by Hondo Jinx
“Shoot him?” Frankie said, sounding terrified.
“Yeah, point the gun at him and pull the trigger.”
“Okay.” Frankie’s green eyes were as big and bright as headlights, but she lifted the pistol.
“Hey,” Jamaal said. “Don’t point that thing at me, girl.”
“Yeah, don’t actually point it unless you mean to shoot,” Brawley said. “And darlin, get your finger off the trigger.”
Swiveling behind Frankie, Brawley reached around and laid his hands over hers. She trembled in his arms. His nostrils filled with her scent, an oddly attractive blend of sweat, oil, and feminine sweetness. Releasing Seeker force, he lathered the lovely Gearhead in calm. By the time he repositioned her trigger finger, Frankie had stopped trembling.
“All right,” Brawley said. “Easy does it, everybody. Hazel, what’s the deal?”
The old woman smiled, her eyes twinkling with humor. “If I fill you in, may I also have a bowl of Froot Loops?”
Brawley laughed. “Yes, ma’am, you sure can.”
“Well, in that case,” Hazel said, shuffling forward and holding out her hand, “let’s not waste time with words. I haven’t had Froot Loops in forty years.”
Brawley felt a twinge of unease. Could he trust Hazel?
Yes, his gut responded unequivocally.
“All right, then,” Brawley said, taking the old Seeker’s hand. “Let me have it.”
19
Later, Brawley sat on the tailgate of his truck, drinking a Coors Light. He liked Shiner, but Coors was cheaper and went down smooth on a hot day.
Jamaal sat in a lawn chair below him, cradling a beer, happily surrounded by collies.
“I miss my dog,” Jamaal said, scratching Roper under the collar. One of his feet rested on old Daisy, who twitched and woofed softly, dead asleep and probably dreaming about killing rattlesnakes. “Miss my wife, too.”
“She know where you are? What you’re doing?”
Jamaal raised one eyebrow. “I see you’re new to the whole marriage thing, no matter how many wives you have. Women always want you to tell them everything, but the key to a happy marriage is knowing when to keep your mouth shut.”
Brawley laughed. He was glad he hadn’t killed to Jamaal. To his surprise, he actually liked the guy. And Jamaal, he now understood, was a true ally.
Soon, the veteran Seeker would return to Key West and serve as Brawley’s eyes and ears inside the Order. Jamaal also planned to pass along information that could help Brawley land a payday that could fund his base build and provide a little payback in the process. But first, Jamaal had promised to share crucial information that would shed light on Brawley’s past, present, and future.
“Shawna knows I’m on the road with business,” Jamaal said, and sipped his beer. “But that’s it. Telling her more would endanger her, me, you, everyone. I believe we’re safe, but you never know with the Order.”
Brawley had already received this message loud and clear from Hazel’s transmission of recent events and gleanings. She and Jamaal had risked everything coming here. She knew Jamaal, knew much of what Jamaal knew, and trusted him implicitly.
Brawley had relived their horrific experiences at Tammy’s trailer and knew how close Uno’s zombies had come to killing all of them.
Brawley also understood that his actions had burned Tammy’s life to the ground. It was a powerful thing, sharing those traumatic experiences via Hazel and receiving the old woman’s take on Tammy and her kids.
Tammy was a good woman and a fiercely loving mother who had never quite recovered from the death of her husband. For a long time, she had been holding her pain at bay in order to pound away, day after day, working every shift she could get and pretending everything was okay as she wore herself to a nub.
The whole time, Tammy felt guilty as hell over a slew of things, from her inability to provide a better life for her kids to the burden she was placing on her mother, since Tammy couldn’t afford childcare. Absurdly enough, Tammy even felt guilty because she had lived when her husband had died.
While this guilt weighed heavily on her, Tammy never permitted herself to slow down or slide into victimhood. She kept pushing, kept doing her best, and kept scraping by. More or less.
But because Tammy had helped them a few nights ago, shielding Nina from her father’s telepathy, the pretty Bender’s life had spiraled completely out of control. Now, she was frightened, angry, and desperately committed to ensuring her children’s safety.
All of this had come to Brawley as a footnote to the rushing main line of information, which had to do with Jamaal and his intentions. But Tammy’s story and situation resonated powerfully.
“I don’t make a habit of underestimating my enemies,” Brawley said.
“So it would seem,” Jamaal said.
Brawley polished off his silver bullet, squashed in flat between his palms, and tossed the aluminum disk into the bed behind him. Breaking another pounder from the dwindling six pack, he held it out to Jamaal.
The Seeker declined. “If, against all odds, you reach my age, you’ll learn to pace yourself.”
“Bullshit,” Brawley said. “I’m a Carnal now. I can eat or drink anything I want. Hell, if cigarettes weren’t so damn expensive, I’d start smoking again.”
“Some guys get all the luck,” Jamaal said.
Brawley cracked the beer and took a long pull. “With all due respect, sir, I’d say my luck cuts both ways. Besides, luck ain’t shit without action. Now, what do you say we pitch the small talk and get down to business?”
Jamaal laughed. “Sounds good.”
“What’s the Order up to?”
“They’re hunting you with everything they’ve got,” Jamaal said. “You were public enemy number one.”
“Were?”
“Guess Hazel’s digest didn’t cover current events,” Jamaal said. “This morning, the Tiger Mage downed a commuter plane in the Midwest. Forty-seven fuggles onboard. All dead, of course. Then the Tiger Mage hacked the psionic airwaves and broadcast his ultimatum. Said he’s going to keep killing fuggles until you reveal your identity and location to him.”
Brawley just stared at Jamaal for a second, a ball of ice forming in his gut. More people dead on his account. “That no-good, murdering son of a bitch needs to die. I might could give him a shout and have a little surprise waiting on him.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Jamaal said. “The Tiger Mage is without a doubt the most powerful person on Earth. You aren’t ready and might never be.”
“Oh, I will be. You can take that to the bank.”
“Could be, son. But not yet, you aren’t. He gets a bead on you, he’ll kill you and your women, your folks, Tammy, the kids, and Hazel faster than you can say, I should’ve listened to Jamaal. Hell, he’d even kill me, despite my remarkable charm. He’d burn this whole ranch, all the animals, your neighbors. The Tiger Mage shocks us with his violence and audacity, but don’t confuse those traits for recklessness. He doesn’t take chances.”
Jamaal gestured with a wide sweep of his arm. “All of this would be ashes and bones. And it would be for nothing. Because his ultimatum is bullshit, no matter what the talking heads are saying. As soon as you were dead, The Tiger Mage would go right back to killing fuggles. I don’t know what his end game is, but I am one hundred percent certain it doesn’t stop with you.”
Brawley was silent for a time, wallowing in frustration. A part of his brain had already compartmentalized the deaths of those innocent people. He couldn’t help them now. Nor could he could do anything to help the Tiger Mage’s future victims. Not yet.
But someday…
“Janusian put a hundred-million-dollar price tag on the Tiger Mage. Biggest bounty in history. Lot of good that’ll do.” Jamaal shook his head bitterly. “But Janusian has a soft spot for fuggles and is spouting pure fire and brimstone about the Tiger Mage and you. You should tune in. It is inspired. Meanwhile, the whole psionic world is going cra
zy. Stuff’s popping off all over. You’ve stirred up the Chaotics. Even the Psychic Underground.”
“I don’t know much about them,” Brawley said, remembering what little Sage had told him, stories about rogue psi mages living underground, led by the bogeywoman, Clarissa Lemay.
“Join the crowd,” Jamaal said. “They’re shadowy as hell. Partly, I suppose, because we have been misled by conjecture and misconceptions. Partly because the Chaotics live outside the community and avoid the Latticework. And partly because Clarissa Lemay is very, very good at obscuring truth.”
“I heard she’s a power mage,” Brawley said. “People say she escaped the Culling.”
Jamaal took a drink and shrugged. “That bitch is a mystery. We don’t even know her real name. But she’s powerful, and right now, she’s stirring shit up, calling for a revolution.”
“Against?”
“The Order,” Jamaal said. “Lemay says you’re a sign. Says the prophecies are coming true. Maybe she’s right. And maybe we do deserve a reckoning.”
Jamaal fell silent.
Brawley waited.
Jamaal said, “By and large, power mages were just ordinary people. Powerful and polygynous but otherwise ordinary, you know? Just folks holding down jobs, buying groceries, paying taxes. But we killed them like so many vipers.”
Jamaal fell silent again, staring through Brawley.
“I reckon you had your reasons,” Brawley said.
Jamaal nodded. “The days leading up to the Culling felt like end times. There was something in the air. A buzzing. The Latticework was new, and all of us Seekers were plugged in, grooving on it. But easy access to limitless information stirred up anxiety and not just among Seekers.
“We were hurtling into the unknown. Everybody knew it was risky. Hell, people even talked about it. On the Latticework, even. But no Seeker was willing to unplug long enough to take a good, hard look. None of us wanted to miss anything. So we just grumbled about the risks and kept plunging deeper into a collective consciousness that none of us truly understood. Let me have another one of those?”
Brawley broke off a beer and handed it to the Seeker.
Jamaal thanked him, cracked the can, and said, “Meanwhile, the psionic community was still reeling from the War of the Wizards. Eleazar Blackthorne and his Cosmics came a lot closer than the Order ever admitted to enslaving the entire planet.”
“I killed Blackthorne a couple nights ago,” Brawley said.
Jamaal choked on his beer. “The hell you say?”
Brawley explained what had happened with Uno in Red Haven.
Since the crushing of the Cosmics, Uno had been secretly assisting Blackthorne, who had, contrary to popular belief, survived the War of the Wizards and fled to the Plane of Ever Dusk, a dark and dreary dimension somewhere beyond this universe. For decades, Uno had been rendering psi mages and transmitting energy through a flesh gate to his “Deposed Lord,” who grew stronger and started sending Uno otherworldly creatures.
Uno had planned to render Brawley. That blast would have enabled Blackthorne to rise again.
“I gave him a different kind of blast,” Brawley said, and explained how, in his outward paralysis, nailing Blackthorne had been his only option.
“Fucker looked the part, I’ll give him that,” Brawley said, and recounted Blackthorne’s skeletal appearance and bright red eyes, as well as his black throne and the scepter tipped with a glowing green gem.
Jamaal shook his head. “I thought Blackthorne was dead. We all thought he was dead.”
“Now he is.”
“So you think.”
“I hammered him with a 377-point telekinetic blast. Can’t imagine it did him much good.”
“No, I can’t imagine it did,” Jamaal said, still looking troubled, “but Blackthorne already survived certain death once, so…”
“That son of a bitch comes back, I’ll kill him again,” Brawley said dismissively. “I got more pressing problems right now.”
“That you do,” Jamaal agreed. “Which takes me back to what I was saying. Those were anxious days. Psi mages were dropping out, going Chaotic. Many feared the Latticework. Others clashed with the seven orders, which fell under heavy scrutiny after the War of the Wizards. Others resented the Order, which gained strength and expanded jurisdiction after Blackthorne’s rebellion. Anxious times. The whole world felt like a powder keg. Then an asshole of colossal proportions came along and lit the fuse.”
“The Tiger Mage?” Brawley said.
“Correct,” Jamaal said. “Needless to say, this morning’s attack on the plane wasn’t his first time attacking fuggles. And that’s what has people so stirred up now. Not just the tragedy but also what it suggests.
“Back before the Culling, the Tiger Mage came out of nowhere, hellbent on defying the Order. His attacks were horrific. Ten fuggles here, thirty there. Every week or two, he struck again. The Order scrambled, trying to delude fuggles and prevent them from discovering the psionic community.
“We chased the Tiger Mage night and day without success. We knew he was using multiple strands, so we spent a lot of time questioning power mages. And learned absolutely zilch. No leads whatsoever. It was a crazy time. Everything hung in the balance. And the community got angrier and angrier, demanding results.
“In the Order, we felt the pressure. We were supposed to be the ultimate badass super troopers, and the Tiger Mage was toying with us. We were just waiting for copycats to join in. Things were changing. Those of us plugged into the Latticework knew that we were standing at a crossroads. It could go either way.
“The fate of the psionic community rested on our shoulders. Hell, the fate of the whole world rested on our shoulders. We had to do something. But what? That was the question. What could we do?”
Jamaal shook his head, and his eyes looked haunted.
“Then the Tiger Mage attacked a picnic park in Horseheads, New York,” Jamaal said. “One hundred and twenty-seven fuggles dead, most of them children. The psionic community was set to crucify us.
“We were running all over, hunting the Tiger Mage and getting nowhere. There was talk of imprisoning all power mages. We knew the Tiger Mage was hiding among them. If we imprisoned every last power mage, we and the fuggles would be safe again.
“But how could we possibly imprison the power mages? We couldn’t, of course. Thanks to the Latticework, we had a directory, but they would be too strong to subdue. And those we managed to hobble would remain a massive liability. What if they broke free?
“I’ve never felt so helpless, so hopeless. Then two power mages broke the Prime Directive. And that changed everything.”
“What’s the Prime Directive?” Brawley asked.
“The Prime Directive is the real reason the Order exists, why it formed in the first place. Over time, we expanded our responsibilities, but the organization began as a dozen hardcore psi mages from different disciplines, committed to protecting the world from ever again falling into darkness. That meant enforcing the Prime Directive.”
Jamaal dropped back. Way back. Down through the millennia, he explained, power mages had occasionally overtaken the psionic community, often with horrific effects.
In most cases, these psionic dictators weren’t just power mages. They were true power mages, the offspring of two power mages.
Not every child born of two power mages became a true power mage. In fact, very few did.
True power mages were incredibly strong. So even before the Prime Directive, true power mages were marked for death.
A thousand years ago, a true power mage called Oleg the Terrible survived multiple attempts on his life, opened Cosmic gates, and became so powerful that he ruled the entire world with an iron fist.
Brawley frowned. “The whole world?”
“The whole world. Everyone, everything. Oleg’s reign of terror lasted 11,784 years.”
“Hold on,” Brawley said. “You said he took power a thousand years ago. Your math ain’t
adding up.”
“No, it’s not,” Jamaal said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Oleg’s reign is collectively known as the Lost Years. We don’t know much about that time other than it was hell on earth for anyone living then. Hazel knows more than I do. Truth be told, I never really wanted to know more. And that’s saying something, as I am curious by nature. But some things are better off forgotten.”
“Not sure I can agree with that,” Brawley said.
“Give it time, son,” Jamaal said. “You’re young yet. Eventually, you will agree with me. Wholeheartedly.”
“Perhaps,” Brawley said. “But explain how, if this all happened a thousand years ago, Oleg ruled for twelve thousand years.”
“We started over,” Jamaal said.
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Jamaal said. “Some unified action on the part of the psionic community. I think it relied heavily on the massive energy rendered from Oleg. Probably on stuff he had going, too. Machines, power streams, gates to other dimensions. Hell, kid, I don’t know. I just know that the psi mages went back to when it all started, pieced together a snapshot of that moment, and rebuilt everything as best they could with a heavy concentration on creating a false, shared reality among psi mages and fuggles alike. The last thousand years of history are predicated on that grand illusion.”
Once the snapshot was agreed upon, Jamaal explained, the psi mages constructed a simulacrum of the day before Oleg had risen to power. What happened to the engineers after that, he did not know. Perhaps, by initiating this retrogressive reconfiguration, they had destroyed themselves. Or perhaps their reality simply diverged from the simulacrum at that point.
Whatever the case, one spring day a thousand years ago, the whole world was recreated in the image of a lost past. Into this new world was born an entire population of flesh and blood replicants, a whole world of people born midstream, sharing a collective memory—and a crucial lack of memory, a collective amnesia. The simulacrum came wholly into existence all at the same instant, so complete and realistic that some individuals were born onto death beds, their heads filled with a lifetime of memories, only to die of old age hours after their birth.