Lost Friday

by Michael Bronte

  I held up the keys and jingled them in my hand. “You won’t go anywhere without these.”

  “Lose them!” David shouted. “Throw them into the bushes!”

  Aryeh tightened his hold on David’s neck, choking him. “You do, and you’re both dead,” he threatened, meaning me and Remington.

  Speaking for the first time, Remington called, “You’re the one who’s dead the second you move that gun from David’s head.”

  It was true. It would have to be a good shot, but hey, we were talking twenty-second century weapons here. Surely one of the Synthetics had his sights centered on Aryeh’s forehead, but then I remembered that I’d dodged death more than once after being fired at with these same twenty-second-century weapons. Was that just luck, or destiny? The question only served to confuse me more than ever. Remington’s hand was under my shirttail now. I didn’t know what she was planning, but anything was better than just standing there. Aryeh was almost to the truck. The Synthetics were almost to the truck. Aryeh’s weapon was still jammed against David’s skull. My hands were up and visible, one of them holding the seemingly most important object of everyone’s attention besides David’s notebook, the key to Roy’s truck. These thoughts ripped through my brain in a split second, along with the thought that, no matter what happened, there was no way I could take out four Synthetics, and Aryeh, and not get Remington and myself blown to smithereens. I stood there transfixed, waiting to see what would happen next. Remington must have sensed my paralysis.

  “Just remember,” she whispered. “It was Aryeh and the Synthetics who got it last time.” Her hand was now on Darlon’s Glock under my shirttail.

  Impulsively, I threw the keys into the darkness and dove to the ground, taking Remington with me. We hit the pavement hard, and, expecting gunfire to erupt around us, I rolled toward the truck while Remington scampered like a chipmunk on all fours in the same direction. The air erupted in a symphony of explosions, and a couple of massive slugs pinged off the sidewalk, missing my flailing arms and legs by a hair. The concrete seemed to grow teeth as I rolled over it, biting skin off my chin, my elbows, and any other piece of my body that touched the ground. Just for added drama, my leg wound either sprouted another leak, or one of the errant slugs wasn’t so errant. Pain knifed through my body as I rolled recklessly toward the truck for no other reason than to get something besides air between me and Aryeh. I rolled for what seemed an eternity, making like a mole to get under that truck. Lucky for me that Roy liked surfcasting and needed something with high ground clearance to travel the dunes on the beach.

  “Remington! Where are you?” I screamed, clanging my head against the undercarriage as I looked around. I felt the warmth of my own blood and tasted its salty tang. Wedged face down, I twisted myself like a pretzel as I tried to get a better view of what was happening around me. Meanwhile, the sound of gunfire blasted from every angle, loud, powerful pops that smacked my eardrums like cold slaps in the face. The loud, powerful pops were suddenly interrupted by a couple of deep, resonant booms, and I nearly choked on my own heart as it jumped into my throat. On the pavement right in front of me, a body dropped as if it fell from the sky, the face smashing into the curb and coming to rest with its eyes open. It was one of the Synthetics, and some of his head was gone.

  Muffling a scream, I rolled away and wedged myself into what I thought was part of the truck. Instead, it was Remington, who obviously had scurried under there herself to escape the crossfire that was happening around us. Another set of deep, resonant booms rang out, followed by a volley of deliberate and powerful blasts, five of them, which came from the direction of the Robelles’ house. I suddenly knew what was happening. As the Synthetics fell to the ground, I managed to spot Roy and Chuck Robelle emerging from behind the trees that dotted the Robelles’ front lawn. I caught the sparkle of Roy’s silver .357 as it flung off a couple of glints from the Robelles’ porch light, while Chuck shouldered the ancient goose gun he’d taken into the basement the last time he’d lived through this night.

  The four Synthetics were down again—different circumstances, but just like last time. I could see them from beneath the truck: dark, lifeless forms that dotted the landscape. The dead one on the curb was still staring at me, and I realized that his body was shielding us. Beyond him, in the visual space between his body and the truck frame, I was able to make out two sets of legs that belonged to Aryeh and David, obviously. As my eyes traveled the length of that sliver of space, I was also able to make out Roy and Chuck Robelle creep-walking toward Aryeh, Roy with his .357 aimed high, Chuck with his long, double-barreled goose gun shouldered tight against his cheek. Even in the darkness and at that distance, I could tell that the only way either of them was going to be stopped was if someone put a bullet in them.

  “Drop your weapon,” Roy called out.

  “Bring me another vehicle,” Aryeh called back.

  First the truck, now another vehicle. Clearly Aryeh wanted to go somewhere and he wanted to take David with him. Roy and Chuck kept creep-walking.

  “Bring me another vehicle now, or he dies,” Aryeh called out again. “I have nothing to lose.”

  I heard a muffled scream. I could only see Aryeh’s and David’s lower torsos, so I didn’t observe what Aryeh did to make David scream like that. It couldn’t have been pretty because Roy and Chuck stopped in their tracks. I heard them murmuring, low voices, and I supposed they were debating their options, which weren’t many. Given the situation, even I knew that Chuck’s goose gun was of no use. One blast might take out Aryeh, all right, but it would also hit David. Chuck wasn’t about to fire, and if I knew it, perhaps Aryeh knew it, provided he knew what type of weapon Chuck was holding—I didn’t suppose there were many goose guns around in the year 2194. I had no clue as to whether Roy would fire, or not, but I remembered hearing five similar blasts when the Synthetics went down. If those came from his weapon, I figured he would only have one round left.

  Another scream pierced the night, this one coming from the Robelles’ house. It was David’s mother, Jenna, screaming, “David!” over and over again. It hurt to listen to it.

  I felt Remington’s hand on my butt again, but she wasn’t searching for Darlon’s Glock this time, but pulling herself close to me. Putting one arm around me so that we were spooning almost, she pressed the Glock tight to my chest. I spit out a mouthful of blood, and took it.

  “You’re the only one who can fire this,” she whispered. “Do it the second I say now. Don’t let me down,” she added, and she was gone.

  A moment later I heard Aryeh say, “Stay where you are.” I saw Remington’s legs as she stepped away from the truck, drawing Aryeh’s attention to her and away from everything else. This woman had some real balls, I thought.

  “Or what, you’re going to kill him?” she called back. “You’ve already played that card, but we both know it doesn’t end here for David. For you, on the other hand….”

  “And for you, the next step will be your last.”

  Roy and Chuck started creep-walking again. What the hell was Remington doing? I could see her lower torso along with Aryeh’s and David’s, but it was off to the side, allowing me a clear field of vision—or a clear line of fire—at Aryeh’s legs. Which pair of legs was Aryeh’s? I asked myself. The pair behind the first pair, stupid. Aryeh couldn’t be holding David from any other position.

  “Let me tell you exactly what I’m going to do,” Remington called out. “I’m going to take three running steps, and then I’m going to launch a reverse spin kick that’s going to knock that weapon right out of your hand. Then, one of those men over there is going to shoot you.”

  I thought: could she do that? And why would she tell him what she was going to do? I saw Aryeh take a step back, while Roy and Chuck took another step forward. I suddenly knew what Remington was doing. She was bluffing, or gambling, or both. The bluff might be the spin kick—might be be
cause after what I’d seen earlier, I had the notion that she could probably do it. The gamble was that Aryeh would pull his weapon away from David’s head and aim it at her. That would allow an opening, a split second where Roy could fire and take Aryeh out. But that wasn’t really her plan. Her plan was for me to take the shot, and the anxiety washed over me as I realized I wasn’t ready. The light from the Robelles’ porch barely penetrated to where we were, and, as I looked through the sights on Darlon’s Glock, I figured it would be easier looking through Ray Charles’s sunglasses.

  “Okay, here I come.”

  Jesus, it was really happening. Was she crazy? Aryeh could blow her to bits. I used the dead Synthetic’s body to prop the Glock. Dragging David with him, Aryeh took a couple of steps back into the shadows and more of his body, and David’s, was revealed to me. That wasn’t good, however. My target was getting smaller. Remington was supposed to say, “Now,” but now never came. Aryeh took yet another step back. He was retreating. Shit! Remington’s ploy wasn’t working. I couldn’t wait. I took aim. I fired. I don’t know what it was loaded with, but that Glock kicked like a fucking cannon, and I think I blew someone’s leg right off his body.

  “Please let it be Aryeh’s,” I said to myself.

  Chapter 39… Not Finished

  Looking at the body I thought: dead again. As far as I knew, Aryeh was 0-for-2, and I wondered if he’d ever have the opportunity to live through this day again. Light headed, I sank to the ground, and tried clumsily to tighten the belt around my oozing wound.

  Remington said, “Let me do that. It looks like you’ve lost a lot of blood.” Indeed, my leg was soaked, and it was everywhere, my blood, Aryeh’s blood, the Synthetics’ blood; I could smell it, and it almost made me vomit.

  “You are one crazy woman,” I said as she tightened the belt.

  “It was either distract him, or he was getting into that truck. Then where would we be?” She wiped her bloody fingers on the cold grass. Ugh.

  “About that flying drop kick thing you did, I had no idea you could—”

  “It was a reverse spin kick, and I told you before, Pappas, there are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

  Indeed. I smiled so that she wouldn’t think I was a complete pig. “Then maybe I should get to know you a little better.”

  “Christ, Pappas. Don’t you ever stop?”

  “Wait a minute. I didn’t mean….” She just waved her hand and walked off.

  “What if I missed?” I called after her.

  “Then I figured he wouldn’t.”

  She was talking about Roy, who was walking toward us. Just like last time, I heard sirens in the distance.

  “You really have a way with her,” Roy said as he came up to me. He looked down at Aryeh’s body. “I never would have gotten a shot off if you hadn’t fired.”

  I guess I was getting used to seeing bodies with huge gaping wounds in them because the fact that Aryeh’s corpse was missing his left foot—my doing—and his neck looked like a tiger had taken a bite out of it—Roy’s doing—didn’t seem to bother me. It was clearly him, or David, or me. “Double-crossing, low-down, no good, dirty rat fink fuck.” Okay, got that out of my system. “Where’s David?” I asked.

  “Over there with his folks.”

  “And the formulas?”

  “He’s still got them. Won’t let go of them.”

  “We’ve got to destroy those formulas, Roy. We’ve got to get them, burn them, and make sure there’s no copy of them anywhere.”

  “We can’t burn what’s in his head, Johnny.”

  “Then he can reveal their existence some other time, in the proper scientific environment, not on an Internet chat room.”

  “Maybe you can convince him to hand them over.”

  Roy caught sight of his truck and I swear I saw a tear form in his eye. He walked over to it, and said, “Looks like it might be the end of the line, old girl.” The truck popped a hiss as if in response. It was sad.

  While Roy was lamenting his loss, I hobbled over to the Robelles who were all huddled around Chuck like he was Rambo and he’d just saved the village. I looked at the notebook.

  David smiled a sinister little smile, which I thought was odd until he handed it to me. “They’re fake,” he said.

  I wasn’t really surprised, as I figured all along that David had something up his sleeve. Still, I wish I’d known that we were risking life and limb for a worthless notebook.

  Taking David by the shoulders, Chuck said, “Where are the real formulas, David? We’ve got to destroy them.”

  “We can’t, Dad. There are people already trapped in the future. If we destroy them now, they’ll never come back.”

  I thought: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. My cell phone buzzed and I figured it was Romano, who I needed right now like I needed a toothache. Not even bothering to look at the incoming number, I said, “You’ll have your damned story when I get to it.”

  “Johnny, it’s Demetrius. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Demetrius. Ah, I’m kinda busy right now.”

  “Listen, there’s something you need to know.”

  “I told you, I’m—”

  “Johnny, shut up and listen for a change. Earlier tonight, in the diner, a bunch of guys came in. Normally, I wouldn’t have paid any attention to them, you know, I thought maybe just a bunch of hoo-hahs looking for some shore nookie.”

  “Demetrius, get to the point.”

  “Yeah, okay. So anyway, there were four of them.”

  “So?”

  “So they all looked like twins.”

  “You mean quadruplets.”

  “Whatever. I thought it was kinda strange, so I go over, you know, just to satisfy my curiosity.”

  “Right, Demetrius. Listen, I don’t have much time.”

  “You need to make time for this, Johnny. It’s about you.”

  That rang my bell. “Go on.”

  “So as I’m going up to them, I hear one of them say, ‘Supposedly this reporter knows about the president. Our mission is to find him, and bring him to Roarke.’”

  I thought, fuckin’ A. That’s why I wasn’t gunned down like a rabid dog. That, and the only place the information could have come from was Allison Kovar or Scott Reemer. Roy’s tactic must have worked. I suddenly had a million questions. “You say there were four of them?”

  “It didn’t sound good, Johnny.”

  “Tell me, have you seen any new ladies in the diner lately?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Yeah, sure. What kind of ladies?”

  “Barbies. You know, tall, thin, blonde, big dolmades.”

  “Johnny, it’s a little late in the season, but half the chicks on the Jersey Shore look like that this time of year.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Now that you mention it….”

  “When, Demetrius, when? Was it about the same time as you saw the four twins?”

  “Maybe a half-hour before that, actually. Didn’t think much of it, though. Is that important?”

  “Did the four twins say anything else?”

  “About what?”

  “Jesus, Demetrius, the weather.”

  “Hey, I’m trying to help you here.”

  I took a deep breath, thinking: patience, Johnny, patience. “C’mon Demetrius, I know you listen in on peoples’ conversations.”

  “That’s low, Johnny. I’m just trying to catch an occasional stock tip, or something.”

  Right. “So what was it?”

  “They kept talking about the kid.”

  “How so?”

  “I just heard the kid this, the kid that, nothing specific…. Oh, except that another squad would take care of it, whatever that meant. I don’t know what you’ve got yourself tangled up in this time, Johnny, but you better watch it. These guys didn’t look fri
endly.”

  I said, “Thanks, Demetrius. I owe you one.”

  I walked over to Roy, who was still grieving over his truck. “It’s me.”

  “What’s you?” he asked without looking over.

  “Your idea of planting information with the teachers looks like it paid off. These guys were after me, not David.”

  His eyes shifted. “Last time too?”

  “Probably. We were reading this all wrong. A whole other team of Synthetics was coming after David.”

  “Was?”

  “Was, is, what’s the difference?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Remington running toward us. “All the lawns on the next street?” she said breathlessly.

  “Yeah?”

  “They all have blocks of helium on them.”

  I said, “Lost Friday: it’s starting all over again.”

  We all turned when Jenna made a noise that sounded like she’d sucked a bird out of the air. “Chuck, look!” she said, pointing back toward their house. Inside, intruders were plainly visible through the windows.

  Roy said, “We need a vehicle.”

  The sirens were still sounding in the distance, too far off to be of any help. I held out my hand. Roy smiled as he took the keys. “I thought you heaved these into the next county.”

  “Those were the keys to my ’Vette. I knew Aryeh would never know the difference.”

  Everyone moved toward the truck but stopped when David said, “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s uh-oh?” I asked, not liking the sound of that.

  “The real formulas are still inside the house.”

  Roy, Chuck, Remington, and I all said, “Shit,” at the same time.

  * * * * *

  “How many rounds are left in that thing?”

  Roy popped the clip. “I’m not quite sure what they are, but there are seven.” He checked the breach, and added, “Plus one in the hole.”