We the People vol 2: Liberty or Death

“Welcome to Minot Air Force Base, Thane,” Jellico said, taking his hand off the steering wheel to gesture at the chain link gate. Thane glanced at the cellphone in her lap and noted the time.

“Eleven thirty,” she said. “We’re early. And I’ve been here before Jellico. It’s not much to look at.”

“What is, in North Dakota?” Jellico said with nonchalance.

Thane couldn’t muster a laugh. She stared at Jellico, arching one eyebrow and slightly shook her head. Jellico stopped chuckling and cleared his throat.

“Ah, at any rate, is seems Bast has arranged transport—just for you. No supplies, no weapons, no nothing. Just you. Half a million taxpayer dollars to play taxi.”

Thane sat back in her seat and poked at the blue headliner.

“And I’m worth every penny,” she said. “The girl who can’t die, yours for the price of a few worthless dead soldier brains.”

Jellico flashed his ID to the guard on duty, who waved them through. He pulled the Town car onto a well paved, narrow road and headed toward the tarmac.

“Say, Thane,” he said softly “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you, and I kind of, well, I kind of think I shouldn’t ask, but seeing as how you’re leaving soon and all-”

Thane turned her head sharply and leaned forward, hands between her splayed knees.

“Spit it out, Jellico,” she said “but this better not be a stupid Jr high question like

do you get periods-”

“Periods?” Jellico padded his forehead with an Ihop napkin. “No! Nothing like that, it’s just...they say you can see people’s souls. Like, after they’re dead.”

Thane leaned back in her chair and sighed.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I don’t know if what I see is even real, Jellico. You know what the Army calls my experience with dead people? Stress induced hallucinations. I could just be crazy, you know.”

“Thane, I’ve seen crazy in this job, and you ain’t it,” Jellico flashed her a half-hearted grin. “I just wanna know what you think is going on. You know, with life and the universe and everything?”

Thane laughed, brushed her hair out of her eyes and smiled at Jellico.

“I think that,” she said “whatever happens after you die, you should treat everyone you know like it’s the last time you’re gonna see them. Because it just might be.”

Thane felt warm tears rolling down her cheeks despite her best efforts at stoicism. Jellico handed her another napkin and pointedly turned away.

“Aww, Thane,” he said “I didn’t-I didn’t want to upset you.”

“It’s not you,” Thane said, dabbing at her eyes. “It’s just...those guys at the ranch, the human traffikers, the, the little girl...how can that kind of thing happen in America?”

Jellico took his eyes off the bumpy road long enough to glare at her sharply.

“It’s a problem all over the world, Thane,” he said “Eastern Europe, Asia, South America-”

“But isn’t it supposed to be better here?” Thane said, plucking at the damp napkin in her hands. Bits of it lay scattered about her black skirt. “Aren’t we supposed to be better? Nobody helped those girls.”

“We did,” Jellico said, patting her on the shoulder. “Chin up, kiddo. You can’t let it get you down. Even with all your crazy voodoo mojo you ain’t powerful enough to keep people from being what they are.”

“Oh, really?” Thane said. A sneer turned up the corners of her mouth. “Robots, Tools, or Rebels, right?”

“What?” Jellico blinked. “I don’t get it...ah, what I meant to say, anyway, is that most people are just selfish bastards who do whatever they want if they think they can get away with it.”

“Jesus Christ, Jellico,” Thane said, hiding her face in her hands. “You’re supposed to be my mentor. Say something inspiring, so I don’t feel like digging myself a grave and lying down in it, why don’t you? You just told me it’s hopeless!”

Jellico closed his mouth on some retort and turned his eyes to the road. Thane stared out her window, trying not to see the horrid, haunted stares of the girls at the ranch. A gray lump in the rain drew closer, revealing itself to be a peculiar aircraft with upward-facing propellers.

“An Osprey?” Jellico laughed. “Those things are deathtraps!”

Thane turned just enough to glare.

“The base I’m headed to requires a vehicle with VTOL capabilities,” she said, voice strained and icy.

“Ah, it was a joke,” he said, straightening his tie. The car lurched as he slowed to a stop.

“Not a very good one,” Thane said, angrily brushing off bits of napkin from her attire.

“Hey, Thane,” Jellico said, bustling out of the car to help with her luggage. “I didn’t mean to say it’s hopeless. It’s never hopeless. Those girls, we helped them get out of a nightmare. Never forget that.”

“Yeah,” Thane said, smiling a little. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

She reached out and clasped Jellico’s hand in her own.

“Thanks for looking out for me, Captain.”

“Ah, don’t sweat it, Thane,” Jellico said, cheeks growing rosy. He gripped her large, black suitcase and strained to lift it. “Christ, Thane, what do you keep in here? A safe?”

“Just some gear,” Thane said, gently removing his hand. She lifted the case from the trunk with a smooth, effortless motion and placed it on the wet concrete. “And some...rations.”

“Wow, you’re strong for a broad,” Jellico said, then paled. “I mean woman! I mean, not to say that women aren’t strong, but-”

Thane kissed him on the cheek and his mouth went slack.

“Be safe, Jellico,” she said, roughing up his gray hair. “And be good to Sally, you hear?”

She grabbed the suitcase and shouldered a duffel bag in matching black. Thane flashed her Identification badge to a pair of airmen who stiffly directed her to board the Osprey.

“Thane!”

She turned, boot on the top step, and beheld Jellico standing just on the other side of the guards.

“Don’t forget! You’re having Thanksgiving dinner with me and the missus! No matter what!”

Thane laughed.

“It’s a date, Captain.”

Thane turned back and entered the Osprey’s cabin. With practiced ease she stowed her equipment and fastened her crash webbing. Airmen moved past, bustling on their last minute tasks before takeoff. One and all, they avoided staring her way.

She knew what they were thinking, could feel their unease. The girl who couldn’t die scared them. Sighing, she pulled her headphones on and settled back into her seat. Thane’s eyes closed and for a time she existed only within the confines of Dark Side of the Moon.

Thane felt conflicted about going back to her old unit. She missed her friends, the other misfits who’d been imprisoned at Area 51 with her. But just being around them reminded her of Kwan Po, gone forever and unable to cheat death as Thane could.

She forced thoughts of him out of her mind. Despite a year’s time, the ache in her chest was still painfully fresh.

Sorry I couldn’t save you, Po.

She replayed the night Po died in her mind, as she had a thousand times before. She could almost feel the night wind stiffening her hair behind her, hear the hiss and pop of the Mississippi river heated to a boil beneath the bridge. Po smiled his cocky smile and just stepped off the bridge, leaving her behind.

In spite of her grief, a slight smile came to her lips as she recalled her first meeting with Po. He’d broken his hand on her skull...

Those were the early days, when they were still treated like prisoners by the government. Things got better after the Area 51 incident. Somewhat. At least they weren’t locked away in cells anymore.

Of course, she still had reservations. The government seemed awfully willing to cover up the truth whenever possible. If they were willing to lie about alien spacecraft crashing in the desert, what else were they lying about? Why couldn’t they find out who she really was, or had they known all along and didn’t want to tell her?

With effort, she forced her thoughts back to the present. Thane leaned forward and craned her neck, peering out the cockpit’s windshield. The craft approached a high, jagged cliff in the Rockies, its peak tipped with white. Though she tried, as she always did, to see the Aerie built near the apex, it was disguised too well.

Thane jerked about in her webbing when the Osprey’s wheels touched down. The engine’s whine sputtered to a halt, though the plane still rocked from savage winds.

The cold mountain air blasted her as soon as she stepped off the plane, but she felt no discomfort. It did tear at her hair and send it flying all about her head like an ebony nimbus. She jogged across the landing pad and entered a set of steel doors. Once she stepped over the threshold, a powerful gust of air pushed down on her from a vent as wide as the door, creating an invisible curtain to fend off the cold.

“Welcome back, Thane,” said a short, swarthy man with hairy arms. He favored her with an uneven, stained smile as he wiped his filthy hands on a filthier blue coverall. A badge on his chest proclaimed him a civilian contractor.

“Hey, Gary,” she replied, returning the smile.

“How were things with the Feds?” he asked as he returned to his task. Gary grunted as he pulled on a stout chain, making a man-sized engine block attached to the other end slowly rise into the air.

“Not bad,” Thane said, pitching in. The engine rose quickly with her assistance. “I kind of got the impression that most of them were afraid of me, though.”

“Hell, I can understand that. I’m a little bit afraid of what you can do.”

“That makes two of us.” Thane helped him secure the chain and patted the heavy block with her palm. “That should do it.”

“If you’re feeling froggy, I could use a hand tomorrow putting a tranny in that Humvee.”

She followed his gaze to a black truck, half the driver side crumpled in.

“What the hell happened?” she asked, whistling.

“Just a minor fender bender,” he replied with a grin. “Bast style.”

Thane rolled her eyes.

“Say no more.” She patted him on the arm. “I’m gonna get settled in. Good to see you again, Gary.”

“You too, kiddo.” Gary smiled and returned to his work. She could hear him rummaging around for sockets until the door shut behind her.

She stood in a windowless hallway, plumbing and wires visible overhead. Natural rock made up the walls, carved out of the mountain itself. The floor, a highly polished limestone tile, was unadorned save for various colored lines. Their purpose was to keep people from becoming lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the Aerie. Thane had no need for them.

The official name for their unit was the Special Operations Team 9. When Thane had inquired, in her usual sarcastic manner, if there were eight other teams of kids with weird powers she was met with sullen silence from Bast.

It seemed like a logical question to her.

One didn’t need special training, or to reach a specific rank to join SO9. Neither did one have to do well on marksmanship exams or obstacle courses. Being enlisted in the military wasn’t even required.

One only needed to be Gifted.

Thane’s Gifts were not subtle; Immortality, enhanced strength, and an ability to control her body parts even when they were no longer attached to her core. Her friends had their own abilities—such as Kwan Po, who had the power to become a living singularity; a Black Hole.

Thane’s eyes narrowed as she tried to force him from her mind again. She headed down the hallway past the Commissary, Infirmary, and Rec Room. A pair of soldiers studiously ignored her, moving the bare minimum distance to stay out of her way. She wasn’t sure if saluting was appropriate. The support staff for their unit was very small, the better to keep it clandestine, but she didn’t recognize either of them. Possibly, they transferred during her absence.

Thane reached the elevator and selected the top floor. That was where her friends were likely to be. There were six levels to the complex, nestled inside the mountain with large gaps between. It took nearly a full minute inside the whisper-quiet elevator to reach the uppermost section.

The shiny metal doors slid open, and she was suddenly awash in hard rock music. A rotund boy with mocha skin was jamming out on a plastic faux guitar as numerous lights and flashes scrolled along the big screen television arrayed flush with the wall.

“Come on,” he said, tongue jammed in the corner of his mouth “come on!”

Thane grinned, taking in the familiar sights of the Aerie. A large circular room, with windows directly across from the elevator that looked out on the valley below. It had been built during the Cold War along with the rest of the complex to provide protection from a nuclear holocaust. Thane hoped they never had to test its limits. The interior was furnished with stuffed sofas, comfortable recliners, and the TV on which the boy was playing his rhythm game.

Ignoring his frantic button mashing for a moment, she scanned the rest of the Aerie. There were doors on either end of the chamber, leading to the male and female dorms respectively. Thane wondered where the rest of her friends were, then remembered the early hour; The sun was just beginning to cast light on the valley.

“Still can’t handle Expert mode, huh?” she said, punching the boy in the arm.

“What the-” the guitar fell slack on its strap and he turned to face her. “Thane?”

“How ya doing, Chui?” Thane felt her cheeks clenching in a wide smile.

“Thane!” Chui wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace. She patted him on the back a couple of times and tried to disengage.

“Uh, Chui, this just became awkward,” she said ruefully.

“Sorry,” he said, letting go of her “it’s just...I’m afraid if I let you go you’ll go poof and disappear again.”

“I didn’t go poof the first time.” Thane said, rolling her eyes. “I told you all where I was going and what I as doing.”

“Yeah, you were gonna see if the FBI could figure out who you were before you lost your memory. That, and you were getting away from Bastard.”

Thane’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t call him that,” Thane said with a glower. “Where’s Faraday and Creepy?”

“Probably asleep, although...” he checked the time on his gaming console. “Hannah will probably be up in a minute or two.”

“She’s still stuck in her routines, huh?” Thane shook her head sadly.

“Actually, she’s gotten a lot-” he paused as they heard light footsteps. Hannah padded into the Aerie, yawning hugely. Her silken blonde hair was in disarray, hanging down her slim shoulders like a wispy blanket. Fuzzy blue plaid pajamas clothed her willowy form, buttoned all the way to the collar. She approached a cereal dispenser and took down one of the paper bowls sitting atop it.

“What’s she doing?” Thane asked.

They watched as Faraday turned the knob, cranking out a handful of raisin bran. She picked up the bowl, held it close to her face, and meticulously counted the number of raisins, and then dumped it out into a nearby trash can and dispensed more cereal.

“It has to have the perfect ratio of raisins to bran flakes, or she pours it out,” Chui said, cherubic cheeks pulled back in a grin.

“She’s gotten worse, then,” Thane said sadly. “Guess she still only speaks in television quotes, huh?”

“Not even.” Chui favored Thane with a smug smile, and called out to the waifish girl. “Hey, Farah, how’s it going?”

“It’s going good,” she answered, not turning around. “How’s it going with you?”

Thane’s jaw dropped, and she turned to stare blankly at Chui.

“Gotten worse, huh?” Chui said, punching Thane lightly in the arm. He turned back to Faraday. “Hey, did you know Thane was back?”

Faraday put down her bowl and turned around. Her blue eyes fell on Thane but didn’t seem to focus.

“Yeah, I know. Hi Thane.”

“Hello Farah. How did you know I was here?” Thane asked.

“You’re like a black blot of negative energy,” Faraday said with a shrug. She went back to her cereal, again failing to achieve the proper number of raisins and dumping her potential repast into the rubbish.

“Well, she didn’t come up and hug me, but I’d say she’s come a long way,” Thane said to Chui in a low voice.

“Yeah, she’s done a lot better than Rashemi has,” he said softly.

“What’s wrong with Creepy?” Thane looked toward the women’s dorm.

“Nothing’s wrong...well, nothing new. She still don’t talk to people much, and she’s got that mean streak a mile wide. Last month she sicced some nasty breed of venomous Brazilian spiders on a Neo-Nazi. Dude didn’t make it. I try to keep my distance.”

Thane felt a pang of guilt.

“I shouldn’t have left,” Thane mumbled. “She used to talk to me.”

“Well, if it means anything, we all respect your decision. How could we not? If I didn’t know who I was I’d go hit up the FBI, too.”

Chui cocked his head to the side and scratched the back of his neck. His eyes carefully avoided Thane’s.

“Uh,” he said after a cough “did you...did you have any luck on that-”

“No,” Thane said sharply.

“Ah, well...OH!” Chui grinned. “Have you met the new guys yet?”

“New guys?”

“Montel von Richter and James Bearclaw.” Chui inclined his chin toward the men’s dorm. “They’re probably not going to get up for awhile. Montel’s pretty chill, but he’s...”

Chui held his hand out flat and twisted it slightly.

“You know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Thane said with derision. “You mean he’s unstable, or-”

“He likes kissing boys instead of girls,” Faraday said, not turning away from her cereal. She must have got the raisins right, as she was pouring milk over it. Chui nodded and pointed at Faraday.

“So?” Thane shook her head. “He’s not trying to force himself on you, is he?”

“NO!” Chui was vehement, eyes wide and wild. “Of course not! I told you he was cool!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“With him, there isn’t one, I guess.” Chui’s face scrunched up. “Bearclaw, though is as big a pain in the ass as Po, maybe more.”

Thane tried not to wince at the sound of Po’s name, but from the troubled light in Chui’s eyes she figured she failed.

“Uh...” Chui scratched the back of his head. Thane came to his rescue.

“So, what can they do?” she asked.

“Do?” Chui said blankly. “Oh, you mean their Gifts. Well, they don’t have my talent for languages, naturally. Montel can kind of...bring things to himself.”

“Bring things?” Thane cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, like if he needs a chainsaw for some reason, he just thinks about it and—abra cadabra—there’s a chainsaw in his hand.”

“That sounds pretty cool,” Thane said. “Damn useful, in fact. How does he do it?”

“How do any of us do what we do?” Chui said with a slight shrug. “How do I know every language on Earth without studying them? How does Creepy talk to bugs, or Faraday see cell phone signals?”

“And how do I keep coming back from the dead?” Thane said. “Okay, I see your point.”

“Oh, we figured out how your power works,” Chui said “you’re a zom-”

Thane’s hand clamped over his mouth, hard.

“Don’t say it!” she hissed, holding his face for a long moment before releasing him.

“Ah...sorry,” Chui said, looking over at Faraday for support. She munched on her cereal and provided none.

Thane sighed.

“Whatever. What about Bearclaw? What’s his thing? Some kind of Ursine control?”

“Huh? Ursine...you mean bears? No, he’s just called Bearclaw because it’s his Indian name. Between you and me I ain’t seen too many injuns with blue eyes, but....anyway, he can see the future. Well, little snippets of it. Enough to keep from, say, kicking open a door that has someone with a shotgun behind it.”

Thane felt her stomach gurgle. She reached into her bag and removed a silver coffee urn. As soon as she unscrewed the cap, Chui’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Still drinking that swill?” he asked.

“As long as I don’t want to rot, I kind of have to, Chui.”

“I know, I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “It’s just...how can you drink that stuff, not knowing what’s in it?”

Thane pursed her lips.

It’s brains, Chui, she thought dead soldier’s brains slurried together. But if I told you then your damn zombie diagnosis would be right on the money, wouldn’t it? And would any of you be able to trust me anymore?

“You get used to it,” she said aloud, capping her drink and stowing it away. “Do you have any idea of why Bast wanted me back all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve hardly seen him for days. He had Farah clean up some video footage for him, and he’s been clammed up in his office ever since.”

Thane turned to look at the elevator. Bast’s office was on the floor below the Aerie, as spartan as the man who worked in it. She recalled spending a great deal of time there, leaning over his shoulder to read reports she technically didn’t have clearance for. Those were good days, looking over intel with Bast, putting their talents toward making the world a better place, or sometimes just talking for hours about nothing and everything all at once.

“You and Bast...” Chui swallowed, sweat standing out on his brow. “You and him...right?”

Thane grimaced.

“No, Chui,” Thane said lightly. “We’re just....we were good friends.”

“Good friends who spend time naked together, or just regular friends?” Faraday asked, which caused Thane to glare at her sharply. When Chui snickered she turned her gray eyes on him.

“She said it, I didn’t!” he said, holding his arms up in defense.

Thane settled down. Staring at the elevator, she sighed and trundled toward it.

“Might as well go report in.”

“Yeah.” Chui seemed to want to say more, but he remained silent as the door slid shut between them.