The Flipside

by Jake Bible

  “Trevon?” a voice called before he’d made it more than a few feet.

  Cash’s head dipped, his chin hitting his chest. “Shit…”

  “Trevon!” the voice called, louder and more insistent.

  Elvis grunted.

  “You shut up,” Cash snapped.

  ***

  They sat across from each other at a mess table, each holding a cup of coffee that had long gone cold.

  “Tressa transferred you here just to fuck with me,” Cash said.

  “Jesus, that ego,” the woman said. “You don’t work here anymore, Trevon. I was transferred because Amanda needed a second just like she had been your second. You telling me that there’s someone more qualified?”

  Ivy Ellison was gorgeous in that rough, outdoorsy way that refused to yield to modern sensibilities of beauty. She was timeless. Skin just a shade darker than Cash’s light brown, eyes of bright blue, black hair completely natural and pulled back into a bushy ponytail by a bright red scrunchie that Cash knew well.

  Ivy had dark freckles across her cheeks and nose. Cash smiled at those freckles then turned to look away.

  “You’re more than qualified,” Cash said. “You know I know that.”

  “Nice to hear you say it sometimes,” Ivy said.

  “I just did.”

  “Not really.”

  “Don’t want to do this with you, Ivy.”

  “What? Talk?”

  “Bicker. Because that’s where we’re headed. It’s good to see you. Can we leave it at that? It’s been what? Three years?”

  “Six years,” Ivy replied. “I was working security detail for your father. We saw each other at that gala.”

  “God… Six years? That long?” Cash asked.

  “You know exactly how long it’s been, Trevon. Stop playing.”

  “Sorry. Yeah. I know. I haven’t been avoiding you, you know.”

  “Yeah, you have, but it’s alright because I’ve been avoiding you too.” Ivy sighed and pushed her coffee mug away. “We were married for two years when we were way too young and had no business getting married. You were about to join Special Forces and I was leaving the service to go private. Two vastly different worlds that collided and shattered. It was no one’s fault. Bad luck and trouble, is all.”

  “Uh, that’s not how you phrased it when we got divorced,” Cash said. “You used considerably more colorful language.”

  “You cheated on me,” Ivy stated.

  “No, I didn’t,” Cash replied instantly. “I’ll go to my grave swearing that, Ivy. What you think happened never actually happened. You were looking for an excuse and you locked onto that one. Except it wasn’t true.”

  “Gonna not believe you there, Trevon,” Ivy said and stood up.

  “Hey. Stop. See? Bickering. Sit. Please,” Cash said. “Please?”

  Ivy sat back down.

  “That woman you came in with?” Ivy asked after a couple of uncomfortable seconds of silence. “Olivia Herndon. You do know how much of a pain in the ass she’s been, right?”

  “Mandy filled me in, yeah,” Cash replied. “But she’ll be cool. I warned her what would happen otherwise. Took guts stepping into enemy territory.”

  “Enemy territory?” Ivy asked, eyebrows raised.

  “That’s how she sees things,” Cash said and shrugged. “You telling me you’d be different if you were in her shoes?”

  “Hell no. I’d be raging pissed and kicking ass,” Ivy said. “But I’m not in her shoes. I’m in my boots. And these boots have been wading through shit she’s been flinging at this base for the past year.”

  “She’ll be fine. Trust me,” Cash said.

  “Trust you?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The conversation stopped instantly as a voice rang out in their comms.

  “All personnel to stations now,” Amanda ordered. “All personnel to stations now. This is not a drill. The turn is coming early, people!”

  Ivy and Cash scrambled from their seats and took off out of the mess.

  ***

  “Too soon,” Tressa snarled as she paced back and forth behind a row of seats occupied by very busy-looking techs. “How is this possible?”

  “It was within parameters,” one of the techs replied. Mike DiCenzo spun around in his seat and held up his hands. “Calm down. We knew there might be some changes to the schedule.”

  “Hours? Hours! We’ve only ever had a fluctuation in timing by a couple of minutes at the most!” Tressa snarled.

  Mike stood up, but Tressa jabbed a finger at him and he sat back down.

  “The turn back to Flipside last year happened two days early. A couple hours on this end is not something to freak out over, Tressa,” Mike said.

  “Ms. Thompson to you, Michael!” Tressa snapped. Then she saw the look on Mike’s face. “Shit. Sorry, Mike. That was uncalled for.”

  “You’re under a lot of pressure,” Mike replied. “I understand.”

  “Jesus, don’t let her walk all over you like that, Mikey,” Cash said as he walked into the command center with Ivy.

  “Cash. Hey, dude, good to see you,” Mike replied. “And Tressa is not walking all over me. We both know what that looks like.”

  “What do we have?” Ivy asked, moving next to Amanda who was standing off to the side and staring at the massive monitor that made up one entire wall of the command center. “This for real?”

  “Looks like it,” Amanda said.

  “Where’s Olivia?” Cash asked.

  “Auxiliary conference room,” Amanda replied without looking at Cash. She hooked her thumb toward a door set into the wall a few feet away. “I set her up with footage from last year. Should keep her occupied and out of everyone’s hair while we deal with whatever this is.”

  “Dude, why bring a civilian on base?” Mike asked. “You’re asking for trouble.”

  All eyes turned to Cash and all eyes looked to be in agreement with Mike’s statement.

  “I’m gone for a year and you all turn against me,” Cash said.

  “Boo hoo,” Tressa said and pointed at the screen. “You want to be in here? Then only make constructive statements. Otherwise, shut up.”

  The console in front of Mike bleeped loudly and he spun back to check the readings that were streaming across his monitor. “We have turn in five, four, three, two, one.”

  The scene on the main monitor did not change. It remained an image of a small forward operating base set into a sea of long, waving grasses. If the turn had occurred, then the FOB they should have been seeing would have been of Flipside. A base that was considerably more built out and equipped to handle the stresses of being in a prehistoric landscape for a year at a time.

  “Where is everyone?” Cash asked. “Did you evac the Topside FOB?”

  “That’s your question?” Tressa snapped. “There’s no turn, Tre! What happened to the turn, Mike?”

  “I don’t know,” Mike stated flatly, his fingers flying across his keyboard.

  His weren’t the only ones. The rows of techs at consoles, like mission control for NASA, but so much more well-funded, were madly typing at their keyboards as they struggled to find an answer to why no turn.

  “Considering what went down last year, I thought it best to pull everyone back from Topside FOB,” Amanda said, answering Cash’s question. “No clue what might be waiting for them Flipside. Better safe than sorry, right, brother?”

  “Good call,” Cash said.

  “Yes, everyone made great calls,” Tressa said, pacing once more. “Except we have no turn!”

  Tressa’s wrist tab beeped and she looked down at it. Then she immediately looked back up and locked eyes with Cash.

  “He just landed,” Tressa said.

  “You better go greet him,” Cash said.

  “You’re coming with,” Tressa insisted. She pointed at the lack of change on the monitor. “He’s going to go ballistic. I need you.”

  “You grew up with th
e guy, not me,” Cash said.

  “Which is why I need you,” Tressa said. “You’re immune to his…moods.”

  “No one is immune to that man’s moods,” Mike muttered under his breath. Those that heard him nodded vigorously.

  “Fine,” Cash said then pointed at his ear. “If you give me full access to comms. None of this restriction crap.”

  “Done,” Tressa said. “Mike?”

  “I gave him full access as soon as the turn didn’t happen,” Mike said. “We’ll need all hands on deck.”

  “We’ll talk about that later, Michael,” Tressa said and marched out of the command center. “Tre!”

  “Someone check on Olivia, will ya?” Cash asked as he followed his sister out of the command center.

  Four

  The helicopter’s dual props were still slowly turning as Tressa and Cash pulled up to the landing pad in the ATV Cash had commandeered. Cash stopped the ATV at the edge of the landing pad and hesitated before getting out. Cash was in his early forties, yet the sight of the man leaning against the side of the helicopter still made him feel like an angry teenager.

  “You want to puke too?” Tressa whispered.

  “When did you get all squeamish over him?” Cash asked out of the side of his mouth.

  “You haven’t been around, Tre,” Tressa replied. “This last year changed him.”

  “For the worse?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Jesus…”

  “Stop jabbering and get your asses over here!” the man barked, still leaning against the helicopter.

  There was no pilot inside the helicopter since it was, in essence, an oversized, automatic drone. So no one was there to witness the little family reunion except for the members of the family. The man, Tyrel Thompson, pushed off from the helicopter and walked five paces before stopping with his hands on his hips. He was dressed casually in khakis and a tucked-in, short-sleeve, button-down shirt, but there was nothing casual in his body language.

  “You two deaf? Get. Over. Here,” Thompson snarled.

  The afternoon sun glinted off Thompson’s ebony black skin, turning the angry flush in his cheeks into a beacon of rage.

  Cash and Tressa approached their father like they were moving close to an uncaged, unleashed, unrestrained wild animal.

  Thompson pointed an accusatory finger at Cash, shook his head, then aimed the finger at Tressa.

  “Why is he here? Kind of defeats the purpose of having a scapegoat if the goat survives the fucking sacrifice and is allowed to walk around the killing grounds like he owns the goddamn place,” Thompson said, his voice low so only the three of them could hear him. “Explain, daughter. I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “I was bringing—” Cash started, but was cut off by a side glance of nuclear proportions.

  “Daughter,” Thompson said, emphasizing the word as if Cash was not only hard of hearing, but hard of thinking.

  “It was a judgment call,” Tressa said and continued quickly as Thompson’s left eyebrow rose. “Tre witnessed what happened last year. He knows the Wyoming Bubble like the back of his hand and he—”

  “Let me stop you there,” Thompson said. “Every point you are ticking off are all very valid reasons for an experienced operator like Trevon to be present at a time like this. Except that Trevon is not just an experienced operator. He is the former Head of Security for Topside Command. He took the fall for all of us to avoid any appearances of improper favoritism after the incident. The key word is appearances. Appearances, daughter. Are you following what I am saying?”

  “Simply having him here gives the appearance that his firing was all for show,” Tressa replied. “Especially with Ms. Chin here doing a report that is supposed to help our image, not harm it.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Thompson said, nearly choking on his words. He looked past Tressa and Cash and scanned the grounds between the landing pad and the command center building. “Barbara Chin is already here? She’s here now with a cameraman?”

  “Yes…” Tressa replied.

  “Have you already given her an interview? Have you spoken to her yet?” Thompson nearly shouted.

  “Yes, I have spoken to her,” Tressa replied.

  “On the record?”

  “She will only speak on the record.”

  Thompson turned his back on his children and stood stock still for a good five seconds before he took a deep breath, turned back around, and gave Tressa and Cash a deadly smile.

  “The terms of our interview have not been finalized,” Thompson said, his rage barely under control.

  “What? She arrived with the proper security credentials,” Tressa said. “I assumed you had worked out all terms before giving her access to the base.”

  “Assumptions!” Thompson roared.

  “Hey!” Cash shouted and stepped up to his father. Cash was a good five inches taller than the older man. He glared down at Thompson and moved in closer. “Did you tell her the terms hadn’t been finalized?”

  “That is none of—”

  “Answer me!” Cash shouted.

  Thompson glared with barely contained violence.

  “I did not tell her the terms had not been finalized yet,” Thompson admitted.

  “Did you give Tressa any control over the terms being negotiated or the authorization concerning Ms. Chin’s arrival on base?” Cash continued.

  “No,” Thompson said flatly. “All details are being handled by my personal office.”

  “So, you’re mad because you failed to communicate properly with the CEO of Topside Industries. Am I getting that right?” Cash pressed. “You’re angry because you are such a control freak that you couldn’t trust your own daughter to handle a simple task such as how to structure an interview with a TV reporter. That sound accurate to you?”

  “Her job is to—”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Answer the damn question!”

  It was not lost on anyone present how much Cash sounded like his father at that moment.

  Cash took a couple of steps back and pointed at Thompson.

  “You screwed up, not her,” Cash said. “I think one sibling taking a fall is enough for this family. You want this mess with Chin cleaned up? Do it your fucking self, asshole.”

  Cash spun on his heels and walked back to the ATV.

  “Coming, sis?” Cash asked once he was back in the driver’s seat.

  “I…uh… Yeah,” Tressa said as she walked back to the ATV and got in the passenger seat.

  “I have luggage!” Thompson yelled.

  “You also have two arms, old man!” Cash yelled back.

  The two siblings waited in the ATV, neither looking toward the helicopter, as their father cursed his way through fetching his luggage from a storage compartment and dragging it over to the ATV.

  “Going to help me load it into the back?” Thompson asked.

  Tressa almost answered, but Cash patted her knee and she closed her mouth.

  Thompson cursed as he loaded his luggage into the ATV. The man climbed into the back seat then slapped Cash’s headrest.

  “My quarters first so I can clean up then to the command center,” Thompson ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Cash said and hit the accelerator, sending the ATV rocketing forward hard enough that Thompson almost fell over backward from his seat and into the cargo space where his luggage was bouncing around.

  Thompson straightened up and leaned his head in between the seats, looking from his son to his daughter, back and forth until Tressa finally huffed and said, “Just say it.”

  “The turn was early,” Thompson said. “I got the report as I was coming in to land. Except it doesn’t look like the turn happened. What’s the status?”

  “Unknown,” Tressa said and faced her father full-on. “We got the alert that the bubble was turning and Flipside was on its way. Then nothing. The system still says that the turn is happening e
arly, but we are seeing zero evidence of that.”

  “It would have been handy to have Brain on this,” Thompson said, pointedly.

  Tressa sighed at the criticism then faced forward once more.

  “Lakshmi made that call, as you know,” Tressa said. “She felt she needed Brain with her Flipside instead of with us Topside. I can’t say I one hundred percent agree with the decision, but it was hers to make. Lakshmi has full authority over Brain’s—”

  “Blah blah, fucking blah,” Thompson said and leaned back in his seat. “You’re the CEO, daughter. You can override any decision by TI personnel, if you so choose. You did not choose to do that, so do not put the responsibility for this bad choice on Dr. Lawrence.”

  “It was the right call,” Cash said.

  “Did I ask you?” Thompson snapped.

  “Nope. You didn’t ask me now just like you didn’t ask me a year ago,” Cash replied. “If you had, I’d have said Lakshmi made not only the right call, but the only call. Brain is needed Flipside to find out what happened. Having Brain Topside would have been a massive waste of resources.”

  “Oh, is that your professional opinion, Dr. Cash,” Thompson asked and laughed. “Oh, that’s right, you’re not a doctor. Hell, son, you didn’t even go to college. Military blockhead from day one. I am so glad you have an opinion on the scientific nature of our little endeavor here.”

  “You want to walk the rest of the way?” Cash asked.

  “I would prefer not to,” Thompson replied.

  “Then shut your abusive mouth.”

  “Abusive?” Thompson snorted. “You have no idea what abuse is, son.”

  “Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” Cash replied then jammed the accelerator down to the floor, forcing Thompson back against his seat again.

  ***

  “Surprisingly, I don’t feel like crying,” Tressa said once their father and his luggage was offloaded outside the man’s “quarters.” It was more a luxury cabin set in the middle of the militaristically stark base. “I’m calling that a plus.”

  “I’m amazed,” Cash said. “I feel like balling my eyes out right now.”

  Tressa smiled at him as the ATV navigated the base’s chaos of equipment being hauled, personnel rushing to their next tasks, and vehicles being moved into position for whatever was going to happen.