by Myke Cole
Pete pushing him back to arm’s length. Proud of you, bro.
The news reeling below Pete’s picture while Schweitzer sat horrified beside his mother in their living room. FOUR SEALS CAUGHT IN FIREFIGHT. SURROUNDED BY INSURGENTS.
Some stuttering lieutenant at their door, delivering the news that Pete was out of contact, that they didn’t know what happened to him. A clueless chaplain trying to force his atheist mother to pray as she sat down hard, the news already finishing the job the cancer had started.
Biggs repeatedly denying Schweitzer’s request to go in. You’re a SEAL, damn it. You don’t jump in the shit without a plan. We’d need months to figure out this target, and you’re too damn close to this anyway. Let the QRF handle it. That’s what they do.
But the CH-47 carrying the Quick Reaction Force had been hit by high winds rising suddenly out of the steep Afghani ravines. By the time the mess was sorted out, there were seventeen dead in all.
He’d been worried about that uncle-shaped hole in Patrick’s childhood. But that was past now, wasn’t it?
He wondered what Pete would say if he could see him now, the gray-skinned Schweitzer. The Schweitzer whose face stretched across a steel plate, eyes burning silver, zippered scars running up him like the stitching on a baseball.
He tried to imagine Pete’s ghost as he had a hundred times before, tried to sketch the thatch of his sandy beard, the ridge of his nose, jagging sideways since it had been broken in high school.
Nothing. If Schweitzer was a ghost himself, then he was shunned by his own kind.
Pete was gone now, swirling in the screaming morass of bodies out in the void. Like Patrick, like Sarah.
Ninip stirred, and Schweitzer realized that the jinn had been observing his thoughts, collecting them. The violation made him tremble. You get a nice look?
A warrior clan, the jinn said. I was the same.
Schweitzer marshaled an angry response, then stopped as he realized the presence wasn’t mocking him. He felt none of the contempt that had become a thematic undercurrent since he’d first awoken to the shared confines of his own corpse. It was an odd ripple emanating out from Ninip. It felt strangely like sympathy.
You are new to death, Ninip said, and so it is understandable that you cling to life. Eons in the void taught me that life is a fleeting thing. There are regrets, yes. Loops to close, as you have said. But in the end, there is only what you are at your roots. That is the only thing that does not change. A man can be anything: a farmer, a potter, a scribe. They are all equal in your American eyes. So, why not a warrior? It is the root of who you are. In this we are the same. Your brother, you and I. This is why we are joined, why you remember him so keenly. It is a piece of yourself. Do not grieve. Let the branches do as the root commands. You are a warrior.
Fight.
Ninip was silent after that, leaving Schweitzer to think, the low buzz of the refrigeration units droning in his ears. He was so deep in thought over Ninip’s words that Jawid had to speak twice before Schweitzer noticed that the Sorcerer had opened a link to them.
Tomorrow we will do some demonstrations on the range.
Nope, Schweitzer said.
He felt Jawid’s surprise, hesitation. He latched onto the emotions, tried to reach back up the link that connected him, felt the brush of . . . something before Jawid jerked away.
What do you mean? the Sorcerer asked.
I’m out of my fucking mind here, Schweitzer answered. I want some books.
Jawid’s shock was palpable, reverberating down to him. Ninip sniffed at it, but it wasn’t fear, so the jinn sat back and listened. He knew better than to turn away knowledge now.
Books? Jawid asked. Why do you want books?
To read, Schweitzer answered, or maybe I’ll build a fucking fort out of them. He remembered Jawid’s origins, the man wasn’t literate.
Schweitzer softened his tone. There’s nothing to do in here.
None of the others have complained.
Well, I’m not like the others.
I don’t know where to get books for you.
Bullshit. This has to be a military facility. There’s an MWR. A library. Figure it out.
I don’t . . .
Look, there has to be some quid pro quo here. You want me to do a dog and pony show for you. Fine. I want books. I’m not doing jack without ’em.
What sort of books? Shock had melted into confusion.
Anything. Magazines. Comic books. Romance novels. Just something to read.
I have a Qu’ran. It’s a King Fahd. Can you read Arabic?
I thought you couldn’t either.
I can’t, but I know the words by heart.
Even if he could, a goatherd that reads is still a goatherd, Ninip said.
The truth was, Schweitzer could read a little Arabic, had learned the ligatures’ rudimentary meanings in Pashto, Urdu, and Farsi as well. But it was only what he needed to read signs, sift through recovered documents, leaving the detail work to the pointy heads in intel. He’d read the Qu’ran in English a few times, but there was no way he was getting through it in Saudi Arabic.
Well, I can’t read it either, Schweitzer said to Jawid.
More confusion, then the connection closed.
I would like to know more of your nuclear weapons, Ninip said. Ask for a book on that.
Schweitzer smiled. Yeah, I bet you would.
Sometime later, Eldredge appeared again outside the glass with an armload of books. “You really are a special case,” he said, his Mark Twain moustache twitching up in a smile. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
Schweitzer didn’t bother to try to return the gesture. They hadn’t rebuilt the ruin of his face for smiling.
“This is all I could come up with on short notice,” Eldredge said, “but I’ll bring more tomorrow. Any special requests?”
Schweitzer thought about this. What he wanted most was to feel connected to the world. “News-pper,” he said.
“Easy day,” Eldredge answered. “Anything else?”
Anything would be better than the interminable darkness, Ninip pacing like a caged animal beside him. “Bio. His-tree. Com-ik. Bat . . . man.”
Eldredge smiled again. “Would . . . Ninip like anything in particular?”
Ninip tried to push Schweitzer aside, take control of their mouth, but Schweitzer pushed him away. The jinn let him. Words weren’t his strength. He would have asked for a manual on nuclear technology. Schweitzer thought of the jinn’s spouting about valor, his constant exhortation of the warrior ethos, his contempt for his daughters. He smiled, the expression not reaching his physical face as he did the air dance again to form the words, “Little. Women.”
—
In the end, Eldredge didn’t bring the Alcott book, but he did manage to scrounge up a biography of Andrew Jackson and a couple volumes of Foote’s history of the Civil War. These all rested on top of a large coffee-table volume, the red binding cracking with age. THE ART OF WARFARE IN BIBLICAL LANDS was written across the front in flaking gold. “You said Ninip was old,” Eldredge said. “I thought he might be interested in this.”
The books were pushed in one by one through a slot that sealed shut almost seamlessly as soon as it was no longer needed. The room was featureless, so Schweitzer sat them cross-legged on the floor and opened the books across their lap while Eldredge watched from the window. Schweitzer felt Ninip crowding forward to examine the books; he showed initial interest in the Foote, until Schweitzer shot him images of the old rifle mechanisms, the lumbering, breach-loading cannons. Ninip compared them to the carbine they used on ops and laughed.
Schweitzer then turned to the coffee-table book, leafing through hand-drawn sketches of wall carvings and statues showing warriors at their trade. He skimmed through the chapters, Hyksos, Sea Peoples, Old Kingdom Egypt,
Akkadia, Babylon, Assyria. Men with horned helmets in reed boats, round shields and curving swords. Crude glyphs portraying naked men with braided beards and beaked noses, depicted in profile, spears across their shoulders.
He became lost in the familiar rhythm of reading, the words sliding past his vision, the messages forming in his mind. It made him feel human, alive. He was so engrossed in the act that it was awhile before he noticed the jinn was silent and still, looking out through their shared eyes, feeling their shared finger tracing across the surface of the pages.
That one, the jinn said. Reaching out and taking control of their hand, thumbing back through the pages to a broad color photograph, age washing it in sepia tones, blotched with rust-colored foxing. It showed an archaeological-dig site stretched out over a broad, sandy plane, wide pits dug to show the broken remnants of walls, so badly weathered that it was hard to distinguish between what was turned earth and what was archaeological find.
But there were some prizes. Another photo showed two men posing beneath a stone relief depicting warriors in file holding body-sized shields and wearing crested helmets. Another showed a statue of a winged lion with the head of a crowned man, his beard braided and set with rings.
Ninip looked out over the ruin of the buildings, long gone to seed, mostly mixed with the earth they were being dug out of.
All gone, the jinn said.
Is that your home? Schweitzer asked.
I cannot tell, Ninip answered, his voice mournful.
I’m sorry, Schweitzer said. You were . . . in the storm a long time. I thought you understood that.
It is one thing to know it, Ninip said. It is another thing to see it.
Schweitzer pictured looking at their old apartment, torn to pieces by the attack. He imagined having to take in that sight, look out over Sarah’s and Patrick’s graves . . .
Sarah’s and Patrick’s graves.
He looked up to find that Eldredge had returned, observing him from behind the glass. The man stared back at him, eyes bright. “What does Ninip think?”
Schweitzer shrugged, tapped the book. “Sad.”
Eldredge’s expression changed. “Yes. I imagine he would be.”
Schweitzer thought briefly of asking Eldredge to show him Sarah’s and Patrick’s graves, but wondered if he’d pushed it enough for one day. Letting the Gemini Cell’s secret weapon out in public would be a stretch, and he didn’t even know what had been done with his family’s bodies. He made a mental note to ask.
When Schweitzer glanced up, Eldredge had gone, and opaque shutters had louvered down to cover the transparent pane.
Schweitzer sat on the floor and let Ninip read intently through the book, stumbling over the English, accessing Schweitzer’s command of the language to forge on. He could feel flashes of recognition from the jinn at random images, a series of glyphs depicting women carrying jugs of water, a reconstruction of an ancient chariot. Ninip was so intent that Schweitzer finally ceased his own contemplation of the text and stepped back, observing as the jinn reconciled himself with this window on his past.
These are . . . stories. We had singers who did the same.
This is history. Some of it’s guesswork, but most of it is true. People aren’t making up tales here. The goal is to give the truth, based on evidence.
So it is real. That is what . . . archaeology is. It is your evidence.
I’m not an expert, but that’s the general idea.
Nothing is left. Everything we built. It is dust.
Everything everyone builds is dust, sooner or later. Don’t take it personally.
Who is there now?
Where?
Ninip moved their shared hand, leafing the pages back to the first photograph of the dig site. Here.
Schweitzer looked at the caption below the photo. That’s Iran. Enemies. A mad priest rules there.
Ninip nodded. Does this mad priest honor us? Are we remembered?
I don’t know. I don’t think so.
I would go and see.
We keep running ops for the US, you’ll likely get your chance. But this is my body, so I get first crack. We close the loop on whoever did this to my family, then next stop is Tehran.
Ninip was silent then, and Schweitzer, tired of reading, explored his new senses. He marveled at the control he had over them, able to feel the surface of the floor beneath them with a clarity he’d never known. He could feel subtle gradations in temperature through the tile, in the air around them, colder nearer the vents that pushed the chill air into the room. He could shift spectrums by squinting their eyes, see the cold as dark blue cones descending from the vents, even catch a human-shaped outline of heat through the thick surface of the door.
You did all this . . . in the storm?
Ninip shrugged. I did nothing in the storm. All of this is . . . new. It is what we are together.
Schweitzer closed their eyes, pushed all his attention out into their ears, focused on listening. At first, the thrumming of the chillers drowned out all sound, but after a moment, he found he could adjust their hearing as he adjusted their vision, focusing it deeper on other sounds. The chillers faded into a thematic buzz as Schweitzer dialed in on the low hum of the electrical wiring in the walls, which eventually receded into the distance, giving way to the gurgling of liquid moving through pipes.
Then, voices. The guard outside was talking to someone. Schweitzer focused on the speech.
Soft, whispers, but graduating to murmurs a moment later. He found his ability worked too well, locking in on the specificity of tone, letting the words hum by. As Schweitzer tried to adjust, the speaking stopped, replaced by what sounded like slurping. Were they eating?
A sucking, popping sound. Not eating. Kissing.
Schweitzer’s amusement roused Ninip to at least pay attention. Here he was, a living corpse in one of the most secret programs in the American military, and his guards were making out on shift. People were people, anywhere you went. He’d never forget the day Chang got caught fooling around with one of the corpsmen assigned to the sub they were to deploy on. The skipper knew SEALs played by different rules, but it was one of his own, and he was ready to go to general quarters over it.
Chang had sat on the edge of his rack while Ahmad had grilled him, reminded him of the consequences of that kind of breach of discipline. At the end of the tirade, Chang had shrugged. “What do you want, Chief?” he’d said. “We’re about to spend God knows how long dragging ass through the Horn of Africa while a bunch of . . . misguided but well-intentioned religious devotees try to kill us. Might be the last chance to get my dick wet ever. You’re just mad because I got the shot and you didn’t.”
Schweitzer had laughed his ass off. Chang had even managed to crack a smile out of Ahmad’s normally iron visage. She’d gone to talk to the skipper, and that was the last they heard of the matter. The corpsman stayed on the pier. As far as Schweitzer knew, Chang never talked to her again.
Put monkeys with needs in charge of a secret and highly dangerous government program, and they still acted like monkeys with needs.
Ninip was paying attention now, his own reaction shifting between amusement and rising arousal. Whatever else might bore him about humanity, base lust was a thing he understood. Schweitzer felt the jinn’s filter begin to slide over their vision, pushed it back. He knew how Ninip saw the world when he was hungry for blood. He didn’t want to think about how it looked when he was turned on.
But even if he had more control, Schweitzer still had a monkey’s soul. He justified the eavesdropping by practicing fine-tuning of their hearing, sliding along the spectrum of high and low sounds, through the popping of lips coming together and parting to the low rustle of hands sliding over clothing, of breathing going ragged, of the sharp clacking as weapons slapped against the wall.
Man, they were really going at it. He’d
lost track of time, but this had to mean it was in the wee hours, and there was no one else around. Schweitzer had seen it before, guards turned on by the prospect of making out at work. It would be an intense burst, followed by pushing away, shaking of heads, then walking along like everything was normal. Hell, he’d practically done it with Sarah in a Victoria’s Secret dressing room once with the sales attendant just outside the door.
Ninip was pressed into their shared body now, asserting himself in the tension of their limbs. Schweitzer could feel the claws beginning to extend slightly, their tongue swelling again. There was a line between lust for blood and lust for sex, but it was a thin one even for the living, and it seemed to have all but vanished for the jinn.
Before Schweitzer knew it, they were standing, the book sliding off their lap and landing with a muffled thud on the floor. He could feel the jinn’s agitated presence all around him, as nasty and inappropriately intimate as when his fellow nonrates watched porn together in their liberty hours at the end of boot camp.
The ragged breathing broke with the smack of wet skin parting, and Schweitzer heard the flat rustling sounds that heralded the pushing away he’d known would come. Now, soft words of devotion, or maybe promises of what would come later, and one of them would walk off. Schweitzer tuned their hearing lower, guessing at the softness with which they would be uttered, tried to poise himself to catch them.
But what came was at a much higher register, a woman’s voice raised in anger. Schweitzer ran their hearing up to the higher frequency, then dampened it as the voice grew louder, was answered by a man’s. He caught only a single word, “smothering.” This tryst wasn’t a moment of shared passion, it was a moment of weakness, regretted and now going sour.
He sniffed the air, caught the sick, bitter scent of fear. The voices came more quickly now, the man’s low tones. Cursing. A slap ringing out, loud as a gunshot to Schweitzer’s augmented hearing.
Before he knew what he was doing, Schweitzer had moved them to the shutters, begun clawing at the seams between them.
