Thursday, October 10th, 12:01am
Paul Martinet stared down at the half-drunk tumbler of whisky sitting on his desk, and for the third time in as many days questioned his decision in accepting the Directorship of the Specials Oversight and Administration Project almost six years ago.
He still recalled the briefing they gave him, barely an hour after he was granted the top secret clearances required simply to be fully told about the position. They'd shown him a government produced 'promotional video', laughably out of date, with production values that made him grimace. But when they told him what was going on in the world, what the truth of it was, and when they showed him the footage of human beings with remarkable powers, swearing blind that none of this was faked...
...it was all he could do to keep from bursting out into hysterical laughter.
All at once, his entire understanding of the nature of reality was smashed into bits, and then haphazardly reassembled. He always understood that the world was a dangerous place; one that required someone to be at top,calling the shots. Maybe America had to get its hands dirty over the years, but compared to who? The Russians? The Chinese? The Iranians? The freedom that the bleeding-hearts - with their rampant cries of 'human rights abuses' - enjoyed was hard won because people like him were ready to make the tough calls. To brutalize a small handful, almost all of whom richly deserved it, so that the greater masses could sleep soundly in their beds at night.
'Those who abjure violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.' I believe those were Orwell's actual words...
At the end of the day, he slept soundly, but not blithely, with regards to what he'd done over his long career in order to keep the peace.
But there was 'dangerous' of the mundane sort, and then there was what they'd shown him: an existential crisis and a glorious opportunity wrapped up in neat little packages. A cosmic lottery composed of a privileged super-elite, the entire world's supply of which could fit easily into any podunk little village out in the American West.
He nearly said no.
He could feel the weight of some terribly destiny pressing down on his shoulders, and for a day, his gut instinct was to say a polite "Thank you, but...", then collect his pension and take early retirement. To do his best to forget everything that they'd shown him, and go about living his life in self-enforced ignorance. Spend the days working on his golf swing or maybe fishing off the coast of Hawaii.
But he couldn't. The night before he accepted the position, he suffered one of the worst nightmares that he could remember: extremist Muslim terrorists and what they could do with this sort of power. 9/11 would be a child's birthday party compared to what potentially lay in store for all of humanity if one of the Sharia nations got it into their head to send their Specials out, to sow as much confusion and terror as possible, to bring the Western world to its knees with just a few well placed shock troops.
In later years, he'd discover that Middle Eastern theocracies had a history of executing what rare Specials they'd discovered, as an 'affront to Allah and the natural order of the world.' But that still didn't change the situation. Not in his eyes.
Just imagine if there weren't so few of them; the threat they'd pose to all normal humans.
He made his decision, right then and there; someone had to go in with humankind's best interests at heart. How fortunate that, as far as he was concerned, it dovetailed neatly with America's best interests as well.
When he started, the most shocking yet understandable thing he came across was the cold war mentality that gripped all of the world's great powers, with regards to the utilization of the Specials. Certainly the mindset of 'mutually assured destruction' was easy enough to comprehend; most of the nuclear powers also had their own Specials, but all were too afraid to consider utilizing them in any meaningful way. They'd bound themselves to secret treaties, unspoken agreements, pathetic strictures that weren't worth the paper they were written on.
Worse yet, before 9/11, standard policy had been to simply monitor any enhanced humans that the US government came across. Put them on 'The Register', if they didn't want to join officially. Allow them to live a normal life, assuming that they behaved themselves. Thankfully, Martinet's predecessor had begun putting significant limits to this practice, but he himself killed the remaining trappings of it outright. He made it clear that going forward that there would be no more Register. He couldn't fathom the notion that men and women with the ability to generate fire, read and control minds, lift a truck with one hand or in one case, turn invisible, were to be simply trusted to go about their day to day lives - that power wouldn't or couldn't corrupt. It didn't matter that the system 'appeared' to be working for decades. The system 'appeared' to be working for decades before two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers.
He received more than a little pushback in those early days, especially from Camilla Davies. It was a shame; he respected her competency, marveled at her intellect, even admired her beauty. But he increasingly lost his patience for her mind-boggling naivete. It was a shame; in the beginning, he truly hoped she might come around to his way of thinking. See the obvious, all around her. Under normal circumstances, he would have found a way to drum her out of the organization, but she was far too useful, not to mention dangerous, an asset to simply be allowed to walk out the door. That, and the fact that despite all her protestations, she always remained the 'loyal opposition'.
But even that was coming into sudden question now.
Damnit, why did she have to be so pigheaded? So stubborn! Why couldn't she understand what was at stake?!
Grabbing the glass and taking another measured pull from it, he shook his head.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But for his trouble, all around him make the accusation that he lacks the ability to perceive depth.
The moment they found Max Caulfield, he knew he was absolutely where he needed to be. He shuddered, down to the marrow in his bones, when he thought about what might have happened if she were born in a hostile nation. Or somehow managed to slip through initial detection, as was known to happen in the past.
She was a game changer. She was the internal combustion engine, the Internet, the Trinity nuclear test, and more, all rolled up into one; the great disruptor that would end the world as he knew it, and replace it with another.
Martinet didn't enjoy doing what he had to. He wasn't a sadist, no matter what people thought or said about him behind his back. He wasn't sick. Maybe he was narrowly focused, perhaps he occasionally suffered from bouts of tunnel-vision, but he always kept his eye on what was most important. And no, it wasn't 'fair' that Max Caulfield stopped being an innocent, wide-eyed thirteen year old girl with dreams of the superheroic the moment she went back in time and changed the past. It wasn't 'fair' that the needs of the many, the big picture, the safety of the world, best achieved through American superiority, required that he not allow himself the luxury of seeing Max as a person, and instead as a gift from God. A dangerous one. One that had to be properly developed and contained. Yes, the sword he was forging could easily be turned against him, but it was a matter of maintaining control. Of waiting for just the right moment, one where her powers would make the difference. Maybe then, she would at last understand, even embrace, the 'unfair' position life found fit to put her in.
And then New York City happened...
It was beyond his wildest dreams, and worse than his darkest nightmares.
At first he assumed the obvious; some radical Muslim terrorist cell, most likely that Daesh splinter group that recently claimed territory in the Levant, got their hands on a suitcase nuke and did the unthinkable.
Somehow, it was far worse, when he discovered it was caused by an Emergence.
But still...
...by God, we did it! We pushed that girl's powers to the limits. Crafted ourselves the finest one-hundred percent American made Second Chance. Seven million people still laugh, and sing, sleep and love and live. All because of the decisions I've made.
Because he was brave enough to keep from saying no, when they asked him to take the Big Chair.
There were unforeseen complications of course; he still had no idea what the hell happened, why Max ended up in New York City to begin with. Did she escape? No, that made no sense. She reported that she was somehow teleported; is it possible that all of the training, pushing her to her limits were unlocking new abilities?
My God, if she's developing the power to teleport...
The irony that he might have created a Special that was far more dangerous than if he'd left well enough alone was not something he could allow himself to dwell upon. Not at the moment.
He wanted to give Max the benefit of the doubt because, to be quite honest, he was proud of her. Exceptionally so. When she found herself in New York City, liberated from what pathetically inadequate control mechanisms he foolishly agreed to in the interest of trying to keep the peace, she didn't run. Didn't hide. She reported in. She did her duty, and completed the mission. Saved millions.
That little girl, that extraordinary woman saved millions of Americans from death, and millions more from a fate worse than that. She changed the course of history; Martinet could barely conceive of the chaos and panic that the total destruction of the Greater Metropolitan New York area would wreak upon America, and the world at large.
But now, thanks to him, thanks to her, Americans would sleep at night because Max Caulfield did her duty. Because she was willing to visit violence upon those who, wittingly or otherwise, would rend the fabric of society.
Draining the rest of his glass, he did his best not to dwell upon the circumstances of Max's apparent psychological breakdown. He wasn't going to tell himself that it wasn't fair that he be held accountable for something that didn't happen in this timeline. Because he knew himself, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And he knew that if the situation came up again?
Damn right I would have ordered her to shoot that boy!
Yes, maybe he panicked. Perhaps he cracked the whip harder than he meant to, but an inconceivable number of lives were on the line, all because Davies got it into her head that somehow one boy's life was worth more than theirs! And that was the sort of selfishness that angered him. That instead of seeing the threat before her eyes, all she could focus on was another scientific prize, a marvelous curiosity. Hers was the limited perspective that considered, to some extent or another, a single death a tragedy, but millions a statistic, when the opposite was true!
But agonizing over the past didn't matter now. New York was saved.
Martinet received the report an hour ago of an investigation into rumors in the Chinatown community. Apparently, a young boy suddenly dropped dead in the middle of the night, around the same time Max disappeared late Sunday. Thus, they now knew where Caulfield wound back to, and in taking the boy's body with her, she completely obliterated any possibility he could be a threat again. In a very real sense, she killed him twice over.
Was that your plan, Max? Was that the intent? I want to believe we can salvage the situation. Hell I need to believe things are going to be better now. That you'll finally start to see the world the way I do, that you haven't gone rogue. You're scared and confused, and need to be brought back home.
Max completed the mission when she could have easily walked away from it. And goddamn if that didn't earn the right for her to at least explain what the hell happened out there. She could still be Damocles' greatest asset; the key to guaranteed American dominance for decades to come. It was possible she could become trusted, over time...
...but regrettably, Martinet couldn't rely on trust alone. Already, he'd secured the latest specs on the CIA's current generation of implantable cortex bombs. They'd have to fit her with one, tell her that it was only a GPS tracker for her own protection. A half-truth, at any rate. It would be difficult to pull off if his efforts to get the Weyden Amendment reauthorized didn't bear fruit, but he'd worry about that later. Still, he didn't relish the prospect of fitting her with a kill-switch, but it was incredibly irresponsible not to take additional precautions. Not after what happened.
And especially after what he'd just learned, barely an hour earlier.
He turned to his display, as the video call he was anticipating from Agent Wright came through. She looked tired, but that was to be expected, given the late hour on the East Coast.
"You wanted me to call you, Sir? Afraid I don't have much news to report. We think we caught sight of someone matching her description on department store security footage in Quebec City. A few electronic record hits, looks like she's gotten kinda sloppy. Don't know if she's still wigged out, or if her powers stopped working, but at the rate we're closing in, I figure we should catch up to her by Friday. Maybe sooner."
Leaning back, Martinet took a deep breath and asked. "How secure is your location, Agent?"
Catching his meaning, she glanced around the communications van she was calling from. Reached back to lock the door, and took a minute to perform a standard bug scan, and then lowered her voice. "'Bout as secure as it's gonna get."
He nodded. "What I'm about to tell you is for your ears only, Nicole. This doesn't get out to anyone else. Not Rodriguez, not even Davies. Is this understood?"
She nodded once, and Martinet knew he didn't have to ask again. Wright was one of his best; she might not have Camilla's keen, tactical mind or Alanna's social personableness, but she was still highly skilled, dedicated to her duty, and truly understood the stakes involved. For the millionth time, Marinet found himself marveling at a natural system that not only created superpowered people, but the means to control them as well; he knew above all else, Nicole Wright was keenly aware of her role in the great machine of Reality.
"I know there's been rumors that I've been putting together our own black-ops unit, something I've not confirmed, nor taken any great pains to deny..."
The Unblinking Eye, he called it. Part internal affairs, part deep cover operations, it answered directly to him, staffed with hand-picked operatives; old hands from the NSA and the CIA, along with one or two former Damocles Specials whom he trusted in.
"...with the notion of uncovering new and increasing threats against the country."
Wright shrugged. "Oh? Huh. Can't say I'm surprised. As much as the Russians and the Chinese have comically shot themselves in the damn foot over the years, I know a lot of the small time players have started flocking to someone's banner lately, trying to make themselves into a new super-group or something."
Martinet nodded once. "Yes, I think we may have figured out who. An old name from the past, apparently, I had to dig it up from the files. They call themselves The Zaibatsu."
"Huh. Don't recall hearing it before. Oh wait. Maybe once? Sounds Japanese though, right? Camilla's been having us cozy up to Rising Sun over the past few years, so I guess we're in a good place to do something about it. Have them help us get more intel."
"Hmm. Yes. That...is another issue entirely."
Martinet didn't want to divulge his suspicions just yet; before tonight, he was more than happy to take the opportunity that New York City provided, to finally have Camilla removed from heading up Field Operations for questions of competency. He figured he'd offer her a transfer back to the Research and Development division, and she might even be mollified with that compromise; doubtful, but hope sprang eternal. At least that way the organization could keep an eye on her, benefit from her talents, but keep her at a much greater distance away from Max.
But now? Now, he was wondering if the week was going to end with her clapped in irons. It all hinged on what what audit team came up with, along with his own continuing personal investigations. As much as he found her extremely frustrating to deal with, as much as she increasingly pushed boundaries to the point of flirting with insubordination, he didn't relish the thought that she'd somehow turned traitor.
It was no longer an impossible notion, either.
He continued, "Look, I'll cut straight to the point. Earlier tonight, our efforts finally started bearing fruit. We think we've managed to turn one of their lower level agents. A report was being made, but the transmission was cut before we got everything. The good news is that we've discovered a few critical details. For one thing, we know now that somehow, the Zaibatsu has discovered the truth about Max, and her current status. Apparently, they've just recruited a freelance Null to track her down, and I suspect that agent is heading into Arcadia Bay to pick up the trail and look for her on their behalf."
Frowning lightly, Wright said, "Well that seems fucking obvious...but we know Max. We know how she thinks, how she was trained. Arcadia Bay's the last place she'd want to head to willingly, because it's the first place we'd go looking. I mean, we were getting ready to head back to the West Coast until we got that intel."
Martinet steepled his fingers and leaned in closer to the display. "Yes. Coincidental timing, don't you think?"
Wright was silent for a few seconds, before responding. "You think someone's been leading us on a wild goose chase?"
"Can't say I know with absolute certainty, but it's possible. We've had reports in the past, of Specials who can change their appearance, or project convincing holographic illusions. How difficult would it be to have someone or something that looks like Max show up, and lead us away?"
Wright glanced around, side to side, before quietly saying, "Shit. So it's not like we can stop looking here in Canada, then. Right? Because if we give up and suddenly shift back towards Oregon, whoever this Zaiba-whatever? They're gonna know for sure we're on to them."
Martinet smiled at this, impressed.
"Exactly. So here's what I need from you, Agent. Leave Rodriguez in charge, and head back to Seattle. If anyone asks, you're coming back to deliver a report, and collect additional resources to expand the dragnet in Canada. I'm...temporarily reassigning you to the black-ops team. Bringing you in behind the curtain, as it were. I know I can trust in your discretion."
With steel in her eyes, she nodded determinedly.
"Good. You'll be taking charge of a small team. I want you to hang back...we believe we have an idea who the Null in question in; an old Prometheus Institute member. We don't have a name yet, but we were provided a photo of the young woman in question, so we should have something in an hour or less."
Wright blinked. "Shit. Really? I thought Doctor Dingbat and the Hippy Patrol took the Russians down with them this past Spring."
He smirked at that. "She may literally be the last one alive. But if she's looking for Max on behalf of the Zaibatsu, then she might also lead us to any remaining survivors in the process.
"So we let this girl do the dirty work for us, and then swoop in and snag two or more Specials at once?" Wright asked.
"Something to that effect, yes. So I need you to stick to the shadows and keep you and your team reliably undetected until the moment is right. Can you do that?"
Wright gave a half-crooked grin and said, "With a small team that knows how to take orders? Hell yeah. Easy as breathing, sir."
"Good. Good, I knew I could rely on you. Again, it's vital that you not tell anyone else about this. Especially Rodriguez or Davies."
He could see the confusion on her face. The unasked questions. But he was pleased to note that they remained that way. That she simply accepted that he wouldn't ask it of her unless there was a damn good reason.
If there was only some way of creating Specials, instead of having to hope that we can make do with whomever the universe decided to randomly grant powers to on a whim. It would make my job a lot easier!
"Okay. I'll see you in a few hours then?" she asked.
"Yes. Be sure to get some sleep. I'll be sending you out to Oregon with your team as soon as you arrive, and we might have more information for you by then. I'm going to be honest here: we've caught a lucky break, so we need to capitalize on it immediately. If we play it smart, we might get not only Caulfield back into custody, but rival agents with vital intelligence as well. Who knows, maybe we can make them a better offer."
"Huh. Doubt it, but I suppose we could always be nice and ask."
"It's easy to ask nicely when you're holding all the cards." he smiled thinly. "Martinet out."
Martinet cut the connection, and rose from his desk. Stretching out his aching limbs, he decided to sleep at the base tonight, instead of heading home. Glancing down at the requisition order on his desk, he made a mental note to find out if the cortex bombs could be ordered in multiple units.
This situation with Max gives me a good argument for making the implantation standard procedure for everyone. Even a loyal agent like Wright would be dangerous if she were somehow co-opted against her will by enemy forces. God knows, now isn't the time to start getting squeamish!
There were millions of people in New York still alive today, who now stood as a testament to the success of his methods.
Thursday, October 10th, 8:31am
Rachel breathed in deeply through her nose, summoning up the courage to knock on the door.
Geezus girl, c'mon. If you can sweet talk an Argentinian militiaman pointing an AK-47 at your head, you can talk to Chloe's mom
She bit down on her bottom lip; Argentina seemed a lot better than Cedar Avenue right at the moment. Chloe's truck wasn't in the driveway, so she assumed she wasn't home. That, or the truck finally broke down, and Rachel's old - now former - friend was bereft of transportation at last.
Do it quick. Just like ripping off a band-aid.
Balling her hand up into a fist, she reached out and knocked on the door, harder than she intended. But the die was cast. She shifted from foot to foot, quickly shaking the nervous tension out of her her head, arms and hands, before enforcing a calm, casual demeanor in her body language. She brushed off a few imaginary pieces of lint from the sleeves of her plaid flannel shirt. Dressed up the way she knew Chloe liked to see her, wearing a little bit of sandalwood oil behind her ears.
The door finally opened, and there stood the imposing figure of Joyce Price; the expression on the older woman's face quickly morphed from one of placid neutrality to disdain bordering on disgust. Like she'd just tasted something sour, but wasn't about to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her spit it out.
"Huh. Well, if it isn't Rachel Amber, the two-faced queen of Blackwell Academy." Joyce grabbed the door handle, canted her head to the side, and said in a flat tone, "Got five seconds to impress me before this door closes."
Rachel held out her hands in a pleading fashion and quickly stammered, "J-Joyce...I'm just here to apologize. I know I really fucked up bad, and I'm trying to make it right, you know? That's all. I just want to make it right...to give her an explanation, okay? Please?"
Yeah. An explanation. How's this? Sorry Chlo-lo; I like you, I like you a lot. You were my top bestie, and I thought I was protecting you by cutting you off after Russian secret agents totally tried to capture me and a bunch of my other friends because I'm like this mutant with superpowers. Oh, what's that, you want proof? Yeah, sorry...see, the thing is, my powers suck by themselves. They don't do anything at all normally, but hey, if some asshole is trying to toss lightning bolts your way, I seriously have your ass covered. Actually, I can do more than that, but it's even more complicated. Anyhow, I probably wouldn't even be trying to make things right, except I need something from you, ultra-bad.
Ugh...fuck. This is messed up. Two faced, she said? Huh, kinda harsh, but not far off the mark.
Narrowing her eyes, the other woman murmured dangerously, "That's Mrs. Madsen to you. You lost the right to call me Joyce the moment you broke my daughter's heart."
"Okay. That's fair." Rachel accepted. "Can I just talk to Chloe then? I'll plead my case, and if she says she wants me gone, then I'm gone."
And then I have to make a decision about crossing the fucking line and getting Victoria to break out the hyper-charm on her...
"Well, Chloe's not here." Joyce said, smirking unpleasantly as she said it. "She went off to Portland to bring a friend of hers to the train station. A real friend. Her best friend. Long before you oozed your way into her life. Anyhow, that was yesterday, and Choe hasn't come back yet, so I imagine she stayed the night somewhere. She's a grown woman, and I don't keep track of all her comings and goings."
The sting from Joyce's barbs didn't have time to register in Rachel's heart; her brain immediately seized on what else was said.
Her friend? Oh...oh yeah. Please please please be...
"...oooooh." Rachel said, exaggerating the sense of disappointment in her voice, in her body language. Paused, to look down, and then glance up, giving a shy affected smile. "That friend wouldn't be the famous Max Caulfield, would it?"
Joyce narrowed her eyes, took a sharp inhalation; Rachel knew from the reaction alone what the answer was.
Yes! Lucky break!
"Not that it's any of your damn business, but yes. That Max."
Rachel nodded. "Cool. Cool, really. I'm glad. Chloe, you know, she used to talk about Max all the time. Told me a bunch about her. She sounds really great."
And some days, I felt like she could be a third wheel. So stupid, feeling jealous of a girl who was gone for five years without another word spoken but...they really had a bond. Almost like the one Chloe and I had.
"Uh huh. Because she is. Greater than a lot of other folks in my daughter's life. Or out of it." Joyce droned. "Well darlin', this has been real unpleasant. Let's not do it again anytime soon."
"Okay. Yeah. I deserve that, I know. Just...will you tell Chloe I want to talk to her? At least give her a personal apology?"
Joyce paused to consider. "I'll think about it. The fact that you say you wanna apologize to her is the only reason why I might not forget this conversation ever happened. Now...don't call us...we'll call you."
Rachel turned away and slunk off without another word. A dark cloud hung over her, as she again cursed the circumstances that forced her to drive a wedge between herself and her best friend.
Christ, Chloe. Would be so awesome if I could figure out how to bring you into this world of mine. In the end? Probably blow your fucking mind.
She laughed silently, and shook her head.
But then I'd be putting your life in danger. I mean shit, how irresponsible would it be for me to do that to you? To expose you to fuckers like Krashne Zmei, Damocles , or even the people I'm working for now. That would be a shitty thing to do to someone who's too fucking nice for her own good.
She slumped into the driver side of her SUV. Victoria was sitting in the passenger seat next to her, legs crossed, and playfully filing her nails.
"Soooo. I see she didn't invite you in for coffee and pancakes. You - ah - you need me to go in and have a heart to heart with her? I promise to be gentle. Just a subtle tweak in her disposition, enough so she's willing to have a friendly chat."
Rachel suppressed a shudder of revulsion. "Ugh! No! Fuck...Tori, no! You are not fucking brainwashing Joyce, even a little bit. She doesn't deserve that shit, and anyhow, I got the most critical bit of info I could possibly get." She smiled triumphantly. "Chloe went off to Portland yesterday. To take Max to the train station."
Victoria blinked. "Oh...shit! That...wait...is that good? I mean, fuck, it sounds like we totally missed her!"
"Yeah, but we know Max is here in Oregon, or was barely a few hours ago. That puts us way ahead of the game. I mean, it's better than no one having any idea where she is right now. It shows the bigwigs at the Zaibatsu we can deliver on the intelligence game. And then once Chloe gets back, we'll talk to her, see what she knows.
Rachel recognized the increasingly smug expression blooming on Victoria's face. She stuck a confrontational finger in front of her semi-girlfriends face and shook it. "No! I know that look, and no. What goes for Joyce goes double for Chloe. No glamoring her, either!"
Victoria rolled her eyes, and heaved a dramatic sigh, "Okay first? Why don't you just give her a phone call, now that you're back in town. Second? I understand and respect you not wanting to go nuts with my power...hell, it's an issue I struggle with. So appreciate it when I tell you this: you're getting too fucking squeamish about all this! Especially with millions of dollars on the line, not to mention, like, the fate of the entire world. I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do now? Stake the house out for the whole damn day? Screw that, I still need to finish up the planning for tonight's dance party."
"Christ Tori, you're still doing that? Weren't you just giving me shit about priorities, not two seconds ago?"
"Yeah, I'm still doing that! Might be the last bit of fun I get in a while, before you drag me off again on this crazy job. A job, I'll point out, that would go a lot easier if you at least let me have a 'pleasant' chat with the lady in the house over there. Then we'd have someone on the inside, to tell us when Chloe got home."
"Victoria! God damnit, first, I can't call Chloe because she blocked my phone number ages ago. I mean, sure I could easily work around that, but this isn't something we should be doing over the fucking phone. Second, I don't care, you are not going...to...to...oh fuck."
Rachel paused, as the notion blossomed in her brain in full.
"Oh baby..." she started to laugh and leaned in, stealing a kiss from her now surprised partner. "That is fucking brilliant. A man on the inside to monitor the situation and report back to us. It's not like you have to tweak their mind much, just get them to do us a favor without telling anyone about it. "
Smiling, and then cupping her face to kiss back, Victoria purred. "Alright then. So we're going to go back and pay Chloe's mom a surprise visit?"
Rachel frowned, shaking her head. "No! Jesus, stop with that. Besides, Chloe really cares about her mother and would probably notice if she started acting a little funny, the way people you zap sometimes do. I care, too. Buuuuut, there's a certain asshole she won't give two shits about, and whom I have a lot fewer morals qualms about you bringing onto our side, even if it's just for a day or two."
"Uh huh." Victoria deadpanned. "And who the hell would that b-...oh! Oh shiiiit. Him? Yeah. Oh yeah! He's perfect, if I'm thinking about the same guy you are." Buckling up, she then asked. "So. Back to school?"
Rachel nodded once, smirking, as she started the car. "Back to school."
A/N: Hey hey hey! It's Black Swan...uh...Wednesday? Lyta spins words into brass, and NQW paints them gold!
Wow, so that was a quick four weeks. Amazing how the time flew.
Waiiiit a second. (checks calendar). That was barely a week and a half! What the hell?
Okay, okay. The truth of the matter is that NuQueerWarhead pulled a serious bit of amazing this week, and caught up on a bunch of editing, despite her crazy work schedule. So please thank her, because as a result, we now have a whole story arc's worth of material ready for final polish and publish. And I can easily do that over the next week. So I figure, why wait another two and a half weeks? If I have all of the Thursday Plot Arc roughly ready, then lets pull the trigger on this baby and start rolling again.
Now, granted, keep in mind that after chapter 35, I'll probably have to take an honest to goodness two to three week final hiatus, but I figure you all would rather get more story now, instead of waiting. That said, the past week and a half has been ultra-productive. Aside from NQW's editing, I've managed to knock out another another 25K words. I'm very close to finishing chapter 38 (which is kind of a monster, and possibly the biggest chapter I've ever written for this series), and I suspect Chapter 39 is going to be the very end. By the end of the month, Black Swan may well and truly be finished, at least in rough draft form. It depends on if I can nail down that ending, which as just been this massive bear to wrestle. But we're almost there!
Anyhow, I hope you liked this chapter. I actually enjoyed writing it a lot. Antagonists have been one of my biggest problem issues as a writer, and I think a chapter like this really helped humanize Martinet, make him a bit more nuanced and complex. But still easy to hate. Kind of like Alfred Bester from B5, or Gul Dukat from DS9. Flawed patriots who see themselves as heroes in their own mind, and just when you start to sympathize with them, they turn around and remind you why they are such assholes. That's what I'm trying to get towards.
So anyhow...have a great rest of the week! Obviously, we won't have anything published for Friday, but next Friday the 27th, I will see you all here!
NOTE: A tip of the hat to Skylar Datenshi for pointing out where the Doc manager was mangling my text. Thanks!