by Cole, Myke
‘Long day,’ Thorsson answered. ‘How are our guests?’
The sergeant smiled and punched a button on his desk. There was a puff of air as the lock disengaged, and door eased open a crack. ‘Compliant,’ he said.
‘I’m going to have to move them in a few minutes,’ Thorsson said. ‘That’s coming from the president.’ He turned to the Suppressor. ‘You can let him go, Lieutenant.’
The Suppressor nodded, and Thorsson felt his current shift as he pushed through the door, closing it behind him. Bookbinder was stepping off his bunk, shaking his head in surprise at the sudden return of his magical current. Stanley Britton stepped out from the corner to Thorsson’s left, fists clenched. Thorsson turned to him, amused. ‘Were you planning to jump me? You wouldn’t have gotten very far.’
‘I still would have had the pleasure of punching you in the face.’ Stanley smiled. ‘Tell me you’ve got good news.’
Thorsson shook his head.
‘What did Whalen say?’ Bookbinder asked.
‘Not Whalen,’ Thorsson replied. ‘The president himself. We’re on our own.’
‘You mean that FOB is on its own,’ Bookbinder snarled.
Thorsson took a deep breath, let it out, then glanced up at Bookbinder. ‘You ready to commit high treason, sir?’
Bookbinder paused, looked at Stanley, looked back. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Good,’ Thorsson answered. ‘I didn’t join the army so Walsh could get reelected while a whole division goes up in smoke. Let’s go get Oscar Britton.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jailbreak
If you can heal with a touch, that’s an easy call. You have to do it. But what if you can kill just as easily? Aren’t there times when you have to do that too?
– Howard Dienst, Director of Compliance,
National Counterterrorism Center
Fifth Annual Conference on Magic and Military Ethics,
Geneva, Switzerland
They stepped out past the thick door and into the hallway, Bookbinder and Stanley nodding at the guards, who nodded back as Thorsson went up to the sergeant’s desk. ‘Call over to Charlie Block and let ’em know we’re coming? President wants a tête-à-tête with Prisoner One and these two. I’ll be mediating.’
The sergeant nodded, picking up a phone. ‘You want me to send someone to take notes?’
Thorsson produced a pad from the breast pocket of his bug-spattered, wrinkled uniform jacket. ‘I’ve got it, thanks. I want the surveillance booth empty. No recordings. This is on my pad and in my head only. Got it?’
‘Aye, sir,’ the sergeant said, dialing numbers into the phone. He looked at Thorsson, a little starstruck. It still made Thorsson uncomfortable after all this time. ‘My wife wanted me to tell you that she’s seen you on TV, sir. She didn’t believe it when I said I was working with you.’
Thorsson ignored the fact that the sergeant shouldn’t be telling anyone that he was working with him and smiled. ‘That’s great. Give her my best.’
The Suppressor moved to fall in with them, but Thorsson waved him back. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said, interdicting Bookbinder’s flow.
‘You sure, sir?’
‘This man is a colonel in the United States Army, Lieutenant. He’s not charged with anything. He’s being held here for his own safety and to facilitate the debriefing process.’
The Suppressor blanched and nodded to Bookbinder. ‘Of course, sir. Sorry about that, sir.’
Bookbinder nodded back. ‘No problem, Lieutenant. We all just do our jobs.’
‘This way, sir.’ Thorsson gestured to Bookbinder, who stepped in and led the way down the hallway. When they reached the elevator, Bookbinder turned to him. ‘Where the hell are we going?’
Thorsson smiled. ‘Around the corner, actually. Do me a favor and stay in front. People tend to give you less crap when they see a full bird leading the way.’
Bookbinder smiled back. ‘Don’t I know it.’
Stanley fumed. ‘You mean my son was just a few feet away from me all this time?’
Thorsson shrugged. ‘You’re going to see him in about five minutes, Mr Britton. Just hang with me. If we make it through this, you can kick my ass later.’
‘Are we going to make it through this?’ Bookbinder asked.
Thorsson followed them into the elevator and punched the button for the brig’s main floor. ‘Highly doubtful, sir. But I’m not going to be able to live with myself if we don’t at least try. If you’d rather opt out, I’ll take you back to your cell.’
‘I’m already dead if you believe the newspapers,’ Stanley said. ‘Makes no difference to me.’
Bookbinder was silent so long that Thorsson expected him to turn around and head back. ‘No, you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘I want to see my family again, but so does every man and woman on that FOB. We swore to give our lives if we had to, right?’
‘That we did, sir,’ Thorsson said.
‘I just really hope we don’t have to,’ Bookbinder said, as the elevator chimed, and they stepped out into the lobby.
‘Feeling’s mutual, sir,’ Thorsson said.
Charlie Block turned out to be on the brig’s opposite side, a plain concrete lobby furnished only with a guard desk manned by four tough-looking Marines and guarded by a locked door that opened easily to Thorsson’s badge and thumbprint.
‘Major Thorsson,’ the desk sergeant said, punching a button that chimed the elevator, sliding the doors open. ‘Prisoner One is prepped for you.’
‘Thanks,’ Thorsson said. ‘Keep that recording booth clear. That one comes all the way from the top.’
‘Booth clear, aye, sir,’ the sergeant said to his back as the elevator doors slid shut behind them. A similar long and featureless hallway greeted them at the far end, with an identical desk occupied by two identical guards and a Suppressor. The door was already unlocked and cracked open behind them.
‘Here we go,’ Thorsson whispered. ‘Hope you guys are ready.’
‘Not sure you can be ready for something like this,’ Bookbinder said, as Thorsson nodded to the guards, and they pushed through the door. Oscar Britton sat on his bunk. He looked exactly as Thorsson remembered him, tall, well built, shaved head shining under the dull fluorescent lights. He quirked a smile at them as they walked through the door, straightening his orange prison jumpsuit as he stood to greet them. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘The dreaded Harlequin comes to visit me.’ He didn’t so much as glance at his father. ‘To what do I owe the honor?’
‘Oscar,’ Stanley said, but Britton didn’t look at him, and Bookbinder cut him off, saying, ‘We don’t have much time, we’re here to get you out. We need your help.’
Britton snorted. ‘For what?’
‘The FOB . . .’ Thorsson began.
‘The FOB is cut off,’ Britton said, shaking his head. ‘I saw to that personally.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the Oscar Britton I know,’ Thorsson said. ‘We’ve got a chance to save them, and you’re the only one who can get them out of there.’
‘Fuck them and fuck you,’ Britton said. ‘Maybe you should have thought about how much you needed my help before you threw me in this place.’
Thorsson took a step back. ‘Jesus, Oscar. Is this what all that time on the run did to you? A lot of people, a lot of soldiers are going to die unless you help us.’
‘Did I stutter?’ Britton asked. ‘Fuck. Them. And. Fuck. You!’
Bookbinder jumped backward as if he’d been bitten by something. ‘Major, he’s not a Portamancer.’
Thorsson turned to Bookbinder. ‘Wait, how can you tell . . .’ He reached out for Britton’s flow, and felt it strong and steady. He spun back to face him. ‘You’re not Suppressed.’
‘And you’re not very bright, you fucking traitor,’ Britton said, reaching forward. His hand blurred, melting. A long bone spike shot out, Britton’s arm thinning as it reached across the room. Harlequin dove out of the way, and the spike caught Stanley Br
itton, piercing his upper chest, pushing through his shoulder and pinning him to the wall.
His face melted, the black man’s skin blurring and re-forming, the torso slimming down, until the orange jumpsuit adorned a man with corpse gray skin, slick black hair plastered to his forehead. ‘Fucking amateurs,’ he said.
Thorsson knew only one contractor on the SOC payroll whose Physiomancy was so talented that he could impersonate another person.
The Sculptor. President Walsh must have suspected that he might try to break Britton out. This was his insurance policy.
Thorsson Drew hard and Bound lightning to his fists, only to feel a Suppressor’s current flow through the wall to roll his own magic back. He cursed, ripping his pistol from inside his jacket and fired twice into the Physiomancer’s torso, which oozed sideways as the bullets opened ragged holes in the flesh. The Sculptor grimaced in pain as another arm sprouted from its wounded side to grab Thorsson’s throat. ‘Give it up,’ the Physiomancer hissed. ‘I’ve got orders to take you alive, but I can make it hurt as bad as I want to.’
Stanley screamed weakly, beating uselessly against the bone spike that kept him pinned to the wall. Bookbinder gestured from the corner of Thorsson’s eye, pointing one hand toward the door and the other at the Physiomancer. Thorsson gasped as he felt his own tide flood back into him. The Sculptor snarled as his own form coalesced, retreating back into itself. The extra fist released his neck. The bone spike retreated, dropping Stanley Britton to the floor. His torso re-formed, the actual meat of him only grazed by Thorsson’s two shots. He launched himself forward, reaching for Thorsson, screaming to the guards outside.
‘I’ve got him!’ Bookbinder howled, tackling the Physiomancer sideways, driving him into the wall, just as the door flew open and the Suppressor came stumbling into the room, pistol drawn. Thorsson whirled, slamming the butt of his own weapon into the man’s face, feeling an eye squelch under the gun’s impact. The Suppressor began to howl, and Thorsson kicked him squarely in his chest, driving him back into the guards who now crowded the hallway outside, as he Drew his magic hard and stepped out after them. He could hear Bookbinder and the Physiomancer grappling behind him, cursing and punching, but he couldn’t deal with that now.
He stepped out into the hallway in time to see eight Marine guards coming at a run, leveling their rifles. The Suppressor knelt before them, hands clasped to his crushed eye, calling on them to shoot.
Men following orders, Thorsson thought. Just as I’ve always done.
He closed his eyes and Bound his magic to the air, agitating the molecules until they blazed, the hallway filling with sizzling lightning. Gunshots rang out and he waited for bullets to tear through him. He heard the crack of chipped masonry as they collided with the walls around him, felt the stirring of the air as they passed him. At last, the hallway fell silent and the stink of cooked meat and ozone reached him. He kept his eyes closed until he turned back into the cell. He opened them to see that the Sculptor, his magic restored by the Suppressor’s death, had sprouted eight additional limbs, crushing Bookbinder to him.
A bolt of lightning leapt from Thorsson’s hand, engulfing the Physiomancer’s head. The Sculptor went rigid, his head smoking, until the extra limbs went limp, and Bookbinder staggered backward, breathing hard.
‘Jesus hopping Christ, what . . .’ Bookbinder said, staring at the thing’s corpse, still now, the head burning brightly.
‘No time,’ Thorsson said. ‘Get Stanley and come on.’
Bookbinder nodded and yanked Stanley up to support him over his shoulder. The older man screamed as he came upright, blood pouring from the wound. ‘He’s going to bleed out. I’m not sure if it perforated his lung.’
‘Nothing we can do now,’ Thorsson said, stepping into the hallway. ‘Follow me . . . and . . . don’t look if you can avoid it.’
The hallway was a charnel house. Thorsson picked his way over the cooked bodies of the Marines, still smoking from the lightning storm’s aftermath. Servicemen. Just following regs.
Walsh’s words echoed in his mind. Sometimes being in charge requires you to make hard choices, and sometimes those choices cost lives. If you hesitate to make those calls, you can lose more lives than you save. FOB Frontier was an entire division.
He heard Bookbinder catch his breath as he came out into the hallway, and they made their way farther down the corridor, past a stenciled sign on the wall reading PRISONERS 2 AND 3. The second cell was unguarded, but the third had a Suppressor crouched in front of it, back flat against the door. ‘Don’t, sir,’ the young man begged Thorsson. ‘If you let him go . . .’
‘You can Suppress him or you can Suppress me,’ Thorsson said without breaking stride. ‘The difference is that I’ll give you five minutes to get topside and start running. Make the call, Lieutenant.’
The Suppressor didn’t hesitate, bolting past Thorsson, picking his way past the bodies and jumping into the elevator.
‘I figure we’ve got about two minutes,’ Thorsson said as he turned back to the door. ‘Now, I’ve just got to figure out a way to get this open and . . .’
A blazing rectangle of shimmering light sliced through the door’s right edge, sliding up and around until it had neatly carved it off its hinges. The block of metal stood for a moment before slowly drifting forward to slam on the floor with a boom that echoed down the length of the hallway.
‘Well,’ Thorsson said, ‘that solves that problem.’
Oscar Britton stood in the doorway in the same orange jumpsuit. His eyes drifted immediately over Thorsson’s shoulder to his father, pale and sweating, suspended between Bookbinder and his own hand on the corridor wall. ‘Dad?’ Britton whispered. ‘Dad!’
He raced to the man’s side.
‘Oscar . . .’ Stanley said. ‘Did you . . .’ he began, then his speech faltered, and he slumped, caught by his son before he could hit the floor.
‘What’s going on?’ Britton looked over his father’s shoulder. ‘We’ve got to get him to a doctor!’
‘We’ve got about a minute before the whole US military comes pouring out of that elevator, Oscar,’ Thorsson said. ‘You need to get us out of here now, or we’re all dead. I can explain everything once we’re safe.’
Britton hesitated, staring.
The elevator chimed down the hallway’s length.
‘Thirty seconds, Oscar,’ Thorsson said. ‘I’m not Suppressing you. If you want to run, I won’t stop you. But there’re a lot of soldiers who will die if you don’t help.’
Britton nodded, and a gate slid open behind Bookbinder. The colonel spun and gasped.
‘Go!’ Thorsson said, pushing the man through, then gesturing to Britton to follow along with his father.
The elevator chimed again, the doors sliding open. Thorsson saw men with guns begin to pour into the hallway as he stepped through the gate himself, gesturing to Britton to shut it behind them.
They stumbled into a clearing at the center of what looked like the set from a Renaissance faire. The clearing was dotted with earthen huts and surrounded by hand-built structures, rammed earth for the most part, with thatched roofs. Packed-dirt paths intersected them, dotted with herb gardens. A low wooden palisade wall was visible in the distance. A pool of clear water snaked its way across one side of the clearing, and a large central fire pit dominated the middle.
All around them, goblins were stopping in stunned amazement, leaping backward from the gate suddenly standing in their midst. A few leveled spears, the majority simply stood, open mouthed. A few of them took off running, shouting and waving their arms.
Britton closed the gate and opened it again, this time on the bowl of rose moss in the Vermont forest where he’d hidden before. ‘Be ready to move,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what kind of welcome we can expect.’
The goblins began to chatter at him, clustering forward. Thorsson saw one white-painted sorcerer among them, felt the eddying of magical currents farther out, but none moved to Suppress them. The
faces around them were open.
‘Oscar,’ Thorsson said. ‘What the hell did you take us here for? We don’t have time to—’
Britton cut him off with a wave of his hand. He gently laid his father on the ground. ‘He needs help, and he needs it now. I’m not doing a damn thing for you until he gets it.’
A moment later, a large cluster of goblins arrived and began pushing their way to the front of the throng of the creatures that was gathering around them. Several warriors mounted on wolves led them, waving scavenged carbines or spears to clear the onlookers out of the way. Behind them, Thorsson could see the white-painted heads of a group of their sorcerers. In the midst of them was a solitary figure, his dotted scalp marking him as their Hepta-Bak, their prince and leader.
Thorsson Drew his magic and took a step back, letting lightning sizzle along his clenched fists.
Bookbinder marked the move. ‘Should we be worried here?’
‘We’ll know in about three seconds,’ Britton said, moving closer to the gate. ‘Just be ready to move through there if . . .’ And then his face melted into a smile.
The crowd parted, revealing the goblin contractor that Thorsson knew used to drink with Shadow Coven in the Cash. The tiny creature looked positively regal now, wearing a fur-trimmed cloak and carrying a short spear. His head and face were covered with patterns of swirling white dots.
‘Marty!’ Britton shouted. ‘Man, it’s good to see you.’
The goblin smiled and came forward. ‘Uskar,’ he said. ‘I think you die.’
‘So did I,’ came a woman’s voice. The Physiomancer Therese Del Aqua stood at the goblin’s side. Her hair had been combed into haphazard braids adorned with leather thongs that suspended feathers and beads. She wore a leather dress in goblin fashion. Beside her came that damned Swift, the head of the No-No Crew. He saw the last remnant of Shadow Coven, Simon Truelove. One side of the Necromancer’s body was painted white, and he was robed in leather sewn with bronze discs like an indig.
