Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity (38 page)

"Hi, I'm Annie Molder." said the unfamiliar woman, extending a hand.

Still a little breathless from the stairs, Suzy returned the greeting while examining her as best she could without her power.  Annie was a plump woman, a little shorter than average. Her hair and skin both showed the effects of too much sun.  Her smile was infectious and showed far too much cheer and energy for this time of the morning.  Lastly, she wore the black pants and grey shirt of Citadel Support and, given the name, was likely Empowered.

"So, Suzanne, do you know if there's something wrong with your headset?" the woman asked.  "I've been trying to get a hold of you for the last twenty minutes.  Much longer and you would've missed the show."

Puzzled, Suzy removed the item in question and offered it up for Annie's inspection.

"Mr. Power- I mean, Sr. Operative Power told me all it could do was record." she said.

"Oh, um... sorry about that." Annie's face was too heavily tanned for it to show well, but Suzy was sure she was blushing.  "If I'd realized, I'd have met you at the road and led you in."

Obviously she would've preferred to skip all that wandering around in the dark.  Still, faced with the other woman's embarrassment, Suzy couldn't hold it against her.

"Don't worry about it Ms. Molder.  A little exercise is probably good for me."  A thought occurred to her.  "Oh, is that right?  I've only ever spoken with operatives and trainees so..."

Back on familiar ground, Annie smiled.  "Mr. or Ms. works fine.  The rest of us don't follow operative tradition.  But you can call me Annie, of course."

Suzy smiled back making it as warm as she could.

"Thanks Annie, and please, call me Suzy."  Time to get back on track.  There was a reason she was here.  "So, can I ask what it is that I'm supposed to be seeing?"

Annie's expression went from friendly to mischievous.

"Well Suzy, Director Greer thought you might like to see our combat training rooms."

"Well sure, that sounds like it could be pretty interesting.  Is that why this is called the Sparring Field?  Are there underground training rooms with hologram simulators or something?"  Woops.  Suzy was normally more disciplined with her questions, careful to guide the conversation and keep control of the interview.  Maybe it was the time?  No, best not to lie to herself.  Suzy had been off her game since she got here.

"I don't know about interesting.  They're pretty much featureless domes, but I do think this part is pretty cool."  Annie told her.

What happened next shouldn't have been silent.  Suzy looked over the field in awe as dozens, maybe even hundreds of the domes Annie had mentioned rose from the ground.  It was a slow process, maybe thirty minutes from start to finish.  Suzy might have been bored if it weren't for the sheer scale of it.

"How... are you the one doing that?" she asked.

Annie nodded, a faint look of concentration on her face.  "Yep, that's my power.  I can shape stone and earth, make stuff out of em."

Suzy took a moment to process that, still stuck on the possibilities.  "That's incredible.  Why... why haven't I ever heard of you?  You should be one of the most famous Empowered in the country.  I mean, if you can do this in half an hour..."

"Nope.  It's not quite as useful as you're thinking.  All this," Annie waved her hand at the massive collection of structures, "is only temporary.  Right now it's stronger and lighter than steel.  And yeah, I could build a high rise or whatever without much trouble.  But as soon as I fall asleep or leave the area it'll all crumble."

"I guess that means you won't be revolutionizing the construction industry over night." Suzy said.

"Nope." Annie sighed.  "I can help out in emergencies, reinforce damaged structures, provide temporary shelter and stuff, but that's about my limit."

Suzy found herself nodding along.  "And you can't do much in a combat situation because the effect is too slow."

Annie didn't answer right away.  "Maybe.  I... I have to watch the fight training, make sure the domes don't collapse in the middle of a match, fix any damage they take, that sort of thing.  I've seen kids with powers a lot less dangerous than mine come through here.  You might recognize a few of their names.  For that matter, the Army would probably love to have me."

Empathy or no, Suzy could hear the unspoken 'but.'  She stayed silent, hoping Annie would volunteer the rest.

"I could never do what they do.  Risking my life..."  Annie shook her head.  "Just the idea, it makes my blood run cold.  I know what the operatives do is important.  All you have to do is take a look at the Battlegrounds to see that, or worse: Winter."

She looked down and Suzy could see traces of tears in her eyes.

"I'm proud of what I do, helping them train, making it safer and more effective, but it's horrifying.  Most of them, they're just kids.  We get a few that are older, but the average age of a trainee is just nineteen.  I help kids learn to fight, just so they can go out and risk their lives to protect the rest of us.  Every day of my life, I thank God that they're stronger than me."  Her next words were very quiet.  Suzy wasn't sure she'd been meant to hear them.

"Then I ask him to forgive me."

Beneath the Tower

For once, Suzy hadn't needed to spend the day running all over the base tracking down her interview subjects.  Instead, she'd spent her time in this pleasantly air conditioned room in one of the Tower's sublevels as one trainee after another knocked on her door to be interviewed.  It made for a nice change.  Another difference, this was the first day without any surprises.  Given the nature of some of those surprises, that made for a very nice change indeed.

The trainees had been pretty much what she'd expected as well.  Most of them were fairly young.  They were cheerful and bright, eager to make a difference.  Suzy didn't cover the Empowered stories, not normally, but she paid attention.  Something like half of the Citadel's operatives didn't make it through their first year.  That was split, more or less evenly, between physical impairment and 'psychological distress.'  Talking to those smiling young men and women, not one of whom had seemed to understand what they were in for...

Suzy had a great deal of sympathy for Annabelle Molder.

There came a tapping, a gentle knocking on the door.

"Come in." she cried.

It took an effort to suppress a sigh when she saw her latest subject.  The broad, happy smile, the way she seemed almost to bounce when she walked, it was just more of the same.  She tuned out the girl's greeting, preparing to do the interview on autopilot.  Then, Suzy saw something in her eyes.  Determination?  No, not just that...  This was the Citadel.  Even the brightest eyed raw recruits had that.  But... there was
something
there, a depth and weight that...  Suddenly, the danger didn't seem to matter quite so much.  Suzy made that little mental twist and focused on the girl in front of her.

"Well young lady, do you know why you're here?" Suzy asked.

For a brief time, no more than a fraction of a second, she felt guilt, fear, isolation, hopelessness and helplessness.  It all added up to a tangled mess that she couldn't sort through.  Easier to just call it misery.  For that fraction of a second, Suzy was horrified.  In its own way, it was every bit as bad as Achala Juggernaut's living hell.  Then it was gone.

"Because of the mess poor Donald's in." the girl answered.

Something very different took its place.

"That's... not exactly what I meant."

On the surface, there was happiness.

The trainee gave a short laugh, too self-aware to be called a giggle.

"No, but it's true.  Public opinion's dragging him through the mud and someone had the idea to bring you in and take everyone's mind off him, change the narrative."

Beneath the happiness was a host of other things, responsibility, compassion and... determination wasn't quite the right word.  That was like calling the Pacific wet: true, but it didn't come close to telling the whole story.

"I'm not saying you're right, but if you were...  It sounds like you don't agree with the plan." Suzy observed.

That brilliant smile went away as she shook her head, not faded, just set aside for the moment.

"It'd probably work, but I don't think it's for the best." she said.

"Then what should be done?  What is it that brought you here?" Suzy asked.

And then the girl told her.  She'd probably rehearsed it in her head but it lacked the polish of a professional speech.  Despite that, or because of it, her sincerity was obvious.  Suzy didn't need her power to be certain of that.

"I understand why people might be afraid, be resentful of the Citadel.  The Interruption was a catastrophe.  I don't know the exact death toll.  The last estimate I heard put it at more than four hundred thousand.  Almost worse than that is the damage it did to society.  Things we take for granted, cell phones, communicators and televisions, they failed us.  Other things, the ones we depend on every day, cars, planes and even something as simple as a light bulb...

“Well, for a little bit, it seemed like all our tools turned against us.  All of that, because a high school student got frustrated during a computer science class?  That's terrifying, even if no one wants to admit it.  I've seen news reports that praised the Citadel for its rapid response, read articles about a mother who rescued her children from a fire caused by a power surge... all kinds of stuff.  Inspirational stuff, and true, but that doesn't make the fear go away."

Suzy started to say something, stopped.  She'd kept her power focused long enough.  It wasn't just giving her emotion or sensations now.  She was getting the context.

"It's natural enough for people to blame the Citadel for that fear, to resent us.  After all, it's our job to stop this sort of thing, to protect you.  But using something like this to punish the Citadel... It won't work.  That won't make the fear go away any more than 'changing the narrative.'

“We need to remember something.  No one understands much about Empowerment, but one of the few things we do know is that emotional states effect the outcome.  This kind of widespread fear and resentment? It won't lead to anything good."

Without making a conscious decision, Suzy found herself asking a question.  "What should we do?"

The girl fully expected to die.  Suzy could feel it running through her.  It wasn't a death wish.  She just knew what happened to almost every operative that stayed in the field long enough.  That happiness, that beautiful, vibrant joy the girl radiated... It wasn't a false shell or a way to hide from reality.  It was a deliberate choice.  The girl had weighed her options and decided that the good she could do was worth her life.  That joy... it was the feeling of a woman who had found a worthy cause and devoted her life to it without reservation.

"We can't bury our fear.  We have to pull it into the open and deal with it.  We lost a city when a solar plant blew.  That's a tragedy.  So what can we do to make sure it never happens again?  Can the other plants be moved to safer locations, maybe underground?  What if we switched to safer power sources?  Wind, Empowered and photo generated electricity aren't effective enough to fully replace solar, but can they reduce our reliance on it?

“More than that, the Interruption showed us where we're weak.  We can use that to improve, to get stronger, ready for next time.  Cities can be redesigned so we're not dependent on fallible autos.  Emergency services can be decentralized.  I don't know what else.  I'm just one person and there's a limit to what I can do.

“But you, you're a nation.  I sincerely believe that if you act together, there's nothing you can't do.  Write your congressman, your governor and your city council.  Ask your questions and make suggestions."

Suzy stared, in awe at what she'd just heard and what she could still feel.  Without warning, that implacable determination was... not gone, any more than a sword vanishes when it's sheathed, but it was replaced again by that terrible joy.  The girl was smiling again.

"And please, Richard Day is paralyzed.  No one's happy about that.  But he wasn't stealing bread to feed his starving family.  Richard Day is a meth addict who carried a gun into a restaurant full of innocent families so he could score.  Donald Dust was there to share a meal with friends. He saw people in danger so he protected them.  He's still a trainee, but that's what an operative is for.  If you feel bad for Mr. Day, don't make yourself feel better by attacking Don.  Donate money to a rehabilitation center or volunteer at a clinic.

“Donald feels really bad about this, even though he did the right thing.  That's a distraction and he can't afford to be distracted the next time people need his help."

Slowly, very slowly and as calmly as she could, Suzanne Nguyen reached up and turned off her headset.

"I... I think I've got what I need from you."

The girl nodded, then rose to leave.  Just before her hand touched the door's handle, Suzanne spoke up again.

"Thank you.  For what you said... thank you for that."

She turned back to face Suzy.  "Do you think it'll help?"

When she answered, Suzy wasn’t entirely sure if she was talking about what she’d heard or what she’d felt.  The two had mixed together in her head until…  "I think it may have been one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard."f