Myke Cole - Shadow Ops - Control Point

“They’ll kill him,” he said, and forced his weight onto his feet. His knees failed him, and he sagged against Therese, who steadied herself with one hand on the cot.

She couldn’t carry him. He’d have to dig deep. He took a shaking step.

It took them nearly a minute to get halfway across the tiny room, but they made it. Therese still dangled the ATTD between two fingers.

“No,” he croaked, “get rid of it. It could go off any minute.”

Outside, the cash was erupting in noise and chaos. The word must have begun to arrive. A loud buzz of helicopters sounded overhead. Deep booms, some sounding like magic, some not.

Therese set the ATTD down on the cot and helped Britton walk. “What’s going on?”

“Later, we’ve got to move.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Britton slouched toward the dental unit. “Just look for MPs.”

They found them in abundance. A knot of them swarmed the urinalysis section, carbines pointed earthward but fingers braced tensely over triggers. Marty stood placidly inside a protective ring of surly Goblin orderlies. They snarled in their language at a translator who sat behind a laptop, shouting questions. The tent thronged with onlookers, furious Goblins, soldiers, and orderlies alike. Half of the MPs faced inward, keeping the angry Goblins from assaulting the translator. The other half faced outward, keeping the equally enraged humans from storming Marty.

Truelove and Downer stood outside the ring of MPs, lending their shouts to the throng. Truelove spotted Britton and ran to him.

“They’re trying to see if he had any accomplices on the staff,” the Necromancer said. “I’ve been trying to tell them it’s just a custom, but nobody is list— Wow. Are you okay?”

Britton nodded. “Need to talk to him.”

Truelove glanced nervously from Britton to Therese and back. “They’re not going to let you.”

Boom. Boom. The crackle of gunfire. “What the hell is going on out there?” Truelove asked. He took a step away from the circle, then looked nervously back to Marty.

“Stay here, I’m begging you,” Britton whispered as Therese helped him forward.

He tapped one of the MPs on the center of his body armor and pointed at the Goblin. The soldier wrinkled his brow. “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

Therese gestured to Marty. “Please! We all know what you’re going to do to him, just let us say good-bye?”

“Fine by me, ma’am,” the MP said, “so long as you’re willing to pay for the lawyer when they write me up for disciplinary action.” He took a half step to better block their progress.

The Goblins continued to shout. The linguist typed furiously on his laptop, shouting back.

No time.

“Marty!” Britton bellowed. His lungs flexed with the effort, and the balloon of pain swamped him. He stumbled against Therese, and Truelove raced to help her hold him up.

Boom. Boom. Thup. Thup. Thup. Three MPs listened to their squawking radios, then took off, running for the cash entrance.

Marty looked up, eyes widening as he noticed Britton. He began to shout.

The Goblins around him surged, throwing themselves at the MPs. The ring widened in reaction, the linguist scrambling backward, snatching up his laptop. The crowd of onlookers stumbled backward, and the tent shook.

“I see him!” Marty shouted. “I see friend!”

The MP officer, a pale-faced lieutenant who looked almost as young as Downer, pulled out his pistol, leveling it at Marty. “Calm down! Now just calm the hell down!”

But Marty would not calm down. He called for Britton as the Goblin contractors clawed at the MPs, a few of whom began to flail with the butts of their carbines.

Britton managed to raise his head. “This is getting out of control, Lieutenant. I’d put that gun down if I were you. You take a shot in here, and you’re going to hit a friendly anyway.”

The lieutenant snatched his pistol backward as one of the Goblin contractors lunged at it, and cursed.

“Damn it, let him through!” he called to the MP in front of Britton.

A boom sounded. Closer that time. Had the ATTD gone off? No, it wasn’t that close.

Yet.

The crowd of Goblins immediately calmed, stepping back and surrounding Marty again as the MP stepped aside, allowing Therese and Truelove to help Britton into the ring.

He shrugged off their grip, kneeling before Marty. The Goblin placed his hands on Britton’s shoulders — huge eyes looking into his. The white spots of his face were smeared, his breath sour. “You hurt.”

Britton rested his head on Marty’s narrow shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Yeah, but it’s going to be okay. We have to go now.”

The lieutenant looked on nervously, and the ring of MPs began to tighten.

Another boom shook the cash this time. The MPs looked around nervously. The lieutenant shouted into his radio. “Shovel, this is six. What the hell is going on?”

When Britton raised his head, Marty looked at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

Downer was still outside the ring. Britton turned to Truelove. “We’re leaving. Come with us.”

Truelove took a step back, slowly shaking his head.

“What are you doing?” the lieutenant shouted, turning away from his radio. “Pick him up,” he called to one of his men.

They were out of time. “I’ll come back for you,” Britton said, and extended a hand. A gate opened behind Marty. Beyond it, he could see a bowl of rose moss where he’d gone on his first camping trip in the mountains of Vermont’s largest state park. The current of his magic soothed the pain in his heart but brought a dizziness that nearly knocked him out.

He pushed Marty through the gate with one hand and swung Therese into it with the other. Then he pitched forward, falling halfway into the portal, his face down in the soft plants, his nostrils filling with the scent of frostbitten red clover.

“Come on,” he whispered to Truelove, knowing the Necromancer couldn’t hear him.

He felt Therese’s hands dragging him the rest of the way through the gate, turning him over.

The other side was a maelstrom of yelling soldiers surging toward the gate. The Goblins flung themselves against them, blocking their progress. Truelove stood still, mouth open and head shaking. Downer was behind him, arm draped across his chest and holding him back, her face contorted and screaming. The lieutenant raised his pistol and fired a shot into the gate. It dug a trench in the frozen ground beside him, sparking off a rock.

Britton yanked his knees to his chest and shut the gate.

He lay still for a moment, letting the biting cold chase the fog from his mind, leaving only the pain in his chest.

The silence was overwhelming. He had forgotten how strong the sense of constant magical current was in the Source. Back on the Home Plane, he felt barren, his own current lonely and isolated. The wind picked up, sending a scattering of dead leaves in a rasping dance somewhere nearby. Marty let out a low sigh of amazement, gawping at his surroundings.

Therese broke the quiet, digging furiously in her pocket. “Oh my God, Oscar, they’ll blow it up. I left it in the cash.” He had no idea how powerful the explosive was, but it wouldn’t need to be too strong to do a lot of damage in such tight quarters.

And Britton knew the cash was about to be overwhelmed with work.

He fought to his knees. “I’ll take care of it.”

He swallowed hard, dug deep inside himself for the energy to open another gate, staggering to his feet and lurched back into the room where Therese had extracted it. He snatched the blinking device off the cot, then jogged down familiar pathways, until he stumbled into air as cold as the bowl of rose moss where Therese and Marty awaited him.