Josie frowned as one of the birds split off from the cloud she had released. The pings
Jack had destroyed had cleared some of her spell for her. She had a choice now. Did
she chase the solo bird, or go after the rest of the flock heading off into the distance.
“We’re going to veer off and see where that lone bird is going,” said Josie. “Then
we’ll locate the rest of them.”
“Where do you think that’s going?,” asked Fass.
“I don’t know,” said Josie. “Do you think one of the planners is living out here?”
“How far away do you think we are away from the central capitol?,” said Josie.
“I have no idea,” said Fass. “At least a tenday of travel by horseback. This craft is
faster than anything I have ever seen. I think we could get there in a few hours like
we did the first raid we did in this machine.”
“All right,” said Josie. “I want to see where this bird is going. Then we can get back
on track. I have a feeling the rest are going to organizers in the government.”
“I wonder what the rationale for this is,” said Fass.
“Out of everything, I am willing to put money on not knowing what could happen if
the goblin trees start bringing dead people back to life to fight,” said Josie.
“I like the shock tactic effect,” said Budd. “They can overwhelm diminished
resources if they turn an army of monsters on the country.”
“I don’t think they know, or are ignoring what could happen, if things go wrong,”
said Emily. “Has anyone seen an idea like this before?”
“Not like this,” said Case. “It has something of instant warriors to it.”
“Really?,” said Emily. “Instant warriors?”
“When Hurley was fighting the king of Rigna, he cornered the king and his general
on the battlefield,” said Case. “The king used his general to hold Hurley off while he
used some magic to create a small army to fight Hurley. It didn’t stop Hurley, but the
Shemmarians could be trying to do the same thing with these plants.”
“I like the idea of it,” said Josie. “It depends on if these monsters will take orders. If
they do, then we have to worry about what orders they are given. If they don’t, what
happens to the Shemmarians?”
“And then what happens if the monster army expands across the border?,” asked
Budd.
“Depends if they move slow and act with intelligence and how tough they actually are
to put down, or if they spread like wildfire and draft anyone that gets in their way,”
said Josie. “One gives us a smart enemy that will act like a normal army that we can
maybe outthink and overpower. The other gives us a spreading disease that won’t
stop until everyone is them and they can win the war of attrition by the spreading
numbers.”
“These goblin trees have to be put down,” said Budd. “They are the source of things.”
“And someone obviously found one and handed it over to the government to use as
a weapon,” said Josie. “Maybe they know they are playing with fire, maybe they
don’t. So far the job hasn’t gone away, so the Lich Queen could still pop up at any
time while we try to figure out what is going on.”
“The bird landed on that cottage,” said Lou. He pointed at a cottage through the
window. “We should see who lives there.”
“All right,” said Josie. “I’m going to land. We are going to need a guard detail for the
quinjet so we can get home.”
“I got it,” said Lou. “Once I raise the gangplank, nothing will be able to get inside
with me.”
“All right,” said Josie. She looked for a clearing not too far away from the little
house. She found one and hovered down to a landing. She changed into Zatanna long
enough to produce a letter. “If something happens, call us. I’ll get everyone together
and come back.”
“I will keep an eye on things,” said Lou. He put the letter in his belt, next to his
sword. “I think all the smart people will stay away from this roaring beast.”
“Be careful,” said Jo. “The last thing I need is Jack complaining about how I let his
baby blow up because I let some amateur stay behind.”
“It will be fine,” said Lou.
Josie led the way off the quinjet. She watched as the gangplank lifted back into place.
The only thing they had to worry about was Lou taking the thing on a joyride. He
seemed better than that.
“The house was over that way,” said Case. “I didn’t see movement when we came
down for a landing.”
Josie watched the trees as she fell into the middle of the group. Anyone could be
waiting for them. The moment they started taking fire, she planned to zap them back
to the quinjet and then handle any attacker who didn’t flee from her.
“I don’t see any people,” said Case. “All alone out here?”
“Maybe,” said Fass. “Budd, take half and circle to the left. Emily, take everyone else
right.”
Josie and Fass walked up to the cottage door. The bird said someone was home.
Maybe she was at the rear of the house working in the kitchen.
Josie knocked on the door and listened. She didn’t hear anything moving. She
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.knocked again after a few seconds.
Footsteps closed on the door. Josie waited, hands clenched together. What kind of
threat would they be facing?
An old man looked at them with a long nose, and short chin. Most of his hair had fled,
the rest turning snow white. He frowned at them with caterpillar eyebrows.
“I don’t think I know you,” he said. He blocked the door so they would have to knock
him down to step inside.
“We’re here about the trees, sir,” said Josie. “The project has been destroyed by
sabotage.”
“That’s impossible,” said the old man. “I set up everything myself. What destroyed
them? There were five sites, an orchard, and the main source at the headquarters of
the Army.”
“There is a source at Headquarters,” said Josie. “That is good to know.”
“And it is on our list of places we have to visit,” said Fass. “We might as well visit
it next before we talk to our new friend’s benefactors.”
“You’re not the Army,” complained the old man. He tried to shut the door in their
faces.
Josie kicked him in the shin, and then pushed him out of the way so she could step
inside. She looked around but didn’t see a bodyguard.
“We’re interested in the plants,” said Josie. “The Robby Reed Appreciation Society
believes they are a danger to the continent, and asked me to look into things. My
associate is here to help me with various things.”
Fass helped the old man to a chair and let him sit down.
“I have never heard of this Society,” said the old man.
“I doubt many have,” said Josie. “They prefer to only let their agents know what their
interest is and task us with handling that interest. And our interest is in the destroyed
facilities and the goblin tree orchard. We think the chance of wiping out all life on the
continent to be a little high.”
“Nonsense,” said the old man. “I told the Army people that they must never build
more than one at a time and only use the subject for assassinations.”
“That’s what you told them?,” Fass asked. He stood back with his arms crossed. His
eyes roamed the one room building. Shelves for books and plants were everywhere.
A table with two chairs took up what could be the cooking area. The hearth took up
one part of the wall there.
“Yes,” he said. “I laid everything out for them. The grand marshal has the plan, and
knows the limits.”
“I’m afraid that the grand marshal built a facility to load dozens of seeds into women
he stole from across the continent,” said Josie. She looked around. No chairs for
visitors. “That is what led us to you. What was the actual plan?”
“I reported that I had found a rare tree during one of my explorations,” said the old
man. “I took a few seeds and a cutting. I worked on them but the only thing they
would take was blood. As soon as I procured a supply, my first tree sprouted and
grew up into a small bush. I worked on it until I had a regular looking tree. One of my
assistants breathed in the seeds and became violent. It took everything I had to put her
down. I turned over all my research to the local commissioner. The grand marshal and
members of his staff arrived and asked me a number of technical questions about
everything. I outlined everything to him and told him that more than one of the things
would be dangerous since my assistant didn’t seem to feel pain when she attacked me
and I fought her off.”
“Apparently the grand marshal didn’t listen to your words of caution,” said Josie. “I
expect they will come back to you to replace their trees. I am going to need to know
where your example tree is, and where the original stands. They are going to have to
be destroyed.”
“I’m not going to tell you that,” said the old man. “I might be able to do more with
it with enough time.”
“We’re not here to give you enough time to do anything like that,” said Josie. “We’re
here to shut everything down, destroy any tree out there, and talk to the grand marshal
about his plan of using manufactured monsters made from women and girls to
spearhead an invasion. Your project is over. The only thing left is how much you
have to pay for what you did.”
“I did nothing,” said the old man. He frowned at her, thick eyebrows coming down.
“I told him the risks of using the tree as a source for soldiers.”
“It would have been better if you had kept everything to yourself,” said Josie. “Now
I have a mess to clean up and people to deal with unpleasantly.”
The old man jumped up from his chair, blade in hand. He stabbed at Josie. She
knocked his arm away and kicked him in the shins. He collapsed on his knees, knife
falling to the floor.
“You had a chance for mercy, maybe working with plants in some other way,” said
Josie. “What do you think would have happened if you had succeeded in stabbing
me? Fass would have cut you down in a second.”
“You can’t take my plants,” said the old man. “They are all I have.”
“I think you need to see what your actions may have done,” said Josie. “Then you can
tell me what is more important.”
Josie kicked the knife away. She reached for her watch and dialed through the names.
She wondered if this was the right choice. She frowned. If it wasn’t, she would have
to move on to the next persona to suit her purpose.
She took on a figure that looked made of clocks. The hands moved, and the gears
turned. She nodded at the persona.
“I will be right back, Eric,” said Josie. “The goblin tree could be hidden nearby. I will
have to send out a bird to look for it after I take our gardener for a ride.”
Josie extended her new persona out. She and the old man stood in place as the cabin
fell apart around them. At first, nothing seemed to be happening. Then lines of forces
met each other several times. One was regular soldiers wielding fire in bottles and
axes. The other was naked men and women covered by cuts and marks. The unarmed
combatants almost pushed the professional soldiers off the field as they resisted the
effects of wounds, and fought through fires lit on their skin.
“I don’t understand,” said the old man. He looked around at the devastation as the
fires burned around them.
“You caused this,” said Josie. “You created the walking dead. You gave your plan to
someone who didn’t understand the danger of what he was using. Everything got out
of control because no one stopped it in time. Now twenty years in the future, the site
of your cabin is a battlefield as the normal humans try to push the monsters back.”
“This has nothing to do with me,” said the old man.
“You are the root cause of this,” said Josie. “If I went back and killed you before you
made your deal, I would force the future away from this but I don’t know what kind
of future it would be. I might lose something important fixing your mistake. Instead
I think you should fix this future if you can.”
“What do you mean?,” said the old man.
“I am going to give you a gift,” said Josie. She vanished, leaving him on the field. She
returned a second later with a ring. “This will help you until the world is safe again.”
Josie vanished after dropping the ring on the ground. She appeared in the cabin and
let the persona go.
“What did you do?,” asked Fass.
“I left him to take care of some people,” said Josie. “It might improve on his
empathy.”
“He’s alive?,” said Fass.
“Yes,” said Josie. “He might even be able to come back here if he figures out how to
make my gift to him work better than it normally does.”
“You gave him a gift?,” said Fass.
“I gave him a duplicate ring that he could use to help out the people around him,” said
Josie. “We’ll see if he changes his mind about how well his plan worked out for him.”
“All right,” said Fass. “Do you really think he counseled the grand marshal to only
use one of the Goblin Tree women as his assassin?”
“Yes,” said Josie. “But I don’t think he gave everything to the Army. A guy like him
would have held something back for his personal use.”
“He would have copied his notes and handed over the copies,” said Fass. He turned
to look around the cabin.
“He would have kept the original tree, or his newer tree,” said Josie. “He knew what
he was doing, but he didn’t think about what would happen if things got out of
control.