Kinsmen of the Dragons
Copyright© 2013 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 13: Alloy Melts
It was, Sam thought, a proper scene from bedlam once they were ready to exit the patrol car. They had been guided into a hangar and there were lots and lots of guards standing around, clearly on high alert. Sam and Sue Ellen got out first, and then Admiral Sloan a few seconds later. Amanda looked around before she clambered out. Sam was startled when he heard her whisper, “Well, you did one fucking thing right — I don’t see my mother.”
Sam winced. Why wasn’t it possible for people to get it right? This Amanda would, he suddenly felt sure, have done well with James. Maybe James’ daughter would have done better with Amanda’s mother? Fate is cruel, he thought.
Someone appeared walking towards them and Sam stiffened. It was Major Charles Lewis, the Phoenix Police Department’s deputy chief of detectives, who was known universally as “Hemorrhoid Chuckie.” With him was a man in a blue double-breasted suit that all but screamed “FBI agent!” The expression on the FBI agent’s face looked like he’d swallowed a gallon of alum. There was also an army colonel with silver eagles on his shoulders who looked to be the sanest of the lot.
“Detective Holland, your report,” Major Lewis demanded.
The army colonel was frosty. “It’ll wait until we get them into a secure location, sir. Follow me, please.”
The colonel led the way through a door, down a corridor, then through more corridors and then through a door that looked like a submarine hatch. The vast majority of hangers-on stopped there, while their much smaller group continued into a large, brightly lit room that held a huge map of Phoenix and vicinity on one wall.
The colonel waved them to seats around a large conference table. Sam was amused when everyone sat down except Major Lewis who tried to stand next the army colonel. “Sit down!” Lewis was told for his trouble.
The colonel remained standing and put his knuckles down on the table. “Let me be blunt, people. Twenty minutes ago the President of the United States issued an emergency declaration, placing the city of Phoenix and everything within a hundred miles under martial law, Major General Townes, commanding. General Townes is en route, but he won’t be here for another hour. Beneath General Townes is Brigadier General Luna, who is currently meeting with his staff. General Luna is the 18th Division commander and I serve as his executive officer.
“Is this clear to everyone here?”
Amanda spoke up. “Can I get something to eat? Can I go pee?” Sam tried to keep a straight face.
The colonel looked at Amanda with a half smile. “Sorry, Miss.” He looked around the table and pointed to a woman in army BDUs to one side. She had, Sam noticed, a gold maple leaf insignia hanging around her neck. “Major Pierson, please check the officer’s latrine. If anyone is in there, ask them to leave forthwith.
“Sergeant Godwin?” Sue Ellen looked up in surprise at hearing her name and army rank. “You and two of my female officers will accompany Miss Feather. You will remain at a discreet distance, but within easy earshot, of Miss Feather. Miss Feather, I’ll see what we can rustle up, but for now you can have first dibs on the doughnuts.”
There were chuckles around the table and Amanda made to stand up. “Miss Feather, please, if you would a moment,” the colonel added.
“It had better be important,” she replied, “I really gotta go.”
“Miss Feather a short while ago the Scottsdale police responded to your home; report of a disturbance. We believe it was more of those dog-things, Miss Feather. I’m sorry to say that your mother is dead.”
Sam wasn’t sure what sort of emotions he was seeing on the young woman’s face. Amanda turned to Sue Ellen. “Please, I gotta go bad!” There was considerable emphasis on the last word.
Sue Ellen motioned in the direction she’d seen the army major go and Amanda moved that way, with Sue Ellen falling in next to her.
“What is going on, Detective Holland?” Major Lewis interrupted.
The army colonel turned to him, his face composed, but clearly angry. “Major Lewis, you are here to liaison between this command and the City of Phoenix Police Department — nothing more. You will sit down at this table and speak when spoken to and only then. Or, I will have you removed and your Chief of Police advised that we need a more suitable representative.”
“Colonel, we’d like to hear from Detective Holland as well,” the FBI agent said.
The colonel leaned his fists on the table again and spoke with evident anger. “There are several civilians around this table; obviously some of you don’t understand plain English.
“The President of the United States has declared a National Emergency. He has placed certain areas of this country under martial law. That is, for those of you who don’t understand anything, military government. The moment the President signed the Executive Order placing Phoenix and its environs under martial law, command of the Arizona National Guard shifted from the Governor to the President.
“Military government, ladies and gentleman. If you have any problems with how this meeting is conducted, take it up with your superiors, who, when they complain to the President may or may not make his displeasure, if any, with my actions known. You are here to support our endeavors, not we to support yours. You sit at this table at my sufferance and there is no one here that is not subordinate to me and those over me.
“Sit down and shut up.”
Amanda came back and the colonel kited a doughnut box in her direction. “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Feather.”
Amanda reached into the box and pulled out a jellyroll. She looked up at the colonel before she bit into it. “I’ve hated my mother for as long as I can remember. Even so, I knew when she died. For a couple of seconds I felt her fear; I still can’t forgive her for what she did to me. I didn’t hate her enough to want her dead; I was hoping I was imagining things.”
Amanda paused and looked at Sam. “Am I still under arrest?”
Sam cleared his throat and all eyes went to him. “Miss Feather, at the substation my lieutenant told me, and I quote ‘Gather up the young woman and get her out of here. Keep her safe at all costs.’ My lieutenant was a man who I never, ever, heard issue a sloppy order either in my hearing or to my knowledge. If he thought you were a prisoner, I’d have been told to transport the prisoner. Thus it was my working assumption that you were released.”
Major Lewis started to lean forward to speak, only to be brought up short when the colonel’s fists slammed into the table. “Detective Holland, please report on the events you have witnessed today. Concentrate on things you saw that were, in your opinion, anomalous, particularly relating to the perpetrators vanishing, dog-like animals and, I understand, some peculiar abilities of Miss Feather.”
Sam related what he’d seen, in detail about the things that the colonel had asked him to emphasize.
“Sergeant Godwin? Do you have anything to add to Detective Holland’s report?”
“No, sir. I can confirm the nature of the kiosk door and Miss Feather’s statements about the nature of the doors and walls around her at the substation. She said she sensed the men vanish; the only confirmation we have of that is empirical — they weren’t there when we got in and there is no possible way they could have left without detection.”
The colonel turned to Amanda, who was on her third doughnut. “Miss Feather ... I’m the father of a sixteen-year-old son. If I was watching him eat just now, I’d warn him about overeating — but I’m not your father and it’s my distinct impression that you wouldn’t listen anyway.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” she confirmed. “Not that I wouldn’t mind a 7-Up or a Sprite about now. Nothing with caffeine.”
The colonel slid a calculator her way. “Take a look at that.”
Amanda glanced at it. “Fucking calculator.”
“No, Miss Feather, look closer. Do you know how it works?”
“You push fucking buttons, it gives you answers.”
Sam spoke without thinking. “Titnium.”
Everyone looked at Sam who tried not to show the cringe he felt. “Colonel, Miss Feather never paid much attention in school, and evidently that never bothered any of her teachers. She is moderately ignorant. Not stupid, just ignorant.”
Sam turned to Amanda. “Amanda, look at the guts of the calculator like you look at the guts of Stewart’s car or that door. Take it apart.”
She did. “Buttons, okay? They have wires attached that go to a little gizmo that just has a couple of wires coming out. Those wires go into another gizmo, a bigger one. There are all kinds of wires going into it, and some, I’m pretty sure, that come out. Some of those that come out go to another gizmo with just a few wires in, and a whole lot more going out. Those go to the display.”
“Suppose I said that you could think of the wires like water pipes in a house, and that the battery is the source of the water. That the electricity from the battery flows through the wires and any left goes back into the battery,” Sam told her.
“Heh!” she said and pushed some buttons. “Yeah, that’s cool! Not much goes back in though.”
“Amanda,” Sam said patiently. “The main gizmo, that’s called the CPU chip. Can you look at it closely?”
Sam was just grasping at straws, sure that at some point, his description of the devices was going to run out or Amanda’s ability to see would stop working.
“Shit! That’s one complicated mother-fucker! I have no idea how it works!”
She started pushing buttons and for ten minutes she looked and pushed. Eventually she looked up at Sam, clearly frustrated. “I don’t get it. Some things are on, or off mixing with on, on, and the result is all on. Sometimes the answer is unchanged and sometimes it’s reversed. I have no fucking idea.”
Someone down the table let out a low whistle. “She’s describing ‘and’ and ‘or’ gates. She can’t possibly see those!”
Amanda raised her middle finger, stiffly pointed at the speaker.
The colonel spoke up quickly. “The discussion is about what you can do, Miss Feather. There will always be naysayers until you rub their noses into it. Don’t let them bother you,” the army colonel told her.
He pulled a watch from his wrist and pushed it towards Amanda. “And how does this work?”
Amanda took a quick look at it and put it on top of the calculator and shoved them both back towards the colonel. “It works like every other fuckin’ watch! There’s a little gizmo that ticks very fast and another gizmo that counts the ticks. The hands are hooked to a little ratchet thing that counts more ticks.”
She glared at the colonel. “I’m not a fuckin’ freak. The only reason I’m telling you any of this is because I’m scared as shit! There’s one of those dog things in my bedroom right now, hoping I come home.” She pointed at Admiral Sloan. “Another bunch of them just ripped up his apartment. They can smell me. They’re following me.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Norwood, see to it, if you would. Coordinate with the Scottsdale police; tell them to be very, very careful when they investigate both locations. Put our own people on heightened alert.” An officer stood up and started to leave.
Sam spoke up, “Tell them to be extremely damn careful and to wear full armor. Don’t take any chances!”
“Who are you to tell people what to do?” Major Lewis said, furious with rage.
The colonel pointed a finger at Major Lewis. “He speaks because he has useful information, pertinent to the situation at hand! You’ve spoken three times and all three times you haven’t contributed anything. Please send in your replacement, Major, you are relieved.”
“There is no one else!”
“Well then, I’m going to appoint Detective Holland in your place, vice a replacement. Leave on your own two legs sir, or the MPs will put you in the stockade for the duration.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I can, and I’m going to. As I said, if you have a problem, take it up with your superiors, who if they are totally daft, will take it up with theirs. Sir, this meeting has been both audio and videotaped. It is playing live to a cast of thousands in the Pentagon and at Pacific Fleet Headquarters. Leave, sir, or you will be removed.” He gestured and two men in MP brassards started forward.
There goes my pension, Sam thought. There goes my hope of ever seeing sergeant again. Fuck it!
“Colonel, sir, before Major Lewis leaves, I’d like to know about our people at the substation. Captain Strong, Lieutenant Abbott, Sergeant Fredericks and all of the others who were there.”
“All of them are dead,” the major said, almost crowing. “They all died but for a dozen clerks, some female officers, the prisoners and some of the civilians that locked themselves in the cells.”
Everyone in the room picked up on his opinion and there were visible sneers. Major Lewis was gone in another few seconds, anyway.
“Sergeant Congrejo is it?” the colonel inquired of the Scottsdale sergeant.
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Get with Lieutenant Colonel Norwood and the two of you talk to your department. Make sure that they visit those locations as prepared as they can be — it will have to be up to your superiors if they wish to wait for military assistance. We are still getting all of our assets in place and we may not be able to help decisively until tomorrow.”
That was, Sam thought, not something that was going to happen. Not at first.
A voice spoke, from a speaker somewhere. “Colonel, this is Commander Ramon Vega, Pacific Command’s special liaison. I think it might be helpful if I spoke to Miss Feather.”
A screen lit up on the wall, showing a Navy officer. Sam appraised him for a few seconds. He was about thirty-five or so and Hispanic, with dark brown eyes and black hair. The officer spoke off camera to someone. “Pull back on the camera.”
The camera either zoomed out or pulled back, revealing a young woman, Amanda’s age, sitting next to Commander Vega. “Miss Feather, sitting with me is Miss Heather Zimmerman, fourteen. Miss Zimmerman can, Miss Feather, see sea serpents, even when they are miles away and in some cases under more than a thousand feet of water. She was instrumental in killing more than a hundred of those monsters, including a couple that was more than twelve hundred feet long. Longer, in fact, than the ships that killed it, even the carrier Eisenhower.
“Miss Feather, this is a serious question and I want you to answer it to the best of your ability ... how long have you been able to see things?”
“A couple years ... pretty much once I started my periods. I told myself I was going to become a practicing witch. Except, mostly I work on car engines. That’s not something witches are supposed to be able to do.”
“Do you know anyone else who can do that?”
She sniffed. “Who wants to be a freak? I just fucked up when the police were asking me questions and I told them how the fucking door was made. Titnium! I’m a joke!”
The girl on the screen spoke for the first time. “For me, it was the word ‘der-briss.’” She pronounced the word with all of consonants, deliberately. “For a long time I thought it was a synonym for ‘de-bree’ which I had heard spoken a lot of times. I used my spelling in an essay and my teacher flagged it for spelling. I’d read the word wrong long ago, and it took getting it rubbed in my face to get it right.”
Colonel Armstrong spoke up. “I was in college when I found out that the word I pronounced as ‘de-mes-ne’ was actually pronounced ‘domain.’ These things happen. It’s not that we make a mistake — it’s the action we take to fix it, Miss Feather.”
“You don’t think I’m a nutcase?”
Commander Vega shook his head. “Miss Feather, Miss Zimmerman was inputting GPS coordinates accurate to inches from miles away. You are neither a nutcase, nor are you crazy. And if you think that either of you are weird — you should meet your big sister.”
“I don’t have a sister,” Amanda said, confused.
“Well, call it a spiritual big sister. Colonel, have they been briefed on the last battle?”
“No, sir.”
“Please do so, then.”
The screen went black.
Colonel Armstrong drew himself up right. “I have no choice here, at least about what I have to say next. Most of you have no business being here for this briefing. All of those of you standing around the room please leave what will shortly be a Top Secret Ultra briefing.”
He pointed to someone sitting at the table. “Sorry, Jerry, you have to go.” A few seconds later, there were less than a dozen people left.
Admiral Sloan had smiled when the finger pointed at him. “I had the Ultra briefing this morning, Colonel. Check your list.”
“I don’t have time, sir. You understand that if you’re lying, your ass is grass?”
“I know, Colonel. All I ask is that you check.”
Colonel Armstrong nodded. The room had been cleared. “I’m going to make this quick, because there’s not much point in the nitty, gritty details.
“As the news reported two days ago, Pacific Fleet fought the bloodiest battle in US naval history. More than fifteen thousand sailors and airmen were killed. We lost six nuclear subs, nine destroyers and three cruisers, plus about one hundred and forty aircraft.”
Sam nodded. That had been on the news, although the ship losses reported had been less and there had been no mention of aircraft losses.
“The goal of the Pacific Fleet was classified — it was to close a rift in space time or some such — a rift that was letting the creatures into our oceans. The President had authorized the use of all necessary force to seal that breech. In the closing moments of the battle, our fleet employed four nuclear weapons to destroy the remaining threats to the Eisenhower, which carried the means to effect the closure.
“Yes, this sounds like a damn Hollywood movie. But it’s not; it’s deadly serious. Enemies from that other place launched a series of nuclear missiles at Pacific rim cities of the US, ranging from Honolulu to Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego.”
He paused. “Obviously, if we’d lost any of those cities, or in fact, intercepted missiles close to their destinations, it would almost certainly have become public knowledge. Instead, those missiles were destroyed very shortly after detection. Again, I can’t get into how, but a big sister who can drop nuclear weapons within inches of their targets and intercept ICBMs in mid-flight wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility.”
“Surely someone would have noticed?” Sam asked.
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