by R. K. Syrus
Melanie imagines when she hugs someone she can sometimes feel pure arboreal energies pass into them. If they have an open mind, that is. Her arms are well on their way to being covered by ink from shoulder to wrist. The delectably crafted design is a Garden of Eden inspired tattoo mural.
“What do you think? About the new one?”
Frederique’s finely plucked and inked eyebrows rise. “Now you’re talkin’. Trans-for-may-shun,” she says. “Takin’ what’s on your mind and puttin’ it out there in the flesh. Purest form of self-expression there is. People been doin’ it forever. Skin becoming art, the ink revealing the soul.”
“Aw.”
“’Cept in your case. You’ll just tat any random guy’s name on yo bootay.”
“That’s mean. Remind me not to tip you.”
“The more you tip, the less the needle hurts.”
“Really?” Melanie considers the connection between generosity and Aδ-fiber pain receptors.
“No, just made that up,” Aunt Freda quips. “Don’t you be cheapin’ out on me. Tell me a lie. That your boss Ranulph Oliphant don’t pay enough. Heck, with a name like that, he just might be family. I should apply to be his in-house masseuse.”
She cracks her knuckles with anticipation of getting her hands on Ran’s wealthy and muscular shoulders.
“Straight, as far as I can tell. But he hasn’t gotten out much since that horrible accident where his wife and two daughters died. Real nice guy, too.”
Frederique smirks. “Hey, you got a thang for his schwing? Don’t be witholdin’ gossips from Aunt Freda now.”
“Aw, it’s not like that! Though he does keep fit for his age.” Melanie holds up her left arm. The partial stencil reads:
Montg
“Besides, I’m almost positive my guy’s going to pop ye olde questionne!”
Frederique does not share her bubbling enthusiasm. “You sure this guy, Montgomery, is the one?”
“Completely. He’s so rad. He has a band.”
“I bet.”
“Oh, Freda.” Melanie pouts at the implication that new love cannot be true love. “You’re a big party pooper in… a party dress. Monty’s very intellectual. His performances combine thrash metal with medieval theatre. Their songs are based on Chaucer’s Pilgrim’s Progress. In the last set, he dresses like Beelzebub and smashes his guitar. It’s the bomb!”
“Really? I’m gonna make a note right now—to never, ever see that shit.” She raises a tattoo gun shaped like a chrome skull. “Back to the point, of my inkin’ needle. You sure you don’t want just his initials? I’m not sayin’ this isn’t forever, but I do remember us havin’ a helluva time covering over the long Greek name.”
“Varnavas Vartholomeos. Okay, I should have gone with ‘VV’ for him. But look”—Melanie flexes her triceps—“what a beautiful snake you made out of him.”
“You want ink only on your arms, and you runnin’ out of real estate.”
Frederique slaps a binder open.
Tattoos and hidem-ups – Dr. Melanie F.
Was
Is
Uhuru N’Che
Tree of Knowledge
(boring)
Varnavas Vartholomeos
Snake
(slithering)
Yanti Choi
Cherub
(mama’s boy)
Bobby G.
Apple
(rotten to core)
Montgomery Yliffe
Melanie nearly has a retort queued up to her Broca's area when a sparkling light in the shape of a small pinwheel firework appears out of thin air. It becomes a red-and-white lollipop.
Right. I’m in the City, the Big Smoke.
In high-density urban areas, Licht/Net optical signals are thick. Two data-enabled light sources intersecting can create high-def holograms in thin air. Which would be the bomb except for Dr. Licht being such a pucker puss.
“Sorry,” Melanie says, “we have to pause the needling, you naughty, uh, needler.”
The lollipop is her incoming-call icon. It hovers above caller ID text.
USS Lee – Brig. \ Message from—Prisoner 0258
“Yo, woman, T-Rex here.”
He wears this year’s shade of POW purple, looks angry, and speaks rapidly. Melanie is fascinated.
Frederique glances at him. “Uh huuuh. Maybe we hold up. Looks like you got another suitor.”
“Are you screening me?” Mr. Rex grimaces, flashing an impressive gold grill. “Hit accept. I’m all kinds o’ busy.”
His handcuffs are padlock style. Chubb Escort, made in England, the Cartier of personal restraints.
Freda shakes her head. “He hot, but he sleepin’ on a cement cot.”
Melanie considers this. “I did resolve not to date people currently in prison. With exceptions for political prisoners, famous street artists, or if our love astro-synastry is anomalously great.”
She accepts the call by putting the virtual lollipop to her lips.
“Enchanté, Mr. Rex.”
“Now don’t be interruptin’ me with Euro lingo.”
“I’m all ears.” Melanie lifts her bountiful curls up to prove it.
She’s intuitive, but with the demands of exponentially increasing data flows, a modern girl needs help. She signals Chiangmai Sign Language for “Help.”
Her digital concierge appears.
Available Subroutines:
Nancy Drew 12.6
譲崎 ネロ 3.5
Fake Nuclear Attack (beta)
Sorry, Nero Yuzurusaki, Nancy’s got the multivariate insight I need just now.
[Nancy Drew 12.6] selected
Her digital teen detective delivers. All around the image of Mr. Rex, a kaleidoscope of information and logical speculation appears.
voice,
accent,
eye movements,
micro-body posture adjustments,
scars and callouses on hand, two ridges just behind the collateral ligament of the thumb on both hands, lighter on the left, likely made by the slide recoil of an automatic pistol,
oldest scar on face well sutured with aftercare to prevent keloid scar formation, medium-age scar on forearm appears to be self-treated.
Codename:
Legal Birth Name on enlistment form <“Ask yo momma!”>
Visible tattoo reads:
“Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrtum.”
Translation: “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
[phrase listed in our top 20 Friedrich Nietzsche quotations, +5 astro-synastry romance points]
Current assignment: Ft. Bragg, N.C. 1st SFOD-D-0 (stenographer, probationary, auxiliary), under NCO Sgt. Bryan, under O-6 Col. Sienna McKnight
Current location: Indian Ocean
The publicly and sneakily available data agitates, spins, and tumbles dry.
He’s pretending to be high, even stained his lip with red dye, maybe from a packaged food covering, but he is one stone-cold sober hunk of enigma.
Melanie decides she’d better listen. Between the words.
“Dial my man’s digits at Ramstein,” he says. “It’s the wrong time, and I only get one call.”
Mr. Rex reels off some numbers and intentionally mumbles the location.
Then he adds, “To save the Rose, y’got to dare grab the thorn. Right now.”
With that butchered Anne Brontë quote, their chat time ends. The screenshot hangs, waiting for her to dismiss, redial, or post to her Licht/Net blog.
It’s a puzzle.
I love puzzles!
The transmission from the brig was monitored by military security mechBrains that can hack through code or public key encryption in seconds. T-Rex must be employing some idiosyncratic secret speak that can only be unravelled by the MelBrain.
“You wanna write anything down?”
“No thanks, Aunt Freda. I got it.”
Numbers. Transposed letters. Not comm-link numbers. What are those peskers? He gave two
versions, pretending to be high on Mist.
Ramstein Air Base: largest US military base overseas…located in Germany, 49°26′38.10″N 007°36′08.13″E Kaiserslautern… Oh, didn’t I get Ran the cutest beer mugs from near there last Christmas?
Concentrate!
Let’s do that. Numbers, letter, ciphers… speaking of which, didn’t Alan Turing get a terribly raw deal?
Melanie!
Ignore noise. Ponder on signal.
She considers Hebrew, a.k.a. Letters of Fire. Its lexicon is totally numerically based, and it’s so pretty!
But it’s not the answer.
Open code, simple variable.
First he said: “Ramstein,” then “Rammerbasestein.”
Six numbers and x letters. Which geolocation system looks like that?
RAMSTEinbaserammerbasESTEIN
RAMsteinbaserammerbasestEIN
RAmsteinbaserammerbasesteIN
Like a half dozen tumblers of a combination lock all falling into place, something clicks. Coordinates on the commercial version of Russia’s GPS system, ГЛОНАСС. GLONASS.
Virtual Nancy serves up the real-world location. In Khorasan.
The middle of the Wandering Desert.
“Gotta go.”
Melanie dashes, stencil paper still stuck on her arm.
“Girl, I gots rent to pay. Gonna have to charge you.”
“Put it on Ran’s tab.”
Her car’s in the alley. She notices a new addition to her tires. Electronic wheel clamps courtesy of the roving robots of London’s Traffic Authority, Hackney Borough. Silly red zones.
“Super-duper Privacy,” she snaps at the onboard computer. “Dial Ran—urgent!”
Her ringtone feeds back, “Meow.”
Pick up.
“Meow.”
He appears, from his limo. Many thoughts get in the way of her words coming
out
her
mouth
of…
Before her thoughts choke her, she manages, “Ran, it’s about the Rose!”
33
NOW
USS LEE
INDIAN OCEAN
BRYAN
Without warning, all their cell doors clank open at once. Bryan cautiously looks around the corner.
What now?
It’s hours before exercise time.
Guards wait for Bryan and the others to form a polite line for shackling. Whitebread, Nobu, T-Rex, and Snakelips clank along behind him into the drunk tank hose-down room.
“Once you sign your DD Form 2674, make sure you got all your stuff,” a Navy man tells them. “Then all prisoners will muster on the flight deck. Except for Sergeant Bryan.”
Bryan gets led up to the bridge and set outside the captain’s ready room. Stahlback’s fat face is frozen between gloating distaste and ornery gutlessness. Beside him, XO Bianchi wears his usual poker mug. Denbow the Navy SEAL is also there, looking smug. The most relatable faces in the room belong to the peanut gallery of baseball toys along the whole wall.
Captain Bobblehead.
“Captain Stahlback,” Bryan says. “You wanted to see—”
“Yes,” the Navy man snaps back. “I am seeing you. I think we’ve all seen enough of Army on this ship.”
On shelves, fifty plastic heads nod. Bryan no longer wonders why Bianchi slipped him Sienna’s coordinates. Stahlback would have ignored the intel or sent out a squadron of Stymph drones on a carpet bombing run to cover his cowardly incompetence.
“As much as I’d like to see you band of thieving hijacking shanghaiers in jail for the rest of your useless lives, my XO here convinced me there’s a lot of paperwork involved. Due process bunk.”
Bianchi’s cheeks flush.
“So,” Stahlback continues, “the sooner we scrape you off like useless barnacles, the better. Orders.”
The XO offers up a scroll. Stahlback has had someone put the strike group’s RFID command seal into his chunky Annapolis class ring.
Denbow, the other Navy man in the room, takes a breath.
“Yes, Lieutenant Commander,” Stahlback says before Denbow can get a word out. “I haven’t forgotten your request.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Denbow breaks out in a big, white, toothy smile. He speaks in his sweetest manly butt-kiss voice. “Doha Base has a state-of-the-art refugee center. Plenty of staff, playground and everything.”
XO Bianchi whispers to Stahlback.
Bryan makes a note to ask if they can throw in at least one cybernetic ear the next time he gets his ocular implants upgraded.
“Commander Denbow, I appreciate your offer to take the underage civilian off our hands. But she’s not actually in our hands,” the Lee’s captain says. “It looks bad enough for me, McKnight falling off one of my aircraft. No, no, no. The kid was never boarded. She’s a souvenir. An unauthorized trinket. Out with the bathwater she goes.”
“But, sir, I—”
A side look cuts Denbow off.
“I appreciate you’re Navy. But you are CENTCOM Navy.” Stahlback swipes the order scroll with his ring. A bosun’s whistle note chimes as the contents are digitally sealed and entered into the Lee’s official log. “Dismissed.”
A long military career has taught Bryan when to shut up. They are getting off this damned ship. All of them. Free and clear. They have a chance to help Sienna. They even get to keep their lucky Khorasan souvenir.
A Navy guard nudges him along.
“Just a sec.”
He has to do something on the other side of the bridge. He returns a borrowed comm link to Mr. Ko, remembering to get a receipt so they won’t be charged money or accused of theft. Leaving, he passes by the ready room. Stahlback’s door is half open.
“—at’s that,” the Captain’s voice says. “Not my problem anymore. I was looking forward to ripping that arrogant sergeant a new one with the Uniform Code at his court martial. That is one odd soldier. Does he really have to look like that? Isn’t there a treatment, or ointment, or something he can use? A sun lamp?”
“No, Captain,” Bianchi says, “I don’t think there is.”
“The way he looks, it’s just…” Stahlback searches for the right word. “…unnatural.”
• • •
A fresh wind whips across the waves, over the Lee’s flight deck, through Bryan’s jacket. He sees his people. They wear crisp, pressed purple jumpers. Stahlback made them put them on just for their march of humiliation across to the waiting aircraft. Snakelips shadows the little girl. Anis is the only one not bound at the wrists and ankles. She wears a tiny purple POW jumper under her lifejacket.
T-Rex flashes his grin in case they miss the Morse code on his eyebrows. He’s found yet another use for hair-removing gel. On each side of his head is a letter. He swivels left and right on their march to a VTOL transport plane.
F
U
F
U
“Sarge!” T-Rex gripes. “They put extra starch in these here convict rags! Just another point in the human-rights violations brief I’m gonna file. Have a nice day, you Navy—”
It occurs to Bryan the manacles were probably a good idea. They’ve been handed a get-out-of-jail-free card. Dropkicking senior officers into the ocean might cause delays.
T-Rex saves his biggest grin for the master-at-arms. He holds his chains for unlocking. “Yes, sir, now that you ask. I did have a most pleasant stay.” The setting sun glints off gold caps. “I shall certainly recommend your facilities to all my homies in Compton.”
Anis’s flotation vest is nearly as restraining as a straightjacket. Her skinny legs and arms make her look like a pincushion doll. A buxom flight officer leads her by the hand.
When Anis passes the master and his ring of keys, she mimics what she has seen T-Rex and the others do. She holds out her hands to be freed.
The Navy officer smiles. “Move along there, little miss.”
The flight officer visibly tears up as she puts Anis in h
er seat and straps her in. Bryan returns her caped dolly.
“Thank you. Miss Lee had a good visit with me in jail.”
Their ride is an older, compact Osprey, a propeller plane capable of vertical takeoff. Inside, two rows of lightly padded seats face each other. The pilot’s voice comes over the speaker:
“Please fasten your harnesses. Hope everyone is hungry for pita bread, moussaka, and history. Next stop: Athens, Greece.”
“I don’t get it.” Snakelips is the first to echo his thoughts. “They’re letting us go?”
“Dunno much about law,” Whitebread chimes in, “but I’m pretty sure we broke some big ones.”
“Says who?” Nobu asks. “They broke the most important rule first: leaving the colonel out there.”
Bryan ends the legal debate.
“Gentlemen, Snakelips, unless they mean to drop us in the ocean, I’ll take it.”
I’ll also take those GLONASS coordinates, however they got written on a tiny superheroine’s cape.
Bryan does not like keeping details from his team, but he has to be sure no one is listening. He’s not even sure where the intel came from, or if it’s real. Bianchi never gave a hint.
He looks to Anis. Gently, she smooths Lee’s wool hair and looks back at him over the rim of her life vest. Her eyes, maybe more unusual than his own, are full of kindness and patience. They remind him of another little girl he watched grow up.
34
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
NORTH CAROLINA
BRYAN
In a few hours, midnight would tick past. It would be Sienna’s twelfth birthday. Bryan walked the dark side road toward her house.
Sienna and her widowed mom, Annalies, lived in a single-story wood-frame house outside Fort Bragg’s perimeter. They could have gotten a bigger place for not much more rent inside, but Bryan suspected the other side of the wire held too many memories of Dr. Theodora McKnight. Annalies’s spouse had been killed nearly six years ago.
Bryan took the long way around from the northern gate. Between him and Sienna’s house stood a clump of white poplars. He preferred to go around those trees, especially at night. Pale trunks caught the moonlight. They stood up like many fingers of a skeletal hand.