Linkage: The Narrows of Time

by Jay Falconer

  “This had better work; we’re running out of time,” Lucas said, captivated by the activity on the screens.

  “How long will it take for your people to answer, Professor?” Drew asked.

  “It all depends on their ability to decrypt my message and follow the instructions I sent them.”

  “What did you tell ‘em?” Lucas asked.

  “I gave them the exact spatial coordinates of this room, as well as my equations.”

  “Equations?”

  “To open the bridge from their side. When we were marooned on Earth, we had only just begun to explore the possibilities of the new rift-slipping technology. I continued to refine the equations here, but we had no way to know if our people back home have done so as well. The equations I sent will insure they have what they need to make this happen.”

  “That assumes they won’t need some time to build the equipment they need to open the rift. You might be stuck here for a while longer.”

  “Certainly a possibility.”

  “Maybe they’ve spent the past fifty years perfecting the technology on their own and building the hardware.”

  “If that’s true, all they needed to know was that we’re still alive, and our location in the multiverse.”

  * * *

  Four hours later, Lucas was leaning back in his chair, watching the video screens, when he nodded off for a second. His nose snorted once, waking him up. He looked around to see if anyone noticed—no one did.

  He stood up and walked briskly around the room, swinging his arms to get the blood flowing. He needed caffeine. “I’m going to run down to the mess hall, and grab a soda. Drew, you want one?” Drew nodded. “Anyone else? Coffee? Soda? Bagel?” Lucas asked. Both Bruno and Kleezebee declined. The video techs ignored him.

  As he walked to the elevator, his shadow started jiggling along the back wall, jumping from one place to another with no predictable pattern. Lucas saw that something was catching the security guards’ attention, making them look past him as he approached the elevator. Lucas turned around and saw a flickering light near the center of the room. It resembled a tiny lightning storm, maybe six inches wide, and it was expanding gradually.

  “Guys!” Lucas yelled, pointing at the phenomenon. Kleezebee and Bruno turned to face him, as did Drew, whose eyes grew to the size of ping-pong balls.

  The security guards ran past Lucas with their weapons drawn. Kleezebee scrambled around from the far side of the light, and held out his arms. “Stand down,” he told his guards. “They’re our friends.”

  The security guards lowered their guns and moved to the right of Kleezebee, who was now standing on crutches a few feet in front of the light. Bruno slipped in between the guards and Kleezebee, while the video techs got up from their stations and waited to the far right of the security guards. They all seemed eager to greet their long-lost brethren.

  Lucas moved to the left of Kleezebee and put his hand on his mentor’s shoulder as a gesture of solidarity. Kleezebee looked at him and smiled. Lucas nodded. Drew rolled next to Lucas, to his left.

  The portal, now six feet in diameter, seemed to stabilize as its oscillating light rays slowed their pace. A trio of green laser beams appeared from the rift’s center, spreading out horizontally across the elevator doors.

  “Don’t be alarmed, they’re just following safety protocols and scanning the area,” Kleezebee said.

  The beams danced independently around the room like spotlights piercing the night sky above a Hollywood movie premiere. Their pattern seemed random, moving quickly in multiple directions, until every inch of the surveillance room had been mapped. Then they vanished.

  “Here we go,” Bruno said.

  Fifteen seconds later, murky silhouettes of three tiny figures began to take shape at the center of the portal, as if they’d just stepped into view at the far end of a giant funnel. The figures moved forward, toward the portal’s event horizon, slowly growing in size. The figures thickened and solidified with each passing second. Even though they were no longer hazy shadows, Lucas still couldn’t make out much in the way of detail. Their heads were larger than he expected, perhaps because they were wearing spacesuits or helmets of some kind, and it looked like they were carrying something in their hands.

  Lucas looked at Kleezebee and then Bruno. Both men seemed to be mesmerized with anticipation, each smiling like a groom-to-be, enjoying his last night of freedom at a local strip club. Lucas was proud to be sharing this moment with his friends who had toiled for decades to reach this epic milestone. It was too bad History hadn’t been invited to this reunion; Lucas’ name would have been forever etched into the annals of time, never to be forgotten.

  He wondered what his mentor was thinking. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Kleezebee to be without his wife and son all these years. Dreaming of them; longing to hold them close again. Would they be waiting for him on the other side with loving smiles and open arms? What if they weren’t? What if Caroline were dead or remarried? Would getting his people home be enough for Kleezebee, or would it tear his guts out, leaving him a shell of a man?

  Drew was sitting to his left in his wheelchair, looking like a kid waiting for a hot fudge sundae to be delivered, completely oblivious to the complexities of Kleezebee’s homecoming. Drew was a glass-half-full kind of person, always looking on the bright side, always expecting things to work out. Lucas admired his little brother for having that type of blind faith in the unexpected, but he wasn’t wired that way. Lucas dealt with life’s twisted sense of humor by planning for the worst and hoping for the best. It might seem like an overly simple concept to some, but it allowed him to sleep at night. Fate had a funny way of finding him, often times with harsh intentions.

  Lucas looked back at the portal just in time to see the visitors stepping through to his universe, but what appeared wasn’t human. Three, nine-foot tall creatures appeared with a pair of giant claw-like appendages extended out in front. Two of them advanced forward, standing in front of the third like a football team’s offensive line moving to the line of scrimmage to block access to the quarterback.

  Their bodies were burnt orange in color and made of stacked layers of donut-shaped modules—like exposed vertebrae—held together by thin connecting tissue or bone. Their heads were stretched back horizontally into an elongated sphere, with two sets of glowing, compound eyes along the front. Mucus dripped from the creatures’ mouths, slinking down to the floor as the aliens moved. A collection of tentacles hung down from the rear of their exoskeletons like dreadlocks, maybe twenty feet long, with a pulsating orifice on each end. Stinger-like tails thrashed about behind the creatures with barbs or serrated edges along the pointed tip.

  Lucas wanted to run for cover, but his feet wouldn’t move.

  The first two aliens were carrying grappling devices mounted to their claws. Before the two security guards could get off a shot, the aliens fired, impaling the men with the jagged hooks. Almost immediately, the creatures retracted their weapons, ripping the men apart from the inside. Blood and guts splattered everywhere.

  The aliens’ tentacles snaked along the floor and began siphoning the human remains through the pliable opening on the ends. When some of the bigger hunks were ingested, the tentacles bulged like a boa constrictor swallowing a rabbit for supper.

  The third alien raced forward, using the back of its mighty claw to knock Bruno, Kleezebee, and Lucas across the room in one swing. Lucas landed upside down with his back against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. He was dazed, gasping for air, but alive. Bruno landed on top of Kleezebee, just to Lucas’ right. Neither of his colleagues was moving.

  Lucas tried to stand, wanting to protect Drew, who was sitting helpless in his wheelchair, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. The alien was much quicker than Lucas would have predicted. It snatched Drew from his wheelchair and wrapped him inside a web of tentacles, before carrying him back to the portal. Drew was hanging horizontal against the creature’s side, looking ba
ck at Lucas, with his leather pouch hanging free outside his shirt. Lucas cried out for Drew just as the creature disappeared through the rift with his brother in tow.

  Two of the techs picked up the security guards’ handguns and fired at the two remaining creatures. The invaders raised their claws to protect their heads while the techs fired a continuous volley into what Lucas guessed was their torso. A gooey orange substance gushed from their bodies each time a bullet hit its mark. The creatures backed up, single file, toward the rift, with their tentacles continuing to suck up the last few chunks of the guards.

  The creature nearest to the techs took the brunt of the weapons’ fire, while the other one slipped through the portal. The remaining creature appeared to be succumbing to its wounds as it stumbled sideways into the portal’s event horizon. The rift closed around it, chopping off one of its claws and legs. It flopped to the floor.

  Lucas was bent over, holding his abdomen, when the elevator doors opened and a four-man security team rushed into the room, followed by two medics Lucas recognized from the infirmary. He figured one of the video techs must have called for reinforcements. The security team dashed to surround the quivering alien, leaving behind boot prints in human blood.

  One of the medics, a woman, ran up to Lucas, “Are you injured?” Lucas nodded. “Where does it hurt?” she asked.

  “Everywhere,” Lucas grunted with diminished breath. His chest felt like it had been run over by a cement truck.

  The female medic helped him off the floor and then raised his hands over his head. “Try to relax and breathe normally,” she said.

  Lucas’ breathing slowly returned to normal. “Better,” he said, nodding. His whole body ached. “I’ll be all right. Go help my friends,” Lucas told her, pointing at Kleezebee and Bruno. She did.

  Lucas staggered over to the portal’s last position, pushing his way through the guards surrounding the wounded creature. The alien was convulsing, spurting jets of orange blood from its severed limbs and bullet wounds. Its claw, stringer, and tentacles were not moving, no longer a threat.

  “Where’s my brother?” he asked the creature, ignoring its putrid smell. There was no response. He kicked the creature in the head, crushing one of its four eyes. “Answer me!” he screamed at it before one of the guards pulled him away from the marauder.

  “I doubt it understands you,” the guard said.

  “Those things took my brother!” Lucas said, trying to squirm free from the guard’s arm lock. “I have to get him back!”

  “Look at it,” the guard said, turning Lucas’ body toward the creature. The convulsions had stopped, and its eyes had started to dim. “It’s almost dead. It’s never going to tell you anything.”

  Reality set in, sending a torrent of emotions washing over Lucas. His mind went numb and so did his body, dropping him to his knees. He sobbed into his hands.

  * * *

  Several minutes later, Lucas felt a sudden calm in the room. He wiped off his cheeks, his nose, and then looked up. The guards were helping the medical team remove the alien’s carcass from the surveillance room. Both Kleezebee and Bruno were alive and receiving treatment from the same female medic who helped him earlier. Lucas stepped around the pool of orange blood, and walked up to Kleezebee. “We have to go after Drew.”

  “I wish we could, but there’s no way to find him. Even if we knew where he was, we can’t open the rift from this side.”

  “We can’t just sit here. There has to be something we can do.”

  “Trust me, he’ll be all right. They won’t hurt him.”

  “How the hell could you possibly know that?”

  “Because the Krellians didn’t send through a battalion of warriors to kill us all. It was only a small surgical strike. They’re going to want to trade.”

  “For what?”

  “The BioTex.”

  “But why Drew? Why not me or you? We were much closer to it.”

  Kleezebee looked at Lucas with an apologetic look on his face. It took him a moment to respond. “Because Drew is my son.”

  Lucas’ brain went into a spin. “What?”

  Kleezebee ushered Lucas to a chair sitting in front of the video control station. “Have a seat and let me explain.”

  Lucas sat down in the chair with his arms folded across his chest. He couldn’t wait to hear another of Kleezebee’s whoppers.

  “Remember when I told you earlier, that after we crashed, my crew began to pair off and start new families.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I couldn’t bring myself to choose a new woman. I loved my wife too much, and I still held out hope we would get home. But eventually, after twenty years of futility, even I began to doubt our chances of getting home. I gave in to the realization that we might be marooned on your planet for a long time, quite possibly for generations. I was lonely and decided that I needed a son, someone to carry on my legacy and continue the work. But, I was too old and too busy to raise a child, and I certainly didn’t want a new wife.”

  Lucas was starting to suspect that Kleezebee had knocked up Drew’s mom. “What did you do?”

  “I had our geneticist open a fertility clinic.”

  “The same one that Drew’s bio-mom chose, am I right?”

  “Yes. We needed a woman with no family, a compatible genetic makeup, and who possessed superior intelligence. Lauren Falconio fit the bill. After she selected her donor sperm, we highjacked her pregnancy and inseminated her with my sperm. I’m not proud of what we did, but if we hadn’t, Drew wouldn’t be here today.”

  “How did the aliens know Drew was your son?”

  “When they scanned the room, they must have checked our genetic markers and determined he was my offspring.”

  “What about me?” Lucas asked, wondering what earth-shattering revelation was next. “Am I one of your ‘offspring,’ too?”

  Kleezebee shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

  Part of Lucas was jumping up and down that Kleezebee wasn’t his father, too. But the rest of him felt a deep sense of regret and he wasn’t sure why. “So my being part of this, is what, an accident?”

  “Hardly. After we had your intellect tested, we arranged for the two of you to be roommates in the orphanage. I had hoped you two would bond.”

  Lucas figured Drew was going to be pissed when he learned that his bio-dad knew his whereabouts, but chose to leave him in the orphanage to fend for himself. The video screen in the back of his mind suddenly played a movie of Drew crying himself to sleep night after night in the orphanage, which wouldn’t have been necessary if Kleezebee had stepped up and taken responsibility for his progeny. Maybe Kleezebee wasn’t confident in his skills as a single parent, or perhaps his wife Caroline took care of all the child-rearing, leaving Kleezebee to focus solely on work. Whatever the reason, a branch just fell off the Kleezebee respect tree. “What about our adoption? Did you arrange that, too?”

  “We may have helped nudge it along a bit.”

  “So you’ve orchestrated everything since day one.”

  Kleezebee nodded. “That way I could keep close tabs on you.”

  “And the free rent?”

  “I would have done that regardless,” Kleezebee replied. “And you should probably know that Trevor isn’t just your lab assistant; he’s also your bodyguard.”

  “That sounds about right,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell Drew he was your son?”

  “Simple, really—he already has a family. Telling him I’m his biological father would only muddy the situation.”

  “But, he has a right to know.”

  “Perhaps, but I would prefer that you not tell him, or your mother. It could destroy your family, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  Lucas wasn’t sure if he agreed with Kleezebee’s reasoning, but nodded anyway. Regardless of what Kleezebee thought or expected of him, his primary responsibility was the well-being of his little brother. If he later decided to tell Drew the truth
, he would. Kleezebee would just have to deal with it.

  Lucas started thinking about his biological parents and the humiliating stories he was told about their pasts. He had always secretly hoped their backgrounds were a fabrication of lies, but never expected it to be a possibility, until now. “Was my bio-mom really a drug addict?”

  “Yes, and your biological father died in prison. That all happened before we placed you with Drew.”

  So much for ridding himself of some emotional baggage; he shouldn’t’ have expected to get that lucky. “What about Drew’s bio-mom? Is she really dead?”

  Kleezebee nodded in a strange manner, acting as if he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Lucas needed answers. “Oh my God, you didn’t run her car off the road, did you?”

  “No, that was a tragic accident. We had nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “The photograph Drew carries around his neck is not hers. It’s a picture of one of my crew; someone who died a long time ago.”

  “Why the hell would you give him a fake photo?”

  “We didn’t have a good photo of Lauren to use.”

  “Why even bother?”

  “We needed something he would want to carry with him at all times. There’s a tracking device and audio transmitter hidden inside the photo’s backing paper.”

  Lucas’ head spun. Had he just heard the professor correctly? Kleezebee had been eavesdropping on them all their lives? Lucas was certain somewhere along the way, a few embarrassing or slanderous conversations must have taken place between him and Drew that Kleezebee never should have heard. “Was the audio on all the time?”

  “No, just occasionally when I checked in on you.”

  “That’s how you always seemed to know when we needed help.”

  Kleezebee nodded.

  Lucas was still pissed. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on the privacy ramifications of the transmitter. He decided to save that debate for a later time. “Can we use the tracking device to find him?”