Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) (14 page)

But what if his boss didn’t know squat and he left town for the wrong reason? He’d certainly be fired and lose his pension, all for nothing.

Then he thought about the five hundred grand waiting for him in the morning. He couldn’t pass up the bounty. Besides, he was much smarter than everyone else, so there was no chance he’d missed anything.

They can’t possibly know shit. It must be something else
.

He drove the car back onto Broadway and stomped on the gas pedal, heading toward campus.

Lucas rubbed his sore knee, trying to determine if its flexibility was getting better or worse. He wrapped a palm and three fingers around the swollen kneecap to measure its circumference. It was the size of a grapefruit, same as before. Based on her claims and the lessening pain, he thought it should’ve been smaller by now. However, all the walking and bending probably wasn’t helping with the healing process. Time to sit on a three-foot-tall rock and take a break, he decided.

He studied the terrain along the side of the mountain, wondering how Masago was doing in her search. He’d lost track of her position fifteen minutes earlier when she’d climbed past the sheer rock face near the midpoint. He was amazed at how quickly she’d traversed the mountain, taking very little time to select her path and work her way to the first mini-plateau. She was definitely one of those girls who thrived on adrenaline, rising to meet any challenge head-on.

In a different life, he imagined her as a fighter pilot—high speed, low drag—dedicated to the mission and to her teammates. She may have been limited in size, weighing in at a hundred pounds dripping wet, but her fortitude and never-say-die attitude more than made up for her lack of stature. If he had to sum her up in one word, it would be
survivor
. Or maybe
deadly warrior
was better. Okay, both defined who and what she was, so why quibble?

Other people, especially those who might never have taken the time to get to know her, might’ve prejudged her, labeling her as wacko or demented. While he could see their point, he could sense she was much more than a flamboyant recluse. There was definitely something stirring just beneath her facade. Something genuine and pure, driving her to be more than she was.

His mind drifted to the moments just before she’d started her climb, replaying the words he’d said in anger. They were harsh and vengeful, each one barbed and meant to hurt. He wasn’t sure why his lips let them out. She didn’t deserve it. It was almost as if—

A whirling sound broke him out of the daydream. It was coming from above and rising in volume. A single beat later, a thud landed next to him. He turned. It was Masago, grinning from ear to ear.

“Did you miss me?” she said, unhooking the climbing rope from her harness. She took her gloves off and flexed each finger.

“Holy shit!” he said, peering up. The rope was dangling from somewhere near the top of the rocky slope.

“Fast roping is my second-favorite thing. I’m tempted to climb back up and do it again. You should try it sometime.”

“No thanks, I’ll pass. I’m not a big fan of heights. Or terminal velocity, for that matter.”

“Okay, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I’m a scientist, remember? I prefer to have my feet planted firmly on the ground at all times.”

“Lucas. Sweetie. You need to step out of your comfort zone once in a while and try something new. You know, get that heart pumping. It’s good for ya.”

He nodded, wanting to get something off his chest. “Look, I’m sorry about how I acted earlier. I was way out of line when I snapped at you for no reason. You didn’t deserve that. Sometimes my mouth gets the better of me. I wish I could blame it on growing up in foster homes, but the truth is, I can be an asshole at times. I don’t know why. It just sort of happens. It’s something I’m working on to better myself, but I’m afraid I’m still a work in progress.”

“Already forgotten,” she said, giving him a firm hug and a peck on the cheek. “Guess what I found?”

He smiled. “Seriously?”

She gave him the Google Glasses. “Someone must be looking out for you.”

“Why would you say that?”

“It was just dumb luck I found them. I sat on a rock to clear a few pebbles from my shoe when I happened to glance at the base of a scrub oak. Something reflected and caught my eye from underneath. I stuck my hand in and found them.”

“Where?”

“Thirty feet from the top. You must have dropped them as soon as you went over the edge. They probably bounced around and got wedged under the branches.”

“I can’t believe they were still there,” he said, thinking of the machine guns tearing apart the plateau. “Alvarez and his men must have scoured the place after the slaughter, looking for clues.”

She leaned in toward the glasses, inspecting the device more closely. “Those would’ve been easy to miss. If I hadn’t been sitting precisely where I was with the sun at my back, and at that exact time of day, I would’ve never seen the reflection. It was a million-to-one shot I found ’em. Seriously.”

“You’re right. Dumb luck.”

“But that’s not all I found.”

“You went up top, didn’t you?”

She nodded furiously, like a six-year-old waiting for a freshly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies. “There were blood stains buried in the dirt. Someone tried to cover them up, but did a crappy job. Probably in a hurry.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“Damn.”

“Expecting something else?”

“I was hoping for a few body parts lying around.”

“Why? To gross me out?”

“No, so you’d believe me.”

“Of course I believe you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be helping you right now,” she said with a tense look on her face. “Don’t forget, I gave up my way of life for you. I gave up my home and all my possessions for you. I gave up any chance of ever seeing my father again, just for you. So, yes. I believe you. How can you possibly doubt that? Not after all we’ve been through.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right,” he said, fiddling with the glasses. He checked the structural integrity of the frame, sensors, and technology. Everything appeared to be intact. He put the glasses on, hoping to activate the optics, but the heads-up display didn’t power on.

“That figures,” he said, taking the glasses off to inspect the unit.

“What’s wrong?”

He opened the battery compartment. The electrochemical graphene cell was full of fluid, but its color had faded into a murky white. It should’ve been a bright-yellow color.

“Battery’s dead. Bouncing around on the rocks must have caused the internal sulfur-based cooling system to malfunction, draining the energy core.”

“Can you recharge it?”

“Not sure. This technology hasn’t been invented yet. Not for another four hundred years. Give or take.”

“Then how are you going to communicate with your friends?”

“I can’t,” he said, thinking through his options. They were dwindling. “I might be stuck here for good.”

She gave him another hug, this time wrapping herself around his arm, lingering a bit before she let go. “That’s not all terrible, is it?”

“No, but I have a mission to complete. A lot of people are counting on me. More than you could ever imagine.”

“You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out.”

He wanted to tell her about the massive energy domes that would soon appear in Tucson and spread across the globe, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Not when his younger self was responsible. At least he knew when and where they would appear. He could keep Masago out of the path of destruction until he could figure out a way to fix the glasses and travel back to an earlier date in history. Then he should be able to fix the timeline so everyone who was about to die, wouldn’t. He just needed to stay the course and get the glasses working—and the suit repaired. No reason to complicate things with the whole truth.

“I suppose I might be able to fabricate something. If I had the proper tools and equipment.”

“I’m sure there are several places in town that have what you need. My father left me a sizable emergency fund. I’m thinking it’s time for a little power shopping. What do ya think?”

“Thanks for the offer, but I can’t let you do that. What I need is very expensive. It would drain your account. Your father left the money for you, not me.”

“I don’t mind, really. The stash isn’t far. I can take you to it.”

“Stash?”

“Yeah. A hidden stash. What where you expecting? A bank account? My father didn’t trust the banks. Neither do I.’

“Can’t blame you there,” Lucas said when a vision of the professor popped into his brain. “There’s another choice. But I was hoping to avoid contact with him.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Kleezebee. My boss who lives on campus.”

“The University of Arizona? Or Pima Community?”

“U of A. He’s the dean of the Astrophysics Department. At least he used to be, assuming my incursion hasn’t altered the timeline around that fact.”

“What are the odds of that?”

“Small, probably. Then again, when I first arrived and could still communicate with Fuji, he mentioned the possibility of ripples of time flowing backward. If that’s true, there’s no telling what’s changed. But I have to believe, even if there were changes in both directions along the timeline, Kleezebee must still be involved and in charge. His presence is too important and too prominent in this slice of space-time.”

“See, even you have faith.”

“Well, faith in science. Not the other stuff.”

“That’s a start.”

“If you say so.”

“I’m guessing all the extra Lucas copies didn’t help the timeline, either.”

“No, certainly not. It might be beyond repair already.”

“But we still have to try, right?”

“We?”

“Yeah, we. I’m in this now. To the end.”

Lucas didn’t know how to respond. It would be better if she didn’t tag along, but the more he got to know her, the more he realized she was one headstrong chick. Smoking hot, but stubborn.

As far as his own history was concerned, she wasn’t supposed to be directly involved in this timeline, not during its previous iteration.

He took a few seconds to evaluate all that had happened, trying to calculate possible near-future outcomes. But he couldn’t focus his thoughts enough to find a solution. Not with her standing there watching him.

Her gaze penetrated his defenses, reaching deep into his soul, exposing who he really was—a shallow, weak-minded man whose emotions lurked just beneath the surface, ready to take control away from his logic, sending him down a path of self-destruction and self-doubt. He wasn’t sure what to do—a common theme lately.

What if he made the wrong decision and even more people died this time around than previously? The ripple effects of everything he’d done since arriving and everything he was about to do would have lasting consequences, especially now. He’d missed the chance for a simple meet and greet with his former self to nudge history along a different path, or to stop himself from running the experiment altogether. Changes to the timeline would’ve been much easier to control if he could’ve just popped in, made a small change, then popped out. All hope for a simple reversion was shredded, along with the Lucas copies, when Alvarez opened fire.

Looking at Masago and thinking about his life up until now made him miss Drew more than ever. Sure, there was a younger Drew running around this timeline somewhere, but he needed his version of Drew—the one who’d been at his side since the beginning. The one person he trusted more than anyone else.

Making solo decisions was not his strong suit and he knew it. He was better in a group setting, where he had the support of others. The support of people with more conviction than him, like Drew—and Masago—hell, just about anyone else. It’s not easy making choices when your failure rate runs high, haunting you from the shadows.

“Lucas? Did you hear what I said? I’m in this now. To the end.”

“Yes, sorry. I got lost in my head for a second.” He gave her a firm ten-second hug, then let go. “Thank you. Thank you for everything. I can’t do this alone. Especially not with this knee.”

“How’s it feel? Any better?”

“Maybe,” he said, flexing the leg. It was improving. “Hard to tell for sure, but I think so.”

“We should go see your boss: Professor What’s His Name.”

“Professor Kleezebee. But I’m worried once he learns of my presence here, it’ll further contaminate the timeline.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Eventually, all these changes will have a compounding effect. If they reach critical mass, I won’t know what’s coming next.”

“Doesn’t sound like we have much of a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. I could choose to do nothing.”

“Then your mission fails.”

He shrugged. “Then I guess it fails.”

“How can you just give up like that?”

Lucas shrugged. He knew there was no right choice. It was all just a guess.

Masago slapped him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “My father used to preach to me that inaction breeds failure. He believed that in order to succeed in life, we have to act, not react. Otherwise, we have no hope of ever getting ahead.”

“So what’s your point?”

“There has to be a way. We just have to find it,” she said in a firm tone. “No—I’m not going to let you quit. You’re a better man than that.”

“At least you believe in me,” he said, running his fingers through his short-cropped hair, thinking about Drew and his mother. They were alive in this time period, but there was a high probability their fates were still on a collision course with horrible, untimely deaths.

Part of him wanted to abandon everything and go see his mother before the Krellian energy domes appeared. His heart longed to hear her voice one more time. To get a tender hug and peck on the cheek. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t—Masago was right. He had to try to complete his mission while there was still time. First up, get the glasses working and repair the suit. Then, travel back to an earlier date. Otherwise, his mother’s death, and everyone else’s, would become permanent.