“You’re our guests,” Franklin said to Captain Antonelli. “Unless you’re going back on your word and you folks really are the totalitarian assholes I’ve always said you were.”
They sat in the telecom room, the lights low to conserve power. The captain chewed on a stale cigar he’d found in the supply closet. The stogie had likely been the property of Franklin’s long-ago nemesis, Sarge Shipley, who’d seized power during a coup and then ran his own little dictatorship out of the bunker. Until Stephen got his ass.
“But this changes things,” Antonelli said. “Civilians in the bunker, well, we can overlook that, because ultimately we’re all on the same team with the same mission. But when we come to find you’re not only harboring the enemy, you’re practically conspiring with them, then it’s hard to see the situation as anything other than treason.”
Franklin had moved fast when Kokona came on the scene, because several soldiers had drawn their guns and aimed at the baby. He might not have reacted the same way if Marina hadn’t been holding her. After all, he wasn’t completely sure Kokona didn’t have some connection to the shitterhawk attack.
Despite his doubts about the Zap infant, he wasn’t about to let the U.S. government serve as judge, jury, and executioner here. This was no longer their turf. And until Rachel rendered an opinion, nobody was condemning anybody on his watch.
Kokona was currently in Marina’s room, where Stephen stood guard. The teen was just as defiant as Franklin on the matter, and Franklin couldn’t help but feel a touch of grandfatherly pride.
The boy would be no match if the Goon Squad decided to destroy the little infant, but for now the soldiers seemed content to heal, rest, and enjoy the security of the various beds and cells. The bunker had an entirely different feel now, of thinner air and more unpleasant odors, reminding Franklin why he’d never liked crowds, cities, or people in general.
“How can you commit treason when there’s no government in place,” Franklin said. “As far as I’m concerned, the whole world’s unclaimed territory. And we just happened to plant our flag right here. We were here before you came along.”
Of course, that’s just what the Sioux said in the Midwest, and the Mexicans in Texarkana, and the Inca in Peru, but old flags got burned and new ones got planted.
“This isn’t just about our immediate security here in the bunker,” the captain said. “This is about winning our world back.”
Franklin looked at the door to make sure no was eavesdropping. Then he leaned forward. “Look, I’m not saying I’m crazy about her. But you know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
The captain half smiled and then nodded. “Ah, so you’ve been scouting her out, huh?”
“Let’s just say I probably know more about the Zaps than your New Pentagon medal-polishers do.” Franklin summarized the battle in Newton and how Shipley’s unit had attacked the Zaps there, leaving the town a smoking ruin with few walking away. He even credited Kokona with helping his and Rachel’s group escape, which was probably true, although that part made their survival seem just a little too convenient.
“Maybe you’re not the only one keeping your friends close and your enemies closer,” Antonelli said.
“Or maybe things are exactly what they look like.” Franklin wanted to prepare Antonelli for Rachel’s arrival so he wouldn’t have to wade through this same bullshit again, but he wasn’t even sure she was still alive. The captain would likely deem her a “double spy” and issue a death sentence.
Maybe his defense of Kokona was just an advance battle over Rachel’s fate. Franklin had given up any illusions of a civilization restored to its former glory. He was at peace with the idea this was as good as it was going to get.
“Then you won’t mind if I interrogate her,” Antonelli said. “We’ve received intel that the mutant babies were their tribal leaders, but it sounded a little too incredible to believe. One of our assignments is to pass along any discoveries we make about them. We’ve had some helicopter flyovers, and even a few surveillance drones of our own, but we get limited visual contact. And of course sat-comms are blown to hell, so the CIA’s eyes in the sky are as blind as a headless bat.”
“Well, I can only tell you what I saw and what my granddaughter saw. The Zap babies communicate telepathically and then can kind of give orders to the whole tribe. But this was years ago, remember. Who knows how much they’ve changed since then?”
“Has this Kokona changed any? She’s obviously not grown physically.”
“Well, she’s smarter, for sure. She’s memorized every book in my library, and she remembers everything she learned from the other Zaps in Newton, where they were draining knowledge from every human they could find. So they’re like rocket scientists on supersteroids.”
Antonelli pushed at the fabricated bird on the table, which had been disassembled into components, although the covering material had proven nearly impossible to rend apart. The tubing, wires, circuits, and clear lenses suggested some kind of computerized operating system, although there was no real motor inside. And the materials were not really metals but some kind of synthetic amalgam.
“If they built this, then they’re geniuses beyond anything we can imagine,” the captain said. “Tidewater, my ordnance man, says the whole thing has an organic feel, as if this was a living creature. And the birds assembled and attacked as if following externally issued orders, but were clever enough to act independently once they selected a specific target or were cut off from the others.”
“Yeah, and they acted like they enjoyed killing a whole hell of a lot,” Franklin said. “That’s no machine.”
“If we go with the ESP theory, then they could very well have individual brains, but they were probably directed by a Zap.” The captain held up a flexible bit of dark red tubing that looked suspiciously like a fat artery. “I’m almost scared to touch it. If it’s organic, it might even carry disease.”
“Avian flu from hell,” Franklin said. “The newspapers would love that, if there were any newspapers left.”
He glanced at the monitors, grateful the screens carried no audio links. One of the cameras had been knocked out, probably from a collision with a bird, but the two remaining monitors offered up grim gray footage of the vultures indulging in a feast, lit only by the watery radiance of the aurora.
“About that interrogation,” Antonelli said.
“I don’t like that word. Sounds pushy. If you want to talk to the baby, that’s fine, but keep it friendly. And just you. I don’t want a bunch of dirty-faced thugs with blood on their hands playing ‘Good cop, bad cop.’”
“As you like,” Antonelli said. “It’s your party.”
Franklin led the way through the bunker to Marina’s room. The lights were dimmed almost to nothing in order to preserve the batteries. Many of the doors leading onto the hallway were open, and soldiers sprawled on the bunks, their boots off and their weapons leaning against the walls. Some of them sported red-spotted bandages, and a tall, hatchet-faced woman wore a sling on one arm.
Got our asses kicked by some wind-up rubber duckies, and yet we think we can march right into their cities and demand back the keys to the world. God help us all.
He knocked softly on Marina’s door. “Stephen, it’s me.”
The door opened a crack and half of Stephen’s face appeared there. His eyebrow arched when he saw the captain and he said, “What does he want?”
“Just a little chat with Kokona. No strong-arm stuff, I told him we wouldn’t stand for that, but just in the interest of keeping everything out in the open.”
Stephen turned as Marina spoke, then Kokona, but Franklin couldn’t make out the words. Antonelli paced impatiently behind him, tapping the cigar against his teeth. Finally the door opened and Franklin followed Antonelli in. Stephen closed the door and stood with his back against it, M16 across his chest.
Marina sat on her bed beside Kokona, who was wrapped in blankets and wore a one-piece sleeper with little pink booties that Rachel had knitted for her. Kokona looked barely a year old, although the age of Asian babies, and often Asians in general, was difficult for Franklin to judge. But Antonelli gazed down at her as if she had just popped out of the womb, a stranger that he wished he’d never met.
“Hello, Kokona,” the captain said.
“Where is your gun?”
Antonelli glanced at Franklin, startled by the high voice and clear diction issuing from that precocious little mouth even though he’d already heard her speak.
Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?
“I’m here as an ambassador,” Antonelli said. “Not an enemy.”
Kokona giggled. “How dumb do you think I am, Mr. Marine Captain?”
“We have a right to be here. This bunker was paid for and developed by the United States government on public property. We established that right under recognized laws long before your kind…uh, came to our land.”
Franklin almost giggled at that himself. “What the captain’s trying to say is we know the Zaps are powerful, and we know you could wipe us out if you wanted, and we’re grateful to have whatever land you’ve allowed us to populate. It’s understandable if we see you as a threat because we only exist through your forbearance. Also, we don’t know anything about you, and we’re scared of what we don’t understand. And, oh yeah, freedom and all that shit.”
“We all want peace,” Kokona said. “What intelligent being wouldn’t? But I’m afraid you’re talking to the wrong mutant. I don’t have any contact with the others of my kind. For all I know, I’m not even one of them anymore. They’ve likely evolved far beyond anything I understand.”
“Can you tell me what you know?” Antonelli asked. “Where are they? What are their defensive and offensive capabilities? And what’s their intent?”
“You want me to judge them based on human standards?” Kokona shook her head. “Our motives are not based on conquest or confrontation. Admittedly, when we were new—after the conversion due to a bombardment of electromagnetic radiation—we reverted to primal, violent states, but that was necessary. The slate had to be wiped clean so new truths could be written.”
“You killed thousands of us,” Antonelli said. “Maybe tens of thousands. You nearly drove us to extinction.” He balled his fists and took a step forward. “And you call that ‘wiping the slate clean’?”
Marina put a protective arm around Kokona, but the baby only giggled again. “I didn’t kill anybody, Captain. After all, I can’t even walk.”
I didn’t expect her to offer up any useful information, but now she’s just flat-out taunting him. That’s probably what she thinks of all of us, even Rachel.
Franklin wondered if he’d make a mistake by letting Antonelli in the bunker at all. Sure, he’d have a few dozen deaths on his conscience, but he would’ve justified it the way he always did: intrusive Big Brother, sticking its nose where it had no business, and getting that nose bloodied.
But Kokona was revealing herself in ways she never did when Franklin talked to her alone. He often had the feeling she was just playing a complicated game for her own amusement. Franklin didn’t necessarily suspect evil intent, just a childlike view of the stakes.
She would apparently get by just fine no matter who ended up running the world.
“What about these birds?” Franklin asked. “Do you know anything about them?”
Marina and Stephen shared a glance, as if they’d been talking about the subject before the men arrived. “She doesn’t know anything,” Marina said, too quickly.
That girl’s a very bad liar.
“Let her answer,” Antonelli said.
Kokona smiled at Marina, eyes dancing with curls of red and orange light. “I can speak for myself, Marina.”
Then, to the captain, “I don’t know anything.”
Franklin had no idea whether Kokona was a better liar than Marina.
“I lost twenty-three good soldiers today,” Antonelli said. “Right now they’re outside lying on the ground, serving as vulture bait. And when the vultures are done, who knows what will come out of the woods to clean up the scraps?”
“I regret the deaths, Captain,” Kokona said. “We view death differently than you humans. Of course, I can’t speak for my people, since I might not even belong with them anymore, but perhaps if you accept it as a simple state of transformation—even transcendence—then you won’t feel as much pain and guilt and sorrow.”
“Don’t you dare sit there and mock my people,” Antonelli said, his face reddening and twisting in rage. This time Franklin had to step between them to keep the captain from charging the bed. “What kind of sick little monster are you?”
Marina scooped up Kokona and held the baby protectively to her chest, glaring at Antonelli as if he was the monster here.
As Antonelli stormed to the door, Stephen stepped aside, shaking his head ruefully at Franklin.
“Captain!” Kokona called, just as he was about to leave the room.
Franklin braced for a fresh confrontation, but Kokona said, “Your man with the injured leg. Compound fractures of the tibia and fibula, with deep lacerations and possibility of blood poisoning, accompanied by high fever.”
Antonelli jabbed his cigar between his teeth and clenched his jaws around it as if to keep himself from screaming. “So what?” he grunted around the soggy tobacco.
“I can repair him. As a token of good faith.”
Franklin almost wished he’d stayed at his compound on the remote ridge top, where his biggest worry was whether the goats would eat his long johns when he draped them over the fence to air out.
This is going to be good.