Verdigris had no idea what he was metaphorically climbing into bed with. This was . . . insane.
And if this was leading where she thought it was leading . . . to the capture of the Deva, the Seraphym, and presumably the coercion of said being . . . it was more than insane.
You did not capture and coerce a Deva. Not if you wanted your karma to remain neutral. Such an action would send your karma somewhere below that of “you will be reincarnated as a starving alley dog for the next twenty lifetimes.” Even being associated with such a thing would send her karma plummeting to somewhere below “reincarnation as a nanny-goat.”
Not acceptable.
Khanjar, she told herself, as she continued to keep her post at the spy hole, per Verdigris’ orders, it is time to look for an exit strategy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Run Through the Jungle
MERCEDES LACKEY AND CODY MARTIN
Seraphym felt a kind of comfort in perching on the roof of John Murdock’s squat. It was a comfort she sorely needed. The futures had changed, and yet, none of them had lightened any. Except for the ones centered by that enormous blank into which she could not see. Only there was there any hope, at the moment, and she still could neither see a reason nor deduce her way to that hope.
She was so deeply immersed in her meditations that although the least hint of an inimical presence would have sent her hurtling back to awareness in a nanopulse, a friendly presence did not so much as make a feather touch of an impression on her mental state.
“Evenin’, Angel. How’s kicks?” John was wearing a pair of CCCP coveralls with the upper half tied around his waist, a muscle shirt covering his upper torso. He was carrying a very large brown paper bag in his right hand, and a pair of sitting cushions in his other.
Seraphym was catapulted out of her meditations so quickly that for one moment she could only blink at him. “Greetings, John Murdock. I was . . .”
“Becoming One with the All, or somethin’?” He flashed his characteristic lopsided grin. She found her own lips curving up in response without a single thought.
“Of a sort.” She wondered how much or little she could tell him.
“Put the All on hold, for a bit. Got a special treat for tonight.” He set the brown bag down, then threw a pillow each at their feet. Unceremoniously thumping down onto his, he started to pull Styrofoam cartons out of the bag. “Take a guess.”
She felt herself smiling a little more. How . . . odd. “A true guess, or cheating?”
“Can ya pick one already? I’m starvin’.”
She knew what they were of course. Carryout food. She could even trace back along the path they had been carried in a flash and see where they had come from. But, taken with his whimsy, she laid a forefinger on one that seemed to have a little red sauce at one corner of the lid. It was a lovely, deep color, and it pleased her. But she was puzzled as to why there were so many cartons of food. “This?” she said.
“Chinese. Good choice. We’ve got Chinese, Mexican, good ol’ American burgers an’ fries, pizza, an’ somethin’ from that Thea gal—you guessed it—borscht.” He opened each box, then plopped two plastic sporks in front of each of them.
She looked at all the containers, and looked at him in mingled fascination and horror. “You are going to eat all of this? Will you not explode?”
“Could give it a shot, but I got just enough to tide me over till next meal. Meant to share this tonight, though.” He dug his spork into a pile of greasy noodles and chicken, shoving it into his mouth. “Figured that ’tween do-gooding and bein’ the Hand of some Fluffy God, that your sort didn’t have much time to sample the finer things in life,” he said, speaking around his food.
“I . . . have never eaten,” she said. She could, of course. She could have her body do anything she chose for it to do. She picked up the container and opened it. Her vast memory identified it for her. Sweet and sour shrimp. Tentatively, she used the implement to convey a little to her mouth.
It is one thing to have the memory of millions of other peoples’ eating experiences available to you. It is quite another to taste something for yourself, with your own mouth, for the very first time in corporeal or incorporeal existence.
“Whaddya tink?” he mumbled around a mouthful of pizza.
Her eyes widened as dozens of nuances and tastes hit her mind at once, and she stopped everything, dead, to analyze them.
“Don’t miss the churros fer dessert. They reminded me of ya; cinnamony an’ too light for their own good.”
“I . . . am full of wonder,” she managed at last. She told her body to take its cues from his; a new sensation came to it. Hunger. With pure, unfettered delight, she began to eat, tasting, tasting, reveling in the taste. She ate carefully and daintily—but hugely.
He retreated for a few minutes as she dug in, returning from the roof access with a glass of water and a large case of beer. He set the water in front of her and immediately cracked open a bottle for himself. Gulping down the first beer, he paused before the second. “So, whatcha think?”
“No wonder mortals grow fat.”
“It’s one of my favorite sins, despite bein’ a fan of all seven.” He took a long pull from his beer before setting it down and taking one of the two hamburgers.
“That which gives joy is not a sin, John Murdock,” she chided very gently, and gave herself up to a slice of pizza, as different from the Chinese as could be.
“No such thing as too much of a good thing?”
“Overindulgence at the cost of others or one’s own self—that is selfishness, and that is a sin.” She nibbled, craning her head around at an odd angle as the tip of the piece of pizza began to droop, until her head was almost upside down. “This is a very floppy food—”
“Just gotta hold it right; same principle as a gun. Proper support.” Washing down the last of his burger with a swig of beer, he demonstrated the proper way to fold a pizza slice; he’d bought a half pie, pineapple and ham, his favorite. She gave his demonstration all the studious attention of a scientific lecture, and copied him.
“You lucked out tonight, Angel. I haven’t properly eaten since the op in Kansas.”
“I knew you were gone. I did not know where.” The next words came from her mouth without thought. “I missed your presence.”
He looked at her soberly, still chewing his way through the pizza. “Well, shucks, Angel.” Then he broke into a smile again, looking away from her just as suddenly.
“Why did you go to Kansas?” she asked. “The CCCP is here.”
“I suppose this is violatin’ all sorts of OpSec, but I don’t suppose that you’re the sort to go spreadin’ information ’round, either. We got word that the Thulians were kicking around in Kansas. I got sent in to find out ’bout it, and then take care of it.” John got a slightly faraway look in his eyes, as if an old and ugly wound had begun to pain him.
She regarded him somberly. She could look into the past to find out what had happened in Kansas, but . . .”It was disturbing to you. Was it very horrible?”
“The sort that we’re fightin’ are the worst sort. They’re horrible. In my line of work, it’s not all that often that y’come across true evil, irredeemable bastards without a prayer. These Thulians, though . . . they’re not just bad. They’re other. Gives me the creeps whenever I get near ’em. Just no shades of gray with these guys.” He mulled over that for a moment, then quickly changed the topic. “So, how’s the CCCP been while I’ve been outta town?”
She hesitated. “John Murdock . . .” She waited for the echo in her mind. It is permitted. “John Murdock, I may tell you a thing.”
“By all means.” He waved his hand, leaning over to retrieve a fresh bottle of beer.
“You know now that the Thulians are other. Not from this world. They are . . . they do not regard humans as anything but insects to be amused by or swept away. You have no meaning for them, except as you irritate them by your persistence in failing to fall. They tak
e their cues from their human allies in this. They will not rest until you do fall, and lie beneath their feet.”
“Enough on those bastards. Again, they give me the heebie-jeebies. How’ve my people been in the neighborhood?”
“We have watched over them. Insofar as they can, they prosper.” She took a deep breath. “Something troubles you. More than troubles you. This is why you try to take the conversation to inconsequentials. Will you tell me?”
“The CCCP and the folks ’ere are inconsequential?” Again that smile, trying to turn her own words back on her. This was important. She sensed it. And she was not going to let him distract her. This—this was driving deeply into that blank that he was, and if she could not get some insight into it, and soon . . .
“When you know, when you can see, have seen with your own eyes that all was well, yes. Will you tell me? I . . . I cannot lie. I will tell no one.”
“Things got a little hairy on the last mission, t’say the least.”
He was not going any further unless she prompted him, so she did. “Hairy?”
“I acted . . . unprofessionally.”
Her brows furrowed. “I fail to understand.”
“Long story short, the Thulians got wise to the fact that we were onto them in the middle of the operation. Part of it is my fault as team leader; I should’ve made sure everyone on the team was equipped right. Part of it was just bad luck. Anyways, we got bogged down, and things were looking bad.” He sighed heavily, and again with that far-off look. He took another drink from his bottle.
“And something happened. Something that gives you great pain.”
“Again, I acted unprofessionally. I . . . lost control of myself. I was the team leader for this mission; I’m supposed to keep track of everyone an’ make sure that everyone comes home. Y’need to be really in the moment for that, an’ have as complete tactical awareness as possible. An’ I lost my shit, an’ endangered everyone. If’n Vickie hadn’t had her techno-wizardry up an’ seen what was comin’, I could’ve killed the entire team.” He laid one of his hands on his knee; it seemed to Sera as if he was bracing himself under the weight of the memory.
She was . . . moved to not just compassion, which she always had, but pity. No mortal should labor under the sort of burden he seemed to be carrying. Impulsively, she reached forward to touch his fingers, perhaps to impart some sort of comfort.
For the first time in her acquaintance of him, his barriers were completely down, and there was the sense of trust. But that was followed in a flash by such a blow of shock and horror that she jerked a little, as a mortal would when jolted by an electric current. His shock and horror . . . it flooded her. And she knew what this was. It had impacted her once before. The Program.
Quickly she withdrew. He had not wanted her to see this before. She knew what the Program was, of course, but not what it had meant to him. That was shrouded from her.
Unless he chose to show her.
Then she felt his assent; in fact, felt him seize her as if she was a lifeline. And then they both fell into memory.
* * *
There was weapons’ fire to their left and Randolph went down instantly, his head exploding into a red mist. There was shooting coming from all directions. It was a perfectly executed ambush. On them. John fired at muzzle flashes, wasting precious seconds to turn his NVGs on. There had to be thirty of the bastards, which was impossible; intelligence said that they had a clear approach to the encampment that they were supposed to destroy.
Gomez was next; he died screaming, still firing, bullets stitching across the jungle canopy as he went down. There was no time to react; John kept firing, trying to move and regroup with the rest of his troop. Whenever he came close to any of his men, they were cut down.
John knew that the situation was hopeless when Ross died; there were only four of his troop left, including himself. Ross had simply crumpled bonelessly to the ground, as if he was narcoleptic. John rolled him over, stopped to fire at someone charging towards him. He checked Ross; he had been shot through his right bicep, the round piercing both of his lungs. He’d died nearly instantly, and his lifeless eyes peered eerily at John through the green haze of his night vision. No time! No time.
John stood to run, to find cover and see how many of the enemy he could take before he was overcome. That’s when the shot came, thudding and heavy and knocking him down. He wasn’t dying, though, which wasn’t right. He should be dead, dead with everyone else.
The firing slowed, became more sporadic, and finally stopped. John struggled to breathe, and couldn’t find any blood that was his own; he wasn’t bleeding where he had been hit. He started to lose consciousness, his vision going out. But he swore, swore that one of the bastards that had killed his troop was wearing NVGs. The rebels aren’t supposed to have those . . .
* * *
“—very lucky that our CIA assets in the area were able to find you when they did. Otherwise, you would’ve probably been taken hostage by the revolutionaries. With what they’ve been doing to the foreign contractors they caught last month, it’s safe to say that you would be in a bad way.”
John simply nodded, still too hazy to offer a meaningful response. He had been given a stunning amount of painkillers since his arrival in the hospital, and hadn’t been conscious all that often. The bruise on his chest, they explained to him, was from a grenade that misfired and failed to explode. If it weren’t for his body armor, he’d have a baseball-sized hole in his chest instead of a cracked sternum.
“We’re in a unique position here, though, Staff Sergeant. At the moment, you’re officially listed as Killed in Action . . . so far as anyone is admitting that you exist at all. It’ll officially be written up as a training accident, if you accept.”
John’s head lolled, and he replied groggily. “Accept what?”
The man smiled. “I’m glad you asked, soldier. You’re a patriot, yes? We have a one-of-a-kind opportunity for you to serve your country. Something that’ll help give America an edge, to keep us safe. It’s Black Project, of course, since the Program itself could be considered . . . somewhat . . . controversial.”
“What would I have to do?”
“We’ll get to that later. Right now, you just heal up, soldier.”
* * *
In order to be torn to pieces, it apparently took a lot of training to get in as good a physical shape as possible. They worked out daily; John was in superb shape, and he only got better over the weeks. Most of the others were good; he figured that there were two hundred-odd “trainees,” all volunteers.
Most were “former” military, like him, from across the services; always a combat MOS, though. A few others were law enforcement, usually federal: FBI, US marshals, Treasury agents, and even a true-to-life Texas Ranger. The training was hard, but it had to be for what they were going to do.
They used morphine like saline solution here. They needed to. It took those that survived the surgeries roughly six months to fully recover. It was as close to Six Million Dollar Man stuff as John figured there would ever be. The technical terms for what exactly they had done were lost to him; he was well-read, but most of it was truly next-level, genius work. Enhanced senses, faster reflexes, stronger bones and muscles. He wasn’t invincible; a bullet or bomb could still kill him just as dead as before. But he was a helluva lot harder to kill.
As for what they were trying to do? Make metahumans out of normal men. That simple, and that complex. Metahumans on demand. If the processes that they were using could be streamlined, they could be mass-produced. It would ensure America’s military dominance, by giving them the “better, faster” soldier to match the rapidly advancing technology of war.
They were told that the science that was being pioneered with them would also have practical applications; helping the blind to see, the paralyzed to walk, and so on. That all of the ones that hadn’t survived the surgeries—all forty-one percent of them—would not have died in vain.
Once t
hey recovered, the training started again. To relearn how to do everything, but faster and better. And that’s when John discovered, much to his surprise, that he could produce fire on command. The doctors were at first shocked, and then delighted. They spent a lot of time determining how it had happened; it certainly wasn’t anything that was a result of the surgeries. The labcoats figured out that his mitochondria somehow processed energy differently, maybe even drawing on an extradimensional source; John was able to psionically use this energy to create flame, even create the fourth state of matter—plasma. It came to him naturally, and his only limit was his own concentration; not to expand his powers, but to keep them in check. Because the first time he’d manifested them, he’d taken out a hardened concrete bunker during a live-fire exercise, purely on reflex. Good thing there’d only been a robotically controlled machine gun in there.
He wasn’t the only one who’d triggered metahuman after the surgeries.
They had a whole special unit for people like that.
* * *
She was gorgeous, and constantly amazed John when they were allowed to see each other. Her name was Jessica, and she was a psychometricist; she could read objects and places, their past and present, simply by touching them. They said she’d make the perfect spy. Get her in, let her touch something barehanded, get her out again full of intel.
Their contact was minimal, due to the nature of the special “Natural Meta-Soldiers” unit. Their training regimen was different from the other trainees, far more specialized and detailed.
And . . . he knew they had to be hard, had to push people to their limits but . . .
Her name was Jessica; she was tough and smart and liked a lot of the same things he did. She was beautiful, too, not like supermodel beautiful, but like completely alive beautiful. She knew poets, and poetry, and could quote them. She’d read Dylan Thomas and Barry Longyear. She liked zombie movies.
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 12
