by J M Guillen
Initiating in three, I sent. Two…
I toggled the switch.
Just as before, the device clicked, solid in its casing.
I frowned…
The world around me burst into an azure flame.
Hoss? Wyatt’s link warbled in my mind, sounding as if it came from far underwater or echoed through an infinite cavern. I felt that link like a tenuous, golden thread stretched between our minds.
Before it snapped.
For a moment, cold and darkness burned around me, sentient malevolence. I clung to the handlebars of the ATV and bit my lip against the onslaught. It felt as if I fell, as if the emptiness of that scarlet sky drifted away in a direction I couldn’t name.
I heard screaming. A terrified, exuberant wail.
I wondered if it might be me.
Violent, sapphire explosions burst around me, each terrifically hot and close. Those bursts of eldritch fire burned against my skin, melting away parts of memory I held dear. The fires didn’t burn me physically, yet somehow psychically scathed my mind.
I ducked closer to the ATV and then felt the tires hit as if I’d fallen from a great distance. Though clutching madly at the vehicle, I almost toppled off.
Then I drove through the vast wastes of the Mojave, tumbling wildly along.
“Yes!” I howled into the night air. “Fucking yes! Fucking take that!”
The front of the ATV wobbled, as I celebrated. Still, cerulean sparks burned brilliantly around me, igniting as if fireworks showed my way.
A snarling, warbling, shredding sound came from behind me. A quick glance over my shoulder showed the faint silhouette of Guthrie, riding his ATV through the sliding shadows of dimensions.
Like me, living cobalt fire surrounded him. Something about his shape, the way he appeared faded, an echo of himself, told me he hadn’t quite made it through yet.
The Designate felt like frost-covered knives in my mind.
We require confirmation and access code check in. Ling frowned as she linked.
Yup. I grinned like a kid at Christmas. It’s us, Designate. I am Michael Bishop, 108. I felt my Crown whir as it synced with the Lattice. Authorization code 020798361. System green.
We’re through, Wyatt sent. Dealing with Designates.
I gave a thumbs-up.
You have been adrift for twenty-eight hours, Asset, Ling continued.
Twenty-eight?
Indeed. She paused. We require a patch of all Asset activity from timestamp 6.21.1998/10:00:00.
Understood. I opened the channel so my entire cadre would hear as well. I’m pulling off over here so we can get sync’d and briefed.
I slowed the ATV, glancing over my shoulder. Both Wyatt and Anya seemed secure. Ahead, I could pull off the little trail we found ourselves upon and get caught up.
As I slowed, an exuberant spark of turquoise luminosity exploded, a meter to my left.
Um… I veered away, startled, slowing even more. I’d assumed we were done with firebursts.
Michael! Anya’s link came fraught with intensity. Your device! Rationality is spiking around it again!
Another burst of indigo embers dazzled me, and I felt a whisper of grasping cold brush against my face. I veered hard to the left, trying to pull away from it, and came to a complete stop.
A ringing cacophony of cobalt and sapphire pealed around me, exploding fire that felt as if it might burn away everything that had ever been. Its scintillating shine smoldered its way into me, feeding on my mind and sanity as if I were little more than tinder before it.
What the fuck? I madly linked. Wyatt, Anya, are you—?
Every surface around me thundered with impossible, eldritch flame.
I fucking screamed, wailed in absolute horror and agony. It felt as if that fire had a dark will, as if it sought to burrow into me.
Flashes of memory drifted into focus, burned away as I felt myself stretched, bent through directions of time I couldn’t even comprehend.
Again I fell. Sadistic and malicious darkness grasped at me, fingers wrought from shadow.
I landed on the ATV, in badlands that stretched beneath a scarlet sky. I jounced along, nearly falling off. On the horizon, a sickly moon shone, painting the landscape with nightmarish light.
“What. The. Fuck!” I panted, staring all about me. I sat on the exact same trail my cadre and I had just left moments before.
“Okay.” I breathed. “Think, Bishop.”
Had I passed back through?
I stared around in horrified awe. This could be so much worse than the first time. Without Anya… Without Wyatt….
This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. I am currently adrift. Please respond. I linked the standard phrase, hoping someone, anyone would pick it up.
Of course, if they did, that would mean I hadn’t been the only one to get cast adrift a second time. I didn’t know which possibility might be worse.
No response.
“Ohhh-kay.” I sighed and gazed across the landscape. “What to do about this, now?”
I stepped off the ATV, wracking my brain. Common sense said maybe I should try the four-wheeler again, see if it had enough juice to punch back through.
But that could be a horrifying mistake. We truly didn’t understand these radionic transmitters, after all. We’d literally just grabbed some Irrational technology and used it, in complete ignorance.
That hadn’t worked out, not so far.
What if I tried the damn thing again but got stuck somewhere, trapped halfway between here and Rationality? I remembered the feel of those grasping shadows, the darkness that rested between home and this unearthly place. It didn’t take too much imagination to fear being caught between the two.
Or, shit, somewhere else altogether. Another topiatic reality could be just as deadly if I weren’t careful.
I needed to take stock. I needed to plan.
“I’ve got guns, swords, and smokes.” I sighed. “I’ve got a nice suit with holes in it.”
I paced.
“Fuck.” I kicked a rock and then swore louder. “FUCK!”
Think. I needed to think.
The time-drift came to mind first. This place and Rationality had quite the temporal misstep. Ling said we’d been gone twenty-eight hours.
“But actually…” I reviewed the system time on my Crown. From the moment we’d veered here in the Legacy, my chronometer only recorded thirteen hours passing.
“More than double time,” I muttered. That didn’t inspire me. It meant, while I figured out what to do, time for my cadre zipped by more than twice as fast.
“So… what happened? Come on, Mikey.” I popped the fingers on my right hand.
The most obvious answer lay in the idea that the Radonic Transmitters hadn’t quite charged. It had been one of our primary concerns after all. We didn’t understand the technology; we didn’t even have the means to tell when the devices reached full power.
“So then where’s Lumpy and Anya?” I gazed around, wondering if they’d managed to fall back through as well. After all, if the devices weren’t functioning, they’d be stuck here with me.
“Fuck, Firenzei would be back,” I growled. This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. I am currently adrift. Please respond, I linked a second time, with next to no hope. I peered around the desolate landscape, searching for any signs.
Hell, what if they had come through but crashed? Or what if that hungry darkness leeched the life and memory from them as they passed through?
“No,” I assured myself. “That didn’t happen. You’re alone.”
It seemed as if only handsome Michael Bishop had won the fuck-you lottery for today.
I leaned back against one of the stone outcroppings and felt in my slacks for my cigarettes. All the shenanigans had crushed the pack, but I managed to salvage a few.
“There we go,” I grunted. I popped a match with my thumbnail and lit it while I stared into the light of the twisted moon.
The smoke tas
ted like heaven.
I leaned there, lost, scrabbling for what to do.
Long, frustrating moments passed. I stared at the sky, considering all my options. Perhaps I should go back into the Atrificia? We had an “alignment” with the thing inside, after all, and we’d destroyed the Parabola…
But perhaps I needed to look at the whole picture. The Kab woman had died, fairly horribly. The igneous being within might take issue with that. Also, I had no way to tell how the creature felt about us blowing up the entire Parabola Bay.
I paced, cursing.
Time drifted.
“Okay,” I said, stabbing at the air with my second cigarette. “Let’s play this out again.” I paced back to the vehicle, my mind whirling.
At first the device hadn’t activated. I remembered sitting right on that ledge, wanting to chew bullets.
“And then Anya saw Firenzei,” I mused to myself. “We realized the ATVs had to be in motion—”
I stopped, mid-thought.
Had to be in motion.
“I slowed the vehicle, didn’t I?” My voice cracked in excitement. I’d thought to pull over to the side and patch the Designate a timestamped packet of crazy. Then, as soon as I stopped…
“As soon as I stopped, I got hauled back here.” A lazy smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
Could it be that simple?
Obviously, keeping the vehicles in motion created all manner of concerns. With no concept of how long we could keep the ATVs moving forward, a million questions began to whirl through my mind. Did the transmitters only function for the ATVs and their riders? What happened if I leapt off? Did I perhaps have the taint of some strange emanation on my person that would drag me back here the moment the ATV stopped?
“I’m just not an ‘answers’ kind of guy,” I muttered. All that mattered in this moment was to get back and let the Designates know I lived.
We’d figure out the rest afterward.
I turned and trotted back to the vehicle. Once there, I settled myself back onto the ATV. I lodged the remainder of my smoke between my lips, and hit the button.
The four-wheeler roared to life.
“Okay.” I took a breath. “Let’s do this again.”
I cranked the throttle, listening to the vehicle roar. I glanced around one last time.
And thundered up the embankment.
I rounded the outcropping.
Passed the ledge.
When I hit the straightaway, I took a deep draw and tossed my cigarette away.
I toggled the transmitter.
CLICK.
Immediately, cerulean flame erupted in front of the four-wheeler, light so blue it screamed within my mind.
“C’mon.” I throttled ahead faster as that hungry indigo fire blossomed around me. “Come. On.”
In a turbulent crackle, another spark screamed into being, then another. They burned with the radiance of hateful, undying stars, with light that had shone across the worlds before mankind scampered down from the trees.
I had to say, the experience felt far less traumatic while the ATV roared beneath me.
With a final burst of sapphire radiance, I burst through the world again. Inhuman coldness caressed my face while azure flames burned at my thoughts and memories.
This time, I swore, I wouldn’t stop.
3
“—uck you!” Wyatt’s cry echoed from somewhere to my left, a direction that, momentarily, didn’t make sense. The vast reaches of darkness between, that spaceless space, had left my mind muddied.
I landed, jolted. It felt as if I’d fallen from a height.
I require confirmation and access code check in, Ling linked, a bit desperately, I thought.
I am Michael Bishop, 108. Again, my Crown whirred as it synced with the Lattice. Authorization code 020798361. System green.
108, your cadre is currently under attack by a known and wanted Irrational. Our system shows the presence of Rudolfo Firenzei, an Irrat of interest.
Yeah. I bit my lip. We’ve met.
Patching his file to memory.
My Crown made an electrical twitch. For the scarcest instant, I saw a scarlet dataglyph.
When the packet synced to my memory, I knew the man, down to my bones. He’d fought in conflicts on three continents. He’d been renowned both as a decorated Soviet sniper and an Iraqi intelligence agent. He’d been in wars for the past twenty years. No baseline government understood the man’s true capabilities.
He only took on targets others deemed impossible.
I had data on his service record, both official and classified Facility data.
Rudolfo Firenzei, Irrational 2187. Mercenary. Assassin.
Maniac.
I knew everything about him.
My Crown stored the data in my memory as if I’d hunted the man my entire life. I had dozens of pictures and sub-dossiers at my fingertips. I felt as if I’d witnessed every conflict the man had ever been in, every contract he’d been known to take, and every false identity he’d used.
Rudolfo Firenzei held the distinction of being one of the most deadly Irrats I’d ever encountered.
The man had taken a truly odd path. Typically, when someone unfurled with crazy, reality-altering powers, they began to seek out otherworldly allies or collect all kinds of crazy, mystical gear. Instead, Firenzei had become a true professional. A problem solver. A cleaner. He understood tactics, weaponry, and patience.
Fuck.
Your cadre is over the next rise. The Designate placed two yellow triangles on my visual array. Firenzei remains at a distance, keeping them penned in.
Understood. I cranked the throttle and rushed toward the rise. Already my mind whirled with half-baked strategy.
An idea popped to life.
Designate, on a separate subject, have you processed the timestamped data from the rest of my cadre?
We have, Asset.
Please consider the tactics Wyatt Guthrie used while we were adrift. I understand their non-typical nature, but we’re drastically undergeared out here. His capability to use offensive stasis saved our lives.
Asset Guthrie’s algorithms are unlike anything allowed within Rationality. Function aside, these are far too costly and disruptive to consider, even in the present circumstances.
As stated, we are far under-geared. I pulled around a large boulder and then continued, This dossier slated us for telemetry readings, yet we’ve already been far adrift and sieged a hostile installation.
Yes, Ling responded, so your cadre reported.
Well, we still haven’t even made Locale One. I twisted the throttle, surging ahead. I request recalculation of the cost and disruption of Wyatt’s algorithms, weighing that cost against the training, spec’ing, and equipping of the three Assets you’re about to lose.
A long pause echoed over my link, heavy with its silence. Understood, 108. Ling’s link felt a touch impatient. Yet while the sync remains active and the cadre remains within Rationality, I will determine the usage of stasis field algorithms. If you again find yourself adrift as the Asset with the sync, you will make your own determinations.
I see. It was about as close to being told to go to hell that a Designate would ever get.
Now, Asset, please see to Firenzei.
Will comply.
4
I hadn’t ridden the jouncing ATV another ten meters before Rachel Gardner’s link touched my interface with a subtle whisper of her personality. A blend of snarky concern and professional aplomb, I sensed the Caduceus cared very deeply about her charges, while at the same time she didn’t want anyone to realize she did.
Weird.
108, it concerns me that your cadre is severely under-supported on this dossier. She paused. If I’d had any indication this mission would stray so far from its primary objective, I would’ve insisted on coming along.
I’m also concerned. Aboard the ATV I twisted the throttle and hurtled over a small rise. I just shared that fact with Designate Li
ng, actually.
I spoke with the Designate earlier today. Her attention drifted away for a moment, as if she looked at something else.
You did? I peered out over the ridge line, trying to make out either Firenzei or my cadre. So far I didn’t have visual, aside from the triangular markers given to me by the Designate.
I didn’t like how far they’d roamed.
As the Caduceus who will be responsible for stitching your reckless ass back together, I have received clearance to patch you an executable program. It’s a little something of my own design and won’t take up too much Crown space. She paused again before continuing, I’m loading it to the Lattice now and will patch directly to your ARC address in a moment.
What does it do? I took a sharp right and bounced over a dry riverbed. As I throttled forward again, I peered past a small grove of Joshua trees and saltbush. While twilight drifted across the sky, the scant wind picked up, bearing the scent of sage and wisps of creosote. Even in the middle of all this excitement, I couldn’t help but notice the haunting beauty of this place.
It will activate when your axial implants indicate any kind of cascading error in your holotecture.
Oh. I nodded as if I understood. I see.
You don’t. Somehow, she managed to send a scathing tone within her link. How’s this? When you do something stupid that will kill you, this executable will automatically initiate. Either you or your cadre will be capable of using it to burn viral mecha and save your idiot ass.
Nice. I slowed as I pulled my vehicle around another curve in the dry riverbed. If I listened carefully, I thought I could hear the engines of the other ATVs. Beneath the triangular markers, the closest one’s legend read, 1.7km.
It’s an expensive process, mecha-wise, she continued. Please limit foolish choices.
You seem awfully certain I’m going to do something stupid, I commented. I think the odds favor a quick little reconnaissance and then coming home.
Right. She chuckled. Never tell me the odds.
Why not?
It’s from— I actually felt her hold up a hand in mute frustration. You know what? Never mind. When you get yourself in trouble, the executable is there. I’ve given one to every member of your cadre now, though I imagine you’re the only one who will use it.