Wolf of the Tesseract

by Christopher D Schmitz

  Jackie fired her taser at Vivian. Vivian dodged the stinger projectiles with uncanny reflexes. She held her gun high in order to whirl around and dodge the stunning wire projectiles. Rob scooped up a nearby ceramic mug and chucked it at Vivian before she could bring her handgun to bear.

  The cup glanced off of the assailant’s forehead and knocked her to the ground with a loud crash. Rob tossed the large duffel to Jackie just in time to catch Claire before she shifted in her seat and nearly toppled to the floor. “Come with me! Quickly, before backup arrives!”

  Even if she didn’t understand what that meant, Jackie nodded and sprinted towards the side exit as Rob turned to follow. “This is heavy! What’s in here, gold?”

  Vivian scrambled to her feet, screaming at them. “Drop the girl!”

  He did not slow; Vivian fired three rounds which lodged squarely in Rob’s back.

  The force of the bullets’ impact knocked the breath out of Rob. The barista screamed and dropped to the floor where she fainted. Rob staggered and slowed to a stop, still cradling Claire’s unconscious form in his arms. With a pained groan his body bulged and grew as his wolf form burst outward in response to the threat. With a growl, Rob flexed his muscles; the three bullets slipped out of his flesh and clattered to the hardwood floors.

  Rob set Claire down gently and turned to snarl at his attacker. Grudgingly, the overmatched agent backed out of the café, keeping her gun leveled the entire time as she fumbled for her mobile.

  Whirling around, Rob scooped up Claire in one paw and snatched up a wild-eyed Jackie under his other massive arm. He sprinted away through the night as fast as his giant legs would bear them.

  . . .

  Still in his bestial form, Rob ducked below the rotating spotlight. He held Claire close to him while Jackie scanned the shipping manifests in the dim light. They’d swiped the data sheets only a few minutes earlier.

  “I can’t seem to make any sense of it at all,” Rob admitted.

  Jackie shushed him and concentrated on the lists. “I’ve seen these kinds of papers before. I did a short internship with some corporate sector types and we used this same format.” She tossed the clipboard aside and pointed across the tarmac. “That big cargo plane over there is the one we want: it’ll take us to the UK.”

  “Us?” Rob interjected.

  “I’m not letting you take my unconscious best friend half way around the world without me there to protect her!” She stared at the monstrous, toothy behemoth with no fear.

  Rob saw the stern look in her eyes and quickly relented. “It will not be easy,” he cautioned quietly, trying to bring the volume level back to where security patrols couldn’t hear them. His whispers in the low and guttural lupine voice sounded almost like growls.

  Jackie shouldered the duffel bag. “Lead the way.”

  They skulked across asphalt sections of the airport, keeping to the long shadows cast by the warehouse buildings. The sounds of the forklifts loading freight easily alerted them to any potential onlookers in their vicinity, allowing them to easily avoid them.

  Several tense minutes later they peeked around the edge of a cargo building where a freshly fueled plane had just finished receiving the last of its cargo through the rear ramp. Several members of the loading crew loitered nearby, standing just inside the well-lit building. The last of them parked his forklift and joined his peers; any one of them would probably spot the stowaways if they made a break for the plane. They didn’t appear highly alert, but neither did they appear to be leaving the area any time soon.

  “We need a diversion,” Rob whispered.

  Jackie had a large stone already in hand. “I’m on it.” She snuck through the shadows to the next hangar door several hundred feet down the side of the warehouse. It gave her an angle to see the far end of the facility that the cargo haulers were based out of. She wound up her pitch and chucked the stone, shattering a large bank of fluorescent lights and plunging the far side of the building into darkness.

  She jogged back and stuck her thumb in her chest, “Powder Puff League MVP.”

  They grinned as the workers left their well-lit vantage in order to investigate the sudden lighting failure. Moments later, the three stowaways tucked themselves safely inside the cargo bay and weaved their bodies into the security webbing.

  Only one hasty security walkthrough later, and the trio could breathe easy once again. The massive cargo doors closed with a flashing amber light and a shrill, warning klaxon. The plane climbed into the sky with its urgent deadline to keep; airborne, the noise of the rushing wind was deafening.

  “These planes were not meant for human travel,” Jackie almost had to yell the words into Rob’s ear.

  The aircraft’s steel skin only seemed to amplify the howling engines which kept the plane in the sky. It did nothing to prevent the cold air in that high altitude from sapping their heat.

  Rob unzipped the duffel bag and took out some warmer clothing options, water, and vacuum sealed food rations. He took care to keep many of the other survival items mostly out of sight: the rope, hatchets and knives, and especially the TRX718 pistol he still kept handy. He didn’t want to worry Jackie any more than she probably was, already.

  Jackie added whatever layers she could, but still shivered against the howling cold. She almost felt jealous of Claire who seemed impervious to the low temperatures in her unconscious state; Jackie readily accepted the high-calorie rations knowing that she’d easily burn them off by shivering, although the taste would be much improved if she’d had her way.

  Rob only watched her shiver next to her friend for a few minutes. The lycanthrope laid down next to her and pulled the three together. They huddled together against his furry body.

  Jackie felt his intense, radiant body heat and she shifted until she felt more comfortable; she knew they were safe in his arms. Jackie, too, drifted off to sleep amid the howling, droning engine noise and the frigid cold.

  Rob shuddered and woke, but not from the cold. A subtle shift in the plane’s trajectory startled him, woke him up. He shook the crystalline frost from the tips of his mottled, charcoal fur and looked down at his two female charges. They still snoozed peacefully despite the circumstances.

  The descent took its due course. Jackie and Claire eventually awoke, but little could be done except await touchdown. Conversation proved nearly impossible over the roaring noise box that confined them.

  Claire stared at them both, still a little wild-eyed, but she did not panic; Jackie’s presence was a big comfort to her. The other two assumed her relative calm was a good sign and that some of her memories must have returned. As soon as the plane bounced down on the foreign pavement and the engines began winding down, the group quickly began formulating an escape plan.

  “They’re going to park the plane either inside a giant warehouse, or alongside one. That’s where they will unload the cargo, refuel and check the plane, and then start the process all over again,” Jackie stated, drawing on her cursory knowledge of shipping operations.

  “I’m still confused,” Claire interjected. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ll fill you in when there’s time,” Jackie said. “Please, just trust me, for now. What’s your plan, Rob?”

  “When they open the door, I’ll show them this lycan form, and when they run away screaming we can escape.”

  Jackie scrunched up her face at his plan. “Wouldn’t stealth be better?”

  “Is that an option?”

  “I have a plan. Quickly, we’ve got to move to the front near the pilot’s section so we’ll have enough time to pull this off. What time is it?”

  “Almost five in the evening, I think, based on time zones and how long we traveled.”

  Jackie scanned the immense cargo bay and paused for thought. “I think this might work, if we get lucky. If we don’t we’ll consider your American Werewolf in London idea as a plan B.”

  . . .

  Alfie spun the wheel on his forklift and turned it
around quickly. He urged the machine forward even as the ramp lowered from the rear of the immense cargo plane; his ruddy hair flapped in the breeze as he accelerated.

  He sighed as he climbed the ramp next to the corrugated steel warehouse and checked his watch. “It’s gonna take forever to clear this lot,” he muttered to himself as he got to work. Dropping his forks, he picked up the first pallet of freight shipped in from the United States.

  Even though it was against company policy, he popped in a set of ear buds and cranked the music up. He had to do something to kill the monotony of his job and help the time pass.

  Several pallets deep, he couldn’t help reflecting on his life’s course. A twinge of guilt for wearing his headphones momentarily niggled at his introspective train of thought; he really needed to keep this job, and he was lucky to have it, especially so soon after his release from incarceration.

  Alfie debated pulling the headphones out; everyone else on the floor broke that same rule, though. He cussed at himself for his brooding as he dwelled on what a burden he’d become to his poor mum. He slowed the forklift and checked his iPod. A slow, melancholy song had somehow worked its way to the top; perhaps that had been what prompted the meditation. Alfie cursed whoever invented random-repeat, and skipped ahead to a hard rock offering so he could continue his work without his thoughts interfering.

  With the cargo bay cleared to about ninety percent, he slowed the loader to a stop and noted an area where several boxes lay scattered around the floor. Alfie got out and walked around the pallets nearby. They’d all remained properly chained down and none of the pallet’s wrapping plastic had been cut or burst.

  Exasperated, Alfie cussed loudly. The damaged, loose boxes meant he had to fill out some paperwork; the report process for things like this was unpleasant. It wasn’t uncommon, but he hadn’t factored it into his plans and his twisting stomach reminded him that his mum had packed him a bag lunch to celebrate his three-months of sobriety.

  He sat back in the machine in a huff and dropped the forks, slamming into the nearest pallet. Angrily biting his lip, he whirled around and sped out the rear of the plane, fully intending to ignore the problem until after supper break.

  As Alfie piloted the craft inside the massive building he heard the whistle blow, alerting him and his fellows of the mandatory break time. He dropped the pallet to the floor, not noticing how this load shifted and wobbled slightly more than usual—as if it were hollow on the inside: a mere shell of shrink-wrapped boxes.

  He killed the engine on the forklift and hopped out. Thinking could wait until after the lunch break, and maybe he could win a few quid playing cards in the break-room, today. The paperwork would wait, although it would inevitably increase, as would his employer’s scrutiny as soon as they discovered the cut packing plastic wrap on his last pallet—cut from the inside, as if something had escaped from within the improperly inspected load.

  . . .

  “And you don’t remember anything,” Rob overheard Jackie asking Claire as he exited the tiny pawn shop and currency exchange.

  “Very little,” Claire replied. “It’s more like I remember feelings, but anything else is blocked, like it’s foggy. Kinda like when you have a dream that felt so real, but when you try to remember it, the details start getting hazy, even when you’re sure that you knew them… and some of the memories I do remember aren’t even mine… it’s like they’re…” she trailed off.

  “Because they are not yours,” Rob noted. “Well, not exactly. They belong to you now because your Prime, Bithia, shared them with you. They were meant to give you clarity and knowledge, but the vyrm’s psychic toxin is disrupting them.”

  “Prime?” Jackie asked.

  “Her alternate self in the Prime realm: the ultimate reality. The essence of a person, who they are at their core, fills a Prime. All a persons’ base, prominent character aspects are shared across the realms.”

  “Realms? Like, it’s an alternate dimension or something?”

  Rob hesitated to state as such, having seen how people from Earth react to that news with disbelief. “Yes,” he said.

  Jackie shrugged, easily believing it. Rob shot her an inquisitive look and she stated, “I watch television. I’ve heard of string theory. It sounds like the logical conclusion theoretical physicists are leaning towards nowadays. Besides, I’ve already seen werewolves and a guy who wields fire like an X-man. How hard are multiple dimensions to swallow after that?”

  “X-man?” It was Rob’s turn for confusion.

  “Never mind. What’s next?”

  “Dear Lord, let it be coffee,” Claire said. Her companions smiled; little signs signaled her slow return to them.

  Rob pulled out the edge of a small tent through a flap in the duffel bag. “We wait until morning and then hop a tour bus to Wiltshire.”

  Claire looked at him skeptically. “What’s in Wiltshire?”

  “Our exit to another world.”

  . . .

  The trio slipped away from their tour group as they headed directly from their bus over to the Stonehenge Visitor Center. A burgeoning group of visitors began the next tour, hearing the guide recount the myriad of speculations regarding the ancient site’s origins.

  Tour groups from different agencies meandered here and there, each wearing colored lanyards identifying which group they belonged to. Rob had cashed in one of the solid gold coins from Ma Kechewaishke and gotten them an upgraded tour which provided access to the inner circle of stones, but that was not where they headed at the moment.

  Claire grinned at Rob as he walked through the crowds. He blended in perfectly with the other American tourists, albeit unintentionally. The only good condition men’s clothing they had remaining after his recent transformations were a crisp set of cargo pants and a collared polo shirt he’d tossed into the bag from the sporting goods store. He looked like a suburban insurance salesman on holiday.

  “Follow me.” Rob brought them to the Heelstone on the northeast side of the ruins. Traffic milled about, but interest in the Heelstone remained far less than that of the standing stone circles. Most people skirted the large rock only in an effort to get elsewhere, but some read the informational pieces describing the stone’s folklore and independent history which blamed its presence on everything from the devil to worship of the Norse Goddess Freyja.

  The relative disinterest provided Rob with all the cover he needed. He walked around to the north side of the stone where he wouldn’t be noticed; only a chain-link fence and a paved avenue lay beyond the southwest face. Rob took a hunting knife from his bag and cut his hand, letting a trickle of blood flow out.

  Peeking around the corner of the stone, the girls gave him a worried look as he smeared a bloody handprint on the giant rock. The porous sarsen stone drank in the offering. Rob explained, “There’s power in blood. It’s a necessary reagent to many of the ancient mechanics of the Tesseract. You might say that it’s what kick-starts the ancient engines.”

  He shouldered the bag and took Claire by the hand. They weaved their way through the crowds as they headed back towards the standing stones.

  Pausing near one of the upright stone pillars, Rob retrieved a folded piece of paper they’d printed at the internet café the previous evening; he stashed the folding knife out of sight. He stared at the paper and turned slightly in place while he consulted the printed star chart in an effort to orient himself properly.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jackie.

  “I need to get a fix on exactly where we are,” he replied. “Well, not so much where we are, but how the portals are aligned. It’s like a set of shifting tubes and tunnels; they all lead to the right places, but the entrances keep moving…”

  “Because of the Earth’s rotation?”

  “Exactly. But not just that, also because of the travel around the sun.” He paused for a moment and then pointed at another pillar around the circle a ways. “That’s the one we need to activate.”

  “It’
s like a key to the door, then?” Claire wondered.

  “Yes,” Rob replied with a smile as a swelling tour group grew closer. “And all doors lead to their fixed destination, or to the Prime, depending on how it is opened… except for during those certain astral phases.” Rob glanced over his shoulder.

  Suddenly, he looked very worried. He put his hands around Claire’s face and kissed her deeply. He leaned into it and they fell back slightly, resting against the pillar. Claire didn’t resist; she melted into the embrace. All of the emotive memories from her Prime-self coursed through her and grew more intense. Her heartbeat pounded like a drum in her ears as his soft lips pressed against hers. She suddenly realized that Bithia and Rob, Zabe, had been in love! Their passion for each other washed intensely over her—exhilarating and confusing her heart all at once.

  Stunned to silence, Jackie stood there for a long, awkward moment, and then averted her eyes. Suddenly a third wheel, she kicked a rock slightly and followed it away from the duo. She nudged it ever forward over the next couple seconds, hoping one of the two face-suckers would come up for air.

  Rob broke the embrace and immediately turned his head towards the tourists that had passed by on their way around the circle. Jackie turned to look at what had Rob’s attention, but Claire still leaned, weak-kneed, against the rock. Her eyes remained closed for that moment. Rob touched her face and she looked at him, starry eyed.

  “I apologize,” Rob said and pointed to a man in a security uniform. The guard carried some kind of hand-held scanner which he stared into with a furrowed brow. “That’s Prime technology. The vyrm must know we’re here, but the tech is only accurate to within a few hundred feet—they are tracking the poison they injected you with in the ether. People tend not to stare too long or too intently at gestures of romance.”

  Claire probed, “So you saved my life with a kiss? Is that all it was?” She tried to sort out her sudden feelings.