well hidden.” He added, “I want you to know that I’m here to help. You guys can go it on your own, but I encourage you to let me assist.” He held out his hands, palms up. “That’s it. I promise.”
Boy Scout stared at him for a long moment, then grudgingly nodded. “That makes sense.” He left the last part unsaid, hoping his stare might convey the meaning, Just do me a favor and try not to fuck us.
On that note they parted.
McQueen went to the Base Exchange to pick up some clothes for them as well as supplies.
Preacher’s Daughter worked with Poe, who began showing her how to access the information they had, much of it on digital picture files of old papers that had been tagged with numerous words to help indicate the content and make searching faster.
That left Boy Scout to recover a bit in his new room. He’d taken a shower and managed to dry off. With no clothes to wear, he sat on a folded towel in the middle of his room, light turned off. Without any windows, the place was about as pitch black as it could be. He could feel the wetness of his hair, water still dripping from his beard. Although he’d toweled, his skin still felt as if it held a sheen of water. He could feel the muscles of his legs
, unused to exercise, aching from recent exertion. His back ached from where he’d broken it on a jump into Panama during his first year in the military, when America decided to no longer be besties with Manuel Noriega. He also felt the wear in his knees, each one rebuilt at different times in an attempt to make him the man he’d never be again. The bruising of his face and torso were at a pain level of three now, which was basically how he’d gone through life the past few years.
He slowed his breathing as best he could, using his chakras as concentration points, just as Sister Renee had shown him. Part of him felt the astral projection was pure nonsense, but another part of him, the part that had been placed in the fugue and fed gruel for six months, believed that astral projection absolutely existed. So he ignored the smaller voice of doubt and focused on the idea of the possible, which rested at the base of his spine—the root chakra. The idea was to think of it like a switch. Turned on, it gave him access to his lower body. Turned off, his lower body ceased to exist.
Flick.
Gone was the pain in his knees and his right ankle that bothered him when it rained. He couldn’t feel his lower body at all, as if he were floating just above the floor.
He inhaled and exhaled, then turned off his sacral chakra just inside of his stomach.
Flick.
He inhaled and exhaled, and turned off his solar plexis chakra.
But no flick.
He couldn’t help but imagine the ragged edges of his chest where it had been ripped from his lower body. His breathing increased. He tried to ignore the image that had come horrifically unbidden to his mind, instead thinking of the darkness and a place where he couldn’t see himself.
Flick.
His heart was next. The idea of removing something so intrinsic to his life seemed incredibly foolish. What if he couldn’t come back? What if by flicking the switch he stopped his heart? He felt his breath hitch and then his eyes open.
