Stay of Execution

by Glynn Stewart

“There’s a reason I called in immediately,” he said. “Plus, isn’t Buckley supposed to be in jail? He was a senior member of the Church of the Black Sun.”

  “I’ll have to check the records,” the Major said grimly. “Some of the junior members were let go with a warning, but everyone we know took up arms against the US government is in a cell. None of them should be wandering around free.”

  “He was here for a secret library we didn’t find,” David noted. “They cleaned it out and took it with them. Whatever they were after, they found it.”

  “Damn. I don’t suppose you have any good news?” she asked.

  “No injuries to report, despite the bastard summoning half a dozen toad demons. I’m starting to think we’re overestimating their threat potential,” he told her.

  She snorted humorlessly.

  “You and Dresden are both Class One supernaturals; we just don’t trust her on her own,” Warner pointed out. “Right now, ONSET Thirteen is probably the biggest stick in my armory.”

  “There’s not much else we can do here,” David admitted. “What do you need me to smack with that stick?”

  The Major was silent.

  “Ma’am?”

  “It’s not my call anymore,” she said quietly. “I need your team to return to Campus, David. I’ll see what I can find out about Buckley…but the clock is now ticking.”

  “Ma’am?” David repeated, confused.

  “I can’t tell you over the radio. Ardent will be speaking to the assembled teams this afternoon. Better for him to explain it, I think.”

  A chill ran down his spine.

  “I see, ma’am,” he said formally. “ONSET Thirteen will RTB.”

  And if he made some calls during the multi-hour flight, well, who would blame him?

  Loring called him first. That was a surprise: Vanessa Loring was very much a child of the Internet generation, and her preference for text-based communication was almost pathological. Ninety percent of the front desk staff’s job at her consulting company was making sure no one actually made her speak on the phone.

  “White,” he answered, wondering just what she was after.

  “David,” she replied. “How in-the-loop are you?”

  He paused to think for a second.

  “That you’re asking that question tells me I’m not as in-the-loop as I thought,” he finally said. “What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on, my dear government flunky, is that two very polite young men in cheap suits just came by my office and told me that if I ever admitted to anyone that I’d known of a supernatural government program prior to the New York Incident, I’d be arrested or ‘terminated’ before anyone had a chance to fact-check me,” Loring told him.

  “This wasn’t ‘please sign an NDA, Ms. Loring,’ or ‘play nice with everyone or we reopen your record, Ms. Loring,’” she continued. “This was classic man-in-black, conspiracy-theory ‘shut up or be buried’ bullshit.

  “What the hell is happening?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “All of the ONSET teams have been recalled to the Campus for a mass briefing. That’s…not a good sign. With the supernatural suddenly public news, I assumed we’d just come clean about the Omicron program, but…”

  “David, I will admit, against my will, that most of the people you work for actually do have people’s best interests at heart. Most of the time,” she said slowly. “But they prevaricate and deceive by habit now. What on Earth makes you think they’re going to happily step out into the light?”

  “Fuck.”

  The curse hung in the magically silenced helicopter compartment, his two subordinates lost in their own worlds. Dresden was asleep, the vampire out cold as her new non-nocturnal schedule caught up with her. Stone was listening to an audiobook or something, entirely out of the present moment.

  “There has to be a plan,” he said quietly.

  “There is,” Loring told him. “David, you know I had ONSET’s systems opened from one end to the other. I swore I’d never tell anyone anything, but…” She hesitated. “I suspect I may know some things about ONSET’s long-term plans that even Charles doesn’t.”

  He waited.

  “It’s called the Exodus Protocol.”

  The name was ominous enough.

  “Go on,” he asked.

  “They dissolve Omicron. Completely. Everything from OSPI to ONSET shuts down, everyone is paid off, the various black sites suddenly have always belonged to the NSA or the FBI or one of the other three-letter agencies.

  “You’re all forcibly retired and bound to secrecy under pain of death. They’ll then intentionally court supernatural incidents to justify the public forming of replacement agencies, probably with a core of loyal, informed personnel from before.”

  David could see the logic. It just sucked. People would die.

  “If we have one job, it’s to keep people safe,” he murmured.

  “Exodus calls for ‘acceptable levels of collateral damage’ to justify the re-creation of the services under a new banner with new personnel,” Loring said bitterly. “With ‘selected loyal personnel’ used to secure government facilities during the changeover.”

  “What about the people who can’t go quiet?” David asked as a horrible thought struck him. Charles. Ix. A few others. ONSET and Omicron had recruited a number of supernaturals who couldn’t pretend to be human for long. Who had needed the protection of Omicron to stay hidden.

  “Those they trust will probably be used in the transition period,” she replied. “The rest… There’s a secondary protocol codenamed Beowulf.”

  Beowulf.

  “Beowulf was a dragon slayer,” David said.

  “I know.”

  “You have to tell Charles,” he told her.

  “He’s gone dark on every channel I have,” Loring admitted. “Messengers, email, everything. It’s like his Internet’s been cut off…or it’s already too late.”

  “He’s under the Campus,” David said grimly. “They can’t do anything until they’ve evacuated the Campus personnel and ONSET teams; Charles has too many friends. They can cut him off, and that might make him suspicious, but…”

  “You have to warn him,” Loring told him. “Charles is the only reason I got a second chance, even after everything I did for you guys. I owe him.”

  “So do I.” He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he’d have to do something.

  “So do I,” he repeated.

  connection not available. charles st patrick not found.

  David had never seen that message in any communication attempt through Omicron’s systems before—and certainly not in any attempt to get in touch with Charles, the dragon administering the system.

  He’d used a Commander’s override code, one that should have put him through even if the recipient was asleep or on another call. The system had just…rejected him. Like the dragon wasn’t even there.

  That was bad. Really bad.

  “McCreery,” he said quietly to the pilot. “Can you speed us up at all? I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Not without going supersonic and attracting a lot of attention,” she admitted. “We may be flying down the Rockies, but if I fire up the jets, we’re still going to break hearts and windows.”

  “Let’s not draw attention to ourselves today,” David agreed. Even suspecting that the Exodus Protocol was being enacted, he wasn’t going to try and defy orders that badly. “But if you can creep us a bit closer to the sound barrier?”

  “I’ll eke out those last few miles an hour, boss,” she confirmed.

  Turning his attention back to his attempts at communication, he saw that he had a new email—from an address he’d never seen before. A Hotmail address, of all things.

  BigShaggyDog1941, however, was either spam or one very specific person.

  Watch for Seraphim. Gone to ground, but chased by suited agents. Juiced on drugs to let them go up against supernaturals.

  Old
project. Really old. Didn’t know they’d made it work, but that would be the point. Was always supposed to counterweight us.

  I’m safe. You stay safe.

  Woof.

  Being on the run, David noted, had apparently helped Michael O’Brien discover a new sense of humor. That was the only part of the email that wasn’t terrifying.

  Drugged-up mundane soldiers used as a counterweight to supernaturals? That, firstly, required a need to restrain them—and if the supernaturals in question were ONSET teams, that was a horrifying thought on its own—and, secondly, was going to be very, very bloody.

  15

  After the conversations he’d had and the email from O’Brien, David was unsurprised to find that the usual unarmed base security personnel, all mundane employees of ONSET, were nowhere to be seen as the Pendragon set down.

  Instead, men and women in US Army fatigues, completely lacking in insignia in a way that stereotype, at least, associated with Special Forces, had taken over their positions. They carried the same modified 7.62mm M4-Omicron, but something in their bearing and movement warned David that these were not friends.

  “Please exit the helicopter,” a tall black woman told them after they’d landed. “You’re to report to the main administration center immediately.”

  “Under whose authority?” David asked politely. This was the ONSET Campus. People weren’t supposed to be ordering him around.

  “Colonel Ardent’s,” she replied instantly. “Don’t worry about shutdown and the checklist, Agent McCreery,” the woman told David’s pilot. “My men will take care of the bird. You’re the last team to arrive.”

  The last team to arrive. They really had recalled all of the ONSET teams. And with unmarked Special Forces operators taking over the landing pad…

  “Of course,” David allowed. “Everyone, with me.”

  “Sixty-Six, take the Commander and his people to the Colonel’s briefing,” the leader ordered.

  Sixty-Six turned out to be a darkly tanned man of roughly David’s own five-foot-four height, but much more wiry than the ONSET Commander.

  “With me, sir,” he said politely.

  “We know the way,” David told him dryly.

  “I know,” the Special Forces trooper agreed. “But we have our orders.”

  “From who?” David repeated, but he was following the young man across the Campus.

  “Major General Purcell,” the soldier said instantly. “More than that, I’m not authorized to brief you on.”

  What a mess this was all turning out to be. As they moved across what was supposed to be Omicron’s home ground, David realized that he didn’t see any ONSET personnel. Mundane and supernatural alike were gone, replaced by the insignia-less fatigues of the strange troopers.

  The main administration center had several large briefing rooms, and Sixty-Six led them into the biggest, where David saw that the woman outside had been correct. Thirteen was the last ONSET Team on site—even Ix and Akono from ONSET Nine were in the room, which was better than they’d been afraid of.

  Everyone was in the room. Every combat-trained and -ready supernatural in the employ of the United States government. Warner stood near the front, the Major looking awkward as hell as she surveyed her people.

  David wondered how long they’d been waiting for his people—and how bad a sign it was that they clearly hadn’t been allowed to leave.

  There were plenty of seats in the room but almost no one was using them. David and his team joined the standing crowd, several hundred people waiting to see what was going on. He spotted Kate Mason and made his way over to her, cutting a path through the crowd to her side.

  He was a Seer. He could feel and See the fatalism and depression wafting around the room. Enough people had heard rumors and enough others had guessed that the ONSET teams knew what was coming.

  It didn’t help that the doors had sealed behind David, with two of the SOCOM soldiers taking position to bar the exit. No one was going to be allowed to leave on their own terms. Whatever was happening from here was going to be done under Colonel Ardent’s terms.

  Or this Major General Purcell’s, whoever he was.

  David had just made it to Mason and shared an uncomfortable glance around the room with her when the door behind the stage opened up and two men walked out.

  He knew Colonel James Ardent, the tall and gaunt leader of ONSET. The man next to him could have passed for his brother. Older and wearing the stars of an Army Major General, but the same tall and gaunt form and silvered hair.

  The same near-complete lack of human aura to David’s Sight.

  “Agents, Commanders,” Ardent greeted them. He wasn’t using the microphone, just projecting his voice to cut over the hubbub of the crowd.

  The conversations had been quiet enough, and they died now. The room was silent.

  “You know who I am,” Ardent said. “This is Major General Arthur Purcell of the US Special Operations Command. He is now the transitional commander of this facility and I expect you to obey any orders given by his personnel promptly and efficiently.

  “As of today, this base is a SOCOM black site…and officially always has been,” he noted. “I can detail the logic and reasoning for you, but you’re all smart people. You know we face a reality where the secret of the supernatural has been exposed.

  “The United States government has decided that we cannot admit that we knew of the supernatural prior to the New York Incident,” he told them. “The Omicron Branch: judiciaries, OSPI, administration, and ONSET, are being disbanded.

  “We always knew we didn’t exist as far as the greater world was concerned,” Ardent continued. “Now we never existed.”

  Ardent held up his hands as the room exploded in shouts and demands for information. David waited in silence but stepped closer to Mason. They needed to feel each other’s presence right now.

  “You will all be paid out,” he told them. “One year’s salary as severance, so long as you sign the NDAs General Purcell’s people will be handing out. You will have the chance to go through your apartments for anything you need immediately, and the rest of your things will either be shipped to your personal address or placed in storage at our expense.”

  He smiled thinly at the continued subdued hubbub.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Major Warner and I are getting the same deal. As of midnight tonight, ONSET does not exist.” He sighed. “As of midnight tonight, ONSET never existed.

  “Some of you have already received offers from Task Force White,” he continued. “I don’t know who; I am not involved in the transition program being run through SOCOM.

  “I do know that the claim will be that the New York Incident involved a unilateral intervention by supernatural vigilantes who happened to be US military.

  “Any breach of that story by any of us will constitute treason, regardless of whether or not you sign the NDA and take the payout,” he admitted. “Omicron is dead, people. We can never admit it existed. Those of you who will be required to do more in the short term will be contacted by TFW agents in short order.

  “The Exodus Protocol requires nothing else from the rest of you. We will provide transport to Colorado Springs and accommodations there while you all work out where you go from here.”

  Ardent waited for a moment, listening to the questions. He clearly picked up the most common.

  “SOCOM has two groups, Task Force White and Sigma Force, tasked with handling the transitional control of supernatural incidents. Our expectation is that a new public supernatural policing organization will be established within the year. Recruiting calls for that program will be very open, and you are all more than welcome to apply.

  “I won’t be involved in the new program, so I can’t officially say that former Omicron personnel will be automatically shooed in, but I imagine there will be enough cleared people involved to make sure that happens.”

  He raised his hands again.

  “This all sucks,” he
admitted. “But it’s the decision of our President and the Congress of the United States of America, and we will comply. You will each be escorted back to your apartments by Sigma Force troopers to collect your immediate needs, and then drivers will be provided to deliver you to assorted hotels in Colorado Springs.

  “ONSET is over.”

  They were all locked in the auditorium, each ONSET team being called in one bunch and following a squad of troopers out. Purcell, or whoever was actually in charge, was taking no chance with anyone trying to do anything out of the allowed.

  With Mason in tow, David went in search of Ix. To his relief, the demon was still there, waiting calmly alongside Akono, with an unconcerned expression on his face.

  “Are you guys okay?” he asked.

  “I’ve had better weeks,” Akono said in his dreamily distracted voice. “Two days in a cell so ugly, even the Dreaming could barely make it tolerable.”

  “I believed we’d earned your government’s trust,” Ix added. “But O’Brien’s actions appear to have tainted us.”

  “It’s not just that,” David said as quietly as he could, relying on the demon’s inhuman hearing to pick up what he was saying. “The Exodus Protocol calls for the termination of any obvious supernatural they don’t feel they can trust.”

  He jerked his chin at Ix’s dark red skin and the line of horns across his forehead. The demon could pass as human with some effort, but with the events of the last few days, he wasn’t sure he’d trust whoever was making these decisions to believe that.

  “I wish I knew who was making the damn decisions,” he continued his thought out loud. “It doesn’t seem to be Ardent—he knows we can trust you and most of the guys in the basement.”

  Mason shivered next to him.

  “They can’t possibly be planning what you’re implying,” she said sharply. Charles wasn’t the only Awakened in the tunnels under the Campus, creatures of stone and dirt given life by a magical spirit that were utterly inhuman.

  “It’s called the Beowulf Protocol,” David said quietly. “And I can’t get ahold of Charles at all. What conclusions do you draw from that?”