The Unbelievable Mr Brownstone Omnibus 3

by Michael Anderle

  “I understand, but we don’t need to sit around for almost a week on our thumbs.” Shay turned one of the desk chairs around and dropped into it, then crossed her arms and frowned. “And he hasn’t attacked anywhere else?”

  “There have been a few unfortunate encounters with small groups despite the best efforts of the Oricerans, but no villages or towns have been attacked.”

  James sat up. “If they know where he’s going, they can set up a trap for him.”

  A slightly annoyed look passed over Senator Johnston’s face. “You would think so, but that, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be what’s going to happen. They are more than content to let him come over here and have us deal with him, but to be fair, it’s not like they haven’t tried. The truth is, they just don’t have the personnel to deal with this problem, but we do. We have you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two phones. He handed one to each of them. “I’ve got all the important numbers preprogrammed in there, including the people who will be bringing you your meals.” He nodded at the tv. “Plenty of channels, including barbeque shows and whatnot, and we can get whatever books you might need.”

  “We’re just supposed to wait in here?” Shay asked.

  “That would be optimal. Not saying you can’t walk around, but we ask that you not leave the base, and it’s not exactly a tourist stop. I’ll have some people go over to your house to grab some more clothes for you soon.”

  “It’s fine,” James rumbled. “Not like I’m gonna be able to concentrate on a bunch of other shit in the meantime. What about my dog?”

  “I’ve got an intern taking him to San Diego. Don’t worry, the intern’s sole job is taking care of your dog.” Senator Johnston opened the door. “Your planet thanks you for your assistance, Mr. Brownstone. Your country thanks you, and I personally thank you.” He exited and closed the door behind him.

  Shay furrowed her brow. “Shit. I’m trying to think of a way I can get to my warehouses to get my gear without the government being all up my ass. I don’t care if this a War of the Worlds, I don’t trust them knowing my places.”

  James grinned. “How do you know they don’t already know?”

  “I can still hide when I want to, but I’m not going to be much use if I don’t have at least the Masamune.”

  James’ grin faded. “This is one fight I don’t want you involved in. This isn’t like the government or some of the weird-ass monsters you fight on tomb raids. You’ve seen what I can do, and this asshole is supposed to be a tougher version of me.”

  Shay’s face tightened, and she looked away. “I figured you were going to say that, and Peyton was trying to get me to straight-up run. I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with all the reasons it’s bullshit.”

  “And what have you come up with?”

  Shay shrugged. “Nothing. Unless I kill the Purifier with my first attack, he’ll adapt, and for all we know, all the magic the Oricerans have thrown at him has made him immune to any magical weapons or artifacts I might bring.”

  James reached underneath his shirt and pulled out his amulet. He ran a finger over the inlaid crystals. “It’s all gonna come to how well I use this.”

  “You think you can win?”

  “I think Whispy and I have learned a lot of tricks these last few years, tricks some new bastard fresh from halfway across the galaxy won’t have come up against.” James chuckled. “Fucker won’t know what hit him.” His smile grew, and his heart rate sped up.

  Shay stared at him and shook her head. “Is this the pay-per-view all over again?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You almost seem like you’re looking forward to it.”

  James tucked his amulet back under his shirt. “Maybe Whispy’s not the only one who wants to see how far I can go, but yeah, I’m looking forward to it. This shit has been hanging over me my entire life, and after I got those memories back, I knew this day would come. I’d rather just get it over with now when I can still do something about it than sixty years from now when I might have to bring a walker to the fight.”

  Shay stood and walked over to sit on the side of the bed next to James. “Do you ever question if you’ll win? Not just now. Ever?”

  James frowned as he thought that over. “Sometimes, but not often. When I was fighting those Drow, I thought I might lose. Thought about using the wish even, but the Clown of Doom took care of them. Now I don’t really worry. If it’s my time, it’s my time. Until then, I’m going to beat down any assholes who deserve it and any fuckers who threaten the people I care about, and threatening my planet is threatening the people I care about.”

  Shay smiled. “Well, there’s nothing to do but wait.” A wicked grin followed. “I can think of something we can do to pass the time.”

  “What?”

  Shay winked. “Practice for our honeymoon.”

  Trey paced back and forth in his living room, looking at his phone. “This is some crazy shit. Almost everyone from the agency has checked in with either me or Maria. Only a few people who haven’t, a few of the newer guys, but they’re on their way. A few of them ended up taking the portals. Got a few in Sacramento, and the rest in San Francisco.”

  Zoe offered him a languid smile from her chair as she caressed the fronds of a glowing orange plant in a pot. It brightened at her touch. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Living with the witch had gotten Trey used to all sorts of weird magical plants. He just thought of them as stationary strange-looking dogs, and it made everything easier.

  “Fine?” Trey asked. “Some crazy-ass magical nuke might go off in Los Angeles, and it’ll be fine? Damn, girl, you and I have very different definitions of what ‘fine’ is.”

  Zoe lifted her hands and rested them in her lap. “I was watching the news. An unexpected number of people elected to use the portals, and not just the ones at the Consulate. They had to bring in more magicals to support them and handle the flow of foot traffic. The evacuation is proceeding even better than they planned. There’s a lot of chaos in the destination cities, but at least people are getting out of Los Angeles.”

  Trey’s phone buzzed and he looked at the message, disappointed when it was another bounty hunter checking in. “Damn it. I can’t believe Nana turned off her phone at a time like this.”

  “Your aunt is handling it, right? Don’t worry.”

  “You’re right. Ain’t nothing to do but wait. You’re not gonna have a problem with Nana and Auntie Charlyce staying with us for a while, are you?”

  Zoe shook her head. “No. I find your relatives pleasant and full of life.”

  Trey snorted. “Yeah, that’s one way to describe them.”

  A few hours later, Trey checked his phone from his recliner. Zoe had already gone to bed. Every agency employee was now accounted for, with two notable exceptions: James and Charlyce.

  The big man had made it clear he was helping with the situation in LA. Trey didn’t understand why and how he was doing that, but he figured James would let him know all the details once the crisis was over.

  That left Charlyce and, by extension, Trey’s grandmother.

  Trey frowned as he stared down at his phone. His aunt had told him she wouldn’t call him until she and Nana Garfield were safe in Vegas since she knew he would be busy dealing with all the check-ins from the other agency employees.

  If I call her now, it might be insulting and shit, but this ain’t exactly a normal situation.

  Trey raised his phone to dial, but just as he did, it came to life with a call from Charlyce.

  Maybe I’ve got me some psychic powers.

  Trey grinned and answered the phone. “Yo, Auntie Charlyce! You get stuck on the road or something? I’ve been up waiting for you and Nana. I’m getting tired.”

  “I can’t find her!” Charlyce wailed.

  16

  “Huh?” Trey asked. “What are you talking about? What do you mean you can’t find Nana?”

  “She called me,
” Charlyce explained. “She told me she had to go grab some things and then check on someone else from church. She said she was going to evacuate on one of the soldier buses because the roads were too crowded, and I couldn’t get to her anyway without getting stuck. She told me she would call me once she got on the bus, but she never called.” She sighed. “So I went to go check her house. The traffic was bad, but she wasn’t there. They had those numbers in the window like they were talking about on the news for the people counts, but the numbers showed she was gone when the soldiers came. I tried calling her, but her phone keeps going to voicemail.”

  Trey took a deep breath and slowly let it out. His heart pounded. He wasn’t going to yell at his aunt in the middle of a massive counties-wide evacuation, but he needed a few things clarified. An old woman shouldn’t be wandering LA in all the chaos.

  Wait one damned second.

  Trey’s grandmother’s words floated into his thoughts.

  No, I want to die in this house.

  “Damn it. I think she’s still in LA,” Trey explained. “I can’t believe this. Of all the times to pull some stubborn stunt!”

  “I don’t understand. What should I do?”

  “Where are you right now?” Trey asked. “And can you drive?”

  Charlyce sighed. “The roads are still pretty jammed up.”

  “Then go find the National Guard or go to one of the portals,” Trey suggested. “Get out of there as soon as possible.”

  There was no way in hell he would risk losing two relatives.

  “I can’t just leave her,” Charlyce complained. “What if something happens? What if the thing blows up?”

  Trey sighed. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle finding her. Remember who my girlfriend is. She’s got a way of finding things and people. It ain’t like Nana knows counter-magic shit, even if she’s hiding out.”

  “I’m sorry, Trey. I should have gone straight to pick her up like you told me.”

  “It ain’t your fault. She tricked you.” Trey stood and frowned. “I told you how she was complaining about not wanting to move, but I ain’t letting her get hurt, even if I have to drag her back. You just get out of LA and leave everything else to me. I’m a bounty hunter. I can find one old woman.”

  Senator Johnston swirled the ice cubes in his glass of whiskey. Drinking while staring down a dangerous alien attack might not be all that professional, but so far Operations Red Weed and Dandelion were both proceeding better than he could have hoped. After decades of service in the government, that was a rare occurrence.

  Brownstone was on board with their plan to engage the Vax, and if the Purifier kept to his current pace, they might actually have a shot of the city being empty if he even bothered to come over to LA. Even though the senator believed the Vax would travel to Earth, he held out a small hope that he wouldn’t.

  It’d be funny if the Purifier walked all that way and disappeared at the end of this back to the hell planet he came from.

  Senator Johnston lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip. They’d set him up in an empty office near the base commander’s. The accommodations were more spartan than he was used to, not that it mattered. He was spending most of his time in conference rooms or on the move making calls. If the government needed their next plan, Operation Gulliver, he wouldn’t even be staying on base.

  Skin in the game. That’s what I keep telling myself—skin in the game. Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll actually believe it, and not feel like the world’s greatest fool for sitting at Ground Zero of an alien invasion.

  Senator Johnston’s desk phone rang. The Caller ID was a bearer of bad news. He picked it up and sighed.

  “Hello, Corey,” Senator Johnston answered.

  “The line is now secure on my end,” the alien replied.

  “Are we going to have another tiresome discussion? We’re handling this our way, and we don’t rightly care what the Alliance thinks about it.”

  Corey chuckled. “So far, we think you’ve done an excellent job of handling things.”

  “Is that so?” Senator Johnston replied.

  “If anything, I’m glad you’re being efficient in your evacuation of Los Angeles. You’ve made a difficult decision far easier, and I wanted to thank you for that. It makes what has to happen next that much easier.”

  The senator shot up, his heart racing. He didn’t like how confident the Shepherd sounded. They already had one overconfident alien on his way to cause trouble. They didn’t need another.

  “Given how much danger the Purifier represents, it wasn’t like we were going to leave millions of potential victims in his path,” Senator Johnston replied. “Just because we don’t agree with the Alliance about handling the situation doesn’t mean we don’t take what you’ve said about the Vax seriously.”

  “Again, that’s good to hear.” Any hint of mirth left Corey’s voice. “I’m calling because what we have to do next is dangerous, and it will fundamentally change the relationship between the Alliance and Earth. However, after consulting my superiors, we’ve decided that since you can’t stop it anyway, it’s better if we tell you. That way you can withdraw any residual forces from the LA area before it’s too late, and we can avoid unnecessary casualties.”

  “What are you talking about, my alien friend?” Senator Johnston’s voice revealed his thinly veiled anger. “Because if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, we’re going to have to go beyond agreeing to disagree.”

  “I know you’ve detected the incoming fleet,” Corey replied. “I should let you know that your telescope facilities have poor security, even by human standards. You might want to change that situation if you’re going to use them to track alien space fleets.”

  Senator Johnston chuckled. “I won’t insult you by pretending not to know what you’re talking about. Yes, we’re aware of your little fleet, but like you said, it’s not like we’re in a position to do much about it at this moment.”

  “I’m glad you’re being reasonable about this. None of us are happy about what must be done, but it’s the best for both Earth and the Alliance in the long run.”

  Senator Johnston took a deep breath. The decisions made in the next few minutes could have ramifications for decades, if not centuries. “If you’re calling to beg forgiveness, you should at least explain exactly what you plan to do.”

  A tense silence passed between them.

  “The Vax are powerful, but they’re not immortal, even when they’re fully adapted,” Corey finally explained. “They can be surprisingly resilient against many weapons, but the reality is they are still individual hosts connected to an advanced but not godlike technology. The application of a sufficient amount of destructive power can end them, even if they’re adapted to it. The important thing is to ensure there is nothing left for regeneration. You’d be surprised how easily a fully prepared Vax can reconstitute itself with relatively little left, as long as the bulk of the symbiont has survived. The Alliance learned that lesson the hard way.”

  Senator Johnston gulped down a huge drink of whiskey and swallowed. “Why don’t we get to the punchline? I want you to spell out clearly what your plan is.”

  “It’s simple. The Vax is powerful, but if we bombard the entire area and turn the land into glass, it won’t survive. If we do it immediately upon its arrival, it won’t be able to escape, hide or somehow elude our attack.”

  “Now wait one damned minute,” Senator Johnston snapped. “We can’t be sure the city will be completely evacuated, let alone our troops.”

  “This is why I’m telling you this now.” There was an edge to Corey’s voice. “Pull out your troops. We can’t wait for you to evacuate. Any civilians left behind will be unfortunate losses, but this is war.”

  Senator Johnston slammed his glass on the desk. “I’ll admit the evacuation is going better than we hoped, and this is the first time a major city’s been evacuated with the aid of such high levels of magic, but that’s not the same thing a
s this city being empty tonight, tomorrow, or even in the next few days. We’re talking a lot of people. There are enough gone that our cover-up plans should work, which I would think you would want, given what you’ve told me about Alliance interactions with the so-called ‘more primitive civilizations.’ If you kill all those people with an orbital bombardment, I think it’ll be kind of hard to explain away.”

  “This is an unusual situation. It’s a matter of galactic security.”

  Senator Johnston’s jaw tightened. “You could at least give us a chance to solve the problem. We have a solution in play.”

  “Would you prefer we wait until the Vax advances to another city? They can be fast when they want to. Are you going to evacuate the entire state?”

  “The bastard’s not that fast. He’s practically meandering over on Oriceran.”

  Corey snorted. “That only means it doesn’t have a reason to move quickly yet, or it’s trying to gain more adaptations prior to the next part of its mission. If we don’t surprise it during its first appearance, we might be forced into a high-mobility situation. I don’t think you want the fleet carving up half of California trying to nail the Purifier, and before you say anything, no, we don’t trust Brownstone to defeat it. His presence in LA only makes our mission more imperative, but if you want to, tell him to withdraw. We’re willing to tolerate that, even if we believe it would be better for your planet and all of ours if he too was destroyed.”

  Senator Johnston laughed. “You’re willing to tolerate that? Let me be very clear about what we’re discussing. Four Alliance military vessels plan to bombard an American city from orbit without the explicit permission of the United States? Is that what you’re telling me, Shepherd? Because it sounds damned outrageous when I say it aloud.”

  “We’re not doing this because we want to. You don’t understand. This is a unique opportunity. We have a general idea where and roughly when a powerful Vax might emerge on a target planet. Generally by the time we’re forced into this sort of position, the Vax have already laid waste to a significant area. If we wait, it will move on to another city, and it’ll happen quicker than you can evacuate it. This is about simple numbers, Senator. Do you want to lose thousands of people, or do you want to lose millions of people? You were elected to help your people, so help them!”