Read Extinction Game for Free Online

you.’
    ‘Gee,’ I said, ‘I hadn’t realized. But maybe if you’d knocked on my front door, instead of chasing me halfway across the countryside with guns and vans and scaring
the living shit out of me, I might have believed you.’
    ‘Would you really?’ he asked me, and in fairness I couldn’t be at all sure just how I might have reacted. ‘For what it’s worth, we were still trying to figure out
how to approach you when you fled. After that, we didn’t have much choice but to go after you.’
    ‘I saw your footprints,’ I said. ‘They were everywhere.’
    ‘Yeah.’ Yuichi scratched the back of his neck. ‘I guess we screwed up a little.’
    An awkward silence grew between us. Nadia widened her eyes at me, nodding towards Yuichi in a clear exhortation to shake his hand. Instead, he made the first move, stepping forward and clasping
one of my hands in both of his.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with what sounded like genuine conviction. ‘We really, honestly, were worried you might hurt yourself. Both times.’
    ‘Fine,’ I said. I didn’t really know what else to say, and I was already starting to feel far, far out of my depth. The other man’s grin broadened, and despite my
lingering animosity towards him, I could detect no trace of ill-will in his forthright gaze.
    He let go of my hand and looked at Nadia. ‘Y’all set? ’Cause there’s a truck due any second now we can take right back through. I already cleared it.’ He hooked a
thumb towards the hangar’s interior.
    ‘Sounds good,’ she said. ‘Lead on.’
    I followed them inside, still utterly baffled as to what was going on. Most of the interior was taken up by two broad circular platforms, each about four metres in width and resting on a forest
of supporting struts and miscellaneous pieces of unidentifiable equipment. From the rim of each platform rose three metal pylons, equidistant from each other. The pylons curved in towards each
other until only a narrow gap separated their tips. Each pylon was wrapped in thick bundles of steel and copper wire, while power cables connected the platforms to a pair of quietly humming
generators in the rear of the hangar. I saw several men in what looked like military fatigues standing or sitting around a card table near the doors, talking quietly among themselves. A coffee
machine was perched on top of the table.
    ‘These are what we call transfer stages,’ Yuichi explained, pointing to each platform in turn. ‘Now watch,’ he said, directing my attention towards another man in
fatigues, seated before a rack of equipment. Yet more cables snaked from the rear of the rack, disappearing beneath the nearest of the two platforms.
    I watched as this operator tapped at a keyboard mounted on his rack of equipment, then he reached up to flick various switches with practised efficiency. A screen set at eye level burst into
life before him, data scrolling across it too rapidly for me to fathom its purpose.
    A faint hum began to emanate from the nearest platform. The air between the tips of its surrounding pylons began to shiver and twist, visibly writhing. I gaped, uncomprehending, as this twisting
effect expanded suddenly to encompass the entire platform. Air swept past me in a sudden gust and towards the platform, ruffling my hair.
    Then, where the platform had been empty just a moment ago, it now supported a large diesel truck. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, but it was still there.
    ‘What the hell just happened?’ I gasped. A trick of some kind: a sleight-of-hand illusion, or a switch. It had to be.
    The vehicle’s driver reversed it down the ramp before coming to a halt. The men lounging around their card table had come forward, and they now began to unload a number of plastic and
metal crates from the rear of the vehicle, stacking them next to the hangar doors. I gaped, open-mouthed, at Nadia and Yuichi. The way they grinned made it clear they were enjoying my