by Jason Luthor
“Uh, yeah. I . . . There were these, other people, I guess. You find some out there, scattered around the Deadlands. I worked with some for a while.”
“I saw video of what you did to protect a team pinned down by raiders. Combat familiarity, well acquainted with military tactics. You’ve served . . .” He frowns as he looks at her, trying to read her face. “No. You command so easily. It’s clear you led people long before you arrived at Central.”
“Well, I did lead a team out of the Tower.”
“So I was told, but that’s not what I’m not talking about. Wherever you were while you wandered the Deadlands, you gained experience leading people. You learned essential military knowledge and tactics.”
She stops chewing and, without ever looking back at him, just says, “Yeah.”
“You know what it’s like, then. To lead people. The burden that you carry knowing your people look up to you for their survival.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps even to know what it is to have their deaths on your conscience.”
That question she doesn’t answer. Instead, she just looks back down at her plate and takes another bite. I look over at Yousef and motion at him again. “There has to be something more pleasant to talk about than the people we’ve lost.”
“Of course,” he agrees. “My apologies. Well, how about this. We can add a little fun to the occasion.”
“What did you have in mind?”
He motions to the back of the room, and a second later, the room’s filling up with waiters holding bottles in their hands. The empty glasses in front of us are soon filling up with white wine, and Yousef can’t help but grin. “I did mention I do enjoy good wine. It makes for the best kind of fun.”
From across the able, I can see Jackie holding the glass in the air. Her brow’s tight and she’s looking into the glass like it’s some sort of mystery object. She sniffs at the rim a few times before looking over at Yousef. “What’s this?”
The general pauses as he looks over at her, almost looking like he can’t believe the question. “What . . . You’re telling me you’ve never had wine?”
“Yeah, I mean . . . never.”
“Beer?”
“We had it where I came from, but I’ve never had it.”
“Well, for God’s sake, at least tell me you’ve had liquor.”
“No . . . ?”
Yousef throws his hands in the air and looks at me. “A girl who’s twice rescued your military from death and you’ve never toasted her with a glass of wine at the very least?”
I shake my head and smile. “No, I can’t say we’ve had the chance. Jackie, are you saying you’ve never had a drink of alcohol?”
She shakes her head. “No, never.”
Yousef waves at her. “Go ahead. Drink all you want. We’ve got bottles of it in storage. If you’ve never had a drink before, then you’re in for a treat. Alcohol makes you feel as if you could conquer the world. Just, don’t go out and try to do it. These drinks are dangerous when you’ve had too many.”
“Then why does anyone drink them?”
“Because they give you courage, make your worries disappear, and make every evening more romantic.”
I look at her. “Jackie, alcohol will make you feel a lot of things. It’s fine in moderation, just don’t ever push it.”
She shrugs at me as she lifts the glass to her lips and takes a drink. After a second of letting it sit on her lips, she smiles. “It’s sweet.”
“Well, it’s white wine. It’s usually sweet. Now, a good, strong liquor will put a shock to your system, but it’s not the tastiest drink in the world.”
“Then why have liquor instead of this?”
I laugh. “Because sometimes you want to feel the effects quicker. Not that that’s a good thing.”
Tommy’s Recording 21
I’m not really sure what time it is when we all end up sitting outside, in the inner courtyard of the fort. It’s just the four of us, me, President Branagh, General Yousef, and Jackie. There’s nothing in front of us but trees and grass, and there we are, just sipping on beers as the night keeps going. President Branagh’s loosened up, and Jackie . . . She actually looks relaxed for the first time since she got to Central Freedom.
Yousef talks from just over the lip of his beer. “Bottled these here ourselves, you know.”
The president tips his beer to him. “Damn fine stuff.”
“I know you think I’m harsh, Gabriel. With everything I’ve been through, you’d feel the same if you were in my position.”
“We’ve all lost people, Yousef.”
“But family.” He shakes his head as he looks up to the skies. “Family is different. The people you love . . . the ones closest to you? They’re different.”
Jackie takes a long drink from her bottle and looks over at him. “Who did you lose?” She shakes her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t ask that.”
“No, it’s quite fine,” he says with a sidelong look at her. “It’s not a secret, anyway, at least not here in Fort Silence. It was my sister.”
“Your sister?”
“My beloved Ishara. She was taken long before her time.”
“Was it . . . was it the Creep?”
“It was. She was a fierce fighter. As fierce as I am, if I’m being honest. A young woman of incredible fire. Not unlike yourself, Jackie.” She half smiles at the compliment, but she take a drink from her beer because I can tell she doesn’t know how to respond. Yousef keeps going. “Our father trained both of us to be leaders here in Fort Silence. My father also made sure that, if he died, either one of us would be able to step in and fill his shoes. When he eventually did die, Ishara was graceful enough to let me assume command.”
“Was there any reason for that?”
Yousef shrugs. “Maybe because I had more experience leading the men. She’d always been a bit more of a loner. The people she did prefer were her close friends, the ones she fought with on a daily basis. Still, if I really think about it, it might have been because she didn’t want to put the fort into a conflict over who should take over. She was very logical about those kinds of things.”
“She sounds like . . .” She stops as she finishes off her bottle and reaches for another one, popping the top off before taking a drink. “It sounds like you really respected her.”
“I did. I will never forget her, so long as I live.”
“She looked like you?”
That gets a laugh out of him. “Not nearly so ugly. We both shared the same brown skin, a gift from our parents, of course. She was as fit as any woman could be, strong enough to beat many men in a fight. She was more than a soldier though. The Ishara I knew, that I remember, treasured her hair. She always let it grow long, even when she was a soldier. Such long, raven black hair. Her most striking feature though, the one everyone knew her by, were her eyes.” There’s a second when he leans over at Jackie, almost too close, to the point that I almost say something. Even she looks a little freaked out about it, but Yousef just puts two fingers to his eyes. “My eyes. What color do you see?”
“Um. Oh, they’re, uh, they’re brown.”
“My parents’ eyes were the same color. Ishara, though, had the most sparkling green eyes you ever saw. My father and mother both said, more than once while I was growing up, that they couldn’t remember a single person from our family with those eyes.”
There’s a long quiet as we’re all sitting there, staring into the faint lights of the courtyard. I can see Yousef staring off, like he’s looking into another world. For a second, I actually feel bad for the guy, considering how often I’ve run his name through the dirt. Maybe that’s why I don’t say anything. I just don’t feel like I have a right to say anything. When someone does break the silence, it’s Jackie again.
“I, uh, I never lost anyone like that. Family, I mean. Back home, where I’m from, I went through a lot.” She sucks in a breath and looks down at the floor. “Sometimes it felt like I didn’t have anyone, but
I always knew, in the back of my head, my parents were still there. When I became a fighter, there always someone I needed to protect, like my friends, but I never lost them. It wasn’t until . . .” She stops for a long second while she takes another drink. “It wasn’t until I got out deep out there, into the Deadlands, that I finally learned what it was like. To lose someone, I mean.”
Now, up until that point, she’d never said anything about this. I guess I’d thought it might have happened, especially with how standoffish she’d been, but I didn’t want to make assumptions or anything. So, for the first time in a while, I speak up. “Jackie, it wasn’t, you know, someone you were seeing, or . . .”
She looks at me. “No. But . . .” She shakes her head again, and I can see her teeth locked, like she’s fighting to hold back her emotions. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about this stuff, were you?” she jokes as she raises her bottle.
“Nah, Jackie,” I say as I lean back and give her a smile. “Drink too many of these and you end up saying way too much half the time.”
President Branagh nods as he finishes off his beer. “In vino veritas,” he says as he slides the empty bottle away. “Those words mean that wine brings out the truth.”
Yousef looks at the president and tilts his head up, his hand gesturing to the skies. “‘O thou invisible spirit of wine! If thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!’”
“You’re quite the performer for a general.”
“In another life, I took the stage instead of the stars,” he says with a tap of the metal stars on his military collar.
Jackie chuckles as she pushes her beer away, too. “Well, I don’t know what you two are quoting, but I think I’ve had way too many. I guess . . . I guess it was nice to talk about this, a little bit, but . . . I don’t think I’m there yet.”
From across the small table we’re sitting at, I see Yousef put his hand on her knee. I’m half expecting her to punch him in the face, and she does suck in a hard breath when he does it. Jackie’s always hated being touched by anyone she’s not close to, and I can actually see her muscles tensing up, but the beer must really be affecting Yousef because he doesn’t seem to notice. He just keeps leaning over to her. “I understand your loss. I hope that, someday, you’ll be able to open up about it. It might be healthy for you.”
She bites her lower lip and nods as she looks over to him. “Maybe. Thank you, Yousef.”
“Of course, Jackie.”
Personal Recording of the President, Gabriel Branagh 14
I wish I could say my wife woke me up this morning with a delicious breakfast to help me get over my mild hangover, but that wouldn’t be true. First of all, not having a wife makes that kind of morning impossible. Second of all, I’ve got the feeling that whoever I marry would be more likely to slap me for having a few too many drinks the day before a long negotiation. Not that I’d have it any other way.
It takes me a second before I can finally get myself sorted and dressed. A suit and tie seems appropriate for a formal meeting like this one, and I’m not going to go sit at a negotiating table with Yousef and wear a uniform, not when he’s decked out like the fully decorated general that he is. The suit is comfortable anyway, and soon I’m in the small guest lobby. It’s just a small room off to the side of where our rooms are, a place to sit and chat with friends, but it gives us a chance to get everything sorted out. Martin’s already there, and he gives me a cocked eyebrow as he sees me walking in.
“Looking a bit red in the face, Mr. President.”
“Am I?” I pat at my cheeks for a second. “Maybe I need a glass of water.”
“I wonder why.”
“Don’t pretend like you haven’t done the same thing, Martin.” He laughs a little as he looks away, but he doesn’t give me any more trouble about it, thankfully. I look around and find Tommy sitting against the back wall, looking a little worse for wear but in good spirits. “You feeling okay there, Tommy?”
“Oh, yeah. You know, just, maybe we stayed out on the lawn having beers for a little too long.”
“It wasn’t exactly how I was planning to end the night.” That’s when I look over at Jackie, who’s sitting in full armor except for her helmet. The doc’s got a small pen light he’s flashing in her eyes while he’s holding her eyelids with his fingers. “Hey, doc. Everything alright over there? If Jackie had to fight, would she be up to it?”
She looks sideways at me and just says, “I’m perfectly fine.”
The doctor nods at me. “Jackie’s Creep cell enhanced metabolism shifted into a higher level to help process the effects of the wine and beer she drank, processing the chemicals rapidly and leaving her as alert and responsive as she has been every other day I’ve examined her.”
I shake my head. “Wait. So she didn’t feel the effects of the alcohol last night?”
“She did. Her cellular behavior is somewhat dependent on her disposition, and so she shifted into a lower metabolic state during dinner and afterward. The alcohol had its effects until she went to sleep, at which point her metabolism accelerated and the Creep cells rendered out all the alcohol related aftereffects.”
Tommy looks their way. “Are you telling me she can drink and enjoy herself like the rest of us, but never get a hangover?”
Jackie smiles over at him before pressing a button on her neck, which calls down her helmet in a shower of blue light. “Jealous, Tommy?”
“Well, yeah.”
I wave toward the door. “Alright, alright. We can marvel at yet one more of Jackie’s amazing skills later. For now, we have a discussion to have with the general, although I’m mildly hopeful that our little bonding session last night will make this easier than it would have been otherwise.” Everyone falls in behind me as we head out into the main hall and check in with the soldiers there, who then start leading us away. Fort Silence is a lot bigger than the garrison by about a factor of five. It’s almost a city within a city, and the central administrative building reflects that. By the time we’ve taken a few turns, I’m already feeling lost, but I can tell we’re returning to around where we had dinner the night before. A lot like the garrison, Fort Silence keeps its diplomatic and military sections separated. They’ve just got a lot more room to work with.
When we do finally reach the meeting hall, it’s with a lot less of the showmanship that the general showed the day before, when he came out escorted by troops and then felt compelled to show off the fort’s wealth. This time, we just pass through a pair of what are, I’ll admit, impressively carved oak doors that open onto a long table. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but there aren’t many people there. Two guards on either side of the room are standing at the back, underneath the light of a massive screen that’s showing what I think is live video feed from around the surrounding city. Yousef’s there, at the head of the table, but he’s the only one.
For a second, I’m confused. “Were we early?”
He smiles. “Slightly late, I’m afraid.”
“You weren’t going to want any of your, I don’t know, advisers here for this?”
“Mr. President. We both know one of the reasons Fort Silence broke away was to streamline the decision-making process that has crippled Central Freedom. I’ve already talked with my advisers regarding the best course of action. I don’t want to have a twenty-person debate about the future of my fort and your city. Still, please, I welcome you all to sit with me. I understand our ways are not the same as yours.”
“We just prefer a little discussion, idea tossing before we make any hard calls,” I say as I walk up to take a seat near him. Everyone else grabs seats close by.
“Yes, that is why you have an Advisory Council, and a War Council, but also endless harassment from nearby raiders.”
“Already onto insults, then?”
“Just a reminder of the truth,” he says as he looks down the table. “Colonel Martin, Captain Jones, Doctor Watson.” He nods toward Jackie. “And the Dark Angel.”
“Now, we had ourselves more than enough time for pleasantries yesterday,” he says as he looks back toward me. “I hope we can get straight to business today?”
“I think that would suit me just fine, general.”
“Very well.” He takes a moment to breathe in a deep breath, one of the first instances I’ve ever seen of him looking even slightly unsure of himself. “We both know the conflicted history of Fort Silence and Central Freedom.”
“You mean the one where your father took a big portion of our military equipment and plenty of our best men to carve yourself a home out here?”
“That is a one-sided view of it. Fort Silence was already established. There was already military equipment here.”
“Right, you just took more of it when you left.”
“Indeed, but at the time, it was in the best interests of both sides. My father wanted to make the decision-making process faster and have more security on the streets. He wanted to guarantee the safety of the people living here in case of invasion. And, may I remind you, he agreed later to protecting Central Freedom. I believe he acted in a way that was fair to both him and Central, and I would be happy to return to the arrangement I had with your predecessor, Nikola Dravic, if you agreed to some of my proposals.”
“I’m sure you would, but look at things from my point of view. A one-man decision-making process? Military soldiers on every corner? It’s not a big leap from that to a dictatorship.”
“It doesn’t matter how you or I see it. What matters is what worked. When I worked with Nikola, we had peace. Since you disregarded our treat, Fort Silence has honored its promise to stay out of the affairs of Central Freedom. I’ve been entirely honorable in my dealings with you.”
“True, you haven’t tried to invade, but you took military gear that could have helped us in our fights with the raiders.”
He sighs. “We needed that equipment for the same reason. And again, we continued offering protection in the years to follow.”
“You honestly think you didn’t take a little more than your fair share?”