by Pam Uphoff
***
Memphis was over-run while they were at lunch.
Ben and Jeff's uniforms consisted of blue jeans and a tee-shirt with "Pittsburg Militia" printed front and back on it. They were still doing police work, or something resembling it. Going door to door with evacuation notices, for the most part, and trying to find out where lost family members had gone, hustling drunks and the homeless onto buses to go to the nearest corridor and on through a Gate. The Dimension Cops were getting nervy about one of the jumps engulfing a Gate and had backed them all up to the West Coast on one side, and Florida on the other. Now Corridors went all the way and one drove directly through to wait in line for the Gate.
At least all the North American Gates were going to the same World. One could hope families would be able to get together again.
They were in line in the mess hall, Jeff waving at Melody in her Tee-shirt and Gwen in her under armor suit when the lights fritzed and walls started forming up around them and through the high school gymnasium they were in.
They jumped toward the tables, stumbling as something like molasses pulled at their heels and a glance back showed the wall, getting more solid by the moment. A brief scream was cut off and the front half of Barry Sanger slumped, hanging from the wall. Debris rained down from the ceiling and there was a rush toward the light, where a window coincided with a door. Ben checked his first panicked rush that direction. A stampede would do no one any good right now. Jeff helped Melody off the ground, and Ben opened a functional door in the otherworld's wall. It opened into a long hallway with light at both ends.
"Left!" Gwen snapped and as soon as he was clear, passed him at the run. He sprinted behind her, losing ground. He glanced back to see Jeff and Melody leading a pack of people after them, more people heading the other direction. Gwen led them out the door and turned toward the hastily built ammo bunker.
As enemy troops charged around the corner, Ben raised his rifle and started shooting. 'Slow them down' and 'get them away from us' was at the forefront of his mind as an armored, tracked vehicle followed the troops. Gwen was past the foot troops but the tracked vehicle turned and accelerated to cut her off. Ben stopped and took better aim, trying to hit the slits where the driver or commander probably sat, while it turned away from him and something hit him from the side, a horrible clingy thing that crawled inside his bones and muscles and yelled at him. His head felt like it had been spiked. He felt the smack of hitting the ground and twisted over, flopped in a horribly unco-ordinated fashion, to see a man taking aim at Melody. He kicked out and the man tripped into her, cursing, a note of horror in his voice.
"Shit on the devil! Not a woman, not a goddamned woman! What are you doing! Get away from me!" the voice warbled from high to gravelly bass and they melted together, thrashing on the ground.
What language was that? How did I understand that?
Ben tried to look for his gun, but couldn't move. He could feel his limbs jerking spasmotically as the pain hit and he could do nothing at all. In his field of view he watched as the enemy soldiers cleared the battle field by the simple expedient of melding with the out numbered defenders. Perhaps half the attackers wound up lying about on the ground, helpless as their nervous systems either did, or did not adjust to the new reality. All the defenders were down, as far as he could see.
After some uncertain amount of time, the enemy troops still on their feet circulated, searching through the merged soldiers laying about. Ben was dragged out of the dim daylight into the shade of a building, side by side with other twitchers. Other bodies were left lying, and eventually taken away.
Dead. Ben decided. He could hear his heartbeat. Speeding and slowing, perhaps irregular and he became obsessed with listening to it, wanting to live. He flexed his fingers, toes and slowly worked his way back into control of his body. His head settled down to somewhere between foggy and aching. He turned it carefully, then pushed himself up to a sitting position. The man next to him had some fancy doodads on his uniform, which was all patch worked with what looked like the under armor suit of a Guardian. The man, person rather, met his eyes uncertainly. Something about the cheekbones, the color of the eyes, the breasts . . .
"Gwen?" He kept it to a whisper. "If you can take control over the guy you've merged with, keep it quiet. We need to pick our chance to do something worthwhile."
She gave a jerky twitch that might have been a nod.
He couldn't stand, but crawled instead, looking for traces of familiar faces in the slowly recovering bodies.
Jeff, the man he thought was part Jeff was unconscious. The man/woman that was part Melody was still looking horrified, but it was Melody's eyes that were full of terror.
"Stick to me, Jeff or Gwen if you can. Pretend the other one won. We'll get out of here." Ben hoped he could keep that promise and tried to get to his feet.
"Are you all right, Sir?" An enemy in Epta's checks. Haemon.
"Epta Haemon? I've been better." Like, before I automatically answered in this other language.
"Yeah, I did a battlefield merge last time. Sucks bricks. But you're already on top. You'll be fine." He glanced aside uncertainly.
"Go. I'm not in any shape to be giving orders yet."
"Thanks, Pent." He trotted off looking relieved, and Ben searched his ragged and pieced clothing.
A medallion on a chain around his neck proclaimed him to be Adrastos, with the rank of Pent, and to have the first blood type.
His wallet disintegrated as he tried to open it, the contents useless soft lumps that fell apart in his hands.
The Gwen merge was sitting up and also searching for identity papers. Found the dog tags. "Just call me Kambyses."
"Master Sergeant, by the checks. Epta, rather." Ben told her, trying to deliberately speak the other language. "Do you remember what your alter ego did?"
"He was the driver of the track. You?" She looked around. There was a tracked vehicle abandoned, halfway to the armory. All hatches open.
"Pent—captain of a ground company." He frowned. "I think we're expected to be out of play for about a week." He took a slow scan around, staggering as he lost his balance. "What happens to the people who don't merge?"
"Everyone merges, sir."
Ben turned to find a medic walking down the line.
"If there aren't any people available, they'll start merging with animals and plants, anything with about the right atoms. We all have some loose atoms like that, where the match wasn't perfect."
"Oh. Yeah." Ben rubbed his temples. I remember, but those aren't my memories.
"The guy you merged with must have been really close to your size and relative proportions. You're doing remarkably well. And without the brain damage, there'll be less amnesia or blank spots."
Gwen took a look down her shirt. "What about this! Can't you do something?"
"Err, no sir. That's one of the reasons we prefer a controlled merge following a brain pierce. No trans-genders and fewer fatalities." He looked away in embarrassment. "See your CO about harassment. It'll get better. Your body will keep adjusting for about a week, as it sheds."
"A week. Sheds. Right." Gwen rubbed her legs. "Why am I numb?"
"The native you merged with wasn't as muscular as you are, and thus didn't have nerves out there. That will get better but not go away completely. Once the merge is complete, and we spread out, settle down, there will be surgical options." He was working down the line quickly, and stepped out to quickly shine a light in each of Ben's eyes. "Excellent. You can always tell from the eyes when something gets scrambled in the brains." He turned away and checked Gwen, nodding in satisfaction, and kept moving.
Ben staggered over and sat down. Lowered his voice. "Xen and Q had spells they said would help our personalities win out over the enemies'. If that is what is happening, we need to be very careful who we approach. Jeff and Melody were both around them. Anyone else you recognize, speak to carefully. We need to get weapons, maybe that track if you can drive it. I'v
e got some leftover memories from Adrastos, but I don't feel his personality at all. No conflicting loyalties. I think I'm glad the language stuck."
Gwen cocked her head, nodded slowly. "Yeah. I have no desire to help these parasites at all. Thank God."
"And mind how you curse. Demons, devils. Spit on the devil I feel like shit." He stood up and turned to face the men approaching. He felt heavy, slow and unbalanced.
"Excellent. An officer on his feet." The Tesser nodded.
Ben saluted clumsily. Fist to chest. "Tesser Aias. How is the jump going? We seem to be encountering very few civilians."
The Tesser grinned. "Ha. Trust you to get back on your feet fast, Adrastos. Glad to see the brain is working as well. They are evacuating. That's good, inasmuch as we are mostly merging with soldiers—healthy young men. Bad, in that we aren't getting enough of them fast enough to prevent bad merges among our civilians. Going to be a real shortage of women if this keeps up, but I suspect we'll find them all in another jump or two. We've got to be near the critical portion." He cast a jaundiced eye over the twitching bodies. "I hate battlefield mergers. But they are a fact of life, and since you're in such good shape, I'll leave you in charge of getting this group back into fighting order. Try for a week."
"Sir." They exchanged salutes and the Tesser walked on and around the corner of the building.
"Damn." Ben looked around cautiously. Ran a rough head count. Well, here was his company. His dokastrato. Two hundred miscellaneous soldiers. Friends or enemies? How to tell without giving himself away?
"Well, we have seven days to figure something out."
Chapter Eight
2 July, 2051
Chicago, Illinois
Twice as long as it was wide . . . The size of the next leap of the shadow zone took them by surprise, and took in the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to northern Florida. From the coast inland, crossing the Mississippi at Memphis and hitting the southeastern suburbs of Chicago.
The panic was complete.
Fortunately the gates and corridors inside the expanded zone had collapsed without any dimensional disasters. Q threw up five gates outside of Chicago as the cannibal soldiers charged into the city.
Charged the last gate as she was just finishing. She ran forward, zapping machinery as she got in range. Civilians streamed past her begging for help. A huge wash of power. Nothing like a million panicked people to summon the Dark Lady!
Q knew Rustle had been helping with the West Coast gates . . . but she was pretty sure the Lady hadn't brought Phantom!
But there he is.
Q sliced the last tank headed her way and turned to check on Rustle . . . "God of War! Help!"
She pointed and as the rearing horse appeared it leaped . . . teleported and landed beyond the Lady and tore into the troops threatening her and the refugees she was hustling through a gate.
Q reached mentally and stepped though to the chaos at the next gate to the north. Bubbled a car wreck and got people moving. Staggered and shook her head . . . people were falling.
Gas.
Reached, couldn't travel . . . Pulled out a pocket flask and swallowed the contents as she ran for the gate . . .
Chapter Nine
2 July, 2051
Memphis, Tennessee
By nightfall, most of 'Pent Adrastos's' soldiers were conscious and semi-mobile.
Ben organized them carefully. The ones that didn't understand what was going on became Epta Kambyses' responsibility. The ones who knew what was going on, the ones who understood merging, he considered enemies and placed under another epta. Some were ambiguous, and received the attentions of the epta he was unsure of.
A few soldiers were still unconscious. "Incompatible brains, or dead ones." The medic claimed. "If they aren't semiconscious by morning, we'll take them off to the hospital."
Ben met Melody's eyes over Jeff's limp body. Not good.
Gwen retained enough of her merge's memories to drive the track. She brought it up by the building they were occupying, and gave Ben and Melody a brief rundown on how everything worked. The Friendlies would keep the vehicle, if Ben had the ability to keep it under his command.
There was a mess working, somewhere, and food circulated to the immobile groups like his. The food was bland and easily digested. "Don't want to challenge those mixed up tummies, eh?" the Okto in charge of the mess chatted while his people dished up something like cream of wheat and handed out bottles of water.
Ben wrinkled his nose, but downed his. Two minutes later he was trying to convince his stomach to keep it. The butterflies settled slowly, and he retreated to his 'officer's quarters', a corner beyond the still unconscious and next to the four trans-gender soldiers who were apprehensive of sleeping around two hundred horny soldiers. This kept Gwen and Melody close to him, but also two men he considered 'enemy'.
He lay down shakily and slept solidly.
In the morning Jeff was blinking and looking around puzzled. "I shot him right in the head, and he fell on me and stuck. I don't remember anything after that."
"Christ! Shot yourself in the head, more like. We're all merged."
He frowned. "You are? You look very Ben Goldman."
Melody and Gwen eyed each other.
"I had to shave this morning. And, and . . . other things aren't . . . right." Melody shuddered.
Gwen nodded. "Our personalities may be on top, but the bodies are definitely a mixture."
"In any case, I'm glad to see you awake, Jeff. I'm splitting people up into three groups. Those I think are friendlies, those I think are enemy and those I'm not sure about. Epta 'Gwen' Kambyses is in charge of the friendlies. Report to 'him' when you can."
Three other men appeared to be recovering, the other six were removed. Breakfast was the same as dinner and Ben looked into arming his troops.
One of the other Eptas told him about one of the problems. "The metals merge too, Pent. We concentrated on keeping the vehicles in working order, the smaller guns, the precision parts . . . we didn't have time to do it right. At best the temper is probably damaged, at worse there are impurities in the metal. Expect a lot of breach explosions. On the other hand, the ammo has also merged, and must be considered contaminated. Expect a lot of misfires, and suboptimal performance. Variable burn speed of the gunpowder, think sand in the powder. Ditto explosives."
"We are so screwed."
"Yeah. Devil's getting butt action tonight."
"Thank you Epta. Can you set up a test firing rig, so we can find the weakest chambers?"
The man looked relieved. Enemy or not, he was competent. "Yes, Sir."
Ben straightened. And the light fritzed again. He strode out, looking for information.
The light was downright bizarre. Gwen was looking up at the Sun. "We're deeper in. I think we need to move today."
"Yes. We've got a full load out of ammo for the track, and enough trucks for the Company." Ben plodded over to his three lieutenants. "We've still got two days of downtime, but we've also been ordered forward as soon as possible. Issue weapons and ammo, as soon as Epta Euphemos has tested the weapons. We'll roll today, and see if we're in shape to fight tomorrow."
Euphomos had a crude rig, mostly sandbags and splintered boards, and ran rifles through quickly. One in five shattered after three shots. All fired five rounds and were inspected before issue. Ben made sure his friendlies got the first issue. Unfortunately there were nearly enough weapons to arm all of them.
They pulled out in the mid afternoon, Euphomos in the lead to get them past any internal check points and locate Tesser Aias. They reported in at sundown, and Aias ordered them further forward.
"There's almost no resistance. There's no people to merge with. The number of women we are capturing and sending for processing is frighteningly small. The already merged are going to have to lead, and Anubu help us if we don't find people soon."
Ben nodded, saluted and went over the maps with his lieutenants and more importantly, the drivers.
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They moved the ordered five hundred miles, and scouted out fuel and abandoned food. Ben ordered Euphemos to set up a secure facility. "Not just for us. I suspect the troops behind us will appreciate having something organized. I'm going to take about a third of the men a bit further forward, and scout north and south. We're getting close to Dallas, there's got to be an increase in population."
He took eighty-three men. All that he was sure of. They drove west, into the ruins of a major city, no longer recognizable. The last Americans, police and Army from what Ben could see, were under attack as they tried to make it through a Corridor. Jeff was now an expert on the track's main cannon, and Melody had shown a bloodthirsty streak and claimed the machinegun as her territory. The cannon took out five other tracks and was zeroing in on an artillery array before the enemy could get themselves turned around to meet the attack from behind. Melody had no hesitation at all at the machine gun, and the rest of his abbreviated company whittled down the opposition with rifle fire.
The Americans bolted for the Corridor under their covering fire and Ben switched his attention from enemy to Corridor. As the last refugees passed through, he gave the orders to retreat. He spotted a cannibal unit making a dash for the Corridor, but it rippled and disappeared before they reached it. Ben's trucks pulled out behind him, and Gwen brought up the rear with the track, cannon and machinegun aimed back at the enemy and firing for as long as they were in sight.
They stopped firing and picked up speed as they put the first heap of fallen skyscraper between them and the battle site.
Jeff's hatch unlatched and opened. "So, now what the hell do we do?"
