Chapter Eighteen

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We spent nearly a month in nervous waiting, even more on edge for being down a member. It surprised me that I cared at all. I hadn’t even noticed myself warming to them, the ragtag group that they were. More than anything else, there was comfort in solidarity. As different and as flawed as we all were, I knew that our justification for being involved was good. As the rest of the world raged against their new reality, at least the Shepards knew what it was like to be small yet powerful.

But four people was a tiny bubble in a much larger world. I truly enjoyed dinners with Osul, and late night discussions with Danielle and Lagred, but the feeling of dread never quite left. We knew the next attack would be bad. It was subtext beneath every word we said, punctuating the end of stories with the sentiment that there might not be other stories. And as much as I loved the people around me, that was a hard thought to shake.

I’d awoken to the rattle of my phone on the nightstand. The previous night had been spent alone with a bottle of Jameson that was sitting uncapped just next to the bed. I hadn’t actually had much to drink, so I wasn’t given the mercy of a hazy moment spent collecting myself. Just Lagred’s cold voice telling me to turn on the TV.

A newcaster’s head took up half the screen, tears already running down her face. As she raised a wrist to wipe them away, the station cut both the video and her audio. That left only the image of a decimated Chicago. They hadn’t come by sea like we’d expected. Like the military had prepared for. They’d come in by gate, with the research they’d stolen from the Featherlight building. Chicago’s heart, right up to Monroe Harbor, was a crumpled ruin. Plumes of dust and smoke from toppled skyscrapers were already clouding over the water. As the video panned west, craters came into view that pockmarked the entire city.

Lagred had said, “in the hallway. Five minutes.”

And then he hung up.

I was out of my room in three. Osul took the longest of all of us, but she had the most gear to put on. We shared little more than a nod as we made for the elevator and left the building, where a police escort was already waiting for us. They had their lights flashing and were blocking two lanes of traffic to help our start. As soon as we were loaded in an SUV, the driver began barreling in the direction of the gate hub.

“Is everyone comfortable with this?” Lagred asked, not just for our benefit.

“I… don’t know,” Osul said. She had a hand on the back of the seat in front of her, squeezing it as though the action could diffuse her tension.

“We have to be. Doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with the government or any of that shit. They’re killing citizens. If we let that slide, then we lose our right to fight for anything at all,” Danielle said.

I didn’t agree with her reasoning, but I wasn’t going to say anything. All that mattered was that we were going. My hands tingled, and I bounced one leg to vent energy. There was a pressure in my chest, like an urge to scream so strong that it had to be bitten back. Months of frustration had built to this, a chance for me to lash out at the scum who were trying to ruin everything.

The flashing lights of our escort weaved around us, but the streets were filling as we traveled. The giant screens normally reserved for ads were now telling people to stay where they were and keep calm. The fact that no one listened was just another show of self interest, a giant stamp on the criminal sentence we humans had earned for ourselves.

I growled my anger through gritted teeth.

“Marissa?” Osul asked.

“Yeah?”

“Are you alright?”

“Fine. Eager to get out there, in a way. If Jamal and Michelle are going to be back again, they’ll be in Chicago.”

“Why do you think that?” Lagred asked, twisting in his chair to look back at me.

“Because they’re not subtle. Regardless of their other motivations, there was no need for them to be as obvious as they are. They want the world to know that they’re around, and this battle is going to be perfect for that.”

Danielle grimaced. “Pray that the army or the EA takes them out. Pretending to be invincible can’t work for them forever.”

“We can’t be everywhere,” Lagred said. “We need to decide what role we’re going to play in this.”

“Shouldn’t that wait until we’ve seen the situation?” Danielle asked.

He grunted and went quiet. I watched street signs pass until I saw that we were getting out of the business districts. The repossessed mansion that served as the gate hub wasn’t far from lower Manhattan. In fifteen minutes our escort had gotten us through the throng and pulled into the building’s driveway.

The garage door was open, and the yard was swarming with people. The streets were lined with nondescript black vehicles mixed with cop cars, with helicopters overhead in case anyone didn’t realize that we were doing something important. Inside the garage was a flurry of activity as mages stepped off the exit platforms and lined up for the queue to the next stop. Our driver got out of the car before we did, stepping on the curb to wait for us all to line up.

“Follow me. You’re being slipped into the system as unofficial contractors, but Director Harmond wants you more connected than everyone else,” the man said, already turning away.

“Better than who? Other paramilitaries?” Lagred asked.

“Or contractors. Or vigilantes, even. We’re not turning anyone down.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. It was one thing to put a couple powerful people in places where they might be able to do some good. It was another to try and coordinate hundreds, if not thousand of civilian mages amongst all the military staff. Wars had never been fought like this before. I had absolutely no idea how they would manage it all.

After he’d led us to an area where gear was being organized, I took a moment to limber up while the man explained things.

“We’ve got communicators for all of you, which we’re handing out to everyone. But yours are on a solo channel, since Director Harmond has it in his head that you’re going to go off on your own.”

He gave us a suspicious look. Lagred shrugged. “That’s probably for the best.”

“I don’t think I have to say that you’ll be without help. We’re slowly encircling the city before moving in, but in this case holding the front is more important than speed.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because lion’s share of potential damage has already been done. They’ve already killed civilians, torn down buildings, and made their presence known. The outcome we’re trying to avoid is a push to pierce our lines, followed by a mass teleportation of more soldiers into our supply chain. Or, even worse, into our evacuation centers.”

He paused for questions, then continued when no one voiced any. “You might be able to call that the bright side of things. Unless we somehow lose the battle, the worst is over.”

Lagred folded his arms. “Then why commit at all? Why didn’t they just pop in, do their damage, and back out?”

The man, who had yet to identify himself, gave a look around. Seeing the bustle of activity with no one paying us particular attention, he dropped his voice low. “They don’t have an exfil. They came in on our exit platforms and destroyed the hub, probably hoping to disrupt our gate array. But they can’t, because we’ve got redundancies. In addition, and this is just me hazarding a guess, I think they want to show off. To go toe-to-toe with the United States on our own land looks intimidating, even if it wasn’t a fair fight to begin with.”

A fair fight. Describing the situation like that was more than irreverent, but I understood why he did it. I gave him a nod. Even as we stood there, more people flooded into the area. A full cordon had been formed around the property to keep out the growing crowd of curious neighbors. I saw cell phone cameras pointed my way and turned my head to hide from them.

“Can we get going?” Danielle asked.

The man spent a few seconds in thought, then said, “sure. Get an earpiece from the back of that van.” He pointed at it. “Then join the line for the gate. If you’re ready, that is.”

“I’m assuming there’s a rendezvous on the other end, too?” Lagred asked.

“Yes, and there’s approximately a mile and a half between our impromptu base and the forward encampments. Any other questions?”

“Hundreds, but I think most of them will get answered as soon as I step off the platform. Thank you for your time.”

“I’m the last person you need to be thanking. Hell, you don’t have a good reason to thank any of us. Good luck.” With that, he made for another group of men in suits. He was yelling to get their attention before he was halfway there, and they sprung into action as soon as he arrived.

After we’d gotten our earpieces, which were single-unit affairs that clearly weren’t cheap, we joined the line of people charging into the gate. Due to the number of arrivals, VIPs jumping in line, and seemingly slow exit times at the next stop, the line was easily a hundred feet long. It was coiled inside the garage to save space, giving the illusion that we weren’t going anywhere despite evidence to the contrary.

“Where are we meeting Eddie? Harmond said he’d bust him out,” I wondered aloud.

“Do these communicators work?” Lagred asked. He fumbled with his until he got it in his ear. After a few seconds of pressing buttons, he winced. “Damn that’s loud. Hold on.”

He played with it some more, then pulled it out to examine the thing. “Do you guys see a way to change the channel on it?”

I turned mine over in my hand. “Nope.”

“I only see a volume control,” Osul said, turning a dial.

“Then they probably won’t work till we arrive in Chicago.” Lagred raised his head to examine the line ahead of us. “Not long now.”

My chest burned with that bittersweet concoction familiar to people who serve those in need. There was sadness for their problems, but also a guilty kind of validation. The fact that you had the skills and resources to save them meant you were worth something. It meant that the time I’d spent training for combat hadn’t been wasted.

We approached the platform in single file. With Lagred in the lead, we took mere seconds to get the four of us through the platform. My first view was of a vista, a second floor room with large bay windows that overlooked a parking lot. Though the room was lined with soldiers and cops, through the gaps I could see the activity down below. Thousands of people stretched across the lot and out of view, filling streets and every visible window in the buildings across the way.

Six rows of ambulances were waiting with lights flashing, a few rolling out just as I arrived. Tents were being erected, and tanks that must have come in by terminus were moving down the lanes. The sky was alive with helicopters in their hundreds, the majority of them civilian. I saw men in orange vests and women in scrubs running around the field, carting wounded and moving debris.

More startling than all of that, however, was the skyline itself. We were far away from the city center, and the nearby buildings were low enough that I could see the devastation. Towering pillars of smoke that must have been hundreds of feet in diameter made charcoal clouds over Lake Michigan. Many of the city’s skyscrapers had already been toppled. I saw one with a fracture in its side from an O-bomb detonation, already listing in what was clearly its final moments.

“-Marissa, now,” Lagred said.

I knew I was blocking the way, but I wished that they would have given me at least a few seconds to adjust. The sheer number of people and amount of activity was overwhelming. I followed behind Lagred, Osul, and Danielle as staff directed us down a set of stairs. To his credit, Lagred only tried to go the wrong way once before we found our way out the lobby of the building. I turned around and craned my neck to see that we’d come out of an office, the kind of space startups rented on the cheap. As I finished my spin, I stumbled into someone behind me.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” I said, backing away. He grunted, examining me with squinted eyes. Seeing our earpieces satisfied him somehow, and he turned away to resume what he’d been doing. In that instant, there was pop, followed by a voice in my ear.

“Shepards?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Lagred said, nearly yelling to be heard over the roar of the collective.

“No need for that, the communicator has a directional microphone. I’ll be able to hear you no matter how deep you get into the fighting. The name’s Sierra Dagal, but use the first name for simplicity’s sake.”

“Awfully casual there, Sierra,” Lagred said.

“Casual, jaded, I suppose they’re interchangeable. I’ve been told that you five are some kind of ace-in-the-hole for us. Director Harmond must know something I don’t, because I’m not reading anything overly remarkable on my end,” she said.

I stepped out of the way of a procession of mechanics carrying bags of tools. It separated me from the other three, but with the communicators I wasn’t worried.

“You’re in charge of us specifically?” I asked.

“You said five,” Osul said at the same time. “Where is our last teammate?”

“I’m here, where are all of you?” Eddie’s voice came out clearly over the radio channel. So did Osul’s sigh of relief.

“In the middle of things, right by the gate exit. Eddie, you beat us here?” Lagred asked, incredulous.

“Well, being in jail meant the AERD knew where to find me. Apparently Harmond had my stuff looted from my room a few nights prior. I was actually in a squad car on the way to the gate station before the story hit the news.”

I tried to stand on my toes to look for him, but it was useless. Not only was I too short to see over people, the smattering of vehicles and tents being erected on the lot blocked most of the view.

“Eddie, do you see us?” Danielle asked.

A hand touched my shoulder, making me jump. As I spun and prepared to use my weapons, Eddie said, “I found Marissa. I’m assuming everyone else is nearby.”

I stared at him for a brief moment, marveling at how little he’d changed. He’d been threatened, battled with some of New York’s most powerful people, and then been thrown in jail. Yet he stood with a casual stance, one hand in a pocket with the other covering his earpiece to block out sound. He glanced at me, flashing a lopsided grin. I smiled in return, but all I could think about was getting out into the city. We were together again. To me, that meant an opportunity to do what was right. The smoke continued to crawl over Lake Michigan, like a snake, black as pitch, that glowered down at us all.

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