Infernal

Alex Jefferson hated Rip travel. Getting sucked up on one end and spat out the other while having your molecules torn apart and reassembled somewhere in the middle did not sit well with him. Instantaneous or not, he found the very idea unsettling to say the least.

The fact that he’d had to Rip twice in the last ten minutes—once from the Homeworld and then again from a Forward Operations Base—to get here did not abate his agitation.

“Where is he?” he asked the man before him. He was one of BanaTech’s agents in the field, part of a group of six, and was dressed in the uniform of a Sergeant under the command of ‘Devil’ Anse Hatfield. What passes for a uniform around here, anyway, Jefferson thought.

“He’s in the ravine, sir,” the man, Lieutenant Joshua Crowe if Jefferson’s memory served, said. He pointed to a narrow gully bordering the road. The road itself was filled with a motley collection of vehicles from Jeeps to troop transports. The lead Jeep had rolled over twice and looked more like a twisted rag than a military vehicle. Another was skewed across the road as if parked there by a drunk. Some were on fire, most disabled. All had the corpses of Hatfield’s men in or around them.

Intermittent gunshots could be heard up and down the road as the five remaining members of Crowe’s team mopped up Hatfield’s men.

“Is he dead?” Jefferson said, stepping towards the ravine.

“He is, sir,” Lieutenant Crowe said, following. “We tried to take him alive as you ordered, but he shot himself after we cut down his son.”

Jefferson kicked the arm of a fallen man out of his path as he walked. To his surprise, the man reached out with his hand and grabbed the leg of his BDU’s. He turned and peered at the man.

“Fuckin’ ’busher,” the man Richard would have recognized as private Thomas said.

“If you had the brains to speak proper English,” Jefferson said, “You’d know the correct word is ambusher, you podunk shit stain.” He shot the man between the eyes and kicked free of his hand.

“Amateurs,” he muttered.

Jefferson eyed Hatfield from the top of the ravine. The man’s uniform was covered in mud, with blood showing through where he’d been hit in the torso by several rounds. None of the wounds had been immediately fatal. Still, they were crippling shots and must have hurt like hell. As the Lieutenant had indicated, Hatfield had found the strength to raise the heavy Colt .45 he’d been carrying to his mouth and exit this life with some small amount of dignity.

“Relieve yourself, Lieutenant,” Jefferson said.

“Sir?”

“Take out your pecker,” Jefferson ordered, “and piss on that fucking traitor. Right on his face.”

“Uh,” the Lieutenant managed and fumbled at his fly, “Yes sir.”

Jefferson turned away; the sound of urine pattering into the ravine behind him as a man Jefferson recognized as Corporal Eric Starns came running up.

“They’re all dead sir,” he said.

“Has the RLP been recovered?”

“It has, but it’s shot to sh—,” the man hesitated, blushed, then continued. “Sorry, sir. It’s been rendered inoperable.”

“Very well,” Jefferson said, ignoring the slip. “How far are we from the target?”

“About seventeen miles, sir,” the Corporal said. “If Hatfield was searching for the target, he was looking in the wrong direction. It will take us a few hours to get there on foot.”

“Do we have a location on Farris yet?”

“No, sir,” the Corporal said. “The satellite is still only reading the Bledell woman at the farm. Either the older RLP they’re using hasn’t received the proper updates yet and is giving off false readings or he’s outside of our satellite’s tracking area.”

“That satellite, Corporal, has a tracking area of one-hundred and fifty square miles. No one could have gotten outside of that zone.”

“I would guess that he’s headed back into the fallout area, then, sir,” the Corporal said. “The residual electromagnetic interference is still mucking up the readings around there.

“Very well,” Jefferson said. Lieutenant Crowe had completed his commanding officer’s orders and joined the pair on the road.

“Lieutenant,” Jefferson said, “Round up your men and let’s get moving. I want to be at that farm by mid-morning.”

“Yes sir,” the Lieutenant responded and fired off a proper military salute. As he and the Corporal marched off to round up the rest of the ground force, Jefferson wondered about the Enigma Rip that the Cray’s had detected mere hours ago.

Had Farris fled, leaving the Bledell woman behind? It didn’t seem likely. The psychological profile cooked up by the QC’s, the very one he himself had used to locate Farris after the incident in Kansas, indicated that he had a protective streak that would keep him glued to her side if he felt her life was in danger; a ‘hero complex’, to put it into the QC’s terms, which rendered him incapable of abandoning someone in need.

Besides, the man was without an RLP and wouldn’t be able to find a Rip except by chance.

Unless the Enigma Rip was for him and him alone, he thought. To what end? Was the figure they called The Monk interfering with BanaTech affairs again? And just who was he? What was he, if he could manufacture Rips at will?

Jefferson tapped his throat mike twice and a burst of static buzzed in his ear followed by a voice: “Wilson.”

“This is Jefferson,” he said, for all the world looking as if he were talking to the air, “I need a ground vehicle. Something that can carry seven over rough terrain.”

“I can have a BVS 10 ‘Viking’ at your location in twenty minutes. Do you want the CV?”

Jefferson was familiar with the Viking; a boxy, amphibious, tracked vehicle with two cabs and an articulated steering system. The BVS 10 boasted a Cummings 5.9L diesel engine that delivered speeds of up to 40 miles per hour on even terrain. The command variant (CV) could carry two crew and up to eight passengers, with the rear cab designed as an enhanced digital communications platform.

“I do,” Jefferson said. “What armament is available?”

He heard light keystrokes as Wilson checked the database at the FOB before responding: “I have one action ready with a Browning M2A1 .50 caliber machine gun ring-mounted to the cab, forward grenade launchers, and rear mortars.”

“That should be sufficient,” Jefferson said. “Order it Ripped through immediately.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”

Jefferson thought for a moment. “Yes. Get the Elder on the line. I need his insight.”

“What is it, Tyro?” The Elder spoke in Jefferson’s ear. His voice was tinged with irritation and something else—fatigue? Weariness? Jefferson knew the search for the Key and the pursuit of Farris had aged the man more in the last year than he’d aged in the previous decade.

Your time is almost up, old man, he thought, his eyes narrowing, and once you’re gone and the Multi-verse is under my reign your foolish concept of unity will be dispensed with. These notions of harmony and accord through fiat and occupation will be abandoned. All Earths will fall in line under my command or I will crush them beneath my heels.

“You’re aware that we’ve had another event, sir,” Jefferson stated, allowing none of the malice his prior thoughts carried into his voice.

“Yes,” The Elder responded, as if it were of no more importance than a fly buzzing about ones ear.

“We’ve also confirmed that Farris is no longer with the Bledell woman.” Jefferson held his temper at his superior’s evident lack of concern while resisting the urge to scream at the man, “And that the Monk may be involved. I’ve ordered an immediate advance on the location of the Enigma Rip and the seizure of the Bledell woman.”

Silence. Then a heavy sigh issued from the earpiece of Jefferson’s tactical throat mike.

“Alex,” The Elder spoke firmly but kindly, as one would to an obstinate child. If the familiar use of his forename was intended to get his attention, it failed. It only served to anger Jefferson further. “You must learn patience. With patience comes the ability to see events before they unfold. To what end do you believe I would allow Farris to run around the Multi-verse meddling in our affairs? Only a fool would believe he could find the Key on his own. The Monk’s interference was expected and inevitable. He will deliver the Key to Farris. You and your men will advance on the farmhouse but you will take no further action until Farris returns. He will return for the woman, and when he does you will be waiting to take the child from him.”

Jefferson’s anger faded as he realized the pure genius—and simplicity—of the plan. The Elder was, as always, a shrewd and calculating leader. It was a quality he both admired and knew he himself lacked. His own methods were far more straightforward, far more aggressive in nature. As much as it frustrated him to do so, he had to admit that he still needed the Elder’s tutelage and guidance.

Even so, if this had been the Elder’s plan from the beginning, he, as second in command, should have been informed. He had a need—a right—to know the full details of every operation. And yet the Elder had not seen fit to trust him with the specifics until now.

Where there other efforts he had not been made aware of? Other affairs he was not a part of? He now suspected there was much he was not privy to. What else was the Elder not telling him?

“Understood,” Jefferson said simply. He would deal with his questions and suspicions after he had the Key in his possession and Farris was dead. After the Focal Point was opened. “We will proceed to the objective and wait. Jefferson out.”

As he turned to Lieutenant Crowe to order their return to the Rip site, his mind held a single thought: What other secrets were locked away in the aging mind of the most powerful man in the Multi-verse?

As the Elder severed the communications link to his Mirror a shadow appeared at his left shoulder.

That one is perceptive, it hissed in his ear. He suspects there is much you are not telling him. He could discover our true plans.

“And so what if he does?” The Elder responded. He rose from the console and walked to the window overlooking the surface of the Homeworld. The shadow remained at his side, moving like smoke in a darkened theatre. “His thinking is clumsy and brutish and his greed for power knows no bounds. He thinks me a weak old fool and is ready to kill me, to take my place as Elder. Only his loyalty to BanaTech and his lust for supremacy will prevent him from acting before we open the Focal Point. After that—what will it matter?”

You should not underestimate your subordinates. Or the Keepers. They have managed to thwart our efforts to regain our place in this realm for millennia.

“Ah, yes,” the Elder replied, “your inability to travel the Rips or assume corporeal form. It must be most frustrating for you. You have yet to enlighten me as to how mere men and women, Keepers or not, have hindered your progress on that front. Nevertheless, your ability to influence mankind has not been diminished. Nor has your appetite for destruction.”

It is not destruction we seek, the shadow insisted. We seek redemption.

“Redemption for the Infernal,” the Elder said simply. “Not for mankind.”

You, the shadow form seethed, and all of mankind are an aberration! The capricious act of an irrational being! You have no rights in this realm save those that we give you! No right to live in the light of the…

The Elder’s eyebrows had risen at the outburst. Not in fear, but in anticipation of what the creature would say next. No further words came and the shadow form shrank into the floor and was gone.

What had it been about to say? the Elder wondered. What revelation had it almost inadvertently made?

Had his interests lain elsewhere, he could have discovered the answer. The Infernal had, decades ago, entrusted a weighty tome to his keeping that they warned him never to open. Never to read. Within, they told him, lay knowledge beyond his comprehension. Their knowledge, and the knowledge of others. It would be a simple matter to have the book retrieved from the barren Earth he’d secreted it upon and set the Quantum-Cray’s to the task of deciphering the ancient text.

He’d never asked what the manuscript contained. He hadn’t then, and still did not care. Despite its obvious importance to the Infernal, the insistence that it remain hidden from the Keepers and whomever else the Infernal feared possessing it, the contents of the tome were irrelevant to him. His goal in this matter was the same as that of the Infernal.

A perfect Multi-verse; united as one under BanaTech rule.