We the People vol 2: Liberty or Death
Chapter 21

Faraday’s fists crackled with white-hot energy so bright only Thane could safely gaze upon it. With a grunt, she forced her hands away from her core and sent the ball of lightning at the Armonica. Thane was heartened by the familiar sound of it tuning up.

“Hey guys,” she said over the tumult “I think it’s-”

Suddenly they were back in the old New York Mill, surrounded by sawdust and frightened pigeons that scattered and took flight.

“-working.” Thane grinned at Chui and hugged him. “You’re the best, Chui!”

“What about me?” Faraday’s lower lip was out thrust. “I powered the damn thing up!”

“It was a team effort,” James said, standing with one arm under Montel’s shoulder. The big man looked weak, but he was smiling as well.

“Wasn’t your wrist broke, Farrah?” Thane asked.

“Dislocated. Bast snapped it back into place. It hurt!”

“Wait a second,” Bast said, his eye narrowing “do you hear that?”

Everyone stopped talking, and few dared even to breathe. Thane spotted the source of the noise first. Grabbing hold of a heavy table, she flung it over her shoulder to crash into splinters against the wall. Now revealed to them was the small, atrophied form of ESX. Its gray-green body was covered in a sticky ichor, useless legs swishing about in a puddle of the stuff.

“I’ll fix this right now!” Thane brought her boot up over the tiny alien. It rolled over onto its back, flaccid limbs flailing desperately. “Time to meet your maker!”“Stop!” The voice that came from the alien throat was high pitched and ragged. “Please, stop, I’m no longer a threat to you!”“Yeah, until you get better again and try to wipe us out!” Thane barked.

“Kill it, Thane!” James shouted “don’t give it a chance to do anything!”

“My thoughts exactly.” Thane again raised her boot into the air.

“Please!” The alien turned its face to the side, unable to watch while death loomed so close. “I was a scientist! I opposed the military regime! As punishment I was made into their weapon!”“Lies!” hissed Thane, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to stomp it into paste.

“He killed Kass, Thane,” Bast said in a thick sounding voice. “He killed her!”

She was shocked to see the tears falling from his remaining eye.

“And he’s going to pay for it right now,” Thane said grimly.

“Even if he doesn’t want to do us in, he’s been programmed to,” Chui said with a note of regret.

“NO!” ESX shook its head rapidly. Thane wondered if it picked up the habit from Kass. “The Armonica broke me free of my conditioning! All I want is to live in peace!”“I don’t think it’s lying, Thane,” Faraday said in a small voice.

Thane looked to her companions, unsure of what to do. Faraday and Chui seemed sympathetic, while Creepy apparently had little concern one way or the other. Montel wasn’t speaking, but he was staring hard at the little creature beneath her boot. James rolled his eyes and sneered.

“I think it is lying!” he said. “Kill it, Thane. We’ll never be safe unless you do.”

“Please,” said the alien “I’m the last of my kind. My race is dead, but our wisdom can live on in humanity! That was the original project before the military coup!”“You killed my friend,” Thane said through gritted teeth. “And now you ask for mercy?”

“Yes,” it said “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. I can...I shared thoughts with Kass. She was a lovely being, and I regret-”“Shut up!” Bast came over and shoved Thane out of the way. “You don’t get to talk about her!”Thane’s eyes narrowed.

“Leroy, settle the hell down!” Thane moved between the enraged Major and ESX. “We’re still hashing this out!”“Thane, we could use him!” Chui cried. “His own reality was destroyed by the Harbingers! He might have some information we need to stop them!”“Yes!” The alien’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, I have knowledge! I have experience! I can help you save this world!”“You’ve caused a lot of destruction and misery,” Thane said, but her voice was faltering as much as her will.

“Then let me atone for it!” ESX shivered as the wind picked up. “Please, isn’t America a place that gives second chances?”“We have no way to judge him for his crimes,” Montel said. “What would any of us have done if we were him...uh, it...you know what I mean!”ESX’s black eyes were hard to read, but Thane thought she might have caught a glimmer of hope within them.

“You can’t be seriously considering this,” Bast said, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around to face him. “That THING deserves to die!”“Maybe it does.” Thane hung her head low and stared at her own feet, and then looked with great reluctance at ESX. “But there’s been enough death for more than one lifetime, hasn’t there?”“No,” said Bast, lifting his boot in the air over the helpless creature “it dies now!”

Thane shoved Bast hard on the shoulder. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she wasn’t used to the new levels of power within her. Bast rolled across the concrete floor and smashed into a pile of crates. When he stood up, he appeared on the verge of attacking her, but visibly calmed himself.

“Nice to know where you stand, Thane,” he said softly. Then he turned on his heel and left.

“Bast, wait!” Thane dashed after him as he exited the mill, dark skin shining in the bright sunlight filtering through the canopy. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to shove you so hard.”“But you did intend to stop me from killing that...thing.” Bast’s shoulders were tense, and though his face was turned away she could see his jaw working. “Kass should be alive and it should be dead.”“So you and her can be happy together?” Thane regretted the words as soon as they slipped from her lips. Bast stiffened up, then began striding away from her in the direction of their ground transport. “Bast, wait! I love you!”He stopped, turned to face her.

“I’m not sure I know what love means, anymore,” he said. “I’m your commander. Let’s leave things at that.”“I...” Thane sniffled. “If that’s what you want...”

Bast’s mouth opened, and his good eye shut tight.

“It’s not what I want. It’s what’s for the best,” he said. Bast turned on his heel walked away from her. “I’ll be at the transport. That...thing...is your responsibility Corporal. Understand?”“Understood, sir!” she said snidely, snapping off a sarcastic salute that ended in an obscene gesture. “Sorry I let you down, sir!”Thane waited until her eyes stopped streaming tears before she went back into the mill. She found her friends staring at the little alien, tension writ large on their faces.

“Thane...” James sighed “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“You.” Thane squatted down next to the atrophied creature. “Listen up, and listen good. From now on I’m sticking to you like glue. If I even get the FEELING that you might be up to no good you’re life will end.”Thane snapped her fingers and ESX flinched.

“Just like that. You feel me?”

“I feel you, player,” it said, spreading its hands out. “I feel you.”

Chui snickered.

“Guess it learned to talk by watching hip hop video,” he said.

“It’d be the first,” Montel said with a chuckle. He winced and held his bandaged head.

Thane reached for the alien. It cringed as she carefully lifted it into her arms.

“Wow,” she said, cradling it against her shoulder “you really don’t weigh much, do you?”

“My body atrophied on my long journey through the stars,” ESX said with a hint of annoyance. “I intend to get into better shape now that I have a new lease on life.”“We’ll never be able to trust him,” James said “I mean, all he wants to do is bring back his home.”“I am afraid you are mistaken, James Bearclaw,” ESX said. “I intend to make Earth my NEW home. Thane.”She craned her neck so she could meet its eyes.

“Thank you for sparing me. I don’t let you down.”

Thane stared at it and growled.

“Well, you better not, because you cost me a damn good friend!”

“What?” Chui blinked rapidly. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Thane shook her head. “I don’t have time for the drama. What I need to be doing is figuring out a way to stop the Harbingers.”“Not alone,” Montel said, shoving away from James to stand on his own.

“I’m in too,” said Chui, puffing up his chest.

“Guys...” Thane sighed. “We might be out of our league on this one. I can’t die, but the rest of you...”Creepy wrapped her arms around Thane’s waist and hugged her fiercely. Montel clapped her on the shoulder, while Faraday shrugged.

“Well, I’m not coming.”

They all turned to face James. His brows were low on his face, hovering above eyes that were hard as flint. “You’re wrong to trust that thing, Thane. I’m going back to the reservation.”“Wh-what?” Thane sputtered. “Jimmy, we need you! You can’t just quit on us!”

He stopped by the door, hand clasping the frame, and stood silently for a long moment. Then he shuffled out into the bright sunlight.

“Well, that’s that, I guess,” Montel said with a sigh. “I’m actually going to miss him.”

I’m going to miss kissing Leroy, Thane thought to herself. She stared at the alien in her arms, and somehow felt that she had made the right decision. If Bast couldn’t see that, well...

“You look sad, Thane,” ESX said.

“Yeah.” She squared her shoulders and set her jaw. “But I can deal. Okay, troops, let’s head for home.”“I wonder if Franklin made it out of the battle alright,” Chui said, rubbing his chin. “He wasn’t that bad, once you got to know him.”“You’re only saying that because he didn’t grab your butt,” Thane said with a growl. “I guess we should check and see if he made it out, though. Montel, can you get your history book?”“I’ve got a better idea,” Chui said, reaching for his wallet. “Let’s see if he’s still on the hundred dollar bill...”He unfolded a bill and stared at it intensely. Sweat stood out on his brow, and his hands shook.

“What’s wrong, Chui?” Thane asked. She gently took the bill out of his hand and turned it around. “What’s so damn...oh, Hell!”Staring back at her was not the portly countenance of Benjamin Franklin, founding father but rather the stoic and chiseled features of John Stark.

“Whoops,” Thane said.

The End

Thane will return in WE THE PEOPLE: Manifest Destiny.

Epilogue

“You know what the weirdest thing about going back in time was?” Thane said as the crew trundled along Interstate 159 in their SUV.

“What?” Montel glanced over at her briefly before returning his gaze to the road he was navigating in the dark. The headlights of a passing car in the opposite lane briefly illuminated the stitches in his forehead.

“Uh, the lack of any kind of toilet paper?” Chui said. “And no, corn cobs do NOT count.”

Thane chuckled.

“No, I meant Franklin and John Stark.”

“What about them?” asked Montel.

“Well, everyone knows about Franklin. I mean, he’s the hundred dollar bill dude, right? Or at least he was. But he turned out to be...well, disappointing in person. In the meantime, you have Stark, who I’ve never heard of, and he’s everything a founding father was supposed to be—brave, noble, polite, and best of all he didn’t grab my ass even once!”After a hearty laugh that roused the slumbering Creepy, Montel cleared his throat.

“I think you’re being a bit hard on Benjamin Franklin, Thane.” He scratched at the swollen seam on his forehead.

“Don’t pick at that. And in what way am I being too hard on him?”

“People like Franklin are human beings, just like the rest of us. Just because he had his flaws doesn’t mean his contributions to this country weren’t significant or worthy of awe.”“You sound like Bast,” Chui said, who winced when he realized the Major was slumbering in the rear.

“No, really,” he said more softly. “Franklin was a product of his time, and judging by how f-d up everything seemed back then he was really a forward thinking kind of guy.”“Well, I guess he did help us save the world,” Thane’s voice grew dark “or at least tried too.”“What are we going to do, Thane?” Chui’s voice was pleading. “The Harbingers are coming!”

“We gonna buss they ass,” Faraday said in street slang.

The laughter that enveloped her should have cheered Thane a little, but all she could think of was that she had no clue of how to stop the coming annihilation. She glanced back at ESX, slumbering soundly in the back seat.

You’d better be worth the trouble, little guy. Because I have a bad feeling we’re waaay outclassed.