This is the second story in the universe begun in "Murder in the Holy City".
A quick twist and a spinning throw sent the net sailing from teeth and hands, hanging in air and slowly rotating as it spread to its maximum extent just before dropping into murky water with a rushing plink of small weights around the edge. Charlotte let the net sink down to mud and drew the string quickly, causing the net to purse and scoop up whatever had been beneath when it fell. She gave a quick smile as she hauled the net in and extracted several large shrimp, tossing small fish and the odd small crab back into the water. A quick swish in the brackish water to get any remaining mud off the edge of the net and she made another cast in a slightly different area.
Yves took a deep draught of his beer and resumed pulling and twitching randomly at a piece of string that led into the water, gradually reeling in the noisome chicken neck that lay at its end. “I’ll never figure out how you don’t rip a tooth out throwing that thing.”
“A cast-net? I never really thought about it that way, its just something I learned to do growing up. Its like weaving sweetgrass baskets, it just soaks into your soul somehow until you can’t imagine not knowing how to do something so primally human, you know?”
“I understand. Its just that… even back home there was nothing like this, like you here… You belong here, so completely that you seem to almost be a part of this place, formed from it. You have taught me much and I love you beyond measure, love this place as I do you and if I’m to be fully honest I am a little jealous.”
“Of what?”
Yves toyed with his string, noting a slight difference in the way it resisted that signaled a crab had latched on. “I’ve tried to figure that out. I grew up close to the land but not, really. I learned to move through it, to make use of what I found and to adapt what I knew, to survive. We even gathered quite a lot of wild foods but we still lived on the land, apart from it. You live in the land, so completely a part of it that its easy to imagine you as some sort of nature goddess. I could see you in exactly the same place, doing exactly the same thing anytime in the last 50 thousand years…”
“You do know humans didn’t make it here until at best 15 thousand years ago, right?” Charlotte watched the lazy flight and fall of her net with a critical eye.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Yves watched her haul her net back in and deftly separate its various occupants before casting a critical eye at the small portable live well resting on the weathered wood between them. “That should be enough shrimp to do for dinner. You gonna play with that crab forever?”
“I think I’ve almost got it in enough to net it. I can’t just convince them to latch on and stick to it the way you can.” He squinted at the water as though he could somehow manage to see beneath the surface.
“Your technique is just fine. Those chicken necks need another day or two in the sun to be proper crab bait. Still… looks to me like you’ve got him on pretty hard. Now you want to give the bait a little bit stronger twitch, give it a second to get a better grip and give one smooth haul out of the water and over.”
Charlotte watched as he followed her instructions, beaming as a large crab broke the surface and clung to his bait until it let go just as it was about to make contact and dropped to the dock, already scuttling toward the water. Yves swooped in and grabbed the shell right behind the claws, waving his freshly caught crab in the air and doing an impromptu dance. She laughed and walked over, taking the crab from him and throwing it over her shoulder to land neatly in the crab-bucket before kissing him soundly.
“I think our dinner can wait a little bit…” She led him inside and dinner did in fact wait, if a little longer than intended.
Charlotte woke to an incoming call signal, rousing herself and padding to the Ops room before accepting the call.
“Can you never call me at a decent hour?”
Tommy’s grinning visage appeared onscreen. “Since when does the kind of thing I call you for happen at a decent hour?”
“Yeah, you just like to get a cheap thrill. Whats up?” Charlotte pulled a robe around herself, cuddling into the warmth it provided.
“You have to see it to believe it. How soon can you be at station 20?”
“20 minutes or so as long as you don’t mind me parking on the beach.” Charlotte was already moving as the connection closed behind her. A quick shower later and she dressed on the way toward the hangar bay, pulling her top on just as the massive hatch undogged and silently pulled itself open. After a quick check of her runabout she trolled over to the lift, triggered the doors and a section of roof and wall retracted to allow her craft to rise to the water level of the surrounding marsh. A section of the low wall surrounding her then slid beneath the surface and cleared the way for her exit down the winding channel.
The canopy locked itself closed silently as Charlotte added throttle gently, extending the planes as soon as she gained sufficient speed and causing the boat’s hull to rise out of the water. By the time she shot out into a larger channel she was passing 60 knots and quickly accelerating, headed toward open water at a speed that would have been suicidal if she’d intended to pass the surfline while in the water. As she gained sufficient speed small winglets crept out to provide control surfaces and surface effect took over, keeping the tiny craft in the air as the planes retracted into the hull. The breaking waves passed beneath a few seconds later and Charlotte slewed the craft into a wide turn while continuing to add throttle, stopping when she reached 65% and 230 knots.
Barely 5 minutes later she began to reduce throttle, allowing the planes to crawl back out again just as lift began to fail, timing it perfectly so that the craft gently settled onto its planes while she continued to reduce throttle, allowing the planes to crawl back in as she passed below 30 knots and slowed even further as she turned to approach the beach, angled obliquely to the waves. She was inside the sand bar line so the surf was very light, half a meter at most. Coming within 15 meters of the sand she turned perpendicular to the beach and added throttle, riding the wavelets in and sliding up onto the sand well above the reach of water.
Her craft canted over to rest somewhat askew as the canopy opened, allowing her to step out onto the sand where a large dog regarded her with a quizzical air before deciding that she might supply some attention, possibly even a snack. His doggy nose was right as always and she scratched his ruff and around his ears while he munched contendedly on a large doggie treat.
“Hey Buddy, I thought they didn’t allow horses on the beach here?”
“That gets funnier every time you say it Charlie…” Buddy trailed off, a teasing lilt in his voice. “You’re here about that business in the old house eh?”
“I guess I am at that. Know anything about it?” Charlotte gave a final scratch and straightened up, facing her old friend.
“I know you’re here so whatever it is has to be pretty nasty.”
“Ya think?” Charlotte smirked and turned to walk toward the dunes.
“Hey you know that ol bat is gonna kick up a fuss about you parking on the beach!”
“Your wife, your problem!” Charlotte tossed over her shoulder with a grin as a doggy whuff of amusement followed her. A quick stroll along the overwalk that allowed passage across the dune lines and she was walking down the street toward an obvious crime scene to judge by the number of police and other vehicles as well as a preponderance of yellow barrier tape.
The door of the old house was open and a waiting officer provided her with a forensic onesie cleansuit and mask. Once she’d corralled her hair and raised the hood she began to realize just how uncomfortable this was likely to get as the suit didn’t breathe at all and even this early in the morning it was 83 degrees and extremely humid. “Note to self… Make a better cleansuit.” She muttered into her mask, getting a sharp bark of laughter from the assisting officer.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that and actually believed it’d happen…” He proffered a pair of booties which she accepted, giving him a mock glare with one hand on her hip.
“Red, why the hell did no one tell me about this? Its like a freakin wearable sauna! You bet your cute ass I’ll deal with it but later, right now I have to go play with Tommy’s latest puzzle.” She made her way up to the steps and stopped to put the booties on before stepping inside, onto the first of the little stepping platforms set up to preserve as much of the forensic evidence as possible.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness inside and as they did she began to pick out details. There was a severed hand lying on the floor in a pool of blood and another pinned to the doorframe with a large kitchen knife. Both were left hands and the one on the floor was smaller than the other with a subtle pinkish hue to the nails. Blood was sprayed all over walls and ceilings, evidence of the sudden amputations.
Marks in the pooled blood on the floor indicated the previous owners of the hands in question had been dragged back into the house and she followed the drag marks through a short hall formed by a wall on one side and a staircase on the other. Wide sprays of blood indicated the persons being dragged had struggled as much as they could, clearly to no avail. The great room opened out from the hallway and Charlotte had to stop for a moment, stunned at the sheer volume of gore scattered about the room. There were yet more body parts lying around but it looked like the dismemberment had been done slowly, one piece at a time. A forearm rested half atop a lower leg, each bereft of hand or foot. An ear lay clutched in yet another severed hand, one that looked like the mate to the smaller of the hands out front.
A quick assessment told Charlotte that there were 2 bodies in this area though she had to counts limbs and heads and in one case genitals twice to make sure as the only marginally whole parts were torsos. Even the heads were missing ears and noses and the one she guessed was female had been scalped while alive from the look of it. The stench made it clear this scene was at least a day or two old as did the hordes of flies.
“Any sign of the kids Tommy?”
“Safe room is breached but no kids and no bodies.” The older man shook his head ruefully, looking around at the carnage. “I thought this place was as secret as it got. These kids were supposed to be protected!”
“They were Tommy. You know full well Sol and Auggie were capable of taking on anything short of a full on assault team. They must have been caught completely flatfooted and even so managed to get the kids into the safe room. If those brigands had to breach the safe room they both held out till the end.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I have a pretty fair idea who is behind this. There are only one or two groups who would be even know about these kids and both of them have a pretty strong motive to do something drastic like this. Neither has the capacity to pull this sort of thing off with no one around seeing or hearing anything, especially not with those two on guard so it was mercs. The marks where the hands were hacked off up by the door were made by Boma blades, angled downward to increase chopping force and that gives me a lead toward finding the assault team.”
“Sometimes I wish you’d speak English…” Tommy’s grin belied his words. I’ve had our people run through everything with the imaging gear you gave us and the results should be uploaded to your portal already. You’ll keep me clued in, yeah?”
“Always Tommy, you know I strive for transparency in all things.” She flashed a mocking grin over her shoulder as she made her way back to the front door.
“About as transparent as mud!” came the rejoinder as she removed the booties, walked down onto the sidewalk and gratefully divested herself of the cleansuit. A quick mop of face, arms and legs and she was at least a little less sticky with sweat but the quick sojourn had still soaked her hair enough to drip a little. The light sea breeze helped to wick that moisture away quickly and Charlotte soon felt a little less overcooked.
She walked back to the beach, this time taking a little longer to play with the dog who had apparently decided to wait for her to return. The wisdom of his decision was borne out when she produced another doggie treat which he munched contentedly after their play, leaning his bulk against her hip while she stroked his side.
“Before you ask Buddy… I can’t tell you anything. Please try to keep speculation to a minimum. This thing is really sensitive and it has to be kept as quiet as possible. Public statements will say it was a murder/suicide and will avoid mentioning the kids, ok?”
“Is this gonna be anything like that last mess?” Buddy looked concerned, as well he might. The events of the previous autumn had the entire town a little on edge still, even though life had settled back into its normal routine where the once or twice yearly tourist mugging was a big deal in the local newspages and what passed for crime was largely nonviolent in nature.
“This was a message Buddy. A message to my group, a thumb in the eye if you will. Its time to end this.”
“The Moultrie Irregulars stand ready if needed maam.” He threw a sloppy salute and almost whacked himself in the eye. “Whuff” came the agreement, followed by a sloppy lick to her hand.
Charlotte allowed herself a tight, grim smile as she climbed into her craft, closed the canopy and spooled up the turbines with a thrust inverter over one nozzle. The resulting forces caused her craft to turn around on the sand, facing the ocean. The inverter retracted and suddenly all force was forward, propelling her off the sand and into the water although not without kicking up a long rooster tail of sand and leaving a clear groove which began to fill with water. She launched over the first wave set, coming down at least 10 meters further out where the swells were gentler. Another series of skips across wavetops and she had enough speed to lower the planes into the water, turning at an angle to the waves as she continued to accelerate. Shortly she was in full surface effect mode with foils withdrawn and gaining speed toward home.
As she re-entered from the hangar bay Charlotte shed her clothing, depositing the pile in their bedroom and heading directly toward the tantalizing smells of breakfast. Yves was only slightly more clothed than she, having donned an apron to protect sensitive bits which did nothing to prevent a little reacharound fondle while she hugged him from behind.
“Keep that up and I’ll burn breakfast…” He murmured to her.
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“In this case yes, it is something special I wanted to make as a surprise for you.” He turned around to give her a brief kiss. “Now go, you smell like a sweaty slaughterhouse and there’s time for a shower.”
Charlotte trailed off to the shower, muttering to herself about substandard cleansuits to Yves’ amusement. A few moments later she reentered to find the table neatly set and Yves finishing his plating before bring the plates over and sitting across the table.
“You said it about right. It’s a charnel house in there… looks like they hacked Sol and Auggie apart piece by piece… made it last as long as possible. Neither one of them gave up the kids , whoever did this had to breach the safe room. She slammed the table with the flat of her hand. “Dammit Yves, we swore we’d keep those kids safe and now… I don’t know whether to be angrier at myself or the assholes that did this. I failed them…” Anger drained from her face and voice, replaced by sorrow and guilt.
“You didn’t fail them Cherie. Whoever leaked this information is responsible for this and I have every faith you will find them so we can make them pay.”
Charlotte grimaced. “At least 4 hours before I have anything more than the visuals. I hate having to wait before I can even really start…”
“Do we?” At her questioning look he continued. “Do we really have to wait? We know who and why, all we need is where. Mel almost always has a drone or few up and surely some of them caught something…”
Yves watched his wife’s retreating back as she dashed toward the ops room grinning at her animation.
He was out on the dock working on his crabbing technique when she came out hours later looking dejected. Charlotte flopped onto a deck chair with a slight growl of irritation.
“Motherless bastards did it during that nasty batch of thunderbumpers a couple days ago. Overhead got diddly.”
“So nothing at all?”
“Oh I didn’t say that…” Charlotte’s grin was feral. “Got their vehicle on 4 different cameras on Sullivan’s Island alone. Got em on the causeway, crossing the bridge… even got em as far as Rifle Range road. Then they just disappear into thin air. There at the stoplight, not there on any camera in any direction after. They have to have stashed that vehicle, maybe transferred to another or something.”
Yves took a moment to swoop his prey up onto the dock and grab it before it could scuttle away. “It’d be easy enough to drive a van right up into a container, let it sit for a few hours and just let it blend in with port traffic. They could be practically anywhere by now.”
“I don’t think they went very far. This isn’t about retrieving those kids, at least not completely. It’d be far easier just to snatch a few runaways with no one the wiser. This is personal, vengeance for what we did to them in Jakarta and a message to us.”
Yves could only nod in agreement.
“Message received. If it is war they want then war it is, to the knife! May their god have mercy upon them because I sure as hell won’t!”
If it hadn’t been for her words you could have assumed Charlotte was reclining calmly but Yves knew his wife, knew she was coiled on a hair trigger of violence and destruction, held back only for want of a target.
Their dinner that night was a sketchy affair with Charlotte grabbing bites at her workstation, coordinating with Mel and Tina to track every truck coming and going for the days before and after the event. It was morning before they were sure they had it, tracking it out onto highway 17 going north. It had turned into the shipping terminal where they were able to track the container being loaded onto a ship which departed the following day.
“This has to be a trap…” Charlotte was muttering to herself as Yves rubbed some of the tension from her shoulders. “That ship is just sitting there in the middle of open ocean. Its obviously not abandoned from the IR signatures and the fact that its stationkeeping pretty precisely. Surely they can’t be stupid enough to think we’d go for a straight on surface assault…”
Yves leaned down and brushed her cheek with his lips. “We’ll go do some recon as soon as its dark, ok? Right now we both need to eat, then sleep and let the rest of the team take point on planning.”
He pulled Charlotte gently away from her workstation and maneuvered her to the kitchen where they both ate far more than either of them had thought they could. Soon afterward they fell asleep tangled in each other, food-drugged.
Charlotte sat up suddenly in bed, noting the late afternoon sunlight streaming in.
“Hmph?” gave from the still half asleep man beside her.
“I’ve got it! It is a trap and they’ve seen how we operate twice before. They think we’re all about shock and awe, overwhelming firepower… But they don’t know just how completely stealthy we can be. So we make em think we’re doing what they expect using the Bats and our other aerial assets while we go in from beneath, rescue the kids and then take them from behind.”
Yves was working his way toward a more alert state of mind. “Wouldn’t blowing the kind of holes you need for that cause one hell of a noise and sink the ship?”
Charlotte was already headed for the bathroom. “Got it handled!” she tossed over her shoulder.
Yves just shook his head in amazement and lie there for another moment before getting up as he heard the shower starting. After attending to his own business he joined her and the shower took quite a bit longer than required to get clean. While they were dressing in their battle suits after she explained her idea to him with Mel, Tina and Gordy listening in. After reiterating what she’d explained to Yves earlier Mel broke in excitedly “You’re gonna use Nessie!!!!!”
Charlotte had to laugh at her excitement. “Yes we’re using Nessie. She might be unarmed but she’s the perfect craft for this job.”
“Unarmed you say? Hmph, apparently you haven’t looked at the latest mods. We’re building this thing as a civilian subsurface rescue boat but I got to thinking… There can be awfully big things down there that might consider our girl to be a tasty morsel.”
Charlotte had expected something of the sort. “So just exactly how heavily is she armed?”
“A half dozen fast attack subs might make her break a sweat…” Mel’s smirk was clear in her tone.
“Okay, as I was saying, Nessie is the perfect craft for this mission…” Charlotte waited for the general laughter to die down to the occasional snicker. “And tonight is the perfect time. They may not realize we’ve located them yet so we might have a slight element of surprise purely from timing. We’re going to give them the “Shock and Awe” level of violence they’ve come to expect… but its purely for show while we extract the kids from beneath. Once we give the all clear they will learn the true meaning of hell on earth.”
“Charlie… This sounds really personal” Gordy sounded concerned.
“How could it be anything other?” She finished checking Yves’ gear and he returned the favor. “How long till you have Nessie ready to roll?”
Mel chuckled “Maybe 5 minutes? She takes a bit to come to full power.”
“We’ll be there ASAP. We’re gonna need everything we can put in the air that provides firepower, I don’t care if its agrodrones spraying whatever they have on board. Jack everything you can from everywhere.” Charlotte matched action to words by triggering the docking bay hatch as she left the ops room. Within 2 minutes they were on the surface in the 2 seat speeder which Mel had gifted them as part of their wedding present.
This model had considerably more lifting surface and as a result the transition to surface effect flight occurred before they even got out into the main channel. Further surfaces extended, the engines spooled up a bit more and suddenly they were in full flight, free of the need for the extra lift from surface effect. From there Charlotte kept adding throttle until she reached almost 400 knots before allowing the engines to wind back down and the entire transition was made in reverse with them pulling up to Mel’s dock a mere 5 minutes after leaving home.
Welcoming hugs were shared all around as Gordy had already been present, knowing an operation was imminent. Mel and a few friends she’d co-opted for assistance had everything ready to go on the technical end and the only thing really remaining was the wait until it was safe to leave and be as close as possible to certain that their passage would be completely undetected.
The Masque of NeverMore chapter 2
Mel and her helpers were parsing through the information flooding in from drones, both aerial and submarine when she began to notice slight anomalies. There was some time to refine her picture so she sent in a swarm of microdrones. For a time everything looked exactly as she’d expected, no one on deck but life-signs belowdecks, some which moved in the right way to be guards and others which didn’t move in the right way to be restrained prisoners. Heat signatures were all correct, even the signatures which should have been guards sleeping.
For a moment that stuck in her mind. They all registered the temperature range you’d expect from someone who was awake and active, even the ones who should have been somewhat lower in temperature as they slept. That merited further investigation and another of her tools came into play, a tiny fly-bot that located what should be an open ventilation shaft and attempted to fly down it only to be stopped by a crudely welded metal plate which completely sealed the shaft. Others of its kin were dispatched and encountered the same thing, all points which should have allowed access or airflow had been sealed.
By this time others were watching, clearly aware that something was seriously amiss. Mel sent in a somewhat larger drone this time, one equipped with a small but powerful cutting laser and a pinhole camera. The same drone had exquisitely sensitive detectors designed to detect the presence of substances in the parts per septillion range and they showed only the indications you’d expect from such a hasty welding job after many years of use. After another moment’s thought she gave the ok and the laser activated, cutting through the ¼” steel in a fraction of a second.
Suddenly every feed in the vicinity of the ship went blank. For those who were waiting outside they saw a sudden blinding brightness which seemed to climb into the sky and took a few moments to fade. Due to the normal glare of sunlight on water and habit they all wore shades so no one took any damage from it but several took a few moments to regain anything but afterimages of the explosion. Alarms were blaring and those inside quickly assisted the others to shelter before the armored shutters slammed into place and the all sealed tone sounded.
Almost immediately afterward the entire structure shuddered as though it’d been struck although nothing was damaged.
“Everybody on the floor! We’ll be ok but the next few minutes are gonna be a pretty rocky ride and I don’t want anyone getting injured out of stupidity, ok?” Charlotte watched Mel secure the last of her systems before matching actions to words and pulling the smaller woman to the floor beside her.
“What the fuck was that boss?”
“Geoff if you call me boss again I swear I’m gonna come extract the stick from your ass personally!” Charlotte grinned at the two fingered salute that replied.
“That thing musta rattled your brains dude. That was quite clearly a Big Ass Explosion!” Jorge laughed at his own joke. “Hey, you grow up on Vieques, you learn about explosives…”
“That was a hyperbaric bomb. What we just felt was the overpressure wave but that thing was big enough to move fucktons of water so we’re about to get a… Well not a Tsunami properly speaking but something a bit like one. The barrier islands will help shield most of the coastline but the harbor? Its gonna be bad.” Charlotte grimaced at the thought.
“Not as bad as it could have been, I managed to trigger the emergency overrides on the harbor floodgates!”
“Mel if it wasn’t risking a broken bone I’d hug you right now… you’ve just saved thousands of lives…” Just as Charlotte finished the entire structure heaved up and down, shaking violently for several seconds before settling down.
“Stay down! There’s more on the way!” There was and it wasn’t just more it was worse and lasted until every one of them had begun to think it would never stop before finally subsiding.
It was quite a while before anyone spoke.
“Bit sledgehammer and gnat, innit?”
“Says the sheepshagger who goes rabbit huntin with a BFG!”
“Hey that was a really big rabbit and it was attackin me!”
“It was a wallaby you fuckwit!”
“Well whatever it was the bits we could find were pretty tasty!”
That drew a general round of agreement and the good natured razzing between the team eased down as Charlotte was already ensconced in a chair Yves had righted for her and was trying to think.
Mel was bringing systems back online as quickly as possible and was able to obtain some feeds from around the city showing that they had largely avoided the flooding due to Mel’s quick action and even the most flood prone areas of the peninsula were only a half meter or so underwater, not at all bad by local standards. There wasn’t a great deal of damage evident from the shaking but the city sat on the mud rather than being buried in it like Charlotte’s home so that wasn’t really surprising. Building codes were also fairly strict due to the danger of both hurricanes and the periodic earthquakes in the area.
The part that filled her with dread was the total lack of feeds from the immediate barrier islands that surrounded and screened the estuary. There was no protection there aside from the dune lines and the wave height had been well above that mark. Either the damage had been catastrophic or the infrastructure was the cause and the difference between the two possible scenarios was vast.
“Got 3 drones launched, I’ll have some answers in a minute Charlie.” Mel didn’t emerge from her concentration, just threw the words out there and dived back in.
“Am I that obvious?”
“Only to someone who knows you Cherie. Anyone else would think you were just withdrawing or shocked.” Yves was busy helping the others clean up the small mess created by the massive shock. “We’ve all worked with you before and know that bizarro-world brain of yours is running at full steam even if you don’t realize it yourself.”
Charlotte didn’t respond to his gentle gibe. She didn’t feel like she was thinking at all, she felt like the world was at a remove from her, walled off behind impenetrable glass armor. Rather than turning over options and possibilities it seemed like she wasn’t thinking at all, just existing. Even the feeling of relief when the drones gained enough altitude to give a good view and had travelled far enough outward over the barrier islands to show the light damage was muted, echoes of an emotion someone else had felt long ago.
Feeds were coming back online from around the area meanwhile and the appearance of light damage in the area was bolstered by a flood of information as they did so. In a sense that wasn’t surprising, the combination punch of a major earthquake following by 2 category 5 hurricanes in one year had destroyed a great deal of property although the 3 events combined caused less than 500 deaths. What had been rebuilt was almost absurdly overbuilt, designed to withstand everything the area had experienced with minimal impact.
Charlotte was on her feet and headed for ops before she even realized she was moving, doing a little hop and slide to maneuver around one of her crew and over another. The neutral information absorption state she’d been in had suddenly become aggressively acquisitive and Mel frantically reassigned resources to keep her own work moving as Charlotte commandeered increasing amounts of sheer computing power. It wasn’t enough so outward she went and more came online as higher speed data links reestablished. At this point she was using 2 hand inputs and several other means of communication both visual and aural although none of it was obvious to a watcher.
An observer would simply have seen a woman who appeared to be reclined in a rather comfortable armchair/couch affair, face almost expressionless except for what appeared to be random muscular twitches, fingers seeming to tap equally randomly on the arms of the chair. Sounds that weren’t words or any recognizable form of speech flowed from her mouth.
For her it was complete immersion, feedback by displays projected on her retinae, focused sound on each ear and tactile feedback. Much of the technology she was using had been invented to support the life and continued work of one of the great 20th century mathematicians who had suffered from an untreatable form of progressive paralysis. He’d survived for an amazingly long time given his disability and had sadly died just a few years before the neural regeneration treatments that would have given him back his physical mobility.
Finally she disengaged and looked around her, noting Geoff snoring lightly in another chair.
“Some overwatch you are! Wake up boyo!” She rose and kicked at his foot.
The snoring continued somehow even as he cracked an eye open and mumbled “Yarp…”
Charlotte laughed at his antics and made her way out to the main living area with a quick bathroom stop, following the scents of food. She gave a quick kiss and fondle to Yves who stood at the stove and accepted the drink he offered before sitting at the table with Geoff and Tina.
“Mel’s busy bringing some stuff she had in the pipeline forward. We’re gonna need that new armor if nothing else.” Tina took a sip of her beer and studied the label.
“The whole damn thing was a decoy, bait, whatever you want to call it. I found the kids up in North Carolina, ass end of nowhere. We have let them think they got us. Someone knew how and where to find those kids and has enough money and ingenuity to set up a trap they had to figure would kill a shitload of people. Would have done too, if Mel hadn’t hit the emergency trips for the harbor gates.”
“Who the hell could have leaked? You’re just a little obsessive about security…”
“I don’t think it was a deliberate leak Geoff. I think its more likely something minor we missed that caught someone else’s attention and a little digging did the rest. We did do our best to hide in plain sight, even had the kids going to Stella Maris so they’d blend in and have some kind of normal life.”
“Surely you don’t think yon papists…?”
“No I don’t think!” Charlotte snapped and then paused. “I’m sorry Geoff. I know how you feel about that sort of thing but I’ve known these people for as long as I can remember. I used to play with Bertie… Father Condon when we were kids and it was his parents and some of the other local families that helped hide me and others. Everyone who knew anything is someone I’d literally trust with my own life… again.”
“Its easy to forget sometimes, how hard it was for you lot back then. Makes me glad we came back to our senses and never left the EU.” Geoff took a sip of his own beer and lapsed into silence again.
“It wasn’t bad for me, mostly. A little scary sometimes but I knew my parents loved me and would do everything to protect me. A lot of people in town didn’t agree with the government and helped… There were some people from here sent to the camps but it was mostly parents forcing their children. Upstate and lots of other places… lots of violence and killings… people went to the camps because they thought they stood a better chance of surviving that than the mobs. In the end we managed to avoid a full on second civil war but it was a close-run thing.”
Charlotte took a deep sip of her own and let a breath out slowly. “I was lucky. We were lucky. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if they’d managed to pull a Cheney and keep the bastard alive when his heart gave out.”
“A what?” Yves seemed genuinely interested in the answer, pausing for a moment in his cooking.
“Cheney. He was vice president back at the turn of the century, one of the guys really in bed with the merc outfits of the day… DarkOil or something like that. Maybe I’m mixing them up with the oil companies… They were pretty much all wound up in that whole conspiracy that finished up with the idiot. Anyway, the guy’s heart was about to give out so they put him on an external heart pump for like 6 months or something till they managed to rob a donor heart from some other deserving person who might’ve actually had a heart to start with. The whole thing was pretty barbaric by today’s standards.”
“Wait, they really did that? Take a heart out of a corpse and put it into someone else? That’s just freaky…” Geoff shuddered.
“Well they couldn’t grow a new one back then and mechanical replacement wasn’t a long term option either because the synthetics hadn’t been invented so yeah… it was pretty much the only way and its not like the corpse cared. Caused all sorts of immune problems but they used drugs to suppress the immune response to a degree and it was a workable expedient.”
“I agree with Geoff. Its like zombie stuff or something.” Jorge almost crossed himself then grinned at them and did it anyway.
“Oh it turned out to be a really massive problem in the end. Way too much demand for the supply. People would sell a kidney for the money but of course there was demand for way more than that and it turned into a fairly lucrative business for anyone willing to become a very careful serial killer. Thats actually what pushed the development of the synthetics and as soon as those came on the market the black market for organs disappeared. After all, who wants a zombie organ when you can have a nice safe synthetic that’ll outlast the rest of you and not force you to destroy your immune system?”
“You make me glad I’m not serving fois gras Cherie. That conversation would certainly have ruined my appetite.” Yves’ comment drew a round of general agreement.
“On that subject, what’s for dinner?” Mel came in from the docking bay.
“Air pudding and wind soup at the moment. It’ll be ready in half an hour.” Yves grinned at her and handed her a beer as she joined the table.
“I’ve got the production runs underway now, we’ll have the new equipment ready by tomorrow midday even with the engines you insisted on for the new Bats. Its still gonna be noisy as hell if you have to do a stand up takeoff even with active noise cancellation, just too much ambient stuff to get it all. You’re giving up most of your medium weapons capacity to compensate especially with the safety factors you insisted on.” Mel shook her head. “I’m not even gonna ask why, I’m sure you’ll tell us in your own good time but you do come up with the strangest requirements…”
“Oh I’m happy to share with this one. We’re about go play up in the mountains and I don’t particularly fancy jumping off a cliff to get airborne with a scared kid strapped to me... again. I’d go in there with a knife in my bare skin if I had to ditch everything else to get that capacity. As is our resident mechanical genius made that unnecessary but we’re still going to need some practice before we go in. From what I can tell the little valley they are in is really well fortified and things will be dicey at best. I tried to think of everything that went FUBAR in Cartagena and overcompensate for it but you know as well as I do there’s always something… so we have our ultimate GOTH plan. Strap on a Bat and a kid and blast straight up.”
“That sounds…” Gordy’s voice cut Tina off.
“Like a lot of fun!”
“I was about to say scary as hell!” Tina thought for a moment. “I’ve gotten used to running around with you lot though. My bar for ‘Scary’ keeps getting higher…”
“So you’re saying the only thing to fear is fear itself?” Gordy opened his own beer and joined the others at the table.
“Eh, more Bene-Jesurit than FDR but whatever…” Tina shrugged at him and grinned widely. “How’s the new comms setup running down there?”
“5 by 5. The surge didn’t propagate very far and I only saw light damage about halfway down John’s Island, none at all at the Edisto house itself. Charlie’s place buttoned itself up, looks just as ramshackle as ever but the lift works and everything looks undamaged. Mel jammed the harbor gates pretty good though… Its gonna take a day or two to get em back open.”
“Their own damned fault for not building it right the first time. “ Mel grinned.
“To be fair, you did catch a ship. Pretty sure that’s a scenario no one on the design team envisioned even brainstorming worst case scenarios.”
“Wow… I’m not sure if I’d rather be accused of incompetence or lack of imagination. I’d love to have seen the expression on that captain’s face though!” Tina mimed clinging to a ships wheel while casting a terrified look backward.
The jokes flew for a few minutes until Yves served up a family-style meal and conversation devolved to requests to pass condiments and dishes and even those subsided into appreciative noises until each one finished, took their dishes in to wash them and retired to the living area. Local news coverage was playing on several screens, predictably harried-sounding anchors plucked from behind a nice safe desk and shoved out into the field to find some debris and stand close to it. 2 had managed to hit the jackpot and find standing water with debris in it while one was interviewing the inevitable kayakers in the streets downtown.
Charlotte sat and watched with them for a few minutes before she was willing to disturb the moment of relaxation. She signaled Mel who reconfigured the displays to form 1 large screen displaying a detailed map of mountains.
“Our primary area of operations for this mission will be Ashe County in the far northwest corner of North Carolina. Primary infil and exfil will be via the Ashe county airport which is less than 30 klicks straight line distance. We have several ground approach routes but only two proximity approaches and a single point of entry to the valley. Needless to say we don’t intend to use the roads…” She waited for the laughter to subside. “Much.”
“We’ll get into the details of our action plan once we’ve had a chance to get a bit more intel from the locals. I just happen to know a few people up there since it was one of the places we hid when I was a child. There’s a great spot to practice with the upgraded Bats and I’ve arranged accommodations and food for us so we can have some time to familiarize ourselves with the area.”
Jorge looked worried. “Isn’t it a little odd that they pick another area you know?”
“Not if you assume its another trap. The only way this makes sense is if this batch is somehow tied in with my own history, if somehow it has to do with the bastards who enslaved me years ago. We’ve hurt them, to judge by their response so far quite badly. They want to make sure we, and me personally, are dead.”
Charlotte paused for a moment, “The feeling is entirely mutual…” she ground out through gritted teeth, her lips a grim slash through a mask of fury.
***************************************************************************************************************************************
“Beautiful country up here.” Yves was gazing through the window toward the rapidly approaching ground. “I wish we were here for pleasure instead of just pretending to be tourists…”
“We’ll come back when this is done. I really love these mountains, there’s something here, something that gives you sense of the world and makes it clear that you live within it no matter how much you try to be apart. I want to show you my magical places…”
“I think he’s seen your ‘magical places’ already love!” Geoff chortled at his own joke.
Charlotte replied with a single finger. “We’ll settle in for the day, I’ll talk to a few people and we’ll game this thing out a little better. I really want to do some close-in recon but given what they threw at us last time… I’ll work from memory and the best imagery we can get. Don’t just pretend to be a tourist… like seriously do touristy stuff, go see the local sights, eat at the local joints. We’re on a corporate junket for team building right?”
“Whatever happened to a plain ol ropes course?”
“Gordy I really don’t want to talk about you and your rope-fetish right now…” Charlotte managed a credible shudder and grinned at the answering guffaws. “Seriously though, there is a really great ropes course, a few cool ziplines, that sort of thing. This whole area is predominantly agricultural or tourism-oriented and the locals prefer it that way. It used to be extremely poor but the laws and the world changed and the only legal cash crop was fading into insignificance. You’ll still see the occasional tobacco field because it is prized as some of the world’s best… But way more maize and artisanal vegetables mixed about evenly with hemp.”
“Wait, you make it sound like it should be even poorer. You’re saying it isn’t?” Yves seemed surprised.
“Well there were two serious money-makers that had been regulated underground and suddenly both of those could not only be engaged in openly but traded internationally. A generation or so back you couldn’t buy any sort of distilled liquor in the whole county and even beer or wine were tightly regulated. As for making your own it was strictly illegal… Which meant there was a pretty fair amount of money in it if you didn’t get caught. Mostly distillers and growers made just enough to scrape by and had to be careful not to look like they had money they shouldn’t have.”
“Which made it a good place to hide…” Yves mused.
“Indeed it did. People might have had their own prejudices but if someone needed to hide from the law they were in good company. People have more money now and the bigotries… well they haven’t vanished entirely but the attitudes about law and government haven’t changed a bit. They want as little to do with either as possible.”
The slight bump of touchdown and the rollout brought conversation to a halt as everyone started readying themselves for egress.
“Come on yawl, we’ve talked about this. Less of the spit and git and more laid back. Tourists, remember?” The atmosphere eased back although a few had difficulty overriding their instincts. In the end as they made their way onto the tarmac they managed to look considerably less predatory although Charlotte thought to herself that might’ve had something to do with the loud floral shirts and cargo shorts they were wearing.
Her own camouflage consisted of similar clothing along with a severe looking black chin length bob(A wig of course) and some strategic makeup, used with the objective of adding years to her face. If you didn’t get too close you’d think she was a middle-aged businesswoman desperately trying to stave off the ravages of age.
They were treated exactly as they appeared to be with a small bus waiting to take them away to their rustic accommodations. The driver and a companion made quick work of loading normal looking cases and bags into the cargo compartments and they set off, turning to run across the runway and then doubling back along its length before the land swept it from view as they turned away up old NC Highway 16. It was only a few minutes before they pulled off onto a smaller road that led past several cabins and back out to another road. They stopped near the end furthest from the large barnlike structures and each tried to look like they were taking their time getting their bags stowed.
Shortly after, they all gathered and walked down to the larger buildings, taking time to admire and snap photos of the old wagons and the little plaques that told the history of this location. They quickly found themselves in a private dining area with a huge spread of classic Appalachian food and stuffed themselves to repletion before slowly straggling back to their cabins. The combination of mountain air and being overstuffed meant that most simply went to sleep, knowing they’d want to be rested up for the next couple of days. Charlotte found it a little harder to drop off but eventually she slept, Yves’ arm draped across her waist.
The next day they were up early and took care to recreate the cover they’d established the day before with the exception of Charlotte. She had yet another layer of disguise beneath and so it was that the tour group left with one middle aged brunette and arrived without one fiery red haired woman with an impressive mass of curls and dressed like any other girl of her apparent late teens. She’d stepped off the bus and directly into the cab of a large flatbed pickup and both vehicles drove off in opposite directions.
“Hiya Griff!” Charlotte was excited to see the large man who fit his name so well but a little worried all the same. The last time they’d seen each other she’d had to confess her secret to him because they had to leave… She’d often wondered over the years what he’d thought of her because she hadn’t the time to wait for him to even reply to her outburst. She began to worry a little as it took so long for him to respond.
“Is that really you Charlie?” what could be seen of his face behind the extravagant beard was impassive except his eyes… Those wide beautiful amber-brown eyes she’d fallen into the first time they’d met her own.
“I could ask the same of you! What the hell man, did you eat a bear or something?”
“We were 13 Charlotte. Looks like both of us grew up pretty much the way we wanted if you ask me. You and that French fella… you pretty serious?”
“I aim to have his babies sometime soon and if I weren’t undercover I’d be wearing a wedding ring so yeah… We’re about as serious as it gets.” Charlotte watched as his eyes snapped to her. “Eyes on the road bub.”
“I thought…” he didn’t quite know how to finish and gripped the wheel a little more tightly.
“I am, just like I told you that night but medicine has moved on and now… now its possible for women like me to have kids just the same as any woman born with a functional reproductive system. Speaking of which, I understand you have a new daughter?”
“Charlotte…” He almost murmured the word.
“Yeah?”
“That’s her name. Lilly insisted… I didn’t want to shove a reminder of you in her face but she set me straight on that. I’m glad she did… I can’t think of a finer woman to name my daughter after. You’re a legend up here, you know?”
“Um… what?” Charlotte was confused. She didn’t think anyone outside a few people knew who she was in this area.
“Charlotte… we’re hillbillies, every bit… but we’re not ignorant. It was big news up here when you killed that guy and the whole story of what happened to you came out. People saw you as a heroine and not a single one of them gave a damn at finding out you were trans. You were a woman who’d escaped from slavery by her own hand and brought justice in the same act… How could people here not love you?”
“Fuck…”
“Fuck indeed. When the mass rescues/hits on slavers started nobody knew who it was and as far as I know nobody connects it with you in any way that people even speak about but there isn’t a soul in this county who isn’t dead sure you’re behind it. Now you’re here playing spy games…” Griff didn’t finish the sentence, knowing she understood what was unsaid.
“Greer Hollow.”
“Please tell me you’re joking?” his grip on the wheel became curiously relaxed yet she could still tell it was firm.
“You just saw part of my team. You can chill, we’re under the radar to anyone except, apparently, to every local in the county…”
“And you’re deliberately walking into another trap?”
“Got a better way to spring one?” she grinned at him and watched his posture shift ever so slightly toward that relaxed effortlessness she knew from experience was death on a hair-trigger.
“Fuck!” The word was explosive in the confined cab.
“Fuck indeed.” She smiled to herself as she watched him pilot the truck, deep in thought…
************************************************************************************************************************
“Lilly!” The tall blonde whirled around from polishing the last bit of gleaming brass on the antique pizza ovens, her long braid flying behind. She stared for a moment, confused by the sight before her.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“In a different life we practiced kissing boys on each other…” Charlotte murmured and watched realization creep over the other woman’s face.
“And discovered kissing girls didn’t do anything for either of us…” She stared, taking in Charlotte’s disguised appearance. “How the… you look like my niece! Holy shit Charlie!”
Charlotte didn’t try to avoid the tight hug, returning the affectionate gesture wholeheartedly. “Wait, you have a niece? Somebody actually got desperate enough to go with Freddy?”
“Oh you haven’t seen Freddy… My dorky big brother grew out of it. Not upwards unfortunately but you know how it is… short men…”
“And if your niece has hair like this that means…”
“Bonnie Doons!” The two women said together and laughed.
“Got it in one!” Lilly grinned. “She set her cap for him senior year and that was it. Poor boy didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. His oldest daughter is the spitting image of Bonnie at her age… not as well developed up top though, lucky for her. With that wig on you could almost be twins.”
Charlotte shook her head “Its still hard to imagine those two together. A Great Dane and a Chihuahua come to mind…”
“I don’t particularly care to think about that part of it but they both seem happy with things. Did make for one hell of a wedding though!” She laughed ruefully to herself “Set a new family tradition too. The bride wasn’t pregnant, there wasn’t a single shotgun in sight…”
“Wait so you…?”
“I was 2 months pregnant with Billy when we got married. We had it all planned already so it wasn’t like we had to… it just worked out that way. Daddy was ok with it and momma…. Well she couldn’t exactly say much given she very nearly gave birth to me right there in the wedding chapel.”
“I’d love to have been there…” Charlotte almost whispered, a dreamy look in her eye.
“I wish you could have been too… we thought you were… I dunno, dead… missing… nobody really knew and it never came out why y’all left in the middle of the night the way you did till that whole thing happened with you and that horrible man. We always knew your family was hiding something but you know how it is up here…” Gina shrugged and tried to busy her hands.
“I know… I’m sorry if it caused any trouble with you and Griff when it all came out.” Charlotte stared at Lilly’s hands twisting the dishtowel.
“Trouble? My god woman…” She tried to catch Charlotte’s eyes, finally giving up and forcing her chin up to pin her with a flinty grey gaze “Look at me. You hear me right now ‘cause I won’t say it again. I love you like my own sister! That never changed and I always knew Griff had a thing for you. Yeah I was jealous, a little… But we grew up and moved on and when Griff finally told me he knew, that you’d told him and then disappeared… I wasn’t angry at you. Maybe a little bit at him but for not telling me for all those years, no other reason.”
Charlotte must have looked a little unsure because Lilly continued “Nobody cares about you being trans… I don’t think anybody would have cared even back then with a few exceptions and almost all o’ them named McJunkin. That clan got chased out of these parts when it came out what old Preacher Bob was doin to the kids at the Revival meetins.”
“That’s the fucker that found out about me… tried to rape me and then freaked out when he realized I didn’t have what he expected to find in my panties. I never wanted to kill anybody so bad in my whole life… up to that point anyway.” Charlotte was staring at the towel again, now swinging from Lilly’s hand.
“Him and a whole busload of his disciples learned about real power one day. Went off the side of a mountain in an ice storm, caught fire on the way down and landed in the river upside down. The ones that didn’t roast drowned or died of injuries, hypothermia, whatever. Far as anybody knows it was just an accident and it might well have been… but nobody really cares to ask either. Point is… it’s a safe bet his last minutes were pretty awful. I know as revenge goes it aint much…”
“It’ll have to do. I’ve got much nastier fish to fry just now anyway…” Charlotte’s expression hardened. “From what Griff says I’m apparently some sort of celebrity around here.”
Lilly nodded, a gleam in her eye at Charlotte’s expression. “Only for locals. I’d be amazed if anybody as far away as Wilkesboro knew who you are though.”
“Good. Last op we just barely managed to avoid some serious casualties when the locals tried to help and the whole thing went south. I know it aint the same here but… These people are no joke. You saw the news about what happened off Charleston?”
Lilly grinned, a sudden wolfish glee dancing around her lips. “Oh I saw. Then I start hearing stuff about you coming in with what sounds like an ops team and I put two and two together… Did you ever think to ask what Griff did between now and then?”
“I thought to look, you know I did. No service record… nothing that says he’s ever done anything but grow some of the finest North Carolina bud around. You’re telling me its exactly what it looked like then?” Charlotte cocked her head quizzically at Lilly’s laughter.
“If you thought it looked like a cover you’d be right on, yeah. He spent most of a decade in one hotspot or another before he cycled out of the PeaceForcers a couple years ago. Standard deal, full anonymity if desired and a lump sum e-cash payout. Half the guys and almost as many of the girls around here served at least one hitch and I did my bit too. DropShip pilot, not a ground-pounder like Griff but you need to know…”
Charlotte didn’t interrupt, allowing Lilly to gather her thoughts.
“Most of his unit retired back here. If you need backup, intel, whatever… Just ask. There’s enough firepower in this county for a medium-sized war and every last bit of it is yours, if or when.” She exhaled sharply. “Whew… that was harder than I thought. I mean it though Charlie…”
“I know you do Lil… and you know why I can’t bring anyone else into this if I can help it.”
“Yeah, I get it and I know you’re right, it makes sense…”
“Then let it go for now, OK? If things go sideways badly enough for us to need help there’s gonna be fuck all can be done about it quick enough to matter. Now with that said it’d be awful nice if folks tried real hard to look like everything is normal, we’re a tour group…”
“So, your ‘tour group’“ Lilly made quotes with her fingers “Is coming in for some pie?”
“A couple of hours, depends on how long they take at the falls. I wanted to make sure they were really clear about the layout.”
“The falls? What the hell are you planning?”
“Nothing… I hope.” Charlotte tried her best not to answer and knew she’d missed the mark.
“Nothing my ass! You planning to jump off the mountain?” Lilly’s eyes were flashing, her tone indignant. “And do what, commit suicide? What the hell Charlie?”
“Not unless I have to Lil. If things go that badly we’re pretty much fucked but no… not suicide.” Charlotte knew she was going to have to tell her friend something and was deciding just how much information to release.
“So I suppose you can fly too? You’re not Superwoman Charlie.”
“You’re right, I’m not. Bit more like BatGirl if you’re gonna reach for comparison.” Charlotte shrugged. “I like my suits better though.”
“You’re actually not kidding…” The anger was gone as suddenly as it arrived and Lilly shook her head in amazement. “Suddenly I almost feel sorry for those assholes.”
“Don’t.” Charlotte’s voice was flat, as expressionless as her face had become. “They earned what’s coming to them.”
*************************************************************************************************************************************************
“Best pizza ever and I’ve had pie all over the world!” Yves enthused. “Where did you learn to make pizza like that and will you teach me?”
Lilly laughed, a silvery tinkle of infectious mirth. “My three times great grandfather came over from the old country with stone masons that immigrated to work on the major works projects and helped build this part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. He served in the army in World War 2, settled in Brooklyn after the war and opened a restaurant.”
“Ok… that still doesn’t explain how…” Yves mused.
“It’s the water. From what I was told his son grew up visiting here and loved the country but it was the water that convinced him to come here and open a pizzeria. He said it was the only water he knew of that was better than New York City’s.”
“I never thought I’d say it but it is really delicious water, way better than the triple-filtered stuff we use. I’m going to have to see about getting a decent amount of it for my restaurant…”
“As long as you don’t try to make it a commercial thing no problem. We have 3 springs on our property any one of which can give you a few thousand gallons per week without missing it. You’ll have to arrange for some way to transport it though.”
“That won’t be a problem and I’ll keep it quiet. It’ll be a little bit before I can take any sort of significant quantity though. We’ll have to build somewhere to store it first. Get me some ideas about pricing and we’ll get it sorted once this op is done. Sound good?” Yves grinned and Lilly returned his smile.
“Just let me know when.” Her face turned serious. “We’ll want to have ya’ll come for a proper visit when this is all done, yeah? Lord knows Deke built a big enough house so there’s no problem with finding somewhere for you to stay. My house is yours, hear?”
“The same goes for you and your brood. If you’ll let me take some readings I’ll make sure you have clearance to all my places even if I’m not there. I expect the kids will like the Edisto house best because its right on a nice beach.”
The two hugged. “God I missed you Charlie. I never want to feel the way I felt when you left and poor Griff… I was mad at you for a long time cause you’d hurt him and he wouldn’t tell me why… I understand now why it had to be that way but…”
Both women were crying. “I hated having to leave but the way things were back then… There just wasn’t any choice.”
Lilly pulled back to look at Charlotte’s face, wiping the tears from her eyes. I… We didn’t know… we thought you were kidnapped or disappeared… no one knew what to think. What happened? Where did you go?”
“We had to get as far away as we could and we wound up living up in Montana with some First Nations people in the far northwest, almost in Canada. They called people like me ‘Two Spirit’ and I was just as normal as any other child to them. I got to spend most of the rest of my childhood not having to hide myself at all. I was just the little girl that liked to do all the things the girls did and all the things the boys did too.”
“It sounds marvelous.” Lilly sighed.
“Eh. I suppose if you were someone other than me that might be so but you know how I am. I can’t do anything without trying to be the absolute best at it and it caused… friction.”
“The guys didn’t like you beating em at their own games, eh?” Lilly raised an eyebrow.
“Nah actually the guys were fine after they pulled a little prank on me and discovered it didn’t really phase me. The girls were a different matter though. One of them actually destroyed a beautiful beaded doeskin dress I’d spent 6 months making, all the way from curing the hide to finished product. She thought I was making eyes at her boyfriend and she wasn’t half wrong, he was that tall chiseled type…“ Charlotte got a dreamy look in her eye for a moment.
“The funny part about the whole thing was that he was more interested in his boyfriend than her so she would up settling for the boy who’d had his eye on her from the start and I hear all parties concerned are quite happy. Love is a funny thing, aint it?”
“You said it sister. Now what was this “Little Prank” the boys pulled on you?”
“Well it wasn’t so little unless you were fairly skilled in winter survival. A whole batch of us went out snowmobiling, smoking a little herb, having a few drinks. It was pretty cold, I mean its winter in Montana right? So we were all dressed for it and had survival packs on the snowmobiles, that kind of thing. There’s a pit stop, the guy s of course just whip it out and let go but I have to go back into the bushes a bit. Well just as I’m wiping myself off and getting my clothes back together I hear snowmobiles cranking up and by the time I get back out into the clearing there’s no one there.”
“That doesn’t sound like a prank, that sounds like trying to kill you!”
“Eh, if you didn’t know these guys you’d be inclined to think that way but you have to remember learning how to survive with nothing is something they learn from childhood. Besides, I had far more than nothing. Hypothermia wasn’t an immediate issue as I was dressed in good quality artic gear so I could focus on the immediate ways to enhance my situation. My Camelback had 3 liters of good water so that wasn’t an immediate issue. I had my survival kit and knife and they ‘d been kind enough to leave a couple jars of moonshine along with nice amount of good bud.”
“That still sounds… I don’t know, really scary or mean or… I don’t even know what to call something like that.”
“No big deal really. Build a platform off the ground, build a roof and walls for it, layer it as heavily with evergreen boughs as you can. Layer your platform the same way. Be careful not to build it right under a tree as the heat from your fire will melt snow, causing it to fall on your fire and put it out. If you have time build a screen around the other side of the fire so it will reflect the heat back into your shelter. The key is not to try working too fast because you don’t want to sweat. That just chills you down.”
“Wow you know a lot about this!”
“Eh, a bit.” Charlotte grinned. “Anyway so I had that done by the time it got dark and I had gathered some firewood. Unfortunately wet firewood… but they’d left me some lovely firestarter and a little bit of grain alcohol along with the striker from my kit got the fire going. I sat there, whittled a bowl and sat nice and comfy, having a little drink and smoke, chewing on some jerky I’d had along. Set out some snares the next day, caught a couple of rabbits and was enjoying my dinner in comfort when they came back to see how desperate for rescue I was. The looks on their faces when I offered them a bowl of rabbit stew each was a memory I’ll treasure forever...”
That still seems awfully mean…” Lilly insisted.
“I don’t know, maybe it was… but it was something all the boys went through at one time or another. They saw me as a girl who was like a boy I guess. Whatever you want to call it, I earned their respect and admiration that day and to me that would have been worth far more difficult trials. They adopted me as one of their own and they are my brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers…” Charlotte wiped a tear away.
“I’m glad you had that… have that. You didn’t tell me how you sorted thigs with the girls though?
“Well as it turns out she’d been jealous because her beadwork was… well it looked like it’d been done by a kindergartner. She just didn’t have the physical coordination for that kind of fine detail work. This was 2 weeks before the big powwow where many bands gathered to socialize and to share the old stories, to keep their culture a living thing. Anyway, I’d prepared several more fine doeskins so I made myself a new dress but I made one for her too. I went with very muted beadwork on mine and went all out on hers, making it just as splendid as I could.”
“That’s… I don’t know what to say really. Kind? Stupid? So what happened?” Lilly was clearly impatient.
“I waited until I knew her family was asleep and left it where she would find it in the morning. I never said anything about it and neither did she but we became friends afterward so I guess it worked.”
“You know one of these days you and I are going to have to take a few weeks just to catch up.” Lilly laughed. “Although it sounds like you’ve had a far more interesting life than I have.”
“Interesting is overrated. A little boring normalcy sounds really nice just about now.”
“Oh please. You’ve been an adrenaline junky for as long as I’ve known you.”
“Yeah okay, I’ll take that one. It’s a little hard not to be when you spend your whole life being scared…” Charlotte looked down at her hands, twisting them together.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you Charlie…” Lilly reached out to hug her friend again and drew back uncertainly when she saw an instinctive twitch away from contact.
“I’m sorry Lil… its not you. I do the same thing with Yves sometimes too. Its just… I guess some things never really go away, you know?” Charlotte made a visible effort to separate her hands and held her arms out to hug her friend.
Lilly moved hesitantly into her embrace and they simply held each other for a few moments, sharing a moment of trust.
“The surgeons did a good job on my body but mentally… They say it takes time and work. I know they’re right but I don’t think I’ll ever be properly whole, sane… I don’t think its possible. They broke parts of me that can’t be fixed.” Charlotte pulled back to look her friend in the eye. “They made me a monster, Lil, a nightmare.”
“You’re no more a monster than Griff or I… Or your own ancestors for that matter. You’re just human Charlie and we’re all broken some way or other. Some people allow that to rule them but you chose the other path. You chose to take the thing that broke you and exterminate it. Hemmingway said sometimes the broken places are stronger when they heal and if I ever saw an example of that she’s right here in front of me.”
“Lil you’re so full o shit your eyes are turnin brown….” Charlotte giggled. “But thank you, I needed that.”
“All the same Charlie… I worry about you. I’ve been paying attention and you’re messing with some seriously nasty characters here. You’re sure you don’t want help, overwatch at least?” Lilly sounded concerned.
“We’ve got overwatch covered Lil. We’ve gamed it out every possible way we could think of and there’s just no getting around it. There’s a good 50% likelihood we won’t all make it out…” Charlotte’s voice was thick with emotion. “We still have to try Lil. I can’t leave those kids, knowing whats in store for them if I do.”
Lilly drew Charlotte in for another hug as her friend wept piteously, rocking her and making humming noises. After a few moments she got herself together and blew her nose on the tissue Lilly supplied.
“Feel better?” Charlotte just nodded in response as she wiped tears from her face. “Look here girl…” She forced Charlotte’s eyes to meet her own. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known and if anyone can get those kids out of there and bring her team back whole you’re her. Your man is enough to make even Griff think twice and then back down. Your team… Well lets just say they remind me of a ghost unit Griff used to tell stories about… His team would get to a target and find all but one of the outfit they were after dead.”
“I can’t really get into my guy’s backgrounds Lil… its pretty highly classified. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them were involved in some quasi-legal activities.”
“I know better than to ask any more Charlie. I’ve seen how they look at you… How they act around you. There’s no question you’re Alpha of the nastiest wolf pack I ever want to see and I have to assume that look of respect in their eyes was paid for in blood. Just remember girl… even heroes can die, just the same as anyone else. I don’t want to mourn you all over again.” Lilly dashed angry tears away with the back of her hand.
“Lil… remember my favorite story back then?” Charlotte almost whispered.
“Yeah I remember… Kipling I think. ‘Rikki Tiki Tavi’. I always thought that mongoose was so brave and so stupid…” She sniffled. “So what, you’re the fuckin mongoose?”
“Stuck with the same choice. Let others be hurt or risk myself doing something to stop it. As choices go it really sucks but that’s what you get for being a mongoose I guess.” Charlotte shrugged and essayed a laugh that came out as more of a grunt.
“Besides, no mongoose ever had the sort of nastiness we can bring to bear. If we do our jobs right they won’t even have time to react. Yeah, you hear us planning all sorts of horrible sounding scenarios and its because we have to. You did the same thing in flight school, ran through every possible Bad Thing that could happen to your craft and a few more besides. Ideally none of that shit happens but if it does you’ve trained for it, know what to do.”
“And this is supposed to make me worry any less?” Lilly tried a smile of her own and managed something approaching a pained grimace.
“Doesn’t make Yves worry any less so no… I don’t suppose it is. I know every time I go into action might be my last and it doesn’t scare me. I’ve already died Lil… so many times I can’t count. It was one of the things they used to do to torture me. They liked to leave me in a tank of ice water for 15 or 20 minutes before bringing me back because they wanted to make sure I didn’t suffer brain damage. They wanted me aware and able to understand what they were doing to me.”
Charlotte’s friend just stared at her, horror in her eyes.
“Death is an old friend to me Lil. I learned to welcome it, to hope I wouldn’t wake up…” Tears fell down her face, unheeded. “But I always did and the torture continued… So no. I couldn’t stop. Can’t stop. As long as people like that are out there I have no choice. I’m just like that mongoose… Only unlike him I have a pack of full grown mongooses, mongeese, whatever... point is I’m not alone, far from it. Each of my team has their own reason for being here and none of them are inclined to show mercy.”
“I’m still going to worry.” Lilly managed a slightly more credible smile this time.
“I know.” Charlotte drew her friend into a hug and whispered in her ear. “I know…”
he Masque of Nevermore – Chapter 3
“Frescoes…” Geoff was excited, gesticulating with his fork. “Who would have thought to find such a thing here? I have to go see the others when we have more time.”
“Figured you and Jorge would pretty excited about it but I didn’t read Bob as an arty type of guy. I think he was more excited than either of you!” Bob grinned down the table at Charlotte around a mouthful of food.
“See, like I said, he comes off as a caveman.“ She returned the grin minus the mouthful of food and watched him visibly swallow and take a deep sip of tea.
“I’ll have you know I took a degree in fine arts in Sydney. I’m crap at doing it as it turns out but it makes me appreciate the talents of others even more. Frescoes especially are incredibly difficult to do well and this artist did far better than well! Their work is up there in quality with some of the finest I’ve seen and I’ve seen most of the great masters. I would have said all but apparently I would have been wrong. I agree, seeing the others will be a pleasure. Do you know anything about the artist?”
“A little. He studied in Italy, then came to do work here but one no one wanted it. He finally got funding to do the little church we saw first and over the next thirty or forty years did a whole string of them all along the Appalachian trail and some others too. Some are religious like the ones we saw today but a good half of them are either completely secular or even a bit irreverent toward religion. I hadn’t even thought about it as being exceptional really… I learned about it on a school field trip when I was young.”
Charlotte took a sip of her tea. “Sorry about the caveman comment Bob. That wasn’t fair.”
“Eh, I’m used to it. I grew up in the outback and the Anangu kids used to tease me about it. Then they got me into the water… turns out short legs and long arms are a good combination there. Confused the hell out of me for a while because they started calling me Phelps and I had not the slightest clue who that was.” He grinned at her. “Besides, that means I get to call you BatGirl!”
Charlotte blushed at the laughter from around the table. “Well it beats ‘GI Barbie’ any day!” She’d timed it just right and the laughter which had begun to die down didn’t for another moment.
“GI Barbie, Batgirl… I’m not picky as long as she shares my bed!” Charlotte blushed anew at Yves’ comment. “Besides, I defy you to show me anyone who looks more downright sexy in battle gear than Charlie!”
“Well I’d vote for Jorge myself but that’s just preference. She looks scary as hell in battle gear to me!”
It was Jorge’s turn to blush at Bob’s comment and there was a little more good natured razzing at the glance between the men who had just recently begun dating. Griff got up to gather the dishes and Charlotte rose to help.
“You sit right back down Charlie, I’ve got this. We’ll get out of here so y’all can have some privacy.”
Charlotte sat as instructed while Griff swooped around the table, somehow managing to get everything in one pass. “I’m fine with you cleaning up Griff but I want you and Lil in here for this. Got a decent bottle in the back maybe?”
Lilly came in the same door her husband had just exited. “Well there’s just this old thing…” she pulled a bottle from behind her back. “Its only got 25 years on it though, so who knows if its any good.”
Charlotte wasn’t fooled. “Your grandad’s?”
“Yep!” Lilly smiled happily. “He finally decided he should bottle 10 barrels of his first reserve a few years ago. I’ll let you decide what you think of it.”
“Thanks Lil!” Charlotte turned to the rest of the table. “You’re about to taste the product of the finest distiller in these parts. Lilly’s great-grandad was a moonshiner before it was legal and even back then people would pay triple for his liquor. I’ve tasted some of Deke’s 10 year and its… something in a class of its own.”
By this time they all had rocks glasses in front of them with a double shot each and all were seated again.
“I thought you wanted us to stay clear Charlie?” Lilly inquired.
“I do… but you can’t stay clear if you don’t know where the action is. I’m sure Griff already told you Greer Hollow is the target but you need to know we’re going to be operating in the airspace over half the county at least and I’d rather not have my aerial assets come under fire because someone thinks I’m violating their privacy. There’s a very real possibility of stray fire if things break out of that holler so I want to make sure everyone in the area is ready to find some serious cover when the shit starts to hit the fan.”
“Makes sense. Bunkers ain’t exactly uncommon around here and we can make sure the word gets out.” Griff leaned forward. “I’m assuming you’ll want the roads clear?”
“Not until it kicks off. I want everything to look like an absolutely normal day right up until then, or at least as much as possible. We’ve made a practice of night attacks and overhead recon suggests they are compensating for that by adding half again as many duty personnel at night. We’re going to need to have those kids moving as quickly as possible and waking them up is a time-killer so we’re going to hit while they are eating lunch. Half the watch will be stood down, the kids will be awake and we can maximize our element of surprise while minimizing our exfil time.”
“Aren’t you worried about losing your stealth advantage?” Lilly wanted to know.
“Can’t be helped. We’re going to come in nape of the earth anyway so their first clue we exist should be a little visual flicker as each of us cross the ridgeline… Then we’re back down and camouflaged partly by the hillside. By the time they can react we’ll be on the ground and I really hope they send a response party… Either way, there’s a possibility we’ll be making use of some fairly heavy ordnance at basically any point in this operation.”
Charlotte considered for a moment, again deciding just how much to tell. “Once we have the kids to safety rescue operations end and Operation RatCatcher begins. None of them leave that holler alive. As far as their bosses are concerned they will have simply vanished into the mountains, never to be heard from again. We’ve located their hardwired outlinks and we’ll be jamming everything but our own comms. That will be our signal. Have everyone listening to a radio or have a phone on them. When it goes to static or loses signal its time to find a deep hole and crawl into it for a bit.”
Both of her friends were staring at her but Lilly was the first to recover. “That’s… I dunno really. I’d say it was harsh or brutal but given the targets…” She shrugged. “You said you wanted them to vanish. That can be taken care of but here’s where we can help. Bodies are no problem, enough old mineshafts around here to take care of that but I’d like to take it one step further and completely restore that holler. If we stage things properly we can get it done in 24 hours and leave their bosses thinking they vanished into the UnderHill…” She barked a sharp, harsh laugh. “Or whatever their version of it is anyway. You already scare them badly enough to have them trying some fairly extreme shit… Throwing in a healthy dose of superstition shouldn’t hurt at all.”
“I’m the scary one?” Charlotte laughed. “That’s beyond awesome Lil.”
“Ya know… If we can manage to stage some fairly large fog machines we can blanket the valley with a fogbank pretty quickly and do a fair job of hiding everything once you’ve finished. Any satellite recon would be pretty well fooled if we made it cold enough to cover the infrared signatures as well as the visual spectrum.” Griff looked thoughtful for a moment. “Shouldn’t take more than 3 or 4 of the big ones and we can camouflage em by moving farm equipment around.”
“Why don’t we start out with the fog? However cold it is we’ll be able to see perfectly well through other means and they will be blinded. Kills the element of surprise but…” Geoff shrugged “Given the choice between that and stealth once detected? I know which way I’d prefer it.”
That was met with nods and mutters of agreement and one head-wobble/nod combination from Pete.
“OK… its supposed to rain for a day or two starting day after tomorrow. Do you think you can get everything staged before then?” Griff nodded and Charlotte grinned ferociously. “Then we have our go-time. Tomorrow serious planning but for tonight… You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle or 2 more would you Lil?”
“I can break out some of his 10 year, yeah… but first you really need to taste this.” Lilly smiled knowingly as each of them took a sip and made various expressions of delight.
“Best bourbon I’ve ever tasted.” Was Yves’ pronouncement and it was unanimously agreed. “Is any for sale?”
“Not a drop but I can give you each a bottle.” Lilly grinned around the table. “This was a special batch, not for distribution.”
“After we’ve finished this business we’ll be more than happy to take you up on that Lil… but for now lets switch to the 10 year.” Their host nodded her agreement with Charlotte’s suggestion and returned with 2 more bottles which were declared to be first rate as well.
By the time they adjourned and made their way to various rooms in the sprawling house to sleep both bottles had been consumed and some fairly diabolical plans had been considered and mostly dismissed.
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Dawn the morning of the assault was just beginning to drizzle and the weather gods had gifted them with a natural fog cover which they had been quietly augmenting. By just before noon the fog in the hollow was almost entirely artificial as the increasing rain had dissipated the natural one. A large cell of more intense rain helped give even more cover as the team loitered just behind its leading edge being pummeled by the shifting air currents. On cue they separated, one group either side ducking down into the adjacent hollow and winging for their assigned positions.
The fog and rain allowed their movement over the ridgeline to go entirely unobserved and they swooped in, each of them taking out an assigned sentry silently before disengaging and allowing their Bats to make their way back into the mist. It only took a few seconds more for someone to miss a call in or fail to respond and suddenly the sounds of gunfire began to ring out. Shouts of aggression turned into screams of fear before being silenced abruptly and Charlotte spied her own target. She signaled to her fire team and they fell in, Charlotte on point, Geoff and Jorge flanking her and slightly behind with Pete covering their rear and each of their bats on overwatch above the fog.
They ran at full speed toward their target, mowing down anything that stood in their way as speed was of the essence. Charlotte skidded up to a concrete block wall and slapped a piece of det cord horizontally just above her head while her two flankers did the same with vertical strips about 6 feet apart. Another strip across the bottom and they all crouched to the side instants before a short sharp thump that barely sounded like an explosion blew the entire section of wall they’d outlined inward at the edges, making it crumble in on itself.
Before the debris stopped flying the team was inside and scattering as another team did the same on the opposite side. The 17 guards inside were quickly dispatched and suddenly the true magnitude of the task became apparent. They had expected a few more kids than the 8 that had been taken from the safe house but there were easily over 100 children here, frightened and crying on the floor with a few exceptions who were also on the floor but grimly silent.
Charlotte motioned a child who looked up at her to stay down and saw him passing the message to others. The teams took up defensive positions while she thought furiously for a moment before toggling to full broadcast so the entire assault party could hear. “Case X-Ray in effect. I repeat, case X-Ray in effect.” She paused for a moment before adding “Good hunting.”
There were no replies but a sudden flood of guards into the room meant they were busy responding. It was a short firefight but got hairy for a moment as someone was chiming in with what sounded like a massive weapon in the confined space and she guessed it was a .50 calibre heavy with one round of something much larger. As the fire died down she checked her team’s vitals and blanched when Geoff’s were flatlined. She ran toward his locator, skidding to a stop as she saw him lying on his back, a hole just a little bigger than a nickel punched neatly through his visor.
It felt like an eternity passed before she started moving again but Jorge later swore she hadn’t even stopped fully, just stutter-stepped and changed course. By the time she hit the door the guards had come through she was moving fast enough to blast it entirely off its hinges without slowing. Still at a full run she fired as targets made themselves evident, finally slowing as they became too numerous and threatened to envelop her. Her primary weapons ran dry and she switched to sidearms, then those ran dry and she threw all of her knives and still they came.
She drew her swords and dashed toward the knot of armed men, her screams amplified as much as her helmet systems could do. She was forced to stutter-step as her armor hardened momentarily from so many bullets hitting her but it didn’t slow her down appreciably and she burst through the men in a spray of blood, finally stopping as men who had died before they knew it fell around her. It took her a moment to realize there were no more targets, nothing but the dead on all sides, even the ceiling slick with gore.
Suddenly the sound of her own ragged panting filled her ears and she toggled her external speakers down again. After another look around she set about retrieving the throwing knives she could see, barely noticing that the sounds of gunfire had faded to the occasional short burst.
“Boss?” Jorge’s voice came over her comm. “I’m coming down the hall behind you ok?”
It took a moment for his voice to register. “I’m dry Jorge, got a couple spare mags?”
He wordlessly handed her 6 mags and she reloaded and charged her weapons. “Its done boss. Grey team is mopping up now. A couple of the kids got some minor shrapnel wounds from us blowing the walls but they are all more or less ok.” He didn’t mention Geoff, certain she was acutely aware and already blaming herself for his loss.
She started to move back toward the area where the kids were and Jorge moved in front of her, wordlessly proffering a towel he’d picked up somewhere. “Boss you gotta wipe off first or you’re gonna scare the hell out of those kids.” Charlotte stared at him for a moment before taking the towel and swiping it across her head, coming away with blood and bits of flesh and bone. She stared at it for a moment more, seeming not to recognize it and was only peripherally aware that Jorge had taken the towel back from her and was wiping the worst off, picking off bits that had made their way into crevices.
As soon as he appeared satisfied she half-ran back into the large room to see what appeared to be many more children than she’d thought at first. “Headcount?” She demanded of Pete who stared at her for a moment before responding.
“237 maam. Haven’t had a chance to count combatants yet. Our 8 are accounted for, relatively unharmed and they say we have everyone.” He was interrupted by the sound of a short but furious firefight. “That’ll be Grey team mopping up the runners.” he added unnecessarily.
“Mel?”
“Yeah boss?”
“Would you stop with the boss bit!?” She barked. “I’m assuming you advised our friends X-Ray was in effect?”
“Say the magic word and the busses roll boss!” came the reply and Charlotte snorted a slight laugh.
“We’re not using that road until we’ve had a chance to clear it. I’m securing them in place until then. Spread the word, we need something for demining that we can adapt for remote use. We’ve already lost one of ours today and I’m not risking anyone I don’t absolutely have to so X-Ray remains in effect until we implement Long March, got it?”
“Rikki-Tik, Boss. Be aware 2 combines inbound in 3 and 4 mikes, 1 bulldozer in 7. Estimate 37 mikes to clear to your location with 1 vehicle loss, 45 with 2.”
“Convey my thanks to our hairy friend…” Charlotte felt the prickling behind her eyelids and forced the tears down, kept them out of her voice. “Keep me apprised.”
She switched to a private channel with Yves but didn’t get a word out before his voice came to her. “We’re forming a shield party now. Notre ami le vaillant chevalier sera honoré correctement, Cheri.”
“And what does honor mean to the dead, valiant knight or not?” Charlotte stopped herself. “I’m sorry. Its not your fault.”
“Nor is it yours Cheri.”
Charlotte couldn’t think of anything to say so ducked into one of the large bathrooms to check herself over, realizing she was still liberally smeared with gore. She strode back out through the main room, noting that the children were largely calm and seated by this point as she strode back through the hole she’d blown in the wall bare minutes before to stand in the downpour. After a few minutes the red water had turned to pinkish, then run clear so she went back inside.
She made her way toward where Geoff’s body lay , realizing some of the children had clustered around him, amongst them the 8 they’d originally come for. She was stunned when she got close enough to realize they had already removed the legs from one of the tables and gently laid him atop it, arms crossed over his chest. She fell to her knees beside him and stroked the smoothness of his helmet, still unmarred save for that one hole... Which she suddenly realized had not gone all the way through the heavy reactive armor of Geoff’s helmet
“Mel!” Charlotte tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “Pop the seals on Geoff’s helmet, quick!”
She pulled on it and felt the catches give way, the helmet coming off with a sudden roughness in her urgency. Geoff’s face was unmarred and he gasped as he drew a deep breath.
“Holy shit I’m alive! What the hell took you so long and why isn’t the rest of this thing unlocked?” He stared in bewilderment as she gazed down at him, her helmeted face betraying none of the maelstrom of emotion that drew the waiting tears of grief forth and turned them to joy.
Charlotte switched to a private channel and made sure her external speakers were off. “Mel, his armor is fully unlocked right? He should be able to move?”
“They already moved him Charlie… its not the suit. Lilly is on her way now, 2 mikes and she’ll need space for a 4 man dropship. I’ll have Gundersen and her team waiting to start treatment immediately.”
“Thanks Mel… Any idea what the hell happened?”
“Working on it now.”
Charlotte turned her external speakers back on. “Geoff we’ve got a dropship inbound now. You’re going straight to Gundersen and her team.”
“So its not the suit then… Well hell, had to hope right? I’m sooo not looking forward to 6 more months of rehab.” He barked a short laugh. “Although I wouldn’t mind seeing Wanda. I heard she’s divorced again.”
“I’m sorry Geoff… I must have missed something. The armor should have stiffened and taken the impact…”
“Charlie?” she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Charlie, your armor saved my life. Don’t ever blame yourself for something you couldn’t have foreseen.”
Pete tapped lightly on her shoulder and she almost whirled around to strike him, managing to make it look like simply a hasty turn. He was holding what looked like 2 halves of a projectile in his hands but they seemed light.
“Sabots? What the hell were they firing?”
“Looks like the turret from an old Soviet era APC. The feed mechanism jammed so they only got off the one round… depleted uranium 30 millimeter dart with a discarding sabot. That thing should have gone through heavy armor like hot butter but your helmets are built of sterner stuff.”
“Maybe so but I obviously fucked up somewhere else.”
“No you didn’t Charlie. You and I both know the crystalline superfluid you’re using has an inherent limitation on response time. That’s why you went in a different direction for the spacegoing version. If anything it outperformed your best case scenarios.” Tina’s voice was gentle.
“Hey let her sulk. She’s trying to work up a good self-blame thing.”
Geoff’s attempt at humor didn’t have its desired result.
“Goddammit I’m blaming myself because its my fault!” Charlotte was raging to herself.
“You really need to go see Dr Morgelan about that shit Charlie. We all know you do it but its on the edge of becoming a liability. Yes, it happened on your watch, and yes, its on you. Nobody can change that, its how you and me and anyone else who ever went into battle giving a shit feels and it’s the truth of things too.” Geoff took a few breaths until he’d got his thoughts in order.
“The thing is… you literally did everything possible. You know full well a design that would take a hit like I did and fully protect against it would be completely unworkable as a land warrior system. Your system performed as designed and you made exactly the right trade-offs or I wouldn’t be giving you this lecture right now. Now if you’d known a way to compensate for this and make it workable and just left it out for… I dunno, whatever reason… Then yeah. I’d be first in line to lay blame but that isn’t what happened.”
Charlotte was about to interrupt but he cut her off. “What happened was so unlikely as to be almost impossible… and because your designs took even that into account I’m here trying to talk sense into you. You’re thinking about this backward. You’re looking at how you failed and for an engineering review that’s a good thing. Right now though, you’re wearing your CO hat and you, most importantly… Did NOT lose even a single member of the assault party or the captives. I will recover fully with therapy. Any way you look at it this is an unqualified success.”
“He’s right, Cherie…” came to her ears on a private channel. “We can talk about it all later. For now we have the children to think of. You must be Chevalier Reine for them because that is your legend, the Queen Knight, in armor as black as death.”
“I can’t….” She almost wailed into their private channel.
“You must. You are a legend for these children and a monster to their captors. You chose this path cherie, and I chose to walk it with you. All of these men and women chose the same. You are the strongest of us and we all know what it costs you but these children have been fortunate enough to not have to see your true strength. Those few who follow a path of service will discover it in their own time and those who do not are perhaps better for not knowing. Give them their sauveteur noir.”
“A vegades, realment, em pateixen de por, ho saps?”
“Of course you hate me sometimes my love, it is a part of being married, no?” Yves chuckled and despite herself she grinned.
She had almost disregarded the noise of the jumpship’s landing but when she was swept aside by medtechs she allowed it, turning her attention to the remainder of the mission. Team after team was reporting in with stiff resistance but no casualties, but more importantly with none of the truly heavy weaponry they’d anticipated in evidence. Something was seriously wrong here… This had been too easy by far.
“Tina, gimme a Drunkard’s Walk search of these hollows. There’s something wrong here and I feel like I’ve missed something really important. Use every asset available, no conditions.”
“Already underway but thanks for the extra assets. You got that same little tickle in the back o your mind, eh?”
“Feels a bit more like being tased but yeah…”
“Got it Boss! You lot need to get the hell out ASAP! That whole frackin valley is rigged to blow and I’ve got an interrupter on the trigger! I can keep it locked for maybe 5 minutes but they’ve got one hell of a cracker on the other side!”
“Mel, tell me you’ve moved up the timetable?”
“Clear to your position, first busses almost ready to load. We’re abandoning anything but evac and personnel further out are waiting for their Bats. If we can manage 6 minutes we’re clear.”
“How long for just the kids?”
“First 3 busses loading now. At a guess, 4:30.” Mel’s voice was subdued, she knew the next order before Charlotte did.
“Get the kids out. End of story.” Charlotte started herding kids toward busses herself and did the math “Mel, we’re 20 short?”
“Its all we got boss.”
Charlotte switched her systems to loudspeaker “I need 20 of the fastest runners off the bus now!”
To her amazement no one came off the busses but she was surrounded within seconds by almost 30 kids. She turned her volume down to encompass only the group who had gathered. “There’s only so much room on the busses and we have to get out now. We’ve got a mile to go and we have to do it fast so I’ll set the pace. Jorge takes middle, Pete takes up the rear. Now lets go and remember to breathe in rhythm with your steps, it helps.”
Charlotte set off at a slow run and kids fell in behind her, beginning to crowd her heels a little as they organized into a line and the first of the overloaded busses passed on the lightly graveled dirt road. She stepped up the pace just a little until the crowding happened again then did it again, using the natural group chase instinct to ease them into running faster than they thought they could. She’d raised the volume on her suit so the kids could hear her deliberately paced breathing and the other two set their suits to echo, realizing she was using the aural cue to induce them to breathe properly without them realizing it. The last of the buses pulled off the road down the hollow just as the runners passed the abandoned church and a few seconds later had them moving down the lateral road as quickly as possible to get behind the shelter of a small hill.
Charlotte had almost reached and had just swung the others into cover when she heard a whisper in her comms. “I’m sorry, I lost it Charlie…” and the ground reached up to smack her down then threw her in the air before rising to meet her again.
The Masque of NeverMore, Chapter 4
Charlotte had almost reached and had just swung the others into cover when she heard a whisper in her comms. “I’m sorry, I lost it Charlie…” and the ground reached up to smack her down then threw her in the air before rising to meet her again.
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Charlotte tumbled a few times before coming to rest as she’d tucked herself into a ball after the first encounter with the ground to allow her armor to best absorb impacts and minimize the chance of something being in the wrong position when blunt force caused it to go rigid. It seemed like an eternity, flying through the air as the shockwave picked her back up and threw her to hit the top of the hill that sheltered the children only to glance off like a stone skipped by some careless giant.
It took a moment to realize she’d actually made it through intact and was looking at a road from an oddly canted angle mostly inverted in the ditch. When she was able to get her bearings she untucked and launched herself to her feet in the middle of the road in a twisting flip, coming down running back toward the hill sheltering the children. They appeared to have been tossed around by the ground-shock but the blast wave had been deflected over them and upward. Some were already getting up and beginning to check others with surprising presence of mind for children their apparent ages. Pete and Jorge were assisting and appeared to have the situation well in hand so she veered in the direction of the busses, one of which was on its side.
“Mel, sitrep?!?” Charlotte was still over a hundred meters away from the bus when the emergency exits built into the top popped open and a child popped out of both, apparently unhurt. They quickly assisted another out and another and by the time she reached them the bus was already half empty.
“Well you can forget the idea of putting that hollow back together but everyone that should be alive is. Some injuries and one seriously awesome midair bat-catch. Lots and lots of friendlies inbound, expect an ambulance in a bit under 30 seconds, fire truck right behind but I think mostly we’re just gonna need some minor first aid and transport for the kids.” Mel sounded as amazed as Charlotte felt.
“How about cover?” Once more Charlotte found herself standing without any real way to help as others had stepped in, effectively pushing her back. She allowed it, knowing her team was more than competent.
“The machines are running full out and its kinda curling back over the edges and flowing down the hollow. I know whats going on and I’m spooked, anyone with even the slightest whiff of superstition is gonna be shittin themselves. Looks like full cover will be restored within 2 minutes and anywhere we are there’s already fog.”
“OK, we can’t restore it the way we thought but you got a pretty good view of the damage so you tell me… could we make it look like no one has ever been there? No road, nothing?”
Charlotte had several feeds running on her HUD and noticed an orange marker on one of the children’s icons. She dug a little deeper and noted the child in question had some breathing difficulty and was already being given an inhaler, the orange shading fading toward white as she watched. Flipping through the others she noted only minor scrapes and bruises, a few sprains and one broken arm which was already in an immobilization brace. That was one of her runners and she watched the stoic set of the kid’s face, knowing just what sort of experience allowed a person to be that calm and not show the pain they had to be in.
“Not if you want a full old-growth ecosystem that would sustain any scrutiny or even be viable.” The voice was Lilly’s. “That whole area is completely blown to hell… half of it looks like its been freshly ploughed. It’d be easier to just turn it into a park and let it run wild. I can guarantee no one will want to live or farm there for a long time. You might be able to use that though…”
“You think its bad enough we could play dead?”
“The only thing the overheads really got was you skipping off the top of that hill into the fog. There’s some vehicle traffic that just can’t be covered in and out of the ops area so I don’t think so, not completely anyway. The way things have gone I’d be inclined to think they will assume they missed at least a few of you. I would anyway…”
Charlotte took her friend’s thoughts onboard, her mind racing to find the next step toward an idea just glimmering at the edges of her awareness. She noted the children being given reflective blankets that doubled as ponchos to keep the increasingly hard rain away with approval. A sudden influx of emergency vehicles and others, local citizens come to render what aid they could increasingly occupied the available roadway.
“Mel…”
“Yeah?”
“Lets turn off the fog and make the traffic so obvious they can’t miss it if they tried. Make it look like John’s Island except we want them to think we took heavy casualties, that they knocked us back but not down. We’re going to leave a few traces they’re bound to see but we can do our best to make it look like we’re hiding and running away. After that it’s a matter of vanishing for real.” Charlotte laid out the first steps, all she really had firmed up in her mind at that point.
Mel, Tina and Lilly dropped into a private conversation but Lilly was the first to speak.
“She has some kinda batshit crazy idea doesn’t she? It may have been a while but I know just how she sounds….”
“Oh you can bet on it.” Tina laughed. “I think we all know that tone.
“Be afraid… Be very very afraid… Bwahahahahaha!” Mel chimed in. “Seriously though, they’ve forced her to get devious and that’s… well if I weren’t on her side I’d be doing my best to run away and hide!”
“Well whatever she’s got going, lets do our bit. I’ll take care of the fog machines and get anyone not already headed here going. The more traffic the better!” Lilly clicked out of the channel and went to do her end while Mel and Tina continued overwatch.
“Knowing her there’s gonna be something disturbingly literary to whatever she’s planning…” Mel mused.
“Like what, Moby Dick? I just can’t see Charlie making a good Ahab…” Tina chuckled at the thought.
“Hell if I know. Something devious, deadly and completely unexpected, you can bet on that!”
It took several hours for them to gradually exfiltrate under cover while several made a point of leaving trails on foot in different directions. The sheer volume of kids had required that the County get involved although they managed to contain it within the county limits and work to get the children back to their families where possible. For some this was not possible, having no family left or having been taken too young to know enough to locate them. A few had even been sold into slavery by their parents which meant returning them was not an option.
The team spent another week in the mountains during which time the locals got together and remade the entire hollow into a park which would be allowed to run wild and become a nature preserve. The contours of the land had changed somewhat as much of the results of natural weathering and erosion had been wiped away by the explosions but they had created more wetland and bottom land using the creek which originated in springs throughout the little valley.
More than a few mature trees had been moved from other locations but even more half-grown trees and seedlings were planted as well. Obstacles had been deliberately built that would impede any human traffic and hopefully discourage even those who knew nothing of what had occurred there.
“Time for me to go Lil…” The two old friends embraced and Charlotte hugged Griff as well. “We’ll be out of contact for a few months. You know the dead-drops if you need to get in touch.”
“We’ll miss you…” Lilly wiped away a tear. “The kids seem to like it here so I’m sure we’ll be busy enough to keep occupied.”
“You’re an angel for taking all eight of them, both of you. I can’t thank you enough.” Charlotte wiped away a tear of her own. “They really need stability and safety and I can’t think of anyone or any place better.”
“”Griff and I want to adopt them…”
“If they agree then I say go for it. They have a better chance of a happy childhood here, with this community, with you two. You already have an idea how rough some of it is going to be…”
“You know it doesn’t matter. They need, we can help. How could we do anything else?” Griff cut to the heart of the matter. “You pay attention to whatever nastiness you have planned and don’t worry about the kids. We’ll make sure they know they can get a message to you anytime they need.”
“Nastiness? You wound me, sir!” Charlotte clutched her chest as though stabbed through the heart and acted it out. “Oh… cut to the quick, I am!”
The entire room burst out laughing at Charlotte’s antics. “Yeah… um, that acting thing… keep your day job…” Lilly slid the comment into a momentary silence and set off another round of laughter. Once it had subsided she continued. “All kidding aside… I won’t ask you to play it safe, it’d be like asking a pig to stay outta the mud. Just come back to us, ok?”
“Not something I can promise, you know that. We’ll do our best.” Another round of tearful hugs later they departed.
*********************************************************************************************************************************************************
Charlotte and Yves sat out on the broad verandah of the ranch house watching the light fade as the sun gradually lowered itself into the western sky as though tired from the long day. Freshly cut hay lay on the ground drying, lending its sweet smell to the air as they sipped at drinks, laughter spilling out of the main room of the house in occasional bursts.
“I got a drop from Lil today.”
“How are the kids doing?” Yves tightened his arm around her and set the swing back into motion with a heel.
“Better than we could have hoped. The adoptions are all finalized and she says having parents again has done the kids a world of good. The others have all been adopted into the community and are integrating pretty well with the locals. As horrible as our reasons for going there were I’m glad we did…”
“I’m glad because of the kids and just for you Cherie. You worried they would judge you for how long?”
“Since the night we had to leave and I told Griff about myself. Maybe even before that. When there is so much hatred thrown your way its hard not to internalize it, begin hating yourself…” Charlotte sighed and leaned into Yves’ embrace “and once you’ve learned to hate yourself its very hard to imagine that someone else might feel differently about you.”
“Is it still that difficult, to think that people would love you, welcome you into their homes and hearts?” He moved his hand up to run a finger along her collarbone with a feather touch.
“I wish I could say no…” She grasped his hand and drew it a little further downward so his caress was on the sensitive spot just below the ridge of bone. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to get past that. Helping these kids… hunting down those monsters… it helps a little. And I guess there’s the flipside too… If I wasn’t so fucked up I might not be out here doing this and then who would help these kids?”
“Still you, most likely. Cherie, I think sometimes you hide your true motivations even from yourself. It is your nature to help, when and how you can, no matter what. Our friends in the mountains who knew you before… they said the same. I think you would be doing this or something very like it even without the horror you went through.”
“Maybe…” was all Charlotte could say. They sat there together for a few minutes enjoying the sunset and the gathering dusk.
“This op won’t run itself love. Lets go.” Charlotte slid off the swing and pulled Yves’ hand. He followed her into the main room where their team waited. Things had gotten quite boisterous in the room but within a few minutes they’d settled down and were all watching Charlotte pace in front of the giant fireplace.
“So I’m sure you all figured out I had some sort of devious plan going on…” she paused for the expected laughter ”and I’m not going to disappoint. For those of you who thought I’d do something with a literary bent, you’re right on target but maybe not quite the way you think…”
***********************************************************************************************************************************************************
It had taken another few months of carefully planned and executed hits, building a story in the minds of their opponents which told them there was a new threat, one that preyed on individuals. They were careful to make the hits look as brutal as possible to maximize the fear they would create although in reality the terrible things were done to corpses, not living people. It wore heavily on all of them, even knowing that they weren’t really torturing someone to death.
It was finally time. First they gathered in groups of 2 or more, thinking only singles would be eliminated but then those too were targeted. The groups had grown larger until they had finally gathered together on a single island far out in the pacific at a resort they used for the more casual slavers. Being the sort of group they were they each employed some method of masking their identity and there was to be a grand gathering, a party for the besieged.
It would of course be a costume ball given the circumstances and that too was exactly according to plan. Most of the team hid while Charlotte walked in amongst them, a tight red gown covering her from neck to floor and a hooded cape flowing back from her shoulders. Her face was covered by a prosthetic which blended in to completely alter her appearance, then a domino mask atop it along with a cascade of fiery red hair flowing over the cape.
Many of the assembled partiers thought she was going for “Little Red Riding Hood” and she let them think what they would, the anticipation building as the time for her plan to come to fruition grew near. She watched a masked figure come to the podium and tap against his glass with a fork, the high ringing seeming to almost physically stop any conversation and drag every eye in his direction.
“I heard your cries for help and as your leader, I have invited you here to share with me my refuge. I understand many of you have left homes and businesses behind to make this escape and I will ensure every possible comfort is provided for. You may put yourselves at ease for we have the ultimate security here… no one knows where we are. The ocean is our security fence, the reefs around the island its barbed wire and the sharks its guard dogs. Now, eat, drink and be merry!”
He turned away and the party resumed but as time passed it became clear that the revelry was strained, a living thing trembling at the end of a chain. There were several different areas with varying grotesqueries of “Entertainment” and differing styles of music and dress for each piped through a high quality sound system. Every hour that passed was marked by a bird, a raven which croaked a single word.
“Nevermore!”
The only ones who knew this wasn’t part of the entertainment thought it was a glitch in the system and ignored it but still, with each hour the raucous croaking would cause the revelry to grind to halt as each of them listened to that rasping word, never realizing it was 5 decibels louder each time and subsonics were added to set the nerves even more on edge.
The hour of midnight approached and even the hardier souls amongst those gathered were beginning to quail, evincing an almost physical dread of the next croaking, taunting word. When it came it was deafening, something that could be felt deep in their bones. This time a bell followed, again and yet a third time… and then faded into silence to begin the strains of a classical metal tune. The party atmosphere gradually revived until a certain point in the song when the lyrics suddenly screamed out “Take a look to the sky just before you die!” and they struck.
The remainder of the song competed with screams as Charlotte calmly walked up to their leader and with a blindingly fast backswipe of the blade which suddenly protruded from her wrist slit his throat. There was just enough time for him to realize what had happened before he fell but the bright fountain of blood from the gaping wound sprayed all around. Charlotte quickly pulled her hood up and closed the fasteners that turned her dress into armor before pulling her sword from beneath the cape and hewing a path through the throng of bodies to join her team as they extended a phalanx to engulf her and pull her back behind their lines.
Charlotte realized she was being forced away from the butchery and tried to find a way through the wall of her allies, finally giving in as Yves pulled her gently away. She finally allowed him to lead her to the side where she sat, panting raggedly from her exertions and watching blood drip down the gutters in her blade.
“You do not need those nightmares Cherie.” She opened her mouth to protest and he raised a finger. “We all agreed. You have had more than enough horror in your life and if we can take some of that burden from you it is our honor. Let us… let them… have this.”
“I…” Charlotte felt deflated, all the energy that had been thrumming through her nerves suddenly drained away “I thought it would feel different, somehow. Victory, relief… something. I couldn’t even manage to get angry and now I’m just numb.”
“Good. Stay numb and functional for a while, okay? We’ll be off this island within the hour. We staged an extra transport for the additional kids we’re taking out of here, both will be landing in 15. If you really need to do something go clean the blood off and help with the kids. We’re all in full armor and they need to see a human face.”
He handed her a mass of wadded up cloth from one of the tables and went to join the others at their gruesome work. Charlotte sat there for another moment before carefully wiping and sheathing her blade out of sight, pulling the hood and mask away from her face while leaving the skin-mask and the domino mask over it in place. The blood wiped from her costume fairly easily as it was made of material similar to their armor but lighter in weight and texture. She looked herself over and wiped her face clean of a stray bit of blood-spatter, then took a deep breath, centered herself and went to look for the kids.
Yves had been right, the kids were doing their best to put up a show of bravado but the featureless faces of the armor had them more than a little frightened, wondering what would become of them now. There were some older teens amongst them helping to keep the younger ones calm but finally seeing a human face made a palpable difference, even with the mask.
She strode over to them and touched the elbow of the girl who seemed to be minding a group of younger children. The girl turned, got a look at her face and visibly relaxed, a look of awe slowly spreading across her face. “You’re her, aren’t you? I knew you’d come to save us!”
Charlotte was taken aback and had to think quickly. “I’m not sure who you think I am…” she dissembled.
“To hear the Masters tell it you’re a demon straight from the deepest pits of hell but I don’t believe in such things. I just know you scare them shitless.” She grinned, a flash of white in her face. “There’s a story, about a girl who killed her master and came back for revenge but they also say she died. I think you’re her.”
“If I were this woman… would it matter?”
The girl had to pause for a moment, clearly taken aback by the question. After a second or two she replied “Yes… and no. Different context. You’re here to rescue us from slavery and so far that’s a big plus with who you actually are being secondary. For me personally, emotionally… and for the others too… it matters a great deal. Your story has been the hope that kept more than a few of us alive.”
“A bit sure of the answer to your own question aren’t you?” Charlotte was trying to hide her amusement. This girl was a sharp one indeed!
“Well the armor pretty much clinches it. Whatever that stuff is I know it isn’t on the market and I’ve only heard it described in connection with your raids. Its just as scary as they said too! Why aren’t you in armor?”
The girl’s words were almost tumbling out in a refined English accent and Charlotte couldn’t help but grin. “Who says I’m not?”
She pulled her hood up and let the full mask settle into place, then triggered the fasteners on her gown again and just for fun added a dramatic flourish with her cape. There were noises of amazement from the kids.
“Wow… I never would have guessed… That’s so awesome!” She sobered quickly and asked the next logical question. “I don’t get it though… why not just wear your armor?”
Charlotte struggled to give an answer that would make sense. “Well… you see I’m a big fan of Edgar Allen Poe and for other reasons he ties into this whole affair, having lived in the same place where this confrontation began. They were striking back at us and innocents were being hurt in the bargain, potentially quite a lot of them. This was a way to get them all together and make them think it was their idea… wipe the whole nest of vipers out. We hoped they would bring their slaves with them so we could rescue you all at once but we had plans in place if not. We would have found you but I’m glad it worked out this way…” Charlotte broke off.
“Whats your name, anyway? I’m Charlotte.”
“Emma Slade.” She gestured to the small group of kids that had formed around them. “That’s Mikey, Yasmine, Gabby, Abby, Abi, Mahmoud, Isaac, Rajzcik, Beth and Parninder but he goes by Singh.”
“Alright Emma. I’m going to count on you guy’s help here ok? We have transports incoming to take you to safety. If possible we’ll reunite you with your families but know if it isn’t possible or if you don’t want to go back into an environment that may be unsafe for you… there are options. There’s a whole world full of people who think what was done to you is beyond horrible, not just me, us…”
“I know Miss Charlotte. We all know... we just had no way to escape, to ask for help…”
“Just Charlotte please. Charlie is even better.” Charlotte swept hood and mask back and released the fasteners, allowing her gown to resume its shape. “And I understand being unable to escape. It took me years and it only happened by sheer chance. If it hadn’t happened the way it did I wouldn’t be alive now.”
“I wished so many times I could kill my master the way they say you did… or any way really. I just wanted the bastard dead!” Emma reigned in her outburst and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.
“Its better you don’t have that nightmare. For years I saw it every time I closed my eyes…” Charlotte took a deep and slightly ragged breath of her own, fighting down the rising emotional tide. “Just know it is done. None of them leave this place.”
“Good!” one of the younger boys interjected. “I hate that bastard and I’m glad he’s dead!”
There were noises of agreement all around.
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************
“I’m going to miss having kids around the house…” Yves was indulging in a bit of melancholy while Charlotte lifted smoothly from the driveway of the old mansion, eschewing her normal sharp maneuvering in favor of a sedate departure.
“I’m glad Emma’s parents accept her, I just wish it was true for all the kids.”
“We’ve at least made sure they have a safe and loving environment moving forward. You saw the looks on their faces… Those kids are actually happy!”
Charlotte debated timing for a moment, then just blurted it out. “My exam last Tuesday… Annie says I’m ready!”
Yves didn’t quite understand for a few seconds, then a look of excitement crossed his face and decided to stay. “You mean?”
Unnoticed by Yves, she’d begun descending again and they were approaching the driveway of a considerably smaller cottage. “Well there is the little matter of needing some assistance… in the beginning phases, just to get things started you understand…” Charlotte was teasing him and it was clearly working.
“Cherie, I want nothing more than to get started on that right now!” He looked outside and noticed their descent just as Charlotte flared and came to a hover above the parking pad, letting the craft drop the remaining few inches to the concrete as she cut power. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Well you did say you wanted to get started and I happened to have a house nearby…” Charlotte unbuckled her safety harness and reached over to give him a quick kiss before climbing out and skipping excitedly through the rose-covered arch, following a winding path toward the equally picturesque door set in what looked like a wall of roses and climbing vines where the occasional window and a flash of whitewashed building could be seen.
Yves wasted no time in following. “How many houses do you have, anyway?”
“I think you mean ‘How many houses do we have’… and I’m not quite sure. It varies a bit with the market, some of them come and go. This is one of the ones I keep for personal use when I’m in England, there’s one being retrofitted still up in Scotland, a couple in Ireland… I wound up inheriting all the properties my former ‘husband’ owned once the courts declared it was self defense.” Charlotte flipped a hidden cover open and punched in a combination on the newly revealed keypad. There were two quiet beeps, then she stood and put her eye to the outside of the peephole in the door. There was a muffled sound of multiple bolts drawing out of position, then she twisted the ornamental knob set in the middle of the arched door and pushed it open.
Yves followed her inside and watched while she entered another set of codes, waiting for the acknowledging beep-code before closing the door behind them. Charlotte took his hand and led him through a short hallway into a spacious bedroom with one wall completely transparent, sunlight streaming through to bathe the room in its mellow glow.
Charlotte kissed Yves deeply and they made quick work of removing each other’s clothes. Their lovemaking was frantic at first, more relaxed on the second time around and positively mellow by the third round. By then they’d both decided cooking was out of the question so they ordered out and the drone arrived just as they’d finished their exertions.
“Perfect timing…” Charlotte mumbled, her head lying on his chest as they caught their breath. “I could eat a horse.”
“You know if you wanted horse we’d have had to go out. I think under the circumstances goat is an acceptable substitute.” He caressed the tip of her ear with a finger.
“Funny. Oh I almost forgot to mention… There’s a lovely little place right on the Catalan coastline and the refit was finished a few months ago.”
“You’re sure? I wouldn’t push it you know.”
Charlotte propped her chin on his chest and looked up into his eyes. “They are your parents Yves, and they will be our children’s grandparents. There is quite a lot they have no need to know but I will not hide from them. Now lets go eat!”
Charlotte matched action to words, pulling an odd backward kip and landing on her feet while Yves rubbed the spot on his chest where she’d dug in for leverage with her chin. She danced out of the room and was already setting the containers out on the table by the time Yves made his way in, having stopped in the bathroom on the way.
“M if shogoof” Yves mumbled around a bite of what had turned out to be a truly exceptional curry.
“I will never understand how you can even breathe with a mouthful like that, much less talk! It is pretty awesome though. Who would have thought the best curry in the Cotswalds is made by a guy from Czechia?” Charlotte took a moment to chew and swallow.
“The look on his face when he saw his son… That was truly beautiful. I wish his wife had survived though. Its terrible to have so much heartbreak in the middle of joy.” Yves had managed to swallow and paused for a sip of the truly excellent wine that had been included with their dinner. “Still, I think they will be ok. Rajczik and the other kids have formed a pretty tightly knit support network and with all the parents and foster/adoptive parents involved its even stronger. Did you happen to notice he and Abi’s mom seemed to have hit it off?”
“I did! It would do my heart well to see them get together. At least something good will have come from all this horror…” Charlotte finished her dish and leaned back with a sigh of repletion, taking another sip of wine.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“What?”
“You always act like you’ve done nothing, run yourself down. You’ve rescued hundreds of people, reunited families and helped forge new ones and in the process you’ve removed some truly bad people from this world.” He held up a finger as she tried to protest. “You’re going to say we did it. That’s bullshit and you know it, cherie.”
Yves watched her struggle with that. “Yes, we... Your team… helped but none of this could have happened without you. None of these people would know each other without you, or have created the sorts of action plans you do. None of us can match you in the field, in ops, in cyber…” Charlotte shifted uncomfortably at the praise she could not bring herself to accept.
“This… the never accepting credit but always taking blame. I wish I could make you see how truly extraordinary you are.”
“So what are we going to tell your parents?” Charlotte tried to deflect.
“You can tell them whatever you like. I am going to tell them everything if its ok with you.” Yves didn’t push, waiting for her to reply.
She had to take moment to digest the import of his statement. Finally she nodded. “OK, everything. You’re sure its safe?”
Yves chuckled. “My parents have held high level clearance since before I was born. I’m pretty sure mom is going to pick your brain about secure installations once she figures out you’re the one behind that game. They’re both obsessed with it but her specialty is secured facility design so…” he shrugged. “Dad is likely to bother you about the cyber end of things and my little sister will go nuts over your armor. Aside from overdosing on hero worship you have nothing to worry about.”
“You don’t think my past will be an issue?”
“It was never an issue Cherie. If anything they will think more of you for it.”
“I wish I could be so confident about it…” Charlotte fretted.
“Lets go now.” Yves got up and pulled Charlotte to her feet beside him.
“Like, right now?” Charlotte smiled at him.
“Yep!”
“Mind if we get dressed first?” She reached down a lightly thumped the head of his penis, causing him and it to jump a little. “I mean if you really wanna let it all hang out ok…”
Yves chuckled and drew her in for a kiss. “Oh yeah… I should have mentioned their place is ‘clothing optional’, always has been. You might make them a little jealous though.”
“I am so not up to meeting my husband’s parents in the buff! Go get a shower and get dressed, we leave in an hour.” Charlotte disappeared into one the palatial bathrooms and shut the door behind her while Yves just shook his head and went for the other shower.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************
Slightly more than an hour later they lifted off and were soon over the English Channel and in another hour they were landing at the coordinates Yves had provided.
“You never mentioned your parents were quite so well off…” Charlotte looked around at the ancient fortress that surrounded them.
“Well its not the sort of thing you go around telling people and I just didn’t think about it…” He shrugged and unbuckled his harness. “Besides, I’m fairly sure you actually have a bit more than they do. Mom inherited this old pile and has done more than a little bit of updating over the years to make it comfortable and secure. Her hobby, basically.”
“Hey your sister looks really good for having had a baby 3 months ago.” Charlotte was unbuckled and preparing to exit.
Yves followed her gaze and chuckled. “That’s my mom.”
“Oh… She looks an awful lot like that supermodel… Bianca something or other…” They’d both exited the car and were walking toward the waiting figure.
“I think the name you’re looking for is Montgolfier, dear. I look like her because I am her and you” the stunning woman looked her up and down “have to be Charlotte. I knew you were something special to have captured my little boy’s eye and you certainly are. From what I hear your brain is even hotter than the rest of you!”
Yves blushed for her. “I think you’re going to make my husband spontaneously combust. I’ve never seen the tips of his ears go quite that interesting shade of… What would you call that anyway?”
“Approaching vermillion, I think. Perhaps we should let the dear boy escape?” Bianca turned to Yves.
“Give your mother a kiss and go say hello to your sister. She should be just about done feeding.” Bianca gathered her son in for a tight hug. “We’ve missed you. Don’t stay away so long next time.”
“I won’t mom.” He kissed both cheeks and she returned the greeting. “I think I’m gonna say hi to dad first. I might need to work up to seeing my sister breastfeed…” He wandered across the courtyard.
“That by itself was worth the trip Mrs Montgolfier.” Charlotte chuckled.
“Just Bee, please. You’re family and I won’t have bullshit formality in my home.” She laughed.
“Then I’m just Charlie. I will admit to being more than a little nervous. I didn’t quite know what to expect and then I actually see you and… oh wow, that’s where he got those eyes…” Charlotte trailed off uncertainly, feeling a little foolish.
Bianca laughed, a silvery tinkle in the afternoon sunlight. “Well there’s no mistaking a woman in love there! Fortunately he only got about half of his great-grandfather’s nose. Now a little birdie tells me you and I share an interest. I don’t know if you’re a gamer or not but there’s a game called ‘Swamp Siege’ you might find interesting. Its this MMO game where you attempt to breach the defenses of a secure installation. Its fiendishly difficult and every time someone finds a weakness it gets fixed so nothing ever works twice…” She trailed off, looking at Charlotte’s grin.
“It yours, isn’t it?”
Charlotte couldn’t help herself and giggled. “It was a design tool. The game part just sort of evolved. We figured what better way to design a secure structure than to put it out there for anyone to attempt to breach it, right? Talk about a learning curve! People are downright inventive!”
“And have you built anything from those designs? Somehow I get the idea it wasn’t just an intellectual exercise.”
“I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours!” They both laughed.
“It’s a deal. For now though, I think its time we go and introduce you to your new sister and your niece before we go dig our men out of whatever rabbit hole they’ve fallen into” She reached out and fingered Charlotte’s top. “What is that material? I’ve never encountered anything quite like it.”
“I should hope not! It’s not actually a fabric in any sort of traditional sense. It’s a sandwich of passive ballistic armor and a piezoelectric crystalline superfluid that provides protection against up to medium- grade milspec firearms, sharp instruments and blunt force. It also provides temperature control in a wide range of environments, is air and watertight but wicks away moisture so it isn’t stuffy. Oh and it provides power.” Charlotte laughed ruefully. “It’s a byproduct of an attempt to build a better space suit. This version wasn’t up to taking impact at orbital speeds but it turns out to be just the ticket for a mixed terrestrial use. For now its completely proprietary and I’d be a bit upset if anyone outside of a very select group had ever heard of it.”
“Ok, now I’m the one feeling intimidated. I can’t get over how it feels and hangs… its like plush silk and I’d never have guessed it was armor!” She began to walk across the courtyard, drawing Charlotte along behind her. “Lissa’s going to go nuts over that stuff. What do you call it anyway?”
“Um… I mean it has an alphanumeric series designation but we haven’t named it or…” She shrugged, bringing a laugh from the older woman.
“Not to worry, Lissa will dream up something catchy. Now tell me, how did you happen to meet my Yves?” She stopped and turned to look at Charlotte who’d suddenly frozen. “What on earth is the matter, dear? You look terrified!”
Charlotte’s mind raced but not toward anything, just in aimless circles. She finally managed to move and words came to her, for the moment anyway. “It’s a… well, there’s a lot to the story and we agreed we should tell everyone at once.”
“Mystery Girl, eh? Whatever you’re worried about I’m sure it’ll be fine and its not our opinion that matters anyway, is it?” Bianca deftly captured her arm and started her walking again.
“It matters to me.” Charlotte changed the subject, still more than a little uncomfortable and fearful of putting a foot wrong. “So who taught Yves to cook? He’s a true food artist.”
“Ah, that would be Giselle, an old friend of mine. She retired from modeling to begin a family and found another love in cuisine. Her restaurant has 2 Michelin stars. It should have been 3 but there was a mishap in the kitchen and the critic claimed the lights of the ambulance ruined the ambience… pompous jackass. And you? Do you cook?”
“Not exactly, not in his class anyway. I can follow a recipe reasonably well and maybe even tweak it a little but that’s about it. He can take a few totally random things that shouldn’t go together and turn them into a foodgasm. You’ve never eaten at his restaurant?”
“Restaurant? I thought he was doing some sort of intelligence work?”
“I suppose you could call it that. We work together on a few things. You really didn’t know he had a restaurant?”
“I’m not surprised, I just thought it’d happen once he got tired of fieldwork. He’s always been one to devote himself completely to one thing at a time and master it.” Bianca pursed her lips in a thoughtful moue.
“Oh he still does… he just switches focus quickly. He can be quite versatile when the need arises.” Charlotte blushed a little, her unfortunate choice of words coinciding with a twinge from below and reminding her of their amorous exertions earlier that day.
She followed Bianca into a spacious room which was clearly a workshop with the exception of one corner that was set up as a nursery. “Lissa, meet your new sister Charlotte.”
The woman straightened up from fussing with her baby and pushed a few strands of silky black hair behind her ear. “So you’re the one that finally tamed my brother?”
“What, thats a thing? Have you met your brother?” Charlotte put on an incredulous look and drew a smirk and a snort from Elissa.
“I think she’ll survive, mom.”
“I think you’re worrying in the wrong direction dear. I get the impression our boy is doing well to keep up with her and even that might be a bit charitable. That top she’s wearing? Rated for medium milspec firearms and a bunch of other stuff and she says it was a spinoff of the space suit she was really working on! Swap Siege? Hers. I’m sure there’s more…”
“Ok… that’s a bit much. Both things were team efforts with some truly spectacular minds and Yves is a leader in that. All I really do is look at things a bit sideways and support the people who really do the work…” Charlotte broke off as Elissa fingered her top.
“Oooh thats exquisite! I’ve never felt anything quite like it… and this is armor? It hangs so well and feels so light! What kind of fabric is this?” She’d gone from feeling the material to examining it closely.
“Technically speaking it isn’t. It’s a sandwich of long-chain carbon lattice which acts as a passive armor and is air and water tight. Between is a piezoelectric crystalline superfluid which provides the bulk of the armor’s impact resistance capability and power for the interior layer which in turn enables wide-range climate control. Yves mentioned you were into armor and the like…” Charlotte suddenly found herself unable to think about armor as her arms were filled with a sleepy infant.
This was a new experience for Charlotte and she barely noticed anything else for a moment, held captive by the young life in her arms. “iana” was all she managed to catch. She managed to pry her attention away for a moment.
“I’m sorry, I completely missed that. You were saying?”
“Her name is Juliana. You do have it bad, don’t you?” Elissa looked amused. “You don’t feel pregnant to me so that means trying, yes?”
“Um, yeah…” Charlotte floundered.
“Good! This one is going to need a cousin. Maybe next time we plan things better so they are closer age-mates, eh?” Bianca beamed at her.
“Mom, you can’t go scheduling other people’s pregnancies for them! What if they only want the one child? What if we only have one? Ooooh what is that?” They’d walked back into the courtyard, Charlotte being careful to cradle Juliana protectively in her arms.
“A car. Well, our car.”
“That much I get but I don’t recognize the make. It looks fast.”
“It’s a custom job and its faster than strictly necessary but I’m a bit of a speed freak. The form factor limits things a bit so top speed is limited to mach 1.75 at 20 kilometers over land. Faster than that there’s just no way to cancel enough of the shock wave to avoid a sonic boom and mostly we have to stay subsonic anyway because of antiquated laws. I’m afraid it doesn’t look very much like a family sedan although I assure you it is.” The subject of the conversation gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight.
“My wife is a mad gearhead. You must be Charlotte” The slender young man who appeared deftly extracted Juliana from her arms and gazed raptly at her for a moment. “and I’m Francois Crane, proud daddy to this little bundle of awesomeness. You know she’s going bother you till you tell her who built it, right?”
“Isn’t she a little young for that yet?” Charlotte smirked.
Francois chuckled and cooed to his daughter “Your auntie has a terrible sense of humor little one. We’re just going to have to vaccinate you with puns!”
“One of our group is waaay more of a speed freak than me and this is her idea of ‘sedate’. I actually asked for something with at least the interior volume of a large SUV that had sufficient range for transoceanic flights. I guess I could have been a little more specific…” Charlotte noticed the other three staring at her and trailed off. “What?”
“So your friend just built you something that can outrun half the fighter jets out there and be quiet doing it as a family sedan?” Francois was incredulous.
“Well not me exactly, more us. It was a wedding gift from Mel and Tina, not something I would have thought to commission. The area where we live is salt marshes and its far more convenient to use watercraft for most things, roadable cars otherwise. I’m afraid it mostly sits in a garage.” Charlotte shrugged as though apologizing.
“Must be some garage! You know we’re going to have to come visit, yes?
“Consider my home to be yours as well. You are welcome anytime although you may wish to call before arriving, just in case there’s something going on that requires a change of venue.” Charlotte shrugged. “No worries if so, I’m sure one of the houses will meet with your approval although I’m afraid we’re a bit short on the medieval castle front…”
“It is a bit pretentious, isn’t it? I’m afraid I inherited it and its one of those things that cannot be sold or even bequeathed outside the direct lineage of my family. Fortunately it had been fairly well modernized in most of the interior spaces before that sort of thing was legally frowned upon and I’ve been able to get away with a few defensive improvements. It makes a nice secure space for children to run and play and everyone has all the room they might need.” Bianca gestured to one side of the courtyard. “There are apartments ready but unused at the moment, feel free to pick any that strike your fancy and call it another home.”
“Thank you for your generosity. I look forward to the possibility of happy times here.” Charlotte tried not to let her uncertainty, her fear of rejection color her response and winced inwardly, certain she’d failed.
Her assumption was immediately verified when Bianca looked at her sharply. “Only the possibility?”
“How would you like some samples of the armor material Lissa?’ Charlotte was desperate to change the subject.
“I would love some… and some information on working with it because I have some design ideas already… but you’re not going to get away with changing the subject so spill.” Elissa demanded. “What has you so concerned that you think we might reject you?”
“Yves and I agreed we would tell you everything together and we will.” Charlotte tried to remove the sudden fear that filled her from her voice.
They’d reached a massive door which opened silently as they approached and walked into a grand entrance, proceeding directly through to a smaller door off to the left side of the entryway as the massive doors silently closed themselves behind them. After a short walk through a maze of corridors they entered another spacious room where Yves sat talking with an older man who bore a strong resemblance to him.
Yves rose and hugged his sister, exchanging air-kisses and doing that odd male handshake/half-hug with Francois. “Dad, this is Charlotte. Charlotte, my father Henri.”
The older man rose and took Charlotte’s hands, exchanging the two-cheeked air kiss which seemed to be local custom and drew her into a hug. He then grasped her shoulders and held her at arm’s length, looking into her eyes. “Such a lovely new daughter I see before me… and yet you seem so tightly controlled, as though you fear something. What is it child?”
Charlotte was frozen for a moment, riveted by eyes the grey of a stormy sea peering into her very soul.
“She would not tell us anything until we were all together. Well here we are Charlotte so please… tell us what… why…?” Bianca’s concern was clear in her voice.
Her eyes flicked over to Yves who gave an imperceptible nod of encouragement. “Well there’s rather a lot to tell, perhaps we should all get comfortable?”
Over the next 3 hours Charlotte told them everything, with the occasional input from Yves when she was deflecting credit to someone else or taking unwarranted blame for something she could not have prevented. Having seen their vehicle and clothing there was very little in the way of disbelief especially as they knew about the sort of work Yves had done for their government.
When she was finished there was a moment of silence amongst the gathered family. Bianca was the first to speak.
“You seemed so certain we would think badly of you and now you’ve told us everything… I don’t understand. I thought highly of you simply because Yves did at first but having heard the story of your life… you’re more like some kind of mythical hero! You’ve been through ten different kinds of hell and you come out the other side only to plunge back in and pull others out. I’m sure I speak for all of us here when I say that I admire you… and the things you’ve been through just make me want to smother you with love.” The others nodded in agreement.
Charlotte had to think for a few moments, struggling to understand. These people admired her? Had they not understood? “I’m sorry, maybe I missed a couple of things. You did catch that I’m transgender, yes? That I’m a murdering vigilante? That I’ve dragged your son not only into a relationship with me but into my work as well?”
Charlotte once again braced herself for rejection only to find gentle smiles and outstretched arms drawing her into a motherly hug. She was frozen for a moment, unsure how to respond. “Yes dear, we heard all of those things and every single part of it matters, just not the way you think. To me… to us… it all speaks to your essential goodness and strength of character not to mention willpower enough for an army!”
Charlotte finally began to allow herself to relax into Bianca’s embrace and was astonished to find herself crying, just quiet tears at first but working into gut wrenching sobs. “I’m sorry…” she finally managed to get out between hiccups. “I should not have thought so badly of you, to project my own fears onto you. It was uncalled for and I apologize.” She wiped her face, then blew her nose loudly on the offered tissue before retreating to a spot beside Yves on a sofa and taking shelter under his arm.
“Nonsense Charlotte.” It was Henri, his smooth measured tones helping to sooth her still ragged nerves. “Given the way things were in America when you were young, what happened to you later… all of it really… your fears were entirely rational. I want you to be very clear about this. You are our daughter always. Nothing can change that now and we are learning very quickly to love you, for how can we not?”
There were expressions of agreement all around the room. “One thing though… “ Elissa leaned forward. “You gave us the idea you were trying to become pregnant. I did not think this was possible?”
“Well I’m a bit of a guinea pig.” Charlotte smiled. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have the very best medical care and along the way I’ve made more than a few friends with researchers in various fields. I’m not sure if you follow the current state of printed organs and their longevity issues but a team I was working with decided to drop back a step technologically speaking and try growing with stem cells on a scaffold. It worked beautifully and it resolved the longevity issue but there was a catch… The organ had to be implanted in an immature state and grow to maturity as it would in the normal course of a child growing up.”
Seeing that everyone was tracking she continued. “Anyway, a few years ago they implanted me with uterus, ovaries, everything really. A week ago I got the okay from my doctor to become pregnant and she says there should be no issue carrying to term as everything looks good. I should even be able to deliver vaginally. I hope to be only the first of many women who were unable to bear children for a multitude of reasons to have her life changed, the gift of life itself given to them.”
“Oh and you have to keep this a secret for now, they won’t publish their results until after I’ve had at least one child. I do rather like the idea of timing things so our next kids have closer age-mates though, how about you Lissa?” An arched eyebrow was met with a wry chuckle.
“Well since you put it that way then yes, I think it’s a great idea!”
“Wait, don’t we get any say in this?” Francois spoke but Yves nodded his agreement.
“No!” All three women chorused and laughed.
“The more grandchildren the better! Timing I don’t care about so much.” Henri was jovial and everyone laughed with him. “Now, I’m beginning to feel a little hungry. I think perhaps we should take this ‘family car’ in our courtyard and go see what Giselle is serving, no?”
There was agreement all around and at a quick call from Francois a nanny showed up and took little Juliana into her care, not without some additional doting on her by all concerned. Shortly they were securing safety harnesses and Charlotte was performing her preflight check. Yves reported all secure and she started the turbine, letting it doppler up into inaudibility before engaging power couplings and feeding juice to the motors. Fan blades pitched to provide maximum thrust as the car lifted gently from the ground and a barely audible series of noises indicated the gear had retracted and locked, verified by her displays.
She eased the vehicle high enough to clear the walls and moved forward at a fairly sedate pace until they were almost a kilometer away and 10 above ground. With a quick check of her passengers, she tilted the nose up and went to 80% forward throttle. Over 3 g’s pressed them back into their seats and within 90 seconds they had passed mach 1 and 20 kilometers and were still accelerating. Charlotte began to ease back on the throttle until they leveled out at 30 kilometers and just over mach 1.6. Gravity returned to its normal downward orientation and Charlotte engaged autopilot before swiveling her seat around to face the others.
“Sorry about the rough ride, I prefer not to loiter at commercial traffic altitudes. I did try to be gentle about it but Firefly doesn’t do ‘gentle’ all that well.”
The expressions that greeted her were of delight and in Yves’ case a knowing smirk. “She’s actually not kidding. Don’t worry about it though, she’s the best natural pilot I’ve ever seen, in or on literally anything. She only pushes the envelope when she flies alone which everyone who knows her will tell you is a truly terrifying thing to watch. With passengers… basically you can have faith that if everything possible goes wrong all at once and a few impossible things as well she will still get you to ground safely and most likely unhurt. I’ve seen her land an old style airplane with one wing half missing and taxi the damn thing to a hangar.”
“So that was you landing that old 737 in Colombia? How did you manage to vanish? No one ever knew who the pilot was…” Henri’s interest was piqued.
“I didn’t have much of a choice. I had no desire to stick around and explain the 11 dead hijackers and was able to fade into the passengers since I was one after all. No one questioned me and I left the country an hour later on a rented G7. Bit of a clunker but it got me to Quito where I had a ride of my own stashed.”
“What she’s leaving out is the 37 kids we’d rescued who were on that plane with her and who all found loving homes because of her.” Charlotte blushed at Yves’ words.
“I just did what had to be done, nothing special. Anyone else would have done the same.”
“Son, I think this is one of those times when retreat is the best option.” Henri grinned.
“Voice of experience, eh dad?” Yves returned the grin.
“Your mother does not accept praise or compliments well. I do wish she would but it is also one of the many things I find beautiful about her. Your sister is very similar in that way and I think your wife perhaps even more so than either of them. You, though… I think you might be very nearly her equal in that way so perhaps it is a thing for you both to learn?”
“He’s right you know.” Lissa chimed in. “You’re just the same. You always give credit to someone else and take the blame that belongs to others by right. You think Luis and Guillaume didn’t talk about how you saved their asses and got demoted for it? You think no one noticed when your entire unit was decorated and you refused the honor?”
“Can we not have this conversation right now? I didn’t accept because I fucked up and got people who were in my care killed. That’s all there is to it.” Yves turned to look out at the cloudscape.
“No more talk of such things tonight, OK? Giselle has something special planned for us and I for one wish to enjoy it without rancor. She has even provided nonalcoholic beverage substitutes for two of our number which she informs me have met with high praise. Tonight, we will eat, drink and be merry for we have much to celebrate!” Bianca accepted the various expressions of agreement and nodded to herself.
“So how fast can this ‘Firefly’ of yours go, anyway?”