“Stranger things have happened.”
Nasrat. Wearily she dragged herself out of her chair, slumped to the door, and threw the locks. Might as well get this over with. This was going to be one of the nights she either sat awake until she passed out, or took pills until she passed out. Because, of course, she had Djinni’s geas on her and until this was over, or she was dead, there was no other alternative but to keep on with the job.
She opened the door and stepped back. It had been a while since she had seen Bull in person. Intimidated by his sheer size, she shrank into herself, hunching over.
“So, talk, then go away,” she said, turning away from him. She dabbed at her eyes. She must have looked a mess. Something else occurred to her. “Yes, I can take the Overwatch stuff out of you, and anyone else you want me to take it out of. Is that why you’re here?”
If there’s no more Overwatch, does that mean . . . I’m off the hook to Djinni? No, CCCP is never gonna give it up. Saviour would eviscerate me if I took it away.
Bull stared at her for a moment, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. He scanned her apartment. It was surprisingly neat, but had the curiously neglected air of a room that hadn’t been lived in much for a while. The flat-screen TV, inset into the wall-to-wall bookshelves, had dust on it. So did the coffee table. There were no impressions in the chairs or the couch. It didn’t look as if anyone had touched the DVDs or books on the shelves in a long time. The only things that didn’t have a thin film of dust on them were the CDs, the controls of the audio system, and a couple of books in a shelf full of romance novels. The Overwatch tech in his eye obligingly zoomed in on them. The author was Victoria Nagy.
“So what would you do then, if you gave up Overwatch?” he asked. “Leave Echo? Go back to romance writing?”
She snorted. “What makes you think I’d give up Overwatch? Bella will still want it, so will Echo Med, and probably Pride and definitely all of CCCP. I’m on the hook until I die in the chair,” she added bitterly. “And I’ll probably get lots more people killed. And it won’t matter even if I am a hundred percent right in what I tell them, because it will still have been my words and my decision that got them killed. Happy now? You don’t have to punish me. I’m doing a fine job by myself.”
“Happy?” he said. “Is that what you think of me, really? That I’m here to twist the knife? No, Victrix. You asked me if I wanted you to shut down Overwatch, so I’m asking what the point of that would be? I’m asking if that’s what you want?”
“What I want is irrelevant. I made a . . . commitment.” She sat down abruptly on the nearest chair. “It’s not the sort of commitment I can just ditch.”
“I learned an important lesson, not too long ago. What you want is the most relevant thing in your life. And for some, it would seem, in the entire universe.” Bull held up a hand. “Don’t ask. The reason I’m here is to see how you are, that’s all. So before you continue with your tirade on how I’m supposed to report you, to blame you, to demand you shut down Overwatch on my teams, can we start again? Victrix, how are you?”
She felt her eyes burning. “I’m . . . so damn sorry. And sorrier that even if I’d known what was going to happen . . . I wouldn’t change the decision. Just some details.” Because she could actually think of some things she could have done, maybe. Magic stuff. Maybe pen Harm in with earthworks, or shield Bruno? “No matter what . . . it’s on me. ’Cause I’m the one that’s got all the info at my fingertips.”
Bull considered that, and continued to stroll about her living room, pausing to look at the various pictures she had displayed on her wall. He stopped at one in particular.
“You and your parents?” he asked, pointing to one faded, black and white portrait. “The Feds?”
“Alexander and Moira Nagy, Department 39, FBI Metahuman, aka ‘Spook Squad.’” She paused. “That was right after I . . . oh hell, why not, you’ve seen weirder shit. Someone decided to make me ‘daddy’s little hostage.’ I pinned his hand to the table with a silver fork and barricaded myself in the bathroom until they got home. They took me out for steak and ice cream and a picture.”
He bent over to get a closer look. “They look quite proud of you. That is a fetching dress, after all.”
Vickie chuckled sadly. “I was six. Precocious little brat. Doing rudimentary magic at four.”
“I suppose you always knew what it was you wanted to do, what you were good at, what you were meant for.”
“. . . there was never a question.” She let out her breath in a long, long sigh. “If you’ve ever talked to any other sort of child prodigy, they’ll tell you the same thing. I can’t not do it.”
Bull considered that too. “You got to know Bruno a little, before he and Scope went AWOL, didn’t you?”
Tears came again. “I never knew anyone to want it as badly as I did before. I mean, all of it. The responsibility as well as the fun part. Even if he was a lot like a puppy that kept piddling on things and chewing the shoes, sometimes. You could see the heart of a mastiff in there, and you had to forgive him for the wee and . . . well, you know.”
Bull nodded. “His greatest fear was that he wasn’t up to the job, that he wasn’t good enough. He was terrified that, in the end, he didn’t matter.” Bull shook his head. “You made the right call today, Victrix. It’s the mission that’s important. Acrobat was the only one who could have delayed Harmony. If he hadn’t intercepted her, she’d have been long gone.”
“And it doesn’t help.” She reached blindly for tissues. “And I’m still sorry.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “That’s who you are. You presume to take full responsibility for things that aren’t yours to take. You did what needed to be done today, and in case you didn’t notice, your efforts also saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. We can all claim some of the blame here, if you think about it. What I need you to remember is the mission. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re a vital part of it. We all have sacrifices to make here, and when the time comes that I make mine, I want you to promise to honor me, to remember me, but after the job is done. And don’t you dare blame yourself or anyone else for it. You did your job today, Victrix, and you did a fine job.”
She closed her eyes, and stiffened her spine. “You’re right, Operative Bulwark. The mission is what is important. The mission is all that is important.” She opened her eyes again. “I think you might know a lot more than you’re letting on. I do know you’ve seen the ‘Ides of March.’ We both know what the consequences of failure are.” She hoped he had forgiven her, at least a little. She thought he had. Unexpectedly, it helped.
“We do,” Bull replied. “I think we have an understanding then. I’ll let myself out.”
He crossed to the door, and as he opened it, Vickie got up. Wordlessly she let him out and closed the door behind him. He walked away at a brisk pace, and as he turned the corner to the stairs, he allowed a brief flash of anger to register on his face.
“That was your call, Victrix, but it would never have been mine,” he muttered. He took a breath, and swallowed the pain. She could never know.
It was the mission that mattered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Testament
MERCEDES LACKEY
Bella was more tired, and more grief-stricken than she had ever been in her life. And that did not matter. Because now that he was done explaining the background to the revolt, and laying out the original Charter, Yankee Pride was introducing her for the gathering of the Echo vets here in the CCCP HQ, and all of the Echo metas all over the world via closed sat-link.
Why her? She didn’t know. Yank had only said, “It has to be you. Spin Doctor said it couldn’t be anyone else.”
She took a deep breath, drew on all the performance training she’d gotten back when she’d thought she’d get a gig at some big casino show on the Strip as a novelty singer, and walled off all her feelings.
“Brothers and sisters,” she said, looking out at th
e solemn faces. “I don’t use those terms lightly. You are all my brothers and sisters in a way that we did not share with Dominic Verdigris—” that we know of “—or, rest his soul, Alex Tesla. But the founders of Echo knew this when they wrote the charter, and despite the fact that the CEO of Echo has always been a normal human, they knew that Echo was, and had to be, created by metahumans, for metahumans. Now is not the time for political correctness, and it is the time to look that fact in the face and accept it for what it means.”
She paused, marshaling her thoughts.
“We are different. When Echo was founded, that difference was frightening to people. That was why the CEO was a human. That was why Echo never fought things like the Extreme Force Act, and agreed to DCOs. We are different, and humans are programmed at the instinctive level to fear what is different. When Echo was founded, the foundations that were laid down were carefully calculated to allay as much of that fear as possible, while building in protections for us in the form of things we could live with. I know you vets in front of me are well aware of a lot of this; I’ll bet you were all privy to, or even part of, some of the debates, even arguments over a lot of it.”
Nods, grimaces. A lot of intent looks.
“We are different. There is nothing we can do about it. We can no more change that than any other human can change things like skin or hair or eye color. Like them, we can sometimes disguise it, but we can’t change it. What we are defines us, negatively or positively. Right now, it’s pretty much positive. But that could change in an instant, and as we forge the future, we need to pick a leader who is very much aware of that. Echo must always be an organization that is run by metahumans, to protect us from abuse and exploitation, the sorts of abuse and exploitation Dominic Verdigris had in mind for us. Those who are not meta will always have the upper hand, ultimately. There are a lot more of them than there are of us—and today you got a good look at how those without powers are still capable of turning those of us with powers to chutney.”
Nods all across the sea of faces now.
“But if Echo is an organization run by metahumans, it must also change to one that is run for humans, meta and otherwise. You all know the comic-book mantra about great responsibility, and you can all look to whatever faith you believe in to give you answers about why you have been triggered with a power and others have not. The point is this: meta is only part of what we are. Deep down, the important thing is that we are also human. Our parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors and friends may not have been granted powers. Our children may not be. We cannot divorce ourselves from the human race and we’re all on the spaceship Earth together. The minute we forget that and think that besides being different, we are also somehow superior, well . . . we turn into Dominic Verdigris.”
Vigorous nods, and some approving smiles.
“And one more thing. The Charter is set up so that the CEO is a lifetime position. As you vets know, for one of us, a lifetime can be very long indeed. The CEO needs to be someone who is flexible, who listens to, acts on—and solicits!—advice. Because things will always be changing; change is the one constant no one can fight. So when you are voting for the new CEO of Echo, please remember that, all of it. And choose the flexible person who not only knows what it is to be meta, but to be human, and to embrace everything that humankind means. Thank you.”
She did not stop to acknowledge the applause. Instead, she stepped quickly down off the podium and to the computer link to cast her vote for Yankee Pride.
Just as Alex Tesla had wanted. He really was the right man for the job.
* * *
Under any other circumstances, Bella would have loved to mingle with all the old vets, most of whom were only faces in history books to her. But after today, all she wanted to do was sit in a corner, nursing a drink. She would rather have been in her office, but that wasn’t possible, Spin Doctor had made that clear as well.
But it would be a good thing to be able to congratulate Pride . . . and hand over that burden she’d carried. Echo Med was burden enough—but at least part of the time she felt up to that task.
When the voting was announced as closed she really wasn’t paying much attention, concentrating on what she was going to say to Pride. So when the wave of people suddenly engulfed her, startling her out of her reverie, wanting to shake her hand, congratulating her, she was caught completely by surprise.
Shocked even.
“Snap out of it, Bells,” Vickie said in her ear. “You’re CEO. By a landslide. Act like it.”
What? Were they insane?
“Yep. Almost unanimous. All in favor except one vote.”
Spin Doctor came up to shake her hand. She felt numb. “It seems that they’re rather enamored of your style of management. Something about grit, tenacity, and smarts. Oh, and the little Scotsman says that blue is his favorite color.”
They kept coming, wave after wave of them, vets, her own Echo Med, all of them. Shaking her hand, smiling warmly.
Even Djinni.
He came after most of the crowd had thinned out, giving her some space; he took her hand and moved in close, and she clung to it. “I don’t want this!” she whispered to him urgently. “Red, I don’t—I can’t—”
He squeezed her hand. “Y’know who make the best leaders, darlin’?” he whispered back. “They’re not always the smartest, they’re not always the most charismatic, they’re not always the nicest people around . . . hell, they’re usually assholes.”
“Where are you going with this?” she asked. Was he trying to say—
“. . . but one thing the best leaders usually share in common, they didn’t want the damn job in the first place.”
Then he was gone, slipping away into the crowd, which gathered around her again.
* * *
Bella closed the door of her office behind her, leaned against it, and put her head back, closing her eyes for a moment before slumping behind her desk. She was still listed as being on-duty, and she didn’t change that. She didn’t want to ruin anyone’s “victory” celebration, but this whole day, start to finish, had been nothing like a win.
Bruno was dead. So were too many other people, but Bruno was one of hers, one of the Misfits. Someone she’d fussed over, worried about, driven herself crazy over. Someone who’d been awkwardly grateful when Bella had patched him up, had tried to cheer her up, who’d been a lot like that puppy who is always underfoot, and yet was so constantly happy and helpful that you couldn’t help but smile at him even when he was in the way. He’d been so triumphant when he and Scope had infiltrated Harmony’s own organization and put a spoke in the wheels of her plans. And not half an hour later . . . he was gone.
And despite Verd running like a scalded cat, this had a far too high probability of turning into a public relations nightmare. With Verd out of reach, people would start looking for someone else to blame, and there was Echo, the big, fat target du jour. Unless they came up with some miracle victory and soon, people were going to start asking if maybe Verd had been right all along . . . maybe someone like Dominic Verdigris should have been in charge of Echo. Maybe the US Military should take it over. Spin Doctor was already at work on heading off the inevitable avalanche. She’d sent him the Twins. And the espresso machine from Verd’s office. But what she needed was a miracle. A really decisive victory against the Kriegers. Because it was only a matter of time—maybe by tomorrow morning—before the people out there stopped congratulating her and started asking what she intended to do about the real enemy.
She’d tried to give up the job. Pride was making noises about how he wasn’t going to “let” her step back and just head up Echo Med. Hell, she didn’t even want to head Echo Med, much less the rest of this! It had been one thing when it had just been her taking charge of her friends, but this . . . this was all of Echo, and Pride wanted her as CEO? They all did? How in hell was she supposed to be a wartime leader? She’d never wanted to be a leader at all!
Who can I persuade not
to go back to Sunny Acres that remembers what it was like in the last go-around? At least she had Saviour, and Unter to count on for advice. Even Bear. He might be insane, but his memory of the last round with the Nazis was just fine as long as you ignored all the stuff about his sexual prowess. But she thought about Acrobat, thought about how many more people were going to die before this was over, and put her head down on the desk, too overwhelmed even to cry. She’d asked Dixie to take Scope out to the vets—the ones that were feeling their own losses. They’d understand, and give the “young soldier” the kind of support she needed right now. But there was no one Bella could turn to for company right now. Everyone else was either hurting too much, or like Saviour, relishing this pyrrhic victory too much to offer sympathy.
Never had she felt so utterly, completely alone, or so crushed by the burden of responsibility that she had never wanted, never asked for. But there was literally no one else to take it off her shoulders, so somehow, she would have to try.
She buried her face in her elbow, wishing with all her heart she could hide from the world and knowing there was no way in hell that was possible.
* * *
Vickie watched poor Bella putting her head down on her arms, and felt her throat aching. Bell had turned her Overwatch rig to “private,” but she’d forgotten about the security cam in the corner.
She only took up being the leader of the coup because there really wasn’t anyone else who could that wasn’t also being watched day and night. There was nothing in our plans that would have led us to think Verd would do what he did today. And now she’s been “rewarded” by being slammed with even more responsibility, and heaven help her if she screws up. Meanwhile, the wolves outside the door that are howling for Verd’s blood are going to come looking for someone else’s if they don’t get some meat from somewhere. Borzhe moi, what a cluster. And there she is all alone, and too aware that anyone else who might serve as a shoulder is hurting too . . . or someone she doesn’t want to give the wrong signals to.
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 56