CHAPTER ONE
Find a Way
The last few days had been a whirlwind of action for John and Sera. From the assault on Ultima Thule, their near defeat and final victory there, to being immediately thrust back into the “real world” of Atlanta as soon as they were conscious enough to be shoved onto an ECHO transport plane, there hadn’t been a moment to pause for a breath. It all seemed entirely too surreal: one moment, fighting for their lives in a strange re-creation of Nazi Paradise. Collapsing, thinking that they were dead—at least they had fought on to the end, trying to save as many as they could—and then being saved themselves at the last moment by the Metisians. There had been the arguments and meetings, afterwards: what to do with the prisoners, how to split up the spoils of war in terms of recovered Thulian tech and materials, and so on. Bella and the Commissar both had thought it best that John and Sera get back to Atlanta, to HQ, stat; an uncomfortable amount of those arguments had been what to do with John and Sera themselves. The troops on the ground were for the most part thankful, or just in awe, of what had happened during the fighting. The top brass, however…they conveyed Fear, Envy, and worst of all, Greed when it came to just who was going to be able to call on the fiery duo. Three of the Seven Deadly Sins, if John’s memory was correct. Of course, his memory might not have been; he’d never been all that conversant in religion before, and Sera didn’t seem inclined to spout Bible verses and doctrine so much as cryptic responses or things that were, well, more universal than Biblical. All the same, the feeling in the air back at Ultima Thule was decidedly not friendly for John and Sera, so back to Atlanta it was. Even their comrades had been on edge, until Old Man Bear had broken the tension. Since then, things had been more relaxed at HQ.
There had been another thing John was contending with. He was picking up on the emotions of others, and not just in a natural, “able to read people” sort of way. He could actually feel what others were feeling sometimes. It had taken his breath away, the first time, and still rocked him to his core whenever it happened now. But he was getting used to it…with Sera’s help. He wasn’t surprised as much anymore when it happened; he was beginning to be able to control when he let the emotions of others in. It was still the depth of it all that overwhelmed him; maybe because he was used to regulating his own emotions, and was habituated over his life to react to them. With other people…it wasn’t so much as colors mixing and melding, as much as it was two different strains of music coming together, and not always in harmony. It was the best way that he could think to describe it. Some people were a lot easier to be around, all the healers and empaths, for instance; shielding other people out meant they kept their own emotions in. Bulwark, strangely, was completely unreadable. John figured it might have been an extension of his other powers, but didn’t have much of a chance to pursue the answer to that question.
And then there was Vickie, who had some sort of barrier of her own. She wasn’t a psychic of any sort, so it had to be magic. He still got the heebie-jeebies when it came to magic, despite how much of his gear—even his HUD and Overwatch rig—ran on it. John kind of wondered how the heck that worked though—magical/emotional shielding. He hadn’t even gotten anything out of her when he’d inadvertently zapped her, and you’d have thought being hit by a “Celestial” bitch-slap would have made her feel pretty damn strongly…but the only time she’d slipped was when she’d thought about Red Djinni.
That had been a painful exchange. He and Sera both had been lapped by waves of grief and longing that had come off of Vickie; it was only Sera’s moderating influence, John suspected, that kept him from being completely overwhelmed. He did his best trying to counsel Vickie, and comfort her without being patronizing; he’d had enough experience with doing that when he was still Big Army, being a team leader and helping the Joes under his command. Still, she seemed mired in her own pain; it particularly stung him in that it reminded him of when Sera was going through her own trials while his memory was gone. In the end, Vickie had closed up…those weird shields of her own coming up, and completely cutting off the feed of her emotions to John and Sera. She said she was fine, but it was clear that she just wanted to end the interaction. It was probably for the best; pushing things too far, too fast would have more than likely been counterproductive. She was his friend, and he would offer her whatever help he could give, but she still had to find her own way, in the end.
Besides the troubles that Vic was going through, something else had stuck out to John about that night. When she had tried to do her magic “reading” on him, to determine if he was going to be a danger to others, something now intimately a part of him had reacted badly, before he was even aware of it. Celestial. That had been the word that she was trying to finish when she got thrown into a wall by whatever defensive impulse was building, before I clamped down on it. He’d done his best to seem nonchalant about it, but in reality he was scared to death. It only got worse after he saw the raw, unedited footage of himself and Sera during the fighting in Ultima Thule. Although he had been there, and had done all of those things…seeing it from the outside perspective, what it must have looked like to other people…that, more than anything, shook him up. They were awesome. And terrifying. More than anything, the footage conveyed to him how fast they were together; the amount of destruction they could dish out in a short amount of time was staggering. John had seen artillery—and experienced it, on the wrong end—and airpower, and those two things were frightening enough. But that wasn’t just a single person, or even a couple, that were capable of those things. It was teams of people, coupled with technology and entire logistical trains. Take one piece out of that puzzle, and it all fell apart.
The footage drove home that “John and Sera” were a power unto themselves, and a different one from anything the world had seen so far. And, so, John was frightened.
There was temptation to look at the footage again—easy enough to do, since he and Sera were officially on “detached duty,” playing Vickie’s bodyguards while the VIPs and select ECHO leads were in Metis itself. All he had to do was give Overwatch a couple of commands and he could view it again as many times as he wanted. But there was fear and even a little revulsion, too. He had detonated bombs that had leveled entire buildings, and called in airstrikes that had done the same or more. He had once cooked an entire hangar filled with Kriegers and Krieger armor. When he had seen what he and Sera had been capable of, when they were completely drained…it was beyond. He didn’t want to be—well, that. Whatever that was. Tapped into raw, unfettered power. It set them apart in a way very few metahumans had been before…and the world hadn’t been kind to those metas.
Sera interrupted his musings with a hot cup of tea. “You are troubled,” she said simply, sitting down beside him. “May I help?” They were sitting on the couch, back in Vickie’s apartment again, generally taking up space and making sure she had whatever help she needed. Most of the time, Grey and Herb already had Vickie’s needs taken care of, so John and Sera spent their time talking, drinking tea, and keeping an eye out for…anything.
He did his best to smile wanly. “I imagine you’re the only one that could, darlin’.” He took his cup of tea, transferring it to his left hand before pulling her closer with his right. “Guess I can’t hide anythin’ from you.”
She blinked at him, slowly. “You could, if you chose. I am glad that you do not choose to do so. What troubles you so?”
John thought for a few moments. “Me. You. Us. All of this.” Effortlessly, he called flame to the arm that was wrapped around her; he already knew that their fires could never hurt each other. The ease with which he could call his fires, now, and keep them going…before, control had been his biggest issue. He had learned breathing exercises, even meditation, to keep his fires from going nova on him; every time he had decided to use his flames before his…transformation, he had needed immense concentration to prevent the fire from ramping up and going wild, like it had when he had escaped from the Facility. He’d been close to losing it like that a few times; if it hadn’t been for Vickie, he would have probably unintentionally cooked his friends and teammates alive by accident a couple of those times. “It’s a lot to deal with. That, and the…other stuff. The Futures, our battle-sense, feelin’ things and being able to just ’bout read people’s thoughts…I don’t know how you did it all on your own.”
To his relief, she laughed a little. “Because I was not human, beloved. I could not handle it alone, now.”
“Well, there is that, I suppose.” He shook his head. “Still. How are we goin’ to deal with it now? I mean…what can we do with all of this power? It’s makin’ my head spin, if’n I’m bein’ honest.”
Her brows creased, as she thought, and there was some uncertainty in her voice. “I moderate what you can do. I am the—the gauge through which the power flows. Vickie was right, we have mapped the limits of our abilities, there at Ultima Thule. That is as much as we can bear; attempts to manipulate more will…not end well.” She offered a tentative attempt at a smile. “I sense this does not comfort you.”
He shrugged, pecking her on the cheek. “It was a good try.” He sighed heavily. “I figure we’ll just have to play it by ear. Bein’ mere mortals, we’ll do the best that we can.”
They could hear Vickie talking in the next room, but not what she was saying; she was probably on private mode to Bella or Nat or one of the other ECHO or CCCP leads that were in Metis. Grey was nowhere in sight, which meant he was probably sitting on one of Vickie’s desks, kibbitzing. Herb was toddling across the floor with one of Vickie’s meals-in-a-can; John could swear it looked like the little rockman was bigger every time he saw him. How do you grow a pet rock?
There wasn’t much of a view out the window; the living room window looked directly into the canopy of a huge live-oak tree. The tree’s proximity made coming in that way—at least for JM and Sera—a bit of a trick. It was a rare moment of peace, although John mistrusted it for that very reason. They were playing bodyguard to Vickie for a reason, after all. Just because her role as creator and implementer of Overwatch Two was only known by a handful of people, it was a bigger handful than John liked. So far as he was concerned they were long past the critical mass it would take for the secret to somehow leak. Three people could keep a secret if two of them were dead, as the old saying went; sometimes, he thought even that was too many with some secrets.
The danger to Vickie wasn’t just from supposed “allies” or other interested parties. The Thulians—including at least Ubermensch and Valkyria—that got away from Ultima Thule were at the top of the list. They—and the huge technodragon that they rode out on—were still very much a threat. Taking out Vickie would, despite the backups and contingencies that she had in place, be a huge blow for the global resistance against the Kriegers; one that they couldn’t afford to risk.
“Y’know, it’s ’bout time to start thinkin’ ’bout dinner. Vickie has those god-awful canned meals—havin’ eaten my fair share, I know how bad they can be—but I figure we need some real chow. What’re you feelin’ like, darlin’?” If they couldn’t decide, there was always little Thea; she always had something on the stove, hot and ready to be ladled out to hungry comrades after a shift.
“Is there a food truck near?” she asked, with a note of longing. He chuckled. Atlanta had some very good food trucks, still running despite shortages and the odd Thulian- or gang-attack, and John had gotten Sera addicted to the variety.
“I’ll ask Over—” he began. Then—
—it felt like a bomb went off inside of his skull, while a dozen sledgehammers were pounding it in from the outside. Almost at the same time, he and Sera were both on the floor, frozen; he could barely see Sera’s face, and her eyes were almost completely rolled up in their sockets. He felt his own vision go dark, then stark white as something shot in like a lightning bolt through the pain. Dimly, he heard Vickie yelling—not at him or at Sera, but into her Overwatch gear.
Something’s…bad…wrong.
He knew—though he didn’t know how—that it wasn’t a dream, or a hallucination, but a vision of something that was actually happening, right then.
Fire. Screaming and death. Explosions and people being crushed by falling rubble. Actinic beams of energy and the thunderous stomp of thousands of armored boots. And, finally, a gigantic dragon, roaring and glaring hatefully at everything below it.
Metis was falling, and there was nothing that they could do about it.
When he and Sera came to, again almost at the exact same time, he first noticed that his fingernails had dug deep, red furrows into his palms, and his jaw was sore; he must have been clenching it or grinding his teeth. Their cups of tea had shattered when they had hit the floor, and the couch had been kicked away; either by him or Sera, he didn’t know, but it was now very misshapen and piled against the far wall.
“Johnny! Sera!” Vickie was shouting, not via his Overwatch rig, but physically from the other room. “Are you okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “The Thulians found Metis, and things just went nuclear FUBAR.”
It took John a few seconds to form words. It felt like his tongue couldn’t find purchase in his mouth, and he kept slurring and mumbling. He could see—and feel—Sera struggling just as he was. “We—we’re fine, Vickie. We’re feeling it happen.” John, much more slowly than he would have liked, pulled himself to his feet. He swayed for a moment, thinking he was going to pass out; it was like his blood pressure had just taken a dive, and he felt lightheaded. Then it passed, and he was steady again. He helped Sera to her feet; once he was sure that she was okay, they both started towards Vickie’s workroom. “We saw it, Vic. This isn’t just an attack; it’s extermination. They need to get as many people out as possible, and goddamned fast.”
“On it,” she shouted tersely. They had staggered to the door of her Overwatch suite; there were camera feeds from Bella, Bulwark, Ramona, Pride, Nat, and Moji.
“Is there any lala angel way you guys can get there?” she asked through gritted teeth, as her fingers flew over her keyboard.
“Darlin’?” John looked to Sera. Even with how fast they could fly—which was pretty goddamned fast, all things considered—it’d still take them hours to get to Metis. Hours that Metis didn’t have. They both realized this, and John watched Sera confirm it when she shook her head gravely. “Negative, comrade. Unless you’ve got some sorta rabbit you can pull out of your hat and get us there like you got us outta the Himalayas, we’re not gettin’ to Metis before the show is over.”
“Futui!” she swore. “No, there’s no landing pad and no time for anyone to put one down for me. They need you! I—”
“Hey! You ain’t wrong. But! They also need us here. Covering you, so you can cover them. That’s our job right now, and it’s the one we’re in a position to do. We don’t know what else these shifty bastards have up their sleeves; if they start strikin’ anywhere else, we need to be ready to pounce on that shit. So keep on keepin’ on, comrade. Alright?” John didn’t mean to use the Command Voice, but it sort of came through. They needed Vickie to do what she did best, now more than ever. If she was distracted, it could mean someone died. Maybe a lotta someones. People they knew. People they all loved. And, as much as it hurt him to put it before all of that, people that mattered to the future.
She nodded curtly, and kept her eyes on the monitors, her hands flying over the keyboard, muttering into her own microphone.
Wordlessly, John and Sera both withdrew to the doorway. They both knew that they had to be extra vigilant, especially now. John was the first to speak. “I wasn’t lyin’ in there; she’s our first priority. We’re in the best position to protect her, and she’s important; Vic is a force multiplier, and having her active keeps more of our people alive.”
Sera nodded, and glints of gold began to form deep in her eyes. “She cannot watch here and there at the same time. We must be the watchers here.”
John held his hands out, palms up. “Tell me what to do, darlin’. I’m with you all the way.”
“Remember how it felt, to know what our foes were about to do? Be that, again. Then stretch out your wings, and feel the wind of now uplift them, until you can see all of the city…” She placed her hands atop his, and he allowed her senses to guide his.
John felt things go still around the two of them. Time slowed down, and the world around them became dim for a moment. Then it was as if the world was moving and they weren’t connected to it anymore; in a few instants, the seasons changed a thousand times, the sun and moon had risen and set in a strobe, and then everything snapped back like a rubber band to the Now. John watched as Vickie’s apartment was at first frozen, and then started to vibrate, like a film going off reel. It was jarring when it settled back, as if nothing had happened. Slowly, blurred and ghostly versions of himself and Sera started walking through the apartment, going in different directions. First, there were just two. Then four. Then eight. Then sixteen. The blurred copies kept multiplying until it looked like there were superfast streams of motion moving through the entire apartment.
They are our possibilities. He knew without actually knowing that it was Sera’s voice, guiding him. Slowly, his comprehension of the scene expanded outward from the apartment; first to the floor they were on, then to the building, then the block, and so on until he had the entire city in his mind. He knew that Sera was seeing the same thing he was, in perfect clarity. It looked like rivers of golden and blue light running between the buildings and on the streets; he realized that those rivers were comprised of the lives and possible futures of everyone that lived in Atlanta. Very gradually, at certain intersections of the rivers and eddies, he saw…mires. Spots where Futures ended, cut short or drastically altered. With a gasp that took place in neither time nor space, he realized that those were people dying from violence or otherwise being harmed. Or, rather, that they would be.
He also started to feel all of the emotions of those people, their lives, their Futures. Even the emotions of those that would die. John felt all of it welling up in him, threatening to spill over; he felt like a kettle, ready to boil over, like the top of his head was going to pop off—it was too much. He felt his own panic behind it all, all the love, pain, death, life, hate, joy, anger, jealousy, sadness, it was everything and all at once—
Peace, be still, he heard in his heart, and it was as if there was a “volume” control and she had turned it down. He could still feel all these things, but now they were like a sort of dissonant music playing in the background. He settled, and felt himself calming down. He felt shaken; it was like brushing too close with madness, losing his sense of self and succumbing to…whatever all of that had been. Breathing without breathing, he regained his composure. Now he could see the potentials, without being drawn in with them, focusing on the individual threads. It wasn’t quite omniscience; he imagined, offhandedly in the back of his mind, that it must be somewhat like what Gamayun could do. He also knew that they couldn’t do this forever; it was taxing, extending their senses out this far, and they wouldn’t be able to maintain it forever.
I could, once. But he didn’t sense regret or loss behind Sera’s thought, only a feeling of that was then, this is now. He felt her doing something he could only think of as…sorting. Like someone going through a basket of colored threads and looking for the ones that ended in a particular color. And sensed then that she was not finding what she was looking for.
I am looking for great danger, she answered the unspoken question. It is not here, not now, not here soon, but—
John felt himself returning to a certain point, a certain place…it was there in Vickie’s apartment, and now. Not something soon to come, but something happening. It was as if he and Sera had returned from a fugue state. Their heads snapped as one to stare at one of Vickie’s monitors; it was glowing brightly in gold and blue, standing out against everything else. Then the effect ended, and they were fully back in the present.
“Somethin’ is happenin’, right now, Vic.” He and Sera both strode towards Vickie’s battle station, on either side of her chair.
“There,” Sera said, pointing at the monitor. It was the one with Molotok’s Overwatch feed. He had just run out from a hallway that terminated onto the entrance to a landing pad, cantilevered over empty space. The view was beautiful…save for over a dozen Supernauts in their bulky armor, armed with arm-mounted machine guns and flamethrowers. At the very end of the landing pad stood Worker’s Champion, cradling a box. As one, they all seemed to turn to face Molotok. There were a few tense seconds of silence.
Moji called something out in Russian. What came in John’s ears was the usual Russian gibberish—but somehow, through his connection with Sera, he understood the sense of it. “You have blood-crimes to repay, Uncle. If you surrender, I’ll make sure you don’t suffer. It is better than what anyone else will offer you for betraying your family, country, your world…your very comrades. I will not make the offer a second time, as it is more than you deserve already.”
“It is an offer you cannot deliver, boy.” Worker’s Champion’s face was utterly devoid of anything approaching emotion; even his delivery was carefully modulated, betraying not the slightest hint of what he might be really thinking or feeling. “If only you understood—”
“Fuck you! Understand? Others may want to understand why you are a traitor. I do not. I only see an enemy of my people. I kill my people’s enemies; it is what good soldiers do, you swine. Spare me your words, and die like a goddamned Russian!”
Worker’s Champion nodded once, still stony-faced and cold. “So be it.” With that, all of the Supernauts raised their weapons. They would have been better off if they had turned their machine guns, grenade launchers, and flamethrowers on themselves. Molotok didn’t even bother to dodge their attacks; he marched determinedly from one Supernaut soldier to another. Explosions went off around and even on his body, detonating harmlessly. Bullets bounced away and ricocheted in oblique angles from his body, sometimes going back towards the Supernauts that had fired the rounds. And the superheated napalm that struck Molotok simply dripped off of him. Looking through the Overwatch camera that was from his point of view, and from the ones that were hovering in the vicinity, he looked like a wrathful god come to exact vengeance.
He was an expert at Systema and several other martial arts; he didn’t use any of his expertise as he fought the Supernauts. He would just walk up to one, grab the armored soldier by his limbs, and rip him apart. Sometimes he would take the Supernaut’s head off with a backhanded strike, other times pulling an arm and a leg off and casting them aside casually, or splitting a soldier in half like a man pulling apart a wishbone. It was awful and awesome, in the unceremonious brutality of it all. The final Supernaut was quivering in place; he had expended all of his munitions, and his arm-mounted machine guns, grenade launchers, and flamethrowers all clicked and hissed empty. Pulling a bayonet from his boot, Molotok calmly walked up to the armored soldier, grabbing him by the back of his helmet before pulling his head onto the bayonet. The soldier gave a final startled shriek before falling to the ground, still twitching with the grip of the bayonet sticking out from his helmet’s eyeslit.
Most of the napalm had gone out by that time; Molotok’s suit was ruined in several places, but the skin underneath was untouched. His chest heaved, not from exertion, but from unbridled rage. Worker’s Champion had stood, watching the entire gruesome slaughter. Now, he set down the box he had been carrying, and faced Molotok. There was a standoff that, while only a few seconds long, seemed to last an eternity, before Molotok screamed.
“Fascista!”
Now all of Molotok’s finesse as a fighter was evident. For metahumans with super strength and resilience—the two often seemed to manifest together, for obvious reasons that a meta that was super strong, but couldn’t withstand the stresses of what he was using it for, wouldn’t live very long—most of them relied on those abilities to simply power through their opponents. Molotok was not one of those metahumans. He had been taught and learned, from a young age, to fight as if he was weak, as if he was fragile. To marshall his strength, to protect himself from every strike as if it might be fatal. To strike where the enemy was weak, and defend from where he was strong.
As he attacked Worker’s Champion, he did so with perfect form, graceful and blindingly fast, precise with every blow and measured with every defense.
He was beautiful. And he was doomed.
Worker’s Champion had none of his protégé’s flourish or artistry. But he did have power. He didn’t need to outmaneuver Molotok; even the most skillful strike, he simply cut through, using his own strength and nearly impervious skin to best the younger man. It was tragic. Molotok, no matter what injury he took, continued to attack. First, it was a split lip. Then, a mashed eye. A broken finger; a hand. An arm. His ankle. A dislocated shoulder. All the ribs on one side cracked. Teeth on the right side of his mouth, shattered to splinters.
But still, Molotok fought. Mustering the very last of his strength, he finally connected a solid blow to Worker’s Champion’s mouth. The sound of the impact was indescribable; like steel meeting steel with the force of a dynamite explosion. Molotok’s last good hand was ruined; bleeding bones jutting from skin and fingers turned all the wrong way. But…Worker’s Champion was bleeding. Three thin lines of blood crept down his lips; the blood was his own, and for a moment his eyes grew wide at the sight of it on the back of his hand as he wiped it away.
With a flick of the back of his hand, Worker’s Champion shattered the bones in Molotok’s remaining arm, ensuring he couldn’t even lift it any more. Molotok fell to his knees, very obviously struggling to stay conscious.
John felt so helpless, and it infuriated him. His fists were balled, his knuckles white in impotent fury. If only we were there!
There was a sound like the rush of wind while manning the door gun on a helo, diving on an LZ. Suddenly, John found himself not looking at a monitor and seeing through a camera, but feeling through Molotok. There was so much pain; the physical was there, and almost blinding, but it wasn’t the worst pain. The worst of it was the feeling of no longer being able to continue, to pursue the fight, to finish his opponent, and the threat to his loved ones. Molotok felt failure surge through him, redoubling and making him sick with grief. His life was ebbing out, he knew that; even though he had never been injured in such a way, he knew that he was bleeding internally, and it would soon kill him.
The despair in him was so terrible it completely overwhelmed the pain, and threatened to drown him before his body died. John shared that despair—hell, it was a reflection of the despair he had lived with for years—and without thinking, he “reached out” to his friend and comrade. He didn’t know what he would or could do, he only knew he could not allow Moji to die alone.
That was when John “felt” Sera with him, and felt her reaching to Moji too…and together they somehow touched him. “Fear not, brave one,” he “heard” in his mind, and knew that Molotok heard it too. “This is not an end, and your comrades will take up the fight and never forget you. See the door? It waits to welcome you.” John couldn’t see it, but he sensed Molotok could, and sensed that Sera had muted the Russian’s pain as well. He willed Moji to “hear” him. This was—it was anything but natural for him, but he willed Molotok to sense that he was there, too, a friend that he trusted, and that the friend was letting him know that this was…all right. And that it was okay for him to let go.
The despair ebbed, then drained away. John tried to continue willing that support for his comrade. He thought he was succeeding when there was a strangled shout, full of fury and pain and desperation, and Moji turned his head.
It was Natalya, staring at her bolshoi brat with horror and outrage.
“She will finish this, I pledge you,” Sera breathed gently.
“I know this. It is her nature; she only knows how to succeed.” Behind that single thought, John and Sera felt everything that Molotok—no, his callsign was too impersonal for such a deeply personal interaction—everything Moji felt for Natalya. His sestra. But more than that…the love of his life. He was the perfect Russian metahuman. Darling of the media, a ladies’ man as well as a respectable gentleman, when the situation dictated. A dedicated soldier, but also well-rounded and well-read. And the only thing he had ever wanted was Natalya’s love and companionship. Wanted it enough to stand by her even if it was only to be as her “brother”; when she was right, when she was wrong, when she wouldn’t take bribes like everyone else, when she fought for truth, when she was exiled to America. When she was certain to die—he would always stand by her.
He stood by her now, for who she was. For the woman he loved her as.
A smile creased Moji’s cracked and bleeding lips, and he felt no more pain. Only comfort, and certainty. Vengeance; this will not go unanswered. There will be rest.
Distantly, John felt another surge of terrible grief.
Vickie.
The part of him that was still in Atlanta—detached but still whole—moved the two steps it took to reach her, took a shoulder in each hand, and squeezed them gently, reassuringly, as she shook with silent sobs.
He felt himself saying, “We’re with him. He’s not alone,” and knew the words were his and Sera’s both. So surreal. Needed, necessary. Kindness always is.
Moji’s camera registered Worker’s Champion picking him up until his battered face was level with the old Russian’s—which showed no more emotion than it had before. There was movement as Worker’s Champion pulled back his arm.
The feed cut out, leaving only Red Saviour’s feed, as Natalya watched the man she and Moji had called “Uncle” murder her best friend in the coldest of cold blood.
John and Sera both felt Moji move on. It wasn’t violent, like his death; more of a letting go. There wasn’t the despair, or grief that he had been feeling. Still that calm satisfaction. In that final moment, a single thought that encompassed so much more emotion rang out in both of their heads.
“I love you, sestra. Keep going.”
Then the moment was gone. John and Sera both fell to the floor at the same time; John behind Vickie’s chair, Sera still in the doorway. They both felt as if they had run back-to-back marathons on no sleep while carrying double their body weight in rucksacks. This was another first for them, and another extension of their new powers. Vickie wasn’t the only one with tears streaming down her cheeks; both John and Sera were crying, with no shame in it. They had not just watched, but felt a loved one, a comrade, pass on.
Vickie was already talking again; after all, she had a job to do and couldn’t focus on any one crisis. No one had to tell her she had to go on, and that what she felt didn’t matter. Already she was telling Bella what was happening, and breaking that off to snap directions at Ramona and Merc.
John was the first to talk, murmuring gently to Sera.
“We still have a job to do, too, darlin’. Up an’ at ’em.” There wasn’t any feeling behind his words, despite trying to sound sanguine. Still, Sera nodded her assent, and took his hand when he offered it to help her up from the floor.
It was everything that they could do to push their sense of the Futures out far enough to cover the building. They were still vaguely aware of Vickie, coordinating the evacuation of Metis in the background. Like John had said, they all had a job to do, so the two of them focused on theirs so that Vickie could concentrate on hers.
They had regained some of their strength as the minutes stretched on; they kept their focus on the building, making sure that nothing untoward was going to happen to Vickie. Still, from what they could hear…the news was not good. Arthur Chang, dead, as well as a number of the delegates. Thousands of Metisians had also been lost. The city destroyed. Most of their people—save for poor Moji—had escaped, though none of them were unscathed.
It was going to be a long, long day.
* * *
Vickie’s hair was plastered to her scalp with sweat, and she shook and shivered with shock. How could everything have gone so wrong, so quickly? “Oh gods, what do we do with them?” she wailed aloud. “There’s not enough secure ECHO bases on the planet to hide all of—”
Eight-Ball was pinging like a crazy thing. “Yes, I know!” she screamed at it, without looking at it. “The shit has hit the industrial fan! Leave me alone!”
And just at the moment that she felt as if she was going to crack wide open and lose it all…a pair of hands settled on her shoulders, and calm and renewed energy flowed into her, like nothing she had ever felt before.
“Steady, little sister,” Sera murmured from behind her. “You do not face this alone. One more minute, two, or thirty will make no difference. We will find answers now, and more answers later.”
Right. It doesn’t matter if we patch something together that won’t hold, as long as we start on something that will hold right away while the patch buys us time…
“Okay,” she said aloud. “I’ve got twenty or thirty, no more than forty Metisian saucers in the air with various numbers of refugees, most of them from Metis. Metis is toast and no point in worrying about it right now, put that out of our minds for the moment. Right now I need to find someplace to stash the Metisians and their saucers where the Kriegers won’t find them and they also won’t get abducted by our dear allies.”
“So…that’s what, ’bout a thousand Metisian refugees we’re talkin’ ’bout?”
“Give or take. The thing is, near as I can tell, even a kid knows enough about Metisian tech to make him valuable.” She clutched both her hands in her hair, as she listened with half an ear to Bella’s speech.
“Between what is in the saucers themselves, and what even a child knows, yes,” Sera confirmed.
John shook his head. “The problem isn’t how valuable they are—well, no, that is a problem—the bigger problem right now is that there’s so damn many of ’em. I’ve got some places that are out of the way, but not for nearly that many folks. We need somewhere to bed ’em down, where they’ll be accessible, but safe at the same time.” John chewed on his lower lip, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “I don’t trust any military with ’em, not ours or anyone else’s. So, landin’ ’em at a military airstrip is outta the question.”
“I’ve got Alex Tesla’s secret list of bug-out bases and they could handle maybe a hundred,” Vickie confirmed. “You know what will happen if they land anywhere open.”
“Let’s keep at least some of those bases in reserve, for Metisian VIPs. Best to shuttle them there after we’ve got all of the rest of ’em secure. Problem is, how in the hell do you hide ’bout forty flyin’ saucers? Without Area 51, or anyone possibly connected to it?”
“If I trusted Mom and Dad’s bosses…but I don’t. They’d have to report something this big upstream and poof!” She made a little explosion motion with her fingers, “Here come the Men In Black to haul them away.”
“Exactly; same problem as Big Army. We’re keepin’ these people out of government hands for as long as humanly possible; let ’em decide what suits ’em best, when it’s safe for ’em to come outta hidin’.”
Eight-Ball’s pings had turned into a kind of warble. Vickie had reached out a hand to dial down the volume, but it was obvious that either the program had malfunctioned or it thought it had something important.
“Are there wilderness areas we could put them down in—” Vickie shook her head at her own suggestion and giggled with an edge of hysteria in it, as Sera sent out another wave of calm. “Dear gods, can you imagine Metisians trying to camp?”
“Not enough bleach to keep those jumpsuits blindin’ white. Maybe they have gizmos for that, though…” John started pacing, shaking his head with a look of consternation on his face. He paused midstride, glancing over at the monitor that was hooked up to Eight-Ball. The screen was flicking through a series of black and white images: group shots of men in lab coats and suits, rockets in flight, schematics, profile shots of individual men, views of laboratories…
Smart little bastard!
“Vic, Sera—hold up a second.” John turned to face the women, pointing at the monitor. “Your gizmo, it’s got it: ‘Operation Paperclip.’ Not Nazis this time, though. Metisians.”
“Wait, what?” Vickie said, looking at him in confusion, then following his pointing finger to Eight-Ball’s monitor. “Operation—” Her face remained locked in confusion for a moment. “Oh, okay, I…but that’s the problem, not the solution! Where do we send them?”
“Is it the problem, though? Think around it, switch the parts. Everyone wants ’em ’cause they’re Metisians. How do we fix that?”
Suddenly Eight-Ball’s screen blanked. Then it showed the map of South America. A red dot on that map that was in the location they all knew too well now, Metis. Eight-Ball zoomed in on the map, showing the outlines of the countries of South America, and the Peruvian Andes. And out. And in. And out. And in.
The third time, both Vickie’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh. My. Gods. Ohmygods! That’s it!” She whirled and her hands went to her main keyboard. “Overwatch: Open Metis: All. Bella, I need your ECHO diplomatic override. I need to talk directly to the president of Peru.”
Bella’s reply came immediately. “You’ve got a bypass to his secretary in the diplomatic protocols, patch me through. Explain what you need to both of us at the same time.”
Vickie’s fingers flew again, and a moment later she was speaking in Spanish. John’s Spanish was just good enough to understand that she was convincing the Peruvian president’s secretary that this was enough of an emergency to put her through to his desk, interrupting whatever else he was doing.
Since his skies—at least those over Metis—were full of Thulian ships, that probably was a given.
“Señor Presidente—” Vickie began.
“English, please,” he replied. “For brevity. The Thulians appear to be leaving our airspace. Are we to expect them back?”
“Not that I know of. I am calling about a different matter. ECHO CEO Bella Parker is also on the call. We have several hundred Metisian refugees—”
“One thousand, three hundred and twenty four,” Bella interrupted.
“—in the air, in stealthed craft that cannot stay up there forever. Every one of them is a valuable asset. Every one of them has basic knowledge of Metisian science and access to more information. Every nation on Earth will want them. They were all born on Peruvian soil. Do I have to make myself plainer?”
“…Madre de Dios…”
Bella’s mind worked as quickly as Vickie’s had. “Mister President, I am fairly sure I can get a substantial percentage, if not all, of the Metisians to agree to work on behalf and for the benefit of Peru, no matter what country they end up working in. But they need the protection of actual, physical, Peruvian papers and passports, and they need these things yesterday.”
“Without that protection, they’ll end up like the German scientists at the end of World War II—in the hands of whoever grabs them first,” Vickie added. “Once they’re Peruvian citizens I am fairly sure that all of South America, and probably whoever doesn’t manage to get one of them in their countries, will take serious offense at any of them ‘vanishing.’”
“Not to mention that if they vanish, there’s not a lot of incentive for the other countries of the world to do anything if the Thulians come looking for them. Give them Peru’s protection, keep them sovereign and free with ECHO’s help, and you have a young, inexhaustible gold mine on your hands in the form of what they’ll part with, or what other countries will pay for their services. Plus, whatever they can decipher from what you guys get out of the wreck of Metis.”
“Señorita Parker, you are a powerful negotiator.” The president laughed shakily. “I see your points. Give me perhaps half an hour to determine logistically how many people each of our embassies and consulates can process, and how many we can process how quickly here. Then you and I can begin sending these…stealthed craft…to land directly where it is most expedient.”
“Okay, I am cutting out of this conversation. Good luck, Parker, Señor Presidente.” With a flick of a key, Vickie cut her connection to the negotiations going on…somewhere in the air.
Sera looked from Vickie to John in bewilderment. “What has just occurred?” she asked.
“Security for the Metisians, with any luck. Just gotta hope that none of the other governments out there get shit-scared an’ try to brazen through gettin’ some of the eggheads. I don’t think it’ll happen, but it’ll be up to Bella an’ Spin Doctor to calm those waters.” John grinned, his eyes flitting back and forth as he was thinking about the possibilities that this new arrangement had opened.
“And Saviour, and Pride. They’re all up on international diplomacy…and have none. And Saviour is sneaky. She’ll point out all the ways kidnappings could happen and we’ll get the Metisians to safe harbors once they have their papers,” said Vickie, looking wilted and exhausted, but no longer in despair.
“Still, what is this…’Operation Paperclip’?” Sera looked back to John.
“Grab by the US government an’ some cloak an’ dagger types to get as many Nazi scientists after WWII before the Soviets could snag ’em. Big operation to whitewash their pasts, get them US citizenship, and bring them over here. It was all done to sidestep a law that said we couldn’t have anybody associated with the Nazi party doin’ work for us, essentially.”
“That was what Eight-Ball was trying to show us. That this was what was going to happen unless we got them some other kind of citizenship to protect them,” Vickie added, patting Eight-Ball’s keyboard. “Then he showed us that they actually, already had citizenship. Metis was hidden in the Peruvian Andes, and has been since…geez, I dunno, the 1920s at least. So every Metisian we saved was certainly born there, born on Peruvian soil. We just had to make that absolutely official. Best way to do that was cut straight to the top and talk to El Presidente.” She spread her hands wide. “Now every country on the planet that wants Metisian tech is going to have to talk to Peru. And every country on the planet has a vested interest in protecting Peru—from Thulians, and everything else.”
“Eight-Ball is a pretty handy little toy, Vic. You an’ Bella have done good. Try to relax until we hear back from the blueberry. I’m sure that there’ll be plenty to do once we have the details ironed out. Best to try to figure out probable landing sites now, so we can plot out the best way to get our birds down without too many people takin’ notice.”
“Roger that.” She turned back to her keyboard. “Overwatch: Open: All Metis craft. Open: Private: Bella.”
It’s still FUBAR. But maybe we can dig our way out, after all. Thank god for the firebombs…if they hadn’t been here…She didn’t finish that thought, because at that point; El Presidente and Bella had their plan.
* * *
Within twenty-four hours, Vickie and Bella had done the impossible: registered all of the surviving Metisians as Peruvian citizens with appropriate paperwork and passports, and gotten them all into (scattered) hiding places. John, all too well aware of how slowly the wheels of bureaucracy ground, could only marvel. That miracle alone would have made him a believer in the Infinite.
So now…they were waiting. He and Sera most particularly. Waiting for the next Thulian move on the shattered chessboard. Some shadow of that brief look at the Futures told him it was going to be bad.
Everyone was on high alert back at HQ. Battening down the hatches, as it were. Preparing to mobilize and move out—again. They were still nursing their wounds from Ultima Thule, and now the fall of Metis. And in deep mourning for Molotok…he and Sera had quietly discussed what they had inadvertently learned, and had agreed they would not tell the Commissar of the depth of Moji’s feelings for her now. If ever. She was already devastated; the revelation that he had been deeply in love with her would probably destroy her. After the war is over. If it ever is. If we survive it. Somehow, deciding to put the revelation off made him feel more relieved than guilty. Usually keeping a secret had the opposite effect; he’d rather rip the Band-aid off and be done with it, then let things fester beneath the surface. But this situation…was more delicate than that. Given the Commissar’s distrust of him, not only as an American, but now as…well, whatever he and Sera were, holding off on telling her about Moji was probably the wisest course of action.
Yet the attack, when it came, surprised even John and Sera.
They were both still guarding Vickie. They had put in their time at HQ, helping with preparations and readying everything in case they had to move out to defend the city, or go on the attack elsewhere. There was an air of anticipation everywhere. If the Thulians had hit Metis with such a large force, how long until they moved that force into the surrounding area? More questions, like how had they even managed to get that many troops and that much war material to Metis undetected. Where had they gone after? By what few probes or sensors remained, the Thulians had wiped Metis off the map, and then…disappeared. Hardly anything stood where Metis had been, and there were absolutely no survivors. That much was clear.
So, everyone waited. John desperately wanted to be outside, anywhere but in Vickie’s apartment. He understood the job that they had been given was exceedingly important, knew it intellectually. But his heart and his gut wanted to be on the ground, in the thick of it, taking the fight back to the enemy. If only he didn’t have the constraints that had been placed on him…he just needed someplace to push the dagger, and then he would destroy whatever enemy they faced. Whatever enemy he faced, whoever stood against—
A Seraphym uses the least power to the most impact. The needle of a laser, not the bludgeon of a sledgehammer. He brought his head up to see that Sera had turned away from the window to gaze solemnly at him. Power is not ours to waste, beloved. We may not be Seraphym, but we are still constrained by the same laws. If we waste what we are given, or use it unwisely or with poor judgment, it will no longer be given to us.
John took a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly. The mind-to-mind communication had been weird at first, but he was starting to get the hang of it. He knew it was useless to try to hide anything from Sera, but he still tried to calm himself, mask some of the darker…whatever he had been feeling before she had brought him back to Earth. I know, darlin’. Just gets to be…frustratin’, bein’ cooped up in here while our friends are out there.
Vickie semi-staggered out of her Overwatch room and paused, one hand on the wall. “Um,” she said. “For the benefit of those who are not telepathically attached at the hip, want to use your vocal cords? ’Cause I can tell you’re talking.”
“Sorry, Vic. Just practicin’, I guess. Unlike my better half, I’m still new to this sort of stuff.” He stood up from the couch, brushing Sera’s cheek with the back of his hand as he rose. “Anyone need tea or coffee? I figure it’s ’bout that time.”
“Any way you can give me eight hours of sleep in eight seconds instead?” Vickie asked hopefully.
John thought for a second, then looked to Sera. “No, but…”
Sera smiled slightly. “I used to help Bella when she was healing, with something she called ‘angel juice’—which sounds terribly wrong, somehow. As if someone was putting me in a blender…”
Vickie actually managed a chuckle at that. “Seraphym! Will it blend?” she said.
“I think John and I can manage a…less intense version, together,” Sera continued.
“An’ then we’ll definitely need coffee. You up for tryin’ it, Vic?”
“So long as it doesn’t involve zapping me into a wall again, absolutely.” She ran a hand through her hair, which looked dry and lifeless. “We’ve got everyone that escaped from Metis their papers and into hiding and—”
John held up a hand. “Time for a battery recharge, first. Tell us when we’re done refillin’ your tank.” He paused, thinking. “I guess there isn’t a way for us to describe this without soundin’ dirty, is there, love?” He looked to Sera, wriggling his eyebrows. She giggled, and held out her hand.
This is simple. Just as we did with Pavel—without having to turn our power into plasma first. He nodded, and took her hand, following her lead.
For him…for them…well, it was easy. Like sharing the warmth of a fire that they were all huddled around, but that he and Sera could turn up or turn down at will. It was an abstraction of what it really felt like, but it was all so complex, and that was the best way that he could think of it. He and Sera both willed for that fire to ramp up, for the heat to spread outwards from them and into Vickie. Not too much; it was more of a gentle caress than a shove or even a tap.
Through his new senses granted from telempathy, however, he could feel what it was like for Vickie. As a geomancer, energy came to her through the earth usually, and that was how her senses interpreted this. As a great upwelling of renewal and refreshment; from behind her shields a single image of friendly lava escaped. Her eyes widened, and her skin, which had been pale with fatigue, took on color again. He was reminded of how pale little Thea became pink when she stole energy from her “victims”—willing or unwilling. Vickie stood straighter, and let go of the wall, as her mouth formed a silent “oh” of surprise.
It was Sera who somehow understood when to cut it off, and actually eased off, rather than cutting off. She had the skill and appreciation for the power that they shared; while it was all raw and untempered for John, Sera was able to turn it with gentleness and control. Vickie stood there, blinking, for a few moments, licking her lips.
“Why do I taste scotch and cinnamon all of a sudden?” Vickie asked, her voice sounding much better, all of the dullness of her exhaustion gone from it.
John kept hold of Sera’s hand. He didn’t need it for their connection, but he still liked being in contact with her. “Just a taste of heaven, comrade. Still up for coffee?”
* * *
Of course Vickie couldn’t just rest. That would be too easy, and folks like them never had things that easy. It’d sure as hell be a nice change, though, John thought. He felt Sera’s agreement through their connection, and sent some other thoughts about what would be nice for the two of them. She blushed a little and wrinkled her nose at him. Odd, now that they were…whatever it was that they were…she was much more human in her expressions than she ever had been before. He wondered how much of that was due to her time being corporeal, and how much was due to them being reunited.
And how much she’s learnin’ from me, maybe.
Vickie had the TV tuned into some Overwatch feeds, four of them, split-screen, and kept an eye on them while sipping on coffee with a liberal dash of a cheap single malt in it. “I just keep this around for doctoring coffee,” she explained, as she offered some to John, and he gave her a sideways look at the brand. “No point in wasting the good stuff when I’m already covering the flavor with coffee, cream and sugar.”
“Fair enough. Can’t say I’m a stranger to the practice myself.” He proffered his cup; Vickie splashed in a good-sized dose before recapping the scotch.
They all sat down: John and Sera on the couch, and Vickie in her favorite recliner. She sipped her coffee, kept one eye on the television and the other squarely on John. “So. Suddenly you can go all remote viewing on me. You—” She pointed at Sera, “—I kind of guessed you could do that, from the way you popped up when you were needed, before. But this is a whole new thing for Tall, Dark, and Inflammable here. So…anything you want to tell me?”
“Your honor, I plead the fifth,” John said, holding his hands up in mock surrender, mug still in one. “To be quite honest, it wasn’t all me. It was both of us, together. We’ve got a bit of juju when it comes to fightin’. Seein’ things that can happen, that might happen, that will happen in a fight. With my reflexes, Sera’s experience…we just make sure we’re where we need to be, when we need to be there, and do what we need to do to have the fight go the way we want it to.” He took a long draught from his spiked coffee, wincing slightly from the fumes. I think the scotch she put in here is part diesel. “What we did when Metis got hit? It was…I don’t know, extendin’ that same sort of feelin’, that same sort of sense outwards. It isn’t easy; took damn near everythin’ we had, keepin’ things stretched out like that.”
“We were trying to sort the Futures, looking for troubles,” Sera said, as he paused, somewhat at a loss for words. “I think that the only reason we were able to reach as far as Metis was because of your Overwatch…the connection with you, with John, with Bella and Bulwark, Natalya, and Ramona, and…” She hesitated.
“With Moji,” Vickie supplied, her voice flat as she fought to contain her emotions. “The people wired with Overwatch Two.”
“Part of it’s magical, right? Maybe we tapped into it a bit. I mean, we’re all pretty damned close besides, and a lotta what we were doin’ seemed more ’bout feelin’ than it did knowin’, if that makes any sense?”
Vickie shrugged. “Your guess is probably better than mine. If it was strictly magical, I could run the analysis on it…”
“Might make good fodder for a witch research paper. ‘Effects of the Celestial in relation to Thaumaturgical Whatsits.’ If we live through this damned war an’ there’s anyone left alive to read it.”
“I wouldn’t live through trying to look at it, never mind the war. Your Celestial stuff does not like anyone trying to analyze it.” She ran her free hand through her hair.
“No,” said Sera. “It does not. It has nothing to do with you, Vickie. It just does not approve of mere mortals—so to speak—attempting to understand and use it. I think you surprised it a little, the first times. I cannot think of anyone who has come so close to being able to analyze it before. In truth, it was lucky for all of us that John and I were able to moderate; the reaction could have been much more…energetic.”
Vickie gulped. “Do I want to know what that means?”
“Well…you could have been reduced to a pile of ashes. Or struck by lightning.” Sera cocked her head to one side. “I doubt it would have been so simple as a plague of boils.”
Vickie noticeably shuddered. Sera chuckled. “I am pulling your appendage, Vickie,” she said, her eyes smiling.
John raised an eyebrow. “Leg, darlin’. Appendage can mean a whole lotta things.”
Vickie looked from Sera, to John, and back again. “You ain’t right, angel.” She shook her head as John laughed at her. She’s stealin’ all my best lines. “Look, I know it’s tedious asking these questions, but I’m trying to get a feel for what you do now. So what was it like when you two knew Metis was getting hit? Was it a real vision, or what?”
John was the first to speak. “It was real. A ‘moments before’ kind of thing; like, you see an airshow disaster. You watch the plane plummetin’ to the ground, you can visualize what’ll happen…and then it does. This was more…it was like gettin’ hit by a truck. No warnin’, no preparation, no control. You saw what it did to us; we were laid out, completely. If it weren’t for Overwatch, we wouldn’t have had any other way to know it was happenin’, right?”
Vickie shook her head. “I have no idea. Maybe? Maybe not? I don’t ‘do’ visions or precognitive stuff. The most I can do is look into the past or the present, and it takes me a lot of prep work to do that much. Earth isn’t an element that lends itself to scrying or remote viewing; that’s more an air, water, or fire thing. So, what happened when you staggered into my Overwatch room?”
“Nothing at first,” Sera replied. “We were still…involved in the confused sensations of the attack itself. And then, we had stretched our battle-sense to cover all of Atlanta, because we needed to protect you, and we knew that you were vulnerable and vital. We found no danger to you, to Atlanta, in the moment, or as far as we could stretch ourselves into the future. Then, something shone brightly to us, here, in this apartment, and we sought it out, knowing it was important.”
“It was like a searchlight, comin’ right out of your monitor. The one that was focusin’ on Moji.” All three of them were quiet for a few moments; the wound was still fresh. Even in a war such as this, where so many had died, and often many of them at the same time, the new losses didn’t hurt any less, at least for them.
“I…think when we knew how important that was, we must have unconsciously followed John’s Overwatch connection to him.” Sera bit her lip. “I cannot explain it otherwise, and John’s connection to Moji was more powerful than mine. I linked through him, rather than on my own.”
“It felt like I fell into the connection. I felt helpless…and somethin’ in me propelled along the connection. It all happened so fast, I don’t know if I’m even rememberin’ it right. It was like ridin’ alongside in his head, while it was all goin’ on. We were there for the end.” Now it was John’s turn to go silent. He remembered every single moment with stinging, painful clarity. Part of him wanted to wash it from his memory…but the larger part of him never wanted to forget his friend’s bravery and sacrifice. The pain! They had lost plenty of people, and several had affected John greatly, but this…he had felt it! How could the good, especially those as good as Molotok, die, and still for it to be a just world?
Because if the Infinite made it a just world, it would be a world in which we had no Free Will. Would you choose that? He glanced sharply at Sera, and saw her gazing at him solemnly. I have told you, shown you that. Now you feel what it means.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it much. And he didn’t, at all. There were implications there, about the limits of the Infinite, and what it meant to have Free Will. He didn’t want to ponder it all right now. Vickie was looking at the two of them expectantly, swirling her coffee in her mug.
“You’re using your really Inside Voices again,” she said. “Care to share with the class?”
“Nothin’ germane to the discussion, Vic,” John said quickly. He wasn’t sure he had sorted things out for himself, much less for anyone else. He and Sera could talk later, try to figure out some more of it. Make the world make sense…or some semblance of it. But before he could add anything, the television screen began flashing with the old, Original Star Trek “Red Alert” sequence, including the siren.
* * *
All three of them rushed to Vickie’s workroom. The worldwide battle map was alive with pulsing red spots. Reports and some video were coming in from the Colts and the overseas Overwatch One networks. The video was—apocalyptic.
“Holy shit. It’s everywhere.” John looked down at Vickie; she had nearly thrown herself into her chair, fingers already moving at a blur against her backlit keyboard. “Is it another Invasion?”
There was one monitor on the side that was scrolling up numbers just slow enough to read. “Yes. Smaller. Attacks are more precise,” Vickie said, biting off her words. “Too many to be answered by conventional security forces. We’re scrambling everything, but at least we’re coordinated this time.” She paused for a moment, listening to someone on the other end of her comms. “Most of the attacks are just outside the engagement range of a lot of our stuff; it looks like they’re intentionally going after targets that are further out—damn, they’re moving fast.” The video feeds from hotspots appeared to be pulled from conventional news sources. Vickie confirmed that with a muttered “Why in hell do TV cameramen think their camera is a shield?”
“How in the hell did they get in place without us knowin’ about it? That’s what I want to know. This is…huge,” John said. To get that many Thulians into place would have taken a massive mobilization; there’s no way that it could have gone unnoticed until Death Spheres and trooper armor were on every nation’s doorsteps. In the First Invasion, it had been a sneak attack: pure terror. The Second Invasion had been to cut the heart out of the resistance to the Kriegers; there had been warning for that, and everyone had responded and defended themselves. It had largely been a rout, with the Kriegers withdrawing before they were completely wiped out. There had been zero warning for this attack. They weren’t going after ECHO, CCCP, D.C., or Moscow—no major population centers at all, from what John could gather on the monitors. The Thulians were doing something drastically different, and he didn’t like it one single bit.
“In the First Invasion…I saw a delivery truck unfold and dump out about twenty times the volume of Kriegers it could actually hold,” Vickie said. “I’d say that, plus a new delivery system.” It looked like some of the ECHO Fast Response Teams were getting on site in at least some places. “What the delivery system actually is, the gods only know.”
To hell with standing here with our thumbs up our asses. John only had to look at Sera, and she already knew what he was thinking. “Vic, we’re goin’ to try an’ see some more, if we can. This might get a little weird.”
“Just don’t short out my shit,” she said, and turned all of her attention to what she actually could do.
“Let’s move back out into the livin’ room, darlin’. Vic’s in the zone right now, an’ we don’t need to mess with her equipment.”
Sera nodded, and the two of them moved back onto Vickie’s much-abused couch. Sera looked down at it once she was seated. “Given what happened the last time, I am tempted to say we should sit on the floor,” she said dryly.
“Not a bad idea.” They both took up position, sitting cross-legged across from each other. John put his hands out, palms up; Sera placed her hands into his, and they both closed their eyes. John took a careful breath, slowly letting it out. Just like that, they were seeing possibilities and potentials. This is getting easier. They stretched the sense out as far as they could; it looked much the same as before, with rivers of blurred light, small and dark eddies marking tragedy, and finally he and Sera, at the center of it all. But…they couldn’t push it any further. They couldn’t get the distance to push out, or go beyond the immediate future. He could feel himself straining; Sera was doing the same, but they had come up against a sort of…plateau.
We’ve got to try somethin’ different, darlin’.
Close in the focus; bring it in and onto ourselves?
John relaxed, letting Sera guide him through the Futures. At first, they were still seeing all of Atlanta, an island of blue and gold light. Then it was as if they were falling; slowly at first, then much faster. The “view” collapsed back with a halt until it was just the two of them that he could see. Things quickly began to change; both of them became much hazier, in his vision and then—
—he was watching through Sera’s eyes—not Now Sera’s, but a Future Sera’s—as he found himself—both of them—stumbling through what looked like the aftermath of a nuclear strike. People stumbling blindly past them, moaning, their faces half-melted—
—a prison camp. Like Auschwitz, or Bergen-Belsen, but these people were all wearing modern clothes, their clothing hanging loosely on half-starved bodies—
—a burning city. Atlanta? He thought he recognized the shattered stubs of buildings—
—row after row of people harnessed somehow into machinery, howling in pain, their bodies…controlling something?—
—darkness and the whine of machines—
“John!”
—a landscape of ashes and burning rain and the smell of death—
“John!”
—fire, everything on fire, as if some monstrous thing was using the planet for a furnace—
“JOHN!”
He could feel himself being drawn into the Futures, felt the edges of his sanity start to unravel with each image, montages of pain and the world ending, everyone and everything dead and gone or worse. It felt as if his blood was boiling and his lungs were on fire, and it was all building up in his head, about to lose it—
“John, stop! Not through me. Not any longer. This is all I can see. You must find another way. Think of another way. Create another way!”
Back in the Now, John felt himself breathe again. All of the Futures cleared, and he felt the madness recede. He took his time, trying to find his center, to get level again. They couldn’t keep ramming their heads against this problem; if they continued, well…it all ended, in one of the ways that Sera had seen. They needed something new, something different that they hadn’t done before. Something that didn’t include them.
There was a blinding flash in John’s mind, and thunder in his ears. And he saw.
The connection broke, and John was back in the apartment with Sera. Vickie was still busy in her workroom, juggling a dozen different tasks at once. He noticed that he was cold; his uniform had soaked through with sweat. Vickie’s giant gray familiar was sitting a short distance away, regarding John and Sera oddly. Once John had taken a moment to compose himself, he let go of Sera’s hands and looked into her eyes.
“You found it,” she breathed. “You found an answer. Tell me!”
“Not an it. But maybe the answer. We need to find someone that was like me, before you and I found each other. A man. A young man who was in the Program. We need to find Zach Marlowe.”