21 August 2056
Lieutenant Alaina Hazelton, code-named Angel, sat and listened as the FORCE Deputies talked quietly. In the year and a half since she was sworn into FORCE, she had been assigned to the Southeast Regional Brigade, due to her prior experience and knowledge of the people in the region. She’d seen dozens of skirmishes, healed hundreds of people, both Normal and FORCEmen, and helped rescue several mutants. It had been an intensely satisfying time.
Captain Holloway, the local commander, stood. “Okay. Here’s the plan, people.” The room grew quiet as thirty five Deputies turned, giving him their undivided attention. “We are ordered to eliminate the Greater United States Secessionist Movement and stop the Pure Earth League. By our latest intelligence, both organizations are both centered in Polk County, Tennessee; the town of Benton. GUSSM is essentially nothing but a bandit organization, a warlord group trying to carve out a petty dictatorship in the region independent of U.S. control. They number about four to five hundred fighters and their families, and are well armed. Many of them are former National Guard soldiers and have military training along with access to some military equipment. They’ve suppressed the county’s police forces and apparently have managed to recruit some of those individuals into their own force.
”The Pure Earth League is a smaller but much more fanatic group. They are a mutant hunting vigilante group led by a Reverend Samuel Jacobson. He is a religious zealot and a demagogue who will stop at nothing to destroy any mutant he discovers.
”Of the two, the League is by far the more dangerous. The GUSSM will probably fall apart if we can take out their supplies and leadership, but I’m afraid we will have to annihilate the League to a man. The problem is that the two groups tend to support each other, the GUSSM provides the League with a safe haven while the League is somehow able to detect any undercover officers we try to slip in and eliminate them.”
Angel shivered. “Captain. Isn’t there any other way to stop them?”
He shook his head sympathetically. “Killing Jacobson alone will only make a martyr of him. He has publicly vowed to ‘cleanse God’s world of the taint of mutant blood and bring God’s Peace to all.’ He could stop the League — they consider him the new Messiah — but I can’t quite see him telling his followers to put down their guns and live in harmony with the mutants. Sorry, Angel; I’m afraid there’s going to be a lot of bloodshed this time.”
He turned back to the others. “As usual, we’ll be in our five man teams for the initial strike.
”Lt. Abler, you’re going after GUSSM. I want you and your squad to hit the barracks at the National Guard Armory in Benton. Fire if fired on, but otherwise relieve the men of their weapons and detain them until we can relieve you. I will give you photos of their suspected leaders. If you find these people, arrest and secure them for trial. The most important thing is to block the secessionists from their supplies.
”Lt. Mayle, I want your men to hit the Armory as well, but I want them to take out the weapons and ammo supplies. Secondarily, disable any vehicles and heavy weaponry, particularly any armor they may have on site. Don’t do any more damage than you have to, but make sure nothing can be used against us. Once you’ve completed that task, back up Lt. Abler unless or until called to reinforce another squad.”
He continued, giving each group their instructions for the raid that, hopefully, would cripple their foes’ fighting capability.
#
Two weeks later, the GUSSM was broken; the leaders under arrest and the rest scattered and unarmed. Angel sat listening to the Captain’s latest briefing. Four squads of Deputies faced him, while two squads stood guard duty outside, listening in on their radios. Five men lay in the FORCE hospital outside of Knoxville, all alive and recovering from their wounds because of Angel’s abilities. Every face in the room looked tense and haggard.
”Congratulations on a job well done, men. Because of you the GUSSM is no longer a threat. However, the Pure Earth League is a different story. While we’ve managed to kill or capture many of their people — almost fifty in detention right now — supplies and strong points, instead of whittling them down, they’re growing stronger. They have almost twice as many people as when we started this battle and they’re even better armed. We know none of the GUSSM people have joined forces with them, but they seem even better organized than when we began.
”I received a report from one of our mentalists working with the people we’ve arrested, and she says that every one of them shows signs of being influenced by a subtle but very powerful hypnosis; almost mind-controlled. So far, she has not been able to break through or weaken that control to any significant degree.”
Lieutenant Mayle grumbled. “The Reverend.”
Captain Holloway nodded. “It seems so. We’re up against a mutant who doesn’t know he’s a mutant. We haven’t been able to even get close to him, yet wherever he goes, more people join the League. I’ve talked to the Major, and he’s sending in six more squads, including three more mentalists. They’re due to arrive in three days.
”Meanwhile, we’ve received a tip that League forces will be in Farner tomorrow on a recruiting mission. The Reverend is expected to be leading them. I’ll take three squads as a reconnaissance and strike team. I need the rest of you standing by as reinforcements. This could be a trap.”
#
Flying over the scene just out of rifle range, Angel watched as the firefight moved across the valley north of Farner. Several private aircars, all League vehicles, were quartering the forest as they attempted to find and bomb the squads hiding within. A rocket arced up through a hole in the canopy, blasting one of the cars out of the sky. She clenched her fists as the Call echoed through her mind, already knowing one of the passengers was killed by the explosion.
She dove down through the canopy, weaving unerringly between the trees towards the Call. She reached the crash site and landed, studying the wrecked aircar. A glance through the shattered windshield confirmed that the driver was already dead. His passenger, however, was still alive. Just. Using a branch knocked free by the falling aircar, she raked the broken glass from the frame and reached in. She pulled the injured man from the smoking wreck, dragging him away from the risk of an explosion. She rolled him over and froze as she realized who lay before her.
Let him die, she thought, standing and backing away, fists clenched at her sides. Then she shook her head. No. I can’t, she told herself, kneeling back down beside him. She slipped her hand down to her radio, preparing to call in a Deputy to arrest him while he lay helpless, then paused.
What if …? After a moment, she laid her hands on his broken body and concentrated, fusing shattered bones and knitting ruptured organs; working fast to heal him.
She sat back, taking her hands from his chest as he stirred. Intense pale blue eyes opened, staring up into hers.
”Why did you save me?” he demanded weakly, pulling himself to a sitting position. He glanced over at the still-smoking wreckage of his aircar. “Why?”
”Because you were dying.”
”Do you know who I am?”
”Yes. You are the Reverend Samuel Jacobson.”
”And yet you still saved me? Again I ask, why?”
”You are a human being. I couldn’t let you die.”
After a moment, he said, “I kill mutants.”
”I know. But not all mutants are evil. I’ll grant some of them are, but then, so are some Normals. Some are insane. Many are embittered by what Normals like your League have done to them. Most of us are, however, decent people.
”Stop what you are doing, Reverend. You’re only making things worse for everybody. The radiation brought our mutations on us. We didn’t ask to be what we are! We were just ordinary human beings before, and we are just ordinary human beings now. Judge each of us on what we are, like you would any other human being. I heal people, all people, because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t!”
He listened as she spoke passionately, his face betraying nothing. A crashing in the underbrush heralded five men in camouflage as they burst into the clearing. “Kill that Mutie before she gets away,” one man shouted, swinging up his rifle. She leapt into the air, angling away from them with a powerful thrust of her pinions.
The Reverend sprang to his feet. “Stop!”
Assault rifles chattered, spraying the air with lead, knocking her out of the air. She crashed limply to the ground, blood pouring from the bullet wounds.
”I got her!” the leader of the patrol exulted.
The Reverend stalked towards him, face awful. The man quailed before his towering wrath.
”You fool!” He backhanded the man with his full strength, knocking him to the ground. “She just saved my life, and you killed her!”
” … I killed her…,” he added more softly.
Raising his face and hands to the sky, he cried. “My God, what have I done? What have I unleashed upon Your world?”
He walked over to Angel’s blood soaked body and knelt beside her. Laying his hand lightly upon her head and bowing his own, he whispered, “Forgive me.”
Taking the radio set from her head, he keyed it on. Holding the unit to his ear, he spoke. “Does…, does anyone hear me?”
”FORCE Deputy Captain Holloway. To whom am I speaking?” a crisp male voice said.
”I am Reverend Jacobson. I am standing by the body of the one called Angel. I surrender.”
