Fix (24 page)

A
liyah jabbed
her hidden stun gun into her father's solar plexus. The combatmancers flowed through her muscles, guiding her actions–

His shoulder's dropped
, the combatmancers thought, analyzing Paul's musculature.
He went for his blow at the same time you did, it's too late to block whatever he's done, so immobilize him and we'll handle the rest.

Gratitude welled out. Her father might disable her, but her squad would finish the job.

She squeezed the trigger–

It clicked uselessly.

How
, she thought,
we checked the batteries
–

Needles jabbed into her side. Magiquell. Her father had dosed her with anti-'mancer sedatives.

She tumbled backwards as the other Unimancers fired their tasers. Aliyah was grateful to see Aunt Valentine backing away, ushering Mommy and General Kanakia to safety –
stay back
, she pled,
don't do 'mancy here, you'll rip open rifts
–

Every taser misfired.

She felt their confusion. They'd triple-checked their equipment. General Kanakia had assigned them each a different taser brand, so Daddy couldn't disable a single manufacturer's quality control and neutralize them.

But this was different. Daddy's 'mancy had always been whisper-quiet.

They'd never felt him rewriting the laws of physics.

“
You dumb sacks of elephant shit
!” He tugged at the unstable physics; rifts cracked open at his fingertips, unspooling across the landscape. “
How much does it take for your bloated egos to realize how incompetent you are?
”

Aliyah felt the collective's shock as they realized Daddy had weaponized the unstable physics. He'd triggered a microbroach that had changed the electrical mobility in the tasers' lithium batteries…

Ruth whipped out her gun, aiming for center mass. But Daddy had tugged apart Bastogne's loose physics to destabilize nitrocellulose, turning their bullets into duds.

The Unimancers charged at Daddy, closing the distance–

He clenched his fists.

Black razor-plows erupted from his hands.

He's cracking open the places we've never healed properly
, Aliyah thought.
If we'd sealed the broaches, he'd be helpless – but he's turned our incompetence against us…

The Unimancers abandoned their assault to smother those rifts before they unleashed the Thing in the sky.

“Get out!” Daddy screamed to the villagers. They were already fleeing. “I'll handle this!”

“Daddy!” She fought the numbness creeping up her side. “What are you
doing
?”

“I'm fixing this.” He looked so serene. “The broach has spread for
years
because they've been too incompetent to realize they
can't
fix it. And they won't let me heal it – they'll stop me, just like they did at Morehead. I have to get rid of them and start over.”

“You can't trigger a broach on purpose!” she yelled. “The demon dimensions are not a weapon!”

“It's how I defeated Payne.”

Her father had gone mad.

“It's OK, baby,” he reassured her. “I'll tear down this slapdash parody of our world's rules, and once the chaos has given me some breathing space, I'll rebuild this the way they should have back in 1945.”

By “breathing space,” he meant “killing the Unimancers.”

She realized why he'd dosed her with Magiquell – her father had anticipated she might be Unimanced, and so he'd done his best to cushion the blow when he killed her friends.

“This isn't you, Daddy!” The numbness spread to her thigh. “Is this bureaucromancy?”

He grimaced, looking away. Then he stared up at that Thing. His eyes narrowed.

“It's War Bureaucracy.”

She looked to Ruth for help – but Ruth was so busy counteracting the broach, she didn't dare take Daddy down. Yet why weren't the other sixty Unimancers restraining Daddy?

She tuned into the collective:

Maybe he's right

He's triggered microbroaches he's turned our shoddy work against us

WHAT DOES HE KNOW THAT WE DON'T

Her father's new powers inspired spasms of insecurity. The Unimancers examined years of constant broach-caused retreats, knowing that at best they'd run a holding pattern. A rebellious sect seriously considered whether letting Paul kill them and take over was a good idea.

He has to be stopped
! she thought. But the drugs dissolved her concentration. She thought of Ruth dying, Bastogne dying, tried to grant the Unimancers her certainty of
Daddy is wrong
–

The Magiquell fuzzed her connection. She staggered towards him, her limbs heavy; Aunt Valentine charged back out of the woods, dragging a heavy tree branch behind her.

“I'm not leaving.” she told Daddy, her voice slurring. “You'll have to risk killing me.”

He shook his head. “No. I won't. Valentine, take her away.”

Valentine whacked him with the branch.

I
f Valentine had channeled
her videogamemancy, Paul realized, her hit would have knocked him out.

But this close to the broach, she didn't dare break out her magical brutalities. Lacking that, she was a chubby middle-aged woman with no combat training, wielding a stout branch.

It clouted him behind the left ear, pine needles raking bloody trails across his scalp.

Paul danced away, batting at his face. “Valentine! What are you doing?”

She huffed as she lifted the ersatz club over her head. “I've stepped over a lot of lines for you. But when the kid says she doesn't want to leave, I stop stepping.”

“Valentine!” Paul triggered more broaches, forcing the incoming Unimancers to back off. “Stop fucking around and
get Aliyah to safety!
”

She swung again. Paul scrambled backwards.

They could have been kids tussling on a school yard. Stripped of their 'mancy, both were shit in hand-to-hand combat.

“No, Paul.
You
came here to get the kid to safety.
I
came here to
rescue
her. If she tells me the Unimancers aren't NPCs, then she's found her friends. I fought my way here to
save
her from kidnappers, not to
become
one.”

“That's Stockholm Syndrome! We'll–”

“Jesus weeping
fuck
!
You shoddy pile of ignorant neuroses
!” She swung hard enough that the branch snapped when she missed. “You think your kid's risking her life to piss you off?!
Look
at her! You spent your whole life teaching her to fight for a cause, and now you'll lock her away because she
found
one?!”

Valentine screamed, leaving the club behind, chasing Paul. The villagers took heart from her rebellion. A couple raised their bows, squinting as they decided whether they could hit Paul without perforating the chunky tattooed woman who appeared to be on their side.

Paul held out his palms, seeking a truce. “Valentine. You know Imani came up with this plan to sweep the Unimancers aside. You know this is our best chance to heal the broach. And you're
stopping
me?”

She snorted, bemused. “You gotta save the world for the right reasons, Paul.”

“Don't you start! That's what
Robert
said!”

Her rage bunched incoherently in her throat before she went after him with her nails.

“
Goddammit, Valentine!
” He backed away as she bore down upon him. He waggled his fingers, radiating microbroaches. “I could rip you to shreds!”

“
Then do it!
”

Valentine spread her arms out, making herself an easy target.

Paul froze, his hands halfway to destruction.

Valentine pounded her chest. “
Go on!
You're gonna smother your daughter with a pillow of fatherly love – show her how deep the rabbit hole goes! You blew up some old people's houses! You killed those fuckin' Unimancers! Now you're gonna wipe out this refugee camp! What am I, then? Just one more step!”

She ripped her shirt down, thumped her heart.

“Come on! Do the old Kali Ma excavation, Paul! Banish me to the demon dimensions! Dig
deep
to get those sacrifices!”

Paul's hands dropped. “Valentine… I'm not… you know I can't…”

“Then
step down
, Paul.”

Paul shook his head – not refuting her, just uncertain. “This has gone too far, Val. I don't know if I–”

He realized Valentine was not making herself a target to appeal to his conscience.

She was doing it to distract him.

Aliyah hit him at a low angle, grabbing at his right calf. Paul wondered why she hit him there instead of his ribs – until he heard the soft
click
of Aliyah releasing his pin-lock system.

When she was young, she'd made a game of unfastening his prosthesis when he fell asleep – punishing him for being inattentive.

Once again, Paul Tsabo discovered his thirteen year-old daughter had stolen his right foot.

“Imani came up with that plan, too,” Valentine said. Paul realized they'd conspired against him the instant Aliyah had spoken for herself.

He pinwheeled backwards, hitting the ground. His still-cracked ribs paralyzed him with agony.

“Sorry, Daddy.” Aliyah's fingers pressed into his throat, shutting off the flow of blood.

Valentine and Aliyah looked down at him sadly.

His chest stirred with a strange pride:
only my family could stop me
, he thought.

Then everything went dark.

A
liyah had fallen
unconscious by the time Ruth arrived. Paul's eyes fluttered – compressing the carotid was a quick off, but it was also a quick on – so Ruth jabbed him with a Magiquell insta-shot.

That wouldn't put him down quick enough, though. She kissed Aliyah on the forehead before rolling her off her asshole of a father, then carefully strangled Paul back into oblivion.

Valentine kicked her – not hard enough to hurt through the armor.

“You kill him,” she said, flexing her fingers around an imaginary controller, “and you'll answer to me.”

Ruth had considered executing Paul. Behind her, the Unimancers mopped up the broaches, doing their best to stanch that fucker's damage before the Thing got loose. The villagers were damn near readying their pitchforks.

Still, she felt the sickening unrest thrumming through the collective:

How did he trigger those broaches he was healing them almost as fast as he created them

He said we'd done it wrong

We have to know what we can do

Ruth stood strongly in the “disagreement” camp. A rebellion coalesced around her sentiment that Paul Tsabo held no special wisdom. Preserving Paul Tsabo's reckless techniques struck her like trying to save a bear chewing your neck open on the off-hand chance you might teach it to dance.

Ruth wondered if Aliyah could forgive Ruth for killing her father.

So glad you asked, Ruthie!
Mom-construct interjected.
All the signs I've collected indicates your new friend is very
very
attached to her daddy. Almost as much as you are to me, sweetiekins! Though since you asked, I've assembled head-doctor techniques you could use to weaken her bond…

Fuck off, Mom
, Ruth snapped, then tuned out Mom's usual canned response on how good girls didn't need profanity.

She didn't want to fuck with Aliyah's mind; that was what Paul did. No, Ruth simply wanted Paul Tsabo gone. But too many in the collective were convinced they needed him. Killing him without consensus might create a permanent schism.

Which puzzled her. He'd murdered them in a maniacal bid to protect his daughter – and like Mom, he'd never bothered to see whether this new world he'd created would make her happy.

She'd
told
Aliyah he'd never let her go. Tsabo was just another version of the mother-construct – jailing his child and convincing himself it was for her own good.

She could crush his larynx. She could save Aliyah. She could rid the world of danger.

Except Aliyah would never forgive her.

“I would,” Ruth growled. “But he's too valuable.”

“Then let's plan our next move,” Valentine said.

“
M
ay I come in
?”

Imani knocked on General Kanakia's door. He had no guards posted. There were only two threats in Bastogne: the first was Paul. He'd been placed into a coma while his ribs healed and the Unimancers decided what to do with him. The other was that cracked sky, dangerously fragmented after Paul's assault.

The Unimancers didn't consider a mundane a threat – a fact which Imani was grateful for.

She did her best work when people overlooked her.

“Have a seat, Mrs Tsabo,” Kanakia said.

His voice was gentle, welcoming – though he did not look up from the printed reports he perused. She doubted the misnomenclature was a mistake – Kanakia seemed too thorough – but at least he wasn't compensating for his defeat with shows of force.

He could have had them jailed. Yet somehow she got the impression the general had expected her in his office ever since they'd fought off his Morehead forces.

That gave her hope this talk might be productive.

She sat down, glad to get out from underneath that broken sky. Seeing that Thing prying its way into this world creeped her out.

Why had everyone forgotten their true enemy?

“Are my men treating you properly?” the general asked. He was a stout, dark-skinned man with bulging eyes and a bulging tummy. Yet he'd been tasked with keeping the broach as contained as any man
could
keep it pent for almost four decades – and until Paul's arrival, nothing had stopped him in the execution of his duty.

Imani flattened her skirt – the single nervous habit she allowed herself before entering negotiations.

“I've been slow to come to conclusions, general – what with having my family kidnapped and all – but as you escorted us through the broach-affected lands, I formulated a theory. I was hoping you could confirm or deny.”

The man's poker face was world class. “Oh?”

“Well, it occurs to me the US government doesn't want Paul alive. Paul's a terrorist – and worse, an effective political firebrand. The President would probably be thrilled if someone put a bullet through his head. Yet it's clear the Unimancers don't necessarily want him, either.”

He set his paperwork aside. “…go on.”

“So. I asked myself, who
has
been trying to keep Paul alive?”

She let the question hang in the air until Kanakia had no choice but to answer it. He bobbed his head from left to right, a tiny concession.

“Perhaps I ensured the Unimancers did not utilize their resources properly to capture Mr Tsabo,” he admitted – a little merry someone had finally caught him out. “And perhaps, once assassination was on the table after the Morehead broach, I assigned my best men to rope him in before that bullet, as you said, reached his brain.”

“All those efforts to get one man,” she mused. “Which means either you're desperate to get Paul specifically, or…”

“We're desperate for
any
new options.”

Imani looked at the photos of famous European landmarks hung on Kanakia's walls – the Eiffel Tower, Saint Basil's Cathedral, the Arc de Triomphe. All broach-devoured.

“How… How bad is it?”

He grimaced. “In the seventy years since the Bastogne broach opened, we have not closed one broach permanently.”

She shuddered. The news rarely gave details on the European struggle. American news hated reporting battles America wasn't winning.

“Before the Morehead broach,” Kanakia continued, “your husband had done excellent work, putting a human face on 'mancy. Given a decade, he might well have gotten proper legislation through. The Unimancers may loathe his tactics, but he's advanced their cause.”

“You
want
'mancy to be legal?”

“Unimancy is an excellent tool. As the
only
magical tool the United Nations allows me to utilize, I find it insufficient. The Unimancers have great wisdom, but their consensus makes them weak at spotting new ideas. Your husband is proof there are other ways to heal broaches.”

“You could have kidnapped Paul
years
ago to get that knowledge. Why leave him operational?”

“The Unimancers themselves believe Unimancy is the only way, but…” He shrugged. “They
are
'mancers. Belief is what they do. While
I've
wondered, ‘How many Paul Tsabos have we cut down in the rush to consensus?'”

“Still not an answer, Mr Kanakia. You've demonstrated you can sabotage SMASH at will. You could have let 'mancers flourish. Instead, you wanted Paul to pass
laws
. Why?”

He took his glasses off, coldly furious. She'd seen that tranquil anger all too often in Paul's eyes.

“We left behind a hundred and fifty men in an open grave, Mrs Tsabo. Yet if I wanted to prosecute Paul Tsabo for murder, the best I could do would be property destruction.” He flattened his hands against his desk. “The governments are only comfortable with 'mancers as soulless tools. That needs to change.”

“But Morehead ended Paul's political career.”

“Yes.”

“You want him now because…?”

“Wan
ted
, sadly.” His contradiction confused Imani even as it heartened her; for some reason, possibly Aliyah, Paul could no longer be a Unimancer. “He's thwarted me with scarce resources, Mrs Tsabo. And Europe, well…”

He waved around at the pins in maps on the walls, demonstrating how thin seven thousand 'mancers were when spread out across seven continents.

“Our predicament is nothing
but
scarce resources. I'd hoped his brilliance in the hivemind would uncover new stratagems to hold back the demon dimensions…”

Time to drop the hammer.

“You can't add that brilliance to the collective anyway.”

His confusion was delicious. “You're saying he would have committed suicide rather than join?”

“I'm saying my name is Ms Tsabo-Dawson, not ‘Mrs Tsabo' – and
I'm
the one working with scarce resources.
I
planned the assault on Morehead airport.
I
figured out how to disrupt the hivemind. You need to negotiate with
me
with if you want shit done.”

He only needed a blink to realize which member of the Tsabo-Dawson clan he'd underestimated. “What do you want, Ms Tsabo-Dawson?”

“I want my daughter out. A growing girl does not need an army for a best friend.”

“I too want her out. It won't happen. They're
happy
in there, far as I can tell. Aliyah would have to sever her connection voluntarily – and even if you got past her sense of duty, I don't think she'd leave Ruth behind. Which is a shame, because that means I don't get to add Paul's bureaucratic skills to the network.”

“Clarify. Why can't you have them both?”

“The one time we had a mother and a daughter joined, the daughter was irreparably damaged. Putting Paul and Aliyah together would erode their personalities.”

Dammit
. “Order them to expel her.”

He spread his hands wide. “That, Ms Tsabo-Dawson, is what the government would tell me to do. They believe I control enslaved 'mancers – an illusion we have worked
very hard
to maintain. Whereas what I actually control…”

He took a deep breath before committing to the revelation.

“…what I
actually
lead is the world's largest semi-autonomous 'mancer collective. They respect my opinions. They recognize my efficiency in combating the broach. But as Valentine can tell you, they do not necessarily obey orders.”

Dammit
. “Then I want it announced that Paul's volunteered to fix the broach. The former face of 'mancer independence and the Unimancers, joining forces to save the world. I've worked in PR – that's a great goddamned headline.”

“That's not up to me. That's up to the President, and the United Nations Security Council.”

“Start the conference calls,” Imani told him. “Get some sandwiches in. This negotiation may take days.”

“We are negotiating for…?”

“Paul's help to fix the broach. My help to stem the tide. The help of Project Mayhem to create more flexible 'mancy-related options in America. That's what you wanted all along, wasn't it?”

He smiled. “Are you authorized to negotiate on their behalf, Ms Tsabo-Dawson?”

“Project Mayhem knows better than to cross me. And Valentine… well, I've usually gotten her on board.”

The general smiled. “I'll tell them you've got me over a barrel. The Security Council and the President have come to trust my judgment; the benefits of running a division for four decades. My conceding the necessity of your help will help skip past the preliminary sessions where we establish your goodwill. With luck, we might come to an agreement before the month's end. What else do you need?”

“Just the phone line, sandwiches, and coffee – oh, and keep the Unimancers clear. I'm pretty sure they won't like the agreement we come to.”