Linkage: The Narrows of Time (23 page)

“Jump Pad Thirteen . . . Comm Sync . . .
Buffer waiting,” he mumbled aloud. The device must be some type of
streaming communication system, and it was connected to a silo.
Apparently, not the only one Kleezebee owned, either.

He used his finger to press the ENGAGE
button. A female voice said, “Please step onto the pad. Activation
sequence will begin in thirty seconds. Remember not to hold your
breath.”

“Pretty fucking cool!” he said, taking a step
back. He realized the machine was some type of telepod or
transporter. “They must have taken it to Silo Three, wherever that
is.”

He walked back to the vertical cylinder and
considered his options. He needed to either step onto the pad and
take a ride, or abandon his intention to rescue his mother. If he
gave up, where would he go? After a moment of deliberation, he
decided the only choice was to take a road trip.

He stepped into the device, making sure the
handgun he was holding did not damage the glass. Lights flashed and
a high-decibel alarm blared through the room. Then the same
female’s voice said, “This is a weapons-free zone! Please discard
your weapon immediately. You have twenty seconds to comply or a
nerve agent will be released.”

A steel door slammed shut from the ceiling
above, blocking his access to the entrance hallway. He was trapped
inside the room. Then a four-foot-wide metal drawer slid open along
the wall next to the electronic equipment.

Lucas didn’t need to be told twice. He
scooted off the pad and ran to the deposit drawer, and tossed in
the handgun. The drawer closed as soon as the weapon clanked along
its bottom. He listened for the computer to respond, but she
didn’t.

“I just gave you the gun,” he shouted to the
room. No answer. When he didn’t hear the sound of gas being
released, he decided he was in the clear. He stepped back inside
the Jump Pad. This time its enclosure rotated closed without any
alarms or warnings. He let out a sigh of relief.

He closed his eyes and waited for the machine
to do its thing. He concentrated on his breathing, making sure to
inhale and exhale normally as the computer told him to do.
Everything was going fine until he started thinking about the 1986
movie
The Fly
. He suddenly worried that he might come out
the other end of the telepod as a hybrid organism, like the movie’s
Brundle-Fly creature—half-human, half-fly. He opened his eyes and
listened for insects buzzing around the telepod. There were
none.

Then the equipment powered up before he was
ready, making him hold his breath. He began to feel lightheaded as
if he were in a dream, floating above the clouds. It was almost a
spiritual experience, which was more than strange since, unlike his
brother, he didn’t believe in a supreme being. He preferred the
hard reality of science. He couldn’t fathom how his mother and
brother could blindly follow church doctrine without a shred of
proof or assurance.

A long second later, he heard the same
computerized female voice say, “Welcome to Silo Three.”

Lucas opened his eyes and pressed his hands
against the clear glass enclosure to catch his balance, at least
until the enclosure began to rotate open. He was in a room much
like the one he’d just left: Electronic equipment installed in
wall-mounted enclosures along one side of the room, and a stubby
computer desk with a flashing monitor sitting on top of it.

He stepped off the pad and felt around his
body, checking to make sure all of his parts were intact and in the
correct location. They were. He walked to the only door, opened it,
and stepped into a hallway.

Two people—a thirty-something male and
younger female—were approaching from his right, dressed in white
tunics and turquoise-colored surgical pants. They were shuffling
their feet forward at half-speed, obviously in no hurry to get
where they were going. The woman was eating a bagel while her
colleague carried the conversation.

The man smiled at Lucas. “Hello, Dr. Ramsay.
Enjoying your visit?”

Lucas glanced at the man’s nametag. “Yes, I
am . . . Dr. Khoury.”

The couple walked past him, down the hallway
to the left. He decided to head in the opposite direction,
following three, colored floor stripes—red, orange, blue—which were
painted down the middle of the cement floor. When the stripes
branched off from each other, he chose to follow the red stripe,
his favorite color. It led him down a connecting hallway where a
half-dozen closed doors lined the walls.

The first door was labeled with a sign that
said LAUNDRY. He kept on walking until he came upon another door
that said SUPPLIES. He opened it and went inside. The room’s
interior was just as he expected, two floor-to-ceiling metal
shelves with cleaning supplies on one and office supplies on the
other. There was a janitor’s mop and bucket, several worn yellow
sponges, a pair of dirty sneakers that appeared to be older than he
was, and a handful of fly-fishing magazines sitting under a box of
Handi Wipes. A blue baseball cap with a crusted ring of sweat was
draped over the end of the mop’s handle.

Several waist-high rectangular signs were
leaning up against the wall next to the door. Some of the printing
was faded beyond recognition, but Lucas was able to make TITAN II
MISSILE SITE 3 stenciled across the top of each sign. Just below
the title was a single number, varying from 1 to 8 depending on
which sign he looked at. Below each number was a floor plan with
footprint icons leading to exterior doors.

Lucas had visited the Titan Missile Museum
just south of Tucson during his freshman year. The tour guide
explained that when the Department of Defense decommissioned
missile silos, they often sold the property to citizens at pennies
on the dollar. He wondered if Kleezebee’s company had bought one of
them and refurbished it.

“Okay, I’m underground in an old missile
silo, but where?” He inspected the office supplies and found that
they were all from the same supply store in Tucson. He recognized
the address as just south of campus on Broadway Boulevard.

He continued down the hall and turned right
around the next corner. He could see an elevator at the far end of
the corridor; a woman stood in front of it. To his immediate left,
there was a door marked ARMORY.

“Yahtzee!” he quipped before ducking inside
the door. The room was slightly larger than the bedroom in his
apartment but much better stocked. An overcrowded weapons rack with
machine guns and semi-automatic handguns was hanging on the far
wall. In addition, there was a generous supply of other combat
gear, including handheld radios, ammunition, night-vision goggles,
smoke and flash grenades, helmets, and Kevlar protective vests. He
had hit the motherload.

On his way back to the rifle rack, he bumped
into a case of odd-looking handheld weapons sitting on top of two
black, corrugated storage containers. The guns were dark gray,
almost black, with a blocky, right-angle appearance, much like that
of a police-issued electroshock weapon. He picked up one of the
weapons; it was much heavier than he’d expected.

A pea-sized lever stuck out on the side of
the gun just above the handgrip. He pressed it with his thumb,
releasing a two-inch, rectangular cartridge from the bottom of the
stock. The cartridge was glowing green, warm to the touch, and fit
into the palm of his hand. He snapped the cartridge back into its
chamber, then pointed the weapon at the empty wall next to the
closed door.

He pulled the trigger, sending a silent blast
of white energy out of the gun’s barrel. When the energy ball hit
the wall, it scattered across the surface like static lightning
frolicking across the night sky.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got to get me one of these!”
he said, using his best Will Smith imitation. He tucked the gun
inside the back of his waistband and pulled his shirt down over it
to conceal the bulge.

He also grabbed a black, 9mm handgun from the
weapons rack and checked its ammo. All fifteen rounds were loaded
into the magazine, which he rammed into the gun’s stock. “Let’s
rock and roll,” he said, feeling damn good about his progress thus
far. He stuffed the 9mm inside the front of his belt and returned
to the hallway. He continued down the corridor to the elevator,
keeping track of the armory’s location in case he needed to
return.

When he reached the end of the hall, the
elevator’s door opened and out walked a whistling security guard.
“Can I help you find something, Dr. Ramsay?”

Lucas cleared his throat, trying to act cool.
“Have you seen Bruno?”

“Last time I saw him, he was down on Eight,
in surveillance.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, anytime,” the guard said, walking
away. Then the man stopped and turned around. “Hey, didn’t I just
see you down there?”

Lucas ignored the guard’s question as he
stepped into the lift, hoping that the guard thought he didn’t hear
him. He just needed the doors to close before the man asked him a
second time. He pressed the Number 8 button on the panel, then
smiled at the guard as if everything was normal. He stopped holding
his breath when the doors closed and the elevator started its
descent. He had been on Level 5.

The elevator’s bell chimed right before the
doors opened on Sublevel 8. Lucas expected to see another hallway,
but instead the lift opened directly into a warehouse-sized room
filled with a grid of twenty video screens covering the far wall. A
group of six men was seated side-by-side in front of a video
control station that stretched from one side of the room to the
other. Like the three men standing behind them, they were facing
forward, with their backs to Lucas. No one seemed to notice his
arrival.

Lucas recognized all three of the men
standing with their heads tilted up toward the active screens. One
of them was Kleezebee, who was leaning on crutches, wearing his
patented flannel shirt and blue coveralls. One of his pant legs was
cut off just below the knee to make room for the white cast wrapped
around his broken ankle. Bruno was standing in between Kleezebee
and the imposter who had carried his mother’s suitcases from the
house.

Before the elevator doors closed, Lucas
quickly moved forward, aiming his 9mm handgun at the back of
Kleezebee’s head. “Someone mind telling me what the fuck is going
on here?” he shouted.

Chapter
18

Reflection

Kleezebee turned around, as did Bruno and the
imposter, all three of them facing the business end of Lucas’
gun.

“L?” Kleezebee asked, before extending his
hands out in front of his chest. “Wait, it’s not what it looks
like.”

“Yeah, what does it look like?” Lucas
replied. It startled him that Kleezebee called him “L.” He’d never
done that before.

“Please, put the gun down and let me
explain,” Kleezebee said.

“Where’s my mother?”

“Your mother is safe and sleeping
upstairs.”

Lucas pointed the gun at the imposter. “Who
the hell are you?”

“I’m you . . . the real you.”

“What?”

When the elevator’s bell chimed again, Lucas
didn’t turn to look at it right away. Instead, he slid four steps
to his left to maintain a defensible position against all parties
in the room. When he saw who came rolling in out of the elevator,
he lowered his weapon without thinking, almost letting it slip
through his fingers. “Drew?” A smile erupted across his face, but
it vanished when he realized the person sitting in the wheelchair
could be another imposter. “What the hell’s going on here?” he
asked, pointing the gun at the person in the wheelchair, then at
Kleezebee, then at his double. He kept switching targets, waiting
for something to happen.

Bruno took a step toward Lucas, but Kleezebee
stopped him with an arm bar maneuver.

Lucas pointed the gun at Bruno and held it
there.

“Easy now, let’s all take a breath and not do
anything rash,” Kleezebee said, stepping in between Bruno and
Lucas. “We’re all friends here.”

“What are you doing in my brother’s
wheelchair?” Lucas asked the cripple.

Drew smiled. “It’s me Luke, your brother.
Please put the gun down before someone gets hurt.”

“No chance,” Lucas said, shifting targets
again. “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on here
before I start shooting.”

“That wasn’t me out there,” Drew said.

“You’re going to have to do better than
that,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “I saw my brother’s brains get
splattered all over the desert. You can’t be him.”

“Maybe I could explain?” Kleezebee
replied.

“I’m all ears, Professor.”

“Why don’t we start with how you got away
from Alvarez?”

Lucas decided to play along, hoping answers
would be provided before his itchy trigger finger took control. “I
overpowered the guard and took his Humvee. When I went to Mom’s
house to get her, I saw you guys out front and followed you to the
hockey arena. Nice transporter, by the way.”

“Did you kill him?” Bruno asked.

“No reason to. I just cuffed him and left him
in the desert with a canteen of water.”

“Then this ain’t over, boss,” Bruno told
Kleezebee.

“We’ll deal with that later. They’re safe as
long as they remain here.”

“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” Lucas
said, wiggling the gun to get their attention.

“Bruno, it’s time to show him,” Kleezebee
said.

“Sure, Chief,” Bruno said, stepping forward
in front of Kleezebee. He extended both of his arms straight out
from his shoulders, then tilted his head back and closed his eyes
like an evangelist preparing for deliverance. His arms and legs
started to quiver slowly at first, then intensified into a
full-blown seizure. The contours of his face and body twisted and
contorted, morphing its symmetry into something unexpected. His
body mass receded, shrinking to two-thirds of its original size.
The convulsions tempered to calm before he brought his head forward
from the tilted position. He looked at Lucas with a devious smile,
his cheeks now soft and smooth.