“Where did everybody go?” I asked.
“Most left and died outside. Couldn’t take the new world. Some stayed here. They starved.” He looked back at me. “I didn’t eat them. I farm mice.” He turned right and stopped at a door with a very official warning on it, threatening dire consequences if procedure was not followed. He leaped up on the wall ledge and touched his paw to the palm scanner. As the door creaked open, Thirteen hopped down and led me into the armory.
The air was stale and rank with the smells of oil, acid, Cosmoline, and WD-40. Thirteen perched on an ammo crate and said, “I don’t come in here much. Nothing in my size.” He jumped onto a shelf and nosed the radiation-marked stainless steel box next to him. “Could try this. Compressed-yield shoulder-fired nuclear missile. Not sure how far away you have to be, though.”
I suppressed a shudder of revulsion. “How many more species would it wipe out? No, thanks. Besides, he could still hang around in spirit form.”
The cat moved on. “Plasma incinerator? Short range, low shot limit, but it can slag a tank.”
I shook my head.
“Laser minigun? Tesla cannon? Hypersonic kinetic-kill linear accelerator sniper rifle?”
“Great for wasting his ass. Keeping him from coming back, not so much.” I found a handy crate, shoving the tarp to the side so I could sit on a clean spot. “We need something magical. Something capable of capturing his soul in a bottle, or chaining him in Hell forever.” I waved my hand at him, adding, “You can go to magic-using worlds. Can’t you just steal something we can use?”
“Why doesn’t your future mother-in-law have something useful in her hoard?” He crouched down, tail lashing. “If a device of some kind were available, I’d find a way to get us one. Know of a world with the technology to trap ghosts?”
In the distance, I heard the turrets at the entrance open fire. The clamor lasted longer this time. Thirteen brought up the main door video feed again, giving us a great view of the energy bolts blasting holes in a giant scorpion aggregated from the skeletons littering the canyon. Thain dismissed the spell holding the beast together before it could be pulverized. As it collapsed into piles of broken bone, Thain looked at the door camera and waved.
“I feel your presence, David. Congratulations on having the courage to follow me here, but you should go home now. I know there’s something in there. I can feel it. I hear it calling to me. Whatever artifact these people have stored in there, I want it. Bring it out to me, and I swear, never again will I walk your world. I’ll leave this one, and I’ll even stay away from Rose’s world. Do you understand? Give me the artifact, and all three worlds live in peace.”
He gave us a moment to allow the ideas to sink in. “Of course, if I have to do this the hard way, I will. I’m calling my armies, David. I will have this mountain torn down, stone by stone, until its secrets are laid bare. Choose.” He turned around and began writing spells on the air.
I looked at Thirteen. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
The cat nodded. “Possibly.” He tapped on the monitor, and the exterior speakers squealed into life. “I’m coming out. Return my hat, and we’ll look for this artifact of yours.”
Thain nodded, setting Thirteen’s hat on the ground. “Agreed.”
Thirteen jumped down and headed for the door. “Be right back,” he said.
Frakking cat.
Who Wants to Live Forever?
While Thirteen went to pick up his hat, I paced the armory floor. It was a crap offer, but I couldn’t ignore the idea he might be serious. Safety for three worlds, in exchange for…what, exactly? Something powerful, obviously. Something rare, possibly unique.
Fine, hand him whatever he’s after
, my conscience said.
What if it turned out to be the Cauldron of Cerridwen? Or the Spear of Longinus? Or any one of half a dozen fictional artifacts? Could you still look at yourself in the mirror?
What if this thing is worse?
I looked back to the video feed, and thought about the things Thirteen had said. Coyotes and prairie dogs driven extinct. Entire biomes wiped out. An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would have been disaster enough, but the nuclear exchange sealed this world’s fate.
Because I—because
he
, this world’s version of me—was clever, this world died.
This is his fault—the other David. I’m not the one with the blood of an entire world on my hands.
Yet.
If I let Thain go, I’ll be as much of a monster as he is. Worse, since I’m neither crazy nor dead.
The only choice was to stop him. Find the artifact he wanted, find out what it does, find out how to use it against Thain, and find an opportunity to get close enough to take him out.
On the video feed, Thirteen walked out, reclaimed his hat, and walked back the way he came. Thain ignored him. He had moved away from the facility entrance, out onto the widest, flattest area available. He was busy directing a group of twenty-foot behemoths as they moved massive assemblies of green stone and black steel into position. Whatever they were building, it was too large to bring through in one piece. The most logical thing for Thain to build would be a permanent gate to his homeworld. That could complicate matters.
Getting to him should be manageable. I took a look at the laser minigun Thirteen had pointed out. According to the manual, it had a rotating array of six five-megawatt solid state lasers, each firing a twenty-nanosecond pulse. Power switch, shot selection, trigger—all pretty self-explanatory. Power cables leading to an empty backpack. Requires two 25,000-volt fusion batteries, sold separately.
Fusion batteries? Oh my hairy dancing gods…
I didn’t see anything that looked likely on the shelves. I started looking at the crates on the floor, and discovered I’d been sitting on them. I’d parked my ass on forty football-sized fusion reactors that hadn’t had a safety evaluation in almost eighty years. Pucker factor was high.
Thirteen came back in, peering at me from under his hat brim. “Change your mind on the toys?”
I nodded. “Could be useful. Are these batteries safe?”
“Inert until engaged, then a ten-year half-life on the shelf. Slide the lever on the top sideways to engage the unit. Just don’t stick your fingers in the contact recesses.”
I opened the case and pulled the operations manual out of its pocket on the bottom of the lid. Sure enough, there was an assembly diagram and a lot of tech info. “Mind if I take this?”
Thirteen smirked. “Go ahead. Not my future you’re screwing with.”
“
Domo, neko-san
.” I tucked the manual into the back of my jeans. “Where do we start looking for this artifact?”
“My room,” he said. “And it’s
neko-sama
.”
“Of course it is.” I followed him down the hall.
Frakking cat.
His room turned out to be inside a genetics lab, behind two airtight biohazard doors and a positive-pressure airlock. He’d taken over the director’s reference library, lounge, and personal butler robot. The computer system tied into main security, allowing him to watch the entire facility from the comfort of an overstuffed papasan chair.
I’m not sure what I expected he would have in the way of cat toys, er, decorations, but his overwhelming preference was for puzzle boxes and logic toys. Dozens of them sat on monitors, shelves, open desk space, and roomy spots on the bookcases. The butler was another Lovecraft droid, armed with feather dusters and a toilet brush.
The original owner’s family photos and school degrees were gone, replaced by photos of various cats, otters, and raccoons, as well as one large dog that appeared to be mix of German Shepard and blue merle Australian Cattle Dog. Several had medals attached to their frames. All of them had dates of death or were listed as MIA.
Thirteen vanished into a ventilation duct about eight inches across, so I took a moment to look through the library. Other than a few antiquarian titles, all the books were on EMP-shielded memory cards. I found cards holding every work submitted to the Library of Alexandria—the one in the Virginia Commonwealth—divided by decade. The unabridged
Encyclopedia Terrestria
. An archive covering one hundred and fifty years of
Ecce Feles
, the premier chronicle of sapient feline arts and culture.
Thirteen emerged from the duct carrying a velvet bag. He jumped up on his desk and tossed the bag to me. “If this isn’t it, I don’t know what it could be.”
I opened the bag, and pulled out the unicorn horn I’d cut from Smith’s forehead. “What the hell?”
“You gave it to me, remember? I brought it home and put it in my art collection.”
“Yeah.” I sat down, twirling the horn between my fingers. Why would Thain want it? It was out of power, and he had no living subjects to juice it up with. Besides, as a dead guy, he’s immune to poison and disease already. The one thing he didn’t have to worry about was his court trying to kill him.
And just like that, I started smiling.
I looked up at Thirteen. “What powers this facility? How much juice can it put out?”
The cat scratched his ear, pondering. “Not my area. Main power comes from a fusion reactor two levels down. The maintenance systems have been able to keep it running, but power output is less than twenty percent of what it should be. Solar can add another fifteen to twenty, depending on cloud cover. Is that enough for your plan?”
“Maybe. How long can the plant sustain the turrets at full firepower?”
He shook his head. “Not long. The defense systems rely on high-output capacitors recharged over time by the main plant. They were never intended for sustained combat.”
“We’ll probably need the turrets to plow the road, so best we leave them alone.” I got up and headed for the door. “Let’s start with those fusion batteries.”
Back in the armory, I broke two more laser miniguns out of storage and field-stripped their power feeds. Thankfully, the armory was well-stocked with tools and duct tape. I put the three backpacks side by side and started reworking the power leads so one trigger assembly would output all six batteries into the Unicorn horn.
Easy in theory, but the trigger had to be connected to a power transfer assembly capable of standing up to the needed level of current. Every minigun had the required parts, but getting them out took a few hours. And no, I’m not an electrical engineer or an expert on energy weapons that haven’t been invented yet. I just…knew how to do it.
This was the secret of Thirteen’s world—science was easy. Experiments tended to have correct results. Prototypes tended to work as designed the first time. It was as though the universe never asked you to show your work. You still needed to have all the required tools and technology—you couldn’t build a computer out of stone knives and bearskins. Thankfully, everything I needed was right here.
Including a medical kit.
While I worked, I kept an eye on Thain’s construction crew. The universe was helping him out, too—he didn’t have any glitches or technical issues slowing him down. By the time I had the batteries loaded into my assembly, his troops were on the final section of their project.
It looked like a stereotypical dimensional gate from any one of a dozen movies or television shows—a giant circle of metal and stone about the size of the London Eye, with odd runes glowing on the sides of the completed sections. Teams of dead Dragons were flying components from Thain’s world and lifting them into position, where four-armed behemoths and the corpses of fifty-foot-tall giants completed the assembly.
My first bench test was successful. I set up a full-power run and reached for the trigger assembly, but something stayed my hand. In the monitor, Thain seemed equal parts conductor and air traffic controller, turning hundreds of mindless corpses into a crisp, efficient construction machine. It was terrifying, yet majestic. Awe-inspiring, even. It was also the merest hint of what he was capable of. I flipped the switch to activate the external speakers.
“Thain…Ingrim, this is David. I’d like to talk.”
Thain raised his hand and his minions stopped moving. “Certainly. Are you going to make one last heartfelt appeal to my better nature? Try to reach some core of long-forgotten nobility? Will you cry out, ‘Father, there is still good in you,’ and hope my heart softens?”
I chuckled. “No. I’m going to appeal to your ego. I’ve met evil bastards before, but never an evil genius. Conquering four worlds is damn impressive, and I salute you for it. Yet, you said conquest wasn’t a challenge any more. Why not try building something? Creation is always harder than destruction. Look at this world. It’s just a few years from being a barren rock. You could change that. You want to do something in hardcore mode? Make this planet live again. It would be centuries of challenge, and the people would revere you for it—if you succeed.”
Thain sighed. “Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong? Your bucolic little vision holds no interest for me. Thank you for playing.” He shook his head and added, “Have you found my artifact?”
I smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. “I think so. It’s just…not easy to get to.”
“Then you accept my terms?”
“I accept that I can blast you into dust any time I want, but I can’t stop you from creating infinite new bodies. So, this is the only option I have to save my world. I’ll bring it out to you as soon as I can get to it.”
He wagged his finger at me. “Don’t try anything clever, my friend. Approach me with ill intent and you will burn.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I swear by those things my people swear binding oaths by, I have no intention or desire to harm you.” I flicked the switch off and watched him return to directing his minions. “Nothing but love for you, brother. In fact, I’m doing you a favor. You’ll see.”
An hour later, wearing my brand new trench coat, I pressed on the release panel for the outside door. Motors hummed, metal squealed, and the foot-thick outer door parted before me. Cool air rushed past me, blowing through the dry grass and carrying half a dozen butterflies out into the desolate canyon.