by Jacob Holo
“I think so. I don’t know. Let me ask you something. There are a lot of different types of reavers, right?”
“Yeah, quite a few. Sentinels, creepers, and drones are the most common, but yeah, we run into other types.”
“Creepers?”
“They’re a smaller version of that big centipede we faced.”
“Are there any that look like a praying mantis?”
“Yes, but they’re really rare. I’ve never encountered one. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Nicole said. She stuck a finger in her mouth and rubbed around the gums. The faint taste of blood lingered. “So what do you call them?”
“Mantis reavers.”
“Wow. That’s original.”
Daniel shrugged. His cell phone played a ringtone.
“That’s me. Hold on. Where did I put it?”
“Catchy ringtone. What is it?”
“Cruel Angel’s Thesis from Evangelion. Shoko loved that show. It’s old school, but really good, and the newer movies are fantastic. Anyway, I haven’t bothered changing my ringtone since we broke up. What’s my phone doing in this pocket?”
“Don’t ask me. It’s your phone.”
Daniel flipped his phone open. “Text message from Chronopolis. Not directly from Chronopolis, obviously. Cell phones don’t work there… what the… oh crap.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve got to go to Chronopolis.”
“You what?”
“Everyone has to,” Daniel said, pocketing his phone. “All tau guards have been recalled to Chronopolis. The city is under attack by an army of reavers.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I—”
* * *
Time stopped.
“—was. Great. This is the last thing we need right now.”
Nicole looked both ways across the balcony.
“Don’t worry. I doubt anything is that close,” Daniel said. He pulled out his notepad and compass. “Give me a minute and I’ll have a rough idea where they are. Huh… my compass is going in circles again. That’s not a good sign.”
“Daniel,” she whispered. “By the window.”
Daniel turned to see a dozen small drones sneak in underneath the window.
“Definitely not a good sign,” Daniel said. He put the compass and notepad away and pulled out his sword.
Amy screamed from within the condo.
Nicole and Daniel looked at each other. They shared a brief moment of disbelief. Amy was in the freeze with them?
Daniel acted first. He faced the door and kicked it in. The heavy wooden frame burst off its hinges and spun away, revealing the living room and a panicking Amy racing towards the door. A creeper slithered across the carpet, chasing her.
Daniel reached into his coat and threw a knife in one silky motion. The blade caught the reaver in the head, and burst it apart like a sickening, foil-coated pustule. The headless reaver flopped to the carpet and slid to a halt. Hissing ooze leaked out of where its head used to be.
“Daniel,” Nicole said, tugging on his coat. “The window!”
The first few drones coming through the balcony window gave way to a thick carpet of metal cockroaches. Larger, fatter ones the size of footballs broke through the glass and scuttled over the floor, walls, and ceiling. The condo became filled with their clicking and hissing.
“Into my unit. Now!” Daniel shouted.
“What’s going on?” Amy cried.
Nicole grabbed Amy’s wrist and pulled her along. “No time! Just move!” Her sister followed limply.
Daniel ran forward, opened the door, and held it long enough for Nicole and Amy to get through. He slipped in and released it. The door slammed shut behind them.
“Daniel! On your back!” Nicole shouted.
Daniel reached around and grabbed the fat drone that had dropped off the ceiling. Its sharp legs clung to his coat, but he pulled it free and smashed it headfirst against the wall. It slid down leaving a yellow trail of ooze, legs still twitching.
Kreeiiigh!!!
Something heavy struck the door. It shuddered on its hinges, but held.
“Creeper on the other side!” Daniel said.
The reaver struck again, buckling the door inwards. The wood cracked at the bottom, splintering halfway up the door.
“Those little things are coming underneath the door!” Nicole said.
“What the hell is happening?” Amy cried.
“Just stay close to me!” Nicole said.
Daniel stamped on the drones with his boot, popping them like small metal zits. He ran over to a stack of two cardboard moving boxes and pushed them towards the door. Nicole grabbed a corner of the bottom box and helped him slide it in place. She grabbed a chair and shoved it under the doorknob.
“Won’t this just reset?” Nicole asked.
“Not if I hold it in place!” Daniel said. He stomped on more drones slipping around the edges. “Get the tunnel open! I’ll worry about the door!”
Nicole nodded and ran to the closet. “Amy, stay close!”
“Whatever you say!”
Nicole grabbed the handle and threw the closet open. Daniel’s spare coats hung on the rack. Behind them were the dark crystal walls of the tunnel. Faint glimmers of silver moved within the dim passage. Nicole ducked just in time.
Two creepers burst through Daniel’s coats, barely missing her head. One climbed across the far wall, the other along the ceiling. Both extended back deep into the tunnel where hundreds of drones swarmed over the floor.
“Behind you!” Nicole shouted.
Daniel turned from the door, spotted the creeper, and swung his sword up. The reaver on the ceiling lunged at him. His sword met the reaver’s face in a flash of sparks. The creature latched onto his blade with its mandibles and front legs. Daniel struggled with it, trying to pull his sword free.
The second creeper slid across the floor, looping around Daniel’s feet where it could easily trip him.
Nicole grabbed the closet door and tried to force it shut on the reavers, but the door rebounded against their hard carapaces. She felt fear, anger, and desperation mix inside her and tried again. This time the door flew out of her hands and slammed into the reavers with unbelievable force, crushing both to an inch thick. Liquid fire and foul pus spurted out of their cracked shells.
Daniel pulled his sword free and decapitated both reavers in a single fluid motion.
“Thanks for the assist!” he said.
“There are more reavers in the tunnel!” Nicole shouted.
“Yeah, that’s not—”
Reavers cracked the entrance in two. Wood splinters blasted out and hovered in the air. The cardboard boxes and chair reset. A creeper and dozens of drones poured into the room. Two more creepers roared just outside.
Kreeeiiigh!!!
Daniel backed away. He scanned the room.
“There!” he said, sheathing his sword.
“What!”
“Don’t resist! Both of you!” Daniel said. He ran over, blurring with speed, and picked Nicole up in one arm and Amy in the other.
“What are you doing?” Nicole shouted.
Daniel ran for the window a step ahead of the approaching swarm. He ducked his head down and dove, striking the glass shoulder-first. Nicole shut her eyes. She and Amy screamed. Glass pattered off her clothes and left little cuts on her face and hands.
They left behind a twinkling cloud of glass that defied gravity, then fell out of the cloud and landed on the roof of Daniel’s red Ford. It warped inward, and they rolled over the hood. Their sides smacked against the pavement.
Daniel sprang to his feet and pulled out his sword.
“You okay?” he asked.
Nicole moaned and struggled to her feet. “Nothing feels broken or strained, so I guess I’m okay. Amy?”
“Can someone tell me what is going on?” Amy asked, climbing to her feet. Tears ran down her cheeks. Her legs wobbled.
>
“You’re not hurt,” Daniel said. “That’s good.”
“This is good?” Amy asked. She pulled her black coat tight around her body and started shaking. “This is supposed to be good? How the hell is this supposed to be good?”
Nicole brushed herself off, but was surprised when she didn’t find any glass shards. All the pieces were flowing back to the window on the second floor.
“So now what?” Nicole asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Having reavers in a tau guard tunnel is really bad. We should probably—”
BRAAAUGH!!!
BRAAAAAUUGH!!!
“Oh no,” Amy whispered, backing away from the noise.
“Two of them to the south,” Nicole said.
“Those were sentinels,” Daniel said. “Big ones, too. We don’t have much time. The drones are calling in help. There’s no way we can fight off this many. We need to get to a tunnel.”
“A different tunnel?”
“Right. There’s one on the Harvard University grounds. You remember me mentioning it?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“If we can reach it, we can escape to the Boston safe house.”
“So we walk to Harvard?”
“No, we run! Come on, both of you!”
Nicole grabbed Amy’s arm and tugged her along. “Let’s go!”
“But, Nicole!”
“We’ll explain along the way! Move it!”
Chapter 7
Toothpicks
“Hold up,” Amy said, panting with hands on her knees. “I need a breather.”
“Another one?” Nicole said. “Come on. We can’t have gone more than ten miles.”
“Only ten? Have some mercy! My legs feel like jelly!”
Nicole walked onto the street and rounded a motionless minivan to get a better view ahead. They’d reached Harvard Square, a shopping and dining district just west of the main campus. Nicole walked down the wide brick sidewalk. Lampposts and trees lined the street. Many of the nearby buildings shared architectural traits with the older Harvard buildings: lots of brick with a few muted, church-like flourishes.
“It’s not so funny now, is it?” Nicole said. She ran fingers through her damp hair.
“What is?” Amy asked.
“All those times you made fun of me for joining track and field,” Nicole said.
“I never… did that…” Amy said between pants.
Nicole assumed a mocking tone. “‘Oh, but no one in their right mind joins track and field.’ ‘Only a reject with no social life does that.’ ‘So what if you’re captain of the team? That’s like getting a medal for participation.’ Sound familiar?”
“So what?” Amy said.
“It doesn’t seem so stupid now, does it?”
“Well, excuse me for not knowing about the giant insects!”
“Maybe if you’d skipped a few doughnuts, you wouldn’t be slowing us down.”
“You take that back!”
“Geez, would you two knock it off!” Daniel shouted. He leaned against a lamppost and wiped his brow. “You’ve been like this the whole way!”
“But she started it!” Amy pointed at Nicole.
“Do I look like I care?” Daniel faced Nicole. “And you! Lay off!”
“Why are you taking her side?”
“This isn’t about me taking sides! This is about the three of us surviving! The sooner the two of you get that through your thick skulls, the better off we all are! For God’s sake, this is her first time in a tau freeze!”
“It’s… it’s not,” Amy said.
“What?” Nicole asked.
“I think I’ve been in one of these before,” Amy said. “Back in Russia, in the same subway you said you met Daniel. You remember how I tricked you into staying behind?”
“Very vividly,” Nicole said firmly.
“Well, in the train car on the way to the next station, everything stopped. You know, like it is now with frozen people that feel like statues. I don’t know how long I was stuck in that car, but I remember hearing a horrible ear-splitting roar just before everything started up again.”
“I see…” Nicole said, the fire gone from her voice. “That must have been the reaver you wounded, Daniel.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Afterwards, everything went back to normal and no one seemed to notice,” Amy said. “So I kept my mouth shut.”
“Is that why you were so off that day?”
Amy nodded. “I thought I was going insane or something. I had no idea what had happened. After all, how could something like that be real? Eventually I calmed down and told myself I just dreamt up the whole thing.”
Nicole tried to imagine what the Saint Petersburg subway would have been like without Daniel. Probably a cold, scary place until the reaver arrived and ripped her to pieces. She shuddered thinking about it.
“Amy, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“The two of you can be sorry later,” Daniel said. “We need to get to the safe house and take a real breather. I’m starting to feel the burn too.”
“I thought you were faster and stronger in a tau freeze,” Nicole said.
“Faster, yes. Stronger, yes,” Daniel said. “Do I have more endurance? No.”
“Well, we’re almost there. That building straight ahead is the Dudley House,” she said, pointing to a three story brick building with half-columns in the front facade. “You said we had to get to the Old Harvard Yard, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Daniel pushed off his knees and stood straight.
“The Old Yard is north of it,” Nicole said. “So we just go through the tunnel there and take it to the Boston safe house.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Pardon me for asking,” Amy said. “But what are these tunnels?”
“Toothpicks,” Daniel said.
“Oh, don’t start that crap again,” Nicole said.
“They’re what?” Amy asked.
“No, I’m serious,” Daniel said. “They’re just like those sandwich toothpicks. You know, the wooden kind with the little frilly plastic ends?”
“I know what a sandwich toothpick is,” Nicole said.
“Right. Well, a toothpick can pierce the different layers of the hamburger. The tunnels do the same thing. They connect two different points in time and space.”
“What do hamburgers have to do with this?” Amy asked with a bewildered, almost panicked look.
“The universe is a big hamburger,” Nicole said.
“It’s what?” Amy asked.
“You have to admit,” Daniel said, “once you get past the weirdness, it’s an effective visual aid.”
“You know, you’re right.” Nicole put her hands on her hips. “There are a lot of weird things I’ve been struggling with since meeting you. The hamburger is not the strangest one.”
“Thanks…” Daniel furrowed his brow. He mouthed her last words and said, “I think.”
“This is nuts,” Amy said. “You know that?”
“Yup,” Nicole said. “So Daniel, could you go down one of these things, take a wrong turn and end up in reaverspace?”
“Only in one very special case that’s sealed tight,” Daniel said. “There are limits to how different the two ends can be.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I’m so confused,” Amy said.
“You get used to it after a while,” Nicole said.
“Come on,” Daniel said. “Break’s over.”
“All right. Move it, Amy!”
“I’m moving! I’m moving!”
Daniel, Nicole, and Amy crossed the street and took the sidewalk around Dudley House.
“Now wait a second,” Nicole said. “If the Old Yard tunnel and the tunnel in your closet both lead to the Boston safe house, what makes you think the safe house is still safe?”
“Yeah, I thought of that too, but we don’t have any options.”
“Great.”
“Reavers don’t break into tau guard tunnels often, but it does happen. The safe house is still our best bet.”
They rounded Dudley House and looked across the Old Yard. Tall brick buildings and old deciduous trees lined a rectangular grassy field with Dudley House on the short southern side. Sidewalks ran around the perimeter and through the field at diagonals, dividing the Old Yard into small triangular chunks of well-cut grass.
A reaver roared in the distance, maybe a mile behind them. Two more answered from the far end of the Old Yard.
“Crap!” Daniel whispered. He put his back against the corner of Dudley House.
Nicole and Amy hurried over and crouched behind him. Nicole leaned out and glanced around the corner.
“Do you see them?” Nicole asked.
“No, but they’re close. Maybe near those buildings on the other side of the yard.”
“Where’s the tunnel entrance?”
“Near those buildings on the other side of the yard.”
Nicole shook her head. “We seem to have all the luck.”
“That one to be precise,” Daniel whispered, pointing at a four-story brick building with half a dozen smoke stacks rising from the roof.
“Thayer Hall,” Amy said. “It’s a freshman dormitory.”
“The tunnel is the entrance looking out on the yard,” Daniel whispered. “Follow me. Quietly now. And whatever you do, do not step on the grass! Use the sidewalks.”
“Okay,” Nicole whispered, not understanding.
“Whatever you say,” Amy whispered.
Daniel checked the yard one last time and said, “Okay, let’s go!” He ran around the corner.
A massive sentinel reaver climbed over the top of Thayer Hall. It looked large enough to munch cars for an evening snack. Moonlight glistened off its long silver body and countless legs. It dropped down in front of the building and slithered across the Yard. Daniel pushed Nicole behind the corner and pressed himself against the wall. He edged his head around the corner.
“Oh my God!” Amy whispered. “Is that what we’ve been hearing?”
“Do you have a plan C?” Nicole whispered.
“We don’t need to fight it,” Daniel said. “We just need to get past it. And even if we have to fight it, you’re a kinetic. I feel a lot better with you here.”
“That is not reassuring!” Nicole whispered.