Tourists of the Apocalypse (27 page)

“Izzy talked about you a lot.”

“How did you kids meet?” he asks suspiciously, moving a finger between us.

“Dylan saved my life,” she croons, putting both arms around my neck and dangling there. “If he hadn’t picked me up I don’t know what would have happened.”

He studies us and just when I think the jig is up he smiles.

“I’m glad you two made it back,” he remarks in an insincere tone, stepping back toward the chopper. “You’re a trauma surgeon?”

“In another life. I was working as a nurse in the E.R. when the world ended.”

“I think we can use someone with your skill set if you’re interested in staying,” he proposes, eyeing me as he does.

“I am,” she exclaims, letting one hand fall down my stomach. “Anything to stay next to this guy.”

“I think we can work with that,” Lance nods, turning to get in the chopper.

The blades start turning and we back up to a safe distance, the wind ruffling my hair. Dickey heads back to his house and we wait for the chopper to take off in hopes of getting Izzy alone. Before this happens, she jogs across the lawn and Lance reaches down to pull her up by her good hand. She turns and I see her face in the window as the wind from the chopper blows me back a bit.
I show up and he takes her elsewhere
. Fitz wraps her arms around me from behind as the chopper flies off.

I shrug my shadow off once the chopper is out of sight and head for my own house. My mother is doing laundry downstairs when I get there. I storm up the stairs to my room, but can hear Fitz following me. She confronts me, in my room, slamming the door behind her.

“Enough,” I whine. “She’s gone, leave me be.”

“It’s not just Lance you have to fool,” she warns. “Those other guys are watching. I know you’re hurting, but just let me tag along and look pretty. You’re a grenade without a pin anyway. Without me he’d have killed you already.”

“Why do you care what happens to me?” I whine. “Sounds like Caesar already has a place for you in his Empire.”

“You saved my butt,” she answers softly, sitting down on the bed and pulling me down next to her. “Izzy loves you and I promised to keep you from going off the rails. I intend to honor that promise.”

“Sorry, I know you mean well.”

“So this is it,” she wonders after a long silent pause. “A double bed and a desk chair?”

“Yeah, I haven’t lived here since high school.”

“Izzy said this wouldn’t be a problem,” she remarks, patting her hand on the bed.

“Not as long as you don’t try and take advantage of me.”

“That’s a lot to ask,” she snickers, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

She hugs me and then goes downstairs to talk to my mother, who everyone but me calls Missy. I lay back on the bed, putting my hands behind my head.
I wonder where Izzy and Lance went.
Before I can dwell on this topic, there is a knock on the door frame.

“Long time no see kid,” Graham’s gravelly voice washes across the room.

“Yeah,” I agree without looking over. “Rumor has it you and Lance had a falling out.”

“He doesn’t like it when people disobey his edicts.”

“Seems like you handed out a few yourself,” I chuckle, “last time I was here.”

“That was more worldly advice than chiseled in stone,” he argues, limping into the room and sitting backwards on the desk chair.

When I prop myself up on my elbows the vison of Graham is eerie. His nose appears broken and both eyes are black and swollen. He’s sitting with one shoulder lower than the other cradling an immobile arm across his chest. The hand on that arm is buried in an ace wrap with only the tip of his thumb sticking out. He tries to smile, but the center of his lower lip is split and the scab makes it difficult.

“Someone got their ass kicked.”

“It was worth it,” he coughs, licking something that may be blood off his lips.

“You mean Violet was worth it.”

“She is worth it. You’d have done the same.”

“But I’m not the
Fail Safe
,” I needle him hoping for some clarity on that issue.

“Apparently in Lance’s rulebook the leaving thing was a hard rule, not a guideline.”

“How is Violet?”

“A white hot mess,” he chuckles. “But she’s alive and safe.”

“How’d you find her? Did she have a magic phone?” I ask, recalling Dickey found me using Izzy’s.

“Nope, she was at the flower shop. Two days passed before I couldn’t stand it anymore and went after her. By then, the city was starting to turn ugly. Poor thing was huddled on the floor in the backroom. She was in Zombie mode and wouldn’t speak, clutching a pair of shears they use to cut flowers.”

“She had it bad?”

“Not as bad as the two dead guys covered in stab marks lying on either side of her,” he describes. “Poor thing tried to kill me until I got her calmed down.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“All prostitutes at one time or another have a rough john. In her case, she spent her teenage years fighting off an overly loving stepfather as well. I think she knew these guys from hooking and when the world turned upside down they came by for a freebie.”

“She snapped?”

“She won’t say, but she’s a walking bruise with a broken cheekbone. Whatever happened was rough.”

“And now?”

“She’s downstairs talking to Missy pretending it never happened. Another thing about prostitutes is they can compartmentalize like crazy.”

“I’m glad you brought her here,” I assure him. “I like her. Anything I can do to help her just let me know.”

“Seems like you got your own stray,” he remarks, raising an eyebrow then wincing. “Looks like the two of you are awful cozy.”

“Oh, oh, yeah,” I stutter. “She’s great.”

“That’s a crock,” he shakes his head dismissively. “She’s pretending to keep Lance from killing you. You and Izzy are together aren’t you? The surgeon’s just a beard.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah, and you better start pretending to love the red head quick. You’re going to need to make it look good if you want to survive long enough to figure out the Izzy thing.”

“You’re not just going to tell me to stay away.”

“How’d that advice go over the first time I tried it?”

We both smile. It’s always been clear Graham has no great loyalty to Lance, but now it feels like he’s on my side. There was a time when I thought he had a thing for Izzy and was driving me away for selfish reasons. It’s clear now he’s all-in with Violet. The beating he took can only be explained by love.
I wonder when my beating will happen.

“So I assume Izzy told you?”

“About what? The baloney about being time-travel tour guides?”

“Tour guides,” he snorts. “That’s a novel definition.”

“If that’s not what it is please enlighten me,” I press him, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

He eyes me suspiciously then the bluster seems to bleed out of him.

“Five centuries from now things are a lot different. People of means are looking for entertainment. My employers figured out a way to give it to them.”

“Your employers?”

“Talus Corporation,” he reveals.

“Izzy told me they pay by lifting your relatives out of poverty?”

“Yes in some cases,” he nods. “In my case, it was my wife, but everyone has a unique story.”

“I’ve been thinking about the money since she told me. How can you know if they keep their end of the bargain?”

“Cynical much,” he rolls his eyes and then pauses. “I’ve been with this program from the early days. They pay as promised.”

“So you just said goodbye to your wife and bailed for the past?”

“We hadn’t been together in a long time. I wanted something better for my kids, so I volunteered.”

“What’s the deal with this
Fail Safe
designation? Why are you any different from the others?”

“That my friend will depend on how much she told you.”

“Izzy said when someone comes back it forms a new time line. No one can return and no one can come here. You can’t affect the timeline you came from and you still have a decent idea about what’s going to happen next. A cheat sheet so to speak.”

“That pretty much covers it. The process is like dialing a phone number. This point in time has its own numerical location. The kicker is that once you dial it, the number changes. Using the phrase
new timeline
makes it easy to understand, but it’s more about what quantum physics dictates. All we do is create a huge pulse of energy and the Universe does the rest.”

“The Inversion Reactor?”

“Wow, you must have spent more time taking notes than getting naked,” he chuckles.

“Plenty of both, but you were talking about the
Fail Safe
.”

“Right, well eight of us came back. A client who pays the bills.”

“Mr. Dibble,” I interrupt.

“Yes, plus five support people and a team leader.”

“Lance, Izzy, Blister, Cain and Able,” I list off. “But if that’s the case, who are you?”

“I’m the corporate insurance policy,” he spells out. “If the deal goes sour back here, I return to the future and tell them what went wrong. Then when they, and by that I mean me, gets sent back here they already know what to avoid.”

“But you can’t go back,” I point out. “You both said there are no return trips.”

“Technically that’s true, but I carry some additional equipment,” he goes on. “Inside my belly is a power supply and an encryption device. When I came through it strung a tether back to the original timeline.”

“So there is a way back?”

“No Dylan, pay closer attention. Everyone comes through what is basically a hole that opens up. They fall through and the hole slams shut behind them. My
gut pack
is coded to the machine back home. The hole opens, I fall through, but I’m hanging by a string. It’s like when you put a fishing line on a quarter and pull it in and out of a vending machine to get free stuff. If my power unit gets switched off, I get sucked back.”

“Gut pack?”

He struggles to his feet and pulls up the left side of his shirt. There’s a huge red scar shaped like a J-hook. Next to it is a tattoo that looks like a bar code.

“It’s not too big,” he explains, running a finger down the scar. “They slip it in between the muscle here. There’s a wire that runs up my chest and monitors my pulse. If my heart stops before the pack runs out of juice I go back automatically.”

“What’s the point of going back dead? You can’t tell them anything if you’re a corpse.”

“Well if I am full of bullet holes for instance, they can check the counter on my unit and know when things went sideways,” he explains. “Or I can sever the connection manually, causing me to get pulled back deliberately.”

“And you can survive the bungie jump?”

“Sort of,” he sighs. “On the way here we are in a shielded capsule. This protects us from a barrage of cosmic waves and enough radiation to turn you into a glow stick. One the way back, you’re basically a human bullet. No protection from any of that.”

“Sounds like a grim end.”

“Medicine is better on that end, but yeah, it sucks. I witnessed a guy landing in the
Catch Room
once,” he winces. Hair scorched off, skin burned and heart stopped cold.”

“Heart stopped?”

“When you cross over you pass through the
Bridge
.”

“The what?”

“
Einstein-Rosen-Bridge,”
he repeats slowly. “It’s basically a wormhole. If you come here or go there you arrive dead.”

“But you’re all here now,” I point out. “And you’re all breathing.”

“They put a portable defibrillator inside us. It’s hardened like a military radio. When we hit this side it goes off and brings everyone back. They only work that one time and we remove them later.”

“And you have one for the ride back?”

“No, when I arrive, there has to be someone waiting to shock me. The system is set so I arrive exactly thirty minutes before the team goes through. There’s a room in the facility that’s prepared to receive the
Fails Safe
.”

“The
Catch Room
,” I offer, recalling this term from earlier.

“Yeah, but there isn’t always a
Fail Safe
arrival. If I survive twenty years, the string fades and if I die after that time nothing happens.”

“What a crappy job. Why would anyone sign up for that?”

“Why does anyone do anything,” he chuckles, but winces. “Money.”

“You’re insane,” I groan. “Certifiably so I might add.”

There is a knock and Violet stands in the hall just outside the doorway. She’s wearing tight leggings and an oversized blouse. She’s older and more full-figured now, but still very pretty. One side of her face is swollen to the point that one eye is shut completely. She forces a smile and gives me a parade wave. Emotion washes over me and I stand up and rush over to her.

“Thank God you’re alright,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her gently hugging.

“Thank you,” she gasps, seeming surprised at the hug.

When I let go Graham has risen and joined us, putting a hand on the door to balance. Violet puts her shoulder under his arm and props him up in a loving way that shows she feels the same way about him as he does about her.

“So the answer to your question is no, there’s no way back,” he mutters. “But Izzy’s here so you don’t need to go anywhere.”

“She know about the tour guide thing?” I whisper, nodding at Violet.

She winks at me and nods, then starts helping him down the stairs. He got up here by himself, but it looks like he can use the help. When he gets to the bottom he turns and sighs.

“Remember what I said kid. Get cozy with
Red
and avoid you know who,” he warns me. “Everyone will live longer that way.”

“Kind of dramatic Graham,” I shout from the top step.

“It’s good advice. You should take it,” he bellyaches, waving a hand over his head as he slips out the door.

My mother appears wearing a wide smile. I come down and we share a hug and chat about my adventure. She has no inkling about time-travelers or
Fail Safes
. Talking to her is refreshing.
It’s like the world hasn’t gone mad.