Anger Begins With Madness

Anger Begins With Madness 12 MINUTE READ

Najma scrambled up the ramp into the commandeered German troop transport with her arms full of stolen files. The evening air was cold on her bare arms and tore at her uncovered hair. There had been no time for modesty when the message came through. There had been a feeling, like a tapping in her mind, and every ounce of training she’d had in twenty years had forced her up, into her boots, and out the door of her small room in the ORIA barracks and towards their records office. A chair leg to the base of the skull had done for the operative manning the front entrance. The rest had come down to time—how fast she could determine what to take, the speed at which she could gather it, and how long she had before the rendezvous point burned into her head went dark.

At the top of the ramp Agent Ebrahimi met her, catching her up like she had as a child.

“Agent Ebrahimi,” Najma gasped, lungs burning, struggling not to let the few CDs and floppy discs she had stacked on top of the file folders slip out of her arms. “What has happened? I took all I could but I had barely begun making my way into—”

“You will all be briefed once we’re in the air,” Agent Ebrahimi said, eyes on the horizon. “Hand your recoveries off to Yusufzai and buckle in.”

She pushed Najma away and hurried down the ramp, abaya whipping around her long legs, unflappable even now with the chaos of flight preparations, the gathering in the belly of the transport, and a collared and shackled SCP around her. Najma noted the equipment as she got inside properly. Two agents she’d never seen before held guns on him where he sat, sprawled against one of the ribs of the massive plane. His eyes were dark voids under the flashlights attached to their weapons. Najma tore her gaze away as Agent Yusufzai ran up to take her files. Then she heard a familiar whistle.

Ahmad gestured her over with a jerk of his chin. She took his coat and the seat next to him gratefully. The transport was massive; the central seating, five seats wide and many rows deep, extended back towards the ramp, with two long rows of additional seating against each wall. Ahmad had saved her a wall seat. Mohsen was on her right, predictably fast asleep, and Shahab was talking with Agent Wasir near the separated cockpit. Najma scanned the rest of the crowd.

The number of Bright Star operatives was… staggering, as was the age range represented. The eldest seemed to be around her age, tightly-wound young adults passing off folders and intel in hushed whispers with foreign Foundation personnel. The youngest sat on their handlers’ laps, some crying. All wore metal stars on chains around their necks.

Najma couldn’t find Anush. There were maybe hundreds of different faces, skin colors, and uniforms, but not a white eye to be found.

“Where is he?” she whispered to Ahmad. He broke off the wordless communication he seemed to be having with a younger operative in the central seats and shook his head.

“I’ve been here since the first agents got on,” he said. “No sign of him.”

“There’s some trouble with the pilot,” Shahab murmured as he approached, taking the seat on Mohsen’s right and speaking past his drooling face, “but once that is resolved we’ll be headed to England by way of Italy.”

“Soon?” Najma asked. “Shahab, there’s no sign of Anush.”

Ahmad tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and he handed her a worn beige headscarf. She gave a thankful smile to the girl Ahmad had been wordlessly asking for help. Then she covered her head and returned to the matter at hand.

“I’m going to ask Ebrahimi,” she said. Ahmad made a hissing noise.

“We’re not supposed to know each other well,” he reminded her. “Isolation and secrecy are paramount or Bright Star falls.”

“Bright Star has fallen,” Shahab shot back in a heated whisper. “Look around!”

“I’m asking,” Najma said. She stood and made her way towards the cockpit as she watched Ebrahimi disappear into it. Wasir, posted by the door, made frantic conversation with Agent Yusufzai in Urdu. His face was gray with stress and fear.

“Whispers and punches and bribes may do for the average agent, and especially their weak-willed pagans, but do you think for a moment the… the djinn won’t know something is wrong?” Wasir whispered.

Yusufzai’s eyes flicked over a clipboard as she spoke. “We have a memetic scanner pinging the surrounding kilometer every thirty seconds, Wasir.”

“How long do you think it would take one of those abominations to roar into your head and burn you away from the inside out to kill us all, Yusufzai?” Wasir asked. “Because I would not gamble on ‘more than thirty seconds,’ especially—”

“Quiet!” Yusufzai hissed. “You’re scaring them.”

It was true. The youngest Bright Star members near the argument wore wide-eyed, terrified expressions. Some covered their ears, as if that would keep a creature of pure thought from fighting its way in. Najma pretended not to have heard, but a cold sweat started on her back as she recalled the ambassador with his eyes of molten glass and his knowledge of things done and things yet to be. Najma closed her eyes and said a prayer. Then she opened the door to the cockpit. She took an immediate step back.

Their would-be pilot was a graying, overweight man with an ill-advised mustache. Ebrahimi had him by the hair, her boot planted on his crotch, and as Najma watched she yanked a headpin from her hijab. The pilot screamed as she forced his head back and held the pin a hair’s breadth from his eye.

“Get this plane off the ground!” she demanded in clipped German. “You will have a higher power to answer to than air traffic control if you do not!”

“Yes, yes, alright! Please, God!” the pilot cried, trying to hold himself completely still while his body fought to shake with terror. Every time he blinked his pale eyelashes brushed the pin and he whimpered. Ebrahimi leaned back and nodded to Wasir, who stepped into the cockpit and seated himself in the co-pilot’s seat. Only then did Ebrahimi remove her foot and pull back her pin. The German pilot began hurriedly flicking switches while Wasir adopted an affable accent and got on the radio to clear their path. Najma swallowed and stepped forward to intercept Ebrahimi as she moved to leave the cockpit.

“Are you keeping a log of the returning agents?” she asked. Ebrahimi shot her a look but held her hand out and took the clipboard from Yusufzai.

“Yes,” she said, with a grim frown. “We lost seven at the site of the leak. Several others have indicated that they will not make the rendezvous. They will make their own way into Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.”

“Please, let me see the names,” Najma asked, reaching for the clipboard. Ebrahimi pulled it away.

“The identities of Bright Star agents are of utmost—”

“Just one name, then!” Najma pleaded. Ebrahimi blinked at her in shock, unused to the unprofessional behavior from an agent she had essentially raised. “Anush Saraswati. Is he safe? On the way, or fleeing to the border?”

“How do you…?” She trailed off and dug the heel of her palm into her eye socket. Then she flipped through the papers on her clipboard. “Never mind. This mission was damned from the start. It appears he hasn’t arrived yet, and he hasn’t reported in to indicate a different escape plan. We do not know where he is. If he doesn’t arrive in the ten minutes it will take to make final preparations, he will not return to the Foundation with us.”

“How do you just lose a person like that?” Najma demanded. Several heads turned as her voice rose so she forced her volume back down to a vicious whisper. “He was in our area. Our unit, had to be! He was assigned to the same ORIA outpost as I, surely—”

“Nothing is sure, now,” Ebrahimi said. She held up the clipboard in Najma’s face. “Saraswati is but one of many losses we face. He may be special to you, but to us he is either another name for the wall at Site 7 or a catastrophic liability. You want to do something for him? Wait, and pray he either escapes with his life or loses it entirely. We have had reports that your Shemiran outpost sent word to the houses of djinn.”

Najma was left speechless. Ahmad leaned out of his seat, giving her a look as if to ask for news, but she had to turn away. She walked back to the boarding ramp of the plane to look out on the darkened tarmac stretching away towards the distnt lights of Tehran. She crossed her arms against a chill as wind blew in. The agents with rifles trained on the equipment to her right gave her stiff nods. She spared one glance for the thing’s dead, hollow eyes and then had to turn away. The night was more comforting.

After a while, Shahab came to stand beside her. He folded her under an arm, then hid her face as she gave in and started to cry.

“Do not doubt Anush,” he cautioned. “You should know better than that. Always some scheme.”

“That is why I’m scared,” Najma confided. “He’s too clever to follow directions and get here like everyone else.”

“Would you like to pray?” Shahab asked. Najma nodded, but couldn’t find the words. Shahab found them for her, holding her closer and saying prayers for safety, for divine protection, for common sense, which wrung a laugh out of her. The open ramp itself seemed to warm after a while.

Ebrahimi approached two minutes to take off. She looked at Najma and Shahab but reserved her disappointment at proof of yet another prohibited connection between agents. She just stuck her clipboard under her arm and looked out into the night with them.

“We’ve had new reports from the last team out of Shemiran,” she murmured, quietly. “When the alarm was raised, an agent split off from the group, hoping to intercept the messenger to Afseneh.”

Najma clenched her hands in the material of Shahab’s coat. Shahab looked skyward.

“He has not reported back,” Ebrahimi said. She said nothing else for while, but tugged at the folds of her hijab with a frown. “Are we wasting fuel heating the ramp at a time like—?”

Then, with a look of horror, she pivoted towards the equipment. At her alarm the rifle-carrying agents looked down from the drama they’d been watching unfold. The equipment was sweating profusely but grinning through it, eyebrows pulled down over the pits of his eyes to give the expression a manic fury. Somewhere deep in the darkness of them a light flickered, a deep red, coming closer. The restrained SCP looked up at Najma with a slow, intentional turn of its head.

“Why is it doing that?” she demanded, stepping back and pulling Shahab with her, who whispered a frantic prayer. “Why is it looking at me?”

“House Afseneh thanks you for the gift,” it croaked, “eshgham.”

Najma’s stomach fell to her feet. The soldiers on either side of the equipment fired, turning its brain into a pulp of blood and gray brain matter. Shahab bolted back into the cabin, shouting for wheels up. Ebrahimi snapped her fingers and pointed to one of the riflemen, who pulled a knife and crouched over the corpse. Najma didn’t see the knife go into its gut. She was already hallway down the ramp, sprinting for her life.

“Agent Behzadi!” Ebrahimi screamed. “Najama, get back here now!”

Loud footfalls sounded on the metal ramp behind her as her feet found tarmac and she pushed herself to run faster. There were plenty of vehicles around the front of the airport, riddled with inadequate security systems. If she could just—

Strong arms encircled her waist and yanked her off her feet. She howled and lashed out, throwing an elbow back and feeling bone crunch under it. Someone yelled but he kept her feet off the ground, even as she kicked and clawed at him.

“Please!” Mohsen yelled, through tears. His chest heaved as he struggled with her, pulling her back towards the ramp as the plane’s engines roared to life and began to blow furious winds over the tarmac. “Please, hamshira, we can’t lose you too!”

“We can’t leave him!” she screamed. “We can’t—”

“He’s gone!” Mohsen sobbed. He stumbled as his feet hit the edge of the ramp and he fell backwards onto it, Najma still struggling in his arms, as it began to lift. When his arms fell limp Ahmad piled on, holding them both down as they slid into the plane. Then Shahab was there, tugging them out of the joint of the closing ramp, pulling them back into the belly of the transport, and safety. Blood from the dead SCP ran over the flooring and they slipped in it. Ebrahimi turned away, giving them a shred of privacy as the rest of Bright Star looked on, horrified.

“He’s gone,” Ahmad repeated, arms holding her and Mohsen tight. “In every way that matters. But he would never forgive us if we let you chase him to your death. We must go!”

Najma didn’t remember how they’d collected themselves from the floor and made it back to their seats. The next thing she knew they were in the air, drifting through a star-spotted night above a sea of clouds. She watched the eddies and swirls of them through the narrow slit of a window Shahab supported her against.

“It knew me,” she finally croaked, voice hoarse from crying and disuse. Shahab glanced over and bit his lip. “It knew me. There was enough of him for it to know me, to taunt me.”

“It hoped you would act rashly,” Ahmad murmured from her other side. “Give its brethren another vessel. Give them more information on our operation. He’s gone, Najma. All we can do now is stay strong enough that they never take another.”

“Lose ourselves in the job?” Najma suggested, bitterly.

“Find ourselves in it,” Ahmad said. “We are out of the shadows now. Done with hiding, and done with ORIA’s corruption. We can be better agents now than we ever were before.”

“Have faith, hamshira,” Shahab said. “And have strength. We will drive these monsters back into the night. No one else will feel the pain you feel.”

“Inshallah,” she prayed.

“Inshallah,” he agreed.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 2015 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024