Gibbs's shot missed the Malphen, and they all retaliated with returning fire. Their rifles emitted bursts of green energy, and Gibbs, Sloane, Fornell, and Sabakay all dove out of the way. Sabakay was the first to return to his feet, and the crevasse in the blade of his sword lit up in electric blue. Gibbs, Sloane, and Fornell watched, and Sabakay aimed his sword at the Malphen Tribe and fired off a blast of blue electrical energy.
The Malphen dove down, and the energy crashed into them, blasting out smoke and flames that concealed them.
"Oh, that's a neat trick," Fornell said, observing the damage with wide eyes.
"Go!" Gibbs commanded. "Go, move in!"
Fornell, Sloane, and Sabakay immediately complied, moving in on the Malphen. However, the Malphen were starting to get back to their feet, and they fired on the ART and Sabakay. Sabakay swung his sword several times to intercept the incoming gunfire, and meanwhile Fornell and Sloane were forced to duck down to evade the shots. Gibbs lined up his rifle and took a shot, hitting one of the Malphen in the shoulder and knocking him off his feet. Fornell and Sloane let off a barrage of gunfire from their pistols, which forced the other two Malphen into cover.
Gibbs kept the Malphen Tribe covered, unable to mount a counteroffensive while Sloane, Fornell, and Sabakay steadily closed in on them. Sabakay fired another blast of electrical energy, and this time the Malphen ran out of the way while the entire hilltop was blasted apart in flames. Fornell, Sloane, and Sabakay spread out among the three downed Malphen, keeping them under gun so that they couldn't counterattack.
"Alright," Fornell said. "It's time to put this little campaign of yours on hold."
"I'm not sure what grudge you hold with Sabakay," Sloane added, "but you need to forgo it for now. Our job is to find out how to get all of you home safely."
Gibbs walked towards them, his rifle held in both hands, observing the situation. "When Jack and Sarah did this, Theas had a portal ready for them."
Everyone exchanged looks, and it didn't seem any of the seven of them had an appropriate response.
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, the Malphen Leader said, "I don't understand." His companions seemed to agree with him, and he said, "Where are we? I assumed our teleporter had sent us astray, but there seems to be something more to the situation."
"Well, that's an astute assessment," Fornell agreed.
"And yet you are also displaced?" asked one of the other Malphen.
"Yeah," Gibbs answered.
"It's a different situation," Sloane explained. "We're here on an extended basis, contracted to help beings like yourselves find their way home."
"Yes, and that is predicated on you and Sabakay not ripping each other to pieces," Fornell added.
The Malphen Tribe gave Sabakay mutinous looks, which he returned in full measure. Gibbs looked between the two sides with a bemused grin, and he caught Sloane's eye.
"How do you get us home? What's your process?" Sabakay asked, looking between the three members of the ART.
Gibbs, Sloane, and Fornell exchanged awkward looks.
"We're, ah, we're still a bit new at this," Fornell told him.
"We're working on it," Gibbs supplied.
Sabakay just had time to take on a thoughtful expression when a bright, white light shone across the landscape. The whole group looked around in surprise, and before anyone could move, Sabakay and the Malphen Tribe vanished. The white light dissipated. The members of the ART looked around, but there was no sign of the Anomalies.
"Well, it looks like Theas did the job for us. I guess that makes things easy," Fornell stated.
Sloane nodded, but Gibbs stared at the spot where Sabakay disappeared, his eyes narrowed in a suspicious scowl.
"Look, all I'm saying is this seems a bit extreme," Kyle said to Luca.
Luca shrugged in agreement as they stood at a work table in the lab, overlooking the product of several days of work. Luca looked around at Admiral McGee, who sat in a chair at a desk nearby, and Luca asked, "What do you think about all this?"
McGee looked around at the devices surrounding him and said, "If you're gonna fight a war, you need weapons."
"And that's exactly the point."
Luca, Kyle, and McGee all looked around as Theas walked into the lab.
"What's the word?" Admiral McGee asked.
"Jack is discharged, Sarah is bringing him home now," Theas answered without looking at the Admiral. He typed on his watch and opened a portal, allowing Gibbs, Sloane, and Fornell to return.
"Hey," Fornell said to Theas. "That was a nice move there. Very slick."
Theas raised an eyebrow to him. "What are you talking about?"
Gibbs's eyes narrowed again, but he remained silent.
"With the Anomalies," Sloane clarified. "You sent them all back to where they came from."
"Wait," Theas said, looking confused. "You were supposed to figure out where exactly they came from and take them to that exact spot. The breach in universal boundaries would have automatically sent them home. Is that what you did?"
Gibbs, Fornell, and Sloane all exchanged bewildered expressions.
"No," Gibbs answered.
Theas stared at them, mouth hanging half-open. Jack and Sarah walked in at that moment, and Luca, McGee, and Kyle all gave them brief acknowledgement. Theas continued to maintain eye contact with Gibbs, Fornell, and Sloane, however the arrival of Jack and Sarah seemed to make him change course. He looked around at the crowd, and he said, "Luca, I have to run an errand. You know how everything works, right? Just go over what we talked about, and I'll be back later if they have any questions."
Luca nodded, although he still looked a bit apprehensive. Kyle was avoiding eye contact with Theas, and meanwhile Theas opened a portal and stepped through it. The group of people watched the portal as it disappeared, and it was several seconds before anyone looked at each other.
JACK FOSSE:
"What's up?" I asked, looking around the room. "What was Theas talking about?"
"Well," Luca said, looking at the pile of objects on the table next to him. I hadn't noticed it before, and as my eyes widened, he said, "We've been working on some new things."
The rest of us watched, and he reached into the pile and pulled out a large, silver gun. It looked almost identical to Gibbs's sniper rifle, but it had a second barrel under the first and an upgraded scope. Luca offered the gun to Gibbs, who surveyed it with some confusion. He looked back up at Luca, silently questioning him for answers.
"The ammunition was upgraded, adapted to deal more damage to the Spatial Hunters," Luca explained.
"Okay," Gibbs said. He eyed the second barrel and asked, "What's this do?"
Luca pressed a button on a remote controller sitting on the table and pointed to a wall. We all looked around, and the wall vanished to reveal an enormous, cavernous firing range with destructible targets and large, moving blocks of steel.
I leaned in to my wife and whispered, "If we ever go to sell this place, our markup's going to be ridiculous."
Luca motioned for Gibbs to step up to the firing range, and Gibbs nodded while walking forward. He checked the ammunition in his rifle, and Luca pressed another button on the remote. One of the targets, a bullseye about three feet in diameter, lit up bright red. Gibbs placed his rifle on the table between him and the range, and he took aim. His rhythmic breathing allowed him to steady himself, and we all watched as he fired a shot. The shot splintered the target, blasting it to pieces that cascaded across the firing range.
"Okay," Gibbs said, grinning. "I guess that worked."
"Uh-huh," Luca agreed. He pressed another button on the remote. Another target lit up, and Luca said, "Flip the lever. Right there."
He pointed, and Gibbs found the small switch on the handle of the gun, right next to his thumb. Gibbs flipped the lever, and a mechanical clanking sound came from the weapon. He then took aim and fired another shot. This time, the target remained intact. A small, metal device attached to it that we could barely see. Luca again pressed a button on the remote, and a large steel slab taller than me rose up between Gibbs and the target.
Gibbs chuckled and said, "Okay. What now?"
A target a few feet to the right of the one that Gibbs hit lit up. "Aim for that one," Luca advised.
Gibbs nodded and took aim. After a few seconds, he fired his shot. The bullet produced a purple tracer light that created a line along the bullet's flight path. This was the only thing that made visible its path through the air, curving around to obliterate the first target that Gibbs tagged. Gibbs looked out from his scope, his jaw hanging open and his eyes wide. This reaction was shared by Fornell, Sarah, and me.
I looked around at Luca and asked, "How the hell'd you manage that?"
"Well, we all worked together on it," Luca explained. "The Admiral identified problems you might face in the field. Sloane mapped out possible solutions. Kyle and I developed the upgrades."
I looked at Kyle, who was avoiding eye contact with anyone. "I thought you worked at an animal hospital," I said to him.
Kyle shrugged. "I took some engineering classes in college. I know my way around a mechanic's garage."
"Ah, don't let that boy undersell himself," Admiral McGee demanded. "Both of these two were breathtaking. Most outstanding work I've ever seen. I wish the Navy had a hundred of them."
Kyle looked down in embarrassment, but even through the reddening of his cheeks, I could see the tiniest of grins.
"I see," Fornell said, looking between each of the members of the Research and Investigation team. "And what else have you been working on in this cave?"
"Well, we upgraded the pistols that each of us carry," Luca answered. "That way they're lighter and easier to aim. I know I had a lot of trouble with it when I used it against Algaltha. And even as Kyle and I have practiced on the range, we still have difficulties with them."
"That's smart," Sarah commented.
Luca distributed silver pistols to Kyle, McGee, and Sloane, while holstering one at his own waist. He then grabbed an assault rifle and strode towards Fornell. Fornell took the weapon, examining it. It was silver, like all of our other weapons, and it had a strip of purple across the face of it, leading from the chamber to the edge of the barrel.
Fornell grinned at Luca. "And what fancy tricks does this one have?" he asked.
Luca stepped aside, giving the floor to Kyle. "Kyle was the one who designed most of this. He should be the one to tell it."
Kyle cleared his throat, and he gave a nervous glance around at the rest of us. "So, that gun has two firing modes. You have your standard automatic rifle, and then you have a Tri-Shot Blitz."
"Ooh," Fornell said, looking around excitedly. "A Tri-Shot Blitz, huh? That sounds dangerous."
"Um, it is," Kyle assured him nervously. He motioned towards the firing range, and Fornell walked over to take Gibbs's place. Gibbs and Fornell exchanged mischievous grins, and Fornell aimed his rifle at the target that lit up for him.
"Ah," Kyle interjected, "you're not going to want to do that." Fornell looked around at him in confusion, and Kyle pointed to one of the steel walls. Fornell looked incredulously at his weapon. "Pull the lever forward," Kyle advised.
Fornell grabbed the lever on the side of the barrel, doing as instructed. Afterwards, he pulled the trigger. Out of the barrel of his gun erupted a trifecta of blasts of conglomerated purple energy. The first one impacted, gouging out a large chunk of the metal. The second blast hit, more powerful than the first, creating fractures all across the steel surface. The third blast hit, blasting the entire wall apart and sending hot metal cascading across the firing range.
"Oh," Fornell groaned. "Oh, this is nice." He then looked around at Gibbs and said, "Why don't we have these back home?"
Gibbs chuckled and said, "You, Fornell. You're the reason we don't have them."
Fornell shrugged, and Kyle and Luca continued. Luca motioned for me to step over, and I did so. I pulled my collapsed bow off of a sling on my back, pressing a button to cause it to expand into full form. I set it down on the table between myself and Luca, and he pulled from the array of weapons a new quiver full of arrows. I grinned appreciatively while picking up the quiver and securing it to my back.
"There's a lot to play with in there," Luca told me. "Try a couple of them out now and get a feel for them. You can get a better understanding of them as you work with the bow."
I nodded, drawing an arrow and nocking it. I aimed it at a target situated between two others. I took aim, my computerized scope locking onto the target at hand, and I released the drawstring. The arrow flew, leaving a trail of purple light behind it, and it made contact with the target. The instant it did so, the arrow expelled a burst of energy on either side of it that bisected the two adjacent targets, leaving them to crash into the ground.
"Oh, that's nice," I declared. I glanced around at Sarah, seeing that she was observing me with a bemused grin.
"Try another one," Luca suggested.
I did so, drawing a second arrow and firing it. This hit a steel wall and blasted it apart in an energized explosion. Purple energy and fire erupted outward from the impact, causing shards of metal to disperse across the firing range.
"Damn," I said, gazing at the result with awe.
Luca then pointed at Sarah, who walked over to him, looking apprehensive. Luca handed her an upgraded version of the assault rifle she had procured from the Universal Keepers when they first came to our home.
"So, you also have two firing options," Luca explained. "Your normal assault rifle mode, and then a high-density energy beam."
"Yeah, that'll punch its way through a tank if you need it to," Kyle added.
Sarah took the rifle with ginger hands, and she nodded in tentative gratitude to the pair of them.
"Yeah, we also developed new phones for each of us, along with wireless headsets," Kyle informed us. He set a box down on the table and opened it, showing a rack of eight smartphones inside. Along the lid of the box were eight pairs of black earbuds. "These do a few different things," Kyle explained. "First, they work in this universe so that we can all talk to each other."
"What about the phones Sarah and I already have?" I asked.
"Those won't work with these," Kyle answered. "These are on their own network that are isolated from the rest of this world. The benefit to that is people can't listen in on our conversations when we don't want them to. Being able to communicate in the field without interference is going to make our jobs way easier."
We all stepped forward to grab a new smartphone. Gibbs was far more apprehensive about this than anyone else. Sloane gave him some nonverbal encouragement, and he grabbed his phone from the box. Several of us scrolled through them. The user interface wasn't unlike others I had used. There was access to calls, SMS, and the Internet, as well as a camera, map, and GPS.
I looked up at Luca and Kyle, nodding in gratitude, and I walked over to Sarah while she browsed her new device. A portal opened in the lab, and we all looked around as Theas stormed in. He looked quite distressed, and he looked around at us, eyeing Gibbs, Sloane, and Fornell in particular.
"What's happened?" Sloane asked.
Theas took several deep breaths, and he said, "I investigated those Anomalies you went after and what happened to them."
"Wait," Fornell said, stepping forward. "I thought you sent them home."
Theas stared at him before shaking his head. "The Keepers had nothing to do with it."
Admiral McGee rose from his chair, taking a step towards Theas on his cane. "What does that mean?"
"Was it the Hunters?" I asked.
"No," Theas answered, looking flummoxed. "No, the Anomalies that disappeared, they didn't go back to their own universe, and they weren't killed. They're…they're just gone. They don't exist."