Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion (13 page)

Benny, for his part, scored the winning touchdown that Thanksgiving by faking out Ross, a former NFL linebacker.

Just a kid.

“Sir?”

“Huh? Oh. It seems they’ve slowed down. They could probably get here in two weeks or so if they wanted, but it seems as if they might just take a little longer.”

Duda asked the question on many of the top brass’ minds, “Why would they slow down? We’re kind of in a bad spot.”

Jon ignored the question. “While I’m back in Pennsylvania you’ve got to oversee the set up here. Dig in, watch the skies, and get ready for what’s to come. I’m guessing that Shep will get back here first and take over operational command of this sector through First Corp.”

“Okay,” but Benny’s attention slipped again over Jon’s shoulder, toward the old style riverboat at rest in port. “Um—sir?”

Benny moved around Jon with his eyes focused on the riverboat. No more voices or laughter, just recorded music.

Jon closed his eyes and remembered a sign he had read on a front porch in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania long ago:

“Here hangs the South Side Suicide Club,

We couldn’t take it no more.

So we dressed in our best, stood straight and abreast,

And kicked away stools numberin’ four.”

“Sir, I think they’re all—they’re all…”

Jon turned around and shared the view with Benny Duda.

The party goers lay strewn along the decks of the riverboat, dressed in their best with a few still holding the spiked champagne glasses that had served as the final act of the celebration. A large banner strung across the bow said to the world, “Goodbye!” with a yellow smiley face punctuating the message.

Lori Brewer held her nine-year-old daughter’s hand as the pair left the cafeteria in the church basement and walked the perimeter road toward the estate. A few scattered gray clouds moved overhead threatening to sprinkle but nothing yet materialized.

As she neared the main gate she saw several usual sights: K9s walking the grounds, heavily armed human sentries, and support personnel in uniforms ranging from suits to tactical BDUs walking to and fro.

She saw something very unusual, too.

Just north of the main entrance to the estate ran a driveway that traveled a short distance to both the A-frame house where the Nehrus lived and the garage on their property which included an apartment overhead.

At the end of that driveway stood a blonde woman sporting a ponytail drooping to her shoulder blades and wearing a black beret over a green BDU/black tank top ensemble, not to mention a sword strapped to her leg.

Nina Forest? Here?

Lori bypassed the estate.

“Mom? Where we going?”

Lori ignored her daughter’s protest and approached the visitor from behind.

“Nin—I mean, Captain Forest?”

Nina turned around and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips, taking Lori by surprise.

“Mrs. Brewer? Hey, hello.”

The events of the previous summer had drawn the two together for a brief time as Lori’s husband, Jon, came to Nina’s rescue. Yet it was the events of a decade ago that Lori missed most of all. She and Nina were friends in the early days. Then The Order’s implant stole those memories away.

“I was hoping I’d run into you.”

“You were?”

“Yes.” Nina gave her attention to the dark haired nine year old for a moment. “Hello, there, how old are you?”

“I’m nine years old!”

Lori remembered her manners and made introductions.

“This is my daughter Catherine. Cathy, this is Captain Forest.”

The captain bent over and told the girl, “Nina.”

“Nina?” Lori’s daughter jumped. “Hey! I’m Nina, too”

Lori shuffled uncomfortably.

“My middle name is Nina! Catherine
Nina
Brewer!”

Nina Forest considered that revelation with an air of suspicion and turned to Lori saying, “What a coincidence.”

“Um, Cathy, why don’t you head on up to the mansion. Go find a good book to read in the den or something. I’ll catch up.”

But Catherine’s attention focused on the sword strapped to Nina’s leg. Her eyes traced the weapon up and down.

“Cathy? Are you listening to me?”

“Oh, right. Okay, Mom.” zzz

The nine year old walked away turning around twice to study the blond woman with the pony tail and black beret before finally moving through the open main gates. Nina and Lori watched her go.

As Catherine left ear shot, Lori asked, “What brings you to the estate?”

“General Shepherd is on his way to the front so I’m hitching a ride with him. After the meeting tomorrow we’re both going to head west.”

Lori sensed that something weighed on Nina’s mind and she desperately wished she could share everything she knew. A promise made years ago kept her silent.

Nina said, “Listen, I never got a chance to tell you ‘thank you’. Sometimes I’m not so good with that.”

Lori felt a strong sense of déjà vu and stumbled, “Um—for what?”

“For a bunch of things. For helping me adopt my daughter way back when. You pulled the strings on that. You and Jim Brock, that is. And also for last year. Things move so fast and all that, well, look I’m just saying that you kind of came to the rescue.”

A car drove by. The two women turned and walked together toward the estate.

Lori said, “You were the one who did the rescuing. If it weren’t for you and Gordon, hell, we never would have found out.”

Nina asked, “How is he?”

Lori shook her head as she answered, “He still can’t use his legs. They don’t think he ever will. A few months ago he returned to work but he sort of stays in one of the houses here on the lake and refuses to go out. I don’t know. A guy like that—”

“You’re thinking maybe he would have been happier if that bullet had killed him.”

“Maybe,” Lori said.

“Tell me something,” Nina switched subjects as they passed two sentries and entered the grounds of the estate. “You and I were friends once, weren’t we?”

That stopped Lori in her tracks.

Nina went on, “It’s okay. I don’t remember everything from that year. Not at all. But there are pieces coming back to me. And I’ve seen some old photographs and stuff.”

“Oh, well, I guess—“

“And your daughter’s middle name is Nina.”

Lori stuck her lip out and threw her eyes to the sky contemplating her next move. She could nearly see her husband shaking his head and telling her to ‘keep your nose out of it!”

As usual, she ignored him.

“Oh, screw it. Yeah, we were friends.
Good
friends. After you lost your memories, well, after that the whole war thing was really picking up and you were moved away from the estate and out to fight battles and all that. We didn’t see each other much after that.”

“Thank you for being straight with me.”

“You deserve it.”

Nina gazed at the activity across the estate grounds: Dogs walking patrol routes, a courier with a box under his arm bounding through the front door, and a Humvee with a mounted machine gun creeping along the sloped driveway.

She asked, “What was it like around here, back in those days?”

Lori considered for a moment and then said, “Well, there were less people, of course, but still a lot always going on. There’s always been a feeling of excitement around here. Well, except for those few months last year when this place was empty because Evan moved everything down to DC Anyway, since the beginning the mansion and the lake have always felt like the center of it all. Lots of energy but without the bull. You were a big part of that in the early days.” Her eyes wavered as she admitted, “But back then that energy felt, well, optimistic. Nowadays it feels—it feels
desperate.”

Lori saw Nina hesitate, perhaps summoning courage, before asking, “How is—how is The Emperor doing these days?”

Lori felt another powerful blast of déjà vu and quickly traced it to the conversations she had had with Nina during those first few months at the estate, a time when Lori had correctly guessed that Nina Forest was falling in love with Trevor Stone, even if she did not know it..

“Trevor? I’ll admit it he is a little different nowadays. I think he’s more…” and Lori chose her word carefully, “
lonely
. That’s because of how things are going out on the front. And how things went, well, after he got back last summer.”

Those things, Lori knew, included rooting out the conspirators, public hangings, and a brutal purge of the political system. As far as she knew, a dozen bodies still hung from the rotunda in the now-closed Capital building in DC For a while, things had been brutal. She saw first-hand the dark side of Trevor Stone.

Lori focused again and added, “You did a job bringing him back.”

“Oh, well, I—look—I just did what I had to do. I suppose.”

Lori wondered exactly how Nina had brought Trevor back. His mind had been a mess of nightmares and grief. In one of his few confessional moments since his return, Trevor had hinted to Lori about a supernatural bond formed between himself and Nina, one that had taken much of the weight of guilt and sorrow from his spirit and given it to Nina, a willing gesture on her part to lift a measure of his burden.

That, Lori thought, is what people in love do for one another.

Whatever she had done, it relieved Trevor enough to pull him from the madness, although his anger and determination returned more powerful than ever.

She wondered, as she watched Nina fidget nervously, how much Nina knew. Or how much did she feel?

Lori said, “You should go say hello to him.”

Nina did not reply, but her eyes wandered in a sure sign of increasing nerves. At that moment Lori realized she would need to try some of her old tricks again.

“Hey, look, this conference tomorrow is important. I’ve got to make some decisions on equipment transfers and personnel. I’d like your input on all that.”

“Me? I’m not really good at that sort of thing. I’m just a soldier.”

“That’s the type of input I need. Someone who has been on the front lines. Besides, you were in on all the big meetings back in the old days. I’d like you to be there.”

Nina’s eyes widened and she gasped, “Me? In a meeting with the counsel? Listen, I don’t think I’m the right—“

“Nonsense,” Lori interrupted. “As the Chief Administrator I am requesting your presence. Tell Shep I suggested it and I’ll bet he’ll think it’s a good idea. Besides, there isn’t much of a council left. It’s sort of Trevor’s extended group of friends and advisers. You’re a part of that group, I think.”

“I—I don’t know what to say. Or, what to say at the meeting.”

“Just be there. At some point, I just know Trevor will want to talk to you.”

Trevor sat with Ashley in the soft glow of the living room fireplace. While one couch remained, much of the room had been transformed into makeshift workspace including a pair of desks against one wall, cabinets, and a long table under the front windows.

Still, with the lights down and the workers long-since departed, the room took on a cozy feel, especially with those desks, cabinets, and tables relegated to shadows.

The tears were the final stage, preceded by pleading and defiance. In the end, Trevor Stone saw that she realized he planned to take away the only thing in this miserable world that belonged to her. The only person Ashley loved who loved her back.

The time for argument passed, so did the time for protests; she lacked the energy to continue fighting.

Outside, the last rays of sunset faded like a dying fire. A vehicle motor revved as it traveled the driveway. The sound of scattered voices—handlers commanding K9s and sentries conversing—seeped through the front windows as muffled background noise.

“I’m sorry,” he said for what might have been the fiftieth time that evening, but this time the apology encompassed a greater wrong. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

“Me—me too,” she sobbed. “What happened? How come the old world seems like a faded dream? I don’t even know if it’s real any more. Was it real? Any of it?”

For the first time in a long while he slipped an arm around Ashley’s shoulder and pulled her close.

“It was real. But I know what you mean about it seeming a dream. Sometimes I have trouble remembering what my folks looked like. That bothers me.”

“Do you remember—you remember making the plans for the wedding? I thought it was important.”

He chuckled and told her, “I remember. And it
was
important. Back then. I guess our definition of ‘important’ has changed a bit.”

“I kept moving those seating charts around. It must’ve drove you nuts.”

“No, no,” he did not sound convincing. “I was right there with you.”

“Oh, you liar.” She actually flashed a brief smile.

“Say, you remember that time we went on a picnic up to Francis Slocum State Park?”