Homecoming: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 23)

by R. L. King

  Harrison nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

  It was growing dark by the time they reached their destination. Harrison took an exit and drove down a dusty frontage road, shifting his gaze between the truck’s navigation console and the view outside.

  “I see what you mean about blending in. Though I suppose a truck this posh and new is still going to be a bit conspicuous for a wide spot in the road like this, isn’t it?” Stone asked. “We’re going to get noticed.”

  “We won’t.” Harrison said. “I’ve activated an illusion generator. No one will discover it until we are long gone.”

  “What about the paper trail? I assume that’s sorted as well.”

  Harrison gave him a brief sideways glance, but didn’t otherwise reply.

  “All right, never mind. Should have known better than to ask. So, what’s the plan? Where’s this place we’re looking for?”

  “Several miles outside town, hidden beneath a building disguised as an agricultural facility.”

  Stone chuckled. “So, what, we look like a farm truck?”

  Harrison seemed to be looking for something. A moment later, he turned off onto a smaller road, pulled the truck behind a ramshackle garage, and switched off the lights.

  “This isn’t it, is it?” Stone looked around, but couldn’t see any sign of other buildings.

  “No. We’ll prepare here and then continue.”

  “What sort of preparations?”

  Harrison exited the truck, indicating for Stone to do likewise. He pulled out the black bag he’d tossed in the back seat, and from it he pulled a paper map and spread it on the hood.

  Stone studied it. It showed what looked like a lot of empty space with a small cluster of buildings in the center. A single long, straight road extended from the main road to the buildings. “What are those, cornfields?”

  “Agricultural fields of various types, ostensibly.” Harrison indicated the buildings. “Their purpose is to give the surveillance methods they’re employing adequate time to spot anyone unauthorized approaching.”

  “Bloody hell. Is this some kind of military installation?”

  “Not exactly. They do maintain a small security force on site, but it is primarily a research facility. Its existence is not well-known, even within the government.”

  Stone didn’t bother asking how Harrison knew all this. He wouldn’t put it past the guy to have his own Earth-based spy network. “Okay…so if that’s true, how are we going to get in? Won’t they spot us?” He pointed at the wide-open space surrounding the building. “You can’t tell me you can deal with every possible security measure they have in place.”

  “No. But we can deal with the on-site security.”

  “First we’ve got to get there, though. If there’s only one road in, they’ve got to be watching it. I don’t fancy tramping through the cornfields for several miles so they’ll have time to send everything they’ve got at us.”

  “We will not be doing that. Nor will we enter via the road.”

  Stone decided not to ask. Clearly Harrison had a plan, and the man was right: dealing with a few mundanes probably wouldn’t be a big challenge for them. Instead, he asked, “So…what…we just waltz in, take everybody down, and pop off with the Traveler? You know they’re going to contact others as soon as they spot us.”

  “No doubt they will.”

  “But…you don’t expect to be there when they arrive.”

  “I do not.” Harrison began pulling more gear from the black bag, laying it out on top of the map. As he did, he explained his plan in his usual brisk, succinct matter.

  “That’s it?” Stone asked when he’d finished. “That’s all there is to it?”

  Harrison’s eyes glittered in the dim light. “There is no point in complicating things, Dr. Stone.”

  Stone let his breath out. “Okay. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  A silent, level gaze was his only reply.

  14

  Stone studied the field ahead of him. He’d never have guessed it was anything but exactly what it appeared to be: a wide, flat expanse of crops and fallow patches surrounded by an interconnecting network of fences. He even spotted a few cows and horses placidly dozing near the fence.

  “Don’t tell me,” he murmured as they approached. “The cows are secretly a crack team of security operatives.”

  Harrison didn’t answer. He pulled the truck onto the shoulder and shut off the engine, then tapped his neck to activate his tiny throat mic. When Stone did the same, he said, “Testing.”

  His soft voice came loud and clear through Stone’s earbud. “I feel like I’m on some kind of bloody military mission.”

  “I advise you not to speak aloud, if you don’t wish anyone to identify you. Your voice is distinctive.”

  “No problem. I’m hoping we won’t have to talk to anyone.” He fingered the illusion generator on its chain around his neck, visualizing the form he’d already settled on: a slim, boring-looking young man with blond hair, dressed in a drab black coverall. “You’re sure these things will interfere with video recording?”

  “Everything has been extensively tested.”

  When they were both out of the truck, Harrison stood back and concentrated on it for several seconds.

  “What was that?” Stone subvocalized through the mic. “It already looks like it belongs here.”

  “I have eliminated any traces of us from it. A simple magical pulse designed to destroy any evidence that might be discovered.” He slung his bag over his shoulder.

  “Impressive.” Stone could do something similar, but not as easily or thoroughly. “So, are you going to tell me how we’re getting in without being seen? I notice we’re not parked anywhere near the front entrance.”

  “No. This road is along the back side of the facility.” He pointed. “Our destination is approximately one mile in that direction. We will levitate in.”

  “For a mile? That will take quite some time. And we’ll be visible to anything that might be watching. They’ll shoot us out of the sky.”

  “This isn’t that kind of facility. If they are watching for anything, it will be inquisitive reporters, possibly with drones.” Harrison gave him an odd look. “You can remain here, Dr. Stone, if you don’t wish to—”

  “No. No, I’m coming. Somebody’s got to keep you from killing everybody you encounter. Let’s get on with it, then.” He stepped back, preparing to cast his levitation spell. “I’ll follow you, since you seem to know where you’re going.”

  “Let me handle the levitation.”

  “Er—fine.”

  A second later, the two of them lifted from the ground. They continued to rise until they were much higher than Stone had thought they’d go.

  He looked down. From here, the small facility was barely visible in the distance below and ahead of them. It had no lights. He tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy. While he’d never been nervous about heights when he was in control of the spell, this was different. “Perhaps I should—”

  They started to move at a high rate of speed. Stone bit off the rest of his suggestion and held his breath as the rushing air whipped his hair and clothes. This wasn’t levitation, drifting like a balloon in a light wind—this was flight.

  It wasn’t long before Stone let go of his nervousness. Harrison clearly had things under control, holding them both in a firm, solid grip as they zipped through the dark sky.

  So far, nothing seemed to have noticed them. Stone shifted to magical sight, scanning the ground below for any sign of living beings, but all he saw were more drifting, pale-green auras: cows or other livestock. Amused, he wondered which hapless military grunt got the task of feeding and tending to the creatures, or whether they hired local farmers to do it. Even up here, the smell indicated they were definitely real, and not some sort of animatronics.

  Seriously? Animatronic cows? You have been watching too many of the wrong sort of movies.

  “I’m taking
us down now,” came Harrison’s soft, crisp voice in his earbud. “I don’t see any guards. Do you?”

  “No. Unless the cows are armed.”

  Harrison didn’t favor that with a reply.

  They dropped lower, revealing three dark buildings arranged in a rough semicircle around an open, paved area. Three pickup trucks were parked in a line near the leftmost building.

  “Which one is it?” Stone subvocalized. He was still watching for movement, living or otherwise. Either Harrison had more tricks up his sleeve than he was admitting to, or this place didn’t have a sensor array worthy of the Starship Enterprise. He supposed it made sense: if the place had been created to study extraterrestrial life, they probably didn’t have much to do most of the time. He couldn’t believe they found something worthy of their attention every week. Whatever scientists they had in there were probably wetting themselves over the Traveler.

  Too bad for you, ladies and gents—your pet alien is about to do a runner.

  They landed next to the building, setting down gently near a door that looked like it was made of rickety, faded wood. Harrison didn’t hesitate, but merely raised his hand. Something went pop and the door opened, revealing it wasn’t a rickety wooden door at all, but rather a substantial metal one.

  Harrison strode through, and Stone followed, still looking around for threats. It didn’t make sense that they’d get through that door without tripping an alarm somewhere.

  “Halt,” said a voice.

  There we go…

  Behind Stone, the door slammed shut.

  15

  Harrison didn’t seem disturbed by either the voice or the door. He calmly reached into his bag and removed a device that looked like a crude smartphone. He tapped its screen and studied the result as all around them, alarms began to sound.

  “Er—we are going to get on with it, right?” Stone raised a shield around himself, just in case the place had automated defenses.

  Harrison didn’t even look up, but continued to examine the screen as he moved the device around. “There,” he said after a moment. “She’s underground, as I expected.”

  “Brilliant. But I don’t see any elevators, do you?” The area where they stood looked consistent with a rarely-used barn, with wooden stalls, a large hayloft at the far end, and a moldering, elderly pickup truck in pieces on the floor ahead of them. It even smelled like hay.

  “No. But I think that will change. Wait a moment.”

  Stone glared at him. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” The alarm klaxons were getting louder. He wasn’t sure whether to view Harrison’s calm with confidence or concern. His mind spun wild scenarios of automated gun emplacements, gas nozzles, or even more exotic countermeasures. Was Harrison correct that no magic was involved, or merely guessing?

  On the other side of the room, the floor of one of the stalls tilted up to reveal a rising platform with two men on it. They wore military uniforms, helmets, and goggles, and they both held rifles.

  “Don’t move!” one of them barked, aiming his at Stone and Harrison. “Hands on your heads.”

  “And now our elevator is revealed,” Harrison said calmly. He made a minute gesture, and both men dropped soundlessly to the ground, their rifles clattering next to them.

  “Damn it,” Stone muttered, remembering at the last second to subvocalize. “Did you kill them?” He hurried over to the two men, shifting to magical sight. To his relief, their auras still flickered, weak but steady. Maybe he was making an impression on Harrison after all.

  Harrison bent to retrieve a keycard from one of the men, then levitated both free of the elevator platform, dropping them next to the pickup truck. He picked up the rifles, concentrated on them for a few seconds, then discarded them. “Let’s go. Keep your shield up—I suspect they’ll be waiting for us downstairs.”

  Stone hadn’t taken his shield down. He examined the elevator, which appeared to be nothing more than a platform beneath the raised floor. “Do you know how to operate this thing? I don’t see anywhere to use that keycard, do you?”

  “One moment.” Harrison strode onto the platform, which didn’t move. “They’re probably controlling it from below. That will make things slightly more complicated. Watch the entrances.”

  A second later, Stone heard the wrenching protest of metal being twisted. He spun around in time to see Harrison rip the entire platform free and toss it aside, revealing a dark shaft.

  “You don’t do subtle, do you?” he muttered.

  “I do—when it is called for.” He indicated the shaft leading down. “In this instance, speed is more important than subtlety.” He lifted off the floor and floated down.

  Stone hurried to follow him, bolstering his shield to its maximum capacity. He had a feeling it was going to get a workout soon.

  Around them, the alarm klaxons were still going off.

  “Shouldn’t we be invisible?” he subvocalized on the way down. “You know they’re going to have people waiting for us down there.”

  “No point,” Harrison said.

  Stone sighed. The only saving grace of this whole thing was that the man could almost certainly back up his confidence. He hoped this wasn’t the exception.

  They landed at the foot of the shaft, in front of a pair of metal elevator doors. Harrison glanced at Stone, then swept a gesture.

  The doors slid open.

  “Don’t move!” said a voice.

  Three figures in helmets and body armor crouched behind a barrier at the other end of the hall. All three of them had guns trained on Stone and Harrison.

  “On your knees, hands on your heads!” one of them barked. “Do it, or we’ll shoot!”

  Here’s where we get to find out, Stone thought. He felt oddly dissociated, like he should feel more disturbed by three guns pointed at him. Instead, all he felt was faint unease coupled with curiosity.

  Maybe I’m starting to drink Harrison’s Kool-Aid. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good idea.

  Harrison barely seemed to acknowledge the men. He raised a hand, and all three guns wrenched free of their grips and slid down the hall toward the elevator.

  “Shit!” another of them yelled, as all three scrambled for alternate weapons.

  They didn’t get the chance. Another gesture, a sheet of blue flames, and all three disappeared behind their barrier. Harrison moved the barrier to the side to reveal them slumped in a heap.

  “You didn’t kill them, did you?” Stone demanded, glaring at him. The blue sheet of flame looked like the same spell he’d used on the survivalists in the Nevada desert.

  Harrison didn’t answer. He stepped over the fallen guards and looked at his tracker again. The hallway contained only a half-dozen doors, and after a moment he pointed at the one at the end on the left side, beyond where the barrier had stood. A sign bolted to it read:

  RESTRICTED ADMITTANCE

  AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  Stone paused to ensure the guards were still alive. Like the ones up top, they were deeply unconscious, with faintly flickering auras. He closed the distance in a couple quick strides in time to see Harrison gesture, ripping the heavy metal door open and slamming it into the wall.

  “You know, it might have been unlocked…” Stone muttered. But then he got a look at Harrison’s intense, focused expression and subsided. There was little point in trying to get between him and what he was after, regardless of how he decided to reach it.

  Inside was a sterile, impersonal space that looked like a combination hospital room and laboratory. The near side where they’d come in included lab benches, an institutional-looking desk, a bookshelf crammed with binders and books, a series of stacked boxes. Above them, banks of fluorescent lights were on at half strength, creating a dim, eerie effect.

  Stone took that in quickly, because the room’s other side drew most of his attention. A glass-walled cubicle took up a third of the space. At one end, a closed door had a keypad next to it, along with a handwashing station. “
Bloody hell…” he whispered. “They’ve got her in some sort of…isolation chamber.”

  Inside the chamber, barely visible in the dim light, was a hospital bed. On it lay a figure. Several machines, some Stone recognized as standard medical devices and others he’d never seen before, were attached to her via tubing and electrical leads. They flashed a series of colored lights, and their faint beeps were barely audible through the chamber’s glass wall. A screen next to them scrolled through data too fast to read. The figure in the bed, already small, looked as tiny as child surrounded by all that paraphernalia. She lay utterly still, her eyes closed. It was too dim to see if she was breathing.

  “What did they do to her…?”

  Harrison didn’t reply. He showed no visible emotion, except his eyes chilled even more. He raised his hand.

  “Wait,” Stone said quickly.

  Harrison didn’t lower his hand, but his cold gaze shifted from the Traveler to Stone. “We have little time.”

  “Yes, but you don’t want to smash your way in. You might do more harm than good.”

  “There is no need for her to be in this chamber.”

  “No—but you can’t just rip out all those tubes and wires. You might hurt her.”

  Harrison was about to answer when a figure skidded to a stop at the room’s doorway. “Stop! You can’t do this!”

  It was obvious the man wasn’t a guard, or even a soldier. He was too old, for one thing, and soldiers didn’t generally show up looking like they’d just rolled out of bed, dressed in lab coats hastily donned over pajamas.

  “Don’t open that chamber!” he cried. “You could kill her!”

  That wasn’t what Stone had expected him to say. “What?”