Worlds War One

xv [Badia]

When Badia had returned from her first tour, the one that had gone all sorts of sideways in Syria, the Army put her in a program called "art therapy." Drill had been there, too. Drill had always been there. Instead of an art instructor, a mental health professional had led the class. Bad had worked for a week on a portrait of a man who didn't look like a man, dark colors creating a darker image. It had looked like someone had splashed a nightmare on canvas.

Drill had painted a galloping white stallion running across a field of flowers as good as anything any online instructor ever illustrated on YouTube.

Now, Bad had to keep a close eye on Drill. She called him the Hammer because she had seen what he could do to a nail. In Raqqa, it had been hell. Maybe Saanvi would say that Hell was somewhere else, like Heaven or the Fifth World of the Ghosts or someplace called Arcadia. But Bad knew true nightmares. In the thick of war, she'd witnessed despicable things harder to accept than wormholes or other dimensions. Badia had a more difficult time reconciling the horrors of human nature than the wonders of the Wider World.

Drill had been her rock in that hard place, something more indestructible than even the terrible evil that had consumed both sides—fervid immorality that might have sucked even Bad into that deep dark hole if not for Drill. He had been an anchor to her humanity. He'd saved her.

Thus, she'd made it a condition of her participation in this mission—Saanvi Laghari had to include Drill Sergeant Camilo Cabello on the team. Bad had never met the four greenies and the two civvies on the squad. She'd needed someone she could trust if she were going into the unknown. Again. Someone who could hold her back if the darkness pulled her toward it once more. She needed Drill.

Now he was falling apart.

The anchor started dragging her down.

"How are you holding up, Sarge?" Bad asked, letting Saanvi lead as she fell back in pace with her second-in-command.

"That was something else, sir," he mumbled, far from the booming voice that had once made recruits wet themselves—nothing like the immutable presence that had supported her mission in Raqqa.

Bad had painted horrors reminiscent of a child's impression of Francisco Goya in therapy class. Drill had created all pretty rainbows.

"I need you to get it together, soldier," she said quietly, commanding yet concerned.

"Yes, sir," he replied. His voice made the words. His eyes told something else.

He was the biggest man she'd ever known. Massive arms. Sturdy as a tree. Heart as big as a horse. Fearless against the enemy in battle. He'd saved her. She needed him. So Bad would save him now.

"You follow me?" Bad asked.

"Anywhere, sir," he agreed. His eyes said the same.

Bad nodded. She picked up the pace, gaining on Saanvi. Drill kept step. Anywhere. Right now, that was the most important word Bad had ever heard.

"What are we walking into, Princess?" Badia asked as the civvie led the way.

The Misfits gathered close enough to overhear her answer. Drill's vacant stare suggested he was more interested in the springtime foliage than anything Saanvi had to say. Maybe he was considering what he would paint when he got back, and the military required a fresh round of art therapy. Maybe more rainbow. Sometimes, when confronted with the truth, people often choose to believe the lie. Even a Hammer like Drill Sergeant Cabello.

"It's called the Cathedral of the Key," Saanvi said.

They hadn't come to South America to chase a zombie back to Colorado. The destination had never been the Great Nothing. That had been a detour. The portal had opened because something big was happening here in Paraguay. Saanvi was leading them to their actual destination.

"There's a church out here in the middle of nowhere?" Private Ramírez asked.

"There is no 'nowhere,'" Saanvi replied. "And there are churches where churches need to be."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Bad asked.

"At the beginning of time," Saanvi explained, "the Almighty Creator tasked fourteen celestial assistants with implementing a divine plan and designing the intricacies of the universe. They were called the Architects. They used powerful tools to forge the very essence of a new cosmos. The Creator imbued these tools with immense power, extensions of the Almighty's omnipotent energies, and the physical remnants of these divine mechanisms remain today in powerful relics known as Artifacts.

"The fourteen Architects were the first members of the fourteen original tribes. Johnny Rotten was one of these Architects, the designer in charge of decay and deterioration."

"You sound like a crazy person in some cult trying to covert new pledges," Private Ramírez quipped.

"Is it so different from sitting in a physics symposium knowing nothing about science? Or crashing a comic convention when you can't tell Doctor Doom from Doctor Strange? This is what it's like when you don't know anything about something."

"God subcontracted the creation of the universe?"

"It's a big universe."

"It's a big story," Airman Fox interjected.

"You doubt the details?" Saanvi said. "Don't you believe in God?"

"You know everything about us, Ms. Laghari. You know my dad is a preacher," Airman Fox said. "I believe in God according to the Bible."

"Nothing in my telling contradicts with the holy book," Saanvi said. "But the written accord left out some details. I'm here to fill in the blanks."

"Let her finish, Airman," Bad commanded.

"Every detail of the creation was essential to the universe. But the opposite was also important. There must be darkness and light. Give and take—a balance. There isn't an infinite ability to make things. It had to be offset by a loss. Otherwise, the universe would be overcrowded. Overpopulated. Oversaturated. There needed to be the end of each cycle—a return to the dirt. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Johnny Rotten was the Architect who designed the completion of the circle."

"One of these Artifacts is located at the Cathedral of the Key?" Bad asked.

"The Key is the Artifact," Saanvi said. "It will open a lock on a door that we need to go through."

"Great," Private Golden sighed. "Another door."

Bad checked on Drill as the big man plodded in step, a soldier in line. Nothing about his mannerism reflected anything other than commitment. But there was still that glint in his eye Bad found unsettling. Shellshocked, some called it. They had seen the very worst of humanity, but this situation had nothing to do with Humans.

"The Key is guarded?" Bad asked.

"Heavily."

"And whatever is guarding it—Ghosts, vampires, aliens, wizards, trolls, werewolves—I suppose they don't want us to have the Key."

"They won't be the type to share, my dear Badia," Saanvi said. "And there are no such things as trolls."

Badia waited for the smirk to cross the civvie's face to indicate she was making one of her characteristic cracks at the expense of the uninitiated, but Saanvi appeared no longer in the mood to make jokes. Was she suggesting wizards and werewolves and all sorts of weird were real?

Bad thought of that painting she'd made after Raqqa. So dark and disturbing, the image was a mirror held up to something she would've rather left behind. But no one could leave things like that behind. She could only ignore it. And things ignored never went away. They stayed, creeping in the dark. That was why she'd painted it. Given it form. Accepted it. Nightmare given substance. Color and texture.

How could she come home and use a brush to make the Great Nothing? How would Bad put paint to parchment and wrap up the wonders of the Wider World? What colors could Drill use to replicate the palette of Ghosts and ghouls and entities alive since the beginning of time?

Toto, I've got a feeling we're not even on the canvas anymore.