Ragnarok

“I told you the truth about my research with the wolves. I admitted to you that I had known about Kiss’s lab, but that I had forgotten it even existed-because it had been shut down years ago, when this larger installation was constructed. You asked me why Kiss’s lab was called Ragnarok. I told you I had no idea why. I really don’t. It was something the German Ahnenerbe group came up with. Kiss was a part of their research. Part of their group. I didn’t tell you about this installation because it wasn’t your business. But I never lied to you.”

Rook looked at the man in astonishment. “You just found it unnecessary to share information about this giant lab-which connects to the smaller lab upstairs. You didn’t bother mentioning that Kiss was your father. You didn’t mention anything about a Nazi experiment in World War II or that you had a pet marshmallow with teeth.” Rook motioned his head toward the dire wolf that sat quietly in the corner on its haunches. “Is that the Ulveria? The dire wolf, the local woman Anni was afraid of?”

“Yes, indeed. It is.” Fossen just looked at Rook with a blank expression. No questions and no more information forthcoming.

“You didn’t tell me about zombie people coming to kill me. And Kiss wanted you to seal something. He said he’d seen the dire wolf and it was terrible. Looking at it now I’d have to agree with him.”

“When could you have spoken to Kiss? He was beyond speech when we tracked him down and killed him. He was little more than a yeti.” Now Fossen was interested. His eyebrows raised high on his pale Nordic forehead as he waited for an answer.

“He had a note clutched in his hand. It was for you. Part of it was illegible. He still retained some of his human intelligence at the end, and he wrote the note for you. He urged you to seal something. What was it?”

Fossen turned his head to gaze out the huge pane of glass at the giant metal cage in the main room. He turned back to Rook, then looked down to his laptop screen again and typed a quick key sequence. The clacking noise of the keyboard was loud in the small room. With a flourish, Fossen hit the Enter key.

In the other room a small sphere of yellow light appeared in the center of the eight-beam structure that still reminded Rook of an oversized Faraday cage. The light was no more than a foot in diameter. Then there was a loud popping noise. The ball grew to nearly thirty feet in diameter, filling the space between the curving struts of the structure. It threw bursts of lightning, only to be caught by the solar panel-like sheets of metal attached to the uprights. The whole thing crackled and hummed with a deep bass vibration. Rook could feel it in his chest.

“He wanted me to seal that.”

THIRTY-NINE

Exxon Building, New York, NY

King felt he was losing himself inside the dreamy world that had filled his head. His vision clouded at the edges and everything in front of him looked bright and cheerful. He smiled so big his cheeks hurt.

The tiny voice at the back of his head trying to regain control needed something to hang on to-something that it could use to keep itself anchored in his brain. Something… But that voice was weak now. Weak and insignificant. He still stood in front of the wall of light, staring at the yellow brilliance. He could hear the hum and crackle from the portal crossing the barrier from somewhere else to his world. The dire wolves were still moving around him and smelling him. He could smell them, too, but only faintly. They smelled like talcum powder and the soft fur of stuffed animals. But had they always smelled that way?

He didn’t think so.

It didn’t matter. No point in worrying about it. He felt great. Happy, calm and full of contentment.

Wasn’t he unhappy before the portal and the dire wolves?

Wasn’t he considering spending more time with Fiona and Sara?

Fiona…

Every time he thought of Fiona and his responsibility for her, the part of his mind that really was him gained strength. The only other thing that the tiny voice could find to cling to was a question. And that small part of his mind held on to it as if it were a life preserver in thirty-foot swells at sea.

Why?

Why had he been mentally hijacked? Why hadn’t Deep Blue been affected? Was it something from the light the portal emitted? No, that didn’t work. He would have seen the portal too, but Deep Blue was gone now. King lazily swiveled his head around the corridor, looking away from the bright light of the portal. Several more dire wolves filled the hallway and crouched on the walls and upside down on the ceiling.

“Cool, man” he said.

No. Not cool. How did they get here? You didn’t even see them come out of the portal did you?

Then he felt the tiny voice shrinking again.

Why?

Fiona. Remember Fiona.

The voice grew stronger and tried to work out the mystery of why again. How long had he been here in the hallway? He turned his head again and looked down the corridor past the dire wolves that clung to every surface.

Deep Blue isn’t here anymore.

A clanging bell sounded somewhere deep inside of him, like a big red wall-mounted number used in older elementary schools. But it was so soft. Almost beyond the range of his hearing.

He was worried, that’s what it was. Deep Blue was more than a teammate and former President. He was a friend.

Where is he?

The voice noticed the shattered window at the end of the carpeted hallway. The smile on his face faded slowly, hesitantly, as if it wasn’t sure it wanted to contribute to a look of concern on his face. Smiling was so good and right.

Fiona. Where’s Fiona?

No, the small voice shouted from the black depths of his hind-mind, she’s safe in New Hampshire. Safe with Endgame. Endgame. That’s right. Deep Blue…

He had turned back and stared at the wall of light again. He hadn’t even been aware of turning away from the sight of the shattered window. Damn. He turned again to look down the corridor, but this time he did so slower and more deliberately. The smile that had crept back onto his face remained, but he was afraid to battle it. Whatever had control of him was incredibly strong, and the nature of his bliss as a weapon prevented him from even noticing when he was being attacked. One battle at a time. Why? How?

He dimly recalled Deep Blue wearing a parachute. He must have bugged out. But why? His thoughts rapidly returned to his own predicament and used the mantra that was allowing him to retain even a sliver of control over his senses.

Fiona.

How was the portal controlling him? Or were the dire wolves doing it? It wasn’t the light. It wouldn’t have been a physical attack or an auditory one. He was protected against that. He slowly slid his hand up to touch the side of his cheek. He felt the rough stubble there. He hadn’t shaved since leaving the hotel for Epcot.

Fiona. When did I take off the helmet? He looked down at himself. He was still wearing the rest of the armor. So I was wearing the helmet before, and the only things coming in the helmet were light and…air.

It was something in the air. He recalled that Deep Blue was not wearing an armor helmet-he wore the special helmet Aleman had helped design for him. The black one with the computer displays. And Deep Blue had said it had air-scrubbing filters that could remove close to 98 % of contaminants in the atmosphere that he breathed. So it wouldn’t have been a gas that was controlling King, or else Deep Blue might have been affected, too.

Why? Fiona. What then? Something airborne but not as potent as a gas? Frustration welled up in the back of King’s mind and he was surprised to find it a potent remedy for his artificial bliss. He was used to fighting, but fighting with hands and weapons on a battlefield or in an alley in some Third World backwater. He could handle frigid polar wastes and arid desert climes. This sort of cerebral fight was new to him and he wasn’t sure how to go about it. He couldn’t isolate the enemy, its methods or its motives.