Gremlins are Malfunctioning

by Susan Lain

  "Point this end at the enemy and shoot," Alek advised, a ghost of a lopsided smile gracing his lips. Eliot felt immediately relieved. If Alek could find humor in a plight like this, then so could Eliot. "The tranqs won't penetrate body armor or helmets. You have to aim for thin clothing or bare skin."

  Eliot grimaced. This just got a lot harder. His hands shook already. "O-okay. How quick, uh, is the effect?"

  "Instantaneous." Alek frowned, hesitating. Then he sighed. "One or two seconds."

  Eliot barked out a laugh which he cut off right away, glancing around nervously. While two seconds might have sounded like a blink of an eye, it was long when speaking of guns.

  Alek lifted Eliot's chin; he wasn't even aware when he'd ducked his head. "The magazine has twelve rounds. Use them sparingly. We don't have the time to teach you how to change clips."

  "I'll be fine." Eliot straightened up and did his best to appear like an obedient and capable soldier. He was none of those things. But appearances were everything, right?

  As they moved stealthily through the lobby, Eliot heard a muffled groan from the blue-lit corridor. "Alek? There," he whispered, pointing in the right direction.

  With a curt nod and an icy expression, Alek passed Eliot and stalked toward the hallway in question, his gun in front of him. Eliot had no doubt that Alek would be more than capable of using it if need be. Slinking behind Alek, Eliot had trouble seeing what lay ahead.

  "Shit," Alek cursed, stopping mid-step.

  "What?" Eliot fisted Alek's jacket at the back for a second before he caught on to the deed and yanked his hand back.

  "See for yourself." While Alek didn't relax, he unwound a little as he grunted, his hunched stance changing to an upright one.

  Eliot peered past Alek's side—and saw a curvaceous young blonde sitting on the floor, her blue jeans dirty, her shirt with the slogan Save the Earth in tatters, and a black bullet-proof vest over her chest worn and frayed. She clutched at her side, blood seeping through her fingers.

  Eliot gasped when he recognized the woman. "Gabrielle!"

  He rushed to her side, pulled his scarf from his neck, bunched it into a ball, and pressed it against the gunshot wound. She groaned and jerked, her eyelids fluttering. A frown of pain graced her forehead.

  "W-who…?" she whispered, blood smears coating her lips. Her eyes seemed glassy, as if she couldn't focus. Eliot figured she'd lost a lot of blood and would soon pass out—or die. Eliot prayed she'd live.

  "It's us, Eliot and Alek. We spoke to you yesterday, remember, by the motorcycle?"

  Her brow cleared. "Y-yes." She grimaced, her hand groping at the cloth Eliot used to keep pressure on the open wound. "God, it hurts…"

  "Shh. Don't talk. Conserve your energy," Eliot advised.

  Apparently Alek, however, didn't get the memo. "Gabrielle, what happened here?" Even a glare from Eliot didn't stop him.

  Gabrielle shook her head, sobbing. "This is all my fault."

  "What do you mean?" Alek gripped his gun tighter, the creak of metal sharp.

  Eliot pushed Alek off. "Stop it. She's bleeding to death. She needs to get to a hospital."

  Alek growled, his eyes burning with a blue flame. "She'll get help when I get answers."

  Eliot gasped in shock. Then he punched Alek harder on the arm. "You do this, and we part ways for good. Make no mistake. You're a government agent, not a torturer."

  Alek scowled. "You're letting your emotions cloud your judgment."

  Eliot glowered right back. "No, I'm a human being showing sympathy to someone who can't fight back. You should try it. Might make you a better person and a better agent."

  Alek cursed. "You'll feel different when the so-called incapacitated enemy strikes a lethal blow without you even seeing it coming."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Eliot gestured at Gabrielle. "She's not our enemy."

  "Don't be stupid," Alek murmured, leaning in, his eyes like lightning. "She's not a MERF employee, not a scientist or an agent. How is she here in the first place? Think about that and then tell me she's blameless."

  Eliot did stop there. He'd seen blood on a helpless woman, and his protective instincts had kicked in. But he hadn't considered the fact that Gabrielle shouldn't have been down there, exactly as Alek had pointed out.

  "Gabrielle?" Eliot touched the wounded woman on the shoulder, rousing her from a state of feebleness. "What are you doing here?"

  Gabrielle sighed, her eyes closing. Her weary voice was barely above a whisper. "This is all my fault. When you came to question me, it was proof that my father was up to something dangerous with mythkin. So I searched his study and then the rest of the house. I took it apart. I had no choice. I had to know…how far he…" Her voice faded as she seemed about ready to pass out.

  Alek shook her arm, but Eliot pushed him off. "If she dies, she won't able to tell us a damn thing. Curb those violent tendencies." Eliot vibrated with righteous indignation, not admiring this side of Alek's personality.

  Shaking his head in obvious vexation, Alek pulled out a radio from his belt. "This is Agent Alek Saroyan. Am I speaking with the guard on post at the lobby of the MERF building?"

  "Yes, sir," came a rattling connection from a nervous-sounding man.

  "What's your name, son?" Alek asked with a formal voice. Eliot cringed. The habit of law enforcement officials to use patronizing titles with inferior officers pissed him off. He'd never used anything but respectful ones with customers.

  "Sergeant Oakley, sir."

  "We have a code orange. This facility has been breached by a person or persons unknown. Shots fired. Personnel down. Institute an immediate lockdown. No one in or out." Alek exchanged glances with Eliot who listened intently. "In a few minutes, I will be sending a girl up the elevator. She's been shot. Call an ambulance. Keep her safe; she's a material witness. Beyond that stay alert. Radio silence on your end. I will contact you later. Confirm receipt of orders."

  "Orders received and understood, sir," Sergeant Oakley replied, his tone steadier.

  "Happy now?" Alek grunted but turned his attention to Gabrielle before Eliot could utter a single syllable. "Gabrielle, talk. What the hell is going on?"

  Nodding with a grimace of agony, Gabrielle confessed quietly, "I told you that my father was investigating the TLA. He was getting close—to me."

  Eliot drew in a sharp breath. "You're with the TLA?"

  Gabrielle offered him a wan smile. "I founded the TLA with two of my friends, Elvira and Felix. I don't know what happened to them. There were five of us down here. God, where are they?"

  Her voice rose in alarm. She started to sob violently, still more blood pumping out through the hole in her side. Her skin was clammy and pale.

  Eliot estimated her time was running out.

  "Ask what you need," Eliot murmured to Alek. "Two minutes. Then we're sending her up in the elevator."

  After an argumentative frown, Alek nodded, much to Eliot's surprise. "Okay. Gabrielle, so Felix and Elvira were on your payroll then?"

  "Undercover, if you can call it that. They believed in the scientific method but had doubts about the ethics of what was happening here."

  Alek seemed about to snap at the woman but regained his self-control. "Why did the TLA attack this facility and kill everyone? That hardly helps your cause."

  Eliot understood that Alek had lost people he knew, if not friends then colleagues, but for him to let Gabrielle die would be a reprehensible act. There was no defending it.

  "We didn't attack," Gabrielle denied fast, hissing in pain. "We conned our way in. We had inside help. A sympathizer. We got past the lobby and into the labs. We detained all the scientists we found and locked them up in storage rooms or closets. Then we tried to free the mythkin—only to discover that was futile."

  "What do you mean?" Eliot asked, though he had a hunch he already knew what.

  Gabrielle barked out a bitter laugh. "When we turned off the generators, they just vanished when we mov
ed closer, going into their own dimension or phase. You and MERF were right all along. Mythkin don't need our protection. They're not prisoners. We were wrong."

  Alek blinked, a flummoxed expression on his face. Eliot thought it priceless and he almost took a picture for future shits and giggles. But this was hardly the time for gloating humor.

  "We were on our way out when…" Gabrielle coughed up blood, her breathing wheezing, her voice raspy. "Gunshots." She looked up, eyes welling with tears, jaw trembling. "We only had tranq guns. There were too many of them. Professionals, dressed in black body armor, carrying full-automatics. They shot everyone in the lobby. I told the others to run but I stayed. I tried…Oh God, they killed people!"

  Her voice had risen to shrill and panicked, tears rolling down her cheeks in big droplets, her eyes wide with remembered horrors. Alek and Eliot both reached out at the same moment to calm her, their hands on her shoulders, soothing her with soft tones.

  Gabrielle cried. "It was my fault. I found the plans for the phase resonance weapon and the hidden laboratory. If I hadn't, people might still be alive."

  Alek clenched his fists. "So Newell was the one who developed the ingenious weapon with the intent to hurt or annihilate mythkin, and he was funded by Duke Arrington."

  "Yes." Gabrielle slumped. She was two seconds away from complete collapse. "I learned that he gathered a group of ex-military men, current mercenaries, who held grudges against mythkin. He called his little group HPB, the Human Protection Brigade. Ha!"

  "Wait." Alek frowned, pensive, while Eliot studied him. Now what? "I recall the facility receiving office supplies from a company by that name: HPB."

  "That's the thing," Gabrielle muttered. "Their base is here, right under this facility, on a hidden sublevel. I learned that rifling through my dad's papers and computer files. He and his men have been here all along."

  "Oh my God," Eliot whispered, horrified at the notion Newell had been so close to them and the mythkin. He could have obliterated the building whenever he chose. What had he waited for? For the development of the weapon and direct access to mythkin research data?

  "I had to kill him. He was closing in on me, my friends and the TLA. That alone wouldn't have been enough, but I heard rumors of a specialized weapon aimed against mythkin. Elvira and Felix came here undercover but found no proof of malfeasance." A fierce, short laugh full of sarcasm fell from her lips. "Who would have guessed it was my dear old dad who was the mastermind behind the whole thing?"

  Eliot shushed her quiet. "Calm down."

  Gabrielle chuckled dryly, the first sign that she was aware of what was happening around her. "But…I was misled. At college I was lost. My family is full of greedy, ruthless people. I had no values. Then I met her. My whole world shifted. She displayed her land art all over the country, things she's been crafting since she was a child, and I was enthralled. She showed me a new world, how beautiful and precious the environment is, how fragile and in need of protection it is. She inspired me to create the TLA."

  Eliot was beyond confused. He looked at Alek who shrugged. "Who?" Eliot asked.

  Gabrielle stared at Eliot, forlorn and spent. "My best friend. Shiloh Arrington."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "Shiloh?" Eliot couldn't wrap his brain around the new information. "Are you sure?"

  Gabrielle's chin had dropped to her chest. Her breathing was shallow and her gaze seemed to have trouble focusing on anything. "Y-yes. She spoke of her…phantom lover. She spoke of him often, a mysterious figure who loved her like a daughter. A mystical replacement father. I always thought she just had a vivid imagination. But then mythkin appeared, and I…"

  Eliot gripped Alek's arm. "It must be Crimson. Shiloh is under Crimson's influence. She's had the sixth sense since she was a child, seeing and hearing mythkin. What if that awareness goes both ways?"

  Eliot remembered wondering about this exact thing back at the mansion when they'd first met Shiloh, how she exposed details about the tar titan without repercussions. At the time, Eliot had assumed Crimson was in the end unaware of Shiloh 24/7. Now it seemed Crimson simply didn't care if people learned about it.

  And the bond between the creature and the girl really was a two-way street.

  Alek frowned, shaking his head. "If she's his puppet, why tell us about him? Heck, maybe Crimson didn't care because he knows he's too powerful for us to stop him, even if we know about him." Eliot smiled. He and Alek were definitely on the same wavelength. Suddenly Alek blew out a breath. "It doesn't matter right now. We have to get Gabrielle to an ambulance and then we have to search this place for the survivors and the HPB mercs."

  Eliot gulped. He wasn't sure he was capable of what Alek was suggesting. Hunting wasn't his thing, and hunting humans less so. But he merely nodded.

  "Help me," Alek asked, grabbed Gabrielle, and lifted her into his arms, heading toward the elevator. "Try to keep pressure on the wound."

  Eliot hurried alongside Alek, keeping both hands as weight for the blood-soaked scarf. He feared she might die. She'd confessed to killing her father. Newell had apparently been a first-class bastard, but did that mean his murderer deserved to get off scot-free?

  "Gabrielle? How did you kill your dad?" Eliot asked as Alek laid her down on the elevator floor, her back braced against the wall.

  Gabrielle licked his dry lips, eyes half-mast. "I…I located the phase resonance weapon in his safe up in his bedroom. I'd been wondering what he hid in there. Then he came home and caught me. We argued and ended up in the study. He tried to take the gun from me, and I…I fired. It was an accident."

  Alek leaned in after he'd pressed the top button on the elevator, but he kept the doors open with his hand. "What happened to him?"

  Gabrielle seemed frantic, eyes wild. She shook her head, practically foaming at the mouth. "It was so gory. He…phased out."

  "What?" Alek and Eliot asked as one.

  "He vanished, then reappeared, then phased out again, and came back. Over and over."

  Eliot and Alek looked at each other in shock. Mere weeks ago, Eliot wouldn't have thought it possible for humans to travel to another dimension. This phase resonance weapon apparently temporarily shifted humans to the other dimension the same way it ripped mythkin from their phase.

  Gabrielle cried. "Every time he came back, he screamed. And he was bleeding. Something attacked him in the other place. But I couldn't see what it was. I couldn't make the phase shifting stop. I only fired the one time, but he kept coming and going, back and forth, until…the last time he returned, he solidified dead, puncture marks everywhere." She sniffled, her eyes swollen, red and wet. "When my friends and I came here, I took the gun with me. I was going to demonstrate it to the scientists after we'd freed the mythkin. But then the men in black…they grabbed it off me after they'd shot me here and left me to die."

  "Gabrielle? You're going to be okay," Eliot reassured her softly. He knew it was a big fat lie, even as he said it. Honestly, what else could he say?

  She said nothing in response, merely nodded, sighed and slid down the wall to the floor.

  Alek took Eliot's arm and backed them both out of the elevator. The armored glass doors closed, and the elevator ascended out of sight toward the lobby and hopefully the help she needed. Once the lights from the elevator car were gone, darkness reigned inside the lobby. The overheads flickered and shadows seemed to move.

  "The generator must be malfunctioning," Alek commented, checking his gun. "Ready to do this? First task, search and rescue for TLA. Second task, search and destroy the HPB."

  "We should find the scientists locked up somewhere, free them, and then send them to the lobby here too, right?" Eliot asked, and received an affirming nod back from Alek. "Dude, I can't take on professional killers."

  Alek closed his eyes. Finally he nodded slowly. "No. If you can get past them undetected and without alerting them to your presence, do so."

  "What if I need to talk to you?" Eliot brought up his radio. "Do
I use this?"

  Alek grimaced. "The noise it makes is distinctive and sharp. Hostiles will hear it. You got your cell phone?" Eliot fished his phone out of his pants pocket and waved it in front of Alek who smiled. "Okay. Use that. And for God's sake, man, put in on silent. Not vibrate. Silent."

  Eliot obeyed immediately—while scowling at his companion. "Figured that out myself."

  "You take the clean energy mythkin labs, I'll take the dirty ones, okay?" Alek suggested.

  Eliot nodded. "Cool. So…blue, green, and…?"

  "White for wind and air, yellow for light and solar. I'll take the gray, black, brown and red." Alek seized Eliot's chin, lifted his face to meet with his and kissed Eliot on the lips. The taste of coffee was strong, and Eliot ate up the familiar flavor. "You be careful, okay? Check in every five minutes. A text will do."

  Eliot nodded, more scared than he'd ever been. Even when they'd been ambushed at the parking garage, Eliot had found the strength within to fight back. This was different. He'd be alone, outnumbered and outgunned. That kind of sucked.

  Before Alek could disappear, Eliot grabbed his jacket, pulled him near, and crashed his mouth over Alek's. Alek grunted and wound his arms around Eliot's waist, drawing him near and plastering their bodies together. Eliot moaned. He wouldn't have minded one damn bit doing this instead of chasing down invincible bad guys with automatic weapons.

  "Jesus, Eliot, I need to be able to think," Alek murmured after he ended the kiss. Eliot watched his companion's blue eyes darken, pleased with the result. The warm vibrations in his body granted him strength and self-confidence.

  Eliot pushed him off and backed away. "Go. Be safe."

  "You too." With one last nod, Alek sprinted into a run, vanishing into the dim corridor.

  Eliot wanted to cry. He was so unprepared. But, with great difficulty, he regrouped, brought up his tranquilizer gun, switched off the safety, and skulked down the hall.

  *~*~*

  Lights flickered, proof that the generators had either malfunctioned due to the sabotage or ineffective repairs. The almost undetectable hum of air conditioning that had been ever-present at the facility yesterday shone with its conspicuous absence. Soon Eliot was sweating under his clothes. It could have been nerves too.