“It is permitted me to tell you a great deal. This is because if you should choose one particular one of those options, you will not retain the memory of what I tell you. That option is, of course, to go back.” She blinked, slowly. “It is in my gift to see the futures. You are important to them. Not absolutely vital, but I See you in many of the ones that lead to…success. As opposed to failure, which for humanity, would be total.” She paused as if thinking. “However, you are not absolutely vital. It will be difficult, but I can find ways and means to replace you. If I must.”
“You mean my value in this world is non-essential,” Bulwark said. “You’re saying I have really nothing to sway my choice to either return or to go on.”
She sighed. “You all really are caught up in hearing what you choose to hear, not what I actually say…No, I did not say that.”
He held up his hand. “No, please, do not misunderstand. I am not assuming a tone of self-deprecation. I’m merely trying to understand the full extent of the ramifications of my choice here. If, as you say, I return, then I may be of use in the trials before us. If I choose not to return, my choice alone will not damn all of humanity. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Just checking,” he said and held his hands behind him, standing at ease. “Please, continue.”
“Should you choose other than return, your options widen. To…well, the universe is yours. To share with Victoria, with others, if you wish. To find incarnation in some other form—’return to the fight’ as it were, elsewhere, elsewhen. The possibilities are infinite.…” She tilted her head to the side, looking curiously alien.
“Wait…” he interrupted, and held up his hand. “Did you just say I could rejoin Victoria?”
She nodded. “If you wish. I can tell you it is her wish. But no individual’s wish is forced on another. Free Will is the Law. She knows this, and accepts it. She also accepts that your choice will not be indicative of your love for her, or lack of it. She does not doubt that.”
He glared at her for a long moment. “She is dead, then,” he said finally.
“Yes. But in your heart, you have known this for a very long time.”
“I am a soldier, ma’am. I needed confirmation.”
“I understand. This is why I told you. In this moment of choosing, you must have all the information you need.” She spread her hands a little. “It is not permitted that I recommend a choice—”
“How did she die?” he asked, interrupting.
The Seraphym sighed, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I cannot tell you,” she said, finally. “That is not permitted either.”
“Not permitted,” he repeated. “Not permitted…”
“No, it is not,” she said. “I am only an Instrument. I am constrained by the…”
And again, Bull cut her off, but this time not with words. She fell silent, genuinely surprised, as his face began to redden, his lips curl back in a snarl and his entire body began to quiver.
With rage.
“Not permitted?” he roared, and a force erupted from him…expanding outward like the force-field of his metahuman power. Where it touched, the garden disintegrated, shattered, as if the flowers, the turf, the trees and bushes, were all made of glass. Where it had passed there was nothing left but dust. But it wasn’t enough. Bulwark reared back and bellowed, releasing all his pent up frustration over Victoria’s sudden and inexplicable disappearance, over the months of fruitless searching that followed, of the careful dance he had performed around the Djinni. The Djinni, who could never be coerced into anything, who had to be handled just so, and what had that gained him? Nothing! The Djinni remained tight-lipped about the whole affair, never once surrendering even a passing thought of the events of that day. Bull continued to roar, his bubble of force and rage ever-expanding in undulating waves of light. He began to manifest fire, which tore from him to consume everything within that expanding space. The field shuddered and bellowed out as he gave one final dreadful push, as if driven by the fires within him, creating a small sun, until there was nothing left of the garden from horizon to horizon.
And even that did not satisfy his anger. In the blink of an eye, the fires contracted to a pinpoint of searing light—then exploded, taking everything, light, fire, all, with them. And then, there was nothing but darkness.
And a voice, her voice. Dry, but a little surprised. “I would describe that as…excessive.”
In the vastness of the void, his consciousness sounded both overwhelming and somehow terribly, insignificantly small. “I didn’t just wreck a common staging area, did I?”
“Only your own.” A light grew in the darkness. It became The Seraphym. Light spread outward from her until she hung in the center of the brightness, fiery wings spread, perfectly balanced in the heart of a sphere of soft, white light. “Would you like it back again? Or do you prefer the dark?”
“A good question,” he answered as he resumed his customarily neutral tone. He figured the Seraphym realized what a rare thing it was for him to externalize any internal conflict. This one was a long time coming, and still he was no closer to the answers he sought, except for one. Vic was dead. The how and the why aside, it was the certainty of her death that had finally sparked what rage he had bottled up over it. And now, she was being offered back to him. His heart leapt at the idea of it. But was he done? With everything? Was it time to rejoin his love?
He considered his choices, and realized there really wasn’t any choice, not for him. There was nothing like destroying an entire plane of existence, even a personal one, to put things in perspective.
I’m sorry, darling, he thought in prayer. Perhaps in time. I hope you understand, but I’m just not done fighting. Not yet.
Seraphym somehow took on an aura of command, that cool impression of certainty he had always received from his best COs. “You are a soldier, Gairdner. In a sense, so am I. I have my orders, there are reasons for them that I am sometimes privileged to know, and you are not. And sometimes, even I am not privileged to know reasons or even information. But I trust that this is for the greatest good. Do you understand?” She waited for his answer.
“Not entirely, no,” he answered. “But it’s my choice, and I choose to go back.”
“That will be permitted,” she said, gravely. “But…” She paused. “Curious. It will be permitted…but not just yet.” The light expanded until it filled everything again. “Do not be concerned. It will be permitted.”
She vanished, leaving him alone, drifting in light.
“And now what?” he asked aloud.
::You might consider rebuilding what you broke,:: rang the words in his mind.
Dare To Be Stupid
Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin
None of us were lying down. Some of us, however, were not content to wait. And some…let’s just say that a restless Red Saviour is a lot like a quarter ton of feral kittens.
Then add Pavel to the mix.
On the other hand, John Murdock and I had managed to penetrate that Thulian Command and Control silo, and we had gotten some intel on another Thulian stronghold right there in Kansas City. Wait too long, and intel goes stale, really quickly. Their C and C had been destroyed; they might decide not to take the chance that their KC hub had been compromised too.
We had to move. And by “we,” I mean CCCP…and yours very truly.
Strange bedfellows. But at least someone was moving.
It was hard not to gloat, just a little. There was so little to gloat over, after all, that finally having something go right felt like a victory. But here was little old Victoria Victrix, absolutely, utterly disregarded by Dominic Verdigris…gleefully piloting the tech that Dominic Verdigris, Super Geeeeeneeeus, had been unable to make work.
’Course, I have magic.…She floated the “magic eyeball” in through the door of the CCCP break-room. None of the occupants noticed. Which was a good thing, since it was supposed to be invisible.
There were only th
ree bodies there at the moment, but as they were three very different sorts of metas, that gave her the opportunity to see if some of the scanning equipment worked. She had to give Verd this much credit; he’d packed a lot into a very small space, and if he’d only been able to work out the anti-grav problem…
Well, good thing he hadn’t.
Subject one: the new gal, Mamona. Well, call-sign Mamona. Which was a nasty little dig on Nat’s part, giving her that call-sign. Cici DuPre was a home-girl from JM’s adopted Atlanta neighborhood who had manifested confusion-psi powers; she interrupted central nervous system signals in her targets. Mamona was Russian for “Mammon” the god of wealth. If there was anything less wealthy than Cici…just one of Nat’s little moments of contempt for the US lifestyle.
Or maybe, just maybe, Nat was showing a rare moment of humor, however cutting it could sometimes be.
Mamona showed up as pretty normal in the scans, except for the eleventy-billion throwing knives she had hidden all over her person. The two big fighting knives, she didn’t bother to hide.
Subject two: call-sign Untermensch. Georgi did not show up “normal” on scan. Vic had to call up extra stuff to get through his near-impervious skin on his hands and forearms. And as she scanned, he suddenly looked fractionally more alert. She wondered if he didn’t have marginal sensitivity to scans that even he wasn’t aware of, maybe an aspect of his healing factor.
Subject three: Sovietski Medved. The Soviet Bear. Oh lordy, lordy, Pavel. There was nothing about Pavel that was normal. In fact, even for a metahuman…he just flat should be dead. Nothing about him should be working. Not the kludged-together, WWII-era prosthetics; “height of Soviet engineering,” as he said. Not the gods-only-knew-what-it-was power source he had instead of a heart. Nothing. Pavel should flat out be dead—either from extreme age or his ramshackle mechanical body—and all her computer-assisted semi-AI was insisting that none of what it saw should be real, working, functional, or in this space-time continuum at all. And somehow, he wasn’t dead.
Might as well drop some eaves while I’m here.
As usual, Pavel was eating and drinking—Chef Oh Boy canned ravioli, and rotgut vodka, which were the only two things he ever seemed to eat and drink. Although she’d heard rumors about a small scandal involving Pavel and the International Waffle House. He had monopolized the TV remote, allegedly watching Mayberry RFD reruns. American television was utterly entrancing for him; particularly older cop dramas and soap operas.
“Ah dunno how y’all can watch that crap,” Mamona said in disgust. She was busy sharpening all of her various blades in turn, inspecting each one carefully before moving on to the next. Whenever asked about it by one of the other comrades, she always replied, “They’re never sharp enough,” followed by a smile that seemed to reflect a joke only she knew the punch-line to.
“I am not knowink how he can eat that crap,” Unter replied.
“Easy, tovarischi,” said Pavel, holding up a spoon. “You are to use a utensil and eyes!” He shifted on the lumpy couch. “And to be sitting. Usually helps.”
The intercom crackled to life. “Comrades Mamona, Untermensch and…Pavel to office, spasibo. Davay, am not wastink time with dally dilly.”
“Commissar calls, comrades.” Pavel hefted himself from the couch, metal joints squeaking and straining with the effort. “Georgi, you go first. You are sturdy enough to take statue to head, da?”
“And you are to be puttink toys away and reportink in person, Comrade,” came the unexpected addition on the CCCP Commissar channel in Vickie’s ear. “I am insistink on seeing eyes of my Comrades in briefink.”
Crap. How did she know I had an eye out? Nat knew about the eyes, of course; some were going with this team out to JM. But how had she detected one active? “Coming, Commissar,” she replied, and gave the AI the command to bring the eye back to a homing cradle. Good thing I have an apport landing pad in their HQ. Not that she actually wanted to be there…Djinni and Bella she was barely comfortable with. Bulwark, maybe. Anyone else ranged from nervous-making to terrifying, with the Commissar pegging the scale at I am about to have a meltdown, right here, right now. Oh well.
She paused long enough to gulp down her anti-anxiety meds, then shuffled with resignation to her magic room.
* * *
On a scale of one to meltdown, I think Untermensch is up there with Nat for who burns me out the most. Vickie did her level best to shrink into the corner of the room. The three comrades all stood in a very loose approximation of “at ease,” especially Pavel. The CCCP had discipline in plenty when it came to important matters and fighting, but in private they often tended to be at a sort of “relaxed tension” when dealing with each other. It was very strange, and far different from what was the norm in ECHO.
“Comrades, I am now briefing three of you on operation in—” she glanced at Vickie, ever so marginally.
“Kansas City,” Vickie queued the Commissar’s channel and whispered into her own mic, taking the hint.
“—Kansas City,” Natalya continued smoothly. “Intel provided us by decoded information placed Command and Control center for Thulians in decommissioned missile silo on outskirts.”
“Is being…reliable, Commissar?” Untermensch subtly glanced at Victoria before locking his eyes on Natalya.
“Not only reliable, successful,” the Commissar said with a smirk of satisfaction. “Comrade John Murdock infiltrated on solo recon.” Unter cocked an eyebrow, the only hint of emotion he showed. “Center was being deactivated, but we reached it in time to retrieve more excellent intelligence. This intelligence places a probable Thulian dispersion unit within Kansas City. I am sending you as backup to comrade Murdock.”
Pavel piped up, raising a hand. “Who shall to be the team leader, Commissar?” He puffed his chest out as much as he could. “I accept this honor—”
“Shto?” Red Saviour said, looking incredulous. “Comrade Murdock is team leader. Comrade Untermensch is second. You…are to be distraction. No one will suspect covert team of beink covert that has you on it.”
Mamona smothered a giggle with both hands. Georgi and Pavel shared a look.
“To continue.” Red Saviour gave Mamona a glare. “You will to beink use Overwatch. Georgi, Pavel, I know you are familiar. Comrade Mamona is not. Comrade Victrix will beink see to this. Plan must remain fluid. Ideally, you will discover if intel is correct, infil, collect intelligence, and exfil.” She sighed gustily. “However, with Comrade Medved on team, plans seldom go according to…plan.”
Georgi was the first to pipe up. “Transportation to site, Commissar?”
“Comrade Victrix?”
Vickie took a shaken breath as the eyes of all four focused on her like searchlights. “Already arranged, Commissar. ECHO cargo plane, regularly scheduled. You are not listed as CCCP. You are ECHO Support-Ops in the commissary unit. When you arrive, your cover will be as a fencing team from Vladivostok University.”
“Fencing, comrade?” Pavel leaned forward. “I am having many accomplishments in this field, from my time—”
“Your time sticking fork into blinis, Old Bear?” Unter elbowed Pavel in his metal ribs.
Mamona giggled again. “Ah dunno, he’s pretty quick at gettin’ the last ravioli outta the can. Gotta watch them suckers, they’s slippery.”
“Da, da, enough.” The Commissar cut them short. “Comrade tells me fencing is strange enough no Amerikanski will be able to ask you questions or ask for demonstration, but Amerikanski Olympic team did well enough they know is sport. And they know Russians are best in world, naturally. Is good cover.”
Unter straightened up. “When do we leave, Commissar?”
“As soon as you and I are finished speaking.” She eyeballed Mamona and Pavel. “You and you, go, make preparations.” She glared at Vickie. “You stay.” Georgi stood his ground, unmentioned but understanding the Commissar’s meaning. Pavel, completely oblivious to the snub, slapped Mamona’s arm and merrily escorted her o
ut. Perhaps he was under the impression that he was supposed to keep an eye on her for the Commissar. Vickie made her spine as one with the corner.
Georgi stepped forward. “Commissar, might I be speaking without reservation on this?” His eyes shifted to Victoria for a split second.
“Daughter of Rasputin has our confidence,” the Commissar said firmly. “We will speak on this later. There is much you need to know.”
He nodded. “Da. But is Murdock ready for this? He is still fresh comrade, and—”
Now it was Red Saviour’s turn to glance at Vickie, not with a glare, but a lifted eyebrow and a little nod at the stack of papers Vickie had given her earlier. Vickie didn’t take long to think about it. If there were three people in all of CCCP that Natalya trusted above all others, they were Mojiotok, Soviette, and Untermensch. She nodded fractionally. Red Saviour handed over the stack to Georgi.
Oh…my god. She just asked me for permission to hand over intel…
Unter took several long minutes to read through the papers, flipping the pages and occasionally grunting or nodding. When he was finished, he set the stack upon the Commissar’s desk. “Da. Will suffice.” His face betrayed nothing, at that moment.
“Now, davay. Comrade Victrix, brief Mamona on Overwatch. Georgi…” She sighed, then made a shooing motion. “Be to herding cats.”
* * *
The glory of the floating eye was that Vickie wasn’t restricted to any one—potentially obscured—viewpoint. And she could double-check the stowage while Georgi wrestled his “cats” into their seats. She didn’t miss any of the dialogue though.
“Just cause we’re supposed to be commissary crew, that don’t mean ya get t’ inspect all the food crates, Pavel,” Mamona scolded Soviet Bear. “I promise you, they ain’t got any ravioli in there.” And she added under her breath “Cause they actually got taste buds.”
“Your logic does not follow, tovarisch. Comrade Chef Oh-Boy is bolshoi cook, nyet?”
“Nyet, is being correct, Pavel,” Untermensch growled. “But if will make you feel better…” He paused. Vickie blinked, as she realized he was waiting for her to give him a cue or a reason to get the Bear settled into his seat.
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC Page 6