by Lee French
It had been stupid not to come to her before he and Stephen left. It might have even been stupider than not leaving Lily a note. As much as he found her power creepy, she hadn’t steered any of them wrong yet. This time, he had no intention of making the same mistake.
She, it seemed, felt the same way, because she waved him over and grabbed his hand when he held it out for her. “Blech, what a load of mush.”
“Why’re you eating them if you don’t like them?”
She rolled her eyes and threw his hand back at him. “The future, dumbass, not the food. All I’ve got is ‘mike’. I don’t even know if it’s a name, a microphone or something else.”
“Anything we’re s’posed to do or not do with it?”
“It’s a positive thing, but I don’t know how or why.” She stuck her hand into the bowl and pulled out another olive.
“That’s something, I guess.”
“I get what I get, and that’s all I got.” She shrugged and ignored him in favor of the olive.
Getting up, he couldn’t help but compare this prediction to the last. That one had been oddly specific. This one couldn’t have been more vague, and he couldn’t imagine how it would turn out to be useful. He left the two women with a wave and went to pack a change of clothes or two. Less than half an hour later, Jayce pulled their chosen car onto the highway. Bobby sat in front with him, and Tony, Lisa, and Sam shared the back.
Tony hailed from Miami, a Cubano who could shapeshift his body into a variety of inanimate objects, like tables and chairs and boxes and things. Sam came from New York City and could access computers and electronic things with her brain. Lisa was from Portland, a kindergarten teacher. Her superpower allowed her to access some kind of invisible space and store things in it, including herself. Someone else could carry it for her, which sounded plain weird to Bobby. As if he had room to talk on that front, though.
“It only took Stephen and me about four hours to fly from Albuquerque.”
“You didn’t have to follow roads or speed limits,” Jayce answered amiably. “And we’re going a bit farther than that.”
“I s’pose it’s for the best it’ll be dark when we get there.”
“Do we have a plan?” Tony had a light accent, one that hinted around the edges at his upbringing.
“Not really. Get in quiet-like, find whatever we can about Maze Beset or MB-02, get back out without being noticed, with or without hard evidence. I ain’t never been there, though, so I ain’t rightly sure how to set up a more specific plan than that. If’n one a’you has…” Bobby looked from one face to another, and all of them shook their heads. “So, I can do a scouting run when we get close, and we can figure something from there.”
Sam ducked her head under her hoodie. “I found out I can…um…be inside an electronic device. If you can carry a thumb drive, I can go in without being seen.”
“Good to know.” Bobby looked to Lisa, who seemed very nervous.
“Clive—” Lisa’s husband had proven himself capable by doing his fair share of work around the farm without complaint. “—says I’m about five pounds when I’m in the pocket.”
“Dragons can handle five pounds, and a thumb drive. How about you?” He looked at Tony.
Tony shrugged. “I can’t shift into something any smaller than half my size.” The guy stood a few inches taller than Bobby and had about the same muscle mass. “A particularly large tumbleweed could get me to the building. I might be able to be a cart and get pushed inside, if we can just figure out which building to go into.”
“I’ll be in the car,” Jayce smirked. “Bobby, maybe since you only have to carry a little bit, you can leave some of yourself in the car. If I’m going to need to provide a fast getaway, that would be good to know before you all come tearing out with an angry, armed escort.”
“Ayup, I can do that. Not sure how many it’ll take to hold up five pounds, but I can leave the rest here. Best not send in more’n I gotta anyway, just to avoid being seen.”
Watching the scenery go by, Sam said, “I can sense you, like you’re some kind of giant, busy device.”
“Um.” Bobby had no idea how to respond to that. “Okay. I guess we can experiment a little?” He popped five dragons off, and they flew to Sam, landing on her hand. As she stared at them, all five got really excited and looked up at her like she was a wonderful thing, and extremely interesting. Interested in what went on inside their little heads, Bobby threw his mind into one of them and found himself thrown into a conversation.
“—just doing what he feels is right.”
”Sam, can you hear me? It’s Bobby, inside one of the dragons.”
”Yes, I can.” She looked at his body and nodded, though Bobby couldn’t see out of his own eyes right now.
”Good to know. We’ll be able to talk, then.” Jumping back out of the dragon, Bobby called his five back. “I can’t hear nothing you tell them if’n I ain’t in one of them. They’re kinda all separate even though they’re not.”
“Yeah,” Sam nodded, “I think I finally understand what you mean when you try to explain this.”
“At least somebody does.” Bobby turned around and settled in for the ride. A few times, he opened his mouth to try to start a conversation, but couldn’t figure out what to say that wouldn’t annoy one or more of them. His mouth shut again each time without a word, and the inside of the car felt tense to him.
They took turns driving to break the monotony. Bobby had a snack every time they stopped to switch. Jayce wound up behind the wheel again as the sun set and they passed a sign for Alamogordo. He picked a gas station and Bobby filled the tank while Jayce chatted up the girl working inside. When he finished pumping gas, Bobby dug into the cooler of sandwiches and polished off two before Jayce returned.
Inside the car, he opened a map he’d just purchased with the gas and held it up for everyone to see. “We can go into the National Monument here. You can fly across to it from there. Or we can take this road north and just claim we’re lost when we reach the first person who wants to see some ID.”
Sam pointed to some numbers written on the side in blue ink. “What’s that?”
“The cashier’s phone number.”
Bobby leaned out and peered at the girl, judging her pretty in a normal sort of way. “You were in there for ten minutes and you got her phone number?”
Jayce shrugged. “It happens.”
“Hmph.” Bobby rolled his eyes.
Tony chuckled. “Man can’t help it if he’s got what the ladies want.”
Lisa cleared her throat. “It looks like both choices are about the same distance from here? ”
“I suggest the park.” Tony tapped the monument on the map. “If we try to fake being lost, they may write down the car’s plate number. Me getting out and walking around won’t be strange, either.”
“Sounds like as good a reason as any.” Bobby shrugged. “Works for me. If’n you can’t find a way through, on account of a fence or something, just go back to Jayce and wait in the car. I’ll send one dragon with you, and if’n you need to turn around and go back, I’ll know and it won’t be no big deal.”
“Good idea. I’ll park as close as I can.” Jayce pored over the local map.
“My dragons can always find each other, so it ain’t no big deal where you’re gonna park. I can have that lone one with Tony lead him if’n he needs it.”
With that possibility accounted for, they drove into the National Monument. As soon as Lisa pointed out the sign declaring a per person fee for entry, Sam disappeared into her thumb drive, Lisa climbed into her pocket, Bobby dissolved into dragons and hid them all around the car, and Tony became a large piece of luggage. Jayce looked around the “empty” car and chuckled to himself.
Pulling up to the ranger booth, he rolled the window down and flashed a brilliant smile at the woman inside it. “I’m sorry, sir, but the park is closed for today.”
His smile faltered. “Are you sure? I’m on m
y way through, and I really just want to do the drive and get to Las Cruces for the night. I don’t know when I’ll be along here again. Please, I’ve heard it’s really something to see. The preview is impressive,” he gestured to the heaps of white sand on either side of the road that could easily be mistaken for snow.
She sighed.
He held up the cash and begged with his eyes.
The ranger blushed. “Well, okay.” Taking the bills, she pointed into the park. “Just take the drive, though. I’ll get into trouble if you go through the rest of it or get out of the car. Be out by forty-five minutes from now.”
“I have no wish to cause you trouble,” Jayce said gallantly. If he could have, Bobby knew he would’ve bowed. “Thank you for your indulgence. I won’t waste it.” The car trundled past her booth and he rolled up the window. “Well, that was fun. Maybe I can pick her up on the way out. Bobby, you wouldn’t mind getting in the trunk, would you?” He grinned broadly while Bobby re-formed.
Unable to be truly annoyed in the face of that grin, Bobby snerked at him. “I ain’t got nothing against you getting laid, but that kinda defeats the purpose of most of me staying in the car.”
“Damn, I knew there was a flaw in this plan.”
Chapter 14
After thinking about it more, Bobby did climb into the trunk and leave one dragon in the car with Jayce. The alternative meant that ranger possibly giving Jayce extra notice for the extra guy in the car with him on the way out. If she took a closer look, she’d notice his semi-conscious state and missing hand, and things would only get worse from there.
One dragon went with Tony. It took fifteen to hold up Lisa’s invisible pocket and another one to carry Sam’s thumb drive. Tony became a giant tumbleweed and rolled across the white dunes. Much faster than him, the rest of the dragons streaked ahead. He picked one of that group to hold his mind so he could talk to Sam as soon as they arrived somewhere interesting.
A fence marked the boundary between the monument and the missile range. Since it had no lights or cameras or patrolling guards nearby, Tony would be able to climb it and keep going. Rather than waiting in case that turned out not to be true, Bobby plunged onward over the weirdly white sand that reflected moonlight.
Two or three hundred feet into the base, the sand diminished, making Bobby think of water frozen in the act of sliding down a plain. Once he left the sand behind, he had trouble making out the contours of the landscape and stayed high to avoid hitting anything. Lights blazed in the distance, marking a cluster of buildings that he headed for.
As he approached, he saw that a handful of roads snaked out from the central hub, heading in all different directions. It had tank tracks alongside some of them, too. Considering how much secrecy surrounded the Maze Beset project, he suspected they housed it in a building flung out by itself. It would take hours to find the right one in the dark, even if he knew what to look for from the outside.
This middle part had the feel of a proper military base, and he picked the tallest building to land on top of, hoping they’d be able to find a map or overhear something, or randomly stumble across a useful person. He set both the pocket and drive down, then backed the small semi-swarm off and had them chirp all at once.
Lisa stepped out of nothing. Her fingers appeared, then her head, and she wriggled out. Sam’s drive wobbled and spat out a stream of weird, silent lightning. The lightning outline Sam’s shape, then she solidified on the spot. Between the two, Sam’s made more sense to Bobby.
“What do you think?” Lisa did something with her hands, like folding a piece of paper, then she brushed them on her capri pants.
Sam covered her mouth and belched. “I think I hate doing that.”
Lisa patted Sam’s shoulder. “I don’t really know anything about scouting.”
“Sam, we’re going to look around. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Okay, Bobby, don’t forget about us.”Though still green around the gills, Sam smiled faintly at him.
“I’ll leave one behind in case you need to move.” He picked one dragon and sent it to Sam’s shoulder. It danced around happily there. The rest of them spread out and flew through buildings, looking for anything worth investigating further. Having done this before, and with no expectation of finding anyone who fit the dragons’ idea of a “terrorist” around, Bobby felt confident they could be loosed to search for information on their own.
He found himself distracted by the dragon back with Jayce. It wanted his attention with something that confused it. Focused on the sight of the dragon he inhabited now, he tried to dismiss its concerns as something that could wait until later. When it grew insistent, he checked what that one could see and immediately wished he hadn’t.
This poor dragon had no basis from his own life to understand what it saw inside the car. From its perspective, Jayce could have been in danger. It hesitated in defending him because that cute park ranger had been nice and friendly. Bobby wanted to smack his forehead. He settled for assuring the dragon that it had nothing to worry about. None of those moans had anything to do with pain and he could let the ranger be unless she pulled out a knife or other weapon. Later, when he wasn’t trying to infiltrate a military base with only sixteen dragons, he’d explain. He could only hope that he’d get to demonstrate instead.
That handled, Bobby returned his attention to the more pressing problem of finding something useful and determining the security scheme. The ventilation system, as usual, gave him a personal key to every room, closet, nook, and cranny. The dragons flitted through the main base, noting minimal and sparse security. He feared the trip might have been a waste of time until he found a computer room with no one inside and only one camera that he felt confident he could turn enough to avoid it picking them up.
He brought the girls into it through the vents and moved the camera. Sam commandeered a computer and let her fingers fly across the keyboard. The screen did things faster than her fingers moved, leaving Bobby wondering why she bothered touching it at all. Habit, maybe. In a few minutes, she’d cut through the security.
“There’s a map here,” she pulled it up to display on the screen and tapped it with a finger to indicate two of the outbuildings. “This one is MB-STA, this one is MB-02.”
Bobby peered at the screen, fixing the layout in his mind. “STA means ‘Space-Time Anomaly’. We already know what that’s about, and we ain’t gonna find the others there. We want 02. Are you sure it’s current?”
“The file was last modified two weeks ago.”
“Then let’s go. Tony is on his way, he should be there shortly.”
Orienting in the dark from the map he saw for only half a minute took Bobby a short time, then the semi- swarm plunged into the darkness with both women. It bothered him that this seemed easy, too easy. Privek had to know they’d wind up here eventually, one way or another. The agent could even have set them up to meet Hanamidi so he’d have someplace to aim the gun, which would be right here. Wouldn’t it?
The dragons found the building with Tony only a short distance away. Rather than waiting, they dove into the vents to see about unlocking the front door. For a location with a top secret project, it had little security: no cameras, no motion detectors, no guards, no fancy locks. He set the drive and pocket down and chirped. By the time Lisa opened the door, Tony had returned to his human shape. He slipped inside, Lisa shut the door, and they filled Tony in.
“This is weird,” Sam said, sitting with her back to a wall and her hand on her belly. “There’s almost nothing here.” The rooms they’d found so far had empty desks, clear tables, and blank shelves.
“Maybe they just haven’t gotten around to reusing the building yet, so they leave the old designation on the map.” Tony opened an interior door and poked his head through it.
Lisa rubbed her arms. “I’d hate to have gone through all of this for nothing.”
“We should explore the building.”
Sam nodded. “Bobby’s right. Let’
s split up and look around. There’s obviously no one here. Maybe they left a computer behind, or some files or something.”
The dragons fanned out, searching for anything of use. After spending at least an hour in the place, Bobby found nothing—no computers, no files left behind, nothing. Did he and Stephen really go through all of that for nothing more than some new theories?
“Maybe we should check that STA building after all.”
Sam called out and the four of them gathered back in that front room, showing all the nothing they had found to each other. “Bobby wants to check out the other MB building.”
Tony shrugged. “You go, Bobby. If it’s as empty as this one, no sense in all of us breaking in.”
The dragon chirped his agreement and Bobby took thirteen of his dragons with him, leaving behind one for each shoulder in case they got separated. As his group darted out through the venting, he saw them leave the building and lock the door behind themselves. The other building also had minimal security. This one, though, had computers and books and papers and used coffee mugs. Bobby got his dragons to lead the others to him, then his dragons fanned out to search the site.
By the time the others arrived, he’d unlocked the door and explored most of it. Sam sat down with the first computer she found while Tony and Lisa poked through the other rooms. Bobby sent half the swarm with Tony while he and the other half followed Lisa, keeping watch in case he’d missed someone buried under paperwork in the back.
“Who’re you?” He squinted at her, his mouth tugging down into a frown. She wore black leggings and a navy tunic shirt belted at her waist with navy flats. She’d done her best at fulfilling his off-the- cuff suggestion of “ninja expedition suit”.
She paused a beat too long before answering. “I’m Lisa?” Her voice shook. “Who are you? ” Then she offered her hand to shake with him.
His eyes flicked to her hand, her chest, her face, and her waist. “Where’s your ID?”