Inside Straight

Curveball nodded, looking ahead to the battle, to the sky for an attack from above, to the water. Time didn’t mean much. They might have been doing this for ten minutes or an hour or a day. No one noticed anything had changed until she looked out to her right and the water was gone. To her left, there was no clifflike drop.

They were on the other side. They’d crossed the dam; it lay ten or twelve meters behind them. Without being aware of it, they’d fanned out into the road. John called out for Simoon to let her storm slacken. As the sand began to fall from the air, half a dozen streaks of green buzzed past.

“Does this mean we won?” Bubbles asked. “I think this means we won.”

“I don’t think so,” Curveball said.

On the dam, the battle had been restricted. Rustbelt, Lohengrin, Holy Roller, Sekhmet. They’d been able to hold a line. No more than eight or ten soldiers could reach them at a time. But the Egyptians had fallen back slowly, drawing them on. Drawing them to the shore where they could be surrounded and overwhelmed. The streets ahead were packed with men, with tanks, with guns.

They’d screwed up. They were dead.

No one noticed the sound at first. When the rumble penetrated, they realized they’d been hearing it—a deep, bone-wrenching sound. Holy Roller was craning his thick neck, trying to spot the source. The Egyptians, across the small no-man’s-land of the street, seemed confused as well.

“What’s happening?” Simoon shouted over the growing cacophony. “What is that?”

And the earth opened before them. A great chasm yawned, sand and stone sliding down into an abyss that seemed to go for miles, though it probably wasn’t more than a few hundred feet. Egyptian tanks and men slid down into the gap, rifles firing impotently. Buildings cracked and fell apart, walls tumbling end over end in the air.

Curveball turned. Earth Witch was on her knees, her hands grasping the medallion at her neck, her face red with effort. With a thump like an explosion, the chasm closed. The first wave of the army was gone, buried alive, dying under their feet. The soldiers that remained stood agape. The first of them turned and fled.

“Oh, God,” Earth Witch said. Her voice was thin and unbelieving. “Oh, God. I did that. Did I do that?”

Curveball knelt, wrapping her arms around her friend. Earth Witch shook. “It’s okay, Ana,” Curveball said. “It’s okay.”

“I killed them,” Earth Witch said. “I killed them, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Curveball said. “You did.”

Earth Witch stared out at the rubble, her breath in gasps. Her eyes were wide and round, caught between elation and horror.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Holy Roller said. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

“What’s the matter?” Curveball asked.

“The dam,” John Fortune said, appearing at their side. “Doing that weakened the dam. It’s giving way. We need Earth Witch to shore it up. Now.”

Earth Witch sagged into Curveball’s arms.

“She can’t do it,” Curveball said. “She’s too tired.”

“I can,” Earth Witch said.

“Ana,” Curveball began, but Earth Witch shook her head. A voice called out from the shore—some stray Egyptian soldier surrendering himself to Lohengrin. Curveball stood, drawing her friend up with her.

“I can fix it. Just…stay with me,” Earth Witch said.

“I will,” Curveball promised.

~ ~ ~

So to all the folks who said we were fucked, here’s the news: We won. The genocide stopped at Aswan, and we didn’t even drown all the folks we were trying to save in the process. And no, I don’t know how it’s going to play out from here. International pressure’s going to have to be placed on the Ikhlas al-Din and the government of Egypt. They may have to partition the country. That’s all complicated and nuanced and may take years to figure out. The United Nations will almost certainly have to be involved, and the caliphate. And yes, that may be a pain in the ass for some people. Live with it.

The killing stopped. And we stopped it. And that, ladies and germs, is just plain good.

12,338 COMMENTS | LEAVE COMMENT

~ ~ ~

“Bugsy,” Fortune said. “Wake up. There’s someone here wants to see you.”