FORT PUSHED BACKWARD IN ALARM, his chair tumbling to the floor. “How did I . . . what . . . I just heard you thinking. . . .”
Dr. Opps leaped forward, grabbing for Fort’s uniform. “What did you hear?” he hissed, his face a mix of anger and fear. “What is she—”
But other voices around the room were now rising, and not because of them. The silverware on the tables began to clink against the plates, and the temperature in the officers’ mess plummeted until Fort could see his own breath. The lights flickered just like they had in the Viewing Room during Fort’s test, and several of the officers started crying out in alarm. A few of the soldiers even raised their weapons, but they had nowhere to point them.
What was going on? For some reason, even surrounded by armed guards, Fort suddenly felt very exposed and totally vulnerable.
“Oppenheimer, what’s happening?” Colonel Charles said, rising from a nearby table and pulling Dr. Opps away from Fort.
“I told you those worldwide reports were true,” Dr. Opps said, shouting over the general noise. “What did you think would happen if you brought the boy here?”
Colonel Charles turned around to yell into his phone, something about increased activity of some kind, while Dr. Opps turned back toward Fort. “Get him back to the dorm,” he yelled at a soldier just behind Fort. “Charles, come with me!”
Colonel Charles threw Dr. Opps an annoyed look but started to follow him out, even as the soldier dragged Fort toward a different door. “Wait!” Fort shouted. “What is this? What’s happening?”
Before Dr. Opps could answer, someone screamed in the middle of the mess, and the rest of the room went deathly silent. The tables stopped shaking, and the lights stopped flickering, though they stayed low.
And somehow, though he couldn’t have explained why, Fort knew that something had changed. Something was in the room with them.
A high-pitched, wet squealing came from the center of the room, and terror passed through Fort’s veins like ice water. He wanted to yell or run or just close his eyes and curl up into a ball, anything to not see whatever it was that had just appeared out of nowhere. But his body refused to move, and he could only struggle to breathe in the freezing air.
The soldier holding Fort was tall enough to see over the assembled crowd, and whatever he saw made his eyes widen and his mouth open and close without any words coming out. His hands went limp, dropping Fort’s arm.
“Shoo-shoot it,” a man covered in medals whispered from Fort’s side. “For the love of all that’s holy, shoot it!”
Fort heard the click of a gun safety being turned off and saw a soldier nearby raising his weapon toward whatever it was. But as he aimed, the soldier started to softly weep, and the gun soon tumbled to the ground, with the man right behind it. He curled into a ball there, slowly rocking and crying to himself.
Through the assembled bodies, Fort caught a glimpse of something floating in midair, and his heart stopped. Whatever it was shimmered transparently, like a ghost or even a holographic projection. It wore some kind of opaque crystal armor, but beneath the armor, where a human being’s feet would have been, a multitude of tentacles squealed as they dragged across the floor. Behind each one, some sort of black goo singed the tile floor.
Fort’s entire body screamed for him to run, to hide, anything. But even as he struggled just to breathe, part of him wondered if this thing was a ghost, how was it touching the ground?
“It’s looking for the boy!” Fort heard Dr. Opps hiss at Colonel Charles, both of their faces deathly white. “I’ve got the medallion Sierra made. It might be our only chance of getting out of here alive”
“Is it—” Colonel Charles whispered.
“Yes,” Dr. Opps replied. “And you know what these things can do!”
“Get Forsythe out of here,” Colonel Charles snapped at another soldier, who nodded, trying his best not to look at the thing in the center of the room. The man grabbed Fort and dragged him toward the door. Still too afraid to even take a step on his own, Fort couldn’t do anything but stare in the direction of the horror, not wanting to see it, but unable to look away, either.
And then the creature turned to follow him.
YOU USE THE THOUGHT MAGIC, said a voice ancient and all-powerful inside Fort’s head. The strength of the voice made his skull ache, and he cried out as he grabbed the sides of his head, trying frantically to keep himself together.
“Oppenheimer?” Colonel Charles shouted, raising a shaking gun toward the creature. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”
The inhuman creature shuffled another step and was just about to appear fully in Fort’s line of sight when Dr. Opps stepped between them, holding the same medallion he’d used on Fort’s aunt in her apartment. He raised it up for the creature to see, and it began to glow brightly. “GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM,” Dr. Opps shouted, and light shot out from the medallion, some sort of magical burst.
Fort saw another mass of tentacles rise, this time where its hand should have been, and the beam of light froze in midair. THIS ITEM WAS THE SOURCE OF THE THOUGHT MAGIC? came the voice in Fort’s head, and he shrieked in pain again. Several people around Fort grabbed their heads, so he knew he wasn’t the only one to hear it this time.
“I command you!” Dr. Opps shouted, though he seemed to be in great pain as well. “Leave this place, and never return!”
But the monster gestured with one of its tentacles and the medallion shattered into pieces, the light that had emerged from it disappearing into nothingness. IF THAT WAS THE SOURCE, WE HAVE BEEN MISLED. PRAY THAT WE DO NOT RETURN TO THIS PLACE.
And with that, the inhuman horror disappeared, and Fort began to sob in relief, surprised to still be alive. What was that creature? He’d at least been able to move during the attack in D.C. But here, now, he couldn’t even face the thing!
Dr. Opps fell to his knees in front of Fort, cradling his hand that had been holding the medallion. Colonel Charles came swiftly to check him over. “Get Jia here to heal him,” he ordered a nearby soldier, his voice still shaking. He turned to Fort and glared at the soldier still gripping him. “And what did I say about the boy? Get him out of here—now!”
The temperature had now returned to normal, and the lights brightened to their usual setting as the soldier holding Fort resumed dragging him toward the door. For once, Fort was happy to let him. It had come here looking for him. Even just speaking, the thing had almost ruptured his mind.
If that was how it communicated, what could it do if it wanted to hurt them?
“Happy, Charles?” Fort heard Dr. Opps say. “Is this what you wanted? That thing could have killed us all if it wanted, and that was just a shadow of its power!”
Colonel Charles glanced over at Fort. “This just proves the need for all of this. We must have the boy’s power. If this is what it takes to awaken it, then so be it.”
“We need to see if Sierra . . . ,” Dr. Opps started, but Fort missed whatever else he said as the door to the mess hall slammed shut behind him, and he found himself out in the evening air.
“What . . . what was that thing?” the soldier asked.
Fort just stared at him in silence, no idea how to answer.
The soldier waited for a moment, then shook his head. “We should have set fire to those books when they first appeared. What we’re doing here, it’s wrong. You kids are messing with something we’ve got no business touching. And that thing is the result.”
Fort wanted to argue but couldn’t honestly think of a thing to say in their defense, so he just followed along quietly back to the boys’ dorm.