The Fold: A Novel (26 page)

“And, no,” Olaf added, “it isn’t.”

“Some kind of hologram thing,” said Weaver. Her statement leaned toward a question. “Like a…a big projection screen or something.”

“It’s a doorway,” said Duncan. “Like a wormhole.”

Mike felt a quick swell of pride for his former student. “Don’t step through the fold,” he said out loud. “Stay on this side of it.”

Weaver and Dylan slowed their movement up the ramp. “What happens if we go through?” asked one of the Marines near the nitrogen tanks. Her tag said her name was Sann.

“You could end up dead,” Mike told her. “Or lost.”

“Can’t get lost walking a couple of yards,” muttered Costello.

“It’s a lot more than a couple of yards.” Mike turned his gaze to Black. “Can you destroy it?”

Black glanced at Weaver and Dylan. The edges of their mouths twitched as they bit back confident smiles. They slid the bags from their shoulders. “Fast or quiet?” Dylan asked.

Mike looked at the bags. “There’s a quiet option?”

Weaver shrugged. “Relatively speaking, sir.”

“Fast,” he said. “The sooner this is done the better.”

She nodded once and looked around the main floor. “Do we care about anything else here?”

Mike glanced back at the others. Jamie looked over toward the room that held her homemade supercomputer. Olaf stared at the rings. His shoulders sagged, just a little.

Then he met Mike’s eyes and shook his head.

“No,” Mike told Weaver. “You can bring the whole place down if it means being sure.”

“Shouldn’t need that, sir.” She looked over her shoulder and found Sasha. “You’re the engineer? What’s under this?” She rapped one of the plastic carapaces with her knuckles. “Can we take these off?”

It took the Marines three minutes to accept the bolts holding the carapace sections couldn’t be removed. A pile of over a dozen brass nuts sat on the pathway as a small monument to their efforts. Then Dylan had produced a small hatchet from his pack and removed several sections the direct way. It still took him four tries as he found another layer of carapace beneath each one he hacked away.

The charges were bundles of six dark green packets, bound together with loops of duct tape. They were long and rectangular and made Mike think of Jenga bricks, for some reason. The ants assembled a full label for him to read from the fragments he glimpsed. Each packet was a pound and a half, each full bundle was nine. There was a block of black plastic attached to each bundle. The detonator.

Sasha and Olaf had them place all the charges on the first ring. They used the locking points to direct the demolitions experts. Thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen had two charges each. The Marines were fast. They’d bent the charges around the carapace sections like clay and used duct tape to bind them in place, ripping off long straps of it and wrapping it around the ring. The first group had been placed in minutes.

Weaver produced a spare C4 packet and slit it open with a knife. She plucked out lumps of the white putty inside and packed it into the gaps around the charges. Dylan reached over and broke off a third of the stick and wadded it into a ball with one hand. Both of them made sure to keep their fingers clear of the threshold.

The other Marines circled the room. Two stood by the big door and two more watched the back door through the shimmering image of
Site B. Four of them stood near the workstations, keeping guard as the explosives were set. Black stood between them. His face was calm, but Mike watched his eyes scan back and forth across the rings.

The others did sweep after sweep, checking everywhere. Their expressions ran from bored to confused to nervous. Several of them shot looks at the rings. All of them now held their weapons ready.

The roaches scurried between their feet. Costello tried to stomp on a few, but most of them dodged his boots with lazy circles. Even the few he connected with skittered away, still alive.

Jamie stood at the workstation, making final checks. She pursed her lips and shook her head. All the readings were stubborn to the end.

“How are you detonating them?” Mike asked.

“Remote timer,” said Dylan. “We cobbled it together to meet the specs your boss gave us.”

“Cobbled,” echoed Weaver with a smirk.

Dylan pulled something from his vest that looked like a pistol with no actual gun barrel. “Arm it, click it, and wave goodbye to it,” he said.

“How long’s the timer?”

“Five and a half minutes.”

“Five and a half?” echoed Jamie, looking up from her monitor. “That’s kind of random.”

“We usually detonate manually, ma’am,” Dylan said. “Like I said, we had to throw these together kind of quick with what we had.”

Weaver shuffled to the other side of the pathway. She peeled off a length of tape and fastened another charge over point three. She tore a second strip free to secure it.

The light on her face changed. The room brightened. Her eyes shifted to the left. Toward the Door. Half the Marines paused to look.

“Ahhh, fuck me,” said Sasha up on the pathway. “Do you guys see that?”

The other Site B, the other version of the other building, was gone. Through the rings was a vast expanse of gray sand, lit by a twilight sun. It stretched out for over two miles, dropped away into a canyon, and then continued on the other side. The dry scent of dust and sand drifted through the rings.

“I do,” Mike said. He saw Olaf and Weaver nod in his peripheral vision.

“Mother of fucking God,” said Black. The view spread out wall to wall, revealing the other world to the Marines. Whispers and mutters worked their way across the main floor.

Mike saw a few withered bushes and patches of brittle grass. Nothing moved. He could see for miles, and nothing moved anywhere.

He picked out rough lines across the landscape where the sand had piled up and covered things. The ants carried out the last view through this side of the door, and pattern recognition kicked in. The layout of Site B appeared in his mind, superimposed over the desert. He made out a few buildings in the distance as well. They’d all been crushed into concrete powder and dust.

As he stared, though, one bush shifted. Not an actual movement, but a change in perspective, even though he hadn’t moved or even blinked. One moment the bush was a few hundred yards from the Door, the next it was twenty-eight feet, by his estimate. Then he blinked and it retreated.

His mind replayed Arthur folding a piece of paper.

On the other side of the Door, distance seemed to be a relative term.

Dylan slammed the next charge against the ring. The tape spun around it much faster this time. The sound of tape ripping off the roll was fast and steady.

Sasha walked down the ramp. She glanced behind her with every other step. “It’s not going away,” she said as she twisted off the end of the tape. She pushed it down onto the charge.

Jamie looked at her as they stepped across to the other side of the rings. “What?”

“The desert. Wasteland. Whatever you want to call it.”

Mike studied her face. “You’ve seen it before?”

“This morning.” She thrust her chin at the rings. “When we tried to take it apart.”

“You didn’t say anything about that.”

“That’s where I saw the bugman first. I thought I might’ve been seeing things. It was just for a second. And then it attacked us.”

The duct tape let out a long raspberry as Weaver and Dylan wrapped the next charge in place between the rings.

Captain Black looked from Sasha to Mike. “Bugman?”

“I told you,” said Mike, “they wear masks.”

“That’s not exactly ringing true anymore,” the captain said. He used his chin to gesture at the wasteland. “Exactly what the hell is going on here?”

“Like Staff Sergeant Duncan said, it’s a gateway. A fold in space.”

“A gateway to where?” Black peered through the rings, and then he looked back at Mike and the others. “Is that Afghanistan? We’re a few steps from Afghanistan?”

The tape roll hissed and turned to paper. Dylan growled and tossed the empty roll aside. Weaver dug in her pack for another roll.

And paused.

“What the hell is that?”

They all followed her eye line through the Door.

Miles away, something had appeared on the far side of the canyon. Several somethings. A cloud of dust went up behind them. They were short and lopsided, and this far out they made Mike think of men riding giant crabs. The limbs on the ground rose and came down, propelling the things forward.

They were moving fast.

Mike took three quick strides up the ramp with Black right next to him. Jamie, Olaf, and Sasha weren’t far behind. They stood next to the two demolitions experts, still crouched to place their next charge but lost in the impossible view.

“Is that another one of those things?” Jamie asked. She tilted her head and tried to focus across the impossible distance.

The ants brought out pictures of the bugman they’d fought. Mike examined still images of it bent over on all fours, studied the way its spine had bent, watched it move forward on four limbs like some insectile centaur. The small shapes in the distance had the same profile. Their limbs moved the same way. He counted seven of them holding spears over their heads, but the dust cloud could be hiding more.

“I think it’s a lot of them,” said Mike. “At least fourteen, by my count. There could be more hidden in the dust cloud.”

“Duncan,” said Black. “Get a team out back and set up a line.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re not out back,” Olaf said. “They’re right there.”

“I can see them,” Black snapped.

“You’re seeing them but you don’t get it,” said Mike. “You’re not looking out behind the building, captain. You’re looking through a fold. They’re coming through this.” He gestured at the heat-haze field that stretched across the room.

“What the hell is this thing?”

“It’s dangerous,” Mike said, “and we need to destroy it before more of those things find their side of it.”

Black made his decision in seconds. “Secure this room,” he called out. “Dylan, Weaver, I want this done five minutes ago.”

“Yes, sir,” they both echoed.

“Lock and load, Marines,” called out Duncan, all trace of the former student gone. “We’ve got incoming, probably fifteen minutes out. Let’s get the welcome party ready.”

The four around the Door dropped to their knees and brought up their rifles. The others dragged over tool chests for extra cover. One of them pointed a finger at the big tanks. “What are those?”

“Liquid nitrogen,” said Olaf. “Try not to shoot them.”

“Really cold?”

“Really explosive.”

The Marine swore under his breath and shuffled a few more feet away. They crouched behind the workstations and tool chests. A line of rifles pointed at the Door. Costello swung his oversized rifle onto one of the tool chests and unfolded a bipod at the end of the barrel.

“I was really hoping they’d send more,” Jamie murmured to Mike.

“Maybe you should get out of here,” he said. “There’s nothing more for you to do.”

“It’s our project,” Olaf said.

“I think you all need to leave,” said Black. “This is a combat situation now. Fall back to the door, at least.” He looked at Mike, then down at the two Marines taping a charge against the ring.

The view through the rings drifted and blurred. Just for a moment it was Site B again. Then it was the empty lot behind the remains of Site B. And then it was the sprawling desert and the charging creatures again.

“Jesus,” said Dylan. “What was that?”

“The fold’s unstable,” said Mike. “The other end of the tunnel is flailing around between different realities.”

Weaver looked up at him. “What?”

Black shot a glance at them and the two Marines went back to their explosives.

“Fuck me,” said Sasha. “They’re on this side of the canyon. They all just kind of lunged forward half a mile or so when it flickered.”

“Done,” said Dylan. Weaver pressed one last small clump of putty into a gap behind the last charge. They stood up.

“Let’s fall back,” said Black with another look at the approaching
figures. Over two dozen were visible now, and more shadows moved in the dust cloud. “Sir, I need all of you to evacuate the building now.” Sasha hopped off the pathway down to the floor. Mike opened his mouth to respond and something changed in his peripheral vision. On the other side of the rings, the middle charge had vanished. The loops of tape were gone. There weren’t even any trails of sticky residue left on the carapace.

Jamie was about to hop down and saw his face. “What?”

“Problems.”

She turned and followed his gaze. So did Black.

“Son of a bitch,” said Weaver. “Where’d it go?”

“Fuck me,” Sasha said.

Black glared at Mike, then at each of the others in turn.

Mike looked at Dylan and Weaver. “Will two charges be enough there?”

They traded a look between them. Weaver shrugged. “It should,” she said. “Ten pounds’d take out that whole wall if you placed it right, and we’ve still got thirty-six on this thing.”

He looked at Black. “Do it.”

“When you’re clear. We’ll hold position until—”

“We’ve got time to get clear,” snapped Olaf. “Blow the damned thing and let’s go.”

The sound of feet rumbled out of the Door. It was the noise of a herd. A stampede. They were less than a mile away.

“Five minutes, sir,” shouted Duncan.

A healthy man could do a five-minute mile. Mike had no idea how fast a four-legged animal could cover the distance, but he was sure it was less.

“I’ve got another charge,” said Weaver. “A spare.”

Black looked at the approaching horde. “How fast?”

She didn’t answer, just pulled the last bundle from her bag.

Black grabbed Mike by the shoulder and pushed him down the ramp. “All of you,” he said, reaching for Sasha, “go now.”

Mike stumbled on the ramp, and his eyes fell to the floor. He caught the movement on the concrete. He watched for three seconds to be sure. His pattern recognition skills were very good.

“The roaches,” he said.

Black half-glanced over his shoulder. “What about them?”

“They’re all moving away from the rings.”

Dylan looked back. Black turned around. Jamie and Olaf took a few more steps down the ramp and looked out at the main floor.

The green cockroaches still scurried between tool chests and furniture, but they’d moved far back. The closest ones were almost ten feet from the base of the ramp. Even as Mike watched, their paths retreated a little more.

“Fuck me,” Sasha said again.

One of them stopped between the workstations and bent its antennae toward the rings. The tips gleamed like tiny fiber-optic lines. They bent forward, back, forward, and then the cockroach turned and raced away.

“What’s it mean?” said Black.

“It means we need to do this now,” said Mike.

The captain took in a breath and nodded. “You heard the man, sergeant.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dylan. Behind him, Weaver swept her tools and leftovers back into her bag. She let out a sharp breath that fell somewhere between a whistle and a hiss. It was the sound of something moving fast through the air.

Dylan kicked himself away from the rings. He went off the edge and crashed to the floor in front of his fellow Marines. His body rolled to the side and the spear in his chest clattered against the concrete. His body armor bulged in the back where it kept the spear tip from bursting through.

Another blur of white shot through the rings. It hit the back wall with a crack and dropped to the floor. The next one tore through Olaf’s sleeve before burying itself a foot into one of the tool chests.

Mike grabbed Jamie and pulled her down. Sasha threw herself on the floor. Olaf lunged off the platform and landed gracefully in a crouch. Weaver dropped flat on the pathway and rolled until she dropped off the platform and crashed on top of Sasha.

Black turned, and a spear went through the meat of his arm and into his ribs. Nine inches of the tip tore through his uniform on the other
side of his body. It was barbed and bloody. His knees buckled and he fought to keep his balance with five feet of spear hanging off his arm. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and spat out the words “Blow it.”

Then a second spear passed through his hip with a crack of bone. He roared once and then sagged on the pathway. The spears kept his body from falling flat, holding him up in a slouched position that almost looked like a yoga pose.

The sound of footsteps shook the huge room. Dozens of spears flew through the ring and the heat haze around it. They rained through the air.

Mike and Jamie huddled in the corner between the ramp and the walkway. He looked beneath the ramp and saw Sasha, Olaf, and Weaver in the corner opposite them. Olaf was staring at something out on the floor. The spears hissed above them.

Three more Marines were dead, skewered by spears. A fourth slumped behind a tool chest and grunted back screams while he held his shattered and bloody arm. Two others let off shots from their rifles. One of them was Costello with his big automatic weapon.

The sound reflected off the concrete walls. Duncan yelled something that was lost in the thunderous echo. Inside Mike’s head, pattern recognition kicked out the word “sharp.”

The rumble of footsteps turned into a clang of steel as the bugmen charged out of the Door and launched themselves off the pathway. Black’s body slammed into the floor in front of Mike and Jamie, kicked aside by the invaders. The captain’s chin and chest were dark with blood he’d coughed up in his final moments.

The bugmen hurled themselves at the remaining Marines. Their cloaks spread like wings, casting shadows across the room. Some had spears. Some had their claw-like hands stretched out. All three of their hands.

They were caught in midair by high-velocity rounds. Some were torn apart. Others landed with enough life to drive their spears into their killers. Across the main floor, the roar of weapons and the howl of monsters fought to be the loudest sound.

Costello cut down five of the leaping creatures before his weapon ran dry. The sixth punched its spear down through his throat. The jagged head tore out between his shoulder blades, and the bugman rode his
body down to the floor. It wrenched the spear free and stalked away. Blood bubbled and spit out of Costello’s mouth for a few moments while he died.

Dark blood sprayed across the floor. Spears and talons impaled the Marines. The few survivors fell back. Mike counted five of them. Jim Duncan was one.

Weaver rolled to her feet and brought her rifle up. She marched forward and shot three of the bugmen in the back. A fourth turned and she put a trio of rounds in its face.

Olaf leaped up behind her. Sasha grabbed at him, but he shook her off. He loped up behind Weaver, heading for Dylan’s body.

Duncan and the other Marines got a cautious crossfire going. Two more bugmen dropped. Then one Marine’s weapon
clacked
empty and a monster pounced on him. They went down in a swirl of cloak and screams. Another, Sann, tried to switch magazines. A spear went straight through her right eye and out the back of her skull, shattering her helmet as it did.

One of the bugmen pulled a spear from one of the corpses and hurled the weapon back at Weaver. It flew straight through her stomach and struck Olaf in the shoulder. She managed to kill the creature with two more bursts before she dropped her rifle and clutched at her gut.

Olaf bit back a scream. The spear hung from his shoulder like a rod on a puppet. He flailed at Dylan’s body, stretching his fingers. Then another shaft hissed in the air and punched through his chest. He slumped. The spears held him up, forming a tripod with his spine.

Jamie shrieked into her hand.

Weaver tried to move. She took a few awkward steps to the side, clutching at the hole in her stomach. Blood gushed down from the matching hole in her back. It soaked through her uniform and splashed out onto the floor. She winced, her face paled, and she dropped to her knees in the puddle. Her shoulders slumped and her chin dipped down to her chest.

Mike saw it all. The ants carried out instant replays and freeze frames and assembled renderings for him to review. They tallied the dead and the living on both sides. Twenty-two dead monsters. Fourteen dead Marines. All committed to memory forever.

Four bugmen were still alive. Two of them were wounded. They were stalking the last two Marines.

Less than a minute had passed since the first spear impaled Dylan.

Black had a sidearm. It was in a holster on his hip. He’d never drawn it. It was twenty-three inches from Mike’s left hand.

Why had Olaf been reaching for Dylan’s body? What had he wanted? The Marine’s rifle was still up on the pathway where he’d dropped it, right next to…

The ants showed him the image from three different angles. He’d seen it when the first spear hit and when he’d grabbed Jamie’s forearm and when they were in mid-dive for cover.

Dylan’s rifle sat right next to the remote for the charges. Mike looked up through the expanded steel and saw the two outlines a few feet behind Sasha.

Three fast shots rang out, another rifle burst, and one of the bugmen roared. Another one dropped. Its skull had been pulped.

Over by the tool chests, Jim Duncan screamed as a spear was driven through his shoulder and down into his chest. The creature twisted its weapon, shredding his insides, but Mike’s former student managed to bring up his rifle. The bugman’s cloak rippled, caught in nine small breezes. The two bodies slumped together.

Two bugmen left. One Marine. According to Mike’s count, the last survivor was Banner, first initial J. According to her patch, she was a sergeant with type O positive blood.

Mike pointed out the remote to Jamie. He spread his fingers wide twice and mouthed “boom.” She understood. He waved his hand to Sasha. The movement caught her eye, and he repeated his simple sign language to her. She nodded as well.

Somewhere out on the floor, Marine sergeant J. Banner fired off two bursts with her rifle and died screaming.

Two, possibly only one, bugmen left.

Mike used his fingers to mime running, pointed at himself, and then pointed to the far side of the main floor. He would run toward the tanks, away from the door. They could grab the remote and run.

He reached out and slid Black’s pistol from its holster. It was heavier than he thought it would be. He twisted up onto his toes, kissed Jamie on the forehead, and lunged to his feet.

There were two creatures left. One had its hood up. The other one glared at him with three mismatched eyes.