Strangers and Lies

by P. S. Power

  The second message came later, from Count Goebbels and was very different than she expected. It was a list of names, of officials that were still alive, rather than the dead. At the bottom had been written a single line of instruction.

  "You have the full support of the kingdom, Miss Farris." That was all. Well, if she ended up in prison for what she was doing at least she could feel good about it at the moment.

  She read off the list, several times, and then got Agatha to spell her, since she had to run to the restroom pretty badly and had for hours. It was the kind of thing that you didn't think about when you imagined doing things like that, of course, she very seldom had even dreamed up a scenario like this. It was a bit too dark and depressing for her taste.

  When she was back she jogged over to the telestator, one of the three the station had, and froze, not knowing who to get in touch with at all. For some reason she let her hand come out and rest on the sphere, and then, without knowing why, asked for the Vernor Industries airfield. She didn't have the number or code, but the operator, a distressed sounding woman, didn't wait for her to be more specific. After about a minute there was a familiar voice.

  Uncle Thomas.

  "Vernor Airfield. To whom am I speaking?" He sounded a little cold and distant, which made sense. She should have given her name to the operator.

  "It's Gwen Farris. I need... Duke Douglas Morten. Over at WGN. Tell Groundling to get over here now. For that matter I want the rest of you too. That's just to make me feel better though. We need to arrange aid shipments to our Capital, medical aid as well. The Students Service will be in charge of that. Along with the Aid Service. I'll... figure something out. Can we coordinate a way to get people into place?" She was about to beg, but the Admiral didn't make her.

  "On it. Any new word on the King?"

  She hesitated then, there hadn't been. She didn't want to say the words, and cause worry, but decided not to lie.

  "Not yet. I'll put it on the air as soon as I find out anything. He's probably been taken to a secure location." That's what would have happened back home after all.

  The man sounded like he was forcing a stiff upper lip then, "understood. We'll be to your location directly."

  Then not knowing what else to do, Gwen asked for all people capable of doing it to set up charging stations at the local schools. Everything here ran off crystal packs and it took a decently high magic rating to do that well. Only about the top twenty percent of people, as far as energy potential went, even bothered trying to do their own. Of course they were the ones most likely to add their energy to the spell or working that Debussey had going too. Gwen noticed that the woman didn't try to take over her broadcasts like she had the King's the last time they tried to steal her energy. Probably because the woman had an idea that Gwen would eat her alive, if at all possible.

  She was a narcissist however, so maybe she was just busy? The odds were that she wasn't really going to get it at all, was she?

  When Admiral Welk came he hadn't brought everyone, just Groundling, Gloria and an older man that she'd met before, but couldn't remember if she'd gotten his name. He talked like a movie pirate though, which was kind of cool. Why he was there she didn't know, unless it was to demand they all take a break to drink some rum. She wasn't a huge drinker, but that actually sounded good about then.

  Groundling didn't wait, settling behind the desk with her, his face very serious. He didn't speak however, letting her finish her little "close" routine again. Gloria, for her part, chanted with her.

  When she finished she didn't really know what to say, but the words that came out of her mouth were totally different than she thought they would be.

  "We have with us Duke Douglas Morten. Everyone pay attention. Duke Morten?"

  Groundling didn't even glare at her. He was wearing tan work clothing, not too different than the jumpsuit she wore, but older, with more repairs having been made to it. His words weren't the gruff sounds of a man pulled from the air-docks however. Instead he managed to become a new person, one she barely recognized.

  "This is a dark hour and it has come to my attention that my nephew Ferdinand, the King, is missing at this time, or unreachable. As a temporary measure I am assuming control of the Western Kingdom. This is an administrative action only and should not be construed as an emergency of any sort. For the time being all calls for information should come in to the WGN headquarters. I stand ready to serve."

  It sounded about right, even though the idea that her friend was Ferdinand's Uncle only barely made sense. He was old enough, she guessed, but it still seemed awfully odd to her. Mainly because she thought both of them were hot, in their own way.

  She leaned into the microphone anyway.

  "Remember, that's calls for information from government sources only. We'll keep everyone updated as well as possible. Right now we have..." There was a new woman at the door, who didn't look like a harpy, but probably was if she were a newsie. The woman did her own leaning in from the far side of the desk, since it was currently taken.

  "Lyn Aspin here." She waited a second, talking as the others moved, freeing up the chairs. "We have a new list of surviving officials, let's read that first."

  Gwen got out of the office, a sense of relief hitting her for about ten seconds, she didn't have to keep faking everything anymore. At least she didn't think so. As the first calls tried to come in however, she understood that Groundling wasn't actually ready to take over, having not heard all the B.S. she'd been telling people all day. She stood next to him at the telesar, and ended up fielding a call for him from the head of Con-sev. At least he was someone she'd met.

  "Ah, yes. I need to know if Duke Morten is requesting a search be done for the King... or... not."

  That was a strange question, but Groundling heard him, even as he spoke and turned, shouting slightly to be heard from across the room.

  "Do it. I want a full search. Everyone... Your best people."

  Gwen nodded, knowing no one would hear it on the other end.

  "That was him, so you have your orders. Coordinate with the Westmorlands. We want their detectives in on this." She'd try to look herself, but her precognition was just too untrained. She winced at the idea of what Beth had likely gone through to make that happen for her. The others too. Were they doing the same things to little Marcus and Erica as well? It made sense, but wasn't something she could fix. Probably not ever, but certainly not at the moment.

  The man signed off quickly enough, and almost as if summoned by a thought, Beth showed up, along with Heather and Darrick. The first words came from the man, and sounded dry.

  "Darren said to tell you that it wasn't a nuke. A kidnapped child was brainwashed into it. Does that mean what I think it does?" He'd obviously been thinking about it all and it wasn't making him happy.

  They were all in Westmorland colors, but just work clothes, not dress uniforms or anything fancy. After a few seconds she shrugged. Her hand still had the line open to the chubby Con-sev man, so he was going to hear what was said, but as far as she was concerned he needed to know. Everyone did.

  "I think so. Debussey or one of her people, maybe several different groups, has figured out how to rift. Given everything else it means that, like it or not, they can probably do this again, and short of finding and killing everyone in her collection of idiots, we probably can't stop them at all."

  The room went silent then, but at least it hadn't gone out over the general airwaves, or whatever they called them here. She was almost certain that was right though. Groundling looked at her and shook his head a little.

  "Fuck." He sounded genuine in his words and no one even winced overly when he said it, which just showed how black the whole thing really was.

  "Yeah. But we have some things we can do that will even the playing field pretty quick. We just need to bring them into play."

  It was that thing she'd been doing, she realized, where her mouth started moving, even though she had no clue what she wa
s saying. It had been useful at times, but at the moment it was kind of a pain in the ass. She had to back all this garbage up and had no clue how to really do it.

  "The first thing we need to do is find Erin Debussey and we can do that now. After all, we have two of her kids, sort of, and there has to be a trace of magical connection there. What we're going to do is follow that line and send in forces so powerful that she's going to wish she could make it so she was never born."

  It sounded good at least, even it if was bull. The scary thing was that everyone looked at her as if she had some kind of actual plan.

  Chapter fifteen

  On the good side the Westmorlands didn't question her overly as she started calling people up and giving them directions. Most of the things she said were just to reassure people and make it look like they were actually doing something, and didn't involve any kind of actual strategy. The scary part, for her, was that no one was calling her on her bullshit. Even when she called up Doctor Grainger and told him that he was in charge of finding the best magicians, or whatever they were called, for the new top secret ceremony, he didn't cry foul or ask how he was supposed to get it done, he just agreed and suggested they plan the thing for the next day at the University.

  She had to give him the number for Westmorland central, to make certain he could get rapid transportation if it was needed, but again, when she called and requested their aid, the voice on the telestator just said "yes ma'am" and made it happen. As if she were someone to actually listen to in a crisis?

  Groundling, Duke Morten, Gwen remembered to call him, was busily doing something that she suspected was very similar, over on the device he was using. He did it with a little more yelling as the evening went on than she did, which just showed how stressful the whole thing was. He normally didn't raise his voice at all. Hit people, cut their heads off... growl gently, those things he did. Getting loud was something new however, at least as far as she knew. At about midnight he turned to her, both of them just having come off of a conversation with someone that sounded awfully panicked and like they wanted mommy and daddy to hold their hand.

  Now his voice went low.

  "If I'd wanted to be in charge of the kingdom I would have mentioned it to someone already. We need to find Ferdinand, and that little prick better be alive. If I have to take his job, I swear I'm going to kill him." He grinned, a dark look that didn't seem happy at all. "I do get that won't work, but I really don't want his job. I've tried pretty hard for decades to avoid it. Now this. I can't even just order an attack... It's frustrating. What do you have for us Curly? I heard you doing something over there, but couldn't exactly track it over the shouting."

  Gwen sighed and felt like her right arm was going to drop off, from holding it out for hours like she had been to keep the line open.

  "Shouting? Is that what we're calling your girlish screaming now?" She smiled herself, since the man had actually seemed damned hard the whole time. It was very nearly frightening in a way, and had been meant to be. He chuckled anyway, if weakly. "We have a ceremony to find, and hopefully kill, Erin Debussey and anyone that has an energy link to her. It will probably take out all the people she's brainwashed, um, magically mesmerized, as well as anyone that's been helping her on purpose too closely. I don't know what kind of time we have, but this event has to have generated a lot of power for her. I... Really I'm making this stuff up as I go. We need real experts in as soon as possible and to collect people for a cabinet meeting." There was a long pause as she tried to work out what the hell she should do next. It was hard to think, her brain actually feeling heavy, her eyes wanting to close on their own.

  Groundling stared at her and finally nodded a little.

  "Ferdinand. We need to get in touch with him. I have Con-sev on it, and the Westmorlands. Can you think of anything else? Just asking the population to look seems like it would just make everything worse right now." His voice held a sound of questioning that didn't really fit with a leader. Not in public at least. Then, he'd been pretty clear about his desire to get back to his old life pretty quickly.

  "That's about all we can do at the moment. We need to keep people busy and act as if we have a plan for this, even if we are just making things up. I really wish..."

  That was the thing, wasn't it. She didn't even know what to wish for. Other than that the evil people doing this were gone. That was something they were working on, both on a magical and physical level, but whatever those people had planned could be happening even as they tried to get everything into place. It might have already as far as she knew.

  The elder gods or whatever they were might be knocking on the gate at that very moment, waiting to be let into the world. Maybe they were already there, for that matter. There was no rule saying they'd destroy everything instantly, was there? The only thing Gwen knew about it was what she'd seen in some old, and very low budget, movies. In those either the people trying to stop the invasion succeeded, normally with a personal sacrifice, or they died and the world ended up being destroyed. In reality it could be anything though. Maybe those gods would show up and start baking cookies? That one wasn't very likely however. Unfortunately. She was a bit hungry.

  She didn't even know what had put them where they were in the first place, or if they could get in touch with whatever it was to do it again. She didn't know if anyone had a clue about that either. Not at all.

  The decision to move to another location was, in the end, Admiral Welk's. It involved moving to the airfield offices, since, in the normal flow of things, no one would actually know where they were, but that gave them a large bank of communications devices to use, as well as transportation. The Westmorlands had to make some Teletransport spheres for that location, but Adam said they'd have them in a few hours when she asked, without even calling her names. It was a sign of something that Gwen really didn't want to think about. That the man was so desperate that he was actually taking her seriously.

  The ride to the field was slow and hurried at the same time, with James driving her and the others in the little white lorrie, since it was much faster than the one they'd come in. No one wanted them to be out of touch all that long, in case anything else happened.

  When they hit the ground at their new base it was pitch black out, with only a few glow lamps to light anything up at all on the buildings. The second they got in the door of the main office a young, very worried man, ran up to them. Or more to the point, pushed Groundling out of the way, knocking him into Gwen, so that he could talk to Thomas, his boss.

  "Admiral, the news just came across the telesar. I was... listening in the back." Then, maddeningly, the brown haired man, who looked like he was normally dapper and buttoned up, but who currently looked a bit disheveled, stopped talking.

  Groundling ignored the fact that he'd been thrust aside and growled at the man in a low and menacing tone.

  "What's the news."

  There was a period of hesitation, but finally, after an audible swallow, the guy finished what he was saying.

  "The King..."

  For a brief second Gwen feared that he was dead again. The idea flashed across her mind and if she had that thought, then the rest of them did too, no doubt. It was their world after all, so they were a lot more used to dealing with things like this. Except... they really weren't, because it had never happened before. That left her, with all that television and movie watching over the years, as kind of the expert, even if she didn't know what to do.

  The fellow finished, his voice filled with dread.

  "He's been taken, sir. Not just him, the other three leaders have as well. The Marduk, the Minister of Europa and the Empress of the Chinoise. They're to be sacrificed. That's all we know."

  Gwen didn't wait, running toward the back room herself, to see if she could pick anything up from the telesar, hoping that it was all rumor or something stupid like that. She'd never been in the back room before, but the man had said it was in the back. Everyone followed her and the thing had been
left running, so she heard the voice making the announcement. It sounded... familiar. Not instantly identifiable, but like she should know it. The clipped British sounding voice being just a bit too smooth and professional for an average terrorist, or whatever they were going to call them.

  It wasn't until he repeated the words in Mongolian, which was what they spoke over in Europa, that she got who it had to be.

  "Fuck. Just fuck a donkey sideways." That got her some strange looks, but no one called her on the bad language. They might later, she knew, since the people here were strange that way. She'd been taken to task once by Baron Mathews for using foul language... just before he'd tried to kill her.

  She glanced around the room and then focused on Groundling, since he was a noble, and might have met the man himself a time or two.

  "Baron Dartis." She said the name almost as if it were a curse word. She wasn't absolutely certain, but it was a close match.

  After listening for a few seconds Groundling nodded.

  "That's the one. Useless git. Well, this is..." He threw his hands up. "What the hell are we supposed to do now? They aren't demanding anything, just trying to drive people to pay attention, so they can increase the power of the sacrifice. We can't effectively order people to not focus on it. It doesn't take a practitioner to know that telling a person not to think about something normally gets them to put most of their thoughts on it. Have they mentioned when they plan to do it? How much time do we have?"

  It was a good question. There was no real answer to it however, until the man finished saying something in a strange language that Gwen didn't know at all, but that Groundling assured her was Sumerian. He apparently spoke all four of this world's major languages. It sort of made sense, given his relative position in the scheme of things.

  His voice coming from the dull silver sphere in front of them, Baron Dartis then announced that all the leaders would be killed at noon. It didn't make a lot of sense, magically thinking, since that kind of thing would work better at night, if only for psychological reasons.