Chapter 6 – Considerations

  Bricker closed the door to his office, smiling to himself. An ordinary soldier who had taken on a Kevleshian heart-eater demon and lived to tell the tale. The fact that he’d used an assault rifle, a mounted machine gun and a 12-ton armored vehicle to do so was immaterial. If anything, that spoke to his resourcefulness. But that wasn’t the only reason Colton had his attention.

  His assistant came back from his office, carrying the NDA to put in the safe.

  “Thank you, Ms. Mary,” he said.

  She pursed her lips and hemmed to herself. “Was that wise?”

  Bricker shrugged, lumbering over to sit on the edge of Mary’s desk. It creaked under the weight he’d added to his frame after retiring from field work. “I didn’t lie to the kid. We don’t have the data.”

  “But an attuned sibling having a brother go missing in the target age bracket? What are the odds he wasn’t? What if he was… you know?”

  Bricker worried at his beard for a moment. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Hell, we might have missed Colton just based on it being his mother’s maiden name. Southern states never keep the best records.” He stood, checking his watch again. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and this is just the signal fire we need. For now, pull up the missing persons reports from Georgia. Let’s see if we can figure out how we missed young Cole."

  * * *

  Cole walked out the front of Lewis Hall, freshly printed cleared visitor badge on a cheap lanyard around his neck, and reiterated instructions from the security desk to check his weapon in at the armory. Apparently, only perimeter security were allowed to have firearms outside the ranges and the staging area. This was confirmed once again when he tried to visit Gillis and Brennan at medical and was refused entry until he handed his firearms over to the quartermaster.

  Reluctantly, he made his way to the armory that Bricker had pointed out and badged in. The cold interior being chilled by overhead ventilation bleeds felt even more so because of the arctic-white tiling and fluorescent lights lining the entrance. It didn’t help that it was Summer in Virginia, so the exterior was about as hot and humid as a sauna. He took a moment to let the air con dry his trickle of sweat before making his way across the deck to a secure door next to a window that his badge didn’t open. Unsurprising, but worth a shot. He hit the buzzer next to the door, and a heavy-set ginger man, even paler in the wane lighting, leaned out the window.

  The man looked at his uniform and his eyes widened. “Oh, hey! You must be one of the Army kids they pulled out. What’s your name?”

  “Sergeant Colton,” said Cole, extending his hand. “Or Cole.”

  The quartermaster took his hand and shook it vigorously, grinning with the joy that only someone who works without enough company in a big, cold building could muster. “Cole, welcome to the DOR compound. I’m Jefferson—Jeff when Director Bricker isn’t around. Checking in?”

  Cole nodded and started to unstrap his lanyard. Jeff waved him off. “Nah, hold up. It’s cold as balls up front. I’ll buzz you through. Condition 4, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Jeff pointed to a clearing barrel on the opposite side of the interior door. Cole walked over to it, putting his muzzle in the barrel so he could drop his magazine and remove his chambered round, then repeated the process with his sidearm. The door alarm buzzed, and Jeff swung it open from the other side.

  “Come on in!” he said.

  Cole followed Jeff back behind the front desk and through a set of swinging doors to the armory. He’d expected ordered racks of M4’s and lockers. But the wall above the workbenches looked more like a firearms museum that would make any collector drool. Modern rifles, classic pieces, dozens of pistols, and a lot of weapons that Cole didn’t even recognize. The next wall looked more like a medieval display, filled with swords, axes, clubs, bows, and shields. Another security door was set into that wall, and through the wire-glass window Cole could see an RPG and an old anti-tank rifle.

  “Holy Christ,” said Cole, looking around. “Where has this place been all my life?”

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  Jeff’s smile widened. “Not exactly your standard stock, eh? Most of this stuff belongs to the Kickers.”

  “Be honest, you just brought me back here to show all this off.”

  “Guilty.” Jeff held out his hand for Cole’s M4, taking it and locking the bolt back with practiced hands before setting it on his workstation, then doing the same with his sidearm. After Cole handed over his magazines, Jeff set it all aside and looked contemptuously at his computer. “I hate using the Army CIF system. This may sound like a stupid question after what you just been through, but you got your CAC on you?”

  Cole nodded. Luckily, his common access card was safe in his wallet and had come with him from Syria.

  “You can leave your plate carrier here, too, if you want. No one will mess with it and the armory is always manned.”

  Cole walked over to a thick window next to another set of doors that warned Ear protection, Eye protection required beyond this point. The window overlooked an indoor range that must have been primarily underground. But instead of paper or steel targets, black silhouettes looked to be stenciled on cement highway barriers, many of which had sizable holes in them. Jeff joined him at the window, hands behind his back. “That’s the LF range. The field generator isn’t active now, but the Kickers test and practice with their pulls there.” He gave Cole a sidelong glance. “Deadlight checked in the magazine you pulled earlier, so you must be field-attuned. You thinking of wearing the mantle?”

  Cole shook his head. “No idea. This is all a bit nuts. And honestly, the fact that I don’t feel crazy about this stuff being real makes me feel like I ought to feel crazy, you know?”

  Jeff laughed. “Ah, the malleability of a young mind. Enough reality already rotted away from video games and YouTube to make room for all this without snapping,” he said, indicating the contents of the armory. “Or maybe you’ve gone loco and they’ll 86 you at medical. Who’s to say?”

  Cole grinned. “Maybe I already was. I was at war before all these demons barged in, you know. One I already couldn’t talk about.”

  Jeff clapped the side of his shoulder. “Now you’re getting it. Well, if you do sign on, you’ll be seeing me again. I’ll make sure you’re squared away for Curahee.”

  “Curahee?”

  Jeff waved him off and pointed to a row of lockers. “Our version of Hell Week. Don’t worry about it for now. You’ve got a locker there, you can set the combo and leave any of your kit that you don’t want to drag to billeting. But you ought to get your linens, get some chow in you, and try to sleep off some of what happened.”

  Cole walked over to the locker, seeing that one had already been marked Sergeant Colton, and followed the instructions for the electronic combo lock to set his own code before pulling off his vest and stowing it along with his helmet.

  As he was leaving, Jeff handed him a receipt for his firearms.

  “In case you decide you want to go back to the Army. But you should consider joining the Kickers. There’s never enough people who can do this job. Not everyone can handle being on an otherworld team. The fact you pulled two guys out on your own, kept them safe… well, you’d be a natural. Think on it, will ya?”

  Jeff buzzed Cole back out into the Virginia sun, now feeling substantially lighter without his weapons or his PPE. He still stood out, as no one else on the compound was in an Army uniform. That issue was taken care of, too, when he went to the billeting office and they handed him a stack of fresh bedding along with freshly laundered civilian slacks, skivvies, and a pair of button-down shirts along with the key to his temporary quarters.

  The quarters themselves turned out to be a full apartment—a nice one. For every bit they scrimped and scraped on the government buildings, the quarters on the DOR compound seemed to have been lavishly furnished. It still had that government paint and the muted green and faux-leather color scheme, but the quality was a cut above anything he’d seen short of staff officer housing. In Bragg, he’d had a roommate in a barracks room the size of a prison cell and been turned down twice for housing allowance for an off-base apartment. Here, there were even sealed toiletries in the bathroom, a TV, and a laptop connected to an unclassified network.

  Cole ignored them for now and ran the shower, stripping out of his sweaty and blood-stained uniform and standing under the scalding hot torrent, forearms and forehead braced against the cool tile of the shower wall as the exhaustion fully hit him. Fifteen minutes later, he cut the water off, grabbed one of the towels, and collapsed on the bare mattress in the bedroom.

  DOR Kickers, huh? He thought to himself. Yesterday he’d had everything planned out. Another year in the airborne, then he’d submit his packet for selection to the Green Berets. A few years after that? Probably an officer’s packet—leading a special forces team. Hell, maybe even going Delta. Always climbing, always looking for the next challenge, the toughest challenge. He had the skills, had the drive, the fitness, and the combat experience.

  Now, this whole thing had turned his entire world, and by extension his plan for how to live in it, completely on its damn head. But traveling to other worlds? Fighting demons and monsters and leveling up like a friggen video game? There was a challenge. A mountain that few people would ever climb—only around fifty, currently, if he’d heard right. And a chance at growing not just in rank and responsibility, but in power that most people could only dream about. Plus, that wall full of exotic weapons… talk about a playground. Cole didn’t trust Bricker when he said he didn’t know anything about Ryan, but he wouldn’t find answers back in Syria.

  Despite his exhaustion, Cole forced himself back up, grabbed the recruitment packet, and started to read.