Edge Walkers

by Shannon Donnelly

  #

  Jakes watched the lights overhead flicker. They’d been back a little over four hours if the clock he’d learned to carry in his head was working. Not much else was. He’d talked more in the past few hours than he had in years. He was still sitting at a table in a locked room, turning a half cup of coffee that had gone cold. He had no idea what anyone thought of his debrief—he’d be thinking loony bin if it’d been him on the other side of the table. And the itch between his shoulder blades told him this wasn’t over. Not if those lights flickering overhead meant anything.

  He turned the cup a quarter to the right.

  Was Brody back on her feet? And what about Gideon—did they have him and Temple locked up tight? He hadn’t seen Shoup, either, and he wondered if that was a good thing or bad, or maybe it just was and he ought to leave it alone. That other guy—the blind one they’d gotten home—had been carted out on a stretcher. He wasn’t sure if folks here believed him that the rest of his team were dead. They sure as shit didn’t want to hear anything more about Temple’s home town. Well, he’d either get orders soon enough, or they’d come back with another round of the same questions. Or maybe they’d just settle him in a straight-jacket and a nice white room.

  God he was tired of this.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, over the prick of stubble on his cheeks and chin. He pressed a thumb and forefinger into the stickiness gathered in the corner of his eyes. This made back on the other side with targets to hit seem a pretty sweet deal. Goddamm, did he hate this kind of bullshit debrief. He turned his cup again.

  And the lights flickered overhead.

  Frowning, Jakes watched them, his shoulders tensing and his stomach jittery, and not just from too much stale coffee. The lights went out, stayed dark for a count of thirty and brightened again. Jakes got up and faced off in front of the door. He’d had it with waiting. He also had a table and the chair he’d been sitting on. The door was metal and locked. He might not get more than some dents in it, but he wasn’t sitting on his ass, waiting to die.

  The lights dancing had to be from Walkers come through. What else could it be other than them sucking up the power, and he knew he’d been right to stay wound tight.

  The lights flickered on again—emergency generators coming online, or maybe just Walkers too stuffed to eat more and taking a break. Jakes grabbed the chair, dragged it over to the door. He swung it up like a club, stepped into the swing to put his body weight behind it. Just like high school baseball all over again. The chair slammed into the door, rattled it on its hinges, fell with gravity and its weight dragging on his shoulders. Leaning on it, Jakes shook out his right arm, started to pick up the chair for another hit. Before he could, the door creaked open, and he was staring at Shoup.

  With a glance at the chair, Shoup smiled and held out an M16. “Trade ya?”

  Jakes grabbed the automatic weapon. He checked the magazine, an automatic gesture even though he knew Shoup wouldn’t be handing out empties. Stepping out with Shoup, he rolled his shoulders, tucked the gun in close. Jitters faded now that he had an objective. “Status?”

  “Fucked. Not full up the ass. But close. Can’t find Temple.”

  “Lemme guess—camera’s in his cell show a black jag opening up the ceiling to nothing? The guys leaning on him leaned a little too close?”

  “Cameras are out. But his room was empty and the guy on guard was outside, babbling. So, yeah, I think the big guy may be back on the other side. He sure ain’t around as I can find.”

  Jakes glanced at Shoup. “Question is—what’s on this side with us?”

  “Trouble. Fuckin’ trouble.”

  “What about Brody?”

  Shoup shook his head. “Can’t find her. They’re trying to get the civvies out of the way, so she’s probably upstairs. Bastards have no clue. I sent the babbler outside Temple’s room to haul ass with ‘em and get the fuck out of the way.” Shoup stopped outside the emergency stairwell. “But I know where Brody’s guy is stashed—think you can make do with him for help?”

  #

  Gideon sat on the floor of the barren room they’d locked him into, cross-legged, his hands resting loose in his lap. They’d given him water when he’d asked. They kept asking him questions. And they wouldn’t answer anything—not about Carrie and where she was, not about Temple, and not about what they thought they were doing. Dammit, he should have stayed behind—that’s what he’d planned. He shouldn’t be here. Not with Jill still out there.

  Not when he could feel the pull back to Temple’s world.

  The Rift had started to tear open once already, when someone on this side had touched him. They hadn’t known what was going on, had backed off, weapons drawn, panic on their faces, and for ten seconds he wondered if they’d shoot him. They’d thought he was opening the Rift intentionally, and it had taken him five minutes of talking non-stop to avoid disaster, and for the Rift to slip closed again. That was probably what had saved him. Afterwards, they’d thrown him in here and now no one was coming near.

  But he could still feel that pull, that tension strung tight in him. It was only a matter of time until the Rift opened for him again. And he wasn’t willing to bet what might come through—or if he’d still be here afterwards. A shudder rippled through him—and he thought of the brief flashes of images he’d had from Temple.

  Temple had crossed back already—Gideon knew it, he’d had a mental farewell of sort from Temple.

  He wasn’t sure if Temple had survived.

  How many crossings could you make, with the Rift tearing you think? The last one had left him pain-wracked, feeling as if his guts had been torn out, danced on, and shoved back inside. He shifted a shoulder and winced. He was pretty sure he’d pulled something that shouldn’t be pulled. The Edge Walkers seemed to handle it better, but they weren’t anything solid. And they were straining the barrier between realities. What were these other crossings doing to every world?

  And where was Carrie?

  She’d have answers, or theories, or mad ideas about what needed to be done. Was she out there, carrying out her ideas on her own?

  Twisting, he glanced up at the camera that hung in a corner of the room, far above his reach. They were going to keep him locked in a cell for pretty much damn ever. They couldn’t afford not to, and he couldn’t blame their caution, but he couldn’t stay. Not with Jill still out there. Not with Carrie...Carrie what?

  He’d seen her thrown through into her lab by Shoup’s explosion. He had gone after her because... Well, because what else was he going to do. He hadn’t thought about it, and Shoup had set off a third charge that had nearly killed them all. It’d thrown him and Temple through and into Carrie’s lab. Shoup had staggered after them, grinning like a demon, choking on smoke. But it had closed the doorway behind them. Gideon’s memories stopped right after he’d seen Carrie on the floor. He had a large, sore knot on the back of his head, and that would account for the gap in consciousness—someone had hit him. He could really do without any more people who liked to hit him first and ask the questions later. He was also done with all the questions they’d asked—they hadn’t believed any of his answers.

  But he could still feel the charge in the air, that faint tingle that stood the hair on his arms on end. Was that due to his being out of place? Or were there Walkers here?

  Pushing up to his feet, he started to pace the room.

  He didn’t have a way out, so what did he have?

  An air vent too tiny to fit through. A door, but anytime anyone unlocked it, they had guns. Well, if that was the only way out, he was going to have to take it.

  Taking off his boots, he weighed them. His first boot knocked the camera, faced it to the wall. The second took out the blinking red light. That should get someone here. Overhead, the single, caged ceiling light flickered.

  Gideon looked up, watched it wink out and fade back to brightness. He held his breath. Dammit. They hadn’t listened to him, or to anyone—and Walkers we
re here. He’d bet on it.

  He grabbed his boots and lined them up in the middle of the room, side-by-side. Next to the door, he put his back to the wall. A few minutes later, the lights went out. Gideon froze for a moment, strained to hear what might be happening. He heard the click of the lock, the creak of hinges. He waited until the door swung wide. Stepping out, he put his hand out, palm flat. They’d get out of his way—or his touch would open the Rift.

  The beam of a flashlight swung into his face, and his open palm slapped against a gun’s cold barrel. Shoup swore, and Jakes said, his tone dry, “Uh, un. Not leaving so fast. We need some help first.”

  Gideon let his arm drop and he eyed Shoup and Jakes in the erratic, stark light of the flashlight beams mounted to their guns. He gestured to Shoup, who had on a heavy vest. The man had guns slung over each shoulder and a couple more attached to his hips. “One of those for me?”

  Shoup shrugged one shoulder, dislodged two weapons that hung from his arms by straps. “M4, extended clip? Or old school AK?”

  Jakes grabbed one of the rifles, dragged it off Shoup and held it out to Gideon. “Safety’s there. Don’t point it at us. And, no, we’re not asking where he got these. Now, you have any idea where Brody is?”

  The light flickered up again and Gideon took the gun. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s going to be where she usually is—in the middle of everything bad.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I swore an oath to protect this country—that includes from goddamm monsters, and idiots who are dicking around with ass-covering instead of ass-saving. Now will you cut me loose and let me do my damn job? — Excerpt Debriefing Major James B. Jakes

  Carrie didn’t recognize the facility. Not anymore. Kerrou had flashed his ID and had gotten them into a stairwell with some excuse that she hadn’t heard, but which had left the guards swapping disapproving glances. She followed David down steel stairs that rang hollow under their hurried steps. They pushed past a few stragglers running upward in the dim, orange glow of emergency lighting. After one flight, they didn’t meet anyone else, coming or going, and the world focused into the narrow beam of the flashlight. The stairs left Carrie breathless, but she pushed out the words, and asked, her voice hushed, “David, what happened—when I was out of it? I’d better hear all of it.”

  Kerrou kept his gaze on the shadowed stairway, and his voice floated to her, breathless and quick. “You heard it already. One minute we could see you. We couldn’t hear anything, but we saw the explosion—hell, the blast wave shook the place. And then you where there. It was…no one knew what the hell was up. Security took over. Grabbed you. The power shut down—finally.” His voice had dropped and Carrie could feel the frustration vibrate off him. Sympathy for him lifted in a surge. He’d thought he’d done everything right, and it was still blowing up in his face. Like it had for her—like it still was for her. Because she’d made assumptions.

  “And then that lightning showed up. The power—when exactly did it cut out? Before or after that ball lightning showed up?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Oh, yeah—it’ll matter”

  Stopping, one hand on the steel railing, Kerrou half-turned toward her. In the fitful light, his face looked gaunt and drawn. “It—you showed up. That explosion hit…and then…everything went dark. We cleared everyone out, or started to, and then Zeigler got up—he did something.”

  She nodded. “And that’s when it went bad.”

  “We’d thought we were getting a handle on everything.”

  With a nod, Carrie pushed on his shoulder to get him moving—added a squeeze, too, because she knew how the shock of reality bending like this felt rippling through you. “They were in the computers. Waiting. They had to be. That’s why you couldn’t shut down the systems. I should have thought of it sooner. I saw them come through. I saw them get into not just…well, not just people. But…they’re intelligent, David. There can’t be many of them. Not yet. I hope to god there aren’t. They had to be keeping the door open. Now…I just hope we can get them out of the circuitry before it’s too late.”

  “They? Them?” Kerrou stopped, shone his light on her face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Walkers—Edge Walkers. Didn’t Gideon tell you? Dammit, you didn’t listen to him, did you? Well, start listening now.”

  She told him about what had happened to her as they descended the stairs. She caught the glances he shot back at her and she could guess what he was holding back—his doubts, and his worries about what he was going to do with an unbalanced, concussed person on his hands.

  When they reached the floor with her lab, Kerrou flashed his light over the number twenty-eight painted on the wall and into the dark hole of a doorway. Carrie’s pulse lifted, pounded hard in her throat and she pushed aside whatever David might be thinking about. They had bigger problems. The steel door should have been bolted and secured with keypad access, just like every other floor. Instead, this door stood open, the lock charred and scored, and Carrie’s skin chilled. Walkers. Had to be, using the power they’d fed on, blowing out the lock with a power overload.

  Gideon, where are you—I’m going to need you to help me finish this.

  She wet her lips, swapped a glance with Kerrou. She saw on his face that he knew how bad this was.

  The overhead lights in the hall sputtered on and off, and Carrie wished they’d just go out and stay out. The erratic light ruined any chance for her vision to adjust. She squinted against each flare of illumination, and pressed her hand to her side where pain jabbed into her ribs.

  She was worried about the emptiness around them.

  Where were the security teams, making sure everyone had gotten out or keeping the area clear? Something had cleared them out and she was just glad they hadn’t come across any bodies. But she could smell charred flesh, the stench of hair burned, and the tang of fresh blood. She was pretty sure Walkers had cleared out the area. She put a hand over her mouth, and next to her she could hear David choking on the smell.

  She could also see the door to her lab—fifteen meters away and hanging open. Thin wisps of white smoke curled up from the electronic lock on the wall. Wiping a sweat-damp palm down her trousers, she eased forward, trying to keep her steps silent. The beam of David’s flashlight danced over the barren hall and she glance at him. In other circumstances, he might have had questions for her. But he kept silent, his face pale in the dim light, his lips pulled into a line of fear and stubborn determination. She thought of Gideon again, wished she had him at her back, or even had an idea where he might be. She needed someone good at hunting Walkers.

  But she didn’t have him, and she didn’t have time to wait. She had to see what was happening—they’d have no time left for anything if Walkers were about to open a door to this world.

  Mouth dry, heart thudding, the wound on her chest throbbing with every pulse, she motioned for David to stay back. He shook his head and stayed with her, and she couldn’t argue with him. At the darkened door, leaned around to peer into her lab.

  It looked a disaster.

  The shockwave from Shoup’s explosion when she’d opened the door both ways had wrecked the place. Tables lay overturned, the equipment scattered, monitors dark and cracked. Cables tangled, wound over the floor like a snake nest. Her slabs of minerals lay in charred, broken piles. This was all that was left of her work—the computers trashed, her notes inaccessible, and too many lives wasted.

  In the shadows, something moved. A darker shape pulled out from the other shadows and Carrie pulled in a sharp breath and froze.

  The crackle of static lifted. Wall sockets spat out fat, bright sparks, and they shouldn’t be doing that—everything had been properly grounded. It shouldn’t be shorting. Which meant Walkers were still riding those circuits. Burning electricity scorched the air, monitors surged into life, and Carrie saw Zeigler.

  He stood in the center of the room, light playing over his skin and over the white gauze
that wrapped his eyes. Something had ripped at his clothes, shredding and tearing them, along with his skin. Balls of light jumped out from the wall sockets, slashed at him now, slammed into him—he cried out, a totally human sound. The lightning jumped back into the wall.

  Carrie wasn’t sure what Zeigler was now—a feeding station, maybe. Or maybe the Walkers were accessing his memories and his knowledge about her experiment. Since they hadn’t been able to get to her, maybe they were using him to reopen the door to Temple’s world.

  David started toward Zeigler, but Carrie threw out her arm and blocked him. She shook her head. Lights darted out of the walls in glowing orbs, shot back into the computers, sparked into them.

  Edge Walkers.

  Monitors flickered, glowed bright, and lines of code sprang up on the displays. They wanted that door reopened, they wanted to let the others on Temple’s world through to this one, where they’d have rich feeding. How the hell was she going to stop them without Gideon’s help?

  She knew now that they had been stupid to shield the computers as well as they had. The hardened circuitry and ruggedized computers in her lab were built to survive a disaster. Which meant they’d unknowingly given the Walkers a place to hide. And Zeigler, though he was with the Walkers now, he wasn’t one of them. Not fully. Not yet. He didn’t have light spilling from the tears in his skin, but he was being used by them. He fell to his knees, fumbled and found a keyboard, and the Edge Walkers, those bright balls of light, danced around him, over him, manipulating him like a puppet as they forced him to pull up the code that would restart her experiment.

  Wetness stung Carrie’s eyes. She brushed at it with the back of her hand. Dammit, she was not going to leave Zeigler like this. She was not going to let those damn Walkers use him to open that door again.

  She stepped into her lab.

  Zeigler and the Walkers ignored her. Computers spat out sparks, hummed to life. She could smell wires burning—and behind that the sharp ozone of the Rift swirled into the room. The glow was already formed on the wall—a circle of white pooling brightness that marked the start of a doorway to Temple’s world. Carrie took another step and something caught her arm.