White Shadows

Interlude 4 - You're Far Too Valuable To Die

Night had fallen in DC, thus bringing a semblance of normalcy as the skies turned dark. Closing the curtains in his office, Preston returned to the screen on his desk, cycling through views of different cities. Second 'Verse first.

New York and Atlanta were dark, just like DC.

Chicago was mostly dark, but faint tinges of yellow could be seen in the distance as the sun sank beneath the western horizon.

Denver still had full green skies, as did cities as far west as Las Vegas.

The West Coast, however, was still in pitch darkness. That meant that a narrow strip of the sphere was intact.

But for how long?

The science squad's calculations suggested no more than two days before that last section of the sphere failed completely. Luckily, most of the personnel up there were already evacuated, brought down to the previously mortal-occupied cities in the central and eastern US. And perhaps the sphere's latest breakdown would finally convince the rest of the world leaders that Preston's solution would be much more feasible. There was zero logic in simply rebuilding the sphere, as had already been done twice in the last hundred years. No amount of technological improvements could make that bubble of dark energy last forever, and it was time the rest of the natural-born scriv leaders figured that out.

No, the only way was to simply retake the world. A world which belonged to the scrivs.

And as for the world that didn't belong to them...Preston changed the screen to a view of a white-skied city in Prime. San Francisco, Heaven. There, his younger child, Lincoln, was searching for Jasmine. And invisibly killing mortal security guards in the process. Not exactly Preston's idea, but he admired his son's efficiency.

How long did Jasmine think she would have been able to fool him? He was fully aware that not only did she still have feelings for Troijen's snarky, snot-nosed prick of a son, but that she still insisted on working alongside him in secret. He had no shame in admitting (to himself, at least) that he'd had Lincoln crack the password on her electronic diary, which contained all the details. Quite disturbing and excruciating some of them were, too. It was as if she knew someone else would read what she'd written without permission, and she was going to make their experience as uncomfortable as possible.

The footage continued for a few minutes. There was only the one view available, so for a while, there was nothing but the two angels lying in bloody messes on the ground until, finally, a passerby caught sight of them, screamed, and called the police.

Then out came Lincoln with small flames on his body armor and wings. Wait - had he removed the wing armor again? How many times had Preston chastised him for doing that? His son could be stupid sometimes, but that just came with being a young man in his twenties, he supposed. After all, when he himself was in his twenties, he'd been quite the royal fool. Well, maybe not literally "royal."

Lincoln was followed out the door by a number of young men, all retracting their wings as they sprinted after him. Two of them were angels, based on their feathers being varying shades of brown. The first one out, however, had black wings. Preston suspected he was Russell Troy (he couldn't get used to the idea of calling him by his mother's maiden name, as the kid had insisted in recent years), but he couldn't get a good look at his face to confirm it.

He could, however, definitely confirm that the next person out the door was Jasmine. At least she was exactly where he'd told her to be - and where Lincoln had been sent to capture her.

His phone rang. The caller ID read "BLOCKED," but Preston knew who it was anyway. He answered the phone, saying, "Keep calm and carry on."

"Are you sure?" asked the voice on the other end. "There's a storm coming, and besides-"

"Lincoln's capture is inconsequential," said Preston. He only had to watch for one more minute before he saw Russell and Jasmine frog-marching his son back into the library, the two angels following behind them and talking to each other, no doubt in hushed tones. The smaller one, a baby-faced but muscular teenager, scratched his head in confusion. In any case, all this footage was delayed by about six minutes as it traveled through the Terminal to the Second 'Verse. Preston knew that there was no way Jasmine would allow Lincoln to kill himself, as he'd often said he would if he were taken by the enemy.

"Continue with the distraction," said the soldier. "Got it, boss."

"Thank you," Preston said. He hung up, then sighed. "And please don't call me 'boss,'" he added for his own benefit. "I'm not a mortal Mafia don."