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Voluntold

  A cold rain fell on Site 719. It was a rare visitor, one Cyrus hadn’t seen at this time of year for nearly a decade. True, seven years of that had been drought, but that had broken, and evidently the weather was catching up on its long absence.

  Rain pattered on the roof of the quonset hut, dripped through the seams and collected in buckets. The wind howled outside, screaming on its way around Dead Horse Canyon. And every time the light bulbs flickered, Cyrus half-expected them to go out entirely.

  Mind you, if that happened, he reckoned they’d still be able to see easy enough. Even without the orange light of the camp stove in the corner, most of the people around the table were smoking, and their tobacco fumes rose to curl around the curved ceiling of the hut, dancing and swirling like ghosts at play.

  Cyrus glanced over to Carmina, caught her looking at him, nervousness plain on her face. He offered his half-sister an arm, and she gripped it so hard he had to bite back a curse. Right on the graft. Oh well, I’ve done worse to myself, he thought as he looked back around the table.

  Director Smith was leaning back, hands folded on his gut. He considered the men across the way with a carefully neutral expression. Cyrus had seen something like this before, in officers who were being called on by folks of higher rank, but not in their chain of command. If Cyrus was on the money, Smith would be trying to project confidence and cooperation, but not obsequiousness.

  Assistant Director Gable was at his right hand, leaning over the table a bit, one elbow on and the other hand on his lap. He wasn’t quite glaring at the visitors, but he was definitely projecting suspicion, and caution. Cyrus had the notion he was overselling it more than it was warranted, but it contrasted nicely with Smith’s laid-back appearance. Together they made something of a united front. Which Cyrus knew was bullshit, given how Smith had swooped in and taken over, but the three men across the table didn’t know that.

  And then there was Palmer. Palmer sat at Smith’s left, hands folded in his lap. And his gaze hadn’t left Carmina since they’d shown up at the meeting. Alone among the suits at the table, he wasn’t smoking. And those green eyes rarely blinked, fixed on Cyrus’ half-sister like a cat with its prey.

  Cyrus didn’t want to take his eye off Palmer, but managed to drag his gaze over to the visitors.

  Three men sat there, two in black suits, and one in gray.

  One was lean and mean-looking, close-cropped brown hair and scars around his jaw that bespoke some really, really lucky positioning when it came to an explosion. Cyrus figured he’d been to Korea and done his share for Uncle Sam. He sat almost matching Gable, one elbow on the table and the other hand nursing a cigarette that flared orange under hard eyes as he drew and blew smoke in steady puffs.

  The man to his right was softer, had the look of a well-fed Dad. Somewhere north of forty, with a genial smile and muscle gone to flab. Not completely, but he definitely seemed like the least deadly man in the room.

  But it was the man to the left of the scarred guy that was in charge, here. He hadn’t had to say a word, hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, and he’d kept a pleasant smile fixed on his face from the moment he walked in and shook all their hands. He might not be a killer, might never have ordered another man dead like Cyrus was sure Smith had done, but this man’s confidence and the reactions of everyone else here told him that the life or death of the project was at stake, and this man’s will would be done.

  He was an older man, clean-shaven with graying hair slicked back with Brylcreem, wearing a neat tie under a faded but well-maintained suit jacket. He had lines around his eyes that almost formed symmetrical rows, and blackened teeth with a few missing. There was nothing to separate him from the many, many other suits Cyrus had crossed paths with during his time in the service, men his CO had told him to accompany and assist, without giving any sort of details or explanation.

  And honestly, who this man was didn’t matter.

  It was who he represented, WHAT he represented, that mattered.

  And now, as this gray suited soul finished leafing through the file, replaced the papers, and cleared his throat, Cyrus found himself holding his breath.

  “I’m not going to waste time belaboring the obvious,” Gray Suit said, fishing in his pocket and drawing out a pack of Lucky Strikes. “I wouldn’t be here if this were a hoax. So I’ll spare you all of tha-aa-aaa-at.” He drawled the last word, dragged it out.

  Across the way, Smith merely nodded and offered a brief smile.

  He lost it soon enough as Gray Suit continued. “What I AM failing to see, however, is something to offset the funding requirements. Which are, quite frankly…ruuuuinous.”

  Cyrus caught the brief shift, as Smith tapped out his ash in the green ashtray on his end of the table. The first time he’d done it, rather than flicking it onto the carpeted floor.

  A few seconds later, Gable scowled and leaned even further in. “Don’t give us that bullshit. This is access to another world. You don’t think we can’t get our investment back a thousandfold? You’ll have companies lining up and begging for contracts to cross over and reap the bounty. Oil? Metals? Hell, trees the size of skyscrapers? They’ll be drooling for the chance!”

  “Mmm.” Gray Suit took a puff, and his eyes didn’t leave Smith’s. “Eventually, yes. When all this can be safely declassified. But that is… a waaaaayyys off. In the short term, we have to keep this under… wraaaaaps. Which means funding from ways that are not… accessible… to loose-lipped congressmen. And that’s… mmm… hard to hiiiiide.”

  “There will be an initial buy-in,” Smith said. “You don’t play at a table this large, if you can’t afford the ante. But I don’t think we can afford NOT to ante, here.”

  “So you admit this is a gamble!” Scarred Jaw said, thumping the table and making Carmina and Cyrus jump a bit. “You want us to foot the bill for what, some random adventure into fantasy land to tame unicorns and kill dragons and shit? What’s the point? Besides, we just got done with a war, and if we send our boys in to die now for some place that we don’t even have a treaty with and America doesn’t give a shit about, public opinion will eat us alive when the secret leaks out. Not IF. But WHEN.”

  Gable opened his mouth again… then shut it, as Smith nudged him with his elbow. Smith straightened up, leaned on his elbows and made a bridge of his hands, before settling his chin on his fingers. “It’s a gamble, yes. But if we don’t take it, then someone else WILL. And that’s what we can’t afford.”

  “I see where you’re going with this, and I’m calling bullshit. Don’t you try to play that commie card here!” Scarred Jaw thumped the table harder. “Not after that shit Mccarthy pulled. It’s a new era, you don’t just go yelling about the reds and get blank checks anymore. They’re clueless about any of this stuff. The British confirmed that.”

  “Kirlian.” The word slipped out of Cyrus’ mouth before he realized that he had spoken it aloud. And oh, the looks the two sides gave to him, when they realized that oh yeah, he was here, and what the hell was he doing interrupting a perfectly good dramatic tirade?

  But he knew he was in it now, and the only way through this shit sandwich was through, so he got ready to chew. Cyrus cleared his throat and spoke again. “It’s in the notes from my first debriefing. Bart… uh, asset twelve,” he said, as Gable shot him a warning look, “Asset twelve told me that the Russians had someone working on a similar device to mine. Someone named Kirlian, I don’t remember his first name.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “So when we’re saying that the communists are involved here, regardless of the current higher up views on the matter, we’re not exaggerating,” Smith said, smiling.

  “The Brits said they weren’t,” Scarred Jaw frowned, but his eyes flicked back and forth, as he did some mental math.

  “Yes,” Smith said. “They did SAY that.”

  Silence for a moment.

  “Regardless, the British aaaaaare involved,” Gray Suit said. “But from what I’ve read, they’ve been somewhat involved for decades, and kept this secret remarkably well. And as to what the Soviets may or may not be doing, we can verify that at our… leisure, now that we have a name.” he looked to Cyrus, considered him. “Thank you for that information, by the way. We will follow up on thaaaat.”

  “Yes,” Gable said, seemingly calmer than he had been moments ago. “But there’s a closing window of opportunity, now. The British know we know. Which means that eventually the Russians will know we know. And that will push someone to act. These… people, these ones that you call wizards,” he shot Carmina a quick glance. “They’re not just grabbing from the US. They’ve got access to portals all over the world, if the Lion told you the truth. And we can’t secure them all unless we come at it from the other side.”

  Gray Suit nodded, just a bit. Scarred Jaw shot him a look, and frowned, but backed off with his arms crossed over his chest. “You raise a valid point, buuuuttt…” he looked over to Cyrus. “You’re the science advisor, can we even do thaaaat?”

  Cyrus cleared his throat to buy himself time. He looked to Smith and Gable, but they gave him no hint of what to do or say.

  Hell, I’m bad at bullshit anyway.

  “We don’t know yet,” Cyrus said, giving it to them straight. “We’ve only found one portal— uh, Anomaly, I mean.”

  “I thought your report said there were multiple sites,” Scarred Jaw said, squinting at him. “That you used them to triangulate this one.”

  “I did. But it’s, uh, different. This one’s still accessible. I think that’s because there’s a device on the other side with the er, magic, still going. The other sites, they’ve got… well, we’re not sure what they are, because we can’t study them on the other side, but we can’t seem to open them. This one we can. And we need to go take a look at the other locations on the other side before we can say why that’s so.”

  “The bottom line is that we need time to study them,” Smith said. “If we don’t and the Russians, or British, or whoever else picks up this ball that we drop and runs with it, then we’ll end up with a portal gap.”

  Gray Suit leaned back and considered. Finally he stubbed out his cigarette, and spoke again. “Even if this is so, this still doesn’t address the issue of funding. In the long-term, yes, we can sell the benefits to our, hm, frieeeends in private industry, but in the short term… mmm…”

  “There is a possible income stream for the short term,” Smith offered. “Though I don’t think it’s prudent to spell it out in its entirety. Are you briefed on Midnight Climax?”

  Gray Suit went entirely still.

  “I am,” he said, his voice losing its drawl entirely. “Choose your next words very carefully.”

  “I’m just saying,” Smith said, “that depending on where and how the portal generation works, we have an opportunity to bypass some very problematic borders, particularly for very important packages. And on top of that, we have an asset that can literally become invisible. Our previous problems with… logistics… will become a non-issue by tying this project’s process into that initiative.”

  Gray Suit stubbed his cigarette out, eyes never leaving Smith’s face. Studying him. Judging him.

  Then Gray Suit smiled. Just a bit. “Nooooooooowww we’re talking.”

  The tension eased from the room. Scarred Jaw sat back, Gable nodded and lit up another cigarette, and Smith let a smile cross his face. A smile that faltered, as Gray Suit raised a finger.

  “But before we get down to brass tacks, I’ll need to see the hhmmm… prooooof. With my own eyes. It’s not that I disbelieve you, you understand, but… I’ll need to be able to say I witnessed it personalllllllyyyy.”

  “Of course,” Smith said. “Please hide, Carmina.”

  All eyes turned to her, and she squirmed. “Okay. Let me focus.”

  Cyrus didn’t watch her. He watched the suits instead, knowing that they were fixed on his half-sister. That he could maybe get a read without being called out for it.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  As he saw his sister flicker and disappear out of the corner of his eye, he accounted each reaction. Shock, followed by wary calculation from Scarred Jaw. Wonder and satisfaction from Gray Suit. Smugnes from Smith. Nothing from Gable, who’d seen this already.

  Palmer…

  Palmer was watching the space she’d been in like a child who’d just been told Santa would turn up real soon. Palmer’s smile was fixed, but those eyes…

  Those were a predator’s eyes. Not for kiddy fiddling, or anything like that.

  Palmer wanted what she had.

  Again, Cyrus heard the cough of what had to have been a silenced pistol. Again, he remembered Chuck choking in his chair, with Cyrus helpless to do anything as the pilot’s last chance at redemption blew away in the breeze, one page at a time.

  He was pretty certain he knew why Palmer wanted that power.

  And not for the first time, he feared for his newly-found kin.

  There were more questions after that. They had her invisibly pick up objects and wave them around. She answered a few questions, but it was clear that the visitors had read the reports; and soon enough she was dismissed. Visible again, she fled gratefully, clearly happy to be out of that room full of men with dubious motives.

  A lot of the remaining discussion went over Cyrus’ head. They were using acronyms he wasn’t privy to, and discussing funding codes. He started to get antsy, rubbing his arms and trying to get the crawling feeling out of his nerves, trying to head off an oncoming attack. He was far from his medication, and he couldn’t afford to be dopey today.

  Just as he was starting to wonder why they had called him in here in the first place, Smith looked his way.

  “Mr. Colfax. Will you be needing any additional material support before we send you across?”

  Cyrus almost asked “across to where,” but for once his mind outran his mouth. Catalina’s words came back to him, and yeah, she’d been right as usual, hadn’t she?

  And thanks to her raising the point, he’d had time to consider this and didn’t have to fart around and give the visitors an excuse to doubt his competency.

  “Bristol’s about got the second device ready to go. It’s more compact, so as long as it gets through final testing, it’ll be man-portable. The generator’s going to be a pain in the ass, but it’s a better solution than batteries, gives us a few shots in case something goes wrong. No, I think we’re good unless you’re anticipating something I’m not.”

  Smith looked at him blankly for a second, then smiled. “Ah. Of course. Let’s discuss after the meeting concludes.”

  Uh-oh. That had a feel to it. Cyrus ran the conversation back through his mind, trying to figure out where he’d screwed up. Nothing came immediately to mind, though.

  Half an hour later, as the meeting wound down and Gable was walking the visitors out, Smith beckoned him over. Cyrus rose, and slid in next to the director. Palmer held the chair for him, which didn’t set Cyrus’ mind any easier, but he slid in without a word and tried to ignore the killer at his back.

  “It occurred to me a moment after I asked you, that I’d never told you of my final decision,” Smith started, stubbing his last cigarette out. “I apologize for the confusion.”

  “Your final decision?” Cyrus rubbed his leg. His skin was crawling again, the nerves reacting to the stress and the smoke that filled the air.

  “Yes. You’ll be going across with the breach team. We need you on the point of the spear.”

  “Can’t say I wasn’t expecting that,” Cyrus nodded. “So where’s the confusion?”

  “The confusion comes with your role. When I asked you what you needed in the way of material support, I wasn’t asking for just the technical needs. I was asking about your team’s needs.”

  “My team’s needs. Why would I need to know my team’s…” a horrible thought crossed Cyrus’ mind. “That’s the sort of thing that the team leader would need to know.”

  Smith’s smile grew.

  “Jesus,” Cyrus shut his eye. “You’re making me the leader.”

  “You’ve got it in one, Mister Colfax,” Smith said, sounding pleased. “I’m afraid that with the last-minute hustle and bustle to prepare for this meeting, I forgot to notify you of my choice. And that’s on me.”

  That was on him.

  But Cyrus knew that everything else was now on him.

  He took a breath, let it out. “I never wanted this.”

  Smith nodded. “Well Mister Colfax, I’m afraid we are well past the point where that matters…”

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