Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes (22 page)

“
Dear Mom and Dad; —— isn’t summer camp, but it’s hard on my wardrobe and Shelly’s here so it feels really familiar.”

A recovered redacted email, preserved in the Hope Corrigan Library.

Captain Lauer took custody of the Three Horsemen at the base, and everyone was happy except Corporal Balini who was still grumbling about being left out of the action. The captain offered MC and Léroy secure beds for the coming day and a flight home tomorrow night, which they accepted. I was just beginning to realize how big a deal it was that they’d come out here with Jacky; for a vampire, the idea of spending a day sleeping in a hotel room that just about anybody could get into, with big windows and only curtains separating them from a good day’s sleep and fiery death…

Jacky had explained on the drive back that they brought tailored mummy-bags (the sleeping bag variety, not ancient Egyptian wraps), and Darren pretty much stuck to the room from sunup to sundown. Naturally they’d chartered a private plane, checked in under assumed names, done everything to make sure insane vampire-hunters couldn’t find them, but still!

“He is
so
into her,” Shell whispered as we watched Jacky say goodnight to MC (she’d cut her link to Jacky’s earbug again). “Or wants to be.”

“Shell!” I choked, turning it into a red-faced cough when everyone looked. They went back to ignoring me.

MC tapped his cane. “Jacky.”

“Lichter.”

“Will you be coming home soon?”

“We’ll see. Thank you for looking after Acacia for me.”

“See?
See
?”

I rolled my eyes, wishing I could
think
a response to my obviously delusional BFF, and then almost busted up when Darren decided he wasn’t having any of that.

“Who’re we kidding? C’mere, you!” He stepped up and wrapped Jacky in a big-brother hug, winked at me over her shoulder. “And don’t you be a stranger, y’hear?”

Okay, I went a little weak again, which was just wrong. I was a
big
girl, darn it. At least I couldn’t get redder.

Then we were out of there with a promise to Captain Lauer to file a report tomorrow—which would promptly be lost since obviously the US Navy had had nothing to do with tonight’s little action. And Balini and the other corporal had just gone out for evening drives. And returned with internationally wanted war-criminals…

Sometimes I think all government organizations are functionally insane.

“And what about
that
?” Shell squeed, bouncing beside me as we exited the base while Jacky projected Nothing to See Here vibes. “That was a
proxy
hug! He is so, so hot for you, her Majesty Oblivious the First, Queen of Oblivia, defender of cluelessness and ruler of all she refuses to see.
Tell
me you’ve never seen that before!”

I choked on my laugh. “I can honestly say that I haven’t.”

Jacky looked at me sideways, shook her head. “Shell?”

“Acting twelve.”

“Hey!”

Shelly texted as soon as the Garage flashed us back into Littleton; switching between Shell and Shelly was getting disorienting, and when I went to text back I found that Shell had slipped a share file into my phone, an edited video-file recording and translation of her feed through my neural link; everything from the moment we left Littleton to the moment we got back. The file dumped before I could figure out how to stop it, leaving me groaning at a smiley-face screen with an animated wink.
 
Great, now Shelly’s going to bug me about Darren, too.

Our flight back to the B&B was as uneventful as a sleeping town could make it, which was great because I was
done
.
 
We pulled out the trundle bed for Jacky and she gave me the first turn with the shower. She was gone when I got out, leaving a note that read
Gone to find the nightlife. Don’t wait up
.

I stared at it for a long minute, and then texted Sheriff Deitz.
Maybe
he didn’t know about Jacky’s dietary requirements or chosen means of tapping a vein, but if Jacky ran afoul of the town’s Orwellian security I hoped he’d call me first. Changing into a fresh set of indestructibles, I crawled into bed and dove into slumberland the moment my head hit the sinfully fluffy pillow.

I lay on the grass, warm wind tickling my skin, and watched the great wheel of the Milky Way turn above us as bright as it only ever looked from the very edge of space. The silver fox lying on my chest sat up and pricked his ears.

“What is it?”

He yawned. “Be still and listen, child,” he advised me.

Closing my eyes, hands clasped under my head, I listened. Wind in the grass. The soft rustle of cherry blossoms clinging to branches, ready to fly. Crackling. Fire.

“Hope?”

“Mmm?”

“How do you turn off the alarm?”

“Throw a pillow at her.”

Missing breakfast should have meant that all we got was fruit and cereal, but Mr. Darvish knew how much I adored his waffles and he made us a fresh stack. My waffle was a perfect warm puff, the butter rich, the maple syrup the real deal, the fresh orange juice and strawberries pure bliss. I took my uniform gloves off to keep syrup off of them, but halfway through my little slice of heaven the dream came back to hit me between the eyes. I dropped my fork and it rattled on the plate, spattering melted butter and syrup about.

How could I forget that?
It had
never
happened before with a Kitsune dream, which it absolutely had been. Maybe the fox had a hard time pushing the dream through Mr. Darvish’s bubble of peace? Which I didn’t feel now; the B&B’s proprietor must have stepped out after serving us and
why was I even wondering about that
?

“Hope? Are you okay?”

I must have looked as pale as Jacky as she watched me over her own piece of waffle. She’d woken fresh and as late as me (I vaguely remembered something about an alarm clock), which meant she’d had a good drink last night and didn’t need as much sleep.

“We’re not finished. It’s not over.” How could it not be over? We’d found the firestarter— Oh. “Their target was the
navy base
.”

“What?”

“Their target was the base! They have nothing to do with my dreams!” I put my face in my hands.

“Shit,” Jacky said. She thought for a minute. “Those dreams are never literal, are they?”

“No, but their allegories are pretty specific.” I groaned. “I wouldn’t have seen the town burning if it wasn’t the
town
. Probably.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But he snuck into my dreams again last night. It’s still on and we’re not going anywhere yet.”

She cut another slice of waffle. “Well, okay then.”

After breakfast Sheriff Deitz took my prediction just as unflappably. I wondered if he should, but I was beginning to feel like the Oracle of Delphi—my dreams were certainly vague as riddles or oracular pronouncements.
The town will burn.
Why? When? Who?
Hot-line psychics
did better.

“Relax,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “First, all your dreams have put the fires at night, so you don’t have to be on full alert 24/7. Second, Navy Intelligence, the CIA, the FBI, they’re all pulling on the strings this is attached to; sooner or later they’ll find the right string, follow it back, and all will be right with the world. Well, as right as it ever is but you’ll be able to go home. Third, the guys you brought in last night are a huge help, first confirmation this is serious. Resources were retasked while you slept.”

“Resources?”

“Oh yeah. The details are above my pay grade, but I’ve been told that in a couple of days we’ll have reinforcements. They’ll be settled in with plenty of time before the conference. Till then, Captain Lauer has pulled the two light armored squads out of the Garage to reinforce the base—that’s where the projects most vital to national security are,
and
the holding facility. We’ve still got Corbin’s heavy-armor team guarding the door.”

Jacky’s response was making more sense, now. Shelly’s, too; I was due at the Institute after seeing Deitz, but Shelly wasn’t freaking over the new dream, either. In fact, she’d hinted at
lunch
later.

“So keep your phone with you,” Deitz finished. “We’re going to do at least one more drill before the conference, but we’re going to prove that your guy’s not a prophet.”

That was my cue, and I left on it with a wave to Angel. Jacky had disappeared after breakfast so I went to the Institute alone. And walked into the Oroboros’ den to a round of standing applause.

The Oroboros common office’s main screen displayed mug shots of the Three Horsemen, with big red ‘X’s painted over them. Below each was a set of categories: soldiers and civilians. Each category had a number—for Flashpoint and Brainworm the numbers were triple digits.

“Congratulations, Astra.” General Rajabhushan stepped forward, a truly wide smile spreading wrinkles across his face.

“What is this?”

“Your scoreboard. The most optimistic future-accounting, extracted from the potential futures left to us, yielded a count exceeding one thousand more deaths directly attributed to these three before they were brought down by enemy action. We cannot begin to list the thousands more second-order deaths attributable to their actions as well.”

Doctor Hall lifted a fizzing Champaign flute, saluting me. “Really. Congratulations. Will all who they would have killed, live now? Perhaps not—they sold their services to whatever war would have them. But this is certainly a victory for the forces of order.”

“And the intelligence the US may get from them could prove just as life-saving,” Doctor Ash added less exuberantly. The rest seconded her sentiment, and only Shelly didn’t have a glass in her hand.

The general lifted his own drink. “Truly, this is what the Oroboros are for and you have done us wonderful service. And now!” He put down his glass, clapped his hands once. “Let us to work! If we can find the route by which they came, we can learn of their recent work! We may be able to tag them to potential future operations which yet remain a reality!”

The group scattered, still chattering, all except for Shelly. I watched them go.

“Um, what just happened?”

“You scored.” Shedding the serious demeanor she tried to project here, Shelly grinned from ear to ear.

“We do it every time one of our ‘intelligence assessments’ bags an operation or person responsible for Bad Things in the Future Files. It’s happening less and less as we get further and further from the last potential future the Teatime Anarchist saw and divergence marches on, but big wins are still out there. You got one we weren’t even looking for. So, c’mon. You can write up your after-action report, and I can get some work done, and then we are going to go eat.”

She said
eat
with a sparkle in her eye that said she knew something that I didn’t, but led me back to her office without clarifying. We spent the next little while in silence while she did her thing through the Oroboros databases and I worked on my report. It felt weirdly like our study-nights, back before everything.

And then she dragged me to lunch. At the
beach
.