THE VETERAN

 

Tuesday January 14 - 1943 MST

Six hours and forty-seven minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

I could hear Wheel of Fortune on the television in the other room. That show along with a plethora of other game shows always played at this time of the evening. It was our evening ritual now that the kids were moved out and I had stopped working. My old job was something I tried hard to forget. Dumb game shows and bridge night with the neighbors was dull compared to what I used to do but a welcome relief. It was nice being retired.

But when the second tremor hit exactly thirteen minutes and sixteen seconds later the horrors came rushing back into my life. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Thirteen minutes and sixteen seconds was something that only happened in the world that I left behind so many years ago. It was a world that took a bit of me when it left, and now it looked like it was coming back for more.

What I was looking for was buried in a box hidden under more boxes in a storage closet at the back of our house. Part of getting myself cleaned up was organizing my life. Everything went into its proper place. One of the conditions of getting back together with my wife was that I would do this. I'd let myself slide too far before because of my work, and it had almost ended our marriage. Now we kept an immaculate house and everything went into a numbered box if it didn't need to be out where visitors could see it.

That included mementos from the old job.

There was a box marked D.E.A.D. That was an agency that no longer existed. I thought it was because the threat it was meant to fight was long gone and so it could remain buried just like all those relics we kept in the Vault. But I had to know for certain. I had to know that those two tremors were just coincidentally thirteen minutes and sixteen seconds apart. They had to be like all the other minor earthquakes so that my safe, little world of retirement could continue and I could keep watching game shows with my wife and playing bridge with the neighbors.

I pulled the old 1911 out first and checked it to make sure it was unloaded. It was, and it passed the function check because I made sure it was good when I packed it away. Beside it was a magazine filled to capacity with .45 rounds. The bullets shined like silver that contrasted starkly with the brass casings. They weren't really silver though. Silver bullets were just a legend. They didn't do anything special against the things D.E.A.D. had fought. But iridium did and it shined just like silver. Maybe that's where the legend came from.

I put those aside hoping I'd never have to use them again and grabbed the thing I was after. To an outsider it would look like the strangest memento. Just a big triangular tooth, like you'd pull from a shark, floating in a jar of water. But it was actually a fragment of bone from a monster far larger than any shark. Its body was so infused with dark energy that even after it had been killed its bones were attuned to it. They were so in tune that they still were drawn to powerful sources of it. I watched as the triangle of monster bone floated in the water. But no matter how I tilted the jar the tip always pointed southwest like a compass.

"A compass for evil." I muttered to myself.

I knew exactly where it was pointing—Dugway Proving Grounds. That left me with no choice. I loaded up the magazine with the iridium rounds and grabbed an inside-the-waistband holster. My old D.E.A.D. credentials were in there too, but I doubted anyone was left who would even know what that was.

"I knew we should have thrown all that out." My wife's voice startled me, and I dreaded the thought of making eye contact with her. The contents of the box were a painful reminder of the life that had nearly ended our marriage. "Buck, please don't do this again. Just forget whatever it is you're thinking of doing. Things are good now. Let's not change that."

I understood her plight. We were finally happy, but she could see the writing on the wall. I was headed off into danger again. "I don't want it to change either. But something's happened, and if it isn't stopped then our happy life is coming to a very swift end. Not just you and me, but a whole lot of people. I have to check it out. That's all there is to it."

I held her then for a long moment. We didn't say another word to each other because we both knew too well that we couldn't talk each other out of how we felt. We were stubborn that way.

She stood in the light of the doorway as I pulled out of the driveway. All I saw was a look of concern and worry. Something I hadn't seen in decades. Whatever was going on back in the Underground was now royally pissing me off. It could screw with me any day. Lots of people—and things that weren't people—did and I was used to it. But the moment it got into my family's lives it crossed a line.

And it was going to pay.