The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  Firenze took a sip. It was like drinking a loaf of bread, and heavy on the spices. He held back a cough, and managed not to grimace. It burned on the way down, but the aftertaste was sweet. The second drink was, miraculously, smoother than the first. He gave a nod to Donegan, in approval, and pretended he enjoyed it. Donegan gave him a nod back, and both men turned to stare at the rack of old bottles lining the wall behind the bar. No one said a damn thing.

  Half a beer later, Firenze finally asked, “So...”

  “Yup.” Donegan answered. He took another drink.

  They finished their drinks, and another round came.

  “Why?” Firenze asked.

  “Why, what?” Donegan replied. He never broke his thousand yard stare. The foam from his beer stuck in his mustache, and he didn’t wipe it clean.

  “Why didn't you make contact?” Firenze asked. “We could have used you.”

  “We?” Donegan chuckled. “Good to hear it.”

  Firenze bit his lip. It was that or say something nasty. He was here to bring Donegan back in, not piss him off. He bit harder.

  After another drink, Donegan admitted, “It was shame.”

  “Really?” Firenze asked. That was not the answer he'd been expecting.

  “Yup.” Donegan answered, just as laconically.

  Firenze turned to face the other man, to ask the silent question. Care to extrapolate, there?

  Donegan answered, “Shame, and denial. The moment that Airship hit the water, I knew it was over.” He drank again, finished his beer. He wiped the foam from his upper lip. “I was standing in the terminal, trying to buy a pack of peanuts, when the crowds just stopped, and everyone stared at that viewer. It was a hell of a sight. Hell of a sight.”

  Donegan tapped the bar, and another glass appeared. He continued, “I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything. I had my jack all tapped up to call nobody, I had one mind to go report in to the nearest post, and another to go jump in the ocean and search for survivors, but all I could do was watch. Watch, and tell myself, 'If I'd been there...'.” He drank his twenty cred beer in one swig.

  Firenze stared at his glass, watching the light bend around the rim. He felt a thickness in his chest, a sudden swell of sympathy, and he offered, “There was nothing you could have done.”

  After he'd said it, he regretted it. Donegan was a walking ego trip. This was the wrong tack to take. He wouldn’t respond well to implied weakness-

  Donegan shook his head, and admitted, “I know. I know.”

  Firenze sat in numb silence. He'd been wrong again. He didn’t like that feeling.

  Donegan tapped his glass on the bar, then raised it to salute a ghost, high overhead. He said, “I pulled the logs, after the trial.” That earned a thin smile at the memory, maybe a hint of pride. “I'm no you, but I'm pretty good at this.” The barkeep poured another, and Donegan took a quick sip, before he continued, “You hit everything right. I could have taught a goddamn brevet course from your work up there. There was nothing I could have done that would have mattered. More than likely, I'd just have died with the rest, and gotten Reaper killed, too, ‘cause I’d have been too stupid to run.”

  Firenze had no reply.

  “Yup.” Donegan repeated, bitterly, and drank. “And it makes it so much worse. I pored over that log, hoping you'd fucked up. I know, I know. It's a shit move, but it would have been something to cling to. Instead, I was just useless. They went up there, without me, and died, and I couldn't have done a damn thing about it.” He turned, stared blearily at Firenze, and admitted, “Once the trial got running, I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I wasn't even fit to be hanged with them. You got that spot.” He clapped Firenze on the shoulder, just a little too hard. “Command wanted to send me to the DMZ, deal with some Path bullshit. But I saw what they did to the Old Man. I'm no traitor, I'm not going to go rogue, but they could eat my commission before I ponied up to that chow tube.” Donegan leaned onto the bar, rolled his head lazily over his shoulders. “Besides… I got a lot going for me. A retired EWO? With top clearance? And a legal neural rig? There’s a lot of companies who would literally kill to get a guy like me on the payroll.” He took a long drink, to wash away the bitterness. It didn’t work.

  “Why not call?” Firenze asked.

  “I said, shame. I should have been there. I wasn't. I left a breadcrumb trail for you. If anyone wanted to punch my lights out, they could just come on down.” Donegan said. “So have at.”

  “That 'trail' you left?” Firenze asked, ignoring the invitation for violence, “That took me four hours to crack, once I even found where to start looking. That was not 'just coming on down'.”

  Donegan shrugged. “You're good. If you needed to, you'd find me. Couldn't make it too simple. That would be insulting.”

  “Really?” Firenze asked, incredulous. “Because, I got the impression you enjoyed insulting me.”

  Donegan sighed. He rested his elbows heavily on the counter, and said, “No, it wasn't that. I always respected your abilities, and I have no problem with you. I have a problem with what you represent.”

  “Thanks?”

  Donegan finished his drink. Another replaced it. “Good service, that's what I like.” He hiccuped, then answered, “No, look at it. Look what you are.”

  Fuck you, too, pal. I had to carve my way out of dronetown to get into that school, while you chug twenty cred beer in Arcadia-

  “You were just some kid, living your life, doing your own thing, making your own path. I respect the hell out of that. You were probably going big places at the university, I bet. Prof's aide, special projects, grants and awards... big places. Then, one day, you trip down the rabbit hole, the Agency shoves a wad of data into your skull and poof, instant soldier.”

  It was Firenze’s turn to finish his glass. Wrong again, Grant. Third time's the charm. Another beer arrived, and he took it with a nod.

  Donegan explained, “Now, meanwhile, my team has been doing this for years. Every one of us was utterly dedicated, the best of the best. We aimed our lives towards delivering the most effective electronics warfare the world has seen. This is what we did, who we were, representing years of sacrifice and dedication and cost – and you blew us out of the water.”

  “I didn't want to.” Firenze admitted.

  “I didn't want you to, either.” Donegan allowed. “I hoped you'd fail, every step of the way. Not because I didn't respect you, but because I didn't want to set the precedent. Look, I did this for a long time, I know the kind of people that live at the top. They think in numbers, in costs and benefits, like actuaries with unchecked power. Once the trail is blazed, where they can just presto-powder some poor kid into a soldier... there'll be no going back. I hated you, because if you succeeded, what happened to you wouldn't be an isolated incident. You’d be a prototype.”

  “I never knew.” Firenze said.

  “I never told. I'm an asshole, remember?” Donegan said. “I wasn't going to tell you this. I was going to hold it tight, urge you to buckle, and then do my damned job. But, you turned out to be everything they hoped you'd be. Good for you.” He took a deep drink. “We can look forward to a lot more of that, if we live through this. A lot more kids with hardjacks, bored right into their head without cause, imprint jobs and memdope soldiers, trained for a fraction of the cost, and just as effective. Sure, the mask might kill them, but hey, they can just brew up a few more.”

  He continued, rambling, “I mean, fuck Berenson, right? Striker gets raised from the test tube to be the ultimate weapon, but spends his time playing chess against himself, philosophizing, and staring at his own belly-button, asking shit about 'what measure a man'. Fuck the lot of that, just buy some bombs, and save yourself the trouble. Bombs are cheaper. Easier. You don’t gotta worry about them reading the wrong philosopher. But, you? You're the wave of the future. Don't spend the time to raise the perfect soldier, just grab poor kids or convicts or anyone you want, and plaster shit in their head
. So much safer, so much less backtalk, and so much less drama-queen Nietzsche-quoting.”

  “What?” Firenze asked, lost by the reference.

  “Don't worry about it.” Donegan slurred. “I mean, do worry that we've empowered the worst aspects of our government towards forming a shadow cabal that's parasitically taking over everything we ever stood for… but don't worry about the Nietzsche reference.”

  Firenze asked, “What if we could stop it?”

  “Rise, proletariat...” Donegan scoffed.

  “No.” It was Firenze's turn to be terse. “I mean, what if we could take out Striker, and stop your horror stories.” Not just yours. Mine. What was that Berenson had said? That I “speak Donegan’s language”? Clever bastard.

  “You'd need oversight.” Donegan declared. “You'd need restraint. You'd need-”

  “Article Two.”

  “Yeah.” Donegan stated. “That one.”

  “What if I said we could do this, but we needed your help?” Firenze asked.

  Donegan stared at him for a moment, then put his head down onto the counter, onto his folded arms. “I'd say, pick me up from this counter, because it's very soft. Also, I take back what I said about you.”

  “What's that?”

  “That I was pissed I was wrong. Truth is, I'm glad. You're one of us.” Donegan said. “And, yeah, I'm on board. Just throw me in the car, and remind me when I wake up. Just don’t let Reaper draw a dick on my face. Again.”

  #

  The Agency wanted to meet in a café. That was fine with Clausen.

  A laundromat would have sufficed, or a bar, or a brothel, or any place with lots of eyes. The spooks chose a coffee shop and sandwich factory, one with cozy fireplaces and glass walls, where a man had to pay seventeen credits for a five credit meal. It didn’t matter. Clausen wasn't hungry anyway.

  The suits picked a time: eleven hundred hours. That worked. The when wasn’t important.

  Clausen sat near the back corner, away from the walls, where he could control the flow of the room, keep clear lines through the freestanding stone fireplaces. It was always about angles in places like this. Being able to see before being seen. Being able to move, without being hit. The fundamentals. His pistol dug into his side, his karambit prodded him under his belt. They were always with him, cold steel reminders. He hoped he wouldn’t need them. He was prepared, otherwise.

  Across the restaurant, Charlie Rutman sipped coffee, his left hand casually rested on coat-wrapped needler in his lap. Needlers were the tools of empowered criminals: cartels and terrorists, for whom the banshee scream and gout of flame offered enough benefit to outweigh the absurd cost of the weapon. It was for people who put more faith in intimidation than utility. A needler was small, brutal, and deliriously fast-shooting. A common joke among the teams was that a needler would make one poor sumbitch very dead, and leave his friends very pissed. In the hands of its regular users, this was a tragically apt description. In the hands of an professional like Rutman, it could perform surgery from twenty meters. The longest sight line in this shop was just shy of fifteen.

  The door swung open. With that movement, came the quiet “ding” of an electronic bell and a sudden rush of cold air. Clausen watched, through the glass tops of three booths, between the pillars of two fireplaces. Whoever stepped in would be framed up, beautifully, and Clausen would be damned near lost in the visual noise.

  The woman who entered did so with purpose. She was short, hair pulled back so tight it nearly formed a plane over her head. She wore a heavy gray coat, the kind that hung down to her thighs, and never shifted in the heavy wind. With its heavy center buckle, the double row of buttons, and the heavy shoulders, the coat didn’t need a badge to scream “Agency”. Clausen felt a sneer start to crawl over his face. Of course they’d send some blackshirt out in public, some spook hack who-

  She was looking right at him.

  He saw the sweep. There was no denying the movement. Head slight swivel, eyes side to side, disguise it with a motion to open your coat. Half turn, like you’ve just wandered in, but give no one your back. A split second, and you get the distances, get the lines, identify the threats collateral. She did her little sweep, and she stared right at him, past every obstacle and camouflage between them.

  He gave her a little nod, and pushed her threat-level up a notch.

  She came straight to his table. No pretend, no pretense. She made no fuss, offered no drinks, no banter. She dragged her chair over the stone floor, without grace. She dropped into it, and said, “Good morning, Mister Clausen.”

  “What, no bullshit?” Clausen asked. “Isn’t that against code?”

  She didn’t smile.

  Clausen pushed a little more. “Nice job, making me. Glasses tell you that?” He kept an edge on those last words. She was wearing Agency aug-shades, little black mirrors that made you think you were talking to a fucking spider. Typical spook shit, relying on toys instead of instinct, brains, and people.

  She might have understood, because she raised up one gloved hand, and pulled off the glasses. She gave a small smile, more polite than humored, and met him, eye to eye. “They did.” She admitted. “But I didn’t need them.” She glanced at the table, scowled, and straightened her place-mat. “You're the only one in here who noticed that I entered. You're the only one sitting in a secured position, with his back to a heating unit so thick that we couldn't punch through it with a k-gun if we wanted to. Which we don't.”

  He pushed her threat-level another notch higher. Apparently, the Agency was taking this seriously.

  Clausen returned her stare, and introduced himself, “Brian Clausen. Formerly your employee, now out in the rain.”

  “Field Commander Reyna Velasquez, Operations. Cleaning up your mess.” She returned the courtesy.

  For a long moment, they sat in silence.

  In the kitchen, one of the cooks argued with another about the temperature of an oven, and whether it would burn the next loaf of bread.

  At the counter, a man fished for a credit chit for payment, tried to smile as the clerk declined his transaction from his identicard.

  At the bar, Rutman sipped his coffee, oh-so-nonchalantly.

  By the fireplace, two elderly women argued over a game on one of their datapads, while a saleswoman pitched a “life-changing formula” to an easy mark two booths over.

  Near the door, a young man browsed the help wanted ads, scratching the back of his neck where the sleet dripped from his cap.

  At the most secure table, near the far back corner, two professionals studied each other, the only two in the building aware of the ticks and tings of silverware and the distant hum of a dishwasher.

  Clausen broke the silence. He said, “Odd weapon choice, Commander.” He nodded towards the pistol holstered under her suit-coat, tucked into the suspender-like straps. “That kind of holster rig is slow, lower security, harder to set for long endurance, but you're pulled in tight and level, so you're not just winging it. You chose that holster deliberately, which means you needed it. Sure, it gets you in and out of vehicles quicker, but a small weapon does that, nearly as well, without the social problems of ditching that rig whenever you pull off your jacket. You're carrying a full powered ten mill under there, scaled for your grip, but still the grand daddy workhorse, not the cut-down Fiver. You trained for it, you can handle it, and you think that you can place your nine shots on target with far more effect than someone else's hosed-about fifteen. You're confident, you're competent, and you're a straight shooter, so why the hell are you working for Raschel?”

  Without skipping a beat, she pointed to his own concealed weapon, strapped to his side under his loose shirt. “That's a ten millimeter SOCAP, original frame, original slide. It's probably got the original barrel in it, too, octagonal. You've been carrying that weapon since you were deployed to Tansana, six years ago. You knocked over the Whitehall Arsenal and ran off with enough hardware to blow this block to atoms, but you're carrying the old w
arhorse instead of some DEW or k-gun.” She paused for a moment, then resolved her statement. “You're practical, you rely on what works, not fancy toys to get you through. You know exactly what you need to do, how to do it, and you give no credence to whims or fantasy, so why are you playing ball with Berenson?”

  He countered, “You're not Operations, not originally. One of their agents would keep a shaved head, or a close cut, to prevent someone from getting hold of their hair in a melee. You keep yours in that ponytail, businesslike, but you also hold yourself well, which means you came from Investigations. You still think you're a beat cop, don't you? Protecting and serving? Law and justice? You're in the land of the damned, now, Commander, and if you can't smell the stink yet, you need to check your nose.”

  “You're growing a beard, letting your hair get long, cultivating the appearance of a renegade, but you trim it every morning. You flirt with alcohol and civilian clothing, but at the end, you keep everything square, just inside regulations. You still think you're a soldier, fighting a war that you can't win.”

  “Your man by the papers is too green. Tell him to stop checking want ads for a fry cook when he's wearing a four hundred credit watch.”

  “Your man at the bar's packing some serious heat in his gut, and he keeps checking his barrel so that he won't point it at anyone. Charming, but a dead giveaway.”

  “You're not wearing armor, and your backup in the van is too far away to matter. You're betting your life this won't go south.”

  “You're not giving signals to your man perched on the rooftop next door, so you know I'm here to deal, not sucker-punch.”

  There was another silence, like high tension cabling stretched between them, just begging to snap. Blue eyes lasered into brown, and neither blinked. She was good. She didn't flinch, didn't posture, didn't make any play. She was clean. Probably honestly believed in what she did. Probably woke up each morning, earnestly tried to save the Charter. It was a pity they had to be enemies. She'd have made one hell of an ally.