The ants searched for a reference to the names, listed them in different orders, and found nothing. Mike nodded and counted to six. He didn"t break eye contact with the creature. "One more question."
"Of course," said the creature. "Please make the most of your time as my Lord draws near."
He stared at its human eye. "Do you know what proprioception is?"
The patchwork man blinked at him. So did Jamie and Sasha.
"It"s one of the few neurological terms I know," Mike admitted after a moment. "One of those extra senses you don"t hear about often. It"s how you know where your body parts are even when you can"t see them. Like how you can reach into your back pocket without looking."
The creature loomed over him, and he retreated from it with a trio of nervous steps. But he didn"t break eye contact. He could see Jamie tensing in the corner of his vision.
"In my case," he continued, still staring at the creature"s eyes, "it"s useful because I can remember where everything else is, too. So I can leave the lights off a lot of the time. I don"t need to look at things around me to pick them up. And I can aim that way, too."
He reached back without looking, grabbed Black"s pistol off the workstation, and fired at the target behind him.
Things slowed down as Mike took in every detail he could.
The recoil wrenched his wrist around, but the ants showed him diagrams and angles and he aimed again.
The patchwork man broke the stare after the first shot. It roared. Spittle rained on Mike"s face as he fired a second shot. He heard one of the bugmen-the seraphs-hiss behind him.
The one by the nitrogen tanks.
Jamie flinched away from the gunshots and lunged forward. Sasha was a few steps behind her.
The tall creature shoved Mike aside on his third shot. It loped past him.
The lone bugman on the pathway had one of its arms up. The arm with the spear. It was already pulled back. Its eyes went between Mike and Jamie, picking a target. Mike heard a louder hiss behind him. A cold breeze hit his back. He braced himself and took a step away from the tanks. He swung the pistol around to aim at the seraph on the pathway.
The other seraph by the far workstation, the one with the wounded arm, growled at him. It reached for the spear that had impaled Sann, but its movements were slow.
Jamie"s foot hit the ramp.
Mike took another step and squeezed the trigger two more times. His first shot punched through the cloak to hit the seraph in the thigh. The second round went straight through the rough leather and vanished through the rings as the seraph hurled its spear.
The nitrogen tanks exploded.
There was no heat, just a blast of freezing air. It slammed him into the far workstation and saved his life. The spear that was aimed at his chest wobbled and caught him in the side under his arm. The force and speed of the glancing blow shattered bone. His ribs blazed with heat and pain. The shaft sliced through cloth, flesh, and muscle.
A chunk of metal hit him hard in the back, and a second one slashed his calf.
Another second pa.s.sed. His ribs felt like broken gla.s.s grinding under his skin. He could picture needles of bone breaking off as they rubbed against each other. He was wet with blood. The arm holding the pistol shook. He had no idea how he"d managed to hold on to the gun.
A chill ran through his body, like stepping into a cold pool. It could"ve been the cold air or blood loss. He wasn"t sure which.
Jamie was sprawled on the ramp. Mike couldn"t see any blood. He counted off another second and saw her take a breath. He didn"t see Sasha anywhere and figured she"d been knocked down on the other side of the ramp.
The seraph on the pathway pushed itself up onto all fours. A gash in its side leaked dark blood onto the pathway. Its large eye was a wet socket. The two small ones glared at him, then down at Jamie. Its mouth opened to display the forest of narrow fangs.
His arm came up with the pistol and fired twice. The explosion still rang in his ears so the gunshots were m.u.f.fled and flat. They both hit it in the torso, but nowhere near center. The creature let out another clicking growl and crouched lower. It reminded him of a dog getting ready to charge.
Then one of its arms collapsed under it and it slumped on the pathway. The cloak settled around it and grew still.
At least two seraphs dead. Maybe three.
Mike shifted his weight against the workstation and tried to balance. His knees were loose. It was as if they"d become ball and socket joints, and his body still needed time to figure out how they worked. His hips felt loose, too. His side was very wet, although it didn"t hurt quite as much, and he was pretty sure he was going into shock.
His vision dimmed. The thought flitted through his mind that he was losing consciousness. Then he realized it was a shadow.
The patchwork man loomed over him and snarled something. Mike couldn"t hear what, and it was impossible to read the shredded lips. The curved, Kindle-sized chunk of metal stuck in its shoulder had part of a green warning label on it. Six of the st.i.tches along the shoulder were broken. Three fingers had vanished from its extra hand, and the whole limb sparkled with frost.
It reached out and grabbed his arm. The long fingers wrapped around his bicep twice. He could feel the knots on the st.i.tches through his sleeve. The patchwork man yanked up, and the fire in Mike"s side exploded. Shards of pain tumbled through his body. His fingers spasmed. The pistol dropped to the floor.
In the corner of his eye, Jamie lunged over the dead seraph on the pathway and grabbed the timer. She fiddled with the controls for a moment and squeezed it again and again. Mike"s stomach twisted. She squeezed the remote again, and something clicked. A light on the half-hidden charge flashed on.
The patchwork man snarled again and let Mike drop. His side exploded with pain. The cut on his leg flared. The bandages on his wounded stomach felt hot and wet. He slumped against the workstation but forced himself to stay on his feet.
The tall creature stalked away, toward the rings.
One of the surviving seraphs crawled into view on the other side of the workstation. The hood of its cloak was shredded, and a piece of metal stuck out from the side of its skull. Dark blood ran across its face. The patchwork man growled and clicked at it, and it moved to follow him.
Jamie saw them coming. She tucked the remote under her arm and scooped up Dylan"s rifle. She struggled with it for a moment.
The seraph raised its claws and snarled. Its feet clanged on the ramp. The patchwork man took another stride toward her.
Jamie looked at them, then at Mike.
Then she turned and ran through the Door.
FIFTY-THREE.
Jamie"s feet landed on gritty sand and stumbled. She"d gone through the Door almost forty times, but it had always been the same experience-stepping from one room to another along the steel pathway. With no other reference points, it almost felt natural.
Now she was outside.
She was outside in what was left of Site B.
She ran for another minute. Her adrenaline was pumping. She didn"t know if the st.i.tched-together thing was coming after her. She just slogged across the sand until her heart rate slowed.
The wasteland stretched out before her, endless sand as far as she could see, spotted by a few rocks and withered patches of gra.s.s. A few feet away was some kind of bush that looked like it might"ve seen water a decade or so back.
Above her, the sun hung in the sky like an old ember. She knew hung was the right word. This sun was tired, almost exhausted, bled of all its strength and power. It was red and dull, not the harsh yellow she was used to.
She looked behind her and saw the fold, a hole in the air that blurred at the edges.
Just beyond the fold she could see the outline of a set of rings resting on the sand and concrete gravel. Jamie realized the pathway might still be there, too, a foot or two down under the strange desert.
She spent a moment trying to focus on the edge of the rift, unbound by the rings, but her eyes kept slipping. It was like trying to focus on part of an optical illusion. The part she was looking at would stabilize, but everything around it would blur and spin faster.
On the other side of the fold she could still see a wide swath of the main floor. The dead bugman lay sprawled on the pathway. Past it were the workstations and concrete floor and dead Marines and Olaf"s skewered body and a collection of tool chests.
And the seraph crawling up the ramp.
And the patchwork man glaring at her.
Jamie took a few more steps away from the hole. The sand crunched under her feet. It didn"t feel right. It was too coa.r.s.e and too gray.
She turned and ran a few more yards.
In the distance, maybe two miles away, she could see the canyon. The canyon that was out behind Site B. She and Bob had hiked out there once to look down at the various office parks and storage units and one building Bob insisted belonged to some unnamed government group that was monitoring them.
There were four specks near the canyon. The bugmen with the C4 charges. It was hard to be sure at this distance, but she thought they were all facing the other way.
The air brushed against her face and hands. It struck her that it had been still until that moment, just as lifeless as the desert itself. No wind, no breezes, not even a slight difference in temperature.
She heard a grunt behind her and turned.
Sasha pushed herself up off the sand and scrambled away from the fold on all fours. She spat out a mouthful of grit, climbed to her feet, and took a few more unsteady steps across the desert. A Marine"s rifle was clutched in her hands.
Then she looked up and stared at Jamie. "Oh, thank G.o.d," she said. She stumbled across the wasteland. They fell into each other"s arms for a moment.
Then Jamie pushed her back to arm"s length to look at her. "Are you okay?"
Sasha nodded and rubbed her jaw. "Didn"t know he was going to blow up the tanks."
"Neither did I."
"I got hit by a nozzle. Lucky it didn"t break my jaw."
"Why did you follow me?"
She glanced back over her shoulder at the fold. "There weren"t many options. When you went away, the big skinny guy went after me." She glanced around at the barren wasteland. "f.u.c.k me."
"Not now," said Jamie.
"Not here," Sasha agreed. She looked up at the dim sun. "Last days of Krypton. Where the f.u.c.k are we?"
Jamie looked around again. It was arid nothingness as far as she could see. There were hills and mountains near the horizon, but even they looked barren and lifeless. The only vibrant colors were the fold in s.p.a.ce and Sasha"s WALKING RED T-shirt.
"I think..." said Jamie, "I think this is the world without us."
"The world after people?"
"The world after everything. I think Mike was right. It"s all been eaten." She pointed up at the sun. "Everything."
Sasha shook her head. "Did you get the charge set?"
"Yeah, I think so. We can"t stay here. We don"t have much time."
"Yeah, but what do we...c.r.a.p." She looked past Jamie, toward the canyon. "Is that the bug people?"
"I think so."
"We need to get out of here before they-"
The air rippled again. They both turned.
The wounded bugman crawled toward them on all fours. It paused and took a deep breath. Then it pushed itself up onto two legs. Its head tilted back and forth, and they felt its focus shift between them.
It growled and bared its forest of fangs at them.
Jamie stumbled back, her feet dragging in the sand. Then she noticed the weight in her hand and glanced down. She still held the rifle.
She brought it up again. She wasn"t sure why it hadn"t fired before and wondered if it was out of bullets. Or maybe there was a safety switch. Did rifles have safeties?
She wondered if the creature would be intimidated by the weapon.
It didn"t seem concerned. It kept marching across the sand toward them, flexing its claws. It chattered in the wet, clicking syllables of the other tongue, and something about the rhythm made it sound like a prayer or a psalm.
Jamie shook the rifle. "Stop right there," she shouted. "Stay back."
The bugman kicked up plumes of sand as it walked across the wasteland toward them. Its cloak drifted around it. She could see the heavy st.i.tches.
Jamie squeezed the trigger again. It didn"t budge. It felt thick, as if it was caught on something. She took another step back. In the corner of her eye, Sasha stepped back with her.
She looked down and turned the rifle. In the dim light, she saw an oval of metal on the side. A line through it pointed at the word SAFE. She flicked at it with her thumb, and the line spun ninety degrees to SEMI.
She pulled the trigger, and the rifle barked. It twisted in her hands, and a bullet punched the sand in front of the bugman. It leaped back and glared at her.
The sing-song prayers stopped. It stalked toward her.
Jamie gripped the rifle, squeezed the trigger again, and another bullet hit the ground almost a foot away from the creature.
The bugman ignored it.
She knew there was a way to make it shoot more, but she didn"t dare look away to study the rifle again.
A roar cut through the dead air. Sasha had her rifle up and fired off another three-round burst, and then another. The bullets tore up the sand, and then tore up the leathery cloak. The bugman twitched and stumbled. Its arms swiped through the air, flailing for the women even though it was still fifteen feet away.
Sasha pulled her trigger again and again until her rifle ran dry with a clack.