The Sasha with Jamie raised her eyebrows at him. "What part?"
He shrugged again. "Most of it."
"Most?" Jamie said.
"f.u.c.k me," said both Sashas at once. They glanced at each other and smirked.
Then the one with Jamie straightened up. "Arthur!"
He was sprawled by a car with broken windows. Grit and dust had turned him into a monochrome ghost. He didn"t move when they called his name again.
The Sasha with Mike-bloodshot Sasha-left him and ran. Jamie glanced at her Sasha who nodded, and then she sprinted across the parking lot, too. The wounded balanced against each other.
"He"s breathing," the bloodshot Sasha called back to them. "He must"ve been on the edge of the blast."
"Try not to move him," said Mike. "If he"s breathing and his pulse feels good, leave him alone for now."
"We need to call an ambulance," said Jamie.
He glanced at the burning building and the column of smoke. It was a good two hundred feet tall now, at least. "I think they"re on the way," he said.
A smaller fire caught his eye. He led the bandaged and limping Sasha over to it. She balanced on one leg while he crouched. He winced and bit back a yell. His ribs felt like gravel under his arm, grinding nerves between them whenever he moved. He wasn"t sure he"d be able to get back up.
It looked like the canvas grocery bag had smothered most of the flames. Three of the antique books had been knocked free by the blast, and they made a line of small fires leading back to the bag. Mike knocked the closest one away and pulled the bag close.
"What is it?" asked Jamie.
"His books." He lifted the top one out of the bag, watching for an ember that might make it burst into flame with more air. The canvas smoked a bit, but the other volumes seemed fine.
The third book down was leather-bound and odd-shaped. A little too tall and narrow compared to a modern book. The spine was wrapped in cloth. A.K. had been printed on it in black ink that had faded into the material.
Arthur coughed. Bloodshot Sasha knelt and whispered to him. He muttered something, coughed again, and went quiet. "He can talk," she said. "That"s good, right?"
"I think so," said Mike. "What did he say?"
"Told me to watch out for debris."
"A little late," said the bandaged Sasha. "Shouldn"t we cover him with a blanket or something?"
"I was just going to say that," bloodshot Sasha said.
Mike looked at the wrecked cars in the parking lot. "Does anyone have something in their car? Maybe a blanket or a towel? Even a spare coat?"
"I"ve got a beach blanket," said Jamie. "I haven"t used it in ages, but it should be okay."
"There probably isn"t a beach blanket in this Jamie"s car," said Mike.
"Ahhh," she said. "Good point."
"I think I might have a sweatshirt," said both Sashas.
"This is going to get old fast," said Jamie.
"f.u.c.k you," they echoed. They glanced at each other and smirked again. The one by Arthur walked into the lot and found a car with three windows smashed.
Mike tried to lift the bag, but his ribs were too far gone. "You need help?" asked Jamie.
He shook his head. "Stay with Arthur." He rewrapped Koturovic"s treatise in the canvas, then pushed himself up off the stack of books with a wince. Sasha hopped over, and they counterbalanced each other enough for him to straighten up. "I hear sirens," he said.
Sasha lifted her head. "Yeah," she said. "Me, too."
A breeze swept across the lot and carried some of the smoke away with it. It smelled clean and alive. Mike watched the clouds around the building twist away. There were piles of rubble, but it was easy enough to reconstruct where the main floor had...
"G.o.dd.a.m.n it," he said.
Bandaged Sasha hopped around. "Oh, f.u.c.k me hard."
"What?" Jamie craned to see from where she crouched with Arthur. Then the breeze took away the last of the smoke, and her eyes went wide.
Standing in the middle of the rubble, surrounded by flames and smoke, were the rings of the Albuquerque Door.
FIFTY-EIGHT.
Bandaged Sasha let out a string of f.u.c.ks.
"How?" said Jamie. "How can it still be in one piece?"
Bloodshot Sasha returned from the car with a dark blue hoodie. She spread it over Arthur"s chest and arms. Then she saw what they were staring at and let out her own list of swears.
Mike stared at the rings. The breeze cleared the smoke, but the rings were deep enough into the rubble that there was always more. It took almost a full minute for him to see enough.
"They"re dead," said Mike. "Shut off. It"s done."
"What?" The bandaged Sasha hobbled around to look at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," he said. He stretched out his arm-his left arm-and sketched the outline of the rings. "There are just two rings. Nothing on the other side. It"s just like the one over on Site B. We did enough damage to shut it down."
"But they can"t be standing," said bloodshot Sasha. "That explosion should"ve torn them to f.u.c.king pieces."
Mike pursed his lips. "Maybe," he said, "maybe because it was open, some of the blast went through to the desert. Enough that it didn"t annihilate everything here."
"Including us," said Jamie. She glanced over her shoulder at the approaching sirens. "Fire department"s here. Police, too."
"And ambulances," said Mike. He raised his good arm and pointed at Arthur on the ground.
- THE PARAMEDIC HAD a shaved-bald head with five o"clock shadow across his scalp. Mike had been staring at it for ten minutes while the man taped up the gash in his side. He winced as the bandages tugged and made the gravel and fishhooks between his ribs shift.
The paramedic glanced up. "That hurt?"
"Still, yeah."
"A piece of rebar did this?"
"Pretty sure that was it, yeah."
"What about these gashes on your stomach?"
"They"re nothing," said Mike. "Got in a fight with a dog this morning."
"You report it?"
"Nothing I couldn"t handle," Mike gasped as the bandages rolled across his ribs again.
The paramedic shook his head. "You"ve had a s.h.i.tty day."
"Tell me about it."
"You really need to go get this done right. You need st.i.tches. X-rays to make sure you don"t have a flail chest."
"A what?"
"It means you broke a rib in two places, so there"s a spear of bone floating around in your chest waiting to puncture a lung or something."
"Great. Can you just tape the ribs for now?"
"n.o.body does that anymore," said the man. "Too big a risk of pneumonia from restricted breathing."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I just need to make sure everything"s safe here. Promise, I"ll be in a hospital before the end of the day."
A few yards away, they closed the doors on Arthur"s ambulance, and the sirens started up. He had a concussion, a broken arm, dozens of sc.r.a.pes and cuts from flying debris, but the other paramedics seemed pretty sure he"d live. The ambulance rolled out of the gate and swerved between the police barricade.
Mike"s paramedic patted him on the arm. "That"s all I can do," he said. "Hold off on aspirin if you can-you"ve had some blood loss. Drink a lot of fluids. No alcohol. Take it easy until you get X-rayed."
Mike nodded, scooped up his shirt, and shuffled over to Jamie and bloodshot Sasha. They were watching the firemen hose down the building. Jamie had the canvas-wrapped bundle of books under her arm. "Everyone still good?"
"Pretty good," said Jamie. She looked at his bandages. "How about you?"
"I"ll live." He nodded at the building. "Anything?"
Jamie shook her head. "Nothing. Not a peep."
"Have they...they found anything?"
"Frankenstein?" Bloodshot Sasha smirked. Her torn sleeve was gone, and a piece of gauze was taped over her shoulder. "The body was right next to a few hundred pounds of C4."
"It was also right next to the rings," said Mike, "and they"re still standing."
"There"s not even a stain left," she said.
"No sign of Olaf or any of the Marines," said Jamie. "But one of the firemen told me it was still too hot to search properly. They"ll have to look for...remains when the fires are out. It might take awhile."
Bandaged Sasha limped up with a flash of white around her ankle. "Light sprain," she said. "The medic said I was being a wuss for complaining about it."
Jamie looked back and forth between the Sashas, then made sure no one was nearby. "Did anyone ask about...you?"
"I told them we were twins," said bloodshot Sasha.
"So did I," the other Sasha said.
"Twins with the same name?" asked Mike.
The Sashas glanced at each other. "I thought you"d give a fake name," said bloodshot Sasha.
"Why would I? I thought you would."
Mike raised his hand. "We need to get it straight. Now. Before there are questions we"re not ready to answer."
Jamie pointed at the Sasha with bloodshot eye. "You"re Dasha now," she said. "D for being in the desert with me."
"Dasha?" echoed the Sashas.
"Just for now," said Mike.
"I sound like a p.o.r.n star," said Dasha.
"I sound like twin p.o.r.n stars," said Sasha.
"Why do I need to change my name?" Dasha asked.
"Seriously?" Mike gave them the Look. "Just for now. Deal with it. Pretend it"s a Star Trek plot or something."
A faint smile flickered across both of their faces. "Oh, f.u.c.k me," said Dasha. "I"m Thomas Riker."
"You are," said Sasha. "You totally are."
"But before he went all Maquis."