Bledsoe turned and paced back toward his original position. Without stopping them, he passed the geo pieces from his right hand to his left — a nifty trick that Winston had not realized was possible.
“It said that I should stop going after you.”
Winston’s jaw dropped open. He bumped his palm against the side of his head. “And so your first thought was to shoot me.”
“No,” said Bledsoe. “My first thought was to shoot the messenger, then shoot you.”
Winston shook his head and hunched his shoulders at Bernie. “Literally, the biggest a-hole on the planet, and this is the guy you pick to save the world. How does that make sense?”
“Oh, right.” Bledsoe smiled, not taking the bait of Winston’s comment. “Why did I send that message? It seems a little…out of character for me.”
Bernie nodded and pressed his hands together in thought.
Winston did not miss the twitch of satisfaction around Bledsoe’s mouth.
Bernie fell silent. Bledsoe stood erect, head back, eying Bernie as if he were a wasp creeping slowly toward his face.
“Well, now I know not to do that,” he said at last.
Could I do that? Winston wondered. Could I bear staying with him to prevent World War III?
The odds seemed generally impossible.
“How long?” asked Bledsoe. “Are you saying I’m stuck with him forever?”
Bledsoe’s eyes widened, and he looked as if he’d just swallowed a particularly strong drink, the kind that set characters’ heads on fire in cartoons.
“Blah blah 24-something-something, blah blah blah last message. I have no idea what you just said.”
Bernie took another of those long breaths that Winston suspected signaled him forcefully modifying his mental state.
Bledsoe appeared visibly shaken. “What exactly did I say in 2479 — over four hundred and fifty years from now? ‘Look, everyone! We finally have flying cars!’”
Winston saw his opening and grabbed it. He stepped toward Bledsoe, who eyed him with distrust but did not retreat.
“So listen up,” Winston said. “I’m not your monkey boy. I’m not your slave. You treat me like a business partner. Because if you don’t, then I’m out, and the Omega Mesh will just reset our entire timeline.”
Bledsoe swallowed. “What do you mean ‘reset’?”
“It means they outflank us. Just send someone back however many decades it takes and erase everything we’ve done from ever happening.” He waggled a finger at Bledsoe’s head. “All of that ‘I’m gonna rule the world!’ crap you were thinking? Forget it. That’s not on the Omega options menu. They’ll just reset you like a bad app.”
Bledsoe gazed intently at Bernie. “Is this all true?”
Bledsoe’s face crumpled into a frown, and he swore loudly and repeatedly. For Winston, his wrath was like sweet music. The man finally let his Alpha Machine pieces fall still, and they fell into his hand. He gripped them fiercely and waved them at Winston while addressing Bernie.
“There’s no way!”
Winston nodded enthusiastically. “I know, right? Like, nothing would make me happier than to see you stand under that overhang right as it collapsed. Just…shattered everything. A big Bledsoe mess everywhere.”
“You’re too kind. I was thinking about years of psychological torture for you. I was kidding about the tennis ball and tape, but only because I wouldn’t be able to hear you suffer as clearly.”
Bernie pressed his hands together, apparently pleased.
Winston and Bledsoe turned away from one another, each gazing at his respective Alpha Machine pieces. Winston tried to work his way to a solution. Perhaps they could coexist separately, like when some couples remained married but slept at opposite ends of the house and never talked. He was about to ask about this when Bledsoe spoke first.
“That message you say was me, from way in the future. What did it say?”
Bernie stepped to Winston and held out a hand toward Little e.
“What?” Winston pointed at Bledsoe. “What about him?”
Bernie considered the man, then approached him, hand outstretched.
“Over my dead body!” Bledsoe objected, pulling back.
Another Bernie sigh.
Bledsoe considered the outstretched hand for a moment, then snarled and insulted both Bernie’s appearance and his mother. But he did hand over the geo pieces.
Bernie approached Winston next. Winston handed over Little e and its locked chrono pieces with similar resistance as Bledsoe, although without the verbal abuse. Bernie gripped Little e’s crossbar and collected the Alpha Machine pieces as the silver tubes unclenched and undulated. With the Alpha Machine artifacts cradled in his left arm, Bernie held up Little e at head level. The six tubes straightened and stuck out at a roughly forty-five degree angle from the direction of Bernie’s forearm.
A few seconds later, Winston heard a low hum. It seemed to come from all around him as well as between his ears. The experience of having no idea where the sound originated was very disconcerting. The sound faded, and then he heard static clearly coming from Bernie’s direction. Little e’s tubes shimmered, and their tips blurred slightly. Winston got it. Bernie was using the device as a speaker, which made Winston immediately wonder if he could use it to stream and play Pandora.
The static grew louder and crackled. A voice emerged, but it was hopelessly garbled and distorted, like an online phone call in the seconds right before the service provider gave up and dropped the connection. This time, though, the signal improved. Scattered sounds became word fragments and then finally phrases. The voice didn’t sound exactly like Bledsoe, but it was really close — perhaps a version of Bledsoe with some added years and a bad smoking habit.
“…approaching. I see…” The static level climbed and drowned out the speech, then subsided. “There’s a path forward. We can do this. Just remem…”
The static climbed again, then cut off abruptly. Bernie lowered Little e to his side, and the tubes wound into their tapered formation.
Bledsoe and Winston stared at each other. This time, Winston was the first to speak.
“That’s your p
roof that Bledsoe is the Chosen One? It’s just gibberish, Bernie! I mean, there’s a path forward? What does that even mean? He could be playing Zork!”
“I don’t want to agree with the boy, so I won’t,” said Bledsoe. “But this seems like a shaky foundation for a giant time-space operation. I need a little more to go on.”
Bledsoe shook his head and swayed slightly from side to side, as if unsure which way to go or what to do. Winston watched as his mouth twitched and the cords along his jaw worked. Even though Winston felt similarly, he also enjoyed watching the man squirm.
By this time, Winston knew the pattern. Bledsoe would say yes, and he knew this because Bledsoe had already said yes so many times before. If Bledsoe said no here, it would be a major departure from the carefully constructed timestream orchestrated by the Omega Mesh.
Whatever split they had in store from timelines of the past, Winston doubted that they’d encountered it yet. Otherwise, Bledsoe wouldn’t have made it to 2479 and the Omega Mesh would have already reset them. Thus, they had to be on the right track. Maybe. Winston still had a very hard time believing that Bledsoe was destined to be the world’s savior. It simply didn’t add up. The guy would find any of a billion ways to wreck the world. Winston couldn’t imagine what possible scenario could lead to him saving it.
“All right,” Bledsoe said slowly. “I’m giving a tentative yes. I’m not saying I believe everything you’re telling me, not by a long shot. But since I find myself with a slight amount of flexibility in my schedule right now, I’ll be a good sport and play along for a bit.”
Bernie opened Little e and, one by one, scooped up the Alpha Machine pieces until all four were suspended and spinning within its arms. The alien closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and nodded.
Winston knew this routine. He grasped Bernie’s elbow, making sure to hold the one attached to the Alpha Machine. Then, drawing Bledsoe’s attention, he bobbed his head toward Bernie’s other arm. He didn’t trust Bledsoe and never would. At any second, the man might lose his mind and make a grab for the Alpha Machine pieces.
Bledsoe slowly wrapped his fingers around Bernie’s upper arm. As soon as the contact was secure, the world blossomed into cascading light.
***
Winston hadn’t thought through what he expected to see when the sparks settled, but standing in the middle of a restaurant was not it. As he released Bernie and looked about, though, Winston realized that this was no ordinary restaurant. There were none of the usual wall decorations. Rather, since there were no windows, the walls were painted with what Winston could only describe as a live wallpaper showing a moonlit panorama of the Egyptian plains around the pyramids. The pale glow of a half-moon gleamed from the Great Pyramid’s capstones, and the Sphinx off to the side in the distance, her face and paws facing directly at the restaurant’s interior. Feathery clouds flitted over the dark sky, and stars twinkled on the restaurant’s domed ceiling.
The restaurant hosted only six tables, each of which stood draped in a white tablecloth with crystal glasses and sparkling silverware. Winston realized that the tablecloths gave off their own pale white light. Two of the tables were taken by other patrons — two women, one man, and one alien much like Bernie, all dressed in form-fitting clothes of dark gray and blue in fashions Winston didn’t recognize. They ignored the trio’s arrival. Overall, the restaurant was curiously bland, as if the space were designed to draw the attention to the tableau on the walls.
Unless, Winston thought, it’s not a wallpaper. What if I’m in a spaceship, and we’re actually hovering around the pyramids right now?
A waiter emerged from a side door carrying a tray with three glasses of what appeared to be ice water. Seeing it, Winston became aware of how dry his lips and throat felt. The waiter had Bernie’s eyes and skin, but his hair was dark and short, with a wide bare strip that ran from ear to ear over the top of his head, like a headphone strap.
Winston heard a high-pitched tone in his right ear, and even before it vanished he heard a voice in his mind, higher and slightly faster than Bernie’s.
“Of course,” said Bledsoe as he gazed about with obvious fascination. “Do you have booze?”
Winston noticed Bernie’s head turn toward the waiter ever so slightly, and the fingers of his free hand opened, as if he were expressing a thought. The waiter gave a slight dip of his chin as he stood from placing the waters at three place settings. He turned with his tray and set off for the doorway to what was likely the kitchen.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear your answer,” Bledsoe called after him.
Only then did Winston notice that the back of the waiter’s neck glowed with a faint blue. Moreover, as he passed through the shadows before the doorway, Winston noticed more glowing on his hands and visible cheek. He was barely luminous, but it was all over him. If that were Winston, it would take something impacting him from all sides to make him glow like that. But not an impact. Something more subtle. Something low-level…
“Bernie, where are we?” Winston asked.
“What?” Bledsoe searched about the restaurant for proof that this was impossible, even as Bernie drew out a seat, sat down, and rested Little e and the Alpha Machine in his lap. “No, it can’t be. I tried to view inside here and couldn’t. There’s nothing.”
Bernie casually took a sip from his glass. Winston pulled out a seat to his right and followed suit. The water was shockingly cold and deliciously clear. He couldn’t remember ever tasting better water.
“Maybe it’s the radiation,” said Winston. Both of the others stopped to listen. “That’s why the waiter’s glowing. And I’m betting the radiation also blocks our ability to view into Area X.”
Bernie offered Bledsoe the smallest of smiles.
Bledsoe rolled his eyes. “Oh, like it matters. So…” He gazed off through the kitchen doorway, sniffed the air, and sat down opposite from Winston. “I’ll do you one better. There’s no kitchen back there. If this is Area X, how could there be? Whatever we order is teleporting in from somewhere else, right?”
Winston drew a deep breath, trying not to show himself mimicking Bledsoe, but nonetheless curious. The place smelled of…nothing. The tan carpeting around the restaurant showed no stains. There was no evidence of the hired help having any workstations. This place was just an empty box designed as a waypoint between destinations, a spot to rest, with all the support facilities pulled in from somewhere else. As Bernie had said earlier, Area X existed in different ways for different needs.
Or who knew? Any civilization capable of time-space travel might just be able to pull food and drinks out of a next-gen microwave oven, like in Star Trek.
“I’ll ask the obvious question,” said Bledsoe. “Why go through the trouble of repairing a place that was demolished by a nuclear explosion and setting it up like this?”
Rather than reply, Bernie glanced at Winston.
“Because it had been nuked,” Winston said. “What place would be more off-limits? And then they blocked off the entrances.”
“So, we’re trapped in here?” Bledsoe asked, straightening anxiously.
Winston raised his glass and took another drink. “Dude, do we look trapped?”
This guy. Winston shook his head. He didn’t kn
ow if Bledsoe’s rigidity and tunnel vision came from his age or his megalomania. Either way, Winston had taken about all of it that he could stomach for one day.
He patted the table near Bernie. “On that note, we have a job to do. Can we get a doggie bag? I’m stuck between being really hungry and losing my appetite, depending on who’s talking.”
“Sweet.” Winston pushed back from the table and stood. “Let’s get out of here.”
Bledsoe also pushed his chair back, then grabbed his water glass as if preparing to hurl it at someone. “Hey, hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
Winston gave him a humorless smile. “Our beautiful relationship has to wait just a bit longer, sorry.” He debated whether or not to tell Bledsoe anything further and decided, for once, to keep his mouth shut. “I’ve got an errand to run.”
“What errand?” Bledsoe asked warily?
A bald black man emerged from the kitchen entrance — or whatever it was. He was dressed in an impressive dark suit with a white shirt, green tie, and shiny black dress shoes. He walked with a slow determination directly to their table, carrying only a glass of water. Watching him, the word regal sprang to Winston’s mind.
He extended a hand to Winston. Winston took it and felt that the man’s grip was cool and strong.
“Winston Chase,” he said. “Welcome.”
He moved on to face the table even before Winston had a chance to process that this man, who was clearly at home here, had offered him no information.
Bledsoe, however, clearly knew the man’s identity. He recoiled two steps back from the table, anger flaring in his features.
“No, no, no. Our deal was no Command One!”
As Bernie stood, the newcomer paused before Bledsoe and extended his hand again. Bledsoe made no move to take it.
“Are you kidding?” Bledsoe ranted. “Don’t you read me that literal by-the-letter business. I trusted you!”
“Mr. Bledsoe,” said Command One in a low voice, smoothly shifting his extended hand into a gesture of beckoning Bledsoe back to the table. “Please. We have a fair amount to discuss. That is all.”
Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy Page 81