Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) (27 page)

“Were?”

“General Alvarez and his men . . .” Kleezebee said in a matter-of-fact way.

“Right. Right. So, what do you need from me?”

“We need you to repair the suit.”

“Me?”

Kleezebee nodded.

“I need it working to contact my people back home—in the future,” Lucas said, handing the Google Glasses to Griffith. “We’ll also need to figure out how to recharge the power core in this communications device.”

Griffith studied the glasses. “This looks like a—”

“Google Glass Device. Several generations from now, though, the name is changed to Google Glasses after a relaunch. I think the rebranding effort stems from the fact that the nickname, glasshole, catches on, referring to anyone wearing the controversial tech in public.”

“I see,” Griffith said, giving the device to Lucas. “But I can’t fabricate the missing material, not without full manufacturing specs, if it’s even possible with today’s technology.”

“We’ve got that covered. Bruno’s on his way down with the sample from my office.”

“Excellent. I’ll need my original analysis as well.”

“It’s in the same envelope.”

“Can you patch it?” Lucas asked.

“Possibly. It’ll take some time to do,” Griffith answered, then looked at Kleezebee. “I should probably mention that Mr. Larson was here earlier.”

“What did that weasel dick want?”

Masago laughed, looking surprised at the professor’s colorful choice of words.

“He had a sample of the X-graphite. A different sample, and wanted it analyzed.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him no; not without proper authorization. He got violent with me when I told him to leave. Then he threatened my wife. He had no right, I say. No right.”

“What a douche,” Lucas said, turning to Kleezebee. “And you wonder why my mini-me punched him.”

“You struck him?” Davies said. “I mean, the other you?”

“Decked his ass, from what I hear.”

Griffith threw a pair of fake punches in the air. He smiled. “That must have felt empowering . . . and satisfying.”

“I wouldn’t know. Though, I did get to crack his head open with a fire extinguisher in a previous timeline.”

“How many times have you lived this day?”

“This is number two.”

“Interesting. So you have cognitive retention across incursions?”

Lucas nodded.

A triple knock rang out from the lab door. Everyone turned.

“Bruno?” Lucas asked, waiting to see who came through the door. The door didn’t open. “Why would he wait? He has a master access card, right?”

“He wouldn’t. He’d come straight through. I told him it was urgent,” Kleezebee responded, looking at Griffith.

Griffith adjusted his glasses, pushing them up his nose. “It might be Lucas—the other Lucas, returning my hand truck. He borrowed it earlier.”

Lucas pinched his eyebrows. “Already? That wasn’t supposed to happen yet.”

“He can’t see you,” Kleezebee told Lucas.

Lucas ducked behind one of Griffith’s lab stations, taking Masago down with him.

“I’ll get rid of him,” Griffith said, walking to the door.

Bald Lucas put his smooth head against the door of the holding cell in the Micro Matter facility, pressing his ear against the cold, transparent surface. He couldn’t hear any sounds reverberating through the walls from outside. Starling had left him there, alone in the cell, to die of starvation. Wait, scratch that, he told himself. Dehydration would happen first. Two days, if he chose not to drink his own piss. Three or four days max, otherwise.

First there would be extreme thirst, then dry mouth followed by sticky saliva. He’d begin to feel faint and unable to stand or sit. Severe cramping would overwhelm his gut and spread to his arms and legs as the sodium and potassium in his system rose to critical levels, unable to be flushed from his body due to the massive fluid drop. His lips and skin would wither and crack, and his tongue would swell to the size of an avocado. He’d start dry heaving when his stomach and intestines ran dry, leaving him in severe pain and unable to cry a single tear.

Then, the endless nose bleed would start as his mucous membranes dried out and cracked open. Finally, his brain would shrink and seize from a lack of water, sending him into a coma with intense convulsions as his metabolic processes broke down. When death arrived, it would be served with a major heart arrhythmia and the dark aftermath.

The lights across the floor flickered for a moment, then blinked out, plunging the holding cells into darkness. He heard a two-second squeak of metal, telling him the door leading into the security area had just opened, probably a few inches by the sound of it. He tried to detect movement through the blackness but couldn’t see anything.

“Hello?” he said, waiting for someone to answer him back. There was no response. “Starling, is that you?”

The emergency lighting system kicked on in the hallway beyond the door, providing a halo of red-colored light. He squinted, checking to see if anyone appeared. No one did. The door moved again, opening wider with the slow screech of its complaining hinges. Lucas took a step back from the containment glass.

A figure jumped through the opening and crouched inside, like a commando entering an unsecured room. The light from the hallway backlit the person, showing a silhouette.

Lucas couldn’t see the person’s face, but the visitor was short and wiry. Possibly a teenager. The figure’s head turned from side to side, revealing shoulder-length hair, the distinct outline of a gas mask, and something jutting out from the area around the eyes. Lucas thought it was a woman wearing night vision goggles. Maybe five-foot-four inches tall, carrying something in one hand. Lucas swallowed and stayed silent.

The shadow took a step forward, checked its wrist, removed the goggles and gas mask, then stopped again, remaining in a squat. A dim light appeared in the person’s hand. It was an LCD screen on a device. Lucas caught a glimpse of the stranger’s face. It wasn’t a woman or teenager. It was a man. Wrinkled and aged. Asian, with long, stringy black hair that desperately needed to spend an hour with a brush.

The man ran to Lucas’ cell and spoke. “What are you waiting for?”

“Huh?” Lucas said, rubbing his baldness out of habit. “Who the hell are you?”

“Where are the others?”

“What others? Look around, do you see anyone else?”

“You’re a Ramsay, right? Part of the insurgents. Where are the others? There’s not much time.”

“As I said, I’m here alone. They killed the others. Tortured them first, and made me watch them die. Who are you?”

“You’ll have to do, then,” the man said, taking something from his pocket. It was a tall, slender container, maybe half an inch in diameter and three inches tall. He popped its lid off, showing a button trigger at the top. He brought the canister up and aimed it forward at the upper right edge of the door, pressing the trigger button to release the contents. After coating the first hinge, he moved to the other hinges.

The man stepped back when the trio of hinges began to smolder red and then melt in long drips of smoking material. Seconds later, the door’s weight took over and broke itself free, sending it crashing to the ground. It toppled inward, landing at Lucas’ feet.

“Are you just going to stand there?” the short man asked.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who the hell you are and what you want from me.”

“I’m Riku. I’m here to rescue you.”

“Who sent you?”

“We don’t have time for this. We need to leave. Now!”

Lucas didn’t move.

“Look, I took a huge risk coming down here. It won’t be long before they realize someone cut the power and gassed the guards. Do you want to get out of here or not?”

Lucas stepped on the severed door and walking across its surface. “Why are you helping me?”

Riku grabbed Lucas by the arm and dragged him forward.

Lucas didn’t like being manhandled and reacted, jerking his arm away.

Riku turned, craning his neck to make eye contact. “The soldiers are going to recover soon and we need to be gone.”

“Recover from what?”

“A little something I cooked up in the lab when they weren’t hovering over me, watching my every move.”

“Aerosol gas?”

Riku smiled.

“What is it with you people?” Lucas asked, not expecting an answer. He decided to deck the guy and get away on his own. He raised his fist and was about to strike, but Riku stepped back with both hands up and away from his body.

Lucas stopped his punch. He didn’t know why, but he did. There was something in Riku’s expression—a calmness. No, that’s not right. It was something else. Sincerity.

Riku’s voice was smooth and controlled. “I’m not one of them. I’m a prisoner and a scientist, like you. I’ve been held against my will for two years, forced to work on Starling’s tactical projects. The distraction of your capture gave me the opportunity to launch my escape plan. I was hoping there’d be more than one of you remaining, but it is what it is. I’ll answer all your questions, but first we need to get moving. Can we do that?”

Lucas nodded, sensing Riku spoke the truth. He took a step forward as Riku turned and ran through the door. Lucas followed, struggling to keep pace with the old man. Riku was fast, damn fast, leading Lucas down the first hallway.

Riku stopped at the first corner and leaned around the wall, the looked back. “All clear,” he whispered.

“What about the gas?”

“In an air-controlled environment like this, its effect dissipates in just under seven minutes. We’re safe. Try not to step on anyone. We don’t need them regaining consciousness before we make our escape. I’d like to make it home to my family in one piece,” Riku said, leading the way through the next corridor. This time, he moved slower, with his back against the wall, making it easier for Lucas to keep up. Riku stepped over two bodies lying close to the wall.

“A prisoner for two years?” Lucas asked in a soft voice, running through the facts he’d just heard. “Any kids?”

“Yeah. A boy and girl. They must think I ran off or I’m dead by now,” Riku answered, working his way in and out of the light emanating from a series of emergency lights mounted along the walls. “The future rarely holds true. Not when actions are predicated on lies from the past.”

Lucas let the tiny man’s words ferment in his thoughts, hoping they’d come together and make sense as seconds flew by, but they didn’t. Just more random insanity from an ever-growing list of nut jobs.

He wondered how Riku knew about the other copies, then his mind shifted and replayed the string of odd comments Starling had made earlier. His statements about overestimating the number of holding cells needed and telling him about the rubber spray of red and his destiny in opposition.

At the time, he thought it was pure gibberish, but now he was starting to wonder if it was some type of prognostication. Everything about Starling and his choice of words was more than a little off. His beard. The hat. The glasses. His mannerisms. The phrases he used. The inconsistent limp.

The lies of the past? The future rarely holds true?

Riku’s comments brought in new revelation. He was now starting to think Starling knew the Lucas copies were coming to breach the facility and he’d been waiting for the event to happen, trying to keep a low profile for some reason. It was also possible that Starling knew the copies were about to arrive on the mountaintop and had alerted Alvarez, which is why the gunships showed up almost immediately upon the group’s arrival.

He stayed low behind Riku and took a couple deep breaths while he worked through the rest of it in his head. Hundreds of copies of the same person had been yanked to this universe, each with slightly different histories and physical characteristics, though he didn’t get a chance to verify many of their backgrounds, not before this timeline’s version of General Alvarez had opened fire and butchered most of them.

Yet, despite all the copies of himself, he was the only copy who was bald. A genetic anomaly? Or was it something else? He didn’t know, but at least he had all his body parts and his youth. He couldn’t say the same thing about some of the others that shared his DNA across space-time, though history had changed each of them to fit its undisclosed purpose.

The copy he’d seen standing alone in front of the group wearing the extra eye tech was most likely responsible for bringing them here, to this place and time. Made sense, he thought—the tech. That’s the piece he needed. If it brought them all here, then maybe it could send them all home, too. He just needed to find that version of himself, assuming he was still alive. He decided to call the man Lucas Prime. The one responsible for everything.

Then Lucas remembered the copy of himself that had been yanked away moments before the helicopters started gunning them all down.
That’s it,
he told himself as an idea came unbidden into his thoughts.
The copy pulled into the sky—he must have been yanked back in time.
Suddenly, all the pieces lined up.

“Starling’s one of us. A Lucas, I mean. The one that disappeared when we first arrived.”

“So, that’s when it happened,” Riku said in a matter-of-fact way.

“That’s how he knew. He was sent back in time. Right?”

Riku nodded. “I knew you’d put it together, eventually. The universe is correcting itself, realigning events and redeploying matter to compensate.”

“How do you know all this?”

“It’s called investigative research. You remember what that is, right?”

“Yeah. But that still doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t let General Alvarez finish me off. Why torture and kill everyone but me?”

“I wasn’t sure, either. However, now that we know when Starling was sent back, we can extrapolate from there and try to determine his end game.”

Lucas agreed. “If we’re correct, then all Starling knows is we arrive as a group on the mountain, then he goes back. Anything after that moment in time would be undiscovered territory to him.”

“It’s pretty clear. He wants you alive.”

“Or, he had a change of heart.”

“I doubt compassion or guilt is part of his DNA.”