- BottledBodhisvata
- Jul 26, 2013
-
by Lowtax
|
I appreciate the feedback. I'd intended to put this up earlier, but I find it harder to find time to write these days. I'll be putting up two quotes--the first will be a revision of the first bit, taking the feedback into account. The next will be a continuation. I'll probably post a section here and then one more, to get as much critique as I can, before finishing the book then on my own. So, without further ado...
quote:
He couldn’t meet her gaze, instead staring down at the floor, his jaw set. She nodded firmly and turned on her heels, demonstrating remarkable grace as she glided from the living room, headed to their bedroom down the narrow hallway. As she went, the bearded man called out.
“Real sorry about the inconvenience, ma’am. We’ll have you back home as soon as we’re able.”
She didn’t even bother to look him back, and as soon as they were out of sight, she reached into the pocket of her skirt, producing a sleek black cell phone. She began to tap with one hand, not needing to watch the keys as her eyes directed her free hand to gather up a few items of clothing from her bedroom. A few changes of clothes, a tiny stone Buddha from the nightstand…toothbrush and paste from the bathroom, an extra roll of toilet paper…
She tossed the phone onto the bed, the words “Message Sent” blinking for a few moments before the screen went dark. She folded up the bed linens, shut the curtains, and rolled the first-aid kit into a towel, bringing all of these items together into a small black suitcase she pulled out from under the bed. In five minutes she was packed, dragging the suitcase back out to the living room, her handbag slung over one shoulder. It was too much bother to change out of her loose-fitting maternity dress, but for the sake of composure, she’d drawn an eye-catching purple and red shawl over her shoulders, and swapped her slippers for a pair of running shoes.
The two soldiers were still in her living room, and Edward was gone. The woman was loading shells into a pump action shotgun, and looked up with a guilty expression at Himiko’s return. The older man just languidly lounged against the arm of the sofa, and waved at her with a smile.
“Splendid. Edward’s got the truck outside. We’re just picking up this street for the first run, we’ll have an APV ‘round to finish up the neighbors and your coworkers down at the hospital.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and his smile faltered for a moment.
“Er…again, real sorry about this. It’s honestly not even that big a deal, but we got…protocols and…”
“Why Edward? Why my husband?”
His eyebrows snapped up, and he grimaced. Now it was his turn to look guilty, the blonde finishing loading the shotgun and rising with it, giving it a firm pump. She rested it on her shoulder and turned once again to regard the military wife, suddenly finding the steel to meet her gaze. Her voice had a Southern drawl to it, or maybe it was Texan…Himiko never could make much sense of American regional accents.
“I’m ‘fraid that’s classified information. Reckon you should head outside now, the truck’s ready. “
Himiko felt bile rise in her throat. Something about this woman just made her see red. She had a brief fantasy of sinking her nails into her throat and ripping out her snotty vocal cords. As if sensing the hostility, the bearded man stepped between them.
“It’s alright, SGT. White, it’s not that classified.” He laughed nervously, and then coughed for good measure. “Sargent-Major Salisbury has a skill-set that is instrumental for our current operation. I promise you, he’ll be in no danger…this whole thing will be over in a couple of days.”
He shifted weight from foot to foot, and finally made a sweeping gesture towards the front door, managing another sheepish smile.
“If you would please, ma’am. We have to ensure the house is completed vacated.”
Himiko said nothing, but turned and marched towards the front door. As she opened it, the man was suddenly there, barring her path with one arm.
“Oh! Um, Missus Salisbury, if you would…uh…” He glanced over his shoulder at White, then back to the wife.
“It’s…important that we keep a lid on information leaks. Uh…that is to say, your husband’s role, our presence here…the fact that you’re leaving…we’re requesting that until we’ve finished our operation, uh…you don’t let any information about what’s going on…and who is involved…um…get out, yes? Um…that is to say…”
He breathed in through his nose and straightened his back.
“The United States Army would be very grateful if you could maintain radio silence for the next 48 hours. No calls, no letters, no texts…don’t tell anybody about where you’re going or what you know…or don’t know…”
He bowed his head and slowly moved his arm out of the way, mumbling in just barely audible—and barely intelligible—Japanese.
<Understand?>
She quirked an eyebrow, and then slowly smiled—a thin, mirthless smile.
<But of course. You don’t have to worry about me…> Her eyes glanced down at his breast, then to his arm. No mark or indication of rank whatsoever. <…Private. I can hardly speak English…and I do not even own a cell phone.>
He coughed again into his fist and nodded, stepping back.
<Yes…we know. We checked your records. And…we’ll, uh…we’ll be checking them. So please…just lay low.>
He shook his head and waved her on, and Himiko afforded him no further glances as she marched outside, bags in hand. Edward was outside, his arm draped out the window of the pick-up truck. In the bed of the truck, she could see about half a dozen people seated. She recognized them all, of course. They were neighbors. Four women, a man, and a little girl. One of the women was clutching an infant to her breast. All of them looked scared.
Himiko approached the truck and opened the passenger’s side door, taking a bit of effort to pull herself up into the seat. Edward blanched, turning away from the wheel.
“Himi! Baby, you need to sit in the-”
<For your own sake, Edward, you will not finish that sentence. Your friends will be quite comfortable in the back.>
She slammed the door shut, casting a sidelong and rather contemptuous glance out the window as Sgt. White and the bearded man exited the house. The man caught her eye, and swiftly turned and jogged back up to the door to shut it securely. White pretended not to see, but neither made any fuss as they approached the back of the truck and climbed in.
Edward Salisbury swore under his breath and gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“Sheeit, Himiko, you’re gonna get me in all manner of trouble.”
The truck pulled out of the driveway and down the narrow road. Himiko watched dejectedly as they drove passed the golf course. She could see streams of men and women marching off the green, some clutching their golf bags, all escorted by three or more armed soldiers in uniform.
<Is it war?> She asked at last.
<No.> Edward rumbled, then frowned, shaking his head. <I don’t think so. I can’t really tell you, my love, I would if I could. I barely know anymore than you.>
<Your rifle…>
<Is just what they told me to bring.>
<Is that really all they told you?>
A heavy silence hung over the truck as they drove down the road. The whole base was offloading in eerie precision. More and more trucks, most larger than the simple pick-up they were driving, but all carrying the same cargo. A long line of cars was clogging up the road to the nearest gate, and Edward instead drove past the main road, down a narrow path that ran towards the hangars. They’d take the western exit instead.
<Himiko, you didn’t tell anyone what’s happening, did you?>
<I do not know what is happening, husband, so what could I tell to whom?>
“drat it woman! <Don’t play dumb with me. You have your phone, don’t you?>
<I’m afraid that information is…> She turned and smiled quite sweetly at him. “Classified.”
Edward felt a cold sweat run down his spine. He loved this woman…and he loved his job…and he hated being forced to choose one before the other. What he hated even more, however, was that chilling smile of hers. How that sweet, Cherubic, almost innocent face could melt away in an instant, and in its place a smiling demon. Court martial, summary execution, arrest…nothing scared him more than that.
Well…that and one other thing. But that thing was thousands of miles and an ocean away. That thing wasn’t an issue. It couldn’t be an issue.
He looked away from his wife, back to the road again. He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his dark knuckles were bleaching white.
“Himiko…you know I love you, right?”
<And I love you, husband.> She reached over and gently patted him on the thigh.
They were pulling up to the gate now. Unlike the northern exit, this gate was practically deserted. A solitary sentry stood by, resting on the butt of his assault rifle, dark aviator glasses over his eyes. He didn’t even bother saluting, just waved them by.
<I will see you in two days.>
<It…may be longer than->
<Two days, Edward. For our sake, I do hope this is as trivial as your friends in the back would like to have me believe. Nobody would want this to last longer than that.>
Edward swallowed hard, and drove the rest of the way in silence. The civilians were to be offloaded a few miles off the base, at the edge of the small town of Madea. Buses were already standing by, to escort them to various pre-approved locations. He knew drat well that Himiko wouldn’t take the bus—and if she did, she’d certainly not get off at its destination. She could handle herself though. He had to focus.
This was the most important mission of his career. This was the most important mission perhaps of anybody’s career. Under the seat, he could feel the enormous pressure of the thin manila folder, stamped with crimson lettering, two words that had, just a few hours ago, changed his life utterly.
Operation Hamlet.
Himiko Salisbury waved daintily as her husband and his mysterious comrades drove away, a trail of dust soon obscuring them across the vast flatness of the Kansas skyline. She turned towards the waiting busses, dreary grey machines rumbling gently, each one driven by a stone-faced white man in glasses.
<Amateurs.> She muttered, sliding her cellphone from her pocket and snapping it open. Gripping it in both hands, she deftly snapped it in two.
She walked swiftly towards the crowd of military moms, busy trying to corral their children into some semblance of order. She lowered her head, a demure smile across her lips as, despite her heavy belly, she slid gracefully between the women, her body bending like a willow. As she neared the center of the crowd, her hand slid into her handbag.
A man in dark glasses stood at the far end of the crowd, away from the busses, his arms crossed. He waited, watching sternly, flicking his eyes from one face to another. This assignment ought to have been a piece of piss, keeping an eye on some preggo Japanese woman. No clue why this Salisbury lady was of such great interest, but he wasn’t paid to think…or ask why.
The crowd began to thin, as finally the busses took on their passengers. Inside each bus, in addition to the driver, a uniformed officer checked and collected the ID cards of every woman and child of age on board.
“Please be calm.” They’d say in matching monotones. “Your IDs will be returned as soon as we reach our destination. Please mind your belongings and children, we have a lot of people we need to fit.”
When the busses were loaded, the man found himself alone in the parking lot. His radio crackled at his hip, and he plucked the receiver up and held it to his ear.
“…what do you mean she didn’t get on board? There’s nowhere she could have gone! Search again. Check every face! For gently caress’s sake!”
A shorter, fatter man was jogging over to him, the expression on his face telling everything he’d need to know. She was gone. Somehow, Himiko Salisbury had disappeared into thin air. The fat man clutched in his right hand an eye-catching purple and red shawl.
“Found it beside one of the bus wheels.”
The other man took off his glasses and folded them into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. Scowling at his partner, he adjusted the radio frequency, and took a deep breath.
“…this is Bishop to Queen. Repeat, Bishop to Queen. Come in Queen.”
A few blocks away, Himiko stood in the shadow of a narrow brick alleyway, chuckling to herself. She slid the platinum blonde wig off her head and casually dropped it on a pile of trash bags stacked by some rusted green door. Her hands folded onto her tummy, and she patted herself gently.
<Looks like your mommy still has it.> She cooed gently. <Your grandfather would be proud.> She adjusted her now-lighter handbag’s strap on her shoulder.
Her footsteps made little sound as she wound her way down the alleyway, humming Henry Hall’s The Teddy Bear’s Picnic to herself, fading into the wash of light at the alley’s mouth.
* * *
* * *
In the cabin of the pick-up truck, Sgt. White set down her pocket radio and gave Edward Salisbury a withering glance.
“Your wife’s already missing, Salisbury.”
“I loving told you-”
“I sincerely doubt that you told us very much at all. Lucky for ya’ll that this mission doesn’t require the cooperation or even the existence of your wife. She is no longer relevant, though she’d have made fine incentive if she’d stuck in our charge. Remember, Salisbury…”
She smiled and leaned over, firmly pressing a fingertip to his temple.
“Unlike your wife, there ain’t no place for you to run to. There’s no escape…there ain’t even room for thought of abandoning your duty.”
Edward shot her a furious glare.
“Why would you even-”
“Just remember your job, soldier. It’s to do what I say. What we say. You follow orders. You do what’s got to be done. You don’t think.”
Edward scowled.
“Look, I volunteered, yeah? I’m on board. There ain’t no need for any of this rough poo poo. I can do the job.”
“Can you?”
Her cold eyes glittered.
“Guess we’ll just have to see, boy. Ain’t nobody volunteered to murder God ‘fore. Not in this lady’s Army. Sure you up to the task?”
“I don’t believe in God, ma’am.”
She laughed and pulled her finger away, turning her head to stare out in the window.
“Well, you’d better start. In 36 hours, you’ll be puttin’ one between His eyes.”
The truck returned to Sindown Base. Despite being one of the first to get out, it was the last to return, and Edward could see through the rearview mirrors the chain-link gates slowly swinging shut behind them. He shook his head slowly and sighed.
drat it Salisbury, he thought to himself. Just what the gently caress have you gotten yourself into?
And this is the new content, which may as well be entitled Traffic Jams and Exposition. The bit with Helena and Edward I feel may be too much information up front, but I felt at this point, the story sort of needs to be spelled out so as to make the action from here-on-out flow better, but do let me know if I tell more than show:
quote:
Act One: We Don’t Know Where We’re Going
We Don’t Remember Where We’ve Been
Joshua, son of Joseph, woke screaming. He sat bolt upright, his voice reverberating around the plaza, disturbing a pack of pigeons feasting on the remains of a hot dog bun.
The sun was barely risen. The air was still, and not a soul in sight. Joshua gasped for breath, as though he’d just ran ten miles. A rough linen robe scratched his dark skin. Slowly, he ran his hand through his curly hair, grasping a handful and exhaling. Okay. Okay. Be at peace.
He stood slowly, grimacing. He ached everywhere, his joints constantly popping and shifting. His stomach growled, and he clutched his gut. Food. Food! He needed food. He needed to eat, he needed to live…to live, to be alive to…
He wobbled and fell to one knee, clutching his head in both hands. Sharp pain lanced through his temples, and he hissed, wincing. He moved his hands from his head to his chest, and felt his heart pounding. Peace. Peace. He sighed, and nodded, slowly standing upright once more.
He was in a large plaza, marked in the center by an immense star with eight points, surrounded by a ring of pavers adorned with the names of their donors and citizens of great interest. He approached the star, fascinated. What a beautiful thing! Such craftsmanship, such smooth stones…could this truly be hand-carved? He knelt and ran his hands across it, laughing. Laughter! He couldn’t stop now that he’d started, and began to laugh and laugh until tears ran down his cheeks.
He stood up again, still chuckling and wiping a tear from his eye, glancing over his shoulder, and then slowly upwards. An enormous building towered over him, casting its shadow across the plaza. A proud sepulcher, with Grecian columns lining the front, teeth in a marble smile. He could see a bronze door beyond, but higher and higher his gaze wandered.
Stained glass, immaculate, sparkled, even in the morning twilight. A proud angel clutching a long spear, a dazzling halo behind his boyish head, wings of gold curled behind him. Clad in armor and a skirt. He looked like a Roman soldier. Joshua frowned.
His eyes widened as his gaze reached the pinnacle of the cathedral’s bell tower. His stomach churned, and a sharp pain burned in his hands, which he itched at furiously as he began to back away, trembling now. A dark shape silhouetted against the rising sun, its shadow now branded across his face—like a human shape, with two outstretched arms to either side, lacking a head or any legs but its foundational base.
A cross.
His knees shook. He felt sick. He clutched his gut and turned away, swallowing bile, his throat burning. He staggered away and began to run, stumbling, tripping over himself, clawing at the floor when he fell, twice to his knees, whimpering like a wounded animal.
He backed up all the way to a small staircase, leading down to a wooded park, with benches and a fountain. He grasped the handrail, and used it to support himself as he rose back to his feet, his sandals scraping across the chiseled granite. He turned again, and found his gaze drawn back to that ominous fixture. What a grotesque sight—such a beautiful park in the shadow of death. This plaza must be an execution ground, but there were no stains, no marks of death, no stench of sorrow…perhaps the practice was abandoned, but the image remained? A warning to any who would cross the powers that be?
He brought his hands to cover his face, blinded by the sun beyond the cross. It didn’t help. He could see the cross still, he could see it clear as the daylight itself, shining through the gaping holes in his palms.
Joshua turned, descended the stairs, and began to run as fast as his legs could take him, into the park, and into the city, past a sign he couldn’t understand, a simple white sign with blue lettering.
“Park Property of the Church of the Holy Resurrection.”
* * *
Coriander sighed, flipping open his pack of cigarettes and frowning. Only three left, and he’d bought them not more than eight hours past. It’d been such smooth trucking out of Saint Peter’s, a clean fifty miles of empty highway, and Coriander had honestly expected to be in Topeka in time for lunch before he ascended the Throne of God.
The traffic quickly brought that dream to an end. Traffic like he’d never even imagined. The highway was littered with cars, bumper-to-bumper, every conceivable make and model, honking at each other to no avail. A vast sea of vehicles ran all the way to the horizon, such a multitude that the road wasn’t large enough to contain them. Dozens of vehicles braved the rough terrain, and there were two wrecks lining either side of the highway already.
Somehow in just a few minutes, Angela’s truck was locked into the jam, another semi right behind it, and two busses on either end. They’d dined on a few bags of chips and cold sandwiches they’d bought at the truck stop, and that was the end of their ration. There was nothing to do but smoke cigarettes and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
It was long past noon now, and Coriander was starting to get sick of the country western radio station that Angela never turned away from. She enjoyed the familiarity, and would sing along to every song for as long as her phlegm would cooperate, hocking a ball of mucous out the window at every other chorus.
It was around the fourth repeat of Carrie Underwood’s Jesus Take the Wheel that Coriander began sincerely contemplating ending his own life. By the fifth go around, he was desperately searching the cabin on the off-chance that his trucker companion had stashed a firearm somewhere in the cabin and neglected to mention.
“No siree.” Angela croaked. “No guns, no how. I’m a proud Democrat, I’m a proud lover of God, and a proud pacifist, ain’t no way no how I’d have one of them murder machines in my beautiful Serena.”
Serena, of course, was the name of her truck. Coriander set his jaw and grasped the dashboard, slowly rocking back and forth, smacking his forehead against it again and again. Desperate measures, he’d break his skull open by brute force if he had—
A noise drew his head upwards. Something was tapping above them, pattering on the roof. Furrowing his brow, Coriander rolled down the window and poked his head out, hand on his hat to keep the Kansas wind from claiming it.
Up above, he could see them—not just one, but a whole group of people running across the rooftops of the cars, hopping from truck to truck to car to car. Mostly young folk, but he saw a few spirited old timers doing their best to keep up.
“Hey! Hey!” He called up, waving to catch one’s attention. Finally, he succeeded in drawing the eye of a pretty red-head with a lazy eye, wearing a bright pink tracksuit.
“What?” She asked, with surprisingly sincere confusion in her voice.
“What the hell are you doin’?”
“You can’t expect me to stay in this traffic jam, do you? There’s no way in hell this thing is moving. We’re going on ahead, you’re just wastin’ your life if you stay in your vehicle!”
She laughed and waved cheerily, and before Coriander could ask any further questions she’d leapt over his head, grasping onto the Greyhound bus beside them and scrambling up onto its roof. Coriander shook his head and dipped back inside the truck cabin.
“…crap.” He murmured, crossing his arms and closing one eye. He heard a distant scream in the distance. Somebody fell, maybe? But the pattering went unabated, more and more people vaulting over cars and trucks. He saw a few bicycles pedal through the gap between Selene and the busses, winding through traffic with immense cheek.
“Craaaaaaaap.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the passenger side door, causing Angela to squawk in annoyance.
“The hell you doin’?”
“Reckon I’ll walk from here, missus. Much obliged for your ride and the company.”
“What? You’re gonna run across these cars? You’re nuts.”
He laughed and tipped his hat to her.
“Best of luck to ya. Maybe I’ll see you in Topeka.”
He swung out of the truck and turned back to face it, reaching up and grasping the base of the exhaust pipe in one hand, the roof of the cabin with the other. It took a bit of effort, but he managed to pull himself up top, narrowly avoiding getting a foot in the face for his trouble as a pair of teenagers rushed right by.
He stood up unsteadily, shielding his face from the bracing wind. This long line of cars looked endless. The higher ground gave him a better vantage point, but there wasn’t much to see. Numerous trucks were forcing their way through farmland, and a number of smoking wrecks were smoldering in a distant field of wheat.
Welp. He who dares wins, or so he’d read somewhere. Ahead of the semi was a convertible, driven by a fat man with silver hair. A woman young enough to be his daughter was knelt over, her face buried into his lap. Ahead of that was another semi-truck—so that route was out.
No choice but to go the same way the red-head had. Coriander scowled and turned around, thinking to climb up on the logs for a better position to jump. He saw a portly Asian man scrambling across the top log, puffing and gasping like a fish out of water. Coriander opened his mouth to greet him, when suddenly…
The man’s ankle twisted at a sharp angle. A bad step or something. He screamed in pain and fell flat on his face, smacking himself on the log and rolling off it, tumbling off the cargo, grasping desperately but finding no purchase. The log rolled from his attempts, and even further down, Coriander watched as a young woman lost her balance, her legs swept from under her. She smacked herself on the log and slid down as well, disappearing from sight.
Coriander ground his teeth, glancing back down at the fat man, who was clutching his ankle, curled up on the asphalt below. Well, so much for that. Coriander felt a bit more at ease with the sturdy and considerably less cylindrical ground beneath him. He turned to the Greyhound, briefly catching the eye of one of its passengers. The whole bus was full of elderly women, all wearing bright red hats or so he could make out through the filthy windows. She waved slowly at him, and he waved back just as slow.
Doffing his hat again, he managed a lopsided grin, set his hat back upon his head…and ran towards the bus, kicking himself off the cabin roof and leaping towards the bus.
He hit it hard, a shock running right through his solar plexus. His fingers scrambled to grasp hold of the roof, just like that girl had, but there was nothing to grab on to. He began to slip and slide, and he let out a sharp cry as he began to fall backwards—
A firm grip took hold of his wrist, and in one fluid motion Coriander was pulled up and onto the bus roof. He found himself face-to-face with nothing short of a nun, in full habit no less, save for tennis shoes. She was about middle-aged, a few lines on her face, but her smile was warm and came easy to her face. She was rather tall, but broadly built, with strong shoulders and an iron grip. Coriander felt at once grateful and emasculated, and managed a very sheepish thank-you.
“Don’t mention it.” She beamed, patting him on the shoulder. “But you should probably be a bit more careful about where you jump. You can’t rely on miracles.”
She laughed, a hearty belly laugh, and turned to go.
“You can follow if you can keep up, but the Lord waits for no man—and neither do I!”
She ran forward, knees bending, and vaulted herself cleanly forward, landing on an SUV rooftop. The children inside howled in delight as they peered out the windows, the odd nun charging across their roof and launching herself across onto another van, and another, hopping from car to car with balletic grace.
Coriander felt his knees ache already just watching her. Still…he was committed. He rubbed his hands together, took a deep breath, paused to cough for a few seconds, cleared his throat, and bent a knee. One…two…three!
Stumbling, clumsily, Coriander followed the nun’s route, the children in the SUV howling for him too—howling with laughter as an uneven cowboy hopped from car to car with all the grace of a ballet dancer with traumatic brain injury.
* * *
Sergeant Helena White didn’t care for Edward Salisbury very much. He was almost eight years her elder, but they’d joined up at around the same time, and had gone through boot camp together. She’d excelled immediately, of course—fresh out of high school, where she’d earned her letter jacket in track and field as well as marksmanship and women’s basketball. She was top of her class, excelling in every subject. She could have had any full ride scholarship she wanted, and she knew it.
Helena White, though, was a daddy’s girl—and daddy was a soldier. No. No, daddy was a hero. He’d died on her 16th birthday in some distant desert land far away from home. He’d died defending his country. He’d died protecting freedom. A freedom that this ungrateful country scarcely deserved, and hardly ever earned. It was his wish, though, that she follow in his footsteps, and she was glad to do it. Glad to get away from Texas, from the boys, all bluster and hormones. From her mother, all whiskey and spit.
Edward Salisbury had joined in his mid-twenties. Like Helena, he’d been an athlete too—he’d played college football, and had earned a decent following. He had some potential, they’d all said that. They’d all said it, but when the time came to sign contracts, he was just another black rear end in a uniform, and the stats didn’t swing his way. Four years of trying his best, and in the end he didn’t even make a single dime off it.
He’d gone back home to New Mexico to find his parents dead, killed by a drunk driver the night after they’d come back from his graduation ceremony. He managed to find some work at a car dealership, but three years of false promises and painted-on smiles had eroded what little self-esteem he had left. He turned to the needle, and quickly lost his job, his money, and nearly his freedom too—had his uncle not been willing to represent him pro bono, he’d have been rotting in a prison now.
Instead, he got all the charges dropped, his record struck clean provided he pay the court bills and attend the classes. And he did. Five months later, his act cleaned up, his uncle did him one last favor, and introduced him to the recruiter.
Helena and Edward went separate ways after boot camp. She was exceptional, and was recruited by Gregory King personally to be a part of his black-ops task force. Edward stuck with the traditional program, and based on his aptitude found himself assigned to a sniping detail. He was a crack shot, and more so than that, he had the fortitude and stamina, the patience, the diligence and discipline to stay on target, to stay in position. He liked sniping. He enjoyed the quiet behind the scope. The slow build to the single, perfect shot, the long hours of quiet focus.
Helena sighed as Edward inspected his rifle, running his fingers across it almost tenderly, lovingly. It was a pristine piece of work—it may have once been a standard issue .308, but Edward had clearly been customizing it since the war ended. It was painted silver, with an old-fashioned scope—in fact, despite the improved firing chamber and the increased ammo capacity, the rifle retained a classic feel, bolt action with that satisfying click every time the handle was pulled back.
“Don’t you think…” Helena drawled, lazily slumped up against the wall, her arms crossed around her stomach. “…that you’d rather take something with a bit more kick? You’re a big boy, reckon you could handle the .50 cal just fine.”
Edward grunted, picking his rifle up gently and laying it back down in the case, snapping it closed.
“I don’t like the .50 cal. Too much kick, too heavy, too slow. It’s like usin’ a hatchet when you ought to be usin’ a scalpel.”
He picked up his case and headed for the door. The small quarters were cramped, dusty, and had a strange smell that he couldn’t quite identify. He was already homesick for Himiko and the smell of incense and tea.
Helena sniffed and opened the door for him, and they walked out into a narrow hallway. Like the quarters, there were no windows, no natural light of any kind. It was dim and cramped. Helena had never been on a submarine, but she had a suspicion that it would feel a lot like this, especially all this cold steel—no carpeting or wooden decals, just grey steel and sharp corners.
There were a number of other sleeping quarters along the hallway, but they weren’t occupied. This place was a tomb, silent and grave. At the end of the corridor, an automatic door hissed open, and they stepped into a larger room, like a tiny auditorium, complete with chairs and a projector screen.
Gregory King stroked his Van Dyke beard, standing by the projector, barely seeming to acknowledge them as they entered. He waved a hand towards the chairs.
“Sit wherever. We’ll try to keep this short.”
Edward sat towards the left, and Helena sat to the furthest right, crossing her legs and glancing at the screen.
“Do we really need a briefing? I mean, it’s pretty cut and dry what we’re doin’, isn’t it?”
Gregory laughed, and turned the projector on, the lights going out automatically. The screen flickered, and a still photograph appeared—an aerial view of a city that neither of them recognized.
“This is Topeka, Kansas, one week ago. Capital of the great state of Kansas. Population a little shy of 130,000. Not a bad town. I don’t think I’d ever been there, nor read many stories about it—but in my line of work…”
He paused, chuckling.
“…our line of work, no news is good news.”
The projector clicked, and a new image came up. It was another aerial view of the city—except this time, jutting up from the center was a rather narrow mountain, a rise of solid rock—no dirt, no trees, no vegetation of any kind. The picture was a bit fuzzy and the distance between the subject and the lens made it difficult to make out much detail, but the very top of the mountain looked different, oddly shaped.
“This is a picture from three days ago, taken two hours after this mountain erupted from the earth. At least a hundred people died in the chaos that ensued, a figure you won’t hear reported very much. There wasn’t a lot of fanfare besides this, no earthquakes, no seismic anomalies—nothing that could have warned us in advance, you see. One moment, we have business as usual, and the next, we have a mountain in the middle of one of the flattest parts of the country.”
The next picture was a close-up of the mountain. Now it was plain to see that the mountain’s summit had been carved into the shape of an enormous, unadorned chair.
“This is the Throne. Nobody carved this into the mountain, it was there from the moment the mountain was. It’s built in, utterly—it seems plain that the mountain is just the base for this seat. When the Throne came up, a man was already seated upon it. We have no way of knowing if he somehow got onto the Throne after it had burst from the earth, or if…somehow…he’d been sitting there all the time, that he’d somehow…been underneath the ground.”
Gregory paused to clear his throat.
“We’re getting more data every minute, but so far nothing conclusive has been found to suggest that there’s some sort of cavern system underneath Topeka. As far as our geologists are concerned, this whole scenario is a scientific impossibility.”
He smirked, and the projector clicked again. Now the image was of an old man, a profile shot, a head shot, and a full-body portrait of him, standing at the head of a crowd of people laying prostrate, his arms held out at either side. He wore a black striped suit, a crimson handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket. His silver hair was slicked back, and he had deep eyes with a sharp, confident stare. His lips seemed perpetually curled into just the hints of a smirk, as though he were about to tell a really funny joke.
“This man is Doctor Everett Goodchild. Dr. Goodchild has been well-known in the Topkea area as a popular radio preacher. He had his own show, he would regularly do sermons and guest spots at a number of Mega Churches in the area, and he had a string of churches that he owned in the Topeka and Wichita area. He was, for all intents and purposes, a typical example of a highly successful priest.”
The projector clicked again. More pictures of Goodchild, standing at the base of the mountain, blankets of steam flanking him as he holds his hands aloft. Other pictures show him standing at the top, and one of him seated on the throne, his legs crossed, looking quite at ease.
“When Goodchild and the Throne appeared, he made some sort of proclamation. We don’t know what he said, because from the moment he spoke, all communication with Topeka ceased. Phones, emergency broadcasts, radio—nobody’s sent any word out of the city…nobody who heard the Word, at least. Nobody’s talking to us. We have satellite imagery…”
The picture changed again, showing a close-up of the city streets from above. Throngs of people were flooding the streets. Every single one of them was bowing, just like the photo of Goodchild from the previous slide. The entire city was kowtowing to him.
“So we can see what they’re doing. It seems that this has been consistent…fact of the matter is, nobody’s moved. They’re all just bowing and—as first responders reported, as well as the press and media—praying. Some of them were even singing. Nothing in any language we understand, for the most part. A few bits of Latin, we reckon, but that’s unsubstantiated. There’s a danger in coming too close to the city—any time Goodchild talks, it seems, the result’s the same. You just start bowing and praying. Fortunately, Goodchild seems to be keeping quiet, for the most part.”
The slide clicked again, with more shots of the Throne, and the city. People wading through the sea of prostrate pedestrians, abandoned cars, abandoned strollers. A few children were standing, walking, clearly crying. One picture showed a little girl—surely no older than five—clutching a baby in her arms, sitting with a dumbfounded expression on her face, flanked at either side by a man and a woman, their eyes locked on the ground as they prayed.
“We don’t know what sort of control he’s enacting over the population, and we don’t know the cause of this strange reaction. It seems largely ineffective on children, so we suspect that there may be some kind of hypnosis at play or…well, look, I have a folder about as thick as War and Peace that’s chock full of a bunch of shrinks theorizing over what could be happening, but it’s not relevant besides the fact that if you, or I, or anyone else actually hears whatever it is that Goodchild is saying, we’ll lose our goddamn minds.”
Gregory pursed his lips and moved on to the next slide, which this time was a diagram, depicting a map of the city with a variety of X marks scattered about, as well as a dotted line leading well beyond the city limits.
“Our mission is very simple. We’re going to assassinate Goodchild, and regain control of the city. This matter is complicated largely because we do not have any idea where he currently is. Despite being called the King of Kansas—we don’t know where that title came from either—he has abandoned his throne and gone missing. Already, we are prepping the first of several strike teams who are to infiltrate the city and attempt to locate him.”
Edward frowned, turning in his seat.
“Yo, wait, but you said that going in the city was basically bad news, yeah? That’s why I’m here, for the sniping? Out of earshot and everything? So won’t the strike teams end up going crazy or whatever the hell is happening here?”
Gregory smiled thinly.
“Absolutely. But the teams will be outfitted with noise-cancelling headphones and other equipment that should provide at least some measure of defense, although with our limited intelligence, it’s quite evident that we’re sending our boys in on suicide missions, or whatever the equivalent in this circumstance would be. It doesn’t matter, though—if they can locate Goodchild, we can track their location to him…and if we’re really lucky, they may be able to plant a tracking device on him, enabling us to bring you in by helicopter to blow his goddamn brains out.”
Edward turned back to the screen, frowning.
“No offense, but was it really necessary to evacuate Sindown for all this? And for that matter, wouldn’t a strike team draw in attention? Wouldn’t an individual soldier, or even pairs, be more efficient in locating the target without being detected? I get that these are suicide missions, but…I mean, ya’ll acting like we been invaded.”
Helena quirked an eyebrow.
“That’s a good point, actually. I assumed that the mind control or…whatever the hell we’re callin’ it…you’d mentioned that to me on the way to Sindown, but…I gotta admit, the plan seems a bit much, don’t you think?”
Gregory laughed again, a rather hearty laugh this time. He held his hand out with a flourish, like a magician, and stabbed his finger down on the projector button, the screen shifting with a click.
Helena and Edward gasped.
“This…” Gregory began, “This is why we evacuated Sindown. It’s why we’re given orders to all emergency personnel in every city in a two hundred mile radius to go into lockdown. It’s why we’re marshaling tank divisions at the Kansas state border. It’s why, right now, there are four briefings just like this one going on, four different snipers being prepped. It’s why we’re leaving absolutely nothing to chance.”
Helena stood straight up, squinting at the screen. She felt her blood run cold, but her nerves tingled. Excitement and fear danced in her chest, and she balled her hands into fists. Edward had no words. He sat silently, staring at the screen. Helena was the one who spoke.
“Commander King…what the gently caress is that thing?”
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 21:46
