by A. A. Allsop
“By the storm?” Cutters asked.
Jeffers shook his head, then stopped and shrugged. “I mean, I would guess not because the storm is in such an early stage. Either way, I think your buddies are in trouble.”
“Where are they?” Then, thinking better of it, Cutters stopped hunching over the computer and said, “Send the coordinates to my comms.” He started to walk away.
“Wait!” Jeffers called out. Frowning, Cutters rounded on the kid. Normally, the kid would jerk back if Cutters let his anger show, but he didn’t even seem to notice Cutters’ impatience.
“The signal is weird. Something I haven’t ever seen before.” He took a deep breath and said, “Something is messing up the comms—I mean, besides the storm. I am really working hard to keep everything online here. Something besides the storm is distorting things.”
He typed something quickly and pulled up a feed. “Look at this.” He pointed at the screen. At first, Cutters couldn’t see what he was pointing at.
He was about to say something sarcastic when the agent said, “Oh, wow.” Celestine Fettin leaned closer to the computer. “This is seriously advanced stuff. Especially with this outdated equipment.”
Jeffreys tried, and failed, to look modest. Cutters leaned forward and looked at the lines and dots on the screen.
“This is where we are,” Jeffreys said, pointing. “It’s all greyed out because I am not focusing our comm strength on it. This is Areas 6 and 7.” Cutters understood what they were looking at now. It was an aerial-view map, depicting up-to-date typography of the area. He didn’t know what was so friggin’ special about it, but he waited for the kid to explain. Jeffers typed something again, and the map zoomed in and moved to the left.
“Why is it doing that?” Cutters asked, pointing at the dots that were moving around.
“The signal is weird today, even for a storm. It looks like it’s jumping around, but really there is a delay in the signal. This system is a little outdated, but it shouldn’t be doing this,” Jeffreys said, indicating the jumping screens. “But if I move the signal over and outline the area that is most impacted, making sort of a signal imprint of the area…”
Cutters cursed loudly, staring at the image on screen.
“Oh my god,” Agent Fettin said, openmouthed.
“That’s why,” Jeffers said slowly, “I don’t think it’s entirely because of the storm…”
Three minutes later, the image from that screen still burned into his mind, Cutters and two tactical ready and rescue teams were on their way. To his annoyance, but not his surprise, Agent Fettin all but bulldozed him over to get into the Hummer with him. Cutters was actually surprised that she hadn’t pulled her gun on him when he made a perfunctory objection to her coming. Just because she’d fit her nice ass into some appropriate clothes did not mean she knew how to handle herself in a storm or handle… the thing attacking the men.
“So what’s up, boss?” Axe asked from the front seat.
Cutters was jolted out of his reverie and nodded. “Yes. Right. We have four men confirmed missing and possibly two others,” he said without preamble. “Clover and Jackson, Kramer and Grimrey, and a distress signal just came a short while ago from the last position of Agent Fettin’s men.” He nodded his head at the agent strapped in beside him.
The men were silent and serious in their return stares, their bodies moving only with the steady rocking of the vehicle. Fleet, who was driving, did not look back at him, even in the mirror, but Cutters knew from his rigid posture that he was listening with rapt attention.
“We have evidence that something attacked the agent’s vehicle. That is where we are heading first. It is the only lead we have. The thing that attacked—”
“That we suspect attacked,” Agent Fettin amended.
“The thing that attacked the vehicle,” Cutters repeated pointedly, “was able to block the distress signal. The two men who disappeared before I took this job did so without a trace, and so did Cloverfield and Jackson. We think this thing, or a buddy of it, was injured by Helena. The docs said that massive amounts of dark blood were sucked up instead of oil, messing up something inside her. They think that blood plus some electrical disturbance caused the explosion.”
“What did it?” asked a man named Tim James, known as “Two Names” by most who knew him well.
“Not positive. I’ve never dealt with a creature that moves with this level of stealth before.” Cutters pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. He passed it to Smith, who was sitting to his left, and indicated he should pass it around.
“Looks huge,” Bonson Smith said before passing the paper to Axe, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
“How big do snakes get when they aren’t reincarnated young?” Axe asked, handing the paper over to Gary Timer.
Ken Summers accepted the paper and said, “They can tower over buildings when left alone for thousands of years, in open spaces and with plenty of food, but the signal disruption…”
“I suspect,” Cutters said, “it might be a rare species of land eel.”
“Can we rule out sabotage?” Fleet asked from the driver’s seat.
Agent Fettin opened her mouth, but Cutters answered, “We cannot. Creatures can be swift, stealthy, and fast, but I have never seen one that moved without leaving any kind of evidence behind. Not one. We have to be vigilant and prepared for anything. I hate moving in blind, but I can’t risk another pair of men going missing.”
Silence answered that. These men knew what it meant to be missing. Not dying had its perks, but not when they were trapped somewhere, too weak to get help, with a creature that would happily wait for them to grow their limbs back only to eat them off again. It was a shit card to be dealt and usually fast-tracked a person to go mad and transform into a poltergeist. Cutters refused to let that happen to them, and by the stony, hard-set faces of the men and woman in the vehicle, they felt the same.
“So what’s the plan?” Two Names asked, breaking the silence.
Getting to the site took more time than Cutters would have liked. The windstorm was raging more wildly than even he expected it would. Bile rose in his throat. He didn’t like the way the storms messed with the gravity field. Everything would be normal and then suddenly his stomach would drop and the Hummer would jump a foot into the air before the antigravity boosters kicked in and slammed the vehicle back down.
He clenched his stomach as the last jump tilted the massive vehicle slightly. Was he losing his edge? He had been a combat soldier in Life. He had never—never let his missions get to him, handling even the bad ones with a soldier’s grace that earned him the respect of his men. In his AfterLife, his clear head and steel balls had earned him a rep that rarely kept him out of good contract work.
The vehicle pulled to a stop. “Target is twenty yards ahead,” Fleet said. “Want me to get closer?”
“Negative,” Cutters said, leaning to look out the front windshield. “We may be too close already, but…” He squinted at the nearly zero visibility, his body shifting with the rocking of the two-ton truck. “We can’t risk going much farther in the storm, either.”
“Man,” Summers said, “not looking forward to dancing with this bitch.” The other men nodded their affirmation. Even skilled men like these guys had trouble managing in this kind of weather.
Cutters and the rest of the men finished last-minute gear adjustments as he gave orders. “No cowboy shit. Let’s get to the site, grab them if we can, and regroup here. You stay here.” He pointed at the agent and growled the command with such ferocity, she did not answer. She stared at them hard, but they both knew that her skills lay with investigations and his with things like this. She would be underfoot. She took the understanding with dignity and forced him to break the stare.
“Take one of these. They are old school, but they’ll work even with the signal interruptions. Jeffers said that our comms should work, but I don’t want to take any risks.” He handed them ea
ch an old-school, high-frequency walkie-talkie. Many gangs in the inner city used it with great success, he knew, to stay under the cops’ radar; their high-tech gear wouldn’t pair with such old-school technology. Cutters had appreciated the simple genius of it and always brought several in case they were worried about hackers getting into their comms systems.
Cutters put on his helmet and powered on the comms. After a quick systems and radio check, they slid open the doors of the Hummer and were all nearly bowled over. Two Names actually fell back onto Agent Fettin’s lap.
“Wow! Sorry, missy!” He struggled off her, attempted an “I’m sorry” wave, and then almost fell back on her again before abandoning the gesture and struggling out of the vehicle with his comrades. It took two men to close the door while the rest headed to the back of the vehicle to the unload the trailers.
Cutters knew that if his hard stare had not convinced her to stay, the sight of them all struggling against the powerful wind would do the trick. He was leaving her unaccompanied. He suspected she was smart enough not to ignore him and go off on her own, but now they both knew she wasn’t even physically capable of doing it.
Cutters activated his gravity and weight balance and felt himself solidify against the wind and gravity fluctuations.
“Pull a shield so we can get out our rides,” Cutters yelled into his mic, his helmet blocking out most of the howling wind but not all of it.
The heavy-duty Hummer lugged a full stormproof tactical terrain trailer. Summers pulled out two small, clear cubes and pressed a small button on each of them. They flashed blue, slowly at first and then more quickly. He set one on the ground and felt its gravity locks activate and anchor it to the ground. He walked over and placed another about ten feet away. When the flashing came to a crescendo, it solidified into a blue color and a hazy, transparent wall shot up between the two, effectively cutting off the wind.
The men sprung into action, easily opening the doors to the trailer now that the wind was blocked. Two Names pulled a quick release lever, and a platform slid out horizontally at first, then lowered straight down, flat and level with the ground. It was equipped with six ATVs primed and ready to go. The quick release was emergency military standards and was programed to turn on each vehicle on the platform as it rolled out of the trailer. The men all jumped on their assigned wheels—with the exception of Summers, who bent to deactivate the shield. Cutters figured the shield would be good for one more go before it would need to be charged. Normally, they lasted longer, but with such powerful winds, the charge would drain a lot quicker.
Cutters braced himself for the impact of the wind, but even so, it nearly knocked him sideways off his ride. Luckily the heavy ATVs had similar counterweight technology that his suit had, and he felt the machine correcting its balance. The heavy-duty plexiglass shield built into the front of the ATV helped block some of the wind, and the helmet blocked the rest as they headed in the direction of the blinking distress signal showing in his helmet’s computer.
Cutters’ training kicked into high gear, and he swerved into the changing wind patterns with expert precision. The uneven ground, the zero visibility due to flying sand and debris, the boulders that popped into sight suddenly, and the wild wind would have sent any competent rider to the ground, but he and his men were a different breed. He was in his element now. His training in the UDW Military Academy had been unlike any other.
In five quick minutes they reached their destination. At first, Cutters saw nothing but the same brown, hazy nothingness of the storm, but when he dismounted his ATV and stepped a few paces, he nearly ran into the vehicle as it came into view. All the doors were swung wide, and when he peered in on his side, he could see the bottom half of a man lying partially in the car and partially out of the other end.
He walked around to the other side, where a couple of his men were already gathered.
“Where is the rest of him?” Smith asked nervously through his helmet mic. Cutters thought the man had been lying face-first on the dirt, his legs still in the car, but now he could see otherwise. The man was missing half of his torso along with his chest, arms and head. Muddy, jagged strips of skin lined the point of severance. Cutters frowned. He knew the mud must be a mixture of blood and dirt. What was left of the torso flapped sickeningly in the wind.
Cutters cursed. “Search the area. He might still be here but moved around from the storm.” He didn’t bother radioing into Jeffers to see if he could get a visual. The kid would be as blind as they were in the storm. “Teams of two. Check in every thirty seconds.” Then he ordered Two Names, “Grab the torso.” He helped him strap the bottom half of the man to Two Names’ ATV, and then together they branched out to sweep the area.
The men continued to check in and after three minutes, someone shouted that they had something. “Found a hand,” Summers said over the comms.
“Move the search closer to their area,” Cutters ordered, and Summers sent them his location.
After about ten minutes, another shout came over the comms. Fleet and Timer had found the other man, this one mostly intact and unconscious. He was missing half a leg, and Summers was holding the hand next to the stump on one of his arms. “Might be his.”
Three men headed back to the ATVs to strap the man to an ETB—emergency transportation board—that was weatherproof and had a flotation feature that would allow itself to hover above the ground while being dragged by a person or vehicle to safety. It would take several minutes to get the unconscious man strapped in and ready to be moved, so the other three men on Cutters’ crew continued the search. He wanted to use every last second to locate the other man. Why had they been so far away from the campsite? Had they not known how dangerous it could be?
A shout from his right jarred him from his angry thoughts. “Got ’em,” Smith said, picking up a severed head and showing Cutters and Axe.
Cutters closed his eyes, relief flooding him. The man’s head was all they needed. Well, all a healer—a very expensive healer—would need to put him right. But that was on the FBAI, not him. “Good work. Load up,” Cutters barked.
Less than a minute later, he and the rest of his crew made it to the ATV as the others finished securing the nearly intact guy to the ETB. Cutters told them to leave it open a second and set the head in beside the first guy, strapping it down firmly to the board. He closed the clear lid and latched the ETB to the back of his own ATV. The legs and bottom torso of the otherwise body-less man were still strapped to Two Names’ ATV.
The crew made their way back to the Hummer blindly, using only their helmet computers for direction. They were moving upwind now, and even with the anti-wind technology of the ATV and Cutters’ suit, he still felt the strain. They moved much more slowly—not only because of the wind, but also because of the extra load. He didn’t like the way the ETB was swinging wildly in the wind, and had to link two others up to it to steady it, making the journey even longer. He didn’t like it one bit.
It was nearly thirty minutes later when they made their way back and packed the ETB, torso, head and ATVs safely into the trailer.
… and realized Agent Fettin was missing.
Cutters’ first instinct was to be mad—hell-raising, pissed-off mad—but then he took in the sight. The wind had shifted to make it impossible for the agent to open the door on her own. He had felt it shift moments after he left the site, and yet, here it was wide open. The inside looked like it had been trashed by something other than the wind.
But the oddest, most chilling thing he saw was the way the wind was moving.
“Holy shit,” Fleet said, in an accent that came out only when he was nervous or angry.
“What the fuck am I seeing?” Timer asked.
The question was met with silence, as none of them could answer it. About ten feet away from the vehicle, barely visible due to the storm, was a tunnel-like space leading in the opposite direction from where they’d come. The space seemed to be unaffected by the storm, as though it had
invisible walls. It reminded Cutters of the shields they used for work, except he had never seen one so sophisticated it could cut a tunnel through a storm, especially a storm this powerful. The wind rushed over and around it, debris and sand clinging to the walls and coloring it a rusty brown.
“Don’t!” Cutters barked when Axe went to touch it. “Follow it,” he said, pointing. “Two teams of three on either side, but don’t touch it.”
They moved on foot, using the boosters and antigravity to cut through the wind. Ten minutes of strenuous work brought them to yet another unimaginable sight.
“Seriously,” Timer whispered into the comms, “what the fuck am I seeing?”
In front of them was a dome, nearly the size of a football field and made of the same translucent stuff, blocking out the storm. Cutters indicated they should wait, and he moved forward slowly at first, starting with his nondominant hand. When it didn’t instantly fall off, he pushed his arm, followed by the rest of his body, through and into the dome.
He waited a solid minute to make sure he wouldn’t go into convulsions or be attacked by something. It was eerie how calm it was. He could’ve dropped a piece of paper and it wouldn’t have flown away. But all around him, outside the dome that was about a mile in circumference, the storm raged on. It was like they were in the heart of a tornado, down the center of a funnel of wind and clouds and debris. He wondered for a second if that might really be what this was. Gravity and weather could do strange things in these places.
But then he saw something else, and all the breath left his body.
He walked back out into the storm and said with a flat voice, “OK. Mystery solved.” He sighed, and his men stared at him with apprehension. “Looks like we are dealing with a witch.”
“A witch?” Axe said blankly. “That cuts people in half?”
The statement hung in the air like a dark cloud. Less than three percent or so of humans in AfterLife and Life combined were born with the ability to wield the unique energy signals in AfterLife’s atmosphere. And less than half of those went through the rigorous training to become witches or warlocks.