"We'd better keep moving," Noble said. "We have to keep pushing forward."
The group of nineteen began running once again. Noble saw things darting around in the darkness on either side of them. There were things on four legs and there were things on two legs. There were things that roared, some that snarled, and some that had tentacles.
Up ahead several things came staggering out of the woods, into the foot path that the group was running on. It took a moment for them to realize that it was people standing there. All nineteen of the men stopped in their tracks.
Men. Women.
"Those are Gemini employees," Shaw whispered.
They staggered forward like zombies. Noble noticed immediately that their eyes were black pits. Their skin glowed with an eerie white. Their arms were outstretched like Frankenstein's monster.
"Are they still in there?" he asked. "Are they alive?"
"I - I don't know," Shaw said. "I don't know if Void takes them over entirely, scooping out their souls, or not. Kolthrax, Ezekiel, what do we do?"
"They have been emptied," Kolthrax said. "Void does not rent bodies. He takes them over, replacing whatever it was that made them who they were with his own essence. Those beings that are stumbling toward you are no longer alive. They are robots, controlled by the Void."
Noble stepped forward, aimed his pistol, and fired directly into the head of a man staggering toward him. The man was wearing a suit, his hair perfectly sprayed and coiffed. The bullet plowed through the forehead and a black substance erupted from the back of his head. The man staggered backwards, then his skin began to leak that same black substance, then his entire body fell apart, turning into the signature black goo of the Void, before vanishing.
"Shoot them," Noble said. "Put them out of their misery."
One of the black-eyed men stepped out of the woods and grabbed someone else from IDEA. There was that piercing scream and a flash of light and the man in the long coat was gone. The gunfire erupted in earnest. The avatars did not scream, they just burst apart. Noble fired and fired, reloaded and then fired again. The arms and legs and heads and hands were everywhere, coming out of the darkness.
How many employees did Gemini have? How many had been turned? Being near the energies that Whitten and Void had released must have warped them, weakening them, turning them into weak spots in the walls of reality. The Void must have come to them, taking them over, yanking their consciousness out of their bodies, their souls removed from their bodies. One moment they were at work, sitting in cubicles, studying spreadsheets, and then they were just gone, part of the screaming nothingness of the Void.
At some point, while putting a bullet into the head of a young woman dressed in a skirt and a nice blouse, he began weeping.
One by one the former employees of Gemini fell. They each fell apart, bursting into black goo and then vanished. Noble wiped away the tears, the horrible feeling that he was killing his fellow humans, and at some point he realized he was hearing laughter. Deep, resonant laughter inside his head and in his ears.
Whitten and Void. Together. They were seeing this through the dead eyes of these people and they were laughing. This was meant to break them. It was meant to tear the team apart as they shot people who were not creepy black-eyed children composed entirely of some kind of Void substance. These had been real people, with real lives, until something beyond their understanding took them over and yanked their souls out of their bodies. It was beyond cruel.
The gunfire went on and on. The black-eyed people moved so slowly that none of the men in long coats felt like they were in danger at any point. No more of their number were lost. They reloaded again and again, taking them down, littering the path with bodies that soon vanished.
Then they were gone.
There was just the silence of the night, the glowing of the air and the vibration on the ground. Added to that was the deep and heavy breathing of the men from IDEA. Noble put his hands on his knees and vomited.
"I am going to kill that son of a bitch," Noble said. "I am going to rip his fucking heart out and show it to him while he dies."
Shaw put a hand on Noble's shoulder and he turned and saw that even Shaw's impenetrable exterior was gone and the man was weeping, too. Silent tears traced their way down his face and dripped off the side of his face. Even Dash appeared shaken.
"Let's go," Shaw whispered, his voice cracking even with just those two words.
They moved on in silence. The Tower grew closer, still blinking in and out of existence. How were they even going to get into this building? There would be a way. Noble knew it. They had been led along by the nose this entire time. They had never been in control. He had never been in control of himself or his life from the moment he was born.
There was growling.
Noble froze. Shaw bumped into his back.
"What?" Shaw asked.
"Can't you hear it?" Noble asked.
Just then something leaped out of the darkness and landed on one of the members of IDEA. The growling grew in intensity and Noble saw the flash of white teeth and they sank into the man's neck.
"Coyotes!" he yelled.
Noble quickly noticed that the coyote had black eyes. Just like the Gemini employees. The infection of the Void was spreading to the flora and fauna.
He whirled and fired at another coyote off to his right, catching it in mid-leap. The coyote let out a quick yelp and then exploded in black goop that splattered all over him and vanished.
There was more growling. This was followed by gunfire, plasma fire and screaming. Another of their number went down as two coyotes grabbed him and pulled him kicking and screaming into the brush.
"How much more of this?" Noble muttered.
"None for you."
Noble spun around. He was getting dizzy from all of this spinning around and things jumping out beside him and behind him.
Whitten stood in the path. He was still dressed in his natty suit and vest. His eyes were black, as well, but also tinged with red and red motes and dots floated in the deep wells of his eyeballs. Whitten's skin was white and nearly glowed as bright at the moon. He smiled and the smile stretched up much further than it should have, the ends of his lips nearly reaching up past his nose.
"You're coming with me," Whitten said and reached out to Noble.
The man moved so fast that Noble barely noticed. The hand clutched his throat. Shaw and Dash were busy fending off the coyotes. Noble could not utter a sound and he was unable to lift his weapon. Part of him didn't want to, however. He wanted to be alone with Whitten. Whitten's smile got wider, the edge of the lips now reaching up past his nose and toward his eyes, blackness oozed from the corners of his mouth as the skin split.
"Noble!"
It was Orval. Good ol' Orval, although Noble had just met the man yesterday, it felt like he had known the man for decades. Maybe he had. With the inter-dimensional stuff, who could be sure of anything anymore? He twisted his head and saw Orval running toward him, both guns blazing. The bullets hit Whitten in the chest, but the old man just waved his other hand and three coyotes emerged from the woods, grabbing Orval around the ankles and dragging him to the ground.
Then there was that now-familiar whiteness and feeling like he was being turned inside out. This time it was accompanied by tremendous pain, the Void not worried about doing things gently.
An instant later Whitten and Noble were in his lab. Outside the window there was a spectacular view of the Gemini campus. The walls were glowing. All around Noble were splits in reality. He saw images of other people, other creatures and hideous things of all sizes, shapes and design.
Noble fell to the floor and threw up – a lot. Rather than feeling afraid, he was surprised. He didn't think he had eaten all that much in the past couple of days. Who knew you could throw up so much without there being food in your stomach?
"Welcome to my home," Whitten/Void said.
Whitten/Void was doing some kind of odd twirling dance arou
nd the lab. His arms outstretched and that infuriating smile still there.
There was equipment packed into every corner, although Whitten/Void apparently quite liked the view as well.
"That is the collider," Whitten/Void said. "You can't see it right now, but there is a transmitter there. The collider is working, making its collisions and generating energy. It transmits here. You see, that was always the problem before, generating enough energy to open the portals and keep them open. Shaw came close, but he wasn't allowed into the collider. When it was off-lined, well, I was able to step right in. Things got a bit loose around here when they shut down the collider. We were able to get in so easily, start converting the people to our way of thinking."
"You killed them," Noble said, his throat raw and raspy. He stood up, but the floor beneath him felt soggy and weird, as if it were drooping just like the soft watches in a Dali painting. "You reached into these people who were just trying to work and you ripped their souls out."
"They weren't killed," Whitten/Void said. "No one is really killed, Noble. You won't be killed, either. You become part of us. You become part of a greater thing. We are all one now with the Void. With me. With us. Them. They. You. Me. Us. Us. Us. Us"
Whitten began spewing words, his head twitching as he spoke, black spittle flew from his lips. Black tears streamed from his eyes and he wiped them away absently. The words went on for a while and then he stopped, looked around as if he were surprised to see where he was and then he looked at Noble again, his smile returning.
"Where was I?" Whitten/Void asked.
"Babbling," Noble said.
His eyes refused to settle, darting around the room, trying to find a weapon, a way out. The gun he had in his hand when he was outside was gone. He had no idea where it went, perhaps it was floating in the ether somewhere.
"Ah, yes, Noble," Whitten/Void said. "We have much to discuss before I bring the Void into this dimension. So many things. I have a surprise for you, for starters. Tarters. Taters. Spats. Spatulas. Hah Hah!"
Whitten raised his arms over his head like a game show hostess. He spun around in a circle and came to rest in front of a large shelf filled with equipment. With a flourish he pushed the shelf away and it rolled toward the wall.
Noble’s mouth fell open wide.
Olivia sat in a chair, her hair down over her face. Her arms were tied behind the chair. Duct tape wrapped around her chest, stomach, legs and arms. Whitten walked over and grabbed her head and lifted it. Her eyes were closed and blood trickled from her nose.
"You motherfucker!" Noble yelled and ran toward Olivia, his fists balled and ready to hit Whitten.
Whitten/Void laughed and he held out his hand, swatting Noble across the face once he was in range. The hand moved so fast that Noble wasn't even aware that he had been hit until he was sailing lengthwise across the room. His jaw felt as if he had been hit with a sledgehammer. He collided with more shelving and equipment and then he fell to the floor. Equipment, wiring, computer pieces, glass and debris rained down on his head.
"You need to be polite, Noble," Whitten/Void said in that mocking, laughing tone. "She has not been added to our number. 1. 2. 3. Number bumber."
There was a pause as Noble rubbed the side of his face and spat blood while slowly trying to push his way out of the pile of debris.
"Not yet," Whitten/Void added and then laughed.
Noble brushed the debris off of his body and slowly got to his knees and then pushed himself up onto his feet. His head was ringing and he felt blood running down the back of his neck and down his back. Noble reached up and touched the top of his head and his fingertips came away red. This was not the auspicious confrontation that he had been hoping for.
"If you hurt her," Noble said. "I swear to God, I am going to kill you."
"Your threats do not mean much," Whitten/Void said. "You seem to think you are in some position to do something. You are not. There is even more about you, Noble, than you realize. Shaw and his IDEA group, laughable as they are, have only told you part of the story of how you became to be. Your life was not an accident. No, no, no. Not just an accident. Dent. Rust. Car. Bumper."
Noble raised his head, his skull pounding. It was hard to stay standing. He must have hit his head really hard. He tasted copper in his mouth and he spat more blood on to the floor.
Whitten/Void stood next to Olivia. He had released her head and Olivia was once again sitting there with her head down. Noble remembered the blood from her nose and wondered what the monster had done to her. He wanted more than anything to wrap his hands around Whitten's throat and squeeze.
Whitten walked across the floor. The floor vanished and reappeared. Things moved in the shadows, too. People, animals, creatures. Outside the window it somehow seemed darker than it should have been, as if the shadows were growing and slowly swallowing the world. Time was feeling strange, warped, weird. Noble wondered if there were still men from IDEA out there fighting for their lives.
"What are you talking about?" Noble asked. There was something wrong with his head. It wasn't just the bump on his head. There was just something wrong with the air, with everything around them. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Whitten shook his head and clucked his tongue. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," Whitten/Void said. "Poor Noble Randle. Such a great name, but so unable to live up to it. You don't even know what you were made for or what your purpose is. I can show you. Shoe. Do. Woo. Flu."
Noble saw that Whitten was getting closer, had seemed to cross the room in an instant. He could smell the man and he nearly gagged. It was the stench of unwashed bodies, rotting, death. It was like the man was a walking swamp. He backed away, but he was already at the room’s end and he felt the broken shelves against his back. Whitten stretched out his arm. Noble raised his hands weakly.
"No," Noble said, his voice so weak that it was barely audible. "No. Stay back."
"I am going to enlighten you," Whitten/Void said. Noble could not turn away and from the black eyes, swirling with red. "I am going to show you what you are and how you came to be."
"No," Noble repeated, but now he was pleading. Desperate.
Whitten just shook his head and that eerie smile crept across his face, twisting up the side of his face. Whitten reached out and touched the side of Noble's head.
He froze. His entire body was no longer in his control. All of the nerves were severed and he was entirely in the thrall of this creature before him. His brain felt like it was being electrocuted and he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing emerged. He tasted copper in his mouth, but it was like biting on copper wires. He felt hands inside his brain, tearing, forcing things into his thoughts.
"Relax," Whitten/Void said. "Let me show you."
Noble felt the world slip away from him. He was being force-fed memories from someone else. He was seeing things from long ago, the pictures and memories sepia-toned like old photos in an album. He could smell things and hear things. When he looked down his hands were not his own. It was like being forced into someone else's brain.
It took a moment for Noble to grow accustomed to the feeling of being in someone else. His hands, when he looked at them, had long fingernails painted red. He was a woman. Judging by the clothes it was the late 60s or early 70s. Then he heard the woman speak and Noble wanted to weep.
He was inside his mother's memories.
"No," Noble whispered again and then he was lost.
Chapter Fourteen
Mary Ann Noble is just twenty-three years old. She has been married to Nathan Noble for about two years. They live in a small apartment on the outskirts of Chicago with plans to buy a house soon. They also have plans to start a family in the near future.
Nathan has started working mostly nights at a factory down in the city. He’s driving switch engines, but hopes to move into the factory soon. Mary Ann works at a company that makes boots, working as a bookkeeper. It's a good job and they are doing well for a young couple in love during uncert
ain times.
Mary Ann met Nathan when they were in college. She had plans to get some kind of degree, but at that time, it was not uncommon for girls to attend college with the idea of meeting a man who could become a husband. She does well at school, but all of that changes the night of the party when she meets Nathan.
Nathan is skinny, tall, with dark hair and wearing dark glasses. He has a great sense of humor, laughs a lot, hangs out with a lot of cool kids who tend to grease their hair back, and attends all of the big parties. Mary Ann fell hopelessly in love with the man and a couple of years after they met, they were married. Unlike so many of her friends, she has waited a few years before deciding it's time to have kids.
That night seemed particularly dark to Mary Ann. Nathan had left for work. There was no moon and the horizon showed flashes of lightning, indicating a storm was headed right for her. The television was full of static, the rabbit ears unable to punch through the clouds and the storm and electricity in the air to get a good signal. On the television was one of the sitcoms that seemed to dominate the airwaves. Mary Ann was not really paying attention. She was curled up on the sofa, reading.
The phone rang.
Mary Ann jumped. The jangling kitchen phone was so loud. That was to wake up Nathan if someone called during the day when he was asleep. She sometimes turned the volume down, but had forgotten that night. She put her book face-down on the sofa and the spine standing up in the air.
She padded into the kitchen, her stocking feet slipped a bit on the tile floor. She grabbed the phone and put it to her ear. There was a loud blast of static on the other end and she pulled it away until it ended.
"Hello?"
There was more static. It sounded like voices on the other end, perhaps a crossed line, talking, babbling, laughter. It was weird.
"Mary Ann?"
The voice was soft and very far away, as if she were getting a long distance call. She didn't know anyone traveling abroad, so that couldn't have been correct.
"Hello?" She called louder. "Hello, who's there?"
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