Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

it over.
    “Is this yours?” he asked.
    It was a .32 caliber bullet. I realized with a start that he had pulled it out of my pocket—or my magazine. I was instantly glad I didn’t have a surgical pin in my knee or a pacemaker in my chest.
    “Um, thanks,” I said, pocketing the ammo.
    Old Red steered clear of me after that. Maybe the fact I was armed worried him. To me, he looked like a bystander rather than a combatant.
    The one who disliked me the most was obvious from the start. It was the mechanic with the ball-peen hammer, Rheinman. I could tell he was still upset about missing me and killing the woman named Caroline who’d shaken her doll at me. I ignored Rheinman’s sidelong glares.
    I half expected McKesson to show up and join the crowd, drawn by the twitching hands on his watch, but he didn’t. People had brought food and folding chairs. It was like a strange, subdued block party. I had to wonder what the neighbors thought of the affair. The party was quiet, but I wondered if they might call the police. After all, the house was supposedly abandoned. I asked Gilling about the possibility we would be reported and he’d told me not to worry, he had it covered. Maybe one of his team had somehow made us all invisible, or unnoticeable. I wasn’t sure, so I worried anyway.
    It was after ten o’clock when Gilling called the meeting to order. There were more people here tonight than there had been when I’d met up with them the first time. I counted about twenty members. Gilling threw his arms high and everyone quieted. There was no doubt he was in charge.
    “There is a stranger in our midst,” he said. “A new man, a rogue who may be my equal in power.”
    Everyone was staring at me by this time. They had no doubt who the outsider was. Some of them had already tried to kill me once.
    “This man is a both a blessing and a curse to us,” Gilling continued. “He’s powerful, yes. So powerful he faced one of the Community in her domain, fought with her and won.”
    There was a susurration of crowd noises at that. They murmured and stared. I slouched against a wall and kept my eyes on Gilling.
    “He has come to us to ask our help and to give us his strength. Recently, several of our members have been killed. Others have abandoned us. We know the source of these attacks—those creatures from the shadows known as the Gray Men. It is my belief they see us as competitors.”
    I straightened and took a step away from the wall I’d been leaning against. “In what way are you competitors?” I asked.
    Gilling turned toward me. “We can move at will to their existence. They can do the same. I’m sure there are others, but I don’t know who they are.”
    “How do they do it?” I asked. “Do you think they have an object like your ring?”
    Gilling flashed me a look of annoyance. I took that as confirmation that his object was indeed a ring. Apparently, he didn’t like that detail to be advertised.
    “No,” he said. “I don’t think they use objects. They might not even be aware of their existence. They have advanced technology that performs these miracles of physics.”
    I thought to myself that they were certainly aware of them. I recalled the female of their species and how she had been carefully examining objects in Holly’s apartment. She’d obviously been looking for something. I decided not to argue with Gilling about it.
    “You mean they have some kind of machine that lets them invade our world?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Where is this machine?”
    “Inside the cubes,” he said.
    “The smaller stack or the larger one?”
    He blinked at me. “You know their place well,” he said. “The smaller one.”
    “How do we get there?”
    The group members were now talking openly among themselves. Apparently, the implications of our discussion were freaking them out. Gilling raised his arms for quiet.
    “That’s right, my brothers and sisters. Draith wants us to help him against the Gray Men who plague all of us. He wants us to step into their world and stop them.”
    I walked slowly through the crowd toward Gilling. I kept my hands in my pockets. The crowd parted for me, moving away from me as I approached.
    “From the sound of it, there’s only one way we can stop them,” I said.
    Gilling nodded. “That’s correct. We must step through and break into their small stack of cubes. We must destroy their machine to break their power.”
    I nodded. It occurred to me that I now better