Worlds War One

iv [Badia]

Lieutenant Badia Robinson couldn't believe it when Saanvi Laghari told her the truth. It would've been no easier to believe the grandmother who'd raised her if she'd sat Bad down and explained Neverland was real and they were going to get there by following a flying leprechaun riding on a purple Pegasus. But Bad was a student of logic and persuadable only when presented incontrovertible facts.

The surveillance video from Senado Square may have been manufactured, but what would be the point? The local police reports from Macau had been sealed and labeled top secret, and the data seemed solid despite the impossible subject matter. Autumn Loloma independently corroborated much of the details from social media chatter while investigating her missing sister—before those social media sites systematically purged any mention of Senado Square from all online feeds. In the end, Bad couldn't figure out why the military would go to such lengths to make this up. That was more illogical than the farfetched explanation she was given for the disappearances in Macau.

Badia didn't know what to think.

"That went better than I expected," Saanvi commented after she'd finished briefing the four greenies and the women had retreated to an office down the hall from the briefing room.

"Give them a minute to process it," Bad said.

Give them a minute... If Bad lived to be a hundred and ten, she'd still be trying to "process it".

The office was decorated with wallpaper featuring wildflowers and little framed pictures of ladybugs. The decor didn't fit the antiseptic style of the rest of the place. A jigsaw piece that didn't fit in the puzzle. A renegade decorator who hadn't abided by the rules. Rules were there for a reason, Bad thought. Otherwise, the result was a contradictory mishmash.

Autumn sat in the corner, mourning the loss of a sister to some tragedy that didn't make any sense. Saanvi Laghari had been privy to the truth for so long it didn't seem impossible to believe. She didn't struggle with the truth like the others. The General had gone off to consult with other top brass on the situation. Sergeant Cabello had stayed behind with the greenies while they dealt with the Way Things Really Were.

Bad couldn't even tell if they were in a secret military base or a private facility leased out to the United States government. The transports they'd used since leaving Montana all featured blacked-out windows and the brief glimpse outside at the airport featured nondescript structures that might have been located anyplace from Annapolis to Atlanta to Arlington. Bad thought they were out east, somewhere nearer D.C.

It didn't matter where they were because they wouldn't be there long.

Bad's thoughts skipped over the nature of Saanvi's truth. The same thing had happened when her brother Vihaan had told her there was no such thing as Santa when she was seven. She was crushed. She had believed in ole St. Nick so much. She'd sat on his lap all those years. Every year, she'd planned for weeks what she would ask him for. There were books and television specials and movies. Her parents had talked about the North Pole like it was New Jersey. But it was all a lie. Made up magic. Badia had struggled for a long time accepting something she'd believed as a fundamental truth was instead a widespread fabrication. Now, it was like someone telling her gravity was a joke, or Santa was real after all, or planes could fly into skyscrapers and knock them to the ground. The impossible occurred sometimes. It had happened last week right across the ocean in Macau.

Her thoughts kept slipping over the information Saanvi had shared like the new world order was a slick thing and Bad's brain couldn't quite grab a firm hold of it. She had gone to a rodeo with Charlie when she was stationed in Texas one spring. She remembered a teenage boy in a cowboy hat chasing a greased pig in a pen, grabbing at the oinker as it squealed and slid out of his arms. That was how she felt about the facts Saanvi had shared. Every time she tried to grasp it, it glided through her fingers. Certain phrases skittered out of reach like understanding was not yet ready to be caught—Wider World, revenants, The Thirteenth Tribe, the Illuminati, Mot.

"What's next?" Autumn asked. "Are we going to Macau?"

Saanvi appeared puzzled by the question. She was operating on a different level of understanding than Bad and Autumn. Saanvi had been privy to the secrets of the Wider World her whole life. These things Bad found unbelievable were schoolgirl facts and figures to Saanvi Lagahri.

"Why would we start in Macau? We know what happened to your sister and the others in China. And while the local investigators may be treating the event as a missing persons case massive enough to make Roanoke jealous, we know where they are. What happened has already happened. It can't be undone. This mission isn't a mystery investigation, Autumn, it's a counterstrike."

"But don't we have to follow the trail?" Autumn pressed.

"Many routes will get us to the same destination," Saanvi said. "We need to follow the way of the living, Autumn, not the trail of the dead."

Autumn's gaze darted away, but averting her eyes couldn't avoid the truth. Her sister was dead. Gone for good, according to Saanvi. Spring Loloma hadn't survived what happened in Macau. There were three thousand four hundred and fifteen casualties in China. No survivors. This was a mission to avenge the dead. There was no coming back from what had happened in Senado Square.

"Are the greenies going to be ready for what comes next?" Bad asked Saanvi.

Saanvi shook her head. "You can't prepare for it. Imagine you lived your whole life in one single room. Everything you knew was contained within four walls. Ceiling. Floor. Maybe you hear whispers about how things really are, but you discount them as rumors and tall tales. Then someone installs a window. Opens a door. Takes you outside. And the world is endless. Impossible. Amazing. On and on and on. How are you ready for everything all at once?"

Bad thought about her husband, Charlie. About her daughters, Mary and Rebecca. So simple. One plus one equaled four. Badia wanted to make the world safe for her children, for her family, but Bad had never really known what the word "world" had encompassed. She'd thought her husband and those two girls were everything in the universe, but the universe was a lot larger than Bad could have ever imagined. Mary hadn't wanted her to go. Badia wished she would have stayed.

"How can we ask them to do this?" Bad challenged. She had been asked herself and she never considered saying no.

"It's their duty," Saanvi replied.

"Why those four?" Bad wondered. "They're all so young."

"Because they might believe it. Not now. Not at first. But they are more open-minded than any other candidates for this mission. We needed a squad that could keep their wits together. Soldiers who could accept the truth, no matter how fantastic. Private Ramírez. Private Golden. Seaman Choi. Airman Fox. They have stories. And people with stories are most apt to believe other stories."

Bad nodded. She understood. She might not believe it yet, either, but she knew she could get there. The things Saanvi and General Modine revealed sounded more like the ravings of a lunatic than an incursion into a hostile nation. But she'd never demanded proof that the world was round or that man had landed on the moon or that the ocean was deep. She trusted experts who attested to those facts. She trusted Saanvi and General Modine. No matter how unlikely their report.