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Roland spoke up. “Well, he did survive Little Bighorn. He could survive this. Maybe we can, like, you know, evacuate him, quarantine him.”

“Right,” Moms said. “Get a chopper and sling-load a horse inhabited by a Firefly over the neighborhood to where? The goat lab at Bragg?”

They all, except Scout, knew what went on at the goat lab at Bragg. It was necessary to train Special Ops medics, but it was brutal. Each medic at the beginning of the lab phase was assigned a goat that they had to shoot. Wound only. And then nurse back to health. But they said goats don’t have a nervous system that registered pain anyway; so they said. No one ever asked the goats.

“We’ll just have to make the Firefly leave him,” Roland said.

“You said you have to kill him and flame him for that,” Scout whined.

“Well,” Doc said. “Maybe not.”

They all turned to him.

“We’ve never done a controlled kill,” Doc said. “It’s always been a—”

“Clusterfuck of a firefight,” Nada said.

“Exactly,” Doc said. “We do not know what Fireflies are, and we have only a limited knowledge of their parameters, and lately they have been pushing that. Whatever was going on inside the Rift in the Fun Outside Tucson was new. The backhoe trying to take out the Wall around here was different. Maybe we need to be different. Approach things in a new way.”

“You still said kill,” Scout said.

Doc knelt in front of her. “You say you’ve seen a lot of movies?”

Scout nodded.

“Seen The Abyss?

Scout nodded.

“Remember where the woman drowns and they revive her?”

Scout’s eyes grew wide.

“Do you trust us?” Doc asked.

Scout looked him in the eyes, and then at the other team members. “No.”

“’Cause you think we’re Custer,” Roland said. “But we aren’t Custer.”

Nada nodded. “That can be our new Nightstalkers motto: ‘We aren’t Custer.’”

Scout wiped snot off her face. “But that’s like saying we aren’t Fetterman. Custer knew about Fetterman, they all did, from ten years before Little Bighorn, but nothing different happened.”

“Who’s Fetterman?” Kirk asked.

“Don’t you guys read anything?” Scout asked. “Or watch the History Channel?”

Roland nodded. “She got us there. Fetterman was a lieutenant at Fort Kearny who went out to relieve a wood-cutting party that was attacked and disobeyed orders. Went beyond Lodge Pole Ridge because Crazy Horse sucked them into an ambush with a diversion. Ten years before Crazy Horse sucked Custer into the Little Bighorn.”

“We ain’t him either,” Nada said.

Moms sat down with a deep sigh into a chair. “Do you see the irony of that statement, considering we’re going to try to kill a crazy horse, dissipate a Firefly, and bring the horse back to life? Ms. Jones is going to kill me.” She looked up. “And I am not speaking metaphorically.”

Scout started crying again and Nada started to say something, but he knew his limitations. He was a soldier and he knew when to keep his mouth shut while his commander made a decision.

CHAPTER 24

The FedEx truck backed into the driveway with an irritating beeping.

The team was ready, combat gear on, locked, and loaded. Doc got on board the FedEx truck to check the gear he’d requested directly from Support, while the rest of the team piled into the SUVs with the tinted windows. The convoy rolled down the street and turned to the stables.

Comanche wasn’t hard to spot. He was running around the white-fenced pasture, dirt flying under his huge hooves. Every so often he paused and struck out with one of his front hooves, mostly at nothing.

“Geez,” Kirk said to Scout. “You ride that thing?”

Comanche was big. “Yes. He’s always been peaceful,” Scout said.

“Why hasn’t he jumped the fence?” Eagle wondered, turning the wheel and pulling them up to the stable.

“Why didn’t the pool Firefly break the glass door?” Moms said. She looked over her shoulder to Roland. “You ready?”

Roland was unhappy. His beloved M-240 was on the floor, next to his feet. He had a bolt-action rifle on his lap. “If they don’t stop when we blast them and kill them, how are we going to stop them with just a drug? The Firefly will just ignore it.”

Doc’s voice came over the net. “Most likely. The drug will overdose the horse and stop his heart and that might not change anything. But you’ve read the binders, Roland. This has never been tried before. It’s always been an all-out firefight between us and the Fireflies. Black or white. Maybe we’ve been wrong? Maybe there’s a middle ground?”

“That’s a big maybe,” Eagle said.

Kirk was watching the horse through binoculars. “What if we’re wrong?”

Moms sighed. “I know we’re probably wrong.” She looked at Scout. “We’re going to try, but the chances aren’t good. You have to understand that.”

“You’ll do it,” Scout said, the words more confident than her tone.

“No,” Kirk said, “what if we’re wrong about our supposition about the Firefly?” He turned to Scout. “Watch the horse carefully.”

The horse spotted them and neighed loudly. It kicked out once more, then raced hard in a counterclockwise circle. As it came to the fence separating the humans from the horse, it lashed out with its left front hoof and shattered the top board in the fence. It was shaking its head and its eyes rolled wildly. Roland had the rifle to his shoulder, but he also had the machine gun slung over his shoulder and the flamer on the ground next to him.

“It’s the curling iron,” Scout suddenly said.

Kirk nodded. “Right.”

Roland’s finger was on the trigger.

“What are you talking about?” Nada asked.

“Watch him,” Kirk said. “Watch him kick. Notice anything strange?”

They all watched as the horse once more did a hard circle and several kicks.

“Same leg,” Moms said. “Stand down, Roland. The Firefly isn’t in Comanche. It’s in the horseshoe.”

Roland lowered the gun. “That’s a fucking stupid Firefly.”

“Language around the girl,” Moms said absently, staring at the animal. “Actually, it almost got us to kill the horse and miss where it is entirely.”

“This is new,” Doc muttered.

“This is bad,” Nada said. “But good,” he added, looking at Scout.

“You have a tranquilizer?” Moms asked Doc.

Doc nodded. “Yes.”

“Roland, switch out the round. We’re going knock Comanche out. Kirk, get me Ms. Jones.”

The radio clicked and it was as if Ms. Jones was somewhere close by, watching them as she responded immediately. “Go ahead.”

“I’m going to need a blacksmith,” Moms said.

“Did you need to use the resuscitation gear you had Support bring?”

Moms swallowed. “No, Ms. Jones.”

“How interesting. Consider the blacksmith en route.”

CHAPTER 25

There were four Ivars in the basement lab now, taking turns pedaling the bike backward. The really hard part for Ivar was that there were moments he wasn’t sure which one he was. His mind was teetering on the precipice of going insane. Sometimes he blinked and he was on the bike, but he’d been the one tinkering with the device just a second ago.

There was only one Burns. But he was sitting in a chair, doing nothing, just watching the Ivars.

Ivar had lost track of what he was doing, but it was apparent at least one of the Ivars was paying attention, because Ivar watched that Ivar throw the switch and another mini-Ivar appeared in the chamber, crawled out, and began growing to normal size.