The Legend of the Red Specter (The Adventures of the Red Specter Book 1)

by M. A. Wisniewski

  “Yes, of course it would,” said Joy, silently cursing at her foot-in-mouth disease. Two sentences in, and already she’d created a hostile interview. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. I just wanted to schedule an interview, and—”

  “Mom! Mom!” A small, dark-haired little boy bounded into view and started tugging on the woman’s skirts. “Mom! Mom! Rosa won’t stay on her side of the couch. She keeps bothering me, and I told her to stop, but—”

  “Did not!” An even smaller girl, otherwise a mirror image of her brother, stomped into view, face screwed up in righteous indignation. “I was not on his side.”

  “Was so!”

  The woman tried in vain to explain to her kids that mommy was busy and she’d get to them in a moment, but they were unconvinced. This matter of territorial incursions into mutually agreed-upon zones of non-aggression on the living-room couch was a matter of the utmost seriousness, requiring immediate dispensation of justice from the sole available officer of the peace. Could she not see that? Was she going to be negligent in duties? Joy could see that said peace officer was about ready to lose her shit, so she decided to offer some emergency mediation.

  Joy leaned over to bring her head down to their level, and favored them with her brightest smile. “Oh, look at this! What an adorable pair of children. Hello there, you little cuties. What are your names? My name’s Joy.”

  Both of them ceased their pleas for arbitration and stared at her, noticing her for the first time. Rosa was able to say her name, though she had a hard time looking right at her, sort of squirming around while she talked, with her hands behind her back. The boy wasn’t able to do so well. He retreated to the safety his mom’s skirts, peering out at her from behind her leg. His mom had to answer for him. His name was Mateo.

  “Well—Rosa, Mateo—how’d you like to play a little game with me?” Joy didn’t bother to wait for an answer. She’d already been digging through her purse for the hook. “If you win, you know what happens? You can get a special lucky coin.”

  Joy produced the quarter, and both sets of eyes locked in on it. She had them. “Okay, the game is called ‘Who Can Stay Quiet the Longest.’ You need to put your hands over your mouths, like this….”

  Joy demonstrated, and they both copied her, attention held by the lucky quarter. “Good job! Now you just stay like that, and don’t make a sound. And whoever does that for the longest time wins the game and gets the lucky quarter. But that’s not all! Because guess what?”

  Joy thumbed another coin from her palm out into view. “Today I happen to have two lucky fortune coins—and if you both manage to stay quiet for long enough, you both get a quarter. Sound good?”

  They both nodded, and Joy pretended to start the timer by glancing at her wristwatch. If they’d been her younger siblings, she’d have used something cheaper and more creative than a “lucky fortune coin,” but this would do in a pinch. Anyway, the mom, whose name was Kanda, seemed much friendlier now, and was able to answer some questions, thanks to the quiet game. Joy made sure to periodically jingle or flash the quarters in her pen hand, to keep the kids’ attention on the reward. She’d really prefer it if they both managed to win the “contest.”

  But back to business: Thiago had enlisted immediately after the call went out, very early in the war. Now he worked hard in one of the steel refineries, commuting upriver every day on the ferry to the northern edge of Dodona. He’d told her about seeing the Red Specter, down by the docks. He’d been standing on the roof of one of the warehouses, a dark outline against the starry sky. Then he’d leapt from rooftop to rooftop, until he’d actually taken flight, soaring in a long, graceful arc, until he sunk out of view behind some buildings a few blocks away. Thiago and his drinking buddies had taken off into pursuit, only when they’d gotten close to the point where they’d seen the Specter drop out of sight, they’d heard crashing, yelling, and even a gunshot or two, and had wisely turned around and ran the other way.

  Joy found the claim of gunshots rather startling. Shouldn’t something like that have been in the news? Well, maybe it had—Joy had a hard time forcing herself to read any of the Dodona newspapers these days, though she knew she was only hurting herself by doing so. Joy asked for more details about the man Thiago saw on the roof, but Kanda didn’t have any. She’d have to ask Thiago that next time he was home.

  “You said he was out with his drinking buddies when he saw this?” Joy tried to put as much of a neutral, nonjudgmental tone to the question as she could. Kanda had already shown that this was a touchy subject for her.

  “Yes, and if you’re asking if he was really seeing straight—I don’t know.” Kanda looked more defeated than angry now. “You should know—this wasn’t a problem before the war. Those gas masks—I don’t think they stop everything. Sometimes he gets the shakes—I’ve seen it—and a shot of whiskey is all that stops the….”

  Kanda trailed off, glancing back to her two young children, standing with covered mouths, but wide-open eyes and ears. Mateo noticed the adults were looking at him, and Joy saw his hands come off his mouth. She gave her coins a sharp jingle, reminding him of the game, and he clapped his hands back in place, quivering with alarm over his near-fatal blunder.

  Yeah, there was a limit to how long you could run the “let’s-be-quiet” game with kids their age before their patience ran out and they exploded like overheated steam kettles. Joy glanced at her watch and pretended to count down.

  “Three… two… one… Dingdingdingdingding!” she said, throwing up her arms. “Congratulations! You both win. Yaaaayyyy!”

  The kids cheered and bounced around the foyer, though they had to settle down for Joy to hand them their prizes. Kanda prompted them to say thank you to the nice young lady, and they did.

  “Now, let me tell you a special secret about these lucky fortune coins,” said Joy. “There’s a way to make them even luckier. Want to know how? You go find a spot—it should be somewhere in your house—that’s a special place that only you know about. Under your pillow will work, but if you can find someplace even more secret, that’s even better. That’s how you get the best luck, and you want to do it right away.”

  The kids nodded, and both ran up the stairs, where Joy guessed their rooms were, the whole dispute over the Great Couch Incursion all but forgotten. Joy figured that’d occupy them for at least five minutes, maybe more.

  That left the adults to talk about adult things. Joy was able to confirm that Thiago was drinking way more than anyone should, but it really did sound like it was partially in response to some type of chronic condition that’d he’d developed during the war. Joy suggested seeing a doctor at the Veteran’s Hospital—maybe they’d have some medicine for his “shakes” that worked better than whiskey. But they’d already tried that. They’d gone in, filled out some forms, and been told to expect a reply in four months. That had been six months ago.

  “Six months?” Joy couldn’t believe it, but Kanda was adamant. Thiago’s symptoms weren’t bad enough, they said. Thiago retained all of his faculties. He could move around on his own. He could go to work at a factory every day. There were others who weren’t so lucky, who’d been left permanently paralyzed by the Hemlock Gas. They would be treated first. Thiago would have to wait his turn.

  So, what could they do? And, there were reprieves—times when it wasn’t so bad. But right now, they were running up to the anniversary of Matias’ death. Yes, that was his brother, and little Mateo was named after him. They’d all been so close. If the situation had been reversed, and Thiago had been killed, she would’ve married Matias instead. Thiago would’ve wanted that. The years went by, but it didn’t feel like it was getting any easier. It was so hard sometimes.

  Joy was at a loss for what to say. She remembered back to her time at the KIB, seeing a pamphlet for state-provided mental counseling for veterans. She tried to bring it up, but Kanda got annoyed with her again. Thiago wasn’t crazy!

  Joy had a hard time explain
ing how this kind of mental counseling wasn’t just for crazy people. As soon as the words left her mouth she realized that was the wrong way to phrase it. Maybe she’d be able to find one of those counselling pamphlets for when she came back in three days at seven o’clock in the evening. That’s when Kanda thought Thiago would be available to talk. Mission accomplished, sort of, and Joy managed to part on good terms.

  Joy began to walk back the way she came with no particular destination in mind. She felt a twisting in her stomach, a sense of dread that had been rising ever since she’d left Madame Zenovia’s. What was she supposed to do now?

  Chapter 22

  Echoes Of War

  She had one name left on her list. She wasn’t going to get to it today, and tomorrow was a holiday. She wanted to get this story done, but she didn’t see what more she could do now. She had an anxious sense that her actions were being judged; that she was being watched. The feeling was strong enough that she even looked behind her to see if someone was following her, but of course no one was.

  She stared down at that last name and address and sighed. Would they even be home tomorrow? Or would it be another abandoned building? That would be a long distance to walk for nothing. Joy felt her heart sink at the thought of it. She knew she needed to check. Real journalism was something like ninety percent perseverance, sifting through dozens of false leads until you got the one that broke the whole story wide open. She knew that, but right now she was finding it next to impossible to summon the energy for any of it. Not for this stupid story.

  Joy tried to occupy her brain by reviewing the interview with Kanda. Actually, there was a lot to unpack here. Joy wasn’t sure what Thiago’s “shakes” were, but they sounded serious. Certainly they were bad enough to be seriously affecting his home life—making him turn to drink to numb the symptoms. And to be kept waiting for over six months to see a doctor about it? Outrageous! Certainly, priority should go to veterans suffering from paralysis, but that was no excuse to not treat veterans like Thiago at all.

  Was the Veteran’s hospital so badly overwhelmed? Well, if so, they needed to pour more resources into it—hire more doctors, expand their facilities, even add new locations, if that’s what it took. It wasn’t like triumphant Kallistrate was hurting for money.

  Poor Thiago and poor Kanda—Joy couldn’t stop wondering about his “shakes.” What were they? Kanda claimed it had been the hemlock gas, and that could be possible. As far as Joy knew, although Kallistrate scientists had figured out countermeasures against the Rosedeath—gas masks and an emergency antitoxin cocktail—they still had no idea what it actually was. No one had ever managed to gather a sample of the stuff. Even if you siphoned it into an airtight container, it would disappear in a few hours. Not dissipate, not break down—disappear, leaving no trace elements behind. That was supposed to be impossible, but it happened again and again. Who knew what the effects of long-term exposure were.

  Or maybe the “shakes” were a psychological problem. Joy had seen first-hand how the state of someone’s mind could affect their health. Take her weeping statue story: that veteran had been adamant that he felt worlds better after the statue “took his pain from him.” Of course, there were limits to the power of suggestion. It couldn’t regrow a leg. But the implications were profound. Thiago had lost his brother in the war. He’d seen it happen. What might that do to a person, to see your own family die in front of you? Could it make you physically ill, to the point where you got seizures, or panic attacks?

  What if the circumstances of Matias’ death had been especially tragic or horrific? It wasn’t like horrific deaths had been uncommon in the Great War, especially towards the end. Golems, mines, new types of high-powered artillery and rapid-fire weapons, all deployed in hostile cities with cramped streets where you had no idea who was an enemy and who wasn’t. Prolonged exposure to that level of stress, day in and day out—what could that do to the mind of a human being. The “shakes” were probably the least of it—just the most obvious symptom.

  Thinking about it gave Joy a twinge of guilt. She’d never had to go through anything like that herself. The Kallistrate military had determined that she’d be best suited shifting through intercepted communications in foreign languages, safely behind a desk at the KIB. She’d been prepared to take on a riskier position, like a field agent or something. She’d mentioned that to her family, and Dad made a huge show of how relieved he was to have her out of danger. “That just shows how Central really knows what it’s doing, Joybear. They figured out that if they let you anywhere near the front, you’d get it into your head to try to slay a dragon single-handed, and then you’d get eaten, and then where would we all be?” That got a huge laugh from the rest of the family, though Joy didn’t think it had been at all funny. She wasn’t a reckless kid any more. She was very sensible and level-headed.

  June had served too, but she’d entered service towards the end of the war, and she’d been a medic. Medical personnel were rarely targeted by anyone, since they had a policy of treating the injured on both sides of the conflict. June had come through fine.

  Kane had also entered service towards the end of the war and hadn’t actually seen much fighting. According to him, his unit’s average “engagement” had been to roll into one town or the other and accept the negotiated surrender of the local garrison.

  Dean’s service had been far more harrowing, crewing one of the armored “Spikefruit” cargo ships in the Kallistrate navy. That had been terrifying because death could be so sudden and random. One of Albion’s Sea Dragons could surge up from beneath the waves at any time, at point blank range, and torch the entire ship, along with its crew. Kallistrate’s only counter was to create cargo ships that doubled as floating grenades. The iron spines on the spikefruit ships would blast out, mortally wounding any dragon who ignited their shaped charges, but it wouldn’t save the crew from being cooked alive. Kallistrate could make that trade-off. They could replace ships and crew faster than Albion could raise new dragons. But no-one could replace Joy’s brother.

  Joy had a hard time envisioning the courage involved to crew one of those ships, knowing how it worked and what would happen if you got attacked, and still saying “Yes, sign me up.” But thousands of sailors had done it anyway. One time she’d tried telling Dean how brave he’d been, and how proud she was. He’d gotten embarrassed. He didn’t want to accept any praise. He said he didn’t think he was brave. He didn’t like to talk about his experience much, other than to show her some of the pages in his sketchbook—drawings of his convoy and the sea, taken from the crow’s nest, or detailed renderings of the ship’s interior. Joy knew his convoys had been attacked multiple times, but each time some other boat had been the target.

  That had been a relief for Joy and the family. They’d been so lucky. But now Joy was starting to worry about Dean. He’d must’ve had to watch his fellow sailors drown, or be burned alive, helpless to stop it. She wondered if Dean ever got “the shakes.” And if he did, would he be able to see a qualified doctor about it?

  And that soldier who’d gone to the Mithras statue—was it possible he’d done that because the Veteran’s Hospital hadn’t been giving him adequate treatment for his phantom pain? She’d been so focused on the “miracle regrowth” part of the story that she’d neglected to check on that angle. The more Joy thought about it, the more she suspected that there were quite a few Thiagos and Kandas out there—people still suffering from the after effects of the Great War, and Kallistrate was failing in its responsibility to care for the men and women who’d sacrificed so much for the good of the nation.

  This was a real story, with real consequences and import. This was one of those times where a real, dedicated journalist could expose the truth and make a difference.

  Too bad there wasn’t anybody like that here. Ms. Joy Song Fan was busy tracking down some ghost sightings to pay her rent. No one in Dodona was going to accept a serious, important story if she was the one writing it.

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nbsp; It left a bitter taste in her mouth. It was so hard to stay enthusiastic about creating a plausible fake interview with a ghostly folkloric figure who barely spoke, when there were these other issues that demanded attention running around her brain. Kovidh’s meditations were supposed to help you deal with out-of-control thoughts and help you stay present, but Joy found they weren’t working so well for her right now.

  She decided to just relax and let her brain do whatever. Her bench was in the shade and a sudden breeze brought some relief from the oppression of the hot summer air. All the Liberation Day flags and banners fluttered in response. Joy noticed that this street had a lot of posters dedicated to various heroes of the revolution, rendered in the new art style a lot of these posters used, bold and simple: Partholon Hardwicke, General Bonami Yagcha, members of the 13th Steam Golem Company, the Red Specter and his crew, and….

  Wait, what? Joy sat up and double-checked to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She wasn’t. She was staring right at a poster depicting the Red Specter, posing heroically in the background, with Lila, Baz, Kolton, and Dr. Zhang in the foreground, gazing up with admiration. This was a bunch of fictional characters being posted and lionized in the exact same manner as a bunch of real ones. Was this a prank?

  Joy walked up close to the poster so she could compare it with the regular ones, and had to conclude that if the Specter poster was a forgery, it was so skillfully done that it might as well be official. Why would anybody do this? And were there more of these posters around town? If so, that could explain all the Red Specter sightings right there.

  Well, maybe for Madame Zenovia, it did—one of those posters could have filtered in through her psychotic break, to mix in with her hallucinations about demons running rampant, but Thiago had claimed to see him standing on a rooftop, silhouetted against the night sky. That couldn’t have been a poster.