Part Five

2074 LOXLEY, ALABAMA
On those occasions when he meditated upon his life, McQueen could almost remember the actual day it had finally dawned on him that he was never going to be a general. The disappointment was acute, much more severe than he could justify, really. After all, he had advanced further in his career than had any other In Vitro, in any occupation, as far as he knew. He had never heard of a tank CEO or bank president, and he tried to keep tabs on that sort of thing. Though certainly no activist, McQueen had become much more politically conscious, since the war, of In Vitro civil rights in broader terms than he had looked at them before. He was still an individual, first; he still held everyday acts to be the paramount expression of the worth and dignity of his race. But, the older he got, the more he felt that it was not enough merely to provide a good example to the natural born world of what an In Vitro could be. His participation in the Saratoga/Groomsbridge peace talks had elevated his visibility to the world, tank and natural born alike, and placed him, on a regular basis, in front of the digital cameras he hated so much. He discovered two things that really surprised him. He was damned good in front of those digital cameras, in spite of his feelings. And he had something he really wanted to say.

He did not say it often. He was still a very private man. Yet, something inside him longed to tell his story, to give others of his race something for which to strive. If he was honest, it had started long before the peace talks; this kernel of activism had started with Cooper Hawkes and with McQueen's recognition of the positive influence he could have on another In Vitro's life. On the value of that influence. And his awareness of the personal pleasure it gave him. So he spoke, now, at the occasional function or graduation, carried on a copious correspondence with In Vitro rights groups around the world, and very occasionally leant his name to some cause or activity, as long as doing so did not run contrary to his personal beliefs or his obligations to the Marine Corps. And, even more rarely, he traveled to New York, or to Groomsbridge, to address the governmental powers on the IV situation. Such activities gave him a great sense of satisfaction.

But he still wanted to be a general.

It was not that he was unhappy with his current position as commander of the flight school at Loxley. As desk jobs went, it was a pretty good job. He had some control over the training curriculum with Corps Command, gave a regular section on strategy to senior staff returning for additional education, and even got to kick the tires on new fighters, now and then. He had friends, he had respect, he had some influence both in and outside the Corps. But he was not a general, and he still felt very strongly that he should be. His war record demanded it. He had the ability. He wanted it. And there were plenty of men and women far less qualified, in his opinion, shouldering their various stars. But the fact was, he was still a tank and nobody was going to make a tank a general. Not in his lifetime. Maybe in time. Maybe Cooper would be a general, someday. Or one of the youngsters just coming out of the tank, now, in some future that McQueen would not see. But he was in the wrong time for it, and besides, he was too old, now, even if there was another war. God, if he existed, forbid. On those occasions when he let himself sink back into one of his black moods, the fact left him very bitter. He tried not to go there often.

And even without a black mood to exacerbate it, the disappointment was sharp on this day, as McQueen remembered what he had lost, and what he had nearly lost, in the service of the Corps and his country. He looked over at Vansen, still standing expectantly beside him, waiting for him to tell her where they were going for lunch. He smiled at her. Still, life had not turned out so badly, all things considered. He glanced over at his desk, at the picture of the woman and child looking back at him, and he smiled a little more. Some things had turned out better than he ever could have hoped for. Some things made it all right that he was not a general.

McQueen took Shane's arm lightly in his hand, and guided her out the door toward his waiting sedan. "I meant to tell you, I got a letter from Cooper, yesterday."

"Yeah, I got one, too," Vansen replied as he helped her into the car. "He seems to be pretty happy on Demios. But, then, he always did say it could have been a nice gig..."

"And now he's running the joint," he said, cocking a smile at her. "Pretty scary..."

"I wonder if he'll be able to make it back for Nathan's wedding," Vansen mused, just before McQueen closed the car door. "It would be great to have us all together again... under happier circumstances."

The last time they had all been together had been two years ago, at Admiral Glen Ross' funeral. Their former Commodore had dropped dead of a cerebral hemorrhage on the bridge of his beloved Saratoga during a training run he had been observing. He had died instantly, apparently, and McQueen had held forth, after innumerable beers with the 'Cards after the wake, that Boss Ross could not have chosen a better way to go. McQueen missed his old friend more than he wanted to admit, but he knew in his heart that Ross would have wanted to die in the saddle, not wasting away behind some desk. And if there was a heaven, he was sure the old man was up there smiling down, sipping amber rum and swapping stories with the spirits of the sailors of old.

McQueen dismissed the driver as he came around the car. The young sergeant glowered at him but grumbled a 'yes, sir' and left; it was a well known eccentricity of the Colonel's that he liked to drive himself when he went out on "unofficial" business. He would have preferred to drive himself on *official* business, too, but he acquiesced to the necessary formality. Opening the driver's side door himself, he clambered in, hesitating a moment about half way into his seat. He grimaced as he swung around under the steering wheel.

"Your leg bothering you?" Vansen asked, not having missed the wince. McQueen just nodded.

"A little. The heat," he lied, not wanting to tell her that he had spent a good part of the previous afternoon on the hand-ball court, and that the joint between his thigh and the prosthesis was giving him trouble. After giving her grief about walking in the hot weather, he was not going to give her the opportunity to get after him about over doing it on his artificial leg.

2064 McQUEEN
He wanted to weep. Pain would bubble up and the tears would start, but then the truth would loom like a great, terrifying abyss, and he would shut down again in the face of it, denying himself the release. He was afraid. Afraid that once he acknowledged the reality of his losses, that vortex would sweep him away and he would never find his way back again.

Sitting in his wheelchair in the garden on the grounds of the Bethesda Naval Hospital Rehabilitation Annex, Lt. Colonel Tyrus Cassius McQueen looked out past the flower beds and the duck pond to the Shenandoah River flowing by in the distance. He guessed some pscyh department honcho had picked this Virginia location for the rehab facility specifically for this restful view, and clean mountain air. He had to admit, it was pretty good planning. He *did* like sitting out there, feeling the sun. It was almost the only time he had to be alone, without some medical type poking at him, and after months and months on a cramped carrier, he really relished it.

Months and months on a carrier... And it welled up inside him, again, the tightness in his chest. Don't go there, can't go there... Blinking, he took a deep breath, and shifted a little to stimulate the circulation in his thighs.

The first few weeks had been the easiest, really, the physical pain blocking out all other considerations. The pneumonia he suffered from the chemical burns the Chig's toxic atmosphere had given his lungs had cleared up by the time he had reached Earth. He had had his first surgery on Groomsbridge 34, his second when he first reached Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. They had gotten him up out of bed the day after surgery, and fitted him with his first, temporary, prosthesis a few days after that. Chirping encouragement, which he had tolerated because it seemed too much of an effort to do anything else. And then they had explained to him about the permanent appendage, and he had gone ballistic. It embarrassed him to remember it, now. Screaming, throwing things around the room. No *way* they were gonna stick him with an AI leg. Not him. Nononono...

He could not really remember how long he had held out in violent protest, or even why he had, except that he had needed so desperately to lash out about something, and the AI leg had been a safe target for his overwhelming emotions. Safe, because ultimately, he did not really care about it all that much. It was just a piece of electronics, he knew that. Just because the technology had sprung from the same place as the technology that created the Silicates did not mean that wearing a prosthesis would turn him into a AI. In fact, in the right mood, he could even appreciate the irony. But he knew it was no different than the chip in his ear. Not as bad, even, he could still fly with an artificial leg. It was the MEF that had grounded him.

The ferocious anger had dissipated and a despondency had settled over him, then, like a cover of cotton batting. He had let them fit him with the leg, suffered the series of surgeries that had permanently attached it to his stump. Stood up on it for the first time two weeks ago, and even taken a few steps unassisted.

And none of it mattered. He went through the motions because it was easier than fighting, but he took no pleasure in it, found no hope. And he knew the doctors were beginning to despair of him ever gaining more than the most rudimentary control. He would be a cripple for the rest of his life, and he did not give a damn about it. He looked down at his lap, at the legs extending out the bottom of the tennis shorts, his real left one and the prosthesis on the right. He knew a stranger would not be able to see the difference, would hardly notice the scars around his knee and thigh where the artificial leg attached. And even he had to search for the little door on his shin where the doctors accessed the electronics. It looked so real. He even had some slight sensation, could feel the pressure when he stood, could tell when the doctors stimulated the sole or the toes. But it was not real. He could feel the sun on both his thighs, could feel the heat on his left shin, but the right, nothing. Like a blank space. He could see the leg, but could feel... nothing. It was not him. Not real. The real leg was gone. Blown away forever.

(and a voice, locked away, said - "they might as well have cut off an arm or a leg because they took something from me and I can never get it back..." took something took something more precious than a leg and he would never never never get it back... )

McQueen gasped, struggling for breath. The pain dizzied him. He closed his eyes and struggled as tears welled, spilled. And stopped falling almost as soon as they started. God, how he longed to let go. He just... couldn't.

He could intellectualize it, he could admit the truth to himself. They were gone, he told himself, as he had told himself over and over since he had been able to get his mind around the idea. Just like his right leg was gone. His Wild Cards, his children, were dead. Most of them. West and Hawkes were still alive, but out of reach to him, and how much longer could they survive this war? Vansen. Paul Wang. Damphousse. Missing In Action someone had told him on the transport, because Commodore Ross could not bring himself to go into the details. But MIA only meant that there had been no witnesses and nothing left to recover. Lost was gone in this war. He found no hope in the idea that they had not yet been declared dead.

McQueen knew his kids were Marines, and Marines died. It was their job. He knew that. He had lost men before. Many many times, many many men. More than he could count, almost. He had lost the entire Angry Angels squadron. All of them outstanding pilots, good men, he had been *so* proud of them. Some of them, even, friends. Gone. He had grieved for them. Not right away, the immediacy of the war had not given him the opportunity, but he had grieved, finally, found his quiet place and wept alone. Then rested in the sheer relief of catharsis.

Something would not let him grieve for his 'Cards. Something would not let him climb over that wall.

Corps Command had offered him a medical discharge. He still had the papers in his room. He was not obligated to take it. He could still perform a function, he could still do his duty, even if he did it sitting behind a desk. Hell, he could still return to the front, if he wanted. The leg would serve him. Other men served with artificial limbs. He knew them. It could be done. If he wanted it. Or he could stay on Earth, he could get an assignment at Quantico, or New York. Strategy. They had offered him that once, a plush spot on the tactical advisory board. When the MEF had first grounded him, they had given him that choice, a tit job if he wanted it. He wanted command of a squadron. His career needed that, he had felt so at the time, he needed a full command, not just acting commander, as the 127th had been after his Colonel had bought it early in the war. So he took command of the Fifty-Eighth, never expecting...

("I know I love those kids... I can't stop thinking about them...where they are, what they must be going through... how proud I am...")

Breath came like short sobs, and his body shook like a palsy. He could feel his stomach twisting. He swallowed hard.

"Colonel?"

McQueen looked up sharply. He must have dozed there, a moment, he did not even hear the orderly coming up behind him.

"Sir, there's a letter for you..."

McQueen gaped at the girl in surprise. He was not allowed to get mail, orders were he was on news black out. He knew he was not suppose to know that, but there were no more secrets in a military hospital than there were anywhere else in the military. Hardly mattered, anyway, no one was likely to write to him. No one ever had. And the only people who *might* write would be Ross or one of the boys and their letters would not be allowed through. Must be something from Corps Command, then, maybe looking for his decision. Would he take the discharge or not? As if there was any question, what the hell would he do outside the Corps? The very thought terrified him.

He took the letter from the girl and nodded thanks. She hesitated, then nodded back uncertainly and stepped away. McQueen looked down at the envelope. It was blank, with only his name, and the hospital address on it. No embossing, no letterhead. Franked in Louisiana. He frowned at that. Who the hell did he know if Shreveport. The envelope was opened, which meant the shrinks had read it and deemed it safe for his consumption. Curious now, he pulled out the single, three fold sheet of paper.

"Dear Sir;" he read. "It gives me great pleasure to inform you that all of your missing valuables. which we previously believed lost, have been successfully recovered. While some are badly damaged, it is hoped that none are beyond repair. You will receive further communication through your regular carrier as soon as the full extent of the damage has been assessed, but we remain hopeful that each item will be restored to you soon as possible. Sincerely, The Boss Ross Trucking Company..."

The sob started slowly, deep in his core, rising like a tide, like a fountain, and tearing from him; spilling great, wracking tortured cries. He wept, alone in the garden of the Bethesda Naval Hospital Rehabilitation Anex, looking down on the lovely, peaceful river below him. And then, when he was done crying, Tyrus Cassius McQueen laughed. Laughed, the joy pouring up from him, like he had not laughed in a very, very long time.

The whole staff agreed that sudden change in Colonel McQueen was unprecedented. They had no explanation, really. But it was a strange medical fact that sometimes the oddest things could turn around a despondent, defeated, apathetic patient. They could not credit why the Colonel had suddenly thrust himself into his therapy with the vigor of a madman, determined beyond explanation to return to the war and his old command. But they all agreed that whatever the "valuables" were that carrier had lost and then recovered must have been very valuable indeed.

Next : Part Six

Previous : Part Four