With a groan, Johann grabbed the handrails of his bed and pushed up with the help of one of the nurses, managing, with a minimum of whimpering and cursing, to sit up. “Careful, careful,” she urged. “I know.” Johann insisted, grimacing as he rotated himself in place, then slid off the bed and onto his feet. His entire upper body still hurt like all hell, but at least he wasn’t harming himself by using it now. Slowly, he shambled from his berth and down the halls of the Baden-Wurttemburg, towards a different section of the infirmary.
The worst part about the whole sickbay was the smell. The cries and screams of the wounded had subsided shortly after the Battle of Omen had concluded as they either died or were sedated for procedures, but the scent never went away. It was blood and pus and human filth that carried on hanging in the air no matter how much they cleaned, clashing with an antiseptic smell so sharp that it made Johann’s eyes water. The sooner he could be out of this place, the better, but he didn’t want to leave Svetlana behind either. He had already left her alone when she needed him most, and though the doctors said that it couldn’t have possibly been his fault that she was hurt, he couldn’t imagine that it wasn’t.
“There she is, Hauptmann. Do be careful; we don’t want to take her intravenous drip out by accident.” the nurse said, steering him to turn towards a particular berth. Indeed, there Svetlana was, her torso wrapped in bandages, an oxygen tube running into her nose. Laying there, eyes closed, she seemed so fragile, and worst of all, Johann noticed that her left arm terminated in a steel hand, brushed metal and pneumatics replacing flesh and sinew.
“Christ, they took her hand off?” Johann gasped, stumbling towards her. He grabbed her cot for support.
“You, erm…” the nurse paused, trying to think of a good way to put it, “we couldn’t find it. We would’ve reattached it, but…”
“No, I get it. Just… can I be alone with her for a moment?” Johann asked.
“Sure, but watch the IV. And nothing untoward; we have this place on camera.” the nurse nodded, leaving for her duties elsewhere. Looking around, Johann found a too-small folding chair beside Svetlana’s bed, but it was better than nothing. He set it up so that it was facing her, then sat down in it.
“Hey, Svetlana,” Johann began, “it’s Johann. I heard that people in comas can sometimes hear people around them. Is that true?”
Svetlana didn’t respond.
Johann chuckled to himself. “That was kind of stupid of me. So, anyways, I think I’d read you a book or something, but I don’t have any right now. I’ll have to find a few soon.”
Johann realized that he was meandering; Svetlana was probably getting bored. He had something on his tongue, but what was it? It was the sort of urgency that managed to still evade memory, like that one question on Johann’s final exams in high school that he was sure he knew how to answer, but just couldn’t call to mind. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it struck him, and he blurted it out.
“I love you, Svetlana.”
Well, no use being subtle now. “I love you so, so much. And maybe I’m going a little bit fast for your tastes, but one day…” Johann said, gently taking Svetlana’s right hand and lifting up her ring finger. “I’m gonna marry you, and then I’ll come with you to St. Petersburg. I’ll find a job, and we’ll invite your whole family, everyone you want, out for a great big party. And one day, if you really want to, we’ll have kids and grandkids and we’ll live happily ever after. It’ll be just like the stories, Svetlana. Just like the stories.”
However, before he could continue on with his fantasy, he felt a familiar tingle going up his spine. Once again, the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. He froze in place, not wanting to send an errant neuron firing that could be picked up.
She was back.
“I hear Lieutenant-Colonel Kuznetsova’s a nice girl. It makes sense that you’d want her; I couldn’t imagine you going for anyone who wasn’t.” Kaede said. Slowly, Johann turned a little to the right to see her standing a little ways off, her hand resting idly on the curtain rod that surrounded Svetlana’s cot. Behind her lurked Sphinx, dressed in her usual three-piece suit and aviator sunglasses.
“Colonel Suzuki,” Johann regarded her.
“If it’s any comfort, the intel she got hurt retrieving turned out to be quite important. It might even change the course of the–”
“I didn’t see you at Fort von Richthofen,” Johann cut her off, standing up from the chair and taking care not to hurt himself.
“Yes; it’s unfortunate that I had to go, but I was assigned for retasking the night before your evacuation. I hope you understand that it wasn’t intentional.”
Johann said nothing in response, but instead began to slowly draw out the curtain until it completely surrounded Svetlana. Sphinx raised an eyebrow. “What’s that for?”
“I heard that someone who’s comatose can still hear their surroundings. I don’t want Svetlana to be upset by people… well, not being very nice to one another, to be frank.” Johann said, his voice flat. He had to take care not to get too emotional; he had no idea what Kaede could manipulate him into doing.
“I already said that it wasn’t my doing.” Kaede clarified.
“And yet, somehow, I find myself skeptical. We all knew that they would be coming at dawn, after all.”
“Colonel Suzuki’s reassignment at the time was not an attempt to leave you and your comrades behind, as you seem to imply,” Sphinx enunciated, “she had other places to be.”
“Then why not make that clear? Maybe I’d be more forgiving then.”
“Colonel Suzuki is in no way beholden to your forgiveness, Captain. You would do well to remember that.” Sphinx warned.
“Say, how’s Paraweapons treating you, Kaede?” Johann said, suddenly shifting his focus back to her. Kaede opened her mouth to respond, but Sphinx was faster.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but you and I are having a conversation.” she cut her off.
“I want to get Kaede’s opinion on the matter.” Johann said matter-of-factly.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Sphinx suddenly stepped forward, her gaze hard and unflinching. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with, sir. My friend here has become very, very skilled in channeling psychic power, so I kindly suggest that you apologize whilst you have the free will to not be sorry.”
Johann elected to ignore her. He was taken by a sort of morbid curiosity as to what would happen at this point. It was kind of like watching a car crash in progress, except he was in the driver’s seat wondering how much it was going to hurt.
“You know what, I’ll just say that Paraweapons was afraid of breaking their favorite toy and we’ll call it a night, alright, Kaede?”
Abruptly, Kaede surged forward, grabbing Johann by the collar. “You don’t know a damn thing about us, or else you’d know that I’m far from Paraweapons’ best asset. There are things out there…”
Sphinx clicked her heel loudly. “Enough, Kaede.” she ordered, but Kaede didn’t seem to care.
Her tone turned desperate; she obviously didn’t have much time. “There are horrible, horrible things, things that pretend to be human but were never even close to it. You can’t even look them in the eyes without–”
“Enough!” Sphinx shouted. Instantly, the whole compartment fell silent, and remained so for a few moments. Kaede let go of Johann’s shirt, shrinking back like a dog that had just been hit by its owner. Sphinx took a deep breath, calming herself, then spoke one more time. “We will be taking our leave now.”
With a huff, she spun around and marched off with Kaede in tow. Johann saw her flash a remorseful look back at him, then turn away as they finally left the room.
“That was, uh,” Johann said to himself, and Svetlana, if she could hear, “that was something.”
—
“Sir, the Secretary of Homeland and Aerospace Security’s here. He wants to talk to you.” a nervous-looking Secret Service agent said as he opened the door to the presidential office of Chisholm Base, far underneath the surface of the tallest mountain on Mars. The air was stale and the food bland, but the First Lady had wanted to relocate to protect the family, and with the plethora of new contagions raging across metropolitan America, the act had proven prudent.
President Herald turned to face him, his left hand cupping over the telephone in his right. A smoldering cigarette hung from his mouth. “Is he outside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell him that I’ll call when I’m ready.”
“Yes, sir.” the officer nodded, ducking back out of the room, leaving Herald to return to his phone call.
“Yes, I’m being serious. No, we haven’t run it through with CAST High Command, but let’s be honest, name the last time the United States waited on the approval of the Coalition to do anything.”
Herald paused for a minute while the man on the other end of the line made his rather uncouth response.
“Look, if they can’t act fast enough, that’s not our problem. We’ve only got one solid chance to win the war, and I’m not letting it slip away because we got mired in bureaucracy. Get that through your thick skull and then we’ll talk, okay? Okay, bye,” he grumbled, hanging up the phone. Then, he directed himself back towards the door.
“You can come in now, Elliott,” he called. Near-instantly, the door flew open and the Secretary strode in, carrying a manila folder. Looking up, he saw the cigarette Herald had and let out a long sigh.
“Don’t tell me you’ve relapsed, John.” he shook his head.
“It’s not a real smoke, McFarland.” Herald took it from his mouth and exhaled a harmless white vapor which hung around his head for a little while before dissipating. “It’s Pavlovian conditioning, I know, but it calms me down like it’s real. Anyways, what’re you here for?”
“It’s about the, erm, pathogens, sir.” McFarland said haltingly, instantly killing what little joviality existed between the two friends at the moment.
“I see. Anything new?” Herald said, his eyes cast down respectfully.
“They’ve released four different contagions in different parts of the world, as you know. We’re currently aware of a few hundred cases of modified smallpox in the US and about a dozen in the Netherlands, with thirty dead here and two there. We’re predicting that it’ll be picked up in much of Europe in the next few weeks.”
“Do our vaccines still work?”
“We still don’t know, sir. With the extent to which it’s been chemically modified, we’re unsure as to whether or not the antibodies generated by the jab will work at all. It’s likely that we’ll need to create a new formula from scratch.”
“I assume that means it’s well and un-eradicated, then?”
“It’s unlikely that we’ll be able to field a new vaccine before it reestablishes itself in historical hotbeds for it, sir. From then on, it’ll be an entirely new effort to put it back in the ground.”
“Unfortunate. The rest?”
“All in the folder, sir.” McFarland laid the dossier on Herald’s desk. Herald looked at it for a moment, then remembered something.
“Why isn’t the Secretary of Health telling me this?”
“Well, the DHAS has recently uncovered something of an explanation for how Waffen got all the resources to do what it’s done.”
“Yes?”
McFarland put his hand on his head in exasperation. Herald had a creeping feeling that he knew what he was about to say.
“Lovelace, sir.”
Herald had secured the presidency through political calculation, most of all, and that meant that he considered himself a rather good judge of character and intention. As McFarland uttered the name, Herald couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Andrew Lovelace was the subject of countless psychological profilings by practically every security agency under the Sun, and Herald had gotten his hands on a decent few of them.
“He doesn’t know, does he?”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“I’ve read about the guy. He’s a narcissist; he wouldn’t knowingly support something like this because it would make people hate him. He’s too honest to use it for some savior narrative either, and even then, I doubt that he’d have access to the cure he’d need to actually be useful.”
McFarland nodded. “And, assuming this were true, what would you suggest, Mr. President?”
Herald smiled the type of smile that he only showed when he saw an opponent make a misstep that he could amplify into something career-shattering. “Why endanger our own men with a crackdown? McFarland, get one of your men on the line with Lovelace and send him your findings about Waffen. Bing, bang, boom, the problem solves itself.”
—
B-r-r-ring.
B-r-r-r-r-ring.
“Hello-hello?” Andy said as he put the landline to his ear.
“Is this Andrew Lovelace?” the voice on the other end was foreign to him, with a military cadence to its rhythm.
“Depends; who’s asking?”
“Agent Chapel, Department of Homeland and Aerospace Security. I’ve got information for you.”
Andy paused for a moment, then started laughing. “Hell, why didn’t you say so at the start? This is Andy, alright.”
“If you give me a contact, I can tell you something you don’t know about one of your subsidiaries.”
“Whatever you say, Officer. Rico!” Andy set down the landline and clapped twice to indicate his urgency. “Get me a burner!”
“Yes, sir!” his lieutenant called, scrambling towards the cabinet of the safehouse where they kept the scrambled transmitters.
“So,” Andy turned his attention back to the phone, “who, precisely, are we talking about?”
“I think you know them as Waffen, Mr. Lovelace.”
“Ooh,” Andy cringed at the thought, “never really liked me much, those folks.”
“Here you go, sir,” Rico returned, carrying a flat black cell phone. “Thank you very much,” Andy said, taking it from him and reading off the address numbers for the agent. A few minutes later, the device buzzed as it received a file. Curious, Andy opened it and began to read through its contents.
“I’ll give you as much time as you need to read through it.” Agent Chapel said.
“No, no, I’ve got the gist of it,” Andy said after a short pause, “man, that’s embarrassing. I hope you know that I might be a sociopath, but I’m an American sociopath.”
“Your loyalty to the nation was never the issue, Mr. Lovelace. If you would like to have us tell a few members of the press just how loyal you and your outfit are, I’d suggest that you make moves to, erm… handle this.”
Andy smiled at the thought. He’d always considered himself as something of a Robin Hood, though he was pretty sure that Robin Hood didn’t kill anyone, and he was also pretty sure that Robin Hood gave away the money he stole in the end. Still, it didn’t hurt to have a good deal of publicity. “Alrighty, you’ve got a deal. Anyone you really want alive?”
“We’ll say that you delivered a helping of frontier justice to their leaders if it helps out your story, but their researchers, political liaisons, the like–we want those guys.”
Andy nodded. “The Lovelace Group prides itself on swift and effective customer service. Gimme a little bit to gather up mis Vaqueros. We’re gonna paint the town red.”