Persist (Discipline Book 3)

by P. S. Power

  It was evil, but should work, if he could pull it off.

  Chapter ten

  The trick of course was splitting his attention. Half, or more, of what was needed involved protecting the people around him. His friends, inside the doughnut shop, and the people around him that hadn’t run away yet, like they should have. Why that was, Ben actually had a good idea for once. They hadn’t all frozen in fear or terror this time, which was different.

  Getting vid of the others fighting, win or lose, would be worth more than avoiding a trip to the hospital, in raw dollars. Possibly millions would be paid out for the lucky winner of the life lottery, if they had a camera and were willing to use it at the right time. It was still a rare occurrence that allowed it to happen, but here they were, at the site of a Swarm attack, and the killer insects were already down. That left terrorists in combat armor, and the vehicles that were clearly trying to run people down at full speed, but those, thankfully, weren’t as coordinated as the silver bugs had been.

  Ben wasn’t certain, but he thought they might have actually shared a mind. If not then they were highly linked.

  There were a lot of bullets in the air on his side of things, but the brown armored attackers on the other side had made a big mistake, and tried to physically go into the shop. That meant three of them were currently engaged, fighting for their lives, with their weapons already stripped away from them. The problem was the other two, who were waiting for a chance to open fire. Wisely standing back like they all should have been in the first place. Using their weapons from a distance, against the people that couldn’t really fight back that way.

  It was still a bit of a mistake on their part, since the troops didn’t have weapons that would take out their own people. Just firing at the unarmored people would stop them, and be safe for their own side.

  The five coming for him had all hidden behind vehicles, and were shooting over them, their large metal and ceramic weapons destroying the auto he was currently tucked behind. It had a composite body, but was light weight, being a sportier model than most had access to. An electric, but the kind designed to get women out of their clothes and into your bed. The only thing about it that didn’t scream that the driver wanted to have sex with the world was the blue coloration.

  Everyone knew that good sex bait had to be red. It was in all the virts.

  Of course, just owning a vehicle at all meant you were wealthy, and probably privileged enough that anyone would be happy to think of you as a potential partner. It wasn’t that hard to figure out why. No one starved, but they lived in a world where having a job, even the one the man had working in the doughnut shop, marked you as pretty special. Maybe not instantly wealthy, but it told everyone that you weren’t just a leech, draining the system.

  Showing real wealth was rare and meant that for whatever reason, you had power.

  Ben sighed, and tried to relax, as numbers flooded his vision. The men firing were about to figure out that he had nothing to fight back with, and the two in the shop were going to try and snipe at the others, who were already winning their fights. As soon as they did that, and the terrorists being engaged died or stopped fighting, their buddies were going to open fire.

  That would kill them all. As it was, the reporter that had been needling Lissa was already down, a bit of debris having hit her in the head.

  He saw it, but kept that part from being real. So far. There was no way in the world that Ben could afford to let that happen to him at the moment. Not in the position he was. Unless he wanted to simply die. That wasn’t his current idea however.

  The big danger, if his horrible and insanely cruel plan worked, would be in the computer driven vehicles. That would have sounded insane, if he spoke the words out loud, but the truth was, Ben didn’t have a way to stop them.

  Clark could do it however, if he wasn’t busy fighting for his life.

  The glimpses of what the other three, Clark, Micha and Mags, were doing inside that place was incredible, of course. Impressive in a way that defied real explanation. They flowed over the armored forms, tossing their weight away while grabbing at an arm, pushing at the right places to make the terrorists stumble, and slapping at the helmets with incredible counter forces. It was very different than anything he’d seen in a virt or VR. There were almost no jumping or spinning kicks, and no one hit with a fist against the hardened forms. That would just damage themselves, after all.

  Shaking, Ben set himself for what he had to do, and tried to fire off a message. The problem was that if he interrupted Clark or one of the others that was busy at the moment, that could get them killed. Luckily he had more than one option left.

  ~Lissa?~ The word was focused, but calm, considering he was about to die if everything didn’t work just right. Maybe even if it did.

  ~Help!~ The single thought let him know that she was all right. It was far too strong to come from someone bleeding to death.

  ~I’m about to do that. As soon as you hear the screaming and moaning, go and get Clark to stop the vehicles? Oh! Also get all the weapons away from the men on the ground. I don’t know how long I can hold them.~ Or if it was going to work in the first place. It wasn’t as if anyone had ever done it before.

  ~I understand. Hurry!~

  Ben contemplated doing a countdown for her, but the three men that were rushing him, not bothering to fire at the same time, were going to get to him well before he could get to three. So, he found the worst memory that one of them had of being in crippling pain. Feeling sickened by the lack of the drug that was being used to force them to the will of their masters. He hated it. Even the euphoria that he felt when it was given struck him as wrong. Not having it was the worst thing he could imagine.

  Not that he, or the others, had a choice in what they were doing. They either served, or they died. Their families too, if they tried to rebel. Not that they weren’t dying in the strange lands they found themselves as well. They had to try however. There was no other choice.

  It was cruel, given that, but Ben pulled not just the one man, but all the others into the memory with them. All of the armored men were included. Which, as had been predicted, caused them to start moaning. They didn’t all go down to the ground, since it was only pain and sickness, but they weren’t up to fighting a pitched battle really. Not at the same time.

  The place they were in was a lot different than Ben would have expected, once he started to live it along with them. The building was made of unpainted wood, and very large. There was actual hay, or straw, on the ground, and a few piles of animal waste along the sides. None of the creatures were in with them, and dozens of men were lying on the floor in dingy, old fashioned seeming, clothing.

  They mainly had beards, and wore suspenders, like some Mennonites still did. Ben had seen a documentary on them once, a long time before. These men however, were all in horrible pain, as a single, distinctly female, form walked down the aisle made of their writhing bodies.

  The words weren’t anything that he could understand, not knowing the language, but he got the meaning rather clearly. The woman, who was in red leather and holding a small, decorative whip, that had a handle that could double as a metal club, sneered at the men. It was filled with contempt for them.

  Then they were told the rules.

  “You do what we say, when we say it. If you, any of you, fail, or disobey, then we don’t help you with the next treatment, and this happens. You hear our words and follow them, without end. If you don’t do it, the men of this village, then we will come back and take your children, your wives… They will serve in your place. Even death is not going to save you! You will serve!”

  Then, as if the men might not get the idea, the bitchy woman, who had deep brown hair, and was actually rather pretty in a cold seeming way, said it again, and again. For what felt like hours. Ben got all the pleasures of what was going on in the man that he was riding with. The others did too, however, making it very hard to fight. If they were getting the full show, w
hich was the plan at the moment, then it was probably going to be impossible. He couldn’t see anything outside of himself, and Ben knew that there was no way that any kind of actual fighting was going to be happening on his part of things.

  At any moment he could be shot, if he’d missed any of the men that were attacking, or be run over by a large and heavy transport. For all he knew it had already happened. The memory was a long one, and the men didn’t manage to rally, probably believing they were back in that time again. Each of them had a very similar memory after all. It was pretty dismal. More than one of them wanted to die, to get away from the discomfort. Ben could see that part. He sort of wanted to drop the thing himself, to get away from it.

  That wasn’t going to work however, so the whole thing was held, until a long time later, when he was being first shaken and then slapped around like a ragdoll. Ben opened his eyes, dropping the field that was holding the other men, and looked up.

  He didn’t know who to expect, thinking that Micha might enjoy slapping him like that, but it was just some cop. One that he’d never even seen before. The woman was built like a weight lifter, if a bit plush for that, and had on a heavy winter jacket that was probably bullet resistant. Under the hard look, she was decently fresh faced seeming. Though the expression ruined things a bit.

  “You alive in there?” She didn’t sound hopeful about it, her brown wispy hair shoved under an official hat. Her nose reminded Ben a bit of a pig’s snout. With her rather round features that kind of worked for her however. Not that she was ugly really. Ben was, he thought, just a bit against the enforcement arm of the government. None of the problems they had would exist without the people that went around making it happen.

  “Yeah. You can stop beating me now. The terrorists… If I’m out of that, they will be too.”

  That got a smile, and the woman gestured to the side of the parking lot. Ben had been moved bodily to be in front of some stores, about fifty meters away from where the fighting, or in his case, artful hiding, had been going on. There were ambulances, a sea of police cars and one van that said FBI on the side, as well as a whole lot of news crews.

  Looking down, Ben realized that his hands were missing. Not gone, thankfully, but simply secured behind his back. That nearly got him to growl and order the woman to release him, but as a strategy, even he knew that wouldn’t work. Being tied up put him in a weaker position than the woman next to him, and gave her power over him that she really shouldn’t be holding at the moment.

  “Um, you do know that I’m not an armored thug or a flying insect, right? I can see the mistake though, what with my rock hard body, and fancy wings. Fooling you into thinking that I’m one of them. This is all real though. Oh yeah. All me here.” He tried to pretend to be flexing for her amusement, and it did get a smile.

  “Sorry about that. When we got here the attackers were down, and in pain, and you were making the same noises. Your friends said that you were the one making it happen? How?”

  He nearly explained, then decided that it would be too much work. This woman wasn’t evil, but her intelligence was kind of average, and trying to explain to her that psychic powers were real, and a known thing that she just hadn’t been taught about, wasn’t going to be easy. Not at the moment.

  “I have genetic modifications that let me do it. Unfortunately, it hurts to use. As you saw?” The woman nodded at him, as he found where the bad guys were, not too far away. They were all stripped down, wearing only tan form fitting fighting outfits under the composite and metal that they’d all had on before. Most of them were small, and still had their beards, which was interesting. It made them all look very Middle Eastern, since they were dark enough in coloration otherwise. Not that it was true.

  These fellows were much further from home that that.

  The cuffs were taken off, thankfully, after a few moments, and while he wasn’t allowed to get up and go find everyone, the others came to him. Mags had a bandage around her middle, but the blood that showed through it was on the extreme left of her stomach, which probably meant that whatever had hit her had mainly missed. Micha was limping, and Clark was cradling his right arm, but smiled when he got over to Ben.

  “That’s better. You had us all worried for a bit. Everyone is all right. The reporter, Tammy Lincoln, had to go to the hospital. A piece of table hit her in the head. It wasn’t that bad though, so I think she’ll live. Lissa and Lenore hid in the supply closet in the back, until the men started to scream and fell down. Then Lis ran out and took over, ordering us to take their weapons, and for me to get the vehicles. There were no other problems. So, I think we won?” The powerful man glanced at everyone around them, including the officer, and got nods from each one. There was even a smile from Lenore.

  “I was so scared! I guess that shopping is out for the day, huh?” She looked like it was an attempt at a joke, but Ben shook his head.

  “Nope. That would be letting the terrorists win. Besides, I need a coat at the very least. Maybe gloves? Possibly a new sweater. If I can I want to pick up a lot of things, for the others?” Though, looking down, the green thing he had on, while dirty from his mad scramble and the lying down he’d done on the wet, snow and muck covered lot, seemed to have held up, not having any tears or bullet holes in it. A good washing might save it. That was worth trying anyway.

  No one else agreed with him however, since there was, like it or not, work to do, back at the compound now. When they got in touch with the people there, Glenda rather put her foot down, explaining that some things were a little more important than their shopping pleasure. As if that made any sense. They’d come all that way, and as Clark had pointed out, they’d won. It wasn’t a pyric victory for once either. They hadn’t lost ten percent of their own people, or taken hits that were so great that it would hurt them for a long time. Going to the compound wasn’t even that much safer than being out and about, really.

  They had more weapons there, and backup, but moving around might be as good of a defense.

  Standing, he didn’t let himself feel all that bitter about it. Things were, if nothing else, a little distracted for the day. Plus, now they were being followed by news vans, which would be impossible to shake off. The electrics weren’t designed to lose other vehicles and were all capable of following a designated auto, since that came up fairly frequently. People going on trips and all that needing to travel and stop at the same times.

  So they were, after a fashion, kind of stuck. Ben was required to go over everything, for a bit, but then a call came in, and the FBI agents on the scene, who were all dressed up in nice blue jackets that seemed warm, waved them off.

  “We have addresses and contact numbers for all of you. Right now we need to clear this area. We should be in touch over the next few days on this.” The man that spoke didn’t seem bored, as much as edgy, suddenly. The call that had come in from his boss hadn’t been prompted by the White House at all, but seemed to have come from at least three different agencies, at nearly the same time. Ben plucked it from the intense seeming man’s mind. It would have been a bigger deal to him, but the FBI didn’t handle that part of terrorism cases anyway. Technically it was Homeland that did that, and they were still getting people into place. Being slow and inefficient like they were.

  Given that both of the Presidential children were there however, and one of them had been recorded beating up a man in military grade combat armor, along with her buddies, the agent personally was willing to look the other way. The sooner they all got out of there, the better off the regular people would be, since it was clearly an attack meant to go for the kids. Not that either girl was that young. On the good side, doing that seemed to be a mistake on the part of the attackers. Whatever the guards really were, they’d done their job that day and then some.

  “You have transport?” It was possible they didn’t any longer, even if they’d come in with some. A lot of the vehicles there weren’t going to be driving away that day under their own power.
<
br />   Thankfully for them, when they went to check on her, Bluebell was nearly perfect. She had some scratches, from where a large armored transport had struck her, but other than that she was fine. When the thing had come for her, the rather well programed and high end vehicle had maneuvered carefully, to protect herself. None of the other vehicles had, which kind of pointed out that something very different was going on with her.

  That she was, even if not an AI, very special.

  “Destination set; home. Road conditions seem adequate, but small amounts of falling snow may be an issue. Do you wish to reroute, or postpone the trip?” Her little girl voice was cute about it, sounding both young and professional at the same time.

  Mags managed a tired seeming grin about it all.

  “That should be fine. We can go slowly if needed. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. We can begin as soon as everyone is seated and has appropriate restraints on.”

  That didn’t take long, though Clark needed help with his, given his clearly injured arm. Lenore provided that, and Mags was clearly left uncomfortable by the belt that she had to place so close to her wound. Ben helped with it, which meant starting a null field, which he wasn’t certain was a good idea at the moment. The others all started reaching for him, except Micha, who nodded.

  “I’ll keep a watch out. This was… Special. I’d say it was screwed up, since I didn’t get to be armed with the gear I would have wanted to start with, but other than that… We kind of kicked behind, you know?” She sounded a little worked up, and just a hint of shakiness entered her voice.

  To his surprise, Lissa spoke up, just as Bluebell got to the edge of the parking lot and started making her way, very carefully, past the arrayed emergency vehicles.

  “Why… Did you send me to the closet? I can see Lenore, but I can fight. I’m not as good as the others, but… I’m better at it than you are.” She was aiming the words at Ben, and didn’t seem half as sulky about it as all that. It was just that she was actually wondering why he’d done things that way.