John Gone (12 page)

Through the entire ordeal, she’d felt
helpless to fix things, helpless to save John if the men had caught
up. It reminded her of her father’s passing, and how little she
could do but stand silently on the other side of a hospital window
while he died.

The cool wind of fast movement blew through
Ronika’s hair. She leaned back slightly and pushed up against
John’s body, slumped behind her on the scooter. He’d inexplicably
appeared back in the warehouse just half an hour ago at 3:14, and
Ronika had driven to him carefully, watching ardently for police
all the while.

He’d first wanted her to take him home, but
finally relented that it wasn’t the best time to try and explain
things to his mother. The summation of events had surely already
felt like a long time for her, and he’d hoped that making her wait
just a bit longer wouldn’t make too large a difference.

Halfway back to Ronika’s apartment, John had
begun to fall asleep uncontrollably. After almost slipping from the
bike at thirty miles per hour, Ronika had pulled over and tied him
to her with the strap of his messenger bag. It wasn’t the most
elegant or comfortable solution, but it worked, and the warmth of
his body, coupled with the weight of his resting hands around her
waist, had served to calm her nerves.

Ten minutes later, they were back at The
Napoli. The pull of their turn into the complex forced John
awake.

“Hey, we’re here,” he said groggily.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Thanks for driving.”

“Sure.”

Ronika slowed the scooter as she pulled into
an open parking space in front of her apartment block. She took the
key from its ignition and unlatched the strap that attached her to
her passenger. They stood from the scooter and faced each
another.

“And thanks for last night,” John said,
swaying from exhaustion like a drunkard.

“I didn’t do anything last night,” she
replied, staring into the ground.

John stepped forward and flopped his arms
around her in a hug. He leaned his head on her shoulder and spoke
quietly to her ear. “Yes you did.”

Ronika lifted her arms to hug him as his slid
slowly down to his sides.

“John?” she said, still holding his body. He
was asleep.

Ronika sat in her recliner across from the
sofa where John was sleeping and thought about her friend. She’d
gotten him awake just long enough to get him into the apartment and
down on the couch. She’d never seen someone so tired.

She watched his pulsing lips and pumping
chest as he breathed heavily in slumber. In, out. Up, down. She
wondered about John’s future and the mysteries of the device
attached to his arm.

Ronika slunk from her chair and crawled
across the floor. John’s left arm was draping from his body to the
carpeting. She slowly approached the watch that rested there, like
a fox to a henhouse, pausing and glaring at the infernal device as
she snuck at it. The darkness of the room made the faint blue light
of the watch’s humming wires appear stronger than usual. She looked
closely as they shivered. There must be a pattern!

She stared deeper and deeper through its
weaving layers, searching, hoping, begging for an answer. When the
wires remained stubborn, she eyed the band. Ronika carefully opened
its metal latch and examined the cracked, brown leather around it.
A line of small holes ran down one side, allowing wrists of
different sizes to wear it comfortably. Three of the holes were
cracked along their sides, proving use. She wondered if that was
significant.

Ronika reattached the latch and thought on
John’s story. The facts played through her mind. She searched for
the small detail that could grow into and answer.

After ten minutes of eying and thinking, she
rocked back from the timepiece suddenly as if it had bitten her.
She smiled. She had an idea, a good one, but it could wait until
morning.

The next day at noon, John woke to the tickle
of fox ears on his nose. He sneezed.

“Gross!” Ronika exclaimed, pulling her head
back from his face.

“What? What time is it?” he asked, sitting
up.

“Now I have to wash my hair,” she complained,
patting at the top of her head.

“What?” John asked, not sure of what was
going on.

“One minute!” she exclaimed, slinking back
toward the bathroom.

John stood from the couch. Soon, the sound of
running water filled the apartment. He stretched his arms toward
the living room’s vaulted ceiling and was immediately reminded of
the swelling pain running through his chest and shoulders.

There was a small notepad and pen on Ronika’s
desk. He pulled off the top sheet--it was covered in symbols
belonging either to a math equation or a video game cheat code--and
took the pad back to her coffee table by the couch. He began to
write as the sound of running water abruptly stopped.

Things I Need To Do

1. Explain to Mom

2. Have Molly forgive me

3. Get the watch off

4. Avoid jail

John became frustrated after writing the
fourth item on his list. Each thing he’d written was exponentially
harder and more complicated to do than the last, and the sudden
realization of it struck him hard. He tore the list in half and
slumped back into the couch.

My phone
, he thought suddenly.

John quickly checked his pockets and found
his cell. He opened it and jammed on the keys. It was dead.

The water
, he remembered.

Ronika appeared soon after with a wet head,
wearing the same clothes as before. The tips of her fox ears were
dripping and John wondered if she’d showered in them.

She walked over to the table and picked up
half of his abandoned list. “Who’s Molly?” she asked.

“Girlfriend,” he answered absently, lost in
his thoughts.

“Oh,” she answered, “that’s new.” Ronika
swiftly discarded the torn note back to the floor. “You want
something to eat?” she asked.

John perked at the idea. “Would you mind?” he
asked.

Her face lit up. “Not at all.”

“Can I help make it? We can both eat.”

“Sure, come on. I don’t have much,
though.”

“Whatever, dude, I’m starving.”

They walked to her kitchen where she opened
the fridge.

“Cheese, mayonnaise, venison,” she said,
pulling each item from the fridge as she mentioned it.

“Venison?” John asked.

“It’s deer meat,” she answered, moving a
four-pack of energy drinks out of the way to the back of the
fridge.

“I know what it is,” he said, chuckling. “Why
do you have it?”

“Do you think that’s weird?” she asked.

John shrugged. “I guess not. What else is in
there?”

“Potato chips,” she continued,
“biscuits--”

“In the fridge?” he asked.

“It’s raw dough, dork,” she replied.

“I meant the potato chips.”

“Okay, so, pickles, milk, energy drinks, more
energy drinks, and, uh, I think there’s an egg in here somewhere
... ” She trailed off, reaching into the back.

“I think we can leave that one back there,”
John said. “Let’s see.” He looked over the potential ingredients on
the counter. “Alright, how about we make some venison, cheese, and
potato chip biscuit sandwiches.”

“Great,” she answered. “Those are really
good. I’ll preheat the oven.” She bounced to the other side of the
kitchen and set the oven’s temperature to 350 degrees. Twenty
minutes later, eight small sandwiches were done and on paper
plates. John and Ronika each took four and brought them to the
coffee table where they happily began to eat.

“So, John,” Ronika said between biscuits, “I
have an idea about your watch problem.”

“Really?” John spurted, dropping his sandwich
to his plate.

“Don’t get too excited,” she said, taking
another bite. “It hasn’t worked yet.”

“So what’s the plan?” he asked excitedly. “Do
you think you could get it off?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s impossible to
even try and think about how to do that without knowing what’s
causing the attraction. Especially impossible if you consider that
the last dude who guessed wrong is dead.”

“Oh,” John said melancholically.

“But!” Ronika exclaimed as she finished the
last of her lunch. “But, but,
but!
I
do
have an idea,
possibly ingenious in its simplicity. I don’t know why we haven’t
thought of it yet.”

“What is it?” John asked.

“So what do we know? What do we really,
really know about this thing? Let’s look at the data. At 3:14 P.M.
the watch takes you from the warehouse and brings you to a
Tallahassee bathroom.”

“Right,” John agreed, mouth full.

“Okay, now, at 3:14 A.M. that night, you’re
sent back to the warehouse again. Then, at 3:14 P.M. you appear on
a boat. Somewhere south, possibly Charleston, South Carolina based
on the reference Rodney made at 3:32.”

“I’m with you so far,” John said, not
remembering any reference from 3:32.

“So, what have we learned? One, you always
appear in a bathroom. Conclusion? I have no idea. It’s pretty
weird. Two, you always come back to Longboard during the A.M.
jumps. Conclusion? Comforting to know, perhaps, but unexplainable
just the same. Three, all jumps happen at some form of 3:14. Last
night I noticed a knob on the side of the watch’s face,” she said
happily.

“What if we change the time?” John blurted
out, leaping onto his feet.

“Oh. My. Gosh, John. Seriously? I just went
through that whole thing and you totally stole my thunder.”

“Sorry,” John said, sitting back down.
“Please continue.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Okay, so what if we
change the time on the watch? It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t get
it off, but if you always change it before it hits 3:14 then at
least you stop teleporting everywhere.”

“You’re a genius!”

“Oh, I know,” she replied with comical
confidence, flicking the hair from her face.

“But, wait,” John said. “What if one of us
tries to pull out the knob to change the time and the thing freaks
out like last time? I don’t think it likes it when we try and screw
with it.”

“It’s not a magical creature, John, it’s
science. But you do have a point.” She paused a moment. “Okay, I’ll
have Mouse do it,” she decided.

“But won’t Mouse explode or something if an
arc shoots out at it?”

“Yeah, probably. But weren’t you the guy who
was ready to let that happen by having it do something you
knew
would cause the arc
last
time you were
here?”

John smiled. “Yeah, but Mouse and I weren’t
friends then,” he said.

“Oh, shut up and come over to my
workstation.”

John walked over to the worktable standing
underneath the math-problem clock and sat in the small, wooden
chair by its side. Ronika sat at her desk and equipped the
rainbow-colored arm-length gloves that controlled Mouse’s
movements.

“Why is this chair so uncomfortable?” John
asked, trying to find a way to sit that evenly supported his
weight.

“Keeps me focused while working,” she
answered dismissively. “Put Mouse on the tabletop, please.” Ronika
turned on her webcam and calibrated her gloves with the software
running on her screen. Soon, Mouse was accurately mimicking her
actions.

“How do you make it walk if you only wear the
gloves?” John asked.

“Jeez, you’re so inquisitive,” she answered.
“There are gestures I can do with my fingers that are mapped to
physical responses other than its arms. Mouse doesn’t have fully
articulated hands and fingers, just clamps like you’ve seen, so
that frees my middle, ring, and pinky fingers for customized
gestures. My pointers and thumbs control the clamps, while I
alternate touching my middle fingers to the inside of my palms for
foot movement. My pinky fingers dictate horizontal direction, while
my rings control vertical movements such as bending. The arms are,
of course, completely articulate, and match x, y, and z-axes to my
actual arm movement. Does that answer your question?”

“Yeah, that pretty much answers it,” he said,
sorry he’d asked. John sat quietly for the remaining thirty seconds
Ronika needed to finalize her setup.

“Ready?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he answered. John had an
odd sensation swelling up through his stomach. It reminded him of
the time he’d gotten his gallbladder removed and the butterflies
that he’d felt while being wheeled into the operating room.

“Okay,” Ronika said from her desk. Mouse
walked slowly over to John’s wrist and extended its arms. “Can you
lift it a little?”

“Like this?”

“Yeah, now just turn it slightly ... yeah,
right there. Hold it still.”

“Okay.”

“I hope this works, man.”

John closed his eyes and nodded in agreement.
The plan seemed solid, but that didn’t stop him worrying about
any
new interactions with the bizarre machine stuck to his
body.

He watched Mouse move slowly toward him like
a bomb technician deep in the field. Time slowed as the robot
carefully placed its right hand over the watch’s knob and clamped
to it. Across the room, Ronika took a deep breath. She moved her
hand, and Mouse pulled the knob.

A loud
pop
, like a microphone being
pulled quickly from its amp, shot loudly from the watch. John
tumbled backward to the carpeting as Ronika swallowed a scream.

He opened his eyes and looked up past the
table’s edge in front of him. Mouse was perfectly intact. Next, he
looked at Ronika, also intact, but staring wide-eyed past his face
toward his wrist.

John quickly followed her gaze to a blue cone
of light projecting out from the watch’s face. The light was rife
with static, but slowly forming into a shape.