by Josh Hilden
When the 9th Special Operations Company joined us, we welcomed them as brothers and sisters in arms. They were human warriors and citizens of New Chicago. As far as we were concerned, they were saviors and friends, not monsters to be feared and hated. They had this Captain leading them, Herman Garcia was his name, and he was one of the most serious SOB’s I had ever met. That was the ironic thing… as much as we hated the Compact and its leadership, nobody hated them as much as our own wizards. It was as if they believed all the actions of the Compact were directed at them personally.
I asked Courtney about that one night.
We were lying on her overly small cot and just enjoying the glow of being together in all of the madness surrounding us. She looked at me in the dim lantern light and said, “Most people don’t like us, John. They fear us, and the only reason they tolerate us is because we try very hard to do nothing that might seem threatening. But the Compact has decided it’s the right of wizards to rule over those who don’t have the talent. They’re making it so it may be impossible for us to return to our own lives after the war.”
I looked at her in disbelief and said, “But you’re fighting for the freedom of everyone in the City. How can they not appreciate that mages and psychics are dying out here?”
She laughed softly (God, just the memory of her laugh is enough to cause my stomach to flutter like a child’s), “That’s why I love you, Johnny; you get right to the heart of the matter. No bullshit from you, my love.” Then she kissed me and ended the conversation without ever giving me an answer.
A week later, I was in the hospital trying to get used to the idea that I was now almost as much a machine as a man.
Three weeks after that, Courtney was dead.
She died a hero. I was later given the details of how she died by then Major Herman Garcia. He tried, without success, to hold back his tears. I can still say, after all of these years, she was the bravest person I’ve ever had the privilege to know. They’d overrun a Compact defensive position and were in the process of stripping it down and leveling the ground so that it could not be reclaimed. We’d been constantly moving forward and had no need, or desire for, defensive positions in the rear areas. Courtney remained behind to supervise the handling of any mystic artifacts that the unit came across.
A creature attacked the group, it’d been left behind to accomplish this task.
One of the survivors, a skinny kid name Sal, told me the beast was twelve feet tall and all hair and teeth. The soldiers opened up on it, and it seemed to shrug off their weapons fire as if it were no more than black flies in summer. Sal told me they were sure they were all going to end up in the belly of this thing when a bolt lightning crashed down from the sky and nails the bastard square in the back. Courtney came forward, muttering to herself, and another lance of electric fire slams into the creature.
Apparently the thing wasn’t stupid because before she could unleash another bolt, it leapt at her. It was only the defensive charm she’d cast that allowed her to survive as it knocked her into the dirt. They traded spells and blows for ten minutes, until reinforcements arrived and buried a high explosive rocket in the things skull.
The damage was already done though. Courtney lived another two hours, but in the end she was too badly hurt and passed on. They awarded her the New Chicago medal of valor, and when they erected the memorial arch and pedestals of the fallen, her name was on it with every other hero of the conflict.
I finished up the war in the City like the rest of the old and injured. I helped man the battlements erected around New Chicago. These would serve as the foundations of the new walls now surrounding the city. After the war, I stayed in the army for another twenty seven years and achieved the rank of Command Sergeant Major. I watched as the Republic of New Chicago became the nucleus of the Heartland Empire, and we went from a democracy to a dictatorship. The mages were sent away from New Chicago. They weren’t killed or imprisoned as they would be now. Instead they were given a stipend and sent away to begin a new life. The psychic citizens were allowed to stay, but they were relegated to the status of third class citizens, a status that was only officially repealed in the last fifteen years.
I remained in the military all through this. I had no family to speak of. My brother had married and now had a sprawling family of his own. They tried to include me in their happiness, but I always resisted, being the family curmudgeon to the end, I suppose. But in the end I was included, and I consider my nieces and nephews the most important things in my life, even though we are now sundered. They remain living in the fortress city that was once my home, and I choose to exist here in the Fringe. We still keep in touch, and they know their Uncle John would do anything for them.
Once every week when I was inside the city and not on maneuvers somewhere with what I still called the “New Army,” I went to the Arch and left flowers for the only woman I had ever truly loved. Then it happened. One day when I arrived, I realized things were changed, but I could not identify what had changed. I walked over to the Arch. It towered over my head and was covered in plaques and surrounded by pedestals holding even more plaques. On them were the names of the fallen. The Arch was in the center of a circular park, and great means had been taken to keep the area quiet and undeveloped. It was universally agreed that it was the most tranquil area in the city
I went to the pedestal containing the plaque with Courtney’s name on it. I froze; the pedestal looked the same and the plaque was the same burnt copper color that it had always been. But it wasn’t the same plaque. Courtney’s name had been removed and as near as I could tell so had three others, all of them mages who had died in the war. I raced around the monument and searched for the twenty or so other names I knew of mages who’d died and they were all gone, erased as if they had never existed.
I left the park with my mind in a state of vertigo. If it were possible to get motion sickness in your brain as opposed to your stomach, it would come very near to describing how I felt at that moment. I didn’t say anything at first. By this time, the city was already on the road to becoming the secretive police state it is now. I just waited, longer than I should have, to see if any announcements would be made or if anyone else would raise a stink.
Nobody did.
It occurred to me there were probably few people left who remembered there used to be magic wielding citizens of New Chicago. It was as if the powers that be were attempting to rewrite the history of the city. Of course, that was exactly what they were trying to do, and they succeeded.
I wish I could say I raised a fuss, or agitated for change, or did anything to rectify what I saw as a grievous wrong. I didn’t; I just seethed. They’d taken Courtney’s, and hundreds of other’s legacies away from them and thereby casted them into the roles of unnatural and perverted monsters. So what did I do to protest all of this? I’ll tell you what I did, I retired.
The day I mustered out of the Heartland Army was the last day I set foot inside the city of New Chicago. I’d already found a place in one of the Fringe communities and I was able to move all of my meager possessions in one trip.
Moving to the Fringe should have cost me my citizenship in the Heartland Empire, but the way the retirement clause in the military contract reads, it allows soldiers with thirty plus years to retire and keep all their benefits, even if they leave the Empire provided they do not enlist with an enemy power.
The first few years were uneventful. I knew I was being watched, both by the Intelligence Service and the various factions at play within the Fringe. I really didn’t care. I was content to sit in the combination bar/brothel that’d become my new home, to drink and tell war stories to the folks that were interested.
The only thing that disturbed me was the high numbers of non-humans in the Fringe. I expected them to have their numbers in the shanty towns around the city, but I was shocked to see how openly they moved about. But they left me alone and soon they became just another piece of the background.
Roy
Lynch gave me a purpose for the golden years of my life. The same Roy Lynch that was married to Amanda, the charming woman who I know carries a torch for me and can never understand why I feel so guilty for wanting to return the feeling. Courtney may be gone, but I can never, it seems, soothe the ache in my heart from her loss.
It was a cool Spring evening, eleven years ago, when I was perched comfortably on my favorite bar stool when we all heard a commotion outside. Most of the younger people raced over to the windows to see what was going on. It was a rare day in the Fringe when some fool or another wasn’t raising a ruckus.
“Hey John, come check this out; this is wild, brother,” another army vet by the name of Brett Phillips called to me. At forty one, Brett had served well after the last Great War with the Ohio Valley Compact.
I sighed, “This had better be good, kid,” I called out as my bionics whirred audibly when I rose from the seat.
There was a girl running down the street and two Legionaries (God, I hate that title) were chasing her down. Her eyes were the size of saucers as she desperately scanned the road, looking for a place to hide. She turned; she must have heard the soldiers closing, and began to mutter. Lightning lanced from the clear sky and fried the road around the soldiers. Their armor smoked as they hit the ground, obviously still alive writhing on the ground.
I still to this day don’t know what made me do it. Was it that she had the same shade of red hair that Courtney had? Or was it that she was so obviously terrified and needed help? I couldn’t say that any one of these things motivated me to act, but in retrospect I think it was that I was simply tired of sitting on the sidelines while bad things kept happening to people that didn’t deserve it.
I sprinted to the front door, faster than I believed my legs were capable of propelling me, and rushed outside. The smell of burnt ozone overwhelmed the usual stink of the open sewers of the Fringe, and I remember thinking it smelled like the battlefields along the Ohio River so long ago.
The Legionnaires were down for the count, in fact they wouldn’t be able to move on their own for several more hours, and by that time the events of the day would long be concluded. But a crowd was gathering around the girl, and even though most denizens of the Fringe have no love for the black clad imperial soldiers, they had even less love for those that hurt the authorities from the city. Once the word of the fight reached higher levels on the chain of command, a cleansing of this section of the Fringe might be ordered, unless the residents dealt with her themselves, and therefore did so quickly, with no mercy.
People were screaming and it appeared that within a matter of moments they would descend upon her and most likely kill her. I couldn’t allow this, even if it meant ending what was left of my useless existence. I could not allow this.
I stepped swiftly into the middle of the ring the crowd had formed around the child. She was young, maybe thirteen years old, and tears were streaming down her face. She looked up at me and said, “Please help me.” Her body may have been that of a child but the voice was the cracked horse whisper of a woman five times her age.
“KILL HER!” A man in the crowd screamed over the roar of the others.
My bionically enhanced hearing allowed me to identify the individual, and my enhanced vision targeted him in less than two seconds. In that moment I did something that would have seemed insane to me five minutes earlier. I drew my concealed pistol and leveled it at the screaming man’s head.
My stomach clenched as I shouted, “The first person that takes another step towards this little girl will die.” I may have sounded cool and calculating to the mob, but inside I was shaking like a leaf. The screaming man began to reach into his jacket. It didn’t matter if he was going for a gun or not; I could not risk it.
I fired.
My enhancements may have been horribly out of date, but they were still effective. The shell struck him square in the middle of the forehead, and his skull disintegrated in a fine mist of bone, blood, and brain. Against a weapon designed to pierce advanced military armor, the human body had no chance.
The crowd backed up as I helped the girl to her feet. I took her hand and lead her to the alley across from the bar. Now I was in trouble. What the hell was I supposed to do with a fugitive magic user? It really didn’t matter that I killed the screaming man. He was just another resident of the Fringe, and as long as he didn’t have some secret connection with the powers that be in the city, nobody of importance would care.
We scrambled down the alley, she still seemed as if she was in a daze and not aware of what was going on around her. I was beginning to think I would have to leave the Fringe and take the girl with me, when a voice called out from the darkness. I whirled around toward the sound and drew my pistol.
“Hey man, don’t shoot!” The voice hissed from a doorway concealed in the shadows.
“Who the hell are you?” I said. “Show yourself!”
The man stepped forward and I recognized him instantly. He was Roy Lynch, the baker down the street from the bar. The same man who sold me the cup of coffee and muffin I had for breakfast every morning for the last three years.
“Roy, what the hell are you doing here?”
Roy ignored my question and inclined his head toward the girl hiding behind me, “Samantha, is that you?” He asked, ignoring the look of confusion on my face.
“Yes … are you the Conductor?” She asked in a voice that no longer sounded old, but was young and almost musical.
He grinned at her, “Yes, I’m the conductor, at least for this station. You two need to get in here before the authorities arrive in greater numbers.” He stepped to one side, revealing the open doorway behind him. After a moment’s hesitation, I took the girl’s (I mean Samantha’s) hand, and walked through the door.
Roy led us through a dizzying series of tunnels and alleys, until we ended up back at his bakery without anyone having seen us. As we walked, Roy gave me a rundown of the situation I was now immersed in.
“Amanda and I are members of the Underground. We help get children, identified as magic users and psychics by Imperial authorities, out of the city.”
“Where do you send them?” I asked, fascinated how I was now so far out of touch with New Chicago life that I’d never even heard of this Underground.
“I’m not really sure about that. Although if I had to guess, I would say they end up either in Rowling or that Tesla place.” He began to breathe a little harder as our path began to rise sharply.
We reached the back of the bakery about ten minutes after we’d met up in the alley. Roy looked around and then produced a key card from his pocket and ran it through the reader next to the door. Even though the buildings were old and decrepit in appearance, the reader seemed to be brand new and the latest model. Apparently the underground must have a few well off backers.
Amanda was in the bakery’s back room when we entered. Immediately she ran to Roy and threw her arms around him in a suffocating embrace. “I was so worried about you. Donna Carver said there’d been a shooting at the bar and a little magic girl was involved.”
“It’s alright, Mandy; little Samantha had a surprise benefactor.” Roy gestured to me as I was standing in the doorway, listening for the tell-tale signs of pursuit. Amanda Lynch then did something that secretly made me love her even while Roy was alive. She walked over to me and threw her arms around me, hugging me in a way I’d not been hugged in decades.
“Thank you, John,” she said as she hugged me, then she kissed me on each cheek. I felt the blush rise in my face and then heard the giggling of the girl behind me. In a moment we were all laughing. I felt as if I had finally come home.
And after that I was a member of the Fugitive Underground. We helped hundreds of people get out of New Chicago, hopefully to better lives in other areas of the continent. It was good work, and while I did it I felt maybe I was earning some redemption for the things I had done, and allowed to be done.
I began to feel clean.
I n
ever made it to the bar that last day.
I was less than fifty yards away from the bakery and contemplating eating the first muffin when I felt tightness on my right side. Then my chest felt as if my heart were going to smash its way through my ribcage and dance away. I dropped to my knees and felt the motors of my cybernetic leg whine in protest.
My head was spinning and my vision began to cloud. I heard people begin to surround me and I knew I was in trouble. I heard snatches of conversation before I lost consciousness;
“… help … doctor … heart maybe … damn monster lover … John …”
Then I heard the sweetest voice in the world, Amanda’s, as she picked up my head and cradled it in her arms. “Don’t worry, John; help’s on the way.” I could hear the fear in her voice and the barely choked back tears.
“Amanda…” I whispered, terrified to realize my speech had reduced to this quivery level.
“Yes?”
“I... I love you. I’m sorry I never…”
“Just shut up, you will have plenty of time to apologize to me later.” Now the tears were coming, they dripped down her nose and splashed on my forehead.
I passed out.
When I awoke, I was in a bright, clean room. There was an antiseptic smell in the air, and I was lying in a hospital bed. I was in the Lake Side Medical Center, one of the best hospitals in the Fringe. The doctor came in a few minutes later and gave me the news. I had cancer, probably had it for years. They hypothesized that the old power cores in my antiquated cybernetics had contaminated my body and allowed the eventual cancerous growths.
I was informed there may be a treatment option within the city, and with my military benefits I wouldn’t be denied. I was tired. I still am tired, as I race towards the obvious conclusion to this story. I wasn’t willing to sell out Courtney’s memory for a few more years of life. I asked them to send me back home to the little room in the back of the bar.