Parallels

'How generous of you,' Trevor scoffed. 'But you know we don’t have any choice. We either join your fight or we die when you die. From the look of things, that won’t be too long.'

She looked ready to yell something but held her tongue. It apparently took a great deal of effort.

The taxi arrived at the base of the dormitory. Nina jumped out in a show of anger or frustration. Trevor could see that she was either going to scream or cry or both. This Nina seemed more emotional than the one he knew on his world.

Trevor and Johnny exited the car and waited by the dormitory doors. Nina stood several paces away staring at the empty, dark street.

'Look, Reverend…'

Johnny raised a hand and told Trevor, 'Yes. Perhaps you should speak with her alone. I must say I have an intense headache. I believe I will turn in early.'

'Can you find your way to our suite?'

'Fear not, Mr. Stone, I left a trail of breadcrumbs.'

Stone patted his friend on the shoulder. The Reverend headed inside and faced a moment’s resistance from the interior guard until that man remembered Johnny’s face.

Trevor eyed Nina. She stood with her back to him straddling the line between the darkness and the glow of light emanating from the building's lobby. Despite her leather jacket, she shivered in the frigid air.

The cold got to him, too. The flimsy windbreaker he wore would barely be adequate for a cool autumn day, let alone a cold January night. Still, the cold ranked as the least of his worries.

Trevor walked to her and said, 'This must be difficult for you, too.'

She exhaled in what sounded like a soft sigh.

'I…well, yes. It is. I mean, I saw you die. I was there.'

'So you jumped across a couple of dimensions to bring back a Trevor Stone. That was very brave.'

'Very stupid.'

'Well, I could tell you all about stupid. I’m a regular expert on the subject these days.'

Nina turned and peered into his eyes as if searching for something.

'What? What is it?' He asked.

'Nothing. I mean, since this happened we’ve been kind of moving at breakneck speed. You know? I haven’t had a chance to really think about the fact that you’re him. Or he was you. Or, I dunno…it’s nuts.'

'Not as nuts as staying out here in the cold. Let’s go inside before you catch the flu.'

She agreed, and led him in and across the lobby to what had once been a small restaurant and bar. Trevor smelled a heavy coating of dust in the dark, empty place.

Rows of round tables and chairs filled the space between a long bar against the inside wall and a glass atrium on the other side. An exterior flood light splashed in, casting a sharp, angled glow across half the room.

'This place is almost like a hotel,' he said.

'Yeah, well, it kind of was. Probably five thousand people living here a few years ago.'

'Mainly military, even back then?'

'Yeah, this whole city was built for the great cause. It was Trevor’s idea; a new place for our new lives. He didn’t like the decay of the old cities. Thought it might hurt morale to live in those places.' She hesitated and then emphasized, 'He was big on forgetting about the old and starting everything new.'

'I suppose I can see his point.'

'Part of it…I mean, I know part of the reason to build this place was just to show that we could. Then, wow, we had resources and things were looking great. Nothing could stop us, you know?'

He saw fond memories glitter through her eyes as she stared at the light raining in through the atrium.

'Trevor…I mean, the man was not to be stopped. We all admired him for that. He made the hard decisions. He kept everyone focused on the goal.'

'I sound like a fun guy.'

She looked at him. 'You were. You fought hard, you worked hard, you partied hard.'

'Tell me something,' he selected the newest on his list of many questions. 'Who is this Director Snowe? Sounds like he backed your plan to come over and get me.'

'He did. Jakob has a bunch of titles these days. That's what happens when you have a nice chunk of your officers killed off. He took over Intelligence when Gordon Knox died.'

'Gordon?' Trevor's heart sank. Based on what he knew of Gordon Knox on his home world, finding his doppelganger over here would be a blessing. Of course, he thought, if Gordon still lived over here they probably would not be in this mess.

'Yeah, he was killed and Snowe rose up in the ranks. We lost a lot of soldiers and had to re-constitute the Third Legion. Most of the troops in that formation are leftovers from Intelligence paramilitaries and Special Forces units. Sort of a patchwork of elements. Snowe wears a couple of different hats, so he's got Intel and Third Legion and a couple of other things. Busy guy.'

'And he helped you go get me?'

'He worked on the Nyx, getting the transport lined up and all that. Then he sort of looked the other way when I went off so that we could both, well, sort of claim ignorance when The Committee found out.'

'Tell me,' he changed direction. 'On my Earth, we’re facing all kinds of things. Some organized, some not. But I’ve always had the impression that there’s one particularly nasty group pushing it all along. They go by the name of The Order. I think there’s something-I don’t know if it’s a person or what-but something called ‘Voggoth’ behind them.'

She cast her eyes toward the ceiling as she thought over her answer.

'I’ve head of them. I’ve heard of that Voggoth. He’s here, too. I don’t think he’s that big of a deal to us. For us it’s been the ‘Chaktaw’. At least that’s what they call themselves. We’ve called them a lot worse, let me tell you.'

'Never heard of them. We probably have different names for different things.'

'The Chaktaw hit us every couple of days like clockwork. I’m sure you’ll get to see the fireworks for yourself.'

'You don’t sound too concerned. You know, no one around here seems too worried about it. The guys in your Operations Center were busy making social plans and bull shitting.'

She said, 'That’s part of the problem. We’ve got pretty good defenses. We’ll fight off the Chaktaw next time they come. Then the time after that and after that. But each time we lose a little more. They’re just eating away at us.'

Trevor remembered the Battle of Five Armies. He remembered how the enemy they dubbed the 'Vikings' used a similar strategy with skirmishes and raids.

'I’ve been in that position, too.'

'So a lot of people around here have this kind of fatalistic approach. I mean, on one hand I think they’ve accepted that we’re doomed. At the same time, maybe they don’t think there’s anything they can do about it, so it’s better to get drunk.'

'Eat and be merry for tomorrow we die?'

'Yeah. I mean, I suppose so, yeah.'

'And that wasn’t how Trevor ran things, huh?'

She laughed at the thought. 'Are you kidding? He’d have heads on platters if he spotted that attitude. Don’t get me wrong, Trevor could party, but in the morning he was all business.'

Somehow Trevor could not imagine himself partying. 'I guess your Trevor and me; we may not have been that much alike.'

That gave Nina pause. Her eyes narrowed. 'Not that much alike, huh? You know, I had almost forgotten about it with everything that’s been going on since we got back.'

She wagged her finger toward him and circled like a wolf to a rabbit.

'Forgotten about what?'

'You. I mean, so look, I get to your planet, monitor a few transmissions, and I get the lay of the land. I figure it’s a lot like things over here. You know, people and stuff. To make a long story short, I nab the Nina from your world because I got to believe that Trevor Stone will come running to save his honey.'

'My…my honey?'