“It left me,” Ryan said. “It’s all over. I was going to be the One, but now it’s gone.”
Alex shook her head, trying to understand. The varcolac had made several attempts to kill them. Ryan, though not terribly helpful, had given her advance warning of its attacks. She stared into the mesmerizing laser display of the wormhole, letting its shifting patterns calm her. This man was probably crazy, but she needed him. She took a deep breath and turned back to face him. He stared down at her shoes.
“Look at me,” Alex said.
His eyes flicked up to meet hers, but just as quickly wandered away.
“You’re telling me that the varcolac is with Jean,” she said. “In Turkey.”
“Yes.”
“She’s—what—its ally? Its slave?”
“It wants to refine the human race. To raise us to its level, maybe even incorporate us into itself. That means stripping away inefficiency.” He turned his head away. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“And Jean is going to help it… strip away inefficiency? By prompting armies to kill each other?”
Ryan shrugged. “Is that so terrible? They want to kill each other, let them do it.”
“My brother is there,” Alex said.
Ryan made no response. He stared at the floor, morose or belligerent, she couldn’t tell which.
“Look,” she said. “I intend to go find Jean and the varcolac and destroy them. To do that, I need at least two more projectors, which I know you have. I also need to know anything you know, or any ideas you might have, about how to kill it.”
Ryan was quiet, staring at the floor. “I’ll help you, under one condition.”
Alex crossed her arms. “And what condition is that?”
“That you let me come with you.”
Alex and Ryan teleported back to Jefferson Hospital to find Angel still sitting in the waiting room.
“She’s sedated. They said she had a subdermal hematoma—bleeding inside her brain,” Angel said. “They actually drilled a hole in her skull to let out the blood. Some girls have all the luck.”
“You call that luck?” Alex said.
“Sure. Best I ever had was my tonsils taken out. For the rest of her life, Sandra gets to say, ‘Oh yeah, well I had a hole drilled in my skull.’ She wins, like, every conversation.”
“You’re a weird guy, you know that?” Alex said. Then she glanced at Ryan, and added, “But in the best way.”
Angel grinned. “Did you find any more Higgs projectors?”
“Ryan had some stashed away. But we also found out that the varcolac is in Turkey.” She explained what Ryan had told her about Jean and the varcolac’s apparent goal.
“So it’s going to facilitate a world war in order to eradicate humanity?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. Let’s hear you joke about that.”
“Well, it will make the lines shorter on Black Friday.”
Alex shook her head. “Something’s not right with you.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“The rest of my team from Lockheed Martin is in Poland right now, training soldiers to use this technology. Ryan called a military contact, and they’ve cleared us to hitch a ride on a military jet, if we can get there in time. From there, we’ll try to get to Turkey and stop this thing.”
“Not much of a plan.”
“You have a better suggestion?” The banter suddenly seemed exhausting to Alex. She sat down in one of the waiting room chairs, bone tired. “Look, I don’t have any ideas. I don’t know how to find an extra-dimensional creature. But nobody else even knows it’s there, or would believe me if I told them. We have at least some small means to fight it, so we’re going to do it. Would I rather be happy and oblivious? Sure. But we don’t get to pick. Are you coming with me?”
“Can’t,” Angel said. “I have to stay with Sandra.”
“Sandra’s being taken care of. We need you and your copter swarm.”
Angel shook his head. “Nope. You’re welcome to take my copters with you, but I’m not leaving. She needs someone to be here when she wakes up.”
“I called our mother. She’ll be here soon. She can take care of Sandra.”
Angel’s face took on a set expression, and Alex realized this was not a man easily shifted. “I’m staying,” he said.
She sighed. “Okay. But if we all die, I’m going to say I told you so.”
His smile leaped back into place as if it were spring-loaded. “I would expect no less. Good luck.”
She handed him one of the Higgs projectors. “You might need this,” she said. She turned to Ryan. “Let’s go. We have a plane to catch.”
“A plane? Why not just teleport?” Angel said.
“It’s too far away. The error term is too high. There are military jets flying to Poland almost every day now, and we’re going to be on one tonight.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself.”
“I’ll do my best,” Alex said. “You take care of my sister.”
The jet was a brand new Lockheed Martin C-130Q, fresh off the assembly line and heading to the European front. It was a behemoth, a tank carrier, its cargo hold a gaping cavern large enough to fly a 747 into, including the wings. When they arrived, it was already stacked with three decks worth of tanks, Humvees, and armored personnel carriers. There was no passenger compartment, per se; only long rows of clips for soldiers to attach to along the walls.
Ryan’s face was white. “I can’t go on that,” he said.
“It’s an airplane,” Alex said. “It’s this amazing new technology: they can fly.”
“It’s a death trap.”
“No, really. They do it all the time. Back and forth across the ocean. It’s like magic.”
“Don’t mock me.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “You want to stay? Fine. I’ll see you later.”
“Are you looking at this thing?” Ryan said. “Never mind crashing; there are a thousand tons of metal in there, tied down with chains and cables. Do you want to bet your life that they checked every connection? Double-checked every connection? All it takes is one loose Abrams sliding around, and you’ll be crushed to jelly.”
Alex looked at his pasty skin, his shaking hands. She didn’t understand him at all. He knew the stakes. This wasn’t a European vacation. He knew the probabilities were low that anything would happen to him on this flight, but he still couldn’t get past it. She was tempted to leave him behind, but he knew things she didn’t. Any hope they had of ultimately defeating the varcolac was going to have to include Ryan Oronzi.
“Turkey is on the other side of the Atlantic,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “The only way is to take a plane. It’s a risk, sure. But this risk is a lot smaller than the risk of teleporting there. And if what you told me is true, the risk of staying here is the worst one of all. So we’re getting on this plane.”
His eyes were locked on the jet. She wasn’t even sure he was listening. After a moment, however, he took one hesitant step forward.
“That’s right,” she said. “You can do it.”
He took another step. Sweat stood out on his forehead. At this rate, the world would be destroyed before they got off the tarmac.
“A little faster,” she said.
Ryan stopped. He held out a trembling hand. She looked down, then back up at him. He couldn’t be serious, could he? She waited a moment, eyebrows raised, but he just shut his eyes and held out his hand. What was she, his mother?