Fortress Frontier

by Myke Cole

  “You’re sure you don’t want to try Terramancy?” Britton asked.

  But Big Bear was already shaking his head. “You’ll forgive me, Oscar, but that’s some incredibly intricate work. Not all of us have the benefit of the kind of military training you’ve enjoyed. It’s something I was hoping you could bring to the rest of us.”

  “It’s less the training,” Britton said. “There’s a drug . . .” though he had to admit, Big Bear’s current wasn’t nearly as wild as the other Selfers he’d met.

  “Limbic Dampener,” Big Bear said. “We know it. We’ve even managed to secure a few doses here and there. It’s amazing stuff.”

  “Maybe you could take some and try?” He gestured to Downer.

  “And risk making whatever it is worse? Maybe if we get desperate, but we’re not there yet. Let’s see what Mr. Hoy has to say.” Britton bit down on his disappointment and cast a worried glance at Downer. She looked revived by the electrolytes in the sports drink and was sitting up now. Therese pressed her palm against Downer’s forehead. “Slight fever.” She looked at Britton, the corners of her mouth stretching slightly. “Should be okay for a while. Relax.”

  And just like that, he did. In spite of everything, alternately fighting and running for his life, his place in the world utterly unmoored, future uncertain, in spite of all of that, he did relax.

  His shoulders eased, the tension melted out of his back. He turned to face Big Bear, confident that he had made the right call, that whatever was coming, he could handle it.

  Therese made him feel that way with a look.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “To business,” Swift said. “No reason we can’t get moving while the rest of them get Downer what she needs.” He said the last hesitantly. Britton could tell he still trucked with Downer and Truelove only with the greatest reluctance.

  “Get moving? Where are we going?” Britton asked.

  “Your friend is . . . eager . . . to get things started,” Big Bear said. “Your plan, Oscar. To change the law and the world. It’s our plan, too. We’re excited to start figuring out how you can help us to make it a reality.”

  “Damn straight,” Swift said. “You can be anywhere you want, whenever you want. That’s the key.”

  “So, what were you thinking?” Britton asked.

  “Actually, I wanted to hear what you’re thinking first,” Big Bear replied. “This is your ability, Oscar.”

  Britton turned back to Therese. “What are you looking at me for? You’re a big boy,” she said.

  Britton smiled sheepishly and turned back to Big Bear. “I actually did have an idea. We need to amend the McGauer-Linden Act. We could license magic use on an individual basis. We set up a board of reviewers or something who can approve people at NIH to come out from Suppression and use their magic freely.”

  “You set up a SASS at the National Institutes of Health?”

  Therese asked.

  Britton nodded. “Something like that, only without the indoctrination. Just teach people to get control of it and handle it safely. Then, when they’re ready, they can pass a test, a demonstration. Then you get a safety license, and you can go free.

  Oh, and we make Limbic Dampener free and available to everyone.”

  Big Bear was pensive. “That could work. The SOC could still nail you if you went wild of your own free will after you got out.”

  “Right,” Britton said.

  “So, who would be on the board?” Therese asked.

  “One rep from the SOC,” Britton replied, “and everyone else would be civilians. They could be elected, or maybe appointed by the Reawakening Commission. I haven’t got that part figured out yet. It would be slow and cumbersome, but it could happen. Latency is rare. For folks who blow it, have minor slip-ups, they could assign you a probation officer or something, you could check in once a . . . whatever . . . a month. Pain in the ass, but still freer than the SASS or having to join the SOC. People who have their abilities locked down, are law-abiding, are left to get on with their lives.”

  “No way,” Big Bear said. “They will never just flat-out let people live their lives unmolested. The government views magic as a loaded gun. People aren’t just allowed to walk around with loaded guns. They might allow that probation idea you just described, but it would have to be for everyone, forever.

  “And the government would have to want to do it. This would be a major change, Oscar. Those things don’t happen quickly or easily. You’re underestimating how much magic scares people. The idea of people, even licensed people just running around . . .”

  “The SOC just runs around,” Britton said. “That’s what the SOC is, licensed people with magic, out in public.”

  “It’s different,” Therese said. “That’s the military.”

  “Military is still people. Heck, Therese, I was in the military when I came up Latent.”

  “That’s not how people will see it,” Big Bear said. “The government isn’t going to give up that kind of control.”

  Britton smiled. “But we’ve got a trump card to convince them, the one thing they’re terrified of.”

  “The truth,” Therese breathed.

  Britton nodded. “FOB Frontier, the Shadow Coven program. All of it. It’s an election year. I’ll tell the president that if he doesn’t make changes, I’ll take it public, or to his opponent. I watched a video when I was looking for Swift’s email. Fareed is already using what I did as a club to beat Walsh with. I gated Harlequin and his guys right onto the White House lawn in plain view of a ton of people. That stirred up a hornet’s nest right there. This would be the two in the one-two punch.”

  “You’re going to threaten him? The president? That’s crazy.”

  Therese said.

  “I’m not threatening his life, just his job.”

  “What if he turns you down?” Big Bear asked.

  “Then we make good on the threat. Go to the papers. Go to Fareed. Let the world know that the same government that forbids Probe magic traffics in it.”

  Big Bear was quiet for a long time. “That’s not precisely what we’d had in mind.”

  Britton didn’t like the pregnant silence behind the long pause.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “You want to offer Walsh this deal,” Big Bear said.

  Britton nodded.

  Swift could no longer stay silent. “That’s it?”

  “That’s enough,” Britton replied.

  “Walsh just gets voted out of office? Senator Whalen, too?”

  Britton narrowed his eyes. “For starters. Walsh’ll probably be impeached when the truth comes out. He might wind up in jail, or at least spend the rest of his life fighting civil suits. Latent people will get a real choice. That’s what matters.”

  “That’s bullshit! Walsh’ll walk. He won’t do a day of time, and if he does, it’ll be in some country-club facility where the hardest thing he’ll have to endure is when the dining facility runs out of caviar. He’s the fucking President of the United States! Do you honestly think he’ll really be punished? When does anyone at that level ever really pay for anything?”

  Swift’s face had taken on the wild look he’d had when he’d stood over Harlequin and been forced to let him go.

  Big Bear nodded. “You also have to keep in mind that Walsh might find a way to beat it, Oscar. He’s got an army of media specialists who can run propaganda of their own.”

  “Damn right,” Swift said. “He needs to pay. Pay for real.”

  “I’m not in the punishment business, Swift. This isn’t about revenge, it’s about what’s right,” Britton said.

  Swift spit. “What’s right is making that son of a bitch pay. Don’t go to Fareed. Or go to Fareed later, I don’t give a flying fuck. But first you open a gate and you get me to him. That’s all I’m asking for, Oscar. Put me in Walsh’s pocket, just for a minute. You owe me that much.”

  Now it was Britton’s turn to spit. “Owe you? For what? I
know you’ve been through a lot, Swift, and you have my sympathy. But I’ve done everything I could to help you, and you insist on cleaving to the same bullshit act you were running back in the SASS. You’re a human being, and we were in the suck together. We fought side by side when the SOC came after us.

  I’ll never forget that. I will stand by you when it’s right. But now? Now it’s not right. So you can fucking forget it.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? This isn’t about revenge! It’s about justice! If fuckers like Walsh and Harlequin are able to do whatever the fuck they want to whomever they want, whenever they want, and never pay for it, then the next crop will be no better. Fareed doesn’t care about Latents! He just wants to expose the FOB to get in office! Once he’s there, it’ll be hello to the new boss, same as the old boss. You know that! They hate you, Oscar! You’re not part of that world anymore. You can never go back, and they’ll never take you. Stop trying to be their dog!”

  Britton’s voice dropped to a growl. “I’m nobody’s dog.”

  Big Bear cut in. “This isn’t helping. We’ve got enough on our plate without fighting among ourselves. Your friend is passionate, Oscar. But I think that passion is obscuring his main point, and it’s one that not just I, but the rest of our group, largely agrees on. Walsh and Whalen are far too entrenched in their positions. They have long since lost their grip on the central concept that their job is to uphold and defend the Constitution of this country. They are despots in all but name.

  “They have to be brought down, Oscar. They have to go. You can help us to do that.”

  “You mean they have to die.”

  Big Bear sighed. “How many innocent people have died as a result of their desire to hold on to power? Bin Laden had to die, Oscar. So did Pol Pot.”

  “That’s a bullshit comparison, and you know it,” Britton said.

  “I’m not a fucking assassin. So you can just put that out of your mind right now.”

  “This isn’t assassination, Oscar,” Big Bear countered. “It’s war. Undeclared, to be sure, but what war is these days?”

  “You know who talked like that? Scylla,” Therese said.

  “Your buddy Grace.” Britton nodded to Iseult.

  “She has a point,” Iseult said.

  Big Bear waved his hands. “Everyone calm down. We’re just talking here.”

  “Well, I don’t like what we’re talking about,” Britton replied.

  “Consider this, Oscar. You’re not just trying to change a law,” Big Bear said. “You’re trying to uproot a culture. Fear of magic is so deep-seated in the American psyche that people will do almost anything to defend themselves from it. If you’re going to unseat that, make public, open Latency a fact on the ground, you’re going to need a dramatic event. Otherwise, people are going to cleave to safety, to the illusion that law enforcement and the military will protect them. The change you’re seeking won’t come easily, Oscar, and I’m sad to say it won’t come peacefully, either.”

  “You’re talking about a revolution.”

  Big Bear nodded. “Every major societal shift has required one.”

  “Blood in the streets, chaos.”

  “Not necessarily, the Arab Democracy Movement . . .”

  “Resulted in thousands dead,” Britton answered. “We just didn’t see it here. Well, we didn’t unless we bothered to look, then it was all too obvious.”

  Big Bear looked exasperated. “Will you listen to yourself, Oscar? Do you honestly think that a change as major as what you’re proposing will simply happen? This is a democracy. The majority has to want to make it a law. I don’t know if you’ve lost touch with the goings–on here in the Home Plane while you were over in FOB Frontier, but the majority of people in this country think Latency is a scourge and that we’re monsters. It’s tyranny of the majority. If we want this to change, we’re going to have to force the issue. Sometimes, that means that blood has to be spilled, fires lit. You can’t avoid that.”

  “Maybe,” Britton said. “But I have to try.”

  Big Bear opened his mouth to argue but stopped when Render appeared. “We’re in luck,” he said. “Mr. Hoy’s free now. He’s waiting for us.”

  “Well talk more about this,” Big Bear said. “Your friend’s health is the most important thing, and I don’t want to delay that a moment longer. Let’s pick this up later. I’m confident we can figure out a mutually agreeable position.”

  Britton wasn’t confident of that at all, but he nodded and helped Downer to her feet, following Big Bear out of the room.

  No, he decided with a sudden certainty that surprised him.

  I’m not confident of that at all.

  Chapter XIII

  Bait and Switch

  Not all Latent folks are the same. There are intensity levels involved. Certain people have highly developed limbic conduction that makes their magic more powerful than others. But even in Rump Latencies, that can be mitigated somewhat with training. Control is, and always has been, the key factor. Some people are just gifted at it as well, more in tune with what’s required to make magic work. You’ve heard people say of athletes and artists “that guy’s a natural.” Goes for Sorcerers too.

  —Colonel Jess Demetreon

  SOC Liaison, US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)

  Big Bear hadn’t been lying about the extent of the tunnels. They walked for over an hour, the narrow passages twisting and turning so many times that Britton quickly lost his bearings. He stopped counting after the tenth branching archway they passed.

  Many were lit, and while they never saw anyone else, Britton felt magical currents more than once, alerting him that another Selfer was nearby, just out of sight.

  They were silent as they went, the tension of the last conversation still hanging over them. Britton tried to put it out of his mind, focus on his surroundings, but he couldn’t shake the growing unease in him, the feeling that he had fallen in with the wrong group. What did you expect? That they’d just appoint you leader and do whatever you said? He shook his head and put the thought out of his mind.

  Big Bear stopped. “I’m sure we can make it the rest of the way on our own,” he said to Flicker, who had accompanied them thus far. “The forage element should be back by now, and I’m concerned they might need some help. Would you mind checking back at the Sixth Pool? I’ll radio-relay if we need anything.”

  He tapped a small radio on a belt at his waist. “Just stay on channel two.”

  The Pyromancer hesitated, stumbling over words as he tried to come up with an excuse to stay.

  Big Bear smiled like an indulgent father. “Do you honestly think they mean to do me harm? Come on, I’m fine. You know Hoy doesn’t like meeting large groups of us anyway. Therese is a Physiomancer if there’s any call for that. I’ll radio you if you’re needed.”

  “I’ll be on channel two.” The Pyromancer sounded worried.

  He didn’t move.

  Big Bear clapped his shoulder. “I know you will. I’ll be fine, it’s okay.”

  He turned and led the group onward without looking back.

  By the time Britton cast a glance over his shoulder, the Pyromancer was gone.

  “You have to forgive him,” Big Bear said as the narrow earthen tunnel once again widened into a brick-walled edifice.

  A stone catwalk angled steeply upward as water flowed below.

  Britton spotted more worked-stone décor, tangled vines and flowers instead of eagles this time, but no less beautiful. The catwalk’s incline increased as they went.

  “This is what comes of living as hunted people,” the Terramancer went on. “It’s a bone-deep fear. The kind that comes from never being able to settle, from having no safe place in the world. It hardens people.”

  He stopped suddenly, looked across their faces, then flashed an avuncular smile. “Listen to me. I’ve forgotten who I’m talking to. You know all about that, don’t you?”

  “I’m afraid we do,” Britton s
aid. The warmth of the smile allayed some of his worry.

  “That’s what it does to people. When I first met Render, he was a medieval reenactor. He played role-playing games. The SOC made him like he is now. I get so angry . . .” He paused, mastered himself with an effort. “It’s unnecessary. We grow less human every day the SOC hunts us, and they’ve been hunting us for so long that I can barely remember a time we weren’t running.

  “I’ll tell you the truth, Oscar. I do believe certain figures need to be removed, but you’ve heard me speak out against those who want a straight–up violent revolution.” He gestured to Swift, who had folded his arms across his chest, watching the big Terramancer with a mild smirk on his face.

  “But it’s not because I don’t agree with them. Do you remember when Kim-Jong Il died? In peace, in repose. Rich, fat, and happy. He never paid for what he did. There was an end to the crime, but there was no justice. It is so often the case with the truly great evils in the world, the ones committed by those in power. That burns me, Oscar.

  “But your instincts are right. Revolutions don’t change the world. Not in the lasting ways we need here. That only comes when the majority of the people become so comfortable with a thing that they’re willing to make it the law of the land. It has to become a part of the culture, a fact of the ground.

  “That’s why I’m so glad you’re here. Because I think we finally have what we need to make that happen. Flicker’s wondering why I trust you enough to be alone with you and three of your friends. I guess it’s because if you’re an enemy, if I can’t trust you, then it means that hope is all for nothing. And I can’t live with that, Oscar. I really can’t.”

  The sincerity in his face held Britton, made him ashamed of having doubted the man. He looked at the ground, no longer the bear of a Terramancer who led the most wanted band of Selfer terrorists outside of Mescalero. He was a tired old man, displaced.

  Sick of running. Desperately wanting a home.

  Just like Britton. Just like all of them.