CHAPTER THREE
Brad said, “2076, what kind of joke is that?”
Ali stood there, motionless, wide eyed, in terrified shock. Tony looked around, his own panic receding to a morbid curiosity as he deduced what Jeanell had already figured out.
“No, Brad,” Jeanell said, “it’s true.”
Reeves asked her, “It’s impossible. It’s 2017!”
Ric repeated, “2017?”
Jeanell nodded. “We’re here from 2017, but this really is 2076, isn’t it?”
Ric also seemed to understand, a cold understanding taking his pale expression. “It is.”
Tony asked, “We… we traveled through time? No fucking way!”
“That’s impossible,” Brad said, “there must be some other explanation.”
“I’m afraid it is possible,” Jeanell said, “and what other explanation can there be?”
Ric said to Jeanell, “Explain yourself.”
“We work… worked for Earthtech, a company developing a synthetic black hole technology. It was meant to dispose of the garbage polluting the planet, toxic spills, things like that. We thought we could create a black hole and then just deposit our debris into it.”
Ric said, “You’re Jeanell Glenn?”
“I am.”
“That’s what they said back in the control room,” Lux said. “It sounded kind of rehearsed to me.”
Brooke said, “Oh, this is ridiculous. The chancellor’s really reaching this time. And if they’re here, the chancellor knows we’re here! Ric, we gotta kill them, right now!”
“Enough,” Ric said. “Let’s hear her out.”
Jeanell asked Ric, “How do you know my name?”
Brooke said to her, “Because I’m Michelle Obama, and this is George Washington.”
Jeanell said, “I don’t understand.”
Ric said, “Jeanell Glenn invented the synthetic black hole, everybody knows that.”
Jeanell couldn’t help but smile. It didn’t last. “You mean… I’m famous?”
“Your invention changed the world, Miss Glenn.”
Brooke asked Ric, “You’re not really buying into all this?”
Jeanell went on, “So… it works?” She turned to Ali. “Ali, it works! Ali?” But Ali was barely conscious.
Brad asked Jeanell, “So how are we even alive, much less sixty years into the future?”
“It was your fault,” Jeanell said. “Your panic introduced the God Particle into the collider, that was the missing ingredient.”
Tony asked, “But why are we in the future?”
Ric said, “I can tell you that. The holes work via the space-time continuum. We use it… strictly… for space, to travel from one place to another, transport things, shipping, things like that. Miss Glenn, you’re well known for having died in an explosion in an early experiment which yielded decisive results.”
Tony said, “Really? You mean… we’re all famous? Awesome!”
Lux said, “Just her,” snarling in the silence that followed.
Ric went on, “But time travel’s not possible for us, and it’s absolutely outlawed.” A cold stone turned in Jeanell’s gut as the entirety of their situation became clear. “And they’re monitoring it very, very closely.”
Jeanell said, “Makes sense. The person who can successfully travel in time would rule the world, they’d be unconquerable.”
Ric said, “That’s right. And if the chancellor can’t have that power, nobody can.”
Brooke asked Ric, “You think they’re telling the truth?”
Ric looked Jeanell over, blinking slowly and nodding with a sad resolve. “I do.”
Brooke broke a mean smile. “Then let’s get this done with.”
Lux pushed Jeanell and the others forward, inspiring a new struggle. “Wait? What are you doing?”
Brooke said, “Puttin’ you down, little doggies.”
Brad said, “Stop! We told you, we’re not spies, we don’t know this chancellor! We’re innocent!”
“I believe you,” Ric said, “and I’m sorry, truly I am. But Brooke’s right, we don’t have any choice.”
Jeanell pulled and tugged but couldn’t free herself. “But… why?”
Ric explained, “If you really know the secret using the holes for time travel, it’s just too dangerous to let you live. If somebody gets a hold of that information, well, as you said.”
“But I wouldn’t tell anybody!”
“You all know, and one of you will crack. Believe me.”
Tony said, “Oh, c’mon, man! I’ll join you! Be cool, I’m one of you now.”
“Sorry, bud,” Ric said. “Can’t take any chances.”
Reeves struggled harder as other men closed in on Brad and Tony. Ric said, “Geoffrey, go get the sledge.”
Brad said, “What? You can’t club us to death with a sledgehammer!”
Ric shrugged. “If we had a better way…”
Lux pushed Jeanell to a fallen block of concrete, resting diagonally, already stained with blood. She tried in vain to resist, gasping in fear as Lux pushed her to her knees, shoving her forward, face pressing against the concrete.
“Please don’t do this.”
“Honestly,” Ric said, “if we had any choice at all. But these are terrible times, and they give us few alternatives. If you were just wayward refugees, of course we’d let you stay, welcome you among us. But you being who you are, knowing what you do. I hope you understand, it’s for the good of all mankind. It’s necessary for the survival of the entire human race!”
Jeanell’s blood ran cold. She knew he was right. She also knew that, in a lot of ways, she’d already died. And if letting go meant saving the planet and everybody on it, she reasoned that it wouldn’t be such a bad death. And having created so much, contributed so much to society and living long enough to see the results, was more than most people ever got, no matter how long they lived.
But resolved or not, regretful or fulfilled, young or old, pretty or bookish, private or popular, Jeanell’s life was about to end, and brutally.
“Please, don’t,” Brad said.
“You’re next,” Brooke sneered as Geoffrey raised the sledgehammer over Jeanell’s head.
Bam, bam, bam! The machine gunfire rattled through the next hall. Jeanell looked up as Ric looked over, everyone quickly confused. Clack, pop! A smoke grenade went off in the reception area just before a dozen armed men in black uniforms ran into the room, carrying guns and wearing gas masks.
Ric shoved Geoffrey aside and screamed to Lux, “Get her out through the back!”
“She’ll slow us down!”
“We’ve got no choice now!”
Lux glanced back at the invading soldiers, then wrenched Jeanell up from the concrete and dragged her through the smoke to a back room on the other side of the reception area. Jeanell was dazed, but she was aware enough to take in her chaotic surroundings. Reeves grappled with one soldier, an automatic rifle between them, each one wrestling for control of the weapon and the room.
Brad snuck away through the smoke, laying low and not even bothering to notice poor Ali’s dead body, face up with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. Brooke and the others ran or fought or died in a swirl of violence and bloodletting. Jeanell’s eyes burned, her lungs hot and cramping around that smoke as they dragged her through the door and down another long hallway.
Jeanell was still locked in Lux’s grip, and he rasped, “Stop wriggling, you little snipe! We’re trying to save your neck!”
“You’re going to kill me,” Jeanell said. “One way or another, just like the others.”
“If I wanted you dead,” Ric said, leading them into a concrete stairwell to begin a long series of flights, “I’d have Lux here snap your neck in a shot.”
“Why? What’s changed?”
“They’ve already found us,” Ric said. “Probably captured your friends alive.”
“No,” Jeanell said, “not all.”
“One would be enough. Now I need you to stop the chancellor once and for all, before they learn what your friends know.”
“Okay, fine,” she said, “so will you please tell Gargantua here to let me go? He’s breaking my arms!” Ric and Lux shared a glance, then looked around the stairwell. She added, “Where am I gonna run?”
Ric said to Lux, “She stays between us.” Lux nodded and he let go of Jeanell. Her shoulders ached as she instinctively wrapped her arms across her chest. Ric said, “Okay, let’s go.” The three ran up the stairs with Ric in front, Jeanell in the middle, and Lux taking up the rear.
About a mile up the stairwell, Jeanell’s arms felt better but her legs were stiff, throbbing. And her conscience stung. “I can’t believe you killed my friends.”
“I didn’t kill anybody,” Ric said. “Considering you’re the ones who brought the chancellor down on us, it’s truer to say that you killed my friends.”
He had a fair enough point, and there was little Jeanell could say except, “I… I’m sorry about that. But how was I supposed to know, how could I have anticipated any of this?”
“You invented the damn thing, didn’t you?”
“Not alone, no.”
“You think you can un-invent it?” Jeanell knew then what she faced—the impossible. She could only shake her head. Ric said, “You think you can stop talking and keep climbing? You’ll need your breath.” They turned and proceeded without speaking, their footfalls echoing in the tall, concrete chamber.
You don’t have to tell me how far it is to the surface, how long a climb it is! I was here when they built this place! But of course, Jeanell said nothing. She had no idea what the future held, but she knew she’d be relying on these two men, at least until she could escape them.
They got to the stairwell, which would open onto the compound. Ric said to Lux, “We could be stepping into a hornet’s nest of them.”
Lux glanced downward. “We wait, we take the chance they’ll come up behind us.”
Jeanell asked, “Won’t we hear them coming?”
The men looked at her as if she had no right at all to speak. Ric said, “We wait, they might just come through the door and nail us.”
Lux nodded, looking at the door. “Could be boobytrapped too.”
Ric said, “Yeah.” He looked around. “Guess it’s damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
“Then, let’s just do it,” Jeanell said, pushing past them to the door. “We’re dead anyway.”
Ric grabbed her arm. “We’re not doing it that way.”
“Oh, let go of me! You can’t keep dragging me around like a rag doll!”
“Then don’t make me!”
Boom! A distant explosion rocked the stairwell, muffled by distance. Ric and Lux looked at each other. Ric said. “I’ll go first.”
“No,” Lux said, “I’ll go.” He stepped in front while Ric led Jeanell back and down a few steps. Lux approached the door. He set his hand on it, palm flat against the door, first up high and then down low. He put his ear to the door, Jeanell and Ric looking on in silence. Lux slowly reached for the safety bar, stretching the width of the door. He glanced at Ric and gave him a nod, then gently pushed the safety bar forward. It clicked in and Lux paused, waiting. He nodded again at Ric before pushing into the safety bar, opening the door in front of him.
Bang! The door blew with a flash, blinding and earsplitting. The door flew back, pushing Lux back to the wall of the stairwell. Ric had wrapped his arms around Jeanell’s head and ducked them both down, bits of wood and metal screws flying around them.
They stayed down, waiting for some response from the other side. Jeanell couldn’t help but lock eyes with Lux, staring at her, eyes wide and lifeless, a blank death stare that blamed her, cursed her.
No action seemed to come from the other side of the blasted-out doorway, and Ric eased her up and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
They stepped past Lux, and Ric turned to him in a bittersweet moment. “Goodbye, brother.” He sighed, then turned to Jeanell and took her by the hand. “Stick with me, no matter what.” Jeanell nodded. “I mean it. Whatever you think of me, you have to know those others are worse. Whatever you think I’m going to do to you, you have to know what they’ll do will be a lot worse and take a lot longer. Understand?” She nodded again. “Say it.”
“I understand.”
“You’ll stick with me, no matter what.”
“No matter what.”
Ric looked at her, and Jeanell could see him wrestling with her trust. She knew it wasn’t without good reason. But she had little choice but to reassure him, and he had little choice but to believe her.
They crept out the door and looked around. It was late afternoon, and Jeanell’s eyes burned from the glare and the smoke. Blasts and gunshots rang out from various areas of the compound, which was nine square miles in total, several structures and stairwells, complex underground mazes of hallways and offices surrounding the big particle collider.
Ric clutched Jeanell’s hand and led her out of the staircase and onto the grounds, peering around. Like the underground complex, the structures above were timeworn—paint peeling, windows shattered.
They scurried across a wide area between the stairwell and the administration building. Jeanell felt exposed, vulnerable, each step seeming to go in slow motion beneath her. She knew if they were spotted, they’d be shot dead or worse, taken alive. The further across the quad they scurried, the further the admin building seemed to get. Jeanell was certain she’d get a bullet in the back of her head at any time, if she was lucky.
They finally reached the admin building and pressed their backs against the wall. Voices leaked into the background and Ric led Jeanell to slide down the wall toward the other corner. They turned just as a pair of armed men in black uniforms walked past. One of them stopped the other and peered around, eyes finding the corner Jeanell and Ric hid behind. He stepped closer and Ric edged Jeanell further back. Her heart pounded in her chest, she was certain the guard could hear it.
With some commotion on the other side of the building Jeanell couldn’t see, the guards ran off, shouting something Jeanell couldn’t quite understand, then released a blast of automatic gunfire.
Jeanell’s heart sank. She couldn’t help but wonder, Who was it? Brad? Reeves? One of those little mute kids, maybe both?
But she didn’t have time to think about it, and she was glad. Ric pulled her away and they scurried further along, away from the admin building and toward the western fence. “We can’t climb that,” Jeanell said.
“Don’t have to.” Ric pulled Jeanell up to a big bush near the fence. He lifted it up to reveal a hidden passage to a tunnel through the earth. “Hurry, go!” Jeanell’s legs froze from under her, but he repeated with a hiss, “Do it before they spot us!”
Jeanell climbed into the dark, airless pit. Ric followed and pulled the door closed above him.
There was absolutely no light, but Ric produced a small butane cigarette lighter and struck it, the flame giving the dank tunnel a flickering glow. Jeanell asked, “What is this, your underground lair?”
“You ruined our underground lair. We dug this out just in case, and it’s a good thing we did.”
“Where does it lead?”
“About three miles off the compound, about two miles from Boulder.”
They walked on, crouching from the low dirt ceiling, wooden slats supporting the structure. “You sure this is safe?”
Ric shook his head. “Never had to use ‘em.”
“Them?”
“Sure, there are three of them in different parts of the compound. That reception area itself had several exits, so did that control room you… woke up in.”
“So… others could have escaped too.”
“Could have,” Ric repeated. “Let’s hope they did. Frankly, what’s going to happen to the ones who were captured alive worries me. Still, one thing at a time.”
Jeanell couldn’t even begin to guess, and truly, she didn’t want to know. “And what’s the next thing… besides get out of this hole?”
Ric looked at Jeanell, mistrust still in his eyes. “What part of one thing at a time don’t you understand?”
“Hey, no reason to be rude.”
Ric paused, then broke a little smile. “You’re right, I apologize. It’s been a stressful day.”
“Oh, has it been a stressful day for you?”
“Hey, no reason to be sarcastic.”
Jeanell had to pause with a nod. “You’re right, I apologize.”
They walked on for another hour until the dwindling light of dusk peeked through the dark. Ric paused at the exit, peeking out before turning to Jeanell. “Looks like we’re okay. I won’t hold you, but don’t run off. You might think it’s a smart move, you might think you’ll find a way, be better off. But you won’t make it three days, trust me. You have no idea what things are like now.”
“I was a history fan,” Jeanell said, “I think I have some idea.”
“No,” he said, leading her out into the woods, “you don’t.”
They stepped out, stretching their aching backs and looking around. Jeanell said, “Looks the same to me.”
“It’s the woods,” Ric said, “what was gonna change out here?”
Jeanell shrugged to give it some thought. “I suppose by this time they might not even have been any woods left at all.”
Ric chuckled, gesturing to the west, toward Boulder. “Let’s go. The further we get from the compound, the better.”
Jeanell couldn’t disagree. She had no idea where he was leading her, but she knew that to linger could be a fatal mistake. She nodded and followed Ric into the Colorado woods, into the relative safety of the cougars and bears and the encroaching night.
“Are we going to make it there by nightfall?”
“No, but there’s a trail about two miles out of town. Moonlight will get us there, your eyes will adjust.”
“Uh-huh. And then what?”
Ric stopped and looked at her. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
“Not any more than you trust me.”
Ric gave it some thought, turning west. “Good. Let’s keep walking.”