Doe woke one morning to a thick cold circle being jammed into his upper lip and pain flaring in his tooth as it chipped on the hard metal. He groaned and didn’t bother to open his eyes, just shoved the gun barrel to one side and rolled over, recapturing the comfort he’d been forced to abandon. The circle then jabbed him behind the jaw, and he realized that he might actually be in danger. His eyes came open against his will, and he was greeted with the cheerful numbers of his alarm clock, letting him know that he’d hit the snooze button one too many times and that if he didn’t hurry, he’d be late for work.
It seemed rather extreme of fate to punish him for that with six men dressed in army fatigues holding what looked like assault rifles.
The man with the gun against his jaw shouted something without enunciating. Doe rolled his eyes and moved to roll out of bed. All six guns remained trained on him as he quietly dressed and brushed his teeth. He decided against taking a shower, but wondered if they’d at least let him get a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee before they manhandled him into the jeep parked in front of the apartment building. He wandered into the kitchen, where even more soldiers kept even more weapons pointed at him as he dug around in his refrigerator for the last of the milk.
It wasn’t until the phone rang and one of the army men answered that he heard any of them speak clearly: “He’s not here, call back in 15-20 years.” Doe stared at them, spoon halfway to his mouth, and realized they were serious.
“If I’m going to be gone that long,” he rinsed his unfinished cereal down the sink. “Do you mind if I go get some of my things?”
The soldiers seemed to realize at that moment that they were serious and, before he could react, they handcuffed him and shoved him against the door. One of the soldiers began reciting the Miranda rights at great speed, with strange emphasis, as though certain words were needed to remind him of what came next.
Lovely. He frowned, his cheek pressed sharply against the chain lock on his door. He wondered briefly at the fact that it was still locked and unbroken, but forced his mind back to the matter at hand.
“What’s the charge?” His words garbled as the gun barrel pressed against his jaw.
“Shut up.” The man shoved him out the door.
Once in the truck, he tried again.
“So what should I tell my lawyer when I call him?”
The two soldiers who’d followed him into the back of the truck exchanged a glance. The skinny one on the left took off the black ski mask, and a small pert face of a pixie-like little girl glared back at him. Her face came to a point at her chin, contrasting the lips pressed into a thin line. She looked to be no more than fifteen, but her voice was rough with the authority of someone much older.
“Nothing. We’ve already got a lawyer for you who knows what to do.”
The other soldier’s mask came off too, revealing a goateed, sleepy-eyed man whose long white hair was pulled into a ponytail that disappeared into his riot vest. His broad frame was the only part of him that belonged on an army man. This soldier smiled, causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle and masses of tiny wrinkles to break out all over his tanned face. The man’s voice when he spoke was deep and vaguely familiar, but often cracked into a shaky bleating tone he’d never heard before.
“You have nothing to worry about, Boy. We’re not the true police. We’re here to protect you from them.”
Doe frowned and tried to steady himself against the sharp rocking of the truck. “Why do I need protection?”
“The MPs have found you out. They know you were behind the explosion at the high school, and the rocket launcher at the park. They’ve had their eyes out for you since you went AWOL in ‘97. You should not have resurfaced.”
“AWOL? Resurfaced? I think you have the wrong guy.”
“Don’t deny it, Marco,” the Pixie Soldier leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We’re on your side.”
“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We’ve been looking for you for three years, Private.”
Three years ago he’d still been in high school, writing for the newspaper and failing math. He was only twenty. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not in the army, and my name isn’t Marco.”
“You don’t have to lie to us now, Marco.” The Pixie Soldier was pulling her mask back on, but the cotton did little to muffle her words or get rid of the fireworks that were going off in his stomach. “We know what’s going on. All you need to do is agree with us, and we’ll get you off easily.”
He considered arguing with her again, but decided that at the moment, being Marco was as good as being anyone else, and changed the subject. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe,” the Goat Soldier said, replacing his mask. The ride continued in silence until a large explosion sent the truck careening off the road.
They came to a halt about a hundred feet down the median strip, and he charged towards the back of the truck just ahead of the two soldiers. Swerving trucks and cars blocked off all traffic behind them. Soldiers were running everywhere, and several people in dark coats and rubber Halloween masks were headed for the truck where he stood. He looked from them, to the soldiers, to his two “friends” behind him, and bolted for the trees at the edge of the highway. He didn’t know the area out here well, but he knew only one major road led through his town, so as long as he followed that, he could get home.
The masks caught up with him just before he reached the low retaining wall at the edge of the road. The Goat and Pixie Soldiers had also been caught, and were being led to a small white sedan headed in the other direction. Hillary Clinton grabbed his right shoulder and spun him around, while a tall white rabbit with glowing red eyes unlocked the cuffs he wore and replaced them with stiff plastic rope. Kevin Sorbo grabbed him around the waist and carried him quickly over to the car. He was shoved into the bench-like front seat with a figure wearing a priest’s robe and a ripped clown mask who sat behind the wheel. Sorbo jumped in next to him, leaving Hillary and the White Rabbit to squeeze into the back seat, next to the Pixie Soldier. The Goat Soldier was nowhere to be seen.
The Pixie Soldier pulled off her mask again, and he was surprised by the cheerful expression she wore.
“Right on time as usual,”
Hillary pulled off his mask, revealing a small, waif-ish blonde boy who could well have been the Pixie Soldier’s twin. He had the same pointed chin and the same arrogant, stern expression on his face. Hillary’s youthful solemnity was emphasized when he opened his mouth; he spoke with a sharp, accurate tone.
Doe wondered briefly if English was not Hillary’s first language.
“Of course we are on time. We cannot leave Anne waiting. Has he been briefed?”
As Doe heard the name Anne, his mind retreated back a few years, to the conference his highschool journalism teacher had sent him to. Reporting had been his only success in highschool, as it was the only place where his absolute moderateness was a good thing. He never wrote biased articles simply because he never had an opinion on anything. He stated the facts without error, in idea or type, but never took a stance upon it. His teacher, a broad shouldered, hulking man who seldom changed expressions and appeared as though his face had been cast in plaster and then painted tan, had sent him to the state conference to learn new techniques and to encourage his success.
The trip had backfired. Total immersion had turned him off of reporting, but he instead turned toward a new love: photographing women. In particular, small, redheaded women dressed in pale colors. He’d met one such woman at the conference, who’d given only the name of Anne, and had haunted his dreams ever since.
His teacher had asked him for his notes from the conference, and he’d given him several blank pages. The teacher had given him a C for the semester, only slightly higher than the Ds he received in his other classes, and he had graduated to spend his time sending his women to magazines, and living off the meager checks they sent him in return. He traveled between his small suburb and the local cities, looking for Anne.
The car hit a bump, and he fell forward into the dashboard. He tried to pull his hands in front of him only to cut himself on the ropes.
Anne had been a critic, an editor, and a feature writer. She had an opinion on everyone and everything, was a member of the Reform party, and went to anti-fur demonstrations. She’d been arrested twice for breaking on to private property. She had a reputation as an extremist and had distributed her anti-terrorism newsletters on the ruins of the highschool auditorium. When a masked man with a rocket launcher had fired at the mini-pagoda in the park where the local church leaders were holding a public baptism, she had interviewed the scorched priest for a description of the culprit. He had missed her by inches both times; his father’s old camera captured only a red blur and a bright lens flare.
He tumbled forward again, but was caught by Hillary, who turned to the Pixie Soldier. “Hold Chau Yen still, Gloria. We don’t want him damaged.”
The Pixie Soldier held him against the seat by the back of his collar. He leaned his head back and wondered if the other soldiers were following them. He wondered who Chau Yen was, and why he wasn’t Marco any more. He wondered why his hand was itching. “You could always untie me.”
“Not until we get to the base.” The White Rabbit toyed with one rubber ear. Its voice was high for a man, but rough, as though every word burned its vocal chords. “We must be sure our infiltrators were not discovered. If the Fuscia Army discovered Gloria and Juan, they may have sent spies of their own.” The Rabbit turned its head up, as though it were peering at Sorbo in the rearview mirror.
The car swerved sideways, off the highway and down a narrow, broken road through the pines. The Pixie Soldier’s grip tightened on his shirt as the ride became rougher and the sedan’s shocks did little to hold the passengers still. The car accelerated, and Hillary snapped his head to one side, his youthful face twisting as he shouted at the driver. Hillary’s words were lost in a squeal of tires and a crunch of branches as the car swerved sharply. The front doors popped open and Sorbo again grabbed him around his waist, pulling him out of the car. The driver lead them into the woods while Hillary and the White Rabbit struggled against the child safety locks. The Pixie Soldier sat passively, watching them go with sad eyes.
The clown mask came off, and the tired face of the Goat Soldier looked back at him again. “If I untie you, will you promise not to run?”
Doe nodded and offered his chaffed wrists to the soldier. “Who are you?”
“Lieutenant in the Mauve Rebellion, General. My role in the Burgundy Anarchy was a cover, of course.”
“I’m not--” He cut himself off, noticing he was alone in the woods with the two. “--worried about the Burgundy Army. Where is Anne?”
“Anne is the leader of the Fuscia Army, sir. She’s the one who had Veronica and Sebastian keep an eye on the Burgundy Anarchy.”
He was beginning to understand this Lieutenant. Veronica and Sebastian were the Pixie Soldier and Hillary, and he was apparently Private/General Marco/Chau Yen. He started mentally gathering facts, a habit he’d never gotten rid of after highschool. He was now in the hands of yet another group, fighting the other two.
“General Dmytri!”
He watched Sorbo, expecting the man to respond to the voice from the trees. Figures dressed in black dropped from the low branches, but Sorbo’s eyes remained fixed upon him. An arm lay itself across his chest, and lips pressed down on the back of his neck.
“Dmytri.” The voice was soft and high, and the tall brunette woman with long, defined muscles showing against her tight black clothing took his ear in her mouth. “The Pink Society didn’t hurt you?”
Doe frowned. This woman didn’t fit the story of mistaken identity. She obviously knew Dmytri well. The other figures were holding primitive weapons--slings, arrows and spears masked by pine branches--and all the eyes were pointed at him.
The Goat Soldier nodded ever so slightly, and Doe pulled a smile across his face. “I’m fine.” He returned her kiss, replacing passion with force, and wondered how he might get back to the Fuscia Army and Anne.
The kiss ended and the woman began leading him, and the rest of the troops, off in to the woods. The trees were dense, keeping him from seeing their destination until they were right on top of it, literally. The cabin was sunken into a large hole in the ground, surrounded on all sides by pines, with a single, enormous oak growing up from the center. They walked out across the roof until they were standing under the lower most of the oak’s branches and then lowered themselves into the hole through which the oak grew. He was taken into a room full of maps, weapons, and mirrors. Several of the maps were covered with threads and strings wound around tacks, one thread was pale pink, one dark red, one brownish, and one fuscia. The lines crisscrossed cities and countries with equal confusion, but the most threads ran across a large map of his small town, dividing it into tiny segments controlled by one army or the other, or occasionally two or three of them. The only place where all the threads crossed was directly over his apartment building.
“General Dmytri!” The Goat Soldier held the door open, announcing him to the people already standing in the room. Everyone there snapped to attention, but for one man, who stood in front of the map of his town. The man turned slowly, a smile seeming to crawl out across his face, led on either end by the corners of his mouth as though they were spiders drawing out a web. The man’s face above the glittering white of his grin was shaded to black by the visor of his baseball cap which was decorated only by the androgynous dolphin symbol that represented most scholastic football teams and several professional ones. The man opened his mouth as though to speak, but was interrupted when one of the soldiers in black came running in, holding his right hand against his shoulder. The soldier’s hand was covered in a bright, thick liquid.
“General, Mr. President, the Fuscia Army is attacking.”
Someone handed Doe a large and surprisingly light-weight gun, and the Goat Soldier led him to a set of stairs which took them back up to the roof. The oak stood between them and the dark green uniformed soldiers that lined the edge of the pines. He fired at one of them, and watched as the soldier fell back and dark red covered the green of his uniform. He fired several more times, leaning out around the oak, before he was startled by a shot hitting just next to his head, against the tree.
A shout distracted him from the hole in the bark. He looked up to see the soldiers in green part slightly, allowing a short woman with bright, fire-engine-red hair to step to the front. She held up her hands, and soldiers on both sides lowered their weapons.
“Hold your fire!” Anne’s voice dominated the forest, making her seem much taller than the five foot height he knew her to have. She scanned the roof of the cabin quickly, and then spoke again. “General Dmytri, I wish to negotiate!”
Doe froze, his mind racing. She wanted to speak to Dmytri. Even at the convention he hadn’t actually spoken to her, only listened to her lectures and conversations as he followed from a distance. His gaze slid sideways to where the Goat Soldier stood, staring back at him. The soldier reached up, pulling off his white goatee and pony-tail, and spoke for the first time in a clear, familiar baritone.
“It’s up to you,” his highschool journalism teacher who was the Goat Soldier told him. Doe nodded and turned back to look at Anne as the teacher replaced his disguise and once more became a lieutenant of the Mauve Resistance.
If he agreed to negotiate with Anne, his search would end. They would meet as equals, spend hour after hour working on a truce, and move on. He could be her Private Marco, or Chau Yen. He could end the battle which had divided his town, destroyed his highschool, and ruined his park. His eyes met Anne’s, and he knew what to do.
General Doe Dmytri stepped out from behind the oak, raised his gun, and fired paint-balls on the soldiers standing to either side of Anne. She shouted something that couldn’t be understood over the renewed noise of the battle and pointed in his direction as he fired again and leaped back into the court yard.
The hunt was on, only this time, Anne was after him.
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