Fires of Man

by Dan Levinson

  But now he was leaving her again!

  He couldn’t leave her like this!

  It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t right!

  She knelt on the ground, laid his head in her lap.

  There was a moment of recognition. He smiled at her.

  God, the blood! There was so much blood!

  It spread out around Finn in a crimson pool, staining the bright white-gold sand. Sonja pressed her lips to his forehead, keeping her gaze locked on his. She was unable to look at the horrible wound in his belly, a mangled mess of ragged flesh.

  She felt the breath leave him.

  She watched the spark in his eyes—so earnest, so warm—fade.

  Sonja doubled over, clutching Finn’s head to her chest. Her breath came in short, rapid gasps. “Please,” she moaned. “Please, no. Don’t go. Please, please, please.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her throat constricted like a vise.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, she saw Sergeant Douglass through the haze of grief clouding her vision. “Come away from here,” he said.

  “No,” she said, hugging Finn to her.

  “Nothing you can do for him now,” Douglass said. “Come. Come on, now.”

  “He saved us!” she screamed. “He saved all of us! We can’t just leave him here!”

  “One of the boys will take him,” Douglass said. He gestured to his corporals, who were apprehending the three Calchans that Finn had incapacitated. “I swear. Now, come on, girl! It isn’t safe! Move!” He put a hint of the drill sergeant’s fire into his words.

  Sonja chanced a look around.

  Lights continued to flash on the ridge, the battle still raging.

  She didn’t care. “I don’t want to leave him,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” Douglass began to drag her away.

  “Please,” she begged. “Don’t make me.” She struggled feebly, but the sergeant was too strong.

  Why wouldn’t he let her stay? If she did, maybe Finn would

  wake up!

  Maybe there would be a miracle!

  Maybe . . .

  More sobs racked Sonja, the force of her grief shaking her body.

  Why did he have to be taken away from her? Why?

  There would be no answers, she knew.

  There never were.

  41

  KAY

  The Calchan boy fell beneath Kay’s onslaught. She knew she would kill him. The Calchans had attacked without provocation, and left her no choice. Even so, she hated to take the life of someone so young, someone who reminded her of Nyne.

  Nyne.

  At that moment, in this place of all places, Kay realized she still loved him. Even if he made her angry. Even if he’d left her all alone. She loved him anyway. And she was glad he wasn’t here; she knew that he was safe.

  She summoned up more energy, and struck.

  There was an explosion as Kay’s power hit in tandem with Jensen’s and Zweig’s. Sand shot into the air like a geyser. A nearby Calchan personnel carrier was flipped onto its side.

  When the smoke cleared, the Calchan soldier was gone, obliterated completely. There was nothing left but a sooty, shimmering patch where the sand had turned to glass. Destruction so profound it had erased the boy from existence.

  Kay wondered what the parents would bury. She shivered.

  Across the Calchan line, she saw the rest of Orion’s reinforcements open fire. It hadn’t been long since she and her squad had engaged the enemy, but it felt like hours.

  Just then, she caught sight of a black shape advancing through the air from the north.

  A Calchan helicopter!

  It approached silently. Were they using psionics to mask the noise? She didn’t understand. Why would the Calchans bring a helicopter? It would be far too easy to shoot down, even with someone maintaining a shield.

  The Calchans began to pull back, all effort at an offensive ceasing. The withdrawal was clearly coordinated. Kay watched the Calchan soldiers pile into their remaining transports and muster a full retreat. She set her squad to destroying the vehicles, alongside the rest of the Orion soldiers. A number of the Calchan shields shattered, sending up countless near-invisible dust-like motes that swiftly evaporated. The enemy would not escape.

  Someone leaped from the helicopter.

  Kay had never seen anything like it before in her entire life. The person plummeted through the sky and landed on the desert floor with the sound of thunder. A ring of dirt and sand shot up around him from the impact. Even from a distance, she could see long, dark red hair.

  She felt a staggering flood of psionic power. An immense barrier sprang up, hovering at the edge of sight. Kay couldn’t tell if she saw it with her naked eye, or if her brain simply translated that warping of reality into a visual phenomenon—a ghost of something she couldn’t actually perceive.

  The Orionan attacks collided with the barrier and were repelled. The shield stood fast, protecting the helicopter and a growing clump of Calchan ground forces pouring in from various directions, beating a retreat from other desert outposts.

  Kay brought her squad to a halt, lifted her visor, and grabbed her binoculars.

  Apprehension twisted her insides. She searched for the man who jumped from the helicopter, who she was certain was maintaining the incredible barrier.

  It was Tibe.

  She lowered the binoculars. Her mouth was dry as the desert.

  This could be her chance. Her one and only chance. What was she going to do?

  One, two, three, four, five.

  She had to go. She turned to her squad. “Stay put,” she said.

  “Where you going, Sarge?” Jensen asked.

  “To see my brother.” She snapped down her visor.

  “Sarge, wait,” Maddick shouted.

  Kay ignored him.

  She had been waiting for this moment for twenty years.

  The dunes melted away, a golden blur, as she sped toward Tibe. The wind rushed against her uniform. How long had she spent thinking about what she would do or say in this moment? It all escaped her now; her mind was blank.

  All she knew was that she had to reach him.

  To her right, the sun was breaking past the horizon, a sphere of molten gold. It sent light skittering across the landscape, creating a sinuous sheen that followed the snaking contours of the dunes. Ahead, the Calchans continued their withdrawal, passing behind Tiberian’s barrier. Kay saw a couple of them point at her, but no one made any move to attack. She veered off to the side, then went up and along a nearby rise so she could look down at the retreating soldiers.

  Tiberian stood in a dark blue Calchan uniform, his dreadlocks tied back in a bundle. Though she had seen those pictures, his appearance still managed to shock her.

  What had happened to him?

  Kay stopped and sat astride her bike, wondering what to do. The Orion reinforcements pelted Tiberian’s barrier with firepower, yet still it held.

  How could he be so strong?

  There was a heaviness to the air so close to that barrier; the scent of ozone was thick and cloying. She wanted nothing more than to drive down the slope, weave through the Calchans, and confront her brother directly. But that would be suicide. Yet if she missed this opportunity, she would regret it the rest of her life.

  Kay pulled off her helmet. She used her power to amplify her voice. “Tibe,” she yelled.

  His gaze shot up. For one second his barrier wavered from a lapse in concentration, but then it solidified. Tiberian’s eyes tracked along the nearby landscape and then . . .

  He saw her.

  “Tibe,” she shouted again.

  He waved at her!

  She couldn’t make out his expression at this distance, but she was sure he was smiling.

  She wanted to run to him, catch him in an embrace. Was it really fear of the enemy that kept her at bay? Or was she afraid of something else? Could he really be the same person she knew all those years ago?
The Tiberian she remembered—the one who protected her, who was her savior—couldn’t be the same man as the one complicit in this brazen attack on his homeland, complicit in the slaughter of helpless recruits. Rationally, logically, she knew they were one and the same, but deep in her soul she could not reconcile the two.

  She stood there, heart pounding, frozen still.

  Tiberian waved again, then opened his arms to her. He . . . wanted her to join him!

  Her mind screamed for her to move.

  This was it, the moment she had been waiting for. They could be a family again, she and Tibe. She wanted so badly to go to him, to feel her brother’s arms around her. She felt a girl again, lost, in need of comfort and the strong, reassuring presence of the one man she could count on.

  But something kept her paralyzed.

  She had found a strength in herself, a sense of duty. She had finally begun to discover who she was without her brother. If she went to him, she would give all that up. Such a brazen act would spell the end of her career.

  Would Tibe want her to come with him to Calchis?

  She told herself she would never, ever betray Orion, and yet she was terrified she would for the chance to be at her brother’s side. Would she give up everything for him? Was her sense of self really so shallow? She had spent her entire adult life hoping to find him, but now she had discovered another purpose.

  Could she let that go, let her entire world become Tibe again?

  Below, the last of the Calchans passed behind Tiberian’s barrier. The Orion forces came to a halt at the top of a ridge near Kay. Tiberian kept his sight fixed on Kay as he grabbed onto one of the nearby Calchan carriers and hoisted himself up. He waved one last time.

  She waved back.

  She tried to force back her tears, but the ponderous tides and swells of emotion were too much to bear. Was it grief she felt, or joy? No, it was a feeling so deep that it transcended both, agonizing and exultant, a feeling no words could describe.

  Kay waved until her arm burned and her shoulder seared.

  She waved for every moment they had never had.

  She waved until her brother finally faded into the distance.

  She knew she might never see him again.

  42

  AGENT

  Agent set the final explosive and hit the timer. It beeped, and displayed the countdown. He replaced the grate on the air duct, then stepped down from the chair and slid it back into place behind a nearby desk.

  He had been forced to kill a sentry. Had there been more time, he might have been able to avoid it.

  No matter.

  The body had been easy to dispose of; a surge of power resulted in near-instant cremation. It was one of Agent’s many useful tricks. He had been using his abilities for three decades, and never ceased experimenting.

  He made his way back through the compound. Moreau pointed out nearby guards on his comm. When necessary, he bent the light around himself, rendering him effectively invisible. Other times, stealth sufficed.

  He moved silently through the stark white hallways. While there was something about the clean sterility of the place he could appreciate, he found the bright whiteness jarring. It was as if Orion had tried to ward away shadow with buzzing fluorescents and a coat of paint.

  Life was full of shadows; how did they not see?

  He passed a sun emblazoned on the wall and frowned in distaste. A nation that denied man’s most fundamental nature, man’s darkness, was doomed.

  An intersection loomed before him; left would take him back to the maintenance shaft and his rendezvous point.

  “Bogey incoming on your right,” Moreau’s voice said.

  Agent opened himself to his power. He took in the smallest amount possible that would serve his purpose, making the telltale electromagnetic surge of his ability undetectable to anyone not standing right beside him. He rendered himself invisible, then stepped into the hall, noting the position of the guard.

  He headed down the corridor, ignoring the footfalls behind him. If Cole and Hague’s infiltration had gone nearly as well as his own, the mission was in excellent shape. Virard would be pleased. And when the general was pleased, Agent was pleased.

  He walked up to the engineering room door and paused, waiting for the sentry to turn and move in the other direction. When the guard turned around, the door slid open on its own, no doubt at Moreau’s command.

  Agent slipped inside the engineering room, yanked open the maintenance hatch, and descended into the shaft. It was hot, but he ignored the temperature and made his way back to the rendezvous point.

  Hague was there waiting, arms folded, leaning against the wall. Hague had been given the easiest locations to set his charges, but even so Agent was surprised to see the man had made it back first.

  Cole, meanwhile, had not yet arrived.

  “Status on Cole?” Agent asked Moreau. He turned away and pressed a finger into the ear without the comm to block out the noise of steam and rattling pipes.

  “En route,” Moreau replied.

  “Good,” Agent said.

  He felt a presence behind him. He knew what was going to happen long before he felt the cold, hard gun barrel press against the back of his head.

  “What are you doing?” Agent asked Hague.

  “Exactly what you were gonna do to me,” Hague said. “I ain’t stupid.”

  “Based on your current action,” Agent said, “I beg to differ.”

  “Boss, what’s happening?” Moreau’s voice asked.

  “Nothing of concern,” Agent told her.

  “Fuck you,” Hague said.

  “Why haven’t you pulled the trigger yet?” Agent asked.

  “I feel any psionics from you and I swear I’ll—”

  “You’re afraid,” Agent said. “And you should be. You had one infinitesimally small window to kill me. You missed it. Now, the outcome is already determined.” He let his thoughts fall away, sloughed off like a snake shedding skin.

  The moment, the now, was clear.

  Hague began to squeeze the trigger.

  Agent’s full might flooded into him, a torrent of puissant force. He could hear the sound of the gun’s firing mechanism despite the noises of steam and clanking metal.

  Milliseconds stretched. He had more than enough time.

  He had all the time in the world.

  Agent sent a jolt of power into the gun even as he rolled away from it. The firearm exploded in Hague’s hand. The large man let out a shriek of agony.

  When Agent regained his feet, he saw with grim satisfaction that Hague’s hand was ruined, two fingers missing, the other three ragged and twisted and useless.

  “You are an imbecile,” Agent said, walking to him. “You could have run. I’d have found you eventually, but it would have bought you more time to enjoy your pathetic existence.”

  “Don’t,” Hague whimpered.

  “There was never a way out for you. Even if you had managed to shoot me, you would have been labeled a traitor to your country and hunted down like the rabid dog you are.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hague sniveled. He actually began to cry. How pathetic! “I can do better. Be better! I promise.”

  “What do you do with a rabid dog?” Agent asked him.

  The only response was Hague’s soft sobbing.

  “You put it down.”

  With a final cry of defiance, psionic energy flared in Hague. He threw himself at Agent.

  It was no use.

  Agent’s fingers wrapped around Hague’s throat. Using his one good hand, Hague clawed vainly at Agent’s crushing grip.

  The human body was such a fragile thing.

  Agent gave a sharp twist.

  He was rewarded with a snap as Hague’s vertebrae broke and the spinal cord was ripped from the brain stem.

  Agent released Hague. The man collapsed, dead, a puppet with its strings cut. Agent channeled power into the corpse, stoking heat, and built it to an incinerating blaze from the
inside out. Hague’s body began to glow, then caved in on itself, turning to char.

  Agent wrinkled his nose at the smell. No method was ever perfect.

  Moreau was silent on the comm, though Agent could hear her breathing. It was just as well she had been privy to this; it never hurt to demonstrate the rewards of disloyalty.

  Cole arrived several minutes later.

  “Where’s Hague?” he asked.

  “He won’t be joining us,” Agent said.

  Wisely, Cole said nothing. They headed back to the sewers.

  All that was left was to wait for the fireworks.

  43

  FAITH

  When Faith stepped out of Dunover International Airport, it was raining.

  The soft pattering filled the air, punctuated by the loud roar of engines as nearby planes took off. It felt like years since she had last seen rain; in fact, it had been years. Though a distinctive chill accompanied the spring shower, it was warm compared to the frigid climes of Zenith. Despite everything she had left behind—a dig unfinished, discoveries uncataloged, a site that might never again be seen by scholarly eyes in her lifetime—she realized she was glad to be home.

  Truly home.

  She didn’t have to wait long for her father to arrive. His beaten brown Lourdes sedan wove its way past honking taxis and crazed drivers to come flush up against the curb outside arrivals. A moment later her papa piled out of the car, a loose green buttoned shirt draped over his barrel chest and protruding belly, his dark goatee and receding hair peppered with gray.

  “Mija,” he exclaimed. “Dios mío, it’s so good to see you. Come here, come here.” He wrapped her in a crushing hug, his thick arms clasping her to his chest.

  “Papa, I can’t breathe,” she managed. Though her father had retired from construction years ago to work as a consultant, he had never lost his strength.

  “You’re too skinny,” he said. He squeezed her harder a moment before releasing her. “Your mother, she’ll try and fatten you up. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He grabbed Faith’s suitcases and loaded them into the trunk. Most of her things—books, research, and other odds and ends—were being shipped back to her apartment in Chiron, near Albrecht University. She had brought with her only clothes, a few select volumes, and her laptop computer.