Technomancer (36 page)

Any idea of combat squads and support squads had been cast aside. Now it was down to who had the guts to keep going when death was a clear possibility. Most of them wouldn’t even meet my eyes. A few looked positively terrified.

Fiona volunteered immediately. “I’m in,” she said.

I was surprised when Rheinman stepped forward next. “Just don’t get in my way again,” he said. He held his hammer in his hand with tight knuckles.

I nodded, letting his bad attitude go without comment. “Who else?” I asked.

In the end, most of them abandoned us. I had high hopes for Abigail, but she refused with a shake of her head. Among the riflemen, only Souza stepped forward.

“Can I have Old Red’s stuff?” Souza asked Gilling.

Gilling nodded once. The man pulled on the red cap and grabbed up the heat-blasting rag doll with a tight smile. So that was how you moved up in this outfit, I thought to myself.

“What about you, Gilling?” I asked.

Gilling put up his hands. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll open your new rip for you. Let’s go back home now before we all get killed in this strange land.”

I tried not to smile, but I failed. That was what I had been hoping for. I jumped out of the cockpit and headed for the shimmering rip. The others followed me hastily, with many worried glances over their shoulders.

Abigail was the last to come through. I knew at that point the rip would be exposed to the Gray Men. They seemed to have some way of sensing these phenomena, even if it was only by spotting them visually. It wouldn’t be long now before Gray Men came to investigate.

“That’s all of us,” I told Gilling. “Close the rip fast.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s like a fire. It has to burn itself out.”

I looked down at the various foodstuffs they’d poured into the bowl of the big fountain. It looked like this rip was going to last for days if we didn’t do something.

“Shovels, everyone!” I shouted. “Empty out this material or the Gray Men will come for us.”

People hastened to do as I asked. But the rifleman named Souza stepped forward. “Let me handle it,” he said.

I nodded.

“Everyone step back!” Souza roared.

We did as he asked and he lifted the rag doll. I’d seen two people die who handled it now, and I’d begun to think that if I’d ever seen a cursed object, this was it.

With a broad grin on his face, teeth clenching, Souza released gouts of heat into the bowl of the fountain. It wasn’t quite like a flamethrower—the heat wasn’t visible flame. I suspected this was because the projection of heat wasn’t done by spraying out gas or flaming liquid. Instead, it was more as if pure energy gushed out of Souza and his upraised toy. Maybe it caused an infrared beam to lance out and set every molecule it touched into rapid motion—the very essence of heat.

The stuff in the fountain hissed, steamed, and then finally burst into lively flames. Everyone backed several steps farther away. Only Abigail stood close, shielding us from detection in this world now, as she had in the last. I appreciated her focus and reliability. If any of us were owed a medal when this was over, it would be her.

Before Souza was done, I saw blurry figures stepping through the rip. The Gray Men!

“They’re coming through!” I shouted.

Everyone who had a weapon raised it. Souza sent more heat toward them, causing the blaze to leap higher. The four man-shapes I could see standing in the midst of the inferno hesitated.

“Will it burn through to them?” I asked Gilling.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. There are three existences here, our world, theirs, and the in-between of the rip. If they stay inside the rip, bullets, fire, explosions—nothing will affect them.

They stood there as the rip began to slowly die. It was being starved for fuel now. It was in competition with the flames Souza had created.

Souza himself ran with sweat and his teeth gleamed wetly. He was wild with excitement. Using his object so thoroughly, so successfully, had brought him a rush of joy. I knew
the feeling, but could tell the sensation he was experiencing was infinitely more intense.

Finally, Souza stepped back and unslung his rifle. “Let ’em come now,” he said. “I’ll shoot them as they burn.”

Rheinman stepped up with his hammer and I held my pistol at the ready. We all stared at the shimmering shapes in the rip. I wondered what they were thinking. They had to have seen what we’d done to the men in the truck.

After another minute, the Gray Men moved away as one. They retreated, stepping back into their own existence. The fires and the rip died together. Soon, there was nothing there in the bowl of the fountain but drifting ash and hot embers. The PVC pipes at the bottom of the fountain had burnt away to nothing. The blue tiles had cracked and been scorched black.

“They won’t suspect our next move,” I told Gilling. “This will help us. We’ve just created a diversion.”

Gilling looked less than pleased. “They will circle around this spot in the desert on their side. Soon they will create their own rip near here and come for revenge.”

“Maybe. But they won’t get any satisfaction if we leave right now.”

The rest of the cultists didn’t need any further urging. They were already climbing into their vehicles.

“Whoever’s with me, we’re taking Gilling’s SUV,” I said. “Come on, Gilling.”

“What if I’ve changed my mind?”

“Then you are a liar and a coward. Did you really think this was going to go perfectly?”

Gilling rubbed his face. After a moment’s inner debate, he threw me a jingling set of keys. “You drive,” he said.

We both climbed into the SUV along with Fiona, Abigail, Rheinman, and the sweating Souza who still gripped his
dolly as if it were a bag of cash. We followed the rush of cars out of the grounds and rolled down dark streets. As we reached the bottom of the hill, a fire engine passed us going up the lane. I chuckled. Someone had called the fire department. If they met up with the Gray Men, everyone was in for a shock.

We headed northeast, out of Henderson. I turned onto Pabco road, which led up into the Frenchman Mountain area. This was where I’d estimated the enemy base was located now that I’d seen it from two different angles. My triangulation was very crude, but in both our existences this region was rocky and barren.

Frenchman Mountain itself was a geographical oddity. Standing on the eastern border of Las Vegas, north of Henderson, the mountain was formed of the most ancient rock to be found anywhere on the North American continent. The peaks and ridges had been pushed up from an ancient seabed of a nameless ocean. The stones here were thick with fossils of strange creatures that had been extinct for eons. Trilobite fossils were common, things that resembled lobsters stripped of their claws. They had once crawled here in great numbers.

I didn’t really understand the relationship between our existence and that of the Gray Men, but if we shared a history, this spot was more likely than most to be comparable. I’d done a little thinking about the parallel places we both lived in. Maybe our earth was the same as this place, but there had been a single twist of fate in the distant past of both worlds that had set them apart. Perhaps they represented one possibility, one fork in the road of time, while we represented another. If that were the case, then Frenchman Mountain might be a shared ancestor of history, since every stone here was over a billion years old.

I was peering ahead through the windshield, trying to estimate our distance from Henderson, when something caught my eye off to the north.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, pointing off to the right.

Everyone stared.

“That is someone trying to signal us,” Gilling said with certainty.

“Who…? Could it be the Gray Men?”

“Maybe. But this is unusual behavior. They’ve never crossed to our world and attempted communication. In fact, they’ve never spoken or attempted any form of communication whatsoever.”

“Well, it might only be someone with engine trouble, but I’m going to see who that is. If it is the Gray Men, we are as ready for them now as we’re ever going to be.”

“Madness,” Gilling said. “Why invite trouble? We are quite close to the planned point of departure. Let’s cross over into the world of the Gray Men right now.”

“I can’t ignore this. What if we could establish some kind of dialogue?”

“Who is leading this expedition?” Gilling asked.

“I’m combat, you’re support, remember? So start supporting me.”

I left the road and rolled into the desert. At that moment, the people in the backseat became alarmed.

“Where the hell are you going?” Souza asked.

“As close as I can figure, this is the spot,” I said. “Whoever is out there seems to agree with me.”

“Let’s just stop and form the rip if this is close enough,” suggested Rheinman.

“I want to see who is signaling and why,” I said.

“What if it’s the Gray Men?”

“Then they are smarter than I thought.”

“All right, but we’re off-roading,” Rheinman said in my ear. “What if you run into a rock or fly into a gully and flip us over? At least slow down.”

I had to admit he had a point. I slowed down and everyone seemed relieved, with the possible exception of Fiona. She was impatient to get closer to anyone she could legitimately slice up with her knife.

I gently rolled toward the light, which flashed three times, disappeared, then flashed three more times. I eased back on the accelerator, as the terrain was getting rougher. Desert plants scraped the bottom of the SUV and cut lines in the paint of our fenders. I slowed down further, bouncing over rocks and scrubby brush.

As we drew near, the flashing signals ceased. I wondered what we’d been led into. Looking around at the pitch-dark desert surrounding us, I had to admit it was a perfect spot for a private massacre.

We were all worried by the time we were close to the area where the flashing signals had come from before they’d stopped. I kept looking for a building, a car, or even a man standing out there. But there was nothing.

I finally hit the brakes and we stopped with a long squeal. The engine thrummed and we all stared through the dusty windshield.

“We’ve got a few bags of fuel in the back,” Gilling said. “This is as good a spot as any to make our rip and finish this.”

I shook my head. “Someone is out here. We have to know who. Souza, Rheinman, I want you two to walk on patrol along on either side of the truck while we creep forward.”

Souza climbed out with his rifle in his hand, but Rheinman hesitated. “Why are you driving while I walk?”

Fiona made a disgusted sound in her throat and unbuckled herself. “Chicken,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“All right,” Rheinman grumbled. “I’m going.”

I rolled the truck forward slowly. On either side, my two patrolling men looked everywhere at once, nervously. Finally, I saw the flashing again. Three quick flashes. They seemed impatient. I turned the wheel and came to the top of a low rise. Down below was a shallow depression surrounded by large rocks. Out of the hollowed-out area rose a vapor of some kind.

“Is that smoke?” asked Fiona, rolling down her window and leaning outside.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“It might be steam,” Gilling said. “Maybe a vehicle has overheated out here and needs help.”

I nodded. We all climbed out of the truck. There were a dozen boulders clustered around the spot. In the middle of them was a scorched area. Had there been a fire? I didn’t see much out here that could burn.

A voice spoke up from the shadows surrounding one of the largest rocks. “You took your sweet time getting here,” it complained.

We all aimed our weapons at the stranger. He was tall, with a long face and close-together eyes. Walking in a crouch, I saw Souza and Rheinman circling around behind him. I could have called them off, but I didn’t. I didn’t like running into a stranger by surprise out here any more than they did.

“You’ve got some explaining to do, Robert,” Gilling said.

I glanced at Gilling sharply, then back to the man he’d called Robert. I remembered the wedding pictures Jenna had shown me once. Yes, this could be the man. I felt an odd mixture of emotions—but mostly, I was angry.

“You are Robert Townsend?” I asked.

He shrugged. “To some parties, yes.”

“You ditched Jenna on purpose, then, didn’t you?”

“Regrettable,” Robert said. He sounded bored. He walked forward into the glare of the SUV headlights. Moths had gathered in the blue-white cones of light, circling and tapping at the lenses. We all had weapons, but Robert appeared unconcerned.

“So, you’ve thrown in with these cultists, have you, Draith?” he asked. “Not the safest move.”

“We’ve decided to do something about the Gray Men,” I said.

“Yeah, about that—”

I shook my head. “Don’t even try to get in our way, Robert, or whoever you are. Go home and tell your masters we’re tired of being hunted by aliens.”

“Being hunted is one thing, getting yourself slaughtered is another.”

I looked him up and down now that I could see him clearly. I frowned at his legs, which looked like they were both in white plaster casts. The bottom region of each cast was scorched black and brown. My eyes flicked back to the blackened area in the center of the stones.