by Peter Clines
“You have to stop them,” said Olaf.
Sasha glanced between them. “What?”
“Bob’s last words,” said Olaf. He glanced at her, then Mike. “The other Bob. He was terrified of the monsters. He said we had to stop them.”
Mike bit his lip and nodded. “I think other-Bob came from a world the alpha predators had already reached. And the people there fought back with everything they had. And it wasn’t enough. For all we know, maybe the Moon-world is the same one. They just finished eating.”
“They can’t eat everything,” said Olaf. “It’s just…it’s not possible.”
Arthur’s cane rocked back and forth under his hands. “A small locust swarm can strip a field bare in hours,” he said. “A large one can eat over a million tons a day. I suppose it’s not impossible.”
“I’d rather not find out,” said Jamie.
“We stick with our original plan,” Mike said. “We know the fold collapses if there’s enough damage to the rings. That’s what happened on Site B.”
“But we can’t take them apart,” said Sasha.
“Right, so let’s just go with primitive basics. We can’t take it apart, so let’s just smash it.”
Arthur winced. Olaf raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I’m not sure we can,” said Sasha. “The rings are pretty solid, even without this other-dimensional reinforcement. The carapace is half-inch polystyrene, and past that the rings are almost solid metal. Steel frame, copper coils, lead plating.” She shrugged and winced as her arm moved. “We could work on it for hours with sledgehammers, and not even dent the frame.”
“Then we hit it with something bigger,” said Jamie. “We drive a truck into it.”
“Again, steel frame,” said Sasha. “And I don’t think we could get a truck up onto the main floor anyway.”
“What if,” Mike said, “we freeze it with the liquid nitrogen first?”
Arthur and Sasha both shook their heads. “The rings get bathed in it every time we open the Door,” said Arthur. “It will boil away long before doing any structural damage.”
“At best, we might be able to crack the carapace sections,” said Sasha. “And then we’re back to solid metal.”
“Could we make a pipe bomb or something?” Jamie asked. “What do they call it, an IED?”
Sasha shook her head again. “We don’t have anything to make it with.”
“None of the chemicals in the storage lockers?” asked Mike.
Sasha shrugged and looked from Mike to Arthur. “I’m not a chemist. I don’t know if any of that stuff mixes to make explosives.”
“Coffee creamer,” said Jamie. “I think I saw a thing on television once where they used coffee creamer to make a bomb.”
“I still don’t think that’s strong enough,” said Sasha. “And I don’t think we have powdered creamer, anyway.”
“I’m also not sure we should be going back in there unarmed,” said Olaf. He reached up to touch his cheek. “If just one of those things did this to us, I can’t imagine what a few dozen of them could do.”
“I have another magazine for my pistol in my office,” said Arthur. “And half a box of ammunition at home.”
“So we need guns and explosives,” said Mike. “Let me make a phone call.”
FORTY-SEVEN
“So, to recap,” said Reggie from the tablet, “yesterday half the complex was destroyed, but everything was under control. Today, Neil Warry is dead.”
“We’re pretty sure he died yesterday,” said Mike. “The circumstances were just a bit tough to explain.”
Mike stood at the end of the trailer park. He held the screen so Reggie could see the remains of Site B. Arthur sat a few yards away on the steps of Olaf’s trailer. Olaf stood by him, arms crossed and ready to offer support if needed.
He turned the tablet around, and Reggie scowled at him. “So, having confessed all this, now you want to blow up the other building. Does that cover it?”
“Not the building,” said Mike. “Just the last set of rings on the main floor.”
“Ahhh, right. The rings that I’ve paid about a quarter-billion dollars for in the past year alone.”
“This is bigger than a budget line,” said Mike.
Reggie shook his head. “Give me a minute to process all this.”
“It’d be better if you just took my word for all of it.”
“That’s asking an awful lot right now.”
Mike turned the tablet away from the ruined building and set one of the trailers in his background. “You know how you’re always telling me to trust your gut?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your gut should’ve exploded a few hours ago from everything happening here. So now you have to trust me. Your top man in the field.”
They stared at each other through the screen. Reggie set his hands on the desk in front of him. “What can we salvage from this?”
“This?”
“How much did you get? Files, blueprints, design specs?”
Mike stared at him.
“You’re talking about blowing the whole place up,” said Reggie, “so we need to talk about rebuilding.”
“We can’t rebuild it,” Mike said.
“We’ll be a lot safer this time,” said Reggie. “No more of this half-a-dozen cowboys stuff. We’ll set up in Virginia or something.”
“No, seriously, we can’t.”
“We can. Even if you’ve only got partial information, I can throw enough people at this to fill in the gaps.”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said? About what happens to the people who go through? You need to shut this whole thing down and run all the files through a shredder. We blow it up, bury it, and it never comes up again.”
Reggie shook his head. He lowered his chin. “Arthur’s okay?”
Mike nodded and jerked his head to the left. “He’s about fifteen feet that way. With Olaf. Want me to get him?”
“No. He’ll agree with everything you’ve told me?”
“Yeah. He can probably do it with bigger words, too.”
“Not now,” said Reggie. “No smart-ass stuff now. From what you’re telling me there’s a chance this is my career-ending day if I mess up one thing.”
“I told you, it’s a little bigger than that.”
“Fuck you. And shut it.”
“Sorry.”
Reggie’s fingers made tiny movements on the desk. Mike realized his friend was pressing them against the desk to keep from making fists. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I know a colonel at Pendleton. I think we’re tight enough that he’ll make this happen and ask for details later. I should be able to have a demolitions team down there in an hour or so. Maybe an hour and a half.”
“There’s a chance we’ll have to defend ourselves. You should get them to send as many soldiers as possible.”
“Never call Marines soldiers,” said Reggie.
“I thought we weren’t being smart-asses?”
“I’m not.” He lifted his hands from the desk and rubbed his eyes. “What do I tell them they’re fighting?”
The ants presented dozens of responses. “Tell them it’s war,” said Mike. “Tell them there’s a chance they’ll be fighting a war.”
“Against what?”
Mike counted to three. “Honestly,” he said, “you won’t believe me.”
Reggie scowled again.
“I’m sorry,” said Mike. “I can explain all of it in more detail later. Me, Jamie, Arthur, everyone. You can debrief us or whatever. But right now I cannot stress how important it is that we destroy those rings.”
“I can’t ask them to mobilize a platoon of Marines without more than that.”
“I’m sorry,” Mike said again.
“You know what this sounds like, right? If I hadn’t known you for most of my life I’d probably be calling Homeland Security right now.”
“I know. And you still might need to if this doesn’t work.”
&n
bsp; Reggie pressed his hands against the desk again. “What you were talking about the other day with Ben. The reason he was messed up. It’s true of everyone who went through the Door, isn’t it?”
Mike glanced over at Arthur and Olaf. He took a few steps away. “Yeah,” he said to the tablet. “Yeah it is. Everyone who went through the Albuquerque Door was swapped with a counterpart.”
“Which means me, too.”
“Yeah. And Kelli, your assistant.”
Reggie coughed. “So I’m from another universe.”
“Yeah. And her, too. I think you might be from the same one, since you both went through in one session.”
A long moment stretched out between them.
“I was going to tell you after all this,” said Mike. “I just thought it might be better in person. Maybe over drinks.”
Reggie’s chin made a slight up and down motion. His fingers flexed against the desktop. “So I don’t know you.”
Mike counted to three. “No,” he said. “Not really, no.”
Reggie studied his desktop for a moment, then looked around his office. His gaze slid back to the screen. “Well,” he said, “you’re still a jerk. So don’t get too full of yourself.”
Mike smiled.
“Let me call in some favors,” said Reggie. “I think I can have some boots on the ground there inside of ninety minutes. I’ll ask them to defer to you on everything, no questions asked.”
“That would be fantastic.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“Believe me, anything will help. Make sure they know they’re blowing up something very solid. Assume it’s a tank, just to be safe. And they’ll probably need some kind of timers or remote-control detonator.”
Reggie nodded. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Honestly?” The ants carried out images of the bugman and passages from the Koturovic book and the view he’d glimpsed through the Albuquerque Door. “I don’t know. This could go really bad. For all of us.”
“And here I am worried about if I’ll have a job in a few days.”
“Yeah, well…if they fire you, dinner’s on me next time.”
“If I get thrown under the bus for this, I’m taking you with me. And beating you senseless next time.”
“Well,” Mike said, “I really hope I’m around to be beaten senseless.”
Reggie bit off a response. “Take care of yourself, jerk.”
Mike shrugged. “We’re trying to save the world. It comes with some risk.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Jamie leaned against the guard hut. “Are you okay?”
Mike looked back at her. “How so?”
“Arthur says you had to tell Reggie he was from another universe.”
“He’d figured it out on his own. He handled it well.”
She nodded. “All the cool people do.”
He turned to the road again.
Jamie nodded and flipped her quarter. “Think he’s going to blame all of this on you?”
“Pretty sure, yeah. He needs to pin it on someone. Arthur’s too famous, and they need him. He can target me but then protect me from the worst of it.”
“Will he?”
“Yeah. I think he’s used to doing it. Protecting me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
Mike shrugged. “Some things he said. He kept asking how I was doing, if I could handle this. I think his Mike’s a bit more fragile.”
“Maybe he won’t need to pin it on anyone.”
He glanced at her. “Did you meet the board?”
“Yeah. Bob had the flu, remember. Other-dimensional flu.”
“Just checking. How do you think they’re going to respond when Reggie tells them we’re shut down and they can’t salvage anything because we blew up the Door to stop an invasion of locust-men from another dimension?”
She managed a weak smile. “So you’re really unemployed now. No high school, no DARPA.”
He chuckled. “Yeah I guess so.”
“Arthur would probably hire you.”
“That’d be great, if we weren’t about to blow up his life’s work.”
She smiled and flipped her coin again.
“And look at that,” said Mike. “Eighty-eight minutes exactly.”
A quartet of Humvees roared down the street. Each one was painted in desert camo patterns. Mike had never understood camouflage as a kid. Even then, his pattern recognition skills were too strong for it to confuse him in the slightest.
The heavy vehicles turned into the entrance and screeched to a stop. Two of them flanked Mike and Jamie on either side. The other two stopped in front of them blocked the northbound lane of the road.
It struck Mike that it could be an offensive or defensive formation, depending on which side of it someone ended up on.
Four Marines piled out of each Humvee. Each one was dressed in full combat gear, with body armor, helmet, and a weapon that was held ready, if not up. Patches on the center of their chests gave their name and rank. Mike felt an odd twist in his gut at how many of them looked only slightly older than his students. Their faces were a mix of determination and confusion as they looked at him and Jamie and the bland building behind them.
“I thought there’d be more,” she said under her breath.
“So did I.”
Pattern recognition kicked in as one of the Marines stepped forward. A man closer to Mike’s age with captain’s markings and the name Black on his patch. He glanced at Jamie and then Mike. “Are you Mr. Erikson?”
“That’s me.”
One of the younger men closer to the Humvees twitched. “Mr. Erikson?”
The ants carried out names, dates, and images. A grade of C+ on an Emily Dickinson quiz. Two overheard conversations in the halls and another one at graduation. He managed a small smile. “Hello, Jim. Or do I need to say Sergeant Duncan?”
The captain glanced back. “You know this man, staff sergeant?”
“Sir,” said the Marine, “this is my old high school teacher, sir. I mean, one of them. One of the smartest guys I’ve ever known.”
Jamie smiled.
The captain frowned. “A schoolteacher?”
“Not anymore,” Mike told him.
“And what are you now?”
“Kind of in a hurry.”
“Understood,” Captain Black said with a curt nod. He gestured behind him, where two Marines stood with olive-green bags slung over their shoulders. One of them was a woman. Her patch said she was a lance corporal named Weaver. “We have your package,” said Black. “Do you have ID?”
“Sorry, what?”
“ID, sir. My orders said to contact you and only you.”
Mike pulled his battered wallet from his pocket, flipped it open, and tugged out his Maine driver’s license. He spun the card in his hand and handed it to the captain.
The captain held it up and compared it to Mike’s face. His eyes flitted back and forth. “Your hair looks different.”
“It’s a driver’s license photo. It’s six years old.”
“Sorry, sir,” he said. Another gesture summoned the Marines with the bags closer. “Your boss wasn’t clear on what you were trying to do, so we’ve got five C4 charges. Should make a good-sized crater in just about anything for you. Just show us where to put ’em.”
Mike gestured at the building. “Inside. Hopefully this can be quick.”
Black glanced at the concrete structure and then at his men. “Is the building compromised, sir?”
“Not exactly.”
“We were told there may be hostiles.”
“That’s correct.”
The Marines looked around. “Are they somewhere on the grounds?”
“It’s complicated.”
Black took a slow breath through his nose and pressed his lips together. “Perhaps you can un-complicate it, sir.”
Mike counted to three. “There’s a machine inside. A highly classified, very dangerous machine. It’s develop
ed a fault and needs to be destroyed. There may be insurgents working against us.”
“We’ll set up a perimeter and—”
“No,” said Mike. “We just need to guard the machine while your people set the explosives.”
Black’s lips became a thin line across his jaw. “Sir,” he said, “I’ve been told to heed your advice, but tactically it’s much better if we have an established perimeter to give us advance warning of any potential attacks.”
“I understand that, captain. That’s why you need to set up inside and guard the machine.”
“It’ll make more sense when we get inside,” Jamie added.
Black gave a stiff nod and turned to the Marines. He gave three quick hand signals, and the group split into two teams. One hung back while the other moved toward the building. “Lead the way, sir, ma’am,” he said.
They started toward the building, and the second group of Marines fell in behind them. “Insurgents?” she whispered to Mike.
“What was I supposed to say?”
—
ARTHUR WAS WAITING in the lobby with Olaf and Sasha. Arthur carried his briefcase. A canvas grocery bag packed with at least a dozen old books sat on the front desk. “I thought it might be good to pack up some of the rarer volumes,” said Arthur.
The Marines spread out to each door and hallway, calling back “Clear,” again and again.
“We shouldn’t have any problem until we’re in the lab itself,” Mike said to Black.
The captain glanced at him, but made no move to call back the Marines.
“Where’s Tramp?” asked Jamie.
“I took him down to your trailer,” said Olaf. “I figured better he was out of the way, in case things went wrong.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” said Black, “we’ll take care of things.”
Olaf shot a quick, worried look at Mike. “Do they know?”
“Not yet.”
Black’s lips got thin again. “Know what?”
“The equipment you’re here to destroy,” said Mike, “is a little unusual. Some of your people might find it a bit disturbing.”
“It takes a lot to disturb us, sir,” said Black. “We’re Marines.”
Olaf rolled his eyes. He made no attempt to hide it.