A Creature of War, Book 4, CH11 (Patreon)

The room was large and tall, going to the ceiling and light pouring in through the skylight.

The few malls El had been in before had been destroyed by the wars so he didn’t know much about them, but he had the sense they had been the center of this mall, part of the concourse people took to go from one store to the other. 

The sides had been enclosed using whatever material they could find, blocking the view to the stores and making this an oval room. A fireplace was at one end, with a fire burning in it, but doing little to warn the large space.

There were a few chairs by the fireplace, but the focus of the room was the large table under the skylight. It was large enough to sit over fifty people, but only a quarter of it was occupied. A man, human, sat at the end, with a mix of Anthros and humans occupying the other seats.

The man at the head of the table stood and motioned for them to come closer. “Come, come. Your timing is impeccable, food is going to be served soon. Grab a seat, there’s plenty of space.” He motioned for the people closest to him to move.

He was short and thin, with a crown of graying black hair on his head. He was clean shaven, wore a shirt and jeans, but he moved as if he belonged in a general’s uniform. The way the people moved as he motioned added to that impression.

Alicia led Vee and El to the head of the table. DCH and Sydney followed while the others took seats as they found them.

“I’m William Artell,” the man said, offering his hand. “You must be VeeDee and El.” He shook their hands and then motioned to the seats on his left and right. “My people tell me you’re Specialists, but I’m afraid I don’t know what that means.”

El looked at Vee as he sat. The bull shrugged as he took the opposing seat, so El spoke.

“What do you know about how we’re made? Anthros, I mean.”

“Very little. I know you’re made to be soldiers. That you’re built from animal genes in machines made by a bunch of crazy scientists centuries ago.”

The lynx nodded. “That gives you the infantry class of Anthros. Basic soldiers with knowledge and skills, but no special abilities. I don’t know the process, but those machines can alter what the scientist call the Matrix, and give Anthros enhanced abilities.”

“Like you.”

El smiled. “Not exactly. Those Anthros are part of the Support class.” He indicated the rabbit. “How fast can you run?”

“Before I was deployed, I was measured running at forty-three kilometer per hour. I’m confident I can go faster now with all the practice I’ve gotten. I’m DCH, by the way.”

“DCH?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir. DCH-328.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“It’s my designation. This is my first deployment. I haven’t earned my name yet.”

William looked at Alicia.

“It’s a tradition, we get to pick our names when we come back from our first deployment. Everyone in my unit has names because we’d seen multiple deployments. Before this happened, I’d been fighting for six years.”

William nodded and looked at the fox.

He hesitated. “Sydney, sir.”

“So you’ve been deployed multiple times, how many?”

Sydney’s ears folded back, and he looked away for a moment. “I—I was named by the command—the woman who took over in San Antonio, at the border.” He took a breath and made an effort to look at the man he was speaking to. “No one in my unit has seen deployment, I guess we never will now, with the whole army having fallen apart.”

William studied them before returning his gaze to Sydney. “Please forgive me if I’m stepping on a sensitive subject, I’m just trying to understand. Why are you acting like it’s shameful that you were named, while no one here seemed to mind it?”

Sydney shrugged. “I haven’t earned my name. It was given to me and for no other reason that she couldn’t be bothered to learn my designation.”

“Is that how the rest of you feel?”

Vee shook his head and motioned to El. “We predate that. We picked our own names from the start.”

“Or had it given to us,” El chuckled.

Vee grinned. “Hey, you kept using LRK, we all felt you deserved better.”

“As for me,” DCH said, “I don’t care. I’m sticking to the tradition because… I don’t know, because that’s how it’s always been, but I’m not going to judge. Maybe you were given your name Sydney, but you sure earned it since then.”

A door opened, and people carrying trays entered. El began salivating as the smells of cooked meats and vegetables hit his nose.

A plate with a steak, potatoes and greens was placed before him, and a glass joined it. El thought it was apple juice, but a sniff told him it was alcoholic, wine then. He looked at Vee, who sniffed his glass, and nodded.

“Is something wrong?” William asked.

“Alcohol isn’t something we get to drink often,” Vee answered.

“Really? I thought it was all soldiers drank when there weren’t fighting.”

Vee smiled. “Maybe the officers. I’ve only tasted alcohol a handful of time.”

“I’m afraid the only other alternative is water. If you don’t like alcohol then beer is out of the question.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, just that I haven’t gotten the chance to enjoy it often.”

William raised his glass. “In that case. Enjoy!”

After the stuff he’d had to eat while traveling, El couldn’t stop the moan of delight as he took the first bite of the meal. The rich flavor of properly cooked meat, the way they were spiced, made him shivered. When they left in the spring, he’d have to remember to get spices before they left. Just that would make dried meat more palatable.

After a few minutes of eating in silence William paused. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to bring the conversation back to what we were discussing before I got curious about your naming traditions. You were saying how DCH was support class. How does that differ from a Specialist?”

Reluctantly, El paused in his eating. “We’re different in the level of what we can do. Support class Anthros are mainly enhanced. They are stronger, faster, more agile, have better senses. It varies based on what they were expected to do, but their abilities are within the laws of physic.” He took a sip from his wine. “Ours aren’t.”

William watched him. “What do you mean?”

“One person in our unit can move objects simply by thinking about it. Another can enter people and control them.”

“How is that possible?”

El shrugged. “They don’t know. I was the twenty-sixth Anthro to which it happened. The scientist never planned for it. It’s why we were all sent to the lab in Vermont, to be studied so they could figure it out. They call it a Matrix shift. They’ve tried to recreate them under controlled condition since the first of us happened, but they never managed it.”

“So it’s a random thing? How many Specialists are there?”

“I don’t know. When we were deployed to Peru, there was eighteen left in our unit from the twenty-six that initially composed it. There were nine units of twenty at one point, but I couldn’t tell you where they stand now. We spent little time at the Lab. I only know how our unit stands because of how close we are. They’re the only ones I made sure to touch base with even if I was there for five minutes between deployment.”

William was quiet for a time. “And you said they can control people? Move objects with their minds?”

“Those two can. No one has the same ability.”

“Really?” He looked from El to Vee. “What can you do?”

“I can heal,” the bull said. “Repair any injuries to the body.”

“Any injuries? I have a hospital with a lot of sick people there. Could you look at them? Without any of the medical machines, we’re reduced to leeches and prayers.”

Vee nodded. “I’ll take a look. I can’t regrow limbs, but I can handle just about anything else.”

“I’m sure they would appreciate it.” He turned to El. “What about you?”

El hesitated. “I used to control the elements.”

“Use to?” William asked when El didn’t elaborate.

He sighed. “Whatever it is that affected technology also affected me.” He focused on the wine in his glass and with so much effort he was shaking, made it climb the sides until it touched the rim. He released it and panted.

“That looks to me like you can do something.”

El gave a mirthless chuckle. “I used to be able to divert rivers with barely a thought.”

The man’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

Vee nodded. “He could stop hurricanes, or cause them. Take small fires and turn them into infernos, cause earthquakes. He’s responsible for many of our victories.”

“And now,” the man indicated the glass, “that’s all?”

El nodded, not even feeling inclined to mention his ease with the air. Two hundred years spent keeping the best of his abilities secret from the scientist was still ingrained in him. It hadn’t mattered to him that they’d been pissed each time they realized he’d held something back, his abilities were his, not theirs. He’d tell them, anyone, what he could do when he felt like it.

William looked at the glass, with the wine settling down. “That—that has to be hard.”

El managed to smile. “It’s getting easier to control it.”

“That isn’t what I meant. Going from being so powerful to just this. I don’t know that I’d be able to handle it.”

“I didn’t handle it well initially, but I’m getting better, so I’m hoping it means I’m adapting. Or that this is short-term and soon everything, me included, will be back to normal.”

William raised his glass. “That’s something worth hoping for.”

Vee watched El with a questioning expression before turning his attention to William. “I hope you don’t mind if I have questions now.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“Alicia mentioned you kicked the military out. Exactly how did you manage that? She mentioned six bases around the city. I know at least one was a naval yard.”

William leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I only kicked out the officers and the soldiers so loyal to them they wanted to leave, too.”

“Alright, then start with the why.”

“They were hoarding resources. Oh, they kept saying they’d distribute them, but they had feasts while everyone else starved. Even the majority of the soldiers they brought with them suffered. It’s what caused them to side with me when I acted.”

“How did you know they were hoarding food?”

“Before all this happened, I was an actuary. I have a head for numbers, for keeping track of things. It’s what made me good at running things before they showed up. And it’s why they brought me into their inner circle. I guess they expected me to agree with them that as the ‘ruling class’, they deserved to get better. Clearly I didn’t, and they tried to hide things from me, but I could tabulate things in my head when they’d need machines, so I saw the discrepancies in the inventory.”

He sipped his wine. “I know how much food came in after emptying a grocery store. I could calculate how much they could afford to distribute, versus what they did hand out, claiming it was all they had.” He paused. “I didn’t have much, growing up. I know what going hungry feels like and watching them purposely hold back food was just too much.”

He finished his glass and motioned for a refill. “Since most of the soldiers were suffering, when I proposed kicking them out, it was simple. They relied entirely on soldiers obeying them. Without that, what did they have? A handful of loyal soldiers? That was right after the previous winter, so I’m guessing they made it where ever they went to, but to be honest, I don’t care. I immediately disbanded the army. Made the positions needed voluntary. Only those who still wanted to be soldiers would do so. The rest was welcome to contribute in a different way.”

“How about the Crazies?” El asked. “Do you have any of them?”

William shook his head. “Whatever caused this didn’t agree with them. Those who survived, the officers took with them, but even they didn’t look good.”

“When you say it didn’t agree with them,” Vee asked, “what do you mean?”

“Explosions, a lot of them. I never thought Savannah had a large population of Crazies, but in those first days there were a lot of explosions, and while some of them could be attributed to technology failing, most had no observable cause, except that enough of them happened where a known Crazy lived for us to work out their creations were the cause. It didn’t seem to matter how minor their invention was, they all blew up. Because of that, most people thought they were to blame for what happened, so they were more than happy to see them leave with the officers.”

“How about you?” Vee asked.

“Well, I was happy to see them leave. Even at the best of times, a Crazy is an explosion waiting to happen, and these are not the best of times. But I doubt they’re behind it. If someone had a machine that could affect the whole world we would have known about it. They wouldn’t have been able to keep that a secret.”

Without meaning to, El found himself thinking of Eric Stevenson. Of how he’d told him he could destroy the world with what he’d seen of the forcefield machine they’d destroyed. And of how he never heard anything about it, or him, after that. At least one Crazy was capable of holding things back.

William went back to eating. “What are your plans?”

“I’m hoping you’ll let us stay through the winter,” Vee answered.

“Of course, I wouldn’t think to turn you away. If the weather is this bad here, I can’t think what it’s going to be like further north. I’m more curious as to what you plan to do after the winter. I could use your help here. Not just as soldiers, we don’t have any medicine so you could help with that.” He looked at El, “and if your control is returning, I’m sure you would be able to help too.”

Vee shook his head. “Me and El can’t stay past the winter. We need to get back to our unit, at the Lab, but if anyone else wants to stay, that’s up to them.”

“I’m going back with you,” DCH said between bites. “I figure RSM and IGJ will too.”

“I’m going too,” Sydney said. “I owe you for getting me out from under her. I expect the others are going to feel the same.” He looked at his food and mumble. “I still feel like I’m nothing more than her plaything.”

William nodded. “I’ll admit I’m disappointed. As I said, I could use your help, but I understand the responsibility you feel to your unit. If things aren’t as you’d hope there, you’ll be welcome to return here.”

“I’ll pass the information along to my unit leader once I see him.”

William looked surprised. “You’re not the leader?”

“No, I just lead this group. Eek is my leader. Anytime he’s present, he’s the one in charge.”

“I see.” William was thoughtful. “Remind me to write him a letter before you leave. I’m sure your time here will be an incentive to return, but I feel I need to plead my case directly.”

Vee smiled. “Sure. You have all winter to perfect it.”

The man returned the smile. “I do, don’t I.”