Steamrolled (51 page)

“All the way inside, please, and kneel. Feet crossed and hands clasped behind your head.”

Robert complied, relieved to be facing his enemy again. He blinked at the sight of his enemy also bound and gagged beneath one of the gazebo benches. No, a younger version of his enemy.

He risks a time paradox.

Didn’t have to be a genius to know a paradox wasn’t something one should risk. Robert took a few seconds to note the differences between the two versions, not because he needed to know. It delayed that moment of facing that cold gaze once again. Yup, the eyes in the one holding the weapon were still stone cold scary, but somewhat less intimidating. Maybe he’d adjusted, or they’d warmed a tenth of a degree.

“You are younger than I expected.”

If Robert had been tempted to respond—which he wasn’t—Delilah’s voice in his head would have killed temptation.
It’s always better to get information than give it
. Her voice, the sense of her filled him from the inside out, melded him into a version of her. He just hoped it would be a good enough version, as he lifted his brows, just a bit.

Faustus’ smile was slight, his sigh soft. “I need to know how you located me, though I don’t suppose you’ll tell me…yet.”

Robert’s brows arched higher, though his stomach dropped a bit. “Torture? How evil overlordish.” He thought he matched Em’s probable scorn rather well, could almost hear her say the accent gave him an edge in the scornful stakes.

“I won’t have to torture you, though it would be amusing to find your breaking point.” His gaze got a bit distant, his mouth parting in remembered pleasure. “I had a device that was rather effective at expediting the exchange of information. As I recall the record was forty-five seconds.” The eyes assessed Robert. “You might have made it that long.”

Fear dried his throat, but it also sharpened his instincts, his thinking. He’d
had
a device? Had it been in the alternate reality? Swallowed up in it when it went away? Hard to mourn that. Silence might be golden, but the judicious prod might at least be silver.

“Interesting choice,” Robert said, his gaze flicking around. “I would imagine you’ve collapsed the shield to just this area so you can watch.”

Instead of annoyed, Faustus looked pleased. “I knew you were a threat to my plans.”

That’s why he hadn’t shot him, Robert realized. An ego that big needed someone to brag to, required an audience for his grand finale. Needed the credit that had been going to Smith.

He’s gagging for the credit.

Okay, he was Smith, but the fake Smith. Almost shook his head to clear it of Smiths, but it was a giveaway move, though it was unclear exactly what it would give away.

“You don’t like nanites, so you won’t use a HUD.” Robert pretended to consider, wouldn’t do to appear too smart. “A data pad?”

With a bit of a flourish, Faustus extracted if from inside his long coat.

Oh yeah, he was gagging for it.

The data pad and his clothes were predictably black. All he lacked was the thin mustache to twirl. Who had failed to notice this guy was hip deep in bad?

I can try to access—

No!
Robert was a bit surprised he hadn’t yelled it.
This guy hates nanites. Just stay away from him.

Danger, Will Robinson.

Blynken had to provide the link to
Lost in Space
for him. It did seem to fit the moment and the situation. Weird it had a Dr. Smith, too.
If I lost you…
It didn’t bear thinking about.
The nanites will know what to do.
All of time, all of everywhere would be hosed without Blynken.

Faustus finished tapping on the screen and turned it, with another flourish, so Robert could see.
He likes drama.
Probably why he’d dumped Smith for Faustus and he knew no one in this galaxy would get the joke. Not sure how knowing this helped, but he filed it with everything his conscious—and sub-conscious—had begun to assemble on the man.
This is partly how she does it. Observe, assess, act.
The first two he could manage, it was the third that worried him. Would he know when and how? He would do all he could, die even to save the two remarkable women he loved.
Better to make him die for his cause.
He could almost hear Delilah’s dry tone and Em’s ebullient agreement. Together, as if somehow they’d sent support, Robert felt his insides steady. The fear was still there, but shunted off to another thought line. His perceptions sharpened and data flowed in.

Faustus held his weapon with confidence but his stance was wrong. He didn’t stand like a soldier or a cop. He was a scientist, a geek, first and foremost. Didn’t meant he hadn’t taught himself the skills, but they weren’t inherent to who he was. He wouldn’t be able to react on instinct when the time came. He’d have to think and that split second of hesitation could give Robert the edge. And he should never have taken his eyes off Robert, even if he wasn’t the Chameleon. Robert didn’t use the opening, something in his gut cautioning,
not yet
. The right moment would come. Faustus might not know it, but he would relax his guard even more as time passed. A soldier wouldn’t. Chameleon wouldn’t. Faustus—who was he looking for? Smith? Robert considered telling him Smith wasn’t coming, but right on the heels came a to-the-bottom-of-his-gut feeling that telling would be a bad idea. A guy pretending to be someone who sold his soul to the devil might be threatened by the person he thought was the Chameleon knowing he was really plain old geeky Dr. Smith, threatened enough to start shooting. Faustus might not be a soldier, but at this range, he didn’t need to be.

Something flickered in Faustus’ eyes. Something not cold. Robert looked where he’d looked. Nothing. No, not nothing. The air shimmered and for an instant, he thought he saw someone. A woman.

“What’s her name?”

Faustus jerked, his aim wavering. Would Delilah have grabbed that moment? Still didn’t feel right and if he jumped him, then what? The evil plan was in motion. The man’s face was cool again, but Robert felt an undercurrent of something.

Faustus hesitated, gave a small shrug. “Halane.” The lack of emotion was more revealing than he knew. “She used to live here.” His expression hardened. “And then she didn’t.” The cold gaze slithered across Robert, as if he’d almost forgotten Robert was there or he saw something else. “But soon she will again.”

* * * *

The clouds gathered into one spot, as if drawn there, then began to spin, like a cyclone trying to form. If Doc didn’t always resist expecting the expected, she’d have expected the air to move, too, instead of going dead still. Scary dead still. The horizon flickered faster, the pattern of it no longer regular. It made the automatons jump forward in jerky leaps as they blinked in and out of view. They should be stopped. She felt that to the bottom of her gut, but how did you shoot at something that was and wasn’t there?

And if that wasn’t freaky enough, there were the shadows on the other beach. People or ghosts? They were more indistinct than the automatons. Or the airships. Airships almost made sense when added to the automatons, though Doc didn’t make the mistake of saying that out loud around the general. He was too good a soldier to look freaked or worried. Grim was acceptable, so that’s where he’d made his stand. He didn’t even blink when Fyn offered his advice on how to take down an automaton. She let them work on the problem while she studied the airships.

They appeared and disappeared at a different rate than the ghost people or the automatons, as if they were all on a different frequency. The ships didn’t jump as much as the automatons either. When they were in sight, the almost placid chug of the engines indicated a slow forward speed. When panels in the sides retracted, in a sort of surreal slow motion, and cannons slid into view, it seemed more interesting than threatening. She felt an urge to giggle. She tried to remember if she’d ever giggled, let alone felt the urge, but her brain was already onto analyzing the flight vectors. What could possibly be the target?

“Delilah?” Hel sounded a bit bemused, even with access to her limited data on steampunk and early Earth history. “What are they?”

“Airships,” she said.

“Dirigibles,” the general added, sounding a bit awed.

“They’re spreading out, not concentrating their fire.”

“Lousy strategy,” Halliwell said, but Doc felt his unease match hers.

“For cannon fire, I agree.” Her brain produced the memory of the nanites hitting the barrier on the underside of the metal bug. “If they were preparing to fire gas—”

“—and if we shoot them down—” the general took her thought and continued it.

“—the crash could explode the canisters anyway,” Hel finished.

Not to mention hard to shoot down something blinking in and out of their reality. And if they shot one down and then it crashed where it was supposed to, it would be a win for the bad guy. Even with her remaining nanite help, Doc felt her head start to ache. In the end, there was still one place to stop this attack: the future where it had started. Doc didn’t like interrupting the peeps, but if the twit was having trouble out there, securing the lab should help.
How many more labs to secure?

We have reached the last one. It is more resistant than the others.

Doc’s gut didn’t just twitch, it clenched.
That’s the one. Be careful.

We are always careful.

Doc tapped into the data stream, found them working almost dead center of the island, somewhere around the funky little gazebo thing. The hill. The only real hill on the outpost. She should have wondered about that.

You did wonder about it. It just got lost in all the other things you wonder about.

Oh. Right.
Doc pushed at the spot between her brows, wishing she’d had time to find out more about the Garradians. It all felt so random and odd, having hidden and not-hidden labs, some locked with genetic keys and others not. Where was the pattern in it? They knew so little about the outpost hierarchy, even with the Gadi on board for the research—

Sirens started to shriek outpost wide. “Virus detected. Containment protocols initiating.”

No! Don’t try to contain it!
The thought screamed through her brain, driven by gut level instinct.
It’s a trap—

The blow was as physical as punch to the jaw. Doc staggered, dropped to her knees, pain exploding inside her head.

* * * *

Landing in the middle of a bunch of zombies seemed like adding insult to injury and Emily couldn’t see Robert anywhere, doubling both insult and injury. The zombies scrambled up, their movements well into the clunky zone, and began to form into a messy mob. Too many for going whoop-ass on, even with nanite assistance. It seemed wise to go low profile until she found a way to lose them—

We are on the outpost.

That meant exactly nothing to Emily, but she sensed the two peeps felt happy about it.

Something is wrong.

Emily thought of several responses, all of them sarcastic, but all of them ended with a question mark, so she went with a neutral,
we’re surrounded by zombies. Of course something is wrong
.

It is more…the outpost is under attack…

The sudden scream of sirens seemed to confirm this, though the whole outpost thing still baffled her.

We are sorry, Em…

And just like that she was alone inside her own head. It hadn’t been that long, but she’d gotten used to the little…bytes. Like having pets. Pets smarter than her and able to do amazing things. Okay, so maybe she was their pet, but she still missed them. Felt forlorn and hosed, and now that she was finally ready to ask a question, there was no one to ask, because she sure wasn’t going to ask the zombies—who seemed to be shambling inland. Didn’t seem to care if she shambled with them or not, so she edged away, then struck off at an angle, picked up the pace, and topped the rise off the beach well ahead of them.

She paused to catch her breath and look around. She didn’t exactly know what an outpost should look like, but outpost implied a defensive something or other, not this placid place. It was green and lush and had some sort of cool looking buildings nestled in among the trees. Kind of British looking. Winding paths and a gazebo thing on that rather pitiful hill. Em had always had a weakness for gazebos, though she wasn’t sure why. They were just so gazebo-ish and cute. Like something out of a novel or a movie. A place to sing and dance, or just read. She headed toward it, because she didn’t know where else to go, and because it looked fun and she had a vague feeling about the high ground being good. She’d have liked to have a gazebo in her museum, keep the lacy stuff and just add a few steampunk embellishments—

“How did
you
get here?”

Regrettably, the voice was familiar. But Emily still hoped it wasn’t him, until she turned and saw it was. Last time Emily had seen him, he and his sidekick girl friend, Carig were being hauled off by the zombies. Seemed they’d managed to escape, too, which was a surprise. A shock actually. Neither looked like they could fight their way out of a paper bag, let alone away from a gang of zombies.

“The sign said this way to the ladies.” They both looked blank. “The bathroom.” Emily wasn’t surprised when they didn’t get that either. Clearly the joke gene got left out during their conception.

“This is a secure facility,” Carig said, in a very snotty tone.

“Of course it is. That would be why this outpost is under attack, zombies are dropping in like flies, and the sirens are shrieking like a bunch of little girls.”

“We are experiencing a virus—”

Virus?
Did that explain what happened to Wynken and Nod? Em felt a chill around her heart. They couldn’t be gone, could they?

“—not a physical attack—” He broke off when he caught sight of the zombies.

Not that they looked all that threatening, other than the scary shamble. They weren’t armed, well, they had arms, but not weapons—

We are pins.

You pin time?

He’s planning to do something with time and the pins…