Michael shook his head as he hacked at the brush. “I suppose it’s too much to explain that in layman’s terms.”
“Right. The evidence proves that these Others are not alien in origin. They are not monstrous inhabitants of another dimension. They are reflections. Murky, indistinct mental projections trying to find their way home.”
“Home? From where?”
“From the future, we think.”
Michael stopped in his tracks as the world vibrated. Individual raindrops froze in place, glimmering in the muted light like uncut diamonds. For an instant everything altered as the world transmuted into indecipherable symbols. Every leaf, every pool of water, every hanging vine became electric phantoms, shimmering with billions of luminous veins.
“Michael? Are you all right?”
He winced and staggered as the vision vanished in a blinding afterglow. The world swiftly darkened, returning him to the blasphemous gloom of the anomalous jungle.
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, unsurprised at the smear of blood. “Yeah. Just great. So what makes you think the doorway is from the future?”
“It took a great deal of time and effort, but my team was able to break aberrant energy down to its barest element. To its code, if it were. Just as everything on this planet can be broken down to DNA coding, so it is with aberrant energy. Only its coding is clearly synthetic.”
“Synthetic? You mean it was artificially created?”
“Absolutely. Light years ahead of our current abilities, beyond our ability to fully even comprehend, but Dr. Kelley is certain the coding is not biological.”
Michael threw up his hands. “What does that even mean? We’re being slaughtered by physical creatures, Blackwell. Not some kind of advanced special effects. Did you happen to miss our ship being torn in half by some monster squid? Or the jellyfish with human heads inside? If the Aberration was some insane computer virus, it couldn’t affect the real world. Not like this.”
Blackwell laughed softly. “Just because you lack the means to fully explain your hypothesis doesn’t mean it isn’t right. We’re talking about a brand new kind of science here, after all.”
Michael’s heart leaped to his throat when something moved at his feet. He gasped as a face protruded from the mud right in front of them.
The eyes snapped open.
He yelped and jerked back when the ground came alive at his feet. A humanoid figure violently emerged from the sludge, plastered in sewer-nasty colors of brown and green. Michael stumbled backward, trying to pull pistols from empty holsters. He faintly remembered dropping his guns when the Others first attacked, and cursed himself for his stupidity.
The mud-spattered figure laughed. “Damn, you fools look like you seen a ghost.”
It took a few seconds for the panic to subside long enough to recognize the voice. It was nearly impossible to tell, but the mud-covered person in front of him was Charlie Foxtrot.
She raised her arms and tilted her head back, allowing the deluge to wash away the layers of filth. After the rain transformed her into a slightly more recognizable state, she snatched her rifle up and inspected it with a critical eye. Michael recognized it as a TAR-21 equipped with an M203 grenade launcher.
She worked methodically, ejecting her rifle magazine and examining it. “Good to see someone made it. Thought I was the only one. Y’all is the worst outfit I ever worked with. The moment things go ate up, everyone scatters like cockroaches. Where I come from, that’s called a GYAD response.”
“GYAD?”
“Yeah. Get Yo Ass Dead. I killed a whole lotta those creepy chicken monsters, but when I looked around, wasn’t nobody but me still standing. Saw Chen. What was left of him, anyway. Bastards ripped his head clean from his shoulders. Sucks. We go back a ways. Could count on him. But what could I do, you know? When I seen them trees rustling like something big was coming through ‘em, I got ghost. Figured I’d lay low for a bit and see how things played out.”
“Things are playing out with us still headed for the laboratory. You coming?”
“Hells yeah.” She stood and hoisted her rifle. “Past time to pop smoke. I see you got empty pockets, meathead. Lose your burners?”
Michael glanced at his vacant holsters and felt his face redden. “Things got hazy back there.”
“What, you high or something? I seen you on the ship, staring into space like a dope fiend.” She pulled a Glock 17 from her belt and tossed it to him. “Try not to lose that one. I like it.”
She gave Blackwell an approving nod. “At least you’re still strapped. You know how to use those things?”
Blackwell patted the handguns. “I was trained by the best.”
“Trained ain’t live action. Guess it’s better than nothing. You stay with Mike. I’ll watch your backs.”
Michael nodded, pushing ahead. The maelstrom in his head expanded, flooding the crevices of his mind with darkness. His teeth clamped together and the world blurred as his muscles quivered from the effort of trying to focus. One foot, then the other. He concentrated on moving, forcing himself to go forward despite every instinct telling him to turn tail and run the opposite direction. The yearning to flee was nearly commanding, an animal instinct that threatened to overwhelm his senses.
He was so absorbed in the effort that he nearly missed the lip of a steep ravine. His waved his arms for balance as his feet teetered on the edge. The jungle opened up to a forested clearing; lush, green and cloaked in rolling fog.
Blackwell grabbed him by the harness and pulled him back to safer ground. His eyes stared past Michael, his mouth wide open. “I can’t believe it.”
Michael didn’t answer. He stood transfixed, his gaze fixed on the edifice that towered above them, smothering the clearing in shadow.
It was as if a massive tower had fallen from another world. Perfectly proportioned and gleaming like wet ink, it was devoid of even a speck of mold, moss, or dust. Only the rain touched it, gliding down the mirrored surface as though it were coated with oil. Unreadable runes were imprinted on its shiny exterior, arranged in symmetrical patterns. Against the green and uncivilized backdrop it looked positively sinister; a blasphemous stain of synthetic malevolence.
The top of the obelisk was lost to a whirling vortex of tumultuous cloud-masses that eddied faster than nature allowed, sizzling with lightning that flashed and forked as though striving to fend off the roiling darkness. Thunder rumbled with cavernous strength, a steady thrum that beat down from sky to trembling ground. Pools of water rippled; liquid mirrors that reflected the insanity above.
Charlie Foxtrot joined them on the ledge, hesitant for the first time since he’d known her. She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them as if trying to verify what she saw was real.
Michael empathized. Everything about the scene appeared hallucinogenic, some psychedelic image created for the sole purpose of inciting insanity.
Looking up, he imagined the beacon atop the obelisk, the fizzling cord of galvanic energy that beamed upward, connecting their world to one of nightmares. The Other side.
Once, he had seen Guy enter the Threshold, pass beyond their dimension into one of fire and darkness. He had no idea what Guy had encountered, or how he had survived when the entire building exploded. But against all odds Guy did it. He stopped the Aberration at the risk of everything, including his own life.
Now it was Michael’s turn.
“Unbelievable.” Blackwell’s eyes quivered as though recording the image to analyze later. “The material doesn’t appear to be anything native to this planet.”
Charlie Foxtrot ran fingers through her thick cornrows. “Damn, you saying aliens built this? What the hell did y’all get me into?”