Control Point (10 page)

Britton jarred awake, his back thudding on metal runners. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear the darkness from them, but blackness clung to him. He tensed his muscles until he was sure by feel that his lids were open, then he felt his breath, sour and close, reflected by cloth against his face. He was hooded. He tried to raise a hand to lift the hood and felt the sharp bite of plastic zip cuffs against his wrists. His chest still throbbed as if a hammer had struck it, and his breathing felt wet and shallow. But a curious warmth was spreading through him, moving across his chest. It dampened the pain, radiating outward, soothing his strained muscles. He felt the surface of his skin tingling, the delicious heat erasing the irritating burn of the field of abrasions there. The feeling spread to his calf, calming the pain there as well.

Even through the hood, Britton could make out familiar smells—lubricating oil, old boots, dried mud. He heard people
clambering around him, doors slamming. The runners pitched beneath him as a motor revved somewhere under him.

“Whatha…” Britton tried his voice. His lips felt thick. He turned his head, trying to shake the hood loose, but it was useless.

“I’m sure you know this next part, Oscar,” came Harlequin’s voice. “Just like in the movies.”

A hand wrenched his sleeve roughly up, followed by the stab of a needle. Inside the hood, Britton’s vision began to shift from black to white. Then all went black again, his thoughts dissolving into spinning stars.

When he opened his eyes, the hood was off and he was sitting upright. He blinked, his vision blurry and his head aching. Apart from the headache, he felt no pain at all. He was breathing normally, and the sore muscles and scratched skin no longer troubled him.

A larger motor hummed, the throaty growl of a bus or big rig. He sat on a bench that ran the length of the vehicle, up to metal bars through which he could see a driver in army camouflage. Just before the gate stood a bank of computers with a young SOC sergeant first class seated before it, her hair in a neat blond bun. Another bench stood across from him, lined with lockers—each faced with a wire-mesh door that screened an armory that would make a gun collector drool. He recognized the vehicle as a mobile command center.

He shook his head, groggy, working his tongue against the roof of a mouth that felt stuffed with dirt. Harlequin sat on the bench across from him, beside an Asian man in a charcoal gray suit, his buzz-cut hair graying at the temples, his face stern and lined. A small black woman sat beside him, her head shaved as bald as Britton’s. Her eyes were large and sympathetic. Captain’s bars were stitched in black thread across the center of her digital camouflage blouse. Her lapel bore the stylized cross-within-a-heart that marked SOC Physiomancers. The remainder of the bench was taken up by enlisted men, all wary. Submachine guns rested in their laps, barrels pointing at Britton.

“How are you feeling?” Harlequin asked, handing him a water bottle. “Sorry about the dry mouth. Unfortunate side effect.”

Britton reached out for the magical current instinctively,
already knowing the result—blocked by another flow. He slewed his head drunkenly to the left and saw a SOC Suppressor, his lapel pin featuring their badge of the armored fist clutching a cluster of lightning bolts. The man waved and smiled.

Britton tried to drink, coughing and dribbling water down his chin.

“Go easy,” Harlequin said. “Your head will clear, but it takes a little time.”

He was already feeling a little more clearheaded, but the words still came through a fog. He raised a hand and found he wasn’t cuffed. He was wearing a one-piece orange jumpsuit, his feet chilly in white tube socks. His skin was pristine, as if the events of the previous days had never occurred. He rolled his shoulders experimentally. The joints slid seamlessly against one another. There was no pain at all. Apart from the fog and the dull throb in his head, he was whole.

“Where are you taking me?” he croaked.

“That depends on you,” Harlequin said. “You have some choices to make, and you have to make them right now.”

Britton leaned back, closed his eyes, and gulped more water until the spinning eased. When he opened them again, the Physiomancer regarded him evenly. Her shaved head and square jaw spoiled what otherwise would have been a very pretty face.

“You fix me up?” he asked her.

“You’re lucky that gun was loaded with shot,” the woman said, her voice low and sweet. “If he’d loaded slugs, you’d probably have died before I got to you. I’m sure it hurt plenty, but it would have taken you a long time to bleed out. You’re young, and your flesh responded well to magic. You’re good as new.”

“A Physiomancer,” Britton said to Harlequin. “For me? I must be more important than I thought.”

Harlequin smiled and leaned forward, holding up a small metal cylinder, scarcely bigger than an eraser’s head. A light pulsed within. “Captain Bloodbreaker did more than heal you, Oscar. She inserted this device right next to the pulmonary valve of your heart. It’s an ATTD—Asset Tracking and Termination Device. It tells us where you are. It also doubles as a bomb. We’ll always be able to find you. We can always take
you out on either side of a gate. The captain here is one of our best Physiomancers, but even with her skill, the procedure would have been extremely painful, far beyond what your actual wounds were causing you. Much better for you to be out during the process.”

Britton could almost feel the tiny metal ball embedded in his heart. His mind reeled, working backward over the successive explosions of the past few hours, dispersing the remaining effects of the drug.

“Why did you save me?” Britton asked. “I ran. I’m a Probe. I’ve attacked government agents. Per ROE, I should be dead. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You kill Probes.”

Harlequin shrugged. “Sometimes. I’ve killed a lot of people, Oscar. I sleep like a baby. Do you know why?”

Britton didn’t answer.

“I sleep at night because, unlike you, every life I take is authorized,” Harlequin continued. “There are some people who weren’t killed to protect anyone. Their deaths weren’t justified by any ordinance, civil or military. Those people include your father and a Shelburne sheriff’s deputy. You know what crime that deputy committed, Oscar? He did his job. Your father was just trying to protect his wife.”

“I’m not going to explain myself to you,” Britton rasped. “You use stupid and arbitrary rules as an excuse to kill people. You may sleep easy at night, but it’s not because what you do is right. Charlie Manson slept well at night. So did Hitler. Right and wrong aren’t about laws.”

Harlequin grinned. “That may work for you smart guys. Now, me? I’m just a dumb-ass public servant. I’m like Adam before he bit the apple. I don’t know right from wrong. Left to my own devices, I might do some very bad things. But God in his wisdom gave us the Constitution and qualified men and women who we elect to interpret it. To this he added the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the New Testament. Between those, I’m able to muddle by without making too much of a mess of things. But I must say, Oscar, I envy you the brilliance that allows a man to make those calls for himself.”

Britton read the surety on Harlequin’s face. “Get me my JAG. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Harlequin shook his head, chuckling. “Those aren’t the
rules, Oscar! You don’t get a damned lawyer! You sure as hell don’t get a trial.” He raised a hand, ticking off on his fingers. “You Manifested in a prohibited school. You ran. You employed your illicit power to bring about the death or wounding of at least one civilian and two police officers. Rare and valuable school or no, I have the authority to execute you right here and now.”

“So?” Britton said. “Shoot me like you shot that Probe girl on the roof of that school. ROE is clear, you said. Probes who attack government agents are dog food.”

“Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it,” the Aeromancer said, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. “What you don’t realize is that I don’t enjoy killing people, Oscar. Despite this bad turn, you used to be a good soldier. Your team spoke highly of you. Your warrant officer practically begged me not to hurt you. He said you loved being in the military.”

“I did,” Britton said. “The army was my home.”

He thought of the house with the poorly mended screening.
Homes don’t last long for you, do they?

“Well, there’s good news and bad news about that,” Harlequin went on. “First, the bad news.”

He handed Britton discharge papers.

“You were court-martialed in absentia,” Harlequin said. “It’s a shame you weren’t there to make the same speech about the difference between laws and morals that you just made to me. Perhaps you could have swayed the presiding authority. But this came down from the president himself. Your commission has been rescinded. The court-martial also found you guilty of unauthorized magical use, gross insubordination, and murder. You’ve been sentenced to death.”

“And yet here I am, alive,” Britton said.

“And kicking!” Harlequin agreed. “That’s because the SOC commandant agrees with my assessment of your past record.”

“Which is where I come in, Oscar,” said the Asian man, moving to Britton’s side. He placed a leather briefcase across his knees, popping open the brass catches. “I’m Howard Kwan, with the Office of General Counsel.

“The president is inclined to agree with the SOC commandant. He doesn’t want to see an ability as precious as yours lost to lethal injection. He’s authorized me to give you this.”

He handed Britton another document. Gold-embossed letters read
GRANTING CONDITIONAL PARDON TO OSCAR BRITTON—BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION,
across the top.

“Conditional?” Britton asked. “These things come with conditions?”

The Asian man nodded. “In rare instances, yes.”

“Let me guess,” Britton said. “My condition is that I join the SOC.”

Harlequin recoiled. “Hell no, Oscar! You’ve been dismissed by the president and convicted by court-martial! You can never serve in the armed forces again. You can’t even hold a position of public trust, which means you can’t be hired as a government civilian.”

“So…what do you expect me to do?” Britton asked.

Kwan smiled and produced a glossy-faced white folder from his briefcase, stuffed with papers. “I’ve discussed your case with one of our top vendors. The Entertech Corporation has been one of our leading providers of technology and manpower solutions for over twenty-five years. You’ll find a conditional offer of employment in the packet.”

Britton almost burst out laughing. “You want me to become a government contractor?”

Kwan’s face was completely serious. “That’s right, Oscar. Your acceptance of Entertech’s offer and the associated conditions satisfies the terms of your pardon. Your sentence will be commuted. You will be permitted to return to the service of your country and repay the debt to society that your crimes have incurred. It’s a win-win solution for everyone.”

“Conditional pardon, conditional job offer. Everything comes with a catch,” Britton said.

“Naturally.” Kwan smiled. “The catch in this case is just a simple nondisclosure agreement. Of course, since you’re a criminal, even one with a commuted sentence, you can’t hold a security clearance. However, Entertech is going to share proprietary information with you that’s confidential to their business enterprise.”

“Meaning,” Britton said, “I don’t talk about whatever I see.”

“Exactly,” Kwan agreed. “If you do, you negate the pardon,
and your sentence is reinstated.” Kwan passed Britton yet another document.

“This is binding for ninety-nine years!” Britton exclaimed. “What if I refuse?”

“Then I have the authority to pop that cork in your chest right now,” Harlequin said. “We’ll turn your body over to our medical research facility to see if they can learn anything from your tissues. Either way, you help us.”

“Bull,” Britton said. “You’re not going to kill me. The commandant himself just told you that my ability is too rare and precious to lose. You put expensive hardware in my chest to keep me in line. You got one of your best Healers out here to fix me up. You don’t invest that heavily in someone you’re intending to fry.”

Harlequin leaned in, his face hard. “Try me. I’m begging you, Oscar. I follow the regs, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take some personal satisfaction in zapping a guy who killed his own dad. Please, try me.”

He waved to the blonde behind the computer bank. She nodded, flipped a plastic cover off a switch, and looked at Harlequin, her finger hovering over it.

Britton tried to fathom the depth of the bluff. The Aeromancer’s eyes were blue ice. Britton looked down at the sheaf of papers.

“How much do I make?” Britton asked, trying to buy time to think.

“The company is offering you eighty-five dollars an hour,” Kwan answered, “to be garnished one hundred percent toward the fine of $250 million levied against you at your sentencing.”

“What happens if they fire me?” Britton asked.

“Boom.” Harlequin smiled.

“So, I’m a slave,” Britton said.

“You’re alive, Oscar,” Kwan said. “Slaves don’t get choices.”

“I wouldn’t call do-this-or-die a choice,” Britton said.

Kwan only shrugged.

Britton’s mind spun. The trailer’s air-conditioned interior felt thick and close. Did he really have anything to live for? His home in the 158th was as lost to him as his home in Shelburne.

Why go on? Because he did not deserve to die. Britton
reminded himself of the internal conversation he’d had beside the stolen police car.
Just because they have power and authority, doesn’t mean they’re right. They don’t get to kill you. Not without your fighting them every inch of the way.

He could run anytime he wanted. Dying on his feet would beat the hell out of having his heart burst in the back of a stuffy truck.

“Anybody got a pen?” Britton asked.

Kwan produced a slim gold pen from his coat pocket. Britton took the pen, swallowed, and signed.

And signed.

And signed.