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Out of the Blue
Tremors: The Subtext #15
by Setcheti
Rating: FRT: MP,SLC
Disclaimer: I don’t own Tremors, because if I did the series
would STILL BE ON THE AIR.
Author’s Note: This story is the beginning of an Enterprise
AU crossover arc.
It had been a week and a half since Tyler had come home
from the hospital, and no sign of the flying things until today – in broad
daylight, again. Burt swore when the huge pterodactyl-like monster took
wing out from behind a rocky outcropping not fifteen feet in front of him,
obliquely between he and his truck, noting that even though it had to be
sick it was still more than healthy enough to kill him.
He really, really hated the fact that Tyler would know
the exact moment that it did.
Burt knew they should have talked about that more than
they had, but to be honest he just wasn’t sure what to say. Killer plants
and mutated animals he understood, but this…Tyler had something special,
some subtly inborn gift that allowed him to reach out and connect,
and it didn’t have anything to do with monsters or government conspiracies
or Mixmaster. Tyler was probably feeling Burt’s fear right now, and
tearing himself apart knowing something was wrong but unable to leave the
compound to do anything about it.
The last bullet left the chamber of Burt’s gun, slowing
the creature but not stopping it. El Blanco wasn’t going to come charging
in to save him the way it had saved Tyler the month before, and he knew
without having to test the theory that he wouldn’t be able to outrun the
thing, nor did he have anyplace to outrun it to even if he tried.
He tossed the gun away and pulled out his knife; there was nowhere left to
go, nothing left to do but go down fighting. Burt didn’t want to think
about what effect his imminent, violent death-by-monster was going to feel
like to Tyler, or about what might result from the experience.
Especially since Tyler hadn’t known about his gift
before the first attack, and still didn’t understand it any better than
Burt did. Yet another reason why they should have talked about it and
hadn’t.
The sickly stink of the flying thing blew over Burt as
wrinkled, leathery wings beat frantically at the air, slapping down against
the rock it fell on top of when neither wings nor air proved strong enough
to hold it up. It hissed and lunged at him, but just when Burt was
preparing to meet his maker a narrow beam of reddish light stabbed across
the desert floor and hit the monster in the chest. The flying thing
screamed, flapped…and fell down, twitching, with a neat smoking hole burned
right through it. Burt didn’t have to examine it any closer to know that
it was dead, and anyway he was much more interested in what had killed it.
Or rather, who. A man he’d never seen before and hadn’t
seen or heard approaching was standing on top of a large rock not quite a
hundred feet away. The stranger was small, only about as tall as Larry
although not nearly as stocky, and he had dark hair, dark glasses, and
functional, nondescript clothing. Still, something about the way he was
standing… “If I ask you about your gun,” Burt called out, “are you going
to tell me it’s classified?”
The small man laughed. “That would seem rather
pointless, since you just saw me use it,” he called back. He had a
pronounced British accent. He jumped down off the rock and closed the
distance between them. “Are there any more of those things about?”
“That one shouldn’t have been here,” Burt told him.
“They’re supposed to be nocturnal.”
“Someone might have told him about it, then,” the
stranger said. He held out his hand. “Reed, Malcolm Reed.”
Burt couldn’t help but smile, but he took the offered
hand and found the man’s grip strong and firm. “Burt Gummer. Appreciate
the help.”
“Glad I could be of assistance.” Reed took off his
sunglasses and smiled back. His eyes were gray and sharp. “This meeting
was fortuitous for both of us, it would seem. I’d actually come out here
looking for you, Mr. Gummer.”
Burt arched a suspicious eyebrow. “Who sent you?”
Reed shrugged. “No one. I’d read about you, I wanted
to meet you. And I thought I might be able to offer you some assistance,
although I hadn’t intended on making a live demonstration out of it like
this.”
He wasn’t lying, Burt could tell. The survivalist sized
him up again. Military discipline, that’s what the easy, balanced stance
was reflecting, and just a touch of martial arts training too. Probably
not much older than Tyler, but the gray eyes had shadows in them, deep
ones. Not the eyes of a mercenary, or of someone who took killing lightly,
in spite of his obvious proficiency with a weapon. There was also
intelligence there, and suspicion to match Burt’s own – the kind of
suspicion that had experience behind it. Instinct told Burt this was
someone he needed to find out more about. “I’ve got about twelve more
miles to cover before I call it a day,” he told the other man, resettling
his cap. “I wouldn’t say no to some company. We can swing back this way
so you can get your vehicle.”
“I’m afraid my vehicle isn’t in the immediate area.” Reed
made a face, looking slightly embarrassed. “One of the tyres blew out on
me, I was hiking up the road a bit in hopes of finding some assistance of
my own. I just happened to see the dust from your passage, and then I saw
that thing take flight…”
“And the rest is history.” Burt smiled. “You’re in
luck, Mr. Reed. My partner owns the only garage in the valley.” He made a
face of his own. “He’s not quite able to work in it at the present time –
we had a run in with another one of those monsters that didn’t turn out so
well, about a month ago. But you and I can probably find a tire the right
size and put it on.”
The smaller man nodded gravely. “I would appreciate it
– and it’s just Malcolm, please.” He frowned and waved a hand at the dead
monster. “Should we take that someplace for further study, then? If you
don’t have something that would work, I’ve some plastic sheeting we could
use to wrap it up.”
Burt walked over and kicked the monster to see if it
would move. It didn’t, and he kicked it again just because he could.
“I’ve got a tarp, but I really don’t want to haul this thing around. I’ll
call Casey – Dr. Matthews – and she and Roger can drag it back to the
research station themselves.”
“Capital.” Reed contemplated the dead heap of monster a
moment more, squinting thoughtfully. “But I suppose we’ll have to stay
here with it to keep the other predators off, if they’re going to want it
for study. The science types don’t much like their specimens half-eaten,
you know.”
“True.” Burt chuckled. “And since it’s contaminated
with Mixmaster, there’s always the possibility that whatever eats it will
spawn an even worse monster on down the road.”
“Heaven forbid.” Reed was still looking around, still
holding his weapon subtly at the ready…and after a moment Burt realized
that the younger man probably wasn’t going to sit down unless he himself
did first. Definitely military, and recently active somewhere to boot. So
what was he doing way out here in the middle of Perfection Valley, carting around a ray gun and looking to help Burt?
It was a question Burt wasn’t going to ask – yet. He
picked a spot and sat down, hid a smile when Reed did a very obvious visual
reconnaissance of the area before settling onto a rock of his own.
Personal questions would come later, but for the moment small talk would
suffice. “So, Malcolm, tell me about your gun…”
It took Casey and Roger less than half an hour to show
up to collect the dead monster, and then after a quick check of the rest of
the day’s patrol route Burt decided it was time to head back. He and the
younger man had mostly talked guns and tactics and terrain while they were
out in the truck, and then vehicles and the repairing of on the way to Tyler’s garage and back. Reed’s vehicle turned out to be a small, sturdy Jeep, well suited
for the terrain around Perfection, and the more Burt got to know him the
more he was starting to think that the man himself might be a pretty good
fit as well. He’d designed the gun - which he called a phase pistol -
himself, and although he never came right out and said where it was he’d
been stationed he did admit to having served in research and development
prior to a truly awful experience of being pressed into service as a
security officer on a ship that was field-testing some of his weapons. “I
didn’t know bloody security from a hole in the ground - or the hole in my
arse,” he admitted with a laugh while stripping the damaged tire and wheel
off his Jeep. “I memorized the protocols, but every time a situation would
come up and I’d trot them out the captain would overrule me.”
Burt responded to the younger man’s grimace with a
knowing grin. “And disaster would no doubt ensue?”
“Almost every bloody time. And of course it was my
record that got nicked for it, not his.” A shadow crossed the angular
face. “I’ll miss…some of the people I served with, but I can’t say I’m not
glad to be out from under that loony’s thumb. It’s left me rather at loose
ends, though, which is why I thought I’d trek out here to see if you could
use an extra hand.” A quick glance up from gray eyes. “How is Mr. Reed
doing?”
“Better.” It was the answer Burt always gave, even when
it was only marginally true and even when he knew the person asking much
better than he currently knew Malcolm Reed. He adjusted his cap. “It
could have been a lot worse.”
“After seeing one of the things, I’d have to agree with
you.” Malcolm pulled the freed tire off the axle and took a good look at
it, then scowled and took a better one. “What in God’s name…” He fished
into shredded rubber and yanked out a twisted three-pronged piece of welded
metal, holding it up for Burt to see. “Looks like someone’s not too keen
on company.”
Burt scowled himself, taking it from the younger man and
turning it in his hands…and then he swore. “God dammit! We’ve had this
problem ever since those damned environmentalists came out here,” he
explained. “Some of them just can’t seem to get it through their thick
skulls that the monsters aren’t the ones that need protecting. I
thought for sure after what happened last month…”
“That they’d see reason? Fanatics never do,” Malcolm
snorted, taking the caltrop back and examining it more closely. He shook
his head. “This one is new – and placed fairly recently as well, I’d say
within the last day or two.” He set it aside and went back to his tire,
but his frown was thoughtful and his gray eyes abstracted. “I might – and
I do mean might – be able to help you out with that as well. If I
can cobble together a few sensors with any kind of decent range to them, we
would at least know when a vehicle is on the road. They’d need to be tied
in to some sort of tracking system…”
“We have one, connected to seismic sensors placed to
pick up vibrations from El Blanco,” Burt told him. “Could you interface
your sensors with that, or maybe adapt some of the ones we already have?”
“The tracking system yes, the sensors probably not.”
Malcolm shrugged. “But halfway there is better than not at all, as…a
friend of mine used to say. We’ll see what we can do and go from there.”
Gray eyes glanced up before turning back to the work at hand. “If your Mr.
Reed wouldn’t mind, I could camp out in his garage while I work on it – and
perhaps take care of a bit of his business as well, in exchange for the
bunk. I’m a fair enough mechanic when I need to be.”
Burt knew Tyler wouldn’t mind, because he had in fact
been worrying about the state of his business – and the related state of
his bank account – since not long after he’d awakened in the hospital. But
the survivalist wasn’t going to tell this Malcolm Reed that, not yet. Burt
was liking the man so far, and he definitely liked the man’s gun, but that
didn’t mean he was ready to trust him. Not entirely, anyway. “You could
talk to him,” was what Burt said in response to the suggestion. He decided
to test the waters a little. “And you’d also have to talk to Agent
Twitchell, our assigned government overseer. He has to approve any and all
residents in the valley.”
“I suppose I will have to talk to him, then,” Malcolm
agreed easily, cranking on a lug nut. He sounded nowhere near concerned.
“I just hope he won’t be too upset by the fact that there’s only so much I
can tell him.”
Burt waded in a little farther, carefully. “Covert
ops?”
One corner of Malcolm’s mouth twitched with a wry
smile. “Something like that, yes. Just having my phase pistol with me is
violating a whole handful of regulations…but I for damned sure wasn’t
leaving without it. And I won’t,” he tightened a second nut with a yank
that tensed respectable muscles under his sweat-stained shirt, “just sit on
the bloody thing if I could be doing some good with it instead.”
“You did that.” Burt couldn’t – and wouldn’t – tell him
just how much good he’d actually done; even Twitchell didn’t know about
Tyler’s ‘gift’, and Burt wasn’t planning on sharing that information with
anyone else any time soon, if ever. But he liked the younger man’s
attitude, and he could tell it was sincere. He made a decision. “Why don’t
you follow me back to my compound and we’ll talk to Tyler? And I can show
you the tracking system at the same time.”
Malcolm smiled. “Capital idea,” he agreed. He gathered
up his tools and put them back in their box, then tucked the caltrop and the
remains of his tire into the back of the jeep as well. “If you’re sure
he’s up for company, that is.”
Burt shook his head with a smile of his own. “He’s been
going stir crazy up there, he’ll be glad to see a new face. Come on, let’s
get going.”
The Englishman’s connection to ‘something like’ covert
ops made Burt decide to go home the roundabout way instead of going through
town – he wanted to feel the man out a little more before introducing him
to the other residents of Perfection, especially since he was going to need
to know how to introduce him. A few months ago he might have been
able to waltz through Chang’s store with a new person, toss off a few
meaningless introductory phrases and let everyone dig out the rest on their
own…but a few months ago Perfection hadn’t been a valley under siege.
Or in other words, the permanent residents of Perfection
were bored silly and ready to pounce on anything that looked like it might
relieve that boredom. Burt was amazed that he and Reed had made it out of
the garage with the tire without being accosted by at least three people.
Reed was impressed by the compound, and asked
intelligent questions about depth and wall thickness and shielded
ventilation. Burt was still happily answering him when they descended into
the bunker itself, and the enthusiasm in his lover’s voice as he described
the reinforced walls brought a smile to Tyler’s face. The former NASCAR
driver picked up his cane and limped out into the bunker’s main room just
in time to see Burt showing off his periscope. “If I’d known we were
havin’ company I’d have picked the place up,” he commented.
“There is nothing wrong with the place just the way it
is,” Burt shot back, but his eyes narrowed when Reed not only jumped at the
sound of Tyler’s voice but also paled slightly as well. He decided to let
it pass for the moment. “Tyler, this is Malcolm Reed. Malcolm, my partner
Tyler Reed.”
Tyler grinned. “Small world,” he said, limping the rest
of the way into the room and extending his hand. “Pleased to meet you,
Malcolm”
“Likewise.” The smaller man took his hand without
hesitation, but he still looked startled. “I’ve heard a good deal about
you, Mr. Reed.”
“I can just imagine – and it’s Tyler.”
“Thank you.” Malcolm frowned at the cane, which was one
of the aluminum three-footed variety and looked particularly unwieldy.
“Bloody inconvenient things, aren’t they? I don’t know how you manage the
stairs with that, spread out the way it is.”
Tyler shrugged, coloring up a little. “I can’t, right
now. I’m pretty much trapped in here unless someone helps me get up and
down. It’s damned embarrassing.”
“I agree with you, I never liked not being able to get
around on my own either,” Malcolm commiserated. He answered the question Tyler didn’t vocalize with a shrug of his own. “About a year and a half ago, I had a
support spike driven through my leg. The only thing worse than having it
happen was the physical therapy afterward.”
“Don’t I know it.” Tyler made his way to the nearest
chair and settled into it carefully. “A support spike…you some kind of
contractor, or maybe an engineer, Malcolm?”
“A weapons engineer, yes.” Malcolm held up his pistol
so Tyler could see it and at Burt’s gesture took a chair of his own. “I
came out here looking for yourself and Mr. Gummer because I thought I might
be able to offer you some assistance.”
“He brought down one of the flying things,” Burt spoke
up, and didn’t quite wince when his lover’s raised eyebrow demanded the
rest of the story. “It…surprised me.”
“I just bet it did.” Tyler sounded resigned, though,
not angry. He managed half a grin for Malcolm. “The one that got me was a
surprise too. I appreciate your comin’ along to rescue Burt for me,
though, Malcolm. He ain’t got no one to watch his back with me laid up.”
Reed nodded seriously. “I’m just glad I was in the
right place at the right time.” He turned a thoughtful look on Burt.
“Isn’t there anyone else in your town who can ride the patrol with you,
then?”
“No,” Burt replied. “Larry is too inexperienced, he
does better in town. And Harlow is needed out at Rosalita’s. The other
farmers and ranchers in the valley…don’t have any interest.”
“They watch their own places, for the most part,” Tyler elaborated. He grinned at Malcolm. “I don’t suppose you’re huntin’ a non-payin’
job, are you?”
That was what Burt had been waiting for. “As a matter
of fact, he is,” the survivalist said. “I told him he’d have to check out
with Twitchell first.”
Tyler appeared to think that over for a moment, and then
he gave Malcolm an odd look. “Can you?”
To Burt’s surprise, the Englishman’s expression
flickered with momentary uncertainty; a small, uneasy part of him wondered
briefly if Tyler had anything to do with it. “I certainly hope so,”
Malcolm admitted. “If not, I fear I might end up someplace rather less
welcoming than a valley full of deadly mutations.”
A sudden thought occurred to Burt, and several comments
the younger man had made clicked into place. “I don’t suppose you left
whatever service you were in…rather abruptly, did you?”
Malcolm sighed and shook his head. “No, not like you’re
thinking – I’ve not abandoned my duties, and I’m not absent without leave.
I was on...a mission, a covert one, and my superior officer saw fit to pull
out and leave me stranded.” He made a face. “I believe that I’m ‘presumed
dead’ at present, at least officially. I was able to establish just a bit
of a legal identity for myself, enough to get by so far…I’m just not sure
how well it will hold up under scrutiny.”
This was territory Burt was familiar with, at least in
theory; keeping a separate identity or two was common practice among
survivalists, even though Burt didn’t happen to have one himself, and he
thought he could probably help Reed check his for holes. Something else to
consider, though… “Will your people come hunting you?”
“No.” Malcolm was certain of that, and it showed. “The
only one who knows for sure where I am is the captain, and as he’s the one
who abandoned me he’s got a vested interest in letting me stay lost. He
won’t be coming after me, I can assure you of that.”
Burt was glad to hear it. “Good, because we have enough
problems here with just the monsters.”
“And the occasional assassin,” Tyler added. “So far El
Blanco has eaten all of those that came out here, though. He can be a
right useful worm when he’s of a mind to.”
Out of habit, Burt glanced over at the seismo-monitor
screen, seeing the fat red dot that represented the Graboid pause for just a
moment before continuing on its way, no doubt a little more happily than it
had been before. If happy was something it could be, that was; Burt wasn’t
sure he wanted to know. But the big worm always reacted when Tyler praised him, always. The survivalist pulled his attention back to the problem at
hand. “I think I can check to make sure your identity will hold up,” he
told Reed. “I’ve got a few…sources I can call on. Do I need to know what
your real name is?”
He was fishing, of course; he wanted to verify that Reed
hadn’t chosen his cover name because of Tyler. But the Englishman just
chuckled and shook his head. “Malcolm Reed is my real name, fortunately.
This mission was put together rather on the fly, so no one had the time to
make me out to be someone else. No, my only concern is whether or not the
documentation I have will hold up to intense scrutiny.” He pulled a wallet
out of his back pocket, withdrew a driver’s license and a few other items
from it and held them out to Burt. “Here, have a look.”
It looked like a perfectly normal driver’s license to
the survivalist, with none of the things that would have red-flagged it as
a fake, and the green card and passport were the same. Burt handed them
off to Tyler. “All the information on these is correct?”
“As much as possible, yes. I saw no reason for it not
to be – as I said, I’m quite sure I’m presumed dead. And I rather like
myself, so I saw no reason to change anything.”
Tyler laughed, which made Burt smile –that laugh hadn’t
come too easily or too often lately, and it was good to hear it now.
“Don’t mess with perfection, is that it?” he teased. He passed the
documents back to Reed, who tucked them away again. “So it looks like your
only problems are findin’ out how deep of a background check you can
withstand and comin’ up with a story to keep the busybodies around here
from pryin’, am I right?” When the other man nodded, Tyler grinned.
“Well, Burt here can clear up the one problem for ya, and I think I can
solve the other one. You’re my cousin,” the former NASCAR driver told the
Englishman. “You heard what happened last month and came down here to
pitch in. You can’t tell anyone what you’ve been doin’ in the service, but
you’re ready to use all the top-secret knowledge you’ve got to help us
out.”
“That story would hold water for just about everyone, I
think,” Burt agreed. “Some of them will still ask questions, but we won’t
have to answer them.” He cocked an eyebrow at his lover. “Do you
have any relations in England?”
Tyler shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody, somewhere? I don’t
think anyone will give it a second thought, much less dig for details.
What I’m more worried about is explainin’ Malcolm’s gun.”
“It really is my gun, I designed it – I truly am
a weapons engineer and tactical officer.” Reed hesitated, backtracked.
“Well, former tactical officer, anyway. At the moment I’m Tyler’s cousin, come to help out and drop tantalizing hints about my shadowy past for the
benefit of the bored residents here in your valley.” A twinkle appeared in
his gray eyes. “Everything past that is ‘classified’, you know.”
Tyler grinned, but it slipped a little when he saw the
effect the grin had on Reed – he’d noticed it before, too. Shifting his
weight, he leaned forward, blue eyes sympathetic. “Looked somethin’ like
me, did he? Your…partner?”
Reed started, gray eyes widening…and then he snorted
softly and shook his head. “Sounded like you too – that bloody American
twang. But he’s…a long time gone, now.”
Tyler didn’t stop there. “Your captain have somethin’
to do with that?”
“Everything, unfortunately.” The Englishman sighed. “I
believe that was part of the reason I was ‘lost’, in fact. The bloody
loony had gotten angry with Trip some time back, I was apparently the next
target of opportunity in the man’s quest to make his life miserable. As if
ruining his career and almost getting him killed wasn’t enough.” He made a
face. “I’ve no hope that Trip is still alive, after this. And even if he
were, there’s absolutely no way he could find me.”
“Stranger things have happened.” This time Tyler did sit back. “So how long were you together?”
Another sigh. “Nearly three years. Three of the best
years of my whole bloody life, if truth be told. He was…exceptional.
Gorgeous. Brilliant. Infuriating.” He snorted again, a half-smile
quirking one corner of his mouth. “Perfect in every bloody way, in fact.
I don’t think anyone could ever replace Trip, not ever.”
Burt was relieved to hear that, although he didn’t say
so; suspicion and just a tinge of jealousy had reared their ugly heads when
Reed had admitted that his long-time lover resembled Tyler. “If he feels
the same way, he might just come looking for you anyway,” the survivalist
told him. “Like Tyler said, stranger things have happened – and strange
things are always happening out here.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Tyler shifted in his seat.
“Tell you what, why don’t we do a little I.D. checkin’ tonight, and then
tomorrow mornin’ we’ll get you settled in down at the garage and introduce
you around. And ol’ Twitch is a good guy, I don’t think he’s gonna be a
problem.”
“Quite possibly not,” Burt agreed. Twitchell had been
openly concerned about the solo patrols, and he’d hinted around that the
ranchers could be ‘convinced’ to help out temporarily if Burt wanted it
that way. Burt hadn’t; antagonizing the locals wasn’t a good idea in a
place like Perfection, especially not now. He didn’t think that was what Tyler was talking about, though.
Because the survivalist had to wonder if somewhere,
somehow, Agent W.D. Twitchell had just paused and then gone on his way a
little bit happier than he had been before. But Burt still wasn’t sure he
wanted to know.
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