Waltzing the War Zone, chapter 4 (Patreon)

“Dee” didn’t feel right (particularly after the helpful concrit I got last chapter). So she is now Barbara.

Private jets were great with the privacy part, especially when the pilots worked for the IF, but they had run out of topics of conversation, and Tank was fairly sure that jumping Lev’s bones wouldn’t go over well. Having to play the part of new acquaintances was going to suck.

Part of Tank wanted to review the entire plan and backstory again, but they were landing in LA in thirty minutes, and they'd already gone over it six times. Tank was almost certain that if he asked Barb to go over it a seventh time, she might kill him with her judgey eyebrows. The woman did have eyebrows of doom. She reminded him a little bit of Mrs. Peterson. True, one was an anti-establishment hippie who did art for a living while imagining that demons were targeting New York and the other was a super scary CIA agent who had layers upon layers upon layers of plans for how to infiltrate a foreign government, but both of them had an uncompromising aura.

To distract himself from the urge to annoy Barb, Tank asked the question that he had a really wanted to know for the last two hours. “So, what happened at the outlet mall?” Tank asked.

John propped his boot on the center console. Tank winced because he suspected the console was real leather. White leather. However, it took more than fancy finishes to impress John.

“I taught someone manners.”

Lev had an amused smirk, and Tank looked from one of them to the other. “And how did you go about teaching this lesson?”

John held up a fist. Lev snorted.

“Was there someone specific that you hit?”

John’s smile grew wicked. “The asshole who needed hitting.”

The pilot announced over the plane’s PA system that they were ten minutes out from landing, so Tank did not have time to pry this story out of John. He turned to Lev. “So who got punched and what did they do to deserve punching?”

Lev leaned close, his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. “It’s a matter of some debate on base whether the person deserved punching or not, but apparently there was a big sale at some outlet mall and a woman decided to offer a practical lesson in what it means to be a Karen.”

Barb huffed. “Do you notice it’s women who are obnoxious who are assigned that name. Men who are equally obnoxious aren’t.”

John's eyes narrowed. “Nope. Never noticed. Don’t care.”

Lev jumped in. “I'm willing to call men Karen, too. In fact, I've seen a number of men get called Karen on the Internet. So the fact that this one was a woman is just coincidental.”

“So what exactly happened?”

“I taught her manners,” John said with the sort of self-satisfaction he normally had after he’d kicked the ass of some elite soldier who claimed that Marine training or Ranger training or Green Beret training was the best in the world. None of it held a candle to being raised to fight in a gladiator ring, and John happily educated them with that same expression.

“Why did teaching that lesson require General Aldrich to get involved?”

John opened his mouth, but Lev jumped in before he could say anything. “John would've ended up in the local jail if Clyde hadn't stepped in because John's version of teaching is a little outside the bounds of what most people would consider legal.”

“She started it,” John said.

“Yeah, but you’re so much bigger that people will always take violence from you more seriously.”

“That's stupid. Someone who is older or smaller can do just as much damage if they know where to apply pressure, and that woman did. Personally, I think I should've punched her harder.”

“You punched a random woman in a store?” That did not sound like John. For all of his rough edges, he tended to keep physical violence limited to soldiers. He also knew that John's unorthodox training was almost always intended to help someone develop more fighting skills. The only time Tank had seen John attack someone with any other goal in mind was when he was targeting aliens. Or at least the alien avatars. “I am clearly missing something here. What exactly happened?”

“The idiot thought she had more right to a sale item than someone else. I just taught are different.”

“That makes you sound like a psychopath. I know you did not punch someone over a fifty percent discount.” At least Tank hoped he hadn’t. He knew that both John and Marie and every other human modified to have increased strength struggled with anger issues, but John was not the sort to lose control.

“It was seventy-five percent off, and they included the leather goods in that. Most of the time when there's a sale of the leather goods get excluded.”

Tank looked over at Lev for some further clarification.

“The woman who required a lesson decided to kick a service dog in order to get another woman out of her way,” Lev explained

Tank was too shocked to respond at first.

John pointed a finger in his direction. “See? He gets it. If you attack someone weaker than you—not because you have to but because there something you want—then you deserve to get punched. I should have punched her more than once, but she went down like a duffle bag of dirty laundry.”

John looked around as though challenging one of them to tell him something different. When John got that look in his eye, Tank was not going to disagree with him.

“I probably would've slapped her instead of punching her, but I can't argue with the general principle,” Barb said.

“I don't give a fuck what you think. You're not part of this conversation,” John said in a voice so cold that it made gooseflesh rise up on Tank’s arms.

“John!” Lev sounded horrified.

“She's here because we need someone who's good at lying. That doesn't mean she's one of us.” John crossed his arms and glared at Lev. He never glared at Lev.

From the grimace on Lev’s face, Tank got the feeling this was not the first time John had mentioned his unhappiness with having Barbara around.

Most mortals would have fled the airplane without looking for a parachute first if they were trapped in a small jet with an angry John, but Barb remained calm. “While lying certainly is one of the requirements of my position, a position which is not significantly different than yours since we are both battling to keep our planet free, I would not characterize myself as a liar.” She had a coldness in her voice that promised pain if anyone chose to agree with John.

John crossed his arms. “I'll listen to you because this mission is important, and whatever shit is going on, Tank is in the middle of it. Or his genes are anyway. But don't expect me to trust you, woman.”

“Exactly what you have against me?”

Tank was almost sure that five minutes from landing was not the time for this conversation, but his time in the military had taught him one thing. When scary people chose to argue with each other, you stayed out of it. Unless the scary people in question were armed aggressors, and then you shot them. But Tank really didn't want to shoot either John or Barbara. Of course, if it came down to a choice, he would side with John every time, but he would still rather avoid shooting.

“I've seen people like you in the fighting pens.”

“Slightly overweight 50-year-old women in the middle of a career change?” Barb asked, laying on the sarcasm. In another situation, Tank would have admired her verbal viciousness. In this situation he was starting to wonder if he should go in search of tranquilizer darts or read the manual on how to deploy the emergency chute for a fast escape. Barb shook her head in amazement. “Wow. Those slave pens certainly did have a diverse population.”

John narrowed his eyes. “Liars. Some people will say anything to survive one more fight, to get one more privilege than their fellow inmates. People who lie start to think that lying can solve any problem. I know your kind.”

Barbara jerked back as though she had touched a hot stove. “I certainly can't deny that my line of work entails a certain moral flexibility that can lead to people making bad choices, I am not doing this for my own survival or my own comfort. I am doing this for the same reason you are. These aliens have no right to target us on our own planet. We are supposed to be a team.”

A slow smile spread over John's face. “Really? It seems that you're the person Tank hired to find his adoptive family. I'm friends with Tank because we were roommates in college, but that doesn't mean I'm friends with you.:

“Nothing will explain this level of hostility,” Barbara said. “We have to live these cover stories.”

“I am.” John grinned. “After all, after that head injury during my motorcycle accident, I haven't been quite right in the head.” He tapped his temple.

That part of the cover really hadn't sat right with Tank. Yeah, he understood why Barbara would've included that detail because sometimes Tank didn't know things that people just knew. And it was never obvious when he was going to run into one of those blind spots until it was too late to hide the fact that John was not exactly normal. For example, John had known what women's periods work and knew that they had cramps and that it caused pain and grumpiness and a desire for chocolate. But he had assumed that periods were when women bled blue. Apparently learning about menstrual cycles through commercials did not make for an accurate representation. And a motorcycle accident would explain the faint lines that showed through the makeup that hid the fact that John’s skin was a patchwork of different skin tones.

“Your hostility is going to bring more attention to us than our covers can withstand.”

“It'll bring less attention to us than it will if I pretend to like you and then utterly fail,” John said.

“So, you're changing the cover story now? On your own authority?” Barbara’s eyebrows of doom were in full force now.

“Nope. Going with your cover, just saying that if I am brain-damaged, and that means my reactions are illogical. In fact, pretty sure I only tagged along because I love Tank like a brother, and I don't like that he turns to you for answers. I don't like you. And I am not going to let my brother fly to the other side of the globe where you can work your wiles on him.”

“My wiles?” Now Barbara just looked confused.

John shrugged. “Sure. I'm brain-damaged. Who knows what sort of weird connections I come up with in my head.” He gesticulated wildly to suggest just how uncontrollable his thoughts were.

“I will call the colonel and suggest you be pulled from this mission.”

“Sure, you can try. Deborah’s not going to let Lev and Tank walk into a situation unless there's someone she knows who can cover their backs. Most of the soldiers in the unit have a long paper trail that will be impossible to cover up. If you want to get in without raising any military alerts, you need me.”

“I would rather attempt to this mission without a military asset to back us up that I would have you endanger all our lives.”

John's grin was feral and dangerous. “And I'm not letting you take my team members anywhere without making sure that they have someone who will watch their back, someone who isn't a liar.” He dropped his boots to the floor and slaps his thighs. Tank was starting to feel like this plane was far too small for the four of them.

“Hey, let's all play nice,” Lev said as he held a hand out towards John. “I get where you're coming from, John, but you promised Deborah that you would try and get along.”

“This is me getting along.” John studied Barbara for a second. “I haven't punched her.”

“If I had a choice between punching me or endangering my mission, I am less concerned about getting punched than you might think.”

John snorted. “You’d care if I punched you.”

“Enough,” Lev snapped. He looked at Tank, and Tank’s brain froze. No way did he want to get involved, but that was Lev’s expectant look number three. Lev sighed.

“Barbara, you need to expect a certain level of distrust. You know where we met John and what happened.”

Pink crept up Barbara’s neck although her expression remained unreadable.

“And John, you can’t antagonize her. I know what happened in those pen. I do…”

“No, you don’t,” John said, but most of the anger had leeched out of his voice leaving him sounding exhausted. “You knew what it was like when someone protected you—took fights for you. You have no idea what sorts of monsters lurked in the corners of those slave pens, and they weren’t always aliens.” John’s gaze shifted to Barbara. “But they were always liars.”

“Tank, you’re the one who’s going to have to play peacemaker. Can you handle this or should be call Clyde and come up with another plan for trying to get close to the target?” Lev’s expectant look number three skipped the intermediate step and went straight to look number one.

Tank cleared his throat. He wanted to stay out of this, but he’d discovered that when he ignored trouble, it tended to breed like hypersexual rabbits or New York rats. “John, I’m not asking you to trust Barb, but can you work with her?”

“I never said I couldn’t.” John leaned back in his seat and pulled on the seat belt before shifting to look out the window. “I can work with anyone. But don’t turn your back on this one and don’t expect me to turn my back.”

Tank looked from Barbara to John and back, not sure what to do. Barbara sighed. “I’m not going to stab you in the back, but Tank, you might want to warn the people at the hotel that John is not only brain damaged but he also suffers paranoid delusions. I’ll have the medical paperwork updated if anyone does a deep background check.”

John flipped her off.

Tank traded concerned looks with Lev. He had thought this was going to be a vacation with a side of poking around for alien conspiracies, but suddenly this was feeling way less fun than that.