Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

your house was an accident. Sometimes when you step in and out, things follow you.”
    “What about Tony Montoro and the others? Who has been killing these people?”
    “The Gray Men have been behind most of the attacks.”
    “Exactly,” I said. “That’s why we are planning to hit the Gray Men at their base.”
    “Right. Total insanity.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they will slaughter you, for one thing. And even if they don’t, they will take your action as a formal declaration of war. It may be too late already, due to your prior actions.”
    I frowned at him.
    Gilling spoke up suddenly, angrily. “I think I understand,” he said. “Only we rogues are suffering, so screw us? Is that it? We are beetles in the dirt as far as your masters are concerned. Well, we’re not interested in dying for the comfort of the Gray Men or the Community any longer.”
    I glanced at Gilling in surprise. Robert’s warning had put steel in his spine. At the same time Robert was getting through to me. I hated to admit it, but he was right about one thing. I had no real idea what I was getting myself into by attacking the Gray Men openly.
    “Do you understand we have a cold war here, Draith?” Robert asked.
    “I’ve heard that.”
    “It’s a delicate balance of power. But, have you considered the possibility that the balance
isn’t
in our favor? What if they are
stronger
than we are? Wouldn’t it be a bad idea to piss them off in that case?”
    “You’re saying we could touch off a war that our world would lose.”
    “I’m saying you are a know-nothing vigilante. A terrorist. An assassin who might ignite an interworld war.”
    “You don’t even know what we are trying to do,” I said.
    Robert gave an ugly laugh. “Of course I do. You want revenge. You want blood. You want bodies, because they’ve killed your kind. Maybe you think you can burn down a stack of their cubes or at least gun down a busload of civilians.”
    I shook my head and walked up to him. “How little you think of us,” I said. “We aren’t fools. We want to strike a strategic blow.”
    “What are you after, then?”
    “Their machine,” I said. “We mean to destroy the system that allows them to walk on our soil.”
    Robert looked thoughtful.
    “You see the possibilities, don’t you?”
    “How do you know they don’t have a thousand machines?”
    “Because they only seem to come through about once a day at most. I think they have a device, and it is in the cubes very near here. I think it takes a lot of preparation or power, and it doesn’t work perfectly. If we take that machine out, we can set them back.”
    “OK,” he said, “I’ll admit, that doesn’t sound as crazy as I thought your plan would be. Ballsy, but rational. But I still can’t allow it.”
    “Allow it?” I asked. “Why not?”
    “We all have our masters, Draith,” he said. His eyes were almost apologetic.
    Alarmed, I raised my pistol. I shouted a warning to everyone, but it was too late. I heard someone scream nearby. The scream turned into a hissing, gargling sound. It was Souza.
    The light was bad and the scene was horrific. My mind couldn’t quite grasp what my eyes were seeing at first. Then I realized what it had to be. One of the boulders we’d allbeen maneuvering around was—
eating
Souza. It had already rolled over his feet and now slid upward to complete the process by slowly consuming his legs. I knew it would soon burn his whole body to ash.
    Souza was still conscious, still game. He held his dolly up and I felt a gush of heat wash all around me. The heat wave rolled outward in every direction. One of the SUV’s tires popped and the headlights dimmed. Fiona fell, howling, beating at her clothes. Here and there in the desert, dry brush sparked and bloomed into flame.
    “So
warm
,” said a familiar, alien voice. “But Ezzie is still cold. Do it again!”
    I realized two things at that moment. First off,
all
the boulders were moving around us, advancing on my cultist allies. Second, Robert was gone, having run off into the dark desert in the confusion. I would deal with Robert, but first I had to help my friends.
    We had one critical advantage over Ezzie and her creeping brethren: we were faster. Souza wasn’t able to escape, however. I grabbed his arms, and with Rheinman’s help tried to drag him away from the moving boulders. The sifting sands helped. If the ground had been a hard surface, I don’t think we could have pulled him