Amplitude

by Dean M. Cole

  Cursing himself, Vaughn tried to blink the dazzle from his eyes. After a moment, he recovered.

  BOb was looking at the side of the BFG. He appeared to be studying its display.

  “Are you ready to beam the rest of us out, BOb?”

  After staring at the small display for another moment, the robot looked up. “The device shut down.”

  Chapter 42

  “Son of a bitch!” Eyes widening, Vaughn looked back at the crater where the group had been lying. “Did they all make it?”

  He walked over to the pit and scanned the ground. Fortunately, no bodyparts sat within the depression, not even Bingham’s.

  “I believe so, Captain. The error occurred when I released the trigger.”

  Looking at Angela, Vaughn swallowed. His throat clicked in his ears. She stared back at him wordlessly, her face looking ghostly white in the moon’s pale light.

  Bill and Teddy exchanged nervous glances as well and then looked at him.

  Major Peterson looked at the empty crater and then at the modified cannon. “Is it bricked?”

  “I am sorry, Major Peterson. I do not understand the question.”

  Craning her neck, Angela tried to read the display. “He’s asking if the device is completely offline. Is it dead?”

  “Oh, no. It is simply rebooting. My software’s built-in test detected an error with the device.”

  Vaughn saw new concern register on Angela’s face. “Did the error occur during the beaming?”

  “I cannot say for certain, ma’am.” The robot tilted its head. “Only that the BIT-fail logged shortly after I released the trigger.”

  “How shortly after?”

  “Approximately three hundred and thirteen milliseconds after trigger release.”

  “Whew,” Vaughn said. “He had me worried—”

  Angela cut him off. “That’s less than a third of a second.”

  Vaughn’s eyes went wide. “Oh, shit.”

  “What do we do, Command-Oh?”

  After staring at the modified EMP cannon for a moment, Angela slowly shook her head. Then she looked at the robot. “Has this happened before?”

  “Yes, Commander Brown. However, this is the first time that a built-in test failed close to the activation of the device.”

  “How many BIT fails have there been?” Vaughn asked.

  He could feel his pulse quickening.

  Were they stuck here?

  Had the others made it back to Geneva, and if so, had they even ended up in the right Geneva?

  When a Tater had partially beamed him and Angela from the top floor of that building in the machine city, they’d ended up back in a different dimension. Fortunately, in that case, it had dropped them into their home dimension.

  “There have been thirty-one failures since integration of the device.”

  Angela’s mouth formed a thin line. Then she pointed at the modified weapon. “Is there any kind of pattern? Are the failures happening on a specific schedule?”

  “No, Commander Brown. I can detect no pattern or timeline for the failures, although they have begun to happen more often. The time interval between them has shortened slightly.”

  “What is the nature of the failures?”

  “They are related to a communication error nested within the One-Eighty-Eight databus.”

  “What’s that mean?” Bill Peterson asked.

  Angela’s eyes lost focus as she stared off into the distance for a moment. Then she tilted her head. “I think it ties to the fact that this device isn’t strictly native to this architecture.”

  Vaughn saw an idea form on Angela’s face. She looked at BOb. “What’s been the minimum and maximum times between failures?”

  The robot hesitated for a barely perceptible moment and then looked as if it was ready to answer, but Angela held up a hand. “Rounded to the nearest minute and second, please.”

  BOb dipped his head. “The longest time between failures was approximately one hour thirty-two minutes and ten seconds.”

  “That’s not bad,” Teddy said, relief evident on his face.

  “The shortest time between failures was approximately four minutes, thirty-one seconds.”

  Bill Peterson shook his head. “Well, that sucks.”

  “Da, comrade. Seriously sketchy.”

  Vaughn could feel time slipping away. “Angela, remember how we ended up back in Geneva that last time?”

  “Yeah, I was just thinking about that.”

  “Maybe a failure or partial beaming returns us to Geneva anyway.”

  She looked dubious. “Maybe, but I think we just got lucky on that one. If the light fails while it’s beaming us out this time, we could end up somewhere else completely.”

  Teddy’s eyebrows rose. “Like, not in the city?”

  “No …” Angela looked at the man. “More like, not in our universe.”

  Bill’s mouth went round. “Oh, shit.”

  “Agreed,” Vaughn said as he stared at the depression left in the wake of the departed team. After a moment, he looked at BOb. “Let me know when the next failure occurs.”

  “Wilco, Captain.”

  Bill looked at Vaughn. “What’s the plan?”

  “After the BIT failure, it’ll reboot. We’ll beam out as soon as it completes.”

  Angela nodded. “Good idea. That’ll minimize the chance we get glitched into another dimension.”

  The next several minutes were the longest of Vaughn’s life. Finally, BOb perked up. “I just detected another BIT failure. The device is rebooting.”

  Having been in the middle of pacing a groove into the desert floor, Vaughn broke from the slot and ran over to the predesignated position. He lay down, and the rest of Team Two gathered around him. Being shortest, Angela and Teddy lay prone at the front, with Vaughn and Bill in the back. BOb folded himself in half next to Angela.

  Vaughn activated his night-vision goggles. “Make sure your NVGs are on.”

  BOb stared at the datapad on the side of the device. Vaughn thought it an affectation as the robot clearly could access the data directly without having to look at it on a small screen. Then the robot nodded. “Reboot complete.”

  As the bot held the device at the end of its long arm, Vaughn said, “Hold onto it tightly, BOb. We wouldn’t want that to get left behind.”

  “Roger, Captain Asshole.”

  Vaughn pursed his lips and shook his head. “Energize, jackass.”

  Chapter 43

  The light flickered over Vaughn and just as quickly disappeared. Then the ground shifted beneath him. Fortunately, he remembered to close his eyes this time, so it didn’t take long for them to adjust.

  He made a quick scan of their surroundings and then lay flat on the mounded dust that had come with them. “We’re back,” he whispered. “Looks like we finally caught a break. We’re in a low spot, so we don’t have to move right away.” He jabbed a finger ahead. “And the western perimeter is a couple hundred meters that way.”

  He looked at Angela. She and the two men nodded silently.

  A hazy moon stared down from their south. Clouds of unknown intensity hung overhead. Looking up into the dark sky, Vaughn couldn’t determine whether it was just another squall line or if the main body of the storm had finally arrived.

  Beyond Angela and the boys, BOb was scanning left and right. Then his head rotated a full three hundred sixty degrees. The anatomically incorrect movement still gave Vaughn the willies.

  “Any sign of the other team?”

  “Negative, Captain.”

  Vaughn shook his head and whispered under his breath, “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Still peering through his night-vision goggles, he scanned the horizon alongside the robot.

  Where had they gone? He tried to think what he would’ve done in Rachel’s position. He supposed he would’ve given them less than fifteen minutes before he moved on. It’d easily been more than that.

  He looked to Angela, Bill, and Teddy. “I think they
’ve already gone.”

  Angela raised her eyebrows. “Either that or…” She left the last part unsaid.

  After a moment, Vaughn sighed. “This doesn’t change anything for us. We’ll proceed as planned.” He looked at the robot and gestured west. “BOb, do you see any movement or heat signatures in those buildings?”

  The battle operations bot stared in the indicated direction for a long moment and then shook its head. “Negative, Captain Singleton.” The robot turned one hundred eighty degrees and gestured toward the far end of the airport. “I am detecting movement near the terminal,” BOb shifted the gesture ninety degrees to the right, “and more of it farther south, into the city. However, as we observed previously,” the robot turned the last ninety degrees and pointed west again, “this area still appears to be clear of enemy combatants.”

  Having followed the movements of the robot, Vaughn zoomed in with his NVGs and scanned the buildings, looking for any indication that their comrades had entered them. “You’re certain there are no heat signatures?”

  “I am sorry, Captain. I do not see any evidence of Team One.”

  Angela extended a hand and pointed at a structure protruding above the debris. “There’s a building standing over there. Let’s get up inside one, and maybe we’ll see them from higher up.”

  After a moment, Vaughn gave a slow nod. “Good idea. Might spot one of your cinder block buildings from there as well.”

  Looking past Angela, he nodded to the other two men. “You guys ready?”

  “Da, El Capitan.”

  Bill held up a thumb. “R-Ready as I’ll ever be.” The major’s hand shook unsteadily.

  Vaughn nodded. He knew how the man felt.

  “BOb, cover our six.” Pausing, he swallowed hard and then pointed to their right front. “There’s a drainage easement over there. Everyone stay low and follow me.”

  Chapter 44

  Breathing heavily, Angela low-crawled up to the building’s edge and then drew up to a seated position next to Vaughn. She ran her hand along its brick exterior. Leaning toward him, she kept her voice low and asked, “Think it’ll hold us?”

  He wiped sweaty grime from his forehead and then nodded. “Looks stable enough,” he said, also keeping his voice down. He pointed back down the path they’d come up. “When we rounded the bend, I saw that its roof and second-floor walls are gone. Fortunately, it looks like most of it spilled into the street. What’s left looks sturdy.” He patted the bricks firmly.

  The wall creaked.

  Vaughn did a double-take. Seeing Angela staring at him, he nodded confidently. “It’s just settling.” He held up a hand. “Don’t be giving me the eyebrow-o-skepticism.”

  “Oh, now you’re a building expert? Tell me, Captain Construction, what kind of electricity did they use here, one-ten or two-twenty?”

  Vaughn shrugged. “Two-twenty, two-twenty-one, whatever it takes.”

  Angela shook her head. “Thanks, Mr. Mom.”

  “Wow, Michael Keaton, nice. Figured that one would go right over your head.”

  Rolling her eyes, she peeked around the corner of the building and gazed west along its northern perimeter. After a quick scan, she leaned back against the wall. “There’s a clear area across the street.”

  “Yeah, saw that. Should give us a pretty good line of sight west, toward ATLAS.”

  The scent of death wafted up from her pant legs. Angela wrinkled her nose. “Smells like the rinse didn’t do as good a job as I’d hoped.”

  “No shit.” Vaughn inspected the lower half of his camouflage pants. “At least it’s a little better. I don’t see any more bones or fur stuck to it.”

  “Yeah, thank goodness for the run-off.”

  They’d found a stream of rainwater running through the bottom of one of the drainage easements. All four of them plus the robot had used it to rinse off the worst of Hell’s deposits.

  Lightning flashed across the sky directly overhead.

  Vaughn looked up and frowned. “Wonderful.”

  In the stuttering illumination, Angela saw Bill, Teddy, and BOb inching up to them.

  Thunder shattered the night, shaking the very earth. She took a measure of comfort in the fact that the building didn’t topple.

  Using the cover of the still rolling reverberations, the two men and the robot scrambled the last few feet to the back wall and then moved to sit on either side of them.

  Angela hitched a thumb toward an opening a few meters to their right. “Let’s head up before the rain hits. Otherwise, we may not be able to see much from up there.”

  Vaughn nodded and then gestured left and right. “Bill, Teddy, move to the corners and keep an eye out for company. BOb, I need your infrared vision. You’re with us.”

  The two men gave a single nod and then, in the renewed silence, crept toward their assigned positions.

  Rising to a crouch, Angela followed Vaughn to the back door. BOb came up behind her, holding the BFG at the ready.

  Vaughn pressed his back to the wall and then leaned in and peered through the opening. “All clear.” Moving to the far side of the door, he extended an arm. “Go ahead. I’ll cover your back. Just be careful not to knock anything over.”

  Pursing her lips, she moved past him. “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to make any of the classic B-movie mistakes.”

  A few steps in, she found a debris-cluttered stairwell. She worked her way up the treads, choosing her path cautiously.

  Vaughn and the robot followed her.

  A moment later, she emerged under a tumultuous sky. Vaughn had been correct. The entire roof, along with all the walls of the second floor, was gone. It looked as if they’d been wiped entirely off the building.

  Lightning flared overhead followed almost instantly by bone-shaking thunder.

  Reaching the top floor, she lay prone on damp carpet and started to low-crawl toward the western edge of the structure.

  Vaughn and the robot crept alongside, paralleling her path over the squelching rug.

  Low clouds churned above them.

  As another thunderclap rolled across the city, Angela shook her head. “That damned storm front has been threatening all day. Guess it decided it was time to get off the pot.”

  Vaughn glanced up. “Won’t be long now. Those clouds are hauling ass.”

  The moon still ruled the southeastern sky, but it was losing ground quickly. Glowing under its light, the ragged edge of the front raced northeast as the body of the storm slid inexorably closer to the lunar disc.

  Lightning strobed within the tumult.

  “Careful,” Vaughn whispered. “We’re almost to the edge.”

  Angela shifted her gaze forward as she crept the last two feet. Reaching the sharp precipice, she stared at the land immediately west of the building.

  The moon’s tenuous effulgence drew muted shadows across the scene.

  A vision of heart-wrenching loss wormed its way into her eyes.

  The building that served as their vantage point stood in silent vigil, watching over the night-veiled town square that had once been a beautiful park. From its floor, stunted, burned trees reached skyward like the yearning, skeletal fingers of a dying earth. A debris-choked fountain sat in its southeastern corner. The flotsam of the broken lunar disc rode unsteadily atop its rippling black water.

  Another white-hot bolt silently bridged the heavens, drawing Angela's gaze west.

  Thunder cracked the night again as the report of the lightning’s brief presence finally reached their observation point.

  A bifurcated city lay beyond the ruined park.

  The coming storm cast a deep shadow that blanketed everything to Angela’s right, leaving only a hint of what lay beneath. Rapid-fire lightning pulsed within the clouds. With each flash of electricity, sharp angles jutted up from the shadowed depths of shattered apartment blocks only to vanish between strokes, as if the ruined structures had manifest from the light itself.

  Shifting her gaze to the south
, Angela studied the portion of the city not yet covered by the storm’s shadow. It shone eerily beneath the lunar light. Mont Salève backdropped all of it. The moon’s recycled sunlight haunted its cliffs, painting the range in an ectoplasmic glow.

  Pulling her gaze from the scene, she lowered her night-vision goggles into place and activated them. Geneva’s remnants blossomed back into existence. The light intensification capabilities of the tubes revealed the entire city, painting it in shades of green, gray, and black.

  The construction site above ATLAS sat at the farthest reaches of her enhanced vision. Angela ignored the area for the moment. Instead, she glassed the broken cityscape between, desperately seeking any sign of movement.

  After a fruitless search, she shook her head. “I don’t see Team One.”

  “Shit,” Vaughn said through a growl. “Neither do I.”

  Angela raised her goggles and looked at the battlebot. The dark gray machine was all but invisible. Its silhouette cut a black hole across the remnants of the next building over. “Do you see Team One, BOb?”

  “No, Commander Brown. I see no signs of life.”

  Vaughn flipped up his NVGs. “No heat signatures?”

  The dark silhouette of the robot’s head shook side-to-side. “Only those that match the profile of enemy combatants.”

  Vaughn nodded slowly as he continued to look across the city. Finally, he said, “Godspeed, Mark. Good luck, my friend.” He paused and then looked at her. “We’ll just have to go on without them.”

  Angela nodded. “Who knows? They could be working their way in right now. The timeline could reset at any moment.”

  Vaughn scoffed. “Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice?” Falling silent, he continued to stare into the night. Brief spats of lightning illuminated his face. Finally, he sighed. “Well, shit. We’re still here. Guess it’s up to us.”

  “Guess so.”

  Flipping her NVGs back into position, Angela scanned the line that she believed the collider followed, this time searching for the cube-shaped buildings that sat atop the emergency exit shafts. She didn’t see any nearby. Shifting her gaze farther west, she adjusted the optics of the goggles and zoomed in on the construction site above the ATLAS experiment.