“Of course.”
“Okay. I figured I’d be polite and ask.”
I turned on the monitor and sent the commands for a shut down.
“Later,” I said.
While it was busy taking down the systems, I went to the garage for my industrial strength dolly. I put the duffel with the fabrication equipment on first, then stacked the two main SparkleOS servers on top of that after they had shut down. The backup storage fit neatly between them. No sense taking the keyboard, monitors or mouse.
Into the second duffel, I crammed my heavy duty protective gear: boots, several hats, the elbow-length gauntlets, welding goggles, a really heavy leather apron, all of it infused with magically reactive and protective materials. If someone came looking for me, I was going to make myself a very hard target.
The gear was bulky and more massive than I expected. It filled the whole duffel, and I couldn’t even get it zippered. I heaved it onto the dolly anyway. I put two mundane laptops and a tablet into my favorite backpack, along with two changes of clothes.
Finally, I dug a Ziploc bag out of the back of my vegetable drawer in the fridge. It held a phone that I kept in case a high-sensitivity “employer” ever needed a one-time communication device, $18,000 in cash, and a backup credit card that had someone else’s name on it. I emptied it all into the backpack.
I didn’t have a driver’s license, but I could get by without one for a bit until I figured out exactly how I wanted to proceed.
I took a last look around.
I probably wouldn’t be back here. Sad? In theory, I guess. I didn’t feel anything like that though. Just a jumpy desire to get my ass back out the door with my stuff in case the Guard or Dan or something else equally horrible showed up.
I leaned the dolly back and wheeled it toward the door. When I got there, the duffels were too wide, and I couldn’t maneuver the whole thing through like I’d had it stacked. Of course. I had to take the duffels off, walk them through the door, then restack everything.
Gwen was back on her feet, and Babd paced the yard laughing.
“What’s funny?” I said.
“Nothing,” said Gwen.
“Um, sure,” I said.
“Gwen and I were having a discussion.”
“About?”
“Not you,” said Gwen. “Girl stuff.”
Really? I wasn’t about to take that bait.
“You ready then?” said Gwen.
“Yup,” I said.
“Here you go.”
She tossed me the keys to my car. After the incident in the park, she’d ditched Dan’s car, gotten my extra car keys from my house, then went back for mine. She’d driven it here and (very smartly) parked it way down the street. She’d snagged an Uber to get home. The three of us walked down the block together, me pushing the heavily laden dolly.
We reached the car.
“Babd, any magic hanging around?”
The large brown shepherd, who was already looking not quite so gaunt with a few meals under her belt, trotted around the car, sniffing.
“I think not,” she said.
I popped the trunk.
The car didn’t explode or try to eat me.
I hefted the equipment inside but kept the backpack with me.
“Okay,” I said, “do we ride together, or do we take both cars?”
“Both,” said Gwen.
“Babd rides with you,” I said.
Babd dog-shrugged.
We all piled into my car and drove the couple blocks back to hers. I let her and Babd out.
As we drove toward Gwen’s apartment to pick up a few things, I kept thinking about my house. I tried to will myself to feel sad, but I couldn’t. It was all just a bunch of stuff. And not even great stuff or unique stuff. Just stuff.
It was fine. Leaving was fine. In the other universes where Lincoln was happy, he didn’t even have this house, so what did it matter if I left it?
We’d head somewhere else. Maybe out of the country? That would be hard. I wasn’t quite sure how to pull that off. Not a lot of international experience. If we stayed domestic, well, the U.S. was huge, and there were 300 million people here. Plenty of space to get lost in.
The feelings of pursuit I’d had on the way up to Erie hadn’t abated though. They were still there, pushing me.
Every light on the way between my place and Gwen’s was red. Every driver ahead of me had to have been a first-time student. Every opportunity someone had to take an early left or jump the intersection… lost. Lost lost lost.
The only bit of luck we had was that we found two on-street spots right beside each other on the block outside of her building.
“If I come up with you,” I said once we were on the sidewalk, “do you think we can do it all in one trip?”
“You nervous?” she said.
“Of course not. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”
“You were driving like a meth addict.”
I laughed.
“I have been using a lot of meth lately,” I said.
“We’re really going for good?” she said.
I thought about it for a minute. I mean, the answer was obvious, but it was worth a reconsideration. I didn’t have anything to come back here for. Gwen might.
“Let’s pretend like we are.”
She looked like she was doing some mental math.
“Okay,” she said. “I think we can do it in one trip.”
Babd trotted to the building door and played the sniffing game.
“The door is safe,” she said.
Gwen led the way, unlocking the main door to let us in.
The space inside was more of a run-down lobby than a proper foyer. The floor was a dirty black and white tile, cracked and repaired many times, the grout chipped away in innumerable places. The walls were whitewashed old plaster. We had our choice of the well-worn stairs or the tiny, padded elevator down the hall in the back of the building.
In my current mental state, I didn’t relish the thought of trapping myself in a little box like that.
“Stairs?” I said.
“Sure,” said Gwen. Probably thinking the same thing.
I started to walk toward the stairs, but it seemed like I wasn’t making progress. I mean, I was walking, and I was moving, but the stairs did not become closer.
I looked behind me.
Babd was… nowhere to be seen.
Weird.
Gwen was standing near the closed front door. Her mouth was opened like she was trying to say something. Her jaw moved, and she blinked deliberately, but didn’t make a sound. Or couldn’t.
There was something strange behind her. A shadow.
My arms felt light but met with resistance as I tried to move them, like I was standing in chest-deep water.
And where was Fox?
A very bad thing was happening, I could tell, and I wanted Fox in my hand more than I’ve wanted anything in a long, long time.
I couldn’t remember. I’d put him in the bag with the cash and credit card once I’d gotten into the car. Where was he now?
Why had I left him in the car?
I wouldn’t do something like that.
I’d even thrown on my travel jacket, so I could put him in the shoulder holster.
I breathed in and felt the same resistance that pressed against my arms start to build in my lungs. I had to concentrate to exhale.
The shadow behind Gwen grew more distinct, and it looked like fingers wrapped around her face, belonging to someone standing behind her.
I knew that I should be horribly alarmed about it, but I couldn’t muster the feeling.
“Who’s there,” is what I tried to say, but when I managed to open my mouth only a wheezing gasp came out.
It sparked a memory from childhood. I’d had a recurring dream where a lion was loose in my house, and it would eventually corner me on the back porch. The door wouldn’t open, and anything I tried to pick up to defend myself would be st
uck to the ground. The lion would approach me, and I would try to scream, knowing it would wake me up. But no sound would come out. The lion would open his mouth, and when he did, my stolen scream would assault me.
This felt very much like that.
“You’re not exactly dreaming,” said a voice from behind Gwen.
The fingers released their hold on her head, and as the figure stepped out from behind her, shadow turned to smoke turned to flesh.
Brigit.
“But you might as well be,” she said.
Gwen was motionless, standing.
Brigit walked toward me.
“Right now,” she said, “the three of us are standing in the lobby of your girlfriend’s building. I have my hands on your shoulders. In about five seconds, the two of you are going to fall down dead. It’s going to feel like a lot longer than that in here.”
She was standing right in front me. I wanted to reach out and grab her throat or hit her or do something, but I couldn’t. The resistance around my arms had hardened into something akin to concrete as she had approached.
Brigit ran her hand along my jaw.
“I’m glad I was the one who found you,” she said. “Dan has a bunch of people out looking for you. I mean, they’re all idiots, so it figures. Who knows what they would have done to the two of you? I’m just going to kill you. You’re lucky.”
Her face softened for a moment.
“And you might even like it,” she said.
Where her hand touched my face, a wave of pleasure, pure blinding pleasure, coursed through me.
“Honestly, I like you Lincoln,” she said. “You’re okay, but this one-” and she slightly flipped her head back toward Gwen “- miss I’m-so-cute-in-black-tights-and-a-neon-mini-skirt. She’s annoying as shit.”
She dug her index finger into my jaw and pushed until my head was forced upward.
And it felt amazing.
Yes.
Keep doing that.
“You like that?” she said. “Enjoy it while you can. It comes with the territory.”
No.
No, I do like it and don’t stop but please stop.
I tried to think of something that would let me cut through the static that was flooding my brain.
Her finger on my chin felt so good that it was impossible to think.
Nothing. I had nothing.
I wanted her to keep pushing until she rotated my head around 180 degrees, and my neck snapped because it would feel incredible. I was ready to help her.
“I like you,” I heard her voice through a haze of unfocused desire, “but Dan says you’ve got to go.”
And then the feeling was gone.
I fell to my knees, my limbs freed. I was drenched in sweat and found that I was ridiculously weak.
Brigit was sprawled on the floor near the steps.
Gwen stood over me, panting, her aluminum bat in her hands.
“Where did that come from?” I heard myself say.
“I guess it comes with the territory,” said Gwen.
“We’re in some kind of spell,” I said.
“Duh,” said Gwen. “How are you feeling?”
“Not great. Really weak.”
“I think I’m okay. I was frozen up for a second, but now I feel… kind of strong actually.”
“Bitch,” said a voice from the stairs. Brigit was pushing herself to her feet. “Wasn’t expecting that. Doesn’t matter though. You’re not getting out of here alive.”
Brigit gripped the large wooden handrail and pulled. A huge chunk of it sheared off, wisps of smoke and ash spiraling away where it had broken. She hefted the four-foot length of dark wood like it was a pixie stick.
“Shit,” said Gwen.
Brigit was a blur and so was Gwen only not quite as fast. Brigit and the banister slammed into Gwen, and the momentum carried them through the door, shattering it into pieces, along with part of the wall.
I stood there for a moment and blinked, the smoke and rising dust getting in my eyes.
Time passed, and it took an extreme effort of will for me to start moving my feet. It seemed like the harder I tried to move, the less it worked. I needed to find Gwen and figure out what to do.
Thinking about finding her freed my feet.
I could walk, so I went out into the street.
Gwen still had her bat, and it looked like Brigit had traded the banister in for a parking meter she’d ripped out of the sidewalk with her bare hands. She swung it impossibly quickly and the concrete bottom exploded against Gwen’s head. The part of me that understands physics from being alive for thirty-odd years knew that she was dead.
Because that kind of thing kills you.
But it didn’t. Gwen staggered backwards, and the rules were obviously different in whatever plane of existence that Brigit had dragged us into.
I saw Gwen’s face, turned gray by the concrete, flecks of blood turning black as they absorbed the dust. The fear I’d seen on her face in the park wasn’t there. None of the panic. This was different for her. She was used to being here.
She moved backward but didn’t go down. Instead, she hesitantly picked up a large piece of broken concrete with one hand. When she found that she could lift it with ease she immediately hurled it with force at Brigit.
Brigit was too fast though. She easily sidestepped and batted the chunk into the ground with the parking meter as it went past. Way too fast.
I barely had the energy to move. Gwen and Brigit seemed fine, which meant that I was doing something wrong.
Brigit had used magic to put us into some kind of shared mental state or more likely pull our consciousnesses into some non-physical plane. Gwen, who was used to running hypnotic therapy sessions and semi-participating in them through her empathy that bordered on magical ability, already sort of knew the ropes here.
That meant that what I did here was mental, not physical. I had to exercise my brain, not my legs, if I wanted to actually do anything useful and not, for example, die.
For a second, I thought that maybe just realizing this would help, but it didn’t. Every step I took felt like trying to walk through deep sand.
Things around Gwen and Brigit were happening more quickly than I could follow, but it looked like Brigit was moving even more quickly than Gwen.
My hand instinctively reached for Fox, but he wasn’t there. Why hadn’t I remembered that? It seemed like hours ago.
I needed to be able to move better than this. To do something.
I bent over to try to pick up a small rock to see if I could even do that, but I couldn’t. My arms were made of tissue paper.
I looked up in time to see Gwen tear a piece of sheet metal from a car and shove it right through Brigit’s abdomen. Not sure how she did it, but she’d always had a knack for good timing. Gwen jerked it hard to the left, and it ripped right out through Brigit’s side. Something that looked like blood boiled as soon as it hit the air and wisps of red smoke snaked skyward.
Brigit fell to the ground, convulsing.
Gwen looked at me, then was by my side in a flash.
“We have to get out of here,” she said.
“I hate to say it but can’t you just kill her?”
“Already did that, twice. She keeps getting up.”
“How long were you guys out here?” I said. I’d only been inside by myself for a few seconds, I’d thought.
“Too long. Let’s go!” She took my hand and pulled me down a side street.
The place looked like downtown Pittsburgh, had the flavor of it, even though I couldn’t actually identify where we were. It’s like someone had put the city through some kind of image recognition algorithm, had it learn what it looked like, then asked it to reproduce new stuff in the same vein.
“Where to?” I said.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Literally. There’s no actual direction here. We need distance, for time. We need to figure out something different.”
“I’m trying,”
I said. I was still slow, but when she held my hand, it was like the times I’d gripped Fox while under magical influence. It was clarifying. I was able to move better.
“Stop trying so hard,” she said “And stop thinking about trying. Just think.”
“About what?”
“Me,” she said. “Think about staying near me.”
“I can do that.”
And I did.
“Methinks you’ve got it,” she said, and she was right. I found that by concentrating on staying near Gwen, I was moving. Running.
I was breathing heavily, natch, and she wasn’t. But still, we were moving.
“Any ideas?” she said.
“None.”
I really didn’t have any.
“You’re the engineer,” she said. “Figure something out.”
We were still moving, holding hands, jumping over low walls, cutting through abandoned, strangely anonymous shops with empty shelves. We didn’t have any real weapons here, and Brigit ostensibly controlled what was going on to some degree or at least had a massive upper hand.
Even if we had something we could use against her, would causing enough damage to her actually mess up the spell? Would it get us out of here? There was no way to know, so taking any kind of risk to make that happen was probably a bad idea.
Clearly though, she wasn’t some kind of all-powerful god here. There seemed to be some manner of objective ruleset or else Gwen wouldn’t have been able to gut her, and we wouldn’t be able to run from her.
So there were limits.
What would they be?
Strength here seemed to be tied to a combination of mental capacity and magical ability. I didn’t have any of the latter, but I had plenty of the former. Was there a way to take advantage of that?
We were still moving through the weird, autogenerated cityscape, and on a whim, I tried something. As we rounded the next corner at a run, I thought about the fact that there ought to be a little purple flower in a pot on the steps of the bakery. When I looked, there was.
It went by in a flash.
There was a crashing sound far behind us, like a tractor trailer plowing into a brick house at high speed.
Was that Brigit?
Probably.
I heard another boom, closer, and this time felt a shock wave whump through my chest.
“I think we can control the environment,” I shouted.
Lincoln, Fox and the Bad Dog Page 23
