Benton nodded as the two of them headed back into the house. They waited at the outside kitchen door while agents exited with an injured partner slung between them. “Kid put up quite a fight, didn’t he? Still, when I was younger and smarter, he would never have had a chance.”
Nsamba raised his eyebrows and glanced Benton’s way. “Too bad we are neither now.”
CHAPTER 14:
In midday traffic on a Maryland freeway, a compact rental car sped by with its blinker on. It crossed a lane and took exit 29-B to the right.
Inside the cramped car, Kendall and Josh leaned forward, straining to see the street sign at the end of the ramp. Josh clutched a crumpled printout and nervously looked back and forth from the paper to the road ahead. Kendall spotted the sign first. “That’s Buckingham. Okay, left.”
He turned left onto a tree-lined road that passed through an old, stately neighborhood. Each house had its own character and the yards were large. Kendall vainly checked each intersection. “I thought you used to have a street-by-street thingy on your phone.”
“Yeah, I did…once,” Josh shot back, annoyed. “And I used to have a girlfriend, too.”
“Oh, yeah.” Kendall’s jaw clenched. “Sorry. Never mind.” He sniffed, wishing he’d never brought it up. “What’s next?”
Josh took a breath. He consulted his printout. “Make a right on Weaver, and then we should see it on the left side.”
Kendall made an exasperated sound. Josh looked up. “What now?”
“Nothing…it’s stupid. We’re stupid!”
Josh was upset. “It’s not stupid to try to figure out what happened to us.”
“It’s not that; it’s just that the closer I get to this guy, the dumber this feels. According to him we just made a buncha worlds everywhere we didn’t make those wrong turns. And we made more where we coulda gone straight but didn’t – doesn’t that sound stupid to you?”
Josh looked out the window. “There’s Weaver. Take a right.”
The rental car turned right. Soon it passed a thick wooden sign with carved flowers and raised letters that read, Welcome to Althea Woodland Nursing Home. Kendall pulled into the small designated parking lot just beyond the sign and stopped. Josh got out first. He slowly looked around.
The nursing home was a well maintained single level structure with large windows and a pleasant rustic feel. A wide and gently curved sidewalk led from the parking lot to the main entrance. There was a relaxed atmosphere about the place that hid the highly efficient and medically astute underpinnings. The main building was split into two wings – one side dedicated to self sufficient seniors, the other to less ambulatory residents. All of the rooms had generous sized windows that faced the gardens and trees that were the hallmark of the facility.
Josh bent over and peered into the car at his father. “You gettin’ out?”
Kendall pulled the key and opened his door. “I don’t like places like this.” He came around the front of the car and doggedly headed up the sidewalk toward the front doors. “I don’t wanna end up in one, and I don’t wanna visit the inmates who did.”
Josh stood by the car watching him walk away. Kendall looked back. “What are you waiting for? This was your idea.”
* * *
A husky, middle-aged nurse’s aide, with a softened New York dialect, happily guided Kendall and Josh down a wide carpeted hallway in the home. The décor was cheerful and there were numerous residents out and about. Kendall was jumpy and Josh was subdued, but the chatty nurse’s aide was in her zone.
“See, nursing homes, they’re like their own little towns – friendly, but everybody’s nose is stuck right up everybody else’s business. I mean, you know how it is, if you sneeze, the other gal wipes her nose, you know?”
She patted the shoulder of a slender woman with wispy hair pushing a walker. “Hey Louise, you’re really toolin’. I hear they got snacks in the sun room. First one gets the pick of the litter.”
As they moved on she noticed that Kendall was keeping to the center of the hall. “First time?”
Kendall reluctantly raised his eyes. “Been other places. Not here.”
“Yeah, it can get to you when you’re not used to it. Me? I love it here, I really do, honest, but I’ll give you a tip, you can’t judge a book by its cover, you know? Some of the best lookin’ residents we got here, ain’t all here. Take Mr. Montgomery over there.”
She waved at a dapper man with an empty look gliding along the wall railing. “Hey Monty, how’s it goin’? Nice threads.” The good looking man’s face brightened briefly at the words. Just as quickly, his eyes slipped back out of focus again.
The aide leaned in to them and lowered her voice as they continued by. “Spiffy, huh? Always in a different suit, cuff links even. He was a buyer for Nordstrom’s, got clothes to die for, but nothin’ upstairs to match. And he doesn’t talk. I only heard him say one word, once; and then it wasn’t really a word, word, you know? He was rubbin’ the sleeve on his suit and he looks at me and says, ‘129,’ just like that.”
She crossed to the other side of the hall to brush the hand of a wheelchair-bound woman rolling herself along using her feet. “Bernice, nice to see you outta that room. What happened? TV on the fritz?”
They made their way across the connecting hallway through large opened doors from the more ambulatory wing to the more disabled side. The number of aides working in the hall and in the rooms markedly increased. Josh noticed that the smells had intensified as well. He heard the unnerving sounds of dementia from behind a few of the closed doors.
“Feels different here, don’t it?” The nurse’s aide motioned around them. “The residents call it crossing to the other side, like hasta la vista, you know? We call it going to the far side ‘cause things can get pretty curious over here.”
She pointed forward at a room with the door nearly shut. “That’s his room, ahead on the left. Dr. Everett - now he’s a special case. He’s not a real doctor; he’s one of those other kinds, you know, some numbers guy. He was here before I got here, and he’s still here. Guys don’t usually hang on that long. Anyway, he’s a real special case. He don’t look like much but he’s there. You know?” She tapped stubby fingers against her forehead. “He’s really all there. Nothin’ typical about him.”
She pushed open the door. “Well, here you are.” When they hesitated to move, she smirked at them. “Go on. He ain’t gonna bite ya. He can’t even get outta the bed.”
Kendall and Josh timidly entered a narrow, darkened room. A silent TV dangled on an empty wall. The blinds were closed tightly over the huge windows, denying any knowledge of the day outside. A bedside tray held a plastic cup with an articulated straw poking through the lid. Nearby, making a crumpled tent under the sheets, in the center of a high-sided hospital bed, was Hugh Everett III. He was a twisted and wizened old man, and his shallow breathing carried a rattle in it.
Josh realized that he was walking bent over, on tiptoes. Feeling foolish, he stood up straight and cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”
There was no response from the bed.
Josh went closer, put his hands on the side rails, and looked down at him. “Mr. Everett? Can you hear me? Are you Hugh Everett?”
Old Everett opened surprisingly bright eyes, blinked wetly, and studied Josh. His voice, when it came, was thin and small. “Heard ya the first time.”
Josh just stood there. “…okay.”
“I’m Everett. Have we talked before?”
“What? No.”
Everett stared at Josh’s face. “You from here?”
“Ah, no…not from the nursing home.”
“I know that much.” Hugh’s irritated voice seemed to be warming up. He tried again. “You from here?”
“Okay. I…think so. Why?”
Old Everett grunted. The answer didn’t suit him. “No. Not a why question. A position question.” His tongue studiously explored a cheek. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“No.”
“Good, ‘cause I was having this dream that…where did you two come from?”
Kendall stood awkwardly in the center of the room and decided to pitch in. “Ohio? We took a plane from Ohio.”
Everett exhaled noisily in annoyance. Gnarled fingers appeared from beneath the sheets to scratch his nose. He blinked repeatedly. He motioned no at Kendall with a finger. “Bracket that. Restart everything. My fault. Different question.”
Everett took hold of a rail. He pulled himself steadily closer to Josh. “You ever heard about parallel worlds?”
Josh cracked a hopeful smile. “I read your paper.”
Hugh’s eyebrows went up. “That’s a first. Understand it?”
“Not all of it.”
“S ‘okay.” Everett coughed and hacked at something in his dry throat. He motioned feebly at the bedside tray table.
Josh looked and then understood. He brought the water glass over and stuck the straw between the old man’s dry lips. Everett sucked in some liquid and then waved the glass away.
“Try again. New approach.” He caught Kendall’s eyes. “Think before you answer, ‘kay?”
The two nodded their heads in unison.
Everett made a clicking sound with his teeth. He narrowed his eyes. “Are you from this…timeline?”
Josh and Kendall looked at each other with relief. They seemed to relax and get excited all at the same time. Josh spoke first. “We’re not sure. We don’t think so. That’s why we came to find you.”
Each grabbed a chair and shoved it close to the bedside of the shriveled old man. Kendall came close to smiling. “We didn’t…start here, in this…time deal, whatever you call it. At least I don’t think we did. We were born somewhere else but we’re here now – but we remember both times – if that’s what you mean?”
The old man smiled with growing excitement. His arthritic fingers coiled and uncoiled in pleasure. “I think that just might be exactly what I mean.” His eyes danced. “Tell me how you got here. Tell me everything – every single thing – exactly.”
The words began to flood out of Josh like a river in the spring. “See, we were in these car accidents and they kept happening over and over until, until we survived; but some of the things here are wrong, like the color of Dad’s truck and my car, and I have a PC instead of a Mac, and Mom is alive again but Hannah’s missing and…I mean, not everything, but…it’s messed up, you know?”
Everett drank it in like nectar. “It’s not messed up; it’s an alternate, a line that follows a new path. Think of it as a child line to your parent timeline. If it wasn’t different, it wouldn’t work.”
Josh stared at the old man, astonished by the implications. He didn’t know what he thought; he wasn’t sure he could even take in what the old man had said.
Everett abruptly cocked his head. “Wait a minute. You jumped lines, and yet you kept your memory of the former lines? Is that what you meant?”
Josh looked at him blankly, trying to follow. “I don’t know about jumping lines, but things just switched without any warning and then both memories were there – all the memories – new ones and old ones, all jumbled up. That’s what’s so hard; there’s new memories that half of you doesn’t remember, and then old ones that all of you knows aren’t true anymore.”
Kendall chimed in. “Yeah, it’s tough to keep everything straight. And we’re afraid to explain what’s goin’ on inside because it sounds…” He lowered his voice, “It sounds insane.”
Everett looked suddenly thoughtful. “Jumping and remembering…neither should happen, but both together? That’s absolutely not supposed to be…allowed.”
Growing excited, he hooked his other crippled hand around the bedrail. With surprising strength, he yanked himself up into a near sitting position. “And sudden death is the trigger! Hey, what do I know? That’s why it’s a theory.” He giggled to himself. “Wouldn’t Schrodinger’s cat have been surprised?”
Josh and Kendall weren’t following the old man’s comments at all but they kept watching him, confused.
“Whose cat?” Kendall asked.
Everett’s eyes glowed in the brightness of an epiphany. “Forget the cat. Schrodinger’s dead. It’s you that’s important. Who would have suspected? Nature’s wild card! I’m glad I’m still here. I’ve been waiting a long time for people like you.”
Kendall felt lost. And when that happened, he usually grew cynical. “Like us? People like us? Whaddya mean waitin’ for people like us? What the hell are we?”
Everett swayed as he barely held his position against the bed rail, but his face glowed. “Think of yourselves as counterweights. You’re what’s going to bring everything back into balance.”
They looked at him and tried to fathom what he meant. Finally, Kendall pushed back in his chair. The rubber feet squeaked loudly against the floor. “Not us. You can just forget about that. We didn’t come all this way to help you out of some balancing act. We just wanna know what happened to us.”
“And what’s the sudden death thing?” Josh added firmly. “I told you, we didn’t die; we just kept re-doin’ that same crash and then…”
“No! You don’t get it!” Everett interrupted him with a sudden strong voice and then slumped back on the bed, exhausted by his effort. “It’s not the same crash. It’s decision points. Every crash is a new option, a new timeline, a new choice – that’s what happened to you. You died, Josh; you died, again and again.”
The old man’s eyes darted back and forth in thought. “You were killed in each crash – at least your body was, but you weren’t in your body anymore, were you? That’s the wrinkle. See?”
“I’m dead?”
“Yes, you’re dead; both of you are dead, in that line. But you and your father apparently jumped to other you’s in other lines and got other chances. I think that’s how it worked.” He looked suddenly pensive. “Why it worked that way is a whole different question.”
“And buried?”
Everett closed his eyes, exasperated with slow minds. “Yes, buried. I should expect so, unless they cremated you.”
Josh looked horrified. Kendall abruptly stood up and walked away from the bed. He wandered over to the covered windows, and peeked out through the curtains at the pastoral scene outside. Finally, he looked back at the dried up old man huddled under the sheets.
“No. There’s no way that makes sense. Your theory’s nuts. It’s gotta be.” He came back to stand behind his chair. “If I spin off whole universes and timelines every damn time I turn around, I’d feel somethin’, wouldn’t I? I know I would. I’d hafta! And I don’t feel a thing.”
Everett cracked one eye open. He pursed his lips in glee. “Is the earth spinning? Are we orbiting the sun?”
“What the hell’s that got to do with anything?”
Hugh opened his other eye and sighed with sheer intellectual delight. “Do you feel it? Do you feel dizzy? No. But is it true? Yes! The earth rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours! She orbits the sun every 365 days! And you’re riding on her, and you don’t feel a single thing. Do you? Huh?”
Kendall was momentarily silent but unconvinced. “That’s different. There’re reasons. They can prove those things. But what about your…many worlds deal, huh? It’s all made up. Things can’t work that way. It’s a bunch of…sci-fi bullshit!”
The old man smiled sadly, “You really think so?”
“Damn straight I do! Normal life ain’t like that.”
Everett nodded, pleased that the argument was won. “Ah! That’s true, normal people live their normal lives unaware of the multiverse – but you and your son have never been normal people. You just didn’t know it until now. And the fact that you’re both standing here in my room in the wrong timeline arguing with me, proves it.” He beamed at them. “Q.E.D.”
CHAPTER 15:
A muscular young man sat at a table in a small windowless room. He was tapping his fingers and moving his shoulders to a musical beat. His l
ight sweater was open at the front and it allowed the glimpse of a harness and the bulge of a shoulder holster. On the table in front of him was a thermos, a silver communicator unit and a slim rectangular remote, like a high tech garage opener. He was listening to music from tiny wireless earphones, the volume cranked high enough so that a thin tune spilled out of his ears and into the room.
The com in front of him suddenly beeped and flashed. The man couldn’t hear it but he noticed the pulsing light. He hurriedly yanked the tiny phones from his ears and guiltily stuffed them in a shirt pocket. He swept up the com and pushed the talk button. “Yep, I’m here. Go ahead.”
He listened briefly and then replied. “Copy that. Walk ‘em in. Here you go.”
He thumbed the remote. The heavy door near him buzzed loudly and opened outwards. Another armed guard stepped in followed by Vandermark and Nsamba. The exterior guard immediately exited and the door auto-locked behind him.
Vandermark and Nsamba nodded a greeting to the interior guard and then crossed the room to the two metal doors in the opposite wall. They briefly slid open small view ports built into each door face and glanced in, one after the other, and then stepped back.
Vandermark was upset with Nsamba. Keeping his voice low, he was obviously continuing an earlier conversation. “Do you think for a minute I like all these complications? Believe me, I have enough problems.”
Nsamba was clearly not happy. “Complications?” He stepped closer to Vandermark and harshly whispered at him. “Assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment – these people haven’t done anything.”
“Not yet. Don’t be naïve.”
Nsamba flared black eyes at him. “I’m not being naïve. I’m stating a few minor facts that make me extremely uncomfortable.”
“I’ve explained all this. You know what’s at stake. You saw the timelines. These people could become a problem for us. Just think of it as…detainment until I’m sure we’re safe.”
Behind them the com unit beeped again. The interior guard answered. “Yeah? That time already? Okay.” He smiled at something the other guard said. “Copy that.”
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