Whitley Strieber - The Omega Point

There was more machine gun fire, louder this time.

Then Caroline’s voice rang out, “David! David, it’s done!”

When he turned, Katie moved closer to them fast. He’d get his first, then her. She would rather have done her first and forced him to watch the bitch’s death agony, but he had that gun.

She came up behind them and raised the knife, staring down at his back, looking at the place she would put it in.

As she started the thrust, something totally unexpected happened—it felt as if an iron cuff had gone around her wrist while at the same time a steel hand covered her mouth.

For a moment, she was too stunned to react. Nobody else had been in here. Nobody. Her heart flopped and her blood howled in her head.

A voice said, “Okay, David, drop the weapon, please.” She was astonished to recognize Mack the Cat. He’d come up on her in absolute silence, and surprised the watchful David, too.

Mack saw that, once again, the painting looked like a window. In it, there were leaves moving on the trees, there was bright, normal moonlight, and the surface of a river could be seen shimmering in the distance. Except for one thing: the moon was different. More craters.

David said, “Mack, let her go.”

“David, she’s trouble.”

All she could think about was bringing that knife down, and feeling the sliding resistance when it cut into him.

Mack could still feel the tension in Katie’s body, so he wouldn’t release her. She must not hurt either of these people, or that thing—the portal.

David took a step forward. “Mack, Katie is a good person, she’s no danger to you.”

Mack laughed. Then David followed his eyes and he saw the knife still poised in Katie’s hand. When Mack increased the pressure on her wrist, Katie opened her fingers and it dropped to the floor with a clang.

“Katie?” David asked.

Mack uncovered her mouth and all of her rage and hate came spitting out in the form of one word, “Bastard!”

Surprise tightened David’s face until the realization of why she was so enraged made his eyes go soft with regret.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Katie.

Caroline said, “Let’s get past this, because we have a miracle here.” She looked from Mack to Katie to David. “A miracle—look at it!”

David said, “The others are waiting. We need to do this.”

Unless he acted quickly and correctly right now, Mack understood that he was going to lose his chance forever. Before, he’d had no choice but to destroy the portal. He had not been ready, and they would have used it before he could get it away from them, and that must not be allowed to happen. If the right people didn’t get the portal, nobody was going to get it.

But now they’d played into his hands by reconstructing it just as all hell broke loose around them. So now he could use the danger that was unfolding here to take the portal and the two of them off the clinic grounds and into some more private place. There, he would force them to teach him how to use it, and then he would slash their throats. Should he fail, he would kill them both and take the portal and just hope that somebody at the redoubt could figure out how to use it.

Reaching forward, he disarmed David, corkscrewing the gun out of his hand.

“Jesus, Mack!”

“Doc, please forgive me, but you have no idea how to use that, so let me do this.” He said to Katie, “I’m gonna explain something to you. You need to do what I say. You need to help us and save your anger for later. When this is all over, beat the shit out of him, cut him, whatever you want. But not now. ”

“He made a promise he didn’t keep!”

David tried to reach her.

“It was just a night between us, Katie. A night together and it was lovely, but it wasn’t love, and I think you know that.”

Mack thought she might just leap on David and rip his throat out with her teeth.

“Katie,” he said, “if you don’t comply, I will kill you. I’m sorry, but you have no choice.”

She nodded. In the distance, there was a faint pop, followed immediately by the sound of many high-velocity machine guns.

“Do you know how to shoot at all, Caroline?”

She shook her head. He didn’t need to ask David. The way he’d handled the pistol so far told him all he needed to know.

“I know how to shoot very well,” Katie said.

He gave her the pistol and produced his own.

David said, “Is that wise?”

“She’s what we have, Doc.”

“But she’ll—she’s liable to—”

Now came the chugging of a more primitive machine gun, but it was louder. There were screams, followed by a general outburst of firing.

“We need all the firepower we can get, David.” Then, to Katie, “Don’t even think about revenge right now.” He thrust his gun into the small of her back. “Don’t try me on.”

“I’ll be okay,” Katie said. “I’ll swallow it for now… what he did to me.”

Mack gestured with his own pistol. “Let’s get moving.”

David hesitated, started to talk—and Mack shoved him, but gently.

“Let me protect you,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Security!” David shouted.

“They’re busy, David. And we have to save this thing right now.”

“Let’s get it upstairs,” David said, which was not what Mack wanted to hear. He had to play this very, very carefully. They didn’t trust him, and that must not be forgotten for a moment.

“David, what if security fails?” he asked.

“They won’t fail! Glen will keep us safe.”

“IF, David!”

“He’s right, David,” Caroline said. “We can’t risk the portal.”

“We need to get it away from the clinic,” Mack said, allowing his very real sense of urgency to enter his voice.

“But—it has to be here. It has to be where the people are!”

“When it’s safe, we’ll bring it back.”

“But the class—you’re saying the class could be killed. That must not happen!”

“David, all we can protect is the portal. We just have to hope for the best.”

“Look, you know about firefights and such, I’m sure. Help me make my decision. Tell me what you think is happening out there?”

At last, a little trust. Mack moved to exploit it.

“Doc, I hate to tell you this, but it sounds to me like whoever’s out there is moving closer to the house, which means that your security men are being defeated. The whole town is probably out there, and they are going to rip this place to shreds, and if you want to live and you want that portal to stay intact, you need to come with me right now.”

“David, he’s right,” Caroline said.

“Cover us,” Mack told Katie, “then follow us out the back.” He had the portal. He had its designers. This operation was finally polishing up very nicely. The general was going to be pleased.

He gave David a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “Let’s roll, Doc.”

Just as Mack was ready to move them out, the gunfire rose to a chilling thunder. People began running downstairs, calling to David for leadership.

David went to the nearest one, Susan Denman.

“Get the class back upstairs.” He looked past her to Aaron Stein and the others. “We’re taking the portal to safety. We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

His words were swallowed by the cascading shatter of glass as rifle butts were used to smash the windows.

The sound caused the whole crowd to turn around and then to erupt into panic as men—strangers, not security personnel—began coming in through the debris. People ran everywhere, overturning tables and chairs, dashing for the doors, for the stairs.