Telephone Call (Two)

He dialed his phone again.

"Garcia."

"Have the detectors arrived?"

"About an hour ago, and you were right. There's a fairly continuous stream of subatomic particles coming out of it. I think it's degrading."

"Okay, good," Weaver said.

"Is that firing I hear?" Garcia asked.

"Yeah, we're being invaded," Weaver replied and yawned. "Monsters from the eighth dimension or something. I think we're about to get overrun."

"Jesus! Get out of there!"

"Well, we're sort of cut off," Weaver admitted. "Look, what sort of particles?"

"Muons and something else," Garcia said. "Do you really want to talk about this now?"

"Yes."

"Okay, there's some muons, like I said, but we're getting readings on others. They're not anything I recognize, not mesons, not quarks, very high mass. I'd guess they might be bosons."

"That doesn't make sense," Weaver said, squinting his brow as the machine gun set up an almost continuous clatter. "Not the big particles, the muons. I'd have expected neutrinos."

"I don't happen to have a neutrino detector on me at the moment," Garcia said, sarcastically. Neutrino detection required very large tanks of chemicals, usually in the tens of thousands of gallons. When the neutrinos hit the chemicals they were accelerated to faster than light speed, creating Cherenkov radiation detectable as purplish-blue flashes of light.

"The Japanese have one down to, oh, the size of a container car or so," Weaver said, yawning again. "Maybe we can borrow it. But the rest makes sense. If it's degrading into the universe it's probably going to increase the charge of each of the released particles. That means you get small gates at first and larger ones as it continues to degrade. Or maybe they'll go further and further away. And the first gates that would open would be nearby. Finally things are starting to make sense."

Sanson walked over and slapped a pistol into the scientist's empty hand.

"You know how to use one of those?" Sanson asked.

"Point and click?" Weaver said, looking puzzled.

"Yeah, more or less." The SEAL laughed. "Round up the spout, cocked, not on safe. Touch the trigger and it fires. Just remember to point it at the bad guys."

"Look, one of the SEALs just handed me a pistol," Weaver said, keeping his finger away from the trigger. "I think that's a bad sign. We'll talk about this later, okay?"

"Okay," Garcia said. "Decaying, releasing particles, particles open gates."

"Something like that. And increasing charge, larger gates or further away as time goes by." Tuffy was small. Small gate? But large enough to take Mimi? The front door burst open and one of the smaller monsters came into the room, howling its terrible cry. Sanson turned and fired a burst that bounced off the armor but as it turned towards the SEAL Weaver lined up the pistol on it and shot. The first round was high, kicking dust out of the wall, but he lowered the pistol slightly and was rewarded with a green blotch on the second round. Two more bullets into it, and one in the floor, and it was kicking and twitching on the ground, spilling green ichor into the blue rug.

"Well, gotta go," Weaver said.

"Doc . . ."

"See you later, Garcia."

Another of the beasts sprang into the room and Weaver shot at it, missing, then two more times and hit. The second round hit it in the hindquarters and its back legs dropped, limp. But it continued to crawl forward on its front legs and his next two rounds missed, poking holes in the far wall and shattering a picture of a sailboat against the backdrop of a tropical island. That was his last round and the slide of the H&K locked back on the empty magazine.

"I think I'm out of bullets," he yelled, standing up and stepping back over the couch.

"Here!" Sanson yelled, tossing a magazine through the air.

Weaver caught it but had no idea what to do with it. However, he was an engineer; it should be easy enough to figure out. The thing had crawled up to him and he backed away, into the room, hoping to draw it away from the two SEALs as he attempted to determine how to reload. Let's see, two levers on the handle of the gun, one blocked by the slide. Lever near the trigger. He fiddled with the lever and was rewarded by having the empty magazine drop out onto the floor. Point bullets forward, insert magazine. Eureka! But the slide didn't go forward and pulling the trigger didn't work. He grabbed the slide and pulled back and was again rewarded by having it slide forward. By this time the thing had nearly crawled up to him again and he jumped backwards then pointed the gun at it and shot several times.

"Watch it!" Miller snarled as one of the rounds hammered into his body armor. "Save your rounds!"

"Hey, I got it, didn't I?" Weaver asked as his phone rang.

"William Weaver," he said, holding the smoking barrel of the pistol upwards where he wouldn't tend to shoot one of the SEALs.

"This is the NSA, we're watching the news, where are you?"

"In the Edderbrook house," he replied. "I think we're sort of cut off."

"Jesus! Get out of there!"

"I don't think that's possible," he noted as another of the damned things just strolled in the door. He aimed carefully this time and managed to hit it on the first shot. But the round only ticked it off and it turned and charged him.

"Hold please," he said, jumping to the back of the couch and over and then coming up with the pistol and shooting it in the back as it tried to make the turn. One of the bullets must have hit its spine because its back legs went out just like the other one. He aimed carefully and fired rounds into its neck until it stopped moving. He realized he'd gotten out of control when the slide locked back again. "I'm out of bullets again!" he yelled. "I'm sorry, I'm a little busy at the moment. Could we talk later?"

"Sure," the NSA said, bemusedly.

"I told Garcia what I think is going on, based on the evidence," he said, catching another magazine from Sanson and missing the toss from Miller. He reloaded and picked up the magazine he'd missed as he talked. Multi-tasking, that's the key.

"We'll talk later," the NSA said.

(Into the Looking Glass, John Ringo)