I Bring the Fire Part V: Warriors

by C. Gockel

  A third helicopter roars overhead, and Bohdi’s eyes go to the window. Lewis’s eyes go to Bohdi.

  Bohdi flicks his lighter and looks to the sky. Steve hears Dale’s footsteps behind him. His friend says, “Steve, you have visitors.”

  Lewis goes over to Bohdi and says, “It wasn’t your fault ... you couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  Turning to her, Bohdi says, “You warned me before I set them loose.”

  Steve holds up a hand, meets Dale’s eyes, and whispers. “Give me a minute with these two.” Lowering his voice even further he adds, “I think the kids have a bit of PTSD … just please … ”

  Across the room Lewis murmurs something.

  Dale looks up at Bohdi, back to Steve and nods. “The senators are coming, but they’re still on the roof. You have a few minutes.” Steve blinks. Senators? But Dale nods in the direction of the “kids” and steps out.

  “But that’s just it,” Bohdi says, eyes on Lewis. “I don’t feel guilty. I know innocent people are dead because of me, and that makes me sad, and angry … but I don’t feel guilty.” He shakes his head. “Maybe that makes me a monster—”

  “If you’re a monster, I’m a monster!” Lewis says. “I could have gone with them and no one would have gotten hurt!”

  Steve feels his pulse begin to race. “No.” He maneuvers the chair over to where Lewis and Bohdi stand. “Neither of you is monsters.”

  Lewis and Bohdi both look down at him, and it feels very peculiar to be looking up at them for once. But in this instance, being smaller, and non-threatening, might work better. It strikes Steve how very young they are—and foolish. They’re not touching one another, but the air between them practically hums. If they had any sense they’d close the space between each other and claim what comfort they can. Life as the three of them know it, all the security and safety—that is over.

  He runs his tongue over his teeth. He doesn’t want Bohdi thinking he’s a monster, thinking thoughts like that might turn him into one. And he doesn’t want Lewis entertaining thoughts of turning herself over to Odin. Hoenir had said to keep an eye on Lewis; maybe she’s the key to finding him?

  Steve meets Lewis’s eyes. They’re the same color blue as the cloudless sky visible through the window. “If you’d gone with Odin that would have essentially made you a human sacrifice … and I don’t want to be part of a society that offers human sacrifices.” In the corner of his eyes he sees Bohdi stand a little taller. He sees Amy’s throat move as she swallows. Steve rolls a little farther forward. “And do you think Odin will stop with you, Dr. Lewis? Do you think yours is the only human mind he’s going to find interesting? We have dozens, maybe hundreds, of scientists on Earth who are working with magic. You go quietly, and he may think they will, too.”

  Lewis draws a breath. Steve turns his gaze to Bohdi. “We will try to find a way to minimize casualties, but we have to keep fighting.” Steve holds out his hand. “Are you with me?”

  Bohdi stares down at Steve’s hand. A helicopter roars from the roof. As the sound begins to fade, Bohdi reaches forward and clasps Steve’s hand in his own. “I’m with you.”

  Lewis puts her hand on top of theirs. “I’m with you, too.”

  Lewis’s hand is cold, very pale, and small. Bohdi’s hand is warm and a few shades lighter than Steve’s own. Their fingers slide together on top of his palm. And maybe the rearranging that Steve’s brain has been doing isn’t quite done, because he has a strange sensation of vertigo. Like he’s missing something, or there is a word on the tip of his tongue, and if he can just have a minute …

  From behind him, he hears the door open, and then Dale’s voice. “Steve, the senators are here.”

  Lewis and Bohdi pull back. “Go,” says Steve, inclining his head to the door.

  Lewis nods and heads out, but Bohdi hangs back just long enough for Steve to pick up the book tucked beside him in the wheelchair and smack him in the gut with it. “Take it,” Steve says. “I’ve been meaning to give it to you.”

  “Kid, you’ve got to clear out,” Dale says, from the doorway. “Security.”

  Bohdi scampers out without looking back.

  As soon as he’s gone, four men and one woman step into the room. Steve follows politics well enough to recognize them all.

  A thin man with wispy white hair steps forward—Senator Snowfield, famously an Evangelical and member of the Homeland Security Committee. “Captain Steve Rogers,” he says holding out his hand, “I’m sure you know the names of my colleagues.”

  Steve nods.

  “Good,” Senator Snowfield says. “What you might not know is that we’re all part of a subcommittee formed by members of the Homeland Security and Armed Services committees, the Anomalous Energy Defense Committee.”

  The woman steps forward. She’s Senator Brownlee of Massachusetts, an avowed atheist, and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Seeing her and Snowfield on the same “team” is a little disconcerting. “We call ourselves the Prometheans,” Brownlee says.

  Steve’s breath catches in his throat, and his heart skips a beat. His eyes shift to everyone in the room. He feels like he’s looking at them through glass that’s slightly milky, and the sensation of having cotton in his ears is almost over powering.

  Snowfield releases Steve’s hand and says, “We have a job for you.”

  CHAPTER 13

  It’s only been an hour since Steve sent Bohdi out of the conference room. He’s a few doors away in an unused hospital administrative office sitting on a chair. A folded-up cot sits beside him. In his hand he holds his phone: on it he has downloaded the book Steve gave to him: Trickster Makes this World by Lewis Hyde. He’s several chapters in but he keeps coming back to the quotes in the Introduction. Paul Radin, whoever that is, apparently said, “Every generation occupies itself with interpreting Trickster anew … ”

  Bohdi tilts his head and flicks his lighter. He hopes that’s true. Amy told him Loki always kept his oaths, even across lifetimes ... and Loki’s last oath was to have Odin kneel before him while Asgard burned to the ground. Bohdi swallows. He doesn’t want Odin to kneel ... Kneeling would give him a chance to do some magic voodoo. He flicks the lighter again. He would like Odin dead. But he wouldn’t want Asgard to burn. He’s not Loki; he does care about collateral damage. The flame goes out by his thumb. He closes his eyes and tries not to think about the troll invasion. They’re still searching for bodies.

  Opening his eyes, he slides his finger across the screen. Another quote catches his eye, this one from a Frank Kermode. “ … We interpret always as transients.”

  He looks at the folded-up cot. It’s where he slept last night. He hadn’t minded sleeping in the hospital. He doesn’t really have a bed of his own; if he wasn’t here he’d be sleeping at the house he’s sort of house-sitting. Before he was there he was subletting a place; before that he was sleeping at Steve’s parents’ place, in Steve’s old bed. He looks at the floor. In a way ... he’s always been homeless.

  Shaking his head he finds another Paul Radin quote: He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social … yet through his actions all values come into being.

  Bohdi flicks his lighter and snorts. Good and evil don’t exist! Those are completely relative. But he does possess morals! He values his friends, and his family. Why did Steve think he should read this silly book?

  He skims down the page to a quote from Hyde himself. “ … if he ‘steals fire’ to invent new technologies, if he plays with all boundaries both inner and outer, and so on—then he must still exist in this world.”

  Whoa. He did steal new technology when he stole for Amy, didn’t he?

  He drags his finger along the screen a few pages and reads:

  “ … if trickster can disguise his tracks, surely he can disguise himself. He can encrypt his own image, distort it, cover it up. In particular, tricksters are known for changing their skin … sometimes tricksters alt
er the appearance of their skin; sometimes they actually replace one skin with another.”

  Running a hand through his hair, Bohdi drops the phone to his lap. This Hyde guy is creepy.

  In his lap the phone starts to vibrate. Picking it up he finds a text from Steve. Where are you?

  Bohdi starts to type back, but before he can finish Steve’s already tested him again. Need your help. Now.

  Bohdi remembers the black-suited, ominous, old people he’d passed on the way out of the improvised conference room. Jumping from the bed and sliding his phone into his pocket, he races for the door.

  x x x x

  In the Promethean wire room, Steve paces back and forth. He and Dale had just escorted the senators to the roof and a waiting helicopter. Agitation, spurred by the senators’ request, spurred his legs to start working again.

  As Steve paces, Dale sits on a chair, elbows on his knees. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about them, but I was under orders.”

  “I’m not mad about that,” Steve says, swatting at a fly that hitchhiked from the roof back into the room with them. Orders are orders.

  “You’re still mad at Gerðr?” Dale says. “She said you’re the only person she’ll go with. I don’t think she was motivated by hate—”

  “I know your theory about that,” snaps Steve. Dale thinks Gerðr was motivated by respect, and maybe more… and that’s more than Steve wants to think about. An emotionally fragile Frost Giantess is not what he needs now … or ever.

  Dale idly swats at the buzzing insect. “Then—?”

  Steve rubs his eyes. “I just thought I had more time.” He just got Claire back. He just got well. “Where is Bohdi?” he says, brushing a hand at the insect.

  “I don’t get why you think you need that kid,” says Dale, sounding slightly petulant.

  Steve wipes his jaw, stubble biting his fingers. He doesn’t respond.

  At just that moment, the door erupts inward and Bohdi dashes in. Flipping his pocket knife out and sliding to a stop across the linoleum floor, he whips his head around. “Where are the old people?”

  “Speak of the devil,” mutters Dale.

  “He’s not the devil,” Steve snaps, not wanting that thought to worm it’s way into Bohdi’s head.

  “What’s going on?” Bohdi shouts. “I thought you were in trouble!” He flips his hand and the knife flies through the room and embeds itself on the chair next to Dale.

  “Ooops,” says Bohdi.

  Jumping from his seat, Dale turns to the blade. “Jesus Christ! He hit the fly!”

  “Oh no, not again,” says Bohdi, going over to retrieve the knife. Pulling it out of the chair, he picks up the dead bug with his free hand. Gazing down at his palm, he whispers, “Sorry, little guy.”

  Dale turns to Steve and raises an eyebrow. Steve doesn’t sigh aloud. What a way for the kid to make an impression. He goes to the door that Bohdi left open and gently closes it.

  Lifting his head, Bohdi says, “Um, so what did you need me for?”

  Steve runs his tongue over his teeth. “The old people, as you call them, are senators. I’ve been asked to escort Gerðr back to Jotunheim, to the realm of King Utgard, as a gesture of goodwill, and in an effort to open up talks between our people.” There’s more to it than that, but Bohdi doesn’t have to know.

  Bohdi shrugs. “So when do we leave?”

  A weight lifts from Steve’s chest. For a moment he can’t speak. What he’s asking for is difficult and dangerous, and Bohdi didn’t even stop to think about it. He shakes his head. The kid is nuts, but he’s Steve’s nutty kid. “That’s still uncertain.” But they will go. Somehow.

  “We’re taking Amy, right?” says Bohdi.

  Steve takes a step back. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “But she knows everything,” says Bohdi. “I mean, a lot, and she’s good in these situations.”

  “It will be very dangerous,” Steve says. “Everyone we take will need to pull their own weight and be able to defend themselves.”

  Bohdi pushes his bangs back with the hand holding the knife, somehow managing to avoid scalping himself.

  Steve starts to pace again. “Besides you, Gerðr, the Asgardians, and Dale, I’ll be leading a platoon from a Navy SEAL team.” The team’s specialty is arctic warfare.

  “Pffffftttt …SEALs,” says Bohdi. “Their physical requirements are what …only slightly tougher than Marines? Full of themselves.”

  Steve turns fast in Bohdi’s direction. “It’s not the physical training that really makes or breaks a SEAL. It’s the mental training. All of these guys are combat tested, and they’ve all completed SERE training.”

  Bohdi blinks.

  Leaning against the window ledge Steve says, “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. It’s intense.” And Steve hasn’t done it. He looks away. He didn’t even finish his deployment in Afghanistan in the field. He was in Kandahar for a few weeks. Got to see some cute little kids and an adorable newborn baby goat. Got a great picture with them for his mom—wanted to show her that things there weren’t as bad as she heard, even if they were. From that baby goat he had contracted Q-fever and had to be airlifted out of the valley and taken to a hospital in Kabul. He took a desk job writing press releases while he was recovering. It came to his superiors’ attention that Steve was a good Marine in the field, but he was a great Marine behind a desk. He was reassigned and spent the rest of his deployment coaching the brass, helping them respond to difficult questions in front of the camera, and writing up dispatches for the media.

  As if reading his thoughts, Dale says, “You were in the field long enough to shoot and be shot at. You have hand-to-hand combat experience. You’ve been in kill-or-be-killed situations, Steve. And you’ve got the political skill to handle any situation that arises with King Utgard. It will be enough.”

  Steve eyes his friend. That may be enough for the brass, but he’s sure the SEAL in charge won’t be impressed. Gerðr said she’ll only go if Steve leads the mission. But as brilliant as Steve is with political strategy, he isn’t a brilliant military strategist. Which means he can’t really be in charge, and if he’s in charge in name only it will be a shaky chain of command—not optimal in the office, and potentially life threatening in the field.

  Dale shrugs. “I have less field experience ... and I’m even less a diplomat.” Holding two fingers over his lap, he pantomimes holding up a napkin.

  Bowing his head, Steve laughs, because it’s funny, or because he’s so incredibly on edge, he isn’t sure.

  “What?” he hears Bohdi say.

  “Oh,” says Dale. “So right after officer training, Steve and I were out on the town and we met these two beautiful French girls, and Steve here convinces them they should go to dinner with us.”

  Sounding hurt, Bohdi says, “How do I not know this story?”

  Snorting, Steve lifts his head. “Because it goes nowhere.”

  Dale laughs, sounding vaguely proud instead of ashamed. “Yeah, it was going great, but then we sit down at the table and I pick up my napkin and it’s white you know, so I wave it in front of me, and I say, ‘What’s this? Oh, it’s the French flag.”

  Bohdi snickers, and Dale says. “Got an hour and a half long lecture on World War I and the 1930s and how decimated the French people were …”

  “In French,” says Steve.

  “Yeah, but …” Dale rattles off into French. Dale is so big, and so Texan, and it’s weird the way the elegant words slip out of his mouth so easily. And weird how Dale, a brilliant polyglot, can speak so many languages, and at the same time not know what to say. Dale can insert his foot into his mouth in any language. But the Prometheans had chosen him because he’d learned Gerðr’s language, has military training, and is divorced with no children.

  Steve crosses his arms over his chest and looks down. Steve has no wife, but he has Claire … he closes his eyes. What is best for the human race, is best for Claire. He believes that. He has to believe tha
t. Waving a hand, he says, “Enough, you two.”

  Bohdi and Dale turn back to Steve. Taking a deep breath, Steve says, “The original plan was to open the gate Gerðr first came through in—”

  “Afghanistan,” says Bohdi, brightly.

  “Hey!” says Dale. “That was classified. How do you know that?”

  “Ermmm …” says Bohdi.

  Steve’s jaw goes tight. “I’m sure it was a lucky guess on Bohdi’s part.”

  Bohdi gives Dale a wide, cheesy grin. “Yeah!”

  “Back on topic,” Steve says, smothering an urge to laugh. “The Promethean Project is having it’s funding cut.” He pauses a moment to let the implications of that sink in.

  Bohdi’s goofy grin fades away. He meets Steve’s eye. “Odin’s got the Senate.”

  Steve nods. The kid’s a nut, but not stupid. Steve starts to pace. “But there is a gate in Chicago. It leads to the Southern Wastes. Gerðr doesn’t know the way from there to her homeland, but it’s possible Sigyn or her sons do, and we plan on sending drones—”

  “You should really talk to Amy,” says Bohdi, finally putting his knife away.

  Drawing to a stop, Steve sighs. “Bohdi, the further away she is from this the safer she’ll be.” Prometheus himself had told Steve to keep Amy safe.

  Bohdi drops his eyes to the dead fly he’s still cradling in his palm. He says nothing.

  “Besides,” Steve says, “Sigyn and her boys are much more likely to know of a path through Jotunheim’s Southern Wastes. And Nari and Sigyn can both open World Gates if something happens to Gerðr.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Dale says, “How can you be sure you can trust them?”

  “I’m not certain,” Steve says, wiping his forehead. But he’s not sure how much he can trust anyone. Certainly, not Gerðr. But maybe not the Prometheans either. When Odin wanted Sleipnir back, the FBI Director gave Steve orders to return the horse without giving any consideration to Steve’s opinions. The Prometheans say the Director was taking orders from above and isn’t on Odin’s payroll, but Steve has his doubts. And then there is the matter of Loki’s sword, Laevithin. He wouldn’t need magical backup to open World Gates if he had the sword. With Laevithin, and a ring of Promethean wire, humans can open gates themselves. When Steve had brought that to the Promethean’s attention, they’d said it was too risky, that the sword couldn’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.