me with a look of concern on his face. “Let’s not mention the details of this morning to him, okay? Not till we know him better.” I nodded. I wasn’t sure how I’d explain sparks flying from his fingers anyhow.
He held his hands in front of him, about eight inches apart. “Have you ever meditated?” he asked, sitting on the floor again, his hands about eight inches apart in front of him, palms raised.
“Dave used to ask me to,” I admitted. “I wasn’t much good at it.”
“I need you to practice—it’s the first step toward protecting yourself,” he counseled. He gestured and I set my hands up in front of me like his. “Okay, just let yourself feel it—good, you’re there quickly, that’s helpful. You feel the vibration? Right now, it’s very limited—you haven’t taken control of it. But it’s a harmonic, a frequency. Harmonics bind matter together—all matter. If you can learn to feel the frequencies, to distinguish one from another, eventually you’ll be able to adjust them. And once you can do that, you’ll be able to affect everything around you.”
“ Me ?” I screeched. I screech when I’m nervous—it’s a bad old habit.
“Better you than someone else,” he warned.
“I’m not a mindreader.”
“You couldn’t explain what was happening and you don’t like that feeling,” he said. “But you knew anyway.” He smiled his gargoyle smile. “You have had the privilege, thus far, of not knowing what you know. My job will be to deprive you of this privilege.”
~~~~
Four
I hear the crackle in the middle of my head. Tango Seven—multiple events in your vector, last five minutes. Exercise caution. Sound is a vibration. This vibration grows, echoes, deeper, shimmying through me. We’ve been waiting for action since we started staging. We’re soldiers, we joined up, no one made us. We want to fight. We want to prove ourselves, to find out who we are when the air bends and the fire fills us. We crossed the border two days ago and we’ve spent two days driving, swallowing pills, driving some more and sitting out a sandstorm that lasted six hours where nobody could sleep cause we kept saying to each other, They know this stuff and we don’t—when it stops, they’ll be on us in a minute but they weren’t and then driving driving some more, past blown-out buildings and blown-out tanks and my headphones screaming.
The waiting is killing. No more waiting. Fight. Fight now. That’s what I want because I don’t know what else to want. And then, without transition, we’re fighting. I hear the CRACK!! over the music and the Humvee right in front of us bounces into the air like a milk carton somebody kicked and we’re almost on top of it by the time we stop. It’s in the narrowest place, of course, wedged between two cinder block walls set close together, between two neighborhoods that hate each other and both hate us and we’re bogged down, nowhere to go, can’t get around it.
Man Down! Man Down ! Monroe is shrieking into the headset and we see the Vee behind us drive right up and Shumwalt the medic jump out to help but he isn’t there more than ten seconds before he’s rushing back to his mount, shaking his head like it’s detached.
The wait, the wait, the wait, the wait .
I shut off the music, not that it matters much—the gunfire is louder than the headphones all the way up, loud enough to wake the dead. In which case, start with the medic—his head is severed by rounds from three different directions and then blown sky high by a rocket that takes out his Humvee, throwing it six or seven feet in the air and crushing it against one of the cinder block walls. Some guys scramble out—how are they alive?—they get five or six steps before being cut down. There’s too much fire from all over. These guys have guns and lots of them.
Half a second later, we’re in the crosshairs. The door and windows of our truck are pounded with bullets. It’s
He held his hands in front of him, about eight inches apart. “Have you ever meditated?” he asked, sitting on the floor again, his hands about eight inches apart in front of him, palms raised.
“Dave used to ask me to,” I admitted. “I wasn’t much good at it.”
“I need you to practice—it’s the first step toward protecting yourself,” he counseled. He gestured and I set my hands up in front of me like his. “Okay, just let yourself feel it—good, you’re there quickly, that’s helpful. You feel the vibration? Right now, it’s very limited—you haven’t taken control of it. But it’s a harmonic, a frequency. Harmonics bind matter together—all matter. If you can learn to feel the frequencies, to distinguish one from another, eventually you’ll be able to adjust them. And once you can do that, you’ll be able to affect everything around you.”
“ Me ?” I screeched. I screech when I’m nervous—it’s a bad old habit.
“Better you than someone else,” he warned.
“I’m not a mindreader.”
“You couldn’t explain what was happening and you don’t like that feeling,” he said. “But you knew anyway.” He smiled his gargoyle smile. “You have had the privilege, thus far, of not knowing what you know. My job will be to deprive you of this privilege.”
~~~~
Four
I hear the crackle in the middle of my head. Tango Seven—multiple events in your vector, last five minutes. Exercise caution. Sound is a vibration. This vibration grows, echoes, deeper, shimmying through me. We’ve been waiting for action since we started staging. We’re soldiers, we joined up, no one made us. We want to fight. We want to prove ourselves, to find out who we are when the air bends and the fire fills us. We crossed the border two days ago and we’ve spent two days driving, swallowing pills, driving some more and sitting out a sandstorm that lasted six hours where nobody could sleep cause we kept saying to each other, They know this stuff and we don’t—when it stops, they’ll be on us in a minute but they weren’t and then driving driving some more, past blown-out buildings and blown-out tanks and my headphones screaming.
The waiting is killing. No more waiting. Fight. Fight now. That’s what I want because I don’t know what else to want. And then, without transition, we’re fighting. I hear the CRACK!! over the music and the Humvee right in front of us bounces into the air like a milk carton somebody kicked and we’re almost on top of it by the time we stop. It’s in the narrowest place, of course, wedged between two cinder block walls set close together, between two neighborhoods that hate each other and both hate us and we’re bogged down, nowhere to go, can’t get around it.
Man Down! Man Down ! Monroe is shrieking into the headset and we see the Vee behind us drive right up and Shumwalt the medic jump out to help but he isn’t there more than ten seconds before he’s rushing back to his mount, shaking his head like it’s detached.
The wait, the wait, the wait, the wait .
I shut off the music, not that it matters much—the gunfire is louder than the headphones all the way up, loud enough to wake the dead. In which case, start with the medic—his head is severed by rounds from three different directions and then blown sky high by a rocket that takes out his Humvee, throwing it six or seven feet in the air and crushing it against one of the cinder block walls. Some guys scramble out—how are they alive?—they get five or six steps before being cut down. There’s too much fire from all over. These guys have guns and lots of them.
Half a second later, we’re in the crosshairs. The door and windows of our truck are pounded with bullets. It’s
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