General Castle himself briefed us. The General had grown on me since our first encounter. He’d pushed my buttons and made me dance the tune he’d wanted me to dance to, but since then, I had come to better understand why he did what he did.

“At ease,” he said, allowing us to drop into a more comfortable position. “I will be brief. This is a time-critical mission. Seer Division has a projected incursion with an extremely high index of probability. Whether it is by chance or design, the incursion is going to take place about one hundred miles northeast of this location, in Charlottesville. We have received word that Project Aegis is to be mobilized to meet this threat with whatever force we deem necessary.”

Claire and I stared at each other. This was it, what we were training for. I wondered if she was as terrified as I was.

“The civilians are already being moved from the location: a concert stadium. A National Guard platoon out of Fort Redford will assist with the operation in whatever capacity necessary. We are only risking one squad on this operation. You are to engage the enemy and drive it off with superior firepower. Failing that, you are to withdraw and allow demolitions to bury it. Sergeant Lorenzo will lead the squad. He has been briefed on this mission and provided with all the relevant details.”

General Castle flicked a switch and three images flashed on the screen. Three different angels were displayed, all of whom looked human; whose main differences came from the stylization of their wings, their armor, and their pigmentation. One wore silver armor, the other a kind of bronze color, and the last wore gold. “Based on the location of the impending incursion, these three entities have been previously spotted within 500 miles of the target zone and are therefore the most likely candidates to be appearing. You’ve seen their bios, so I won’t labor the point.”

He was right, we had. We studied each and every incursion, trying to learn anything we could about individual entities. Though many of them operated the same way, some had different tactics and observable powers. Some used weapons or relied on hand-to-hand abilities to kill with. Others could project sound or energy, like Mercy: to kill at a distance. They were the most dangerous.

Lucky for us, none of the three on the board were of that type. Silver boy used a great sword. The bronze guy had clawed gauntlets while Mr. Golden boy just used his mallet-like fists. They all used their wings which acted like massive extra weapons when they were not using them for flight. This was something that they rarely did.

General Castle finished up his speech. “Are there any questions?”

No one dared ask anything. Even me.

“All right, soldiers, we move out in thirty minutes. Dismissed.”

We scrambled from the room. Any last-minute preparations we needed to perform, this was our only chance. I went to get a few pieces of kit that I thought I might need. Claire and Kemi fell into step beside me.

“Damn,” Kemi said, “I can’t believe we are actually about to do this.”

“Yeah,” Claire said, her eyes focusing on things far away. “I’m glad.”

“Glad? Do you think we’re ready?” I asked.

Claire shrugged. “As ready as we can be. The only way we’ll know is if we actually go toe to toe with them.”

Kemi pulled back. “You never struck me as the violent type, Claire.”

The quiet girl just shrugged. “I’m tired of all this...waiting. I know it’s going to happen eventually. I just want to get it over with. Besides,” she said, holding my gaze, “I want a chance to kill one of the bastards.”

“But you remember France,” Kemi said. “Why don’t they just blow the building? That seems to make the most sense.”

“Yeah, but,” I started, “They have to justify us somehow. And if we aren’t kicking angel ass then what are they doing spending all this money on us? You know how it goes. Besides,” I added, “I agree with Claire. It’s about time we took a shot at those glowing bastards.”

Kemi shook her head. “We don’t even know if our weapons are going to be any good.”

“How else do we find out?” Claire shot back. “This is a good chance to maybe make those bastards pay for some of the lives they’ve taken. I’m all for it.”

“Damn straight,” I echoed. I was shit scared, but the idea of getting a chance to finally do it, to finally face them - well it was pretty damn exciting too.

Kemi seemed less enthused but she didn’t say anything else about it.

While pulling the kit from my locker I felt someone behind me and turned. Rebecca was there, eyes filled with worry. I was surprised; it was hard for a Changed to sneak up on another thanks to our ability to feel each other. Must be the impending death that had me distracted.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“We’ve got a mission,” I said.

She nodded, looking over the three of us. “I can tell.” She pressed her hand to the side of her head. “Actually, I knew.”

“How?” I asked.

Rebecca looked away, crossing her arms. “I don’t know if I should say.”

“Hey,” Kemi said, breaking in offhand, “We might all be dead really soon, so what difference does it make?”

Eyes wide, Rebecca turned back on Kemi. “Don’t you dare say that.”

“Kemi, don’t,” I said, before stepping over to Rebecca and giving her a big hug. “What are you doing here Becca? You know you’ll get in trouble if they catch you in our locker room.” Since leaving to train with the Seer’s, I’d not seen Rebecca. I missed her, though she still worked with the military just like all of Seer Division.

She shrugged. “Then the army should actually try and keep me out.”

“What?” I asked. Then, shaking my head, I said, “It doesn’t matter. We can’t stay here much longer. Why did you come?”

Rebecca bit her lip for a second before saying, “I’m one of the ones who detected this incursion. I brought it to their attention. There were other hits already, but my premonition brought it to the minimum number we need to declare an incursion highly probable.”

“Um, ok, Becca, I don’t really get that,” I said, confused.

“I knew you would be going because I was the last Psych they needed to confirm this was really happening.” She looked down at the ground. “I…felt… that thing that is coming our way, and when I told them,” she jerked her head back to face me, “I knew you’d be sent there. I’m the one sending you.”

“Whoa, now, hold on,” I said, gripping her shoulder. “You aren’t sending me. The army is. And hey, even if your premonition got the ball rolling, this was going to happen eventually. This is my chance to make a difference.”

Rebecca threw her arms around me, holding me tight. “Please be careful,” she said, near to sobs. “I don’t want to be responsible for you...not coming back.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” I said, returning her hug. “I’ll be fine,” I promised.

I hoped I would be able to keep that promise.

Packed, we started to leave. Before I could go, someone tugged my arm. Turning around, I saw Claire standing behind me looking out of sorts. “What is it?” I asked.

“Could we have a second?” she asked.

Turning back to Kemi and Rebecca I said, “Can you guys give us a minute?” They nodded and headed out of the door.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Claire blinked and nibbled her lower lip. “I’m sorry, I wanted to ask you something private. Before we go.”

Shrugging, I indicated she should go ahead.

“Ah, this is awkward,” she said, letting out a nervous laugh.

“Everything okay?” I asked, feeling a bit worried. I hated it when people ‘needed to talk’ to me. It was almost never good.

Claire fidgeted with her hands, lacing and unlacing her fingers in a way I’d noticed she did whenever she was nervous. Which used to be a lot of the time. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I don’t know if we are going to come back.”

“Claire, don’t talk like that. We’re going to be fine.”

“No, no...I’m not so sure,” she said, looking very serious all of a sudden. “And if something happened…” She tugged on a lock of her brown hair. It didn’t reach her shoulder anymore, unlike when we started and had it down to the middle of her back.

I put my hand on her shoulder. It felt odd, me being shorter than her, comforting her this way. “Claire, it will be fine. What is it?”

She reached up and took my hand in hers. “Peri...you’ve been so great to me. I really can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Claire, your friendship has meant a lot to me too,” I said. And I meant it too.

“It’s just,” she stammered. “There’s more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, this is so hard. Usually, there would be a whole song and dance to this, and after doing everything I could to delay, I would just end up not doing anything, but we don’t have time for that.” She took a deep breath. “Peri...I...like you.”

“I like you too Claire.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean...when we get back, if we get back, would you like to go on a date?”

“A date?” My super-smart brain suddenly ground to a halt. I felt it sluggishly reboot as images of the past and our interactions started to float to the surface of my perception.

While my super brain was trying to catch up, she continued, “It’s just, I think you are really attractive and brave and smart.”

Yeah, I was going to have to disagree with that last one.

“And you’ve always been really good to me,” she continued. “I couldn’t help myself.. I’ve started having feelings for you.”

Hello? Brain? Are you in there? Say something. The longer we don’t say something the worse this becomes. Just say something. Anything. Hello?

Rushing to fill the silence, she powered on. “I don’t know if you are into girls, and if you aren’t, that’s okay, I’m okay with that. I just...I just didn’t want to risk one of us not coming back without...without telling you how I feel.”

Inside, I was spinning a crank, trying to restart my ability to act like a human being.

Claire’s eyes were bright and hopeful, gazing at me for any glimpse of life.

“Oh,” she said, looking down. “You aren’t into girls, are you?” She smacked her forehead. “Stupid, stupid,” she said.

I caught her hand before she could hit herself again. This caused her to look at me again.

“Stop it,” I said, trying to sound in control of myself. “I’m sorry, Claire, you just took me by surprise. I mean, I...wow. I just don’t know what to say.”

She let her arm drop and took a big breath. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. We can just forget this happened.” Her face was burning red.

Is that what I wanted? To put this back in a box and forget it happened? I’d never dated a girl before, but I’d fooled around with a few when drunk. And this whole Changed-heightened-sexuality thing had certainly increased my appreciation of the women around me. In general, I’d rarely turned down a genuine request for a date...I’d always figured I could give someone the benefit of a doubt if they worked up the courage to actually ask me out. Not that they often turned into anything.

“No,” I heard myself saying before I knew what I was doing. “Let’s just park this.” Her eyes narrowed as she searched my face. “I think we should really talk about this...when we get back. All right? So no dying on me, okay?”

Claire grinned a little, and hid a chuckle. “Yes ma’am.”

I put my arm around her shoulder and encouraged her to walk towards the door.

Now, all we had to do was survive.

 

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