by Gini Koch
“Javelinas. Ha-va-LEE-nas. It’s not that hard a word. And there’s a problem with the javelinas.”
“Beyond that they’re stampeding toward us and we’re not getting out of the way?” Tim asked.
“We can outrun them,” Christopher said. “Trust me. Tito gave me enough adrenaline that I can run us all to D.C. if I need to.”
“You’re back to rocking, Christopher. And yeah, Tim, the stampede is the issue—not that there is one, but that there are enough javelinas to create stampede conditions. There are an awful lot of them. I don’t think anyone’s running a javelina ranch nearby. So where the heck did they all come from?”
“I want to know why they’re heading for us,” Buchanan said. “Something has to be driving them or drawing them, and since there’s no food for them here, driving is the option that wins.”
“They’re still a ways away,” White said. “The binoculars make them seem much closer than they actually are.”
“No kidding,” Tim muttered.
White went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “So I doubt we need to panic. As Christopher said, we can run away.”
“I’d like to run away,” Tim said. “Those things aren’t tiny.”
“Oh, as Rhee said, they’re about the size of a Labrador.”
“There are a ton of them and I don’t want to have a Lion King death,” Tim said.
“A what?” Christopher asked.
“Oh, Megalomaniac Lad, you complete me. It’s a movie, Christopher. One of the many animated masterpieces from Disney. And Tim, relax. I just want to figure out what’s causing the stampede and then we’ll run away from the desert not-really-piggies, okay?”
“There,” Buchanan said. “Just coming off that road.”
Dust was blowing up, but not from the javelinas. They were creating dust, but this dust was behind them. It wasn’t like the dust Sandy had created. It was sort of shimmering and looked vehicular in nature.
Sure enough, a dune buggy with two people in it bounced over something and so above the dust. The driver and passenger both didn’t look familiar, but it was clear from how they were driving that they were herding the javelinas.
“Think it’s just some kids joyriding?” Reader asked.
“Maybe,” Chuckie replied. “They don’t look armed.”
“The way this day’s been going, no,” Buchanan said. “Assume they’re armed in ways we can’t see.”
“Well, what are they armed with? Javelinas?”
“I’m going to refer to the poignant and terrifying Death of Mufasa scene from The Lion King,” Tim said, “and say ‘yes,’ the big pigs that aren’t really pigs but look enough like warthogs to pass are large enough to trample us. Let’s get a couple of tanks and herd them elsewhere.”
“I see you were traumatized as a child. Poor Megalomaniac Lad. We’ll work on that.”
“That seems like a reasonable plan, however, trauma or not,” White said. “But we don’t want the animals harmed if possible, and tanks would certainly be harmful. I wonder, Missus Martini, if you could, ah, use your talent to calm them down or send them in another direction?”
“Worth a shot, Mister White.” Concentrated. I’d never tried to mind-meld with an animal I didn’t know. Got nothing. Concentrated harder. Got more nothing. Decided to call in backup.
“Harlie, Poofikins, come to Kitty.” The Poofs arrived on my shoulders. “Good Poofies! Can you help Kitty tell the javelinas to calm down or run back home?”
Poof reactions were not what I was expecting. Both Poofs jumped down and turned large and in charge. When the Poofs were in Protect and Attack Mode they were as big as Jeff, with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Still fluffy, though.
Harlie roared, and every Poof attached to every person here arrived, all large and toothy. Whether they’d been in everyone’s pockets or not was a Poof Mystery I didn’t have time to try to solve right now. They clustered up near the princesses, who were in front of the rest of us again in their standard Protect and Defend postures, presumably for the same reason—to form a protective barrier.
“What’s going on?” Jeff asked. “Beyond the obvious.”
“I have no idea.” Concentrated on the Poofs. “Uh oh.”
“Uh oh? That doesn’t sound good, baby.”
“It’s not. Um, Mister White, is the Doctor Doolittle talent unheard of on Alpha Four or just really rare?”
“I’d assume there were always a few with the right affinity to communicate with at least the Royal Animals. However, it’s not an officially known talent, like being an imageer.”
Looked at Mahin. “But then again, neither is earthbending, and we have one right here. And an airbender in captivity.”
“I’d like to go back to the ‘uh oh,’” Reader said. “What’s going on, Kitty?”
“I think one of the people in that dune buggy can talk to the animals. Someone’s trying to tell the Poofs to attack us.”
“Can we run now?” Tim asked. “I mean that seriously. I’m ready to run without an A-C to help me.”
“Are the Poofs, ah, agreeing with whoever’s telling them to attack us?” Gower asked.
“No, thankfully. Whoever’s doing it is seriously pissing them off, though. But I can’t talk to the javelinas. Or rather, I have no idea if I can or not, because Animal Man over there is occupying my animal interpreters’ full attention. I’m kind of with Tim—we might want to get out of here.”
As I said this, felt something weird and looked down. The salt and earth that made up Groom Lake was covering my feet up to the ankles. Tried to pull my foot out. The other sucked down a little.
“Nobody move their feet, and that’s an order! Rahmi and Rhee, that order includes the two of you!”
“I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?” Jeff asked.
“Not as much as Tim’s going to. I think the other person in the dune buggy can move earth like Mahin can, or something. Because we’re now in quicksand. And since Home Base uses this for a runway, there’s no way in the world we just stumbled onto the quicksand patch.”
“Could Sandy have done this?” Buchanan asked.
“No. Sandy warned us this was coming.” Pulled out my phone to call Home Base for help but it rang before I could dial. “Serene, we need help.”
“You have no idea. Kitty, you need to drop whatever you’re doing and get back to the Science Center.”
“Um, not sure we can. Tell me, fast, what’s going on.”
“This is on every news channel—the people being accused of setting all the bombs earlier today are . . . us, Centaurion Division.”
CHAPTER 39
COULD ONLY THINK OF one thing to say. “Well, that’s another fine mess we’ve gotten into.”
“Kitty, they’re calling for you, Jeff, Paul, and James. Everyone wants a statement.”
“Serene, my current statement is ‘help, help, we’re all trapped in quicksand about to be trampled by a stampede of javelinas.’ I don’t think that’s the statement we want going out to the world, but I’d really like you, personally, to concentrate on it.”
“What are javelinas?”
“Peccaries. Wild not-really-pig-things. About the size of a Labrador. We have a lot of them heading toward us with intent to run right over us. And we’re stuck. In quicksand. Don’t ask how. Ask how you’re going to get us out of this.”
“There are a hundred if there are ten,” Tim said. “Frankly, there are probably two hundred at least. I’m officially panicked. Just so you know.”
“And we’re living Tim’s Greatest Fear because he saw The Lion King at an impressionable age, so, um, any help, Serene? Any at all?”
“Can’t Mahin get you out?”
Looked over. Mahin was clearly concentrating. Nothing was happening. “If she can, not in time.”
“I put Home Base on alert,” Christopher said, looking around. “No one’s coming.”
“Because this doesn’t look like anything dangerous to us, yet,” Reader
said. “However, we have another issue, because I’m calling Home Base and no one’s answering.”
“Oh, fantastic. Serene, either their telecommunications is down, someone’s jamming them, or Home Base is once again under enemy control.”
“I’ll find out and call you back.”
“Wait—” But she’d already hung up. Slid my phone back into the back pocket of my jeans. “I think Serene’s doing something. Not sure what.”
“Can the Poofs move?” Tito asked.
Took a look. “Doesn’t look like it. But that may mean nothing. Harlie, can you all just get Kitty and everyone else out of here?”
A roar that ended in a mewl said that, no, they couldn’t. The Poofs were as stuck as we were. Considering nothing had stopped the Poofs before, this was the definition of “not good.”
“I can probably pull you out, baby,” Jeff said.
“Maybe, but that just means you’ll go down in the quicksand faster. We need a better plan. Or, better yet, planes. Tim! Call and scramble your team.”
“Already on it, but it’s going to take them a few minutes. They’re at Dulce, where we have no jets, and James locked down the Dome and all the gates before we came out here, just in case. So Serene’s having to reverse those orders and there’s protocol involved that takes more than a second, A-Cs or not.”
The men all got onto their phones, since we had no other options. No one’s calls sounded like they were achieving anything other than stress.
The princesses had their battle staffs activated. “Rahmi, Rhee, see if you can use the staffs to cut yourselves out of the quicksand.”
They tried, but pulled the staffs out of the sand quickly. “I could barely hold onto my staff,” Rhee said, sounding shocked.
“I as well. And our staffs seemed to have no negative effect on the quicksand, either,” Rahmi added.
Tried to see if any of us were near an edge. The quicksand looked slightly wetter and browner than the rest of the ground nearby. White was nearest to an edge, but the only chance he’d have to get out would be to fall over and try to grab the sand and salt and use that to pull himself out, meaning he’d get to suffocate nice and fast. Since we had no convenient trees with branches or vines hanging down just within our reach, pulling ourselves out was a non-option.
The princesses’ battle staffs were just too short to reach an edge. There was no way any of this was a random happenstance.
Had to hand it to whoever had set this up—they’d rolled with the punches exceptionally well, or else this was always part of the plan. And it might have been, since Stephanie had felt confident she was still important.
How they’d created quicksand right where we were and when they wanted it, quicksand that Beta Twelve battle staffs couldn’t hurt and could also hold the Poofs captive, was beyond me. However, LaRue had come back from the far reaches of space with Poof traps, most likely courtesy of the Z’porrah. So far, those traps were the only things the Poofs were helpless against, but one thing that could hurt the Poofs was one thing too many.
It was a good bet that whatever was creating the quicksand had the same element or whatever it was added into the mix. And it was an equally good bet that someone at Gaultier Enterprises, Titan Security, or even possibly YatesCorp were involved in the creation of whatever this actually was that we were all trapped in.
But what and who had created whatever was holding us wasn’t important now. Getting out of this unscathed or with minimal scathing was.
“Mahin, any luck?”
“No, but I think . . . I think his talent is helped by the vibrations. If we can get the animals to stop running, I can probably free us.”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it?”
The Poofs were clearly really stuck, because they weren’t moving, but were instead roaring. That was probably increasing the vibrations but I wanted the Poofs to stay large because if they went small they’d go under the quicksand in a matter of moments. Plus I also wanted them able to eat the javelinas if necessary.
Especially since I could see the javelinas clearly without binoculars. They were still far away, but the dune buggy was making sure to herd them toward us, and they wouldn’t be far away for too much longer. Time to call in reinforcements.
Concentrated. I had no idea where they were, but hoped that our bond worked over long distances.
Jeff grabbed my hand. “Hang on, baby. I don’t care if I sink, I’m getting you out of here.”
Opened my mouth to tell him no, but instead of words, a cacophony of screeching came out. Fortunately, this stopped Jeff. Also fortunately, it wasn’t me making the noise.
The Peregrines had arrived.
CHAPTER 40
WE HAD TWELVE MATED PAIRS, and all twenty-four birds showed up, making an avian line between us and the javelinas, in front of the Poofs and princesses, Bird Shrieks on Maximum, claws forward in full-on Attack Mode, wings spread impressively.
The javelinas may have been mind controlled but they were still animals, and while they ate smaller animals as well as plants, they were prey for larger predators. And the Peregrines were doing their best to sound predatory, and twenty-four of them in one, big, screaming line looked pretty damn large. That combined with the Poofs and princesses with activated, glowing battle staffs behind them seemed to affect the javelinas more than their mind control.
The sounds of panicked squeals and gnashing tusks was combined with a lot of chaos, as the stampeding herd either went around us or tried to turn around.
“My God,” Tim said. “What’s that smell?”
“They’re also called the skunk pig. I’m just happy the smell isn’t commingling with our blood right now.” Gently pulled my hand out of Jeff’s—I didn’t want him doing something manly and protective right now, because it would likely get him and the rest of us smothered.
“I am happy about that,” Reader said as Tim gagged. “But the smell may kill us anyway.”
“We’re still trapped, with a lot of panicked animals around us,” Chuckie accurately pointed out. “Any ideas? We don’t have enough ammunition to kill them all, and I can guarantee the dune buggy’s going to stay out of the range of our guns.”
True enough, the dune buggy had stopped far enough away that I was pretty sure no handgun was going to hit it.
“Bruno, my bird, someone needs to stealth it over to that dune buggy and attack with intent to seriously maim!”
Two Peregrines disappeared—Bruno and his right-wing bird, Harold. Human screams added to the mix.
“Nice,” Tito said, as he tossed his medical bag to the side, so that it wasn’t in, or at risk of being in, the quicksand. “I’m going on record as a bad doctor because I don’t plan to patch them up.”
“That actually doesn’t sound like you,” Chuckie said.
“I’m the shortest. I suffocate in the quicksand first. Well, me and Kitty. I say they can bleed to death.”
“I’m with Tito. Mahin, any luck?”
She was concentrating, and making lifting motions with her hands. All of a sudden, her Poof shot up out of the quicksand and sailed over the javelinas.
This was great in that one Poof was free and it headed toward the dune buggy roaring like it was auditioning for Tim’s Lion King revival. Javelinas scattered in all directions, some toward us, most away. A couple got past Peregrines, Poofs, and princesses to get themselves stuck in the quicksand. Couldn’t pass judgment—we were stuck in the quicksand and we were supposedly a lot smarter.
Lifting the Poof free of the quicksand was bad, however, in that all of us sank down a little more. I was in the quicksand up to my calves.
“At this rate, Tito and Kitty will be underground, and Crawford and Reader might be too, White also, before enough of us are freed,” Chuckie said quickly. “Mahin, you can’t do that maneuver again.”
“She could free a few more before we’re in danger,” Reader suggested.
“One, if you’re up to it, Mahin,” Chuckie said.
<
br /> “Why a Poof?” Christopher asked.
“They’re lighter.” Mahin concentrated and Harlie flew free. And the rest of us sank down a lot farther—Tito and I were in the quicksand at mid-thigh.
Harlie started chasing off javelinas, while the Peregrines continued to ensure most of the panicked animals went away from us and the princesses sent those who made it past the Peregrines flying with well aimed hits.
“That’s it, Mahin, no more, and that’s an order,” Chuckie said, Voice of C.I.A. Authority on Full. “We moved down farther the second time than the first. And before anyone wants to complain or suggest we try again, I can guarantee that I’ve done the math and it’s only going to get worse.”
“Only idiots argue with the smartest guy in the quicksand, Chuckie. But, why isn’t this quicksand stuff stopping? Animal Man appears to have lost control of the javelinas, so how is his companion keeping the concentration going under these circumstances?”
“Who says the driver is actually the one controlling the ground?” Jeff asked.
We all looked around as much as we could, which wasn’t all that much, because movement meant sinkage. We were all facing the oncoming herd, so northwest. Looking northeast to west was fairly simple. Looking south and southeast wasn’t, because the act of trying to turn and look over our shoulders sent us all a little bit lower.
Called the Peregrines over in my mind. They disengaged and flew to us. There were enough of them that, if they were strong enough, we could each grab a Peregrine’s feet and have them pull us out. Was about to ask them to try this when the quicksand under each bird shot up, wrapped around their feet, and pulled them down with us. The Peregrines screamed and struggled, but they were caught, too, just like the rest of us.
The Peregrine’s screams brought Bruno, Harold, and Fluffball back from their attack to try to help the other animals. This was a mistake, and before I could warn them to get away, more quicksand shot up and they were captured, too.
This left Harlie, only, out. I sent the Poof a mental message to stay back from the quicksand, which it did. So one small thing going right.
