Call of Destiny

by P. R. Adams

  The pseudo nodded and drifted toward the hacker.

  Riyun stepped away from the rest, eventually angling over to Javika, who was running a thumb along the edge of her blade. “You okay?”

  “That was not normal glass.” Her eyes flashed up to his for a moment.

  She was frightened. It was something he’d never seen in her before.

  He gently took the assassin’s sword from her and inspected it. “Nothing’s normal right now, but it looks like you came close to hacking through.”

  “Close is for others. A Biwali warrior must never fail.”

  “I’m not your mother.” He handed the weapon back. “I understand that we all fail.”

  Javika winced. She sheathed the blade and turned her attention to the sky, cupping a hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s radiance. “It is beautiful.”

  “Clean air, bright sky, sort of peaceful, no pollution.” He shrugged. “If you like that sort of thing.”

  A smile touched her lips for just a second. “I do.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about the others. Tawod looks like he’s in shock, and Naru isn’t handling it much better.”

  “And Symbra?” The Biwali warrior craned her neck to look past Lonar and Hirvok. “Is her calm true, or is she also in shock and hiding behind that calm?”

  “We’re all in shock. If she can make it look like she’s keeping herself together, she’s one step ahead of the rest of us.” Riyun patted Javika’s back. “I’m counting on you.”

  A steely resolve settled over her face as her jaw took on a familiar stiffness. “You always can.”

  He made his way over to where Lonar had dropped most of the gear, digging out the assault carbine that seemed so necessary in such a crazy and unpredictable moment. The weapon was strength and resilience. It was logic and consistency. Flipping off the safety and squeezing the trigger would send bullets out. Things would be destroyed.

  It was a grim touchstone, but it was all he had.

  “Listen up!” Riyun hooked the weapon to a strap, then slung it over his shoulder. “Wherever we are, it doesn’t look like there’s an ammunition depot anywhere nearby.”

  Lonar chuckled. “Nothing’s nearby.”

  “Maybe. We don’t know that yet. So check your weapons, conserve your ammo, and collect your casings. We may need to reload our bullets.”

  Tawod had been caught up in his own thoughts, head bowed, but he whipped around suddenly. “Conserve our ammo? What would we even shoot at? We’re in some sort of primordial jungle. We don’t have a signal from the network. There’s nothing here.”

  Quil lowered himself to a knee several feet out from the rest, a little ways off from where Riyun had been. “I am not so sure about that.”

  “Not so sure about what?” The demolitions expert swept a hand in a semicircle. “Look at those trees. Look at that sky. You think there’s anyone for miles?”

  “Someone has been here. There are tracks.”

  Tracks? Riyun hustled over to where the pseudo was studying the ground. There were indentations in the soft earth, and blades of the dark grass were torn and twisted. The impressions weren’t like the boots his team wore.

  And there was blood. Old. Seeped into the ground.

  “Those simulacra.” Riyun searched the ground nearby. “Everything that was in that room…”

  “Was here as well.” The pseudo stood and brushed his gloves against each other. “I am not sure whether this supports the notion of time travel or something else.”

  “Some sort of gateway? Like the Golgar Portals?”

  “We still have no true understanding of those.”

  “But Beraga hired all the big brains.” Riyun nodded toward Naru. “Right? You said—”

  The young woman blinked. “All the—?” She stared at the ground for a second. “I guess.”

  “What if he found someone who figured the Portals out? What if he’s transporting people to all-new worlds?”

  Quil shook his head. “The transportation methodology is the least puzzle of the Golgar Portals. We know they open wormholes or something equivalent. It is the manipulation—the selection of destination—that continues to befuddle. That is why we must take the routes that we do when we do. It seems unlikely anyone would invest in duplicating something so unpredictable. And to do so, to travel directly to a world? It is an unprecedented use of the technology.”

  Riyun grunted. “Sounds like you have an idea now.”

  “I have been eliminating possibilities based on the level of improbability.”

  “All right. Not wormholes. Not time travel. What’s that leave?”

  “Hey!” Lonar pointed skyward. “Something’s coming.”

  Dark shapes—six of them—broke through the clouds above. They seemed almost triangular, like some of the smaller attack craft Riyun had encountered early in his career. Those had been automated, piloted remotely mostly. That had required a reliable network. If these were the same sort of aircraft…

  The shapes circled wide overhead. They seemed to be spiraling down.

  Quil cupped a hand over his eyes. “I was afraid of this.”

  Riyun squinted, trying to make out details of the aircraft. One of them seemed to…flap its wings? “Your theory?”

  “It would seem less of a theory now.”

  “What do those sharp eyes of yours see, Quil? Assault drones?”

  “That would be much less distressing.” The pseudo pulled his own assault carbine off his shoulder. “We will need to reconsider the idea of conserving our ammunition. For the moment.”

  “Those don’t look like any assault drones I’ve ever seen.”

  “Those are not assault drones, Lieutenant.”

  “Then what—?” But Riyun could see now what the pseudo must have understood earlier: These weren’t machines but animals. They were animals of some freakish nature, with reptilian characteristics. Winged, with pointed beaks and wicked-looking talons. “What in the—?”

  “Monsters.” Quil flicked his safety off. “Fantastical monsters.”

  “Fant—?”

  “Wholesale Fantasy, Lieutenant. Remember what Beraga said? This is Wholesale Fantasy. This is the game.”

  What kind of game had such fantastical monsters in it?

  Riyun was about to find out.

  15

  The winged lizards spiraled over Riyun’s squad, filling the sky with strange croaks and grunts. What had seconds before seemed fresh and peaceful air was now full of threat as the large beasts drew closer. The thick grass of the clearing left the squad vulnerable, but they were too far from the woods to run.

  Riyun tugged his helmet free from its magnetic belt brace. Fantastical monsters. The game. Hirvok was right: They should have walked away. Too late now. “Spread out, people! Don’t take any chances.”

  The reptilian things dove, plunging like rocks straight at them. Conserving ammunition was out of the question. At least fifteen feet head to tail, and maybe twice that in wingspan, the winged beasts were huge. It was unlikely they could lift a full-grown man in gear, but diving at the speed they were, the beaks had a good chance of penetrating armor, maybe even Riyun’s Juggernaut suit.

  Quil seemed frozen in place, so Riyun bolted away.

  Rather, he tried to, but the ground proved trickier than expected. The tip of his boot caught in something buried in the deep grass. With a surprised grunt, he tumbled to the ground a few feet away from where he’d started, losing his helmet in the fall.

  Screeching drew his head around: One of the things was coming right at him.

  Riyun rolled away from where he’d hit. It wasn’t fast, but it was quicker than getting back up.

  And it saved his life.

  The reptilian monstrosity slammed into the ground, beak first. Its talons gouged holes in the moist dirt, tearing away grass and earth instead of Riyun’s entrails.

  He reached for his carbine, ready to blow the thing’s head off.

  But t
he weapon was gone, the strap clip dangling emptily. All he had was his knife; he drew it.

  The thing’s scream was deafening, its breath foul.

  It whipped its head toward him and opened wide its pointy snout. Dirt and grass spilled from the dark maw as it made a clumsy leap toward him.

  He raised the long knife for defense.

  The monster’s neck stretched, and the beak snapped over the blade.

  Riyun was sure the metal would fail. The beast was something beyond human reckoning. It was twisting the weapon around as if he weren’t even holding it. He wrapped his second hand over the hilt and held on for dear life.

  Gunfire exploded. People screamed. The animals let out their horrifying bellows.

  And then Riyun was airborne, being dragged up by the blade as the creature tried to tear it free with powerful shakes of its head. The thing was unimaginably strong, maybe a match for Lonar. Riyun knew that to release his grip on the knife was to commit suicide. His joints ached from the jerking, and his muscles seemed ready to tear apart.

  He held on and spat at the horror. “You have to do better than that, you red-eyed—”

  The thing flicked its head harder than ever before, but this time it released its hold on the blade.

  Once again, Riyun was airborne, until he crashed into the ground face-first. He got a mouthful of dirt. Some went into his eyes. He was dazed. Blinded. Disoriented.

  And the thing was crashing toward him. Screeching.

  Riyun hated the damned screeching. There was nothing to do but hold up the knife. He coughed up dirt. “Here, boy!”

  The stupid monster fell for it, snatching the blade up again and running with it. More shaking shuddered the length of Riyun’s arms. One of his hands came free, then his other started to slip.

  “Oh.” He flailed around with his free hand and shook the dirt from his face. Tears washed away some of the grit that had gotten into his eyes. The fuzziness from impacting the ground slowly cleared—

  —just in time for him to see the thing release its grip on the blade and attempt to take a bite out of his leg.

  The armor held, but it dug into his thigh, squeezing like a power vice.

  With a clear grip on its prey, the thing seemed to become even more aggressive. It slammed Riyun against the ground, knocking the wind from him. It hopped and twisted around, settling on his chest with both talons. They scraped along the length of his armor, until catching in his armpits.

  That’s when the scaly horror began trying to tear him limb from limb.

  Its scaly belly…exposed…soft…

  If only he could get his hand around—

  Armor could only do so much. It was meant to deal with ballistic impact. The rending motion—

  Riyun bit back a scream. If he was going to be torn to pieces, he wasn’t going to cause someone else to be distracted from their problems.

  At least that’s what he told himself. Until something popped in his shoulder.

  Then he screamed.

  The chatter of an automatic burst drowned out the sound of his voice.

  Hot, wet fluids spattered onto his face. The rending talons released their grip, and the creature spun away. It shook its head, flicking more blood onto Riyun as he pushed himself up with his good arm. There was fire in his left shoulder.

  Symbra was off to his right, weapon raised. “You okay?”

  The lieutenant jabbed his knife at the hissing creature. “Finish it!”

  “I thought we wanted to conserve—?”

  “Finish! It!”

  The Onath mercenary shuffled a little closer, aimed at the wounded monster’s gory breast, and squeezed off a short burst.

  It rocked back, staggered around on shaky legs, then vomited up blood as it wheezed a final screech.

  Riyun got to his knees, then to his feet, rushing the thing as its head flailed around. He hacked down on its throat, putting everything he had into the swing, shoulder be damned. The blade bit deep, burying in the neck bone. He twisted and smiled at the satisfying crack.

  The thing shuddered, then went limp.

  He scanned the battlefield. “The others—?”

  Symbra shrugged. “Everyone else had things under control. I was worried about you.”

  Pain shot through him like a spear of ice, and he dropped to his knees. “I had it under control.”

  “Are you…?”

  “About to pass out? I think so.”

  She twisted around. “Ice! Lightning’s wounded!”

  Lightning. Riyun almost laughed at that. He’d been useless—seconds from death. These people needed him, and he was fumbling around like a rookie.

  Strong hands wrapped around his good shoulder; Quil gently touched the bad one. “I need to test the range—”

  “It’s dislocated.”

  “I need to determine how bad.”

  “Bad enough, I’m ready to cry like a baby.”

  “Dislocations can be extremely painful. Give me just a moment.”

  Riyun clenched his teeth. The pseudo had painkillers in his backpack, but pain from a dislocation was temporary. It would be selfish to ask for something to numb the joint when there was a chance they might never see civilized medicine again.

  Time travel? A wormhole? It was incomprehensible!

  A fresh wave of pain hit, like a sledgehammer to the gut. Riyun fought back nausea. “That’s it. That’s where it hurts.”

  Instead of stopping, Quil suddenly shifted the arm—a pull and a push.

  The pain spiked, then went away.

  “Oh.” Riyun shivered. “Give me a second.”

  There was a pat on his back, then the pseudo trudged away, leaving only Symbra. She knelt at Riyun’s side. “Can I do anything for you?”

  “You know how to numb someone from head to toe?” His voice was strange from his throat constricting.

  “I could hit you over the head with my gun.” She sounded sincere.

  He pushed up with his good arm. “Next time.”

  Contrary to what the Onath mercenary had said, there were other wounded. There were blood smears on Hirvok’s armor—the red blood of humans, not the darker blood of the lizards. Tawod also sported scrapes on his face and limped, favoring his left leg. Others had dark splashes of blood and dirt stains. No one had escaped the battle unscathed except Symbra and Naru. Riyun made a mental note to follow up on that.

  “Is everyone okay?” He did his best to hide the feeling of weakness washing over him. The nods of the others told him what he needed know: They were going to be okay. “If you haven’t figured this out already, newsflash: This isn’t VR.”

  Lonar rolled his shoulders. “If it isn’t VR, where are we?”

  Riyun glanced skyward. The sun was nearly directly overhead. Whatever direction it moved in—assuming it moved—he would call that west. At least until he could make an analog compass. A quick search around gave him a sense of a downhill slope in the direction opposite the glass room they’d come from.

  “I don’t know what this place is, but it seems like a real world.” Riyun hoped no one would challenge that idea. “There’s breathable atmosphere, trees, a sun. We can work with this. Looks like the land slopes downhill that way. We follow that, there’s a good chance we find water.”

  Hirvok pointed toward the last place the glass room had been. “No. We have to stay here.”

  “And do what? Wait for that room to show up again?”

  “Yes. And when it does, we blow the shit out of anyone in it.”

  “And if it doesn’t show up? If you wait here and it doesn’t show—what?”

  The sergeant scowled. “It’ll come back.”

  Quil nodded. “It would seem likely that they would open the way again at some point.”

  “There. The pseudo agrees.”

  “I agree they will likely come back. I do not, however, agree that we should stay here. If they open the gateway again, it will almost certainly be to confirm our deaths. Major Kozmut must ha
ve a sizable security team, and the ones we saw were sufficiently armed to present problems. I have no doubt they will be supplemented. We do not want to be here when they come.”

  Realization hit the others. What Hirvok was proposing was the easy, comfortable route. And it was the most dangerous.

  Riyun shambled over to the reptilian thing that had nearly killed him. “Quil, give this thing a look.”

  The pseudo strode over, back to the others. “A look for what?”

  “Meat. Organs. Anything we can use. Harvest it.” The lieutenant squatted and lowered his voice. “Before these things attacked, you said that you had an idea about where we are.”

  “I did.”

  “Well? Where are we? Not time travel, right?”

  “No.”

  “Not a wormhole.”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  “The thing that makes the most sense is a pocket dimension.”

  “A what?”

  “A pocket dimension. An entirely separate reality.”

  “How—?”

  “I believe you were right when you said that Beraga had hired people capable of solving at least some part of the Golgar Portals conundrum, but not to open a wormhole. Instead, why not open an entirely new dimension? There’s no need to search for new worlds to be inhabited and exploited when you can create them yourself. You control the parameters that way. Your investment is guaranteed to have returns.”

  A pocket dimension. Riyun had never heard of the concept. Someone would have to explain it to him.

  Later. When they were safe.

  If they could ever be safe in a place like this.

  16

  With each step, the idea that they were moving through a primordial forest became easier for Riyun to believe. It was in the strange loam that felt more like mush and stank like rotten fish when stepped upon. It was in the impossibly alien hoots and shrieks of the animals and bugs, which—when they showed themselves—were even more strange than they sounded. It was in the trees themselves, which seemed far too thick and brutish to be real.