Now & Again (25 page)

* * *

A guard in rainwear stepped out as the Lexus pulled up to the closed gate. Everett lowered his window and rippled his fingers in a tiny wave. “Hello again. Remember me?”

The guard’s eyes widened with recognition until he was unexpectedly chopped down from behind. Josh rapidly dragged the unconscious body to the gate house and deposited it inside. A short time later, the car gate rolled aside.

* * *

Quyron sped through the unrelenting rain. The wipers swished at their highest rate, barely keeping up. Quyron glanced darkly at Everett and then away. He squirmed and looked out his side. He couldn’t face her, so he talked to the window. “Okay. I know.” His first words were soft but he gained strength as he went on. “I lied to you. I lied to myself. I deserve what I got. Okay? I admit it.” He finally faced her. “But I wasn’t lying when I told you I needed your help. I just had no idea how far along…I thought I could control Vandermark, but I never imagined…”

Quyron interrupted. “You’re too late. None of that matters now.” Her words were harsh and certain. “More lines are dying every day.
That’s
what’s happening. It has to be. It’s never been a communications problem; it’s always been the death of timelines. And whatever the cause is, it’s now spreading from line to line, and I don’t know how to stop it. Maybe no one does.”

“But it’s Neville. Don’t you see?” Everett said. “We have to stop him. I’m sure his jumps are what triggered this. If we can just find out where…”

Quyron bitterly cut him off. “
You
are what triggered this!” Everett’s mouth opened in shock as she unleashed her anger at him. “It was your mind, your ideas…your pride. You’re the one who found the genie in the bottle, and now you’ve helped Vandermark set him loose. You did it! You! So don’t tell me what we need to see or what we need to do! There isn’t any we! Understand?’’

Everett’s arms dropped limply to his sides. All the strength drained from his voice. “You’re right…of course. You have a knack for that; you always have. It’s what I admire in you.” He looked into the windshield at the rain bouncing in the headlights. “And it
is
my fault. I was wrong the whole way. I thought it would be a benefit; at the beginning, I really did. And it was. It was. But now…I see it for what it is.” Everett’s face filled with misery. “And I wish to God I’d gotten drunk and burned that thesis – it would have been a blessing.”

He continued to stare ahead. Quyron remained silent. A low roll of thunder sounded from directly above them as they stopped for a red light in a deserted intersection.

Leah leaned forward from the rear seat and delicately placed a hand on Quyron’s headrest. “Excuse me? It sounds like the world’s in an awful fix, even if I can’t understand much of it, but before everything ends, I’d just like to know why they kidnapped us? How do we matter?”

Quyron realized she’d nearly forgotten about the family in the backseat. “I’m sorry. It’s not…you. I mean, you’re not why – it’s your husband and son; something we discovered.”

Josh was sullen. “What’s so special about people like us?”

“It’s not even you exactly, it’s…it’s a long story.”

Kendall had heard enough. “If it explains why in the hell you’re not headin’ to the nearest police station, I better hear it – and I mean chapter and verse, lady, chapter and verse!”

Leah was taken aback. “Kendall, for goodness sake!”

“Look, I know she busted us outta jail, so I’ll cut her some slack, but her long story better be damn good.”

“Can we at least do it over some hot food?” Josh added. “I’m starvin’. And since nobody seems to know where we’re goin’, I figure any restaurant we come to is on the way, right?”

Quyron looked at the young man’s bright eyes in her mirror and couldn’t help but smile back, “Right.”
The world’s ending all around you and you’re actually thinking about how cute his eyes are? Give me a break!

* * *

“Continue on Willowbrook Road for point 3 miles to final destination.” The mechanical voice added an upward lilt to the final two words, as if it were excited on their behalf.

Kendall drove alongside a tall chain-link fence that reached to the edge of the road, enclosing a huge construction site. The vague walls of the regional hospital building loomed above them in the night, cloaked in pipe and wood scaffolding.

Josh craned his neck trying to see around the external elevator attached to the front skin of the hospital. “I don’t remember the ad sayin’ it was still under construction.”

They passed a main entry gate where a clump of watchmen drank coffee around a pickup. Josh noticed a handful of construction workers off to the side assembling a metal frame under work lights. Kendall continued on past the gate, following the curving road around the site, and finally turned off into a medical strip mall across from the hospital. He guided the Hummer around the back of the connected buildings to an empty staff parking lot beside a set of closed delivery doors.

Kendall parked, killed all the lights and turned off the engine. He sat quietly and listened to the hot metal ticking and clinking as it cooled. Distant work lights at the top of the hospital haloed through the windshield. Josh stared out at them. “Maybe the construction will make our job easier,” he offered, half-heartedly.

“Maybe.” Kendall released his seatbelt and tried to get comfortable in the high-tech seat. “We oughta sleep while we can. They still gotta be a coupla hours out from the city. And then they still have to follow us here. Hugh figured the quickest they might arrive lookin’ for us would be…four or five more hours, or so.”

Josh was listless. “Yeah, I guess.”

Kendall rotated his phone and slid out the tiny keypad. He laboriously typed a text message using his thumbnails.

“You textin’ Hugh?”

Kendall nodded. “Lettin’ him know we’re set up.” He pushed the send bar.

Josh looked thoughtful. “What’d you say at the end?”

“Whaddya mean? Nothin’. He knows who it’s from.”

“Not that. I mean…did you say goodbye? Or anything?”

Kendall peered at him. “No. Nothin’.” He called up the alarm app on his phone and fooled with it. “I’m settin’ this for four hours from now. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

Kendall set the phone on the console between them. Each settled into his private thoughts, sleep far away from either of them. Kendall watched the moonlit clouds as they streamed toward the west. Josh curled in his stiff seat and rested his head against the door. “You gonna call Mom?”

Kendall slowly pulled out of his reverie. “Thought about it. Decided not to.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know what to say. No way to explain what we’re doin’. And win or lose – she still loses.”

Josh sat unmoving and silent. His open eyes were unreadable before he closed them.

* * *

Vandermark worked at his multi-screen desk computer in an upper floor office. Tall windows filled the wall, and the glass streamed with rain as the large storm continued unabated. Distant lightning lit up the lower curves of the heavy clouds. Long seconds elapsed before the low sound of thunder rumbled.

Echo’s voice cheerfully dropped in from the ceiling. “Excuse me, Dr. Vandermark. The nanos have tracked the jumpers’ lines to Silver Spring.”

Vandermark seemed rattled. “Unbelievable. Where in Silver Spring?”

“Sub line quantities are highest around the Althea Woodland Nursing Home.”

“A nursing home?” He considered for a moment and then seemed relieved. “So, it could be just coincidence after all. Maybe we’re all worked up over nothing and they were just visiting an older relative. Do we know who they saw there?”

“Yes. Hugh Everett.”

“What!” Vandermark sat bolt upright in his chair. “Oh my God! How did they…? Where are they now?”

Echo’s voice remained unchanged. “We are tracking an unusual set of primes and sub lines leading out of the city.”

Vandermark’s screens came alive with a multi-colored series of grids and lines bracketed by columns of updating numbers. “Unusual?” He sounded skeptical as he studied the wavering lines. “In what way are they unusual?”

“It is not usual to have just two prime lines leading out. There are few, if any, branch lines.”

Vandermark tipped back in his chair and stared out the rain spattered windows, weighing his concern. “Few branches, no sub lines? How are they doing that?”

“They are acting without thinking – without any planning. There are few decision points. It is variation without conscious choice. I rarely see human lines proceed with such randomness.”

“Maybe they’re panicking.” He stood up and walked over to the windows. “Strange…but it should simplify things. It might even speed things up, right?”

“Yes. That is possible.”

“Do you have confidence in this data?”

“Data is data. We know where they were headed, and the moment they decide to stop, we will know where they are. I have confidence in that.”

“Good enough. Then we go right to them and finish this.” He turned back to his desk. “I’m feeling better. How long before Taylor and his team are back, and the truck?”

Vandermark’s screens opened new windows with arrival data. “Mr. Nsamba lands at the charter terminal in eleven minutes. At its present rate, the truck will arrive here in two hours, ten minutes, with an estimated variable of 5.3 minutes.”

* * *

The heavy rain streamed down the skin of the black and chrome tractor-trailer docked at
the Point
. The truck gleamed under high intensity warehouse lights as a steady flow of techs and engineers hurried from the covered dock into its now opened rear doors. Forklifts waited nearby with palletized supplies and replacement gear, the operators anxious to complete the loading. Out in the rain, truck mechanics balanced on ladders to dig into the engine, checking fluid levels and belt wear.

A sleek van with the Reivers Corporate logo swung in beside the outer stairs leading from the docks. Fargo, Sal, Vinnie, Rose and Kranzie popped out the door, each with backpacks or grips, and filed quickly down the steps to the vehicle. They were followed shortly by John and Will who seemed locked in an animated discussion as they too descended to the van.

Vandermark and Nsamba stood close together under a nearby dock canopy. The storm and the activity made it difficult to talk. “Echo says they’ve stopped,” Vandermark shouted. “They’re in Cumberland. She says she can bring us right to them.”

“How did she find them so quick?”

“Says their timelines were easy to track. Almost no branches. Just two primary lines leading us right to them.”

“Really?” Nsamba furrowed a brow. “That worries me.”

“Everything worries you. Get over it.” Vandermark noticed the truck mechanic give a thumbs-up to the driver. In turn, the driver waved at Vandermark, pointed to his wrist watch, and rotated his finger in the air. Vandermark nodded.

Nsamba waited until he turned back. “Did Song Lee talk to you about…her concerns?”

A gust suddenly swirled rain in under the canopy. Vandermark shielded his eyes. “Which ones? The range issue? The loss of signals to the lines? Or something new?”

Nsamba hunched against the wet wind. “Something new about the timelines…”

“She’s just like you; all she does is think up things to be concerned about.”

Nsamba’s face hardened. “Yeah. It’s probably nothing.” Behind him, the driver sprinted through the rain to scramble up into the cab. The mechanics closed and latched the engine access cover. “Where will you and Song Lee be?”

Vandermark smiled coldly. “I thought you already knew. We’ll be joining you. We’re driving up right behind the truck. Wouldn’t want to miss the finale.”

The final forklift scooted out the back of the truck and a couple of dockworkers shut and resealed the doors. The driver pulled on the air-horn. Nsamba waved that he was coming. “I heard we lost your…detainees.”

“I’ll deal with them later.”

“And what if they go to the authorities in the meantime?”

Vandermark had already started to walk away. “That’s the least of our worries. Get in the truck.”

* * *

The Featherby Family Grill & Spirits was just off a main road near Baltimore. It was an honest-to-goodness family owned place, and the Featherbys were proud of that distinction. The fare was tasty and the portions generous; exactly what Josh had hoped for when he suggested stopping there.

Quyron’s group sat virtually alone at a large table near the windows. It was obvious that they had been there awhile. They drank coffee while one of the Featherby family waitresses collected the dirty plates and headed glumly toward the kitchen.

Leah refilled her cup from a carafe. “What you’re both saying is that there’s no hope…unless we do something, right?”

Quyron shook her head. “No. I’m not sure it matters anymore whether we do something or not.”

A heavy peal of thunder rolled through the building and gently rattled the loose windows. Josh tapped a fingernail on the tabletop. “Well it matters to me. I want a shot at the bastards who attacked us and locked us up.”

“I’m with Josh,” Kendall said. “We gotta hit back. And if we end up savin’ the multi-whatever, fine. And if not…oh well.”

Quyron used both hands to hold her coffee cup poised at her lips while she looked around at the earnest faces, bemused.

Everett smirked. “I know what you’re thinking. But maybe it’s time to forget the big picture.”

“That’s funny, coming from you.”

“I just think we should strike back where we can. We can’t just roll over.”

Quyron smiled tiredly. “Did I say, roll over?”

“You know what I mean. Fine, we can’t stop everything, but we can stop Vandermark. You willing to give it a go, even with an arrogant old man?”

“Me? I’m the one who broke you out of jail, remember? She put the cup down and stared intently at Everett. “Sure, what the hell. How do we find him?”

Everett’s eyes got brighter as he considered the problem. “Well, we know who he’s after, so if we can find the jumpers, that’s where he’ll be.”

Kendall folded his arms, unimpressed. “Great. How do we find the jumpers?”

“That’s not so much a
how
question,” Everett replied. “It’s more a
who can tell us
question.”