Twig

by wildbow

  Making our job harder, much as Gordon and Jamie had noted, this particular building had a standing guard within and patrols leaving and returning on the regular. The windows on the first and second floor were painted over.

  We couldn’t see in, and we couldn’t get in without running into the soldiers.

  “Was really hoping for a skylight,” I mused aloud. “Or a good window to peek in.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon said. “These guys were professional once. Something more than your standard soldier. I haven’t seen a hint of sloppiness. The touch with the windows struck me as inspired. They know what they’re doing, keeping things here as contained as they are. Have to admire that.”

  I gave Gordon a curious look.

  “What?” Gordon looked confused.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “No, seriously, what?”

  “I dunno,” I said. “You’re weird.”

  “How am I weird?”

  “Guys,” Jamie said. “It’s cold, it’s miserable, we’re frustrated, we’re getting the equivalent of cabin fever what with you having a hard time sitting still, and you having a bum tick—”

  “You pick weird things to focus on, is all,” I said. “Shipman was one, didn’t see what you saw in her at all, but okay, she did good work, fine. Mary I get. Rah rah, I’ve cheered you two on from the beginning. But then you have a note of admiration in your voice when you talk about these guys, and… that’s why you’re weird.”

  Gordon stared at me, uncomprehending.

  I refused to take the bait. I shrugged, leaned the back of my head against the little fence in our one-animal paddock, and closed my eyes. My boots were rigid enough that I could prop them up diagonally with toes on the ground and heels against the fence surrounding the little one-animal paddock we were lurking in, resting my rear end on the back of my heels. It wasn’t too painful for a long period of sitting, but my toes were in a shallow puddle and the cold was creeping in. Before too long, I’d have to move. For now, I could manage a weird, gargoyle-like pose and manage something approximating comfort.

  “Sy,” Gordon said.

  “Mm hmm?”

  “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Mm,” I responded, eyes still closed.

  “So many things about you suddenly make so much sense,” Gordon remarked.

  My eyes popped open. I shot him another curious look.

  “Oh boy,” Jamie said, under his breath, drawing my attention. He raised his hands defensively. “I’m staying out of this.”

  I shook my head. “This is about you being queer, Gordon, and having weird standards for admiring others. You’re one for three so far.”

  “You do realize, Sy, that most people differentiate between respecting someone, admiring someone, and liking someone? There’s a whole spectrum of feeling there.”

  “Nuance and details,” I said. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon said. He didn’t sound convinced as he said, “Okay. You’ve been weirdly focused about some of the targets we’ve gone after, so I’ve wondered. What you said just now, it made me wonder more.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  I caught Jamie studying me. Which was weird, and it was uncomfortable, considering my last conversation with Jamie. When I turned his way, he threw up his hands again in that ‘not getting involved’ way.

  I felt strangely on the spot, the both sneaking glances, very clearly trying to figure something out.

  At the building, the door opened. Two men stepped out, a different pair than the last, this pairing with a dog in tow.

  Hubris perked up as the other dog woofed out a response to something its master said. It barked once before starting to trot alongside them.

  Right on schedule, I thought. The schedule is a weakness, but they probably acknowledged it as such. Better to have patrols go out with a semi-regular schedule than to lose track of when you send them out?

  I settled back down, and realized that the others were still giving me funny looks.

  “Look,” I said, exasperated. “Fray is pretty, but she’s old, so she’s out. Mauer isn’t a girl, and I like girls, and he’s old, and… yeah. Don’t look at me and pretend I’m going to slobber all over his face or something.”

  “I really hope you’re not slobbering all over Lillian’s face,” Gordon said.

  “Ha ha,” I said. “You’re supposed to be cleverer than that. I was using exaggeration for effect.”

  I could see that first bit about being dumb nettling him. I grinned, which only seemed to nettle him more.

  Jamie, who’d resolved to stay out of this, got into it. “In a hypothetical scenario, where Mauer was a girl, and she was around our age, and everything else was the same, would you be interested?”

  “Um,” I said.

  “Nevermind,” he said, looking away. “Sorry.”

  His eyes went to his little notebook, so different from Jamie’s tomes. For a moment, all the same, I saw old Jamie, and in the wake of that moment, I missed the old Jamie badly. I wanted to know how this conversation would unfold if he was part of it. If I’d feel more comfortable, having my best friend here with me.

  I shook my head, my gaze boring holes into my knees.

  Old Jamie would have been more straightforward. He’d known me better than anyone, and when he gave me insights into myself, it was clear. Not this muddled behavior and the weird prying questions that I got from Gordon and Jamie here.

  Focus on the task at hand, I told myself. It took some doing. We can’t see the situation because they’ve got the windows painted over. We can’t step inside without facing down however many armed people inside. Can’t act too blindly, because there might be an experiment in there we really don’t want to free. Gotta crack the egg lightly, without disturbing the yolks.

  How much of this was engineered by Mauer? Lugh was probably the central base of operations for this particular enterprise. Other areas were possible, but they wouldn’t have nearly the same number of resources, the freedom from the Academy, nor the able bodies.

  He wanted to spark a reaction. One he could use. He was putting the Academy in checkmate, forcing a move, so he could act and react while knowing exactly what they would do.

  Mauer was a factor I had to answer, to get what Lillian wanted, a resolution to this problem that didn’t see Lugh and the innocents within cleansed by plague and fire. I’d made her a promise in this. I could imagine myself sitting across a table from him. Both sides making moves, silent, even though he could do so much with that voice.

  The thought of Lillian and the thought of Mauer touched together, spurred by Gordon’s remarks and Jamie’s question. I saw Mauer as a girl, roughly our age. Coppery red hair, a little firebrand, attractive, but despite the sharp nose and fine features. She’d have to have the arm. Her voice would be younger, but she’d still have the skill with it, the rhetoric and the vocal range, the ability to address a proper crowd—

  “You’re actually thinking about it,” Gordon said, in disbelief. “As if it’s actually a consideration.”

  “What? Huh? No,” I lied, ineffectually. He’d been watching me, and something in my expression must have tipped him off.

  “You’re bent in the head,” he said. “The smallest push, and you go right there to fantasizing—”

  “I was not fantasizing, stitched-dick.”

  “Mauer wanted to shoot Helen, he wanted to hurt us, but nooo, switch around a few variables, leave the personality intact, you’d actually think about it. You’ve got your wires crossed in your head, and you enjoy a challenge enough that you can’t even distinguish between the people who challenge you and the people you enjoy being around. Hating him, disliking him, it doesn’t even cross your mind?”

  And here we were. Gordon in attack mode. He was grumpy, he’d latched on to this, and he was giving no signs of letting up.

  For years, I’d lived with Gordon. I knew how stubborn he could be. This wasn’t an argument I
’d win.

  “I dunno,” I said. “Is this really such an issue? We all approach things from different ways.”

  “For the record,” Gordon said, without missing a beat. “You started this by picking on my tastes.”

  Yep, not going to win.

  “Okay,” I said. “Fine. Okay. You win. I surrender, and I sincerely beg your pardon. Far be it from me to judge.”

  “Alright,” he said. He relaxed.

  “Thank you. I appreciate you being a gracious winner,” I said.

  “Victory comes at a cost, though,” he said, smiling like he was enjoying himself too much. “I’m going to get the most unpleasant mental pictures the next time I see you making goo-goo eyes at the mastermind of the—”

  I reached out and shoved him a little. He didn’t budge.

  He returned the push, toppling me from my position, pressing against the short fence. My hand went out to catch me and went straight through a paper-thin layer of ice and into freezing cold water. When I pulled it out, it was black from the mud and grit at the bottom of the puddle.

  Gordon laughed without making noise, far, far too hard. Red in the face from repressing the laughter, he leaned forward. Jamie was smirking.

  “Stop,” Gordon managed. He resumed his silent laughter.

  “Not that funny,” I said.

  “So funny,” he said, still laughing. “My heart. You’re literally going to kill me. Supposed to be on stakeout, if they hear—”

  Jamie proffered a handkerchief, which I took, wiping at my hand.

  “Sorry,” he said, again. “My fault.”

  “It really is,” I said.

  “We understand you a little better, maybe, which is nice,” he said, with a note of hope.

  “I dunno about that,” I said.

  “For some people, trust is really important to how they define friendships and romantic attachment. It’s not so weird if respect is for you, to a big, big degree.”

  Talking about who I like and picking apart why is weird, I thought. Especially with you.

  He nodded, and for a second, I thought he’d done what Gordon had, almost reading my mind, by virtue of knowing me as well as he did. Then he broke that illusion saying, “I wonder if Lillian would be flattered or upset, knowing.”

  “Both,” I said. “But what she feels isn’t so important.”

  Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?”

  “Nah,” I said. “Its important, but… it’s more about where she is, in relation to me. If I’m pushing her away too much, the direction she’s moving, and… I have this sense of it in abstracts, and I’m doing a bad job of explaining it.”

  Jamie shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I understand.”

  Again, that flicker of old Jamie. Uncomfortable, so familiar, yet making me feel so lonely.

  I poked my head out from our cover, hoping for a distraction.

  “Lillian’s here,” I said.

  Gordon did his best to sober up.

  Lillian was with the adults of the group I’d recruited and a gang of kids. Two of the adults were pulling a wooden cart, one with two wheels and long prongs sticking out in front. Some of the smaller kids sat in the cart. Lillian walked alongside.

  Lillian looked for us and didn’t see us. I raised my head up, moving my arm to get her attention, and then gestured as soon as I had it.

  Wait.

  She fidgeted, looking about as conspicuous as was possible without dancing on the spot. One of the adults asked her something and she responded.

  Let’s play a game of second guessing, I thought. Assume the soldiers in the building have eyes on the street. Someone’s periodically looking through a gap in the paint they slapped on the window, to keep an eye out for trouble. Maybe two someones, and they’re playing cards or something.

  They didn’t come out and tell the group of people with the wagon to move along. But if I tell Lillian to come and they’re watching, waiting to see what she does, we give away our location and give everything else away along with it. It’s just too suspicious.

  But if we wait, then they stay put longer, there’s more definite risk of being seen, and more suspicion.

  Jamie was gesturing to Lillian, who responded.

  “They bought the alcohol, she has rope and chain, she has sandbags. No doorstops or old fashioned nails,” Jamie said.

  “Not that it matters,” Gordon said. “The way things are laid out, we can’t burn them out without risking freeing the primordial.”

  I nodded.

  It had been an attempt to go back to the early days, when we’d been more afraid of direct confrontation. Chain the doors shut, stick wedges in the jamb and at the windows to lock them shut, leave the target with few exits, and then start a fire.

  There weren’t many problems in the world that fire couldn’t do away with.

  We’d moved away from that methodology when the Lambs had added Jamie and Hayle had started wanting more proof and evidence of what our adversaries were doing. I’d hoped to revisit it.

  “I was thinking, if we take out the ones on patrol…”

  “We’ll get shot trying,” Gordon said. “Sorry to say, but you three suck when it comes to proper combat, they’re more trained and disciplined than the Fishmonger’s people were, and I’m not sure I’m in any shape to have your back.”

  “If we didn’t get shot,” I said. ” Let’s say we took out the pair of people on patrol. How do they respond?”

  “Looking at what they’re doing right now?” Gordon asked. “They batten down the hatches and triple down on security. Going by the numbers Cecil suggested, they have buddies. If the patrols aren’t contacting the buddies they have in reserve with each circuit they’re doing around the neighborhood—”

  “—which they probably are,” I commented.

  “Then they might have another means of signaling. One way or another, the reserve force comes stomping in as a proper military unit at an unspecified point in time. Leaves us with a squadron of soldiers and a nigh-uncrackable egg to deal with.”

  I studied the building, only my eyes peering over our cover.

  I signaled Lillian. Group. Play. Noise. Cart. Move.

  “What are you thinking?” Jamie asked.

  “Painting a picture,” I said. “Isolated incident, it draws suspicion. But if we lead into it…”

  “Right.”

  Lillian was talking to the kids. They hopped off the cart. The cart set into motion, leaving very concerned parents to glance back, issuing warnings or instructions.

  The kids fit into Lugh. They were dressed a little sparse for the weather, but they did have jackets, long sleeves, long pants, and tights under dresses. Lillian had pointed them at some detritus at the base of a building, and they busied themselves kicking a can around, Lillian more a referee than anything, positioning herself so she could watch them and me both.

  The can made a racket, rolling over streets of cobblestone and branches.

  It established a scene in sound. Sight too, if the soldiers peered out the windows, which they probably would.

  You. Kids. Run. You. Join. Me. Signal.

  Yes, was her response.

  She and the kids were to run at my signal. She would loop around and rejoin us.

  After a pause, she gestured again. The gesture was a catch-all one for brown, dirt, mess…

  Question. I signaled back.

  Hand, she clarified.

  I looked down. My hand was still several shades darker from the fine silt and muck at the base of the puddle.

  Dirty hand.

  I raised my head up enough that my chin rested on the top of the little fence. I let a slow grin spread across my face.

  She flushed red, gesturing, Gross. You.

  “Lillian runs at my signal. Gordon, you up to brief exercise?”

  “Depends. What exercise?”

  “Put a rock through a window. Or a can, if you’re up to it.”

  “Their win
dow?” Jamie asked.

  “Bunch of kids playing, accidents happen. But a broken window, especially one that’s inconvenient to reach and board up, is a window that’s going to stay broken.”

  “They’re going to be alert,” Gordon said. “even if they think it’s an accident, they’re clearly paranoid enough and disciplined enough about being paranoid that the window is going to bother them. They’ll keep an eye on it.”

  “And I’m going to be careful. All we need is a glimpse.”

  Gordon nodded. He shifted position, getting ready to stand, and I could see the effort it took. He almost failed to stand altogether, before he paused, shifting his grip to the fence.

  I winced. “If you’re not up to this—”

  “Shut up, sit down, and fantasize about Mauer,” he said. A bit more biting than the situation warranted. Then, without the biting tone, he said, “Let me do this.”

  “Alright,” I said. I made brief eye contact with Jamie.

  We both knew what Gordon wasn’t telling us. That he was in more pain than he was letting on, or he was more stressed. The laughter had been the other side of that same coin.

  Gordon packed grit into a can, to give it more heft. He shifted position, staying where people at the window wouldn’t readily see him. The kids would be drawing attention, too.

  My mind turned to escape routes and options, just in case, while Gordon weighed the can in his hand.

  One hundred and fifty feet or so, from here to the window. The windows aren’t large either.

  Gordon wound up, and I signaled Lillian before the can was even thrown.

  She and the kids bolted. The can shattered glass.

  I saw the front door fly open in the moment it took me to duck back behind cover. I didn’t stay up long enough to see the people step outside.

  It was awkward, to crouch low enough to peer through the slats in the fence. Four soldiers with rifles were already standing outside the door. They didn’t aim their weapons at the fleeing kids.

  Shooting would have drawn more negative attention than it promised to take off them. At times, it was nice to have enemies as dedicated to something as these guys were to keeping others’ noses out of their business.