3
Much to the Marines’ welcome surprise, they’d stayed on Mistake for only another two weeks, running patrols in response to anomalies from the Navy eyes in the sky. All of them proved to be negative. The Centaurs had truly bugged out.
The evening after their return to New Hope, Rev headed out to the VGW to check in with Mr. Oliva. The old man played it down, but Rev could see he appreciated the attention and the opportunity to tell his war stories. But Rev’s visits weren’t altruistic. He found he enjoyed the old man’s company, stories and all.
“Hey, Sergeant,” Maude said as he stepped into the dark bar. “How’s it hanging?”
“Same old, same old, you know.”
“Yeah, I guess I do know at that,” she said with a gruff laugh.
Maude Timmerkin looked like she could have been running a criminal gang, hard as nails and salty as seawater. Rev had been surprised, though, to find out she was a retired sailor, a captain, no less. She’d commanded three ships in her career, and now she was tending bar at the VGW. He’d asked her about that once, and she told him she’d rather hang out here with “her tribe,” as she put it, instead of at her retirement home.
“You just get off the ship?”
Marines were not supposed to talk about their comings and goings with civilians, but of course, Maude had her ear to the ground, and she was hardly a Children of Angels agent. Rev nodded, then she brought out a glass and poured a Pyron Rum, a traditional welcome home drink for the Navy.
Rev wasn’t a huge fan, but some things can’t be refused, and he downed it in one swallow, feeling the liquid gold roll down his throat. And it felt good. Maybe he was getting used to it. He started to wave his chip over the reader to pay, but she pushed his hand away.
“You insult me, Sergeant. You think I’m going to let you pay?”
Rev sheepishly nodded, then looked to the back, but his friend wasn’t there. “Where’s Mr. Oliva? I can’t believe he’d miss an evening at the canteen.”
Maude’s eyes clouded over, and she said, “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have heard. Some young punks roughed him up two nights ago. He’s in the hospital.”
Anger surged through him. “What? Which hospital? I need to go see him.”
“No visitors for a couple of days. They won’t let you in.”
Rev’s mind was whirling. Who’d jump an old vet? He was no threat.
“What happened? Why did they do it?”
“Who the hell knows? They were outside when he left, a few sheets to the wind. You know him. Maybe they gave him some shit, and he gave it back. You know Regis, right? He saw the same kids when he left a few minutes earlier, and they didn’t bother him.”
Mr. Oliva could be a smart-ass Rev admitted. But to get jumped for that? He could feel his blood boil.
“And you’re sure I can’t go see him?”
“I’m sure. A couple of the cooties tried to see him today and were told no. Not until Friday at the earliest.”
The Military Order of the Cooties was an ancient organization out of the Veterans of Galactic Wars, going all the way back to old Earth. It was somewhat secretive and had lots of rituals, but Rev knew that they spent a lot of time visiting infirmed or hospitalized veterans.
Maude poured him a beer and put it on the bar. “Sit down and cool off. It sucks, but there’s not much you can do about it now. Oliva’s a tough egg. He’ll be back soon enough, ornery as ever.”
Rev wanted to go try and see if he could get in to see the old man, but he knew she was right. He pulled up a stool and drained the beer. More than a few. He spent the next hour with Maude and a couple of the guys before he decided to head back to the base. He’d come back on Friday and get an update.
Rev paid his bill and stepped out the door once again, wishing his augments could neutralize the effects of alcohol. He took out his quantphone and called up an autocab, then started to walk to the corner.
“Told you there’d be another one,” a voice said from across the street.
Rev looked up where four men in their thirties or forties started across the street to him. “Excuse me?”
“Fucking Genny,” the lead man said, using the common slang for the Genesians.
Rev didn’t need his augments to know these guys were trouble, and it had to be them, not young kids, who’d assaulted Mr. Oliva. It was a pat coincidence, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be true. He could feel the adrenaline start to flow, competing with the alcohol for dominance.
The four spread out, making a diamond around him. Rev widened his feet slightly, weight on the balls of his feet. Flashes of lectures they’d gotten when first augmented zipped through his mind. An augmented Marine was never to use their advantages against citizens. But if these were the guys who’d jumped Mr. Oliva, then he wasn’t going to pay attention to that restriction. But he wasn’t drunk enough not to realize that he couldn’t just act on his suspicion. He had to confirm these were the same guys.
“What do you want?” he asked, surprised that his voice was so calm.
“What do we want?” the leader, a heavyset man with a bull neck, asked. “We want you off New Hope.”
“I’m a citizen, just like you. Born and raised here in Swansea.”
“Don’t matter none where you were born,” the man said with a sneer as the other three laughed. “You’re a Genny now. An assault on all that’s holy.”
“I am not a Genesian,” Rev said, noting the positions of each of them while he started to formulate a plan of attack.
“So you say. You Marines, you think everything’s all secret behind the gates, but we’re not stupid, and we have eyes. We know they’re creating Gennies again, despite all the laws and stuff. Taking nature into your own hands, and we know what happens when you do that.”
“And why do you think I’m some sort of android?” Rev asked, using the corner of his eyes to watch the guy on his right who seemed too excited for his own good. He was going down first or second, Rev decided right there.
All four laughed at that. “Look at you. You look like they made you with wax, and then you melted. And your arm. They cut off arms first, then make you guys Gennies. Just like the old guy Monday night,” the guy on the right said.
Rev slowly turned, his glare enough to make the guy take half a step back. “You were the ones who attacked Mr. Oliva?”
“If you mean the old Genny, then yeah. Taught him a lesson.”
Rev almost snarled in anger. He took three deep breaths and said, “Mr. Oliva is ninety years old. He lost his arm in combat years ago.”
The first guy shrugged and said, “Then they shouldn’t have done that shit to him.”
Rev was close to his breaking point, but he was going to try one more time. “Yes, I’ve been augmented. But only so I can fight the Centaurs. To keep you safe.”
The first guy looked up to the night sky and howled. “Oh, that’s fucking precious. You expect us to believe that? Centaurs? Those ancient myths.”
Rev wasn’t expecting that, and for a moment, he was taken aback. “You know we just call them Centaurs, right? They’re not like half man, half horse.”
“They’re not like half man, half horse,” the first guy repeated, but in a high, sing-song voice. “They don’t even exist, you idiot. They’re a figment of the government’s imagination, all to keep us in check, under their thumb. Everything’s for the war effort, and they take away our rights. And you guys. You’re going to be the enforcers when they try to push us down.”
Rev couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was Children of Angels-crazy. “I’ve fought them. They’re real.”
“Sure you did. And if they’re supposed to be so tough, then how did you survive?”
“’Sides, even if they are real,” the guy on the right said, “they sure the hell ain’t coming here. That’s all for the central worlds to worry about, so why do we have to suffer out here?”
That was it. There was no reasoning with these idiots. “If I really am a Genesian, you know I can destroy all four of you, right?”
The first guy smiled, his eyes glinting in the street light. He brought out avibroblade and activated it, the hum unmistakable. “I don’t think even a Genny can stand up to this.”
Rev’s warrior self took over, and he moved into a fighting stance. The man could be right. With a molecularly thin edge and point, it might be able to pierce Rev’s spider web. It would certainly do a number on his skin, and while that wouldn’t be fatal, it wasn’t something that Rev wanted to go through.
But it was the guy on the right who moved first, whipping out a baton and moving in to coldcock him. Rev spun around with a spinning backfist, bashed through the baton, and connected with the side of the attacker’s head, dropping him like a sack of flour. But the move was designed to draw Rev out, and the first man was lunging. He was quick, with the reflexes of a street fighter. But Rev was quicker. He spun back, raising his social arm and catching the blade. The knife’s edge skittered across his arm’s metal surface, rising up along it until the blade nicked his skin on the shoulder. The man grunted in surprise before Rev’s right fist caught him on the chin.
Rev had pulled the punch. Killing a citizen would be much harder to justify, even if they attacked first. And the man was tough. He staggered back, barely keeping his feet, his eyes unfocussed. But he managed to retain the blade, which he held out, pointing at Rev.
One of the other two hit Rev from behind. Rev didn’t have time for him. He shot back an elbow into the guy’s face, feeling it crunch, then stalked forward. The man took one step, two steps back.
“I’ll kill you, you metal freak!” he shouted, waving the vibroblade. “You should all die!”
Quick as a snake, Rev’s social arm darted out and grabbed the man’s wrist, then twisted it upward. The man screamed in pain and went to his knee, but he wouldn’t let go.
<Don’t kill him.>
Rev’s anger was boiling, and while he knew Punch had been controlling the adrenaline surge, this was the first thing his battle buddy had said. And it was to protect these cretins.
He poured power into his arm, crushing and twisting. Bones snapped, and the man finally let go of the blade, which stopped the vibration. It bounced off the sidewalk, now just an unremarkable-looking inert gray. Rev raised his right hand, ready to cave in the man’s head.
“Stop, stop. Please,” the guy shrieked.
There was a sudden dip in his anger, and Rev didn’t think it was because of the man’s pleas. If Punch could raise him to fighting mode, it stood to reason that he could take Rev back as well. He knew he should be angry at being manipulated, but he couldn’t muster up the emotion. Which made its own kind of perverted sense, if that was what Punch wanted.
Rev let go, and the man fell to the ground and curled into a fetal ball. Rev turned around. Two guys were in motionless heaps, one of them, at least, groaning. There was no sign of the fourth guy.
Damn. He sure beat feet quickly.
His shoulder burned from the slash, but a little probing revealed that it was only skin. His spider web was still intact.
What now?
He was tempted to call the police. For attacking a Marine, the three—four, if the other guy could be tracked down—would get conscripted and find themselves in uniform soon enough. But he just didn’t want to deal with it, and even if he did, were these the kind of lowlifes he wanted fighting beside him?
What happened couldn’t be hidden. The police would get involved, and they’d check the secdrone recordings. But if Rev didn’t hang there until the police arrived, if he didn’t press charges, then maybe the police would let it go.
The autocab pulled up to the corner, and that was the deciding factor. Leaving the bodies in place, he got into the cab.
“Camp Nguyen.”
If the authorities wanted him, all they had to do is pull the autocab’s records. If they didn’t, then the four could rot for all Rev cared.