GWOT VII - Simple Addition
Sep. 21st, 2021 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VII - Simple Addition
As we worked with Mr. Zhou and his team, planning out the details of betting yet another nation on our ability to wrestle down Thanos-America before she finished killing us all... something was bugging me.
Not megadeaths. Not the language of nuclear war. That was almost calming in a way. I'd spent the last four months convinced that we were all going to glow, or worse. Hope was more painful, yes. But that was OK. Pain was my friend. The loss of everyone and everything, not so much.
Dr. Rize. WIth a crying need for trained psychologists, she had just happened to be assigned to Collections. Yes, she was doing intel work, and I can see how the Resistance might value her assets over her, ahem, assets.
Then she'd stopped by Site, we'd had a fling, she'd been rolled up into the gigantic murderous cluster fuck that was Bear Force, and a "Dear John" postcard drops into my mail. "Oh, by the way, Dr. Rize got waxed."
Oh bullshit. Bear Force wouldn't waste a psychologist as a front line trooper. More like needed her to design whatever training program they had that made broken and hurting people into living weapons systems, smart bombs just dumb enough to blow up on target.
The California Republic doesn't give out rank easily. Major Rize had done a hell of a lot for the Republic to earn that star. I'd run a prison and a border Sector before I'd gotten mine. Publicly I'd been credited with saving an order of magnitude more lives than I'd taken. Privately I knew better.
The work talk wound down. We would - with the help of the People's Liberation Army, both dry and wet - take our chances with what we had.
Mr. Zhou saw the second glance I shot at Betty and suggested that we might want to break for a shower and refreshment. There would be a dinner at sundown on the 'Edge,' overlooking the bowl of the gazebo.
To my surprise I realized that a few hours remained in this early summer afternoon. A helicopter ride, the fate of nations -- but one second per second is relentless.
The VIP suite had a thoughtful layout. Two rooms controlled access to a central suite. The SDF crew broke open their gear and started setting up alarms to control both of those. Somehow their submachine guns were always in easy reach as they did.
I put the McGuffin - the duffel containing the Cube - on the floor after checking under the bed and in the closets. Old habits of a lifetime in security die hard. I planned to die harder. I checked the grenade at my belt.
Betty excused herself promptly to use the facilities. I was not even a little tempted to turn on the enormous wall-dominating flat screen TV four-plex. More suitable for command post than for entertainment.
I poured myself a glass of water and sat in the comfy armchair to relax. Iced tea would have been better, but I didn't want to impose on our hosts.
They also needed some time to digest. Mr. Zhou was doubtless making some calls and sending some messages, letting his people - or People! - know what was up.
They too were inflicted by the torture of hope.
Betty came back out. She selected a beer from the minibar. Took one sip. Saw my face and put it down.
I spoke.
"Now I know who did my mental health evaluation, and why I passed it. How much did you have to lie?"
"You flunked it, Echo," she said calmly. As I were not capable of using my hands, or the grenade, or the Cube, or anything damn else. No filters, no restraints.
"But I wasn't evaluating your mental health. I was evaluating your results. You do that. You make results. You made a lifeboat of Site. You made a high school into a justice center. You made broken remnants of camps and people into a secure border. And in Iowa, you made scattered and scared refugees into a government.
"Now you get to make a world."
She leaned in close, fervently, with no hint of either affection or compassion.
"Don't fuck up."
"You remind me a lot of the Governor when you talk that way," I said mildly.
"Pat and I talked about you. More than once."
"You met Pat?"
"I was on the selection committee for her personal security detail."
"Hmmm. You picked a pronoun. Interesting."
"I'm old fashioned. Pat gave me shit for it too. I said 'it' is for carpets and Pat laughed and laughed. Then said I'd described a girlfriend."
I took a sip of water, wishing it were cola. Or maybe vodka.
"So. Not to revisit our first conversation or anything, but ... why didn't you reach out to me?"
She didn't have to say "Honestly" at the beginning of what she said next. We were both professional liars; she was the better actor.
"I didn't want you to lose your edge. I knew you were running Alviso and that it was a train wreck. I heard you were going to the SF Recovery Project, I figured you were going to join the counterintel group there - it's one place we stick a lot of American sympathizers. Shock treatment. Next thing I knew, you were on the Border. And I was ... operational. Figured I'd actually get killed soon enough."
"So how does a nice psychologist like you go into Ops? Pissed off your bosses?"
"I'd set up the Bear training program. Nasty piece of work. Then performance improvement for cadre. Internal security. I helped design the SDF. Picked the psych quals, designed their training programs and picked their CO and officers. A bunch of frightened little kids with submachine guns, too scared to do anything but what they're told to do."
Both SDF troopers stopped what they were doing to stare at Rize. She didn't seem to notice.
"I kept finding excuses to go forward. My work suffered. You're right about my bosses, they told me to go back to my cubicle or I would be a front line officer with a life expectancy of days. I ... might have set my cubicle on fire."
Bear Force. She really was perfect for them.
"Then of course, on Ops you don't notice anything but whether your blood is still on the inside."
Greatly daring, I asked, "So, who was your mental health support?"
"Some guy I was fucking."
Why was I not surprised? There had been some method to California's madness. But one of the architects of our present crazy had risen to full stark raving mad and disabled the alarm system that should have warned everyone.
Or the alarm had worked, and they had put her on the front line in the hopes she'd get killed.
Bear Force did that a lot.
I had no illusions about Dr. Rise. Profound respect, and affection, but no illusions.
She had no illusions about me, either. Knew me better than anyone else alive.
I jerked my thumb towards the two SDF people still shell-shocked staring at her.
"I think you owe them a great big apology."
"Probably. They're the best SDF has to offer. That's why they get the tough jobs, the coolest submachine guns, and a cookie if they're good. They can suck it up."
Amazingly enough, neither of them shot her. They did go back to their equivalent of resting while keeping the room secure.
"So, what are your plans after the War?" she said. As if calmly. But it wasn't.
"I don't have any. I seem to be scheduled to be vaporized in the next few days."
"If we live."
I shrugged.
"If we live, and I fucked it up, I'll join Bear Force and find some really juicy target. I trained a lot on taking apart American defense sites at the seams, after all."
The other other reason we'd been in Iowa.
"What if we live and we didn't fuck it up?"
"I think a lot of people are going to be very pissed at me. Not just in America. You know, Pat and I expect that we're going to lose at least two cities. That's millions of Californians. Some of the people who loved them are going to come looking for me. And some will be military. Makes retirement unlikely. Besides, how will I support myself?"
She blinked.
"I was thinking that you'd have trouble avoiding a political career. If you save us all from America, the problem will not be keeping you from being elected Governor, but being elected God."
"No. No more making life and death decisions for me. Done. Fucking done. If we pull this one off."
"How about San Francisco?"
"Hmmm?"
"The Recovery Project will still be there. All the experts will probably get yanked to the new craters. If not ours, America's. Leaves space for a psychologist and a skilled manager."
I feigned shock.
"Are you suggesting that we work at the same site so that we can co-habitate? Before marriage? I am shocked, simply shocked."
"Yes and no, you stubborn son of a bitch. I want a beach wedding. Small. Maybe fifty people. And not a single fucking gun in sight. For once."
Now I was actually, honestly shocked.
"Which of us wears a dress? One, both, or neither?"
She shrugged.
"We'll let the details figure themselves out. But I want cake. Lots of cake. Lots and lots of cake." She turned her head. "Look away, kids."
And helped herself once again to a piece of me.
As we worked with Mr. Zhou and his team, planning out the details of betting yet another nation on our ability to wrestle down Thanos-America before she finished killing us all... something was bugging me.
Not megadeaths. Not the language of nuclear war. That was almost calming in a way. I'd spent the last four months convinced that we were all going to glow, or worse. Hope was more painful, yes. But that was OK. Pain was my friend. The loss of everyone and everything, not so much.
Dr. Rize. WIth a crying need for trained psychologists, she had just happened to be assigned to Collections. Yes, she was doing intel work, and I can see how the Resistance might value her assets over her, ahem, assets.
Then she'd stopped by Site, we'd had a fling, she'd been rolled up into the gigantic murderous cluster fuck that was Bear Force, and a "Dear John" postcard drops into my mail. "Oh, by the way, Dr. Rize got waxed."
Oh bullshit. Bear Force wouldn't waste a psychologist as a front line trooper. More like needed her to design whatever training program they had that made broken and hurting people into living weapons systems, smart bombs just dumb enough to blow up on target.
The California Republic doesn't give out rank easily. Major Rize had done a hell of a lot for the Republic to earn that star. I'd run a prison and a border Sector before I'd gotten mine. Publicly I'd been credited with saving an order of magnitude more lives than I'd taken. Privately I knew better.
The work talk wound down. We would - with the help of the People's Liberation Army, both dry and wet - take our chances with what we had.
Mr. Zhou saw the second glance I shot at Betty and suggested that we might want to break for a shower and refreshment. There would be a dinner at sundown on the 'Edge,' overlooking the bowl of the gazebo.
To my surprise I realized that a few hours remained in this early summer afternoon. A helicopter ride, the fate of nations -- but one second per second is relentless.
The VIP suite had a thoughtful layout. Two rooms controlled access to a central suite. The SDF crew broke open their gear and started setting up alarms to control both of those. Somehow their submachine guns were always in easy reach as they did.
I put the McGuffin - the duffel containing the Cube - on the floor after checking under the bed and in the closets. Old habits of a lifetime in security die hard. I planned to die harder. I checked the grenade at my belt.
Betty excused herself promptly to use the facilities. I was not even a little tempted to turn on the enormous wall-dominating flat screen TV four-plex. More suitable for command post than for entertainment.
I poured myself a glass of water and sat in the comfy armchair to relax. Iced tea would have been better, but I didn't want to impose on our hosts.
They also needed some time to digest. Mr. Zhou was doubtless making some calls and sending some messages, letting his people - or People! - know what was up.
They too were inflicted by the torture of hope.
Betty came back out. She selected a beer from the minibar. Took one sip. Saw my face and put it down.
I spoke.
"Now I know who did my mental health evaluation, and why I passed it. How much did you have to lie?"
"You flunked it, Echo," she said calmly. As I were not capable of using my hands, or the grenade, or the Cube, or anything damn else. No filters, no restraints.
"But I wasn't evaluating your mental health. I was evaluating your results. You do that. You make results. You made a lifeboat of Site. You made a high school into a justice center. You made broken remnants of camps and people into a secure border. And in Iowa, you made scattered and scared refugees into a government.
"Now you get to make a world."
She leaned in close, fervently, with no hint of either affection or compassion.
"Don't fuck up."
"You remind me a lot of the Governor when you talk that way," I said mildly.
"Pat and I talked about you. More than once."
"You met Pat?"
"I was on the selection committee for her personal security detail."
"Hmmm. You picked a pronoun. Interesting."
"I'm old fashioned. Pat gave me shit for it too. I said 'it' is for carpets and Pat laughed and laughed. Then said I'd described a girlfriend."
I took a sip of water, wishing it were cola. Or maybe vodka.
"So. Not to revisit our first conversation or anything, but ... why didn't you reach out to me?"
She didn't have to say "Honestly" at the beginning of what she said next. We were both professional liars; she was the better actor.
"I didn't want you to lose your edge. I knew you were running Alviso and that it was a train wreck. I heard you were going to the SF Recovery Project, I figured you were going to join the counterintel group there - it's one place we stick a lot of American sympathizers. Shock treatment. Next thing I knew, you were on the Border. And I was ... operational. Figured I'd actually get killed soon enough."
"So how does a nice psychologist like you go into Ops? Pissed off your bosses?"
"I'd set up the Bear training program. Nasty piece of work. Then performance improvement for cadre. Internal security. I helped design the SDF. Picked the psych quals, designed their training programs and picked their CO and officers. A bunch of frightened little kids with submachine guns, too scared to do anything but what they're told to do."
Both SDF troopers stopped what they were doing to stare at Rize. She didn't seem to notice.
"I kept finding excuses to go forward. My work suffered. You're right about my bosses, they told me to go back to my cubicle or I would be a front line officer with a life expectancy of days. I ... might have set my cubicle on fire."
Bear Force. She really was perfect for them.
"Then of course, on Ops you don't notice anything but whether your blood is still on the inside."
Greatly daring, I asked, "So, who was your mental health support?"
"Some guy I was fucking."
Why was I not surprised? There had been some method to California's madness. But one of the architects of our present crazy had risen to full stark raving mad and disabled the alarm system that should have warned everyone.
Or the alarm had worked, and they had put her on the front line in the hopes she'd get killed.
Bear Force did that a lot.
I had no illusions about Dr. Rise. Profound respect, and affection, but no illusions.
She had no illusions about me, either. Knew me better than anyone else alive.
I jerked my thumb towards the two SDF people still shell-shocked staring at her.
"I think you owe them a great big apology."
"Probably. They're the best SDF has to offer. That's why they get the tough jobs, the coolest submachine guns, and a cookie if they're good. They can suck it up."
Amazingly enough, neither of them shot her. They did go back to their equivalent of resting while keeping the room secure.
"So, what are your plans after the War?" she said. As if calmly. But it wasn't.
"I don't have any. I seem to be scheduled to be vaporized in the next few days."
"If we live."
I shrugged.
"If we live, and I fucked it up, I'll join Bear Force and find some really juicy target. I trained a lot on taking apart American defense sites at the seams, after all."
The other other reason we'd been in Iowa.
"What if we live and we didn't fuck it up?"
"I think a lot of people are going to be very pissed at me. Not just in America. You know, Pat and I expect that we're going to lose at least two cities. That's millions of Californians. Some of the people who loved them are going to come looking for me. And some will be military. Makes retirement unlikely. Besides, how will I support myself?"
She blinked.
"I was thinking that you'd have trouble avoiding a political career. If you save us all from America, the problem will not be keeping you from being elected Governor, but being elected God."
"No. No more making life and death decisions for me. Done. Fucking done. If we pull this one off."
"How about San Francisco?"
"Hmmm?"
"The Recovery Project will still be there. All the experts will probably get yanked to the new craters. If not ours, America's. Leaves space for a psychologist and a skilled manager."
I feigned shock.
"Are you suggesting that we work at the same site so that we can co-habitate? Before marriage? I am shocked, simply shocked."
"Yes and no, you stubborn son of a bitch. I want a beach wedding. Small. Maybe fifty people. And not a single fucking gun in sight. For once."
Now I was actually, honestly shocked.
"Which of us wears a dress? One, both, or neither?"
She shrugged.
"We'll let the details figure themselves out. But I want cake. Lots of cake. Lots and lots of cake." She turned her head. "Look away, kids."
And helped herself once again to a piece of me.
