They spent a couple of hours having fun stabbing the sacks of hay with their spears, getting the feel of the weapons, and then they tried on the magnetic harnesses.

The magnets were powerful, they found. They were iron nitride magnets, the strongest permanent magnets known to man. If two of them got stuck together it would take a man's full strength to pull them apart again. It would have taken even more force if not for the five millimetre thick plastic coating that protected them from damage. Fortunately, they all had their north magnetic poles facing forward so that their magnetism pushed apart two people who came too close together. It made it physically impossible for two people wearing them to hug each other, as Jeffcott and Robinson confirmed by playful experimentation.

Then they tried on the white robes. "I don't like it," said Bright, fingering the loose folds hanging down her body. "Feels like it'd slow me down if I had to run fast."

"If they're right, there's nothing alive in there you'll have to run from," said Jeffcott.

"If they're right. What if they're wrong? I think I'll keep my arms and legs free. Besides, it's not like I need protection from the sun." She held up her arm to show off her glossy, dark brown skin.

"Black people can sunburn just like us white folks," pointed out Jeffcott.

"I've never been sunburned in my life," the linguist replied, "and I've been outside all day in brighter sun than this. And the sixty thousand people who lived in Maricopa got by just fine in ordinary clothes." She rolled up her robes and tossed them back into the wagon.

"Well I'll be wearing them," said Summers, "and I'm even blacker than you are."

"And you don't have to warn an Indian about the dangers of the sun," said Rahul Bhatt, looking down at the clean, white lines of his robes approvingly. "You should take them with you so you can put them on if you change your mind."

"Whatever," Bright replied, although she made no move to reclaim her robes. Instead she looked down at the magnet she was wearing on her chest, covering some of the buttons of her short sleeved shirt. Jeffcott could see her imagining the horrors it would be protecting her from. Compared to them, the sun was no threat at all.

it was getting on for evening by then and they made their way to the canteen for their evening meal, all of them still wearing their magnetic harnesses. Jeffcott guessed they were scared of taking them off for the same reason he was; the possibility that the malign influence of the anomaly might be extending some distance ahead of the eerie, rippling curtain of wrongness. He was scared. They were all scared, and the powerful magnets were a source of reassurance, no matter how irrational that might be.

☆☆☆

The Sergeant woke them all up early the next morning. "Time to get up," he said, thumping the side of the camper van with his fist. "Rise and shine."

Jeffcott hadn't been able to get much sleep. The knowledge of what they would be walking into preyed on his mind. He knew he had slept a little, though, because he'd had a dream in which lumps of embryonic tissue had been squirming around inside his body. He'd woken up with a shiver of fear, his bedclothes drenched with sweat.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one," he'd heard Duffy saying quietly in the darkness. "I was worrying that I was suffering from what they used to call lack of moral fibre."

"I think they call that not being a moron these days," Jeffcott had replied. "Sorry if I woke you."

"You didn't. What kind of person can sleep with what's waiting for us?"

"Well I can, apparently. Or I could. I don't think I want to sleep any more if that's the kind of dream waiting for me, though. What time is it?"

"About one I think." The camper had gaven a slight lurch as some junior soldier began driving it forward, to keep ahead of the advancing anomaly. Outside, the sound of engines had risen as the entire convoy moved together.

"Maybe we should read for a while," Jeffcott had suggested. "An hour or so reading the dossiers and we might be able to get a couple of hours sleep before morning."

"Worth a try I suppose." Duffy had reached across to turn on the light and they'd sat up in their uncomfortable cots before reaching for the folders.

They had gotten no more sleep, though, and neither had any of the others to judge from the tired, haggard expressions they were wearing as they gathered in the canteen for breakfast. They ate in a nervous silence, none of them being able to find the appetite to manage more than a couple of slices of toast. The smell of bacon and eggs was drifting over from another table where a group of junior researchers were eating and Jeffcott knew that he really should get a plate for himself. This would be the last chance to eat anything but the dried foods they'd be taking with them until they left the anomaly, if they survived the experience. None of them had any intention of eating anything they found in there, even if they hadn't been expressly forbidden from doing so. There was no telling what the anomaly might have done to it. Even water was to be treated with suspicion, and they would be taking plenty of it with them to make sure they wouldn't have to rely on possibly contaminated local supplies. Jeffcott was so scared that even the smell of bacon was threatening to turn his stomach, though, and so he stood up and left as soon as he'd taken a couple of sips of his tea.

As soon as the others had finished eating, the Captain had returned to tell them that it was time to set off. They would be entering the anomaly within the hour with the hope of reaching Maricopa before the end of the day. The powers that be wanted the experts to look at the Furnace before they retired for the night so they could spend the time before sleeping thinking about what they'd seen. It was a widely believed myth that insights that eluded the daytime mind often came in dreams, and their lords and masters were evidently hoping that there was some truth to it.

The Sergeant and his men were waiting for them back at the wagons, which were having horses hitched to them. The horses seemed no happier at the prospect of entering the anomaly than the humans and were shuffling uncomfortably as the soldiers attached their straps and harnesses. One of them reached its head around to bite at the leather strap holding the magnet in place on its chest and a Private with a spiderweb tattoo on his neck gave it a flick with the end of a strap to make it stop.

"Take your seats on the wagon," said the Sergeant without preamble. Then he ignored them and went back to organising his men. The experts climbed the three steps up to its flat bed and sat, four on each side, on the wooden benches, facing each other, their brand new spears laid across our knees. They were also wearing long military style knives in sheaths, hanging from their belts, cheerfully supplied by a bespectacled supply clerk just a few moments before. They were wickedly sharp but surprisingly light. They and the spears felt like toys in Jeffcott's hands rather than weapons that might actually be used to kill someone.

They sat fidgeting nervously as they waited for the soldiers to get themselves organised. "The soldiers didn't seem scared," said Dennis Gruber. "I know I shouldn't find that reassuring, but I do."

"They probably have little idea what they're about to enter," said Dennings. "They look like experienced veterans. They've probably been in war zones. Out there they'd be afraid of snipers and IED's but we're on home ground, in the USA. Their mindset is the same as people entering the site of a natural disaster like an earthquake. Whatever happened here has finished happening, they're thinking, and all they're doing is excorting a group of scientists to find out what happened."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"But they must feel the effect of the anomaly," said Bright in disbelief. "Just being close to it you can feel how... How wrong it is."

"With all due respect to our friends in uniform, it doesn't require much imagination to be a soldier," said Duffy. "We feel the wrongness because we're intelligent and educated enough to have some idea of what's happening here. Soldiers aren't."

Jeffcott nodded thoughtfully. The thing that disturbed the soldiers the most, he suspected, was the knowledge that their firearms wouldn't work. They were all wearing sidearms, he saw, and he'd seen then loading rifles in one of the other wagons. No matter how useless they knew they were, no soldier would go anywhere without the weapons they were most familiar with. There was always the chance they might find a way to make them work. The soldiers were carrying lances, though. Longer versions of the weapons the experts had been issued with, designed to be used from horseback.

"I wonder if they've been trained to fight from horseback," he said. "Who is in this day and age?"

The Sergeant happened to be nearby and overheard the comment. He'd walked his horse over towards them without their noticing and was now only a few feet away, sitting upright in the saddle with his lance hanging vertically, point uppermost, from a strap around his shoulder.

"These men all belong to historical reenactment societies," he said, fingering his moustache absent mindedly. "They like to practice old style forms of fighting, including horseback lance fighting. They're all keen to try it out for real."

"So it's a sport to them," said Duffy. "Stabbing sacks of hay like we've been doing."

"They are all, to a man, combat veterans," the Sergeant replied. "They may never have killed anyone with a lance, but they've seen the more conventional kind of action. If it comes down to it, they know how to handle themselves."

He then walked his horse away to the front of the column and began giving orders to the Corporal. The Captain had also reappeared and was marching over to join the two of them. "Good luck, Edward," he said. "Don't take any risks. Just get the eggheads there in one piece. Once you get there, form a perimeter around the building and defend it against anything that tries to get in. Not that there's likely to be anything. They tell me that everything, animal and human, that's been in there for more than a day will be dead. It'll probably be pretty boring."

"Boring is good," the Sergeant replied. "Soldiers like boring, as you know, Sir."

The Captain nodded his agreement and Jeffcott remembered something someone had said about the life of a soldier being ninety nine percent boredom and one percent abject terror. He hoped they'd be avoiding any abject terror while in the anomaly.

Then the Captain walked a few steps away before turning to look back at the Sergeant. The Sergeant dismounted and went over to join him and the two men spoke in low voices for a few moments. At one point the Sergeant glanced furtively back at the experts sitting in their wagon, but he quickly tore his gaze back to the Captain as if realising he was giving himself away. Jeffcott glanced across at the others and saw the same thought in their eyes. There was something they weren't telling them.

"Well, that's not at all worrying," said Dennis Gruber dryly.

"Is it too late to back out?" said Rahul Bhatt, grinning nervously.

"We knew it would be dangerous," said Dennings. "They gave us these spears, after all. They showed us the people in the hospital..."

"Which means the things they're not telling us must be even worse," said Jeffcott. "I don't know about you but I have a rather active imagination."

"He's coming this way," hissed Duffy urgently.

They fell silent as they saw that the Captain marching towards them. "Hopefully you won't be needing the spears," he told them amiably. "We just like to anticipate any possible problem that might occur."

"What were you talking to the Sergeant about?" asked Duffy.

"Just operational things," the Captain replied, the smile fixed on his face. "Nothing you need to worry about. Now, If someone, or some animal, has wandered in and been driven crazy by anomaly effects, the soldiers will deal with it. Let them guard and protect you. Your only job is to stop the anomaly growing. Get rid of it completely if you can, by any means necessary. Do this, and you will have the gratitude of the entire United States. The whole world in all likelihood."

Jeffcott looked around at the other experts and saw them all glancing nervously at each other, all of them recognising the Captain's effective dodging of Duffy's question. They all knew that repeating the question would only get the same answer, though. Their only choices were to proceed with the expedition or get off the wagon, earning themselves a spell in a military prison. But a period of confinement might be infinitely preferable to whatever horrors the Captain wasn't telling them about.

He looked around at the others and saw them all waiting for the same thing he was waiting for; for someone else to take the lead. There was just a trace of tension on the Captain's face as he watched them carefully, waiting to see what they would do. None of them had the courage to be the first, though, or perhaps they were as curious as Jeffcott was to see what mysteries lay within the anomaly. Stand up, Jeffcott told himself. Don't be a fool. No discovery is worth dying for. If you stand, the others will stand as well. You won't be left facing the Captain's wrath all by yourself. He remained sitting, though. His curiosity was just too strong, or perhaps his willpower was too weak. In all honesty, he couldn't have said which it was. If someone else had stood, he would have stood as well, but no-one else did. Not even when a smirk of satisfaction began to creep across the Captain's face.

"And if we die in there we'll have a fine state funeral," muttered Duffy under his breath at last.

The Captain looked relieved. Jeffcott thought there was almost a grateful look on his face. Duffy's words had moved them on from the critical moment. The moment in which they might have mutinied en masse. The Captain now knew, and the experts knew as well, that they would be entering the anomaly. Their chance to back out had passed.

"Well, good luck in there, and keep in touch," he said, stroking his moustache. Then he turned and marched back to the command portacabin, nodding to the Sergeant as he passed him. The Sergeant nodded back, then turned his horse to face the experts. "Alright," he said. "Let's get this show on the road."

He rode to the head of the column and the other riders nudged their horses to follow him. The three wagon drivers gave a slap of the reins and they jerked into motion, their wagon trundling along the tarmac towards the anomaly. People were lined up to watch them go, all of them looking worried, which increased Jeffcott's own anxiety. My God, he thought. We're really doing this. We're really going in there.

One of the soldiers guarding the anomaly moved aside to let them pass. This close, the sense of wrongness returned, getting steadily stronger as they approached. The Sergeant's horse tossed its head nervously as it reached the shimmering, rippling boundary. The Sergeant patted the side of its neck to reassure it and urged it on.

"Might some of the horses refuse to go in?" wondered Duffy aloud.

"They're well trained," said the wagon driver, turning to look back at him. "There're still uses for horses on the battlefield even in this day and age. They'll even ignore the sound of cannon fire. So long as they can sense that their riders are unafraid, they'll be okay."

Jeffcott knew the driver must have been at least seventeen to be serving in the American army, but he didn't look it. He looked more like fourteen to him. He had a couple of medal ribbons on his uniform, though. Jeffcott wondered what he'd done to get them. "Cannon fire is one thing," he said, "but they've never experienced anything like this before."

"They trust their riders," the wagon driver told him. "They'll go where they're led."

He seemed to be right, Jeffcott saw as the Sergeant's horse walked through the boundary, into the anomaly. The eight other riders went through in pairs, their horses encouraged by the fact that those going ahead of them had suffered no harm, and then it was their turn. There were six horses pulling the wagon carrying the experts. The first two went in, their bodies rippling as if seen through the surface of a sheet of water, then the next two. One of the third pair skittered uncertainly, though, and the wagon stopped for a moment as the driver waited for it to settle down.

This close, Jeffcott was fascinated by the fact that he could actually see the anomaly growing, creeping across the black asphalt at about the speed of an ambling tortoise. Looking down over the side of the wagon, he saw it approaching a small tuft of grass growing through a crack in the road surface, swallowing it up one yellowing blade at a time. Then he saw a small lizard on the road, hurrying away from the edge of the phenomenon. He wondered whether it could sense the same wrongness the humans could. It stopped, standing motionless on the dusty black surface of the road, until the edge of the anomaly touched the tip of its tail whereupon it hurried away, its four legs making crazy circles around its body as it ran. Could it feel the anomaly? Jeffcott wondered. Soon find out...

The wagon driver slapped the reins again and the wagon continued on, through the boundary. Jeffcott saw him shudder as the boundary layer passed over him, as if he'd been blasted by a jet of cold air. Mark Summers, the one sitting nearest the front of the wagon, tensed up as his turn came, but once he was inside he relaxed as if in disappointment, and then it was Jeffcott's turn. He fingered the magnet sitting snugly on hie chest, reassuring himself that it was still there, surrounding him with invisible lines of magnetic force, and then the boundary was flowing across his body. He was aware of a faint, prickling sensation, as if all the hairs of his body were trying to stand up at once, and then he was inside.

The prickling feeling faded, and he found that he felt completely normal. To his right he could see the people of the mobile command post rippling and shimmering now that the boundary was between him and them. He was inside the anomaly.