Jace placed the cake on the nearest table; with a gruff motion that belied an earnest show of camaraderie which only he could accomplish, the tobacco chewing mercenary gripped the top of the young Ihlia's scalp and offered her head a patronizing rub as if to say “'atta girl! Happy Birthday!” When Ihlia glanced up at him from the safety of Shandi's embrace, she offered him a playfully annoyed face; in return, he lifted the blue plastic cup clutched in his free hand and spit a healthy brown stream of saliva into it.
“Touching, Jace. What is she, twelve? Let me show you how it's done.” Loxley swatted the vulgar mercenary's hand from Ihlia's head and gingerly cupped her fingertips in his. “To the stunning young sharpshooter's seventeenth birthday.” As he commemorated the moment, Loxley lifted my younger version's hand and placed his lips tenderly against the back of her knuckles.
“Oh, sure, that's classy. What is this, the twentieth century?” Gunther mocked the condescending tone Loxley had offered Jace and sauntered to Shandi before draping his arm around her shoulder. Gunther slowly, sneakily lowered his hand dangerously close to the round swell of the auburn-haired belle's right breast. My younger version lifted her head and clamped her pearly whites atop one of his roaming digits. The mercenary yelped, uncertain of what exactly transpired, and snatched his hand into a cradle formed by its twin.
“Ow, Ihlia! What the hell was that for?” Gunther puckered his lips; as he cursed under his breath, he gently blew across the teeth marks that burned his right hand with a throbbing, fiery pain.
“Sug', you're lucky Ihlia bit you. If you actually touched me, I'd have done much worse,” Shandi grinned and tossed Ihlia a grateful wink.
“Fuck, that stings,” Gunther's words faded into mumbled obscurity.
Welsch stepped up and offered Ihlia a light slap against the center of her shoulders, “Grats, Ihlia. You've survived seventeen years, here's to hoping you got a few more in ya.” Welsch and Ihlia exchanged jovial laughter.
“Wait, if she's only seventeen does that mean she's not legal yet?” Gunther ignored his pulsing hand to pursue knowledge which struck him as infinitely more important.
“Depends on where you're at,” Loxley responded in a blatant fashion.
“And how many of us you think you can go through to get to her,” Bit added with almost fatherly regard.
“Aw, man, so she's still off limits? We can't bang her?” Gunther pried the issue with a nonchalant undertone. Ihlia and Shandi simultaneously shot him glares infused with the damning chill of death incarnate.
“Haha, he said ‘bang’…” The twins guffawed in unison, exchanging glances and mischievous smirks at their inward correlation between the sexual innuendo and the explosives they loved.
“What makes you think I'd want whatever you're carrying, anyway?” My younger version stepped back from Shandi and crossed her arms across the humbly budding swell of her breasts.
“Aw, come on, I'm clean,” Gunther laughed. The entire room echoed with a resonating “Riiight…”
As the gathering of my former allies rumbled with dirty jokes and light-hearted laughter, Ihlia felt a soft tap on her right shoulder. She whirled about to face the passive request for her attention, and her gaze fell upon the downcast countenance of Downy.
“H-here, this is f-for you. H-happy B-birthday,” Downy stammered. Within an extended hand covered in a fingerless leather glove, the quiet tech engineer offered Ihlia a single, mostly white flower. A splash of crimson painted one side of the gorgeous petals. “I f-found it during our last s-skirmish. It's a d-desert flower, so it's p-pretty rare.”
“Thanks, Downy! Wait, what's this bit of red here?” Ihlia tenderly retrieved the flower from Downy's grip and twirled the green stem between her thumb and forefinger. The petals spun in a delicate dance within the young sniper's fingers.
“Probably blood. It was near an enemy's corpse,” Downy stated in a blatant matter-of-fact manner. The young Ihlia blinked at him a few times, likely alarmed by the lack of his usual stammer.
“Oh, well, um, thank you very much!” Ihlia chuckled under her breath.
The evening sun eventually sank behind the desert sands, and the darkness of night encroached on the celebration. Bradich remained motionless in the corner with his back planted firmly against the wall the entire time. Though night brought darkness to the desert oasis, the perpetual shadow lingering over the commander's facade had been in place long before the moon rose over the sandy hills. In the midst of the festivities, Ihlia stopped and stared at her leader with a perplexed expression. She tossed a quick glance to Shandi; though the buxom belle managed to maintain an air of happiness, she occasionally cut a worried stare at the man she loved.
My younger self and I synchronously sighed. Ihlia sighed at the distress of her motherly figure; I sighed with the knowledge that Bradich's abysmal countenance remained rooted in a problem far beyond the scope of the party or even the mission in Cairo. If the young Ihlia possessed my knowledge, then perhaps the events destined to transpire would have concluded differently. “If only I had known…” I frowned.
“Bradich, sir… Are you okay?” The young Ihlia bent forward at the waist in front of her commander and lifted her head so that she might lock eyes with his downcast gaze.
As I beheld his twisted, gnarled expression, I understood the thoughts racing through his mind. His brain busily worked to justify his rationale, and his heart hardened to steel his mettle for the act of treason he prepared to commit. There was no other way to explain it, but there was no way to convey it to the young Ihlia, either. Though I perceived the imminent danger to those I loved, Ihlia spent her concern on the very perpetrator fated to strip her of her second family, her second chance at happiness.
“Are any of us truly “okay’? I wonder…” Bradich's dismal features, frozen in a misty, contemplative state, suddenly honed their negativity on the young Ihlia like a focused beam. His eyes, deep brown voids seemingly consuming everything around them, locked onto Ihlia's.
“We turned a simple silicon-based material into a micro super computer capable of solving the world's problems with a few simple cuts. Yet as in ancient history, no matter how far we come, we turn everything good and pure that we get our grimy hands on into a tool of destruction. Why?” Bradich's rampant fiery rant ended with a question that took my younger version aback.
It felt like a plea, as though the commander begged the young sniper to offer him a word or statement to redeem the humanity he perceived; he wanted her to save him from the decision I knew he would soon make and to which everyone else was utterly oblivious.
“Sir?…” Ihlia's response, a combination of a shocked statement and confused question, escaped her after a brief moment of hesitation.
“Do you know why I became a mercenary? Why I started the Bald Eagles?” Bradich stood erect, uncrossed his arms, and took a step toward my younger self.
“Now! Take out your daggers and plunge them into his forehead! He's so close, just do it, do it please!” I screamed at the young Ihlia.
“I believe it was for excitement, to see the world, and to make your mark on history,” Ihlia recited it like an answer to a midterm. Bradich, still standing in the shadow that painted his frame in foreboding darkness, sighed and shook his head.
“I could have done many different things to fulfill those goals. I started the Bald Eagles to help put an end to conflict. My abilities, my knack for strategy, my contacts, and my capability in direct combat are things with which I was born. But they are things which I believe are unnecessary in this world. We need to understand one another, we need to be able to connect with other human beings on the deepest levels of our spiritual selves. War, fighting, struggles, they need to go away,” Bradich replied calmly.
“But, sir, that doesn't make sense. You're fighting and killing to stop fighting and killing? You excel at war, yet you wish to er
ase it? Even if you make a mark on history and find your place in society that way, at best you'd be remembered as a necessary evil, and at worst just one of the many obscure groups of violent antagonists that impeded the very path you think humanity needs to take,” Ihlia's response elicited a wide-eyed blink from the mercenary commander.
My younger self rarely felt it necessary to engage in meaningless theoretical jargon, but her concern for Bradich's mental welfare outweighed her sense of triviality. Bradich seemed pleased; perhaps he always wished to engage in such a conversation with the young Ihlia but never obtained the opportunity until then.
“Perhaps it doesn't make sense. In fact, that is part of the conundrum I face even now. I decided long ago that, if necessary, I could become the evil the world requires to dig itself from the hole it's fallen into. If history forgets me, or vilifies me, then such is preferable to doing nothing at all or struggling in futility to change the world with more passive tactics,” he turned his gaze down the hall toward Donovan's office and narrowed his eyes.
“I want the world to connect; I want our higher sense of spirituality to branch off into each individual that we might be unable to harm one another without harming ourselves.” Bradich stretched his arms out as though to offer his ideology an all-encompassing embrace.
“So, like a hive mind? In your ideal reality, we would all think the same. We would all be connected through our thoughts and possess no individuality or different opinions. Creativity would vanish; arts, crafts, inspiration, and unique tastes would disappear. Is that cost worth it?” My young version tipped her head to the side in thought.
“You're thinking too small. I want us to connect in mind, spirit, and body. It's not that individual thought would disappear as to be eradicated through tyranny, it would disappear because it is no longer needed. We are all one, and in our unity we could reach the stars and beyond. As things evolve, their unnecessary parts disappear. I believe this can apply spiritually as well,” Bradich looked up to the ceiling as though staring through it to the stars above us.
“This thing you call individuality, is it really so important? What benefit has it given us? I can certainly name a list of negative consequences. Can you offer me solid, empirical examples of the benefits to alleged individuality?” The inflection in Bradich's voice echoed from his lips like a haunting melody peaking in tempo. He was enjoying the conversation.
“I suppose not. But must all good things be quantified or observed empirically?” Ihlia posed.
“Are those things worth the countless lives lost to the hatred birthed from differing opinions? If humans were capable of standing on different viewpoints, different opinions, and tolerating one another's stance in a calm, rational, reasonable manner then I might agree,” Bradich's calm rapidly deteriorated.
“But they don't! Humans allow their emotions to interfere with their reason; they allow their opinions to transform into hatred and act on that hatred to bring harm to one another over the course of years until they can't even remember why they're murdering in the first place!” Bradich stepped forward into the light with each vehement spew of his impassioned argument.
His eyes flickered wildly, harboring a pent up rage for the state of the world which I did not remember beholding as I stood before him those ten years ago. My former self took a step back; her fearful expression snapped Bradich from his rampage.
“I'm sorry… See? Even I get too heated sometimes. Imagine if I acted on that,” He laughed and stepped forward. He placed a soft kiss against the center of the young Ihlia's forehead.
“Sir?” Ihlia asked, confused and slightly shaken.
“Enjoy the party, Ihlia.” Bradich slunk from the corner and found refuge among his subordinates. It was as though the life of the party walked through the group; boisterous shouts of praise and excitement rose up from the murmurs and revived the festivities. Shandi smiled and rushed to Bradich's side with a cup of punch. When he gripped it, his hand lingered atop hers for a few seconds longer than was necessary to secure his drink; their eyes met and Shandi's lit up like the stars in the sky, while Bradich's seemed to ponder the very nature of her wonderment. I shook my head and frowned; the young Ihlia shook her head and smiled.
“Hey, Bradich!” Ihlia called out across the room. The bustle of my comrades quieted as though a vacuum sucked the noise from the air. Ihlia placed a single hand on her hip and nodded at her commander, “Aren't you going to wish me a happy birthday?”
Bradich placed the cup to his lips and tipped his head back; as the cool liquid quenched an obvious thirst which he had apparently suppressed during his sullen contemplation, the wily glint in his eyes intensified. He was obviously preparing a quip. When he finally finished drinking, Bradich tossed the empty plastic cup playfully at the young Ihlia's face.
“It's not your birthday, yet,” he said.
* * *
As the hours passed and the night became late, Ihlia retreated to the restroom in the middle of her own party. When she stood in front of the mirror, my former self beheld the glamorous beauty which Shandi had painted across her face with the experience of a cosmetic guru.
I smiled. “You look all right, kid. You look all right,” The words that echoed from the ghost-voice to which I grew accustomed synched up with the squeaky hinge of the door as Shandi swung it open and marched into the bathroom.
“Sug', Donovan just arrived at the party! He was lookin' for you! What are you doin' hidin' away in here, baby? Come on!” Shandi motioned furiously.
The young Ihlia smiled and turned to the mirror once again. The dark mascara accenting Ihlia's eyes brought them to life in a vibrant emerald glow. Her lips, normally thin and dull, appeared full, lush, and colorful beneath a masterful coating of ruby lipstick. Her pale cheeks exuded a rosy imitation of a blushing face, and the entire artistic pallet rested upon an expertly applied foundation that brought the makeup to life.
“Sug'? What's the hold up?” Shandi tilted her head to the side and sauntered behind Ihlia; as she placed both hands on my younger version's shoulders, Ihlia offered her a bittersweet mile.
“Why is Donovan looking for me?” Ihlia inquired.
“Oh, I don't know, honey. I think, maybe, someone raved about how pretty you got and how the party was to celebrate your birthday and stuff. Someone may have hinted, with a mighty fine dose of discretion, mind you, that a certain someone might have dolled up specifically to get a certain doctor's attention,” Shandi giggled.
“What?! Shandi!…” Ihlia droned with despair, “Why?”
“Because, baby. You did somethin' for me. You pulled Bradich out of that there darkness when I couldn't even talk to him. None of us could; we were all too afraid to approach him. Even me, and I love that man,” Shandi smiled sadly and lowered her chin atop the young Ihlia's shoulder. The two women stared at one another through their reflections with loving adoration.
Ihlia placed her hand atop Shandi's. “I just saw you were worried about him. Thought I could help.”
“I know, Sug'. And considerin' how disgruntled you looked when you came back down that hall, I think it's safe to assume your talk with Donovan didn't quite go as planned,” Shandi arched a brow.
“Ugh, I stammered like a school girl. I could hardly think, let alone form words properly. It was horrible. Did I really look that depressed?” Ihlia winced her features into a face that resembled a child preparing for a vaccination.
“Darlin', you looked like someone just told you the world was endin'. I almost cried for you.” Shandi laced her arms around Ihlia's waist from behind in a comforting hug. “But you know what, Sug'? I'm pretty good at readin' people like him. He may be a doctor, but he's still a man. And he is most certainly open to the idea of you.”
“I can sense it. Just a few bats of those long lashes and a few flirtatious moves, and he just might seek your embrace to take the sting out of
his stressful research. If you want him, baby, just talk to him. Trust me. The chemistry is at work here. I can feel it! Go on, go talk to him!” Shandi tugged at my younger version's waist.
“Hang on,” Ihlia stammered between soft chuckles. She twisted the knob atop the sink, and as the water gushed from the silver faucet, my former self cupped her hands beneath the stream and filled the bowl formed by her palms with a miniature lake of the cool liquid.
With a swift and sudden motion, Ihlia splashed the cold water across her face and vigorously rubbed away the beautiful artistry Shandi had afforded her. After a few repetitions, Ihlia stood and stared at the faded cosmetics. The remaining makeup was smudged and running, and the phantom of her plain features peeked through the colors that represented Ihlia, the woman.
“Honey, why?” Shandi questioned with a slight touch of sadness.
“Because, Shandi. I don't want him. I love him,” Ihlia responded with a passionate, sorrowful longing.
Shandi and I smiled at the same time. As I watched the scene in the ladies' room of the Nanite Research Dome play out, I felt a heaviness in my chest. Sadness? I understood the possibility that the memory conjured forth those dormant feelings, but I still felt dissociated from the emotion itself.
Shandi's eyes filled with tears. As they spilled over her cheeks and dripped from the bottom of her pretty chin, she removed a cloth and a small case. A strange chemical concoction filled one of the case's many compartments.
“That's my girl,” she sobbed as she went to work blotting away the faux beauty covering Ihlia's face, “but you'll need more than water to wash away this stuff completely!”
NANO Archive 01: The City of Fire Page 30