When they took a break to refill their plates with seconds, Winston turned the conversation to his own questions, starting with why Claude had hidden the Alpha Machine pieces in the first place. Claude answered that he felt bound to keep the Alpha Machine out of the hands of irresponsible government forces, not the least of which might be Bledsoe himself.
“Right,” said Winston. “But if you have the ability to bounce around and hide these pieces in places where you know they won’t be found by anyone except me, why not use the same ability to just keep them all yourself and stay a few steps ahead of anyone chasing you?”
Claude thought the question over as he chewed quietly. His forehead wrinkled down its middle, and Claude’s breaths were long and pensive. Winston heard rain begin to spatter on the curtained windows, an odd counterpoint to the fire’s crackling.
“Several reasons,” Claude said at last. “First, obviously, I’m not as young and fast as you. Second, having the Alpha Machine is a great burden and temptation. I honestly didn’t know if I was up to the challenge of keeping it in my hands.”
“With great power comes great responsibility,” said Winston.
Claude straightened, clearly impressed. “You’re wise beyond your years.”
Winston shrugged. “A guy I know named Ben Parker said that.”
“He may have gotten it from your namesake, Winston Churchill, who made the same statement while Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office near the turn of the century.”
“Yeah…” Winston pointed a crispy French fry at his father. “Why did you name me after that guy?”
Claude chuckled. “Churchill was not without his flaws. He was a racist and an imperialist. But Churchill loved his nation with an unshakable enthusiasm. His desire to improve the world, as he saw it, fueled everything he did. He was a man of learning, eloquence, thought, and conviction. When everyone around him wanted to compromise and bend the knee to Hitler, he almost single-handedly kept the nation motivated and willing to fight on for what was right. I honestly believe that, if not for Churchill and his dogged, unwavering purpose, the world would have fallen to the Axis powers.”
“Ah,” said Winston. “I guess that’s OK.”
“You may find yourself in such a position someday,” added Claude. “Or perhaps you do already. We are constantly tempted by the safe path, the easy path, and we’ll fool ourselves into thinking it’s the best path.”
“But it’s not.”
“No. The fire scars, but it also burns away our flaws.”
Winston mulled that over. Was he in the fire now? What flaws did he have to burn away? Shade occasionally got on his case about being too much of a loner and not working as a team player, but that hardly seemed fire-worthy.
“What else?” he asked. “Honestly, those seem like kind of flimsy reasons to ditch the Alpha Machine.”
Claude nodded. “I was only there for the first year of your life, but…you never stop being a parent. You always want to help your children grow and succeed.” He chose his words with slow deliberation. “Ideally, I would have wanted you to face this challenge when you were a little older. Unfortunately, we don’t always get to choose when our struggles arrive. And, in the end, this struggle is yours, because of who you are.”
Winston set his fork on his plate and frowned. “What’s that mean? Who I am? You mean being part-alien?”
That phrase struck Claude, and the man leaned back, almost as if he’d taken offense. A reply sprang to his lips, but he forced himself to take a breath before continuing.
“You are you, Winston. You are my and your mother’s son. You’re different, yes, but don’t feel you’re an alien. We gave you a gift, and you’re only now learning how to use it.”
Winston felt an overwhelming urge to make some sarcastic retort about having enough gifts already. This wasn’t the time, though. His father didn’t deserve sarcasm.
“You know,” Claude said, “when I was a boy, I had a cousin who went blind when he was seven. Some sort of neurodegenerative disease. The family pitched in to buy him a cocker spaniel puppy we named Patchy. We trained Patchy to be his guide dog back in the days before there were assistance programs for such things. I spent so many days and nights working with that dog. It took almost a year of training. Eventually, Patchy could do her job, and my cousin got to go into the world again. He was able to go to school, shop for groceries… Really, that dog saved his life.”
“Patchy was a gift,” said Winston, feeling that he got the point.
Claude set his plate on the floor and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Yes, but maybe so was going blind. My cousin went on to become a music producer during the 1930s and ‘40s. He could hear the most amazing, subtle things, and his abilities changed the world of jazz. Of course, getting there wasn’t easy. I remember kids throwing rocks at him and Patchy when they would cross through fields. People would short-change him when he paid for things and assume he wouldn’t know the difference. He had his own fire to go through, for years and years.” Claude took a long breath. “The fire can be a gift, Winston. It’s a way to the end. You need to remember that.”
Claude took their plates into the kitchen, giving Winston a minute to ponder his father’s words.
“Dad?” he called.
“Yes?”
Winston didn’t know how to phrase what he needed to ask. “I need something to go on. A hint, a little hope, whatever. It feels…pretty dark right now.”
Claude stopped rinsing the dishes, and it was a long moment before he returned to the doorway and stood there, leaning against the doorjamb, studying Winston.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve seen some things, but, like I said, time is slippery. Some events are going to be out of your control. You could walk out of here right now, step on a nail, get tetanus, and change everything.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
“You’re dodging the question.”
“Because I have to,” said Claude.
Winston tried to keep the pleading out of his voice. “Dad, you don’t know the situation I just left. It’s bad. Really, you should know—”
“Nothing!”
Claude almost jumped from the doorway, and Winston sensed that there was some fear in his father always boiling just below the surface. What could he know and not be letting on?
Claude began pacing but calmed himself by standing near the fire. The worry on his face faded into a sad smile.
“Winston, you’re going to find that the more rigidly we plan for things, the more we assume that we have the one true answer, the more events wriggle away from us. You don’t get to actually control anything in life. And sometimes, if you’re not careful…life fights back.”
“Then what’s the point of having a time machine?” Winston cried. “Why bother if we can’t put it to good use?”
Claude slowly walked to Winston and took a seat on the couch beside him.
“To learn,” said Claude. “The past is only events placed on a mirror. We can never really see the events without seeing ourselves in or around them. The object is to see the relationship between those two things more clearly.”
Winston tried to puzzle through what his father meant. He thought he might understand, but it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“I need to know how to help my friends,” he said. “And Mom. And you,” he added, trying to convey a sense of urgency in his eyes. “You have QVs. You could come with me. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Winston guessed that taking his father was impossible even before the words were out. A gust of wind shook the small home.
Claude confirmed Winston’s fears. “I can’t. The Alpha Machine tracks its users. You can always go back to your current relative present, but, as I’m sure you’ve discovered by now, you can’t be in the same time twice. I can’t go to a time that contains an older me, just like you’ll never be able to return to this day.” He gave Winston a sly glance. “Although there are situatio
ns in which you can arrange to influence an event without actually being there.”
“Wait,” said Winston. “What do you—?”
Claude raised a hand and turned away. “No, even that is saying too much.”
His tone conveyed finality. They had enjoyed their moment. Winston had received his last Alpha Machine piece. It would be about 11:00 PM back home, uncomfortably close to Bledsoe’s deadline.
Winston felt the urge to wipe away the tears that crested over his eyelids, but he let them fall and left them alone.
“I don’t know what to do, Dad. Bledsoe wants the Alpha Machine, or he’s going to—” Claude gave him a stern look and a shake of his head. “He’s going to do something terrible. Something that can’t be allowed to happen.”
Claude gently brushed at Winston’s tears with the backs of his fingers. “The only thing that can’t be allowed to happen is losing the Alpha Machine. If Bledsoe or anyone else gets it, then everything is lost. Do you understand?”
Winston swallowed and nodded.
“If accomplishing that means ten million people die in a nuclear blast,” Claude continued, “it’s still worth it, because even that is nothing compared to the pain and loss that will follow from Bledsoe gaining control.”
“I know.” Winston’s words emerged in a whisper. He tried again, pushing for any strength he could find. “I get it. But I still don’t see where this is supposed to end. I wish you would help me get the last piece.”
“Please put it out of your mind,” said Claude sternly. “You do not understand how dangerous it is. Believe me, I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“And you’re not going to tell me about it?”
Claude shook his head. “I’m sorry. The danger, especially to you, is unacceptable. Your focus needs to be on your mother.”
“What if I don’t have enough tools or skills or whatever to save Mom? And what about saving you? I just found you, Dad, after a lifetime of dreaming about it!”
With no other way to express his feelings, Claude wrapped his arms around his son and held him tight. Winston understood what the gesture meant — that there was no hope of saving his dad. He refused to accept that. Anger welled up in him. He needed this more than anything he’d ever experienced, and it was so close. How dare his father get him right to the edge of finally having a complete family, only to let it slip away in the most horrific manner?
“Winston,” Claude rumbled near his ear, and he could feel the vibration of that voice through his chest and into his bones. “You’re racing after an illusion. You have everything you need. I wish I could give you more, believe me. But you’re a young man now, and I couldn’t be more proud. Now, go do what is right.”
With that, Winston’s outrage gradually melted away, and he finally did return his father’s embrace.
I couldn’t be more proud.
The words echoed over and over in Winston’s mind, and each repetition was like a small block rebuilding the foundation of his confidence. This time, he knew there was more to his tears than grief.
“I don’t know what to do, Dad,” he whispered.
Claude patted Winston’s back and said, “Of course not. None of us do. We can only give our utmost and take our best guess.”
Eventually, Winston leaned back and wiped his face dry. “I thought grown-ups were supposed to have all the answers.”
Claude smiled. “Grown-ups are only fourteen-year-olds with more experience and wrinkles. We learn what we can.”
“Well,” said Winston. He stood and stretched, trying to change the mood and work up some courage. “That’s disappointing.”
They both laughed, and, in that moment, Winston knew that he hadn’t found all that he wanted, but what he’d received might be enough.
27
Cozy Fires and Blazing Tires
Winston made his way into the kitchen and set about rinsing dishes in the sink, partly out of habit and partly to procrastinate the discussion that he knew was only moments away. Claude allowed him this brief rest, and never in his life had Winston been so glad to scrub a pan. He worked at the grease and scorch marks as his father stood by, towel in hand, watching him toil away. Not knowing what else to fill the time with, Winston told Claude about his robotics project, the Stadlerator 7000, and how he’d first discovered his blossoming abilities while trying to troubleshoot it.
Claude practically glowed with pride.
This is how it should have been for all those years. Doing dishes. Just chatting. Telling my dad about school. It can’t be over. It can’t.
When quiet fell between them, Claude took it as his cue.
“So,” he said all too soon. “Do you have a plan?”
Winston’s pan banged against the side of the sink as he turned it over and over, looking for any blemish he might have left.
“I need to get Little e back. I should also make sure Shade is safe.”
Claude reached over and turned off the faucet. “I think it’s clean, son,” he said gently. “Time to focus.”
Winston let out a long sigh as he dried his hands. He tried to smile. “Thanks for the dinner. And…I know you’re right. Let’s scope things out. Shade would kill me if I just hopped back without doing some proper reconnaissance.”
They returned to the couch. Winston dug into his backpack and fetched the chronoviewer and geoviewer pieces. He gripped the former and placed the latter within it. That now-familiar magnetic force snapped the smaller ring into place, where it slowly began to turn end over end within its slightly larger, silver companion. With each use, Winston found himself growing more comfortable with starting and controlling the pieces.
“It’s so strange seeing them again,” said Claude. “I just spent years getting rid of them. And yes, you should see what is waiting for you. Be cautious and ready.”
Winston felt that tug in the back of his brain as it connected with the Alpha Machine. His vision dimmed slightly, and the small iconic readouts for time and space navigation appeared in the bottom corners of his field of view. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
First, he imagined shifting his point of view across Tillamook. He mentally nudged the zoomed-in spherical map until he knew he was close to the blimp hangar. As he let go, his spectral self instantly teleported to his new position outside the hangar’s side door.
Even though it was still the same gray, frigid day in 1969, suddenly shifting from a comfortably dim living room to outdoor daylight without moving continued to be disorienting. Gathering himself, Winston pushed into the building until he was back where he had arrived, in the middle of the hangar surrounded by airplanes and that dizzyingly vast, repetitive web of wooden supports arching overhead.
Once in place, Winston turned his attention to his time controls. He mentally pushed the slider all the way into 2013, feeling almost no resistance as the Alpha Machine sought to drag him back to his true present. When he was close enough, the chronoviewer snapped him into his own time. It was 11:42 at night. The hangar’s lights had all been turned on, giving the cavern a white, unnatural brightness against the dark beyond the outer door. Bledsoe’s six agents continued to scan the hangar, obviously without success.
Things had not improved with his father. Claude’s bed now rested about ten feet from the RV. Claude lay atop it without so much as a sheet to guard him against the chill night air that must be blowing in. The bed’s back had been elevated so that Claude sat nearly upright. Medical monitors and displays surrounded the bed, one of which showed a countdown timer in large red digits. 17:51…17:50…
Claude’s hands and feet were clamped to the bed rails with leather cuffs. His shaved and bloodied scalp had been removed again, and it now rested in his lap, staining his thin, light-blue smock with blood and iodine. His brain lay exposed to the open air, and a plethora of impossibly thin fiber-optic cables emerged from electrodes implanted within his brain's folds. The fibers cascaded from his head, down the back of his bed, and, as a zip-tied bundle, ran off
into the RV, where Winston assumed they fed into the servers he’d seen before. The largest monitor standing just behind Claude displayed a jittery landscape of black-and-white static.
Claude’s head rested against his mattress. His eyes remained closed, and hopefully he was drugged asleep and thus unaware of his situation’s horror. Beside him, Bledsoe stood impatiently, arms crossed, with a gun in one hand. His eyes continually roved around the hangar, and Winston guessed the man was searching for him.
“Oh, God!” Winston choked. “He can’t do that!
“Is it Bledsoe?” asked a disturbingly calm, distant voice.
Winston looked about the hangar, trying to see who had asked the question, then he realized that the voice was his father’s in 1969. He opened his eyes and saw the expression of concern on younger Claude’s face.
“Yes,” Winston gasped. “It’s Bledsoe, and he’s got a gun, and he’s just standing there over you, waiting for me to—”
“Don’t!” Claude interrupted. “Don’t tell me. Whatever has been set in place needs to run its course.”
Winston couldn’t hold the information inside any longer. “But he’s going to kill you! God, look at your head!”
Fear. The strain of using the Alpha Machine. The terror of seeing his enemy mutilating and preparing to shoot his father. It was all more than Winston could bear. Fresh tears ran down his face, and his lungs burned with the need to get away from all the weight and tension crushing him.
“Slow down, Winston,” Claude said in a low, soothing voice. “You still have time left, right?
Winston checked the countdown again. He nodded. “Seventeen minutes.”
“Then use it to think,” said Claude. “Study what’s happening. Study Bledsoe. Study me. Think about what needs to be done.”
Winston felt his throat constrict as he tried to speak. “I can’t get you,” he choked. “Even if I walked up to you and grabbed you and I used the Alpha Machine to get us out of there, you would die. I can’t rescue you! I don’t know what to do!”
Winston Chase and the Theta Factor Page 21