Chapter 37 – Crack
Somehow, after crying my lungs out that night when they told me about Mom's passing, I didn't really feel anything at all.
Time passed by, and life went on, with me politely turning down the compassionate leave offered to me by General Harding. I did the usual things people did when a family member died – she certainly couldn't choose between burial and cremation in her current state – and turned up for work the next morning, thankful at the back of my mind that my sunglasses hid my red eyes.
People might have offered apologies, and I don't know if that would have been worse for me than having to deal with my mother's death thanks to a blackout. A fucking blackout! Seriously, I couldn't think of any other way to die that sucked as much as a blackout. It must've been a karmic joke of some kind.
After the first three days, I was, believe it or not, back to normal as far as my trains of thought and emotions went. Even Silas and General Harding were a little quieter around me than they usually were, although I did catch Adrienne casting furtive glances at me several times.
In time, I realised that I did feel something after all. And all it took for me to understand just what that feeling was had been a remark by General Harding that I was looking a little thinner than usual.
I was tired.
Sleep didn't seem to reduce my fatigue much, and my caffeine intake was starting to reach the level of being unhealthy. The people I usually encountered at the hostel started remarking that I was looking increasingly haggard, and Silas started offering me his fish slices again.
It didn't take long for Allan to confess that he had been using Dream Eaters on me to make sure I had a good night's sleep, and that was only after I'd found him collapsed on my bed, apparently hallucinating.
Hearing that Silas had put him up to it did little to make me feel better. If anything, it got me torn between wanting to kill him for letting that sadistic ghost back into my head, and hugging him for doing what I might have been tempted to do had our roles been reversed.
On the seventh day after we'd sent Mom off for the last time, we ended up sleeping in a massive pile-up on the floor. Allan and I were just dead on our feet, and Silas had started being the one ordering us to eat by then.
Who would've thought it, huh? The little bastard turns out to be the one looking out for me, and to think I nearly boiled him once.
And of course, there was General Harding.
Fate must have had a real twisted sense of humour, since he was the one who noticed Silas being uncharacteristically silent at the office, and who had subsequently started mothering me in place of my starter. He'd sent Allan off to stay with General Fen, since his metagross was more than capable of handling a mourning ghost's eccentricities, and had all but shifted into my room to ensure that I was getting enough sleep.
He was serious about it, too. One night, when I had refused to sleep, he'd given me a shot of some kind of sedative, which I only realised as I started getting drowsy while I tried to wring his neck. Commanding officer or not, no one stuck me and survived, or so I thought until I collapsed in front of him, one hand already wrapped around his neck.
The next morning, I'd woken up on my bed, and had found him sleeping on the floor beside my bed. He'd hijacked my pillow, and Silas was sleeping on his chest like he used to do on mine before all the madness started. In his sleep, General Harding almost appeared to be as worn out as I was.
It was a sight that all but broke my heart. Had I really fallen that far?
Where was I going?
What was I going to do?
I'd draped my blanket over him, and prepared for work. No one questioned me when I called him in sick, and for the first time since I'd walked in on him and General Fen about to get laid, I was alone at the office.
After a full day of work, I'd returned to the hostel, and found a cheerful but tired Silas waiting for me in a bucket of water. My blanket had been neatly folded and placed over my pillow at the foot of my bed, too. The note stuck to my cupboard's door only had a large, hand-drawn smiley-face on it, but it was enough.
General Harding, Silas, and I got smashed out of our heads that night, and it was glorious. Don't ask how we got Silas intoxicated, though.
xxx
If you saw my left upper arm three nights after The Sleepover, as we'd started to refer to that one night, you'd have seen the phrase Amigos Para Siempre wrapped around it in black italics. And if you had gone over to look at General Harding's left upper arm, you'd have found the same thing.
General Fen took no offense at that, since he was more than a little afraid of needles despite his affinity for steel, and we had a good laugh over Silas pouting that he wouldn't have minded a tattoo, either.
Just a few days later, though, I chanced across General Fen during one of my workouts, and the Chinese characters on his right bicep gleamed with the clarity of a fresh tattoo. It didn't surprise me when, just hours later, I saw a matching inscription on General Harding, in that same spot.
That night, I burned the folder which I'd hidden behind my cupboard, which contained all the proof that Silas and I had gathered on the murder of Tammy Silvas.
xxx
The fifth week after they cremated Mom found me going to work and getting an unusual surprise as soon as I stepped into General Harding's office – he was there before me, and he was awake.
"Sir?" I called out, feeling a little unsure if I was hallucinating due to a lack of sleep the night before. "Is that you?"
He looked up from the letter he had been reading, and frowned. "No, it's the local fairy princess. You alright?"
"Just a little tired," I shrugged, as I sat down and unstrapped Silas from my hard hat. "So, what brings you to work this early?"
"Well…," he let his voice trail off. "It seems we have a little bit of a situation here. Alright, scratch that, there's a major situation going on all over which you don't have to worry about, and a smaller situation involving you specifically."
I grimaced, even as Silas spoke up.
"Sweet Arceus, can't a guy get a break? His mother just died, and I don't know if you missed it, but so did his father, not too long ago!"
Hearing that little outburst made General Harding and I turn to stare at him, which resulted in a massive raspberry being blown in General Harding's direction by that incorrigible mollusk. "What?"
"You're a good pal, Silas," I said, feeling rather than hearing my voice cracking a little. "… Thanks."
General Harding reached out and patted him on the shell. "Soup pots aside, you two have come a long way.
"And I know it's a rough time, but you're being transferred out of here by the end of the week."
That certainly got my attention. "What?"
He held up the letter he'd been reading, and sighed. "Remember anything from boot camp? How the commandos recruit, perhaps?"
"I remember turning them down in favour of affinity training," I replied, feeling the beginnings of a headache somewhere between my eyes. "But, no, I don't know how they selected me."
"Well, there are the usual criteria for physical and mental fitness, and the skills to go with them," General Harding said, sliding the letter across the top of his desk towards me. "But they like to choose those who've got nothing to lose, if you get my drift."
Wordlessly, I took the letter, and read it. As he had said, it was a transfer order from the commando unit, and it briefly mentioned my 'orphan status', in the letter's own words. I was to be sent to the training base at Mount Coronet, not too far from the basic training camp where I'd started my military career.
I held out the letter to General Harding, the irony of the whole scenario not lost on me. There I was, Mister Let's-Transfer-Elsewhere-After-Failing-to-Get-My-C ommanding-Officer-Arrested, all silent and feeling clueless about my future as soon as the powers that be actually decided to transfer me out. To the commandos, to boot – why they'd want someone with the human equivalent of an octillery's eyes was beyond me, though.
"Need help packing?" General Harding asked, not unkindly. "Or a couple of days leave, perhaps? You know, have a good walk, a few decent meals before they stick you in the commando meat-grinder."
Surprised for the third time in the space of fifteen minutes, I could barely hear my own response. "That's fine, but I think I'll just take the last day here. Maybe I'll go there one day earlier and get settled."
General Harding nodded, and slid another sheet of paper across the desk. "Done."
"Eh?" I read the document, and saw that it was a leave application form, dated for the day before I was due to be at Coronet. "How did you-"
He offered me a small smile, and for a moment, I was reminded of the framed photograph on General Fen's desk of the two of them from their training days; the two of them had been perched on a branch and had a seviper draped out over their laps for some reason.
"I'm not half as clueless as I look, rookie."
"Thanks, sir," I said, as I picked up the form. "It's… something."
"Not a problem," he shook his head. "So, let's head down to the docks, shall we? Whatever for, you'll have to remind me, though."
What probably was half of a bemused snort made it out of me as I reached for the file which contained the day's paperwork. That man was seriously beyond salvation, he was.
General Harding's voice cut into my thoughts before they could settle down, though.
"Say, have you been finding any worms in apples recently? They're all over the place."
I froze. "I'm sorry?"
He looked me in the eyes, looking perfectly at ease yet, with a steely glint in his eyes that made me uncomfortable. "Eh, just a problem with some apples I had recently. Nearly ate the worm, too, since I couldn't see it."
Well, fuck. "No sir, I can't say that I've had that problem. Anyway, I'll need to retrieve that folder from Persiamon before we can head to the docks, so shall I?"
"Go ahead, kid," he said, cocking his head to his left, as I got up and walked to the door.
Oh, very clever indeed. When I got to the door, I shut it quickly, yet silently – couldn't risk bringing in the entire floor's security detail into the office, now, could I?
"Silas, mist the room," I ordered, as I turned about and pulled out the switchblade I kept in my pocket.
"Any starting point?" he asked, even as tendrils of cold vapour started creeping out from his shell.
General Harding pointed lazily to the top of his bookshelf. "It's there."
"An ice beam, then. Let's freeze the little bugger."
Silas did as he was instructed, and within ten seconds, the dokunemon was revealed, its invisibility literally having been stopped cold by Silas' ice beam. The worm-like digimon had clearly been headed for the door, and if it had been just a little quicker on the uptake, we'd probably have missed it.
Funnily enough, while they could turn invisible, dokunemon still cast shadows.
"So, sir, what's up?" I turned to General Harding. "And just what are we going to do with that thing?"
He merely stared at the frozen digimon for a few seconds before shrugging. "Put it in a garbage bag and take it down to the cafeteria; the incinerator hatch is next to the sinks, and they'll be firing it up in about… twenty minutes."
As I reached up and hauled the slippery block of ice off the top of the shelf, I asked, "And why did you want the bug removed?"
"Kingsley Desjardins is dead."
I nearly dropped the ice. "What?"
General Harding lowered his voice, and gestured for me to take a seat. "That terrorist attack on the radio towers didn't just gut our broadcasting capabilities, kid. According to the Game Masters, it was done as a broad sweep to ensure that they killed Desjardins."
My head was starting to spin as realisations set in, one after another. "So they destroyed the broadcasting hubs on five continents to get one man out of the way?"
"It's not that simple," he replied, lips drawing together tightly. "Desjardins was the Grand Admiral in charge of all communications, not just the mass media. With him dead, every bit of information we have flying about along wires, in cyberspace, and on papers is starting to fall apart."
"But they rerouted the broadcasts-"
"He didn't just write the news, kid, he coordinated it. All of our news used to be written a month before the actual release."
That revelation hit me like a tonne of bricks. If Grand Admiral Desjardins had been spin-doctoring our news in such a manner, over such a long period of time… "They're running out of pre-recorded news, aren't they?"
General Harding nodded, and ran a hand through his hair. "The last of his tailored releases is being broadcasted next Wednesday."
For a long while, we just sat there in silence, staring at the frozen dokunemon. Silas was also on the table, wide-eyed and quiet for once. The only sound in the office was the steady dripping of water off the table as the ice block with our hapless captive continued to melt.
"… And you're telling me this now, sir?" I asked General Harding softly. "Why?"
He leaned back and sighed. "Intelligence warned us to expect mass confusion and public hysteria by next Thursday night. All units have been instructed to prepare for crowd control by that afternoon. Get my drift?"
It didn't take long for me to get to where he was hinting at, and when I did get there, all I could do was rub my temples in an attempt to soothe the headache that had started going at full-force. "Yes, sir."
"Carry on then, my good man," he said dismissively, as he nudged the wormsicle towards me. "Incinerator's starting in eight minutes."
xxx
I had just finished with dumping the dokunemon into the incinerator – the cafeteria staff had started it up exactly at eight-fifteen like they did every day, unfortunately ending the wretched worm's life as they did so – when the commotion started. As I passed through the reception area and was about to head back up the stairs to General Harding's office, I saw that a crowd had already formed at the base of the wall where the updates and news were always projected.
To my surprise, none other than Howard Beale was there on the wall.
"What's going on?" I asked an engineer, as I joined the crowd and watched the government's most senior newscaster clear his throat and shuffle several sheets of paper.
She shrugged, not looking away from the projection. "No idea, man. Suddenly the dock timetables all vanish, and Beale's there. News isn't due for another four hours or so-"
Beale started speaking right then, effectively silencing all who were present.
"Good morning, citizens of Earth," he said, his voice carrying a note of – was it uncertainty? – that I'd not heard from him since the days of the Revolution, back when I had been in school. "This is a special news bulletin, and we're hoping that all of you are awake to see it. Otherwise, our viewers in what used to be America would probably miss the vital information that we're about to deliver-"
He was interrupted by a series of muted thudding noises that came from somewhere off-screen, which must have unsettled him, since he started casting worried glances towards his left and mopping at his brow – now visibly sweaty – with one of his signature handkerchiefs.
"As I was saying, we have a vital bit of information to deliver, and this may very well be our last broadcast. Even as I speak, the troops outside the door are attempting to break through into the studio and silence us-"
Cue more thudding, but louder this time. Beale's voice took on a hurried tone when he started speaking again.
"Grand Admiral Kingsley Desjardins is dead, ladies and gentlemen of Earth."
The silence in the room somehow held, and my gut started tying itself into knots as I understood what was going on. What I was seeing at that moment, and it certainly wasn't the morning news.
"We have spread the government's lies for years, ever since the Revolution," Beale said, speaking more animatedly now, and finally looking like the fiery broadcaster he was known for being. "And now, we shall have no more of that bullshit.
"Our planet has been taken from us, our lives taken from us, our very society cowed into being sycophants for the digimon government and their lackeys! The hour has come, ladies and gentlemen-"
Right then, what sounded like a muffled cannon-blast echoed through the speakers mounted next to the projection wall, causing several people to clap hands over their ears as the very floor of the reception area was shaken. Beale's image wavered and abruptly shifted into black and white tones as the camera swung away from him, now aimed at the blast doors leading into the news studio.
"See for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted, his voice somehow still audible despite the unmistakable sounds of explosions on the other side of the blast doors, which were starting to smoke. "Here they come, the dictatorial scum of the Earth! Here come the gutless bastards who sold us out to the digimon despots, who stole our very world from us!
"I don't know about you, but I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not taking this any long-"
Beale didn't get to finish his signature quote, as the blast doors were breached by an explosion which sent the screen into a dazzling display of static. We could still hear the drama unfolding in the studio, however, and my blood ran cold as I took in the sounds of what was, without a doubt, the culling of Howard Beale and his treasonous news crew.
The image feed suddenly picked up again, and the camera must have been lying on its side on the floor, since the image we were seeing was one of a room turned perpendicularly to the right. Smoke was billowing over what we could see of the far side of the room, and a black-suited commando could be seen rushing past the ruins of Beale's desk. Suddenly, the camera was jerked to one side, giving us a momentary glance at the collapsed blast doors and the smoke-filled corridor beyond them.
I might have been mistaken, but I could have sworn that during that brief sweep across the corridor, I saw a pair of red eyes glowing brightly through the smog. But the camera stopped spinning about while its lens was aimed at what appeared to be the bloody remains of a person, and a red dot started flashing at the top right corner of the screen as we saw it.
Screams were abruptly cut short, things crashed to the ground, and what sounded like a machinegun started firing. Panicked cries of surrender were silenced by the machinegun, seconds before the broadcast was finally stopped. The projection wall went white, and the speakers went silent.
We stood there, shocked, until five seconds later, when the civil defense alarms went off. Everyone seemed to be trying to go everywhere all at once, and the crowd in the reception area very quickly turned into nothing less than a mob.
The speakers came to life once again, and this time, it was General Reardon's voice booming through them. "Riot control to the gates, pronto. Docks are under lockdown, and we're going to Code Red. This is not a drill, people – move your asses."
Somehow, she managed to sound as if she was reading from a shopping list instead of getting us into lockdown mode.
By the time port control got locked down and we were all in position, the first wave of rioters had already gotten to the gates.