Warlord: Dervish (28 page)

Another vehicle screeched to a halt. Jason recalled something Bronson had related to him. He kept his eyes on the street. “What’d you say to Bronson? About music?”

A maniacal grin spread on Kaku’s grimy face. “Imagine a string, a string that, should we pluck it, the vibration would change…”

The road past the window remained barren.

“…an electron could turn into a neutrino or a quark. Pluck it enough, and you will have witnessed every known sub-atomic particle…”

An insurgent came into view, running to a doorway, hiding there, looking towards the wall where Jason and Kaku had been.

“…their symmetry allows for this. And then imagine nine-branes, each vibrating. Universes, you see, are only a short distance apart, though separated by different dimensions…”

Jason had a clear shot lined up but waited.

“…and until you are able to cross that dimension, a universe remains inaccessible…”

More insurgents leapfrogged the first.

“Is that what this is all about?” hissed Jason. “Time travel?”

“Time travel?” Kaku pshawed. “I speak of nothing less than multidimensionality!”

“Get ready to run. When I say.”

The insurgents fanned out in the street, convenient targets.

“That sand—that has something to do with this?”

“Indeed!”

“And what are those things in the sand? The sand men?”

“The sand men?”

“The spinning guys. They human?”

“They were.” Kaku looked at Jason with newfound interest. “Whoever you are…you’ve been touched by one of them.” Jason found the doctor’s concerted attention disquieting. “You’ve been blessed.” Jealousy in Kaku’s inflection. “It should have been me,” he almost whispered. “It was meant to be me!”

Jason stepped into the window, the SAW taut against its shoulder strap. He raked the street, insurgents yelling and screaming as they staggered, foundering and pitching nose-down. He strafed the nearest vehicle, only satisfied when it sank on two blown out front tires. Muzzle flashes winked back, driving him from the window, tracers zipping through the opening, past him and Kaku, the doctor still ranting.

“…these other dimensions are miniscule to the point that they are curled up within our own three dimensions…”

An engine came to life and Jason chanced it, returning to the gap. A second vehicle was bearing down on their shelter, men hanging off it and firing Kalashnikov’s one handed.

Jason poured 5.56mm rounds into the truck, bodies dropping from it. He punched holes through the front grill and windshield—a splash of red soaking the interior of the cab—the truck careening sideways, the insurgents in the back attempting to maintain their balance and return fire at the same time. Jason strafed the truck bed and the men in it, the truck crashing into a house.

“Come on!” Jason thrust Kaku along the wall towards the next opening.

“…the strings vibrate according to the geometrical shape of the dimensions curled within…”

“Faster!” Again, Jason forced Kaku through the breach before following. Pitched from the truck, a wounded insurgent fired his AK from a seated position. Jason’s SAW ripped him open, knocking him flat in the street.

Automatic fire sounded from either side of the street and from the building the truck had smashed through. Jason sprayed rounds towards the muzzle flashes. He tore ahead, outpacing Kaku, swinging the barrel of the light machine gun, insurgents crumpling and seeking cover. He reached an alleyway and took a defensive position, continuing to fire the M-249 until Kaku reached his position and the box magazine emptied.

“You gotta keep up!” he yelled at Kaku, dropping the SAW, taking up an abandoned AK. They raced through the narrow passage, Kaku falling steadily behind.

“I’ll fucking kill you here!” Jason aimed the AK at the doctor. “Haul ass!”

“You’re moving too quickly!” Kaku replied. “You fail to notice?”

“Notice what?” Jason called back to him as he burst from the alley into another street, into more pandemonium. Dozens of insurgents with their backs to him were firing rifles and rocket propelled grenades at three Mechs that lumbered towards them.

Jason sprang across the street, firing the AK into the backs of the men closest to him. Others turned to face this new threat. A high pitched whine and an endoatmospheric particle beam deranged space, tossing insurgents aside, taking them from their feet and sweeping them down the road. The concussive effect caught Jason and he too was airborne, hurtling towards the side of a building, turning in midair. He clearly saw Kaku, back in the alley, smiling demonically—and then he slammed into the house.

Hitting the wall, Jason’s body stopped, but his brain kept moving. It impacted his skull case and bounced back. He hit the ground, disoriented and numb, a ringing in his head. He stared with vacant, unblinking eyes. His breathing had slowed. Each inhalation and exhalation seemed an eternity.

His vision blurred, shadows passing. And then visual acuity returned and he saw them, men passing him in slow motion, their loping strides exaggerated, as though they were swimming.

A tremor gripped the particles of dirt and sand around him.

His lungs filled…

A granule of matter lifted from the street and Jason watched it rise, captivated by its ascent

…oxygen flooding his alveolar sacs…

More dust and sand hovered about him, misting the street

…flooding his alveoli, diffusing into his blood. He paused…

The entire street surface seemed to tremor about him, popping up and bouncing down.

…before exhaling…

The insurgent’s mouths moved and the muzzles of their AKs flashed, but Jason didn’t hear them.

…and he felt the breath parting his body, passing from his chest to his throat, from his nose and mouth…

More granules dislodged from the earth, saltating above the ground, occluding the air, clouding it.

…and his lungs were empty and he paused…

Terror gripped the faces of the men dashing by.

…before drawing another breath.

A sand spout rose up off the ground, spiraling…

A stream of shell casings arced from an AK

…and as it undulated, it expanded its width, contracting in height…

The men were moving faster, time elapsing at a greater rate

…and a dervish whirled through the street, berserk and unrestrained. Insurgents fired their rifles futilely, an RPG disappearing into its roiling mass, shooting out at a different angle, veering down the street, lost in the sandstorm.

The AK retorts were muffled by the ringing in Jason’s ears.

As the dervish barreled through them, insurgents spilled to the street, their bones snapped, bodies dismembered. A leg tumbled end over end, droplets of arterial fluid spraying from the severed knee. Men caught in the maelstrom were yanked from their feet, somersaulting away.

Jason squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, the dervish was revolving directly before him. He stared in fascination and horror, unable to look away.

The vortex slowed and quit, the cessation of its movement so sudden its form was cloaked in afterimage-like streaks. The peripheral trails dematerialized, wafting particles and molecules that dissolved back into the atmosphere, blending with the gusting sand. It condensed into a form, a black-clad figure, tall and thin. Its skin was blackened, caked with the sand and dirt of centuries. In its hand it hefted a Malay Dyak Mandau, a headhunter’s sword, the handle a distorted head replete with tufts of hair. The sixteen inch blade dripped red from men.

The creature stood over Jason, looking down on him, its red-coal eyes framed by long, black hair. The features of its face were muted, blending into one another as though melted.

Okay, Rudy
.
Okay kid
.
Here I come
.

It drew its arm back, alongside its head, the blade held steady. As it did so, Jason noticed the begrimed arm, smudged relatively clean in one area, an Israeli Defense Forces tattoo embedded in its skin.

Hahn
.

He recognized the phantasm and, although he had not spoken its name aloud, it
heard
him. The creature lowered the threatening blade. It stood looking upon Jason, the fires of eternity in its eyes. Jason met its gaze, his own red eyes flaring.

The dervish reached out to Jason and he took the proffered hand. He expected a lifeless grip, but he found its grasp warm and reassuring, nearly electrical. Lifting Jason to his feet effortlessly, it stood him before it, amid the swirling sands. It contemplated him, this man with eyes like its own, this man it had once known.

“
Koos
!” an insurgent fired a long, ragged burst from his AK but the Hahn-dervish was already moving, revolving into a blur, 7.62mm rounds bouncing harmlessly off it, the insurgent screaming as it bore down on him. Jason heard the man’s strangled cries as the sand welled up between them, shrouding the thing that had been Hahn and its prey.

He waited, but Hahn did not return. The wind howled about him and the sand drifted past like contrails. Jason walked away, through the gale, testing the air ahead of him with his hand, stepping over and through the remains of insurgents, men torn limb from limb, their discarded rifles and RPG revetment tubes cast about the road.

It dawned on him then that Kaku had been nowhere to be seen, that the doctor had probably escaped, but Jason did not fret. Where was there to escape to in this world?

7,907th Iteration

Jason stumbled from the cloud, sand spilling from his hair, from his filthy, blood-stained BDUs and armor. He felt drained. It required every ounce of effort he could muster to place one foot in front of the other. Before him, a Stryker was entombed in the road, only the top half of the armored fighting vehicle visible. He leaned against its armor, feeling it cool and reassuring under him, pausing, resting.

“Yo!”

A man was grabbing him, trying to help him.

“Oh Jesus…”

A man in bloodied, torn fatigues, two thirds of his chest rack of magazines empty.

“Come on.”

A black man, bruises on his face, slinging Jason’s arm around his shoulders. Jason’s head lolled back. “Wow…” he muttered. The earth was floating above him. The fucking earth. He hadn’t noticed
that
before.

“We’s gonna get you inside, Jay main.” The man was talking to him, the man he recognized as Bronson, his friend. Bronson carried him into a house and Areya secured the door behind them. Deirdre was there, as was another white guy. It took Jason a few moments before he realized the guy was the other prisoner from the insurgent house, from the video, the guy from the roof, the jump.

“You don’t know me…” Jason murmured. The man looked puzzled. “And you’re gonna answer me in Chinese, right?”

“
Ta zai shuo xie shenme
?”

A cast iron tub brimmed with launchers and rockets.

“Jason, you look…” Deirdre and Bronson were stripping him of his armor and fatigues.

“Where you been Jay?”

“I just feel like…like I been running forever.” Jason noted the way Areya kept back from him. “Forever and ever and ever.” The kid wasn’t stupid. He knew. “Running and killing. I saw Hanh.”

“Hahn’s dead, Jason.”

“Not
now
she isn’t,” he told Deirdre. “What’s up with Areya?”

“We’d given up on ever seeing you again.” Deirdre admitted.

“I’m gone for a little bit and that’s it, huh?” Jason forced a smile. “You guys write me off just like that?”

“Jason, you’ve been gone for days.”

“
What
?”

“You been gone four days, Jay main.”

“Four days?”

“Four days main.” Bronson sprinkled Quik-clot powder on Jason’s torso. “This ain’t as bad as you look.”

“You should have seen me four days ago.” Four
days
ago. Jason would believe anything at this point. They should have seen me at the checkpoint, after I’d wasted the little girl’s family, after I’d put one in her head to end her misery. Should have seen me twenty years ago—was it twenty years ago already?—should have seen me sitting on the couch after she’d left, the goddamned birds so happy outside, my whole fucking world collapsed. Should have seen me looking for his Italian horn when Rudy was sitting there, melted into his goddamn seat, still alive.

Oh Jesus Christ old man. What happened to you.

What happened to me, Rudy? You should have seen what happened to you.

I did old man. I was there. Remember?

Yeah. I was there too.
Remember
? And stop that.

Stop what?

Stop calling me old man.

What? That shit bother you?

Yeah, it does.

Why? Getting older? You ain’t old, Jason. You’re living in the past though. What’s that about? Shit ain’t healthy if you ask me.

What do you know? You’re fucking dead. I’m sorry.

Yeah, I’m dead where you at, old man, but I ain’t dead everywhere.

You’re fucking with my head.

I ain’t fucking with your head, old man. I got your back. Way you had my back.

I tried. I really tried, kid. I couldn’t find your charm.

That ain’t nothing. Like I said, I’m up in here and I got your back. But old man?

What’s that?

I ain’t alone in here. And not everyone’s got your best interests in mind, you understand?

Yeah. What? What’d you say?

“I said that shit was real interestin’, Jay main.”

“You heard him?” Jason gripped Bronson’s shoulder, causing the other man to wince. “Tell me you heard him?”

“I heard
you
Jay.” Bronson pried Jason’s fingers from his shoulder. Areya was hugging Deidre. The woman looked at Jason in a way she never had before. She was frightened. “And I saw
you
,” Bronson was saying, “but what the fuck did
you
see? Don’t take this the wrong way or nuttin’, Jay, youse my boy and all—but you ain’t right.”

You ain’t right
. That’s what Mook had told Tucker. Tucker, who reminded Jason of Bronson, or was it Bronson who reminded him of Tucker? Both of them reminded Jason of students. When they knew Mr. Aaron wasn’t going to be back the following year, they’d chipped in and bought him a watch. And he’d worn that watch every day, on the inside of his wrist, so he wouldn’t have to turn his arm to look at it.

Kaku had destroyed his watch, pulverized it in front of him, like Gallagher with one of his fucking watermelons. Jason had watched him do it. Kaku had watched Jason get picked up and thrown against the wall of a house. How long ago was that? Days? Hours? Minutes? What did time mean any more?

“
Ta shi feng le
.”

“Where’d you find him?” Jason referred to the other white man.

“Outside. We think he worked here. He doesn’t speak English.”

“Yeah, I know. He speaks Chinese. What happened to your tooth?”

“It fell out.”

“Fell out?”

“Remember we had that little scuffle with the gladiator?”

“Sure do. You look like a pirate.”

“Jay, listen main. You can hold it together, right? Tell me you can—”

“Stop.” Jason smiled at Deirdre and Areya. “I’m good.” Whatever they saw did little to reassure them. “For now.”

“It’s your eyes, Jay. Your eyes is scaring them.”

“Well, not much I can do about that. Is there?”

“We gotta climb into one of them things, Jay, them things pop up on the street.”

“What are they?”

“They’re wormholes, Jason.” Deirdre tousled Areya’s hair, smiling at the boy. “They’re making all this possible. Now that the red building is gone, when they disappear, they’re gone for good.”

“Put a grenade through ‘em,” Bronson picked up her explanation, “and they close.” The soldier nodded approvingly at the kid. “Areya been showin’ us where to find the things.”

“The men in the sand…” Jason searched for the correct term “… Dervish.” He looked at Areya, his eyes shining. “What are they?”

The boy looked Jason in the eye as he whispered.

“Say again?”

“
Shaytan
.”

“Satan. That’s marvelous.”

A whisper behind the door, the wind and sand.

“Areya.” Deirdre took his face by the chin. “Don’t be afraid of Jason…”

“
No
,” Jason corrected her, firmly. “He’s right to be afraid. I’m changing…” He stood nimbly. “Watch this.” Waving his hand through the air, the others watched dumbfounded, Jason’s hand leaving transparent trails. He clenched his fist and held it still, the trails condensing in it.

Deirdre and Bronson looked from one to the other.

The Chinese-speaking man pointed a shaking finger at Jason, backing away from him. “
Yang guizi
!”

“Chill Chan!” Bronson yelled at the man.

“Yeah, you don’t recognize me,” Jason said to the guy, “do you? I saw Hahn,” he reminded his friends, “she’s already one of them.”

“One of…?” Deirdre asked tentatively.

Minute vibrations stirred the door.

“One of the sand men.” Jason grinned at Areya. “Shaytan.” He concentrated and knew his eyes flared up. Deirdre gasped and a look of awe washed over Areya’s face. “That’s me.” Was that was he was becoming then, some type of demon? The man Bronson called Chan appeared horrified. “Give me that.” Jason swiped the backpack out of Bronson’s hands and began to rifle through it. “I’ll be one of them real soon.”

“Does it hurt?” Deirdre’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“No. Actually, I feel good.” The fact that she was crying for him,
that
touched Jason. “Tired as shit…” He rummaged in the bag, his hand closing on what he sought “…but other than that—I feel great.” A lone tear broke from Deirdre’s eye and ran down her cheek. “Come on,” he nearly whispered, reaching out faster than the others could discern, his hand brushing her cheek. “Stop that now,” he drew his hand away, her tear on his finger. He studied it, the light from the room reflected off its surface, the tear quivering on his index finger, its molecular structure apparent to him, mucus and oil, prolactin and adrenocorticoptropic hormones and lysozymes seemingly alive. He understood he was seeing this in a way they could not, in a way they never would.

“What you doing main?” Bronson referred to the auto-injector in Jason’s hand.

Jason smiled at Deirdre, “Thank you.” He uncapped the injector—“We got more of these around?”—and plunged it into his arm. His eyes closed and his body straightened. He exhaled from the initial rush, and when it passed, he turned his fiery gaze to his friend. “Well, do we?”

“Yeah.” Bronson started going through the other packs, finding the auto-injectors, handing them over. Deirdre looked at Jason, a question. “Epinephrine,” he answered. “Adrenalin,” clarified Bronson.

Something banged against the door.

“Great.” Jason knew exactly who that was.

The knight’s greatsword cleaved the wood and rested in plain view before being yanked back outside. Chan screamed and cowered against the far wall.

“Areya!” Deirdre took the boy under her wing.

“Jay, we gotta get the hell out of here!”

Jason stood, foregoing his shirt and armor. “Grab a few of those,” he told Bronson as he popped caps off autoinjectors. Bronson stepped to the tub and took up an RPG launcher. “Areya, I’m going to need you help. Here,” he handed the boy two injectors. “You too,” he winked at Deirdre, holding out two more.

“You can’t be serious…”

Jason stuck himself with a syringe. His eyes clenched shut and his head shook. “Oh…fuck…yeah! Hit me kid.” Areya jabbed him in the arm. “Again. Give me another!”

“No,” Deirdre told him when Jason turned his fiery gaze to her. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

“It’s too late for that. Just do it.” Deirdre sniffled and pounded the autoinjectors into either of Jason’s shoulders.

When his face finished contorting, when he stopped rising up and down on his toes, Jason began to murmur, a low, rhythmic chant.

Bronson stood there holding an RPG, his mouth hanging open.

“…let the bodies hit the floor…let the bodies hit the floor…”

The knight punched a hole through the door and looked into the house.

“Yeah!” Jason crowed, euphoric. “I
love
that fucking song! Come on motherfucker—” he yelled at the knight “—yeah,
you
motherfucker!” He grabbed the RPG from Bronson. “Everybody get down!” He shouldered the rocket. “
Now
.”

No one needed to be told twice, not even Chan. The warhead streaked through the room and into the next, impacting the far wall and detonating. The explosion knocked Jason off his feet but he regained them at once, unharmed, manic.

“Everybody okay?” he called out. Everyone was. “I feel
fucking
supreme!” The wall behind them was scorched black from the RPG’s backblast. “Take a couple of those,” Jason encouraged Bronson. “Do what I just did.” Bronson peered into the next room where a hole big enough for a person to squeeze through now connected the neighboring house. Jason popped the guard off another injector. “Now get out of here.”

“Jay…”

The knight’s gauntleted hand punched another hole through the weakened door.

“Go.” Jason injected himself again, shuddering. “I got this motherfucker.” He flung the spent injector aside. “Me and this motherfucker, we gonna talk.”