Carlin McIver knocked on the door, and waited patiently. Kineret opened it,
even though she knew that he was on the other side. She looked him up and
down as if she hadn’t seen him before. Then she sighed, and looked behind
her where her boss was working. “Have you changed your mind?”
“Have you?” he prodded.
“I’m steadfast in my convictions.”
Carlin peeked over her shoulder at the Primus. “Or is that just what you
would have her believe?” Kineret didn’t believe in using the Westfall boy as
a bioweapon any more than he did, but this was what the world government was
trying to do, and she had to fall in line. As influential as she was in her
position, she wasn’t a god. He was only hoping that she would eventually
openly admit her disapproval, so it would at least be on the record.
“Did you need something, Carlin? Because if you’re not going to change your
mind about sending one of the sick Ochivari to their homeworld, the Primus
has nothing to say to you.”
“When was the last time you even had an Ochivar as prisoner?”
“It’s true, it’s been slow, but we’ve never gone longer than eight months
without a new incursion. We’ll get a new test subject soon. I’m hoping that
you see reason. We have a saying where I’m from,
all’s fair in love and war.”
“That it’s poetic does not make it true. Where I’m from, we call that an
aphoroid, not an aphorism.”
“Goodbye, Carlin.”
“Madam McArthur, Madam McArthur!” a man in uniform yelled from down the
hallway. He was running towards them.
“Slow down, soldier. State your business.” She was being protective of
Naraschone.
The soldier caught his breath. “We found ‘im. The weapon.”
“Where was he, an oceanic island?” Dutch Haines, a.k.a. The Dragonfly
Slayer. He was the carrier of a disease that seemed to only affect Ochivari.
They wanted to send him to the aliens’ homeworld to wipe them all out, but
some people believed that to be a war crime, including Ramses Abdulrashid,
who decided to put a stop to their hopes and dreams by abducting Dutch, and
hiding him somewhere. Since Ramses only existed in the timestream once a
year, even if they had the means of extricating the information from his
brain, they would only ever have twenty-four hours to get it done. For two
years now, all available resources had been funneled into the manual search.
They had evidently finally been successful in that mission.
“No, he was living in a cave above the arctic circle. He was actually only
about forty kilometers from the nearest settlement. He was apparently quite
comfortable there, albeit alone.”
“Is he on his way here?” Kineret asked
“Yes, by chopper.”
She looked at her watch. “Team Matic comes back in three days. We have two
to make this happen if we don’t want further interference. Divert them to
the Ochivari prison. The Primus and I will meet them halfway.” She looked
back at Carlin. “You’re coming with.”
“Oh, no thank you,” Carlin said.
Kineret just darted her eyes to the soldier, who knew what that meant. He
took Carlin by the shoulders, and escorted him away.
A half hour later, all three of them were in Carlin’s jet, along with Primus
Mihajlović, as well as a small strike team, and of course, the pilot. He
didn’t love them using this for a mission that he did not agree with, but it
didn’t really belong to him, and anyway, that wasn’t the problem here. They
were likely planning to coerce him into transporting Dutch to the Ochivari
home universe, and he was worried what their methods would be. This was a
civilized society, with laws and everything, but they didn’t all make a
whole lot of sense. For instance, a prisoner of war could only be held for a
certain amount of time before they were legally entitled to a return trip
home, but the laws determining what the prison could do to them within that
time frame were a lot less clear cut. Did Carlin qualify as a war prisoner,
or were they just going to call him a guest, and in that case, were
there any laws dictating their treatment of guests? Were there other
loopholes? And what about Dutch’s rights? Did he have any, or was he
nothing more than a walking, talking, Sunday chillin’ weapon of genocidal
proportions?
They arrived in the Subarctic North, and landed by the prison. Dutch was
already there, taking a nap in something called the VIP room. Carlin was
dragged in there too, which served to wake the former up. “Hey, dude.”
“You been doin’ okay?” Carlin asked.
“Same as it ever was.”
“That can’t possibly be true.”
He just shrugged. Dutch was a carefree guy who once worked at a plant
nursery, and seemed to take everything that happened to him in stride.
Surely there was a limit to that. Surely dying in a strange universe after
spreading a deadly disease to upwards of billions of aliens would be enough
to wipe that kind smile off his face. Once the Ochivari realized what was
happening to them, and that Dutch was responsible, were they just going to
let bygones be bygones? Probably not.
“You know this isn’t right, right?”
Dutch shrugged again. “They need me to go to that universe and kill all
those funky-lookin’ people. They need you to send me there. Way I see
it, we just keep refusin’, no matter what they do to us, their plans ain’t
happenin’.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” Carlin lamented.
Dutch stood up, and opened his arms up. “Come on. Come on,” he urged
quietly.
Wanting to keep this oddball on his side, Carlin approached, and accepted
the hug. It was actually kind of nice.
“With this warm embrace, I donate to you...half of my confidence.” He pulled
his chest away, but kept his hands on Carlin’s shoulders. “It’ll grow to
full-size before too long, like a lone lobe of a liver.”
Carlin unwillingly released a chuckle, and looked away as he struggled to
tamp down his own smile. “Man, is that how livers work?”
Dutch nodded with a wider smile. “Yeah.”
Carlin breathed deeply, and separated fully from Dutch to pace the room a
little. “There’s a way to put an end to all of this. I could just send you
home. I don’t know about you, but it sounds like the safest place for you.
Do you want that?”
“I don’t know that that would be a good idea. The government is aware of
your power. Why would they put us in a room together, knowing what you’re
capable of? Seems sloppy to me.”
Carlin looked over at the door. “You’re right. Sloppy, or...part of a plan.”
“Have they experimented on you? Maybe they have a way of overriding the
navigation, or just suppressing your powers altogether.”
“Yeah, that’s...that’s certainly possible. This whole situation is fishy.”
“I’m willing to try if you are.”
“It’s too risky. You can’t go within two meters of an Ochivar without making
them sick. By the time you can run away, the damage will have already been
done.” Carlin shook his head disappointedly. “They’re playing mind games
with us. They know we can’t try without being absolutely certain. We’re in
this room together either because they have indeed screwed with my powers
without me realizing it, or because they knew we would be worried about the
possibility, and end up stuck. Either way, it’s hopeless.” He had a way of
finding out the truth, but it wasn’t a peaceful solution, and it would burn
a pretty big bridge. Plus, a lot of things would have to go right for him to
even be in a position to gather the truth. He didn’t want to threaten
Naraschone’s life anyway. He didn’t agree with her, but he wasn’t about to
take her hostage for it.
Kineret stepped into the room. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah, it was locked,” Carlin reasoned.
“Right, but you could have sent him home.”
“Or is that what you wanted all along?” Carlin questioned.
Kineret didn’t understand why that should be so nefarious. “Yes, we figured
you would want to do that.”
“Did you mess with my power somehow?”
“We would have no clue how to go about that. We took blood samples from you
years ago. The power isn’t in your blood, it’s in your brain, and I think
you would remember if you had had brain surgery.”
“Would I?” Carlin pressed.
Kineret exhaled, annoyed and tired. “Your powers are fine. We don’t need him
anymore. Elder came up with a new plan. All we required were more blood
samples from him. His job is done now.”
“Blood samples for what?” Dutch asked.
“The virus,” Kineret began. “We’ve abandoned our plans to attack the
homeworld. We’ve decided that our only concern is our world. So we
will be distributing it to our people, and our people alone. It won’t end
the war, but it’ll get us out of it. And I guess that’ll just have to be
good enough.”
“You’re gonna spread a virus to the whole planet? You don’t see a problem
with that?” Carlin asked her.
“Obviously I do, but Elder is confident that it will not mutate into
something that can harm humans as well.”
“Oh, right. Elder Caverness, the security guard with no background in
epidemiology. Glad you got your top people on it.”
“I swear,” Dutch said, “I never donated any of my confidence to Elder.”
Kineret winced, having no clue what that meant. “Send this man home. This
will be your room alone, and you’ll only be given rations for one person.
Your job for the government is done as well. You’ll be permitted to leave
when Team Matic does, if they should ever come back with a way to travel
freely.” She unceremoniously left the room.
Carlin tried to open the door, but it was locked again.
“We can try to share the rations,” Dutch suggested.
“No, she’s right. There’s no way they could have messed with my power. I’m
from another universe, it’s not that easy. Very few people in my universe
are called metachoosers because they can do things like that, and
they’re always on the run because of it. If any rando scientist could figure
it out on their own, that wouldn’t be such a problem.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone with these people,” Dutch said sadly.
“I’ll be fine. I should have sent all three of you home when you first got
here. I was under the impression that you were here for good reason,
but...well, I suppose that’s still true. I guess I just never thought it
would be for a distasteful reason.”
“There’s a parable from my world. A man was late for dinner after he was
working in the fields,” Dutch began to recite. “When he did return, the dog
had eaten his portion while the family was asleep. So he returned to the
fields, and picked some vegetables to eat instead. That night, a storm
rolled over the lands, and destroyed the fields. And the farmer, he,
uhh...well. Hold on. A farmer went home for dinner, and the dog. The dog...
What was the dog doing? There—there was a war. And the farmer’s son...”
“Dutch?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I get it.”
“Okay.”
Carlin didn’t get it, but Dutch was never going to get to the end of this
story. It was time for him to go. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Carlin relapsed him back to his universe, or at least he attempted it. It
was unclear whether he ever made it at all, because seconds later, Dutch
walked through the door. Westfall brought him here, so this was where
Westfall wanted him to be. There was no getting around that. They still
didn’t know who was the mysterious force running the show, but there was
probably no overriding that kind of power.
Kineret and the government believed them, and allowed them to stay in the
VIP room together, one portion of rations each. A few days later, Ramses and
Olimpia came back. They were not happy about what the Primus had decided to
do. Ramses looked over the data as best he could, but he was no
epidemiologist either. He understood how profoundly unpredictable the
variables were, though. Just because Elder thought he knew how the virus
worked, didn’t mean he was right, or that things wouldn’t change in the
future. Just the very idea of a difference between the future and the
past had to be thrown out the window. They may not see the
consequences for centuries. The people of Stoutverse may never know
the damage they caused. But Ramses knew one thing, Elder’s plan didn’t work
the way he wanted it to. Humans were going to die. That was how the
multiverse worked.
Ramses also wasn’t down with the whole VIP room in the prison thing, so he
swiftly teleported them out of there, and placed them somewhere safe. While
not particularly luxurious, they had everything they needed on the island,
including one important thing. If Dutch was ever going to find his way back
to his universe, it likely required constant access to a door.
