Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

YaYa rubbed absentmindedly at his left arm as he thought about what his father would have done if he’d seen him possessed. The fact that he was a Navy SEAL was bad enough. To think that part of him had joined to impress his father, even though he knew the man would never be impressed, expressed the folly of his attempt. The formula for his father’s love was comprised of an equation he’d never been able to learn, which is why he’d continually done more extravagant and dangerous things. It had started with cross-country running in high school. Then he’d gone to half marathons, then iron man competitions, then full marathons. He’d won his first iron man at age nineteen and his first marathon at age twenty. Even after he’d joined the navy, he’d continued, finally discovering the glory of ultramarathons and thematic road races such as the one held in honor of Bataan Death March. He’d gone on leave after one such race, his feet bloody and his toes black with bruises. His father had seen them and merely commented that it was “the price you pay for doing the things you do.” If his father saw his arm or knew how bruised YaYa’s soul was from the possession, he imagined the old man would say the same thing.

He frowned and shook his head. As he did, Hoover’s demeanor changed. The dog stared worriedly at YaYa, then slid off the bed. She found a place near the door and lay down, never once taking her eyes off him.

Running had given YaYa a long time to think. Somewhere between the Bighorn 100 in Wyoming and the Zane Grey Highline in Arizona, he’d ascertained a truth about his father: The man would never forgive YaYa for joining the forces that had aligned themselves against the cause of the Koran. He’d heard his father drinking tea with the other men and talking about the state of Islam. He’d heard him yelling and them agreeing, at a table in their suburban American backyard, but he’d never allowed that information to become part of his own analogue.

His father believed that the U.S. government had begun a pogrom against the Muslims and that it wouldn’t end until the last Muslim had been rounded up and sent to a camp or killed. The justice system, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. military were in the process of fulfilling this pogrom. The term came from Russian, to destroy, to wreak havoc, and was used to describe the Russian attacks against the Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How ironic that his father would use it to describe a supposed American design to attack the Muslims. And if the U.S. military was the tip of the spear used to conduct these attacks, U.S. Navy SEALs were the shiny blade of that same weapon.

Yeah, if his father had seen him, the old man would have said the possession was something YaYa deserved. Just then, that piece of his heart he’d reserved for his father hardened. A son had an obligation to love his father, but he had no obligation past that. He’d spent what had seemed like an eternity trying to be something he wasn’t.

Laws and Holmes were already engaged in a heated conversation when Walker entered the twenty-by-twenty room. Pete Musso and two other techs Walker didn’t know where working furiously on a bank of computers. Jen held a pair of tablets, and she passed one to Walker as he came in and the other to Laws, who grabbed it without looking.

“We should cut him loose right now,” Laws said. Although he was sitting, his body was coiled like a spring.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you about old Chinese proverbs,” Holmes said. He was standing by a window, occasionally looking out at the throngs filling the streets. Even after midnight, the celebration of the Virgin was in full swing.

“ Ji Xi Nan Gai ,” Laws said dramatically. “You want a Chinese proverb, try that one on for size.”

Holmes sighed. “What’s it mean?”

“ Ji Xi Nan Gai . A leopard can’t change its spots.”

Holmes turned from the window and nodded. “I agree. Wholeheartedly. But I’m thinking of another Chinese proverb. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Laws shook his head.

“What? You don’t agree?” Holmes’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“I agree with the sentiment, but there’s no evidence that it’s a Chinese proverb. It’s often attributed to Sun-Tzu, who said, ‘Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious.’ But it was Michael Corleone in The Godfather who said, ‘My father taught me many things here.’” Laws switched into an admirable imitation of Al Pacino. “‘He taught me in this room. He taught me—keep your friends close but your enemies closer.’ The character in the movie attributed it to Machiavelli, but there’s no evidence of that either. If one wanted to attribute it at all, then I’d either choose Mario Puzo, the writer, or Francis Ford Coppola, the director.”

“I can always tell you’re pissed off when you began spewing Hollywood trivia,” Holmes said. “Keep that. Stay pissed. And if there comes a time we need to take care of Ramon, then let it fly. But until then…”

Laws frowned but nodded. “I know, I know.”

Holmes noticed Walker. “Good. You’re here. How’s YaYa?”

“Good as can be expected. He seems like himself again.”

“Excellent. We’ll give him some rest, then see if he can join us for the rest of the mission.” He turned to Jen. “The floor is yours.”

She stepped forward. “Walker, if you can share your tablet with Yank, and Laws, yours with Holmes, we can begin. I’ve synced them to mine so that you can follow during the brief. Let’s start with the BLUF—Bottom Line Up Front. Emily Withers is still missing. We don’t have a solid lead on her. We do have a tenuous connection with the Zetas. We also have a connection with Los Desollados, which we can trace back to her abduction. Regarding that, there’s been a development.” She toggled an image they all knew well. A still from Emily’s capture showing the sea monster grasping her in its mouth.

“Don’t tell me,” Holmes said.

“Sorry, but I have to. The picture and video are fakes.”

Everyone sat forward and stared at their tablets as if they could discern this with the naked eye.

“The whole thing?” Yank asked. “Even the girl? Does that mean she wasn’t taken?”

“No, Emily Withers was taken. This we know. Given the time, we were able to pierce the sophisticated masking algorithm and the result was this.” Jen toggled a picture into view that showed two men in full scuba gear aboard a DSRV, one with his hands around her waist, the other driving the machine at high speed.

“What the hell?” Laws sat forward. “And we’re just now breaking through?”

“Couldn’t be helped. We pierced the algorithm as fast as we could. Thank Musso for even seeing that there was an issue.”

As if on cue, Musso, a thin, geeky young man with a Star Trek emblem on the collar of his jacket, left his workstation and joined them. He took the tablet from Jen and began to scroll, which made the other two tablets do the same.

“As you can see, looking at the raw view of the image, I noticed a slightly larger size of the image than should have been noted. Now, normally the size will be dramatically larger if an image had been superimposed. I’ve become used to looking for such things. In fact, I almost disregarded this except for my gut feeling.”

“Hooray for Musso’s gut,” Laws said dryly.

Musso didn’t respond. “What they did here was create an algorithm that reassigned quadrants of color. The increase in file size was due to the algorithm. The creation of the monster to replace the two divers was free of charge and apparently took no additional size value. Basically, they used colors already present in the original picture to create the creature. This is about as sophisticated as they come.”