The Forever Man (W.A.R.P. 3)

Pointer sniffed the air. ‘Well, our luck is in. The old man is out of bed. What do you say we go and see if he can put some of his sparkles to work?’

‘I say that’s a plan, Dog. I mean, Don.’

Pointer jogged off in disgust. ‘That ain’t funny, Fender. That and the patting on the head. Neither of those things are funny.’

Isles’s eyes were serious as he said, ‘No. Course not. Sorry, pard. No more pooch jokes.’ But, behind the beard, his lips were drawn back in a grin.

The FBI Mandrake field office was actually a swamp treehouse that Isles had constructed in the branches of an unusually tight cluster of English oaks that seemed as though they might even pre-date the marsh itself. Isles’s history as the son of a master carpenter and a graduate of Fort Benning Sniper School made him literally the best-qualified person in the world to construct and camouflage the makeshift federal HQ. Pointer didn’t like the ladder much, but he got used to it after a while and now trotted up it like a goat up the side of a cliff. The door was not at the top of the ladder, where a person might reasonably expect it to be, but rather three precarious steps along a winding branch and forty degrees round the girth of a massive trunk. The door itself was virtually invisible after all these years and yet Isles’s hands could have found the recessed latch in the dark with his senses clouded by ale, which they often were.

But no more ale. I’ve been reactivated.

He shouldered in the door, which was not designed to swing easily, and Pointer trotted into the office before him, resisting the urge to mark his territory, both because it was a base animal instinct and because the scent could be used to track him. Inside was what could be described as an exceptional example of a log cabin; building them had been Isles’s father’s bread-and-butter business, though he could also knock up a nice deck or patio. There was a large central room, complete with fireplace and stone chimney, and passages leading to a bedroom, workshop and armoury. The interior was lit with electric lights that were run off a small generator hooked up to solar panels way up in the copse canopy. Huddled over a table, gazing at the screen of a clunky laptop computer, was what seemed like the ghost of an old man in a laboratory jacket, shimmering and semi-transparent, his sparse strands of white hair crackling around his head like lightning bolts.

‘Hey, Prof,’ said Pointer. ‘What’s up?’

‘What’s up?’ said the old man without raising his head. ‘What’s up is that the rift is opening more frequently and we can expect a cataclysmic increase in the number of incoming mutations any day now. That, my friend, is what’s up.’

Isles lowered Chevie on to a wooden sofa padded with blankets and straw. ‘I think the wait is over. Three warm bodies came through today. I got one right here.’

Now the elderly spook did raise his head. ‘What? Three bodies you say?’

‘Yeah. Popped out right in the town square. First time that’s happened. I had to break cover to get this girl out.’

The old man’s accent was Scottish and his expression was concerned. It was a look that seemed etched on his face, as though he’d died with it and had come back from beyond the grave with it locked.

He hurried over to the sofa and hovered over Chevie.

‘This girl. I know this girl. Somehow. I’ve met her. Perhaps the other me.’

Pointer coughed. ‘Yeah, the other you. Right, Professor.’

The professor tried to test Chevie’s temperature but his spectral hand passed straight through her.

‘This is so infuriating. I hate this foam state.’ He glanced sharply at Isles. ‘Any mutations, Special Agent?’

Isles knelt beside Chevie and gently pulled back one eyelid with his thumb. ‘Just the eyes, as far as I can see.’

The professor nodded. ‘I see, I see.’ He put an ear close to Chevie’s chest, then actually lowered it into her chest to better hear her heart.

‘Come on, Prof, man. That is utterly disgusting,’ said Pointer.

This from a guy who licks his own butt, thought Isles but did not say it. He had given his partner enough grief for one day.

The ghostly professor withdrew his head. ‘How long has she been catatonic?’

Isles closed one eye, calculating. ‘Well, she came through a few hours ago. There was never that much going on, you know, but at least there was some verbalization and movement. But now, these last thirty minutes, not a peep. Just shallow breathing.’

The professor hovered six inches off the floor. ‘Something traumatic happened to her, besides the wormhole. She’s still mutating. In flux. Get me the medi-kit.’

Isles pulled a Kevlar pack from under the sofa and unzipped it to reveal a comprehensive medical pack that was about two-thirds empty.

The professor tapped his own chin and there were orange sparks at the contact. ‘I need the defibrillator and the local anaesthetic.’

Pointer raised one of his paws. ‘It’s all down to you, partner. These paws aren’t going to be much use.’

Isles pulled the portable defibrillator battery from the pack and flicked the switch to CHARGE.

‘ OK, that will take a minute to warm up. Where do you want the anaesthetic injected?’

‘We discovered accidentally that the anaesthetic seemed to be quite effective at halting or even reversing mutations,’ said the ghost-professor. ‘I don’t know how it works. I don’t know how anything works. The more I find out, the less I know.’

‘Hey!’ said Isles sharply, pulling the plastic cover from a loaded hypodermic. ‘You’re babbling, Prof. Where should I stick this?’

The ghost blinked nervously and if he could have sweated he would. ‘At the mutation point. In the eye.’

Isles began to sweat profusely himself. ‘You want me to stick this big old needle into this little girl’s eye?’

‘Yes. In the middle. And then hit her with the defibrillator,

which will hopefully wake up her brain.’

‘Hopefully?’ said Isles.

‘I don’t know,’ said the ghost. ‘Sometimes it works.’

‘I gotta say, Professor. Your expression isn’t really selling this needle-and-shock idea.’

‘That is unfair!’ said the ghost. ‘I’m stuck with this face and you know it.’

‘Go on, you sissy,’ said Pointer. ‘Just do it. She’s only a cat anyway.’

‘And you’re not a dog, right?’

The professor levitated three feet from the floor and glowed fiercely. ‘Please, Special Agents! Time is of the essence here.’

The defibrillator beeped. It was ready.

‘ OK,’ said Isles, and used one massive hand to both hold Chevie’s head still and gently open her left eye. The other hand held the needle, which he moved into position slowly until it hovered above the eyeball. ‘In the middle, right?’

The professor swooped closer. ‘Yes. But not deep. A quarter of an inch, no more.’

Isles rolled his own eyes. ‘One quarter inch, right.’

‘Give her every drop. Then hit her with the paddles.’

‘Inject then paddles – got it.’

Isles hesitated a final moment, then thought, What the hell, and pushed the needle into Chevie’s eye. He felt the slight resistance of the cornea before the needle slid into the pupil.

‘Far enough,’ said the professor, who had tilted and swivelled so that his head was inside Chevie’s.

That’s not distracting at all, thought Isles.

‘Now hit the plunger.’

Isles did so, being careful to hold the body of the syringe steady so that the needle intruded no deeper than it needed to. He pressed the plunger firmly and steadily until the hypodermic was empty and pulled it out.

He turned to find Pointer with one of the defibrillator’s paddles in his mouth.

‘Good dog,’ said Isles automatically, and just as automatically followed with an apology. ‘Sorry, partner.’

Isles took the paddle, then reached for the second. ‘Clear!’ he shouted, because that’s what you’re supposed to shout, right?