Chapter Nineteen

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Osul cut through the throng to reach Eddie, throwing her arms around him. His eyes went wide as he returned the gesture. She quickly let go, leaving me confused as to where the two of them stood. Danielle bumped fists with Eddie, and Lagred gave him a nod. Then Lagred put a hand to his ear and said, “alright, how do we get out of here?”

“The battle line is still four miles ahead of you,” Sierra said. “We’ve got transports moving paramilitaries closer to combat. The busses are running to designated points, but I’m trying to bump up your priority so you can get closer.”

To the north I could see the row of busses and the teeming mass of mages around them. They wore a smattering of multicolored clothing, with different groups sporting their own levels of practicality. Some were in gold, orange, and other neon colors, pretending to be superheroes or something of the like. Those ones were either the most eager to join the battle, or the least. Groups like the Shepards, with subdued outfits that belied their capability, made up most of the middle. But try as I might I couldn’t spot the smaller transport chain she was talking about. Too many military vehicles were moving this way and that, too dense to be readable.

“So are these radios on all the time?” Danielle asked.

“Yes. But nothing’s being recorded, and I used to be a soldier, so don’t worry about watching your mouth,” Sierra replied.

“Who the hell is this girl?” Eddie asked.

“This ‘girl’ is in her forties and can hear you even when you try to cover the earpiece. Your ride is ready, are you?”

“Where are we headed?” Lagred asked.

“The south end of the field, parked on the lawn of the building next door. There’s a man standing by the driver’s side waiting for you.”

We meandered towards the south end, held up periodically by workers and soldiers. Men and women in orange vests had clotted up a significant chunk of territory in an argument with military personnel, and we were forced to navigate around them. Our driver was standing next to a truck painted in army camouflage. The thing looked almost like a civilian SUV, but was bulky as though it had been reinforced under the siding. The driver’s head hung, his fatigues seeming too heavy for him to wear.

“Are you waiting for the Shepards?” Lagred asked the man.

He raised his head, revealing dark circles under his eyes. I immediately wondered if he’d been up all night somehow preparing for this attack. But that didn’t make sense. The response was too slow for that. I closed my eyes and banished the notion, coming to the conclusion that he was probably just a third-shift employee.

“Yeah. Going to drop you off at point B-six, once you all pile in,” he said, his accent midwestern.

“Where is that?” Danielle asked. She was interrupted by the din of a massive explosion in the direction of the city. I jumped, but none of the nearby staff gave it any attention. The driver went on.

“The junction of West Grand avenue and North Homan avenue. By the underpass. We’re trying to make a push to Union Park before nightfall.”

“I’ve never been here before,” I said. “And I don’t know where West Grand avenue is, or Homan for that matter. Can you paint me a better picture?”

He blinked three times before responding. “Sure. I’m putting you about five miles west and a mile north of downtown. Command wants you helping us push back towards Lake Michigan.”

We spent a few more seconds waiting for him to tell us more, until he climbed into the car and started the engine. The frame rattled as the vehicle rumbled to life, growling as if eager to be in motion. The five of us clambered into the back compartment and found our seats. The soldier, whose name I hadn’t looked for, drove off the curb and set us off going east.

“So Eddie, are you out for good?” Danielle asked.

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me much, and all I ever got out of Harmond was vague promises about being released for this. God I hope so. Sitting in jail was all the fun of staring at a gray wall for hours, with the added bonus of getting watched while you pee.”

“Some people like that kind of thing,” Danielle said.

“Do you think if I talked to Harmond he’d let one of those people take over for me?”

“Who knows, Eddie,” I said, “maybe it’ll grow on you.”

“I think that would be a worse outcome than hating it.”

Osul, eyeing Eddie from out of his view, continued to smile.

“So how are we dividing tasks? Actually, what exactly are we even hoping to accomplish? Sierra?” Eddie asked.

“The defense of American soil. But I’ve been told you have special interest in Michelle Walker and Jamal Rogers. Neither has shown up yet, but everyone’s expecting them to intervene.”

“Sure,” Lagred said. “And what are we up against? What kind of weapons are the EA using?”

“The army you’re facing is multinational, and they’ve all got different specialties. You’re familiar with the French shields, fireballs, cutting beams, and force waves, correct?”

Lagred grunted in affirmation.

“Portuguese mages are using a setup they call the compression laser array. It’s a handheld device that shoots fifteen-hundred beams in a conical pattern. They bypass physical shielding by displacing matter rather than projecting force, which is fatal to soft bodies like us but not overly destructive. When disarmed, they resort to propulsion from their boots and a small knife that’s magically imbued and hooked up to an MCV. Are your shields on an automatic circuit?”

“No ma’am,” Lagred said.

“Then don’t let them get close to you. Next on my list is Italy, who bought the CLA from the Portuguese and also use a system similar to the one used by the AERD, which consists of a runic attachment on a standard issue assault rifle.”

“Hold on,” Danielle said. “How many nations do we have to cover?”

“In total? Four.”

“Alright. Cuz I’m a level beyond stressed, and most of what you’re saying is going in one ear and out the other. But I can handle four.”

Another massive detonation sent a plume of fire up into the sky. This one was outside of downtown, likely on the battle line. Two more followed immediately after, creating a wall of red and hurling debris thousands of feet into the air. Civilians who were still trying to leave the city screamed, jamming into doorways as they tried to get into cover. A few seconds later there were clinks on the roof as small pieces of rubble landed on the SUV.

“You OK to keep going?” Lagred asked, his hand on the corner of the driver’s seat back.

“Mister, this shit’s been going on all day.”

Sierra cut in again. “In addition to the four nations, there are dozens of smaller contractors similar to your group that are participating. We’re familiar with roughly half of them.”

“Jesus. There are contractors on the EA’s side?” Danielle sounded exasperated.

“What choice do they have? No one knows what the penalties are for losing this war.”

“But there are noncombatants in Europe, right?” Lagred asked, voicing an unknown suspicion.

“Of course.” Sierra paused. “Are you seriously asking that?”

“No, I guess not,” he replied.

“The point is that I’m not going to remember every little detail. Tell me about the surprises, Sierra. Those giant explosions. O-bombs?” Danielle asked.

“Yes, a projectile form.”

“Fuck!” Lagred snapped.

“Same pop and flash as the original?” Eddie asked.

The SUV rocked as we rolled over a fallen drainpipe. Citizens eyed us with accusatory looks on the sidewalk. Our route, which in theory shouldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes, was constantly changing due to damaged streets or blockades of abandoned cars. The entire disaster had only gone for four hours so far, meaning there were probably still tens of thousands of people in the city. And many of them were likely hiding, thinking they were safer to go unnoticed.

“Identical, down to the color. We think they’re just using force to throw the compressed air right before it detonates. Those runes are remarkably hard to modify.”

“Are you a mage, Sierra?” Osul asked.

“No, but it’s my area of expertise. Anyone with the talent is working with their magic, and most of them are being trained as fighters.”

In the seat ahead of me, Lagred was hard at work drawing on his runeboards. We all had contingencies for the O-bomb, but for him it meant giving up flexibility. Muscles stood out on the back of his neck that hadn’t shown moments prior.

“Any other surprises?” Danielle asked.

“That depends on how good your shields are. What are your vulnerabilities?”

“Falls, or really anything that involves us moving quickly. Our shields lock to the Earth’s magnetic poles when hit by outside forces. Suddenly stopping at high speeds is the biggest risk.”

“But are they resistant to force and other-” she stopped talking. Her line went dead, and with it a small amount of white noise that I hadn’t even noticed vanished as well. When she returned seconds later, she said, “Sorry, just got a message from Director Harmond. It reads ‘you were right mister Ehlers.’ The rest of the message is for me, but hold on until I finish reading.”

Eddie sighed. “Of course they’d try now.”

He sounded more disappointed than vindicated.

“What are they after, Eddie?” I asked. “Do they want money? Will they hit the banks?”

“This is all assuming Harmond is talking about men I met, and not another group with the same intention. If it’s them, then they might hit a bank. Not for money. Banks keep little, and currency is losing its purchasing power with the international conflict going on. No, they’d be after secrets.”

There was a cough from Sierra’s end of the line. “So everything I’m hearing right now is just starting to wander up the grapevine, meaning it’s a bit unclear. I can tell you that it’s the same collective you were imprisoned for confronting, Eddie Ehlers. I can also say that they’re bottom of the priority list right now. It seems to be a group of eight people that slunk through the gates pretending to be a paramilitary, and now they’re in the city going from place to place. We’ve got their identities already, so they’ll be dealt with after we eject the EA.”

“That’s all very reassuring,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes. “Can we establish a private line, Sierra? I’ve got a bit of a personal investment in this, and I’d like to know more about what’s going on without bothering my friends.”

The noise of magic and gunfire was growing to a fever pitch. Over the tops of a few buildings I could see lightning and dust spiralling into the sky. I leaned to the side to look between the gaps in the seats, which let me see the underpass a few thousand feet ahead. The area was crowded with people, but it wasn’t like back at the parking lot.

Back there, the work was mostly about supplies, damage control, and medical assistance. The camp around the underpass was almost entirely populated by soldiers. They stretched out from under the bridge, up the side of the hill, and onto the train tracks that ran over the junction. Major roads traveling northwest to southeast flanked either side of the junction, which was little more than a short stretch of pavement connecting the two. To the south I could see pickets where staff were steering civilians away from the underpass. They wanted to keep the battered citizens of Chicago away from what was probably a high value target for the EA.

“I can,” Sierra said.

“When we’re all out of the car, of course.”

“You won’t hide anything from us, right Eddie?” Lagred asked.

“Nothing important. I like living, and wouldn’t do anything stupid without your assistance.”

I pursed my lips and looked away from him, Osul doing something similar. The man wasn’t dumb. He didn’t need to be reminded that he had, in fact, done stupid things without our help.

We passed parked tanks and piles of arranged runic armor as we entered the makeshift camp. Our truck came to a stop just a bit south of the underpass itself, close to the array of tables and equipment that must have been the command post. Being unfamiliar with the military and the way it ran, I found it hard to understand everything that was going on. Men hauled rocket launchers back and forth across the expanse at the urging of officers shouting to be heard.

White-faced wounded on stretchers were brought up the hill one after another. As they passed, one woman’s head flopped my way and seemed to meet my eyes. But she couldn’t have been looking at me. The blood had slowed to a trickle from her missing arm, and her eyes were wide to the point of incomprehension. I looked down at the ground as I climbed out behind Osul and Eddie.

Our driver pulled away before I’d gotten my bearings. I glanced around, looking for a knot of paramilitaries like us. But there were none, and even the mages seemed to belong to the army rather than the AERD.

“You lot lost. Or something?” asked a soldier. It was only the barest part of spring, but his brow was beaded with sweat that ran down his face and dripped onto the ground below. His chest heaved, but I had no idea where he’d been running from.

“A little bit lost, yeah,” Lagred said.

“You should have told me,” Sierra said.

At the same time, the soldier asked, “well, who are you? I don’t have a clue where to send you.”

Lagred whispered, “should have told you? How the fuck would we know our way around this place?”

“Tsk. Sorry. Trying to do a lot of things at one time.”

“Thank you sir, but I’ve got a voice in my head who claims she can tell me what to do,” Lagred said to the soldier, pointing at his earpiece. The man shook his head and walked off. “Sierra, I gotta say that you being distracted isn’t much of a comfort.”

“I know. I’ll be fully focused on you when you get into the thick of it, but I’m trying to straighten things out with Director Harmond, General Cathritch, the AERD’s intelligence service, and just about every curious higherup who wants to know what I’m doing with you people. Just trust me here. I’m not going to let you fall.”

“I get it, we’ve all got our jobs. Just point us in the right direction and we’ll be quiet for a while.”

The radio went silent again, leaving us to stand in the thick of things. After a minute without a response, I edged towards the wall of the overpass just to get out of the way. Spotlights had been erected that cast malformed shadows against the concrete. I led the Shepards to a shadowed area and crossed my arms.

“What are we doing here?” Danielle asked.

“I don’t know,” Osul said. She shook her head and said again, “I don’t know.”

“Are you going to come with us, Osul? I’d understand if you didn’t,” I said.

“Of course I will,” she said, staring at my shoes.

“Hey!” said a man from just behind Lagred. He was tall, and almost as big as Danielle. He broke into our circle and said, “Shepards, right? Which one of you picked that stupid name?”

“We didn’t. It was given to us,” Lagred said.

“Sure, sure. We’ve been told you can kick some ass.”

“That’s not how I’d put it, but we’re good,” Lagred said. “Got a job for us?”

“Yeah, and it’s not far from here. Walking distance, really. About a mile east of here, just a few streets south, we’ve got a unit that’s having trouble advancing. Half a fucking batallion of Frenchies think they’re gonna push through that way. We’re moving to reinforce, but that means leaving holes in other places. You want in?”

Lagred looked at each of us in turn and asked, “well?”

One at a time, each of us gave him a nod.

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