“How accelerated?”
“A normal homo sapiens gestates for forty weeks. One of Bub’s children can usually mature to term in eight hours.”
“Unfortunately, that isn’t the only time issue you have to contend with. The Watcher is planning another abduction in sixty-eight minutes. The process is automatic, and the timer is counting down.”
“So we stop it.”
“The only way to stop it is the same way to return to your time; to go to the battery storage building.”
“Where is that?”
“Outside the compound. A half-hour hike.”
“You charge the battery with a dyson sphere.”
Jake gave Fabler a look like he’d give a slow toddler. “A device that completely encircles the sun, capturing all of its energy.” He turned back to Mu. “How many charges does the battery contain?”
“This is the last one for this cycle.”
“How long does it take to recharge?”
“Three years.”
“THIS IS THE WATCHER. I KNOW PRISONERS HAVE ESCAPED. I SHALL ACTIVATE ALL SUPPLICATION COLLARS EVERY THIRTY SECONDS UNTIL THE ESCAPEES HAVE RETURNED TO THEIR CELLS.”
Fabler pointed at Jake. “Grab Mu.” Then he pointed at Mu. “Take us to the weapons.”
“It might be safer if you carry me, Mr. Fabler.”
“No offense, but I’m not touching you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a captured insurgent.”
“I’m the Watcher’s prisoner. Surely you know the dictum the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“I have another dictum. Trust no one. Jake, grab Mu.”
Jake didn’t move. He appeared on the verge of losing his shit.
“The Watcher said every thirty seconds, Fabler. That pain is the worst I ever felt.”
“Calm down.”
“I changed my mind. I don’t want to get zapped again. Cut off my head.”
“Jake—”
But Fabler lost him when the collar activated, Jake screaming until he passed out in pain.
THE WATCHER ○ 2:37+pm
The Watcher steps through the carnage, the blood sticky under his feet.
He wonders, obliquely, if any can be harvested.
The Watcher begins a quick head count. During the remote viewing, the Watcher gets a brief glimpse of Grim as his guard streaks past.
Grim, and one of Mu’s resurrected creatures.
And Presley.
And Omega 28.
Omega 28 appears to be dead.
The Watcher finishes the head count, surprised by how quickly it ends.
The Watcher is sure Mu is behind this. Or Omega 1. Or both, somehow conspiring.
He rubs his exocrine gland.
“THIS IS THE WATCHER. I KNOW PRISONERS HAVE ESCAPED. I SHALL ACTIVATE ALL SUPPLICATION COLLARS EVERY THIRTY SECONDS UNTIL THE ESCAPEES HAVE RETURNED TO THEIR CELLS.”
The Watcher opens a wall—
—and sees Omega 3 directly in front of him, filling the hallway.
The Watcher draws his sculptor, replacing the Reformant vial with Elixir. The dragon has scales, which will be difficult to penetrate.
PRESLEY ○ 61 MINUTES
Each breath became harder, but Presley didn’t panic.
The pain had dulled, and Presley’s only sense left was Grim holding her hand.
“You’re getting cold.”
“I don’t feel cold.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Not really. A little twinge, in my belly.”
“Our baby?”
That made Presley smile. “We just conceived a few days ago, Grim. I don’t think I’d feel the baby yet.”
“I’m new to this.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
“I know.” She glanced down. “At least you have something to remember me by. Are you still sexually assaulting my hand?”
He offered mock offense. “It isn’t assault. Your hand gave me consent.”
“Might be tough to date again, with three hands. Women may not find that attractive.”
His eyes crinkled. “With three hands I won’t need to date again.”
“THIS IS THE WATCHER. I KNOW PRISONERS HAVE ESCAPED. I SHALL ACTIVATE ALL SUPPLICATION COLLARS EVERY THIRTY SECONDS UNTIL THE ESCAPEES HAVE RETURNED TO THEIR CELLS.”
Grim went from caregiver to soldier like a switch had flipped. “I’m taking off your collar.”
Presley hesitated, then nodded.
“You might want to close your eyes.”
She nodded again, but only lowered her lids while still peeking.
Presley expected Grim to reach for her neck. Instead he picked up a gnarly severed grey arm—
—and licked it.
“I’m never kissing you again.”
“You were supposed to close your eyes.”
“What did it taste like?”
“Like apple pie and sunshine. Brace yourself.”
“I like apple pie. Pass it over.”
Grim didn’t pass over the arm. He rubbed it with one hand, and the other grabbed her supplication collar.
“If this hurts you I won’t forgive myself.”
Presley spoke from the heart. “You need to forgive yourself. Then teach me how.”
“I’m going on three. One—”
Grim yanked on the collar, and after a moment of resistance it pulled off of Presley’s neck.
Presley winced, again feeling a jab in her belly.
Grim tossed the collar to the side. “Let me go for help. Please, Presley.”
“Stay. I don’t want to be alone… when…”
No one spoke for a moment. Grim broke the silence. “Are you religious?”
“No. I tried church. Didn’t work for me. You?”
Grim shook his head. “They say there are no atheists in the foxholes. Bullshit. I saw some real terrible things. Came close to dea
th a few times. Never felt like praying would help.” He held her hand again. “Right now I want to pray.”
“I’ll pass. Warfare is human. We did it to ourselves. But no god would allow a child to be born with a defective heart. If something created us, it doesn’t care. I’m not going to beg it for help.”
“Maybe it…”
Grim abruptly stopped talking.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Say what you were going to say, Grim.”
“Maybe god sees us suffer, and can’t stand it. So he ran away.”
“Like me, you mean.”
“I mean like any human being. Why does god have to be all powerful and all loving and perfect? Maybe god is kinda powerful, and sometimes loving, and no more perfect than any of us.”
“So some god created us in his own image, and that image is flawed.”
“Or maybe he created Sinatra in his own image, and we’re just some crazy offshoot of sloth evolution.”
“So you want to get on your knees and ask the sloth god to save us?”
Grim hung his head. “I just want you to be okay, Presley. If it takes a miracle for that to happen, then I reserve the right to hope for a miracle.”
“Miracles don’t happen in real life, Grim. They only happen in dreams and fairy tales.”
“Grim! Behind you!”
The male voice came from her right. It sounded a lot like—
“Fabler! You magnificent son of a bitch, you came back!” Grim rushed to Fabler, embracing him.
“Megatherium!”
Grim looked past Fabler to see who yelled. A man, one red hair’s breadth away from freaking out. “Who’s the shaky dude?”
“Kill me. Please kill me.”
“That’s Jake. He’s not dealing with his supplication collar well.”
“I can help with that, Jake.”
“Megatherium!” He pointed—
—at Sinatra.
“That’s Sinatra. He’s with us. A good guy.”
Fabler’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is it? A giant bear?”
“A giant sloth. You’ll like him. He kills monsters and farts a lot. Your kind of people.”
As Grim went to the new guy, Fabler knelt next to Presley. “Hey, soldier. Sorry I left you behind.”
“Sorry I didn’t take you seriously.”
Fabler offered the slightest shrug in history. “I didn’t take me seriously either.” He eyeballed Presley’s injuries. “How you feeling?”
“Numb. All over. But I’m okay with that.”
“Ask her about any abdominal pain unrelated to her injuries.”
Presley looked around for the source of the odd voice. “Who said that?”
“That’s Mu.”
“Where is he?”
“In my pocket. He’s kind of a super-intelligent pocket calculator.”
“A computer? Can he see me?”
Fabler’s pocket spoke. “No. I can detect the blood you’ve lost, hear your respiration, heartrate, the stress levels in your voice. What I can’t analyze—without Mr. McKendrick’s assistance—is if your embryo has mutated. But I’ll be able to do that when we heal your injuries.”
“Mu can heal me?”
Fabler nodded.
“And my baby might have a mutation?”
Jake McKendrick, free of his supplication collar and looking two hundred times better, stepped forward and offered his hand, winced at Presley’s injuries, and took his hand back. “I’m Jake.”
“Presley. You’re Holly’s brother.”
“She’s here? Is she okay?”
Grim came up behind Jake. “What about our baby?”
“It’s complicated. Mu isn’t the only superintelligent entity in the compound. There’s an immortal demon that may have tampered with your pregnancy.”
“A demon? As in from hell?”
“This one is from outer space.” Jake shrugged. “I suppose it could be hell. Another solar system. A parallel universe. I’m not ruling out anything at this point.”
Fabler and Jake exchanged a glance. Mu answered with a question.
“Have you had any abdominal pain, separate from your injuries?”
Presley thought about the twinges she’d been feeling. “I’m not sure. What kind of pain are we talking about?”
Fabler stuck a hand into his pocket, and removed what looked like a foil-wrapped pack of cigarettes with a red LED on the front.
“To be blunt, it will feel like something very restless and hostile trying to eat its way out.”
Grim’s face pinched. “Presley?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Mr. McKendrick, hold the laser scalpel. We’ll start with her injuries and then check the embryo.”
Jake flashed the same gizmo the Watcher used during the conception and pointed it at Presley.
Her pain vanished, and she warmed up.
“Internals repaired. I also took care of the malignant lump in your right breast.”
“Cancer?” Grim’s voice had a squeak to it.
“Yes. Still Stage 1. Hadn’t metastasized. Mr. McKendrick, point the beam lower.”
Jake followed instructions.
The silence stretched.
“There’s implantation.”
Presley felt the panic rise in her, but she’d had so much practice in the past days pushing panic down that she easily controlled it. “Can you explain?”
“Rapid cell division, and the fertilized egg has attached to the endometrium.”
Grim’s turn with a question. “Can the Gameboy talk so the rest of us understand?”
“Unremarkable pregnancy. Embryo appears normal.”
Grim knelt down, kissed Presley hard.
She kissed back just as hard.
“Is there a plan?”
“We get our weapons back, grab the prisoners, then fight our way to a battery building where we can return back to our time. We have less than an hour, or we’re stuck here for three more years.”
Jake shook his head, aggressively. “We need to find the prisoners first. My sister and the others, including your wife Lori, are getting zapped every thirty seconds. If I’m being too blunt, it’s because I have Asperger’s, and that’s a thing with aspies. But we really need to find them first and we really need to haul ass.”
Fabler directed his gaze at the computer. “Mu, where are the cells?”
“Thirty meters south-southeast. I can open the walls for a straight path.”
“Wait.” Presley help up her arm, showing her stump. “I’m down a foot and a hand, but I’d like to get my hand back.”
Grim reached out, waggling Presley’s fingers. Jake made the exchange; bloodless, weightless, painless, leaving Grim without even the tiniest mark that he’d once had an extra hand, and Presley with hers back, as natural and normal as if it had never left.
Mu somehow opened up a hole in a wall
“Lean on me. I’ll be your crutch.”
But a little voice in Presley’s head told her it wouldn’t.
LORI ○ 53 MINUTES
The agony of the collar wiped out the intensity of the Elixir, and by the tenth round o
f shocks sobriety had returned to Lori with a vengeance.
“You can give up, tomorrow.” Lori clenched her teeth. “Today, keep fighting.”
The ZAP! came again, stinging like electric hornets. Lori heard screaming, and in a disconnected, dispatched way wondered if it came from her cellmates, or herself.
The torture paused.
Lori rubbed her protruding belly, focusing on Fabler.
Lori thrashed her head back and forth, trying to bat away the thought.
“Lori.”
Then Lori’s collar fell away, and she stared at the man in her arms, her brain trying to understand, to comprehend.
“You’re… real.”
Fabler smiled, eyes running.
The last time Lori had seen her husband cry was their wedding day.
Fabler kissed her. Lori kissed him back. A kiss full of longing and happiness and regret and excitement and every moment they’d shared in the past and every moment they’d share in the future. A kiss that made up for every kiss they had missed since their separation.
One hell of a kiss.
What Happened to Lori Page 60