Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  “I don’t want to die, Addison! I wanted to help you do what you came here to do!”

  Addison’s face showed no expression, but his eyes shifted to a now-familiar golden yellow. He seemed to be thinking. He let go of the seat and held Bobby’s shoulders. “I cannot stop this. But perhaps you can have what you want.”

  Bobby blinked away tears that were filling his eyes. What did that mean? Suddenly everything went gray. The noise of the plane was gone, and he felt nothing but peace and quiet. But then the earsplitting rush of air was back, and with it his fear.

  Addison was smiling. “Do not be afraid.”

  Bobby took his last look out the window and raised his arms to protect his face.

  Chapter Eight

  Nine minutes earlier

  With Dr. Saskia behind him, Quentin approached Richards and Addison. Some of the seats around them were either missing or oddly deformed, and Quentin stared at a strange assortment of objects scattered around. Among the objects there was money, and even gold. And there were several long devices that looked like futuristic weapons. Obviously Richards had used Addison to create these. What the hell was the man thinking?

  Richards talked frantically to Addison and hardly noticed as they approached. It sounded like he was discussing plans for creating some kind of device. Richards seemed almost frantic, speaking rapidly with a voice hoarse from overuse. Dr. Saskia had been right—Richards was not himself.

  Quentin stepped closer, preparing to say something, when suddenly he had to steady himself against one of the seats. His vision went gray, as if he were about to faint, but his thoughts were still coherent. There was simply an absence of senses. No sight, no sound, just awareness. It was actually serene. But the moment passed, and the disturbing scene was back.

  “What’s going on here?” Quentin asked.

  Richards turned to them. “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “We were. We slept for a long time. Dr. Saskia says you’ve been at this all night. Colonel, what is all this?”

  “I’ve learned a great deal about the capabilities of this young man, Mr. Darnell. And there is precious little time left.”

  An electronic ding sounded from above, followed by the pilot’s voice saying they were approaching LAX.

  Quentin picked up one of the weapon-like devices. “Colonel, this looks like a gun. Did you have Addison make this? This is not why he’s here.”

  Richards’s sighed loudly. “You’re being naïve if you think such possibilities won’t be explored. Put the weapon down. You have no idea how to handle it.”

  Quentin did not put it down. His anger threatened to consume him. How could he have been so wrong? They should have never tried to bring the Lamotelokhai to the United States. He turned to Saskia. The doctor shook his head, unable to offer any help. But his eyes flitted nervously to the weapon in Quentin’s hands. Quentin looked around the cabin, hoping some kind of solution might suddenly appear. Most of the doctors were still sleeping. But the Navy doctor, William Kessel, was sitting up, watching them with interest.

  Struggling to contain his anger, Quentin examined the device in his hands. He was disgusted that Addison had been used to create such a thing. He found the trigger, then tightened his grip on it and pointed it at Richards.

  Before Richards saw the threat, another ding came from above, and then the pilot’s voice. “Folks, due to a situation on the ground at LAX, we are being re-routed to Long Beach Airport a short distance to the south. We’ll be changing course momentarily so please fasten your seatbelts.”

  Quentin relaxed his grip on the weapon and placed it on the floor. What could possibly force such an important flight to change course? The plane tipped to one side, shifting its direction. Quentin looked out the downward-facing windows and saw the vast expanse of lights that was Los Angeles, and the parallel runway lights of LAX below. And then he saw it. Sprawled amidst the lights was the carnage of a catastrophe. Patches of fire and flashing lights illuminated scattered wreckage.

  “Sweet Jesus!” It was Richards. He had moved to one of the windows next to Quentin.

  A stewardess brushed past them, her face etched with concern.

  Richards stopped her. “Ma’am! What happened down there?”

  “We don’t have details yet, sir.” She rushed off toward the rear of the plane.

  Quentin turned back to the window. The wreckage was scattered over a huge area, as if a plane had literally splashed onto the ground.

  “It was our airplane.”

  They turned to face Addison.

  “What are you talking about?” Richards demanded.

  Addison looked at Quentin. “The airplane that crashed was this one, Dad. You pointed the weapon at Roger Richards. You wanted him to stop talking to me. William Kessel tried to take the weapon from you. The weapon was activated. This damaged the airplane, and the airplane crashed.”

  A hollow numbness grew in Quentin’s gut.

  “That’s nonsense!” Richards said. “We’re still here, aren’t we?”

  Addison’s voice was calm. “Before the airplane crashed, Bobby asked me to fix the damaged airplane. I could not. He convinced me to do something else instead. So I made a change in the space near the airplane. The change made a second airplane, from an earlier moment in time. I did this so that Bobby might still exist to do what he wanted to do.” Addison gazed at Quentin. “You have experienced such a change before.”

  “Yes.” The numbness in Quentin’s gut turned into an icy chill.

  “Who was on that plane?” Richards said, pointing out the window.

  “We were on it,” Addison said. “It was the same airplane. You were ejected from the airplane before it crashed. The weapon you asked me to create damaged the airplane, and you were almost certainly killed.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Richards repeated.

  Out the window, the burning wreckage slipped from view. Quentin struggled to grasp the meaning of Addison’s words. They were all killed?

  “We can’t land at another airport,” Richards said. He seemed to be talking to himself, but then he turned to Quentin. “There was a team of doctors and other specialists waiting for our arrival, not to mention a Special Forces unit to provide security. We’ll be vulnerable if we land anywhere else.” Richards pulled his smartphone from his belt and started to punch in a number. “We need to mobilize them.”

  Quentin stepped up and placed his hand on the phone. “Colonel, consider what just happened. We were killed. I fired the weapon that caused the crash, but you’re the one who had Addison create it in the first place. The point is it happened. And it will happen again. People get intoxicated with what the Lamotelokhai can do. Your team of experts won’t be immune to that. You told me yourself they would use Addison to make weapons. You don’t honestly believe this gift was sent for that reason, do you?”

  “I have no evidence your son’s capabilities are a gift of any kind, nor that he is an extraterrestrial.”

  Quentin refused to give up. “You’ll see evidence of that soon. You’d know it now if you’d slept during the night. But my point is that you now know what can happen. You saw the disaster at the hospital, and now your own mistake has caused the deaths of everyone on this plane.”

  “We are not dead,” Richards said.

  “We’re just copies of ourselves!” Quentin struggled to control his voice. “Tell me, Colonel—this team of experts—do you believe they have plans to immediately share Addison’s gifts with the rest of the world so that everyone can make decisions about its use? Or will they confine the investigation to a group of people who might first consider the benefits to the United States?”

  Richards seemed to actually think about this. “Your second assumption is likely.”

  Quentin lowered his voice. “Addison is capable of shifting time and space, for God’s sake. Think of the chaos he could create if the wrong people control him.”

  Richards studied Quentin’s face for a moment. “Alright, Darnel
l. What do you suggest?”

  Bobby awoke to the pilot’s voice—something about landing at a different airport. He’d slept through most of the flight. The cabin lights came on, and he squinted against the brightness. Carlos and Ashley were stirring, too. Ashley mumbled something he couldn’t understand, and then their late-night conversation came back to him. And so did the kiss.

  “We can’t be there already,” Ashley said.

  Carlos headed for the restrooms, leaving Bobby alone with Ashley.

  Ashley gazed at him. “Let’s agree not to act weird about things, okay?”

  Bobby was relieved that she brought it up first. “I’ll pretend nothing happened if you keep thinking about what I asked you,” he said. “Maybe someday you’ll change your mind.”

  Addison came in and stood in the aisle between them. “Something has happened. Roger Richards asked me to create things. I did. One of the things was a weapon. Dad did not like this. He picked up the weapon and William Kessel tried to take it away. The weapon was activated, and it damaged the airplane. Bobby, you asked me to repair the damage, but I could not repair it before the plane crashed to the surface. Before it crashed, you asked me if I could do something that might allow you to continue living. So I did. What I did created a second airplane. The first airplane crashed. This probably killed everyone on that airplane. But on this airplane you may live to accomplish what you want.”

  Addison had spoken clearly, but Bobby struggled to understand. Perhaps his brain wasn’t awake yet. He turned to Ashley for help, but she looked just as dumbfounded. Slowly, Addison’s words sank in and Bobby’s skin began to prickle.

  Carlos came back in and stopped when he saw their faces. “What’s going on?”

  “Plans are being made,” Addison said. “You should come with me now.” He turned and walked away.

  “Addison made a copy of our airplane, and the other one crashed,” Bobby told Carlos. “We all died.” Bobby turned away from Carlos’s baffled gape and followed Addison.

  Quentin woke Lindsey and did his best to explain the events. As she listened she nodded a few times but then held up one hand and shook her head as if unwilling to hear any more of it. Quentin sat next to her and waited patiently.

  A few minutes later she said, “I want to be strong. I do. For you. For the students. But I don’t know if I can handle any more. How am I supposed to respond to this? I died—we all died—in a plane crash? What the hell, Quentin?” She turned away and stared out the window.

  Quentin had no answers. So he simply sat with his hand on her knee as the plane descended toward the Long Beach Airport. Minutes later they touched down. Lindsey turned back to Quentin and silently motioned for him to get up. They joined Richards and the doctors in the main cabin.

  Colonel Richards seemed genuinely disturbed by the turn of events, and he now freely revealed what he knew. As he talked, Quentin became aware of the magnitude of their mistake in bringing the Lamotelokhai here. Richards admitted that government officials were planning to keep everything a secret until they fully understood what they were dealing with, which Quentin assumed would be a very long time. The Jayapura hospital conflict had been reported as an unfortunate skirmish, with no mention of dinosaurs or anything else out of the ordinary. The only ones who knew about their flight to Los Angeles were the hastily assembled homeland security officials, government doctors, and armed security men awaiting them. But the plane this team waited for had crashed. To Quentin, the ensuing confusion represented a window of opportunity—a chance to somehow correct his mistake. And Richards now seemed to agree.

  “We have to make the general population aware of Addison, before he is sequestered into secrecy.” Richards said.

  Quentin nodded. “You’re willing to help us do that?”

  “I told you before, I’m slow but not stupid. It’s not every day a man responsible for killing himself and those around him has the chance to reflect on it postmortem.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s assume what your son says is true. An exact copy of our plane and our own bodies are smeared over the LAX tarmac. You can be damn sure the homeland security folks are going ape-shit. Those boys will be up our asses in a few minutes—fifteen tops. We have to get you off this plane and to a public place.”

  “Why a public place? Shouldn’t we just hide out somewhere until we figure out what to do?”

  Richards shook his head. “You stated yourself that you don’t want your son controlled by only a few individuals. So hiding out with him is a bad idea, unless you feel you are the only ones qualified to work with him.”

  “No,” Quentin said. “We don’t think that.”

  “Then what you want is a media blitz in a public place—show the whole world. If everyone knows about your son, it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to secretly misuse him.”

  “He’s right,” Lindsey said. “Everyone needs to know.”

  Addison and the students emerged from the forward cabin and joined them as the plane lurched to a stop. Quentin looked out the windows. They were on the tarmac rather than connecting to a gate. Airport vehicles with flashing yellow lights rushed here and there, but he saw no military or police vehicles approaching their plane.

  “We have to get off the plane,” Quentin said.

  The Navy doctor, Captain William Kessel, had approached them as they talked. “There’s no reason to leave this plane now,” he said. “A team of specialists will arrive momentarily. They’ll transport you and provide anything you need.”

  “Pardon me, Bill.” Richards pushed his way past Kessel from behind. He was carrying one of the weapons Addison had created. In his other hand was a large stack of bills. Richards ignored Kessel and spoke to Quentin. “We may need these.”

  Quentin wanted nothing to do with the weapon. “Please leave that here. In fact, it should be destroyed.”

  Richards knotted his brows, but then he nodded and handed the weapon to Addison. “Your father would like you to disable this device. And the others, too, if you would.”

  Addison took the weapon, but he did not move away until Bobby nodded at him.

  Kessel said, “Colonel, what exactly are you planning to do?”

  “Bill, there are portions of this story you don’t know, and I have no time to explain.”

  Kessel pulled out his smartphone and started punching in a number.

  “There’s no point in trying to stop him,” Richards said to Quentin. “They’re on their way here anyway. We have to go.” Richards moved to a hatch marked Exit. He gripped the handle.

  Kessel paused his phone conversation. “Colonel, we have orders to wait on this plane until a team arrives. Please don’t touch that hatch.”

  The pilot’s voice came from above. “Folks, there seems to be a large scale security alert due to an incident at LAX. We’ll have to sit tight for a spell. Shortly, security personnel will board the aircraft for what we hope is a brief inspection. Due to the specialized nature of this flight, I assume this is merely a formality. Until then, though, the plane will be locked down. Please make yourselves as comfortable as possible.”

  Richards leveraged his full weight against the hatch’s handle, but it didn’t move. They were stuck.

  Quentin thought of the colonel’s words: ‘…a media blitz…show the whole world at once…’ Richards was right, and he seemed willing to jeopardize his career to help. If there was to be any chance of making the Lamotelokhai public, they had to act now. Quentin signaled Bobby to follow him down the aisle to where Addison knelt by the weapons, which were now malformed masses of metal and plastic. Quentin bent down and nodded for Bobby to do the same. He kept his voice low. “Addison, we need your help again. It is important that we get you off this plane and take you somewhere else. But the doors are locked.”

  Addison gazed at him with no indication that he understood.

  “Bobby, can you explain?” Quentin said.

  “I don’t know what you want him to do,” Bobby whispered.

  “I d
on’t know, exactly. Maybe he could do what he did to Colonel Richards yesterday.”

  Before Bobby could answer, Addison spoke up. “I moved Roger Richards to a space that I knew of because I had walked there. I do not know of the space outside this airplane.”

  Quentin glanced up at the others. They were focused on Kessel’s phone conversation. “Do you think you could know the space outside by looking out the windows? We really have to go now!”

  “Yes. But it will be safer for you if I know of the area by walking there.”

  Then Addison was gone. Quentin was so close that he felt the air whoosh through his hair as it filled the vacuum with a loud pop. He blinked. But before he fully understood what had happened, Addison was back.

  “Now I know of the space outside the airplane,” he said. “It will be safer for you.”

  Bobby touched Addison’s arm. “Whoa!”

  “Mr. Darnell?” It was Kessel.

  Quentin looked up. The doctors stared directly at him, apparently alerted by the popping air of Addison’s departure. But their view of Addison was at least partially blocked by seats. Quentin hoped they had not seen Addison reappear. Quentin grabbed one of the mangled weapons and held it up for them to see. “Looks like we don’t have to worry about these any longer.”

  The doctors seemed to buy this, but Richards knew something was up. He moved to their position and knelt with them as if he were inspecting the weapons. “In minutes we’re going to be neck deep in personnel,” he said.

  Quentin looked at Addison. “Can you do it?”

  “Yes.”

  Quentin stood and faced the others. Lindsey was listening to Kessel’s conversation, but she eyed Quentin warily. He motioned for her to grab Ashley and Carlos and join them.

  “What’s going on?” Lindsey said when they were all together.

  “Addison thinks he can—” Quentin stopped. There was no need to finish the statement. They were already on the ground. Quentin’s ears popped as they adjusted to the different air pressure. The roar of idling jet engines assaulted his senses. He gasped and his lungs filled with the warm, coastal night air of Los Angeles. He looked up. They were directly beneath the belly of the massive jet.