She finally wriggled her arm out of his grasp. “You go ahead. I’ll be right there.”
“You’re crazy.” He shrugged and moved on down the hallway.
Others were looking at her, wondering why she wasn’t following. She needed to hide somewhere until the hall cleared enough for her to cross without attracting so much attention. She decided to go back to the VAO converter room and wait. It would only be a few minutes. It wasn’t as if the others would be allowed back into the building before the bomb crews had combed it, looking for the explosives. She would have plenty of time.
The machine had finished its shut-down routine by the time she got there. Had it been only yesterday that she had coaxed it into revealing its secrets? She wondered how Detective Rayes was doing with the names of the blackmail victims.
It occurred to her that the easiest way to discover who the blackmailer was would be to happen upon him in this room during lunch. Too bad she couldn’t have been there 20 minutes earlier. She’d have known then.
Not that that would do any good. Whatever she learned here wouldn’t survive the timestream fix anyway.
31
Apprehension
RIACH LABS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1255, Wednesday, June 14, 2215.
“Go, go, go!” Lexil muttered. It didn’t help. A tree that suddenly popped up in the middle of a restaurant had attracted onlookers, and the flyways had been completely rerouted as a result. Traffic was snarled.
He and Marak finally arrived just before the first threat was to be called in.
“You get out; I’ll go find a place to park,” Marak said.
“Park anywhere,” said Lexil. “Doesn’t matter if you get a ticket. Doesn’t even matter if the helicar is stolen while you’re gone or damaged by the explosion. If Dani succeeds, we have do-overs. If she fails—”
“—the car may grow horns and a mermaid tail anyway,” Marak finished. “I know. Now go! Help her finish before this whole thing goes down.”
Lexil knew he’d have to get inside the building with the lunch crowds if he was to have any chance at all. He bypassed the irisscans by dropping his hat and bending down to pick it up. Then he stood up on the other side of the scanners. Nobody noticed. He was surprised by how easy it was. Royce had said there was heightened security, but he didn’t see it.
Now, in through the door. He didn’t see signs to the lab, but he saw people putting on powder blue lab coats. Dani had one of those. He guessed that they would be heading where she would be heading. He followed a big group of the blue coats down a display hall. Memories from childhood flooded back. It was his mother’s display hall, he realized. But no time to stop and remember. He had to find where the lab was before the alarm sounded and they all turned around to go out the doors they had just come in.
He did his best to look like he belonged. Look straight ahead. Walk purposefully. Don’t run, no matter how much you want to.
And then he saw the sign to the labs. He wished he knew which one she’d be in, but at least from here, he could find the labs, even if the alarm—
And there it was. Every person in the crowd stopped abruptly to hear the announcement. “All personnel, please move to the nearest exit in an orderly manner. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. Pass through the irisscan at the exit to assist us in accounting for all employees. All personnel, please move….” The message repeated several times.
Lexil could hear the deliberate rhythm in its instructions. It was almost hypnotic. He marveled at how calmly people walked, almost marched, to its cadence. He could see signs to two exits. One was just before the first lab, Lab A. It pointed to the right, down a long hall. The other was beyond the last lab, Lab D. The distances looked about the same. Half of the group he was with diverted to the right. Among those who remained, he slumped and bent his knees so his head and his lack of a lab coat wouldn’t be so obvious, preparing to enter Lab A as they went past.
The door to the lab was closed but unlocked. A part of his mind was counting off seconds since the alarm was announced. He knew the first bomb would be at the front entrance, and the others would go off in intervals. But he had no way of guessing how long he had before the one at the end of this hall went off.
He entered Lab A. The pieces of equipment were more elaborate than he was used to, but their functions were easy to recognize. First were the projectors, with big screens for groups of people to experience the same recording at the same time. Then were the scanners.
According to the plan, Dani should be at her scanner in one of the labs, setting it up for the procedure, or in the object library, getting the padlock. The scanners had tinted glass, so he could only see inside the nearest ones. He stepped up on the raised platform in front of the projectors. It didn’t help, and she could as easily be in the aisles, hidden between them, as inside. He’d make a quick tour of the labs and then head for the library.
Halfway down the first aisle, he heard, then felt, the shock of the first explosion. Three-minute intervals, Neferyn had said. He started running. Noise wouldn’t matter now. Two aisles later, he knew for certain: No Dani in Lab A. He would have to check the other labs, then the object library.
Where would the library be? Probably a room that was easily accessible from any of the four labs. In the back, he guessed. And he spotted a likely door.
But the door to Lab B was closer. He’d check that first. He dashed through the door and started checking the scanners.
It happened in a split second. The blast and the wall hit him simultaneously. Then the floor came at him and he blacked out.
32
Explosion
RIACH LABS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1310, Wednesday, June 14, 2215.
As Dani waited in the room with the VAO converter, a boom from the direction of the front entrance startled her. The floor and walls shuddered, the hall windows rattled. She poked her head out the door and looked down the hallway. The remainder of the crowd was moving much more quickly now. Could Neferyn have set up some kind of sound effect to make the bomb threat more realistic? But that was so loud!
An uneasy thought occurred to her. What if that was not a sound effect, but an actual bomb? Would he have done that?
Either way, she would need to finish her job here. She stole another glance down the hallway. Only the stragglers were left inside the building now, and they were running toward the exit. No one would notice her. Time to get across the hall to the labs.
She had passed by the door to Lab C when she heard and felt the second explosion, much closer than the first, followed by the screeches and rumbles of metal girders and cement walls giving way, collapsing. So loud! The floor heaved, and instinct cried out for her to turn and run. But danger didn’t matter now, she reminded herself. Speed did. She braced herself against the wall as the waves died down. Cement dust filled the air, and she coughed.
That was when she heard the moan, followed by a scream that started in agonized pain and ended, inexplicably, with her name. She knew that voice. Horror propelled her toward it. Whatever her mission, whatever her goal, she could not let Lexil be alone with that kind of anguish.
She found him in Lab B, just inside the door, buried in rubble, crisscrossed with girders. In the seconds it took her to reach him, she saw his right foot jutting from the rubble nearby, but it couldn’t be his. Impossible for a leg to bend that way! Her eyes shifted back and forth between the foot and his face, too pale, too gray. She choked back a scream of her own as she understood.
“Dani…” he said again, between groans that tore at her soul. “The bombs… every three minutes… your connexion… blocked.” He fought to keep his eyes open.
“More?” she shuddered. She didn’t want to think about bombs. She wanted to pull the girders off, stop the blood from draining out of his beautiful body, wish him safely back home. Now there was no gentle good humor in his glance, no flash of brilliance. But his brown eyes still held tenderness and trust.
It was a horrible
time to realize she loved him. She would do anything for this man! With a surge of desperate strength, she heaved at the top girder. It took only a second to discover that any momentary gain disappeared as soon as she stopped pulling. What could she use as a lever?
Lexil reached, grabbed her wrist. “No, Dani.” He grimaced. His eyes closed against the pain. She had to lean close to hear him whisper, “Go. You have to go.”
Everything in her protested. She would stay by his side! She could not let him die! A world without Lexil in it was unthinkable.
An explosion rocked the floor. More of the ceiling tore loose and fell on either side of them. One chunk broke loose from overhead, and she instinctively threw up her arms to shield her head. A piece of something metal tore at her left forearm.
Bloody, but superficial. She ignored the pain.
More walls were crumpling, this time back near the library, making it inaccessible from here. She had to reach the padlock. She hoped the door from Lab C or Lab D was still intact.
She looked back at Lexil. She knew he was dying. Why did he have to come? His warning came too late to have done her any good. If only she could go back before he left, tell him not to come.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered.
“So go. Make it… unhappen.”
She knelt beside him, cupped his face in her hands, and gently kissed his blue lips. “I love you. I won’t even know you there. But you’ll be alive.”
When she pulled away, his eyes were closed, and she couldn’t hear him breathing. But she thought she saw him nod.
The hallway to Lab C was still passable. As long as there was a chance, she had to try.
RIACH LABS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1320, Wednesday, June 14, 2215.
Dani picked her way through the debris in the hallway. A new concern surfaced. Even if she could get to the library, would there be a scanning recorder in Lab C or D that had survived the blasts? Lab B, where Lexil lay dying, was a total loss. Lab A, just beyond it, was sure to be worse, since it was closer to the exit where the bomb had gone off.
When she got there, she found Lab C was easier to step through, but almost all the scanners in the front were crushed under a slab of concrete that had dropped from the ceiling above. Fragments were still falling onto the few remaining scanners.
The whole upper floor could come down at any moment, but the back section appeared to be largely intact. Perhaps she could find a scanner there! But when she got nearer, the usually glowing panels were dark, telling her the power was out in the back. None of the scanners were on line.
Another explosion, more distant, rocked the building. She steadied herself on the nearest support pillar. Those, at least, were holding up. Now, she needed to make her way to the library for Object 097113, the padlock. One more time.
Just past the area with the VAO converter was the library. It was in shambles. Case after case was toppled, objects spilled everywhere. She would be horrified at the loss to researchers if she hadn’t finally and completely convinced herself that this chaos and destruction would all go away soon, and everything would be restored. If only she could find the padlock. This mess would definitely make it harder.
The soft lights emanating from the panels in the walls were flickering. Case 90 lay in front of her. She climbed over it, and then over Case 91. Case 92 was still standing, and she started hoping that Case 97 would be too. Just a little farther.
There. Case 97 had toppled over partway and was leaning on the one next to it. Dani would have to go underneath, between the two, to see if Object 097113 was still in place. Just as she got herself wedged between the shelves, the floor shook. The wall lights flickered again and went out.
“No, not now! Not this close!” she yelled, to no one in particular. She felt in her pocket for her worktablet and switched on the white background. In its light, she could see, just barely, the numbers on the shelves. Spot 109, 110, 111 had objects in them, but spots 112 and 113 were empty. Dani swallowed, willing away the panic that was rising in her. This had to work. Where was that padlock?
She got down on her knees on the floor, picking up containers and labels and fragments of ceiling tile. She mourned the quiet efficiency of the library she’d always known, remembering how easy it was to reach up and gather ten or fifteen objects at a time just a few days before.
She took a deep breath to steady herself, then started searching the floor methodically from the wall backwards toward the passageway, picking up debris, checking it, moving it aside. About halfway to the passageway, she found the label: “097113.” It must have been stripped from the padlock during the upheavals. She wished it had been the padlock. She calmed herself, taking the label as evidence that it was here somewhere.
But she worked her way all the way back to the passageway without finding it.
For the first time since the explosions had begun, she began to consider that this might be the world she had to stay in. They knew her role in it. They probably knew the names of everyone involved, even the West Seattle kids. She had almost completely brought down an entire institute. She gripped her hair, trying to steady herself, trying to stop the tremble in her hands.
A rumble signaled another detonation, more distant. Lexil had said they were set to go off every three minutes. She wondered how he knew that. She took a deep breath. This had to work. She had to find that padlock.
And then she saw it. Two shelves up from the floor on Case 98. It must have been flung over there when its own case tottered. She recognized it immediately. Same keyhole at the bottom. Same band across the top, and fine lines down the sides.
It looked a little newer. In a fleeting thought, she attributed that to the effects of the timestream breaking apart. Everything was changing. She was lucky it hadn’t turned to a sausage or something.
Would the power still be on in Lab D? Like Lab A, it was near an exit door, but if there was a bomb planted there, it hadn’t yet gone off. Please be working, she begged it silently, and breathed a sigh of relief when she entered to find the back corner, where her usual station 3 scanner was located, apparently undisturbed. The lighting and air systems were still functioning.
She dared to hope that she could pull this whole thing off, because the idea of not hoping, not believing this would all go away, was unthinkable.
RIACH LABS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1330, Wednesday, June 14, 2215.
Dani braced herself at the entry to Lab D, riding out another explosion. How many of these were there going to be?
The lights in the lab continued, uninterrupted. Her observation box should be intact, but who knew how long it would last?
She was so focused on getting to her destination that she almost didn’t see him, standing behind the box, leaning against it. She jumped at his voice.
“That one won’t work.”
“What one? What do you mean? What are you doing here?”
He ignored her last question. “The padlock. It’s not the right one.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“You’ll need this one.” He held out a nearly identical padlock. She recognized the faint patterns of scrapes and gouges immediately. He was right.
“But how—?”
“There’s no time to explain. Go fix this.” He waved his hand in a circle. Fix this. The lab. The city. The whole rippling world. Yes. She needed to fix it.
But something in the back of her mind nagged her to stay, to find out why he, of all people, would have the item she had spent so much time searching for, and why there had been a different padlock in the library for her to find.
Her hesitation lasted only seconds, and then she remembered. The VAO converter, winding down as she passed it, right after lunch. The only other person who would have any reason to be down here during that time would be the blackmailer. Everyone else would have left when the evacuation sounded—especially when the explosions began.
She was looking at the man behind it all.
And
for some reason, their goals had meshed. He wanted her to succeed here as much as she did.
“You’re the blackmailer.” It wasn’t an accusation. It was matter-of-fact, forced past her natural filters by urgency: a surreal interval of perfect clarity in the midst of confusion and uncertainties, meant to be acknowledged and forgotten. Whatever she knew now would be useless soon.
He was surprised. She could tell by the way he drew back, just for a moment. And then he laughed. “Congratulations! I didn’t even know you were looking for me. Does it matter?”
She shook her head, slowly. “Is this yours, then?” She held out the newer padlock.
He nodded. “If it weren’t for the bombs, I’d have let you go ahead and try to repair time with that one. It wouldn’t have worked, of course. It was made just a few months ago. It wouldn’t exist yet if you sent it back.”
“You knew about the damage to the timestream, and you wanted to keep me from fixing it? Why? Why would you do that?”
“Things were going so well here, you see. No one suspected me, and my accounts were growing nicely.”
She couldn’t decide whether to be furious that he had so little regard for others or relieved that he had changed his mind and brought her the padlock.
A bomb at the exit just outside the lab door detonated. She braced herself as walls folded in and pieces of ceiling fell in widening circles inside the door. Plaster dust mixed with the smoke in the air. Her last exit was blocked. No matter. She wasn’t planning to leave here anyway.
The reverberations made it hard to stay standing, and harder to see. Through the greenish dust that filled the air, she saw his legs buckle, watched him slide down the side of the box, observed the red smear left behind where he had been leaning.
“You’re hurt.” Again, matter-of-fact, despite the dangers around her. This was a thing she knew. She was strangely calm.
“Fatal, I’m afraid.” He was almost apologetic as he lifted his arm to reveal a blood-soaked shirt from what looked like multiple wounds. A shard of broken glass jutted from his abdomen.
A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) Page 23