When the Devil Dances lota-3

by John Ringo

  Then disaster hit. She was within ten feet of the line, almost completely done, when she felt the first snap give way.

  The dummy, unfortunately, had been used for thousands of drags. It had been lifted and carried and hauled hither and yon and always in the same bunker-coat. A bunker-coat which chose that moment to decide to open up.

  She felt the snaps give way and frantically started scrabbling at the front of the coat, trying to get a handhold anywhere. The dummy poised for a moment on her knee, but then her last handhold slipped and it hit the floor.

  She just stood there and… looked at it. The dummy was on the floor. She’d dropped the dummy. After all that…

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg for another chance. And she knew that if she did either one, she’d never be accepted for another evaluation. So she just stood there, tears streaming down her face, unable to move as one of the examiners came over, buttoned up the bunker-coat and lifted the dummy into a shoulder carry to reposition it.

  Finally, Chief Connolly came over and took her by the arm. She led her over to a bench and pulled off her helmet.

  “There’ll be other events,” Connolly said. “All you have to do is as well as you did and don’t drop the dummy.”

  “How did you know?” Wendy whispered.

  “I didn’t,” Connolly answered turning to watch the next candidate. “I jinxed you. I knew you had screwed up your courage for the rope sequence so I decided to throw you a curve on the dummy. I didn’t fiddle with the buckles, though. That was just bad luck.”

  “Bad luck,” Wendy whispered. “That’s the story of my life.”

  “And that’s why I jinxed you,” Connolly said calmly. “You don’t really have your head around this yet. It’s all a game to you, even when it’s tough. I don’t want anybody going into the fire with me that’s in it for the ‘fun.’ Or the uniform. Or anything, but the burning desire to kill the flame and save the people.”

  Connolly turned back to look at her and shook her head. “You’re still playing fireman, Wendy. That’s what your psych profile says; that’s why you’re not in Security either. You’re not sure that you can do it, you’re not sure you can handle it and you want to play at it for a while to see if you like it. I don’t want anybody in the department who’s just playing. I don’t want anyone who isn’t perfectly, completely, confident and competent. We’ve got too big a responsibility for ‘might.’ ”

  Wendy looked up at her for a moment and nodded her head. “Fuck you.” She pointed her finger at the firechief as she opened her mouth. “If you say another fucking word I will kick your ass,” she whispered, getting to her feet and then getting to her feet again to stand on the bench so she could look the taller firefighter in the eye.

  “Let me tell you about bad luck, Chief ‘I am God’ Connolly,” she whispered again, carefully stripping off the bunker gear. “Bad luck is knowing, not worrying, not wondering, but knowing that the Posleen are going to kill you and then almost assuredly eat you. Bad luck is having every single member of your family, everyone that you are going to school with, everyone you have ever known, killed in one day. Bad luck is seeing your life wiped out in an instant.

  “You came here from Baltimore before it was even invested,” Wendy continued softly. “You’ve never seen a Posleen except on television. You’ve never seen them in their waves, cresting the hills and filling every corner of your town. You’ve never heard the crack of railgun rounds overhead or had your ears ringing from missiles slamming into the houses around you.

  “You’re right. I don’t want to be a fucking fireman. I don’t want to pull hoses and run up and down stairs all day. I want to kill fucking Posleen. I hate them. I hate them passionately. You think you hate fire, but you love it at the same time; most firemen do. Well, I don’t love Posleen at all. I take it back, I don’t even hate Posleen. I despise them. I don’t respect them, I don’t think they are fascinating, I just want them to cease to exist.”

  She’d stripped out of the bunker gear by then and she stood in the coverall tall and stone faced. “You’re right, I’m playing at firefighting. Because compared to killing Posleen, firefighting ain’t shit. So. Fuck you. Fuck your tests. And fuck this department. I’m done.”

  “You’re right,” said Connolly. “You are. I’ll keep you on the reserve rolls, but don’t bother turning up for drills. Not until you can keep it together.”

  “Oh, I’ve got it together,” Wendy said, turning away. “Never better.”

  “Cummings,” the chief called.

  “What?” Wendy asked, pausing, but not bothering to turn around.

  “Don’t do anything… stupid. I don’t want to be cleaning you up from someplace.”

  “Oh, you won’t be cleaning me up,” Wendy said, walking away. “But if anybody gives me any shit, you might as well bring the toe-tags.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Franklin Sub-Urb, Franklin, NC, United States, Sol III

  1048 EDT Thursday September 24, 2009 ad

  They do not preach that their God will rouse them

  a little before the nuts work loose.

  They do not teach that His Pity allows them

  to drop their job when they dam’-well choose.

  As in the thronged and the lighted ways,

  so in the dark and the desert they stand,

  Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s day

  may be long in the land.

  — Rudyard Kipling

  “The Sons of Martha” (1907)

  “Look, buddy, do you have a problem with the concept of ‘written orders’?” Mosovich asked.

  The security guard behind the armored glass looked at the piece of paper again, then gestured for them to wait. “Let me call somebody. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with this.”

  “I hate these fucking holes,” Mueller grumped. And Mosovich had to agree. Mansfield was going to owe him. Big time.

  The “request” to go check out this crazy bitch came at a good time, anyway. After the last reconnaissance debacle, the corps commander had ordered a halt to long-range patrols for the time being. The gap was being taken up by increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles and scout crawlers. The former were small aircraft, most of them not much larger than a red-tailed hawk, that hovered along in the trees, probing forward against the Posleen lines. The problem with them was that the Posleen automated systems identified and destroyed them with remarkable ease. So they would only get a brief view of any Posleen activity. Crawlers — which looked like foot-long mechanical ants — did a little bit better. But even they had not been able to penetrate very far; whoever was commanding the Posleen had the main encampment screened tighter than a tick.

  Mosovich had heard rumor that Bernard had requested permission to nuke the encampment with SheVa antimatter rounds. It had been denied of course — the President was death on nuclear weapons — but the fact that the question might have been asked was comforting. It meant that somebody was taking the landing seriously.

  However, until they figured out a way to probe the Posleen, Mosovich, Mueller and Sister Mary didn’t have a job. Since sooner or later somebody was going to notice and figure out something stupid for them to do, Mosovich was just as glad to have this “request” forwarded through corps. It had ensured a written pass from headquarters, without which getting in would have been nearly impossible. And it got them away from corps and the various idiotic projects that the staff would be coming up with.

  The flip side to it was that they had to go into the Sub-Urb. He’d been in a couple in the last five years and they were depressing as hell. The sight of all those people shoved underground was somehow obscene. Especially since ten years before, ninety percent of them had been living in comfortable neighborhoods. On the lines there were times when you could almost imagine that, yeah, there was a really big war. But, fundamentally the United States was still there, still functioning. And once the off-planet forces returned, everything c
ould go back to being more or less normal.

  Then you went to a Sub-Urb and realized that you were kidding yourself.

  The Franklin Sub-Urb had a particularly bad reputation and he wasn’t surprised. Half the escalators on the personnel entrance they used had been out of order and the reception area was scuffed and filthy with trash and dirt piled up in the corners. And the security point, an armor-glass-fronted cubicle something like a movie theater ticket booth, was even worse. Every shelf in the booth was piled with empty food containers, half of which were filled with cigarette butts.

  Realistically, though, the conditions weren’t too surprising. Not only was it one of the oldest ones, meaning that it had people from the first refugee waves when the Posleen were really hammering civilians, but its proximity to the corps support facilities had only managed to degrade the condition. They’d had to catch a ride from their barracks in the Gap to Franklin and it was apparent on the ride that even though the Line forces in the Gap weren’t the greatest, the support groups were worse. No wonder they’d placed the Urb off limits; he’d have kept these “soldiers” out and he was a soldier. And from what he’d heard the first few months when they hadn’t kept the soldiers out boiled down to a sack.

  No wonder the security was jumpy about letting them in. Especially armed.

  Mosovich shifted his rifle as the female guard returned with an older male. The newcomer was overweight, but not sloppily; it was clear that a good bit of the body was muscle. He was wearing rank tabs for a security major which meant he was probably the senior officer on duty. No wonder she’d been gone for a while.

  “Sergeant Major—” the security officer said, looking at the e-mail orders, ” — Mosovich?”

  “The same, and my senior NCO, Master Sergeant Mueller.”

  “Could I see some ID?” he asked.

  “Okay,” Jake said, fishing out his ID card and gun orders.

  “This is fairly irregular,” the security officer continued. “We have a few personnel that have open permission to pass back and forth. But for all practical purposes no military personnel are permitted other than that.”

  “Unless they’re on orders,” Mosovich said. He supposed that he could bow and scrape and it might help. But the hell if he would to this Keystone Kop outfit.

  The officer carefully considered the two IDs and then sighed. “Okay, it looks like I have to let you in…”

  “Then would you mind opening the door?” Mueller growled.

  The officer put his hands on his hips. “First, a few words…”

  “Look, Major…” Mosovich leaned forward and peered at the badge, ”… Peanut? We’re not support pogues. We’re not the barbarians you had coming down here before. I may look 22, but I’m 57; I was in the Army when you were a gleam in your daddy’s eye. We’re here on a mission, not to fuck around. And there’s only two of us; if your department can’t take down two soldiers then you need to shitcan it and get some real guards. And, as you noted, we’ve got qualified passes. So open the door.”

  “Well, that covers part of it,” the major said dryly. “Here’s the rest. People down here don’t have guns. They don’t like guns; they’re afraid of them. Except for the ones that want them and will gladly take yours if you give them half a chance. Carry them slung across your back, not combat slung. Make sure you maintain control of them at all times. If you lose one, I guarantee you that the corps commander will make your life absolute hell.”

  “He’d be hard pressed,” Jake said. “We’re Fleet. But I take your meaning.”

  “Okay,” the major said with a sigh, activating a solenoid. “Welcome to the Franklin Sub-Urb.”

  * * *

  Mueller shook his head as they passed through another one of the open gathering areas. “Strange looks.” The sprite turned left out of the commons and onto another slideway.

  “Yeah,” Mosovich replied. “Sheep.”

  Mueller knew what he meant. The people of the Sub-Urbs were giving them the sort of look sheep gave sheepdogs. They knew that the dog wouldn’t bite them. Probably. This time. But they definitely did not like to see the uniforms or the guns. To sheep, all sheepdogs are wolves.

  “Probably worried about an attack,” Mosovich added.

  “I would be,” Mueller agreed. The Sub-Urb was an easy drive from the front lines; whatever idiot put it this close should be shot.

  “No way out,” Mosovich said. “Stupid.”

  “Lots,” Mueller contradicted. “All marked. And the armory at the front.”

  Mosovich just snorted. If the Posleen ever came up the Gap, the people in the Sub-Urb were so many food animals caught in their pens. And with the Armory on the upper side of the Urb, unless they got the word in very good time, the Posleen would be sitting on their weapons.

  The decision had been made to make the Urbs zero weapons zones and in the eyes of Mosovich and plenty of other people that was just wrong. If everyone in the Urb was armed it would probably mean a higher murder rate. But compared to the one hundred percent loss in the event of an attack, even one by a random landing, a few murders would be worth it. Besides, the improved defenses if everyone was armed might keep the Posleen out.

  Nonetheless, through a combination of politics and Galactic intransigence the Urbs had been disarmed.

  “Stupid.” Mueller shook his head.

  Mosovich nodded as he turned down a brightly lit corridor. The walls had murals on them, which was unusual, and each of the doors had the nameplate of a different doctor on it. The sprite stopped in front of a door marked “Dr. Christine Richards, Psy.D.”

  Mosovich touched the entry pad and the door chimed.

  “Yes?” a voice asked through the pad.

  “Doctor Richards? It’s Sergeant Major Mosovich. I’m here to talk to you about Captain Elgars?” The good doctor was supposed to have received an e-mail, but who knew what was really happening.

  “Could this wait?” the box asked. “I’m preparing a report right now, but it’s not complete.”

  “Well, you can report all you’d like, doc,” Mosovich replied to the speaker. He was getting a bit ticked about talking to a closed door. “But I suspect that the Army is going to pay more attention to me than you. And I’m going from here to run down Elgars. So this is your one chance to convince me that Elgars is crazy.”

  The door opened and Dr. Richards sighed. “She’s not crazy, she’s possessed.”

  * * *

  Dr. Richards had spread out all the case files for Annie Elgars on her table, trying to explain why she wasn’t crazy. “I want you to look at this,” she said, laying down a long strip of paper with squiggly lines on it.

  “Okay, I know my line here,” Mosovich said. “I’m supposed to say ‘Is this a brain map, doctor?’ But Special Forces guys used to get shrunk all the time and I’ve seen an EEG before.”

  “Fine,” Richards said, pulling out a textbook. “You’re right, that’s an EEG and it’s Elgars’ to be exact.” She opened up the book to a marked page and pointed to the lines on the paper. “This is a normal EEG when a person is awake, or not in alpha mode. Look at it.”

  Mosovich did and then at Elgar’s EEG. There was no comparison. “What are all these extra notches?” he asked, pointing to Elgars’.

  “You tell me,” Richards snapped. “And here, look at this.” She riffled through the readouts until she came to another one that was marked. “When you do stuff that you’ve done thousands of times, the sort of stuff that they say ‘He can do it in his sleep.’ What’s really happening is that your brain switches to alpha mode, which really is like you’re asleep. It’s one of the bases for zen, that ‘state of nothingness.’ Look, when you’re shooting, do you actually think about what you’re doing?”

  “I know what you’re talking about here,” Mueller interjected. “You’re talking about like when you’re in a shoothouse. No, you have to turn your brain off and let go, let your training do the thinking for you. When you’re really clicking we call i
t ‘being in the Zone.’ ”

  “Exactly,” Richards said, pointing a different set of spikes. “This is alpha state. In Elgars’ case, she doesn’t have many specific memories, but she can perform a remarkable series of actual manual tasks. If a person is that badly injured, you expect them to have to learn to walk and eat and go to the bathroom all over again. When Elgars was wheeled into the recovery room, she was lucid and capable of performing almost all normal daily functions. Furthermore, we have since determined that she has a wide variety of basic skills, including driving and operating a variety of hand weaponry from knives to very large rifles.”

  She pointed to the chart, running her finger along the normal rhythms until she got to the alpha rhythm and then pulling the book up alongside. “This is the transition point, where she goes from beta to alpha. And here is a normal transition.”

  Mosovich and Mueller both leaned forward and looked. Again, the transition area was completely different than the textbook version. It was somewhat longer and had numerous extraneous spikes. Mosovich pointed to the alpha rhythm on the chart.

  “Her alpha looks almost textbook, though,” he noted.

  “Yes, it is,” Richards said. “The differences are just those of being a different human. And that’s the other scary part; her alpha is absolutely normal.”

  “So that’s why she’s possessed?” Mueller asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Look,” Richards said with a sigh, leaning back in her chair and taking off her glasses to rub her eyes. “None of us are experts at this. I was a damned family counselor before they sent me down here. We have one, repeat, one clinical psych researcher, and he was an expert on sleep disorders. We’re all out of our depth on this… phenomenon. But… yes, we have come to the conclusion that there is more than one… person, not just personality, person, living in Elgars’ head. And that the primary personality might not be, probably is not, Anne Elgars.”