Once A Hero

by Watson Davis

  “You sent me,” I pounded my chest with my fist, “into the middle of a section of Massif known as New Jeffs, right next to the largest Meridani temple and university complex in all of Hellas. Me. There. Like dumping propellant on an open flame.”

  “Oh.” His chin dropped slowly down into his hand, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, his hand sliding up to cover his open mouth.

  Dion chuckled behind me.

  I turned, pointed at him, gestured toward the hallway. “Out. This is private.”

  He raised his hands again and skipped out, the door whisking shut behind him.

  I returned my attentions to Craft. “Yeah. I have since learned that the Meridani ministers have placed a one million credit bounty out for my death and here I am, driving my little scooter around, la dee freaking da, like some brainless high school cheerleader out shopping for pom-poms, checking her makeup in the rear-view, and cruising for cute boys.”

  “Well.” He smiled, spreading his hands. “At least I didn’t have to gather you up from the police station. I’d call that progress. You’re finally learning to walk away from dangerous situations. You should be proud.”

  The urge to strike something grew exponentially.

  But instead, I followed his advice and walked away.

  Muttering curse words and vile epithets under my breath, perhaps, but I turned and walked away.

  The parts and pieces of my homemade variation of a BFG-9003x lay on the table in my apartment, shining, clean, smelling of solvent. I knelt beside the table. Closing my eyes, I started my timer and dumped the table over, spilling everything onto the floor.

  My hands reached out, searching, feeling the area around me, picking up the muzzle and the handle stock to clear some space. I followed this routine, reaching out, finding a piece, adding it or setting it down where I’d know where it was when I needed it, one piece after the other, putting the weapon back together as quickly as I could, the timer ticking down in block letters on the blackness of the inside of my eyelids.

  With a half second left, I finished, beating my old time. I leaned back grinning, opening my eyes, thinking about the sergeant major, about the time I’d shared with him, all the times he made me tear weapons apart and put them back together until it was a form of meditation, wondering what he would have said now. I could have used his advice and wisdom. I rubbed at the corners of my eyes.

  Too bad everything else in life isn’t as easy to put back together as a freaking weapon.

  I picked the BFG up, a reassuring weight in my hands, the handle fitting so snugly in my palm like a handshake from an old friend. I set the table back right-side up and, standing, set the weapon down on the table with a heavy thunk. I pulled the sights off, setting them down, and twisted the barrel free.

  A yellow light flashed. No biggie. I almost let it go but the sergeant major warned me about routines designed for your safety: once you don’t take the time to follow them, you’ll find reasons to stop this one and that one, and you’ll soon stop following them completely and then you’re screwed.

  I flipped the holo on, studying the grainy feed showing the far end of the hallway leading to my door, expecting to see one of the other “residents” of my floor: Dion the forger, or Greta the prostitute, but instead, it was Edward “Dumbfuck” Craft rubbing his cold, little hands together like the cockroach he was, looking all nervous and jittery in front of the elevator. I unsnapped the cooling element, setting it down on the table beside the barrel, considering flicking the holo off and getting back to work. I wanted to improve my time by at least another quarter second.

  Edward motioned to someone in the elevator to follow him, a furtive, jerky movement. Two men crept out, lightly armored, their helmets covering their heads and faces, carrying military-grade slugthrowers, grenades in the bandoliers wrapped around their chests. The men took up positions outside the doors of the elevator, raising their weapons, pointing them down the hall, down the hall toward my door.

  Edward Motherfucking Craft, you fucking fucker.

  I dubbed the men Bogey 1 and Bogey 2.

  Eyes glued to the holo, I reached down, snatching up the cooling element, snapping it back in place, grabbing the barrel, sliding it home, twisting it back until it refused to twist. Two more men, Bogeys 3 and 4, weapons pointed down in safe positions, heads ducked, scampered out of the elevator, jogging past Craft, taking up positions in doorways, raising their weapons to point toward my door. The two by the elevators jogged forward, one of them grabbing Craft by the arm, dragging him forward.

  My yellow light turned red.

  I slipped the sights on, slid a full magazine in, locking it into place with a satisfying snap. Holding the BFG in my right hand, pressed up against my cheek, pointed at my door, ready to fire, I pulled the table out of the kitchen area, tumping it over by my couch, at an angle to the door. I reset the holo feed so I could see it out of the corner of my eye and dropped to a prone position, my barrel peeking out from the bottom corner of the table.

  At a command from my onboard, the lights in my room switched off, the only light now coming from the flickering holo showing Craft at the door, pressing his palm to my door control, punching in his code to override my lock.

  The door slid open, silhouetting Craft against the lights in the hall. He stood there, frightened eyes open wide, his chest rising and falling in quick, ragged breaths, and I felt real pain, a physical ache, to not take that shot and blow his freaking head off right then and there, to not watch it explode in the fury of blaster plasma.

  From the holo, I could see Bogeys 1 and 2 farther back in the hall leaving their positions, rushing forward, coming toward my now open door.

  The two men on either side of the door knocked Craft aside, swinging their weapons into the room, hurrying in crouched, getting out of the doorway as quickly as they could, taking positions inside the door, their weapons swaying, scanning the room.

  The one on my right, Bogey 1, removed his left hand from his weapon to point across his body in my direction. “She’s there, on the floor.”

  “She’s probably asleep,” Craft whispered from the hall.

  “What’s that on the holo?” the one on my left, Bogey 2, said. “Is that the hallway?”

  The two other bogeys in the hall weren’t as close as I would have liked but nothing ever works out exactly like you hope it will; you have to take what you can get. My finger tapped the trigger, twice. Two blue bolts of coherent plasma exploded from my weapon, whooshing out.

  Blue light engulfing Bogey 1’s chest, ripping it open, tearing through the thin armor, he jerked backward, screaming, his arms opening up, his finger tightening on the trigger of his slugthrower, spewing bullets back into the hallway.

  Bogey 2 to the right of the door, swung his weapon toward me, drawing a bead on me, and squeezed his trigger before I could bring my weapon around, but he shot too soon, before he had me in his sights. Bullets ripped into the table just above me, splintering the plastic and chrome, shards flying out, raining down on me. I squeezed my trigger while he fought to force his barrel down further.

  The blaster plasma removed his head from his shoulders and his body stiffened and fell to the ground, gun falling from his hand. I was up and moving, throwing myself to the left, up against a part of the kitchenette counters that jutted out from the wall, my BFG aimed at the doorway.

  A canister plopped into the room, a metallic tink-tink as it hit the ferrocrete floor.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I turned, crouching down as low as I could, pressing my face, hands, and weapon into the corner, sucking in a deep breath.

  The flash bomb whumpfed, slamming my forehead against the wall, bouncing me out of my corner, onto my ass, my eyes squinting against the acrid smoke. My back stinging and burning, I rolled and rolled again, back toward the far end of the room, hoping to extinguish any flames on my back.

  I stopped, placing the barrel of my BFG in the crook of my left elbow, my left arm on the ground, my che
ek against the stock, my right index finger hovering beside the trigger. My breathing thundered in my head, each labored breath as loud as a cargo shuttle landing on the base; I hoped the damage to my eardrums wasn’t too bad.

  I waited. My eyes shut. Motionless except for my breath. My onboard worked to detect shapes through the fog and electrostatic haze and heat of the flash bomb, until the infrared showed two intruders approaching. Eyes closed, trusting my on-board, lining up my target, Bogey 3, I jerked my weapon up, squeezed, aimed at Bogey 4, squeezed again, sending blue plasma bolts of death into the smoky haze.

  I struggled to my feet, my right hand holding my weapon, my left hand pushing me up, my stomach queasy and protesting, bile in the back of my throat. All the bogeys lay sprawled on the floor but I only knew that from the infrared, the smoke still too thick to see through. I stumbled forward, coughing with each breath, relying on my knowledge of where things were supposed to be, kicking the remains of the kitchen chairs out of my way when they banged against my shins.

  I detected the infrared signature before I cleared the smoke. I rushed out through my door, finger ready, teeth clenched, out through the clingy tendrils of smoke, tears pouring down my cheeks, bursting through the smoke ready to fire.

  Edward Motherfucking Craft stood there like some brain-damaged village idiot, surprised to see me come out instead of his new Meridani acquaintances.

  The barrel of my blaster pressed against his forehead, I screamed, “What counseling are you going to give me now, Mr. Craft?”

  His mouth moved but I couldn’t hear the words. Based on his expression, the tears welling up in his eyes and running down his cheeks, the fact that he had fallen to his knees with his hands clenched before his face, I assumed that he was begging forgiveness.

  I shrugged, smiled, and probably shouted, “Civilized people don’t get into these situations, right?”

  He said something. I couldn’t hear, only see, the fervor of his message. I wanted to pull the trigger. The damage a blaster does at close range is disgusting and messy. So I kicked him in the face.

  He fell backward and lay still on the floor.

  I didn’t think I’d killed him but I didn’t check to make sure.

  I stumbled over to Dion’s apartment and banged on the door. It opened, just a crack, Dion’s eye staring out.

  I lowered my weapon. “I need your help.”

  Illegal Alien

  I stepped off the train onto the dusty platform, onto foreign soil, Cymmerian soil, half the world away from Hellas where I grew up. A new life awaited, a new beginning, a new Dorothea, or so I hoped. The standard-issue sanitizing respirator over my mouth and nose removed the worst of the dank closeness of the sweaty travelers around me, all crowded together, shuffling forward as directed by animated signs hanging over the walkway.

  With a duffel bag hastily stuffed with my belongings on my back, I joined the throng of people shuffling toward the border patrol checkpoint, a young mother and gaunt father herding their yammering children behind me, a grizzled old couple behind them, before me a middle-aged man in a rumpled business suit, carrying an ancient briefcase.

  Rubbing at my ear lobes, popping my ears every so often, I followed the line through the scanners, arms outstretched, pausing between the fans, medi-comps checking for nanos and microbes, metals and chemicals, DNA and criminal records. I held my breath walking through, hoping that Dion was as good as he said he was.

  And then I was through.

  No buzzers, no sirens, no weapons pointed my way, a weight I didn’t know I was carrying lifted from my shoulders. I was going to have to send Dion something special for this. I strode, almost skipping, to take my place behind the businessman, waiting my turn to talk to the border patrolman, to get my visa stamped, a mere formality now, smiling at the businessman, at the couple and their snot-nosed children behind me.

  When my turn came, I happily walked up to the counter. A border patrolman sat behind it, a young man, smiling in a weary, half-lidded way, kinda sexy with the dark hair and light skin common with Cymmerians, gesturing to the spot on the counter where I had to place my palm.

  I shifted my duffel, sliding it around, setting it on the floor at my feet, up against the checkpoint wall, placing my palm on the counter, holding it there until the panel showed it was done.

  The agent’s eyes moved back and forth, focusing on the information flashing before his eyes, information I couldn’t see. In a nice, deep bass that rumbled through all the right bits of my body, he said, “Dorothea Doeden?”

  “Sir. Yes, sir. Um. That’s me.” I smiled, not really feeling like I was lying since that was my mother’s maiden name, the sergeant major’s name.

  The right corner of his smiling lips ticked up a bit more, his fingers moving, sliding, eyes not looking at me directly. “Military, huh?”

  “Ex.” Those words hurt, echoing an emptiness I fought to ignore.

  “And what is your business in Cymmeria?” His fingers flicked at invisible nodes and keys.

  I licked my lips, heart beating a bit faster. “Taking a vacation, looking to immigrate.”

  “You’re from Hellas?” His brow furrowed, his hands moving a bit faster, still not looking at me.

  I gulped. “Yes, sir. Coming from Massif.”

  His eyebrows raised and his hands jerked back. A metal door slammed down, blocking the agent from my sight. A turret dropped from the ceiling, turning toward me, red lights flashing, siren wailing. The couple behind me snatched their children up, screaming something about terrorists, covering them with their bodies, their screams echoed by people in other lines.

  I raised my hands, stepping back, away from the duffel. Then I stood stock still.

  I guess Dion wasn’t as good at the whole fake passport thing as he thought he was.

  An Offer I Can't Refuse

  I relaxed in the chair in the interrogation room, a chair designed to be uncomfortable, designed to press into your back forcing you upright, to dig into the backs of your legs, the arms in the wrong places for your elbows. The Cymmerian Border Patrol or Immigration and Naturalization or whatever agency was running this freak show called it a “probe cell,” at least that was what I translated the sign on the door to read, which sounded a bit more invasive than was going to be pleasant, but an interrogation room by any other name is an interrogation room, and they’re not made to be pleasant.

  No windows, a harsh light hanging down from a synthsteel I-beam strut, a single table set up against a wall, a comfy chair for the investigator, the aforementioned crappy chair for the prisoner, mirrors on the walls so obviously one-way, cameras and sensors hidden everywhere, manacles around my wrists, a chain connecting them to the table, I relaxed in that uncomfortable chair, embracing the discomfort, pissed that I was going to be sent back to Hellas so soon. A plastic cup of coffee rested on the table, wisps of steam rising from its surface, the rich fragrance playing havoc with my salivary glands, the cup just out of the reach the handcuffs and chains would allow me.

  Cymmerian bastards.

  The door creaked open, belching forth a chubby man in a disheveled uniform, empty holster on his hip, a dark stain down the front of his shirt, the shirt gaping open, buttons straining to hold back the man’s overgrown tummy, gray thinning hair, more chins than anyone had a right to, bits of food dried into the white hairs in the circle beard around his petulant little mouth.

  “Well, well, well. A regular celebrity. I thought you looked familiar.” He lowered himself into the comfy chair, grunting, hands grasping the arms of the chair, lowering himself, a smile on his face, his eyes colder and harder than I expected them to be. “Did you think you would go unrecognized in the Republic of Cymmeria? Major Dorothea Ohmie of the Hellas Military, Special Forces, HART, the Butcher of Argyre, the ‘Savior’ of the Meridani Brides.”

  “I am not in the military anymore.” I leaned back, weaving my fingers together, setting my hands on my stomach, scrunching up my shoulders so my elbows could b
alance on the arms of the chair.

  “I’ll say.” He raised his bushy eyebrows, chuckling, shaking his head, grinning, picking up the coffee, holding it under his nose. “Judging from the Hellene warrant for your arrest, you went from killing a lot of people in the name of your government to just killing a lot of people for the hell of it, a regular serial mass murderer, you are.” He took a sip of the coffee, slurping it up.

  I shrugged. “A girl’s gotta have a hobby.”

  He spit out his coffee, a fine mist of dark globules, pushing his chair back. I squeezed my eyes shut, raising my hands but the chain stopped them, pulling at the table, the metal digging into my wrists.

  “Dammit.” He stood up, knocking his chair backward, setting his coffee down on the corner of the table, wringing his hands. He looked around, sighed, and wiped his hands on his trousers, adding dark streaks to the dark spots. He pushed his chair back up to the table and plopped down into it. “Very funny, Major Ohmie.”

  “Seriously, though.” I shifted to a more upright position, hands folded in my lap, elbows tucked in, barely hanging onto the arms of the chair. “I have hurt and killed some people since they let me out of jail but it was self-defense every freaking time.”

  He spread his hands. “That’s not what they’re saying back in Massif, in Hellas. They’re saying you’re a loose cannon, deranged from something that happened to you long before you joined the military…”

  An icy fear I’d thought long gone, long conquered, clutched my stomach, my breath threatening to break out into a scream of rage and anger. “They’re saying what? What are they saying?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “The Hellenes are saying you lied your way into the service and that we need to hand you over so they can put you back in prison where you belong, get you the proper psychological attention, rebuild your personality.”

  I looked down at my fists, white-knuckled, shaking. “I was defending myself.”