by Tom Abrahams
Louis took a healthy sip of the coffee.
“But it’s also this need for regimented control, like the control we Overseers exert for the sake of the people, that has some dissatisfied,” said Guilfoyle. “These are the people who want power for themselves for the sake of it. They think they can do it better, govern better, provide better, and lead better. They are wrong, of course, and deep down they know it. History teaches us this.”
“If people had governed themselves, we’d have never fallen into this predicament,” Louis said.
Guilfoyle, about to take another sip of his coffee, stopped. He held the cup at his chin and then lowered it to the table. He placed it onto the saucer, spun it such that the cup handle was to his right, and then moved it aside.
“What,” he whispered, but with a hint of derision, “predicament is that, Lieutenant Louis?”
Louis’s expression flattened. His eyes skittered across the room, searching for help he would not find. “Predicament?” he repeated, drawing out each syllable as if it were stuck on the roof of his mouth.
“You said if people had governed themselves, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. I asked, to what predicament are you referring?”
“I don’t think—”
“You used the word predicament,” said Guilfoyle. “It’s an odd choice with a specific meaning.”
Guilfoyle pushed back his chair and stood. He picked up a fork, dragging the tines across the tablecloth as he ambled toward his nephew at the opposite end of the table. “I think—no, I know—people are like hogs in slop. They’re happy in the mud. They snort, they roll around, they consume, they defecate, they procreate. They are smart enough to understand their surroundings yet not intelligent enough to find a way out of the mire. Hogs are fat and complacent. Although they might seek something better, might want something better, they do nothing about it. Ultimately, they are content in the mud.”
He stopped in front of Louis and raised the fork. He pointed it at his nephew, noticing the sheen of sweat beading on his forehead.
“I’ll ask you this, Lieutenant,” said Guilfoyle, flicking the end of the fork up and down as he spoke. “Why don’t hogs walk on their own two feet? Why don’t they set limits on themselves? Why don’t they have a set of laws that is simple and firm and short enough to paint on the side of the barn?”
Louis’s expression tightened with confusion.
“I’ll tell you why,” said Guilfoyle, not waiting for a response. “They don’t do these things because ultimately they know they can’t hack it. Regardless of what they try, they’ll fail. What they need is an overseer. They need someone who will open the pen in the morning and lock them in at night. They need someone to fill the tins with feed and water them.”
Guilfoyle stabbed the fork into the table with such force it stood up straight and pinched the cloth into folds. Louis jumped in his seat, blinking back droplets of sweat. White flecks of dried spit stuck to the corners of his open mouth. Everything he’d said was building to this moment, to this revelation.
“They need someone with the guts and guile to care for them through harvest and Dearth. This is the truth of our world!” Guilfoyle bellowed. “All of us are human. All of us are people who want to survive, and eat, and screw, and sleep, and believe sustenance will always be at the end of a line. But some of us, few of us, will stand on our hind hooves and unlock the gate ourselves. Few of us will leave behind the slop for the farmhouse and do what it takes, whatever it takes, to ensure the piggies stay happy enough not to mess up what we’ve built for them with such care!”
Guilfoyle stood, face reddened, jaw set, until his scowl eased into a smile. He stood up straight and plucked the fork from the table.
“I-I meant the p-predicament of responsibility,” Louis stammered. “If people had governed themselves, they wouldn’t need us as much as they do. It’s a heavy burden for us, for you.”
Guilfoyle studied his nephew for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, his tone different from what it had been seconds earlier. “Forgive me, Louis. I’m so passionate about caring for our citizenry, for providing a stable society the way we have now for over three generations, that sometimes I overreact.”
Louis was holding his breath, or at least it appeared that way. Sweat stained his shirt now and his face was pallid.
“Understand that I always want what’s best for our protectorate. I always want what’s best for our citizenry,” Guilfoyle said. “I allow the Tic to exist because it gives some the sense they have control even though they don’t. That false power keeps them at bay. It keeps them happy in the mud, thinking they have escaped the pen. Those with real power can see this.”
He was conducting now as he spoke. His fork moved in waves to stress his every point.
“But the power we have, that heavy task of real, unadulterated power, comes with it stressors that those in false thrones don’t suffer. Some of those stressors are easily seen, identified, and rooted out. Some of them are more insidious.”
Guilfoyle turned and stared out the window. He ran a hand across the top of his head and then scratched his neck. “Few can empathize with the burden we carry, Louis,” he said without looking at his nephew. “Few know to keep the peace. War is sometimes necessary, however inconsequential that war might be. What’s the saying about an omelet?”
The commander’s glare shifted to Louis’s girth, which hung at his waist and made it impossible for the young man to sit with his legs together. He kept his gaze there for a moment, awaiting an answer. Louis took a napkin from the table and swept it across his brow. Guilfoyle slinked back toward his seat as Theo emerged carrying two bowls of ice cream topped with whipped cream. A bright red cherry adorned the crown of each dollop.
“Ahh,” said Guilfoyle, returning to his seat. “Dessert. Just in time. This looks wonderful. Thank you, Theo.”
Guilfoyle sat and poked the fork into the stemless, sugared cherry on top. He popped it into his mouth and bit down into the fruit’s center. Bright red juice leached between his teeth and threatened to dribble onto his chin before the commander slurped and swallowed.
Chapter Fifteen
Brina didn’t recognize herself. The swelling on her face and the dried blood that crusted her lips and the edges of her nostrils made her look monstrous. Her trembling hand moved toward her plum of a purple eye and stopped short of touching it. Breathing hurt. The relentless throb of her pulse at her temples made her vision waver.
As she sat on the bed looking at herself in the mirror, a lean figure appeared behind her. He stood at the edge of the shadows in her dimly lit room.
The sight of the man startled her. She spun around and a bolt of pain shot through her midsection and she winced. Her muscles tensed against the wave of lingering pain that rolled through her body.
The man stepped closer, seemingly unaffected by her discomfort. He wore reflective sunglasses that hid any hint of expression on his face. His salt-and-pepper beard hugged his angular jawline. His bald head and wiry frame spoke of a man in peak physical condition. Her eyes fell to the bone-handled knife at his hip. He’d told her stories about that knife, about its origin, about its connection to the rise and fall of empires. She thought it hyperbole.
Graham was a man for whom everything was about effect, about inflicting fear and doubt. As much as he’d taught her, she’d never fully trusted him. He liked to read books and, in her experience, people who read books couldn’t be trusted.
His deep voice cut through the room. The sound of it aggravated Brina’s headache.
“How are you?” he asked. “I came to make sure you’re healing up. I need you on your feet.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Nothing stitches and nano-injections can’t help.”
The swelling in her jaw slurred her words together as she worked to enunciate, making her own voice sound alien.
Graham nodded. Clearly, he understood her despite the damage done to her face. He tilted his head to one
side and then the other, popping his neck. He took another step toward her, more into the light now. His hand fell to the knife, his fingers sliding up and down the bone handle.
“You screwed up, and not just a little bit, Brina. This is royal. This is epic. This is—”
“I get it, Graham,” she said, spitting out the words with a venom that surprised even her. “I’m aware of what happened.”
He stepped next to the bed, a mattress set atop simple plywood and cinderblocks. He folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands underneath his biceps to make the muscles appear larger than they were. “Do you though?” he asked.
Graham inched close to her. He stood next to the bed and dipped his chin to look at her over the top of the sunglasses.
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Why did you let her leave?” he asked in a way that suggested to Brina it wasn’t a question.
She glanced past him and noticed there were two other men, enforcers, standing at the door to the room. Neither of them spoke. They stared straight ahead, like marble sentries.
This wasn’t a wellness check. It was an interrogation.
“I didn’t let her leave,” she said. “She jumped me. I didn’t expect it. I’ll admit I let my guard down, but—”
“But nothing,” interrupted Graham. “Three of our men died because of your lowered guard. One here in the compound and two who tried to stop her once she’d found her way to the surface. A team of TMF Marines rescued her.”
“I’ll take care of it,” said Brina. “I always take care of it.”
Graham laughed, a belly laugh that shook his body. He turned to the enforcers at the door.
“Take care of it?” he said. “Take care of it? Not only did you fail to learn anything about the whereabouts of our misguided youth, Ezekiel Watson, until after he was dead,” chided Graham, “you let his girlfriend get the better of you and leave here with the help of the Overseers. Now they know about this location. They’ll be back. What are you going to do to take care of it?”
Brina’s head was pulsing with pain. The tension in her rigid body amplified the sharp discomfort that radiated through her wounded body. She couldn’t defend herself. There was nothing that could mitigate the damage she’d done. Still, she found her anger welling. She didn’t need the tongue-lashing, the admonishment from a man whom, for so long, she’d served without error.
In her experience, leaders shared successes and owned failures. Graham was her superior. He was in charge. She was following orders. His orders. He should take responsibility too.
Brina nodded at him. “I failed,” she said, gritting through the pain and the desire to punch him in the gut. “I didn’t bring you Ezekiel, I didn’t collect actionable intelligence from Adaliah, three of our friends are dead, and our compound cover is blown. All of this is true.”
Graham pushed his glasses up on his nose. He had to know there was a but coming.
“But I’m not the only one responsible,” she said. “You know as well as I do that you gave Ezekiel to the Overseers. You wanted him to pay for Mogilevich’s death, and you didn’t care who did it. You doubled the odds by engaging your people in the TMF.”
Graham bristled. His dimples disappeared.
“Holding Adaliah here after she’d failed to give us anything was reckless,” Brina said. “You were thinking with your junk, Graham, not your head. We should have killed her on day one. We knew what she was. We had our suspicions.”
His jaw tightened.
“We kill people who can’t help us,” she said. “It’s always been that way. The Overseers do it; we do it. It’s the way of the world. You kept Adaliah naked in a cell for…”
Her sentence trailed off. She didn’t need to finish it.
Graham stood silently, watching her from behind the shade of his glasses. Her warped twin reflections stared back her.
“I think we know this debacle is as much your fault as mine,” she said, the venom lacing every word. “Everybody has to answer to somebody. Who do you answer to, Graham? What would he say about what happened here? What has he already said?”
Graham’s posture shifted. His shoulders sank. His chin dropped. His fingers flexed and balled into fists at his sides. He cleared his throat again and removed his sunglasses. “You know I can kill you right here,” he said. “Snap your neck, put a bullet in your brain, strangle you with my bare hands.”
He made a sweeping motion with his hand holding the sunglasses. Light flecked off the reflective lenses. “Any of it, I could do with impunity. Nobody but my men would know what happened. We’d pin it on our good friend Adaliah Bancroft.”
He put the glasses back on, stretching his face to adjust them on his nose. He snapped his fingers. “Like that you’d be another cautionary tale. Your life would be an annotation to the rich history and future of the Aquatic Collective. I could do that.”
Brina didn’t flinch. She did nothing other than stare back at him, expressionless. She knew she held the real power here. He could off her, sure, but to what benefit?
She knew she was more valuable to him alive than she was dead. And they knew it was likely the Overseers would send back their TMF to scour the facility for whatever they could find. They would have to work together.
When she didn’t respond, he smiled again. This one was fake. They were all fake, but this one reeked of condescension and anger boiling beneath the surface.
“What do you propose I do, Brina?” he asked, his tone far less aggressive.
She pushed from the bed and lowered herself onto her feet. She wavered and balanced herself with her fingertips on the bed. Her equilibrium took a moment to right itself, and then she stood flat on the floor.
Brina wasn’t as tall, but her imposing physique made her appear large. Even injured, battered, bruised, and dizzy, she was a warrior, and Graham knew it. “You’re not going to kill me,” she said. “I know that.”
Her words slurred as the blood rushed to her legs. She felt cemented in place. It grounded her.
“Instead, you and I will ready this bunker for an attack,” she said. “We know it’s coming. The TMF won’t be able to resist. That arrogant SOB Archibald won’t be able to help himself. He’ll send Marines here. He might even send little Adaliah as a guide. There’s no doubt she’s working for them. She played Zeke. She played us.”
Graham raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Now we play her. I told you when you first came in here wagging your junk and acting all superior, I can fix it. We can fix it. Those superiors of yours will sing your praises when we decimate a TMF force, take their weapons, gather intelligence, and use them as bargaining tools.”
Graham stared at her from behind his glasses for a moment and then clasped his hands behind his back. He paced the room, his head down. He was clearly mulling over his options, what few there were.
“I like it,” said Graham. “Let’s get to work. We don’t know how long we have to make this happen, and we’ll need reinforcements.”
“I’ve already got an idea,” she said. “And they won’t see it coming.”
Chapter Sixteen
Zeke stood near a collection of low-slung buildings, some of them ramshackle at best, which cast short, slim shadows across the dirt. Together, the buildings shielded the group from the main crowds gathering in the market exchange for this part of the city.
In the back alley, where they stood at the rear of the shacks, the few people milling about on their stoops or readying the carts weren’t paying any attention to the oddly dressed Zeke and his three companions. These people were used to looking the other way, Zeke had explained, but the alley gave them only temporary refuge. They’d have to step clear of its safety to reach their destination, wherever that ultimately was.
“Pull up your bandana,” suggested Phil. He was standing in front of Zeke to one side. His bowler was low on his head. His rifle, identical to Uriel’s, rested on his shoulder. “You don’t want people knowing who you are.�
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Zeke hadn’t realized it had slipped beneath his chin. He raised the leading edge of the bandana over his mouth and nose. The loose knot at the cloth’s back pressed into his neck. He looked from side to side again. When he was satisfied nobody was interested in his appearance, he settled his gaze on his companions.
Uriel held her M27. She stood with her feet shoulder width apart and stretched her neck from side to side. She noticed him watching her and blew him a kiss. Then she scowled. “We have other things to worry about, darling. And aren’t we here to rescue your woman?” The emphasis on the possessive word was dipped in sarcasm.
Phil and Gabe glanced at each other and then at Zeke. Their wry grins matched. Neither of them said anything. Though Gabe, who had his pair of black rattan Escrima sticks in one hand, chuckled and winked at Zeke. The curved steel handle of a knife and its bolster stuck out of his waist at his belly.
Zeke rolled his eyes. “We don’t have long,” he said. “If they knew we were coming, they know we’re here. There are only four exits from the tunnel. I’m kind of surprised reinforcements aren’t already here. And we haven’t seen anything from the Overseers yet. They’re not on the ball.”
Gabe motioned with the sticks past the closest of the one-story shacks. “They are.”
Zeke followed Gabe’s line of sight and saw he was right. A TMF transport parked, smaller than the ones in the Badlands. Three armed Marines stood in front. One of the men was pointing directions.
“They’re splitting up,” said Phil. “How do you want to handle this? Together?”
“I say we split up too,” said Uriel. “I’ll take the big one in the middle. He’s beefy. I like beefy.”
“You’re depraved,” said Gabe.
Uriel batted her eyes. “Deprived,” she countered. “Or maybe a little of both.”
“Where do we need to meet up?” asked Phil.