Chapter Three
Back when Sam Hopkins had been in school (something that in truth hadn’t been all that long ago) he had been something of a perfectionist, to the point that during group projects, he would buy his group candy just so they would go off somewhere else while he worked on their project. Needless to say, he didn’t work well in teams at all, which had been one of his arguments back when his best friend Seth had tried to convince him to join up with this really nice guy named Captain Morgan (no pun there) to fight with people who were like they were-archangels-against demons in this city across the country. He didn’t play well with other kids, never had, and wasn’t really big on the whole ‘team’ thing-and he knew it. He also knew that you needed those skills in the military, that you needed to be able to sit back and let other people take point, or you needed to risk your life for people that you hadn’t been friends with for basically your whole life, even people you had maybe just met twenty minutes ago.
That was the thing about Seth, though. As stupid as he was, he was the most persistent person Sam had ever met in his life, and just by nagging, he convinced Sam to at least meet this Captain Morgan guy. And somehow when he had met this Captain Morgan guy, Sam couldn’t say no to anything that Seth had suggested. It wasn’t just that Morgan was a natural leader, someone Sam could actually put his two cents behind, but there was something else. Seth had been sold on the whole idea since he saw the flyers around town, and Sam knew he couldn’t let his best friend go off like a huge idiot and get himself killed. Morgan promised him in that first meeting that he wouldn’t let anything hurt his friend, or him, and he had said it so convincingly, so sincerely, that Sam had no other choice but to believe him.
He learned very soon, of course, that Morgan could do that with just about anything, whether that was unintentional or not. He could make you do the dishes by promising that taking this sacrifice just this once was for the good of the whole team. It wasn’t something Sam enjoyed-both the being manipulated into doing the dishes and the act of doing the dishes-but he put up with it because everyone on that team was way too far in over their heads to really do anything other than what Morgan said. And he did need to protect Seth, because he watched other people get blown apart or-even better to watch, really-ripped apart by some giant monster beast thing every day, or practically every day ever since he’d gotten here. He could see in those moments, in the torn flesh that clung hopelessly to skulls or leftover limbs, how easily it would be for his best friend to be next, to be killed in the most painful way anyone’s brain could come up with. He exhaled heavily, shivering at the thought as he played again and again the details of that mission in his head, scribbling them down on a piece of paper.
Sam had an amazing head for details-he figured that’s what Morgan saw in him, for all that he wasn’t a team player. He could memorize building exits and entrances, faces, names of important people on both sides. Every time Yang took them on the twisting maze to the back door of the complex, Sam kept his eyes open, memorizing the tiniest details he could think of. Colors of bricks on walls, cracks in the ground beneath his feet, piles of trash strewn on the sides of the allies (even though this last one probably wouldn’t help him much, as piles of trash tended to change more every day). He knew one day, far earlier than Yang could do it, that he would have each and every path they took memorized-he already had one or two fairly close to memorized. He was good at remembering things like that. So when Morgan asked him for every detail of their mission that morning-what was in theory just a simple scouting mission of the forty blocks or so of their area-Sam worked his hardest to remember everything. He never scribbled out anything he had written previously, because he didn’t write down anything he wasn’t sure about. He didn’t deal in the unsure, in the gray areas. He didn’t let himself think about the gray areas, because if he did he wanted out more than ever.
Of one thing he could be sure, though. Janey had been wrong in beating that demon so severely. Not because it was wrong to beat people (though it was) but because it was not in the orders to kill. Nowhere in the orders did it say that if they found a demon in the neutralized zones they were supposed to kill him. It also didn’t say they were supposed to keep him alive, which was Sam’s justification for letting it go on as long as it did. That and Janey would probably have turned to him as her punching bag. Sam wasn’t a fan of being beaten into a pulp, he really wasn’t. He didn’t even like killing or hurting demons all that much, even though he was an archangel. He had seen the looks Janey and even sometimes Yang gave him when he struggled to hit an attacker. There was some kind of fluke, something had gone wrong. He wasn’t right, he wasn’t supposed to end up as an archangel. There very well could have been some truth to their thoughts, but Sam saw no difference either way. He had ended up as an archangel, and he could hold his own. Even better, he came with assets-that memory of his, the reason Morgan had hired him in the first place.
He was sitting on his bed when Yang popped her head into his doorframe-not literally of course, because then the laws of physics would have been totally warped and Sam would have been concerned. She looked at him, a smile playing just beyond her lips, and he looked back at her dully.
“Sam, conference now in the conference room.” He just nodded back at her, and then took one last look at his notes. There was a moment of silence between the two of them, one that obviously made Yang somewhat uncomfortable or impatient or both, because she cleared her throat. “Oddly enough, now means now, Hopkins. As in, this very minute now. Not ‘sometime in the next few minutes now’. Are we clear?”
“Yes ma’am,” Sam replied, getting up off his bed with the paper and pen in his hands. “I’m sorry ma’am, just taking one second to look over my notes.”
“One second too long, but I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you somehow.” She almost chortled and Sam just exhaled quietly, following her through the twisting halls to the conference. He had no idea what it was with Morgan and his affinity for twisting hallways and twisting alleyways and twisting ways in general, except he knew they were at war now and they needed to confuse the enemy as much as possible. Confusing the enemy he understood, just not confusing your allies, even your team members. It wasn’t his place to question that, however, and he wasn’t going to question it.
“So Morgan asked you for the details, huh?” Yang asked over her shoulder without looking at him. Sam nodded, and then realized she couldn’t see him. He also realized that there was some unexplained degree of sarcasm in her voice, and he took a moment to try to weigh it as intentional or not. It was difficult to say with Yang, as she had a tendency to just speak sarcastically as often as she could.
“You could check over them, if you like,” he said slowly, playing it safe. If she held some kind of animosity towards him, then it could be a kind of peace offering-letting her check over his notes, because she was there too.
“Oh, no, you’ve got them perfect I’m sure.” Another comment Sam wasn’t sure he could or couldn’t mark off as sarcastic passive-aggressiveness. Yang was a confusing woman, no doubt, but the captain trusted her so he tried his best to trust her as well. “Besides, we’re right here and I don’t want to hold up the captain any more than we already have.” She opened the door for him, and he stepped quickly inside, making sure to push it back with his hand so she could follow him. He quickly settled at his seat next to Seth, who already had his pen in hand despite the fact that the meeting hadn’t started yet. Sam looked at him oddly-he rarely took notes-before glancing at what he was writing and realizing that his best friend was in fact doodling a picture of a unicorn on his notepad. Sam shook his head, and then turned to Morgan, waiting patiently for him to open the meeting.
Morgan cleared his throat once, to gain the attention of those who weren’t paying attention yet, and then one more time to get Lucky to put down the pen. “Okay, team,” he said, his voice oddly cheery for a man who looked so tired, “let’s break it down. We’ve got a beaten up demon-Glays, I think-in our cells downstairs, and a reason for him to be there.”
“I beat him-“ Janey began, and Sam resisted the urge to glare at her as Morgan cleared his throat. She never understood the fact that Morgan always knew exactly what happened and he was just starting with a rhetorical... it wasn’t a question. Statement. Sam wasn’t sure, but he had faith that Morgan knew what he was doing.
“I understand that, Janey,” he said after she had fallen silent. “I just want to know why you beat him up.”
“Well I saw him-“
“We see demons a lot of places, Janey, but we don’t attack them every single time.”
“And he attacked,” she finished smoothly with a smile on her face. Morgan looked to the rest of the team.
“Is this true?” he asked, and Yang shrugged. Seth looked alternately confused and worried, his hand drifting back towards his pen so he could doodle some more. Clearly holding back a frustrated sigh, Morgan turned to Sam. “Hopkins, is this true?”
“Why don’t you ever believe me?!” Janey shouted.
“I do believe you, but if we don’t have a correlation, then what am I going to present to Mr. Roberts-“
“Can we not call him that please?” Yang cut in. “He’s not our friendly but onerous neighbor. He’s a demon-a RAK, for crying out loud. Killing demon, Morgan. KILLING DEMON.”
“I’m sorry, when did this become ‘interrupt whenever you damn well please’ time? I could have sworn that this was a meeting and that it was the captain’s turn to speak. Is anyone else here captain? Because I was under the impression that I’m the only captain we have here.” Morgan looked around the table fiercely. No one raised their hands or even spoke. Seth seemed furiously intent on giving his unicorn tiger stripes. “That’s what I thought,” Morgan said before turning back to Sam. “Hopkins. Is what Robbins said true? Did the demon really attack first?”
Sam didn’t bother to consult his notes before speaking-he was pretty sure Janey would have kicked him in the shins if he had taken any time at all. “Yes sir,” he replied quickly.
“See?” Janey interrupted with a grin. “Even Mr. Fact-Checker agrees with me.”
“However,” Sam continued,” it should probably be noted that he was provoked.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Provoked? Provoked how?”
“Trash-that is, Ms. Robbins threw trash at his head while saying vulgar things about the demon, his parental units and various female ancestors. Naturally the demon charged her.”
“There are no rules about talking across the border!” Janey snapped. “Just about crossing it.”
Morgan ignored Janey’s outburst. He appeared to be thinking very hard. Yang was curling her ponytail with her pen, and Seth was drawing horns on extending out from his unicorn’s singular horn. “So who was in whose territory?”
“The demon, of course the demon!” Janey cut in. Morgan glared at her.
“I asked Sam, Janey. Sam, do you remember who crossed over into whose territory first?”
This time, Sam took a moment to think. He knew this was the important question. “The demon,” he said finally. “We were on the edge of our territory, but he crossed first. Provoked, but he did cross.”
“Well that doesn’t clear anything up,” Yang said, and Morgan glanced at her.
“Truer words have never been spoken,” he said. “I think we have to get this discussion with our little friend downstairs as soon as possible, so we can turn him back over to Mr. Roberts-“
“Rakshasa, NOT OUR NEIGHBOR,” Yang said again. Morgan turned to her, glaring. “Hey, it’s the truth, Morgan. That Rak is not our friend or our neighbor and there is no reason at all why we have to call him Mr. Roberts. He does not deserve the courtesy.”
Morgan sighed and shook his head. “I’d rather keep the courtesy throughout our stay and remember to use it instead of using derogatory phrases now and having them slip out at the wrong moments. Sometimes we have to keep up a mode of decorum when dealing with the enemy.”
“I understand, sir,” Yang said. “I just think it’s the dumbest plan you’ve ever had.”
Morgan didn’t reply immediately, and Sam involuntarily tensed at Yang’s harsh words. He knew she wasn’t going to get into any trouble-she never did get in trouble for anything she ever said-but it was still nerve-wracking to watch her push him until he cracked and yelled. He wasn’t ever sure if it was on purpose, but it often seemed like it was. Finally Morgan exhaled heavily. “That’s how things are going to go around here anyway, Yang,” he said, standing up. “Even if it’s a dumb plan.” He began to walk away, casually looking at her over his shoulder. “Oh, and if I’m reading into things correctly, yes you may do the interrogation on the one you brought back. I was planning on letting you do it anyway.” Yang grinned broadly and Sam slumped in his chair in relief. Janey slumped as well, but he figured the odds were that she was slumping for a very different reason.
“You’re all dismissed,” Morgan said as he left the room. “Thank you for the report, Sam. Oh, and Seth?”
The gangly archangel looked up, the fear showing clearly in his eyes. “Yes, captain?”
“Nice... tiger-unicorn thing.”
“Oh. Thank you sir.”
That was the thing about Seth, though. As stupid as he was, he was the most persistent person Sam had ever met in his life, and just by nagging, he convinced Sam to at least meet this Captain Morgan guy. And somehow when he had met this Captain Morgan guy, Sam couldn’t say no to anything that Seth had suggested. It wasn’t just that Morgan was a natural leader, someone Sam could actually put his two cents behind, but there was something else. Seth had been sold on the whole idea since he saw the flyers around town, and Sam knew he couldn’t let his best friend go off like a huge idiot and get himself killed. Morgan promised him in that first meeting that he wouldn’t let anything hurt his friend, or him, and he had said it so convincingly, so sincerely, that Sam had no other choice but to believe him.
He learned very soon, of course, that Morgan could do that with just about anything, whether that was unintentional or not. He could make you do the dishes by promising that taking this sacrifice just this once was for the good of the whole team. It wasn’t something Sam enjoyed-both the being manipulated into doing the dishes and the act of doing the dishes-but he put up with it because everyone on that team was way too far in over their heads to really do anything other than what Morgan said. And he did need to protect Seth, because he watched other people get blown apart or-even better to watch, really-ripped apart by some giant monster beast thing every day, or practically every day ever since he’d gotten here. He could see in those moments, in the torn flesh that clung hopelessly to skulls or leftover limbs, how easily it would be for his best friend to be next, to be killed in the most painful way anyone’s brain could come up with. He exhaled heavily, shivering at the thought as he played again and again the details of that mission in his head, scribbling them down on a piece of paper.
Sam had an amazing head for details-he figured that’s what Morgan saw in him, for all that he wasn’t a team player. He could memorize building exits and entrances, faces, names of important people on both sides. Every time Yang took them on the twisting maze to the back door of the complex, Sam kept his eyes open, memorizing the tiniest details he could think of. Colors of bricks on walls, cracks in the ground beneath his feet, piles of trash strewn on the sides of the allies (even though this last one probably wouldn’t help him much, as piles of trash tended to change more every day). He knew one day, far earlier than Yang could do it, that he would have each and every path they took memorized-he already had one or two fairly close to memorized. He was good at remembering things like that. So when Morgan asked him for every detail of their mission that morning-what was in theory just a simple scouting mission of the forty blocks or so of their area-Sam worked his hardest to remember everything. He never scribbled out anything he had written previously, because he didn’t write down anything he wasn’t sure about. He didn’t deal in the unsure, in the gray areas. He didn’t let himself think about the gray areas, because if he did he wanted out more than ever.
Of one thing he could be sure, though. Janey had been wrong in beating that demon so severely. Not because it was wrong to beat people (though it was) but because it was not in the orders to kill. Nowhere in the orders did it say that if they found a demon in the neutralized zones they were supposed to kill him. It also didn’t say they were supposed to keep him alive, which was Sam’s justification for letting it go on as long as it did. That and Janey would probably have turned to him as her punching bag. Sam wasn’t a fan of being beaten into a pulp, he really wasn’t. He didn’t even like killing or hurting demons all that much, even though he was an archangel. He had seen the looks Janey and even sometimes Yang gave him when he struggled to hit an attacker. There was some kind of fluke, something had gone wrong. He wasn’t right, he wasn’t supposed to end up as an archangel. There very well could have been some truth to their thoughts, but Sam saw no difference either way. He had ended up as an archangel, and he could hold his own. Even better, he came with assets-that memory of his, the reason Morgan had hired him in the first place.
He was sitting on his bed when Yang popped her head into his doorframe-not literally of course, because then the laws of physics would have been totally warped and Sam would have been concerned. She looked at him, a smile playing just beyond her lips, and he looked back at her dully.
“Sam, conference now in the conference room.” He just nodded back at her, and then took one last look at his notes. There was a moment of silence between the two of them, one that obviously made Yang somewhat uncomfortable or impatient or both, because she cleared her throat. “Oddly enough, now means now, Hopkins. As in, this very minute now. Not ‘sometime in the next few minutes now’. Are we clear?”
“Yes ma’am,” Sam replied, getting up off his bed with the paper and pen in his hands. “I’m sorry ma’am, just taking one second to look over my notes.”
“One second too long, but I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you somehow.” She almost chortled and Sam just exhaled quietly, following her through the twisting halls to the conference. He had no idea what it was with Morgan and his affinity for twisting hallways and twisting alleyways and twisting ways in general, except he knew they were at war now and they needed to confuse the enemy as much as possible. Confusing the enemy he understood, just not confusing your allies, even your team members. It wasn’t his place to question that, however, and he wasn’t going to question it.
“So Morgan asked you for the details, huh?” Yang asked over her shoulder without looking at him. Sam nodded, and then realized she couldn’t see him. He also realized that there was some unexplained degree of sarcasm in her voice, and he took a moment to try to weigh it as intentional or not. It was difficult to say with Yang, as she had a tendency to just speak sarcastically as often as she could.
“You could check over them, if you like,” he said slowly, playing it safe. If she held some kind of animosity towards him, then it could be a kind of peace offering-letting her check over his notes, because she was there too.
“Oh, no, you’ve got them perfect I’m sure.” Another comment Sam wasn’t sure he could or couldn’t mark off as sarcastic passive-aggressiveness. Yang was a confusing woman, no doubt, but the captain trusted her so he tried his best to trust her as well. “Besides, we’re right here and I don’t want to hold up the captain any more than we already have.” She opened the door for him, and he stepped quickly inside, making sure to push it back with his hand so she could follow him. He quickly settled at his seat next to Seth, who already had his pen in hand despite the fact that the meeting hadn’t started yet. Sam looked at him oddly-he rarely took notes-before glancing at what he was writing and realizing that his best friend was in fact doodling a picture of a unicorn on his notepad. Sam shook his head, and then turned to Morgan, waiting patiently for him to open the meeting.
Morgan cleared his throat once, to gain the attention of those who weren’t paying attention yet, and then one more time to get Lucky to put down the pen. “Okay, team,” he said, his voice oddly cheery for a man who looked so tired, “let’s break it down. We’ve got a beaten up demon-Glays, I think-in our cells downstairs, and a reason for him to be there.”
“I beat him-“ Janey began, and Sam resisted the urge to glare at her as Morgan cleared his throat. She never understood the fact that Morgan always knew exactly what happened and he was just starting with a rhetorical... it wasn’t a question. Statement. Sam wasn’t sure, but he had faith that Morgan knew what he was doing.
“I understand that, Janey,” he said after she had fallen silent. “I just want to know why you beat him up.”
“Well I saw him-“
“We see demons a lot of places, Janey, but we don’t attack them every single time.”
“And he attacked,” she finished smoothly with a smile on her face. Morgan looked to the rest of the team.
“Is this true?” he asked, and Yang shrugged. Seth looked alternately confused and worried, his hand drifting back towards his pen so he could doodle some more. Clearly holding back a frustrated sigh, Morgan turned to Sam. “Hopkins, is this true?”
“Why don’t you ever believe me?!” Janey shouted.
“I do believe you, but if we don’t have a correlation, then what am I going to present to Mr. Roberts-“
“Can we not call him that please?” Yang cut in. “He’s not our friendly but onerous neighbor. He’s a demon-a RAK, for crying out loud. Killing demon, Morgan. KILLING DEMON.”
“I’m sorry, when did this become ‘interrupt whenever you damn well please’ time? I could have sworn that this was a meeting and that it was the captain’s turn to speak. Is anyone else here captain? Because I was under the impression that I’m the only captain we have here.” Morgan looked around the table fiercely. No one raised their hands or even spoke. Seth seemed furiously intent on giving his unicorn tiger stripes. “That’s what I thought,” Morgan said before turning back to Sam. “Hopkins. Is what Robbins said true? Did the demon really attack first?”
Sam didn’t bother to consult his notes before speaking-he was pretty sure Janey would have kicked him in the shins if he had taken any time at all. “Yes sir,” he replied quickly.
“See?” Janey interrupted with a grin. “Even Mr. Fact-Checker agrees with me.”
“However,” Sam continued,” it should probably be noted that he was provoked.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Provoked? Provoked how?”
“Trash-that is, Ms. Robbins threw trash at his head while saying vulgar things about the demon, his parental units and various female ancestors. Naturally the demon charged her.”
“There are no rules about talking across the border!” Janey snapped. “Just about crossing it.”
Morgan ignored Janey’s outburst. He appeared to be thinking very hard. Yang was curling her ponytail with her pen, and Seth was drawing horns on extending out from his unicorn’s singular horn. “So who was in whose territory?”
“The demon, of course the demon!” Janey cut in. Morgan glared at her.
“I asked Sam, Janey. Sam, do you remember who crossed over into whose territory first?”
This time, Sam took a moment to think. He knew this was the important question. “The demon,” he said finally. “We were on the edge of our territory, but he crossed first. Provoked, but he did cross.”
“Well that doesn’t clear anything up,” Yang said, and Morgan glanced at her.
“Truer words have never been spoken,” he said. “I think we have to get this discussion with our little friend downstairs as soon as possible, so we can turn him back over to Mr. Roberts-“
“Rakshasa, NOT OUR NEIGHBOR,” Yang said again. Morgan turned to her, glaring. “Hey, it’s the truth, Morgan. That Rak is not our friend or our neighbor and there is no reason at all why we have to call him Mr. Roberts. He does not deserve the courtesy.”
Morgan sighed and shook his head. “I’d rather keep the courtesy throughout our stay and remember to use it instead of using derogatory phrases now and having them slip out at the wrong moments. Sometimes we have to keep up a mode of decorum when dealing with the enemy.”
“I understand, sir,” Yang said. “I just think it’s the dumbest plan you’ve ever had.”
Morgan didn’t reply immediately, and Sam involuntarily tensed at Yang’s harsh words. He knew she wasn’t going to get into any trouble-she never did get in trouble for anything she ever said-but it was still nerve-wracking to watch her push him until he cracked and yelled. He wasn’t ever sure if it was on purpose, but it often seemed like it was. Finally Morgan exhaled heavily. “That’s how things are going to go around here anyway, Yang,” he said, standing up. “Even if it’s a dumb plan.” He began to walk away, casually looking at her over his shoulder. “Oh, and if I’m reading into things correctly, yes you may do the interrogation on the one you brought back. I was planning on letting you do it anyway.” Yang grinned broadly and Sam slumped in his chair in relief. Janey slumped as well, but he figured the odds were that she was slumping for a very different reason.
“You’re all dismissed,” Morgan said as he left the room. “Thank you for the report, Sam. Oh, and Seth?”
The gangly archangel looked up, the fear showing clearly in his eyes. “Yes, captain?”
“Nice... tiger-unicorn thing.”
“Oh. Thank you sir.”