“Look.” He pointed into the notebook. Mia saw the word GERMANY circled with a line connecting to TRIPOLI and another to EMPIRE CITY. The phrase “Volunteers, Stateside” had a variety of scribbles beneath it she couldn’t decipher. “It all connects.”
Mia sipped her water and clasped her hands in front of her. The morning’s revelation of the Council’s plotting had upset and frightened her. This was the opposite. She found Sebastian’s paranoid conspiracy sad, even repellent. Tripoli? Why did he care so much about Tripoli?
Mia no longer felt compelled to share her discussion with the general.
“For what end?” she asked.
“For… it’s like Occam’s razor. From philosophy class? For this end. For super-soldiers.”
“Why go through the big charade? If ‘they’ ”—Mia couldn’t help herself, she paused to put air quotes around the word—“wanted to do something like that, why not do it in secret? In an underground bunker? An empty desert out west?”
Sebastian rubbed under his sunglasses. He believed what he was saying, she thought. There was no doubt about it. “Listen, I know how this sounds. But you know me, Mia. I’m no nutter. I like America. I like being American.
“I don’t know what the truth is. We haven’t been told it, though. I’m asking—I’m asking for your help. You know people, in finance, on the Council of Victors. You work for a retired general. What really happened to us?”
Mia took that in, considering both the vagueness and specificity of what Sebastian was suggesting. She moved her hands from the table to the top of her stomach and tapped at it. There was no response this time, but there had been the morning before. Life grew within Mia, and grew more so with every new day.
Could the nation she’d sworn to defend be capable of this thing Sebastian was suggesting? She’d given her youth to America. She’d given her leg for America. She’d almost given much more. So of course. Of course America was capable of such a thing. Capability was one of the things about her country she admired the most.
“I swallowed my pride for the mission,” General Collins had said. Mia knew now she needed to do the same. The alternative sat across from her, wildly lost. A regular citizen, not a warfighter, doing his best, trying his best, but overcome by the forces of order. Mia was one of those forces of order. She always had been.
“You know, See-Bee,” she said, clearing her throat. “My baby began kicking last week.”
“What?” His voice was scratchy, irritated. He corrected himself. “That’s great. Really.”
“It is.” She knew she was going to come across harsher than she wanted, but they were too old for this type of talk. Sebastian was a friend, yes. But whether he knew it or not, he was also a threat. “I’m going to be a mother. I’m going to be a wife. I’m going to be an aide for the next commander in chief.”
“I—”
“You’re going to let me finish. General Collins likes to remind the staff that it’s not about yesterday. It’s about tomorrow. Our aim is not small. It’s to transform the country. To ensure my child knows an America like we grew up in. Something hopeful. Something safe.”
Sebastian stared back at her, openmouthed. He looked more crestfallen than angry. Maybe a bit surprised, too.
“War changes us,” Mia continued. “I get that. We went overseas for different reasons, I think, but we had this in common: we wanted to prove that we could. It changed you, See-Bee, and that’s okay. It changed me, too. But don’t let it define you. Don’t let one month of your life shape everything that remains. Please. As someone who knew you when you were just a goofy college kid without a care in the world: tomorrow. Tomorrow is what matters.”
Sebastian sighed, opening his mouth to say something but then stopping himself. He chewed his bottom lip a couple of times before trying again.
“You sound like Pete,” he said. “He thinks like that, too.”
And then he was done, closing his notebook and packing up his things. He slid over a five-dollar bill for his latte and scone. It wasn’t enough but Mia didn’t object. She’d cover the rest. She almost asked him to stay to smooth things over but instead she patted his forearm and told him to text if he needed anything.
Tough love, she thought. We all need it, sometimes.
Jesse called later that afternoon. She told him she was feeling better about things and not to worry. He’s busy enough, she decided. He’s focused on bettering tomorrow. So am I.
* * *
“Welcome to The Proving Ground. I’m your host, Jamie Gellhorn. We begin with an exclusive investigation into the background of retired major general Jackie ‘Jackpot’ Collins, a presidential candidate who’s gone from a virtual unknown to serious political player in a few short months.
“Our investigative team has obtained documents from General Collins’s time at homeland intelligence that suggest, at best, a fuzzy regard for the rule of law. The documents are redacted of top-secret material but still reveal the general oversaw implementation of underground interrogation centers in ally nations such as Malta—a loophole meant to work around current military law. She also helped lay the groundwork for a covert military court system that has, at times, declared American citizens suspected of ties to fanatic groups as enemy combatants.
“Empire News has uploaded all supporting material to our website. We invite viewers to scrutinize the documents themselves. They may serve as keyholes into the ethics and decision making of a contender for the highest office in the land.”
CHAPTER 21
THE AUTUMN WIND carried a mean, frosty air to it that hinted of more. Hands deep in his jacket and chin tucked, Jean-Jacques walked through Kissinger Square, the tusked arch clashing against the dark of sky. Old bullet holes from the Vietnam arrests slabbed the base of the arch, and Jean-Jacques paused to run his fingers through them. The smaller dents meant rubber slugs, he figured, but the deep cavities meant lethal rounds. Bolt action, looked like, .30 caliber.
Dirt farmers in the Mediterranean carried better weapons than that. The riot here had marked the peak of the antiwar movement and been put down by Home Guard. Poor bastards, Jean-Jacques thought. Enemy was one thing. Citizen mobs were something else altogether.
Mayday, Mayday.
He met the agents in a neon diner a block north of the square. It was just the two younger ones, Dorsett and Stein, alone at a table in the rear. They could not have looked more cop if they’d tried, all rigid backs and jolty energy, wearing department store sweaters. Jean-Jacques took a seat across from them, facing the kitchen.
“City diner, late night,” he said. “Real original, gentlemen.”
Neither seemed in the mood for pleasantries. “You had him.” The larger one, Dorsett, put his elbows on the table and leaned across it. There was venom in his words. “And let him walk.”
“Watch your tone, G-man.” Jean-Jacques kept his hands in his jacket and his eyes fixed on the other man. Then he repeated the agent’s own words back at him, imbuing them with a soldier’s irony. “Remember now—only difference between us is a boat stop.”
The agent with the stammer asked him to go through what happened at Revolution Park. Jean-Jacques talked about the vague instructions, the comms ban, and the all-terrain vehicles. He talked about Lamar Pierre being there. He told them how the people at rite hadn’t been homeless at all, but from all over the city, all colors, all classes, citizens who’d lost a soldier somewhere along the way. He explained the girl in the track sweatshirt who sang, the veteran and his poem, the whole secular church vibe for burgeoning revolutionaries.
“The Chaplain.” It was Dorsett again. “What about him.”
“He was—” Jean-Jacques knew what he was supposed to say, what career federals wanted to hear. Jonah Gray was a threat. Jonah Gray was a danger. Jonah Gray was mad, deranged, a warfighter who’d slipped through the cracks of ordered society and was desperate to bring down others with him. And he was, he was all those things. But he was also something else.
The sounds of the diner filled the space between. The sizzle of coffeepots brewed ready, the bubbling of eggs in a skillet, the ping of bells and timers in the kitchen. Jean-Jacques tipped back his chair and continued in a lowered voice, saying that he’d wanted to detain Jonah Gray, but hadn’t been able to figure out an exit strategy, which was true. Besides, he said, Lamar Pierre had been packing a street pistol, which was not true, but could’ve been.
“We’ll see each other again,” he finished, for the agents and for himself, too. “Gray said so.”
A waiter came over. Dorsett and Stein had coffees in front of them. Jean-Jacques stuck with tap water and ordered an omelet. The waiter left. Dorsett asked about the social service Maydays. What they’d had him doing, where, and for who. Jean-Jacques wasn’t about to narc on a dead soldier’s mom who ran a food pantry for refugees, so he started talking about the special project they’d been assigned.
“They want to invade the Nam parade next week,” he said. “Fill it with dirty vets, angry ones. Got us figuring out where to do it. Me and my cousin, we’re walking Fifth Avenue tomorrow. ID the soft spots.”
Something about the way neither agent responded to that suggested to Jean-Jacques they didn’t care or already knew. He guessed the latter. “I’m thinking there’s more to it, though.” Still neither agent responded. “What your big cop bosses saying?”
That, finally, drew an answer. Not because of any trust, Jean-Jacques thought, but because they resented being called cops. “Anuth-another source reported similar,” Stein said. “Think Gray will show?”
“Yeah. Pierre said something about the man giving a speech.”
“Good. Make it happen then, Corporal. Get those broken warfighters into the parade.”
A long silence followed, Jean-Jacques feeling the agents’ wariness from across the table and him conveying the same. His omelet arrived. The waiter refilled Dorsett’s coffee. He wondered who their other source in Mayday could be. They’d not mentioned that before. Fucking babylons, he thought. They’d made it seem like he was the only one who could access the militants. They’d made it seem like it was him or nobody.
“You don’t like us, I get it. But we need you, you need us. So I’m going to be real with you, again. Boat stops and shit.” It was Dorsett, of course. He tried his coffee before continuing, finding it too hot. “You’re right about the parade-crashin’. It is for something else. We’re hearing it’s to go after some VIPs.”
“Go after?”
“Shoot. Blow up. Gas. Guillotine. Something. The vice president’s gonna be there. Most of the Council of Victors. Bunch of senators and consuls and bank CEOs, too. That lady general running for president, she’s giving the keynote. Target could be any of them. Maybe all. These Mayday fucks don’t seem to discriminate. But we gotta draw out this Chaplain. Orders are to end this, now. So you do your part, Dash of the Volunteers. Best believe we’ll do ours.”
Jean-Jacques considered all that. It took sack to use all those VIPs as bait. He admired it, in its way. He shared the last thing he’d been holding on to.
“He knows about you all,” he said. “Told me to say hello to ‘our government friends.’ ”
“Screwing with you. A test.”
Jean-Jacques shook his head. “Not the type. I’m telling you, guy’s an earnest. He’s not like the jihadists or the separatists. He’s not like the homegrown radicals you spend your usual days tracking down. What he wants—he can do it. He can get it. And he knows it. It’s the idea that needs killing, not the man.”
They didn’t hear him, he could tell. They began asking about Mayday the organization, its structure, its logistics. They wanted to know about its finances. They needed to be asking about Mayday the message, Jean-Jacques thought, Mayday the rage, Mayday the hope. They needed to be asking about the girl who sang the song, not about who the lieutenants were. They needed to know the way the woman at the food bank talked about federals being enemy. They needed to know about the force in the veteran’s voice when he read his poem about Hill 937. They needed to know more about everything they weren’t asking about and nothing about what they were.
There was a saying in the army, though: Stay in Your Lane. Jean-Jacques had learned long ago as a cherry private not to do others’ work for them. Made things messy. Made things harder. So he stayed in his lane and kept those images and moments to himself.
All for the better, he thought. The truth was, Jean-Jacques hadn’t yet figured out what to do with them, either.
* * *
Jean-Jacques left the diner intent on the gym. A midnight workout to clear the mind and soul, help get the body ready for the Suck. He’d been slacking, he knew, could feel it in his shoulders and legs, and playing at community activist hadn’t helped with his regimen. Monitor drones pulsed red in the well of sky and he looked up at them wondering, again, what kind of place didn’t have stars.
Homecoming’s luster had dulled for Jean-Jacques. The want for life beyond had returned. For the Legion, he told himself. For duty. More than even that, though, was something else. A ferocious need to keep going, to keep moving, no matter what.
His phone buzzed near the subway steps. It was a text, from Pete: “BROTHER,” it read. “Need you! ASAP.” An address followed, a few blocks north and a lot of blocks west, along the river.
Pete needed him, now? They hadn’t seen one another in weeks. The big freak must be seething that we’re still over here, Jean-Jacques thought, smirking to himself. And I’m the reason why. Still, he heeded his sergeant’s call. It was nice, running super on the streets of Empire City, leaving bedlam in his wake. Screams of panic, shouts of confusion, an overturned hot dog stand or two, all in the span of thirty seconds. Speed like his could not be rationalized by human minds, nor could it be reasoned with. It could only be experienced.
Sure, someone might call the police, he thought. And say what?
The texted address led to a low-roofed, stand-alone building made from slate. To the south, the Global Trade tower shot into the above, illuminating the night’s licorice tint with white celestial light. To the hard west, across a bleak strip of highway, the river toiled away in its infinite work. The air here was wetter, Jean-Jacques noticed, but not colder. His heart was still battering from the short use of his power so he took a moment to collect himself. A large tiki mask carved from wood covered much of the building’s door, some sort of spiked rainbow crown shooting from its head. He knocked twice on the mask’s brow. When no reply came, he pushed open the door.
The wide bay of a space designed for packing in throngs of young bodies raced up at Jean-Jacques. Christmas lights covered the ceiling like kudzu and the smells of clean sweat and spilled beer stuck to tile swamped the air. A glowing fish tank in the near corner guided him to a coatrack. A couple of booths were filled with the hunched silhouettes of drinkers still clinging to their plans but most of the bar had gathered in the back, cheering in sloppy rhythm. Jean-Jacques found Pete there, the epicenter of it all.
He was chugging a full pitcher of beer, donned in a thick white headband and shirtless. An oversize American flag framed the wall immediately behind him, a large death skull in the blue canton instead of stars. Most every onlooker held a phone in front of them, filming the scene. Thick veins and full muscles twitched as Pete gulped along to their cadence, a medley of old battle scars dancing under the Christmas lights. But it was the mismatched tattoos that demanded the most notice: an M-4 carbine, barrel down, sprayed itself acro
ss his rib cage. The North Star with blue flames shooting from it rested above his left pec. The words “Sua Sponte” wrapped around the top of his chest in a scroll, from shoulder to shoulder, an homage to their simpler days in the Rangers. A long, silver Roman numeral I cleaved his sternum from the bottom of the neck to the navel. At first glance it looked like the length of a sword blade but Jean-Jacques knew it represented something else, an old quote Pete revered: “Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there. Eighty are just targets. Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior. He will bring the others back.”
Pete had been that one, once upon a time. Before the cythrax bomb, before they became Volunteers, before they become celebrity super-soldiers, Pete had been that one. The warrior. The man who brought others back. He’d lost it, though, somehow, somewhere along the way. He didn’t think he had but Jean-Jacques knew so.
His power had diminished him.
Pete finished the pitcher and threw it against a wall, shattering it to bits, much to the crowd’s delight. Two white girls with little waists and large chests emerged from the mass and settled under his arms.
“What is this?” Jean-Jacques asked the person next to him, a skinny white kid who was dressed like most everyone else in the bar, in a pastel button-down and khakis.
“That’s Justice!” the kid shouted. “Like, the famous soldier dude. From the wars. He just made a movie about capturing that terror chief, you know that? He’s chugged twelve pitchers, what a fucking freak! Better than the circus.”
Something about how the word “freak” inflexed off the kid’s tongue caused Jean-Jacques to punch him in the gut. Not too hard, he thought, though the young man did double over. Jean-Jacques used that word for Pete out of love. It sounded different coming from a nobody citizen.
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