Ashes

by Russ Linton

  Jackie watched the group give a wary greeting. Danger lowered his rifle and joined the others, satisfied the pilot couldn't spin up the engines fast enough to abandon them. Muttered hellos went around the group, all of which felt wounded and awkward.

  "We best be getting outta here," said Hound.

  "I'll follow along. But I'm on my own." Spencer mumbled saving a hardened stare for Eric.

  The pilot, who'd propped open a window at the side of the cockpit began a steady stream of the almost-Pashto Jackie couldn't identify. Something in the pronunciation made it too tricky.

  "Our pilot agrees." There it was again, the girly voice which Jackie had realized was coming from somewhere on the space pack man. "She says get on the bird, you filthy pig fuckers because she is late and her customer will gouge her eyes with a spoon if she doesn't show—or something like that."

  Jackie joined them, and the rotor blades started their slow spin. Nobody seemed surprised at her appearance except the guy with the space bag. He squinted into the dark and adjusted his glasses before checking everybody else. Satisfied with their lack of interest, he waved.

  Doors open, the others began to pile inside. Spencer returned to the empty armor, hoisting himself into position. He ignored her as well.

  "The name's Eric," shouted the guy. He put out a hand and Jackie shook it. Instead of letting go, he tried to help her over the landing skid and into the chopper.

  "Jackie," she shouted, releasing his hand.

  "He's taken," came the girlish cry. Eric smiled painfully and flipped a switch on the headset he wore.

  "Don't worry about her. She's a little overprotective. Oh, shit! We forgot to tell Spencer."

  Jackie gave a smile which was half grimace and climbed inside the crowded cabin. "Tell him what?"

  Eric just grimaced and shook his head.

  All the jump seats taken, she had to find a spot on the floor near the rear. There was plenty more space, but the entire back was stuffed with cargo. Black plastic bags wrapped tight around large blocks. Eric saw her looking.

  "Opium," he shouted. "Her customers be all, like," he mimed a drooling expression and a hand scratching at his face.

  Jackie gave a fake smile. Not for the first time, she asked herself what the hell had she gotten into.

  CHAPTER 42

  THE HELICOPTER PILOT took them to a remote field, guided in by a man waving an orange beacon. The flight seemed long, and Jackie tried to guess how far they'd gone into Pakistani airspace. Either they had tacit approval from the authorities or the pilot simply knew how to keep them off radar.

  A heavily armed caravan waited for the offloaded cargo. The pilot had a tense exchange with their leader, his head and face covered by a mostly black keffiyeh. His men, dressed the same, appeared ready to engage the strangers. Jackie prepared herself for a firefight as well. She kind of wanted to see it. What sort of powers would be unleashed?

  But it had been Eric who stepped forward and through the aid of his awkward translator, explained their presence. He'd been sent on business of the Collective under invitation of the local cell. Their drugs? He'd asked, rhetorically. What drugs?

  These were hardened terrorists, Jackie had no doubt. Eric's mention of a man called Shortwave seemed to satisfy them. She stayed alert until they were loaded into a van with a new driver. This would be their ride into Srinagar—on top of several kilos of heroin.

  "For the tourists," the man had said.

  Their ride took about three hours. The passenger van had no seats except those in the front. Eric rode there along with the driver. Jackie and the rest of jostled along in the back, in and out of a weary sleep.

  "You aren't getting any vibes?" Jackie whispered to Danger. "Because this seems like an appropriate time."

  He seemed unimpressed. "Ain't the first time I rode on a stash. Might be the last."

  He hadn't explained himself before drifting off to sleep. The only one who Jackie couldn't tell if she slept or not was Connie. She sat back straight in an almost meditative pose. Jackie didn't bother her but couldn't help but stare.

  An Augment. She wondered what her powers might be. She'd seen Ember enough to know it wasn't her. Or was it?

  It was daylight by the time they reached the city. Jackie had slept the final hour, her head propped on her bag. The van dropped them off at a decrepit building facing a river the color of frothy mud. Buildings crowded the bank, an odd blend of East and West, Tudor homes met with sloping hip and gable roofs. Trees sprang from crevices like accidental brush strokes. Not far away, an aging bridge spanned the river. The intricate network of wooden trestles appeared whole but gave the impression the sickly waters could wash it all away.

  "Our target," Eric announced when the van rolled away, "is right down that road." He pointed across the bridge. "We're staying in Hotel Eric." He swept his hand toward the building behind them.

  Three stories, each level had a different facade. The lower white gave way to bare brick while the top was a soft yellow stucco. Windows spanned the facing with twice as many on the middle floor. Some arched, some squared, the architecture made little sense.

  Eric opened the door to lead them inside and froze. "Jesus." A rat scurried past, and he danced out of the way.

  Jackie pushed by.

  The inside wasn't much better. Dirty light streamed through the windows. There was a smell like someone who didn’t bathe had been living here. They all filed into an empty room, the wooden floor groaning with each step.

  "So, it isn't much, but it's the best I've got for a base of operations on such short notice. The Supreme Region Commander of Kashmir says it's 'best place'" Eric gave a wild thumbs up.

  "Supreme what?" Jackie asked.

  "The Collective. People make up titles sometimes, but they're meaningless. Some go a little overboard."

  "Anything to do with them being fanatical Mujahideen?"

  Eric flapped his hands, warding away the accusation. "The old boss, he kept some fucked-up company. We're trying to weed them out, but it's a slow process. Trust me though, the Collective has moved well beyond them." He snorted. "Those jokers are easy to see on the message boards with all the Allahu Akhbar stuff. I thought that was a meme, but it's a real thing."

  "Yep. A real thing." Danger muttered as he made his way up the stairs.

  Connie stepped gingerly on the floor as if to keep the boards from squeaking. She inspected each corner before going to stand near one of the windows.

  "Could be worse," she said.

  "Right," Eric said, too loud and too eager. He scanned the room several times for a place to set his bag. Unsatisfied, he pulled it tighter to his shoulder. "Like popsicle snot cold." His eyes went wide in alarm. He shuffled across the room to Connie and leaned in close. "Could you tell Spence, you know, about the misunderstanding?" He tapped his temple and drew a line toward her head.

  "Yes, of course," she replied, her answer monotone and distant.

  "How'd you find us anyhow?" asked Hound.

  Eric seized on the chance at conversation. "My drones. They kept disappearing on a trail across the Afghan outback. I just followed the bread crumbs, you know?"

  The answer perplexed Hound but only for a moment. "Spence. He took one down, musta done others."

  "Right," Eric replied, wide-eyed. "Like every damn one he saw. You know how hard it is to connect the world? Like even the most remote fucking places? They don't have infrastructure, so I gotta drop in solar, maybe wind turbines. Then get an assload of drones airborne to carry signals. Took the Collective ages to work out a sustainable way to fly those fuckers. And those bored farmers with their goddamn guns! It's a worldwide obsession, shooting at shit in the sky."

  "Wait," Jackie interrupted. "So you're in charge of that? Putting up infrastructure for the Collective?" Instinctively she dug for a notepad.

  "Honey, I am the Collective," Eric replied.

  "He's not," came the girly voice. "He's really not. The Collective doesn't have a leader. The
y all lead themselves, just like he asked. Eric's just helpful, that's all. And he didn't mean to call you honey, did you, Eric."

  The odd couple wandered to their own corner lost in a loudly whispered argument. Connie stood near a window, watching the river traffic. Jackie didn't know what to think of her yet. She almost looked familiar, but out of all the Augments she'd seen, she couldn't quite place her.

  "Get some rest," said Hound. He'd approached Jackie specifically. "You gotta be dead on yer feet. I'll scout the area, see what I can come up with for a plan."

  She took in Hound's seriousness and wondered why he'd told her this until the couple's argument escalated. Connie seemed tuned out completely.

  "Will he be coming back? The Beetle, that Spencer guy?" Now that she'd had a look behind the curtain, this so-called kid had lost his intimidation factor. She didn't understand quite how she felt about him being around. The Beetle needed to stay away, the Spencer? He needed to be with family.

  "Don't know," said Hound. "I keyed up the mike along the way. Left him a trail, like the one he left Eric I suppose. If he's here, hopefully he'll be here to help. If not, keep yer head down."

  She nodded into the weathered face. Danger came down the stairs, and the two soldiers exchanged a look. That was all they needed before Hound disappeared.

  "There's rooms upstairs," Danger announced. "A few got furniture, some loose mattresses. Don't know I'd recommend them."

  "Are you sleeping on one?" Jackie asked.

  Danger tilted his head, and the upraised eyebrow told her enough.

  Seizing the opportunity, Eric thanked him and took the flight two steps at a time until he was thundering around above them. The continued conversation grew louder. Jackie dropped against a wall and kneaded out a soft spot on her pack. She did her best to ignore the faint scrabbling behind the baseboards and below the floor. Soon, she was asleep.

  JACKIE DREAMED OF WATER. A beach, an ocean, somewhere far away. It was a calm place, maybe too quiet for her liking. Tank treads, helicopter blades, the lob and impact of mortars, and a steady rattle of gunfire had become the background noise of her life. A chaos she wanted. She realized this, in her dream, a deep introspection plumbed from the depths of her subconscious. Noise and bedlam kept her focused. Close to her final goal.

  She wanted... What did she want?

  She wandered inland into a verdant cove. Green trees and bushes loaded with colorful fruits and pods grew up to the edge of the powdery sand. She'd never seen this place before but felt it could be somehow familiar. Down a well-trod path, she found a mighty fig tree. The folds of root and trunk ran like giant flexed muscles up to a split high above her. There, a treehouse sat with no clear way up.

  Jackie marveled at the treehouse for some time. In her dream, she considered climbing up maybe by shimmying along the thick sides. She'd climbed plenty of trees as a kid, and this one stuck out as a challenge. Before she could get started, a noise startled her.

  A feral grunt came from deep in the jungle. Jackie knew she hadn't grabbed her camera, but when she raised her hand, it was there. Wildlife photography. Boring, pay was for shit, but if the animals were dangerous...

  There was no hunter's stalk to her progress through the thick ferns. She fought and pushed her way up a steep incline. The strange grunt came again. The closer she got, the more unsettled it made her. There was resistance involved, maybe even pain. A shocking cry of agony released as the serrated leaves thinned.

  She'd made it to a bluff overlooking the ocean. Trees grew further apart here, and grass clung to rocky sand. In the shade of a stunted palm, she saw two figures. One was Connie. She wore a soft fluttering robe almost naked in the baleful light. The other was a big man, as large as the palm. Naked, he hung suspended in the air as though tethered to an invisible apparatus. Jackie stayed hidden and zoomed in with her lens.

  Another agonizing cry shattered the serenity of the empty landscape. The man threw back his head, and she caught his face, a blackened mass the texture of cracked stone which blended into the skin of his neck. She watched Connie reach up, fingers spread, and run her hand down his cheek. Fresh skin crept atop the stone. Underneath, every gap and crevice showed as the skin stretched tight. A man's face took shape. One she knew. One everybody knew.

  The Crimson Mask.

  She gasped. Connie turned to face her. Jackie didn't know why, but she ran. Sharp blades of palm stinging her skin, slashing at her cheeks, she plowed through the jungle, wild, frantic. She didn't slow when she came across the fig tree and the roots which made the ground treacherous and warped like gargantuan folds of skin.

  She tripped.

  During the wild scramble to get up, she saw two dainty feet planted on the root before her. Connie looked down. Jackie tried to scramble away but the uneven ground was unnavigable without careful attention, and her eyes were frozen on the Augment.

  Connie watched her with sadness and even shame in her drawn face. "I'm sorry. I... I can't do this. She did, somehow. Something is missing. When she did it, there was a need. A driving desire to uncover, to reveal. She borrowed that from Spencer...that's right. I needed to borrow it from you."

  Jackie whimpered. She'd slowed down but only to make a more careful retreat. She couldn't speak.

  "She brought me back. I can do this," Connie continued, her eyes burning red, a tear dropping to the ground before she shook them clear and gave a wan smile. "Don't worry. This is just a dream. All of this, a dream."

  JACKIE SAT UP WITH an intake of breath. Her heart pounded as if she'd been deprived of air ever since she lay down. Starved for oxygen and for the grounding sense of reality, she scraped at the wooden floorboards with her fingernails and let the sun filtering through the windows blind her. But this was a light marred by Connie, still facing the outside.

  "You okay?" Danger had moved to her side. Jackie couldn't answer, but he could follow her gaze. He said nothing, only stared with her.

  The door pounded open. Startled, Jackie shot to her feet. Her heart only slowed when she recognized Hound, his face beaming. Somebody came into the room behind him, and the last bit of a jovial conversation trickled away. Danger got to his feet slowly.

  "I was out gettin' the lay of the land around the lab and guess who else I found sneakin' about."

  Jackie knew before the woman stepped around him. She wore traditional clothes, but the disguise barely held back her radiance. The tight cuff of an orange suit peeked from one sleeve. Beneath the scarf on her head, the odd lump of a mohawk was apparent. Jackie touched her own stubbly scalp.

  "Mom?"

  CHAPTER 43

  ALL HER LIFE JACKIE had planned what to do and what to say in this moment. After her father passed away, the ideas had become more intense, more raw. But when faced with her mother, the woman she'd both idolized and despised, she couldn't find her voice. Even when Hound suggested they take some time alone, she shook her head, clutching at the film canister amulet.

  Ember appeared just as shocked. Obviously, Hound hadn't prepared her mother for the surprise. But there'd been no denial when Jackie uttered the word. Even before it slipped out of her mouth, she saw the recognition in Ember's face.

  How long had she known? How much did she know? Did she check up on her in secret? Was she embarrassed by her father, is that why she left? All these questions and Jackie couldn't force one out of her mouth.

  At the end of the long silence, Hound interjected. "Well, maybe we can talk a little strategy." He looked for approval from both Ember and Jackie. Neither blinked.

  Eric came bounding down the stairs. "Hey, hot stuff," he said joyously. He'd left both his backpack and his earpiece on the other floor. "Long time no...no...burning shit?"

  Ember gave a tepid smile which Jackie felt sure her own lips had formed before. "Plenty of heat here, as usual. I've been asked to tell you to shutter the rest of your Chinese factories."

  The tone of her voice turned Eric's approach into a fumbling retreat. "Peace. Timeout. Let's
focus on what's going down here and now, shall we?"

  Normally Jackie would've hung on every word as a clue to the greater significance of what in the hell exactly was “going down here”. The unlikely group had a strange hand in world events which she'd need to unravel if she were ever to make a plausible story. But the thread of the conversation was lost as quickly as it came to her.

  "Got a good look at the target," Hound continued tentatively. "Typical medical office, people comin' and goin' but not too many. Light security and a few doctors."

  "One in particular whose mustache I'd like to melt off his face," Ember sneered. She saved a cocky smile for Jackie and snapped her fingers to make a little spark. Jackie's lips stayed frozen.

  "Cyrus?" gaped Eric. "He's like, really there?"

  "Totally," Ember valley girled.

  The news even surprised Hound. "I didn't see him none, but you've been here longer."

  "About a week," Ember said. "I've been waiting for new applicants. Taking names, you know."

  Danger narrowed his eyes. "So the PRC got you here to recruit, not dismantle."

  "Orders, Danger man, orders." She held up her hands as if helpless and turned her back to the group.

  "Right," Hound said. He'd lost his focus on Ember and Jackie and switched flawlessly to group cohesion. "But Ember here has agreed to help out. We want to infiltrate, gather as much information as possible. We'll share it with her, so she's got somethin' to take back to her bosses, then we burn it."

  Ember gave a little growl of pleasure. With her back turned, the shimmy of her hips startled Jackie. Every move she made was utterly incongruous with the conservative disguise she wore. The disrespect stoked her anger and abandonment. Ember had given up on their shared surprise and excitement as quickly as she'd given up on their family.