An acrid smell exploded as disgusting smoke filled the dorm room. “I’ll call you back.” Sergeant Jirel Cutler hung up on the prophet.
Before him stood the traitor Zorba, a red-eyed temptress masqueraded as human. He’d been shocked to find himself in this form one morning, dropped off at a diner on Earth with no explanation or instruction from his King. But this vixen willfully left her proper abode. Willfully sought human flesh. Hungered to be what they were not created to be. Imageo Deo.
Zorba lifted a cigarette to her lips and blew a puff smoke at him. “Jirel, well, speak of the devil!”
“Where did you come from?”
She laughed. “Going to and fro in the Earth, walking up and down in it.” She blew another puff of smoke at Jirel.
Jirel grabbed the cigarette from her hand and crushed it.
“Finally getting some gumption.”
“No, there’s no smoking allowed anywhere on base.”
She laughed. “Cute. We’ve noticed you have a little pet boy. What does Heaven want with him?”
Jirel stood still with folded arms.
“I bet you don’t even know.” She tsked. “Whatever it is, Heaven’s going to need a new plan. I’ve come for Snyder, and he’s ours.”
Jirel laughed. “The battle belongs to the Lord, Zorba.”
“What are you? The Angel Cliché-o-matic? I came as a professional courtesy.”
“And in the same manner, you may depart. You will not have Snyder’s soul.”
“I love it when you fellas put up a fight.” She tapped Jirel’s cheek. “Later, sweet thing.” She exited through a wall.
Jirel changed into his Physical Training uniform and headed down to Hecht’s Astroturf baseball diamond. He grabbed a bat from the clubhouse, set up the pitching machine, and waited for the ball.
The machine delivered up a fast ball. He smashed it over home plate and out of the park. Since no one was around, Jirel raced to catch it.
His home run ball fell into his outstretched hands.
In the desert. Several miles away from the listening post.
“Woo hoo!”
Jirel turned. Zorba stood in a cheerleading outfit, shaking pom poms. “Way to go, Superman!”
“I’m no man.”
“Are you?” She sashayed over to him and ran nimble fingers down his gray t-shirt. “Funny. You feel like a man to me.”
At the rude lesson in what led to the rise of those cursed Nephilim, Jirel made a dash for the listening post. Flee temptation.
Back on base, he let himself into his room. A scantily-clad Zorba perched on his bed in a provocative pose. “I’m as fast as you, babe.”
Jirel closed his eyes. “Resist the devil, and she must flee!”
“Touché. Next time, sweet thing.”
Jirel opened his eyes. She was gone. Praise God.
He picked up the remote to the HV window and called Smith back via vid-phone. He turned on the encryption that BlackJack McGraw had configured for them. McGraw had boasted that even Private Snyder couldn’t crack it.
The grizzled prophet sat in the window in what looked like a dark closet. Jirel said, “An unclean spirit has been assigned to tempt Snyder to fall back into sexual sin and hence undo all my work.”
Smith whistled. “That would be bad news.”
“An understatement. She’s been bringing men down for 3,000 years. She’s only succeeded with my kind twice, but that’s twice too many. There’s a reason it’s forbidden for us to touch human flesh. You may recall the offspring of such unions partly brought about the Flood.”
“She comes attached to someone, doesn’t she?”
“Usually.”
“I’ll get the personnel files of new female transfers and enlistees. See what we can find out.”
“I doubt personnel files will be much help. She could have arrived unattached and found a victim already assigned to Hecht. Also, she prefers women, but will take a man if she’s desperate. Though a male victim would be easier to spot, in the advanced stages.”
At the question on the prophet’s face, Jirel added with a grimace, “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Jirel sat in his quarters, talking on a prepaid mobile phone. “Smith, I think I’ll be leaving soon.”
“You feel from the Lord it’s time to move on?” asked the prophet.
“We’ve got him pointed in the right direction. Whatever happened with his grandmother, whether it was a vision, a dream, or if he was caught away in the spirit, I don’t know. But it seems to have helped. He did what was right, even when it would be risky. He hasn’t even had any major temptations to speak of. Surely I’ll be called Home soon.”
An acrid smell exploded as disgusting smoke filled his room. “I’ll call you back.” Jirel hung up.
Before him stood the traitor Zorba, a red-eyed temptress masqueraded as human. He’d been shocked to find himself in this form one morning, dropped off at a diner on Earth with no explanation or instruction from his King. But this vixen willfully left her proper abode. Willfully sought human flesh. Hungered to be what they were not created to be. Imageo Deo.
Zorba lifted a cigarette to her lips and blew a puff smoke at him. “Jirel, well, speak of the devil!”
Snyder stood in full dress uniform by the grave of Lieutenant Jim Ealgeclaw, outside of Flagstaff, Arizona.
The grave was as much a monument to Blackjack McGraw’s friendship. The Empire either left the executed to be eaten by birds or else threw the bodies into a bonfire.
The officer who presided over Eagleclaw’s execution reported that the body disappeared the evening after. Snyder stared at the report’s printout. The signature read, “Lieutenant Paul Dread.”
Snyder crumpled the paper in his hands. He stood before the grave. He chose this over a visit to Mama Borden with his two day leave, and now that he was here, what was he supposed to say or do?
He read the epithet. “Fearless warrior, loyal friend, and courageous patriot.” He smiled at McGraw’s irony in calling a man executed for treason a patriot.
That’s the Years of the Empire for you. The patriots are called traitors and the traitors are hailed as heroes.
Snyder turned to walk away, but spun around. “You know, I think, we could have been family. You wouldn’t have cared that I’m white. Would you?”
A tear trickled down his cheek. Snyder tried to hold it in. “Ah, heck, no one here even knows me.”
Snyder stood in the middle of a vast dessert. Nothing to see but sand and a solitary figure approaching. What was going on? Snyder reached for his colt service revolver.
“Anny, that won’t be necessary,” said the familiar voice.
“Grandma!”
Snyder ran over and embraced his grandmother. “I love you.”
A slap came across Snyder’s face. Shijo stood over him, laughing. “I love you, too.”
Snyder scratched his forehead. “What’s going on?”
Blackjack McGraw stood by the carrier. He shrugged. “I’d say you fainted, but I probably pushed you down too hard.”
“Someone was shooting at us and I saw my grandmother. What’s going on?”
McGraw pointed to two men lying on the ground. “Those guys were shooting at us. Hotel Security didn’t put in any of their manuals that they put two armed guards on with their cargo. Shijo saved our bacon.”
Shijo sniffed. “Of course I did.”
“In fact, I wouldn’t mind working with him regularly if he weren’t such an egotist.”
“Likewise.”
“What about my grandmother?”
McGraw shook his head. “Your common variety mirage.”
Several empty buses pulled off the Interstate. Cutler and his minister friend got off one. The minister said, “The mystery bomber has just disappeared. We need everybody on the buses.”
The enslaved children and teenagers boarded the buses like compliant cattle.
Snyder said, “Sarge, let’s get out of here. If we leave first, the buses will cover our tracks.”
Cutler nodded and jumped into the driver’s seat of the van.
McGraw said, “Kid, maybe I’ll look you up some time.”
“What are you going to do now?”
McGraw shrugged. “Three hundred kids, I figure they’ll need some help. Maybe it’s time for me to take a sabbatical. Help boys become men. I haven’t done a good job with my son, and I’m too late with you. But maybe, you know?” McGraw looked across the desert. “Just maybe.”
Snyder nodded. “Good luck.”
“Thanks kid.”
Snyder walked towards the van, but turned around. “Keep in touch.”
Back in the casino, Snyder retrieved another drink for Stefan and returned to Cutler. Stefan was on some losing streak.
Stefan cursed. “Are you certain this blasted machine isn’t rigged?”
“Our machines are honest.” The owner reached his hand into his pocket.
Stefan hit 3 lemons.
He took a drink. “Now that I’m on a winning streak: let the good times roll.”
He won two of the next three pulls.
Honest my foot. Snyder glanced at the secret service’s monitors. Right on schedule, on Camera 5, a man with a dynamite vest came on the screen.
A secret service agent gasped. “Oh my Herald, he’s got a bomb!” The secret service agent grabbed Stefan. “We’re outta here.”
Stefan cursed. “I’m about to get even!”
“You’re about to be dead.”
Stefan ran out along with the Secret Service detail. They shoved him in a limo and drove off. The Hotel emptied out.
Two buses pulled up outside and were filled by escaping guests and staff, including Verducci. They boarded the buses in time for more people to run out. The three hundred “students” had to stand aside. Snyder sighed in disgust. If the bomb went off, the pleasure slaves were insured.
A cattle carrier semi-truck pulled up out front as the third and fourth buses arrived. The slaves were loaded on the semi. Snyder watched their march: four-year-olds first, sixteen year olds last. They were all but mooing as they went up into the truck, heads down.
The third and fourth buses left and so did the cattle carrier. The Las Vegas PD pulled up in four squad cars.
Cutler said, “Private, I can handle this from here. You better get back to base.”
Snyder nodded. He walked behind the bathroom stall where the army van sat. He changed out of his dress uniform into his work uniform. He got in the driver’s seat and pulled out from behind the men’s room and drove off after the human carrier.
Half a mile down the road, Snyder hit a stop light. Shijo and McGraw jumped in.
McGraw said, “I’m driving.”
Snyder moved over. “Fine by me.”
McGraw drove down the road. “Phase one, complete. It looked absolutely beautiful from where I sat, kid. Your old man couldn’t have done better.”
“Given that the old man in my life is a pacifist, I’ll agree, but thanks anyway.”
“Stubborn, too.” McGraw glanced back. “Shijo, are you ready?”
“Don’t insult my professionalism. Keep an eye on the road.”
“Don’t insult me, either. I’ve been doing this since before the kid was in Pampers.” McGraw grabbed the CB mic. “Attention, all police vehicles in the Vicinity of I-515, Military Emergency, Code Zebra 78.”
A voice over the CB responded. “Nevada State Police. Acknowledged.”
McGraw hunched down. “All right, I just got me a license to speed.”
He hit the freeway at 190 KPH with a green emergency light flashing. They were on top of the human carrier in five minutes.
McGraw slowed to 112 KPH as they came alongside the carrier. Shijo climbed out the sunroof and jumped onto the semi-truck. He shimmied towards the driver’s door.
McGraw passed the carrier and turned off the emergency light. “Come on, kid. Let’s meet up at the Rendezvous.”
Snyder raised an eyebrow. “How do you know Shijo will get the driver?”
“If he doesn’t, we’d have a heck of a time stopping that thing ourselves. When you have a plan, you gotta have faith in your team.“
Snyder nodded.
Five minutes later, Snyder and McGraw stood outside a twenty story vertical farm, just off the Interstate. The carrier drove up and parked behind their van. Snyder pulled the latex glove on his right hand tighter.
Shijo jumped down from the carrier’s cab. “As Cutler requested, the driver is alive, but won’t be up and about for a long while.”
McGraw nodded. “Let’s get the back opened up.”
Snyder and McGraw put on ski masks and opened the carrier door.
A stream of bullets greeted them.
McGraw threw Snyder down. Snyder’s head slammed into a supernova that burst inside his skull. Beats a noose.
Snyder and Cutler flanked Stefan the European as they entered the casino in the company of the secret service.
Stefan said, “Send my compliments to Colonel Dread. Your help is appreciated, albeit entirely unnecessary.”
Cutler replied, “There are rumors of a terrorist attack, and this is our territory.”
The owner approached and bowed to Stefan. ”Your majesty, I’ll have my finest boy waiting for you in your room.”
Stefan wrinkled his nose and produced a polite smile. “I’d much rather find my own entertainment, thank you.”
Snyder smiled. Stefan wasn’t nearly the sellout he’d thought. Still, millions of saints in Europe would’ve testified that Stefan was no saint, except talking was quite a challenge when headless.
Stefan sat down at a slot machine and pulled the lever. He lost. He pulled it again.
And again . . . .
And again . . . .
After twenty pulls, Snyder sighed. I bet the ICA really increased compulsive gambling. But as he’s playing with tax dollars, I don’t think he’s worried.
Snyder looked at his watch. 10:20. Time to fly. “Your excellency, let me get you another drink.”
Snyder wasn’t technically old enough to be here, but being in the military provided a fringe benefit. He fetched the drink from the bar, found a convenient table, and tripped. The champagne splashed on his uniform.
Snyder stood. “Oh no, look at that.”
Stefan turned. “Quite a mess, Private. You’d best wash off.”
Snyder saluted and dashed half way across the casino to the chosen restroom, the only one with a real window, and a stall below it, too. He went into that stall and removed his dress pants, leaving on his black PT trunks. He removed his shoes and left the pants on the toilet seat with the lid down to hold his pants in place.
He pushed open the window, crawled out, and jumped onto the roof of the van parked below. He dropped through the open sunroof and down into the van.
He stared at Camera 5 on the monitors. Verducci was nervously pacing about and drinking. He kept looking at his watch.
Snyder pulled a headset off the wall and pressed Channel 4. “Verducci, you’re gonna get drunk.”
“Kid, you have no idea what somebody finding out that I held a party here would do to my reputation.”
“Stop drinking and kick the busboys and waiters out now.”
”Kid, you can’t even drink. You’re one to be giving orders.”
Now I know how Donovan must feel. “You want to hang, Verducci? I’m the techie.”
“All right, kid.” Verducci waved his hands to the crowd. “Yo, everybody whose not a guest, get out! We’d like privacy, and I mean total privacy.”
All but the guests left. Snyder switched Camera 5 from the actual party to a doctored video he recorded earlier. He checked his watch. Five minutes gone.
He climbed back onto the van’s roof and jumped through the open window, landing on the toilet. He dismounted and put his pants back on. He grabbed a bottle of stain remover from his pocket and poured it on the stain
Snyder sat in his quarters staring at a blank holo-window.
“Need some help, kid?”
Snyder jumped as Blackjack McGraw appeared in his window.
McGraw laughed. “You’ve been on this plan for days. Thought maybe I could give you an idea.”
“I’d be honored if Blackjack McGraw would help, but I think I’ve figured out how we can get around their tech. Though, I trust you’re aware this window’s monitored and are scrambling this on both ends.”
“Your trust is well-placed.”
“Great, now I know how we’re gonna get this done.”
“I got a complication for you. The night we’re supposed to do this, the school’s casino will have a special guest.”
“How special?”
“Stefan, the European Steward.”
Snyder clucked his tongue. The World’s most powerful undisputed non-person-a former harem boy himself even-was selling out. “Actually, Stefan makes this perfect.”
Nearly two months after his kidnapping, Snyder sat at his workstation with his sister Lenore’s e-diary open before him. It had been months since Lenore had mentioned him. Her youngest brother off in the military didn’t matter. Of course, she didn’t think much of him, none of them did.
Snyder grimaced. Aside from Cerulean, none of his seven siblings had ever given him a chance, but now he knew them better, whether they wanted him to or not, between Lenore and Charice’s diaries, and the e-mail accounts of all his siblings. Well, except the sister on the most wanted list for going into the family business.
Ironic. Most of the six siblings between him and Cerulean showed Mama Borden and Substitute Daddy’s efforts to instill good breeding and manners. Damian and The Babe, the youngest two excluding him, were into stuff that would make Mama cry and Substitute Daddy box them into next Tuesday if Snyder was a tattle tale. But most would be thought good Baptists.
But for all their supposed Christian love, they couldn’t stand him. Six siblings that didn’t relate to him as a father-and all six refused to even acknowledge he was their brother. He was no less a Borden than they, but had committed the unpardonable sin: being born the wrong skin color.
“Well excuse me for being born!”
A female techie two cubes over shot a bemused look at him. Snyder returned to the screen. Still, Cerulean cared, in his own way. Didn’t mention him by name-a good thing, Cerulean persisted in calling him Anny-but did send e-mails to hundreds, asking for prayer and praying for their requests. So many of Cerulean’s requests were for him.
Substitute Daddy actually cares about me, and how do I reward him? I hack his e-mail.
Snyder shut down his workstation and headed out. In the cool night air, he stared around the concrete desert. Boise sometimes had Christmases like this, but near Vegas, his sources cheerily informed him no snow was the unfailing status quo.
He walked along the path to mess. The buildings were joined, but he needed to breathe air that hadn’t been dispensed by a machine. He hated shoveling snow, but one day of the year, it needed to be there. It almost always was at grandma’s place in Kuna, a few miles west of Boise.
He entered the mess hall and got in line. When it was his turn, the server dropped on his tray a scoop of lumpy meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a brownie that had a reputation for tasting like the cook thought burning was part of the recipe. This place made InstaFood appealing.
Snyder sat at a corner table. Alone on Christmas. Par for the course since Grandma died. He ate the potatoes out of loyalty to his home state’s chief crop, about half the meat, and a couple green beans. He stared at what remained, an unappetizing array of mystery meat, green beans, and rock hard chocolate.
He picked up his tray, strode to the industrial-sized dish generator, and dumped his tray down the chute. The machine’s window made for cheap entertainment as it broke down his offering, separated the particles, turned the garbage into electricity, and recycled the rest to make new dishes. Most nights it beat whatever was on holovision, but that wasn’t hard.
Snyder headed out the door and across the walk to a plaza that led to his quarters. In the center of the plaza, security cameras surrounded Emperor Herald’s statue. Even on an Imperial Army Intelligence post, the statue wasn’t safe from vandals or from the spittle Snyder would love to hurl at Earth’s supreme ruler. Hitler and Stalin would surely be envious.
Beside the Emperor, a pedestal stood vacant. America’s previous Steward must’ve stood there. Ivan Dimitrov had been a big enough egotist for it. That a new one wasn’t commissioned spoke highly of Donovan.
Who cares what McGraw thinks? The country’s best hopes for the future lay with that twenty-two-year-old crown prince.
Snyder stared at Ivan’s vacant pedestal and whispered under his breath, “Death to traitors and tyrants.”
Snyder walked on to his residence hall. He ran his hand across the scanner. The door opened and he walked across black linoleum to his room. He used his Ekeys to open the door and lock it again behind him.
The holowindow displayed the same old non-Christmasy desert. “Computer. Display window Christmas one.”
The desert morphed into the beauty of the Kuna countryside blanketed with snow. Snyder strained. In the distance, he could see his old dog, Ralph. The scene had been on a holodisk Mama had found in a safe deposit box that Grandma had left for him.
Snyder stared at the scene. He’d always used it to avoid the snowless view from his window in Boise, and now here. He’d never noticed the sound option.
“Computer, sound.”
Ralph barked. It’d been years since he’d heard Ralph. After killing his grandmother, her daughter had donated Ralph to science.
“Quiet down, Ralph,” said a ghostly voice. Grandma.
Snyder sat on his bed.
The voice continued. “Anny, sorry about that. I hope it doesn’t mess up the video. I thought I’d do this. You’re over at Azura’s right now.”
His grandmother always called Mama Borden by her first name.
Grandma said, “You get older and you want to have memories. Right now, this probably seems stupid, but I thought you might want to remember a winter in Kuna. When you get older, you want to remember the strangest things sometimes.”
Snyder stood and opened his guitar case. He pulled out the guitar and began to play the “First Noel.” It was Grandma’s favorite song. The instrumental version still echoed through shopping malls throughout America, but most people had long forgotten the meaning of the words.
As he played the song, he closed his eyes and was transported back to the big house in Kuna. A wreath hung on the door and a simple row of “holiday” lights hung along the house’s trim. That last few years, Grandma “let” Snyder do it.
Inside was another story. To step into Teresa Snyder’s home was to step into Christmas. From advent until January 6th, the house smelled of Christmas. Lights hung across the fireplace. A crèche-manger scene to protestants-sat in the living room in front of the Christmas tree. The Holowindows beamed images of the Christ child and the Virgin Mary. The soft melodies of Christmas Carols filled the house like incense.
Christmas plates and cups were used at the table along with red and green table cloths and napkins. When he came home from school, the aroma of baking cookies would greet him. Guests filled the house two to three nights every week.
Their faces passed by: old friends and poor families from miles around. The house was filled with dancing and laughter. After a while, everyone would gather around an old television and watch a classical Christmas movie. The ancient films were 2D. Some were even black and white.
Young Snyder sat on the couch. “Why can’t we see these movies anywhere else?”
“Not many have them,” Grandma said. “After the fall of the Roman Empire, monks preserved God’s Word and the great works of Western Culture from the barbarians. They preserved the great works of past ages. Against the barbarians of the Empire, we’re doing the same thing. And Anny, I want you to remember.”
Snyder stopped playing his guitar for a second before resuming. “No problem there, Grandma.” He remembered every scene of The Nativity, It’s a Wonderful Life, and six versions of A Christmas Carol.
She’d been a heck of a teacher. She taught him about Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and dozens of other stories most had forgotten. The monks had a monastery to store the great works in. Grandma had him.
But there was that last day, the Monday in January just after Christmas.
Grandma handed Snyder a coat. “Hurry, you’ll be late for the bus.”
Snyder put the jacket on. “Hey, I’m not a baby, I can handle it.” He dashed to the door.
“Hold it right there, young man. You can’t leave without giving your grandma a hug.”
“Oh come on, I’m fourteen. I’m too old for that.” He ran out.
He never saw Grandma again.
Snyder wiped the tears from his eyes. Why wouldn’t this go away?
“Snyder!”
He glanced up, stared at Cutler, and hastily wiped his eyes. “Sarge, how’d you get in? I locked the door.”
Cutler smiled. “I have special access.”
That figures. “Could you not tell everybody that I was sitting in here playing the guitar and, you know . . . .”
“Crying?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of.” Cutler sat at the desk. “I have a mission for you.”
“What’s the head of QA want with a lowly techie?”
“This isn’t official business.”
“How unofficial is it?”
“We could all hang.”
Snyder strummed the guitar a moment. Always figured Sarge was a double agent. “Who are you working for?”
“You’re better off not knowing.”
“I’m better off not hanging. And what would I be hanging for?”
“Rescuing children from a male brothel masquerading as a bartending school.”
Slaves like my brother. “How many?”
“Three hundred.”
Snyder laughed. This had to be a joke or something. “Sarge, I never took you for the type to hit the hooch on Christmas.”
“Trust me. If you had tasted the wine I’ve tasted, you would never willingly touch the offerings here.”
Snyder stood. “Sarge, I can’t. I’ve got an underprivileged youth to help.”
“Who?”
“Me, that’s who.”
Cutler regarded him coolly. “That’s not what your grandmother taught you.”
“What do you know about her?”
“You’d be surprised. Where I’m from, Teresa Snyder has quite a name. She raised you better. If it wasn’t for her and Azura, you could have ended up in such a place.”
“Grandma was a double agent, too? It figures. I only come from the best.” Snyder paced. “Look, my own brother is a slave somewhere. They ripped us apart, left me in the freezer to rot, and now my identical twin is freakin’ four years older than me! It’s not that I don’t care. No one cares more than me. It’s that I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“Let me spell it out. Right now, there are 1.2 billion non-persons and products of conception on earth. Eight hundred million non-persons. A hundred thousand are killed every day. Millions are raped, beaten, and tortured because of idiotic laws that give our mothers the ‘right’ to chose whether or not we have even the most basic human rights.” Snyder grabbed Cutler by the arm. “The mind can’t deal with a tragedy this size. What am I supposed to do?”
Cutler looked Snyder in the eye. “The best you can.”
Snyder sighed. “Well, heck, didn’t have anything planned for the rest of my life. Gonna get hanged anyway; least I can do is earn it.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t get hanged. We’ll get you out.”
Snyder laughed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Cutler sat with the saint in a conference room at the county Courthouse. On the door, a sign indicated their impromptu organization’s name, “Angels of Las Vegas.”
The three rogues came in laughing and no wonder. “Angelic” was never an adjective anyone ever applied to them.
Verducci lit a cigar. “All right. Let’s get down to business.”
“Hey,” said the saint. “This is a no-smoking building.”
“What building ain’t? They tell me I can’t smoke in my own house. But when you got the type of dough I do, you smoke where you please, and if someone tickets you, you pay it out in Copper Bouillon.”
Jirel asked, “Do you want to redo the upholstery when the sprinklers go off?”
Verducci extinguished his cigar. “Now that the Smoking Nazis have spoken, what’s the mission?”
The saint stood. “I’m Paul Traylor. I’ve got the mission.”
McGraw swore. “Cut to the chase. Your name could be Shelly Skank and I couldn’t care less.”
Traylor cleared his throat. He pulled a remote control and pressed button. In the holowindow appeared an image of the Las Vegas Bartending and Gaming School for Stallions and Geldings. “While the school’s stated purpose is training male non-persons as bartenders and casino dealers, the overall graduation rate is less than twenty percent. Fatality rates during the twelve years of study are eighty percent.”
McGraw arched an eyebrow. “Twelve years for bartending school? I went through one in a matter of weeks.”
Verducci coughed. “Their ‘students’ don’t tend much bar, or deal many cards. Male harem by another name.” He spread his hands. “So what’s our mission?”
“Three hundred children are enslaved there,” Traylor said.
“And?” asked McGraw.
“Get them all out.”
Verducci laughed. “You kidding? I know that spot. It’s right in the middle of downtown Vegas. You want us to pull up and abscond with three hundred boys?”
McGraw nodded. “Yeah, what good would it do? They’d buy more. Insurance would pay for the loss.”
Traylor frowned. “With your logic, the Underground Railroad wouldn’t have gone very far.”
“Just being a realist.”
“We’re discussing human beings here, precious children created in the image of God. Not replaceable things.”
Verducci shrugged. “All I know is I’ve been waiting a long time. We’ll pull this off.”
Shijo stared at Verducci. “The challenge is impossible. What makes you think we’ll pull it off?”
“You’d be surprised what’s possible. I say to one of my hoods, ‘Bump this guy off,’ and he does it. I say to another, ‘Deliver this shipment’ and he delivers it. The little man don’t always see all that the big man’s got planned. I understand that, and if Cutler’s boss can invade my dreams, he can give us the muscle we need to pull this off.”
McGraw laughed. “Invade your dreams? What, you some kind of nut?”
Verducci growled. “If I am, I’m the most dangerous nut you’ve ever met.”
Jirel raised a finger. “By the way, there is another rule here. In doing this mission, you can’t kill or maim anyone, especially not anyone on our team.”
Shijo’s jaw dropped. “You want us to free three hundred slaves and not kill any of their captors? Would you like us to do it in broad daylight as well?”
Traylor shook his head. “That’d just be complicating things for the heck of it. But, please, no bloodshed.”
Shijo sighed. “I’ll go, but only to honor the prophet.”
Verducci cracked his knuckles, “I’m always in for tweaking the Empire.”
McGraw stood and paced. “I’m in, but on one condition. We need a techie on board. I’ll go if Private Snyder does it.”
Jirel gasped. “But if Private Snyder gets caught-”
“-the same thing will happen that’ll happen to the rest of us. The kid’s a genius, and we need some genius to pull this off.”
Shijo nodded. “Didn’t you bring in the first guy who came to you with a mission?”
Jirel said, “Yes, but-”
“But it looked so promising. Certainly, it was a nice way to solve having three desperate men breathing down your throat, looking for a mission you couldn’t produce.”
“No, this really is the mission. My Boss confirmed it.”
Shijo smiled. “Then surely He can produce Snyder on our team.”
Jirel sighed. “He can. But He works on an entirely different timetable than you. Be prepared to wait.”
Snyder sat at his workstation, waiting for another overblown Imperial Security “threat” to flash onto his screen for him to evaluate and either dismiss or forward on to a specialist.
While waiting, he pulled up the Paternity database to check on his request for matching that he’d sent in that morning.
“Processing” flashed on the screen.
It was silly, really. Who cared who provided half his genetic make-up, when the guy provided nothing else?
Processing.
The guy was a nobody, a nothing. It didn’t matter. He had Cerulean.
Processing.
So what if McGraw might know him? It didn’t matter.
Match: 1st Lieutenant Jim Eagleclaw, Imperial Army Intelligence, USA. (27-67 YE). Cause of death: Executed.
Snyder sighed. “Apparently, I’m at risk for the family disease.”
~
Snyder stood at the otherwise abandoned shooting range. “Computer, virtual target, File Snyder A-7.”
A hologram of Colonel Dread appeared. Snyder fired three shots. The virtual colonel stood there, totally indifferent to the holes in his chest. That was the only drawback. He couldn’t yet program the computer to make bleeding holograms that fell to the ground and confessed they’d gotten honor and advancement by claiming Snyder’s success as their own.
“A little hard on the brass,” said a voice from behind him.
Snyder turned. McGraw, in an Imperial Sergeant’s uniform. Somebody hasn’t forgotten how to get past our Swiss Cheese security I see. “What do you want?”
“I was curious. Could you really have taken down the ninja?”
“Computer, standard target.”
The paper target dropped down at the end of Snyder’s stall. He fired a series of shots into the target. “Pull results.”
The paper was delivered to Snyder. Snyder pointed to his tidy circle within the bulls eye and handed it to McGraw. “Hope that satisfies your curiosity.”
McGraw whistled. “Wow, most can’t shoot like this, especially not at your age. With gun laws, most recruits pick up guns for the first time at sixteen or seventeen.”
Snyder holstered the Colt revolver the army had issued to him. “In Boise, Idaho, we don’t have much regard for unconstitutional laws. Or at least my grandmother didn’t.”
Mama Borden, on the other hand, was not a huge fan of guns, and didn’t let Snyder practice. His oldest sis was his only sibling to ever visit him at his grandmother’s, and she only came for target practice. She never liked him, either.
Snyder folded his arms. “I can’t believe you came here to ask me about shooting.”
McGraw laughed. “I was wondering if you’d reconsidered.”
“Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome? I read up on it when I got home. All your stories about you and Jim were a nice game. Nice way to get the hostage to sympathize with you. I ain’t playing, and I don’t know what you’re doing here. Cutler told you you’ll get your mission in a week.”
“Kid, I wasn’t playing any game, other than Monopoly. Women I play games with. Men I’m straight up with. Have you ever thought about what you’re going to do with your life?”
“If I’m twenty and not a cadaver, I’ll look at my options then.”
“You gonna tell me you’re happy as a mere Intelligence techie? There’s a world out there beyond machines. There’s adventure, there’s life. Tie yourself to that machine, and you’ll be dead before you’ve even lived.”
“I untie myself before I’m twenty, and I’ll just be dead. Though I guess you get points for tea box philosophy.”
“Are you tryin’ to be a jerk?”
Snyder shrugged. “Maybe I was born mean. Must’ve come from my egg donor. She fried her own mother for a fix.”
“Kid, you’re more bitter than beer and pickle juice, you know that?”
“Whatever. I can’t trust you. I got to survive. Now, unless you want to stage another kidnapping, and this time I’ve got the gun, I suggest you go order fake privates around, Sarge.”
