by Ramy Vance
Rueben didn’t know how to answer. Up ahead was an exit leading toward the countryside of upstate New York. Buzz only needed to maneuver around one car hogging the wide exit lane in front of them, and they’d be off to the races with them in a Ferrari and Pete vastly outmatched.
“Well?” Aki said.
The Nissan’s engine revved, and there was an impact from behind.
Buzz cringed as he gripped the steering wheel. Tires squealed. The Ferrari’s front end nearly ran under the rear fender of the car in front of them, but Buzz managed to control the sports car.
The car in front of them did a three-sixty and came to a stop against the concrete retaining wall. Buzz accelerated past, following the exit’s curve and entering a long, wide-open road. There was only one problem: part of the car’s quarter panel thumped against one of the rear tires as they accelerated, torn loose from Pete’s impact.
Rueben checked on the foursome. “Everyone okay?”
Aki winked. “Not the first car chase I’ve been in.”
Martha laughed. “Me neither.”
“No shit?”
“I’m a cop. We kind of invented them.”
Buzz passed the back of his hand across his sweating forehead. “Uh, guys. I’m not. Hear that sound back there like a rabbit tossed into a cycling clothes dryer? By my calculations, the driver’s side rear tire will deteriorate to the point of failure within…two hundred and ninety seconds.
“So we’ve got less than five minutes to outwit Pete?” Rueben said.
Aki punched Rueben’s arm. “Pete? Why didn’t you tell us that you know this dick’s name?”
“It’s…”
“A long story? Rueben, you and I…you’re really straining our relationship right now.”
“Relationship? I didn’t think we were in a relationship.”
Aki rolled her eyes. “Well, you know what I mean. Our, uh, work thing. You know.”
Rueben didn’t know. Women were so hard to understand. “Wait, so are you saying there’s a chance—”
“Uh, guys,” Buzz interrupted. “T-minus four minutes and counting.”
Rueben sat up straight and drew a deep breath, trying to focus. It was hard with that awful flapping sound coming from the tire. “Guys, I need to tell you something, and I need you not to think I’m crazy.” He didn’t wait for his friends to respond. “The guy chasing us. The one who calls himself Pete. I don’t know how exactly, but he’s an older version of me.”
“What?” Aki said.
Buzz slapped the top of the steering wheel. “Bingo.”
Rueben screwed his eyebrows together. “Bingo?”
“Yeah. Totally makes sense. His voice. It kinda reminded me of yours.”
Martha shuddered in her seat and raised her hands. “I’m not even going to argue it.”
“But,” Rueben said. “It makes no sense. I mean, time travel doesn’t work that way—”
Buzz looked like he was about to scream in irritation. “Look, people. If you think about it too much, you’ll break it. Three minutes, twenty-seven seconds!”
Aki’s face lit up in the glow of her cell phone as she studied her GPS app. “Take the next right turn, then the next left.”
Buzz did.
“Careful. There’s a curve coming up.”
Rueben watched out the window as the city's bright lights began to fade behind them, and fields and vineyards started to open ahead of them under the moonlight.
They took the curve, and Buzz followed a few more directions from Aki. All the while, the flapping sound increased in intensity and sound.
Rueben turned and glanced at the headlights far behind them. It was Pete. He was still on their tail.
Buzz called over his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. You think of a plan yet?”
“You’re our resident genius,” Martha countered.
“Woman, I’m driving!” Buzz blurted, and that reminded Rueben of how scared Buzz had been on the Pout mission at the Canadian border when things had gotten hairy.
Rueben groaned. “I’m thinking.”
Buzz slammed on the horn for good effect. “That’s your problem, son. Sometimes you gotta learn not to think. That man in the Nissan is you. Which means he thinks like you. This means you gotta do something he wouldn’t expect. Forty-two seconds left!”
“Good idea, Buzz. Good idea.” But what could Rueben do that was completely out of character and thus unpredictable to Pete? There had to be something—
“Buddy,” Buzz said. “You’re thinking too hard again. Blurt out the first thing that enters your mind…now!”
“I sometimes pleasure myself to Aki’s photographs!”
“Ew, gross,” Martha said.
Ah shit… There was dumb, and there was dumber. Why had he said something so stupid? He turned to Aki as he scratched behind his ears. “I er, uh…”
“Ten seconds!”
She wasn’t mad at him. In fact, by the sexy pout on her lips, she looked turned on. “It’s cool. It’s cool. You do know that half the guys in our division probably do that. You’re just the only one with the balls to admit it.”
Whoa. So it looked like he’d scored major points with Aki.
Suddenly, a loud thudding smacked up and down beneath the car’s low undercarriage.
“Ahh!” It was Buzz.
Rueben swallowed. “What? Did time run out?”
“No. Squirrel.”
Then time ran out, and the back tire exploded, sending them swerving and careening off the country road.
Chapter Eleven
Friday, May 19, 11:13 p.m.
The Ferrari eventually came to a stop in the ditch off to the side of the road. Since it was now facing the way they had come, they had a good view of Pete’s Nissan speeding ever closer to them. Its twin headlights cast an eerie glare through the dark countryside.
From the back seat, Rueben rubbed his forehead and unbuckled his seatbelt, hoping the rest of his friends had buckled in as well. “Guys?”
“Still here,” Martha said.
Aki unbuckled her seatbelt. “Yep. Ditto.”
“I’m alive too,” Buzz said. Followed by, “Wait. You masturbate to Aki’s photo?” as if his brain had only now processed Rueben’s words. He beat the meat of his fist against his forehead. “TMI, Rueben. TMI.”
Rueben sighed. He had a feeling this little tidbit would become a recurring jab. If we all survive and I don’t have to die to warp backward and do this all over again… “I’m glad everyone’s all right. Now we’ve got to scram. And fast.”
Two car doors clicked open almost in unison, and they all got out. Luckily neither of the doors had jammed in the wreck. After a glance at their dark surroundings, Rueben stumbled away from the road and toward what appeared to be a vineyard. He ducked under a vine as he sidled between two rows of trellises. “Follow me.”
They did, and they stumbled through the rows of grape plants. Behind them on the road, they heard Pete’s car screech to a halt, followed by the opening and closing of a car door.
Rueben and company meanwhile continued through the vineyard, their hands held out before them and guiding the way in the dark. The moon was bright, but the trellises cast some awful-looking shadows into their path. Once, Rueben glanced over his shoulder and thought he saw a spider crawling on his arm. He swatted at it in case it wasn’t a shadow and it wasn’t. It was a spider, and it happened to land on Aki’s chest. She yelped, then punched Rueben in the arm, a little harder than Rueben would’ve liked.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“I hear you.” It was Pete’s voice, coming loud and clear from somewhere in the rows behind them.
“I’m too young to die,” Buzz whined and took off with a burst of speed in front of them.
Rueben huffed and panted. His legs were about to give out. “Wait up. Buzz, we can’t get…separated.”
“We’re separated.” Martha pulled up beside Rueben at an easy trot. Damn her and her police training. “I’l
l go ahead and catch him before he does something stupid.” She took off.
Aki slapped Rueben on the elbow. “Then there were two. Hope you’re a fan of horror movies.”
“Uh, I don’t particularly like them.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Rueben nodded as he continued to move forward. “There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”
“I have a feeling you’ve got a lot more to hide than me.” There wasn’t exactly condemnation in Aki’s voice, but there was impatience.
“That’s why I’m glad you’re such a great friend who understands that I’ll tell her shortly. We have to survive this psycho chasing us first.”
Aki reached toward her back pocket for her phone. “We need backup. I’ll call Sven.”
“Sven? No—”
“Damn. There’s no signal out here.”
That’s odd, Rueben thought. They weren’t too far out from the city. Was something else in play out here? Was Pete somehow blocking the nearby cell towers with some hi-tech device under his hoodie?
Rueben and Aki passed an open area in the grape trellises and came to a tall wooden stake with a scarecrow stuck to it.
He braked and did a double-take. “Who puts a scarecrow out in the middle of May?”
Aki stopped beside him, and her hand brushed his. “Creepy.”
The scarecrow suddenly moved. Buzz popped out from behind it, followed by Martha.
Rueben shook his head and whispered, “Not funny. Especially without any cell service out here.”
“I know.” Buzz nodded, the moonlight reflecting off his dark eyes. “And I think I know why.”
“Cell jammers,” Rueben said.
“Right,” Buzz said.
“Pete.”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong?” Rueben studied his friend. They had to keep moving.
Buzz scratched behind his head. “They’re one of my top-secret government clearance-only proprietary cell jammers.”
“Um, okay…We need to go.” Rueben turned away from Buzz to continue running in the direction they’d headed before they came across the scarecrow in the open area.
Buzz’s voice came as a harsh whisper. “No. Rueben. Follow me. I know the way.”
Frustrated—and more than a bit worried his friends were about to get slaughtered by Pete—Rueben turned back to Buzz, surprised when he saw the screen of Buzz’s smartphone held in his hand. Its screen resembled a submarine’s sonar display—probably one of Buzz’s proprietary phone apps. A blip on the screen flashed every time the clockwise-spinning “sonar line” passed over it.
Buzz started off at a jog in the direction of the blip. Instead of running parallel with the trellises, Buzz’s path shot through a wide-open aisle running perpendicular to the trellises. That meant they wouldn’t have to worry about ducking under vines and swatting spiders.
Rueben grunted and caught up to Buzz while Martha and Aki followed on his heels. He glanced over at Buzz. “What are you smiling about?”
“These are my favorite type of grapes we’re running through. Merlot. I’m a fine wine connoisseur.”
“Dude, you’re a drunk.”
“Heh. Whatever. You dork.”
“Uh, you’re also a dork.”
“Geez, Rueben, can you let me have a win now and then?”
Rueben winced. He tried to think calmly. “What if we’re running blind into a trap? Some government facility where they experiment on aliens or something, and they subdue us and keep us in cages…?”
A lot of good Rueben’s warping ability would do for him there.
“It’s not a government facility. It’s…well, that’s my jamming signal. As in…”
“As in what?” Rueben said.
“Well. I…don’t know. I don’t remember ever coming out here.”
“Great. Just great.”
From behind them, Aki and Martha pulled even with Buzz and Rueben, and a few moments later, the four of them passed the last row of grapes. They entered a giant clearing, with a medium-sized metal pole barn painted black like the night standing before them.
“I don’t know what’s inside, but that’s where we need to go,” Buzz said excitedly.
Rueben leaned forward with his hands resting on his knees as Martha peered distrustfully at the black barn. “We’re not going inside there, are we?”
“I’m coming for you!” Pete shouted from the grape rows behind them.
Aki met Martha’s eyes. “I think we are.”
They sprinted up to the barn.
Chapter Twelve
Friday, May 19, 11:42 p.m.
Buzz was standing at the barn’s front door. His friends gathered around him as he flipped open a keypad concealed on the wall. After a moment, he tapped out a four-digit code. A red light beeped beside the keypad, and a small speaker squawked. A robotic voice said, “Incorrect.”
Red laser lights blinked on from somewhere high on the wall and trained down on each of their four torsos like sniper lasers.
“You have ten seconds to vacate the premises before the self-destruct protocol activates. One. Two. Three.”
“Buzz,” Rueben said.
“Hold on, hold on.” He quickly tapped out another code.
“Incorrect. Targets acquired.”
Gun barrels slid out from the wall above them, and Rueben gripped his buddy’s shirt. “Buzz…”
Buzz tapped a third code, and a green light flashed on the keypad. The gun barrels slid back into their housings, and the laser lights blinked out so that all that remained was a harmless-looking barn wall. The door slid open with a hiss of air. This was no normal pole barn.
The interior was pitch black, and Buzz stepped inside. “Umm, after me.”
After exchanging looks, his three friends followed.
Soft ceiling light panels came to life as they entered, revealing a futuristic airplane-hanger interior. There were no planes, but there were plenty of metal workbenches lined with hi-tech-looking gadgets and instruments. At the back of the room were several bookcases lined with hardcover books.
Rueben rubbed his eyes to make sure he saw correctly. “Uh, Buzz?”
Buzz was already inspecting a small box-like device with a tiny needle projecting from one reflective metal surface. It was about the size of a small Rubik’s cube with several tiny ports for hooking it up to some kind of electronics. “Yeah, buddy?”
“I think it’s time for you to explain.”
From behind them, the door slid shut, and Aki and Martha went to inspect it.
Buzz slipped the shiny cube into his pocket and whistled. “I wish I could.”
Rueben scowled. “What do you mean you wish you could?”
“As far as I know, I’ve never been here before. I don’t recall ever creating any of this.” He gestured at an item lying upon one of the benches. It looked like a cross between a futuristic weed-eater and a portable vacuum cleaner. “But this is all my handiwork.”
Martha rejoined Buzz and Rueben. “What do you mean?”
Buzz picked up a sleek-looking spinning top and held it upside down. There was a tiny BL insignia at the bottom. “That’s my secret logo. It’s trademarked. And clearly my design. But I never built it.”
Now Aki stepped up to them. “A top? You’re building children’s toys for the government or something?”
Buzz smirked and pressed a tiny button on the top of its spinner before balancing the top upon the workbench. “Ready for this?” He gave his thumb and forefingers a hard twist, and the top began to spin. Suddenly, razor blades clicked out from the top’s sides as it spun, and they all stepped back a step in surprise except for Buzz, who only stood and watched like a proud father.
“You knew that was going to happen, but you didn’t build it?” Rueben asked.
His friend nodded. “It’s how I would’ve designed it.” He tapped the side of his head. “It’s how my brain thinks.”
Martha made a face. “You have a danger
ous brain.”
“Why, thank you.”
“That wasn’t really a compliment.”
The sound of a gun blast interrupted her words. It had come from right outside the barn. A moment of silence followed and then, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Aki eyed Rueben closely. “Your buddy Pete. Or is he some kind of future you?” She stood with her hands on her hips. “It’s hard to keep all your secrets straight.”
“Look, I—”
Martha stepped between Rueben and Aki. “That madman has us cornered. We’ve got to do something.”
Aki nodded and noticed a computer monitor on the opposite side of the floor. It looked like security footage split-screen. “I’m going to check that out. See if I can get a fix on that asshole’s location out there.”
She took off for the monitor. Rueben turned to Buzz and jabbed a finger at his shirt. “I don’t like the coincidence of being chased by that man and you stumbling upon some secret barn in the middle of a field containing a bunch of secret tech you built but didn’t build. What the hell am I missing?”
Rueben released his grip, and Buzz straightened his shirt. “If Pete is you and you’re both warpers, it’s possible that this has already happened and you just don’t remember.”
“Huh?”
“This is speculation, but maybe Pete has already chased us way out here. And now he’s trying to do it again, to see what happens or to get a different outcome.”
Rueben shook his head. “Then why don’t I remember?”
“Because. If he died and warped back, you wouldn’t have remembered.” Suddenly a futuristic-looking tablet caught his eye on the next bench over. He swept it up into his hands and unlocked the screen with a password on the second attempt.
“Buzz, what is it?” Rueben asked hurriedly.
“Ho-ly shitstorm!”
Martha huffed. “Well, don’t leave us in suspense. We’re running out of time.”
Buzz tilted the screen down so that Rueben could see. It contained a few lines of text, but they made no sense. They were in code.
“Buzz,” Rueben said.