“It’s called a… Well, shit, you’ll never believe this. That is known as a Buffalo. I saw these on my second deployment. They were shipped over because they couldn’t be destroyed by IEDs or mines.”
“Oh, I believe anything these days. What is it doing here?”
A miles-long procession of military vehicles followed the lone Buffalo. Humvees and light tactical vehicles were near the front, but heavier machines were in the distance.
“They’re going to a party,” he said dryly.
“What does it all mean? Why did they shut the highway down for all these military people? Is this an invasion?”
“No,” he replied quickly. “These are all American. Those are US Army vehicles.”
The noise amped up as tan Humvees passed their position. Buck ducked lower at the edge of the tall grass, unsure if they would be spotted but unable to turn away. Somehow, he knew an important event was taking place, although he had no idea what it was.
He stuck his head as high as he dared to get a look at what else was coming up the highway.
“Paladins! I think I see tanks on flatbeds, too. Christ. They aren’t fucking around.”
Mac pulled at his leash, sending Connie on a brief slide back down the concrete slope. “Buck, I think he’s scared. Let’s get him out of here.”
He didn’t want to leave. The military tactician in him wanted to stay and count vehicles until he knew for sure how big this convoy was. He’d put the numbers together and had been right about what was coming down the roadway and where it was going, but he was left dangling when it came to the why of it.
Walk away, Buck. You have more important things to worry about.
He looked down at Connie sliding on her butt with his retriever at her side. The young pup was whining and making it clear he wanted to get away from the noisy highway. Being in the cab of the Peterbilt was one thing for the dog, but being out in the wind and road noise was too much.
He started down the slope and easily caught up.
“Yeah, let’s go. We’ll catch up with our friends. Get hold of Garth, and get a few hours of sleep.” Part of him wanted to skip sleep completely, but he knew that was folly. He intended to be back on the road to Garth before the sun came up.
“Separate beds?” she said in an enigmatic tone.
“Well, I don’t want to run out of money, actually. I was thinking of sleeping in the cab tonight.” He paused for a second to see what she’d say, but he decided to be a gentleman about it. “I’ll sleep in my seat. It folds all the way back. You and Mac can have the bed.”
“I see,” she replied dryly.
European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), Switzerland
Phil expected Ethan to hear that the power-down worked from HQ, but the look on the colonel’s face said otherwise. Phil had spent almost half his life in the service, often in theaters with active conflict, and knew the disappointment of mission failure intimately.
“Grafton can’t raise Ramstein,” Ethan said to him once they were away from Dr. Eli. “I don’t want him to know we’re having problems, but we have to find out if this worked. Any ideas?”
“Don’t suppose you have a satellite phone?”
Ethan shook his head. “I even tried my disposable cell. Nothing.”
The Army didn’t allow him to take anything personal on missions, but he often took disposable phones, for emergency use only. Ethan apparently did the same.
“We could have Dr. Eli make a call to SNAKE from his desk. That might be the quickest way. You might get billed for the call, though.” He smiled at Ethan to get him to lighten up. Nothing could ruin an op worse than losing your temper, and the other officer seemed frazzled at being out of contact with his superiors.
“No. I don’t trust him. How would we know it was really who he said it was? I think we—”
Ethan froze mid-sentence, and his eyeballs turned up in his head like he was having a seizure.
“What the…” Static energy filled the air, crackling around him and making his hair stand on end. Then nausea and dizziness struck like a baseball bat to the stomach, knocking him off his feet. A blue aura filled his vision as he sped toward the tiled floor.
He passed out the instant before he hit the deck.
CHAPTER 27
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
Faith didn’t check to see if General Smith had survived the blast. The noble general didn’t do things halfway. He wasn’t trying to save himself; he thought he was saving the world. He had carried the backpack as far as he could in those few seconds, and probably cradled it to absorb as much of the blast as possible.
His only goal had been preserving the Four Arrows cabinet, and in that he was successful. Even through the choking smoke in the tunnel, Faith confirmed that the blue beam still came out of the metal box, presumably maintaining one last link between SNAKE and CERN.
“Thank you, sir,” she got out between unwanted sobs. “I’ll tell everyone you were a hero.”
She tried to get her breathing under control. The dead man was on the floor, not far from the box. He was right where she had killed him. But the general had decided that his life and the life of the bomber were fair payment to stop the destruction of the Four Arrows device.
Because Faith had convinced him not to destroy it.
“And I still exist,” she said in a dreamy voice. She assumed one of the bombs had severed the collider ring, which would cut off the flow of energy as certainly as removing all the boxes. However, the general had detonated his backpack away from the collider, and the other two explosions must also have avoided destroying the circle.
I won’t know until I get back.
She rang Security on the emergency phone and begged them to hurry out to her, but it took two hours for a rescue team to arrive. She went up the steps of the fire exit and met them on a narrow two-track maintenance path in the woods.
The facilities man drove her back to the main office, but that took another hour. By the time she walked into the administration wing, she hardly recognized the place.
“Faith!” Bob ran up and looked like he was going to give her a hug. Instead, he chucked her on the shoulder. “I can’t believe you made it. We saw the two explosions on the cameras, and we saw you and the general blast through those stations on the maglev like you were going for the land speed record.”
The hours of waiting had given her plenty of time to work through her sorrow at the general’s loss. She was already numb. “Is the collider totaled?”
“No,” he exclaimed. “The blasts destroyed a lot of the spare equipment in each station, but the charges were designed to eliminate the boxes, not the heavier metal infrastructure of the ring. Those magnets are like armor around it.”
“So, the beam hasn’t been cut off inside the ring?” She’d surmised the outcome, but it was nice to have confirmation.
“Same as before. We aren’t powering it, but there is still power in the ring.”
“From CERN,” she acknowledged. “Has anyone made contact with them? Smith said he had people going in. We should have heard something by now.”
Bob shrugged. “The military guys have been scarce in here since the bomb went off. They’re outside in the parking lot, mostly, keeping people away from the front doors. Locals have been arriving all afternoon to protest.”
“Bob, we have to know what’s happening at CERN. This is important.”
“I know. I really do. We’ll ask the soldiers as soon as we can, but you’ll never believe what’s taking place on the news. Our very own Doctor Shinano is going to speak on a local Denver TV station. They’ve been trying to get him on for fifteen minutes, but the feed keeps dropping. We’re waiting for him to come back on.”
“What is he saying?”
Bob seemed excited. “No one knows. The longer he gets cut off, the more we think he’s going to say something incriminating. Maybe a rich asshole like him know
s what’s happened at CERN.”
“He’s back!” someone shouted.
“Come on!” Bob gushed.
Most of the senior staff was holed up in a computer lab. It didn’t have any windows facing the front parking lot, and thus it was protected from rocks, or worse. When she went in with the others, many people waved to her or said they were happy to have her back, but all eyes were on one of the largest monitors.
Faith recognized Shinano instantly. He’d made a brief appearance when the Izanagi Experiment had failed and she’d had to explain to him what had happened, but he’d been absent ever since. She hadn’t thought about him again until now.
“I don’t have much time,” the Japanese industrialist said in passable English. “The US military is outside trying to prevent me from getting this message to you. What I must say is this: My company caused the time distortions being experienced all over the world. Our project was designed to test the limits of quantum teleportation under the guidance of the military-industrial complex of the United States. Unfortunately, we chewed off more than we could bite.”
She forgave him mixing up the English idiom.
“The disaster is worldwide, but not absolute. I want to absolve my company and restore some of my personal honor. There are two places you can go to get safe from its effects. The first place is the laboratory here in Denver, which you call SNAKE. The second is—”
The screen went black, as if the station transmitter had been knocked over.
At first, everyone in the room was silent, but after a few seconds, the managers exploded with excited conversation.
“SNAKE is safe?” she asked Bob under all the other talk. “Does that mean what I think?”
“It’s what you’ve been saying for a while now,” he replied in an equally quiet tone. “The energy burst you sketched out showed the hole in the bubble around the Earth. If SNAKE is truly safe, as you speculated, then the only other place he could have meant was CERN.”
“Dammit.” She looked at the TV screen, hoping the man would come back on. “What did he mean? Safe is relative. Did he mean we are safe for now? Are we safe forever? And for the love of God, why didn’t he say how to end this clown-suited merry-go-round journey through Hell?”
The chaos of the room didn’t bother her, but as the leader, she had to make a decision of some kind. There was one remaining Four Arrows box. The power link to CERN was still active, meaning the general’s people must not have succeeded in Switzerland. And he said the criminals responsible for the experiment had been found and were being brought to SNAKE. Who else knew about that?
Dammit, general. What do I do now?
The TV station popped back on. A disheveled reporter sat at a desk with a mess of papers in front of her, but she read from the one in her hand.
“We here at Special Nine News would like to apologize for the unprofessional and dangerous prank pulled on our viewers over the last half an hour. SNN management tried in vain to get this farce stopped, but we were unable to do so. Please disregard what this actor has said. We believe he intended to sow chaos as part of an elaborate psychological experiment. There is nothing to fear…”
“Phew!” Bob blew out a breath as it became clear what had happened. “That makes a lot more sense. It was all bullshit.”
Faith nodded and smiled, but she knew the Japanese man well enough to know it wasn’t an actor playing him on national television. He believed what he had said, and apparently had done it at considerable risk.
The question was, who else would believe him?
Sydney, Australia
Dez sat by the phone through the lunch hour, anxious to hear good news from Zandre. However, when the phone finally rang, it was Rod again.
“Dez! You were right, mate! We have to get to the United States. It’s fucking everywhere!”
“Whoa! Slow down. What are you talking about?”
“Some guy named Shinano was there! He’s singing like a Kookaburra about the end of the world. It’s on all the newsies. You were right about the extinct animals. The boat. The Majestic. We have to get on board and get to America. The whole world is going to shit, and the only place safe is somewhere in Colorado.”
“Let me call you back,” she replied.
“Dez, listen. They are taking the boat with or without you. Don’t delay.”
“What? Without me? Sydney Harbor Foundation doesn’t want my animals?”
“No, they don’t care about the fucking animals. Don’t you get it? The world has just entered a race to get itself to safety. If you want to live, you have to get on that boat right away. They’re sailing to America. It’s the only way.”
“Thanks,” she said resignedly. Coming out of the blue as it had, Rod’s warning served more to turn her off to the true nature of her employer than it did to get her running to join them. If they didn’t care about animals, what were they doing in this business?
And she couldn’t abandon Zandre. She’d sent him out looking for her extinct critters. Hopping on a boat and ditching him wasn’t something she was willing to do, even if it endangered her life.
She tried to call Faith again, sure her sister would give her better information and tell her if all this was for real, but the call refused to go through. Her pulse quickened as she hung up because it felt like she’d been cut off from her big sister by an impenetrable barrier called “the end of the world.” It was difficult enough getting to America on a good day. This was anything but.
“Damn all this confusion!”
She turned on the television to see if she could glean any information about the Shinano guy. Maybe Faith’s SNAKE facility would be mentioned, with advice for citizens. That might give her an idea if it was really safe, and whether she could make it there. While skipping channels, Dez looked outside her window to see how the time shifts affected her personally.
The Sydney Opera House was still gone.
It was personal enough.
“I’m coming, Faith. I swear it.”
She was already dialing Zandre.
I-80, east of Cheyenne, Wyoming
Buck drove east to catch up with his friends in what was left of his convoy. I-80 was almost empty, and he was worried the Army would chase after him for having seen the mysterious convoy, but he reassured himself that his conspiracy gene was getting the better of him. After all, anyone sitting by the highway between Montana and Denver could have easily seen the same thing. The members of the convoy weren’t exactly hiding.
He caught himself looking in the side mirror again. It was only him and the prairie of high-plains Wyoming. He stomped a foot on the floor, wondering what he’d gained with his delay. He had seen things that didn’t help him get to Garth, and by seeing those things, he had risked achieving his goal. Buck gritted his teeth and grumbled to himself.
Mac was on Connie’s lap once more, as if sensing the anxiety weighing down his two human friends.
“He’s up there again?” Buck remarked as he glanced at his pup.
“I don’t mind. I feel safe with him so near, like he’s my security blanket.” Connie laughed and rubbed Mac’s flank. In return, he groaned like he was in Heaven.
“Mac, you’re one lucky dog,” he expressed, along with a heavy sigh.
She glanced at him with a sparkle in her eyes. “Really? Why is that?”
“What? Oh, I meant because he doesn’t have to worry about the things you and I worry about. Time travel. Army guys. Buffalo crossings.”
“And that’s all?” she said in a tone suggesting she thought he was hiding something.
“Well…” He hesitated. “He probably doesn’t wonder if an Army mom and a jarhead from two different eras could ever end up together.”
“Probably doesn’t wonder?” She shook her head at Buck’s strangled wording. “Should we ask him?”
She held his gaze for a few moments, but then turned and looked out the front window. “Eyes forward, Marine. If you black out, I’m sure our luck will be
all bad.”
“Roger that,” he said in a businesslike voice. It wasn’t in his nature to charge the hill without knowing if he could take it, so he didn’t know what to say when he didn’t experience immediate victory.
“Buck, you get Mac and me to safety, and I guarantee we’ll have something to discuss about the good kind of luck. I know I don’t look it, but I’m scared shitless you are going to wreck and get hurt because of those blackouts.”
He sat up straight. “You’re right. I need—”
The CB crackled and Sparky’s voice came out, but he sounded distant through the static. Buck had a view several miles ahead and there were no trucks out there, so his friends were beyond the horizon.
“Turn on the news! Buck, did you hear? Are you back there? …on the news!”
He and Connie shared a meaningful look, then she turned on the FM radio. She flipped a few channels until she found one with talk.
“If you’ve just joined us, this is what’s happening in Denver, Colorado. A man named Sadayoshi Shinano claims to have firsthand knowledge of the experiment responsible for all the odd weather and other, uh, phenomena wreaking havoc across the United States. His bold claim is that the only place safe on the entire planet is in a science lab southwest of Denver.”
They played the short message from Dr. Shinano, which repeated what the host had outlined.
“Holy moly,” Connie exclaimed after hearing it in full.
The host went on, “The station immediately disavowed this interview as a hoax, but we here at 98.5, The Train, play this for your consideration. Do you think what he says is real, or is this one more confusing anomaly in a country full of them? Give us a call.”
“Do you believe him?” Connie asked.
He didn’t want to. If there was only one safe spot in the whole world, what did that mean for his son? Would Garth be able to make it to Colorado from across the country? Buck wasn’t going to stop and wait for him to drive in, either. He was intent to go east and get to his boy as soon as humanly possible, no matter what the cost. However, would doing so jeopardize Connie’s safety?
Broad America: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (End Days Book 3) Page 21