It was raining hard at 10 pm. This time saw the arrival of a new character at the downtown London bar. He had on him a wide felt hat, a massive turncoat and freshly shined leather shoes. These attributes of his conspired to acquire the attention of most of the establishment's occupants, if even just for an infinitesimal moment of time, before their eyes were recovered by the television, whose display brought forth news that a great dragon had just been downed by Royal Air Force F-35s.
Wesley DaSilva was a detective for the NYPD, but out of interest he decided to visit the Other West, to the area where the anomalies were most densely concentrated. Yes, the "anomalies," or "God's Extended April Fools' Joke" as some rightist fucktard had called it. They began five years ago, March 23, 2009 – Hell Monday. You had your share of land-forming hurricanes that magically formed in about ten minutes, your slow-flying meteors, one of which nevertheless managed to bring down the whole fucking Empire State in one stroke, and then there were the more "anomalous" ones, like the dragon mentioned on TV. They'd all be preceded by the same blue flash of light, and a bit more activity far too quick to be registered fully by the human eye. Fast-exposure recordings of the flashes saw strange blue discs opening up, then whatever was to follow coming down, streaking iridescence as it, or they, fell. Then, of course, chaos.
All of this was interesting to all because it happened to all. No matter where you were in the globe – Canada, Australia, Russia, hell, the Aleutians – something will already have happened to you. And oddly enough, the occurrences only happened to populated areas. Dead places like the Sahara and Atacama were observed to be relatively safe zones. That tipped some off to go there. Or rather, that tipped a lot off to go there. In 2012 a migration of over a hundred thousand people off the most heavily filled cities moved to the center of the Atacama Desert. How that move was executed is still a logistical mystery, but the main problem lies in what happened afterward. About a month after everyone was settled down, a huge, horned cyborg creature with a frighteningly large missile launcher for an arm materialized among the prefab structures and proceeded to level the little town, all attempts to knock the bastard over defeated with ease. Everyone died – everyone, and the "Cyberdemon" was only destroyed later with a rapidly (and shoddily) assembled 32 megaton nuclear warhead. Seemed like there were no set places of damage, and it was presence of people that drew the wrath of God's Extended April Fools' Joke.
Anyway, back to DaSilva. After the Empire State Building incident, he left New York for London. The UK was being hit an average of two times a week, it was said, so the prospect of finding out what the hell was going on was much better over there. But in actuality there was also another reason for the UK as his choice. After all, Ukraine had problems at least once every other day, and everything from flying serpents to clones of Nessie were to be summarily discovered. Even France, quite nearby, was a better choice. But it was the presence of someone there who would probably understand these events better that brought him to the region.
The clamor all around him was deafening. Wesley DaSilva perceived the saturnalia as wild elephants on strychnine, and despite the apparent metaphorical quality to this absurd comparison, the affinity between the two factors was really quite close. Of course, this bizarre acoustic amplification was nothing more than a classic demonstration of alcoholic psychotropy, because DaSilva was drinking, perhaps to an extent beyond that which creates illusory figments. He continued to inebriate herself at the bar with draught after contiguous draught, further warping his senses and deconstructing his reason to the point that he lost all ability to support himself and finally collapsed, lying slumped over the bar table.
Terrible headache. But it was better than what happened to some kid in school the day before. After all, over a hundred tons of dragon would smack anyone around pretty bad, wouldn't it?
It was 9 am. Drinking again, obviously, he thought. But after he lost his wife to a meteor, depression was no unusual thing to him. He'd drown himself in liquor to ease the pain. Bad choice sometimes.
It was time for him to get back to business. He knew no one else in this hellhole other than the woman he'd called a week before to schedule an interview. In these times of great peril and still complete incomprehensibility, there was that one woman who'd been through quite similar things before – so she said in her spots on TV, and many believed her adventures to be totally fabricated; but what drives a rich, pretty, and highly intelligent woman to get out the guns and fight off bad guys? To collect artifacts, even. And if all her life was bullshit, well, there isn't anyone else who can create stuff like what you'd see in her personal gallery.
DaSilva'd been there, of course. The woman was an old friend of his; he'd done her a good favor bailing her out with some incident over in the Great Wall of China. Rich girl, as mentioned. Damn good-looking, too. But it wasn't time to think of those things. Right now, Wesley DaSilva was going to pay a visit to the Countess of Abbingdon. You'd have to go a thousand miles from an asphalt road not to know her name. Lara Croft's a pretty famous person, isn't she?
A little odd how the whole point of him being in London was to get to the outskirts of London. He was picked up, as scheduled, by the limousine sitting near the Square. When he got to his destination, well, even if he'd been there somewhere close to a dozen times, the initial shock never seemed to go away.
Croft Mansion was big. 289 rooms over 17 sectors and a freaking hedge maze that could've had a mansion of its own. That was big. As in, Spruce Goose big, or Burj Dubai big. This was a clear example of someone trying to show the world how long his dick was, or with respect to a possible female builder, how wide (deep?) her cunt was.
The gates swung open before the limo was in any viewing range from them. The chauffeur stopped by the comparatively small front door of the palatial estate, and dropped DaSilva off there. He knocked thrice on the door. It was answered by Miss Croft herself, though through the speaker above the frame.
"Why, Mr. DaSilva," she expressed. "You're early. Rather unusual for you, I must say."
"Is that a problem?" DaSilva asked.
"Not at all. I'm actually quite pleased by this turn of events, seeing as I would've had nothing to do whatsoever until the designated time of your arrival. Do come in."
The door swung open. The interior of the house, vast and beautiful, sucked him in, and none of his steps into the house were voluntarily taken. Every square centimeter of floor area was covered in some rich carpeting. Tapestries of inconceivable worth were spread out among the walls. And floating just below the ceiling, holographically projected, were replicas of famous paintings, one of them being the image of Lady Croft herself.
Lara Croft entered the room looking quite blindingly resplendent. DaSilva could hear the deep voiceover now, as he'd in jest practiced, from all the B-movies, satires and spoofs about detectives. The broad entered the room swiftly and quietly. As if she was simply gliding over the floor. She had long, brunette hair in braids, and wore a scarlet satin number that cut through the formality of the place like a newly tempered jackknife through butter. She spoke in a tone that saw her happy to see me, but I knew that there was something up. The dame knew that I knew too.
"Lady Croft," he said, kissing her hand in a rather awkward fashion. "Am I doing this right?"
She laughed. "It's Lara, you idiot." She pulled her hand away. "And no, it's not right. And I don't think you ever will get it right, so stop trying."
"Right. Just trying to hit on royalty."
"Oh, shut up."
They moved to a pair of lounge chairs by a roaring fireplace. The grill in front cast flickering, radial black bars in the golden surf of the fire's light. Burning embers, so miniscule as to resemble gold dust, flew off the wooden logs, and disappeared in the blaze seconds after their flight. Between the two chairs, on a coffee table were a silver tray, two pitchers, and two glasses.
"Tea, Mr. DaSilva," she said and pointed at the first pitcher. "Or a good old Pepsi?" She motioned to the second.
"It's Wesley. And the Pepsi will do fine, thanks." She poured the black liquid into my glass. He drank it and immediately spat it out. "This is black tea."
"Oh my goodness," she quickly said. "I'm terribly sorry." But she was snickering a bit beneath her voice.
"Very funny, Lara."
"Just like old times. So, what brings you here to my modest little dwelling?"
"Who hasn't heard the news?"
"Certainly not me." She swept up a glove off the table and motioned to the ceiling. One of the projected screens glided in front of the two. It looked to be about seventy inches diagonally across. "Archive, news," she said. "Categorized under 'April Fools' Joke." The screen, previously fixed to an image of the Mona Lisa, shifted to a rapid play of thumbnails, miniaturized images and videos of all the anomalies that had occurred since Hell Monday.
"What are you thinking, Wesley?"
"I'm here to ask you that, Lara."
"Why me? S'not as if I'd know any better than some random passersby on the street."
"You've been through similar stuff, haven't you? That T-Rex in China, the business with the big spider thing up in Antarctica…"
"Right, of course, those adventures. Well, they're done now, are they not? I don't have anything to do with this. I basically don't know shit."
"Well, you don't know anything at all?"
She sighed. "Persistent fellow, aren't you? That's a good sign. Come here."
They were in the ballroom. The place was filled. Not with dancers but with technicians and equipment. LIDAR plates, gamma arrays, and some stuff DaSilva couldn't even pronounce. There they saw Zip running towards Croft. Zip the computer expert. Zip the techie. Zip the geek.
"Jesus, Lara, you won't believe it-" He was panting.
"Easy now, Zip! This is Wesley DaSilva."
He shook DaSilva's hand. "Pleasure."
"Pleasure's all mine," DaSilva responded.
"You two have met before, I suspect," Croft spoke.
"Oh, yes of course. You helped out our dear girl with that incident in Nevada, didn't you?"
DaSilva nodded. "China as well."
"Right then," Croft interjected. "What were you saying when I came in, Zip?"
"You know that mild EMS outburst you told us to look for? The one that comes right before the flash? Well, we got our little fucker calibrated for the job, and it's been picking up signals from halfway across the globe! These outbursts stick out like a husky among Rots. I'm surprised SatComm or even SatellaView aren't seeing anything. Hell, I'm surprised Google Earth isn't predicting these bitches!"
"What do we do, Zip?"
"We just need to link up to the sats and then we'll be recording the locations. I've got a couple of favors up there in NORAD, and I'm thinking that some AWACS birds could be rigged to handle the machinery."
"So what's the average frequency?"
"It varies, but it looks like it's got a bias towards a very specific number. 2.453GHz."
"You mean microwave frequency?"
"Yeah."
"AWACS might have base microwave checkup support. All right, call in those favors, and tell me what you have when this whole damn operation is done. And try to get NASA on the line. I don't give a damn about lawsuits or NSA; hack into their lines if you have to."
DaSilva and Croft walked across the room. Computers were being set up and collector dishes were being hauled outside to be assembled. DaSilva spoke after a while. "You've been busy, I see."
"Yes. After most of the major observatories were blown up and we lost a lot of personnel, we decided to get out own equipment. I'm funding all of this, of course." She smiled.
"Amazing. But what about the possibility of this place getting blown up as well? It's the same safety issues as…well, pretty much anywhere."
"You forget, sir, that a nature-defying 100 percent of the time, these events only take place in heavily populated areas. Remember that little city in Canada? Very, very densely populated, and the place was hit over and over again. At least once a day, it's said, though not all incidents were recorded. After the one-week mass evacuation, the city was blank, almost empty save for a few nomads and squatters. And immediately, almost magically, nothing happened to that city anymore. We're pretty much away from all the trouble, and we always keep the number of persons per square kilometer at a low minimum. Of course, if all else fails, Croft Mansion has a subterranean network as well."
"You've pretty much thought of everything, haven't you, Lara?"
Croft had been talking quite enthusiastically until then, but now she was suddenly morose and reflective. She sighed. "No. People still die. I just try as hard as I can. We're here to minimize deaths, not prevent them. I'll have thought of everything when I've helped in stopping these fucking horrible things."
"You think they can be stopped?"
"I hope."
Zip's voice rang out in the room. "Lara! Check this out!"
"What's going on now?" came Croft's reply.
"We've got something off the east coast. It's got the trademark gammas but something else came out with a strange looking IR sig."
"Put it onscreen."
The holographic screen at the ballroom stage flashed to life. Looked like the silhouette of some kind of aircraft.
"They're transmitting radio too," said Zip. "We've got audio."
"What? What's in there?"
"Well, they speak English."