A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1)

by Cassy Campbell

  “Finally,” Gin muttered.

  Liv was disappointed at the number of search results: 25. Then she looked at the amount of data: 36 TR.

  “What’s TR?” she asked Gin.

  Gin typed something, another window popped up, and she typed some more. A screen showed her some rows of numbers. “Uh oh.”

  “What?”

  “They measure a single bit as a ‘reo.’ Ten reos to a rotor. TR is a terarotor.”

  “How big is that?”

  “One thousand rotors in a megarotor, one thousand megarotors in a gigarotor, one thousand gigarotors in a terarotor. It’s big.”

  Liv turned back to the data, trying not to let her heart sink at the amount of information. “Sweet. Can I have my own computer?”

  “Be my guest.” Gin gestured to the one next to her. “We’ll need weeks to go through all this.”

  Connor said from behind them, “You have two days.”

  Liv whirled, but her outrage was derailed as Ben held out her sidearm. She took it and turned her attention back to Connor. “What do you mean, two days? That’s not nearly enough time!”

  “General Mace’s orders. Report what you have in two days.”

  “Guess I’ll get to work.” She turned back to the computer and started reading.

  * * *

  Two days later, Liv and her team briefed General Mace.

  “Sir, there’s a lot of information. It would take us months to go through it all.”

  “If you think it’s worthwhile, we’ll send in T52.”

  Liv nodded. T52 was the long research team, the one that went in once a world had been initially explored, and catalogued all the information about their culture, history, writings, and environment. “It might be best, eventually. But we have a problem. I need more data to be sure, but based on Demon Rift’s initial readings, and the readings I took when we encountered the Rift, I think it’s spreading beyond the two worlds it initially affected.”

  General Mace’s eyebrows rose at the use of Demon Rift’s new name, but he didn’t interrupt. Liv continued, “I need permission to Travel to the world next door to Demon Rift and test there.”

  “Have we been there?”

  Liv frowned. “I don’t know, sir. We haven’t met any Travelers yet in Demon Rift. We don’t know what’s next door.”

  “We’ll have to send the jump team first. It will take at least a day to set up.”

  Liv’s heart sank a little. She hated sending them in, even though they were just doing their jobs. The jump teams Traveled to a previously unexplored world, tested the atmosphere and the ground, made lightning-fast visual surveys, and jumped back out. Their initial stay was usually less than ten seconds, and they wore protective clothing against airborne or contact toxins, but they were still occasionally killed in the line of duty. The last deaths had been just last year, when the corrosive atmosphere of one of the worlds had eaten through both team members’ suits in the space of their eight-second visit. They were poisoned and burned, and neither survived.

  Liv tried to remind herself that these guys were adrenaline junkies who loved what they did and thought that life without insane risks was too boring to live.

  “Is there anything else?” General Mace asked.

  “If I’m right, we have to close the Rift.”

  General Mace nodded. “I thought you were going to say that. Can it be done? You said they’d been trying for months.”

  “I don’t exactly understand the technology they used to open it yet. I do know they used their whole store of the element that powered the reaction. They haven’t found an alternative.”

  “And you know of an alternative?”

  “There is an unstable element on their world that they haven’t been willing to try. It doesn’t exist here. Trent thinks that he can stabilize it enough to make it work.”

  “How?”

  “With a gold alloy containment unit, sir,” Trent said.

  “How much gold do you need?”

  “About five hundred pounds, sir.”

  General Mace choked. “Five hundred pounds?”

  Trent nodded, face impassive. He might soon rival Connor for poker face of the year.

  “You realize what that would cost?”

  “Roughly thirteen and a half million dollars at the current exchange rate, sir.”

  Liv said, “Sir, we know a wound in the fabric of the multiverse has consequences for the worlds involved, but it would eventually affect all worlds. If it continues to spread, Home World will basically be connected directly to Hell, and maybe worse places. Assuming the multiverse doesn’t just collapse into a giant multidimensional black hole. We need to close it.”

  Connor sat forward. “There might be something in it for us, sir. Aside from saving the multiverse, of course.”

  “Such as?”

  “Advanced, relatively safe nuclear weapons, I’m told.”

  Liv said, “And more efficient energy-producing nuclear technologies as well.”

  “They have some pretty advanced aeronautics too,” Ben said. “Personal subsonic aircraft with some kind of novel propulsion system.”

  Connor said, “We’re taking one out tomorrow to look around the rest of their world.”

  “I’ll take this to the Joint Chiefs,” General Mace said. “We’ll get the jump team out tomorrow. Report back in two days. Until then, continue your research.”

  * * *

  Two days later, Liv and her team were back in the briefing room. They’d hardly slept in the flurry to learn all they needed to know by the deadline. After a week of camping out on the floor in the Institute, all Liv wanted was a shower and a hot meal. And her bed. Well, and to fix the Rift, she supposed.

  General Mace walked in and sat at the head of the table. “Can you do it?”

  Liv raised her head blearily. “Yes sir. We figured out a way.”

  “Good. But the Joint Chiefs have approved this expenditure only if you can prove that the technology we’ll gain will offset the loss.”

  “It will more than offset it, sir,” Trent said. He looked fresh and awake despite having gotten even less than the four hours of sleep Liv had managed in the last two days. Ninja bastard. “I’ve been studying some of the data for the fusion laser they used, and it demonstrates great advances in the study of particle physics. Gin got us into what limited information the Institute had in its records on their energy-related nuclear technology. It’s just as advanced. Probably twenty years ahead of us.”

  The sound of his voice washed over Liv. Maybe ninjas didn’t need sleep. Lucky bastards. Or maybe lucky her. Without Trent, she’d never have figured out a way to close the Way. She laughed in a silent huff. Way to close the Way. How long had it been since she’d slept anyway? Thirty hours? Forty?

  “Doctor Greenwood?” General Mace said.

  “Wha—” Liv snapped upright. “Yeah, here.”

  “The Rift, Liv?” Ben said.

  “Its effects, Dr. Greenwood?” General Mace added.

  “Yes.” She struggled to direct her leaden thoughts. “My trip to T-2469S has shown conclusively that the Rift is affecting it as well. The effect is spreading. We have to close it before it rips through, because I don’t think we’ll be able to stop the reaction if it goes that far. I’ve also got some new information on how the Rift was created. They used a fusion laser aimed at the border between worlds.”

  “A what?” the general asked.

  “A fusion laser,” Liv repeated. “Aimed at the border between worlds.”

  “How did they aim anything at the border between worlds? Where is it? Travelers can’t even see it, can they?”

  “No, sir. Their notes on that part are vague. Also, we don’t have the technology to make a fusion laser. This is more like sixty or seventy years ahead of us, and beyond our present capabilities of even reverse engineering. But we have to close the Rift.”

  “How?” General Mace asked.

  Liv looked at Trent, who answe
red, “We simply have to reverse the polarity of the laser they’ve already built.”

  “It’s still intact.”

  Trent shrugged. “Mostly.”

  “And you still need the gold shielding?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned to his right, where Connor sat. “You saw the rest of their world.”

  Connor said, “Yes sir. Ben and I flew one of their subsonic jets to corresponding Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China, and Spain. The whole planet has been hit pretty hard. Apparently the demons can pilot their jets too.”

  “Are the propulsion systems as advanced as you thought they were?”

  “Yes, and so is the neural interface and the anti-gravity landing gear.”

  General Mace nodded. “Do it. Close the Rift, and study whatever they’ll let you look at while you’re doing it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It took Liv a minute to realize that the briefing was over. Jordan lifted her out of her chair by the elbow. “Come on, Liv. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  She made it through the labyrinthine hallways, across the echoing marble main entrance, onto the tram line that brought them to the covered parking lot at the Ranch, and into Jordan’s Toyota Forerunner. The next thing she knew, he was carrying her into her house. He must have found the spare key in the crack of stucco underneath her window.

  He slid her into bed, and she was dimly aware that he was stripping off her boots and jacket before she sank into sleep.

  “Good night, Liv.”

  She wasn’t sure if she responded out loud or just thought it: thanks, Jordan.

  She slid downward under the weight of entire solar systems. Hey, I never got to take a shower…

  Before the thought could continue, she was out.

  Late May, previously explored parallel world, DEPOT designation L-78416K, codename Demon Rift, corresponding Texas.

  Chapter 13

  Liv stood with her team a block from the Rift. The swirls in the surface were visible even from here. Polly and Mallet had joined them, but the rest of the Demon Rift inhabitants were hiding; it had been nearly four weeks since the last demon raid, and another was overdue. However, many of them hid within sight of the team and the Rift, desperate to see it closed.

  Liv, Gin, and Trent had managed to reverse the fusion laser’s polarity. Gin had hacked it so Trent hadn’t needed to engineer modifications from scratch, which was why it had only taken them two weeks instead of two months. The technology was ridiculously advanced.

  “Here goes nothing,” Trent said, and flipped the switch.

  Nothing happened.

  Gin craned her neck to see the gauges on the side of the machine. “Did it work?”

  Trent glanced over. “It’s charging.”

  “I wish we could have tested it first,” Liv said.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Jordan asked. “It won’t work, right?”

  Trent blew out a nervous breath. “Or we could blow up. Or rip the world apart.”

  “So, the usual,” Gin said.

  Ben laughed. “That’s why I love you, Nagano. You’re so positive.”

  Without warning, four subsonic jets blasted through the Rift, a demon visible inside each one.

  “Take cover!” Connor yelled. “Fire at will!”

  Liv scrabbled back from the laser, following Jordan’s retreat into an alley. She took the left side of the opening while he took the right. They both aimed for the nearest subsonic jet, but they might as well have fired cap guns for all the damage they did.

  Jets continued to stream through the rift, and the laser had barely started to charge. Soon the sky was filled with aircraft.

  One jet fired on Trent and Connor, who had both stayed to guard the laser. They dived out of the way behind a nearby pile of rubble. The missile barely missed the charging machine.

  As she and Jordan ducked away from raining chunks of rock, Liv caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

  Elachai popped into existence next to Jordan and spoke into his ear. She leapt toward him, trying to knock him away before he could melt Jordan’s brain the way he kept doing to her.

  Before she could get to him, he exploded into a whirlwind of molecules. A split-second later, so did Jordan.

  “No!” Liv screamed, straining to close the gap between them. She got her hand on Jordan just as he dissolved into nothingness, and she pushed herself along the same path, following the flow of his elemental self to the next world.

  * * *

  The first thing Liv saw was Jordan’s shocked expression. His shock turned to astonishment at the panic that must be showing on her face. She shoved the panic down and slammed a door on it even as she recognized what she called his ‘ah-hah’ expression. He had just understood something. No time to wonder what.

  She registered their surroundings were an empty, sun-baked desert plain as she pulled her gun on Elachai.

  “Liv, what the hell are you doing here? How did you follow us?” Jordan asked.

  “Jordan, what the hell are you doing here? The rest of the team is under demon attack and you just waltzed off with a dangerous threat!”

  “He needed my help.” A quick glance at him showed Liv he thought this explanation was sufficient.

  “Your team needed your help.”

  He frowned. “That’s true. I don’t think I thought this through.” He turned to Elachai. “I need to go. I’ll come back and help you once we’ve figured out the demon attack, okay?”

  Liv glared at Elachai over the sight of her Sentinel and moved her finger to the trigger. “Why shouldn’t I blow your head off right now?”

  “I mean you no harm, and I will let you stay,” Elachai answered mildly.

  “Oh, you’ll let me stay. Good. Great!”

  Her finger squeezed slightly on the trigger, and Elachai’s expression became concerned, as if she was his sick or confused friend. “Liv, you do not want to shoot me.”

  Liv felt her hand float down to her hip and reholster her gun, and heard her mouth saying, “No, I don’t.”

  The next second, control returned to her. She grabbed her gun again and leveled it on Elachai. “You son of a bitch!”

  Elachai said, “Liv, we could do this all day. Put the gun away.”

  Her hand obeyed his command rather than hers. How was he doing this? “Jordan, we’re leaving. On mark.”

  Jordan nodded.

  Liv counted down, but she stayed a second longer than her mark, just to make sure Jordan followed her. Or led her. She wasn’t letting him out of her sight, because if she went back to Demon Rift and he didn’t, by the time she came back here, they might have gone anywhere with no path for her to follow.

  Jordan did not disintegrate into a whirlwind of molecules.

  Liv clenched her teeth. “What are you waiting for?”

  Jordan looked genuinely bewildered. “I don’t know. It’s like there’s a lock on my mind, and I can’t get through to the place where I Travel from.”

  Liv recognized the feeling from about ten seconds ago when her gun had returned to its holster against her will, only her locked door had been marked Shoot the Puppeteering Bastard.

  She rounded on Elachai. “Let us go.”

  She tried to draw her weapon again, but couldn’t even get her hand on it.

  “Will you listen?” Elachai asked. “I am not going to hurt either one of you. I need your help.”

  Liv growled through her clenched teeth, “You might find us more willing if you weren’t forcing us. People don’t like having their free will taken away.”

  Elachai’s expression suggested a polite drawing-room query about a subject that only mildly intrigued him. “If I release you, what is the first thing you will do?”

  “Draw my sidearm and blow your damned head off!”

  He nodded as if she had proven his point. “And how would that encourage me to let you? I meant what I said. You are in no danger. I will release you when we have finished talki
ng regardless of the outcome. You have my word.”

  When Liv only glared, he continued with a gesture to their surroundings. “Look. I have brought you to Desolatia, where you are safe. You have not been harmed or threatened, although I have. But I have locked Jordan in this world, and you do not want to leave without him, do you? Killing me will not release him. We are at an impasse, do you agree?”

  His manner distracted her from her anger, so formal and civilized in the midst of…where were they? Liv looked again at the barren sand plain blurred by heat ripples, the lack of any sign of human life.

  “It’s Safe World,” she said. Their Safe World, which meant they were safe, at least from anything besides Elachai.

  “Desolatia, you called it?” Jordan asked eagerly.

  Liv glared at him, grinding her teeth. “Another time.”

  “Now you will listen?” Elachai asked.

  Liv flicked her gaze back to him, nodding reluctantly but completely of her own free will. Her body was under her control again, but she didn’t reach for her sidearm. If Jordan was stuck here until Elachai released him, she wouldn’t risk stranding him. Elachai had been right about that.

  “Good. Demons are hunting me, most likely because of what I can do. You have just seen a small demonstration of my ability. But what you probably do not know is that demons hold my family captive. I have made multiple attempts to rescue them, both with others and alone, but with no success.”

  “What, you can’t push demons?” Liv snarled.

  Surprise flashed across Elachai’s face. “That is what I call it too. And yes, I can push demons, but I cannot get to their leader.”

  “Why not?” Jordan asked.

  Liv glanced at him. He seemed like his usual self: trusting, engaged, eager to help.

  Elachai answered, “He is very intelligent. I cannot get to him when he is alone, if he ever is, and I cannot act fast enough to push him or the demon guards before they attack. Twice I have been nearly killed. Now he has threatened to flay my children alive while my wife watches if I try again to force him to my will.”

  “And you believe this threat?” Liv scoffed.

  Elachai leveled grave eyes on her. “He looks human but I am not sure he is. He is pure evil. His demons discuss how he murders children. Years ago, before he came to power, he murdered many at once in a play area. He shot them with a weapon as their parents watched them run and swing and build huts with rocks. The demons brag of it. He did the same at an education center. No one stopped him. He is in absolute control of several worlds. I believe him.”