Chapter 11
“This is unacceptable!”
Patricia Wood, chair for the Office of Regulation and Safety of Government Programs, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, pounded her fist on the briefing room table in emphasis like some caricature of a blow-hard bureaucrat. The room was so generically government standard it was almost painful, with navy-blue walls, gray rug, and no windows to the outside.
“The whole fiasco with that team in Cedar Rapids is exactly why this program should never have been greenlit in the first place. I want those children banned from the game immediately. They’re a rank liability and a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“Thank you for your input, Ms. Wood,” Mr. Krator said. His holographic image maintained a cool expression. He attended most of these briefings remotely, since time was money and he wasn’t one to waste it going from Tsunami’s headquarters in Texas all the way to DC on a regular basis. “Tsunami Entertainment will move forward in accordance with its established rules and regulations regarding such conduct.”
Wood’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.
“As I’ve insisted from the beginning, the use of augmented reality in any capacity, but especially involving minors, is reckless, unsafe, and defeats the purpose of this entire program, which is to protect the public, not put them in more danger. While I appreciate the effort Tsunami Entertainment has put forth to solve this little crisis,” she continued in a tone that said exactly the opposite, “I must insist we divert our government resources and manpower towards making our military combat ready to do their jobs and crush this threat instead of tricking our uninformed and vulnerable public into doing the work for you.”
“Ma’am, this has been covered,” Lieutenant General Kozelek said in that way high-ranked military members learned to do when dealing with their civilian overseers. “This is a global problem. In terms of sheer scope, attempting to beat back these entities all over the continent is orders of magnitude beyond the capacity of our military to handle on its own. It would be asking us to take over the policing and security responsibilities of every single municipality, county, and government installation across the entire US while still performing our other duties. It simply isn’t possible.
“Additionally, attempting to do so would require informing the public why the military was operating on domestic soil, which would require revealing what we know of the entities, which would cause global panic and chaos, which would likely start wars and trigger the collapse of the global banking and economic systems, which would put world civilization back a hundred years or more without the entities doing a single thing to us themselves.”
“You don’t know any of that for certain,” Ms. Wood insisted, “and I object to your alarmist narrative being used as the guiding principle behind an operation that is putting millions of innocent lives at risk without their permission or knowledge.”
“Right,” Mr. Krator said, “because the TDMs are asking permission before they suck our electrical grids dry and knock out our transportation systems, water treatment facilities, emergency services, hospitals—”
“These things—whose existence is still, as far as I can see, purely theoretical—”
“Now wait a minute, Ms. Wood,” the hologram of Dr. Roberts said. “My team has provided ample data—”
As the argument continued, Demarcus Turner, undersecretary for DOD Logistics Management, sighed and, for the umpteenth time, wondered if there were any legal or bureaucratic loopholes his team had yet to find that could rid them of Ms. Wood. She was a political appointee and had only been read into the project because certain political factions in the government felt they didn’t have enough oversight of CIDER—the Coalition for Interdimensional Dark Energy Research, a.k.a. the hastily established scientific front that was cover for the global alliance of nations attempting to locate and eradicate the invading entities.
Turner understood the machinations of the political and bureaucratic beast that kept the United States government running. But, unlike Patricia Wood, he also understood the realities of war.
And this was war.
A war with invisible, nearly undetectable entities that defied their every understanding of matter, reality, and physics. Entities they could not communicate with. Entities that seemed largely oblivious to the Earth’s human population.
For now.
They were like an infestation of bedbugs. Unseen, for the most part, but their activities left marked damage, and like any insect with an ample food supply, they were multiplying. If these transdimensional entities had broken through a thousand, or even a few hundred, years ago, they would have found a world barren of human electromagnetic activity and would most likely have left again—or maybe they still would have been attracted to the latent electromagnetic fields around the Earth and the sun’s radiation. Who knew. Humanity hadn’t been aware these entities even existed a decade ago. The number of unknowns they were working with was so vast, it drove Turner crazy every time he tried to analyze them down into even a few dozen categories, much less tackle any single unknown.
Regardless of where the entities had come from, how they had gotten here, or why they had stayed, it was undeniable that their numbers were increasing. A few bedbugs sucking your blood at night were an annoyance. A million, on the other hand, would drain you dry in a blink.
And that’s where the earth was headed.
With bedbugs, you hired an exterminator, got rid of every bit of bedding and furniture they could be hiding in, and carpet-bombed the place with pesticide.
But instead of a house, or an apartment complex, this infestation spanned the entire freaking planet. It would have been one thing if the World Government Unification movement a decade ago had pulled off their goals and humanity could deal with this invasion as a unified front. As it was, CIDER would have to be enough. They didn’t have time to cut through the miles of red tape, win over political enemies, and create anything better. There was only so long before these entities reached critical mass and started toppling entire city infrastructures. With no visible threat to blame and little trust between the major world superpowers, it was a recipe for chaos, war, and civilization’s descent into a thousand-year night.
Armageddon, in other words.
Turner held up a hand and slowly the argument around the table fell silent.
“Gentlemen, Ms. Wood. Let’s focus on what’s in front of us. These things are increasing exponentially,” Turner said, steering the conversation back to a useful topic. “Given our past projections and most recent data, what does our updated timetable look like?”
Turner leaned back and stared, unfocused, at the red dots covering the world map on his display while Dr. Roberts, head of CIDER’s research and development team, hemmed and hawed over his question.
Times like this reminded him of a movie scene where one alien-fighting secret agent complained to another that there was always some threat about to wipe out life on their miserable little planet, and the reason people could go about their lives was that they did not know about it.
It was the burden every national security specialist carried from the beginning of their career: knowing the world was always on the brink of Armageddon. And the reason people could go about their day, go shopping, watch movies, and generally live their lives, was that they did not know about it.
The bioweapon that got stolen from the lab in Kazakhstan, and the thieves didn’t even know what it was, just “it looked valuable,” that only got intercepted because an independent hit team—sent to kill the leader by the Russian mob for double-crossing them—took the vials “’cause they might be worth something,” recognized they were biologicals and offered them for sale to the CIA, one of their occasional clients, instead of Bratva, their actual client. “You guys pay better” being the reason.
Forget the pandemics of the 2020s, that stuff was Captain Trips. It would have wiped out the entire world.
Stopped from getting loose by random happenstance and Uncle Sam greenbacks.
And, oh by the way, he himself had asked as a young DIA analyst, Why is a German microbiologist doing gain-of-function research in Kazakhstan with whose governmental funding?
Oh, that government’s.
Should we maybe do something about that? Maybe?
Hey, you guys need another job? Pays well.
And one admittedly brilliant German microbiologist had a fatal traffic accident. Which in Kazakhstan was a day ending in y. Fatal traffic accidents, that is, not necessarily German microbiologist involved.
Usually.
People did not need to know.
The North Korean sleeper who was accidentally activated when a Korean cyber-soldier was investigating some of the left-over remnants of the Unification. The North Korean sleeper who had been lovingly and caringly maintaining a Cold War-era Soviet nuclear weapon hidden in Alameda, California, for sixty freaking years. Why Alameda? Because it had had a US Navy base there that had been closed down before the undersecretary’s parents were born. The nuke had been planted by the Soviets in the ’60s. Nineteen sixties! Still maintained. Ready to go. The guy had been working in a grocery store then retired on Social Security for sixty freaking years waiting for the signal to destroy the town he’d lived in for sixty freaking years, his hobby being maintaining a Cold War-era atomic bomb. When the DHS hit team caught him, outside the building the bomb was in, he was hobbling as fast as he could with his walker, dedicated even after Unification to the Glory of the Glorious People’s Republic and killing umpty million people for the Glory of the Great Revolution.
But after working retail in the Bay Area for sixty godawful years, it wasn’t too surprising he was happy killing absolutely every living being.
Five minutes. Three maybe depending on walker speed. One bad traffic light and Alameda would have been a smoking hole.
And nobody knew about it. Because people didn’t need to know that they were about to be dead from expanding plasma or really, really nasty fallout. Cobalt in nukes should be banned by international treaty.
Oh, wait, it was. Before the bomb had been made. Because why follow the rules when you were just going to blow your enemy up anyway?
Invisible monsters from beyond the well of space and time intent on destroying the technology that eight point four billion people depended upon for survival fit right in. Fighting an invisible enemy in an invisible war that if they failed would have quite visible results.
Day ending in y for his career.
“We are not winning,” he summarized when it became clear Dr. Roberts had started talking in circles.
“We’re also not losing,” Mr. Krator pointed out, shrugging. “Teams have developed improved techniques for taking on the major nodalities.”
“Teams made up of children!” Ms. Wood interjected.
Turner held up a forestalling hand.
“Not children. Teenagers and adults. Even so, it’s not ideal,” Turner admitted.
“We’ve fought every war since Sargon with teenagers, Mr. Secretary,” General Kozelek said. “And it’s been teenagers who’ve been the best at taking on the nodalities. We’ve lost special operations teams to those.”
“Teenagers are more apt to think outside the box, especially gamer teens,” Mr. Krator pointed out. “Our soldiers, even special ops, are trained in a specific style of human-to-human warfare. These entities are so far from the human experience that even our scientists can’t give us straight answers on what behavioral patterns to expect. So, yes, teenagers,” the Tsunami CEO finished, sending a pointed look toward Ms. Wood.
“Regardless of age, historically our soldiers have at least known that they’re fighting,” Secretary Turner said.
“But rarely why,” Mr. Krator countered. “In this case they know why—that’s built right into TD Hunter itself. We’re telling them the plain, simple truth, right there in the game. We’re just fudging the details on what they’re fighting.”
Secretary Turner massaged his temples and decided not to argue that particular point.
“How are heavy weapons coming?” he asked.
“Still working on it,” Dr. Roberts said, his hologram giving a Gallic shrug. “We’re still trying to grapple with the underlying theory of these particles. That takes theoretical physicists who, after going ‘Hmmm . . . fascinating’ and having gazed at their navel for some time, explain it in five-year-old terms to applied physicists, such as myself, who then, after we’ve managed to understand the musings and babbling from the theorists, explain it in crayon to really brilliant engineers who, after getting over the cognitive dissonance of what we’ve just explained in crayon and saying ‘But that defies known physics’ and scratching their beards a good bit and going ‘Hmmm . . . hmmm . . . maybe . . . ? Hmmm . . . no . . . ’ finally get to work.
“What our engineers have done so far is a miracle in so short a time. They’ve expanded the disruptor technology against the TDs from the power of a pistol with the range of a squirt gun to the power of a grenade with the range of a sniper rifle.”
“That’s all well and good. But what we need are tank cannons. Heck, a couple nukes would be nice.”
“We’re working on it, sir.”
Turner exhaled and rubbed his beard.
“Look, gentlemen, the CNO is hot to get F-42s into the fight, which would be perfect; the planes are invisible, the enemy’s invisible, and the beams from the ray guns are invisible. Since the time when I was a very junior analyst, I have had a simple motto: No Armageddons on my watch. If you ruin my spotless record of zero Armageddons, I assure you the collapse of civilization will be the least of your concerns.
“So, work faster. And we can all pray that the teenagers at the tip of the spear, knowing or unknowing, make some headway against these numbers before civilization is overwhelmed and we go back to living like apes.”
* * *
“Right . . . okay . . . um, hey everybody.”
Three pairs of eyes swung to Lynn and the chatting between Dan, Mack, and Edgar quieted. They were all squished into her bedroom, Dan bouncing with restless energy where he sat on her bed while Mack luxuriated in the cushy softness of her body-mold chair and Edgar sat cross-legged on the floor.
Lynn took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves.
A lot of things had changed over the past two days since her disastrous date with Connor, not the least of which was her. She was sick of being Lynn—at least the Lynn who kept avoiding confrontation. She missed being Larry. She missed being brave, competent, and determined to overcome obstacles, no matter what they were. But Lynn was who she was, and Larry was who she pretended to be.
How could she reconcile the two?
She’d been thinking a lot lately about Mr. Krator’s words when he’d recruited her to beta TD Hunter: I think you should remember that “Lynn Raven” is special in a very important way, not just “Larry Coughlin.”
Despite there being parts of herself that she didn’t like, she knew deep down in her bones that she, Lynn Raven, was worth fighting for. Being herself wasn’t the problem, and that made her think of something else Mr. Krator had said: I think you are more Larry Coughlin—or should I say Larry Coughlin is more you—than you might realize, Lynn. But you’ll never get the chance to see it if you don’t take a few risks. The best leaders are rarely those who think they are good at leading.
Maybe the problem was that she’d separated herself too much from who she was when she played Larry Coughlin. She’d put him on a pedestal as an unattainable ideal—well, minus the old, grouchy, foul-mouthed part. She’d convinced herself that she could never be Larry Coughlin in real life because she’d been terrified of trying, failing, and getting laughed at.
But the alternative at this point was losing everything she’d worked so hard for. And there was no freaking way she was going to let fear rob her of her future.
“Thanks for meeting up on such short notice,” Lynn finally continued in a calmer voice. “I’m actually surprised your mom let you come,” she said to Mack.
He waved a cheese-powder-covered hand.
“I told her my friends were throwing me a get-well party and I promised not to do anything strenuous.” With that he sank even further into her body-mold chair, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he shoved another handful of cheese puffs into his mouth.
“And junk food is obviously an essential part of your recovery plan,” Edgar said dryly.
“Hey! Have you ever eaten hospital food before? That stuff probably did more damage to me than the seizure did. These cheese puffs are helping me detox and refuel.”
“You know,” Dan began, “those are two distinctly different stages of health—”
“Shut up, Dan,” everybody said at once.
Dan looked annoyed while Lynn, Mack, and Edgar grinned at each other.
“Anyway,” Lynn said, “The reason I wanted to meet was because we have some important decisions to make as a team, and we need to make them now before we can move forward.”
Once again, her teammates gave her their undivided attention, and Lynn gulped involuntarily. But instead of giving into the dread knotting her stomach or the whispers of you’re a useless slob chasing themselves around in her head, she stood up straighter.
“First, I wanted to thank you for your hard work these past months. You’ve stuck with the team and our insane training regimen despite a lot of hardships, and I’m proud to be a part of Skadi’s Wolves with you.”
“And we didn’t even complain,” Edgar piped up, giving her a lopsided smile. He was working his way through a massive bag of gummy candies, and he popped another handful into his mouth as Lynn snorted and rolled her eyes.
“That said,” Lynn continued, “we’ve once again come to a point where we need a new team captain.” Sudden uncertainty hit Lynn in a wave of nausea, and she fought the urge to look away from her teammates. Come on, Larry up, she told herself, and took another deep breath. “I know I’m not the most amazing team player out there, and, um, I’ve made mistakes in the past. But if you all would consider—”
“Yes.”
Lynn blinked at Edgar’s raised hand.
“Uhhh, what?”
“We all vote yes; you should be team captain. Right guys?”
“Yeah!” Mack said, eyes lighting up and cheesy hand shooting into the air. “Freaking finally!”
“I mean, you’re the best one for the job.” Dan shrugged and raised his hand too.
“I am?” Lynn said in bewilderment.
Dan nodded as everyone lowered their hands.
“It’s kinda obvious. You’re our best player, and you see things we don’t, you know? You’re a natural gamer, even better than Ronnie—though don’t tell him I said that, okay?” Dan said belatedly, looking guilty.
A surprised chuckle bubbled up from Lynn’s chest and she smiled so big she thought her cheeks might split.
“I won’t, I promise. But . . . well that does bring up another topic. We’re down a member, and we have zero time to waste trying to get a new person integrated. So . . . ” Lynn paused and sighed deeply, knowing she was going to regret this. “All in favor of inviting Ronnie back to the team, raise your hands.”
Dan’s hand shot into the air again so fast Lynn thought he might sprain something. Mack was right behind him even as Lynn reluctantly raised her own hand.
They all looked at Edgar, who had a scowl on his face.
“He’s already got a team, remember? Cedar Rapids Champions?”
“Actually, he doesn’t,” Lynn said. “I checked last night. The moment we scrubbed Connor from our team he went running to Elena. Who knows what he said to get back into her good graces, but we all know what a lying, manipulative snake he is. She dumped Ronnie like a flaming hot coal and now Connor is CRC’s team captain again.”
Stunned silence greeted Lynn’s news, or at least stunned on Mack and Dan’s part. Edgar still looked skeptical.
“If he tries to bully you and push us around again—”
“Then we vote him out,” Lynn said calmly, though she was anything but.
There was a long pause.
“Yeah, fine, I guess,” Edgar said, shaking his head as he raised his hand.
Lynn let out her breath in a whoosh. A part of her wanted to be mad that everybody had forgiven Ronnie so readily. She squashed that resentful, poisonous feeling, knowing it led to nothing good. It was time to follow Steve’s advice: focus on the mission, not on getting even. Two wrongs never made a right.
“Okay. Great. Well, I’m glad you all voted yes, because I kinda already invited him to join us tonight so we could do some team planning.”
Edgar grinned at that.
“Gettin’ all sly and sneaky on us, eh Toa Tama’ita’i? I like it.”
“What’s a tao-tama-titty?” Dan asked, cocking his head.
Lynn and Edgar shared an incredulous look, then burst out in uncontrollable laughter. By the time they got themselves under control, they were breathless and Lynn’s cheeks ached so bad she thought they might cramp and freeze up. Dan was inclined to grumble, but amidst the general mirth had dropped his original question, for which Lynn was grateful. By unanimous agreement, they moved to the kitchen for a resupply run from the pile of “get well” snacks on the kitchen table.
“You all get everything taken care of?” Matilda asked from the couch where she was watching one of her favorite K-pop bands perform on the wall screen in the living room.
“Uh, some things, yeah,” Lynn called, nerves back and fluttering in her gut knowing the next stage of her plan.
At that moment the next stage conveniently knocked on the apartment door, and Lynn hurried off to open it before her mom could get up.
“Uh, hey,” Ronnie said, shoving his hand back into his pocket and looking uncomfortable.
“Hey,” Lynn said, and quietly slipped out her apartment door into the hall. “Um . . . thanks for coming.”
There was an awkward silence in which Lynn steeled herself, deciding it was better to get the hardest part over with, out here, without witnesses. Thinking brave, confident Larry thoughts, she spoke with as much authority as she could muster.
“We unanimously voted you back onto the team.”
“Wha—?” Ronnie’s gaze shot up, eyes wide and glimmering with what might have been hope.
“And we unanimously elected me as team captain.”
The hope dimmed as wariness and something else darkened Ronnie’s face.
“Do you agree with these decisions?” Lynn said, biting back the urge to put a qualifier on her question. The votes had to be completely unanimous. Otherwise, their team would never function properly.
Ronnie’s jaw clenched and he glanced away, but Lynn didn’t push him. Just stood silently and waited. Several moments passed, and Lynn could only wonder what was going through that stubborn, orange-haired head of his. She wished she could crack it open and figure out what made him tick—it would make her job so much easier.
Or, maybe she didn’t want to know. The shadows behind his eyes made her think she wasn’t the only one with problems. If only he could just . . . get past them.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“You guess?” Lynn raised an eyebrow, hoping her pounding heart wasn’t as obvious to Ronnie as it was to her. She’d already accepted the fact that she would probably never get an apology, but she’d also promised herself she wouldn’t take any more crap from him. Period.
Ronnie’s lips pursed, but then he sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Yes, I agree. You’re team captain.”
Despite this being exactly what she’d hoped for, the shock of it stunned Lynn for a moment. He hadn’t even tried to subtly insult her in the process of agreeing.
Weird.
“Okay . . . great. Um . . . you want some snacks?” she asked and stepped back to the door, opening it wide.
“Yeah . . . sure. Thanks.”
She flashed him a close-mouthed smile, which seemed to freak him out judging by the look he gave her as he hurried past. Lynn sighed internally and tried not to think about all the work she had ahead of her.
As daunting as the future was, though, it couldn’t squash the glowing, buoyant feeling in her chest.
She’d done it.
They were a team again.
And now they were going to win this championship, come hell or high water.