Chapter 21 – Frequency Scrubbing
Back in the glen, Jamie tried to kick the watch from Doug's hand, but the convulsions had locked his fist tight around it. He looked as if he were being electrocuted.
That was when the gunshot agents stood up. They wore bulletproof suits and were strapped with a variety of packs. Their helmets had sealed oxygen, and behind their visors, a twelve-channel image translator identified everything in their surroundings.
The agents checked their suits, no rips no tears. The bulletproof material had held, and they gave each other thumbs up. They hadn't even been injured.
The kids watched them in stunned silence.
The tall agent raised his weapon and spoke, "Sinusoids.”
The other two agents also raised their weapons. They sprayed a thick green gas across the canyon floor.
The kids fell to the ground, unconscious. Evan and Doug's convolutions stopped. The agents pried Pierce's watch and phone from their hands.
"Let's get on with it," the tall one said.
"What hit us?" the female asked. Her flight suit made gender recognition difficult.
"We had one heavy-atom item during most of the fall, but I think it might have multiplied. The Doctor said something about it infecting other devices, like the watch, or that phone.”
"Or that gun," she said.
"The bullets, that's what hit us. They were charged, super-dense," the third agent pointed out.
"Where's the original?" the female asked. "I've got nothing on my scanner.”
"Hold on." The tall agent hit a switch on his headset, calling his home base. "Yes, Sir. I'm reviewing the recording now, sir. Time code: 12:37:22:17. Yes sir, frame eighteen she's gone.”
“Yes, sir, copy that.”
"What about the revolver, sir? Copy. You want us to... Copy sir. Out." He addressed his colleagues. "He says we have to find the bullets.”
The subordinate agents looked at each other, their expressions hidden under the shiny visors.
"It was a revolver right?" the third one asked.
"I see her," the female said, scanning her recorded footage. "Girl vanishes on eighteen, and at frame twenty-six, the little boy disappears.”
"And at 23:06 the dog vanishes. One, two, three," the other male added. "That's the prototype, for sure.”
"Should one of us pursue?”
"No, they're sending additional units. We're RTB, [Return To Base]. Jesus, I recognize them, those are Fox's kids," the tall agent said.
"Guess there was a reason we were on standby," the third agent added.
"He's never left anything to chance.”
"I've got the kid who shot us, it was a revolver, so there are no shells to worry about, just the bullets. Use your thermals, they'll still be hot.”
They scanned the ground.
"I got one," the female said.
"So do I, I've got mine."
"All right, here's the third. Let's sack them, and get on with the business." The lead agent removed a black pouch of non-reflective cloth. The watch, phone and three spent slugs were dropped inside and sealed up.
The trio pulled off their packs, and each assembled strange rifle-like devices, but instead of a proper barrel they had a radar dish and a scanner. A clamp swung from the bottom, morbidly empty.
"Either of you got a Meyer?" the tall agent asked.
"No, they gave me a Morelet," the female answered. "It was all they had.”
"Shit man, last week I was a noodle-cooking Mexican hat," the third agent laughed.
"No way, they still got those things in service?" the tall one laughed.
"Palm Springs it was all we had for the first year," the female said. "Fucking ghastly.”
Her colleagues laughed behind the tinted visors.
"It screws you up, plowing someone with a goddamn sombrero.”
"What have you got? You get a Meyer?" the third agent asked their leader.
"I don't think we've got any portable models out here, which is kind of hard to believe, but what the hell, Morelet it is. Sucks to be them.”
The tall agent walked over to Doug and rolled him onto his stomach. With the dish-rifle slung around his neck, the agent grabbed a handful of Doug's hair and pulled him up into a snake-like position. He locked the collar around the boy's neck and centered the scope on the back of his head.
Letting the weapon take the boy's weight, the agent leaned into the sling, sighted in and charged the dish. To scrub a person of the Micronix infection, a blast of electricity had to be delivered to the entire organ at once, rebooting the system.
As the charge built and the audible hum rose in pitch, the agent held the young man’s skull in his sights. When the rifle chirped, he fired.
Doug was awake, screaming. The initial blast was loud, as a mini-bolt of lightning scoured the child's head. An excruciating experience, but after a few seconds, it was over. Doug's body emptied its bowels and projectile vomited across the canyon floor. The agent unhooked the collar and let him slide to the ground.
"The Meyer coefficient is so much less invasive.”
"What are you going to do?" the third agent shrugged and blasted Evan.
"You have to admit, three seconds of Morelet, beats getting screwed with a sombrero. A whole ten seconds? That has to hurt.”
The female agent blasted Jamie. Soon all the kids in the canyon had been scrubbed. They bagged up Alexander's shattered body and secured it to the lead agent’s kite.
The agents hopped onto their kite boards and left the canyon for higher elevation.
Another two-man recovery team picked up Bobby's trail. He still carried the revolver in his hand and hadn't gone too far. They came down on him from behind, firing the sinusoids while airborne, flooding his path.
The gas enveloped him, and Bobby hit the ground with a thud. He hadn't seen them coming and couldn't have fired the gun anyhow. In a fit of curiosity, he'd removed the shells from the revolver and pocketed them.
Later that evening, Doug, Jamie, Evan and the rest of the children woke, groggy and confused. They made their soiled way home, unable to remember much of what happened over the past few days, let alone that afternoon.