Clutch

by JA Huss

  "Give her the signal, Junco," Aren growls.

  "I'm fine, HOUSE, signal protocol 3zsk256478."

  "Security action aborted," my house replies. Then it adds, "Junco, you should ask these people to leave for your own safety. Would you like me to make them leave?"

  Aren puts his head in his hands and takes a seat on the couch to calm down.

  "No. He's fine. We're just really stressed out right now."

  "Would you like me to call your dad and tell him to come home, Junco?"

  I never explained his death. In fact, I can't even remember if I talked to anyone during the time between his death and my excursion out to Stag. I let the words escape, half because I can't stop myself even if I wanted to and half because for the smallest moment I want so badly to believe that this is all a nightmare. "Do you have a number for him, HOUSE? I really want to talk to him. Can you find him for me, please?"

  Aren comes over and puts his arm around me. "Don't do this, Junco. Stop. Make her stop."

  But she answers before I can. "I'm sorry, Junco. I have no number for your dad right now. If you tell me where he is I can look him up in the data systems."

  I wipe my hand across my face, push the shit back down, lock it in, and look Aren in the eyes. My response slides out without a hint of emotion. "He's rotting in hell, HOUSE. Try there first."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I'm back in the bathroom, but this time Aren leaves me alone in there for so long that I actually fall asleep on the rug in front of the sink. When he finally knocks I sit up so fast my head spins.

  "Look, Junco," Aren says through the door, "we need to come up with a plan here. Come out of there and deal with this."

  I come out and plop back down onto the couch.

  "Things are spiraling out of control outside. The media is here, I mean media from all over the world, Junco. You might have been a minor curiosity before you were taken by an avian, but right now you're the biggest story on the planet. We need to get rid of them, and then we need to come up with a way to defuse what's happening here."

  "Well, maybe you should start by telling me what is happening here."

  He walks over to my father's chair and sits down, then spins it so he's looking out at the spotlights lighting up the lush tropical landscape of the courtyard. "I think we're all about to be killed."

  "By who?" I snort.

  He spins back to face me. "Take your pick?" he says, and shrugs. "Maybe the aliens, the RR Council, the United Republic Secretaries, Council 3, the Mountain Republic, hell, maybe it will be your neighbors and friends. Who knows? All I know is that from my viewpoint, the shit is stacked, Junco. Fucking shoulder high."

  He spins back to the tropical view of the courtyard so all I see is his military haircut peeking out from the top of the massive leather chair. "I'm dead, that's all I know," he continues. "They gave me this assignment for one reason and one reason only and that's so they have someone to blame it on."

  Oh shit, now he's paranoid. "Blame what on?"

  He spins back again. "The attack! Don't you pay attention to anything?"

  "What attack?" I growl. My patience has run out and I feel the heat rise in my face as I look at him.

  "The fucking avians, Junco! They're everywhere out there. We can sense their shielding, they have more ships out there than we have reporters!"

  "OK," I say, trying my best to remain calm so HOUSE doesn't initiate the security protocol again, "when I said tell me everything you know, that meant everything you know, you asshole. You never mentioned avians attacking!"

  He lets out a deep breath and continues to spin between the courtyard view and the office and it's really pissing me off. "I've got it. You make a statement to the media, right? You let them in on a few choice details, this creates interest in your story, your face is all over the newscreens, and then they can't come in and take you. How about that?"

  "What kind of statement?" I ask with hopeful hesitation.

  "You know, just bits and pieces to make your story compelling, like the nightdog eating your fingers. Flash your stubs to the cameras, then add in your daring escape, and say you're very happy to be home."

  I sniff loudly. "I don't know."

  "Trust me, Junco. They aren't leaving until they hear from you. You have to go out there and say something."

  "And when they leave, so what? How does that stop us from being killed by the Council or the avians, or whoever else wants to sweep all this under the carpet?"

  He bites his thumbnail as he continues to swivel in my father's chair, and I'm just about to scream at him when he answers, "Call a meeting. Of the council." He looks up at me, smiling. "No, you say you already asked for a meeting with the Council tomorrow, and they accepted."

  "But they haven't."

  "Sweet Jeremiah, Junco, how the fuck do you make a living at covert ops? You're playing them. You say that they agreed to meet with you tomorrow, then everyone waits to see what happens. Meanwhile, no one can attack us tonight, and we'll have a little more time to figure this out."

  "I don't make a living at covert ops, by the way." He sneers at me and shakes his head. "But letting that comment slide, what the fuck do I say to them in the meeting?"

  This time he doesn't spin, or bite his nail. He just sits for a few minutes, eyes darting back and forth. "I'm not sure yet. Give me the night to think about it."

  "Well, I'm not going out there to make a statement looking like this. I need to go to my room and get cleaned up."

  He puts his hands out and shakes his head, an expression that from my end reads, so what the fuck should I do about it?

  "Come with me, Aren. I don't want to be alone."

  This makes him smile, the scared little girl needs the big strong man to protect her.

  Whatever. I let him have his moment.

  Just keep talking. Keep drowning out the voices in my head so I can damp them back down into submission. Otherwise I'll be picturing myself standing on the edge of a fucking dock. In front of me is a fucking mountain lake and behind me is a small fucking cabin...

  I watch Aren's face as he looks around my room.

  "What?" I growl.

  "Well, no offense, Junco, but it looks like a princess threw up in here."

  He's right. This cannot be my room. I haven't been six for a very long time, but my name is on the door and my fingerprints trigger the biometrics on the doorknob.

  So.

  Apparently it is.

  "Shut up and take a fucking seat on the flying carpet while I take a shower."

  He eyes the bench covered in a genuine Persian carpet suspended from the ceiling by cables, and for a minute I wait to see if he actually tries to climb on, but he plops down in the white fuzzy beanbag chair. Then he grabs a photo album from the little end table next to him and thumbs through it.

  I was right about him being chatty because I can hear him talking to me all through my shower. I just have no idea what he's saying because I'm too busy standing under the blasting hot water to care. At one point he even comes into the bathroom to ask about a photo of me on a pony, but I just shoo him out and tell him to wait.

  I take my time washing and conditioning my filthy hair and lathering myself with sweet pea soap, then comb it out in the steamy mirror. I peel off a few avian membranes on my calf that I didn't notice during my last bath and check every last bruise, burn, and cut on my body before wrapping myself up in my thick cotton bathrobe.

  When I come out he's sitting on the end of my purple canopy bed, his camo fatigues clashing badly with the unicorn pattern on the quilt, and his combat boots are resting on the white bed rail so he can prop a photo album in his lap.

  "Junco," he says, looking anything but properly embarrassed. Hell, I'm embarrassed for him. "Are all these pictures of you?"

  I wrap my hair in a towel and then take a seat next to him on the bed and grab the album. I'm about two and my very first pony, Magpie, is galloping on the long line. She's a slick and shiny black
-and-white pinto Shetland. I'm wearing a pink unitard with a white tutu and ballet shoes. My auburn hair is up in a tight bun, and my face clearly exhibits happiness that no two year old should be able to fake. I have one foot planted firmly on her back and another sticking out behind, my hands splayed out in front of me with "pretty fingers" to make it look official.

  "Yeah," I say, but in my mind I see the little girl in the clone tank and begin to wonder. "They always said I was born on a horse."

  He flips the pages again and points to me at about six. This time I'm doing a handstand on Esmeralda. "Yes, again. They're all me."

  I think.

  "Can we use these for the presser?" I just look at him, so he clarifies, "Can I pass out copies to the media, so they can post them in the sphere?"

  "Why would we do that?"

  "It makes you look, well – sort of innocent and vulnerable. Child-like."

  I'm about to ask if that's the look we're going for when he stands up and grabs one of my more recent trophies. "What's this one from?"

  "Worlds, from last year. That picture is out there already. Probably."

  "How about this one?" He points to another trophy, not as bright as the last.

  "That was Worlds, when I was thirteen." I stop and look up at him. "Right after I met you at cadets, don't you remember?" I talked about it incessantly that year because I didn't want to go. The contest was in Sydney and for some reason thinking of Sydney makes me sick. Aren just smiles and we go on like that for a while, he points and I clarify, then he chooses it or puts it back. When we're done he's got about eight awards and pictures to display and then he leaves me to get dressed.

  But I'm not ready to get dressed now that I've got my whole life out in front of me. I look over the images and marvel at how young I was when I started. The Magpie picture was the earliest one at around two, but I must have been training for some time if I already had balance and could stand on one foot as she galloped in the circle. If I was adopted, and clearly I was since everyone has the same story, my parents got a hold of me young. And not only that, they had big plans for me. It's not like they stuck me in a corner and waited for their orders to bring me back to the Stag. No, they put me on a horse and started training me in aerial acrobatics.

  Why? Why bother?

  A soldier knocks on the door and announces that the media is ready when I am, so I break off my thoughts and spend a good amount of time trying to find something in my closet that isn't fifteen years out of date or that makes me look six.

  I finally settle on a pair of khaki slacks and a brown t-shirt with our farm logo on it. Then I run a brush through my hair and choose some slightly muddy barn boots over the ballet flats that some other Junco seems to be fixated with.

  I take a deep breath, grab my brown canvas farm jacket and open the door. There are several soldiers waiting for me and they take me by the arm and lead to me to the front of the house where I can sense the sizable crowd that has gathered in my front yard to hear about my ordeal.

  A flashing thought occurs to me as I walk towards the massive double front doors. Maybe I should have actually prepared something to say?

  As soon as I step through the doors Aren is there and he takes my hand and leads me up to the makeshift podium. The crowd is loud at first, but when they see me, a hush falls over my packed front yard and they wait. Aren and I reach the podium together and he lets go of my hand, but I snatch it back and then turn to him and smile. He smiles back, and nods his head ever so slightly to give me encouragement.

  My eyes sweep over the mass of people lit up in the flood of our outdoor security lights and I calculate the number in my head real fast. Maybe a hundred and fifty people are crammed onto the lawn, their faces upturned, and the questions waiting on their tongues.

  I clear my throat, ready to speak, but I suddenly have no idea where to start. I glance down at a conservatively-dressed young reporter with long blonde hair, she doesn't look much older than me. She meets my eyes, then her gaze darts down at the notes on her membrane and she ever so quietly begins to speak. "Junco, can you tell us why you were in the Stag last week?"

  And then she smiles.

  "I... well, my father–" I stop and hesitate, but the young reporter nods at me and so I continue. "Maybe you don't know this, but my father di– was killed a couple weeks ago in a terrible... incident. And on the day of the funeral I–"

  I what? Went a little crazy?

  "I noticed that a family friend was missing from the ceremony. So I went to the Stag to see this friend. Well, a man I thought was a family friend. But I never made it there. I hit a deer about halfway to the camp and crashed my truck. It was then that the avian found me. And healed me from my numerous injuries."

  I look at the young reporter and she prods me again. "Why did he take you, Junco?"

  "He took me..." I have every intention of answering her but as my gaze passes over the crowd I see him. The RR officer I saw holding a gun to CP's head at that makeshift camp in the Stag. Several reporters notice the direction of my eyes and look back to find what I'm looking at. He doesn't move or make a single gesture or motion. Aren sees him too, and gives my hand a tight squeeze, and when I look over at him, he nods to keep going.

  I clear my throat and begin again. "He took me because many years ago the United Republics stole some avian genetics to make clones or mutants, or something like that. To use for bio-engineering experiments." The crowd gasps, and the RR commander turns and walks away from the crowd.

  The questions are flying now, and I put up a hand to make them stop. I wait for it to get as quiet as I dare and I continue. "He, the avian, took me to kill me because I'm one of those experiments." The chatter of shock erupts again and I scan the crowd to see who will walk away now and that's when I see Tier. Standing in the back, leaning up against the ruddy bark of our tallest Ponderosa pine tree. He crosses his arms and shakes his head at me before disappearing. Once again the crowed follows my eyes to find my target, but they see nothing and the whispering gets louder.

  Aren squeezes again, and leans in to tell me that I should wrap it up. "And so," I belt it out to try and get everyone's attention, "and so that is why I have invited the Rural Republic High Council to meet with me tomorrow at 6 PM. And they have so graciously agreed to this meeting so that we can set things right. So that no other children are caught in the lies and deceit that have ripped my life apart over the last week."

  "Junco," the young reporter shouts, "what about the avian? Where is he? Will he take you away?"

  I look back at the tree where Tier was standing moments before, just in case he's still hanging around and I can't see him. "I have no plans beyond tomorrow."

  They erupt in chatter as they rush their reports out in the sphere and I say thank you, but no one hears. And then Aren is leading me back to my father's office and before I can blink, I'm sitting on the couch.

  CP closes the door behind us and Aren is pacing the floor, his hands behind his head. "Shit! I can't believe you said that!" He says it a little too enthusiastically.

  "What do you mean? Did I say too much?"

  He kneels down in front of me and takes my hands. "Not at all, Junco, you were brilliant! Did you see the Colonel storm off? He was pissed!" Aren jumps back up and resumes his pacing. "Everyone saw him. I bet it's all over the world by now! Shit!"

  "I don't get it. Is that good or bad?"

  "Oh, well, that depends who you are tonight. If you're me and you, I personally think this is great. Fucking perfect! They can't touch us now."

  "Did you see Tier out there, by the tree?"

  Aren stops now and stares down at me. "He was here?"

  "Yeah, he was leaning on that big Ponderosa in the back and then he just vanished right in front of my eyes."

  "Fucking avians. They have some kind of shielding that makes them appear invisible, and I'm not talking about how we can make things look invisible, with the shimmer of light that gives you away, either. It's damn near perfe
ct."

  "So, is that good or bad? I mean, if you're you and me?"

  But he doesn't answer, only continues his pacing.

  "HOUSE," I ask as I look up to the ceiling.

  "Yes, Junco?"

  "Are there alien ships outside?"

  "Yes, Junco."

  Aren has a look of stunned shock on his face. "She can see them?"

  "Can you see them, HOUSE?"

  "No, Junco. But I know they are here."

  "How do you know?" I ask.

  "They announced their presence with your security clearance this afternoon."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The barn is quiet and the smell of horses and alfalfa hay fills my nostrils. These smells have never bothered me. I was a horse lover from day one and there isn't a single thing about them that turns me off. Not the slobber as you slip the bit in, not mucking out the stalls, cleaning sweat-caked saddles, picking feet, pulling manes, the nasty stench of worming medicine, being bit, kicked or thrown. Everything about them is good.

  Darby is my number one. A giant dapple-gray warmblood with a temperament so cool she's a cold front blowing through a still summer prairie. She nickers at me when I approach and slide the stall door open. I click my tongue and she exits and trots to the arena and begins a brisk walk around the perimeter. I swing the pipe gate closed and let out a genuine smile as I look down the breezeway.

  The Goat is parked near the back entrance to the barn where Aren had the tow truck drop it off. I rummage through the back seat and surface with a pair of filthy thermals and a large white t-shirt. Also dirty. Then I spy the envelope with Dale's name on it peeking out from under the passenger seat and open it up. I flip through the various official documents and let out a big sigh and set it back down on the seat. It waited this long, it can wait a little bit more. Besides, I can't get my clean clothes off fast enough.

  There are no boots since I took the extra pair back when I changed out of my funeral shoes, but I won't need them. I slam the door and jump back in surprise.

  "Why must you sneak up on people?"