Valentine's Resolve (Vampire Earth #6)

Valentine's Resolve (Vampire Earth #6) Page 10

Mount Omega: So many legends have grown up around Mount Omega that even its mention lays a shadow of doubt over any narrative featuring it.

Certain facts are not in dispute. Mount Omega had its genesis in "Fitzhugh's Folly", when the asteroid ZL-624 had its near-Earth encounter. Poor Dr. Donald Fitzhugh... while two other astronomers actually presented the case at the secret government briefing with him, their names weren't quite as euphonious with "folly", so they dropped out of history and the high-level panic surrounding ZL-624's approach. It was predicted to stride early in the second decade of the twenty-first century somewhere between the Mississippi River and the Azores, and Mount Omega was hastily constructed with equipment from the nuclear-waste storage facility in Nevada.

Even after fresh tracking data predicted a near miss, Mount Omega construction continued. It was a massive, well-funded project already under way, employing thousands and thousands of highly paid, security -clearance construction workers and technicians across rural Washington and northern Oregon. An eleven-month, money-is-no-object crash project stretched out into its second decade. Mount Omega eventually worked its way into the defense budget as a secure location for government officials in case of a catastrophic terrorist strike on Washington DC. Work on never ceased.

Had it ever been finished, it would have been a wonder of the world. Nuclear power, state-of-the-art hydroponics, air-and water-filtration systems supporting office space and housing larger than the Vatican, the Kremlin, and

the Forbidden Palace combined (with the Mall of America thrown in as a cherry on top), from the golf course on the surface to the deepest geothermal heat pump, it would have had space to rival a small city.

But the project was never really completed.

The Kurian onslaught of 2022, with the civilization-shattering mix of seismic activity and the ravies virus, led a skeleton crew of key elected officials, staff, and support personnel to receive their orders to relocate to Mount Omega. As the disaster grew, a stampede to the lifeboat Mount Omega represented began, and only after the shootdown of flight 5X03 did planes cease landing at its little emergency strip of blockaded, reinforced -concrete highway.

And there, guarded by the best the army, navy, air force, and marines had to give under General Roma, they buttoned up.

This narrative will not attempt to answer the question of why the Kurians never attempted to take over Mount Omega. Of course it would have required launching an operation of the scope of the Grog-versus-human battle that took place in Indianapolis now recorded as Congress' hast Stand. There were certainly enough organized Grogs on Oregon's Pacific coast in the years following 2022, after they swept up through Mexico and into California. Perhaps Fort Roma's inarguably passive role in resisting the Kurians led to it being spared. Cynical humor holds that there weren't enough uncompromised human souls buttoned up in the underground refuge to make the game worth the candle, but the fact remains that a number of senators and congressmen indisputably left Mount Omega to make it back to their constituents and share their fate. Only a handful ultimately lent their names and voices to the Kurian Order, and those black names are recorded elsewhere.

Mount Omega was neither a sybaritic paradise where champagne was lapped from silicone-enhanced cleavage between banquets with Kurian diplomats nor a monastery to Truth, Justice, and the American Way where senators and cabinet officials wore sackcloth and ashes and debated the finer points of federalism by the light of candles, all the while making hand copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

A social scientist or a psychiatrist might make sense of some of the oddities David Valentine saw on his brief visit to Mount Omega, but if any did, their observations aren't easily found. Self enclosed populations, as Darwin noted on his trip to the Galapagos, lead to a strange selection of attributes. Valentine himself, when asked his opinion of Mount Omega, always shrugged and said, "Three generations of cabin fever".

"That is one darling little helicopter", the corporal said.

Valentine didn't bother with the lecture on the difference between an autogyro and a helicopter.

He'd made Fort Omega in one long, exhausting flight with only a brief stop for refueling and sanitary purposes. The autogyro's stomach-tossing, bobbing motion left him feeling the same way he'd felt when climbing off the old Thunderbolt onto dry land - the odd sensation that the ground was swaying.

Mount Omega wasn't on any map; indeed, its "undisclosed location" wasn't even a mountain, more of a sheep-littered ridge on the grounds of an old army training base, a little west of an old, spent nuclear-fuel repository. Valentine simply skimmed the surface until he saw the skeletons of some stripped commercial jets beside a wide patch of concrete highway with a big Day-Glo X painted on either end, and then landed and waited for someone to come point a gun at him.

Several someones did, displaying admirable handling of their old, but immaculately maintained, weapons. Of course "old" was a bit of a misnomer, as they looked lighter and of better quality than even the products of the Atlanta Gunworks, with combat zoom sights, lasers, and 20mm integral support cannon. Leather and plastic knee and elbow pads were fixed over outer shells made from old ponchos. Wash-worn uniforms beneath showed signs of heavy patching and repair, but they were still men Valentine would have been proud to line up in front of one of Southern Command's staff inspectors.

They ordered Valentine to lie down on his face, and he complied.

He tried to speak, but they told him to "shut up" until they fixed his hands in what felt like plastic wire, perhaps ripped from one of the airliner carcasses lying by the side of the road.

"Let's have it", a lieutenant said. "Why did you not acknowledge radio signal and land without permission?"

"First, the radio's a piece of crap that's preset to only receive three Quisling frequencies. Second, I'm on Southern Command orders, Hunter comma Cat, precleared to contact civilian authority. I have a verification code that I will supply to anyone with the prefix".

"Shit. Let me get someone from liaison, sir. I'm afraid you have to stay under restraints and guard for now". He gave orders to a messenger, who double-timed off toward one of the grounded planes and disappeared up a nose ladder.

"If it's going to be much of a wait, I need a trip to the John. And I could really use a hot meal". Valentine couldn't remember when he'd last been so hungry, and wondered if Sir had permanently accelerated his metabolism or if he'd adjust in time.

"Understood, sir. We'll have to watch you, though. As to a meal, if you get taken Inside, the food's better than what we can give you out here".

After seeing to his comfort, they started making small talk about the gyro. A five-stripe came out to observe.

Valentine heard bicycle tires and a driving chain. A tall pipe cleaner of a man in civilian clothes, brown wool trousers topped by a khaki shirt, pulled up and removed his helmet and hung it on a hook on his belt. He took a courier bag off the bike's handlebars and trotted up to the soldiers, a holster bobbing at his hip.

"My name's Patterson", the man said, kneeling so his eyes were level with Valentine's.

"Valentine", Valentine replied.

Patterson took out a neatly printed card. "I'm your Professional Military Surrender Resource. I'm completely outside their chain of command, and my only concern is for your behalf. I'm here to see that you get food, medical care, legal representation, and religious or

social comfort between now and your release or execution. Do you understand?"

Valentine wondered how the title looked on the paperwork and smiled. "I just need to speak to the liaison officer".

"You should see him do this with Grogs", one of the older waiting soldiers told another, sotto voce. "Oooks and bobs his head and rattles beads until they head-butt him".

Patterson ran through a flow chart of questions regarding his treatment. Valentine denied being harmed or humiliated after his surrender.

"Captain Sagamoto is on his way", the lieutenant reported. "He'll verify your credentials and then we'll be done with you. Hope you're telling the truth, because otherwise..."

"Lieutenant, don't terrify the prisoner", Patterson cut in. "I'll have to log that".

"Beg your pardon", the lieutenant said, whether to him or Patterson Valentine couldn't tell. He backed off, and a five-striper nudged him.

"Don't let it bother you, sir. Just a bunch of papers".

Patterson had the lieutenant sign a piece of paper, and while they were so occupied the sergeant knelt down behind Valentine and checked his bonds.

"Inside, ifs they asks you where you comes from, say Canada. Make up some small place nobody's ever heards of like Moose Dick or Fragileoshus", the sergeant whispered.

The sergeant stood up as soon as the officers turned. "Just making sure I could wiggle a finger through", he said to them.

Valentine's ears picked up a faint whine and wheels turning on the landing strip. A golf-cart-like vehicle emerged from between two fuselages and joined the party, parking next to the autogyro. Like Patterson, the driver was on the lean side. His margarine clothes were thin and seemed hardly enough to keep out the dry wind. They reminded Valentine of the hospital gowns he'd seen at Xanadu.

He had faintly Eurasian features and a growth of beard that made

him look like a model from one of the old magazines trying to look rugged and fresh off a mountain.

"I'm Captain Sagamoto", he said. He nodded to the lieutenant. "Patterson, I don't think this'll concern you. Can the newcomer and I have a moment?" He squatted down opposite Valentine as the others moved away. Valentine ran through the signs and countersigns he'd memorized back at Nancy's in his head.

"Red to blue?" Sagamoto finally asked, extending his left fist.

"Negative negative negative", Valentine said. "Sorry I can't lock knuckles".

Sagamoto smiled. "I can see that. Prefix two oh nine".

"Suffix V April twenty-seven. I'm here to see Senator Bey from the illustrious state of Oklahoma".

Sagamoto stood. "Lieutenant, he's cleared. I'm going to ask you to use your comset. I'm taking him to the Inside. Patterson, aren't you needed in the marshes? I heard a team of Grogs got captured after the fighting. You pedal hard, you'll be there to make sure they're tucked in tonight and get properly exchanged. Might win you that promotion back to the Inside".

"Barbarians", Patterson said.

The sergeant cut Valentine's bonds and he and the corporal lifted him. Everyone watched Patterson bike away.

"I didn't knows about no fighting in the marshes", the sergeant said.

"I could have heard wrong", Sagamoto said, "You know how rumors fly in there".

It was a fifteen-minute trip to the ridge that sheltered Mount Omega. They drove around a depressed-looking golf course that kept a single hole mowed, plus a putting green. "They cut back and start watering a new hole every couple of months just for variety. Of course even going out to golf is a privilege, Constitution-level officials only".

Sagamoto took his time driving, enjoying the clean, open air and

the sunshine. Valentine found it was a relief from the gloom of the Seattle basin too, though hunger still gnawed at him.

The electric car zigzagged around a small, sloping mountain of brush-covered dirt and came to a wide steel door that looked like it was built to keep in King Kong. It was open wide enough to allow two of the little electric golf carts to pass. Part of it was filled with a trestle of closely packed rollers. Men were taking bins of potatoes and onions off of a beat-up farm truck and its companion trailer and sending them rolling down the track. The hundreds of little wheels spun on their bearings as load after load of produce disappeared Inside, sounding like a cave full of angry rattlesnakes.

Sagamoto beeped the friendly-sounding horn on the golf cart twice and passed through the formidable doors. He showed ID to a trio of bored, blue-uniformed police who intercepted them. There seemed to be two ways into the mountain, an express lane for those who lived and worked within, and a serpentine of desks and examining areas. The only other person being processed in the serpentine was a shaggy-looking man with a big netting bag filled with dead pheasant and chickens. They waved Valentine over to a brightly lit alcove. They let Valentine keep his pistol but put a trigger lock on it.

As they patted him down, Valentine looked down the vast tunnel, big enough for a freight train or a couple of tractor-trailers to pass into the mountain abreast. There were tracks built into the ground, as a matter of fact, and the vegetables were being loaded onto a flatcar.

"What about the damn sword?" the police officer searching Valentine asked as he stood with a thermometer in his mouth while a medical officer checked his blood pressure. "Bells, he's got a knife on him too. You from the bad side of the mountains or what?"

A gray-hair in a wheelchair supervising from a duty desk, an old leather jacket with a capitol police patch draped over his shoulders, glanced at Valentine. "Locker all his gear. Locker, dummies!"

The medical officer stamped his hand with blue dye. After that, they inked his thumb and pressed it on a set of cards. Sagamoto got

something stamped at the desk and returned with a temporary ID bearing his name and thumbprint.

By the time the carload of vegetables was on its way into the mountain, Valentine had the slip for his gear in the locker. Two more officials, in black paper clothing that made their skin look even more pale, met him at the next desk.

"General Accounts and Revenue", Sagamoto whispered. Then to the woman: "Visitor, let's get him a card for two days of food".

"What'll that be, an ear tag?" Valentine asked.

The woman at the desk unlocked a big paybox, but the man glared at Valentine. "State of birth, United States designation?"

"I'm Canadian", Valentine said, wondering if he should try to imitate the accents he'd heard on the White Banner Fleet in the Great Lakes.

This made the official even madder. He pushed a yellow card at Valentine and passed over the stub of a dull pencil. "We'll be checking that".

Valentine filled out the yellow card, no easy task with a pencil under an inch long. He gave his correct date of birth and listed his birthplace as "Fat Log, Saskatchewan".

"Two days' visitor rations, six hundred seventy-one dollars", the woman said.

"You must run a hell of a cafeteria", Valentine said. The woman tapped a laminated statement on the desk that showed the daily prices along with various taxes, duties, fees, and environmental-impact charges. He reached for his coin belt.

"Keep it. Guest of Senator Bey", Sagamoto said.

"We'll have to clear it with his office", the GAR man said, reaching for a phone.

"An aide is on his way up", Sagamoto said. "I'll sign and put my sosh". Sagamoto didn't wait for approval; he scrawled a signature on Valentine's yellow card.

"I should tear that up in front of you", the GAR man said.

"Want your bulletproof vest back? You do and I'll have the GAO

and the AG on you tonight. You'll be out riding a motorcycle in the boonies, collecting Patriotic War Duties".

"Table it, Barry", the woman said, tearing off a preperforated card from the yellow sheet and handing it to Valentine. "Sag here is engaged to a guy on the AG's staff". She stamped it and handed it to Valentine.

The last checkpoint was a velvet-rope serpentine. Sagamoto lifted a latch and they cut through the empty switchback alleys, and came to a pert, attractive woman in a thick blue blazer with a red, white, and blue scarf. Her smile was almost as bright as the sodium floodlights at the top of the tunnel. She checked Valentine's ID.

"Welcome to Mount Omega", she said, handing him a small, dog-eared book held together with a rubber band. "If you have any questions, this guidebook may assist you. Issuing the guidebook is not an implied contract to provide services. Acceptance of the guidebook places you under all the provisions of the Visitor Security Act".

"Take it. Don't worry", Sagamoto said.

Valentine accepted it and the woman recorded his ID number on a clipboard. Her smile brightened by another couple of watts. "Thank you. There is a FAQ and a list of security restrictions in the guidebook. Failure to comply with speech codes on page three will result in loss of Inside privileges. Mount Omega is a discrimination-free zone. Mount Omega is smoke-free since 2024. Mount Omega is proud to be Working for Victory under VO-2011 protocols under the Just Human Rights and the Resistance Acts. For more information on any of these initiatives, consult your selected representative".

Valentine felt air moving, like a fresh breeze outside. The strong air currents indoors weren't exactly disturbing, but they lent an unreality to the cavernous underground.

"We call this level Grand Central", Sagamoto said, pulling Valentine out of the way of a platoon of soldiers with Marine Corps insignia walking toward the entrance, two navy officers in timber stripes trailing behind, one carrying a camera with a long telephoto lens. "Sometimes people come up here just for the chance of seeing a fresh face. Above this level is the atrium, and there are greenhouses that are

the next best thing to going outside on your vacation. Getting to be Outside again is a big recruiting incentive for the military, but people generally find out it's not all it's cracked up to be".

"That why you signed up?"

"Wanted to go out and change the world. Felt like it for a while... I was helping refugees relocate".

"Same here", Valentine said.

Sagamoto pulled the string on his paperlike pants and he opened his waistband, as though they were two little boys comparing genitals. Valentine saw a wide plastic tube emerging from a fleshy hole just above his line of pubic hair. "My first battle didn't quite work out the way I thought. Have to stick close to medical care now".

They stepped under a big electronic board, above a guarded alcove with four banks of elevators, where LED lights spelled out activity on different levels. Congress was in session, and various cases were being heard in courts, including the Supreme Court.

"You heard of that butterfly's wings stuff?" Valentine said.

"When there's no lower intestine left to stitch..."

"No, it's this theory... a butterfly flaps its wings in China and you get snow in Virginia. Little, imperceptible events have big repercussions later. Maybe you caused two people to meet out there, and their kid grows up to be the next George Washington".

"I heard that kind of thing from the rehab team. They don't have to wash out colostomy bags... look, Valentine, I'm not challenging. You were trying to be nice". He took a deep breath. "Sure. You never know. At least I tried. I'm still trying, just in a different way. Looks like you've had a near retirement or two yourself".

Valentine opened the guidebook. The map of Mount Omega was a combination of a cross section of the decks of a ship and a subway chart. He tried to find their location on Grand Central.

Sagamoto pulled it out of his hands, snapped the rubber band back on, and shoved it in Valentine's pocket. "That thing's useless. The map makes a lot of sense once you already pretty much know your way around. As for all the rules... just be polite and wait your turn in line,

and if the police tell you to do something, do it. Just a second, I'm going to use one of the phones and get in touch with the senator's office.

"As a visitor, you really just need to know about the Mall, the Hill, the Point, and the George. The Mall's just below Grand Central - there are a couple of escalators just ahead there. The Hill's at the end of the Mall - it's an old indoor arena the reps and senators use for Congress. Point is above us - it's pure military. The George is where guests stay - it's also off Grand Central here. Of course there are archives and sewage treatments and waste and workshops and everything we need to keep going, plus the housing levels. The vice president and Speaker and chief justice all get windows and patios. The rest of us make do with twenty minutes in the UV rooms every day". An elevator opened and a small throng emerged. "And I think this is your aide".

A woman with wide eyes and tired hair, but almost glamorous thanks to her choice of scarf and gloves and satchel, broke away from the group leaving the elevator. She had an ID printed on a half-Capitol-dome, half-eagle-wing design, her picture and a thumbprint superimposed.

"Hello, Captain", the aide said. "Good to see you again. Is this our contact?"

Valentine extended a hand: "David Valentine. Southern Command, and lately Pacific Command".

She shook it: "Daphne Trott-Diefenbach, Senator Bey's chief military aide. I bet you're hungry".

More than half the people walking the wide corridor of Grand Central looked hungry to Valentine. "I'm all right".

"Well, I could use a bite. Captain, join us?"

Sagamoto took a step back. "No. I've got to log paperwork on the fresh face here".

"Thank you, Captain", Valentine said.

"Just doing my bit. Ma'am", Sagamoto said, turning.

"Then it's us. I'll take you down to the Mall... it's worth seeing", she said. "Can I call you David, or do you do Dave?"

"Most people just use Val", Valentine said.

"I'm Ducks, then".

"Ducks?"

She jerked her head down the tunnel, and they headed farther in, Valentine unconsciously falling into step. "They used to call me Daffy in school. Daffy Duck sometimes. I liked the Duck bit".

She took him down a worn old escalator. The new tunnel was even higher and wider than Grand Central. It was arched at the top, like a cathedral, and twin banks of lights shone down on small trees and grass running the length of the Mall. Valentine heard a fountain roaring somewhere. Bars, eateries, shops, movie booths, even a massive gallery piled with used books, lined the Mall. Valentine heard a pounding and hard breathing, looked up, and saw a walkway running above at treetop level, its railing thick with plant boxes. Joggers were running up there.

"I use the pool, myself. Warm as a summer lake, not that I've had a chance to swim in one. Let's break in John Bull's".

Valentine guessed it was an English-style pub, as there was a picture of Winston Churchill he recognized on the wall, and some black-and-whites of Congress being addressed. Behind the bar in a place of honor was a high blue helmet that reminded Valentine of an oversized egg.

"Two fry-ups and two shakes, Walther", she told the barkeep. She led Valentine to a back booth. His strange clothing was drawing stares from the Omegans in their scrublike paper clothing.

"Beer, Ducks?"

"No".

A server wiped their already-clean table and they sat.

"I'm just so eager for news of Outside. Tell me anything and everything", Ducks said.

"Ummm... where should I start?"

"How about Operation Archangel?" she asked.

Valentine took strange comfort in the fact that she'd heard of it. "I didn't see much of it".

"We had... I can't remember exactly how many, but several all-night sessions.

Had this whole place buzzing like a beehive. Not that I've seen one".

"Really? Go up to the old airfield. I heard a bunch in the engine housing of one of those big jets".

"I guess they keep bees in some of the agro areas Outside, but on my vacations I usually just go to the river".

"Why were there all-night sessions? Trying to get other areas to join in?"

"State handles that. No, we were upholding the legality of the operation pending".

"Pending what?"

"Restoration of constitutional civilian authority".

The meal arrived, a couple of fried, sliced tomatoes, a few French fries, and a breaded something about the size of a small sausage. Two big pint glasses came with it, thick with something that looked like a strawberry milk shake.

"Here's to it", Valentine said, lifting a glass. He tried a sip. It tasted like someone had tossed ice and old newspapers into a blender, then added a little syrup.

"Takes some getting used to. I'm told the flavoring is strawberry".

Valentine waited for the "Not that I ever had one", but it never came.

The server was already long gone, arguing at another table that Representative Mowbrarun's credit wouldn't buy a shot of pickling juice.

"What's really in it?"

"Mostly fiber-powdered vitamin supplement. It leaves you feeling full, anyway".

Valentine tried the fried whatever, mostly ground-up bean paste and gristle, he guessed. Ducks went on: "I never get invited to the good parties anymore because I still support the military, as does the senator".

"Who else is going to get rid of the Kurians?"

"Oh, I don't mean the Resistance. Everyone supports that, especially Senator Bey. Well, almost. Our military.

They're supposed to be out there getting food for us, but a lot of people think they're keeping it for themselves".

"Speaking of the senator..."

"Oh, just a second. We can't talk about him or your operations just yet. I was hoping you might have a valuable or two up in your locker you could donate to the Winter Harvest fund. Also, Senator Bey has a reelection court date coming up, and lawyers are expensive. Even a small donation will help him win his case and keep supporting the people of Oklahoma in their struggle".

Valentine knew a demand for a bribe when he heard one. At least the fries were tasty, thanks to the salt.

"What's the senator like?"

"He's wonderful. A real American success story out of the good old days, you know? Bunting and John Philip Sousa and all that. A son of one of the tunneling engineers. But he broke out of the father's-footsteps stuff and started standing for selections young. He represented himself at his first selection and the judge was so impressed by his rhetoric, he became a representative from Third District. He caught the eye of the SecDef, and got a position on the Resistance Approbation staff. His press conferences were really something, I think I was nine when..."

"There's a press here?"

"Of course. All the big newspapers still exist... of course they only come out on Tuesdays, which is good news, Fridays, which is bad, and Sundays, which is all analysis. I've got a copy of the Times here...".

She extracted a single sheet of folded newsprint. Four "pages" of close-set type under a banner, front-page headline:

PALMETTO-BERGSTROM

INVESTIGATION WIDENS

Possible Cabinet Involvement

Vice President Declines Comment

"Will blades cut HUD staffer's throat?"

Valentine scanned a couple of paragraphs. Evidently a judge's clerk named Palmetto was caught sharing a portable walkie-talkie phone with a congressional aide named Bergstrom, violating Separation of Powers practice. The "new evidence" was from the Housing and Urban Development chief of staff, who admitted to Justice Department investigators that he tried to call Bergstrom, got Palmetto, and mentioned that a fresh supply of razor blades had come in.

"What an unwise", Ducks said. "All I can think is she didn't know who Palmetto was. They're just making a meal out of it because right now the VP and Donovan Baltrout are both in Majoritarian. So what about that contribution?"

"This shake is going right through me. I'll be right back", Valentine said. He went to the washroom, festooned with no smoking and water nondrinkable signs, took out two of his gold coins - the belt was now well over half-empty - and returned to their booth.

"Okay, I've got..."

"Oh good God, don't give it to me", Ducks said, sliding so far away from him she almost fell out of the booth. "Are you out of your mind? We'll swing by the Fair Politics booth and you'll fill out an envelope, one for Winter Harvest and a separate one for the senator's campaign. You'll have to do a lot of paperwork for the latter. Then they'll give me the envelopes".

"Uh-huh".

"The senator is on the anticorruption committee, you know. We're not going to be caught out".

She put the meal on the senator's account and they went through the paperwork at the busy booths off the Mall, which had an entire section of tunnel devoted to them.

Clusters of people with placards, pamphlets, cups, jugs, and purses filled the hall, swirling around those traveling to and from the booths. "Support Booth-Ramierez!" "Bring America Back needs you!" "Volunteer labor needed for Food for Thought, one free meal per day!" "Stop the Midwestern Senatorial Junta before they stop you!"

Ducks used her satchel like the prow of an icebreaker, holding it in front of her and forcing her way through the throng.

"Unpleasant".

Valentine pressed tightly behind her. People were shoving flyers in his collar, his boot, his empty holster, anything they could reach. They made it to a police officer, who put them in line for the next available federal bursar.

Valentine watched people step up to the glass booths. He'd seen rations doled out at old currency exchanges in the KZ and the setup reminded him of a clean, well-lit version of that. They only had a ten-minute wait, and Valentine's stomach gurgled as it tried to figure out what to do with the pub shake. Valentine extracted folded flyers from his clothing. Most featured drawings of ragged, starving children or trios of heroic-looking soldiers, two healthy supporting a wounded comrade.

Ducks' eyes lit up when she saw the gold coins. She helped him with the paperwork under the bored eye of the woman behind the glass. The bursar gave her a receipt for the Winter Harvest contribution, and the coin for the campaign went into a concealed neck pouch under Ducks' thin clothes.

The rigmarole left Valentine nonplussed. But all the careful record keeping gave the people in here something to do.

"You just made my day, Val", she said, pushing her way through the donation seekers again.

They emerged from the crowd, where another policeman made sure the donation seekers didn't step out into the "sidewalks" and grass of the Mall.

"When can I see the senator?" Valentine asked.

She consulted a clock projecting from the wall ahead. "They're in session for another hour. Want to watch from the senatorial gallery?"

Valentine shrugged. "I could use a shower".

"You can use the one off my unit. Staffers have to share bathrooms, though".

They passed an overlarge team of gardeners taking care of a set of trees and

she took him to another elevator bank. She showed her card to the operator inside, who punched a button for 26 and the elevator descended.

The tunnel level 26 was a good deal rougher, about fourteen feet high and still circular, painted in a cheery soft yellow that had gone dingy, with exposed conduits and pipes running the ceiling. This part was not as well lit; only one light in three even had a bulb. It snaked along in a long bend of about three degrees, Valentine guessed. Seven-foot-high blue cubicle separators closed off by shower curtains divided the tunnel on either side. Some had "roofs"; others were open to the tunnel ceiling.

The cubicle panels were decorated with family pictures, cartoons, even old pictures taken from what Valentine guessed to be calendars.

"This is mine", she said, stopping at a roofless cubicle. Her "door" was a quilt of old materials, mostly faded logos from T-shirts. A Rodgers and Hammerstein Oklahoma! poster decorated the outside, a 2016 Broadway production with the cast either rootin' or tootin' energetically in splashy colors. She also had a semifamous black-and-white photo of a tired-looking guerrilla, his back to an old oak, keeping watch while an old man, a woman, and two kids slept in a huddle.

"Hope you live here alone", Valentine said.

"I do, unfortunately. Marrieds and cohabitants get more space - families even get their own toilet. But this is really pretty nice. Downstairs the service staff really just gets a barrack bed with some privacy curtains hanging down. Yeah, the cubicle paneling smells musty, but it absorbs noise like a sponge. I could never sleep in a barrack".

"Consider the criticism withdrawn", Valentine said.

"Let me just grab you a towel and some soap". She ducked into her cube.

It was hard to say which was rougher, the towel or the grainy soap, but Valentine made use of them in the common shower room, a tiled-wall area in a dimple off the main passage. At least the water was deliciously hot. She gave him a tour of the rest of "her" level. They passed other dimples along the way - one had a television and four

battered lounge chairs. Valentine was shocked to recognize Kurian Zone programming.

"Actually, their stuffs popular, not that any of us have much to compare it to. We do our own news, of course. Majoritarian news at five and nine, Minoritarian at five thirty and nine thirty. Every now and then they show a movie or a TV series from the Old World, but I don't like to watch those. Shallow, stupid stuff. The real old movies are better. Have you ever seen Gone with the Wind?"

"I like it. Don't knock shallow. Any culture that can put that much effort into entertainment about who is dating whom has all the big Maslow-sized problems pretty much solved".

She pointed to an old magazine cover on a staffer's cubicle. "Everyone was so pretty back then. About the only way we look like them is thin. Thin we can do".

They traveled back up in another elevator with a yawning attendant and she took him to the end of the Mall. After another ID check and search they went up another escalator to a sports and meeting arena, a vast open area under reinforcing girders.

The Senate held court from a ring of upholstered club chairs circling a wooden floor with old basketball markings. Little groups of three and four people down on the first level sat together, talking or listening to the senator addressing chambers from a round platform in the center with a podium that slowly rotated. The nonsenatorial watched from the old plastic chairs; every now and then one was missing in the rows, giving the audience area a gap-toothed look compared with the last arena Valentine had been in, the horror show under the Pyramid in Memphis.

The senators had real clothing, it looked like, complete with ties and shined leather shoes.

"One faction in the House wants to set up basketball league play again", Ducks said quietly. "The Senate keeps killing it, says having the Senate break for a game would destroy the dignity of the chamber".

"They're just scared because basketball would draw a bigger crowd", a man a couple of rows behind said.

"Mount Omega can't raise chickens for anything, but we can sure breed cynics", she muttered.

Valentine tried to catch the thread of the speech. The young man kept pausing and saying "hummmm", from beneath a generous overbite.

"McCaffee isn't much of a speaker", Ducks said. "But he is a third-generation senator, and half the Majoritarians owe his family favors".

"So those are senators in the big chairs?" Valentine asked. "They're not thin".

"Privileges of constitutional office".

"I see", Valentine said. "Sounds like he's done".

"New Hampshire is next. Now she can talk".

"Has she ever been to New Hampshire?" Valentine asked.

"Of course not. Senators argue their elections in front of the Supreme Court, so you can be sure she represents their values. She's flinty, tough, practical".

"And married to the head of the Unified Journalism Network", the man from behind said.

"That's Senator Bey there, in the leather chair with the bull horns at the top".

Whatever remained of the miner in the graying body was in the set of the shoulders and head. Senator Bey leaned forward in his chair, chin up and out and fist set on his knee, as if ready to rush the podium and tackle the speaker.

Valentine tried to follow the debate. The "distinguished senator from New Hampshire" was defending the credentials of a new director for the Law College.

"There's a college here?"

"Of a sort. They feed the specialty schools: Military, Law, and Social Support or Revealed Religion, plus a special technical school for the people who keep the juice and water running. Most of the learning is computerized up until tenth grade. Then you get teachers, most of whom are studying at the college at the same time - it's how they pay their tuition. College is tough. I only barely made it. Try going four years on nothing but study naps".

Valentine waited through a vote - the new director was confirmed, and then the Senate ended session for the day with one of the most vaguely worded prayers Valentine had ever heard.

"Sorry it wasn't more interesting", Ducks whispered during the prayer. "Last week we had an impeachment trial. Those are always fun".

"Amen", the man behind said, though whether this was to cap the prayer or not Valentine never learned, for he left a moment later.

Ducks led Valentine through yet another Capitol Police checkpoint, this one with a bank of security camera monitors, but she seemed on friendly terms with all the men there and they made only a cursory check of his ID, and logged him in via computer.

These tunnels were wood paneled, with real door handles separating the garage-sized offices from the carpeted corridor. Soft music played through speakers hidden within the electrical and water conduits. She stopped at a door with a laminated plate that read "Senator John Bey, Senior Senator From Oklahoma", and knocked.

The door opened a crack, and Valentine saw a ferretlike man with a widow's peak. "Ducks".

"Visitor for the senator, Larry".

"Okay, but it has to be fast. He's got a party dinner to attend".

Valentine entered the office, lit by soft bulbs in tasteful lamps. The senator sat in a little chair by a porcelain sink, being shaved by an attendant while another staffer changed his shoes and socks. Valentine thought his face looked careworn.

A bodyguard with a holster bulging under his paper jacket stood in a corner with a good view of the whole room.

Ducks led him to the end of the room and Valentine checked himself in the mirror. "Senator, this is Major David Valentine, Pacific Command by way of Southern Command. Major, this of course is Senator Bey". She turned to the man with the widow's peak. "And this is Larry Decasse, the senator's chief of staff".

"Fourteen and counting", Decasse said. "I could use three more if we could just get the funding".

Valentine remembered hearing that Southern Command's commander in chief, General Phillips, ran his office with the help of two staffers and a communications officer, and had refused the protection of a bodyguard.

"I think I know your name, son. How can I help the Cause and the people I represent?"

"Sir", Valentine said, suddenly unsure about how one addressed a senator, "I've got two reports. One needs to be transmitted to Southern Command". Valentine laid the first document, his one-page report on finding Sir and relaying the message that Southern Command desperately needed Lifeweaver help, down on the desk.

"The second is more for your eyes, though I ask it to go to Southern Command as well. It concerns what can only be called war crimes carried out by Pacific Command".

"War crimes?" the senator asked, and Decasse hurried to the senator's side. "Who? What? We just voted a commendation for Adler for opening a new line to British Columbia".

Mr. A. "It's in the report. They slaughter Kurian populations. That's why Adler is so successful. He murders whole towns".

"It's not slaughter", Decasse said. "They're relocating populations. He's the most effective commander in the Resistance. Very popular on the Hill".

Valentine ignored the chief of staff and stared at the senator. "Call it what you like, it's deliberate murder of civilians. Lot easier to win battles when the other side can't shoot back".

"I don't like this", the senator said. "Staff, give me and the major here a moment of privacy. Yes, you too, Ducks. You're not in trouble... you did your job".

Everyone passed out into the hall, save the senator and the bodyguard. He wiped the rest of the lather from his face and tossed the towel in the sink.

"Major, you think we're insulated here from the world, and about as useful as your grandfather's third nipple.

We've got channels of communication all over the country, even a couple of fake ones we let the Kurians listen to going overseas. But for all the folderol, Mount Omega is still wired into the world better than most any other place I can think of. I probably know more about operations in the Cascades than you do".

Valentine felt gut-kicked. "So you approve?"

"If you're asking me if I like it, no, I don't. Do I condone it? Yes. It's a hard truth of this war. We just lost a Freehold in the Balkans and as far as we can tell, the Koreans no longer exist. If it weren't for the Australians, bits of Alaska, and the del Fuegans, the Pacific Rim would be a giant Kurian circle. Southern Command got lucky, but it's about exhausted, and Denver doesn't have electricity anymore. The only victories being won are up in Pacific Command, and he's taking on the toughest, best-organized Kurians west of the Mississippi. Now's not the time for some kind of purge. We do those kind of blood sports here, but nothing that gets said or done in Mount Omega makes a damn bit of difference. I'm under no illusions about matters here. But if we're ever going to win this thing, it'll take leadership from men like Adler. There's even talk of making him commander in chief, if his plan to drive down into California succeeds. We haven't had a president since 'twenty-two".

The gut-kick turned his meal to bile. Bile that had to come up and out.

"Some leadership. Your speech code in the guidebook says that 'no person is to be addressed in a derogatory or demeaning fashion.' But murder is just fine for someone a couple hundred miles away".

Senator Bey's face reddened. "Sure, it's a silly bit of pantomime. But we can afford the niceties of civilization here. The trick is to get the rest of the country back to the point where we can sue each other over passing gas while someone else is speaking. I'm going to paraphrase Lincoln here. The objective is to win the war. If we can win it by killing every last person in a Kurian Zone, I want to win that way. If we can win it without killing anyone, even better. If we can win it by killing some and letting others alone, I'd be for that too".

A strong knock sounded at the door. "Senator!" Decasse's voice sounded. "The Capitol Police are here".

"Now what?"

Valentine suspected he knew what. The bodyguard went to the door.

"Yes?" the bodyguard asked as he opened it.

Valentine heard Decasse's voice: "Turns out Major..."

"We need to take the senator's visitor into custody. He's a deserter from Pacific Command", an authoritative voice said.

The bodyguard turned and looked at the senator. Valentine guessed that some protocol kept police out of the office.

What could he do, unarmed? Take the bodyguard's gun and shoot his way back up through Grand Central?

"I don't suppose Mount Omega has a sanctuary policy somewhere in this?" Valentine asked, lifting the guidebook.

"Too many people here already. There are families of representatives that go hungry at night".

"I'll go quietly", he told the senator.

The senator stood up and patted him on the shoulder. "Sorry, son. I'll make sure the report about your mission gets through. We want Southern Command to know you went out a hero".