Quantum shift, p.35
Quantum Shift, page 35
part #1 of Phase Shift Series
Before the plesiohydra attacked, I could sort of hear the sound of rushing water, Troias mused. But, when the wolfwere was about to charge, I just felt a sense of anticipation.
Isn’t there a way to speed that up? Couldn’t I light a fire to see what Fire felt like, or stick my head out the window while driving to sense Air?
Ren chuckled.
Wait, can Mages sense the energy in me, then? Since it’s so high?
That reassured Troias; he didn’t really want everyone to know that he had every Facet unlocked. Now he knew that they’d only be aware of whatever he used. Still, he didn’t like the fact that both Mages and Savants would be better at sensing than he would. All he could do, though, was work harder on it and try to hone those senses until they became an actual ability.
That meant, of course, that he’d need to be aware of any strange or unusual sensations and try to work out what they meant. To that end, as he drove, it wasn’t just his eyes and ears that were constantly scanning. Twice, already, he’d felt that strange sense of anticipation that he’d gotten from the wolfwere’s attack, albeit much more faintly than when he’d been assaulted by the creature. The first time, he’d simply had a sense of something looming, and it faded quickly as they kept driving.
The second time, he’d gotten a stronger feeling of impending attack, and he’d had the feeling it was coming from his right. He’d passed the info on to Annalise but didn’t stop to investigate, and he’d been gratified when an oversized black bear crashed out of the trees behind them, roaring and slamming its paws into the ground. Troias had considered stopping to fight the animal, but it crashed back into the forest as its prey zipped past, and he decided that he didn’t really want to go hunting the thing in the woods if he could help it.
Still, that brought another problem to mind: not only were the roads going to crumble into disrepair over the coming weeks, they were also going to be filled with hostile creatures if they weren’t patrolled regularly. While he and Annalise probably could have handled that bear, he thought the Brigade would need an entire team to deal with something that big. If he had them send patrols regularly down the highways to keep them clear, more of them would be injured or killed, and there might not be enough of them to keep the towns safe. If he didn’t patrol the roads, though, the towns would be safe but completely isolated, at least until and unless he could get some kind of transport system set up.
It was a question of manpower, really. He didn’t have the bodies to do everything that needed doing, at least not without making each job too risky. He either needed more people, or he needed the people he had to become stronger. In reality, he probably needed both, because just as his people would get stronger, so too would the threats they were facing. His people had to become stronger, but they had to do it faster than the burgeoning creatures that would eventually isolate them all.
Hopefully, Green Bay would help with that. It was a small city with maybe a hundred thousand people in it, but 2% of that was still a couple thousand bodies. If he had a thousand more people, he could probably keep the highways all the way up to Munising clear. Milwaukee would be even better: it was a much bigger city, although not really comparable to Chicago, and there could be a significant population still alive, there.
Hey, he protested silently, I don’t demand anything!
Well… Troias’ thoughts trailed off. The kirin was right; he was basically demanding loyalty, wasn’t he? The thing was, he couldn’t see a better way. If they were going to survive…
Ren interrupted his thoughts.
I meant to ask about that. Is there such a thing as a formal alliance?
I would have thought there’d be some kind of official system for it, Troias frowned. You’ve got vassals and followers and such – it’s all pretty feudal – so why not alliances?
Troias pursed his lips; he hadn’t actually considered that. If he made an open-ended vow to work with someone, aid them, and not attack them…what if they turned into Elias? An alliance vow would have to have a whole lot of caveats in it to make sure that both parties had ways out of it in case of something like that, but all of those loopholes would also make the vow all but useless. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he’d have to be really, really confident about someone before he agreed to ally with them for anything beyond a short-term goal. If he felt that way, probably most people did, too, which explained why there wasn’t any sort of formal alliance system.
An hour or so later, the forest thinned out and gave way to scattered farms and isolated houses. Troias slowed and looked around for signs of habitation, but he didn’t see anything and didn’t really expect to. These farmhouses were pretty isolated, and if anyone had survived in them, they would have either joined up with other people in a more central location by now, or they were probably dead. He didn’t even want to think about how many children had died because they’d woken up as the only survivor in a place this isolated, or how many infants had died of deprivation when no one was left to take care of them. The thought made him simultaneously furious and melancholy, so he turned his mind away from it to focus on the things he could control.
They’d already passed through two smaller towns and, rather than stopping, Troias sent word to Lydia to have the Brigade check into them when they got the chance. Troias didn’t think either of the towns was big enough to be too dangerous, but he made sure Lydia knew that if the boys ran into anything serious, they should pull back and gather a larger group rather than trying to engage and risk themselves.
Troias’ GPS, though, was showing that they were entering a larger area of population, one that looked like a decent-sized suburb. He quickly radioed Annalise and let her know they were approaching Green Bay and that he was thinking of pulling off the highway and seeing if they could find any survivors.
“That’s a good idea,” she agreed, her voice clear through the walkie-talkie. “We don’t know what we might be getting into, here, and more information is always better. Especially since it looks like we’ll have to cross another river.”
Troias grimaced but silently acknowledged her point. Information was critical in this new reality; there were far too many unknowns going into any situation. Those who were still alive would be able to tell them about the dangers they might be facing and might even be able to help them deal with them, the way the Brigade had given them the tools they needed to deal with the giant spiders.
They left the highway and headed west, but almost immediately, he slowed to a halt. The road ahead was blocked with sandbags, and he could see several figures standing on top of the pile, more than one aiming weapons in his direction. He keyed his walkie-talkie. “Are you seeing this?”
“Yeah,” Annalise replied quietly. “Looks like we found survivors pretty easily. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you hang back here and cover me and Max while we go make nice,” Troias chuckled. “You know the drill; right hand clear, left hand fire. Or, you know, at your discretion.”
“I got it; it’s not my first rodeo, cowboy. Go over there and see what we’re dealing with.”
Troias put down the radio and drove slowly forward, keeping both hands on the wheel in plain sight. As he neared, he saw that the gathered figures were dressed in black police uniforms and that their weapons looked to be in decent shape. He glanced at Paul, who still sat listlessly, staring blankly out the window. “Stay quiet and don’t say anything to these men unless I ask you to,” he instructed the blonde Mage. “Not even through any sort of signal.” The Mage nodded absently, Troias’ orders preventing him from responding.
One of the black-clad men stepped forward, holding up a hand, his rifle cradled in his other. “That’s close enough,” he called, absently tossing his sandy, blonde hair out of his face. “What can we do for you, stranger?”
Troias rolled down his window and leaned out to look at the man, a smile plastered to his face. “Hi there,” he called. “We’re on our way south from the UP, heading down to Chicago. We’ve been stopping in towns, making fortifications and strongholds for the locals to use, but it looks like you guys have everything settled, here.”
“Pretty much,” the man nodded. “No offense, but we’d appreciate you heading back to the highway. We’ve had a couple issues with some people from the city, and we’ve decided to close the town to outsiders for the time being.”
“Hey, no problem,” Troias nodded. “You mind if I ask you a few questions about what’s going on that way, though? We don’t want to head into something blind.”
“I don’t blame you,” the man smiled for the first time. “You can let your friend back there know that we won’t do you any harm if you don’t try anything, though.”
“I can tell her, but she’s the nervous type,” Troias grinned back. “She’ll ignore me and do what she wants to do.”
“More power to her,” the man replied, his face turning serious. “Just so you know, though, everyone on the wall has either Earth or Force Facets and can shoot. If you try anything…”
“We won’t,” Troias assured him, pulling up a hint of his Aura of Violence. “If we did, though, your Facets wouldn’t help you. So, how about we don’t bother threatening each other, chat for a bit, and she and I will head on down the road?”
The man blinked nervously, cleared his throat, and shrugged. “Talk is fine. What do you want to know?”
“What are we likely to run into as we head into the city, first of all?”
“Around here, we’ve had some problems with wolves and big, black cats, kind of look like panthers,” the man told him. “They’re not regular animals, though; when they get hurt, they just kind of fade into the shadows and vanish. We’ve never figured out how to kill one, but they stay away from bright lights and fire, so we’ve held them out.
“Back before things went sour around here, though, we used to take refugees from the city, and they say that the whole place is overrun with the shadow creatures. I guess a bunch of people tried to band together and make a safe place downtown, but something came and smashed their place to bits, killed a bunch of them, and sent shadow monsters to chase the rest out. Last we heard, Green Bay was a ghost town, although I suppose there might be a few holdouts here and there.”
“Any other groups like this we should know about?” Troias asked, filing away Ren’s words for later.
“There’s a church group across the highway, they’re staying in St. Jude’s. They’ve taken in most of the people coming up from the city…the ones that made it across the river, that is.”
Troias grunted. “River monsters?”
“We’ve heard tell of three,” the man nodded. “One looks like a giant crocodile, one’s got two heads, and the last one, all anyone’s seen is a bunch of tentacles. You’ve seen them before?”
“The two-headed one. It was tough. I’m more worried about the tentacle-thing, though; hard to fight something when you’re only seeing its fingers, you know?”
The man nodded. “My advice to you is to keep heading south on 41, don’t stop for anything in the city, and take the interstate down to Appleton. You can circle Lake Winnebago and stay on 41 down to Milwaukee. It’ll add a couple hours to your trip, but it’ll keep you out of downtown. Better late than dead, right?”
“That’s true,” Troias nodded. “Even so, we might try to grab a spot or two south of here before the city, just to check things out. Any suggestions for good places that will stay out of you guys’ way?”
“Maybe down by Howard,” the man shrugged. “Keep going south and head west on 32. Probably as close as I’d want to get to the city, to be honest.”
“We’ll look into it. Maybe after we’re settled in, I can buy you guys a beer and you can tell me more about Green Bay. We can figure out what these shadow things are, and maybe how to kill them.”
The man laughed. “Your money’s no good here, stranger!” he said. “Of course, it’s not good anywhere, is it? You bring the beer, we’ll provide the company, no problem.”
Troias waved in farewell and rolled the window back up, turning the truck around. Once he was clear of the barricade, he saw Annalise drop back into her Humvee and make a U-turn to follow him. “You catch all that?” he asked her through the radio, turning off the mike button he’d locked down during the conversation.
“Shadow monsters. Fun,” she replied in a deadpan voice. “Please tell me that we’re going to be more careful this time, especially at the river.”
“Way more careful,” Troias assured her. “We’ll talk about it after we find a place. Might as well follow the man’s directions and see what we can see.” He glanced at Paul. “You can speak again.” The Mage nodded but remained silent, still staring off into nothing.
They headed south and pulled off in the parking lot of a hotel that barely qualified as such. Troias and Max jumped out, the big man holding his weapons and glancing at Paul. “Sit quietly in the car while we clear this building. I’ll come get you when it’s safe.”
He shut the truck’s door as Annalise pulled up beside him in her green Humvee. “Why are we stopping here?” she asked curiously. “Why not our normal police station?”
“Because there are a ton of vital places within walking distance. There’s a grocery store across the street, a hardware store next to it, and a gun shop down the road. Plus, there’s a car dealership on one side and an RV place on the other, and we can get a butt-load of build points from those.”
Annalise nodded, killing the engine and hopping out. “Main lobby, or side door?”
