by David Gullen
Human and para-human bodies lay scattered across the forest floor. Anxiously Ellen searched until she found Theodore, alive and in the company of Gretel and two other lupines.
Novik emerged from cover.
Bruised and battered, deafened and hoarse, he was amazed to be alive. Though the outer fabric of his coat was ripped, scorched by fire and scarred with bullet holes, the fabulous inner material was intact. It had saved his life a dozen times.
Marytha sat wearily on a stone nearby with hood and mask pulled from her face, her coat similarly ragged.
‘Are you all right?’ Novik said. It felt like such a little thing to say.
‘Yes.’ Marytha gave him a wan smile, ‘Hello.’
Benny and Crane had also survived unscathed but mithril fabric could not save everyone. St.John lay dead, shot through an eye. Novik straightened his limbs, took off his own coat and covered St.John’s body.
‘I don’t know which is strangest, seeing the para-humans, or simply being alive,’ Marytha said.
Benny looked across the battleground and the sad scatter of bodies. ‘Life takes some getting used to.’
Ellen found her father. He stared aghast at her gore-covered body. ‘Oh, Ellen, dear God,’ Crane cried. He had seen her fight, seen her unbelievable power, her astonishing violence. He knew much of the blood was not her own but there were wounds all over her chest, her stomach, bullet scars on the exoframe. That last man had fired his guns so many times.
‘Daddy, I saved you,’ Ellen gasped.
‘I saw you,’ Crane tried to smile, saving Ellen was the one thing he had ever wanted to do. ‘My wonderful, brave daughter.’
Ellen gave a puzzled laugh, ‘They shot me, but I feel all right. It doesn’t hurt.’
Crane knew she was in shock. ‘We must get you back to the lodge, the medical wing.’
‘Yes.’ Ellen winced. She looked down at herself and registered the extent of her injuries.
‘Reactivate your monitoring,’ Crane said.
Pain erupted in Ellen. ‘It hurts now,’ she wailed. ‘Very much.’
Every warning light pulsed red: trauma, shock, blood loss, emergency. The exoframe administered a powerful analgesic, Ellen’s head lolled and the frame locked itself in position.
Novik, Marytha and Benny gathered round. ‘How can we help?’ Novik said.
Despondently Crane shook his head, ‘You can’t. The exoframe contains a medical AI and pharmacopoeia. It will look after her far better than we can.’ His face crumpled and he wept in helpless choking sobs.
‘Oh, mercy,’ Marytha said.
Crane pushed away his tears. ‘This won’t do.’ He pressed his thumb against a small plate on the exoframe. ‘This is Palfinger Crane,’ he said. ‘Mary had a little lamb.’
‘Confirmed,’ the exoframe said.
‘Return to Million Pines,’ Crane said. ‘Administer to Ellen’s needs.’
‘Confirmed.’ The exoframe walked towards the lodge.
Crane watched the machine carry his unconscious daughter away. ‘Chandra Smith will be here soon.’
Crane looked so forlorn Novik wanted to hug him. ‘You have a very brave daughter.’
‘Indeed I do,’ Crane said. ‘Where is Raymond?’
‘Palfinger, St.John is dead.’ Novik didn’t know what else to say. ‘I’m so sorry.’
It was almost too much. Crane’s mind became blank. Apart from Ellen, St.John was the closest he had to a confidante. Crane had known Raymond St.John for two decades, they were the same age.
‘Palfinger?’
‘What a terrible day,’ Crane said. He moved away slowly, like an old man. Accompanied by Benny and Marytha he followed Ellen’s exoframe to Million Pines.
About to follow, Novik found his path blocked by an enormous ursine para-human and two lupines.
‘Warrior, a moment,’ the bear man said.
Novik studied the eight-foot tall bear-man’s slope-shouldered muscularity with profound respect.
The female lupine paced forwards, ‘We know you fight the machine dogs. They are drones, they lack souls, you cannot defeat them. To do so you must slay their Queen.’
Novik laughed wearily. ‘Impossible.’
The ursine bent down to look into Novik’s eyes. ‘No. Very difficult.’ He held out his huge hand, ‘I am Theodore.’
‘Novik.’ He griped Theodore’s wrist, the ursine’s hand covered Novik’s arm almost to the elbow.
‘We are the guardians of the fallen,’ the wolf-woman said. Novik took what she proffered and the para-humans departed.
Marytha had seen the encounter and hung back. ‘What was that all about?’
Novik showed her the white-fletched arrow the wolf-woman had given him. It was identical to the one left with Josie.
- 59 -
Bad things come out of the blue. That was why Guinevere Snarlow did her best to cover all the bases so everything was under control. For that you had to rely on other people. People whose gifts and skills were, despite their assurances, often sadly lacking. It led to unpleasant surprises such as the telephone conversation she was having right now.
‘Palfinger, honey, I give you my word. I know absolutely nothing about it. The government of the USA knows absolutely nothing about it. This is terrorism plain and simple. Honestly, how could you believe I was involved?’
Guinevere rolled her eyes and made extravagant gestures of frustration as she listened to Crane.
‘No, I did not threaten her. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. No, I’m not saying you’re lying, I think you are misremembering. It’s not what? Yes, of course it’s a real word, that’s beside the point. Ellen’s a lovely child, I wouldn’t dream of involving her. Yes, I agree it’s a shocking thing, unbelievable. Scum, absolutely. They deserve whatever’s coming. Palfinger, listen to me, this is precisely why we’re going into Canada. These attacks have to be terminated at source.’
‘I, ah, was going for the planetary albedo?’ Snarlow mutely appealed for help. Lobotnov chopped at a potted plant with his pen. ‘Yes, of course we’re there for the trees. Not yours, obviously. We are only interested in managing the far north, the boreal fringe. Andriewiscz has strict orders to avoid your estate.’
Snarlow dropped her voice to a sympathetic whisper. ‘Palfinger, if you can bear it, how is poor Ellen?’ As she listened she bared her teeth. Fuck it, she mouthed. Fuck it. Fuck.
Cheswold Lobotnov and Oscar Gordano exchanged alarmed looks.
‘Looks like your brilliant plan just blew its own tits off,’ Lobotnov muttered.
It dawned on Gordano that Lobotnov was right. A dreadful hollow filled his guts.
‘Poor child, such a dreadful experience,’ gushed Snarlow. ‘How wonderful that she has that amazing machine to care for her. Palfinger, listen to me, it’s Guinevere you’re talking to now, not the President. I’ve taken that hat off, I’m just your friend and I’m here for you. I share your pain, I really do. I–’ Snarlow’s eyes lit up, her face twisted into a savage grin. ‘Palfinger, I know exactly what we’re going to do. Andriewiscz is on the border, forty, maybe fifty klicks away. He has a mobile army hospital. I’m going to send them to you.’
Gordano immediately took out his phone. When he saw the look on the President’s face he put it down with exaggerated care.
‘I know you have your own people,’ Snarlow said. ‘Are they experienced in treating gunshot wounds? A unit of army surgeons are on their way right this minute and… And so am I! Palfinger, I’m coming to you, and I’m going to make sure everything turns out all right.’
Snarlow slowly put down the phone. ‘Well, that was absolutely fucking dreadful.’
This had been an important lesson. From now on she would make all the decisions herself.
Across the table, Lobotnov regarded her with relaxed curiosity, Gordano with nauseous fear.
She slapped the table hard. ‘Oscar Gordano, I hope you haven’t paid that incompetent gangster idiot of yours. If you have, you’ve
wasted your money. Twice. If Mitchell-fucking-useless-Gould isn’t dead now, he soon will be.’
‘What happened? What went wrong?’ Gordano gulped. He felt sick, guilty, grimy, he wanted this never to have happened.
Snarlow’s voice was sweet sarcasm. ‘Well, as you have probably gathered, Palfinger Crane is alive and Ellen is badly hurt. Somehow a middle-aged man managed to fight off thirty professional mercenaries assisted only by his revolting blimp of a daughter, the butler and some trained pets.’
‘They’re para-humans. Absolutely do not underestimate them,’ Lobotnov said.
‘Well, some moron did, didn’t they, Oscar?’ Snarlow spat. ‘You’re through here, Gordano. You tried to be a player, I can respect you for that, but you failed. This administration washes its hands of you. The executive must be protected.’
Desperately, Gordano tried to salvage some dignity. He felt about seven years old, he tried not to cry. ‘Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I knew the risks when I signed on.’
Lobotnov managed to turn his involuntary guffaw into a cough. ‘Anything I can do, ma’am?’
‘I need two or three agents to accompany me immediately. They need to look like army doctors and have appropriate equipment. Any genuine medical experience will be a bonus.’
‘One moment.’ Lobotnov typed on his keyboard as Guinevere spoke. He read the screen, made another entry and looked up. ‘Anything else?’
‘Just keep being that dependable, loyal, intelligent man I know you to be.’ Guinevere moistened her lips, ‘As soon as I’m back, we’ll meet in private session.’
Lobotnov’s groin stirred, his face was unreadable. ‘I’ll look forwards to it.’
Guinevere closed down her console. ‘I’m going to Million Pines. If Ellen dies before her father, Palfinger Crane ends up very sad, very vengeful, and we end up with a mutinous army owed half a year’s back pay.’ She tugged down the hem of her jacket, ‘On the other hand, one bullet and we’re back on track.’
She turned at the door and looked back at Gordano slumped hopelessly in his chair. ‘Never send a boy to do a woman’s job,’ she sneered, and stalked out.
Gordano buried his head in his hands and wailed, ‘Oh, Christ, I’m going to be impeached. I’m going to be arrested and go to jail.’
Lobotnov handed Gordano a tissue. ‘You didn’t really pay him, did you?’
‘I’ve been such a fool. Always too eager to please, I know I am. My childhood. I was bullied.’
‘That’s why Ginny picked you for her VeeP,’ Lobotnov said. ‘You’re such a dork, Oscar. Natch.’
As soon as Guinevere was in the air she called Andriewiscz, max crypto. “General, I’m inbound to you with F35b air escorts. I’ll need surgical equipment, uniforms, and a chopper to Crane’s lodge in Million Pines.’
‘All in hand, ma’am. I’m in receipt of Lobotnov’s memorandum.’
The aeroplane climbed fast, banked hard then settled into level flight. Guinevere felt both relaxed and excited. Shit happened, you dealt with it, you moved on. The best way to resolve issues was to confront them head on. This was still going to work and they were still going to win. It was time to up the game.
‘General, operation Pencil Head launches as soon as I am in Million Pines airspace. I want Canada clear-felled from coast to coast.’
‘Absolutely. Yes, ma’am.’
She thought she could hear the excitement in Andriewiscz’s voice. Mexico had been the aperitif, Canada was the entrée. She knew what really turned Andriewiscz on was the thought of the main – Europe.
‘Ma’am?’ Andriewiscz sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘I’d like to be able to give the men and women some good news about pay. They’re loyal, I guarantee it. Soldiers like to complain, but it’s been more than six months.’
‘Just make sure you get me to Crane.’
‘That’s no problem.’
Guinevere thought through Andriewiscz’s uncharacteristically nervous request. No politician, that show of nerves had let slip he knew the armed forces were behind him, not her. When he said jump the Pentagon said ‘How high?’, but if she said the same thing they’d look to him before moving. Guinevere knew her history, it wasn’t the loyalty of the troops she needed to worry about. Andriewiscz needed some new toys to play with. She kept her voice light, her tone relaxed:
‘Oh yes, one other thing, Richard. Do you think we should nuke Ottawa or just ignore them?’
Andriewiscz considered the suggestion. ‘Strategically it’s irrelevant. Propaganda-wise it depends how serious we are about planetary albedo. Even a low-yield ground-burst will push a substantial dust aerosol into the stratosphere. As I understand it, that would help cool the northern hemisphere.’
‘General, that is actually quite brilliant. Pre-emptive nukes are highly unpopular, this will let us put a green spin on it. America: the new Eco-warrior. What’s good for the USA is good for Gaia, that’s sort of thing.’
‘Saving soldiers’ lives and saving the planet. I’ve decided – I may as well nuke it, what the heck.’
‘Your call again, general. Happy gardening, speak to you soon.’
- 60 -
We live in a time of control, surveillance, doubt, fear and insecurity. Such times propagate cultural myths. The Grey Ghost of the Highway is part of the quest for freedom that sent the Pilgrim Fathers across the Atlantic. It was the pioneer’s dream that just over the next hill was a better world. A place to call home.
Where can you go today, when the edge of the wilderness is the far side of a cultural event horizon called Global Catastrophe? Where can the pioneer spirit find expression when borders are closed and everyone is everywhere? The open road has become the last frontier, a journey without a destination.
In the end, we all know where we’re going. It’s still how you get there that counts.
The trip is all that’s left, folks. Maybe it’s all there ever was. For those of us who have had enough, who think the main thing wrong with the print edition of BFBM is the pages are not absorbent enough, then that trip will have to do.
So keep dreaming of a better world. Perhaps one morning you’ll find the Grey Ghost waiting at the curb, a misty plume rising from the tailpipes, ready to take you away from all this.
I say the Grey Ghost exists because I want it to. The hell with reality, what’s reality ever done for me?
– T. Hank Yousomuch, guest blog – BFBM Magazine
Andriewiscz offered Chandra Smith a safe air corridor to Million Pines for him, and him alone, no team, no support. It wasn’t lost on Crane that was all he did.
Held firmly upright and maintained by her exoframe, Ellen stood in the examination room of the medical wing, sedated and barely conscious. The room, a fully equipped surgical lab, was dedicated to Ellen’s particular needs. Monitors, instrumentation and diagnostic equipment lined one wall. Overhead, a set of jointed steel armatures hung over an outsize surgical table, adaptable to either a human or auto-surgeon operator. Another room at the rear housed a whole-body scanner, with a recovery suite to one side. A scrub room, autoclaves and other facilities were across the corridor.
While Crane spoke to President Snarlow, Novik, Benny and Marytha stripped away Ellen’s clothes and cleaned her mottled, bruised and wounded body with antiseptic swabs. Novik still carried the lupine woman’s arrow, he put it down on the table.
The gunshot wounds looked terrible, each one a saucer-sized purple haematoma around a black-rimmed bullet hole oozing blood and serum. Novik counted six in Ellen’s chest, three in her stomach, two in her right forearm. Apart from the wounds in her arm, there were no exit wounds.
When they were done, the exoframe laid itself on the table. Data links self-connected to external diagnostics, servo-driven arms attached intravenous and intramuscular implants, saline and antibiotic fluids began to flow.
Marytha found a sheet and covered Ellen’s vast body. ‘Poor great thing.’
Up on the data wall, displays sh
owed heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and other information. Ellen’s chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm, assisted by the rods cemented to her ribs, operated by exoframe servos. Across her shoulders the cooling fans of her subdermal heat exchangers hummed steadily. As they watched, her breath began to rasp. The exoframe adjusted the position of her head to keep her windpipe open, and she became quiet again.
‘We shouldn’t be sorry for her,’ Benny said. ‘She was magnificent when she needed to be.’
They watched her for a while longer before joining Crane in the study.
The moment bandwidth was available, the exoframe transmitted consolidated data to Chandra Smith, flying high over south-western Europe. Fifteen minutes later, Smith called Crane. Novik, Benny and Marytha listened to the exchange.
‘Ellen is not in immediate danger,’ Chandra told a relieved Crane. ‘As hard as it may be to believe, I am certain there is no organ damage.’
‘Thank God. So she’s going to be all right?’
‘For the immediate future, yes.’
‘Then we can move her to hospital, to surgery?’
‘Palfinger, it is not that simple. Ellen’s very bigness stopped the bullets before they reached her vital organs. Each round is lodged deep inside her body. To remove one bullet would require extraordinary surgery, each operation a significant trauma in itself. Remember, Ellen’s heart is already under enormous strain.’
Crane digested the news. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘I’ll know more when I examine her. Tonight I would hope to remove two, maybe three, bullets.
‘And leave the others inside her? What about septicaemia? In Ellen’s condition I know what that means.’
‘Many people live for years with bullets inside them.’
Crane closed his eyes. A muscle jumped in his temple. Finally, he ground out four words, ‘What do you want.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What does Hyderabad need?’ Crane’s face grew congested, ‘How much will it cost to save Ellen?’