[SG] A View Of Genocide: The Ballad of Richard Less #4 (1/2)

[Whistling in the Dark]

October 20, 2007
The Combat Zone
Boston, Massachusetts


     I was midway through a joint. It was laced with who knew what kind of
shit, so it made my skin feel all tingly and my brains all poppy. The sad
part was I grew and rolled my own at this point, so clearly I was the one
who'd laced it but fuck if I could tell you with what. Sometimes, when
you're drying and separating and prepping while you're already baked out of
your gourd, things seem like good ideas even though they're not.
     The dead kid was looking out one of the windows. "She should have been
back already."
     "She's tougher than you are," I said. "Don't get your underwear all
knotted, little sister."
     "It doesn't matter how tough she is. A pack of Confed could still take
her down if they got lucky." He looked back. "I should have been the one to
go."
     "What, because you can't be beaten by Confed?"
     "I grew up on streets like these. I know the rules."
     "No one knows the fucking rules, kid. The people who make the rules
don't know the fucking rules."
     He chuckled. "I know them better than she does."
     "Now there we have agreement."
     He looked at me. "She doesn't like you."
     "Believe it or not, I managed to glean that hidden secret."
     "Most of the team isn't your fan, Hawaiian. But Cairi--"
     "She wasn't there. She wasn't part of the initial pact. All she has is
the war, and who the fuck am I going to blame for hating me after the war.
Did you read Nouveau Skunk's book?"
     "I'm not the biggest Nouveau Skunk fan."
     "No? Oh, right. He defended your sister-in-law after she ganked that
mage. Did you ever make peace with her?"
     "Oh yeah. No choice really. And Hell -- I forgave you, didn't I?"
     "God help us all. So you ever nail both sisters at once?"
     "I *wish.*"
     "You and the rest of America, man. You and the rest of America."
     "So... why are you making this so hard?"
     "What do you mean?"
     "You're making us work out everything. You're just nudging us."
     "That's right."
     "So why?"
     I shrugged. "I knew Mark Felt, you know. Not well, but our paths
crossed."
     "Who?"
     "Mark Felt." I paused. "Deep Throat."
     The kid looked blank.
     "Watergate? Woodward and fucking Bernstein? The man who brought down a
presidency? Deep fucking Throat?"
     He shrugged. "I was born quite a few years after Nixon was out of
office."
     I should my head and swore. "You know, there was a rumor he was my
father."
     "Was he?"
     "Nah. S'all just a layer of disinformation. Anyway. Mark Felt never
gave anything up to fucking Woodward. He just confirmed what Woodward
already knew and gave them gay little injunctions to follow the money. That
gave him some cover, 'cause he's not the one who broke things, and it gave
him some control over the flow of information out to the press. It was good
tradecraft. Grade one ratfinking." I took another hit. "You ever see Spandy
in her underwear?"
     "So what is it you're providing for *us?*" he asked.
     I shrugged. "Confirmation and a roadmap. What you do with it's up to
you."
     "And what do you get out of it in return?"
     "Besides a chance to piss off Joan of Hork?"
     "Yup."
     I grinned. "I have my little projects, and it's always nice to get some
forward motion on them."
     "So you're using us?"
     "Oh yeah."
     He nodded again. "Yes," he said, then.
     "Hm?"
     "Yes, I've seen Dianna in her underwear. When she's on-planet she
crashes on our couch. And while I've never and won't ever have the
opportunity with Dianna, Danielle, with a touch of makeup, some work on her
hair and the picture perfect 'Spandex Babe' Halloween costume she had made
up can look just like her when she wants to."
     I stared at the kid for a long moment. "I hate you so much."
     "She's also got a pretty good Healer outfit, and you should see the
stuff she started wearing after our first big fight with the Trudis."
     "Seriously. I despise you. You better hope the chick shows up soon or
I'm going to shoot you on general principle."




                         The League Presents

                          A View of Genocide

                      The Ballad of Richard Less
                                  by
                           Eric Burns-White
                      Struggling Against History

                              Part Four




October 9, 1997
Shoshoni Center
Shoshoni, Wyoming


     "At this stage, it's all about attrition and resource management," Less
said. "That's true for us, that's true for the Awe Inspiring Force, and
that's true for the Allies."
     "Thus the drive for the Middle East?" Seraphim's voice echoed with
power.
     "The Middle East, strategic chunks of Russia -- anyplace where there's
ready oil that can be sucked out of the ground and turned into go juice for
tanks or planes. Not to mention alternatives. The more corn we can turn into
ethanol right here at home--"
     "The more food we turn into gasoline, the less there'll be to eat,"
Egoiste murmured.
     "Thank you *so* much, mon Capitaine Évident." Less closed his file
folder. "At this point, the population in our American areas of control are
raw materials for Psybernet. Nothing more, nothing less."
     "We should consider pulling out of America entirely," Egoiste said.
"Consolidate in Russia for the push. That's where most of our forces are as
it is--"
     "If we drop out of the Americas, we drop out of contention, period,"
Less said. "We give the Allies too much unadulterated control here. At that
point, our one hope is that the Allies and the Lady kill each other off and
let us pick up the pieces, and to be blunt that's what the Allies did to the
Lady and us. They're not going to oblige us."
     The Shoshoni Center was the first the Unimaginable League Amoral
constructed. It predated the War. Hell, it predated Less's recruitment.
Built less to be elegant and more to be hidden and -- more to the point --
highly defensible, most of the Shoshoni Center extended deep into the earth,
the arid land well suited to deep tunneling and reinforcement. There were
armament stores here, deep level facilities for troops and ships -- even
whole levels Less had never been cleared to access.
     For the thirty-two days since the evacuation of American Authority from
Washington D.C., the Shoshoni Center had been the center of domestic
government in the United States. With the collapse of Mexican Authority, it
had also assumed direct control of those parts of Mexico that the ULA still
controlled. It was the nerve center of the domestic war, and one of the two
major command centers for the ULA as a whole. The other was Magadan Center
on the Gulf of Tauisk in the Russian Far East, where the ongoing war against
the Awe Inspiring Force was still being driven.
     The primary goal of the ULA forces, as a whole, was the defeat of the
Awe Inspiring Force, the capture of the Middle East and Africa, and a drive
into Europe. Richard Less's job was to maintain the ULA's North American
holdings long enough for the ULA to win on the other side of the planet. At
that point, the Asian and European forces could be used to reinforce the
American forces, and even the Allies would be forced to surrender.
     It was not the easiest task Richard Less had ever been given. "So
what's the current thinking in the main front?" he asked.
     Seraphim traced his armored finger over the map. "The Caspian Sea
region," he said. "If we can solidify our hold on Turkmenistan, spread from
there down into Iran, and drive a second front down from Kazakhstan back
through consted Russia into Georgia, we can close the pincers in Syria and
Iraq, claim the Black and Mediterranean Seas, regroup, and lock in the
Middle East."
     "What about China and the Pacific Rim?" Egoiste demanded, drumming his
finger on the interactive map. "The Allies are driving up through Thailand
and Laos. If our flank gets exposed--"
     "That's why we still have Radian deployed through there," Less said,
smoothly. "She's single handedly broken resistance in Mandalay up to
Manipur, and the repeater grid's being moved down more quickly than I'd have
believed. The Allies can't break through Burma without slaughtering
essentially innocent populations. They're not willing to do that."
     "Yet," Egoiste said. "And they're getting less squeamish by the day.
You've seen the reports out of Clarksville and Bowling Green."
     "That's a whole different ball game," Less said. "And it's not like we
have Radian on the Eastern American Front."
     "Perhaps we should," Seraphim said. "Those bastards in Springfield--"
     "I'm not going over this again," Less said. "The moment Radian gets
identified anywhere near Allied territory in America, the Allies will have
Healer and whatever other telepaths and mystics they can get on a parabolic
suborbital into the area. We lose her, we lose rapid Pacific expansion. We
lose that, we lose India, Pakistan--"
     "We lose," Egoiste said. "The question now becomes one of practicality.
Perhaps we should sue for peace on this continent. Divide their--"
     "Not gonna happen," Less said. "You know that. They won't rest until
they've retaken our territory."
     "Then they'll die," Seraphim said, his voice intoning with the echo of
a dark chorus indeed. "All of them, if need be."
     "Maybe," Less said. "But let's go with 'hold the line' for now." He
stood up. "I think we're done here for now."
     "When does Unorthodox arrive?" Egoiste said, standing as well.
     "Less than an hour," Less said. "We heard from the convoy when they
stopped for coffee out in Columbus, Montana. Shouldn't be too long now."
     "That fast?" Egoiste said, surprised. "I thought -- wait, I thought he
was coming in through Galveston."
     "Nah. Between the Eastern American Front and the Texan Insurgency,
there'd be too much chance of *accidental* interception, much less the
people really out to catch the bastard. They did a northern passage hop
instead, put in at Fairbanks for the transfer, put him on a supply run from
Anchorage to Seattle and drove him over from there."
     Egoiste frowned. "I should have liked to have been informed about
changes like this."
     "You know, the eyeball once told me that micromanaging the details was
a loser's game," Less said. He patted Egoiste on the shoulder. "Don't burn
yourself out, big guy."
     Egoiste looked at Less, and walked out of the room. Even at the height
of American Authority's dominance of the nation, Less wouldn't have been
that familiar with Egoiste. But now?
     Now, things were different. With the Primaries, and with Less himself.
     He looked back at the map. It was centered on the United States right
now. There was a swath in purple, indicating 'friendly' territory. Territory
controlled by the ULA, and reinforced by Psybernet's repeaters. A blob that
started in Washington State and ended with most of Alabama, more or less
diagonally. All of Washington and Idaho. Most of Oregon and Montana. Wyoming
and Utah and about half of Nevada. Most of South Dakota, all of Nebraska,
bits of Iowa, all of Kansas, Oklaholma and Texas... Louisiana was purple,
and so was Mississippi, and a chunk of Mexico extending down almost to San
Luis....
     And along the edges, extending into the purple territories on one side
and out into the Allied territory on the other were blood red splotches. The
hot spots. The fronts, where Allied forces were fighting ULA forces. The
bloody Eastern American Front started up close to Sioux City and extended
down, encompassing a battlefront that sometimes extended all the way to
Tallahassee, Florida. Atlanta had been drawn into the fight more than once,
and some territory as far east as Chattanooga or Bowling Green was
contested. On the ULA's side of the battlefield, the bloodstain extended in
to hit Kansas City, Kansas, Birmingham Alabama, and what was probably the
warfare capital of the United States, Springfield Missouri. Team M.E.C.H.A.
had been implacable partisans during the hundred and fifty days of
uncontested American Authority. They were now savagely pressing the attack
with Allied support across the board. The Mexican front was a big blob of
blood down South, extending from San Luis, Durango and Zacatecas up as far
north as Monterey. The Allies had resupplied and rearmed the newly liberated
Mexican Army, and they were pretty damn pissed off. Above that, the
so-called Texas Insurgency had become a bloodstain in the middle of ULA
territory, with the fighting starting to the Northwest as far away as
Roswell, New Mexico and extending southeast through Lubbock, Waco, Austin,
down to San Antonio. In between the Mexican Front and the Insurgency, Laredo
had, in the past forty-eight hours, been declared officially insurgent -- a
blood drop between the stains, which threatened, if the Allies could get the
Texas irregulars and the Mexican Army to work together, to turn into a
single front stabbing up into ULA territory. Pull that off, and they could
drive a wedge Northeast through Oklahoma and Arkansas, joining up with the
Eastern American Front, uniting, and cutting off the Repeater lines. That
would wipe out the entire Southeastern zone of American Authority's
territory and completely eliminate their access to the Atlantic Ocean.
     What bothered Less most was that wasn't the bad part. The ULA could
lose all that territory and still reclaim the Americas in the long game. The
problem was the Western American Front. That bloodstain was larger and
thicker, encompassing all of Oregon from Portland down, and extending like a
bloody finger down into the Desert and the Rockies. That Front was a major
battlefield, with a lot of the Allied forces and heroic support going into
winning territory. Half of Nevada was bloody thanks to this, and it extended
as far east as Flagstaff, Arizona. There had been some moves by the Texas
Insurgency to push West and connect to the Western American Front, but
they'd gotten enough on board with the big picture to concentrate towards
the East instead.
     That was good. The Western American Front scared Less. If they pushed
up successfully, retaking Western Washington and opening up Allied control
north to Canada, then they'd lose their supply line to Alaska. Psybernet's
repeater web could be cut off at the same time, since water was problematic
for it -- depending on which side of the divide she was on, that would
either mean the Russian repeaters would collapse and they'd lose the war
right then and there, or else the repeaters on American soil would go
silent, and Richard Less would find himself in the middle of a bunch of
pissed off ex-mind controlled soldiers. With guns.
     And honestly, the latter was more likely. The chance that Psybernet was
on American soil was miniscule, given everything.
     "Did Colorado Springs go red when I wasn't looking?"
     Less looked over his shoulder. Adrien Wollstonecraft was standing
there. He'd lost a good twenty pounds in the past thirty-two days, and he
looked older. More wrinkled. He hadn't coped with Oracle's insanity very
well, and the setbacks American Authority had suffered had almost offended
the financier directly. It wasn't supposed to be like this, after all. His
Goddess had promised him.
     Which was yet another reason Richard Less didn't believe in God. "It's
been red all along," Less said. "NORAD went quiet and deep during the
occupation. We'd surrounded it with ordinance and were going to take our
time tunneling them out, when the counterattack hit. Since then, they've
started to spread out. You wouldn't believe the shit they had buried under
that mountain.
     "Why didn't you know about it?"
     "Wrong department," Less said, lighting a cigarette. "The Defense
Intelligence Agency did everything they could to cock-block
Mega-Intelligence Bureau incursions onto their turf, and between the Air
Force boys and the Canadians..." Less shrugged. "Not my department, any way
you looked at it."
     "I thought you knew everything."
     "People keep saying that." Less took another puff. "How's she doing?"
     "Incoherent. She keeps finding her footing, only to have it collapse. I
wish... I wish I knew what was causing this."
     "How much do you wish it?"
     Wollstonecraft stared at Less. "You... know something?"
     "We have a theory." Less shook his head. "You know what fucked us up?
Nomenclature."
     "What... what do you mean?"
     "The ULA was so damn careful with us," Less said, walking over to the
far end of the room. The percolator was over there. They'd sniffed at
putting a coffee pot in Strategic Operations Command, but Less had insisted.
And, since Less's strategies had been some of their more reliable ones....
"They didn't want to scare us off, or make it seem too foo-foo or out there
when Oracle predicted shit. So they scienced it up. She was a
*precognative.* She had *predictions.* She *projected* courses of action. No
talk of soothsaying or magic or visions. It was all very scientific."
     "So?"
     "*So.* They never used the term that would have set off red flags back
in God Damn *November.* They never called her a *prophet.*"
     "What difference would that have made?"
     "You remember a happy little dustup between the longjohn parade back in
'94? The 'Industrial Revolution?'"
     "After Radian, you mean," Wollstonecraft said. "The first Radian, that
is."
     "The very same. Psychos and misfits with guns decided to kill off
psychos and misfits with spells. There was a big to-do. Shit blowing up
outside of Bob City. Potentiate beating a man to death."
     "I remember. It was blamed on someone named Dave Ross."
     "Yeah, that was us. We wanted to sweep it under the rug before it
caused broader civil unrest. People weren't ready for that." Less drank some
of the coffee. It was overboiled and bitter. He could cope with that. He
never gave a damn how the coffee tasted so long as there was a lot of it.
"The thing is, there were a ton of prophecies surrounding the Industrial
Revolution. Real prophecies, run by seers and mystics. And in all of them,
the anti-Magic folks won."
     "But... that's not how it happened," Wollstonecraft said. "It more or
less fizzled out after the battle ground to a halt and everyone got
arrested."
     "More or less." Less took a seat at the table. "The Prophecies were
wrong."
     "Then they weren't real Prophecies."
     "Sure they were. Trust me. We investigated them pretty thoroughly.
Hell, I ran a few ops to *discredit* some of those prophecies specifically
because we were sure they *would* come true." Less took a long drag off his
cigarette. "The thing is, someone disrupted the future. Someone *changed*
the future. The Prophecies were right, but the mages cheated."
     Wollstonecraft started at Less, mouth agape. He swallowed then. "Why...
didn't you.... why didn't you tell me--"
     "'Cause I don't know everything. I come close, but I don't know it all.
And hearing everything from 'prediction' to 'prognostication' to
'precognition' didn't quite connect in my brain to *prophecy.* If we'd had
definite information of how the mages broke the chain of the future at the
time, I might have remembered it better, but without that, it was all just
word buzz." Less finished the coffee and set the mug down on the table.
"Somehow, the heroes knew we had Oracle backing us. And the heroes had the
secret -- the X factor they used to break the Industrial Revolution
prophecies. And whatever -- or whoever -- it was, they grabbed it and buried
it in that base of theirs, letting it cut their plans off from Oracle's
entrail-reading.
     "From people we've captured and interrogated, we now know a major part
of their operations. See, Dreamweaver -- you remember Dreamweaver? The one I
recommended killing before we even started this shebang? Anyway, Dreamweaver
would hook up their topside operatives in dreams. They'd make plans, give
intelligence reports, do whatever was necessary, and then Dreamweaver and
her subjects would make them forget the dreams when they woke up. They had a
trigger that would help them remember later on, mind, but for the most part,
they'd have no memory of anything, and they'd just go about doing what they
were doing before."
     "Why... did they need to do that? Security?"
     "Nope. That way, their actions wouldn't change from Oracle's
predictions. That way, her predictions kept coming true, because they kept
their prediction severing powers under wraps. *That's* how we got caught so
flat footed by the counter-attack. When the go signal went, the active
forces burst out of the ground and reentered the game already in progress,
and the buried forces had their triggers go ping, remembered they were part
of an alliance, and went to work. From zero to international power in one
morning." Less shook his head. "God damn Andy Awesome and his God damn--"
     "The *element,*" Wollstonecraft hissed. "Do you know what it is?! Can
we capture it? Can we *stop* it?"
     "We're still gathering information," Less said, taking a languid puff
off his cigarette. "As soon as we can take it out of the picture, we will."
     Wollstonecraft stared at Less. "You had better," he said softly.
     "Yeah, I'm scared of you, Adrien. You can tell, right?" Less looked at
the cigarette in his hand. "I think we're done here for right now, don't
you?"
     "Damn it, Less--"
     Less glanced up, his eyes meeting Wollstonecraft's. "I think we're done
here," he repeated, softly.
     Wollstonecraft swore and left.
     Less watched him go. He slowly sat down behind the table, and put his
feet up. He lifted the remote for the big board, and hit a couple of
buttons. The tactical map was replaced by the picture of an overweight man,
thirtyish, with a mop of unruly black hair and a bad taste in clothing. He
was tagged as a mage, perceptual shift type. Next to the picture was a
series of vital statistics and known information. He had been shot several
times, mostly in the stomach. He had tangential associations with Less's old
friend Ramrod, with Ignorantman, with the Adjusted League Unimpeachable, and
with Team M.E.C.H.A. Andy Awesome had once given him a sinecure job at
Awesome Amalgamated, and he had rumored ties to the original Radian.
     All this, and yet the man was rated Epsilon by the Mega-Intelligence
Bureau when there had been such a thing as the Mega-Intelligence Bureau. His
command of magic was paltry. If anything, his abilities had *declined* since
he first appeared in Ithaca, New York, thanks in part to his many life
threatening injuries taking a good amount of his health away from him.
Having left Awesome Amalgamated, he was mostly noted for teaching at
Healer's little school for superheroes -- and for not being a very popular
teacher at that. Otherwise, the man had a cat and a talking magical
automobile. He was a nobody, and if anything he'd become even less.
     Except something kept him close to the center of power, even if he had
little or no influence there. But that made sense. He wasn't an ally. He was
a resource.
     And Less knew a thing or two about co-opting resources.
     "It's a lovely plan," a ruined voice rasped. "Kidnap Scholarman. Put
him on ice somewhere far away. Let his little chaos factor settle back into
the background so Oracle's accuracy and sanity go back up. Use her and the
Unimaginable League Amoral to conquer the world, safe in the knowledge that
you've got access to the Teacher's Edition again. Then, as soon as the
planet's firmly under their thumb, haul out Scholarman, use him to take out
Oracle, and then Radian can blow the ULA into dust and shrapnel."
     Less half-smiled, not turning. "Figured that out all by yourself,
Doctor Unorthodox?"
     The doctor snorted. "Do you have him already?"
     "Not yet. I've got Bankert working on it. They're going through
Oracle's batshit rantings. Sifting patterns, trying to figure out the
epicenter of the sudden shifts. When they have that--"
     "They have him. And then what?"
     "Chemically induced coma. Easiest way to keep a mage alive and not
casting shit." He turned to look at the Doctor. "You look like Hell, Stan."
     Doctor Unorthodox smiled a gruesome smile. His face looked almost
half-melted, hair missing under burn scarred flesh that extended down one
side. He sat in a custom built powered wheelchair, controllable from his one
'good' hand. "It's to be expected," he said. "I got cooked inside and out."
     "Inside?"
     "Oh yeah. After my beloved daughter decided to 'subdue' me by pulling a
Frialator out of her ass and pouring gallons of three hundred and sixty
degree cooking oil on me, I managed to pull my way over to the cargo
Xolchaporter and zap myself to Newfoundland." He smiled, the bubbled flesh
making the smile horrible. "Do you know that all Xolchaportation involving
living tissue is supposed to be shepherded by an artificial intelligence of
Xolchaclass Seven or higher?"
     "Yeah," Less said. "That's why we pulled the ace on the ALU's computer
back at the start. One nasty shot, and they lost instantaneous
intercontinental transportation."
     "Well, we don't have an AI," Doctor Unorthodox said. He giggled
slightly. "It's funny. Frakes sends himself a few hundred light years and he
comes out a little screwy. I send myself twelve hundred and eighty seven
miles and my insides are like creamy tapioca."
     Less frowned. "If it was that traumatic, how do we know your cargo
wasn't damaged?"
     Doctor Unorthodox snorted. "Your concern is touching, Richard."
     "No offense, Doctor, but I don't really give a damn about you."
     Doctor Unorthodox's disturbing smile returned. "That's mutual in more
than one way." He reached down into his white coat with his good hand,
withdrawing a small box. Less carefully took it from him, and opened it.
     Inside, the Xolchipalian bug gleamed up at him.
     "The Xolchipalians make their tech tough," Doctor Unorthodox murmured.
"At least, tougher than my liver is, apparently."
     "Can you work?" Less was looking at the silver and red metal.
     "Well, I'm not very good at helping people move furniture or making
coffee--"
     Less glanced at the ruined man, then snorted, turning away. "We'll set
you up in the Lab on Sub Level Nineteen."
     "Why not Twenty Two? That's the best facility."
     "It's classified and secured."
     "From me?"
     "From *me.* Primaries only."
     "Well, that makes me feel comfortable."
     "And is there anything more important than your comfort, Stan?" Less
was barely paying attention to the scientist. It had been weeks since
Danielle had been probed and adjusted. She was very overdue. He needed to
get her recall started.
     "Sure there is."
     "Mm?"
     Doctor Unorthodox leaned slightly forward -- as much as he possibly
could, anyway. "Kill Unorthodox Lass."
     "Girl," Less replied by rote.
     "Whatever. Kill her, Less. Kill her and make it *hurt.*"
     Less looked at the scientist, then nodded. "I'll make it a priority."
     "And I'll make your little project a priority in return."
     "Danielle?"
     "Scholarman." He smiled a bit. "I know how to get him."
     Less's lips quirked in a smile. "Well, it's always good to work with
talented associates."


[This stop is Side One. The next stop is Side Two, with terminals for
Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz, Alaskan Airlines, American, American Eagle,
Spirit Airlines, U.S. Air, U.S. Air Express, U.S. Air Shuttle, Virgin
America, and the Chapel. Please keep your hands clear of the doors.]