by Jaxon Reed
Now, here with the sleeping Nazis, he missed it. The Germans probably ground up acorns for a substitute, if they even bothered with it at all, he thought.
Pierre sighed and looked over at the snoring Klaupf again. She sat in an office chair with her head tilted back, glasses askew, making a slight whistling noise between her snores.
He thought seriously about killing her. She was the enemy, after all, and her work helped the Nazis, whatever it was she and that Schmidt character were doing with their strange electronics.
He walked out into the larger warehouse to look for a weapon, just in case he decided to try and take her out first, without waking up the SS officer.
While he quietly poked around a pile of rusty tools, looking for something that could be used for stabbing, a blue-green slit of light appeared in an open space behind him. He turned to look and several people walked through including Rick and Nancy.
“Bonjour,” he said, eyeing some of the most attractive women he had ever seen.
“Ah, the Frenchman. I’m Jason.”
The Walker stuck out his hand and Pierre shook it.
Nancy said, “Come on, Pierre. We came to grab you. Cait is going to wipe the memories of these two.”
Then she remembered the language barrier, and repeated everything in French.
Pierre tossed the garden shears he had selected back on the scrap pile and followed her through yet another blue green doorway.
This one led to an open field, with four giant boulders. Noonday sunlight streamed into the dim warehouse briefly, before the doorway shut behind them.
When it winked out, Schmidt woke up with a start. He looked around in the pale light of the flickering CRT, then he noticed Klaupf snoring in the back office.
He could not remember how he got there.
-+-
“Le Grand Menhir Brisé,” Pierre said to the group with a flourish, as if he were a tour guide.
Before them, four gigantic gray boulders lay on the ground in a line, each one larger than the one before.
“Huh,” Booker said. “I never heard of this. Is it a French landmark on everyone’s world, you think?”
“That’s a Cait question,” Jason said, taking in the sight.
Cait’s voice came over everyone’s implant. Pierre could not hear her, but everyone else did.
“Le Grand Menhir Brisé is erected shortly after the Flood on most all alternates, before timeline deviations occur. At some point in prehistory it topples over and breaks into four large pieces as you see here.”
“Well, there you have it,” Jason said. “It is indeed on practically every alternate.”
“It was all one stone once upon a time? How did they move that all the way out here?” Toya said. “I mean, it’s huge.”
Niko said, “They probably used a very big wagon. But seriously, levers and pulleys can do wondrous things. Look at the pyramids.”
“Heads up,” Jason said. “Cait indicated that Tiff should show up soon, if the pattern holds. Remember, she’ll probably be trapped somehow. Let’s spread out in a circle around the rocks and get ready.”
Pierre understood the directions, even though he could not comprehend the words. He traipsed after Nancy automatically, having followed her lead for so long off the coast of Normandy rescuing downed airmen.
Nancy took up a spot about 30 yards out from center of the broken rocks. She glanced behind her and realized Pierre was there.
He smiled when their eyes met, but she frowned back.
“You know what? It’s probably not safe for you to be here, Pierre.”
“Quoi?”
She started to repeat herself in French, but said, “Never mind. Cait, open a door so he can go back to our hideout in Normandy.”
A slit of blue green light appeared behind him, quickly widening. Pierre turned and realized what she was doing.
“Non! Non, Nancy!”
She ignored his protests and put a hand to his back, shoving him through the doorway. It closed instantly.
Pierre regained his balance, turned and ran back to the slit as it blinked out before his eyes. He stopped and looked around, frustrated. Then he gained his bearings.
He stood outside a rural cottage the French Resistance used as a base in their efforts to rescue downed Allied airmen to keep them out of German POW camps. The house was set in a small clearing, deep in the woods a few kilometers from the coast.
The cottage was located along one of the air corridors for Texan and British bombers making their way deep inside Germany to destroy industrial targets. It sat relatively close to shore artillery and within range of Nazi fighter planes sent to attack the bombers.
In other words, the cottage resided in an ideal location for their group to find and recover airmen parachuting out of planes going down.
Pierre also knew the cottage was located several kilometers north of Le Grand Menhir Brisé, and he had no easy way to get back there quickly.
The door to the little house opened and Robert walked out, followed by Luc and Angela.
In the group of Resistance and OSS personnel, Angela was the only true Texan from this world since the other two English speakers were technically from another alternate. On their world, Texas was part of a different country called the United States.
Angela wore a white Oxford shirt, tan slacks and hiking boots. This was not very feminine attire, especially in this day and age, but the clothes were practical for their current situation. At night she usually wore black slacks and a dark turtleneck.
She said, “There you are! We were getting worried. Where are Rick and Nancy?”
Pierre raised his eyebrows and said, “Tu ne me croiras jamais. You’re not going to believe this . . .”
-+-
Jason said, “Cait, when Tiff appears, open a door near her. Everybody, if Tiff is not able to move, we need to try and push her through the door. Let’s get in the air.”
Around the perimeter of the huge boulders, everyone on the team nodded and slowly floated up. Microbots, mentally commanded, lifted them gently into the air.
Booker floated, poised with a handful of iron balls and a matching sword. To his left and right, Niko and Toya held nets and daggers. On the opposite side of the circle, Rick and Nancy were armed with metal spears. The Walker carried two iron spikes.
They looked formidable. Six warriors, waiting for the seventh to show.
They remained floating in place for several minutes, looking at the rocks, the field, and each other.
Below them lay the remains of what had once been a sixty foot tall, massive stone monolith. It had fallen over at some point and broke into four large pieces
At one time, shortly after being erected in this location, the giant monolith’s surface had been carved all around its perimeter. Rain and wind had worn away most of the stonesmith’s work, though. Little evidence of it remained.
The stone used to be black, covered in paint, but weather and sunlight had faded the exterior to its natural light gray color.
The menhir lay broken and motionless, a victim of some disaster long ago.
At last, a sparkle of light twinkled into sight near the base of the largest stone.
Toya said, “Something’s happening.”
Slowly, a large black shiny oblong container materialized. It looked like a coffin-sized egg.
“Is she in there?” Booker said.
He moved down toward the object, focused on it.
Jason said, “Darius, wait. Let Cait get a reading . . . “
A single eye appeared nearby, half spectral, half material. It looked round, bulbous and black.
It glanced up and took in the six figures with iron weapons floating above the broken obelisk. For a moment, the eye widened in recognition.
Then, a slice in reality appeared. Unlike the blue-green light from the Wildflower Room, this doorway was black, opening into the void between worlds.
A fae stepped out in his natural form, a small gray body
with an overly large head. He had large black eyes and a slit for a mouth. Skin and bones and internal organs materialized into flesh but remained translucent, as if keeping a portion in the spirit realm by design.
He flung out a hand, sending a ball of energy hurtling toward Booker.
It caught Darius by surprise, and he tumbled down to the ground, spinning out of control.
The fae rushed high into the sky and raised his hands.
“My brothers! Come forth!”
Dozens upon dozens of black slits appeared in the field around the boulders.
Jason flew up for a better view. Below, the green grass was blotted out by translucent bodies and black slits.
He said, “Cait? What’s going on? How many are there?”
“Eighty-six.”
“Let’s take them out, people!”
Jason flung a spike down toward the writhing mass below. It broke into smaller pieces, each one homing in on a different target.
All the fae on the ground disappeared, turning invisible or stepping into hyper speed.
The leader cast disruption and force spells at Jason. The Walker whipped around and threw his other spike before twirling backward from the blows. But they washed over him, harmlessly.
A dozen fae converged on Booker, now on the ground and still determined to make it to the oblong container. Five sent bolts of light sailing for his head, but they dispersed harmlessly thanks to his iron undersuit.
He gripped a handful of iron spheres, the size of Ping-Pong balls, and threw them at the fae.
Each one became a homing missile, expanding in size and chasing a target. The fae scattered, zooming out of sight while he swung his sword awkwardly at one creeping up behind him.
Rick and Nancy hovered back to back in the air, holding spears the size of javelins and fighting off an onslaught of translucent gray bodies streaking in and out and around them.
The couple’s movements synced in hyper speed, the iron spears a dark blur of spinning motion, ripping into translucent bodies and breaking up spells.
Fae flew away, dead and injured.
“We got this, babe,” Rick said, slicing into another translucent body and splitting it open, then knocking another one back into normal speed and down to the ground.
Three fae rushed up from below and cast a slashing spell, opening a huge black slit below them.
At the same time another fae flew high above them, turned mid-air and cast a spell for a powerful downdraft.
The air current shoved them into the opening, which immediately zipped shut.
Rick and Nancy stared at each other, then out on a strange new world, floating a hundred feet above a forest.
Rick reached out with his implant, trying to make a connection.
“Cait? Cait? Huh. No answer. We must be someplace without sensors.”
Nancy frowned at him and said, “We were doing so good, too, until you jinxed us!”
He gave her a lopsided grin.
She said in a mocking tone, “‘We got this, babe!’ Just shut up. Don’t say anything in the middle of a fight.”
-+-
Niko and Toya worked in tandem, methodically killing fae.
Toya, with a practiced ease, tossed a net up into an open space. A split second later, a fae barreled into it at hyper speed and screamed, crashing down to the ground as it constricted around him.
Niko raced to the downed creature and slammed an iron dagger into its head.
Phoom!
A burst of light flashed and the creature died.
They repeated this process six more times, taking down a fresh victim with each round.
The other fae near them pulled back, as if reaching a common conclusion simultaneously.
The two women watched, warily, as four fae pulled their power together and wove a spell, twirling their hands and weaving black light into a complex pattern.
“Nope, nope, nope,” Toya said, tossing another net at them. It expanded in size and rushed forward with an AI mind of its own.
But half a dozen creatures on either side shot a wind spell simultaneously. It was enough to divert the net’s path, giving the four casters time to finish their spell.
A dark slit appeared above the women. Air sucked up into it like a giant vacuum.
Toya and Niko felt themselves pulled up and through. The slit sealed beneath them instantly.
They felt sudden cold. Blood and air in their bodies bloated outward as they found themselves without gravity, in the emptiness of space.
Far below, they could see blue sea covered with white clouds. They realized they were in orbit. Without a suit or ship for protection.
Toya looked at Niko, the smaller girl floating with long dark hair gently twisting around her head. Ice formed instantly on her face.
Niko stared back with a look of horror on her face.
A slit of blue green light appeared and two ropes snaked out. On their own accord, the ropes quickly wrapped themselves around the waist of each woman.
The slit grew larger and the ropes tugged hard. The women fell into the Wildflower Room through a torrent of air rushing past them and out into space.
Toya groaned in a bed of daisies as gravity and warmth returned to her body. Every inch of her felt damaged. She could barely move, but she twisted her head to check on Niko.
Niko made no noise, but looked as bedraggled and beat up as Toya felt.
Both women heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Cait stopped and knelt, handing each a mug of warm Tree of Life tea.
“These injuries will take some time to heal,” the computer said.
Both women painfully pulled themselves up and took gentle sips of the tea.
-+-
Booker struggled, slashing his sword at dozens of fae between him and the oblong coffin.
In the air, the Walker fought with his spikes against dozens more. They beat him down to the ground near Booker with spells and physical blows.
In the skies above, the drone of approaching planes slowly grew louder, turning into an angry roar of propellers and engines.
Jason looked up and saw sunlight reflecting off the huge glass noses of Texan B-29 Battlecruisers, the equivalent to Flying Fortresses in his world.
The fae saw the planes, too. One cast a spell up at them. The idea caught on and more and more cast spells at the planes.
Bay doors opened and ordnance fell out. The high-pitched shrieks of falling bombs filled the air, followed by explosions in the fields around them.
The planes and shrieking bombs came closer to the busted menhir and the battle below.
Boom! BOOM! Boom!
Booker screamed in frustration and swung his sword in a wide arc. The fae in front of him jumped back and he inched toward the coffin, swinging again.
BOOM! KABABOOM! BABOOM!
The earth shook as bombs marched forward, pressure waves knocking down trees, dirt and rocks dropping like rain.
WHABOOOOM!
A slit of blue-green light appeared and Cait’s arm reached out to grab him.
Booker lost his balance as she yanked him by the collar and dragged him into the Wildflower Room.
“No!”
Just before the door shut, he saw the black coffin disappear again. Then a direct hit obliterated everything as the doorway snapped shut.
7
Rick and Nancy floated down toward the ground. The obelisk stood out, immediately grabbing their attention. But there were no more fae or people anywhere.
They landed lightly in the clearing around the giant stone.
“Look at that,” Nancy said with a touch of awe. “Is that what the menhir looked like before it broke? It’s enormous.”
They walked toward the monolith, stretching up over six stories tall with a massive base. The carvings looked crisp and recent, decorating its face with swirls and patterns. The entire thing practically glowed, shiny and black.
“I don’t remember it being black,” Rick said. “Gray, maybe.”
“It’s probably some kind of veneer,” Nancy said. “I read somewhere the Egyptian pyramids had a veneer that wore away over time.”
“So, we are in the same place but on a different alternate, evidently way back in its timeline. And, we’re on one that Cait has no sensors on, obviously. She’s not responding.”
Nancy nodded. “Right. I guess the fae were able to make an opening because they’re in proximity to the menhir. It’s a neat trap, stranding us here.”
“Quit calling it that,” Rick said, smiling. “It’s obviously an obelisk. Nobody uses the word ‘menhir.’”
“The French do! That’s what they call the thing. It’s literally known as ‘The Big Broken Menhir.’”
Rick snorted.
He said, “Well, right now it’s not broken. And it’s definitely an obelisk. I mean, look at that thing. It practically spews magic. And I can’t even detect magic without Cait’s help.”
Nancy said, “Cait said this is erected practically everywhere, right? In every alternate’s prehistoric France. You know, now that I think of it, it’s awfully convenient for the fae to have something assisting their jumps between all the alternates.”
“You’re suggesting these are all fae-influenced structures?”
She shrugged.
“We know they traveled to every alternate’s beginning, and made sure mankind fell in each one. Or, humankind. Whatever people call it nowadays.”
Rick grinned and said, “I think we’re in a timeline well before political correctness develops.”
“Right. Anyway, we know they went everywhere. Maybe travel was easier in the beginning. After they corrupted things, and the Flood wiped most everybody out, and mankind started over again . . . Maybe that’s when they had locations like this one made. They set up an identical stone monument in each alternate to help them travel between them.”
Rick nodded, warming to the topic.
He said, “Yeah, that’s a reasonable presumption. I mean, it makes sense that they’d try to connect all the realities somehow. They’d want passage between them. And, they’ve had umpteen thousands of years to figure all of this out if they jumped around in the timelines.”