At three hundred miles an hour, she could go all the way around the sixty-mile loop in about twelve minutes, so they were covering a lot of ground in not a lot of time. She didn’t wait very long before dropping power, which served as a slowing mechanism.
They’d bled off about half the speed when the station appeared from around the distant bend in the track.
“Oh, shit.”
She hit the brake button, which jerked them forward in their seats. It was designed to use the magnets of the levitation system to slow the train, but she saw in an instant that it wasn’t going to be enough.
“The train,” General Smith pointed. She saw it, too.
They lost more speed, but the Silver Bullet got larger every second.
“I have to cut power,” she said as she popped open a panel flush with the top of the console. Inside was a bright-red button with an electrical bolt with a line through it. She hit it without any further thought.
All the power went out and the maglev system shut off, canceling the magnetic repulsion that kept them floating on air, which in turn dropped the bottom of the car onto the concrete. The added slowdown slammed her against the control board.
“Hang on!” she screamed over the sound of metal grinding on pavement. She groped around for a seatbelt, but the ends had fallen to the sides of her seat.
Faith sucked in a breath and held it.
The Silver Bullet approached like Death incarnate, but there wasn’t anything she could do except watch it.
I-80, Wyoming
Buck picked himself up off the pavement, disappointed that he’d been unable to retain consciousness. After one quick glance back at Sparky and Monsignor to make sure they were getting up, he climbed into his rig.
Mac looked over his shoulder, then went back whining next to Connie.
“Connie?” he said as he shuffled over to her.
“Phil? I’ll drive you to school. Wake me up after you eat breakfast.”
He chuckled, then softly rubbed her hair. “Hey, Connie, it’s Buck and Big Mac.”
His Golden barked once as if to assure her he was there.
That brought her back to the Peterbilt.
“Oh!” she exclaimed when it was clear he’d been listening to her. “What did I say?”
“You said something about—” He made a snap judgment not to remind her of her missing son. “You said you secretly wished I’d bought you that green T-shirt and a Skoal ball cap, and then I think you were talking about how you were going to put me into one of your books as the pivotal hero.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll put you in a story, all right, but you’ll be the one with the ugly shirt and hat, not me. It’s the benefit of writing your own stories.”
They both noticed his hand on the side of her head. He was going to pull it away, but she reached up and held it closer to her.
“Buck, I admit it. I’m getting scared. Whatever is happening, it’s making things worse.”
He relaxed with his hand in hers. “We’ve got to keep going. Garth is counting on me, no matter what. Shit!”
Buck had to pull away from her.
“What is it?” she asked with surprise.
He pulled out his phone, but it had rebooted itself and was in the middle of a restart.
“Dammit. I sent Garth out on the road. What if he blacked out and ended up wrapped around a tree?”
The CB lit up. “Buck, we’re ready to roll. I’m riding with Eve. Monsignor said he didn’t want me to blow up with him if we crashed again.”
“That’s right,” the other driver chimed in. “I’ll drive in the back and leave a mile between us, if it works for you? I’m afraid I’m going to kill someone.”
Buck hated to have any separation in his convoy, but the threat was real. He had to drive fast enough to get to Garth before driving became impossible. It was probably prudent to keep the man with the flammable truck as far away from the others as possible.
“Fine with me,” he agreed.
“What’s our mission?” Sparky asked. “We still aiming for Nebraska?”
He thought about it for a second. It was late in the afternoon, and they were still a hundred miles from the target truck stop in Nebraska. However, they were getting close to Cheyenne and the I-25 intersection.
Buck keyed the mic and spoke slowly. “Our first task is to get to the other side of Cheyenne. I want to put ourselves on the eastern side of 25 before they shut it down. Once we make it there, we can plan how far we want to drive tonight.”
“Cheyenne is about thirty miles away,” Connie said in a contemplative voice. She’d pulled the atlas onto her lap while Buck was on the CB.
He glanced over to find her looking at him with watery eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Buck, what are you going to do if you black out again? We could end up sideways if you pass out doing seventy miles an hour.”
“I’ve got this,” he said with as much positivity as possible. “I’m going to put this rig on cruise control and keep it pointed down the long yellow lines. I’ve got perfect wheel alignment, too. I’ll keep a light touch on the steering wheel. If I black out, it will only be for a few seconds, right? The truck will stay pointed in the proper direction, and we won’t go off the roadway. It will be a snap, now that we know what to plan for.”
She thought about it for a few moments. “I trust you.”
He did everything in his power to believe his own words. The Marine in him wasn’t going to stop for anything on Earth, and he did make a good case for avoiding the effects of another blackout, but he couldn’t plan for buffalo herds, closed highways, or floods.
“Let’s make this happen.”
European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), Switzerland
Phil and Ethan watched the orderly evacuation of the administration wing. Because it was the middle of the night, there weren’t many people inside. However, Dr. Eli hung around the desk asking questions the entire time.
“So, you are saying SNAKE believes we are still broadcasting power through thousands of kilometers of the Earth’s mantle? We are somehow linked together? And that link is causing time distortions throughout the world?”
Phil nodded. “I saw it for myself in Afghanistan. Soviet-era tanks appeared from the 1980s. They were forty years out of time.”
“And I’ve witnessed a plane landing from the Korean war,” Ethan added. “Not to mention hundreds of news items on the networks. I still can’t believe you don’t know about all this. It’s everywhere.”
Doctor Eli leaned against the security desk. “I haven’t heard of this because it isn’t happening. Let me show you the world is fine, and maybe we can skip the shutdown?”
“You can try,” Ethan agreed.
The doctor stepped around the desk to the computer, then he looked at Ethan and Phil like he was unsure about something. “You aren’t going to shoot me, are you?”
Both men had their rifles slung over their shoulders to keep them close, but the scientist still seemed terrified of them.
“We’re here to save you,” Phil assured him.
“Good,” he replied, sitting at the terminal. “Let’s see what we can see.”
He typed for a few seconds, then leaned back in his chair, victorious. “See? Nothing!”
Phil walked behind Dr. Eli’s shoulders to look at the screen. It was set to the international section of one of the big news websites.
“The lead story today is about us Brits still trying to figure out Brexit. Imagine that. There is also something about an actor who is in rehab down in Australia. Oh, and your Yankees won their tenth game in a row. Not sure how it’s international news, but I think it speaks to my point. There is nothing unusual going on.”
The doctor continued with an impassioned plea. “You have to stop this. There is no need to take us offline. All it will do is interfere with our systems!”
Phil and Ethan looked at each other. Phil thought the other man wa
s going to call in for clarification of his orders, but the resolve on his face didn’t change.
“Sir, can you power down from this terminal?”
The hope on the doctor’s face evaporated. “I just showed you we’re okay. There is nothing wrong!”
Ethan was having none of it. “Doctor, you will shut this place down immediately. My orders are to take you offline and report what happens, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
“But—”
Ethan grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him close. “Dammit! Don’t you get it? I don’t trust you, or this place. Websites can be faked, but I saw that old plane myself. Phil saw those tanks in person. Every plane in the world has been grounded, and the entire US military is skedaddling back to America. My superiors believe it can be fixed by you shutting down this place, so you’re going to do just that.”
Ethan pushed the doctor up to the keyboard.
“Fine. I’ll shut everything down except the cryo. If that warms up—”
“Shut it down. I don’t want an ounce of electricity anywhere within a square kilometer.”
The doctor began typing but halted for a second. “You know, electricity doesn’t have any weight. It can’t be put into an ounce.”
Phil thought Ethan was going to lose it, based on the look of frustration on his face, but he simply patted the doctor on the shoulder.
“Get the power off, and you can joke around all you want. In the meantime, I’m trying to save the world.”
Phil watched as the man’s fingers danced on the keyboard. A minute or two later, the lights in the building turned off and the emergency lights came on.
“Those are battery-powered,” the doctor said, continuing to type. “But the collider and the cryo magnets are powering down. I hope you’re happy.”
Ethan looked at Phil. “Get HQ on the line. We have to see if this worked.”
Twenty-Four
Princess Anne, Maryland
“Well, what do we have here? A hero?” The man with the gun pointed it at Garth’s face. It was so close he saw into the metal barrel.
“No, uh, sir. I was only here to get change for my gas.” His eyes refused to stop focusing on the gun.
“Turn out your pockets, kid. I’ll take whatever money you have while I’m knocking over the joint.” The man wore a black suit; that much he noticed when not looking at the pistol. He also sported a black felt hat like something they wore in the old days.
My gun.
He entertained the idea of reaching into his pocket and pulling out the PX4 Storm and blowing the guy away, but the dude’s pistol was already in his face. It was an impossible-to-win scenario.
“Are you going to kill us?” one of the baseball boys asked.
The man laughed, and Garth finally looked at his face. He was about the same age as his dad, with slicked hair set under the black topper. The guy had white teeth and a thin mustache, which helped him piece together where he might have seen people like him.
“You’re gangsters!” Garth blurted. “From the 1920s.”
Garth’s entire inventory of knowledge about gangsters came from a single movie he and his dad had watched about Prohibition times. Aside from the gunfights, he didn’t particularly like it, but his dad had enjoyed seeing the bad guys get their comeuppance.
The greasy man eyed him warily, then reached down to Garth’s open pockets.
“Holy Toledo! Frank, this kid is carrying a piece!” The gangster grabbed his subcompact pistol and stepped back. “It’s some futuristic thing. Look.”
The gun was small enough to sit in the man’s hand like a kitten. There was a cat calendar on the wall behind the counter, which gave him the idea for the comparison.
Both men laughed. “Guns are dangerous, kid. I’ll keep this for you.” The man shoved the little gun into his pants pocket and kept the large revolver trained on Garth’s face.
“Um, you can have my wallet, but please don’t take my phone.”
The guy opened the wallet and seemed disappointed. There was no money in the billfold, though there was a library card and his school ID.
“You have no money?” the man asked with anger.
Garth shook his head. “I spent it all on gas. It cost fifty dollars to fill my tank.”
“Fifty dollars?” the man cried out. “You spent fifty on gasoline?”
“Benny,” the other man in the suit called out. “Keep it together. This kind woman is giving me the money in her drawer. There is more than you can imagine.”
The robber looked at Garth’s phone next. “This isn’t a gun too, is it? You called it a phone, but that’s impossible.”
“It is,” Garth replied. “You can call people on it and talk to them. They are common as can be in the year 2020.” After spending time with Lydia, he was mentally prepared to meet people from a different time.
“2020? You think it is 2020?” For the first time, Garth thought the man looked like he wasn’t in control.
“Oh, it is 2020, for sure,” Garth replied. “There’s a calendar right there behind the counter.”
The second bad guy shoved the clerk aside, then pulled the cat calendar off the wall. “Benny, take a look. We’re being played good.”
Benny took the calendar from his friend and looked at it. For one fraction of a second, Garth considered going for the man’s gun, but he didn’t think he had a chance. Even if he succeeded, the guy had his Storm as a backup, and the other man behind the counter could take a hostage.
Just get out of this alive.
“Something about this isn’t right,” Frank added. “The money—it’s got to be counterfeit. The pictures and years are all wrong.”
The man named Frank held a white money bag as he backed away from the counter, but he looked terrified.
“You guys got dizzy, didn’t you?” Garth suggested. “We all did. It messed up time.”
Benny stepped away from the counter to be with his friend, but he still held Garth’s wallet and phone.
“Please, I need my phone,” Garth practically begged.
The men didn’t appear to be in the mood to negotiate.
“You people are crazy,” Benny said. “It can’t be 2020. That’s a hundred years off. And this can’t be a phone. And you can’t be real.”
The gangsters shuffled toward the front door. Each kept their revolvers on Garth and the two ballplayers, despite the other patrons hovering in the wings.
“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” Frank spoke up when his back was to the front door. “I want everyone face-down on the ground. Whatever year this is, you are about to learn the calling card of the Mackey Brothers.”
Everyone hesitated to comply. For Garth, it seemed surreal to be held up by gangsters, and he wasn’t sure they were serious.
“Get down!” Benny shouted. He pointed his giant revolver at everyone he saw.
Garth dropped to the floor, and the others followed.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of us,” Benny went on. “We always pick one person at random and shoot them in the head before we leave. It’s usually the last person to get down on the floor and shut up.”
Garth was already on the ground, but he chanced a look at Benny.
“I promise,” Benny said, glaring at Garth. “It won’t hurt a bit.”
I-80, Wyoming
Buck, Eve, and Monsignor drove their three trucks toward Cheyenne, leaving a huge gap between Monsignor and Eve, as he had requested. Buck was happy to be moving, but they were only a few miles from Sparky’s crash before Connie gave him some bad news.
“Garth’s phone is ringing, I think, but he isn’t answering. It went to voicemail, but I didn’t say anything. Would you like me to call back for you?” She held his phone.
“No, I’m sure he’s fine. I wouldn’t want my dad calling me every ten minutes either. It might make him lose concentration for whatever he’s doing right now. We’ll try him again once we’re safe.”
He didn’t te
ll her that trying over and over and getting no answer was also stressful beyond words for him. He needed to focus on the road and the people around him before anyone else rolled over and got hurt. However, he had every intention of calling him once the immediate threats were managed.
He turned on the radio to get information about what was coming up.
“We can now report the shutdown of Interstate 76 between Denver and Fort Morgan, Colorado. Numerous arterial highways are also shut down outside the Mile-High City. Folks, national authorities are still not saying why these closures are necessary, but something is happening inside this zone. Reporters in Denver say there is nothing unusual, but residents are getting scared and the panic is spreading, as you can imagine.”
Buck changed to a local Wyoming AM station. “Ten minutes ago, the Wyoming Highway Patrol broadcast a warning they were shutting down further portions of I-25 in the southeastern part of the state due to a maintenance emergency. We’re still trying to get information on where the shutdowns are taking place.”
“I was right,” Buck responded.
“About what?” Connie replied.
“This maintenance bullshit. They are taking ownership of the highway between Malmstrom Air Base and Denver, like I said before. Something is coming down the highway, heading for SNAKE. That’s what this is all about.”
“You think it had to do with the terrorist attack on SNAKE?” she inquired.
The news had been painfully brief on the cause of the explosion, which told him something too. “I have to admit, I’m the king of conspiracy theories, but wouldn’t it be fitting if the Army was transporting a nuclear bomb from up north so they could blow it up at the wayward lab?”
“That’s nu—” She stopped herself.
“Nuts,” he finished. “I know. But why else would they do it this way? You’re an author. Can you think of alternatives?”
“Aliens? Maybe they have a special unit that only deals with aliens, and they need them there in a hurry.”
“I like that one,” he admitted.
“Hey, either way, though, why aren’t they evacuating the people from the city? They wouldn’t leave them there if aliens came down or if they were going to blow up a bomb, would they?”
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