Into the Looking Glass

CHAPTER SIX

Miller and Weaver stood outside the palace watching the street scene. It was cold and misty and Weaver was shivering in the thin desert BDUs that he’d been given at the hospital. Miller didn’t seem to notice.

The street was crowded with traffic, most of it carts pulled by long, low, beasts that looked something like six-legged, furry hippopotami. Pedestrians wore coats something like trench coats against the mist and many wore hats somewhat like fedoras. And it smelled, strongly, of chemicals, ammonia and others, that seemed to be coming from the manure of the draft-beasts. Weaver noticed for the first time that none of locals, the Mreee, except the guards, seemed to wear shoes. And few of them gave the two humans more than a glance. They didn’t seem guarded, however. Just uncurious.

“We need to figure out where the high tech is coming from,” Miller announced.

“Agreed,” Weaver replied, shaking his head. “This looks to be about 1800s tech. Which doesn’t square with them being able to open a gate. I don’t even see signs of electricity.”

“Something else,” Miller noted. “That tom didn’t get scarred like that from intracountry wars. Their ‘empire’ might be like the British empire but they all act as if there aren’t other countries. So where’d he get so scarred up? Internal rebellion?”

“Maybe you attain rank by battle.” Weaver shrugged. “I gotta get out of this weather, Chief.”

“Yep,” Miller said. He’d reclaimed his weapons after the meeting with the emperor and now he settled his M-4 on his shoulder. “Let’s see how honest we can get Nyarowlll to be.”

They found a guide who led them to a small room in the bowels of the palace. The building, really series of buildings, was large. The center of it was a massive castle on a hill but buildings had been attached that spread down the hill on every side. The emperor, strangely, had his main office right on the edge, by one of the side streets.

Nyarowlll’s office, or the one she was occupying anyway, was closer to the castle, up the hill and partially dug into it; the back wall was gray stone of the hill’s bedrock. The room was warmed by a small coal brazier that was attached to a tubular chimney.

“Nyarowlll,” Weaver said, taking a seat on the floor instead of one of the spindly benches. “It’s pretty obvious that our society has a much higher tech level than yours. And that you don’t make those jaunt devices or the guns. Where do they come from?” There was probably some diplomatic way he was supposed to say that but he wasn’t a diplomat.

“This is true,” Nyarowlll admitted. “We get them from the N!T!Ch! who get them in turn from the @5!Y!.”

“How do you say that?” Weaver asked. “Never mind.”

“We have to pay very much for the weapons and the teleportation devices. Our mines are being bled dry of gems and currency metals. But we must have them to fight the T!Ch!R!.” She stopped as if she hadn’t meant to say that much.

“Oh, crap,” Miller muttered.

The military had set up a secure communications room at the UCF gate so they were no longer broadcasting their secrets to the world. At the moment, Weaver was of two minds about that.

“The Titcher are a sentient race that has the ability to open gates and invades through them, colonizing the world beyond,” Weaver said, looking at the screen that showed about half the Cabinet. “The Mreee have been fighting them for about fifty years. They have three gates, including the one that connects to us. One that the Titcher opened, one that was opened by the Nitch and the one that they opened, using technology that the Nitch sold them, to us. Nyarowlll is something like a natural scientist; they haven’t really separated out physics, biology and chemistry yet. She’s the closest thing they have to an expert on gate technology and alien technology. She wasn’t really willing to discuss the military situation but it seems the Titcher are well established on the Mreee’s world and they are trying everything they can to stop them. The weapons they get from the Nitch are apparently really powerful, but the Titcher forces, once they’re established, produce immense fighting biologicals and millions of those dogs and thorn-throwers. I think we’ve only seen what they can fit through a gate.”

“And if they overrun the Mreee?” the national security advisor asked. “Then they’ll be attacking two gates?”

“That’s right, ma’am, but that’s not all,” Weaver said. “I was asking Nyarowlll about gate tech and she was puzzled by our experience. They’ve only been able to open a couple of gates and it takes the tech they get from the Nitch who are getting it from… I can’t even begin to pronounce it, ma’am. From the Fivverockpit. But the point is, she didn’t know why ours were just opening and they’d only had contact with the Nitch and the Titcher before.”

“We’ve had two more open,” the President said. “One in south Georgia that is spouting out lava and another in Boca Raton that is just a disaster.”

“Excuse me?” Weaver said.

“Everyone within fifty miles of Boca Raton is dead or hopelessly insane,” the director of Homeland Security said, painfully. “Everyone. Millions of people. We have no idea why or what is causing it.”

“And before you ask, no, you are not going to Boca Raton,” the national security advisor said. “There’s a line you just can’t cross. A recon plane that was sent in crashed, anyone crossing the line goes insane. And it’s a line from the reports we’re getting. There should be a file there called Enigma Site; see if you can find it.”

Weaver moved around the Top Secret files scattered, against regulation, all over the desk at the communications center and found the one marked Enigma. He opened it up and looked at the satellite photos.

“All there is is a gray blotch,” he said.

“Indeed,” the national security advisor replied. “A gray blotch that is some sixty meters wide, appears to be about one hundred meters high and does not cast a shadow.”

“Nobody is coming out except those at the very edge,” the Homeland Security director continued. “And all we can do with them is put them in straightjackets and sedate them. Psychiatrists hold out hope that with heavy medication they can get some of them back to a semblance of normal. But it’s only a hope.”

“Are they saying anything?” Weaver asked.

“Just ravings about formless shapes and huge shambling mounds,” the national security advisor said. “And most of them aren’t even saying that. Just screaming.”

“Jesus,” Weaver muttered. “Well, trading with Mreee is going to be hard. We might be able to get some weapons from them, thirdhand from the Fivverockpit, but I’m not sure they’ll be worthwhile. I’m not sure, frankly, what they can give us. They don’t have many of those teleportation belts and not nearly enough of the weapons. But we’ve got all sorts of knowledge that would help them and that they really need. And I submit that ensuring that we don’t have one more gate spitting Titcher is probably worth whatever we give them.”

“Any idea why the gates are opening, yet?” the President asked. “Or where they will open?”

“No, sir,” Dr. Weaver admitted. “But I’ve been running around from one fire to the next and haven’t really been able to give it much study. That’s next on my list.”

“When did you sleep, last, Doctor?” the national security advisor asked.

“Sleep?” he said. “A couple of days ago. But I’m okay, I can go for a while without it. I’ll probably get some tonight.”

“Okay, we’ll talk tomorrow,” the President said. “Let’s hope that another gate doesn’t open between now and then.”

The lab was now in a trailer and Garcia was installed in front of a computer, looking at random scrabbles of white on black that Weaver recognized as particle tracks.

“Talk to me, Garcia,” the doctor said, collapsing onto a computer chair.

“The gate seems to be generating one boson every forty-seven minutes,” Garcia said. “If they’re what is causing the gates we should have over a hundred of them by now. But the readings from Eustis show that while there’s some muon emissions, there’s no boson formation.”

“Nyarowlll said that gates can only form at ‘thin’ spots,” Weaver said. “Although they can open to them from anywhere. I wonder what ‘thin’ spots means? Is that where the bosons are stopping?”

“They’ve been increasing in mass as well,” Garcia said. “And they seem to be generating in random directions except that some seem to be following the same path as previous bosons.”

Weaver spent a little time figuring out how to pull up the course tracks on his own system, then studied them for a while. There was a pattern there but he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination. He pulled up a pattern recognition program and fed a couple in and after a while it spat out some equations that he recognized as fractal generation. Taking the course tracks as shown and entering the equations gave him a complex fractal pattern for each of the bosons. Each was different but it spread out widely and in an apparently, but not truly, illogical fashion. Last he brought up a terrain mapping program and overlaid some of the fractals on it.

“Got it,” he said.

“What?” Garcia asked, yawning. “You know it’s two o’clock in the morning, right? And you’ve been working on that for four hours?”

“I guess,” Weaver said. “The thing is we can determine where the bosons are going, now, and when they’ll arrive at various points on their travels. And I think I can determine, based on what limited data we have, where they’ll stop.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Garcia asked, sliding his chair over.

“No,” Weaver said. “Look at this track, A-4, generated about an hour after you got the instruments up; thanks by the way.”

“No problem,” Garcia replied.

“Zig, zag, zag, seventeen degree skew turn, zag, increase in size of moment by a fraction and repeat. Run that through the equation, superimpose and, voila, passes perfectly through Eustis, Florida, after going in a vaguely circular direction past Sanford and Daytona Beach. Doesn’t quite match up with Jules Court but damned close, close enough for these instruments and this map.”

“What about the rest of them?” Garcia asked.

“I’m mostly backtracking at this point,” Weaver said. “I think the Boca Raton boson was B-14. And am I imagining things or are they increasing in mass?”

“They’re increasing in mass,” Garcia said. “Or charge, not sure which at the moment.”

“Charge,” Weaver said. “Now it’s starting to make sense.” He brought up the computer again and started plugging in numbers, pulling them up from the data from the instruments. “I need to do a field experiment. Go find somebody with a Humvee.”

“Now?”

“Now,” Weaver said, not even looking up. “We’re going to Disney World.”

The staff duty officer had been reluctant to part with a Humvee and driver but when Weaver pointed out that he was going to be a making a report to the President in the morning, not to mention looking for where the Titcher might break through next, things got remarkably easier. The yawning driver took them down the almost deserted Greenway until it connected to Interstate 4 then turned south to County Road 535. More turns led to a guard-shack manned by a young guard in a blue uniform and a nylon jacket sporting an embroidered mouse that was world famous.

“Can I help you?” the guard said, looking at the driver of the Humvee. The only one available at that time of night was a recon Humvee that still had a 40mm grenade launcher mounted.

“Yes,” Weaver said, leaning over the driver. “Could you direct me to Bear Island Road?”

“Sir, this is a restricted area,” the guard said. “I understand that you think you need to enter here but we’re considered a top target of terrorism. Nobody gets in without a pass that has to be preapproved by the security office. I don’t see a pass. No pass, no entry.”

“Too bad,” Weaver said with a smile. “My orders from the national security advisor and the gun on the top of this thing, not to mention the very pissed off and sleepy SEAL in the back means I can go anywhere. Now, could you direct me to Bear Island Road?”

Chief Miller had just laid his head down for the first time in two days when he’d felt somebody kicking his boot.

“Come on, Miller, the game’s afoot,” Weaver had said, tossing him his M-4.

“What now?” Miller said, standing up. He was almost instantly awake but that didn’t mean he was rested. He looked at his watch and groaned. “Jesus, I just got off the horn to SOCOM an hour ago!”

“You’re a SEAL? You’re complaining about a little sleep? Besides, how long were you out in Shands?”

“What?” Miller asked. “UNCONSCIOUSNESS does not COUNT.”

“Whatever, come on…”

So he was in no mood to be held up by some rent-a-cop. And he’d been waiting most of his adult life for a moment like this.

“Son,” he said, popping his head up through the gunner’s hatch and training the MK-19 until it was pointed vaguely at the guard. “We’re in no mood for Mickey Mouse. Get out of the road.”

“Where are we and why are we here?” Miller asked as the Hummer pulled to a stop on a stretch of deserted road. There was something that looked like a small factory just down the road and he could see lights and what looked like the top of Cinderella’s castle off to the left. To the right was a drainage ditch half filled with water and then dense forest.

“I think I know where another boson settled,” Weaver said, climbing out of the back of the Hummer and opening the hatch. “I need to get some readings. Help me with this.”

“This” was a box about a meter square and a half meter high. There were also two car batteries to be lugged.

“We need more people,” Miller said, lifting one end of the box. It wasn’t all that heavy but it was bulky as hell. “Where are we going with it?”

“That way,” Weaver answered, looking at a hand-held GPS and pointing into the woods. As he did a car made a screeching turn at the end of the road and came barreling down, yellow lights flashing. It slammed to a stop and two more security guards got out, one of them fingering his side arm.

“If you put your hand on that again, I’ll feed it to you,” Miller growled, flipping the M-4 up to a hip-shot position.

“What’s going on here?” the driver said, coming around the car. When he saw the SEAL pointing an M-4 in his general direction he stopped and raised his hands. “Sir?”

“I think there’s a boson over in those woods,” Weaver answered. “Thanks for showing up. We needed some more help.”

With the two security guards carrying the box and Weaver and the national guardsman carrying the batteries and Chief Miller following along, his rifle in no way pointed at the two guards, they managed to get the material across the drainage ditch and into the woods.

“About seventy-five yards that way and we’ll take our first reading,” Weaver said, pointing slightly to the right.

The woods were pine with palmetto undergrowth and hard going. The only light was the tac-light Miller had attached to his M-4 and it was great for illuminating about a one-meter patch but otherwise useless. The guards continually stumbled over the low, spiky, palmettos, occasionally letting out a yelp as one of the fronds pierced their pants.

“Can I ask a question?” the driver said, gasping. The box was a bitch to carry though a swamp and over palmettos.

“Sure,” Weaver answered. He looked at his GPS again and stopped. “This’ll do. Try to find a flat spot.”

The palmettos were close growing but there were occasional open spots and the guards gratefully lowered the box onto one of them, wincing and grabbing at their hands that had been cut by the thin handles.

“What in the hell is a boson?” the driver said, sniffing. “Do you smell something?”

“It’s what’s causing the gates,” Weaver replied. There were levelers on the bottom of the box and he was busy trying to get it level. “This is a muon detector. They should be emitting muons and we should be able to detect them within about a hundred meters.”

“Doc,” the SEAL said.

“There are two coated plastic plates inside. When the muons hit the plates they cause Cherenkov radiation, which emits a flash of light. Light sensors record the flash and with the two plates we can get a reading on which direction they’re coming from. That way we can figure out which way the boson is and move it around until we find it. The particle itself will probably be invisible to the naked eye…”

“Doc,” Miller repeated, hoarsely.

“But we’ll know where the boson settled. And from that we can extrapolate where more gates might open…”

“Doc!”

“What?” Weaver said, looking up as he realized nobody was listening.

No more than twenty feet away a large, round mirror was reflecting the lights from Cinderella’s castle.

“The planet on the far side has a reducing atmosphere and what looks like an F class sun.”

The military responded even faster now that there was an SOP for such things. In no more than two hours secure communications and a string of tents and trailers were set up along Bear Island Road and the national security advisor, rubbing sleep from her eyes, was shaking her head at the physicist’s latest report.

“No signs of life at all; it might as well be the primordial Earth. Very low oxygen levels, high levels of ammonia, chlorine, methane and carbon dioxide. Rocky ground, very dry. Slight overpressure so we’re getting a fair amount of their atmosphere leaking through.”

“No signs of the Titcher?” the NSA asked.

“No,” Weaver said. “From what Nyarowlll told me the planet would be of little interest to the Titcher. But what I don’t understand is why a gate opened at all. I’ve come up with a list of GPS sites and the list is going out to local police for investigation. But if this gate is open, it means most, or at least many, of them are going to be open. This explains the magma pile in Georgia, at least.”

“Do you think it’s the same planet?” the Homeland Security Director asked. “I’ve seen stuff about the early Earth, lots of lava…”

“Those shows are… slightly overdramatized,” Weaver said, carefully. “At the point of advancement of the planet on the far side crustal formation seems to be complete and we’d expect similar tectonic activity to earth or significantly reduced. This is going to be a good opportunity to find out which.”

“But it’s not a threat?” the NSA said.

“Other than atmospheric leakage, not so far,” the physicist answered.

“How many of these things can we expect?” the Homeland Security director asked.

“Well, the UCF anomaly is producing about thirty bosons per day,” Weaver said.

“Oh, my God…” the NSA muttered.

“If every one opens we’re in for a world of hurt,” Weaver said with a shrug.

“Even if they don’t…” the NSA said. “How are these things… spreading?”

“They seem to be following, by and large, certain fractal course tracks,” Weaver answered. “They zig zag around in an apparently random manner and when they reach a certain point, based upon their energy level, they stop. The energy level is increasing, though, so each one is going farther.”

“And they’re spreading across the world,” the NSA said. “If they’re up to Georgia then they’re down to Cuba.”

“Yes.”

“Opening up in open ocean.”

“Presumably.”

The NSA put her head in her hands and shook it. “Sailboats cruising along and suddenly landing in other planets.”

“Well, they’d have to be quite small sailboats,” Weaver pointed out. “Otherwise they’d sort of… crash.”

“Freighters,” the Homeland Security director said. “Cruise ships! We need to get a hazard warning out for mariners!”

“That… would be advisable,” the physicist said.

“We need to get that… anomaly turned off,” the NSA said. “Soon. How many of these gates can the Titcher access?”

“Unknown,” Weaver admitted. “We only have one emergence so far. If we have a couple more it will give me some data. In the meantime I’m as in the dark as you are.”

“How do we turn the anomaly off?” she asked.

“Errr…” Weaver shook his head. “You remember how I mentioned the great big steel ball?”

“That will turn it off?” the NSA asked. “A billion dollars will be pocket change compared to this stuff.”

“I also remember how he mentioned ten years,” the Homeland Security director said, sourly.

“And it won’t turn it off,” the physicist pointed out. “What I might be able to do is steer the bosons somewhere controllable. Maybe. Nyarowlll admitted that their gate openings, the controlled openings, are on small islands with heavy guard facilities. Maybe steer them all to atolls or, I don’t know, Area 51 seems appropriate.”

“I’ll pass that on to the President,” the NSA said, dryly. “In the meantime, try to figure out how to turn off the anomaly and shut at least some of these gates.”

“I’ll put some of my people on the job of monitoring them once they’re found and we’re going to need a whole bunch of people suitable for surveying the far sides,” the Homeland Security director said, sighing. “I’ll put FEMA in charge of finding those people. They know every environmental specialty company in the U.S. This is going to start costing real money pretty soon.”

“Look on the bright side,” Weaver said.

“There’s a bright side?” the Homeland Security director said with a grim laugh.

“Sure, besides the advances that this is going to make in science, we’re looking at multiple worlds that are available for colonization. Sure, so far there haven’t been many that have been worth much and the U.S. isn’t really interested in getting rid of surplus population. But if we can figure out how to steer some of these things to India and China…”

“That’s a point,” the NSA said. “One bright point.”

“So far we’ve encountered two civilizations,” Weaver said. “One of them hostile and one friendly. That, I think, is pretty good odds.”

“Three,” the NSA pointed out. “If you add the Boca Raton anomaly. And I don’t know if it’s hostile or just so impossible to understand it will always be an anomaly.”

“But the point is that we’re encountering friendly ones,” Weaver said. “It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s just very odd. But the U.S. is a master of handling oddities. We take cellular phones and the internet for granted. In time I bet that we absorb gates just as we’ve absorbed every other change. And, for that matter, make money off of them,” he added with a chuckle.

“Okay,” the NSA said, smiling. “I’ll point that out to the President, too. Just as soon as he wakes up. I’m sure we’ll be talking again, Doctor.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the physicist said as the transmission terminated.

He got up and stretched his back, then undogged the door to the communications center and stepped into the other room of the trailer. Miller was sitting at a short range-radio with his feet up on the ledge in front of it, his eyes closed.

“I thought that SEALs never needed to sleep?” Weaver said.

“I was just resting my eyes,” Miller answered instantly and opened them. “I was talking to the director of security for the parks. I’m much more impressed with this outfit than I was just dealing with their rent-a-cops. They’ve got better environment suits than FEMA, a bigger environmental response team than most major cities and a ‘county’ SWAT team that is dedicated for the park and looks pretty damned sharp. The security director, who’s an ex-Green Beanie, and I took a little stroll on the other side. Not exactly a garden spot, but you know Disney. He’d already talked to the director of parks and they’re planning on turning it into an ‘interplanetary adventure’ at very high rates. Suit people up in environment suits and take them for a stroll on ‘the primordial Earth.’ ”

“I just told the NSA that somebody would find a way to make money off of these things,” Weaver said, sitting down. “You know, she wants me to either shut down the anomaly or figure out a way to move the gates. It occurs to me that the people to put on that would be Disney’s Imagineers. They’re some of the best engineers in the world, certainly the highest paid.”

“We’ll talk to them later,” Miller said, standing up and taking the physicist by the arm. “We’re headed back to base. Then you’re going to bed. And you’re going to sleep even if I have to hit you over the head with a blackjack. And I’m going to sleep, too. And I’m not getting up until tomorrow. By then there will be more news, more gates, more data and more emergencies. But until then, we’re getting some sleep. Understood?”

“Understood,” Weaver said, grinning. “If anything comes up, I’ll tell them you’re on another emergency somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Miller said. “In fact, I think I’m just going to check into a hotel. Maybe the powers that be won’t find me there.”

What they ended up doing was talking to the security director who, whether he was appreciative of them responding so fast to a potential threat on Disney property or happy that the SEAL hadn’t killed his guard, arranged for rooms in the Grand Floridian. It was broad daylight when they made it up to their rooms but neither of the two cared. Weaver undressed, took out his cell phone, turned it off, plugged it into the charger he was carrying and hit the bed with his whole body. He never even pulled the covers down, he just fell asleep.

Shane Gries was sitting on the back of his M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle eating a hamburger from Burger King when he heard the distinctive WHAM-WHAM-WHAM of a 25mm chain gun. He dropped the hamburger just as the driver that was manning his own vehicle’s gun opened fire and the first Abrams fired with an enormous slam of sound. He had his vehicle helmet on in seconds and plugged in to the intervehicular communications system before he popped his head out of the commander’s hatch. What met his eyes was nightmare.

Something like a giant green worm was extruding through the gate, filling it from side to side. As he watched a ball of lightning jumped out from a horn on the side of one segment and impacted on an Abrams, which exploded in a ball of fire. He saw 25mm rounds bouncing off the armor on the thing and just as he wondered about Abrams rounds a “silver bullet” went downrange with a sound like ripping cloth, impacted on the armor of the thing and then, incredibly, bounced off, the depleted uranium arrow breaking into pieces and sparking fire.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, keying the Forward Air Control frequency.

“Alpha Seven this is Romeo Two-Eight!”

“Romeo Two-Eight, this is Alpha Seven. Before you ask I’ve already called for JDAMs. Impact in forty-five seconds. Danger very God damned close!”

Shane switched frequency to the company net and shouted: “JDAM! JDAM! JDAM!”

A B-52 or B-1 bomber had been on continuous loiter since an hour after his company arrived, their Joint Directed Attack Munitions programmed to the location of the gate. Because of the danger of the gate the weapons they were carrying were M-82 two-thousand-pound bombs. In the event of their use the only thing the infantry could do was hunker down and hope like hell that the bomb hit the target and didn’t hit them. If it came anywhere near the line it would probably kill half the company.

Artillery rounds were already starting to land but they had no more effect on the creature than the Abrams rounds. And, as he watched in horror, more bolts of lightning were jumping skywards. He looked up and winced at the first titanic explosion overhead. Then there was a tremendous roar in the sky and the contrail that had indicated the presence of the B-52 on station was abruptly terminated in a gigantic cloud of fire and smoke.

There were three segments through the gate, now, all of them belching chain lightning. The artillery started to dwindle as some of the lightning intercepted it overhead, the explosions raining shrapnel down on the beleaguered infantry company. But he noticed that the front segment had taken damage. It seemed to be crippled, being pushed ahead by the trailing segments, and was no longer firing. It could be hurt.

“All units,” he called. “Try to aim for repeated hits on the same spot. Try to bust through this thing’s armor.”

The gunner had slid into his seat, replacing the driver who started the vehicle.

“Switch to TOW,” Shane said to the driver, switching back to the company frequency. “All Brads, go TOW!” The Tank-killing, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided missile was the Bradley’s premier antiarmor system. It was capable of taking out a main battle tank at four thousand meters. On the other hand, it was pretty inaccurate at less than a thousand meters, which was the current engagement range. Shane cursed, again, the directive that ordered him to “remain close to the gate.” He was well inside his maximum engagement range, with no room to maneuver against this hell-spawned thing.

He looked to either side and saw that he had lost two of his precious Abrams, both of them billowing fire into the sky. They were mostly intact, ammunition magazine ports blown out but their turrets still in place, but from the looks of them the crews were gone. Whatever that thing was firing seemed to pierce the armor of the Abrams as if it was insubstantial as paper.

“Keep up fire,” he commanded. “Keep hitting it on the same spots if possible. Do not retreat. Say again, stay in place, do not let this thing…”

It was his last transmission as a ball of plasma blew his Bradley sky-high.

Weaver rolled over and groaned at the pounding on the door. He sat up and stumbled over, cursing.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m up,” he said, unlocking and unbolting it. Command Master Chief Miller was the one doing the knocking and at the look on his face Weaver woke up fully. “What happened?”

“The company in Eustis just got clobbered, again,” Miller said, walking into the room. “It’s all over the news.”

“Let me take a shower at least,” Weaver grumped. He turned on his cell phone, first, and shrugged at the multiple message icon. It could wait until he had a shower.

A science fiction writer he knew always carried a black backpack that he called his “alien abduction pack.” “Everything I need to survive for twenty-four hours in eighty percent of terrestrial environments.” It was really a “I crashed in somebody else’s hotel room at a con” or “the airline lost my bags” pack. Weaver had started carrying one as well and he was glad for it now. He could shave with his own razor and brush his teeth with his own toothbrush. He’d used up the bottle of water the day before but that was easily remedied.

As soon as he was done with his shower, hair brushed, wearing new underwear thanks to the “alien abduction pack” again, he was ready to face the day.

Or, afternoon as it turned out.

As they walked out of the front of the hotel, Weaver hoping that the nice security director would make sure the bill or whatever was paid, he started listening to his messages. The national security advisor wanted him to call. A secretary at Columbia pointed out that he had missed a scheduled meeting with a client that morning. His girlfriend in Huntsville wanted to know when his plane was getting in and reminded him that they were supposed to go to a party that evening. It was still on, despite the news, but Buddy was retheming it an “Alien Invasion” party and what was he going to wear? His cell phone company reminded him that he was overdue on his bill and if the balance of three hundred dollars wasn’t paid in two days his cell phone would be temporarily disconnected.

That reminded him that he didn’t know how any of this was being billed. He supposed he was working for Columbia but, come to think of it, nobody had signed a contract. He was basically working on the word of the secretary of defense. On the other hand, that ought to be good enough. But he hadn’t talked to his boss at Columbia for that matter.

He keyed in the number and got a secretary, the same one that had called him about the missed meeting. He put her off and got ahold of Dan Heistand, vice-president for Advanced Development at Columbia.

“Hey, Dan,” Weaver said as the chief pulled onto Highwayy 192.

“Weaver, where the hell have you been?” Heistand asked. He was normally a pretty mild fellow, so Bill was taken aback.

“I’ve been working on the UCF anomaly,” Bill replied. “Didn’t anybody tell you?”

“No,” Heistand said, calming down. “Who brought you in?”

“The SECDEF. I had a meeting with the War Cabinet on Saturday morning.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, he sent a couple of MPs to my hotel room. Speaking of which, I never checked out of that one, either.”

“Where are you, now?”

“Disney World.”

“Disney? What the hell is happening at Disney? Who’s paying for this? How many hours have you billed? What’s the contract number?”

“I don’t have a contract number,” Bill sighed. “Look, when the secretary of defense, the national security advisor and the President tell you to go to Orlando and send you down in an F-15 doing Mach Three, you don’t say ‘Oh, excuse me, Mr. President, would you mind signing this contract from Columbia Defense Systems so the billing will be straight?’ Okay? As to how many hours I’ve been billing, except for four hours’ sleep this afternoon and about three and a half unconscious yesterday… all the rest. Okay?”

“Unconscious?”

“I got blown up by one of those rhinoceros tanks,” Bill said. “That was after the standoff in the house. Hey, did you know that an H K USP .45 caliber pistol will kill one of those dog-demons if you hit it just right?”

“Bill,” Dan said, then paused. “Forget everything I said.”

“Already forgotten,” Weaver replied. “Hey, if you want to be a help, find whoever has to sign the contracts, and I can imagine what howling they’re going to make when they see my hourly rates, and get the whole team down to the anomaly site. I’ve got a national guardsman who used to be a physics student doing all my monitoring and half the analysis. He’s been helpful and I’d like to keep him but I could use some help.”

“Will do.”

“And see if you can find a guy named Gonzales or Gonzalves or something in England, Reading, I think. Pure math guy. Ray Chen used to go to him for Higgs-Boson math he couldn’t get. And send me some clothes. And get somebody to pay my cell phone bill.”

“Okay,” Heistand said, chuckling. “In retrospect, the meeting this morning wasn’t all that important, despite the fact that there was about two million dollars in billing riding on it and you were the star of the show.”

“Hell, Dan, I’ve probably billed a quarter of that just this weekend,” Bill said. “Okay, we’re pulling into a McDonalds to get some breakfast. As soon as I can slow down enough to do anything like a report I’ll get it to you.”

“Bye, Bill,” Heistand said. “And, oh, try not to get blown up again, okay? You’re my star biller.”

“Will do,” Weaver said, chuckling. Then he thought of something apropos of the order and frowned.

“Oh, one more thing, Dan,” he added. “Send the Wyverns.”

“That’s a classified program, Bill,” the vice president said. “I can’t just open up that compartment on your say-so.”

“I’ve got the access I need to get it opened,” Weaver replied. “But do you really want me to go that route? Call the DOD rep, explain the situation, get the compartment kicked open. But in the meantime, put them in their shipping containers and get them down to Orlando. I’m tired of nearly getting my butt blown off. Send the Wyverns. And their full suite of accessories.”

“I had to call my boss, too,” Chief Miller said. “What do you want?”

“Number one, Diet Coke,” the physicist replied.

The SEAL gave the order and pulled around in the Humvee, the Mk-19 just clearing the overhead. The employees manning the windows were visibly bemused to be serving a Humvee with a grenade launcher being driven by a heavily armed SEAL.

“The Team didn’t know where I was; they thought I’d bought it at Eustis,” the chief said. “Even sent a damned counseling team over to my house, chaplain, a captain, the works. My wife couldn’t decide if she was happy as hell that I was still alive or pissed that I hadn’t called earlier when I called and told her they were wrong. They didn’t even know that Sanson was in the hospital. Most of the casualties at Eustis were ‘missing presumed dead’ including the Old Man.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Weaver said. “Glasser was a good man.” He looked over at the chief who was driving the Humvee with one hand and eating a Quarter Pounder with the other. “I didn’t even know you were married.”

“Three happy years,” the chief replied around a mouthful of burger. “And twelve that weren’t so bad either. Hell, every time I go out the door she figures I’m not coming home. The kids hardly know who I am. But she doesn’t bitch about it. Well, not much. Somewhat more when I return from the grave.”

“And kids,” Weaver said, shaking his head. “It just doesn’t fit the image of the world-traveler SEAL. How many?”

“Three,” Miller replied. “Being a SEAL’s just like any other job after a while. At first it’s all ‘oooh! I’m a SEAL!’ and getting into fights in Bangkok. Then there’s the ‘Okay, I’m a SEAL, that’s my job and it’s sooo coool’ phase after you’ve been on the Teams for a while. Then there’s the ‘honey, I’m off to work’ phase, which is basically me.”

Weaver laughed at that.

“And one from my marriage to She Who Must Not Be Named,” Miller added. “He’s in the Army. Studying computers of all things. The rest are high-school and one in elementary school. Sixteen, fifteen and nine. Boy, boy, girl.”

“And she’s the apple of daddy’s eye?” Weaver grinned.

“She’s daddy’s nightmare,” the SEAL groused. “Daughters are nature’s revenge on fathers. She’s already got a string of boyfriends. She’s going to be impossible when she’s a teenager. I’m seriously thinking about putting her in a barrel when she turns twelve and not letting her out until she’s eighteen and no longer my problem.”

“Be a pretty messy barrel,” the physicist pointed out. “Maybe with a mesh bottom? And rinse it out once a week?”

“Whatever.”

When they got to the developing encampment around the Orlando anomaly they had some problems getting into the main camp. The guards there had never heard of a Dr. William Weaver, didn’t care that they were in a National Guard vehicle and seemed only mildly interested in the fact that Command Master Chief Miller was a SEAL and had been one of the first people through the gate.

After a few calls and calling the Officer of the Guard they were let through but only on condition that they report to the camp headquarters and obtain proper passes.

Weaver had Miller drop him at the physics trailer, which had acquired a sign while he was gone. It was now designated “The Anomaly Physics Research Center” and had another sign that said: “Authorized Persons Only. All Others Keep Out. This Means You!” He figured he’d better get the proper papers later.

The guard on the trailer, however, had another opinion.

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t let anyone in who doesn’t have the right pass,” the guard, an 82nd Airborne private, said.

“Look, son,” Weaver said, patiently. “This is my lab! This is my project. And unless the secretary of defense or the national security advisor have taken me off the job, that is my equipment in there.”

“That may be the case, sir,” the guard said, doggedly. “But unless you have the right pass, you’re not going in.”

Weaver had just opened his mouth when his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and held a hand up to the guard.

“William Weaver.”

“This is the Secretary,” the secretary of defense said. “There’s supposed to be a FEMA representative down there to coordinate the tracking of the gates. You talked to him, yet?”

“If he’s in my lab the answer is: no,” Bill said, shaking his head. “I’m having a little trouble getting into it.”

“Why? Lost your keys?” the SECDEF chuckled.

“No, the nice young man from the Army who is standing outside the door won’t let me in.”

There was a long pause as the secretary digested this fact.

“Let me talk to him.”

Weaver handed over the phone.

“Private First Class Shawn Parrish, sir,” the private said, politely.

“No, I don’t recognize your voice, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, sir,” this somewhat strained but determined. “But I’d be happy to call the sergeant of the guard, sir.”

There was a long period while the private’s face gradually got whiter.

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.” This with a very white face.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dr. Weaver, I need to call the sergeant of the guard,” the private said in a very small voice, handing back the phone. He pulled a civilian multiband radio off his LBE and spoke into it.

Weaver spent the next three minutes considering the nature of boson particles, muon detection and particle degradation. He’d been doing that a good bit while not being attacked by aliens or visiting alien planets in the last couple of days, which mostly meant while driving or eating, but every little bit helped.

The sergeant who came running up with two privates trailing him was panting.

“What do you got, Parrish?” the sergeant said, looking askance at Weaver’s mussed desert camouflage BDUs, missing such items as nametags or rank insignia and worn over tennis shoes and a civilian T-shirt.

The guard pulled the sergeant aside and carried on a low voiced conversation of which Weaver caught only the exclamation: “Who? Are you sure?”

“Dr. Weaver?” the sergeant said. “Could I see some ID?”

Weaver pulled out his driver’s license and Pentagon pass, then waited as the sergeant examined them and the list that the guard handed him.

“Sir, we’ll get this straightened out,” the sergeant said, handing back the IDs. “For the interim, I’ll provisionally add you to the pass list on my authority. Please see that you get the proper paperwork as soon as possible.”

“Will do,” Weaver said. “Can I go in, now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“Sir, can I ask a question?”

“Yes.”

“Was that really the secretary of defense?” the sergeant asked, clearly hoping that it was not.

“Yes,” Weaver replied. “Want me to call him back so you can make sure?”

“No, sir!”

“Sergeant, I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off since Saturday when the SECDEF, the national security advisor and the President had me flown down here in an F-15. I’ve been blown up, had to learn to use a pistol and a shotgun to keep aliens from eating me, learned more than I want to know about gate teleportation and had about four hours’ sleep, and three hours recovering from a concussion, since. Could you do me a small favor?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, smiling.

“Get somebody to find me the appropriate paperwork or something? If you need to talk to General Fullbright, do it. As the SEAL I was with said when we busted down the gates to Disney to find this latest gate, I don’t have time for Mickey Mouse. Okay?”

“Got it, sir.”

“Thanks,” Weaver said, walking in the trailer.

There were three people crowded in the main room. Two of them he vaguely recognized; the third was a total stranger, a blonde female. Not at all bad looking, little light on top but easy on the eyes. She was running some sort of track calculation on a new computer that had been installed while he was away.

“Dr. Weaver,” one of them said, standing up and coming over to shake his hand. “I’m Bill Earp from FEMA, you might remember me…”

“From that remarkable safety lecture you gave Sanson,” Bill said, shaking his hand. “Good to see you again.”

“Good to see you,” the FEMA rep replied. “First word we had from Eustis was that you were a gonner.”

“The report of my demise was exceedingly exaggerated,” Weaver replied. “I’m sorry to say that Howse and, apparently, Lieutenant Glasser bought it. Sanson, Chief Miller and I were in Shands hospital. Where’s Garcia?”

“Getting some rest, sir,” the other male, a young soldier replied. “I’m Crichton. I was at the site…”

“You did the initial survey, sure,” Bill said.

“I’ve got some radiological background,” Crichton said. “I’m just trying to help out, keeping an eye on the boson count, mainly.”

“FEMA sent me over to coordinate with finding the bosons,” the safety specialist said. “I’m a chemist, not a physicist but I know the tune and can dance to it.”

“Robin Noue,” the young woman said, waving. “I’m a programmer… I was a programmer at UCF, in the AI Lab.”

“Good, okay,” Bill said. “What’s the count on bosons and have they surveyed any more sites?”

“The count is up to over a hundred,” the FEMA rep said. “We’ve managed to pick out thirty probable sites. Twenty have been surveyed. Five open gates, one into vacuum which displeased the guys that found it immensely; one of them nearly got sucked in. We sent out muon detectors to two of the ones that weren’t open, all the detectors we had and we’ve got a call in for more. They found inactive, I guess you’d call them, bosons at both. Close enough to the course track.”

“I’ve been trying to refine the course programming,” Robin said. “I’m getting it fined down somewhat. What bugs me is that it seems to be following a uniform sphere, congruent to the gravitational field.”

“It bugs me, too,” Weaver admitted. “And five open gates from twenty bugs me more. Because I think that means the others are ‘available’ and that means that the Titcher can open them.”

“That would be bad,” the FEMA rep said.

“Understatement of the century,” Bill replied. “Maybe of the millennium. How many base tracks are there?”

“Sixteen so far,” Crichton said. “Every now and again a boson takes off on its own merry way. But most of them have been sitting in those sixteen base tracks and most of them have been following a ‘top four.’ ”

“Which track is the Titcher track and is it the same as the Mreee track?”

“The Titcher track is designated track three,” Crichton said. “And, yes, the Mreee gate is on the same track. Disney and one other open, near Miami out in the Everglades are on track one. Boca and the Georgia eruption appear to be six and they’re the only two bosons that have come out of six.”

“Any dead bosons on track three?” Weaver asked.

“Oh, a shit-pot full,” Crichton said. “Sorry ma’am.”

“It’s okay,” Robin said.

“Okay, I’d say that those are a probable threat,” Bill said. “Just a hunch. But I’d say it’s a good area to point the military and local police towards. Open gates I don’t think the Titcher can attack. But closed ones they can and the ones that they’re most likely to be able to touch would be the ones on track three; those are the only ones that have been intentionally opened from the other side. Maybe the bosons on that one are really easy to detect or something; that would explain the Mreee as well. Oh, and maybe Boca, I’ve got no idea what Boca is.”

“I do,” Crichton said. “But it doesn’t help.”

“What?” Weaver asked noticing the pained looks on the faces of Earp and Noue.

“They don’t like the answer,” Crichton said, seriously. “It’s Cthulhu.”

“What?” Weaver said then shook his head. “Come on!”

In the 1920s a series of horror short stories had been written by a writer named Howard Phillips Lovecraft. The stories involved alien beings which had controlled earth in the depths of time and then died out or been driven out by other aliens, leaving the way open for the development of man. The aliens were also reported to be sealed away in remote places, such as the depths of the ocean, and from time to time tried to “awaken.” The best known of the stories was “The Call of Cthulhu” about just such an awakening.

“No, listen to me,” the sergeant snapped, shaking his head. “I’m not saying it’s actually Cthulhu but do you know the reason why H.P. Lovecraft started writing those stories?”

“No,” Weaver admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy your logic. On the other hand, say your piece.”

“Lovecraft was a minor student of astrophysical science,” Crichton pointed out, earnestly. “He came to the conclusion that if man ever actually did meet aliens they were going to be so different that there would be no way that man could interact with them. And if they could cross the stars they would be so powerful and so advanced that they would consider us as no more than ants. Total indifference. The ‘evil’ aliens in the Lovecraft stories aren’t evil; they’re indifferent. But their indifference and power, not to mention weirdness, kills us. Just like we kill ants. I’m saying that whatever is in Boca Raton meets the Lovecraftian definition of an alien; a powerful alien being that is indifferent to the secondary effects it is causing. And those secondary effects are not a defense but a function of what it is.”

“That’s it?” Bill asked.

“Yeah,” Crichton said, sighing. “Stupid, huh?”

“Only in presentation,” Bill replied. “Look, you don’t say that ‘it’s Cthulhu.’ You say: ‘I think it’s a Cthulhoid form entity.’ ‘It is Cthulhu’ is both wrong, if you went up and asked it its name I sure hope it wouldn’t answer ‘Cthulhu,’ and a good way to get dismissed as a crackpot.”

“Yeah,” Earp noted. “I had. But that explanation almost makes sense. Why’s it driving people crazy, though?”

“Well, the answer to that is sort of out there,” Crichton said. “But think for a second about a species that finds quantum mechanics logical. I remember my physics professor joking about that and Lovecraft. There’s a game about those stories called Call of Cthulhu and any time you run into one of the monsters you have to roll a sanity check.”

“Never played it,” Weaver said. “But I get what you mean.”

“Anyway, he was always joking that we had to roll SAN check when we got into discussions of quantum mechanics. Now, think about a species that actually finds it logical.”

“Okay,” the physicist said, wincing.

“Did you make your SAN roll?” Crichton said, grinning.

“Barely,” Bill laughed. “I think I lost a couple of points, though.”

“All right. Now think about such a species that is totally logical, like a Vulcan, maybe even higher form sentient, totally sentient that is, it doesn’t have any subconscious. Just pure thought and logic.”

“Okay,” Bill replied.

“Now think about it if it’s a broadcasting telepathic.”

“Oh, hell,” Bill whispered. “Now I see what you mean. Not evil, just totally indifferent and bloody dangerous.”

“Bingo,” Crichton said. “A Cthulhoid entity. Its purpose is probably unknowable at our level.”

“It might not even be a real entity,” Robin suggested. “It might be something along the lines of a probe. All the ‘broadcast’ might be secondary effects from whatever it’s using for analysis of its surroundings.”

“Robin,” Bill said. “Write it up as a theory, post it to the Columbia research net with a suggestion that they try to get some sort of monitors in to see if we can pick up any specific traces of what it’s generating. I refuse to believe that anything is impossible to understand.”

“Even quantum mechanics?” Crichton said, smiling.

“Even quantum mechanics,” Bill answered. “What’s the word from Eustis?”

“The Titcher are in full control of both sides of the gate,” Earp replied. “More units from the 3rd ID have responded but they can’t regain control of the gate. They’ve managed to hold them to a perimeter but they’re taking horrible losses doing it.”

“Drop a nuke on it,” Weaver said.

“From orbit?” Crichton asked. “Only way to be sure?”

“Pretty much,” Weaver replied. “I don’t know if National Command Authority has caught up with what a problem the Titcher are. If we don’t push them back and close up that gate we’re toast. As a species, I mean, not just the United States.”

“They can only fit so much through the gate,” Earp protested. “We can hold them back; we just need to get enough troops in place.”

“And what if they open other ones?” Bill asked. “Besides, what we’re seeing is what they can fit through the gate. We haven’t seen what they’re throwing at the Mreee. I think what we’ve seen is the tip of the iceberg. Once they start growing forces on this side of the gate it’ll be all over but the shouting.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “I think I need to tell Washington how to run the war. Again.” He picked up his cell phone and punched in the number to the national security advisor.

“White House, National Security Advisor’s Office.”

“This is Dr. Weaver. I need to talk to the NSA.”

“She’s in a meeting at the moment, can I take a message?”

“Ask her to call me back as soon as possible,” Bill said. “And she’ll have to get me authorized a secure link. There’s something she needs to know.” He turned to the three in the room and frowned. “Not one word of this conversation leaves this trailer, understood?”

“Understood,” Crichton said, looking at the other two. The two civilians looked shocked but they nodded their heads.

“You’re serious?” the NSA asked.

Bill hadn’t had any problems getting into the secure communications trailer. A light colonel had turned up, apparently briefed on the earlier SNAFU and abjectly apologetic. Passes had been tendered, a Humvee carried him over and he’d been ushered into the inner sanctum ahead of a line of officers including a very pissed-off-looking major general.

“Yes, ma’am,” Weaver said. “I would strongly suggest nuking the site and setting up something like a nuclear land mine at all the others.”

The NSA licked her lips and nodded. “Everyone is here right now. I think I can get them all free. Stay there and I’ll try to get them all into the Situation Room.”

Weaver waited patiently until the view changed from the NSA’s empty chair to the Situation Room. It was the same people he’d dealt with on Saturday. The President, the secretary of defense, the NSA and the Homeland Security director. They all looked worn; the director was actually looking haggard.

“Authorizations all straightened out, Doctor?” the SECDEF asked.

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

“Okay, Weaver,” the President said. “Explain why you think I should nuke one of my own cities.”

“Mr. President, what I learned from Mreee makes me think that it’s the best possible option and we can’t wait too long,” Bill said. “The Titcher have a standard method of invasion. They take a bridgehead, establish a terraforming colony and then start replicating themselves from biological material on the far side. The terraforming process involves some sort of biological that eats and destroys all local life, spreading out from the bridgehead. As they get more material, you can think of it as fertilizer, they start building more and more Titcher and larger and larger combat organisms. The Mreee hold them off with those ray guns, which from the sounds of their effect are pretty powerful. We don’t have any, yet, that I know of. Our tanks can just barely damage their worm tanks and from what the Mreee said, the worm tanks are the little weapons. If we don’t stop them, soon, we’ll be looking at Escape from Florida. And, sir, we’ve detected over thirty points that probably can be accessed by the Titcher and more are forming all the time. It might be necessary to nuke them not once, but repeatedly and in multiple different spots.”

The President closed his eyes and leaned forward in his chair, holding his head in his hands.

“I’ll take input from you one at a time,” he said, sitting up and straightening his shoulders. “Homeland Security?”

“I’d like to kick it to the secretary, Mr. President,” the Homeland Security director said. “We can evacuate the area. Most people have left of their own accord. Ten hours, maybe, to ensure evacuation. A clean weapon will minimize fallout. We can survive it. If Dr. Weaver is right, and we’ve gotten the same reports from the Defense and State personnel that have been meeting with the Mreee, then… I don’t see any choice. If they break out in a more populated area… that will be harder. Eustis… is a small town. Break out in Atlanta or Cleveland or Los Angeles and… I’m not sure that bears thinking on.”

“Mr. Secretary?” the President said.

“We have clean weapons,” the secretary said. “Reasonably clean. The fallout isn’t going to be that bad, especially if we can use an airburst, which will be hard because of their defenses. I’d wish we had neutron bombs but… we don’t. We’ve lost nearly a brigade, more including the initial National Guard force, trying, and failing, to hold the perimeter. We don’t have the forces to hold them, at present time, to a ground perimeter. I have been considering Dr. Weaver’s suggestion for the last few hours myself and I have to concur. Delivery, especially airburst delivery, will be… difficult.”

“National Security?” the President said.

“Concur,” was all she said.

The President steepled his fingers and nodded. “Dr. Weaver, thank you for your help. I, obviously, want you to continue with your work. I cannot stress enough the importance of determinating how to control this phenomenon. For your information my decision is affirmative. Means and methods will be left to the Department of Defense in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security. Keep this under your hat until an announcement is made.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Bill replied. “I will.”

The President looked up in annoyance at someone off the camera and Bill saw an officer carry a message form to the secretary of defense. The SECDEF looked at it, nodded and turned back to the camera.

“There’s been another Titcher breakout, this one in the hills of Tennessee,” the SECDEF said. “A team found it looking for one of the inactive bosons. It appears that they are already colonizing. Several hills are covered in what is described as ‘green fungus.’ Doctor Weaver appears to have hit the problem on the head.”

The President grabbed his head again and sighed, angrily.

“Doctor Weaver,” he said, looking the camera right in the eye. “You must figure out how to close these GATES.”

“I will, sir,” Bill said. “I will.”