Continued from Into Erebus

And A new consulate

Sage hadn't been feeling well for the past few days - light fever and chills being the predominant symptom. His head hurt like a bitch but taking a walk seemed to clear his head. For days he walked up and down the river while he worked. He'd shipped Nox a brand new high end computer with an ultra processor and a holo graphics card any would be hacker would have loved to get their hands on. Nox wasn't a hacker, but he used the same software that he did to find information quickly. Software Sage had designed for his own purposes which he'd given to Nox's sister and she tweaked it for their own purposes. Whatever the twins did for a living put Sage's algorithms through their paces and with Aurora's help he'd designed a fast and efficient way for anyone to search the internet and other databases for exactly what they were looking for.

Sage had installed the latest software for Nox and sent it to Moscow for the man to use. His last gift for Aurora. He would miss the blonde hair blue eyes wanna-be-hacker. She was a smart girl. And he missed talking to her - she at least understood half of what he said where as her brother would just nod and smile but he listened anyway. He'd learned that since he started working with him a little closer.

But now Sage was running diagnostics on some other company's firmware trying to bust through their firewalls. It was a good paying job - he'd been hired in as a consultant. He did make money outside of the den. The fresh air helped the headaches, but the scenery along the river was getting hold. So Sage hoped the yellow line and rode it into the Capitol.

DC was just as good a place to walk and hack as Alexandria was. He'd done this more times than he could count. Take a bench and stare at the pigeons on the street while he worked. Today though he wanted to walk. The parks and tourist areas were packed on the spring day, but not nearly as much as when it became field trip season for the schools around the world. The Smithsonian was still a huge hit but Sage hadn't been there in ages.

Cracking someone's firewall wasn't as easy as the movies made it out to be. For Sage it looked easy because he never touched a keyboard. He wasn't even sure he could type the code efficiently as he wrote the sub routines that did his job. So much of his own software was formed as he thought without really much effort on his part. It was like speaking English to the processor and it understood. It wasn't that simple of course - Sage had designed the responses himself. Grim had taught him everything he needed to know about computers. And Sage had picked up more as he learned his own system.

The tech wasn't new - it wasn't the greatest, but it was all he had to work with. Though he had been finding it a bit sluggish recently. It was nano seconds slower than before but it was noticeable to Sage. Sage wandered around DC paying only half attention to where he was going and what was around him - most of his attention was turned inwards while he worked.

"Hey Hernandez. Did your mother ever tell you that you were a special snowflake?"
Toni asked the corporal strapped in next to her who was porting the stubby SAW-K, a great burly man with coal black skin and steely whites. He was going to have fun fishing himself out of the drink carrying all that ammo.

The RAH-72 Arapahoe crew chief got up from his seat and flung the doors open. The cold blast from the downdraft of the helicopter rotor blades hit her. She looked out over the landscape. Wasn't much to see at night. Silhouettes of trees along the far ridge. The helicopter was skirting the spur around the ridge so as to approach the lake undetected from the other side. "Two minutes to the drop zone, Sarge," the chief said.

She nodded, and turned back to the corporal. He was scowling at her. Or maybe trying not to blush, if that were possible. "She did call you her special snowflake, didn't she? I know she did."
Toni patted him on the helmet. "Get your bib inflated, Snowflake."


The corporal pulled a string at his neck, activating the inflation device. It would be sufficient for him to maintain buoyancy, which was particularly vital when jumping from a craft like the Arapahoe because they couldn't jump with a hard duck. There wasn't room for one inflated raft, let alone two. That meant precious moments to get the raft inflated. The pilot broke in over her comm link. "Sixty seconds. Slowing to 10 knots and six feet."

"Rodger, sir,"
she replied. "Chalk 3 standing by. Request helocast from 20 feet. Don't want to make it too easy."
Snowflake didn't look very happy about that.

"Affirmative. Fifteen seconds."
Toni released her straps as the helicopter buffeted a bit and climbed a few feet. The land gave way to water and she could see the ripples from the rotor as they pushed out. This was the most dangerous part of the insertion, because they would be exposed for nearly half a minute while jumping.

"Go! Ducks in the water!"
she yelled, instructing her squad to exit. They pushed out, two at a time, one out each door, jumping feet first into the dark water. As the squad leader she took the position of "chalk pusher" and got them moving. Within fifteen seconds all twelve bodies had jumped. Toni gave her regards to the crew chief, activated the night vision on her Land Warriors, and stepped out of the craft.

The free fall took over a second, and she smashed into the cold water with a wet smacking sound. There was a moment of disorientation as she went under, before her bib pulled her back up. She was carrying a full ruck and it tried to drag her down. They hadn't put on flippers, so it was useless to try kicking her way back up. Maybe 20 feet had been pushing it, but aw fuck it, why not? You had to train like you fought, so you can fight like you trained.

She broke the surface and looked behind her. The duckies had been inflated and were moving toward her. They were filling up fast as they zipped by just slow enough for the Rangers to grab onto a side and pull themselves in. Toni always struggled with this part. That's why she was carrying the heavy ruck. As the craft neared her, she grabbed hold of the rope with her left hand, swung her M6 into the craft with the right, and used both hands to pull herself out of the drink. Grunting, she pulled her legs out of the water and over the side. Two hands grabbed her ruck and dragged her over.

Toni looked up. "Thanks for the assist, Snowflake," she said. She took the magazine out of her weapon and cycled it. All good. She slammed the magazine back in and loaded a round. With her Land Warriors she signaled to the other craft with an IR beam and painted the shoreline. They cut through the water. The lake wasn't large, but the point of the helocast was to practice the insertion technique.

They reached the shoreline and dragged the ducks into the tree line, stowing them out of sight. They wouldn't be able to use them to get out. Toni checked the map. The waterproof fold out map was obsolete with the advent of the Land Warriors, however it was important to not use the skill. Hell, at Camp Hoover her Warriors had been designed to fail. Every fucking time. Fucking cheaters. Okay. They would skirt around the ridge for about a mile and make a loop, and hopefully drop in behind the opposing force. "Scout team,"
she said, pulling her three-striper over to her. "Hoof it to the ridge line. Get eyes in the air and wait for orders. When we come around we'll see what we're looking at."
They'd probably execute a classic pincer move. They'd lay down a fire base on one side and sweep down on them from the other. The sergeant nodded and signaled his team to move. They'd deploy the MPRAQ-12 Cardinal, a handheld reconnaissance drone system that would give them a real time bird's eye view of the battlefield.

It took about fifteen minutes to make the long loop around the ridge. Toni had them move two at a time, expecting to make contact at any moment. The OPFOR was forever trying to find new ways to trip Blue Force up, even putting out deep patrols from their encampment. They swung around to an approximate 90 degree angle to the scout team. She sent the heavy weapons moving down the spur to the right and took the last four of her squad members down a narrow draw, making all too much noise with snapping twigs and dead leaves. She winced.

There were lights up ahead. Toni motioned for the squad to halt and they dropped to the prone position, taking up guard. She switched her Land Warriors on. Okay. The drones were in the air. And now she saw why they didn't bother to send deep patrols out. The camp was in the middle of a large clearing. The tree line was almost three hundred yards away from the first sentries. And they were heavily fortified. She counted three machine gun emplacements just on this side, protected with heavy sandbag cover from mortars. Two Joint Strike Vehicles with light armor, one with a Mk19 grenade launcher and the other with a heavy anti-air battery. Plus an Electronic Countermeasures dome. That thing, when switched on, would attempt to overwhelm their frequencies and render their electronics incapable of communication. There appeared to be an entire platoon of personnel, if not more.

Aright. This was doable. "Get the bees out,"
she whispered. Toni dropped her ruck and ran up the spur to her weapons team. Snowflake was unburdening his SAW-K and popped it up on the bi-pod. "See that ECM dome? On my mark, hit it with the AT4 and lay down suppressive fire."
He nodded, and patted one of his soldiers on the arm, who prepared the rocket tube. A shaped charge of molten copper fired at hypersonic speed would knock out a dome just as well as a tank.

She crawled back down the slope. The squad members she'd left behind had unloaded several long, thin cases from their rucksacks, clearly marked in blue lettering "TRAINING ONLY." They popped them open in a line. Inside, cradled in individual protective foam beds, were dozens of little tiny drones, each one smaller than her palm. Extraordinarily inexpensive and easy to replace. The MAQ-4 Lethal Autonomous Weapons System. Also known as the Killerbee. They hypothetically had a range of about 40 miles. Each one was capable of firing three tiny shaped charges with pinpoint precision. This squad was only packing a couple hundred of them, and she'd wondered why they were told to carry them at all on this mission. Until now.

The LAWS came with a handheld touchscreen, though it wasn't required to use. She could operate it with her Land Warriors or even halfway across the world, with the right signal. But the closer you were to it, the less likely a jamming system could overwhelm the signal. They packed advance electronic counter-countermeasures including frequency modulation and encryption, and each device kept in contact with all the others. However a powerful enough transmitter could render them unable to communicate with each other for a short period of time. Likely a much more powerful jammer than the OPFOR carried. Best be safe, however.

Toni switched on the touchscreens. The tiny drones came to life, beating miniscule wings just like real insects. They rose up, one by one, until they'd formed into an undulating swarm of mechanical insects, dispersing into the trees. They silently dispersed across the target zone. Radar wouldn't pick them up. If it was tuned that sensitive, it would pick up every insect out here in the Georgia hills. Toni set the LAWS to targeting mode with manual kill trigger required. The entire system could automate. With her overview fed to her by a conglomerate of the things' cameras, she began to see targets light up in red, indicating that one of the Killerbees, or many, had a bead on the target. Pretty soon every identifiable soldier was lit up. And the weapons systems. And the vehicles.

Toni sent a digital message out to the squad over the local link. "Await my mark. Do not leave cover."


The drones started to descend upon the camp, fluttering down like little silent snowflakes. Silent snowflakes of death.

"Mark."


The AT4 made a popping sound. Her Land Warriors picked up the sudden IR flag on the target. Obviously they couldn't use a real rocket. The ECM dome was flagged now as "destroyed." The squad opened up fire, weapons blazing in a line. Her ears filled with the sharp crackling sounds and her vision clouded with flashes of fire. They were firing out blue chalk rounds and probably giving the emplacements a good dusting, but probably not causing much of an impact. It stung when you got hit with one, though. Especially since they weren't wearing power armor for this exercise.

Toni only let the suppressive fire go on for two seconds before she pulled the trigger on the swarm. A moment later came a sound like a thousand loose pennies hitting a coffee table. This almost takes the fun out of it.
Targets neutralized.

"God-Fucking-Damnit!" Toni could hear the cursing all the way out at the tree line.

Never mind. That made it worth it. "Hooah!"
she yelled back. "Haha! Is that you Johnson? You've just been punked by Blue Force, you little bitch!"


She motioned for the squad to close in and put the touchscreen back in its case. The bees would be returning to their cradles. But she wanted to see the look on that asshole's face herself.

And sure as shit, there he was, Staff Sergeant Johnson, the same sad sack of shit that he was back in Ranger School, at the second machine gun emplacement. There was a smudge of blue on the side of his face and another on the back of his helmet. He had his hands up in the air. "How does it feel to be dead, fucker?"
she smirked, tapping him in the chest.

He scowled. "I'd ask you how it felt to be a bitch, but you got to have feelings first. The face? Really?"

She shrugged. "It's not supposed to do that with the training rounds. Guess you got unlucky."
She patted him on the cheek. "Suck it up, you fucking snowflake. You want to live forever?"
Yeah, that suited Johnson much better than that other snowflake. Toni had carried his ass all the way through Ranger School. Damn blue falcon. He was much better on the OPFOR, cause then she could fuck with him so much more.

Her squad moved through the camp to search for "survivors," but there was hardly any point. The bees had done their job well.

"All right, squad,"
she called out, bringing them in. "Good job, squad. Take five. Hell, take ten. Then we round up the equipment and debrief. Smoke 'em if you got 'em."


Yeah, winning was a lot more fun than losing.

Within an hour of the Ascendancy's impromptu announcement that these power wielders, these channelers as Evelyn Avalon called them, were widespread across the globe, Viktor's life as he knew it ceased to exist. As deputy-consul for the Ascendancy, he was the chief man in charge of all Consulate affairs in the CCD. His oversight kept the Consuls that reported to him in check, but he was completely unprepared for the fallout of this announcement. But it would be a cold day in hell before he admitted as much to the Ascendancy.

He recalled the sheer horror that knotted his stomach when he stood off-stage, watching the live press coverage of the announcement. He trusted the Ascendancy with every shred of his being, but shock could hardly describe the moment. While public eyes watched, he kept his jaw locked tight, eyes impassive. But as soon as he joined the Ascendancy in private, he demanded more information.

Whatever the Ascendancy's plan was, Viktor had the task of carrying it out. First, it began with the creation of a new Consulate. Consulate on ---

Fuck him if he knew what to call it. Well, he'd figure it out later.

The consulate needed a leader, a Consul. It would ideally be someone Nikolai chose himself. Someone like him.

Viktor always knew the Ascendancy was different. Spend a day in the man's private company and anyone could know as much. He'd seen things, extraordinary things, happen around the Ascendancy. And he wasn't the only one. Others saw them too, staffers, aides, even the cleaning crews that mopped the fucking floors knew something was different. But nobody really knew. Nobody ever asked. They just believed, accepted, and put their heads down and worked. That didn't stop rumors filtering out of the Kremlin, though. Viktor was aware of some of them-the Consulate on Propaganda took advantage of some and smothered others. Apollyon was a word they disliked. Archon was carefully planted in exotic places of the CCD, Archon of Ages. Whatever the hell that meant.

Then there was the monument. Fuck fuck fuck but that thing was scary as shit. Viktor was sure one of his under-Consuls shit his pants when the Lenin Mausoleum fucking melted before their eyes. Forget the fact that Lenin's body was gone forever. Forget that the tomb melted. But just fucking look at the archway that rose in its place. If the Ascendancy did that with his mind, what else could he do? What else had he done? Viktor didn't want to know. He believed the Ascendancy when he claimed to be the oldest and strongest of all these people-these power users, these, what did Evelyn call them? He quickly filtered through a screen of notes. There. Yes, Channelers. If there were a thousand channelers out there. Anyone that had the Sickness, that meant the CCD loomed on the brink of anarchy. They had to be regulated. Trained. governed.

That was where the Consulate would step in.

And Viktor finally had his name. He keyed in the new title and submitted the executive order for the Ascendancy to sign later that day.


"Consulate on Channeler Oversight"


Now. To find someone competent enough to lead it.

Every time I see Thunder Butte, it reads Thunder Butt in my head.

Fitting. Thunder butt. School of channelers.

So what if Toni knew her father wanted a son to follow in his footsteps and got her instead? Didn't mean he loved her any less. And it also didn't mean that she couldn't be everything he wanted her to be. Daddy had big shoes to fill, and Toni was gonna do it. Of the 30 years he'd spent in the service, almost two-thirds of it was deployed on top secret missions. So she got to know him mostly through Skype calls and hastily penned letters from undisclosed locations. But Daddy had been on the team that had taken down bin Laden, the most wanted man ever before Toni was born. It was still a big thing when she came along and everyone still talked about what he'd done. And that was just one of the things she knew about.

So Daddy ran high op tempo, and so did she. Especially when he was home. The Colorado Rockies was a great place to get out and learn how to be fearless. Hiking, mountain climbing, hunting – she was already eight years old when he finally let her take down a deer. He even let her gut it. She sucked everything she could about the military out of Daddy's head. How to salute, the proper pushup form, how to field strip an M6 and why it was superior in every way to the M4, how to low crawl through brush and ignore the stickers...

So when he was gone, Toni tried to compete and win at everything. Sports games, spelling bee, whatever. She was gonna show Daddy her new trophy or medal when he next got the chance to call in. “America needs more winners,” he told her once. “We don't win anymore. We don't pick ourselves up off our feet anymore. Paul and Cruz tried. But there aren't enough winners out there. Sometimes people need to learn to embrace the suck. And there needs to be rough men ready to do violence for this great nation to keep it safe.” Then he'd mutter something about President Bullock and the CCD under his breath. “I'm getting too old for this Bullocking shit,” he said once. “Need to knock that CCD down a peg or two.”

When she was ten they relocated to southern Georgia. Fort Benning. The center of advanced warfighting development. Toni would go and watch the soldiers at Jump School. And she knew she'd do that one day. And it was around that time that things started looking up. Col. Track Palin got elected. Finally, one of the Army’s own was in office! There hadn't been a veteran in the presidency in almost fifty years. Even though he was an officer. She'd have preferred an NCO in the White House. But that was unlikely. They were too badly needed to do the work.

But then the war came. China was calling his bluff over Taiwan and they thought they'd finish their little people's revolution before he could take office. Daddy was called out again. Said it was an honor to fight wherever the country needed him. Other nations couldn't push America around. It wasn't about Taiwan, it was the principle of the matter. But this was no third world tinpot dictator. This was another first world nation. He left. And they waited on every word from the media. Toni was doing chin-ups in the yard when the officers came by. His helicopter had been struck by a rocket and gone down in the Taiwan Strait. They fished him out of the drink alive, but he probably wouldn't ever walk again.

They went to go visit Daddy in California. His face was purple and bruised, but it was still him. He was lying in a hospital bed. His spine had been severed at the lower vertebrae, and they'd had to amputate both of his legs above the knee and his left arm at the elbow. And yet he cracked a grin. “I think I'll retire now,” he said. “I gave this country both legs and an arm. I figure we're even.”

Daddy never did walk again, but Toni had the feeling that if he really wanted to he could. He hadn't let it defeat him so much as just made a compromise. Besides, they got to spend more time together. And that man was her biggest fan.

Columbus High School wouldn't let Toni play football. Said they didn't have a girls team, and that it would put her at an unfair disadvantage. Toni made things worse by losing her temper. But Daddy intervened. Guilted by an amputee veteran, the school reconsidered and let her play. And it was a good thing, too. She turned out to be much nimbler than the boys and could take a hit just as well as anyone else. She only broke a couple of bones during her high school career. Besides, she was in better shape than half the defensive line. Her drive to win made her an excellent quarterback, and she drove the Blue Devils to the state championship, where unfortunately she managed to get herself benched in the fourth quarter for getting into a shouting match with the referee over a pass ruled incomplete, which led to them losing the game34-31.

Toni's propensity for fouling herself out of the game turned her off to any college recruiters. But that was just as well, because she had one destination in mind. The U.S. Army Ranger School. Benning's where I want to be. Hooah!
The combat forces had long been open to women, but there had only been a handful of women in twenty years who were able to meet the standards of the Rangers. Toni's mother threw a fit when she announced on her 18th birthday that she was skipping college and enlisting. She had taken Daddy's injuries very hard. “I don't want you coming back to me like this too!” she weeped. Daddy had to calm her down. He was proud of Toni's decision, and that was what mattered. Besides, Daddy couldn't fight anymore and someone had to carry on. Her mother would end up leaving the first year Toni was gone from the home, anyway. Couldn't hack it.

Fast forward to week eleven of 11X – Special Forces candidate One Unit Station Training. They had rucked it twelve miles to do a night infiltration course. Once she graduated she would go on to Ranger school. Six of the soldiers in her platoon had already fallen out on this road march. Lightning in the sky and the winds were picking up. Pretty soon it started pouring. There was a forecast for a tropical storm to move through. The drill sergeants decided to do the exercise anyway. Of those who graduated OUST, over 40% of those would fail Ranger School, 65% of them in RAP week. So they didn't do anyone any favors by going easy on them.

“Let's go Privates. You think you gonna be a Ranger? Gonna be Special forces! Special Snowflake my Ass! Get in my mud!”
yelled the drill sergeant. “Low crawl! Low Crawl!”
Drill Sergeant Harris was a grizzled Haitian infantryman who could barely be understood in good conditions. The man could move like a puma. “Low crawl in that shit to your objective!”
Toni threw herself down into the mud. Her nose had been running for hours now and there was probably fluid in her lungs. She coughed to clear her throat. She was pretty sure she had a fever. The barracks crud had been hounding her for a couple of days now, but there was no way she was going to go to sick call and risk getting recycled. Not when she was so close to graduating. One hand went reassuringly to the metal cord around her neck. Yeah, her daddy's dog tags were still there, secure. They'd been a good luck charm so far. She wrapped her M6 sling around her forearm to keep the muzzle out of the mud and laid her helmet down so to crawl under the barbed wire. There was like a hundred yards to go. “Perez! I said get that helmet down! Low crawl! Fuck your pretty hair! Think some CCD puke gonna care? Chinese shit gonna care? Bury that shit in the mud!”


“Yes, drill sergeant!”
she yelled and dug the rim of her helmet as far down as it could go. It was dragging in the mud now, and only the divot it made gave her room to breathe. The rain was pouring down and soaking her everywhere. She was in the lead. This was the last part of the course. But if her battle buddy didn't make it also, she'd feel like she'd let him down. She got to the objective first and pulled herself out of the muck, then saw her battle buddy bowed down in it. She hobbled over to pull him out. His ruck was full of mud and there was a nasty gash from the barbed wire across his cheek.

“Come on Johnson, we got to get over that wall. That's it!”
she said. Her buddy looked about ready to tap out. She slung her M6 around her back and helped him grab the rope that dangled from the eight-foot barrier, and pushed. Johnson couldn't get his feet under him. “Just hold on,”
she yelled, and scrambled to the top of the wall herself, and grabbed his hand, trying to pull him. “Don't give up on me!”
she yelled. He was trying, sure. But he wasn't digging deep enough. His eyes rolled back and he breathed hard.

Toni strained and strained. Please, please, please, just a little more!
Even so she knew she was going to fail. Daddy, help!
She touched her dog tags.

There was a rumble and a snapping sound. The earth lurched. The barrier suddenly careened toward Toni. She leaped off of it as it fell into the mud. Johnson got to his knees, holding his head. “What just happened?”

“I don't know,”
Toni said. “It must have broken. But let's go ring the bell! We're the first ones done!”
She grabbed him and they stumbled together to the bell.

They never made it. “Privates! What the hell did you do to my wall?”
Drill Sergeant Harris was right on them. “Half-right face! Front lean and rest position, move!”


Toni threw herself down into the pushup position, her hands sinking deep into the slimy mud. A pool of water had gathered beneath her.

“In cadence! One, two, three....”
Toni started pushing and sounding off pushups. Every time she went down, water ran down inside her BDUs from her neck to her navel. Sand had gotten into her bra. She had to time her breaths or she’d end up choking. Everything burned. Yet somehow she had a little more strength to give.

“Answer me! What did you do to my wall? Keep pushing Johnson!”


Her buddy had collapsed and was on his back. Toni kept pushing. “No explanation, Drill Sergeant! It just broke!”
Yeah, she was going to get pneumonia from this for sure.

“Is that the case, Perez? Well since your buddy didn't make it you can push for both of them! Does that suck enough for you?”


She sputtered out a cough as she continued. “I like the way this sucks, Drill Sergeant!”


“Oh yeah, Perez?”
The drill sergeant shook his head and dropped to the prone position himself in one fluid movement. “Halfway down!” He demonstrated. “How about I make it suck a little more?”


“Yes, Drill Sergeant!”
They both dropped to the halfway position. Her arms quaked and the ruck on her back threatened to give way. “Please make it suck some more!”
And she started laughing. And you know what? It was awfully hard to laugh when getting smoked. But it was possible.



Nine months later


So there was a way for things to suck more. Isn't that just the shit to make it all the way through Ranger School and get her green beret, only to get outed for the Sickness before getting her assignment? She knew it was fucking Johnson who did it. Damn blue falcon. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. She'd thought her career was over and made plans to start fighting for it tooth and nail. Instead she got called into her XO's office. 2Nd Lt. Richardson called her to attention. He wasn't all that bad. For a butterbar officer, of course. The man had gone green to gold so he must be all right, though why someone would want to do that was beyond her.

She gave Lt. Richardson a salute. “You wanted to see me sir?”


He returned it. “Private First Class Perez.”
He looked down at a file. “You were top graduate at OUST. Top graduate of Ranger School. Scored a 299 out of 300 on your last record APFT. On the male score chart.”


“No excuse for coming in at a 13:02 on the two mile, sir,”
she said. That 299 still bothered her. So what if she had fallen because of unexplained loss of coordination?

Lt. Richardson grunted. “How long have you had it?”


Toni bit back a grimace. “Since OUST, sir. Week twelve.”


He grimaced. “That long? You should have reported it. It is your duty to report any deficiency that might keep you from completing your mission, soldier. Failure to do this is punishable under the UCMJ.”


Damnit. He was right. “No excuse, sir. Only that it did not keep me from completing the mission.”


He laughed. “I'll say. You know, you aren't the first person to have come down with the Sickness in our ranks. But we haven't... um... well, only a few have been of your caliber. And you could be a vital asset to our ranks. But people are talking about, well, weird stuff happening around you.”


Toni said nothing. Imaginations of sore losers, probably.
She waited at parade rest. Lt. Richardson glanced down at his desk. “I have two forms here. One is a request for a medical board. The other are travel orders.”


“Sir.”
Toni interjected as respectfully as she could. “A medical board is just out of the question. Besides, I haven't had any symptoms for weeks, now.”
Most of the stuff was harmless, anyway. She took the travel orders. Boise? Third Psychological Operations Battalion? What the hell was in frikkin' Boise? “Where am I going? Does this mean I'm not in the Rangers anymore?”


The officer shook his head. “I don't know anything about any future assignments. The CO appealed the automatic medical board to the higher ups and this is what came back down the channel. I haven't the faintest clue why. And I was told to ask no questions. But you graduated Ranger school. As long as you stay in you're qualified to be assigned to any battalion. But you want to stay in the Army, you take the assignment.”


She frowned. “But --”


Lt. Richardson glared at her. “Stay in your lane, Private. You have been ordered not to ask any questions or tell anyone where you are going.”


“Yes, sir.”
Toni snapped back to parade rest.

He gave a small smile. “Your performance at the Ranger school has been among the finest.”
The smile disappeared. “Now you are PCSing tomorrow. You have 24 hours to clear post. Get the hell out my office.”



<big>Camp Hoover
Somewhere in Idaho
December, 2044</big>

So this place was beyond weird. Like Area 51 weird. She was half expecting the crashed flying saucer from Roswell to show up here. Toni was sure that Daddy would have told her about a place like this if he'd ever been there. On the other hand, maybe not. She'd been picked up in Boise and moved to three different vehicles, and blindfolded to boot. There was no way she would have been able to figure out how to get to the location. Upon arrival there wasn't much to see. Just a cluster of barracks buildings. Probably a big back 40 range. She heard aircraft and helicopters. Saw drones, too. Lots and lots of drones. She was pretty sure that someone was always watching her.

Her in-processing brief consisted of her with one other person, Navy chief petty officer Marcus Waltman. His biceps looked like a couple of tree trunks and he had the trident of the SEALs emblazoned on his digital camo print. “Let's get one thing straight, soldier,” he told her. “You were never here. Officially, this place doesn't exist. When you are done here and reassigned elsewhere, you. Were. Never. Here. If you die here – and that is a high probability – your family will never know the truth about what happened to you. If knowledge of what we do here ever got out it would cause an international incident. You are here for one reason, and that's to turn you into a weapon that can be used against America's enemies in a way that will make Ranger School look like the Girl Scouts. What you get in return is the privilege to undergo the worst, most hardcore training that will eat your soul and suck like nothing has ever sucked before.”

“Right, Chief,”
Toni replied. Somebody was screaming not far away. “So what, this is like super secret Delta Force?”


The chief laughed – a maniacal howl that ripped through her heart.


Toni was kept segregated from the rest of the group there. She eventually lost track of time. There was probably a population of 1000 or so at the camp, based on the apparent size of it and the platoons she saw running by. But she was an army of one. She ate by herself and had no interaction with anyone other than base staff. Lots of doctors. There were a lot of doctors. Her first week was nothing but getting poked and prodded. Bunch of psychobabble questions too. When she asked what it was for, they said nothing.

On her eighth day she was sent to a small room with two chairs and a table in the center. She sat down at one. A major walked through the door. She snapped to attention. “Sit down, sit down,”
the man said. He was small and balding, with thick spectacles and a mousey voice. “I am Major Carl Kinnick of the 3rd Psychological Operations Battalion. I am a doctor of psychiatry. Do you know what Psyops do during wartime?”


Toni shrugged. “They disseminate truthful information about our military operations to foreign populations, specifically in enemy controlled areas, in order to reduce enemy effectiveness and enhance the success of our military mission.”


The major nodded. “That is the definition you were told in Ranger School, yes. In order to be successful at this we must be able to get into the minds of the enemy and the minds of the population. So we can remove psychological barriers to the truth. Do you see now what you are doing here?”


Okay. This guy was Hannibal Lecter weird. “Sir? No one has told me anything. And no, I don't understand. What are you getting at?”


“Hm.”
He jotted down some notes. “Tell me about your upbringing and your family life.”


Major Kinnick sure asked her a bunch of questions. The session lasted all morning. He was purposely intent on finding out her fears. Toni didn't like that much. Especially since she didn't have anything to be afraid of. He asked a lot about the Sickness. What she had experienced. If there was anything odd that happened with her, or around her. Any siblings. As the morning went into the afternoon, Toni began to wonder what all this was for, and finally said as much.

“Have you heard of a phenomenon called psychokinesis?”
he asked. Toni shook her head. Psycho what? The major put a shiny metal weight on the table. The stamp on it said 1 Lb. “Pick it up.”
As Toni reached over to grab it, he smacked her hand. “No, pick it up.”
She reached for it again, and the same effect. “Pick it up.”
Okay, so this was some sort of mind game. She could figure it out. Maybe she was supposed to refuse the order. That earned another smack.

The door opened and CPO Waltman came in. He fixed her arms to the side of the chair. Major Kinnick stuck something on each of her temples. Electrodes. He took her dog tags. Daddy's dog tags. Why did she tell him about those? They were her good luck charm. Waltman stood behind her.

“Pick up the weight,”
he said again. Okay. He must be trying to make her snap. This must be an attempt to break her. She shook her head. “Pick up the weight.”
She stayed quiet and motionless. Then a current ripped through her body and her muscles clenched. “Pick up the weight.”


“Why are you doing this?”
she asked. Again, voltage ripped through her. God, but it hurt! “I don't understand the order,”
she whimpered. Again. What did he want from her? What was she supposed to do? How could she do it right and make it stop? What have I gotten myself into?
“I don't understand the order, sir!”


“All you have to do is pick up the weight.”


A knife flipped open and fabric started to tear. That's about the time the sound of her own screams drowned everything else out. The whole world exploded.

* * *

Some time later after Toni regained consciousness, she found herself in a box. That's the only way she could describe it. It was dark, and quiet. She couldn't quite stand up, and if she put her arms out she could touch both walls. A prison. Or coffin. There was air aplenty but nothing else. She felt her way around the box. It was pure metal with no easily noticeable seams. She pounded on it. Solid. Tried to push the metal out. Nothing. Ten men couldn't have budged it. So if she wasn't supposed to escape, the objective must have been to torture her. Yes. That's what they were trying to do to her. Torture her. That’s what all the other stuff had been. They wanted to see her break. They wanted to find out if they could break her. Because she would be no use to the country if she could be broken. So fine. They wanted to throw more stuff at her? Go for it. Not like they could do much worse to her. All she had to do was embrace the suck.

Hour after hour passed. She breathed in and out evenly. She did her best to relieve herself in one corner, though there really wasn't anything to hold it in one place. They didn't bring food or water, either. They weren't going to let her die, though. She was certain of that. That wouldn't make sense. They wanted to see her break? Fat chance. It would take a lot more than shoving her in a box. The lack of stimuli was actually kinda nice compared to...anyway. She did wish she had Daddy's dog tags, though. They were...reassuring. Made her feel connected to him. Powerful.

<big>* * *
</big>
Major Carl Kinnick watched the live feed with detached interest. PFC Perez was a lab rat like any other; this particular lab rat merely had caught his attention for the moment for being the focus of his current experiment. Odd that she just sat there, though. Like she was waiting, an unimpressed child expecting dinner to come anytime. Perhaps a smart lab rat who already thought she understood how the game was played. Even so, she must be feeling the internal stress he'd intended to trigger. She'd been isolated for three days now without food or water, her movement restricted and her stimuli reduced to the foul odors of her own waste. Claustrophobia should kick in to the point of her feeling suffocated. Even if she could still rationalize that she wasn't in any danger – which was far from the truth – the primitive lizard brain wiring within her brain stem must be screaming at her to fight, which should trigger the psychokinetic response he was expecting.

Why wasn't it working? The first successful subject – Koehler – had broken down the barriers to his ability much sooner. So had the other male who had survived. There wasn't much more to go on so far, but the pattern seemed well understood to him and the people he'd coordinated with. The Sickness appeared alongside anecdotal evidence of absurd or impossible feats. Then the sickness disappeared, and the subject survived or died. Usually died. But it seemed there was some point between the first appearance of the Sickness and death where a subconscious trigger to activate the psychokinetic ability could be transitioned to the consciousness, and could be harnessed. For some reason though, it wasn't working for her.

“Major?” He turned his head. Lt. Col. Marjorie Warhol, the regimental chief physician at Camp Hoover, had come in. She had insisted on overseeing every aspect of his experiments. The Department of Defense had threatened to shut him down after the first few deaths -- even though he’d given them Koehler. After that operator’s success on Subversive Operations Group missions, though, certain people with access to Black Program budgeting grudgingly agreed the research was worth continuing -- under the supervision of a physician. Unfortunately, she had a nasty habit of playing it safe even if she had been instructed to tolerate some of Kinnick’s liberties, and that had severely slowed down his progress. “Major. I'm terminating the experiment. Her organs will start to shut down if she does not get water soon. She's dying, major.”

Of course she was. That was the point, to push her to the edge of death. Memento Mori.
But not today. Not everyone could be expected to see that. It was a good thing she'd not found out about the other experiments he’d conducted on Perez. He had to give it a try for the sake of science. But Major Kinnick made an annotation in his notebook and pushed an intercom button. “Terminate the experiment. Get her out and get her to the infirmary.”


Such a shame. He knew beyond any doubt that Perez was one of them. Whatever that was. There was no other explanation. He had corroborated evidence that certain unexplained phenomena had happened around her. The earth shaking. The ground warming enough to cook the frost off. Rocks exploding. Competitors getting knocked aside, her dragging a 250-pound man a half a mile by herself. Plus her other observed habits confirmed she'd been hiding symptoms of the Sickness. There had to be a way to trigger a conscious use in her.

But there were other ways. Camp Hoover had several purposes. It was primarily home for the advanced training and preparation for the Subversive Operations Group. Camp Hoover was off the grid because no one wanted to admit the US was behind the activities that SUBGRU carried out across the globe. Major Kinnick’s tinkering with the attempts advance his pet theories in psychokinetic research – that was a side-show here. Only a convenient place for the military to throw a project that was not even proven to even be real at all. They chose Camp Hoover because none of the higher ups wanted to explain to the public why they were dribbling out a few black research dollars every year to him. There were a lot of things that could be hidden at a black base. And there were other Above-Special Operations training and research going on. A woman who said she could talk to wolves...and of course there was the Empath. Maybe she could find something out that Kinnick had missed. That was a possibility he hadn't considered.

* * *

Toni finished off her last set of pushups. She was feeling better, really. No need to stay in the infirmary. Never got any explanation for the box incident. Or the electrocutions. Or the prolonged waterboarding. Or...she hugged herself. She didn't really want to think about that. In a way, though, she was grateful for it. The enemy would do far worse to her. Whatever didn't kill her would only make her stronger. The greater the sacrifice the sweeter the victory. What she really wanted to do was get back to working with a unit. She was going stir crazy being by herself all the time. You could only win so many games of tic tac toe against yourself.

The door opened. A female corporal came in. Short stubby thing with pudgy cheeks and haircut that was just barely regulation. Her unit insignia denoted she belonged to the medical company. Name badge said Rodriguez. “Hi there,” she said. “I'm Corporal Rodriguez. I thought maybe you'd like some company.”

Toni shrugged. “Yeah, that's fine.”


“I brought beer.” She brought up a six pack of bottles and shook it. “I know you aren't old enough to drink yet, but no one cares here.”

“Even better.”
She sat up cross-legged on her bed as Rodriguez pulled up a chair and handed her a cold bottle. Budweiser. Unoriginal, but it got the job done. She popped off the cap and took a long drink. Emptied the bottle in three swigs. Then she let out a healthy belch. “Hooah, that was good.”


Rodriguez chuckled. “Here, have another. You don't have to drink it with a purpose, though.”

Toni nursed that one instead. Only guzzled half of it before setting it down on the table next to her bed.

“How are you feeling?”

Toni pondered the question. “Okay, I guess. I was hoping for more action out here, though.”


“You mean like R&amp;R, guys or girls and stuff? Yeah, not much of that out here.”

Toni scowled. “No, I mean action. Time in the Back 40. Running operations. Work with my squad.” Rodriguez cocked her head at that. “You know, blowing shit up. Jumping out of helicopters. Rucking through the mud and shit. Hardcore soldier stuff. Learning how to be a rough and tough badass that keeps America safe at night for all the babies and shit. That's what I signed up for. Not...”
she sighed. “I don't know.”


Rodriguez took a very dainty sip from her beer. Shit, was she even a soldier? Probably not. “Why do you think you’re here?”

Toni took another swig from her bottle. “Well, I figure I’m in quarantine or something. This all came about because I got caught with what they called the Sickness. And maybe they think that I’m prone to torture or something. So they got to try and break me to make sure I can hold myself together. And that's why it's worse than anything I've ever heard. That’s all that makes sense.”


The chit of a corporal sipped her beer again. “Don’t you think that...well, don’t you think that maybe you’re capable of more?” Right away Toni knew that she was certainly capable of taking her down in five seconds barehanded if she wanted to. Rodriguez would be useless in battle. And probably couldn’t carry Toni off the field if she went down. Even the medics should be able to hold their own, after all. But she was nice, so that was something. Plus she’d brought beer.

Speaking of which…”Hit me again,”
she added. “Corporal.”
The girl obliged. “In what way do you mean?”


“I don’t know,” Rodriguez continued. She chewed on her fingernail. Gross. Then she set down her bottle. “Like sometimes I feel like I could do anything. Like make this bottle blow up with my mind. Or fly across the room. Or something. Ever felt that way?”

Toni sighed. “Yeah. I do.”
Sadness crept in. “When I was growing up with Daddy I always felt I could do anything. And whenever I think of him I still feel that way. He could do anything. So so can I. He’s proud of me. He even gave me his dog tags, they’re my good luck charm. Kept them all the way here.”
She downed the third bottle. “I wish I had them back. That major took them before...Stupid, I know. They’re just things. But still. I feel naked without them. More than if I was actually naked again.”


Rodriguez stood up and reached out to take Toni’s hand. She let her. “You know,” she said, looking into Toni’s eyes, “I’m glad we had this talk. I think it’s been good for you.” Then she released her hand with a squeeze. “By the way, you can finish the beer. I can’t tolerate alcohol. Only drank a little so you wouldn’t think I was trying to get you in trouble.” With that she left.

Toni leaned back and popped a fourth beer. As far as things went, she’d count today as a win. It had certainly been a good talk for her. After all, she’d gotten free drinks.

* * *

“Are you certain?”
Major Kinnick asked. “She’s not going to get pushed into breaking the barrier?”


Rodriguez shook her head. “No sir. I could feel it. She’s like a boulder. She knows who she is and that she’s determined to do her duty, which to her is whatever she’s told to do as well as she can. She wasn’t even really fazed by what Chief...anyway, she thinks this is all a test.”

He frowned. “And she really has no clue that she is psychokinetic.”


Rodriguez bit her lip. “I was very careful to get past her defenses over me being untrustworthy. Everything I did was calculated to make her think I was harmless and it worked. She really thinks she’s just a hardcore soldier. And, well, she is.”

The major glanced down at his notepad. How irritating. “ You’ve seen Koehler and the other. Ramirez. Is she like them?”


Rodriguez put her hands out as if she was balancing two weights in them. “I don't know sir. It’s like, she feels...they had this flavor. This rage, this power. She, she’s like calm and stable. Immobile, almost. It’s different. I don’t know how else to describe it. I know it’s not very scientific. But she certainly has a defense up.”

Well, there was hardly much scientific to the pseudoscience of empathy. But it was all he had to work with. “What do you recommend?”


“Her dog tags, sir,” the corporal replied. “Give her her dog tags back. Her father’s are on that chain with hers. She has a connection to them. I think it’ll be helpful. And get her back into training exercises. At least by herself.”

Major Kinnick rubbed his eyes beneath his spectacles. It was hardly safe to give a test subject back anything metallic or anything resembling a chain or rope. He’d learned the hard way. “Very well.”
He pulled up a touch screen and typed, “Return personal effects to subject F01 and accelerate to proving ground range alpha.”


<big>* * *
</big>
There she was, on a hot range in full battle rattle. If it could be called a range. More like a hellish pit of death. Imagine an obstacle course combined with a battlefield combined with a stroll through the paleozoic era. Plus they changed it up every time she went through it. Exactly the kind of training she was hoping for.

Toni waited at the starting line. It was set in the woods and worked through about a mile and a half with various barricades. “Go.” This was her fourth run through this course. She hadn’t made it more than halfway. She took out the three leapfrog mines and ran toward the first obstacle, a double coil of barbed wire. That’s when the two targets popped up with autocannons trained in her direction. Only problem was that instead of shooting over her like she’d expect, they shot at her with these painful barbed flechettes that scored any bare skin and even ripped through her digital camo print BDUs. Plus she couldn’t get a good bead on them. This time she pushed through the wire and shot them both down.

Toni ran down the path and climbed over an 8-foot wall in her path. Right then a log swung at her. She twisted and avoided it, dropping down on the other side.

And that’s when they hit her with the UCAV swarm. Twenty threats at once, just a tiny grouping. Not a big swarm by any means. Still more than dangerous. She knew from previous experience that they would fire tranquilizer darts. More than a couple and she’d be out. Her Land Warriors glitched out, so she took them off and threw them down as she executed a forward combat roll and took cover behind a fallen tree. Had to do this old school, then. Three darts hit the trunk above her. They had her in a semicircle and were closing in at less than twenty yards.Toni brought up her M6 and squeezed the trigger. It jammed. Bullshit!
She’d PMCS’d it herself. It must have been rigged to fail. The bolt was stuck in the closed position. I’m not going to fail this time!
She’d make a run for it. That’s what she’d do. She dropped her rifle and grabbed Daddy’s dog tags. She could do this.The course sprung out as clear and crisp, and she could make out the beats of the individual wings of the nearest UCAV as it darted.

The earth rumbled as Toni popped up from her cover and bolted down the home stretch. She swatted the drones out of the sky if they were in her way. Fountains of earth blew away from her feet and showered dirt and rocks everywhere. The mud pit ahead was like solid rock ground, she blew right through it. There was the last part -- climbing the rope and ringing the bell. She reached for the rope and as soon as she touched it the whole rig groaned and collapsed in a pile of timbers and twine.

She snatched the bell from where it had fallen and gave it a jingle in her hands. The remote camera whirled its lens her direction and made a clicking sound as it focused on her. “Hooah!”
she yelled, and threw the bell at it. It smashed the camera into a cloud of powdered glass, making a very pleasing chime in the process. Toni laughed as she gazed upon her ripped and bloodied sleeves and surveyed the smoking drones behind her. Victory was hers.


* * *

Beep. Kinnick shut off the recording. “There’s your proof.”
It was incontestable that she was psychokinetic. Exploding rock and dirt had followed her sprint as if she’d been throwing up chaff to guard against the UCAVs. She had set off a highly localized earthquake of 5.0 magnitude.

“I see,” said Lt. Col. Warhol. “You didn’t answer my question. Is she a danger to herself or others if she is released?”

Kinnick shook his head. “I do not believe so. No one has died more than six months after the first symptoms stop. But she still fails to see the truth. I know we can break through if you just allow me --”


“Out of the question.” The physician crossed her arms. “We are operating in a very dubious moral and ethical realm here already. Continuing down this road will remove all doubt. You have had her for six months now. I see no benefit in continuing to hold her and significant costs. If you continue to torment her you will only kill her or make her crazier than she already is.”

“Ma’am--”


“That’s an order, Major. I’m shutting down experimental subject F01. The orders are already being issued.”

What a waste. But there would be other opportunities, eventually, with what little time he had left. Memento mori. He nodded. “I assume you want her moved over to SUBGRU.”


She shook her head. “That’s a negative, Major. The Rangers want her back. It seems her father raised a stink about no contact with her, and got in touch with the right general, and, well, you know. It’s hard to deny a triple amputee war hero what he wants.”

Perhaps. What a shame, though. Perez had been such an interesting labrat.

* * *

It was 0500 and Toni was lacing up her boots when CPO Waltman came in. Didn’t even knock, but Toni sprung to parade rest anyway. Wasn’t going to catch her off guard if she could help it. “At ease,” he said. “Here.” he handed her a packet.

She frowned. “What is this?”


“You’ve been sprung. You’re clearing the camp and heading back to Georgia. Guess someone had enough of you. Pack your bags immediately.”

Toni glanced at the orders. Travel and reassignment. Jump School. She was going back to Benning.

She laughed. “I’m too hardcore for this camp, Chief,”
she said. “You should come see me in Georgia sometime. If you think you’re tough enough, and you think you know your stuff.”
Yeah, there was a threat in there. She hadn’t quite forgotten. But never mind that. She could already hear the running cadence beating through her head as she grinned. Look at me, Daddy. I’m going to be an Airborne Ranger, living a life of guts and danger…

Noah shifted the old truck into park and gripped the steering wheel hard as he took a breath. He tried not to show it but he was hurting more often than not these days. He could feel time gnawing and grinding away at his bones. Time was a poor friend and an unforgiving master. Always taking, stealing away, never giving back, grinding forward like the wheel of a millstone. And as long as man had existed, he had tried to rage against the dying of the light, rage against change and decay. But it made no difference. The future was inevitable, and one day it would no longer belong to him. He would try not to fight it when that day came.

But until then it was still his time. Noah got out of the truck and surveyed the landscape. Rolling yellow grasses covered the flat horizon, broken by a jagged mound of rock shooting up from the ground as if the earth had punched the sky. To the right a narrow band of river continued to wear away at the soft soil in solitude. There was not a building to see. In the evening light of the setting sun, the dying light caught the red mud and set it ablaze, like a red tower rising from the grassland. Thunder Butte. The Lakota legend was that this was the birthplace of Thunder. A fitting place to birth a people of fire and iron who would cause the earth to tremble with their footsteps and shoot lightning from their eyes, like the Kakchinas of old.

What was, and what will be. And yet it may be so, today.

He probably needn't come here in person, but he wanted to see this himself. After years of fruitless endeavors of trying to keep the Native peoples safe from the Sickness, from the government, the Atharim, and themselves, they could finally press forward with a concrete plan and a solid foundation. Jon and others had done their work like good servants to the will of fate, making sure this place would be protected from the government, and out here in the middle of nowhere these spirit warriors to be could pose the least risk to themselves or others until they could gain control of their abilities. That was the greatest danger. And that only left the Atharim. They would have to keep guard, and eventually build fortifications and self-sustaining operations. The butte itself with its hard rock core may prove useful. He hoped they wouldn't have to transform it too much. It was a sacred place.

The sport utility vehicle pulled in behind Noah, and a middle-aged man with a prominent nose and flecks of gray in his single black braid got out. He was wearing a jeans jacket and pants with thick boots. Chief Stephen Two Moons of the Standing Rock Lakota. His son was one of the six youth in the SUV, brought here by Noah because they had begun to experience the channeling Sickness. Two young men and a girl, only sixteen, from the Lakota Nation, two Cherokee sisters -- twins -- from Oklahoma, and a young Hopi man from Arizona. The Hopi reminded Noah too much of Jerome. That was all he had managed to find so far and keep tabs on in this past year, even though Noah had become known through the tribes as a man who could treat the Sickness. All too often these youth were just disappearing.

"We'll set up camp down between the river and the butte," Noah said. "Where the river bends around. Should be able to divert the stream for water collection and purification. It's too late in the year for planting, but there's plenty of grass for the buffalo and the other livestock." They had food, anyway. Some, at least. This was a collaborative effort on behalf of the tribes and all had made some donation to the cause. Even so, the Lakota Spiritual Development Institute would probably always be the epitome of austerity. "Erect the teepees in a circle down there."

The man nodded, and banged on the hood of his SUV. The boys and girls got out. Other vehicles began to pull in behind them. Camp helpers and volunteers, mostly family or people who hoped somehow they could gain these abilities for themselves. About two dozen of them all together. They'd help get set up and perhaps stick around for lack of anything better to do. They began to empty the old truck of supplies. Long tent poles and bags of treated canvas. Food and water. Gas for cooking stoves. Shovels and pickaxes for digging, and coils of rope and barbed wire.

Chief Two Moons had been Navy himself, serving aboard the USS Ronald Regan during the Taiwan Strait War. The man understood the value of discipline. They'd spoken of how to best proceed. Hard work and discipline would go hand in hand with the teachings of their ancestors. These people -- kids, really -- would learn how to become self-sufficient out here as well as gain control over their abilities. And as more came, the need for organization and discipline would become all too apparent. A simple thing like improper latrine placement and maintenance could spell doom for this camp, and lack of discipline would destroy any outfit, let alone one in which the people had the power to destroy each other and themselves.

But still, they were missing one key component. The institute needed teachers. Men and women who could show the way, who had done it themselves already.

Fortunately, Noah had already taken care of that. "Hello, Jon," he called out without turning his head. "Why don't you come up and say a word or two?"

A slight knock came to his door, and Anton was glad he had left the party early. He had lessons today, and it wouldn't have been fun doing them with a hangover - not even to mention how unprofessional it would be. Anton stood and answered the door and felt the nervousness that his student Natasha was feeling now.

"Good morning, Professor,"
she said politely.

Anton nodded and let her enter. She set her music binder on the music stand next to the piano as Anton sat down. Her nervousness was almost overwhelming and since he had no one to focus on, he had to mute her emotions in another way.

Anton led her through some vocal warm-ups, critiquing technique when it was needed. She was a senior and was learning quite well. It wouldn't surprise him if in a few years she was performing with him on stage.

"You're nervous, what's wrong?"
he asked. He of course knew what was causing it, but if she talked about it, it would help.

"I have my audition for the opera soon,"


Anton nodded. He knew auditions for the University's performance of Don Giovanni were coming up and he knew Natasha planned to audition. Auditions were always nerve wracking.

"What are you singing,"


"The Queen of the Night Aria,"
she said.

Anton smiled. It was a good choice for her voice part, and she had the talent to make it happen. "Good choice,"
Anton stood and pulled a book from his shelf. He opened it to a specific page, and started the introduction. "Sing it."


Anton listened as she sang though the aria. Natasha had a beautiful soprano voice. She would do well in her auditions as long as she didn't let her nerves get the better of her. Even now though, the nerves were dissipating.

She finished the aria and Anton held back telling her how he felt at first. "Critique yourself,"
he said and waited.

"The notes are there, but it lacks something I think,"
she waited as if expecting her teacher to comment. She continued when he did not. "I feel like I'm singing the notes, but it feels like it's missing some life."


Anton nodded. "What is this aria about."


"The Queen of the Night is wanting Pamina to kill Sarastro. It's a song about revenge and hate."


Anton nodded. "Hard emotions for you to channel I'm sure,"
he said. Natasha was a very kind hearted student. "But you need to put that emotion into your sound. That is what the directors want to see. You can sing the notes, but they want to hear you make music. Try it again."[color]

Natasha seemed to understand. The life the aria had missed before came into being. This lesson made him think of his own performance that was coming up the next night. He would have a gamut of emotions to portray. Of course, he had an advantage that his student didn't have.

Adam loved listening to the excitement of their female guest. She was bubbly energy and full of life and her excitement was contagious. It was something everyone wanted and needed and it was a shame that they couldn't bottle it up and sell it.

Her final comment as they arrived at the Ritz made Methos smile. "It does have a nice ring to it."


The door man opened the door and Methos got out first and offered his hand to the lovely Ms. Danika. There were of course cameras and entertainment news crews mixed in with the paparazzi. But none of it mattered, Adam had pulled the guise of Methos around him and he was ready to be the showman.

Bradley followed as they walked through the glass doors of the hotel into cool fresh air. But the electricity was still in the air as they made their way up to the floor they had taken. It wasn't the most expensive rooms but when you take the entire floor does it need to be. The grand suite was their final stop, there was already music playing in the room, it could be barely heard from outside the open door. Bev must be hard at work.

Once they past the open door the music blared and the light display on the ceiling was apparent. Troy seemed to be playing with his tricks again as well. Shimmering lights of red and blue and green much like the Aurora Borealis skirted the ceiling and the walls. It was always a wonder when the crew set their parties going. Bradley had snuck off to their own room down the other end of the hall - possibly to change, possibly to slip into the satiny sheets to sleep off the alcohol he'd consumed too much of. Maybe he'd be waiting up - doubtful. Adam knew better, he was slipping himself in next to their son as always when Methos entertained guests.

It was not an easy life living with Methos. But the three of them managed and Adam did love this life. Loved being Methos.

Methos presented Danika to the party. "My darling. This is now your celebration. "
Bev and Troy stood off to the side of the room whispering as Methos appraised the room. "Whatever you like my darling Danika. Call whom ever you like, invite them. Show them what your diligence has brought you. The more the merrier."