Ascendance

by John Birmingham

  ‘Make your apologies, but make them count. You want to be forgiven, you have to earn it, starting now. We can’t stay in here.’ A sweeping hand gesture encompassed the infinite scope of the warp bubble. Or the orb, as she called it.

  Karen picked up on his thought without him having to express it.

  ‘I don’t understand it any more than you do, Hooper. But we both know it drains you. It drains us both. And the more you rely on it, the worse it gets.’

  ‘But I feel like I’m finally getting some real control over it,’ he said, frowning. ‘And I don’t know that I want to go up against the orcs without it.’

  ‘Neither of us graduated Dux of Hogwarts. But the same way I know all about you and your brother, and all your other skanky little secrets by the way, I know that whatever power or energy leakage you suffer when you orb is growing. Something is changing. Don’t argue with me about it, don’t even ask me about it. Just trust me.’

  ‘The rest of them,’ he waved a hand at the others, caught in stasis around them. ‘Can you read them, like me?’

  She smiled. A genuine smile.

  ‘Not as easily. You’re more of an open book to me. A comic book.’

  ‘But you can read them?’

  ‘Within limits, yes. I don’t get a transcript of their thoughts, like I do with you.’ She looked around the crowded office. ‘Your crippled captain there is worried everything is coming apart. He’s even more worried, terrified actually, that we might be the only ones who can stop that from happening. He has doubts about you, Hooper. Less about me. I’m a known unknown, as we say in my business. But you? You’re the key, but you’re a key he doesn’t know how to turn. He blames himself for Omaha, and worries that Trinder will either waste your abilities, or . . .’ she smiled again, a wintry stony-hearted expression, ‘or he’ll waste you.’

  She made a trigger-pulling gesture, just in case he didn’t get it.

  ‘Your boyfriend over there . . .’ she nodded at Igor, ‘is feeling gravely disappointed in you because you are, let’s face it, a bigoted asshole.’

  ‘But I’m not really! I’m not even very conservative.’

  ‘Hooper? Please. Psychic powers here? Anyway, a sincere apology would patch it up with him. Fess up that you didn’t handle your brother at all well. Blame your old man if you want. He’ll totally relate to that and it’s not untrue. As for this poor bitch . . .’

  Karen’s smile turned unpleasantly feral as she considered Emmeline.

  ‘She’s almost passing out trying not to fellate you. It’s another thing you’re going to have to learn to control. She deserves better. We all do.’

  ‘But I can’t control it,’ he protested. ‘They all want to suck my dick . . .’

  He hesitated.

  ‘That fellate word you used means dick sucking, right?’

  She laughed at him.

  ‘Do us all a favour, Hooper, and turn off the porno show in your head. God knows you’d be helping me out.’

  Dave shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the desk. ‘But you said it doesn’t affect you.’

  ‘I said you have no effect on me. It doesn’t mean you don’t disgust me. You just don’t cause my ovaries to explode like you do with her and all the other woman you meet.’

  She paused, considering something.

  ‘Except for those who are pregnant, have been through menopause, or are menstruating.’

  ‘Gross!’

  ‘Oh grow up.’

  Karen frowned but not just at him.

  ‘Let’s think this through. Apart from lucky old me, you present as an overpowering sexual totem any for woman who can bear you children. But this is a tenth order issue,’ Karen said, coming out of her reverie. ‘One you can deal with later. Right now we’re going back to the real world, where you are going to make your apologies and we will figure out how to pull this back from the edge.’

  ‘Okay,’ he agreed with some reluctance. She was right. He needed to get back on side with these guys. In large part he’d signed up with Trinder to spite them, not just because of the sweet deal Boylan had cut.

  He worried about Boylan too, with things not looking so great on the west coast.

  ‘Before we go back,’ he said. ‘Where were we? I lost my place.’

  ‘You were about to apologise to the world’s most dangerous gay man.’

  *

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said Dave, wishing that he’d had the ability to stop time, or to step outside of it or whatever, when he’d been married. A lot of his fights with Annie had spiralled out of control because he didn’t have time to stop and think before he let his mouth run off. If he could have hit pause and figured out exactly the right thing to say to defuse the ticking time bomb, maybe they’d still be married. Then again, if they were still married, there was no way Jennifer Aniston or Paris Hilton would be looking to throw a leg over him.

  – Dave!

  He jumped a little. That was Karen’s voice. Inside his head. And Karen’s heavy motorcycle boot grinding down on his toes.

  ‘Excuse me,’ muttered Emmeline, pushing herself up out of her chair and hurrying from the room.

  Heath sent Zach after her with a flick of his eyes.

  ‘Igor,’ Dave said. ‘I’m sorry about Omaha. I’m sorry I was such a jerk about you being a . . . gay guy. I learned my . . .’

  He stopped and paused. Initially for effect. It seemed like something a good actor would do. But thinking about what he had to say next actually made him think about what he had to say next.

  Dave sighed. Igor’s stony face did not move.

  ‘Look. My ma was a good lady. She raised me and my brother right. Or tried to. She did fine with Andy. He turned out good. But me, I was always my old man’s son, and my old man was an asshole. Not that there’s anything wrong with assholes, I don’t mean to be, you know, homophobic about them. But my dad, he was a cunt . . . Sorry, Karen.’

  Karen was too busy face-palming to reply.

  ‘Anyway, all I wanted to do was say sorry, Igor. I know I’m not a good man, but I’d . . . I want to be. I was a shit husband, a terrible fucking father, every bit as bad as my own. I was a bad son and the sort of brother my brother did not deserve. The hell of it is, I can’t do anything about what’s done. All those people who meant something to me, I’ve lost them all. But if you let me, and I know you got zero reason to, but if you let me, I’d at least like to try make things right with you . . .’

  He almost added ‘. . . and your people,’ but thought better of it at the last moment. Instead, he said, ‘Andy, my brother, he woulda liked that. He’d think better of me for it . . . And he’d probably think you were hot.’

  Igor snorted a laugh. Not much of a laugh, but it was better than a punch in the face.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ the big SEAL said. ‘I won’t shoot you in the head first chance I get. We’ll see how that works out. Take it from there.’

  ‘Sounds fair enough.’

  Colonel Gries spoke up over the top of them.

  ‘This is very touching I’m sure, gentlemen. My congratulations on your betrothal, but we still have the issue at hand. The fucking end of civilisation as we know it.’

  Heath was also impatient to move on.

  ‘The video,’ he said. ‘The creature calling itself Compton.’

  ‘It’s a Threshrend,’ Karen said. ‘Although it’s small to have matured into the adult state.’

  ‘You killed one, did you not? When Trinder came for you?’

  She shrugged off the suggestion.

  ‘I finished it. Trinder’s people shot the hell out of it first. I grabbed a sword, this sword, and took the top of its head off because it was blocking my exit. That’s when I joined the Justice League.’

  ‘You didn’t pass out or anything?’ Dave asked.

  ‘Nope. I felt something happen, as soon as I killed it. I felt myself . . . powering up I suppose. And I used that to get the hell out.’

  Heath gnawed at
his lip as he thought it through.

  ‘Dave seems to have inherited the memories or knowledge of the Hunn he killed. What about you, Colonel?’ Heath addressed Karen. ‘Any idea what’s happening here?’

  He pointed the remote at the TV screen.

  ‘Simple explanation? They took your guy to the dungeons and tortured everything they needed out of him. But because it’s a Thresher calling itself Compt’n, it’s more likely they used an empath daemon to extract what they needed.’

  ‘It still sounds like torture,’ said Colonel Gries.

  ‘Yeah,’ Karen said. ‘I think they ate his brains.’

  There was a slight pause before Heath reacted.

  ‘They what?’

  Igor grimaced, Gries swore and even Dave made a face as he tried but failed not to think about the bit with the chilled monkey brains in one of the Indiana Jones movies. He hadn’t liked Compton much, but that didn’t mean the guy deserved to die as an hors d’oeuvre.

  Karen leaned back against the wall, her chin on her chest and her brow furrowed as she thought it through.

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty sure they did. Or rather that Thresher calling itself Compt’n did. Both of the Threshers I fought with had been in empathic connection with Compt’n. I suspect all of the Horde Threshrendum in the city have. He’s using them as a surveillance net and a rough command and control channel. I couldn’t tell for sure until I got some face-time with . . . Threshy,’ she grinned. ‘It calls itself Threshy. That’s cute. But yeah, the ones I put down, the others I sensed through them, as far as they’re concerned, Lord Guyuk ur Grymm raised Threshy on high after it . . . “took up” the soul of a calfling called Compton. And some others too, it seems. Some random guys they captured . . . probably in New Orleans, and some . . . calfling dominants, warriors, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Heath.

  Igor cursed silently.

  ‘That would be the SEALs they took prisoner in Nebraska,’ Dave said. ‘The ones I got captured.’

  ‘Stop playing martyr to your conscience, Hooper.’

  It was Emmeline, returned with Zach Allen, who looked flushed and uncomfortable.

  ‘You don’t have a conscience and you’re not very good at pretending,’ Emmeline said.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Heath asked.

  ‘I took care of it,’ she said, without elaborating. ‘And while pondering the origin of this Compt’n creature is fascinating, it’s not advancing our cause. It might be important, but it’s not urgent.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Heath. ‘We’ve confirmed our suspicions are well based. That’s enough for now. We need to move on.’

  *

  ‘National Security Council is in emergency session right now,’ Heath said. ‘We’re scheduled to brief them in about forty-five minutes. Assuming we still have the link.’

  He threw an inquiry at Gries with a glance. The army commander nodded.

  ‘Our comms are good. We can head over there now, if you want. Get you set up.’ Gries pushed his chair away from the desk and climbed to his feet, patting the sidearm on his hip the way Dave sometimes patted the wallet in his back pocket, just to check it was there.

  ‘Good idea,’ Heath said. ‘I expect civilian comms to be aggressively degraded soon enough, if the Horde stick to the scenarios Compton originally war-gamed. He’s leaving the communications grid intact for now, to spread the virus.’

  ‘The what?’ Dave asked as they all moved toward the door.

  ‘Fear,’ Karen said. ‘Fear and uncertainty, escalating with every tweet and Tumblr and Facebook post. Mass media will Astroturf the horror to lock in their audience. The audience will amplify the effect across all the social media channels.’

  She let everyone pass her as they filed out into the hallway, taking care not to let Sushi the magical sword brush up against them. Maybe it wouldn’t chop off an arm or a leg on general principles, but Dave noted the effort she made, even as she continued to answer his question.

  ‘The Thresher’s video adds to the effect by introducing elements of doubt. Are the Horde the true enemy? Can we negotiate with them? What might be worse? Is that what you’re thinking, Heath? Professor Ashbury?’

  Emmeline nodded and Heath grunted in the affirmative. Dave nearly smiled, because he knew that Karen didn’t really need to ask.

  ‘Something like that, yes,’ Emmeline said. ‘When he judges the moment to be right, he’ll try to collapse the same communications networks to impede our attempts to use them to re-establish control and order.’

  Hooper frowned as he followed Em and the others back toward the main area of the armoury. Green cots were laid out, row upon row stretching from the guarded front entrance, under the massive ceiling, to the midway section of the drill floor. Beyond them Dave could see a series of tables at which clerks processed the endless flow of paperwork. To the left of that line half a dozen bicycle couriers stood waiting with their bikes. Colonel Gries, tall and limber, strode over to them, shook their hands and spoke to them for a few moments.

  ‘You said civilian comms like phone lines,’ Dave said. ‘Your military communications are separate from that, aren’t they?’

  He sidestepped a quartet of pre-schoolers who had just made friends, playing hide and go seek under the cots. An older girl, maybe eleven or twelve, chased after them. He popped around her as well, tuning out her orders for her sister to behave herself.

  Zach shook his head, sidestepping a mother using her stroller as a bulldozer. ‘We have separate systems but a lot of it is networked into the civilian communications grid. The enemy doesn’t have to touch our systems if they go after the civilian network. It’ll degrade our capability enough, reduce our ability to coordinate.’

  ‘Without that coordination they can achieve local superiority over any force they target for destruction,’ Igor added.

  ‘Below that,’ Karen nodded to the couriers speeding out into Manhattan. ‘They have the empaths to provide a command and control net. So far as we know, I am the only the empath you have.’

  Emmeline made a face somewhere between a frown and contemplative musing.

  ‘We’re working on that,’ she said. Dave thought she seemed much less uptight than she had been back in the office. Maybe the cramped confines . . .

  ‘True enough,’ Zach said, interrupting his train of thought as he grabbed two nearby army guys. ‘What are you? Specialists? Do you have tasking?’

  ‘Negative,’ they said in unison, a bit put off by the navy chief’s garb.

  ‘You do now,’ Zach said. ‘Sir, rations?’

  Heath nodded. ‘Definitely. Rope in anyone else you need.’

  ‘Follow me, boys, you’ve just volunteered for chow detail,’ Zach said, taking them in tow before they could argue.

  ‘Meet us in comms,’ Heath said.

  Zach nodded and disappeared with the two soldiers, weaving through the crowd.

  Dave had trouble buying it. Communications was not his thing but he had to factor it into everything he did for the oil company. Most of the civilian gear he had used proved to be tough enough. He said as much.

  ‘This isn’t bullshit,’ Emmeline said. ‘It’s the asymmetric principle, turning your enemy’s strengths against them.’

  The professor, still bandaged and bruised from Omaha, looked like someone driving through heavy rain late at night. She was concentrating fiercely, but the awkward, self-conscious heat which he’d felt coming off her earlier had definitely dissipated. She was able to look him right in the eye. She hadn’t done that very often since she’d fessed up to having a powerful hunger for Dave’s all-meat buffet.

  ‘Every time the Horde or one of the other Clans has faced a prepared modern military –’

  ‘They’re sects,’ Karen said, correcting her before Dave could. ‘Clans are the subgroups.’

  ‘Excuse me, but didn’t the Djinn call themselves the Djinn Sect? Not clan?’ Emmeline said. Dave and Karen shared an eye roll.


  ‘Yeah, but they’re jerks,’ Dave said.

  Karen nodded.

  ‘Everyone says so.’

  Emmeline waved her hand at the Russian, ‘Fine. Every time the orcs have deployed in traditional battle order they’ve been destroyed. As you’d expect when medieval infantry take on modern, networked forces. It’s the same problem every insurgency has faced since 1945. Compton war-gamed scenarios to bring the tactics and strategies of the most successful insurgents to the continental US. Just in case.’

  ‘What? Just in case the Taliban got a foothold in Denver?’ Dave asked, detouring around a family who’d made a little fort of their cots. A brigade of infants howled and whined. Colonel Gries, still at the long line of paperwork tables, pointed to a quartet of soldiers who crossed the drill floor in order to sort out one argument on the verge of descending into fists. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the noise of so many people crammed in together. ‘Do you know how crazy that sounds?’

  ‘No crazier than what’s going on out in the streets right now,’ Igor said. ‘Or in here.’ He shook his head at the scene.

  ‘Okay, so just bottom line it for me,’ Dave said.

  ‘Bottom line,’ Heath said, letting Dave catch up with him so he didn’t have to shout over the crowd. ‘There is a very good chance this Compt’n creature and the other one, Guyuk or whatever it calls itself, there’s a very good chance they could do quite terrible damage before we put them down.’

  ‘I don’t see it,’ Dave protested. ‘I mean, yeah, shit’s real bad outside right now. And in LA too, right?’

  Heath nodded. Dave heard his name spoken again and again as they crossed the large, open area. Sometimes people pointed. Sometimes they stared. He saw one or two move toward him, but they fell back as Karen glared at them. He wondered if that was all she did.

  ‘But the sun will come up in a few hours,’ he said. ‘The Horde and the other sects will retreat underground, or across the universe or wherever the hell they go, and we’ll have a whole day to prepare for them. They’re not invincible. A shotgun will take the head off a Hunn a lot easier than a battle-axe. Hell, even a decent pistol will put them down if you hold your nerve and your aim. I know the army can’t be everywhere. But let’s remember where we are, the country with more gun owners than licensed drivers.’