Run. Get up, Shannon. Run—
Down the rise, quickly, I gained the orchard, followed the straight rows, careful of my footing. Above me the trees were vaulted shadows, the sky an outpouring of starlight. The ground around me seemed to glow, moonlight reflecting on the carpet of petals. I hurried, but I heard deep breathing somewhere behind me. Heavy footfalls and breaking branches, someone crashing downhill. A dark shape swept toward me. A man, tackling me to the ground. Wind rushed from my lungs beneath his weight, I couldn’t breathe.
The man punched wildly, struck my shoulder, my forehead, but glancing blows. Cobb—his hands were crushing weights. If he caught me square, he would knock me out, I knew, but the darkness worked in my favor. I scuttled from him, and when he fell on me again, he didn’t land with his full weight, didn’t pin my arms. He swung, his fist a brick colliding with my eye socket, flashes of light. Dazed, I clutched at his chest, hugging him, pressing my head to his armpit, held close to minimize his swings, as much as possible. He struck my back. I readjusted my grip, and my hands found his belt, found the sheath clipped to his belt, the handle of a knife. He pounded my back, kidney punches I felt deep in my trunk, but I was quick with the knife in the moment he relented to find a better position against me. I slid the knife from its sheath and plunged the blade through his shirt, into his soft belly. He winced, and I stabbed into his armpit, heard him grunt, felt the strength leave his arm. He let go of me, but I stayed close, slashed higher, dragged the blade across his neck. Hot blood sprayed over me, squirting my face in gushes. Cobb gurgled, belched. He stumbled, toppled. His eyes groped uncomprehendingly at the fruit trees for only a few moments.
What had Shauna said? Transportation . . . FBI. The trees ended, and I stumbled into the road. Distant headlights. The car rushed toward me, stopped several yards away. I was pinned in its headlights, dripping with Cobb’s blood. A woman stepped from the passenger side, a petite blonde with wide blue eyes, a porcelain doll in jeans and a windbreaker.
She pulled her firearm. “Drop the knife—do it—”
I let the knife fall to the ground.
“Where’s Vivian?” she said.
“I don’t know—I don’t know Vivian,” I said. “A woman named Shauna—”
“Let’s go,” said the woman. She ushered me into the back of the SUV. A man drove, his hair cropped short as a chestnut bur. He gunned the engine. The orchard was far behind us when the woman asked, “Do you need a hospital?”
I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror, doused in blood. “It’s not mine,” I said. “I’m hurt, but no, not a hospital.” My left eye, the one Cobb had struck, pounded with my heartbeat, I realized I could see with only one eye. “I just need to clean up.”
“We’ll stop somewhere,” said the woman.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Special Agent Zwerger,” she said, holding out her credentials—FBI.
“Egan,” said the driver.
“Call your supervisor,” I said, spitting blood all over their seats—I must have bitten my tongue in the fight. “Tell them you have ‘Grey Dove.’ Shit—my eye. What’s wrong with my eye?”
“It’s swollen shut,” said Zwerger. “We’ll get someone to look you over once we’re safe.”
We would never be safe. We were bodies in hell, and the White Hole was our dead sun. I wept, exhausted. Fresh blood filled my mouth, and I swallowed. Cobb’s blood turned cold on my skin. Some time later Egan pulled into a CVS, where Zwerger bought bandages and Neosporin. She sat with me in the backseat while Egan paced outside, arguing with someone on his cell. Zwerger washed my cuts with alcohol wipes, cleaned my face. Gentle, motherly. A whiff of baby powder and lipstick when she leaned close. I winced when I caught the reflection of myself in the rearview mirror, the overhead light on—my closed eye was deformed from swelling, yellowed, purple. She covered my eye with a wide bandage. “There,” she said.
“Where are we going?” I asked once Egan pulled back onto the road. We’d been driving well over an hour; we’d crossed out of West Virginia into Pennsylvania.
“You aren’t FBI,” he said.
“NCIS. What are you investigating?”
“Persons of suspicion relating to domestic-terrorism charges,” said Zwerger. “I’m guessing you have a similar interest. Vivian might have blown her cover to get you out of there. We lost contact with her.”
Whose scream had I heard at the house before I ran? Cobb surprising Shauna—Vivian? Murdering her? I closed off the thought. The windows were tinted, but I caught illuminated signs and placed myself. Connellsville, Uniontown. National Pike, Business 40, the landscape mostly hills with trees and scrub, occasional little strip malls.
“Some of those people have militia ties,” said Egan. “What’s your interest?”
“Domestic terrorism,” I said.
Zwerger kept quiet, looked out the window. I saw the reflection of her face, an awkward expression like she was about to sit through a marital feud.
“I talked with my supervisor,” said Egan. “We’ll sort this out.”
Egan turned in to the parking lot of the Blue Mountain Motel, just a dozen or so units huddled beneath a low-slung roof, the entire lot lit only with the neon Vacancy sign and a vibrant red Coke vending machine that hummed between the middle units. Only one other car in the lot, a silver sedan parked near the office, an old car. The sedan’s interior light was on, a soft shine. Someone was inside, but as Egan pulled through the lot, the sedan’s light went dark.
“There’s nothing for us to sort out,” I said. “Tell them you have Grey Dove. The rest is between the NCIS director and your director.”
“What’s the name of the NCIS director?” asked Egan, parking in front of Unit 3. I couldn’t answer him; he knew I didn’t know the answer. Egan stepped from the car, stretched. “Give me a sec,” he said. Near the light of the vending machine, again on his cell. This was a shorter call, and when he finished, he unlocked Unit 3, stepped inside. A moment later the room lights glowed behind the heavy curtains.
Something isn’t right. Egan must have called his superior, must have mentioned Grey Dove, and either didn’t believe I was NCIS or the FBI knew exactly who I was. Egan and Zwerger might take me into that room, ask a few questions, then let me walk—or they might never let me go. Even if Egan and Zwerger didn’t know what I was, their superiors might. Their superiors might have flagged “Grey Dove” and ordered them to interrogate me here, apprehend me. There are prisons in America far from the public view: no charges, no trial, a butterfly in a bell jar. They could hold me here so their existence wouldn’t blink. I tried the car door, but it was locked, the interior handles disabled.
“Don’t do this,” I said to Zwerger. “You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“You’ll be all right,” she said.
“The whole fucking world will die if I don’t get out of here,” I said. “Call Apollo Soucek Field. Speak with Special Agent Wally Njoku.”
“We’re just going to have a conversation,” said Zwerger. “Sort everything out. Calm down, otherwise we’ll be forced to restrain you.”
Kill her, I thought. Kill her and take the car. But Zwerger stepped outside, opened my door. Weighing options: I might be able to outrun her, even with my leg I might outrun her, but there was nowhere to run. I followed her from the SUV. I could scream. There was someone sitting in the silver sedan, and maybe he would call the police if I screamed. Zwerger clutched me by the upper arm. She walked me toward Unit 3, gripped me like I was her prisoner.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Let me go. Everything you love will die if you don’t let me go, a hole will open, a White Hole will open, and everything will die—”
“Enough,” she said.
The driver’s-side door of the sedan popped open, the driver stepped out, an older man. A raincoat over a gray suit, a black man with a head of woolly hair.
“Help me!” I called to him. “You’ve got to cal
l the police! Help me!”
“What does this prove?” he said, taking hesitant steps toward us, his hand on the car, steadying himself.
“Egan, come out here,” said Zwerger, seeing the man. “Police business,” she said to him. “Do not approach.”
Something familiar in the way the man moved—then I recognized him as he came closer: Brock. His build thinner than it once was, the bulk of his muscle gone soft. He no longer needed to steady himself, moving swiftly as Egan came out from Unit 3.
“Brock?” said Egan. “Why are you here?”
Brock reached beneath his coat, pulled his sidearm from the belt holster. He raised the gun and took a step closer to Egan. Egan lifted his hands, saying, “Billy.” Brock fired. Egan crumpled, clutching his belly—a glottal moan, he doubled over on the curb.
Zwerger reached for her weapon, but Brock had already swung toward her and fired, clipping her neck. The woman fell, yelping, sputtering for breath. She reached to hold her throat with both hands, but blood pulsed between her fingers, her mouth round with agony.
Egan crawled toward the lights of Unit 3, draining out from his gut. Brock put the barrel to Egan’s head, fired. Egan dropped. I looked to Zwerger, but the light had left her eyes. I reached for her gun, but Brock had returned to me, his gun raised to my chest.
“Brock,” I said. “Please.”
He looked like he was possessed, like his mind had betrayed him. His face twisted into a rictus. He laughed, the sound like barking.
“What did I do?” he said. “Jesus, Jesus Christ, what did I do?” He looked over at Egan’s body, said, “Get up. Come on, Egan. Say something. You’re all right. Jesus, what did I do?” He holstered his weapon, stood over Zwerger. He said, “She had a child.” He seemed to remember I was there, and he asked me, “What did I do?”
“We’re okay, Brock,” I said, trying to pacify him. “Everything will be okay—”
He grabbed my chin, angled my face toward the light of the vending machine, studying me. “What do you prove?” he said. He stared hard into my eyes. He would have crawled inside me if he could have.
Something spooked him, some sound I hadn’t heard. He flinched, pulled me with him across the lot, to his car. Brock pushed me into the passenger seat, hurried to the driver’s side.
“We have to get out of here,” Brock said, reversing from the lot onto National Pike. “I know who you are,” he said, gunning the car to sixty, to eighty. “They’ll be after us soon. I should have put their bodies in the room. I wasn’t thinking. I can’t think. I should have moved them. I can’t think straight.”
“I don’t know who you think I am,” I said, “but this—”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” he said, drawing his gun, pressing the barrel into my cheek—I leaned away, ear against the window. “I could kill you now, and . . . if I killed you,” he said, “this would all go away, wouldn’t it? This would all just disappear, right? Egan and his partner, it would be like I’d never killed them, right? Right? Talk to me.”
“Please, lower your weapon,” I said. “Pull over and we’ll talk.”
“Talk now,” he said. “Talk right fucking now.”
The road swam before us, headlights on black tar. The gun barrel caused pain, digging into the side of my head.
“I don’t want to die like this,” I said.
“Can you change what’s happened?” he asked. “Is that why you’re here? To change all this?”
“What do you think I can change?” I asked. “Please lower your weapon. Please—”
“CJIS,” he said. “When they attacked CJIS, I lost Rashonda, my girls. Shannon, I lost both my beautiful girls, oh, my girls—”
“Pull over and we’ll talk,” I said. “Please, lower your weapon and pull over.”
He lowered the gun. His hands shook. He holstered the weapon. I stayed against the window, vision blurred with tears. His entire family would have been laid out in the surrounding fields, in white sheets. They would have breathed sarin and died instantly. I imagined the body of his wife. I imagined the CJIS day care full of dead children.
“The people who killed them thought they were fighting against the end of the world,” said Brock. “That’s why my wife and girls were killed.” He heaved with sobs. “Why do they have to die? And here you are, all these years later. You haven’t aged.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry about the pain you’re in—”
“You’re here to study CJIS,” said Brock. “To save all those lives.”
Patrick Mursult. His name would seem insignificant—one life next to a thousand. What could I tell Brock? I could tell him about Libra, could tell him about the Terminus. I could tell him that the Terminus cuts across every future, killing everyone who is alive, killing everyone who might ever be alive, killing every possibility in every possible world.
“I can save your family—I want to save them, I want to save Rashonda,” I said. “We can talk.”
Brock found a Sheetz gas station on Route 51, outside Belle Vernon, a twenty-four-hour convenience store. We wiped off as much blood from ourselves as we could with Handi Wipes he had in his glove compartment. Even so, I wore Brock’s raincoat, cinched over my blood-soaked dress. I looked like a horror show. The self-serve restaurant was empty at this hour. The clerks were teenage girls, a blonde and brunette paging through a Hustler, laughing, listening to the radio up near the registers. I cleaned myself in the bathroom, picking out dried blood from my hair, washing my hands and face with foam soap from the dispenser.
Brock waited in one of the restaurant booths out of sight from the registers. I joined him. He had diminished with age, with grief. Deep creases furrowed his eyes and mouth; his hair was like cigarette ash.
“I was told to imagine a wall made out of doors,” said Brock. “I was told that if I was falling through space toward a wall made of doors, I would fall through one of the doors. Whatever door I fell through would take me into the future. Different doors are different futures. Different versions of the future.”
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“After CJIS, after the funerals,” he said, “you came into my mind. Nestor and I used to talk about you. You’d worked at CJIS. I wondered if you had died that day with my family. The way you’d vanished, I thought you might have died. And I’d think about Deep Space—and I’d think about Patrick Mursult. And then I caught something on the news, I saw something on 60 Minutes when Naval Space Command was absorbed into a different agency. Mothballed projects, things that wouldn’t mean a damn to anyone who wasn’t looking, goofy things—Chinese satellites, lasers on the moon—but I wanted to know more. And I asked questions. I couldn’t let go. And one morning I had a message from the director—sealed—telling me about a restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland, called TJ’s. Says I’m expected there. The Bureau had the noose around a physicist who used to work at the Naval Research Lab, we had evidence he accepted classified information from the Senate Armed Services Committee, used classified military secrets to start a company, Phasal Systems. Medical tech, the cure for fucking cancer—all gained from top-secret intelligence. We leveraged him, and he spilled. That’s how we learned about Deep Waters. I was brought into the fold. I had lunch with him, this old man who introduced himself by saying he was still like a child, that he should only be forty-two in the summer—but he was old, Shannon. He showed me his birth certificate, an early driver’s license. He was working at Phasal Systems on the cancer cure, but he knew everything about NSC. He talked about quantum foam and wormholes, and when I wasn’t understanding, he told me to imagine a wall made of doors—”
“Think of it like a whisk,” I said.
“Think of what?”
I slid from the booth, poked around behind the food counter, rummaging through kitchen drawers. Spoons, Saran Wrap, old rags. I found a whisk hanging on a pegboard near the utility sink.
“A whisk,” I said, returning to our table. “This is how my in
structor taught me.”
I held the whisk sideways. Pointed to the tip of the handle. “Beginning of time,” I said. I ran my finger along the handle. “All of history—the observed past.” At the top of the handle, I said, “The present.”
“And then you hit the wall of doors,” he said.
I touched each of the wires of the whisk. “Possible futures, possible timelines—infinitely possible,” I said. “Imagine this whisk with an infinite number of wires.”
“What’s up here?” Brock asked, pointing to the tip of the whisk, where all the wires bent, looped toward one another, joined.
“Terminus,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“The end of the world.”
“All right,” he said, cupping his hands in front of his mouth. Vitality had returned to him, a frantic energy. His eyes seemed to be gulping at ideas like a drowning man would gulp at air. “And where is . . . this?” he asked, pointing to the end of the handle, the present.
“March 1997,” I told him.
Brock’s face cracked into a manic, openmouthed grin, his eyes frenzied—a glee that terrified me.
“And you . . . traveled here? You flew here? You’re an astronaut, aren’t you? Like Mursult was an astronaut. I remember asking if he was an astronaut, and you didn’t blink. You didn’t blink because you’re like him, aren’t you? You time-traveled here—”
“I don’t know if I’m here or still there, technically. It’s called ‘superposition entanglement,’ but I was never great at math,” I said. “You used to chew licorice gum, in 1997.”
The Gone World Page 16