The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  Any other year, this would have been an unmitigated disaster. Her career would be over, she would face charges, and she wouldn't be able to sleep again, with the faces and names hounding her. She never even talked to some of them, before she sent them in. Peter Salvatore, Diana Connor- She shook the ghosts free. She had to keep her head clear.

  Any other year, this would have been the disaster of the season, the show stopping main event for the media circus, and she would have deserved all of it.

  This year, though… it was worse. This year was the year that soldiers went rogue and blew up cities over the Gulf. This was the year that ASOC decided playing mercenary was more fun than duty or honor. This was the year that guard units burned down half of Monterrey. This was the year that the Path decided to have another go ‘round at war. This was the year that Blade carved up the city core, and the cartels blew each other to pieces for a chunk of the action, and the whole damn world melted around them, while the rich kids marched in protest and the poor kids burned down their own homes.

  This was not the year the Agency could afford a disaster.

  There had been one quick stop at the clinic, a perfunctory debrief by internal affairs and a God damn PR man from the Governor's office, and then she was on a skimmer to the Capital, for a morning meeting with the Section Chief. At least Duval let me sleep in a nice bed before he throws me in the volcano.

  The steam boiled about her, rose like smoke through the glass stall.

  This was not the year to fuck up, and she'd decided to go ahead and get herself into the fuck up hall of fame.

  The pounding heat, the thrumming water, pushed away the memories. What do you say, Rey? How do you justify it?

  There was no excuse. She'd always believed that, even before the academy pounded duty into her skull. A woman owned her actions, and her choices. She'd made every choice by the playbook, she'd done it on Fallon's orders, but the op had been hers. That it went wrong, was hers. That it had blown up, was hers. That they'd missed the signs that this cartel wasn't a cartel, at all, was hers. That they'd contained it, that they'd survived to learn the lesson, that was hers, too, and when she marched out to the breakfast execution, she'd relay that, eyes forward and chin high, right to Chief Duval's face.

  Yes, sir, I missed it, sir. No excuse, sir, those deaths were on me, sir. Here's what we learned, sir, and I wish I could follow this trail, sir, but I understand, sir. She'd salute, take one last drink of water, and then face the music, and hope whoever picked up her packet did better diligence. There were no other options, no escape, no weaseling out of this. She wasn't Fallon, she wasn't a cartel slinger, and she wasn't a mercenary in soldier's dress. She was an Agent, and she would follow this through to the end.

  She was out of the shower before she realized the water was gone, scrubbing herself dry. Every action blurred past, her mind focused on breakfast. She would eat calmly, carefully. She would drink one sip at a time, and not chew the ice. She would be calm, dignified, and face this like her family always did. Four generations had served the State with pride, and she would meet disgrace with whatever scraps of honor she could muster.

  By the time she pulled her hair back and fastened it above her collar, she was ready. She clipped the pin on her lapel, adjusted her buttons to right angles, checked her watch, and gave one last glance to the mirror. Might be the last time in the suit. Do it proud, Rey.

  The glass elevator lowered from the fiftieth floor, through the hollow central tube of the hotel. The colored dots on the third-story restaurant rushed towards her, became people seated around the fountains and tables, waiters who moved amid the colored umbrellas and wild gardens. The elevator slowed, stopped, and the chrome doors sprang apart with a slight rush of air, revealing the gentle tiers of the promenade, the light wooden tables and airy tablecloths, the fine silver and crystal glasses, and the brilliant morning light that cut through sixty stories of glass walls.

  It was a stormy, gray morning. The sunlight is fake, produced by embedded OLED displays in the windows. They replace the world when it doesn’t live up to expectations. She could see the appeal. Here, she could almost pretend that she hadn't been in dronetown last morning, covered in soot and blood. It felt like another world. A weaker woman might have enjoyed that fantasy.

  A gentle breeze pushed through the open air, as one of the dozen glass shuttles sprang from the upper reaches of the hotel, barely audible over the gentle clink of glass and steel. “Madam Velasquez?” A waiter inquired.

  The man was in his early thirties, and softer than a child's stuffed bear. His weak features were rounded, calm, his mustache well trimmed, his eyes turned slightly downward. His voice was quiet, like a light piano, eloquently trained to present dutiful, competent, and nonthreatening service.

  Velasquez immediately pitied the man. She said, “Yeah, that's me. Funeral party for two?”

  The waiter barely blinked. He was well trained. Like a dog. She bit back a comment. This was his job, and if the people in the Capital liked their staff supplicant, then that was their problem, not hers.

  “Please come with me, madam.”

  “Lead on.” She replied, trying not to let any edge bleed through. The poor bastard couldn’t lead water downhill.

  They threaded through the garden diner, down three stairs, through the trees, up four steps, over a brook, and onto another patio. The glass shuttle rushed overhead, its passage marked by gentle humming above the birdsong, and the dawn rose higher, past tier after tier of interior balcony. If she hadn't been so focused, she might have felt ill.

  The waiter stopped, motioned her towards a single table in the corner of the cafe, where a man in a fine suit hid behind his menu. Breakfast was already laid on the table, coffee and orange juice and sparkling water, eggs and hash browns and real bacon, tossed amid a garden medley. She stepped forward, tightened her gut muscles. Here we go. Stay cool, Rey.

  “Sir-” She began, but the man cut her off with a wave of his hand. A heavy class ring stood out against leathery, scarred knuckles.

  “Have a seat, Agent Velasquez.” He stated. There was no request in his voice, no slant to his order. She sat. “Do you know why you're here?”

  She kept her eyes locked on the tablet, staring straight at where his eyes surely would be. Why won't he show his face? Is this some kind of game? Try me, tar me, hang me, but don't play games with me. “Sacramento, sir. I made a bad call, and a lot of good people died.”

  “Good, good. Right on point. I like that.” She could swear he sounded like he was chuckling, but there was no humor to that dry voice. “Look around you, Agent. What do you see?”

  “Sir?” She asked. Do you want my resignation? My head? What is this? Her stomach was starting to turn into knots, and she had to remember: eyes front, head up. Stay on target.

  “What do you see? It's a simple question. You were first in class at the academy. Don't tell me you've lost your balls.” She'd never heard of Section Chief Duval being this crass.

  To hell with this. I'm here to get this over. She committed herself, and said, “I see a lot of people pretending there's nothing wrong, dancing around the point. I see people who invest in OLED windows to fake a sunrise-”

  He slammed down the menu, snapping up in his chair, and cut her off. He said, “You see a lot of bullshit, Agent! That's what you see. Two-hundred-and-fifty thousand tons of glass-wrapped bullshit.” The man across from her was strikingly cut, with hair just turned gray at his temples, and a face worn and scarred from too many close calls, with eyes colder than the ice in the sparkling pitcher on the table.

  This wasn't Duval.

  Her mask slipped for a moment, and her eyes widened.

  Section Chief Michael Raschel took a deep drink from his coffee. “Mhm. Wake up and taste the feces. Surprised, Agent?”

  “Yes, sir. You could say that.” She replied. Section Chief Michael Raschel, the Director's grim reaper, the king of special projects and black bags, the most dangerous man in the mo
st dangerous branch of the agency. I am so fucked.

  “Feeling a little heat, are you, Agent?” Raschel picked up a peeled orange, bit off a piece of it without breaking it, just tore into it with his teeth. He said, “Right now, your calm is starting to waver, you're wondering, 'what the hell is he doing here'. Maybe you're running scenarios in your brain, working out where you touched a black op, when you crossed some invisible line, or whether I own you now?”

  She tried to track events back in Sacramento. Where had Special Activities Directorate gotten involved? Was there some sting she'd tripped? Why hadn't there been a sign?

  “Don't worry about that, Agent, you didn't do anything wrong.” Raschel said, with a shrug. “Well, besides fuck up and get eight officers killed. Bettany died of his injuries this morning.”

  Anger began to boil, and she said, “Sir, I know well what I did-”

  “No. No, you don't.” The light mockery was gone. His voice was flat, weary.

  “Sir?” She asked. The waiters had vanished. The background hum grew louder. It was no coincidence.

  “Agent, what I am about to tell you falls under the Hekate Protocol. Do you understand me?”

  The world stopped spinning, and her blood turned to ice. Everything at this table was now secret, and breathing a word of it was a literal death sentence. “Yes, sir.” Where does this rabbit hole lead?

  “You were not chasing a cartel, Agent Velasquez. The men you engaged were Faction operatives-”

  Impossible. She said, “The Faction is dead, sir.”

  “It's back, Agent. Back, and worse than ever. Striker is alive, and he's in control. Blade is one of his weapons, and his goal is complete governmental collapse. Every dirty little piece of news you've seen on the viewer for the past year? Five credits says there was a nihilistic genejob cackling behind the camera.”

  “Monterrey?” She asked.

  “Incited.”

  “Mind Blade?”

  “Produced.”

  “The Airship?”

  “Orchestrated.” Raschel took a swig from his water, and began to chew on the ice. Velasquez made sure she did not do the same. Stay on target.

  “So, the team that went rogue-”

  “Ours.” Raschel stated flatly. “All ours.”

  “Jesus-” she breathed.

  “-has nothing to do with this.” He finished. “That team was the best we had, and they've been torn apart, compromised, and rendered completely unsalvagable as an asset. I need a new team. I need someone to lead that team, to keep control of this situation, and to be my brutally honest second set of eyes, to catch what I'm missing.”

  A shuttle roared overhead, and Velasquez nearly flinched. When did those get so loud? Still, she stayed frosty on the outside, even though she wanted to throw up. “And you wanted the woman who got her team blown apart? Disposable assets, sir?” She was ice. She was still.

  “We're all disposable, Miss Velasquez. That's the first lesson of this kind of war.” He leaned back, nearly touched his outstretched arms to the flowers behind him. When he leaned forward again, he explained, “I need someone reliable. I need a veteran team leader who will come at Striker from a place he won't expect, a reliable point man I can speak to directly, without filters, with complete trust. I need a Field Commander who was top of her class, who's had a sterling career, who's been in the shit while I've been stuffing dick in some office. I need the agent who made the hard calls, who kicked the Faction in the nuts when the rest of us have been circle-jerking about the Capital.”

  “Sir, that mission went-”

  “Horrifically wrong.” He nodded, agreeing. “And, yet, you pulled it out, you took out the targets, and you pulled three hundred kilos of Blade right off the street. That's the best bust yet, and you shot up the core delivery team while you were at it. You got bloodied, but you gave as good as you got, and you walked right in here to face the music. You've got balls, Agent, biology be damned, and I like that.”

  She carefully picked up her fork from the folded creme napkins. “So, why me?” Investigate, extrapolate, determine targets, take action. Think, Rey.

  “Because you fucked up.” He grinned, and she saw a piece of the Agency legend glimmer through in that smirk. “My team got shot out from under me, too, remember. Striker knows that, and he knows I'm going to rebuild it with the best. He's got traitors in the Agency, Reyna, you bet your ass. They'll be the best around, squeaky-clean, piss-perfect little plants. What would a plant never do?”

  “Fuck up an operation?” She wagered.

  “Right. Fuck up, but still deliver tangible damage to the target. Watching how someone fails is a great test of character, Agent. You passed, and you're getting the shot of a lifetime. You ever wanted to play cowboy?” He put a datacard on the table. “Pick it up.”

  “And if I don't?”

  “Then I buy you breakfast, thank you for your time, and get up and leave. Ten minutes later, a patrol crew will pick you up and bring you before a review board, and Chief Duval will string you from the rafters for that ratfuck you led.” He cut a piece of his eggs and chewed on it.

  “I appreciate the honesty, sir.” She kept her hand steady as she cut into her omelet. “Give me a minute.”

  “You have five.”

  The table was silent, but for the tings and clangs of metal on porcelain. Options bounced in her head. Four generations had served with pride. How could she walk away?

  This was a death trap. The Hekate Protocol was reserved for the blackest of the black operations, the kind that rotted men's souls. The Airship had been blown to pieces because of this, the team who did it labeled traitors. They had been in her position. Did they know what they'd stepped in? Did it matter?

  She knew who she was. She'd come down here to serve the State, one last time. How could she turn back? If this was her end, then it was simply what she'd come here to confront. Eyes forward. Carpe diem, Rey.

  She picked up the datacard.

  Raschel nodded, and then extended his hand. “Welcome to the team, Commander Velasquez.”

  Emergence

  It was a bottle that killed his father.

  Brian Clausen had grown up, fast. A man’s burden landed on a child’s shoulders. He’d been strong. He’d held on. He’d been there, when it mattered. A brother acted as father, and he’d done it well. Never bitch. Never flinch. Those were the rules. His father drowned himself in amber, and Brian Clausen saved his family.

  Look how far he’d fallen.

  Brian Clausen, with ragged clothes and unkempt stubble, stumbled through his motel room. His eye burned, swollen half-shut, from a fight he couldn’t quite remember. It hurt, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the bottle in his hand.

  A bottle, just like the one that killed his father.

  Sweat dripped down the glass neck. It coated the torn label, made the sides slick. It took everything he had, just to keep his grip. He clutched that bottle, as the world swayed around him. He stared, at moth-eaten curtains and chalked-up glass, towards the discordant purple and green neon beyond. He couldn’t go out there, again. The streets were alive. They’d see him. They’d know what he’d done.

  Blood was on his sands. Dirt was in his soul.

  He couldn’t quench the hate, no matter how hard he drowned it.

  He tried to stand. The room pitched, and he staggered, crashed against the dresser.

  He needed more drink.

  He flopped against the dresser, used it to stay upright. He pulled the bottle up, and tore loose the cap. Plastic snapped, like a machinegun burst, and he hurled the little white meteor away. He drank. The liquor was cheap, but it worked. Clausen didn’t drink for taste. He drank to drown.

  He rolled over, against the dresser, and fished up his tumbler.

  His hand shook. Amber poured over his hand. Rivers poured through his fingers, slopped against the glass. He licked his palm. It didn’t taste like anything, at all. How much did I drink?

  More. Th
at was the answer.

  More, until he couldn’t feel feelings. More, until he couldn’t think thoughts. More, until he burned up from inside. More, until he plunged into the void. More, until the numbness formed a tunnel unending, and stole him from the day.

  The tumbler struck the dresser top, rang with a hollow toll. His lips were wet. He didn’t remember drinking.

  In the mirror, another man stared back. Haggard, with glassy eyes and patchy beard. That broken man roared at him, and lashed out-

  Glass stuck in his fist, blood poured over leathery knuckles.

  Blood. Blood that ran down the halls of the dying Airship. Blood that poured, thick and hot, from every unopened door. Blood, sprayed from Parvotti’s skull. Blood, as Slim tumbled into the grinder. Blood, oozed from Marcos’ armor. Blood, that built behind the closed hatch like crush depths. Blood, that coated him from head to toe.

  Drink.

  He gulped it down. It was water, now. No taste. No burn. Just water, to wash the blood away. But, the blood always came back.

  Drink. Drink, and drown this nightmare.

  That’s what this was. A nightmare. If he could wake up, he’d be free. Sarah was waiting for him, on the other side. Poole, Parvotti, Slim, and Marcos were waiting for him. In that other world, he was on a boat, lazily drifting on still waters.

  There were birds overhead. Kestrels. Kestrels over the ocean.

  The stench of blood.

  He woke, and the world was wrong. He hurt. Wounds should have killed him. They should have let him die.

  Days passed, in fugue, haze and bits of memory that ate away at his dreams. Less and less, he remembered Sarah, the boat, and freedom. There were only kestrels, and the smell of blood on the ocean.

  He remembered the chair. It sat, waited for him, when the fog parted. Angry silver, zipcuffs and straps. They bound him to it, before he knew his name. Ties on his wrists. Hallways blurred. He woke on trial. They read the litany of his sins, while he drifted in the pain between worlds. Blood, boiling in the deep.