by Deen Ferrell
Sam’s head came up with a quick snap. H.S. was approaching from a far corner of the pier. He held two steaming cups in his hands. Most likely, it was fresh brewed coffee from his private store of exotic beans. The man would probably sip from both cups before climbing aboard and offer the one he least favored to Sam. He walked with the air of an earl, ready to graciously bestow a fiefdom on some unsuspecting courtier. When they first met, Sam had sensed nobility in the man. His theories had seemed pure madness, and the amount of funding he asked for was enough to run a fair-sized country, but if even a fraction of the technology actually worked…
He could never have guessed how successful his collaboration with H.S. would become. After a demonstration of the first observation site, he knew. He had stumbled upon secrets that any group in the world would fight to control. If he chose, the wealth of the world could be at his feet. People would lie for their secrets, steal for them, and yes, unrepentantly kill for them. He had no illusions about their precarious position. So, he had been careful, ever so careful. He helped the professor drop out of sight, his papers and theories conveniently disappearing. As for himself, the billionaire socialite became a haunted and tormented hermit. He kept himself apart from the world of men, allowing Sam, the chauffeur, to be born. Of course, that was only the beginning. He set up an obscure umbrella corporation. All the new company’s dealings were funneled through a labyrinth of foreign shell companies. He set up a pseudo headquarters in Japan. His Asian Board of Directors had never actually met him. All company business was conducted by conference call or email. Every plan was laid down in layers, with considerable smoke and mirrors and never a smoking gun.
Not even Sydney suspected that Sam, the chauffeur, was her father’s senior partner. How could a mere chauffeur control one of the shrewdest men in all of Asia—a legend among the Tokyo elite? True, the Tokyo faction had wanted to see quick financial results from their relatively sizeable contributions, but that had been easy enough. Observations, Inc. yielded prestigious and financially lucrative finds from all over the globe by cleverly mining the pages of time.
As the company grew, however, Sam had made it clear that money was not what he was about. He had grown to want something more. His dreams were of spreading a footprint across all time, not just a decade or a century. He wanted to touch the future as well as the past. He wanted to know what it felt like to see God’s perspective.
Was everything they had done, everything they had built over the past forty years now falling apart? How could someone have learned their secrets? Fewer than twenty people knew what the company was really about. Each had been meticulously reviewed before being brought into confidence, and even then, he had his inner circle watched every second of the day. Their houses and phones were bugged. Even H.S. fell under his scrutiny. Only one in the circle had escaped his full scrutiny. The boy… Willoughby had seemed so, so innocent. He had been unable to suspect the boy of any guile or foolishness. Had he been mistaken?
H.S. stepped aboard the gently rocking boat. Sam straightened as the robust man handed him a cup of steaming coffee, then stood, sipping his own like a king who has deigned to share a moment with the stable boys. Sam ignored the arrogance. He was used to Hathaway by now. He took a sip from his coffee, suspicious that he was not the first to sip from it. He looked out toward the hills, giving H.S. a quick nod of thanks. Truth be told, he had enjoyed watching Willoughby. With no family of his own, it had been nice to feel, at times, like the boy was some favored nephew, or perhaps, a long estranged son. He turned, leaning against the rail, and studied H.S.
“You didn’t report to me of your discussion with the boy.”
H.S. stared into his coffee with a smile. “Come now, Sam. We both know you were monitoring the entire conversation.”
Sam didn’t argue. “Anything new to report this morning?”
H.S. wrinkled his nose. “Since 10 pm last night? No, I think not.” He let out a heavy sigh. “We must let time and our people probe through this latest mess. I expect we will have answers soon.”
Sam pursed his lips. “Why do I feel, my friend, that after thirty-seven years, and billions of dollars of my money, I scarcely know what our little ventures are truly about?”
H.S. smiled. He patted Sam on the arm. “Because, my dear fellow, you are smarter than you look.”
Sam gave the wood rail a final half-hearted wipe, and then tucked his rag away. “When are you going to tell me who these people are? What was this mission really about?”
“I deal in time, Sam. I’ve told you what I know in the present. The past and the future are subjects of speculation.”
“You’ve told me everything, have you? Like where you were when all this started unfolding? You may smooth-talk your way past the others, but not me.”
“How can I talk to you about things I don’t even fully understand myself? I have shared everything at this present moment that I can. When I know more, I shall tell you more.”
With a flourish, H.S. turned and strode toward the control room. Technically, he did own the yacht, and Sam had tasked him to act like he did so as to protect his cover. H.S. didn’t have to relish in the job, but then, that was H.S. Sam scanned the hatch while sipping again at his steaming brew. He had been involved with every phase of this beautiful vessel’s construction, from the earliest sketches to the final plans, to the completed vessel’s launch. No expense had been spared. He considered the sleek craft. It was a masterpiece of elegance and style, much like his beloved Absconditus, which now lay at the bottom of the ocean. Acting as “Captain” of the ship allowed him to take pride in making the polished wood shine, the brass fittings sparkle, and the tinted windows gleam. In truth, Sam liked pretending to be a working man, albeit an upper-crust working man. Funny how it seems that the very thing you are not is the thing you long to be.
He looked nervously toward the row of white condos just coming visible along the top of the ridge.
H.S. called out to him before ducking below. “I’ll check in with the care facility and central ops to see if there’s anything new. Anything you want me to ask them?”
Sam gave a distracted shake of his head. How could he explain his feeling that this boy, that Willoughby, was already a part of something that even H.S., even Observations Inc., with all its impressive technology, couldn’t fathom?
H.S. lingered in the doorway a moment, studying him. When he finally ducked below and disappeared toward the front control room, he wasn’t gone for long. Sam barely had time to get down half his coffee before Hathaway was stumbling back onto the deck, his eyes wide.
“How long have the control lights been flashing?”
Sam turned toward the man, somewhat annoyed by the accusation in his tone. A flashing glow reflected red from somewhere below. His brows knit in an expression of surprise. H.S. was moving quickly toward the gang plank.
“The magnetic detectors are going crazy. A full funnel collapse is in progress—guess where?”
Throwing his coffee into the bay, Sam crushed the cup, jamming it into his pocket.
“What does it mean?”
H.S. had almost reached him. “I don’t know. I think it’s safe to say, though, that Willoughby may have been more the focus of the mutiny on the Absconditus than we initially believed.”
“What are they doing? Can we stop them?”
H.S. frowned. “I have no idea what this means or what they’re up to.”
“Do they have him?” Sam said more forcefully.
H.S. pulled up short, shaking his head. “Not yet. I’m still reading full vital signs.”
Sam snapped into action, flinging himself over the rail onto the pier. “I’ll bring up the car.”
As he sprinted ahead toward the parking structure, he stole a glance back. H.S. had made it down the gang-plank and was already huffing as he fell into a trot behind him. Sam had rarely seen the man this agitat
ed. Clearly, something more was happening than he knew. He wanted answers. He’d been patient long enough. He imagined the shape of a full magnetic collapse on the screen. It would look like a digital tornado. He had seen them before, when the time technology had amplified the gravity between branes to widen tunnels in time large enough to suck solid matter through, even living matter. Were they trying to take the boy?
With a sense of foreboding, he had to face facts. This was no terrorist organization or organized crime syndicate they were facing. No one had leaked their secrets to powers in this world. This was, well, this was from somewhere else. He felt the rush of adrenalin. What had they unleashed? Hair pricked up on the back of his neck.
If he was right, rushing to Willoughby’s side may not be nearly enough.
31
Foresight
The squeaking of a cart wheel woke Willoughby. It took him a moment to place the sound. It was the little cart that the hospital, or convalescence center, or whatever this place was, used for wheeling in his meals. They called it a ‘Tea Trolley.’ He cringed slightly as the squeak grew louder. Couldn’t they oil that wheel? He pushed the covers up and rolled over, noting through cracked eyelids a dim, gray light from outside. A wafting smell of bacon hit his nose and he felt his stomach rumble. He rubbed at his eyes and slowly pushed up to a sitting position. “Hey,” he said, still trying to clear his vision. He shook his head. “It’s morning already? What time is it?”
He turned to look at the digital clock beside the bed. The numbers read 6:16. “A little early for breakfast isn’t it?” He mumbled, turning to arrange the pillows behind him. He was about to lean back against the metal of the bed frame when another smell assaulted him. His head jerked back. This was a nasty, putrid smell. His eyes shot up, filled with alarm. It was the man pushing the cart to his bed. The man was black as pitch. He wore a white smock, pulled hap-hazardly over a bulging frame. His head was down and turned slightly away. He had not responded to any of the comments Willoughby had made.
Willoughby fought to focus his eyes better, rubbing the sleep out of them and wrinkling his nose. The closer the man got, the worse the smell became. It overpowered the smells of the breakfast. The man stopped pushing the trolley. Willoughby shrank back against the steel frame of his bed as a tingle ran down his neck. Something was wrong. The man pushing the cart didn’t exactly walk, but rather, shuffled, like someone with palsy. In a quick glance, he noted that the grayish light bleeding from the edges of the curtains did not have the clarity of sunlight. It seemed more like a glow—a fuzzy light that shifted and fluttered. Here and there, he saw glimpses of spinning number strings.
The man had picked up the breakfast tray, almost gingerly, and turned to place it on Willoughby’s night stand. His smock was obviously too small for him, gaping hideously at each button. Tattered jeans stuck out from the bottom of the smock, barely containing thick legs that led to enormous dilapidated sneakers. The sneakers and jeans were sopping wet. Bits of seaweed clung limply to the frayed cuff of the jeans, and trailed the laces of the shoes. The man had left a visible trail of water and seaweed along the tile floor. Willoughby studied the man. His frame seemed vaguely familiar. His putrid smell wafted over again. Willoughby felt his eyes sting. It was all he could do not to ask the man to get back, or go away, but something told him this would be a bad idea. Where had he seen this man before? He still couldn’t see the man’s face clearly.
Forearms rippling in tight curves, the man pointed to the breakfast tray on the low table beside the bed. He finally looked up. His face was scared and covered with open sores, as if something had been nibbling at him. He peered out with eyeballs that seemed to have been bleached of all color. Willoughby gasped. He knew this man! Protruding black lips split into a white-toothed grin. This was Gates—the very man who had orchestrated the blood-bath on the Absconditus! How had he gotten off the ship? What had happened to his face and eyes?
Gates seemed happy with Willoughby’s look of shock and disbelief. He grinned even broader. “How be …our mathematical genius… this day?” he said in a rank, hoarse whisper. “He be…one to put two and two together, I think.”
Willoughby recoiled anew from the smell. The air seemed forced from the man’s mouth in a series of constricted spasms as the man did not seem to breathe. He would gulp air like a fish—just enough to force his words out. The man picked up a steak knife from the breakfast tray.
“This time, I think… we make sure he be armed.”
He tried to hand Willoughby the knife, but Willoughby refused to take it. The man smiled a sick, crooked smile. He took the knife and jabbed it forcefully through the palm of his hand. Still grinning, he closed the hand into a fist and twisted his arm so that Willoughby could see the point of the knife poking out of the back of his fist. The man’s skin had a sickly pallor and there was no blood at all from the knife wound.
“I think you be liking my trick?” the man hissed. He forced out a grunt of air in something like a laugh.
“Enough Gates,” a voice called out of the shadows. The voice had a faintly familiar European accent. “Your fun is over for the time being.”
The huge man opened his fist, jerked the knife out of his hand, and placed it carefully back onto the breakfast tray. His sneer grew more intense as he slowly backed away from the bed. He stopped a few steps back, his white, bleached eyeballs still staring at Willoughby, unblinking.
“You must forgive his appearance,” the voice continued, moving closer. With effort, Willoughby tore his eyes away from the spectacle of the white eyes glaring at him. He searched the room and located the source of the other voice. A tall figure stepped slowly into the light. The man had thin, bony features and wore a trench coat, buttoned to the neck. Willoughby knew him in an instant. It was the same man he had seen when time froze near Antonio’s shop, the same one he heard speaking afterward to the tattooed man.
“I’m afraid our friend here has been in stasis at the bottom of the sea. I let him…sit there for a year or so before I called.” The man came to a stop toward the center of the room.
“But,” Willoughby mumbled. “He was on the ship.”
“Yes,” the tall man agreed. He strode forward again, seeming already bored with the conversation. “He was on the ship in your timeline. He sunk with the ship in your timeline. I don’t operate in your timeline. I don’t operate in any timeline—or, perhaps more accurately, I operate in all timelines. I sent Gates back to his own time, but kept him in the same space when I saved him at the last second. I put him in stasis there at the bottom of the ocean, a reminder of his pathetic failure. It has been a long, cold year for him, waiting for me to call.” He stopped beside the white-eyed, dripping man. “You may have noticed he’s not in the best of moods.” Gates tensed. The tall man smiled, turning back to Willoughby.
“When I created this junction—a junction, by the way, is an intersection of timelines that creates a point slightly outside of time—I called him here. Time bleeds out very, very slowly from a junction. Do you understand what I’m telling you, what Gates is?” He stared down at Willoughby quizzically.
Willoughby probed the words in his mind. He didn’t understand what the man was getting at. One thing was crystal clear, though. He returned the huge man’s piercing gaze, trying to see behind the glaring white eyes. “I know you’re trying to frighten me. You purposely aged him, giving him the eaten face and the hideous eyes, and the foul smell, because you wanted,” he pointed at the hulking form, forcing himself to swallow hard and complete the sentence. “You wanted him to intimidate me.”
The tall man smiled, clapping softly. He had small, pointed teeth. “Bravo, but,” he held up one long, bony finger, “intimidation is not the right word. Had I merely wanted to frighten you, I could have found much better means than this. No, the better phrase to use is, warn you.” He gave a slow sigh and stepped toward the bed. “I think it only fair that you know who
you are dealing with.” He glanced again at the white-eyed horror that stood as still as a statue, dripping on the floor.
“He does have a singular effect, though, don’t you think?” Turning back to Willoughby, he licked his lips. “As I began to explain, he’s not exactly dead. Your friend, Mr. Gates, has perhaps a thousand heartbeats left of life. He’s just mostly dead. I control how quickly those final heartbeats tick away.” His smile returned. “If he plays his cards right, those final beats could stretch to infinity.”
“He’s not my friend,” Willoughby choked. This made the big man grin. Despite his revulsion and fear, Willoughby couldn’t help but be fascinated. “How do you keep the final heartbeats at bay? Time slows during time travel, but it doesn’t stop, at least not in my calculations.”
“Yes, your calculations…That’s the trouble. Your training is woefully incomplete.” The man’s smile had no warmth. “I could help you, Willoughby. I live the numbers of time. At present, you can merely observe them.” He paused, his cold, blue eyes seeming to bore right through Willoughby’s skin. “You do see them, don’t you? You see layers of the complex mathematics of time, I know you do.” The man was fishing. Seeing no response from Willoughby, he changed tack.
“Have you ever wondered why you see what you see? There is a reason, you know. I could tell you. I could teach you a mathematics that opens the universe to your call.” He spoke softly, moving slowly to the foot of the bed. Watching Willoughby, he tapped his bony finger along the metal frame.
Willoughby blew out a breath. “Yeah, right. You’d make me like him.” He pointed at Gates.
“No.” The tall man continued to tap his finger, his eyes narrowing. “No, you could never be like him, Willoughby. You are something else entirely. Something special—more special than you know.”