At the Outpost of Fate

CHAPTER 13 — UPSIDE-DOWN

It was a family tradition in the Dalton household to gather the extended family together for Sunday dinner at least once a month, if not more often. Invariably, after the dishes were cleared away, but before the pies and cakes were divided up, Dodge's grandmother would bring out an Einson-Freeman jigsaw puzzle — a different puzzle every time — and everyone would join in the task of trying to connect the tiny pieces of pasteboard together. Dodge enjoyed puzzles; linking the pieces together in an orderly fashion was similar in many ways to what he did with words when writing. But unlike the articles and stories he wrote, puzzles were unique in that the hundreds of pieces could only be arranged in a specific way to produce a solution. There might be dozens of pieces that were all exactly the same shade of sky blue, but it was their unique shapes that determined where they would eventually go. More than once, he had sat staring at the partially assembled puzzle, knowing that the piece in his hand belonged in a certain spot, but until other pieces were added, the exact position for that piece was impossible to determine.

He felt that way now.

He felt as though he had been looking at pieces of the puzzle for days now, but without the benefit of knowing what the completed picture would look like. Many of the pieces just didn't seem to fit the way he thought they would.

Something about Burton the pilot had been nagging at him for several days. Yet, as he walked down the ice tunnel beside the man, he saw nothing devious or deceptive in the fellow's manner. He seemed perpetually and completely calm, almost disinterested in everyone and everything. Something about his manner reminded Dodge of something or someone — another piece of the puzzle — but he couldn't quite make the two fit together.

He has a gun.

In and of itself, that was perhaps not such a strange thing. Burton was reputedly a smuggler and a rogue and surely guns went with the territory. And yet, something about that picture just didn't seem to fit.

"I'm sorry about your friend," Dodge said, watching for some kind of reaction. He got none, so he pressed a little harder. "Were you two close?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Stevens. Were you and he close?"

Burton's forehead creased in thought. "Steve and I flew together…"

"Yes? You flew together? In the war?"

The pilot blinked. "No. I flew in the war, not Steve."

Dodge abruptly turned down a siding and Burton stopped as if sensing that he had made a wrong turn. Before he could give voice to that suspicion, Dodge continued. "Oh, so after then. You were smugglers together?"

"We flew together," Burton repeated, this time with both more certainty and finality. "I think we made a wrong turn."

"No, it's just up here a ways. Trust me, I've been here before."

Burton's steps were halting, as though following Dodge posed an ethical dilemma which he was unable to resolve.

"So were you and Stevens on Flight 19 together?"

Dodge knew he would have only an instant to judge Burton's reaction to that question. If his suspicions about the pilot were true, the man would almost certainly try to kill him once his cover was blown. Burton's stunned silence was answer enough. Dodge spun on his heel and sprinted back down the way they had come. He caught a glimpse of the pilot's hand, dropping toward the butt of his Colt, but didn't look back, not even when the report of a pistol thundered in the narrow confines of the tunnels.

He all but dove into the main tunnel they'd originally been in and continued running flat out. He couldn't hope to lose the pilot in the maze of tunnels; the man had already shown an almost uncanny ability to remember their path. Unarmed, his only salvation lay in reaching the Float Car ahead of Burton and that would mean not only outrunning the man, but also avoiding his bullets.

He figured he had two advantages over the pilot. First, assuming Burton really was one of the people from Flight 19—ordinary, innocent victims, in the grip of some kind of hypnotic power — then his reactions would continue to be almost mechanical, divorced from the highs and lows of human emotion. Dodge was counting on his own fear of getting killed to give him an edge. Secondly, he was hoping that Burton hadn't been given explicit instructions to kill him. And now that Burton was separated from the man who was calling the shots….

Fuller or whoever he really is. Why didn't I see it sooner?

Dodge felt like he was roasting alive inside his heavy winter clothes. He'd only been running a few seconds — a minute at most — but already he was drenched with sweat. His ears roared with the sound of blood rushing in his head; if Burton took any more shots, he didn't hear them.

The siding where he had stashed the Float Car came into view. He mentally counted down the number of steps between himself and his goal, but some part of his brain perversely insisted on trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit.

His abduction by King Donnelly in New York and Fuller's last second heroic appearance on the scene — it had all been artfully staged to gain Dodge's trust and more importantly, to convince him of a threat to the Outpost. And he had bought it, hook, line and sinker.

Now the enemy he was protecting the Outpost and its secrets from was on its very doorstep.

He rounded the corner and saw the Float Car. Three bounding leaps brought him to it and with the next he vaulted into its interior. He lingered there only long enough to grab one item and even that was almost too long. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Burton — relentless, robotic — charge into view, brandishing his pistol. With his prize in hand, Dodge dove out and ducked behind the rear end of the Float Car.

"I'll kill you if I have to," Burton said, his voice flat, his breathing only slightly labored from the pursuit.

"What's stopping you?" Dodge was stalling; he just needed a couple more seconds.

"Come out now or I'll have to kill you."

Burton's voice was closer and Dodge could hear the sound of his boots crunching on the ice. He was out of time.

"Okay, you got me."

Dodge stood up from behind cover and Burton immediately took aim. There was no reading his intentions; his gaze was as dull and disinterested as it had always been. Even so, Dodge was a little surprised when the other man pulled the trigger.

When Newcombe's hand made contact with the pillar, the dull metal was instantly enveloped in a blinding corona of violet energy. The smell of ozone filled the domed chamber and Jocasta could feel invisible fingers of electricity against her exposed skin. She reflexively drew away, but Fuller's grip on her biceps remained unbreakable. Before she could offer any further resistance, she felt his free hand against her leg.

She reacted with the instinctive revulsion of someone fending off a physical violation, but Fuller — or Schadel or whatever his name really was — had no interest in her flesh. He wanted the object in her hidden pocket and as soon as his probing fingers discovered it, he ripped it free. In the same brusque motion, he shoved Jocasta and sent her reeling across the floor. Unable to gain her footing, she crashed headlong into the wall.

Newcombe lay almost at arm's length, shaking off the effects of his own crash. He didn't appear to have sustained any injuries, but his dazed eyes showed almost no recognition of his surroundings. Jocasta crawled closer and took hold of his hand.

"Findlay, are you all right?"

The scientist blinked at her, then smiled. "Amelia, darling. It was amazing. I saw everything."

"Did you now?" Fuller inquired, his tone not the least bit menacing. Backlit by the shimmering metal column, his features were hard to distinguish. He was merely a shadow; an impenetrable hole in the middle of the universe, but she had no trouble making out the object in his right hand, for it too was alive with the same brilliant energy. "Tell me what you saw, Dr. Newcombe."

"Findlay, don't."

The physicist either did not hear Jocasta's murmured warning or was too awed by what he had experienced to contain the information any longer.

"It was like I was there, living right there with them." He struggled to his feet. "This place was a prison, built to contain one of their greatest minds. He was a genius. He figured out how to open the door between worlds. That's how they came to have this technology. They became like gods."

Newcombe cocked his head sideways, as if making a connection. "That's where our legends and religions originate. The ancients had no way of differentiating superior technology from magic and so those who wielded such might could only be gods. And of course, that other world and the entities that reside there… well, it's understandable why they would think that place was Hell."

"How do we open that door?"

Newcombe looked confused. "Why on earth would you want to do that? The ancients feared that world for good reason. The man who first unlocked that door was changed by what happened; he went insane. That's why they built this place.

"The only way to contain his power was to trap him in a sort of perpetual dream state. They removed him here, to the ends of the earth and built this place. But it wasn't enough to stop what he had begun, a cataclysm that wiped out that ancient civilization. The wardens here were cut off and in time died out."

"And then?"

Newcombe blinked. "That's all there is. It was their memories that I shared."

Fuller tapped the end of the Staff thoughtfully. "This ancient civilization, where was it Dr. Newcombe?"

"I'm not really sure. I experienced memories — sensations, images — not atlases and encyclopedias."

"Did you see anything familiar? Landscape features perhaps?"

Newcombe closed his eyes. "Mountains… familiar somehow. I know I've seen them before. Mountains to the east… no, northeast. I'm sorry, that's all. It was the city the wardens longed for and that has long since fallen to ruin."

"Then I guess you're of no further use to me." Fuller took a step forward, out of the shadows. "Tell me this, Jocasta. How were you able to overcome the hypnotic suggestion?"

"Jocasta?" Newcombe glanced first at Fuller, then at her and only then did comprehension finally dawn. "Oh, my."

"You give yourself too much credit… Schadel. I was never under your control."

"And yet, here we are." The ersatz FBI agent chuckled, but there was no humor in his eyes. He raised the Staff over his head. A halo of energy began gathering at its crest, building to the intensity of a star about to explode.

And then it did.

Burton fired again and again, until his pistol was empty. Dodge winced when the first shot was fired, but that first bullet, like the ones that followed, failed to hit their target. The shield generated by the exoskeleton device, which Dodge had removed from the Float Car and hastily donned, repelled every round.

The pilot discarded the now useless weapon and charged like an enraged bull. Dodge knew from experience that the force field would bounce Burton away just like it did the bullets, but he decided not to let the man get that close. He pointed one of the gauntlet-like hand grips at Burton and unleashed a bolt of electricity that blasted the man all the way back to the adjoining tunnel.

The pilot was dazed, but whatever had been done to deprive him of his volition also increased his ability to tolerate pain and trauma. He was back on his feet in a matter of seconds and immediately tried another frontal assault. Dodge fired the lightning weapon again, sustaining the discharge until wisps of steam began rising from Burton's rigid form. When he finally relented, Burton did not stir. Only the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest indicated that the man still lived. Dodge approached cautiously, half-expecting that the pilot was playing possum, but Burton was out cold.

Dodge unbuckled the belt of the exoskeleton, instantly deactivating the device and set about stripping the unconscious man's bootlaces. As soon as his stricken foe was securely bound, he reactivated the device and took flight.

At last he understood what had happened in the final moments before the plane had broken up. Both pilots, Burton and Stevens, were under Fuller's thrall and when the latter had given the impossible command to safely land the aircraft, they had been unable to do anything except make the attempt. Fuller believed he needed the plane intact, no doubt to transport away the spoils of the Outpost and had thought nothing of sacrificing one of his pawns in a futile effort to land the plane.

Now Fuller was out of pawns; it was time for the endgame.

Dodge's sense of confidence was short lived however. When he arrived at the central chamber and saw the newly opened passageway descending into the ice, he knew the game had already changed.

With the exoskeleton engaged, he drifted down the passage. It had been several months since he had last used the device, but it was a skill that, once learned, was easily remembered. The articulated joints responded to his direction like they were an extension of his own body. He glided a few inches above the ice as easily as if trying to walk stealthily. The only differences were the all-but-impenetrable force field and the two-fisted lightning attack he could unleash at a moment’s notice. But as he descended, the sounds and lights reflected in on the white ice walls warned him that his command of ancient technology might not afford him the advantage he first imagined.

He could hear voices — Newcombe's odd combination of didactic lecture and child-like fascination — and Fuller occasionally interjecting a comment or question, but the words were unclear. And then, as he stepped from the passage on to the floor of a large open area, one more piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

He still didn't know who Fuller really was, but there was no mistaking the object he now held above his head. It was the Staff, stolen from their facility in the Empire State Building; the key to all the technology in Outpost. And there in the center of the cavern, pulsing with energy, was a pillar of the same metal.

That pillar had been the beacon which had drawn them across the icy continent and finally to the central chamber above. The Staff had then made it possible for Fuller to unlock the final door and gain access to the source of power.

Similarly, although Dodge could not fathom what Fuller's final ambition might be, there was no mistaking his immediate intent: he was preparing to use the power of the Staff to incinerate Newcombe and Amelia Dunham.

Without a moment's hesitation, Dodge stabbed the gauntlet at Fuller. A blinding ribbon of electricity arced across the chamber. If Fuller saw the sudden flash of illumination behind him or glimpsed his own shadow on the icy wall, he had not even a fraction of a second to react. But because he had the Staff, he didn't need even that much.

Dodge's attack stung to be sure, but much of its intensity was lost as the charged bolt encountered force field surrounding Fuller. Within the violet corona, the pretender grimaced for only a moment before turning to Dodge and unleashing the fire he had prepared for the others.

Dodge dropped his attack and sped away as lightning stabbed impotently through the space he had occupied only a moment before. He swooped behind the silver column around which the domed chamber seemed to revolve. He knew intuitively that Fuller would not dare risk harming the pillar; it was surely the goal which had brought him here.

The column wasn't broad enough to hide him from Fuller's view or vice versa. Dodge could see the rage etched into the other man's features. Fuller stalked toward the column, the Staff held aloft and bristling with violet intensity. Dodge circled to the right, keeping the column between them and glanced toward Newcombe and Amelia. The scientist was staring at Fuller and his energy weapon like a moth drawn to an open flame, but Amelia's eyes locked with Dodge's gaze.

"Get out of here!" shouted Dodge. "I'll hold him off as long as I can."

The blond woman nodded and immediately launched into motion. She grabbed Newcombe's arm and dragged him bodily toward the exit. Dodge continued circling, intent on the same goal. Fuller must have realized what he was attempting, because he abruptly charged toward the column, cutting the distance between them in half and at the same time started hurling bolts of energy toward the exit. Lightning discharges hammered into the ice, vaporizing it instantly. The staccato crack of electricity ionizing the air reverberated in the domed chamber. Steeling himself against the pain he knew would come, Dodge twisted around and aimed for the heart of the tempest.

Fuller's fire followed him. The force field dampened some of the shock, but he nevertheless felt his muscles seizing as the current arced through his body. Sparks danced between his skin and the force field, but somehow, he made it to the exit.

As soon as he entered the confines of the upwardly sloping tunnel, he did an about-face and began hurling lightning, not at Fuller, but at the ceiling of the tunnel. Huge chunks of ice began crashing down, filling the opening. He dared not hope that he might permanently entomb the treacherous villain; his only goal was to buy his friends a few extra seconds to reach safety above. He was only able to bring down a few large blocks before Fuller's violet fire blasted into the obstacle. A spray of smaller fragments hammered into this force field and the sheer energy of the attack send him bouncing further up the tunnel and then he abruptly found himself face down on the ice.

The significance of the ice scraping against his cheek did not immediately sink in. It was only when he stretched his arms out, trying to fly away from the maelstrom of Fuller's fury that he realized the exoskeleton was no longer functioning.

He felt the loss as acutely as the loss of a limb. For few seconds he was unable to do anything more than continue struggling to make the device work; he waved his arms and flexed his feet, but still nothing happened. Then, as the crunch of Fuller's footsteps on the broken ice became audible, he twisted around, stabbing his gauntlets at the approaching figure.

Liquid metal, like dull quicksilver, dribbled from his clenched fists and pooled on the frozen floor of the tunnel. Dodge stared in horror at the growing pool, as the droplets of metal beaded together and rolled down the slope toward Fuller. Without Dodge even realizing it, the entire exoskeleton had liquefied. As the droplets reached Fuller, they rose into the air, gathering into a single mass that levitate a few inches from the shimmering tip of the Staff.

The ersatz G-man stared down at him, his expression equal parts triumph and disdain. "Didn't know I could do that, did you?"

His voice was different somehow, faintly accented, as if this was his real manner of speaking and everything that had gone before was artifice. In fact, Dodge realized, that was exactly the case. "Who are you?"

Fuller did not even deign to dismiss the inquiry with a gesture. Instead, he held the Staff above Dodge like an executioner's axe. The sphere of liquid metal remained where it had been, like a trained pet awaiting new orders from its master. Violet energy began to crackle up and down the length of the rod, gathering into a blinding orb. Dodge tried to meet Fuller's gaze, daring him to look his victim in the eye as he delivered the coup de grace, but the light was so intense he had to cover his eyes.

And then the light was extinguished.

The memory of the brilliance lingered in Dodge's eyes, plunging everything into permanent shadow, but he could just make out his foe, still standing where he was with the Staff outstretched, but gazing up at the ice overhead, head cocked to one side as if listening to a distant voice borne on the wind. Abruptly, he spun on his heel and all but ran back into the domed chamber, with the metal globe trailing behind.

The unexpected reprieve was as confusing as the betrayal that had preceded it. Dodge felt like he was drowning in a storm-tossed ocean, unsure of which way to swim to reach the surface. Part of him wanted to flee, to find Amelia and Newcombe and retreat to some corner of the Outpost where Fuller would never think to look. Maybe they could find some weapon that could stand even against the Staff… or a cache of exoskeletons that might bear them across the frozen wilderness to safety. Stay alive, that inner voice told him, because where there's life, there's hope.

But the urge to survive was not as strong as the desire to know why Fuller had moved away. It was not mercy that had stayed his hand and it wasn't fear of reprisal. So what then? What was so important that the villain dared not waste even a moment in stamping out the spark of Dodge's life?

Hauling himself erect, Dodge crept toward the tunnel exit. He felt unsteady on his feet, as if his body remembered the feeling of flight and begrudged a return more conventional — more pedestrian — modes of transport.

He shook his head, trying to shake off the inertia of defeat. His eyes had not quite recovered from the Staff's brilliance, but he could make out Fuller's silhouette. The phony federal agent stood before the tall metal pillar in the center of the room, touching the tip of the Staff to it. Dodge shaded his eyes with one hand, in anticipation of some kind of fiery display, but nothing unusual happened.

After a few seconds, Fuller lowered the Staff and took a step back. The globule of liquid metal, still floating in mid-air, smoothly expanded in size. When it was large enough, Fuller stepped into it and vanished. Almost immediately, the sphere shot toward the tunnel. Dodge didn't even have time to draw back as it brushed against him. He felt the familiar tickle of static electricity on his face, but the bubble moved so fast, it was gone from sight before he could turn around.

The ensuing quiet was ominous. Dodge felt certain that this was merely the eye of the storm, rather than its aftermath. With far more caution than he had shown moments before, he entered the chamber and approached the pillar.

He immediately felt waves of heat, emanating from the surface of the column. A ring of water — melted ice — was spreading from the base of the pillar and before he had crossed half the distance, Dodge saw tiny splashes of precipitation on the floor; the heat radiating from the pillar was also melting the ceiling of the cavern. It wasn't unbearably hot, not yet at least, but compared to the constant pervasive chill of the frozen environment, it was a striking contrast.

"Dodge!"

The shout from behind him was equal parts amazement and relief, two emotions he had never really heard from the Dr. Findlay Newcombe. Dodge was similarly relieved as he turned to discover Newcombe and Amelia Dunham, hastening toward him, but his reaction was tempered by the knowledge that Fuller's wrath might yet become manifest.

Newcombe, ever the scientist, immediately noticed the change to the pillar and its surroundings. "What did he do?"

"I'm not quite sure. He touched it with the Staff and it started heating up." Dodge shook his head in self-directed disgust. "He had the Staff all along. How could I have been so blind to this?"

Newcombe cast a nervous glance in Amelia's direction. "That's not exactly true."

"He did things with the Staff we didn't even know were possible. And this—" Dodge gestured at the pillar. "I don't even know what it is, much less what he's done to it."

"It's the source of power for… well, for everything." Newcombe reached out hesitantly, holding his hand a few inches away as if afraid to make direct contact. "It's getting hotter. Not good."

Frustrated by his own failures, a sarcastic retort formed on Dodge's lips, but before he could excoriate the scientist for stating the obvious, the import of Newcombe's comment hit home. "Why 'not good'?"

The frizzy-haired scientist pointed to the base of the pillar, where it was embedded in the increasingly liquefied floor of the chamber. "The Law of Entropy tells us that when something hot and something cold meet, they tend to equalize in temperature. This place is so cold that, by now, the water should already be refreezing. But that's not happening because the column is continuing to get hotter."

"It's generating its own heat? Could it melt itself all the way through the ice, down to the bedrock?"

"I ran tests on the metal back at my lab. Its melting point, if it even has one, is hotter than any fire we can produce. So if it keeps getting hotter, it could conceivably melt right through the earth's crust and keep going." Newcombe's frown deepened. "But that's not what concerns me. You see, right now, it's just melting the ice. Before too long, it will be completely immersed. And at some point, it will be so hot that the water surrounding it will be flashed instantly to steam."

"So?"

"Don't they teach physics in school anymore?" Newcombe's patience also seemed to evaporating. He sighed deeply and then composed himself. "The pillar is going to create a sort of tube in the ice, a confined space. When the water surrounding it turns to steam, it will expand forcefully."

"You mean it will explode?"

"With unimaginable force. Enough to split the ice apart and destroy this entire cavern. And it will just keep repeating over and over again, with increasing force. It could…" The scientist faltered as if his brain was still trying to wrap itself around the possible consequences.

"How long have we got?"

Newcombe held his hand out again. "Without proper instruments, it's impossible to say how fast the temperature is increasing. But hypothetically, if the rate of increase is one degree a minute and the water is having no moderating effect at all, then in about three hours it will reach the boiling point of water. Bad things will start to happen then."

"Three hours," Dodge echoed with a weary sigh.

"Three hours until the Outpost is destroyed. By this time tomorrow, that column will be well over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. And in a week, it will be as hot as the surface of the sun. More than hot enough to melt the Antarctic ice, which would probably flood half the world. I'm afraid we don't know enough about the Earth's interior to make more than an educated guess about the effects of something that hot sinking into the mantle, but it could conceivably get so hot that it begins to cause atomic fission or even fusion, to whatever it encounters.

"Of course," Newcombe added. "I could be wrong. It might be heating up faster than that."

"You're talking about the end of the world." Dodge suddenly felt light-headed, as if Newcombe's dire prediction had used up all the oxygen in the chamber. "Is this what he wanted all along? To destroy the world?"

"I think that's exactly what he wanted," commented Amelia.

Dodge glanced sidelong at the woman. "This doesn't make any sense. I thought he was just using me to find the Outpost, but if he had the Staff all along, then I can't imagine why he brought us here."

"He didn't have the Staff," said Newcombe in a forlorn voice. "Not until she gave it to him."

It took a moment for that to fully sink in. "What?"

"I didn't give it to him," protested Amelia. "He took it. You saw him take it from me, Findlay."

"You had the Staff?"

The blond woman turned to face him, her expression more annoyed than contrite. "His name isn't Fuller and he isn't an FBI agent, but I suppose you've figured that out already. I knew him as Schadel and I think he's working with the Nazis. Of course, I didn't recognize him. He usually wears a skull mask and is reputed to be a master of disguise. He hired me to steal the Staff from your laboratory in New York, but then he tried to renege on our arrangement. I don't take kindly to that sort of treatment.

"I knew he'd be coming after you, so I decided to tag along," she continued, reciting her tale as it were merely the latest gossip. "I had hoped to make him pay for his treachery. Little did I realize that you had already invited him into the fold."

Dodge was still struggling to keep up. "Wait. He hired you to steal it? A reporter?"

"She's not a reporter," Newcombe announced gravely. "She's Jocasta Palmer."

"Jo—" For a moment, the Dodge was dumbstruck. It was as though someone had scattered the pieces of the puzzle he had been struggling to assemble. He shook his head in despair. "Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse."

Even as he said it, the sound of shuffling feet reverberated in the domed chamber. More than a dozen men wearing olive-drab parkas and matching snow pants, their faces mostly obscured by goggles and scarves, advanced into the chamber, brandishing M-1 Garand rifles. Another man, similarly attired but armed only with a holstered pistol, stalked in behind them and advanced toward Dodge and the others.

"General Vaughn," muttered Newcombe, uncertainly.

The officer put his hands on his hips and fixed his gaze on Dodge. "Your little game is finished, Dalton. I'm taking command of the Outpost and placing all of you under arrest."

The woman Dodge now knew to be the notorious Fallen Angel cat burglar — and evidently more than just a character in one of Captain Falcon's adventures — leaned close and whispered, "There, you see? Things can always get worse."