Overture

by Mark Wandrey

  “What now?” Billy asked.

  “We need to get the bodies out of here,” she said. “Those on the dais first.” The cops looked at each other. They had seen blood and gore, but cleaning it up wasn’t usually their job. Mindy glanced at her watch. “It’s 03:27,” she said, loud enough for them all to hear. “In three and a half hours, something huge is going to slam into the planet.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” SGT Tall asked, pointing at the dais. “Is that a force field, like in Star Trek?”

  “You’re closer than you know,” Mindy mumbled. She went over and grabbed an arm dangling off the side. She pulled. The body slid off with a squelch and hit the metal floor with a plop. She felt the shrimp rumble in her stomach, but she ignored it and went to move another body. She grabbed a boot and pulled, then almost fell when the shoe came off. She looked down at her hands and saw the foot was still in the shoe. She dropped it in horror, and only managed to avoid retching by pure force of will.

  “Come on guys,” Billy said. He pulled a pair of gloves from a back pocket and grabbed another body. The others hesitated a moment, then joined in. They all had neoprene gloves in their pockets. A female officer offered Mindy some hand sanitizer and a pair of gloves. Mindy used half the tiny vial, then stuck her hands into the gloves before joining in.

  Ten minutes later, Billy dragged the last body off the dais. SGT Tall, not realizing it was the last one, walked onto the bottom step, and the portal sprang to life.

  “Sweet baby Jesus!” he barked, jumping back.

  “That’s what it is,” Mindy said, slipping by him to climb the stairs. The dais was like slick glass. The police were searching for something to clean it off, but she didn’t want to wait. Armed with a flashlight, she approached the portal and peered through. There were more bodies on the other side. Lots more.

  Those bodies didn’t look like they were victims of combat. Instead, they all looked like they’d died in agony. Their faces were pale, many had huge sores on their exposed skin, and some were missing patches of hair. The brick wall was still the backdrop on the other side. And, smeared on the wall with black paint, was the word ‘doomed.’ Nothing moved.

  “Good lord,” Billy said behind her. She nodded. “We can’t go there, it’s like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fryer!”

  “I know,” she said. Her footing slipped a little and Billy caught her. “I need a solid footing.”

  “Why, what are you going to do?”

  “I can’t explain it,” she said. She glued her eyes to the rapidly moving alien scripts flashing around the portal’s perimeter. She suddenly knew what a moth felt like when it flew out of the dark toward a candle’s flame. “Please, find something.” She shook her head. “And get me away from the portal for now, please.” Gently, he backed her away and down the stairs. They almost fell twice, and other officers had to help them, but they made it.

  No one doubted her any more, not after seeing the portal. The police quickly organized a macabre bucket brigade to move the corpses out of the portal dome. Dozens of other people joined in, some resorting to bandanas splashed with drops of gasoline tied over their faces to mask the smell. It was an old trick one of them heard about from his grandfather who’d helped liberate the Treblinka death camp.

  In less time than it had taken to clear the dais, they emptied the dome of bodies. Mindy noticed one of the last carried out was Agent Volant, who’d had part of his head shot away. She didn’t feel terribly sorry for him. A search team returned with a dozen mops, a package of sponges, and a box of four-gallon jugs of bleach based-cleaner. Mindy handed off her gas mask and retreated, as Jorge arrived with his team. They had procured a small, motley convoy of commercial trucks. One was an ice cream truck, though the back was empty.

  “Dios mio,” Jorge said, climbing down and looking at the pile of bodies near the portal, “what happened?”

  “Justice,” Mindy said as she set her laptop on the hood of a delicatessen delivery truck. “It’s going to be tough to work with these trucks, but it’s all we have.” One at a time, she took the tablets out and used her ‘toolkit’ to wipe them and turn them into simple display machines. Then she accessed her inventory, broke it up into five parts, and split it between five tablets. She loaded the entire manifest onto the last tablet and gave it to Jorge.

  “These tablets have lists of everything we need. Most of it is in warehouse #2, some is in #1. Get everything you can, but don’t waste time searching for specific crates, with a few exceptions.” She pointed to a series of numbers. “Those that begin with ES are essential. We need almost all of them. If you find one, drop whatever you’re doing and get it on a truck. As soon as a truck is full, get it here.” She glanced through the park’s foliage. Warehouse #1 was on the Great Lawn, about a quarter of a mile away. Warehouse #2 was much closer, over by the East 72nd Street Playground, about 500 feet away. The only way to get to either was by taking Center Drive to Terrace, but getting to #1 also meant going up East Drive to get to the lawn. “Warehouse #2 is the priority for now,” she said. Jorge nodded vigorously.

  “Si, it’s in better shape anyway.” He took the tablets and whistled. “Amigos, vamonos!” A bunch of his fellow logistics people came running.

  “Billy,” Mindy added, “can you put at least five of your men with each truck for security? If it’s quiet, they can help load. We have to move quickly to have any chance.”

  “At least the clouds are clearing,” someone said, “and the moon is bright.” Mindy’s brow furrowed. Tonight was the new moon. She looked up and saw a bright glowing spot in the sky. It scintillated like a star, but gave off far too much light.

  “That’s not the moon,” she said. Slowly everyone looked up to see the coming death. “Get moving,” she said.

  * * *

  Her watch said it was 04:10 before she could go into the portal dome without a gas mask. The dome reeked of bleach now, and that was fine. The floors were wet and red, but it was a diluted red as the blood soaked into the ground though the metal flooring. The portal dais was dry. It was time.

  Mindy mounted the stairs, and the portal popped to life. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the spectacle, both those who’d never seen it, and those who’d been there earlier. She was beyond the fascination of the alien device; her mind was drawn to the script moving around the edges. She felt like bugs were crawling around inside her head. She twitched slightly and ground her teeth together so tightly she was afraid she’d break a tooth.

  “Do you need light?” Billy asked. The portal gave off an otherworldly light, framing her pretty, pale face and giving her bronze hair a slight glow. She shook her head. “What are you going to do?” he asked. She didn’t answer.

  Mindy walked to within a few inches of the portal. She knew the clock was rapidly counting down, but it didn’t matter. With the assurance of someone reaching out to turn on a light switch in a room she’d lived in all her life, she caught a symbol just as it appeared. The others froze. It’s really so simple, she thought as she twisted her fingers, rotating the symbol 180 degrees. She knew the other woman had done that as well, but the camera failed to catch the twist of her wrist. Mindy didn’t need that image to know what to do, not since her encounter in the infinite.

  She moved her hand, and the symbol stuck to her fingers like glue. She swept it over to another symbol and stuck it there. A new one appeared. She left it, and grabbed one on the opposite side of the portal, adding it to a third nearby. Then, using both hands, she took the two newly merged symbols, and like an acrobat, brought them around the edge of the portal and together directly overhead. The portal flashed brilliant green, then changed to blue. It was now the color it originally was. As the flash faded, the portal disappeared. She sighed and stepped back. Her head hurt. She started to fall.

  “I’ve got you,” Billy said, and she felt his strong arms catch her and lower her to the cool dais surface.

  “Ow,” Mindy said.
Her brain hurt in a way she couldn’t describe.

  “Are you okay?” Billy asked.

  “At least the ants are gone,” she said. He looked so confused, she almost laughed. Amazingly, the humor helped lessen the pain, so she let out a little laugh. “I’m fine,” she said as she saw the look of alarm on his face.

  “What did you do?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said. “It was all instinct. I mean, I’ve been working on that for a while, but I didn’t know how far from the truth I was, until I saw the space things.”

  “I don’t think you could be any more confusing, if you tried,” Billy said, and she laughed again.

  “It’s okay, really. Help me up, we need to get off the dais to see if I did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Help me, and I’ll show you.”

  He did, and she felt even better. It was like she’d completed the toughest college final of her life and didn’t have a care in the world. She wished she could bottle that feeling; she’d make a fortune.

  Once they stepped off the dais, she immediately stepped back on. She wasn’t worried or nervous. The portal came alive, and when she saw the prehistoric woods, she smiled.

  “Bingo.” The first truck was pulling up outside.

  * * *

  Mindy desperately wanted to close her eyes, even for 10 minutes, but it simply wasn’t possible. Getting everything organized in weeks with a large staff was a daunting task, doing it in hours was all but impossible. Yet, that was exactly what she needed to do.

  When Osgood supervised movements through the portal, his team worked out the weight limits in kilograms. Each person would stagger through with as much gear as they could carry, then men tossed through meticulously-weighed crates until they reached the 250kg limit. Mindy had data on the crates her team was stacking, and the weights were stenciled on the sides, but she didn’t have the manpower, or time, to carefully organize. “Make each stack as close to 250kg as possible,” she told Jorge and his crew, then left it up to the supremely competent logistics man to do the rest.

  It took her an hour to collect data on everyone going through, including their names, gender, and ages. The four children under age five were the biggest challenge. They couldn’t carry anything more than the clothes on their backs, and she didn’t want to waste a transition on them. One was too young to walk on her own, so she’d go as a babe-in-arms.

  After finishing her survey, Mindy walked along the line of crates and did some quick mental math. Jorge was outdoing himself. Only two of the twenty stacks she looked at were more than 10 kg short, and several were dead on. The computer program would have done better, but they lacked that and a support team, so this would have to do. She climbed the dais and checked with Billy.

  “Any sign of anyone?” she asked. He’d stayed on the dais while she took her census. They’d found the laser communicator lying to the side of the portal, still functional, and set it back up. It linked with the other side, but no one was there to talk. Billy had been reactivating the portal every 10 minutes and calling on the communicator. In addition, he’d shined a flashlight through so someone could see the light in case the laser radio wasn’t working.

  “Nothing,” he told her. She looked through. There were more buildings than she remembered, but there was no sign of any people. It was late afternoon on Bellatrix, and there was no one in Ft. Eden. “What should we do?”

  “That damn thing is getting close,” Alexis said, coming in with a sheet of paper from Jorge. She pointed up at the sky. “It’s so bright, it almost hurts to look at it.”

  “The sun is reflecting off it,” Mindy told her. “It’s dark here, but up where it is, the sun is above the horizon.” She turned to Billy. “We go through. What real choice do we have?” He shrugged. “At least there isn’t a pile of radioactive corpses over there, so it’s an improvement.

  “We’re running out of room in here,” Jorge yelled from the door.

  “Then it’s time to start,” Mindy said and went down the steps. Billy followed. She glanced at her computer, checking the power. She still had 19% and, according to the little icon, 5 hours remaining. Her watch said it was 05:01. She had plenty of power left. She walked to the door. The horizon was getting lighter, and the clouds were almost all gone. The last morning on Earth was going to be beautiful. “Where’s Sergeant Tall?” she asked.

  “Here,” the big black man said. He was using rope to tie a pair of crates together. The crates marked “ES” were to one side, with cut lengths of salvaged rope lying next to them. These crates would all go through with people transitioning to Bellatrix to ensure they made it. “I don’t agree with my going first,” he said.

  “We don’t know what to expect,” she said, going over it again. “There are giant carnivorous reptiles over there, and for all we know, everyone was eaten in the 11 days we’ve been out of contact. Billy says that, as a former Marine, you have the best chance of holding the other side long enough for more people to make it through.” Tall scowled.

  “Quit bitching, sergeant, and do your job,” Billy snapped. Tall jerked as if he’d been shocked with a cattle prod.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. Billy picked up an AR rifle, their only one chambered in 7.62 NATO.

  “From what Mindy said about those dinosaurs, this might give you a chance.” Tall had two extra mags for the AR in his web gear, and he carried a personal sidearm, as well. He’d stuffed his backpack to the bursting point. As he climbed the stairs, a pair of cops heaved up the roped crates, setting two on either side of the portal.

  “Good luck,” Mindy said. He thanked her, but she was already reading out the names of the next four people who would go across. They were also big, burly police officers, and they were the only cops who’d go through until the last, if everything went as planned.

  “Shoot straight, stay smart,” Billy said, and clapped the big man on the shoulder. Tall nodded, reached down and slung first one rope, then another over his shoulders.

  “Shit, those dig in,” he growled.

  “No time for padding,” Billy said.

  “Semper fucking Fi,” Tall said, and clasping the rifle, stepped into another world.

  Mindy glanced over when the portal flashed, indicating someone had gone through. She hoped she wasn’t going to see him become monster chow. Tall sloughed off the ropes, shouldered his rifle and dropped to one knee, expertly swinging the weapon back and forth. The room was deathly silent; the only sounds came from the trucks delivering more crates outside and the distant and ever-present gunfire of New York City. He took an entire minute to be certain nothing was going to attack him. Finally, he stood and gestured with one hand; come on!

  “Let’s get those crates through,” Mindy barked, and broke the spell. Tall slid the four crates he’d brought with him out of view, then stepped back just as Billy tossed the first of the extra ones through. Although not as practiced as the NASA people, Mindy thought they did okay. All the crates were through well before they reached the portal’s time limit, even though Tall had wasted time making sure all was clear.

  “Next,” Mindy said as the portal shut down, “Perkins.” The officer was already carrying over some “ES” crates. Billy and Tall jumped off the dais so it could reset. Once the portal reactivated, Perkins shuffled through with his “ES” crates and another rifle. Per Billy, Perkins’ rifle wasn’t quite as powerful as Tall’s. Tall stood, his back to the portal, moving his rifle back and forth. Mindy keyed the headset she was wearing.

  “Tall, are you okay?” He’d donned the headset on his side soon after arriving, as they’d planned.

  “Yeah,” he said, “no contact. But I hear some roaring a long way away. Jesus fucking Christ it sounds like Jurassic Park!”

  “Let’s hurry,” she said. “The more of you we get through, the more guns you’ll have!”

  “Damn good point,” he said, and clipped his gun in place to help Perkins move his “ES” crates out of the way. More crate
s started flying through immediately.

  Five police went through, but things weren’t progressing as quickly as they needed to. Mindy glanced at her watch as they threw the rest of the crates through the portal. It was now 05:52. There were less than two hours until impact, and they still had 125 people to get through. At this rate it would take 20 hours to get everyone to the other side. With a sinking sensation, she realized they were only going to get about half of their supplies through. Fuck, she silently cursed.

  “Billy!” she yelled. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he turned toward her. She gestured for him to come down. “Get someone to spell you and give you a rest,” she said. Other men were getting the young children ready, as he came down from the dais and walked over to her.

  “What’s up?” he asked. She told him. The worry lines on his forehead became more pronounced. She wondered how old he was. “So, what do we do?”

  “We stop being so fancy,” she said. “We move people through, and toss as we go.”

  “We can’t do that with the kids,” Billy pointed out, “one is sure to get nailed by a crate.”

  “I know,” she said. “We’ll stay orderly until the kids are through. After that, we start to rush.”

  Outside the dome, there were a couple of single gunshots followed by a rapid flurry, then silence. Billy drew his sidearm and ran to the door. He met an officer running in. Mindy could overhear them.

  “A group of punks attacked one of the moving crews. They were moving slowly and must have looked like an easy target. There was one minor injury. Elizabeth and the tactical unit fucked the punks up pretty bad, and they gave up.”