by Brian Fuller
“If there are no clowns,” Sparks said, “maybe I’ll start to believe just a little.”
The two squad mates disappeared into the night, and Helo finally stood.
“Helo,” Mars said. “I know the AAO hasn’t done you any favors lately, but whatever our differences, one thing I know: you kill Dreads good. That’s the mission. We agree on that?”
“Yes, sir.” There was no longer an Aclima to worry about protecting. Now he could be at peace with his mission.
Faramir was chewing on Melody’s ear about the speakers and mixing equipment she used. Then he remembered Dolorem’s instructions and tapped her arm as he walked past her. “I’ll come to your tent a little later,” he said.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said with a patient smile as Faramir rattled on about amplifiers and tone pedals.
Shujaa fell in behind him. The guy had to give it a rest. “No need to guard me, Shujaa.”
“I am not guarding you,” Shujaa said. “I am following you around.”
“Oh, right. That’s way different,” Helo said.
Shujaa eventually did wander off to pack his gear, and Helo did the same. What they really needed, though, were some normal clothes. Having Melody with him brought new possibilities. If they could head in like a couple of punk teenagers out to walk around the park in the middle of the night, they might be able to find the Dread hidey-hole without raising an alarm. Surely Avadan wasn’t leaving the place unsecured. The Old Masters might not have reported any Dreads around, but they had to be there.
About an hour before dawn, he went to Melody’s tent. She was humming a cheerful song that seemed to chase the darkness away. She had such a gift, but if she’d been in more battles, maybe she would choose a song that was a little less optimistic.
“Knock, knock,” Helo said.
“Come in!”
He pushed the flap aside, and she closed her sketchbook and put it on the floor under her cot, where it had been before. Her gear was packed and by the door.
“Didn’t know you drew,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” she said, “since I was a girl. Always loved it. I mean, I’m not great or anything, but I get these images in my head . . . well, you know me. Drawing things kind of helps me exorcise those internal demons. Gets me unstuck.”
He sat next to her on the cot, and she ran her fingers through her hair. “What did you see?” he asked. “When you got torched, I mean.”
She bit her lip and winced a little. “Bad . . . stuff. The usual, right?”
“It was me.”
She exhaled. “Yes.”
“Getting killed or beaten over and over again or something like that.”
She looked embarrassed. “Yep.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “You barely know me, but it seems like there’s this connection between us that’s been tearing you up and blowing holes in your mind.”
“I think I know you,” she said.
“How?”
She sat in silence for a long time, clearly considering. “Well, confession time. I know I acted a little crazy last year with all the nightmares, but the truth is I’ve been dreaming about you my whole life. As long as I can remember. I even saw Aclima in one of my dreams. I drew pictures of you both, but my tutor collected them to put them in a competition or something. Said I should move on to other things. Anyway, not all my dreams of you were nightmares. Most of them were good.”
She looked at him and smiled, but Helo barely saw it. His mind spun with her revelation. “What were these dreams like? I mean, what did you see?”
“Images, really. Vignettes. So many of my dreams were wrapped in mysterious imagery, but my dreams of you were straightforward, like a bird watching you from a tree. Some made me smile—like one where you dumped a cup of lemonade or something on your brother’s bed to make it look like he peed in it.”
He chuckled. “Guilty as charged.”
“Some were scary. Ones about your dad.” She swallowed. “But I remember the good ones, mostly. I think I had at least four of you bringing home stray dogs.”
“It was only three,” he said. How much did she know about him?
She looked away. “I never saw your marriage to . . . that woman, or ever saw her face. I only knew your pain, a man with a broken heart, but I didn’t know why then. She took his hand. That’s what you saw when you got torched, wasn’t it? You saw her.”
He nodded. “Other things, too. My dad. But, yeah, her.”
“I wish I never had to see her,” she said, an edge to her voice as sharp as the katana under her bed.
Helo’s mind kept running. “And this tutor. An African American woman with a bit of the bayou in her voice?”
She blinked. “Yeah. How did you know?”
He explained about Rachel the Unascended, about the drawings she had left behind. Everyone had assumed they belonged to Rachel, but they were Melody’s.
“Wow,” Melody said, standing and pacing in silence for several moments. “That . . . is amazing. Dolorem—he must have hired her for a reason.”
“And with risk,” Helo continued. “She would have been Unascended then with an aura Dreads could spot a mile away.”
“She always met us in out-of-the-way places down in Louisiana. And being with her was just, well, lovely.”
Helo could hardly believe it. “So you’ve seen all these things about me? Why? To what end?”
She sat back down by him, close enough their legs touched. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”
He explained the basics of the meditation to her, careful not to reveal its problem or solution. It was a journey for her to take, to lead her to a greater understanding.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Dad—Dolorem—tried to teach me this before my guitar recital when I was like twelve. You say it’s important, huh? Well, I’ll give it a try.”
She sat on the floor in lotus pose and began to breathe. “Oh yeah,” she said, “I remember now. I was always bugged about half of the ball being black, always without light.”
She seemed to settle into it with ease, face serene. He watched over her until Rapture came, and then an aura surrounded her. Her eyes blazed with celestial light, tears streaming down her cheeks. When she opened them, her face glowed with hope and wonder.
“That was the best!”
“You figured it out?”
“Yeah,” she said as she wiped her eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Focus on the sun.”
“That took me weeks!” he said.
“Really? Well, you know, some people are a little quicker than others. It is such a beautiful lesson.” Then she looked at him like a teacher might a dense student. “Are you sure you understood it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I got it.”
She looked at him like he didn’t and then stood, a big smile on her face. “Well, maybe the lesson is a little different for everyone. You ready for your first mission as commander of Sicarius Nox? I mean, it’s such a sexy-sounding job. I can’t wait to join the team. It’s like having a little family, you know? It’s going to be great.”
He just stared at her. Did she not remember the horror of the battle at the Foundry at all? The Sheid, Whirlwind, she had killed? The hillside teeming with evil clowns? The ash floating down the river? Maybe it was Rapture talking.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing. Yeah, I’d better get going. I’ve got to make sure everything is lined up before 0900. See you over there.”
Chapter 22
All Fun
“No, really,” Faramir complained. “Who put the ketchup packet on my seat? I know it was one of you. It’s from that convenience store back in Blue Springs.”
Helo suppressed a grin. He sat in the middle seat of the twelve-passenger van, Melody at his side, while Faramir raved on one row up. Finny drove. Sparks was in shotgun position. Shujaa and Andromeda lounged in the very back by the equipment. As it turned out, country-gir
l Andromeda was actually a hard-rocking metalhead, her music rowdier than Cassandra’s. She wasn’t much for words either and hadn’t cared one bit about losing her place as second in command.
A drizzle-filled night whizzed by outside the window, the lights of the city the only bright spots in an inky sky. It hadn’t struck him until on the way there that Avadan’s amusement park was barely a half-hour drive from where Deep 7 had been hidden.
“Come on, guys. Not cool,” Faramir continued.
“Look, mate,” Sparks said. “You know it wasn’t me. I would never do anything that would make you whine this long.”
“It’s one of you two,” Faramir said, staring at Helo and Melody. “I’m guessing Melody because nobody else in Sicarius Nox ever played these kinds of pranks. I mean, Argyle wouldn’t know what a prank was. Finny is too nice. And Sparks’s and Shujaa’s idea of a prank is using low-level explosives to blow people in half.”
“Damn straight,” Sparks said.
“Helo’s too self-absorbed to think about pranks,” he continued, “so that leaves our newest member, the lovely Melody.”
He said the last like he was half mad but half hopeful she had actually paid him some attention.
“Wasn’t me,” Melody said, but Helo felt her reach over and squeeze his leg. “It’s probably been in the van awhile. And did you just call me lovely?”
Faramir looked like he was about to choke, mouth halfway between some word he couldn’t get to come out.
“Does bring up a question,” Sparks said. “What’s the team policy about fraternizing with other team members? Andromeda just wants to shoot stuff, so it’s never really been an issue before, though Argyle did remind me of a Catholic wife one of my friends had.”
“Let’s focus,” Helo said. “How far, Faramir?”
“Five minutes,” he said. “And I want to state for the record that Andromeda should be accompanying Helo on this. She’s got more field and combat experience.”
Melody leveled a glare at him. Helo looked at his phone. Faramir had brought this up twice after Helo announced the plan—and Faramir was right. But Helo wasn’t about to let Melody out of his sight. If there was trouble, he wanted her where he could see her.
“Pass the weapons up, Shujaa,” Helo ordered. “Let’s check comms and get everyone loaded.”
They were dressed as civilians for this op. He and Melody had morphed to teenagers and dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and voluminous jackets concealing BBGs and Stingers. Their role: a couple of stupid kids sneaking into the shut-down park. And while the rest of the team hadn’t worn combat fatigues, their leather jackets and dark shirts made them look like a bunch of thugs. Any cop who stopped them would think they were all on their way to a mafia party. And that would be before they found a car loaded with weapons.
Finny slowed and exited the freeway. It had rained harder here, puddles of water pooling at the bottom of the ramp. Finny turned left, and signs for the All Fun Amusement Park cropped up along the road. About a mile out, they did one last comms check and pulled up next to a Starbucks.
“See you there,” Helo said. “Faramir, let me know when the other teams are set up. As soon as we see anything, we’ll signal. Sparks, you’re it.”
“We’ll be waiting for your very first sitrep,” Sparks said. “Try to sound like Argyle when you say it—good and irritated—for old time’s sake.”
Helo pushed the side door open, and he and Melody stepped out into the drizzle and a breeze stiff enough to draw attention to itself. The van pulled away, heading toward the amusement park.
Remembering his training, Helo hunched over like the breeze was a nuisance. Melody followed suit, and by the time they were inside, she’d already morphed a little redness into her cheeks. He’d coached her on the finer points of being inconspicuous on the way there. Shujaa and Goliath had done a bang-up job teaching her weapons, but she’d barely had a word about acting normal.
They bought lattes and headed back out into the night, Melody grinning from ear to ear, face a mask of contentment. Or maybe it really was contentment. Ahead of them, he could just make out the circular shape of the Ferris wheel in the gloom. A couple of towers loomed to the right of it, a ride called the Butt Pucker where they shot people up into the air at a hundred miles an hour.
“Hey,” Melody said, nudging his arm. “If we were really on a date, right now I’d be thinking you would rather be back home playing on your Xbox or something. Or that you were the most brooding boy ever. You were a Gabriel, right? You’ve got to get into character. You’re the mischievous bad boy taking this nice girl you met in social studies inside an abandoned theme park hoping the adrenaline will loosen her up a bit so she’ll let you make out with her. I’m the one who should be looking worried. So let’s get into character here.”
“I don’t think that level of acting is really needed,” he said. “I mean, it’s empty out here.”
“You don’t know for sure,” she said. “So, here. I’ll help get us going.” She cleared her throat. “I am not going in there, Tommy. First off, I told my mom we were going to the movies. Second, it’s totally creepy in there. And third, if we get caught, my dad will kill me.”
He grinned but kept walking. She stopped dead in her tracks.
“I am not going to that place, Tommy!”
He turned around. She really looked pissed. Okay, whatever. “Come on, Sarah! We’re almost there.”
“No!”
Melody was going to make this a pain in the butt. He closed his eyes for a minute. Cute girl he met in biology. No, social studies. Trying to get her into the park so she would make out with him. He rifled through his memory. There was the one time he’d convinced Jenny Connors to meet him under the high school bleachers for much the same purpose, but she’d stood him up—for his brother, it had turned out. What had he said to her?
“It’ll be fun, Sarah!” he said. “We’re not going to get caught. Look, no one’s out here. It’ll be totally fun, and I’ll get you back before your dad even knows you’re gone. I mean, he’s at work all the time anyway.”
She cocked her head. “Are you sure we won’t get caught?”
“Not a chance,” he answered.
She acted like she was thinking about it. Then she took a sip of her latte and walked up to him. “It looks creepy in there.”
“It’ll be awesome, trust me.”
“I don’t know . . .” she said, biting her lip. “I mean, you’re not just trying to get me in there so you can get your hands all over me, are you?”
Helo knew she was a performer, but she really did belong in the Gabriels. Her face showed the same worry and anticipation Jenny Connors’s had so many years ago.
“Look,” Helo said. “It’s just a little bit of fun, okay? Relax! Oh, and one more thing.”
“What’s that?” she said.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
He gave her a shove right into a leafy bush decorating the green space at an intersection. Her drink flew out of her hands as she went down, leaving a nice broken section of branches right in the middle.
Her eyes flew wide. “You!”
“I had this vision that I should do that. It’s not my fault.”
“Eat it, Tommy!” She picked up one of the landscaping stones, and he jogged ahead across the street. The rock hit him square in the back with such force he figured she’d thrown a little angelic Strength into it. A little soggy from the bush, she chased him, and when she caught him, she knocked his latte clean out of his hands.
“You’re a jerk, Tommy,” she said, face angry but with a twinkle in her eye. “I still don’t want to go in there.”
“It’ll be fun, Sarah. Loosen up.” He knew his performance wasn’t going to win him an Emmy, but Melody’s little smile let him know he’d at least won her good opinion. He leaned in close for a whisper. “But don’t use Bestowals unless you have to. It gives you away.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll rem
ember.”
The gates to the park waited just ahead, and when they got close enough they could read: “All Fun Amusement Park. Closed for Renovation. See you next year!”
“That is a really lame name for an amusement park,” Melody said. “How do we get in?”
Helo led the way, stifling the urge to cheat and Strength jump the gate. He grasped the bars and hauled himself up. The iron bars were not meant to be climbed, and he ripped his jacket in two places by the time he landed on the other side. Melody fared little better, ripping two of the buttons off her jacket on the way down. Helo walked forward until he realized Melody had stopped and was actually looking for the buttons she had lost.
Helo tapped his comms. “We’re in.” That was the signal for Faramir to send up his drone and get ready.
Melody finally joined him, shoving the buttons in her pocket. She really was a natural at this stuff. They jogged across the deserted parking lot, the rides of the amusement park looming off to their right. The curvy tracks of roller coasters. The spindly arms of an octopus ride. Low, sprawling buildings for haunted houses and gaming booths. Only a place that usually screamed fun and games could seem so deathlike and cold.
“I don’t know about this,” Melody said, and he couldn’t tell if it was her or Sarah speaking.
They worked their way to the main ticketing area. There wasn’t anything convenient to climb, so he brute-forced the door and they were in, staring at a wide, water-soaked avenue lined with shuttered restaurants. They skirted a dead, empty fountain, rainwater pooling in the bottom. And then the twitter of a girl’s laugh echoed nearby. Helo dragged Melody into an alley behind a bathroom complex. They squeezed to the side of a dumpster in front of a slat fence.
“Faramir,” Helo whispered. “Is that drone up? Someone is in here. Need to know if it’s friendlies.”
“It’s up,” he said. “Give me a minute to look around.”
Another playful scream and a loud giggle broke through the night, some girl trying to keep a lid on her mirth but instead alerting everyone within a mile that she was there. She had to be close, not more than fifty yards.