“C’mon, Dad, you know you really wanted it,” Dean teased.
The one-eyed warrior didn’t answer. Instead, he reached across the campfire to cuff his son around the head.
“My dear Ryan!” Doc exclaimed. “Surely you cannot blame your son for pointing out that which, to the rest of us, is nothing more than the obvious.”
Ryan stopped and glared at Doc for a second before cracking his face with a smile. “Mebbe he’s right there, Krysty. What do you think of that?”
She kept a straight face while replying, “Perhaps I should start rubbing myself with whale oil and get fat, eh, lover?”
They were making the most of such an opportunity. Chances to truly relax were few and far between. But Mildred, looking across to Jak, stopped laughing when she saw the expression on the albino’s face. He was always stone faced and impassive, but even he would usually have joined in with such ribaldry. However, he was distant, as though not even listening.
“Jak,” Mildred whispered, plucking at the sleeve of his patched camou jacket, “what is it?”
The albino looked at her with eyes that, despite their fiery red, were as cold as ice.
“Know this place,” he said simply.
The laughter ceased, all attention on Jak. Haltingly, he told them of his nightmare while in the semicoma. He gave them every detail he could remember, and was insistent about the landscape in which they now found themselves. And then he reminded them about his previous dream of Gloria.
When Jak had finally finished, there was silence while the companions pondered what Jak had told them. Finally, Doc spoke first.
“I think it would be unwise to discount this experience,” the old man said softly. “After all, has not young Jak already shown himself to be in some way empathic to the Gate tribe?”
“That’s a lot of long words, Doc, but I guess what you’re saying is that Jak has some kind of link with Gloria, and that this dream was trying to tell him— and us—something,” Dean added.
Doc nodded.
J.B. shook his head. “But the settings on those comps were random. How could it land us near both the Gate and the Illuminated Ones? Surely it’d be designed to spread anyone using those chambers after them as far apart as possible?”
Doc grinned humorlessly. “The ways of the whitecoats are not something that can be easily understood. Their minds worked in perverse manners, and the Illuminated Ones are nothing less than descendants of that foul breed.”
Ryan agreed. “I figure that we should keep on triple red. Sooner or later, we’re going to run into trouble.”
“Tell me when we don’t,” Mildred added.
But despite this, and despite the aura of expectation created by Jak’s nightmare, it was some days before they encountered any sign of life beyond that of the small mammals and birds that populated the area.
They crossed a vast region of sparsely wooded and vegetated land, with little in the way of outstanding landmasses, and the monotony of the vista before them was beginning to make them wonder if there was any population of note.
It was then, when their guard was lowered most by the drudgery of their trek, that violence suddenly hit.
J.B. had defined a course north by northwest, and they had just crossed the remains of what had once been a series of fields with large arable crops, when Jak stopped, his very being tense with sudden awareness.
“What is it?” Ryan asked.
“Listen,” the albino replied.
The companions stopped. All ears were attuned to the silence, although none but Jak seemed able to detect anything. However, Ryan noticed that Krysty’s sentient hair had begun to curl closer to her scalp, wrapping itself protectively around her neck.
A short time later a high buzzing noise became audible. It was like a swarm of insects, but somehow more alien.
“Look! Over there,” Dean yelled, indicating a point to the northeast. Turning, the rest of the companions could see a distant dot that was approaching rapidly, growing into a shape that was recognizable, and yet…
“Holy shit,” Mildred cursed, “I never thought I’d see one of those again.”
Approaching them, growing larger with each second was a predark biplane, making good time and homing in on them.