Barry Tang watched sunset from the front porch of the half-ruined church, perched at the edge of the Rock, his gear strewn across a broad card table. Though one couldn’t tell from here, the far side of the church was simply gone, cut away by the Garubis beam and left back on Earth, exposing half of the sanctuary to alien vistas. Kind of ecumenical, at that, he commented mentally, A bridge between this bit of our homeworld and … Well, Barry hoped they hadn’t settled permanently on the name New Mojave, yet. He was one of a dwindling faction still hoping for Tatooine.
Anyway, already there was a kind of war going on, between some of this world’s residents and invaders from Earth. And tonight he meant to help the invaders.
From his table a long strand of wire climbed up the building’s clapboard side. The same kind of setup was tended by Penny and Paulina, in the high school’s bell tower. A simple triangulation system, since this world didn’t have any of the GPS satellites that the pet trackers normally relied on.
Near Barry, Doc Hutnicki and Gracie Donner oversaw an animal cage from the biology lab, covered in cloth to keep the batoid inside calm. Still, the cage rattled. Four similar cages, currently scattered around the edges of The Rock under the supervision of Hutnicki’s chosen handlers, were likely similar. Jane Shevtsov propped her tablet, with her map program, on the tray of her wheelchair.
“I think the batoid senses night is coming,” Barry said.
“Almost certainly,” Hutnicki said impatiently. “And this is the optimal time for them to take to the air. We need to release them. Are you ready yet?”
Barry looked up at the church roof and yelled. “You finished Nick?”
“Give me a couple more minutes!” came a shout from high above, where Nick Hammar appeared from behind the top of the slightly tilted steeple, spooling out wire from a coil at his hip. Barry could see a taut strap wrapped around the church’s narrow spire, anchoring Nick by his climbing harness as he made final adjustments to a loop-shaped radio antenna. Just watching him up there gave Barry vertigo.
Why are most of my friends danger junkies?
Just to his right lay the moonlit hills where Gracie’s first expedition had pioneered, and the direction where Alex and Mark and Kristina departed, only this morning in a small caravan of SUVs. Barry’s thoughts and hopes went with them and the others …
… Only we have urgent priorities of our own. Our own jobs to do.
“Almost done!” Nick shouted down. Then, with a flourish he snipped off the last piece of wire. “All set!”
Barry flicked a switch on a small device attached to the car battery. A green light came on. With any luck, both antennas—on the church steeple and school tower—would catch and amplify the trackers’ faint signals.
There came a loud zzzziiiip as Nick unhooked himself from the safety anchor and rappelled down from his perch. Moments later he was free of the rope and coiling it while standing next to Barry, his grin a mile wide as he loosened the buckle of his climbing harness.
“Did I beat Greg?”
“Let me check.” Barry touch-clicked one of the smartphones with walkie-talkie capability. “Church Tower to Bell Tower. We’re done here. What’s your status, over?”
A second later Penny Hill’s voice crackled back. “We’re done too, Church Tower. Greg says to tell Nick he’s been finished for five minutes already, over.”
“Cheater!” Nick said, yelling at Barry’s two-way. “The bell tower has steps almost to the top. I had to climb the church all the way from the ground to the steeple. Tell Greg the next time I see him I’m gonna—”
Barry laughed and sent: “Nick intends to lodge a complaint.”
So would I, he thought, over the stink! Though he kept it to himself. Both Hammars were filthy—head-to-toe—from a long day spent cutting and moving boo poles for Colin Gornet’s new fence, then disappearing for hours at a stretch, much to Gornet’s annoyance. And though clearly exhausted, they had cheerfully volunteered to help with tonight’s bat-triangulation project. So Barry decided to ignore the stench …
… though he envied Mark and Alex and the other explorers who were now camped by a beautiful lake. At least according to their last report, at sundown.
We’re explorers, too, he thought as one by one his radio receivers began to hum. Barry glanced at Jane, whose tablet displayed a map of local terrain surrounding the Rock. Jane responded with a thumbs-up. All trackers reporting-in.
We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.
Barry looked at Doc Hutnicki. Her crossed arms and tapping foot let him know she was at the end of her patience.
“Finally,” she growled. “Do it, dammit.”
Barry reminded himself again—the Garubis Grab had been especially hard on the veterinarian, overcoming a concussion and burns while fighting to save some … not all … of the animals in her clinic. Best to make allowances, since everyone on the Rock was dealing with trauma, one way or another. Anyway, after Ms. O’Brien, she was the closest thing to a medical doctor on this planet.
“Prepare to open your cages,” he sent to all stations, “in five … four … three … two … release!”
Where the side street met the Edge, Gracie Donner pulled the cloth off her cage, revealing the snapping, slavering batoid within. Even Nick Hammar stepped back nervously. But Gracie was undaunted. Wearing work gloves, she flicked a latch and pulled open the cage door.
The batoid paused, grabbed the open edges of the cage with its fore claws, looked around, beady yellow eyes narrowing, then launched itself through the opening. Gracie jumped as the creature seemed to head right at her. Only then it flapped hard and banked sharply. Gaining altitude, it zigged and zagged a few times, as if getting its bearings, then it was high above the church and out over the edge of The Rock in seconds, heading west.
“Batoid number two is off!” Paulina Isfahani said, her staticky radio voice exultant. One by one, the other stations excitedly reported similar results.
“Now to see where they end up,” Barry said. Loop antennas atop the church and school bell tower would each receive tracker signals at slightly different times, feeding Jane’s tablet to triangulate and display locations on a grid. Barry watched over Jane’s shoulder as five little points moved across the screen, all heading roughly the same direction. Faint lines behind each dot—he was proud of that little bit of code—recorded each batoid’s progress. He could feel Gracie and Doc Hutnicki peering alongside. And no, they didn’t smell much less than Nick. A little less repulsive, maybe. Certainly nicer than my own stink, he added, in all fairness.
“What’s happening?” Gracie asked.
“They’re approaching one klick—roughly half a mile out now … and converging.”
One by one, the dots moved closer together as they left The Rock. At eight hundred meters, two of the dots effectively became one. Then, at just over a kilometer, all the dots grew close enough to be nearly indistinguishable.
A minute later they all stopped moving.
“Not much more than a kilometer and a half, I knew they had to roost close by!” Doc Hutnicki sighed.
“Yep, you were right, Doc,” Nick Hammar added. “You rule!”
Barry wondered if anyone else heard the veterinarian whisper, in response. “You don’t know the half of it, big boy.”
All five lines merged at a single point. Jane quickly double checked the trajectory of each of the batoids on her tablet, then nodded in agreement as Barry marked the spot onto a paper printout. He jabbed the tip of the pencil triumphantly.
“There!”
It was full night now and Council rules demanded that all denizens of the Rock get indoors. But the BTDs were silent and now they knew what direction to point the bat detectors, in case of another attack. So, Barry and Nick packed up carefully. And he saw Gracie Donner standing with Doc Hutnicki by the Edge, pointing confidently a little north of west, where a moonlit landscape of rolling meadows met distant foothills and then mountains, far beyond. And now Barry understood why Gracie hadn’t joined Mark’s water expedition. She had other adventures on her agenda.
Her voice was low, but he made out every word.
“At the base of those hills. I know just where to look. We’ve got ’em!”