Guardians of the Portals

by Nya Rawlyns

  Zack shoved the last crate through and looked at Falcon expectantly. "Where's this going? Or don't you know?"

  "Yeah, unfortunately I do know." Falcon hesitated, debating how much to share with them. He opted to avoid the question. "Take the transceiver."

  Kieran chimed in, "That's not an answer, Trey. I want to know. Where are we going?"

  "To a room with no doors."

  Zack looked from Kieran to his commander and muttered, "What the ...," then moaned, "oh shit," and pitched forward clutching his head in agony.

  Falcon cupped his hands over Kieran's ears and yelled, "You two only. There's water, no food. No way out. I'll come for you. I have to dial from the other side." Kieran shook his head violently, the words barely registering over the painful decibel level. "That's an order. Now help me with Zack."

  Falcon dragged Zack by the shoulders to the fluttering surface. With the screaming in his head close to overriding all his control, the Portal was on the verge of collapse. He nodded at the curtain of pulsating energy and shoved Zack through, then waved for him to go next. Unlike Zack, he wanted to object, but the excruciating pain clouded his vision, fracturing his thoughts. He dropped to his knees as Falcon rolled him to the curtain, letting the electromagnetic forces suck his mass into the maw.

  Trey stood with difficulty and watched the advancing force. He blocked the ululations as best he could and, working with exaggerated deliberateness, stripped and tossed his weapons through the diminishing void.

  Sudden silence nearly gutted his brain, his blood pressure plummeting, sending waves of dizziness and nausea into his midsection. He sank to his knees and vomited blood-tinged fluid. The last thing he saw was Kieran's backpack canted against a boulder.

  ****

  "Jake!"

  "Yeah, we see it." Jake elbowed Fletcher aside and poked at the monitor. "You see what I'm seeing?" Fletcher nodded and adjusted the gain. "That's better. Get me co-ordinates on this. Now, asshole!"

  Fletcher mumbled, "Yessir," and fingered the touch screen, expanding the topo map to full scale, and overlaying longitude and latitude. He jotted the numbers down and pulled up a conversion program.

  "You got it yet? Come on, what's taking so long?"

  "It's a Fourier transform, sir. I'll have it in a couple of minutes."

  "Yeah, whatever." Jake called over to the young man who had just come on shift. "Mark, what do we have on the away teams?"

  Mark held up two fingers. He tapped at the earpiece, nodding his head in time to whatever instructions were being issued as he pulled the keyboard onto his lap. "It's a go, unit one is on the way, unit two is mustering with the cargo carrier. ETA 0830."

  "Um, boss?"

  "What, Fletcher?"

  "We have weather moving in. Our side, not theirs."

  "Crap, what kind of weather?"

  "Low, moving out of Canada. They're calling for heavy snow, high winds, probable blizzard conditions."

  "When?"

  "Not sure exactly—sometime around midnight, local time."

  Jake called out, "Mark, you hearing this?" At Mark's 'yo' he barked, "Tell unit one best speed."

  Mark muttered into his headset and hollered back, "They want to know if they should launch two or wait. Said something about it being a scow, didn't catch all of it."

  Jake thought for a minute and said, "Send 'em but tell them to keep an eye to the sky and look for regional airports, tell 'em there's a decent one in Riverton."

  Mark gave him a thumbs-up and resumed staring at the bank of monitors. Jake liked the kid. He was sharp as a tack, irreverent and two steps ahead of everybody. He'd be a good one to get on his side. Things were getting far too complicated at headquarters. The organization was under siege from inside and out.

  Something, or someone, had breathed new life into Eirik's group. His fingerprint was all over a rash of fuck-ups that had entire shipments of arms and drugs simply disappearing into thin air. They'd blamed technical glitches as teams accessed normally dormant Portals on a frequent basis, short-circuiting transit times and creating logistical nightmares. Failures with one jump point often translated into cascading perturbations with others in the same dimension. So far they'd been lucky and avoided total lock down. It was getting bad enough that Gunnarr gave serious consideration to calling in his brother's research group. Jake couldn't fathom how that arrangement might work. The two groups remained seriously at odds with what both men liked to call their 'mission statements'.

  "Sir?" Fletcher wheeled close to Jake and pointed to the topographical map of north central Wyoming. "That's on the Indian Reservation. How are we gonna get a team in there without bringing the Feds in to investigate?"

  "You ever been there, son?"

  "Uh, no sir."

  Jake stabbed at an area north of Lander on the east side of Route 287. "See this? It's a whole lot of nothing with some twelve thousand foot mountains, here ... and here. The gate's located between this outcrop and this here valley." Fletcher looked askance at the screen. "Yeah, boy, it's a valley. At eleven thousand and change."

  "But what's a jump point doing there? I thought they were all located around cities, like here."

  Mark piped up, "They don't 'appear' around urban centers, Fletch, it's the other way around. That one was unmapped until last summer."

  Jake nodded approval. Trey and his daughter had gone missing through that Portal, disappearing into an uncharted dimension. Trey had returned, but only because Gunnarr had strong-armed his brother into mounting a search and rescue. Knutr had sent a separate team from Greyfalcon and Caitlin had ended up collateral damage in a firefight. No one knew exactly what happened. The cleaners had found wreckage but no bodies. They assumed the predators had...

  Jake pulled away from that image. It did him no good to dwell on something he couldn't change. His wife and daughter were both dead, victims of internecine warfare that was generations old. He needed to look out for his own. He needed to find Kieran.

  "Sir?"

  "Yeah, Fletcher."

  "How are they gonna re-open the Portal? I heard that the Althings shut it down after the, uh, you know..."

  "Working on it, boy. Working on it."

  ****

  Kieran struggled to his feet, his head splitting in soundless fury. Trickles of blood leaked from his ears and nostrils, trailing thin streams across his lips and along his neck. He had little feeling in his arms and hands, though his legs felt heavy and swollen. His chest ached with a dull throbbing sensation, leaving him to wonder if he was having a heart attack. It wouldn't be surprising given how he'd been abusing his body for years. Caitlin's voice echoed strangely, bouncing off the mirrored surfaces, I will come for you.

  He recognized Caitlin's unique cadence, the soft southern vowels so like their mother's, low pitched, almost sexy. He smiled at that. His sister had been tall and rail thin, tom-boyish, and the last thing any of his sycophant friends ever looked at other than as an annoyance. They'd been inseparable and he'd wallowed in her hero worship, at least until he'd discovered better, more gratifying adoration from his team-mates and their groupies. Kieran rubbed at his ears, pushing the illusion of sound into the background. He needed clarity, not hallucinations. Once he figured out their situation, he could possibly indulge...

  The pond lay to his right, gunmetal grey, flat and featureless, not a ripple marring its surface. Staggered to the right and left of a narrow pebbled beach, charred stumps and bits of molten rock littered the landscape. He recognized the damage pattern—the vegetation had been torched in the recent past. Not a living thing remained in the blast area.

  Curious, Kieran limped stiffly to the edge of the clearing, rapidly scanning the surrounding mountain faces for any movement or sign of volcanic activity. A small pinprick of a sun in what he thought of as a noontime position gave off startling white hot rays, casting broad spectrum wavelengths in an eye-searing assault on his vision. He'd thought the last dimension had been a hell-hole. This one looked to pass that
by an order of magnitude. Where the hell had the Falcon dumped them?

  Kieran wound his way through the deadfall. What had obviously been a small oasis nestled in a natural bowl lay surrounded on all sides by sheer cliff faces. The monoliths looked like their surfaces had been scraped clear of all features and buffed to a polish. To his left, the cliff face rose up at least a thousand feet to a knife edge profile, likely a narrow ridge. Soft scuff marks marred the surface toward the base, as if rocks or gravel had cascaded from the top. He ran his hands over the slick face, smooth as silk, impossible to climb. The other side looked slightly rougher but with the sun directly overhead, he couldn't get a good read on any possible features. He would have to examine it later in the day when shadows would help him identify and define any handholds.

  He stretched and flexed his fingers. The feeling was finally returning, judging from the painful tingling in his fingers and toes. He couldn't be sure about his hearing. He suspected part of his problem was a complete absence of sound in this place. Not a breath of air stirred. It had that sensory deprivation vibe—colors merging uniform tans-to-grays, like ill-defined reflections off objects without substance. Even the pond blended seamlessly into the surrounding bare ground. If Falcon hadn't told him there would be water available, he might never have noticed it as a unique feature. At least, not until he stepped in it.

  Kieran moved around Zack, still curled in a fetal position next to the jumbled pile of crates, unconscious. Idly he thought he ought to check for a pulse, but in truth it mattered little. Alone, or with company, this place was still nothing more than a glorified jail cell. Like Falcon had said, a room with no doors.

  Kieran knelt by the pond's edge and tentatively skimmed a finger along the surface. If it was water, it had a texture that repulsed him. It was almost gelatinous, with sharp pricks against his skin attesting to some type of solid suspended in the liquid. Ripples spread out in slow oscillations, reminding him of the movement of the horde through the reeds, with a sluggish frequency and damped modulation, trickling to nothing a few feet from the original disturbance. The term 'turgid' sprang to mind. He stood and stared at the surface, suddenly thirsty. He'd had nothing to drink for hours, too concerned with holding off the scouting party. He'd have to find his backpack in the jumble of crates. They'd obviously landed one atop another, then rolled and self-stacked, helter-skelter, some of the boxes laying upside down, others on their sides. The contents would be protected with foam padding though, at that point, the integrity of their cargo was only a secondary concern. He had a feeling survival might become their primary issue.

  What did Trey mean, he'd have to dial in to them from the other side? He had to have been here, but when was the question. Kieran shook his head to clear the cobwebs. There was something he should be remembering—it was there, just out of reach, irritating for it likely was important. He stood and turned back to find Zack sitting up against an overturned crate.

  Zack mouthed 'Kier', the sound coming out as a faint croak. Kieran sighed with relief. The deafness wasn't permanent. The younger man looked the worse for wear from his experience. He'd bitten and split his lower lip as he'd landed on the crates, toppling over the sharp edges and leaving his face with painful bruises and a swollen eye.

  "It's all right, Zack. You'll get it back pretty quick." Kieran cupped his hand over his ear and pointed to his mouth. He resisted the urge to shout, though he doubted he could manage much more than a rasp as his throat still felt swollen and tight. Whatever frequencies those hostiles employed was very effective. If they got out of this alive, he'd be happy, for once, to have his father debrief him. Gunny and his buddies would shit a blue brick over the intel.

  Zack slowly scanned the ruined landscape. "Where the hell are we?" He struggled to stand, allowing Kieran to give him an assist.

  "I don't know. I don't recognize this place. Falcon's been here. So's somebody else." Kieran moved around the crates, up-righting some and stacking them carefully. "Give me a hand, would you?" He motioned for Zack to grab the handle on the largest box.

  "Where do you want this?"

  "Over by the tree line. What's left of it. Don't much like being so exposed." The two men carried the box to a mound of blackened stumps and brush. Kieran stared at it, the shape reminiscent of something... Damn, wish I could think.

  They worked quickly as the effects from the sonic blast gradually wore off. Kieran instructed Zack to set the smaller containers in a "U" off the largest crate.

  "What are we building, Kier?"

  "Shelter. I think I know where we are."

  Zack looked like he felt—an automaton, blank and shell-shocked. Zack had mustered out of the Navy Seals about the same time he had retired after two tours as a sniper specialist with the Marines. Both of them ended up with Greyfalcon—him because Jake needed a replacement and Zack because he was a good soldier, reliable in a firefight. What the corporate interview hadn't revealed was the guy was prone to whining when confronted by things he didn't understand. Built more for close-in fighting, Zack was adequate with a blade but no match for his own unnatural feel for weapons of any type.

  Both men moved about the clearing, the mindless activity easing their agitation.

  "Kier? What if Falcon can't get to us?"

  "He will, don't worry," the statement sounding hollow and without promise even to his own ears.

  "But..."

  "Headquarters will know. Gunny's on it. He'll figure it out."

  "Jake? Yeah. Yeah, okay." He heaved a small crate on the pile and nicked the edges together so the wall of boxes aligned precisely. "You and him aren't much alike, ya know that?"

  He grunted 'uh-huh' and turned away. Comparisons with his father weren't on his list of favorite cocktail party topics. That was the other annoying thing about Zack. He liked to talk.

  "When your old man left, I figured you'd be out too but that didn't happen." He hitched a hip on a crate, settling in for a monologue. Short of shooting him, there wasn't much you could do when he got on a roll.

  "Kinda surprised all of us when he blabbed to the papers." Kieran cringed. He knew where this was going. "Sending you after him seemed stupid to me. I mean, he's your dad after all. Did they think he'd just roll over because you're his kid?"

  "Something like that." In truth, it was nothing like that.

  They're manipulating you, boy. Got you so hopped up on God only knows what kind of shit, you don't know your own name half the time. I didn't bring you in to take over for me just to have them turn you into a drugged out merc. You think you earned that spot, think you're management? Bullshit. You're a puppet, disposable. Just like me. They'll use you up and throw you away.

  "So, what happened? Kier?"

  "Nothing." Three bullets worth of nothing, three bullets shy of putting the man he could never live up to into the ground. Then he'd run and his life had been a whole lot of nothing for a very long time.

  Zack had finally taken the hint, sitting with a thin-lipped pout.

  Kieran hated to interrupt the silence but they needed to scout the area. "You want to help me or are you just gonna stare off into space?"

  "Uh, sorry, Kier. Just thinking on something."

  "I'm going to the other side. There's more brush there than here. Keep stacking and make a roof as best you can."

  "Kier?"

  "What?"

  "This ain't for shade, is it?"

  Kieran grimaced and turned away. He mumbled, "No," and limped toward the pond. He had a good idea what they were up against. Falcon had spilled his guts one night when they'd gotten high and gone on a three-day bender on one of their rare down times. As wasted as he was that night, he remembered enough that even those fuzzy recollections twisted his gut in a knot. They needed to work fast because all the weapons in the universe weren't going to protect them from a full scale attack. He thought again, if I get out of this, that fucker's gonna have a lot of explaining to do.

  Kieran felt rather than heard the whisper, almost
subvocal, a residual energy signature. It reverbed weakly, fading as the sun slipped imperceptibly toward the edge of the monolith. If even half of what the Falcon said was true, they were in deep shit. Night would come slowly and last forever, bringing with it unimagined, prehistoric horrors.

  Caitlin. Why wouldn't Falcon talk about her? What had happened to them? Between them. From what little he'd overheard, Falcon had been exonerated in her death. That fuck-up could be laid at the Althings' doorstep, or so the rumor went. No matter. The man grieved, silent and alone. Losing Caitlin had left a hole in all their hearts, shells with no purpose. The only difference between himself and his friend was that the Falcon was a dead man walking, a powder keg ready to detonate and he didn't give a shit who was in the blast radius.

  Kieran snorted and muttered, "I wish I was that lucky." He'd give anything to not care, anything to numb the pain and emptiness. He'd need to find his backpack soon. If the night was as long as Falcon claimed, he wasn't going through it without some fortification.

  Kieran handed Zack the pile of charred branches, then looked at his clothes and hands with disgust. He might have to get over his distaste for the pond's contents. As he moved into the tangle of stumps, he cautioned Zack to make the roof as tight as possible.

  Zack nodded and asked, "Where ya going?"

  "Have you seen my backpack?"

  He looked around and shrugged. "Might have gone flying, being lighter."

  "Yeah, my thought. Stay here and watch the sky. Sun's going down."

  "What am I looking for anyways?"

  "Not exactly sure but they'll come out of the sky when it's dark."

  "I'll pull nightscopes."

  "Yeah, you do that." Kieran knew that wasn't going to help but if it gave Zack comfort who was he to say different? He had his own answer to their dilemma.

  He really needed to find that backpack.

  ****

  Trey struggled against the awkward swaying motion, his shoulders and pelvis screaming in agony as he hung, trussed like a deer, off a rough-hewn log attached to some wheeled device being pulled or pushed through the dense growth. The reeds stood taller than the indigenes moving silently past the stiff stalks. He caught a glimpse of the night sky but mostly he kept his eyes closed, concentrating on direction and speed of travel. He tried to recall how far the nearest settlement had been to the outcrop, but his brain refused to function at optimum. He fought desperately against the stasis, preferring the unrelenting pain to the blank nothingness.