The blonde on the left picked up a phone, turned her back away, and started speaking quietly into the receiver. Based on her body language and the escalating tension, Lucas figured she was calling security.
“Can you at least tell me how badly he’s hurt?”
She shook her head. “I can’t give out any information. You need to have a seat, sir. Please.”
Lucas tossed his arms in the air in frustration. If security was on its way, he needed to disappear, and fast. He spun his feet and headed down the hallway, the same way he’d come in. He knew it would take him to a connecting corridor that led to the south exit of the hospital. His plan now was to disappear into a secluded alley somewhere, then call Fuji and get on with the final incursion. It was the only option remaining.
His feet passed a door stenciled with a placard that said “Private.” Up next was the elevator bank, and then an intersecting hallway he’d passed on the way in. It featured two overhead signs: Emergency and Oncology. He’d need to take the second corridor and follow it around until he ran into the sliding automatic doors that faced the main parking lot along Speedway Boulevard. It was the same path he took when he arrived, except in the reverse order.
As he approached, the doors of the first elevator opened with a chime from the overhead floor indicator. A rush of people spilled out, so he had to bob and weave his way through the bodies. He kept expecting at least one member of security to step out of the lift, but it never happened. He turned his shoulders and eased past the final person—a man wearing a sharply pressed suit and tie—but stopped in his tracks when three men appeared at the far end of the hall. One of them was bald, but all three wore Smart Skin Suits. Fuck, the Lucas copies. They’d tracked him down.
“There he is!” the bald man shouted, pointing his finger Lucas. The trio began a sprint.
“Shit!” Lucas snapped, jumping into the empty elevator on his left. His backside just cleared the doors before they closed behind him. He randomly pressed the number five button and waited for the car to move. It did, allowing him to let out the frantic breath he’d been holding in his lungs.
A minute later, the doors opened on the fifth floor. He stuck his head out to check the area—no sign of security or the Lucas copies. He started to step out, but he pulled his foot back when something occurred to him. If the copies were watching the overhead indicator on the ground floor, they’d know where he went. He decided to stay inside and let the door close again, this time selecting the number seven button. He also decided to press the remaining eight buttons above the number seven.
“That should slow them down,” he mumbled. He’d need to make his way through the maze of antiseptic hallways and attending staff until he found the elevator bank on the far side of the hospital. If he kept his head down and his feet moving, he might be able to outwit and outmaneuver the others.
Floor number seven arrived, and he flew out, not bothering to check the area first. There wasn’t time. He went left at the first hallway, then turned right, heading north along his path. He was making good time and great progress until he passed Pediatrics. As soon as he rounded the next corner, he noticed a pair of hospital cops. They were about twenty yards from his position and talking with two physicians in white coats. He reversed course and ducked around the corner, pressing his back against the wall. His mind was a blur, wondering if they’d noticed him. He didn’t think so, but he needed to be sure—right now.
His leaned around to take a peek. The cops were still chatting with the staff. That was the good news. The bad news was that two additional men with guns and badges were coming down the same hallway, probably to meet up with the others.
He shook his head, realizing time was no longer on his side. Sure, there were dozens of other hallways to try and many other floors, but at this point, any route he chose was purely a guess. It seemed likely that security was fully engaged by now, fanning out and looking for him everywhere. Plus, he needed to avoid the Lucas copies—wherever they were.
“I’m screwed,” he said, knowing it would take a miracle to weave his way through the gauntlet of threats without detection.
Ten feet down the hall, a young female technician came out of a room labeled “Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” Her brown hair with blonde streaks was pulled back in a tight ponytail and the thick, black-rimmed glasses on her nose. She wore typical hospital staff attire—loose fitting blue scrubs—and didn’t seem to be in a hurry, though a twenty-dollar bill was in her right hand. Lucas was hit with an idea.
MRI labs are usually staffed solo, meaning he should have the room to himself while she was gone. The question was, for how long? Since she wasn’t carrying her purse, a coat, or car keys, he didn’t think she was leaving for the day, so he didn’t have to worry about her replacement showing up soon with shift change approaching. The money in her palm meant she was going in search of food or drink, probably breakfast, based on the time of day. Otherwise, he expected to see a folder or clipboard in her hands if she was on a work-related errand. He calculated the odds and liked his chances.
She zipped past him quietly, making only momentary eye contact. He waited until her tiny feet took her around the corner, then went to door of the MRI lab. His eyes read over the warning poster about metal objects in an MRI lab. He paused as he reviewed the items he was carrying. Some of them were ferromagnetic: the Google Glasses and Lauren’s car keys, plus the Smart Skin Suit’s base fabric—graphene. However, since he wasn’t planning on using the giant electromagnet inside, they shouldn’t pose a risk, as long as he kept his distance.
He pushed through the door, planning to secure it from the inside, but there wasn’t a lock—patient and technician safety guidelines must have precluded it.
The lab’s interior was perfectly clean with white cement floors, smooth white walls, basic white cabinets, and white drop ceilings with plastic supports. The donut-shaped machine was mostly white, too, making him feel like he’d stepped into white-out conditions at the North Pole. Other than the manufacturer’s logo on the front of the device, the patient insertion table was the only thing with color: a seven-foot-long tan pad on a raised plastic base—probably thermoplastic. The operator’s control room was on the right, stationed behind a wooden door and viewing window infused with a bronze-colored wire mesh inside the glass.
He put his hand inside his shirt and found the Google Glasses, putting them on the floor in the corner along with the car keys from his pants pocket. The street clothes were next on his to-do list. He stripped them off and tossed them away along with the ugly, uncomfortable shoes.
Once the Smart Skin Suit was exposed, he put the glasses on and touched the power button. The heads-up display came to life, highlighting the objects in the room with specs and dimensions.
So far, so good, he thought, except the battery indicator showed only 7 percent. Power was running low and he needed to hurry. This would be his last chance to use the tech, unless he could figure out how to recharge the system using old technology.
“Fuji, this is Lucas. Can you read me? Fuji? Are you there? Come in.”
He waited a few seconds, but only heard silence. He spoke into the device again, using the same words, in the same order. Again, only silence answered. He took off the glasses and checked them. The unit appeared to be intact and functioning correctly, so it should be working. He didn’t know why it wasn’t until his eyes landed on the indicator lights spread across the front of the MRI machine.
The equipment was on, but running in standby mode using minimal power. Even so, it may have been generating a tiny but measurable magnetic field, which may have been interfering with the glasses’ communication signal. It was also possible the field might be enough to disrupt the suit’s connection with Fuji’s incursion chamber back home. He needed to relocate, but didn’t think he had the time to find another secluded spot in the hospital. Not with teams of security running around, and certainly not with three Lucas copies hunting him.
Then he remembe
red the operator’s station. It had its own room and must have been shielded by some type of Faraday Cage to trap and disburse the electromagnetic field generated by the powerful machine. Strong shielding would be needed in the walls and door to protect the computer equipment inside, and to prevent RF signals from being added to the data collected from the patient’s scan, creating ghost artifacts on the resulting images. A lattice of copper mesh would make the most sense and match the color of the metal grid inside the glass window, but unless he opened the walls and took a look, he’d never know.
Lucas went inside the control room and shut the door. He felt a lock on the inside of the knob, which was odd, since the main entry door to the lab didn’t have one. It must have been installed as a safety feature, keeping patients from wandering inside the control room and messing with the controls. Regardless of the reason for its existence, it didn’t matter. He locked the door and tried the communication link again.
A second later, he received an answer.
“Fuji here. Signal received. Waiting for video sync and thread stabilization.”
“Hey, buddy. It’s damn good to hear your voice.”
“Mission status?”
“Look, I don’t have time for protocols. Power is down to six percent, so we need to make this quick.”
“Instructions?”
“Queue Anchor Point Alpha. I need to warn my deadbeat parents.”
“Received and understood. Streaming displacement vectors now. Power sequence initializing. Chamber fast boot sequence commencing.”
“We have a fast boot sequence now?”
“Upgrades installed.”
“How long?”
“Ninety seconds.”
Before Lucas could relay platitudes to the brilliant monk, a rush of movement caught his eye through the viewing window. He looked up and saw four burly security officers standing at the ready with their hands on their holsters, fingers toughing their sidearms.
40
The faces of the four cops were burning a deep-red color and their mouths were flapping with angry words, but Lucas could only hear a faint, muffled version of their voices. It sounded like they were deep underwater. He was sure they were screaming orders at him, but he could only guess at what they were saying. The shielded walls and thick viewing glass of the operator’s station were doing their job with the utmost efficiency.
Lucas put his hands over his head, giving the armed security team a facial expression and an exaggerated shrug that said, “I can’t hear you.”
They seemed to understand, moving their head and hands to tell him not to make any sudden moves.
He figured the security detail stopped the MRI technician in the hallway and asked her about his possible whereabouts. She did make eye contact with him, and with his red hair, cheek scars, and stolen street clothes, it would’ve been easy for a trained observer like her to notice and identify him.
One of the officers slid to his right, disappearing beyond the left edge of the viewing window. Lucas feared he might pull his gun and start shooting through the door, so he stepped forward to change his position. He felt like a rat trapped in a cage—a Faraday Cage—with nowhere to run.
Then his logic kicked in.
If the guard sprayed lead, he’d certainly damage the expensive control equipment, costing the hospital several hundred thousand dollars, minimum. Lucas relaxed his shoulders, realizing the officer was probably instructed not to shoot. Lucas started thinking about the equipment around him. An idea popped into his head.
“Sixty seconds,” Fuji told him through the comm link.
Lucas smiled at the officers in front of him, hoping to defuse the itch that was no doubt building in their trigger fingers. He needed to buy a little more time.
A bang rang out from the door on his left. Then another. The officer he couldn’t see must have been kicking at the door.
Lucas let his eyes drop to study the relatively simple controls on the console in front of him—mostly analog knobs and old-school switches. Each instrument was labeled with its function, including a pair of power gauges with encoded limits and raised indicators on their plastic covers. He was thankful it was 1985 and not 2015. In the future, the control station would’ve been digitized with advanced computer screens and touch-screen controls.
The sentry door thumped again, though this time he heard the wood crack upon impact. The man was making progress and would soon force his way into the control room. The three officers on the other side of the glass stepped apart from one another, increasing the space between them by at least a foot.
Lucas figured it was some type of preassault maneuver. If he was correct, he only had seconds before they’d be through the door and have him in restraints. Certainly not enough time for Fuji’s fast boot sequence to complete and energize the incursion stream. If they grabbed him first, their close proximity would disrupt the transmission and cause the matter stream to destabilize.
Another splintering whack hit the door. Then another.
It was now or never, he decided, bringing his hands down in an instant. He ducked below the window as his left hand landed on the power control level and his right hand pressed the red initiator switch. Together, they fired the massive electromagnet standing guard behind the officers. The hum of the machine must have caught their attention, since all three of their heads snapped around to look at the device.
“Thirty seconds,” Fuji reported.
Lucas kept low and cranked the power well past the red line on its indicators, hoping the MRI initiated faster than Fuji’s Incursion Chamber. All of the cops’ duty belts were loaded with equipment—magnetic equipment. Each looked to be carrying several magazines of ammo in pouches along his vest, plus handcuffs, an expandable baton, a shiny security badge, a heavy belt buckle, metal snaps on their uniform, and of course, a semiautomatic pistol with bullets in its clip.
A moment later, a powerful field began to attract all the foreign metal in the room, grabbing hold of the four men, their guns, and their gadgets. Each of the men flew through the air toward the whirring magnet, snapping to its casing like insects stuck on flypaper.
Another ten seconds went by before the Smart Skin Suit energized, taking Lucas to his final destination—Anchor Point Alpha.
41
Lucas woke up from his trip to the past lying on his back. He opened his eyes and found a dim overhead light flickering back at him. It was attached to a gray, dingy ceiling in a room that smelled like baby powder. He’d expected to find himself standing on the street in front of his parents’ home in Tucson on his third birthday. His first childhood memory and the one Anchor Point in time that Kleezebee and Fuji knew where his parents would be—just a few months before his incursion to stop Drew’s mom from driving home.
But instead, he was somewhere else—and at night. He figured a supercharged magnetic field was the reason. His decision to crank the MRI device to full power must have altered the incursion stream slightly.
Anchor Point Alpha was all about convincing his deadbeat parents to leave the drug trade and do so for the sake of humanity and the future. He knew it was a long shot, but it was the last shot. The only shot. He had to succeed, otherwise, billions would die. If he could somehow make them understand what was at stake across time and space, they’d have to listen to him—right?
He rolled to his side and sat up, locking eyes with a bleary-eyed, male toddler standing in a crib. The boy was holding onto the wooden bars like a convict staring at his warden, expecting a release. The freckled youngster’s hands may have been tiny, but Lucas soon learned that his lungs were larger than life when the cuddly kid starting screaming.
Lucas held a finger to his mouth, trying to shush the boy before his parents came running to investigate. It didn’t work. The baby’s high-pitched wailing only got worse. Lucas smiled and pulled at his face, twisting and distorting his skin to distract the child. His series of funny faces and goofy clownlike antics seemed to work. The baby stopped c
rying in an instant and giggled. It was one of those cute little laughs that babies make. The kind that melt everyone’s heart.
Lucas took a few of the quiet moments to look around the darkened space, searching for the door. The shadows were overflowing with toys and stuffed animals. Except for a half-full hamper bag and a four-drawer dresser standing in the corner, everywhere he looked—more toys. A homemade sign of paper letters hung on the wall above him. It was held in place on each end with masking tape, and it said HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCAS.
He’d made it to Anchor Point Alpha all right, but was inside his own childhood bedroom instead of outside his family’s home. He needed to get out now, before his parents found him. If they did, they’d never listen to him—not a strange man lurking around in their baby’s room wearing a Smart Skin Suit. They’d surely have him arrested and this final attempt would fail before it had a chance to get started.
There was also the likelihood of his father owning a gun. Most drug dealers carried, and finding a predator near his son would be all the justification he’d need to use it. The Smart Skin Suit was a marvelous piece of technology, but it wasn’t designed to stop a vengeful father and a barrage of hollow points.
Lucas pressed to his feet and walked on his toes to the door, dodging three piles of playthings and the hamper bag. The door was sitting ajar, letting two inches of light drift in from the hallway. His eyes swung back to check the crib—baby was sitting down and sucking on his thumb, his round, playful eyes watching Lucas’ every move. There was a waft of smell in the air. Was the stink coming from the hamper bag or from the kid’s diaper?
When he’d gotten up this morning, the last thing he expected to do was smell his own baby poop, or stare into the eyes of his toddler self. He didn’t know why, but he had a sudden desire to pass along some wisdom before he left the bedroom. Baby Lucas was only three, but the words might hang around for a while and eventually sink in. Another long shot. But it was worth a try. His entire life was nothing but long shots, so why stop now?
Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) Page 33