Merciful Sith. He hadn’t meant to use the name. It had just slipped out. But hell, did it even matter anymore?
“I thought he was just a kooky old homeless guy too,” Nate admitted. “But he’s the one who pulled me into this.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Tessa muttered in the corner. It was the first time she’d seemed outwardly surprised by any of this.
“What do you mean, he pulled you into this?” Kyle asked.
“Like, the wizard, Merlin?” Zach clarified again.
“What,” Kyle continued, “are you gonna tell us he made you pull a sword from a stone or something?”
Nate looked helplessly around the room, at a complete loss. He was saved the trouble of figuring out what to say when the mild light from the vent window brightened, and the unmistakable sound of something massive thrumming by overhead reminded them all that they were surrounded by hostile space ogres.
“Okay,” Kyle said quietly, shooting a conceding glance skyward once the ship had passed by and the room had dimmed. “Okay. Well, troglodan invasion, check. King Arthur the chain-breaking Terminator, also check. Call me Sir Galahad and fuck me sideways, I guess.”
“But…” Zach said, still frowning like he hadn’t heard a word of any of it. “A wizard?”
“Dude, you’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?” Kyle asked. “Did you miss the giant alien spaceships floating around out there?”
“Yeah, no, but you talk about aliens like every day. That part kinda seemed like, I dunno, a given.”
“Hmm,” Kyle said, making a fair point face. “Out-nerded, I guess.” He frowned back at Nate. “Wait. So you did pull a sword from a stone?”
“It’s… complicated.” Nate looked helplessly around the room, and was surprised to find a complete lack of gaping bat shit insane stares directed his way. One little alien abduction, he supposed, and it all started sounding a lot less crazy—to everyone but Tessa Kalders, at least.
“Okay,” the secret lieutenant said, straightening and brushing herself off like that was the last straw, and now it was time to let the adults talk.
Something shook the air before she could say another word—a low, rushing whoomph that spiked to a sound like crashing mountains before Nate’s brain could even register it as sound. The room trembled on the back of the explosion, break room chairs quivering on the linoleum floor like it was an earthquake.
Everyone in the room braced themselves, gaping stupidly at one another until the vibrations died down.
“What in the holy fuck was that?” asked one of their tag-alongs.
“I’m no doctor of ballistics,” Kyle finally said, “but that sure sounded a lot like a giant troglodan ship crashing to Earth.”
“I think he’s right,” Kelsey whispered.
“Yeah,” Tessa said, moving to the break room door. “I think Nate and I need to have that chat now.”
Somehow, that news was still startling to his friends in the face of everything else.
“Sorry, who are you again?” Kyle asked, eyeing her dubiously.
“Tessa Kalders,” she said, swinging the door open in a clear invitation for them all to get out. When no one moved, she quirked an eyebrow his way.
“Can you give us a minute?” Nate asked, in response to his friends’ questioning looks.
“Sure,” Kyle said, frowning around the room as everyone slowly started funneling toward the door. “Cause what could possibly be more suspicious than needing privacy after you’ve already admitted you’re King Arthur the freaking chain breaking, alien slaying—Hey!”
Marty took him by the arm, pulling him toward the door.
“We’ll start gathering supplies,” Marty said, looking back to meet Nate’s eyes with a serious look. “But just to be clear, I’m not bailing to let you go on some suicide mission alone.” He looked down at the huge pistol he was still carrying, wanting to say more, then thought better of it and pulled a muttering Kyle out of the room.
Nate turned to Gwen, who was hovering uncertainly by his side. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said weakly, as if that somehow explained anything.
She searched his face, looking for a second like she wanted nothing more than to wrap him in a hug and tell him it was going to be okay. For that second, he wished more than anything that she would. Then the second passed, and she was gone.
“Mr. Arturi,” Tessa said slowly, once the door was closed. She wrinkled her nose, like the name didn’t sound quite right. “Nate,” she tried instead.
“Lieutenant,” Nate replied, figuring this all might turn out better if he just played it straight from here. “I know who you are.”
She watched him, not reacting.
“What I don’t know is why the hell you’ve all been tailing me around when your people won’t even take my intel. I’ve been trying to tell you guys about the troglodans for weeks. I called the goddamn NSA. I spoke with… with the big guy and the driver.”
“And they reported every word you said.”
“So then where the hell’s the cavalry?” he asked, jerking a finger skyward, toward the troglodan ships above. “It’s been hours. Where’s the big counterattack? Where are your people?”
“Yeah…” She blew the word out slowly, brow deeply furrowed, clearly not thrilled about any of this. “I’m kind of starting to think that big counterattack’s not coming. Which almost definitely means the shit hit the jets elsewhere.” She focused back on Nate. “Any idea how big this invading force might be? Or where they’ll be headed to find this Beacon thing?”
“So you’re saying you do wanna know now?” Nate asked, partly because he had no freaking idea how sizeable the troglodan invasion was, and mostly because he was annoyed that after weeks of haunting his every step, they were the ones who got to decide to change their tune.
If they would’ve just listened to him weeks ago…
It would have changed nothing, said the Excalibur.
“Nate, the NSA gets calls like yours every single day. You know how many of them have ever panned out?”
Your people cannot win this fight, Nathaniel. You have seen it.
“Luckily,” Tessa continued when he said nothing, “all the fucking nut-jobs get bumped right up the laughing stock and flagged to us and the rest of our ET comrades. It’s up to us to decide if any of them actually get looked into at all. Most don’t. And a full on tail?” She shook her head. “You were breathing rarefied air even before it turned out you weren’t full of shit.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Not really,” she said with a shrug, chains jangling as she twisted around to reach for something. The answer drew him up short. As did the walkie talkie she produced from her back pocket.
“Where’d you get that?” was all he could think to ask.
She smiled a little, like it was every bit as stupid a question as it sounded, and brandished the walkie talkie. “Stockroom. It’s gonna be a minor miracle if it does us any good right now, but…” She focused back on him. “Can you tell me where that Beacon is? Or anything else I should bounce up the chain if I manage to make contact?”
The way she was watching him, walkie talkie at the ready, suddenly willing to listen, like they’d been in it together, all along… For a second, Nate couldn’t help but feel a bit paranoid, like maybe they really had known all along, and this had all been some kind of intricate ploy to get him to betray the Beacon’s location.
The joke would most certainly be on them, were that the case.
Nate couldn’t help it. He huffed in bitter amusement as he remembered that Ex was right, and that he had no goddamn idea how to find the thing anyway. He barely even understood where Ex was hanging around, aside from vaguely on his person. And as for where those repulsor gauntlets had come from…
He focused back on his benevolent interrogator, and found her watching him closely. It was only then he realized he’d just chuckled out loud at the voice in his head.
&
nbsp; “New York,” he said, thinking of the devastation the Merlin had shown him. “They’re gonna hit New York, if they haven’t already.”
She waited for more, looking to be scrubbing his words with her intrinsic bullshit detectors extra thoroughly now.
“I think… I think maybe that’s where I should go.”
The words were as much of a surprise to him as they were to her.
“No offense, Nate, but you don’t really strike me as the run toward the fire type.”
“I’m not,” Nate admitted. “But the Beacon is that way…”
He wasn’t really sure why he said it. It couldn’t have been more than a gut feeling—or, more likely, the simple fact that he was desperate, and that New York was the closest thing to a lead he had. Whatever it was, he tried to keep the confidence rolling.
“… And no offense, but you’re not gonna find it without me, and I’m not sure we’re gonna survive this invasion unless I get that thing off-world somehow. I just need to get closer before I can, uh…”
Sense it, Ex said, feeling uncharacteristically pleased, like he actually thought Nate might be on to something here.
“Sense it?” Tessa suggested.
“Exactly,” Nate agreed, far from convinced that the joke wasn’t on all three of them.
Tessa was equally skeptical. “Like an Arthurian dowsing rod?”
He started to open his mouth, then shrugged instead, not sure what else to say. So much for that confidence thing.
“Right,” she muttered, starting to fiddle with the small dials on the walkie talkie. “Forget I asked. And what about this…” She sighed and shook her head. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this. What about this Merlin character? Where is he? And the weapon he gave you. The sword. Is that… relevant?”
Nate hesitated, unsure how much he should reveal, and pretty sure by her tone that she’d already drawn the line at space invaders anyway. “Look, I know this all sounds insane…”
She glanced up from the walkie talkie, eyebrows bent in a silent exclamation of, You don’t say?!
“… But I didn’t ask for any of this. I’m just trying to help. Just like you. And there’s only two things I need to do that.”
“Oh yeah?” She lowered the walkie talkie and gave him her full attention, a soft grin tugging at her mouth. “Go on, then. What does Nate Arturi need to save the world?”
“I need a ride to get me closer to the Beacon,” he said, glancing warily toward the break room door. “And I need one to get my friends the hell out of here.”
30
Hide and Seek
In the dark hallway outside the break room, it felt like the end of the world.
Then again, it had pretty much felt like that inside the break room too, Nate supposed. It just felt a lot more real as he pulled the door shut behind him, leaving Tessa to futz with her commandeered walkie talkie.
He almost hoped she didn’t manage to make contact.
Gathering supplies. Making a run for the countryside with Gwen and Marty and the rest of his friends. That, Nate could wrap his head around. Flying off to New York on this… this intuition of his, though…
Is the only sensible choice left to you.
Sensible. That felt like an interesting choice of words, Nate thought, as he stepped into the dark hallway, straining his ears for the telltale jangle of chains—and promptly bumped straight into the incoming foot traffic he’d been too self-absorbed to notice.
“Ah, sorry,” he whispered, reaching out to stabilize and finding a handful of firm chesticle.
“Arturi?”
Todd’s voice. And that was Emily with him. He could see them there in the dark, he realized, but in a way that felt almost subconscious—like his eyes had adjusted but his brain wasn’t yet certain how to interpret the input they were passing up the chain.
Nate hesitated, feeling like he should say something but finding his brain equally unfit for that task.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, surprised to realize he meant it, even if he didn’t know why. “Really. For everything.”
What the hell was he saying?
Him? Sorry to Todd Mackleroy? For everything? Clearly, he knew not what he said. Clearly, he’d finally lost it. Only… Only he could feel Todd nodding timidly in the darkness. Nodding in agreement. Maybe even in shame. Probably, it was all in Nate’s head, but in that moment, he could’ve sworn Todd Mackleroy was sorry too—more sorry than he could find the words to say.
“Stick close to the others when it’s time?” Nate said.
Todd nodded again in the darkness, more certain this time. “Come on,” he said to Emily, turning toward the front of the store. “We’re on can opener duty,” he added to Nate.
“Good,” was all Nate could think to say as they squeezed past.
Nothing like the end of the world to bring people together.
“Thank you,” Emily whispered unexpectedly in the darkness, pausing as she passed. “Thank you for getting us out of there, Nate.”
Nate nodded dumbly in the dark, and listened to them go. He watched the line of eerie blue light split the darkness ahead, then swallow the two of them whole as they pushed through the swinging doors into the front of the store, moving as quietly as their chains would allow, leaving Nate alone in the darkness with the distinctly uncomfortable thought that maybe Todd Mackleroy had never really been the enemy at all.
“Merciful Sith,” Nate whispered to himself.
It really was the end of the world.
When Nate found Zach a few doors down the dark hallway, quietly sifting through the contents of some kind of utility closet with a flashlight, he felt a reflexive urge to duck for the cover and hurry on by. He paused in the doorway instead, wanting to speak, but too thoroughly gripped by the sudden chilly certainty that everything had changed, and that his friends would never look at him the same way again.
He needed to get moving.
But then Zach turned, noticing him, and sure enough, there was an unmistakable glint of wariness in his friend’s eyes.
Everything had changed.
“Looking for something?” Nate managed.
Zach’s posture softened a sliver. “Hesitant as I am to ruin Kyle’s chance to watch Emily rocking the whole alien abduction kink look, I figured I might as well try to find us a pair of bolt cutters before we all go scurrying for the woods.” He considered Nate, a cautious grin spreading across his lips. “Should I address you as your majesty now, or what?”
The tension flowed from Nate’s shoulders with a relieved sigh. “Maybe just Shitty Squadmate Number One.”
“Ah, I don’t know about that, man. You didn’t see the randos we’ve been pulling to fill your spot these past few weeks. I don’t think any of them would’ve thrown down with a cave troll to save us.”
“If they had, though,” came Marty’s voice behind Nate, startling both of them, “we’d probably be inclined to understand why they might’ve been hesitant to tell us they could do those things.”
“Even if we wish they would’ve realized we’ve pretty much been nerd prepping all our lives to handle the mind blowing implications of said inhuman feats,” Zach added, as Nate glanced around to see Marty standing there with another flashlight.
Nate looked back and forth between his friends, not knowing what to say, appalled to find the hint of tears pressing at his eyes.
Thankfully, Marty broke the silence before he could fall apart.
“You need this back, by the way?” his friend asked, holding out the dark earpiece that had mysteriously appeared in Nate’s pocket at Ex’s behest back on the ship.
It is a piece of me. It would be unwise to leave it in careless hands.
“Keep it for now,” Nate said, sure that if there were any careless hands in the immediate vicinity, they didn’t belong to Marty. “Just in case,” he added at Marty’s questioning look.
“All right, then,” Marty said, carefully tucking the device away in a pocket.
“You, uh, sort things out with Tessa?”
“Yeah, she’s… She’s trying to scramble us a ride out of here.”
“Scramble?” Zach asked. “What is she, like—”
“Air Force,” Nate said. “Another long story. One I don’t really know yet, either. But I’m pretty sure she’s on our side.”
“I’d hope so,” Zach said, frowning thoughtfully into space. “Freaking aliens, man.” He returned from his musings to focus back on Nate. “Say”—he raised his chained wrists—“any chance you could cut out the middle man, your majesty?”
By the time Marty forced him to stop yanking Zach’s chain, so to speak, Nate was even more tired and deflated than he had been upon crashing into McClanahan’s.
“You need to eat and rest a minute,” Marty insisted, pushing him gently toward the back stockroom. “Go find something. We’ll finish with the supplies.”
Nate was too tired to argue. Too tired, too overwhelmed, and frankly too disgusted with his inability to be useful in any kind of predictable fashion. Apparently, it took a lethal fall or a troglodan pointing a gun at Marty’s head to get his Knightly juices flowing.
Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy…
Nate limped on for the stockroom, ignoring the Excalibur’s idle jab, thinking instead of just how nice it would’ve felt right then to have a hot shower and nestle up beneath his comforter for a few hours—or months. That thought only reminded him of poor Copernicus, trapped in their house, riding out the trog invasion all alone. He hoped to Christ the corgi had refrained from barking at any passing trogs.
He paused just shy of the stockroom, gripped by the sudden crushing panic that he couldn’t leave them all behind. Couldn’t go through with this.
But what else was he supposed to do?
Ahead, the faint nightmare blue glow permeating the stockroom reminded him that he still might be hard pressed to part ways even if he tried. He edged closer, and saw that the light was trickling in through long warehouse windows lining the top of the walls on either side. That the light was only coming from one side seemed like a good sign that most of the trog fleet had already passed by, and that they might be free to get moving the other way soon—assuming Tessa actually made contact with her people.
The Eighth Excalibur Page 28