"Just what Koturovic said." Mike tapped the book again. "Some kind of superalpha predators that eat everything. Something that would break through the dimensional barriers, hunt us, and wipe out humanity. An interdimensional locust swarm of some kind. He said they were from a universe outside our own, but if we accept that there are multiple universes, what makes ours so special? Wouldn't the conditions that attract them exist in all those realities, too?"

Sasha crossed her arms. "So you're saying something...what, ate the Moon-world?"

"Maybe," said Mike. "I don't know that it's true, I just know that it fits all the evidence."

"Wait..." Jamie glanced toward the main floor, then to the trailers.

"You mean there's more of those bugman things?" asked Sasha.

"Maybe a lot more," said Mike. "I think the rings punched a hole in that dimensional barrier he talks about. And if Koturovic's right about everything, the more people there are around the hole, the bigger it gets."

"And the more bugmen come through," Jamie said.

Arthur pulled off his gla.s.ses, and reached for the tie he wasn't wearing. "We're in the middle of a major city," he said. "We're in a relatively deserted area, but if the instability keeps growing..."

"Yeah," Mike said. "San Diego's got a population of a couple million, right?"

"Yes," said Arthur. "And then there's Orange County, Baja, Anaheim, Los Angeles...we're talking about ten or twenty million people, depending on how far it reaches."

"And how many bugmen would that set loose?" asked Sasha.

"I don't know," said Mike. "Koturovic seemed pretty sure the alpha predators could wipe out humanity, and it seems like he was right about a lot of this."

Arthur tapped his cane on the floor. "That creature was fast and strong," he said, "but I can't imagine even hundreds of them could stand up to a few platoons of Marines from Pendleton."

"You have to stop them," said Olaf.

Sasha glanced between them. "What?"

"Bob's last words," said Olaf. He glanced at her, then Mike. "The other Bob. He was terrified of the monsters. He said we had to stop them."

Mike bit his lip and nodded. "I think other-Bob came from a world the alpha predators had already reached. And the people there fought back with everything they had. And it wasn't enough. For all we know, maybe the Moon-world is the same one. They just finished eating."

"They can't eat everything," said Olaf. "It's just...it's not possible."

Arthur's cane rocked back and forth under his hands. "A small locust swarm can strip a field bare in hours," he said. "A large one can eat over a million tons a day. I suppose it's not impossible."

"I'd rather not find out," said Jamie.

"We stick with our original plan," Mike said. "We know the fold collapses if there's enough damage to the rings. That's what happened on Site B."

"But we can't take them apart," said Sasha.

"Right, so let's just go with primitive basics. We can't take it apart, so let's just smash it."

Arthur winced. Olaf raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I'm not sure we can," said Sasha. "The rings are pretty solid, even without this other-dimensional reinforcement. The carapace is half-inch polystyrene, and past that the rings are almost solid metal. Steel frame, copper coils, lead plating." She shrugged and winced as her arm moved. "We could work on it for hours with sledgehammers, and not even dent the frame."

"Then we hit it with something bigger," said Jamie. "We drive a truck into it."

"Again, steel frame," said Sasha. "And I don't think we could get a truck up onto the main floor anyway."

"What if," Mike said, "we freeze it with the liquid nitrogen first?"

Arthur and Sasha both shook their heads. "The rings get bathed in it every time we open the Door," said Arthur. "It will boil away long before doing any structural damage."

"At best, we might be able to crack the carapace sections," said Sasha. "And then we're back to solid metal."

"Could we make a pipe bomb or something?" Jamie asked. "What do they call it, an IED?"

Sasha shook her head again. "We don't have anything to make it with."

"None of the chemicals in the storage lockers?" asked Mike.

Sasha shrugged and looked from Mike to Arthur. "I'm not a chemist. I don't know if any of that stuff mixes to make explosives."

"Coffee creamer," said Jamie. "I think I saw a thing on television once where they used coffee creamer to make a bomb."

"I still don't think that's strong enough," said Sasha. "And I don't think we have powdered creamer, anyway."

"I'm also not sure we should be going back in there unarmed," said Olaf. He reached up to touch his cheek. "If just one of those things did this to us, I can't imagine what a few dozen of them could do."

"I have another magazine for my pistol in my office," said Arthur. "And half a box of ammunition at home."

"So we need guns and explosives," said Mike. "Let me make a phone call."

FORTY-SEVEN.

"So, to recap," said Reggie from the tablet, "yesterday half the complex was destroyed, but everything was under control. Today, Neil Warry is dead."

"We're pretty sure he died yesterday," said Mike. "The circ.u.mstances were just a bit tough to explain."

Mike stood at the end of the trailer park. He held the screen so Reggie could see the remains of Site B. Arthur sat a few yards away on the steps of Olaf's trailer. Olaf stood by him, arms crossed and ready to offer support if needed.

He turned the tablet around, and Reggie scowled at him. "So, having confessed all this, now you want to blow up the other building. Does that cover it?"

"Not the building," said Mike. "Just the last set of rings on the main floor."

"Ahhh, right. The rings that I've paid about a quarter-billion dollars for in the past year alone."

"This is bigger than a budget line," said Mike.

Reggie shook his head. "Give me a minute to process all this."

"It'd be better if you just took my word for all of it."

"That's asking an awful lot right now."

Mike turned the tablet away from the ruined building and set one of the trailers in his background. "You know how you're always telling me to trust your gut?"

"Yes."

"Well, your gut should've exploded a few hours ago from everything happening here. So now you have to trust me. Your top man in the field."

They stared at each other through the screen. Reggie set his hands on the desk in front of him. "What can we salvage from this?"

"This?"

"How much did you get? Files, blueprints, design specs?"

Mike stared at him.

"You're talking about blowing the whole place up," said Reggie, "so we need to talk about rebuilding."

"We can't rebuild it," Mike said.

"We'll be a lot safer this time," said Reggie. "No more of this half-a-dozen cowboys stuff. We'll set up in Virginia or something."

"No, seriously, we can't."

"We can. Even if you've only got partial information, I can throw enough people at this to fill in the gaps."

"Have you heard anything I've said? About what happens to the people who go through? You need to shut this whole thing down and run all the files through a shredder. We blow it up, bury it, and it never comes up again."

Reggie shook his head. He lowered his chin. "Arthur's okay?"

Mike nodded and jerked his head to the left. "He's about fifteen feet that way. With Olaf. Want me to get him?"

"No. He'll agree with everything you've told me?"

"Yeah. He can probably do it with bigger words, too."

"Not now," said Reggie. "No smart-a.s.s stuff now. From what you're telling me there's a chance this is my career-ending day if I mess up one thing."

"I told you, it's a little bigger than that."

"f.u.c.k you. And shut it."

"Sorry."

Reggie's fingers made tiny movements on the desk. Mike realized his friend was pressing them against the desk to keep from making fists. "Okay," he said. "Okay, I know a colonel at Pendleton. I think we're tight enough that he'll make this happen and ask for details later. I should be able to have a demolitions team down there in an hour or so. Maybe an hour and a half."

"There's a chance we'll have to defend ourselves. You should get them to send as many soldiers as possible."

"Never call Marines soldiers," said Reggie.

"I thought we weren't being smart-a.s.ses?"

"I'm not." He lifted his hands from the desk and rubbed his eyes. "What do I tell them they're fighting?"

The ants presented dozens of responses. "Tell them it's war," said Mike. "Tell them there's a chance they'll be fighting a war."

"Against what?"

Mike counted to three. "Honestly," he said, "you won't believe me."

Reggie scowled again.

"I'm sorry," said Mike. "I can explain all of it in more detail later. Me, Jamie, Arthur, everyone. You can debrief us or whatever. But right now I cannot stress how important it is that we destroy those rings."

"I can't ask them to mobilize a platoon of Marines without more than that."

"I'm sorry," Mike said again.

"You know what this sounds like, right? If I hadn't known you for most of my life I'd probably be calling Homeland Security right now."

"I know. And you still might need to if this doesn't work."

Reggie pressed his hands against the desk again. "What you were talking about the other day with Ben. The reason he was messed up. It's true of everyone who went through the Door, isn't it?"

Mike glanced over at Arthur and Olaf. He took a few steps away. "Yeah," he said to the tablet. "Yeah it is. Everyone who went through the Albuquerque Door was swapped with a counterpart."

"Which means me, too."

"Yeah. And Kelli, your a.s.sistant."

Reggie coughed. "So I'm from another universe."

"Yeah. And her, too. I think you might be from the same one, since you both went through in one session."

A long moment stretched out between them.

"I was going to tell you after all this," said Mike. "I just thought it might be better in person. Maybe over drinks."

Reggie's chin made a slight up and down motion. His fingers flexed against the desktop. "So I don't know you."

Mike counted to three. "No," he said. "Not really, no."

Reggie studied his desktop for a moment, then looked around his office. His gaze slid back to the screen. "Well," he said, "you're still a jerk. So don't get too full of yourself."