I dropped to my knees. “Which children? The ones who came with you?”
She turned her gaze to me with obvious difficulty and nodded.
“Are they still alive?”
She nodded again. “You have to…to…sa—save them.”
Doug wiped tears from his eyes. “They’re not human, honey.”
“I kn—know,” Sophie said. “But th—they don’t know wh—who they are. Th—they’re only children.” She grimaced and coughed. Then she hardened her face. “It’s the people … It’s the people who sent us all here that sh—should be punished. N—not them.” She squeezed Doug’s hands. “Pl—please promise me y—you’ll save them.”
I stared at the floor. She was right. Whether the children time had lost were human or Shrinik didn’t matter. They were still just innocent children. I thought back to Doug’s words. One in five. What would I do if Dylan was one of them? I looked at Sophie again and realized she was right—it didn’t matter. I loved Dylan, regardless of what he was. But he’s human. I know it in my heart.
“Where are they?” Michael said. “Do you know where they took them?”
Sophie coughed more water from her lungs. “All I … know is that th—they took them to th—the master site or something like that. Bu—but I don’t know wh—where that is.”
My eyes widened. We definitely had to find that journal. I leaned closer to her. “My son was also taken. Would he be there, too?”
“Maybe,” Sophie said. “I d—don’t know.” She faced Doug again. Her eyelids flickered. “The children. Th—they were trying to find families for them. You have to hurry … or th—they’ll be lost for good.”
“Guys,” Mandy said through the earpiece in a panic.
“What is it?” Michael said.
“The cars are coming back.”
I stood up. “What do you mean?”
“The same ones that left, but this time there are two more with them.”
“Damn.” Michael turned to me. “We need that journal.”
I nodded.
“Curtis,” Michael said, “how far to the archive room from here?”
Curtis didn’t answer.
“Curtis,” Michael repeated.
“Guys, get out of there,” Curtis said finally.
“The journal—”
“We’re out of time,” Curtis said. “I just saw the cars that came through. These aren’t just normal people. They’re part of the Time Travel Committee. They’re coming to get the journal. Their guards will have some serious firepower. I mean it, you’ve got to go now.”
Michael stood up and grimaced. I gave Sophie a sympathetic glance and whispered into Doug’s ear, “We’ve got to go.”
Still sobbing, he didn’t look at me. Michael ducked back down. “Which way is it to the archive room?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to go now.”
“Maybe you’re not hearing me,” Michael said. “We didn’t come this far to chicken out. You said it yourself—after it’s gone, we’ll never get another chance for a long time.”
Nothing came back over the earpiece. I could feel Curtis deliberating in his head.
“Curtis,” Michael said.
“Fine. I’ll help you get there. But you have to leave right now and go right. The cars have just pulled up. They’ll know that guards are missing soon.”
Michael ran and crouched beside Doug. “There’s nothing more we can do for her. We have to go.”
Doug punched the floor. “I’m not leaving.”
“Y—you have to, honey,” Sophie said in a frail voice. “I’ll be dead soon. At least now, it … it won’t be on their terms.”
“If we don’t leave right now,” Michael said, “we’re dead.”
Doug wiped his red eyes and shook his head. “I can’t leave her. Not while she’s still breathing. You guys go. If it means I die, then so be it.” He unhooked the rucksack and pulled out another AN-94 assault rifle and a handful of magazines. Then he threw the bag at Michael’s feet. “Just go.”
“She’s already gone,” Curtis said through the earpiece. “And if you don’t move now, you’ll be joining her.”
“Guys,” Mandy shouted through the phone, “they’ve found two of the bodies. The guards are now running all over the place. You can’t be in there.”
Just then, a loud piercing sound like a sharp wolf whistle filled the room. The alarm had been sounded.
Michael nodded at me. I raised the AN-94 still strapped over my shoulder and charged toward the door with him. He turned toward Doug. “You stay alive, you hear? We’ll come back for you.”
Doug lay on the floor beside Sophie and gazed into her eyes. We ran out of the room, turned right and ran down another corridor. The sound grew louder and louder.
“We can’t just leave him,” I said.
“We have to get the journal. We’ll get him after.” We paused when we reached another crossroad. Michael put his hand to his ear. “Curtis, which way?”
“Take a left,” Curtis said. We ran left and past a thin wooden door on our right. “The archive room is the first door after the next left.”
We took a left at the next crossroad two minutes later. I saw the towering golden door to our right almost immediately. We had almost reached it when we heard Curtis’ panic-filled voice.
“Turn back now. They’re coming. Hurry.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The alarm kept tearing through my ears. We sprinted back toward where we’d come from. We took a right at the crossroad and stopped. I panted for breath and Michael spoke into the earpiece.
“What do you mean, they’re coming?”
We heard shuffling noises that suggested Manuel and Curtis were changing position, but nothing came through. Mandy whispered seconds later. “They’re everywhere.”
“What do you mean?” Michael said.
“All those guards that were spread around the fields—they’ve all moved to the front of the house. And the people from the Time Travel Committee have just entered the facility. They must be going to the archive room. We’re screwed.”
“What do we do?” I said.
“You need to hide until all of this blows over,” Curtis said.
“Curtis,” Michael said, “you and Manuel okay?”
“Yeah, boss,” Manuel said. “We just had to move farther east.”
“And you, Mandy?”
“I’m parked in the woods. They won’t find me.”
“Where do we go?” I said.
“You guys see a thin door on your way there?” Curtis said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Go in there. There’s an override switch to the left of the door. It’s used for storage. Once you’re in, destroy the switch on the other side. With any luck, they won’t think to check in there.”
“What about Doug?” I said.
“Still here, guys,” I heard Doug say through the earpiece in a precarious voice.
“You’ve got to leave that place,” Michael said. “That’s the first place they’ll look. We breached the door to get in.”
“Sophie’s still alive,” Doug said. “I told you, I’m not leaving her.”
“But you’ll die,” I said.
“I don’t care.”
“Hang on,” Curtis said. He didn’t speak for a few seconds. Then his raised voice returned. “Doug, I need you to go to the door and cut the red wire on the left.”
“Why?” I said.
“It’ll lock the door from the inside. They’ll have to shut down the whole security system to get it open. And trust me, they won’t want to do that with the suits in the building.”
“Okay,” Doug said.
Michael nodded at me and ran up the corridor. I followed him. After we reached the thin door, he pushed a black switch the size of a golf ball. The door swung open and we ran in. Then it shut after us. I smashed the switch on the inside with the butt of my gun until wires hung from the wall. I hear
d Michael grunt and turned in his direction. He’d banged his head against the five-foot ceiling. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the ground. We lay flat on our stomachs and caught our breath.
“We’re in,” I said.
“Okay,” Curtis said.
“The door’s locked,” Doug said a few seconds later.
“Hang tight,” Curtis said. “We’ll let you know once it’s all clear.”
We lay on the floor without speaking. The dim blue light on the ceiling revealed a little more of an outline of Michael’s face. I wanted to ask Doug how Sophie was doing but was scared of the answer. Then we heard footsteps. It sounded like at least ten people running past our door. I held my breath until they’d passed.
The footsteps kept coming and going, along with raised voices. It sounded like there were hundreds of people out there searching for us. But they all spoke over one another, making it hard to understand anything being said. I kept asking Curtis what was happening outside the facility, but nothing came back. I remained optimistic. They were all right. They had to be. After a few more minutes, the alarm ceased and silence returned. I listened for more footsteps but didn’t hear any.
Michael reached into his pockets and pulled the binoculars out. He looked in all directions before settling on an angle. Then he turned the knob a few times.
“What do you see?” I said after a few minutes.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “Hang on. … I think I’m inside the archive room.”
“What do you see in there?” Curtis said.
I sighed and rested my forehead on the floor after hearing Curtis’ voice.
“A massive cage,” Michael said. “Like a police vault or something.” He leaned left and right. “There are people lying facedown on the floor, tied up.”
I shot a stare at him. “What do you mean?”
He gave me the binoculars. “Look.”
There were three men on the floor, bound by their hands and feet. I moved closer. One was bald and had a large head. The other two had thin faces. I lowered the binoculars and frowned.
“What?” Michael said. “What is it?”
“It’s them,” I said. “Curtis, the three men are the same ones you showed us in the pictures. The rogue travelers.”
Curtis didn’t speak for a moment. “You sure?”
“I swear it.”
Michael took the binoculars and confirmed what I’d said.
“They must have found them then,” Curtis said.
“So what happens now?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Curtis said. “But that might also be the reason the Time Travel Committee is here. That and the journal.”
“But why can’t they just change?”
“They can’t if they’re tied up,” Curtis said. “The rope interrupts the blood flow and stops them from changing.”
I took the binoculars and looked toward the cage. Then a door to the right of where I focused opened. A number of people walked in. I recognized Lorenzo first, and then Sergeant Briggs. But I gasped when I saw the three people leading the group in. “I can’t believe it.”
“What is it?” Manuel and Curtis said at the same time.
“Three of the suits you talked about—I know them all. Two at least. One I’ve only seen before.” I turned and stared at Michael. “One of them is Jarrod Conway. The guy from the future who worked with you on the drugs.”
Michael frowned. “You mean Russell Jacobs?”
“Russell, Jarrod—whatever his name is, he’s in there.”
“Are you sure?”
“I swear.” I put the binoculars back over my eyes. “The other is the mayor of Barstow. Mayor Nicholson, I think. But the last person—”
“Who is it?” Curtis said.
“She’s from my time. A Nigerian woman. Her name’s Carrie Nicholas. She’s the one who interviewed me when I returned from the future with Dylan.”
I lay still with my jaw twitching. I looked through the binoculars again. Carrie paced around the room, looking into the eyes of everyone else there. She might have been involved in all this, but could she actually be one of them? A member of the Time Travel Committee? She had the same long dark hair she’d had in my time, but gone was the gray suit she always wore. This time she had a black one on. Mayor Nicholson had thinning whitish-blond hair, almost like an albino. Jarrod still didn’t have a hair on his head. His being there meant he was probably a member of the Time Travel Committee, but everything we knew about him suggested he was a rogue traveler. Or at least helping them. Was he playing both sides? He must have been, unless we’d read him all wrong. Maybe he didn’t even have anything to do with the three men lying on the floor. Maybe his agenda was something completely different. I still had a feeling in my gut that he was the Orchestrator, even if the others didn’t. He was just too good at pretending. He’d certainly had me fooled the whole time I knew him. He spoke to the mayor, away from everyone else.
“Let me see,” Michael said.
I gave him the binoculars. After almost a minute of twisting around to get a good angle, he lowered the binoculars and grimaced.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
“The woman.”
My eyes narrowed. “You know her, too?”
“I more than know her. I’m one of her biggest contributors. When you said Carrie Nicholas, it didn’t click. Her name is Carrie, but her surname is Mickelson here. She’s one of the biggest philanthropists in the world. She’s got a place in L.A. I pump millions into her charities.” He paused and stared at the wall, as if for the first time understanding the magnitude of what we were dealing with. He faced me again. “This is bad. I mean, really bad. That woman is powerful. She sometimes has lunch at the white house with the president himself.”
He dropped the binoculars to the floor and placed his fist under his chin. I picked up the binoculars and looked through them again. I saw Carrie facing Lorenzo and everyone else in the room. It looked like she was shouting at them. Jarrod and the mayor stood behind her, quiet.
After almost three minutes of ranting, Carrie walked over to the three men bound on the floor. She caressed their hair for a moment and then stood aside. Jarrod stepped forward and did the same, and so did the mayor.
“What’s going on now?” Michael said.
“They’re standing over those guys who are tied up.” I kept my eyes glued to Carrie and watched her every move.
Jarrod and the mayor returned to her side. Then Carrie’s mouth expanded and a black organism shot out of it. I gasped and dropped the binoculars.
“She’s one of them.”
Michael picked the binoculars up and looked. I saw him grimace at whatever he was seeing. I grabbed the binoculars, and three Shriniks greeted me. Carrie, Jarrod and the mayor had disappeared from view. One of the Shriniks—I couldn’t tell male and female apart—approached one of the bound men and studied him. The man struggled and wriggled. Then a number of organisms on the Shrinik’s body slithered on the ground and climbed onto the man’s body. I knew the bound men couldn’t change, but if they were rogue travelers like Curtis had said, they were Shriniks, too. Could the organisms from other Shriniks even harm them? The prisoner thrashed, struggling to break free. The Shrinik knelt and wrapped its large hands around the man’s face. More and more organisms covered the man’s body, crawling under his clothes, some forcing their way through his nose and mouth. I winced and gritted my teeth, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. The man shook and rolled around on the floor. But then all movement stopped and he lay motionless.
The Shrinik eyed the body for a while before expanding its mouth, which fit over the corpse’s head. Then it gulped the man whole. I dropped the binoculars again and bit my fingernails. Michael grabbed them and looked.
“My God,” he said.
“What is it?” Manuel said through the earpiece.
“They’re swallowing one of the men.”
“Really?” Mandy said. “That’s horrible.”<
br />
I just lay on my stomach, staring at the wall. I had seen a Shrinik do this before, but this was obviously some sort of execution of a rogue traveler, one of their own. But I was also a rogue traveler in their eyes, and so was anyone helping me. Back in 2043, they’d just wanted to stop me from talking, but now I was a full-blown criminal. Under their justice system, I had committed an unspeakable crime. Was this the fate that awaited me? All of us? Would they swallow each of us alive, like a python would do to its prey?
“These people are sick,” Michael said. “They’re doing the same to the other one. This is just wrong.”
“Hang in there, guys,” Curtis said through the earpiece. “It’s an execution. There’s nothing you can do for them. This is actually a good thing. Three less rogue travelers to interfere with your planet’s fate.”
Curtis made a good point, and I, too, saw how this was beneficial to all of us, but seeing it brought back too many memories of the Shrinik that had swallowed Warren, whose only crimes were probably uncovering things he shouldn’t have and talking to me. That the Shriniks could do that added to my doubts that the Time Travel Committee had Earth’s best interests at heart.
Michael turned way, and we just lay there in silence.
“Guys,” Curtis said through the earpiece. We didn’t answer. “Guys!”
“We’re here,” Michael said. I could hear a little fear in his voice for the first time.
“What’s happening now?” Curtis said.
Michael glanced at me with a deflated look. I picked up the binoculars from the floor and looked through the walls again. Carrie was back, as were Jarrod and the mayor, but the three bound men were gone.
“They swallowed them,” I said with disgust.
“What are they doing now?” Curtis said.
Carrie walked up to Lorenzo and spoke to him. Lorenzo walked past her and headed toward the cage.
“I think they’re taking the journal now.”
“Okay,” Curtis said. “Get ready to move. … Doug, how are you doing?” Nothing came back. “Doug!”
We heard sniffling and heavy breathing. “Sh—she’s … gone.” He sniffled again.
The Children Who Time Lost Page 31