Piercing the Veil

by Guy Riessen

  He lifted the corpse and leaned it against the wall. “Holy shit!” Howard said as he looked at the partial sheet, still damp with blood. “It’s leather, not vellum. I can’t tell for sure until we’re back at MU, but I think this is the missing half-sheet torn from the Tome of Sobek.”

  “Sweep!” Came a shout from out in the corridor.

  “Clear! Four AT friendlies in room. Two dead hostiles,” Sarah shouted back.

  Derrick rolled his head to the side. He saw three dark figures. Their matte-black fatigues were littered with pouches and grenades hung from loops on the front of their shoulder straps. A pair of air filters extending out from the sides of their faces indicated full gas masks and the upper part of their faces were covered by light-intensifying goggles. On top of their military-style helmets was an active infrared light, and something that made Derrick smile. He backhanded Howard’s shoulder, then instantly regretted it when his finger jolted in pain.

  “What?” Howard asked, turning back toward his friend.

  “Check out the helmet cams, man. See? Told ya I was cool.”

  “You’re not cool, Derrick,” Howard said.

  Then he added, “you’re one badass sonofabitch. Kicking butt and taking names, dude. I mean I saw you literally kick that Frenchman straight through that goddamn gate, even with a goddamn metal-plated femur.”

  “Thasss right, I showed that Boogeyman what-for like a real sonofabitch, man,” Derrick said, nodding in slow motion and holding his bandaged hand in an awkward open-handed thumbs-up. His eyelids drooped. Maybe he’d just shut his eyes for a few ...

  “Hey, guys,” Derrick heard Sarah say, “Get some lights down here, I want any, and all, evidence tagged and bagged. We’re near the Primary Veil tear here in this room. So, let’s get a radiation kit down here and seal it up ASAP. Tell your men up top we need samples of everything in and around the pit, as well as tissue and blood from the dead humans up there.”

  “Yes, sir!” came the muffled mechanical voice through the speakers next to the filters.

  “Also, we have an active witness wandering the woods. He’s armed but if there is any way you can bring him in without killing him, DCV will appreciate it. He helped us neutralize the Primary in the pit. You never know, we might have a new Sweep or Specialist stumbling around out there.

  Derrick said, eyes still closed, “I’m sure he’s giddy with excitement just waiting for his indoctrination.”

  Derrick didn’t hear the Sweep speak for a few seconds ... Probably communicating via their closed band network.

  Hmmm, Derrick thought, there should be a way to skim the encrypted network the Sweeps use and feed it to our earpieces. Might be best to not allow full comm linkage ... compromising the encryption ... still, it would be nice to ... tap twice or something ... hmmm.

  His thoughts became increasingly dreamy, and the voices of his friends drifted off down a long tunnel. It was warm, and Derrick began to lay out potential circuitry and a build-list for RadioShack.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  DERRICK WASN’T SURE if he ever lost consciousness, but all his thoughts retreated inward to circuits and wires while the rest of his body dealt with the shock. As his situational awareness returned, he looked at his watch, but it was still on the sensor screen. He moved his hand to change the display, then saw the bandage and thought better of trying to use that hand for anything.

  Most of the activity in the now well-lit altar room had dissipated except for a team monitoring a rad-kit that was sealing the potential Veil weakness where the gate popped.

  Howard helped him up carefully, then lifting his arm around his shoulders, moved Derrick along the corridor back to the room with the shaft from the stairs above. Derrick limped through the door, hanging on Howard’s shoulder. His leg hurt worse now than at any point since the actual break and he hoped that didn’t mean anything bad.

  “Hey, Mary, you think they’re going to have to rebreak my leg,” Derrick said, as he saw her move around the room collecting more samples from the walls.

  “Nah, doubt it. They’d only rebreak it if it was setting wrong or something. Y’all got a plate in there already, so you’re fine.”

  Derrick nodded, then asked, “Hey, can you grab a couple painkillers for me? My limbs are all rebelling these days.” He tilted his head toward his bandaged shoulder and held up his damaged hand.

  Mary pulled her med kit free and opened it. She said, “No kidding, Derrick, you’re as banged up as the peach at the bottom of the pig cart.” She shook out two tablets and helped Derrick with some water.

  After swallowing the pills, he chuckled and said, “I’m not sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but it was definitely an apropos analogy. I feel like a banged-up peach, for sure.”

  Howard moved Derrick over to the opening beneath the shaft. A climbing harness hung from a rope. Derrick looked up, following the line to the top where it ran through a simple block and tackle set-up.

  “Sarah had the Sweeps fashion this for you.” Howard nodded toward the ropes.

  “This is embarrassing,” Derrick said as Howard helped him step into the harness and fasten the waist belt.

  “Beats being hauled out in a body bag though, right?” Howard said.

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “There’s no way you can make it up the ladder on your own, ya banged-up peach,” Howard said, checking the figure-8 knot he tied in the harness. He started to slap Derrick on the shoulder, pulling up short just before he did.

  “Alright see you up top, H.” Derrick tugged the rope and called up, “Take!”

  The line pulled taut and he was lifted off the ground. When he got to the top, the gloved hands of a Sweep reached in and pulled him through the opening. The Sweep had his face mask off and his helmet tipped back on his head, it’s chinstrap hanging loosely. He nodded at Derrick’s bandaged shoulder and finger and said, “Nice job, sir. Heard you really kicked some ass down there today. Quite a mess you left for us to clean up outside, that’s for damn sure. How the hell you do that anyway?”

  OK, maybe it wasn’t so embarrassing after all. Derrick was warming right up to this guy. He said, “Oh you know how it is, man. Rock star improvisation is all it takes, really—filled the pit with propane from that commercial tank, then stirred it up with an endothermic grenade. Topped the whole thing off with a thermite popper.”

  “Homemade air-fuel bomb. Nice! That’ll take care of just about any breacher trying to come through to our side of the Veil, eh? Yes, indeed.”

  “Are the Sweeps working on the cover story for this mess—seems like a lot of civvies to account for?” Derrick asked.

  “Sure enough. The Media-Jocks in San Francisco got started once the video feeds from our helmet cams started streaming back to HQ.”

  “I was just about to compliment you guys on your nice helmet cam setups. Working on a rig myself for debrief and analysis. I’ve designed a custom four-k camera feed to a two-terabyte drive in a pack running off a repurposed cell phone battery. Six hours of recording time before I’d need to swap drives and battery.”

  “Nice, is yours compressed? Our quality is kinda shitty since it needs to stream back through satellite transmitters in our choppers,” the Sweep said.

  Howard pulled himself up and out of the entrance to the shaft and looked at the two of them.

  “Mine’s all on local storage, so I can get away with ProRes UHD,” Derrick said.

  “Nice.”

  Derrick nodded, extended his hand to Howard, who pulled him upright.

  Howard turned toward the Sweep and said, “Watch starting things up with Derrick here, he can talk the ear off an elephant.”

  After Howard helped Derrick out of the harness, they went out of the building and into a whirlwind of activity. Samples of all kinds were being taken of everything that could be put into a bottle, bag, or box. There was smoke still rising from the pit and Sweeps were moving around the area picking up extra bits of the Primary Entity that
weren’t being bagged, and tossing them down into the pyre that burned at the bottom of the crater.

  “Wonder what the cover story’s gonna be?” Howard mused.

  “Dunno. O’Roarke said there were already people working on it though ... can’t be a gas main explosion since they had a commercial tank.”

  “Yeah that won’t fly out here, they don’t run high-pressure mains this far out from a city center.” Howard stopped walking and looked at Derrick. “Who’s O’Roarke?”

  “You know, O’Roarke ... the Sweep at the top of the ladder—I was telling him about my sweet camera rig. Jeez, H, it was just like two minutes ago. You hit your head or something?” Derrick laughed.

  “Real funny, laughing boy. I didn’t realize his name was O’Roarke.”

  “Said ‘O’Roarke’ right on his name patch. You gotta pay attention, man, remember ... we’re researchers. We’re paid to pay attention.”

  “Dude, wait. You get paid?” Howard laughed. “Anyway, last mountain town anomaly, they used a poison volcanic gas bubble story. It was in the Eastern Sierra—also California, now that I think about it—a few years ago, remember that?”

  “Of course. It was cover for an Azathoth partial-manifestation and to explain the fifteen locals and twenty campers who died. Hmm, we’re in part of the Shasta volcanic chain here too, so they could use something similar, since it’s volcanic.”

  “I dunno, maybe? I’m just the linguist here, remember,” Howard said, pointing at his head as they started to walk again.

  Derrick looked around. “Hey, H, uhm the Sweep’s chopper is back there. On the other side of the house from where our Raven crashed.” Derrick was looking back over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Then why,” Derrick asked, “are we going the opposite way?”

  They moved past the crates and the still-smoldering tires. The LA Sweeps’ Raven, up ahead, lay on its back, broken and silent, but no longer smoking. There were mounds of thick foaming retardant piled around where it rested on its engine cowling and filling the cockpit.

  “Well, since we busted the Los Angeles Sweep’s chopper, Sarah and Mary will ride back with the Frisco team once the site is cleansed and the breach sealed. Probably in a couple days,” Howard said.

  “Don’t call it Frisco, man ...” Derrick started to say then stopped. Realization dawned, and Derrick’s shoulders slumped as he realized what they were walking toward. He leaned more of his weight against Howard. “Oh, noooo.”

  “Yep,” Howard said, “That’s right, my friend—road trip!” He jingled keys.

  Derrick leaned over a little, so he could see the two keys on the ring in Howard’s hand—Thank God! No ‘VW’ stamped on either one.

  Howard stopped. Derrick looked around at where they first bailed from the Raven

  “You’re kidding, right, man?” Derrick said. Leaning on the hood of the mostly rusted El Camino they first used as cover, he hobbled over to the shattered driver-side window.

  “Nope. We’re driving back. Sarah couldn’t requisition another bird since the closest one is with the Edmonton team, or our own back at Logan,” Howard said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “Sarah and Mary are driving back also, but they’re leaving from the San Francisco HQ in a few days. I’ve been tasked with getting you back in time for your physical therapy in four days.” Howard had an evil smile stretched across his face. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss that!”

  “You’re a real jerk sometimes, H.” Derrick looked inside the rusted window frame. The passenger-side window was shattered also. Square cubes of glass littered the bench seat and rusted floor. Ancient Styrofoam coffee cups, crushed and scattered, lay strewn across the dash and floor alike.

  “It’s just got lap belts, man. And a bench seat. No windows. This’ a friggin’ death trap,” Derrick said, then suddenly leaned further in through the window frame. “Holy cow, H! Check it! This baby has a classic Blaupunkt AM radio. Dang, what’s it doing in an American car? Who cares! We’re stopping at RadioShack on the way outta here, man. I can totally set this baby up to pirate satellite.”

  Derrick looked at Howard through the dirt-streaked front windshield and said, “I swear those Germans picked up alien tech somewhere. There’s a whole section of useless stuff on those particular Blaupunkt radio boards—literally the section does nothing when the radio is powered on, it’s not even set up for any electrical connection at all. But it’s there, and with twenty-five dollars in parts and some coiled wire, you can convert the old radio to a dual AM/FM and satellite receiver.” He paused momentarily. “Ponder that one, man—satellite reception on an AM radio from decades before satellite radio existed!”

  Howard shrugged, walked over to the driver’s side and pulled the door open. It groaned and squealed on its rusted steel hinges. Reaching in, he swept the glass off the seat. The springs screeched in protest as Howard got in. Derrick climbed in the equally protesting passenger side.

  The car roared to life when Howard turned the key, a great billow of blue smoke erupted from the back end, and the car backfired twice.

  “Purrs like a kitten,” Howard said.

  “Uh yeah, whatevs, man,” Derrick said as he dug his plastic micro-screwdriver kit from his pocket and leaned over to look under the dash. He moved his head out from under the dash as the El Camino rocked and bounced over the uneven ground as Howard pulled around the other rusted hulks in the derelict car graveyard.

  Howard said, “Hang tight, dude, it’ll be bumpy till we hit the highway.”

  Derrick pulled a pair of boxy-looking magnifying glasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them down over his eyes. With a tug, the radio board and red and blue wires pulled out from under the dash and he balanced it on his knee while he bent at the waist for a closer look.

  “Whatevs, man ... just get me to the ‘Shack in Redding ASAP. Then get ready to rock!”

  EPILOGUE

  SARAH STOOD IN THE dais room at the end of the tunnels beneath the partially collapsed house. She was standing at the altar. The corpse had been bagged and cleared. The stone dais was now draped with a clear plastic sheet to prevent any further cross-contamination until they could get the equipment needed down there to remove the massive piece of solid stone.

  She was shifting the objects on a table she’d set up next to the dais and looked up as Mary walked into the room wiping viscous globs of something thick and dark from her hands onto a filthy towel that hung tucked into a loop on her fatigues.

  Mary said in her best southern-style imitation of Lurch, “Y’all rang?”

  Sarah glanced up, a concerned look on her face, and said, “How’s it going up top? Did we find the witness in the forest?”

  “Nope. No sign of him at all. Well, wait, I take that back. Whoever it was didn’t leave a lick’a trace in the forest, but the Sweeps found a cargo container. You know, like the ones used for cross-ocean shipping? It was sunk into the ground and converted into a real shithole of a prison. Derrick said our mystery man was wearing army-issue, Iraq-era BDU pants and no shirt, right?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Well, they found an Iraq-era BDU jacket in the container-slash-prison, wadded up and probably used as a pillow. I should be able to pull enough DNA to identify whoever was held in there—if, of course, they have DNA records anywhere. There appeared to have been several different people held there based on discarded clothing. Some male some female, probably not all at the same time. It’s going to be quite the tangle to unweave.”

  “How about our Sweeps?”

  “Well, there are some wounded, some in pretty bad shape. Our pilot was killed, as y’know, plus there were two other SF team members KIA. We’ve got a medivac team onsite now loading a REACH rapid transport chopper. Some of our Sweeps will need local treatment to stabilize before we can move them to a secure hospital.”

  Sarah nodded, “Not ideal, but San Francisco will have a team that can whitewash it.”

  “But the upsi
de is the Grays have all been cleared, their bodies canned and ready for study and storage.” Mary paused, rubbing her forearms. “It looks like pretty much the entire little town was corrupted by this,” she swept her hand in a wide arc, “breach. Whatever it is ... was. We couldn’t find any survivors here on-site, and almost everyone in town was apparently here for the summoning.”

  “Almost?”

  “The Sweeps found an eight-year-old boy hidden behind an old refrigerator in a barn near the Sheriff’s Office.”

  “We got someone for the boy?”

  “Yep, our own Doc Harris. Got here faster than a scalded haint and is already working with the boy. He’ so good with the kids. They’re staying in town, away from the site here. Not sure what the plan is after that.”

  “What about the Sheriff’s Office? Any law enforcement here?”

  “There was the sheriff and a deputy here. Both dead—probable ToD puts the deputy dead before we even arrived—and they’d clearly been corrupted just like all the rest of the civilians we’ve found.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Mary gestured toward the towel at her waist. “The town’s people—sheriff, deputy, civvies—all of them were filled with this black substance.” She held up the towel soaked with a black fluid and streaked with black lumps and globules. “Never seen it before, but we’ve got plenty of samples to take back to MU for analysis. Anyway, this stuff is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We’ll get Samuels on it right away, once we’re back. If our top exobiologist can’t make heads or tails of this gunk, we may be in some deep shit.”

  Sarah looked back down toward the top of the dais. “Well, at least I have some good news. While you’ve been coordinating the samples recovery up top, down here we’ve collected a number of artifacts besides the stone iwisa and printed dagger.”

  Mary stepped over towards the table, adjusted her glasses and leaned over, looking closely for the first time at what was scattered across the sterile plastic cover. Mary’s face dropped, the color washing from her skin, leaving her pale, waxy.