“Hey, man, you gotta get up,” Vangelis hears somebody say urgently through a heavy haze. “Like, real quick.”
With considerable effort, he pries open his eyes. Smoke and greenery.
“He’s awake,” says the same voice, though now it’s directed elsewhere. Bammo. That’s Bammo.
“See if he’s injured, if he can stand,” says another familiar voice. A woman. Who? Why is she here? “I hear movement.”
“I’m fine,” Vangelis says. He pushes himself up and feels very much not fine. “What happened?”
“We’re not sure,” says the woman, who he still can’t see. “I came through the Knot and it exploded behind me.”
Vangelis locates the speaker. “Alma? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. Right now we gotta move.”
Bammo puts his arm behind Vangelis’ back. “Come on, boss, up we go. Let’s get you to the Jeep.”
“This isn’t ours,” Vangelis comments when he drops heavily into the passenger seat.
“Ours is, uh, difficult to drive right now,” Bammo says, climbing into the empty bed in back.
Vangelis turns as head as much as he can and sees a fiery twist of metal and rubber against the backdrop of the sprawling jungle.
“You’re lucky Bammo was wearing his seat belt,” Alma says as she shifts the vehicle into drive. “If he’d hit his head as hard as you, you’d both be a lot more on fire than you are now.”
“Did you blow up the Knot?” Vangelis manages, looking back over at Alma. “Not very good planning if you did. Unless you really like dinosaurs.”
Alma snorts. “I don’t, and I didn’t. I’d just come through when it exploded — something on this side, for sure.”
“Somebody’s trying to get rid of you, then,” suggests Bammo. “Sending you here and blowing it up behind you.”
“You’d think so. But I’m not supposed to be here. I authorized myself. Let’s say I found a few accounting irregularities and took it upon myself to investigate.” Alma glances at a paper map and turns the Jeep down a side trail that’s almost hidden in the trees. “Didn’t tell anyone, and it’s been less than three hours since I even got the paperwork that clued me in in the first place.”
“Unless it’s a really deep conspiracy.” Bammo’s voice is suspicious. “Somebody’s five steps ahead of all of us.”
Vangelis shakes his head. “Don’t give management that much credit,” he says.
“For real,” agrees Alma. “They’re not even one step ahead of their audit deadlines.”
“Where are we going?” Vangelis asks.
“Our quartermaster’s on the hunt,” says Bammo ruefully.
Alma grins humorlessly. “I was on my way to check out a camp full of equipment that cost us fifteen million dollars. We lost contact with the team and just left all our crap there.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious.”
Vangelis pushes himself up in his seat as much as he can. “Have you ever been over here before?” he asks Alma. “To this strand?”
“Nope.”
“Why do you think they left the camp alone? What possible reason could they have for doing that?” Before she can answer, he says, “Do you think it could be that it’s so dangerous that spending another fifteen million dollars might be cutting our losses?”
Alma appears to consider that for a moment. “I didn’t,” she says. “But I know Anodyne well enough to not think that’s the case.”
Vangelis frowns, but he nods. “You may have a point there.”
“Finances aside,” Bammo says from behind them, “you may want to mash that gas pedal, chief. There’s something behind us.”
Alma obliges. She points to a place on the map. “Vangelis, let me know when the next turn toward here is coming up.”
He nods. “Okay, sure, but why are we still going there? I’d much rather head home than go on an audit.”
“Knot’s gone,” Alma says simply. “Can’t go back that way. But one of the doodads that’s supposed to be at this abandoned camp is an ansible.”
“A what, now?”
Alma laughs. “Now I know why you guys never requested one, at least.”
“Left turn coming up.”
“Thanks.” She breaks and makes the turn. “An ansible. It’s like a phone, but instead of wires, or networks or whatever, it uses entangled particles. Instantaneous communication. Works across strands. Well, and theoretically, it works anywhere in the universe.”
Vangelis curses. “Well, now I know that that’s an option.”
“I asked about a radio from here to our strand during my orientation,” says Bammo. “Less than two months ago. They really invent it that recently? And lose it?”
“There’s your problem right there,” Alma replies with a grim smirk. “You asked for a radio. It’s not a radio. You don’t ask for the right thing, you don’t get the answers you want. It’s a feature of the system, not a bug.” She looks in the rear view mirror. “We close to clear back there?”
Bammo surveys the surrounding jungle warily. “I hope so.”
“I think we hang a right after this curve,” Vangelis says. “Should be almost there.”
The road ends a few hundred feet past the turn, and only a small gap barely wide enough for a single person between the trees gives any indication of a way forward. Alma parks the Jeep.
“Guess we’re walking from here, boys,” she says, pocketing the keys. “Unless either of you wants to stay here to let the dinos know where to go.”
“You good to walk?” Bammo asks Vangelis.
The older man grunts. “Just get me a good stick to lean on.”
As Bammo scurries over to the undergrowth to find one, Vangelis turns to fix Alma with a hard stare. “I don’t trust Anodyne, or anyone working for them, and that certainly extends to you,” he says. “Always figured you were in on the scam. Are you being level with us on all this?”
Alma returns his gaze. “All I’m trying to do is keep myself and the finance department out of a Senate hearing, and the best way to do that is by making sure all the paperwork tells the truth. I’m only out here in the first place because I don’t trust anyone on the inside as far as I can throw them.” She looks back the way they came. “Your guess as to what’s going on is probably better than mine, and I need you two as much as you need me.”
“Don’t suppose you brought a gun.”
“Nope. And I know you didn’t.”
“There should be one under your seat. We’d better take it.”
Alma squints suspiciously at him, then reaches down and fishes around. She pulls out a plastic hard-shell case. “I feel like someone should tell the quartermaster about these,” she says.
“Someone just did,” retorts Vangelis.
Bammo returns, makeshift walking stick in hand. He holds it out for Vangelis to inspect. “How’s this look?”
Vangelis grasps it and pushes it experimentally against the floor of the Jeep. “You’re good for something after all,” he grins at Bammo.
Alma grabs the map off the dash and tucks the handgun into the back of her pants, and the trio sets off down the trail into the jungle.
They walk in silence, making as little noise as possible as they thread through oversized ferns and sickeningly sweet flower blossoms, but the only other signs of life are strangely large insects that buzz past their heads and the occasional rodent.
After nearly half an hour following the trail, the jungle darkening around them as the sun sets, Alma raises a hand for them to stop. She gestures ahead: a bright spot a dozen paces ahead. A clearing. The camp.
“Bammo,” whispers Vangelis.
Bammo nods and steps around Alma. Each step he takes is careful, quiet, wary. At the edge of the clearing, he ducks down and pauses, scanning the area, then nods.
They venture forward.
They’re still only halfway to the rows of silent tents when Vangelis feels his blood run cold. “What the hell happened here?” he asks.
Even in the half-light, fist-sized burn marks are visible on the ground. On the surrounding trees. Through the tents.
“These weren’t made by bullets,” says Alma, drawing the pistol. “Or our rail guns.”
“Uh.” Bammo gestures to a large patch disturbed ground off to the side of the tents. Or more specifically, next to the dirt, to a shovel.
There’s a rustle of fabric, and the three of them turn as one toward the noise.
Exiting one of the tents is a figure wearing a black hoodie and camo fatigues.
“Oh, good, you finally made it,” says the figure with a yawn, ignoring the gun and walking toward them. “I was starting to think you’d never get here.”
Hello hello!
And we’re back, after a mid-season break, with the imminent threat of dinosaurs and shady defense contractors!
I thought of some really good stuff to say here and didn’t write it down so I forgot it all. Sorry.
Oh! I do remember one thing: The new Apple TV series Constellation looks like it’s probably about parallel realities (strands, in the universe of The Interstice) and traveling between them. If you like other versions of people, it might be a good one to check out. (Everyone knows it’s easier to get between strands if you’re in space, because there’s a lot less stuff up there (out there?). Stuff affects and is affected by probability, and unrealized possibility is what makes up the interstice, and when there’s less stuff, there’s less of the interstice that you have to go through. That’s just basic physics.)
Uh… I think that’s all I’ve got. Check back next week to see if I figure out how to make the next few episodes make sense!
:: Jaer
Trick question. Spleens, with many hands/arms, playing harmonicas and flutes and pipe organs.
I am so jealous of your dialogue skills. Always and forever.
I love the dinos so much that I keep forgetting about the Sasquatches and the journalist girl and ack too many things to remember!