by Rod Walker
“But the Dark doesn’t work that way,” said Vance. “They don’t target people individually.”
“Guy’s just paranoid,” said Rigger.
“Wait,” I said. “But if he requested Listeners, then that means he knows about us and how we work.” I looked at Major Randolph. “Should he know that, sir?”
“It’s possible,” said Randolph. “The Listeners were a secret before Invasion Day, but we’ve been operating openly since the war started. Thousands of Division soldiers have seen us in action, and word of that has been bound to reach the Committee by now.”
“So what if this Committee guy knows about Listeners?” said Vance. “Why send three Listeners to help get him out.”
Randolph frowned. “I’m not in the need-to-know loop, but I understand this individual claimed that he has significant intelligence regarding the Dark, and that General Culver found the claim to be credible. That’s all I know. And that’s all you need to know. Gentlemen, we have our orders and we move out at 0500 tomorrow.”
We rolled out before dawn and headed south into the desert.
For the mission, we had six M200 armored personnel carriers, though these had been beefed up with extra armor, guns, and grenade launchers. The Mormons and Black Division had been building factories like mad near Salt Lake City, and they had been churning out fresh armaments. That was good, because I think the Division had mostly burned through its massive stockpile of original armaments, and replacements were needed.
The deserts of southern Nevada were beautiful an austere sort of way, with lots of scrubland and rocky hills and boulders. When the sun rose to the east and spilled across the land, it looked like someone’s desktop wallpaper picture. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, and soon the temperature began to skyrocket.
The lack of clouds made it easy to spot the plume of smoke from the defector’s convoy.
It was about four and a half hours after we had left the base. Randolph, Rigger, and I were each riding in a separate APC, and we all sensed the presence of Darksiders ahead at the same time. About two seconds after that, Sergeant Hobb got on the channel and reported that the men had spotted a big plume of smoke dead ahead.
“Gasoline smoke, sir,” said Hobb. “Looks like a bunch of vehicles caught fire right next to each other.”
“Like a truck ran into an RPG?” said Vance.
“Yes, sir,” said Hobb. “Saw a lot of that in the old days back in Iraq.”
Vance used one of his favorite curses. “Major Randolph, how many Darksiders?”
“I’d say nine or ten assault drones heading this way,” said Randolph. “Maybe an Overseer. Kane, Rigger?”
“That sounds about right to me, sir,” I said, and Rigger concurred.
“Cakewalk,” said Vance. “All right, boys, let’s greet our unexpected guests.”
Vance and Hobb barked orders over the radio channel, and our M200s arranged themselves for battle. About thirty seconds after we were done, ten assault drones raced towards us, dust rising from their legs as they shot across the desert. The gunners and the grenadiers opened up, and the desert bloomed in fire and fountains of dust as bullets ripped into the dirt and grenades exploded. The reputation of Vance and his company was not overstated. Each one of grenades hit their target and exploded, and the gunners followed up with controlled bursts of automatic fire from the APCs’ machine guns. The grenades didn’t take the assault drones out, but it did weaken their armor enough to permit the bullets to tear through them.
Vance swore. “One of those drones is going to get through the perimeter.”
I was riding in Sergeant Hobb’s APC, but through the cameras I saw Vance pop out of the top of his M200, the tube of an AT-4 on his shoulder. A damaged Overseer staggered towards his vehicle, trying to bring its plasma weapon to bear, and Vance fired a HEAT round into it from about fifty meters away.
That took care of the Overseer. Made a mess, though.
“Targets eliminated!” said Hobb.
“Listeners!” said Vance as he dropped back into his APC. “Report! Any more of them out there? Major Randolph?”
“I don’t think so, Captain,” said Randolph. “Except…”
I frowned. The presence of the Dark had vanished from my senses. I was certain there were no more Darksiders near us.
Except I still sensed something ahead, something I had never encountered before. Randolph was obviously sensing it too.
“Except what? Are all the critters eliminated or not?” snapped Vance. He paused for a half-second. “Sir.”
“Maybe,” said Randolph. “We got all the drones, but there’s something ahead. I don’t know what it is. Rigger, Kane? You ever detect anything like this?”
“No, sir,” I said. “It kind of feels like an Overseer, but I’ve never encountered anything like that.”
“What he said, sir,” grunted Rigger, shaking his head.
“Maybe this defector’s got some new kind of Darksider in a cage with him,” I said.
“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” said Vance. “Not only do we have to haul some mysterious Committee defector back to Castle Base, we’ve got to bring his pet Darksider with him.” He said several more words that most officers seldom used in front of us as the APCs continued their advance towards the plume of smoke.
A moment later, the wrecked convoy came into visual range.
It looked like it had been a fierce battle, and there were a lot of dead men and destroyed Darksiders on the ground. Some two dozen wrecked vehicles were scattered amidst the dead, most of them on fire. The wrecked vehicles were a motley assortment of U.S. Army surplus jeeps and Mexican trucks. Looking at the placement of the bodies, it was apparent what had happened. One convoy had been on its way north, and a second group of vehicles had shown up and attacked the first. In the middle of the firefight, the Dark had shown up and killed them all. Then we had arrived, drawn off the surviving Darksiders, and killed them.
It didn’t look like anyone had survived.
Yet I still had that weird feeling in my head.
“Orders, sir?” said Vance.
“Bring us to the wrecked vehicles,” said Randolph. “Start sweeping the battlefield for any survivors. All the Darksiders are dead, but there might be some GDC survivers. Let them surrender if they can, but if they put up any resistance, shoot them. Corporal Kane, Corporal Rigger, you’re with me. We’re going to check out this anomaly.”
“Sir,” said Vance. “The defector. What’s he look like?”
“No idea,” said Randolph.
“Great,” said Vance.
“He did have a code phrase he would use to identify himself,” said Randolph. “The phrase is ‘for a new global order’.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “That’s not creepy or anything.”
Rigger chuckled at that.
“You heard the major, boys,” said Vance. “Get going.”
The APCs came to a stop, and we got out. The men went to their positions with professional haste, covering each other with weapons at the weather. I located Rigger and then Major Randolph.
“Wait a minute,” said Randolph. “Let Vance’s men do their jobs first.”
I scowled, but nodded. The cold, cruel logic of the matter was that our deaths would hurt the Division more than the deaths of Vance’s men if this went sour, which meant we needed to hang back and let them take the lead. I didn’t like it, and it certainly wasn’t fair, but wars are not won through fairness.
We waited, the smell of smoke and dead men filling my nostrils, along with the alien reek of dead Darksiders. I started to sweat in the harsh glare of the desert sun. Vance’s men moved in orderly groups through the wrecked vehicles, checking for survivors and traps.
“Looks clean so far, sir,” came Vance’s voice over our radios.
“Very good, Captain,” said Randolph. “Kane, Rigger, with me.”
We nodded and followed the major. Or, rather, we followed the sense of the strange presence in ou
r heads. We passed the wrecked APCs and came to a truck that was set back from all the others. The hood had been smashed and the engine wrecked by a grenade hit, but the gas tank hadn’t ruptured and the vehicle hadn’t caught fire. The cab was filled with shrapnel and broken glass, but it looked like the rear of the truck was still intact.
Randolph gestured to us, and I nodded. Rigger would take the right side of the truck, and I would take the left. We would circle around the sides, and then hopefully take off guard whatever was inside.
I circled along the left side of the truck and stopped, my M4 carbine in my hands. After a moment, I glimpsed Rigger and Randolph on the other side, and saw Randolph’s fingers ticking down the seconds. Three, two…
One!
I swung around and leveled my carbine at the interior of the truck, Randolph and Rigger following suit. I expected to see everything from a troop of GDC soldiers to a waiting assault drone.
I did not expect to see what was actually inside the truck.
It was empty save for a single army trunk, and sitting atop the trunk was an old man eating an apple.
He was wearing an armored vest, but beneath that, he wore an expensive suit of gray silk with a white shirt and a bright red tie, and even though he was at least eighty years old and he was sitting in a metal box under the desert sun, he wasn’t sweating at all. He looked at us with bland interest, and my first thought was that he kind of looked like an emaciated chipmunk. He had deep jowls on his face, but despite that he was lean, almost withered-looking. A shock of hair like snow topped his wrinkled head, and his eyes were a vivid shade of green that looked out of place on that ancient face.
And if my Listener’s senses were correct, he was of the Dark.
He felt like…I wasn’t sure what it was. One second he felt like an Overseer, and the next it was the same kind of pressure as a transductor crystal. I looked at the ceiling of the truck, half-expecting to see a scout drone hanging up there, but there was nothing. Save for the old man, his trunk, and the apple he was eating, the truck was empty.
I looked at Randolph and Rigger, and saw my confusion shared there.
“Hello,” said the old man. “Are you young men from Black Division and General Culver?”
His accent was…odd. His English was perfect, but he didn’t always put the emphasis on the right syllable or the right vowel. It gave the impression of a man who had learned to speak English fluently from a book before meeting any actual English speakers.
Something started scratching at the back of my mind. I had seen this man somewhere before, I was sure of it. Was he a Silicon Valley billionaire? He didn’t look or sound Mexican.
“Identify yourself,” said Randolph.
The old man smiled. “For a new global order.”
I looked at Randolph as the old man took another bite of his apple.
“I believe that was the phrase I agreed on with the General during our communications,” said the old man.
“Yes,” said Randolph.
“Your timing was excellent,” said the old man. “Those idiots in the Committee sent their own men to dispose of my escort, which was just as well, since I didn’t trust them. Then the Dark fell on us while they fought it out.” He sighed. “Ah, isn’t that a metaphor for humanity? Fortunately, you finished off the Darksiders before they could get to me.”
The sense of familiarity sharpened. I was sure I had seen this man’s picture somewhere before, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“Those are our orders,” said Randolph. “We are to escort you to Castle Base and General Culver.”
“Splendid,” said the old man. He stood up easily. “All three of you are Listeners? Yes, good. That will make things easier.”
“Listeners?” said Randolph. “You know about us?”
“Young man,” said the old man, “there are two things in this world I know more about than anyone else. One is the Dark. The other is the Listeners.” He considered us for a moment, and then he smiled. It was an unsettling expression. Like his English, his smile was like he was doing an impression of something he had read about and never seen. “Do you know who I am, by the way?”
Randolph gave a slow nod. “Yes.”
“Who?” said Rigger, scowling.
“My name,” said the old man, “is Mikhail Gregor.”
I blinked, and the recollection hit me. Major Randolph had told me that Mikhail Gregor was the man who had invented, or at least funded, the treatment that made the Listeners possible. I also remembered where I had seen his picture before. He had turned up on a lot of the websites my dad had frequented, and those sites had often claimed that Gregor had his hand in every possible international crime since the fall of the Soviet Union, bought and sold national leaders and legislators, and was involved in a plot to inaugurate a tyrannical one-world government.
And he was standing six feet in front of me.
Rigger repeated one of Vance’s favorite curses.
“Aptly put,” said Gregor. “Will one of you take my trunk? Let’s not keep General Culver waiting.”
Gregor’s presence necessitated a change in our marching order.
The man knew lots and lots of classified information, and Randolph didn’t want him sharing it with the rest of Vance’s men. So Randolph took over one of the APCs, distributing the soldiers to the other vehicles, and Rigger and I followed him inside. The major drove the vehicle himself, while Rigger and I watched the cameras and kept watch for any enemies. If the Dark attacked us here, we were going to be at a disadvantage.
But I did see the danger of Gregor spilling classified information.
Because that man liked to talk.
I suppose billionaires came to love the sound of their own voices because no one was ever brave enough to tell them to shut up.
Unfortunately, Randolph was busy driving the M200, and Rigger mostly communicated with grunts and profanity, which meant the entirety of Mikhail Gregor’s unsettling attention had fallen on me.
“Tell me,” said Gregor. “How did you happen to become a Listener, young man? You look barely eighteen, and the Americans always had such scruples about child soldiers, so I assume some sort of traumatic experience was involved.”
I hesitated. Randolph had told us to answer questions if asked, but not to speak more than necessary. On the other hand, I didn’t feel like spilling my life story to a creepy old billionaire we had found in the desert.
“Hang on,” I said. “Information isn’t free, you know.”
“Ah,” said Gregor. A cynical, approving smile went over his withered face.
“But if you want me to answer questions,” I said, “it’s only fair that you answer some of mind in turn.” From the corner of my eye I saw Randolph nod. That was good. He approved of what I was doing. Of course, Gregor saw the nod as well.
“Very well,” said Gregor. “This seems a reasonable arrangement. How did someone so young become a Listener?”
“My sister and I were attacked by zombies on the road…” I started.
“Zombies?” said Gregor. “Oh. Yes. The slang for converted human drones. Please continue.”
“We were close enough to Castle Base that we made it before I become a zombie,” I said. “They asked if I wanted to risk the treatment, and I said yes. I survived it, and that was that.”
“Your parents must not have approved,” said Gregor.
I shrugged. “The Dark got my dad. My mom…I dunno. They broke up a long time ago and I haven’t heard from her in a long time.”
“I see,” said Gregor. “I can relate. My mother was a harlot.”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“A harlot,” said Gregor. He smiled, but the expression had nothing to do with good humor. “Or if you prefer, a whore. I was from a country in the old Eastern Bloc. My mother worked in an establishment that provided the occupying Soviet soldiers with certain comforts. One day a colonel in one of the predecessor agencies to the KGB visited my mother, and I was the resu
lt. She usually aborted the unwanted consequences of her profession, but she didn’t dare get rid of the colonel’s bastard son. So, she got rid of me in a rather different manner as soon as she dared, and eventually my father arranged for me to take a job with the KGB.”
“Heartwarming,” I said.
“I learned a lot from her,” said Gregor. “The strong do as they please, and the weak cope as they can. She hated my father, but because of his power, she had no choice but to submit to his will. Is that not valuable lesson?” He blinked, and his eyes focused on me again. “Though I am curious. Why were you close enough to Castle Base to receive the treatment?”
“We were going there,” I said. “My dad was a soldier in Black Division. A retired soldier, I mean, and he wanted to go to Castle Base to rejoin the Division.”
“Ah,” said Gregor. “Then your father was a soldier as well? It seems we have much in common, Corporal Kane.”
I didn’t like that thought at all. “Not really.”
“We do now,” said Gregor. “I like that thought. Our fathers were on different sides, yes? Had your father in his prime met my father in his prime, they would have killed each other. Now, though, they would have been brothers in our great war against the Dark.” That idea seemed to please him. “Tell me, do you have any family left?”
“A sister,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him about Maggie. Letting this strange old man anywhere near her did not sit well with me.
“I see, I see,” said Gregor. “Tell me. You have touched a transductor crystal, yes? When you did, did you suffer dreams afterward where the crystal spoke to you in the guise of a family member?”
He leaned forward a little, his eyes unblinking. He seemed to very much want to know the answer. The intensity of his focus was a little unnerving.
I hesitated. “I think that’s classified. You’ll have to ask the General about that.”
“Ah.” Gregor let out a pleased sound and leaned back in his seat. “I see. Yes. I should have known.” He smiled to himself. “I should have known indeed. Well, the truth is only obvious in hindsight, is it not?”