by Paul Tassi
Mark was weak, but he thrust the blade straight at Crayton’s already bloody chest.
Crayton caught it. He clenched the stained silver blade with his bare hands. Red erupted from his palms and streamed down his forearms. The tip of the blade was just inches from his heart. Mark pushed, but his body felt wrong. He couldn’t feel the pain, but his strength was failing. Axton’s shots had broken something inside him. He could barely breathe, his breaths halted and hissing. Is this what a bullet in the lung feels like? Still, he pushed. The blades cut deeper into Crayton’s hands as the man’s eyes clenched in unspeakable agony. The sword’s tip grazed his skin.
Crayton looked like he was trying to choke out words, but the pain was making it nearly impossible.
“Mark, wait—” was all he could get out.
“You wanted a killer,” Mark said, heaving, trying to remain standing, despite weakness flooding his body. “You got one.”
Mark threw all his armored weight into the blade, and it slipped through Crayton’s mangled hands and sunk straight into his chest. No scream, just a surprised gasp, and then nothing. The malevolent light in his eyes flickered.
He deserved worse. He—
Mark didn’t hear the next blast. Didn’t process the light or the heat. Didn’t see the east wall disintegrate. Didn’t feel the jagged chunk of stone that slammed into his skull.
He only knew darkness.
Finally, relief.
46
AFTER MARK WAS PULLED out of the Pacific, it took him a while to fully process what was happening. There was a boat, then a helicopter, now a military cargo jet that had been turned into an aerial hospital wing.
They’d found him eventually, drifting miles from where the aircraft carrier had burned and sunk to the ocean floor. He’d been shot twice and was hypothermic, and he’d been wrapped in a heated blanket for hours as medics treated his injuries.
“Welcome home, son,” Gideon told him when he was transferred into the plane, wrapping him up in a hug. It was the first physical contact he’d had with a human in years, at least one who wasn’t beating him senseless or carving his skin open with knives.
Mark tried to launch into full debrief mode, but so long as he confirmed Admiral Huang was dead, Gideon said the rest could wait. The Agency brass was celebrating what he’d done, and he’d set up the other Spears to finish the mission. News reached him that a member of the first team of Spears had died in the mountain attack, so Mark was already ahead of the curve. The years-in-the-making plan was working. China was on a knife’s edge, and soon it would be cut into pieces. But Mark didn’t care about any of that now.
“Will they be there?” Mark asked Gideon, who smiled warmly.
“They’ll be there,” Gideon said. “They were put on a plane as soon as we knew you were coming home.”
Dawn was breaking, and Japan came into view at last. Mark wasn’t cold anymore. He wasn’t in pain. This wasn’t a dream. The mission, the nightmare, was over.
It felt like an eternity as the plane dipped lower and lower toward the runway of the island airbase. Mark jolted as the wheels hit, wondering if in one last cruel twist of fate, some horrifying accident could befall his return flight. But the plane coasted toward the hangar and stopped without incident. They wanted to put him on a stretcher, but he refused. He shed his medical gown and the blanket, and Gideon handed him a pair of dress blues. No name, no rank. That would be his legacy, but that was fine by Mark. That was the job.
When the ramp lowered on the rear of the cargo jet, there were no cheering crowds welcoming him home. There were no rows of soldiers to salute him as he exited. The president was not there to shake his hand and tell him job well done.
No one was there. No one but them, and they were the only ones who mattered.
Riko crumbled when she saw him, dropping to a knee and clasping her hand over mouth. Her hair had grown long again, down to her waist, curled at the ends. She wore a blue sundress stamped with white flowers, and was twice as gorgeous as Mark could even remember. He knew how he must look, gaunt and pale and barely able to stumble forward, but they were tears of joy in her eyes, not grief.
Someone else was there too. A little girl in a tiny yellow dress, hiding shyly behind her mother, unsure of what was going on. As Mark ran to embrace Riko, she slid behind her back completely, peeking out, her pigtails blowing gently in the island breeze.
After an extended embrace and dozen kisses, Riko and Mark separated, and Riko drew the toddler out from her hiding place.
“Mark,” she said, her voice breaking. “This is Asami.”
It had been so long. She was so big. Too big. He had missed so much. Three and a half years of her life past already. It seemed like both an instant and an eternity.
“Hello,” Mark said softly, holding out his hand to Asami. She slunk further behind Riko, and started wailing.
“I-I’m sorry,” Riko said, distraught. “I showed her pictures of you every day. We watched videos every night. She can’t stop babbling about you. I don’t—”
Mark didn’t care, he was crying too now. Her cries, her scrunched little face. They were the most beautiful things he could possibly imagine.
“It’s him, Asami!” Riko said, picking her up and setting her on her knee in front of Mark’s face. “Don’t you see? It’s Daddy!”
Asami stopped crying and reached out toward Mark’s face. When she touched his tear-stained skin, she looked a bit shocked, like she’d expected to touch the surface of a flexscreen.
“Asami, what do we say to Daddy every night before bed? You remember, I know you do!”
Asami looked at him with the wonder only a child could possess. Those eyes. His eyes.
“Love you, Dad-dy! See you soon!” she said, her voice a tiny little melody. She finally broke into a smile and threw her arms around his face. She planted a kiss on his forehead and he started shaking, he was sobbing so hard.
Nothing could ever compare to this.
Not anything.
Not ever.
HE WAS HOME. AND he would never leave them again.
EPILOGUE
INT. TRANSCRIPT: MAJOR XIN ZHOU
INTERROGATOR: AGENCY ASSET GIDEON GELLAR
8/22/35 – SESSION FOUR – 01:34 AM
GLASSHAMMER HOLDING SITE [REDACTED]
GELLAR: “Is that the full extent of your testimony, Major?”
ZHOU: “It is exactly what I told Mark. And it should be more than enough for you. Impressive how fast you put my deal together.”
GELLAR: “It was a high priority.”
ZHOU: “Strangely fast, in fact.”
GELLAR: “We’re done here. Guards?”
ZHOU: “You realize you are playing with fire with Mark, I hope. You are going to lose him for good soon, once he finds out.”
GELLAR: [pause] “What exactly are you referring to?”
ZHOU: “While I am grateful you told him I was dead after Oahu, you really sold him on his daughter as well? Where did you even get the remains to falsify that?”
GELLAR: “That incident is not the focus of our discussion here.”
ZHOU: “What, you knew he would chase me back across the ocean to find her?”
GELLAR: “Are you saying you know the whereabouts of Asami Wei?”
ZHOU: “That isn’t her name. Not anymore.”
[inaudible scuffling]
GELLAR: [loudly] “Where is she?”
ZHOU: “They wanted her. The wife was expendable, but they wanted the daughter of the man who could do so much damage to us. Imagine what she could do if given the direction. The right training. The proper motivation.”
GELLAR: “Where—”
ZHOU: “Project Embryo, of course. Fourth generation. She is a prodigy, and I have overseen her development personally. Only eight years old, but you should see her fight.”
GELLAR: “Tell us where the site is.”
ZHOU: “This is not part of the deal. And something tells me, if you did not t
ell Mark then, you will not tell him now. She is ours now.”
SESSION TERMINATED – 01:38 AM
WARNING – CONTAINMENT INCIDENT CODE 43554: DETAINEE AT LARGE
CONSIDER ARMED AND DANGEROUS
11 KIA ON SITE, ASSET GELLAR KIA
PLEASE ADVISE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAUL TASSI decided after years of consuming science fiction through a steady diet of books, movies, TV shows, and video games that he wanted to write his own stories in the genre. Now the author of the Earthborn Trilogy from Talos Press, Paul also writes for Forbes. He lives with his beautiful and supportive wife in Chicago.