Bella scowled, Djinni, for the moment, forgotten. “Well . . . at least now I’ve got brain activity and I don’t need to keep anything but the IV drip on him. So nobody’s going to have the excuse to pull the plug on him.”
They both knew who that “nobody” would be, too. Nothing like eliminating the last witness to what had happened in Tesla’s office.
“I’ll put a magic cyber-snoop tag on him. If anything looks hinky, it’ll alarm for me, and in this state we can move him to Sovie’s bay,” Vickie said firmly. “Won’t hurt him to be off the drip for the hour or two that would take.”
Bella let out a sigh of relief. “That’ll work. Murdock can probably do the heavy lifting. Or Chug.”
Red looked back and forth between the two of them. “We done here, then?” he asked, finally.
Vickie jumped as if she’d been stung. “Shit! Sorry, Djinni. You were . . .” Her voice caught for just a moment, then she swallowed. “You did great. Like I figured. Thanks.”
He shook his head. “No, I really didn’t. Almost got you killed. Lucky Bella was here.” He favored Bella with a strained look. Bella averted her eyes and turned back to Bulwark’s monitors. Red shrugged in defeat, and stepped next to her. He paused, as if unsure of what to say, and shrugged again. He laid a hand on Bull’s shoulder, and gave it a rough squeeze.
“Hope this helped, big guy,” Red murmured. As he turned to leave, he brushed by Bella and felt her flinch away.
But Vickie touched his arm with a flick of a gloved finger, as if she knew how sensitive his skin was. Of course she knew. She’d been in it. . . .
“With or without Bella, you did good. The only way she could have reached me was through you.” She smiled wanly. “Thanks.”
He wouldn’t look at her. He and Bella were seriously off . . . uncomfortable. With the kind of confusion you saw in high school kids who just had a Moment with someone they’d never considered romantically before. She watched him leave, closing the door behind himself quietly.
She wanted to feel good. Instead, she felt like hell.
And it’s not all about you, she reminded herself. She glanced at Bell, who was busy with Bulwark. Go home. Cry. Then work on those sensor-balls and get them integrated with the cybermancy. You’re going to need them. The team is going to need them and the team is counting on you. There’s just too much at stake for you to play at self-indulgence now.
* * *
It was a garden. A garden with no paths, arranged with little geometric plantings of flowers, green turf between them. So far as Gairdner could tell, it went on forever. There was a great deal of light, but no sun, no way to tell time.
It was peaceful here, but it was also . . . isolated. He hadn’t been really alone in a long time. Alone, as in “no people around,” that is. “Alone” as in “without someone” . . . he’d been achingly alone since Victoria vanished, but that was different. But so far as he could tell, and he had walked for what seemed like miles through this garden, he was the only thing in it that wasn’t a plant or a bug.
So he finally sat down, even though he wasn’t tired, and waited. Eventually, something changed.
The “something” was a light in the distance, growing nearer. It seemed in no hurry to get to him, but then, he was in no hurry to see what it was. There just was no sense of urgency here. Eventually, he saw that the light had a human shape. When it grew near enough, he recognized it, or at least, he thought he did, because he had never actually seen this . . . person . . . with his own eyes, only had her described to him. If he was right, this was the one that had been tagged as “the Seraphym.” She wasn’t in Echo, she wasn’t in any organization that he could tell. Opinion was divided on whether she was a metahuman or a real angel.
It appeared that he was about to find out for himself.
She stopped, a few feet away, and contemplated him. Her gaze was somewhat unnerving, since her golden eyes had no pupils. “Greetings, Gairdner,” she said, quietly. Her voice had some odd overtones, as if more than one person was speaking with her mouth.
He nodded politely. “Ma’am,” he said in way of greeting. Heaven wasn’t exactly as he had pictured it. As inviting as his surroundings were, he felt wary and on his guard. Still, minding his manners seemed the thing to do.
“I assume you understand at this point that you are not . . . in the world you knew.” There was no irony, no amusement in her tone; more like a grave serenity. “And no, this is not Heaven. Although there are as many of those as there are believers, and for some, this might be Heaven. For you, however, this is . . . call it a rest stop.”
He glanced around. “So this is my Platform Nine and Three-Quarters?”
Now she smiled. It was a radiant smile, one that bathed him in approval. “Clever man. Yes, in a sense. And in that same sense, thanks to herculean work by your friends, you actually have a choice in destinations. I think, however, given your temperament, you would prefer to think about those destinations before choosing.”
“Careful consideration of options and assessing the cost, risks and potential benefits of each.” Bull bowed his head for a moment, then looked up at the Seraphym. “Yes, that sounds like me.”
“It is permitted me to tell you a great deal. This is because if you should choose one particular one of those options, you will not retain the memory of what I tell you. That option is, of course, to go back.” She blinked, slowly. “It is in my gift to See the futures. You are important to them. Not absolutely vital, but I See you in many of the ones that lead to . . . success. As opposed to failure, which for humanity, would be total.” She paused as if thinking. “However, you are not absolutely vital. It will be difficult, but I can find ways and means to replace you. If I must.”
“You mean my value in this world is nonessential,” Bulwark said. “You’re saying I have really nothing to sway my choice to either return or to go on.”
She sighed. “You all really are caught up in hearing what you choose to hear, not what I actually say . . . No, I did not say that.”
He held up his hand. “No, please, do not misunderstand. I am not assuming a tone of self-deprecation. I’m merely trying to understand the full extent of the ramifications of my choice here. If, as you say, I return, then I may be of use in the trials before us. If I choose not to return, my choice alone will not damn all of humanity. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Just checking,” he said and held his hands behind him, standing at ease. “Please, continue.”
“Should you choose other than return, your options widen. To . . . well, the universe is yours. To share with Victoria, with others, if you wish. To find incarnation in some other form—‘return to the fight’ as it were, elsewhere, elsewhen. The possibilities are infinite. . . .” She tilted her head to the side, looking curiously alien.
“Wait . . .” he interrupted, and held up his hand. “Did you just say I could rejoin Victoria?”
She nodded. “If you wish. I can tell you it is her wish. But no individual’s wish is forced on another. Free Will is the Law. She knows this, and accepts it. She also accepts that your choice will not be indicative of your love for her, or lack of it. She does not doubt that.”
He glared at her for a long moment. “She is dead, then,” he said finally.
“Yes. But in your heart, you have known this for a very long time.”
“I am a soldier, ma’am. I needed confirmation.”
“I understand. This is why I told you. In this moment of choosing, you must have all the information you need.” She spread her hands a little. “It is not permitted that I recommend a choice—”
“How did she die?” he asked, interrupting.
The Seraphym sighed, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I cannot tell you,” she said, finally. “That is not permitted either.”
“Not permitted,” he repeated. “Not permitted . . .”
“No, it is not,” she said. “I am only an Instrument. I am constrained by the—”
And again, Bull cut her off, but this time not with words. She fell silent, genuinely surprised, as his face began to redden, his lips curl back in a snarl and his entire body began to quiver.
With rage.
“Not permitted?” he roared, and a force erupted from him . . . expanding outward like the force field of his metahuman power. Where it touched, the garden disintegrated, shattered, as if the flowers, the turf, the trees and bushes, were all made of glass. Where it had passed there was nothing left but dust. But it wasn’t enough. Bulwark reared back and bellowed, releasing all his pent-up frustration over Victoria’s sudden and inexplicable disappearance, over the months of fruitless searching that followed, of the careful dance he had performed around the Djinni. The Djinni, who could never be coerced into anything, who had to be handled just so, and what had that gained him? Nothing! The Djinni remained tight-lipped about the whole affair, never once surrendering even a passing thought of the events of that day. Bull continued to roar, his bubble of force and rage ever-expanding in undulating waves of light. He began to manifest fire, which tore from him to consume everything within that expanding space. The field shuddered and bellowed out as he gave one final dreadful push, as if driven by the fires within him, creating a small sun, until there was nothing left of the garden from horizon to horizon.
And even that did not satisfy his anger. In the blink of an eye, the fires contracted to a pinpoint of searing light . . . then exploded, taking everything—light, fire, all—with them. And then, there was nothing but darkness.
And a voice, her voice. Dry, but a little surprised. “I would describe that as . . . excessive.”
In the vastness of the void, his consciousness sounded both overwhelming and somehow terribly, insignificantly small. “I didn’t just wreck a common staging area, did I?”
“Only your own.” A light grew in the darkness. It became the Seraphym. Light spread outward from her until she hung in the center of the brightness, fiery wings spread, perfectly balanced in the heart of a sphere of soft, white light. “Would you like it back again? Or do you prefer the dark?”
“A good question,” he answered as he resumed his customarily neutral tone. He figured the Seraphym realized what a rare thing it was for him to externalize any internal conflict. This one was a long time coming, and still he was no closer to the answers he sought, except for one. Vic was dead. The how and the why aside, it was the certainty of her death that had finally sparked what rage he had bottled up over it. And now, she was being offered back to him. His heart leapt at the idea of it. But was he done? With everything? Was it time to rejoin his love?
He considered his choices, and realized there really wasn’t any choice, not for him. There was nothing like destroying an entire plane of existence, even a personal one, to put things in perspective.
I’m sorry, darling, he thought in prayer. Perhaps in time. I hope you understand, but I’m just not done fighting. Not yet.
Seraphym somehow took on an aura of command, that cool impression of certainty he had always received from his best COs. “You are a soldier, Gairdner. In a sense, so am I. I have my orders; there are reasons for them that I am sometimes privileged to know, and you are not. And sometimes, even I am not privileged to know reasons or even information. But I trust that this is for the greatest good. Do you understand?” She waited for his answer.
“Not entirely, no,” he answered. “But it’s my choice, and I choose to go back.”
“That will be permitted,” she said, gravely. “But . . .” She paused. “Curious. It will be permitted . . . but not just yet.” The light expanded until it filled everything again. “Do not be concerned. It will be permitted.”
She vanished, leaving him alone, drifting in light.
“And now what?” he asked aloud.
You might consider rebuilding what you broke, rang the words in his mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dare to Be Stupid
MERCEDES LACKEY AND CODY MARTIN
None of us were lying down. Some of us, however, were not content to wait. And some . . . let’s just say that a restless Red Saviour is a lot like a quarter ton of feral kittens.
Then add Pavel to the mix.
On the other hand, John Murdock and I had managed to penetrate that Thulian Command and Control silo, and we had gotten some intel on another Thulian stronghold right there in Kansas City. Wait too long, and intel goes stale, really quickly. Their C and C had been destroyed; they might decide not to take the chance that their KC hub had been compromised too.
We had to move. And by “we,” I mean CCCP . . . and yours very truly.
Strange bedfellows. But at least someone was moving.
* * *
It was hard not to gloat, just a little. There was so little to gloat over, after all, that finally having something go right felt like a victory. But here was little old Victoria Victrix, absolutely, utterly disregarded by Dominic Verdigris . . . gleefully piloting the tech that Dominic Verdigris, Super Geeeeeneeeus, had been unable to make work.
’Course, I have magic. . . . She floated the “magic eyeball” in through the door of the CCCP break room. None of the occupants noticed. Which was a good thing, since it was supposed to be invisible.
There were only three bodies there at the moment, but as they were three very different sorts of metas, that gave her the opportunity to see if some of the scanning equipment worked. She had to give Verd this much credit; he’d packed a lot into a very small space, and if he’d only been able to work out the antigrav problem . . .
Well, good thing he hadn’t.
Subject one: the new gal, Mamona. Well, callsign Mamona. Which was a nasty little dig on Nat’s part, giving her that callsign. Cici DuPre was a homegirl from John Murdock’s adopted Atlanta neighborhood who had manifested confusion-psi powers; she interrupted central nervous system signals in her targets. Mamona was Russian for Mammon, the god of wealth. If there was anything less wealthy than Cici . . . just one of Nat’s little moments of contempt for the US lifestyle.
Or maybe, just maybe, Nat was showing a rare moment of humor, however cutting it could sometimes be.
Mamona showed up as pretty normal in the scans, except for the eleventy-billion throwing knives she had hidden all over her person. The two big fighting knives, she didn’t bother to hide.
Subject two: callsign Untermensch. Georgi did not show up “normal” on scan. Vic had to call up extra stuff to get through his near-impervious skin on his hands and forearms. And as she scanned, he suddenly looked fractionally more alert. She wondered if he didn’t have marginal sensitivity to scans that even he wasn’t aware of, maybe an aspect of his healing factor.
Subject three: Sovietski Medved. The Soviet Bear. Oh lordy, lordy, Pavel. There was nothing about Pavel that was normal. In fact, even for a metahuman . . . he just flat out should be dead. Nothing about him should be working. Not the kludged-together, WWII-era prosthetics—“Height of Soviet engineering,” as he said. Not the gods-only-knew-what-it-was power source he had instead of a heart. Nothing. Pavel should flat out be dead—either from extreme age or his ramshackle mechanical body—and all her computer-assisted semi-AI was insisting that none of what it saw should be real, working, functional, or in this space-time continuum at all. And somehow, he wasn’t dead.
Might as well drop some eaves while I’m here.
As usual, Pavel was eating and drinking—Chef Oh Boy canned ravioli, and rotgut vodka, which were the only two things he ever seemed to eat and drink. Although she’d heard rumors about a small scandal involving Pavel and the International Waffle House. He had monopolized the TV remote, allegedly watching Mayberry RFD reruns. American television was utterly entrancing for him; particularly older cop dramas and soap operas.
“Ah dunno how y’all can watch that crap,” Mamona said in disgust. She was busy sharpening all of her various blades in turn, inspecting each one carefully before moving on to the next. Whenever asked about it by one of th
e other comrades, she always replied, “They’re never sharp enough,” followed by a smile that seemed to reflect a joke only she knew the punch-line to.
“I am not knowink how he can eat that crap,” Unter replied.
“Easy, tovarischii,” said Pavel, holding up a spoon. “You are to use a utensil and eyes!” He shifted on the lumpy couch. “And to be sitting. Usually helps.”
The intercom crackled to life. “Comrades Mamona, Untermensch and . . . Pavel to office, spasibo. Davay, am not wastink time with dally dilly.”
“Commissar calls, comrades.” Pavel hefted himself from the couch, metal joints squeaking and straining with the effort. “Georgi, you go first. You are sturdy enough to take statue to head, da?”
“And you are to be puttink toys away and reportink in person, comrade,” came the unexpected addition on the CCCP Commissar channel in Vickie’s ear. “I am insistink on seeing eyes of my comrades in briefink.”
Crap. How did she know I had an eye out? Nat knew about the eyes, of course; some were going with this team out to JM. But how had she detected one active? “Coming, Commissar,” she replied, and gave the AI the command to bring the eye back to a homing cradle. Good thing I have an apport landing pad in their HQ. Not that she actually wanted to be there . . . Djinni and Bella she was barely comfortable with. Bulwark, maybe. Anyone else ranged from nervous-making to terrifying, with the Commissar pegging the scale at I am about to have a meltdown, right here, right now. Oh well.
She paused long enough to gulp down her antianxiety meds, then shuffled with resignation to her magic room.
* * *
On a scale of one to meltdown, I think Untermensch is up there with Nat for who burns me out the most. Vickie did her level best to shrink into the corner of the room. The three comrades all stood in a very loose approximation of “at ease,” especially Pavel. The CCCP had discipline in plenty when it came to important matters and fighting, but in private they often tended to be at a sort of “relaxed tension” when dealing with each other. It was very strange, and far different from what was the norm in Echo.
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 6