Her name was Jessica, and they were falling in love, and that wasn’t allowed.
* * *
They called it a training accident, which, of course, was a lie. She was dead, and they—the Program chiefs—had killed her. John was certain of it.
It had happened shortly after lunch. The Natural Metas had their own time for the mess hall, separated from both the researchers and the other trainees, but she had bumped into a straggling doctor, one of the department heads, who had accidentally stayed late after his chow time. He was carrying a stack of papers and folders, and looked bored. When she bumped into him, the papers went everywhere. As soon as she knelt down to help him pick the scattered papers up, as soon as her hand touched the first folder, she froze.
John saw her face fall from across the room, the color draining out of it. She quietly helped the doctor finish picking up his papers, and then took a seat next to John. She was completely silent for their entire meal, until two armed guards approached from the commissary door. She looked him in the eyes and whispered one word: “Run.” And it was over. They took her away.
Three days later, she was dead, and they had killed her. John became “uncooperative.” That was their word for it. He didn’t have a word for it; he wanted answers, didn’t get them, and so he set out on a one-man mission to beat the answers out of every officer and labcoat he could get his hands on.
* * *
“—subject one-zero-six-four, beta series, has become uncooperative and disruptive, even violent towards Program staff. Dr. Chandresekhar, our lead therapist and behavioral psychologist, has determined that the subject is a total loss. No chance for meaningful rehabilitation and orientation for Program goals.”
It was Dr. Jacob Garvey. John had only seen him once before, shortly after he went into surgery. Garvey was the Program head researcher—the entire thing was his idea, his brainchild. He was supposed to be unbelievably smart, ultra-genius level. John didn’t care how smart he was. What mattered was that Garvey was as sadistic and inhumane as Mengele.
He was strapped down, and waiting to be euthanized. They had pumped him full of drugs to keep him compliant. They needed to; when they first tried to take him, he had killed five guards and hospitalized three others. But the Program leaders didn’t leave anything to chance, and quickly had him subdued. John thought it might have been the same Valium gas that the Russians used in that one hostage situation, but he couldn’t be sure.
Garvey continued to dispassionately drone on to someone John couldn’t see. “It’s almost a waste of resources, but necessary. After execution, autopsy is to be performed immediately upon the cadaver. If we can learn more about the natural processes that contributed to Subject one-zero-six-four’s spontaneous metahuman ability, we might be able to figure out how to replicate it. While not the most practical ‘superpower,’ my maxim has always been ‘waste not, want not.’” He nodded to the other technicians in the room. “Let’s begin.”
He moved in with the needles, handed to him by one of the nurses. There was no lethal injection machine in this exam room. Then again, Garvey was supposed to be a hands-on sort of man when it came to “interesting subjects.”
John felt what was about to happen; the cold-eyed men and women around him seemed a thousand miles away. He saw Jessica’s face, felt her warmth, and remembered that she was gone forever. The hatred, the fury welled up inside of him, burning through him like lava. He strained against his restraints, the metal and Kevlar straps creaking. Garvey stopped short. “He shouldn’t even be conscious. Interesting.” John saw red. Literally. Everything around him was washed in a hot red haze. He hated them all, hated the entire facility, hated Garvey, and finally hated himself. Because he had let them take her. Just sat there, and let them take her.
I’ll drag every one of you down to hell with me.
The explosion came too quickly for any sort of fire suppression system to have a chance to save anyone. He hadn’t ever used his powers in that way before. He didn’t know he was capable of it. The worst part was . . . it was easy. John just . . . let go. The entire facility was blasted through with a plasma wave, intense pressure and heat destroying everything—and everyone. When it was done, John found himself lying outside of the smoldering ruins of the underground facility. He had blacked out, blanked his escape from memory. But he knew: everyone behind him, everyone in those bunkers was dead.
He had killed them all, but it wasn’t enough. Because he had let them kill her.
* * *
She was supposed to be . . . detached. She was supposed to be able to sense and understand mortals, feel compassion for them, but she was not supposed to feel as they felt. She was supposed to take the longer view. After all, death was not an ending. Pain was not forever.
But she was, for a brief, and terrifying moment, furious. Furious with the anger of an Archangel, the kind of anger that destroyed worlds. Furious enough that, had she not been able to control herself, she would have razed the Program buildings across the world to ashes and strewn salt where they had been. She would have brought Fire and the Sword to those who had conceived of it, and let them experience the true wrath of a Seraphym in the instant before they died.
Instantly, she throttled her reaction down. She was an Instrument of the Infinite, here for a specific purpose, and revenge in this case was not a part of that purpose. But the anger . . . the rage . . .
She cooled herself. She was a Seraphym and this was not her purpose. But she wondered if he had felt her rage rise with his own.
And after the rage had cooled . . . came the grief. She mourned for him, for what he had lost. And mourned that he, himself, could not yet grieve. She wept, that he could not weep and begin to heal.
* * *
When John opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the Seraphym’s tears. He opened his mouth, and closed it just as quickly.
What can I say? What can I tell her after she’s seen, been through that? Seen who I really am, and what I’ve done?
“Sera? Are you all right?” He had very carefully withdrawn his hand from hers, keeping it in his lap.
She looked up at him and made a little motion with her hand, as if to try and take his back, then stopped. “I . . . grieve,” she said, after a long silence. She made no move to wipe her tears away; another moment of un-humanity.
John couldn’t look at her anymore. “I’ll understand if you don’t wanna come around anymore. I wouldn’t.” He sighed, taking a noncommittal sip from his beer. “Knowin’ what I’ve done.”
“What?” She sounded startled. “But—I grieve for what was done to you. That you have not healed. That you have not found forgiveness.” She actually took a deep breath. “John Murdock, forgiveness is always possible, but you must forgive yourself first. This changes nothing for the worse between us. You are my friend, my true friend. I only have one other. I would not lose either of you, for . . . for any cause.”
And she was right, at least about them being friends. That bothered John, a little. He had been so caught up in everything, that making friends . . . it sort of just crept up on him. Unter and Old Man Bear weren’t quite like his old drinking buddies, or his friends in the service . . . but that bond was still there. And Jonas, who was more like an uncle than anything. Then there was Sera, which still confused him to an extent. But it was happening, no denying it; he was making friends. He would’ve judged allowing something like that to happen to be too dangerous, before the Invasion; for himself and said friends. Things had changed in the world since the Thulians decided to try their hand at genocide and conquest. Things had changed in John. “The only other person that really knows, or at least knows part of it, is Bella. She knows I was in some black-budget deal, and turned out bad, which was why I was on the run. The Commissar has the general idea. But that’s it.” The fear was still there; the memories he had from the Program were carried with him, deep down, while still being ever-present in his mind. A background of regret. A barricade of guilt.
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“This was very hard for you. Showing me.” Her eyes were dry again, and again unreadable behind the blaze of gold. “Perhaps, for now, we should say goodnight.”
He nodded, gathering up the take-out containers and cushions. He was uncomfortable, and tried to break the tension. “Sorry for bein’ a buzz-kill tonight. Same time tomorrow? I cook a mean steak, if Jonas has any in the store. I don’t even need a grill.” He flashed a smile; it wasn’t as confident as before.
She looked as if she might say more, then simply took the trash from him, and incinerated it, the residue falling in a snowfall of ash from her hands. “Neither do I. Goodnight, John Murdock. We will meet tomorrow.”
“G’night, Angel.”
But then, she stopped. She turned and reached out to him; the gesture compounded part of compassion, part of entreaty. “I do not wish to part like this. There is too much that is not right. Koyaanisqatsi.”
He cocked his head to the side, taking her arm. “I know that word. ‘Life out of balance,’ right?” A fair descriptor of things, if there ever was.
“Yes.” There was a ghost of a smile. “The Hopi have many simple words for profound and complex things.” She took another step back towards him. “I only have two friends, you and Bella. Bella is my . . . protégé. I do not have a word for what you are, not even one in Hopi.”
It was John’s turn to take a step forward. “What would y’like me to be, Angel?”
Her brows furrowed again. This was the blank place, the heart of the blank in the futures. She couldn’t see, nor anticipate anything. And that left her floundering, trying to sort things that did not want to sort into neat paths. “I . . .” she said, thinking out loud. “What would I like? No one asks me what I would—”
“Hmm.” John waited half a beat, then leaned in to kiss Sera. He did it almost without thinking, and realized fully what he was doing only after he was already committed. This is the part where I’m struck by a lightning bolt for my transgression.
Sera froze. Not out of fear or anger, not even out of shock. She froze because in that moment, another new thing had occurred in a day of new things. She had never touched, nor been touched by, another physical being in this way before.
Of course she knew what a kiss was, and she knew all the possible nuances of the gesture, but again, they were all abstract. This was anything but abstract. He had wanted to do this; now he was a little afraid, perhaps, that she would not like it, but he still wanted this. He had let down barriers to her that he had never let down to anyone else. She hadn’t regarded him as a monster.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the experience. It was . . . warm. Exciting. Strangely comforting, and she had not thought herself in need of comfort. And pleasurable, more deeply pleasurable than she would have thought. Why am I allowing this? she wondered. But . . . of course, I am allowing this, because . . . because I like this. I like him. Human emotions. Will this affect him? Affect his judgment? Affect my judgment about affecting him? Her mind spun for a moment, then settled on one thing. One Law that was always true. That which makes us care unselfishly for another is always permitted.
* * *
Why the hell did I do that? I’m still alive, and I have not been transfigured into anything like a newt or a rock. God . . . have I ruined this? He decided that he not only needed to kiss her, but he wanted to. It had been a long, long time since he had allowed himself any desires, other than surviving. But, with the Invasion . . . everything had changed. He had friends now, he had a purpose, heaven help him, a cause to fight for. And now he had . . . whatever this was becoming, with an Angel. With Sera.
John was the first to pull back, slowly. His hand didn’t leave her arm, nor did he step away. His eyes studied her, waiting and expectant.
She opened her eyes, faintly disappointed that the sensation had ended, and smiled up at him. He was taller than she. How had she never noticed that before?
“I do not think there will be lightning to strike you, John Murdock,” she said softly, and felt another new thing, a kind of impish amusement.
“Well, shucks. An’ here I thought I was gonna be famous: ‘First and Last Man to Kiss an Angel.’”
She laughed aloud. “Who would know but me?” She raised her hand and gently touched his cheek. “New things, John Murdock. So many new things tonight. For both of us, I think.”
He let go of her arm, with a nod. Instead of flashing away as she usually did, she walked, slowly and deliberately, to the roof edge, then lifted off as softly as a moth into the night. Huh. John bent over to retrieve his forgotten drink. “I think I ought to try that more often.”
CHAPTER NINE
Obsessions
MERCEDES LACKEY AND CODY MARTIN
“What do you mean, she’s dead?” Dominic Verdigris looked up from his desk display, sweeping his hand to hide the windows. This was annoying, more than anything. He had completely lost his train of thought on a personnel selection; he hated to be interrupted when he was working, even on trivial things such as this. “Well?”
Khanjar pursed her lips. “She was alive, and now she’s dead. I thought that that much would have been obvious, Dom.”
* * *
Verdigris had first found her by chance, years ago, and had tagged the file on her in case he ever needed someone like her. Rachel Hiller was a Las Vegas native who had never held a real job in her life. It had occurred to Verd that one day he might need a precog, but genuine precogs were hard to find and generally flaky. It wasn’t a talent that was at all reliable, and those who had it were prone to mental instability. Matthew March had just been the most extreme example of the type. Verd treasured efficiency, and precogs were inefficient in the amount of resources you needed to devote to them relative to payoff.
He needed reliability. The sort of reliability that allowed someone to live off their talent and never actually work. So he wrote a series of algorithms and statistics tests, looking for people who held no jobs, cross-correlated with people with a very comfortable income, those who were always in the right place and time during disasters, people who consistently won lotteries, won enough at casino-gambling to bring in substantial money without triggering the “cheating” safeguards, and people who never lost in the stock market.
Finally after a lot of number-crunching, one name fell out. Rachel Hiller. In her late twenties, she brought in about forty thousand a month in a combination of lottery wins, scratch-card wins, and casino wins. She had never had an accident, had a perfect driving record, on the day of the Invasion had been in Pahrump, Nevada, rather than Las Vegas (allegedly looking at a used car).
She was very careful. She made sure never to strike it rich in the same place twice, and never got too much; she wasn’t too greedy. It helped her to stay off the radar of the nice men in tailored suits that were behind the management of the casinos. If there ever was attention drawn to her, she was always able to slip away at the last moment, knowing exactly what to do and where to go. There were some very close calls, however. Unexpected changes, wild cards thrown in, new variables at the last possible moment; they seemed to trip her up. And that’s how Verdigris figured her out.
Failing being able to convince or coerce that “angel,” he needed someone who could do what she could do. And it wouldn’t hurt to have both. So his first job was to acquire Hiller, his second to figure out how to boost her abilities, and his third . . . the “angel project.”
The acquisition part was easy. She’d skated close enough to the surface of getting caught that all he had to do was wait until she walked into a casino he owned. He only owned a few, bought on a lark a few years ago. Using some more number crunching, Verdigris figured out the three most likely casinos that Rachel was going to visit next . . . and bought all three of them, quietly. It was the easiest solution, considering everything, especially when you left the existing management structure intact.
She struck on a Friday at the second casino; it was called the Golden something-or-othe
r. He had thought about renaming it something ironic, but that would have signaled a change in management and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to scare her away. This should all be part of her comfort zone, places she knew, places she thought she knew well enough not to have to think twice about. Once he had his agents confirm that she was inside and following her usual routine, he waited. Verdigris had gone to lengths to make sure that everything inside of the casino was business as usual. The slightest change might throw a wrench into his plans, and send Rachel running. She went about the casino floor, seemingly stopping at random among the slot machines. There was no pattern to where she stopped, varying from quarter to dollar machines, and her payouts never went high enough to trigger the jackpot. She took her pay slips to a different cashier each time. He had to admire her cleverness. All it took was five coins; she’d get an instant payout, she’d cash out and move on, and by keeping her wins modest, never triggering the automatic visit from the IRS agent who was always waiting in the casino to claim the government share, within a couple hours she probably had five thousand dollars. Do that eight nights in a month and you had a very nice income.
Springing the trap he had set for her was no small task; all of the security staff had to be briefed at the very last moment, without giving away exactly who the target was. But as soon as she entered the casino, he made sure that everything was quietly locked down. Verdigris had kept all of the security personnel and pit bosses on their usual rotations on the floor; nothing could seem out of place. He waited until she had passed close to several of them. No one knew when they’d be looking for someone or who that someone would be. After the fifth one, he radioed the next person she would pass by; the radio message instructed him to grab the nearest person. That just so happened to be Rachel. No warning, no premeditation, no pattern to be followed. Verdigris watched through the security monitors with a quiet satisfaction.
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 13
