“I’ll take care of them, Terry-san,” Akio intoned. The Forsaken snapped his teeth like a caged animal. Akio reached around the creature, found a pressure point, and jabbed a thumb into it. The Forsaken contorted and groaned as it went to its knees. Akio arm-blocked it forward, dragging it into the pod. The ambassador followed without having to be told.
Akio returned alone from the pod, a serious look on his face. He handed Terry a slip of paper. “Those are my coordinates. Program your pod and bring your children. I will conduct a final interview and then, if they still want it, we’ll begin the process.”
Terry nodded and looked down. He hadn’t talked with the three yet to see if they wanted to be enhanced. He only assumed. As Char had to keep reminding him, it wasn’t his place to make decisions for others when it was easy to ask.
Both of Akio’s pods closed their rear ramps. One pod was empty, while the other carried five passengers. Terry wondered if it would arrive in Japan with all five still on board.
He suspected at least one would end up in the ocean somewhere between California and Japan, but wouldn’t insult Akio by asking.
Terry took the time to tour Lieutenant Boris and one platoon around the area of responsibility, their AOR, while Kimber and her squad leaders toured the other.
Terry grabbed Boris and vigorously shook his hand. “You are the first, Lieutenant. I see the way ahead now,” Terry said with a big smile. “We will establish bases all over the world, manned with our people to protect civilization and allow it to grow unhindered. We’ll be on the watch for Forsaken, and we’ll be able to respond more quickly.”
“I will grow the FDG out here, build a company, and then keep building,” Boris said, trying to contain his joy at leading such an important mission. “The manpower potential is huge and those first thirty candidates hold potential. You can count on me, Colonel. I won’t let you down,”
“I know I can, Boris. You’ll make us all proud. And keep your eyes peeled. We haven’t seen the last of the Forsaken, not by a longshot. Those suckwads went somewhere. Keep Sue and Timmons informed, as they’re your backup if the Forsaken appear. Keep your silver close at hand and use it wisely. Keep your comm device on you at all times. With that, Lieutenant, we’re out of here.”
Boris saluted and Terry returned it. The group piled into the New Schwabenland pod, and they left without fanfare.
Boris looked around, unsure of where he was sleeping. He realized that if he didn’t know, his people didn’t know, and that would cause a great deal of friction that they didn’t need.
“Sergeant Nickles, first order of business, billeting and chow!” Boris ordered as he looked for Sue and Timmons to get his marching orders.
North Chicago
The pod landed in the LZ and the platoon departed, heading for billeting to put their equipment away. Not a single human warrior had fired a shot and the city had been subdued. It was as clean a mission as they’d ever conducted.
Camilla had been blooded. She had faced an enemy in combat and been victorious.
Joseph and Andrew found each other almost immediately. The older Forsaken looked at the younger one skeptically.
Andrew looked down until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Welcome to the team,” Joseph said softly before asking Andrew to accompany him to meet Terry Henry Walton and Charumati.
Terry waited with his hands on his hips as he answered questions from a flood of people.
Cory had Ramses pulled to the side and was giving him an earful about something. Char was mildly amused as she casually watched, but Terry consciously avoided looking.
Kim, Kae, and Marcie had disappeared into the barracks. Gene and Fu were walking toward the diner and their home. He lifted her easily and put her on his shoulders. They were laughing as they went.
Joseph had tried, but he could not understand that relationship. They didn’t even speak the same language. He added it to the world’s great mysteries, right next to the Bermuda Triangle.
Andrew tried to angle away from the people, but Joseph pulled him back and guided him to Terry Henry.
“TH, meet Andrew.” Joseph settled for the short introduction.
Terry didn’t offer his hand. He crossed his arms and looked down at the shorter Forsaken. “You look different from the others I’ve met.”
“I’m young. I’m only thirty years old, and I’ve been this thing for less than a year,” Andrew said distastefully.
“Akio tells me that you didn’t want to become one, and that you hate being one.” Terry watched closely for body language cues.
“Akio told you the truth,” Andrew simply said. Joseph nodded.
“Joseph will show you the ropes. We train almost every day, and you’ll train with us. I hope you aren’t afraid of heights,” Terry said, slapping the Forsaken on the shoulder. “Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock, and strike you home without a messenger,” Terry directed, ending with a Shakespeare quote from the Comedy of Errors.
“Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither; ripeness is all,” Char added from the same play.
Andrew looked at her strangely. “I’ve never seen such eyes,” he said.
“Hold thy brazen tongue, knave!” Joseph quipped.
“Why are you all talking like that? Is that how they talk here? Will I be expected to talk like that?” Andrew said in a stream of confused consciousness, his German accent finally coming through. Terry hadn’t thought about why he spoke English so well.
Joseph had been in his mind and knew the reason why, but he’d let Andrew explain in his own time.
“What did he say?” Terry asked.
Char laughed while stealing a glance at her daughter, whose conversation with Ramses was starting to get louder and more animated.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Char said, putting on her mother’s hat to sort things out before they got out of control.
“No, we don’t talk like that, although quoting Shakespeare is always in vogue as a sign of a classically trained mind,” Joseph offered.
Andrew looked confused and settled for shaking his head.
“Come on, good sir. Your quarters await.” Joseph motioned for Andrew to join him. Terry nodded and hurried after Char.
Cory and Ramses clammed up as Char approached.
“What the hell is going on?” she started.
“Nothing,” Cory grumbled, sounding very young. Ramses’s lips were white from pressing them together so tightly.
Terry strolled up, pursing his lips as he looked down at the young couple. A coonhound was braying in the distance. Cory’s lip twitched into a smile.
“Out with it before he gets here and wreaks havoc on all that I hold dear!” Terry bellowed. A few warriors had been lingering and froze at the sound of the colonel’s voice. When he saw that they’d stopped, he waved them away. “Carry on!”
“He asked me to marry him!” Cory declared without elaborating, as if that explained everything.
Terry was more confused than ever. He looked sympathetically at Ramses, earning himself a handful of Char’s knuckles in his back.
“Well?” Cory demanded.
Terry slapped his forehead with his palm, turned, and walked away. “Your mother will take care of it,” he called over his shoulder, having no idea what ‘it’ was or how Char was going to fix it.
Ramses wished he could escape like that as he watched Cory’s father walk away. The young man had been outnumbered before when he was talking with Cory, but now with Cory and Char, the odds were ten to one. Both women started talking at the same time.
He panicked and started backing up. They grabbed his arms and pulled him toward Terry, who looked like he was heading to the diner.
“You need to choose a romantic moment,” Char instructed. Ramses nodded slowly as the instructions continued until they reached Claire’s.
When Ramses stumbled through the door, he looked shell-shocked. Terry was in line, but hadn’t p
icked up a plate yet. He stepped aside to let his wife go first, but also to save Ramses from the onslaught.
“Corporal Ramses, come with me,” Terry ordered and took the young man back outside.
“Yes, sir?” he asked once they were back in the fresh air.
“You’re welcome,” the colonel answered. “You had no idea, did you?”
“No,” the young man mumbled.
“Well, now you do. You’ve learned that she still loves you, otherwise why would she waste time berating you? Get your chin up and go in there like a man. There is no better woman that you will ever find. If you let her get away, I will let Joseph feed on you,” Terry threatened.
Ramses couldn’t keep up with the Walton family humor, so he figured he had best take their so-called jokes seriously. Ramses saluted and prepared to return to the diner when his parents appeared nearby, buck naked and each carrying a decent-sized deer.
“Where are your clothes?” he said as they shamelessly walked up to him.
Skippy shrugged.
“Don’t know,” Butch said.
“Give us those deer and then go find yourselves something to wear. You’re scaring the locals,” Terry quipped, relieving Butch of her burden. Ramses maneuvered the small buck off Skippy’s shoulder. The deer were mostly intact, the bite marks on the necks the only indication of how they were killed.
Butch and Skippy hadn’t had a knife, so they could not clean them.
Terry and Ramses walked around back to the service entrance where they turned the deer over to the butchering team, of which Mark had worked his way into.
“Where’d you get the deer, Colonel?” Mark wondered, directing them to a stainless steel table where the cleaning would take place.
“From naked people,” Terry replied matter-of-factly. Ramses nodded in agreement. Mark didn’t ask any more questions.
***
The lake waters slapped the shore. Behind them, the setting sun glowed orange. The sky above was turning a darker blue as night was settling over the land. The fire crackled within the stone pit. Terry and Char had chairs while the others sat on logs or the rocks.
“I have something very important to ask you all,” Terry said, finally able to corral his kids and get them alone. He’d asked Auburn and Felicity to join them, because it affected them, too.
Terry pointed to Kae, Kim, and Ramses. “How would you like to be enhanced, technologically, like me?”
They smiled and said ‘yes’ as one, but Terry waved at them to stop.
“That’s not all of it. The process takes a long time and not everyone survives. It has to be done in Japan, because only Akio has a pod doc that can install the nanocytes. I want this because I don’t want to see any of you die. Char and I have lived a long time and we have a lot of life yet to live. Consider this carefully.”
Kimber didn’t look at Auburn. She held her niece as he held their nephew. “I have to do it,” she said firmly. “And then when we have children, I can offer them the same thing when they reach the age to decide.”
Auburn stared at the ground, absently rubbing William’s back. “If you could,” Kim said softly as she handed Mary Ellen to Terry. “I’d like to talk with Auburn.”
She helped him up and the two walked down the beach. They quickly disappeared into the darkness as the small fire continued to burn.
“Count me in,” Kae said confidently. Marcie nodded. They picked their children up and swung them around. Kaeden blew a raspberry on William’s round stomach.
“Gives us that much more time to have more kids,” she said on Kaeden’s behalf. He stopped for a moment, shrugged, then continued, making William laugh as only a child could laugh.
Ramses looked into the fire and at the faces around it. “I don’t know,” he finally said as a mature man who needed more time to make a decision with life or death consequences.
“I think we’ll take a stroll, too,” Cory said, getting up and pulling Ramses with her.
“Do you ever do anything small, TH?” Felicity drawled. Terry smiled, but it didn’t make him feel better. Char had her hand on his leg, supporting him in her way.
“It was inevitable,” Char said. She turned and looked in the direction her daughter had gone. The blue glow of Cordelia’s eyes acted as a faint beacon not far away. The two stood with their foreheads touching as they talked softly.
“It was inevitable that I asked. The decision rests solely with the kids,” Terry clarified. Kae nodded. He was going to take the risk because his wife’s latent nanocytes had been activated and she continued to get stronger, faster, and younger with each passing day. If anything happened to him during the process, Marcie would be there for their children.
Getting enhanced was something Kaeden had dreamed about ever since his father had shared the secret of the nanocytes with him. Now it was his turn. He hoped he’d get taller, but was good with younger, stronger, and faster.
If nothing else, he would at least be able to keep up with his wife.
Cory and Ramses were first to return to the campfire. “I’ll do it,” he said, seemingly resigned.
“No,” Terry answered as he stared at the young man. “You have to want it. Akio will know if you’re serious or not, so don’t waste his time or yours.”
“I thought I was happy back home, doing my thing, hunting, fishing, gardening, that kind of stuff. Then you guys showed up, and turned my world upside-down. I met the most incredible woman ever!” Ramses declared, uncomfortable talking about how he felt with Cory’s parents. “Look at us! We’re together, but only for now. She’s going to watch me grow old and die.”
Felicity clamped her eyes shut, but the tears still found a way out and down her cheeks.
“I don’t want that. Although I can’t find her sooner, I can love her longer by going through the process. I also feel like I have the opportunity to make a difference with the FDG. Making war makes sense to me. Fight better so we don’t have to fight at all. Look what happened in San Francisco! We made those guys pee themselves after just a few rounds downrange.” Ramses stood tall as he talked, looking more the corporal and less a scared young man.
Terry had seen Ramses work with his squad, and he was a good leader. He took care of his people and was confident when speaking with them. But Terry Henry was the colonel and would always intimidate him. There were two different young men in that one body.
TH liked the man who was intimidated by his future father-in-law, but he liked the strong warrior persona, too.
Kim returned and gave the thumbs up. Auburn looked crushed. Char gave the man a hug.
Cory pulled Clovis to her and pointed to the dog and then to her father.
“What? You want Clovis to get nanocytes?” Terry asked, twisting his face as he tried to wrap his head around hundreds of years with that dog getting into everything.
“No,” Char said definitively, saving Terry from making faces at his daughter for too long.
Terry recovered his wits. “First thing tomorrow, we fly,” Terry said, offering his hand to his wife, to go to their room and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a big day. “Put that fire out, Kae.”
Kaeden took a bucket to the lake and filled it. When everyone was up and walking away, he threw the water on the fire, enjoying the sizzle and the instant steam. He threw a second bucket of water on it and stirred the coals to make sure it was completely extinguished before grabbing their kids and running happily to the quarters Terry and Char maintained for them within the community.
At least someone is happy about it, Terry thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Japan
The lights in the command center were dim as always. None of those who used the small facility needed the extra lighting so they kept it low.
Eve was actively engaged with the systems. She looked little more than a mannequin as she stood motionless, but she was running at near capacity. The grid was overwhelmed with simultaneous communication, most of it digital, w
hen there hadn’t been any before. Fifty years without and all of a sudden, there seemed to be nothing but signals flooding the airwaves.
“The grid is filled with signals,” Eve reported. She filtered out the communication devices that Terry and his people carried. Every time Akio picked up a platoon from the Force, he dropped off more. Eventually, every single warrior would be carrying one, and at Terry’s urging, the FDG communicated a great deal.
“Isolating,” Eve added, keeping Akio informed of her progress. Even with her capacity, it was another twenty minutes before she was able to show the possible signal origins on a map. All the big cities that remained after the nuclear exchanges, in addition to dozens more.
There were fifty different flags on a map of the world. Akio accessed the screen and started looking through them, one by one. He was surprised to see that Chicago had a flag. He zoomed in, pulled up the data, and then activated his comm device.
North Chicago
“What?” Terry blurted. It was the middle of the night and in the morning, they were supposed go to Japan. That trip would have to be delayed.
When Terry clicked off, he looked at the communication device in his hand. Char had stirred, but continued to sleep. He ran one hand down her bare back, enjoying the feel of the heat and the smoothness of her skin.
He shook her, and she jumped. She looked at him with wide eyes that weren’t yet focused.
“Forsaken signal in Chicago right now. Looks like it’s coming from Joseph’s old home.” No further explanation was needed. Char got up and dressed in full gear. Terry loaded up as well, including his combat backpack. They bolted from their room less than a minute after Terry had gotten the call. They beat on doors and yelled for the pack.
Cory was in a room at the end. Terry burst in to find Ramses in bed with his daughter. They’d been sleeping, judging by how they protected their eyes from the outdoor light. Terry wrestled with himself for only a moment.
“Both of you, meet us at the pod. Forsaken in Chicago and we need to go now!” He closed the door behind him, took a deep breath, and started running.
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