“So you’re sure that will work.” Sandy stared at the floating diagram, as if it wasn’t completely meaningless to him.
“No.” Amarylis didn’t keep the frustration out of her voice. “I am not sure any of these will work with your ‘connector.’ But based on what you and Dennis have told me, this spell has the least chance of collapsing the gate while I am inside it or creating a black hole at either end.”
“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “Well, that’s, um, good. Dennis says they’re getting ready now.” What Dennis had actually said was there’s no way in fucking hell we can get this thing built outside at all, let alone in a few hours. He followed it about a half-hour later with Tim has an idea, but hadn’t elaborated yet.
“I am still not convinced this is a good idea, Sandy.”
“I’m still not, either.” He scanned the hangar. No one he recognized was close by.
As busy as it was, Amarylis continued to not be the focus of attention. He’d learned from her that several promised meetings had yet to happen—with diplomats, with scholars, with scientists. Apparently they all waited on clearance from the military, from intelligence agencies, and possibly even from executives at Strategic Industries—ones over Ms. Gilchrist’s level. Given what they were planning to do, the fewer people paying attention, the better, although from what the vixen’taur had said—rather sharply—when it began, it’d draw attention fast.
“Then…”
He looked up at her. “I still can’t think of a better idea.”
She sighed, giving him a slight nod.
The phone beeped with a message. Sandy stared at it. Working on something, but we’re going to have to get Amarylis into the building.
How???
Kick down a wall.
But strategically
“Oh, boy,” he said aloud.
Amarylis gave him a raised-brow glance.
“Uh…” He held up a finger to her and typed back. Ok. When will you be ready?
I’ll let you know
He cleared his throat, looking up. “Sounds like you’re going to have to, uh, open up the building.”
“Open up the building,” she echoed, ears folding back.
He grinned nervously. “If you’ve ever wanted to be a giant monster on a rampage…”
“I have not,” she said crisply. “It goes against all our teachings about how to interact with smaller races we are not in direct conflict with.”
He lifted a brow. “Have you gotten in conflicts with smaller races before?”
Amarylis nodded. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
She locked eyes with him, then slammed one forepaw down hard against the floor.
Sandy’s fur all stood on end involuntarily. “R-right. Well, uh, part of what we’re trying to do is avoid that.”
“By breaking out as if this were a prison, putting into motion a plan we know your leaders do not want us to do, and destroying more infrastructure, this time deliberately.” She shook her head.
“By not making you wait in what basically is a prison while they play political games for weeks or your rescue team finds you, whichever comes first. If other Sivra show up, they’ll be angry, and either way, you’ll be angry. Angrier. I’d rather not end up under your forepaw that way.”
She tilted her great head, looking studiously innocent. “What way would you rather end up under it?”
He paused, looking up at her with a slightly open muzzle. “That’s not…uh…I mean…”
“Easy to tease,” she murmured, looking amused again.
Blinking once, he kept staring up at her. If he moved, he’d probably stare at one of her paws, and he wasn’t sure why that would make him blush, but he knew it would. Assuming he wasn’t blushing already, which he most likely was.
“But,” she continued, “even if this plan of yours works, I shall not be able to give a positive report about your world’s government.” She grunted. “I mean, your nation’s government.”
“Are we really the first planet you’ve found that doesn’t have a world government?”
She shook her head. “No. Most do not. There are many ways to organize societies. But when one group has tried to maintain exclusive control of their gate, it has never lasted. A kind of coalition always forms.”
“It’d be nice if that happens here.” Sandy sighed.
“Why are you still here?”
Both Amarylis and Sandy turned at the voice. Brickman, trailed by two agents, marched toward the ocelot.
“Because,” Amarylis said flatly, “I wish him to be here.”
Brickman stopped moving, looking up at her. “I get that you two are friends, but he doesn’t have any reason to be part of this operation.”
“His being my friend is reason enough. And he works with Dennis Pick.”
Brickman threw his arms open wide. “He’s not working with him now, since we still can’t find Pick, can we.” He sighed, turning to Sandy. “Look, kid, we can work out a…a visiting schedule for you and Amarylis while she’s still here.”
Sandy crossed his arms. “How long do you expect that to be?”
“That’s not my department. But it’s time for you to say your goodbyes and get going.”
Sandy’s ears folded back, and he looked up at Amarylis. She looked back with a mix of sadness and anger. And, after a moment, calculation, although Sandy didn’t know if Brickman was picking up on that.
“So. Uh.” Sandy walked toward Amarylis. “We’ll…still see each other…”
The giantess’s ears perked, and she looked toward one of the hangar walls, as if hearing a disturbing noise. “What is that?”
“What is what?” Brickman and the agents looked toward the wall, too, the lion putting his hands on his hips. “I don’t hear—”
A series of quick explosions sounded outside.
Abruptly, the hangar dissolved into chaos, agents running toward the exits, VIPs and engineers running toward the opposite wall. “Dammit.” Brickman was in motion, too, running away from Amarylis toward the closest exit with the agents, a walkie-talkie in his hand. “Talk to me,” he yelled into it.
“What…” Sandy gasped, looking up at Amarylis.
“A distraction spell.” She picked the ocelot up without waiting for permission. “Tell Dennis we are on our way now.”
Sandy hung onto her hand, although he hardly needed to—he was all but wrapped in her fist. “I don’t know if he…” He trailed off, looking up through her fingers to watch Amarylis trace a rune in the air. “Uh.” He fumbled to pull out his phone and tap a brief message. Teleporting now
What???
The noise of an oncoming jet built from somewhere above, and the light outside grew brilliant, flooding the world with white. For a moment he had the sensation of falling faster than gravity. Moments later, though, the sensation cleared. The jet sound receded rapidly as the light returned to normal.
Amarylis opened her hand partway. They stood outside BRC 9, in the field Sandy had specified—a position hidden by the building, if you were looking at it from closer to where the police activity by the campus’s entrances were. He hadn’t counted on the noise, though, not to mention the dust devils racing away, carrying leaves and trash with them. Hopefully it hadn’t been as loud to observers as it had been for him.
It was loud enough to send Pick running out of the building’s side entrance, at least, with the jaguar engineer jogging behind. Pick shouted, “What the hell, Sandy!” and dashed into the field toward them; the jaguar stopped close to the exit door, staring up with a quizzical expression.
“The timing was not Sandy’s choice, it was mine.” Amarylis set the ocelot down, looking toward the panther. “Field Director Brickman was ordering Sandy to leave, and I do not believe he intended to let him return.”
Pick’s tail lashed, and he put his hands to his head. “Okay. We’ll…figure this out.”
“How loud was the teleportation spell?”
“It wasn’t that loud,” the jaguar said, “but it rattled the windows. Any police headed this way?” He looked to Pick.
Pick and Sandy both looked toward the office park’s entrances. “Not yet,” Pick said.
The jaguar nodded. “They’re going to put two and two together quickly enough, though. I’ll do what I can do in the next,” he looked at his watch, “let’s say five minutes.”
“You can’t alone do it in five minutes, Tim,” Pick said, shaking his head.
“I think I can. I’ll half-ass it, but this only has to work once.”
“Alone?” Sandy’s tail flicked. “Where are the others?”
“I sent them home so they had some level of plausible deniability.” Pick shrugged. “No need for everyone to get arrested.”
“I’m not sure that we’re technically breaking any laws right now other than trespassing,” Tim said, opening the door again, “and even that’s debatable if you get a good lawyer, since we all work here. Even moving Amarylis here probably isn’t a crime, since she’s not a prisoner. That changes when she knocks down the front of the building, but…” He shrugged. “I have a very good lawyer.”
“When I do what?”
“Gotta go.” Tim tapped his watch. “Stomp energetically but carefully, ma’am. See you in a few.” He headed into the building.
Amarylis looked down at Pick. “When I do what?” she repeated.
“We’re going to open the portal in the atrium, there.” He pointed. “So you have to get inside.”
“You cannot open it here?” She waved around with both hands at the field, forepaws shifting nervously, looking between Pick and the office building. Its roofline stood at about her chest level.
“We can’t bring the power to any point close enough to focus outside. But it should be fine. All four stories are open all the way to the roof there, and it’s got glass walls and ceiling, so you’re not going to knock out anything load-bearing.”
She padded slowly toward the building, looking down at it dubiously. “You want me to kick the wall in.”
“Yeah.”
She pointed. “Here.”
“Yeah.” He stepped back. “Haven’t you ever done this before?”
“Why would I have?”
“You know.” Pick looked flummoxed by the conversational turn. “Giants, rampages…”
“This is the second time someone has said ‘rampage.’ Why would a giant rampage?”
“Because I guess it’s fun?” Pick held up his hands. “Look, I only have giant monster movies to go on.”
Amarylis’s ears skewed.
“Anyway, you need—”
Sirens sounded in the distance. Sandy turned to try and spot—yes, there. Heading toward them from the campus entrance, both security patrol cars and real cop cars. “You need to go.”
She looked down at him, down at Pick, across at the approaching vehicles, and nodded.
The giantess padded forward and stopped in front of the building, studying it. “Here?”
“Yes,” Pick called.
She tapped on the glass roof uncertainly with a hand. “I would rather not be standing in broken glass.”
“It’s tempered glass. It’ll be fine.”
“Mmm.” She looked dubious.
Sandy glanced back at the approaching vehicles, and his eyes widened. They’d get here in less than a minute, he guessed, but those were the ones that had been on campus. Now he saw the lines of vehicles with flashing lights, some barreling toward the main entrance, others down the side road to the second entrance. Were others coming up toward the “secret” not-a-real-entrance they’d used to get to BRC 9? Had they mobilized the national Guard?
“Go now, Amarylis,” he shouted.
She followed his gaze toward the rapidly approaching vehicles—police cars, black sedans, troop transports, unmarked vans. Setting her jaw, she spun around, looking back over her shoulder, and kicked, slamming her rear right paw into the building’s front.
The effect was immediate and spectacular, the glass and structure bashed by the paw flung inward explosively, everything above it collapsing inward. The sound of cracking, shattering glass dissolved into the roar of a thousand thousand pebble-sized glass pieces raining down.
Turning around, she cautiously stepped inside, Sandy and Pick scrambling behind. True to Dennis’s predictions, the building remained intact beyond the ruins of the lobby. Tim stood by the third floor railing, a bunch of equipment stacked nearby. A few more gadgets stood on the floor, safely out of the destruction zone, huge power cables snaking to them.
The jaguar waved. “That was fucking cool,” he called. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
She walked closer gingerly. “How long will you be able to keep your ‘connector’ open for?”
“Ten seconds, tops.”
“That is what I feared. Can you open it more than once?”
“Maybe.”
The first set of sirens were right outside now; Sandy could hear car doors slamming. He turned to face what he was sure would be a phalanx of cops with guns drawn. He was right, but rather than rushing in, they’d all come to a stop outside, staring up at Amarylis.
“Everything’s under control!” Pick gave them two thumbs up. “We’re engineers.”
“Stay where you are,” one of the cops called back, sounding less commanding than confused.
Pick waved cheerfully. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Amarylis turned back to Tim. “Can you run your machine at a lower power and let me analyze its output?”
He thought for a moment. “Yeah, I can.”
More sirens had reached the lot. More people raced toward them. More cops, but now soldiers, too, and black-suited agents. Dozens now.
The giantess turned to face the oncoming mob, and traced another rune in the air. The glowing lines flickered as her finger moved. A quickly expanding, curved grid of glowing lines appeared in front of her, flickering in time with the rune until it formed a barely visible dome encompassing part of the building’s interior. Sandy, Pick, and Tim stood inside the dome; the soldiers and agents smacked into it as if it were solid, staggering back.
“Shit,” Pick said, sounding admiring. “How strong is that?”
“I hope it is strong enough for the moment,” she replied wryly, and nodded to Tim. “Please begin.”
Tim started tapping on a laptop. A deep bass electric hum vibrated through the building, and an eerie green glow permeated the gadgets on both the third floor balcony and the ground level foyer.
“Stop!” The voice came through a megaphone, held by one of the soldiers. Other soldiers dropped into position behind actual machine guns. Sandy vaguely knew “submachine gun” and “machine gun” weren’t interchangeable, but this was the first time he’d seen visual evidence.
Amarylis turned to look back over her shoulder, and her ears lowered.
“I hope that look doesn’t mean your shield can’t stop machine guns,” Sandy murmured.
“I believe it can, but the more kinetic energy discharged at it, the faster it will dissipate.”
The hum rose in pitch, and a searingly bright point of light switched on in midair, at about the second story level—the midpoint between the gadgets on the balcony and the ones on the floor. “It’ll hold this way for a few minutes,” Tim called.
Amarylis traced more runes in the air; they expanded in front of her as if they were floating screens. Her eyes visibly scanned whatever information they displayed, hands occasionally tracing other magical sigils, blue and green lines flickering between the displays and the point of light.
“Turn those machines off now, sir,” the soldier with the megaphone yelled. “We won’t ask again.”
“You’re not ‘asking’ now,” Pick pointed out.
A few more people charged up toward the shield—another agent, another soldier, and Field Director Brickman. Gilchrist trailed behind them, followed by the cheetah, who looked extremely uncomfortable being there.
“Goddammit, Pick!” Brickman yelled. “And you!” He pointed at Sandy. “Do you have any idea what kind of charges you’re facing when this shield comes down?”
Sandy shook his head. “No,” he said honestly.
Brickman furrowed his brow.
Amarylis dropped her hands, and the rune faded. “I think I have it!”
“Okay, say when.” Tim gave her a thumbs up. “As long as ‘when’ is sometime in the next two minutes. If we miss that window, it’ll be another couple of hours before the system cools down enough to try again.”
Brickman pointed at Tim. “Turn. That. Off.”
Amarylis narrowed her eyes, and slowly walking forward. “Field Director Brickman.”
He stared up at her, looking as defiant as someone normal-sized could when facing off against an angry giant fox’taur. “This is not the way to do this.”
“If you don’t turn that off now, you’re all fired,” Gilchrist added.
Brickman rolled his eyes. “They’re going to be in jail.”
“Enough!” Amarylis roared, stomping a forepaw for emphasis.
Dozens of machine guns instantly retrained on her, but everyone fell silent.
She stared down at both of them. “Give me your word, now, that my friends will face no repercussions for doing what both of you know you should have done from the start, and I will give you my word we will return and help you. If not, I give you my word we will not return, and if you construct a permanent gate on your own, you will not be welcome.”
Gilchrist and Brickman stared at one another with undisguised loathing. “I don’t have the authority to make that call,” Brickman said.
“So be it. I will not see you again.” She turned, holding out a hand for Sandy.
He climbed onto it, eyes starting to water. “I’m going to…really miss you.”
“And I will miss you.” She lifted Sandy up to her lips, giving him another overwhelming nuzzle. This time he did his best to kiss back.
“One minute,” Tim called.
“I agree!” Gilchrist burst out.
Sandy and Amarylis both stared down at her, shocked. Brickman looked indignant. “What,” he growled, “did you just say?”
“Maybe you’re fine going down in history as the guy who blew our first contact with alien civilization because you couldn’t get your way. But I’m not. I’m not.” She took a deep breath and looked up at Amarylis. “I don’t know what strings I can pull to get around Field Director Fuckhead, but I’m going to pull all of the ones I have. I’m sorry. For everything. I hope you get home safely.”
Amarylis stared at her, then gave her a genuine smile, setting Sandy down. “Thank you. And thank you, Dennis, and Tim.” She nodded to the jaguar. “I am ready.”
He tapped on the laptop again, and the point of light grew even brighter. The giantess traced more runes in the air, larger and more intricate.
A wind grew out of somewhere in the building, strong enough to move the shattered glass. “Dammit,” Tim said clearly, before his voice vanished in the rising howl of an oncoming freight train.
Amarylis’s ears folded back, and she kept casting her spells. Sandy found himself counting down in his head. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.
Abruptly the point expanded into a globe, blindingly white, taller than as Amarylis was. She stepped toward it, hesitantly touched a forepaw to it, then let out a panicked bark as it sucked her in with the force a vacuum cleaner.
Before Sandy could even react, the globe collapsed in on itself, the train roar vanishing.
Soldiers started warily climbing into the building, the shield spell gone with its caster.
Brickman rubbed his face. “Arrest them all.”