by Keith Hughes
“Go ahead.” Ness spoke with deliberate nonchalance.
That response surprised Karl, whose eyebrows rose.
“She's so angry right now that she’s likely to bite your face off.”
Angie seemed to be putting every ounce of anger and hatred at her disposal in her glare. Once again, Ness was especially thankful to not be the target of her intense gaze, and he could not help but be impressed that Karl did not react in any way to the naked savagery directed toward him. Even with his apparent lack of concern, Karl kept his distance from Angie.
“Bring them,” he finally said and led the way to the elevator.
Williams pushed Ness from behind with one hand on his shoulder, and Reed did the same to Angie. They had no choice but to enter the confinement of the small metal chamber. With surprising deftness, their minders maneuvered them to face the door while their guards stood behind them. The grizzled older man looked uncomfortable keeping a hand on Angie’s shoulder. Harrison stood in front of her, acting disinterested in her proximity. Karl entered last to stand in front of Ness and pressed a button. The doors swished shut.
“Where are you taking us?”
Karl half turned to give Ness a sardonic smile.
“To see John Fletcher at the PU lab. I believe you have been there before.”
Apparently, they know more about my previous visit than I had hoped.
Karl gave a smug smile and turned away again. He had not expected them to know of his previous adventure there, but given recent events, Ness should not have been surprised. As the elevator rose, he stared at the German's back, speculating about what other revelations were waiting in Dr. Bertrand's former laboratory.
* * *
Dix watched the dog lying on the metal plate, shaking and soaked with liquid. He could tell the creature had only a minute or so before its borrowed time expired. He tapped the return button on the display, and the creature disappeared from the table. He could not resist looking at the dog sleeping peacefully in its cage across the room. He had sent the dog back seconds before, but from the animal's point of view, it had been back in its home time for hours. When it had failed to disappear from the plate after he sent it a minute into the future, he had known his future self chose to send it back before it died in a puddle of liquid.
He had no reason to take the experiment to its lethal conclusion — he had enough data to prove his earlier calculations. The machine would work in a manner similar to Dr. Bertrand's but with much greater power consumption. Dix glanced at the clock. John's deadline was nearly upon him. As if the mere thought of the devilish man caused him to appear, the door to the lab opened, and John Fletcher strolled in. A frenetic light shone in his eyes, and he rubbed his hands together like a man getting ready to devour a much-anticipated meal.
“Dix, are you ready?” the CEO inquired.
“Yes.” He did his best to keep his tone level. John’s methods still did not sit well with him.
His boss gave him a big smile, as if he had never doubted that Dix would figure out the device if given the proper motivation. The fact that John’s ultimatum could result in his death did nothing to endear the CEO to Dix. Confronted with his boss’s draconian methods, Dix belatedly recognized the kind of person he was working for. He's a psychotic nutjob! What does he want with a time machine? Nothing good, I’d wager. He regarded the executive with a growing sense of dread.
“Excellent,” John said, looking over the new calculations covering several whiteboards.
Dix almost laughed when the CEO peered intently at the math. Like he has any hope of fathoming one tenth of my work.
The door to the lab opened again, and Karl arrived, followed by his brutes. Dix glanced nervously at the oldest one. Reed always gave him the shivers when he looked at him with those dead eyes. However, something seemed to have changed. The gray-haired man's gaze looked troubled. Odd.
They were escorting a man and a woman he had never seen before, followed by the youngest of the hired muscle. The VP of security approached John and spoke quietly to him. The flash of anger in his boss's eyes as they flicked over the couple disturbed Dix even more.
“They don't have it?” John asked incredulously.
Karl shook his head.
“Well, we may not need it, if all this hen scratching” — John gestured toward the whiteboards — “means what I hope it means.”
Dix swallowed as the CEO looked over at him.
“Does it?” John’s tone was steeped in danger, daring Dix to disappoint him. “Does your machine work?”
“Yes.” His careful control broke down, and the word came out as a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, it does.”
“Excellent.” John smiled, but his tone still held an edge that threatened violence. “Show me.”
Dix checked that the power setting had been set to five hundred fifty-eight volts, the maximum his machine could safely handle. The largest creature he had been able to test it with was a dog. Though his calculations indicated that a maximum of four hundred fifty-six volts were needed for his body mass, he wanted as much safety margin as he could get. He laid his hand on the metal plate and clicked the large button on the screen labeled Execute. He suddenly wished he had chosen a different word.
The scene around him froze, his vision dimmed, and his body flowed from the current time to another a minute into his future. He coughed and wiped sweat from his forehead, although he could not be sure whether that was from the time transition or the stress of possibly dying. When he had recovered, Dix saw John staring at him triumphantly, but he did not relax until he saw a copy of himself standing a few feet away. This glimpse gave him assurance that he would survive to dwell in his home time again.
“Amazing,” John said.
“I need to test the return.” Dix looked at John for permission.
He got a nod, and Dix placed his hand on the plate again. He used the mouse to click another button marked Return. Shortly afterward, he had returned to his home time, blinking water from his eyes. He took a few steps backward to be out of the way of his double, who would soon arrive.
“Well?”
“Give it a minute.” Dix grinned, enjoying the power of knowing something John did not. From his viewpoint, he understood that it had been a successful test, but John had to wait out the passage of time to catch up to the future that Dix had already experienced.
The seconds ticked by, and eventually, his double appeared in front of the computer. Dix watched the same events he had lived through, and after the brief exchange, his copy departed.
John turned to the couple. “So, Mr. Relevont, as you can see, we have duplicated Bertrand's research. There is no advantage to you in keeping your device from us.”
The unknown male intrigued Dix, and he deduced that he must be Ness Relevont, Dr. Bertrand’s protégé and the person John wanted to kill.
“If you've duplicated Dr. Bertrand's work, the PDA is of no use to you.” Ness spoke in a calm, logical manner. “Except you obviously haven’t fully followed in his footsteps.” The captive waved his hand at the stacks of equipment making up Dix's time machine on the lab table. “I don't see that fitting in my pocket any time soon.” He delivered the critique with a sarcastic smile.
Dix smiled as well. He liked Ness Relevont.
John, on the other hand, scowled before turning to the German. “You know where he hid the device before?”
“Ja, I could find it again.”
Dix almost jumped when John turned to face him.
“Send Karl back one month.”
As he scurried to the machine and hurriedly changed settings, his mind raced. He had to reason out some way to prevent what he knew must be coming.
“Find them and kill them,” John told Karl.
Given John’s earlier comments, Dix shouldn’t have been surprised by the order, yet a part of him still reverberated with horror at his involvement with such people. He had to find a way to stop it.
&nbs
p; Karl checked his gun and chambered a round before returning it to his holster. He placed his hand on the plate, watching the monitor as Dix put in a date of one month earlier.
Angry barking interrupted the quiet of the room, and everyone except Dix turned toward the sound. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the youngest thug, the one named Harrison, poking at the caged dog with a pencil. Knowing the distraction would last only a second, Dix quickly moved the mouse to the power scale along the left side of the screen. It listed the various creatures he had tested. At the top, an indicator pointed to a tag that read Human. He clicked the bottom of the scale, and the indicator moved next to Hamster.
Karl yelled at Harrison, and he stopped annoying the dog. After another sharp command, the canine fell silent as well. As they returned their attention to Karl, Dix moved the mouse to the execute button. He could not resist meeting the eyes of the German he had doomed to a watery death. At the last second, the VP of security noticed the changed power indicator, but he had no time for any reaction save a panicked look. The sound of the mouse click seemed unnaturally loud as Dix sent the German to his doom. Everyone watched as Karl disappeared, and all hell broke loose.
* * *
The rusty white van screeched to a stop in front of the Intellisys building, and Ness turned off the engine and exited the vehicle. He strolled around the front to meet Angie, and they approached the front door. Ness took out Karl's Intellisys ID card and waved it, and a red light came on above the pad. He waved it again with the same result.
“They've deactivated his card.” Ness traded a look with Angie. That was a contingency they had planned for.
“Here comes the guard.” Angie spoke quietly, and Ness turned away slightly to obstruct his face.
The guard opened the door partway and stuck his head out.
“My card is not working.” Ness’s German accent came off as a horrible parody.
“Sir, can I see some ID?” the guard requested.
Ness held up Karl's ID card and met the guard's eye.
“Hey, you're not...”
The guard trailed off as the van's sliding door opened. He paled and tried to shut the building's door, but Ness blocked it with his foot. Angie had her gun out, and Ness turned to see eight more guns pointing from the van's opening.
“I know I'm not Karl Morgenstern.” Ness forced the door fully open and pushed the guard back inside. “You are going to let us in anyway.”
He took out his gun and marched into the atrium with the guard before him, and Angie held the door open for the rest of the copies. Ness directed him to return to his desk in the middle of the open space and yanked the cord from the phone and bound the man's wrists with it.
“Get on the floor.”
The guard slipped from his chair in acquiescence to Ness’s command. In that position, he would be hidden behind the counter. Ness stuffed a couple of sheets of paper into the man's mouth to serve as a makeshift gag then grabbed the guard's ID card from his belt.
Ness turned back to see four other copies of him along with five copies of Angie. He grinned at the group. “Remember, we each go in a different direction. And as soon as you encounter any resistance, hit the return button. Angie and I will make our way to the PU lab to deliver the duffel bag.”
Heads bobbed in response. He had distinct memories of watching the discussion from each different vantage point of his copies, and the logarithmic déjà vu almost gave him a headache.
“Make sure you keep with your correct partner,” Ness said. “You need to be together to return to our home time.”
An Angie approached him and held her right hand out to his. Both were marked with identical black dots. The other copies had two, three, four, or five dots on their hands, providing an easy way to keep the group organized.
“Let's go,” Angie said.
A flurry of identical waves came from the duplicate Nesses as they spoke in unison. “Be seeing you.”
The copy of Angie accompanying him rolled her eyes, and he grinned.
“Is the guard well secured?” she asked.
“I hope not,” Ness said. “We need someone to raise the alarm. We're a diversion, remember?”
Angie remained silent, and they watched the other copies run to stairwells and disappear behind doors.
Ness offered Angie his arm. “Shall we?”
“Let's.”
Angie put her arm through his, and they strolled to the elevator. Once inside, he selected the third floor, and the doors slid obediently closed. The cavalry was on its way.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Resolution
Wednesday, June 9, 2010, 2:36 p.m.
“What the hell happened to Karl?”
John’s raised voice nearly cracked, and Ness wondered if their captor knew how much panic it contained. Fletcher strode across the lab to confront Dix, gripped the labels of the pudgy scientist's orange-smudged lab coat, and gave him a violent shake.
“Where did he go?”
The attention of Ness’s guards wavered as Williams and Harrison watched the drama between CEO and scientist. Reed met his gaze evenly, not at all distracted from his duties. Ness glanced at the clock on the wall — 2:36 p.m. Any time now.
It took only a few seconds more before John's cell phone rang. The lab's phone emitted a shrill chirping at practically the same time. After giving the scientist one final glare, the CEO released him so he could answer his phone.
“Fletcher,” he barked. He listened silently but turned to look at Ness and Angie. “What? Are you sure?”
The scientist was holding a similar conversation over the lab's phone, typing frantically on a keyboard. An imposing monitor mounted to the wall showed the feed from four security cameras, each covering a different area within the building. Ness grinned as his copies ran across the lobby, up stairs, and along hallways. John stared at the images then glared at the captive couple. Ness gave him an innocent smile.
“What should you do?” John bellowed. “Catch them, you idiot!” He slapped the phone shut.
John stalked over to Ness with anger on his face presaging violence. But before he could release his fury, the lab door opened, and another Ness and Angie trooped in with guns at the ready. A duffel bag was slung across the copy's back.
It took a second for the hired muscle to recognize that another set of their captives had arrived, and by the time they reacted, the doppelganger couple had their guns pointed at the brutes. The duplicate Ness kept his weapon trained on Reed, and the copy of Angie covered Williams and Harrison with hers. The copy shucked the duffel bag off his back one-handed and pitched it to Ness.
He caught the bag and knelt to unzip it then removed the PDA, and John's eyes widened. Sliding the device into a pants pocket, Ness rummaged through the bag. In short order, he had found two guns and the EpiPen encased in its clear protective tube. He slipped the cylinder into another pocket and handed one of the guns to Angie, who immediately pointed it at Harrison. Her duplicate shifted her aim to between Williams's eyes. Ness lifted his gun to point directly at John. The CEO took a step backward.
“As you can see, I gave the PDA to one of my copies for safekeeping.” Ness glanced at his double. “You'd better get going.”
Everyone in the room watched the duplicate Ness pull his PDA. He and the duplicate Angie gripped it. The copy paused to smile at Ness.
“Be seeing you.” The double tapped the screen of the PDA, and they vanished.
The odd sense of following his own footsteps Ness had had since the doubles entered the room faded as he moved past his memories of the doppelganger's experiences. He cleared his throat loudly, regaining John's attention. “And now I want some answers from you. How did you know about me and the PDA?”
“I am not going to be interrogated.” John stood stiff with indignation.
“How do you feel about being shot, then?” Ness’s expression turned grim.
The CEO guffawed. “You are going to kill me? You don't have the stones for it
.”
The aim of the gun shifted lower. “There's lots of places I can shoot you that won't kill you,” Ness responded calmly. “Each of them extremely painful, but you would have a good chance to live through it.”
John looked at him warily, and Ness raised an eyebrow in silent challenge. The silence stretched out until he sighed and took aim at John's left knee.
“I will admit it took some effort to piece it all together,” John finally admitted reluctantly, “what with Paul unexpectedly dead under such mysterious circumstances. But your fingerprints were all over this room. Whoever cleaned this room did a good job but not good enough when we specifically looked for evidence of a murder. It didn’t take much investigation to find traces of blood and other organic materials in such a pattern that I surmised Paul had died right about there.”
John pointed to the spot Williams was occupying. The big man shifted to the side as if the area held a curse, increasing his distance from Harrison.
“That's enough,” Angie barked, her gun shifting from Harrison to Williams and back again.
Williams stopped moving. Ness waved his gun at John, and the CEO stepped in the indicated direction to stand next to Reed. That way, he could cover them both easily.
“I didn't kill Paul,” Ness asserted. “Glenn did.”
A bit of a sneer appeared on Reed's face, as if he were mocking Ness for not taking the life of the former director.
“Ah yes. Glenn,” John said. “He took a bit more time to unravel. I'd had no idea Paul had hired this enigmatic man, let alone given him all sorts of special access to this building. Anyway, we had your prints and videos of you arriving at the lab and talking to your double. Then you disappeared from the security feeds for half an hour. The lab appeared to be empty during the time when Paul died, even though the hallway cameras showed Paul passing through the lab door seconds before. As far as we could tell, he disappeared until he resurfaced in the pool the next day.”
Ness tried to absorb that information as well as keep the two men from attempting anything. Reed glared at him, and remembering the brute had a weapon, Ness shifted his gun to cover the older man.