Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy

by Bodhi St John

  Worry was now plain in Claude’s face. “Please, Winston. Be careful. I should be the least of your concerns. The future is slippery and treacherous, son. Nothing is certain.”

  Winston had no plan, but neither did he have time. Bledsoe was unprotected. This was his only chance.

  “I’ll remember,” Winston said. He tried to give his father a smile and realized that his eyes had filled with tears again.

  “I love you,” said Claude. “I have always watched and loved you, son. And I always will.”

  His palm trailed down Winston’s cheek.

  Claude stepped back to give Winston more space.

  Winston wanted to echo the words back, but part of him knew that he didn’t yet love his father as a person, only the idea of him being his father. That would change, though. It had to. He would save him, and they would find more time.

  “Thank you, Dad. For everything.” He managed one small laugh. “This probably does beat doing the robotics fair.”

  Claude smiled. “Good.”

  Winston bore down on the Alpha Machine and the world vanished into a veil of blinding white.

  ***

  “Can you see the screen, Hendrix?” Bledsoe yelled. “Why do I still see static?”

  “I don’t know, sir!” she yelled back from inside the RV, a bit too tartly for Bledsoe’s taste. “I’m working on it! Perhaps some of the probes shifted during transit!”

  Bledsoe swore in her direction. Why did there always have to be an I-told-you-so instead of just getting results?

  He collected himself and tried to regain some sense of patience when Claude muttered, “Maybe if I took some aspirin. I have a small headache.”

  Bledsoe stared down at Claude for a moment, then burst out laughing. He shook his head and made tsk-tsk-tsk sounds.

  “Ah, my friend. How I miss those old days with you. Changing the world one knee-slapper at a time.” He quickly sobered and winced, then renewed the gun’s pressure against his old friend’s head. “Damn it, Claude. Why’d you have to run off and ruin everything?”

  “Because you and your brass goons were going to run off and ruin everything.”

  “Ha. Agree to disagree.”

  Claude mustered the barest shrug of his withered, shivering shoulders.

  “Anything?” Bledsoe hollered at the RV.

  “Still no signal!” called Nurse Hendrix. “If I had more time and better cond—”

  Bledsoe lost the rest of her useless words as the space several feet before him burst in a cloud of white energy. Blue sparks rained from a single point onto the concrete hangar floor, dancing and sputtering before quickly going dark. The flash vanished, leaving behind the long-sought form of Winston Chase.

  Winston held the Alpha Machine suspended between his two upturned hands. Even as he watched, the four artifacts slowed their tumbling but did not stop. He was keeping it active and ready to use. That was a smart move, unfortunately. Still, Bledsoe noticed with satisfaction that the boy’s eyes were wet and rimmed with red.

  “Winston!” called Bledsoe. He smiled and removed the gun from Claude’s temple to throw his arms wide in welcome. “So good of you to make it. And with…” He checked the main display. “…six minutes to spare! I do appreciate punctuality.”

  They boy’s eyes darted around the hangar, no doubt searching for anything he might be able to use for some advantage. Still trying to play the hero? Maybe looking for another way to cram an explosive down Bledsoe’s throat? Well, that impulse needed to go.

  Bledsoe glanced down at Claude in his bed and scanned his body. Without hesitation, he set the barrel of his gun against Claude’s little finger, just above the second knuckle.

  “You seem distracted, boy. Maybe this will help.”

  Bledsoe pulled the trigger.

  29

  Drowning and Death

  Winston instinctively recoiled from the muzzle flash and deafening crack of Bledsoe’s gun, then caught himself just before he lunged forward to his father’s defense. Although the gun remained pointed down at Claude’s hand, Bledsoe’s eyes never left Winston. He wanted Winston to come within range.

  Claude’s previously sedate body arched in sudden agony. His mouth opened wide, and a hoarse, choking cry emerged. The bonds held his limbs down, but Claude tried to twist away from the pain in his right hand. With a sickening pang, Winston saw the ragged, bloody finger roll off the bed and fall to the floor. He expected a sudden gush of blood but was surprised when only a slow trickle seeped out.

  “That was to let you know I’m not interested in standing around all night,” Bledsoe said. He lifted the gun and placed its barrel again Claude’s belly. “Gut shots are fatal, but they take a long time to kill the victim, and they hurt like nothing else in the world. Should we do that? Or…” With his free hand, Bledsoe reached behind the bed and, with a small tinkling of something metal lifting off a hook, brought Little e into view as his hand seized the crossbar. “Should we see what this might do to him?”

  “Damn…you…Devlin,” panted Claude through gritted teeth. “Don’t…do this…to him.”

  Bledsoe sighed. “My friend, I don’t want to! As soon as those Alpha Machine pieces are in my hands, I’ll walk out of here and leave you two alone forever. I’m not the one making this difficult.”

  “Joke’s on you, dude,” Winston bluffed. “That thing ran out of power back in 1969 when I dropped it in the river. That’s why it’s not doing anything.”

  “Aww, shucks.” Bledsoe frowned at Little e with an exaggerated pout. “That must be why it’s not doing this.”

  In an instant, Little e’s arms unwound, and blue energy arcs flashed between the tips.

  Bledsoe’s gun fired again. The deafening report once again made Winston cringe, but he saw with relief that Bledsoe had fired into the mattress a couple of inches from Claude’s hip.

  “You will respect me, boy,” growled Bledsoe.

  With a casual, almost uncaring motion, Bledsoe raised his gun and pointed it straight at Winston’s head. As Bledsoe squeezed the trigger, Winston tightened his grip on the Alpha Machine. He focused on the second reality perspective he’d kept in the background of his awareness and let it fill his mind. The world went suddenly white, and when he blinked the spots from his eyes, he found himself standing five feet to the left of where he had been an instant before. He never heard the gunshot, but he did hear its echo in the cavernous hangar and heard the bullet ping into something metal far behind him.

  Winston already had his next location ready when Bledsoe frowned and lowered his gun.

  “It was worth a try,” Bledsoe said. He thought for a moment, then added, “Maybe what you lack here is the proper outlook.”

  Bledsoe set Little e back on its hook behind the bed. Before Winston could think of how to use this to his advantage, Bledsoe used his free hand to rest his thumb and index finger on Claude’s brain. Winston froze. His concentration broke to the point that he nearly let the Alpha Machine fall still. He realized this, though, and kept it spinning and ready.

  Then, to his deep horror, Bledsoe reached into the forest of electrical probes, took a small pinch of Claude’s brain, squeezed it between his fingernails, and ripped the tiny chunk free. Amazingly, Claude showed very little reaction.

  “No!” Winston screamed.

  Bledsoe studied the gray bit on his fingertips, then flicked it away like a crushed bug.

  “Winston,” rasped Claude. “I don’t…matter now.”

  “Well,” Bledsoe mused. “That might be true. Or maybe not.” He found another bulge in Claude’s right lobe and began to pinch a larger amount of tissue. “What do you think, Winston? Does your father matter?”

  “Stop!”

  Before he was aware of what he was doing, he reached into the Alpha Machine and seized one of the two rings. The other ring smacked into the back of his hand, but not hard enough to do more than sting. Only after Winston had bent over and slid one of the artifacts across the floor did
he recognize the piece as the black geoviewer. It bounced off Bledsoe’s shoe, then fell still. Bledsoe swiftly snatched it up, then resumed pointing his gun at Claude’s stomach. He slipped the artifact over his left forearm.

  “Right!” Bledsoe said pleasantly. “Not so hard? Now, how about the rest?”

  Only then did Winston realize he could no longer jump to a new space. The three crosshairs had vanished from his inner field of view, and the Alpha Machine had fallen still. Bledsoe could drop him dead where he stood — but he didn’t. Either the man didn’t yet understand what conditions had changed or he was enjoying watching Winston squirm.

  Or both.

  While Winston took these few seconds when he appeared to be debating whether to cave in, he tried working with the chronoviewer controls. What if he just went back in time five — no, ten minutes? Would he go back to having the geoviewer? Probably not. Either way, it was a moot question. The chrono controls at the corner of his vision flashed red when he slipped the controls back to that time. Not allowed.

  He tried an hour.

  The controls flashed red again.

  And again when he tried two hours. Much beyond that, he knew, he would run into conflict with the time in which he’d been present in this time-space. No two instances of the same user allowed at the same time.

  So, where can I go?!

  Winston wanted to cry out and throw the Alpha Machine against the nearest plane in frustration.

  With what must have been tremendous effort, Claude lifted his slumped head enough to see Winston. His eyes were sad and full of pain, but Winston sensed that the pain was more emotional than physical.

  “Long time,” croaked Claude, and he unsuccessfully tried to smile. “Seems like…decades.”

  Winston wanted nothing more than to run over and throw his arms around that frail, tortured frame. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Claude swallowed and rasped, “You have time.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Bledsoe. “I get it! It’s a time machine joke, right? This is really growing—”

  At that instant, the static on the main screen flickered once, twice, and then condensed from random static into a coherent pattern. The red readout over the image read 11:58:04.

  Bledsoe beamed with surprised pleasure. “Well, I’ll be. I fixed it! Just like kicking an old TV.”

  The pattern quickly solidified into a woman’s face that Winston instantly recognized as his mother, even though the edges were ragged and jittery. Winston realized that the image must be coming from his father’s memory, extracted somehow by these probes and whatever systems hid within the RV. The face remained clear on the screen for a moment, then dissolved back into static.

  “This machine is a hoot,” Bledsoe told Winston. “Watch this.” He leaned closer toward Claude’s ear. “Picture the bomb you used to nuke Area X.”

  The well-known image of a mushroom cloud formed and billowed upward on the screen, orange with black-tinged bulges of furious destruction.

  “The bomb, Claude,” Bledsoe repeated tiredly. “Just the bomb.”

  The mushroom cloud dissolved into a spray of static that was quickly replaced by a white pill. No, a capsule. It grew to fill the display as a myriad of thick cables ran into connections all over the capsule’s surface. Rivet lines materialized across the object’s surface like scars, and Winston made out a pedestal holding the bomb up. A hand and arm reached out from the edge of the screen. The hand rested flat against the end of the bomb, and with that for a reference, Winston had to guess that the thing was at least ten feet long, possibly fifteen.

  “Why are you showing me this?” Winston asked.

  Bledsoe offered him a little curl of his lips. “So Nurse Hendrix in the RV there can tune in the signal. Looks great, sweetie!” he called toward the vehicle’s open side door.

  With Bledsoe’s eyes turned away, Winston took a slow, sliding step toward his father. Bledsoe’s peripheral vision was better than Winston had hoped. Bledsoe tapped the gun repeatedly against Claude’s abdomen.

  “Ah, ah! You can stay right there. Just push the Alpha Machine to me and step away.”

  Winston had no play in mind, not even a decent way to stall. “Just like that?” he said lamely.

  “Just like that,” Bledsoe repeated. “Oh, sure. I can let you take your dad, and maybe you can find someplace to put his skull back on before he dies. The medication holding him together should wear off soon. But honestly, you handing over the Alpha Machine is the only thing to do. The alternative…” He shook his head with a wry curl of his lips. “Well, it doesn’t end well for you.”

  “Winston…” said Claude weakly.

  Something in Bledsoe’s tone struck him as particularly ominous. “What do you mean?” asked Winston.

  Bledsoe patted Claude’s shoulder. “See? I told you he’d ask. I didn’t even need a time machine to figure that one out.” He straightened and said proudly, “Let’s show him, Claude. Show Winston what you saw in all those years of bouncing around. Show Winston how he dies just a few feet away from the last piece. Remember him being in the water, being trapped. Remember what finally happens to Winston.”

  As Claude spoke, the on-screen static faded again. Colors emerged, predominantly green, blue, and black. From the video’s bird’s-eye perspective, Winston could see a tall, skinny figure with two white streaks in his hair thrashing about as he dove repeatedly, groping at a certain spot below him. The floor of the green pool was made of rank upon rank of round metal containers, almost like paint cans, all glowing a brilliant turquoise. Over and over, the figure rose to the surface, took several breaths, then dove again.

  “What is that place?” Winston asked.

  Bledsoe seemed to ponder the question, then shrugged. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. Well…not to me. This is one of the spent fuel tanks at Hanford Nuclear Reserve, which—” He tapped his gun against Claude again. “—was part of our very own Manhattan Project, although Hanford was way off in eastern Washington.”

  On-screen Winston struggled down to the radioactive waste containers again. He reached into one of the containers but seemed unable to find or reach what he wanted. His actions grew more sluggish by the second.

  “And he gets weaker,” prompted Bledsoe. “And weaker.”

  The submerged Winston convulsed in pain, clutching at his belly. He turned and thrashed, face turned up to the surface as the rippling pool water obscured the details of his features. Clearly, though, his mouth was open. Bubbles drifted up. His legs spasmed, or perhaps he had attempted a feeble kick. He turned back over.

  Winston made one last attempt to reach inside the canister and succeeded only in getting his hand stuck. A moment later, he lay still and lifeless at the bottom of the pool, drifting with the circulating current of the water, hand still stuck inside the waste container. The image went black.

  It was what Winston had always instinctively feared. Water. Drowning. And now he had seen it. Only the reality was worse than he’d ever imagined. He hadn’t just drowned. He had drowned in agony from intense radiation exposure blasting through his body.

  He wanted this to be some ruse of Bledsoe’s, but he knew it couldn’t be. These images were a memory pulled from his father’s brain.

  The red deadline time showed 11:59:27.

  “That’s what you’re fighting for,” said Bledsoe. “That’s where this all ends for you. Why do you think your pops here went through so much trouble to make sure you could never see it?”

  Claude’s eyes fixed on Winston’s, pleading. “No,” he whispered so faintly that Winston heard it more in his mind. A spasm ran through his body, and his limbs tensed. Struggling against this, never breaking his stare, Claude managed to gasp, “Future… slippery.”

  Bledsoe couldn’t see Claude’s face from where he stood and so missed that something was amiss. “Time’s up,” he said. “It’s midnight, and I never break a promise. Give me the other parts or I’m going to paint
this bed with his insides.”

  Winston barely heard Bledsoe’s threat. His father’s body continued to tremble uncontrollably. The left side of his face changed. All the muscles went slack, leaving the corner of his mouth and eye drooping. Drool fell onto his shoulder. His eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible, then his body went limp.

  “Dad?” Winston whispered, already guessing what was happening.

  A woman appeared in the RV’s side door, still dressed in blue scrubs flecked with brown spots and streaks. Her expression was urgent. “Flatline!” she said to Bledsoe. “We need to stabilize him right now!”

  Bledsoe’s eyes narrowed as he glanced from her to Winston. He cocked his head slightly, then said, “No.”

  “Let her do it!” cried Winston.

  “No,” Bledsoe repeated. He enunciated slowly, “Let him die.”

  “You do it,” Winston growled. “You brought Shade back. Now, you bring him back.”

  Bledsoe gave him a smile that looked like a snarl though bared teeth. “You have no idea what he took from me, how he betrayed me. Maybe now you will. Believe me, if I could make this hurt him more, I would.”

  Bledsoe nudged the side of Claude’s head with his free hand. The head rocked to the side, loose and lifeless, and settled as if Claude were staring at the hangar floor.

  In that moment, the significance of Claude’s death washed over them both. Not only had Bledsoe taken his old friend’s life, but he now no longer possessed his lead bargaining chip. Pointing that gun at Claude’s belly didn’t matter, and they both realized it at the same time.

  Awareness of this shift in their situation only registered dimly to Winston, though. All he could see was the younger, strong version of his father he’d left in 1969 compared to this mangled husk of a man, the last remainder of what should have been the father who raised him. All those years, all those experiences, all that love stolen away while he and his mother hid in obscurity.