David Walton - Supersymmetry

The crazy thing was, as far as he could tell, the varcolac was still trapped in the wormhole. The creatures attacking Sandra and Alex at that moment had somehow been manufactured by the varcolac in the future, through the Higgs sequence it had sent back in time. Or that it would send back in time. Ryan had underestimated the complexity of the sequence of particle interactions the varcolac could initiate with a Higgs singlet. He had imagined it doing the equivalent of sending a billiard ball back in time with exactly the direction and spin to impact each of the other balls and win the game—a difficult enough concept. Instead, the particle it had sent back in time had initiated a sequence that had created an instance of the varcolac itself, an extension of its own intelligence and physical presence.

Ryan was in awe. This creature had such mastery over time and space that it could recreate the pattern of its own existence with the chain reaction of a single, precisely aimed particle. Which meant that it understood its own configuration down to every quark and gluon. It could replicate some portion of itself, and these replications were mere extensions of its mind. Could it be that it was a species of one, communicating itself across the universes and the ages? Its awareness and experience must be vast.

But it wasn’t invincible. It was no god, free to rewrite the laws of nature as it saw fit. It was confined by the wormhole, at least to some extent. It had been banished from the world when its source of power was removed. There was still some chance that they would be able to defeat it.

On the other hand, they couldn’t hold it back forever. They had to come to terms with the fact that varcolac would, eventually, win. If it was sending particles back in time from some later date, that meant it was going to escape from the wormhole—something that had been seeming increasingly inevitable anyway. It occurred to Ryan that perhaps, instead of fighting it, he should be helping it. If there was no way to win, wouldn’t it be better to join the winning side?

But no, that was ridiculous. He didn’t even know what the varcolac wanted. He couldn’t trust it to reward him for helping it, if it even noticed that he had. He had to keep it contained as long as possible. In the time that remained, he would study it, collecting as much data as possible about how it worked and what it could and couldn’t do. That way, if there was some way to defeat it, he would find it. And if not, he would at least know better what he was dealing with.

Sandra shouted her friends’ names, but it was no use. They were varcolacs now, or at least its puppets. Danielle pointed her gun at Alex and fired. Alex blurred, just like the varcolac had, but Nathan disappeared and reappeared behind Alex, trapping her between them. Alex blurred again just as he fired.

Was it three varcolacs? Or was the same creature inhabiting all three bodies? It hardly mattered. The varcolacs advanced on Alex from all sides. Two of Sandra’s friends were going to kill her sister, or else her sister was going to kill them. Though she supposed her friends were probably already dead.

The varcolacs raised their hands, firing shot after shot of whatever invisible energy they used to stop people’s hearts. Alex blocked with some kind of energy field of her own, producing more of those blinding bursts of light. “Sandra!” she shouted. “Get Mom out of here!”

Their mother still crouched next to Sandra’s body, watching the fight with an expression of terror and rage. Claire was there, holding her back. Whether their mother was foolhardy enough to try to attack the varcolacs, Sandra didn’t know, but she might risk anything if her children were in danger. Sandra teleported to her and wrapped her arms around her. She didn’t know for sure that this would work, but so far the software governing the teleportation seemed to be able to account for her clothing and anything she was carrying. Sure enough, the room around them disappeared and was replaced by Sandra’s old bedroom, in her parents’ house.

“I’ll be back soon,” Sandra said. Her mother started to protest, but Sandra teleported away without listening. She reappeared in the funeral parlor and grabbed Claire, teleporting her away, too. It was the best she could do for them. When she returned again, Alex was still fighting hard, a sheen of sweat glinting from her forehead. Sandra spotted a familiar person hiding behind a table, cowering with her head in her hands.

“Detective Messinger?” Sandra said.

Messinger looked up. Her eyes were wild. “Did you see it?” she said. “Did you see what it did to those people?”

“Stay down,” Sandra said.

“I’m a cop ,” Messinger said. “But I couldn’t… how can anyone fight such a thing?”

Sandra didn’t answer. She was watching Alex, who was now sending folding chairs flying at the varcolacs. The varcolacs flickered and teleported around the room, avoiding the attack. Alex was amazing, but she couldn’t keep it up forever. And how could they win against a creature that could simply find more bodies to inhabit and press into service?

Sandra felt something cold and hard being pressed into her hand. She looked down. Messinger was holding out a Glock 19, her service weapon. Sandra snatched it up. She teleported and reappeared next to Alex, immediately firing at the nearest varcolac. The varcolac blurred to avoid it.

“How do you block their attacks?” Sandra shouted.

“Turn your automated system on!” Alex shouted back, just before teleporting again to a spot behind one of the varcolacs.

Sandra quickly paged through the menu options on her eyejack system. There it was—Automated Defense. It made sense. A human couldn’t react fast enough to choose the “diffract” function after a bullet was fired; they needed software to detect the attack and react to it. She toggled the option on, just in time. A varcolac appeared in front of her and a flash of light sparked through the air as the system blocked its attack.

“We have to get out of here,” Sandra shouted. “They’ll just keep coming.”

“It’ll find us, wherever we go,” Alex said.

“Then what do we do?”

Alex didn’t answer. She clutched at her chest, and fell to her knees, her face pulled back in a rictus of pain.

“No!” Sandra shouted. But then she saw that there was another Alex standing next to her, and another, and another, until there were at least a dozen.

“Surround them,” one of the Alexes said. “Grab hold of them.”

The Alexes teleported into positions surrounding each of the varcolacs—Nathan, Danielle, and the minister—and wrapped their arms around them. Bright light flashed and sparked, like lightning arcing through the spaces between their bodies. Sandra understood what she was doing—using the shield as a weapon, disrupting whatever energy pattern allowed the varcolacs to inhabit and control these material forms. It worked, after a fashion. The two officers and the minister writhed in the flashes and fell to the ground. All three of them now had eyes again. They looked like their original selves. They were also dead.

Sandra rushed to Danielle’s body, touching her, listening for her breath or some indication that she might still be alive. She was warm, flushed even, but had no pulse.

“We need to leave,” one of the Alexes said.

Sandra looked up at her, furious. “These were my friends!”

“I didn’t kill them,” Alex said.

“They’re still dead! Don’t you even care?”

“I care about keeping you alive. I care about letting Mom know we’re okay.”

“You call this okay?” Sandra waved her hand, indicating the multiple Alexes. But there were fewer of them now, only five or six. As she watched, another Alex disappeared.