Dispatches Strike Teams data screens flicker back to life to the sound of a woman's scream of heartbroken despair. All movement stops throughout the complex, paralysed by the sudden, shockingly loud sound.
Reg, out of the control booth and down on the main floor, grabs a technician and kicks him once, hard, in the ass. “Move it! I want that wormhole up and running, right fucking now, or I'll kill every last one of you useless electron pushers myself.”
Reg is short, very fat, and somewhere north of seventy. And not one single person in the room disbelieves him. The room explodes into frenzied action.
Fumbles for his earpiece. “Luis, what is going on there?” Punch it up onto the public address. This is no time for secrecy.
Cold, flat voice. “We got routed to a demon nest in Perth. Three Great Demons and their brood. We took care of the brood, while Cat took care of the Great Demons. He killed two of them outright, we have their heads. The third, it is probably dead, but it holed out as it died. With him still with it.”
Shocked silence in Dispatch. The work pace redoubles.
“We are bringing you home in two minutes, soon as our wormhole is up again.”
“No.” Luis looks around at the other members of the team. Gutierrez and Jones have confirmed that there is no demon left here. They all nod, all but Seraphina who is ignoring everything, eyes tightly closed. Concentrating through her sobs. “You are going to transit us to Seattle, co-ordinates C-12-3 as soon as possible. They are in serious trouble. They need us.”
“A transit is ...”
“What is needed. Now, Reg. Our people are dying over there. Luis out.” Tentatively reaches out and touches Seraphina. “I should not have spoken for you. Do you want to go home?”
She opens her eyes. “No. I come.” Glance down at the cheetah, hugging her legs and doing its best to purr. “So does Flash. We are both needed there.”
Click over to Don Brent. “Shut down your wormhole, we will be transiting to the same co-ordinates.”
“You are insane, you know that? All of you, completely insane.” He sighs heavily. “Our wormhole is now shut down. We will keep recording, in case something happens to the master records. Good fortune to you all.”
* * *
Wormholes are simple. They have a generator at one end, a focus at the other. Step in either end and be delivered to the other an immeasurably short time later. But there are tricks you can play with them. You can stop them. Someone enters, but they can't leave until it is permitted. The person is frozen at zero entropy until the stoppage is released and they pop out the other end. For them, no time at all has passed. For the rest of the universe, as long as it has taken. It is a common technique – most RRFs use a version of it as a holding cell when dealing with riots. Pick up two to six people and hold them until you are ready to process them. Simple and effective.
Then there is the transit. Using the generator as a center point and extending the wormhole to two focusses. It it theoretically possible. It has been done successfully. Precisely twice since wormholes were invented. Both times by the same man.
Reginald Zimmerman. Reg. King of Dispatch.
He climbs slowly into the control seat. Jacks into the wormhole circuitry, feels his blood gently running out of his leg and down the feed tube. If you want to play tricks with the Gate of Hell, you have to risk your life and blood. Getting too old for these games. It has been, what, five years since he last took the control seat himself.
Still, Him hates a coward. Feed power to the generator and split focus. Co-ordinates locked. Transmit. “Lets do this thing.”
The wormhole shimmers into focus. Not the usual smooth humming throb and featureless surface, but rough and irregular. Swirling and sparkling with stray lights. All tuned to Dispatch. Reg's voice coming through, harsh breathing clearly audible. “Steady, steady, GO!” Charge through into a room full of injured people. Some look dead in the flickering light. They probably are. Intense heat damage to every surface.
“Dispatch, Luis. We are through. Cut the wormhole and reset focus to here. Start evacuating the injured and send every fresh Operative you can find.” Already heading for the doorway. Riding on a peak of rage, sorrow and faith.
“Wilco, Luis.” Reg slumps back in the control chair gratefully. Shuts down the Perth end of the focus and stabilises the Seattle end to its normal smooth functioning. Engages the automatics, which will keep the hole focussed until doomsday if necessary. Rather tired. That was intense. Too much for an old man, really. Going to close my eyes for a minute. Just for a minute. Then hand over to one of the younger ones and go. Maybe look up that little Operative tonight. What was her name again? But now, just... rest …
As the bustle of his beloved Dispatch surrounds him, he quietly and contentedly slips away into the long sleep.
* * *
Luigi and Marta watch the screen with horror. They still have Luis' video feed, and, now communications are back, have sound to go with it. Cat's disappearance had sent little Annasophia running from the room, in tears for her Tio Gatto. Marta tried to rise and follow. Provide comfort, as a mother should. But she was frozen in place. Just crying. Luigi reaches out to her. Not to comfort. Just for the contact. A gentle chime. The last search he had hastily plugged into his library now complete. He reaches to turn it off, but his hand falls as he does not complete the gesture. What is the use. What is the use of anything.
The library, interpreting the gesture as “Go ahead,” starts speaking. He ignores it. They both do.
“... on the rare occasion a Senior Demon has been defeated and threatened with death, it will expend its last energies in creating an Astral Gate to return to its summoner and attempt to kill him in revenge. The death of it's summoner releases it back to Hell. The one Greater Demon, known to have been seriously injured by Saint George in 301 AD, disappeared and was never seen again. From the state of the top floor of the keep at Nicomedia, discovered the following day, it is probable that Greater Demons follow the same procedure.”
“Santa Maria!” Frantically bash at the phone. Connect. “Sergei, DO NOT KILL him!”
James has the door. Sergei watches the one resident of the room, gun almost negligently pointing at him. Amazing that such a large room can be hidden in the stone walls of the old buildings. Stone walls, stone vaulted ceiling. Flagstone floors. A perfect circle of silver embedded in the floor. Take one pace forward. The man takes one step back. He is on the edge of the circle now, almost in the exact centre of the room. His voice is deep and mellow. A preaching voice. A persuading voice.
“You must be mistaken, my son. I am but a simple servant of Him, doing His bidding.” A gesture. Calming, placating.
Sergei moves his gun hand slightly. “Move your hands again, wizard, and I shoot.” Shakihwa keeps his hands still. A faint tremor in the air. A slight humming noise, just above audibility.
His phone rings. Luigi. Mental flick that sends the answer signal.
“Sergei, DO NOT KILL him!” Luigi sounds frantic!
“Luigi, what? Shakihwa dies. He has no more information to give us. That is the plan.” Raise the gun. See the old man start to grin as he slides his other foot across the silver circle. A rustle and a glitter of air in front of him. Reflexively shoot and watch with interested disbelief as his bullet hits the glitter. And stops dead.
Luigi screaming at him “No you fool, listen … ”
With a scream of displaced air, the largest demon he has ever even heard of appears in the air over Shakihwa's head. The demon appears to be missing its head. Sparks fly from Shakihwa's sheild, which struggles valiantly for a moment, then fails. The old man barely has time to look up, just as gravity takes over.
The jar of the impact was felt all over the Free State. A fine haze of dust drifts down from the ceiling vaults. But they hold. Movement within the circle brings his gun up, then down again.
“Sergei, what is going on!” Luigi screams frantically down the phone. Glance at James. Shrug. Lick lips suddenly gone dry. And start forward.
“Too late Luigi. About six tons of headless Demon just landed on him. And could you possibly tell me what Cat is doing on its back?”
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