Tritium Gambit

by Erik Hyrkas

  Chapter 26. Max

  “Agents! There you are,” a familiar female voice called. “I thought I might find you here.”

  I peered over the wreckage at Wendy walking toward us. “You were looking for burning wreckage as a marker for our return? Our reputation has preceded us.”

  “Not exactly. I was sent to Minnesota to find you and get a status update because you haven’t been answering any calls,” Wendy said. “When I saw the ball of fire coming from the sky, I assumed it was you.”

  “Thanks,” Miranda said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Wendy answered. “I’ve set up a base of operations in a little bed and breakfast a few miles from here. I’ve already called for clean up for this…” She gestured to the smoldering ashes of our former spaceship. “The Intergalactic Guard should be along shortly to dispose of the pieces.”

  “Breakfast sounds awesome,” I said.

  Wendy looked at me. “Still thinking with your stomach, I see.”

  “It’s gotten me this far.”

  John jumped out of the wreckage and landed next to Wendy.

  Wendy took a step back. “You are not an agent.”

  “The St. Louis County Sheriff,” he replied. “But I used to be an agent.”

  “He’s not from around here originally,” I said.

  Wendy looked at Miranda and then John. “I thought Tyler was with you.”

  Miranda and I exchanged looks, and then Miranda answered, “Tyler was a traitor and tried to sell Max to the denizens of Zeta-Terra. He died in the negotiations.”

  Wendy looked deeply troubled, turning away for a second as if stifling her emotions. “We’ll talk more about this after you’ve had some food,” she said when she turned back in our direction, and then she studied me. “It looks like you haven’t eaten in some time.”

  We followed Wendy through the woods, I hoped toward food and maybe a change of clothes that fit. After a thirty minute walk and a short conversation with a hostess, we were all comfortably seated at a window table.

  I ordered six eggs over-easy, six slices of toast, twelve slices of bacon, hash browns, pancakes, and four tall glasses of orange juice. I almost asked for sausage, but Miranda kicked me under the table as if reading my mind.

  We couldn’t talk official business in public, and so we mostly ate in silence. I noted that, even though Miranda hadn’t had a clean change of clothes in days, she still looked radiant after merely combing her curly dark hair with her fingers. Her smile was bright and warm, and she made light conversation with Wendy about national news. I didn’t pay close attention. There was some scandal involving a senator, his maid, and a smart phone with a few hundred pictures on it.

  I simply nodded when I thought it was appropriate, tried to keep my eyes on Miranda’s face and not on her mostly full plate, and ate until there wasn’t food left on my side of the table. When Miranda saw me licking off my plate, she casually exchanged her plate with one of mine and I dug into what was left of her breakfast burrito.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “Of course,” she said and then turned back to her conversation with Wendy.

  When John and Wendy had finished eating, Wendy picked up the bill and we left the little bed and breakfast.

  I heard an ominous creak of seams in my pants. I was starting to test the limits of Tyler’s clothing. “I’d like to head back to the resort we’re staying at to get some fresh clothes. Then I think we should try to get back into Tyler’s cave and retrieve our gear. He took a few things that I need to get back.”

  “Wait! I can’t believe you don’t have weapons,” Wendy said. She suddenly looked a little angry. She seemed to give the three of us an appraising look before heaving a sigh.

  Miranda shrugged. “Tyler disarmed us, and we didn’t have an opportunity to acquire new gear. Having my gun back would be a real comfort, and I could use a warm shower.”

  Wendy looked uncomfortable. “We really should wrap up this mission.” She glanced around. “There’s something on the loose, and we need to take care of it. People are going missing.”

  “I know, but what are we supposed to do? Tickle it to death?” Miranda asked.

  “I have a molecular destabilizer, which should be enough to take down most anything,” Wendy said.

  “That’s great and all, but what would the rest of us do while you’re taking it down? Be bait?” Miranda asked.

  “That’s a good idea,” Wendy answered.

  “No,” I interjected before Miranda punched Wendy in the face. “I’m tired of being bait. Let’s get cleaned up, get our gear, and take this Wendigo as a team. Besides, we can’t talk out a plan until we get someplace private. Our cabin will do.”

  “I agree with Max,” John said. “I could also use a few weapons and a change of bandages. Maybe you can drop me off on the way to your cabin and I’ll catch up with you there. Besides, I have to make some phone calls and see if I still have my job.”

  Wendy sighed. “Fine. I’ll drive. I didn’t want to be without transportation, and so I bought an old Chevy pickup. A local guy sold it to me for five hundred dollars.”

  The very green Chevy was old, possibly from the 70s, and had a manual transmission. We had trouble squeezing four people in, and Miranda ended up on my lap—a place she did not look remotely comfortable.

  “Not one word about my weight,” she whispered to me. I was thinking she was feather light, but I nodded.

  The old Chevy made grinding and squealing noises as Wendy tried to get it to move before it sputtered and died.

  “If you torture it to death, we’ll never get there. You might try using the clutch,” Miranda said.

  Wendy looked like she might snarl, but she managed to make no sound at all. She restarted the truck, and then, with a few jerks and hiccups, we were rolling forward. The truck topped out at about forty miles per hour, but we didn’t have far to go. We dropped John at his cabin and Miranda quickly slid off my lap to sit where the sheriff had been.

  “All right,” John said. “I’ll get things in order and then meet you at the Great Rapids Inn, cabin thirteen.” Miranda and I waved as we pulled away.

  Wendy whisked us through the back country roads to Great Rapids Inn. The place looked deserted. The innkeeper had been brutally eaten by a Wendigo, and it seemed that there wasn’t anybody here to notice. The main lodge was open, and there we found the spare keys to the cabin and used them to get in.

  The cabin was the way we had left it: the beds unmade, our bags on the floor, and dirty dishes in the sink. Miranda grabbed her bag and went straight for the bathroom without a word. I folded up the hideaway bed back into a couch and turned on the TV, which was apparently only there for looks because there weren’t any stations that came in.

  “Very rustic,” I commented.

  “Tell me Tyler’s fate,” Wendy demanded. She didn’t look at me.

  “He tried to sell me to the King of the Wendigo, but the King decided to eat Tyler. Tyler killed the King, but another Wendigo ate him. The rest of us barely escaped,” I summarized. “There’s not much else to it.”

  “You did escape, however,” she said coolly. “He was an agent, and you should have brought him back for trial rather than letting some beast eat him.”

  “He had me tied to a stump! I had just had my arm bitten off by the King and was barely conscious. I might have been able to whisper encouraging words at him, but the only words that came to mind weren’t very complimentary.”

  Wendy huffed. “It isn’t right.”

  There was no use arguing with her. I knew that it wasn’t a kind fate, and I didn’t want him to get eaten either, but there really wasn’t any way I could have saved him. I wondered whether I would have saved him if I could. Probably not, I decided. Maybe that made me a bad person.

  Wendy rubbed her eyes, and I thought I might have glimpsed her brush away a tear, but then the bathroom door opened and Miranda came out in fresh clothes.

  Miranda wore a new
white T-shirt that had the words “Bad Ass” in pink on the front. She had cargo shorts on and black sandals. Her hair wasn’t in a bun now, but rather, she let it down and her curls hung about her shoulders. It looked spectacular. The dark circles under her eyes were gone, and I wondered if she drank a bottle of liquid sleep.

  I scooped up my bag and brushed past her into the bathroom. I didn’t want to spend one more moment alone with Wendy. She was acting really weird.

  I shaved, showered, and got cleaned up in under five minutes. It’s an art really. I put on a black T-shirt that had the letters “LFG” on the front and the word “Buffed” on the back. The shirt fit much looser than the last time I wore it. I put on a pair of cargo shorts similar to Miranda’s and tightened my belt to keep them from falling down. I seriously needed a sandwich.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Miranda tossed me a Bar-F. I caught it and noticed that she had already opened it for me.

  “Thanks!” I said, and I ate it in the obligatory two bites. “That was exactly what I needed.”

  She flashed me a brief smile before turning back to Wendy. “I think it’s suicide to take the Wendigo head-on. We need to play to our strengths and against its weaknesses.”

  “It doesn’t have any weaknesses,” Wendy said insistently.

  “Sure it does,” I said. They both looked at me, and so I continued. “For one, the beast doesn’t like water, and I think that’s because it can drown. Also, the poison from those Spearback Vipers is apparently enough to kill it.” I tossed the wrapper in the trash. “They are also vulnerable to starvation and need a steady supply of food.” Wendy and Miranda stared at me as I brushed the crumbs off my face.

  Miranda cleared her throat. “Exactly. They have weakness, and we need to exploit them. If we try to fight this creature on its terms, we’ll lose.”

  “And we’ll get eaten,” I added.

  “We really could use some antimatter weapons,” Wendy said thoughtfully.

  “Handheld antimatter weapons are banned,” Miranda said with exasperation.

  “They aren’t illegal though. They just aren’t used by the Service because they tend to cause too much collateral damage,” Wendy said coolly.

  “And they tend to get the person using it vaporized,” I whispered.

  Miranda stomped her foot. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

  I stepped between them before somebody got electrocuted or punched or both. “Look. Let’s just go get our gear and we’ll work out a plan as we go.”

  “Fine,” Miranda said.

  “Fine,” Wendy said.

  At that moment, there was a knock on the front door. As both Miranda and Wendy were crossing their arms and looking away from each other, I decided it was safe to leave them to answer it.