“What is this? Why does it growl?” Torin asks.
I get up and walk over to join him since I need to retrieve my eyes, who he’s currently holding quite securely.
“It’s a printer. It… prints out images from the laptop.”
“Can it print out an image of me riding on your back?”
“No, that’s illegal.”
“I’ll ask Imani.”
Before he can hurry off, I decide I need to quickly distract him and flip up the lid. “This is a scanner. It scans whatever you put on it,” I say as I take Kit and set her on it before pressing scan. Out comes a paper with four little feet on it.
Torin looks delighted when he grabs the paper. “Take your pants off and sit on it.”
“Absolutely not!” I grab Kit and try to rush back, but Kit shoots off my shoulder and back onto Torin’s.
“You little traitor,” I hiss as I watch Torin press his face on the scanner and push the button. I leave them to it and feel my way back to my desk where I get to watch them play with the scanner while looking like I’m just staring at my computer.
“Meeting in five,” Imani calls after nearly an hour of Torin tearing everything apart. I scoop up Kit and she scurries to my shoulder while I nod for Torin to follow. He wheels off in his chair, looking far too gleeful to do this rather than walk, until he nearly takes out Lt. Lindsey. Then he gets up and stoically walks into the room.
“I can take her out if you want me to. That was just a threat,” Torin says in Shaarunen.
“Who was threatened? Because you were the one who jumped up and retreated.”
“Tactical retreat,” he claims as he sits down.
Lt. Lindsey, who has way more patience with the god than she would with any of us, goes to the front of the room and waits for everyone to file in. Once they have, she turns to us. “Let’s first welcome back Special Agent Riley Strand. And also let’s thank Torin for choosing to help us.”
Everyone claps for some reason. I really don’t think it’s that thrilling.
She turns on the whiteboard projector, and Torin is immediately captivated by it. It’s a picture showing the surrounding cities, so of course he leans over and whispers, “Could we put the picture of me riding your back up there?”
I ignore him while Lt. Lindsey continues. “We’ve had three instances of the Door opening. We know it’s only a matter of time before he opens another.” She marks the three spots. “We have acquired a team who is on standby who will isolate the area the moment the Door begins to open. We’re uncertain how long the barrier they’ll put in place will last, but in the meantime, we’re going to send in Team A, comprised of the following agents, to deal with the horseman.” She switches the slide as Mickey slinks in and collapses in the chair next to me.
Seeing his name up there under Team A, he goes, “Can I change teams? Is there like… a nap team?”
She ignores Mickey like she usually does.
“So with this barrier up, will we be able to get out if we need to?” I ask, which is the main reason I rarely borrow Imani’s magic. Once the barrier is up, nothing can get in or out, including my own magic.
Lt. Lindsey looks thoughtful before turning to Imani.
“Opening the barrier for anyone to leave will weaken it and will allow anything out, including those wolves,” Imani says. “We… are still trying to figure out specifics.”
So once the barrier is up, we’re locked inside until we defeat the god or die… how fun. But in the grand scheme of things, can we blame them? There will be fifteen of us and there are billions outside the barrier… billions for the horseman to slaughter.
“I believe the horseman we’re up against is Conquest,” Mickey says. “His power most closely aligns with what we’ve seen. But I still question why there were two hundred years between Torin’s world and this one. Are we the last realm standing? Have they already conquered three realms?”
Torin shifts uneasily at that thought. “If they have and the god takes this one, he’ll become all-powerful. There will be no being, not even a god, who will ever be able to stop him.”
Mickey shrugs. “We’ll all be dead anyway.”
I glance over at Torin, knowing that he might not be, that he might be all alone again… but I refuse to let that happen.
For the next hour, Imani and Lt. Lindsey go over every step of what we should do. Everyone from Team A, who is in charge of the fight, and Team B, who is in charge of defenses, is given a vehicle with lights and sirens that will allow us to get to the location promptly. We’re fitted with safety gear like we’re headed off to war… and I’m afraid we will be. Lt. Lindsey also informs us that she’s trying her hardest to get information spread across the state that there will be emergency lockdowns in place the instant the Door appears. The problem is that thehigher-ups are afraid of causing mass panic, but it’s not like the city doesn’t already know what’s happened. The wholerealmknows what’s happened. Lt. Lindsey believes that if the people are given clear instructions, they’ll be less fearful than if they were left in the dark. It’s now her battle to get the leaders of the state and country to listen to her.
Once we’re done, I decide to throw out what I’d been thinking. “Could we bait him?”
