CHAPTER FIVE
Jeanell and Ric hurried along the streets, drawing more and more suspect looks from the white-clad pedestrians. A low hum got louder fast, and Ric looked around. “Damnit! Keep your head down, walk quickly.” Jeanell did as she was told, but that hum got louder behind them. “Don’t look up,” Ric added in a tense whisper.
Keeping her head down, Jeanell’s eyes rolled up to see a flying drone, a hovering disk with no visible propellers, gliding down the street overhead. It slowed to a stop and paused, idling as Ric and Jeanell scurried by.
Jeanell asked, “Is it watching us?”
“It is.”
“What do we do?”
“Just keep going, don’t look up.” A cold sweat broke out on the back of Jeanell’s neck as they turned a corner, as casually as possible. The drone followed them. Jeanell could feel it sizing her up, probably recording her on whatever futuristic form of video they used.
Do they know who I am, she had to wonder, how long will it be before they come for me, for us? She looked at Ric. Can I really trust this man, or is he delivering me right to them? Keep my head down, keep walking… straight to my grave!
They kept walking, the drone keeping pace above and behind. Jeanell asked, “Can we shake it?”
Ric shook his head. “Make a break for it, you’ll kill us both.”
Jeanell’s legs flinched, ready to panic. She stayed them and kept walking, not knowing for how long or to what end. Finally, the drone hummed a bit louder and sped past them, turning a sharp right and disappearing down another street.
Ric sighed and turned around, Jeanell quick to follow. “Where are we going? What was that thing?”
“Police drone. We’re not exactly mainstream, Jeanell.”
“You mean we’re… criminals?”
“Rebels, really. Why do you think we live underground?”
Things fell into place, and the picture the puzzle created terrified her. She said, “Why did we turn around?”
“Backtracking. We’re still a mile from our destination.”
“And what’s that?”
Ric shot her with a steely glance. “Safe harbor.”
They walked on for another forty minutes, Jeanell constantly searching the skies for another deadly drone. Ric said, “Keep your eyes dead ahead, fixed on the ground. Looking around like that, it’s very conspicuous.”
“Right, sorry.” Jeanell wasn’t used to being so compliant, but she knew she was way out of her depth. And more and more, it seemed like her best chances for staying alive were to stick close and do what she was told.
No, a voice inside Jeanell said, this man was ready to bring a sledgehammer down on me just a few hours ago. Sure, things have changed, but they could change again in an instant. Then what? And once I discover the terrible truth, it’ll be far too late to save myself. Run away, run now and disappear into the woods, live off the land. There’s bound to be somebody out there I can trust!
And she almost ran, her body flinching in several aborted attempts. And before she could make good her escape, Ric led them to the front door of one of the countless, transparent capsules. Ric pushed a few buttons near the door, and it slid open with a slight whoosh. Ric took Jeanell’s hand and led her inside.
No, her inner self urged her, don’t let him lead you into that building; there’ll be no way out!
But it was already too late. Ric led her quickly, face down, across the wide, clear, clean lobby to a bank of elevators. The door slid open just as Ric stepped in, the door automatically sliding shut behind Jeanell. The elevator had glass walls, like everything else. But the cityscape wasn’t entirely blank; many apartments had drapes and rugs, which were dark blots against the glimmering, transparent buildings. Lights also refracted through the clear walls, creating blocks of color to interrupt the view of prying eyes.
The elevator stopped and the door slid open. Ric took her hand, as if knowing she might still try to make a break for it, and led her down the hall. Some apartments were completely exposed, people sitting on their couches watching holograms where television screens might have been. But they looked frightened as Jeanell and Ric walked down the hall, Jeanell unable to resist making eye contact with more than one wide-eyed tenant.
They got to one door, the walls blocked by drapes, floor to ceiling. The drapes parted just a crack. Then they parted further and a middle-aged man with graying hair and a kindly smile opened the door.
“Ric, m’boy.” He looked at Jeanell. “Who’s this?”
“She’s okay, Graham. I’ll vouch for her.”
He looked Jeanell over, bushy gray eyebrows wriggling on his face. “Are you sure?”
“If I said yes,” Ric said, “would that convince you?”
Graham gave it some thought, spat out an amused chuckle and then waved them into the apartment, closing and then locking the door behind them.
Ric said, “Graham St. Thomas, this is… brace yourself… Jeanell Glenn.”
Graham huffed, but then he took a closer look. “There is a striking resemblance.”
“We found her and a team of scientists in the control room underground. I’m convinced it’s her.”
“Impossible, unless…” He turned to look at Jeanell again. “Where were you born?”
“Encino, California, 1990. But anybody would know that, wouldn’t they?”
“If they did their homework,” Graham said, turning to Ric. “You’re convinced?”
“She came through a hole, Graham.”
Graham’s graying face was perplexed as he stepped toward Jeanell. “How? How did you do it?”
“I… I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
Graham looked her over, stooped in his ill-fitting white suit. “Perhaps,” he said, turning to Ric. “Why bring her here?”
“Another reason I believe she’s telling the truth; the chancellor’s goons raided the compound. The way they monitor time travel, it’s the only thing that could have brought them.”
Graham considered, nodding slowly. “Unless she brought them.”
“If they knew enough to send her, they would have just raided us. Why go through the extra step?”
Graham took another look at Jeanell. “Well, if you truly are Jeanell Glenn—”
“I am.”
“Then you’re quite welcome here! An honored guest.”
“Um… thank you.”
“I wish you could stay.” Graham turned to Ric. “You realize the danger you’ve put us all in by coming here?”
“I do. And I never would have come without my suit, but there just wasn’t time before we escaped.”
Jeanell asked, “You have a suit like this?”
“It’s how I make my way in and out of the city, but we didn’t exactly have time to pack,” Ric explained, turning to Graham. “We’re hoping you might have a few extra.”
Graham huffed and nodded. “You know that I do. But what did you have in mind?”
"Not sure, to tell you the truth. This morning I was ready to kill her.”
“Naturally.”
Jeanell said, “Hey!”
Ric said, “But now I figure we have to get her back to her own time before the chancellor gets to her. With her friends captured, one of them’ll crack and it won’t be long until they start hunting her.”
Jeanell shivered with mortal fear.
Graham nodded. “Definitely.” He asked Jeanell, “Can you travel through one of these holes with any confidence?”
“Not really,” Jeanell said. “I mean, I know what caused the anomaly in the first place, but we weren’t planning on traveling through time, so we wound up here just sort of by chance. I suppose I could recreate what happened and wind up leaving this time, even if the chances are about one in ten million. But I’m not really sure if I’ll go back or forward, or how far, or if I’ll get anywhere at all.”
“Well,” Graham said, “anywhere is better than you staying here and now, that’s for sure.”
Jeanell asked, “Why?”
“Because the chancellor rules now, and he’s the most dangerous leader this country, or the world, has ever known. If he gets the power to travel through time, it would be disastrous.”
Jeanell felt a cold stone sink in her gut. “Maybe I should kill myself.”
Ric said, “As long as you’re here, you could still be of some use.”
“Oh, well, when you put it that way.”
Graham said, “He’s quite right, my girl. You do have knowledge nobody else has. Surely, we can use that.”
Ric said. “That’s what I was thinking. What’s happening with those disappearances?”
Graham snapped his fingers. “You’re right! They’re black hole wipeouts, kill holes of the highest order; maybe she can help with that!”
Jeanell said, “Okay, first, I’m still alive and I’m sitting right here. Please don’t speak of me in the third person; it’s very rude.”
Ric looked at Graham with a mischievous little smile. “She’s got a point.”
Jeanell ignored his little tease. “Secondly, what are black hole wipeouts?”
Ric explained, “Swaths of people are disappearing; a whole meeting of the Veteran’s Administration, a stadium filled with basketball fans… just disappeared in an instant.”
“And black holes were used?” But Jeanell didn’t need an answer, the question answered itself. “But… you use them to travel through space, not time. Which means those people are still alive, they’re just… kidnapped?”
Ric said, “But we have no idea where they are, or if they’re still alive. I mean, where do you stash a stadium full of people?”
“But why do that? Who would want to kill, or kidnap, a stadium full of people?”
Graham said, “Terrorists.”
“Or the chancellor himself, keeping the populace on edge, living in fear, maybe testing the weapon for foreign use.”
“Testing it… on his own people? Thousands of them? What kind of monster is this chancellor of yours?”
“The worst kind,” Ric said. “Do you think you can do anything about it?”
Jeanell pressed her hands to her forehead, eyes clamping shut. “I… I don’t know. Wait a minute; if he can do that, why send his armed men into the collider compound? Why not just use a black hole to scoop us up?”
Graham smiled. “You really are quite bright, my dear. We’re not sure, but our theory is that these kill holes, as we call them, or any artificial black hole, can penetrate deep ground. Apparently, if they’re generated underground, they drop you underground, the way you apparently were. We know for sure that, surface to surface, it’s the same thing.”
Jeanell gave it some thought, and it made reasonable sense, as reasonable as anything under the circumstances.
Ric asked her, “What do you think? Can you help us?”
“I will if I can, but… I can’t imagine what I can do.”
Graham scratched his chin and stood to pace around his living room. “Probably best if we just send her back.”
Ric said, “She started this, she should be the one to end it.”
“Third person,” Jeanell said.
Graham said, “She could do more harm than good, Ric.” Graham turned to Jeanell. “Can you recreate your time hole?”
“I suppose I can, but the God Particle was a pretty big part of that. Do you have any of that?”
Graham said, “Almost certainly in the Denver complex.”
“The Denver complex?”
“After the Great Darkness, the Boulder facility was abandoned, structurally unsound. But they built a better one in Denver, just under the Rockies. If we can get into it…”
“No chance,” Ric said. “That’s gonna be the most heavily guarded area in the state.”
Graham paced around, shaking his head. “What difference does it make? As long as the chancellor’s in power, and that criminal regime, they’ll find a way to do what they want, no matter what.”
Ric said, “Then maybe it’s time to kill the chancellor and end the regime, once and for all.”
Graham said. “You want to hole it to New York.”
Ric shrugged. “That’s the easy part. The hard part would be getting into his tower. It’s lead-lined—”
Jeanell said, “One of my black holes can’t get through lead? I thought you guys would have perfected things by now.”
“Enough to take out twenty thousand people at once,” Ric said.
“And how does that happen?”
Ric snapped back, “You don’t know? Who are you, really?”
“It’s been a long time, Mister! We never mastered it in my time, so I really can’t be expected to know, can I?”
Graham held out his hands, palms flat to calm them both. “Okay, you two, take it easy. We’re on the same side here.”
But Jeanell and Ric shared a glance which said, for each, Are we?
Graham went on, “Let’s get you into some less conspicuous clothes. You can hole around a bit, get used to the tech. Miss Glenn, you’ll be able to learn whatever you need to know.” He looked at Graham. “If we’re gonna hit them with a kill hole, we gotta figure out where, or when, they’re going.”
“Not to mention how to get into the tower.”
Graham nodded. “Yeah, that’s going to be a serious problem.”
***
With all that had happened, Jeanell didn’t realize how exhausted she was. She intended to use the second bathroom while Ric used the first, but she couldn’t resist the pull of the empty bed beyond the opened door. Just for a second, she told herself, just enough to rest my eyes.
She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.