by Lyn Gala
“I never suggested you couldn’t fight it,” Clyde called back as he kept walking.
When Clyde passed John, John said softly, “You’re pissing her off.”
“Yep.”
“She might gut you,” he warned.
Clyde took the warning seriously. The doctors had suggested that the upgrades that made a person stronger and faster tended to screw with the hormones in ways that led to infertility and excess testosterone. Marie could go into a ’roid rage, but if Clyde tried handling her with kid gloves and talking down at her, she would shred him even faster.
So he relied on her curiosity and luck. Clyde got in the back of the SUV, leaving John to handle any complaints about their illegal parking. Sure enough, Marie showed up a few minutes later. She got in the back next to him but didn’t close the door. Clyde raised an eyebrow at her, but she ignored the tacit complaint.
“Tank doesn’t fit in the Army.”
Clyde snorted. “I couldn’t agree more, except for the part where he kinda does.” Clyde had known a dozen men with the same sort of psychological damage and love of menial work. However, that attitude was a little harder to take on someone so young.
“Your guy said he needed downtime. So send him home.”
Clyde took a second to process the stupidity before he answered. “Because he’s burned out fighting bad guys, I should send him home to a place crawling with… oh yes, bad guys.” Clyde might have turned the sarcasm up a little high because she glared at him fiercely.
“Are you always an ass?”
Clyde shrugged. “Pretty much. I’m also a colonel, so I’m not used to having my orders questioned. Private Tankersley is showing signs of excessive psychological stress, and until he has recovered enough to be functional, he will be washing our dishes and keeping our psychiatrist busy. The good doctor gets lonely. No one likes to talk to him, so having Tankersley around is like killing two birds with one stone.”
“We’re his friends.” Marie crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips together in a thin line.
“You’re also ground zero of most of his dysfunction,” Clyde said bluntly. “Now, we need to talk about the problem you have with… what do you call them?”
“Demons.” Marie managed to make that sound insubordinate with just a touch of questioning Clyde’s intelligence for not already knowing it. She did have some skills.
“I’m really not okay using a word with those sorts of religious connotations. These bad guys come from other dimensions or other worlds, right?”
Marie finally pulled the SUV door closed. “Yeah. They do.”
“Did Zhu’s father and your father come from the same world?” Clyde asked curiously. He couldn’t quiet figure out what the aliens were trying to test with these two.
“No. In fact, when I transferred to the school where we all met, Zhu’s father told him that my father was some badass and I was probably his heir, so Zhu should steer clear. They were definitely unfriendly.” She looked toward the front as John got in, and her body coiled as though she expected that this was where the kidnapping would start. Clyde figured she had a few backup plans for that contingency, so he kept his hands visible on his knees. When John turned around in his seat instead of starting the SUV, she relaxed a fraction of an inch, but she was still wound pretty damn tight.
“These bad guys are from different worlds, so we prefer to call them aliens,” Clyde said.
“Seriously?” Her shock and disapproval came through her tone.
“Yep.”
“Aliens? That’s a little—” She twirled her finger at her temple to show how crazy she thought it sounded.
“Alien as in different, not familiar, strange or from another place. It’s better than calling them demons with all the cultural connections to God and Satan. We have an operation in New York already set up. There are two options here. First, we could each work separately and hope we don’t accidentally blow each other up.”
“You mean we would have to hope not to get caught in your crossfire, right? The threats aren’t exactly subtle.”
“I saw the video from you blowing out the wall of a building and almost bringing it down. Trust me, if we’re not coordinating our actions, I’m going to worry just as much about your crossfire.” Clyde figured he had more reason to worry, because he had no way to predict these two. He should be grateful that Private Tankersley was under control, since he seemed to be the one with plans that included spying and major destruction.
“And if we do work together? How are your guys going to handle having half demons in their ranks?”
“We use the term ‘modified humans.’”
Marie raised one very sarcastic eyebrow. She didn’t say anything, just lifted the eyebrow.
“John is one, and we work together fine.” Clyde turned to John. “Don’t we?”
“Yep,” John said. “Is this where I’m supposed to introduce myself if I want to avoid alarming people?”
Clyde rolled his eyes. He never should have asked Major Sadler to teach John social skills. At least if he’d set Lev to do the job, John would be reclusive and antisocial without being vocal about it. “Sure, go ahead.”
“John Doe,” John said.
“Seriously? Did your mother hate you or something?” Marie asked with a laugh.
John shrugged. “She might have. Plenty of the human women were pretty resentful of their pregnancies. Don’t really know if she was one of those.”
Clyde watched as Marie’s expression blanked before the horror set in. Clyde explained, since John wasn’t likely to. “John was raised around aliens. They did a lot of modifications, and we brought him to Earth.”
“Weird planet,” John said, but then he’d said that more than once. Given that his only frame of reference was a slave ship, it was probably true.
“That it is,” Clyde agreed. “But John is a respected member of our team, and he could have another name if he would pick one out. Aliens aren’t big with giving names.”
Marie pulled her hair tie out. “Christ on a pogo stick. At least I had a mother who raised me. How many people were in this dimension of yours?”
John shrugged. “Lots. Most of us didn’t really think about it as being anything bad. I just thought it was normal until the aliens captured Clyde and Lev and they started talking about a place where things were better. Then I helped them escape.”
“He did,” Clyde said, “so you can see that my unit is just fine around modified humans.”
Marie had her attention on John now, and Clyde was a little relieved. She was a very intense woman, and Clyde was painfully aware that she was much stronger than him. “So the humans are all respectful?”
John snorted. “Hell, no.”
“What?” Clyde demanded.
At the same time, Marie gave a “Ha! I knew it.”
“Clyde’s a good man, and most of the people are. A few idiots made comments about me being an alien whore or not being human. I punched them. They stopped.” And that was John’s version of a story.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clyde would not have that sort of prejudice in his unit.
“I didn’t need to.”
Clyde had to tamp down his temper. “Do you remember how you said that you would at least pretend to be in the military and take orders?”
John gave him an amused look. “In the field, sure. This happened in my home. On base. I took care of it, and they haven’t said anything again. Two of them transferred out or retired or something.” John shrugged it off as though it didn’t matter to him, probably because it didn’t. Clyde was definitely going to spend a little time talking at John about military discipline, not that it would matter in the end. John focused on Marie. “Most of the humans don’t care. They just want to fight aliens, and since I can help them do that better than most, the rest doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, it matters,” Clyde said. “What these aliens are doing is a level of shit I never dreamed of when I was a young
man. However, if some of our fighters have a few advantages, that’s a bonus.”
“So you want to recruit me?” Marie asked. Before Clyde could give her the enlistment spiel, she gave a snort of laughter. “Me and the military are not ever going to be simpatico.”
“You could be a contractor, like John. He actually makes a lot of money, and one of these days we’re going to teach him how to spend it like a real boy.”
John held up his middle finger. “I watched that movie. Don’t ever compare me to that stupid little puppet again.”
Marie rolled her eyes. “I can’t decide how much of this is real and how much is you two putting on a show for me. Honestly, the best solution here is for you to leave town.”
“And let you suffer through this alone? Unlikely. In fact I might go so far as to say improbable. Unless I have another world-ending scenario to deal with, which isn’t impossible, I’m here to stay. And even if I get pulled away, the unit will not retreat until we can certify New York is alien-free. So we can work together or stumble around in the dark and try to avoid shooting each other—your choice.”
“That’s not much of a choice,” Marie said slowly.
“Yeah, Byrne, it is. I am one of the best tactical officers in the United States, and I run my own base. I have technical experts, munitions experts, combat specialists, communications specialists. Hell, I have a whole unit assigned to alien technology, although your friend’s talents in bed appear to be distracting the engineering supervisor right now. I even have forensic accountants. This is not the first time that aliens have tried going through the financial markets, although we’ve never seen them use no-compete clauses to blackmail modified humans before. They try something new every day.”
“You have forensic accountants?” Of all the expertise Clyde had offered, she was excited about accountants. Sometimes Clyde wondered if modifying human genetics didn’t have some bizarre side effects.
“Lots of them,” he promised, although by lots he meant two. The base was fairly small. Besides, he had lots of other people with PhDs in computer stuff who could chip in when necessary.
“And if we worked with you, is there any chance you would give Tank an honorable discharge?”
Clyde sighed. Tank talked about these people as though they hated him, but Clyde was starting to think that assumption was based on guilt rather than reality.
“He signed up for the Army. That makes him mine. The fact that he’s sleeping with a man who’s been my teammate for years… that just makes me a little more touchy than usual.”
Surprisingly, Marie actually seemed to relax a little. “That Lev guy does seem to like Tank.”
“Yes, he does. However, even if Dr. Underwood weren’t in the picture, Private Tankersley is better off with us. He’s battle-fatigued and running on the thin edge of sane.”
“Okay, that’s harsh.” Byrne was back to tense lines and hard expressions.
“Having ridden that line myself more than once, I can tell you he can’t handle more fighting without paying more of a psychological price than a man should,” Clyde said without a hint of humor in his voice. Marie must have picked up on the shift, because she frowned and studied him for a long time.
“Is it really that bad?”
“Tankersley’s mental state? Yeah. This alien incursion? Yeah. You have a lot of serious bad going on here, Byrne. I respect the hell out of what your group has managed so far. You’ve handled a superior force, survived difficult losses, and kept fighting. I respect that. I would like a chance to show you what we can accomplish together. However, I’m not going to beg you to come over to my house and play with me. Are you in or out?”
That earned a calculating look from Marie. She was cagey. Clyde could respect that. “And if I want to walk away later?”
“Good for you. I don’t care. It’ll work out better than when John wanted to go native.”
John grinned. “I had fun.”
“It cost eighteen thousand dollars to pay off the damages.”
Marie’s eyes got large, but John’s grin just grew wider. “Mardi Gras,” he said proudly, as if that hadn’t been a complete clusterfuck. Marie looked over at Clyde.
Clyde pointed his finger at her. “If you throw anyone through a plate-glass window, provoked or not, I am not paying for it. I am not bailing you out of jail. I am not talking to the local cops or smoothing things over.”
For some time they sat in silence while Clyde waited for Byrne to make up her mind. Unlike a traditional military officer, she didn’t have reports to consult or junior officers to provide alternatives. So he gave her the only thing he could. Time.
“Is Tank okay?” Marie finally asked. That came from out of the blue. Part of Clyde wanted to point out that Tankersley was his problem. His and Lev’s problem. However, he tried to give her the answer that he would want if a friend was hurting.
“I think so. I hope so. Post-traumatic stress is tricky. He’s going to take some time to recover,” he answered honestly.
“He’s really….” Chewing on her lip, Marie looked about fifteen years old. For the first time, Clyde could see the fears and insecurities beneath her basic competence. “If he hadn’t come to you, would he have been okay?” she asked.
Clyde could almost read her mind. She was realizing she had misjudged the situation and nearly lost another friend. Coming on top of the losses she had already suffered, Clyde felt for her. He also made a mental note to informally introduce her to the headshrinker at Picatinny. For a psychiatrist, he was almost okay, and if anyone could get her to open up, Mac could.
“For a year or two, he would have stumbled through. He would have held it together, particularly if he had to—if the threats were real and imminent,” Clyde said slowly. “And then one day he would have looked at a bottle or at some pills and he would have wanted to take the edge off. But having some relief from all the pressure, it would prove too seductive. And maybe he would have sat on his couch with his gun thinking about all the people he couldn’t save.”
Feeling like he’d just kicked a kitten, Clyde shrugged. “I’d give you a pretty lie if I thought I could, but this is a war. You know the enemy, you have the connections, and you know what the risks are. Therefore, I’m trying to respect you, one old soldier to another not-so-old but experienced soldier. But part of this contract has to be that I can trust you to not make a stupid play. Pushing Tankersley to the point where he’s constantly on edge is not smart. Refusing to work with my unit is also a dumb move. Yeah, most of us aren’t as tough as you, and we might die, but that’s our choice to die protecting our planet. You don’t have the right to suggest we shouldn’t.”
He could see Marie stiffen up. “This is Zhu’s father. This is our mess. I’m pretty sure they’re here because of us, because they want something from us that we aren’t giving them. And I have a really bad feeling about what happens when Mr. Chow decides to bring the hammer down. No one should get caught in the middle of that.”
The woman had better insight than Clyde had expected in a twenty-year-old. The aliens definitely did want something from the kids, considering that they’d invested a lot of time and energy in impersonating demonic fathers. The more common scenario included testing human responses to greed or anger, a few chemicals turned loose on a town to record the reactions, or recording humans during emotionally charged times. The sixties had been a fucking buffet of alien incursions. But in all the years Clyde had been at this, he’d never seen or read about another incursion like this one.
“I’m already in the middle. I’ve been fighting to protect this country and this world since I joined the Army at eighteen, which, might I point out, was a number of years before you were born. Dying in battle is not the worst fate a military officer can face. Standing by and letting civilians die while you protect your own ass, that’s hell. Now, I may play dumb for an audience, but I know more about fighting and winning wars than you’ve ever dreamed of. I’m going to be out there fighting anyway,
but if we don’t work together, I’ll be doing it blind. You have the intel I need to win this battle.”
“You could die,” Marie said softly.
“I might,” Clyde admitted. “It doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to be part of the fight.”
“Tank would be fine if he hadn’t always been trying to get in the middle of my fight.” Byrne spat as if angry, but Clyde suspected there was guilt and worry behind the words.
“Keep telling yourself that, lady. It won’t make it true. Tankersley is the sort that if he’d sat back and done nothing, he would have eaten his gun years ago out of guilt.”
Marie sucked in a surprised breath. It took her a while to answer. “He was my father,” she said softly.
“Yep. I got that.”
Finally Marie gave him a small smile, and the tension in the car eased. “You’re not like most officers I’ve met.”
Clyde shrugged. “You have no idea how true that is. But I’ve been in this game awhile, long enough that the spit polish from boot camp wore off a long time ago. Do you want to see our operations?”
“Are you going to keep secrets?”
“Shit-tons of them,” Clyde agreed.
Maria seemed to think for a second before she shrugged. “Okay. Let’s go see what you’ve found.”
“About time,” John announced from the front as he turned to start the SUV.
“Oh, no. I’m driving!” Clyde protested. Unfortunately John had already started the car.
“Should I be prepared to puke?” Marie looked ready to jump out of the vehicle.
“Worse,” Clyde said as John slowly pulled away from the curb. “He just learned to drive, and he follows all the rules.”
“Hey! Controlling a machine this large is serious. Now shut up so I can concentrate.”
Great. They’d get to the courthouse by nightfall. Maybe. Clyde winced as John stopped to let a car merge from a side street, and the car behind laid on his horn.
“You know we’re going to die, right?” Marie asked.
“Yep,” Clyde agreed. But sometimes a soldier had to suck it up and make the sacrifice for a team member.