[Author's Foreward: This is set in the same continuity as Elsa Bibat's "Kaeri",
about a year or so later. The TK:1940 forums can be found at
http://p087.ezboard.com/bdrunkardswalkforums ]

[Personally, I hear Maggie Huculak reading the intro, but that's just me.]

---------
Prologue:
---------

In another world, a world where the magical knowledge and heritage that Japan
and China parleyed into world power status had not been so strong, or where the
Enlightenment had not turned Europe and her children so drastically from the
path of the mystical, history might have gone very differently.

Equally drastic would be the differences left had even a few of the wondrous
technological discoveries of the twenties, from foamed duraluminum to the
Babbage Computational Engine, not been brought to their fruition, or had the
nightmares of the Demon Wars and the monstrous Invaders who brought them not
made the essential unity of humankind so impeccably clear.

As it was, in 1929, the Ch'ing dynasty imperial forces dealt the Chinese
Communist Party the first in a five year string of crushing defeats in that
nations ongoing civil war. In 1934, Soviet tanks rolled across Mongolia and
into China at the request of a desperate CCP. Any hopes of socialist
brotherhood, however, were quickly dashed as the Chinese and the world at large
stood aghast at the brutality and naked rapaciousness of the Soviet occupation.

Poland fell in 1937, Finland and Turkey a year later, and on April 19, 1940,
more than a thousand Soviet Krazny class dirigibles mounted the single largest
airlift operation in history as the opening phase of the Soviet invasion of
India.

In the months since then, the world was plunged headlong into war, while Japan
and the United States watched with growing concern as the conflict spread and
rumors begin to slip through the Iron Curtain of torture, human sacrifice, and
things altogether darker...

It is July, 1941, and the American government has begun to prepare for the war
that it knows, beyond all possible doubt, is coming. The plans take many forms,
but the one that concerns us now will focus on the actions of a disgraced and
disturbed doctor, who now lies sleeping in the back seat of a car. Terrible
things awake him when he wakes up, but more terrible still are the potential
consequences of failure.

Because the stakes are the life of the Earth itself, and the Invaders have
returned.

==============================
Hypocritic Oath

A Teikoukukagekidan:194X Story

By C. Richard Davies
==============================

------------
Chapter One:
------------

He dreamed, and knew that he was dreaming.

The prairie was first, of course. He stood in the endless, golden fields of
wheat, at one and the same time the boy he had been and the man he was now. It
seemed as though this silent eternity would always be there for him, no matter
where he went or what he became. So he stood there, beneath the brilliant
summer sun, and was grateful.

But he had gone, and he had become something other than the boy. So the fields
of his dreams abruptly became the streets of Toronto and the hallways of York
University, where, by luck and chance more than any deep-seated passion, he'd
made his way to a medical degree. Strange, that. All of the other doctors he'd
known had possessed something of a fever for their profession, and the best of
them had been almost maniacal about it. Banting, Best, Macleod, and Bethune ...
argumentative, egocentric Bethune ...

The thoughts of Bethune drew him along to the next stop on his life's journey,
to images of China. He didn't understand why he'd joined the Party, why he'd
gone along to support the insurgents against the imperialists. He'd wanted a
better world for everyone, of course -- who didn't? -- but he hadn't ever felt
as strongly about it as the others.

Why was he a doctor, why was he in China ... why had he been the only one to
suspect that something was horribly wrong when the Soviets rolled across the
border?

And even as he remembered feeling that way, he was watching through a
lantern-lit haze, as Bethune shouted and screamed at the Russian officer
overseeing the "relocation" of their patients, and as the officer, not
bothering to look at the the irate doctor, pulled out his pistol and slammed
its grip into the side of Bethune's face -- then fired it into the back of his
head, as he collapsed to the ground.

It could all have ended there. Perhaps it should have.

But it hadn't, and the images were coming faster now, like a stereoscope
display mated to an assembly line. His escape from the camp. His arrival in
Shanghai. The months of the siege. The contempt heaped upon him as a "commie".
The one light of his life, the little Japanese girl caught up in the madness
just as he was. /Mai./ And his last sight of her during the evacuation, her
hand reaching up to him as the crowds separated them, pushing him forward
towards the evacuation route, and her back to whatever fate awaited her.

He'd felt nothing, nothing at all. And now he was dreaming of nothing, and
thinking how truly wonderful it was, and the nothing spoke his name.

"Doctor McNichol?"

Charles McNichol woke up, his dreams escaping him as he blinked and lifted his
head from the back of the seat.

"We've arrived, Dr. McNichol," the driver stated.

"I see," he said, looking through the car's windows at the redwood forest
surrounding them. Opening the door, he stepped out of the vehicle. They were
parked at the top of a small valley clearing in the forest. Below, there stood
a large quonset hut with a few smaller buildings surrounding it. Each of them
was guarded by men in uniform, and a lookout tower rose above it all.

"Welcome to the Los Angeles Project, /Doctor/ McNichol," said the lieutenant
waiting at the side of the road. From the almost sneering emphasis on the
title, Charles guessed that his reputation preceeded him. Again. "If you'll
come this way, we can finally get started."

------------
Chapter Two:
------------

The lieutenant, who didn't bother introducing himself, led Charles down the
slope towards one of the smaller buildings. As he descended, Charles mused that
having lost just about everything he owned was turning out to be unexpectedly
advantageous; somehow, even if he'd been carrying a heavier valise, he expected
that no help would have been offered.

The two privates on guard in front of the hut stiffened to attention, but
Charles doubted that the Lieutenant even noticed. Inside, a small table stood
in the center of the building's single room, with a motion picture projector on
it.

There were two chairs on the far side of the table, one of which was currently
occupied by a middle-aged, silvery-haired woman, who was leafing through a
folder. She looked up as they entered, and the light caught on her glasses,
obscuring her eyes. Charles was nonetheless certain that she was staring at
him.

"Doctor McNichol," she said by way of greeting. "Please, sit." She gestured to
the lone chair on the table's far side. Obligingly, Charles sat, while the
lieutenant went over to stand behind the other chair. The door closed at the
lieutenant's nod.

"No doubt you're wondering what this is all about," the woman began.

"Not really," Charles interrupted. "This is clearly a secret program conducted
by the United States Army, that has some need of a surgeon who also happens to
be a magic-user. There are only a few possibilities that spring to mind, given
those facts. So I'm not actually wondering about anything."

After a moment, the woman spoke again. "Yes, of course. In any event, I'm Dr.
Catherine Halsey, and this is --"

"He doesn't need to know my name," interjected the lieutenant.

"-- Lieutenant Matthew Shrieve of Army Intelligence, whom I'll remind that I'm
the one who decides what information our guest does and doesn't need to know."

"I don't think I need to remind you, *Doctor*, that this man is a serious
security risk, with well-known sympathies for the enemy." The sneer in Lt.
Shrieve's tone was exactly the same as it had been earlier. Charles found
himself briefly cheered at the thought that perhaps the man didn't like anyone.

"I am well aware of the Doctor's political views, Lieutenant, but I also
realize that he is the only man for the job, for the reasons with which you're
well-acquainted," Dr. Halsey answered. "And given one of those reasons, you're
exaggerating in calling him a security risk. Or any risk at all, really."

That, of course, confirmed what Charles had supsected already -- that refusal
of whatever task these people had in mind would mean his "vanishing". What,
though, could be the other reasons? He wasn't that good at either magic or
surgery, after all.

"So unless you'd like to waste more time trying to persuade Dr. Savage to have
one of his college's men perform the surgery, I suggest we move on and explain
to Dr. McNichol exactly what is expected of him?"

--------------
Chapter Three:
--------------

Lt. Shrieve's only reply to the question was a twist of his mouth. Dr. Halsey
took that for agreement, and did something to the other side of the table that
probably invovled flipping a switch. The light in the room went out, leaving it
surprisingly dark, and the projector clicked on, illuminating a screen to
Charles' right.

The flim started with a look at what he initially took to be an expressionist
statue of the human form, done in metal. It was only when it began to move that
he realized his error.

"The most significant development in military technology, over the last twenty
years, has been the development of what is sometimes called `psycheon armor',
or the battlemover, to use a more generic term. You yourself, Dr. McNichol, may
have witnessed them in action."

Charles nodded involuntarily, as he recalled the glimpses he'd had of something
like this in the last days of Shanghai. He hadn't known exactly what he'd been
seeing, and so had dismissed it as his imagination.

"Despite their advantages," Halsey continued her narration, "any battlemover
has one significant weakness -- it is considerably larger than a human being."
Indeed, the film was displaying images that emphasized the point. "This can be
a severe restriction on their utility, as can their enormous weight."

The film showed one battlemover, oddly equipped with a sword, leaping up into
the air, coming down unexpectedly hard ... and demolishing the bridge on which
it landed.

Charles heard Lt. Shrieve make a disgusted-sounding grunt at the sight. "Their
other major liability," the man added, " is that they have to be operated by an
individual with an overabundance of spiritual energy. For whatever reason, that
restricts their operation to civilians -- female civilians, to be precise."

While Charles tried to determine which term -- "female" or "civilian" --
sounded more detested when spoken by the Lieutenant, Dr. Halsey turned the
lights back on. "That is true. Efforts to find individuals who have the
requisite high concentration of metaphysical energies have only turned up one
or two already serving in any given nation's armed forces."

"So as a consequence, men who've been trained and prepared to serve their
country are ordered to back off in favor of a group of little girls being
taught ballet and --"

"Excuse me," Charles said, cutting the lieutenant off in mid-rant. He suspected
that this was probably a sore point. "I still don't see how I'm expected to
assist in overcoming these hindrances. It doesn't seem to be a surgical
problem."

"Of course," Dr. Halsey replied smoothly, while Lt. Shrieve stared at him with
naked hostility. "I think this might explain why your services are required."
She drew a thick notebook out of thefolder, and slid it across the table to
him.

Charles reached out to pick it up --

-- and jerked his hand back, startled.

Psychometry, or "the diagnostic touch", was a relatively common talent among
arcanomedical practitioners, but his own abilities in that area had never
before let him "pick up" anything from an inanimate object. Now they had, and
the aura of the notebook was one of the most purely malevolent he'd ever
encountered.

Steeling himself, he picked up the book and began to read.

-------------
Chapter Four:
-------------
Before he'd made it through the first half of the text, Charles had come to a
few simple conclusions. He closed the book, and stared at its cover for a few
moments.

"Dr. McNichols?" prompted Dr. Halsey.

"Let me see if I understand what I've just read," he began. "You want me to
perform surgery on wounded individuals, not for the purposes of restoring them
to health and well-being, but so they will be able to use magically-powered
armored suits that you will, essentially, strap on to their bodies. Have I got
that right?"

"Essentially, yes," the woman replied, while the lieutenant began to smirk.

"What you propose is contrary to the laws of ... of nature, and of man,"
Charles said, quickly covering his near slip.

Dr. Halsey looked genuinely sorry as she began to stand up. "I regret that you
feel that way, but it is necessary. If you won't do it, then --"

"I didn't say that I won't do it," he interrupted quietly.

She stopped moving. "Then you will?"

"Yes."

She sat down again.

"On three conditions," Charles added.

"Do you actually think you're in any position to demand conditions?" demanded
Lt. Shrieve, who'd gone directly from a smirk to a glower.

"Actually, yes." He laughed mirthlessly. "I doubt that you'd find any other
arcanosurgeons with both the ability to work at this level and the lack of
ethics and morality required to perform this experiment, outside of the Soviet
Union, at least. Yes, indeed, I do think I can ask for a few minor
concessions."

"Perhaps we can work something out, if you'll explain what sort of conditions
you had in mind?" Dr. Halsey said, trying to forestall the lieutenant's
explosion.

"First of all, I want to know who came up with this idea," Charles replied,
tapping the cover of the notebook.

"You don't need to --"

"A Dr. Anton Arcane, formerly of Slovakia. He is currently employed by the
German High Command."

The name meant nothing to him. Charles was relatively familiar with the names
(and pseudonyms) of many of the more criminally-minded members of his vocation,
but this Arcane person wasn't on that list. Until now, of course. "I also want
to know the other reasons you chose me, aside from my expendability," he
continued.

For the first time, Halsey looked uncomfortable. "I don't think --"

"I disagree strongly," Lt. Shrieve interrupted. "If he wants to know, then by
all means tell him. Better yet, show him." The lieutenant was back to smiling
unpleasantly.

Halsey sighed. "All right. Can it wait a few moments?" she asked Charles.

"I suppose so," he said dubiously. "Finally, I want to make my new allegiance
to the forces of free-market capitalism as sincere as possible."

They both stared at him for a moment. "What exactly do you mean by --" began
Shrieve.

"I'll do it for ten thousand dollars. Cash only."

-------------
Chapter Five:
-------------

"What?" snarled Shrieve. "You want money to do what's nothing less than your
patriotic duty --"

"I hope you're not suggesting that the state should receive from each according
to his ability?" Charles asked, rather enjoying himself. For a moment, he
actually thought that the lieutenant was actually going to go for his pistol,
and wondered what would happen if Halsey didn't stop him. It wasn't much of a
frightening thought; he'd spent so much time being time being afraid over the
past few years that there wasn't really much fear left in him. As it happened,
all that Lt. Shrieve did was clamp his hands onto the back of the chair.

"I think that some financial compensation can probably be arranged," Halsey
suggested delicately.

"Very well, then," Lt. Shrieve said through clenched teeth. "If you'll excuse
me, *doctors*, I'm sure that you can handle the rest of the day's activities
without my presence." Without waiting for a response, the lieutenant stalked
around the table and out the door.

"You've made an enemy there, doctor," Halsey commented.

Charles didn't bother to respond to that. Instead he picked up the notebook
again. "Do you want this back?" he asked, holding it out to her.

"No, you should probably keep studying it. From what I understand, the
procedures are just as exceptionally complex as you suggested earlier."

"All right," he replied, and slipped it into his valise, very glad to no longer
be handling it directly. "So. What exactly are you supposed to show me?"

Halsey nodded wearily. "Follow me, please."

She led him out of the hut, and headed towards the largest building in the
camp. Charles trailed along behind her, noting that the guards in front of the
hut stiffened at her approach, and that she acknowledged them with an
absent-minded nod.

"This is our primary care facility," she explained to him as he stepped through
the door. "All of these people are on the waiting list for the process."

Charles slowly took in the sight of the large hospital ward before him. Twenty
of the thirty beds were filled with men -- and women -- nearly all of whom were
draped in bandages or had limbs in casts. In many cases, they no longer had
limbs to be put into casts. He felt his gorge rising at the idea of sending
crippled veterans into battle again, in magically-engineered armor or not.

"However," Dr. Halsey added after a moment, "this man in particular is the one
who requseted your services.

He turned to look at the patient she indicated. The man in question was not
really remarkable in the ward, with every square inch of skin covered in
bandages, leaving only his eyes and mouth exposed. (He didn't have a nose
anymore.) Those eyes were currently staring at Charles with a disturbing
intensity.

"I'll leave the two of you alone," Halsey said, backing away.

Charles frowned slightly. "Good morning," he said. "I"m Dr. McNichol. And who
might you be?"

He was reaching for the chart attached to the man's bed when the patient spoke
in a labored voice. "Long time, no see, Charlie. I guess I shouldn't hold it
against you, not recognizing me."

Charles froze. He knew that voice.

"John?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"Five by five," replied his cousin.

------------
Chapter Six:
------------

Chief Petty Officer John Kilian McTavish of His Majesty's Royal Marines was the
eldest son of the late CPO David McTavish of the same and of his wife, the
former Annie McNichol. Mrs. McTavish had been the only one of Robert McNichol's
five siblings for whom he felt any fondness, and the wealthy farmer had often
taken his family on winter trips to Ontario to visit her family. This was
particularly true after the elder CPO McTavish's death during the Demon War.

Charles, Robert's eldest son, had befriended John, largely because the other
boy was the only person who disliked Robert McNichol more than Charles did.
Admittedly, Charles' anger at his father was prompted by the man's attempts to
control his every action, where John's had been the result of his uncle's
attempts to replace his deceased father as a paternal figure. Around the time
that Charles finally escaped his father's plans for him by studying medicine
instead of law, John had enlisted in the Marines. It had been more than a
decade since the two of them saw each other.

"They sent us to Hong Kong, to guard the consulate, right before everything
blew up," John reminisced. "It's supposed to be cushy duty, guarding the
consulate. Guess you can tell it wasn't, eh?"

"I don't believe this. We were both in China?" Charles replied, his hand over
his eyes as he sat in a chair beside the bed.

"It's a small, small world," said the horribly wounded man.

Charles looked up, his face still harrowed. "I'm sorry, John, I really am --"

"For waht?" John interrupted sharply. "It's not like you were the one invited
Ivan in to help out the GODDAMN CHINK BASTARDS NO OFFENSE XIANG!"

>From one of the other beds, there issued a retort in Cantonese. Charles
recognized it as an invitation for John to consume faeces.

He decided to change the subject. "John, do you have any idea what they want to
do to you?"

"Doc Halsey gave me a briefing when I volunteered, yeah. Said they needed a hot
shit surgeon to do it, so your name came to mind for some reason."

The notion that someone might volunteer for the procedure in the notebook hit
Charles like ice water. "What? No ... they, Halsey, she can't have explained it
to you enough, you'd never have --"

"Bets?'

"You'd never be able to take it off, John," he hissed. "Even if you survived
the war, you'd never be able to go back to a normal life!"

That statement hung in the air for a long moment.

"What sort of normal life am I supposed to go back to, you IDIOT?" John hissed.

"I didn't mean --"

"What sort of fucking life?!" Now he was shouting. "My ears and nose are melted
off! I've lost my goddamn balls! I have to piss in a bag! What sort of fucking
life am I supposed to fucking go back to!"

"I'm not asking for my life, I'm asking for a shot at revenge on the bastards
who did this to me! And so help me God, if you won't do the damned job --"

"What do you mean, he won't do it?" chorused several of the people in beds
nearby.

--------------
Chapter Seven:
--------------

"If you could, in the future, avoid causing similar ruckuses in my sick ward,"
Dr. Halsey suggested, some time later, "I would greatly appreciate it."

"I'm sure that you would," Charles replied, still half-dazed.

John's outburst had nearly touched off a riot when the other patients had
decided, based on what they'd overheard, that Charles was refusing to perform
the procedure. As they all felt a similar desire for bloody vengeance, things
had deteriorated very quickly. Not all of them were confined to their beds, and
only quick action by the ward's guard complement had let Charles escape a
serious beating ... at least.

"it is a hospice, after all," she continued, still without looking up from the
paperwork that covered the desk where she sat. "I realize that you will need to
interview your patients in order to get a reading of their auras prior to
surgery, but please don't provoke them. Ideally, we should be providing them
with as much calm as possible before --"

"-- before we turn them into abominations."

*That* got her to look up, with a cross expression on her face. "Dr. McNichol,
so far you have referred to the procedure as both contrary to the laws of man
and God --"

"I never said god. There is no god."

Halsey ignored him. "-- and as an abomination. To my knowledge, no one has
disagreed with you on this point. Why do you insist on reiterating it?"

"Because I hope to get a response other than, `yes it is, but that's an
unfortunate necessity'!" Charles snapped. Then he drew in a deep breath. "I
realize that this is wartime, and that my ethical and moral quandaries don't
really amount to a hill of beans. But I don't think you realize that there are
some serious problems with your patients."

"Go on," she said, after a moment. "I'm listening."

"All right," he said. "What you have to understand first is that auric
resonances don't actually correspond to the visual spectrum ... that's just a
convenient metaphor. When we use the term `condition green', it indicates that
the subject's emotional tone is neither too `hot' nor too 'cold', and so
analogous to the middle of the ROYGBIV array.

"But when I was examining John's aura, I noticed something very odd. It'd be
understandable if he was angry, even very angry about his condition. And that
would show in a `red' aura. And it was -- but it didn't shift at all, neither
growing more intense nor diminishing in heat, not even when he was shouting at
me."

"That is admittedly odd, but I don't think --"

"It is axiomatic," he interrupted harshly, "that an individual's emotional
state can and does influence his response to and use of metapsychic energies.
If that state is ... under some sort of influence, causing it to remain steady
when it should be shifting ... do you really want to take the chance that it
wouldn't negatively impact their activity in the field?"

Halsey stared at him for a few minutes. "What do you want?" she finally asked.

--------------
Chapter Eight:
--------------

"What I need," Charles replied, emphasizing the verb, "is time, and the
opportunity to examine all the candidates for this procedure. It's possible
that John isn't the only one suffering from this condition, whatever it is."

"All right." Halsey's eyes defocused momentarily, as though she were examining
something printed on the inside of her forehead. "You have a week. If you can
produce concrete evidence supporting your hypothesis -- don't argue terminology
with me, you've proposed an hypothesis and you know it -- we'll consider what's
to be done.

"However ... if you can't find that evidence, then we will be preparing for the
first operation at the end of the week, and the Master Chief will be your first
patient."

Charles blinked. "The Master --"

"Chief McTavish," she explained. "We've gotten into the habit of calling him
that. Technically, since the unit will operate under the American flag, it
should be First Sergeant, but ... wait, didn't he tell you that he's going to
be the unit's field commander?"

"No," he replied after a long moment. "It didn't come up."

"Ah," Halsey said. "In any event, because of his status, he asked for and
received the ... privilege of being the first subject of the procedure. In any
event, I would urge you to continue to study the notes."

"I'll do that," Charles answered dully. He coughed, and pulled himself out of
the momentary funk. "Uh, exactly *where* should I do that?"

"Ask one of the guards to show you the study hut while he's escorting you to
your quarters." She pursed her lips. "Come to that, I don't think you should
leave your quarters without an escort."

"Not even to visit the jakes?" he asked.

"The what? No, never mind, I can guess. And yes, even then. This camp may not
be the safest place for an unescorted person."

Dr. Halsey then pointedly lifted a chart off her desk. "Now, if you'll excuse
me, I really do have to get back to work."

Obediently, Charles turned and walked out of the office. Once outside, he
related what she'd said about an escort to one of the privates on duty, and one
of them volunteered to show him the way.

When he reflected on these events, as he couldn't help doing from time to time
over the next few decades, Charles was never able to quantify what prompted him
to look back towards the "office" hut at the moment that he did. If his
psychometric abilities were poor, his precognitive ones were non-existent.

Yet he did look, and saw a woman, dressed in a long coat and dark glasses,
standing to one side of the building, as though waiting to go in. Despite
everything else, she was the most unusual sight he'd seen in quite a while.
He'd never seen anyone, other than an albino, with that same pink-white colored
hair. And this woman wasn't an albino.

She looked Japanese.

-------------
Chapter Nine:
-------------


Over the next few days, Charles' life entered a routine. It couldn't be called
a comfortable routine, but it had the distinct advantage of predictability when
compared with his days of chaos and horror in Shanghai.

Every morning, reveille woke him up, but since he wasn't subject to military
discipline, he was able to stay in bed for a few more hours. After shaving,
showering and changing into his scrubs, he ambled over to the ward, greeting
the two privates on duty. He'd learned their names relatively quickly, and
formed a few guesses as to their backgrounds. Kent, for example, was almost
certainly a Kansas farmboy, while Brown probably came from rural California.

He'd gotten to know the candidates as well, or at least some of them. A few
were following the lead that John established when it came to Charles and his
questions. They answered in monosyllables whenever possible, and remained
silent more often than not. Some didn't talk at all. Others were more animated,
with attitudes that ranged from imitations of Shrieve's behavior to a sort of
wary, good-humored positivity -- this from the the one patient with whom he'd
established a rapport, a young Spanish marine corporal named Rico.

The talkative Rico actually provided him with most of his information on the
others. Charles was surprised to learn that while most of the patients were
veterans of the war, at least a few were civilians. For example, the
frighteningly young woman named Linda, who'd lost her legs and wouldn't say a
word -- to anyone, not just to him -- had been a member of some sort of
theatrical group in Warsaw before it fell to the Russians. Recalling Shrieve's
comments about "girls being taught ballet" gave Charles an insight as to why
Linda had one of the highest concentrations of spiritual energy of anyone
present.

Unfortunately, none of them had the answer that Charles needed.

After a few hours of this, he was more than ready to a noon meal. The mess tent
was rather spartan, and he wasn't really surprised to find himself politely but
firmly excluded from all conversations. Still, the food was appetizing enough.

Following lunch, he would retire to what Halsey had dubbed "the study hut". He
suspected that it was actually just one of the many buildings set up as
lounges, but it did seem to have been set aside for his personal use. It
contained only a chair, a table and a scattering of out-of-date LIFE and LOOK
magazines.

So there he sat, for the rest of the day, pouring over Arcane's notebook. Since
he had no particular confidence in his ability to produce the evidence Halsey
had requested, he supposed that he ought to be familiar with the procedure.
Unfortunately, this required him to spend an extended period of time in psychic
space influenced by a man he judged to be homicidally insane, with decidedly
megalomaniac tendencies. The disregard for the long-term welfare of his
patients evidenced by the author turned his stomach, as did the thought that he
had apparently risen to a position of influence in the Reich. Were his
colleagues blind to his faults, or were they just as mad as him?

"Excuse me, but are you Dr. Charles McNichol?" asked a soft voice with just a
faint German accent, coming from behind him.

Charles turned, opening his mouth to answer in the affirmative. His jaw locked
open as he took in the sight before him. The ... person who addressed him wore
a black leather costume that completely enveloped him from the top of his head
to his booted feet, with only a thick pair of goggles providing facial features
of a sort.

"Yes, you must be," the apparition continued. "I am Professor Doctor Karl von
Kroenen, liaison from the Imperial Army's Occult Medicine Study Group. We are
colleagues, I believe?"

"Evidently so," Charles said, answering his own earlier question.

------------
Chapter Ten:
------------


"Well, Doctor, I'd offer you a chair, but they seem to be in short supply,"
Charles quipped with an ease he didn't feel.

"Yes, so I see," the monster agreed, taking a moment to look around. "Admirably
spartan conditions. It does not matter, in any event, for I prefer to stand."

Conscious that such a preference left him looking up at Von Kroenen, Charles
found himself shifting somewhat in his seat. "Right. What can I do for you,
Herr Professor Doctor?" he asked, pronouncing the titles with his best
Hoch-Deutsch accent. While most of his German was limited to profanity, growing
up listening to the native language of a dozen or so of his neighbors had given
him a few advantages.

"In fact, I believe that I am in a position to assist you, Herr Doctor," Von
Kroenen riposted easily. "I am sent here to observe the experiment you are soon
to conduct, following the process developed by my esteemed colleague, Professor
Doctor Arcane. When I arrived, Dr. Halsey said something to the effect that you
found his work ... curious, I think?"

That, Charles realized, was putting it mildly. But could he trust the answers
he might receive from this ... person? "Yes," he temporized. "I have to admit
that I'm a bit surprised to have never heard of Dr. Arcane before. Someone with
his ... unique insights doesn't often come out of nowhere."

Von Kroenen nodded. "I agree. However, it is not surprising when one knows the
whole story. I do not enjoy gossip --"

Charles suspected that was the first big lie.

"-- but it is well-known as fact that the Professor Doctor was expelled from
the Imperial Society more than a decade ago following allegations of improper
scientific techniques. I would personally be inclined to view this as simply
the petty-minded jealousy of lesser men, however, and his many contributions to
the defense of the Reich have more than atoned for any previous irregularities.
Only the most contemptible would hold his motives against him.

"Motives?" Charles asked, realizing that he was being led somewhere.

"Ah," said Von Kroenen. "We pass now into rumor, not fact. Are you familiar
with the work of Dr. Herbert West?"

"Actually, yes," he replied. "I studied under men who had served with him
during the Demon War. They were very clear about his crimes, and ..." A
terrible thought occurred to him. "Arcane didn't also --"

"Experiment with the revivification of dead tissue, following in the footsteps
of Fronkehnsteen?" Von Kroenen interjected, correctly pronouncing the infamous
name. "Yes, so it would appear. Which brings me to the crux of the matter.
According to the rumor, the Professor Doctor sought out Dr. West to, as it
were, compare notes. Fortunately, I suppose, they conceived a great antagonism
for each other -- so much so that after Dr. West was welcomed by the Russians,
my colleague immediately volunteered his services to His Majesty's government.
After the cowardly assault on Poland, such offers could scarcely be rejected.
In the struggle against the filthy hordes of international Bolshevism, we can
scarcely afford to question whether our allies might have ulterior agendas. Can
we?"

"I suppose not," said Charles, feeling ill.

---------------
Chapter Eleven:
---------------

The next day started just as all the others had. The horn sounding reveille
snapped Charles out of an unpleasant dream that he quickly forgot. That
accomplished, he closed his eyes and pulled the covers up a little. Sleep would
probably elude him, but he could at least rest a while longer.

Five minutes later, the day went off the rails.

The cabin's door slammed open and Lt. Shrieve stomped through the doorway. "Get
up," the Lieutenant snarled as Charles sat up in startlement. "Get up and get
dressed."

"What --" he started to ask, only to be cut off when the shirt that Shrieve
threw at him smacked into his face. Quickly, he decided that his questions
could wait for later, and started pulling on clothes.

When dressed, Charles followed the Lieutenant's stormy progress out the cabin's
door. The two privates who'd drawn guard duty for this location, this shift,
Brown and an Illinois boy named Satariano -- who looked more Irish than
Sicillian, to Charles' eyes, at least -- were staring with confusion and
anxiety (on Brown's part) and cool evaluation (Satariano) at the two other men
standing nearby. Charles didn't recognize either of them by name, but they were
apparently corporals, if he read their lapels right, and they fell in behind
the Lieutenant as he marched way from the cabin. Not seeing any other options,
Charles followed along.

Lt. Shrieve led the small party away from the more occupied sections of the
camp, into a patch of forest that hadn't been cleared yet. Just as Charles
began to work up the nerve to ask for explanations, the Lieutenant stopped
short. The two corporals kept on walking for a few more paces beyond his
position, and Charles noted that they were scanning the area as though
anticipating an ambush of some sort. Eventually, they came to a halt too.

"Lieutenant?" Charles began uneasily. "What's going on here?"

Slowly, the other man turned his head to glare at him. "You think you're pretty
smart, don't you?" he ground out. Then, with a flurry of motion, he swiveled,
closed the distance between them, and slammed a hard punch into Charles'
stomach.

Gasping for breath prevented Charles from answering the question in any style,
whether cautiously or in a more weisenheimer fashion. It soon became clear that
it had been rhetorical in intent, as Shrieve had more questions.

"Or is it just that you think everyone else is pretty dumb?" He slammed the
heel of his foot into Charles' shin, making him drop to his knees. "That must
be it -- why else would you think that no one would wonder what the hold-up
was?" The next kick hit Charles in the jaw. "Or that I'd ask Halsey about it
and find out about your little observations?" By now, Charles was curled up in
a fetal position -- which, as it happened, left Shrieve quite free to literally
kick his ass.

"That I'd /check/?"

Ah. So he knew.

"There's nothing wrong with any of their auras, you lousy Commie!" Shrieve
hissed, leaning over Charles' supine form. "You made the whole thing up, to get
out of doing the goddamned surgery. Didn't you?!"

"Yes," Charles answered quietly. "I lied."

After a moment, with no further blows given, he mustered up the courage to lift
his head up and look at Shrieve. He was mildly startled to see that the
Lieutenant's face had actually smoothed out of its habitually hostile
expression as he stared at him.

"Brilliant," Shrieve said a moment later. "The perfect way to slow the project
down to a crawl, as long as none of the other aura-seers say anything -- and
none of the nurses here are going to contradict a doctor, even a lousy Commie
doctor. I had to call one in from outside to get a second opinion ...

"It is perfect. Why'd it have to come from you?"

"But, why --" Charles stammered.

Shrieve shook his head. "Do you really think that you're the only one to
understand that this is an obscenity? And even worse, a waste of resources that
could be used to duplicate the Soviet's new weapons or devise efficient
defenses against them? Oh, this project has its ... sponsors. But I work for
the U.S. Army, not the goddamned Watchtower."

The what?, wondered Charles.

"My orders were to sabotage it if I could, but I couldn't find a way ... until
now." Shrieve's face hardened. "You're the only real obstacle left. I can't
possibly trust you to keep this a secret. Filthy Commie," he added, almost as
an afterthought. Then he turned to look at the corporals. "Hit him until he
doesn't need hitting anymore," he ordered them.

---------------
Chapter Twelve:
---------------

For some reason beyond Charles' understanding, he actually found himself
fighting a giggle as he watched the two corporals walk toward him. The phrase
"corporal punishment" had lodged in his brain. He supposed that gallows humor
was probably appropriate, but still --

Then a shot rang out, and the hysteria ceased.

"That will be just about enough of that," Dr. Halsey announced.

Weakly, Charles rolled up to get a look at his rescuers. Halsey was standing
just a few feet away, with the tiny pistol she'd just fired pointing up into
the sky. Behind her, on either side, were Brown, his big round face showing
signs of impending panic, and Satariano, looking as icy as ever. While Brown
was clutching his standard issue rifle, Satariano had apparently taken the time
to swap his for a Thompson sub-machine gun. The weapon was currently leveled at
the two corporals, who'd obligingly halted their progress towards Charles.

"Get up, Dr. McNichol," Halsey ordered as she lowered her pistol.

After a few false starts, Charles did just that, and forced himself to limp
over to where she was standing. He flinched as he saw the way that she looked
at him, and decided that there was no real point in asking what she'd heard of
his "interrogation". Clearly, she also knew.

"Well, Doctor?" asked Shrieve, who hadn't moved an inch. "What are you going to
do?"

"Private Brown."

"Ma'am?" gulped the private.

"You will escort these two men --" She clicked her pistol's safety on, then
used it as a pointer towards the two corporals. "-- these two men, to the
stockade. They are under arrest."

"On what charge?" snapped one of the two.

"THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ONE. Now, Private."

"Yes ma'am!" Brown, like all of them, had jumped at the strange, powerful
manner in which the first few words had been delivered. With an expression of
relief, he followed his orders.

"So," Dr. Halsey said after they had marched out of sight. "I suppose that
you'll refuse to reveal the identity of the one who gave you the orders to
sabotage this project."

"You suppose correctly. Did you really think that your little cabal would --"

Halsey continued as though nothing other than the acknowledgment had been
spoken. "Has the possibility of deception on the part of whoever it was ever
occurred to you?"

The Lieutenant blinked. "What --"

"I see. How depressing. You actually believe in the possibility of Soviet
infiltration of your nation's military, but you don't have the mental agility
to consider the likelihood that one of them might be in your own chain of
command -- above you, in fact. Did you get into intelligence through family
connections?"

"You're lying, you goddamned --"

"Since I don't care what you think about me, Lieutenant, I won't bother arguing
with you. It's unfortunate that we won't be able to use you to catch a much
bigger fish, but removing an impediment to the war effort such as yourself will
suffice."

Shrieve sneered. "So you're going to kill me, then."

"I? Not at all. I have sworn an oath to defend and uphold life. I could never
kill you or anyone." She flipped off the safety, and fired a round at one of
his knees. With a curse, Shrieve dropped to the ground. A part of Charles' mind
wondered if he'd looked that way when he fell to the ground.

"We are going now," Halsey said as she turned to walk away.

"You can't just leave him like that, it's --" Charles protested.

"WE ARE GOING NOW."

He followed, wordlessly.

Only a few moments later, they met Von Kroenen, headed briskly in the direction
from which they'd come. The German doctor neither paused nor spoke, but nodded
politely as they passed him.

For a moment, Charles wondered where Von Kroenen was going.

But only for a moment.

"No," he gasped when he figured it out. "You can't mean to --"

"SHUT UP."

A few moments later, a hideous scream echoed through the air, only to be
suddenly cut off. As Satariano began to quietly murmur a Hail Mary, Charles
found himself yearning for the opiate of the masses for the first time in
years.

-----------------
Chapter Thirteen:
-----------------

"You lied to me."

Charles didn't feel that the observation merited a response, so he simply gazed
across the desk at Halsey.

"Perhaps I should elaborate on this point. You lied to me, and in so doing put
this entire project in serious danger. What do you have to say for yourself?"

He considered the question carefully for a moment. "Umm ... oops?"

"Oops," Halsey repeated flatly. She shook her head. "Do you have any idea how
badly you've betrayed my trust in --"

That did it. "Trust?" he spat. "I'm sorry, did you say trust? Am I honestly
supposed to be concerned about whether or not you people trust me or not? I've
been dragged here, against my will, threatened and abused, and all but told
that if I don't engage in actions I judge to be criminal in nature, I'll be
considered surplus to need and shot in the head! Trust, I think, is not really
a part of any relationship there might exist between the two of us! Because I
certainly don't trust you!" He paused for a few moments, breathing heavily.

"Are you finished?" Dr. Halsey asked patiently.

"I don't know. Perhaps, if you don't want to hear anymore, you should tell me
to shut up again in that damn scary voice of yours."

"Don't tempt me. Why did you lie to me?"

It was almost enough to set him off again, but Charles restrained himself with
difficulty. "Because, as I thought I'd made clear, I don't want to do this. I
thought if I found a reason for the surgery to be canceled, then I could escape
from this mess with my life and my self-respect intact."

"What an intriguing sort of self-respect you must have," Halsey muttered,
shaking her head. "Why not just make a deliberate mistake during the surgery
itself?"

He stared at her, eyes almost popping out of his sockets. "Because I want to be
able to live with myself afterward, you --"

"I see," she interrupted. "So you are able to perform the procedure? It's not a
question of inability, only of willingness? And don't try lying to me, Dr.
McNichol, I know what to look for this time."

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" he eventually ground out.

"True, but non-responsive. Yes or no?"

He closed his eyes. "Yes."

"Fine. Then we do the first one tomorrow. No, no more delays," she said,
pre-empting his his half-formed objection. "I suspect that I'll be grilled for
giving you that long to recover from your injuries."

"Grilled by who -- that Watchtower thing that Shrieve mentioned?"

"You don't need to know about that."

Charles' intuition abruptly "pinged". "Does that have anything to do with that
Japanese girl I saw visiting you, earlier?"

"YOU DON'T --" Halsey's amplified voice abruptly dissolved into a fit of
ordinary sounding coughs. After a moment, she continued. "Regardless of your
need to know, Dr. McNichol, I am not obliged to answer these questions. Go back
to your cabin, and get some rest. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow."

He kept right on gazing at her for a few moments, then shook his head once and
got to his feet. Heading to the door, he paused. "Thank you for saving my life,
Dr. Halsey," he said quietly, without turning around.

"Thank Private Brown. He's the one who came running to me after you went off
with those two thugs from Intelligence. Remarkably brave of him. It's a pity."

He whirled. "What's a pity?" he asked, his words coming very harshly.

She didn't look up from the reports she was examining. "It's a pity that both
he and Satariano will now have to be transferred away from this relatively soft
duty assignment, given what they've seen. I'll probably arrange for Brown to be
sent to Europe, and Satariano to the Philippines."

Now she did look up, but the cabin's light hit her glasses at an angle that
left them opaque, from Charles' perspective. "Both of them will probably
encounter heavy fighting. So I suppose that you can add their names to the
Lieutenant's, on the butcher's bill for your lie, Doctor. Now I'd really
strongly suggest that you go away."

It was amazing, Charles thought numbly as he stumbled away, what she could do
with a few words. The strange Talent she'd shown was almost superfluous,
really.

He headed back to the cabin, noting that Kent and a New Yorker named Parker had
already taken up the guard there. He rubbed his cheek as he went through the
door, mindful of the fact that he hadn't had a shave that morning. So he
reached into his bag and pulled out his razor.

For several minutes, he simply stood there, staring at its edge.

-----------------
Chapter Fourteen:
-----------------

"Why are they shaving my head again?"

"So that your hair won't get in the way when I open up your skull and start
cutting into your living brain."

As the first words uttered between two formerly close friends in nearly a week,
they probably lacked something. But then again, a hospital ward crowded with
patients was probably not the best place for a heart to heart conversation.

"And enjoy the sensation while you still can," Charles added. "It's probably
the last time another human being will be in flesh-to-flesh contact with you
while you're conscious."

That prompted an unpleasant glower from the nurse performing the shaving, but
John didn't visibly react to the jibe. Far sooner than Charles would have
liked, the procedure was finished, and the nurse stepped back to let the
orderlies adjust the brakes on the bed's wheels. Then they started to wheel the
bed out into the aisle that ran down the middle of the ward.

There was usually quite a bit of chatter filling the air in the hospice, but
they rolled along, the silence was broken only by a handful of voices murmuring
words of encouragement to "the Chief" -- never John, or even McTavish -- as he
passed by. Charles noted that although the girl called Linda still didn't
speak, she stared unblinkingly at John until they all passed out of her sight.

The orderlies pushed the bed into the elevator at the back of the hut, then
stood back to let Charles step inside as well. One of them pulled the door
closed, and after a moment, Charles pulled down the cage and pushed the down
button. The elevator started to descend the shaft.

Roughly a minute later, when they were less than a third of the way down,
Charles took his thumb off the button, and the carriage stopped abruptly.

"Why me?" he asked John, without looking at him.

"This a general complaint, or did you have something specific in mind?"

Now Charles did turn to look at his cousin. "Why did you suggest me to do this
surgery?"

"Because Doc Halsey said they needed a damn good surgeon to do it, and you came
to mind," John answered easily. "Didn't we already go over this?"

"That is such a load of --" Charles broke off, closed his eyes and let out a
hiss. Opening them again, he pointed a finger at John. "You have no idea
whether I'm a good surgeon, an average surgeon, or some sort of bloody butcher!
You must have met other doctors over the years, other surgeons who'd actually
had to patch you up, and any of them --"

"None of them," John interrupted, "were my cousin."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

John hitched himself up into a sitting position, and glared at Charles. "Just
about everything, dumbass! I told you, I know what this set-up involves. I know
that, like as not, I'm not going to pull through without going through some
changes up here." He awkwardly lifted his hand to tap his forehead. "I knew
that I hadda get some someone who gave a damn about me, so that he'd do his
damnedest to see that whatever came out at the other end of this, it'd be
something at least like me. And there aren't really a whole lot of candidates
for that job." John imitated Charles' finger pointing.

Charles slowly shook his head. His face had drained of color as he listened to
John's explanation. "You're putting too much trust in me," he said. "And people
who do that tend to end up dead."

John managed a shrug. "You ain't failed me yet. And anyway, `he who dares,
wins'. Something some of the guys in my unit used to say a lot," he answered
the other man's confused look. "It just matters that you give it what you got."

"I'd still just as soon you'd told them that you'd changed your mind about
needing me for this."

"I need you. And besides, if I did that, they'd kill you."

"I know."

There was a long silence.

"I'm not gonna help you commit suicide, Charlie," John said softly.

"Even though you want me to do something to you that could destroy your
personality, which is just as much a self-destruction?" Charles asked bitterly.

"Nope. And you'll do it, too. You like me more than I like you, y'see."

"How do you figure that?"

"I'm more likeable than you."

Charles shook his head in amazement, then hit the button again. They descended
the rest of the way in silence.

"May I assume that there was a reason for the delay?" asked Dr. Halsey, as the
doors opened to reveal her.

Charles opened his mouth, witicism ready, but John beat him to it with a
firmly-voiced, "Yes." He decided that he couldn't top that on his best day, and
closed his mouth.

"Very well," Halsey said, after the pause made it clear that nothing more was
to be added. "The wash is that way, Dr. McNichol. We start in an hour."

----------------
Chapter Fifteen:
----------------

Ordinarily, Charles enjoyed scrubbing for surgery, in both its ritual and
mundane aspects. The former, in particular, usually helped him to wash away
whatever extraneous concerns might be troubling him. But today, the practice
only forced him to imagine the horrific acts he was about to perform.

"Ah, Doctor." Von Kroenen's voice sounded more cheerful than ever as it came
from behind Charles. "How go your preparations?"

"Fine, thank you," Charles replied, not looking up.

"Permit me to introduce a colleague of mine, newly arrived to observe the
operation."

Now Charles did half-turn, without removing his hands from the water. "Ma'am,"
he said to the blonde woman in a grey uniform standing beside the monster in
black.

"Frau Doktor Irma Oberheuser, Doctor Charles McNichols," Von Kroenen continued.

"How pleasant it is to meet you, Doctor," she said, and smiled ... somehow
making the facial expression look faintly horrific.

"Yes," Charles said, quietly awed by the sheer malevolence that radiated from
this woman. Von Kroenen, whom Charles knew for a fact to be a monster, seemed
positively humane in comparison. How in the world had she gotten through
security? "I wasn't aware that there were going to be any observers," he said,
desperately seeking for some way to fill the air.

"I was originally hoping to participate in the operation," the woman replied,
somewhat non-sequitively. "It was my understanding that a representative of
each of the Allied Powers would be standing for each of the cardinal directions
in your ritual, and I planned to stand for the North, as one would expect from
an individual of my pure Ar--"

"But apparently plans have changed," Von Kroenen interrupted, "and the nursing
staff of the facility will be performing those roles. So it goes."

"Yes," sourly said `Irma' -- Charles doubted that was actually her name,
somehow -- "but I do have a question for Dr. McNichol."

"I'm sure that you know the procedure better than I do," Charles answered.

"Yes, I do. However, I am confused as to why this particular subject was chosen
for the first iteration of the procedure. Would it not be better --"

"He volunteered."

"-- to perform it on a female subject, since it is well documented
(particularly as shown by my own research, lamentably classified due to
security issues) that women have a higher tolerance for ... volunteered?"
Charles soft-voiced reply had apparently finally penetrated.

"Yes. And in any event, I'm not involved in the selection process, so I'd
suggest that you direct any other questions in this line to Dr. Halsey."

Incredibly, she pouted. "Oh, very well. Excuse me, then." She piroutetted and
marched off in the direction of the surgery.

"What interesting colleagues you have," Charles commented as he resumed
scrubbing. The meeting had, if nothing else, confirmed his suspicions of the
intellectual milieu that produced the procedure.

"As I believe I said, we all have our peculiar little quirks, Dr. McNichols. I
suspect that one of yours is a mild mania for sterilization. Is it really
necessary to heat-dry the scalpel you intend to use?"

"Yes," he replied flatly, casting a glimpse at the three scalpels that rested
under the heat lamp beside his station. "It's a useful addition to the standard
protocols that cleanse the athame of dangerous influences." He picked one of
them up, held it up to his eye. "This one, I think."

"Has it proved useful in the past? That scalpel, I mean."

He turned to stare at Von Kroenen. "Are you --" He bit off the word `mad'. The
answer was far too obvious. "Only a lunatic or someone who didn't care if the
patient lived or died would use an artifact that wasn't virgin in a working of
this nature."

"Really. Dr. Arcane has used the same one in virtually every test of the
procedure to date. I wouldn't think it should be used for anything else, but
--"

"Every operation is unique," Charles snapped. "If nothing else, the patient is
different, and unless each operation is being conducted at an identical
calendrical moment, the time is usually different as well. Your Dr. Arcane is a
deranged lunatic, and furthermore --"

"Yes?" Von Kroenen said a moment later.

"Never mind," Charles finished wearily, and turned back to the wash after
setting the scalpel down and sliding a vial into his shirt pocket, out of Von
Kroenen's sight.

"Ah. Well, as it happens, I find myself in increasing agreement with your views
on the subject. I have every intention of preparing a scathing report on the
Doctor."

"That's nice." Charles realized, of course, what had just happened. Von Kroenen
had used him to provide ammunition for his attempt to unseat Arcane, who was
apparently in a superior position in the German hierarchy. As far as he could
tell, there was little enough to choose from between the two of them, so it
really wasn't any of his business.

"I'll leave you to your preparations, then. Good working." His footsteps echoed
as he walked away.

Charles finished cleaning his hands, and stared long into the glass. He didn't
know if he could ever finish cleaning his soul.

"I don't have a soul," he said shortly, and picked up a different scalpel.

----------------
Chapter Sixteen:
----------------

Charles stepped into the well-lit surgical theatre at the end of the hallway.
It was only the second time he'd visited it, having been "introduced" last
night, and under other circumstances he might have taken a moment to consider
its many admirable features. In particular, he was impressed with the wards
around the observers' gallery above him, which kept any sounds or other
emanations from the gallery from distracting the practitioners below.

At the moment, the gallery was filled with people, uniformed and plain-clothed,
some chatting, some enjoying a smoke. (Filthy habit.) Then Halsey stepped
forward, holding what looked like a radio handset. She spoke into it, and her
voice crackled from a speaker beneath the gallery. "Whenever you're ready, Dr.
McNichol."

It occurred to Charles then, in a moment of what surely was madness, that he
could still say no. They'd kill him, yes, but he didn't give a damn whether he
lived or not. Nobody did.

Nobody but John.

The madness passed, and Charles bowed shortly, then turned to his work. The
four nurses who would be establishing the warding circle assumed their
stations, each aligned to one of the four "outward" directions, while Charles
would represent the fifth direction -- inward. He stood before John's head,
moistened his lips once, and spoke the Words.

The world fell away.

He was standing, now, on a gigantic "image" of John's body. With barely a
moment's thought, he created a dozen simulacra of himself to perform the work
that had to be done on John's legs, arms, and spine, while he focused his
attention on the brain. For all that Savage, in particular, had done to
demystify it, the seat of consciousness remained the most delicate and
difficult organ to affect.

There was no more time for hesitation, for second thoughts; only for the subtle
interplay of the powers according to the designs laid out in Arcane's text.
Perhaps his renewed focus and energy were a result of being freed from his
body's overtaxed state, or perhaps it was simply that he was doing something,
instead of just thinking about it.

Yet he retained enough presence of mind to notice the anomalies. He wasn't sure
what the tiny fluctuations in the spell were, but he knew they were there. They
were not unlike typographical errors in a book ... and then an awful thought
came to him, as he imagined a book with a series of typographical errors that
seemed innocent enough at first glance, but when assembled together, formed a
message hidden inside the book.

And then he saw the trap.

It was, by this point, an actual "artifact" in this imagined physiological
landscape, taking the form of a golden circlet around the spinal cord. He
peered at it, then chuckled without amusement. It should almost have been
obvious, from what Kroenen had told him, that since Arcane was embarked on this
war due to his feud with Herbert West, he had planned to seize personal command
of the troops created by his procedure.

The circlet would do that. All that Arcane would have to do would be to speak a
word or phrase chosen ahead of time, and this "circlet" would tighten, seizing
control of the mind of its host. If he hadn't realized that there was something
anomalous going on, he might even have thought that the formation of the
circlet was a normal part of the spell -- similar formations were strengthening
other parts of the skeleton, after all.

Well, so much for that, Charles thought. Nice try. He reached out to dissipate
the circlet.

It tightened to the point where it severed the cord, killing the patient
instantly.

------------------
Chapter Seventeen:
------------------

Should probably have expected something like that, Charles thought coolly. All
right, then. 

He reversed the probe that he'd directed towards the circlet, which expanded
again, and the spinal column returned to its normal state. Charles began to
examine the mechanics of the process, hoping to find out how the circlet had
come into being.

In the early 1930s, an arcanosurgeon had asked a question that was, in
retrospect, obvious, but which had never even been imagined until that point.
If it was possible for a magic-using surgeon to create "copies" of himself to
do work at multiple locations on a patient's body, was it also possible to
create a "copy" of the patient? If so, then the surgeon would be able to "test"
his techniques on an imaginary -- or rather "ideal" -- patient, one which could
be instantly restored to the condition it enjoyed before any cut was made.

There was a disadvantage to the technique, of course. Very few arcanosurgical
teams had the reserves of power needed to maintain such a realistic simulation
of a patient. It was frighteningly easy to spend so much time and energy
getting a surgical procedure perfect in "idea space" that one was unable to
perform it in reality. Arcane had likely not even considered the possibility
that the surgeon in question would use such a simulation when the time came for
his procedure to be implemented.

But Charles was working on his cousin. He had to get it right the first time.
And doing so had saved John's life.

Charles tried, first, to root out the bits of "code" that created the spinal
circlet. Initially, it seemed that they weren't closely associated with the
rest of the spells involved in the process. Unfortunately, he learned that he
was wrong in that conclusion. Without it, the entire structure collapsed on
itself, killing the patient with random energy discharges. That circlet seemed
to be equivalent to a "load-bearing beam" for the various enhancements in the
early stages of the procedure.

Frowning, he put the code that would create it back into place, but tried to
modify it subtly so that it would form in a different part of the body --
somewhere that it could contract without damaging anything necessary. That
didn't work either. When fully formed, the circlet's properties seemed to
"sense" whether or not it was in close contact with nerve tissue; if it wasn't,
then it self-destructed, and the rest of the enhancements followed soon after.

Who is this guy? Charles thought as he watched that happen for the fifth time.

He was conscious of the fact that he was running into the red zone of his
energy stores. He couldn't keep this up much longer and also do the actual
surgery, and he strongly suspected that if he stepped out of trance and tried
to explain what the problem was ... he wouldn't be believed.

He'd cried wolf too many times already, and knew how that story ended.

Charles took a moment he probably didn't have to review what he knew. If he let
the process go ahead as originally designed, he'd be putting an invincible army
in the hands of the brilliant but totally insane Dr. Anton Arcane.
Unacceptable. But he couldn't interfere with the circlet without killing the
patient.

Wait. That wasn't true. If I -- 

The horror of what he was considering nearly overpowered him. He couldn't ...

I don't have any choice.

He ended the simulation, and began to implement the procedure on John's actual
body. As he did so, he made tiny changes to the code that created the fatal
circlet. It wasn't going to appear around John's spinal column. It was going to
appear in his brain. Specifically, in the section of his brain that, according
to current theory, contained personality. The neural tissue would trick it into
remaining stable until the other "load-bearing" enchantments formed up.

Charles waited until the last possible moment. And then he triggered the trap.
The patient's vitals flickered ... but stabilized. The enhancements themselves
acted to protect their host.

It had worked. Except for the trifling matter of the brain damage.

He slowly came back to a normal level of consciousness, and turned to look up
at the observation gallery. "The operation," he said in a voice that barely
trembled at all, "is a success."

-----------------
Chapter Eighteen:
-----------------

After taking a quick shower and ritual oblation that did nothing to soothe his
nerves, Charles was escorted to the observation gallery. Through the large
windows, he could see a small group of smock-clad technicians swarming around
John's still-anesthetized form, no doubt engaged in the mechanical element of
the procedure. As he had no interest in that aspect, he turned away to look at
the people who'd come to watch.

Halsey was nowhere to be seen, but a forgettable fellow who claimed to be her
aide was introducing him to the "dignitaries". Most of the non-uniformed
Westerners were apparently associated with something called the Bureau for
Paranormal Research and Defense. (He'd never heard of it before.) Charles
thought that he noted a decided coolness between them and most of the German
contingent. 

Actually, quite a few people there seemed to be uncomfortable with the
representatives of the Kaiserreich. He saw a Japanese woman with light brown
hair, dressed in an Army dress uniform, listening to "Irma" engaged in
monologue. The officer had an expression of polite distaste on her face. Quite
likely, she wished that she was anywhere else. The woman apparently noticed
Charles' regard, for she turned to meet his gaze. Her eyebrow arched, and he
looked away first. Ironically, turning his head led him to look at the young
woman he'd seen outside of Halsey's office, now standing alone in a corner.

"Ah, Doctor!" Kroenen enthused as he walked up to him. "An excellent working. I
am highly impressed with your abilities --"

"I'll bet."

"Excuse me?"

Swallowing his anger and fear one last time, Charles managed to smile. "Never
mind, it's not important. However, Herr Doktor, there's a matter you and I need
to discuss."

"Really? What?"

"It's a ... confidential matter." He made a show of looking around, and lowered
his voice. "It concerns what we were discussing just prior to the procedure.
There are some additional factors that I just discovered."

It was impossible to say for sure, but Charles thought that he could hear
Kroenen blinking. "I see," he said at last. "In that case, let us step
outside."

They did so. "Now, what --" Kroenen began.

"First of all, do you realize how much I despise you?"

The monster gave a short nod, and actually managed to sound a bit sad when he
spoke again. "I believe that I have some idea. It's regrettable, as I actually
hold you in some esteem, despite your obvious deficiencies."

"Shut up," Charles suggested. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the
vial he'd put there earlier. "Do you recognize this?" he asked as he held it up
for Kroenen to see.

Kroenen was silent for a long moment. "If, as I suspect, you refer to the
contents of the vial ... then it would appear to be a slice of leather. Black
leather, in fact, of the sort that I wear at all times. Actually, I think it --
is it --?"

Charles nodded, smiling grimly.

"But how?"

"I put the whammy on you."

"The --?"

"Instant hypnosis. Your defenses are excellent, by the way. I am highly
impressed. But I got through them without much difficulty." He wiggled the
vial. "And now, thanks to the laws of sympathy and contagion, I've got an
arcane connection to you. With the wards and preservatives that I've laid on
it, it's gonna last a lot longer than a year and a day. Now, you could get one
of your colleagues back in the Reich to try and break it ... but that'd mean
telling them about it, and something tells me you don't ever want to show any
weakness to them. So you're really stuck."

There was a long silence in the hallway. "Given how much you clearly despise
me, Dr. McNichol," Kroenen said in a very even tone, "I wonder why you haven't
already used that to destroy me. I assure you, it would be in your best
interests to do so."

"Probably," Charles agreed. "But I think you can guess why I haven't done
that."

"Obviously, you intend to extort some sort of service from me."

As a matter of fact, Charles hadn't done so because he didn't have the first
idea how to work such a killing spell. But he wasn't about to admit that, and
in any event, he did want something. He explained, in as few words as possible,
about the trap. 

"I'm going to include my work-around for it in my report to Dr. Halsey. But
when you arrange for Arcane's downfall and your own ascension -- if that's the
right word -- I suspect that you'll probably be in charge of implementing this
procedure in Germany. This is my insurance against the possibility that you'll
do something to alter the procedure to turn them into your private army,
instead of Arcane's. 

"And so you don't get any ideas about getting out of this by killing me, I'm
going to walk right back into this room, here, and when Halsey gets back, I'll
turn this over to her, and let her, and the Bureau, and the Watchtower --" He
threw that one in almost as an afterthought, and was pleased to see Kroenen
stiffen at the mention. "-- worry about keeping an eye on you and using this to
do horrible things if you start messing around."

"I see. I really don't have any options, then. Killing you right now, as I
earnestly desire to do, would attract attention that neither I nor my
associates can afford at this time." Kroenen's voice regained some of its
former ironic tone. "Congratulations, Doctor, you seem to have won."

"I haven't won anything, you disgusting ... thing," Charles concluded lamely,
unable to think of a better noun. "But you haven't either. And I'll take that.
So what say we go back in front of witnesses, shall we? After you."

-----------------
Chapter Nineteen:
-----------------

By the time they returned to the gallery, most of the observers had gathered up
against the window. With a sinking sensation in his stomach, Charles realized
that the procedure's "mechanical" stage must be nearly complete. He quietly
moved through to the front of the crowd.

On the floor below, John's body had been completely encased in a suit of olive
green metal, with his face hidden behind a thick, nearly opaque screen of
golden glass. The suit added nearly a foot to John's already tall frame, and
was proportionately broad-shouldered. From what little Charles had read of the
armor's design specifications, he knew that most of it was composed of
strength-amplifying motors that would translate any movement that its wearer
made into a much more forceful gesture.

And he knew that it could never come off without killing the human being inside
it.

ONe of the technicians made an adjustment to a cable that led into the armor's
neck brace. then turned to look up at the window. "I have just administered the
antagonist to the anesthetic," a crackly version of Halsey's voice announced as
it issued from the speaker on the gallery's wall. "He should regain
consciousness within a few minutes."

If so, then he did so without visible sign. His form was just as still as it
had been when she made that announcement, as she leaned over his head. "Please
identify yourself," she said.

And a voice answered. "Spartan Number Zero Zero One, reporting for duty."

It wasn't John's voice. Or rather it was ... but even beyond the distortion to
be expected from the voice amplifier built into the armor and the radio set
that allowed the observers to hear what was going on, the voice had a decided
monotonal quality, stripped of all stresses and inflections. John would never
have sounded like that.

No one else noticed; at least, no one in the gallery. But Charles thought that
he could hears something that sounded like concern in Halsey's next question.
"What is your name?"

There was a brief hesitation before the response. "Designation Spartan Number
Zero Zero One."

"Where were you born?"

"No data available."

"When were you born?"

"No data available."

"What is your mission?"

"Sir, my primary objective is to destroy, by any and all means necessary, enemy
combatants acting against the interests of the Allied Forces, including but not
limited to the armed forces of the Soviet Union. Specific operational
objectives are dependant on strategic decisions made by my commanding officers,
whose orders I am to fulfill to the best of my ability."

It sounded like an actor reading a script, only without any attempt at
emotional content. Halsey stared at him for a few seconds. "What is your
favorite color?"

"Irrelevant."

Over the next few minutes, Halsey alternated between personal questions and
inquiries about weapons, equipment, techniques and tactics. With the latter,
the information was presented in letter perfect fashion. With the former, not
only did he not seem to know anything about himself, he did not care that he
did not know.

Every answer was like a knife in Charles' heart. For a while, he'd froced
himself not to think about what he'd done, focusing on the conflict with
Kroenen. But now the consequences were being made plain to him, and the guilt
that he felt was overpowering. John had trusted him to prevent this procedure
from causing any changes to his personality. Not only had Charles failed, it
had not been an accident. This was the result of a deliberate choice that he'd
made, and it didn't matter that it had been the best of several terrible
options. Not in the least.

He had killed his best friend. His brother.

Charles stepped back from the window. Everyone's eyes were on the spectacle
below, so no one watched as he walked out the door and down the hallway, to the
steps that led down to the lower level, and then to a washroom. He closed the
door behind him, and looked into the mirror. He was sezied by a sudden urge to
smash it, but that was irrational. There was no point in destroying the image
of himself.

But he had kept the scalpel with him for this purpose, and he closed his eyes,
lifted it up to the side of his neck, finding his jugular without any problem,
and plunged the blade into it.

---------------
Chapter Twenty:
---------------

Or rather, he tried to do so. His arm was straining against unexpected
resistance, and he couldn't quite reach the vein. After a few moments, he
opened his eyes to see what was stopping him.

The "albino Japanese" girl was standing behind him, both of her hands wrapped
around his forearm to halt its motion, and staring through her dark glasses at
their reflection in the mirror, just like Charles. Her face was calm and serene
in its expression, as though it was an everyday occurance for her to stop
people from doing what he intended to do.

"Let go of me, please," Charles asked, trying to be as polite as possible under
the circumstances.

"No." The girl's voice was soft, quiet and as firm as her grip.

"You're interrupting a crucial magical working, and in so doing putting --"

"Lying diminishes both the liar and the one to whom lies are told. Please
stop."

Charles finally felt the tears he'd been holding back begin to flow. "You don't
understand, I can't do this anymore, you don't --"

"Actually, I understand quite a bit more than you'd expect about having done
things for which you can't forgive yourself. You'd be stunned. But that's
neither here nor there. I am not going to let you kill yourself, Dr. McNichol.
Now. We can stay here in this position, until one or both of us are missed, at
which point a search will be mounted. When they find us like this, you will
most certainly be restrained. As an alternative, you can let me take that
scalpel away from you, and we can talk about what's led to this."

Charles considered feigning agreement and then, when her guard was down, doing
what he'd set out to do. He rejected the notion as he realized that it was
unlikely that this girl would ever let her guard down. "Who are you, anyway?"
he asked as he stopped trying to push the blade towards his neck, and loosened
his hold on its handle.

"No one of consequence," she replied as she reached up to take the scalpel with
one hand, still holding on to his forearm with the other until it was out of
his reach. "Now, back to you. What is wrong?"

"I killed the only person on Earth who cared when there I lived or died. For
starters."

"Funny," she said. "He seemed to be alive when I left the gallery."

"/Something/ is alive," Charles snapped. "But it's not my cousin. I destroyed
his personality, everything that made him who he was instead of some sort of
... perfect, universal soldier --"

"And that can't be repaired?" she asked quietly.

He stared at her. "No," he finally answered. "No, it can't. Nerve damage can't
be regenerated, any more than life can be restored after more than a few
minutes of --"

"And that's not likely to change?"

"What? I don't --"

"Is it at all possible that, with advances in medical technology and magical
technique, in the near future, you -- or another surgeon -- will be able to do
what you are not able to do now?" As Charles struggled to find an answer, she
continued. "Or have you decided that there will never be any improvement in
those fields ever again? A bit arrogant, I think. You're very good, but no one
is that good."

"It doesn't matter!" Charles snarled. "He'll be killed in the war before things
can be improved to that level!"

"If that's his fate, then it would have been his fate even without what you did
to his brain. What you've done doesn't affect the skills that will keep him
alive."

"I don't -- I -- where are you going with this? Why are you asking me these
things?" he cried out.

She took off her glasses, revealing a pair of bright red eyes that glared at
him. "I'm trying to save your life, sir. Not only because your work is done
yet, not only because you haven't passed the information about Kroenen or the
leather you took from him on to Halsey --"

"How do you even know about that?" he whispered aloud.

She ignored the question. "-- but because you are wrong about nobody caring
whether you life or die. I care." She gave a long, aggravated sigh. "You're
definitely not what I was expecting ... but I do care."

"I don't understand ... what you were expecting? What do you mean?"

"I knew a woman ... who knew you. And you were her hero."

He shook his head, appalled. "I'm nobody's hero."

"Don't underestimate yourself. Everyone is somebody's hero, whether they know
it or not." She looked away, closing her eyes. When they opened again, she
seemed unfathomably sad. "I have to go now. Doctor ... when I said that I
wasn't going to let you kill yourself, what I meant to say was that you're not
supposed to die, here and now. But like the man said, `time is out of joint'.
Lots of things that were not supposed to happen ... will." She held up the
blade. "If you want me to give you this back before I leave ... I'll do it."

He stared at the blade for what felt like an hour. At last, he shook his head.

"Okay." She pocketed it, bowed, and turned to walk away. "Good-bye, ojiisan."

Then she was gone.

"Grandfather?" he asked.

-------------------
Chapter Twenty-One:
-------------------

A few relatively uneventful hours later, Charles once again found himself
sitting in front of Halsey's desk. When he'd arrived, he'd silently handed over
the report he'd written about the surgery and his discoveries, and she'd
silently started to read it. He was wondering if he should blame the time that
it was taking on his own bad penmanship, when Halsey turned over the laster
sheet of paper, and rubbed a hand over her eyes.

"Dr. McNichol. When you uncovered what you term `the trap', why didn't you
interrupt the procedure to report it to me?" she asked without moving her hand.

"Because I believed that I wouldn't be believed. Was I mistaken?"

Now the hand did come down, and Charles realized for the first time that Halsey
was probably just as bone-tired as he was. "No," she said at last. "No,
probably not. In any event, while it is ... unfortunate, the Master Chief's
diminished capacity doesn't seem to have affected his abilities as a soldier in
any meaningful way. So, the procedure is, as you said earlier, a qualified
success. Congratulations. And I'm sorry."

For a second, the impulse to tell her what exactly she could do with her sorry
surged up in him. But it subsided, and he got on with his business. "There are
some further details that aren't in the report." He told her about his meetings
with Kroenen and "Irma", about his final confrontation with the former, and
about the promise he'd extracted from him. He took out the vial and set it down
on the desk in front of her. He didn't mention the ... conversation he'd had
with "No one of consequence". If Halsey knew about it, then there was no point
in bringing it up; if she didn't, it was none of her business.

Halsey was silent for another while after he finished, staring down at the
vila. "Well," she said, "that's ... remarkable. Kroenen and his colleague --
who is not named Irma Oberhauser, as you guessed --"

"Who is she, then?"

"You don't need to know."

"Right."

"In any event, they are part of a sub-group within the Thule Gesellschaft --
itself an organization with questionable allegiances -- which is suspected of
loyalty to an individual fairly high in the Soviet hierarchy, as well as having
other disturbing links to inimical forces. This ... gives us a hold on their
cabal, and possibly on the entire Germanenorden. Truly, remarkable."

"Uh-huh," Charles replied dismissively. "So tell me, was I ever supposed to
figure out that this was all a farce?"

"What?"

"This ... whole program. It's nonsense. There's not more than a couple of dozen
`candidates' up there. Even with a lot more casualties, you're not ever going
to have more than a hundred or so of these `super-soldiers'. And a hundred
troops, no matter how super, aren't going to make a difference in a war of this
scale. You'd need thousands, and you're not going to get them.

"So what's the real agenda? Well, let's examine what's happened since I got
here. You uncovered at least one American agent working against your interests.
And you're on the verge of doing serious harm to unfriendly forces in the
German government. Both of these lead me to suspect that this entire affair has
been stage-managed to draw out supposedly allied forces that are actually
antithetical to your own, and then damage, discredit, or turn them. How am I
doing?"

Halsey was staring at him, now. "Without addressing your central thesis," she
finally said, "I'll just note that you're mistaken about what a small number of
soldiers can accomplish. This is a new type of warfare -- or possibly the
return of an old type -- that involves small units deployed rapidly, often
behind enemy lines. You might find it amusing that they're calling this sort of
operation a surgical strike."

"Why would I find that amusing?"

She actually rolled her eyes. "In any event, I'll just state that such actions
as you describe were not our primary goal. Nor, to answer your original
question, is your realization of such `facts' at all relevant to what's about
to happen."

"What's going to h--"

She'd taken out her pistol and was pointing it at him. "We're going to go for a
short walk."

"Ah," he said dully. "Of course."

-------------------
Chapter Twenty-Two:
-------------------

Charles walked out of the hut that served as Halsey's office, with Halsey
following close behind him. She didn't do anything as melodramatic as keeping
her gun aimed at his back, or even holding it in one of her pockets so as to
create an obvious bulge. Evidently, she expected him to calmly walk to the
slaughter.

Given that he was, in fact, calmly walking to the slaughter, there was a
certain logic to her position. He couldn't bring himself to draw attention to
his plight, and furthermore, he doubted that anyone they passed would lift a
finger to help him. Halsey was in charge here.

Following her subtly voiced directions, Charles was strangely unsurprised to
realize that they were walking the same route that Shrieve had led him along --
had it really only been yesterday? -- and that they ended up in the same
clearing. Happily, whatever Kroenen had left of Shrieve was no longer in
evidence. Some part of Charles found himself hoping that whoever cleaned up
after him would do as good a job.

Halsey stood for a few moments, looking around as though she'd never seen the
place before. and then took out her pistol and started examining it. "Thank you
for not making a scene, Dr. McNichol," she said without looking at him.

"Not at all," he said faintly. Then, whether it was his gorge rising or his
spine stiffening, something prompted him to utter one last sarcasm. "I
understand your position completely. After all, `it is the duty of every good
officer to obey any orders given him by his commander-in-chief,' as someone
once said."

"Yes, it is," she replied evenly, still not meeting his gaze. "Now, I'd
appreciate it if you'd close your eyes."

He actually started to comply. Then a thought occured to him, and he forced
himself to be calm. "No."

Now she looked at him. "No?"

"No." He made several false starts at his next sentence. "If you want me to
shut my eyes, I'll need you to do something for me."

"Do you really think this is the time for negotiations?"

"Why not? What've I got to lose?" Charles asked, feeling as though he were
about to have hysterics. Mastering them, he continued. "Just before I wrote my
report, I had an interesting talk with the girl I saw outside your office that
one time."

"Did you," Halsey said flatly.

"She told me that she thought there was a chance what I did to John could
eventually be reversed. If you promise me you'll ... take care of that, if it
ever comes to pass ... then I'll close my eyes, now."

She just stared at him, for the longest time. "Very well," she said at last.
"If it is ever within my power to bring about such a reversal, I will do so."
She pointed her pistol at his stomach, and clicked off the safety. "Now, close
your eyes."

He closed his eyes.

I won't scream. No matter how much it hurts, I will not scream. It is not a
question of courage. I have surrendered all claim to such a virtue. I won't
scream because --

He realized something terrible. It wasn't simply that he didn't want the choice
to die taken out of his hands.

He wanted to live.

I won't scream I won't scream I won't scream I won't scream I won't scream I
won't scream I won't scream I won't scream I won't scream I won't scream

A shot rang out.

I WON'T SCREAM!

After a while, he realized that he had not screamed, and moreover, there was a
decided lack of a burning pain in his stomach. This troubled him. So he opened
his eyes.

The very first thing he saw was Halsey, standing tall, pointing her pistol
towards the sky even as she looked straight at him with an unreadable
expression. Then he looked down, and noted the absence of a bleeding wound in
his lower abdomen.

His head popped up again as Halsey began to speak. "Oh dear, I seem to have
missed my only shot. You know, I've had conversations with that girl too.
Several, actually. The pertinent one involved her telling me that, in this war
and its aftermath, humanity would finally realize that people who perform acts
contrary to ethics and morality, simply because they have been ordered to do
so, are not exhibiting loyalty ... but cowardice. I hope she's right. I really
do."

She drew in a deep breath. "A car is waiting for you at the top of the valley.
Your bags are already in its trunk. Get going, Dr. McNichol. One way or
another, we probably won't ever meet again."

She turned and walked away without ever looking back at him. After a while,
Charles started walking towards the path out of the valley.

---------------------
Chapter Twenty-Three:
---------------------

Slowly, Charles made his way up the hill. He found himself freezing every time
he heard a noise that couldn't be attributed to his own movements, wondering
frantically whether his apparent freedom was all just some final, sadistic game
that Halsey was playing.

He remembered that it had been like this as he'd fled across China, after the
massacre. There was something strange about that; he could remember everything
about those terrifying weeks, but nothing about how he'd managed to survive
when no one else had. Likely as not, he'd cowarded his way out, like he always
did.

Like it seemed he always would.

He was nearly to the top of the hill when heard a voice. "Dr. McNichol?"

After his pulse rate returned to vaguely normal levels, he looked up. The
speaker was the woman he'd seen earlier in the observation gallery --
brown-haired, resplendent in a Japanese army uniform. She was standing at the
top of the rise, peering down at him.

"Are you my appointment in Samara?" he asked.

She blinked a few times. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm not familiar with that
particular idiom. My English is, perhaps, not as good as it should be. Dr.
Halsey requested that I transport you away from this place."

Charles started up the hill again, and soon he achieved the summit. She bowed
politely, and he returned the gesture. "I am Lieutenant Kaede Fujieda. Very
pleased to meet you," she introduced herself.

"Douzo yoroshiku," Charles replied absently. He could see the car now. It was,
for all intents and purposes, identical to the one that had brought him here.
He wondered if there was something symbolic in that. Probably not.

"Ah," she continued in Japanese. "I was told you spoke Nihongo, but I hoped to
practice my poor command of your language."

"Uh-huh," he replied. Then he blinked. "Wait, who told you I spoke --"

And then the car door opened, and a small, dark-haired hurricane exploded
forth, crossing the distance between it and them in less time than light would
have taken, and slamming into his chest like a cannon shell. "/*BAKA*/!"
shouted Mai Katsuragi as she knocked him to the ground. She commenced to
lecture/curse at him in a creole of Japanese, Portuguese and English, throwing
in the occasional Cantonese profanity.

"Mai-chan?" he whispered, not believing the evidence of his senses. He'd seen
her dragged away from him in the evacuation of Shanghai, and thought her dead
-- or worse.

"No, I'm unprintable Shirley Temple, you big lummox, what were you thinking,
getting dragged away from me like that, fighting those guys, I thought you were
going to get yourself killed --"

Fighting? He hadn't fought. He hadn't done or felt anything as they were
separated. She'd fought like a wildcat, which wasn't too surprising, but it
hadn't made any difference in the end. Obviously, she was projecting her own
strengths onto him. A very bad habit, this tendency of hers to see good in
people who didn't have any in them, but if what she'd seen in Shanghai hadn't
cured her of it, then one more lecture from him wasn't going to do it either.

Instead, he sat up and folded her into a hug. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm
sorry that I let myself get taken away from you. You know how useless I am when
I'm not with someone smart and tough like you."

"Well, /*duh*/!" Mai snapped ... then hugged him back. "I forgive you," she
murmured.

Fujieda coughed politely, and Mai quickly got to her feet so that Charles could
do the same. "How did you --" he started to ask.

"When Katsuragi-san was evacuated to Japan," the older woman explained, "the
organization that I represent discovered that she has some ... remarkable
talents."

Charles put two and two together. "Would this organization be a dance company?"
he asked.

Fujieda nodded. "On one level, yes."

"It's so wild!" Mai enthused. "I get to sing, and dance, and act, and I get to
ride around in --"

"Ahem." Fujieda quieted Mai with a look -- something that Charles had never
been able to do. He wished that he could take notes. "In any event, having
completed her basic training, Katsuragi-san has been assigned to our Canadian
branch. By a fortuitous coincidence, I have also been asked to transport you
back to your homeland, and I hope that you won't mind travelling with us."

"Not at all," he replied. "Where, exactly, are we going?"

She hesitated momentarily. "Edmonton, Alberta."

"Ah," he answered. Much became clear.

Shortly before he'd left for China, oil had been discovered just south of the
provincial capital of Alberta. It had become apparent in the years since that
there were large quantities of the resource to be found there. And if the
Soviet army were to invade -- whether over the pole, or through Alaska, then
they would head directly for such an obvious supply of the vital resource of
modern warfare.

In short, Fujieda was telling him -- in a typically oblique Japanese manner --
that Mai had been assigned to a branch of the secret "battlemover" army
intended to meet such an invasion head on. Looking at Mai's beaming, innocent
face, he realized that she hadn't realized the implications of this.

Out of the frying pan ...

"I'd be happy to accompany Mai-chan wherever she goes," Charles said quietly.

A few moments later, they were all piled into the car, with Mai seated beside
Charles in the back seat. As Fujieda started the car, Charles noted that Mai
was looking at him with a concerned expression. He raised an eyebrow, inviting
her to speak.

"You gotta promise that you won't do that again," she said quietly.

"That?"

"I really mean it about you fighting those guys, back then. I really thought
you were gonna get killed. Promise you won't do anything like that again."

"I promise. No more heroics for me. I'll leave that sort of thing to you in the
future," Charles answered easily. "All right?"

"Five by five," she answered, snuggling up into his side.

He smiled fondly. Then, abruptly, he frowned. "Where did you pick up that
expression?"

"The man," she answered, sounding very sleepy.

"Which man?"

"The man in the armor. I asked him if he could hear me, and he said five by
five, and I asked him what that meant, and he said it meant he could hear me
loud and clear."

Charles slowly turned to look at Fujieda.

"We happened to encounter the first Spartan while he was walking around on the
base." She frowned. "I seem to recall hearing that he was some relation to
you?"

"Yes," Charles said hoarsely. "Yes, he is."

Five by five was radio operator slang. But John wasn't a radio operator. One of
his father's war buddies had been, and John had picked up the phrase listening
to stories about the Demon War. In order for him to remember it ... 

/Something of his personal memories, of his self, had to have survived the
operation./

Charles waited until he was certain that Mai was completely asleep before he
let the tears of relief begin to flow. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you
thank you thank you ..."

"I wouldn't thank me all that much, Dr. McNichol. Both of you are being taken
into a great deal of danger," Fujieda commented.

"I wasn't talking to you," he answered.

"Ah."

In the silence of his mind, Charles continued the conversation. Thank you, he
told the One behind Apollo the Physician and his daughters Health and All-Heal.
I don't know if I believe in you. And I definitely don't forgive you for what
you've done. But thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance to help my
cousin, and for the little one at my side, whom I thought was surely lost.
Thank you. 

And as the car rolled along the road, he felt a peace that he'd never expected
to feel come over him, and leaning back into the seat, he allowed sleep to come
over him.

For once, no dreams came.

--------------
Author's Notes
--------------

Been a while since I've done one of these.

Let's start out by thanking Elsa Bibat, Bob Schroeck and the many other authors
of Teikoku Kagekidan: 1940, who've been generous enough to let me play in their
vast sandbox, and have offered helpful and encouraging comments. And another
thank you to my usual co-conspirators in the Fanfic Revolution.

Needless to say, what I've hinted about the future in this story may not
necessarily come to pass, depending on what other TK:194X authors do. While I
have plans to continue the story of Charles and Mai in Edmonton, I don't know
when I'll get around to them. If I do, then it will probably be focused on
Mai's perspective -- "The epic story of a world at war and a girl at play," to
borrow a phrase -- just as this story was focused on Charles'.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What I stole: The Spartan armor, of course, was inspired by the Halo series of
games, and specifically by Eric Nylund's excellent novels that tell the story
of the Master Chief's origins and what happened immediately after the events of
the first game. (I've actually never played Halo myself ...) Lt. Shrieve comes
from the "Creature Commandos" strip that ran in DC Comics' "Weird War Tales" in
the early 80s. Kroenen and "Irma" are taken from Mignola's Hellboy -- albeit,
in the case of the latter, with a nod to her likely inspiration.

(Ilsa Haupstein, the Hellboy character was -- certainly in the film, and
probably in the original comics -- inspired by the infamous series of
exploitation films that began with "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS". According to my
research, those films in turn were inspired by a pair of very real Nazi women,
one of whom was named Irma, and one of whom was surnamed Oberhauser. Soooooo
...)

Private Brown was created by Charles Schulz (in the film "Bon Voyage, Charlie
Brown" -- loosely inspired by Sparky's own wartime experiences) and Private
Satariano was created by Max Allan Collins in his novel "Road to Purgatory",
the sequel to his classic "Road to Perdition." Lt. Rico is a nod to Robert A.
Heinlein. Fujieda Kaede is from "Sakura Wars". And Charles' and Mai's
great-granddaughter, of course, was created by Naoko Takeuchi.

Everyone else, I made up.

Nobody sue me, okay?


Chris Davies.



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