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NOTE: Probably back to apprentices next week. Seriously.
Before I retrofitted my ideas, I had a lot of stories with the lead character from "The Operative", who I will now be completely marginalizing. Sometimes, I'd come up with a whole narrative just to discover that my brain had manipulated it all just to have one scene. A scene after the "warning" below, in this case. Anyhoo, when people ask me about having a "hero," this story comes to mind, so I'm sharing it with you ... hell, why not, you know? This tells a little more about my plans than it probably should, but it's all in the hands of the Library of Congress and what have you. We do what we must ...
For what felt like the hundredth time in the last hour, Sarah ducked her head and prayed for salvation.
The chatter of old-fashioned projectile gunfire danced with the electrical hum of airship-mounted beam weapons in the rainy Sinai night. Sarah absentmindedly remembered her school lessons, how a massive network solar mirrors could be activated from miles away to disperse the clouds, even at night, over the formerly bustling settlement of Magdalena.
The wooden crucifix fell from Sarah's tiny grip as she was shaken by another explosion, and she reached to pick it up. A tear fell from her eye as she remembered Daddy's words before he tucked her under the shelter's eave. "It doesn't matter how 'fundamentalist' these people are," he'd said, his long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, some of the ends singed, "nobody could do anything wrong to a pretty little girl with a cross."
Sarah pushed a lock of her straight blonde hair back over her ear (more like her mother's) and straightened her dress. It was a pretty white number with bright yellow flowers, and Sarah's mother had sewn it six weeks ago for the big Easter pageant. Oh, it was such a wonderful day, when Pastor Richards was laughing and smiling and all the kids were running around the church lawn ...
Another explosion shook the world around Sarah, and she cried into her crossed arms, hugging the crucifix close. Sarah didn't understand why Daddy said they couldn't be found together, but he seemed very scared, and Sarah didn't like to see Daddy scared at all. Mommy was crying so much, and Daddy almost had to pull Sarah out of her arms. Daddy looked so handsome in his Civil Defense uniform, but the look of fear on his face was not something Sarah liked to remember.
The drumbeat of bullets being fired seemed like it was drawing away, and Sarah pulled the note Daddy wrote out of the little pocket under the biggest flower on the dress. Wiping tears from her her face, she read aloud.
"It's safe to go outside after it's been quiet for an hour," Sarah whispered, hoping nobody could hear her. "Hold your cross up to anybody you meet, and say you're lost." Sniffling, she squeaked out the last words, "Daddy loves you."
Sarah tapped a button on her dress, and a small holo popped up from its surface to display the time. It was ten-fourteen, and Sarah realized that was way past her bedtime. Normally the town of Magdalena would be quieter than the inside of the church on a Monday afternoon, but tonight there was still screams in the wind and the broken chords of men disagreeing with each other.
The dim light from the windows held steady, instead of flickering from wafting clouds of smoke or dust, and Sarah wondered at the night. Two days ago, she'd been sitting in her classroom, thumbing through bible verses and math problems on her desk's screen, with the chirping of imported sparrows outside the window. But today the Hebronites had come, with their beam weapons and their drive to "unite the faithful." It confused Sarah a great deal.
"Daddy," Sarah asked, her bright shining eyes staring up at her father as he carried her towards the waiting shelter, "if we're all Christians, what are we fighting each other for?"
Daddy was distracted by the fact that the shelter was empty when he got here, but he had three more stops to make before reporting for duty. "It's really complicated, baby," he'd said, pulling out the instruction card for the security locks, "but God has a plan for each of us, even if we sometimes take the messy way of getting there." Daddy left her with specific instructions, pulled Mommy out screaming and crying, and locked the door behind him.
The instruction card lay to Sarah's left, a thin frosting of dust from where the shelling had shaken the structure now clinging to its surface like a barely-kept promise. It seemed simple enough -- Sarah was almost ten, and everybody always said she was smart for her age, understanding the lock and the directions -- but she didn't know if she'd ever feel safe again.
A sound at the door startled her, and she looked up in horror. Squealing, she ducked behind a stack of crates and cried and cried and cried.
The door slowly opened, and she heard the voices of men shouting. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but she hugged her legs to herself tightly and hoped they'd go away.
The crates were all on a hover-dolly, and it slid away quickly, making Sarah scream again. She thrust her cross in front of her and wailed energetically.
"Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry I scared you ..."
Sarah's brow furrowed as she looked up ... and saw Daniel Alvarez.
"Brother ... Daniel?" Sarah said, her voice quivering like a reed in a strong breeze.
"They screwed up your dad's instruction package," Daniel said, setting down his flashlight and re-adjusting the rifle on his back. "He thought ... well, never mind what he thought, but I came to bring you back ..."
Sarah leapt into Daniel's strong arms, crying into his thick camouflage jacket. Daniel was one of the young men at her church, a guy who always chipped in and was always smiling. Had she been a year or two older, Sarah probably would have had a crush on him, like the older girls, but she just saw him as one of the really nice grown-ups around her that made her life such a parade of joy. Showing up here to save her was like falling back into that comfortable world.
Laughing, Daniel said, "Well, I'm glad to see you too, little girl ... but let's get you to the right shelter, okay?" Tapping his shoulder-com, Daniel said, "This is Angel Six Leader, confirmed, I got our little lost lamb, regroup on my signal for evac."
Clinging to Daniel's shoulder, the crucifix still gripped strongly in her hand, Sarah closed her eyes as Daniel carried her out of the abandoned shelter and away from the greatest fear of her life.
* * *
Daniel Alvarez choked back an enthusiastic lump in his throat, handing Sarah Tanner back to her mother Rebecca. Civil Defense's central AI had been attacked by a Hebronite computer virus, and was sending screwy instructions to its charges all across the face of Sinai. When Moredcai Tanner realized he'd left his only baby girl in the path of oncoming Hebronite forces, what could Daniel do but reroute his platoon and save her?
Brother Abraham's zealots had been sweeping southwest across the vast Plain of Hagar, trying to separate the partisan forces from regrouping and stemming the tide of this invasion. You could hear the old-time Baptist sway of Abraham's voice, blasting from armored loudspeakers as his men advanced.
"... and the Lawd said, ye shall take my message to the unconverted!" Brother Abraham's booming voice intoned, synchronized across the land, day and night. "'I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.' On this day, yes-ah, we do the Lord's work, y'all ... bringin' all of the faithful under one banner, to live in His light."
Daniel made sure his team, the sixth in Angel Division, was all set for rations and bunks and then made his way to the section leader's room.
The base where Daniel returned Sarah to her family was one of a network of makeshift ones hidden in the vast caverns dotting mountain ranges throughout Sinai. There was only one huge continent on the entire planet, comprising less than 30% of the world's surface area. Huge tracts of arable land were supplemented by abundant fishing resources, making Sinai a viable colony since groundfall over a hundred years before.
Daniel mentally reviewed his history lessons as he walked down the claustrophobic corridors. The election of some now-forgotten deeply secular candidate in the world's only superpower inspired the Great Exodus of 2034, where people of Christian faith decided enough was enough and wanted something better, more pure for their children. The scientist who made it possible, a NASA veteran named Dr. Thomas Howard, wasn't exactly a religious man, but his wife Debra was well known for both her staggering beauty and her abiding faith. With the Howards' technical impetus and billions raised from televangelism and collection plates, the faithful took to space to find their way.
Sinai was one of the first colonies founded, one of three inhabited worlds around the star Vega. Sinai was settled by a rather intensive group, formerly characterized as a "cult" by other churches, but with more than three times the number of congregants. Naturally the racially diverse Sinai congregation had taken the world with the largest land-mass, with a heavily rural and American group of Baptists taking the next nearest planet (called Hebron), and the final world being settled by the smallest group, a collective of Catholics from around the world who called that sphere Sacrament. Until the other worlds were made ready with terraforming and -- in the case of Sacrament -- eradication of overly hostile native life forms, all of Vega's Christians had called Sinai home.
Decades of tranquility were shattered when Brother Abraham rose to lead the flock of Hebron. Handsome, tall, with skin like polished ebony and a voice that could resonate the length of a football field without amplification, his flowing straight hair swung like a lion's mane over his impeccably white old-fashioned three-piece suits as he founded his leadership with his "divinely inspired mission" -- to bring the righteousness of Hebronite life to all Christian worlds, everywhere, and eventually to all worlds period. In less than a decade, Hebronite forces subdued Sacrament and were landing on Sinai, the fervor that drove them, and some re-constructed armor technology from the long-abandoned homeworld, making each one of their soldiers worth ten of their opponents.
Unlike Sacrament, Sinai's population was very technologically savvy and saw the troubles coming. Daniel was only seventeen when he'd seen the signs and joined Civil Defense, three weeks of drilling and training while foundries switched from forging plowshares to casting weapons of war.
Where others, soft from years of idyllic tranquility, lagged behind or were found wanting, Daniel excelled. He'd always been a fit, smart lad, but his drive and determination to defend his home gave him something extra that others lacked. Within seven months, he'd been promoted to lead a platoon of men designated Angel Six, most older than Daniel, all of whom would follow him through the gates of hell more than once, happy to take a return trip through purgatory just for kicks.
Daniel walked into Section Leader Jordan's room to find most of the other platoon leaders there, waiting. Chambers, Fortson, Drummond ... all looking like they'd gone twelve rounds with a growler while the rest of its swarm was waiting for a shot.
Malachi Jordan stood up at the back of the room and gestured towards Daniel. "Alvarez, come on in," Jordan said. He was a stocky man of medium height with straight, thinning coffee-colored hair, best known for his smart administration of emergency and weather control resources. Now he spent his days looking at a map and deciding where to send Sinaian men to die.
Daniel shook hands with a few of the men as he walked past, always the youngest person around in these kinds of gatherings.
"How the heck did you stop that Hebronite advance down Jacob Street?" Fortson asked. Tom Fortson was about thirty two, with sandy blond hair hanging rakishly this way and that, his favorite black suspenders contrasting sharply with the red plaid flannel shirt he wore around camp because his daughter loved it.
Daniel took an empty seat and shrugged. "I saw that they were kind of just barreling along, so I sent a couple of guys to parallel their route and gum up the works with pulse grenades. Those tanks they use are so top-heavy that I figured toppling a couple of 'em would bottleneck the whole street, and luckily I was right."
Everyone nodded appreciatively, and Jordan raised a hand to speak. "I'm sure you've all noticed that there's fewer of us here. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that Jack Baker was trying to coordinate Deacon Twelve with Caleb Stevely and Peter Romero, plus some irregulars from San Raphael and Gethsemane. The unlucky sods were in a structure that was grazed by shelling, and it crushed 'em all. So I'm gonna need to alter your structures, and you'll all be in charge of battalion sized groups instead of platoons and companies as you're now organized." Jordan paused to look over at Daniel. "Because of his amazing work, and despite his age, I'm appointing Daniel to be in charge of the first battallion, which will take the designation 'Angel.'"
Daniel sat back with surprise, as everyone around him nodded. "I'm ... I'm not even old enough to drink," he protested. "I'm a virgin, for God's sake, I can't ..."
Fortson interrupted him, saying, "Two days ago you ran, guns blazing, into a line of Hebronite infantry to give two of your troops time to get out of harm's way. Three of my men told me about how your platoon held a skirmish line against an armored unit for twenty minutes until reinforcements arrived. None of us are soldiers, not even you, but everybody here recognizes you as ..." Fortson paused, considering. "You're someone great, Danny, and you can't hide away from that."
Murmurs of agreement all around, and Daniel just kept shaking his head. "Guys, I ... I appreciate what you're saying, but God blesses us all in His way, I'm just trying ..."
"Men try, Daniel," Jordan said. "Heroes do, and you certainly fit the bill. No more talk about it. Drummond, can we get those revised data panels with the uploads from High Pines?"
Daniel looked around himself in wonder, so surprised to be seen in high regard by the elders who chased him out of their yards or hired him to rake their leaves just a year or two ago. He paid attention to the briefing on new troop movements, wondering what greatness means.
* * *
There had never been a centralized government on Sinai. When the first settlers landed, they kind of loosely fell into towns, and each town kind of agreed to having a representative, meeting once every two months or so in an informal council. The disputes that came up were rarely very serious -- the township of Shadrach was hogging the solar reflection network, so the pastor's daughter could have a splendid tan, or maybe the grazing wards near Ezra weren't keeping a charge, and domesticated growlers were grazing too close to some school yard. The shared faith, fairly easy living and kind of loose power structure worked well to keep everybody on the same page.
Until Hebronite beam weapons started leveling homes -- the first attacks decimated the council's membership, and the normal informal travel of doctors became a critical issue with people bleeding and filled with shrapnel all over the continent. Now the almost daily meetings of section leaders -- watching over one township, mostly, and surrounding areas -- kept coming back to the idea of a central leadership structure, just for the duration of this emergency. The well-preened shadow of Brother Abraham loomed over the Sinai continent, and maybe there was a need for something to stand against that awful icon.
A week before Daniel Alvarez made his stunning dual act of heroism, Malachi Jordan had brought the young man up to the council. They looked over his record -- an ace Bible Scout since he was barely able to walk, saved his little brother from drowning after the younger Alvarez ran away. He was an ideal product of the kind of spiritual and moral upbringing their community worked for. Several people kept wondering if he was too good to be true, and the struggle (most of them were too uncomfortable admitting they'd come this far to be part of something as unholy as a "war") severly limited their ability to dig deeper, but for all intents and purposes, it seemed like Juan and Rocio Alvarez' first born son was the real deal, and that was just what they needed to inspire a whole generation to fight back.
So some sample assignments were handed down, and time and time again, Daniel rose to the challenge. None of the promotions were even unwarranted, as his merit as both a leader and soldier became evident immediately. A keen combination of common sense, genuine warmth and innate tactical ability fueled his rise, and the elders in the council couldn't be more pleased.
Daniel, of course, had suspected this for some time, working hard not to glance over his shoulder when he heard whispering behind his back. The promotion to battalion commander pretty much confirmed it in his mind, and he stared at the ceiling from his bunk considering all of that in the dim hours before alarm klaxons would awaken the compound for the day's duties. Ever since he was a boy, helping pick up hymnals in the sanctuary, Daniel had visions in his mind of how things were supposed to be. Not hallucinations, but when he saw a book out of place, he'd instantly look to the place it was supposed to be, and put it there. It turns out combat was very similar -- when he saw enemy soldiers and checked his wrist screen for locations on his own, he could see the right moves to make like some macro-scaled chess game. When he was nine, he remembered asking his father, "Daddy, why can't everybody see things the right way, like I can?" Juan Alvarez, a stout man with a full, wavy beard and a fuller laugh held back his head and brayed loudly, his long braided ponytail dancing like a black adder. "Maybe, mijo, it just means you were sent to help them find out what the right way is," Juan had smiled at his eldest son. "Perhaps you're here to serve man as well as serve God."
Daniel considered that, and saw what the council saw. The resistance effort was going well, but with a bright light to lead the way ... well, it'd be just like his father said. Daniel wanted to live in a peaceful, free Sinai, and he generally saw the right way to get there. People already listened to him, so he reasoned that he should be able, with God's help, to show them the right way.
Daniel was up and in the shower by the time the klaxon sounded, and stood near the deployment assignment board in the motor pool, seventy yards below ground, as troops milled around waiting for their new assignments.
Jordan was checking some last notes on his data pad when he walked up. Daniel stopped him before he reached the top of the stairs.
"Malachi, good morning," Daniel smiled brightly. "Before you announce the new assignments, could I say something? To everybody?"
Jordan considered Daniel for a moment and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think that'll be all right. Give me just a minute to key in some last changes here, and then you can go ahead." Glancing around, Jordan called out, "Uh, Chambers ... Chambers, come here. Get everybody's attention, Daniel's gonna say something before we do reassignments."
Jordan walked over, slid his data pad into the motor pool's uplink slot, and tapped a "record" button on the PA.
"Hey, hey, everybody, settle down!" Chambers yelled over the microphone. Chambers was one of the tallest men in Magdalena, easily six foot seven, all broad shoulders, ruddy cheeks and straw blond hair. "You're gonna get new information on assignments in a minute, but first Daniel Alvarez has something to say to you all! Here ya go, Daniel ..."
Daniel watched the floating mic track over to him and smiled at the older man before stepping up to the rail. He looked across the motor pool at the sea of faces, staring back. Yellow bandannas dotted the crowd, with the favorite social affectation of a saffron-shaded handkerchief now a kind of badge of membership, worn only in safe areas and amongst friends. Daniel took a deep breath and began.
"When I was a little boy, I never wanted to play soldier," he began, tentatively. "Even though there hasn't ever been a toy gun made on Sinai, some of my little friends would take branches from salacen trees and run around with them like they were slugslingers, shouting and making 'bang' noises. They'd sneak peeks at history books or whatever, and make up games where they'd be the army of heaven, fighting off the hordes of the fallen. With tree branches!"
A slight giggle rippled through the crowd as Daniel continued.
"My friends all set down the tree branches and kept going on towards a 'grown-up' life. Robbie Winter could do long division in his head, and he wanted to be an engineer, like his uncle Tobias. Adam Ayers liked to draw, and he dreamed about designing beautiful stained glass images for churches all over the world. My dad owned a hardware store, just like his dad before him, and he raised me to love the feeling of working with my hands, so I just wanted to grow up and be like him."
Daniel paused for a second and looked down, before continuing on more quietly. "Robbie Winter was at his cousin's sixteenth birthday party when the first orbital bombardment hit. The whole house was incinerated, and Robbie lost both legs and an arm. They don't know if he'll ever wake up.
"A Hebronite platoon was firing on a Magistrate unit in a park, and Adam's baby sister was pinned down behind a bench. He ran in to save her, but got his head blown clear off his shoulder by a Hebronite heavy machine gun, the kind we didn't know how to make at the time.
"My dad died in our family's hardware store. He'd been dancing around all afternoon, playing loud mariachi music as he cleaned up, because he was happy about his plans to surprise my mom for their wedding anniversary, the day of the invasion. The store was near a power conduit that a Hebronite fighter plane had to disable, for strategic purposes, and it got caught in the blast when their beam weapon hit the conduit.
"I'm not telling you these things so you can feel sorry for me, or for people I know, since you all have stories of loss -- many way worse than mine. I'm not telling you these things so you can hate the Hebronites, because despite their behavior, they're Christians like us, and they'll have to answer to our Heavenly Father at the end of their days.
"I'm telling you this because I'm still not a soldier, and I never will be. Yeah, I've picked up the salacen tree branch and I'm making it go 'bang,' but I'll never be a soldier. I'm a dreamer. I lay my head down every night and dream of quiet skies over Sinai, of sitting next to my mother at services on Sunday morning, of a day when children can once again ride a bike down a Sinaian street not littered with debris and human bodies. My dream is to live in peace, here, with all of you."
With his free hand, Daniel pulled out his sidearm, a matte gray .60 caliber Pacifier. "If I have to use this salacen branch to make that dream come true, then may Jesus forgive me, I will. But only to make that dream come true. As scripture says, I love my enemy like I love myself, and I really, sincerely hope that Brother Abraham sees the error of his ways. But until he does, I'm gonna go out there and do everything I can do to stop him, to bring back the dream of Sinai. I just want to thank you -- Gordy, Herman, Buchanan, all the guys in Angel Six and all the ones who aren't -- for being a part of this, for doing something, to help bring back the Sinai I love."
Genuinely choked up, Daniel replaced his sidearm. "That's all, that's all I had to say ..."
He turned away and the mic floated back to Jordan, but before he'd even let go of it, the chant had started, way back in the motor pool.
"AL-VA-REZ! AL-VA-REZ! AL-VA-REZ! AL-VA-REZ!"
Within seconds everybody was chanting his name. Daniel looked at the crowd with slack-jawed wonder, before Fortson and Chambers hoisted him up on their shoulders. It took five minutes to calm everybody down and let them know that color-coded new assignments had already been beamed to their wrist screens. The respective colors appeared on huge screens all around the motor pool, showing people where to congregate for their new assignments. Jordan noticed with some appreciation the clamor over who got assigned to Daniel's battalion.
* * *
Three months later, as the last Hebronite ship hightailed it for the upper atmosphere, with Daniel's battalion cheering like seniors at graduation and the young man being lofted on shoulders, he took his sidearm out of its holster and flung it away, eliciting huge cheers from everyone.
Several yards away, a soldier stepped behind a captured armored vehicle and sighed. He closed his eyes and a shimmering haze appeared around him, changing his appearance into that of a tall Black man in a black felt fedora, wearing a black suit and a matching trenchcoat.
Looking to the skies, the man said, "All finished here, boss ... and have I got a present for you!"
EDITOR'S NOTE: Most people will probably be happier if they stop here. Consider yourselves warned.
* * *
Daniel Alvarez woke up with a loud ringing in his ears, like the sound of one of the fuel-driven trains he remembered from history books, sliding to a perpetual halt. He tried to cover his eyes with his hand but found both arms restrained somehow. Only upon opening his eyes did he realize that he certainly wasn't on Sinai anymore.
Unable to lift his aching head very far, Daniel could only see he was in some sort of domed structure, lying on a long flat platform, with screens all around showing what looked like his vital signs. Some kind of hospital? The last thing Daniel could remember was hearing the long distance sensor alarms that signaled an unidentified fleet entering the system, and running away from another interminable affair of state, his dress uniform riding up as he made strides down the hall.
"Ah, you're awake!" a voice said pleasantly from somewhere out of Daniel's line of sight. "Delicious!"
Footsteps drew closer with surety and calm, until a tall Black man stood over Daniel. He was smiling, which was a bit unsettling, his wire-rimmed glasses gleaming in the bright, antiseptic light. A loose fitting shirt of some kind of deep mesh hung over his lanky frame, the word "STEELERS" emblazoned under the V-neck and a large number "73" covering the torso, which was strangely incongruous with the sharp black fedora resting calmly on his head.
"Daniel Alvarez," the man said, grinning, "hero of the Hebronite War, the bright shining hope of all of Sinai. You are about to have a very interesting day."
"Who are you?" Daniel questioned angrily, straining at his bonds. "Where am I? I've got places to be, to see about ..."
"You're on board one of the ships that your delightfully quaint alarm system detected," the man said smoothly, walking around the platform with both hands clasped behind his back. "Your planet, and the two other planets in your system, have been indoctrinated into the glory of the Context."
Daniel looked puzzledly at the man.
"Oh, and my name is wildly irrelevant, but you will see many people refer to me as The Reign," the man grinned.
"What do you mean 'indoctrinated?'" Daniel demanded.
"Well," the Reign said, chuckling, "in the parlance of the old, I walked in and kicked their asses, conquering everybody and everything. Your worlds are now my private property."
"We'll fight, we'll ..." Daniel started.
"I had a feeling you'd have that opinion," the Reign interrupted, "which is why I'm going to offer you a deal. You see, there's not really much value to the worlds in this system. There's a somewhat interesting mineral deposit on the one called Sacrament, but it's really hard to get at. I'm basically taking the lot of you under my wing for your own good, to clean up the somewhat unsavory reputation held about humans throughout the cosmos. But sometimes people resist what's good for them. Which is why I'm going to make you an offer, Mister Alvarez."
The Reign drew his face very close to Daniel's, leaning in from the left side and grinning madly. "You're going to be returned to your adorable little world, and speak on my behalf. You will tell your people what a wonderful opportunity it is to become a part of the Context, how they will never be asked to change their religious beliefs or their way of life, and will fall under the protection of a limitless legion of unkillable guardian angels, capable of amazing, nay, 'miraculous' feats." The Reign grinned at his own cleverness. "You will do this, and in return, I will not allow sixty of your women to be raped every day until you comply. I will not castrate one teenaged boy a day until you comply. And if all that fails, within a month or two, I will rain fire down on your world with this wonderful little tactic I learned in my youth called 'orbital bombardment,' on a level that the Hebronites could not even conceive. Your compliance is the salvation of your people."
"You're not going to get a chance to do any of that," Daniel said through gritted teeth, "because we'll fight you, just like we fought the Hebronites!"
"You were quite the little hero in that skirmish weren't you?" the Reign mocked. "'I'm not a soldier, I'm a dreamer.' Quite inspirational!"
"How could you ..."
"I am a man of remarkable focus," the Reign chuckled darkly, "and that focus has delivered unto me vast resources, which I use zealously for my own benefit. For example, how many of the people who so admire you know about your little neighbor, Gloria Espinoza?"
Daniel gasped. "How do you ... I .."
"In all of your new found glory, you never looked for her after that bittersweet summer before the invasion, did you?" the Reign asked pityingly. "She remembered you, and even though she had to hide her bleeding anus from her family for weeks after you went away to fight the war, she still probably loves you."
"You can't know these things!" Daniel protested, shaking his head, aghast. "You can't ..."
"Sure I can!" the Reign smirked. "I set data miners working on what you laughably call a brain from the second my Operative whacked you over the head, running down the hall from that fancy dinner. After all the problems your people had in subduing that race of lupine creatures ... whadda ya call 'em, growlers? I'm stunned at how easy it was for you to incorporate them into your diet. That notwithstanding, I then went and found Gloria, and cracked her head open like an egg to find out what was inside."
Turning and gesturing to one of the monitors, Daniel could see Gloria's beautiful face, more creased and tired from hard years since he'd seen her seventeen-year-old form lying next to his, with scores of wires and tubes injected into her head.
"No!" Daniel screamed. "Let her go, she never did anything to you ..."
"Blah blah blah, 'you don't want her, you've got me, she's innocent,' 'you're a monster' ..." the Reign said derisively. "No matter how many worlds I go to, or how many species I encounter, your type always says the same stuff. Do you get a handbook when you sign up for this 'hero' gig?"
Daniel glanced around quickly, frustrated. "Look, I'll ..."
"You have one chance, Daniel Alvarez," The Reign interrupted, sweeping close and looking grim. "Denounce your world's freedom or say goodbye to your world's continued existence." Slowly, with great care, he continued. "Give in. It's the right thing to do. You can live your life, free and happy, if you just concede."
Daniel stared back into the Reign's dark brown eyes and gritted his teeth. "Sinai will never submit to somebody like you, and I'll never be your lackey!" Daniel then spat furiously in the Reign's face.
Inches before the spittle could hit its mark, it splattered against an invisible barrier of energy around the Reign and sizzled into steam. "Did you know that there's an 89% chance planetary heroes won't give in, even if I say I'm gonna destroy their world? Even if I have their own mothers raped in front of them? Fascinating breed, you are. Yet I have to keep doing this, keep coming to see for myself, because no matter how many times people spit at that force field, it still boggles my mind. I have so few real surprises, this almost counts."
The Reign stood straight and said, "Operatives, two." Two huge Black men in black suits, fedoras and trenchcoats suddenly appeared on either side of the Reign, a shimmer of light preceding their arrival by milliseconds. "I believe we're ready for Mister Alvarez to make his big appearance. Bring him along."
The restraint were suddenly removed and Daniel found himself being lifted roughly aloft by the two men. Their hands felt strange, like the way air from a hair dryer feels, but contained in the shape of fingers. They dragged Daniel, struggling fruitlessly, behind the Reign as he walked down a long metallic hallway to what looked like a balcony, with fluted, decorative railing serving as its border.
The Operatives lifted Daniel up to where he could see down, and below there were what looked like millions of Operatives, scattered amongst a crowd of ... the people of Sinai. There were millions upon millions Sinaians, crammed into a long rectangular hold, with house-sized screens showing the balcony placed along the walls.
"I now address the people of the Sinai colony world, both captured here and still planetside," the Reign said, his voice now booming from every corner of this room, surely hundreds of thousands of kilometers in every direction. Daniel didn't notice a floater mic, but assumed that one must be nearby. "I also address the people of Sacrament and of Hebron, who have come to grudgingly respect the people of Sinai, the planet that would not submit. Today, you have all fallen under the dominion of the Context. You've already been told this will mean no substantive change in the way your everyday lives are led. But many of you still see the Context as a band of conquerors. Which is, admittedly, factually true. Many of you still strive to follow in the footsteps of this man ..."
The Operatives held Daniel aloft, feet still kicking.
"... who I believe you all are familiar with. Daniel Alvarez, Sinai's resident 'hero,' the scourge of Hebron, the defender of the faithful and all that kind of blather. Daniel ... well, I'll let his words illustrate my point ..."
The screens switched over to show Daniel, moments before, strapped down saying, "Sinai will never submit to somebody like you, and I'll never be your lackey!" His voice echoed through the massive hall.
A roar of cheers rose up from the huge surface, as the people of Sinai took heart, proud of one of their own.
"Downright inspiring, isn't it?" the Reign asked, once the cheers began to die down. "Now I'm going to show you what happens when that kind of attitude runs afoul of the Context."
The Operatives brought Daniel closer to the Reign, as he rolled up the sleeves of his "Steelers" shirt. Grinning, he walked closer, and closed both hands around Daniel's neck. The Operatives grabbed Daniel's flailing legs with one hand each, as the Reign's grip grew tighter, and Daniel's eyes grew bigger as his air flow became an artifact of the past tense. Cries of protest and horror rose from the crowd, as Daniel strained at the Operative's sure grip, as the blood vessels in his throat were more tightly squeezed by the sure hands of the Reign, watching serenely as he squeezed the life out of Daniel Alvarez. It took four agonizing minutes until the fighting stopped and Daniel hung limply in the grasp of the Operatives.
The Reign stepped back, considered this for a moment as the crowd grew silent, then stepped forward and quickly grabbed Daniel's chin and the back of his head, jerking them in opposite directions brutally and producing a loud SNAP, which caused the crowd to shudder in horror. Nodding to the Operatives, the Reign stepped back once more as the Operatives tossed Daniel's lifeless body towards the crowd. Horrified, people stood out of the way as the corpse fell more than thirty stories to become an ugly pile of flesh and hopes on the hull plating.
Quietly, the Reign's voice was heard throughout the hall. "I trust we now have a better understanding of one another."
Without another word, the Reign strode back down the hallway, followed by the two Operatives. Below the balcony, a crush of people crowded in to get one last glimpse of their fallen hero.
* * *
Warm lips pressed against her own as Sarah Tanner felt hard permacrete push against her back. She tangled her fingers in the long strands of brown hair and shivered with pleasure.
The party hat still hung loosely on her head, proclaiming her twenty first birthday. She pulled back from the kiss to stare into the flawless gray eyes of Rod Massey ... sort of.
The slow red pulsing light in his left earlobe was all that identified the Rod in her arms as a "kioo," one of the custom-made clones available to the lovelorn. The real Rod shut down her advances pretty quickly when she shyly approached him after Religious Studies class the week before, but as was required by the still-new Context laws, he data-ed his kioo code to her and said, "have fun" as he walked off.
Sarah remembered waiting anxiously at the kioo center for her "assignment," and when the faux Rod walked out and took her in his arms ...
What the heck is this assignment again?
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