by Jaxon Reed
He nodded.
“Oui. Then Rick and Nancy showed up. And all of a sudden . . . the Nazis couldn’t touch us. One moment, we were about to be captured in the woods at night. The next moment they showed up out of nowhere, and all the soldiers were dead. I still can’t explain it all.”
“There’s a lot you can’t explain. Like how you walked from a warehouse here in Paris to the coast several hundred kilometers away in one step?”
He nodded again and said, “And you know of course that I researched the bombing of Le Grand Menhir Brisé, which happened that very day. Everyone wanted to know why the Texans bombed an important prehistoric site with no military advantage. And it turned out they did not do so deliberately. All the airmen on that mission stated their bay doors opened and the bombs dropped themselves, without intervention from their bombardiers. I have read the after-mission reports, which remained classified by the way.”
One good thing about serving as director for French Intelligence, he thought, was access to reports such as that one. It served to both satisfy and fuel his curiosity at the same time.
Sherri said, “I agree that something happened. And Nancy Chance was right, it was not safe for you to be there. Perhaps it was not safe for her, either, hm? It would explain why you have never found her or Rick after that day.”
“Maybe, maybe. But they were not killed there, I don’t think. No, no bodies were ever found after that bombing. I do not know where Nancy Chance is, or Rick Strickland. And as far as I know, no one else does, either.”
“You do not think Angela does? Back in Texas? Or the Germans?”
Pierre shook his head.
He said, “I tracked down Gruppenführer Schmidt after the war. He had no memory of me, or Angela or Rick despite our time together. I did not believe him. I said, ‘Do you not recall capturing Rick after he blew up the U-boats in Lorient? Or that day at the warehouse when we used your white noise machine and saw the woman on your television screen?’ He was surprised I knew of his work, and he became very uncomfortable after that.
“That warehouse was destroyed by a Texan bombing run a couple days after I was there. Again, it is a mystery who ordered that raid over Paris. Nobody in Allied Command was interested in bombing Paris at that point in the war, but somehow those planes were sent over our warehouse district. The site was destroyed, and Gisela Klaupf died in the attack, her research blown to pieces along with her body.”
“Some things we are better off not knowing,” Sherri said, shuddering.
Pierre had shared much of this with her before. She was the only one he could talk to about it, just as she could not share some of her darker experiences with anyone else.
It bonded them, these secrets from the war, even if she did not fully believe everything he told her.
“They were from another world,” Pierre said confidently.
Sherri gave him a dubious expression.
Pierre said, “I know, I know. You do not accept that. But I am convinced. I could not follow everything they said, it was mostly in English. But I picked up enough.”
“And you found proof!” Sherri said, a mild mocking tone in her voice.
He nodded strongly.
“I did. I returned to the cottage after the war.”
He walked over to a cabinet and opened it. On the top shelf, out of the girls’ reach, an empty metal coffee can stared back at them, as if waiting to be used after all these years.
“That is not proof,” Sherri said.
“It is. I have had our researchers look into this quite thoroughly. There is not, nor has there ever been a coffee company named ‘Folgers’ before, during, or after the war. This came from another world. Nancy brought it here, or Kate did. I never met Kate, but they talked about her a lot.”
She smiled, because here their discussion over the matter typically ended.
She said, “I cannot explain an odd coffee can in an old house in the woods, dearest husband. But I do not believe your Texan friends were from another world.”
“Ambassador MacGraw and Angela Dorn believe they were.”
This was Pierre’s final trump card. After the war he reached out to Angela when she visited Paris on her honeymoon. She agreed that Rick and Nancy were from another world, and shared with him what had happened at the German embassy in London at the start of the war.
Later he had an opportunity to discuss things with Tucker MacGraw, the former Texan Ambassador to the United Kingdom. MacGraw confirmed everything that Angela told him about the night Germany first bombed London.
Sherri conceded with a wave of her hand.
She said, “Well, they are probably off on another world fighting Nazis as we speak. Like you said, boring is good. For us, we will stay here and live a boring life. At least, it will be boring until the girls discover boys. Did I tell you Angela is talking about the Dubois boy again? She likes him.”
He said, “Oui. I have investigated his parents. They are good people. His father served in the Resistance.”
Sherri’s face dropped. “Pierre! He is only twelve!”
“One cannot be too careful. Not in my line of work. I will seek to always keep us boring. And safe. And . . . every boy our girls become interested in will be thoroughly investigated.”
She smiled, again dropping it. She knew she could no more talk him out of this than what they should name their daughters.
She pecked him on the lips and said, “Let us investigate some choices for dinner. I think perhaps you are taking us out to eat tonight. I want to get out of our flat for a while.”
-+-
A slit of blue green light appeared, and Jason walked into another world.
It looked unremarkable, from this vantage point. Primordial mist swirled around him, and he could see very little of his surroundings.
Sounds of wildlife filtered through the mist, including the distant roar of a dinosaur, probably a Tyrannosaurus Rex he thought.
He took out a sensor from his backpack the size of an egg, disguised as a simple stone. He tossed it on the ground.
“Other side of the world, please Cait. Let’s not waste any time.”
Another line of light appeared in front of him, slowly widening. He walked through it as the Wildflower Room closed behind him.
An hour later he walked through the rowan door, his backpack empty.
Cait sat at the desk in the lobby, scanning through readings on the holographic monitor above her computer.
“Found them yet?” Jason said.
“Yes. They are on Alternate 9732c very early in the timeline. They’re in trouble.”
She made a motion over the virtual keyboard and the hologram expanded to a large size that he could see from the door. He walked closer anyway, for a better look.
Rick and Nancy stood together side by side, fending off spells flying at them, iron spears twirling.
A force spell slammed into Nancy from behind, knocking her down.
Ten fae rushed Rick. His spear blurred, striking back most. But one made it through, its translucent body slamming into his.
Rick went down, too.
9
Rick stood up, his spear slicing through a spell trying to knock him down again. Nancy scrambled to her feet beside him.
The fae backed off, suddenly wary.
“Looks like they figured out magic is weak on us,” Rick said.
Nancy nodded and said, “Got any iron spheres? Now’s the time to toss them.”
She reached into a pocket and pulled out her last two, throwing them into the air. They expanded and rushed forward.
One slammed into the nearest fae with startling speed, ripping out its middle like a cannonball.
The other missed, only because its target dodged at the last second. It whipped around for a second attempt and the fae retreated, disappearing.
“I wish I had some more of those,” Rick said. “But I used them all in the last battle.”
“We got them down to six, anyway.”
The
remaining fae growled in frustration. Two of them cast force spells again. The yellow blasts passed harmlessly over the hunters with their iron undersuits.
“Wish I had these a hundred years ago,” Nancy muttered, admiring the suits’ effectiveness.
She jumped forward with her spear and caught one of the casters in the chest. He screeched horribly as she pinned him to the ground, the iron tip holding him in place.
Nancy jerked it out and slammed it into his head, cutting the screams short.
She said, “Five.”
Rick nodded. They had cut the number of attackers in half.
One fae backed off, his mind racing. Nothing seemed to be working against the hunters. All spells failed, unless . . . He thought about the air currents.
That magic did not touch them directly, but the force of the air could knock them down.
He thought about all the air spells he could conjure. They were not his strong suit. He was far more adept at manipulating the earth.
And that gave him an idea.
The ground suddenly opened up beneath Rick and Nancy.
They yelped in surprise while tumbling down 20 feet. Before they could gather their wits and fly back out, a ton of dirt fell on top of them.
As the dust settled quietly over the area, the four other fae looked at their brother.
He smiled, the corners of his face turning up.
“They will not stay there forever,” one of them said.
A blue-green slit of light appeared, rapidly growing larger.
The Walker and Booker ran out, tossing iron nets. The five scattered. The nets caught two and they crashed to the ground, helpless.
Booker tossed eight more spheres into the air, while the pieces of Jason’s spike separated. Sixteen objects made of “smart iron” raced around, seeking prey.
The objects caught one immediately, a spike and a sphere slamming into a fae’s middle. He died screaming
The last fae decided prudence was the better part of valor. Two black slits appeared and they stepped into other worlds, the doorways closing before any projectiles could follow.
Booker took out a dagger and approached the closest fae bound up in a net.
Black bulbous eyes grew wider as Booker walked up to him.
“No! No, please! I . . .”
Thunk!
Booker slammed the dagger into the soft, oversized head.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
He stabbed again and again, his lips curled back in a snarl as clear blood splattered everywhere.
When he finished, he stood up with the dripping knife and walked over to the second fae bound up in a net.
This one did not beg for his life. But he did start talking.
“I know where she is. I know how to find her. Look, your two friends are twenty feet below us, trapped underground. I can tell you how to save Tiffany, too.”
Booker hesitated, his knife drawn back.
Thunk!
An iron spike, six inches long, slammed into the fae’s forehead. He collapsed, dead. The net around him relaxed, shrinking back to its normal size.
Booker whirled to face Jason, anger in his eyes.
Jason frowned. He waited for the younger man to say something, but Booker just glared, breathing hard.
He said, “Darius, I’ve been doing this for almost 15 hundred years, and I’m telling you these guys will do anything and say anything to save their miserable lives. Whatever he had to tell us was not worth it. In fact, since they’re coordinating now they probably had something planned to reveal before dying in an attempt to trick us at the last minute.”
Booker deflated, his anger seeping away. He realized the Walker was probably right.
Jason clapped on the shoulder and said, “Never negotiate. They always try to trick you. Always. They’re good at it, they’ve been tricking people for thousands and thousands of years.”
“Yeah. Tiff told me the same thing.”
The Walker smiled in acknowledgment, not mentioning the fact that he was the one who trained Tiff as a hunter.
He said, “Cait, do you have a bead on Rick and Nancy yet?”
“They are indeed underground. The microbots are working on it.”
Both men turned and watched as a steady stream of dirt flew up in the air, making a hole growing ever deeper.
Booker said, “What’s up with the microbots thing? I never understood much about microbes or . . . how Cait is able to do all the things she does.”
“Ah. Well, I’ll try to explain it. Each of us have hundreds of thousands of microscopic robots under Cait’s control, although we can ask them to do things, too. But typically, our mental commands are interpreted by Cait and she directs the microbes.
“They’re known interchangeably as microbots or microbes. Alone they can’t do much. But acting together, they can perform a whole bunch of neat tricks. They can make us fly, for instance. They can make other things levitate, too. Very heavy things. So, you can throw cars or big trees at a fae. They hang around us in a cloud most of the time. They can turn into different clothes, give us different colored hair, all sorts of neat stuff. They don’t do everything, but they can do a lot. Does that help?”
“A little bit. Dying in the 1930s leaves me disadvantaged, though. When I was on that last alternate, the one adjacent to Rick’s only far in the future, I saw things I never would have dreamed of. And, this is all pretty amazing, too.”
At last enough dirt had moved that Rick and Nancy were able to fly out of the hole.
Rick flew up to clean air and coughed a while, clearing dust out of his lungs.
Nancy looked furious. She flew over to the men and landed in front of the Walker.
She said, “We got five.”
Jason nodded and said, “That was good work. We saw it from Headquarters. Booker and I got some more before the last of them fled.”
“This was coordinated, Jason. They were expecting us. They didn’t attack right away, but when they figured out we were here, they jumped us. Of course, that was after our guard was down.”
Rick joined them, looking dirty but at least able to breathe.
He shuddered and said, “Buried alive. They sure know how to creep someone out.”
Jason said, “They put Niko and Toya in orbit.”
Nancy’s eyes grew wide.
She said, “Without a spacesuit? Wait . . . duh. Of course without a spacesuit. Omigosh. Are they okay?”
“Cait grabbed them immediately. But yeah, it was bad. They’re still sleeping it off. At least they were on a world where we have a sensor presence. If you two had been placed in orbit around this alternate . . .”
“It would have been a lot worse than being buried,” Rick said, finishing the thought. “It probably would have been a lot longer before you found us, too.”
“Okay, so much for our little vacation,” Nancy said. “I’m ready to go home.”
With that, a blue-green slit opened to the Wildflower Room. All four walked through.
-+-
The four walked through the rowan door and Cait looked up from her terminal.
Jason said, “Where’s the next time Tiff is going to appear, Cait?”
She said, “We have a variety from which to choose. However, I suggest we focus on the same alternate. That way if failure occurs once more, we will have corrupted fewer timelines.”
Booker said, “Corrupted? What’s she talking about?”
Cait turned and addressed him.
“When the fae caused the Texan bombers to drop their payloads over Le Grand Menhir Brisé, a major historic site was bombed instead of the German industrial city of Frankfurt. That was a corruption since it was not supposed to happen.”
“Eh,” Jason said, waving her off. “That timeline has deviated so much from the original, it’s not even funny. I mean, Texas is a world power over there instead of just one of the United States.”
Cait said, “Be that is it may, the number of people without memory wip
es combined with the amount of interference we have already caused there leads me to suggest your next attempt occur in the same location.”
“Okay. I guess we’ll learn more, like . . . will they be able to bring even more next time? Were the ten that attacked Rick and Nancy part of the first group, or were they waiting on that uncharted alternate for an ambush?”
Nancy said, “Yeah. How many other uncharted alternates have large groups of fae hanging around like that?”
“Guys . . .”
Everyone turned to Rick.
He frowned and said, “How are we going to take on that many fae? Let’s face it, we got whupped, and good. Yeah it came at a heavy cost to them, but the next time they’re going to be even more ready for us. They’ll be expecting us, too.”
Silence reigned for a moment.
The Walker said, “Rick’s right. We need to bring everything we got next time. I’ll see about using our constructs. Martin can fight.”
“Tiff’s golem boy?” Nancy said, “That’s going to tick her off if Martin gets destroyed, Jason. And you know those things are going to take it, out of spite if nothing else.”
“She’ll get over it. She can always make another one. I’ve got Buster down in the gym. We’ll take him with us, too.”
Nancy said, “He’s next to useless.”
“He’s good for a distraction, at least. Didn’t he help you when those two broke in here a while back?”
Nancy shrugged, but offered no additional arguments.
Jason said, “Alright. Who else can we bring?”
They looked at one another.
Rick said, “You know, we do have some assets over there, in that alternate. Some people from their version of World War Two. We could ask some of them for help . . .”
Jason nodded.
He said, “Let’s do it.”
10
The door to the street opened in a Savile Row shop, and a splatter of raindrops followed a man inside.
He stopped and looked around with an air of confidence, not the lost look of a tourist or neophyte.
The receptionist recognized this look. It expressed money, yes, but it was also one born of deeper self-awareness. Many Texans looked like this, especially after the war. Even those with little money wore confidence like a coat.