The three academics looked a little perturbed, but Armando simply frowned and got straight to business. “We’re recording, Infinity. Do you want to start with world specs?”
She nodded. “Forest, plants, and weather pretty much like ours. Surprising, considering a 100,000-year divergence.” She was referring to the fact that the tourist had requested a world that had diverged from Earth 100,000 years ago.
Armando turned to the academics. “The client was interested in seeing an alternate path human evolution has taken since their first contact with other hominid species. Although I believe his interest was recreational rather than academic.”
The men nodded with furrowed brows, as if they considered a recreational excursion to be a waste of time.
“I’m sitting right here,” the tourist said. “I can speak for myself. It turns out 100,000 years was a good choice on my part. I saw exactly what I was hoping for. In that timeline, Neanderthals probably wiped out humans—Neanderthals were all we saw.”
“We saw at least six,” Infinity said. “All were nonhuman. Maybe Neanderthal. Maybe some other species. We only covered a few miles, so we don’t know if humans also existed on the same world.” She knew at least one of the academics would want a full description of the creatures, so she described them in detail.
“These things were badass,” the tourist said before she could finish her recounting. “I think they were out hunting for pleasure, like when we go big game hunting. Only these guys used handheld weapons, like it was a matter of pride to them. The minute they spotted us, they started hunting us.” He smiled and shook his head. “They were badass.”
Infinity rolled her eyes. This guy never quit. The academics would want details on the Neanderthals’ weapons, so she described them.
“Can you describe any of the plants you saw?” one of the men asked. “Particularly any that were unusual?”
“I don’t know much about plants,” Infinity replied. “To me they looked like the plants outside this building.” Then she sighed. “Maybe you should bridge somewhere yourself.”
Armando frowned at her. “A little respect, Infinity.”
She shrugged and nodded. She was the best bridger at SafeTrek, so Armando usually cut her some slack. Still, she would be nothing if he hadn’t hired her. If he wanted her to behave, she would at least try.
“I saw some birds,” she offered. “I’d never seen birds with feather markings like these had, but their basic shapes weren’t much different. Saw some squirrels. At least three wild cats smaller than bobcats. No deer or anything like that. Perhaps Neanderthal hunters killed all those.”
This was followed by a stream of questions about details, like the smell of the air, the color of the sky, the weight of the Neanderthals, their language, their clothing, and any signs of disease or malformations. She answered the questions the best she could. Lucky for her, the tourist had finally shut up. Probably bored.
The academics listened attentively to every word. And they frantically scribbled notes, even though they knew they’d get a copy of the interview video.
The questions were finally beginning to slow down when Armando held a finger up so he could listen to someone talking to him in his earpiece. He frowned and shook his head. “Thank you, Celia,” he said. He looked through the glass at Infinity. “I’m sorry to tell you this. Hornet didn’t make it. The techs think you may have been correct. Poison on the stone dart.”
Infinity stared down at her hands in her lap. The tourist next to her was talking. Something about Hornet being a badass, too. She shot up from her chair and glared at him. For just a moment she considered pummeling the idiot. But bridgers didn’t harm tourists. Ever. Instead, she slammed her fist into the plexiglass. She hit it again, hard enough that the gel pack on her forearm flew off and her blood splattered the clear barrier.
The academics drew back, eyes wide.
Armando stood up. “Gentlemen, we’ll end the interview here if you don’t mind.” He then motioned them to the door.
The tourist said, “Can I go now, too? I have a splitting headache.”
Armando nodded, and a tech came through the hatch and escorted the tourist out.
Armando turned to Infinity once they were alone. “Are you finished, kiddo?”
“Don’t call me that. Not right now.”
“I’m sorry.” He sat silently for a moment, tugging on his bowtie with two fingers. “And I’m sorry about Hornet. He was a good bridger. Maybe the best.”
She studied his face. When she saw the slight grin, she relaxed a little. “Good, but not the best,” she muttered. He was only trying to cheer her up.
His smile broadened. It was genuine, not forced. “His salary will go to his beneficiary for five years. That’s the deal.”
She just shook her head. Like her, Hornet had no family to speak of. He had never told her who he’d chosen as his beneficiary. He’d been a drifter before signing up at SafeTrek, so probably some kid somewhere who didn’t even know he had a father.
“Well, after your cleansings, take three days bereavement. Or whatever it is you like to do when you lose a partner. Then I need you back here. We have a rather unusual excursion coming up. I want my best bridgers involved.”
Infinity eyed him warily. “Coming up when?”
“Could be as soon as August third.”
“That’s three weeks. How in the hell am I supposed to—”
He held up a hand. “You’ll be paid double for the upcoming excursion. Plus, you won’t be docked for bringing your tourist back tonight with eight qualifying wounds to his body and possibly a concussion.”
Now she looked at him with outright suspicion. “What are you getting me into?”
“Like I said, it’s a rather unusual excursion. The clients will arrive August first. You’ll train them on the second. If our first bio-probe is successful, the bridge could take place August third. But they’ve blocked out the entire month in case it requires multiple bio-probes.”
Infinity slapped her palm on the plexiglass, smearing her own blood. “Two things about what you just said are screwed up. What do you mean, clients? I’m not taking two tourists again.” It was always difficult babysitting one tourist. She had taken two before. It was too risky, too damn chaotic.
“No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re taking three.”
She pressed harder against the plexiglass and the seams began to creak under the pressure. “You’re not serious.”
Armando glanced at the seams but refused to show concern. He nodded. “They’ve got the money. In fact, they’ve pre-paid. They’re going, Infinity, and you’re taking them. You and the bridger you choose for your new partner. Next question.”
She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. She was almost afraid to ask her next question. Tourists got to choose how far back the point of divergence would be. If the destination world had diverged from ours five minutes ago, it would be virtually identical. If it had diverged a year ago, there might be noticeable differences. A lot can happen in a year. With a divergence 1,000 years ago, civilization could look quite different. At 100,000 years, humans may not even exist, as with this latest fiasco. Neanderthals or some other species could have gotten the upper hand at some point. Infinity hated bridging to worlds that had diverged much beyond 1,000 years ago. Things got too unpredictable. She could fight any human alive, because she understood how humans fought. But as she had been reminded today, it was hard to know how a nonhuman would fight.
She opened her eyes slowly. “And why do you think the first bio-probe won’t be successful? How far back do they want the divergence?” The bio-probe was how SafeTrek found an inhabitable world, one that didn’t have toxic air, lethal temperatures, or some other instant-death deal-breaker. Worlds with divergence in the distant past were much more likely to be uninhabitable due to all the possible environmental changes that could have occurred during that time.
Armando forced a smile. “You might want to si
t down first, kiddo.”
She pushed even harder on the clear barrier. “Just spit it out.”
“The clients were very specific in their request, and they were willing to pay all additional fees.” He hesitated. “You’ll be escorting them to a world that diverged from ours eighty million years ago.”
2
Tremors
August 2 — Seventeen days later
Desmond Weaver felt the ground shaking, which broke his concentration. He lowered his guard for a moment, and the four-foot dinosaur maneuvered around his crude, two-pronged spear and went straight for his throat.
“You’re dead, Weaver. Again.” The trainer known as Razor shoved the pole with its attached dinosaur, smacking Desmond in the face with the ridiculous rubber creature.
“I felt another tremor,” Desmond said. “It distracted me.”
Desmond’s college roommate, Xavier Cahill, looked at his watch. “That’s three tremors in the last hour.” Xavier was the only guy Desmond knew who actually wore a watch. He and Desmond’s other roommate, Lenny Stiles, were standing on the sidelines waiting for their turn to battle the fake dinosaur with their own hand-made spears.
Lenny said, “I’m telling you guys, we’re at the cusp of a zip-banging bitch of an apocalypse. Mark my words.” Lenny had been saying that for a year, since the quakes and unusual weather had started.
“Again,” Razor said, and he held the dinosaur out, ready to attack.
Desmond sighed and raised his spear. The two-pronged spears would be the first weapons they’d make after bridging to their destination world, assuming there were any plants with suitable stems. Razor had explained that spears were the easiest weapons to make with their bare hands. Anything shorter than a spear was pretty much useless against animal attacks. He had demonstrated that almost any predator could be held at bay with a long spear, even if the creature had a five-foot reach with its teeth or claws.
Desmond sparred with the dinosaur again. This time he managed to puncture it with one of the sharpened tips, but this only triggered Razor to animate the creature more vigorously, as if it had become enraged. Seconds later, Desmond received another embarrassing smack to the face.
Razor grunted, “You’re dead, Weaver. Again.” The guy wasn’t prone to long speeches. He often spoke in one-word sentences. Razor was a completely hairless, lean fighting machine. According to the SafeTrek website, for twenty years he had trained U.S. Army soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. And since the start of their training early that morning, he had made Desmond, Lenny, and Xavier realize, beyond any doubt, that they knew basically nothing about defending themselves. But to his credit, he had taught them two things: first, tourists had to allow their bridgers—in this case Razor and his partner Infinity—to protect them if there was any kind of attack. And second, they learned a few basic skills to help them stay alive if both bridgers were killed.
“Again,” Razor said.
Desmond jammed the butt of his spear into the grass at his feet and held it vertically. “Razor, I see what you’re trying to do. But training for a few hours isn’t going to make us effective fighters. It’s a safe bet there won’t be humans on our destination world. And honestly, I’m betting there won’t be dinosaurs either. The chances are slim.”
Razor shook the rubber Dinosaur. “You know what predators will be there?”
“That’s the whole idea,” Desmond said. “There’s no way to predict which megafauna will have become dominant in a complete do-over of the last eighty million years.”
“Exactly.” He shook the dinosaur again. “Defend yourself.”
Xavier got to his feet and stepped forward. “Desmond is right. It would be a better use of our time if we were to train you to help us make the observations he needs for his dissertation. If we’re attacked by predators, you guys will protect us. That’s your job, isn’t it?”
“Don’t answer that, Razor!”
The demand came from Razor’s partner. Other than having briefly introduced herself after breakfast, this was the first time she had spoken. For the last three hours she had been sitting atop a boulder at the side of the training field behind the SafeTrek building, silently watching the training exercises. Desmond had finally decided she must have been meditating.
She unfolded her legs, got to her feet, and jumped to the ground. She landed lightly and approached the group. She wore nothing more than a tight-fitting sports top and shorts, like a mixed martial arts fighter. Which was exactly what she had been before joining SafeTrek. Unlike Razor’s smooth scalp, her head had a few weeks of hair growth. A fresh, brightly-colored tattoo of a bird covered most of her chest, in contrast with the smaller, faded SafeTrek tattoo on her arm. Scars of various sizes and stages of healing adorned the rest of her body, including a recently-stitched three-inch slice on her right forearm. To Desmond, she was intimidating, but she was also beautiful in her own scary, look-at-me-wrong-and-I’ll-slit-your-throat kind of way. Her name was Infinity Fowler.
She stopped in front of Desmond and Xavier. Lenny was still sitting, and she snapped her fingers at him and then pointed at a spot on the ground next to Desmond. Lenny quickly got up and stepped to the spot. Razor stood to the side with his arms crossed.
Finally, she spoke. “When we’re together, who’s God?”
After several seconds of silence, Desmond looked at Xavier and then at Lenny. They just shrugged, offering no help.
He turned back to Infinity. “You are?”
“Wrong. You are.” She glanced at Lenny and Xavier. “And you, and you. Why? Because I’d die to save your life. How about you, Razor?”
“Damn right I would,” he said.
She stepped closer to Desmond. Uncomfortably close. “We’re bridgers. We’d die to save you from a flesh wound, tourist. How does that make you feel?”
Again there was silence.
“I guess I feel lucky,” Desmond said. “And safe.” He then tried to hold her intense gaze without looking away.
She broke eye contact first. Her eyes moved down to his t-shirt, and then to his khaki shorts, and finally to his water sandals before moving back to his face. “You don’t think our exercises are very real.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that—”
“You’re right.”
Desmond wasn’t sure how to respond. He just shook his head.
“So far it’s not real,” she said.
Razor nodded. “Let’s make it real.”
Suddenly they both peeled off their tight shorts, and then Infinity pulled her sports top off over her head. They stood buck naked, staring at Desmond, Xavier, and Lenny.
The silence reached a new level of uncomfortable.
“Bridging strips away nonliving matter,” Infinity said. “You come out the other side like you came out of your mama—naked, bald, and scared. For most tourists we don’t get real until after lunch. But you’re ready. Shed your clothes.”
Lenny smiled and said, “I figured this was coming. I got no problem with it.” He started stripping.
Desmond sighed. They’d all be naked together for the thirty-six hours of the excursion. Might as well get used to it now. He flipped his sandals off.
“I’d like to request to leave my underwear on,” Xavier said. “I see no reason to go this far before bridging.”
Desmond had been Xavier’s roommate long enough to suspect something like this might happen. He frowned at Xavier and then turned to Infinity to see how she would handle it.
She was eyeing him back. “You in charge?”
Desmond shrugged as he removed his shorts. “Xavier’s paying for the whole thing.”
“Who talked who into it?”
He forced a half grin as he removed his underwear. “That would be me. I’m doing this for my dissertation. I need their help with observations.”
She nodded. “Then you’re in charge. You’ve got a problem. You have one minute to fix it.” She then stepped over to Razor and they began talking softly.
Desmond turned again to Xavier and Lenny. “I had no intention of being in charge.”
Lenny was naked now. He held up both hands. “It’s all zippity-doo-dah with me, Des. You can be in charge.”
Xavier was frowning. “I don’t care who’s in charge. But I’m not comfortable removing my underwear until we absolutely have to. Especially in front of her.” He tilted his head toward Infinity.
Desmond shot a glance at the bridgers. She had said one minute. What would she do if this took longer? He turned back to his friends. “Okay, here’s the way I see it. This is costing half a million apiece. That’s one-point-five million dollars. It’s your family’s money, Xavier. You want to waste it all by screwing this up?”
Gazing at Xavier, Lenny nodded. “It’d be wicked-crisp if you’d just shed your damn shorts, man.”
Xavier mumbled something and started taking them off. “Why do you have to talk that way? What does wicked-crisp even mean? You just made it up.”
Lenny smiled. “Wicked-crisp, man. It means everything you aren’t. There’s stuff that is wicked-crisp, and then there’s you.”
Desmond ignored their banter and turned back to the bridgers, involuntarily putting one hand over his groin. He called out, “Problem solved.”
Infinity walked over and faced him again. “Like I said, you’re in charge.” She reached behind Desmond’s head and pulled the end of his ponytail around to the front. “How long did it take you to grow this?”
“I don’t know. Couple years.”
She stroked the hair like it was a pet. “Too bad.” She looked him in the eye. “Desmond’s a pussy name. We’ll call you Decay.”
She turned to Lenny. “Lenny’s a pussy name, too. We’ll call you Lynch.”
Lenny smiled like a teenager. “I can live with that.”
“What’ll you call me?” Xavier asked.
Bridgers 1_The Lure of Infinity Page 2
