John Ringo - When the Devil Dances

Then you went to a Sub-Urb and realized that you were kidding yourself.

The Franklin Sub-Urb had a particularly bad reputation and he wasn’t surprised. Half the escalators on the personnel entrance they used had been out of order and the reception area was scuffed and filthy with trash and dirt piled up in the corners. And the security point, an armor-glass-fronted cubicle something like a movie theater ticket booth, was even worse. Every shelf in the booth was piled with empty food containers, half of which were filled with cigarette butts.

Realistically, though, the conditions weren’t too surprising. Not only was it one of the oldest ones, meaning that it had people from the first refugee waves when the Posleen were really hammering civilians, but its proximity to the corps support facilities had only managed to degrade the condition. They’d had to catch a ride from their barracks in the Gap to Franklin and it was apparent on the ride that even though the Line forces in the Gap weren’t the greatest, the support groups were worse. No wonder they’d placed the Urb off limits; he’d have kept these “soldiers” out and he was a soldier. And from what he’d heard the first few months when they hadn’t kept the soldiers out boiled down to a sack.

No wonder the security was jumpy about letting them in. Especially armed.

Mosovich shifted his rifle as the female guard returned with an older male. The newcomer was overweight, but not sloppily; it was clear that a good bit of the body was muscle. He was wearing rank tabs for a security major which meant he was probably the senior officer on duty. No wonder she’d been gone for a while.

“Sergeant Major—” the security officer said, looking at the e-mail orders, ” — Mosovich?”

“The same, and my senior NCO, Master Sergeant Mueller.”

“Could I see some ID?” he asked.

“Okay,” Jake said, fishing out his ID card and gun orders.

“This is fairly irregular,” the security officer continued. “We have a few personnel that have open permission to pass back and forth. But for all practical purposes no military personnel are permitted other than that.”

“Unless they’re on orders,” Mosovich said. He supposed that he could bow and scrape and it might help. But the hell if he would to this Keystone Kop outfit.

The officer carefully considered the two IDs and then sighed. “Okay, it looks like I have to let you in…”

“Then would you mind opening the door?” Mueller growled.

The officer put his hands on his hips. “First, a few words…”

“Look, Major…” Mosovich leaned forward and peered at the badge, ”… Peanut? We’re not support pogues. We’re not the barbarians you had coming down here before. I may look 22, but I’m 57; I was in the Army when you were a gleam in your daddy’s eye. We’re here on a mission, not to fuck around. And there’s only two of us; if your department can’t take down two soldiers then you need to shitcan it and get some real guards. And, as you noted, we’ve got qualified passes. So open the door.”

“Well, that covers part of it,” the major said dryly. “Here’s the rest. People down here don’t have guns. They don’t like guns; they’re afraid of them. Except for the ones that want them and will gladly take yours if you give them half a chance. Carry them slung across your back, not combat slung. Make sure you maintain control of them at all times. If you lose one, I guarantee you that the corps commander will make your life absolute hell.”

“He’d be hard pressed,” Jake said. “We’re Fleet. But I take your meaning.”

“Okay,” the major said with a sigh, activating a solenoid. “Welcome to the Franklin Sub-Urb.”

Mueller shook his head as they passed through another one of the open gathering areas. “Strange looks.” The sprite turned left out of the commons and onto another slideway.

“Yeah,” Mosovich replied. “Sheep.”

Mueller knew what he meant. The people of the Sub-Urbs were giving them the sort of look sheep gave sheepdogs. They knew that the dog wouldn’t bite them. Probably. This time. But they definitely did not like to see the uniforms or the guns. To sheep, all sheepdogs are wolves.

“Probably worried about an attack,” Mosovich added.

“I would be,” Mueller agreed. The Sub-Urb was an easy drive from the front lines; whatever idiot put it this close should be shot.

“No way out,” Mosovich said. “Stupid.”

“Lots,” Mueller contradicted. “All marked. And the armory at the front.”

Mosovich just snorted. If the Posleen ever came up the Gap, the people in the Sub-Urb were so many food animals caught in their pens. And with the Armory on the upper side of the Urb, unless they got the word in very good time, the Posleen would be sitting on their weapons.

The decision had been made to make the Urbs zero weapons zones and in the eyes of Mosovich and plenty of other people that was just wrong. If everyone in the Urb was armed it would probably mean a higher murder rate. But compared to the one hundred percent loss in the event of an attack, even one by a random landing, a few murders would be worth it. Besides, the improved defenses if everyone was armed might keep the Posleen out .

Nonetheless, through a combination of politics and Galactic intransigence the Urbs had been disarmed.

“Stupid.” Mueller shook his head.

Mosovich nodded as he turned down a brightly lit corridor. The walls had murals on them, which was unusual, and each of the doors had the nameplate of a different doctor on it. The sprite stopped in front of a door marked “Dr. Christine Richards, Psy.D.”

Mosovich touched the entry pad and the door chimed.

“Yes?” a voice asked through the pad.

“Doctor Richards? It’s Sergeant Major Mosovich. I’m here to talk to you about Captain Elgars?” The good doctor was supposed to have received an e-mail, but who knew what was really happening.

“Could this wait?” the box asked. “I’m preparing a report right now, but it’s not complete.”

“Well, you can report all you’d like, doc,” Mosovich replied to the speaker. He was getting a bit ticked about talking to a closed door. “But I suspect that the Army is going to pay more attention to me than you. And I’m going from here to run down Elgars. So this is your one chance to convince me that Elgars is crazy.”

The door opened and Dr. Richards sighed. “She’s not crazy, she’s possessed.”

Dr. Richards had spread out all the case files for Annie Elgars on her table, trying to explain why she wasn’t crazy. “I want you to look at this,” she said, laying down a long strip of paper with squiggly lines on it.

“Okay, I know my line here,” Mosovich said. “I’m supposed to say ‘Is this a brain map, doctor?’ But Special Forces guys used to get shrunk all the time and I’ve seen an EEG before.”

“Fine,” Richards said, pulling out a textbook. “You’re right, that’s an EEG and it’s Elgars’ to be exact.” She opened up the book to a marked page and pointed to the lines on the paper. “This is a normal EEG when a person is awake, or not in alpha mode. Look at it.”

Mosovich did and then at Elgar’s EEG. There was no comparison. “What are all these extra notches?” he asked, pointing to Elgars’.

“You tell me,” Richards snapped. “And here, look at this.” She riffled through the readouts until she came to another one that was marked. “When you do stuff that you’ve done thousands of times, the sort of stuff that they say ‘He can do it in his sleep.’ What’s really happening is that your brain switches to alpha mode, which really is like you’re asleep. It’s one of the bases for zen, that ‘state of nothingness.’ Look, when you’re shooting, do you actually think about what you’re doing?”