by Jamie Davis
When she was finished her preparations, she placed everything back in the black bag. They wouldn’t be able to carry their loadout with them until they got to the gate. It wouldn’t do if they got pulled over for speeding or something and ended up getting picked up by local police. While they both had license-to-carry permits from the Justice Department, it would’ve taken time they didn’t have to verify everything.
“Come on, Marci let’s load up.”
“Give me one sec,” she replied. She closed the rear liftgate, then used the tinted glass to check her hair as she pulled it back into a ponytail. Kurt caught himself watching as she did so. She glanced his way and he quickly averted his eyes looking in another direction. He thought he caught the hint of a smile on her face just as he looked away. Did she feel something for him, too?
While he pondered that, Marci moved to the front and climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. “Ready to go, K.C. “
“All right time to get moving.” Kurt climbed in and glanced at his dashboard. The chronometer showed it was five minutes before seven. Perfect. They were right on time.
Kurt headed downtown and up onto the interstate, moving north towards Philadelphia. Just before Philly, he cut around south side of the city to head west and meet up with the old Pennsylvania Turnpike. That road was now used exclusively for high-volume automated truck traffic and buses.
Individual automobiles traveled on a new interstate that paralleled the old road. They drove out of town in the direction of Harrisburg and got about halfway there before getting off at an exit. There wasn’t much around them other than farmland as they exited the highway onto paved country roads.
After the Newton’s Gate incident just over ten years before, gates opened anywhere and everywhere all over the planet. They didn’t seem to discriminate and rural farmland was just as likely to have a portal in the middle of it as anywhere else. Kurt followed the instructions on his SUV’s internal GPS routing system and soon found himself driving down a gravel lane into a thick cluster of trees.
Once inside the small wooded lot, he realized there was a large clearing inside the thick ring of trees. The trees provided a good cover for the group of buildings built around the gate to support the company and homesteading operations. A short way down the gravel lane, an armed guard stepped out from beside a tree and stopped him. Kurt put his window down.
“Can I see some ID, sir.“
“Sure,” Kurt said. “Here’s my license. This is my partner Marci. Do you need to see hers, too? I believe you’re expecting us.”
The guard glanced at Kurt’s ID and at his face to verify the picture was the same then handed it back to him. “Yes sir, if you would go and park over there on the right side of that building. They’re waiting for you in the largest of the three buildings, just next to the parking lot.”
Kurt nodded and pulled into the open gravel lot, parking in one of the indicated spaces. There were several other vehicles there, including a marked GEU vehicle with Federal tags. Kurt knew what that meant. Shareen was here.
He and Marci opted to leave their gear in the car for now and went inside the building. It was a large open warehouse with shelving along the walls. Each shelf contained a large variety of freeze-dried and canned foodstuffs, along with general supplies like blankets, cooking utensils, farming implements, and things of that nature. Kurt realized this must be the central supply location for sending things from Earth through the portal for the settlers on the other side to purchase and use.
Dr. Nboto, Shareen, and two other people stood over by a table with a large map laid out on it. Kurt nodded. He liked the paper option in this case. Most of their electronics would not work on the other side. There wouldn’t be geosynchronous satellites or comm towers. Their personal comm chips would probably work over short distances, but not for long-distance communication. For that reason, it made sense to have a paper analog map.
“Oh, Kurt, you’re here.,” Doctor Nboto said. She gestured to the short gentleman standing next to her. “Brent, this is Kurt Carter and I believe his partner’s name is Marci Trenton. Kurt this is Brent Fields. He is the senior vice president in charge of interdimensional development for the Aranis Corporation .”
Kurt crossed over an extended his hand to the company man. He had the soft hands of somebody who worked behind a desk most of the time, but he seemed fit enough. Kurt didn’t think he'd be too much of a drag on them if they had to move quickly through dense terrain. “Nice to meet you, Brent.”
“Pleasure to meet you, too, Kurt.” Brent indicated the woman in tactical fatigues standing next to him. “This is my security head, Helen Veracruz.”
“Good to meet you, Helen,” Kurt said. He noticed a tattoo on her forearm of a dagger with a coiled snake around the hilt. “You from the Argentine special operations group?”
“Yes,” Helen said. “My mom was American but my dad was an officer in the Argentinian military. So I just followed in dad’s footsteps and fell in with some of the teams that dealt with portal openings in the South American region alongside the companion forces from the other South American nations.”
“I’ve heard good things about the work you all did. It’ll be a pleasure to have you along. This is my partner Marci Trenton.”
Hello, Marci. I guess we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other over the next few weeks.”
Kurt laughed. “That is definitely for sure.” He looked around at the map spread out on the table before them. “Is this a good look at where we’re going?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “We’ll be entering the gate which opens just about here on the other side.” She stabbed a finger down on the map. “We travel across this open farm country here until we reach this town. The area is pretty much cleaned out of anyone alive. Everyone we encountered here was infected. If we do find any stragglers, though, the plan is to pick them up and bring them with us.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow at that but understood. He wasn’t the type to leave someone behind in the midst of something like this. Given the importance of their mission, having extra bodies along might slow them down, though.
Another thought occurred to him. “Wouldn’t it be easier to send them back through the gate and have someone here pick them up and keep an eye on them?” Kurt asked.
“No, our support team back here will not be equipped to receive any refugees,” Brent said. “They are strictly here for site security. Anyone who comes through that gate that isn’t us is going to be tagged as infected and be taken down by the security squad. Those are their orders.”
“That’s a bit extreme,” Kurt said, shaking his head. “Alright, I guess we’ll have to bring them along with us then. What else can you tell me about our journey?”
Dr. Nboto traced a line from the town further west until it crossed a low range of hills bordering mountains farther to the northwest. The path she outlined reached all the way to a large settlement marked on the far side of the mountains. “This town here is known by the locals as New Philadelphia.“
“All right so this is where we’ve got to go,” Kurt said. “Anything else we need to know? What’s the time differential between our side and the other side?”
It’s pretty much the same as us as far as length of day,” Brent said. “It’s about four hours behind our time, though, so the sun has just come up there. It’ll give us an opportunity to get a full day’s traveling in once we get through the gate.”
Kurt smiled and reached out to start folding up the map. Brent pushed his hand away. “That’s okay, I’ve got it. I’ll be keeping this with me if you need to see it.”
Kurt looked at Dr. Nboto. The woman just shrugged. Kurt decided it wasn’t worth fighting about.
“One more thing, Kurt,” the doctor said. “You both need your vaccines before we cross over.” She held up a pistol-shaped inoculation gun in one hand.
Kurt and Marci moved over to the doctor and she pressed the barrel against their shoulders, pul
ling the trigger once for each of them. Kurt winced a little at the sting of the needle and the ache as the vaccine was injected.
“You might be a little stiff in that arm for a few days but there are no other side effects.”
He nodded and waved at Marci to follow him back out to the SUV outside.
Kurt and the others gathered their gear in the parking lot. He and Marci dug through their packs in the back of the SUV. It took them a few minutes to get everything in place. Marci added the extra pistol holster so she had one on each hip. In addition to the flechette pistol on either side, she also had the harness strap from the larger flechette gun slung tight to her chest.
Marci looked ready for just about any combat situation. She was pretty loaded down, but so was Kurt. He had a single flechette pistol in a shoulder holster along with his gun slung across his chest. He really didn’t want to use them but he was ready should trouble come his way. If an opportunity presented itself to use non-lethal force, he had a new stun baton on his other hip to deploy.
“Kurt, Marci, if you two are ready, the gate’s right through here,” Brent called to them. The two of them walked over to a small shed that wasn’t much larger than what you might find in someone’s backyard to hold a lawnmower. Helen pulled open the double doors and the familiar blue glow of one of the portals came out from inside the shadows of the shed. Kurt looked inside and sure enough, a round gateway, only about 6 feet across stood hovering inside the shed. They’d probably built the shed around it to conceal its presence when it was discovered. A more massive gate would’ve taken much more to hide it, but this one fit inside of this tiny building just fine.
“I guess this is us then,” Kurt said. “I was hired to lead this mission, so I think we should get some ground rules and marching order in place before we go through. First off, I need everyone to listen to me and follow my instructions to the letter. Things are going to be pretty tense through there and I want to make sure that I know where everybody is. Follow the instructions that I give you and stay close. I’ll go through first, then Marci, Dr. Nboto, and Brent. Helen, if you don’t mind, you can bring up the rear and watch our backs.”
Helen raised two fingers to her brow and saluted in Kurt’s direction. He nodded in reply.
“Alright, if we run into any trouble, Doc and Brent, Helen and I will move to interdict the infected. While we do that, Marci will lead you two away to a predetermined rendezvous location. Every day at noon and when we make camp at night, we’ll designate a new rendezvous point on the map in case we get separated. Everyone will be responsible for knowing where that location is. That’s where we will meet up if we get separated. Everybody understand?”
Kurt look from person to person, making sure they all nodded in agreement before he continued. “Good. Like I said, we need to stay quiet and we need to move quickly. I think we can get through this in one piece if we do that. Marci, come through after me, but be ready. I have no idea what’s on the other side.”
“I’ve got your back K.C.”
Kurt smiled and gripped his flechette gun with both hands then stepped through the blue haze of the portal into the world on the other side.
Chapter 8
Kurt never knew what to expect when stepping through a portal into another world. Even though this one had been described as an Earth analog, perhaps even what would be considered an alternate Earth, Kurt still knew that could mean a lot of things.
The portal on one side could be in a place where it was summertime and the gateway on the other side could open on a glacier or in the middle of a desert sandstorm. He had to rely on the experience of the people who’d been through before, like Doctor Nboto and presumably Brent. They’d all given no indication to expect anything unusual.
He stepped out of the gateway into a meadow of tall grass and wildflowers. There were no buildings around and no signs of any people, especially any infected people. Kurt scanned to the left and right, his flechette gun tracking along with his eyes as he stepped away from the portal entrance to the left.
Marci came through right behind him and she stepped off to the right covering his back and watching the opposite side. They both took a knee a few meters away from each other and scanned the one hundred eighty degree arc to either side of the portal while the rest of the group came through.
“There’s no sign of anything here,” Kurt said once everyone had assembled. “I guess we’re good to go for now. Dr. Nboto, your map points us west, correct?”
Dr. Nboto nodded. “Yes, it’s one week’s travel in that direction.” She pointed to the west.
Brent had the map in his belt pouch and Kurt could have referred to it, if needed. They had the doctor, though, and he decided to follow her directions to head in a westerly direction for now. It would do until they reached the place where they were going to pick up the trail to the safe settlement. It lay somewhere over the smudge of hills far off in the distance.
He’d get the map from Brent and orient himself to their location when they stopped for the night unless they met an unforeseen obstacle.
“All right let’s head out. Stay in order and pay attention to your surroundings. We don’t want to get caught by surprise.”
The party started off at a steady walk through the tall grass towards the woodlands and hills to the west. The grassland changed after a few hours on foot into mixed brush and forest. Kurt became increasingly nervous as the dense foliage started to cut down his field of view as he moved forward.
It was hard to see in all directions. He could step around a tree and walk right into a zombie. It ratcheted up his tension and every snapping twig from his companions’ footsteps rattled his senses.
“It’ll be a shame if we don’t run into any zombies at all,” Marci remarked in a whisper from behind him as they walked.
“Careful what you wish for, girl,” the doctor said.
“I’m not hoping for any trouble, it’s just I’ve never seen a zombie before, at least not in person and up close.”
“It’s not something you should ever want to do. The fact that you feel that way is disturbing, to say the least.”
Kurt turned back to the two women walking behind him. “Let’s keep the idle chatter to a minimum. Zombies and other types of predators are drawn to noise. We don’t want to give them any reason to come in our direction if they’re nearby.”
Kurt knew Marci was dying to respond to the doctor’s words, but to her credit, she maintained noise discipline after being reminded by Kurt. He turned forward and they continued walking on in silence.
Kurt checked his wrist comp after a while and realized they been walking for about three hours. It felt like they’d made good time, but they were still inside the wooded area and he wanted to find an open space where he could use the map to spot some nearby landmarks. Kurt didn’t want to have to climb a tree if he didn’t have to.
He looked around as they walked and spotted what looked like a clearing up ahead to the left. Kurt pointed that way and turned the group slightly off the course they’d followed, to angle towards the clearing.
It turned out the clearing was the area where a single farm had been located. There was a small log farmhouse and barn, as well as a small corral area and what looked like a sizable vegetable garden patch. All were untended.
The vegetable garden looked like it had been picked over by animals recently. The plants were overgrown with weeds with broad swaths where something had trampled through the garden rows. There were, however, what looked like fresh tomatoes coming in.
Kurt decided it was an opportunity to rest and add some fresh food to their packs. There might be some other things they could salvage to stretch their rations.
“We’ll take a quick rest here after we check the buildings for any danger. After that, we can look and see if any of those vegetables are edible. If so, we can bring some with us.”
“I’ll go check the barn,” Helen said.
“I’ve got the house,” Marci volunteer
ed.
The corporate security officer and Marci headed off to their destinations while Kurt, the doctor, and Brent waited at the edge of the clearing. Kurt scanned all around as best he could while waiting for the all clear from Marci and Helen. After about two minutes both came out of their respective buildings and waved the group in.
Marci came over to Kurt as he approached. “Looks like whoever lived here left in a pretty big hurry. There’s signs of a decaying meal left on the wood stove inside. It’s mostly rotted away, but I could tell someone had been cooking something at the time they left.”
“Any signs the residents might have been infected?” Kurt asked. Helen shook her head. “Not in the barn, at least there are no bodies or pieces of bodies anywhere that I can see.”
“Yeah, the house is deserted too,” Marci agreed. “This will be a good place to rest and I spotted a well pump around back. We can fill up our canteens again.”
Kurt smiled. “Good work. Why don’t you two gather the canteens and fill them while Doctor Nboto, Brent, and I check for anything usable in the vegetable garden? Then we can sit and rest for about 10 minutes, eat something, and plan our route before we continue on.”
Everyone headed off to their various tasks. Kurt walked through the fenced in garden area. It had been overgrown with weeds but some of the vegetables were recognizable and still producing despite being untended for an unknown amount of time. There were some zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and some cucumbers.
There was actually more food than they could comfortably carry. As much as he hated it, he’d have to leave the rest there for any scavengers to finish off. He made a note to stop by this place on the way back if possible. They should be able to scrounge some more in a few weeks.
“Dr. Nboto, have you been through this farmstead before?”
“No, but there are several around here. They’re linked to a small village we should pass through on our way through towards the western enclave. We probably will reach it today before dark.”