Utility Company (Book 1): Blink

by Swardstrom, Will

  Nik held his arms out, keeping the crowd away from Penny, and trying to also keep their attention on the drama in the middle of the room instead of Hoppy, still calmly moving about the edge of the room, reprogramming the portals for Dr. Bridges.

  “Your father...is that what this is about? Your father died so you’re taking it out on me?”

  Penelope laughed, perhaps too dismissively. “Of course not. Don’t try to psychoanalyze me. Yes, you lost your father when you thought he died, but I lost mine when your father arrived. When there were two of them, there was no separating them. I could still see my father, but he stopped being my father the moment he met his twin. He was always Dr. Bridges from then on...no longer dad. The Dr. Bridges from your world stole my father.”

  Penny sat, dumbfounded for a moment, and Penelope took the moment to fully disentangle herself.

  “I’m sorry,” Penny said. “I knew I had it rough, but I didn’t know how you had it. You should still let my children go,” Penny finished.

  Penelope hesitated for a moment before shaking her head. “No. I still can’t do that. We still have a few minutes. Let’s see if those portals come back on.”

  _____

  Smith didn’t move. He waited for the shot to come. Which one would be the final blow‌—‌from the front or the back? He still held on to the door with his left hand, frozen in place after he’d found Nicholas Davidson on one side and a betrayal by this world’s Agent Street on this side.

  But no shot came. What were they waiting for? Smith felt time drag by, but realized his perception of time was off. He’d only been between the two for a few seconds, when it felt like minutes.

  “So you’re the missing piece, huh?” Smith asked, jerking his head back a little to show Street he was the target of the question.

  “Yeah, I guess you could call me that.”

  “You don’t have to talk to him. You can just shoot him, you know,” Nicholas said. In his arm, Jodi continued to struggle and the muted voices of the other three kids served as background noise for their conversation.

  “No, it’s okay. He deserves the truth. He and I are alike. Working for your country‌—‌your world. What happens when your world isn’t the only one anymore? Where does that allegiance go then? Life is no longer so cut and dried,” A. Street said.

  Agent Smith let Street’s comments linger for a moment. “Are we alike? I don’t know. I know what I stand for. That may be the United States. It may be my world. It may just be right and wrong. And I know that this guy here has been in the wrong since the moment I met him.”

  Nicholas let his mouth curl into a small smile. “I knew you didn’t like me, but it’s nice to hear you actually say it.”

  Smith ignored Nicholas. If there was a way out, it wasn’t through him. “So you were the mole? All along they’ve been fighting against this punk and Penelope. They didn’t know they had to worry about you, too.”

  Smith could tell that A. Street was taking a small bow behind him. Not enough to distract him long enough, so he remained still. “That was me, all right. When you teleported in and went straight to the locker room, we had you, but I called off the guards. I told them you were a training exercise. When Nik, E. Street and I went to save this world’s president, I let Agent Green go. When he needed a way into Bridges’ place here with the doc’s elite security system in place, I happened to have cloned doc’s controls a few months ago.”

  “Just in the last few weeks, huh?” Smith asked.

  A laugh. Deep and with force. “That’s the kicker. I’ve been deep cover on this assignment since my double came through the portal. I could be firsthand at many of Dr. Bridges’ breakthroughs, and be out on the front lines as well. I let him think it was his idea, but getting the other Agent Street out of seclusion and into action was the best thing for keeping an eye on what was going on firsthand.”

  From there, Smith’s world clicked into place. He knew he had one more trump card he could play‌—‌the laced chewing gum he had used in Arizona that sped up his perceptions when taking on the multiple agents coming through the portals from Earth 1, except this time it wasn’t gum, it was a hollow tooth with a needle inside ready to inject directly into his bloodstream. It was meant to be an emergency backup for no-win situations. He could have bitten the tooth already, but he didn’t want to with an unknown behind his back. If it had been just one problem in front of him, that would have been different, but A. Street’s presence behind him changed the situation. That and the fact that the drug would only work for roughly thirty seconds meant he needed to have at least a reasonable chance that crushing the tooth would mean success.

  That problem cleared up drastically when Smith heard a shuffle and the click of a gun behind him. His trained ears placed the sound farther back than where Street had him held in check. It had to be back at the bed where he and A. Street had emerged. Without any further hesitation, Smith bit down and ducked. The drug kicked in as he tucked and he could see Nicholas blink. His brain was just catching up to the action and Smith was already on to the next step. Before Nicholas had time to react, Smith reached out to grab Jodi with his left hand. He pulled the girl away and slid her across the floor and under a nearby table, out of the line of fire.

  Even with his perceptions slowed down, he still heard the gunshot. He didn’t know if it was intended for him or not, so he kept moving, positioning himself between the assailants and Jodi.

  _____

  “You can’t do that?” Penny asked. She surprised herself as she was even louder than she intended. She was still playing up the drama as a distraction, but her emotions were getting involved as well. “You’re in charge here, you can do anything you want!”

  Nik pretended like he was scanning the crowd, but what he was really doing was checking on Hoppy’s progress. The man had visited five of the twelve portals, inputting the new code at each one, but still had two to go. Penny needed to amp up the diversion‌—‌although maybe he could help.

  Nik pulled out the gun he’d been holding onto since they’d been in Arizona, and pointed it right at Penelope. It was definitely an uncomfortable feeling, threatening the life of the woman who looked exactly like his wife.

  Penelope didn’t blink. She regarded him with cold, unfeeling eyes.

  “You can authorize it. Just let them go. You don’t need them to get what you want,” Nik said, trying to sound imposing.

  “Mr. Davidson. You are not a federal agent. Even if you tried to pull the trigger and shoot me, you’d probably hit one of these innocent bystanders instead,” Penelope said.

  Nik tried to stop his hand from shaking, but he knew she was right. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hoppy finishing at the sixth portal. One more.

  Penelope looked at her watch. “Less than five minutes. Do you two still want to play this silly game, or are you going to give me what I want and guarantee your kids’ safety?”

  Nik sighed. He put his hand down to help Penny up, but left Penelope to her own devices to stand. His arm went around Penny’s waist as he stuck the gun in the back of his own pants. “We tried, honey. Let’s call your dad and tell him to open the portal.”

  “But he won’t…”

  “He will if his grandchildren’s lives are at stake,” Nik said, trying to play it up for Penelope and the crowd. He pointed to the intercom on the wall. “Now call him.”

  Penny exchanged one last look with her twin, and let her shoulders droop. “You’re right. I know when I’m beat.”

  She pressed the numbers on the keypad to dial the Engine Room. She paused between each number to give Hoppy additional time, and only pressed send when he finished.

  “Put it on speakerphone,” Penelope commanded.

  “That wasn’t part of the agreement,” Nik countered.

  “It is now. Do it.”

  Penny pressed the icon to allow the entire room to hear. Thankfully Dr. Bridges didn’t say anything that would jeopardize the mission. “Penny?”

&
nbsp; “I’m here Dad. I’ve got you on speakerphone, by the way, so say hello to your other daughter.”

  A pause. “Hello, Penelope.”

  “Hello, pops. Time to turn on the portals and let us go through to the other Earth.” As Penelope said this, the crowd began to murmur again and Penelope shushed them with a hand motion.

  “Are we sure about this Penny?” Bridges asked.

  “Absolutely,” she said, locking her eyes on Penelope, but seeing Hoppy behind her, giving her a thumbs up. “We’re ready to let them go and get our kids back.”

  Bridges didn’t respond and a second later, the call disconnected.

  Nik was afraid there was a problem in the Engine Room, but within seconds, all the portals, save for the one they’d taken to get to the Portal Room, began to activate, Green lights flashed over the tops of each of the portals and the event horizons shimmered, ready for outbound travelers. A cheer went up around the room. Nik and Penny tried to act despondent.

  “Do it. Let our kids go,” Penny begged.

  Penelope straightened up and grabbed her bag. “I will. I’ll be the last one through. When everyone else is through, I’ll call Nicholas and have him release the children to your custody.”

  Penny breathed a sigh of relief. They just needed to get the room cleared as soon as possible.

  _____

  As Smith moved away from the door, he sidestepped his position between Nicholas and A. Street, and noticed the alternate Agent Street lying on the floor, blood pooling below him. He didn’t have time to worry about that, and a quick look back at Nicholas told him the man was retreating.

  He got up off the floor and sprinted towards the kids. If he couldn’t do anything else, Smith would protect the kids. But Nicholas wasn’t heading to the kids. He went right to the portal in Dr. Bridges closet.

  “Stop!” Agent Smith shouted. He brought up his gun and aimed it at the man.

  Nicholas turned back with a look that screamed murder and dove towards the portal in the back of the closet.

  Smith fired off a shot, not aiming for Nicholas, but instead aiming for the mirror. The glass shattered, but only after Nicholas had made his way through. At least most of him.

  Agent Smith clicked off his device and walked over towards the closet. Even if Bridges wasn’t going back to Earth with him, Smith decided he would never want to wear these clothes again. Nicholas Davidson’s legs, splintered by shards of glass, were draining what blood they had left all over the floor of the closet.

  “Oy, what a way to go,” Smith said to himself. He shut the doors and looked behind him to find the kids looking at him with fear in their eyes.

  “No worries, kiddos,” Smith said. “I’m the good guy. We’re going to get you all home really soon.”

  Then he remembered the other room. Who was it that fired that first shot? Were his ears playing tricks on him or did Davidson shoot his own accomplice in the pandemonium?

  Agent Smith made sure his gun was still ready for action, and walked slowly back to the door separating this room from Bridges’ bedroom. Just inside the door he found both Agents Street. One standing above the other.

  The one known as E. Street‌—‌Smith decided they could just call him Agent Street now‌—‌had his own gun in hand, and looked at Smith as he walked through the door.

  “I never really liked him anyway,” Street said. He kicked the gun out of the loose grip the body still held on the weapon. “I guess this Street was a dead end.”

  _____

  One by one, they filed through the portals. Senators, congressmen, judges, and a few other random diplomats, accompanied by only a few pieces of luggage and Penelope’s two Secret Service agents.

  Those two waited for everyone else to go through, and only went ahead with a nod from Penelope. Then it was just Nik, Penny, Hoppy and Penelope left in the Portal Room.

  “You’ve got me outnumbered now,” Penelope said. “Now would be a good time to ambush me and ruin my plans. Except...oh yeah, I’ve still got your kids held hostage upstairs.”

  Nik ground his teeth. The sooner they could be done with this woman, the better. He hated looking at her and hating her, when the woman he loved most in the world stood next to him and looked virtually identical. But it was the eyes, he decided. Penelope had a look of disdain and hatred in her eyes and Penny...well, he just knew whenever he looked in Penny’s eyes he saw all his hopes and dreams coming true. Whatever had happened to this woman over the past decade and a half, he felt truly sorry for her.

  “You don’t need to rub it in, Penelope,” Nik said. “You won. You beat us.”

  If he were ever allowed to talk about this day, he’d have to tell his fellow teachers‌—‌especially the drama teacher‌—‌at his high school about his acting performance. Even now, he knew Penelope and her clan of corrupt politicians were headed not to Earth 1, but what Bridges and Marie were calling Earth 3.

  “I did, didn’t I? You know, it’ll take a little while to get myself set back up and going in our new lives. You’ll probably want to just stay here. You get to be Vice President, after all. Besides, if you follow me, I’ll hunt you down and kill you. There can only be one of us where I’m going,” Penelope said.

  Penny pursed her lips and shook her head. “Believe me, I’ll never follow you.”

  “Make the call. Let us have our kids,” Nik implored.

  She pulled her phone out, and hesitated. “You know, I like this you, Nik. A lot more than you over here. Always following me around like a wounded puppy, looking to do whatever I asked. You wouldn’t like to come with me, would you?”

  Nik shuddered at the thought, and squeezed Penny’s hand a little tighter. “No thanks. Happily married already.”

  Penelope shrugged. “Eh, was worth asking, at least.”

  She dialed the number, and put the phone to her ear. Nik and Penny could see the concern‌—‌if they could call it that‌—‌mount on her face as the phone continued to ring. Frustration began to rise to the surface. Penelope circled around, looking...for something, someone.

  “Penny, get behind me,” Nik whispered to his wife. Hoppy still stood on the far side of the room, near the portal they’d originally come through to get here. Penny moved just behind Nik, letting him take the lead position with Penelope.

  This world’s vice president began taking shallower breaths, and finally threw her phone down on her duffel bag. She glared at Nik.

  “What...did...you...do?” She spat out the words slowly, as if she couldn’t believe she was saying them.

  “What are you talking about? Is Nicholas not picking up? It would be a shame if he were incapacitated,” Nik suggested. In spite of the unknowns about what happened with Smith and their kids, Nik couldn’t help feeling a little happy at Penelope’s sudden dismay.

  “Incapacitated? What...what do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he just stepped in the restroom or something,” Nik said.

  Two sounds filled the chamber at the same time‌—‌a buzz from Penelope’s duffel bag, and a chirp from Hoppy’s jacket.

  Hoppy withdrew his phone, and had to stifle a cheer after looking at the text on his screen. He walked up to Penny and showed it to her and Nik.

  “What’s it say?” Penelope asked. When no one would reply, she asked again, in an increasingly shrill tone, “What does the text say?”

  Penny hugged Nik and the pair exchanged smiles.

  Penelope reached for her bag and quickly located a walkie-talkie. “Report!”

  “Yes ma’am, this is Agent Pilson. We are in the locker room of the Utility Company, like you planned on, but we haven’t been able to find anyone else.”

  “What do you mean? Like anyone else from our party?”

  “No ma’am. Like anyone else at all. This entire building is empty. In fact, the moment we stepped through the portal our radiation detectors started going haywire. Something bizarre is going on,” Pilson replied.

  “Come back through the
portal then Agent Pilson,” Penelope instructed.

  “Um, that’s the thing, ma’am. The portal appears to be one-way. No one can break the event horizon on this end. We’re stuck.”

  Perhaps too calmly, Penelope put the walkie-talkie back in her pack, and picked up something else. A remote control for something.

  “I don’t know what that text said, but I can piece it together now. You figured out a way to take out Nicholas and get your kids back and somehow rig these portals to send us someplace else entirely. You did it. You won,” Penelope said. “And you would live happily ever after, if it wasn’t for the massive amounts of explosives in my bag. All I have to do is push this button and we all go. I don’t care anymore.”

  Nik’s heart skipped a beat, but Penny’s didn’t. She kept a level head and looked down. In the waistband of Nik’s pants was the gun he’d smuggled into the Portal Room. She reached down and grabbed the grip, flipped off the safety, and fired directly at Penelope, hitting her in the gut. The control skittered away, and Penelope crumpled to the ground, her blood staining the duffel bag and the floor around it.

  Hoppy ran over and picked up the remote, eager to get it out of Penelope’s hands. Nik and Penny embraced, ready to be done with this world.

  Way Home

  In the end, they covered Penelope with a sheet, not wanting Kira and Sisco to see the body of a woman who was Penny in almost every physical way. Dr. Bridges brought Marie down to the Portal Room after Agent Smith and Agent Street brought the four kids back. In all, Smith counted eleven that were making the return trip back to Earth, ten who were originally from that reality in the first place. Bridges and Street had been gone the longest, of course, followed by Penny and her two kids, the two teens Jodi and Braden, Nik Davidson, Agent Smith and Marie. Francis Hoppenweiler was the lone stowaway from Earth 2 making the trip.