Chapter 3 #2
“Doing their duty.” Bern’s half-proud, half-sourly watchful expression didn’t change, no matter how quietly he said it. “You go get ready. Lotta work even if tonight goes well.”
As usual. But she understood. Every time they lost a fellow soldier, a little piece of Frank Bernadotte went too. He took on the weight of worrying about the whole damn circus, and Cass as well.
She almost wanted to suggest he take a damn nap, but he was busy collecting the papers and his scowl warned against even gentle prodding at the moment. Cass sighed, pushed herself upright, and set off for the RV.
Maybe she’d just lie down for a bit.
* * *
Lean, low, and touchy, the old midnight-blue Ducati was the closest she’d ever come to flying. Apoc loved the machine and its lack of computer furbelows nearly as much as he liked giving Trille shit, and kept her purring like a kitten.
An exceedingly swift, temperamental feline, to be sure.
But leaning forward, safe in the saddle, Cass’s booted toe clicking down and her wrists thrumming with vibration as she shifted, the wind rushing over and past the helmet’s slick curved sides, her middle tightening as she leaned through turns, a lower center of gravity and faster reflexes both assets to match her lighter frame and greater patience…
oh, they said bikes were for boys, but it wasn’t even close to the truth.
Like their flesh counterparts, chrome horses understood women. That particular street—and affection—ran both ways.
The guys couldn’t help with this part of the process, their big loud selves overwhelming concentration Cass needed to reach the requisite variety of receptive internal stillness; she had enough on her plate attempting to function through a wall of purely mental noise.
Any chemical capable of blunting her sensitivity would also put her at risk of a truly heinous motorcycle accident.
Plus, neither the pickup nor the RV were fast or agile enough to slip away from cops—or anything else which might notice an anomaly wandering around.
The bogeys were indeed drawn to her like flies to honey. Or a corpse, Steve might joke, though only under his breath. Gallows humor was how cops, soldiers, or Cass herself dealt with this sort of shit, but Bern had superstitions about what was or was not acceptable to say before any operation.
Even this variety of simple recon.
Pools of streetlamp shine—orange or cold blue, depending on whether the lights had been updated or not—splashed over the bike’s shining flanks. Engine-hum poured up her arms and spine, collected in her ribs. She turned, not following any GPS but a sure inner tugging.
After a few moments’ worth of fixed attention on any map-point, she could generally find her way there with little trouble. She only had to worry about avoiding cold spots, psychic temperature dropping as a wirebrush-scrub of ill intent rubbed over shrinking skin.
When the freeze got physical, that was serious bad news.
The worst part was the goddamn screaming.
Even a slipstream past her helmet and the engine’s steady comforting throb couldn’t filter out the crowd-roar of so many people packed together.
Fortunately most of the voices faded into a general ruckus, occasional spikes of high emotion like whistles in a packed stadium, but it was still painfully loud.
The sound didn’t bother going through her ears, and her halting explanations to Bern or Trille were met with incomprehension.
They had a lot of trouble imagining an amazing variety of things, even given their self-chosen jobs.
Though they were often more than willing to take her word, since Cass knew things she shouldn’t, did things they couldn’t.
More than once she’d sensed a bit of eye-rolling, however—swiftly suppressed, but in the end they were regular people.
Ordinary, sane men. If they didn’t fight the bogeys so frequently, they might retreat into frenzied denial of their own senses and memories; Christ knew Cass had seen it happen before. And honestly, she wouldn’t have minded doing so herself.
She simply didn’t have the luxury.
Nighttime was fractionally easier, with plenty of people asleep and producing a low hum instead of active, conscious mental shrieking.
But the area around their group’s target was outright hopping, between the bars, restaurants, smoke shops doubling as dispensaries, and other amenities catering to those who liked being out after dark.
It was a state capital and a college town, after all.
Another trouble with slipping around past sunset was the frequency of cold spots. Most were her early-warning system for bogeys, a few alerting her of potential accident or police presence to avoid. Distinguishing between was a matter of practice.
Trille was full of theories about her abilities, mostly that they were throwbacks to prehistoric times when a sixth sense could warn of incipient sabertooth attack—or worse.
Grik surprisingly concurred, saying soldiers developed all sorts of funny instincts during combat, and maybe something in Cass’s childhood had triggered a latent ability since she’d been put in foster care?
That wasn’t the bad part, Cass always wanted to say, but didn’t. Personally, she blamed the cave.
That was a bad thought while she was circling the target.
The bank was closed for the night, a stolid brick building sitting on a busy corner.
Right next door was a high-end grocery store at the bottom of a five-story mass—offices on the second and third floors, rent-controlled student apartments on the fourth and fifth, the roof probably used to sneak quick cigarettes or joints during dry weather, maybe even holding guerrilla gardens.
All in all it seemed a nice area, if you could afford the rent. The college kids probably had a ball here.
Circling the bank, looking over the one-way streets, letting her strange talents soak up the ambiance while the bike sang its happy walking-song—she’d done this before, many times. This zone didn’t have much in the way of cold pockets, though she’d avoided several on her way in.
So much of her work was an inexact science. Woo-woo, Steve once said dismissively just after he joined up, and nearly got his teeth rearranged by an enraged Bern.
With her helmet’s tinted face-shield down she was an anonymous shadow, wrapped in a dark jacket and padded black riding pants, heavy engineer boots and black gloves.
She could pretend she belonged, maybe as a student—though no ramen-and-beans kid would have a bike with these mods, or even the base model unless their parents were generous with a trust fund.
She could be a young professional who liked zooming through dark streets, perhaps even a man, conscious only of physical danger from cars or paved misadventure.
On her second circuit a cold spot suddenly bloomed where one hadn’t been before, the skin between her shoulderblades popping into hard nasty gooseflesh, a gasp wrung from her lungs as the bike’s speed dropped.
She cut across two lanes, grateful for the relative dearth of traffic at this hour, and a high wavering glassy needle-noise pierced the deep surf-sound of normal people going about their safe, sane existences.
Oh, crap. That sound, passing straight through her head in a sharp icy line, meant big bogeys. If Cass heard it during a scenario the response was an immediate plug-pulling; at a campsite or in a motel it meant load up and move.
On recon, the death-flute noise meant get out of here, now.
Unfortunately, it was too late.