Alien Artifacts

by Seanan McGuire

  “Come on,” Astin said. “I want to be back in town by nightfall.”

  Under other circumstances, Jacob might have enjoyed the hike, despite the cold. The forest was covered with ankle-deep fresh snow, and the bare twigs and branches shone with ice in the cold morning light. Pitchfork Pond stretched off to one side, and the expanse of forest was broken only by a few rustic hunting cabins near the shore.

  Jacob walked in front with Astin, keeping his rifle ready. Hans and Oscar came next, hauling the sledges, and Mitch brought up the rear, alert for any signs they were being followed. There was no sound except for the crunch of their feet on the frozen snow beneath the fresh powder and the clicking of the icy branches in the wind. Sounds like bones rattling, Jacob thought.

  The sun did little to illuminate the depths of the evergreen forest on either side of the rough logging road. Jacob scanned the tree line, alert for danger. Birds scolded them for invading. Jacob imagined thousands of eyes watching them unseen from the branches and shadows.

  “Stay in my tracks,” Astin warned. “This whole area is full of places where the ground suddenly drops off. The snow makes it difficult to see the edge. That’s why you’ve got me.”

  Despite Jacob’s misgivings, Astin knew the trail. Several times, Mitch marked the trees so they could find their way back out. Overhead, the sky grew gunmetal gray with the threat of more snow, and the day grew colder. Jacob kept an eye on the woods around them, unable to shake the feeling that they were being followed.

  “Looks like the weather isn’t going to be in your favor,” Astin noted. “I wouldn’t stay out here longer than you need to. Hiking out in a few inches of snow isn’t bad, but we can get a couple of feet of snow in a few hours.”

  Jacob kept watching the tree line. “I think there’s something out there.”

  “You’re probably right. Lots of bear in these woods; cougars, too. The wolves usually stay farther out.”

  By noon they were as far as Astin would take them. “I’ll take my money and be off now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Mitch dug out his wallet and paid Astin. “Nice job with the trail. Thank you.”

  Astin glanced at the four men. “I know you had a rough time back in town, but if you really can figure out why people go missing and make it stop, they’ll probably give you the key to the city.”

  “All in a day’s work,” Mitch replied.

  Astin turned to go, but a loud bellow and the crash of something large coming through the underbrush made them all turn. A huge black bear lunged from the shadows. It swatted Oscar away with one of its massive paws, sending the mechanical werkman tumbling. Jacob leveled his rifle and fired, blasting the bear in the shoulder, but the creature barreled past Jacob, knocking him down.

  Astin held his ground and fired his rifle as the bear came right at him. None of his shots slowed the bear. It sprang toward Astin with its teeth bared. Mitch and Hans shot, hitting the bear in the side and hindquarters. The bear bellowed in pain and anger, coming down on top of Astin with its whole weight, tearing into the guide with his teeth. Astin screamed. Mitch and Hans fired again. After a few more shots, the bear finally went still.

  “Astin!” Jacob yelled as he and Mitch ran to the fallen man.

  “Well damn! That sure went bad fast.” Mitch put the barrel of the rifle against the bear’s skull and pulled the trigger. “I’m not taking any chances with that thing.” He and Jacob rolled the dead bear to the side. Astin’s body lay beneath it, savaged by teeth and claws, covered in blood. Jacob knelt and felt for a pulse.

  “He’s gone. Looks like those claws opened up an artery,” Jacob said. “Poor bloke. No one deserves to go out like that.” He wiped his hands in the snow and stood. “Least we can do is bury him, keep the animals away from the body. Someone from town can come back for him later.”

  “Damn,” Mitch said, eyeing the damage. “Bears don’t usually attack without a reason. It shouldn’t have taken so many shots to bring him down or scare him off. That thing was totally crazed.”

  “You thinking rabies?”

  “Nah. It wasn’t foaming at the mouth. I’m stumped—unless it’s part of the effect the missing forest has on animals.”

  “Astin said the bears were more aggressive since the disappearances started,” Jacob said.

  “Let’s stack some rocks over Astin’s body and leave the bear where it is.” Mitch turned to pick up a large stone, and signaled for Hans to help him.

  “At least let me say a prayer for him. The man just got killed trying to help us.”

  “You do your prayer thing. We’ll start gathering rocks.”

  Half an hour later, with Astin beneath a cairn of rocks, Mitch, Jacob, and the others were ready to head deeper into the forest. Oscar was still functional, though the werkman’s metal body was dented and he had a tear in the metal where a claw had caught his side. If he had been human, he’d be dead, Jacob thought. They had scrubbed off the worst of the blood with snow, though Jacob worried that the scent would still carry, attracting other predators.

  “Anything that’s hungry has a bear dinner back there,” Mitch assured him. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

  Hans and Oscar unpacked the heavy wooden crates. Inside were two experimental velocipedes, modified off-road steambikes, outfitted with broad nubby tires suitable to the rough terrain and equipped with a variety of weapons and helpful gadgets. The sledges attached behind the bikes, letting them haul their gear.

  “We could have gotten here in half the time if we had used these from the start,” Jacob grumbled.

  “We wanted time to talk to Astin, find out whether he was in on the disappearances, remember? And the locals didn’t need a look at classified equipment.”

  Mitch climbed onto one of the steambikes, while Jacob took the other. Oscar and Hans rode pillion. The bikes roared to life, sending birds fluttering out of the trees and echoing across the silent forest. Given the noise, Jacob doubted they would have any more difficulty with bears, and suspected the wolves and cougars would head for higher ground.

  They dared not open up the bikes to their full speed in the forest, where branches and underbrush provided obstacles at every turn. The bikes were a trade-off: stealth for speed. At least we’ll get out of here faster than we came in, Jacob thought.

  An hour later they came to a small clearing. “We’ll make camp here,” Mitch said dismounting and shutting down the bike. “From what we saw on the map, it’s not far to where the forest ‘disappears,’ so we go see for ourselves and be back before dark. I’d rather not navigate these rough trails at night—or be too close to the anomaly.”

  They set up their tents quickly, and tossed their bedrolls inside. Oscar gathered firewood, and Hans made a fire pit. “There,” Hans said, straightening up and dusting off his hands. “Everything is set for when we get back.” Oscar hung a metal case with their food from the branch of a tree a few feet from the campsite, out of reach of prowling bears.

  They powered up the bikes and headed deeper into the forest. “Do you feel it?” Jacob shouted above the sound of the steambikes’ engines. As they neared where the irregularity had been reported, Jacob felt a growing sense of unease, bordering on dread.

  Mitch and Hans nodded. “The electromagnetic field shows unusual fluctuations,” Oscar said in a tinny voice. His brain contained a difference engine designed by Farber, and he spoke via an altered Edison cylinder.

  “Dangerous?” Jacob asked.

  “Insufficient data.”

  It took all of Jacob’s concentration to keep the steambike on the trail and avoid rocks, tree roots, and other hazards. “Keep an eye out,” Jacob instructed Oscar. “If you see something watching or following us, let me know.”

  “I cannot. Too much data to process.”

  Jacob sighed. That was Oscar’s way of saying he couldn’t separate out the creatures that belonged in the woods and those that might be dangerous. “Damn,” Jacob muttered. He felt jumpy, a
nd while it might be the EMF field of the “vanished” forest making him nervous, his intuition told him they might not have shaken their pursuer from the night before.

  Mitch came to an abrupt stop. Jacob skidded to a halt beside him. “Holy shit,” Mitch muttered.

  “Amen to that.”

  An iridescent shimmer rose from the ground, making it impossible to see what lay inside the wall of light.

  “How sure are we that aliens couldn’t come here and take a chunk of the earth back with them?” Mitch mused.

  “We’re only relatively certain they haven’t done it before. That doesn’t prove it couldn’t happen.”

  Mitch swore under his breath. “I figured you’d say something like that.”

  Jacob turned to Oscar. “Can you get any readings beyond the shimmer?”

  Oscar stared at the curtain of light. His makers had outfitted him with a sensory array, enhancing his vision and hearing. “I’m afraid I cannot penetrate the barrier,” Oscar said after a few moments. “I can tell you that it extends in a one-mile circle, and rises to a height of five miles while descending to a depth of three miles.”

  Jacob frowned. “So there’s no way to go over it or under it?”

  “Apparently not, sir.”

  Jacob had walked over to examine cuts in the trunks of several nearby trees. “Hey, Mitch! What do you make of these?”

  Mitch joined him and bent to examine the markings. The slices were uniform, all between two feet and six feet off the ground, in a circle around the glowing anomaly. He pulled several experimental gadgets from his duffel bag and started walking around the missing area of forest.

  “EMF readings are off the meter. And the frequencies aren’t anything we’ve run into before.” He pulled out a Maxwell box. After another moment, he looked up. “No ghosts. This isn’t a poltergeist situation or a haunting. The box registers absolutely nothing.” He drew out a charm on a watch fob from his pocket, letting it dangle near the curtain. It remained inert.

  “No magic, either,” Mitch said, turning the amulet one way and another. An absinthe witch in New Pittsburgh had gifted him with the charm, and Jacob knew it reliably glowed if magic was active.

  “You think the Canadians tried out a new weapon?”

  Mitch shook his head. “I don’t think it’s Canadian—or European, either. This is ahead of anything they’ve shown us—or that we’ve found out about through channels. That leaves us with aliens.”

  “Why would aliens want to steal a mile of Adirondack forest?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Give the rest of us a chance to get to cover.” Jacob signaled for Hans and Oscar to find shelter as he ran beyond the range of the tree marks and ducked beneath a fallen trunk. Mitch made sure the steambikes were out of range as well before he dodged behind a large tree and then hurled a handful of rocks at the shimmering light.

  Staccato bursts rang from inside the iridescent perimeter, blasting out in a lethal circle. Brilliant beams of deadly light flashed from inside the “vanished” forest, cutting into whatever they touched. Jacob shielded his eyes and ducked down low behind the tree trunk that sheltered him, hoping not to die.

  The assault lasted only seconds. When Jacob dared to raise his head, fresh cuts scared the trees nearby, still smoking from the energy that had carved into them.

  Mitch emerged from his cover, swearing. “What was that?” he demanded, facing Oscar.

  “Insufficient data.”

  Jacob took a deep breath to slow his thudding heart. “That’s the first time I’ve nearly been killed by light.”

  Mitch studied the new cuts on the trees. “It shot at the rocks, but the sheriff said his man and the tracking dog walked in.” He looked to Jacob. “Do you think the barrier is smart enough to tell organic from inorganic matter?”

  “You mean, living beings can pass through, but not other things? Maybe. And unless the sheriff’s man walked in naked, his clothing might have triggered the firing response.” Mitch nodded. “If so, we could get through, but not Oscar, and maybe not Hans with his mechanical repairs.”

  “The only problem is, there’s no way to test the theory, since no one’s come back out.” Mitch eyed the steambike. “I have another idea. Oscar, can you triangulate the source of those light beams from where they struck?”

  “Yes, sir. Give me a moment.” He rattled off the bearing a few seconds later.

  “Saints preserve us, you’re not going to strip down and cross like some wild animal, are you?”

  “Of course not.” Mitch tinkered with one of the steambikes. “At least, not until we’re out of other options. But I think I can jam the controls and tie the handlebars so that the bike can drive straight without a rider—at least for a few feet. And if we line it up to the source Oscar found…I can set bike’s defenses on automatic, or to discharge on impact. Maybe we can send a surprise inside and see what happens.” Mitch and Oscar worked together, aligning the bike toward the coordinates within the curtain until Oscar was satisfied.

  Jacob shook his head. “Wreck another very expensive prototype bike and they’re going to send us to the Yukon—permanently.”

  Mitch was about to respond when a shot rang out. Jacob grabbed his arm and dropped to the ground, pulling Mitch behind the fallen log with him as he returned fire. Oscar and Hans dodged behind the trees, shooting back in the direction of the attack.

  “You think Ben and Yankton hiked up here after us?” Jacob asked, as he checked his bleeding arm. Fortunately, the bullet had only grazed him.

  “It sure as hell wasn’t Astin, and I doubt Marston would go to the trouble.”

  He and Jacob split up, using hand signals to communicate. Jacob caught a glimpse of movement in the trees and fired. More shots came from the forest and Mitch shot back. Hans and Oscar circled in the other direction.

  If someone puts a bullet into that curtain of light, it’s going to fire back at all of us, Jacob thought.

  Jacob heard a rustle in the leaves and felt the cold steel of a rifle prod his back. “Don’t move,” a voice said from behind him.

  “Storm! Put your gun down and tell your mechanical friends to drop their weapons or I blow away your partner!” Billy Kesterson, con man and fugitive, shielded himself behind Jacob and forced him forward.

  Mitch froze, then lowered his rifle and laid it on the ground. “Hans, Oscar—do as he says.”

  Kesterson gripped Jacob’s injured arm with one hand and kept the muzzle of his gun against Jacob’s back as they moved toward the steambikes.

  “You’re the one who shot at us at the hotel.” Mitch watched Jacob and Kesterson, careful not to move.

  “Yeah. You should have taken the hint. I didn’t expect you to follow me up here. Couldn’t believe it when I saw you walk out of the bar.”

  I was right: We were being followed—and not just by Astin, Jacob thought.

  “Give yourself up,” Mitch said. “Right now, you might get off with a light sentence—if we agree not to report the part about firing on us. Shoot a government agent, and you’ll die in prison.”

  “Not if they don’t catch me.” Kesterson moved to stand next to the bike. “I’m gonna steal this and get far away from here. I figure it’ll take a long while before anyone comes looking for your bodies.” He lifted his gun against Jacob’s head. “Say good-bye.”

  A shot rang out, deafeningly loud. Kesterson fell backward onto the steambike and got tangled in the equipment. The bike roared to life as his body activated Mitch’s altered controls.

  Jacob reeled, dazed. Mitch grabbed him and threw him to the ground, dropping beside him as the steambike carried Kesterson’s corpse through the shimmering curtain of light. Jacob had enough presence of mind to throw his arms over his head before the deadly rays of light hummed out from the “vanished” forest. A second later, Jacob heard the rat-tat-tat of Gatling gun fire, followed by the ka-boom of the bike’s Ketchum grenades exploding.

  For a few seconds, the iridescent cu
rtain winked in and out before regaining its opaque shimmer. Mitch pulled Jacob to his feet as Jacob shook his head, trying to hear out of his left ear, still astounded he was alive. Mitch had a revolver in one hand.

  “You shot him over my shoulder!”

  “What matters is that I shot him so that he didn’t shoot you.”

  Jacob bit back a retort and focused on business. “Did you see what the light curtain did?”

  “Yeah.” Mitch found Jacob’s gun in the leaves and returned it to him. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  They advanced, guns drawn. Mitch grabbed his bag of gear and signaled for Jacob to move behind a tree, then joined him and threw rocks at the curtain of light.

  Nothing happened. He tried a second time, and again. Silence. Mitch turned to Hans and Oscar. “Just in case, you two stay here. Someone needs to report back if we can’t get out.”

  “I’ll go first.” Mitch got down on his belly and crawled through the barrier, trying to stay below the line the lights had cut into the trees. Jacob hung back, waiting for a signal.

  “Come on,” Mitch said, suddenly appearing again and startling Jacob. “Stop as soon as we’re through.”

  The two agents crossed the perimeter, alert for an attack. Ahead, the wreckage of the steambike was twisted around the melted ruins of a machine the likes of which Jacob had never seen. Kesterson’s body was charred but recognizable, still tangled on the bike.

  “Looks like we found a couple of the missing people,” Mitch said pointing. Two partially decomposed bodies lay sprawled several yards beyond the smoking bike, near what appeared to be an oddly configured hut.

  “Careful though. Look to the right of that hut. There’s another one of those big killer-light machines. And I’ll bet we’ll find them all along the perimeter, plus the wreckage of the missing airship. Probably find the other missing agents, too.”

  “I want to get a closer look,” Mitch murmured, eyeing the remnants of the light weapon the steambike’s grenade had destroyed. He glanced toward the other, potentially functioning weapons, but halted several feet away and pulled out his EMF reader to scan the metallic console, then repeated the scan with two more of the experimental gadgets from his pack. “It isn’t registering as any known metal. No known power source. Configuration doesn’t match any of the schematics I’ve seen.”