(A belated happy birthday to Ghost-itS, my long suffering sounding board.)

Part 35: Engines of Genocide

Azanael bobbed back to consciousness like a piece of flotsam torn away from a sinking ship, left drifting in a sea of agony. She might have quickly been submerged again had Mari's voice not come to her through the fog blanketing her mind: "You awake?"

"Uhhhk..."

"Keep quiet, we're not out of danger."

The Arume opened her eyes, but saw nothing. "Where am I?" she whispered hoarsely.

"In a tailor's workshop on the back side of the Bund, just off Suzhou Creek. It's a little after dark." There was an airy noise, somewhere between a sigh and a yawn. "Looks like the Koreans really roughed you up. How are you feeling?"

Azanael's wrists and ankles still burned where the binding ropes had chafed them. Her arms and legs throbbed in zigzagging bars, marking the exact points where the rubber hose slammed into her defenseless flesh again and again. "...Hurt," she groaned at last. "Hurt everywhere."

"Anything broken?"

"I... don't think so."

"Has your sight come back at all?"

"No." No, but fortunately her ears were in order. Azanael turned her head to the left, as Mari seemed to be on the left side of... whatever this hard thing that she lay upon was. "How did you find me?"

"By killing enough of the enemy to make them open negotiations," Mari replied dryly. "Didn't they tell you there was going to be a prisoner exchange?"

"No," Azanael answered numbly. "They never told me anything, just shouted and screamed and – "

"Don't think about it," the other woman interrupted. "Try to rest. We may be here for a while."

Being told not to dwell on her ordeal switched the pilot's thoughts to her current position. "Why aren't we safe?"

"You can thank Schuhart for that. He decided to conduct the swap in person... I went along to make sure he didn't provoke the Koreans." Azanael heard a faint scrape, as if Mari were adjusting her seat. "I'm not sure if it was an ambush or if they were just nervous, but they shot first. Schuhart and I grabbed you in the confusion, but we were cut off by machine gun fire and the rest of the team pulled back without us."

The battered female's pulse quickened in alarm. "We're alone?"

"I think we've shaken off the Koreans for the moment. Now they're jamming our radios instead... The satellite phone still works, so at least the others know we're alive."

"Is Schuhart here?"

"No," said Mari with unveiled exasperation. "He's out scouting."

Azanael's forehead wrinkled in a composite of surprise and incredulity. "By himself?"

"There's nobody else." Mari sighed again. "We're to lie low until he comes back... Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime?"

"I, um... I need to use the toilet."

"Sure. Wait a moment, I'll help you up."

A warm hand grasped Azanael's, gently drawing her upward into a sitting position. She followed willingly at first, until the sheet covering her body fell down and bared her shame. "Ah..!"

"Easy." The hands moved to her shoulders, arresting the patient as she feebly tried to squirm away. "Easy... It doesn't matter, Azanael. I've already seen your – seen what they did to you."

The wounded alien acquiesced to that persistent tugging after a few seconds. New flashes of pain ran up her calves and thighs as she cautiously shifted her weight onto her feet, but the first experimental steps confirmed that she could walk. Her weak elation at this accomplishment was pushed aside by a fresh question. "Mari, does the Liaison know what happened?"

"Mm-hm." Azanael's guide moved away as if to pick something up, returned, and took her by the arm. "The bathroom's this way."

For Azanael, the curtness of the reply told all. The Liaison didn't want someone who'd embarrassed them twice in a handful of days, never mind being blinded, beaten and dragged back with nothing to show for her suffering. Renaril had probably signed a transfer command for her already...

Sino-Arumic Liaison HQ
Guangzhou, China
April 30th, 2016

"Are you sure it's all right?"

Kang looked behind herself as the sagging shirt bared her shoulders. "Are you having second thoughts?"

"No," Renaril mumbled, averting her eyes while she stepped out of her leotard. No second thoughts, but the clinging apprehension wouldn't go away. "As long as you want it too..."

"My body wants it," Kang remarked with an unexpected touch of humor. "And I did promise you I would set aside time for this."

"Mmf..."

"It's all right if you don't want to." The forime turned around, her unclothed upper figure silhouetted by the table lamp beside the bed. "I can wait."

Renaril shook her head. She did want it – no less than her lover, whose mating scent made her mouth water so – and this time neither of them would blame the nanomachines. She hesitated, hovering indecisively, then remembered the parting words from that last call out of Shanghai: "You go make her happy, Group Commander. Help her relax, take her mind off us for a while."

As Kang resumed folding her shirt and went to place it atop the dresser, the Arume padded across the room and pressed up against her back. "I'm sorry about the smell," the elder woman murmured in response. "I should have taken a shower."

"You don't smell bad... just fertile." Renaril put her arms around Kang's waist, clasping her hands below the navel, and nuzzled her back affectionately. "Isn't it amazing, to have a new life growing inside you?"

"Erm..." The incipient mother shivered when her partner's hands began to advance below the belt line. "It's fine to be happy, but you shouldn't get overexcited. We've only just started and there's so much that could go wrong – "

"It won't." Renaril tightened her embrace possessively. "This strong body will definitely keep our child safe." Slender fingers explored briefly, finding a zipper. "Can I do this?"

"Mm..."

Metal rasped against metal as Renaril unfastened the olive trousers, sliding Kang's pants and panties off her hips as one. "You said I took the lead last time, but I can't remember it. Could I... I mean, would you let me try again?"

Her query brought back the good mood. "I would let you, if you can wait a minute longer."

As the disrobed warrior sorted out her remaining garments, Renaril's gaze wandered around the bedroom. It was only subtly different, but she could tell that Kang had made an effort to tidy up since the last time she visited. The books were more organized now, with just a couple left on the desk and only one, a volume with a plain cover entitled The Motorcycle Diaries, on the bedside table.

The box springs creaked a little when Kang climbed onto the bed on all fours, presenting to Renaril the curves of her rump and the glistening prize between them while she smoothed out the pillows. Visions of imminent foreplay displaced all else in the alien's mind as she closed the gap, intent on giving her partner a night worth celebrating. She'd start with gentle strokes, work towards the center bit by bit –

Kang finished with the pillows and backed up right as Renaril was reaching out to her: before she knew what was happening, her finger had gone all the way in. Her opposite inhaled sharply, jerking away as if prodded by a glowing poker. "I'm sorry," the Arume stammered. "I didn't mean... Li? Li, what's the matter?"

She received no answer. Kang violently hunched forwards, clutching at the back of her head. As Renaril knelt behind her, rooted in place by shock and fear, the trembling woman broke down in heaving sobs. "Lie bing... Lie bing..!"

Her reaction bewildered as much as horrified Renaril. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm so sorry!"

Even before the words were even fully formed, she understood that Kang couldn't hear her. The panicked fragments of Chinese conveyed no information to her ears, but she did comprehend the pleading tone in those same words. Half a minute passed, maybe a little more, and the sobbing diminished to a pained whimper. In the midst of the lull, Renaril made out a name – Liang.

All the color drained from her face. "No... Nonono, Liang is gone! He's dead, he can't hurt you!" Finally spurred to action, she clambered around to the head of the bed. "Li, wake up! You're safe, please wake up! Please..." Renaril sniffled, struggling to hold back tears. "Don't let – eeeeek!"

Kang moved like the proverbial fluid lightning. Renaril felt herself snatched up bodily and pushed down onto the mattress. The next thing she knew, her body was being crushed against Kang's, the bigger woman's arms and legs encircling her in a taut, desperate embrace.

"Li – "

A hand curled around the back of Renaril's neck, pressing her face into her partner's chest. Kang's heart pounded against her cheek, air hissing in and out of the solder's mouth in deep, forcefully regulated breaths. Renaril didn't dare move, lying perfectly still even after her troubled lover's grasp relaxed with the coming of merciful sleep.

"How many others did we lose? Beside Maksim and Anastasiya?"

"A few dead and several wounded. I don't know the exact numbers." Mari lifted her electric lantern to drive back the shadows. A work table loomed out of the darkness, with a couple of low-backed chairs. "Here," she said, placing the lantern atop an idle sewing machine. "Turn around."

Azanael let herself be steered into the seat, but she sat with her legs pressed together and her arms ineffectually covering her front. "Do I have to... stay like this?"

"The Koreans didn't see fit to return your clothes," the sniper replied. "And even though this is a tailor's, there don't seem to be any here." She made an effort to show a reassuring smile, remembering too late that Azanael couldn't read her expression anyway. "Maybe Schuhart will find something for you."

The alien nodded slowly. "What happened after we crashed?"

"A lot." Mari rested an elbow on the table. "We captured the trawler, but we weren't able to save the hostages... Overnight we used the boat to raid the enemy's outposts in the canals and the river. Schuhart and the gosta set up a forward base in a construction site, and we ambushed the Koreans there when they attacked in the morning." To call it an ambush didn't really do the encounter justice, but she saw no need for Azanael to hear the gory details. "They came back with a white flag."

"And then you came to get me."

"Yeah... Oh, Tsubael and Elaqebil came in on the supply boat as we were leaving. Tsubael asked about you right away."

"Tsubael." Azanael frowned. "It must be Elaqebil's doing. Did she recognize you?"

"No."

"Are you going to tell her?"

"I don't know." Mari straightened. "I was glad to see her again, but I..."

"What?"

'Never mind." The Japanese woman stood up, pushing those memories back into their dark crevice in her mind. "Stay here," she went on, picking up the lantern and switching it out of battery-saving mode. "I just had an idea about the clothes."

"You said there weren't any."

"There was a long piece of silk around here somewhere. Schuhart tripped over it when we came in." Sweeping the light in wider and wider arcs, Mari caught a splash of white on the carpet. "Found it."

Azanael perked up a bit. "What can you make?"

"I can't sew you a dress, but..." Mari shook out the cloth, laid it over the table and unsheathed her SVD's bayonet. "Well, I think I can cover the basics."

"Was that a joke?"

"If it makes you feel better." The blade's point easily sliced through the fabric, and the table's finish underneath it. "This should be enough. Stand up, I'll do the bottom first."

"All – all right."

Despite their frequent proximity of late, this was Mari's first chance to really look at the woman to whom she tended. Azanael hadn't changed much since their paths diverged in 1999: while not a trace was left of the vindictive scowl Mari remembered from the first meeting, here was unmistakably the same body, so tall beside the petite builds of Hagino and Tsubael...

"Mari?"

The other's fidgeting shook her out of her reverie. "Sorry," she said, stepping behind Azanael's back. "Feet apart."

"Uh..."

"Hold still." This shouldn't be difficult – Mari had done it plenty of times in Finland, where real underwear was often in as short a supply as anything – but suddenly she found the duty intensely awkward.

Azanael noticed. "What's wrong?" she demanded with audible unease.

"Nothing – " Mari reached around the front, trying to pick up the silk's loose end. The back of her hand brushed against the blind woman's pubic hair, a perfectly shaped chevron crowning an otherwise smooth mound, and she snapped back her arm with a gasp.

The Arume gasped as well, and tried to pull away. "Mari, stop – "

"Shut up," Mari hissed. "I'm almost done." Screwing up her face, she grabbed a fistful of fabric and bulled through the rest of the steps in one furious charge. The completed loincloth didn't measure up to her best work, once she backed up and inspected it, but it seemed adequate for its task. "Is that too tight?"

"No..."

"Okay." Back to the cutting board. "I'll do the top now."

"You don't have to." When Mari turned, Azanael's face had a pleading look. "If you hate touching me that much, I don't need it."

"You do need it." Mari critically gauged the material left to work with and cut off another length. "You catch a cold from this and Tsubael won't ever let me forget."

"I mean it. I don't want this if doing it hurts you."

"You're not making any sense."

Azanael hung her head. "You don't need to hide it," she whispered. "Anyone would hate me after what I did to you."

Neither the pair's present situation nor their recent run-in with the Butcher of Tallinn were worthy of this despair. "This is about what happened aboard Blue..?"

"What else would it be?"

So that was it. To have lived with that on her conscience all these years... Mari could only shake her head in wonder. "You idiot," she said softly. "I forgave you for that a long time ago."

"You... you did?"

If what Azanael craved was absolution, she received it freely. "How could I not forgive you? I remember... I remember how you came back to help Hagino at the end, even though – " Mari broke off there, mindful of more urgent matters. "The important thing is that I don't want you to feel guilty any more," she concluded, moving in with the silk. "Arms out."

The upwelling of sincerity between these long separated outcasts did much to clear the air. Mari worked briskly and without fumbling, running the strip of smooth material under arms and over shoulders to create something like a minimalist halter top. "There," she announced, tying it at the back. "How does that feel?"

"It's good." Azanael sounded a little surprised. "Thank you." With modesty made safe, she gingerly eased herself into her chair. "How long will we wait here?"

"If Schuhart doesn't come back by oh-three-hundred, orders are to head south and try to break out on our own." Mari checked her wristwatch. "But we've got a while left. Try to get comfortable."

"Mm..."

Mari sat as well, putting away her knife and turning down the lantern's brightness. "I'm glad it's you here with me," she confided, "not some stranger."

"Really?"

"It's comforting somehow... I've felt so disoriented these last few weeks. Everything's different in this layer."

Azanael nodded. "It felt strange for me too, to see Arume and forime working together peacefully. Even though it's what I wanted for so long." She clasped her hands in her lap. "It's a good thing to me, but for you... On the plane you said – "

"I haven't forgotten." Mari regarded her knees pensively. "Honestly I'm not sure now. Maybe this is good, maybe this is how Hagino would want it to be... But I can't forget where I came from."

"I wouldn't want you to," the alien told her earnestly. "I wish there were something I could do to help."

"I don't even know what I should do." Dark eyes looked into sightless blue-gray. "I don't know where to start or who to trust."

"Do you think we can trust Schuhart?"

In light of the adventure in Tokyo-2 and the morsels of information Mari had received about her elusive benefactors, it was difficult to answer that question definitively. "I don't think he's ours biggest problem," she hedged.

"I don't mean that. He's... he has connections among Arume. He might be able – "

"I wouldn't count on it." Mari would have liked to encourage Azanael, to tease out what the other woman knew of her employer and Majestic, but it wasn't safe to discuss that when Schuhart might come in at any minute. Instead she sat back and wrinkled her nose at the ceiling panels. "Why didn't the Koreans invade a tropical island or something? We could be sitting on a white beach, catching crabs and eating coconuts..."

"I don't like beaches. The sand gets into everything."

"It would, wouldn't it?" After the hours of silence, Mari found Azanael's willingness to make small talk gratifying. "Where would you rather be?"

The grounded flier shrugged. "Home."

"Sounds nice." Mention of home brought to mind faded, confused memories of a rocky island. "I heard there's nothing left of Kamiokijima... Didn't surprise me at all," Mari admitted. "I guess I could visit it in this layer, but it wouldn't be the same."

"I understand." Azanael raised her legs off the floor and stretched them, pointing her toes with a wince. "Nnnnngh! ...Maybe I should try it."

"Where would you go?"

"My birthplace, in New Zealand."

"New Zealand," Mari echoed, filled with genuine curiosity. "There really is a lot I don't know about you... Are you not allowed to go there on your planet?"

"It's not forbidden, but they don't want me there."

"I'm sorry."

Azanael shook her head emphatically. "Don't be. It's not anything to do with you."

"What happened? I mean, if you don't mind talking about it."

"I don't mind." Unseeing eyes closed in contemplation. "It was a town on the north island, surrounded by farms. My family controlled the shop for repairing machinery... My childhood wasn't unusual, I suppose. I went to school, worked on the harvesters, swam in the pond with my cousins." A faint smile graced her pale lips, telling of nostalgic feelings nearly forgotten. "I didn't want to be a farmer, though. I wanted to be a runner..."

("Hastings, New Zealand")
01.44.2725 ("August 4th, 1984")

They were talking about her.

Azanael could hear the announcers' voices faintly over the sigh of the breeze, rolling down the broad strip of the running track in front of her. Positioned fourth in a lineup of seven contenders, she was at the literal center of today's event. The three rivals on her left had already gotten their introductions, and now all eyes were on the tall, sullen girl from the north of north. Neither archive videos nor secondhand accounts had prepared her for the enormity of this contest: it was the sheer number of spectators in the stands lining either side of the track, Arume from all over the twin islands braving the heat to come and see it in person, which drove home the occasion's importance.

It sounded as if they liked what they saw, and that was important for her career prospects. In the regular class this event was all about speed and more speed, but in the big girls' category one could win the race and still lose critical points for failing to hold the crowd's favor. The announcers played it up, going over the points of merit shown by each contender with intimate detail. Azanael's competitors were doing their part as well, showing off their physiques with languid stretches and teasing postures.

It was starting to bother her, just a little. In training Azanael had worn a mesh leotard, but once she entered the formal arena, she obeyed pious tradition and competed in the nude. The only foreign objects on her body were a polarized visor covering her eyes, a harness which constrained but did not conceal her firm breasts, and track shoes with sinuous support tongues coiled around her calves. The rest of her skin carried no more than an oily coat of sunscreen. She minded none of that in itself, but she was here to show off her fitness, her prowess as a runner, and yet the commentary seemed to be all about her other assets. Admittedly she felt flattered when they remarked on the pleasingly streamlined appearance of her broad pink areolae, but it pricked her conscience regardless when she heard the announcers debating whether she could breastfeed correctly with inverted nipples...

"You're stiff, rural girl. Don't know what to do?"

The corners of Azanael's mouth contracted. She knew what was expected of her, but she was beginning to understand that those expectations stemmed from an interest more utilitarian than honoring the First Mother. Her eighteen year old figure embodied a classical ideal of Arume womanhood, and all could see by the laser-cut diamond of hair above her sex that she was unclaimed and a virgin. If the others wanted to angle for the prize with allure and not exertion, she could do the same and do it better.

She began to perform her warmup stretches as the announcers wrapped up their exposition on her feminine traits, evidently convinced that she wasn't willing to wiggle her hips for the cameras. Azanael listened attentively now, working the muscles in her gleaming arms and shoulders before progressing down her back. As they were having their final word, she slowly raised her arms, folded them behind her head and sank into a deep squat. A buzz went up as the naked youth presented her genitals to the long benches, spreading her fleshy lips and pushing out the rippled inner petals for the audience's eager scrutiny. While her fellow athletes thought to charm their way to victory with flirting and coquetry, she opted to directly confront the masses through a provocative display of her ripe vulva: flawless, untouched, untouchable.

Azanael lifted her chin and arched her back slightly, aware of a pleasant tension in her emerging nipples as currents of cool air caressed her most intimate place. When she closed her eyes, it felt as though the wind itself were making love to her. She held the pose for a few seconds more and straightened carefully, feeling self-satisfaction in the flexing of her thighs and the tightness of her belly. Leaving the announcers to fumble through their speeches for the girls at her right, she tuned out the world and carried on exercising. Her erect glans would soften and withdraw into its hood well before the introductions were over.

It was a defiant message, but her heart wasn't in it. The erotic offering was just an empty promise, a distraction to let her keep running – running the courses and running away from her responsibilities... Perhaps, on some level, she had already accepted this as a continuation of the same pressure she felt at home. Azanael had rejected all the local girls and the few suitors who'd come calling in the two years and two quarters since she reached the age of consent, and her parents were growing impatient with her sexual indifference. It was all right if she didn't want to commit to a relationship just yet, her mother would say. They could find a good seed donor and entrust their daughter to the professionals. Azanael wouldn't feel a thing after they switched off her brain. Once the little tube was inserted between her legs, the rest would take care of itself when she ovulated.

Their solution did nothing to address the real problem: she was proud and headstrong, and had no enthusiasm for giving herself up to patriotic gravidity so early in her life...

TZZZZZT!

A loud, grating buzzer intruded upon Azanael's meditation, signaling the time for the runners to assume their starting positions. The track's reddish-brown lining was soft against her palms, with a springy cushioning layer beneath, but under the charged soles of her shoes it transformed into the rigid high-friction surface that would carry her all the way to the finish line. She curled her toes as the countdown chime started, breathing vigorously to prime her heart.

Ahead of her the track's white lane markers reached out almost to the distant horizon, converging at a terminus just short of the vanishing point...

"I won," Azanael recounted with an air of vestigial pride. "I won the next race, and the race after that, but I wasn't happy. I realized they weren't letting me run because I was a good runner, they were expecting me to retire like the others."

Mari had listened silently for most of the narrative, but the sudden quiet seemed like a cue. "You were supposed to give them a show, call it quits, go home and make babies."

"That was it, that was exactly it. If I were... if I had a small body, I could have placed in the standard class and run as much as I wanted... I knew I was being selfish, but I didn't want to be a mother, I wanted to wait." The Arume hugged herself, the memories still powerful enough to visibly upset her. "My parents pushed and pushed and I couldn't take it any more. I... I didn't exactly run away..."

After the things she'd heard described thus far, Mari couldn't have blamed Azanael if she had run away. "What did you do?"

"I wanted to be useful somehow, so... I went to Australia, to the far side where the navy had a training center, and joined up. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The recruiters were kind, they let me in even though I had an automatic service exemption."

"For making babies?"

Azanael nodded. "I qualified for the air branch in the induction physicals. Then I met Onomil and..." Her voice quavered. "...And it was wonderful."

Those words, which perfectly summed up the brief happiness she herself enjoyed with Hagino, caught Mari off guard in a way that left all the other surprises of the last few days vying for a distant second place.

Her alien companion went quiet again for a minute, recovering her composure. "I know this doesn't excuse what I've done to you, but I wanted you to know..."

"I appreciate it, I really do." The candid memoir had been startlingly informative, and depressing in equal measure. It left Mari with a strong urge to lighten the mood. "I have to admit I never figured you for an exhibitionist, though."

Azanael didn't take it the way she hoped, but she didn't get angry either. "It wasn't like that," she said, gravely serious. "Being able to show my body was supposed to be a privilege, an honor. I was taught that it was something to strive for, earned by excelling." Dejection overcame her once more. "Maybe it was actually like that once... but not for me."

"Sorry." Cutting out comedy left only curiosity to be satisfied. "You said there's a service exemption. What about the naval troops, do they already have children?"

"Yes. Many of them are close to my age when they enlist. It's probably hard to tell just by looking."

"Yeah." Mari cleared her throat. "So, um... are all Arume sports set up like running?"

"You mean, are they all performed naked?"

"Well... yes."

"It depends... The ones that require high fitness usually are, especially formal events like the ice dance. That's similar to your figure skating." Azanael swallowed. "Do you have any water? My mouth feels dry."

"I've got some here." Mari twisted in her seat and unfastened the canteen which hung from her belt. "Have as much as you want," she added, placing the sloshing container into the other woman's hands.

"You're sure that's all right?"

"We'll find more," Mari replied confidently. "Right now you need it more than me." She watched patiently as Azanael fumbled with the metal cap, got it off and downed nearly the entire supply in one pull. "Better?"

"Yes... Thank you."

There was barely a mouthful left when the water came back to Mari, but she decided not to waste even that. "You're welcome," she murmured, spinning the cap onto the canteen's threaded mouth. "I guess it's my turn to tell a story."

The offer was received positively. "I'd like to hear more about your time in Europe."

"You've already heard most of the happy parts," Mari remarked grimly. "Let me think... One day while we were in Helsinki, Phil found this pogo stick – "

A cascading crash-bang-clatter outside the room ended her tale almost before she'd begun it. Mari rolled out of her chair as fighting instincts kicked in, whipping her submachine gun's sling off her shoulder. "Get on the floor," she ordered. "Don't make a sound."

"...Oscar Sierra!"

The sniper exhaled slowly. "Foxtrot Uniform," she answered. "What are you doing?"

"I thought I set that last tripwire closer to the floor..." Roland Schuhart looked essentially the same coming in as he had going out, except that there were now more things crammed into his vest pockets. He carried a blue plastic shopping bag in the hand which wasn't curled around the grip of a silenced pistol. "Sorry to take so long. Everything okay here?"

"We're fine," Mari grunted, getting up off the floor. "How does it look outside?"

"Like the set of a zombie flick on the extras' day off."

"That's a strange comparison."

"I have a cruel and unusual affinity for them... You look like hell, Flight Chief. Are you up to some walking?"

"I think so."

"Good." Schuhart held out the bag. "I found a clothing store, but it was all menswear. See what you can do with these."

Mari took it from him. Inside were a few sets apiece of shorts, boxers and t-shirts, and also a pair of sandals with adjustable straps. "What's the situation?"

"Mostly quiet," the arms dealer reported, tucking away his weapon. "Latest intel confirms the Norks moved a lot of civilians onto their rust-buckets in the river, and into the subway tunnels. Might be just as well we didn't sink their boats... The good news is that we finally got solid info on the enemy's radio jammer. It's an autonomous, headless distributed system, portable nodes tied together by microwave links. Beijing had 'em installed in several cities over the last few months before the breakup, probably in case of civil unrest."

"Headless?" Mari repeated. "So we have to find and disable all the components?"

"Hopefully not." Unable to find a free chair, the man sat on the end of the table. "Liaison HQ very kindly shared some files from the PRC archives. It turns out the company which built the system was under investigation for sloppy security practices... Practices like shipping their products with hard-coded administrator passwords. Assuming the jammer has a fixed password, and we know the password, we'll only need to find one node to shut it all down."

"But we don't know whether it has the password or what the password might be?"

"Not yet. Daemon's working on that now."

The shirts were plain affairs in dyed cotton, definitely not shaped with a female bust in mind. Mari picked out a dark green one that would blend in well in the dark. "Arms up," she prompted Azanael. "What's our next move?"

"No point in staying longer than we have to," said Schuhart, "but getting out will be fun. We're in the dead space behind the KPA picket line. The heavy stuff is dug in on the other side of the creek, but we're gonna have to go through the Norks any way we go."

Azanael was able to get the shirt on with minimal help, though Mari's judgment was correct about it being a tight fit. "Do you have some kind of plan," the latter prompted, "or are you still working on that also?"

"Of course I have a plan. The plan is, we hit a Nork outpost, kill everybody, jam their radios and head south before the rest know what's up."

"You're joking."

"Nope. I already found a perfect target and got the parts for the jammer."

"Ergh." Mari found herself trying to speak through clenched teeth as she sorted out a pair of denim shorts. "Where did you find one?"

"At the RadioShack down the street from the clothing store." He looked like he meant it, too. "See, our people back at the base have been listening in on the KPA's traffic. They're using an unencrypted half-duplex setup, but their codeword lexicon is pretty big and we're not learning much even with the translator. I don't think we'll lose out if we disrupt it instead."

"Hum..." Mari slid the shorts over Azanael's feet and up to her knees, then made to help the bruised woman stand up. "Tell us about the target."

"It's a checkpoint to the west, covering a six-way intersection. I went through there last week, going up to check out the Four Banks warehouse. The Koreans have a position covering the road south – eight men, an MG nest, and a technical with a Dushka... That's a pickup truck carrying a heavy machine gun," Schuhart added for Azanael's benefit. "They're wide open from the rear."

"And you think we can take them." Mari cocked her head. "Are we going to... liberate the technical?"

"And anything else that isn't nailed down." Schuhart stood up, his teeth shining when he grinned in the lantern's soft light. "I even found a good spot to watch them from, so we won't be going in blind. We can leave as soon as you're ready."

"Wait," Azanael protested. "About Anastasiya and Maksim – "

"Right now I'm saving my concern for the living. We'll look for the dead after you're safe."

Twenty-two minutes later

"Dammit."

Mari let go of Azanael's hand, a signal for the Arume to stay where she was, and worked her way across the room. This must have been an office space, and the displaced desks, overturned chairs and paper-strewn floor, all green and grainy in the limited view of Mari's head-mounted night vision monocular, suggested that it had been abandoned in a panic.

Schuhart was already kneeling at one of the wide windows, his assault rifle propped against the sill with its long, slotted flash suppressor pointing up. "Another truck came in," he muttered. "Maybe a supply drop."

Mari descended to his level, placing her Sudayev beside the Kalashnikov. "That's the outpost?"

"Yeah... See the technical? The MG is under that arcade to the right and the rest is in the back."

"I see it." After eying the larger vehicle which was parked off to the left, she looked at her boss. "Now what?"

"We'll wait for them to leave, give the sentries some time to get bored, and nail 'em." Schuhart crawled away, righted one of the chairs and pushed it towards Mari. "Get comfy... You too, Chief."

Mari looked out the window once more. When she next checked, Schuhart had placed Azanael into another chair and was rolling her through the detritus of commerce. "Keep your legs up, it's kind of narrow here... There we go." Parking her at Mari's back, he got a seat for himself, picked up the AKMS and laid it across his legs. "Whooo..."

Boredom set in much quicker this time, perhaps because the trio's furtive march through Shanghai's unlit streets had been wholly and utterly uneventful. The Korean supply truck left after a few minutes, but Schuhart stood by his decision to wait longer. Sitting there, idling, not even lying in wait for prey, led Mari's thoughts in dangerous directions...

Finally she couldn't stand it any longer. "Schuhart."

"Hm?"

"Why are we here?"

"That's kind of vague. Who are 'we' and where is 'here'?"

"Azanael. Me. Third layer. Why?"

"This really isn't a good – "

"No. No more bullshit, no more excuses. I want to know what Majestic is, what it wants from us, and why I should trust you... You and your 'cousin' and your friend Yui."

"Majestic?" Azanael asked sharply. "Mari, do you know about that?"

"A little. What about you?"

"I heard it mentioned just once. The document about Arume that was leaked onto the net, and another document about the Evangelion weapons that was sent to our high command, both came from someone using that name... 'Majestic Seven' and 'Majestic Nine'."

"Majestic Nine." Mari's head swiveled on her shoulders, locking back into Schuhart. "The man you met in Tokyo-Two, the one from Nerv... And you told me Majestic Seven was their agent inside Eto Delo."

Azanael wasn't finished. "There's something else. During the hostage crisis with Benacirael's soldiers, I met some Arume who fought using forime weapons. They already knew Schuhart and his group from another place." Her voice rose in alarm. "What is Majestic?"

"A conspiracy among Arume. They say they want to influence their government's policy in this world, and Eto Delo is a front for them. They brought me here and they want to recruit you, too." Mari glared at Schuhart again. "Isn't that right?"

"Well, you're getting close." Schuhart was still watching the Korean outpost through his own monocular, and spoke as though he were remarking on a child's scavenger hunt. "Anything to add before I grade your homework?"

Talking to Azanael was clearly the more productive course. "I know Keiko is from the future. I saw her memories of... I'm not sure what it was, but it was bad. Something to do with the Evas."

These revelations were not having a good effect on the alien. "They... They're time travelers? How is that possible?"

"I'm not, KK has only done this once, and it's complicated." The dealer made a sympathetic sound. "I did try to warn you, Mari – time travelers suck, stay away from them."

"Are you ever going to stop screwing with us?"

Schuhart turned to face the Japanese woman for the first time since her initial outburst. "I could stop right now, if that's what you want. Are you sure you can live with the consequences?"

"I'd rather live with the consequences than be dragged along never knowing why... Azanael?"

"I also want to know the truth."

"Fine." Schuhart fixed his eye on the enemy of the present. "For the record," he said softly, "I didn't agree with Yui's decision to keep you out of the loop. It was a bad choice coming from someone who's made a lot of bad choices... I can tell you what she told me, and what KK told me, but it's not going to make you feel better."

"We'll take what we can get," Mari retorted. "Hurry up."

"Okay... What we're in now is the third and newest of a series of altered timelines, caused by Majestic's interference. In the original history there was never contemporary contact between the Arume and the third layer, and their conquest of the second layer officially ended about fifteen years from now. The sky eyes decided to control their subjects through a program of forced stagnation, keeping human society exactly as it had been... Life went on like that for the next thousand years."

Thirty seconds in, and Mari's head was beginning to hurt already.

"The Evangelions appeared without warning in the year 3031. We don't have a clear understanding of what happened up to that point, but humanity in the third layer was dominated by a xenophobic templar culture. The Evas ravaged the colonized Earth in a matter of months, then moved on to the Arume homeworld. The sky eyes had gotten fat, lazy – didn't stand a chance. Majestic started out as a desperate alliance between a band of rebels and the crew of one ship that got away... Somehow they found a way to come back, but their leaders, mainly Yui, were flying almost blind. They barely knew their own history and had almost nothing on their enemies. One thing they did know was that the world-destroyers attributed great significance to an event they called 'Third Impact'... You with me so far?"

"Yes," Azanael whispered.

Mari could only nod.

"Right... Our heroes decided their best bet was to jump into the third layer, before Third Impact, and derail or prevent it. Their aim in space-time was pretty good, I'll give them that much... Then they realized what a bunch of fish out of water they were, and we start getting into those bad choices. Bad choice number one: seeking out persons with useful skills or connections and brainwashing them to do the heavy lifting. They were smart enough to start with just three, at least."

"What happened?"

"The first one went insane, slaughtered his handlers and escaped. They sent the other two out to hunt him down and lost the whole batch. Third Impact happened on schedule and the first modified timeline was a total write-off... So Majestic had to do it all over again. The second try got off to a better start. They were able to prevent Third Impact, but their influence accidentally caused contact with the Arume to happen immediately. The Arume of that time – well, they were pretty much the same sky eyes we're dealing with now. They didn't have the resources to invade another planet, and Majestic hoped the presence of the original, less powerful Evas would serve as a deterrent." Schuhart took a breath and let it out in a mournful pfffffffff. "There was peace for a time, and then Logan Hunley ruined everything."

"Hunley..." The name was familiar, but Mari couldn't place it.

"You've probably heard of him. He's a senator, used to be one of those fire 'n' brimstone televangelist types. In the last timeline, he got himself elected president on an anti-Arume platform... Deterrence and containment weren't enough for him, oh no, he wanted those fornicating succubi purged from all of God's green Earths. He was cunning, though, cunning enough that he didn't come right out and say it. First he tightened the screws at home until America was halfway to looking like fucking Iran. Then he built up the military and bullied his allies into handing over the Evas one by one... Then the US seized an Arume ship on some pretext and reverse engineered the Emil Force Drive. That was the big break for Hunley's plans."

Azanael spoke up when he paused for air. "They used the Emil Force Drive to attack us?"

"They sure as hell didn't put it on a space shuttle and send it to Mars in the name of science... The big problem with using Evas in mobile warfare was keeping them supplied with power. The first-gen models could only run for a few minutes without being plugged in, I mean literally plugged in, and Nerv's solution cost a mint and had a poor safety record. Either of you seen a movie called Event Horizon?"

"No."

"Me neither."

"Oh well... Main thing is, the Emil Force Drive met the power requirements and was a proven, mass-produced technology. Instead of building spaceships, they just slapped EFD knockoffs on all the Evas. The sky eyes were busy putting down an uprising, and when they realized what was coming, they tried to defend themselves with a preemptive strike. It was all the excuse Hunley needed... Did I mention that using the EFD gave the Evas translayer jump capabilities? 'Cause that's important."

Mari opened her nearly depleted canteen and drained it.

"The counter-invasion caught Majestic off guard because Yui and company made another bad choice, decided their work was done and went off to quietly influence Arume policy in the first layer or something. Hunley's legions, and he did call them legions, overran – " Schuhart ducked mid-sentence, pulling in his shoulders. "Heads down," he hissed. "Nork on the street... Oh, come on."

"What's wrong?" demanded Azanael.

"It's nothing... Nothing you'd want to see, anyway."

Suddenly Mari regretted not taking advantage of the bathroom at the tailor's before leaving. If the power and water are out, urinating into a gutter might not be the worst solution.

"Okay, he's going back inside... Total defeat of the Arume military took about ten months and ended with third layer troops occupying both contested planets. In the second layer, 'Logan' became the new most popular name for baby boys... With the overt threat taken care of, Hunley figured he could afford to slow down a bit on the extermination agenda. Maybe he was feeling pressure from the military-industrial complex, all the CEOs and shareholders wanting their backs scratched for underwriting his crusade. He scratched their backs by herding the surviving Arume into concentration camps and letting the corporations exploit their labor and know-how. They rebuilt the second layer until it was like the Sprawl come to life, and every node in the network had a ghetto to hold the sky eyes they needed to keep the plundered tech running."

Mari remembered. "Twenty years," she whispered, reciting the bitter words of the alternate Schuhart. "They went from running the camps to living in them..."

"Yep. That time Majestic didn't give up right away. They held out for a while, hoping enough people would come to their senses to oppose Hunley. Some did, and eventually there was a mass uprising in second layer Europe... It wasn't enough. Majestic finally threw in the towel in 2036."

"And here we are?"

"Here we are. This time they let Third Impact happen, but they tweaked it. No more Evas, and they're keeping tabs on Hunley... Whether it succeeds is up to us grunts now."

"Great." Schuhart's explanation hadn't even touched on Mari's most vital questions, but she wasn't about to press the point when she already felt as though her head had been crammed into a blender. "And if it doesn't, Majestic will just reset the timeline again?"

"Maybe... If it helps at all, this is the first time the Arume haven't managed to kill you. Also, there is no grandfather paradox."

"It doesn't help, but thanks." Keep talking, make him keep talking. "Where do you fit into this?"

"Me? I'm just one of those bad choices." The arms dealer rolled his chair back from the window and stood up. "Break's over, back to the war."

"And that is how we do it." Schuhart's 6P9 supplied punctuation as its truncated slide rammed a cartridge into the chamber. "Get the chief. I'll sort the loot and set up the jammer."

"Right..." Mari doubled back through the ransacked shop behind the arcade, stopping briefly to wipe off her bayonet blade on the back of a dead North Korean's jacket. Azanael was still huddled obediently just inside the back door, right where the others had parked her. "It's done," said Mari wearily, taking her by the hand. "Watch your step."

The last man standing had opened the technical's doors and was doing something in the cab when the women exited the front of the building. He'd already loaded up the Koreans' machine gun and its tripod, along with their bulky field radio. "Almost done here," he reported, accompanied by a noise of ripping masking tape. "Shake down that last couple of bodies, would you?"

"Yeah, yeah." Scanning the arcade's cement floor, Mari identified two kills who hadn't yet been divested of their accessories. "Found anything good?" she asked sarcastically, flipping the first corpse onto its back.

"We got a Type Sixty-Seven, a scoped Mosin and a whole case of seven-six-two Chinese light ball. Could have ourselves a swell party with that... How 'bout you?"

"Type Fifty-Six side folder, Type Fifty-Six with pig-sticker." Nothing the least bit special for anybody who wasn't a weapons maniac like her employer. "I'll put them in the back."

"Please do." There was an incongruous flash of faint music. "Too loud... Too soft... Hah." Schuhart climbed out. "It's ready. I hope those fuckers like the Village People."

Ignoring the non sequitur, Mari guided Azanael around to the right side of the truck and helped her into the passenger seat. The Korean radio was tied down in the middle with a portable CD player fastened on top, and Schuhart had mated the latter's earbuds with the former's microphone. The talk button was taped in the open position. "That's your jammer?"

"Simpler is super." The pickup lurched as the big man climbed over the tailgate. "It's already broadcasting, so let's not dawdle."

"I know that..." Mari laid her Dragunov lengthwise on the dashboard and buckled herself in, then reached across the cab and gave Azanael's shoulder a squeeze of solidarity. The Toyota's keys were already in the ignition and the engine turned over without a fuss.

"We're safe," the Arume mumbled. "We're safe... Everything will be all right..."

"Safe?" Schuhart's voice intruded through the open center panel in the rear window. "Chief, we just walked down a few streets. You'll be safe when you get off the plane in Guangzhou." He grasped the spade grips on the mounted DShK and swung it so the heavy, finned barrel pointed towards the front. "It's the Mogadishu open rally and we're in first place. Onward!"