“I assume you can see and hear through this device. If not, well, hopefully your pilots conveyed my message before they died. I’d like to meet with someone. My purpose is to bring death back to the human equation in this region, to balance the forces of your world again. I think someone among the human leadership can likely help me, but if not, I’ll figure out the best path alone.”
A strange, tinny sound emerges from small speakers on the side of the drone. “This is General Phillips.” He clears his throat. “I—I’ll meet you tomorrow at sunup outside of Sacramento, south of the Travis Air Force Base, where Union Creek touches the perimeter road.”
“Agreed.” I flick my finger, and the drone explodes.
“You just absorbed all those bullets and stuff.” She’s shaking her head. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I smile. “It’s just the beginning. Things are about to get much more interesting.”
Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say. Her face darkens. “This isn’t fun.” She clenches her tiny hands into fists. “You just killed all those people.”
“You know what I am,” I say. “I’ve never lied. I gave you a small respite, but it could never last.”
“You—you liked the burger.” Her shoulders slump. “You were learning that humans aren’t all bad.”
“Whitney, I never thought they were all bad. They’re out of balance. You haven’t been listening to me. I bear no malice toward humans. I’m simply fulfilling my purpose in this world.”
She bursts into tears, spins on her heel and stomps into the trees. I realize she’s probably trying to get away from the dead bodies, many of which are staring at us with still-open eyes. I know how humans feel about that, so I use a bit of wind to close them all.
I can feel where she’s gone, heading roughly down the coastline of the large lake toward the building where we rented the jet ski. At her pace, we’ll take forever to get there. I shift into my horse form, since she seems to object to it less stridently, and I catch up to her, bowing my front leg to offer her a ride.
She refuses.
Stubborn woman.
I walk beside her as she mutters.
It seems she thought she might change my mind about my purpose by showing me how interesting humans are. That thought saddens me, because she seems truly distressed at her perceived failure. Changing my mind about my purpose would be like making a storm. . .that doesn’t rain. It would be like asking a fire not to burn, or a wind that doesn’t whip or scream.
I can’t be changed.
Not for her.
Not for anyone or anything.
I’m not human. I’m a force of nature that can’t be modified. She didn’t fail. She set herself an impossible task, doomed to fail from the start. I don’t know how to help her feel better.
But for some strange reason, I want to make her feel better.
I want her to smile. I want her face to turn red, or for her to turn toward me, ducking her head against my chest, her hands against my body. I’ve never wanted anything before other than death.
So that’s a little strange, but it doesn’t change my primary purpose.
Nothing can change my primary purpose, and I’ve bonded her to me, so now I worry that who I am will wreck who she is. As I’ve tried to explain to her, I do not hate humans. I especially don’t hate my Whitney, a terrible, tiny general who doesn’t want to command any troops.
We’ve finally reached the place where we left the rented jet ski. Whitney’s face is stormy when she spins toward me. “We just wrecked a thirty-thousand-dollar piece of equipment, you know, while you were murdering hundreds of soldiers.” She huffs and shakes her head. “I’ve got to go in there and try and explain what happened to it, and I’m not sure I can bring myself to say, well, we blew it up while testing a re-purposed missile!”
I consider shifting to deal with it, but I have a strange emotion when I start. It’s not anger. It’s not happiness. It’s not an emotion I’ve felt before, but I’m. . .apprehensive? Perhaps that’s the word. I feel oddly reticent to take my human form, because then I’ll be expected to talk to her again, and she’s angry with me. The silence, broken only by her muttering, has been a safe place for me to hide while she’s so upset.
Eventually she ducks inside the building. Part of me wants to follow her, but a larger part wants to stay in this nonverbal form. She’s using very angry words when she pushes past me to go in alone.
A quick moment later, she reemerges, throwing her hands up in the air. “Apparently the owner ran away or something. I guess humans with any sense do that when fighter jets scream past.” She’s still shaking her head as she starts walking toward our Tahoe. Then she glares at it. “Great. Just great. You blew up jets, destroyed drones, and killed tons of people, and now we have no keys, either, because you had them. Before all this.” She gestures at me like my form is the problem. “Stupid horse. No key. Stolen jet ski that’s now tiny bits. And we’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a pile of dead bodies from soldiers who will never go home again.” Tears are rolling down her face, but she sounds angry, not sad.
I’m definitely very confused. I don’t like any of this.
“Not that you’d fit inside the Tahoe, even if we had the blasted key.”
Only then do I shift to hand her the key. “I don’t lose things. My magic allows me to store physical objects.”
