The Miskatonic Manuscript (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens Book 2) (21 page)

“I’ve got people on the other side, too, Chantal,” Worthy kept insisting, “people who have been out there a lot longer. I assure you we’ll get back to you as soon as we can send someone through to get word about how they’re doing, and then we’ll get them back. In the meantime, I’m hoping I don’t have to worry about you causing us any …”

“The last thing I need at this point, Worthy, is you in jail and Sergeant Smoky from the state police barracks trying to figure out how to get this thing to work — assuming they wouldn’t just take it apart and store it in an evidence yard wrapped in yellow tape for a year or two. For now, we’ve got a common cause. In fact, I’ve got to get back to the city and collect a few letters from the lawyer’s office.”

“Glad to hear it, Chantal. Sorry it worked out this way. Matthew saved our bacon by throwing that breaker, he saved all our asses; we owe him a big one.”

“He’ll be so glad to hear that.”

At the end she was actually killing time, stumbling around like a sleepwalker as the crew pulled apart fried wires and circuits, some of them melted and still smoking, till she could get a private word with Cory. He finally came over to bring her a refill on her lukewarm cup of tea. In styrofoam, of course, lovely.

“A number where I can reach you in private,” she said, casually.

“Slip of paper under the bottom of your cup,” he smiled. “Whoever answers, you’re my sister Kate. Do I have a problem?”

“Once in the teams, always in the teams.”

“Glad to hear it.”

The sky was already growing a lighter gray as Chantal recovered their $50 bolt cutters from outside the fire door and took her leave. She’d been planning to walk but an older black man with a closely
trimmed white mustache and beard who looked like Uncle Remus offered to give her a ride. It did occur to her there might be a few outliers in Worthy’s outfit who figured she’d seen too much and might cause less trouble chained to a piece of angle iron and dropped in the Bay, but since she still had her .40-caliber equalizer in the easy-access pocket in her purse she said she’d accept the ride as long as it was just going to be the two of them.

He started to turn left, for the airport, but she directed him right, to the small-boat marina.

“Ah. A little misdirection back there, about your mode of arrival.”

“It rarely pays to lay down all your cards; Matthew taught me that.”

“A wise man.”

“Thanks for playing chauffeur,” she said, after a few moments’ silence.

“That’s my job, actually, chauffeur, mostly out at the airport.”

“Worthy and his church seem to draw folks from all walks of life.”

“Yes, ma’am, that they sho ’nuff do.”

“Do you do that on purpose?”

“What’s that, ma’am?”

“Switch back and forth from talking normal to that Amos ’n Andy thing?”

“Wo-ho! You caught me. Seems to happen mostly when I’m drivin’. Yes, my deep dark secret is that I’m a college boy, degree in economics. But I discovered years ago that passengers, especially those of your racial heritage, tend to freak out if I hear them talking about ‘quantitative easing’ and comment that the Keynesian theory of beneficial inflation was debunked by Hayek and Rothbard long ago. Turns out they’re much happier, and the tips are much bigger, if I just shuffle and jive like ole’ Steppin Fetchit, ‘Feets, don’t fail me now!’ So I look at it as a theatrical performance. But I’m afraid I do slip in and out kind of automatically, now, especially when I’m driving. Steppin Fetchit got condemned for perpetuating black stereotypes, but you
know he became the first black millionaire in Hollywood. I can’t find it in me to condemn a man who games the system and ends up providing a good living for his family.”

“What’s your name, Mr. Chauffeur?”

“My name is Herbert, Miss Chantal, though no one in this outfit would know who you were talkin’ about. To everyone here and out at the airport, I’m just Uncle Remus.”

“Uncle Remus” shook her hand as she disembarked near the boat, turned the van around and headed slowly back.

Captain Jack obviously wanted to ask her more questions when she told him Matthew and Skeezer had decided to stay behind for now. Something in her look convinced him to let it lie.

The sun was well up by the time they were back at Fox Point, where they’d left her car. She asked if Jack was owed anything for his night’s work; he assured her it had all been taken care of.

Chantal beat Marian and Skeezix to the store, for once — no, just Marian, she corrected herself; Skeezix wouldn’t be in for awhile. She went upstairs but couldn’t afford to let herself fall asleep, even if that had been likely. She dialed the number Cory had given her. The woman who answered told Sister Kate that she couldn’t connect to that number just now; try back in an hour. On the second try she got through.

“Cory.”

“Chantal. Thanks for playing it close. Do you anticipate any problems?”

“Like, am I going to betray the service and put your life at risk because of my deep and abiding love for Worthington Annesley and the Cthulhian cause?”

“Didn’t think so. Still glad to hear it.”

“I also presume I should go collect those letters from the lawyer this morning; that you’re not in need of any assistance from the FBI and some Smoky from the State Police barracks.”

“You assume correctly. If it reaches the point where we think we could make better progress on this project by installing new
management or moving the whole shebang to a new location, I don’t need to tell you how many boots I could have on the ground here in about 18 minutes.”

“No you do not. Although I’m a little surprised you haven’t done that, already.”

“Believe it or not, there are people in the outfit who understand private entrepreneurs can develop a project like this a lot faster without turning it over to some calcified service bureaucracy that would immediately start to worry about pecking orders and protocols, whether it should be under the command of a senior captain or a butt admiral, spend the first six months designing new letterhead stationery. Losing a few civilian judges is unofficially considered to be no big problem as long as Worthy and his crew are making good progress, and just keeping a close watch on things also buys us deniability.”

“That could make me dizzy if I thought about it long enough, but my main concern right now is a little more personal, lieutenant. What are the chances Matthew and Skeezix are still alive, what’s their current life expectancy, and what’s a realistic time span before you and Worthy can open another wormhole and bring anybody out?”

“We’ve been sending teams of Dimensionauts out and back on brief orientation missions since the Crustio button men failed to check in, Chantal. Our top priority has been getting our equipment tuned so the transport is reliable both ways.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘Dimensionauts’?”

“Gotta call ’em something. At least Worthy has plenty of manpower. One big problem with the Crustio hit is the team was supposed to jump back to D-6 to escape the courthouse and then do some traveling, cover some ground so they’d be well away from the courthouse and the hornet’s nest we knew they’d stir up
before
they turned on their buzzers and re-materialized back to Earth One. So the problem could have been with the headsets, or the power packs, or it could be they just got into trouble trying to get back over to the west side of Primeval Providence where they were supposed to pop
back and find their car waiting for the drive back to Quonset. Turns out the shielding at the Quonset location isn’t perfect, you found us, but Worthy obviously had to set up somewhere out of town or we would have had a dozen College Hill neighbors complaining about weird noises and phantom dinosaurs running through the living room walls. The climate’s weird on the other side, it breaks down into several micro-climates, really. Mostly pretty warm, and there are big open spaces where it’s arid, but where there’s vegetation it’s jungle, surprisingly humid, with a lot of big scary critters that could have given Worthy’s team some trouble. Think ‘Jurassic Park.’”

“Yes, I got a look at the other side through your vortex last night, remember? At least Worthy’s boys had shotguns. If we’re lucky, Matthew and Skeezix may have a pocket knife and a pencil between them.”

“I understand your concerns, Chantal.”

“No you do not, Cory. Do not give me that crap. If you don’t currently have a wife or child lost and abandoned on the other side, you are not feeling my pain.”

“OK. OK, Chantal, point taken. What else can I do?”

“I need five of those headsets; your latest upgrade.”

“Five?”

“For me, Matthew and Skeezix, and Worthy’s two button men, just in case I find them and they’re still alive and the problem is with their equipment, which I presume is already outdated anyway. And battery packs, whatever.”

“Chantal, we don’t exactly pick these things up by the dozen down at Wal-Mart. Besides, the portable units have limited range and duration, the safest way for someone to go in after them is from the main facility, where we’ve got the heavy equipment, plenty of power.”

“Which you managed to fry last night, well enough that you tell me you won’t be up and running for a week, which I will take to mean two. I’m not Matthew, believe me I know I’m not, I’ve got to give this some thought before I rush in and accomplish more harm than good. But what am I supposed to do, sit around weeping and
moaning, knitting booties while I wait for the phone to ring? Worthy may not be asking too many questions about the buddy you tell him is manufacturing those headsets for you, but I know who’s backing you, Cory, and I know a little bit about their annual budget. This is an outfit that goes ‘Oh, well,’ when the janitor has to push a handful of million-dollar attack jets off the side to clear the flight deck because the congressman’s chopper is coming. I need you to bring me at least five headsets, a couple of spares would be nice, with battery packs, and show me how to adjust them.”

“In exchange for which …”

“Nothing, Cory. No threats, no trades, no bargains. You don’t need to buy my silence, you’ve got that regardless. But I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to help me. I’ve been assuming up till now we were on the same team. We didn’t ask for anything when we let you look at Matthew’s homing device, which we’re still trying to figure out, same as you. Are we helping each other, or not?

“The fact is, Cory, I can approach this problem from a different angle.” She closed her eyes, willing away her tiredness. “Matthew was right, you’re ignoring the neuro-chemical side, the expertise that someone familiar with the plant helpers, the phenethylamines and the tryptamines, can bring to the navigation problem once you’re in the vortex. We’ve been working on accessing and using the pineal and the hippocampus for a lot longer than you have. You’re trying to build Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio, all printed micro-circuits, which is fine, these resonators are a huge step, but then you’re going to put them in the hands of people who are in no way prepared for the kind of dizzying array of portals they’re going to confront in these alternative realities.

“I’ve been there, Cory, I have some idea what it’s like. It’s like trying to recognize your subway stop without a map from a speeding train when all you see is this dizzying pattern of lights flashing by. You’re ignoring the fact I’ve got one of the world’s greatest three-pound computers right here inside my skull, already partially programmed
for inter-dimensional navigation. Right now you need a B team. How many other volunteers you got?”

“OK, Chantal. I can get you the equipment and show you how it works. But I’m still a little uncomfortable about you trying this without any backup.”

“You’re uncomfortable?
I’m
uncomfortable. I will put together some kind of a backup team, let me worry about that, and it’s not going to be the kind you or Worthington would put together. Speaking of which, I will also need a shoulder weapon, man-portable, the largest caliber I can carry.”

“.270? Russian short?”

There was a brief pause as Chantal took a deep breath, closed her eyes again, and succeeded in remaining calm. Well, almost.

“Are you shining me, here, Cory? I am very tired right now and already marginally pissed off. Did you or did you not see the kind of wildlife we’ve got roaming around on the other side of that vortex? Did you hear me say I want a nice lady’s rifle so I can go shoot myself a cute little deer this fall and fix up some venison jerky for Papa Yoakum and my young ’uns?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Are you fuckin’ with me, here, Cory? Did you just call me a cunt?”

“No, ma’am. Absolutely not. One shoulder weapon, largest caliber available.”

“Make it two, one that’ll break down and go in a case and hold its zero when I screw it back together. And at least 30 rounds for that one. For the larger piece, I know ammo weight will be a factor. I admit I’m not an NFL lineman, Cory, this should not be a weightlifting contest, but I can stash one when I get to the other side. You do know that I have shot down helicopters when necessary, right?”

“Yes ma’am. I do know that.”

“OK. Right now I’ve got to stroll downtown and collect a couple of letters from the lawyer’s office. Do you have my contact info?”

“I do.”

“I assume you’ll let me know when you’ve got my equipment, and especially if you should hear any word from the other side.”

“It’s not always safe for me to talk, Chantal. But if there’s any word I’ll get it to you as fast as I can.”

After she got off the phone with Cory, Chantal sat down and allowed herself to shake. The day was warming up, the sun was over the hill now and coming in the windows, but she was still chilly.

She was not Matthew, she would never be Matthew, and now she vastly regretted having been so casual about learning what he had to teach, always assuming he’d be there to choose their mode of travel, prescribe the dose, explain everything in his calm and reassuring way. He’d always known where to turn to lay hands on what they needed, whether this was a job that called for psilocybin or lysergic acid diethyl whatever, he made it all seem so easy. Would she ever be able to sit around with a bunch of biochemists the way he could, rapping about the way the pineal body uses O-methyl something-or-other to synthesize endogenous hallucinogens like dimethyltryptamine out of bufotenin? Or was it bufotoxin?