again?! We're yer friends! We're not gonna laugh at you, or question yer sanity; we will try ta help you anyway we can. But you hafta level with us. Now, come on, what's wrong?"
She gave them a desperate look, as if she really wanted to believe them. "I...don't know--"
A lilting, child-like voice wafted through the air. "Aw, go on, tell them." It was followed by a giggle.
Sunny whipped her head around trying to locate the source of the voice, but Eile was more disturbed by Differel's reaction. She went rigid, as if having a seizure, and bit off the end of her cigarillo, which dropped on the marble floor in a small shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace and jammed her fists into each temple.
"Who said that?"
Differel snapped to attention and stared at Sunny in utter disbelief. "You...you heard that?!"
"Wellllll, yeah, naturally," Sunny said, her eyes wide with wonder. "Who is she?"
Differel charged straight at her and grabbed her by both arms. "You really heard her?!" She shook Sunny hard enough to whip her hair around her head.
"Cut it out!" Eile said. "Let her go, we both heard it!"
Differel threw Sunny at Eile and backed away from them. "How do I know you're not lying? How...how do I know you're even real!? Maybe you're just more hallucinations! Merciful God in Heaven, I may actually be going mad!! I can't live like this! Dear God, please, make it stop; make it stop--"
Eile strode up to Differel and slapped her across the face so hard she turned her head and knocked off her glasses. The blue-blood glared a look of outrage and slugged her in the mouth. Eile flew back and Sunny caught her before she fell.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!?"
"You were wiggin' out!" Eile replied as Sunny put her on her feet. "I couldn't think of anything else ta do."
Differel made an effort to calm herself, but still stared daggers at her. "Hmph. Well, it worked, but never do that again."
Eile tested her jaw. "Don't worry, you've gotta a right cross that can fell an ox, lady. So what's going on anyways?"
Differel took a moment to retrieve her glasses and head back to her desk. "It started a fortnight ago. I heard the voice for the first time as I was falling asleep. I awoke, but no one was in my room, and I assumed it was just a dream. But I heard it again, louder and clearer, the next night, and then the next night, and the night after that."
She paused to select another cigarillo and light it; Eile noted her hands still shook. "It kept talking to me, night after night, incessant, more frequent and longer each time, until I could barely sleep. Meanwhile I started hearing it during the day. It would break in while I was on the phone, in a meeting, receiving a report; then when I was reading or exercising, or just trying to relax. I never know when I'll hear it, or for how long." She put her hands over her ears as if trying to deaden some cacophony. "And I cannot block it out; no matter what I try, it breaks through my thoughts and hammers at my brain like a pile driver."
She dropped her hands and turned to look at them. "That's when I told the others. I hoped Vlad had been aware of it and would vouch for me, but he denied knowing anything. They tried to be sympathetic, but they were convinced I was merely suffering from stress."
She took a deep, rattling breath. "I almost believed them, but then I started seeing her! At first it was in my dreams, then I would catch glimpses of her in halls and rooms, just flashes out of the corners of my eyes. But then she started leering around corners and through windows, popping out from behind furniture, standing just inside when I opened doors--Vlad never saw a thing!"
She took another rattled breath. "By then I was deteriorating rapidly and I was sure they would pack me away to a sanitarium any moment. I was becoming paranoid; thank God you two are here now, because I doubt I would have lasted another day."
"What does she look like?" Sunny asked.
Differel gave her a sharp look. "What?"
"The girl you've been seeing; what does she look like?"
"Like me," the voice said. Eile turned with the others and saw a girl fade in from nothing as she pirouetted across the room towards the desk. But Eile realized she wasn't a girl at all. She looked like a late-twentysomething woman who dressed and acted like a child. She was short and petite, which added to the illusion, but there was a maturity of face and figure that belied her playacting. She was dressed in what looked like a Sailor Moon senshi uniform like some kind of cosplayer, except over it she wore an open cape-like coat. She also looked fairly normal, except for the baroque style of the clothes and ornaments, and the fact that everything about her was in various shades of orange: costume, hair, eyes, lips, cosmetics, fingernails; even her skin had an orange tinge to it instead of pink.
As she approached, she giggled, warbled, and bubbled laughter, until she came to a stop just in front of the desk and faced them, a huge grin on her face. She jammed the index fingers of both hands into her cheeks and cried, "Ain't I cute?!"
She acted and sounded like a lunatic, which, Eile realized with shock, was exactly what she was.
Read the rest of the story [https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/337657-rhapsody-in-orange].
From "The Denver Walker"
Seven F-15E Strike Eagles flew in a diamond wedge formation over eastern Colorado. They had departed Buckley Airforce Base in Aurora where they were temporarily stationed. They were headed due east towards the Kansas border, and their intended target. Each was armed with eight AIM-120 AMRAAM medium range air-to-air missiles, modified to deliver fragmentation warheads, and an AIM-54 Phoenix long range air-to-air missile, as well as their standard 20 mm M61A1 gatling guns.
Approximately fifteen minutes behind them followed a single A-6E Intruder attack aircraft. It carried a single BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile under its fuselage with a special warhead. The pilot was Lt. Col. Eile Chica. Her squadron, which included the Eagles, had been transferred from California a week before just for that mission. Their target was the Walker, which was on a direct course for Denver, and if not stopped would arrive in twelve hours. Where it went, nothing was left in its wake.
Eile's mind wandered as she zoned out the monotonous task of straight, level flight. She recalled the briefing she and her people had been given when they first arrived. Approximately nine months ago, a meteorite crashed into the ocean a couple of miles off the eastern seaboard of the United States. Though it had been a large one and had caused some flooding along the Atlantic coast, nothing more was thought about it.
Six months later, the Walker came ashore off New York City. Though it gleamed as if made of metal or plastic, it had a smooth, organic shape, with no obvious seams or joints. It consisted of a bulbous, misshapen body, like a russet potato, with numerous feathered and branched appendages. It stood and walked on three spindly legs. The surface of the body was featureless except for what looked like a single, blood-red eye covering about one-sixth the surface area. Except that instead of being used for seeing, it fired a disintegrator beam that could reduce anything to plasma in an instant. It destroyed everything in its path, leaving nothing but bare rock and a layer of dust.
The devastation caught everyone by surprise. All attempts to communicate with it went unanswered, though whether it simply ignored them or was unable to understand them no one could say. It travelled in a straight line, cutting a swath through the heart of the city twenty miles wide. The military responded immediately, but few weapons could get past its formidable defenses. Of those that did, most were destroyed by the disintegrator beam. The rest either couldn't penetrate the skin or only damaged the appendages, which grew back in a very short time. One aircraft that made a kamikaze run did succeed in damaging the body, but it too quickly regenerated.
From New York it continued cross-country, devastating Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and everything in between. Outside of Kansas City, the President finally authorized the use of nuclear weapons. He had been reluctant, for fear of civilian casualties, but he finally decided he
had no choice; nothing else seemed to work. A cruise missile carrying a one megaton warhead detonated a mile above the Walker, well out of reach of its defenses. The shockwave smashed it into the ground, and the heat bloom seared and melted it. It seemed to be finished, and a research team was put together to study what was left. It took them a day to arrive, and they found the Walker not only intact, but nearly operational. It annihilated the team and went on to destroy Kansas City before continuing on towards Denver. The town of Hays had been wiped out just the day before.
The radio crackled. "Flight leader, Eagle flight, we have visual contact with target. ETA now fifteen minutes."
"Eagle flight, flight leader, we copy," Eile replied. She glanced at her navigator-bombardier. Maj. Sonne Hiver nodded back. "Confirm fifteen minute ETA. You are cleared to arm. I repeat, you are cleared to arm."
"Wilco, flight leader. Eagle flight out."
"Almost there," Eile remarked.
Maj. Hiver, whose callsign was Sunny, nodded again. "Ten beers says we won't get the bastard until after the first run."
Eile grinned, though Sunny couldn't see it as it was hidden by her flight mask. "Yer on, sucker."
Sunny giggled. Eile reflected, not for the first time, how odd she was. Surprisingly silly and girly for a serving Air Force officer, she was nonetheless the best navigator