Children No More-ARC

by Mark L. Van Name

  "Nagy's on the run!" Lobo's voice boomed in my ear.

  A second later, I saw Nagy round the corner of the barracks, a piece of a tree branch in his hand, screaming, "You killed my parents!"

  I lost a second reacting before I took off to intercept him.

  He raced closer to the exit, yelling as he ran, "I'll kill you!"

  "Nagy, stop!" I yelled.

  He ignored me.

  I was a little bigger and probably faster if we'd both begun from a standing start, but we hadn't. He'd been running when I saw him, and he was still accelerating. He burst through the open doorway when I was still several meters away.

  "No!"

  I glanced to the right and saw the source of the scream: Bony, his much shorter legs stretching as he sprinted toward me.

  I rounded the doorway in time to see Nagy push past Lim and rush toward the troops.

  "No!" I screamed again.

  "No!" Bony echoed from behind me.

  The sound of the shots drowned out everything else. I couldn't tell how many, but it wasn't a large number, and they came in a quick burst. No more followed.

  They'd fired enough, though, to do the job. I burst past Lim in time to see Nagy hitting the ground and, a couple of meters behind him, a woman on the mine-disposal team spinning and falling.

  "Stop!" I screamed. I forced myself to halt as I saw the soldiers take aim at me. I held up my hands. "I'm not armed. I just want to get the boy."

  "No one move!" the sergeant said.

  "You killed him!" Bony screamed. "You killed my brother!"

  I stayed where I was. I glanced over my shoulder: Lim had her arms around Bony and was controlling him.

  Bony screamed and sobbed, his words now unintelligible.

  The woman who'd caught the other round moaned and held her shoulder.

  I faced the soldiers again. I clenched my fists and tightened my jaw as I fought to control the rising anger. When I spoke, the words emerged short and clipped. "Let us take the boy and the woman inside."

  The sergeant stared at Nagy, who still hadn't moved.

  I studied the man's face. He wasn't more than a few years older than Nagy, barely an adult.

  I still wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill all of them.

  The sergeant looked at me again. "He shouldn't have attacked us," he said.

  I stared at the ground and struggled to stay under control. Though the heat of the day was behind us, sweat ran down my arms and back. My eyes burned. I tasted copper and felt my body ready itself for violence. I held up my hands. I could pick up some dirt, spit in it, and instruct the nanomachines to replicate and consume everything human in front of them. I could kill the sergeant and his troops and the men in the surrounding woods. I could destroy them, erase them so it would be as if they'd never existed. They'd shot and killed a boy, and they were helping a man who planned to make the other boys into soldiers again. They deserved to die.

  "Jon," Lobo said, "I assume you know this, but I could wipe out that entire platoon before they could reach the cover of the forest."

  "It's not your fault," I heard Lim whisper to Bony. "It's not your fault."

  I could do all that, I could kill the soldiers, or I could say the word and let Lobo do it, but what would that teach Bony? These men shouldn't have shot Nagy, but did they all deserve to die for doing it? They saw a threat and reacted the way they were trained: They fired. At least part of Nagy knew he should never have charged at armed men in a tense situation. Maybe another part of Nagy had learned what so many veterans, young and old, have burned into their subconscious: The only final relief comes with death. But did he want to die? I'd never be able to ask him.

  What was certain was that the soldiers were wrong. They'd responded entirely out of proportion to what Nagy had done, but did that give me the right do to the same to them?

  No. I wouldn't kill them.

  I looked back up at the sergeant. "He was just an angry kid with a stick," I said. "You didn't need to shoot him."

  "He shouldn't have attacked us," the sergeant repeated.

  I nodded. "You're right: He shouldn't have done that. But you shouldn't have shot him."

  The sergeant stared at me for several seconds. He tilted his head forward momentarily, an instant of acknowledgment, one I knew he wanted me to see and his men to miss.

  It was all he would give me.

  "Let us go back inside," I said.

  "No more attacks," the sergeant said, his voice stronger and his focus clearer. He stared at me and past me at Lim.

  "No more," I said. I turned my head to confirm my statement with Lim. "No more."

  Her eyes were moist and she shook with the effort of controlling herself. When she spoke, her voice was low and angry and hard. "Agreed," she said.

  "Take him, take all of them," the sergeant said. "Go back inside, and stay there." He looked one last time at Nagy and shook his head. He motioned to his men. They backed up slowly, their weapons at the ready.

  I faced Lim and the others. A man and a woman helped the wounded woman to her feet. Lim stared after the soldiers.

  "Take them inside and tend to them," I said.

  She glared at me, her expression furious.

  "Please," I said. "They all need you." I tilted my head toward Nagy. "I'll get him."

  She hugged Bony closer to her and wrapped her arm around his head, covering his ears. "This isn't over," she said.

  "I know." After a few seconds, I added, more to myself than to her, "It never is."

  She nodded and turned to take Bony inside.

  He held his ground, wiped his eyes, and said to me, "You will take care of my brother, make sure he gets his honor?"

  "I will," I said. "It is my honor."

  Bony nodded once and let Lim lead him away.

  I walked over to Nagy as the soldiers marched away and Lim and the others retreated to the complex, the two groups separating from us, from the dead boy and me, as if whatever afflicted us might infect them, too.

  Nagy's lifeless eyes stared unseeing into the sky as his blood continued to drain into the ground. I crouched, put my arms under his shoulders and upper legs, and stood easily; for all his height, he weighed very little, his arms and legs no more than gristle and bone in a thin bag. His blood, still warm, soaked quickly into my left sleeve and onto my arm.

  For a moment, I couldn't move. I stood there, alone on the one stretch of ground cleared of deadly mines, holding a dead boy. I'd known he was in a bad way, and I'd told Schmidt, but had I done enough? If I'd helped him more, might he have stayed inside with the others and remained alive?

  Standing there, Nagy in my arms, I couldn't stop from thinking of all the boys and young men, themselves barely past boyhood, that I'd seen die over the decades and decades and decades since my time on Dump, since my own childhood ended.

  I headed toward the complex. I walked slowly, pausing after each step, not wanting to see anyone else, not yet. Once I stepped inside, all the watching boys would see another of their friends dead; not long after that, all the boys would know of Nagy's death. To Wylak, those boys were disposable, tainted assets that would cost a great deal to integrate into society but very little to return to combat. The economic equations spoke clearly and loudly. Because of them, he wanted to send those same kids back into battle, where they would kill and be killed. Those who survived would be even less fit than they were now for life in a world that no longer needed their services.

  I couldn't let that happen.

  "Lobo," I said over the comm.

  "Yes," he said. Before I could say anything else, he added, "I'm sorry."

  I stared at the dead boy. I had nothing useful to say in response. The best I could do now was to try to stop this from happening to the others.

  To do that, I needed help.

  "Any word from Maggie?" I said.

  Chapter 45

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  "Nothing," Lobo said, "but that's
not surprising. According to the protocol she gave me, the response window opened less than an hour ago."

  Schmidt met me the moment I stepped inside the complex and the door whisked shut behind me. Two medtechs stood beside her.

  "We'll take him now," the nearer one said, his voice barely loud enough for me to hear.

  I held on to the dead boy. "I promised Nagy would get the honor due him." The medtech stepped closer to me and reached for the body. I said, "I promised."

  The medtech retreated.

  Schmidt put her left hand on mine where it gripped the dead boy's shoulder. "We'll honor that promise, Jon," she said, "we all will, with a burial and a ceremony tomorrow afternoon. Right now, though, they need to look after him." She tilted her head toward the barracks where boys stood in clusters and stared at us. She lowered her voice to a whisper as she said, "We don't want to parade a dead body in front of them."

  I scanned the boys and spotted Bony. He and Long were watching from the side, ten meters to my right. The boy clenched and unclenched his fists. The man kept his hand on the boy's shoulder.

  "I'll take Nagy wherever they want him to go," I said.

  Schmidt stared at me for a second. "Follow them to the med facility. Do it quickly. And clean up before you let anyone see you again."

  I glanced at my blood-soaked left hand and nodded. "As soon as I have, I need to talk to Lim."

  "She's a little busy right now."

  "Tell her that I need to see her and continue our previous conversation. She'll understand, and she'll see me."

  "Jon," Schmidt said.

  Before she could continue, I said. "Tell her."

  The medtechs turned and left. I followed them. I didn't wait for Schmidt to respond.

  I ignored Schmidt's order to clean up, so my left arm was still soaked with Nagy's blood when I approached the command cabin. I didn't recognize the guard standing outside, but he clearly knew me, because he stepped out of my way and motioned me inside.

  Lim held up her hand as I entered and continued the conversation she was having over the comm. " . . . an accident, I agree, but a preventable one and a terrible, terrible waste. If your soldiers—"

  I couldn't hear the other party, but the person cut off Lim.

  "I understand they aren't your soldiers per se, Senator," she continued, "but surely as a ranking member of the Tumani government you share my concern for the death of one of your citizens, a minor."

  Another pause, this one longer.

  "Yes, I appreciate that you do, sir," she said, "and I am sorry if I in any way implied that you did not. I look forward to our meeting tomorrow."

  She slammed her fist into the wall beside her. Dust rose and marked the impact.

  "That pompous, lying jerk!" she said. "There's no way those soldiers braced us on their own."

  "You're right," I said. "He's behind it. His people are implementing a new strategy."

  Lim turned her head and for the first time focused on me.

  "What strategy?"

  "They're pinning us in," I said, "initially by blocking the land exits. All for our own good, of course."

  "Initially?"

  I nodded. "If Wylak gets what he wants, they'll launch a fighter over us, escort all of us off-planet, and turn the boys over to the military. None of this is news or particularly surprising."

  "How are you so certain?" she said.

  "I just am," I said.

  She stared at me for a few seconds. "How will he get away with this?"

  "By letting us do the work for him, waiting for people not to notice us, and moving in."

  "So this poor boy's death—"

  "—only made his case stronger." I took a deep breath and fought to keep my voice under control. "Yes. When your weak security left a doorway open and Nagy took advantage of the error to charge those soldiers, he helped demonstrate that you can't control these ex-killers and that someone else should be in charge."

  "That's crap!" she said. "In all the time we've been here, that's the only incident to occur outside these walls."

  I held up my hands to placate her. "I understand. I really do. In this kind of game, though, you know that perception is vital, and a wrong single incident can do a great deal of damage."

  Lim twisted her head a few times and rubbed her eyes. "Of course," she said. "We've been making such good progress with the boys that I hate that he'll be able to make anyone judge us by this one event."

  "So do I," I said, "but I hate even more that this boy is dead. You do remember that part, don't you?" I stepped around the edge of the table and put my left arm on it, right in front of her. The drying blood read as black in the dim light. "Don't become like Wylak. Don't forget this blood, this boy's blood."

  Lim shoved the table away and stood faster than I would have thought possible. "Don't you lecture me, Jon Moore, on remembering blood. I remember all of it, all the young dead bodies we've seen. You should know better."

  I shook my head. "I do. I do. I'm just so damned frustrated, and for a moment there you sounded like him."

  "It comes with this job," she said. "If I don't think about all the other boys, the hundreds and hundreds who are still alive, I'll screw up, and Wylak will send them back to fight."

  "Of course."

  "Speaking of them," she said, "you told me before you were working on a plan to help combat Wylak and his tactics—and, I assume, to stop him from taking control of the boys."

  "I am," I said.

  "So are you going to tell me about it now?" she said. "My team and I can't help if we don't know what's going on."

  But you can't hurt, either, I thought but did not say. I had only the vague outline of an idea, but even with only that little bit clear to me, I knew that I couldn't afford for Lim or anyone else to behave differently.

  "No," I said. "Not now."

  Lim smacked the wall again. "Why not?"

  "I'll explain later, if need be, but not now. Not now."

  We stared at each other for a few seconds. Lim was furious, but she knew better than to believe she could push me into telling her something I wanted to keep private. She had to be searching for a way to persuade me.

  "Maggie is in this system," Lobo said over the comm, "and ready to talk. She's brought Jack."

  Unless someone had intercepted the transmissions and was trying to trick us, Maggie had moved fast, faster than I would have expected possible. Good, because right now we needed speed.

  Perhaps, though, her security wasn't as good as she'd said. Perhaps someone had intercepted the message and was setting a trap.

  "I have to go," I said to Lim. "I need some time to clear my head, so I'm heading into Ventura. I'll be back for the service tomorrow afternoon."

  "What?" she said. "You can't leave. Wylak said only supply ships—"

  I was out the door before she finished and never heard the end of her sentence.

  "Lobo," I subvocalized as I headed to him, "do you have a safe house set up?"

  "Of course," he said.

  "Good," I said. "Put on your best supply transport camo. It's time to find out if Maggie is really here or if her protocols weren't as solid as she thought and someone is out to capture us."

  Chapter 46

  Ventura city, planet Tumani

  Lobo's camo made him look so much like one of Lim's supply ships that no one even contacted us as we lifted off and flew toward Ventura. Lobo stayed in character the entire flight, moving slowly and staying low.

  I used the time to study the available data on the safe house Lobo had rented.

  "These are standard advertising specs," I said. "I can't count on their accuracy."

  "Not completely," Lobo said, "but I didn't have a lot of research options. It's not like I could have inspected the inside of the place for you, at least not without completely destroying it."

  Great, he was in a mood.

  "If you were so worried," he continued, "you should have checked it out earlier yourself."


  "You're right, of course," I said. "I'm sorry."

  "It's four minutes on foot from the landing site that Lim's supply ships use," Lobo said. "It's the tallest building in a very low area. It's one of the larger in the neighborhood—big enough that it has a flat roof for small air shuttles—but not the widest, so its height doesn't make it stand out too much. I can reach you in under a minute, hover over the roof, and take you out of there in no time. All the windows and doors are currently sealed. The interior floor plan is complicated, with four different external access points on the first floor. If Wylak or anyone else has hacked our transmissions to Maggie—which I seriously doubt—you'll have many options for escaping safely."

  "And if everything is fine and Maggie shows up with Jack?"

  "They'll think you're overly paranoid," Lobo said, "and shake their heads at the unnecessary time, caution, and cost that went into the meeting." After a couple of seconds, he added, "Not that there's anything newsworthy in such a realization."

  Yeah, he was in a mood, and I saw no point in encouraging it. "Thank you for the thorough preparations. Please drop me at the landing site. I'll call you when I'm in position."

  The building Lobo had rented stood a story taller than either of its neighbors but was, as he'd noted, otherwise unremarkable. A rectangular box with dark brown wood siding over permacrete and regularly spaced activeglass windows, it seemed to be aiming for frontier rustic, but it couldn't pull off the look. Instead, it, like all the buildings on this block, emitted an institutional vibe, as if a government designer were trying to convince neighborhood owners that prisons masquerading as shops wouldn't hurt their resale value. Six structures lined each side of this street. A full third of the dozen sat dark, lifeless, and unoccupied, like headstones for the dying commercial zone.

  I used the rental code to let myself in via a back door after both Lobo and I checked the area and spotted no one. Whoever owned the place had left the counters, tables, chairs, and kitchen of the restaurant that had previously been the first floor's sole tenant. Dust coated everything. I put a microcam high in the corner opposite the door and verified it was transmitting to Lobo.