Olaf leaped up behind her. Sasha grabbed at him, but he shook her off. He loped up behind Weaver, heading for Dylan"s body.
Duncan and the other Marines got a cautious crossfire going. Two more bugmen dropped. Then one Marine"s weapon clacked empty and a monster pounced on him. They went down in a swirl of cloak and screams. Another, Sann, tried to switch magazines. A spear went straight through her right eye and out the back of her skull, shattering her helmet as it did.
One of the bugmen pulled a spear from one of the corpses and hurled the weapon back at Weaver. It flew straight through her stomach and struck Olaf in the shoulder. She managed to kill the creature with two more bursts before she dropped her rifle and clutched at her gut.
Olaf bit back a scream. The spear hung from his shoulder like a rod on a puppet. He flailed at Dylan"s body, stretching his fingers. Then another shaft hissed in the air and punched through his chest. He slumped. The spears held him up, forming a tripod with his spine.
Jamie shrieked into her hand.
Weaver tried to move. She took a few awkward steps to the side, clutching at the hole in her stomach. Blood gushed down from the matching hole in her back. It soaked through her uniform and splashed out onto the floor. She winced, her face paled, and she dropped to her knees in the puddle. Her shoulders slumped and her chin dipped down to her chest.
Mike saw it all. The ants carried out instant replays and freeze frames and a.s.sembled renderings for him to review. They tallied the dead and the living on both sides. Twenty-two dead monsters. Fourteen dead Marines. All committed to memory forever.
Four bugmen were still alive. Two of them were wounded. They were stalking the last two Marines.
Less than a minute had pa.s.sed since the first spear impaled Dylan.
Black had a sidearm. It was in a holster on his hip. He"d never drawn it. It was twenty-three inches from Mike"s left hand.
Why had Olaf been reaching for Dylan"s body? What had he wanted? The Marine"s rifle was still up on the pathway where he"d dropped it, right next to...
The ants showed him the image from three different angles. He"d seen it when the first spear hit and when he"d grabbed Jamie"s forearm and when they were in mid-dive for cover.
Dylan"s rifle sat right next to the remote for the charges. Mike looked up through the expanded steel and saw the two outlines a few feet behind Sasha.
Three fast shots rang out, another rifle burst, and one of the bugmen roared. Another one dropped. Its skull had been pulped.
Over by the tool chests, Jim Duncan screamed as a spear was driven through his shoulder and down into his chest. The creature twisted its weapon, shredding his insides, but Mike"s former student managed to bring up his rifle. The bugman"s cloak rippled, caught in nine small breezes. The two bodies slumped together.
Two bugmen left. One Marine. According to Mike"s count, the last survivor was Banner, first initial J. According to her patch, she was a sergeant with type O positive blood.
Mike pointed out the remote to Jamie. He spread his fingers wide twice and mouthed "boom." She understood. He waved his hand to Sasha. The movement caught her eye, and he repeated his simple sign language to her. She nodded as well.
Somewhere out on the floor, Marine sergeant J. Banner fired off two bursts with her rifle and died screaming.
Two, possibly only one, bugmen left.
Mike used his fingers to mime running, pointed at himself, and then pointed to the far side of the main floor. He would run toward the tanks, away from the door. They could grab the remote and run.
He reached out and slid Black"s pistol from its holster. It was heavier than he thought it would be. He twisted up onto his toes, kissed Jamie on the forehead, and lunged to his feet.
There were two creatures left. One had its hood up. The other one glared at him with three mismatched eyes.
Neither of them moved to follow him.
He heard the sound of feet in sand. Something pushed the smell of the desert at him through the air. And another scent came with it.
All the roaches were gone now. He couldn"t see one anywhere. They"d all fled, following the primal instructions hardwired into their simple brains.
Mike turned.
Something else came out of the Door.
FIFTY-ONE.
The ants leaped into overdrive. They counted and cataloged and quantified. They gave him more details than he wanted to know.
The thing"s arm stretched out and lashed around the first ring. It had half a dozen cable-like fingers. Each of them had seven knuckles. They wrapped all the way around the broad ring like tentacles. The hand was on the end of a long, st.i.tch-covered arm. Mike counted two elbows on the limb.
A second hand reached out and slapped itself down on the opposite side of the Door. And then a third hand reached out of the rings to grab alongside the first one.
Jamie skittered away from the ramp and almost crashed into Mike. Sasha did the same and ended up near Olaf"s impaled body. She shifted away, but the thing on the pathway held her gaze. "What the f.u.c.k is that?!"
The slender figure dragged itself through the Door. It was tall, with too many joints in its legs and arms. Mike saw black, ragged armbands on each limb. It took a moment to identify the lines as st.i.tches. He saw the coa.r.s.e threads and his ants pulled up an image of the bugman"s cloak.
Its limbs didn"t bend. They coiled like snakes as they sought purchase in the world, dragging a bent torso after them.
The creature pulled itself through the Door and stretched up to full height on the pathway.
Each leg consisted of multiple limbs sewn together end to end to make a single long one. Each had three knees. Each arm had been rebuilt the same way, with two elbows leading back to a swollen, st.i.tch-covered shoulder. A third arm was sewn into place under the figure"s right armpit. The torso looked like two bodies stacked one on top of the other, with another line of coa.r.s.e threads where hips met shoulders. There were five nipples and two navels. He couldn"t be sure, but it looked like there were extra vertebrae in its neck. Its head looked tiny on such an overextended body.
The ants pulled up various anatomical images and jammed up as the conflicting facts told Mike how impossible the creature was. Such a thing couldn"t move. Such a thing couldn"t live.
It swayed on the pathway for a moment as it looked around the room. It took a few slow, wheezing breaths and clicked like the bugman had that morning. Then it turned its face to them.
It looked like it had been human once. Its upper lip had been cut into a dozen thin flaps, like a mustache of fleshy tendrils. Its hair had been pulled out, leaving scars and scabs across a bald head. One of its nostrils had been slit open to the bridge of the nose.
The right eye was gone. Two beady orbs glared out of the raw mess of the socket. Its lips pulled back into a smile that showed human teeth. Regular, normal teeth in a monster"s face.
The remains of the croissant he"d had hours ago swirled around in Mike"s stomach. The ants spun and thrashed and fought in his mind, searching for a point of reference. The only stable part, the only part not flailing to find something logical in the illogical monster, was focused on the detonator. He didn"t look at it. He didn"t want to draw attention to it.
The slender monster looked back over its shoulder and made a sound that fell somewhere between an angry laugh and a bark. Another cloaked, lopsided figure with a spear stepped through the Door. Then another one. And another.
The monster focused on Mike and leaned forward. Its two right hands let go of the ring. It balanced on the left arm as it dropped off the pathway. It landed on Black"s corpse, and something crunched in the body.
As it stepped away, two more bugmen came through the Door to fill the s.p.a.ce it had left.
The patchwork man loomed over them. Mike had seen that expression on kids in the cafeteria. And pets at feeding time. It plucked the pistol from Mike"s hand, pa.s.sed the weapon between its long-nailed fingers, and tossed it over onto the workstation.
The creature"s gaze pa.s.sed over Jamie and then Sasha. It sniffed the air around them twice, and what was left of its nose wrinkled as it did. It looked at Olaf"s body, propped up by spears, and ran one of its spidery fingers across the dead man"s scalp. It moved on to Weaver, touching and examining her slumped form before it placed a clawed digit against her temple and toppled her body into the surrounding moat of blood.
"Well, well, well," it said. The voice was wet and lispy as it filtered out between the slashed lips, although Mike wasn"t sure if it was the lips or a certain...prissiness the voice had. An attempt to sound proper and important. The voice was uneven, as if it hadn"t spoken-or maybe hadn"t spoken English-in years. "This is looking to be a wonderful day."
It straightened up and wrapped its arms back and forth across its chest. Its head tilted back, and it glared down the ruined nose at them. It made a few clicking noises like the bugmen, as if settling back into a more comfortable language.
One of the creatures gnashed its teeth. Three of the ones on the platform turned to the rings. The sound of ripping tape filled the main floor again. The four charges were pulled free. One of them was torn in half, and the bugman sniffed at the exposed material. It poked at the white putty with a clawed finger.
The patchwork man made another noise, and the cloaked figures vanished back through the Door with the explosives.
The remote still sat on the pathway. It had been knocked aside, closer to the base of the rings, but it looked undamaged. Dylan"s rifle had moved, too, and the stock was close enough to the device that, at a glance, they might pa.s.s for a single object.
But there were no more charges on the rings. One vanished, four taken away. Weaver hadn"t had time to attach her spare. Mike wasn"t sure where it had ended up. Or if it had a detonator in it. He"d seen a short video on C4 once. He knew it needed a detonator. Fire or gunshots wouldn"t set it off. Maybe the patchwork man knew that, too.
His mind raced through possible scenarios and solutions. The ants listed obstacles and a.s.sets. Four bugmen left in the room, thought Mike, and the tall thing. Against him, Jamie, and Sasha. Plus a pile of Marine equipment they didn"t know how to use.
He came up with three options. He didn"t have the resources for any of them.
Sasha shuffled over to join them. One of the bugmen had circled around to flank her. It was bleeding from its high shoulder. It took another step toward them, reached out, and wrenched the spear out of Olaf"s shoulder. The body tipped and thudded to the floor. His eyes were half open.
The tall monster looked down at them and blinked its one human eye. It walked around them. It moved like an octopus, each limb curling up and then stretching back down.
Mike turned to watch it. So did Jamie and Sasha. They shuffled to keep their distance from the st.i.tched-together thing, and something b.u.mped Mike"s heel. They"d backed up to Black"s body.
Less than ten feet from the remote.
"So fortunate," the patchwork man lisped through his shredded lips. "First to feed our Great Lord." It moved to the ramp. They slid away again, backing toward the tanks. It let them move away. Its mouth pulled into a tight grimace. The remote slipped away in Mike"s peripheral vision.
Then he blinked, and when he opened his eyes things were different.
Pattern recognition kicked in. As a child, he"d always been good at the game where there were two similar pictures with a collection of differences. He"d always been able to solve them in seconds, faster than he could write down the answers or say them aloud.
It took him four seconds to spot all the differences on the main floor. At the workstation, the cushions on one of the chairs had changed from dark green to dark blue. In his peripheral vision, there were now three black tool chests. On the far side of the room, a second warning light had appeared on the wall. And...
He counted off more seconds. One by one, the others noticed the changes. The patchwork man stared behind them. Mike glanced over his shoulder to see one of the bugmen studying a fourth nitrogen tank that had appeared. Sasha looked at the chairs. The bugman that had corralled her twisted its head to the tank to see what had caught her eye.
Jamie looked at the light, and then her eyes slid over to- "Look at me," whispered Mike.
She turned and stared at his cheek, then at his left eye. She took three deep breaths through her nose and let them whistle out as she tried to get control.
"Look at the tool chests. How many are there?"
"Did you see the-"
"Don"t. How many tool chests?"
Jamie swallowed. "Four. Three black ones and the silver one." She blinked. "No, wait. It"s gold now. Gold with black trim, I think."
"Good. Don"t look at it. Try to tell Sasha. She can"t look at it."
She nodded and shifted her feet. Her hips swiveled and carried her over toward Sasha.
He made a point of staring up at the patchwork man. It noticed him after a moment and stared back. The two small eyes were just black dots, but the human eye looked down at him. Its lid blinked in a slow, deliberate manner.
In his peripheral vision he could see the rings. Not quite in the corner of his eye, but close to the ten o"clock position. The monsters hadn"t been looking at the rings when the change happened. They still weren"t looking. In their minds, the ring was the one place trouble couldn"t come from.
Up at position fourteen, a loop of duct tape had reappeared. It was a three-inch strip of silver against the off-white of the plastic housings. Easy to overlook among all the supports and hoses and cables.
He could just see the C4 charge poking out between the two rings.
FIFTY-TWO.
Mike summoned the ants. For his whole life he"d kept them locked away, letting them out in streams and cl.u.s.ters. He needed all of them now.
He needed to stop being Mycroft and become Sherlock.
The ants carried out swarms of images and sounds and raw facts for him. The scale model of the main floor grew, spun, zoomed in again and again to show him different details.
Other ants carried out the U.S. Marshals scene again, even though it wasn"t entirely relevant. He looked at similar moments and images from movies and real life. He was pretty sure he had what he needed.
"Same plan as before," he whispered to Jamie.
"What?"
"You"re not an alpha predator," Mike said to the patchwork man.
The tall creature turned from the Albuquerque Door and blinked twice. "I"m sorry," it said. Again, Mike was struck by the prissy aspect of the expression. Whoever the patchwork man had been before, he"d probably been very high maintenance. "Pardon me?"
Mike tried to stretch himself a little taller. He gestured at the bugman over by the workstation. "You"re not an alpha predator like them," he repeated. "So what are you?"
The patchwork man"s human eye shifted. The hairless brow furrowed. The shredded lips moved, forming silent, unreadable words. It made Mike think of a fish.
And then the creature let out a few wet sounds. For a moment he thought it was choking. He saw the same hope in Jamie"s eyes.
Then its chuckle became a full laugh.
"The seraphs are not alpha predators," it lisped. Its st.i.tched-together chest puffed out. "They are the jackals waiting the return of the lion. The dust before the endless sandstorm. They are the tide going out before the wave comes in."
It recited the words with halts and accents. High maintenance and more than a bit smug, Mike thought. The cadence reminded him of overzealous people reading from the Bible, even though he didn"t recognize any of the pa.s.sages.
"So what"s that make you?"
The slender creature uncoiled a long finger and touched the tip to its shredded lips. "I was a man," it said after a moment. "A family man who thought he understood the lessons of his congregation. Now I am like Enoch, ascended to become the voice of my Lord, and remade in the divine image with the flesh of Charles and Lucas and Howard and Timothy." The finger moved down the opposite arm, touching each section between the st.i.tches.