Myke Cole - Shadow Ops - Control Point

Marty nodded. “Specialist Lenko is wise. He dies, I eat his eyes.”

The Hydromancer reappeared in the hospital-entry flaps and motioned brusquely. “Marty! Come on! We need every hand we can get!” The Goblin turned and ran after him, leaving Britton with Truelove and Downer and the steady flow of wounded. The Seabee and the other soldier had vanished. They made their way back toward the P pods in silence.

“Thanks for sticking up for Marty,” Truelove finally said.

“How’d you two get to be such buds?” Britton asked.

“I’ve got some stomach problems,” Truelove said, casting an embarrassed look at Downer, who didn’t appear to notice. “The docs at the cash didn’t really know what to do about it, and the one Physiomancer they’ve got is so overworked, he doesn’t have time for something that isn’t life-threatening. Marty gave me some herbal remedy. It doesn’t fix it totally, but it really helps.”

Britton nodded. “He seems like a good…guy.” In fact, the Goblin’s kindness deeply impressed him. If he’d let that navy chief have his way, Lenko would probably have died while those idiots sat around shouting for a medic.

Downer laughed. “He’s all right. We keep him in sugar, he keeps Truelove from crapping his drawers.” Truelove turned crimson at the remark, but Downer missed it, punching him in the shoulder.

“Did he actually say he’d eat that guy’s eyes?” Britton said, trying to change the subject.

Truelove nodded. “It’s a custom. They do it to honor their dead. They believe that if you eat the eyes of a dead man, you ingest everything he’s ever seen, the sum of his life experience. That way he lives on forever through you. It’s a high compliment. Of course, try telling that to our forward squads who come across Goblins actually doing it. There’s not a lot of patience for the practice around here.”

Britton shook his head and suddenly realized how cold he was. Smoke still billowed in distant columns, flickering red-orange inside. The late-fall chill was intense, the flame-whipped winds piercing. “Christ,” Britton said, “what the heck is the army doing out here?”

“You haven’t figured it out?” Downer asked. “FOB Frontier is a bridgehead in the Source. You’re in occupied territory.

“We’re conquering the magic kingdom.”

Magical Suppression occurs when a Latent individual crosses his own current with that of another Latent individual, effectively interdicting the magical flow. It is a concentrated effort. If the Suppressor’s Latency is weaker than the individual’s he is acting against, a breakthrough may occur, resulting in ineffective Suppression. Some interviewees have described this sensation as painful or exhausting. Skill and training can compensate for this to some degree, but in the end, it is a matchup of strength. Some SOC Sorcerers devote their entire careers to Suppression. These “Master Suppressors” rarely find a current they are unable to lock down.

Avery Whiting

Modern Arcana: Theory and Practice

Britton didn’t bother trying to sleep. He lay on his cot, staring at the corrugated metal ceiling and remembering his mother. His mind returned to her eyes, staring at him in horror and realization.

The 158th. His mother. Dawes. He had lost them all. He gripped the coarse blanket, balling it in his fists.

Was this it? Was this his life from here on? It can’t be. You’ve got to get out of here.

His mind returned to the ATTD, holding him as surely as if he were surrounded by bars.

Find a way. You have to find a way to get that thing out.

As the first streamers of dawn filtered underneath the door, Britton heard the triple succession of booms that marked another attack. The sirens sounded far away, and he didn’t even budge at the tremors, surprised at how quickly he had become inured.

The next morning, he found the inside of the chow hall was much as he’d come to know from other bases. Long tables backed up to a line of metal trays piled high with steaming slop that could scarcely be called food. The line was manned mostly by Goblins in paper hats who endured the sullen looks of their customers with resignation. Britton got himself a foam tray piled high with a yellow slurry that roughly approximated eggs and some sausage patties as chewy as old spare tires, then sat at a bench that quickly cleared of other occupants as soon as they saw his uniform. A moment later, Truelove appeared and sat across from him.

“Good morning,” the Necromancer said. “You fill out your time sheet?”

Britton paused, eggs steaming on his fork. “Time sheet?”

“You’re not a soldier anymore,” Downer said, plopping down beside him. “Contractors get their time sheets audited daily.”

“Make sure you fill yours out like clockwork, or Fitzy’ll have your ass,” Truelove said. “Apparently there’s a new admin colonel here. He’s a real hard-ass about accounting, and he comes down hard on Fitzy when things slip. Fitzy always makes sure it rolls downhill to us.”

“When do I meet this famous Fitzy?” Britton asked.

Truelove examined his watch. “It’s 0615, which gives you fifteen minutes. There’s a terminal in the MWR where you can do it electronically. Just put in your social security number and eight hours for yesterday. Make sure you do it before bed from now on. “

Britton stared at him, expecting a joke. Truelove didn’t laugh.

Britton sat at the terminal in the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation tent, struggling with the irony of filling out a time sheet in the middle of a war zone. He was still laughing to himself as he stepped out of the tent and nearly bumped into a man who more than made up for his lack of height in sheer muscle. His head was shaved as bald as Britton’s, gleaming in the rising sun as if it had been oiled. A tight moustache was parked on a stern upper lip. Dark, deep-set eyes stared into Britton’s, showing a hint of amusement. The hard line of a mouth was all business. The man wore a Shadow Coven uniform, the Entertech logo noticeably absent. Instead, the striped bar of a chief warrant officer adorned the peaked ball cap. Britton could feel a slight magical current off him. The Suppressor’s armored fist, gripping its clutch of lightning bolts, marked the left of his shirt. A star crowned the fist, a laurel wreath spanning beneath.

“Morning, Novice,” the man said. “I’m Chief Warrant Officer Fitzsimmons. You can call me God, or sir, whichever is easier. Got your time sheet filled out?”

Britton towered over the man by nearly a foot. “Yes, s…” He stopped himself before completing the honorific. He had been an officer before and was presently a civilian contractor. Thus he was unsure if the man deserved the honorific.

“Sir,” the man finished for him. “You’d better get used to it. You’ll be saying it a lot. Did you fill in the proper task number and authorization account for each day worked?”

“Sir?” Britton asked.

“I take your charming but clueless expression to mean that you have no idea what I’m talking about,” Fitzsimmons said.

“I saw those fields on the time sheet, sir,” Britton answered, “but I didn’t know what codes to put in.”

“And why the hell not, Novice?” Fitzsimmons asked. “Surely you’ve read sections nine A and B in the manual that I left on the rack in your hooch. Had you bothered to perform the requisite reading required by your job, which, might I remind you, your conditional pardon depends on, you would have found those sections entitled ‘timekeeping’ in twenty-four-point font.”

“Sir,” Britton explained, “that manual was enormous, I didn’t have a chance to…”