by Myke Cole
Britton’s anger doubled. It was so senseless. “You’re not fine, and you’re not good, and anyone with eyes can see it. You need this training more than anyone. Just because you get control doesn’t mean you have to raise the flag.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Then what’s this?” Britton asked, reaching into the mist cloud and shaking the droplets off his hand.
“That’s none of your business,” Swift said, and stepped forward. “He doesn’t want to be a soldier boy. Unlike you, he’s showing some fucking balls.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Britton asked. His next words came out in a rush. “He’s a kid who wants to belong to something. Unfortunately, he’s chosen your rancid company, as opposed to the army, which would at least help him come to some productive use.” He shocked himself with his own words. Was he actually defending the SOC? Advocating for Wavesign to serve it? What’s happening to me?
“Doing what?” Pyre asked, his face reddening. “Running down and murdering his own people?”
“No, he’s better off with your crew, engaging in civil disobedience for…well, for no reason really. You’re not Gandhi, chucklehead. You don’t have a TV audience. You’re not changing anyone’s minds but your own. And, meanwhile, you’re convincing this poor kid to live under a rain cloud when the people who could help him get out from under it are standing three feet away.”
“Fuck you!” Swift seethed. “Bomb in your chest, my ass. You work for those fuckers, and everybody knows it. You could get yourself and everyone out of here tomorrow if you chose, but you won’t. You don’t want to.” Peapod nodded agreement, her thick arms folded across her chest.
“What? You dumb fuck. Even if that were the case, which it’s not, that would be my choice. Being free means being free, Swift. It means belonging to myself. Not to the SOC or to you. You’re not interested in freedom, just replacing one tyranny with another. You’re a fucking wannabe despot.”
“Better that than a killer,” Peapod said.
“Yeah, he’s really into nonviolence,” Britton fumed, the concern and anger coalescing on Swift. “Therese isn’t here for you to hit. You want to take a shot at me again?”
“Stand down!” Salamander shouted, as the crowd started to back away from the two of them. Wavesign’s vapor cloud coalesced into solid rain as he moved with them.
Swift took a step forward, cocking his fist. The magic surged along the tide of Britton’s adrenaline, and, angered past caring, he let it come. The gate snapped open between them, facing Swift. The flow was heady and strong, and Britton rode on the sense of immortality that the singing current imbued in him. God, but Scylla was right. He was powerful, and it felt so good to be that way. The tendrils of magic snaked back to the Home Plane, seeking something to protect him from the threat of Swift, ignoring the fact that he was backpedaling, using his own magic to leap into the air, to fly to safety.
Salamander was shouting, running forward, but the anger released, freed from the confines of the Dampener, felt far too good to let go. Britton rode it for another moment, knowing that he would have to shunt it back in a moment and face Salamander’s wrath.
Another moment was all it took.
The magic found aid and hauled it through the gate, rolling shut as its work was done.
The biggest black bear Britton had ever seen, its prehibernation coat thick and shaggy, reared to its full height, howling in rage and terror. Britton guessed it weighed over five hundred pounds.
Britton felt his magic roll back as Salamander Suppressed him, but the Suppression broke a moment later as the huge animal turned and swatted Salamander across the chest with a massive paw, sending the Pyromancer sprawling in the mud. A bullet thudded in the dirt, inches from Wavesign’s foot, as one of the guards took aim at the bear, which flailed among the packed enrollees, just beginning to scatter. Swift soared skyward. Two Aeromancer guards hurtled after him, leaping from one of the guard towers. “Down!” they shouted. “Fucking down right now, or we will fucking fry you!”
Wavesign gritted his teeth and pointed at the animal, his rainstorm lashing forward in a wild spray of ice. The ice shards hammered the bear’s flank, whipping its hindquarters around, freezing one leg solid. The bear scrambled on its free leg, dragging itself toward Salamander. Britton almost applauded Wavesign’s rare burst of focused magic, but there was no time for that.
“Hold your fire,” Salamander wheezed to the guards as he tried to struggle to his feet. “You’ll hit somebody.”
The bear wheeled on its good leg, sniffing the air where Swift had escaped, and turned toward the next threat. Salamander stumbled again, raising his head just as the bear growled and padded toward him, raising a giant paw, claws extended.
He pointed, a firebolt leaping from his hand and clipping the side of the animal’s head. Much of its skull vaporized. Streaks of flame arced down its neck. Britton could see the seared surface of its brain, just visible through the charred fur. But the bear didn’t go down. It roared, staggered back a step, and sniffed the air. It shook its head with rage, determining the smell was itself, and charged forward again.
Enrollees sprawled in the mud on either side of Salamander. The guards milled on the catwalks and around the gate, carbines leveled. Most cursed, unable to shoot through the crowd of enrollees. One squeezed off a round, thudding into the bear’s flank, making it angrier. Another bullet tore into its shoulder.
Britton focused and opened a gate. The tide of anger and panic threw him off. Without the Dampener controlling the flow, the portal opened a few feet behind the creature. The drug in his system kept the flow from overwhelming his senses, from burning his flesh as it had outside the convenience store, but he was off, and he knew it. He tried to close the gate, and it vanished momentarily, only to flicker back open closer to the creature.
The bear cuffed Salamander again, throwing the Pyromancer down in the mud. It reared up over him, roaring, its pelt burning brightly, patches slick with sizzling blood.
Salamander rolled over on his side, trying to drag himself out of the way.
Britton pushed the magical tide, extending the surge forward and letting the gate flicker shut and open again. It inched closer, appearing to slide along the ground, stutter-starting toward the creature as its huge limbs came down on Salamander’s head.
The gate cleaved through the bear, sliding onward as it did, slicing it neatly in half. The creature gave a grunt that turned into a gurgle and was cut abruptly short. Britton gave in to the Dampener, terrified that the gate would cut Salamander as well, shunting the magic away as quickly as he could.
The bear collapsed in halves, the spray of blood clearing to show Salamander, curled in the fetal position and soaked by the creatures innards but otherwise unharmed. Britton rose shakily to one knee, trembling with relief.
In the distance, he saw Swift returning to the ground, his arms gripped by two SOC Aeromancers. “Are you okay?” he called to Salamander, “I’m sorry, I j…” He was silenced by a boot in his ribs. He felt Suppression take hold, and his hands were roughly forced behind him and cuffed.
Salamander rose to his feet and made his way toward Britton. He was so covered in gore that it was impossible to tell if he was actually injured or not. “Don’t say a fucking word,” he said, trembling with rage.
“What should we do with him, sir?” one of the men holding Britton asked.
“What the fuck do you think you do with him?” Salamander rasped. “Throw this piece of shit in the hole until I can look at him without wanting to shoot him in the face.”
The inside of the pillbox smelled like sweat, musk, and old paint. Another odor rode just below the others, something high and chemical. The only light filtered in from the cracks around the door panel, illuminating an interior bare of anything except a metal bench with a bedroll resting on it and a stainless-steel toilet bolted to one wall.
Scylla had not bothered to graffiti the walls; she had made no scratched tick ma
rks to count the days. She sat in a corner beside the bed, arms on her knees, eyes bright and smiling as if there were nowhere else she’d rather be.
“Well now,” she said. “I suppose you must have done something particularly naughty to join me here today. I thought I heard a ruckus outside my door.”
Britton felt his back fetch up against the inside of the door. She’s just a woman, he thought. She has powerful magic, and she’s done awful things, but the rest is just stage presence. She’s Suppressed. In a stand-up fight, you’d easily overpower her. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
Then why was he so terrified?
Britton slid to the floor with his back to the door, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Oh, you don’t have to sit so far away,” Scylla said, moving to the bed and patting the surface beside her. “I may be a miscreant and ne’er-do-well, but I do so enjoy a man’s touch.”
“Is that what you did with Swift when he was in here?”
She laughed, her eyes dancing. “Oh, I’m sure he wishes. No. Swift is nowhere near as pretty as you.”
“He’s a fucking fool, and so are you.”
“Am I? And here I was thinking I was the only person in this whole mad place who makes any kind of sense.”
“You killed twenty people.”
“Oh, far more than that, actually. It’s been a while since I did the full tally. You, my little rumor mill tells me, killed one. You might have killed more if the SOC hadn’t taken you down when they did. So, really, what’s the difference?”
“There’s a big difference. I wasn’t in control.”
“Really? What about now? What about that nastiness out there? Were you in control then?”
Britton didn’t answer.
“Why’d you do it, Oscar? Why’d you let it go, knowing in your heart of hearts the destruction and havoc it could wreak?”
Britton thought for a moment. “A lot of reasons. Because I was angry. Because I was tired of being pushed around. Because I liked how it felt to just let go for a minute, to be myself.”
Scylla nodded thoughtfully. “That’s right, Oscar. That’s why I did it. Because, frankly, I cannot imagine a life lived under someone else’s thumb just to keep him from having to be afraid. I cannot imagine having to never truly be myself again.”
“You’re always under someone’s thumb, Scylla. That’s life. You always have a boss.”
Scylla shook her head. “You’re wrong, Oscar. That’s the change magic has wrought in the world. We didn’t ask for this power, but it’s finally put us beyond the system that we’ve been yoked to since the dawn of civilization. There are no more bosses, Oscar. Not for us. Not anymore. It’s a chance for us to live as we like. It’s real freedom, the kind of freedom that only power can grant. It doesn’t have to be used for evil, but some evil may have to be wrought to take possession of it. Is it unfair that it came to us and not others? Sure. I don’t have an answer for that, but that doesn’t mean that I need to ignore it just because it makes the likes of Senator Whalen and her precious Reawakening Committee nervous. This is mine, Oscar. Mine and no other’s. I want the freedom that it promises me.”
Britton was silent. Scylla patted the bed beside her again. He shook his head.
She smiled, beautiful in the dark. “Oh, Oscar. Don’t you want to be free?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why not open a gate and walk away? They don’t have you Suppressed half the time.”
“Because they put a bomb in my chest, Scylla. They can track my movements and tear out my heart anytime they like. Or didn’t your rumor mill tell you that?”
She smiled again, resting her tiny chin in her hands. “Well, of course it did. But are you going to let a little thing like a machine stop you? You are a being of magic, Oscar Britton. You are beyond human technology.”
“That’s a very grand statement with nothing behind it. I can be beyond whatever I like. I’ll still be just as dead the moment I walk though that gate.”
“No, Oscar. You won’t. Not if you deactivate it. Not if you take it out.”
Britton swallowed. “How the hell do you propose that I do that?”
“Oh, Oscar. Don’t you know how magic works?”
“Enlighten me.”
“It’s elemental. It draws on each element as its fuel, permits the Sorcerer to manipulate it. Fire for Pyromancers, earth for Terramancers, the fabric between dimensions for you.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“But it does, Oscar. Do you know what element Negramancers manipulate?”
Britton shook his head.
“Decay, Oscar Britton. Witches are queens of rot.”
Britton’s head spun. “And?”
“And that means we can decay human flesh, or stones. We can rot the bolts out of a tank and make it fall into its component parts. We can collapse buildings into blowing piles of desiccated mortar.
“We can rot machines, Oscar. We can cause wires to fizzle, metal to break down into ore, explosive chemicals into inert elements. I can break the ATTD, Oscar. I can rot it into sludge that will filter out of your system in a few hours.
“Get me out from under this Suppression for five minutes, and I can free us both.”
CHAPTER XX
SMALL VICTORY
We’re not exactly certain how the “Mountain Gods” got onto the reservation, sir, but it’s apparent there’s some kind of affinity. They’re clearly cooperating with the insurgency. If the Selfers have a Portamancer, we don’t have any reporting on it. The intel staff at FOB Frontier is currently working on the possibility that they may be Source indig entities who breezed through some kind of “thin spot” in the interplanar fabric. If that is the case, it’s a serious threat, and one we’re definitely going to have to spend some resources on researching.
—Unidentified briefer to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They let him out of the hole just as the sun was beginning to set. Salamander looked resigned, refusing to make eye contact. Two guards dragged him to the gate, where they flung him at Fitzy, who caught him in midstride, looking him over.
“You okay?”
It was the nicest thing Fitzy had ever said to him. The shock crippled his answer, and it was a long while before he could nod dumbly. “How’s everyone else?”
“They’re fine.” Fitzy looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with Salamander. “Thanks for your compliance, sir. You’ll have no more trouble from this one.”
Salamander grimaced. “Just get him the fuck out of here.”
Fitzy saluted. Salamander paused for a long while before returning it.
Fitzy’s fingertips dug into the meaty portion of Britton’s upper arm as he steered him away.
“What the hell is going on?” Britton asked. “What happened back there?”
Fitzy stopped him midstride and spun on him, chests touching. “You are fucking done asking questions, Novice. You are also done picking fights with anyone, anytime, ever. I have no idea how long that little stunt you pulled just fucked up things between SAOLCC and the SASS, but I assure you that it won’t be over quickly. You are lucky as hell that you’re needed; otherwise, I would have been happy to let you rot in there with that fucking hag. Next time, I may have no choice. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you ever stop and think that you represent a Coven here? That what you do reflects on how Downer will be treated in there?”
Britton’s stomach sank. “No, sir. I…I didn’t.”
“You’re goddamn right you didn’t. Now, do you have any other questions for me?”
“No, sir. No questions, sir.”
“Good. Now, you were so anxious to practice gating aid in combat, you’re going to get some hard practice at it.” Fitzy spun Britton and marched him back toward the P pods.
Britton went meekly, his mind overwhelmed with the thought of Scylla’s offer. Could she really get the ATTD out?
She probably could. But how could he get her out of Suppression? And even if he could, what would he be unleashing on the world? She’d killed twenty people. Probably more, she claimed. She viewed her captors as cattle.
With the sun beginning to set behind the barricade walls, Fitzy took Britton to the MAC practice tent to find a SOC K-9 handler. He instructed Britton to open a gate onto the Portcullis loading bay. The dark vastness had been filled with three chain-link pens, each housing five mean-looking German shepherds.
“So you first tried Portamantic Summoning back in Shelburne,” Fitzy said. “Took a recovery team about six hours to clean up that particular mess. Now you’ve successfully screwed up whatever goodwill I had with Major Salamander thanks to your little stunt today. What you did by accident before, I now want you to do on purpose. Let’s try bringing these pooches through the gate and into the MAC tent one at a time.”
It was surprisingly simple. Britton recalled the sensation of the tendrils of magic snaking through the gate, driven by the sense of dire threat, grasping for something to assist him. He opened a gate inside one of the pens and recalled the feeling, giving the magic free rein to do its work. The shepherd popped through without complaint and crouched in the mud of the tent floor, ready to spring.
“Outstanding,” Fitzy said. “Now do it again.”
So Britton did it again and again. When the kennels had been emptied, and the dogs all stood to their hocks in the mud, Britton gated into Portcullis and practiced bringing them back. He thought of the worm, digging into his chest, hauling out the ATTD. I would trade my gates for Whispering if I could. It seemed a far lesser power, but Whispering could save him, Portamancy kept him chained there. Scylla’s offer hovered at the edges of his mind, tempting him. The worm plan had too many moving parts, hers was simple. Get her out from under Suppression for just a few minutes, and freedom.
But freedom to do what? There was nowhere in the world he could hide from the SOC. It would be freedom to run, forever a fugitive. And what had the SOC really done to him? They had captured him, they controlled him, but they were training him. He was beginning to master his ability. He had dispatched that bear as easily as he’d gated him in. If he ran, if he escaped, all that training would be lost to him, forever. But did that make them worth serving? They lied about so many things. They had faked Downer’s death, hidden the truth about the Source, kept Limbic Dampener away from the public. They were so obsessed with controlling magic that they failed to do real good with it. Britton could never serve such masters. He had to find a way out. There were Selfers out there who evaded capture. There were entire Indian reservations that boiled in active insurgency. If they could do it, then so could he.
