Now & Again (22 page)

Echo’s voice replied immediately. “Working.”

The cranky guard at the main gate of
the Point
tucked his clipboard under an arm. He bent down to look into the driver’s side window of the waiting Lexus. “We don’t see you here very often anymore, Mr. Newbauer.”

Newbauer’s face was bruised and his hair mussed up. “Yeah, that’s the truth.”

The guard glanced curiously at Quyron on the passenger side. She smiled sweetly back. Newbauer muttered, “Oh, sorry, this is Quyron Shur…a new analyst for us. I’m giving her…a tour.”

The guard wrote a notation on his clipboard. “Everything okay here?”

Newbauer blinked before answering. “I’ve been better but…sorry about the appearance, I was kinda in a hurry, you know?”

The guard nodded and went back to the guard shack. As soon as the gate slid open, Newbauer drove through.

In the luxurious car’s passenger seat, Quyron unfolded her arms, revealing the stun gun pressed tightly against Newbauer’s side. “Nicely done. You even kept that quiver out of your voice.”

“I need a doctor.”

“That’s true. But you’re not really dying. It just hurts like you are.” Quyron noticed something ahead of them. “Wait. Pull in…next to those parked cars on the left.”

“Why?”

Quyron flared, “Just do what I said.” Newbauer pulled over and parked. Quyron slid down in her seat and watched out the window. “Turn it off. Get down. Now.” She pushed on his shoulders until he vanished below his window frame. “Don’t make a noise.”

* * *

Everett angrily pounded down the steps of the main building at
the Point
and summoned his waiting car. The Mercedes swiftly pulled up. He jumped into the back.

Inside the car, Everett slid into the long back seat, his face flushed and sweaty. “Ricky, I need to go downtown to the corporate lawyers right away. And gimme your phone.”

The driver turned. It was Aaron Benton, Vandermark’s senior security agent. His eyes locked onto a stunned Everett. “Looks like Ricky’s out sick. Let’s do this the easy way, okay?”

Everett bolted for a door. It was wrenched open by a heavy shouldered security agent. He shoved Everett back in and sat beside him. On the opposite side, a third agent slid in and pinned Everett between them.

Benton grinned, “Or not.” He put the car in gear.

* * *

Quyron watched Everett’s Mercedes until it drove off. “I see Dr. Everett’s back from China.”

Newbauer’s head reappeared. “What? He’s here?”

Quyron looked thoughtful. “Yes, and he didn’t come for fun. But I’d say Everett lost whatever argument he started.”

Newbauer flicked his eyes around. “What are you talking about? I didn’t see any…”

“Never mind. Some guys in suits just took Everett away in his car, but I think they headed somewhere onsite.” She cocked her head and batted her eyes at Newbauer. “You wouldn’t happen to know where they might be going, would you?”

Newbauer was instantly defensive. “No.”

Quyron hooked his shattered hand and twisted it. He wailed in surprised pain and twisted his torso to take the pressure off. His words came out in a rush. “There’s a warehouse on the east end!” She let go. Newbauer jerked the hand back and hid it.

Quyron put on a pleasant face. “I’m sure you know another way to go, so we won’t have to follow them, right?”

He glared at her in defiance, and then started the car.

The third floor Coronary Care Unit at Holy Cross Hospital specialized in post operative or post-procedural care of cardiac patients. The unit featured twelve generous rooms arranged in a circle around a curved nurses’ station. Each room’s main interior wall, the one facing the nurses, consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass panels with slat blinds for a modicum of privacy. Recovering heart patients didn’t stay long in the CCU, but while they were there, the nurses kept them under constant scrutiny.

Everett’s body, beneath the crisp sheet and coverlet, barely occupied the upper third of the complex bed. He had an IV drip going, a flock of leads feeding primary monitors, and a large clamp keeping his right thigh pinned to the side of the mattress. He looked hollow but his eyes were vivid with bright plans.

“Look, I’m not psychic, I’m simply making deductions from what you told me.” His pale voice creaked like a rusty hinge. “I may be wrong – I doubt it – but anything’s possible.”

Josh and Kendall sat in narrow chairs that were pushed tight to the side of his bed. Kendall was edgy but trying to be sensitive to Everett’s condition. “I’m just sayin’ that the more you explain things, the smaller our chances seem to be. I mean according to you, they have snoopy little invisible robots that can float right into…”

“Nanobots. Nano robots – it’s nanotechnology applied to robotics.” Everett’s feathery voice still conveyed a hint of snottiness. “And they aren’t invisible, they’re just too small to see, like swarms of semi-intelligent viruses.”

Kendall’s voice surged. “There’s not one damn bit of difference between that and being invisible! And I don’t want to think about smart viruses!”

A head swiftly bobbed up from the nurses’ station and a frown was sent floating their way. Kendall caught it through the glass, and switched to a fierce whisper. “For God’s sake, Hugh, these people can jump into your mind! How do we fight that?”

Everett scrunched deeper into the soft coverlet, shivering from a chill. He squinted at Kendall. “They have to have a proximity issue and a time issue.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the only mechanics I can imagine to do their mind jump would require a great deal of power. That mandates a short reach.” Everett painfully repositioned himself. “And that dictates a ground-based transport…and it takes time.”

Kendal turned to Josh. Josh shrugged and lifted his eyebrows. Kendall turned back with a scowl. “Can you decode that?”

Everett held up a single finger, suppressed a cough, and nodded. “They need a truck, or whatever passes for trucks in their timeline. And they need to get close to their targets.”

Josh looked concerned. “How close?”

“Hard to say. I should think 90 to 100 meters. Maybe less.”

Kendall rolled his eyes.

Everett sniffed at him. “Oh, for those of you from Ohio, that’s…a football field or so. A bit more…” He sat up slightly straighter as he realized a new insight. “That means they had to drive all the way to Cincinnati – right into your neighborhood – to make those jumps.”

Kendall slid down in his chair and frowned. “You’re just making this stuff up now, aren’t you?”

Everett was busy following his new chain of deductions and was slow to reply. “No. I’m guessing.”

“Big difference.”

Everett fixed Kendall with a look. “Educated guesses.”

Kendall scowled back. “Would you bet your life on ‘em?”

“No. Not me. I’d be a lousy bet right now, anyway.” He raised a single eyebrow. “But I’m betting yours.”

Kendall’s mouth tightened into a line. At that moment, loud voices spilled into the room from the hall as a patient was wheeled into the unit.

* * *

Marty Brandmeier was flat on his back on the gurney and the late middle-aged man was a long, hard road from happy. He had checked in to the ER the night before, at his wife’s insistence, for what he described as a pulled muscle in his chest. The magical words,
chest pain
, brought him a complete workup, a cardiac catheterization procedure and, when they saw the near total blockage in one of his coronary arteries, it became an angioplasty procedure. The doctor inflated a tiny balloon to squish Marty’s plaque against his arterial walls and, before exiting, he stuck in a stent, a small mesh tube, to keep the sludge in place.

None of which Marty thought was necessary, and he wanted everybody to know it. “The whole thing’s bogus! All I did was pull a muscle going for a ball. That’s it! And now look at me!”

His wife tried to shush him, or at least lower his volume, but she had no effect. “God knows how much this is gonna cost me!” he bellowed. “Look at this place! A Q-tip in here’s gonna run a hundred bucks! No wonder healthcare’s outta whack.”

One of the CC nurses put a calming hand on the edge of Marty’s gurney. “Welcome to the CCU, Mr. Brandmeier. We’re going to take good care of you and your heart.”

This just added fuel to Marty’s fire. “Yeah, and my wallet! It’s outrageous! I can’t have heart problems! I exercise; I don’t eat cheeseburgers; I drink diet coke; I take vacations. What a crock!”

* * *

One of the other nurses popped into Everett’s room and smiled an apology as she closed their door for them. Marty’s continuing rant was only slightly muffled.

Kendall tried to recapture the conversation. “Can you tell me something that gives us any edge at all?”

“We know the time frame. That’s something.” Everett spoke barely above a whisper. “They have to drive back from your house to somewhere near here. So, that’s how much time we have before they can strike again.”

Josh was confused. “How do you know their main location’s near here?”

“It’s where I would have built it, so…I’m guessing the other me’s would do the same thing.”

“Yeah. That’s not much of an advantage.”

“It could be.” Everett rotated the wrist with his IV to relieve some pressure. “We know their plans – they’re going to jump your minds. But they don’t know ours.”

“We don’t know ours either, unless I flat out missed you tellin’ us,” Kendall complained.

Everett was about to reply when the noise outside their window wall escalated, and they saw Marty thrashing on the gurney. Nurses jumped to assist him and a medley of anxious voices erupted.

“Code Blue CCU, Code Blue CCU,” a stiff voice soon announced over the ceiling speakers.

Outside their windows they watched a nurse pull Marty’s stunned wife off to one side. Nurses worked on Marty’s unresponsive body. A short time later a crash cart came rushing in followed by a team of quick responders. Rapid orders and immediate replies zipped back and forth between the members of the team. Marty’s heart was apparently trapped in a lethal rhythm and they fought to normalize it again.

Kendall and Josh were caught up in the life and death struggle on the other side of the glass. Everett loudly cleared his throat to get their attention. “Josh, close the blinds, will you?” He made a downward motion with his fingers, indicating the slat blinds at the top of each window. Josh self-consciously lowered them. The last image seen was one of the medics prepping the defibrillator and lifting the paddles.

Everett was clearly shaken but his voice was steady. “Look, he’s gonna live or die whether we watch him or not. Okay? I think I have a plan here – it’s not pretty, but it’s all I’ve got. And I’m worried if I don’t hurry up, I could be the one they’re working on next.”

The anxious noises outside the window wall went in waves, and with each crest the three nervously glanced at the blinds.

Kendall leaned in to Everett so only he could hear him. “What’s to stop the mind jumpers from searching for us here? Aren’t those nanobots in this room already? Won’t they be able to hear our plans?”

“If they can do
that
, we can’t stop them,” Everett replied gently.

“What’s your…educated guess? Can they?”

Everett sighed. “My educated guess is…yeah, they
can
do that and no, we
can’t
stop them.”

“So, that’s it for us then,” Kendall said softly. “Done before we begin.”

The medical sounds outside their room dropped off. Marty was wheeled off. The responders dispersed.

Everett brightened. “No. If we make things tempting enough, there’s still a chance.”

A dispirited Kendall looked up. “We’re listening…kinda.”

“You can make your lines so easy to follow that they won’t bother going anywhere else.”

“What do you mean?”

“For whatever reason, they know you mean trouble for them, and they want you. So, if we dangle ourselves out there in plain sight, like bait…”

“You mean
us
!” Kendall shot back. “
You’re
not out there dangling – like bait.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. You. If we put you and Josh out there like a hula popper, they won’t bother tracking nanos or snooping in the timelines. They’ll just go right in for a bite, and then we’ll hook ‘em.”

“Hula popper?” Josh wore an odd expression.

“Didn’t your Dad ever take you fishing?” Everett sounded disappointed.

“He hates fishin’. Doesn’t clean ‘em, doesn’t eat ‘em, won’t catch ‘em.”

“A popper’s an artificial bait that floats. A hula popper’s usually the last thing that…” Everett was disgusted. “Oh, forget it.”

Kendall rolled his eyes. “I get it. We’re bait. And I’m a loser father who never took his kid fishing. Fine. Sue me. The part I don’t get, is the
hook ‘em
part. I may not be a fisherman but I know that no matter what happens to the fish, it doesn’t go well for the bait.”

Everett was considering his reply when there was a quick knock on the door and a tall nurse stepped into the room. She looked coldly at Josh and Kendall as she inspected Everett’s clamp and the clotting. “I explained to you that visits in the CCU are limited to twenty minutes. I trust you’re not taking advantage of our recent medical excitement to extend your talk time, are you?”

Kendall smiled innocently. “Nope. We were just wrappin’ up. Hugh’s got a real good fix on just how much time we got left.”

“That’s good to hear,” the nurse replied flatly. She scanned the rest of the room and then started out the door.

“Ma’am?” Josh asked.

She paused in the doorway and glanced back. “Yes?”

“Did he make it?”

Her severe face softened slightly. “Yes. He made it. Thanks for asking.” She left, her soft shoes making no noise.

Everett rearranged his pillow. “Where were we?”

“Nowhere yet.” Kendall replied. “Does your plan involve us jumping timelines?”

“Well…” Everett slowly admitted, “The middle part does.”

“Then forget it. We can’t do it.”

“But you haven’t heard it yet.”

“Up to now, everything that’s happened to us was out of our control. But this isn’t. We’re not the kind of people who can kill ourselves on purpose. Even to save the world.”