The Gatekeepers (The Survivors Book Eight)

by Nathan Hystad

  Jules smiled at me. “Papa. Lady wanted me.”

  Mary leaned forward. “What did you say?”

  “Lady wanted me. Bad lady.” Jules’ attention returned to her coloring.

  I crouched beside her. “What are you telling us?”

  “I stop her.” Jules stuck out a palm and smiled. She wasn’t making any sense.

  “Who knows what’s going on in there?” Mary rubbed Jules’ head lightly. “I’m glad you’re all safe.”

  Breakfast ended, and Karo and I took turns getting ready. When I emerged from the bathroom with fresh pants and a polo on, Mary was on the couch combing Jules’ hair. The others were outside.

  “I can’t believe this thing was in our home. I feel so… violated. I’m not sure I can stay here,” Mary said.

  I glanced around, taking in our first real home together. We’d lived at my old house on Earth after the Event, and even in her small apartment for a while, but neither had felt like our home. This… this was a Godsend after we arrived at New Spero. We’d grown our first garden here. We celebrated anniversaries, birthdays… we were married here.

  I peered outside, seeing Sarlun in my yard, and I recalled the moment he’d asked us to become Gatekeepers. This house was us, and I wasn’t sure I could part with it. “We can talk about it,” I said. We had a home on Earth and one on Haven too, but I knew Mary loved this house as much as I did. Jules too.

  Maggie was beside Mary, and she set the brush down and stroked Maggie’s coat. “I can smell it. Can you smell it?”

  I could. “It’ll go away.” I saw the bloodstain and pictured Slate’s big body on the floor, the dogs barking, Patty missing, and sighed. “Maybe you’re right. This might be too much.”

  “Let’s go make sure Slate is all right. Come on, Team Parker,” Mary said with a smile, and we brought Maggie with us. Everyone filed into the lander, and we headed for the city.

  Twenty-Two

  The lights were dim as Mary and I headed into the hospital room with Jules between us. Maggie tried to follow us in, but Suma took hold of her leash, keeping her in the hallway. We were the first to visit Slate, or so we thought. Reed’s shadowy form was slouched on the chair beside the bed.

  I cleared my throat, waking her up, and she stood up fast, ready to defend herself or Slate, I wasn’t sure.

  “Dean! I must have fallen asleep.” Her short hair was wild, bags under her eyes. She peeked over at Slate, who was still out. Machines beeped softly and consistently.

  “Reed, this is my wife, Mary. And you remember Jules,” I said.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Reed stuck her hand out, and Mary pulled her into a hug.

  “Thanks for looking after my brood while I was gone,” she said, letting the policewoman go after a few seconds.

  “Anytime. They’re a good bunch,” Reed said. “I’ll let you guys have some privacy.”

  “You should get some sleep. We’ll make sure to keep you posted,” I told her, and she nodded.

  “Thanks,” Reed said as she left the room. I heard Magnus’ booming voice greet her from the hallway.

  “Slate, buddy,” I said, standing beside him on the bed. He seemed older lying there unconscious. The door opened, and a nurse stepped in.

  “Hi. Any news?” Mary asked her.

  The nurse smiled. “He’s had a good night, but he’s not out of the woods yet. We managed to give him a transfusion, and he’s taking to it,” she told us.

  “Don’t we have things to speed this up?” I asked. Slate was too weak, too helpless. It was weird seeing people you love in the hospital. No matter the circumstances, they always seemed like a shell of their real selves there. Slate was a larger-than-life hero, not… I couldn’t finish my thought. I turned from the nurse, too ashamed to let her see me upset.

  “We’ve stitched him, and the wounds are clean. He should be fine, but as I said, he lost a lot of blood. Last night, his heart stopped beating for almost a minute, but we were able to revive him,” she said. This was news to me.

  I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. Jules snuck up beside me and reached for Slate too. She found a finger and held on. “Zeke. Zeke, wake up. Play.”

  Mary cried now, and I couldn’t help but feel the onslaught of emotion. After everything the two of us had been through, there was nothing I could do for him.

  Jules looked up at me, not understanding why Slate wasn’t responding.

  “He’s sleeping, honey,” I told her, but she seemed to comprehend there was something else going on. She glanced at the machines, and then at me and her mother.

  “We can help,” Jules said, reaching for Slate again.

  Mary picked her up, scooting her away. Jules kept reaching for Slate, but she held our daughter at a distance. “He’s sick and sleeping. We can’t wake him.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Magnus peeked his head in. “Come on in, we’re heading out.” I stayed beside Slate for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall. He was my brother, and I couldn’t bear the idea of losing him. It wasn’t his time.

  “Papa. We can help,” Jules said again, big fat tears dropping down her round cheeks.

  “I know we can. I know,” I said, letting Magnus and Natalia by. He stopped and grabbed hold of my arm.

  “Dean, Patty said she saw Jules do something at the house,” he whispered so no one else could hear.

  My heart raced. “What?”

  “She doesn’t know. She thinks the monster was after Jules, though, and your girl stopped it,” he said.

  “How, Magnus? How?” I asked, and he shook his head.

  “You know what it’s like asking a little kid to describe what she saw. I just wanted you to know,” he said.

  Nat was angry, I could see it in her eyes, but they softened as they lay on Slate’s form. We left them alone in the hospital room, and joined the others in the waiting area.

  I didn’t think there was anything my Jules could have done to prevent being attacked by the shapeshifter. It was too powerful, and she was only a tiny girl. I set the worry aside. It was over.

  Leonard sat beside Suma, chatting with her. Sarlun was speaking with Loweck, and Karo and Ableen were farther down the hallway. Reed was gone.

  Ableen waved and walked over, stopping in front of us. Karo spoke for them. “Dean, it’s time. We have to go. Ableen can feel them from here,” he said.

  I was exhausted. My best friend was in critical condition on the other side of the door behind me, and my wife had only been home for a day. I nodded and saw Mary do the same.

  “We’ll see you off,” she said, holding Jules protectively in her arms.

  ____________

  It was far too soon to be heading to the portals. Karo didn’t bring much with him. I remembered the home he’d lived on at the Theos world, and the fact that he’d been able to make pizza there. They had technology that read minds, and even Karo didn’t fully understand how he’d survived for so many years in solitude.

  He was going home now, no longer alone. He had Ableen, the tall white-haired woman, at his side. Magnus and Nat stayed at the hospital, along with Leonard and Loweck. It was only Mary, Jules, and me to send Karo and Ableen away.

  We kept pace with them through the tunnels outside of Terran Five, and stopped at the portal room doorway. I passed the Crystal Map and the Modifier to Karo, holding in the emotions coursing through me.

  “Wait. Dean, you need to set up the other end of your device at Haven first,” Karo said, eyes wide. We’d almost forgotten, amongst all the day’s stressful events.

  I turned to Mary, pursing my lips. “I have to go do this. Can you wait for me? Hopefully, it only takes a minute.”

  “I know. Go ahead. Please hurry,” she told me.

  Karo leaned toward Ableen. “I’ll accompany Dean, then we can leave for home.” Home. Her eyes brightened at the word.

  The last male Theos and I entered the portal room. It was the first place I’d been drawn to all those years ago. I re
membered the fever, the near-possession driving me to enter the caves and find the thrumming portals. The Theos had called to me. They’d directed me to them that day, and Regnig thought it was because of his label for me: a Recaster. Someone who changed the universe and had events bend around. It wasn’t always good, nor always bad, but things altered wherever I went.

  Ableen whimpered from the entrance as the crystal began glowing. The symbols on the walls illuminated, and the table powered up. We attached the devices, and I fought the urge to go don an EVA. The stones hadn’t failed us yet, not with the use of the Modifier we’d received from J-NAK on the robot world.

  I smiled at my family, and Karo at Ableen, and we activated the portal. This would be the last return trip I took through them, and I wondered how many times I’d used the tools.

  We arrived at the room on New Spero, and I was glad this time there hadn’t been a version of myself floating in white light, giving me ominous messages from the future.

  “Will you set it up here?” Karo asked.

  I pulled the one end of the portal device from my pocket and stepped out of the room, making for the hallway. This would make more sense. A smaller area.

  My arm console buzzed. Now that I was within range on Haven, half a dozen messages flew into my computer, and I opened the window. Five urgent notifications from Leslie, three from Terrance. They would have known I couldn’t reply from home, but I would have received them eventually, even all the way at New Spero.

  “What is it?” Karo asked, peering over my shoulder to read them as I opened the messages.

  “The school. It’s been bombed,” I told him.

  “The Gatekeepers’ Academy?” he asked.

  “The very same.” There were no details about injuries or damages. “Karo, do you mind if we take a moment to divert your mission? I need to see what happened.”

  Karo nodded toward the exit. “I want to know too. My home world will be there in an hour,” he said, and we left the halls, emerging into a chilly autumn-like day on Haven.

  I grabbed the communicator and relayed the information to Mary. She told me they’d wait for us outside the tunnels on New Spero.

  “Leslie. Come in. Terrance. It’s Dean.” I tapped my earpiece.

  “Dean? Thank God. There’s a lander there waiting for you,” Leslie said.

  “How did you know I was coming?” I asked.

  “We didn’t. We’ve sealed the portal and knew the only person coming through would be you.” I glanced over to see the door shut and a blue energy barrier around it. We couldn’t leave if we wanted to. “Don’t worry,” Leslie said. “We’ll give you the biometric code to leave after.”

  “Where do you want to meet?” I asked her.

  “At the school. We’re there already,” she said, and I could detect the panic in her voice.

  I ended the call and looked over at Karo. “This isn’t good.”

  He didn’t speak as we entered the lander, but waved me into the pilot’s seat. I was glad I’d learned to fly these things, because I’d needed to use them on a few occasions. The trip didn’t take long, but the damage was evident as soon as we neared the outskirts of the main city. We’d placed the school close enough to the growing city, but far enough to keep it away from the expansion, which meant it was ten miles from the city limits.

  The ground was pocked with holes: big ones, carved into the grassy fields behind the structure. From here, it appeared that the Gatekeepers’ Academy was intact, but as I came closer, I saw the entire east wing had been decimated. It was nothing but rubble and charred rocks. My stomach sank.

  We’d been doing so well lately. The planets had been thriving. We’d had peace for a few years, other than the odd run-in with some powerhouse, and we’d even delivered Fortune, the Keppe ship Magnus had been captaining, from another dimension. Now the trials and tribulations of attempting to expand into a dangerous universe were rearing their ugly faces.

  “Who could have done this?” Karo asked as we lowered toward the main building. There were half a dozen landers outside the front of the school, and I recognized Leslie and Terrance standing at the stairs leading to the Gatekeepers’ Academy. A Kraski ship sat at the edge of the parking pad. I was sure I’d been in that ship before.

  “I don’t know, but I expect we’re about to find out.” I settled the lander to the concrete pad, beside the other vehicles, and soon we were outside, the cold wind biting at our faces.

  “Dean!” Leslie shouted, waving us over.

  I hadn’t visited here in a long time, but the progress was impressive. From here, you couldn’t tell the school had been attacked. I recognized the structures from the model image we’d pored over for the last year or so. Even now, drones hovered around the region, and I expected these ones were security rather than worker drones.

  Leslie appeared tired, and we hugged. For a brief moment, I saw my ex-wife in her eyes, the sick one on her deathbed. Leslie’s eyes were sunken, her skin taut. I leaned in and whispered, “Are you okay?”

  She gripped my forearm and squeezed it. “I’m fine. I haven’t been sleeping much, that’s all.”

  Terrance shook my hand, and then Karo’s. “Glad to see you two. Everything good?” He studied me, then Karo, who shrugged.

  “We’re about to shut off the portals,” Karo told them point-blank.

  Terrance hung his head and let out a deep breath. “That’s… unfortunate. We knew it might come to this, though.”

  “I’m going to place my portal device inside the halls so we can move between New Spero and Haven.” Their eyes lit up at this piece of news.

  “Good. We need the trade. Out here, we have access to a few other worlds, some of our Alliance members. The Padlog are close enough to trade, as are the Inlor. Even the Bhlat to some extent, if we count their colonies,” Terrance said. “This can work. Dean, tell me this is feasible.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “This will work.” I turned to the school and marveled at the lettering spelling out the words Gatekeepers’ Academy in blue crystals. It was amazing. “What happened here?”

  Leslie perched on the stone steps, and we joined her, sitting in a row, looking out to the fields beyond. “They came in the dark of night. Somehow they disabled our perimeter alerts in orbit. Their ships lowered, blasting the school. Good thing we had a Bhlat envoy visiting. They were preparing their vessels for takeoff when the attack hit.”

  I gulped. “Does this mean we fended off the incursion?”

  “There were three ships. The Bhlat lost one in a dogfight, but we took them down. No survivors,” Terrance said.

  “Then who were they?” Karo asked.

  “We don’t know. We ran the specs from our camera feeds through every system we have, and they’re an unknown. None of the Alliance knows where they come from, or have seen their type before. We have bodies, but they’re hardly in one piece. We’re trying to determine their origin,” Terrance told us.

  “Seriously? No one has a record of these guys? They’re organic?” I asked.

  “Yep. Like I said, the Bhlat did quite a number on them. We have samples, but it wasn’t much more than blood by the time we got to them,” Terrance finished.

  “So what now?” Karo asked.

  “Well, we’ve set up some serious defense in orbit. The Inlor, the Bhlat, the Padlog, and the Keppe have offered a war vessel each to stand guard. I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to come without expecting a battle they’d struggle to win. We’ve also added ground defenses from the Molariuns. We can shoot a rock the size of your head from three thousand kilometers away,” Leslie said, smiling.

  I patted my head. “Please don’t tell me that. When was the attack?”

  “Two nights ago,” Leslie said.

  “How much damage?”

  “The east wing is gone. That’s the arts section.” Leslie stood and walked over to a double bench golf cart-type vehicle. “Come on, we’ll show you.”

  I glanced at Karo, hoping
he was okay with the delay. He didn’t seem overly concerned, so we jumped in, allowing Leslie to drive us onto the roadways, through the school.

  “You think they were targeting the school because of its purpose?” I asked through the wind. My cheeks were red and tight in the chilly air.

  “We have to assume that’s the case. They don’t want the Gatekeepers’ Academy to exist,” Terrance staid from the front bench.

  “Well, we’re going to have to rethink things now that the portals will be dead,” I told them.

  “There will be need for shared education. And our purpose was higher than the Gatekeepers alone, right?” Leslie asked.

  “That’s right. It’s about the children of our Alliance of Worlds learning and growing up cohesively. It’s the first step to a new universe. One with less hostility and borders,” I said, knowing it was only a small step. As with old Earth, there would always be differences among people, aliens, and anything in between.

  The school was made from earthy materials: stone, brick, crystals, and it was done with the expertise of an architect from Shimmal. The work was so tasteful, and I squinted, picturing my own daughter around ten years old, walking the sidewalks with a backpack, giggling with Patty as they headed to classes for the day.

  We headed past a courtyard, water fountains, and concrete sitting areas made for a great place to have lunch on a sunny patio. Today was not that day, and I hugged myself trying to stay warm. We drove past an immense gymnasium with dark walls. Leslie stopped and pressed a button on her arm console. The glass walls slowly lightened as the tint dissipated, until they were clear and we could see inside the gym.

  “That’s a nice feature,” Karo said.

  Inside, a few robots were laying floor down. We kept moving until we found the destruction. The sidewalks were torn, rubble everywhere, and I noticed pieces of a space ship were littered among the debris. The building was cleanly torn apart at a corridor from off the gymnasium, and I guessed they’d destroyed at least thirty thousand square feet of construction.