“But—”
“Out or I’ll escort you out.”
When she hesitated, he took her by the arm and put her in the hall. Lia eyed the closed door to the control room and rubbed her biceps where he’d gripped her. She briefly considered going back in, just on general principle, but Godzilla had bruised her and she wasn’t some hotshot investigative reporter. She wrote feel-good pieces for the company magazine and that was it. Not worth it.
Lia frowned at the treatment, but realized this had nothing to do with her, at least not specifically. Standing in the hall, though, reminded her of all the other times she’d been on the outside looking in. Her thoughts, her opinions, her way of viewing life didn’t seem to match anyone else’s and it made her feel alone. She didn’t understand the prejudices, the arguments that antagonized people, and she’d learned not to ask questions to try to make it clearer. Others took it as a challenge and tended to get defensive.
Things hadn’t been quite so bad while her parents were alive, but even they hadn’t understood her. Their lives had been dull and they hadn’t seen anything wrong with routine. Her daydreaming had puzzled them. How could she simply sit and stare into space? Why didn’t she clean her room or take out the trash? But there had to be more than working at a nine-to-five job every weekday, doing yard work on Saturdays and golfing on Sunday.
Life was supposed to be about pursuing dreams, wasn’t it? About having adventures? Lia grimaced. Yeah, she was one to talk. She’d taken the safe road of corporate communications rather than risk failure.
She didn’t want to think about this, not now. Closing her notebook, she slid it in the side of her purse and shoved her pen in the metal spiral. Maybe they had a vending machine around here and she could get some crackers or something. The physicists had apparently been too excited to eat, but she was hungry.
The halls were deserted and there was no one to ask where to find a break room. She kept walking, turning down random corridors. How lost could she get before she ran into someone who could point her in the right direction?
After about ten minutes, she had to concede that she wasn’t going to get a badge in orienteering or find help. Lia stopped and tried to mentally retrace her route, but she didn’t remember much beyond the last couple of turns.
Before she could decide whether to go back or continue forwards, she felt a change in the air behind her. At last, someone who could give her directions. With a smile, she pivoted, but sobered immediately.
There was a giant shimmery circle closing ground on her.What the hell was that?She backed up.
The vortex followed and she ran. She dropped her purse, but couldn’t take time to worry about it now, not when she could sense the thing gaining on her.
Lia didn’t get far before it engulfed her. She felt as if she were tumbling, careening madly in mid-air, but hitting nothing. Clutching her arms around her waist, she closed her eyes, trying to stave off the growing nausea.
Her stop was abrupt and pain exploded as her skull connected with a hard surface beneath her. She took a deep, shuddery breath and, rubbing the back of her head, tried to clear her vision. It took a few minutes before Lia realized she wasn’t staring at the ceiling, but at the sky. That shook her enough that she forced herself to sit up. She was outdoors and, judging from what she saw, it was early evening. This wasn’t right. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet and swayed before she caught her balance.
Unless she was mistaken – entirely possible – she was standing on top of an enormous step pyramid in the middle of a city thatlooked like nothing on Earth. At least nothing she’d ever seen on Earth . . . in her time.
Wormhole. Lia shivered before she scoffed at herself. Yeah, right, Derrick the intern had said the odds against it were astronomical and that even if a wormhole opened, it would be too small for anything larger than an atom to pass through. Besides she’d need, like, a spaceship or something, otherwise she’d be dead, right?
Something had happened, that was obvious. The most likely scenario was that she was unconscious and hallucinating – she had hit her head. Yeah, that was it. There was a slab of marble behind her that bore a resemblance to an altar, and Lia went over to it and sat down. She’d just wait right here until the doctors revived her.
Troll Maglaya stood at attention with his Special Operations team in the Colonel’s office and waited for the man to finish giving orders to his aide. This was Troll’s third tour of duty on Jarved Nine in the past seven years, but he couldn’t quell the spurt of anxiety that he felt whenever he had to face ‘The Big Chill’: Colonel Sullivan was a badass from the word go and no one wanted to be on his shit list.
The door closed with a snick that had Troll stiffening. “At ease,” the Colonel said as he took a seat behind his desk.
For a long moment the room was absolutely silent. “We’ve suspected for a few weeks that the coalition has an agent on J. Nine,” Sullivan said finally, voice low. “Last night the MPs found her atop the pyramid in the centre of the Old City.”
That surprised Troll, but he remained expressionless. The coalition had been trying for years to acquire lamordite to facilitate their space travel beyond Earth’s solar system, but he hadn’t realized they’d succeeded.
“Captain Montgomery, you and your team will search outside the city for the spaceship and for any other coalition agents who might be present.”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh Montgomery said.
“I’m pulling Sergeant Maglaya for another mission – that means you’ll be short-handed – but you have permission to tap any MPs you want to join your search.”
Troll went rigid, and since he stood shoulder to shoulder with Marsh and the team’s executive officer, Flare Cantore, he felt them both tense as well. Why was the Big Chill singling him out?
Sullivan kept talking. “Major Brody is waiting in the briefing room – he’ll fill you in. Dismissed. Sergeant Maglaya, you’ll stay here.”
The colonel waited until the other men had left the room and the door was shut behind them before he continued. “Sergeant, I have a special task for you. As I said, we found a woman who doesn’t belong here and she’s not telling us anything – at least nothing that makes sense.”
Sullivan frowned fiercely and Troll watched him take a few deep breaths before he said, “Your job is to guard her.”
“Sir, why not lock her up?”
“Because we don’t know what the coalition is after and we need that information. If she’s loose, chances are she’ll try to complete her mission. That’s where you come in. You’re going to be glued to her side. I don’t want her using the bathroom without you standing guard at the door. Understood?”
