by Myke Cole
Britton stepped through after him, assuming his guard. “Yes, sir. That’s the way I want it.”
Fitzy spit blood and cursed. “GIMAC. You’re getting a little ahead of yourself, don’t you think?”
“Just trying to impress you, sir,” Britton said.
“Oh, I’m impressed,” Fitzy replied, raising a hand. Britton felt his magic roll back. “Now, let’s see how you do with no tricks up your sleeve.”
He advanced again, no feinting jabs this time. Britton tried one of his own and Fitzy slapped it down, using the momentum to pivot on his boot, bringing an elbow crashing into Britton’s ear so sharply that he staggered, seeing stars, his head ringing.
Fitzy paused in front of him, hands on his hips. “Harder when you’ve got to fight fair,” he said, then brought the steel toe of his boot up into Britton’s balls. Britton collapsed in the mud, retching, unable to breathe.
“Delusions of adequacy,” he heard Fitzy say through the ringing in his ears.
Oscar Britton lay facedown in the mud, feeling the ATTD like a stone in his heart. The thought of taking Scylla up on her offer chilled his soul. And there was no word from Marty about the worm, and without it, no way out.
CHAPTER XXI
NO WAY OUT
This attack was just a taste of what’s to come. The word of the Lord is clear—“I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers.” When this government of Satan heeds the word of Almighty God and ends the tolerance of the devil’s magic, we will lay down our arms and negotiate.
—Recorded message—Church of Christ, Militant
“We did good today,” Truelove ventured, as they sat in the OC. Britton nodded, groaning inwardly. Truelove probably thought he was comforting him after the beating he’d taken, but he couldn’t have cared less about that. Marty hadn’t mentioned the worm since Britton had first asked, and Scylla’s offer hovered like a vulture on the fringes of his mind.
“Hell, we did great,” Downer said, smiling. “No matter what Fitzy says. That was a damned sweep.”
Richards snorted, knocking back a tumbler. He slapped the empty glass down on the counter for Chris to fill. “Pour one out for the toughest act in the United States armed forces!”
“Make that two,” Downer added to everyone’s surprise. “He knows what he’s got now. It can’t be long before they start running us on real missions.”
“Against whom?” Britton asked.
Downer shrugged. “Against whomever. The bad guys.”
“The bad guys will probably be a pack of confused kids like you used to be, or maybe Marty’s kindred. You like that idea?” Britton asked.
Truelove moved to intervene. “He needs another dose of Dampener,” he said, but Downer silenced him with a look. Her hair had grown in a bit, the stubble beginning to give way to short hair. Her cheeks were gaunter, the chubbiness fading fast. At that rate, she’d be downright lean in another couple of weeks.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked. “You’ve been given a clean slate. They’re making you into a superhero, and you don’t even care! Look what your magic is doing! You saw what I did today!”
“Have you seen this place?” Britton asked. “It’s a damned fortress. Look at the locals! Look how they treat Marty and the rest!”
Silence settled over the OC as the crowd stopped their drinking to take in the confrontation.
“They’re fucking Goblins, Oscar!” she yelled. “They attack our base every damned night!”
“And why do you think they do that?” he growled back. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we set up a military outpost in the middle of their land?”
“We give them jobs! They work here!” Bright spots of color rose in her cheeks.
“For what? I don’t even know what they’re being paid. Surely they’re not using US dollars out there in the open country.” He turned to Truelove. “How does Entertech pay them?”
Truelove swallowed hard. “With coupons for the PX,” he finally said. “They use them mostly for stuff they don’t make themselves, plastic containers, synthetic clothing. But mostly processed sugar. They love it.”
Britton looked back to Downer. “And for that they’re treated like indentured servants. They’re carved up like high-school lab experiments!”
Richards coughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Go to the damned cash,” Britton yelled. “They’re dissecting them there. Christ, Truelove, you use their dead as practice dummies! You want to tell me that’s okay in their culture? They don’t honor their dead the way we do?”
Truelove blanched, and Richards stammered, but Downer met Britton’s gaze evenly. “So? We study them. Big deal! We dissected frogs in biology class all the time!”
“They’re not frogs, damn it!” Britton pounded his fist on the bar.
Downer ignored him. “For all you know, they’re honored to give us their dead.”
Britton recalled Marty’s look of resignation as the Physiomancer let the curtain fall. “I doubt it.”
“Guys, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Truelove said. Richards ignored them.
Downer took a breath. “Look, I’m trying here.”
“So am I,” Britton retorted, “and that doesn’t mean doing whatever the hell some murderous idiot tells me.”
“What’s so wrong with that?” she asked. “Why is it so bad to fight for your country?”
“Nothing, so long as you choose to take that fight on. Didn’t you take civics class? Don’t you know what this country was founded on?” he went on. “Freedom, Sarah. Freedom to choose sides. We’re a democracy, damn it. Or, at least we were before the Reawakening Commission and the McGauer-Linden Act. Christ. Do you even know why I’m really here?”
Downer didn’t blink. “Because they tagged you. You’ve got an ATTD implant.”
Britton nodded. Fitzy or Harlequin must have told them. Hell, Therese had said half the SASS knew.
“So run, then.” She shrugged. “If it’s so bad, take a hike. Those things work fast. You won’t feel a thing.”
Britton opened his mouth, then closed it. It was not as if he hadn’t considered the option.
“I know why you don’t,” Downer said. “Because you used to be army, and now you almost are again. You’re protecting your country, and you know it. Harlequin said we’ll probably wind up fighting narcoterrorists in South America, or keeping the Chinese out of Taiwan, or catching pirates in the Straits of Mal…Malacca, or whatever it’s called. Once we’re doing that, you’re going to be happy again because you’ll be helping people.”
You’re wrong, Britton thought. I’m holding on because there’s a chance, however remote, that I can defuse this damned thing.
“She’s got a point,” Richards said, tipping back another tumbler. “But you know the real reason you stay?”
“Et tu Brute?” Britton asked.
“Curiosity,” he went on. “There’s a whole world out here and like it or not, you’ve got the keys to the kingdom. You want to see what’s up just as much as the rest of us do.”
Britton searched his head for a rebuttal and found none.
But Scylla’s words haunted him. 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. The SOC might train him, give him a chance to do something with his magic, but it would always be by their leave and for their ends. There had to be a better way, to neither run nor fight. Serving the SOC wasn’t it.
“No anger,” Marty said, coming up behind them. He touched Downer’s wrist, and the girl instinctively jerked away. “No anger us. Plenty anger others.”
The rest of the patrons of the OC muttered at his entrance but gave him and the rest of the Coven a wide berth.
“Tell her, Marty,” Britton said. “Hell, tell me. Why are you even here? Why do you work for Entertech? I see how they treat you. Why aren’t you
fighting with the rest?”
“Other tribes,” Marty said calmly. “Not Mattab On Sorrah.”
“Mattab On what?” Britton asked.
“It’s the name of his tribe,” Truelove offered.
“Why doesn’t your tribe fight?” Britton asked.
“All water babies,” Marty said.
“What the hell does that even mean?” Britton fumed, unable to contain his frustration.
“He means we all come from the magic,” Truelove explained.
“I get that,” Britton said. “But that’s not even true. Marty, we came from another world.”
“Came back,” Marty said. “You tribe…” He paused, searching for the word. “Lost.”
“What?” Britton asked. “You mean we’re from the Source originally?”
Marty spread his hands, uncomprehending. He smiled broadly. “Mattab On Sorrah no fight. All water baby. Mattab On Sorrah help. Marty help. Long time. We wait. Everything okay.”
“How can you let them do this to you?” Britton asked, Marty’s patience building his frustration to a pitch that surged his magic. “That’s not helping, that’s suicide.”
Marty shook his head. “Help, always help. Wait.” Britton was rocked once again by Marty’s patient kindness. He was a leader among his own, but the military on the FOB treated him like a servant, an animal. Still, he stood by them.
“See?” Downer said. “He doesn’t mind. Why can’t you just be happy where you are?”
“We’re slaves,” Britton said, “slaves that kill.”
“You killed my boyfriend,” Downer said. “You almost killed me. I killed people, too. Harlequin says that’s all behind us now. It’s a fresh start. That comes from the president. All we have to do is forget it and start over. I can do that. Why can’t you?”
Britton knew she was right. The truth was that Britton was beginning to revel in his newfound control, that the rest of Shadow Coven were becoming colleagues if not friends. He had lost his home and was beginning to build a new one on the razed foundation. Was it better to pout and scream like Swift? To stew in the hole like Scylla? Even Therese had raised the flag and joined up once she’d realized that her magic would be put to some use.
And yet.
“The hell with this,” was all he said as he stood and left. For the second time, Marty followed him out, stopping him with a hand on his elbow.
“Okay,” Marty said. “No anger.”
“It’s not okay,” Britton growled. “You might be some kind of a saint, but I’m not. You’re one of the best…people I know, and I’m angry on your behalf.”
Marty did his ear-wiggling shrug, not appearing to under-stand.
Britton squatted in front of the Goblin, putting his hands on Marty’s narrow shoulders. Worry made his voice hard. “Marty, I need that worm. I really need it.”
Marty frowned. “Srreach room is…hard. Many people.”
Britton cursed and looked at the ground. He knew what he was asking of the creature, but he couldn’t stand the thought of another day here. “Maybe I could help?” He thought briefly of gating back to his world, then into the cash from there, but the ATTD would alert whoever watched it.
Marty’s frown deepened. “So important?”
Britton gritted his teeth. He thought of the half-dissected corpses he’d seen in the cash and shuddered. Who knew what punishment the SOC would levy on a Goblin contractor caught stealing from there?
But Downer’s zealotry moved him. Scylla’s offer made him shudder. He couldn’t make that place his home. He just couldn’t.
It was different for Therese. She was helping people. Britton was training to be a walking meat cleaver to be used against God knew whom.
“Yeah,” Britton sighed. “It is.”
Marty looked at him, folding his arms across his chest. His massive head bobbed on its scrawny neck over narrow shoulders, but Britton couldn’t miss the regal look in his pointed chin and broad brow. Marty sucked in air and clucked, deep in his throat, a hitching sound that Britton had never heard a human make. He realized it was Goblin pensiveness.
Marty nodded again. “Important,” he said.
“Important,” Britton repeated.
CHAPTER XXII
DO SOME GOOD
The tongues of blazing fire,
The ice storm’s savage trill,
The gale and steadfast mountain,
All serve our nation’s will.
—Excerpt from the SOC anthem “Phaleratus Ministro”
Therese’s absence from the SASS set off a war of emotions in Britton. Betrayal competed against worry that eroded into simple loneliness. Britton slumped his way through the morning video, wondering vaguely if the rest of the enrollees felt her absence as keenly as he did. They all seemed down to a greater extent. Swift sagged in his chair, pale and harrowed-looking. Pyre and Peapod bickered quietly beside him. Wavesign’s control seemed to have regressed, and he rained steadily in a corner.
One of the enrollees had raised the flag during control class that morning, which set Swift into his usual fit of impotent screaming that a resigned Salamander didn’t bother to check. He administered a perfunctory oath at the base of the flagpole before jogging back to the group to resume instruction.
Britton went through the exercises, not really paying attention. He realized that he no longer needed them. His basic control was fluid, solid. He could call and shunt away the magic at his will. There was nothing more for him to learn there. He looked at Swift and shook his head. It was becoming impossible to sympathize with him. The man’s impotent posturing trapped him in that tiny space, his world become the whole of the little muddy compound. And for what? Pride? Some obscure ethical point that nobody apart from him even cared about?
How are you any different? Britton asked himself. You’re both resisting. How are you any better?
I am better. I’m looking for a way out. Swift is sulking. I don’t know what the hell he thinks he’ll accomplish by spinning his wheels here. At least I’ve got a plan.
Really? And what plan is that? Get the worm that is never arriving? Get Scylla out of her cage?
Face the music, pal. Your plans stink. You and Swift are closer than you think.
Scylla paced the yard, her guards quaking behind her. All her power, Britton thought, and all she’d managed to do was intimidate two soldiers who locked her up anyway. She was nothing more than a bully. When she paced past him, she nodded greeting. Was that madness he saw in her wide-eyed grin? “Have you forgotten me, Oscar?” she asked. “Won’t you let me help you?”
Britton looked at his feet until she passed, the guards moving sheepishly behind her, doing their best to look as if they were hurrying her along.
But he could feel her presence, her feet crunching on the frozen mud, the guards standing uneasily behind her. Why had she stopped? Weren’t they supposed to keep her moving? “Scylla, …” he said, looking up.
Scylla had moved twenty yards down, along with her guards. It was Fitzy who stood before him. The chief warrant officer’s condescending look was gone, replaced instead with an earnest concern. “Morning, Novice, you ready to do some good?”
Britton looked around him at Wavesign’s childish lack of control, Swift’s pouty impotence, Scylla’s half-mad, half-reasoned hostility. He was surprised to find himself actually glad to see Fitzy. Hope blossomed in his chest. Is he serious? “You bet I am, sir.”
“Good, let’s go.”
Downer looked wistfully after them, but Fitzy waved her away. Salamander only nodded as Fitzy turned on his heel and took off without saluting. He set a good pace, walking so fast that Britton had to jog to keep up, even though his legs were much longer.
“We in a hurry, sir?” Britton winced as soon as the words were out, waiting for the string of invective that Fitzy usually reserved for those who asked foolish questions.
But Fitzy only nodded. “Got a problem that you’re uniquely suited to solve, Keystone. About time you e
arned your wings, so to speak.” The seed of hope in Britton began to flower.
They moved up the muddy track and through the checkpoint out of the SOC enclosure and down another wider road that led toward the FOB’s central plaza. Britton realized a moment later that they were heading toward the cash. Therese. His heart leapt.
He opened his mouth to ask another question, and Fitzy silenced him with a wave. “I’ll give you the full rundown in exactly two mikes. Just shut up and haul ass for now.” The chief warrant officer broke into a run.
They dashed through the cash’s front flaps, pushing past the signs marking the trauma ward, and headed through a side flap that led to a covered walkway that looked recently erected judging by the shiny new tent poles and fresh gravel. Britton looked around for Marty, but they were nowhere near the urinalysis section, and, while he saw many Goblin orderlies helping out in the bustle of the trauma floor, he couldn’t spot Marty’s dotted-paint pattern, his kindly eyes, his wide, splay-footed stance. When I first got here, I couldn’t tell one Goblin from another, Britton mused.
At the end of the covered walkway, a miniature trauma center had been set up under a new tent on a freshly laid gravel bed. Two sentries stood at the entrance, carbines ready. They nodded at a glance from Fitzy and stood aside to let him and Britton pass. The center’s interior was kitted out for emergency care, with two gurneys and mobile medical pallets piled with equipment. Britton could make out surgical tools, a defibrillator, and a heart monitor. A doctor stood ready, two Goblin orderlies at his sides, already scrubbed up and ready to work. Beside them stood Therese, also in scrubs, a Physiomancer’s lapel pin prominently displayed, as well as a polished and worried-looking army colonel. His name tape read TAYLOR.
Britton nodded to Therese, and she smiled back behind her surgical mask. He started forward to embrace her, but Fitzy’s hand on his shoulder stopped him, rotated him to face the likely reason all this medical might was on standby.
Three combat operators stood in the tent’s other half, geared for dynamic entry in all the tactical gear Britton’s own men had worn on the high-school roof. Tabs arced across the Velcro patches on their shoulders: SPECIAL FORCES. Beside them, a SOC Hydromancer stood. He was likewise rigged for war but carried no weapon other than his holstered pistol, not that he would need one. BREACHER, read the subdued gray lettering across his chest, just below a thin stylized gray wave.
