Nightstalkers

CHAPTER 20

Back in the house, Doc was tending to the minor scrapes and bruises everyone had accumulated during the Fun on the Golf Course. Eagle had over-watch. Roland was at the dining room table, cleaning the stack of weapons from the previous night’s activities. It turned out that sometime during the battle, a huge chunk of the machine had landed on Roland’s foot, but his steel-toed boot combined with the churned-up dirt had saved him from any significant damage. So, of course, Doc was giving him a lecture on foot fungus, which he’d discovered while checking it. It seemed Roland had fungus in abundance.

“That would be two Purple Hearts,” Doc said to Kirk. “You keep it up, you’re going to get one posthumously.”

“Technically, according to regs,” Nada said, “since we’re on the same op, it would still be one Purple Heart.”

“We don’t do medals,” Moms said, wiping sweat and dirt off her forehead with a formerly pristine white towel in the bathroom off the kitchen, then wrapping it around her neck to absorb the sweat that was still flowing despite the air conditioning. She slumped down in an armchair, promptly staining it with forest, golf course, and backhoe detritus. Nada walked over and knelt next to her. “You all right?”

“We almost lost containment,” Moms said. “If it had taken out several more probes, the Wall would have been breached.”

“It didn’t.”

“We definitely lost concealment,” Moms said. “No way can Cleaner fix that golf course in time for the first foursome in the morning.”

“He’s on top of it,” Nada said, explaining Cleaner’s plan.

“What about all the explosions?” Moms asked. “We made a heck of a racket.”

“Yeah,” Nada acknowledged. “Support says they logged eighty-six calls complaining about it so far.”

“And?” Moms said.

“Fourth of July,” Kirk said.

Moms and Nada looked at him questionably.

“Today’s the second,” Kirk said. “Announce to the inhabitants of Senators Club that the gala Fourth of July fireworks display won’t quite come off as planned as the contractors who were setting it up had a slight”—he paused—“large accident on the golf course.”

Nada smiled. “Good. Call that in to Cleaner and Support.”

There was a knock on the front door and Nada peered out the side window, then moved the piano out of the way. “Aren’t kids supposed to sleep in?” he asked as Scout blew into the house, full of energy, the polar opposite of the exhausted team.

“Golf course renovation?” Scout said.

“And a mishap for the planned Fourth of July celebration,” Kirk added.

Scout sat at the kitchen bar and swung her legs back and forth. “The last one people might buy, but you’re hitting close to the heart around here with the first.”

“Cleaner has just closed one of the holes,” Moms said. “They can, what do you call it, play around it?”

“Don’t know,” Scout said. “I’ve never played golf. Seems terribly boring. Hitting a little ball into a tiny hole over long distances. Of course, basketball seems just as dumb, throwing a big ball through a big hole over shorter distances and slanted toward tall people. How fair is that? And don’t get me started on baseball. A no-hitter? So nothing happens and everyone gets excited? I don’t get it.”

“Hockey?” Nada asked.

As if taking that as some weird cue, Roland announced: “I’m hungry.”

They all grabbed meals out of their rucksacks and “retired” to the library, where there was a large table they could all gather around.

“Can they even see the puck from the stands?” Scout asked, following them and going back to hockey.

“Any sport you do like?” Nada asked.

“Cross-country equestrian,” Scout said. “Not dressage. Never dressage.”

“Don’t like either,” Roland said as he ripped open a meal.

“You don’t know what either are,” Nada said. “And I don’t either.”

“Where’s the cute guy, Mac?” Scout asked.

Moms sighed and quickly updated Scout on the Fun on the Golf Course. She related it just like she had to Ms. Jones as soon as they got back.

Scout became still as Moms explained the battle. She concluded with the medevac by an MH-60 Black Hawk from the golf course.

“Is Mac going to be all right?” Scout asked.

“He’ll be fine,” Doc replied.

“That’s wild. Killing a machine. Terminator-like.”

“I’ll be back,” Roland said, another strange synapse in his brain firing. “This is a weird room,” he also noted.

All the shelves were covered with individual glass doors. You had to lift one up to get at a book. Doc was walking around the room, checking out titles, while everyone else, except Scout and Nada, his meal unopened, was chowing down.

“That don’t make sense,” Roland said, indicating the glass.

Moms had a laptop open next to her meal and was typing up the AAR in between bites, because despite the verbal one to Ms. Jones, she always had to file a written one that would eventually end up in the binder for future Nightstalkers to read and aid them the next time a Firefly backhoe had to be taken down. “That’s to keep dust out,” she said.

“Yeah,” Scout said. “Miss Lilith was a big fan of easy cleaning.”

“She did her own cleaning?” Moms asked.

“Nope, but it’s hard to hover over everyone on the cleaning team and make sure they do it exactly the way you want,” Scout said.

Doc tapped one of the glass cases. “I think she was more a fan of keeping things behind glass. Did you notice her wedding dress on that mannequin upstairs in the closet in the big glass case?”

“Almost shot it when I was clearing the place,” Roland noted.

They all nodded, because each of them had also almost shot it when first walking into Lilith’s huge closet. It just wasn’t what they were used to, and they were really beginning to want to be back at the Ranch where things made sense and were practical. The library was fancy, but they preferred the Den and the stump of a tree they threw sharp objects at.

Scout was eyeballing Doc. “What do you mean about keeping things behind glass?”

Doc sat down at the end of the table and steepled his fingers, which everyone on the team knew meant another great theory was coming from the great doctor. At least Roland didn’t groan, but only because he was busy eating Nada’s ration, which the team sergeant had simply handed over when Roland finished his own and looked about, still hungry.

“Well,” Doc said, “it’s obvious she likes stuff. She likes it because it’s her stuff. But she doesn’t like other people touching it.”

Moms looked up from the laptop. “Actually, looks like she doesn’t even want to touch it herself.”

Doc nodded. “True.”

“What’s the point of having it then?” Scout asked. She grabbed Nada’s CamelBak and was taking a slurp out of it, which was rather outstanding that Nada let her take it, never mind let her drink from it, but she must have figured if Nada would give Roland his food, he wouldn’t mind. It appeared he didn’t.

“It’s part of OCPD,” Doc said.

“Huh?” Roland said with a mouthful.

“Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,” Doc explained. “Not like flicking light switches on and off, but rather having to control everything around her.”

“Sounds like Miss Lilith,” Scout said. “By the way, what happened to Miss Lilith?”

Moms exchanged a glance with Nada. “She had a bit of a breakdown and is being looked after in a secure and very nice place.”

“Huh.” Scout handed the CamelBak back to Nada and went over to one of the racks. She lifted the glass cover and tugged on a book about bird watching in Bolivia and the whole shelf of books moved easily forward. “These aren’t even real books!”

“They don’t have to be real to others,” Doc said. “But they’re real to her.”

“A nutter,” Roland said.

“Just like my mom,” Scout said.

“The one who died in the plane crash?” Roland said, feeling like he’d scored a good one.

Scout ignored him.

“What about your mother?” Nada asked.

“Oh,” Scout said, “she’s in rehab. A different kind from Miss Lilith apparently.”

“For real?” Nada asked.

“For real.” Scout noted the concern in his voice. “Oh, not like a place for drugs or anything. She just doesn’t like to eat, so every few months she goes in and they stick some tubes in her to keep her running.”

“That’s terrible,” Moms said. “I’m so sorry.”

Scout shrugged. “It’s pretty normal around here. The only sin is to be fat.” She brightened. “My mom does have real books with no glass, so that’s good, right?”

“It is,” Nada said, trying to sound positive, which was stretching his limits.

“This place is fucked up,” Roland said.

“When did you notice?” Scout asked.

“You have any friends?” Moms asked.

“I got you guys,” Scout said.

Everyone glanced at each other nervously.

Scout shrugged. “I’m what you call antisocial.”

“You’re not antisocial,” Doc said. “You wouldn’t have come to the door that first day if you were.”

“My shrink says I am,” Scout said with a laugh.

“He wouldn’t if you weren’t conning him,” Doc said.

Scout gave an evil little grin. “Isn’t that what antisocial is?”

“Antisocial is when you con yourself,” Doc said.

Moms closed the computer lid and tossed the damp towel from around her neck onto the mahogany table.

Scout snatched up the towel. “Miss Lilith would have a fit.”

“See,” Doc said triumphantly, pointing with steepled fingers. “You have empathy for Miss Lilith’s table. Not antisocial. You’re smart and conscientious and trying to survive in what is an alien environment for your personality.”

“More alien than ever,” Scout said as she folded the towel.

Eagle came into the library, his tour on over-watch coming to an end.

“And you’re resilient and can function under stress,” Doc added.

“Well, don’t tell anyone,” Scout said. “I got a rep and I got to live here long after you guys are gone.”

For a long moment everyone got quiet because there were no words to erase what to them was a brutal truth.

“Roland, over-watch,” Nada finally said, because no matter how tired, how fried from action the team was, someone always had to provide security, and Roland would be good for several hours before he came down off the firefight high.

Roland tossed the M-240 over one shoulder as if it were a broomstick and went up one of the two staircases. Which prompted Doc to start arguing with Eagle about which staircase actually was the most efficient to get upstairs to over-watch. Eagle won that one easily by pointing out it would be the one Roland hadn’t taken.