Crimson Son 2: Motherland: Crimson Son Universe, #2

Prologue

DUST TRICKLED FROM the mud and timber ceiling. The last incoming mortar had been close but maintained a predictable distance all the same. Sergei's two escorts eyed him warily. In their loose-fitting linens and mushroom-colored pakols, they couldn't be told apart from the Mujahideen raining fire from the mountain heights. Proper uniforms had never taken hold in this backwater. Sergei tried to ignore the two men as he continued to concentrate.

They are persistent today, said one of the escorts in Pashto. Sergei preferred it to their attempts at Russian. It pained him to hear his native tongue brutalized by allies of convenience.

His hastily assigned escort likely didn't know he spoke Pashto and thirty other languages. There was a lot his Afghan comrades didn't know about him or his mission. All they understood was he could lead them to the source of the broadcast where their sworn enemies defied the Peoples' might with calls to prayer and fiery rhetoric. Barring an exact location, he could silence the lies with a mere thought.

It will be over soon, replied the other, his back to the mud-brick wall and his eyes on the hazy dawn peering blearily through the open window.

Another mortar shell pummeled the city. Close enough to rattle the timbers, far enough away even stray shrapnel avoided the squat hilltop dwelling where they sheltered. Sergei had a suspicion the man was wrong.

The transceiver squawked to life, and a call of urgency and devotion drowned out the receding rumble of the impact. Sergei knew propaganda well. Hunting across the globe on a wireless safari for Mother Russia, he'd become an apex predator. But this simple, monotonous call defied him. No more controllable than the phases of the moon, this superstition connected an entire world of believers more powerfully than the brotherhood of work and toil.

Yet he'd learned religion was oppression. A masterpiece of propaganda in its own right. So Sergei would reach out into the undulating disturbance of particles and cut the chains, one link at a time. Settling in on a confiscated prayer rug, he began his own ritual.

Closing his eyes, he felt for the subtle vibrations like a plucked violin string or a piano chord struck and stretched. Naming the note named the frequency and from this came the nuances of direction, distance. The GRU had intelligence indicating this transmitter was manned by Soviet dissidents. How dissidents could still claim to be fighting for the People yet fallen under the sway of such a lie, Sergei didn't understand. They owed their loyalty to Mother Russia, not a false god.

The Afghan KHAD had demanded these broadcasts stop long ago. But the message driven by religious zeal had proved too powerful to silence. Local forces had been routed in the face of it. Nearly ten years of fighting and even the mighty Soviet war machine had ground to a halt. Confronted with a mobile enemy reinforced from outside their own borders and able to cross east and west to seek shelter within other sovereign nations of believers, Russian Hinds, cluster bombs, and unrivaled air support had failed to root out this singular infestation in the mountain valleys and in the people's hearts.

How could they not see their devotion was ultimately to man? Man, who created their prayers and their books? Why would they not simply accept the Soviet way and remove the shackles? Be welcome into Mother's arms?

Before Sergei's comrades thundered home in their tanks and APCs with a gaggle of fanatics in pursuit, he would have this one final victory. He would tear the needle of religion from their arm if only for one brief, shining moment. During the sudden shock of withdrawal, perhaps some would find the truth. Man makes religion, and it is man's decision to subjugate himself to it or not.

Another whistling scream and Sergei pinpointed where this latest mortar round would strike even as his escort cowered. It fell close enough to flare out the nascent sunlight. This time, shrapnel did rattle against the brick. He put the calls to prayer and war out of his mind and sought the signal.

There'd been a time when the hail of death scared the devil out of him. Anymore, he didn't feel he could work without it. He'd lost count of the engagements, the deployments. Always intended to be support, behind the lines, those lines had a habit of inching forward, and his quarry always wormed its way deeper and deeper.

Even if this time the lines had collapsed. If his normal Spetsnaz escort had been reassigned. Even though the incoming fire had begun as soon as he set foot in the makeshift observation post.

He couldn't dwell on the mistakes. That's indeed what these were—mistakes. Nothing else.

Static crackled over the transceiver and Sergei exalted in his power. With the familiar resonance filling his mind he strove to isolate the signal's wavelength. The cacophony would soon draw into a single, recognizable note. This time, those traitorous scum wouldn't be able to relocate fast enough.

Tracers streamed in the twilight. The heavy rumble of return fire from the Afghan security forces had finally begun, but slow and lethargic. Meanwhile, the assault from the valley walls maintained a relentless pace. Too concentrated for the normal hit and run tactics, none of the shells had come close since the last one wandered near the hilltop building. They should have dialed in by now. Reduced the place to rubble.

The air compressed and warmth spattered Sergei's cheeks. Shards of brick sprayed onto the prayer blanket, and a high caliber round tore through the back wall. Sergei's eyes popped open to see daylight pouring through a fist-sized hole in the chest of the man beside the window right before he crumpled.

Noor? The remaining escort slung his Kalashnikov over his shoulder and dropped to his knees.

Indirect artillery fire would never strike this position, Sergei realized. His last-minute escort on this mission, this secret mission, had been dispatched with an unerring accuracy.

The escort muttered a prayer under the continuing recitations from the transceiver. As the plea to his false god left his lips, the wall shattered, exploding inward. His head became a shower of fragments—mud, brick, hair, bone.

No, these were not mistakes. He'd been lured here. Betrayed.

Sergei stared into the white brilliance which had punched through the brittle shell of the building. He imagined he could see beyond and to the horizon where a man lay astride a rocky outcropping peering through a high-powered scope. Light glaring off the lens, the man beyond became the sun. All the power was in his hands.

Until now, Sergei had only believed himself to be free of another's orbit. Like the incessant call to prayer, he'd followed his own orders issued from an onion dome held aloft by the sickle and hammer. He'd come here for the people, the worker, to bring freedom from the false idols of churches and banks. He knew the propaganda well.

He closed his eyes once more and slid along the hum of that chord in his mind. He sought not to break the chain but explore the breadth of it. Worldwide, this precise plea issued from hundreds, thousands of speakers. A masterful composition on a scale which crossed borders and ignored nationality. Timeless work comparable to Tchaikovsky or even Shostakovich, patriots who often fought to keep their music, their talents, relevant under the state's restrictions. Restrictions which under the burning intensity of dawn seemed not so different from heeding a call to prayer carried onward to all corners of the world, connecting each and every believer through the gift of modern technology.

The door burst open. His first thought was that another rifle round had penetrated the wall and his mission was at an end. Blinded, Sergei whipped out his service pistol and leveled it. Shadows flickered against the featureless scene and men formed ranks flanking the doorway, their rifles raised. Outside, the artillery bombardment stuttered to a halt, and the crack of small arms fire filled the streets.

Unarmed and with a sweeping confidence, a man strode out of the smoke and violence. He wore a black tunic and a tightly wound turban. Eyebrows coal smudges, his graying cheeks became lost in the glare only to outline the ebony shock of beard prominent on his chin. He grew closer, and Sergei felt his gun slip.

Your people want you dead, but I believe you will come with us, said the man, his breath peppery and floral. He stared into the barrel of Sergei's pistol with indifference.

This place had always been at war. Conflicts spurred by other nations had pumped it full of arms. Men and their sons sold captured weapons and homemade rifles in stands on the roadside as commonly as Kvass vendors. Death meant little. And even then, they had their false beliefs to keep them company beyond the grave. He had no God, only his Motherland. Betrayed and disowned by his countrymen, who exactly would mourn his death?

He lowered his weapon. Beside him, the transceiver sang triumphant.

Allāhu akbar!

Lā ilāha illā-Allāh!

Good. You perhaps weren't a complete waste of money. The man knelt and placed his hand on Sergei's pistol removing it easily from his grip, his impassive eyes never once looking away. Threat contained, he signaled to his men, and they too touched their knees to the dirt.

With a firm hand, the man urged Sergei to face the far wall where twin holes peered out into the back alley, their perimeter spattered with droplets of blood. Around him, the prayers began.

Chapter 1

NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY disorder is diagnosed between two percent and sixteen percent of the population in clinical settings. Most narcissists are men and the diagnosis is often co-morbid with other disorders..."

Fuck, I'm hearing it again. That wa-wa sound replacing the professor's voice. I widen my eyes and try to stay awake. A quiet life of books and papers was exactly what I wanted. Some time for research and maybe a breakthrough on the age-old mind-body problem.

Emily has spies in the library, though. She's making sure I'm not obsessing. Almost two years ago, I made a promise I haven't even come close to fulfilling.

Probably need to cool it for a while. Ever since her narc caught me sleeping in the stacks, she's been extra vigilant. Never thought of Eau de Book as an insomnia cure. Fine. Aren't the Giants playing tonight? I've got a paper due in Intro to Philosophy, but I can manage a few thousand words of bullshit while I watch the guys pick blades of Astroturf in the outfield. Probably be another no-hitter.

Buzz-buzz...disorder...buzz-buzz...

Wait. That's my phone.

When Professor Ingram turns to scrawl whatever hieroglyphics he's putting on the white board, I sneak my phone from my bag. It vibrates again. Incoming text.

One good thing about these auditorium seats is the solid sheet of metal wrapping in front of the rows. Ingram hates cell phones. Pretty sure he still uses a rotary in his office. The screen shows an incoming text from a user named 3n1g|\/|4. Eric.

What up jint!

I haven't heard from him since Killcreek. I'm not sure what else to call it in my head. I'd use the Happening, but that's already been taken, and the little twist it put in my life was decidedly more interesting than apocalyptic shrubbery.

Class. Learning about Dad, I reply.

History?

Psych.

Yeah? How's the major?

You'd better be referring to leagues.

No hitter! The Doc is definitely an Augment.

Okay, so the pitcher this season is a beast. Some seven-foot guy named Hu out of a province in China. The nicknames had been relentless and The Doctor finally stuck. He'd been leading the Giants to one scoreless game after another, but he wasn't an augment. Or was he? When Eric of all people said stuff like that, you had to listen.

Augment, really?

Naw, I'm shittin' ya.

The guy in the seat directly to my right raises his hand and asks a question. A whole auditorium and this dude can't leave a buffer seat. I look up from the phone and stroke my chin to indicate I'm in on whatever profound statement he's made.

Funny you should use that terminology, Peter, says Professor Ingram. A personality disorder is a mental disorder, but there are loads of questions regarding whether that should be the case. He says loads and stretches out the vowels like he's been watching too much BBC. What do you think Mr. Alexander?

The professor's wiry eyebrows knit behind the wire-rimmed specs. I've been made. Ingram's homed in on me, and I have this No-Personal-Space Peter guy to thank for it.

I think if you're messed up, I'm not sure debating the terminology matters, I say.

I'd prefer we didn't use the term 'messed up' to refer to those with psychological disorders.

The phone vibrates in my palm. I press the damn thing into my thigh to try and muffle the sound. I'm sure it isn't near as loud as I think it is, but the prof has that look in his eye that usually proceeds his favorite activity, above even the whole teaching thing. I heard he grabbed a freshman's phone mid-text and spiked it, game-winning touchdown style. I'd rather not have that happen to my Qualfor Unity 5 Delta. Not only would I lose the recording of this lecture I haven't been listening to but I'd have to reload six months’ worth of apps and hacks.

He goes back to talking about the mentally disordered in the most mind-numbing way possible. More vibrations against my leg. I check the screen.

Hey, something's up—Man, it's important—You there?

I want to say, no. Of course, Eric has probably already dismantled any security on my phone, dialed in on my exact GPS coordinates, and has control of the camera, the screen...

Spence?

...and the speaker. My crotch is talking mid-lecture. Nice.

Only Peter seems to have heard. The rest of the class is verging on comatose, and Ingram just hit his stride with a rousing discussion on anger management issues associated with some other disorder. My guess is he won't be mentioning his phone spiking credentials.

In class. STFU, I type. I subtly flip-off the camera for good measure.

Dude, this is important.

More important than school? I know that statement will translate into sarcasm over the monotone rantings of the net, but I'm serious.

Way more.

Augment stuff?

Yep.

I told you, I'm out. Me normal. Me live normal life.

It's about your mom.

I'm dumbstruck by the words. Or thumbstruck. Mom? How could there be anything to do with her? I'd left her on a beach in some psychic freak show's idea of a family playground. And I do mean freak show no matter how insensitive Professor Ingram might find the term.

A hand snatches the phone.

Ingram has managed a sneak attack despite those god-awful, swishing, corduroy pants. I see a glint of triumph in his eyes. He twists the phone under the pale flood lights as though he's inspecting a precious gemstone.

You know, Mister Alexander, he purrs as he walks away, I don't allow phones during class. Texting. Twerking. Vineing. Faceing. Whatever it is you do. I find it highly disrespectful.

Slow breaths. Must restrain myself from a twerking demonstration. Eric had mentioned Mom. He wouldn't be joking about her. Maybe I should've been listening to the anger management stuff though because I can feel veins throbbing in my temple.

I'm sorry, I say, though the sincerity is missing. It was an emergency call. If you'll just give it back, I can take it outside.

An emergency? Hmmm, says Ingram. He reaches the podium and props an elbow on the lectern. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he begins thumbing across the screen. Ahh yes, the Giants. Major emergency. He smiles at what he thinks is a joke.

This is about the point where I wish I'd been given superpowers. Augmented, like my Dad. I don't think anyone would grab his phone. An undersized college freshman who constantly gets asked if he graduated high school early? Sure. But not a six-and-a-half-foot tangle of muscle who looks more CGI than real and who can take a tank shell to the chest and live to throw the offending weapon into orbit. No. He keeps his phone.

Augment stuff, says Professor Ingram, reading from the phone.

Look, Prof, I'm sorry.

He raises his arm.

I'm out of my seat before I even know it. Don't you dare...

It's cool, I backed you up, comes Eric's voice. Phone's toast soon anyway.

Ingram looks startled. He recovers quickly, and a smug expression spreads to all corners before he starts speaking into the wrong end of the phone. Well, hello and who may I ask is this?

Sorry but that's classified, says Eric. I need you to hand the phone back to Spence.

Classified? Really now? Are baseball matches top secret, hmm?

Silence. Ingram thinks he's gotten one over me, but the dead air only tells me that Eric is busy typing and scanning whatever monitor he's glued to at this particular moment.

Professor Reginald Ingram, right? Eric says.

It's started.

The Prof purses his lips and gives me a nod as if he's ready for what's coming. Ready to show up the impudent freshman and his buddy on the talkie box. I almost feel sorry for him.

Yes, my reputation proceeds me.

More silence.

Oh boy, says Eric. You give that lecture on sexual deviancy yet?

There's the first sign of confusion from the once game professor. Are you a student? Because if you are—

Nooooooo! Noooooo! Eric's shock warbles over the tinny speaker. Woah, Spence, you might want to warn the others in the class. Too late to drop?

Professor, really, just give me the phone back, I say.

He narrows his eyes, the scraggly brows sinking behind his glasses. I demand to know who this is.

"Man, no way I'm telling you. Not after seeing your porn downloads. Holy shit! I mean actual Scheizers, prof, you are one sick dude."

Ingram goes pale. I don't...never...

Eric, stop, I say.

A few giggles spread across the room but mostly there's a stunned silence. Eyes flick back and forth like a hungry lizard's between me and the spectacle. This isn't how this was supposed to be. I walked away from the crazy in my life so I could be who I am—normal—and forget my Dad was an indestructible, weaponized human. Forget I spent the better part of my high school years in an arctic bunker hiding from a psychopathic supervillain. I'd made a new identity and created accounts all the way from banks to a brand new Steam profile. We'd even hacked the social security office to issue a worry-free card complete with a non-grave robbed number. Spencer Alexander, not Spencer Harrington, had enrolled for the spring semester at GWU. Spencer Alexander had a job in the microbiology lab. A future.

But Eric had mentioned Mom. I'd sworn to never forget about her.

The professor raises the phone high, his arm trembling.

I'm sending someone to get you. Eric rushes his explanation, auctioneer style. Like I said the phone's already—

Crashing into the tiled floor. Dammit. I'd seriously considered a military grade phone case given my previous life experiences.

Light wraps the room like colored cellophane. It crawls through different shades of green and gold in wispy streamers until it ribbons into a form. She? He? is standing at the front of the auditorium next to the remains of the phone. Ingram staggers into the podium and falls straight on his ass but continues to stare.

The newcomer is the light. Translucent wisps smoke from the body and trail the head as they scan the room.

Spencer? the form asks.

Peter cringes and points at me.

Thanks, Petey.

I need you to accompany me, says the glowy person.

I know a lot of Augments, but I don't know this one. I used to track them back in the day after I found out my dad was one. In the lead-up to the insanity of my event last year, Eric and I went through his files on every known Augment. They'd all been rounded up by the Black Beetle, who, turns out, might've been doing the world a favor. Had he not been the one that kidnapped my mom, maybe history would have been written differently.

I don't want to relive those events. I can't. But what could it be about Mom? I'd already tried to save her and failed. She was nothing but a psychic afterimage. Over a year in school and my promise to find a way to release her had hit a major roadblock. A lifetime, two lifetimes, of study might not be enough.

Do I have a choice? I ask the Augment.

They wait before answering, their voice a strange mix of reverb and the distant sounds you hear at the bottom of a pool. I was not told to give you one.

This is it. Not even two years of normal. Whatever this even is, Dad's behind it. His bullshit is always more important than my life.

I climb over Peter who is frozen in his seat. Everywhere else, the once-banned smartphones come out. People stare into the screens toward the front of the room as though what they might see will be different, more real than what's actually there. Soon they're all tapping and mashing power buttons with confused looks.

At least I wasn't the only one short a phone. Eric better have backed up every byte.

Chapter 2

ONE MINUTE I'M IN CLASS watching Eric derail a professor's carefully laid tenure track and the next, I'm under towering trees which shoot high into a cloudless sky. Something seems familiar about this place, and I want to get a good look but the world is spinning on the wrong axis. All I can do is close my eyes and search for my balance. Not my first choice with the mystery Augment standing so close.

Eyes closed, the other senses take over. Pine. A clean scent, I totally get why people try to soak it into paper trees and hang them from their rearview. Much like checking that road I've left behind, I'm hit by a rampaging semi-truck full of memories, or more like a rampaging robot.

I flew above these very trees on the back of a robotic mantis killing machine I'd named Cuddles. Where exactly we'd launched from had been this blank spot in my memory which is filling in, fast. A top-secret Augment holding facility disguised as a retirement home. A toothless grin in a windswept face. A cranky veteran and his cyborg ward.

I open my eyes slowly and the world ripples to a standstill. The Augment regards me with a blank visage that's nothing more than a sheen of green light.

What are you? I ask.

He? She? Doesn't answer my question, they just start walking through the trees.

Ahead, two metal crosses are planted in the ground. Bent from the thin, chrome tubes of an IV tree, the green light from the passing Augment warps along their pitted surface.

More memories. These sting.

I drop to one knee beside the graves. A carpet of needles covers what was once freshly turned earth. I scoop a handful and run them across my fingertips. Brown and dried, the needles no longer have that cleansing scent.

Martin Alexander is buried to my right. A guy I'd assumed was a world class douchebag until I let myself get to know him. Of all the so-called heroes I've met, he was the biggest. Buried next to him is Hurricane, a senior citizen with more heart than he ever had power. As one of the originals from Augment Force Zero, his inhuman speed was off the charts. Somehow though, unlike so many of the others, he never stopped caring.

You knew these men?

I'm never going to get used to the sound. The Augment's words come from everywhere. It reminds me of more things I'd rather forget.

Not long enough, I reply.

I see. This way when you are ready.

The Augment lingers. I watch their distorted reflection on the makeshift crosses as they turn and walk away. I let them disappear into the woods.

Martin, I say quietly to the grave on my right, I hope you don't mind, but I took your name. Well, my latest and now useless cover ID took your name. After that scene of getting dragged out of class, Spencer Alexander is gone. A couple years was too much to ask. Anger burns in my chest and I fight it down. Martin never seemed to get angry. He always kept his cool, even after he'd been stuffed in a padded cell at a compromised top-secret lab. Even when he threw himself in front of Dad to protect Emily. Tears sting my eyes. I'm thinking Spencer Martin next time, huh? A guy with two last names can spare both, right?

I want to mention Emily out loud but can't. That's too painful, too raw. Martin died for her. Another fact I need to face is that I may not see her again. I should be showing up to work in the lab right about now. She got me a job to keep me out of trouble and help forget all this insanity.

Those tears threaten to fall. I've got to look at the other grave for some levity, as messed up as that sounds.

'Cane, you one-legged son of a bitch. Crying isn't optional now. I think I'm closing in on a buck fifty. Turns out I can put on a few pounds outside a steady diet of cardboard rations.

I'm not sure what else to say.

Thank you. Both.

I stand, scrub my eyes and release a deep breath. No sense meeting the old man with a tear-stained face. I need to confront whatever the hell he's dragged me into.

That's right. The parking lot is only a short walk from here. More details penetrate the haze as I get closer. The Whispering Pines Retirement Community, once home to the most dangerous senior citizens on the planet, had been a waypoint for those Augments who voluntarily decommissioned. Those that didn't go so gracefully? Eric and I had figured out the Black Beetle had been rounding them up. None were aware of their ultimate fate.

Beetle'd been providing his services to the government for over a decade. But his employers were more interested in finding ways to control their toys than peacefully retiring them from service.

The roundup and Beetle's evil super villain shtick was all a cover for yet another unofficial government program. Unofficial because at least in the days since, nobody has completely fessed up to what went down. A covert base codenamed Killcreek in nowhere, Montana, got obliterated and a whole army of Augments once thought dead or decommissioned were set loose on the world once more.

I may have had more than a little to do with that.

About the insanity of a near-apocalypse at Killcreek, I've always been able to recall every detail. Martin's death. Hurricane. My encounters with a brain-invading Augment called Charlotte. What I can't seem to figure out is why this place is causing me to wander through a fog of memory.

Shouldering through the trees, I see the squat brick structure ahead hasn't changed. Whispering Pines looks like any other institutional building constructed circa 1960. Aesthetics thrown away for riot-proof walls with high, narrow windows, one completely unique feature dominates everything else. A massive, round platform studded with glass chambers occupies the roof, almost as though a UFO has crash landed there. Had the retirement home not actually been a reinforced prison, the weight alone would have crushed the building. The metal is weathered, the glass foggy. My recovering memory says something is missing, but what?

Torn from the cavern below Killcreek, this platform had once been a prison for captured Augments. It had ended up back here after the shit hit the fan at Killcreek. What seemed like the whole of the U.S. armed forces responded to the breach. Dad, the Crimson Mask, most powerful Augment to ever walk the face of the Earth, had flown them all to safety, riding atop their once prison. Not even I knew he was that damn strong.

Someone has adjusted the position since Dad dropped it there, sitting at an angle. An antennae array protrudes from the middle. Cycling through more emerging memories, an image of the operating table which used to be there materializes. No table now. Last I'd seen, something else had been there.

No. Not quite right. Someone had been there.

That's why my memory is so patchy.

She had stood in the center, jacked into the main control interface through a web of hoses attached to her head. The metal structure had gone from being a handy getaway vehicle to an array which amped her abilities. Charlotte, the psychic government experiment meant to control all those captured Augments, the one who invaded my dreams, tortured my Mom, had used her mindfuck powers to cloak both the retreating Augments and Whispering Pines. Inexplicably, she'd hidden it from sight, sound, memory.

Eric thought the cloak was a gift. She was only protecting her family, right? Only he wasn't the one who'd been pulled into Charlotte's psychic snow globe. Or had to leave the ghost of his mother there, trapped.

Now Charlotte's seat is empty. A standard satellite dish fills the void. What the hell is going on?

Spence! Eric trots out of the building.

He's still got that ungainly stride, a bit of a waddle, but he's lost serious weight and isn't nearly as translucent as the last time I'd seen him. He'd gone full-on basement troll and spent months trying to track us down after I was dragged off to the Icehole. I never forgot his devotion. What I'm questioning today though, is his judgment.

What's going on? he says. I accept his hand. The grip is strong, and I let him pull close for a hug. When I don't return the bro slap, he steps away. No love?

Where the fuck is she?