The Fold: A Novel Part 56

"Maybe."

"No, not maybe."

"Speaking of awkward questions," said Jamie, "I think your boss is here."

They turned to the gate. Two people in dark suits, a man and a woman, stood by a gleaming black sports car that had slipped in through the same opening the ambulance had driven out. They ignored the police and firemen and spoke to each other.

The man was tall with broad shoulders. His hair was neat and slicked back, but on the long side. He had dark gla.s.ses more suited to the beach than a suit. His shoulders s.h.i.+fted twice, and he reached up to tug at his collar. Mike was pretty sure the man didn't even realize he was doing it. He looked more like a jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt kind of guy.

The woman was Arab, or maybe Indian. Her hair was short and black, and her hawkish nose was on par with Mike's own. She wore a sleek pair of silver-rimmed gla.s.ses that could've been a matched set with Arthur's. Even if the broad-shouldered man hadn't been next to her, she would've looked small. Her tie was knotted in a loose half-Windsor.

The man pulled a bright green phone from his pocket and took a few steps toward the building, relaying information to someone.

"Since when do the feds drive Teslas?" asked Sasha.

"Our tax dollars at work," Dasha smirked.

"I don't think they're with DARPA," said Mike.

"Who are they, then?"

He studied the two newcomers. "I'm not sure yet."

One of the policemen approached Jamie with a notebook. She gave Mike a nod, and they stepped apart. The woman in the suit straightened up and walked toward him. Two police officers inside the fence line glanced at the smoldering building, gave her a quick look, and one muttered something that Mike lip-read as eff bee eye b.i.t.c.h.

He took a few steps toward her. "h.e.l.lo," he said as she stopped in front of him.

The woman pointed past him to the building. "Were you in there before it blew?"

He nodded.

"What was going on in there?"

"I don't think I'm allowed to say," he told her. "Not without checking some clearances. Are you part of the Department of Defense?"

The woman shook her head. Behind her, the man circled around the barricades to get closer to the building. He continued to talk into his phone.

Mike remembered Dr. Forrester, the medical examiner obsessed with people getting black-bagged. "Homeland Security?"

"No. We're with a group based out of Los Angeles. For the past few months we've been getting some low-level interference that's been affecting our equipment." She tipped her head toward the remains of the building. "It's been getting worse, and we finally traced it down here."

"That's not possible," Mike said. "We weren't putting out any signals that could register in Los Angeles."

"We've got some pretty specialized equipment," she said.

"It's almost a hundred and thirty miles," said Mike. "From that far out, San Diego can barely affect Palomar with light pollution."

She smiled.

Mike looked at her again. At the lines of their suits. The b.u.t.tons. The st.i.tching. The ants carried out a series of images. Both the man and the woman were wearing off-the-rack suits, not tailored at all. He'd seen the man's jacket before, two weeks ago at Target with Bob. They'd walked past menswear on the way to pick up a mini-fridge, and there'd been a rack of suit separates next to the aisle.

"Which agency did you say you were with?"

The woman crossed her arms and smiled. It wasn't an entirely friendly expression. "I never said we were with the government."

"Nice job," said the man, walking up behind Mike. He held up a bright green phone for the woman to see. "Just heard. Everything's going back to zero."

"So what's that mean?" asked Mike. "'Everything's going back to zero'?"

The big man thumped him on the shoulder. It made his ribs throb. "Means you just saved the world, dude," he said. "Cool feeling, huh?" He gave the woman a nod and then walked back toward the building, snapping pictures with his phone.

Mike and the woman stared at each other for a moment.

"I'm sorry about all this," she said. "That all of you had to go through it and get hurt."

"People died," he said. "Nineteen people. Dead." The ants swarmed out of their faces. Sixteen Marines, including Black, Weaver, and his former student Duncan. Olaf. Neil. Bob.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"So who are you?" he asked.

"I doubt you've heard of us," she said. "But we're government subsidized. Sort of. Did you see anything?"

"Sorry?"

"You were doing some kind of dimensional experiments here, right? Based off the work of a Victorian mad scientist?"

He furrowed his brow. "How'd you know that?"

"I've seen this a few times before. That's pretty much always how it goes."

"Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"I wish. What did you see before you blew the place up?"

He tried to read her expression. "I'm not sure you'd believe me."

"You'd be surprised." She looked over at the building. "Let me ask you this, then. Did you have a roach problem?"

His brows went up. "Yeah."

"Green roaches?" she added. "Kind of strange ones with an extra leg?"

"You've seen them before."

The woman nodded. "Them, and what comes after them." She looked past him to the building. "Again...I'm really sorry."

Another moment pa.s.sed.

"Who are you?"

"I had a long drive to read personnel files," she said, ignoring him. She nodded her chin toward Sasha and Dasha. "I know all about you, Leland Erikson, prefers Mike, but I didn't know they had twins working here."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, they do."

The woman pressed her lips together and nodded. "That's new," she said after a minute. "You're sure she's not an evil twin or anything?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"I think I can help clear that up, then," she said. "That they're just twins. Who've always worked here."

"Thanks."

"Not a problem. At least we can help a little."

The spray of water from the fire hoses loosened a pair of cinder blocks. They plunged off what was left of their wall and shattered against the concrete floor. According to Mike's internal diagram, they hit right where the collection of tool chests had been.

"So," he said, "what was all this about?"

She nodded after the big man. "Like Roger said. Saving the world."

"You do this for a living? Stop alien invasions from other dimensions."

"Now and then. Most of the time, my job's more about historical research. And some hacking."

"Sounds interesting."

"You have no idea."

A fireman walked up and talked to Jamie and the twins for a moment. Sasha and Dasha relaxed. Jamie smiled. She glanced over at Mike, judged the conversation he was having with the Indian woman, and gestured at the path down to the trailers. He nodded. She nodded back and walked off with the two identical women.

"So," the Indian woman said as Jamie walked away. "You're not an English teacher anymore. They started advertising for a replacement a few days ago. Are you going to work for your friend at DARPA?"

"Doubtful."

"No job. Sounds like no place to live, either."

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

She tilted her head to one side and stared at him for a moment. Then she pulled a bright green phone from her pocket. Her fingers swooshed back and forth across the phone's screen. "We've got a vacancy. Two, if you want to bring your girlfriend. We can always use somebody else with computer skills, because I'm sick of doing everything."

"Vacancy?"

"Yeah."

"Which means...?"

"I can't tell you that. Not yet. But you know what I can tell you?" She turned and headed back toward the Tesla.

He took a quick step to keep up with her and his ribs ached. "What?"

"This is going to keep you up at night," she said. "It's going to gnaw at you. Because that's what happened to me. And Roger. And some other people. We found clues. We saw things. And we wanted to know more. We needed to know more. Just like you need to know more."

"Says who?"

"Says me. Now that you've seen what's out there, your only two options are deep denial or finding the rest of the answers. It sucks, I know, but that's it."

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch. "I'm not really built for denial."

"Exactly." She held out the phone. "There's one number in it. Think about it and give us a call. You've got a week."

Mike took it from her. "And then what happens?"

"Then the number gets disconnected and the phone turns into a paperweight. You never get any more answers, and you lose a lot of sleep."

The man-Roger-walked back from the building and around the Tesla. He dropped his own phone in his coat pocket and pulled open the driver's door.

The woman opened her own door. "One week," she said. "Don't forget."

The Tesla made a tight turn inside the circle of emergency vehicles, slid between two barricades, and then headed off down the street.

FIFTY-NINE.

The path to the trailers was clear, but clogged with smoke from the main building and the overgrowth. Mike walked the long way around. It was hard on his ribs, but he'd live.

He tried to slip the green phone into his back pocket while he walked, but reaching his arm back and up made his ribs flare again. He pushed it into his front pocket instead. It was a bit awkward there, but it would be in his hand again soon enough.

Mycroft wouldn't call the number on the phone. But Sherlock would. Really, if Mike was going to be Sherlock now, he'd call the number he'd seen when Roger held up his smartphone after talking to his boss. The ants carried out an image of the screen with CALL ENDED and the 323 number belonging to NATE. He expected it would be an interesting conversation.

The first trailer, Olaf's, was a burned out, soggy husk. Bob's wasn't much better. Puddles spread around them, soaking into the gravel.

His own trailer had lost its roof and part of one wall. That had opened it up enough for everything else to burn. No more futon. No more tablet from Reggie. He'd also lost his clothes and his duffel bag. And all the reports about the Door.

All the paper copies, anyway.

The Astroturf between the trailers had burned in some places, melted in others. Water from the fire hoses was pooled up on it. From lawn to swamp in one day.

Jamie's trailer had lost its windows in the pressure blast and had a few dark spots where heat had discolored the paint. Sasha's had black walls and broken gla.s.s, but looked overall intact. The trailer with the seraph skeleton, farthest from the main building, looked fine.

Jamie stepped out of her trailer, and something burst past her ankles. Tramp raced across the gravel, his tongue waving in the wind, and ran circles around Mike. "He okay?"