Other than the aforementioned shooters, there were a few other groups, including a bunch of folks doing PT and pumping iron. It actually looked like a prison yard with all the outdoor weight benches. A giant tent served as the kitchen. A couple of the shipping containers were being used as classrooms. Men were moving supplies by pickup and four-wheeler. There had to be a few hundred people living here already.
“Impressive, huh? Julie’s been shaking the trees, which is tough considering she can’t come right out and tell them over the phone what’s going on.”
Getting the face-to-face meetings was one reason I’d been spending so much time traveling lately. Just one of the perks to being the mission’s XO. Julie got us in the door with her name and the family rep, shared hatred of the demon who was massacring people all over the world motivated them, and a shot at a percentage of a world-ending PUFF sealed the deal.
“As of this morning we’re at four hundred and fifty Hunters from nine different companies.” Earl pointed to where a bulldozer and a backhoe were working. “As soon as that crew gets the next set of facilities in, we’ll have another three hundred volunteers on the way up. Flights and boats have been coming in nonstop. They’re kicking in men, matériel, and money. I’ve been impressed by how much support we’re getting for this mission.”
“Look at us being all businessy. It fills my little black accountant heart with joy.” I noticed there were different country and company flags flying from the various huts, hovels, and shipping containers. “This has got to be like herding cats.”
“Actually, it ain’t bad so far. We said no Newbies. Everybody is only sending experienced hands. They’re all focused on revenge enough not to fight with each other. So far Julie’s only been contacting folks I think are all right . All the companies that lost somebody at the Last Dragon were quick to jump in.”
“Put Maccabeus Security down for twenty,” Holly told him.
Milo sighed. “I’m going to need more porta potties.”
Camp Frostbite was an impressive sight, but I had to shake my head. “The more companies we draw from, the more likely it is for Asag to find out we’re coming.”
“And any group small enough to ensure secrecy wouldn’t last ten minutes,” Trip said through chattering teeth.
Sadly, he was correct. It was a trade-off we would just have to deal with. He might know we were gunning for him, but we could still try and minimize the details of how we were gunning for him.
“I’m impressed. How’d you get so much built so fast?”
Milo was happy I’d noticed all his hard work. “There was already an old gold-mining camp here; but for the new things, you’d be amazed how motivated oil company guys are when you promise epic bonuses for speedy work.”
“Especially after one of the roughnecks got mauled by a bear,” Earl said.
“Yeah…That kind of sucked. I had to shoot him. I’m going to make an awesome fur coat out of him though.”
“The bear or the worker?” Holly asked.
“The bear, obviously,” Milo said, missing the sarcasm. “The oil company guy would make a terrible coat.”
Earl continued the tour. I could tell he was enjoying this. “Way over there is the arms room. Since everybody in this crowd is walking around armed—”
“Bears everywhere ,” Milo supplied helpfully. “And they wake up hungry.”
“That building is for collecting the bigger stuff we’re training on: rockets, missiles, mortars, crew served. That kind of thing. Our logistics team is working on shipping most of the heavy stuff directly to the island.”
“How heavy are we talking here?” I asked.
“Terrain and weather allowing, light armored vehicles at least. Right now I’m trying to decide between tracked or wheeled. They’ve both got their pros and cons. The hard part is transport and offload, but if our logistics team can figure it out, I’m bringing a tank.”
“I’ve always wanted some tanks,” Milo said.
The accountant part of me recoiled in terror, but the Hunter side of me said “Awesome.” It was a good thing we had Management’s cash to get this rolling. Asag and his high-dollar minions had better be there to recover some costs, or this was going to be a huge loss.
“We’ve got the space and a lot of privacy out here. The locals think we’re some paramilitary mercenary company. They don’t want to snoop around because they figure they’ll get shot trespassing.”
“When I flew into the next town over on a supply run, I heard some folks whispering we’re the CIA, and we’re moving the space aliens from Roswell here,” Milo said.
“That works too. Reporters are too lazy to hike.” Earl paused to light up a cigarette. “I’ve been breaking the Hunters into teams based on their specialties. Working around the language barriers has been a pain in the ass, but Vegas gave them a bond. I put Nate on public relations because everybody likes him. Lots of grudges between some of these groups, but he’s soothing hurt feelings. The companies are actually working together. This is shaping up to be a force to be reckoned with. If our intel isn’t complete bullshit, if the PUFF-applicable bad guy is actually home, and if the Russians don’t screw us over, this mission should go great.”
“And I want a pony for Christmas,” Holly said.
“You find a way to mitigate any of those ifs, and I’ll make sure Santa brings you a whole horse farm.”
“What did you tell the MCB, Earl?” Trip asked.
“Nothing yet. I assume they’ve seen all this on spy satellites by now, but a new training center’s not violating any of their rules.”
MCB oversaw monster hunting, and their rules tended to be arbitrary and capricious. Since I’d been with MHI, our governmental overlords had changed leadership three times, and the way those rules were enforced always changed with them. “They just got a new interim director, and I hear he’s former Strike Force. They tend to be the shoot first and forget the questions department. What’re you going to say if they come and inspect us, and demand to know what we’re all doing up here?”
Earl shrugged. “Corporate team-building exercises.”
“With tanks?”
“If they don’t like it, they can fuck right off.”
It was like Earl Harbinger’s Day Camp for Wayward Youth.
* * *
Being supreme commander of whatever this was shaping up to be, Earl got first pick for where to bunk, so he’d claimed an old miner’s shack on the outskirts of the camp. It was partially buried in the ground and looked like it had been there for a hundred years. There was only room inside for a cot and a potbellied stove.
“Cold don’t bother me like it does the rest of you,” Earl explained when I saw the dump. Even if we were in a blizzard he could be counted on to have nothing but that beat-up old leather bomber jacket he always wore. I didn’t know about the insulating qualities of minotaur, but I suppose Earl could always grow fur if he needed to.
“Nice digs.”
“I like the privacy.”
I had told Earl we needed to talk. “Speaking of privacy,” I looked around, but the nearest other Hunter was over a hundred yards away. “What are you going to do about the full moon?”
“Already dealt with.” The stub where his finger had been was noticeable as he held his lighter up to his mouth to start another cigarette. “I catch a ride on a bush plane, they drop me off in the middle of nowhere with a radio and some supplies, and then come back a few days later.”
That sounded…lonely . “That kind of sucks, Earl. Anything I can do to help?”
“I’m used to it, and I’ve had worse accommodations. You keep things running while I’m gone. Just if anybody already not in the know asks, you tell them I’m off on business. The whole Hunting world doesn’t need to know what I am.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever asked, but that has to be tough for you.”
“Some folks immediately hate me for it. Can’t blame them, considering what the werewolves they deal with ar
e like. But the ones who pity me are annoying as hell.” The evergreens were so dense it was actually kind of quiet over here. Earl glanced around the forest, then sighed. “Truthfully, I don’t mind going off by myself so much. It gives me time to ponder on things…You know, before Stricken hauled Heather off, the place we were hiding out wasn’t so far from here. Those were probably some of the happiest days of my life.”
“You heard from her lately? Is she doing okay?”
He shook his head, then stared off into the distance, distracted at the thought. “Not since after the Franks thing. We were together for a little bit after that, but STFU came looking for her. She liked the lady who replaced Stricken, and actually believed in their mission enough to go back willingly. They put her on some black op. Absolutely no communication. Whatever she’s doing, she must think it’s worth it…” he trailed off. “God, I miss her.”
It was a remarkably human show of weakness from my boss. If he was a regular person, I probably would have patted him on the shoulder and told him it would be okay, but this was Earl Harbinger we were talking about here. Pat Earl you might lose a hand. He was kind of prickly about the emotional stuff. “She’ll be back.”
“I know she will. Red is a badass.”
Sometimes Earl was hard to figure. He was a complicated guy. Hard as nails, but he’d gone so long not having anyone like him…to get that and then to have it taken away? That had to be a hell of a thing.
Earl’s cigarette had burned down to the filter. He tossed it in the dirt and smashed it with his boot. “And Z?”
“Yeah, Earl?”
“Thanks for asking.”
I nodded.
“Enough of the moping. Back to work.” It was like he flipped a switch and the melancholy was gone. As long as he could focus on monster killing, Earl was good to go. “What’d you want to talk about?”
“We took the Israel trip because Rigby found us an expert who has been studying up on the Nightmare Realm. You know I picked his brain, and got some other good stuff, but there’s a potential glitch with that part of our plan.”
“An additional glitch in the part of our plan that’s already the biggest crap shoot? The plan is take the city, kill the bad guy, send a rescue team through the gate, hold that position until they return, and then get the hell out. Glitch must be accountant code for FUBAR. Hit me.”
A lot of what Rothman had talked about flew right past me. He’d worked for Microtel R&D back in the days when the MCB had been stupid enough to grant private companies permission to experiment with rifts. Rothman was tuned into that stuff like nobody else I’d ever spoken with. But his explanation was the kind of thing that would leave a guy with a bunch of science PhDs like Ben Cody scratching his head, let alone me. “Good news first: from what we know the Nightmare Realm isn’t a fixed piece of geography. So if we go through a portal in Russia, we’re not going to have to walk to their equivalent of Nevada to find where we left our guys.”
“Good. I didn’t feel like walking a few thousand miles.”
“Yeah. It isn’t an actual world, it’s more like the space between worlds. It’s a buffer zone. Some things live there, like the alp we fought, but it isn’t a place as we understand the concept. It’s a state of being.”
Earl snorted. “I’ve been there and to the weird-ass place the Old Ones live and still none of that metaphysical shit makes a lick of sense to me.”
“Me either, and keep in mind that most of this is guesswork, but it’s guesswork by people a whole lot smarter than me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Z. I wouldn’t let any of those assholes touch my taxes.”
That was actually a pretty cool compliment. “Okay. When the casino got sucked in, that part of the realm was still stuck to Earth temporarily. It got closed before things could get too strange, and most of the things tethered to our world made it back.”
“Most, but not all, like our boys.”
“Exactly. They’re out there somewhere, but the longer they’ve been lost, the harder they’re going to be to find. It’s like they are floating.”
“Hopefully together, and not in separate directions.”
“Uh…Maybe?” The analogy Rothman had used was of a ship sinking in the ocean. Survivors on a raft would be more affected by winds, and blown one way, while survivors treading water with a life vest would be at the mercy of the current, and carried another way. Depending on the time and forces involved, survivors of the same incident could end up a world apart. And yet, fingers crossed, sometimes they all clung together. “Well, Rothman’s not sure. The only stories he’s found where somebody has gone there looking for someone, the search was for one lone individual. But in each of those stories, it was the hero’s iron will that brought them together.”
“Hero’s iron will ? He actually said that?” Earl asked incredulously. I nodded. “Damned frilly academics, thinking old poetry matches up with punch-you-in-the-face reality.”
“In this case though, it’s probably accurate, in that it’s literally man versus the realm. The only way you can find something is if you want it bad enough. Remember, it isn’t like we can map this place. The only fixed points are where another reality is temporarily attached, and everything else is swirling around it. You know how planes and boats and people sometimes just disappear into nothing? He thinks a lot of those go through the random holes. They’re temporary, unpredictable, but you’re unlucky enough to hit one and poof! Gone. You turn around to go home, and the door is gone. You’re stuck.”
“If this buffer zone does that to us, then it does it to other worlds too. I bet nasty critters from all those different places crawl through those points.” Earl took out another cigarette. “At least there won’t be any lack of things for us to shoot at.”
“The area just inside the gate will still be touching Earth. Things will work like we’re used to, only our missing aren’t going to be right there for us to grab. They’re going to be out there floating in monster land, hopefully not getting munched on by monsters from other dimensions. I’m going to have to go looking for them. At that point it becomes me versus the realm. I don’t know how it works, but the only way I’m going to find anything is if I bend the realm to my will and make it show me the way.”
I could tell Earl knew where I was going with this while I spoke. Fire leapt from the end of his Zippo. He took his time getting the cigarette lit, then inhaled, held it, and let out a long stream of smoke. One nice thing about an outdoor meeting with Earl was less secondhand smoke.
“I’m sensing a troublesome emphasis on you being the one doing all this shit.”
“That’s the glitch. For this to work, it’s got to be one man, one mind. More than one, they’re going to get pulled in different directions. And once we’re separated…” Trip had already given a report about our encounter with Sextus Bassus. I pulled out the ring and showed it to him. “We’ve only got one lifeline to find our way back. Without this, it would be really hard to find an exit. Not impossible, there’s random holes, but unlikely because they’re chaotic and unpredictable. That’s why a fixed gate like the City of Monsters is so valuable.”
“Assuming your new friend is right, and assuming that ghost wasn’t yanking your chain and he got that out of the Roman equivalent of a Cracker Jack box, what makes you think you’re the one man for this job?”
“I just know I am.” I wasn’t going to budge on this one.
“Rate we’re going, I’m gonna have a thousand Hunters to choose from. We ain’t exactly lacking for qualified specialists.”
This was hard enough as it was already. I couldn’t help it, but I was getting frustrated. “It’s supposed to be me, Earl.”
Earl didn’t like his men pushing back against his decisions. “You think that Chosen One thing means you’re the poor sap who always has to be at the tip of the spear. Thinking like that is gonna get you killed.”
My frustration turned to anger. “I told you some about my dad’s vision, but a
ll those years he was getting us ready, it was because he’d been told one of his sons has to die saving the world. He died on Severny Island. Asag is the reason he was sent back. Now we need one man to do this? It has to be me.”
“Certain death is your selling point? All the better reason for me not to send you through that gate.” I wasn’t the only one getting mad. Earl raised his voice. “Why didn’t you tell—never mind, I already know. That’s a good argument to just send you home!”
“The hell you are.”
“And you think I’m gonna toss you through a portal by yourself so Julie can be mad at me for the rest of her life, and my great-great-grandkid can grow up without a daddy? I don’t think so.”
I took a deep breath. “If it’s about will, I’m the best one for the job, Earl.”
“So what? Being stubborn don’t get a trophy in this crowd. I’ve spent decades controlling the uncontrollable.”
“So you’re going to go through instead? Being so damned old is also why you’ve got more experience than anybody you’d leave in charge while you were out of pocket on the other side. The expedition needs you in charge. You know I’m right.”
He knew I had him there. “Don’t get high and mighty with me about what you think you can do.”
“Remember that time I destroyed linear time?”
“Well…” Nobody would ever forget that.
“I didn’t even have a body and I took the Cursed One’s artifact from him. I’m the only man in history who walked off a zombie bite because I refused to turn. Great Old Ones couldn’t break this.” I stabbed two fingers into the side of my head. “This metaphysical bullshit you call it, yeah, I hate it too, but I’m the one who keeps making it through awful mind-blowing shit that seems to leave everybody else with scrambled brains. They—whoever they are—drafted me. Mordechai said I drew the short straw. I don’t know if my dad’s vision is real or a delusion or what, but I’m here for a reason. I don’t know if I’m going to die there, none of us here know if we’re going home or not, but damn it, if I am going to die, then it should be doing something important. I was born for this kind of thing, and you know it.”
Monster Hunter Siege (Monster Hunters International Book 6) Page 17