Swan Song (Book Three of the Icarus Trilogy) (11 page)

Ikari was a lazy sort outside of battle, but he took initiative on the battlefield often, flitting about much like his namesake.  The Sparrows had been chosen by the Commission because of their speed and agility.  Atlas made sure to use them for hit and run tactics often and Ikari didn’t complain.  Gerrig was more appropriate for direct assaults and his team was made up of big, tough individuals.  Thomas had used his team often and in the course of the last two months most of the Mastodons had been killed.  Now Gerrig was stuck with replacing them with civilians, but he was an imposing enough figure that they took to his orders with equal parts admiration and fear.

Thomas planned to use both qualities in this plan of his.

“I thought they were called petals,” rose a voice from the middle of the semi-circle of gray tables.  Atlas looked towards the source and sighed as he realized that it was Goldstein.  The former merchant was sitting with his arms crossed and a grin on his face.  It was true that the twenty six districts were sometimes called petals because of the flower theme throughout Babylon, but this was not the time for jokes.  Thomas shook his head and looked back towards the screen.

“We haven’t had a big operation like this inside the actual city and we need to plan accordingly.  This whole place is an EOSF stronghold and although we’ve done quite a bit to weaken them in other cities around the States, we’re going to have our work cut out for us.  Oliver,” he said as he motioned towards the man with the thin gray hair towards the right of the semi-circle,” will lead a distraction over in District Twenty-Three, drawing EOSF away from District Eight.”

“Petal Eight,” Goldstein said, unwilling to let things lie.  He loved to see the older man squirm during his presentations.

“What kind of distraction?” Oliver asked before running his hand through the thin hair on his head.  He was too old to hope for better.

“You’re going to hit the Perrel Financial headquarters, burn some records and scare the employees.”

“Sounds exciting,” Oliver said before sighing.  “And how are we going to get out?” he said before looking up to the teacher.

“Quayle and the Eagles are going to attack the incoming EOSF and get you out of there,” Atlas said before a woman's voice called out from his left.

“And how are we going to get out?” Quayle asked, her voice worried as always.  Thomas bit his cheek as he looked over the auburn-haired woman.  She was the best person for the job, the revolution would have failed without her, but she never stopped worrying about possible disasters.  Atlas looked to the captain and gave a bitter smile.

“We’re going to scramble satellite operations and cover you all with snipers while you retreat to the sewers and decommissioned subway tunnels.”

“Just like always, eh?  And we have updated maps of all these?” Quayle asked, her breathing somewhat quickened.  Atlas blinked slowly and nodded.

“Yes, Alex, we have you covered.  But these are just the distractions, gentlemen and ladies.  Again, we’re hitting this base,” he said as he pointed at the screen with a meter stick.  It was one of the few things Thomas had kept with him after his teaching career.  “Ikari will lead his men along with some of the civilian militias in quick strikes around the perimeter, weakening defenses, and then Gerrig will sweep in and destroy the defenses.  Then we’ll raid the armory and show that even in a stronghold like Babylon, Jasper can’t hope to win this revolution.  Any questions?” Atlas asked, knowing that a dozen men were about to raise their voices. 

“Are you really sending us in again, Tom?” Gerrig asked in his familiar grumble.  The Mastodon was an older man with dusty brown hair, obviously tired from years of fighting, but he still had fight in him.  “I only have five people left from Eris; the rest of my team is just recruits.  Don’t you think we might want to change it up?” he asked, but he was just telling Thomas the situation.  Gerrig didn’t want to be on the front lines again, he felt like he had done far too much fighting as it stood.  Atlas knew this, but he just sighed and worried the meter stick in his hands.

“Sorry Cal, but we need your specialists.  We all have to pull our weight,” Atlas said, but that merely drew a scoff from the Mastodon.

“Some of us more than others….” he said before crossing his arms and looking down at the floor, but he made sure the right people could hear him.  They could tell that he was talking about the Crows, which caused the room to fall silent.  Thomas Xavier shifted from one foot to the other after the exchange, but soon cleared his throat.

“So, any other questions?” he asked, expecting no response.  But then a single voice broke the silence.

“Why?” Templeton asked from the back wall.  He had been standing there the entire time, analyzing the group of men and women in front of him.  Templeton could tell that the crowd was against Atlas on this one, especially Gerrig and Quayle, but they were too afraid to show outright disapproval.

“What do you mean, Darius?” Atlas asked, his hands crossed in front of him.  Maybe this was just some little show of disobedience, but in this situation Thomas didn’t have a choice but to confront his student.

“I mean, why the hell are we going after an armory?  Just for a few more weapons?  We have plenty of those, Tom.”

“It’s to show that Jasper doesn’t have as much control....”

“Then why don’t we fucking just take down his tower, Tom?  It’s ridiculous that we’re still working on such small operations.  We keep on taking little outposts and bullshit victories that are doing NOTHING to sway popular opinion.”

“Templeton, we can’t ignore the benefits of these operations,” Atlas said, talking over the black man still opposing his every word.  His voice was declarative and stopped his student mid-rant.  “We have to weaken the system and weaken their support before we can bring this war to an end.”  He had expected that to be the end of it, but Templeton slammed his fists on the nearby table, shocking Abrams to his left, but Goldstein was merely smiling at the revolutionary standing above him.

“If you want to end the war I have a suggestion for you.  Why don’t we just storm that damn tower of Montgomery’s and end it with a bullet in the bastard’s head?”  There were murmurs at that, but Atlas merely crossed his arms and breathed out heavily.

“It’s not that simple, Darius, and you know it.  Right now that’s suicide.  We just have to wait-”

“I’m tired of waiting, Tom, and so is everybody else!  We’re bleeding out of our side sitting down here underneath the dirt and waiting for the EOSF to have a pang of conscience.  How about we use our fancy satellite shutdown, get a small group of assassins and kill the old man in his sleep?  He doesn’t deserve an honorable death, Tom.  You know that as well as I do.”

“That’s enough!” Atlas shouted, seeming to grow taller as he confronted his student.  “We are not assassins, Darius, and we don’t go into people’s houses at night and slit their throats.  That’s NOT how we operate!”

“Why the HELL not?!” Templeton shouted as he slammed the table again.  “We could end this war with one fucking old dead man!”

“No, we WOULDN’T, Templeton,” Jenkins shouted from his position two tables down from the shouting revolutionaries.   “Are you fucking stupid?”

“What did you call me?” Templeton asked as he walked over to the messiah figure, but Jenkins held his stance firm and breathed out sharply.

“Fucking stupid.  You can’t win an insurgency like this by killing a leader.  That’s how you create a martyr.  We will lose ALL popular support and you know what would happen?” Ryan asked the angry man in front of him, but he turned to face all the men and women in the room to make sure they knew to listen. 

“There’d just be another new head of the Trade Union.  As much as we say that this is about ending Montgomery’s reign of terror, it’s really all about ending the Trade Union.  There’s always going to be rich, greedy men in power, and killing one won’t make a difference.  We’re trying to kill the system, and killing Jasper will only grant them the excuse to say what a lot of people are thinking.”

“What’s that?” Templeton asked, his face centimeters away from Ryan's rage-filled eyes.

“That we’re terrorists.  It’s already the company line, but if we kill an old man
in his sleep
there is
no
way that we’d be able to convince people otherwise.  So, get your back up against the wall.”

“You fucker....” Templeton said, his artificial eye shining crimson light.

“Get.  Your back.  Against the wall.  You approved these plans yesterday, Darius.”

“You didn’t listen to anything I said,” he said, realizing that he had already lost his audience to a better speaker.

“Yes.  I did.  But almost everything was just as stupid as what you said just now.  So get back to your wall and shut the fuck up.  Unless, well, you have anything productive to add,” Jenkins said as he stared down his opponent.  Templeton was shaking with fury, but instead of backing down the revolutionary walked to the entrance and burst through the doors. 

Jenkins watched him go, but then turned his gaze to everyone in the room.  They all expected something from him, but Ryan didn’t know what he had to offer.  At the projection screen, Thomas cleared his throat, causing everyone in the room to look at the teacher.  Ryan felt glad at no longer being the center of attention.

“So, I guess this might be a good time to say that this is the last mission under my supervision.  Ryan Jenkins will be taking over, just as he was always supposed to.  I'll still be around, though, so don't worry.  Just don't be too hard on him,” he said as he motioned towards Ryan, who was still standing surrounded by men and women now looking to him for guidance.

Ryan could only feel a tremendous weight on his chest, but he smiled anyway and then motioned for Thomas to continue.  He sat down as the collective gaze left him again, but the weight remained.  Ryan felt like it was becoming difficult to breathe, but he was interrupted by a nudge from his left.  He found Goldstein grinning and laughing in his own resigned way.

“Good fucking luck, kid.  Wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

-

 The world was fuzzy.  It would just not resolve itself into straight lines and complex lighting.  All that Eric could see was an afterglow of the night’s drinking and he thought that maybe he had overdone it.  His survivor’s guilt was doing hell to his nerves and he had decided to drown it in alcohol, but this night the rations were down and after a week of drinking the barkeep didn’t want to hand the celebrity any more alcohol, gin or otherwise. 

So now Eric Jones was walking down the corridors of his prison.  It was supposed to be a bastion for freedom, but all that Eric could do in the EFI headquarters was walk around, maybe read a bit, maybe sleep, though Eric was finding that last one pretty much impossible.  Every time that he tried to close his eyes he saw the ruins of what Douglas had become.  Whenever he turned over in his cot, the image of Cody and Hakim being gunned-down in the
War World
studio replayed over and over again. And every time that he had a quiet moment he saw Jamie Caswell, but not the tyrant of the studio that most would remember.  He saw the gentle man without the slicked-back hair who had gone out drinking with Eric and Douglas two weeks before the broadcast.

Eric Jones stumbled a bit and tried to regain his balance by leaning against the nearby wall.  The world was still fuzzy, but from this close he could see the little placard next to the door and saw that he was standing outside of the clinic.  He gulped, realizing that his subconscious had led him to the one place he didn’t want to be, but he realized that he had to do it.  Eric had to confront that little broken man.

The celebrity gathered his courage and puffed up his chest, feeling his gut tense at the effort.  Eric had lost that perfect muscle tone while he was in the interrogation room and he couldn’t stop himself from being vain.  Another wave of depression and sorrow hit the celebrity as he realized that Douglas would never have that problem, but Eric tried to rid himself of the thought as he gathered his courage.

He pushed through the doorway to see Douglas sitting on the medical table on the far end of the room.  There were about five or six tables set up for the injured revolutionaries, but luckily there was only one other occupant in the room.  Eric Jones could see that the man wouldn’t wake up any time soon; the nameless soldier was a victim of head trauma and likely wouldn’t overhear Eric's conversation with his former colleague.  Eric turned his gaze back to the announcer of
War World
and felt his heart sink.

Douglas’ wounds had been cleaned and managed over the last week; the cuts and burns had been covered with bandages, the spot where his ear used to be hidden by gauze.  He was almost a mummy sitting there on the medical table, the damage was so extensive.  But as Eric watched the broken man he saw the slight smile on Douglas’ face.  He looked down and instantly knew why.