Technomancer (35 page)

“They’re slowing down,” Fiona said. “They can’t see us now. If we wait, they’ll probably drive right by.”

I thought about it. “Can we close up this rip if we go to the far side and tell Gilling to turn it off?”

“Doesn’t work that way,” Old Red said. “Takes time to die. You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

I had indeed seen more than my fair share. I decided to wait around. We were supposed to be scouts, after all. “Let’s see what they do. We can always step back out to safety. We have an army on the far side to back us up.”

The others were nervous, but willing to go with my plan. We waited. The enemy vehicle did not make a straight path toward us. Instead, it drifted westward as it drew near.

“See?” Old Red crowed. “They can’t see us. They’re going to sail right by.”

I could tell he wanted very much for that to happen. But it didn’t. When they got close, they suddenly slowed and began to circle. They drove in a full loop around us. I glanced back and saw Old Red was about one foot from backing into the rip. I couldn’t really blame him. He was an old homeless guy who stole coins with his trick hat. He hadn’t signed on for a fight to the death with aliens in a strange desert. He’d probably joined Gilling’s group for the free food.

“Can you thicken the air up enough to stop them?” I asked Abigail.

She shook her head, concentrating on her task. She was doing a good job. The Gray Men clearly didn’t know where we were. But they knew they’d seen something out here. It occurred to me that we couldn’t retreat easily now. Abigail’s barrier would vanish if we ran, and then they would see the big rip. They would come through right into the mansion, and not in the wine cellar this time. The cultists would be
in even more danger after that. This was exactly the kind of thing the enemy seemed to be looking for.

“Just hold on, everyone,” I said. “They haven’t spotted us yet.”

I shouldn’t have said those words. The vehicle turned away, then swung around and plowed right into the region of space we were in. The blinding headlight swiveled and bathed us in light.

I could have ordered everyone to step back right then, to retreat. Maybe I should have done it. But I wanted to let these gray bastards know they were in a fight first. I was tired of running like a rat. When leading the living, it’s probably best to think of them rather than the dead, but I couldn’t help it. I thought of Holly, and I wanted revenge.

“Fire!” I ordered. “Knock out that light!”

Everyone opened up. I felt a gush of heat go by me and the van-shaped vehicle rocked with the impact. Here and there the smooth metal vehicle puffed flame and white sparks.

I squeezed off rounds one at time. Fiona worked her knife in the air like a Japanese chef, and Old Red loosed more blasts. The light did go out, and I was never sure afterward which of us nailed it. If I had to guess, I would give the honor to Old Red. Whatever the case, we were cast into gloom again. Several shapes piled out of the vehicle. They were Gray Men, I was sure of that. They didn’t talk or shout. I’d never heard one utter a word up until now, and this occasion wasn’t any different.

They were carrying those big beam weapons of theirs, but they didn’t have a chance to freeze us. Old Red let go first and his next puff caught three of them. They were staggering, burning. Like inhuman torches, they clawed at the sky and fell into the sands, thrashing.

“Circle around to the left, Fiona,” I said. I didn’t want them to take cover on the far side of the vehicle and shoot under it. We had to stop them quickly.

Fiona did as I asked without hesitation, scuttling sideways like a crab over the desert floor, staying low and keeping her eyes on the vehicle. She
wanted
to fight. I could see that clearly. Could these objects, depending on their natures, alter the mental outlook of their users? I felt it had to be the case, watching Fiona. No normal young girl would act like that. She was a like some kind of barbarian.

“Keep up our shield, Abigail,” I shouted back over my shoulder. I glanced and saw she still stood with her hands held high. To stop her, they were going to have to cut her down. I didn’t want to see that happen, so I kept flanking them.

In the end, a Gray Man hiding on the other side of the vehicle edged around it, shooting. He didn’t see me immediately in the dark. The only source of light was the big rip itself, slowly spinning in the sand. Unfortunately, the Gray Man got off a shot before I could take him down with my pistol. A blue-white blaze of plasma fired toward the rip. I put five rounds into him and he went down. I kept going around the vehicle. There was only one other Gray Man, and he was dead in the desert. Fiona stood over him with her knife in her twitching hand. She panted and stared at the body.

We’d won.

Victory had come at a price. The Gray Man who’d gotten off a shot had killed Old Red. His cap and the dolly had survived, of course, but the rest of his upper body was a block of ice. The ice had cracked when he’d hit the sand. You could see frozen organs and shattered ribs inside.

Abigail stood still, eyes closed, concentrating.

Fiona came up beside me and stared at Old Red’s remains. “What do we do now?” she asked.

I had been scanning the horizon, but didn’t see further signs of the enemy. I figured they had to be coming, though. The group we’d ambushed must have reported our position. After losing contact, the next time they sent a force they would come in strength. I imagined Gray Men quietly scrambling and loading their weapons into more trucks out there somewhere.

“We’re scouts, so let’s scout. We check out their truck, learn as much about their technology as we can,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

The design of the truck was odd—there were no curves to it. There were slanted, diagonal lines, but no rounded edges. The corners of the vehicle were so sharp they couldn’t have been molded metal; they had to be flat sheets of steel that met at precise points. Was this an example of advanced engineering or their chosen style? I wasn’t sure.

The cockpit had very simple controls. A bar of metal shaped like a delta wing seemed to serve as both the throttle and the steering mechanism, depending on how you manipulated it. The system reminded me of a joystick. There didn’t seem to be an ignition or even a start button. Experimentally, I touched the power bar. The engine thrummed into life. I nodded; it had sensed my contact. My physiology must have been similar enough to a Gray Man’s to fool it. I gave the bar a tiny nudge forward, and the vehicle surged a few feet in response.

“Anyone could drive this,” I said to Fiona. She stood outside in the sand, watching me with big eyes.

“Are we going to steal this machine and ride to their base?” she asked. The next words she blurted out in a rush: “I want to kill more of them.”

I glanced at her, trying not to appear disturbed. She stood there with dead Gray Men all around her feet. Old Red lay farther away, turned half to ice behind her. The smell of burnt alien flesh alone was cloying and difficult to take. But all Fiona could think of was her next kill. That knife she gripped and regripped in her hand had a hold over her mind I didn’t fully understand. Maybe only certain objects generated such emotions. I had several objects and didn’t feel any urge to kill.

“I don’t think so,” I told her, climbing down out of the cockpit. “They’ll all come to this spot. We can’t be so obvious. I’m going to go back and talk to Gilling. Stay here and cover Abigail.”

As I walked to the rip and stepped within its embrace, Abigail spoke to me. Her voice was just above a whisper. I could tell all her concentration was required to keep up our shielding.

“Can’t we all go home?” she asked.

Abigail was so peaceful compared to Fiona, the contrast was shocking. Her curly black locks hung around her neck. Her upraised hands were tipped with blood-red nails. She was as peaceful and calm as Fiona was bloodthirsty. She only wanted to go home to our existence, and I felt bad turning her down, but I didn’t want to give up yet. We’d proven we could fight with them and win on their turf. We were the aggressors for once. I wasn’t ready to run yet.

“Just give me a few minutes more, Abigail. If you drop the shield, they will see the rip clearly and come right here. They will know everything then.”

Abigail nodded slowly, sadly, accepting my instructions. Fiona had no difficulties with my instructions. She stood near Abigail and slashed at the alien truck. It was odd, seeing her cut the air and hearing scraping sounds coming from the metal of the vehicle that stood about fifty feet away. I wondered vaguely if slashing something metal could dull the edge of her knife—even though she wasn’t actually touching it.

Feeling like a bastard, I stepped back home and left them in the hostile desert. A half dozen hands with tightly held objects rose up to confront me when I stepped into view. They lowered their objects when I stepped out of the blurring rip and they realized who I was.

“Where are the rest?” Gilling asked. His voice sounded confident, almost disinterested, but I could tell he had been waiting nervously like the rest of them.

“The Gray Men saw us before we could get the shielding up. A truck came out to investigate.”

A dozen glittering eyes stared at me. No one spoke. I could see they thought I might be the last survivor. Rheinman, the mechanic with the ball-peen hammer, tapped his palm with the head of his object. His cheeks twitched. He probably figured I’d ditched the rest—or killed them.

“We won the fight, and we captured their truck,” I said.

A murmur went through the group. They were relieved and fearful all at once. I understood what they were thinking as they exchanged worried glances. They’d officially announced war upon the Gray Men now.

“Where are the rest?” Gilling asked again.

“Abigail is maintaining her shield. Fiona is protecting her. But Old Red died in the fighting. He was hit by one of those big projection guns of theirs.”

“It’s a failure, then,” said the rifleman named Souza. “We’ve alerted them. We have to abort the mission.”

Everyone started talking at once. Everyone except for Gilling and me. Instead, Gilling eyed me curiously. Maybe he didn’t believe my story. I barely cared. While they argued about what to do next, I reloaded my .32 auto.

I let them talk for a minute or so, shouting that our cover was blown, that this was supposed to be a quiet mission, not a pitched battle. The consensus was that we couldn’t face their organized army on their own ground.

I listened, but not too closely. My mind was made up. I was going to press ahead.

Gilling raised his bejeweled fingers and the group quieted. “Let’s hear what our scout suggests.”

“I want to open a new rip to the east, much closer to the cubes. Who’s coming with me?”

People shuffled their feet. A siren rose and fell in the distance. They looked this way and that, studying the streets that wound down the hillside. I knew they were getting nervous. Without Abigail to cover them, someone might have called the cops and sent them up here by now.

“If nothing else, we must retrieve the body of Old Red,” Gilling said. “Show us where he is.”

I stepped through and a dozen people followed me, most of them reluctantly. I was relieved to find Abigail and Fiona as I had left them. The only change was the rising of a second small moon on the horizon. It was yellow and sickly looking in comparison to our own luna. The surrounding desert was dark and quiet. But maybe the trucks were out there, full of angry Gray Men with their deadly weapons. Maybe they’d grown smarter and this time kept their lights off to surprise us. Thoughts like these caused the skin on the back of my neck to crawl.

They hauled Old Red’s remains home and experimented with the beam rifles the Gray Men had dropped. No one could figure out how to make them operate, however. Perhaps they were linked somehow to their users.

“Are you going to go out into the desert with me and open a new rip?” I asked Gilling.

He shook his head slowly. He didn’t bother looking at me. He was too busy staring out into the darkness. I could tell he was wondering what was stalking us out there. I followed his gaze and wondered the same thing.

“Lost your nerve already?” I asked.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. We signed on for a quiet raid. We can’t fight an army.”

“I don’t care,” I told him. “I’ll take that alien truck to the cubes alone if I have to.”

Gilling stared at me as if I were crazy. “They know we are here now.”

“Maybe. But they don’t know what we’re planning. They don’t know who we are. I doubt they will suspect a serious raid. I want to hit them now, while we still have a shred of surprise left.”

Gilling shook his head. “We aren’t an army. Not even the scouting mission went right. More are sure to die—maybe all of us. I can’t order them to do this.”

“All right,” I said, turning away from him and facing the ragtag crowd.

They were wandering around in the sand, looking like house cats who’d slipped out the front door for the first time. I didn’t think any of them had ever left their home existence before.

“I’m taking that truck and using it to sneak into the Gray Men’s cube base. With luck, they’ll think we’re their kind. Who’s coming with me?”