by M. L. Banner
Although the ink was somewhat smudged, as it hadn’t yet been fused to the page, it was a mostly complete satellite picture with a map overlay, like one would find on a typical map program. In the middle was a complex of buildings surrounded by a wall. The marker pointing at the complex was labeled Cicada, and he could see “Boulder” prominently displayed above. On the bottom of the page was a GPS location: 38 32 48.55N 104 52 30.00W.
Chapter 20
Aug 10 (04:35)
Monty woke up stunned and groggy. It may have been seconds or minutes; he wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious, but it couldn’t have been too long because he was staring at the same early-morning sky, soon to be pushed aside by the sunrise. The glare from the complex’s light-sensitive spotlights was uncomfortable. He must have taken quite a jolt from the fence, but he felt okay otherwise. At least he wouldn’t have to figure out how to turn the power back on. He snickered at this thought, lying on his back, staring at the sky, as if he were leisurely stargazing with friends on a warm summer evening.
Worry about being caught and his throbbing arm shook the cobwebs from his head. He leaned up and looked down, chin on chest, and was horrified to see his arm was such a mess. Making quick use of his T-shirt to bandage his bloody arm, he could see it looked worse than it felt.
He made himself small and ran to the back of the complex, aiming for the back door, hoping he hadn’t yet been seen. His mind and body, still somewhat wobbly, followed the shadows as they bounced and raced forward and then back each time he crossed the path of the spotlights on either side of the fence. Reaching the rear door to Dr. Ron’s office, he was relieved to find it was still unlocked, the way he had left it earlier this morning. It also meant that the police hadn’t been back here—another good sign. From a closet Monty grabbed one of Dr. Ron’s lab coats and made for the laboratory, his arm now aching. If he could get done what he needed to next, and not get caught, he would have to go get stitches.
Monty looked at his watch, trying to remember when he set up his diversion for the police and wondering when it would go off. Better get moving. With some luck, he only had the one police officer to contend with, and that fellow should be occupied by the diversion, assuming he wasn’t inside. Monty pulled on the bookcase, just enough to peek into the laboratory. It looked clear. He bounded up the stairs to the double doors and peered through the hardened small windows. No one there, either. After securing the doors, he pushed the nearby desk over, just as Ron and he had done to the outside door yesterday. He ran down the stairs and set up. Where was the diversion?
It didn’t take long: he only had to slip in the hard drive and prep two drones—he figured he’d be lucky if he had time to open the time slip once: it took just as long to prep two.
Everything was ready. His right forefinger shook in anticipation of his diversion and his aching arm. The diversion… if it ever went off, it was going to be costly to him. He sure hoped it was worth it.
When he heard it, he cringed.
Chapter 21
Aug 10 (04:42)
One moment, a denim blue Porsche 911, Monty’s pride and joy, sat quietly near the portion of the fence closest to the frontage road, waiting for its owner to return. In the daylight, it might have been conspicuous, with jumper cables attached to the fence on one end and to a crowbar jammed in the car’s fuel port on the other end. But in the darkness of the pre-dawn hours, the soon-to-be-diversion was practically invisible.
The next moment a rolling fireball erupted out of its interior, shooting the German Sonnenland soft-top skyward, a flaming mass that then fell, doing somersaults. The police officer who was now standing post in front of the door of Stoneridge Research Lab nearly fell over, not from the force of the blast, but from being startled. He ran to the blast to offer assistance, afraid someone might have been inside.
~~~
The man bit down hard on his cigarette, his second-to-last one, when the blast erupted almost right in front of him. He realized now that Dr. Stoneridge had set up a diversion and must be in his lab. He tossed out his cigarette, stepped on it, and then stopped as he saw the officer running toward him, the burning car between them.
He calmly strolled toward the running officer, who glared at him, perhaps for not assisting with the burning vehicle. The man lifted his gun hand and squeezed off two silent shots without interrupting his gait. The officer, his mouth and eyes widened with astonishment, bounced backwards, laid out flat on his back. The man slowed only slightly, focusing on the terrified officer’s head, and fired the kill shot. Like a gymnast performing a well-practiced routine, he grabbed one of the dead officer’s hands and dragged the body off the road, where it wasn’t likely to be immediately found.
Then he turned and headed to the laboratory.
Chapter 22
Aug 10 (04:58)
The time slip popped open before him, with its twirling wispy lights and window in the middle. Monty focused, his tongue sticking out slightly as he worked the controller, and guided the drone into it. Flying the damn thing was a bit more difficult than Dr. Ron had made it look and he almost missed the window on his first pass—two seconds.
Immediately, data streamed to the computer, its screen blinking. A small window, its meter application, counted up the total data uploaded in megabytes, its digital counter moving so rapidly it was almost impossible to see any one number. He caught a glimpse of 97.45 rolling by and then focused back on the probe, keeping it steady with the remote controller—four seconds.
He glanced back at the portal and then at the separate window on the screen displaying the live feed on its front and back cameras, looking for anything that would indicate Dr. Ron had left a message—five seconds.
Although the view was not entirely clear, he could easily identify what was on the other side of the portal: it was a lab that could have been a mirror image of this one, only badly damaged and presumably unused for years. That room was brighter now than when Dr. Ron had gone through, and so he could see more. The images from the current video feeds and the previous one showed almost nothing looking back in the direction of the time slip. It was sort of a murky, undulating disruption of light. He fixed his attention on this, but the images were just too blurry, as if the focus on the video camera in that direction needed to be adjusted. This further confirmed their theory that the slip was one-directional, even if it didn’t make sense. They had tested this when Dr. Ron had attempted to fly the drone back through the slip unsuccessfully. It was puzzling for sure, as they could send back electronic signals from their video feeds to their sensor data, just not material objects—seven seconds.
He also couldn’t let the drone go too far from the window, because he started to lose his controls when he moved it farther than an inch or two from the time aperture—nine seconds.
Just before it closed, Monty saw the corner of the first drone Dr. Ron had sent, before involving him. It looked a little banged up, but otherwise intact. There was definitely no sign of Dr. Ron—ten seconds. The slip closed.
Monty’s arms dropped. His uninjured left hand, still clutching the remote, pushed against the computer console for support. He let out a deep sigh and felt his exhaustion take control. If their calculations were correct, the time slip he opened was to a point about three to six months later than when Dr. Ron had jumped forward. He was only sure of one thing at this point: Dr. Ron had not made it back to the lab, and certainly not with any useful data to save his wife. So many questions still unanswered, and perhaps they never would be.
The machine had already powered down completely, part of the program’s routine as configured by Dr. Ron. No other sounds, except for the tick-tick-tick of unseen hot metal being cooled by the spray of liquid nitrogen.
He would have to try once more. He put down the remote controller and entered in the new equation to open the next time slip, roughly six more months forward. Thinking once more about the calculation to make sure it was correct, he pressed the Enter key and the mach
ine started up again.
Chapter 23
Aug 10 (05:10)
The man estimated he only had a few minutes to get into the lab and take care of business before the next shift of police would arrive to investigate their missing comrade or reports of the explosion. He could hear a low pulsing noise getting louder and louder, like a giant metronome whose movement was speeding up. He would have preferred a less obvious entrance, but speed was most important here. He fired his silenced weapon once at the u-shaped neck of the Master Lock, hanging from a recently added hasp that secured the doorway. It flopped forward, and then slid off where the shank was broken. Undoing the latch, he pushed open the door, breaking the notice posted over the door and jamb announcing, “This property closed by the order of ERCOT for power violations….” The door swung in only a couple of feet before stopping. The entrance was partially obstructed on the other side. He walked through, his gun leading, combing for any unfortunate person who may have been on the other side.
A loud thrumming noise and flashing lights were coming from behind the double doors in front of him. He stepped quickly to them and peered through one of the two small windows. The laboratory looked vast and deep, multiple stories, with a lower floor below and barely visible. He couldn’t see what or who was below the railing in front of him, but there was a strange pulsating light and the top edges of a series of bluish concentric circles, like a large ripple in a blue pond, only this was suspended perpendicular to the ceiling. In front of the door was a desk blocking his entrance.
With a free hand he tried the door. It was locked, so he fired twice at the deadbolt securing the two doors and kicked hard on what appeared to be the more likely of the two to give way. It did.
Chapter 24
Aug 10 (05:12)
“Oh my God!” Monty breathed rapidly, his face locked in a hardened combination of fear and excitement, his eyes burning to make out every word of the message coming to him from the time slip.
A noise above disturbed his concentration. Monty jumped as if shocked and spun his head to the side and up, searching the mezzanine level for the disruption. Another noise, louder this time, although just barely registering above the machine’s roar. And there was movement. One of the double doors securing the lab’s entrance partially opened, although only the top foot of it was visible.
He returned his focus to the time slip just as it closed. Turning back again, he saw a man standing on top of what must have been the desk he had moved in front of the door to block entry. This man was staring past Monty, probably at the time slip—but now at him. Their eyes locked and Monty knew instantly he was about to become a target. As if confirming that thought, the man raised his hand—gun attached—and aimed at Monty, who dropped below the computer console just as a chunk of the desk whiffed over his head.
Monty waited a second, maybe two, and then carefully craned his head up just past the console desk surface and saw the man running along the mezzanine railing toward the stairwell, which led down to him. Monty sprang up, yanked the portable drive out of the computer and dashed for Dr. Ron’s office.
It’s amazing, he thought, how slow you are when you have to run for your life. It felt like his shoes were made of cement as he pumped his hands and feet toward the panel leading to safety—if I could just make it. Another pffft and a piece of concrete flooring skidded in front of him. He turned to see his aggressor bounding down the stairs while pointing his gun at him. Run, Monty, run, he goaded himself.
The Keurig exploded to his right, its days of delivering cups of flavored coffee ended. Monty pressed his palms forward and hit the panel hard. The door gave way instantly, and he pushed through.
Puff-clink-psssst were the last sounds he heard over his pounding heart before he was pushing on the other side of the bookcase. Based on the sound and from the five-cent tour given earlier by Dr. Ron, he guessed that a propane tank was hit. He had to exit right away, before the whole place exploded.
Just then the lights went out. Monty once again was plunged into darkness inside Dr. Ron’s office. Remembering where the desk was, he banged into its side and pushed with all his strength, sliding it alongside the bookcase. He reached into a side drawer of the desk, hopeful the keys were still there where Dr. Ron had tossed them. “Bingo!” Monty now pushed the back end of the desk so that it would be resting lengthwise against the bookcase. Two books erupted out of the shelves, as if to say, “No, that won’t be enough.” Bits of plywood and plasterboard dust stung his skin. He’s shooting at me from the opposite side!
More shots popped through, as Monty leapt out of the back door and this time turned right. He ran along the back wall of the building, stopping at the gated exit surrounded by the dead electrical fence. Less than a minute later, Monty was pulling away from the compound when he heard the low boom of the explosion and saw just a small flash of orange light. It was a prelude to the sunrise that would come within an hour.
As he drove away, he knew he was fortunate and wouldn’t press his luck again. His wife and he were going to disappear.
Chapter 25
Aug 10 (06:15)
Monty yelled up the stairs for a second time, pleading for his wife to get packed up and ready in less than five minutes. Not stopping, Monty trotted to his office, plugged in the portable drive, opened and froze the video feed of the message, and read in stunned silence. Then he mouthed, “No flipping way!” It was the first time he could really read the words on the message. After a second pass, he knew now what they had to do. Separating the message from the rest of the data, he created two images, printed them, and attached them to an email he sent to Dr. Valdez, Dr. Ron’s brother-in-law. He would have to call him on the way as well, sure that just an email wouldn’t be enough to convince him to do what the message said. He could hardly believe it himself.
After thinking for a moment, Monty burned a copy of all of the data and images onto a spare flash drive. This he sealed it in a bubble mailer, slapped on it a pre-paid label generated from a stamp program, and readied it to be sent in the mail to a colleague at MIT. Perhaps it was insurance, or maybe he just didn’t want this accomplishment to be lost.
His next action he had thought out when he had raced home. Although not sure it would work, it was the best he could do in the time he had remaining. So after shutting down his computer, he opened the side and pulled out the hard drive. He looked around and smiled, finding what he needed next: it was an award he received from the National Academy of Sciences, displayed proudly on a prominent table. Brandishing it like a sledge hammer, he bashed in the side of the drive, pulled out the disc, and ran out of the office. While he was en route to the kitchen, his wife announced, “I’m ready.”
The microwave was set on ten minutes, the disc resting inside on the microwave cover, when he pressed the button.
“I’m right behind you.”
~~~
The black Escalade didn’t hesitate or seek obscurity in the shadows. It pulled up the drive resolutely and stopped behind a white pickup truck—its driver-side door left open by its hurried driver.
The flash of his blue-flamed torch, designed for inflicting pain on cigars, was applied to his last cigarette. Instead of savoring its burn, he took one violent puff and stepped out of the vehicle. His face, red from burns, scowled at his target’s house. A deep gash on the right side of his face was held together with a piece of duct tape. Two small rivulets of crimson seeped from its binding and skipped over the stubble of his normally clean face; it would be the closest he would come to shedding tears for this next victim.
But then, beyond the truck, the garage door was left open, empty of all vehicles, telling him they had left already.
He stepped through, just as the owner would after a day at work. After entering the house, he withdrew his weapon, no longer bothering with the silencer. A sound alerted him to the kitchen. It was the microwave, cooking something that was sparking inside, the display telling him there were only five minutes twelve secon
ds until its contents were ready. He punched the door button with his forefinger knuckle and the door squeaked open to reveal the disc of a hard drive on top of a plastic microwave dish. It was warm, but otherwise salvageable. His handlers might not be entirely upset with his work after all.
~~~
“Where are we going?” his wife asked, as Monty tossed the bubble mailer into the mail drop.
“To our cabin in Arizona.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, and you can’t tell anyone that we’re there.”
“Fine. How long will we be there?”
Monty looked at his phone’s calendar, did the math and said, “Ten months, sixteen days.”
She shifted the cat-carrier from her lap to the back seat. Faraday was already asleep, as if he knew it would be a long drive. “Then what?”
“We’re driving with Dr. Ron’s wife Betsy and his brother-in-law Peter to a place in Colorado called Cicada.”
Chapter 26
In The Future
The sun stood over him like a big bully in a schoolyard, having its way with him and those who were foolish enough to venture outside. Even though fall was supposedly just around the corner, there appeared to be no end to this sweltering heat.