Despite the distant sounds of continuing battle, a repeating squeak rises up from the hatch. We all take a step back and point our weapons down. When the hatch rises and I see the face staring back at me, I nearly pull the trigger.
It’s Langdon.
50
“What is he doing here?” Flores asks, aiming his weapon at Langdon just as I start to lower mine.
“It’s not me,” Langdon says. “I’m not him.”
I push Flores’s weapon down. “It’s my Langdon.”
“Why are you here?” Cassie asks. None of us trust him, in part because of who he becomes in the future, but also because his presence here is a little too convenient. The last thing any of us wants is to run away from a killer giant and into a tunnel full of Synergy security guards ready to gun us down. By bringing Tsul’Kalu to Langdon’s doorstep, we’ve officially declared war on him.
“My elder self. He fetched me a few hours ago. Wanted me to watch what was happening. Wanted to gloat. He’s quite vindictive.”
“I’ve noticed,” I say. “But what does he have against you?”
“I couldn’t save her,” he says, “or wasn’t willing to do what was required to save her.”
“All this is really for your wife?” Cassie asks.
As indignant as she sounds, I can’t help but wonder how far I would go to save her…or my father. What would I have given to have him back? I’ve already proven I would risk a temporal paradox, and despite the fact that he’s supposed to die tomorrow, I have killed, and would kill again, to keep him alive. But would I risk generations of Black Creek residents and defile all of space and time?
Not a chance.
“They kept me in a security center of sorts,” Langdon says. “Where they pilot the drones from and—”
“I’ve seen it,” I tell him.
“When that…thing arrived, they all became very agitated and distracted. I saw you on the security feeds and knew this entrance was nearby.”
“You broke free?” Levi asks, sounding doubtful.
“I’m not a man of action. Not like any of you. I wasn’t bound. Given the state of things when I left, I wouldn’t be surprised if they failed to notice I was missing. You have to believe me. I’m here to help. That man…that me…has my wife. Not his. And I fail to see how his actions will save her, and not kill us all.”
A drone tank, mini-gun still spinning and firing, sails past overhead before crashing into a tree and exploding. After ducking and raising his arm for cover, Levi says, “I’m gonna trust him,” and starts climbing down into the tunnel.
When he says, “All clear,” from below, I motion for the others to head down. Owen goes first, followed by Cassie. My father and Inola have taken up a kind of perimeter, weapons raised toward the sounds of battle.
“Dad, let’s go.”
He motions for Inola to move, and she does, descending quickly, followed by Flores who doesn’t need to be told twice. My father stands, backing up toward the tunnel entrance.
When he stops short, I say, “You first.”
“Can’t blame a father for trying.”
“It’s not your job to protect me,” I tell him. “Not anymore.”
“Sorry about not being there for you,” he says. “If I’d known…”
“You’d have still run in, believing you could help,” I tell him. “I was angry at you for it, but I’ve always been proud of you, too.”
“Well,” he says, turning toward the hatch, “you’re doing a better job than I—”
Trees shatter. Bullets slice through the forest. Tracers arc toward us.
“Get do—” My warning is cut short by a bee sting of pain in my thigh that drops me to the ground.
Marine Raiders are trained to assess the lethality and extent of an injury. The general rule of thumb is pain, and the kind of pain. There are several types of agony that are not lethal—like a bullet through a bone. But when the body is wounded in a way that is catastrophic, it knows. The pain of approaching death can be felt in every cell. I’ve been lucky enough to never feel it, but I’ve experienced a large enough number of injuries to know the sting on my leg is most likely a graze. Anything more from a mini-gun’s 7.62 caliber bullet would be life threatening, no matter where it hit. Especially during the Cretaceous. I don’t even bother looking at it when I push myself up.
When I turn back to the hatch and find my father still standing over it, I shout, “Get down there! Go!”
Then I spot the blood dripping from his slack hands. Time slows.
“Dad…”
He turns to face me, eyes filled with sadness more than pain.
No…
God, please, no.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, twisting as his legs give out, revealing a hole in his chest. I reach for him but I’m too slow. My father falls back, toppling through the hatch. The sound of his dead weight striking the tunnel floor is followed by a moment of stunned silence…and then my eleven-year-old scream.
I leap down the hole, landing beside my father’s still body, unaware of the pain the drop caused my knees and my open wound. I roll him onto his back, take stock of the wound, and through already blurring eyes, know there is nothing I—or anyone else—can do.
My father is dead.
Again.
Owen’s familiar wail of agony stabs me in the heart. When I look up at the boy standing there, staring at his dead father, I shout, “Get him out of here!”
Having my father die was the worst moment of my life, but I never had to go through the scarring turmoil of seeing his bloody corpse.
Until now.
Cassie leads Owen away, holding him as he weeps into her shoulder.
“God damnit,” I say, on my knees, my forehead pressed to my father’s. Tears drip from my eyes, rolling over my father’s face. “God damnit. Why didn’t you go down? Why…”
Something in my heart and mind changes. Sadness and despair are walled off with the suddenness of a nuclear blast. When I look up at Langdon, he staggers back, tripping as his heels reach the tunnel’s upward curve. I lunge, slamming him against the wall.
“Why!” I scream. “Why did he have to die again? What the fuck are you doing?”
“It’s not me,” the younger Langdon says, hands raised. “I’m not him!”
I’m oblivious to the quivering fear in his voice. All I can see is the face of the man I hold responsible for my father’s death. In the past, I had no one to blame but my own father, for trying to be a hero. Now, all my anger is directed at the man who orchestrated this shit-show, who fucked with my heart by giving me my father back and then took him away again.
A hand on my shoulder acts as a trigger. I spin around, throwing a wild punch. Lucky for me, and for Flores, he’s got quick reflexes. My fist sails past his chin as he leans out of range.
“Hey!” Levi shouts at me, redirecting my anger toward him. The moment he sees the look in my eyes, he backs away.
“I know you’re beyond pissed,” Flores says. “I can’t begin to imagine what you’re feeling. But right now, you’re a soldier with a mission, and that man isn’t your enemy. Stow it for later.”
I understand what he’s telling me. I’ve heard it before. Hell, I’ve given similar speeches to men under my command. But this is my father…my dead father reborn, returned to me, and now dead again. “Fuck you.”
“Owen,” Cassie says. It’s the tone of her voice that catches my attention. Unlike Levi and Flores, she doesn’t sound angry or on edge. She’s just sad, full of understanding. I know if I look at her, I’ll come apart. But then I hear him. The gentle whimper of a broken child. The last time I dealt with this moment, I was at home, in bed, crying into my pillow, my grandfather rubbing my back. Owen is in a dark tunnel, surrounded by monsters from the past, a madman from the future…and the closest thing he could ever have to a brother or a father—himself.
The hardness clutching my chest cracks when I see Cassie, her face wet with tears. She
loved my father, too, and I know she loves me. She knows what this moment means to both of her Owens. My legs shake when I walk to her. I nearly fall over when I go down to one knee.
“Owe,” I say, using the nickname I always liked, but no one ever used.
His already bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes peek out from Cassie’s chest. I reach out my arms and he spills into them, his deep resonating wail returning. My chest heaves once, then again, and then there is nothing I can do to stop myself from joining him. Despite the difference in pitch, our cry is the same. Our pain is the same.
And our anger is the same.
He leans back and through his tears, says, “There needs to be a reckoning for this.”
He sounds like a McCoy.
He sounds like me.
I give him a firm nod. “There will be.”
We wipe our tears away in unison, and I can see his own heart hardening along with mine. As much as it hurts to see myself so young and full of rage, I also know it will sustain him until this nightmare journey is over. We can cry again when that happens. Until then, we have a reckoning to see to.
I stand and hold out my arms to Owen. He hops up, allowing me to hold him like a smaller child, his arms around my neck, his legs wrapped around my waist. When I turn to the younger Langdon, his eyes are damp. I glance at Flores, Levi, and Inola, and see the same. These are good people. They don’t deserve my anger. I’ll save it for the man, and the monster, who do.
“I will stay with him,” Inola says. As sad as she looks, I sense that this is nothing new for her. She is accustomed to her people being killed, and is already moving past her grief. “I will protect him, until he can be laid to rest.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
She gives a solemn nod.
“Now,” I say, turning to the younger Langdon, my fury returning. “Take me to him.”
51
The younger Langdon leads us on a winding path through the network of tunnels I didn’t know existed until today. While some of this infrastructure might be new, Langdon is familiar enough with it for me to know most of it must have existed in my time. Or he has a really good sense of direction. As head of security, I should have known about all this, but it was kept secret. This Langdon might not yet be the evil, twisted, broken version of himself, but he’s not fully trusting of other people, which also makes him a bit untrustworthy. Or at least paranoid. I think he’s on our side, for now, but if push comes to shove, I don’t think I’ll be able to count on him.
But all he has to do is take me to his older self. Once he does that, he can sit out what comes next.
We stop at the base of a ladder so shiny and new I’m not sure it’s been used much at all.
“What is all this?” Levi asks. “These tunnels?”
“Infrastructure,” Langdon says. “For the collider. Power conduits. Stabilizers. Venting. Cooling. They serve a large number of—”
“Uh-huh.” Flores is either uninterested or not buying the explanation.
“Particle colliders are…unpredictable.” Langdon rubs his forehead, looking a bit nervous, no doubt worrying that we think he and his doppelganger have more in common than he’d like to admit. And he wouldn’t be wrong. “When CERN was first activated, many were convinced that it would create a black hole that would swallow the Earth. Some still believe that its activation merged two neighboring dimensions of reality, resulting in the Mandela Effect…” He pauses to look at four sets of confused eyes. “A large number of people remember Nelson Mandela dying while in prison in the 1980s, even though he didn’t. People disagree about other seemingly well known facts as well. The color of C-3PO’s leg. The number of U.S. states. The name of Jiffy peanut butter.”
“It’s Jif,” Levi says.
“Is it?” Langdon’s nervousness fades as he relaxes into the world of the theoretical. “Large portions of the population remember history—including recent history—very differently. It’s not impossible that—”
“Get to the point,” I say, putting Owen down in preparation for the climb ahead.
“The point is that I was trying to prepare for anything.”
“I reckon you failed on that account,” Levi says.
“Worse than that.” Langdon is heavy with regret. “I think my caution provided my future self with the means to warp space-time. I’m to blame for all of this.”
Taking ownership of his mistakes is a big step toward gaining my trust, but he’s still got a mountain to climb. My instinct is to say something encouraging, to put him at ease, but my engine is burning on rage. Compassion is somewhere in my rearview mirror.
I point up the ladder. “Where will this take us?”
Langdon blinks out of his malaise. “Storage Shed B. Or, rather, where Storage Shed B once stood.”
“It’s a warehouse now,” Flores adds. “We weren’t sure what was in it.”
Not knowing what’s above is tactically frustrating, but doesn’t really matter. We’re going up. I can find my way to the main building from there, but will still need Langdon to guide me to himself. The real problem is that once we poke our heads above ground, we’ll be visible to security…if they’re paying attention. But they’ve got bigger problems at the moment.
“W-would you like me to stay here, with the boy?” Langdon asks.
Owen takes my hand and squeezes.
A distant part of me appreciates the offer. Danger lies ahead. There’s no doubt about that. But we’re both the only family we have left. I won’t leave him behind, and he wouldn’t let me.
Cassie knows that as well as I do, and has no trouble reading our body language. She nudges Langdon with her pistol. “All we need you to do is poke your head up and let us know if the coast is clear.”
“Yes,” he says, taking hold of the rungs. “Of course.”
He climbs up fast, showing no fear of what might lie in wait. That’s a good sign…until something somewhere explodes, sending a tremor through the ground.
“It’s a flux,” Langdon shouts, wrapping his arms around the ladder and clutching his eyes shut. We all do the same, sharing the ladder, anchoring ourselves to the floor, but I’m not sure any of us will have the strength to resist a powerful upwelling of space and time. At least there is a roof over our heads.
When nothing happens, I realize the truth. “Just an explosion.”
“That was one hell of an explosion,” Levi says.
“Tsul’Kalu must be getting closer.”
“It has a name?” Langdon’s astonishment is almost comical.
“And it’s pissed,” I say, motioning for Flores to head up next. “So get the lead out.”
Flores hustles up the ladder, forcing Langdon to match his pace. The scientist reaches the top, unlocks the hatch, and grunts as he shoves it up. The sounds of battle slip through the opening. Shouts comingle with gunfire and above it all, laughter.
Tsul’Kalu is still enjoying himself.
Langdon looks back and forth, says, “All clear,” and then climbs out.
Flores follows quick on his heels. He’s out of the hatch for just a few seconds before looking back down and saying, “Good to go.”
While Levi starts up, I crouch beside Owen. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“I know,” he says, trying to sound brave, but he’s unable to hide the quiver in his lip. He’s burning with emotion, for our father and for the chaos he knows lies ahead.
We should be hurrying, but I don’t think we’ll get another chance to really connect once we reach the top, and since I can’t be sure both of us will make it through what comes next, I decide to say my piece now. “I know what you lost today. I know exactly how you’re feeling. It’s going to attack you more fiercely than anything we face up there. I want you to fight it, to not give in to it. I want you to rise above it. That’s what Dad would want, too.”
“Isn’t that what you did?” he asks.
“I hid from it. Separated myself from the people who mattered most.”
I glance at Cassie, who’s watching with a mixture of impatience and adoration. “And while I can’t get that time back, you have it all ahead of you.”
“We’ll rise above it together,” he says, getting a smile out of me.
“Fucking right we will,” I say, and he reciprocates the grin.
“We’re going to have to do something about your language,” he says, doing a spot-on imitation of our father, and for the first time I really see how much I look and sound like him, then and now. I’ve lost my father twice now, but he lives on in both of us.
I motion to the ladder and Owen charges up. I follow right behind him with Cassie bringing up the rear. We emerge into a warehouse that is far larger than Storage Shed B used to be. Most of the concrete floor is empty, but a few of the small tank drones armed with mini-guns are parked at charging stations. At the far end, the warehouse doors are wide open, the sounds of battle echoing through the broad space.
I duck down when errant mini-gun fire tears a line of holes through the metal walls twenty feet above us.
“This way!” Langdon says, running for an exit on the building’s side.
A pair of nervous Synergy workers step out of a back room, their arms laden with ammunition for the parked drones. They’re clearly not thrilled to be there. Even more so when they spot us. “Hey!” the chubbier of the pair shouts, “The hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Despite being grunts, both of them wear sidearms. I’m about to raise my weapon and kill both—I’m not willing to risk a gunfight—when they spot Langdon and their body language shifts into submission.
“Sorry, sir,” Chubby says, eyes on the floor. “I didn’t know you were—”
“Carry on,” Langdon says with a dismissive wave. “There’s no time for words!” I hadn’t pegged Langdon for an actor, but his delivery is perfect. Of course, it’s probably easy to act like your meaner self while the lives of several thousand people weigh on your shoulders, not to mention having a giant man-killer on the rampage.
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