Chapter 33

Kim, Dunbar, and Burton, all met me when I pulled up at the gate to the compound a few minutes later. Kim was looking at me with concern etched on her face, while Dunbar and Burton were simply eyeing my prisoner. My people, Sygor and Gogra, were standing behind them looking a little out of place.

“Are you okay?” Kim asked in English. “Were you hit?”

“I’m fine,” I grunted in reply as I climbed out of the captured ATV. “I only picked up a few scratches, but that’s it. Your medic can probably patch them up blindfolded and in her sleep, so don’t worry about me. How about you guys? Did these bastards do any real damage?”

“We’re good,” Kim reassured me. “The morons pounded the courtyard and that’s it. I don’t know if they were trying not to hit anything irreplaceable, but they certainly weren’t aiming at doing any real damage. Their fire simply kept everyone under cover.”

“Good,” I acknowledged, nodding thoughtfully as I did, before turning my gaze towards my prisoner. “It means I don’t have to slap this idiot around for hurting someone I care about, before handing him over to you to question. His name, by the way, is Maxwell Tupper. I’ve made it very clear to him that he’s a dead man just waiting for me to plant him. I’ve given him two options. Option A is him cooperating with us and telling us everything he knows about this place, about Quantum, and about the assholes that sent him here to kill us. If he cooperates, he dies quickly and painlessly. Option B is he doesn’t cooperate and we carve him up questioning him until we get everything we want to know, anyway. Then he dies painfully, impaled on a stake in the courtyard with everyone watching him die. So far, besides telling me his name, Max says he’ll tell us everything. Why don’t you take him somewhere private and see if he’s telling the truth.”

That last part I directed at Dunbar and Burton. Both men smiled in response and then they stepped over to the vehicle where I’d left Max trussed up on the back cargo deck. With a push and a shove, and a command to ‘move it, asshole’ they got him to his feet and they marched him away. Kim and I watched them go.

“Is that it?” Kim asked once the man was out of earshot. “Are there any others out there that we need to worry about?”

“Max said no, when I asked him the same question,” I told Kim, glancing back towards the tree-line as I said it. “He told me that his team had been sent out over a week ago to find this outpost and to establish communications with it. According to him, he and his boys were hunkered down a mile or so away last night when the storm hit and I came visiting the compound. They waited out the night and they were just moving in when I sent Durt and Tonko back to get help from my people. Seeing them depart, headed north, got them curious and concerned. When they spotted me walking about the top of the command post, Max there decided I was hostile and he opened up on me. The rest you know. I left three bodies out there that need to be hauled in and stripped of anything useful. I also left another ATV parked out there. We should go get it and bring it inside. I’m sure we can make good use of it, helping to move everyone back to my place. What do you think?”

“I think I’ll send Monty to go and pick it up,” Kim declared while eyeing me with some concern, “while you head inside and visit Alexa. You’ve got blood on you and I know it isn’t from people you killed. Go and get looked at, and then we can have a talk.”

I simply grunted in response to Kim’s suggestion. I was in some pain, by then. My face hurt, and my right shoulder did, too. I figured she was right. I needed doctoring first. Any chitchat could wait.

As I brushed past Kim, I eyed Sygor and Gogra. Both men still looked a little out of it. Sygor was glaring at me with an uncertain look on his face. I paused and spoke to them before moving on.

“Are you two okay?” I asked softly, speaking to them in the common tongue.

“We’re fine, Jake,” Gogra responded in a firm reassuring voice. “We were just surprised by the noise and the chaotic way in which everything occurred. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I muttered dismissively, “I’m fine, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

“But those men shot you,” Sygor gasped out, looking at me wide-eyed and in disbelief. “You were shot and you fell from high up, but you’re still alive. It doesn’t make sense.”

I smiled and then patted Sygor sympathetically on the shoulder, trying to reassure him that everything was all right. Then I stepped back and I unzipped the winter parka I was wearing.

“It’s okay, Sygor,” I told the young man. “I’ll explain it to you later, but see here, I’m wearing a protective vest. That stopped the bullets from getting me. As for the drop from the top of the container, well that’s easy to explain. There was a three foot pile of freshly fallen snow to cushion my impact. It still hurt, but it certainly didn’t leave me injured. Now stop worrying, and listen up, I’ve got some work for you two to do.”

As I’d spoken to the young man I’d pulled open the front of my torn up parka, and the shredded buckskin shirt that lay beneath it, so that he could see my ballistic vest. The guy, and to be truthful about it, almost every other person in my community had seen Clara, Gabby, and me wearing a vest most of the time, ever since I’d met Gort and we’d rescued his mother from Hagar. I’d never explained what it was for or why we wore them, and the people in the community hadn’t asked. Now Sygor stared at it blankly for a moment or two, before a light came on in his eyes. As realization of what I was saying sank in, I closed the parka up once more to keep the cold out, and I started tell Gogra and Sygor what I wanted them to do.

I didn’t trust Max as far as I could throw him. I did have a feeling he was telling the truth, but then again my feeling could be wrong. For now I didn’t want to take a chance.

“You can’t take the horses out to graze,” I said bluntly, eyeing Sygor and then Gogra. “The guy I brought back claims there are no more bad guys out there, but I don’t know for sure yet if he’s telling the truth. That means that I don’t want you two outside these walls without me watching your back, and since I’ve got to go visit the healer here and get a few scratches tended to, it means that you two stay here. Feed the horses from our stash of oats and grain that we brought along with us for now. Hopefully, we won’t be here too long. When you’re done feeding the horses, you can start helping the others to pack this place up. Okay?”

Gogra was okay with it. The older man nodded his understanding. Sygor bristled at the suggestion that he needed me watching over his shoulder.

“I know how to hunt,” Sygor pointed out angrily, “and you have shown me how to use this weapon. I do not need someone watching over me.”

I sighed and shook my head, and then I pointed a finger into Sygor’s chest.

“Look, Sygor, I know you can hunt and you can fire a weapon,” I stated tersely, “but the truth is that everyone needs somebody watching his back, especially when there is a good chance that they could get killed. You know that. Whenever we hunt bear, we do it as a team, and not alone. So stop giving me grief. Do you understand?”

The comment about hunting bears alone was a low shot, but effective. Grudgingly Sygor admitted that he understood.

“All right, then,” I muttered as I moved to leave the two so I could go see Kim’s medic, “I’ll see you later. If there’s a problem, come and see me. Okay?”

This time both men acknowledged that everything was okay. I nodded my contentment, and then I wandered off, leaving them standing by the gate.

Ohba was the first person to greet me once I climbed through the hatch and into the kitchen. She ran right up to me and she threw her arms about me to hug me. She babbled something in her own language that I didn’t even catch, let alone understand, and then she started apologizing in what little common tongue she knew when I winced in pain.

“It’s okay,” I told the young woman reassuringly, whispering my words as I leaned down and I gave her a peck on the top of her head. “I’m just battered and bruised, but I’ll live.”

That peck on the top of her head made Ohba my newest best friend. Her eyes lit up at the tenderness I’d shown her. She beamed up at me with love in her eyes and I knew that sooner or later the young woman would find her way into my bed, and most likely into my heart. For now I just smiled at her affectionately, holding her close to me so that she knew that I really cared.

“So that’s how you’ve won over all these cave women,” Kim commented in English as she stepped into the room, having followed me into the compound once I’d finished with Sygor and Gogra, and then up the stairs to the command post level of the container unit. “You go and get all macho on them, showing them how manly you really are, and then you give them a sweet, tender kiss. After that, they must just throw themselves into your bed.”

“Bringing home the bacon helps even more,” I pointed out with a chuckle. “You should see what they do when I bring home bear for supper. They just go wild.”

Kim chuckled good naturedly in response to my off hand quip, but her smile and her cheerful mood didn’t last. With in seconds she had a serious look on her face once again.

“We should really get you looked at,” Kim murmured. “Just in case you’re actually injured.”

I wasn’t going to argue with her about it, seeing that was why I was where I was. By then we’d been joined by Geeta and Bogdi, and by Alexa who’d been checking up on them, just before the bullets had started flying.

“Hi, Doc,” I said to the woman, smiling as I peeled Ohba off of me and I directed her into the care of Geeta and Bogdi. “If you’ve got a minute to spare right now, I wouldn’t mind if you took a look and see if I still have all my pieces. It would probably make Kim feel better, and most likely reassure me, as well.”

Alexa didn’t need to be asked twice. On seeing the state I was in she pulled me aside and she told everyone else to back off.

Alexa took me into the communication centre and she told me to strip down to my waist. I did exactly what she said. I tossed aside the heavy parka and then my buckskin shirt. Both definitely needed replacing. At that point I noted what injuries I could see. I spotted blood streaking my upper right shoulder, and then I spotted more blood trailing down the inside of my left arm. Since both blood trails were semi-dry I didn’t give either of them a second look, instead focusing on getting undressed as ordered by Alexa. It only took me a few more minutes to unstrap my ballistic vest and to get rid of the t-shirt that I’d been wearing under it.

“So what do you think?” I asked casually as I tossed my kit aside.

“I think that you’re a very lucky bastard,” Alexa muttered stiffly as she looked me over in the fluorescent lighting of the room. “A few inches higher and you’d have been dead.”

I had been lucky. My chest was a mass of black and blue from where the burst had tracked across me, striking the vest. I was also feeling a bit stiff and in pain now that the vest was off me. The fall hadn’t killed me, but it had left me battered and bruised.

Alexa went for the easy stuff first. Katherine had shown up with Alexa’s medic pack while I had been stripping down. Taking it from Katherine, Alexa spent the next fifteen minutes cleaning the wounds, disinfecting them, and stitching them back up. In addition to the gash on my left cheek that needed three stitches, Alexa found two other wounds. I’d been clipped early by a stray round that had pierced the sleeve of my parka, nipping the fleshy part of my left underarm. It was only a scratch and Alexa didn’t even have to stitch it.

The second wound was a little more extensive, but not that bad. It was on the outer edge of my right shoulder. Again a round had pierced my parka and my buckskin shirt and the bullet had grazed me. It took two stitches to close it up, but that was it.

My most serious injuries were my ribs. Alexa didn’t think I’d broken any, but they were certainly bruised. She had a portable x-ray machine over in her sickbay, but after poking and prodding me, the woman decided she didn’t really need pictures to tell her more about my hurts. Instead she broke out some elastic bandages and she started to bind my chest.

“You should be okay in a week,” Alexa muttered in that detached manner that all medical people use when they’re relating information to a patient. “This is just a precaution, and to help take some of the pressure off your muscles and ribs. If you start pissing blood, come and see me. If you have problems breathing, come and see me. Stay away from any booze for the next little while, and don’t do anything stupid like fight another battle if you don’t have to. If you can’t take the pain, I’ll give you an aspirin, but that’s it. You certainly don’t need the good stuff. Do you have any questions?”

Since I didn’t have any questions for Alexa, I let her go. She cleaned up her stuff while the others stood around watching, silently checking me out.

“I guess I should get dressed,” I muttered as Alexa grabbed her pack and vacated the room, taking Kim with her as she went. I watched her go and then I looked down at the pile of ruined clothing lying at my feet.

“I guess I should find myself something to wear,” I muttered as I nudged the stuff at my feet aside and I stepped towards the sleeping area. “Fortunately, I pack for every occasion. I should have something to wear in my pack.”

“Well if you don’t,” Katherine called after me, “I’m certain that Penny has something to fit you in stock. In fact, I’d put money on it. Kim even said that there was a new vest in stores with your name on it. She’s off to get it right now.”

Katherine’s comment brought me up short. I turned back and I looked at her, curiosity etched on my face.

“What?” Katherine asked when she found me staring at her. “Did I say something wrong?”

I didn’t answer Katherine. Instead I went back into the sleeping area to find something to wear. I found Geeta, Bogdi, and Ohba clustered together on a bunk. Their faces turned towards me the second I entered the room. Their faces showed concern.

“You three okay?” I asked as I sat down across from them and I grabbed my pack.

“Yes, Jake,” Bogdi replied hesitantly, trying not to meet my gaze. “We are okay.”

I paused and looked at the three youths. I could tell that they were upset about something. I sat back and instead of getting dressed, I pulled my bearskin about my naked shoulders.

“What’s wrong with you three?” I asked pointedly, once I covered up, “and I mean besides the obvious. What’s got you worried?”

Bogdi blushed at my question and then he looked away. Geeta did as well. Only Ohba kept my gaze and I think she did that simply because she was even more confused about what was up, than I was. For a moment I let it go, not saying a word, but when no one spoke up, I pushed the issue.

“Look,” I told them, lowering my voice as I spoke so as not to be too aggressive. “I don’t know exactly what they did to you here. I’m told by Kim that she protected you the best she could. I’m hoping that was enough. If it wasn’t, then I hope killing those bastards last night gave you a little closure. I’m not expecting you to talk to me about this stuff. You might not want to speak about this time ever again. I can understand that. I am here for you, though. I might be your leader, but I’m also your friend, and in some ways I look upon you two as being my children. If there is something that you want to say to me, I’m here and I’ll listen to you. However, I won’t push you. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Geeta murmured softly in reply, a thin smile crossing her lips.

I smiled back and I extended an arm towards her. Geeta came and crawled in beside me and snuggled up. Ohba followed her and snuggled up on the other side. I gave both of them a reassuring peck. Then I looked over at Bogdi.

“What about you?” I asked the young man. “Do you understand?”

Bogdi nodded yes.

Kim found us sitting and chatting a few moments later. I was busy trying to get a grasp of Ohba’s language. I still hadn’t gotten around to speaking to her people yet, and I knew I’d have to do it soon. When she arrived, Kim was carrying a stack of clothing. On the top of the stack was a brand new, fresh out of the plastic bag ballistic vest.

“Katherine told me you wanted to speak to me,” Kim muttered timidly as she put the clothing down on the bunk beside where Ohba was sitting.

“I do,” I replied without pause, my voice taking on a sterner tone than what I had just been using in my conversation with the three youths. “I’ll speak to you in the kitchen.”

It didn’t take me long to get dressed. True to Katherine’s declaration the clothing fit me like a glove. There was a thermal t-shirt, a combat shirt, and a parka in addition to the vest. The vest was actually better than the last one. I was definitely impressed. I put everything on, and then I told the kids to stay while I went and spoke to Kim. I did tell Ohba that once I was done, I’d be chatting with her again.

“There’s coffee if you want one,” Kim informed me when I stepped into the kitchen area. “Do you want me to pour you a cup?”

I said yes. I then went and had a seat at the small fold up table. Kim joined me a moment later, passing me a cup as she sat down. She’d made it just the way I liked it. I took a sip and then I let out a sigh.

“I’m going to miss this,” I told the woman absentmindedly, just staring off into space while I said the words. “We’ve run out of coffee three times now. It doesn’t matter how you ration it, eventually it runs out, and that is that. You just have to live with it. Still, I’ve survived, so I really can’t complain.”

“From what Katherine’s told me, you’ve done more than just survive,” Kim murmured back at me as she took a sip from her own cup. “You’ve built a community and you’re thriving. What man could ask for more?”

“True, but then I’m not just any man, am I?” I stated in a questioning manner. “I still don’t know what the hell is going on, here, although I’ve got a good idea. I know that Quantum is the bad guy in all of this; and, for whatever reason, Gabby is pivotal to the success or failure of their plans. That puts me out front protecting her. For the most part, I think you’re my friend. Still, when I heard that you were working with Ridgeway and sending untrained and inexperienced people through the Gateway and back in time, I had to stop and think.”

“I only did it because I was ordered to do it,” Kim insisted defensively. “I know it’s a poor excuse, but I was told it was necessary. Quantum didn’t know a thing about it. The fact is while Rolf, Katherine, and the other two technically worked for Quantum, they really were recruited by me, just like the General recruited Dunbar, Burton, and the rest. It was all part of the plan.”

“Which is?” I asked bluntly, looking intently in to Kim’s face.

“I can’t tell you, Jake,” Kim declared adamantly. “I’ve already explained that to you. I can only tell you once you’ve figured everything out.”

“You know I don’t like that answer,” I told Kim sternly. “It doesn’t help me trust you very much, especially after today. Did you know about this attack?”

“No,” Kim declared adamantly. “I hadn’t been warned about it. I don’t know why I wasn’t, but I am telling you the truth.”

I looked at Kim’s pleading face, but I didn’t answer her. Truthfully, I believed her. I didn’t like the fact that I believed her, but my gut told me that there was no way in the world that she was lying to me. I’d seen her ashen face when I’d pulled myself out of the snow after getting shot off the top of the command post. She’d been almost in a state of shock, and when the grenades hit and I’d gotten clipped by a piece of shrapnel, her eyes had been full of fear. My big problem was that I also knew that Kim knew more than she was telling me, and it was pissing me off.

I didn’t get to ask Kim any more questions at that point. While I was sitting there, sipping my coffee and contemplating just how I was going to convince Kim to spill her guts, the hatch from below opened up and Burton stuck his head in. When he spotted Kim and me sitting together, he started to grin.

“What?” I asked as Burton finished pushing the hatch open.

“That guy you bagged for us Jake,” Burton replied, still grinning broadly as he stared at Kim and me, “and then you gave him to Dunbar and me to chat with, well believe it or not, the guy is a ruddy gold mine. You two should come on down and have a chat with him yourselves. You’d be surprised by what he’s got to say.”

I had my doubts about that and I was going to comment on it when Kim got to it first. From the tone of her voice it was clear that she doubted Burton’s story completely. Still, she had to ask what the hell the guy had said to get Burton so fucking happy. His answer stunned us both.

“Max claims that Winslow came through the Gateway with him,” Burton swore on his mother’s grave. “According to our moron, all hell has broken loose back home on our Earth, and in our own timeline. He couldn’t tell me what really happened, but according to him, Quantum’s out of business on our Earth, and now Winslow is here with his pet Senator and a small army of goons, specialists, and hangers-on. What do you think about that?”

Kim and I followed Dunbar over to the compound’s sickbay. That was the second container unit in the complex that was two-storey high. The main floor consisted of a small waiting room, a clinic, a lab, and an operating room. The second story had a washroom, a ward, and a storage room. That was where we found Dunbar and Max.

Max was bound up and secure to a chair, but except for the damage that I’d done to him earlier, he hadn’t been slapped around or even roughed up. That took me by surprise.

“So what gives here, Dunbar?” I asked upon entering the room. “Have you gone soft in your old age?”

“Nah, Jake, I haven’t gotten soft,” Dunbar said with a big grin stretched across his face, and lights twinkling in his eyes, “but I have gotten smarter than you. Max here wants to talk and I’m letting him do it. I’ve got a recorder going so we can all watch the movies later on, and then when I’m done here, and you’ve got any doubts ... well then, you can come on up here and wallop Max all you want. Me, I’d rather go and check out what he’s saying. Then if I find out he’s lying, I won’t be in the mood to slap him around like you usually do. I’ll just put him up on that stake you were talking about and see how quickly he changes his story. I figure it won’t take him very long.”

I nodded and looked at Max. The guy was sweating like a pig. The moment my eyes hit his, he started pleading for his life.

“Please man,” Max begged fervently. “I’m telling you the truth. I promise you, I wouldn’t lie. It’s just not worth the pain.”

I grunted in response, not really saying a thing. I looked at Kim and then I looked at Dunbar. Finally I looked at Burton. Kim spoke up first.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Kim suggested flatly, “and then I’ll decide whether Max here is telling the truth or not.”

So we watched the video. What we heard left me shocked.

Supposedly, and it was only based on what Max had informed Dunbar and Burton, Winslow had been ousted as CEO of Quantum about six months after Kim and company had been sent through the Gateway, and back to the here and now. Supposedly, Winslow had been caught with his fingers in the till, and up to no good; not only by other members of Quantum’s Board of Directors, but by the Securities and Exchange Commission, too. Max didn’t have all the details, but according to our talkative prisoner, Winslow had a backup plan in place when his house of cards started falling down. The man moved his operations through the Gateway to the here and now.

We all found that very interesting. We also wanted to know exactly where the man was hiding. According to Max, Winslow was close at hand. He had been supposed to end up in the Nile valley, but something had gone wrong during the transfer. Instead of ending up in Egypt, Winslow had ended up no more than a couple of hundred miles from our current location. As Max told us, Winslow had established a base southwest of our location, somewhere on the Adriatic coast.

“How the hell can we confirm any of this?” I asked after reviewing the entire video, and then questioning Max personally. The guy repeated his story over and over again, regardless of how often I tried to trip him up. Boy did he want a quick and painless death!

“Without walking there and checking it out in person,” Dunbar said with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “I don’t really know.”

“Well we can’t walk there, or even take a vehicle, if what Kim told me last night holds true,” I grumbled glancing over at the woman. “According to her, that snowstorm that hit here last night was just the beginning of a bigger storm. In a couple of days, if we’re not out of here and back home at my enclosure, we’ll be staying here for a while.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for the weather report,” Kim snapped back, although with a hint of humour in her voice. “Besides, I’ve got a better idea than trudging through the forest and down the coast in an attempt to find Winslow and his goons. We can send a drone.”

“We could if we had one,” I corrected Kim, not as cheerfully as Kim had spoken to me. “I do know where to find one, but it’s over two hundred miles to the north and there is a mountain range between it and us. Besides, I’ve got no control system to link with the fucking machine so we can remotely pilot it. Without a transmitter and a control system we’re screwed.”

“That might be true about whatever drone you’re talking about,” Kim responded, brushing my comments aside, “but I was thinking about something a little closer to home. I’m sure that Penny told me that there was a man-launched drone in one of her cargo bays. We can use that, and as far as controls are concerned, the command post is completely wired and fully operational. I’m sure Monty can lock onto that drone and fly it to wherever it needs to go. Our only issues are going to be range and weather.”

Kim was right about the last part of her statement. Man-launched drones didn’t have much range. A basic model might travel fifty or so miles. According to Max, Winslow’s base was maybe a hundred and fifty miles away, and if the weather was foul, the range a drone could fly would probably diminish. Even so, we had very few options, and if Penny had a drone in stock, we’d have to try it out.

It turned out that Penny did have a drone in stock; and, miracle of miracles, the drone was a heavy duty long range model that might just do the job. When I saw it set up and assembled and I read exactly what it could do, I just shook my head and then I looked at Kim in a questioning manner. She just smirked and smiled. Thirty minutes after pulling it out of stock and assembling it, the drone was in the air.

“Well,” I asked two hours later, having just come back from chatting with Ohba’s people. “What’s the news?”

I was standing in the communication room. I was sipping my fifth cup of coffee of the day. It was definitely going down good. I was now standing behind Monty and Kim. Monty was driving the drone and Kim was watching video. From what I could see on the screen, the drone was out over open water.

“Chill out, Jake,” Kim told me as she pulled her eyes away from the monitor to speak with me. “There really hasn’t been much to see. Monty’s flown the drone southwest and he’s gotten it around the storm front I told you that was heading our way. Beyond that I can’t tell you much other than that there is a shitload of forest between us and the coast along with a lot of water.”

“I can see that,” I told her crisply, pointing towards the screen as I did. “Is that the Adriatic?”

“It is,” Kim acknowledged. “Monty’s put the drone out over the water in the hope of catching a little offshore breeze to help extend the flight. The fact is we’ve got very little power left in the drone. Our connection is weak given the range and the terrain in between our transmitter and the drone. I doubt we’ll have a signal much longer.”

“Shit,” I muttered in disgust, not overly happy to hear the news. “What’s the chance of us getting lucky and seeing something before we lose the signal completely? I’d love to be able to confirm Max’s story.”

“So would I,” Kim admitted with a sigh as she turned her gaze back to the monitor, “but the chance of that happening is slim. The coordinates that Tupper gave us aren’t worth shit since no one at Winslow’s base knew exactly where they were. We can only sit here and watch, and hope we get lucky before the drone runs out of power.”

That’s exactly what we did. I went and got fresh coffee for Kim and Monty and then I joined them at the monitors. We watched for another ten minutes before Kim spotted something on the screen.

“Fly the bird to the left a bit, Monty,” Kim told the man. “There’s something out on the water, close to the shore.”