End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Isherwood, E. E.

  All in all, having her phone back did almost nothing for her, but eventually she did get one important message.

  It was the general.

  “Already?” she wondered.

  ‘Dr. Sinclair, please join me in your office. Decision time.’

  She got there to find a dozen other scientists already inside.

  “Let her through!” the general called to his associates when he noticed her at the door. “And close up back there.”

  Someone shut the door after she was in the room. The general was already talking by the time she reached the standing space up front.

  “The 50th Space Wing reports that the calibration error is now off by six years. Six years, people. Now, I don’t know what those beams are doing down in the supercollider ring, but this is unacceptable. We have to stop it.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I need options.”

  The room broke out into a chaotic churn of voices. The general tried to listen for a few moments but then held up his hand. “One at a fucking time!”

  Faith hovered to the side, content to observe until she got a feeling for what the new scientists wanted to do. None of her people were in the room, which weighed heavily on her.

  “We can run a cable to their tram car,” a man suggested.

  “Is there a way to crush them?” another asked.

  A dozen different people had ideas, and they all involved destroying the equipment broadcasting the blue beams. As she had feared, she was on the wrong side of consensus.

  “Are we all talking about destroying the equipment now? Sir, you can’t shut it down. I have strong evidence suggesting the links to CERN are what’s holding things together. If we turn the boxes off or destroy them, we risk making things worse on the outside.”

  That got his attention. “You mean outside this office?”

  “No, I mean anywhere beyond the SNAKE collider ring. I figured out after talking to Dr. Donald Perkins that he was affected by the time distortion when he left the collider ring yesterday. That’s why he is sick today. Other evidence suggests the power is broadcasting outward from the ring, not inside it.”

  One of the NORAD scientists scoffed, but when the general looked at him, he shut his mouth.

  “Dr. Sinclair, it’s wonderful to know we’re safe here in your special circle, but the rest of the world is in danger. It also doesn’t change the fact that the satellites are six years out of alignment. Who knows what that means for people on the ground? I think the only safe play is to shut off the power coming into SNAKE by any means necessary.”

  The NORAD scientists nodded in agreement. Even the shaggy-haired man who had originally supported her back in the tunnel was now on board with a shutdown.

  She was tempted to reveal Bob’s role and the involvement of dark matter, but in a room full of hostile scientists and their take-no-prisoners commander, she didn’t want to come across as the lone wacko. Then he’d never listen to her.

  Faith tried another tack.

  “A little more time is all I need,” she asserted. “Give my team and me a few more hours to piece together a solution we can all live with. We have our phones. I’ve tried to contact CERN, but haven’t reached anyone. There’s so much to learn.”

  General Smith held up his hand, and everyone got quiet. “I’ve learned enough. You eggheads go to your Hobbit holes and talk about what comes next. I want a solution in fifteen minutes that we can kick off within the next hour. We’re shutting down all of the blue beams. That’s final.”

  “General!” Faith blurted.

  Smith practically rolled his eyes at her, confirming his lack of respect.

  “Sir, please give me permission to evacuate my staff. If we blow up like CERN, we’ll have no scientists left to pick up the pieces.”

  The general stood at the desk, then bent to put his hands on the wooden top. He seemed to think about her request.

  “Agreed. They can wait on the front parking lot.”

  “But—” she began.

  “That will be all,” he told her, his face blank.

  She ran out in a hurry. There was only one card left to play.

  Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

  Lieutenant Colonel Stanwick had assumed his intelligence picture would flesh out as the night fight wore on and give him a better idea of the battlefield, but it didn’t. It only grew more confusing. An old combat adage of every first report was wrong was coming true, but the second and third reports, along with the succeeding follow-ups, seemed to be wrong, too.

  Battalion headquarters as well as the Air Force staff at the airfield didn’t know anything more than he did.

  He stared at a dust-caked whiteboard and tried to give a briefing to the soldiers who remained. The fundamentals of warfare hadn’t changed, and his first priority was keeping his people alive. Information was their shield. If it was wrong, it increased the risk. That was a long way from his intent.

  “This is us in the middle.” He pointed to the center of the crude sketch of the rectangular air base. “We know Soviet heavy tanks are positioned on the high ground north of us.” Phil drew some mounds to represent hills. “Their gear is shit for night fighting, so we assume they are using pre-designated coordinates to hit the airstrip.”

  “The Russians are still our allies, aren’t they?” Matt Carbon asked.

  “Of course, but these are Soviets; I’m not sure how, and I don’t care. We fire back when we get hit. I’ve been trying to get the dipshits in Kabul to get us a Russian liaison so we can get these guys to stop firing at us, but they say they haven’t been able to raise anyone in the Green Zone since about seventeen hundred.”

  “So who is firing back at the Soviet tanks?” a voice called out. “There’s no allied armor on base.”

  “That’s an interesting question,” Phil replied. He marked an X on the map and held the marker there. “They belong to the Marines. Delta Company, 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, to be exact.”

  “Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, sir?”

  “I know. They shouldn’t be here. Neither should these men.” He drew a circle to the south of the base, “This area is where we’ve found British Redcoats.”

  He went crazy with circles. “And this is where the Northern Alliance is dug in. And this is where Mohammed Zahir Shah—the deposed king of Afghanistan--is holed up. And we think these are Chinese forces.”

  “Sir, are we at war with everyone?”

  The base rumbled from a ground explosion. Phil had to lean against the whiteboard because of the shift beneath his feet. Dust rained down from the concrete ceiling.

  He waited for a second for the air to clear.

  A jet screamed overhead.

  “Yes, I think we—”

  The ground heaved as the air got sucked out of the room. “Cover!” Lieutenant Colonel Phil Stanwick yelled as he dove to the floor. His whiteboard and the wall behind it were sucked inward by the force of the nearby explosion.

  Twenty-Five

  Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado

  The alarms in SNAKE began their shrill warning as she left General’s Smith’s meeting. He was nothing if not punctual.

  She sprinted down the hallway to catch the one person who could put a stop to the shutdown. When she arrived at his office, Bob was still at his desk, as if the alarms were of no concern.

  “I appreciate the sentiment of your running to get me, but I’m not leaving,” he said, patronizing her.

  “What?” She was panting after her run. “You really think highly of yourself. It’s a wonder your head doesn’t need a sidecar to carry your ego as well as your brain. No, I came here to put you back to work. He’s shutting us down.”

  “So I’ve gathered. I’m assuming you told him what we discussed and he ignored you?”

  “I told him everything but what the experiment was exploring. He and I have been butting heads since he showed up, and he stacked the room w
ith his own scientists like you said he would. A second-hand explanation wasn’t going to sway them. I saved the heavy lifting for you.”

  “You want me to explain quantum entanglement and dark matter to a general?”

  “Just enough so he understands, dammit. Come on, you can’t be this dense. He has to be stopped.”

  “Ah, so at least you believe me? That’s a start, I guess.”

  She got the sense he enjoyed having her up against the wall, but it was the truth. Whatever else she had to say about Bob, he wouldn’t lie about what was unarguably a brilliant experiment, even if the end result had been so disastrous. SNAKE had tapped into dark energy. He would do everything in his power to live long enough to get the accolades from his peers he knew he deserved. The leadership of SNAKE might even come with it, although she wasn’t ready to dangle that in front of him.

  His ego was his weakness, however, so she unabashedly baited it.

  “I do believe you. The fate of the whole planet may hinge on whether you can make the general believe you, too.”

  Bob studied her for ten or fifteen seconds.

  “Fine,” Bob said melodramatically. “Let’s go. I’m sure I can do a better job than you did.”

  Whatever, she thought. Anything to buy a little time.

  They marched down the hallway together. Faith ignored the claxons blaring from every corner as well as all the people running for the exits. When they got to the general’s office, he was on the phone. She was fortunate his door was already open because none of his assistants were nearby to do it for her.

  The general waved her in but didn’t hang up.

  “General, you have to stop the shutdown.” Faith pointed to Bob. “He has information you need to hear.”

  The military man put his hand over the receiver of his phone. “I told you, we’re doing this. I don’t want any more scientific debate.”

  Bob stepped up. “Sir, if you shut down even one of those beams, I assure you things are going to get worse outside. Shut them all down, and the world’s magnetic poles might shift dramatically, almost instantly. The inner core of the Earth could seize up. That would be game over, as they say.”

  The general still held his phone askew while looking at Faith. “Is he for real?”

  Without crunching the math, she had to trust Bob.

  “Sir, he’s the head of modeling. I trust him to know what he’s talking about on the science, but I brought him here for a different reason.”

  Faith turned to Bob. “Tell him.”

  General Smith seemed to recognize that the tone had shifted. “I’ll call you right back,” he said to the person on the phone.

  Then, to Bob, “You have one minute to wow me.”

  Bob brushed his fingers along the side of his head. “I worked on the Izanagi Project from its inception, and I know how and why the metal boxes were installed. The experiment—”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You were down in the tunnels and didn’t think to mention this?” The general stood up, obviously upset. “I thought you and I talked about trust, Dr. Sinclair? Is this your idea of telling me the truth?”

  “Sir, I just found out, I swear. But there is something more serious that I think you already know about: the military paid for the Izanagi Project. They were the ones who installed the boxes and altered the parameters of the experiment, so maybe you’re the one who hasn’t been forthright with me.”

  She crossed her arms, hoping the pose conveyed her sense of moral superiority.

  The general shook his head and faked a smile. “My dear Dr. Sinclair, you should not give me that self-satisfied look. I told you I don’t trust anyone, and you’ve proved me correct.”

  She relented a little. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you. Bob was working for the military. I had no idea.”

  “False. I know you sent a message to your sister in Australia.”

  Fuck. How did he find out?

  “You told her SNAKE was the cause of the world’s problems. How many times did I ask you if anyone on the outside knew?”

  Faith was blindsided by his accusation, but it did explain why her phone had been kept for so long. They had searched them all to see who knew what.

  “Are you going to hurt her?” she asked with reluctance.

  The general’s eyes grew wide. “Hurt her? Who do you think I am? No, we’re not going to hurt anyone. Besides, it hardly matters now. Everyone knows something fishy is going on. That’s why all those reporters are out there.”

  He took a deep breath. “I only brought it up because I can’t trust anyone at your facility, Dr. Sinclair. You might be making up this story about military contracts and further destruction to stop me from shutting you down. I can’t take the chance.”

  “But sir!” she insisted. “You and I talked about this before. His experiment involves the biggest mysteries of the universe. Dark matter. Dark energy. Quantum flux. Time travel. But he didn’t need a supercollider as big as the solar system.”

  The general stood ramrod straight behind his desk and picked up the phone again. Initially, she was relieved that he was calling it all off, but that wasn’t it.

  “I can’t trust you, Dr. Sinclair. Better evacuate with everyone else if you believe SNAKE is destined to blow up. I think that’s an exaggeration too.”

  She was in shock.

  “Do it,” the general barked into the phone.

  I-80, Elko, NV

  Buck’s convoy maintained an even eighty miles per hour across what remained of Nevada. The weather continued to improve, and the snow on the ground was mostly gone. By the time they reached Elko, the temperature was back up into the fifties, and for once there were no storms on the horizon. That also improved their radio reception.

  The news was all bad.

  His main concern was the two storms converging on Garth, although the broadcasters said little about it. However, the rest of the country shared the weird weather. Another hurricane had popped out of nowhere in the Gulf of Mexico, and there had been a devastating tsunami along the southern coast of Alaska, as well as dozens of reports of strong tornadoes.

  He and Connie were also interested in any news related to time travel. Just as she and the others showed up out of the past, people were starting to recognize that it was happening all over the country.

  Dead relatives were suddenly alive.

  Old buildings appeared next to new ones.

  Some towns went back to the way they had been fifty years ago.

  When the convoy went through Elko, several big piles of tires were on fire, as if the town was in turmoil. That spooked his fellow drivers.

  “Hey, guys,” Monsignor said on the CB. “I’m thinking this is a little too much fire for my taste. I’m considering dumping and running.”

  Eve replied. “I’m with you. If consumers want their TVs, they can come out to Nevada and get them. I’d rather turn around and go home to Seattle.”

  Buck looked at Connie. He was already on edge because Garth hadn’t replied despite the better weather, so having his people freak out around him was unsettling. “I’ve heard of guys dropping and running. My boss said some of his drivers did it yesterday. They must have already been seeing this time shift wherever they were. It’s only getting worse, apparently.”

  “Can you make better time if you drop the cargo? I would think so because of all that weight.”

  “Not as much as you think. Big semis like this aren’t aerodynamic at all when they don’t have a trailer behind them. I’m not sure it’s the real issue, though.”

  He picked up the CB mic. “Hey, guys, Buck here. Look, I know you are hearing weird shit on the radio. I saw lots of it coming over the Sierras down by Yosemite and the Nevada border. Hell, my co-pilot is from 2003.”

  Buck paused to look at his partner before going on.

  “I’m worried, too, but we all have a job to do. Whatever is happening outside, it might be a blip on the radar that disappears tomorrow. How stupid will you fe
el if you get home to find company people asking for compensation for losing a trailer? Can your pocketbook survive such a hit?”

  There were provisions in every contract for such eventualities. The safety of the driver was always paramount over the contents of the haul, but he was trying to make a point, so he avoided the law.

  “I love what I do,” he admitted. “I’ve never missed a delivery, and I’m not going to let jacked-up weather or craziness in the news force me to give up this job. If we stick together, I believe we have a great chance of riding through this rough patch and making it to our destinations. Then, instead of quitters, we’ll be heroes.”

  He didn’t know if he was making sense, but he saw how to close his speech. He knew truckers, and most of them were always on the lookout for the next easy dollar.

  “You guys can write your own checks if you don’t drop and run. Companies will kill to hire someone who didn’t give up even when time travelers came to America.”

  Buck listened for their reply, but he’d accidentally hit upon a troubling fact.

  If things did get back to normal, would Connie disappear from his life?

  She reached over and put her hand on his arm.

  “You did all you could. I hope they’ll stick with you.”

  He didn’t answer. He had just found someone he liked who liked him. He wasn’t ready to lose that. Was it selfish to want things to stay as they were?

  Twenty-Six

  Canberra, ACT, Australia

  Destiny watched as the hunters loaded her bird onto their four-wheeler and drove it away. A second four-wheeler arrived and took away the hunter she’d tranquilized as well. There was going to be a shitstorm when the guy woke up, so she furiously thought about what she needed to do to protect herself.

  She didn’t need to reveal herself to the hunters by driving behind them. They were on Zandre’s equipment and would go back to his house, so she plotted her own way. She arrived a couple of minutes before they did because they were hauling heavier loads.

  “We got one!” they screamed when they pulled up to the house.