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Posted by Slate on May 12, 2009 3:02:02 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:35:44 GMT -6
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((ooc: Follows after Base Smash. "Morales" is Spanish for "morals", as well as a last name.))
General Morales was not pleased. This was a state of being for him: he woke up in the morning displeased by how little work he had gotten done yesterday; he had coffee at lunch that was never quite hot enough, or too slow in coming because of those incompetent Capital interns; he had to take breaks from doing his job well to massage the ache out of his arthritic hands. Therefore it was no great surprise that at this particular moment in time, General Morales was beginning to turn a pale shade of red. As a younger man, he would have yelled. Now, he simply asked, in a voice that grated over vocal chords long abused:
“What the hell happened here, Major?”
The ruins were still smoking, though the actual fires had been put out. Though some buildings were still standing, their structural integrity was in serious doubt; therefore, the injured had been laid out on to the cleared grounds on blankets and stretchers and whatever else had been available to make them comfortable.
“We’re still waiting for one of the drug cartels to claim responsibility,” was the Major’s answer. There was soot on his face; it smeared upward in a line, and dyed a patch of his graying hair back to the black it had been when they’d served together. General Morales hadn’t been pleased with much of anything back then, either. His paychecks were never enough; the women it went to were never of much quality; but at least that hole-in-the-wall bar they’d found back when they were just rankless fodder had served damn good whiskey.
The General gave a grunt. The whiskey bar had been destroyed in one of Pablo Escobar’s bombings, nearly two decades ago, now; it had been rebuilt, but a place like that only really exists once. He and the Major and Gerad had tried going back; he wished they hadn’t gone at all. And then he’d climbed the ladder to the top, while the Major had stayed behind as a desk boy overseeing Project Colombia. Morales wasn’t a fan of America’s hands in his country, but he’d take their money and their equipment, if the President told him too. The President was the only one who ordered General Morales around, these days. “Who the hell is that?” He asked.
The Major followed his gaze to the sun-burned teenager kneeling amongst their wounded. He ran a hand through his hair, spreading the black soot further. “American,” he answered. “That rich boy philanthropist nobly saving our poor and downtrodden from the scum of our corrupt country.” He didn’t really care for Americans, either.
“The one rebuilding the school? Smith?”
“Swartz,” the Major corrected, as very few men dared to do any longer. “That’s the one. He was in the area to complain about customs holding up his precious imported lumber. Apparently local wood isn’t good enough for him.”
The General’s gray moustache gave a twitch above his lips. “You’ve got it sitting in a warehouse somewhere, don’t you?”
“Yep,” the Major replied, taking out a pack of cigarettes. He flicked one out and into its proper location between his lips. A lighter followed, from out of his pocket. “I hear that foreign wood gets better when it’s aged, anyway. Want one?”
“Bad habit, Major.” The General gruffed.
“I’ve got a lot of them.” The cigarettes went back into the breast pocket of his uniform; the lighter followed, after a flick. A long drag later, he got to the point: “Apparently the kid’s a healer. Like Jose.”
Jose had been in the bar the night it had gone up in a wash of flame and splinters and noise. He’d been waiting for them to arrive. Apparently he couldn’t heal everything. “Ah,” the General said. “Let him work.”
The Major blew a long line of heavy, rumpled smoke. “That was the plan.” They stood together near the side of a wall. It used to be attached to a hanger; now, it was just a wall. It was as good a place as any to stand. With the smell of smoke and chaos on the air, it could have been like old times. All they were missing was Jose. And Gerad. And guns on their backs, and the feeling that things were going to change tomorrow because of what they did today. Morales massaged the back of his hands. The Major dropped his cigarette stub, and ground its fire out under his heel. “Back to the paperwork. Unless you wanted to write the report to the President?”
“That’s what I have subordinates for,” the General said. The Major may have gestured impolitely with his hand before he left, behind his back where his own underlings couldn’t see; it might have earned him another twitch of that moustache.
The General continued to watch. They had their own healers; not mutant ones, but good ones. The little philanthropist was letting them steer him to the more serious injuries, while they patched up the rest. From this distance, he couldn’t hear the words that were spoken. One thing caught his attention, though: the conversations that were passing between his own men and the American. They were short; there were nods and understanding on both sides. So the kid had bothered to learn some Spanish before he’d taken his private jet into their nation. If they could get the rest of the Americans doing that, it would be a start. The kid glanced up briefly; across the field, baby blue eyes met brown ones. Recognition flashed in the former; eyebrows furrowed on the latter. Then the American went back to work.
Morales waited until the kid took a break before coming over. “You know me,” he stated. It wasn’t a particularly pleased statement. It was the General’s normal tone.
“Yes,” the scrawny kid asked. Eighteen or nineteen—he’d be a man soon, but not yet. And clearly, his mama hadn’t finished teaching him to put sunscreen on his white skin. “I believe I do, Sir. Are you General Morales?”
The General craved for something to be in his hands; if they were at his desk, he would be holding a pen. If they were at a bar twenty-odd years ago, he would be holding a whiskey glass, or a dart. One of the Major’s cigarettes would have done the trick. He had nothing, though; instead, he simply started massaging his hands again. It was going to be a bad day for his arthritis. “You did you homework, I see.”
“Are your hands bothering you, Sir? I could try to heal them.” Blue eyes were concerned. And his words were spoken with perfect intonation and accent. That was more than study. The General’s mind went to Dragon Speak, the patsy little jewel-producing mutant that the cartels had bickered over for years. Apparently they’d lost him, somewhere in America. Those jewels had an extra effect to them; the General had heard it before, and it certainly sounded something like this. He’d have his men start looking into that, later. The General liked to know what was playing in his own backyard.
For now, though, he couldn’t deny the lure of that offer. Even if he signed the deportation papers on this boy later, he didn’t mind making him useful for now. “Go ahead,” the General said, offering out his hands. The teenager took them.
A moment later, the ache in his hands remained, but thoughts of researching the Swartz boy further were fading. “I’m sorry,” the blue eyed boy said. “I don’t think it worked.”
“No,” the General said, his tone briefly disoriented, “I don’t think it did.” Those blue eyes were so oddly compelling. Maybe if he was a few decades older—and less American—the General would have respect for this brat.
“I’ve healed some of the FARC’s members, as well.” The boy said. This is something that should have sent up alarms in the General’s head, if only for its bluntness; it only furrowed his eyebrows, however. “We—my mentor and I—have been healing anyone who comes to us, without many questions. It has attracted them, I suppose.”
“I suppose it would,” the General commented, rubbing at one temple as the disorientation began to pass.
“They have begun to speak to me,” the boy continued. “They would like peace, but they are afraid of what the courts will do—many of their soldiers are not much older than I am, and cannot imagine spending the next ten or twenty years of their lives in jail; and the leaders fear extradition to the US.”
“They should,” Morales gruffed. The drug lords and the Americans: now there was a pair who deserved each other.
“They have asked me if I can act as an intermediary for them, to negotiate. I have told them that I do not have any way to gain the President’s ear; if I cannot even negotiate with customs, I do not think I can even try to negotiate for them.” The boy’s arm, in particular, had an especially bad sunburn; Morales felt a slight jag of sympathy. He’d gotten fried like that during basic training... how many years ago? Too many. He must have been this boy’s age, then, or younger. “I do not have the President’s ear,” the American repeated, “but you do. Do you think you could recommend me to him? I would like very much for this country to find peace.”
The General grunted. Something in his mind was doubtful for a moment; then it faded. “I’ll see what I can do. He’s a stubborn one, sometimes. And you don’t exactly look like much.”
The corner of the boy’s mouth twitched. “I know. Thank you, for whatever you can do. If you will excuse me, I think I will go back to helping, now.”
Morales just gave a nod. As the American—Swartz, was it?—went back to the injured, he massaged his hands. Too bad that healing had not worked. Having this ache gone... that might actually have pleased him. Instead, he turned away with a typical hrumph. Apparently he had to speak with the President, later. Just another task in his entirely unsatisfactory day.
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Nov 4, 2009 3:25:10 GMT -6
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