When the camera swung around to the front of the theater's steps, it showed two FBI agents chatting with the police chief. One of the FBI agents looked a lot like the redheaded security guard who’d broken up the skirmish with the rugby players in the cafeteria.
“Damn, that guy could be his twin,” Lucas mumbled.
Then the camera panned down to show Drew sitting in his wheelchair. He was talking with the FBI agents.
“Drew, what the hell are you doing?” he yelled at the screen.
Randol Larson, the pretentious attorney from the Advisory Committee, was standing only a few feet behind Drew.
“Damn it,” Lucas said, clicking off the TV and throwing down the remote control. He raced out the door, down the hall, down the stairs, and ran the 1.5 miles to the Student Union. He was out of breath when he arrived.
He checked the pandemonium to figure out the shortest route he had to Drew, but he couldn’t see over the crowd. He climbed up on a short retaining wall to his right. He held on to the branch of a nearby tree to balance himself while he stared over the mass of people. He could see the front of the Student Union, but not Drew. There were too many students blocking his view. He figured he needed to swing around to the right to bypass as much of the horde as possible, cutting through the crowd’s outside edge to get to Drew.
He jumped down from the cement wall, which caused a slight pain in his right shin. After narrowly avoiding a broken beer bottle and a well-concealed sprinkler head, he navigated his way to the front right sector of the mob. He said, “Excuse me,” “Pardon me,” and “Coming through,” as he worked his way through the multitude with an outstretched arm.
A police barricade stopped his progress when he reached the front row. He could see the back of Drew’s head only fifty feet away. He called out Drew’s name several times, but his brother didn’t react. The crowd noise and the helicopters whirling overhead were almost deafening.
One of several police officers standing guard was a few feet to his left and just inside the perimeter. He hoped to convince the cop to let him inside the barricade but needed to think of the proper excuse. Then it came to him.
“Hi, Officer, I’m Dr. Ramsay of the Astrophysics Department. I may be able to help you figure out what caused this.”
The man looked at Lucas and laughed. “Yeah, right. Astrophysics Department. What are you, eighteen?”
Lucas pushed closer to the man. “I know I look young, but trust me, I’m a physicist with the university. I can help you, but you need to let me inside.”
“That’s not going to happen. Now step back.”
Lucas reached for his back left pocket, realizing instantly he’d left his wallet in the apartment. While he was considering his options, the crowd noise faded and became silent. The only sounds came from the helicopters. Then, like a tidal wave traveling atop the ocean, each bystander around him turned in succession to face the east end of the grassy mall.
Lucas spun to see what they were all looking at, but stopped when an earsplitting scream caught his attention. Instantly, his eyes locked onto the girl who’d just screamed. She was pointing east and looked frantic. He followed her finger until he spotted something about a half mile away, at the east end of campus. His jaw dropped when he realized what it was—a towering dome of intense, white-hot light. His feet froze in place, unable to move. The mountain of energy looked like the top half of a giant, glowing white cue ball stuck into the ground. He couldn’t see all the way through the dome but could make out an intense mass of energy swirling around inside it, shimmering like the surface of the sun.
The swarm of students around him panicked and began screaming when they, like him, realized the dome was headed their way. Lucas bolted to the Student Union and pressed his back up against its south wall as the frenzied mob ran wild in all directions.
Above the screams, he could hear buildings and other structures tearing loose from the earth as the energy field barreled west through campus. Along with the buildings, he could see and here the energy field tearing up trees, cement, and pavement as it moved. Everything it encountered was swallowed up inside.
His knees shook as he watched the gigantic energy mass advance on his position. He needed to run to Drew, but couldn’t convince his body to move. Nor could he take his eyes off the monster destroying the campus. It was still several blocks away, but the anomaly’s size dwarfed the top of the majestic mountain chain standing beyond it. The dome had to be at least fifty stories tall, yet it seemed to move with grace and purpose, even as it swallowed up everything around it. If it kept on its current course, he estimated it would just miss the south side of Student Union where he was standing, but it was headed straight for the science lab at the other end of the mall.
As the area began to clear, he saw a handful of injured students lying on the ground. One was a pregnant woman who was bleeding from her forehead. Four others had stopped to help her, bringing the expectant mother to her feet.
Lucas decided it was time to move. He ran to Drew, who was sitting alone by the theater steps. There was no sign of Larson or the FBI agents.
“Are you okay, Drew?” he asked loudly.
His brother’s hands were shaking. “I’m fine. What is that thing?”
“I don’t know, but we need to get the fuck out of here, and fast.” Lucas grabbed the wheelchair handles and pushed his brother west along the front of the Student Union.
Drew pointed to the injured students. “What about them?”
“I’m sure the police will help them. We need to go!”
A few steps later, Lucas heard a loud, familiar squeal. It was coming from behind him, dwarfing the sounds of buildings being ripped from their foundations. It was the same debilitating shrill he’d heard the night before, when the brilliant flash took Abby from the steps of the Student Union.
He was starting to get dizzy but couldn’t cover his ears while pushing the wheelchair. He kept his hands on the wheelchair grips, hoping his equilibrium would hold out long enough to get Drew away to safety.
With the sound of death breathing down his neck, he looked back to check the progress of the energy field. All he could see was a rolling wall of shimmering energy closing the gap behind him. He couldn’t see the field’s top or sides; it was too close and too massive.
A pair of bicyclists whizzed past him on the left and then cut across in front as they pedaled furiously along the sidewalk. Fifty feet ahead of them was a pair of young women who were stumbling forward arm-in-arm, helping each other remain upright. When the bicyclists nearly ran the women over, Lucas wondered if the earsplitting squeal was affecting their vision.
Seconds later, both the bicyclists and the girls made it around the corner, making a sharp right in front of the science lab to head north and away from the carnage. Lucas intended to use the same escape route, if he had enough time. His thigh muscles were burning and he could hardly maintain his balance, but he kept his legs pumping to push the wheelchair even faster than before.
Twenty seconds later, he and Drew were still alive when they made it to the end of the grassy mall. He aimed the chair to the right, almost tossing Drew out of the seat when they made the ninety-degree turn and hurried north between the science lab and the far end of the Student Union.
“Hang on, little brother. We’re almost there!” he yelled, hoping Drew could hear him above the noise. But his brother didn’t answer.
One look down and Lucas knew why. Drew’s head was hanging and bobbing as they moved—he must have been unconscious again. Lucas figured the dome’s high-decibel shrieking knocked him out. The same thing had happened the previous night when they approached the steps of the Student Union. He pushed Drew’s chair as hard as he could, but it wasn’t easy, not while gasping for air and pushing through the pain boiling in his thigh muscles.
Just when a cramp started to form in his right leg, the squeal behind him stopped. Lucas slowed his hobble and looked over his right shoulder to see what was going on.
He saw the enormous crown of the dome just beyond the top floor of the Student Union. It had stopped moving and was now a blistering orange color, like it was mad and changing its mood.
There was a pair of news helicopters on the far side of campus, circling high above the giant intruder. Lucas wondered why their pilots weren’t affected by the squeal. The sound seemed to disable nearly everyone else in the vicinity, at least on the ground. Perhaps it had limited range. It was also possible the dome’s shrill was unidirectional and only people directly in front of it could hear it.
A heartbeat later, Lucas heard a swooshing, hum-like sound as the dome vanished. The hum was followed by a rush of wind that sucked him back toward the dome’s position—again, much like what happened the night before when the flash vanished from the steps. His chest constricted as he realized this was another bloody connection to the E-121 lab experiment. The facts were piling up, and all of them meant more death on his hands. It was becoming crystal clear he couldn’t outrun his legacy of failures. No matter how hard he tried, or how many lies he told himself, destiny was coming for him and it was painted in a sea of red. All he could do right now was try to protect his brother from whatever was coming next.
Drew woke up a few seconds later and rubbed his forehead. “Whoa, my head’s killing me. Where are we?”
“We’re just north of the lab. We’re safe. For now. I think.”
Drew looked back in the direction of the Student Union. “What happened to that thing?”
“I don’t know. It just stopped moving and then vanished. Just about the time you woke up.”
“We should go back and see if anyone needs help.”
Lucas didn’t answer right away. He needed to think it through. Even though his logic was screaming at him to keep running and get as far away as possible, he knew he couldn’t. Not after his guilty conscience had just teamed up with his breaking heart, keeping him right where he was—both in mind and spirit.
When facing a mountain of debt, a good man chips away as best he can in an attempt to repay what he owes. Even if it’s a foolish, fleeting endeavor. A good man faces adversity head on and never gives up, no matter the odds, and that’s what he planned to do.
“Okay, we head back. But if another one of those energy domes appears, we don’t stick around for a second. Agreed?”
Drew nodded.
Lucas stretched out his leg muscles, ridding them of the cramping sensation so he could stay effectively mobile. The brothers reversed course and went back to the south side of the Student Union.
When they turned the corner to face the mall, Lucas’ eyes locked onto a horrific sight. He couldn’t help but stare at the long, shallow, devastated channel in front of them. It was about three hundred feet wide and perfectly straight, and appeared to stretch clear to the east end of the mall near Campbell Avenue, and probably far beyond.
All the buildings along the north side of the grassy mall were intact, but most of the campus buildings along the mall’s south side had been obliterated, including the four-story library and the old Bear Down basketball gym. He wondered how many students had been inside when the buildings were destroyed.
Too many to count, he decided, facing a rising, seemingly endless death toll. Yet he wouldn’t allow his mind to focus on it—it was too painful and too debilitating to his thought processes. He needed to be cold, calculating, and deliberate, if there was any hope of making it through the events unfolding across campus. Deep down he knew there was more to come, and he needed to stay sharp. He turned to his analytical side, hoping it would squash the emotions bubbling within.
As Lucas had predicted, the energy field just missed consuming the Student Union. There was an eight-foot-wide strip of undisturbed grass between the event crater from the previous night’s theater event and the wreckage from this latest incident. Everything else caught in the dome’s path had vanished. Again, there was no visible rubble.
“Looks like more of that black residue,” Drew said, pointing to a film of black powder covering the bottom of the entire channel.
Lucas saw something else: a tall, pyramid-shaped mass near the dome’s endpoint. “Let’s go check it out,” he said, pointing at the discovery. His feet took him closer, though his logic wanted him to turn tail and run.
“Oh my God. Is that what I think it is?” Drew asked, as a throng of onlookers closed in around them.
“Yeah, it is. A pile of bodies, at least bits and pieces of them,” he answered, turning his head away for a few moments to process the ghastly sight without hurling. The move seemed to work, allowing him to bring his eyes forward again.
The stench coming from the pile was overpowering, and based on the reactions of those around him, everyone was getting a nose full. Drew was the first to lean over and vomit, barely missing the side of his chair. Four of the other witnesses sent out their own puke, covering the grass in bile and food chunks.
Drew sat upright and wiped off his chin, “What the heck’s going on here, Lucas?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” he answered, scooping up a handful of the black residue. He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot before he spoke again. “But like we talked about last night, I think it’s all related to our E-121 experiment.”
Drew said quietly in his chair, looking stunned.
“There are just too many similarities. All of it is tied to this black residue somehow. This kind of shit just doesn’t happen by coincidence.”
Lucas studied the pile in front of him. The facts seemed to indicate the dome had expelled an eight-foot-high mound of semi-liquid human remains. The heap oozed down its sides as gravity pulled at its gooey consistency, made up of organs, muscle, tissue, fingers, skulls, bones, brain matter, and intestines, intermingled like a bloody tossed salad. The coroner’s office was going to be busy for months sorting out the remains.
He couldn’t see any signs of clothing in the bloody pile, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, it eliminated any hope of visually identifying Abby, or the other half of Jasmine. On the other, the lack of evidence protected Drew in his fragile emotional state. Lucas decided it was probably a good thing Abby’s pink windbreaker wasn’t visible in the dome’s waste pile. Drew would still have hope and that’s all he could ask at this point.
“Do you think it’ll happen again?” Drew asked.
The answer was yes, but he didn’t want to come clean with his brother. He chose to spin his answer a bit, lessening the blow. “I don’t know, maybe. It all seems a little too fantastic to even comprehend. I sincerely hope this is the end of it, but we shouldn’t wait around to find out. Let’s get out of here.”
TEN
On the way back to their apartment, Lucas noticed a white broadcast van parked a few hundred feet past the science lab, on a side street to the left. The vehicle sat behind two other news vans from competing stations, all of them facing the opposite way.
“Hey, check it out,” Lucas said, pointing at the back of the vehicles.
“You think they caught anything on camera?”
“There’s only way one to find out. Let’s go.”
When they arrived, they found the first van’s cargo door open, partially covering up the faded black stenciling on the side which Lucas determined to be ‘Channel 9 News.’
Inside were two clean-cut young technicians wearing jeans and T-shirts. They seemed to be taking order from an older man with a bad comb-over and a belly hanging down to the front pockets of his slacks. All three were sitting close together in front of the mobile studio, watching the center monitor.
Lucas poked his head inside, clearing his throat before he spoke. “Hey, guys. Is that footage of the energy field that just tore up the mall?”
The older man flinched, then turned around. He had the red cheeks and weary, bloodshot eyes of a long-time alcoholic. “Yeah, it is. Who the hell are you?”
“Dr. Lucas Ramsay. I’m with the Astrophysics Department,” Lucas said, cl
imbing up and in while leaving Drew sitting outside in his wheelchair.
“Seriously?” the man asked. “I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Yeah, because it’s true. I really am a physicist. Part of Dr. Kleezebee’s crew. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He owns BTX Enterprises, and you’ve had him on your news broadcast at least a dozen times. He’s my boss and the Dean of the Astrophysics Department.”
The man looked him over from head to toe, but didn’t say anything.
Drew stuck his head inside the opening, leaning forward and still seated in his chair. “My brother’s telling you the truth. You can pull his name up on the Internet if you want. He’s listed as part of the staff. Go ahead, check it out: Dr. Lucas Ramsay. It’ll be listed under the University of Arizona Physics Research Team.”
The old man’s concerned look faded. He gripped Lucas’ hand and gave it a shake. “I’m Don Wenzel, Field Producer. Channel 9 News.”
Lucas nodded and gave him a half-smile. “Can I take a closer look at the video? I may be able to explain what happened.”
“Sure, Doc, why not? Provided we get the exclusive.”
“It’s a deal.”
Wenzel used his left hand to nudge one of the techs out of his chair before motioning to Lucas to sit down, which he did.
“Can you restart it at the beginning? It would help if I can see everything you have,” Lucas asked, turning his head to check on Drew.
His brother was sitting outside the door, trying to peer around Lucas to see the screen in front. Lucas brought his eyes back to the equipment and decided to shift the chair a few inches to the left. If the news crew managed to capture the tragedy in digital form, he needed to block Drew’s view.
The last thing he wanted was for the horrific images to burn a hole in Drew’s memories for all of eternity. There would be no way to un-see what was sure to appear on the screen in the next few seconds. Lucas felt it was best if he was the only member of the Ramsay family to carry that burden. His job was to protect Drew, and this was one of the ways he could do just that.
Linkage (The Narrows of Time Series Book 1) Page 13