Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Bah!” she said aloud. “Am nyet being out to pasture put.” Truly, there was no reason for the Commissar to be doing the daily street patrols, but surely there was something she could do. Some action! That was what she needed.

  Untermensch poked his head in through the open door. “What was that, Commissar? Did you call for me?” He had been on desk duty right outside of her office, organizing a file cabinet.

  “Are there no current targets that we can be making hits on?” she asked. “My behind is growing fat with chair sitting. Soon I will look like Desperate Housewife.”

  Georgi thought for a moment. “Nyet. We have assets assigned to all known targets, at the moment. Until we have better intel, we are currently doing all that can be done, Commissar.”

  She snorted with disgust, then thought a moment more. “Nechevo. I will find target.” Georgi cocked an eyebrow at that, then went back to working on the file cabinet.

  She stalked out of the office, goal firmly in mind. Unter scrambled to follow her a moment later . . . perhaps a bit desperately, she thought. He was a soldier at heart, and craved action as much as she did; Natalya imagined that he was going as insane as she was after being cooped up in the HQ doing busywork.

  She didn’t head for the armory, nor the garage, as she suspected Unter thought she would. Instead she went deep into the bowels of HQ, into what might have been an interrogation room if the Americans in general and the blue girl in particular hadn’t been so squeamish. But, ah well, at the moment it held something a lot more valuable.

  The techno-witch had set up all the locks to answer to the Commissar, of course, who wasn’t going to be locked out of her own base, in any fashion. A small price for their cabal of conspirators to pay in order to house their “secret weapon.” She opened the door and faced the curious mechanism that its owners referred to as a “quantator.” Untermensch respectfully stood behind her and off to the side, waiting to see what his Commissar had in mind.

  “Dos vedanya!” she called to the odd contraption, which sat quietly on top of one of the ancient industrial desks that had been left behind when this building had been abandoned. “I am needink to speak to Tesla!”

  For a moment, nothing happened. She tapped her foot impatiently. Finally parts of the thing began to unfold; a couple of spindly antennalike things deployed, and a bluish field sprang up between them. After a moment longer, the wire-frame image of a genial man’s face appeared in the field. “Bon giorno, Commissar. Tesla is occupied, will Marconi do?”

  “Tesla, Marconi, ghost of Marx, I do not care,” she replied. “Am needing target.”

  “A target?” The lines moved in a way that suggested an expression of puzzlement.

  “Da! You have havink all manner of uploadings from Kansas City after-action!” she exclaimed. “And I am needink to break heads!” Her fists glowed a little in reaction to her pent-up frustration.

  The expression of puzzlement turned to one of mild alarm. “Ah . . . I see. Let me see if we’ve managed to decode anything useful for you yet . . .” The wire-frame head went very still. Natalya folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. It took longer than she liked . . . though really, less time than it took one of her people to look something up on a computer . . . and the head was moving again. “Well, as it happens, since you indicate you are looking for something for a little personal attention, there does seem to be a very small Thulian intelligence-collecting cell located right in Atlanta. It’s probably no more than three or four technical personnel, perhaps a few armed troops to guard them, since it’s in the Hayes Street destruction corridor.” Helpfully, the face winked out and was replaced with a map. “If our translation is correct, they seem to be working with a local collaborator.”

  Natalya’s eyes lit up. “Shto?”

  “It’s not within your allotted area of operation as CCCP . . .” Marconi said, voice trailing off a little

  “It’s an area nominally controlled by Echo, Commissar, though their presence is light.” Georgi leaned back, looking from the Commissar to the image of the map.

  “Technically, I suppose you ought to inform them and let them handle it, but . . .” Marconi’s face replaced the map.

  Normally, Saviour would have ignored all that—something told her to wait. “But?” she prompted.

  “Then you would have to inform them where the intelligence came from or they would not believe you. And that would . . . well . . .” Was there a look of mischief in those wire-frame eyes? “Given that we are supposed to be a secret, I can imagine that Signorina Parker, Signorina Vickie, and Signore Pride would have, how is it? A litter of cats?” There was an exaggerated electronic sigh. “In fact, all things considered, given the—how is it?—need to know, I fear you will be forced to deal with this yourself, with as few others involved as possible.”

  Nat managed to suppress a whoop of triumph as Georgi rolled his eyes. “I’ll be getting a van out of the motorpool, Commissar.” Georgi turned to leave.

  “Wait.” He turned back to face Natalya and she continued, “Rouse Chug as well. I am not wanting him to be eating HQ while we are gone.” With a nod, he left to do as ordered. Briefly, Saviour considered involving Overwatch, but then (a little to her relief) she realized that with everyone but Gamayun and Soviette out on patrols, there were no headsets left in HQ. Good! Executive decision. She sketched a salute to Marconi, who nodded and faded out and the apparatus folded back up again. She followed Untermensch out, and locked the door behind her. “Ha. We do this old school!”

  “I am not sure that city’s already strained insurance will cover the damages if we do it ‘old school,’ Commissar. Whatever that means.”

  “It means, is a good thing this cell is already in destruction corridor, comrade,” Nat said with poorly repressed glee. “Cannot destroy what is already ruined, da?”

  “How much ammunition should I bring? Grenades?” Georgi gauged the look in her eyes for a moment before giving a sigh. “Many of both. I’ll suit up and prepare everything, Commissar.”

  Saviour allowed herself a full-on wolfish grin. “What is Trek Star captain say? Ah, da. ‘Make it so.’”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Untermensch was suited up and had the van started in the garage. Chug was with him; he was sitting on the rear bumper, the suspension sagging under his compact weight. If there was one thing both Saviour and Georgi fully and unreservedly approved of, it was the nanoweave combat suits that Vickie had “lost” out of Echo inventory via her hacking skills, and Ramona Ferrari and Belladonna had brought over to CCCP two and three at a time. Of course they had to be retailored with CCCP colors, but they were a vast improvement over the old Kevlar vests that had been used for years; less bulky with better protection, they granted improved mobility and speed.

  Chug looked up from the ground as Natalya approached. “We go out for a ride, now?” His stony eyebrows lifted in anticipation; it was always a highlight for him whenever he was able to leave the HQ, but it happened rarely due to the fact that he always needed supervision. It wasn’t that he wrecked things on purpose, or even by accident; it was mostly that he got hungry a lot, and when he got hungry, he just took whatever looked good to him—which was virtually anything and everything, from garbage to motorcycles—and ate it. He could actually eat things larger than a motorcycle, but it usually took him a few moments to break it down into small enough pieces. No one knew how he actually metabolized it all; his rock hide was virtually impenetrable, to scalpels and medical scans alike. The tragedy was that before his metahuman abilities triggered, he had been a brilliant research physicist. Nat tried to never remind him of his past . . . the few times dim, dim memories had been briefly triggered had been the only times—outside of the massacre in Moscow at the start of the Invasion—that she had seen him cry. He still had glimmers of his former intelligence, but they were as few and far between as his memories of the past. All that was important to him now were pleasing his comrades, feeding squirrels in th
e park, and his pet hamster; for a creature with such immense strength, he could be exceedingly gentle when he wanted to.

  “Da, Chug. We are going for a ride. We have fashista to meet.” Chug’s lips curled into a craggy smile as he hopped off of the bumper. Natalya opened the back door of the van for him, allowing him to clamber in; the rest of the van’s rear seating area was covered in ammo cans and grenade boxes. Natalya called up to the front. “What is all of this being here for?”

  Unter looked over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “You said we did not need to worry about damage. As Murdock says, it is better to have more than less. Or something like that.” The Commissar couldn’t help but to agree with that, so she shut the doors and walked around the front to climb into the passenger seat.

  “Move out. We don’t want to keep our hosts waiting for the party.”

  The ride was uneventful; the sun had set maybe an hour before, so the city was still sticky with trapped heat. Natalya had not been to this part of the city since her first visit with Bella; the CCCP’s area of responsibility had grown, but not this far out. Incredibly, a rectangular yellow sign shone in the dusk, still in operation. “Oh, look. Is Waffle House. Horosho.”

  “Waffles?” Chug perked up. “Like waffles.”

  Nat tried not to groan, but Unter had come prepared. “Here, comrade lump,” he said, tapping a box between the front seats. “Be lookink in there. Comrade Upyr will make you waffles for reward if you are good when we return.”

  Chug looked. “Oh boy!” he said happily as he opened the ammo box and dug into the contents.

  Nat did a double take. “Are those—” she began incredulously.

  “Depleted uranium bullets, no casing or propellant, da,” Unter shrugged. “Moscow sent them with other useless garbage. They are being dense enough to keep Chug happy for hours. He eats them like hard candy.”

  Saviour rolled her eyes. “Borzhe moi.” At least they weren’t going to cause any problems with disposal. With all the nonsensical American laws, they probably would have been unable to send them back to Moscow, or get rid of them here. It was a wonder that they had even made it through customs, truth be told, though perhaps being Echo allies, the CCCP shipments had gotten the “hands off, we’d rather not know” treatment. They certainly couldn’t use the bullets here.

  The van lurched to a stop, then turned off. “Commissar, we have arrived. I have parked us a block away, just in case they have lookouts.” Georgi turned around in his seat to face her. “What is our plan?”

  Saviour sucked on her lower lip. “Much as I would like to go in smashink, I suppose we had better scout first to have an idea of how many heads we must break, da?” She winked at Untermensch, to let him know she really didn’t want to just send Chug in ahead of them and follow shooting . . . much, at least.

  “Da, Commissar. I will be taking point, if it suits.”

  She nodded, then turned to Chug. She had to give credit to the Blue Girl; the meta did have some very good ideas most of the time, even if she was too soft with criminals for the Commissar’s liking. “Chuggie,” she said, coaxingly.

  Chug looked up with his mouth full of bullets, and swallowed. “Da?” he replied.

  “You know Comrade Blue Girl’s whistle?” She held up an ultrasonic dog whistle; somehow Belladonna had discovered Chug could hear the damned thing for the better part of a mile.

  Chug smiled beatifically. “Yes, Comrade Commissar,” he said happily. “When you blow the whistle, Chug comes. Right?”

  “Horosho. Exactly right. Stay in van until you hear the whistle. Then you come. Then you smash what I say, and we go home and have waffles.”

  “Can Chug have Mikhail Mouse waffle?” he begged.

  She sighed. Too much Amerikanski television. “Yes, but only if Chug also has proper Comrade Mischa Medved waffle.” She didn’t envy Thea; with Chug’s appetite, she’d likely be spending all day cooking waffles to sate him. She hoped he’d fill up on bullets before then.

  The stony creature clapped his hands. “Yay!” he cried. “Chug will be very good!”

  Untermensch opened the driver’s side door and hopped out of the van; he was completely silent as he slunk away into the shadows. It seemed to take forever before Saviour heard her encrypted radio squawk. “Approach is being clear, Commissar. Move up on the alley; I’ll be waiting. Untermensch out.”

  “Remember, Chug, wait for the whistle,” she warned, pulled on her NVGs and slipped into the ruins without waiting for his reply. Hmph. “Move up on the alley” . . . am not sure there is any alley left! The destruction corridors were always bad, but this one was—well, she could certainly see why no one had bothered trying to clear it yet. Something had come through here and toppled three- and four-story-tall buildings like a bad Japanese monster movie. Nevertheless, she could tell where the alley should have been, and managed to worm her way in, noting as she did so that there was a disabled trap; something that looked like a grenade that had been attached to a standard trip wire. With the Thulian tech it was sometimes hard to tell the purpose of their artifacts. Untermensch stuck his head out of the doorway; she hadn’t even known he was there. He motioned for her to come forward while pressing a gloved finger to his lips.

  She followed him into the building; from the surroundings, it looked like an old hotel, and he had taken them in through a service entrance. They were both wearing NVGs now, lightweight Echo models courtesy of Vickie. Saviour did her best to keep track of all of the corridors, but after a while she was completely lost. Finally, Georgi gave her a hand signal to come to a halt. He crouched low outside of a double door; she reflexively took up position on the side opposite from him on the door frame.

  “Intel was good,” he whispered. “Four fashista; one officer and three technicians. The collaborator appears to be inside as well. You may recognize him as Councilman Richard Saint. He appears to be feeding them information concerning the police, clean up efforts, and some other things I could not make out. They are in a meeting, currently; their security is nonexistent outside of traps and early warning devices at the entrances, so far. The fashistas seem to be fairly confident.” Georgi allowed himself a thin smile.

  “Then I think we should shake that confidence, da?” Saviour shook her hands down at her side, feeling her power gathering. Her own inherent energy blasts would be safer in here than bullets; with all the masonry and crazy angles, ricochets were a concern. Untermensch, having only his healing and his invulnerable hands for metahuman abilities, unslung his KS-23 in order to give himself a way to “communicate party doctrine . . . at range” as he liked to say.

  “On your command, Commissar.” Georgi checked the shotgun’s chamber, making sure a round was ready.

  Saviour took the fiber optic camera from Unter and slipped it under the door. Unter was right; their opponents were entirely preoccupied, with one of the creatures talking to the alderman, two more dithering about on some sort of computer equipment that had been set up on round wooden tables that clearly belonged to this old hotel. She straightened, and grinned wolfishly. “Davay,” she said, and blew the whistle for Chug.

  Untermensch stood up and kicked the door open, leveling the shotgun on their targets. Saviour allowed the power to charge her fists until they glowed crimson, holding them in front of her in a fighters’ stance. The room was scattered with Krieger computer terminals and desks piled high with documents. The room itself had once been a very posh ballroom; the Invasion had seen it ruined, all of its former majesty now making it seem all that more tragic. “Privyet, scum,” she said, her voice oozing glee. The Thulians and Mr. Saint were all motionless from shock; none appeared to be holding weapons. “We will be allowing you one second to surrender. Oh. Too late!”

  At that exact moment, the main entrance to the ballroom opened. A small contingent of Thulians, two of them in power armor carrying large metal crates, emerged from the portal. Suddenly finding themselves confronted with Unter and Nat, they froze.

&nb
sp; “Comrade, your surveillance was not accurate,” Nat growled. “There will be excoriation.”

  “They weren’t here before. Excoriate them for not being on duty. Must have been out getting decadent Caffeebucks.”

  There were a few heartbeats of silence before the high windows near the ceiling—no doubt to allow natural light and stunning views of the night sky—exploded inward, causing everyone but the armored troopers to duck and cover their heads. Over a dozen figures clad in black rappelled in through the broken windows, landing on the ground in unison with assault rifles leveled at both the Thulians and the CCCP.

  “Everyone on the ground, now! We will open fire if you do not comply!”

  Natalya quickly surveyed the newcomers; the lack of insignia, the weapons, and the way they carried themselves all pointed to Blacksnake. Everyone was frozen, weapons pointed at one another.

  “Borzhe moi,” Nat muttered. “Is Canadian standoff. How could it get worse?”

  The wall near the entrance that the Thulians came through exploded into chunks of brick and plaster as Chug bashed through it. As the dust settled, the rocky creature looked confused.

  “Oh. Chug didn’t see the door over there.”

  Gunfire erupted then; the Thulians were firing at the Blacksnake operatives, Blacksnake was firing at the CCCP, and the CCCP was firing at everyone. Chug waded into the fray, bludgeoning and knocking over the two armored troopers with his fists.

  Untermensch unloaded his shotgun in a flurry of shots, taking out two of the Blacksnake mercenaries. Grabbing one of the heavy oak tables, he effortlessly flipped it, providing some cover. Natalya discharged the energy from her fists into the floor under a huddled group of Thulian technicians, sending their bodies flying. She ducked back down behind the cover as a volley of return fire from Thulian energy guns and Blacksnake rifles riddled the table and the wall behind her.

  Georgi shook his head as he reloaded his shotgun. “Oh, how could it become worse, nyet?” He finished loading the shotgun, racking the pump to chamber a round and load a final shell. He then retrieved a grenade from a pouch on his belt, pulling the pin and chucking it hard over the edge of the table. A few seconds later it detonated with a cacophonous roar followed by screams.