CHAPTER 14: DOUBT THE SYSTEM
We all gathered in the lab, sitting in the various chairs interspersed throughout the machinery. It struck me that this was the first time we had all been together since our numbers had grown so much. Sarah and I sat on the outer perimeter of the group. She held my hand while I held an ice pack to the side of my head. Theas was in the very center of the room, and immediately surrounding him were Gibbs, Fornell, Sloane, and Luca. Admiral McGee, Kyle, and Rob were there as well.
"So…so, walk me through this again," Luca said, seeming to struggle with everything he had just heard. "This lady just came in and took the Focal Inverter. She just took it, like it was no big deal?"
"She's my supervisor in the Keepers," Theas told him. "She has that authority."
"Well that's something of a problem, wouldn't you agree?" Fornell said.
"Your concerns are valid," Theas conceded. "Unfortunately, it's entirely out of my hands."
"You might have mentioned that you were at risk of having that thing confiscated," Gibbs said.
"Maybe you're right, but to be honest, I really didn't want to add to the stress you were already facing if I didn't have to," Theas admitted.
"And yet, you knew you were risking losing the Inverter when you used it?" Sloane clarified.
Theas stared uncomfortably at her and nodded. "Yes, I knew what would happen. I guess my…humanity got the better of me. Saving Alexandersen looked like the priority at the time."
"Where is Agent Alexandersen now?" Admiral McGee asked.
"Heading back to D.C.," I answered.
"Whoa, what's he going to say when he gets there?" the admiral asked.
"What can he say?" Kyle said. "Even if he told his superiors about all this, he has no evidence."
"That's beside the point," Sarah intervened. "We lost the Inverter. That's not good."
"She's right," Gibbs agreed.
"We need to come up with a plan for moving forward from here," Fornell added. "One that doesn't find one or multiple of us being disemboweled."
"Well, I would say our plan is out," McGee countered. We all looked at him with various expressions of surprise. The admiral stood his ground, and he said, "I'm serious. If we go up against Algaltha again, if he comes back here, he could kill every one of us and we won't do a damn thing about it. My vote is we cut our losses and leave."
"I have to admit, we're looking a little shorthanded after our encounter with that guy," Sloane agreed.
"Somebody still has to fix the hole in our house," Sarah injected.
"Listen, guys," Theas said, trying to pacify us all at once. "I know things look bad right now."
"Bad?" Admiral McGee said with a scoff. "Algaltha may not have brought that other girl here last time, but what happens if they both come here? You all had enough on your hands with just him."
No one argued with him. Not even Theas.
Rob looked around uncomfortably before speaking up for the first time. "Look, I still don't understand much about what's going on around here, but you all have fought this Algaltha guy before, right? I mean, how powerful is he?"
"The only one who can answer that is Theas," Sarah said.
"Yeah, we didn't so much beat him as make him rage quit," I added. "Well, more specifically, she did." I poked a thumb in Sarah's direction, and she looked rather dignified about the whole thing.
"And he seemed a hell of a lot tougher this time than he did back then," Gibbs said. All of us who fought Algaltha back then, Luca, Sloane, Sarah, and I, all nodded in agreement.
"Algaltha is a Kill Commander," Theas expained. "That means he's in charge of a Kill Team consisting of three to five Hunters. We don't know much about the Spatial Hunters' structural organization, but these Kill Teams are like your infantry soldiers. They're the basic fighters the Hunters deploy in a battle. They're also typically tasked with hunting down Anomalies."
"Oh, that's really comforting," Gibbs said.
"So, are you saying there are Hunters who are more powerful than him?" Sloane asked, flabbergasted.
"Way more powerful," Theas confirmed. "But there's no point worrying about that right now. We should focus on how to take down Algaltha."
"Well, it's a numbers game," Admiral McGee said. "He's more powerful than any of us, so we need to amass as big of a squadron as possible to fight him."
I did a headcount. "So, right now, if we take him on, there are six of us against him."
"Oh, I wouldn't be quite so disparaging about it," Admiral McGee said.
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.
Admiral McGee rose to his feet. His cane lay abandoned against the table next to him, and he stood tall and strong, as though he had discovered the fountain of youth in a storage closet.
"My body's getting stronger every day. Miss Sloane has been very graciously helping me with some physical training. When we go to take that son of a bitch on, I want a piece too," he said.
Sarah and I stared at him, and Gibbs and Fornell both had bemused grins.
"Yeah," Luca said, to the awed shock of everybody in the room. "Kyle and I have been talking, and we both agree it wouldn't be right of us to sit out of that fight."
"Luca," Sloane said, "honey, that's not necessary."
"Yes it is," Kyle said. I was surprised by the determination in their tones. "This fight impacts all of us. It's on all of us to contribute."
"Yeah," Rob said. "What they said. Uh-huh."
I wasn't entirely sure he knew what he had just agreed to, but it was a heck of a morale boost.
"Ten it is, then," Fornell said. "I like those odds a lot better." He then turned to Theas and said, "You said you know where his hideout is, correct?"
"That's right," Theas confirmed. "I can take you there whenever we feel we're ready."
"Well, I don't think that time is now," Sloane said. "Most of you are still pretty banged up from Algaltha's attack."
There was no denying this. Most of the people in this room were still nursing injuries from the assault.
"Here's a question for you," Gibbs said. "Why does he keep retreating?" We all looked around at him. "Both times he attacked us, he retreated. He could have killed us today, and we all know it, so why didn't he? I could have bought him being surprised by Sarah having the Keeper gun the first time, but that doesn't explain this time."
"Look, man, I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert on Hunter psychology," Theas said. "If I had to put money on it, I'd say his intention in coming here wasn't to kill. If anything, it was reconnaissance. He was probably sent by Hunters higher up the chain to get a read on our progress. The more Anomalies we gather, the more antsy it makes them, so it would make sense that they want to form a response."
"Well, we need to form a response first," Fornell said. "Rather that's attacking him first or making sure he can't get to us so easily here."
"I think I have some ideas for that," Luca said. "R and I will work on some countermeasures for an attack against us here."
Fornell nodded, and I glanced at Sarah to see that her expression mirrored my relief.
"Well, that works out," Theas said. "While R and I is busy with that, I've got a job for ART."
Fornell, Gibbs, Sarah, and I all looked around at him.
"There's a Microbreach," Theas announced. "I don't have details. I'll send you there now. Gather intel and send the Microbreach back home. Oh, and I'd suggest some haste so this one doesn't succumb to the same fate as last time."
Theas wasn't being accusatory with this comment, but it still added a layer of stress to the atmosphere of the room. He opened a portal, and the four of us walked through.
We came out, and I looked around at a vast jungle that stood in the shadow of an enormous mountain covered in greenery. The whole scene was given a kind of ethereal glow in the rising sun.
"Where the hell are we?" Fornell asked, looking around in awe.
Sarah pulled out her phone and looked at a map. "Vanuatu," she answered.
"Excuse me?" Gibbs said.
"I've never heard of it," I stated.
"Yeah, I don't think too many people on our side of the world have," Sarah said. She scrolled through her phone and explained, "It's a tiny island nation near Australia. I could sit here all day and look up cool facts about it, and I'd be perfectly pleased the whole time. But that wouldn't accomplish our goal."
We nodded, and we looked around. There didn't seem to be much in the way of direction here. All sides of us were closed in by dense wildlife. We listened to the calls of many different birds and bugs, and the soft breeze that made its way through the growth was comfortable.
"Where are we even supposed to start?" Gibbs asked.
"I don't know. You think that mountain has any Microbreaches?" I asked.
Sarah looked down at her map and said, "That's Mount Tabwemasana."
"Oh, you're way better at that than I am," Fornell commented.
"It's the tallest mountain in the country, and one of the tallest in this region of the world," she explained.
"It's going to be a few days to walk there, and that's assuming the forest doesn't slow us down," Gibbs observed.
"Yeah, and Theas doesn't usually spit us out so far away from whatever we're supposed to deal with," Sarah agreed.
"Come on, let's start walking," I suggested. "Whatever is going on, I doubt it'll stay hidden for long."
The three of them agreed, and we started moving. The forest was thick and difficult to navigate through. Within minutes, we were sweating profusely on top of tripping over gnarled roots and thickets of thorn-filled branches.
"You know," Fornell grunted, "Diane always wanted to take us on a tropical vacation. I don't think this is what she had in mind." He growled in pain as a thorny branch scraped his knuckle. "Look at this. Even after she's gone she still gets to laugh her ass off at me."
We all laughed at this, but as we continued our progress, the tone of the group became more grim.
"What's your take?" I asked Gibbs. He grunted, and I clarified, "On Daak. The Focal Inverter."
"Well," Gibbs said as he took a massive step over a bush. "There's not much to say on it. She took the Inverter. We don't have it. What else is there to talk about?"
"I know what I say," Fornell interjected. "That Daak lady is trying to sabotage us."
"Really? You think?" Sarah said, genuinely taken aback.
"It crossed my mind, too," Gibbs agreed.
Sarah looked at me, and I shrugged. This thought had not occurred to me whatsoever.
"Why would she do that?" I asked.
"Prejudice," Gibbs answered.
"A bunch of universe-traveling superhumans with the greatest technological achievements you could ever think of," Fornell stated. "You know she sees us as beneath her."
Sarah and I exchanged looks–neither of us could argue with this pronouncement.
"Yeah, I'll bet she thinks that whatever is going on, whatever's sending us from our universe to yours, that lady thinks her people should be the ones to solve it," Gibbs said.
"But does that really make sense?" Sarah asked. "Theas had to get approval for us to work for the Keepers. I assume that would come through her."
"Maybe, but he didn't say how willingly that approval was granted," Fornell said. "He may very well have had the fight of his life to get that to happen."
Sarah shrugged, conceding on this point. I had no further counterarguments.
"Whatever the answer is," Gibbs said, "that lady has her own agenda. We just have to wait on her to play her hand."
We continued our trek through the forest, and there didn't seem to be a sign of civilization to be had.
"Are there people on this island?" Fornell asked.
"Not even half a million," Sarah answered, her voice strained from the effort of moving.
The trees over us rustled. We all came to an abrupt stop and looked around, staring up into the trees overhead. Whatever was up there, it was large.
"Are there panthers in this forest?" Fornell asked.
"No," Sarah answered. "There isn't much more than birds and bats."
"That's no bat," Gibbs said.
We all drew our weapons. I nocked an arrow while Gibbs, Sarah, and Fornell aimed their respective rifles. The trees continued to quiver, and leaves and branches rained down. The thing causing it was indeed about the size of a panther, but it made no other sound.
We all held our ground, and then the trees erupted with the force of a creature barreling down on top of us. We all opened fire, but my arrow missed as the furry thing crashed into Gibbs, knocking him off his feet. I backed away while reloading, and Fornell and Sarah both opened fire. The creature was agile, successfully evading all of the shots as it scampered across the tree trunks.
Fornell helped Gibbs to his feet, and we all looked around. It was several seconds before we could get a good look at the thing. It looked like a squirrel, but it was the size of a German shepherd. It had glowing, red eyes, coarse fur that stuck out like pineneedles, and two large front teeth as it growled mutinously. Its tail was long and bushy, and it stamped against the tree trunk it stood on.
"This might just be the ugliest son of a bitch I've seen in my whole life," Fornell said, masking his alarm.
The creature, evidently taking severe offense to Fornell's comment, growled furiously before launching itself at us again. It swiped at us with its claws while flying through the air, and we managed to dive out of the way. The creature landed on the ground and looked around at us. I fired an arrow, but it leapt back up into the air as the arrow let off a pulse of energy against the ground that punched dust into the air.
Sarah fired a volley of shots, bisecting a tree and sending branches and timbers cascading down. Fornell and Gibbs tried to line up shots, but the creature pounced on Fornell's chest and knocked him over. Gibbs bent over to help him back up, and I fired an arrow. The creature, who was standing on the side of a tree trunk, moved aside a step to allow the arrow to land in the bark. The creature hissed in triumph, but the arrow emitted energy out of either side in a slicing wave that cut the tree cleanly in two.
The creature, growling in dismay as the half of the tree it stood on came crashing down, tried to leap off. It was hit with a particularly large tree branch that had broken off, and it crashed to the ground just as the tree collapsed on top of it. Sarah groaned in guilty sympathy, but she didn't lower her weapon. We waited for a few seconds, and the creature burst out of the wreckage of the tree to land on top.
"This thing is tough," Gibbs said, holding the creature under his gun barrel.
"Who are you?" the creature growled.
We all froze, starstruck. Fornell looked around incredulously. "Did it just talk? You just talked, didn't you?"
"Why are you after me?" the creature asked. "I have done nothing!"
"Well, we can't say you've done nothing," I told it.
"I am innocent!" the creature declared. "I had no hand in however I came here!"
"Well, that's okay," Fornell said. "If we can just calm down and–"
The creature roared its disapproval of Fornell's idea. We all took an instinctive step back, and as we aimed our weapons, the creature tensed its whole body. Electricity sparked across its fur, acting like a lightning rod that seemed to charge the beast up with power.
"Oh, dear," Fornell said, looking on with wide eyes.
The creature let off a bloodthirsty scream as the electricity coating it exploded outwards.