Edge Walkers (27 page)

Twisting, he glanced up at the camera that hung in a corner of the room, far above his reach. They were going to keep him locked in a cell for pretty much damn ever. They couldn’t afford not to, and he couldn’t blame their caution, but he couldn’t stay. Not with Jill still out there. Not with Carrie...Carrie what?

He’d seen her thrown through into her lab by Shoup’s explosion. He had gone after her because... Well, because what else was he going to do. He hadn’t thought about it, and Shoup had set off a third charge that had nearly killed them all. It’d thrown him and Temple through and into Carrie’s lab. Shoup had staggered after them, grinning like a demon, choking on smoke. But it had closed the doorway behind them. Gideon’s memories stopped right after he’d seen Carrie on the floor. He had a large, sore knot on the back of his head, and that would account for the gap in consciousness—someone had hit him. He could really do without any more people who liked to hit him first and ask the questions later. He was also done with all the questions they’d asked—they hadn’t believed any of his answers.

But he could still feel the charge in the air, that faint tingle that stood the hair on his arms on end. Was that due to his being out of place? Or were there Walkers here?

Pushing up to his feet, he started to pace the room.

He didn’t have a way out, so what did he have?

An air vent too tiny to fit through. A door, but anytime anyone unlocked it, they had guns. Well, if that was the only way out, he was going to have to take it.

Taking off his boots, he weighed them. His first boot knocked the camera, faced it to the wall. The second took out the blinking red light. That should get someone here. Overhead, the single, caged ceiling light flickered.

Gideon looked up, watched it wink out and fade back to brightness. He held his breath. Dammit. They hadn’t listened to him, or to anyone—and Walkers were here. He’d bet on it.

He grabbed his boots and lined them up in the middle of the room, side-by-side. Next to the door, he put his back to the wall. A few minutes later, the lights went out. Gideon froze for a moment, strained to hear what might be happening. He heard the click of the lock, the creak of hinges. He waited until the door swung wide. Stepping out, he put his hand out, palm flat. They’d get out of his way—or his touch would open the Rift.

The beam of a flashlight swung into his face, and his open palm slapped against a gun’s cold barrel. Shoup swore, and Jakes said, his tone dry, “Uh, un. Not leaving so fast. We need some help first.”

Gideon let his arm drop and he eyed Shoup and Jakes in the erratic, stark light of the flashlight beams mounted to their guns. He gestured to Shoup, who had on a heavy vest. The man had guns slung over each shoulder and a couple more attached to his hips. “One of those for me?”

Shoup shrugged one shoulder, dislodged two weapons that hung from his arms by straps. “M4, extended clip? Or old school AK?”

Jakes grabbed one of the rifles, dragged it off Shoup and held it out to Gideon. “Safety’s there. Don’t point it at us. And, no, we’re not asking where he got these. Now, you have any idea where Brody is?”

The light flickered up again and Gideon took the gun. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s going to be where she usually is—in the middle of everything bad.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I swore an oath to protect this country—that includes from goddamm monsters, and idiots who are dicking around with ass-covering instead of ass-saving. Now will you cut me loose and let me do my damn job? — Excerpt Debriefing Major James B. Jakes

Carrie didn’t recognize the facility. Not anymore. Kerrou had flashed his ID and had gotten them into a stairwell with some excuse that she hadn’t heard, but which had left the guards swapping disapproving glances. She followed David down steel stairs that rang hollow under their hurried steps. They pushed past a few stragglers running upward in the dim, orange glow of emergency lighting. After one flight, they didn’t meet anyone else, coming or going, and the world focused into the narrow beam of the flashlight. The stairs left Carrie breathless, but she pushed out the words, and asked, her voice hushed, “David, what happened—when I was out of it? I’d better hear all of it.”

Kerrou kept his gaze on the shadowed stairway, and his voice floated to her, breathless and quick. “You heard it already. One minute we could see you. We couldn’t hear anything, but we saw the explosion—hell, the blast wave shook the place. And then you where there. It was…no one knew what the hell was up. Security took over. Grabbed you. The power shut down—finally.” His voice had dropped and Carrie could feel the frustration vibrate off him. Sympathy for him lifted in a surge. He’d thought he’d done everything right, and it was still blowing up in his face. Like it had for her—like it still was for her. Because she’d made assumptions.

“And then that  lightning showed up. The power—when exactly did it cut out? Before or after that ball lightning showed up?”

“Does it matter?”

“Oh, yeah—it’ll matter”

Stopping, one hand on the steel railing, Kerrou half-turned toward her. In the fitful light, his face looked gaunt and drawn. “It—you showed up. That explosion hit…and then…everything went dark. We cleared everyone out, or started to, and then Zeigler got up—he did something.”

She nodded. “And that’s when it went bad.”

“We’d thought we were getting a handle on everything.”

With a nod, Carrie pushed on his shoulder to get him moving—added a squeeze, too, because she knew how the shock of reality bending like this felt rippling through you. “They were in the computers. Waiting. They had to be. That’s why you couldn’t shut down the systems. I should have thought of it sooner. I saw them come through. I saw them get into not just…well, not just people. But…they’re intelligent, David. There can’t be many of them. Not yet. I hope to god there aren’t. They had to be keeping the door open. Now…I just hope we can get them out of the circuitry before it’s too late.”

“They? Them?” Kerrou stopped, shone his light on her face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Walkers—Edge Walkers. Didn’t Gideon tell you? Dammit, you didn’t listen to him, did you? Well, start listening now.”

She told him about what had happened to her as they descended the stairs. She caught the glances he shot back at her and she could guess what he was holding back—his doubts, and his worries about what he was going to do with an unbalanced, concussed person on his hands.

When they reached the floor with her lab, Kerrou flashed his light over the number twenty-eight painted on the wall and into the dark hole of a doorway. Carrie’s pulse lifted, pounded hard in her throat and she pushed aside whatever David might be thinking about. They had bigger problems. The steel door should have been bolted and secured with keypad access, just like every other floor. Instead, this door stood open, the lock charred and scored, and Carrie’s skin chilled. Walkers. Had to be, using the power they’d fed on, blowing out the lock with a power overload.

Gideon, where are you—I’m going to need you to help me finish this.

She wet her lips, swapped a glance with Kerrou. She saw on his face that he knew how bad this was.

The overhead lights in the hall sputtered on and off, and Carrie wished they’d just go out and stay out. The erratic light ruined any chance for her vision to adjust. She squinted against each flare of illumination, and pressed her hand to her side where pain jabbed into her ribs.

She was worried about the emptiness around them.

Where were the security teams, making sure everyone had gotten out or keeping the area clear? Something had cleared them out and she was just glad they hadn’t come across any bodies. But she could smell charred flesh, the stench of hair burned, and the tang of fresh blood. She was pretty sure Walkers had cleared out the area. She put a hand over her mouth, and next to her she could hear David choking on the smell.

She could also see the door to her lab—fifteen meters away and hanging open. Thin wisps of white smoke curled up from the electronic lock on the wall. Wiping a sweat-damp palm down her trousers, she eased forward, trying to keep her steps silent. The beam of David’s flashlight danced over the barren hall and she glance at him. In other circumstances, he might have had questions for her. But he kept silent, his face pale in the dim light, his lips pulled into a line of fear and stubborn determination. She thought of Gideon again, wished she had him at her back, or even had an idea where he might be. She needed someone good at hunting Walkers.

But she didn’t have him, and she didn’t have time to wait. She had to see what was happening—they’d have no time left for anything if Walkers were about to open a door to this world.

Mouth dry, heart thudding, the wound on her chest throbbing with every pulse, she motioned for David to stay back. He shook his head and stayed with her, and she couldn’t argue with him. At the darkened door, leaned around to peer into her lab.

It looked a disaster.

The shockwave from Shoup’s explosion when she’d opened the door both ways had wrecked the place. Tables lay overturned, the equipment scattered, monitors dark and cracked. Cables tangled, wound over the floor like a snake nest. Her slabs of minerals lay in charred, broken piles. This was all that was left of her work—the computers trashed, her notes inaccessible, and too many lives wasted.

In the shadows, something moved. A darker shape pulled out from the other shadows and Carrie pulled in a sharp breath and froze.

The crackle of static lifted. Wall sockets spat out fat, bright sparks, and they shouldn’t be doing that—everything had been properly grounded. It shouldn’t be shorting. Which meant Walkers were still riding those circuits. Burning electricity scorched the air, monitors surged into life, and Carrie saw Zeigler.

He stood in the center of the room, light playing over his skin and over the white gauze that wrapped his eyes. Something had ripped at his clothes, shredding and tearing them, along with his skin. Balls of light jumped out from the wall sockets, slashed at him now, slammed into him—he cried out, a totally human sound. The lightning jumped back into the wall.

Carrie wasn’t sure what Zeigler was now—a feeding station, maybe. Or maybe the Walkers were accessing his memories and his knowledge about her experiment. Since they hadn’t been able to get to her, maybe they were using him to reopen the door to Temple’s world.

David started toward Zeigler, but Carrie threw out her arm and blocked him. She shook her head. Lights darted out of the walls in glowing orbs, shot back into the computers, sparked into them.

Edge Walkers.

Monitors flickered, glowed bright, and lines of code sprang up on the displays. They wanted that door reopened, they wanted to let the others on Temple’s world through to this one, where they’d have rich feeding. How the hell was she going to stop them without Gideon’s help?

She knew now that they had been stupid to shield the computers as well as they had. The hardened circuitry and ruggedized computers in her lab were built to survive a disaster. Which meant they’d unknowingly given the Walkers a place to hide. And Zeigler, though he was with the Walkers now, he wasn’t one of them. Not fully. Not yet. He didn’t have light spilling from the tears in his skin, but he was being used by them. He fell to his knees, fumbled and found a keyboard, and the Edge Walkers, those bright balls of light, danced around him, over him, manipulating him like a puppet as they forced him to pull up the code that would restart her experiment.

Wetness stung Carrie’s eyes. She brushed at it with the back of her hand. Dammit, she was not going to leave Zeigler like this. She was not going to let those damn Walkers use him to open that door again.

She stepped into her lab.

Zeigler and the Walkers ignored her. Computers spat out sparks, hummed to life. She could smell wires burning—and behind that the sharp ozone of the Rift swirled into the room. The glow was already formed on the wall—a circle of white pooling brightness that marked the start of a doorway to Temple’s world. Carrie took another step and something caught her arm.

She spun—David had hold of her and was trying to pull her back.

She dragged herself free of his grip. “Go—get out of here!”

He shook his head and tried to grab for her again. Circuits sputtered, started to hiss and crackle. Over that, Carrie heard the hard pound of boots. David dragged her to the side as Jakes and Shoup burst in, Jakes yelling at everyone to get down.

Slipping free, Carrie yelled at him, “No, don’t. He’s—”

But it was too late. Jakes and Shoup opened fire. Carrie hunched down, hands over her ears. Bullets tore into Zeigler, shook his body. Blood spattered the room, and Carrie choked down a sharp cry. Zeigler slumped, but he didn’t stop his work—the Edge Walkers wouldn’t let him.

They hummed around him, over him, pushed into and out of him again and again, skated over his skin, slashing at him, burning him. The gunfire cut off, but Zeigler’s screams didn’t, and Carrie glanced over, couldn’t see anything for the lights swirling overhead, balls of dancing lightning.

She tried to see past the swirling lights, past the beams from high-powered flashlights. She glimpsed the dark outline of a broad-shouldered figure, and the word rushed out when she saw him. “Gideon.”

The doorway to Temple’s world slammed open.

The shock of it hit her like a wave, washed over her and into her. She heard shouts from David, curses from Shoup. She heard the snap of bone and a cry of pain and she didn’t know whose it was because she was clawing at anything in reach to try and hang on. The wind pulling at her wasn’t like any wind. It bit into her, dragged at her bones, crushed her with its weight. She grabbed at wires and debris of a table to keep from being pulled into the doorway across realities. The sharp edges of a crystalline shard cut her palm—she caught it up, had a faint pulse of power warm her skin. She hung onto it because it felt like sanity, and, looking up, she saw Gideon.

He stood with his knife out and blood on his hands. Zeigler’s cries no longer filled the room. But his action came too late to have done anything other than end Zeigler’s agony. She could see Zeigler’s body on the floor, a ragged shape, limp and empty now. She let out a choked breath. Light washed over him—and over Gideon. Light from the doorway into Temple’s world—the Walkers had what they wanted.