Helen picks up the mirror off the floor and scrutinizes it. “Sorry, Dad; looks like my modifications didn’t cut it.”
Gabriel takes the mirror from Helen. “The face recognition part you programmed works fine, kid. Check it out.” He bounds across the room with wires trailing behind him and hides behind a support column. He holds the mirror at arm’s length, points it back at Helen, and presses a button on the side. Helen’s reflection freezes, converted to an image in the mirror.
“Very nice, eh?” Gabriel grins. “Brilliant around-the-corner image capture. Brilliant! That’s how I got the snap of our visitor when he wasn’t looking. Check this out.” Gabriel pokes a few points on the image of Helen’s face with his finger and a grid appears. Lines converge on Helen’s facial features and geometric data pops up all around the sides. “See? Face analysis. Works fine, kid.”
“Now I’ll show you what happens with our man with the fancy goatee.” Gabriel swipes across the mirror, through several more pictures. There’s one of his brother Christopher, cutting his own Mohawk in a bathroom somewhere. There’s a close-up of Clarence, the family’s enormous retriever, currently sleeping in a square of sun on the floor. The face recognition has limited success with dogs.
Mr. Goode’s face appears again. The grid comes up, and the data pops on, but no identifying information is available. “See?” Gabriel says. “Your program pulled out all the important bits of this guy’s face, just like you designed it to. Problem is, these bits don’t match with anything in the Guild database. This guy is an unknown, even to the Guild.”
“Then how come that man has my drawing? And how come he says he’s from the Guild?” Henry asks.
“My guess is, that drawing he had was a copy,” Gabriel says. “It was stolen somehow from Rose’s archives. This is not the first time someone has gone after Guild material. It happens all the time. There’s an obvious advantage to getting a hold of drawings of things that haven’t happened yet.”
“That guy wouldn’t say what the notations are,” Henry says. Henry knows his drawings have been different lately, not always a depiction of a place or a thing, but rather these tangled messes of lines and symbols. They come over him, like a compulsion, and he has to write them down. It’s been happening more and more.
“I believe that Mr. Goode was referring to the ability of some Guild members to map out aspects of time, like rifts,” Gabriel says.
“What’s a rift?” Henry asks. He’s getting tired of this game of questions.
“When we use a portal,” Kate explains, holding up one of the spiral coins, “it’s a passage between one space-time and a different one, right? So when that opens, it bumps two different space-times up against each other. That’s why a portal has to be closed up completely after we use it.” She flips the coin over to show the other side. “If a portal doesn’t get closed properly, a strand of space-time can leak through, and the two sides of the portal can get stuck together. They become tangled. That’s when rifts can occur. Rifts are a no-man’s land in-between spaces and times.”
“And once a rift gets made,” Gabriel says, “they are incredibly hard to unmake. And there are a lot of them. Like the ones created by the Tromindox who stole a bunch of portals from the Council and started using them to hunt.”
“So it sounds like Henry can see more than regular places and things now,” Helen says. “It’s as if you’re saying he can make pictures of time itself. Is that right?”
“Exactly,” Kate says. “There’s another way that a rift can happen, too. That’s when a portal itself gets cut apart. Then the two halves are tangled together, no matter where they go. And sometimes, you don’t want the halves to be put back together under any circumstances…”
Gabriel points a finger at his wife. “Oh, no. No, no, no. You got the thing—didn’t you? Please tell me you don’t have the thing.”
Kate gives him a look. “Gabriel, it’s my turn. We’re having to move the fragment around faster and faster to keep it hidden. You know that. It’s my responsibility. Anna floated around on a cloaked sailing ship by herself for how long? Five years? And then she got detected. So she had to move, quickly, before someone connected her location to that of the fragment. The fragment won’t encode to me for a while, I don’t think. Anna did the best she could. But it’s my turn.”
Gabriel puts his hands on Kate’s upper arms, then drops them down and takes both her hands. “Okay. You know what?” he says. “I’m sorry. If you ended up with the thing, I guess that’s your duty. I don’t want to make it any more difficult than it already is.”
Kate buries her face in Gabriel’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“What is the thing?” Helen asks.
“Why do I have to be drawing rifts? Why can’t I draw superheroes like everybody else?” Henry asks.
Daniel Brush sweeps dirt in-between the gaps in the covered wooden walkway outside the Brokeneck Book Store in the remote forest town of Brokeneck, California. Bertrand, the bookstore’s orange and opinionated cat, sits on the railing separating the walkway from the dirt street below. As always, the weather is hot. Daniel throws his brown dreadlocks back over his shoulders and wipes his forehead.
Daniel’s uncle, Mr. Brush, steps out the front door with a handful of envelopes. He’s already torn most of them open.
“Another college wants to talk to you,” Mr. Brush says. “This one’s far away. But they like you a lot. I think they would let you go there for no money.”
Daniel takes the letter from his uncle. “Thanks.”
“Sure, kid.” Mr. Brush smiles from behind his thick glasses. Daniel’s uncle has got a kind, easy manner and thinning hair. An assortment of pencils and pens sticks out of the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt, a short-sleeved masterpiece decorated with palm trees and surfboards and suns peeking between clouds. One of the pens has leaked and left a blue ink stain in the middle of a white cloud on the pocket.
Mr. Brush heads back inside; Bertrand follows him and takes up his customary spot atop , displayed on a counter behind the cash register.
Daniel is reading over the letter when a device buzzes in his pocket. The device was a gift from the mother of a friend. He pulls it out. It’s small and square, with a screen on one side. As Daniel understands it, this thing allows communication over pirated channels so no one can intercept your conversation. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. The screen lights up with letters and a message.
Helen: Daniel u there?
Daniel: Yep how are things
Helen: OK I guess
Helen: My mom was given this necklace and it’s bad news
Helen: It gets passed around the clan like the Book of the Future and whatnot
Daniel: Sounds weird
Helen: Yeah we have to protect it
Helen: Actually it’s half a necklace
Helen: Has to be kept away from the other half no matter what
Daniel: What happens if the two halves get put back together?
Helen: Don’t know Bad things
Helen: Mom hasn’t totally explained
Helen: But thought u should know so you can keep an eye on the books
Helen: There’s this one squid who is up to no good
Daniel: Thanks
Helen: How’s Brokeneck
Daniel: Thrilling
Daniel: Nothing’s come out of the lake lately, so that’s positive
Daniel: Where’s the other half of the necklace
Helen: Far away I think
Helen: It’s called a rift
Helen: Things that are far apart but linked together
Daniel: Ha! sounds like us
Daniel: Okay that was awkward
Daniel: Helen?
Helen: Yeah I’m here
Helen: And yes that was awkward
Helen: Thanks for that
Daniel: Sorry
Daniel: I do miss you
Daniel: I’ll stop talking now
Helen: Okay
Betty, the Silverwoods’ silver-blue Ford Maverick, maneuvers into one of the last remaining parking spots at Randy’s Quality Eats, a low-slung restaurant in a dirt lot at the edge of the interstate. Her engine growls to a stop. Cars jam the parking lot, having brought travelers seeking lunch and a break from the monotony of the road. The lunch rush began an hour ago.
Gabriel and Helen Silverwood reached this location by way of a portal, though, not by driving for hours like the restaurant’s patrons.
Gabriel climbs out of the car and stretches his legs. Helen exits the passenger side and stands as well. Clarence the dog naps in the back seat, his enormous head resting on his front paws. Every so often he makes a running motion with his rear legs as if dreaming of hunting rabbits. He doesn’t seem to mind portal travel; he just likes to be with his people—even if he does dream of rabbits.
Helen much prefers going out on assignment with her dad to being visited in her sleep as she used to when she was small, healing Tromindox victims with her antivenom blood. Now she stays wide awake and aware of what’s going on. Like a grownup person.
The windows of the diner are covered in sheets of dark purple plastic, no doubt to keep out the afternoon glare so people can chew their pancakes in peace. Helen can’t make out any shapes inside.
In fact, nothing moves inside or out except the breeze. Occasionally, a bird chirps or a truck rushes by.
“Is this the right place?” Helen asks her dad.
Lately the Silverwoods’ assignments have been all hunting, not much healing. The Tromindox are digesting their prey quickly. Most of the time it’s too late to get the human out by the time Helen gets there.
“This looks right,” Gabriel answers. He fishes a device from his pocket and peers down at it, shading it from the sun with one hand. “These are the correct coordinates. I have a sinking feeling, though, that we are too late. Again. Alright, let’s make some observations.”
Gabriel springs into action, pacing back and forth next to the car and analyzing the situation out loud as is his habit when presented with unexpected circumstances. When her dad gets like this, Helen privately calls it “Super Logic Mode.”
“What we see here,” Gabriel says, “is a parking lot full of cars. We’re next to a busy highway. This location should be bustling with activity. Have you seen a single person come out of this establishment since we got here?”
Helen scans the front of the restaurant. “Nope, I haven’t,” she says.
“And have you observed anyone getting gas at the station next door?”
Helen squints over at the station. Though there are cars in place at the pumps, one with the nozzle still sticking out of the tank, there are no people. “No, nobody there, either,” she answers.
“Things appear grim,” Gabriel says. “Let’s take a look around. You check the back; I’ll see inside. And remember, if you encounter anyone, palm out like this.” He holds his hand out in front of him, palm forward. On it, near his wrist, he’s drawn a circle with a spiral inside of it with a marker—the Silverwood symbol of a portal. Helen has the same drawing on her wrist. “Tromindox will know you’re Silverwood, and that if they touch you and your antivenom blood, they die. So they’ll leave you alone. If not, you’re in for a nasty jab with a venomous spike and a lot of ice and bandages.”
“Okay, Dad.” Helen says. She takes a path around the restaurant to the right, staying close to the wall. She scans the area, but sees no one. There’s a pair of white plastic chairs, brittle and yellowed from the harsh sunlight, and cigarette butts lying around on the ground. She gets up on tiptoe and peeks through a dingy square window. All she can see is an empty kitchen.
Gabriel pushes open the front doors and tiny bells tinkle. In the waiting area, a free-standing wooden sign displays the words PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED in carved yellow letters. A hissing sound reaches his ears from the back.
An enormous pot of water has nearly boiled away on the stove in the kitchen. Gabriel turns off the burner and then unplugs a waffle iron and powers down the grill, where a former sandwich has burned down to a matchbox-sized bit of charcoal. Still no one.
“Yup, we got here too late,” Gabriel says to himself. “Damn.” He pushes open a screen door at the back and steps out. The door squeaks and bangs shut.
“I don’t understand,” Helen says, coming around the corner. “Tromindox stalk single victims. They wait until someone is alone to attack them. They are too vulnerable otherwise, too slow and lethargic after they consume a whole human. How did they clear out this entire place? There had to be a ton of people here.”
“This is something new, for sure,” Gabriel says. “These Tromindox are working very fast. Based on the evidence, it looks like they came here to hunt in a pack. There had to be more than one to take out an entire restaurant’s staff and clientele in less than the time it took us to get here. I mean, our portal did dump us off a ways away, but still, it’s been less than an hour.”
“So where are they, then?” Helen asks. “Where is this supposed pack of Tromindox?”
“That, my dear, is what we’re going to find out,” Gabriel says.
Out in front of the restaurant, Clarence the dog rolls over in the car. A dust devil spins at the edge of the parking lot, and the dirt shifts on the ground like miniature sand dunes.
The area behind the diner offers only an overstuffed dumpster and more cigarette butts. Father and daughter stand with hands on hips, nothing much to examine except the ring of distant mountains.
“I must admit I’m not sure where to start,” Gabriel says. “This is a whole new problem. I thought at least we could liberate a human or two when we got here, maybe even heal a few. This is not the scene I expected us to come upon.”
“Look!” Helen points toward the horizon. A puff of dust rises from the ground, an indication of movement.
The two of them scramble to pull viewers out of their pockets and bring them up to their eyes. Helen turns her lens one way, then the other, and flips an orange-colored glass cover onto the front that filters for human activity—in case there is someone out there who hasn’t been fully Tromindox-digested yet.
The magnification does reveal human activity in the form of a man running through the desert. He pumps hard with his arms, his mouth wide open, his face a mask of panic.
Helen shifts her gaze to a few yards behind the man to see what’s chasing him.
It’s a dense flock of black birds. In a second or two the flock overtakes the man and engulfs his body in a dark mass. Man and swarm fall to the ground, where they convulse like a pack of hyenas on a gazelle.
“Killer blackbirds?” Helen says. “That’s what we came here for?”
“Not exactly,” Gabriel says. “Keep watching. And congratulations. You are one of the very first observers of a new Tromindox behavior.”
Finishing its kill, the flock rises from the ground in a single shape. The shape grows taller and solidifies until it resembles a seven-foot-tall, black-robed humanoid.
“Oh no,” Helen says.
“What you just saw, my dear, is swarming Tromindox,” Gabriel says. “I was afraid of this. Another agent warned me that our shape-shifting friends had somehow developed the ability to break themselves up into many organisms in order to attack and deliver venom more effectively. Based on what we see here, the Tromindox seem to be perfecting the skill.”
“And they’re trying it out in a remote location, where they can do their perfecting without much notice,” Helen says.
“Right you are,” Gabriel says. “None of these human travelers will arrive at their destinations. But it will take a while for anyone to make the connection to this spot. Nobody will realize that this diner is the only thing these people have in common.”
“Except for us,” Helen says.
The Tromindox turns and glares at them with huge, yellow eyes that stand out even at a g
reat distance. The Silverwoods have been spotted.
“And, back we go to the car,” Gabriel says.
The two humans run straight through the diner, hurdle over the counter and burst out the front door, but stop short. The ground looks…weird. It pulses like water. Helen looks around her feet. What is this?
Before their eyes the ground changes appearance from yellow dirt into a sea of black, hand-sized creatures with tiny hooked claws at the ends of spindly arms and legs and flicking, scorpion-like tails. The horde scrambles over the dirt and up and over the parked cars, making terrible scraping noises and stirring up dust as they go.
They are closing in around the Maverick.
“Oh, no, Clarence!” Helen yells, and takes off running.
“Put out your hand! Show the symbol!” Gabriel yells. Helen sticks her palm out in front of her, but the creatures are moving too fast to pay any attention. They fly into her face and flail at her, scratching her arms and tangling in her hair. She tries to swat them off but there are too many. “There’s a million of these things!” She yells and spins, almost falling.
Always leave a window open when your dog is in the car…
Helen and Gabriel reach the Maverick as one of the scorpion-things squirms into the cracked window. Helen swats beasts away with one arm while shoving her other hand inside, grabbing the intruder by the back legs. It shrieks and jabs at her with its tail as she yanks it back out the window and flings it away.
Helen turns and faces the swarm with her back against the car door. Each time a tiny claw breaks her skin, the creature attached to it puffs away into black powder. The antivenom in her blood, a Silverwood trait she shares with her father, dissolves them instantly. It’s effective, but painful. She and her dad can’t use their blood to kill all of these things. They’ll end up as dried husks in the desert.
Helen pulls an energy gun from her belt and begins firing, sending the creatures’ loose shape-shifting molecules flying apart in all directions. They burst and flutter to the ground like burnt crepe paper. This method of defense is far less painful. Claws and wings scrape and thud against the car.
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