by Pam Uphoff
It was a quiet ride back to headquarters. He handed over all his work to his overloaded comrades and headed home.
If the suspects were coming and going from a remote location here did it imply that they were using a remote location there? He opted for in between, something not exactly rugged, but not out of place in a forest. With a change of footwear, it would be unremarkable on a city street. He packed for layering in case of extreme cold, which gave him lots of options on style. Toothpaste, toothbrush, hairbrush. Was he insane? Probably. Everything fit in a backpack, including all the extra ammo. And the granola bars and the canteen.
With the Feds, they packed into eight large black cars and headed north. Hanger stifled the first thing that came to mind—that they were going too fast to be a funeral and were thus either going to be assumed to be an Arab sheik with entourage or a bunch of feds on the way to a raid. He diverted himself looking around at the eclectic group. Five men, including himself, two women.
The gorgeous Mino caught what was probably a dubious look and grinned. "I'll leave—so long as you promise to follow them into the Ladies restrooms."
"Uh, how about I just assume you are an expert and treat you as such, as soon as I scramble my manners back into some semblance of what my momma would expect from me?"
Her grin widened, brilliant teeth against a warm dark skin. "That works. Want to join the betting pool? The options are that we'll wind up stranded on: A tropical paradise. The Kremlin. A parallel earth very similar to ours. A world with dinosaurs. A world where magic works. Or a UFO in orbit around Earth. A hundred bucks, to get in. Winners split the pot, payable when we get home."
"Hmm. Let me think. Magic? Now that would be fascinating. I don't think the Tropical Paradise, the Kremlin or the UFO would have access to the novels, so I've got to say 'parallel Earth' is most likely. Umm, but magic. Damn. All right. I'll donate my hundred to the Feds, and bet on Magic."
She snickered. "Most of the money's going on Parallel Earth. I'm Sommer Albrecht."
"Chris Hanger. This is Mark Lancing and Greg Masters."
"Ah. You're the one who found the first tunnel. How did you spot it?"
"Well, after the forensics team said the windows hadn't been opened in months, I suspected a hidden door. I closed the curtains and turned off the lights, and there was a tiny crack of light. I peeked through, did not see the bedroom next door and decided to err on the side of crazy."
The five feds nodded. "If it hadn't panned out you'd have gotten a reputation for timidity, or over-imagination. I'm John MacKinnion." The intros circled the vehicle, and then the speculation. The Feds even had the completed forensic tests, and could satisfy Master's frustrated curiosity.
"Semen from eight of the eleven men, generally more than one of them had raped each of the victims. At any rate, they sorted out the raiders' samples, and blood stains from the two they injured in the tunnel mansion.
"Lots of rare alleles, they don't fit any racial or cultural profiles, not a single one of them. Six of the regular chromosomes had whole sections added to them. They all had a section added to either the X or the Y chromosome, sometimes both. There's a lot of speculation about the new sections and the rare alleles—whether they are natural or artificial."
"I gathered that the Feds talked some of the women into carrying to term."
Albrecht nodded. "Just five babies, the other women were horrified by the idea, and aborted. Every single one of them got pregnant, including an older woman who was post menopausal. The babies were all adopted by families in our circle of influence, so to speak. My brother who's a chemist with the FBI and his wife adopted twin boys. Pretty, healthy, happy." Albrecht shrugged. "There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with any of the children."
"I'm glad to hear that." Hanger shook his head. "Is there any suggestion that this was the actions of a government, rather than the gang it appeared to be?"
"We've modeled and gamed it to death. We can't see any advantage for a government to act in this fashion." MacKinnion shrugged. "If for no other reason than the out-of-control rape and sick humor. Not professional."
"Professional sleazebags. But dangerous ones, with some sort of gas and the ability to create these tunnels. Don't underestimate them even if they aren't a professional army." Hanger warned.
The Feds had rented a small office/industrial space and had screens showing various boring stretches of late fall woods and two showing the front of a hotel from two angles, one hotel lobby interior.
One of the men on duty gave them a censorious glance. "About time. ETA fifteen minutes."
That created a rush on the bathrooms, followed by a crush around the monitors. Hanger estimated there were fifty-nine men and four women crowding for sight of the monitors. His height didn't help him much in this crowd, but he caught the running commentary as the two women checked in, sharing a room. The redhead walked off to the lobby bathroom, and returned, holding her left arm oddly. She followed the other woman organizing both their luggage, and then they were out of camera range.
"It looked like she was holding something small or fragile. She was moving a bit slowly." Agent Albrecht muttered. "Something from that bathroom."
Lancing nodded. In the woods, the brunette woman stepped out of nowhere, looked around and nodded to nothing whatsoever. Luggage started flying out of the air. The woman hauled the first two up the road, she was frowning at the left side, and suddenly nodded in satisfaction and heaved first one suitcase, and then the other into an innocuous space. They disappeared in mid flight, and she walked back for two more cases.
"Red's back in the Lobby." Albrecht pointed out. "Carrying something back to that bathroom."
"Red's in the forest."
"She must have moved one end of the tunnel to their room, to get rid of the luggage, then put it back where they could find it without asking for a particular room." Hanger muttered. "Looks like you do get to search the Ladies room."
Albrecht snorted. "Just for that, I'm dragging you in as well."
They watched as both women walked into nowhere, then Danzinger organized them back into the cars. "The forest first. We'll backtrack when we're done, hopefully as cleanup to a successful operation." The eight black cars split up and Hanger's car was second on the scene. They paid up at the park gate for a day's worth of hiking nature trails, then the driver let them off at the nearest intersection to the area of interest.
They walked along, trying to look like tourists seeing the sights.
John Mackinnon had a discreet pickup in his ear and was evidently getting guidance. Hanger would have just walked past the nondescript spot, just a gap in the trees letting light through. Danzinger was leading another group from the other direction, when MacKinnon slowed down and called for them to stop. "You're the closest, Hanger. They disappeared just to your left off the road.
"Are you sure? I don't remember seeing that bright patch in the monitors." Hanger looked at it closely and his skin crawled. It wasn't sunlight through the trees, it was a glowing circle. "Never mind. There it is."
"Yeah, the trees on that side are different from the ones here."
Trees? Hanger didn't see anything through the glowing circle. It looked a bit like it was swirling.
"Mitchell? Hold the other groups until we report back. Let's go." Danzinger led the way and the federal agents followed him. Maybe twenty men in all. Lancing whooped and leaped through and Hanger gulped and followed. They were in a forest of large trees. There was a small clear space in front of the tunnel, and a double-wheel-ruts sort of track that led off to the right. Wide enough for a car if you didn't worry about the paintwork. There was one house in sight, a mansion or maybe a hotel, it was large, with columns and a swimming pool visible as he looked down the hill at it. The trail hit another, more heavily worn, that cutting across the slope before a split turned left to drop through the swale between this hill and the hill with the mansion on it.
They split up, and Hanger found himself in a small group
headed away from the mansion. The main trail ended in a small clearing, with another glowing circle. It was about four meters in diameter and as he edged up to it he could see that rather than flattening at the bottom, it sank into a thin trench.
"What are you looking at, Hanger?"
"Can't you see it? It's another tunnel."
Albrecht eyed it. "Yeah, I see it now. I thought it was just some dead brush, but the trees are completely different. Not at all like where we came from."
Lancing walked over, waving a twig. "These are redwoods. Look at the needles." He looked at the circle. "Yeah, that's a different place."
Hanger frowned at them. "Let's be real clear here. I see a glowing white circle. You guys see trees?"
"Yeah. No glow." Albrecht grinned fiercely. "I'll bet that's why you could spot the first tunnel, your vision must be, like a bit further into the ultraviolet than normal or something." She touched her head set. "Danzinger, track ends at another tunnel. We're going to take a quick 360 over there and then report back in."
She turned and jumped into the circle like a ballerina. The other two jumped as well, and Hanger gritted his teeth and followed again.
This was a stunted, brushy, dry forest, winter bare, with some evergreen lower growth. The tops of bare hills were visible beyond them on all sides. A few steps away, a narrow paved road. He trotted out to it and looked both directions. Nothing. No, there was horse manure. And the surface was large square stones. "Damn." He trotted back to the glowing circle and they all jumped back through to the redwoods.
"Anything interesting about the road?" Albrecht asked.
"Square paving stones, horse manure, nothing in sight."
She added that to her report, listened, and nodded as she answered "copied."
She led them down the track, talking. "There are other trails off the one sidetracking the hill, we're going to check out each one, while they check the mansion."
The dirt track split, they kept heading north along the slope, until a side trail led uphill. Another tunnel at the end; the others claimed to see an alley and brick building across it. On the other side Albrecht ordered Lancing to stay by the tunnel, Hanger at the first corner, and Phillips at the second. She was out of sight for just a few moments, then she trotted back, a newspaper in hand. They all jumped back to the Redwoods and examined the paper.
"That city may have claimed to be Pittsburg, but it ain't our Pittsburg."
"Thee King will dissolve Parliament if they remain contentious on the matters of the Lunar Redoubt?" Lancing gulped. "That sounds really . . . different."
"And no doubt some day we'll get to meet all those people and find out if they really mean Lunar when they say Lunar." Albrecht rolled the paper and stuck it in Phillip's backpack. "Let's see if there are any more fascinating places to go from here."
The track ended in a circle. "Another alley. Same as last time, guys." Albrecht led the way through. This alley faced a board fence in need of paint. The place smelled of wood smoke, horse and cow manure, coal fires . . . Phillips retreated and Albrecht came around the corner at a run. "Go!" she yelled.
Hanger turned and ran for the tunnel, waving Lancing through ahead of him. Albrecht and Phillips were on his heels as he jumped through. He got out of the way and turned to watch the circle. "What happened?"
"They pointed at me and started screaming in horror. I think it was the clothes. All the women were all bundled up, the men in tunic-like things. They started grabbing anything club-like handy, so I figured I'd retreat."
"They'll see us and the trees, won't they come through?"
She looked at him and sighed. "From that side I just saw the side of a building. A hologram, maybe, and they don't bother out in the woods?"
"I suppose." Hanger frowned at the frustrating circle. "That seems like a bit of an overreaction to your clothing, though."
"I wonder. We're so trained to pretend to not notice, and definitely not say anything, but they were all really pale. Maybe they've never seen anyone with dark skin?" Albrecht jumped suddenly, clapping a hand to her head set. Phillips started and looked around anxiously.
"They've found them! The raiders are definitely here . . . Danzinger?" Albrecht's attention flicked from headset to them. "Damn it, they've gone quiet."
"Let's see if we can get a good sight of that place from up here." Hanger suggested. There was a little deer track sort of wandering up the hill and he took it. The others followed, and they got above the local thicket and studied the situation at the mansion. It didn't look good. There were bodies all over the patio, twelve that he could see.
"Gassed? We know they had something of that nature." Albrecht's hands were clenched around her binoculars.
I hope we're invisible up here. No one here, Bad Guys. Just us little squirrels and birds. Maybe a deer.
"What are they doing with them?" Lancing whispered. Men were pulled the agents around, away from the mansion. "Putting them on carts? Where are they taking them?"
"This direction. Damn it all. Let's head south, try to stay above the tunnels, see if we can spot them." Their effort to be quiet slowed them down, and they found themselves above and still north of their entry tunnel when they found a line of sight on two men picking up MacKinnion by the arms and legs and tossing him through the tunnel. Apparently he was the last. One of the men from the raid on the senator's party stepped out of the tunnel and spoke to a young woman. She nodded and sat on the ground, and two more men hopped and jumped out of the tunnel. Then the bright light swirled down the drain and disappeared. The six men laughed and one offered the woman a hand up and escorted her rather obviously down the hill.
There were no carts in sight, and Hanger puzzled over that while they crept cautiously down the hill. Hanger was last down to the gate, and smiled a little grimly to see the others bobbing and weaving like dancers who'd lost their music.
"I give up," Albrecht flapped her hands. "Where is it Hanger?"
"I saw it shrinking." He looked carefully and could see the thin slice down into the ground. "I, umm, don't see it at all now." He walked across the line, but nothing happened.
"Hanger, that's not what I want to hear."
"Can't help that, Ma'am. I brought some food. We could hide up in the hills, and watch to see what they do, if they open the tunnel back up."
She stared at him in frustration, then reluctantly nodded. "Right, let's find a vantage point."
With some climbing about, they found a spot from which they could watch both the former tunnel site and the mansion. As the sun set, electric lights came on here and there about the mansion, then the pool lit up and a horde of children raced out to jump in.
Clothing was definitely optional, and most of the children were naked. Four girls might have been pre-teen, all the rest were definitely younger, two and three year olds, all swimming like fish, but with a lot of adults out keeping an eye on them. Most of the women looked pregnant, two had small babies. Even the 'authors' had toddlers, and a couple of them sat on some wide steps and let the babies splash and play.
"All nine of the women from the robbery are there, plus extras. Seventeen women total. Some coming and going with food and drinks. The food and drinks ones were not in on the robbery."
"I never did get what those women did in the robbery. " Lancing whistled. "Damn those are good looking women. They just showed up in the departing shots, they weren't in the ballroom."
One of the men down at the pool was mobbed by the kids and apparently talked into being their personal catapult, throwing the kids up in the air to fly screaming into the pool.
"Interesting, the kids, it looks like three of the three year olds are boys and two of the toddlers. All the rest are girls. Do they abandon boy babies?" Hanger went back to studying the windows of the mansion.
"Could just be random. Five to twelve isn't that bad a ratio for a small sample, and we don't know about the littlest babies." Lancing pointed out. "I'm counting twelve pregos. This is a really weird gan
g."
"They're all here. I've just spotted the twelfth man. Library, second floor left end." Hanger said.
"Yeah, the tall black haired guy. He's one of the ones we shot. Masters said his DNA was really weird—he's genetically XX, female—but with those changes to the chromosomes."
Albrecht studied the library. "That's him, eh? The biology guys were really freaked by the strange stuff. He raped one woman, and one of the other guys raped her as well. She's one of the ones that accepted our offer. The mother of the twin boys my brother and sister adopted, in fact. Genetically the boys are . . . well. They've got that guy's X chromosomes, the other rapist's Y chromosome and a bunch of his other genes. There's only about a five percent match between the mother's genes and the children's genes."
Hanger looked at her in consternation.
"The other three babies are much the same. More theirs than ours."
"Like parasitic wasps or something." Lancing muttered. "They didn't try and eat their way out of the mothers, did they?"
"No. Everything's normal but the genetics. And three boys to two girls, so the imbalance isn't explained that way."
Hanger chewed that over while staring at the library window. Two other men walked in, another from the robbery, and a stranger. They all sat and had what looked like a serious talk. All three occasionally gestured toward the ridge—presumably talking about the tunnels or the Feds that had come through them.
The rest of the men were migrating toward the pool and the women. They swam, played with the kids, but didn't show any particular affinity to any particular kid or kids. The kids showed clear favorites, or perhaps just knew who wouldn't play with them.
They watched off and on while they broke out food—Albrecht had dried fruit, Lancing and Phillips jerky and Hanger granola bars. The kids wore out and one by one were carried off, presumably to bed, by their mothers. Then the wine came out and rest of the clothes came off. They made no attempt to find privacy for the rapidly developing orgy.