How to Kill a Vampire in Outer Space Read online

  Whatever aging you did at home, though, you were stuck with. Another reason not to take too much time off.

  I never found out exactly what caused the healing effect. I asked one of my instructors once if it was nanites, and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, nanites. Whatever helps you understand it, caveman. The big glowing ball of light in the sky, that’s nanites, too.” I think he was being sarcastic.

  I was trying to figure out how to extricate myself out from under Lock without waking him when my spanner gave my wrist a little squeeze – just one quick pulse. That was my signal to report in – I had a mission. I hadn’t even finished writing up my report for the last one. I hadn’t even started writing up my report for the last one, but that was really Lock’s fault for distracting me.

  I didn’t have time to gnaw Lock’s arm off at the shoulder. I slid out from underneath and his arm hit the mattress.

  “Huh wuzzuh?” he mumbled.

  I picked my uniform up from off the floor and started putting it on. “Gotta go. Got a mission. Go back to sleep.”

  He lifted his head up off his pillow, watching me dress through squinted, sleep-covered eyes. “You got another mission? Already?”

  “That’s what my spanner says. My corner of the multiverse is hopping today, I guess.”

  Back-to-back missions weren’t all that unusual. Our beats are literally infinite, so it’s almost stranger that we don’t have dangerous incursions more often than we do.

  I pulled my pants up and Lock smacked my behind. “I wish I had a mission. I’m bored.”

  I finished dressing and bent over, kissing him goodbye. “Careful what you wish for, Captain.”

  His head fell back onto the pillow as I stepped out into the hall. The shifter door slid open to greet me.

  “Control Room Twelve,” I said.

  In no time at all I was back in my usual Control Room. Mission Supervisors sat at all seven stations, watching their displays. Angie was already rising from hers to greet me.

  “I thought you were going off-duty?” I asked.

  “I did. I vent home for a veek and a half. Now I’m back.” She lifted her chin. “You didn’t notice my tan?”

  Oh, right. Relative time. It often appeared like Crossroads personnel never stopped working, but that was only because they could cram a month’s vacation into a fifteen-minute break.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Yes, you’re looking much greener, Angie, it suits you. So what’s the mission, boss?”

  I followed her to her terminal in front of one of the observation windows. She gestured to a screen, but the cloud of numbers displayed meant nothing to me. “I can’t tell you much, Jed. Dis vorld hasn’t been visited before.”

  “What’s the nature of the contamination?”

  “I can’t get a good read on it. It’s an object, and it’s been dere for a vhile. Tventy years? Maybe less?”

  “Twenty years?”

  She pursed her lips. “Relative time, Jed. De system logged it automatically. Dose two decades over dere passed since dis morning, for us.” She sat at her console and peered at the display. “Looks like it vas active again, six or seven years ago. Again, relative time.”

  “I should get moving. Civilization will be extinct by the time I get downstairs.”

  She put her hand on a control pad. “No, I stabilized de time differential ven de system flagged it.”

  “Yeah, I was...joking...never mind.”

  “But you should go. De artifact is connecting to a second universe vith very different physical laws. Not a good idea for dem to mix.”

  “No, it’s not. Anything else for me, chief?”

  “Dat’s all, Agent Ryland. I’ve already fed de coordinates to your spanner. You should arrive somevhere in de vicinity of de contaminating artifact.”

  I knew what that meant. Angie was good at her job, but pinpointing a mission target within an entire universe was not easy. She might set me down right on top of it, or miles away. I could at least expect to be on the same planet. Probably.

  I headed down to the Mission Transit Room and stood at the near side, directly under the window. I was hidden from Angie’s direct line of sight, though she could still see me on a monitor.

  “Again vith de running?” came her voice through the intercom. “Vhy always vith de running?”

  “It’s cooler.”

  The spanner worked perfectly well if I stayed stationary, but running from one universe to another just seemed more exciting.

  “Good luck to you, Agent,” Angie said. “Come home safe.”

  My connection to the spanner was telepathic, so there were no controls to operate. I felt the preprogrammed coordinates ready and waiting. I took a breath and ran towards the opposite wall. Halfway across the room, I sent the mental command, and jumped.

  My forehead smacked into a tree branch, knocking me flat on my back. I lay there and waited for this new world to stop spinning, retroactively deciding that this was the perfect position from which to examine my surroundings.

  We often went into missions with little information about the nature of the universe. The readings from the source of contamination might provide some clues, but otherwise, we were on our own. The spanner sent a scanning pulse a microsecond ahead of our arrival to make sure we didn’t appear inside a solid object, but that was it for advance reconnaissance. Making sure we don’t run straight into solid objects is our own responsibility.

  The ground beneath me was mostly cold dirt, packed hard. There was grass under my hands, but I rubbed a blade between my fingers and it felt fake, like plastic. The air smelt like the outdoors, though. Like it had recently rained, although the ground was dry. The temperature was warm and comfortable, and there was a cool breeze running across my aching face.

  The throb in my forehead started to lessen and I opened my eyes. The tree, my arch-nemesis, stretched out above me, along with a few neighbors. It was a pine tree, but its fellows were all different types – an oak, a chestnut, a maple, even a palm tree. The sky above them was clear and blue.

  I sat up. I was in a small, but dense, copse of trees. A few feet away was a colossal wall, made of solid gray stone, stretching up past the treetops, at least a hundred feet high. On every other side of my little hodgepodge forest was an open clearing. I could see figures, milling about, all clustered together on the vivid green faux-grass.

  I rubbed my forehead and winced at the nasty bump that was forming. Well, I thought, I wouldn’t be much of a multiversal protector if I let a losing battle with a hunk of wood stop me. I grabbed hold of the offender’s trunk and got to my feet, then paused, startled by the feel of the bark. It looked like natural wood, but it was as artificial as the grass.

  I crouched down and darted behind a thick oak tree, a few feet closer to the crowd of people. This tree was also fake, made from heavy plastic, but it was solid enough to block me from their view while I did a little spying.

  They were kids. Teenagers. Most were probably seventeen or eighteen, but some looked as young as twelve. They wore simple clothes – shirts of solid, dark colors, with black or brown pants made from some thick material. Some wore boots and some athletic shoes, all also of dark, plain colors. A few had thin jackets or hoodies, despite the warm weather. The clothes were functional, if not particularly stylish.

  I focused on a few of the boys, and altered my uniform to match. By copying one boy’s pants, another’s shirt, and a third’s sneakers I was able to make an outfit that would blend in well enough.

  The kids were talking calmly in small groups. Some were sitting on the fake grass, but most were standing, pacing around one another or bouncing on their heels. A boy and a girl were shadowboxing. They seemed amped up, waiting for something.

  The wind carried a few scattered words towards me, none I could piece together into anything meaningful but enough to tell me that they spoke English. That was convenient. Not that it would have been an insurmountable problem if they didn’t – my spanner’s third
trick was that it could translate any language. Extremely useful, but it needed time to analyze a large enough sample of words.

  No need to keep spying, then. I straightened up and walked out into the clearing.

  “Hello!” I waved cheerily.

  You know in old Western movies, when a stranger walks into an olde-timey saloon and all the conversation and piano playing and liquor drinking and poker playing stops like a record scratch? I expect that would feel a lot like this moment in the clearing.

  There were about forty teens, evenly divided between boys and girls, staring at me in utter disbelief. They were completely still. Everything was silent until one boy let the apple he was eating fall from his hand. It hit the ground with a soft thump.

  I was beginning to think that I should have maybe spied for a little longer. “Hello,” I said again. “I’m Jed.”

  An instant later I was flat on my back, gasping for air, with a teenage girl straddling my chest. She gripped my face in her hands and put her thumbs against the undersides of my eyes, maintaining an uncomfortably threatening pressure.

  “Who are you?” she screamed.

  Two boys joined her. One pinned my arms up above my head while another sat on my legs.

  “Who are you?” she yelled again. The girl had short blonde hair, with a dark tan, thick cheeks and deep-set eyes, and was tall enough that she had to bend way over to get in my face.

  I tried to suck in the air she had knocked out of me, no mean feat while she was sitting on my chest. “I’m...” I started, then coughed. I wheezed and finally got a good breath. “I’m Jed. Weren’t you listening?”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “Uh...I just...sort of arrived?”

  “Arrived?” The boy holding my legs interjected. He was slighter than the girl, and shorter. A bit of a pretty boy, with very pale skin, short brown hair and an upturned nose. “What does that mean? Is this the first Challenge? Are you part of the Gauntlet? ”

  “Gauntlet?” I asked.

  “Answer the question!” the girl screamed. Spit flew into my face.

  “Let him up, Trinna.”

  Another girl broke through the pack to stand at my pinned feet. She was of East Asian descent I’d say (by my world’s standards), with a lean face and shoulder-length black hair. I’d guess she was about eighteen, among the oldest of the group. Despite her short stature she gave off a palpable strength and maturity. The other teens quieted as soon as she spoke.

  Trinna, the girl on my chest, turned. “But Astrith...!”

  “Let him up. When has a person ever been part of a Challenge? Let’s hear what he was to say. Guys, let him go.”

  The two boys released my arms and legs. Trinna gave me one last scowl, then stood up. She spat on the ground near my head and backed away.

  My new best friend Astrith reached a hand out to me. “You all right?”

  I took it and let her haul me to my feet. I rubbed my stomach. “She hits like a linebacker.”

  “A what?”

  “A...never mind. Sorry, I uh...”

  I broke off. I got my first good look at the space around me and I was momentarily lost for words. The giant walls towered over all four sides of an immense rectangular space. The clearing was a few hundred feet wide and maybe half a mile long. We were at one end, near a corner. There were several more of those groves of fake trees scattered around, but most of the space was open field, covered in that artificial grass. About twenty squat metallic cylindrical structures, tiny huts with a single door in each, were spread evenly in a line across the space, a short ways from the back wall.

  But what really had me staring was the sight at the far end of the field. In the distance, set atop a tall hill, almost a mountain, was a majestic, gleaming city. I could just make out a gap in the far stone wall, and a long path led up from it to the base of the city high above. A silver metal wall surrounded the city, presumably keeping the people inside safe from the sheer drop down the mountain on every other side. The only way into the city would be across this long field and up the steep path.

  The city itself was ultramodern. It was like someone had taken the best and tallest skyscrapers from every city in my world and clustered them all together, like a bunch of straws in a clenched fist, then stuck them on the top of a mountain peak. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

  Astrith waved a hand in front of my eyes. I blinked.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “First time seeing it in person?”

  I nodded. “First time seeing it at all. Sorry, I was saying...I was apologizing for just jumping out of the trees like that. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Trinna snorted. “We’re not scared.”

  “Of course we’re scared,” Astrith countered. “We’d be stupid not to be scared.”

  Trinna blushed and looked down at the ground.

  Astrith noticed her reaction and grimaced. “But Trinna was right to question you,” she said. “How did you get in here?”

  Trinna looked back up and stood a little straighter. She took a step closer, standing slightly behind Astrith.

  Smart, I thought. Astrith had insulted her, but quickly made up for it without embarrassing Trinna further. Definitely the leader.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t even know where I am.”

  I heard muttered disbelief from the assembled teens. Astrith’s gaze never wavered.

  The short pretty-boy who had been holding my legs spoke first. “How can you not know? Everybody knows about the Gauntlet.”

  A necklace he wore captured my attention. It was a silver chain with what looked like a large dragonfly wing dangling from the end of it. He saw me looking and tucked the necklace under his shirt.

  I pretended not to notice. “Not me.”

  “Have you been living in the Wastelands?” The other boy, the one who had been holding my arms, stepped forward to join Astrith. He looked about the same age as the other boy, somewhere around eighteen, but had day-old stubble on his otherwise youthful face. He was white, but tanned as dark as Trinna. He was the biggest of the crowd, taller than me, and was solid muscle. “You can’t be telling the truth.”

  “I am, though.”

  The pretty-boy spoke up again. “Are you from Over the Sea?”

  I snapped my fingers. “I must be. I came from very, very far away.”

  Another round of mutterings passed through the crowd, this one of amazement. Trinna still looked doubtful, but my answer satisfied Astrith and the two boys.

  “We’ve never met anyone from Over the Sea before,” Astrith said. “Nobody has. Oosa and the Lands Over the Sea lost contact centuries ago, after the War.”

  “Is he a Contestant?” the tall boy asked her. “Is he taking part in the Challenges?”

  “Can’t be,” Trinna said. “Look at him, he’s too old. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair. He didn’t take part in the Trials.”

  I swear I could actually hear all the capital letters. I raised my hands. “Whoa, guys, please. Slow down. I don’t know anything about a challenge or trials or anything. Can you start at the beginning? Is Oosa the name of that city? Is that where you’re from?”

  The kids fell silent, looking to Astrith for guidance. She examined me, then turned to the crowd. “Everybody pick a Shelter, eat if you’re hungry, get some rest. No telling when the first Challenge will start. It looks like our new friend is in this with us.”

  “But...” Trinna started.

  Astrith cut her off. “If this is part of a Challenge, we’ll find out soon enough. And if he’s a Contestant, well, go complain to the Assemblyperson Prime if you don’t like it. You know they can change the rules as much as they want, and it’s not like he can leave anyway.”

  Trinna bit her lip. “Fine. I’m going to get something to eat. Watch your back around your new teammate.” She gave me the stink-eye as she stormed off.

  “Most people love me, I swear,” I said.

  Astrith la
ughed. “Trinna doesn’t love anyone. She tolerates us, that’s all.”

  We stood for a moment and watched the crowd of teens disperse. They split into twos and threes and went into the metal huts. The two boys stayed close. I thought at first they were keeping an eye on me, but it seemed more like they had eyes for Astrith.

  “What did you mean,” I said, “about not being able to leave?”

  “Oh.” She turned to face me. “Sorry, Jed. However you got here, you’re stuck now. The only way out is to take part in the Challenges and try to complete the Gauntlet.”

  “Sounds fun, but I don’t have time for games.” I turned to look off at the city – an urban center was usually a good place to start searching for cross-universal contamination. “I’m here looking for something...”

  “It’s no game.” She grabbed my shoulder and spun me to face her. Her teeth were gritted and her expression serious. “You don’t have much time to catch up, so listen closely. You’re a Contestant now. Some time in the next day the Gauntlet will begin and we’ll face the first of three Challenges. By the time it’s over a lot of these people will be dead. Maybe you’ll be one of them. Maybe I will.”

  “Dead...?”

  She hesitated, then nodded to the two boys. “Would you two mind making sure nobody’s hoarding food?”

  “Ryoh can do that,” the tall one said. “I can stay here and watch your back.”

  “I can do that, too,” said pretty-boy Ryoh. “So why don’t you...?”