The Veil War

Half an hour later my right hand ached from signing releases and waivers. Mr. Smithers escorted me out of his office and back to a cozy, decent-sized game room. The focal point of the room was a pool table made of marble, rich wood, gold and pearl inlay, and for all I knew green felt made out of baby seal fur.

There, shooting balls into the right corner pocket with monotonic regularity was the Chad. The Chad did not look up from his billiards marksmanship. In the corner, wearing a blue and white Russian sailor’s shirt and ridiculously short shorts was Tactical Beardman. His beard looked especially ridiculous hovering in space above that outfit.

He stood. Damn, but he was one muscular little fuck. Tattoos ran up both arms. He reached out a hand. I shook it.

“Mumbles. Welcome to an agency.”

“Not ‘the’ agency?”

“That name was taken,” he said. I thought I detected a smile behind the facial hair, but I couldn’t be certain. The Chad said nothing.

“Right.”

We looked at each other. The Chad sank another ball with a definitive crack. The ball orbited the inside of the pocket for a while.

“Enough of this gay shit,” Beardman said. “Let’s get you sorted.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Follow me.”

I looked over at the Chad. He gave me a nod. I was in. We left the Chad to his billiards. I followed the Beardman down a hallway. As we walked along we left a prosperous 18th Century and drifted into a budget-starved mid-twentieth.

Institutional gray crept up the walls, replacing the paneling. Linoleum tile overtook the carpeting. Pipes and ducts appeared, suspended by dusty wires from an unpainted ceiling. We came to a halt in a break room that would have felt at home in any non-self-respecting 1950s industrial facility.

“Coffee’s free,” Beardman said, waving at the sink and a battered stainless coffee machine.

“Awesome,” I said.

Beardman dropped into one of the fiberglass chairs loitering around the formica table. I set my bag on the table.

“Now what?” I asked.

“I imagine you have a couple questions.”

“A couple.”

Beardman pulled a flask from his pocket. He took a pull and handed it over. I felt the burn of an excellent bourbon. He settled in and started talking. “In the spring of 1945, a Nazi research facility in what is now the Czech Republic made an interesting discovery.”

I handed the flask back, and he took another pull.

“Using nothing more than their native brain power, an interesting mechanical calculator invented by a Jewish death camp vacationer, and a burning desire to make my life miserable, a bunch of SS eggheads created the great grand-daddy of the gate you saw back in the ‘stan. That gate opened into a world where the dinosaur killer never hit. Savvy?”

I nodded. He took another drink. “Seeing as around that time the Red Army was knocking on the door with artillery parks the size of Rhode Island, well, certain elements in the Third Reich saw a unique opportunity to not be bayonet practice dummies for the untermenschen.

“They ducked into the rabbit hole and pulled it in after them. The eggheads took with them the best part of a Waffen-SS division along with elements of the Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht, and hell, for all we know the Reichsmarine.

“But wait! Don’t order yet!” He mugged for the camera, a retarded sailor boy Billy Mays. “They also grabbed the whole laboratory, its support staff, and the village it was in. As an added bonus, a Krupp armaments factory and its associated workers, engineers and slave-labor work force went down the hole. Everything an embryonic Fourth Reich could need or want.”

He held up the flask and peered over the flipped up cap at me. “And on the other side of the rabbit hole, they didn’t find the mad hatter.

“They found dinosaurs”

I tore out of my cosy, cardboard, under-the-overpass estate, absorbing the buffeting from the rough terrain with my legs. I cut off a Ford Taurus and accelerated southwards on Dallas Ave. A chill wind cut into my face.

“Where’s the party?” I yelled.

Everything gone to shit just as I expected. I wait for days, in a box, and the fuckhead gets hisself capped less than five minutes after he pokes his stupid head out of his fucking rabbit hole.

Beardman’s voice spoke in my left ear, “Turned east off of Dallas.”

“Awesome. They’re heading for the highway, then. Get someone to take care of Fritz. He’s a little worse for wear.”

Perfect. I wove through the sparse traffic, punching up to fifty on the straights and braking for the intersections. The buildings transitioned from deepest ghetto to just the wrong side of impoverished but still trying.

Traffic thickened as I made my way south. I cut left, jacked hard through the gears on the straightaway. I barely touched the brakes as I blew through the intersection. Ran the gears again and let off the throttle slightly.

I crested a low rise at speed and felt my nuts contract as I floated for a moment in zero-g. The bikers leisurely motored on about a mile or so ahead of me. “Hey, I see the party. Should I crash it or what?”

“Give me a sec.”

Fucking awesome.

“We’ve got air.”

I slowed, not particularly wanting to spook a bunch of people who just dropped a dude in cold blood.

I inched my way closer, keeping my driving relatively sane.

“OK, crash the party. Not too hard. Some of them will need to work tomorrow.”

“Right.”

Local police was in the bag, but only at the highest level. Assuming I didn’t get shot, I had a get out of jail free card. “Let me know if they turn,” I said and made a sudden turn right.

I opened up the throttle. A bit more than a half mile the next intersection lurked, malevolent and waiting to eat me. I punched up to 70, hit the brakes and leaned hard to the left and took the corner at almost 40. Cars honked their horns, and I made the most awesome Pittsburgh left in human history as I threaded the traffic just as the light turned and no one was moving yet.

I roared east again. I cranked it hard, up to a hundred. Industrial facades rushed past. I tucked my head down and raced. “Let me know when to turn,” I shouted.

Tactical Beardman, if he could see the monitor through his facial hair, should be bright enough to divine my plan. I raced down the street, popped left to pass grandma in her town car. The engine howled and I waited.

“Next street” Beardman whispered in my ear.

The buildings and the parked and derelict cars rushed past. I had the oddest sensation that I was standing still and the world was moving west at over a hundred miles an hour. I scanned ahead.

Green light.

Yellow light.

I hit the rear brake hard, downshifted. Took the turn and worked back through the gears. The bike loved me and I loved it.

“Slow down.”

I eased off the throttle. Red light ahead.

“Blue van,” I saw a blue van cross the intersection fast approaching me.

“Then red shitbox, white pick up, then bikes. Thirty foot spacing.” Tactical Beardman might be a complete douchebag but he was, despite it all, Tactical.

A red Dodge coupe from the last century crossed. I gauged the distance to the cross street, added another couple mph.

A white F-150 crossed. Almost there…

I goosed the throttle one last time, popped up on my rear wheel. I screamed.