Richard Lovett - Phantom Sense

Armed and irrational. A bad combo, but the only one I was sure I could use. And with his Sense bottled up, we were now on equal terms.

But I didn’t have much time. According to my watch, it had only been three and a half minutes since Denise had pulled the first alarm, but there would be firefighters running up the stairs any minute. I had two choices: shoot my way in and try to get Jerret without letting anything happen to Cora… or get him to come out.

It would have been simple to work myself into a killing rage. It wasn’t as though Jerret had been a long-term member of my unit. We’d only done a few missions together and had barely talked on base. Since then, he’d seduced my daughter, kidnapped her, and for all I knew, raped her. Or maybe he thought he was protecting her, or even married to her.

But I’d looked into his eyes the day after the ravine. Told the same lies to get out of De-con. Flown Laurel’s swarm. Jerret was me, but for the grace of God. If there was a God. Two weeks ago, I’d have said there wasn’t. But two weeks ago I was a different person: Jerret, but for the grace. Killing him achieved nothing. Killing him was killing myself… again.

For once there was no flashback. I couldn’t afford one, but I think something in me had truly changed. With a silent prayer to a God I’d never even have contemplated two weeks ago, I decided to stick to the plan.

“Lapp,” I yelled, in my best field-commander voice. “This building is under attack, by…” I hesitated, then decided in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound, “Ladenite terrorists.”

I struck the cigarette lighter, tossed more lady fingers, smoke pellets, and another M80 down the hallway. Good-bye ears. Hopefully they’d recover by the time I needed them. I struck the lighter again and played the wasp spray across it. Hurrah for LPG propellants; the stuff made a dandy blowtorch. I aimed it across in front of the spy hole, blackening Jerret’s door, just for the hell of it.

“Lapp,” I yelled again, using the spray can to light yet another string of lady fingers. I was going to run out of them soon. “Our CI-MEMS operator is dead. Your unit needs you.”

Nothing to do now but wait. I pulled the bug-spray can back, away from the spyhole, reluctantly let the flame die. Then, as the door began to open, I fogged the hallway with the remaining contents of the can. Might as well take out as much of his swarm as I could, the moment he stepped out. I couldn’t afford to get it all, but the fewer bugs he had, the less likely he’d be to get a read on me, the less likely to snap back to reality at an awkward moment.

He emerged slowly, one arm wrapped around a terrified Cora, the other hand holding an Uzi.

I hadn’t expected the Uzi, had expected a sidearm instead. We needed to get out fast, and quietly. Otherwise, we were going to have a lot of dead firefighters if Jerret met them in the smoke, looking, in their protective gear, like storm troopers.

Whether Cora was terrified of Jerret or of all the bangs and alarms was hard to determine. But when she saw me, even in the smoke, strobe lights, and din—even with the bandana, hat and glasses, gun—her mouth went wide in a startled O . Maybe she said something. My ears weren’t exactly my best allies at the moment. Maybe she was merely about to speak. I met her eyes, shook my head. Stay with him , I mouthed. Or maybe I said it. I was having nearly as much trouble hearing myself as hearing anything else.

“Lapp,” I said, forcefully enough that I could almost hear it. “We need to get out of here. Extend your perimeter for maximum threat avoidance.” Briefly, I regretted killing so much of his swarm. Still, there ought to be enough left to do the job. “We do not have the firepower for a fight. We need to get out and report to base. Do you understand?”

If he recognized me, it wasn’t as Cora’s father. Maybe from the missions we’d shared. More likely as a generic battlefield figure from a long-off flashback. As long as I could keep him there, we’d be safe. I wouldn’t have to kill again.

I shifted my gaze to Cora. “Do you understand?”

She nodded, still wide-eyed.

“This is what I do,” I said. Paused. Remembered Denise. Hoped she was safe. “Did.” My hearing was definitely coming back. “I will get you out.”

She nodded, still wide-eyed. “Da—”

Much as I longed to hear her Daddy — Daddy without the damn you , without the weight of all those wasted years—it was the one thing I couldn’t let her say.

“That’s enough, private,” I barked. “Lapp’s on point. The rest of the unit”—I looked at her as pointedly as I could risk—”will follow his lead. Quietly . Do you understand?” She nodded, silent again. “Good. Let’s roll.”

Cora nodded again, and we started down the hallway. Jerret’s lead wasn’t quite standard, a possessive arm still clutching his “private” in a distinctly non-military manner. But still, we were moving, very much dependent on each other. It had been five minutes since the first alarm. By now, there had to be firefighters in the building.

I don’t know how much of his swarm Jerret had left, but it was enough, because getting out was startlingly easy. Easy enough to again make me wish I was integrated. Until, that is, I looked at Cora. Then it was easier to be as I was.

He found a smoke-free stairwell jammed with people trying to get down from the lounge, and cooperated when I suggested that Uzi-under-the-coat might be a better stealth mode than Uzi-in-plain-sight. Not that he ever let go of Cora, except for the moment when he tucked the Uzi under his coat. For about two seconds, I thought she was going to run—a bad thing because Jerret’s training would make sure that Uzi-under-the-coat become Uzi-in-plain-sight, very, very quickly. But again, I shook my head, and again, she deferred.

Then we were in the basement, and from there into the parking garage.

I’d warned Denise not to react when she saw Cora. But it was all she could do to stay in character. “Mission accomplished,” I said, just to remind everyone we weren’t out of the woods. “Driver, take us back to base.”

Laurel climbed in front. Jerret opened the back and started to maneuver Cora in ahead of him, but I cut him off. “Lapp, you’ve got shotgun.” He started to protest, but this wasn’t negotiable. “ Now , soldier. That’s an order.”

He let go and slid into the front. Moments later, Denise, Cora, and I were in the back. Cora in the center. No thought to that one: the duckling, however well-grown, flanked by the parents. A moment later the car was full of flies. No way we could leave them behind; try that and Jerret would have been back in the here-and-now faster than I could possibly come up with a way to stave it off.

But there weren’t that many flies. Forty, maybe fifty, tops. And Jerret was clearly losing his focus on the “mission;” flies were drifting into the backseat, hovering near Cora, circling her head, brushing her cheeks, hair, ears, lips.

Cora never moved, even as a tear slid from her eye and a fly landed to taste it. With a clarity that might have come from a swarm but didn’t, I realized she hadn’t been raped. Not in any conventional fashion, anyway. This—this was Jerret’s way of making love: like me watching Denise in Laurel’s office, carried to its extreme.

Traffic in the parking garage had been minimal—most people fleeing a high-rise fire aren’t going to risk getting trapped in the garage. Jerret’s voice was distant, muffled by the squeal of tires as Laurel gunned up the ramp toward the street.

Or maybe my own hearing hadn’t completely recovered. “What did you say?” I asked.

But it hadn’t just been my hearing. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, forlorn. Not a soldier’s. Or a kidnapper’s. “So few…”