by J M Guillen
Return immediately, Michael. Anya’s link held no room for argument. Dossier specifications require you to regroup with the rest of your cadre.
Agreed. I backed away from the mass of insectine repugnance, keeping my movements slow. If the creatures swarmed me, I didn’t stand a chance.
I’m on my way now, I sent. It seems as if Anya may have been correct after all. We may need to take a longer route.
Great, Wyatt groused.
I don’t think being correct is a negative thing, Michael.
Jesus Christ, Anya. I felt Wyatt’s chuckle. It’s one thing to be right all the time; I just wish you didn’t have to be so loud about it.
3
A few minutes later, we found the nearest of the offshoot branches we’d passed. Little more than a crevice within the stone wall, it opened up considerably shortly after the entrance, looming twice as tall as I stood.
“The marker is still accurate.” Anya refreshed the light blue triangle over my visual array. “This is the general direction of the emanations’ source.”
“Is it centered downward?” I peered at the triangle as I rubbed my aching forehead. “As if it’s in the ground?”
“I don’t care. We can’t get there soon enough,” Wyatt muttered. “I didn’t sign on for any long-distance hauls.”
“I’ve been monitoring the emanations as we progress, Michael.” Anya paused for a moment. “I am certain they are key to our return to Rationality.”
“Good. Let’s keep moving.” I stepped through first, sheathing a single Stiletto.
The passageway carved around to our left and became quite narrow for a few steps. In the distance, I heard water drip.
We hadn’t taken twenty steps before Wyatt exclaimed, “Five hundred meters!” He pulled his hand away from the keyboard, stretching out the tension. “Those spikes just underwent quantum dispersement.”
“Is that the fancy way to say they vanished?”
“They’re gone.” He shook his hand. “I don’t think I could’ve done that much longer.”
“I don’t know,” I responded as I shook my half-closed hand up and down, mimicking his motion. “Seems like you’re an expert.”
Wyatt showed me a different hand gesture.
I chuckled and flashed it back.
Anya frowned. Slightly.
“So that’s it?” I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “The mighty Artisan has allowed space-time to return to its normal course?”
“You don’t get it, Hoss.” Wyatt adjusted the Stetson on his head. “Temporal mechanics are a pretty big fucking deal. It’s the reason Gatekeeper Assets require a Crown augment—the mathematics are brutal.”
“Right…” I glanced at Anya. “But our Preceptor wasn’t irritated with you because she worried you couldn’t do the math.”
“It’s done.” He gestured with one hand. “The fields are collapsed, and this reality didn’t tear itself in two.” He poked his head through a small archway, peered about, and moved on.
“So from the perspective of the assholes, what happened?” I followed right after him. “One instant we’re there and the next we weren’t?”
“In a nutshell.” He adjusted his backpack. “There will need to be a lot more experimentation—”
“There will be no more experimentation,” Anya asserted firmly. “Space-time is a key facet of Rationality. We are fortunate you did not generate a cascading series of aberrant vectors.”
“I don’t get it.” I leaned one hand against the cool stone, as I gazed back at her. “Wyatt changes the axioms of reality all the time. He transforms one element to another or plays around with the energetics of gravity.”
“Gravity isn’t exactly a type of energy,” Wyatt muttered as he stepped over a crack in the floor.
I glanced down as I passed. Like the cleft I’d seen near the insects, my optics couldn’t find the bottom.
I shuddered.
“Aberrant vectors have been known to harm the axiomatic realmwall,” Anya clarified. “We are proscribed from altering space-time in order to protect Rationality.”
“That’s the baseline of what we’re told,” Wyatt interjected. “Yet the Gatekeeper packet has been in use for thirty years. In all that time, we don’t have one recorded instance of an aperture weakening the weave.”
“Recorded or not, the mathematical certainty remains,” the Preceptor argued. “Not to mention the fact that in the one hundred and fifty years the ARC-technology has existed, stasis fields have never been mathematically sanctified.”
“Not by the Designates, maybe.” Wyatt glanced back at her, as he ducked beneath a low archway. “That doesn’t mean no one’s run the numbers.”
“You’re saying you figured out how to do a stasis field… when?” I pushed past him, taking point again. “Do you practice dimensional mathematics while you work on stock cars?”
“’Course not,” Wyatt huffed. “I’ve been following some of the research done by the Rook.”
“The Rook?”
“Jonathan Crowe,” Anya responded. “Asset 081. That Asset remains one of the most brilliant Artisan operators within the Facility.”
“That’s my guy.” Wyatt pointed at her. “The man is a fucking artist. He uploads his personal data files to the Asset Archives. Sometimes when I have a few moments, I port a few to memory.” He stepped over a large stone.
“Studious,” I commented.
“Whether or not the axiomatic realmwall has ever truly been affected by aberrant vectors, other relevant concerns remain regarding space-time anomalies.” Anya crouched a bit as she moved past a low spot.
“Like what, blondie?” Wyatt teased.
“Many cases exist where Gatekeeper Assets accidentally caught the attention of aetheric deviations from poorly chosen coefficients.”
“Seriously?” I holstered the other Stiletto; it didn’t seem as if I needed it.
“Michael, you have certainly been briefed regarding Construct Entity 234-B.” Anya frowned.
“Construct Entity 234-B.” I nodded, as if I totally understood her reference. “I see.”
“You do not.”
“Do you ever peruse the Asset Archives, Hoss?”
“I might.” Something tickled at the back of my mind. “Temporal… splicers. That’s what you mean, right?”
“Christ, Hoss.” Wyatt shook his head, chuckling. “Temporal splicers? You sound like you’re ten years old.”
“Construct Entity 234-B is a ramification of improper space-time calibrations,” Anya explained.
“I would have remembered it if we had a Lattice connection,” I explained.
“It’s not ‘remembering’ it if you have to flippin’ look it up!” Wyatt yelled. “Long story short, sometimes the Gatekeeper Asset can mess up their portals. I’ve geared the thing; it’s complex. If you flub it, you can create a time lapse between entering and exiting.”
“What?” I stopped in place and turned to stare at him.
“Right.” He nodded. “You step into an aperture, then step out about thirty seconds later, maybe forty-five. You experience it instantaneously, but it’s not. That kind of misqueuing happens any time the Asset gets sloppy.”
“That’s…” I shook my head. “Where do you go for thirty seconds?”
“You don’t.” Wyatt waved one hand. “I once heard a story about someone exiting an aperture before they entered it!”
“Stories aside,” Anya interjected, “there have been several recorded instances of Construct Entity 234-B entering Rationality during errors such as these. They seem drawn to incidents in space-time.” Anya raised one eyebrow at Wyatt.
“So Wyatt could be drawing the attention of temporal splicers?”
“Asset Guthrie has no data regarding stasis fields. If he uses this algorithm while in Rational space—”
“There’s a lot you don’t realize, Anya.” Wyatt shook his head.
“He’s a genius, Anya,” I sarcastically explained, with an
exaggerated tap to my forehead. Then I ducked under a bulwark of stone before striding into an open, wide room in the cave.
“That.” He pointed at me. “But also—”
Brilliant light flooded the cavern, followed by a loud BANG from off to our right. Instinctively, I jerked my head in that direction, staring directly into punishing light as if a small star burst to life in the cave.
Of course I didn’t switch off my optics. Oh no.
That would have been smart.
Silent Gentlemen
Stunned, I stared straight into the punishing fury of brilliant light. Its rays stabbed me squarely in the brain. I yelped, swore, and then whipped my head sideways, rubbing at my eyes.
Bishop! Get down, you tit!
Agilely, I collapsed like a ragdoll onto the stone floor. As a panicked afterthought, I toggled the Wraith, and the cool shadows of invisibility fell around me.
“—can’t say what caused it.” The feminine, British voice fell like a blade brushing across silk. She murmured from the direction of the light, just loud enough to be heard. “I need you to handle it. We have a timetable.”
Blearily, I peered toward the voice as I wiped my eyes. From what I could make out, it seemed as if we’d stumbled on a place where the cavern widened considerably. In another five paces or so, my cadre-mates would have stepped out into the center of the open room. If we’d been here about a minute earlier, we’d have been standing in the open when that light came on.
“We’ll do what we can, Ms. Thorne,” a male voice replied. “We’ll get it done.”
“Dr. Thorne.” She leveled an icy stare at the man. “And I’m certain you’ll fulfill expectations. If Daisuke believed otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.” The tiniest hint of a bladed smile curled the edge of her voice. “Repair the resonator. Do it quickly.”
A vague acknowledgement preceded a mechanical ratcheting sound.
Ambient Rationality levels dipping, Anya reported. We are now holding stable at negative twenty-eight.
I see four of them. Wyatt shuffled behind me, a mountain hidden in shadows. Three men and that woman. At least two of the men are armed. Automatic rifles.
Lovely, I groused. Almost impossible to miss us at this range.
Can you see any others from where you are? Wyatt paused. And by that, I mean lying on the ground like an infant?
I’d been just a few steps in front of my cadre. This meant I had a clear line of sight into the open cavern where the hostiles stood. Wyatt and Anya, on the other hand, remained hidden behind me in the crevice of stone.
Um… I don’t think so. I blinked again, attempting to clear my vision. Gray blobs that might have been hat racks or human silhouettes danced before my eyes. That light caught me with my optics on. It’ll take a moment.
“This thing’s low on cryonics,” the same male voice muttered ahead of me. As my vision clarified, I saw that he pried at the top of a meter-tall metallic cylinder, its dark base covered by a key panel. “Just like the other ’un.”
“It is?” Thorne bit off the end of the word. The woman’s hazel eyes crackled with unstated fury. Thin to the point of boniness, Dr. Thorne was nonetheless a striking woman with dark hair swept into a bun as precise as her accent.
“Yes.” A loud bang, followed by clicks. “Absolutely.”
“That’s not possible,” the woman responded. “We’ve checked the maths. The synergistics are spot on.”
“I dunno what to tell you.” The fair-haired man glanced over his shoulder at her, as he pushed his hand inside the device. “There are no cryonics here, Dr. Thorne. The math has to be wrong.”
The woman stood quietly while he pulled out a small canister. With one deft motion he unscrewed the top. Dense steam wafted from the inside but nothing else. He gestured at it with one gauntleted arm.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Thorne snarled as she stalked forward.
I’m moving closer. I pushed myself to a standing position, keeping my eyes on the targets. We need more intel.
Be exceedingly cautious. Rationality fluctuates around the devices they wear, Anya reported.
On their wrists? Wyatt asked.
Correct. Her puzzlement felt sharp within the link. As if there are dozens of minute changes in the axioms of physics happening within a tight field.
Oh, good. That sounds completely normal and safe. I took a few steps closer until one of the men gestured back over his shoulder. Now that my vision had cleared, I saw a metal-and-glass wall a meter behind them. On the other side of that glass, a sinister light softly pulsed.
“I don’t like it.” Dr. Thorne peered down into the device. “That’s the second resonator within the past thirty-six hours.” She brushed her dark hair away from her face.
“You think it has to do with… our current project?” A dark-haired, tall man stood nearby, one of the machine guns in hand. “Awfully convenient timing.”
“Anything is possible, Brooks.” She crouched down next to the cylinder and pulled a small device from her hip. It emitted soft clicks when she punched the keys on the mechanism.
I slipped closer, trying to remain as silent as possible.
Brooks peered at Dr. Thorne while she and the fair-haired man tinkered with the cylindrical casing. Behind them, the fourth man paced, his automatic weapon at the ready. His beady eyes swept through the darkness of the caverns, alert.
“Look at this.” Thorne stuffed her entire arm inside the device, grunting with the slight bit of effort. When she pulled her arm out, she held one finger up.
“That’s the cryonics fluid.” The blonde man remained crouched next to her. “Those canisters don’t leak.”
“Right.” She stared at him. “Someone’s been meddling with the resonators.”
“Now that’s just disturbing.” Brooks glanced behind himself to the man who paced their perimeter. “You think it’s one of ours?”
“Everyone in this station is one of ours.” She glanced up at him. “We assume. Ito says there’s no way anyone else could even know we’re here.”
“Might be the Gentlemen.” Brooks shook his head. “Never know what those spooky assholes are up to.”
I stopped in place, my eyes wide.
Did I just hear that? Wyatt teased, yet I felt no smile through the link. These folks had just moved from ‘individuals of possible interest’ to ‘likely reality terrorists,’ all with one word.
Gentlemen.
You did, I confirmed. I ignored the headache from my optics and took a long look at the figures, making certain to get a clear image of each of them in my memory. This little clan has encountered the Facility before. We’re not dealing with garden-variety cultists here.
There are garden-variety cultists? Wyatt’s link felt weary.
Facility intel reported the term Silent Gentlemen originated from the fact that Assets don’t often speak while on dossier—at least not while engaging Irrats—since our Crowns offered us the luxury to instantly link one another.
A handy tool.
From the perspective of an average Irrat, we appear mysteriously on the scene, often wearing black suits or uniforms. Then we go about the task of ruining their entire day. In complete silence. Utilizing well-coordinated attacks without saying a word.
Silent. Merciless. Wielding the laws of reality itself as our weapons.
The effect is chilling.
Like so many other secrets within the world, simply knowing of us as the Silent Gentlemen classified them as a certain kind of person, someone who escaped our intense interest, a dangerous person who was very likely to wield bizarre technology or summon faceless abominations from beyond the realm of reality.
This intel changes our situation, Anya linked, communicating the obvious. While our previous goal focused upon our returning to Rationality, the discovery of reality terrorists while on dossier cannot be ignored.
Agreed. I crept closer, a Stiletto in each hand. I knew from experience that, while beneath the Wraith I could
slaughter two or three targets before my location became obvious, but this time I had a different idea. I want to stay with them. Follow them back inside. See what I can discover.
Absolutely not. Anya’s link felt as if I had suggested throwing myself on a live hand grenade. We have no intel about this location. Acting alone is completely reckless.
It’s not that reckless if we follow him, Wyatt reasoned. As we just discussed, it’s not uncommon for fancy pants here to pull point and scout ahead.
“Edmund.” Thorne stood and brushed off her pant leg, then moved toward the glass door. “I need you to run an errand. Go to subbasement three and bring up a new cryonics canister while John and I recalibrate.”
“Yes, Dr. Thorne,” the patrolling man responded. He turned toward the door just as Thorne placed her hand against a small control panel. A sickly light flickered from the device.
It’s now. I picked up the pace and quietly trotted over to the door. I’ll follow this guy inside. He’s supposed to bring something back, so I’ll be able to return as well.
Dangerous, Anya warned. You will be cut off from any possible assistance. That hatch requires a biometric key, therefore we cannot follow.
Relax. I can turn the glass in that door into oxygen, Wyatt responded. If we absolutely need to get inside, we’ll get inside.
The door slid completely open with a sibilant hiss, and Edmund stepped through with a curt nod at Thorne. As the glass closed, Edmund stopped in place.
ACK! I halted just behind him on my toes and windmilled my arms. Another pace and I would have fallen over him.
Above the door, an angry light suddenly crackled, followed by a loud buzz. I glanced up, wondering what it might be. A furious shine, brilliant and warm, brushed against my skin.
“TWO BIO-SIGNATURES DETECTED,” a mechanical voice informed us through some unseen speaker.
“What?” Edmund turned, his eyes wide. They flickered from side to side as if trying to catch something that teased at the corner of his vision.
Oh shit.
Hoss? Wyatt’s worry bled through the link, but I ignored him. I had no way to know if my large friend had heard the voice, and I didn’t feel as if I could take my attention from Edmund long enough to see if Thorne had.