Future Imperfect

by Simon Rose

  “I couldn’t find your keys,” he said.

  “That’s okay,” said Stephanie, patting her pocket. “I found them right here.”

  She laughed a little.

  “Are you feeling better now?” asked Henderson.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Are you okay to continue? We don’t want to be late for our meeting with Officer Marino.”

  “Just give me a few minutes,” Stephanie replied, having another drink.

  “Okay, just let me radio in and let her know we might be a little delayed.”

  Henderson stepped away from the table and walked over to the car. Just before he reached the driver’s side door, Stephanie gave Alex another brief nod then leapt to her feet. They both sprinted down the sidewalk, much to the surprise of the people outside the coffee shop.

  “Hey!” Henderson yelled.

  He raced after them but soon gave up the chase and hurried back to the car. Alex and Stephanie kept running and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Search and Rescue

  ALEX AND STEPHANIE finally stopped running and took refuge at the rear of a convenience store. They hid behind some garbage cans as they heard the sounds of police sirens. They assumed that Henderson would have called for backup once he realized the car keys were missing. Even more police officers were likely to be searching for them now.

  “Okay,” said Stephanie, catching her breath. “I don’t think he followed us, but we can’t stay here.”

  “So where are we going?” Alex asked, breathing heavily.

  “We have the directions to the mine.”

  “We can’t know for sure that they’re for real.”

  “True, but why would Alexander have sent us that just before he was killed? It has to be where they’re holding your dad.”

  “It could be another trick too,” Alex pointed out.

  “If Alexander’s dead in the future, he can’t have been working for Veronica, can he? He also can’t send us any more false leads or misleading information. And don’t forget, Henderson had the same directions too.”

  Alex thought for a moment.

  “I guess we should give it a shot,” he said, with a shrug. “Do you think we can risk using the credit card for the cab again?”

  “Why not?” replied Stephanie. “Even though Veronica’s capable of tracking it, she doesn’t think we know how to get to the mine. Chances are that she won’t be paying attention since she’ll be expecting the police to catch us.”

  Alex nodded.

  “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  He pulled the police car keys from his pocket.

  “I guess we don’t need these anymore.”

  He dropped the keys into the nearest garbage can before they headed out to the street to try and hail a cab.

  ALEX CAUTIOUSLY STEPPED out onto the sidewalk, quickly scanning his surroundings.

  “Maybe you stay hidden and I’ll get us a cab,” Alex suggested.

  “What for?”

  “The police are going to be looking for a boy and a girl. You can come out as soon as the cab stops, okay?”

  “Good idea,” said Stephanie.

  Luckily a cab soon appeared and Alex waved frantically to attract the driver’s attention. The cab stopped outside the convenience store, and Stephanie hurried out to join Alex on the sidewalk.

  “Hi,” said Alex. “We need a ride to just outside town.”

  He showed the driver the map coordinates on his phone as Stephanie anxiously scanned their surroundings.

  “Sure,” said the driver. “Hop in.”

  A police car drove around the corner just as Alex and Stephanie climbed into the back seat. They quickly ducked their heads down out of sight of the windows until the police car had passed.

  “Are two okay back there?” asked the driver, frowning.

  “Yeah, we’re fine,” Alex replied.

  The driver muttered something inaudible before driving away.

  ON THE JOURNEY, Alex and Stephanie continued to discuss the impossibilities of their situation. They speculated about the changing timelines and how their actions might all be predetermined. They eventually came to the conclusion that since their current road trip wasn’t something that they’d been told to do, they could probably still change the future course of events. The taxi driver occasionally looked at them curiously in his rearview mirror but otherwise seemed oblivious to Alex and Stephanie’s conversation.

  They only saw a handful of other cars on the road. The journey took over an hour as the daylight steadily faded. Alex continued to study his phone until they eventually reached their destination.

  “We’re there,” said Alex.

  He showed Stephanie the map coordinates on his phone.

  “Thanks, this is great,” he said to the driver.

  “What?”

  “You can drop us here,” said Alex.

  “Are you sure?” asked the driver, looking somewhat confused.

  “Yes, this is it, thank you.”

  The driver shrugged and slowed the car to a halt in a pull-in at the side of the deserted road that ran through the woods. Alex gave him the credit card and waited for the driver to process the payment

  “Are you kids meeting your parents here or something?” said the driver. “Out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Yes,” said Stephanie, thinking quickly. “Our mom’s picking us up here. She’s a firefighter and they’ve been doing some training in the woods over there. We’re going to have a tour and spend the night out here.”

  The driver looked as if he didn’t believe a word of what Stephanie was saying.

  “Yeah,” added Alex, joining in. “We’re in the junior firefighter club. I’m sure you’ve heard of it?”

  The driver shook his head and simply shrugged again.

  “Okay, if you say so. Have a good day.”

  Alex and Stephanie got out of the cab as a couple of cars sped by the pull-in, heading in opposite directions. The cab driver gave Alex and Stephanie a curious look before driving away. The cab disappeared around the corner of the twisting road.

  “Junior firefighter club?” Stephanie said, with a smirk. “Good one.”

  “Well, I was just following your lead,” Alex replied, grinning.

  “So what now?”

  “The coordinates on maps these days don’t always show places away from main roads and highways, but the directions Alexander sent should take us right to the mine. Let’s get out of sight before any more cars drive by here.”

  They walked into the cover of the woods on the hillside beside the road.

  “So,” said Stephanie, “have you thought about what we’re going to do when we find this place?”

  “Not really.”

  “And if Veronica or anyone else is there? How are we going to get your dad out, presuming he’s still alive?”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” said Alex. “I just hope the phone battery stays charged for long enough. The power level’s pretty low.”

  “What about cell phone coverage once we get further from the road?”

  “That’s going to be patchy, at best. There must be some cell towers along the road so that drivers can use their phones out here, but I don’t know how effective they’ll be in the woods.”

  THEY FOLLOWED THE map directions on Alex’s phone for around twenty minutes. When they emerged from the woods, they’d reached a dry dirt road. There were vehicle tracks but it was hard to tell how recent they were.

  “There’s nothing here,” said Stephanie.

  “There has to be,” Alex countered. “The coordinates lead right to this place.”

  “Maybe Alexander was leading us astray, even with his final message?” said Stephanie.

  Alex almost threw his phone to the ground in frustration, but then they heard a vehicle engine. He and Stephanie dropped back into the cover of the trees as the white van from Castlewood Dynamics emerged out of nowhere from some thick
bushes and sped along the dirt road. Lewis was driving the van and there appeared to be someone else with him in the front passenger seat. However, the van drove by too quickly for either Alex or Stephanie to get a good look at the other occupant.

  “There must be a concealed entrance nearby,” said Alex. “Come on.”

  “Alex, wait,” said Stephanie. “Look.”

  She pointed upward. Two drones were hovering high among the treetops. The small robot aircraft resembled the ones that they’d seen patrolling the future city streets in the scenes that Alexander had shown them on the TV.

  “What are they doing?” Stephanie whispered.

  “Patrolling the area, by the looks of things,” replied Alex. “Perhaps they do that every time the van or anything else goes in and out of the mine.”

  “They look a lot like those futuristic ones.”

  “They’re probably prototypes that Veronica’s developing here and testing out in the woods.”

  The drones were scanning the area around the road. Eventually, after hovering perilously close to where Alex and Stephanie were hiding, the drones swiftly flew away and out of sight.

  ALEX AND STEPHANIE hurried over to where the van had emerged. Behind the bushes there was a pair of steel doors in the rock face, along with a small security pad.

  “How do we get inside?” said Stephanie.

  “No problem,” Alex replied. “This looks like the system that controlled the main gate back at the mansion. It should be easy enough for us to access.”

  He eased the cover from the security pad but the circuitry was more complex than the device he’d hacked previously.

  “Want me to take a look?” said Stephanie.

  “Okay, but don’t be long. We don’t know how long those drones will be patrolling for.”

  Stephanie went to work on the security panel. Alex nervously scanned the sky above the treetops, watching for the drones.

  “Any progress?”

  “Close,” Stephanie replied. “Just a few more minutes.”

  Then Alex saw them. The drones had returned.

  “I don’t think we have a few more minutes,” said Alex. “Look.”

  Stephanie glanced over her shoulder and saw the drones heading toward the mine entrance.

  “They’re coming right for us!” she exclaimed. “They’re going to see us!”

  “Get down!” said Alex.

  He dropped to the ground under the bushes, pulling Stephanie down with him. They kept perfectly still as the drones approached the rock face. At that very moment the drones skimmed down to the height of the bushes and the steel doors slid open. The drones flew through the doorway and travelled down the long passage that led into the heart of the mine.

  “Quick!” said Alex. “Before it closes.”

  He and Stephanie scrambled to their feet and slipped inside the mine just before the heavy doors clanged shut behind them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Into the Depths

  THE PASSAGE INTO the interior of the old mine was paved with stone slabs but the walls were composed of bare rock. There were no lights on the ceiling although lighting panels were installed at intervals along the wall. Alex and Stephanie steadily crept forward, hoping that the drones wouldn’t fly back in their direction. If they did, Alex and Stephanie had nowhere to hide and would immediately be discovered. Eventually the passage’s bare walls gave way to steel panels that closely resembled those on the walls in the depths of the Castlewood Dynamics headquarters where Andrew had been held prisoner.

  They didn’t see any doorways and there was no sign of anyone in the converted mine. The facility also appeared to be quite small. Eventually, Alex and Stephanie arrived at another heavy steel door. This one didn’t have a security pad on the adjacent wall.

  “What do you think?” said Alex.

  “Let’s give it a try,” Stephanie replied.

  They eased the door open with some difficulty and entered a large room filled with a variety of scientific equipment. It was similar to the secret laboratory that they’d been inside at the company headquarters. At the far end of the room, Andrew was lying on an operating table.

  “Dad!” Alex exclaimed.

  He and Stephanie rushed over to where Andrew lay. His face had been cleaned of blood but was still heavily bruised. Andrew was unconscious and was connected to a number of surrounding machines by a myriad of wires, cables, and tubes. Some of the equipment appeared to be monitoring his vital signs. Ominously, there was a semi-circular helmet made of grey metal covering the top of his head. The helmet was connected to a computer with a very large screen although the monitor wasn’t activated. Alex immediately reached over to begin detaching some of the tubes and wires.

  “Alex, no,” said Stephanie, grabbing his arm. “You could kill him. We don’t know what any of these connections do.”

  “But do you think he’s okay?”

  “He’s still breathing, but it looks like they’ve been working on him already.”

  “And do you think they got all the information they wanted?”

  “I don’t know, Alex,” said Stephanie. “This machinery is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you. Veronica’s people haven’t been gone long though.”

  She picked up a paper coffee cup from the nearby counter.

  “The coffee’s still warm.”

  “So, they could be coming back here at any time?”

  “Yes,” said Stephanie. “And if they’d already got the information they needed, your dad would be dead by now. Remember what she said about that.”

  “You’re right. We have to get him out of here.”

  “Okay, but you have to give me some time to try and figure everything out, Alex. Disconnecting him from this stuff could easily kill him if we get it wrong.”

  “Fine,” said Alex. “But be as quick as you can. As far as we know, there’s only one way out of here back into the woods if anyone returns.”

  STEPHANIE SAT IN one of the chairs and began working on the different machines that surrounded the area where Andrew lay unconscious. Alex studied the other equipment in the lab. The mind probe looked relatively inconspicuous but he was sure that it was a deadly weapon that Veronica wouldn’t hesitate to use on her enemies in the future. Alex had no idea what important scientific information his dad might possess. Yet Alexander had mentioned that Veronica learned something at this point in history, presumably from Andrew, which led to her dominating the entire world in the coming decades. Alex shuddered when he recalled the gunshots and the blood on the screen when they’d received Alexander’s final message. Alex felt decidedly unnerved at the thought of his own future death. But then this entire adventure had been utterly bizarre, to say the least.

  While Stephanie was engaged in very elaborate procedures on the various keyboards and consoles, Alex examined the lab’s monitors. Some of them showed different views of the facility, including the entrance from the woods and the underground passage that Alex and Stephanie had travelled along. There also seemed to be another entrance for vehicles, presumably located somewhere on the opposite side of the mine. Two of the cameras were positioned at a parking area situated somewhere in the facility. Alex was relieved to see that it was empty and that Veronica’s Mercedes was absent. Some cameras were focused on the approach to the mine entrance along the dirt track. There were even views of the area where Alex and Stephanie had earlier arrived in the cab. Alex watched a single car drive by but the road was otherwise deserted.

  Stephanie finished typing on the keyboard and stood up from the chair.

  “I think I’ve got it,” she said, turning to Alex.

  “Are you certain?”

  “No, Alex, I’m not, but I’m as sure as I can be. Help me to disconnect these things.”

  They carefully uncoupled Andrew from everything that connected him to the machinery. Andrew began to regain consciousness, at one point opening his eyes. However, he didn’t seem to recognize either of them and remained ver
y groggy as a result of all the drugs he’d been given.

  As they removed the last few wires, Alex noticed something on one of the counters.

  “That’s my dad’s laptop.”

  The computer was connected to some of the equipment that had been linked to the mind probe helmet.

  “I’d better check it out,” said Stephanie.

  “Why?” Alex asked. “If there were anything on there they wouldn’t have needed to torture my dad and bring him here.”

  “Maybe, but Veronica might have been using this laptop and left something on there.”

  “But what good will that do us?”

  “I don’t know!” Stephanie snapped. “Just let me try. Look after your dad. If he’s at least slightly awake, it’ll be easier for us to get him out of here and into the woods.”

  Stephanie conducted a quick check of the laptop. Alex helped Andrew to sit up on the operating table.

  “Dad? Dad, can you hear me? It’s Alex.”

  There seemed to be a glimmer of recognition as Andrew narrowed his eyes and studied Alex’s face.

  “Alex?” he mumbled. “I don’t know . . . I mean . . .”

  He appeared confused as he peered around the lab, attempting to make sense of his surroundings.

  “What . . . what’s happening?”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  Alex turned to Stephanie.

  “Anything yet?”

  “Everything on here’s password protected,” replied Stephanie. “Let me have another try.”

  Alex glanced over at one of the monitors. Veronica’s Mercedes had arrived at the parking area, followed by the white van.

  “We’ve got company.”

  “What?”

  “Veronica’s here, with the others. We have to go.”

  “Wait. I might still find something.”

  On the monitor, Alex watched as Veronica emerged from her car and chatted briefly with Lewis and Palmer as they got out of the van

  “There’s no time,” said Alex, struggling to ease Andrew up from the operating table.