Chapter 30. Vitriol
"This… is not meth." - Walter White - Breaking Bad
What was in the Aster's bottle, of course, was not wine. Nor water. It was sulfuric acid, either stolen or derived with a nearly medieval process from iron pyrite that was to be found near what had been the Consolidated Iron Mines, and was now the Underworld.
The effect was immediate. The guard screamed, and began clawing at his face. A moment later, blood began to flow and something unspeakable happened to his eyes. Aster did not have time to worry about that. The guard who had gotten a faceful of sulfuric acid was no longer a threat to her, but she had to deal with the noise, and the other guard, very quickly.
One second. The other guard was fumbling with the snaps to his gun. Aster threw the bottle at him with her left hand, forcing him to duck, and with her right hand, drew her own gun smoothly out from under her sash. Acid splashed out of the bottle as it flew through the air, but fortunately none of it landed on Aster.
Two seconds. The bottle skittered down the hallway, and came to a rest about 50 feet away. Surprisingly, it didn't break. Sulfuric acid poured out of it, dissolving the green marble tiles beneath it. The guard gave up on fumbling with the snaps that fastened his gun, straightened, and took two steps towards Aster, who was swinging her own gun around.
Three seconds. The guard had plowed into her, knocking Aster backwards, but by doing so, had placed his body directly in front of the barrel of the gun. The horizontal stripes on Aster's costume had done their work and he had drastically underestimated her size and weight. Not to mention her strength. It was a fatal mistake, because despite his crashing into her, she was able to retain control of her gun. As she fell, she pulled the trigger.
Four seconds. Aster had fallen backwards on the floor. The guard had a hole the size of two fists in the back of his chest, and was no longer moving. Blood, chunks of tissue, and splinters of bone were sprayed all over the wall and floor behind him. His heart destroyed, the man died immediately.
Five seconds. Aster slid out from under the dead guard. The other guard was still screaming, and clawing at his face. Aster did not want to shoot her gun again. The sound could be heard from much farther away than the screams. She transferred the gun to her left hand, formed a fist with her right, and, still prone on the floor, slammed it down as hard as she could into the front of his throat. The human windpipe was not a strong structure. When hit by a hard blow, even one from a woman, it crushed easily. The guard gurgled, choking, and thrashing, not sure whether to claw at his face or throat.
Six seconds. Aster's hand burned. She had forgotten the acid on the guard's face. Fuck. She didn't know if the alkalinity of the soap and limestone mixture she had rubbed on herself had failed to neutralize the acid, or if there simply wasn't enough of it on her skin to offer decent protection. Either way, it was too late to do anything about it now. Better her hand than her face, though. And at least it was quiet.
Seven seconds. Aster took the small knife out from her garter and cut the guards's throat, getting more acid on her right hand in the process. The burning got worse. She tossed the knife away and wiped her hand on the guard's uniform.
Eight seconds. Longer than it should have taken. She looked down at the two men she had just killed, biting her lip. Blood was still flowing from their wounds.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.
But sorry didn't help. It couldn't bring back the dead. And she did mean it. It was a horrible thing to do, but the guards were horrible people. Raping cannibals who worked for a monster that raped women to death and killed and ate little kids. They weren't her friends. They were her enemies.
The acid was still doing awful things to the face of the one guard, working it's chemical reaction even after his death. His eyes were puddles of bloody slime and… not wanting to see any more, Aster took off her blond wig and put it over his head, so she didn't have to look at what she had done.
There was no more noise, but several things Aster needed to do. She ran her fingers through her own soapy, greased down, brown hair, working it down into sticky dreadlocks, and forced herself to breath slowly, despite the burning in her hand. There surely couldn't be that much sulfuric acid on it. It surely couldn't be hurt that bad. It was just bad pain, because there were so many nerves in the hand. She hoped. In times like these, a person needed two working hands to survive.
But there was no time to fret over her hand. She needed to move quickly, and make no mistakes. She had time. With the Maestro as mad as he was, and the palace in the state that it was in, screams and shots were probably fairly common. It would be several minutes before anyone investigated, if they bothered at all. And by that time, it would be too late.
She trotted down the hallway, to the linen closet, and flung the door open. First things first. She plunged her right hand into the bucket, washing away most of the acid that was there. It still burned. She yanked a sheet off the shelf and used it to wipe her arm and hand. Then she reached into the bucket, took out her jar of soap, wiped it on her hand, and put it back in the bucket. The burning became less. Probably she had neutralized all the acid and gotten it off. There was an ugly looking red shade to the skin on her hand. She still wasn't sure how badly her hand was burned or whether there would be a scar, and still didn't have time to worry about it. No longer needing it, Aster set her jar of soap to one side, poured the water out of the bucket, and carried it with her.
She ran back to the room with the fuses. It was locked. Trying not to look at the two dead guards, she searched them until she found a ring of six keys on the belt of the guard she had shot. She took that, as well as a flashlight he had on his belt, and with shaking hands, hampered by the acid burns on her right hand, tried the keys until one of them worked, and she could go inside. There were what seemed like dozens of fuses. She wasn't sure which of them controlled what. It didn't really matter. Aster turned on the flashlight and set it on the floor, pointing towards the rows of fuses. She began yanking and unscrewing them at random, dropping them in her bucket. The motion made her acid-burned hand throb in protest, but she kept at it.
After about the twentieth fuse, the lights above her went out. It didn't matter. She could still see by the flashlight. She pulled all the fuses, working quickly, dropping them in her bucket. She would not leave them here, to be put back in by the enemy. The lights would go back on when she saw fit for them to go back on, and not before. Or else they would go back on over her dead body.
Aster heard screaming. The inhabitants of the palace were noticing the failure of the electricity, and did not like it one bit. Despite the screaming, she noticed that certain familiar background noises in the palace were gone. Turning off the electricity had brought the fans of the ventilation system and other machinery to a stop. It didn't matter. There was enough air in the palace to last for days or weeks, and the Army of Darkness would not be there for anywhere near long enough to have to worry about suffocation. Besides, they could always open all the windows, if things got stuffy. She grabbed the last few fuses, large cylindrical ones that looked old, even for pre-war objects, and dropped them in her bucket. The screaming worried her, but she forced herself to breath three times. She couldn't make any mistakes.
Aster picked up the flashlight, and put it in the bucket, the light still shining. She used the key to lock the door from the inside, then dropped that in the bucket as well. She stepped out and closed the door, then tested the knob by jiggling it. Locked. Good. She stuck the key in it and bent it sharply, so it snapped off flush. Nobody would be opening that door with another key. They would have to knock it down (probably risking the wrath of a mad Maestro) or disassemble it, before they could even find out that their precious fuses were gone. Then they could run around in the dark like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to find new ones, in the middle of what was shortly going to be a war zone.
The hallways were lit now only by dim, red emergency bulbs. It made even the green tiles look red, as if covered with blood. It wasn't much light, certainly not what the guards and Betties were used to, but more than enough for the night-trained members of the Army of Darkness to see by. Aster ran down several gory looking hallways, her gun in hand, testing doors. Eventually she found one that was open, and burst in, lest their be an enemy inside. But the room was full of nothing but moldy cardboard boxes that said 'Ivory Soap' on them. More soap. Aster snorted at the irony. But from the looks of it, probably fancy, Pre-War manufactured stuff, not home-made lye soap like she had used on her skin in an only partially successful attempt to neutralize the acid she had gotten on herself.
She lifted one. It was heavy. Probably 40 pounds. She began stacking the boxes in front of the door, and did not stop. There were a lot of boxes, and she had no intention of letting anyone break into the room. Because of the scanty costume and light weapons she had had to hide under it, Aster was neither dressed nor equipped to fight the guards with the rest of the Army of Darkness. She would unstack the boxes only if the Army won. She wasn't sure what she would do if they lost. Die, probably. No doubt, if the enemy won, they would be able to get into the store room eventually. By breaking through the wall if they had to.
If they tried that, she would shoot them. But she would save one bullet for herself. She had no intention of falling back into the Maestro's hands alive, to be raped to death or tossed screaming into his inferno of a fireplace.
There was shooting mixed with the screaming now. So apparently the Army of Darkness had seen the lights go out in the palace, and was attacking. Aster tucked the gun in her sash, and stacked some more boxes. She wasn't sure how many there were, but she had nothing else to do and plenty of time.
Outside the palace, the wait had seemed more like ten hours, then one, as the members of the Army of Darkness gazed at the lights of the Maestro's palace from dozens of hidden locations, anywhere from a few hundred feet to a quarter of a mile away. There were more heads on spikes in front of the palace than even those of them who had been in Dystopia only a few months before remembered. A marble statue of the Maestro in the center of the courtyard gazed balefully at those who were positioned directly in front of the palace. They gave silent thanks to whatever gods they believed in that the real Maestro was blessedly many miles away.
Nervously, those of them with watches kept checking them, while others looked up at the sliver of the moon to get an idea as to how much time had passed. It seemed such a long wait, but like Aster, they could not make any mistakes by hurrying. General Monroe had told them that they could wait four hours if they had to, for Aster to get the lights out, and it had not even been one hour.
It was barely five minutes past one hour when the members of the Army of Darkness who were closest to the palace began hearing screams. There were more screams, then they noticed windows going dark. Then the lights in front of the palace, and those illuminating the heads on spikes went out. Then, more lights in the window. Soon, all that was left was the moonlight – which from the sliver moon wasn't much – and a dim redness from a few windows of the palace. Some of the members of the Army of Darkness made forked fingers at the red lit windows, thinking that the odd colored light was possibly caused by evil spirits. But it really didn't matter. Once they killed the guards, they would kill any evil spirits that were so foolish as to try and interfere with them as well.
General Monroe looked through a pair of Pre-War binoculars at the lights in the palace going out, one window and one section at a time. There was a grim smile of satisfaction on his face. He looked at the Lieutenant next to him, a man who had been part of his gang of bandits for over 20 years.
"The damn girl's done it." He said with satisfaction. "I wasn't sure if she could, but the damn girl came through." Of course, that left him with the problem of dealing with Aster Aversa herself, but that was a minor issue. She was odd, but no threat. So he'd let her have her truck. For God only knew what purpose. Who cared. He'd be dead soon, anyways. He took out his gun and fired a shot in the air, to signal his army, then shouted the only command he needed to:
"Kill them all!"
In her store room, Aster eventually ran out of boxes of soap to stack in front of the door. She plopped down in front of one of the shelves she had emptied, feeling disgusted with herself. She was cruel, throwing acid in a man's face. That was the sort of thing the Maestro would do. Cruel, and stupid. Because it probably really only would have been necessary to put 20 boxes of soap or so in front of the door to keep the enemy out. Not the 200 or so that she had put there. Now, even if the Army of Darkness won, it would take her nearly forever to unstack them and get back out again.
Her right hand still burned. Could there still somehow be acid on it? It didn't seem likely, but like so many other things, there was a difference between knowing that she had surely neutralized or washed off all the acid, and believing it. She opened one of the boxes, took out a bar, and licked it several times to get it damp. It tasted awful and made her thirsty, and she wished she had water in her bucket again instead of a collection of fuses, and when she rubbed it on her hand, it made it feel worse rather than better. But soap made any injury sting, and the Pre-War bars were dry and rough, despite her licking moisture onto them, and she knew that her knowledge of chemistry was right. It had to be right. There was no reason for the chemistry books to lie. But she just couldn't believe it, through the pain.
Frightened, and worried she was doing more harm then good, Aster rubbed more dampened soap on her right hand. The shots were louder now, and the screaming more panicked than ever. She wished desperately to go back out of the room, to see if the Army of Darkness was winning, but that was foolishness. Finding out whether they were winning or not would not change whether they were winning, she wasn't equipped to help them, and she would just get herself killed out of stupid curiousity and hurrying, since she would no doubt learn in the next few hours whether or not the Army of Darkness had won.
There was no way to tell time in the store room. There was no moon, and Aster didn't have a watch. She tried counting her own heartbeats, but grew bored with that after she got up to 300.
She tried humming some of the songs she knew.
The Itsy Bitsy Spider.
The Man From Old Milwaukee.
There were a few other songs, but they didn't help. All she could do is wait in the darkness, not knowing what would happen, not knowing if the Army would come for her, or the guards, or (God help her) the Maestro himself.
It seemed like a whole day must have gone by. But maybe not. Wouldn't she have been far thirstier than she was, after a whole day? And hungry as well? And needing to go to the bathroom?
Like so many other soldiers, throughout human history, Aster was learning that War consisted of a few brief seconds or minutes of sheer terror and violent struggle, and then endless hours or even days of the tedium of 'Hurry Up and Wait', in which she could do nothing but worry whether or not she had done her part right, or somehow made a fatal mistake, or even if she had done everything right, whether it would even be worth it, whether other soldiers elsewhere would succeed in their parts, or whether they would fail. Whether they would make a mistake, or run away, or be killed, making her own possible success all for nothing. And there was no way of knowing until things were over, one way or the other.
She hummed her songs again, and thought about her favorite foods that she had eaten, back when she had been living in the zoo, and other foods that she had heard of that she would someday like to eat. Crispy pies. And roast turkey. And pineapples. She had seen pictures of pineapples in old, Pre-War magazines, but had never eaten one. She wasn't sure what pineapples tasted like. Maybe like a combination of apples and pine resin. The pictures of them in the magazines looked crisp and juicy and sweet. It had to be better than roast rat, or soup with pig guts in it, at any rate.
The shooting and screaming went on, and Aster sniffed. She looked at her burnt hand. Damn the Maestro for bringing her to this. She thought of her dream, of standing in a Zoo, her Zoo, with a dark haired man at her side. But it would never happen. What man would want someone ruined like her, a ruined body that could never have sex or give him children, a ruined hand that would be scarred who knew how badly, and a ruined soul, that threw acid in people's faces and then killed them, maybe just because they were afraid of the Maestro and what he would do if they didn't guard the door the way he said. It wasn't fair. She'd even had to kill a woman, Patricia, because there was nothing else she could do. No, she didn't deserve anything in her dreams.
Maybe she should just stay in the store room. Let it be her tomb. She looked at the stacked boxes against the door. If she were just quiet, maybe she'd die of thirst in a few days, before anyone could find or. Or… she lifted up her gun and contemplated it… she could use it on herself.
But, of course, she wouldn't. Sooner or later, she would unstack the boxes, either when she knew the Army had won, or when there was silence and she thought she could sneak out. Because she was rotten inside and would always do rotten things to save her own worthless skin. She sniffed. It wasn't fair. She had been good once. A real person, once. Back when she had been little. It was the Maestro who had made her become so rotten, just to stay alive. She hated him. She wanted to be good, but couldn't. She hoped that she died, but before she did, she wanted to see him dead first, just for a few seconds. Then she could die.
More time went by, Aster feeling sorry for herself. The shooting grew less, then nearly stopped, only one shot every several seconds. Aster wasn't sure what that meant. It was either very good or very bad. There was more screaming, and the distant sounds of running and scuffling. Eventually, the noise grew less, then there were loud crashes, as of furniture being knocked over and doors being broken in. Aster tried to cock her head and listen, worried that the noises would get too close to her, and someone might try to get into the store room where she was hiding.
Then there was silence. That went on for a long time, and Aster began to feel sorry for herself again. Then she heard something. First the doorknob rattling. Then, knocking on the door. She could barely hear it through the stacked boxes of soap. Probably she was hearing more of it through the walls, than the huge barrier she had created.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
She looked up. She knew what that was. The Fibonacci sequence. She had told General Monroe what it was, and to use it to find where she was hiding. If she were still alive.
For a moment, Aster didn't want to answer. She wanted to stay where she was and die the way she deserved. But, as always, she chose to live. She stood up on wobbly legs.
"Here!" She shouted. "I'm in here!"
"Aster?" She couldn't tell who the voice belonged to, through the barrier and the wall. "Aster Aversa? Is that you?"
"Yes!" She jumped once, in excitement. "It's me! I'm here!"
There was the dim sound of the doorknob rattling again, behind the stacked boxes. There was some shouting, then a loud thump, and a crack. "Something's blocking the door. Can you get out?!"
"There's a lot of boxes in front of the door. It'll take me a while to move them."
"Well, hurry up and do it!"
Aster was sure that the person outside the door must have been a member of the Army of Darkness. They must have won. The enemy wouldn't know to use the Fibonacci sequence. Unless they tortured it out of someone. But how would they even know to ask?
Hoping her reasoning was sound, and that there wasn't another traitor like Frederick Black in the Army who had volunteered the information, either for personal gain or to secure the safety of his family, Aster began moving the boxes away from the door. It was suddenly stuffy in the room, and she felt like she were trapped in an oversized coffin, or a crypt like wealthy Pre-War people used to bury their dead in. Though the thought of dying in her own self-sealed tomb had seemed attractive only a little while before, when she didn't know if any good would come of the awful thing she had done, now that she knew that victory had been achieved, Aster wanted out, to be in the cool, open air of the night, not trapped like someone buried alive.
It took almost half an hour, and she had to keep re-assuring whoever it was outside the door that she was fine, and still working at moving the boxes of soap, but eventually she managed to get the doorway clear. Aster picked up her bucket of fuses, all the light she had stolen from the enemy, and stepped out, not into darkness, but light. She blinked. Had someone found more fuses and put them back? But no. The electric lights on the ceiling were still dark. It was light because it was day. She must have been in the store room for hours, while the battle was fought and won, and someone finally thought to try and find out if she was alive, and where she was hidden. By the looks of the light, it was late afternoon, perhaps close to evening.
As if re-entering the world had caused her body to re-enter time, Aster was suddenly famished and parched, and had to pee. Badly. But there were things she had to do, first. She looked at the man who had rescued her. He was wearing an Army uniform, complete with the bat-winged cloak. She recognized him from the Underworld, but didn't really know his name. Not that it mattered.
"We won then?" She asked, though it wasn't really a question. If the Army of Darkness hadn't won, the man wouldn't even be here. He nodded.
"How did we do… were a lot of us… killed?"
"Hardly any!" The man actually seemed amazed by this. "Thanks to you. Once you got the lights out… they just panicked. The guards that were brave enough to come out in the dark were shooting wild. And after a few of them were killed, they tried running away. Some down the road, some back into the palace. None of the ones that ran down the road made it. We made damn sure of that, though it cost a few lives. But we couldn't have them getting to another radio somehow and alerting the Maestro. The ones who ran back… mostly dead once we got into the palace. A few surrendered. We locked them up in the Maestro's dungeons. We're still arguing over what to do with them."
Aster nodded. She handed the man the bucket of fuses. "Carry that. My hand hurts."
The man nodded, and seemed to see Aster's filthy, injured, and nearly naked state for the first time. He addressed her with whatever rudiments of respect he had learned in a rough world with little room for it. General Monroe's training had, by necessity, consisted mainly of fighting skills, not proper military decorum. "My Lady… Aster. You need a uniform. I mean… a hero like you… you shouldn't be seen that way. Not naked… or…err… dressed like one of the harlots the Maestro keeps around here, I mean. I mean… you deserve proper respect. For a hero."
Aster shook her head. She was no hero. She was rotten and lousy. A hero would have found a better way to win, without doing such horrible things.
"I haven't really worried about people seeing me for a long time now." She told the embarrassed man. "My uniform's in a bathroom somewhere. I'll get it pretty soon. But first show me where the battle was. Show me where the Army won."
She needed to know what she was responsible for. How many of the enemy were dead, besides just the two guards, because she had brought darkness into the world. And how many of her allies as well, because of mistakes that she maybe made that she couldn't even guess at.
The man next to her didn't understand her request, but he was no-one to refuse anything to a hero like Aster Aversa. He led her down the hall, to the throne room, which was filled with dead guards, and several finely dressed dead officials and sycophants of the Maestro who had somehow found the courage and foolishness to fight, rather than surrender. Or perhaps it wasn't courage. Those who surrendered, even if they weren't killed by the Army of Darkness, would likely be killed by the Maestro himself. A few of the dead were women, but not many.
"Where are the Betties?" Aster asked.
"The Maestro's whores?" Aster frowned, but nodded. The man made a disparaging noise, annoying Aster. She had been one, once, not so long ago. "They mostly ran away. We rounded them up. A few of them bit and slapped, but it didn't take much to overpower them. We've got them locked up in their tower. We're still arguing over what to do with them, too."
Fair enough. "Show me the rest." Aster ordered.
The man took her down several halls. Members of the Army of Darkness, wearing their complete uniforms, were walking and running back and forth on various errands. A few of them were surprised when they saw Aster, looking like a Betty, except that she was covered in blood and obviously not a prisoner. Then they recognized her. Or someone nearby told them who she was. Most of them smiled. A few gave her tentative salutes. A few of them seemed afraid. One of the last, a man, with dark tan skin and black hair made forked fingers at her and whispered under his breath: "Kali."
Aster did not like that. She was hardly an evil Hindu goddess. But she said nothing. And perhaps she was evil. She certainly didn't feel very good. Not a hero like the man who had found her claimed she was. Heroes were good and certain of themselves. Aster felt frightened and sad and guilty. She didn't want to know what she had done. But she needed to.
And she came to a frightening realization about herself. She was, perhaps, not that different from the Maestro, or from General Monroe, in desiring the honor given to gods. Not the power, such as those two wanted. Aster didn't really care much what other people did, beyond doing a job if she hired them to do it and leaving her alone otherwise.
But the glory… people admiring her… clapping for her… loving her. Well, that was a different story, wasn't it? Hadn't her dreams from earliest childhood always been of people visiting her Zoo, and clapping for her as much as for the animals?
She had always wanted it, the glory, though not the power. And perhaps that was no better than General Monroe, who wanted power, but didn't care what people thought of him so long as they did what he said. Or the Maestro, who wanted both, but although he had power in spades, had made himself far too hated to ever have anything like glory. In that, he was actually better off than Aster. At least he had some of what he wanted. Aster was not hated, but was far too peculiar, too skewed from the normal human way of thinking, for most people to ever give her the glory, the love and admiration she craved. But maybe it was better off that way. If she had as much glory as the Maestro had power, who is to say she would not be just as bad? Hadn't the Queen Galadriel, in one of the books she had read said something like that? What had it been… "All shall love me, and despair."
Galadriel had turned down that much glory in the book. As she had put it, she had faded, and gone into the west, and remained Galadriel. Which was much what Aster planned. She would enjoy the glory while it lasted. But she would not try to make it last forever. She didn't know enough about how people thought to make it last forever, anyways, even if she had wanted to. And she didn't have a magical ring to make people give her love and glory forever. Besides Aster knew (and perhaps Queen Galadriel knew as well), that there would be something utterly unsatisfying about a glory that was magically compelled by a magical ring. Something fake. Aster may have wanted glory, wanted love, but she knew she would be completely unsatisfied with a fake glory, a fake love. She wanted it to be REAL. To be for her own virtues, for being who she was. For being a real person.
But who she was, she knew, inspired puzzlement and amusement from people far more than love and glory. And there was nothing she could do about it. Aster did not know what was wrong with her, different about her than other people. In fact, from her point of view, it often seemed to be other people who had something wrong with them. Certainly their craving for pointless power seemed insane to her. Well, so be it. She would take what few moments of real glory, of real love, she might get in her life. Such as now. It was worth ten million times more than power, or fake love.
So, like Galadiel she was going to fade, to leave Dystopia, and go into the west, to Wisconsin. And once there…
Well, perhaps there she would simply remain Aster Aversa. There were worse things that could happen.
But for the moment she would enjoy the glory, while she had it. At least it was real, and she couldn't resist the temptation. She followed the man who was leading her past where the various skirmishes of the battle had occurred, and basked in the admiration, pointed fingers, salutes, and whispers. The closer they got to the outside, the more dead guards there were. And the outside was littered with dead guards. Not only that, but the heads that had been on spikes were gone. Except one. Someone had knocked over the larger-than-life statue of the Maestro himself, carved from a single huge piece of green marble, that had been on a large pedestal in the courtyard, and tied the stone head on top of one of the spikes with rough cords. The eyes, real emeralds rather than just glass marbles, had been gouged out, leaving empty holes that reminded her of the guard she had thrown the acid into. But on the face of the Maestro, it looked good.
Aster regarded the dead enemies, and her worst nightmare's stony head put one one of his own spikes, and smiled narrowly. She thought about her father, and her sister, and the zoo animals. All dead. And the people thrown still alive into fires and the little bits of kids roasted on spits. She smiled wider, feeling like a female vampire again for a few moments. The only thing better would have been if it were the Maestro's head for real on the spike, instead of just a stone head, and his blood in her mouth.
The man who found her said nothing for several seconds, as Aster regarded the almost entirely one-sided carnage in the courtyard. "That's it, then. Except for a few that ran, and got shot down within a block or two."
"That's it then." Aster agreed. "I don't need to see them. I've seen enough."
The sun was going down, red light preceding the darkness that the Army lived in. That Aster lived in. Her smile was bloody and cruel, like the Hindu goddess the man had dubbed her. She thought about that small head in the bathroom sink, and a partial skeleton of a child's hand in the middle of a table. She nodded once, approving for the moment of what she had done. She raised one hand to the emerging night, and addressed it: "That's it then. What I've done. Good."