Popping up, he danced, shoulders bouncing, hips rocking.

“What the hell is it?”

“Taste the miracle!”

Curious, Fallon took the cup, sipped. “Oh, oh, it’s good.” Strong, sweet, unlike anything she’d tasted. It gave her a little head rush. “What is it?”

“Fred’s version of Coca-Cola,” Eddie told her with a grin. “She’s been working on it since we got the Tropics up and going. Your mom helped some, and I’ve been taste testing. I think we got it.”

“It’s better, even better than Coke Classic. Oh, it’s been so long. Come back to Papa.” He took the cup, drank again. Danced again. “Even better. It’s LFC. Little Fred’s Cola.”

“I like it.”

Chuck eyed the jar. “Can I keep it?”

“All yours, dude.”

“I feel tears coming on. Lemme tell ya, armed with LFC, I’m going to rock this job here.” He drained the cup. “Whoa, better take it slow.” He sat again, rubbed his hands again.

Began to work controls.

“These codes you wrote? How accurate?” he asked Fallon.

“As close as I could manage. It’s not my strongest suit, but I know they’re close.”

“Let’s start with the Oval Office. I mean, go for gold if you’re going.”

She waited while he keyed in codes, fiddled, did things she’d never understand. Through the speakers came nothing but a steady electronic buzz.

“Think I see the problem. Another sec.”

He adjusted the code, twice, and the buzz turned into a kind of rumbling.

“Magick-type bugs. This one’s a what again?”

“Leaf.”

“Huh. Organic eavesdroppers. Kick my ass and call me Sally. Give it a little boost there, champ. Just a little. Gonna interface the magicks, get me?”

“Maybe.”

She nudged. The rumbling became a blast.

“Back off—a lot. Just, like, a touch.”

“Okay.”

From blast to a squawk then to a murmur.

“Got it. I got it. You can ease it off. Here we go.”

I’ve had it with this bullshit, Carter.

Mr. President—Commander—if I could—

I said I’ve had it. We’re expending too many resources for too little. I want results and get excuses and demands for more resources.

Sir, if you cut our resources, pull more personnel off the MUNA project, it’s the same as shutting us down. We’re already cut to the bone.

That’s the idea, Carter.

Sir, what we’ve learned and can learn, the progress we’ve made and will make, it’s essential to controlling the Uncanny threat. Our research—

Hasn’t produced tangible results in twenty damn years. The so-called leaders who sat at this desk wasted years on their debates, negotiating, compromising with scientists like you. Weaklings, all of them. Soft-bellied weaklings. I gave you a chance, Carter, against my better judgment.

If you could see your way—

I’m sitting in this chair because I act! Hargrove’s voice boomed out. I’m done wasting time, done coddling those freaks of nature. Our resources and personnel are better utilized to eradicate the threat once and for all. Containment, research, experimentation? For what? So the freaks can continue to breed, to attack our cities, our people?

Without our work, without science, we’ll never understand the phenomenon.

Fuck your bullshit science, and fuck the phenomenon. It’s time to end them.

Commander Hargrove, sir, we have over two hundred specimens in our facilities here alone, and we believe we’re close to creating a serum that will essentially sterilize the Uncanny, prevent them from breeding.

You said that six fucking months ago.

We’re closer. A few more months.

You’ve got two. If you don’t come through, Carter, I’m not just cutting back your resources, I’m shutting you down, and neutralizing your specimens along with every one of them in other facilities. Every goddamn one.

Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

Science, my ass. Debra!

A squeak of a voice responded. Yes, Commander Hargrove.

Contact that idiot Pruitt, and tell him I’d better have a progress report on negotiations with White and the PWs by the end of the day. And if he keeps pussyfooting around, he should remember what happened to the idiot he replaced. I’m going out to look at the training grounds, give the troops a little pep talk. Send my security in. Now!

Now Fallon heard movement, doors opening. Yes, locks releasing. The sound of gunfire, shouted orders before the doors shut, locked again. And silence.

“Jesus Christ.” Chuck blew out a long breath. “How the hell did they put him in charge?”

“Fear,” Fallon said. “Fear of us, fear of another plague, fear of power.”

“Maybe so, maybe, but most people aren’t like that, like him.” Eddie rubbed his hands over his face because it felt numb. “Not like him and White, not most. He’s talking about sterilizing people. He’s talking genocide.”

“We’re not people to him. We’re freaks.”

“My kids,” Eddie said. “And a lot of other people’s kids. They won’t stand for it.”

“They have to know about it first, and they will.” Lectures be damned, Fallon thought. She’d gotten what they needed. “He gave that Carter, that torturer two months. What he doesn’t know is that’s all he has.”

She turned to Eddie. “He’s never going to touch your kids.”

“You’re damn right he’s not.”

“Keep monitoring, Chuck, all the devices. He’s looking to pull the PWs in. We’ll want to know how that goes for him. We know they’ve got over two hundred magickals contained in or around the White House. They’ll have more at other locations.”

She stared straight ahead. “Two months, and I swear by all I am, we will tear them down.”

* * *

December brought the first snows and preparation for Yule, Christmas, the New Year. And the battle to come. New Hope hung their wreaths, burned their logs, decorated their trees, created and bartered for gifts. And trained relentlessly.

On the bright afternoon of Christmas Eve, Fallon met with Arlys after her weekly broadcast.

“It was good,” Fallon told her. “Hopeful and strong.”

“If you can’t be hopeful at Christmas, when? Chuck, can I have the room?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve got some Christmas shopping to finish up. Hargrove’s taking a holiday,” he added. “He’s hosting fancy parties for key players in his freaking dictatorship. There’s not much going on anyway, but we’re monitoring.”

“Let him eat, drink, and be merry,” Fallon said. “His time’s nearly up.”

When Chuck went out, Arlys rose to wander the basement. “Chuck’s played recordings of any important bits I missed. You already know Hargrove feels he’s close to a deal with White.”

“He won’t finalize it before we strike, and it won’t help him.”

“He also plans for White, after the deal’s struck, to be assassinated. He’ll claim it was one of us, and provide the appropriate patsy for execution.”

“It won’t happen.”

Arlys continued to wander, picked up one of the action figures, set it down again. “The government lied during the Doom, and right after. But I believe, I have to believe, it lied in a misguided, even arrogant attempt to control panic. This is nothing like that. Hargrove’s a psychopath, and as obsessed as Jeremiah White.”

She gestured to the monitor, and now Fallon read both misery and conflict on her face.

“I understand why I can’t broadcast anything we’ve learned through the bugs, but it brings me back, Fallon. It takes me back to sitting at the anchor desk in New York and knowing I lied to anyone listening.”

“You’re not lying now, and when we take D.C., you can broadcast all of it.”

“I understand the reasons. I even agree with them. My Theo, my boy, is going to war.”

Arlys pressed a hand to her lips, waved Fallon off when Fallon stepped toward her.

“I’m terrified. I know Will, I know he’ll look after Theo as best he can, but my son, my heart, is going into battle, and I’m terrified. Rachel’s oldest, too.”

“I know. I just spoke with her. I was coming to talk to you even before you asked me to come. I don’t have a son or daughter, but I do know what it’s like for you. I see it in my mother, and I know it’s the hardest thing there is.”

“I believe in you. I believed in you before you were born, when I saw you through Lana. I believe in you.” She let out a breath. “I know why Theo’s going. I know why I can’t broadcast the horrors Hargrove perpetuates, the horrors he plans. But I can broadcast what we do about it. I want you to embed me when we attack D.C.”

“You can broadcast from here,” Fallon began.

“By relay, when someone’s able to tell me something, anything. Not good enough,” Arlys said, with steel in her voice. “I go, and I tell people, show when I can, as it happens. I show them when you go down to the containment center, what Hargrove and his bastardized government have done. I show them you, Fallon. I show them The One. For most people, seeing’s believing. You need this, and I’ve earned it.”

“Have you talked to Will about this?” At Arlys’s cool stare, Fallon rolled her eyes. “Not because he’s a man. Because he’s your mate, and a commander.”

“Okay. Yes, we talked. He didn’t have an argument that overcame mine. You don’t, either.”

“No, I don’t. You’re my mother’s friend. I believe in you. I believed in you before I met you because I saw you through her. You can’t take Chuck.”

“I understand. He won’t like it, but he knows he’s essential here. I want one more thing.”