“A needle pulling thread,” came the Djinni’s dry response.
“Tea?” she responded, feeling suddenly light-headed. “I can probably arrange that. Might be able to mess with the kitchen to get you slightly better meals.”
“What do you want, Vix?” Red asked. “Can’t a man rot in peace?”
She heard a ping from Eight-Ball before she could react to that, and turned her head. Voice analysis suggests deception, Eight said, over his newly installed voice link, and only then did she realize she’d had Red on speaker.
“Overwatch: Internal feed: Red,” she said hastily.
“Goddamn it,” Red muttered. “You’re siccing lie detectors on me now? Really? Have we come to this already?”
“That’s Eight-Ball,” she replied, moving out of the Overwatch room and into the living room. “I’ve been working on him and I forgot I had you on speaker. You’re just in my ear now, Penny Lane.”
“Lovely,” Red answered. “What. Do. You. Want?”
“Honesty,” she replied, without thinking.
“Well, my balls are itching a bit,” Red replied. “Aside from that, I’ve been told I shouldn’t say anything without a lawyer present.”
“And I wanted to know if there was anything I could do for you.” She held her breath.
“Well, now that you mention it, it would appear that I need a lawyer. So…yeah…maybe send me one. Doesn’t even have to be a good one. I hear the case is pretty open and shut.”
“I can do that,” she said as steadily as she could. “Fair warning, Jensen intends to make you his personal attack dog. Like he’s going to make a Program out of you.”
There was a long pause.
“You mean he’s not angling for the chair?” Red asked, his voice dreadfully quiet.
“I have it from the horse’s ass—I mean, mouth.”
“How can he do that?” Red asked. “That kind of sentence can’t possibly be sanctioned by anyone. Not by ECHO, not by the public. Are people not screaming for blood?”
“People are too busy digging foxholes. This is wartime. Of course,” she added, “there’s a hundred ways that I know of to make it look as if you’d been executed, and then you wake up elsewhere. But you know, people are jerks, and they’d probably rather know you were on a leash with a shock collar attached, replaying They Were Expendable every week or so.” She hadn’t meant to say that much. She hadn’t meant to say nearly that much. But…she couldn’t let him sit there without knowing what he was facing. Maybe that would make him fight.
It didn’t.
“Fine,” he said. “Whatever.”
Her heart twisted into a hard, hurting knot. “I’ll get on that lawyer thing,” she said softly. “I don’t think it’ll take long. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Red muttered. “You can stop watching me. I know you’re capturing the feed on this cell’s camera, and I swear it’s like I can feel your eyes on me. Cut it out.”
There was another long pause, and Vickie felt her hands locked on the sides of her chair.
“You got it,” she said finally. “You can still ping me on Overwatch, if you, uh, need anything. I’ve got incoming. Overwatch: Close: Red: Private.”
And then, as if the universe decided to make sure she wasn’t a liar, she heard the alarms in the Overwatch room and scrambled back to her chair. Thank god, it was going to be a long night.
* * *
He had said it in haste, still confused over how to handle her, and had sent her away. Red fought the urge to backpeddle, to take it back and simply spill his guts out to her, when she abruptly excused herself and killed the channel. He sat down on his cot and let his head droop into his waiting hands.
“Summers believed in me,” he muttered. “And she paid for it. But that’s not going to happen to you, Vix. Maybe I can hide from them all, but not with you. So that’s it, then. You get the truth. That’s the only way to handle you.”
He stood up and approached his cell door. On the left, a small touch screen flared to life as he approached. As part of the security system in Top Hold, each cell was equipped with one, responding only to registered handprint scans of on-duty guards and high-ranking officers like Bella and Bulwark. As most cells were insulated from conventional means of communication, they provided personnel a hard-wired means to communicate with the outside. Inmates didn’t have access. Some with special privileges were allowed brief periods of limited functionality, granting them supervised Skype calls, simple word processing or even small windows to watch movies or television. Few inmates had friends in such high places as Red, though. He had never tried to access the panel, but suspected someone had perhaps left him a means to entertain himself while incarcerated here.
Gently, he laid his palm on the cool interface, and was unsurprised when it responded with a gentle ping and full internet access. He ignored the video streaming and teleconference options, and instead opened an email browser.
He exhaled, opened a new message, and began to type on the touchscreen keyboard.
To: Victoria Victrix
From: That Red Bastard
You asked if there was something else you can do for me. There is. You can keep this somewhere safe, and I leave it to you to do with as you think best. I suppose you can consider it a confession, but you know me well enough to realize I just need to get this out there, off my chest, and I suppose there’s no one I trust more to have it than you. It’s more than that, I guess. You might need to know some of this stuff. Hell, you probably deserve to more than anyone, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to thank me for it. More the opposite. But it needs to be said. So get ready, it’s time for some damning truth.
In a perfect world—well, in my perfect world—things would still be chaotic. I know I’m in the minority here. If you’re one of those people who strive for that great secure job with regular cash showers in your ten-acre estate, I’m sorry, I just don’t get you. I can’t think of any place more boring than the common perception of paradise. To have everything you want when you want it, when would you ever feel your blood rushing through your veins with the bit caught in your teeth, riding the razor’s edge with a wind of flames at your back…?
As he typed, he felt his fingers moving faster, trying to keep up with the words that were aching to come out. He paused once, as he struggled to describe how Amethist fell. It still hurt. The rest he scrambled to flesh out, desperate to be rid of it. And after, as he felt a tremendous weight lift from him, he paused again, his finger hovering over the “send” prompt.
“Not yet,” he whispered, finally, and simply saved the message. He backed away from the console, letting it shut down, and sat back down on his bunk.
I got this later. When you read as far as “later,” I suspect you’ll guess how.
INTERLUDE
* * *
Stand and Deliver
Mercedes Lackey
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” said Dominic Verdigris, leaning back in his chair, his hands, for once, not occupied by a keyboard. “It’s simple, really. ECHO has been a thorn in my side all along, but ECHO would not be what it was if it did not have all those pesky metahumans in it. Remove the powers, and poof, no more ECHO. The only people who will have powers will be the ones I spare.”
He frowned, as if he was listening to someone. “Well, of course, I intend to spare some. I need protection from the Thulians, don’t I? But instead of trying to save the world, the only people with powers will be doing the far easier and more important job of saving me.”
Now he directed his gaze at a transparent case on his desk, a long, slender case that held what appeared to be an ancient Chinese sword, and laughed. “Oh no,” he said, waggling a finger at it. “You really do not think I am that stupid, do you? I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole, no matter how invulnerable you claim you can make me.”
He scowled now. “No, you cannot have Khanjar. Because I’
m sleeping with her, that’s why! Then I’d be sleeping with you, and—ugh.” He shook his head. “Now I need brain bleach. No. Absolutely not. Now just listen to me, instead of complaining that you haven’t got someone to possess, and you can congratulate me on my brilliant plan.”
“First, in order to wipe out most of ECHO’s metahumans, I’ll have to get them concentrated in one place, as you so correctly noted. To do that, I just have to have a reason to get them all together. And the most compelling reason possible would be a memorial service for one of the most beloved and iconic members of ECHO alive today!” He laughed in delight, then frowned at the sword. “What, do you think I’m some kind of idiot? It’s going to look completely natural, of course. No one will suspect a thing. And once everyone is assembled for the memorial, I work my magic, and away go all my troubles.”
Verdigris smiled in satisfaction. “Yes, it certainly is a classic strategy.” Then he lost his smile. “Do you think I hadn’t thought of that?” He huffed. “Honestly, you have no concept of who you are talking to, here, and you never did. If you’d paid any attention at all, and had cooperated with me instead of going off half-cocked on your own, I’d have the Seraphym, you’d still have that Chinese wench and we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.”
He listened for a little while longer, and the irritation on his face smoothed out. “That’s more like it. Let me handle this. I’ll keep passing flunkies by you until you find one you like. And remember that the alternative is that I drop you back in the ocean where I found you, so try and produce a little more gratitude.”
He swung his chair around and got up. “I need to check on the results of my tests. You just sit there and…meditate or something.” He laughed. “No need to get up, I’ll just be on my way. Oh wait, you can’t get up. My bad.”
And with that, he left the room.
There might have been an angry, low buzz coming from the sword case.
Then again, it might just have been the air-conditioning system.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
Head of Medusa
Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin
Sometimes the things I can find go quite a long way back. This is one of them.
Valkyria stalked among the buildings near her quarters, avoiding the Thulians and Germans that lived in this quarter. If anyone so much as talked to her, looked at her with anything less than deference, she would have killed them on the spot. Since her return from the destruction of Metis, she could not bear to be around anyone, even Ubermensch. Nothing calmed her, and the increased activity of the Thulians at the behest of the Masters only served to infuriate her further. It all seemed like so much motion and noise, masquerading as action. She fumed. This was intolerable! They had the untermenschen beaten! It was just a matter of time and resources!
Then again…they had had the untermenschen beaten ten, twenty, even thirty years ago. It had always been nothing more than a matter of time and resources. The only time it hadn’t been, had been seventy-five years ago. As she stomped up and down the walkways, she thought back on the past, remembering how she had come to this place of frustration, artifice, and slavery.
* * *
There was a time when Euphemia Reichenbach hadn’t known war. She was a simpler young woman then, and happier. Her country was still in the throes of a painful rebirth, but as a young girl whose father at least had a job as a policeman, that had not affected her as much as others. Numerous sanctions, a Socialist revolution, economic destabilization, lack of jobs and sometimes even food, and the loss of so many young men in the Great War had sent shock waves through Germany that were still being felt. Despite the hardship that seemed to have become an everyday part of life, Euphemia was a happy enough girl. Tall for her age, she was just showing signs of maturity at eleven. Even then, however, it was clear that she was going to be a great beauty. Blonde hair in a tight ponytail down to her midback, electric-blue eyes that were unsettling to some, for their tendency to hold a gaze even after it was impolite to do so, and a sharp intellect rounded her out. An intellect that tended to reduce people around her to simple things: could they be of benefit to her, or could they not? Then again, that was life for many people in those days.
Things began to change, however slowly, in Germany. She read as often as she could, and dreamed of traveling…one day. Everything seemed to boil down to “one day, maybe” for her. Marriage seemed like it was going to be added to that list, since that was what girls did. The prospect didn’t have any appeal for her; her future would constrict, shrivel to a single point of childbirth and rearing, and nothing about that future of Kinder, Küche, Kirche even remotely satisfied her. She had trouble deciding on what she really ought to do with herself after she finished her schooling. Her home own had little to offer, save for mountains, pastures, and not terribly much else. Nothing that could hold her attention, at any rate.
So, when the changes began, she took notice. When she was twelve, she started to see signs of those changes everywhere: in newspapers, new books that were being published, even hearing about these new ideas on the radio. Her countrymen took on a different demeanor, ever so slowly. Her family had more food, and better quality. There were more jobs, more opportunity, particularly for a policeman like her father. One politician, in particular, had begun to stand out from the rest; he was called Adolf Hitler. His Nazi Party seemed to be leading the charge for Germany to regain its former glory.
Her father, already in a position of authority, was recruited into a new force, and with it came new responsibilities and privileges. Euphemia’s father had never struck her as a man who was terribly proud of himself; he wasn’t prone to much emotion at all. He didn’t beat her mother as much as some fathers did their wives, which she was glad for, but that seemed to be the extent of his interaction with his family outside of the evening meal. When he received his new job, however…there was a new spark there. He walked straighter, kept his chin up, looked people in the eye again.
Her father had become a member of the Sturmabteilung—sometimes known as the Brownshirts—as a part of the New Germany. And just before her thirteenth birthday, there came an even bigger change for her father. He quit his job as a policeman, and joined the Schutzstaffel. He had a new uniform, and more authority. And one of the first big changes for Effi was that he urged—no, insisted—that she join an organization too, the Bund Deutscher Mädel, part of the Hitler Jugend. It was what respectable families did, for the Vaterland. And besides, there were no other youth groups to join anymore; they had all been disbanded by law.
Effi—a childhood nickname that she liked much better than her given name—didn’t mind, even though six days out of seven, the things that the girls in the BDM did were boring beyond belief. More “preparation for motherhood,” more Kinder und Küche, although Kirche was more or less absent from the discussions. But there was lots and lots of physical exercise, gymnastics, swimming, hiking. These activities were far more appealing. And she could always escape the homemaking lessons by pleading that she wanted to learn more about the Hitler Jugend movement. Particularly about the Young Martyrs. Oh, how she loved to sing Die Fahne hoch! And she dreamed about a chance to save one of the great and important—half the time her daydreams ended with making an impassioned dying speech as she lay (bloodied, but beautiful!) in the arms of weeping men. The other half ended with her miraculous recovery, and being hailed as a Heroine, a Savior of Germany, and being idolized wherever she went. She would never have to go home to her stodgy little village, or wash so much as a single dish again…she’d see all the great cities: Vienna, Strasbourg, Hamburg, Berlin. She’d see all the things she had only read about in magazines. She imagined herself in places she had only heard about, dressed in fabulous dresses of the sort she only saw in movies…
And, of course, when she wasn’t daydreaming, there were the camping trips, ski trips, and trips to training camps sponsored by the Hitler Jugend. It didn’t take much convincing to get
her parents to allow her to go; her father seemed happy if only because it was one less thing for him to worry about, and her mother didn’t dare argue. And if she wasn’t seeing the big cities she dreamed of, at least she was getting out of her village.
And then, in 1938, at last! She was invited to participate in the Nuremberg Rally! She was to represent the new League of Faith and Beauty in the parades. And it didn’t matter that she was only one of so many nearly identical blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauties who rode on floats or walked in the parades dressed in medieval or peasant costumes. She wore the dress of a Teutonic princess and waved from the pinnacle of a parade float. She felt the eyes of the crowd on her, and it was intoxicating.
It felt like the beginning of something breathtaking.
But for her…it marked the end. No more rallies in Nuremberg after 1938. The new war was on, and all of her effort and concentration was supposed to be on the war. And on her duty to the Fatherland to produce more German children. And it was hinted, oftentimes rather strongly, that one didn’t need to be married to do this. There were…weekend retreats where one would meet and entertain Heroes of the Fatherland. And if things…happened…that resulted in a child, well, so much the better.
But the mere idea of letting some strange man, however much a Hero of the Fatherland he was, put his paws all over her, was revolting. So she always had some excuse not to go to one of those retreats, not even when her own father suggested that “it might be fun.” Perhaps that was why, in 1941, she was selected, along with others of the BDM, to “help” with the morale and organization of the new German colony of Hegewald in the Ukraine. It occurred to her, long after the fact, that perhaps someone had actually intended her to become the “reward” for one of the SS in charge of Hegewald. However, it turned out that fate had a different plan in store for her, in the end.
Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle Page 28