The next couple of hours were spent in the Scrapyard graveyard. The villagers normally would have objected to burying a ghoul there but I kept my sniper rifle prominently displayed during my digging. Jackie got a chance to visit with her father while I interred Richard’s remains. The sheriff was buried fairly reverentially by the locals despite his adoption of a ghoul child. I don’t know what she said to her father but it calmed her.
Later, I spent a good three hours looking over Richard’s maps while everyone else ate and scavenged supplies. From my evaluation, I determined Peter Goodhill was several hours ahead of us and direct pursuit would have been fruitless even if I’d gone after him as soon as I woke up.
Instead, the most optimal strategy for us to pursue them would be to ambush him in Kingsport. The only consolation I had from this unfortunate situation was Peter was unlikely to harm Doctor Takahashi; she was too valuable as a hostage or slave to sell. Even so, I worried about her every other thought. I was surprised how much her kidnapping affected me.
Despite my best efforts to dislike her, Mercury’s treatment of Jessica and desire to help Jackie had softened my feelings towards the torturer. I wasn’t attracted to Mercury beyond the physical but I was starting to believe she hadn’t really had a choice in doing the things she’d done. No, I couldn’t quite believe that. There was always a choice. However, I could not blame her for her actions at gunpoint. I, too, had done horrible things under those same circumstances. Unlikely as it was to happen, I wanted to rescue her and bring her to some place safe so she could find a new life free from evil. If such a place existed in this world.
I was brooding about that when Jessica interrupted me. “Captain, you in?”
I was standing over a map of Kingsport, crudely drawn but accurate. Somehow, Richard had acquired it from traders. “I’m just working on some last-minute strategies. There are several places where Peter Goodhill might take refuge and I want attack plans for all of them, along with appropriate escape avenues.”
“Sounds good. I brought you something for tomorrow’s trip.” Jessica walked in wearing an outfit much better suited to her personality. Having found some clothing in her size, she’d replaced her lost Stetson and was now wearing a faded set of jeans with a plain blue button-down shirt topped with a brown leather vest. In her arms was a set of folded men’s clothing that I doubted had belonged to Richard.
“Thank you.” I marked a possible point of egress on the map below me, using a wooden stylus with an inkwell.
“I thought you’d like some duds other than the kind soldiers wear.” Jessica shook the clothing in her hands.
“Thank you.” I smiled, looking down at the prison fatigues I was still wearing. “I am rather eager to get out of this outfit.”
“Good to know. You hungry, Captain? We’ve still got some leftovers from dinner, too. That Katryn lady is quite the cook despite being a native type,” Jessica said, making air quotes as she said the word “native.”
“I had some beans earlier. Richard has a surprisingly well-stocked pantry,” I said, ignoring her comment about Katryn. I wasn’t sure if Jessica yet knew about my condition and I wasn’t about to tell her.
Jessica frowned, wrinkling her nose. “By the way, Sir, you might want to take a shower before you change. You’re starting to smell a wee bit ripe.”
I sniffed the side of my lapel, near the blackened burn mark of the Hand. It reeked of something akin to sulfur and rotting meat. A shower probably couldn’t cure that but I could cover up the smell with an oil-soaked bandage. “I probably should.”
Jessica put the clothes on a nearby shelf before taking a deep breath. “That’s the understatement of the year, up there with ‘The Great Old Ones woke up temperamental.’”
I smiled at her joke. “How are you holding up, Corporal?”
“You’re asking how I’m holding up?” Jessica seemed shocked by my question.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t curious,” I responded, putting away the maps. I’d done about as much planning as was possible without actually seeing the buildings in person. No plan survived contact with the enemy anyway and Peter was a wily foe. He’d be prepared for any attack by an R&E Ranger. I had to think like someone different and that was a harder task than it sounded.
Jessica blinked, amazed at my ability to compartmentalize. “Do you mean mentally or physically, Captain? Or do you just want me to call you John now, since we’ve both been discharged?”
“Either is fine,” I answered. I had more important things on my mind than proper forms of address, especially from friends.
“O Captain, my Captain,” Jessica quoted a poem by Walt Whitman. “I think I’ll stick with that one, you always did love poetry.”
“Nothing wrong with poetry, it’s been the province of military officers since time memorial. I even wrote a sequel to Ozymandias,” I said, smirking. “It was terrible.”
“I’d still love to hear it sometime,” Jessica said, leaning up against the wall. “I hope I at least got a military funeral. Do you think we got the full twenty-one-gun salute or do you think they thought it would be wasting ammo?”
“Almost certainly the latter. We’d be lucky if they remembered to write our names down, and that was before I was judged to be an abomination against God and humanity.” I walked out to the Blue Meanie, looking at the car appraisingly. It was now fully outfitted for our trek across the Great Barrier Desert. “Though I imagine they’d take you back if you presented yourself and denounced me.”
“You’re hilarious, Captain.” Jessica snorted. “Did anyone else ever tell you that?”
I’d heard it a few times before, not the least from friends and loved ones. “My wife for one.”
“Ah, the wicked witch gets something right.” Jessica gave a thumbs-up before looking at the Corvette. “Nice machine.”
“Yes, it is.”
“So, ready to talk about what happened to you?” Jessica gave a brief snort. “I’d like to hear the whole story. About your exile, dying, coming back, all of it.”
“Telling the whole story would require a couple of hours and a great deal of alcohol. Suffice to say, it’s a consequence of my actions and I’m not overly concerned.”
“You’re not overly concerned with dying?” Jessica stared at me.
“We’re all dying, Jessica, every single day of our lives.” I said, picking up a wrench and heading out past Jessica into the garage.
“That is the worst way to cheer up someone I have ever heard.” Jessica looked away, trying not to gaze directly at me.
“Funny, I thought you were trying to cheer me up,” I said before raising the hood of the car to make sure everything was working properly. I had only a limited amount of knowledge regarding automobiles, but I could tell the machine hadn’t been touched by our erstwhile traitor.
“I was. I’m just bad at it.” Jessica gazed down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Captain, it’s just you’re a rock. You managed to survive things no other person in the Remnant could ever dream of. You’re a hero, no matter how much you deny it.”
“There are no heroes in the Wasteland.” That was one of the first lessons I learned away from New Arkham. “You didn’t really answer my question, though. How do you feel?”
“I’m dealing,” Jessica said, realizing I genuinely didn’t want to talk. “The other Gammas dying was a blow to the gut but casualties happen. Remember when we lost Private Jenkins?”
“Yes, man ran straight into the mouth of a … well, I have no idea actually, but whatever it was, it ate him whole.”
That particular mission had been a general disaster, Private Jenkins being promoted to the Rangers before he was ready. I had no idea what the creature had been; it had been little more than a free-floating hole in reality, but I’d spent a week tracking it down afterward. Two-dimensional gaping maw or not, M-Rad grenades were capable of killing it.
“I’m having a harder time dealing with you dying. Well, dying and not coming back, I mean,” Jessica said, gazing at me with a kind of reverence that disturbed me. It was halfway between love and worship. I would have much preferred she look at me as an equal and friend. “Tell me, Captain, is this really the end? Are you going to die?”
I decided lying was the best course of action. I didn’t want to be pitied or babied in the last months of my life. “I’m going to force Doctor Ward to reverse what’s been done to me before I kill him, Jessica. Seriously, I’ll be alright. A few well-timed punches and he’ll cave. Then we’ll hang him together.”
Jessica visibly relaxed, exhaling a deep breath. “I knew you weren’t going down without a fight.”
Given the ease with which she believed my transparent lie, I debated telling her Santa Claus was real. Of course, for all I knew, he was flying around somewhere in the Dreamlands. “I can try and make some arrangement to get you back into the Remnant, Jessica. We both still have friends in the military, even if they did declare you dead and brand me a traitor.”
“I’m glad to be free of the Remnant.” Jessica’s voice was surprisingly harsh. “You might not understand that but it’s true.”
“You’d be surprised.” After taking in Peter’s, Mercury’s, and even my own reactions to leaving the Remnant, I was starting to realize that more people hated living in our homeland than I’d ever suspected. “Still, leaving your old life behind is never easy, especially when it involves entering into a world where the Great Old Ones rule.”
“My husband died a year ago, fighting the Color. My children? Well, they died worse and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.” Jessica trailed off, looking frustrated. “Do you think Ward was really behind it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then I’ll pay back this universe for taking them from me.”
“Yes.”
“John, do you remember the Yellow Spore Crisis?”
I did. The Yellow Spore Crisis had been triggered by cultists of Hastur, killing the youngest and most innocent of the Remnant first. Jacob O’Reilly had wanted to have more kids but Jessica had never gotten over the loss, transferring from regular army to the Rangers a month later. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You helped kill the cultists after it happened.”
I was about to say something when she continued talking. “The Great Old Ones rule in the Remnant just like in the Wasteland. We just refuse to acknowledge that big damn aliens own this planet now. I’d give anything to make that not the case anymore.”
“We never owned this planet, Corporal. We just thought we did.” I walked over and placed my hand on her. “Ward doesn’t either, though, and I take comfort in that.”
“It’s about the only comfort I’ve got left.”
“You’re just a bastion of joy, Sir.” Jessica looked almost happy as she spoke. Revenge was a poor substitute for those taken from you but it could keep you going. It was all I had right now, despite Jessica being in front of me. I would rather spend that time going after Ward than be here with her. It rather sickened me to realize that. I loved hate more than I did love and friendship. Perhaps we weren’t so far from the Old Ones after all, but they didn’t hate or love. They just existed, and in that, I envied them.
“What are you going to do after?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. “After killing Ward.”
“There is no after, Captain, you know that. I accepted death when I joined the Rangers.” Jessica rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that what it’s all about? Spitting in the eye of Cthulhu before it’s all over?”
I knew exactly how she felt but I wanted her to lie to me the same way I’d lied to her.
“I’ll accept fighting monsters is what we do.” I paused to let a single beat past. “But I don’t intend to die at all, neither should you.”
“That’s the spirit!” Jessica said, laughing. “Embrace your inner cowboy!”
“I will.”
Jessica then made a serious misjudgment. “So are you and the tribal lady together?”
I closed my eyes and remembered the revulsion I’d felt during my time with the Dunwych as their slave. “No.”
Jessica picked up on the subtext or at least some of it. “So not much future there, huh?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Right,” Jessica said, punching me in the arm. “Come on. Let’s go rescue your psycho-torturer friend.”
“Agreed.”