Our-World
Nowhere Kansas
Esker managed to retask a satellite for consistent coverage of the small group of buildings above the underground silo. It took a day and a half to extract Pike’s team from the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, rearm them, and transport them to the airfield I had flown from when I last attacked the facility. Piper and I seized the opportunity to gear up ourselves. We gathered weapons and the Airbike, then arranged with a small freight service flight to meet Pike and team.
The Airbike was covered and secured to a pallet for transport. It was being wheeled into our rented aircraft hangar just as Pike, Lauer, Unger, and Seger walked through the service door.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Pike said, gazing at the Airbike. He circled the pallet slowly as I undid the shipping straps.
Alley Lauer whistled in admiration. “Where can I get one? How fast does it go? Is it difficult to fly?” Suddenly, she appeared sheepish. “Sorry, I have about a hundred questions.”
“Anyone who wants to give it a try can have a turn once we finish this op,” I said, pointing everyone toward a long table filled with assorted gear. “Time is short. Our target is underground here.” I tapped the enlarged view of the outbuildings, the only surface structures representing the long-decommissioned missile silo.
Piper woke up the laptop at the end of the table, and the small projector attached to it came to life. The projector displayed highly detailed video against the corrugated wall of the hangar. The footage was stop-motion captured, running at four times normal speed. It showed a pair of paneled vans moving aggressively down the dirt road leading to the facility.
“This was twenty-one hours ago,” Piper explained. “In the following three hours, two more pairs of vans arrived.” The screen switched to show additional clips of the shaky, high-resolution video. “Personnel and equipment were dropped off at the entrance of the underground structure, and then the vans left.”
“What about Breslin?” Pike asked as he returned to the scattered engagement photos of the outbuildings on the table. “Is he confirmed? I didn’t see him on the video.”
“We believe he arrived on site before we could set up the imagery. Kansas has no significant strategic value to the military and the three-letter agencies, so no one was monitoring the area.”
Kyle Seger spoke for the first time. “So, he might not be here, or he might just not be here yet.”
I slid a printout showing a colorful line across the table. “The facility began drawing more power about thirty-six hours ago, reaching a consistent level four hours ago. According to our assessment of the technology, whoever is down there could activate the device within the next couple of hours.”
Pike studied the graph, tapping a finger on the high horizontal line at the right edge of the chart. “They’ve been at power for the last—” he glanced at his wristwatch, then compared the time to the chart. “Ninety-odd minutes. Could they have activated the machine already? Maybe we’re too late.”
“Esker has conducted a thorough analysis of the facility’s hardware and power capabilities. He’s confident that the plateau on the chart indicates a run-up test. They’re charging capacitors before engaging the device. Once they do, the scales shown on that chart will change by an order of magnitude,” Piper explained.
As she did, I pondered for perhaps the thousandth time whether I could trust the analysis provided by Esker. He was clearly following an agenda that no longer aligned perfectly with mine. While no one in their right mind would claim to understand the motivations of an artificial intelligence, I was ultimately placing my faith in my relationship with it. Everyone in the room had slightly different reasons for being here, so why should Esker be any different?
Pike scanned the table and his team, each one meeting his gaze with determination. “Alright,” he said, then turned to me. “What’s the plan?”
I nodded and provided a brief overview of my idea.
We stood before a table strewn with weapons and ammunition. A collection of AR-15 rifles, a couple of shorter-barreled rifles, a stack of ammo cans—and then there was my gear. The collection of rings that made up my armor, a gun belt with the pistol and numerous spare magazines strapped to it, and an oddly shaped metal device that resembled an oversized industrial stapler.
The plan was relatively simple. Pike’s team would come in from various compass points, making only a minimal effort at stealth. I omitted a clarification that they were meant to distract attention away from me as I approached from the sky. Pike was aware of it and hadn’t liked it. Piper would be more vehemently opposed.
“What about me?” Piper asked. “Am I with you?”
“You’ll quarterback from here,” I said, tapping the folding table we’d used to prep armaments in an unused airfield hangar. “I need you on comms.”
Piper clearly hadn’t anticipated that. She opened her mouth to respond, but Esker interrupted her. “Gray has lost confidence in me,” the AI explained. “Keeping you here keeps you directly out of harm’s way if I fail to provide accurate intelligence.”
The comment stopped Piper in her tracks, and her gaze darted quickly between the phone on the table and me. The expression in her eyes silently questioned if that were the case.
I shrugged. Seeing the concern in Pike’s expression, certainly, for lack of confidence in Esker, I shot him a surreptitious wink. He would interpret all of this as my attempt to keep Piper out of harm’s way. While it was that, I also needed him be believe Esker’s allegiance was not in question.
“Our communications are completely managed by Esker,” she replied. “If he’s unreliable, then so is our capability to coordinate.”
Piper looked at the phone. “Can we trust you, E?”
“Yes,” he replied simply. After a pregnant pause, he added, “Though if I can’t be trusted, you can’t rely on my self-assessment.”
More glances were exchanged around the table.
“You’ve shown yourself to be less than forthcoming,” I said, glancing at Esker. I needed to reassure Pike and the others. This was not the time for distractions. “Please explain how putting everyone’s lives in your hands makes any sense.” There was no accusation in my tone. Although I didn’t know what he would say, I was confident I understood at least part of why he had omitted vital information recently.
“My core directives aim to create a single scenario that benefits you, your team, and your Brane,” Esker explained. “Stopping Breslin and what’s left of his organization is completely in line with my objective. Your well-being is also fully aligned with my aim, even if that means sacrificing my primary directive.”
Piper scrunched her face. “How can a tertiary objective take precedence over your primary goal?”
“I’m not a computer in the way you imagine. I learn from experience and have the freedom of will to achieve my goals through an indirect approach. Gray is employing a similar strategy right now. Although he doesn’t completely trust my motivations, he has confidence in me in this situation.
“He is less sure about keeping you safe for now but understands that you won’t take the observation well. This also weakens the team’s overall conviction. He prefers that you stay behind under the guise of monitoring me. This keeps the group’s morale as high as possible and does a fair job of keeping you, at least directly, out of harm’s way.”
Incredulous looks were exchanged around the table, except for Piper, who glared at me.
I shrugged, and her cheeks flushed.
Pike burst out laughing, which seemed to ease the tension that had been building in the group. He looked at me and said, “You said this was an AI. I didn’t entirely believe that until just now, mate.”
I surveyed the team. “Esker’s right,” I said. “While he has withheld information in the past, I don’t believe it puts any of our lives at risk. I don’t understand his motivations, but I still trust his intentions and support.”
“If we lose comms, we’re at a distinct disadvantage,” Billy Unger said. “I’m not sticking my hand in a meat grinder.” He gestured toward the live satellite image displayed on the laptop on the table. A dozen red dots dotted the surface level of the facility, tracking the location of hostile forces in real time.
Pike raised a hand but didn’t raise his voice. “We’re to maintain a standoff distance with a clear field of egress at all times,” he explained. “We fire only when fired upon. The goal is not to defeat the opposing force, but simply to distract them.”
Piper suddenly appeared more concerned. “Distract them from what?”
Before I could respond, Esker interrupted. “Power levels inside the facility just spiked. I believe they are charging the capacitors. According to the design specs, the apparatus will be ready in thirty-three minutes.”
Eyeing me with an accusatory glare, Piper reiterated her question. “A distraction from what?”
Nine minutes later, I was seventeen thousand feet above the vast, featureless fields of Kansas, traveling at a slow yet steady twelve miles per hour. This speed kept the humming purr of my propellers at the lowest possible level as I approached the staging point.
My armor was up and my helmet was in place. This was the only reason the penetrating chill at such an altitude wasn’t a concern. On my HUD, I could see green dots converging on the small buildings atop Breslin’s underground silo. The dots approached slowly from approximately the twelve, three, six, and nine o’clock positions.
“Position alpha,” Pike said, and the dot representing him on my display became stationary. The other three dots froze over the next few seconds as each team member confirmed they had reached their designated positions.
“Execute,” I commanded, bringing the Airbike to a stationary hover.
As one, the dots representing Pike’s team surged to close within two thousand yards of the facility. Almost in unison, the dozen red dots shifted from their dedicated locations to respond to the perimeter alarms triggered by their approach. A pair of lines appeared near more than half of the red dots, short red lines in a wedge shape inclined at twenty-five degrees, representing Esker’s estimation of each hostile figure’s field of fire. The lines pulsed in intensity between pale red and a more vibrant shade, presumably in real time as each figure unleashed a barrage of automatic fire.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I thought, but apparently I whispered it aloud.
“It seemed like useful insight,” Esker said into my ear over the comm channel. “Ready in three, two, one,” he added.
The moment he finished speaking the last number, I twisted the Airbike’s throttle to neutral. The steady, dull hum of the props stopped immediately. My stomach and testicles charged skyward as the automatic restraints on the seat snapped into place against my belt. The machine and I plummeted from the sky like a seven-hundred-pound boulder.
Different sections of my armor responded to my sudden change in blood pressure. It felt like an intense, multi-faceted massage, with contracting elements adjusting to maintain even blood flow between my limbs and my brain. I let out a rebel yell, even as my face tightened into a smile that struggled against the g-forces.
I heard Piper’s gasp and watched the numbers in the corner of my HUD turn into a rapidly fading blur.
Instead of verbal support from Esker, a persistent tone appeared in stereo. When my altitude reached eighteen hundred feet, the tone shifted. I twisted the throttle to match the pitch of the tone. Apparently, I wasn’t using enough throttle because the tone grew louder and more sharply pitched. I twisted aggressively to just over a third throttle. The change in g-force crushed my belly and balls, but the tone in my ear became calm and more passive.
Accordingly, I adjusted the throttle as needed to align the tone with what it had been at the start of my express ride to ground level. Almost as an afterthought, my attention returned to the altimeter. I’d just dipped below a hundred and fifty feet. For the first time, I looked to the ground. It was visible in sharp relief. Maybe it came from the lenses in my eyes. The technology had never been fully explained to me, which reminded me just how much I trusted Doc Cormac’s people and, by extension, Esker.
The instant the Airbike’s props stopped and went silent, I could hear bursts of automatic rifle fire in the distance. The fire was exchanged rapidly, and it sounded like at least two different battles were taking place. Based on the volleys, the forces appeared to be fairly evenly matched in terms of both armament and combatants. I knew Esker would inform me if anyone encountered more resistance than we anticipated.
I’d set down atop the shed-like structure that capped the entrance to the underground silo. None of the fire seemed to be aimed in my direction, so I vaulted from the seat of the Airbike and noticed ghostly apparitions moving swiftly in the distance. Man-shaped silhouettes were visible even through the solid frames of the surrounding outbuildings and crouched down behind shallow berms on the flat surface of the Kansas soil. The scattered figures directing rifle fire outward from the facility glowed a faint, transparent shade of red, while those shooting into the facility from the surrounding grounds were green.
“How in the hell did you do that?” I whispered into the comms channel.
“Analysis of backscatter EM signals,” he said simply before elaborating. “Overlapping wireless and electromagnetic fields are somewhat impeded,” Esker explained. “I’m filtering the data and projecting it onto your HUD and Pike’s team’s glasses. I estimate a tactical improvement of nearly forty-seven percent at a distance and seventy percent as the team gets closer to the hostile forces.”
Looking down and to my right, I saw the ghostly form of a red-hued figure sliding along the exterior wall of the building beneath my feet. The experience felt surreal; the figure’s shape was clear against the gravel-covered roof below and the cinder block wall supporting it. With my pistol drawn, I moved quickly and quietly to the roof’s edge. Peering over the roof parapet, I finally caught sight of the black-clad figure of Breslin’s security team. As my view shifted from visual to physical, a floating tag appeared above his head, labeling him as hostile. Numerical values estimated his vital characteristics and combat effectiveness.
“Psst—” I whispered. When the figure stopped and glanced up, I hit him with a silenced double tap through his body armor, knocking him down on the spot.
Only distant figures were visible. Those colored red were facing outward and sending intermittent bursts of automatic fire toward the surrounding cornfield. I could see two green forms much further out, one at eleven o’clock and the other at five. Tags floating in AR near them identified one as Unger and the other as Seger.
Gazing directly down at the roof beneath my feet, I noticed a faint red silhouette and recognized it as a guard stationed at the base of the elevator shaft.
“Nice job, E,” I whispered before jumping off the edge of the roof.
As I reached the small service door of the shed, I heard the click of the electronic lock. Pulling the door open, I stepped into the small building and scanned its empty expanse with my raised pistol. It’s easy to become complacent because of Esker’s technology-based version of X-ray vision. I resolved to keep my guard up at all times. Breslin would be below, and he was not to be underestimated.
To my right sat an unmanned desk with a small computer terminal, the office chair behind it empty. The layer of dust suggested that the station hadn’t been used since my last visit. I holstered my gun and moved toward the stainless steel elevator doors. They opened as I got closer.
“Thanks, E.”
Removing the ascender from the clip on my belt, I approached the edge of the empty elevator shaft and secured the device to one of the three vertical cables. The ascender had already been set up for my descent, so I stepped off the ledge and pressed myself against the cable. My feet wrapped around the inch-wide braided line as I drew my pistol once more. Then, with a flick of the thumb switch, I released the brake on the ascender.
The walls of the elevator shaft flashed by. Off-center on my HUD, I focused on the small icon-based representation of the shaft and my position within it. A numeric display seemed to spin wildly as it counted down the distance between my feet and the top of the elevator parked at the bottom of the shaft.
As the counter moved closer to the thirty-foot goal, I adjusted my grip on the ascender, and my rate of descent slowed immediately. It felt like my stomach and my groin were racing to finish the dive.
My feet touched silently at the top of the elevator car, and I released the ascender. The figure of a single stationary guard appeared as a ghostly low-resolution form, his position suggesting that he stood beside the closed elevator doors. Dimensional indicators emerged as I observed the figure. He was ten feet below me and slightly over eight feet north by northwest of where I stood. I grinned at the new tricks Esker was improvising on the fly.
Even though my suit’s helmet enhanced the impenetrable darkness of the elevator shaft, the pulsing yellow box on the floor made it impossible to miss the access hatch in the roof of the lift car. I knelt, released the latch, and swung the door up and open on silent hinges. After dropping to the car’s floor, I focused on the apparition of the guard outside the steel doors and two feet to my right. With the pistol raised in my right hand, I pressed my left palm against the vertical face of the door. Tapping my finger audibly on the steel surface, I watched as the figure beyond the wall reacted to the unexpected sound. The guard looked left and then right around the lobby where he stood. I gave another triple tap and observed as he squared up to the door’s opposite side. When he leaned closer to press his ear against the door, I adjusted my aim and squeezed off a single shot. It penetrated the door with a low metallic crack, and the figure in the lobby collapsed instantly. The gun had been silenced, but I could do nothing to lessen the sound of the shot piercing the door.
When the figure failed to move after several seconds, I whispered to Esker, “Did that draw any attention?” I knew he had access to the facility’s surveillance feeds, although the camera coverage was far from comprehensive.
“Negative,” he responded simply.
“Go,” I whispered, watching as the car doors opened and disappeared into the walls on my left and right.
Pale lights illuminated the elevator lobby, with only every third lamp turned on. The view through the front of my helmet instantly adjusted, appearing fully lit. In the distance, another figure was visible superimposed in AR. He was about thirty yards away and around a corner, seemingly with his back to the wall, standing guard. I narrowed my focus, and my view zoomed in, providing a clearer look into the underground facility. Two more figures were stationed at various points along my path to the chamber that had previously held Miranda Norton’s project for ATG.
Silently traversing the corridors, I closed in on two of the three guards without them noticing my presence. Quick squeezes of the trigger and the first two were down without incident. The third guard had senses more attuned to his surroundings. He glanced in my direction when I rounded the corner into the hallway where he’d been stationed. He opened his mouth to speak but never got the chance. A puff escaped from the muzzle of my Springfield, and he crumpled silently to the floor.
A broad opening in the hallway wall marked the entrance to Norton’s lab. The lights were brighter beyond the threshold, and I could hear the sounds of several figures moving at different points in the room. Strangely, the figures were not visible on my AR display.
Esker quickly explained, “The chamber walls are shielded from electromagnetic radiation. There’s nothing I can do.”
The tone of the AI’s voice clearly conveyed that this admission pained him.
Doing this part the old-fashioned way.
I grinned.
Stepping into the main test chamber, I found the place little changed since my last visit. This was surprising because the space had been cleared by Doctor Miranda Norton’s team just before she’d gone into hiding. Not only had Breslin returned her and her team to the facility, but he’d also outfitted the place in short order. A half dozen figures in white lab coats moved frantically around the expansive space. They dodged between small and medium-sized technical instruments arranged around a foot-square thick black line painted on the concrete floor.
In the immediate center of the box stood the anachronistic device Breslin planned to use. The glass orb was placed at one end of the arrangement, held up by a tripod with sturdy metal legs. At the other end of the space was a vertical door-like frame, but this time it was much taller and wider than I had last seen it.
“The dimensions are a bad sign,” Esker murmured to me. “The changes in configuration imply that Breslin has figured out how to make the gate bidirectional.”
As if hearing this, a broad, reptilian figure rose to full height and turned from the massive flatscreen display it had been examining at the far end of the room. Standing at over eight feet tall, Breslin met my gaze above the heads of the still-working scientific team. Amber-colored eyes, nearly the size of my fist, stared back, blinking slowly. His massive shoulders, mottled scales, and the inky black horizontal slits of his irises made for excellent targets.
“Everyone down!” I raised my pistol as the technicians ducked, ran, or did both. I squeezed off three shots as fast as I could pull the trigger. Two shots hit Breslin’s right eye, while my third struck the center of his left.
Breslin sagged backward half a step but didn’t fall. He blinked slowly. His thick, reptilian-scaled eyes somehow conveyed surprise. His massive dark lips parted a little, revealing jagged, toothy fangs that were each twice as wide as my thumb. The corners of his mouth twisted into a grin that was equally amusing and malevolent.
Esker’s tone revealed unmistakable concern. “That should have worked!”
“It would have been too easy,” I muttered under my breath, emptying the rest of my magazine into the creature’s face and chest.
Piper suspected that the Elend leader might not share the same vulnerability as the rest of his kind, but I had been more optimistic.
Breslin wasn’t fazed. Lead slugs flattened against his hide and tumbled to the floor. He shook his head slowly and bent forward, extending a hand to pull a small figure from the ground at his feet. The bunched fabric of Miranda Norton’s lab coat was clutched in Breslin’s taloned grip, her wide-eyed form suspended from the sleeves and kicking ineffectively.
Without a word, I stalked aggressively to close the distance. The spent magazine dropped from the grip of my pistol, and a new one was slid into place. I released the slide with a flick of my thumb, my eyes boring into the massive figure the entire time. In response, huge bat-like wings unfurled from behind Breslin’s back. They spread wide and imposing. Not advancing or retreating, he spread his feet and grew another foot taller.
When he spoke, his voice was dry and gravelly. “I hoped you’d come.”
As I flicked my gaze to meet Norton’s eye midway through my next step, I said, “Catch.”
The nine-millimeter Springfield slipped from my hand and arced leisurely through the air, seeming to move in slow motion. Miranda appeared terrified, but as I hoped, her eyes tracked the flying object. As I had anticipated, Breslin’s gaze followed as well. Pale, thin lines crossed my field of view in AR, confirming that the trajectory and spin I’d put on the toss were as expected. The ploy was more art than skill, as Breslin was repositioning Miranda in an attempt to use her as a human shield.
I had anticipated the move, and the pistol grip slapped the palm of Miranda’s hand. Her fingers tightened, and she took control of the weapon. Breslin tipped his head to peer around his shield, confusion evident on his demonic expression. He seemed about to speak when I struck.
The toss served as a distraction. The instant the pistol slipped from my fingertips, the nanoparticle armor of my gloves and sleeves adjusted to reshape itself. A thirty-six-inch long double-sided blade extended from the back of both my left and right hands. Ducking low, I stabbed the tip of my left blade into Breslin’s right knee. Each blade was as wide as my clenched fist. They tapered sharply to a point and were razor-sharp in a way only possible due to the nearly atomic-sized particles of the nanomaterial.
I retracted my left hand and released the blade before Breslin acknowledged the strike, and then I began to turn. The blade extending from the back of my right hand gained speed with the spin, and the inertia added power to my slice. At the completion of my whirl, I was crouched still lower. My blade met Breslin’s leg just below the knee and separated the limb without noticeable resistance.
Breslin’s head tipped back as a howl of pain and rage escaped his lizard-like lips. He toppled sideways, releasing Miranda Norton and sending her flying.
One of Breslin’s wings folded under his falling weight, producing a grinding, snapping chorus of thin bones and tearing tissue. His other wing flung wide and forward, trying to push me away. That was a mistake. I raised my right arm to deflect the blow and was perhaps as surprised as Breslin when the blade of that same hand sliced through the batwing as if it were made of butcher’s paper. I stabbed the blade at the end of my left arm and pinned his left leg to the concrete floor. Then, a slash of my right hand separated his left arm from his body, just below the shoulder.
An animalistic shriek pierced the air, and I thought the battle was over.
I was wrong.
Breslin swatted me away with the wing of his remaining arm. I flew across the room, dislodging my blade from his remaining leg as I went. I collided with the tripod and orb halfway through my tumble. The stand collapsed, and the orb bounced and skidded across the epoxy-sealed concrete.
Still sliding, I rolled and found my footing just in time to see Breslin sit upright. His gaze first moved to the scaly stump at his left shoulder, and then to his half-missing right leg. His mouth opened for another howl of pain or fury, one wing extending awkwardly behind him while the other responded like a broken and shattered beach umbrella.
Breslin seemed unsure how to retaliate in his condition, so I quickly regained my feet. I’d be foolish not to finish him off, so I planned to press my advantage. A pop sounded from my right, soon followed by another. It was suppressed gunfire, and I immediately realized that I had failed to account for any armed guards stationed inside the laboratory.
That turned out to be an incorrect guess. Miranda Norton stepped next to me. My Springfield was raised in a two-handed grip, the muzzle flashing while she unloaded the weapon with alacrity into Breslin’s exposed face. The pistol clicked empty in short order, though Miranda continued to squeeze the trigger.
She appeared confused when each shot hit the creature’s face but did not penetrate the hide.
“Aim for the eyes,” I said and sidestepped a feeble kick from what remained of Breslin’s leg. He swung his strong arm to throw a punch, but I intercepted the hook by gripping the inside of his forearm with the palm of my hand. With his effort focused on overpowering me, I saw his eyes widen just before the blade of my free hand pierced his right eye.
My blade plunged through the entirety of Breslin’s skull and emerged from the back of his head. At that instant, his entire body sagged and toppled backward. I watched his remaining eye fade from its amber-yellow glow to a vacant stare, then shift to the color of charcoal.
Landing on the floor, every inch of Breslin’s body seemed to crumble with cracks and fissures. It took only seconds for him to deteriorate into ashy flakes, then completely disintegrate, leaving only a vaguely man-shaped pile of onyx-colored sand.
Miranda finally lowered the gun, her shoulders sagging as she stepped slowly closer to what was left of Breslin. Seconds passed, and then she gradually turned her gaze toward me. Noticing her lack of recognition, I quickly retracted my helmet. She remained expressionless for the brief moment it took for my helmet to vanish as the nanomaterial retreated back into the ring around my neck.
“Gray?” she finally said, glancing from me to the pile of sand on the floor. “I think I need a drink.”
The unexpected response made me laugh, and then I heard Esker’s voice in my ear.
“Pike’s team has control at ground level,” he explained. “There’s just one remaining hostile on this level. He’s approaching the entrance to the laboratory.”
The blades at the ends of my arms collapsed into a wash of nanomaterial, and I snatched the spent pistol from Miranda’s hand. The magazine dropped from the grip just in time for me to slide in a new one. I turned to the wide entrance from the hall and raised the weapon, catching sight of the startled form of Agent Chris Ingersoll pausing mid-step. He gripped a short-barreled rifle in his right hand, the muzzle pointed at the floor. He scanned the room in confusion, his gaze quickly landing on me.
Ingersoll eyed me up and down, seemingly amused by my matte black body armor. “What are you, Robocop?” I noticed his hand tighten on the rifle. His expression suggested he liked his chances. Thirty-five yards separated us, and it was my pistol against his long-gun.
“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me,” I said without a hint of humor. My gun was pointed vaguely in Ingersoll’s direction, possibly contributing to his misjudgment of the situation. A targeting reticle appeared on my HUD, clearly indicating where my round would strike when I pulled the trigger. Without raising the gun, I adjusted the muzzle and targeted Ingersoll’s rifle.
Aiming about two inches away from his grip and the trigger assembly, I squeezed my trigger. My silenced shot shattered the optics on the top rail of the rifle, bent the frame, and sent the weapon flying with enough force to break the strap on the single-point harness and secure it over Ingersoll’s shoulder.
Ingersoll screamed and staggered backward. When he raised the hand that had previously clinched the gun, his flesh was peppered with metal and plastic shrapnel. Thick drops of blood splatted the floor before him.
“I warned you,” I said, holstering the Springfield.
I left Ingersoll cradling his wounded hand. Six lab technicians and Miranda Norton had retreated to the far end of the room, all of them showing varying degrees of shock or post-traumatic stress. Then I saw a hazy vertical figure in AR well beyond Ingersoll. A callout floating next to the apparition carried the tag, Pike. I watched him navigate the corridors and approach my position at a leisurely pace.
Pike’s appearance startled Ingersoll, who knew we were waiting for something, just not what. Pike kicked Ingersoll in the back of the knee, placed a hand on his shoulder, and drove him bodily to the ground. Pike wasn’t taking any chances. He pushed Ingersoll flat on his face, then forced one hand and then the other behind him before tightening the flex-cuffs securely.
“Fucking, hell!” Ingersoll bellowed. “Watch that hand, asshole.”
Pike clearly didn’t care. He tightened one cuff with an audible zip of the clips. “That should stop the bleeding,” he said. “Think of it as a tourniquet.”
Pulling Ingersoll to his feet, Pike flashed me a grin. “Just this guy,” he said. “Everyone else went down hard. What happened to the primary target?”
I waved my hand toward the pile of sandy ash a few feet away. “Done and dusted.”
“The tabloids can’t make anything entertaining out of that. I was looking forward to seeing Bigfoot sightings in Kansas.”
Piper’s voice sounded in my ears. “All hostels are accounted for,” she said. “Esker has completed his assessment of the facility. It’s just you, Pike’s team, and seven friendlies.”
“Thanks,” I said, then looked at Pike. “Take him in. Esker has notified Agent Vincente. We’re giving him the collar. Your team will head to Atlanta to hand Ingersoll over.”
“You’re not coming along?” This clearly surprised Pike.
Reluctant to explain just yet, I shifted my focus to Miranda Norton. “Is everyone okay?”
She nodded slowly and slid off a high metal stool next to the counter. “I feel like we’ve done this before.”
I nudged the pile of sand with my toe. “This is definitely going to be the last time.”
She appeared skeptical. “You mean until someone else attempts to use this? “ she asked, pointing to the dented orb on the floor a few feet away from the toppled tripod.
“It’s risky,” I confessed.
“It’s too dangerous. I’m destroying all records of the research.”
“And the device?”
Miranda reached to the side and revealed a claw hammer next to her. “Want the honors?”
I shrugged. “I killed the creature and messed up the corrupt FBI guy. This is all you.”
Without preamble, she crossed to the orb and knelt. Although the device had been destroyed by a single blow of the hammer, she took the initiative to smash every remaining piece until it was utterly unrecognizable. A second later, something crashed to the floor nearby. The rest of Miranda’s team was in the process of savagely dismantling the wide frame that made up the rest of the device. They didn’t have tools; instead they smashed the frame using only their bare hands.
I took the Airbike and met Piper at the airport in the hangar we used to stage the assault on the silo. Pike’s team joined us briefly before boarding a chartered jet for the flight to Hartsfield-Jackson, the international airport in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I think we’ve solved the mystery of the silo,” Piper said as we watched the plane disappear into the morning sun to the east. She tilted her head toward the hangar, the massive front door now wide open since there was no reason to hide. “It explains the dig site on Wild-Side, too.”
I took Piper’s hand and slowly returned to the hangar. “Tell me what you discovered.”
“Wasn’t me. It was Esker.”
With a wave of her hand, Piper brought up a large shared AR display. It showcased a satellite view of the surface buildings marking the entrance to the silo. She tapped and poked at the air, causing a wide red dot to appear instantly atop where the installation was. The dot then expanded, growing to perhaps two hundred feet in diameter. The center was bright and distinct in color, but the red faded in opacity until it became completely transparent at the permitter.
“Doctor Cormac has been trying to determine what makes some locations more ideal than others for Crossing. Esker seems to have figured it out,” Piper explained. Waving her hands through the air and toward each other, she zoomed out on the map until the central United States was visible as if viewed from space. With another wave, she brought the contiguous forty-eight states into view. “Can you explain, Esker?”
Esker said, “A minuscule yet distinctive gravitational shift identifies the locations where the memBrane between dimensions is… for lack of a better term, weak.” About two dozen additional red circles appeared on the map, seemingly at random locations nationwide. Some of the red dots were larger in diameter, while others had a more vibrant red hue. “The size and position on the z-axis are represented by diameter and shade, respectively.”
The size was logical since some locations were at least somewhat wider than others. “Z-axis?” I asked.
Piper waved her hands in the air once more and zoomed in on a red dot just outside Saint Augustine, Florida. Similar to those found in technical drawings, dimensioning indicators were superimposed to show that this area’s diameter was just over thirty yards. The color showed nearly no fading at the perimeter.
“The color here is more vibrant,” Piper explained, “because the anomaly is one of the few that appears at ground level.”
I took a deep breath and considered what she and Esker were explaining. “Most are underground. That explains the use of the silo and likely the Elend dig site on Wild-Side.” I swiped and zoomed around the map, discovering surface locations in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Pains, Montana; and Arvada, Colorado.
“Lucky for us, technology is required to move between Branes,” Piper said.
“Not for me,” I said quietly. “Any explanation for that?”
Piper’s expression indicated she still wasn’t comfortable with that part of the analysis.
“Doctor Norton’s device creates a focused gravitational distortion. When activated at one of the indicated weak points, it is enough to perforate the dimensional barrier.” Esker’s explanation was confident yet somehow more emotionless than usual. “Gray, you are genetically predisposed to perforate the Brane from anywhere. No dimensional weak point is necessary. This is what Doctor Cormac came to understand and how he was ultimately able to breach the Brane at will, manually.” He paused as if considering further explanation. “And strictly speaking, technology is not required to breach the Brane.”
Piper looked as confused as I felt.
“Are you saying anyone can do it?” I asked.
“No. Only a rare convergence of unpredictable natural conditions can occasionally breach the Brane for limited durations.”
Piper and I spoke at the same time, “How limited?”
“Fractions of a second in most cases, although my research indicates that breaches lasting up to three seconds have occurred seventeen times since July sixteenth, nineteen forty-five.” When we failed to respond, Esker clarified, “That was when the first atomic bomb was detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
Piper was quicker on the uptake. “The first atomic explosion weakened the barrier between Ou-World and Wild-Side?”
I suddenly remembered the hidden warehouse space on Wild-Side that Administrator Hargrave had shown me. There were odd, anachronistic relics that seemed to have nothing to do with Wild-Side. “Remnants of our world have been reaching Wild-Side… Esker—how long has this been happening? The artifacts I saw in the warehouse looked much older.”
“The gravimetric distortions caused by the Brane breaches have a time-dilating effect,” Esker explained, although I didn’t understand the comment.
Piper snapped her fingers and grinned. “That explains the inconsistency. Sometimes you’re back here, and the same amount of time passes on Wild-Side. Other times, you’re gone for a few days, and months go by for them.”
I shrugged. A few days passed before that explanation fully sank in for me. I was more distracted by a new concern. “You didn’t just figure this out,” I said, glancing at the phone sitting on the table. “Tell me I’m wrong?”
Esker was silent.
“E,” Piper said, her expression showing a heightened level of concern. “Please explain.”
“You are correct,” he acknowledged. “I’ve known about the physics and the correlations since long before our first meeting.”
Silence lingered. Piper and I exchanged glances. I’m pretty sure we were both contemplating a surge of new, unexamined questions.
I spoke first. “This means you’re finally ready to explain.”
“No,” Esker replied without hesitation. “I cannot directly engage in what lies ahead. However, we have now reached a point where obfuscation is no longer necessary.”
The map before us was wiped clean, and the screen size shrank to that of a normal computer monitor. White text on a black background displayed GPS coordinates.
