Monday, May 30, 2022 Aqrabuamelu compound; Flushing, Queens, New York, United States

“Eleanor, the captured soldiers are downstairs. What would you have us do with them?” The High Priestess asked her.

“Take me to them. I want to talk with them.”

They walked down into the labyrinth underneath the compound. Ella had finally gotten a hang of the tunnels. Apparently the Aqrabuamelu had been using scent trails this entire time to know where to go. She had been forced to memorize the layout but now she had it.

When they reached the holding chambers, she looked in on Ansheth. He had been given chambers, still under guard and key, where he paced like a caged animal speaking under his breath. Ella could only catch the occasional imprecations about false gods and vengeance. She didn’t know what to do with him anymore. She could spot the magic signature of the drow, and she had learned how to hide her magic from their very keen magical sight.

Should she have him killed? It was one thing to do it in combat.

Instead, when she came down here, she had started picking at his mind. Looking for the religious programming. But it was so very difficult, the brain was a mess of interconnections and the only thing she had been able to determine was the programming was structurally imposed, not magical. It was part and parcel of the actual brain formation and would not be as easy as the Aqrabuamelu’s infertility knot.

A few rooms over, there were a set of cells that housed the soldiers.

“Have they said anything?” she asked.

“No. Just that they were given the objective, to take you family, preferably alive, and a huge bonus to operate on public soil.”

“On the left is former Petty Officer Second Class Eli Nelson. Formerly member of the Naval Special Warfare Group 3 until he was drummed out in 2007 for sexual assault. The other is a former member of the 75th Ranger Regiment out of Fort Benning, Captain Daniel Sonenberg, served with distinction until he was caught fraternizing with white supremacist groups.”

“Both winners then I see.” Ella thought for a moment.

“Let me talk to the Captain.”

“Captain Sonenberg, do you know who I am?”

“Eesha Jindal-Witten. Primary target of our mission.”

Well this was different than how television had prepped her. Wasn’t it supposed to be name, rank and serial number?

“Who issued the orders?”

“I received them from my boss, Major Wittaker at Kenaz.”

“Can I ask why you are being so forthcoming?”

“I saw what they did to Private Russell. He died and they carved him up, right outside our cells and starting cooking him. I don’t know who you all are, ma’am. But they definitely didn’t tell us elite cannibal soldiers were part of it.”

Fuck. Ella had forgotten. No, she had deliberately put out of her mind the Aqrabuamelu’s distasteful habits.

“Where did the SIG MCX Spears come from? They just won the next-gen squad weapon contract. They aren’t in production yet.”

“Don’t know ma’am. We were just issued them when the orders were given and had two weeks to get used to them.”

“Don’t call me ma’am. I know what you really think of me.”

“What?”

“I know why you were discharged, Captain.”

“Oh that…”

“Yes that.”

“Ma’am. Look. I made a mistake back then. I was young and stupid and didn’t know any better. Hell I volunteer at a program to help pull people out of groups like that.”

“What about Kenaz?”

“The place is lousy with white supremacists,” Captain Sonenberg admitted. “I get shit on because my wife is Guatemalan. But fuck them.”

Well shit. This wasn’t easy. Ella might have been more inclined to have him put to torture otherwise.

“Who is the real boss of Kenaz?”

“Everett Marr.”

Sagaponack, Long Island, New York, United States

Everett Marr regarded the person in a window on his wall screen. He looked disreputable even in his suit, he was tall and gaunt with stringy hair and strange mannerisms. A foreigner of some sort, but it wasn’t quite clear from where. Everett’s people had failed to find out much more which was suprising in itself.

Kothin regarded Everett in much the same way. A middle-aged human, gut gone to paunch and grey, thinning hair. His face flushed with too much consumption, his beady blue eyes lit with greed, and his carriage one of arrogance unearned.

Everett watched as Madeleine, in her own little window, kept haranguing Kothin in her shrill voice of hers. Kothin simply nodded along insincerely. Timothy, in the other window, watched serenely. Somewhere along the line, Timothy had come to think that he was really some sort of pastor, not a tool of control. He might even believe in that nonsense he was spouting now, which would be absurd. But I suppose preaching fire and brimstone on television all the time for fifteen years, and it might just take. His taste for young boys just added icing on the cake, it almost felt too stereotypical.

Where was Madeleine’s husband anyway? He could keep her in line. She had been terrible back at Le Rosey, and she was terrible now. Everett could have had her, of course, but who would want her?

“Be quiet Maddie. He is my guest here.” Everett turned to Kothin. “Mr. Kothin. I am very displeased with how you wasted my men.”

“Evvy - you do not tell me to be quiet!” Madeleine turned her ire against him. “Why does he need so many weapons? I already got burned once on this ridiculous insurrection nonsense, and all for that idiot. At least I have people in the right places now.”

“Maddie, all you had to say is you want out, that is totally fine. See you later.” Everett dropped her from the video call. He would pay for that later, but he just couldn’t take any more of her weak feminine nonsense. She thought having a few Supreme Court justices in her debt was enough. She was a fool. They tended to get ideas above their station.

After that, he needed a drink, and he walked over and poured a glass of brandy. He saw that Kothin had a glass of something in his hand. Oddly enough, the same crystal tumbler that Everett was now holding.

“Mr. Kothin. I can provide what you need. The weapons orders are quite large and will take some time. But why should I?”

Kothin sat back and took a sip from his glass before saying, “You and your peers live in fear.” The sneer in his voice was self-evident. “You think you are exemplars of humanity, but instead you are parasites that feed on your own. You fear the host will wake and tear you down, so you accumulate more money, more political power, hide in your little castles, need bulletproof glass, and isolate yourselves as well as any prison could.”

Kothin took another sip, the gravelly cadence of his voice holding them in thrall, “You squeeze, and squeeze, until, one day, you squeeze too hard.” Everett watched as the glass shattered in Kothin’s hand. Copious blood began to pour from Kothin’s closed fist. Kothin didn’t even look down. “You grasp so tightly. It will cut you. Yet you are too afraid to let go.” Kothin opened his hand and began plucking shards of crystal out of it before slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, taking a cloth and wrapping it around his hand.

How dare this ignorant savage come and lecture him? “Mr. Kothin, I won’t be lectured by a dirty nobody like you. I don’t fear anyone, especially not the mob. A million and a half of them died in the last three years because we told them not to get a vaccine.”

Everett continued, “I am only here for two things, one I like to hedge my bets. Second, the trinkets you provided got my attention. But I already lent you some of my men and you wasted them.” Everett had lent out some of his best men to Kothin as a display of force, and they had all been killed.

“Perhaps you do not fear. That would make you more of a fool. How do you say it in this day… riding the tiger. Yes, you ride the tiger and it will turn and savage you one day. But that does not matter. Your jaded tastes need something your peers cannot have, I recognize that. We will provide. You will provide more weapons. I will need a much larger supply - perhaps three hundred thousand full kits to start.”

Everett had forgotten about Timothy who suddenly interrupted, “Why should we give sinners like you God’s own weapons. He has granted them us, the greatest nation on Earth, to battle with the dirty unbelievers!”

Everett cursed, this idiot. Perhaps he had outlived his usefulness.

Kothin ignored him, and even despite his disdain, Everett’s estimation reluctantly went up a bit for not having risen to the idiot’s ramblings. They waited them out as Timothy went on and on about godless people, gays, abortion, miscegenation, and whatever other things he had on his mind. Everett poured another glass of brandy.

Eventually Timothy realized nobody was listening to him. He stopped and then turned his attention to Everett, “Be warned, Everett Marr, deal with the ungodly at your own risk.” He then hung up.

Yep, it was definitely time for Timothy to go.

“Three hundred thousand of the new weapons is out of the question. There is an army contract to fill. Perhaps the current models, they will be in ready supply.”

“Perhaps.”

“Training, I can certainly arrange for.”

“Now what is in it for me?”

Throne, The Hidden Kingdom of the Emperor

Afterwards, Kothin sat back and closed the laptop screen. He pulled off the ring.

“Who knew childrens toys would be so useful to us? We made millions of those rings just as toys.” Ekerri said idly.

“Was that enough?” Kothin said without turning around.

“Yes, his mind is simple. I have enough. What a foul mind,” observed Ekerri, “so worried about his wealth and the purity of his ‘race’. He thought the word Übermensch at least ten times. As if one pig is better than another.” Ekerri smiled, “You were right to call him a parasite. All they care about is accumulating power.”

Kothin had never challenged the Emperor before. But something made him ask, “And why do you accumulate power, my lord?”

“Do you doubt, Kothin?”

“No milord, I only ask.” But Ekerri’s eyes narrowed.

“Before you were born the People warred. I was elected chieftain among my people, the Al’tal, and was more successful than most. I soon realized nobody had the right vision. We could have peace. But it would take a strong hand. My hand. Everything else follows.”

“Everything else follows,” intoned Kothin. He shouldn’t have asked.

Aqrabuamelu compound; Flushing, Queens, New York, United States

Ansheth sat in his well adorned cell and waited for God to return. Instead the woman kept coming to talk to him and practice magic.

She sat outside his cell now regarding him.

“What will you do if I release you?”

“Does God want me released?”

“What do you want?”

“Whatever God wants.”

Ella chewed her lower lip a bit. The same answers each time. She shifted her vision and let her eyes flare and followed the connections and impulses in his brain.

There was one area of the brain that she thought might be it. But the costs of she was wrong… They were too high. She had no idea what would happen, if she would harm him or how he would act. Experimenting on sentient beings felt more than a few steps too far.

Frustrated she went back to the bunker to see her family.