by Kane Gilmour
Several streaks of dust appeared from far off on the right, blazing direct paths toward the portal. Dire wolves. He considered making for the portal himself, but it was far. It would take him hours-maybe even days-to climb down the cliff and run across the plain. He leaned over the edge of the drop to check on the climbing thing. It was moving, but too far down to tell what it was or guess at its size. Bishop looked at his watch and then looked back to the portal on the pink-hued orange horizon. Suddenly the streaks in the soil from the dust clouds left in the wake of the dire wolves reappeared. This time they moved from the portal back toward the far right of his view until they disappeared. Then the portal winked out. Bishop looked at his watch. Four minutes had elapsed.
Weird. The portals were staying open for much longer back home.
Then he noticed the spot where the portal had been. A crater was left in its wake. He thought about what he had seen and what it meant. Breathing slowly, he allowed himself to fall into a meditative state. When he came out of it, he looked down the cliff again to check on the progress of the climber.
He moved back to his boulder and smiled. He knew several things now. Wherever the dire wolves were coming from, it was to his right, along the cliff’s edge up toward the pinnacle or tower of rock. He didn’t know if it was a natural formation or not. He looked at the rise again and concentrated on its shape. It didn’t matter. If it was a natural formation, he’d have a better view from the top of it and could more easily spot the enemy. High ground was rarely a bad thing. If it wasn’t a natural formation, then he would have found the enemy. Either way, the solitary tower was his next destination.
He also knew why there were craters here. They were the aftermath of portals having opened and closed. The plains were covered with craters, no two overlapping, with tracks of flat land between them wide enough for a racing horde of dire wolves. Very few free spaces remained. That’s how he would get home. Find the dire wolf source, do what he could to stop them, and then try to anticipate the next portal’s appearance by going to a spot on the plains with no craters. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had, and it felt good to have that at least.
Finally, he knew what the climbing thing was, and he settled back on his boulder to wait for it. He checked his watch. Another ten minutes passed, when he saw movement at the edge of the lip of the cliff. The thing struggled up over the ledge and rolled onto the ground at the top, just a yard away from where Bishop sat cross-legged on top of his smooth orange boulder.
The thing was humanoid, with thick boots caked in the salmon grime of this place’s ground. Dust also coated its body, and Bishop could see it didn’t wear much in the way of clothing. The hair on the head was long-well past the shoulders, tangled and matted, not too different from a jungle boy in a Tarzan film. It lay on its back, breathing hard from the exertion of its climb.
“It’s about fuckin’ time, Knight.” Bishop said with a grin.
The feral thing rolled to a crouch and looked up at Bishop through the filthy hair. “Bishop? How did you find me? How long have I been here?”
“By my watch, we’ve been here for around eleven hours, but by the looks of you, you’ve been here a lot longer. You okay?”
Knight stood slowly and Bishop took in the sight of him. The man was wearing shorts-the BDU pants he had worn under his armor, but the legs had been cut off. No shirt, and the rest of the armor was gone. Aside from being filthy and coated in grime, the thing that struck Bishop the most was that while Knight had been a wiry fellow before, he was now much better built. His muscles bulged as if he spent a lot of time pumping iron at the gym. And Knight’s hair was longer than it had been earlier that day-about two years of unchecked growth longer. Knight’s hair came down below his armpits.
The two men appraised each other.
“I’m okay. I just didn’t think I’d be seeing you. Or anyone. I think I’ve only slept two times, so I should have only been here for a couple of days.” Knight sounded clear-headed, but he wasn’t making much sense.
“Shin, your hair is down below you armpits and you look like Mowgli the Korean Jungle Man. Your clothes are rags. You must have been here longer than that. Time is funny on this side. I’ve already figured that out.”
“Huh,” Knight grunted. “My watch broke. It only felt like a few nights. Hard to tell day from night, if this place even has one, what with everything being blue.”
Bishop looked around the landscape at the pink and orange hues, then back to Knight. “Remember what Black Five said about other dimensions not following the same laws of physics? I think maybe our brains are having a hard time comprehending things here. Because I’m looking at everything around us-the sky, the ground, even you-and all I see are shades of orange.”
“Orange?” Knight looked around him, then back at Bishop. “I see midnight blue.”
Bishop was about to offer a theory on why they perceived different colors when he noticed something on Knight’s back. A backpack. A very full backpack. He hadn’t noticed it before because Knight’s long hair covered the straps over his shoulders.
He pointed to the pack. “What’s this?”
Knight grinned. “You know I hate failing missions.”
FIFTY-TWO
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
3 November, 2330 Hrs
Eirek Fossen walked into to the main lab, looking up at the ball of light that filled him with a sense of awe and power. The portal glowed brightly, larger now, but still not its full size. A few dire wolves moved slowly around the room, sniffing at the air. The Russian woman, Asya, stood quietly by the portal, smiling in the Lord’s bliss.
He had told the other staff members to retire to their quarters. The pheromones made them highly suggestible. By the time its influence began to wear off and they ventured back into the lab, it would be too late.
He stared up at the glowing portal, feeling the warmth of it washing over his face. It was beautiful. Up close, the brilliance of the light was painful to his eyes; his eyelids kept trying to shut, but he willed them open until tears flowed from his face. Every time he looked at it, he remembered his one and only trip through to the other side. The colors. The landscape. The dire wolves. And Fenrir. He hadn’t spoken to the Lord in two days. He ached to hear from Her again. Or was she a him? He honestly didn’t know, but preferred to think of Her as being female. Men just weren’t that beautiful.
He didn’t really have anything to report. The portal wouldn’t grow to sufficient size for hours yet, but he couldn’t wait to hear from Her again.
He knelt on the floor and bowed his head.
One of the dire wolves came over to him and sniffed the air around him, cocking its head left and right, its huge eyes dilating from the brilliance of the portal. Then it stepped up to the wall of the energy sphere and through it.
Fossen remained kneeling on the concrete floor. His knees and shins protested, but he refused to move. Minutes passed and he stayed still, allowing his thoughts to empty, until he focused only on his breathing.
Then it came, as he knew it would. The hairs on the back of his neck raised and the skin on his arms tightened with gooseflesh.
The voice.
Her voice.
Is it ready, Fossen?
The voice was just above a whisper, but it slid through his mind like a snake. Fossen knew the voice was only in his head, and that it came from the portal. But it sounded like she stood right next to him, uttering the words into his ear. He knew that wasn’t the case. If the weak-willed lab techs were in the room, they would hear nothing. But Fossen could hear Her in his mind. Only he and a select few others, like Schroder and Edmund Kiss, had been able to hear it, at first like a nagging thought in the dark recesses of the subconscious, and later something more. Fossen loved that voice with every part of his being.
“Soon, My Lord. Soon. The portal should be ready in several hours. It is still growing, but we have enough energy to open it to the full size and keep it o
pen and stable. All our work is nearly complete.”
You will be rewarded.
“Thank you, my Lord,” Fossen hesitated. “We have had some problems, though. Three intruders.”
I am aware.
Of course She is, Fossen thought, but continued his report anyway, if only to extend the length of their conversation. “One is now contained and another is here with me, under Your influence.”
I feel her, he thought. A shiver run through his body. His mouth watered. He shared Her hunger.
And the third? The voice grew serious.
“The dire wolves are dealing with her outside. She poses little threat.”
I do not wish to have anything upset our plans, Fossen. I will send more of my children. They will find her.
Fossen nodded. Of course.
I will join you soon, Fossen. We will not be apart much longer.
Fossen raised his head to see dire wolves coming out of the portal. As they emerged, the first sniffed the air and looked at him. He pointed in the direction of the door leading to the outside of the facility. The dire wolf loped on all fours toward the door. And then they kept coming, following the first toward the door.
Fossen lost count after thirty arrived and more kept coming.
“Will you send all of them, my Lord?”
These are but a few grains of sand from the beach, Fossen.
FIFTY-THREE
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
Asya fought the wave of happiness overwhelming her. Being Russian, she wasn’t accustomed to such radiant joy. It fit her like a too-tight sweater, choking her at the neck and chafing in her armpits. She struggled to comprehend how she had become so delighted with life. When she focused on the issue, she could remember Rook, the pit with the dead things and marching Rook at gunpoint back to the pit filled with the little corpses. It was harder to remember how she had become so happy. When she thought about the round wall of light, she felt only warmth and contentment. And then she would forget-everything-and would have to start over, by focusing on Rook.
When thinking back to Rook, and how she met him, and how she had come to this place, it made her angry. The anger countered the bliss. That, and the anger and the frustration felt more natural for her. More Russian. So, she stopped trying to focus on Rook and instead turned her attention to the abduction of her parents.
The thought that someone would take her mother and father filled her with a deep rage. That the same people would abduct her and take her aboard a ship-the ship on which she had met Rook-bound for who knew where, filled her with a desire for vengeance.
Things had gone easily for Asya as a child. But as adulthood had neared, she was given two choices: ballet, for which she had a natural talent, or medicine. Both options would be well respected and would allow her to move from the middle class to the upper echelons of stardom, or at least cement her role in the new Russian middle class.
She had shocked her family by choosing the army instead.
Her athletic abilities helped her excel in combat training, but she was too defiant to rise in the ranks, and was already hindered by the fact that she was a woman. She wasn’t interested in rank, anyway. She just wanted a real experience in her life. She served her time in the infantry, and then when the chance came to leave the service, she did. She traveled around Russia and even went abroad a few times. She thought about settling down somewhere, but for now, she had been happy to keep on the move and see some sights. She was almost to that place she had been seeking-a place of inner contentment bred from pleasure with the decisions she had made instead of those decisions made for her. Then the men that Rook had killed captured her on the streets of Murmansk.
A life interrupted. Her life, interrupted.
The anger she felt filled her like an inflating blimp. She let it rise, pushing out any semblance of happiness. She could now picture the attack on Rook and the anger she’d felt toward the mob. She pictured the people and the injuries they had sustained. She understood now, after having been forced by her bliss to march Rook to the pit, that the others had been under the influence of the glowing wall of light as well.
She became furious.
An entire village of people. Controlled. Their lives stolen. Brutalized!
She let all of it feed her anger. As though a hypnotist had just snapped his fingers, her mind returned in a flash.
Asya Machtcenko opened her eyes and found she was sitting in a chair, in a dark room. It was a computer lab with several desk workstations and flat-screen monitors. All sensations of being controlled were gone. She recalled sending Rook to his doom in the pit. She also remembered handing him the LED and telling him not to drop it. She hoped he had listened to her.
And where is Queen? she wondered.
She got up and looked down at herself. At some point, she had put on a white lab coat. She grimaced. I am no man’s lackey. She was about to take it off, but changed her mind. It might help her move through the lab unnoticed. She needed to get to Rook and see if she could help him.
How long have I been under its control? How long have I been unaware of the things around me?
She stood and scanned the computer displays. They were all on, even though no one sat at any of the stations. She wondered idly where all the money for this equipment had come from. Rook had said the town was remote and they didn’t even have telephones or wireless coverage. The entire lab was covert and underground. To Asya’s way of thinking, a government had to be involved. Possibly even her own.
None of the information on the displays-having to do with the weather outside the lab, the giant, curved metal cage and power levels in a ‘receptor’-meant much to her. She crossed the floor to the room’s only door. She opened it slowly and walked out in a very slow, dreamlike shuffle. She let the focus in her eyes loosen, careful not to stare at anything in particular. Walking was difficult at first, but the more steps she took, the easier it became.
The massive glowing sphere cast brilliant light from the center of the room. She intentionally stayed on the edge of the cavernous space, avoiding the influence of the sphere, but not appearing to do so.
She didn’t see any people, but there were a few of the white creatures with the spooky eyes moving around the chamber. They looked at her with their heads turned awkwardly to the side, almost far enough to break their own necks, she thought, unless they can turn their heads all the way like owls.
She continued her dazed walk, noting whenever a creature would move in her peripheral vision, but none of them advanced on her position. They just seemed restless to her. When she reached the tunnel where she’d deposited Rook in the pit, she moved past it. She realized that she had no way to get him out of the pit.
If he was still alive.
She wanted to hurry, but the lingering creatures might notice. She needed to find a rope or something she could use to help Rook. Something I can conceal in this coat.
She moved to the office where she recalled cutting the plastic bands on Rook’s wrists that attached him to the chair. She also recalled the gun the man had. It wasn’t a rope, but if it was still in the room, she would take it. She checked her pockets and found that the gun she had held on Rook and the knife she had used to cut him free were missing. She didn’t remember anyone taking those things from her, but neither could she recall giving them up.
The office was empty. No knife, no guns and even the laptop the man had used was gone. She waited in the office for a minute so it looked like she had a reason for being there if the white watchers, as she thought of them, were intelligent and paying attention to her movements.
Then she left the room and started around the circumference of the great room again. A few of the watchers were still in the massive space, but some of them were gone. She tried to look covertly around the room as she shuffled along the wall, looking for another place to explore. The next door was labeled with a mop and bucket symbol on the door and the legend: Freiheitsstrafe Schrank. She realized i
t was German for a Janitor closet. She didn’t think she would find a rope in there, but it might do for her to check on the way back.
The next door was more promising. It had a legend of a lightning bolt on it and the word: Sicherheitsraum. It was one of the few German words she knew. The first part meant “security” and the — raum portion meant “room.” She calmly walked in and closed the door behind her before reaching for a light switch.
She flicked on the light and stifled a scream.
For the second time in one day, she had illuminated the space around her to find it full of bodies.
FIFTY-FOUR
Endgame Headquarters, White Mountains, NH
The mood in the subterranean base was grim as everyone packed up for a war. Deep Blue and King had returned to the base in the Black Hawk and found the White Team members just finishing packing up. The Persephone was loaded up with weaponry, more of the armored suits and computer arrays. By the time the Black Hawk touched down outside the Central section’s enormous hangar door, Deep Blue was pleased to note that Lewis Aleman was installed in a computer station inside the VTOL plane’s midsection. He would be monitoring the situation from inside the plane as it sat on the pavement, instead of inside the base.
Callsign: Black Seven, and his brother, Black Eight, the team’s mechanics, refueled the vehicle outside the hangar, readying it for the trip to Norway. Neither man spoke to him as he walked past them, which Deep Blue appreciated. They were focused on their job, even if it wasn’t the most glorious of positions.
The five members of the White security team, with callsigns White One through White Five, were stationed around the crescent-shaped transport ship, each man in snow-battle armor and armed with white-coated Mk 17 FN SCAR assault rifles. They each looked vigilant and angry.
