Chapter 37: 11.1 Making It Up As I Go

  The three of them crowd out of the portal, with Sarah having to jog ahead just to walk normally. They exit into the center of a field with golden hay rising to their knees. Sarah sheathes the weapon again, forcing her eyes closed and compressing the gap. She focuses on her destination and feels the subtle sigh that the weapon makes when establishing the connection.

  Jack and Wolf continue shoving one another like two kids that had been confined to the back car seat for too long. As Sarah withdraws a blade with a yellow glow, they grow silent, watching as the new portal opens.

  “Sarah,” Jack begins, “Did you just—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she interjects. “We’re on the clock, so get in there.”

  Jack and Wolf move through the portal, then look back as they wait for her.

  Sarah walks back over to Squirrel’s portal, leans in to grab a shelved rocket launcher and a bandolier of grenades, then closes it as Squirrel begins to object. She flips a safety switch, then unfolds a viewing glass, causing a red light to turn green and arming the weapon.

  “What are you doing?” Jack asks.

  Sarah hoists the long cylinder up and sets the arched shoulder rest into place. She reaches out and adjusts the site glass, then looks around the open field. “I’m waiting,” she says.

  A portal finally opens across the field and Sarah reaches back to the grip of her katana, opening an entry portal in front of her with the exit right in front of the emerging zombies. It makes her perspective seem like the magnified view of a high-powered scope. She squeezes the weapon’s trigger, but a set of brackets flash red on the optical viewing glass.

  Sarah quickly looks back at the side of the launcher and finds an additional button on the side of the cylinder. She depresses it, then sees the red brackets alternate green-red as a laser pointer becomes visible in the viewing glass. “What the hell?” she complains as she looks towards the rear of the weapon to see a brief set of instructions.

  Sarah skims them to find a laser guided designation and a minimum of four-hundred feet. “Just let me know how to shoot the damn thing. I ain’t trying to learn about laser navigation.”

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  “Who are you talking to?” Jack asks as Sarah continues to look at the weapon. He’s answered by a single index finger that’s raised over her shoulder.

  Sarah aims the weapon again, pressing the laser button to see a numerical fifty-three as she aims through the portal and a one-hundred-eighty-two when aiming at the zombies outside of it. “Well, shit,” she says, reaching back to her handle and replacing the zoomed portal with an exit in the sky. Her perspective shifts to that of a remote feed that’s looking down from a nearby drone. She tries the laser again, seeing a five-hundred-twenty and a set of solid green brackets.

  Sarah smiles and squeezes the trigger. “Skadoosh,” she says with delight. The missile dumps sparks and fire from the back of the cylinder, giving the impression of a hyperactive bottle rocket that just had a shot of caffeine. She has to counter-step forward to brace for the sudden pressure on the launcher. The projectile slides out of the chute and its rear end drops before continuing forward.

  Sarah quickly backs away as the propulsion douses her feet in sparks, but luckily, she keeps the laser switch held down, allowing the missile to stay locked on and continue moving towards its target. It passes into the portal, then propels down from the sky.

  A larger figure shoves zombies through the portal and approaches the opening as the ordnance passes within one-hundred feet of impact. Sarah moves the laser onto the chest of the herded zombies and the field erupts. She staggers and folds her elbow over her face as a wave of force and sound make her to take a knee.

  Wolf quickly sticks his head back through to see the rising plume of smoke and the fire that’s now spreading across the field. His eyes grow wide as he sees bits of singed clothing and undead body components rain from the sky. “You actually have access to this kind of weaponry?” Wolf asks. “Why the hell am I running around with a sword?”

  Sarah pulls her hood up as the meat continues falling around her, then lets the launcher roll off her shoulder and fall to the ground. “That thing was just one time use. Besides, we really don’t want the fight to escalate to these kinds of weapons. I still want to get that portal device away from her, and explosives will only risk destroying it. Plus, as soon as we start using these, she’s going to get the bright idea to use something similar. Would you really want to fight against this?” She extends an upturned palm back towards the smoke formation.

  Sarah tries to peer inside the smoke as it thins, revealing additional portals opening. “I just wanted to give them a reason to look before they leaped,” she says absently as shadows move within. The smoke is lit by the flames behind and casts the shadows against it like people moving between a screen and a projector. A prominent, colossal figure stomps towards the screen and she decides it’s time to go.

 

  Sarah passes into the new world and closes the portal behind her.

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