Chapter 12

Jen and I went for a walk before dinner. No surprise, we had a couple of soldiers following us, rifles in hand. They remained at a discrete distance but did a good job of showing themselves to us.

“You could probably get away if you tried,” Jen said, keeping her voice low.

“Let’s reserve that for if and when it becomes necessary,” I muttered back. “If I get away once, they’ll increase the number of guards, and probably arm them with tranquiliser guns.”

“Don’t you think that’s what those are?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not sure I really want to find out.”

“Still, could be worse. At least we have some attractive scenery to enjoy while we’re exercising.”

“Are you talking about the grounds or the guys?” I asked. One of the off-duty squads was exercising near to us. Shorts and tee-shirts. Not as revealing as girl clothes, but they didn’t need to be. Enough muscles on show to keep the display interesting.

“A bit of both. I’m intrigued though. Are you interested?”

“What’s not to be interested in?”

“Well, it’s just that you used to be a guy, and…”

“I wasn’t gay.” That made me think of Nick, but I didn’t have permission to share that particular piece of information. “I’m not now, either. Full on girl, that’s me.”

“You don’t feel at all awkward about it?”

“I felt more awkward before. I mean when I was Mitchel, I definitely appreciated the pretty girls, and I could feel my body’s interest, but there was something a bit off about it all. I didn’t know how to talk to them, and I wasn’t entirely sure how far I wanted to go. It’s like there was some sort of mix up between what my body wanted and what my brain wanted. I have no such confusion now. Just enough responsibility to know I don’t really want to go that far just yet.”

“I’ll hold you to that. The law says you’re old enough, but personally I think the law is messed up on that count. You’re still young enough to ruin your future if you go overboard.”

“Plus being eight months pregnant would totally ruin my fighting style.”

“Oh, now that’s a scary thought. Did I hear a gong? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

We headed for the mess tent where we were invited to the front of the line and a table was set aside for our use. The food was decent army fair, comprising a tasty chicken curry with a decent amount of veg mixed in. We were halfway through eating when Stuart arrived.

“Thank goodness you reached out,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

“I’ve been here all day,” Jen said, “but there are phone jammers.”

“I was asleep till near noon, then packing,” I apologised. “Didn’t think to check my phone till we got here, by which time…”

“Yes, well, Nick, Laurel and I have been searching though my books for any evidence of, you know who…”

“Voldemort?” I suggested.

“No. Don’t be facetious. The, er, er, you know?”

“The boss guy?” My second guess. “They know about him. At least the lieutenant does.”

“I take it you found something?” Jen asked.

“Well, yes and no.” He put a large book on the table and opened it.

“Is this for some kind of creepy journalling?” I asked flipping through the empty pages.

“No. It was filled with arcane runes a week ago when Laurel scanned it into the computer along with a number of other texts.”

“Do you know what they said?”

“No, because Laurel tried to show me the scanned file, but it wasn’t there, or rather it was but it contained no data.”

“So, you have a blank book and no scanned files,” Jen said. “I mean, that’s odd, certainly, but why the interest?”

“Look at the spine.”

I closed the book and did so. On the one hand it looked like an odd, stylised image of nothing in particular. On the other, since we’d actually met the guy, it looked like a mouthless face with a bone ridge from brow to chin and a scattering of eyes either side.

“Okay,” I said. “I get why the interest, but…”

“What do you think might be possible once a mystical text about an extremely powerful magical being is transferred into a computer?”

“You’re suggesting that whatever was digitised now somehow has a life of its own within the computer?”

“Which was connected to the Internet, so now could be anywhere.”

“Could you ask Laurel to check the network logs?” Jen asked. “If that thing uploaded to the internet, it would be a sizeable file.”

“Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea, only I’m here now, and they’re not likely to let me leave, are they?”

“Or have access to the Internet,” I said. “Did Nick get my message?”

“If you’re referring to that envelope my chauffeur handed him, then yes. Why is that important?”

“Because we can still talk to Nick, and through him Laurel. Do they have access to your shop?”

“I did show them where the key is hidden, yes.”

“Good, then I’ll send Nick a message tonight. Laurel check network logs. Anything else?”

“Possibly. How do you…”

“In ways I’d rather not discuss in here where people might be listening. So, what else?”

“If there is a big upload, which IP address did it go to?”

I made mental notes.

It was dark by the time we finished eating. Stuart came back to our tent and kept watch through the tent flap while I set up my phone. It didn’t take much to put together a roll of paper from one of Jen’s notebooks and tape it over both the camera and the flash. Stuart held the flap open a short way and I stayed back in the shadows, using the camera to aim through the gap towards Nicks house. With things lined up, I opened the morse app and sent repeated cq messages his way. After about five or ten minutes a single light flashed across my field of vision.

I set up my phone app to send the message. “Check network logs. Big upload? If so IP addr? Reply 1 hr?”

Three flashes. Either a mistake or something other than yes or no. “Laurel with u?”

One flash. Yes.

“More time needed?”

Two flashes.

“30 min ?” Pause. “15 min?” Pause. “5 min?” Single flash.

“He says he can give a reply in five minutes. I’m guessing Laurel can remote access your router or something.”

“How is he going to reply if he can’t send us morse code?” Stuart asked.

“Fireworks,” I said. I pulled up the voice recording app on my phone.

Five minutes later there was a single flash, then a pause. I held my finger to my lips and pressed record.

A rocket went off near Nick’s house, then a series of firecrackers. Twelve lots in all, separated into four groups of three. A second rocket flared after it to tell me the message was complete. I pressed stop and pulled up the voice recording in a different app Nick and I had found that showed the recording as a graph. With the firecrackers going off in quick succession, it was easier to count how many from the pulses in the sound graph than trying to count them as they happened. I wrote down the numbers. It was definitely an IP address, four numbers in the zero to two-five-five range.

“That looks like a military address. Can you ask how big the upload was?”

“Hang on.” I lined up again and sent a single cq, receiving a single flash in reply.

“How big?” I sent. “Mb?” Pause. “Gb?” Pause. “Tb?” Flash.

“10?” Pause. “100?” Pause. “1000?” Pause. “10000!?” Flash.

“In the order of ten thousand terabytes,” I said.

“That’s a lot of data. How fast is your connection?” Jen asked Stuart.

“I don’t know. I think it’s the fastest available.”

“Fibre?”

“I think so, why?”

“It would still have taken ages to upload. Hard to believe a military computer wouldn’t send out an alert if a connection stayed up for that long. I think we ought to take this to Henderson.”

“After all this cloak and dagger? He’s going to want to know how we got this information.”

“And if this turns out to be something important, we’d be better off letting him know, even if it loses us this advantage.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“I’m pretty sure it will.”

She marched out the tent with Stuart and me following. I didn’t even have time to send Nick an AR signal to say we were done.

#

We found the lieutenant at the gate where a large number of military trucks had turned up. He was reading a sheet of paper which he’d removed from a sealed envelope. He looked up as we arrived.

“Your timing’s perfect,” he said. “I have orders which will need you to open that portal of yours, and a little larger if you can manage it.”

“What do you mean?” Jen asked.

“I don’t have time for your questions, now do I have your cooperation, or am I going to have to confiscate your equipment and do it myself?”

“Lieutenant, we’re in possession of some information you need to know.”

“The hard way it is then. Corporal, detain these three and fetch me the axe and the two dagger things from their tent.”

“Yes sir!” The response was no sooner barked than three burly soldiers had us in their grasp. I could have broken free, but Jen shook her head at me. Not time to fight yet apparently.

“Lieutenant, what are you going to do?” Jen called after him.

He ignored her and instead gave instruction for the lorries to be unloaded and their contents carried into the dome. The crates that came off were of a size that would have made serviceable coffins. The codes stencilled on the side meant nothing to me, nor apparently to Jen or Stuart. Size and shape wise, I was inclined to guess at missiles.

“Lieutenant,” I called. “Where did your orders come from?”

He gave me an impatient look and ordered the men holding us to detain us in our tent.

I yelled out the IP address we’d just been given.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It’s an IP address. At least check it out. At a guess, it’ll be connected to your current orders.”

He walked over to me and spoke slowly and deliberately into my face. “My orders tell me not to trust any of you, that this mess is largely your fault, and under no circumstances am I to trust anything you say from this point.”

“And, of course, you trust these orders?” I tried not to react to the garlic on his breath. Evidently officers enjoyed a different menu.

“Why shouldn’t I? Authorisation codes match. This comes through the official chain of command.” He made to turn away.

“And if your chain of command has been compromised?”

“Impossible.”

“That IP address I gave you. A very large amount of data was uploaded to it from Mr Giles’s computer not long ago. We believe it matches the missing contents of an ancient book he had digitised a few days ago. A book about the big boss demon we told you about earlier. The upload wasn’t initiated by anyone in our group.”

He sneered at Stuart. “So, your computer got a virus. Sure it wasn’t your financial records that were stolen?”

“Ten petabytes, Greg,” Jen said quietly. “Hardly a typical amount of data, and the file that contained the scanned characters is empty.”

“What does that prove?”

“Nothing by itself, I’ll admit, but with what you’ve seen last night and today, surely you can accept we’re dealing with something that goes beyond normal here.”

“You’re asking me to believe in magic?”

“You must have come across that Arthur C Clarke quote, ‘Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.’”

“No, I’ve done enough listening to your bollocks. I have clear orders here, which I’m going to execute. Fucking take them away?’

“What orders lieutenant?” I shouted, but he wasn’t listening.

“Leave it, Sarah,” Jen said. “It’s quite possibly part of the magic that he’s been made resistant to questioning his orders. He’s certainly not usually this stubborn. If you push him, he’ll probably bind and gag you.”

I let it go and allowed myself to be manhandled (womanhandled? I appeared to be more sensitised to the patriarchal bias in our language since becoming a girl) back to our tent without giving any indication of my actual strength.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“See if you can contact Nick and Laurel again,” Jen said. “She’s pretty handy with a computer, to the extent of being quite capable of doing things with it she probably shouldn’t.”

“Laurel?” Stuart and I said together.

“Hidden depths that one. Ask her to see if she can hack the IP address and find out what she can.”

“She could get in serious trouble doing something like that,” Stuart said.

“She could, yes,” Jen said, “but how deep will the shit be that we’re all drowning in if that demon succeeds with whatever he has planned?”

“True, true.”

“What should I ask her to do?”

“Look for any evidence that that computer has been compromised and gets it to send out alerts if she can.”

I had my phone sending CQs towards Nick’s window. He must have been watching because he responded immediately.

“Ask Laurel to hack IP address and look for evidence of hacking. Alert authorities.”

Three flashes. Either he didn’t understand or he couldn’t do it.

“Is Laurel there?”

Flash.

“Ask her.”

There was a pause then a single flash.

“Take precautions.” Something Jen had asked me to add.

Again, a single flash.

“Did you see that flash?” one of the guards outside asked.

“Where?”

“Over that way. There’s been a few of them.”

I sent AR NR. AR meant over and out where as NR was our own short code meaning no response.

“What’s going on in there?” One of the guards said, speaking in the general direction of our tent.

I crumpled up the paper tube and lay back on my camp bed with the phone in my hands, thumbs poised over it. Close all apps and open a document. Flying thumbs typed out a couple of paragraphs of stuff on the page before the guard barged in and snatched the phone out of my hands.

“What is this.”

“Homework,” I said. “Not much else I can do, is there?”

I’d actually written the beginning of a piece on the inflexibility of military command structure, and posed the question, “Since soldiers at all levels were expected to obey orders without questioning them, at what point should they be considered guilty of war crimes when they were acting under orders from a superior?”

The guard grunted and offered me the phone back.

“Just following... you know.”

I stood up smiling, and gave him a full blown haymaker to the side of his head, catching the phone as he dropped it. He fell to the ground without making much sound.

“Baz, you okay?”

I moved to one side of the entrance. Jen, taking advantage of the situation, called, “Come quick! He collapsed.”

The second guard appeared, rifle at the ready. He caught a glimpse of me – well, my fist actually – and just started to bring his weapon to bare when mine caught him a blow to the side of the head, similar to the one I’d given his companion.

“What do we do now!” Stuart hissed.

“You tie them up and gag them. Keep an eye out for Nick trying to contact us and find out what you can. I think, under the circumstances, we’re a little too far gone to keep to one flash or two from him.” I tossed my phone to Jen. “There’s a Morse decoder app you can type his messages into. I’m sure you can work it out.”

“What are you going to do?” Stuart asked.

“Try and stop these guys from doing something we’ll all regret.”

“Take this?” Jen offered me one of the rifles.

“No, that’s just an invitation for them to shoot back. Unarmed girl though. Hopefully they’ll think twice, even if ordered to fire.”

“Wiser than I’d be under the circumstances.”

“I should change though.” I gave Stuart a meaningful look as I lifted one of my suitcases onto the camp bed. He caught on quickly enough and decided to occupy his time keeping a studious eye out for any more soldiers outside our tent.

I really had no qualms about undressing in front of Jen, but Stuart was another matter. Very much a girl thing, not that I needed any further confirmation that that’s what I was now.

A quick look outside the tent confirmed there were no additional guards. Chances were the remainder of the platoon were all involved in unloading the trucks and setting up whatever weaponry was in the crates.

#

The camp was deserted. Well okay, apart from Jen and Stuart, and the two disabled guards. I made my way cautiously towards the dome and felt no hint of danger from around me as I approached. Definitely threats inside, but whether that was warning me about what awaited me on the other side of the portal or those I still wanted to consider allies on this side.

This was going to be interesting. On the one hand there were a lot of them – somewhere above two dozen – and they were armed with automatic rifles. Despite what I’d told Jen, I had some serious misgivings about whether or not they’d open fire if they caught sight of me. On the other hand, regardless of who or whatever was directing their actions right now, they were still my allies, so I definitely didn’t want to kill any of them. Nor did I wish to cause them significant harm.

This meant stealth and taking them on one or two at a time. I hadn’t had much practice with stealth, and it wasn’t particularly simple in shoes designed for a form of tap dancing.

I took the time to remove them from my feet before sneaking into the dome. A couple of armed guards stood just inside, but their attention was currently focussed on the preparations taking place closer to the centre, so it was relatively simple to crack their skulls together. They wore soft caps which made the exercise simpler, cushioning the blow enough that I wasn’t at risk of concussing either of them.

I dragged them out of sight. From the progress being made near the portal, it didn’t look like I had time to secure them, so I hoped they’d remain unconscious for long enough.

I counted ten, no twelve, snipers located around the edge of the dome. I hated that I needed to put the snipers out of action, but I’d never get near the centre of the dome with any of them still active. We’d be in pretty bad shape without them should the portal open from the other side, but it was still the least worst plan in my mind.

And I did need to get to the centre. The other half of the platoon, along with the dozen or so extras who’d come with the new equipment, were busily setting up what looked like four multiple rocket launchers. They weren’t the large vehicle mounted weapons, but they were large enough even so. Each sported a row of five tubes some eight feet long and about a foot in diameter, and they were all aimed in the general direction of the portal. The missiles being loaded into the last of each of the tubes needed four well-muscled men carry them into position.

I turned my eyes to the snipers. On the plus side, they were already reasonably well hidden. So long as I could do the stealth thing well enough, I should be able to put them out of action one by one without anyone else seeing.

The first couple I tried putting in a head lock until they lost consciousness. It was quiet and effective but took longer than I could afford. Plus I had no idea how long they’d stay out for. Next option was a punch to the back of the skull. That was quicker but carried some risk. I knew if I punched too hard, there’d be a chance I’d put them out of action for good. As a result I didn’t hit the first one hard enough and had to resort to the neck hold to complete the job. Very nearly got myself noticed too. The next one I managed to get just right. Out like a light but with a strong pulse. After that, the rest went out pretty quickly, and I had them all disabled by the time all the rocket launchers had been armed, and the small group of lab coated figures had transferred one of the prisms from the dagger portal devices to my axe. They declared themselves ready and I was still stuck out at the edge of the dome.

They had video footage of Jen opening the smaller portal, so they knew symbols, incantations and hand movements needed to make it work. There wasn’t much I could do to stop them, so I took the time I needed to put my heels back on, then grabbed the last sniper’s rifle and made my way as quietly as I could towards where the action was taking place.

The portal opened, just as large as it had been the first time, from my distance, I couldn’t see through it as clearly as I had the first time, but something seemed off.

“Standby to fire,” the lieutenant called out.

I had to stop them, but how? I was too far away. I took inspiration from Ellen Folley’s iconic performance with Meat Loaf.

“Stop right there!” I yelled, complete with rising inflection.

The whole place fell silent, and around two dozen faces turned in my direction.

The rest of the song lyrics ran through my head. None of them seemed particularly useful in this context, so I tried a few of my own words.

“It’s a trick, lieutenant,” I called. “Look through the portal and tell me what you see.”

“I see an army of vampires. One that I intend to eradicate in just a few seconds.”

“Hold off a few seconds more and think about it. Compare what you see now to what Jen showed you earlier.”

“All that’s changed is the visibility’s worse. There are still thousands of the fuckers.”

It was true, there was a dust haze dropping visibility to less than a mile. Most of the army could still be there, except…”

“They were rubbing shoulders this morning they’re a lot further apart now.”

“So? What’s your point? They were hardly going to stay crammed together like that for long.”

Fair enough, there was some sense in that, except there hadn’t seemed to be much in the way of sense to their distribution earlier.

“What about the nastier things? Earlier today there were a fair number of greshnicks, Fyarl demons, krrst and manitcores. There isn’t a single one in the field of view now.”

“They’ve probably been deployed further out, maybe to keep the vampires in line.”

“It doesn’t seem strange to you?”

“Not particularly. They’ve spread out a bit. We’ll still take them all out with this missile strike.”

“The missiles are that powerful?”

“Of course. Twenty thermobaric missiles. Enough explosive force to wipe out everything on that plain.”

“And what will they do to the portal, lieutenant? You know what happened when you dropped the last bomb on it. What if you’re being played and they he’s moved most of his army out of sight, out of reach of your fancy bombs? What if we end up with a portal half a mile wide and an army of a hundred thousand assorted monsters charging into our world through a portal too big for us to control?”

“I have my orders, Miss Geller.”

“From a source that’s quite possibly been compromised, lieutenant. Can’t you feel there’s something wrong about all this, even about the way you’re reacting to them?”

“Enough! Prepare to launch. If she interferes, shoot her.”

That limited my options. Diplomatic channels slammed in my face and still too far away to poke my fingers in the works. Not that I’d stand much of a chance against automatic weapons.

Funny how the most unlikely things come in handy at unlikely moments. The previous summer, Nick and I had spent a lot of time and money playing airsoft. Toy guns firing paint pellets, mainly at close range, but I’d developed a feel for rifles. I dived onto my front – harder target and more stability for firing – and brought my borrowed firearm up to my shoulder.

It was set to semi-automatic, which meant single shot auto reload. Probably as well; if it had gone off on full auto, I’d have probably sent out a spray of bullets in random directions and put everyone’s lives at risk. As it was, firing a seven-six-two was immensely different to an airsoft rifle. The mechanics were the same – stock tight into shoulder, weapon held loosely, breath out, aim and squeeze – but from the point when it fired, everything was massively different. The deafening noise of the bullet firing, the bruising kick of the stock pushing back into my shoulder. If I’d had to fire a second time, I’d probably have been wincing in anticipation, and that would have ruined my aim. As it was, the unexpectedness took me totally by surprise and meant that the shot flew truer than I could have hoped. The bullet struck the prism on the tip of my axe, shattering it into a million fragments and collapsing the portal in an instant.

“Get her!” the lieutenant shouted.

I dropped the rifle and ran. However much it may have saved the day, I hated guns all the more now.

Especially since they were currently being used against me.

The shoes didn’t help, but I managed to duck and roll enough to dodge the bullets. My heightened instincts gave me just enough warning ahead of the shots that I was able to dodge them. A few of them tore through my clothing, coming withing millimetres of my skin, but somehow I made it to the lieutenant unscathed. I threw myself at him at chest height, tackling him high enough that even my small weight had enough leverage to bundle him to the ground. With my arms wrapped around him, I only had one weapon available to me so I brought it to bear, smacking him hard across the bridge of the nose with my forehead.

He went out cold. The rest of his men moved in and pulled me off him. With me captured they seemed less inclined to shoot me, but they weren’t in the best of moods.

“Sergeant Finn,” I called out, recognising him among the angry faces, “please, you have to listen.”

“Or what? Will you break my nose too?”

I looked at the lieutenant. I’d done it again.

“Yeah, maybe someone should see to that before he comes round. And sure, if you act like an asshat too, I’ll be happy to rearrange your face.” I’d always loved that expression and never had enough opportunity to use it. “I’m assuming you didn’t read the lieutenant’s orders?”

“Of course not. His eyes only.”

“Probably as well you don’t then. I think there’s something in them that’s influencing him. You were here when we opened the portal earlier, weren’t you?”

“You know I was.”

“Then tell me your impression of what was on the other side just now. Same number of bad guys?”

“Well no, but…”

“But what? You heard what I told the lieutenant. Would you say there’s a possibility the other side is drawing us into launching those missiles?”

“That’s ridiculous. The orders for the missile launch came from within the army command structure. We have checks and balances to make sure no-one can send false orders and these check out.”

“Look deeper into the source of those orders. You remember I gave the lieutenant an IP address I said we thought had been compromised when we were all being carted off to our tent? I’m guessing he hasn’t been anywhere near your communications facility since then.”

Finn exchanged glances with a couple of other guys, each one sporting the same triple chevron on his upper sleeve.

“How would you know about anything being compromised?” one of the others asked. “You’ve been on base with no comms since this morning.”

“My friend Stuart came on site this evening, He told Jen and me about a large amount of data being uploaded from his computer to this unknown IP address, and his suspicions of what it might be.”

“Which is?”

“Let’s call it a virus. An AI virus. Something that’s capable of infiltrating sophisticated systems and making autonomous decisions from there.”

“We’d have heard reports about something like that.”

“Why would you? Something with that degree of sophistication would likely be capable of working around your security systems. Maybe starts by uploading enough of itself to search for and disable any alarms, then uploads the rest of itself. It then has access to enough information that it can masquerade as one of the army’s higher ranking officers – all necessary details available from personnel files. It orders certain bases on lock down – training exercises, security concerns, whatever – including the one siting the computer it inhabits, and starts sending out what appear to be legitimate orders from there. If it happens to be able to include something extra in the communications that influences the personnel receiving the orders, then that will only reduce the likelihood of them being questioned.”

“What sort of something extra?”

“I don’t know. I think we may have different ideas on what’s possible and I wouldn’t want to suggest something that would cause you to disbelieve me, so let’s just say maybe something subtle and psychologically influencing in the words, or perhaps something else to be investigated at a future date. The question to ask yourself is did you notice a change in the lieutenant’s behaviour shortly after receiving those orders? His eagerness to carry them out for instance, or his tendency to disregard the possible dangers of setting off twenty of your missiles close to the portal?

“Look, I’m guessing here, but you know the way things work in the army better than me. Don’t you think any of this is at all possible?”

“It’s all a bit of a stretch,” the other sergeant said. I didn’t recognise him, so suspected he’d come as the squad leader with the weapons convoy.

“More of a stretch than what you’re seeing in here?” I asked. “I mean, a moment ago you were looking through a hole in spacetime at an alien world full of monsters? Isn’t it at least worth checking out? Weird shit is normal here and now, so can’t you stretch your credibility just a little?”

“She’s right,” Sergeant Finn decided. Score one for a pretty face and the effect it has on the young and unsuspecting male mind. “Keep an eye on her though. She does anything threatening, you still have the lieutenant’s order to shoot her.” Okay maybe the score was closer to one-all, but I still liked my chances.

“Corporal Jeckle.” The guy who’d helped me with the first aid stepped forward. “Do what you can for the lieutenant. Take him to the medical tent and make sure he stays there. Have him sedated if you need to.

“Sergeant Miller,” Finn turned to the guy who’d come with the weaponry. “We have one spare prism. Get your guys to fit it to the axe, but don’t activate it. If this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I don’t want anyone accusing us of not doing our jobs.

“Sergeant Gates,” Finn’s fellow sergeant, a handsome guy with a shaved head and a fair bit of Africa in his gene mix. “I’m guessing you’ll want to see what’s happened to your men.” He looked around at where none of the snipers were showing themselves.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said.

Finn scowled. “I’m heading over to the comms tent to see what I can find out? Collins, Matthews, Foley and West. Bring her along and don’t take any chances. She even looks at you funny, take her down.”

No need to look funny, they were already doing as I’d asked.

#

The officer on the other side of the screen was grey haired with something fancy on his epaulettes. Two kind of stylised squares on the diagonal and a crown, I think. He did not look super happy about being interrupted.

“Sergeant. Where’s your commanding officer?”

Finn went ramrod straight. “Indisposed at present, colonel. He’s being treated by our medics as we speak.”

“Do you not have orders to carry out in his absence?”

“Yes sir, but I have additional information that may compromise the validity of those orders.”

“Go on, but make it quick. I have other urgent matters.”

“Yes sir. I have reason to suspect an artificially intelligent computer virus may have uploaded onto a military server.”

“Go on.”

“An upload of about ten petabytes was sent to...” he looked at me expectantly.

I reeled off the IP address Nick and Laurel had sent us.

“...and shortly afterwards a convoy of trucks appeared with twenty thermobaric missiles and orders for Lieutenant Henderson to launch them through the portal.”

“And the reason you haven’t done so?”

“Because we have already noticed that the existing portal increased in size following exposure to an Argon Flash device. Our best intelligence suggests that launching the missiles could open the portal much wider permitting the enemy a significant advantage.”

“You don’t think our scientists have thought of this?”

“Well sir, since we only found out about it three hours ago and none of your scientists have even seen the portal, I’d say possibly not.”

“Sergeant, you have your orders. If you don’t feel like obeying them, I could always have you relieved.”

“Tell me about the IP address, colonel.”

“Not your affair. Follow your orders, sergeant.”

“As soon as I’ve verified them, sir.”

“Then you’re relieved, sergeant. Corporal? Take him into custody and bring me your next highest ranking NCO.”

“Sir?”

“Disregard, corporal,” Finn interrupted, then turned to one of the technicians. “Cut the feed and make a connection to Miss Geller’s IP address.”

The colonel’s face disappeared from the screen. I had to repeat the numbers. The link brought up a familiar face. Multiple eyes and no mouth.

“Sergeant Finn,” the voice boomed in each of our minds. “You have your orders, don’t you?”

The voice was both painful and compelling. Less so for me since this was now my third encounter. I’d seen how the technician had cut the feed so, while everyone was clutching at their heads, I stumbled forward and did the same.

“What the hell was that?” Finn asked.

“The enemy,” I said. “Safe to say the bad guys are in your computers. A better question would be, what are we going to do now?”

“I have my orders,” the sergeant said, turning to leave the tent.

“Mark!” I yelled. “No!”

“Corporal, take her back to her tent. The four of you are to remain with her inside the tent and make sure she doesn’t get out again.”

“Sir!”

#

“Well, this looks promising,” Stuart said sarcastically as I reappeared in the tent with my four chaperones.

“Not helping,” I scowled at him. Mind you, the presence of our two former guards, bound gagged and still unconscious wasn’t either.

Three of the new arrivals raised their guns – two on me, one on Stuart and Jen – while the fourth checked out our two victims. Once he’d confirmed they were both alive, he released them and set about trying to rouse them.

“You’re lucky these guys are okay,” said the fourth.

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” I said. “We were careful. Listen, any chance I can visit the loos? It’s been a while and things’re getting kind of urgent.”

“There should be bucket around here somewhere,” one of the two keeping an eye on my said with a smirk.

“Where?” I wanted to know.

“I don’t know.” He dropped the muzzle of his rifle as he turned to look around.

It was all the invitation I needed. Hands cuffed behind my back wasn’t much different from arms held by my sides. I did a jumping twist that allowed me to knock the rifle of my other guard up and the one of the funny guy down. I managed to tuck my legs in tight enough to bring my bound wrists under them and in front of me before I landed. I had an arm around joker’s neck by the time the third guard brought his weapon to bear. By which time I was hiding behind his companion, giving him no clean shot.

The moment’s hesitation was all Stuart needed to step forward and snatch the weapon out of his hand. He had it up and trained on the group before any of them could react.

Jen took the gun from my captive’s hands and indicated that the other two should place theirs somewhere out of temptation’s reach before I let go of my guy.

“More promising now?” I asked Stuart, then, “Keys,” I snapped at the fourth guy.

“I was rather hoping you’d managed to help them see reason, not...” He waved at my former captives, including the guy currently unlocking my cuffs.

“I was doing pretty well,” I said, “until they contacted the compromised address Nick gave us.”

“Why, what happened then?”

“Mr No Mouth and All Peepers answered. You know the way he talks directly into your brain?”

“Seriously? He was... was there?”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. Wasn’t it his face on the book that Laurel digitised? Wasn’t it his data that ended up uploading itself to a military computer?”

“Yes, but the idea that a computer stream could be conscious. Besides, surely he’s still in the other realm.”

“What can I say? I didn’t see him on the other side of the portal and they did open up a big one. Maybe he is all the way over here.”

“He wasn’t there?”

“Nor,. As far as I could tell, was most of his army. Reduced visibility, but vampires only and spread out considerably.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“It does if you think about it, but I don’t have time to explain. If you’re still in contact with Laurel, ask if she can send it a virus or something. Keep it preoccupied. You,” I pointed at the guy I’d recently had in a neck lock, “come with me.”

“What happened to your urgent needs?” he snarled.

“Not so urgent after all, besides, more urgent priorities. Come on.” I gave him a gentle kick towards the exit.

“Wait!” It was the one who’d checked on his unconscious colleagues.

We all looked at him expectantly.

“I don’t know who this Laurel is, but there’s not a virus she can upload that’ll have any effect. We have some of the most powerful heuristic protection on our systems.”

I wasn’t sure what heuristic meant, not in this context or any other, but Jen seemed to.

“So, what do you suggest we do? And as an afterthought, why should we trust you?” she asked.

Time was pressing.

“Figure something out,” I said. “Maybe talk to one of the technicians in the communications tent. I’ve got to go.”

“And do what?” Stuart asked.

I shrugged. “Same as you. The best I can in the available time.”

I gave my captive another shove and followed him out the tent.

“I don’t know what you think you can do,” he said. “We’ve won you know.”

I had the magazine out of the rifle and was emptying it onto the ground as we walked. “What exactly do you think that means?” I asked.

“It means we kill all your buddies in the next world and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“My buddies? You do know I’ve been fighting them non-stop these past few weeks? You know it was us who called you in when we found out how big this problem was? Whatever gives you the idea they’re my buddies?”

I reinserted the empty magazine and worked the action to eject the round in the chamber.

“You’ve been fighting us pretty much since the lieutenant showed you what we can do. I don’t know if you’ve got some sort of delusions of grandeur over this whole thing, but we’re professional fighters...”

“Who have no idea what you’re dealing with here, and if you’d just listen to yourself for just a few seconds you’d probably realise you’re the ones being influenced. Drop your magazines.”

“What?”

“Your ammunition for this thing. Drop it.”

He pulled a few magazines from his large trouser pockets. One of them still looked like it was bulging a bit so I kicked him in it.

“Ow, okay!” He pulled out a last mag and dropped it.

I handed him the rifle. “Don’t think up any clever ideas, because they won’t be. Just remember I could kick you so hard in the crotch your balls would come out your nose.” I stepped in front of him. “Oh yeah, I can do it from here just as easily.”

“You’re never going to get away with this you know?”

“Get away with what? No, forget that. What do you remember from when we were in the Comms tent?”

“I remember the sergeant giving me an order...”

“Which you felt compelled to obey.”

“No reason not to.”

“What happened before that? Any memories of a voice in your head?”

“That would have been the colonel ordering the sergeant to carry out his orders.”

“Not quite, because that’s when Sergeant Finn requested clarification over the orders, the colonel ordered your corporal to relieve him and he ordered the link to be cut. You remember all that, don’t you?”

“Er, y... er...”

“Then Finn ordered a connection be made to the IP address I’d given him and...”

“I don’t...”

“It’s not that you don’t remember, but it’s hard to; like thinking through treacle. It’s easier just to go to the orders and follow them. You’ve been brainwashed soldier.”

He was silent for a while, all the time we were approaching the dome.

“It’s Kevin,” he said at last.

“I’m sorry?” Sounded slightly better than ‘what?’ you understand.

“Private Kevin Atwood. I... don’t really know what’s going on, but you’re right, something is definitely hinky.”

“Something from the other side of that hole in reality is trying to influence us. I don’t know why I’m not affected. Either it becomes less effective each time – this is my third – or I have a natural resistance.

“What it’s trying to do is get us to blow up a fuck load of those missiles close to the rift. It got to the lieutenant, it got to the colonel, and most recently it got to Sergeant Finn and you guys. I’m hoping that, because I interrupted the connection last time, its influence isn’t so strong. I mean, I’m getting through to you, so...”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Make like I’m still your prisoner. Tell Sergeant Finn and anyone who gets in the way that I have information critical to the success of the missile launch. Get me as close to him as you can.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know, I’ll think of something.”

They were in the middle of the spell or ritual or whatever to open the portal when we approached. I held my arms behind me like I was still cuffed. Private Atwood walked behind me, giving me an occasional push. I could see gun barrels following my progress from the edge of the dome, and quite a few pairs of eyes looked on suspiciously as we neared our target.

“Hey, Sarge,” Kevin called out. “Something you should hear.”

“I thought I told you to confine her in her tent.”

“Yeah, but...”

This was going to fall apart any time soon. I swung at him with an open palmed slap which sent my hand numb.

His face turned black with rage, and he reached for the pistol at his side.

Well, if plan A doesn’t work... A flung my arms around his neck and planted a kiss firmly on his lips. He struggled against it at first, but I could feel his resolve crumbling. I kept going until I felt the tension drain out of him. He wasn’t ready to give anything back so I eased away from him.

“What the f...”

“I had to get through to you somehow. Will you at listen to me now?”

“I’m not going to let you stop me.”

“Fine, then how about doing it right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what exactly are your orders?”

“Send the missiles through, detonate them over the plain and destroy the army.”

“So, hold off for just a bit. Send through recon drones, get above the haze, and search for where the majority of the army might be hiding. Send the missiles there and explode them at a safe distance from the portal.”

“Those aren’t my orders.”

“No, but you’re the current battlefield commander. You have more up to date intelligence so you should have a degree of flexibility in how you interpret those orders. You know the size of the portal may be changed by explosions nearby and you know that that army of vampires,” I pointed at the scene through the newly opened portal, “is nowhere near the size of the full threat.”

“Yes but...”

“Sarge,” Corporal Atwood said gently. “We aren’t thinking straight; None of us who were in the comms tent earlier. It’s hard to follow her reasoning, but it makes sense, certainly more sense than anything you or the lieutenant have been trying to do.”

He shook his head, trying to clear it. I rested a small hand on his chest.

He lifted it off and handed me it back. “No offense, but if I’m trying to avoid outside influences...”

I took a couple of steps back. He was right, I’d done my bit. Now it was up to him.

Neither of the other sergeants had been in direct contact with Mr Mouthless, either his physical self or his digital one. “Why don’t you talk it through with the other sergeants?” I suggested. “I mean, I know this isn’t a democracy, but surely you’d benefit from advice from others of your rank.”

He nodded and called in the other squad leaders into a mini scrum. It lasted barely a minute and the stepped away, all nodding.

“We’ll try it your way,” Finn said, then sent a few of his subordinates after the platoon’s surveillance drones.

I wandered around the portal. Most of it was flat and featureless, but there was a range of hills in one particular direction, their peaks poking above the haze. They were maybe four or five miles away. I pointed it out. “What do you think?” I asked.

I could see the strain in him, but he nodded. “As good a place as anywhere,” he said.

It didn’t take long for the crates containing the drones to appear and be unpacked. Each contained a sizeable quad copter drone, a charging station and a controller, complete with screen, although a separate screen was included that showed multiple displays from up to nine drones. They only had the four which meant that the multiple displays showed more detail.

They shot through the portal and climbed, out of the reach of the vampires for one thing, above the haze for another. The army close to the portal were significantly reduced compared to what we’ seen in the morning. The pilots sent them whizzing towards the hills.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise to find the full army on the far side of the hill, complete with all the less pleasant characters in it, including the principal boss.

“Slightly more tempting target, don’t you think?” I asked.

“Yes, but...”

“Not what you were ordered to do. Sergeant, you need to focus.”

“I know. It’s like I can’t think past my original orders.”

“So maybe accept that you’ve been compromised and delegate your command.”

“To you, perhaps? You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Paranoia resurfacing.

“I was thinking one of the other Sergeants. Gates or Miller.”

“Gates maybe. But what if that thing comes over to the portal?” he pointed at the big bad.

“It’ll take him a minute or two to cover the distance which should give us time do something about it. You could always keep me in reserve if you like.”

I’d meant it as a joke but, from his expression, he wasn’t in the mood for such.

Fortunately, Sergeant Gates was a little more forgiving. He clapped Finn on the shoulder and smiled at me.

“Worth thinking about,” he said, “but for now, I think your idea has merit.” He turned to Finn. “Sergeant Finn, I’m relieving you on the grounds you may have been compromised, and I’m changing your original orders.” He turned to the missile controllers. “Clear targeting, he told them, and launch full spread at one second intervals. Aim them straight up once they’re on the other side.”

The missiles started disappearing into the hole in space.

Well, that got rid of my next suggestion. I’d wondered if it might be worth limiting how many we fired since we didn’t know the range or effectiveness of the blast. We were committed now.

The worry must have shown on my face because he grinned at me in what I suspected he thought was a reassuring manner. “Manual ballistic aiming,” he said. “missile one here,” he pointed at a spot on the map the drones had given us, “two here...” and so on until all missiles had been allocated.

“We probably won’t get all of them, but we should get him. By using all their fuel on the way up, they become a lot harder to spot on the way down. They have control surfaces – like mini wings – meaning we can kind of glide them down within about ten miles of where they go up.”

“Yeah, well as long as they land on the other side of that hill, I’m hoping that will be enough so they won’t affect the portal.”

We didn’t have long to wait. Even at a range of five miles, the explosions were impressive, the missiles first detonating to spread a fine mist of fuel into the atmosphere, then detonating a second time to ignite the fuel air mixture. With the missiles relatively evenly spread, the deadly mist covered a much wider space, creating a fireball several miles across.

“Did any of the drones survive that?” I asked, somewhat awestruck.

At a signal from Gates, another four drones shot through the portal and away. The level of destruction they showed was astonishing. Not a single creature remained standing. In fact, not a great many corpses remained. The only ones I could pick out were the manticores and the remains of the boss guy, all charred beyond any hope of survival.

“I guess vampires are supposed to be susceptible to fire,” I said.

“Yeah, demons not so much though,” Gates said. “I mean you’d think they’d be fireproof after coming from Hell, wouldn’t you?”

“Is that what we’re calling this planet? I shouldn’t go by medieval notions of Hell if I were you. Besides, he wouldn’t have moved most of his army if he hadn’t thought it was in danger.”

“Is that it then?” Gates asked. “Is it over?”

“Well, we do have a few thousand ordinary vamps milling about that side to deal with, as well as a digital clone of our enemy commander floating about in your computer systems over here.”

“Shit, I’d forgotten about him.”

“Apart from that, this is a window into a whole other planet. I’m guessing we’ve just destroyed the equivalent of one country’s army.”

“That doesn’t sound too encouraging either.”

“Except we have weapons we know will work against them. The real issue is the thing still in the computer here. He’s still in a position to cause us some serious problems.”

“What do we do?”

“Head for the comms tent for starters. I’m not sure what happens next. Oh, and disconnect this for now.” I held out my hand for the axe which the technician gave me on Finn’s nod. A simple twist removed the prism from the end of the haft, collapsing the portal.

I tossed the prism back to the technician. “Please don’t do anything with it,” I said.

“Yeah, just put it somewhere safe for now,” Finn added. His hand settled between my shoulder-blades, and he guided me out of the dome.