The Rogue Retrieval (4 page)

The Plexiglas door slid open. Behind it, the wall of the cavern was translucent and gray. It shimmered as he watched. The air in the chamber had an energy to it, like the buildup of static electricity. It made the hair on Quinn's arms rise.

Kiara walked into it. The grayness swallowed her, like she'd slipped through a waterfall. Quinn gasped.

“Your turn,” Logan said. And he shoved Quinn right after her.

Cold. That was the first thing he felt. He stumbled on a hard stone floor and caught himself against the wall. The rock was rough under his hands, and it drained the heat from them. He jerked them back and put them in his pockets. Logan appeared behind him. Quinn had an urge to shove the man right back, and would have done it if he thought it would have moved the man an inch.

And if he thought Logan would let him that close to begin with.

“This way, Mr. Bradley,” Kiara said. She stood at the mouth of a tunnel, and from the brightness behind her, it must lead outside.

Quinn followed her down a short passage. The stone walls were marked with odd symbols. Hieroglyphics, maybe. The paint looked ancient, but had a sheen to it. Like it might glow even in total darkness. They turned a corner and were greeted by the near-­blinding whiteness of outdoors.

“Sweet Jesus,” Quinn whispered.

A snow-­covered landscape fell away from the mouth of the cave. It was like looking down the side of a mountain. On the horizon, other peaks loomed out of an iron-­gray sky.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“This is where you'll be working,” Kiara said. “The inhabitants call it Alissia.”

Q
uinn felt vaguely aware that he hadn't spoken for a long time. Logan had guided him back through the odd portal to the company facility. Took his coat off, and walked him to the conference room again. He stepped out and closed the door, leaving Quinn alone with the mirror and whoever was behind it.

The door banged open again, startling him. Chaudri backed in, her arms occupied with a tray of refreshments. She heaved it onto the table and sat down. Quinn's stomach rumbled at the smell of food.

“I know that look,” Chaudri said. She set out a pair of ceramic mugs and started pouring coffee. She slid one over. “You're going to need this.”

He accepted a mug and leaned back, inhaling the steam. He ventured a sip and sighed. Some kind of tropical roast, strong but faintly sweet. Something normal, for once, and it helped. “God, that's good.”

“So, I take it you've been read in,” Chaudri said.

“Kiara and Logan took me through this . . . thing.”

“The gateway.”

Quinn spread his arms out. “I don't even know what it is.”

“We're not certain ourselves, if that makes you feel any better. Some of the consulting physicists think it's a wormhole, between our world and theirs.”

“Their world . . .” he said, bemused. “Kiara said it's inhabited.” The coffee was starting to kick in, because he made the leap. “And you're an anthropologist.”

“Yes. I've been studying Alissia for ten years.”

“Wow. And it's been kept secret all this time?”

“Have you
seen
the NDA?” she joked.

“It was pretty serious.” He sipped more coffee. “So, how many ­people live there?”

“We have a good idea, but I'm not allowed to tell you,” Chaudri said.

“How come?” Quinn asked.

“You don't have your clearance yet.”

But the woman knew; Quinn could see that. And anyone with a number fixed in her mind was malleable. “I didn't see anyone while I was there. So I'd say less than ten thousand.”

Chaudri exhaled faintly. A scoff.
Far too low.
“As I said, I can't—­”

“A hundred million.”

“Ah, I'm not permitted to divulge exact numbers.” The jaw tightened, but the eyes widened just a little. Quinn knew he was too high, but in the ballpark. Two or three questions more and he'd have it narrowed down.

He'd done more than enough readings as a “medium” to infer a number. Chaudri was the perfect mark.

Logan and Kiara barged in before he could press Chaudri any further.

Just when I was getting started, too.

“I see you've recovered your spirits, Mr. Bradley,” she said.

“Somewhat,” Quinn said. He settled back in his chair, watching her. Something about her manner always made him feel like he should find a place to hide. Or toss a smoke bomb and disappear. “I have a lot of questions.”

“Undoubtedly,” she said. “But you should know that much of the information on Alissia is given out on a need-­to-­know basis.”

She was stonewalling him. “But you haven't told me anything!” Quinn said. He pointed in the direction of the chamber. “For example: What the hell was that?”

Kiara touched the corner of the table. Light bloomed under her fingertip. A high-­def projector flicked on, casting a sharp image of the snow-­blanketed mountains he'd seen from the mouth of the cave.

“What you saw is barely a glimpse of what lies through the gateway,” Kiara said.

More images flickered past on the wall, aerial footage of windswept prairies, rolling hills, pristine shorelines. It was beautiful, once you got past the snow. Pure.

Massive.

“How big is it?” Quinn asked.

“Based on our curvature measurements, nearly as large as Earth,” Chaudri said.

Quinn couldn't look away; he was riveted. There were settlements, thatch-­roof cottages for the most part. Three men leaning against a stone wall, their armor polished like chrome. A crowded bazaar packed with ­people and animals. Everything looked so real.

But how could it be?
It made no sense. One thing in particular seemed off.

“OK, let's back up,” Quinn said. “You said a shepherd found this fifteen years ago. So how do I not know about this already? Shouldn't it be on CNN?”

“CASE Global owns this entire island,” Kiara said. “We've managed to keep the gateway's existence a secret.”

Quinn was incredulous. This was getting harder and harder to believe . . . except that he'd seen the proof. Then again, he had just shown ­people he could turn out Las Vegas by snuffing some candles, so incredulity was an integral part of his makeup. “OK, then let me get this straight. You found a portal to a whole other world. With
­people
in it. And you've just been, what, sitting on it?”

“We've been studying it from every possible angle,” Chaudri said.

There had to be an endgame here. Billion-­dollar companies didn't study things. They profited from them.

More importantly, he needed to know where he fit in.

As if anticipating that question, Kiara tapped her control panel. The image changed again, to a photo of a man in a white lab coat. He was middle-­aged, maybe a little older, with wire-­frame glasses and a pronounced nose. Looked like a cardsharp, the kind of guy who's always thinking two moves ahead.

“This is Richard Holt,” Kiara said. “The head of our research team since this project started.”

“He's a nice-­looking man, I suppose.”

Kiara scowled.

“Six days ago, he went rogue, and disappeared through the gateway,” Logan said.

Quinn stole a glance at their faces. Kiara's was cold calculation, almost hidden animosity. On Chaudri's, sadness warred with admiration. Interesting. “Maybe he just needed a vacation,” he said.

Chaudri barked a laugh. It came out nervous. “Dr. Holt didn't believe in vacations.”

“He also took a backpack full of technology that's not allowed on the other side of the gateway.”

“What technology are we talking about?”

“That's above your clearance level.”

That excuse is starting to get real old.

“Whatever his reasons, the executives want him retrieved,” Kiara said. “Quickly and quietly.”

Quinn made a face, to show that he wasn't happy about the clearance thing. “That sounds like Logan's department.”

“It is,” he said.

“And we have Chaudri, for the cultural angle,” Kiara said.

“I guess you're all set, then,” Quinn said. He still didn't know why they'd brought him here, why they'd shown him something that was clearly a tightly held secret. They wanted something—­something worth more than a half million dollars.

Kiara sighed. She almost seemed to agree. “Some of our superiors are concerned because we've all been working with Holt for a long time. He knows our tactics. Our tendencies.”

Ah—­the reveal at last.
“But he doesn't know me,” Quinn said.

“Exactly,” she said. “And given their preindustrial technology level, your talents for illusion might be useful in a tough spot.”

“It certainly is an interesting way to go,” Logan said.

Kiara frowned at him.

So they did want a performance out of him. “The logistics would be tough,” Quinn said. “I'm used to working on a stage.”

“You'll have substantial company resources at your disposal,” Kiara said. “Materials, schematics, a fully trained engineering team. Pretty much whatever you need.”

“I guess I can draw up some ideas,” he said.

“They don't even have to be your own. If any of your competitors have something that would be useful, we can have the details for you in twenty-­four hours.”

“Good luck with that,” Quinn said. “Magicians are a secretive lot, from what I hear.”

“You're one of the most secretive, and we got you here in, what, fourteen hours?”

“Touché,” he said.

“We'll provide you with virtually anything you need to create the best magic that you can muster. And trust me, it'll have to be convincing.”

Something about her seriousness raised his hackles. “Why is that?”

“Because Alissians have the real thing.”

 

“I never went for craps or blackjack or poker. If I want to take a gamble, I do it onstage.”

—­
A
RT OF
I
LLUSION,
O
CTOBER 6

CHAPTER 3

HAZARDS

T
wo weeks later, Quinn clung to the pommel while his mare plunged through the snow after Kiara's. Chaudri rode behind him, followed by the packhorses. Logan brought up the rear.

God, it's cold here.
He tried to pull his fur-­lined riding cloak tighter around him. The snow blanketed everything perfectly, like a Thomas Kincaid painting. And the air was completely still. There was only the sound of their horses' hooves as they crunched into the snow.

Kiara reined in suddenly. “Something's wrong,” she said.

Besides the fact we just walked through some kind of dimensional portal?

But Quinn knew what she meant. He pushed down his hood for a better look around. They were on the top of a small rise, with tall, leafless trees towering above them. Wintry landscape fell away in every direction, into an endless sea of semi-­open forest. Not a trace of movement anywhere. Not a sound.

“There's no wind,” he said. “Is that unusual?”

“Very,” Logan said. He made some kind of hand signal to Kiara.

“Earbuds,” she said softly, and pressed a finger to her ear to activate hers. Quinn fumbled off one of his gloves and activated his own. The tiny speaker crackled as it came to life. These little gems had come out of the company's prototyping lab. Rechargeable, encrypted frequency, and a range of about two miles. You could even mutter into it and be heard clear as day.

Kiara's voice seemed to whisper right in Quinn's ear. “We're going to ride down into the trees for some cover. Keep your eyes open.”

They set a good pace down the slope, but slowed as the trees thickened around them. Kiara took them along what appeared to be a game trail among the trees. When the cave had fallen from view, she halted. “Logan, check our backtrail.”

He wheeled his horse and broke away from the track they'd been following, moving northwest to come at the cave from another angle.

“Approaching the clearing,” came his voice, a baritone that buzzed in Quinn's ear. “No sign of pursuit. No hiding our tracks, though. Should I lay some false trails?”

“Not there. I don't want you out in the open,” Kiara said. “It would be obvious that we're headed south in any case.”

“Who do you think might be after us?” Quinn asked.

“Hard to say. Could be a competitor, or the government. Or any number of protest groups that are constantly railing against the company and its practices.” She frowned, as if weighing a decision. “Logan, check the gate.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Logan said. A moment later he checked in again. “I'm in the cave. Looks clear.”

“Set a ­couple of proxies,” Kiara told him.

“Already on it, Lieutenant,” Logan replied.

Quinn looked at Chaudri and mouthed, “Proxies?”

“Proximity sensors, I think,” Chaudri said. “Infrared motion and heat detectors. They'll go off if anyone comes after us.”

Logan's voice came again. “The gate is blocked.”

“Say again?” Kiara said.

“The gateway is nonfunctional.”

Quinn felt a stab of terror. He looked at Chaudri, who was wide-­eyed and probably thinking the same thing. No way back.

Kiara pursed her lips. “Get back here right away,” she ordered.

They waited in uncomfortable silence for half an hour, while the horses snorted white puffs of air. At last, Logan's horse trotted into view.

“So?” Kiara asked.

Logan shrugged. “I went to stick my head through the gate. Couldn't cross the threshold. It was like trying to walk through Plexiglas.”

“Foxtrot protocol?” she asked.

“Must be.”

“Wait, I'm sorry,” Quinn said. “What is Foxtrot protocol?”

“A security lockdown procedure,” Kiara said. “We have means to physically seal the gateway from the other side.”

“For how long?” Quinn asked.

“Until the threat has been addressed,” she said.

“What if we drag Holt all the way back here and it's still locked?” he demanded.

“It won't be,” Kiara said. She sounded confident, but how could she know?

“I hope you're right,” Quinn said. He damn well didn't want to spend the rest of his life in this place. It might be pristine, but he doubted they had a strip like Vegas.

I
t wasn't long before they encountered the first of Holt's little surprises. Twilight was already approaching; according to Chaudri, the days and nights between here and Earth were never quite in sync. Logan gave no indication that they'd stop even in darkness. They had LED globes disguised as torches, for when it came to that.

They were riding single file in dense woods when Logan collided with an invisible barrier.

“Oof!” The impact of it nearly tossed Logan out of the saddle. Kiara sawed her gelding's reins to keep from plowing right into him. Quinn jerked back on his, as did Chaudri. It was like a medieval six-­horse pileup in slow motion.

“What?” Kiara demanded.

“What the hell—­” Logan nudged the horse sideways and kicked out with a leather boot, getting a dull thud for his effort. Then he had his sword out and probed at it. “There's some kind of a barrier here.”

Quinn saw it now, a slight distortion of the forest ahead of him, as if looking through an old leaden window. It appeared to extend left and right as far as he could make out. Logan dismounted, stepped close to give it a look. “Not sure what I'm looking at.”

Kiara's face was a mask of concern. “Let's backtrack and try another way.”

Logan jumped back on and spurred his horse past them. They all wheeled and followed. A quarter mile away, some distance to the southwest, they hit the barrier again. Same thing to the southeast.

“It wasn't here two months ago,” Logan said. “Our scouting party came right along this trail.”

He made a dedicated effort with his sword, and then a crossbow. Nothing could penetrate the barrier.

Kiara dismounted. She found a branch and threw it at the barrier; it bounced off harmlessly. She stepped close to inspect it. “Alissians don't even have lead-­free glass yet. Must be some kind of magic.”

Finally, Quinn thought. A problem that Logan and Kiara couldn't solve right away. Time to show that he could be a team player. He'd been waiting for a chance to try out some of the equipment anyway.

He wound up his right arm like a pitcher and made a throwing motion. A melon-­sized ball of fire flew from it, roared through the air, and slammed into the barrier. It made for an impressive show, even if it had little effect on the barrier itself. And caught part of his sleeve on fire, which he quickly patted out.

“Wow!” Chaudri said.

“Impressive, Bradley,” Kiara said. “Unfortunately, I don't think it helped us.”

“It was worth a shot,” Quinn said. He wound up and threw another fireball, this one at the leaf-­strewn ground beneath a tall conifer near the barrier. The needles and dried twigs flared up immediately.

“Your aim needs a little work,” Logan said. He moved over to stomp out the flames.

“Leave it,” Quinn said. He slid out of the saddle. “I want the smoke.”

Logan grunted and stood back. The fire grew. When enough of the brush had caught, Quinn snuffed it out with handfuls of snow. Steam rose with a hiss, hugging the inside of the barrier. It rose straight up but then began to curl over their heads, back in the direction from which they'd come.

“See that? It's concave,” Quinn said. “Like a bubble. Whatever made this thing is probably right in the center of it.”

“Good thinking, Bradley,” Kiara said.

Logan was already mounted again. “Based on the curvature, the central point should be this way.”

It was near dark by then. A pale yellow moon shone between the trees. Quinn heard the yipping of some animal; it sounded almost like a hyena. Another one yipped back at it. “What is that?” he asked.

Logan and Kiara exchanged an ominous look. “Alissian wild dogs,” Logan said.

“Should I be worried? They're just dogs, right?”

“The Alissian version is bigger than a wolf. Pack hunters, too. Sounds like they're inside the barrier. I'm guessing that's no accident.”

Oh. Perfect.

“We need to get that barrier down,” Kiara said.

Ah, yes, ordering the obvious.
She was ex-­military for certain.

Logan spurred his mare to a gallop, and the others followed.

They rode in open woods near the cave clearing; the epicenter of the barrier seemed to be just north of it. More yipping rose to the left, and then to the right. The pitch was higher now, almost excited.

“They have our scent,” Chaudri said. “They're hunting us.”

Quinn thought about making a break for it then. He could probably find his way back to the cave, if the dogs didn't catch him. This whole mission was a mistake. Logan was right. He wasn't safe here, not by a long shot. And yet even with the danger, his curiosity overcame his survival instinct.

Ahead was a small clearing, awash in yellow moonlight.

“This should be it,” Logan said. He approached the edge, slowing his horse to a canter and loosening his sword in its scabbard. “Whoa!” He yanked his horse around at the tree line. “Fall back!” he whispered fiercely.

A moment of confusion followed as they got the horses turned around and backed up. Logan signaled that they should dismount. Then he put a finger to his lips and led them up to the edge of the trees.

Logan pushed aside a branch so they could see into the clearing, which held a massive nest the size of a dump truck. Perched above it was a green serpentine creature whose body shone like metal in the moonlight.

“What the hell is that?” Quinn whispered.

Even coiled up, it was the biggest reptile he'd ever seen. By a factor of ten. The body was muscular, the neck thick. It had to be, to support that big triangular head. A thick line of spikes ran down the spine to the tail, which whipped back and forth like a snake's.

“Wait . . . is that a goddamn
dragon
?” he asked.

“Looks like a northern wyvern,” Chaudri said. “Strange to find one with a brood here. Usually they nest in colonies up in the mountains.”

Logan had out his night-­vision binoculars. “How much do you want to bet that whatever made the barrier is in that nest?”

Behind them in the shadowed woods, more of the wild dogs were yipping. They were
close
.

“We need a look at it,” Kiara said.

“I think the dragon's going to have something to say about that,” Quinn said.

“Wyverns,”
Chaudri corrected, “are territorial. Probably just moving into view in that clearing will be enough to bring her over.”

“Good idea,” Kiara said. “You and Bradley try to draw it off. Logan and I will go for the nest.”

“Wait, why do
I
have to act as bait?” Quinn demanded. He felt his survival instincts kicking in. They were screaming at him to stay as far away from the dragon, or wyvern, as he possibly could.

I've had my fill of curiosity.

“If you have better ideas, I'm ready to hear them,” Kiara said.

He racked his brain, but couldn't think of anything on the spot. There was just no preparing for this sort of thing.

“Give us three minutes to get into position,” Kiara said. She and Logan mounted and started off.

“Wait, wait!” Quinn said. “What do we do once we have the wyvern after us?”

“Make it disappear,” Logan called. “That's your specialty, isn't it?”

Chaudri cleared her throat. “The wyvern will—­”

“Will you stop calling it that?” Quinn asked.

“I'm sorry?”

“I know I'm not the world expert,” Quinn said. He pointed his finger out into the clearing. “But that thing out there is a dragon.”

“If Dr. Holt were here, he'd ask you to defend your position,” Chaudri said. She spoke as if making a wish.

“But he's not here. Hell, for all we know,
he's
the reason that
dragon
is here. I'll play your game, though. For starters, it looks like a big reptile. It's sitting on a nest. It has scales and claws. All we're missing is a pile of gold.”

“And fire-­breathing capability, which these do not have. Hence: wyvern.” Chaudri checked the wooden bracelet on her wrist. These were company issue, and concealed both a watch and a wrist-­camera. “Almost time.”

Quinn shook his head, still in disbelief that things had gone this far. But he wasn't about to let his first job become a failure.
No matter how ridiculous it might be.
“Let's get this over with.”

They rode out from the trees; almost instantly, the wyvern was in a crouch, its massive head turning to track their movement. Two hundred yards of open clearing separated them from the nest.

“She's not moving,” Quinn said.

“We need to get her attention,” Chaudri said. She put her hands to her mouth. “Hello there!”

“Hey!” Quinn shouted. He waved his hands like he was trying to land a jumbo jet.

Nothing from the wyvern. She just watched them with unblinking eyes. There was intelligence there, and curiosity.

“You said they're territorial, right?” Quinn asked.

“Quite. It's strange that she's not moving yet.”

“Maybe she doesn't consider us a threat. Draw your sword.”

Chaudri's blade rasped as she pulled it from the scabbard. The swords they carried were actually hollow, with a titanium endoskeleton that made them strong but incredibly light. The blades were cast from a proprietary alloy right out of the company's R & D lab, so sharp you could shave with them. Quinn had one, too, though Logan had made it clear that he should avoid a swordfight at any cost. More accurately, he'd said that even a twelve-­year-­old from Alissia would “carve you like a turkey.”