Tap-Dancing the Minefields

by Lyn Gala

  “Marie!” Zhu screamed. But she was gone. The dark water didn’t show a single bubble or ripple. It was as if nothing had happened.

  Tank lay on Zhu’s legs, panting, his heart going a million miles a second and the hard edge of the weapon digging into his side. Marie. They’d lost Marie. Tank felt his lungs moving, yet he couldn’t breathe at all. Hands helped him to his feet; only afterward did he recognize John taking his weapon and pushing him back toward Lev. Aldrich was pointing and shouting as new people came running. Uniforms appeared, and a helicopter over the water created waves.

  Lev pulled on Tank, at first gently and then harder. “Zhu,” Tank said. He couldn’t leave Zhu, who had just lost the woman he loved and his illusion that he understood the world.

  “We’ll bring him. Come on,” Lev said, pulling on Tank again.

  Tank planted his feet and looked at the colonel. Aldrich was on his cell phone. “Sadler, find me a location. We’re missing a man here. Get a grid search, full resources.” Aldrich listened for a second before telling her, “The asshole took Marie. We have to assume a capture, and I want to find her before they pack up and go home.”

  When Aldrich turned and looked at Tank, the fury practically turned his gaze into laser beams of death. Tank expected his flesh to shrivel. But then Aldrich turned to Zhu, who sat on the edge of the dock, staring down at the water.

  “Hey, we’ve gotten people back before. We just need to get you and John out of here before anyone asks too many questions, okay?” Aldrich got a hand under Zhu’s elbow and started to urge him up.

  Zhu pushed him away, and Aldrich nearly went into the water. Luckily John caught him. In a second Zhu was in front of Tank. “Is it true?”

  Tank nodded. Zhu was the smart one in the group, so Tank figured he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of lying to him—and he didn’t want to lie. Zhu deserved to know the truth. “Yeah. All of it.”

  Zhu whirled around and faced off against Aldrich, his chin high. Tank started to get a really bad feeling, because that was Zhu’s stoic look—the one that meant he was gritting his teeth and doing something he hated, like playing the back end of Roger’s AT-AT costume in the fourth grade after Tank got the flu. “What? And now the government makes me disappear because I have alien DNA?” He spat the words at Aldrich.

  Aldrich’s eyebrows went up, and he looked over at John.

  “You’re all human,” John said. “No alien DNA, but a lot of tinkering. I never knew any of them to screw with anything other than strength and reflexes, though. The stuff your woman could do? That’s the sort of change they made to me—but the people from Earth get all cranky about talking about that in public.”

  “They’re the good guys, Zhu,” Tank said softly. “Cross my heart and hope to take Mrs. Johnson’s English class over again.”

  “Maybe we could meet you somewhere later, after we have a chance to look for Marie,” Lev said. “We don’t have time to stand around.”

  “Lev, go,” Aldrich said, “and take Private Tankersley with you.”

  Tank opened his mouth to object, but Lev gave his arm a hard yank and started pulling him toward the SUV. “But… Zhu.” Tank didn’t really have a good reason for staying, but Zhu was his friend, and if Marie was gone, all they had was each other. The Invincible Five, and now they were down to two.

  “The best way to help Zhu is to identify physical locations and send out drones and scouts to find which one they’re using. This was a trap, Tank. The aliens wanted one or both of your friends, and we walked right into it.”

  The taxi Zhu had clearly stolen was still out front, surrounded by cops and yellow tape. Luckily Major Sadler was there to usher them past the police and into the SUV.

  “I don’t get any of it,” Tank said softly as he got in the back.

  “None of us do,” Lev said.

  Major Sadler pulled out too quickly for safety, and a few reporters had to scramble to get out of her way.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  TANK COULDN’T help with technical stuff, so he was stuck watching while Major Sadler, Lev, and their geeky sidekicks worked their magic. Tank wished he could have talked Zhu into coming and helping. As much as Marie and John were stronger than the average human, Zhu was smarter. He could read in the fraction of the time it took normal people. He could do math like a calculator and read raw code as though it was a Dr. Seuss book. He had smart down.

  But Tank had lost the chance to make that argument because Marie’s loss had put Tank in a trance of sorts. By the time he got his brain restarted and thought of all the arguments for working together, Tank was nowhere near anyone he could make the arguments to.

  So instead he headed back to the room where he could sleep and pace.

  Over an hour later, Tank was ready to either climb the walls or go AWOL. Both ideas had real drawbacks, including the possibility of having Colonel Aldrich hunt him down and skin him alive. Tank was really working himself up to a nice little panic attack when the door opened.

  “Colonel.” Tank supposed that he should salute or go to attention or something, but his knees were weak and he was leaning against the dresser just to keep from falling over.

  “Private,” Aldrich returned in the exact same tone. Tank shrank in on himself a little.

  Despite the fact that part of Tank wanted to sink into the ground and vanish, he had to know about his friends. “Is there any word on Marie?”

  Aldrich sighed, then moved to the end of the bed and sat. “Nope. Drones and spotters are out. We’re looking for any location with technology and avatar guards.”

  “I could help with spotter duty,” Tank offered. The second he did, he regretted it. Aldrich’s laser vision returned, and Tank pressed himself against the wall since he couldn’t physically get any farther away. He was already in the corner.

  Aldrich shifted so he was facing Tank. “Let’s talk.”

  Tank felt a little like a kid in the principal’s office. “Um, okay.” Strangely, Aldrich then proceeded to not talk. Tank shifted nervously and wondered if this was some sort of test. Maybe he was supposed to start—but if that was the case, Aldrich needed to tell him. Tank was not good with this sort of stuff. Actually he wasn’t good at much of anything outside of distracting demons who weren’t demons and tinkering with alien toys to make them light up. Those were his great talents, and neither really applied here.

  “Look, I know I wasn’t much help…,” Tank started, but Aldrich interrupted him.

  “Yes, you were.”

  Shock robbed Tank of the ability to speak. “What?” he finally asked, still not sure his ears were telling the whole truth about what they’d heard.

  Sitting on the end of the bed, Aldrich said, “You were helpful. You distracted the enemy and gave Byrne a chance to attempt escape. You covered Zhu, allowing him to get free, and you didn’t retreat under heavy fire. Now, I don’t generally recommend you do all that by sitting in the open and presenting yourself as a target, but I’ve been told that my view of strategy is a little Earth-centric and narrow and that you were impressively not horrible. Now, the fact that you were in the field without a weapon? For that I might have you field-stripping weapons until your fingers fall off.”

  “I had a knife.”

  “Which you had already given to Sadler,” Aldrich said dryly.

  Tank crossed his arms. “She asked for it.”

  Aldrich glared at him. “If you ever go in the field unarmed again, you will be sorry. So, explain how you found it logical to carry a blessed knife and not a sidearm.” The tone made it abundantly clear that Aldrich was considering making Tank shovel dirt for the rest of his life.

  “They’re playing by demonic rules. If I stab them with a blessed silver knife, they have to retreat or it ruins the illusion.” Tank thought that was pretty obvious.

  “And did you expect them to play by these rules after you announced in front of everyone, including the aliens, that the rules and all the demonic bullshit were, i
n fact, bullshit?”

  Tank flinched. Okay, so there was a little flaw in his thinking. “I’m not used to…. I’m not a soldier,” he defended himself. When Aldrich put it that way, he’d been slightly stupid.

  “You are a soldier. You joined the Army, Tankersley. That makes you a soldier. However, you’re going to get booted out if you can’t make a decision about who you want to be.”

  “Sir?” Maybe Tank had taken one too many hits to the head, but he was definitely not following Colonel Aldrich’s train of thought.

  Aldrich’s sigh was more than a little on the annoyed side. “Are you a dishwasher or a fighter, Tankersley?”

  “What is it with you people? Lev keeps trying to call me an engineer. Can’t I just be Private George Tankersley?” Tank gave a goofy grin, but Aldrich looked at him long enough that Tank got the feeling he’d just given the wrong answer.

  “Okay, so maybe George Tankersley has a few issues,” Tank admitted with a shrug.

  “Tankersley,” Aldrich snapped. “Do you really want a performance evaluation right here and now?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and Tank could just imagine what Aldrich wanted to say. Tank was well acquainted with the “how could you be so stupid” speech.

  “Um, really kinda don’t.”

  Aldrich started in anyway. “You acted without thought for your own personal safety when you saw a team member in danger. You correctly assessed danger and effectively distracted the enemy. You recovered immediately from unexpected enemy reinforcements and avoided injury with a well-executed tuck and roll, and you managed to reengage the enemy. Once you had a weapon, you fired accurately and without losing focus for as long as the equipment allowed. And then you screwed all that up by not having a weapon in the first place.”

  Aldrich stood up and moved forward, all anger as he poked a finger in Tank’s chest. “Dr. Underwood put himself in a difficult position in order to cover you when the enemy targeted you. He put himself in danger, Tankersley, and if he had gotten hurt, I would have made you miserable for the rest of your life. The rest of your life.”

  Aldrich leaned in close, and Tank swallowed as a cold fury rolled off the man like a fog. Tank had met demons who didn’t scare him half as much. “He tried to cover you. He’s not a fighter, but when those guys with automatic weapons showed up, you hit the deck, and he stepped out from cover to draw their fire so you didn’t get a round of bullets through your brain. I’m going to ask you again. Are you a fighter or a dishwasher? Last chance to answer.”

  Tank opened his mouth, but he was having trouble gathering his thoughts. He was scared of Aldrich. The outer layer of bad jokes and overblown frustration had vanished, and the man under that mask was terrifying. “Both?” Tank guessed. When Aldrich looked even angrier, Tank changed his answer. “Neither?”

  Aldrich sighed, and the fury was gone just that fast. Turning around, he retreated to the far wall. Tank had the impression that he was removing himself from temptation before beating the shit out of Tank. “Private, a discharge would be the safest thing for you, but if I did boot you, Lev would still want to spend time with you. Then I wouldn’t even be able to keep an eye on you, and trust me, you need a keeper.”

  “I didn’t mean to put him in danger. I would never do that,” Tank said softly. He hated the idea that his stupidity had put Lev in danger.

  Aldrich snorted, but his laugh-snort came without any humor. “Lev and all the other civilian contractors are our responsibility. People like Major Sadler and Lieutenant Matos and Dr. Reed trust us to have their backs when they have their noses in a computer or an alien device and can’t defend themselves,” Aldrich said wearily. “So if you’re going to fight, you have to make a decision. You have to be focused. You need to train, and you need to think about things like being armed and keeping track of which ammo and how much you have. You can’t rush into things.”

  “But I’m the dishwasher,” Tank whispered.

  Narrowing his eyes, Aldrich challenged him with a look. “Really? And how does a dishwasher react when he learns of a potential enemy in the area? If you want, I can get Staff Sergeant Powell on the phone and you can ask him what he did during the last alarm on base.”

  “He would have locked down his area and kept quiet while trying to watch for enemy movement in his area.” The sergeant had covered emergency procedures with Tank before he’d even shown him how to run the equipment.

  “Are you a dishwasher, Tankersley? When an enemy attacks, are you really a dishwasher?”

  Tank swallowed. “No,” he admitted softly.

  Aldrich turned and headed back to the bed. “Hell, don’t look at me like I’ve kicked your puppy. Do you really think I don’t get it? For me it was fixing up old cars. Before this command came up, I told everyone that I wanted to retire and tinker with engines for the rest of my life and never touch another weapon. Then I got read in on the Incursion Force. But I don’t lie to myself, Tankersley. I know I’m a fighter, and I make sure I’m ready for the fight. So are you a dishwasher, a fighter, or someone I’m going to try very hard to just keep out of the way because he can’t pull his own head out of his ass long enough to take a deep breath of air?”

  “A fighter.” Tank tried to sound firm, but he could hear his own voice waver.

  Aldrich snorted. “It’d be nice if you sounded more convinced, but for now, good enough.”

  “I’m not good at fighting,” Tank hurried to add. “I usually just get knocked down.”

  “I’m already on the fence about recommending you for discharge, so don’t give me an excuse,” Aldrich said, his voice back to being cranky—which was better than his terrifying voice.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m someone I’m not. I’m the guy who distracts bad guys by charging straight at them and hoping they don’t kill me, and oddly they haven’t. Looking back, that’s actually a little suspicious, but then I’m not all that bright, because that didn’t occur to me until now.”

  “I’m assuming that growing up in the middle of this war means you’ve picked up a few nonmilitary habits. Actually, this war explains quite a few of your less charming traits, including your willingness to let John beat on you.”

  “Yeah, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “It probably was.” Colonel Aldrich shook his head slowly, as if he didn’t have much energy left for all Tank’s shit. “You take to military life like a duck to a burning house, so John might be a better choice for your training. He grew up in the middle of a situation so fucked up that it defies description. If you attack with a blessed knife, and that’s the best weapon for the job, he’ll congratulate you.” Aldrich stopped and frowned. “Maybe. John’s not one for a lot of praise. However, if you don’t take his advice and do every single thing he tells you to… let’s just say I’m giving him a wide latitude to deal with that. The military thing isn’t working for you, so we’re trying this John’s way.”

  From Aldrich’s sadistic grin, Tank wasn’t exactly sure what to think. He admired John. But from Aldrich’s expression, Tank guessed that he might not be a fan of John in the near future. “Comments, complaints?” Aldrich asked cheerfully, and Tank realized that Aldrich cheerful was almost as scary as Aldrich angry.

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. John is in the SUV. I hope you used this downtime to rest, because you are to report to him ASAP. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tank answered. “Sir?”

  Aldrich sighed. “What?”

  “If I can do something to help… if you want me to talk to Zhu about anything….”

  “I’ll call. Dismissed, Private.”

  Tank wanted to give all the reasons why he was the best person to talk to Zhu or even ask where Zhu was, but Colonel Aldrich’s tone made it clear the conversation was over. It wasn’t the same as being told to stay away from his friend, but Tank didn’t feel like he could keep pressing the issue. Tank offered his best salute and left without another word. Maybe Tank w
asn’t a great fighter, but if he had to give up his dreams of becoming a dishwasher, he could. Maybe. And if he couldn’t, Tank had no illusions about how hard John would kick his ass.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  TANK HAD almost reached the passenger side of the SUV when the window opened and Zhu looked out. “Have they found Marie?” His tone was edging toward desperation. Tank spent a half second silently cursing Aldrich’s shitty idea of humor. He should have told Tank Zhu was at the SUV, but no. He had to poke Tank by seeing if he would follow orders.

  Since John was behind the wheel, Tank got in the back before he answered. “They’re still looking. Why aren’t you working with Lev and the others?”

  Zhu’s face twisted with grief. “Because it wouldn’t be logical to take a scientist who understands the code off the search in order to teach me the basics.” Zhu stared out the front window.

  “You could learn it faster than anyone,” Tank said. “If they’re not letting you in, I could talk to Lev, explain what you could do.”

  Zhu’s hands slowly curled into tight fists. “I know I could learn the codes, and when they have time, I plan to prove that.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “Assuming I’m not busy being dissected. However, I won’t slow down the search.”

  Tank and Roger had used to talk about how great it would be to learn as fast as Zhu, but sometimes they’d gotten into the other side of things. They’d talked about all the ways that Zhu’s brain sort of screwed him over. The worst part about being as smart as Zhu was that he could see all these horrible possibilities that the rest of them never even considered. And he could imagine detailed scenarios that would curl a horror director’s hair.

  “They won’t dissect you,” Tank said firmly. “If they wanted to learn how a modified human worked, they’d have cut John up.”

  “True,” John said. “They haven’t tried.”

  “Yes, but I’m a different sort of modified. Most people find physical strength a throwback to primitive society and largely uninteresting. No one is threatened by Mr. Universe unless they’re in an alley with him, but intelligence threatens people. That said, if someone is making the case to take my brain out and put it in a jar, I don’t have much chance to fight back. I don’t understand the technology these groups possess, and the government has more resources than I can counter.”