Stone Soldiers 1: Mythical

by C. E. Martin

  “I think you're in shock,” Josie said. “You know, waking up in the 21st century. You need to eat something.”

  “We've established I've been here before,” Mark reminded her. “In the present.”

  Josie ate a fry. “Yeah- but you don't remember. It's like you get to discover things all over again.”

  “Like who tried to kill you,” Jimmy pointed out.

  Josie frowned at Jimmy, and picked up Mark’s drink. She moved it toward his face, trying to get him to try it. “I got you a Coke. I know those were big back then.”

  Mark reluctantly took the drink and gave it a sip. He immediately made a face at the taste. “This is not how I remember it tasting.”

  “Right!” Jimmy said, snapping his fingers. “They used to put sugar in coke.”

  Jimmy then started unwrapping his burger.

  “What do they put in it now?” Mark asked, a little worried.

  Jimmy was about to take a bite of his burger, but stopped. “Corn syrup- it's cheaper. Oh, and they've changed the formula a few times over the years.”

  Mark set down the drink as Jimmy took a large bite out of his burger. Mark clasped his hands together and tucked his chin down.

  Jimmy and Josie immediately stopped chewing their own food.

  “What's wrong?” Jimmy asked around a mouthful of food.

  Mark looked up, first at Josie and Jimmy, noticing they were already eating.

  “People don't say a blessing anymore?” Mark asked, surprised.

  Josie almost choked on her food. “Not at the Mall!”

  Mark frowned, and looked back down. Closing his eyes, he mumbled a quick blessing to himself.

  Jimmy and Josie looked at each other, completely baffled.

  Mark finally picked up a chicken strip and tried it. It tasted like fried chicken. Sort of.

  Josie finished a mouthful of food and took a drink. “So what was familiar in the paper?”

  Mark finished his taste of the chicken. He picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth. “Something about the Vice President coming to Arizona rang a bell.”

  “What? Why's the V-P coming here?” Josie asked.

  Jimmy kept eating, wolfing down his burger, then starting on his fries.

  “Taking his family on a vacation, apparently. To get away from some scandal,” Mark responded.

  Jimmy gulped down his fries excitedly. “That scandal is something! I mean, you get re-elected, then everyone finds out you were cheating on your sick wife... The President is a terrible person.”

  Josie rolled her eyes. Politics was one of Jimmy’s favorite subjects. It bored her to death.

  “Oh, come on, Jimmy. All politicians do stuff like that,” she said. They’d sure had this conversation before.

  Jimmy gave her a smug look. “I bet Ronald Reagan didn't.”

  Mark was about to try a french fry and stopped. “Reagan?”

  Even though he didn’t like Mark, Jimmy was more than happy to talk about politics. “Right! Ronald Reagan, the actor from California.. Get this- he was President back in the 1980s!

  “Bet you didn’t see that coming in 1962.”

  Mark thought for a moment. “I think I remember meeting him in the Oval Office once... in the 1980s.”

  Jimmy was impressed.

  “Great! See, your memories are coming back!” Josie said quickly, before Jimmy could bombard Mark with questions about the White House. She really needed to take him to Washington some time.

  Mark knew there was something there- about the current Vice President. If only he could recall it. “Let’s stick to more modern times for now.”

  “Okay...” Josie shrugged.

  Jimmy pouted and resumed eating his fries.

  “What can you tell me about the VP?” Mark asked Jimmy. “Anything special about him?”

  Josie answered. “Other than it looks like he’ll be President Hill in a few months?”

  “Other than-” Mark started to say. He then seemed to drift off, looking past Josie at something.

  Josie and Jimmy turned and looked across the food court, wondering what Mark was gazing at. It was a dragon. A plastic dragon, hanging over the cash register of a Chinese takeout place on the food court. Glowing red, with yellow eyes.

  Something about it was so very familiar to Mark. If only... The memories came flooding back. Mark’s face suddenly became very serious. He was wasting time sitting here in a mall.

  Jimmy felt a little chill go up his spine. Mark’s normally pleasant, laid back eyes seemed angry now. Like he wanted to kill someone. It frightened Jimmy.

  “What?” Jimmy asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

  Mark shifted his gaze back to Jimmy then Josie. He rubbed his eyes briefly as if he had a headache. His angry glare was gone, without Josie ever having noticed it.

  “What is it? You okay?” she asked, putting a hand on Mark’s shoulder in concern.

  “Had a flash,” Mark said, sitting up straight. He suddenly seemed older, stiffer. “My memory’s coming back.

  “I remember why I was in Arizona.”

  Josie rubbed Mark on the back, between the shoulder blades. “That’s great!”

  Jimmy wasn’t sure which bothered him more- Mark’s scary going-to-kill-you look or Josie rubbing all over him. Before Jimmy could decide, he felt a buzzing in his pocket. His phone was ringing.

  Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone. An incoming call from an unknown party.

  “Hello?” Jimmy said after he put the phone to his ear.

  “Uh, yes,” Jimmy said into the phone. “He is.”

  Perplexed, Jimmy extended the phone to Mark. “It's for you...?”

  Mark raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Pardon?”

  Jimmy laughed nervously. “It's some guy. He says he needs to talk to you- the big guy with the flattop."

  Mark looked at the slim cell phone, wondering how it worked.

  Josie grabbed the phone and switched it to speaker mode, then laid it on the table.

  “Hello?” A voice on the other end said. “Antaean, are you there?”

  Josie looked to Mark, mouthing the word An-tay-ann questioningly.

  Mark shrugged. The word did sound familiar. Very familiar. In fact, he was sure he’d heard it countless times. It suddenly came back to him. He was Antaean. It was his call sign.

  “Yes, I'm here. Who is this?”

  “This is Major Campbell....” the voice said. “Are we on speaker phone?”

  Mark nodded his head affirmatively, “If that's what this is called- then yes.”

  “I think we need to talk in private, sir.”

  “You can talk in front of my friends,” Mark said. “Besides, I don't really know how this phone of theirs works.”

  “I don't think they have clearance for this, Colonel,” Major Campbell said in frustration.

  Mark was surprised, and looked at Jimmy and Josie. “I’ve been promoted.”

  “Sir, I have to insist-” Campbell started to say.

  Mark cut him off. “Okay, so I'm a Colonel and you're a Major. So I guess I can ORDER you to start talking, right?”

  “Uh, well, technically,” Campbell said, not sure how to take that. “What is your mission status, Colonel?”

  “Confused.”

  There was a long pause on the other end while Campbell tried to pick his words.

  “I think you need to come in, Colonel,” Campbell finally suggested.

  “To where?” Mark asked. He dimly remembered being a Colonel, but not getting promoted. He remembered his call sign, but not really when he got it. The past week was coming back, but there was still a large gap from 1962 to then.

  “HQ. We need to debrief you,” Campbell explained.

  “What if I want answers first?” Mark asked.

  “I can't do that over an unsecured line, sir. And not in front of civilians.”

  “And why I should you trust you?” Mark asked.

  “Sir, time is critical
in this matter,” Campbell said. “You've got to come in.”

  Mark did not like not getting answers when he asked for them. “I haven't got to do anything.”

  “Sir, let's not let this get out of hand,” Campbell pleaded. “There are a lot of innocent civilians there- including your companions.”

  Mark had heard enough. He turned to Josie. “How do you hang this up?”

  Josie grabbed the phone and ended the call. “What is it?” she asked Mark, handing the phone back to Jimmy.

  Mark was definitely in a different mood. It reminded Josie of right before he’d kicked the redneck through the window back at that gas station. He just gave off a don’t-mess-with-me vibe.

  Mark sipped his drink, staring straight ahead, past Jimmy, seemingly at nothing.

  “Stay calm,” Mark said. He set his drink down slowly.

  Mark’s eyes glanced at Josie quickly, then went straight back ahead. “We're surrounded. I can handle it.”

  Jimmy turned his head around, looking quickly one way then the other. Josie was more calm, but also looked around. For the first time, she noticed at least a dozen men in dark suits, scattered around the food court at tables, watching them.

  “What's going on?” Josie asked.

  Mark looked over at her slowly. “They must want me to come in, really, really bad.”

  “So why don't you, already?” Jimmy asked. He was scared, and it showed.

  Before Mark could answer, Jimmy suddenly jerked in his seat. He sat up straight, back stiff. His eyes rolled up in his head. Then, just as quickly as it happened, Jimmy relaxed. His eyes normal again, he looked calmly at Mark. There was no trace of fear in his face or voice.

  “Colonel, may we speak in private?” Jimmy said precisely. He was speaking differently, as if he were another person, but with Jimmy’s voice.

  Josie didn’t like it. “Wha-?”

  It was Mark’s turn to put a hand on Josie’s shoulder, to calm her. “Telepath,” he explained.

  “Right?” he asked Jimmy.

  “Yes, sir,” Jimmy answered. “Have the girl go with our men, please.”

  Mark was angry. This was absolutely against protocol. “I don't think so.

  “Isn't it still illegal to do this- take over someone's mind like that?”

  Jimmy seemed confused for a moment. “I don't know what you mean...”

  “I was there when the Yalu Accord was signed,” Mark said. “It's against the Geneva Convention to take over a noncombatant's mind against their will.”

  Jimmy gave a wide smile- not like anything Josie had ever seen him do before. It was a thin, wide, evil smile. Like a crazy person might give- right before they killed you.

  “That was a long time ago, Colonel,” Jimmy said. “We've changed the rules a bit. And I wouldn't say this is entirely against his will.”

  Mark wanted to punch the telepath right in the face. But that would just hurt Jimmy.

  “Oh?” Mark asked instead.

  Josie was in full-blown panic mode. She started digging in the pockets of her jacket, looking for something, while looking back and forth at the black-suited men around them.

  “This one doesn't like you that much. He thinks you're stealing his girl,” the possessed-Jimmy explained.

  Josie looked up suddenly, her hands still in her pockets. She was shocked. “His girl?”

  It all suddenly made sense. Jimmy had been her best friend since kindergarten- the son of her mom’s best friend. Josie had grown up almost part of Jimmy’s family after her dad died. A family that had watched her many a times over the years, while her mother struggled to recover from the loss of Josie’s dad.

  Jimmy was like a brother to her. And he thought she was interested in Mark- as a boyfriend.

  Josie turned to Mark. “Can he hear me?”

  Mark shrugged. “Yes. Probably.”

  Josie leaned forward, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Jimmy, we've been best friends since kindergarten- but I am not your girlfriend.

  “And I do not like him that way,” she added, pointing a thumb at Mark.

  “No offense,” she hastily told Mark.

  “None taken,” Mark said. Jealousy sure explained Jimmy’s behavior toward him.

  The telepath controlling Jimmy nearly laughed. He took a perverse joy in revealing things like this when he took over people’s minds and bodies. It was a perk of the job.

  “Colonel Kenslir, you are ordered to report to Headquarters,” he said. “These men are here to assist you in getting there.”

  Josie finally pulled her other hand free from her pocket and held up a small black-plastic object.

  “What’s that?” Mark asked.

  Josie squeezed the trigger on her stun gun, causing electricity to arc between the contact points. “Fifty thousand volts of protection. A stun gun.”

  Mark was surprised- at the size of the device and that a random teenage girl would have one. “We didn't have those in 1962.”

  Mark suddenly reached out with his right hand, grabbing the mind controlled-Jimmy’s right hand. As he grabbed the hand in an iron grip, a faint green glow shimmered where their hands touched.

  “Colonel!” Jimmy said, clearly worried.

  Mark held up his hand, open, toward Josie. He didn’t know what she had been planning on doing with that stungun, but he had an idea on how to use it. Josie placed the stun gun in his palm.

  “What are you doing with something like this?” Mark asked.

  “Hello?” Josie said. “I was spending a week in the desert with four boys.”

  Mark shrugged- that did make a lot of sense. Then he looked back to the squirming Jimmy, who was unsuccessfully trying to pull his hand free of Mark’s herculean grip.

  Mark held the stun gun up, halfway between himself and Jimmy, so the telepath would be sure to see it.

  “Call me on the phone next time,” Mark said angrily. He then touched the stun gun to Jimmy’s forehead and activated it.

  Jimmy’s body jumped and spasmed as the electricity from the stun gun raced through it. The pain was excruciating for Jimmy and the telepath. Mark seemed unphased- despite his grip on Jimmy’s hand.

  The brief touch of the stun gun had its desired effect. Jimmy’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fell face forward, unconscious. Mark caught Jimmy’s face with one hand, then lowered his head gently to the table.

  The other people on the food court had noticed the commotion. It was hard to miss someone being stunned. People had stopped eating and were grabbing for shopping bags and purses and getting up from their tables.

  The agents surrounding Josie and Mark were also getting up from their tables.

  Mark calmly handed the stungun back to Josie, then reached over and grabbed the top of Jimmy’s head, like he was palming a basketball. Again, there was the flare of ghostly green light around Mark’s hand. Then it faded out.

  Mark released his grip and leaned back.

  “What was that?” Josie asked as she stuffed the stun gun back in a jacket pocket.

  “Call it an exorcism,” Mark said. “I had to break the connection or when Jimmy woke back up, we'd still have our backseat walker with us.”

  The black suited agents in the food court had all stood up by now. Several were talking into microphones up their left sleeves, while others reached under their jackets for weapons.

  Mark looked all around for the telepath that had controlled Jimmy. He wasn’t one of the nearby suits, or he’d be passed out on the floor. Mark reckoned the telepath was in a store nearby, in civilian clothes. Or maybe laying on the roof, next to a skylight. Telepaths had a very limited range.

  The people on the food court had seen enough. There was a near stampede as the food court cleared out. In under a minute, it was just Josie, Mark, an unconscious Jimmy and twelve men in black.

  Mark popped a couple more chicken tenders in his mouth, then finished his drink. The agents kept their distance, unsure what to do next. Josie also was wondering what
to do. She gripped her stungun, in her jacket pocket, nervously.

  Mark calmly wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  The agents finally decided to move in. They formed a large circle around Mark and Josie’s table. They all had their hands under their jackets now, gripping their holstered pistols. The closest agent was at least fifteen feet away. His name was Steve Cooper.

  Mark placed his hands on the table, palms down, and turned to regard Agent Cooper. He spoke slowly, and calmly. The last thing he wanted was for gunfire that could injure Josie or the unconscious Jimmy.

  “I'm going to stand up,” Mark told the scared agent. “Let's not go crazy, shall we?”

  Agent Cooper swallowed and nodded an affirmative to the agents around him. This was not the day he’d had in mind when he got up this morning. But instead of working a routine bank robbery from last week, Cooper and his fellow agents had gotten a priority call and found themselves in the local mall.

  Mark, then Josie, stood up slowly. Mark stepped slowly around the table and picked up Jimmy by the belt and one arm. With no effort, Mark slung the unconscious teen over one shoulder like a sack of laundry, with Jimmy’s head behind him.

  Mark turned to Cooper again.

  “Sir...” Cooper started to say. Parahumans were way out of Cooper’s experience. He’d had the necessary training, but he really didn’t want to put it to the test.

  “My friends and I are going to walk out of here,” Mark said calmly. “Unless you want me to literally put a foot up your ass, you and your chauffeur friends are going to step aside.”

  Agent Cooper gulped in fear and raised his left hand up to his mouth. He whispered into his microphone. “He wants to leave.”

  Mark gave Agent Cooper the same terrifying stare Jimmy had glimpsed earlier. “Do I really need to repeat myself?”

  Mark took one step toward Cooper.

  All the agents started in fear, each taking a step back and nearly drawing their pistols. It was their commander talking to them in their ear pieces that kept them from firing wildly in fear.

  Agent Cooper nodded his head affirmatively. He was very relieved the agent in charge had told him and his peers to stand down and let the strange, flat-topped man leave in peace.

  “Yes, sir,” Cooper said respectfully, and stepped aside.