by J M Guillen
After a taste of offense, Wyatt had thrown that philosophy to the wind. He hadn’t simply reacted to Irrational hoo-doo; he’d brought the fight to these men.
The results lay all around me, in gory, glorious detail.
“These strategies are not in accordance with those typically approved by Designates.” Anya arched one eyebrow at Wyatt. “Although that fact has little to do with their efficacy.”
“Just getting the job done,” Wyatt chuckled.
“Kerista Jur Jiddon.” Our graceful ally walked into view from the hallway door. She gestured in that direction. “Eet’s em-tea.”
“Empty?” I smiled at her.
“It appears our friend has acquired a small amount of English,” Anya informed us. “She has been watching me from the door as I take readings.”
“What about that other Irrat, Anya?” Wyatt tapped a few keys on the crescent at his hip. “Fucker ever show back up?”
“He did not.” Anya continued to pluck at the space in front of her but glanced back at him. “The second Irrat vanished from telemetry moments into the firefight.”
“Smart man,” Wyatt continued. “We handed those guys their assholes.”
“We did… what?” Anya furrowed her brow.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Other people’s assholes aside, how are we doing in here?” I quirked up the edge of my mouth.
“It is troubling.” Anya withdrew her fingers from her interface and turned toward us. “I have no doubt this device is the Parabola, which drains harmonic resonance from the local environment. It appears as if that energy is then stored in the resonators Thorne and her crew tended.” Anya gestured off to her right. “An energetic distillation device is set up behind the Parabola.”
“Stored? In those silvery canisters?” Wyatt clicked his tongue. “Told ya so.”
“So they are making weird extra-dimensional batteries.” I scratched my jaw. “There are several of them stowed on the ATVs outside.”
“Based on what I have seen so far, I would guess our Irrationals have been siphoning and storing these resonances for some time.” Anya turned from Wyatt to me. “Since they have the capability to breach the axiomatic realmwall and traverse realities at will, my guess is these resonators are intended for a second location.”
“But we don’t know exactly what they’re for?” I stepped closer to the Parabola and peered up at that cacophony of weirding color.
“No way to know,” Wyatt grumbled. “Best I can say, if invading monstrosities want the resonators, they can’t be for anything good.”
“I concur.” Anya nodded. “I have therefore attempted to ascertain the simplest way to destroy the Parabola. Unfortunately, the problem seems to be far more complex than originally projected.”
“How do you mean?” I glanced at her and then back at the spinning, dancing hues. “I mean, just look at the destruction in this room. It’s obvious Captain Coveralls here can obliterate whatever he damn well pleases when he gets a mind to.”
“The difficulty is in the energetic resolutions,” she explained, her tone overly patient, as if speaking to a six year old. “Portions of this device exist in extra-Rational space. It is impossible to verify how much of the energetic payload is unstable or transdimensional. If we destroy the centrifuge for the harmonic resonances, the energetic potential exceeds any known manmade explosive.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Wyatt muttered and rubbed at his ear just under his hat.
“We have the capacity to destabilize the energetic systems of the Parabola easily,” Anya emphasized.
“Right.” I popped the knuckles on my left hand as I thought. “We just risk blowing ourselves to bits.”
“There are still preparations we can take.” Anya glanced at Wyatt.
A miniscule tic of his head indicated he received a patch.
“What’s this?” He sniffed.
“Those three markers show the preferred locations for three of your spikes. I also patched the energetic resonances required to destroy the device.”
“Well, that seems simple enough.” Wyatt tapped a few of his keys as he strode around the Parabola. “I can at least get the spikes placed.”
WHUF. He fired the first, burying it within the dark stone of the floor.
“Before activating them, we need to discuss—” Anya stopped midsentence, her head whipping to the left.
A green indicator popped into being on my visual array as if appearing from nothingness, the missing second Irrat.
His physicality seems slightly adrift, just slightly out of phase… She immediately began to pluck at the air.
Extra dimensional? Wyatt tapped at a few of his keys, and a second WHUF echoed through the room.
Uncertain, Anya replied. She reached up with her left hand and fiddled with a portion of her interface. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated on what she saw.
The marker vanished.
I lost him. She turned toward me, bewildered.
I glanced at Wyatt and arched an eyebrow. Temporal displacement?
Mebbe. He shrugged and started to input a series of numbers on his keyboard while he walked around the Parabola. Another WHUF announced his third spike.
As if toying with us, the marker appeared again. Anya didn’t say anything, but scowled slightly.
“Frensee.” The slender Kab woman glanced from Anya to Wyatt to me.
Maybe I’ll just creep over there. I glanced sideward at Anya. Assuming I can avoid cascading errors setting my visual array on fire?
This close to the Parabola, my readings indicate a forty-eight percent chance of the emanations causing recurring energetic remainders within your phaneric node. She gave her head the tiniest of shakes. That said, as long as I monitor your system, you should be able to toggle off the Wraith before that occurs.
Perfect. I popped my neck. Here I go. Cool shadows fell around me. The scintillating, multihued light that danced within the room faded into a colorless glow.
I crept around the Parabola, ghosting my way back toward the hallway.
The opening into the passageway proved difficult to find, mostly thanks to a certain hillbilly gorilla and his stasis fields. Two of the mirror-bright constructs sat squarely between the door and me, thoroughly blocking my sight. Still, I slipped past them, a Stiletto in each hand.
The marker remained consistent—a small green circle, several meters into the passageway. I turned down that hall and peered ahead of me, weapons raised.
When the marker vanished.
AGAIN.
God damn it! I turned back to the room, chewing on my lip. Can’t kill them if they won’t stay still!
I toggled the Wraith off.
Maybe we shouldn’t worry about it, Wyatt linked. If the Radonic Transmitters are affixed to the ATVs, then we could just hop on those bad boys and take off. He eyed me as I walked closer.
And leave the Parabola? I shook my head, not quite following him. I mean, I guess we can tell the Facility about it, maybe they can send a better prepared cadre?
Rosie gives us a half-kilometer head start. Wyatt glanced from Anya to me. We drive out on the ATVs and I trigger the spikes at five hundred meters out. If the energetic payload is too much… he shrugged. We bail. Trigger the Radonic Transmitters and go home.
Except we just slaughtered all the Kabs. I glanced at the dark young woman nearby. And remember, our molten amigo “heard” our links.
I do not think that will be an issue, Anya replied. She stared up, her head craned back so she could get a full view of the Parabola. Her left hand arched around to the side of her face, and her fingers danced intently.
Yeah? Wyatt tapped absently at a few keys.
It is possible sabotaging the Parabola will result in an energetic payload comprising only local emanations. She brought her right hand up, pinching at her invisible interface. Yes. I am fairly certain.
Good enough for me! Wyatt gave me a cheesy smile. I’m only interested in dimensi
ons where NASCAR exists.
Assets! Anya’s eyes went wide. We have a localized spike in Rationality! I show—
Before she could finish, the world trembled around us, just the tiniest bit. We felt his coming less than a second later, an alien fracturing that burrowed and warbled behind the mind.
A man crackled into existence, not five steps from us. One instant, we stood with our Kab friend, peering at the unearthly device. In the next, he stood there, regarding us with cold eyes.
Lean but quite tall, he had unruly, fiery hair and wore thick, dark canvas pants. His shirt hung open to reveal a well-muscled physique and a holster strapped to his chest. Another hung around his waist.
Firenzei.
The man spit on the floor as he stalked toward us. If he thought anything odd about our presence or appearance, he didn’t show it.
Again, I got the sneaking suspicion I’d seen the man somewhere before this alien nightmare.
“You.” He pointed at the graceful Kab woman. “We need to have a word.”
“Neww,” she spat at him with a scowl.
“Oh, but we have some things to discuss.” He took another step. “I think we know who’s been fucking with our resonators, don’t we?”
“Hey.” I jerked my chin up at him. “Don’t be rude. You have guests.”
“Unwelcome ones.” He gave a lurid grin. “Private property an’ all.”
“We’re here on official business.” I stared at him. “As you well know.”
“Official business,” the man muttered. He spat again. “A little outside your jurisdiction here, Asset. It’ll prolly be better if you tottered off, back the way you came. Maybe there’s a psychic on the telly you can go harass or some poor kid you can take from his fam.”
The man’s words hit me like a bulldozer. Little Bill Iverson flashed through my mind. I flinched internally, focused, and tried to remember how I knew the red-headed man.
“Officially, we are not outside our jurisdiction,” Anya said in a crisp, succinct tone. “According to Facility sanctions and guidelines, actions of disruption and malfeasance originate from this location. We have—”
“Oh, Christ, won’t you shut up?” The man gave us a condescending glower. “Yer trespassin’. Leave.”
“You!” Wyatt bellowed. “You little shit-eater! What are you doing out here?”
With a start, I realized Firenzei’s identity. I gaped at him as the second-hand memory washed over me. Firenzei had scrapped with Wyatt in The Booby Trap. I’d seen the whole escapade in Wyatt’s patch. The man must have been on site, watching his movements at the bar.
The thought chilled me.
“Minding my own business,” the man grinned at Wyatt. “Wondering why you folks aren’t doing the same.”
“I’m rememberin’ what it felt like to hand you your ass.” Wyatt straightened his hat.
“I wouldn’t go thinking our last encounter has any merit, cowboy. I didn’t try too awful hard, jus’ checkin’ out the competition.”
My heartbeat shifted into high gear. How had he known where to find Wyatt? Had the parasites given him some kind of intel? Then my mind took the next step, and the icy fingers of fear trickled down my back.
What if this man hosted those ichorous, thrashing horrors? Wyatt wouldn’t have known what he dealt with…
Could he have been infected? That woman, Jasmine, had been intimately close to him.
Shit.
“Now.” The man took another step forward. “It’s time for you to leave.”
“Not happening.” My eyes narrowed. I’d drawn my Stilettos, yet his guns still sat in their holsters. “Stand down and relinquish your weapons. The Facility shows leniency—”
“No.” The man enunciated the word as if I were simple. “The Facility does no such thing. I know it. You know it. Leave. Now.”
The Tangler hummed louder and at a higher pitch. I activated the Adept.
“You know we can’t do that. Stand down, or I’m afraid—”
“Good.” The man smirked and drew a long knife. “You should be afraid. If you’d like to go round up some friends, I’ll allow it.”
I decided.
Quicker than breath, I drew down on the man. The Adept packet guided my every move. I moved like quicksilver, faster than thought. Before he’d even stopped speaking, I’d brought both disruptors to bear on the man’s face.
Michael!
The world trembled again, just a bit.
Firenzei vanished just as I fired.
Again, an alien crackling sensation burrowed and warbled within my mind. I whirled. Without a read on where the man might have vanished to—
—only to hear an unearthly, rending echo from behind me. I continued that spin, only to blink and reel back from a ribbon of ghastly light, which struck me squarely in the face, like a cinderblock.
The Kab woman screamed, a roiling gurgle.
Firenzei hadn’t just teleported next to her; he’d appeared with that long blade already embedded inside her neck, running from side to side. His weapon shone with horrific, otherworldly radiance, a light so brilliant it glowed crimson through the woman’s skin.
It screeched as he pulled it loose, sounding like the mangled metal of a car wreck. As soon as he pulled it free, blood splattered across the walls, and the Kab fell to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
She twitched, gurgled, and then lay still.
The three of us stood, stunned.
“What the fuck was that?” Wyatt gaped at him.
“The light show? The Pauli exclusion principle.” Firenzei met our gazes with flat, dead eyes. “It’s that whole ‘matter cannot occupy the same space’ bullshit. Creates all kinds of weirdness.”
With a flick of his wrist, Firenzei hurled his blade at Wyatt as we stood, gobsmacked.
Before I heard the blade strike, the world began that trembling undulation.
A wet slicing precluded a grunt from Wyatt, but I had no time.
Firenzei drew his pistols as I raced toward him, bringing my Stilettos to bear.
Wyatt hit the ground.
Asset Guthrie! Anya cried over the link.
I fired both weapons, snarling as I leapt at Firenzei.
Who vanished before my eyes.
That sharp, burrowing sensation returned, as if something tunneled through my mind every time Firenzei used his temporal gift. This time I ignored it and spun in place, both weapons held out. I toggled the Wraith, watching as color drained from the world.
Keep moving, if you can, I linked my cadre. He probably can’t teleport his knife inside you if he doesn’t know where you are.
His knife’s already inside me, Hoss! Wyatt spat over the link.
How bad?
Just my leg, but fuck! Do you know how hard it is to stick a knife when you throw it?
“I asked you to leave all polite-like,” Firenzei called from behind Wyatt’s stasis fields. “You’re the rude ones.”
“We didn’t exactly ask to be brought here,” I countered, moving stealthily toward him.
“’Course not!” He chuckled. “Innocent Facility hounds. Just happen to stumble in on our little project.”
I didn’t respond, using the time he spent talking to sprint in his direction.
Firenzei proved no fool, however. The room about me began to tremble again, the tiny waver that occurred just before he leapt.
Shit! I peered around the edge of the stasis fields, just as that awful digging, clawing sensation began in my skull again. Missed him.
Behind the computers, Anya informed me.
I turned until I saw Firenzei’s marker. But more, I heard voices, accompanied by heavy boots.
Reinforcements incoming, up the hall.
Asset Guthrie is somewhat secure. We’ve made it behind the Parabola.
It’ll be a few before my mecha dull the pain, Hoss. It’s all you ’til then.
Copy that.
Five short pistol bursts, each a few rounds, sla
mmed into the room. One of those ricocheted off the floor less than a meter from me.
Firenzei peered out from behind the computers, a smirk on his lips.
“We were just discussing the possibility of invisible Facility fucks. Guess that means I’ll be a bit liberal with my shots.”
He does not realize where 423 and I are located. Anya’s link felt like a scarce whisper. He assumes we are all invisible.
Firenzei fired again, randomly spraying bullets throughout the room. I saw him occasionally pop his head up to listen for a bit.
The man knew his way around a firefight.
I answered Firenzei with a fury of sharp bursts from my Stilettos, slamming cannonballs of raw force into this side of the computer banks. When he ducked his head back, I sprinted, lest he triangulate my location based on my shots.
Just that moment, I realized I hauled ass straight toward a huge door, the one leading outside.
Where the ATVs sat, prepped for departure.
I turned and fired again, just to keep the man pinned down. In a few dozen steps, I’d be outside.
“Rudolfo!” someone called from behind me, on the far side of the room.
“Assets, three of them!” Firenzei called back.
Can you see how many we just picked up? I linked.
No, Wyatt came back wearily. But I can probably move now, if it makes a difference.
It might. I’m going to try to draw them outside. To the ATVs.
Yeah? I felt him raise an eyebrow. Then what?
What do you mean? I stepped through the glass door, my feet again sinking in the fine alien soil. I never have a “then what.” You know that!
Right.
The twilight outside had deepened into a sullen evening, albeit an evening with a sky striped with unseen colors looming over it. The ATVs sat exactly where I’d left them, lined up as if ready to roar out into the night.
No keys though. It seemed as if these vehicles were equipped with a push button ignition. That…
That gave me an idea.
I trotted to the furthest one and pressed the ignition. It rumbled, but didn’t start.
I did it again, this time giving it some gas on the throttle.