by Myke Cole
At night, Britton sat on the steps to his hooch and looked up at the sky, trying to make sense of the spray of stars that gleamed so much brighter than back in the world he had simply begun thinking of as “home.”
The attacks continued nightly. He became so used to the pattern of arcing flames or low-sweeping clouds that dispensed columns of lightning that he no longer flinched as the sirens wailed or the Apaches leapt airborne, droning over the barricades like angry hornets in search of an assailant already long since melted into the darkness. Once or twice, Britton could make out shadows in the sky and recognized the broad wingspan of Rocs. Other nights, he thought he saw leathern wings of smaller shapes and heard shrill cries he couldn’t identify, but it wouldn’t be long before the antiair systems would open up, funneling twenty-millimeter rounds in a shining white pillar, until the things flew off or were cut to a shrieking mist.
A shape jogged by in the darkness as Britton sat on the steps. He strained his eyes as the shape materialized into Richards.
“Hey,” Britton said nervously. “Where you headed?”
Richards jumped, startled. “Heading to the latrine,”
Britton felt a fool. The man had to piss, so it was not a good time to bother him. But his stomach was in knots. Scylla’s offer had given the idea of the worm added immediacy. If there was another way, he had to use it. Richards could Whisper, Britton had to know if he could help him.
He started to speak, then said nothing.
Richards shifted from one foot to the other.
“Forget it,” Britton said. “It’s nothing. Go drain the vein.”
“Well, now I can’t,” Richards said. “It’ll crawl back up because I’ll be wondering what you were going to say.”
Britton chuckled, grateful for the humor. “I just…we don’t talk much at the OC. I can’t sleep, and I wanted to shoot the breeze. I wanted to know if you’re happy here.” Clumsy, he thought. Don’t be so damned obvious.
Richards’s voice went hard. “I’m very happy here, Keystone. You should be, too.”
Britton was silent. Damn it. You knew he wouldn’t help you. Why did you even risk asking him? You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t tell Fitzy.
Richards’s voice was more sympathetic as he said, “I know the girl pisses you off, and she can be a little overbearing, but she’s young. Cut her some slack. She’s right about one thing, you’ll come around, eventually. This won’t suck like this forever.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. “Yeah,” Britton replied. “You’re right.”
Richards laughed. “I feel like we’ve both grown from this conversation. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to break this romantic moment before I wet myself.”
He jogged on to the latrine while Britton mounted the steps to his hooch, cursing his stupidity. He dozed with cries and explosions of FOB Frontier’s night in his ears, drifting into half sleep. There had been so many explosions, so much screaming in the past months. Such sounds had come to define his life, and Britton didn’t realize how at home he’d come to feel among them.
Therese didn’t come back to the SASS. Salamander didn’t mention the incident with the bear and gave Britton a wide berth. Swift avoided him as well, catching a sharp look from Salamander whenever he appeared as if he would talk to Britton. Britton continued to work closely with Wavesign, his only link to the memory of Therese, but the boy made little improvement even when Britton could convince him to practice his magic. The glimmer of control Wavesign had exhibited during the bear attack didn’t repeat itself, and the young Hydromancer’s magic remained as wild and unpredictable as ever. “Guess it was a one-time thing,” he said, shrugging when Britton complimented him.
Things progressed with Shadow Coven. Pistol shooting was added to the mix, with the Novices firing at targets on the run, employing magic in the process. Targets were mounted on stands in Portcullis’s loading bay, and Britton practiced opening gates, plugging away at them and shutting them in three-second intervals under Fitzy’s critical gaze.
At last they were moved to a practice yard, where they worked in tandem. Britton opened gates on the penned attack dogs at Portcullis that Richards Whispered out from their staging areas, sending them after cloth dummies on wooden posts around the open field.
He improved. He fought Fitzy to a standstill more than once. His control over the gates reached the point where he wondered if he needed the Dampener anymore. If SOC operators had even a fraction of his level of control, then no Selfer could hope to stand against them.
The daily meditation calmed Britton, left him centered. The regular exercise worked out much of his angst over his capture, the losses of the past month. At times he even permitted himself to feel the slightest bit self-satisfied, at home in the Source, feeling his abilities come to fruition, his relationship with Marty and the rest of the Coven deepening. Such times made him angry with himself.
Do not get comfortable, he told himself. This is not your home. If you become a tool of the SOC, then you have made the wrong call. You still have to find a way out of here. You still have to find a way to do good with what you have.
And then one day, as magical control practice was winding down, Therese appeared.
She wandered through the gate with no guards escorting her. She looked pale, her eyes shadowed, her cheeks streaked with tears. She wore blue hospital scrubs, still smeared with a dull rust that could only be dried blood.
Britton ran for her. He heard Salamander start to call to him, then the Pyromancer shut his mouth and let him go.
Britton ran to her and took her elbows as Therese sank into his grip, resting her head on his chest, crying freely.
“What’s wrong? Therese? What did they do to you?”
“Oh, those bastards,” she sobbed. “Those fucking bas-tards.”
“What? What? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “They got me, Oscar. They fucking got me.”
“What do you mean? How did they get you?”
“Where do you think I’ve been these past days? They put me in the cash, Oscar. They’ve had me healing the wounded there. The victims of the Goblin attacks, accidents on the base, the sick. They come in every day.”
Britton was swamped with relief, but paused, unable to understand. “Why is that bad?”
“Because now I have to help them, Oscar. It’s as sure an anchor as the bomb in your heart. They know me. They know I can’t leave those people. They know I have to work for them now.” She rocked against his chest, crying afresh.
Britton held her, patting her back, trying desperately to think of something to say. He had no words. Her argument was so persuasive, so plain. Isn’t this what you’re beginning to feel? he wondered. This sense of purpose? Of control? How could you deny that to her?
“Therese, …”
“Don’t,” she said, pushing away from him. She dried her eyes and smoothed her filthy hospital scrubs. She looked at the knot of enrollees, all staring at her in openmouthed silence. Wavesign’s cloud had coalesced into rain again.
She nodded firmly to Salamander and marched purposefully toward the flagpole. Before Britton realized what she was doing, she hauled it to the top and stood at the position of attention.
Salamander jogged over to stand before her, raised his right hand, and began to speak.
“Yes, yes. I swear, and I will,” she said. “Now get me the hell out of here before I change my mind.”
Salamander nodded and motioned toward the sign-in building. Therese shot Oscar a final look before heading off in that direction.
From all along the fence line to the SASS gate, the applause rang out as the guards expressed their approval for the newest member of their ranks.
Britton’s gut churned as he watched her go. He struggled with the emotion before nailing it down.
Jealousy.
Why? he asked himself. Why would you be jealous of her? She’s with them now. She caved. She joined the other side.
The answe
r came quickly. Because she’s using her magic for good. Because, no matter who she works for, she’s helping people. Therese’s magic heals.
And you, Oscar? What are you doing?
The question hung in his mind, unanswered.
The next morning, Britton left his hooch to head to the SASS, only to find Fitzy waiting for him in the muddy track outside.
“Morning, Novice,” the chief warrant officer said, smil-ing.
“Good morning, sir,” Britton answered slowly.
“How’d you like a day off from the SASS? Your control has made big strides recently, and I was figuring you’d appreciate a break from the daily brainwashing flicks.”
“I’m fine to go, sir.”
“Actually, Novice, I’m not asking. You’ve stirred up a serious fucking hornet’s nest over there, and I figured it would be smart to let it blow over. Also, both you and Prometheus have been making strides in terms of your control, and I’d like to start putting that to the test. That okay by you?” Fitzy leaned in, his grim expression showing it was a rhetorical question.
Shadow Coven assembled in the yard to find it spread with the usual cloth dummies, a disabled Humvee at the far end. More dummies sat inside, a dummy gunner slumped in the ball turret behind the rusted machine-gun mount.
“You’ve done well in your individual exercises. It’s high time you got serious about working as a team. Shadow Coven is the ultimate force multiplier,” Fitzy said. “You will enter the field as four operators and build your own army. Everything on the field is fuel. Every bug, every spark of flame, every enemy you take down.” As Fitzy spoke, Goblin corpses were unloaded from a flatbed electric car, soldiers placing them directly behind each of the target dummies. “Rictus, you see a dummy with a bullet hole in it, you may consider it dead, and the corpse behind it is game on.”
He distributed pistols and magazines. “These are loaded with forty-five-caliber incendiary ammunition. It lacks the tungsten carbide penetrator you are accustomed to hearing about in its larger-caliber cousins but still contains the zirconium powder. The result is a slightly weaker round. But they are pretty much guaranteed to catch anything they hit on fire. Normally, I wouldn’t be too thrilled about a battlefield roaring in flames, but when you’ve got an Elementalist in your ranks, that sort of thing comes in handy.” He shot Downer a wry smile and mounted a small wooden crate that gave him a better view of the field.
“Stage at Portcullis, gate in, and work your way left to right across the target range. By the time you reach the Humvee, I expect you to have the force necessary to destroy it. You have forty-five seconds from jump. Do not draw your sidearms until you are clear of the gate.”
They paused, waiting for further instruction.
“You ladies waiting for Christmas?” Fitzy asked. “Get moving!”
Britton opened the gate on the darkness of Portcullis’s loading bay and closed it once the Coven was safely through. He inhaled the stale air, thick with the smell of motor oil. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, Billy sat drooling, his mother’s pale, elephantine arms draped around his neck. The chain link of the dog pens stood off to the side, empty of animals for now. He gave himself a moment for his eyes to adjust, then met the gazes of each Novice in turn. Truelove’s glasses reflected what little light filtered through the warehouse from the glowing EXIT signs. He looked terrified. Britton put out a hand. “Magic behind the magic,” he said, smiling foolishly.
Downer and Richards smiled, placing their hands on his. Truelove shrugged and put his on top. “Magic behind the magic,” he said, not sounding convinced at all.
“Is there any way in hell we can do this in forty-five seconds?” Richards asked.
“Absolutely not,” Downer answered, smiling.
Truelove sighed. “Fitzy is asshole,” he drawled.
They loosened their pistols in the holsters and checked the safeties. “Okay,” Britton said, his officer’s instinct for command kicking in. “Stay on my six and watch my lead. I don’t know what Fitzy’s got planned for us, but I’m sure it won’t be nice. I’ll be first through the gate. Put your hands on your weapons and come out shooting.”
Truelove looked grateful, Downer sullen. “I’m fine,” she said. He didn’t argue.
The gate sprang open on the yard, and the Coven charged through just as Fitzy tossed a flash-bang in their midst. Britton shielded his eyes and looked away. “Close your eyes!” he shouted as the low boom erupted, throwing Truelove off his feet and sending Downer and Richards scattering. Fitzy doubled over with laughter as Britton aimed his pistol and squeezed off a round, taking the first dummy in the chest and sending a puff of white flame that crawled across the cloth surface, spiraling upward and growing.
Richards turned back, his eyes streaming, and fired three rounds before one found its mark, tearing through the dummy’s neck and starting its own small fire. With his free hand he gestured, and the ground before them boiled. Fitzy grinned and pulled the pin on another flash-bang, tossing it toward Britton. Britton fired again, taking a dummy between the eyes and opening a small gate in midair. The flash-bang passed through and thumped along the logging trail where he’d abandoned the police car before detonating. The gate shut, cutting the boom short.
The boiling ground vomited a throng of black insects, pouring forward on hundreds of tiny legs. They swarmed the next dummy, the white cloth gone black and chitinous beneath their squirming mass, shreds flying.
Downer recovered and swept her arms upward. The flames about the dummies danced, grew and solidified into three man-sized bodies of fire, leaping from their source and racing to the next dummy. They wreathed it in withering fire. Five more elementals jumped from it, making for the Humvee.
“Damn it, Rictus!” Britton shouted. “Get in the game!”
Truelove staggered forward, blinking. He fired a few shots, wild, as Richards and Britton drilled the last remaining dummies and Downer’s elementals set one more aflame to bring the number of elementals to eight. “They’re all dead, damn it!” Britton yelled.
Truelove stretched out his hands. The Goblin corpses behind the posts lurched upright. “The Humvee! Go for the Humvee!” Britton called, advancing on the vehicle.
Richards’s insects swarmed it, sliding their tiny bodies through the seams in the doors. Inside, the dummies began to jerk beneath hundreds of tiny mandibles. The elementals leapt onto the ball turret, incinerating the gunner and pressing fiery limbs against the turret hatch. Britton could see white sparks as the metal ignited under the intense heat. Truelove’s walking corpses shambled with surprising speed to the vehicle’s side, throwing gray shoulders against one quarter panel. They heaved, and the Humvee trembled. Britton saw legs crack and shoulders hang limp as the joints tore loose, but the zombies pushed, faces blank. One looked at him and stuck out a swollen gray tongue. Truelove smiled as the Humvee jerked upward and toppled onto its side, burning brightly, its occupants rent to ribbons.
Britton sent a gate sideways through it, slicing the Humvee down the middle in a coup de grace. The wreck collapsed in a heap as the Coven turned to Fitzy, who stopped his watch with a beep.
“Minute thirty,” he said. “You fail. Keep up like this in a real combat situation, and you’ll be dead before you get to do any stupid show-off moves. Rictus, what the hell was that? You lose a goddamn contact back there?”
Truelove looked at his feet, shrugging. Fitzy boiled in response. “What the hell would you have done if that had been a real grenade? Christ, you’re pathetic.”
Despite Fitzy’s words, Britton flushed with pride. In less than two minutes, they had wiped out a small platoon of enemy and disabled a crew-served vehicle. They had done exactly what Fitzy had instructed—entering alone and finishing with an army.
Fitzy ranted, and Britton turned away. They had done brilliantly. He wasn’t going to listen to any crap.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Fitzy called after him. “You still owe me MAC practice.”
Britton turned back to him, face hard. He holstered his pistol. “MAC, sure. No time like the present.”
Fitzy jumped down off the crate and advanced. “You want a public whooping? That’s fine. You’ve certainly earned it.”
He jabbed at Britton’s nose, and the larger man skipped back lightly, slapping the hand down. Fitzy followed with a sharp kick at Britton’s knee, but Britton was ready and spread his legs apart, letting Fitzy’s boot pass harmlessly between them. He threw a jab of his own. Fitzy jerked his head out of the way, catching Britton’s wrist and twisting it around, bringing his boot up toward Britton’s exposed crotch. Britton took a step, stomping on Fitzy’s ankle, earning a grunt of pain. He wrenched his arm free and pushed hard on the chief warrant officer’s chest, sending him staggering back.
Fitzy paused, his eyes narrowing. He spit, his eyes flicking across the rest of the Coven, standing agape. He looked back at Britton, concentrating. “If that’s the way you want it.” He rushed forward.
Britton caught his right cross in midair and pivoted, swinging Fitzy forward. He opened a gate in front of him, and Fitzy went sprawling into the darkness of Portcullis’s loading bay.
Britton closed the gate and opened another one directly behind Fitzy. He jumped through and spun on one heel as Fitzy turned to face him. He opened another gate behind the chief warrant officer as his boot connected hard with Fitzy’s face, sending him sprawling back through into the practice yard, blood spraying from his mouth.