by G T Almasi
Brando calls out, “Fire drill!” and grabs the steering wheel. I scrunch up my legs and crouch on the seat. Then I drag my partner bodily across the center console. He keeps his eyes forward as his legs unfold onto the pedals. Meanwhile I transfer myself to the passenger seat.
I pluck Li’l Bertha out of her holster and click her into my left palm. Her status cluster—bullet caliber, elemental effects, and ammo remaining—overlays the lower left corner of my vision. I look around to see what my field of view is like. With the convertible top down, there are clear firing lanes in practically every direction.
Brando prudently brakes into Turn One, neatly clips the corner, and smoothly accelerates out. The tires barely chirp.
“You call that driving?” I tease.
“Look, Miss Hot-Rodder, I clocked the same time as you did without scrubbing a year off the tires.”
“But you’ll never make the highlight reel!”
He smiles, then sets his jaw while he concentrates on Turn Two. As he brakes into the corner, he comms, “Target! Right side, yellow on red.”
I pivot and aim Li’l Bertha. A red sign with a large yellow dot has jumped out of the ground twenty-five yards away. I hit it with a short burst, and the target falls back where it came from.
Brando races the Cokemobile around the course and calls out each target. There’s barely time for me to aim and fire before the next one appears.
We exit Turn Eight and return to the main straightaway. I relax, smugly thinking we’re done, when Brando glances in his side-view mirror. He yells, “Target far left, yellow on black.” I swing my head around. A yellow-and-black sign is already behind us, plus it’s very low to the ground.
While Brando says, “Crap, we were almost perfect, too,” I stand on my seat and climb onto the car’s trunk. Biting wind hits me like a refrigerated hurricane, but it’s a much better angle up here. I hook my foot into the roll-over bar and sight on our shrinking target. I unload Li’l Bertha at full auto until she clicks empty. The target tips over.
“Got it!”
“Scarlet, sit down! We’ve gotta get inside to finish.”
Brando presses the brakes and turns toward the hangar. The change of direction starts pushing me off the car. I wrap my arms over my head and dive into the passenger-side foot well. The top half of me ends up smooshed under the dashboard. The engine is much louder down here, and hot air blows into my ear. The car swerves right, accelerates, then comes to a stop. All I can see are my legs and feet, and past them the hangar’s metal roof.
Brando’s grinning face appears from the driver’s side. “You all right, Hot-Rod?”
“Did you know there are tiny men down here who make the heater work?”
“How do they do that?”
“They eat bowls of hot peppers and fart into the ductwork.”
He laughs and tries to extract me, but I’m jammed in here so awkwardly that rescuing me requires him and one of the ExOps training administrators to haul me out by my knees.
“Hey,” I say to the admin as I dust myself off. “What’s with that last target? It didn’t activate until we were past it!”
The admin gently shrugs. “Yeah, well…it wasn’t actually a firing target.”
Brando swacks car-floor crumbs off my jacket. He asks, “So we weren’t supposed to shoot it?”
“You were barely supposed to see it. We use it to record how you’d react to having missed one.”
“Has anybody ever shot it before?”
The admin slowly shakes his head. I hold my hand out behind me, and Brando slaps me a low-five.
06
TWO DAYS LATER, FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 5:30 A.M. EST
2906 KEY BOULEVARD, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, USA
“Mom!” I holler. “Where’s my pants?”
“Which ones?” she yells from the laundry room downstairs.
I straighten up from my duffel bag so I can shout better. “The black ones with all the pockets!”
“Hang on; they’re coming out of the dryer!”
Dammit, I’m gonna miss my flight.
I shovel two fistfuls of socks and underwear out of my dresser and cram them into my bag. I use my Eyes-Up display to reread the packing checklist Brando commed me last night. Let’s see: waterproof outerwear, thermal shirts and pants, commando makeup, repair kit for my Mods, three dozen vials of neuroinjector drugs, Li’l Bertha, ammo, and—oh, right!
Almost forgot my mission briefing. ExOps requires its agents to keep track of their classified materials, naturally. Cyrus has to check them in or he can’t clear me to leave the country.
I bounce across the bed and snag the mission brief from the floor next to my nightstand. I peek under the bed to see if I’ve forgotten anything else. It’s still pretty tidy down there. Mom and I only moved into this house a little while ago, so there hasn’t been time to subject my new bedroom to my usual Bad Housekeeping routine.
Cleo hustles in with my black pants draped over her arm and a small red felt pouch in her hand. “Here you go, honey. Do you need anything else?”
“Thanks. No, I think that’s everything.” I stuff the warm pants in my duffel.
“Okay, well…here.” Mom hands me the red felt pouch. “I got you something for your trip to wherever Cyrus is sending you.” Cleo could find out where I’m going, but she takes mission security as seriously as everyone else at ExOps, so she hasn’t looked. From all the cold weather gear I’ve packed and the ongoing political shitstorm with Germany, I’m sure she knows it’s Western Europe somewhere.
I open the little pouch. Inside is something metallic and cool…jewelry? No.
It’s my dad’s watch.
“Oh, Mom,” I whisper as tears spring into my eyes.
Cleo smiles and reaches out to stroke my cheek. “I gave it to your father when we got married. It’s durable and easy to read, so I knew he’d like it. He used to tinker with it in his shop, and he wore it during some of his missions.” She takes a deep breath. “I want you to have it.”
I can’t think of what to say, so I put it on. It’s a man’s Bulova with a black face and white numbers and arms. It dwarfs my skinny wrist. There’s no way this will fit me. I hold my arm down, ready for the watch to fall off, but it bumps into my hand and stays there. I turn my wrist over and inspect the strap.
Mom says, “I had a smaller strap put on and new batteries installed.”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“It was with some of your father’s things at the house in Crystal City, and I brought it to a jeweler to have it sized for you. I’d actually forgotten. They called a few days ago to remind me.”
I study the watch and imagine Dad wearing it on his jobs. The dial says “Waterproof,” and I decide to never take it off, even in the shower. I wrap my arms around Cleo and kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Mom. I love it!”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Oh! There’s your taxi.”
Beep! Beep!
My cab has arrived, ready to take me to HQ and then the airport. I open my bedroom window and holler, “Be right down!” The streetlight illuminates the driver in front and Brando in back.
Cleo tries to lift my bag for me. She grunts and oofs at its weight. She can barely even drag it.
“Mom, how about I take it and you hold the door for me?”
She lets go and brushes a stray hair off her face. “Ha-hm, yes, how about we do that.”
I squat down, wrap the bag’s carrying strap over my shoulder, and heave. The bulging bag swings into my legs as I schlep it downstairs and out to the street. Mom waits with me while the cab driver dumps my duffel in the trunk.
Brando rolls down his window. “Good morning, Mrs. Nico.”
“Hello, Patrick. Are you all ready?”
“Yes, ma’am. How do you like your new house?”
“We’re still settling in, but I think we’ll be happy here.”
The cabbie slams the trunk shut while I scoot in with Brando.
Mom leans down. “You two be careful.” Her voice is calm, but her eyes reveal how anxious she feels. “Come back safe.”
Brando and I both say, “We will.”
The taxi drives us away. Cleo hugs her arms to herself and goes inside. I check my dad’s Bulova.
My partner says, “Hey, nice watch.”
“Thanks. My mom gave it to me.”
He says with a wry grin, “I didn’t know they made brass knuckles that tell time.”
“Yes, it’s huge, wise guy. You’d better hope I don’t brass knuckle you with it. You’ll thank me when we’re in—” I glance at the driver. “—uh, where we’re headed, and we can tell time in the dark.”
“I thought your Eyes-Up display had a clock in it.”
I face Brando and shoot daggers from my eyes. It’s too dim for him to see them, so I say, “It’s my father’s watch, dummy! Plus, I can’t hit smart-asses like you with my Eyes-Up display.” I whack him on his arm with my chunky Bulova.
“Ow!” He winces and rubs his arm. “Fine! I agree. An old mechanical wristwatch is a perfect addition to our state-of-the-art collection of digital covert activities equipment.”
I swing at him again, but he blocks my strike with his carryall bag. The bag—his constant companion—is a forest green military-style tactical pack he bought in Berlin. The outer surface is an orgy of buckles, zippers, and straps. The flexible design allows it to hang over one shoulder, strap on like a backpack, or sling across the chest, which is how my partner tends to wear it. Like my late partner’s bag of tricks, Brando’s tactical bag holds way more stuff than I’d think possible. A big X of black tape on the front flap covers the hole I made when I thought he said it was bulletproof, which is why we call it the X-bag.
He opens his X-taped carryall and rummages around inside. Then he hands me an update to our mission brief. I try to read the paper in the passing streetlights. I can’t catch any of it. My night vision is good for unlit spaces, but it isn’t so great for reading. Then an old memory surfaces.
Some evenings my father would pass out on the couch in his shop from either too much work or too much drink. In the morning, if I found him down there, I’d snuggle against him. No lights, though. I’d already learned my lesson about waking him with bright lights when he’d had some drinks. If Dad wasn’t totally conked out, he’d put one of his arms around me, mumble, “Hi, Hot-Shot,” and gently run his fingers through my hair. One morning I was fiddling around with his watch and found a tiny button that made the whole face light up. I flashed myself all the Morse code messages Dad had taught me.
My attention returns to the taxi I’m riding in with Brando. I put the sheet of paper on my lap and hold my dad’s Bulova over it. When I press the light button, the watch face casts a bright glow onto the brief. It’s our mission communication codes. My partner nods appreciatively. I stick my tongue out at him, then memorize the comm-codes we’ll use once we’ve been inserted into England.
* * *
CORE
PUB-GG-2399
BusinessWeek, September 12, 1978
Greater Germany’s fiscal dominance
fueled by their “peculiar institution”
Joseph Florein of Goldman Sachs built his career as an investment banker with carefully thought-out strategies and a down-to-earth communication style. His direct and honest personality has led to his second occupation as a financial news commentator for 60 Minutes. He’s a voice of calm reason in good times and in bad, but there is one thing that makes the normally imperturbable financier raise his voice.
“Year after year, financial analysts prattle on about the strength of Greater Germany’s economy,” Mr. Florein said last week. “Yes. Their economy is strong because it’s based on slavery!”
Mr. Florein spoke at a fund-raiser for Free for All, a charitable organization he founded to abolish slavery in Greater Germany. Mr. Florein feels that Free for All should appeal to every American citizen, whether they are Jewish or not. “Our country suffered through slavery’s shame,” he said. “When we abolished it in 1863, we were the last industrialized nation to do so. How can any American sleep at night knowing that across the Atlantic, our ally holds millions of her citizens in bondage?”
07
NINE DAYS LATER, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 5:15 P.M. GMT
BETWEEN HAXBY AND STRENSALL, YORKSHIRE, PROVINCE OF GREAT BRITAIN, GG
The English night has fallen in on us like a moldy ceiling. I check Dad’s watch. It’s barely past five o’clock.
I comm, “I still can’t believe how early it gets dark here.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brando comms. “We’re a lot farther north than places we’ve been before.”
Zurich—
DISMEMBERED
—covered in blood.
BURNED
I shut my partner’s eyes and—
GLISTENING
—scream my heart out.
I inhale deeply through my nose, then exhale slowly through my mouth. Dr. Herodotus has me do this when I have these death flashes, or “intrusive thoughts.” Dr. H. said they would go away after a while, but it’s been five months, and I swear they’re worse.
Brando knows he hasn’t actually been in those places with me, but his hypnotically implanted memories are so vivid that he can’t help saying “we” instead of “you and my dead brother.” When this happens, my mind flashes through a gruesome picture gallery of Trick’s mangled corpse.
I observe Brando and continue my slow breathing. It helps me to see him all in one piece and not a smoking, mutilated mess. Naturally I think he’s attractive—he’s Trick’s twin—but I can’t fall for Patrick again. It’s weird enough already. He is handsome, though, especially with longer hair.
I’ve discovered the Patricks are blessed with great wavy hair. Brando has grown out his government-short hair so he’ll have an easier time passing for a civilian. It’s so long that he has to push his bangs out of his face as we stare across a dusky field at a German passenger train chugging toward the little English town of Haxby.
My partner follows the train with a pair of high-powered starlight binoculars. “The five-sixteen, right on time,” he comms. Brando hands his binoculars to the Circle of Zion’s local leader, a no-bullshit fifty-something woman named Miriam.
She says, “Let’s hope die Teutsch are always so predictable.” Miriam speaks in the German-British accent found over here, although now and then she sprinkles in some Yiddish.
Die Teutsch is fifteenth-century German that simply means “the Germans.” Using such old-fashioned language represents the Circle’s abolitionist position that slavery is archaic. Symbolic or not, Miriam infuses the words with enough blazing hatred to set fire to a bucket of water.
Brando and I have spent a week with these people—most of whom are runaway Jewish slaves—to establish contacts and open routes for smuggling in food, supplies, and of course guns ’n ammo. I’ve received a crash course in Jewish history, or as I call it, Our Intergalactic Space Dude Fell Asleep at the Wheel and All We Got Was This Shitty Existence. The first interstellar colonists will probably be Jewish astronauts looking to bid shalom to this round hell.
For now, we’re here to make Earth a little less crappy for the Space Dude’s Chosen. The United States has agents all over Britain, waiting to begin the festivities. Party time will begin in London when the Germans’ central communications facility inexplicably explodes. This will be closely followed by a series of electric power grid disasters. That’s when smaller groups like us will go to work.
Our job tonight is simple. We need to blow a chunk out of the rail line to York while the nightly trash train passes over it. Destroying container cars full of relatively indestructible garbage will be appropriately disruptive without garnering the extremely negative public reaction we’d incur by derailing a trainload of killable passengers.
The commuter train’s rhythmic passing fades as it enters town. A minute later, the area’s lights all blink out.
Miriam rises and leads us across the field. Our muscles and joints protest vehemently. We’re all stiff from lying in a February ditch for ten hours. Days like this are why Brando and I brought the high-tech long underwear we’re wearing beneath our plain brown pants and coats. We also wear those funny Scally caps, like kids who deliver newspapers in old movies. Miriam wears very worn-out boots, torn pants, and an ancient coat topped off by a brand-new, very official-looking policeman’s hat. It’s the closest we could get to a railway inspector’s uniform. Miriam will supervise us while we “repair” the rail.
As we cross the field, Brando asks Miriam how she escaped to the Circle.
“I was at a fish cannery in Hull when the Rabbi made contact. I told him about the factory’s routine, and he conceived a plan to help us escape. That night, our overseer—a real farbrekher with a thing for raping young females—came to the women’s shack. We knocked him to the ground, then the others pinned him while I slashed his neck open with a can lid.” Miriam’s stories always get right to the point. “We carried his body to our master’s front porch, set fire to our shack, and hid in the warehouse. When die Teutsch came pouring out of their big house, the Rabbi snuck in and stole their rifles. He brought them to us, and we shot all the Germans.” Miriam indicates a rut in the ground. “Watch your step.”
While Brando watches his step, I ask Miriam, “What happened next?”
“The Rabbi led us deep into the forests. Die Teutsch can’t see into caves or through thick tree canopy. They rely too much on their toys. We always hear their vehicles coming and make it dangerous for them.”
“So you win those fights?”
“No.” Miriam shrugs. “But neither do they.”
We arrive at the tracks. My partner and I crouch over the rail while Miriam stands behind us. She smacks her hands together to resemble an indolent train company Unterführer trying to stay warm.
Brando reaches into his portable warehouse and produces a six-volt battery, a coil of unshielded copper wire, and a block of C-4. I help him wire the tracks so the passing train’s wheels will complete an electrical circuit and set off our bomb. We’ll damage the track and derail the train simultaneously.
