“I’m sorry,” Penny responded with a genuine reflex of sympathy.
“Thank you, Penny,” Rachel noted the kindness. It was another reason she believed Penny was an excellent soldier. Kindness in a warrior was a sign of uncommon strength.
They stopped to stretch their legs and topped off the tank at a gas station in a town called Holdbrook, Arizona. The Crown Vic was picking up some dust. A mile before the gas station, they saw a tumbleweed. It was tumbling right along the shoulder like a hitchhiker running for a ride. They were not accustomed to the desert. The both looked at each other with the same comical, arched-eyebrow look and laughed like kids on a road trip.
“A tumbleweed. In Arizona? Go figure.” Penny mused.
Rachel decided that she very much liked this kid. She hoped to see her grow in their Unit and made a mental note to watch her career closely.
They arrived in Williams around two that afternoon and stopped at a coffee shop about a mile from their destination. It was a cafe combined with a bicycle shop. Some bicyclists sat outside in the bright summer sun drinking coffee and sweating happily. A man about Penny’s age showed interest in her as she walked by. Penny pretended not to notice.
They both decided on some iced coffee and took a seat inside by the door. Rachel noticed that Penny made sure to position herself so that she could see all the exits and where she could see most of the customers. She sat in a way that kept the chair back away from her pistol hip. Again, Rachel thought, good kid.
Rachel fished the encrypted cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans and dialed the number she committed to memory. The phone would save no call logs and securely wiped its non-volatile memory after every call.
“Yes,” Came Chase’s voice on the third ring.
“We just arrived.”
“When will you meet?”
“We’re going to check things out first. We don’t know if she’s at work yet. I’ll call you later.”
“Right. Keep me posted.”
Rachel closed the phone and put it in her back pocket.
Penny had left her seat during the call and was studying an item on a bulletin board beside the coffee bar. Rachel sidled up and saw the flyer. They were looking at a glossy print of woman on a stage wearing a very skimpy black bikini. Her right leg was extended in front, and her arms were held in the classic bodybuilder double bicep pose. The woman was a living statue of muscle. Her arms were huge. Every muscle stood out. Her biceps looked like miniature bowling balls beneath the skin. Her entire body rippled and bulged. Her skin was a deep, glistening bronze that was not the result of tanning beds or time in the sun. Thick, wavy, light brown hair fell to her shoulders. Donna seemed to look straight out of the poster and right into Rachel’s eyes. And she smiled. Rachel had never seen that smile in the century and a half that they’d known each other.
The flyer proclaimed “Donna’s Iron Bar” in large, heroic, red block letters with a 3D border effect. There were stars on the poster, there were spangles, and a sunburst pattern framed the letters. The poster listed a long string of bodybuilding competitions Donna had won and another long list of successful bodybuilding patrons who also gained titles while training at the gym. The gym offered yoga classes, fitness boot camps, motivational weight loss training, self-defense classes, self-esteem training, personal coaching and “much more.”
“That her?” Penny asked.
“Yup.”
“Wow.” Penny said.
Rachel went back to her coffee and looked out at the main drag.
Downtown Williams was built around the fabled “Route 66” that was one of America’s first true highways. The highway itself was a star. In its day, it connected Chicago and Los Angeles and became known as “America’s Main Street”. Songs were sung about it, and Hollywood Movies made. But the highway had long since been cut to pieces by changing demographics and larger, newer, more direct interstates. Most of it had simply faded away or been folded into another road. The highway was a dying American Legend, and the town kept it on life support to foster small business. Storefronts along the main drag, from cafes to hotels, to souvenir shops and even a Thai restaurant, all incorporated ‘Route 66’ into their names. Many business logos were framed by the interstate symbol.
Donna’s Iron Bar Gym and Fitness Cafe was a notable exception. The business traded on the icon of a champion female bodybuilder who also was not human. Rachel looked at the flyer on the bulletin board and almost laughed. It wasn’t fair to the humans. Donna was born with that physique. R was designed that way. She found herself thinking “if they only knew.” Rachel suspected Donna felt this way as well, which was the reason she no longer competed. Donna stayed on the competition circuit long enough to earn enough cash and reputation to start her gym. In the past decade, she’d become a fixture in the little town. Rachel was truly glad to watch Donna’s progress on Earth over the past seventy years. They started their journey together. It had taken Donna much longer to come to accept human society.
One small but crucial part of the program was to keep track of the exiled advocates. This was part of the bargain with humanity and one function of the Unit. Donna was one of the handfuls of Advocates who reached out to the program for something more than a check-in. About thirty years ago, Rachel helped her become a naturalized citizen, complete with a social security number. She worked on getting Donna accustomed to human culture. It was slow going at first. It took her about a decade to get accustomed. Over the past thirty years or so, Donna had come into her own. Rachel thought she looked happy, which was a rare thing for creatures like them. Rachel was apprehensive about what had to happen next.
“She’s very large,” Penny observed as she joined Rachel at the table. She did not know what else to say. A patron nearby picked up on the comment.
“Yes, she is! You should go by. It’s a great place. Donna is always there, and she is amazing” The woman chimed in spontaneously. “You can buy a day membership if you want or just hang out at the smoothie bar.”
“Do you go there a lot?” Penny asked.
“Yes. Plus, I work there part time.”
And then the barista, a fit-looking man about Penny’s age, chimed in.
“Donna is a fixture in town. You should see her place. It’s like Arizona’s Muscle Beach.”
“Well, Penny, that’s where we’ll be going then.”
They picked up their iced coffees from the table, got back into the Crown Victoria and headed a mile down the main strip to Donna’s Iron Bar Gym.
The gym stood at the very end of the main strip across the street from a gas station. Its neighbor was a well-kept example of a mid-century hotel. The gym exterior also had the nineteen fifties ambiance, having been converted from an old drive-through hamburger joint of that era. Donna added a larger steel building to the original structure, and this larger area held the gym proper. The older building was steel framed, allowing for large panes of plate glass to sit at an inward angle from the top so that the roof of the building covered a larger area than the base. Even in the bright sunlight, they could see the interior was brightly lit and glistening with a contrast between modern, stainless steel textures and softer colors of dark stained and polished wood. They parked the car in directly in front, where concrete planter boxes painted pristine white overflowed with desert plants and flowers.
Inside, they found the place was bright with sound and color alike. It wasn’t too loud, but it was busy with energetic voices. A woman who looked about thirty greeted them from the main desk just inside the door. The lounge included the reception desk and a long wood bar. The gym itself, in the newer building, was separated by a glass wall. Customers could sit at the bar and watch people working out. The bar served coffee and fresh-squeezed fruit and vegetable juices. Blenders and juicers were firing vigorously in the background as the greeter made her pitch.
“Welcome to Donna’s! My name is Carmen. Are you visiting the gym or the bar today or both?”
“Hello,
Carmen. We’ll be visiting the bar today, but I wonder if Donna is in.”
Penny hadn’t seen much of the Colonel in a civilian setting, and she was still getting accustomed to this new demeanor. Her manner was still formal, but the tones of command seemed to be embedded in her voice.
“Well yes, she is. If you’re looking for training, she is booked all day.”
“I’m hoping she’ll make time for us. We are old friends. We’ll be at the bar. Would you please tell her that Rachel Balanik is here to visit?”
Carmen’s face flattened. Her voice lost its retail tone.
“Yes. I can do that. I’ll let her know as soon as she’s done with her client. If you want gym time, just let the barista know, and she’ll give you an entry pass. Just fill out the form at the bar.”
And Carmen went on to let them know about an upcoming spin class, aerobics, and a boxing cardio class. Carmen’s attitude changed. She grew wary. The two soldiers offered a reflexive “thank you” and moved to the juice bar.
“Did you notice that?” Penny asked.
“She clocked us.”
“Mean anything?”
“I think it means she’s close to Donna,” Rachel studied the menu written in colorful chalk on a slate board above the bar. “I think I’ll try the kale and almond butter berry blaster smoothie. What will you have?”
“Make it two. And don’t skimp on the kale,” Penny said, in a tone calculated to make her sound like a wizened film noir character. She leaned her elbow against the bar and made a pretty decent Bogart impression as she sat down.
“Comin’ right up,” replied the barista, playing along.
They were alone at the bar and out of earshot of the other customers.
Rachel said, “Penny. There is the outside possibility that this could go sideways.”
“I understand.”
“Do you remember your briefing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you remember that she is Heavy Infantry.”
A silent acknowledgment with suddenly serious eyes.
“So note that Donna is on the small side for Heavy Infantry. Also, understand that nothing short of a fifty caliber depleted uranium round can slow her down.”
This was not an exaggeration. Rachel had helped the Unit understand the capabilities of Advocate natural defenses very early in the program.
“Yes, ma’am. But what could make it go sideways?” and why are you repeating this, was the follow-up question Penny dared not ask.
Rachel thought about this for a moment.
“Imagine if, instead of your single year in Iraq, that you’d had a century or more. If I came to you after seventy years of freedom and told you that you had to go back in, that you had no choice, how would you react?”
“Shit,” was Penny’s honest, unfiltered response “no telling how I’d take that ma’am.”
“Exactly. This will take some doing. If something happens, you do not engage, but retreat. Understood?”
Penny hesitated. Rachel glared.
“Understood.”
Rachel calculated with high certainty that Penny would not follow that particular order. Shit indeed, Rachel thought. Everyone has to learn; the trick was surviving your learning experiences. They had a full view of the gym while they sipped their smoothies.
Chapter 10: Homesphere, Conspirators
Nina reclined with ease on the Earth relic called a "bean bag chair" and studied the crowd. The room was busy with soldiers casually moving through the scene with food and drink. Soldiers stood in twos or groups of few and conversed, sometimes with grave faces, but mostly with light expressions and smiles. Many wore no Division insignia on their casual robes, which Nina found strange. She let the sounds of the crowd wash over her like light a light surf, enjoying the hushes and lulls and murmurs of conversation. Nina could smell the wine of home and the spices of food which came to this party from light years away.
Some soldiers cultivated cuisine from the worlds on which they served, and the ingredients were usually sourced from the many gardens, planter boxes, hatcheries and small stables maintained by the home bound Advocates. There were thousands of these caverns tucked away from main thoroughfares and accessible by pedestrian tunnels. What little meat there was at this gathering looked as it if came from offworld. The cuts were too large and the flesh too exotic to be from captive creatures. Most soldiers, having gone through the trouble of smuggling an offworld species to Homesphere against protocol, would end up keeping the animal as a pet and not a special meal. Many of the carefully-maintained garden caverns were habitats for native animals, some built in effort to preserve environments damaged by war. Only in the cases of smaller, domesticated animals that took well to captivity and were bred for harvest, were those creatures employed as food. Advocates were trained to eat whatever they could to survive for war, but most took no interest in slaughter beyond the necessity of survival. They lived mostly on nutritional wine.
The soldier with the crooked nose and broken eye socket still sat beside her. She got the sense the soldier had a purpose for sitting there. She was a place keeper. She didn’t particularly like this, but Nina realized that the train trip to this place was just the beginning of yet another ride of which she had little choice. She had a moment earlier that helped her get some distance from recent events, and she was determined to let that moment stand. She would enjoy this party. Whatever was going on with Chanise and Cordelia—whatever their reasons for bringing her here, could wait. She sipped her off-duty wine, then spoke to the soldier beside her without making eye contact.
“My name is Nina.”
“Tove,” she replied and scanned the room uneasily.
“Are you back from deployment?”
The soldier rounded on Nina slowly with squinting eyes.
“No.”
“You serve at home then?”
“Yes,” was the reply, much sharper than necessary. Nina left it alone, and then the sullen one pulled herself up from the soft deep cushion and walked away. She took up a position in the kitchen area, pacing back and forth near the food and alternately turning back to stare. Nina guessed the strange behavior might be due to a head injury. She wasn’t too far off the mark.
Cordelia flowed into the scene again with her robes trailing around her like smoke.
“Silk,” she said, as she floated down into the still-warm chair abandoned by the angry one.
“Pardon?”
“My gown. It’s made from silk. Also a product of Earth. My friend there, who you were talking to, she made this gown. She keeps the animals that make the threads. Would you believe something this beautiful came from the larvae of a lower-order insect? They are called silk moths, when they are babies—worms really, they spin very fine threads, which are collected and then weaved into this,” and she lifted her arm to let the colorful sleeve of the gown fly like a pendant. She was a little drunk.
“And how did all these items from Earth make their way into your living chambers?”
“Do you know what they call Homesphere—the Humans?” she asked, avoiding Nina's question.
“No. I didn’t know they called it anything. They are just seeds.”
“Many of us believe that. Most have never been provided an incentive to wonder otherwise. Hardly anybody asks, so nobody knows. The humans have an active civilization. In fact, they have had many. The most common name that humans give our home world is "Venus," after a Goddess that represents Love.
From Earth, you can see Homesphere at all hours of the day if the conditions are right. Our home shines so brightly in their night sky they thought it was another star for a long while.
The humans attribute powerful sentient traits to stars and planets, or at least, their ancients did. The name "Venus" has endured several of their civilizations. At other times and places in their history, they have given Homesphere similar significance, many naming us after entities that symbolize war. Do you know they have explored our planet?”
Nina sat up, shocked and not able to conceal her surprise. Was Cordelia joking? Surely Nina would have heard this. It should be common knowledge if true. She looked closely at Cordelia, trying to read her. Yes, she was a little drunk, but there was still a certain careful calculation evident in her manner just then.
“Oh yes. They reached out into space a bit, even to the point of leaving the planet. They’ve walked on their moon, sent some machines to the planet they call "Mars,” a planet again named for a God of War. I find it ironic that they reverse the two,” she made spaceship motions with her hands, pantomiming launches and landings, and the sleeve of her robes seemed to simulate rocket trails.
“But they’ve actually landed those primitive machines on the surface above. They have reached out to our home,” Cordelia said. She fixed Nina’s eyes then, looking very serious, continued. “We made sure their first few attempts failed, but they are very persistent, busy little creatures. They want to know what is here,” she patted Nina’s leg for emphasis, “They have an artificial satellite in orbit even now,” she said, looking up at the ceiling as if a satellite might be seen through kilometers of stone.
“It doesn’t work anymore, but when it did, it sent radio waves to the surface to paint a picture of the land. We had to disguise the great dome so they wouldn’t see it. We hid from them, we great warriors,” and she leaned towards Nina, her face almost touching her chest and whispered, “They are so inquisitive.”
Then Cordelia became louder, a bit more serious. She seemed to be bounding through some set of emotions Nina couldn’t fathom.
“We’ve had to learn a great deal about them to hide ourselves. To do that, we’ve had to interfere with them and interact to some degree. We have had to learn about them. That is my job now.”
“You mean contact?”
Cordelia hesitated again. Not long, but just long enough to tell Nina she was adjusting and hiding something.
“Limited contact was authorized. We needed to know more about them. Specifically, why they seemed to develop beyond their purpose of providing genetic material for our species. It was a simple strategic question. Their technology and societies are evolving to the point where they are beginning to influence their own development. This is an aberration. It has become harder to find the Source Human now for two generations. This current seed mission will be particularly difficult.”
The Genetic Imerative Page 16
