Utility Company (Book 1): Blink

by Swardstrom, Will

  Maybe...maybe this was a good time to find out a bit more about his double. He cleared his throat.

  “So, um, tell me about your side of the mirror,” Nik prodded, “Where’d you go to school as a kid?”

  Nicholas jerked as if being brought out of a trance. “What? My schooling? I’m sure it was the same as yours. Thomasville in Michigan as a kid, Arizona for middle school‌—‌can’t remember the name of that one…named after a road? And Indianola for high school, with a few other places thrown in along the way.”

  Nik nodded. That sounded the same. “Did you have band in high school?”

  Nicholas nodded enthusiastically and smiled, “Yes, trumpet in the jazz band with Mr. Rudolfo.”

  Oh. Trumpet…not saxophone. Nik smiled and said, “So far so good. I loved him as a teacher. He was always so friendly.”

  “Except if you crossed him. I can remember that temper even to this day.” His finger ran along the zipper again and rubbed on one of the buttons on his coat.

  Interesting. Nik’s Mr. Rudolfo was well known for being calm in every circumstance. His manner when a student was out of line could make your blood run cold, but still, calm. It was obvious there were differences, but was there something important in the difference? How to phrase the questions…

  “So, you’re married to Penny, right?” No. That’s not the way you ask.

  “Yep. Sure are. Love that girl. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “And where’d you meet?”

  “Garrison College. She transferred in her junior year.”

  All right, now that one was a big difference. Nik had thought about Garrison, even had a banner of the college in his classroom, but found it was a little too far away for his comfort when he went for a visit. And if Nicholas had his entire college experience at a different college, how did he and Penny get together? Did the universes make sure the same people ended up together no matter what universe they were in, or was there something else?

  “Tell me about your kids, Garrett and Elise.”

  “Ah Garrett. He loves baseball. Can’t get enough of it. We’re always outside after school throwing the ball around‌—‌when it’s not snowing too much. Elise takes after her mom. So determined. She’s the smartest girl in the school and is on the state champion debate team.”

  Wow. What a marvelous lie, and the guy didn’t even pause. He must have a lot of practice because he wasn’t even close. Nik had fed Nicholas false names for his kids and Nicholas ran with it. Sisco struggled with coordination and found more enjoyment in reading or music. Kira enjoyed friends and creative arts, but determination as her primary character quality? Hardly.

  Nik decided to go with it anyway. “Cool. Sounds pretty similar. My Garrett is more involved with football and basketball and my Elise is on the school council. It’s weird how things seem to mirror each other in the two worlds.”

  Nicholas started to say something but was distracted as Agent Wesson stood up. “Ok, Tinker, I’ve got to hit the can. Keep a good eye on these two while I’m gone.”

  Tinker folded his magazine and began watching the two of them. And just like that, the distraction was gone. Nicholas looked out his window, squinted his eyes and pulled the shade halfway down. Then he leaned his head back, as if he was going to take a nap.

  Nik pulled out a magazine, but couldn’t get past the nervous tic of his mirror twin. He watched out of the corner of his eye while pretending to read the magazine. Nicholas was no longer rubbing his zipper, but was pushing the snaps on his jacket one by one, in sequence‌—‌and then…there. Three taps on the middle snap, back to the random sequence…two taps on the bottom snap, and done. Nicholas finally relaxed and appeared to fall asleep.

  Nik thought for a few minutes about the man across from him. It was obvious he was hiding something. Was Nik doing the wrong thing to place his trust in him? Really, what did he know about him, other than the obvious good looks?

  He thought for a second about whether he should let the agents know something was off, but rejected that thought pretty quickly. After they blew up his house, he wasn’t sure if he could ever bring himself to trust them.

  He set the magazine down on his lap, thinking now might be a good time to take his own nap.

  A Lurch

  Smith inhaled suddenly, waking up from the quick nap, separating himself from the strange world he had been living in during the dream. He glanced to his left.

  Dr. Anna had her hands on his forearm and was shaking him. “Smith. Time to wake up.”

  In a way, Smith didn’t want to wake from his dream. The strange woman in the warehouse was intriguing in more than one way, but he also recognized when his dreams were just that‌—‌dreams. He had a mission to focus on.

  Smith wiped his eyes, trying to clear out the still remaining sleep. The dream was overpowering. He didn’t really buy into dreams or their perceived meanings, but there was something compelling about what he just experienced. But, life was not meant to be lived in dreams. He looked over at Dr. Anna, a welcome dose of reality.

  “Dr. Anna,” Smith began. “How long did I sleep? How far out are we?

  “You’ve only been out about thirty minutes. We have a lot of time remaining, but I figured a small meeting before we touched down in Arizona might not be a bad idea.”

  Smith blinked a few more times and tried to sit up, only to slip back when the plane shuddered right at that moment. A quick correction and Smith looked around the plane. Davidson looked around nervously, a months-old news magazine resting on his lap. Nik’s doppelganger sat across the aisle, appearing to be much calmer. He had the shade halfway covering his window, but was looking out beneath it.

  Agent Tinker looked over at Smith and winked at his boss. “Gotcha covered, Smith. No worries back here.”

  Smith simply nodded and turned to look for Wesson. Tinker added, “Wesson’s in the can.”

  He turned back to Dr. Anna. “Okay, what are we looking at down there?”

  “Jones and his team headed to Sedona, Arizona last week, about the same time we were in Tennessee. They knew there were hotspots of activity, but obviously they didn’t know then what we know now.”

  “What have Jones and his team done?”

  “Well, reports have been submitted to Director Wall, and you’ve seen them as well,” Anna said.

  “I know, I know. Sum it up,” Smith interjected.

  “In his last report, Jones said he and his team were still scouring the Sedona area for anything of note. There was a home with some activity they explored a few days ago, but according to their report, nothing came of it. Since then, the reports have been vague. In fact, after going over all of their reports, I think something did happen in that house. I think that was the last time we had a legitimate report from Liszt as well,” Dr. Anna said.

  “Why do you say that?” Smith asked. He reached under his seat for a bottle of water. Taking a swig, he leaned back a bit.

  “I’ve looked at the analyst reports since that day, and they’re all generic ramblings. I know Liszt. He would never have written those,” Dr. Anna said. “Something happened in that house, and Jones is just covering it up. We need to find out what it is.”

  “Okay. Once we touch down, We’ll meet up with Jones and the first thing we do is head over to that house. We’ll get some answers…”

  Smith didn’t finish his thought because right then, the plane lurched again. A few rows behind them, the door to the plane’s lavatory popped open. Agent Wesson lurched out, blood already beginning to stain his shirt. He mumbled something as he fell between the seats, two fresh bullet holes in his chest.

  Everyone was stunned for a brief moment, then chaos reigned in the sky.

  Chaos in the Sky

  Smith rushed up and Tinker just barely caught Wesson before his face hit the floor. They turned him over as Dr. Anna arrived on his heels.

  “There isn’t much room to work here, help me get him out in the open.”


  Smith told Tinker to help while he drew his gun, looking up toward the galley.

  _____

  Anna couldn’t believe her eyes. How did this man have two bullet holes in him? She pulled on one of his arms while Tinker pulled on the other. She hoped they weren’t causing him any further damage, but it was going to be impossible to examine him where he had fallen.

  They laid him down in the open area where she had just been talking to Smith. She sent Tinker to get the medical kit out of the back of the plane. Wesson had taken two to the upper left chest and was struggling to breathe at this point‌—‌not to mention the blood loss. She grabbed a nearby blanket and pushed a fold over the wound and waited.

  _____

  Nik could tell something was up when just after the plane lurched. Smith, Tinker and the woman stopped what they were doing and stared toward the galley. Just then Agent Wesson appeared to his right, took two stumbling steps forward and fell between the rows of seats. Nik couldn’t tell what was going on. Was the guy sick? Maybe he went to the bathroom because of airsickness.

  The agents caught Wesson and turned him over. That’s when Nik saw all the blood. Oh no. He went to stand up to help and felt a hand on his knee. He looked up to see Nicholas mouthing, “Wait.”

  _____

  Smith went forward and pushed the curtain that separated the galley from the main cabin aside. Doing due diligence, he checked the corners of the galley before entering the bathroom. Nothing of significance.

  He nudged the bathroom door open slowly. It was dark in there and he didn’t see a light switch. He pulled out his phone to use the light feature and shined it into the bathroom. The plane lurched once more, throwing him off balance and he fell into the bathroom, door closing behind him.

  _____

  Nik looked back at Nicholas and mouthed, “Why?”

  Nicholas just gestured to his ear as if to tell him to listen. He was sitting up and forward in his own seat, as if ready to spring up at any moment.

  In a few moments, the plane lurched again, this time significantly. He saw Agent Tinker fall over as he was walking to the back of the plane. It was also when Nicholas moved. Grabbing Nik’s wrist, he ducked into the galley and opened the door to the cockpit, pulled Nik through and closed the door. Altogether it had taken just seconds to get from seat to cockpit.

  Nik looked back to his double and demanded, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Nicholas just pointed and Nik’s eyes followed to the struggling pilot. His right shoulder had blossomed a significant wound and it looked as if he was about ready to pass out.

  Trapped

  Smith hated turbulence. Matter of fact, he hated airplanes, period. People were meant to be on the ground. He understood the need for flight, of course; the trip to Arizona from Indiana would have taken days by land but would be mere hours from start to finish in the air. That didn’t mean he wasn’t kicking himself as soon as he was sealed inside the airplane’s restroom.

  Immediately, he tried to slide the door back, but something was jamming the mechanism. He tried again a few more times, and eventually kicked the partition in frustration. The room was actually good at insulating the occupant from the cabin, so Smith could only hear muffled shouts and yelling from his vantage point. He would have to wait until rescue arrived.

  Unless there was something in the lavatory he could use to his advantage. Chances were he would only find soft objects like toilet paper, soap, and paper towels. After 9/11, all the airplanes and airports had to comply with TSA rules. Just a few weeks prior, Agent Smith had visited an airport before a personal visit to his mother and ate at a sit-down restaurant. He’d ordered the steak, and instead of having a full complement of cutlery to use, he had a napkin full of white plastic forks, spoons, and knives.

  He spun around in the bathroom but didn’t see much. Thankfully, the restroom was fairly clean, but he didn’t see anything that could help him.

  The bad news? He really didn’t see anything.

  When face to face with the crude mirror in the plane, Agent Smith found himself lacking one important thing: a reflection.

  Agent Barney

  “Holy cow,” Nik shouted. At least he thought he shouted it. In the span of just a few seconds, federal agents were stumbling out of the airplane’s lavatory bleeding all over the cheap carpet, and the pilot‌—‌also a Fed‌—‌was incapacitated with a similar wound. Nik’s own ears were betraying him. He thought he heard his doppelganger tell him to get Agent Barney out of the pilot’s chair.

  “What did you say?” Nik said, finding himself nearly shouting.

  “Shh...I said you need to get the first aid kit out of the galley and apply pressure to Agent Barney’s wound,” Nicholas said.

  Yep. He said that.

  Nik blinked.

  For a moment, he was frozen in place. He didn’t grab Agent Barney, nor did he shy away from the situation. His brain simply needed a moment to get itself back in the present.

  Nicholas apparently wasn’t having it. He reached over and gripped Nik’s face in both hands and turned his face towards his own.

  “Look. You gotta get it together. Help Agent Barney while I pilot this plane,” Nicholas said. His eyes showed an intensity Nik had never seen in his own before. Nik still was still frozen when his opposite spoke louder and clearly. “Now.”

  Nik shook his head to clear out all the noise. He focused on Agent Barney, bending down to examine the wound. It didn’t look good and Barney was only half-conscious. Nik put Barney’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him out into the galley. As he pulled Barney’s limp body, Nik was plagued by two questions: How was Barney injured and when did his doppelganger learn to fly a plane?

  Smith’s Problem

  As soon as Agent Smith saw the mirror‌—‌or what should have been a mirror‌—‌in the airplane lavatory, he knew what had happened. Roughly, at least.

  Somehow, the trouble on the other side of the mirror wasn’t limited to the ground. It followed him on the plane, into the air thousands of feet above the surface of the earth.

  He was suddenly reminded of Samuel L. Jackson from the iconic movie Snakes on a Plane. Iconic for its awfulness, Smith thought. As the title suggested, the venomous creatures which usually inhabited ground dwellings took up residence in the airplane, giving Jackson and the rest of his fellow passengers a really hard time.

  Except in Smith’s case, the problem wasn’t snakes. It was mirrors.

  Son of a…

  As soon as Smith noticed the mirror, he ducked.

  Crouched on the floor of the bathroom, he finally realized what the smell was. It wasn’t the smell of sewage or fecal matter. Rather, Agent Smith smelled gunpowder. He thought back to before Wesson fell out of the small, cramped restroom. He hadn’t heard any gunshots, yet Wesson’s body showed clear evidence of gunplay. Smith had chalked it up to an assassin with a silencer, but with the mirror above his head acting as a portal, those shots could have come from an entirely different reality. There was not going to be any evidence because the gun was in another universe.

  Looking down at his own hand, Smith came to the belated realization he was holding his own sidearm. His first inclination was to aim at the mirror and blow it to hell. Fortunately, the next thing he remembered was that he was aboard a tin can somewhere over Kansas or Oklahoma or somewhere.

  He turned the gun around in his hand, gripping it by the barrel. He readjusted to steady himself on his knees, still out of the general sightline of the mirror. He didn’t want to give someone an easy target like Wesson apparently had. Reaching up, he swung back and brought the grip down on the center of the mirror.

  As soon as he hit, he realized his mistake. The mirror here in the lavatory was not glass. Instead, it was highly polished stainless steel. A lot more durable, and not subject to the whims of air pressure like a mirror made of glass would be. There was no way to destroy this mirror, at least with the tools at his disposal.

 
The only way to rid the plane of the mirror’s effects would be to cover it, leaving the person on the other side blind to the actions over here. Immediately, Agent Smith began unbuttoning his shirt. He would have to take a small risk when he draped it over the mirror’s edge, but to save everyone else on board the plane, Smith knew it was a risk he had to take.

  As soon as he stood, he saw the mirror was no longer empty. He half-expected to see his own image staring back at him, but instead, he found a woman staring back. She was smartly dressed in a well-fitting pantsuit, dark blue to match her eyes. Her hair was cropped close, but there was no mistake. While there was a lot that had happened in the very short time since Dr. Anna had woken him, it had been this woman walking around in his dreams just a few minutes before.

  She raised her hands as if to say something, but he wasn’t falling for anything at this point. He lifted his shirt and put it over the mirror, covering her up. She might need him, but he didn’t care. She or someone she knew had hurt Wesson and Smith wasn’t about to let that happen to him, too.

  Then, Smith calmly turned around and kicked open the door.

  Galley

  Nik pulled the prone Agent Barney out of the cockpit, and turned around to say something to his mirror opposite, but found the cockpit door shut behind him. Between the small lies and the unknown piloting skills, Nik was troubled by the person he brought back through the mirror. Had he been played all along? Was Nik Davidson on the other side of the mirror a different person than on this side?