Edge Walkers (8 page)

She’d expected more destruction.

The equipment seemed intact—at least the shapes of things looked right—workbenches, generators, computers, slabs of mineral samples. She could even see the flash of what looked like her laptop still running the results of the last test. The hum of the equipment buzzed in the background—everyone had always found the high pitch of the frequency amplifier faintly irritating and tempers had often been edgy by the end of a long working session.

Mouth falling open, she squinted at the scene. She tried to see more details, to make out if she could see anyone. She tried to remember. They had started the test, had set regular EM cycles at amplified bursts ten seconds apart. The equipment had been in place to monitor the conductivity of the various samples even with interference running.

And a power surge had hit.

Thompson had yelled something about the readings. Chand had…what? Memory slipped into a blur of motion and noise and screams. She could picture a sizzle, a flash of light—she could now see how one of the benches had been ripped apart, shredded into sharp shafts.

Stepping closer, she glimpsed movement in the shadows of her lab.

“Carrie?”

She heard the voice behind her and registered worry, but she was caught up in trying to piece together what had happened. Curious, she took another step toward the shimmering image. Were those shadows from one of her team still there? Thompson maybe? Zeigler or the tech? But, if so, whose blood was she wearing? The images finally clicked—guards.

They would have sent in a security detail the second the lab cameras had registered a problem. Thank god for military funding. But it hadn’t been enough, had it? Another step and she reached out to touch that almost-shimmer that lay between her and her lab, but something snagged her other wrist, halted her movement.

Glancing down at her captive hand, she turned and stared at Gideon again. She’d almost forgotten him. But he wasn’t looking at her, or even at the shimmering view into her lab. Instead, he’d twisted his body to stare behind them at the door they’d used to get inside the building.

She turned as well, searching for something that might explain why she could see her lab—a projector perhaps? She took in the building’s structure—rusting metal, lots of dust, dark smears on the floor that she knew had to be fairly fresh blood. Her stomach twisted and her breath quickened. Turning, she put her gaze back onto her lab and had to blink—hard and fast. There was only one answer to this image—she was seeing through a window across dimensions.

Her pulse surged and a shiver rippled over her skin.
Amazing, incredible—fantastic.
There weren’t enough words to describe this. Gideon tugged on her wrist to pull her away from what had to be the discovery of a lifetime. “This isn’t right. We have to go.”

Facing him, Carrie braced her feet and stiffened her knees. “Are you crazy? Didn’t you hear me—that’s my lab. We should be able to get—”

“Now!” he said. With his free hand, he bared the knife from whatever sheath he wore strapped to his calf. He still wasn’t looking at her. Temple had edged closer with a small box in one hand, a meter of some kind. He pulled what looked like a small, black pineapple from his not quite messenger bag. She didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t look friendly. Gideon didn’t either as he started to drag her to the doorway.

“Dammit, no!” She twisted her wrist and jerked free. She ran toward the image of her lab—and bounced off raw, tingling energy. It pushed her back, left her staggering. Skin on fire, she put a hand up to touch that barrier of…what?

Energy? Electricity? Interference of some kind? She touched it again and cold stung her fingertips. Light flared. Something had to be blocking a full connection. The figures on the other side stopped moving, stood still. Had they seen her? Could they at least see her pressing against the barrier? She pounded a fist on the surface. Her skin tingled, chilled as if she’d pushed her hand into a frozen lake. Dammit, what the hell was keeping her trapped on this side?

Turning, she started to ask Gideon what he knew about this. The question caught in her throat as black lines cracked in the air above them. Before she could react to that, the others stepped into the room.

Walkers.
She could see how they’d been named. They weren’t human, but they stayed upright on two feet. They slid into the room, movements sleek, energy sizzling through the rips on their skin, gliding with rotting skin and muscle and the pop of joints that no longer worked right. Her skin started to crawl and she stepped back, couldn’t stop the reaction. Instinct screamed at her to get the hell gone, but Walkers now blocked the only way out.

“Why are they waiting?” Gideon muttered.

Carrie didn’t care why.

Six of them, she thought, or close enough without making a full count of the ragged shapes, human bodies that didn’t move like anything ever should. Skin hung loose on arms and faces and she knew leprosy did that, left you with no feeling, so you couldn’t tell when you cut yourself or bumped into something and tore flesh off the bone. The stench turned her stomach and she remembered leaving meat in her fridge, working a week straight through. She’d found the meat rotting a week after that. If she’d stuck it on a grill, it might have smelled this bad.

But it was their eyes that trapped her with her pulse skidding into overdrive. There wasn’t anything she recognized, just burnt sockets with light leaking out in bright bursts.

And one of them had on a white lab coat. Like hers.

No—please no.
Throat tight, hands clenched into fists, she forced her stare to stay on that one figure, prayed it couldn’t be what she’d thought. It sure as hell wasn’t a ‘who’ anymore and she wanted to smash something into a face that shouldn’t have those odd, glowing eyes. That face should be smiling and whole and…oh, god, it had been Chand’s face. Not anymore.

Its eyes crackled with inhuman light, bursts of white static. Sparks crawled out from holes torn into Chand’s flesh, danced over burnt-black skin before sliding back into him. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep anything from coming out. She knew the shape of Chand, the curl of dark hair, the skinny body that would never be more than a walking corpse. She could no longer see Chand inside—just edges of something else poking out.

Heart pounding to sickening thuds, she darted a stare around for an escape. She glimpsed walls—and a barrier at her back, keeping her from her lab, her world.

Gideon stepped closer, knife flashing. Temple crowded in on her right, shielding her. The Walkers moved in with erratic speed. They seemed not to notice Gideon or Temple, but fixed those sparking eyes on her.

This was her nightmare again. That sharp shred of ozone, a rising scream like metal tearing itself apart. Her vision telescoped, sharpened as Gideon pushed her and she fell. She looked up to see him grab one of those not-human things and slice. Blood spurted, so did light—dear god, light? It poured out of the gash. The thing exploded into a red flash that streaked the room. Bone and blood and body splattered. Carrie ducked, covering her face as searing ash hit her skin. She choked out a gurgle from a throat gone tight with raw terror.

Overhead a black line split, sucked in the light and a swirl of blackness that spilled from the Walker. Gideon whirled, grabbed Carrie’s arm, dragged her up and screamed, “Get out. Run!”

She heard a slicing, tearing sound, and the pops of something else crossing. Ozone bloomed into a choking stench. Sharp raps tore the air. Something hit Gideon in the back, knocked him into her. She grabbed for him, caught him by the waist. Someone snagged her from behind, dragged her away from him. Gideon fell. He lay face down in a growing dark pool of his own blood, framed by the gore of others. Carried yelled for him, but more raps burst and pounded, staccato sounds. She knew them now as gunfire. Automatic weapons, and the rounds ripped through the room, pinged off metal and sparked on the walls. Struggling, Carrie lashed out with a kick as someone shouted, “Get Brody the hell out. Move! Move!”

She stilled enough to take in the five men in fatigues who had crossed into the room from her lab. Walkers that had been closing fell back and down, ripped apart by the barrage of gunfire. Their eyes darkened black before the skin and flesh exploded, letting lose jagged black lines that slipped up and back into the Rift of darkness. Carrie glanced up, her stare pulled by the static that lifted the hair on her arms, by a sense of hungry malice that settled on her. Overhead, balls of jagged lightning hovered in that same dark rip. She looked around again, but couldn’t see Temple. And Gideon was...

A shiver took her and she choked back a sob and a curse and twisted to look for him. But the guy who had hold of her kept pulling until his grip went limp with a cry, turning her loose so fast she fell to her knees.

Flattening under the gunfire, she glanced around. The guards weren’t looking at her or even at the bodies around them. They stood transfixed, staring up to where the ceiling had split into a network of blinding fractures with more of that metal ripping sound. Something that wasn’t lighting spat down with a crack that pounded through her, reverberated in her bones.

Edges, Gideon had said. That’s what they looked like in their real form. Sparking brightness fell into one soldier, cracked over his skin, danced in blinding white lines. White-light flashed, so intense it danced colored spots onto her retina. Blinking, she remembered how Chand had looked with lit, empty eyes.

The shouting started, startling her. So did the gunfire when it barked again. Sharp cordite hung in the air. No one grabbed for her this time, so she crawled to where Gideon lay. Reaching him, she put a hand on the back of his neck. Warm still, thank god. He struggled with shallow, harsh breaths.

Pressing a shaking hand to his face, she told him over the screams behind her, “No, no—don’t struggle. Lie still. I’ll get help.”

He shook his head, and pushed his knife into her grip.

She glanced up at the shadow when it fell over Gideon. One of those not-human things, this one wearing military fatigues and blinding bright eyes. The fury erupted—for Gideon, for Chand. She rose to her knees, screamed, and used both hands to drive the hilt deep. She pulled up, twisted, pulled and fell back. The thing burst apart in light and an explosive burst that slammed into her, knocked her onto her back.

Air rushed from her lungs in a grunt and she stayed down while the world thundered. Rolling to the side, she pushed up on her hands and knees. The remnants of a body lay a few feet from her, something black curling up from it, twisting, falling up into the Rift overhead.

Room spinning, body numb, Carrie crawled back to Gideon. The room stank of blood now, sticky, metallic on her tongue. Spent shells scattered to the floor. Leaning to the side, she gasped for breath, reached for Gideon’s hand. But someone had her arms again.

She twisted around to glance into a hard face that wasn’t one she knew. Another voice interrupted, scattered her thoughts as it yelled out, “Get her the hell out of here. Fall back, goddammit!”

Everything started to fade. She clung to Gideon’s knife since she didn’t have him. And all she could think of was how he looked, broken and sprawled on the ground in that damned building.

CHAPTER NINE

Shoup sees the flare, puts his hand through it...and the wall. Then it’s like pulling six g’s. We hit the deck—not out of choice—and two of mine go down. I have to put another down when he turns and takes out Peters. I take out the guy hanging over Brody, too. Shoup grabs her and it’s me covering their six to get them out. It goes downhill from there. Now, can I get some goddamm coffee and we’ll go through the rest again since a dozen times doesn’t seem enough for anyone except me?— Excerpt Debriefing Major James B. Jakes

“What the ever-loving fuck was that?”

Jakes glanced at Shoup and shook his head.

They’d crouched low against a wall where they’d stopped, twenty meters away from a firefight that shouldn’t have happened. They weren’t in a secure lab—at least, this wasn’t looking like the inside of any R&D facility. Wasn’t secure, either. Or much like New Mexico. Jakes glanced at his watch—five hours had passed since they’d stepped into that lab, or that’s what it showed, and that couldn’t be right. He didn’t have time for more than guessing at what might get them through the next few minutes.

He had Peters’ M16 in his lap since Peters wouldn’t be using it again and Jakes had spent everything in his sidearm. The M16 was still warm, so was Jakes. He hadn’t stopped sweating and his heart rate’d kicked high enough to stroke him out—crap did he hate being on the wrong side of forty. He also hated being proved right.

He’d known this was going to be another of those days soon as he’d seen that goddamm security tape. But he’d stopped caring about bad days or much of anything seven months ago. Seemed he might have been wrong though about life not being able to suck any worse than after a call about a rain-soaked road that shouldn’t have had his little sister on it. Should have been him. But, hell, there was balance—he shouldn’t be here now.

Glancing down at his arms, he noticed the faint white lines across his skin like he’d walked into spider webs, or had them scarred onto him. Overall, he was a little surprised not to be dead. Someday someone really oughta save the world from the goddamm scientists. This one needed more than prayers.

Conscious, but with her eyes unfocused, Brody kept muttering some name over and over, her head turning and her body restless. Carrie Brody, PhD in geophysics, senior staff member, EM specialist, whatever the hell that was. He recognized her from her security photo and the lab footage. He’d also seen her around the facility before she’d gone missing. There was a helluva lot more missing now. Like a damn medic for one thing. He’d give a lot to have had one with ‘em, but they didn’t have much of anything except a disaster on their hands.

“Whatcha got left?” Jakes asked, turning to Shoup and forcing his breath into regular, long pulls so his heart had to slow back down as well.