CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jeanell and Ric hobbled into Boulder once again, looking around and feeling conspicuous for the filthy condition of their clothes. “These things are so impractical,” she muttered to him. “Why on Earth?”
“The original chancellor found them slimming.”
“Really? Did they make his hands seem bigger?”
Ric huffed with a little chuckle. “Truth be told, he did a lot of good.”
“You’re kidding me? You’d say that, in the position you’re in, that we’re all in?”
“Well, once again, it’s not the inventor’s fault if the thing he or she created gets carried out of hand, right?”
“He didn’t invent anything, he only branded it.”
“You’ve missed a lot, Jeanell. He ended gun violence, stabilized the economy, rescued the country from the Great Darkness—”
“Which he allowed to be created—”
“It’s theoretical. And honestly, Jeanell, our problem isn’t with a man who’s been dead for fifty years. That’s not the future, it’s the past.”
“Sorry, but… for me, they’re kind of all getting jumbled up.”
Ric nodded. “No, no. I understand that. But… we have to stay focused, right?”
“Right, exactly. And speaking of that, what about those drones? Aren’t this chancellor’s force going to be surveilling that apartment? We barely escaped, right? Don’t they say that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime? And in this case, we’re the criminals.” Ric looked her up and down, smiling. She asked, “What?” but he had no answer. So she went on, “Isn’t there anywhere else to go?”
Ric hit her with a steely glare and a wordless shake of his head. Then he finally said, “Anyway, we’re not going in through the front door, for just that reason.” With that, Ric stopped and tapped a few numbers on the LCD pad at the door of the building in front of him. The door slid open and he led her in, trying to be casual and inconspicuous despite their filthy white clothes.
He walked quickly across the lobby to a door marked stairwell. They pushed through the door and closed it quickly behind them, suddenly in a still and echoing stairwell, clear walls all around them. But as they descended underground, the clear walls revealed concrete and plumbing beneath the city streets. The stairwell was lit by a steady light, soft enough not to be glaring but strong enough to light the way safely.
“What is this?”
Ric answered, “These buildings were owned by the same company… my father’s company, matter of fact. We kept this secret, just in case.”
“Sounds like you knew there would be a worst-case scenario.”
“He did,” Ric said. “That’s why he sent me away, that’s why he stayed here, to draw their fire, to distract from my existence and the others’ as well.”
“Didn’t you say you left to protect him?”
Ric smiled gently. “He let me believe that, and it did become true. But I couldn’t have done it without him, that’s for sure. Good man. I can’t believe I just left him that way.”
“No, Ric, we didn’t have any choice. We were running for our lives.”
“After my father gave his own.”
“I know,” Jeanell said, “for me. And I’m so sorry, Ric.”
“No, Jeanell, no, there’s no more time for that.”
“Not for either one of us.” A still silence wrapped around them, their eyes locked, faces nearing to one another.
They found a long hallway and walked down, footsteps echoing in the dank chamber. Jeanell knew they were cutting across under the street, and that they’d soon be back in that apartment. There could still be a drone there, or a synthetic black hole waiting to suck them in, or those jackbooted chancellor’s goons with the rare guns available, ready to blast them into eternity.
They found the staircase and ascended, footsteps echoing. Jeanell couldn’t help but reflect on that staircase leading out of the collider compound. That climb had ended in Lux’s tragic death, and to the deaths of so many others. But at least that had led her to escape. Jeanell couldn’t deny the idea that instead of heading to freedom, she headed straight into capture.
But once again, Jeanell had no choice.
They reached the top of the staircase and Ric paused, leaning up against the door just as his comrade Lux had done, just before the man’s death by explosion. A cowardly booby trap had taken his life, and Jeanell knew that such a thing could be waiting just on the other side of that door.
Ric was ready to give his life in a similar fashion, and he was about to do it. Jeanell wanted to tell him not to, but she knew there was no point. She knew he didn’t want to die any more than she did, any more than Lux had. He looked at her, eyebrows high, eyes wide, a nod telling her what both knew; if they died, they’d be reunited in whatever world awaited them.
Ric pushed the door open, no explosion meeting him, no armed guards in the hallway on the other end. The walls were transparent, but curtains blocked their view. They had to go on faith, and trust, and the government had outlawed both of those.
Jeanell and Ric crept down the hall toward Graham’s apartment. Jeanell couldn’t escape the idea that they’d be met by their enemies, at the very least one of those terrible, deadly drones, to expose them to the chancellor, which would be the beginning of the end for them both, for them all.
They got closer to the door, Jeanell and Ric both shooting glances down both directions of the hallway. They arrived at the door to find it still ajar. They looked at each other, then Ric pushed the door slowly open, prepared for whatever or whoever waited on the other side.
They slipped into the apartment, bodies strewn everywhere. Ric was overcome with a somber tone as he stepped into the room. He’d created many of the deaths on the floor of his father’s apartment, no less that of his father himself, laying on the couch, already swelling up.
Jeanell said, “Oh, Ric,” but she didn’t dare say any more.
Ric steadied himself against her. “Follow me.” They crept down the hall, quiet and slow, Jeanell ready for any adversary to burst out from some adjacent room to kidnap or destroy them. Ric led her into a small study, peering around to see nothing out of the ordinary—a desk, shelves of old books, piles of old newspapers. Ric went straight to the rug and lifted it, a box in the clear floor, lined with more dark rug material of the same pattern.
Ric pulled the compartment open and pulled out a smartphone, a tablet, and several small portfolios. He pushed a button on the side of the phone and handed it to Jeanell. She waited while it activated, then Ric turned on the tablet, its own screen coming alive. He said, “Bingo.”
Jeanell helped stash the folios in the pockets of her formfitting white outfit. Ric glanced around. “Okay, halfway home.”
Ric led Jeanell out of the room and carefully down the hall, peeking out and around first to make sure the coast was clear. They prowled down to the room at the end of the hall, which Jeanell recognized as the same room she’d fallen asleep in, when she’d dreamed of making love to Ric.
It was hard to forget.
Ric went to the closet and slid it open to find several white suits in various sizes. “This should do it,” he said, glancing around the closet for a suitcase. He found one and threw it onto the bed, popping it open. He filled the case with the white suits. “This’ll give us a chance of getting into the tower,” he said. “A chance.” He zipped the luggage shut and turned to her. “One more thing to do.”
Jeanell followed Ric back into the living room, where Graham lay dead on the couch. Ric stepped away, leaving Jeanell behind as he approached his father’s corpse, gentle and melancholy.
“I’m so sorry I had to run out on you, Pop, on you, on the others, I… I was only doing what I thought was right, what I thought you’d want me to do, to protect Jeanell and preserve her secrets, our society’s future. And I’ll keep on doing that, I… I want you to know, to know that I’ll do whatever I can do, so you didn’t die in vain. Pop, I won’t let that happen, I won’t… I won’t…”
Jeanell’s eyes filled with tears, soon streaming down her cheeks, salty trails burning just a bit. But she knew it was nothing compared to the pain Ric felt, would go on feeling forever. He’d suffered so much, lost so much, sacrificed so much, it almost seemed beyond endurance.
Yet Ric was strong, and he stifled his tears, ready to endure. He gasped and sighed and braced himself. Jeanell did the same. She knew she must follow his courageous example, the courage shown by both men, and she even must do better, with even more at stake.
Ric gave his father one more kiss on the forehead and a gentle stroke of the cheek before laying him back and stepping away. He took out the smartphone and swiped the screen, barely able to say to Jeanell, “One of the great benefits of your own invention.” He turned to face his father one last time, pointed the phone at him, and swiped the screen. In a flash, his father was gone.
Jeanell snuggled close to Ric, hoping to offer some kindness, some warmth, some love. And he was wordlessly ready to accept it, and return it, if either one of them would still have the chance.
“Okay,” Ric said, voice quivering, heaving with sorrow, “let’s get back to the others. There’s no time to waste.” Neither of them could have known how right he was.
***
After a swipe of the screen, Jeanell and Ric suddenly stood in front of their cave sanctuary. Jeanell’s head began to swim, her stomach nauseous. “I just don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.”
“Hopefully, you won’t have the time.” Reading her glare, he explained, “Because we’ll get you back to your own time, where you belong.”
Which brought up a tricky and potentially heartbreaking question: “What about you? Where do you belong?”
Ric smiled. “If we both survive, then by your side. But if only one of us gets out of this alive, and we’ll be lucky for that, then it’s going to be you.”
They looked around, and Ric called out, “Reeves? Brooke?” No answer came back from the dark cave, and both Jeanell and Ric knew that was bad news. They stepped into the cave, calling the names of those they knew should have been there and getting no response.
Jeanell asked Ric, “Is there some reason they’d all be gone… beside the obvious, I mean?”
Ric shook his head. “Unless they were chased off, a bear maybe, the mate of the one we killed.”
“We didn’t kill it… not alone anyway.”
“Tell that to the bear!”
They stepped out of the cave, and Jeanell felt a hard hand grabbing her arm and jerking her away from the cave, and away from Ric. She looked up to see Brad, smiling at her and holding a smartphone.
“Hello again, Miss Glenn.”
“Brad, no!”
But before Jeanell could jerk herself out of his grip, he put his thumb to his smartphone screen and they vanished. Jeanell turned to see Ric holding out his hands to her, calling her name before she was pulled away from him, probably forever.