Gathering Allies

“So how’s Dad?”

“Drunk. Asleep.” Catalina blew a raspberry in exasperation. “It was not good. When he got a little in him, he started making noises about going to the bar. I told him over and over again that was a bad idea. He did not like that so much.”

Cyrus rubbed his eye. “That IS a bad idea. Benjy Custer ain’t gonna forget about Bunktown any time soon. And I know the folk around here. They don’t just hold grudges, they latch on to them like ticks on cattle. Dad goes out, God knows what they’ll do.”

“Nothing good.” Catalina leaned back in the living room easy chair, and put her feet up. “Could you?”

Cyrus nodded amiably, and helped her get her shoes off. Now that Bristol was officially on the books as Cyrus’ assistant, Catalina had been reassigned to delivering messages and running errands around the camp. It was a waste, he thought. She had picked up the basics of electronics pretty well, over the last couple of months. Sure, she didn’t have Bristol’s knowledge or even Cyrus’s self-taught skills, but she had a keen mind, a teacher’s mind, and letting her stick around for the experiments would have guaranteed they had an experienced educator to pass the knowledge on to others.

But Cyrus’ new boss didn’t seem to care about that, nor was he approachable enough that Cyrus felt comfortable bringing it up to the guy. Smith was focused on getting results and every new day seemed to motivate the man to push them harder.

If Cyrus had to venture a guess, he’d say that the FBI was fighting pretty hard to get control of the project back from the CIA. He’d seen this before, when upper brass had competed for especially rewarding operations. Officers would jockey and claw to get a good operation, something to put their name onto to move their career toward those little golden stars.

Cyrus was of two minds about this.

On one hand, the fighting usually meant that the people actually doing the goddamn operation got shafted. They weren’t just under pressure to complete the op, but to do it perfectly, or at the very least, without any fuck-ups. And sometimes, when things got especially toxic, this meant they risked getting shafted as far as support, and personnel, and materiel went as squabbling officers pulled strings and rank and called in favors to try and make sure their competition got a failed operation tied to their name.

On the other hand, it meant that things would get done fast.

Which suited Cyrus just fine, because they were already through December. Last night had been the last day of nineteen fifty-seven, and Rusty and Beth were still through the proverbial looking glass. The fact that there was some time dilation going on there settled his nerves some, but he knew better than to take magic for granted. The time flow might be fucked now, yes, but who’s to say some wizard couldn’t un-fuck it?

“No, the sooner we’re back in that other world, the better,” Cyrus grumbled.

“Hm?” Catalina opened an eye.

He told her his thoughts on the matter, and she listened, then shook her head. “We can not charge in foolishly.”

“We? Good luck convincing our new boss to let you on the team.” Cyrus said. Though to tell the truth, he wasn’t upset that she’d be staying home. That place was dangerous, and he already had too many people he cared about stuck there.

“No, not me. What use would I be, there?” She frowned. “I meant we, as in… we.” she gestured around in the cardinal directions. “The team. We cannot be hasty, because once whoever we send goes in, they are there for a long time as far as everyone else here is concerned. What is it, a week here for every day that passes there, or something like that?”

“I don’t know. All I have to go on is the time Rusty told me he was over there, and I wasn’t exactly listening too close at the time. Bartleby was supposed to tell us this sort of stuff, but…” he waved his hand.

“I do not think he is in the camp any more,” Carmina said.

“He was supposed to write up notes before the CIA took him,” Cyrus grimaced. “Obviously I can’t ask Smith about that. And I don’t know what position I’d put Gable in if I pestered him about it. Better to keep mum on that stuff for now.”

“Anyway, this is why we cannot be incautious,” Catalina poked him. “Whoever goes across they are there for a long time to us, if nothing goes wrong. So they must take everyone and everything they might need over there. And you said they had a pilot?”

“I was supposed to try and recruit one. But…” he changed the subject, as the gunshot echoed in his mind, and a good man died in the snow. “...now that I think about it, that portal’s nowhere big enough for a plane. Maybe an ultralight, but you’d have to disassemble it here and reassemble it there. I don’t know how long it takes to reassemble one of those little single-seaters, but I’d wager it’s at least a few hours if you’re doing it safely.”

“So if a few hours is, say, two to three, then that is fourteen to twenty-one hours to us, over here. At least a day we will hear nothing from the breaching team. Then time to fly around and look, and whatever else they are doing on top of that.” Catalina shook her head. “Patience is the hardest thing to learn. But in this Smith is not being foolish, for he seems to be pushing hard, but also taking his time to prepare. You should, too.”

“Prepare what? He’s got me workin’ like a horse, getting that other machine going. Once that’s done, there’s nothing for me to do except mind the one on our side of the breach when we finally assault.”

Catalina looked at him, looked down to where he was resting his hand on her calf. He realized he had left it there, after taking her shoes off for her. He cleared his throat, and moved back to the sofa, sitting down.

“I didn’t say I minded that,” Catalina said, softly.

Cyrus looked back to her, stunned. “What?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I said, they’re not going to have you minding that one.” she said, flushing and looking away.

That was definitely not what she said, and Cyrus felt a warmth spreading through him. And a tightness in a spot she’d definitely notice, so he cleared his throat and crossed his legs, resting his arms strategically. He definitely needed to think on what he’d heard. Later. “Well, uh, what else would I be doing?” he asked.

“They’re not sending Bristol across,” she said. “They’re going to send you to operate the other machine.”

“Me? I’m crippled.” he gestured over at the cane leaning in the corner, waved at his face. “I’m not fit for duty.”

“Perhaps not in the army, no. But this is not the army, is it? They do not have to follow the rules that the army does. And what did you do the last time you went across?”

Cyrus remembered the green smell in his nose, the green light in his eye. Remembered the way the golden man had gone limp and met the mud as the rifle barked and kicked in his arms. “I killed a wizard.”

“I was going to say, you won and got back alive. It is not your fault that the others remained.”

Cyrus grimaced. She was looking at him again, and there was a heat in her eyes. Concern, and… something more. It was intriguing, and it pulled his mind from the memories he’d replayed over and over again, when he was trying to sleep at night. He shifted again, trying to save his modesty. “They might send me over,” he allotted. “Not least because I’m expendable. Now that he’s got a working design, AND been convinced not to… optimize… it, Bristol’s better off some place where he’s got a working lab to try and figure out WHY it works.”

“And he could not have done what you did, over there. I do not think he has ever fired a gun in his life. I do not think he has ever been in a situation where he needed to worry about his life,” Carmina said, her eyes not leaving his face. She reached behind her head, started taking her hair pins out, one by one. “No. It is you they will send. Not because you are expendable. But because you are used to this. With you, they will succeed.”

“There’s a chance we don’t,” Cyrus said, his voice husky as he watched her ebon plume of hair come down from its bob, spill out like seaweed blown and rippling in a warm ocean wind. “There’s a chance nobody comes back,” he whispered.

“I know.” she said, as she rose, and stretched out her hand. “This is why I have decided. Come with me.”

Cyrus could have asked where they were going, but it would have been a damnfool question. Abandoning modesty, he rose and took her hand, as she led him upstairs.

Modesty read the room and took the rest of the night off.

*****

Later, much later, (which was a surprise for Cyrus, since it had been quite a long time since he’d enjoyed this particular sort of exercise and he hadn’t expected to last long,) they cuddled together, that glorious sweep of hair tickling his face and her warm body curled up before his as he hugged her from behind. The moment stretched on as the glow spread through them both, and as much as he hated thinking and chasing away such a comfortable moment, his mind worked on the problems before him and reached conclusions he hadn’t considered.

“There’s no reason to build a second one,” Cyrus murmured into the back of Catalina’s neck.

“Mmm?”

“The second machine. We’ve got enough vacuum tubes. It wouldn’t have been too much work to modify the prototype. The one that Bristol packed up, and Gable sent off. Why didn’t Smith have it brought back, and refitted? That would have taken a day or two, at most.”

“Mmm.”

“Unless…” Cyrus paused. “Unless Smith doesn’t KNOW about the first prototype.”

“Mmhm?”

“Which seems weird. I don’t expect Bristol to be strong enough to keep secrets from him. And Bristol packed it up… but it’s possible Gable put it in a place he can’t get to. Or that it got reported as damaged in transit, or scrapped, or something like that. No, the more I think about it, the more Gable’s got to have done some sort of shenanigans with it. Nothing that he’d have to lie about, but… I’ve seen enough logistics SNAFUs and quartermaster shenanigans, I think that’s what he did. It’s a hole card. It’s his ace up his sleeve against Smith.”

“Cyrus.”

“So this means that Gable’s still in the game, even if Smith does have him counting paper clips in a back room. And there’s no reason for him to be doing this, unless he thinks he’s got a chance of winning. Thinks there’s a chance the FBI can get back to being top dog on this project.”

“Cyrus.”

“I need to talk with him,” Cyrus said, the decision firming up in his mind. “Used to be I didn’t care who was in charge of this so long as I got Rusty and Beth back, but Smith’s brought a stone-cold killer on, and I can’t trust him not to put a bullet in my brain the first time I become a liability. No, I need to work with Gable and figure out a way ahead or else—”

Catalina rolled over and kissed him.

When he came up for air, he saw her eyes gleaming in the cold moonlight from the window. “If you’re going to keep me up, I will return the favor and keep YOU up.” she whispered, as her hand slid low under the covers.

He didn’t last quite as long this time.

But it was still a good time for both of them.

*****

Later.

“It’ll have to be during lunch. I’ll try to get to him then, when the shift changes—”

“Cyrus! Oh por el amor de las tuzas con sobrepeso, will you just go to SLEEP?”

*****

The next day, Cyrus put his plan into motion. It was easier than he thought, even if his muscles were a bit sore from an unexpected night of activity. He just showed up right before lunchtime, and told the cook, “The assistant director wanted me to drop his meal off today, he’ll be working through lunch. Can you do me a solid and give me his usual? He didn’t tell me an order.”

After that, it didn’t take long to find Gable. Site 719 was still pretty small, so Cyrus just went where he hadn’t been before, asking the guards until one pointed him to an old barn in the back of the property. It had a pretty good view of the gorge, and Cyrus leaned on his cane as he juggled the hot plate and knocked on the door, and tried to ignore the sheer drop only a few feet away.

The barn door slid open, and Gable stared down at him. Beyond, Cyrus could see one flickering lightbulb illuminating crumbling wood, matted hay, a banged-up office chair, and a single metal desk that had been deposited in the center of the room next to a small mountain of paperwork that spilled out of about a dozen assorted crates and stuffed file cabinets.

“At least they cleaned out the manure,” Cyrus said.

“They didn’t. But it was old and hardened and clumpy, and I swept it into the chasm,” Gable said, as he took the covered plate. “Come in before you go chasing after it.”

Cyrus gratefully clambered up the groaning steps, and Gable was gracious enough to let him rest his aching legs in the office chair.

“Safe to talk here?” Cyrus whispered, as Gable pulled the cloth off the plate, and dug out a mess kit.

“Hm? Ah.” Gable flicked a look up the lightbulb, and back. “You had a good walk here. Good.” The old man shook his head.

“It wasn’t bad. So, did you have time to catch the game last night?” Cyrus said, as he reached over to a blank steno pad, and started writing.

“Can’t say that I did,” Gable said, nodding and offering a wry smile. He pulled another pad out of the desk, and a pencil out of a can. “Why don’t you fill me in, while I eat this lunch that you were kind enough to bring over…”