Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet Read online

  “Congratulations,” he said, not taking her hand. “You must be very proud.”

  The doctor lowered her hand, her smile wavering slightly. “Thank you, I am, but it has been a real team effort.”

  When the man didn’t say anything else, she stepped past him toward a young woman whose excitement was tangible; she danced from one foot to the other as though she couldn’t quite believe she was there. Or she needed the bathroom. Doctor Zheng had just turned to talk to her when the man in the black suit lunged forward, swung his arm around her neck, and dragged her backward toward the gateway. Glitch didn’t see where the gun came from, but it was small, probably easy to hide, and it looked as if it was made from beige plastic rather than metal.

  The man pressed its barrel against the side of the doctor’s head and looked around the room. “Everyone stay where you are, or our friend Doctor Zheng won’t be making any more scientific breakthroughs.”

  Glitch felt Captain Anderson lightly touch his back, and he stepped sideways, out of her way.

  She moved forward, arms outstretched, palms raised. “Okay, don’t do anything rash. Whatever it is you want, we can work it out.”

  The man in the suit gave a little snort but didn’t reply. He just kept pulling Doctor Zheng toward the gateway.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Colonel Vaughn. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  The man in the suit stopped and stared at the colonel, a puzzled look on his face. “Of course there is, Colonel.”

  It took Glitch a couple of seconds to realize what the man meant, but Anderson was quicker. “No one has gone through the gateway,” she said. “We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

  The man in the black suit smiled and shook his head slowly. “We both know that’s a lie.” He lowered his gun and fired three shots at the box at the base of the gateway.

  “No!” screamed Doctor Zheng.

  She struggled in his grip, trying to free herself, but the man’s arm was locked around her neck. The gun clicked, either jammed or empty, and the man threw it away.

  Colonel Vaughn barked orders, and the four guards raised their guns, but they were too late. The man in the black suit grabbed the doctor with both arms and propelled them both through the gateway. A loud hissing, like a burst of static, filled the air for a couple of seconds then rapidly faded to nothing, and they were gone.

  The humming from the gateway grew louder again, rising in pitch. Its mercurial surface shuddered and bulged, distorting its reflection of the world like a funhouse mirror. Captain Anderson ran toward the gateway.

  “Get these damn civilians out of here,” shouted the colonel, fighting to make himself heard above the steadily increasing noise from the gateway.

  Most of the visitors had taken cover when the firing started; now they ran toward the exit. They gladly followed the military police’s commands, happy someone was taking charge of the situation.

  Glitch crouched on the floor, doing his best to present a small target for any stray bullets. He watched the captain run toward the gateway and launch herself through it. There was another burst of static, louder and rougher than the first.

  “Come on,” shouted one of the guards.

  Glitch turned and ran toward the exit. He was the last person left in the room—even the guards were standing on the other side of the door. For a terrifying moment, Glitch thought they were going to lock him inside to contain whatever explosion was about to go off.

  He was almost at the door, ten feet away at most, when the room gave a sickening lurch. The walls elongated, pulling away from him until he felt as though he was looking down the inside of a straw. The doorway shrank, the guards seemingly being dragged down the straw. Glitch was still running as hard as he could, but the door just got farther and farther away. One of the guards reached out, his arm stretching to comical lengths and the tips of his fingers just inches away.

  In desperation, Glitch lunged toward the outstretched hand, but he felt himself stop and hang in mid-air. Then the world snapped back. The doorway and the guards rushed toward him, returning to their normal proportions. But Glitch was traveling backward toward the gateway. He clutched desperately at the control desk, but his hand skipped across the smooth metal.

  Seconds later, Glitch hit the gateway.

  A deafening wave of static crashed over him. The copper tang of blood filled his mouth, and he felt something warm and wet trickle from his ears.

  A vise closed around Glitch’s chest, crushing the air from his lungs, and his heart stopped.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Returned from Death

  Somewhere deep within the Colorado Rockies, NASA has discovered a gateway to another world. Thanks to his contest-winning essay, Dwayne “Glitch” Mitchell is one of the few civilians who gets to see it. But as the head of the project, Doctor Zheng, proudly discusses the gateway with the contest winners, an armed man takes her hostage. The man damages the gateway and flees through it, pursued by Air Force Captain Anderson. As the gateway implodes, Glitch makes a break for the exit, but he’s caught by the device and dragged backward toward the gateway.

  Glitch clutched desperately at the control desk, his hand skipping across the smooth metal. Seconds later, he hit the gateway, and a deafening wave of static crashed over him. Blood filled his mouth, thick and coppery, and he felt something warm trickle from his ears.

  Iron bands wrapped around Glitch’s chest, forcing the air from his lungs. His heart stopped.

  Eons passed.

  Light burst behind Glitch’s eyes. His muscles contracted until they were so tight, he thought they might snap, then they relaxed. Energy flooded his system, and his senses fired into overdrive. He was cold, so cold, and he was suffocating. He opened his mouth and dragged a long, deep breath into his empty lungs. His chest felt as if a thousand needles had been hammered into it. He tasted blood.

  Someone rolled him onto his side. The floor beneath his head was hard and gritty, and he smelled dust. He coughed and spat, trying to get the taste of blood from his mouth.

  “Dwayne? Are you okay?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Glitch tried to speak, but the effort triggered another coughing fit.

  “It’s okay, take it easy.”

  The someone pressed their hand against his throat. His heart was racing, although the pain in his chest had eased off.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Glitch tried to obey, but his eyes were stuck together, frozen. Panic gripped him, and he began to push himself upright. Hands pressed him back down.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to put some water on your eyes, Dwayne. Okay?”

  Glitch nodded, fighting down the panic and another coughing fit. Lukewarm water splashed against his eyes and ran down his face.

  “Try now.”

  Glitch flinched as he forced his eyelids apart. The light was blinding. Glitch squeezed his eyes almost closed again and peered at the shape bending over him. It was definitely a woman, and he had a feeling he recognized her face. He felt her name scuttling around in the back of his mind, just out of reach.

  “My name is Captain Anderson. Do you remember me?”

  Glitch frowned in concentration. Her name sounded familiar. He knew it from somewhere but couldn’t quite nail down where.

  “We met at the Air Force base. You were visiting the gateway.”

  Memories clicked into place. The competition. The trip to NASA. The man in the black suit. The explosion. Glitch raised his hand to shield his eyes from the brightness. He couldn’t see much, but the ground around him was red rock.

  “Dwayne, we need to get behind some cover. Can you sit up?”

  Glitch’s arms and legs ached and the needles in his chest were still there, but otherwise he felt okay. He nodded.

  “Good, we lost you for a while there.” Captain Anderson helped Glitch sit up and handed him a metal water bottle. “Drink some of this, slowly.”

  As Glitch sipped the water, he looked around. The
y weren’t at NASA anymore. At least, not at the site where he’d been a few minutes ago. They were in a small cave. The walls were an orange-red rock that looked a bit like sandstone. The ground was dirt, packed hard by the passage of time or feet. Four sets of lamps, each one barely more than a halogen bulb stuck on a metal pole, sat around the cave. A gateway similar to the one Glitch had come through was embedded in the wall. Its surface was dull and gray. The cave had only one exit, a narrow corridor opposite the gateway, just wide enough for them to get through. Stacked next to the exit were four large black cases.

  “Where are we?” asked Glitch.

  Anderson glanced toward the exit. “Can you move?”

  Glitch nodded, the movement setting the world spinning around him. With more help from Captain Anderson than he would have liked, Glitch stood. He let Anderson guide him across the cave. When they reached the black cases, she helped him sit again. After making sure he wasn’t about to pass out, Anderson stood and went through the cases.

  Glitch looked at the gateway. It was virtually identical to the one at the other site, maybe a bit bigger. Three brown rectangular packs were attached to the wall around it. They looked like parcels. A small red flashing light sat on top of each one. Glitch closed his eyes. The needles in his chest were fading. He took a few deep breaths. The air was dry, stale.

  Anderson knelt beside him. “Here.”

  Glitch opened his eyes again to find Anderson offering him some tablets.

  “They’re just painkillers,” she said.

  Glitch thanked her and took them, washing them down with more of the water. There was a beep from somewhere across the cave, and Glitch looked at the boxes attached to the gateway. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if the red lights were flashing more quickly. “Captain? Are those bombs?”

  “Yes, but—” Cursing, Anderson sprinted across the cave.

  She’d made it halfway there when the first explosive detonated and scattered shards of rock across the room. Glitch rolled over, covering his head with his hands, just as the second pack of explosives blew.

  A wave of red dust billowed across the cavern, cutting visibility. Chunks of rock rained down on Glitch, and he flinched. A few seconds later, there was another explosion and the sound of tearing metal. A lump of rock about the size of his head bounced past Glitch and shattered against a nearby wall. A slightly smaller rock caught him on the shoulder, and he swore.

  Glitch lay on the ground for a moment, waiting for more explosions, until curiosity got the better of him. He raised his head. Anderson was barely visible through a thick cloud of red dust. She lay sprawled on the floor a few feet away from the gateway. She wasn’t moving.

  The gateway was badly damaged. Half of it had been torn from the rock wall, and the bottom right corner was bent outward. The gray surface was gone, and the rock that had been behind it was blackened and smooth. Thin lines ran through it as though it had been subjected to great heat and had melted and solidified dozens of times. The explosions had left ragged indentations in the wall, and chunks of rock were scattered across the ground. Glitch rubbed his shoulder, grateful he’d escaped the worst of it.

  Trying not to worry about the ringing in his ears, Glitch stood and staggered across the room. His legs felt slow and unresponsive, and he stumbled a couple of times on the uneven, debris-scattered floor. Glitch knelt beside Anderson. A thin trickle of blood ran down the side of her head from a cut above her eye, and she was covered in a fine layer of dust, but she was breathing.

  He touched her shoulder. “Captain Anderson?”

  Anderson’s eyes flickered open, and she flinched; whether at the brightness of the halogen lamps or the pain, Glitch wasn’t sure.

  “Ouch,” said Anderson.

  Glitch frowned then realized it’d been a joke. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. What about you?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Good. Help me up.”

  Glitch stood and held out his hand. He waited, his hand in mid-air, while Captain Anderson carefully moved her arms and legs. Then she grabbed Glitch’s hand and pulled herself upright. Anderson closed her eyes and staggered sideways. Glitch stepped forward, ready to at least try to catch her if she fell. She didn’t.

  Anderson stood still for a few seconds, her breathing slow and deep, then opened her eyes and smiled. “Thank you, Dwayne.”

  Glitch grimaced. “Please don’t call me that. Only my mom and dad call me the D word. Everyone else calls me Glitch.”

  “Glitch it is, then.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “My name’s Scarlett. We may be here awhile, so I think we can dispense with the formalities.”

  “Scarlett as in O’Hara or Johansson?”

  “Johansson, definitely.”

  “Okay… Scarlett as in Johansson. If you don’t mind, I’d really like to go home now.”

  Anderson looked at the twisted remains of the gateway. “Well, you can’t go that way, and I need to find Doctor Zheng. So for the time being, you’re stuck here with me.”

  Glitch looked around the cavern. “And where exactly is here?”

  “Honestly? We think it’s another planet, but other than that, we don’t know.”

  “But you’ve been here before,” he said, gesturing toward the boxes.

  Anderson hesitated, and Glitch raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes. We sent a team through two days ago.”

  “And they never returned?”

  Anderson frowned. “No… they spent ten minutes here, assessing the situation, and came back. We’ve been preparing for a full expedition since then. Yesterday, we brought through the first of the supplies. That’s what the boxes are.”

  “So why did Doctor Zheng lie about sending people through?”

  “The colonel. He wants to keep things as quiet as possible. Says he doesn’t want all those ‘damn reporters’ poking around at all hours of the day and night.”

  “So who’s the guy in the black suit? He seemed to know the truth.”

  Anderson shrugged. “According to his entry, his name is John Smith.”

  Glitch gave a little laugh. “John Smith? Didn’t you guys do a background check or ask the NSA about us or something?”

  Anderson glared at him. “Of course. Everyone was checked out—even you, Dwayne. How did your John Constantine costume go down at Comic-Con last year, by the way?”

  Glitch blushed. “Right, sorry. Errr… so how do we find Doctor Zheng? Don’t you guys all have some sort of tracking device? For emergencies?”

  Anderson tapped her forearm. “Like a radiographic subdermal implant?”

  “Whoa, you have that?”

  Anderson laughed. “No, this isn’t a TV show. There’s only one way out of this cave. We’ll just have to hope they’ve left a trail.”

  As Glitch silently cursed his own stupidity, Anderson opened one of the black cases. Inside were four small backpacks. She pulled out a couple and checked them over. “These are one-person packs. They’re small, but they contain enough food and water for a week or so, plus flares, climbing wires, gloves, that sort of thing. They’re waterproof as well, just in case.”

  “Any weapons?”

  “No. The U.S. Air Force is not in the habit of leaving weapons lying around unguarded. Not intentionally, anyway.”

  Anderson picked up the packs and handed one to Glitch. It was heavier than it looked. She rummaged around inside the boxes and retrieved a heavy, rubberized flashlight.

  “It’s waterproof,” she said, handing it to Glitch.

  He went to put it in his pack then thought better of it and clipped it to his belt. As they put on their backpacks, Glitch looked at the remains of the gateway. “Hang on. This Smith guy was only a few seconds ahead of you. How did he rig that thing to explode so quickly?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “So… you guys did?”

  Anderson nodded. “In case there was someone on this side of the gateway we d
idn’t want getting through to Earth.”

  “Like aliens?”

  “Like aliens. You ready?”

  “Player one is ready,” Glitch said then blushed when he realized just how nerdy he’d just sounded.

  Anderson smiled then turned and walked into the tunnel. Glitch rapped his knuckles on his forehead and cursed under his breath—he was such a loser. Shaking his head, he hurried after Anderson before her flashlight vanished out of sight completely.

  The corridor was narrow at first, forcing them to walk in single file. Gradually, as it curved subtly to the right and sloped upward, it widened until they could travel side by side. Their flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the red rock ahead of them. The walls were uneven, pitted and scarred as though the corridor had been carved out by some sort of machine or creature rather than by nature. The flashlights cast complex, irregular shadows across the walls. Three times, Glitch stumbled on the uneven surface, prompting more silent curses and self-reprimands.

  Glitch wondered whether he should talk, both out of politeness and to fill the silence that seemed to be growing more and more awkward as they moved slowly along the corridor. Eventually he decided not to say anything. Captain Anderson wasn’t speaking, and based on his conversational efforts so far, it was probably better for him not to try.

  Anderson picked up the pace, striding ahead of Glitch. His pack was growing heavier as the minutes ticked by, and he felt the impact of a life spent sitting in front of a computer. He tried to ignore the discomfort, focusing instead on the tunnel. There didn’t seem to be any turns or other routes, but the tunnel was climbing. He hoped it would lead them to the surface. Then they might be able to work out where they were, although it might also make it a lot harder to find Doctor Zheng.

  Glitch was again considering trying to make conversation when they reached another cave. It was bigger than the last one, with a high, curved ceiling. It was also split down the middle by a chasm.

  The gap was wide, certainly too far to jump, and when they directed their flashlights into it, blackness quickly swallowed up the light. There was no telling how deep it was, and there was no way to get around it. The dust at its edge had been disturbed, maybe by human feet—it was hard to tell. Their side of the gap was wide and smooth, but the other side was more like a ledge and peppered with lumps of rock.