Jamie rose up out of the complex, not wanting to see their disappointed faces any more.
It was night outside. It seemed misty, but she guessed that was mostly her perception. The moon, her new old friend, floated like a huge jack-o-lantern over the horizon, close enough to touch. She rose into the trees on one edge of the grounds, the moon now wreathed by fall-colored leaves and a few empty branches. A great poster for the upcoming Halloween.
Something else that fit with that poster was the ghostly image fluttering down from the trees and landing on the lawn. A shimmering, ghostly image that appeared to be wearing an oversized backpack. Without thinking, Jamie edged back into shadows of the tree limbs.
The figure appeared to slide downward into the ground. Jamie understood then: another old friend was visiting, and he had brought an explosive hostess gift.
Jamie flashed into the ground on an intersect course with the path she imagined the terrorist was on – fairly certain he'd plunge straight down into the center of the DARE complex, check out the location briefly before materializing even more briefly to deposit his nuclear backpack. She couldn't believe the improbability of being outside at the exact right moment, but perhaps the universe was trying to balance the odds.
Jamie had guessed correctly: she caught up just as his figure passed through the ceiling of the second level, going straight down. So what was her plan? She was going to ram him at full speed. The physicists all believed that no two teleporters shared the same "frequency," and that if two fields collided – if there wasn't a strong repulsion force as Dr. Hayashi hypothesized – then something fairly nasty was going to happen. Perhaps the fields would annihilate or short-circuit each other. Maybe the people within the field would be fried or obliterated, or maybe not. She was about to answer some interesting theoretical questions. That answer would determine the fate of hundreds if not thousands of people, including herself.
The jihadist paused on the fourth level. Jamie ducked into a wall as he glanced in her direction, but kept racing toward him within the wall. If he spotted her he might materialize, and then she couldn't touch him. Everyone on this level would be as good as dead. Zachary, Tildie, Jay – everyone who wasn't super-tough, for sure.
Jamie emerged from the wall twenty feet from the Hibat Allah agent. He was looking in the opposite direction, watching a handful of IED agents headed away down the hall. She launched herself at him with everything she had.
At the last instant his eyes turned toward her, widening with recognition and shock just before they collided.
It was a lot like running into her neighbor's electrical fence as a child. She'd been chasing foolishly after a fawn one night through a field that had been open all summer – and zap! Worse, she'd gotten tangled in the electric line and had endured several more shocks before wriggling free.
Now Jamie was locked in a straitjacket of pain a thousand times worse than that night. She thought she was clutching the arms of her adversary, but it was impossible to know anything clearly through the wall of pain. This was end-your-life agony. How she imagined it felt burning alive. Her teeth rattled and her brains were frying on her home grill on high flame –
And then, like a fever, the agony broke. She felt weak as a baby, but she was free. Her hands were claws on the terrorist's forearms. They were floating a few feet above the floor, the fuzzy imagery and lack of gravity telling her they were still in N-Space. The Hibat Allah agent's eyes opened and rolled upward, focusing woozily on her.
"Sahera!" the man spat.
Jamie punched him in the face. He took the blow, but fastened onto her wrist and spun her around face down near the floor. Her extraordinary strength seemed to be missing here. Either that, or he was her physical equal. He cinched his legs around her waist and pummeled the back of her head. A grey haze entered her vision. The same physical laws appeared to be in effect. I could die in here.
The man rasped out a triumphant laugh. His legs loosened around her. She heard clothing rustle. Half-turning her head she saw him unsling the oversized backpack. He tapped some numbers on what appeared to be a keypad on its side. A screen lit up. He caught her staring at him and grinned, raising one finger theatrically over a red button.
"No," she whispered.
He pressed the button. The numbers on the screen started flashing.
Jamie leaped for him. The man's grin flattened. He threw a contemptuous punch, which she ducked, lunging past him for the nuclear device. He caught her by the waist and started to toss her backward, but she held onto his arms. Somehow she had to get to the backpack and stop the countdown. They grappled, coming face to face, and she saw fear dawning in his eyes.
Over his shoulder the display showed: 00011, followed by 00010. 00009.
He can't materialize the bomb without direct physical contact? Jamie wasn't sure at all about the rules, but she thought that much was true. And he seemed to think so, too, because he was suddenly struggling frantically to free himself from her. Could a nuke detonate in N-Space? What would happen if it did?
00004. 00003.
The man snarled something about Allah – either a prayer or a curse – and closed his eyes.
In the next instant, Jamie felt the familiar press of gravity, the solid floor under her feet. Still clinging tightly to a terrorist, his eyes now slits of rage.
The air lit up beside them, a brilliant white sphere glowing like a miniature sun. Heat seared Jamie's skin, and once again her clothes burst into flame. So did the terrorist's. His scream of pain bounced down the corridor. The nearby walls and ceiling turned from white to a smoky gray, peeling and rippling like a plastic milk jug tossed into a fire.
But as Jamie flew down the hall, the white dwarf retreated, winking out of existence. She returned to the terrorist, who was sprawled on his back, blinking up at the ceiling, his face a mess of red and white boils, chest heaving in ragged, fish-out-of water gasps. Some team members – Tildie, Jay, Belinda, Hulk Horner – started jogging toward her, Tildie's cry of greeting stifled by Jamie's urgently raised hand.
"Stay back!" she called to them. "There could be radiation."
The Hibat Allah agent gritted his teeth in an expression of desperate determination. Veins of flickering lights spread over his bare chest, suffusing patches of his skin in a pale, neon-lamp glow. He's trying to teleport. She applied gentle pressure to his chest, and the lights flickered off as he struggled for his next breath. Their eyes locked. His lungs rattled and his cheeks filled. He spat at her face. The saliva hissed out of existence a few inches from his curled lips.
"Shaytan al'inath!" he rasped.
Jamie raised one hand and wriggled her fingers, just as he'd done to her at the Oakland Coliseum before thrusting her into nowhere land. The light faded from his eyes, but the hardness did not leave his face. His lips remained curled in fierce hatred.
Her friends and other team members closed in around her.
"Jamie..." Tildie touched her shoulder. "Are you okay? What happened here?"
"Just ran into an old friend."
"He's the guy from the Coliseum, right? The guy who was tormenting us all day."
"Yeah. I spotted him outside the facility. I just happened to be up there, and followed him down. He was wearing his usual backpack nuke."
"But what caused this?" Jay motioned at the fused puddles of plastic and steel sheeting around them.
"The nuke detonated." Jamie stood up, turning to him and Tildie. "Inside the Phantom Zone."
"Oh, shit!" Jay clasped his head. "Holy fuck. I didn't know that was even possible."
"I'm not sure anyone did."
"Looks like some of the explosion leaked out," said Tildie. "Is that how you escaped – it ripped open a hole or something?"
"No. He took us out about a second before it detonated. I doubt he knew what would happen next any more than I did."
"The piece of shit is dead, isn't he?" Horner tapped the body with one foot.
"I think so. Maybe Terry or his dad or
someone in medical could revive him..."
"Hey." Tildie gripped Jamie's shoulders, steering her around to face her. Her friend's soulful brown eyes probed hers. "Are you okay? Really okay?"
"I'm not sure."
The sob that escaped Jamie's throat surprised her. Tildie pulled her gently into her arms. Other than some throat-clearing, no one made a sound for several moments.
"It must've been horrible for you, trapped in there," Tildie whispered. "Isolated from everyone, from everything."
Jamie thought she might lose it as her friend's words pried open the lid she was keeping on her emotions. Worse than the isolation was her memory of Dennis and Kylee, happily living their lives forever apart from her. It took most of her will to push those images far back in her head while making sure not to squeeze Tildie too hard. The faces around her were sympathetic – even Hulk Horner and Jake Culler's – but she also saw an expectation there: she was supposed to be the strong one, able endure all manner of hardship and keep on going. She was their leader. It was weird, but that made her feel stronger, believing they depended on her. Maybe she was just deluding herself, but she used it to straighten up and ease her friend away. Fake it till you make it.
"I learned some things," she said, her voice brisk, business-like. She noted the relieved smiles of those around her. "We all need to meet with Mort and Director Boltman as soon as possible."
"THANK YOU all for not giving up on me," Jamie told Zachary and the three scientists – Kelvin Hayashi, Eileen Hui, and Randy Wilde – and after she'd been thoroughly checked out by medical staff, her fellow IED agents in Tactical Room One.
They all listened with amazement and, in Tildie's case, tears as Jamie related her story, particularly about seeing her family. She did not discuss what that was like – probably unnecessary, she thought – but focused instead on the news program she'd seen featuring Brian Loving.
"Hundreds, possibly thousands of people missing," Mort murmured, looking to Director Boltman, who'd sat with a dour frown through her entire account. "We've had complaints of missing people here, too."
"Most of which were retracted," said Director Boltman. "That's not in our juridiction, unless it involves abuse of augment powers. Did anything in that news program suggest that? Were there even augmented people in that world?"
"I didn't see any indication of either, sir." Jamie mentally knocked herself on the noggin for not showing more discipline and staying long enough to gain more useful intelligence. But at that moment staying longer seemed impossible to her.
"Any actionable intelligence in this world?" the Director drawled.
"We have no record of Brian Loving registering with DARE," said Mort. "For whatever that's worth."
"Not a lot unless you want to make a martyr of him and deal with five million of his rabid followers."
"We could always use that as an excuse to bring him in for questioning."
"And if he refuses?" Boltman turned to Jamie. "So far we know he has teleportation and likely strong telekinetics, along with mind-reading. Do you feel confident we can bring him in without starting World War Three?"
Jamie hesitated. No one knew the full extent of Brian Loving's powers, but her gut instinct was that they were formidable. Whether or not he'd use them to resist was another question.
"I think he might be willing to talk to us," she said. "He seems like someone you could reason with – or at least someone who wants to be thought of that way."
"Turn the other cheek and all that," Jake snorted.
"He wouldn't be turning the other cheek if I slapped him," Horner stated.
"I think the way to approach him is appeal to his reasonable side," said Jamie. "My impression is he doesn't respond well to aggression. And we don't know who he's surrounded himself with. He could have his pick of the most powerful from millions of augments."
"Shit, well, we'd better just let him do whatever the fuck he wants, then," said Jake.
"I thought the whole point of DIE was to make people with superpowers obey the law," sniffed Denise Rogers, sitting beside him.
"Our division is called Interdiction and Enforcement," grumbled Director Boltman. "I.E.D."
"But DIE is what the people call us," said Jake with a shrug. "Personally, I like it. Sends the right message."
"That we're a bunch of killers?"
"That we will totally kill your ass if you mess with us."
Boltman looked like he wanted to say more, but clamped down on it. Mort Anderson was eyeing the ceiling tiles as if suspecting a leak.
"I like the idea of bringing him in," said Mort. He lowered his gaze to Jamie. "And I think you might be the one to do that, Commander. Use your charm. If he declines, we'll back off and discuss our options."
"I can get behind that." Director Boltman was nodding thoughtfully. "Get him to come in without a front page incident. If he won't, we'll find a quiet way to get his cooperation."
The meeting broke up with promises that an operation would be designed in the next couple of days but that in the meantime Jamie was to get some "much-needed rest," in the words of Director Boltman.
She entered Zachary's Director's quarters on the fifth floor and found him stretched out on the bed half-asleep.
"How did it go –"
Jamie placed a forefinger to his lips. She was done talking. For the next few minutes at least.
Later, when they came up for air, adrift on their usual post-lovemaking cloud, Zachary asked softly: "I know how hard it must've been, seeing your family. If you want to talk about it."
Jamie shook her head. It had taken all her will not to see Dennis in her head when Zachary had caressed her, to not imagine his hurt face when Zachary drove her to ecstasy. That was the last thing she wanted to talk to Zachary about. Yet to shut him out seemed wrong, too.
"I really should be happy," she said. "Somewhere, my daughter and" – she paused – "former husband are alive and okay. What gets me the most about it is that they're living without me and me without them..." She stopped herself.
"It's okay." Zach rested a hand on her arm. "They're your family. I don't expect you to ever forget them."
Jamie tucked in her chin against the welling emotion. Funny how being thousands of times stronger did absolutely nothing to protect her from moments like these.
"I assume that in some world we're all together," she said, "but really, Zachary, where's the fairness in that? Are we supposed to believe it's all random?"
"Everything being random is kind of scary. But scarier than the alternative? What kind of monster would design things to be this way?"
Jamie ordered her tensing muscles to relax before she tore holes in his mattress. When she thought of monsters she couldn't help thinking of that monstrous black as knight ship orbiting Mars. Assuming it was still there. Since Hubble and all their satellites were gone, it could be almost anywhere except in near-Earth orbit where ground-based telescopes might theoretically spot it.
"Maybe we should ask Brian Loving," Jamie sighed, "since he claims to have this personal relationship with God."
"He's a circus ringmaster, in my opinion," Zach said with a frown. "Nothing more."
"A ringmaster in two worlds. And in one, as far as I could tell, without superpowers."
"Kind of hard to tell from a few minutes of one news program."
"I know." Jamie rolled over and rested her head on his chest. She felt a guilty twinge as she imagined Dennis without a head on his chest. Or maybe he had a girlfriend? The prominent picture of them on the bedroom wall suggested not.
"So what did happen in your meeting with Boltman and Anderson?"
"Because of what I saw in that world," said Jamie, "we're going to have a little talk with Brian Loving."
"The alleged missing people?"
"Yeah. But what if they're not alleged?"
"Where would they go missing to?"
Jamie stared at the ceiling, hoping it was just a rumor, a paranoid conspiracy theory. But considering wh
at she'd seen since the arrival of the cylinder, she wasn't sure anything qualified as a paranoid conspiracy theory any more.
"That's the interesting question, isn't it," she said.
Chapter 24
WHILE HER SUPERIORS MULLED over the Brian Loving and the Last Days issue, Jamie flew home for a much-needed break. Zachary flew with her. Neither wanted to be apart from each other and both wanted to visit their fathers. Mort had okayed their joint request without a second thought. "You both deserve some rest and recreation," he said. "Who knows when you'll get another chance."
Jamie had mastered the art of traveling within a protective envelope of air. Dr. Wilde and other scientists saw the value of Jamie and other flyers with strong telekinetics developing that skill for both rescue and battle purposes. They and their military counterparts within DARE liked the idea of transporting troops without need of aircraft. Jamie had been a quick study. It felt completely natural to create a barrier of air and hold people or objects within it.
The only small negative side-effect was a bit of heat as Jamie pushed them and their luggage up to several thousand miles per hour. "Traveling in style," Zachary chuckled after they'd landed. "You can't beat the panoramic view. Though next time I might wear a swimsuit."
They'd decided, mostly on Zach's suggestion, that her house would be the base of operation. With Jamie's blessing, her dad was building a nice small house on the back acreage, so everyone would have plenty of privacy. He'd floated the idea of buying his own place, which she'd nixed. She liked the idea of having him on her property, but with some space. Cal agreed, and she thought she heard relief in his voice. They would work out the details later.
Cal had the grill fired up when they dropped down on the front lawn on a fine, late-October day. Jamie had always liked "Indian Summer" and fall the best in North Dakota, as long as winter didn't start early. Not that food or temperature mattered much to Jamie these days, but Zach and her dad were still partly tied to the "old ways," as her dad joked. Nor had Jamie lost her taste for good food and drink, necessary or no.
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