by B. V. Larson
I looked at him, at his tired yet hopeful face, then back at the city of cubes. “I destroyed an installation like this once,” I told him. “On one of their worlds.”
“Wow, don’t spread that one around,” he said, chuckling. He stopped laughing suddenly. “Hold on, maybe that explains the situation. Maybe they let you walk into this zone, to capture you the way they did me.”
I looked at the geezer. “You said they told you to stop. How exactly did they tell you? Did they use radio or what?”
He shook his head and pulled off his hat. He showed it to me and stuck his finger through a hole in the crown. “They blew my hat off. At a range of nearly a thousand yards—a good shot, even for a pro. I have to wonder if they really meant to just warn me or intended to kill me and missed. In any case, I got the message. I don’t walk south down toward Route 95 anymore. Mercury is as far south as I dare to go. I’ve been trapped here since the nineties.”
I reached out my hand.
He hesitated. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked. “Or are you a fool who knows how to work a single card trick?”
I smiled. “People call me a technomancer,” I told him. “I have quite a bit of experience with these artifacts.”
“All right,” he said. “What’s going to happen?”
I thought it was odd to hear the apprehension in his voice. Dr. Trujillo didn’t mind thermonuclear bombs or radioactive craters, but the effects of an unknown artifact of power made him nervous.
“Your vision will grow dim for a few seconds. It’s a temporary effect. Then, you’ll be able to see again normally. If we maintain the effect for more than an hour, we’ll begin to go blind.”
“Maybe we should wait then,” he said. “Let’s go back to Mercury, and you can do your little trick there.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going back to Mercury. I’m going down there, to the cube city. I want to find out what they are up to.”
He proceeded to tell me I was crazy, that I’d be dead long before I reached the cubes. But I didn’t listen.
“I figure it this way,” I said. “Either they can’t see me, in which case we’ll be fine. That’s the simplest answer as to why I managed to get through to the test site. Or if they can see me, then they’ve already passed once on shooting me. I don’t intend to wander around out here living on canned goods and cactus. You can stay if you like; it’s up to you.”
I heard his labored breathing as he thought it over. There was anguish in his expression, trying to decide. “How about we meet in Mercury, say next week?”
“I can’t promise I’ll come back this way,” I told him.
Finally, he nodded his head. “All right,” he said. “I’m sick of life alone in this desert. Let’s try it.”
We vanished from sight, then walked slowly down the rugged hillside. It was like walking on the moon. There was very little vegetation here, and the few plants we encountered were made of twigs that rattled like thin bones. Instead of leaves, they had needle-sharp spines.
Frequently, loose stones rolled away from our feet down the hill. They clattered and clicked, the sounds seeming loud in the night. Each time this happened, Trujillo let loose with a stream of muttered curses. I knew he was worried about sensors and the like, but I was willing to trust to luck. For all I knew, the cubes below were as empty and abandoned as the town of Mercury itself.
The cubes loomed ahead. We reached the bottom of the mountain and stepped out onto flat white sand. That’s when a single shot rang out. Trujillo’s hand squeezed mine a moment before I heard the cracking sound. The bullet had traveled faster than the sound of its firing, which came a second later.
“Dr. Trujillo?” I asked.
He sagged down to his knees, then pitched forward on his face. I knelt beside him and felt his pulse. I didn’t cower and run. I knew it was pointless. If they could see me, then they could kill me if they wanted to. There was no cover—nowhere to hide. I reached out a hand and touched his neck. I couldn’t find a pulse or a hint of breath. My fingers came away slippery with blood.
I didn’t waste time, because I didn’t know how much time I had. I don’t like to rob the dead, but these were extreme circumstances. I took his ancient dark goggles and his old bottle. I tapped at the lenses of the goggles with the bottle, and a tiny chip appeared. The goggles were not an object of power, just some kind of light-enhancers that somehow let him see me through my limited invisibility.
I dropped them and jogged back up the mountainside, returning to the test site on the far side. I’d gotten their message, just as Trujillo had once himself been warned.
I felt bad for the old man as I climbed the mountain again. I tried to tell myself he’d known what was going to happen, but had chanced it anyway. I still felt somewhat to blame, however. I’d come here and he died within hours of my arrival. He hadn’t had much of a life, rattling around out here in a wasteland, but it had been something. All the wonders and horrors he had seen…
But I didn’t have much time for remorse, afraid I’d be next. As I climbed up the shifting sands and loose stones, I kept feeling a tickle on my back. I suspected there was a scope out there in the hands of a killer, something that worked like a camera and could not be fooled by my artifact’s bending of light. With every step, I expected a bullet to come crashing through the back of my skull. I wondered if I would be aware of the instant of my own demise. I didn’t think I would.
At last, I topped the ridge and passed over the mountain’s rocky shoulder. I felt an odd sense of relief upon returning to the crater-pocked testing area. The radioactive wasteland on this side of the hills was safer.
I wondered now about the guardian snipers. They hadn’t behaved like normal guards. They stayed quiet and out of sight. There were no patrols, no helicopters. Were they even human? Or could they be Gray Men? I didn’t know, and I didn’t think I was going to find out today.
As I headed for some distant trailers, I pondered the very real possibility that I would die out here, one way or another. Except, I knew that Trujillo had survived somehow. By dawn, I’d found a trailer with some food in it. I still had water, enough for another day, maybe. But I hadn’t brought any real food. More importantly, I hadn’t brought along anything that could get me out of here. I thought about McKesson’s coin. I would have been willing to try it, and maybe go another round with the cat assassins to get out of this desert.
I slept in a trailer until it was too hot and bright to stay inside. Groaning and stretching awake, I found some meager rations in the various cinderblock buildings. Like all government installations, the buildings were ugly and there were stashes of MREs to be found here and there. I opened a packet labeled “omelet” and turned the dried food into something vaguely edible. Conveniently, the packs heated themselves when you added water. I consumed the high-calorie meal without enjoying it. The food fueled my body but tasted pretty bad. Almost all the meals that remained were labeled “omelet”—but they didn’t taste like any omelet I’d ever had at a diner. I suspected Trujillo had saved the omelets for last for a good reason.
While I wandered the desolate land and poked my nose into one low concrete building after another, I had time to experiment with Trujillo’s artifact. The bottle was fascinating. I hadn’t had much experience with weapons like this, preferring to use a trusted pistol. But this thing was fun. Like a laser cannon, it fired burning heat wherever I aimed the bottle’s open mouth. The interior of the bottle seemed to fill up with a glowing gas when I did this. The light was brilliant, so I shielded my eyes with my sunglasses when I fired it.
When the worst heat of the day had passed, I walked to Mercury. There, I found little of interest. The buildings had all been pried open and looted. The old man had been busy. I walked the dust-coated streets, calling out, but no one answered me.
I found a well with a solar-powered pump. I drank water that was a few degrees shy of hot and thought about Jacqueline. We’d had a few minutes of happiness—
and now she was gone. I didn’t really know how I felt about her yet, but I found I was missing her now. I hoped she’d made it home all right.
I’d tried my cell phone, but there were no towers out here that were operating—at least none that would take a call from me. I knew using my phone was foolish. It would pinpoint my location. But I figured whoever was in those bunkers knew I was here already.
It was nearly dusk when I began looking for a good spot to settle down for the night. All day, I’d been comparing myself to Trujillo. I wondered if I would chicken out as he had and scrape by out here, living in this forgotten town until I finally went crazy and charged a pillbox, my soda bottle blazing. I’d learned it was powerful but didn’t have much range. I would be shot down quickly, I was certain.
When I reached the center of the dead town, I felt that same sense of dread and unease that had made me avoid the area in the past. I tried to shake it off—but couldn’t. Deciding I must be sensing the ghosts of scientists past, I shook my head and laughed aloud.
“There’s no one here—nothing!” I said aloud to no one.
“Are you sure?” asked a familiar voice.
I whirled around, feeling the skin on my back crawl.
It was Jacqueline.
The last gleaming rays of sunshine had formed a bright crown on the mountains west behind her. The dying light made it hard to see her face. Still, I knew the shape of her body, and she was still wearing the same clothes.
“Jackie?” I asked. “What’re you doing out here? I thought you went back home.”
“I wanted to be with you,” she said. Her words were very soft, almost a whisper.
She stepped backward, moving under the shadowy overhang of the post-office entrance. The doors behind her were smashed in. The glass that still hung in places had circular holes and cracks—they looked like bullet holes to me. I wondered for a fleeting moment what had happened here, and how long ago it had occurred. But then I looked at Jacqueline again, took a few steps forward, smiling, and forgot about it.
But my smile became a frown. Jacqueline kept retreating at my advance. She stepped through the shattered door and stood inside, in the gloom of the wrecked post office.
“Come on out of there,” I said. “This is a weird place. We need to leave.”
“There’s something here I want to show you.”
I hesitated, uncertain, but then I walked over those crunching, shifting piles of broken glass. The post office was a small building constructed from the same concrete bricks as everything else. As I entered, I lifted my green glass bottle.
I’d intended to use it as a light source, and it flared up brightly in my hand, shining like a powerful flashlight. It cut through the gloom with a narrow, green-white beam.
I heard a shriek, and something flew at me. For a split second, I thought some huge hand had reached down, grabbed Jacqueline, and hurled her body at me. But as she crashed into me, claws extended, red eyes gleaming, and mouth filled with stained wet fangs, I realized it was Jacqueline. Or rather, it was the creature who had imitated her; the creature who I’d thought was Jacqueline.
The claws sunk into my shoulders on either side. The mouth sought my neck. If I hadn’t had the bottle out, I’m sure she would have ripped out my throat. But instead, I burned her. The creature flared into flames.
I pushed it away and staggered back, sending glass clattering. The thing scrabbled to get back up. Its belly was steaming and scorched black. I burned away the face and the eyes until only white fangs remained, yawning open in agony and rage.
Filled with a horrible vitality, the mortally wounded monster thrashed on the broken glass for ten more seconds before it died. I decided that was a good time to make my exit. Maybe it wasn’t the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me, but it came close.
Fearful I might meet more monsters, I withdrew to the outskirts of town. After darkness fell, I saw lights coming up the highway from the south. They were headlights, I could see now. Out in the desert, in an empty, dead town, a single car was very noticeable. I watched as it approached, uncertain as to how I should react. Was this a rescue party or an extermination squad?
Having no way to be certain what I faced, I gathered my objects, put on my backpack, and tightened the straps. I had the bottle in one hand and my pistol in the other. I used the candy cane and vanished from sight when the headlights slowed and came into Mercury.
In case they’d seen me from afar, I moved between various decrepit houses and trailers, working my way toward the south end of town. I now suspected snipers had kept tabs on me since my arrival. I made sure I used every scrap of cover I could, despite my invisibility. Why make it easy for them?
Sure enough, the car drove right to the half-dead Dell Frenzi park area in the center of town. I figured when I’d burned the monster in the post office next door someone must have noticed. I watched a figure get out of the car, then get back in again and drive slowly around the streets in a widening circle.
It wasn’t until the car passed me by, flashing its headlights over my location between a Dumpster and a wall, that I recognized it. The car was a Mercedes convertible, and the paint was bright red.
I stood up, wanting to shout out Jacqueline’s name. A large part of me was certain that it had to be her. Who else knew I was out here? Who else would have the guts to come looking?
But I hesitated. Was it the real Jacqueline this time? Something about the way the car moved—about the shape of the person I’d seen at a distance, getting out and walking around the car at the post office. I just wasn’t sure. I’d been tricked by the people who ran this place once before, and I didn’t want to chance it again.
So I waited. The car passed me by, then rolled around to the north end of town. I headed toward the post office at the center of town. I hoped to find some clue as to what was going on.
After cruising around on the north side briefly—the town was quite small—the driver became impatient. Whoever it was began to honk. The car soon drifted nearer. I heard my name being called, over the sound of the engine.
Still, I waited. I didn’t run out and flag it down. I trusted no one in this place. More importantly, the voice I heard distantly wasn’t that of a woman. It was someone else. Perhaps it was one of the guys from the pillbox, wanting me to come out and make things easy for them.
Eventually, the car returned to the post office lot. I ducked low in the bedraggled, dead trees nearby and watched a man enter the building. He’d left the engine running.
I hesitated only briefly. This could be my shot, and as an impetuous person, I was determined to take it. I ran out of my hiding place—staying invisible—and jumped into the convertible. I put my foot on the accelerator and tore out of the parking lot. The man who’d gone inside, probably to look for me, ran out after me. I saw him clearly for a moment as the headlights splashed over his surprised face.
It was Detective Jay McKesson.
I threw the car into park and stood up on the seat. I aimed both my weapons at him. He raised his hands and walked toward the car. I squinted at him in the light. I wanted to be sure it was the real McKesson. Unlike the thing I’d killed back in the post office, he stood up to close scrutiny. He stood blinking in the glare of my headlights.
“Where’d you go?” he asked, looking around suspiciously.
I realized I was still invisible. I liked the advantage and hopped out of the running car. He walked up to it cautiously, pulling out a new revolver that flashed with a chrome finish in the headlights. He had the pistol ready, but aimed at the sky.
“Draith? Is that you?”
“I’m me,” I said. “I’m sure of that. The question is: are you really McKesson?”
He leaned into the car and twisted the key, killing the engine. That’s when I put my gun up to the back of his head. I was pretty sure he really was McKesson, but that didn’t mean he was on my side.
“Freeze, Jay,” I said. I stayed invisible, but he could feel the cold mu
zzle of the gun, invisible or not.
He froze. “You are one sneaky bastard, Draith,” he said. “But it won’t help you out here, and we don’t have much time.”
“We have all the time in the world,” I told him, taking the gun out of his hand and throwing it into the backseat.
“Is that my own gun you have at my ear?”
“Yeah. And yes, I’ll blow you away if I don’t hear what I want to hear right now.”
“Why so hostile?”
“I’ve got plenty of reasons. For instance, I just killed a Jacqueline look-alike. Know anything about that?”
“Did it have fangs?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it like to hang back in the darkness and ask you to come closer?”
“You sent it, didn’t you?”
“No, but I know the type of alien you’re talking about. They haunt this place sometimes. There’s a rip that appears naturally at the center of this town every week or so. Sometimes they slip in.”
“What the hell are they?”
He shrugged. “Doppelgängers. Vampires. Call them what you like. They come from someplace else and prey upon whomever they can catch. They like to appear as someone you know. I’ve been out here before, and I had to kill my own mom once. Unfortunately for the alien I met up with, I knew my mom had been dead and gone for years.”
I thought about that and wondered if the creatures he described could read minds, at least superficially. Just enough to pick up on the appearance of someone you would trust. I shuddered. These things were worse than the Gray Men.
“Okay,” I said. “I believe you. You’re McKesson and you didn’t send that thing after me. But there’s more I want to know. Start with telling me what you are doing out here.”