Linkage: The Narrows of Time (29 page)

“I’ve seen Bruno wearing that same watch,”
Lucas said.

“Well, it does a lot more than just tell
time,” Kleezebee said. “It contains a subspace rift regulator that
the wearer can use to hide inside a subspace flap. That’s where the
two Brunos are right now, waiting for the area to clear. They’re
perfectly safe.”

“Unreal,” Lucas said, fiddling with the
orange buttons around the perimeter on the device. “Can you show me
how this thing works?”

Kleezebee nodded to the tech before returning
his eyes to the video screens.

The tech put his watch hand on Lucas’
shoulder, then pressed a combination of buttons on the device with
his other hand.

A moment later, Lucas was standing in a dark
space, wishing he’d brought a winter coat and flashlight with him.
He could only see the glow of the tech’s watch to his left; nothing
else. He extended his hands and tried to walk forward, but couldn’t
move. He felt like he was trapped inside a locked refrigerator with
the light off. “Why is it pitch black in here?”

“There’s no light source in subspace,” the
tech said with a patronizingly superior attitude.

Lucas felt like an idiot for asking such a
stupid question. Of course there’s no light in subspace. Stars only
exist in normal space. “Right. I get it. We’re in subspace. But
where exactly?”

“We’re inside a subspace bubble that is
straddling the interconnecting membrane between two parallel
universes. It’s like an envelope wedged into a door jamb.”

“That explains why we can’t move. We must be
in some kind of force field that’s protecting us from the intense
gravimetric forces.”

“Correct.”

“If the two Bruno copies are hiding in one of
these right now, how would they know when it’s safe to return to
normal space?”

“Our watches contain a proximity sensor,” the
tech said, holding the timepiece in front of Lucas’ eyes. He
pressed a pair of buttons simultaneously, illuminating a wire frame
representation of the surveillance room on the watch face. Two red
blips were in the center, with a single red dot to the left.

“I take it we’re the two in the middle, and
the other one is Dr. Kleezebee?”

“Yes, and the diagonal row are my co-workers,
sitting at their stations.”

Lucas thought about calling out to Drew as a
joke, but decided against it. The tech didn’t appear to have much
of a sense of humor. “Can you take us back now?”

The tech pressed a few more buttons on the
device, instantly returning them to normal space.

“Enjoy the trip?” Kleezebee asked.

“That was pretty fuckin’ cool,” Lucas
replied, feeling a tad woozy. He rubbed his hands together to get
the blood flowing again.

“What was it like?” Drew asked.

“I felt like a shrink-wrapped sausage in
there.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Nope,” Lucas replied, flexing his fingers as
if he were playing the piano. “You should give it a try, little
brother.”

“No, thanks, I’ll pass.”

“Did you guys develop this technology?” Lucas
asked the professor.

Kleezebee nodded. “Besides BioTex, it’s one
of our most useful inventions.”

“That’s an understatement. James Bond would
have had a field day with that thing. So when do I get one?”

“These watches have sensors that only allow
our kind to operate it,” the tech replied.

“So, you’re a replica, too?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. But that’s
not—”

“Gentlemen, we don’t have time for this,”
Kleezebee said, pointing up at the screens.

The news helicopter was tracking Bruno’s
sedan from the air and the military chase vehicles had cleared a
path and entered the tunnel. They were turning left onto the access
ramp leading up to the freeway.

“What’s the separation?” Kleezebee asked.

“Ten miles. Do you want to deploy the
semis?”

“Let’s wait. We may not need them.”

* * *

Bruno whizzed past a pair of
eighteen-wheelers parked on the freeway’s shoulder. “Can you see
Alvarez back there?”

L climbed into the back seat and looked out
the rear window. “No, the only thing I see is a helicopter
following us. I think it’s one of Channel 13’s.”

“Good, then we probably won’t need the semis
to slow them down,” Bruno replied, raising the handheld radio to
his mouth.

“Base, this is Rabbit. Do you read?”

The radio squelched. “Rabbit, this is Base.
We read you loud and clear.”

“I’m five miles from the primary flash point,
awaiting final instructions.”

“Increase speed to seventy-seven miles per
hour and maintain course.”

“Acknowledged . . . setting cruise control to
seven-seven.”

“So, that’s it? We just drive straight
ahead?”

“What’d you expect?”

“I thought I’d at least get to fire my weapon
before we die,” L said, holding the rifle in a firing position out
of the right rear window.

“But they’re only blanks.”

“I know, but still it would have been a blast
to shoot it.”

“Go ahead, let ‘er rip.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure, why not? Just don’t unload the entire
clip. It’s going to be loud.”

* * *

Lucas saw something long and slender poking
out of the sedan’s right rear window. “What’s that? In the window?”
he asked the video tech.

“Looks like a gun barrel . . . and someone’s
shooting it.”

“Is there any way to adjust the camera so we
can see what they’re shooting at?” Lucas asked the tech.

“I tried, but the servos aren’t
responding.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Kleezebee said. “The
chase vehicles are out of range and there’s nothing else on the
road, other than our big-rigs.”

“Then I must be blowing off a few rounds,”
Lucas said, smiling proudly.

“That sounds about right,” Drew replied.

Lucas scowled at his brother.

Drew shrugged.

“One minute, thirty seconds, sir,” the tech
said.

“Show me the horse track in Green Valley,”
Kleezebee said.

The upper left screen changed to show a
wide-angle, landscape view of the northern edge of Green Valley. A
sprawling mountain range cut across the upper section of the
screen, serving as a backdrop for a towering cement plant off in
the distance. In between the cement plant and the track’s parking
lot was open desert covered with half-wilted bushes and saguaro
cacti. The right edge of the screen was filled with a sea of tiled
roofs, packed together like war protesters storming the White House
gates.

“Is that the best angle you have?” Kleezebee
asked.

The tech nodded.

The bottom of the screen contained a section
of the track’s lower grandstands. “Shit, look at all that paper,”
Lucas said, seeing thousands of tiny strips of white paper
littering the track’s infield and seats.

A short minute later, Lucas asked, “Where
should we see it?”

“Just on the other side of the cement plant,”
the tech answered, “along the freeway’s access road.”

Right on cue, a bright flash filled the
racetrack’s security feed, just beyond the cement factory. Moments
later, the flash dissolved, leaving behind an energy dome exactly
where the tech had predicted.

“Nice work,” Kleezebee said, patting the tech
on the back. “Looks like you planted just the right amount of
material.”

The news helicopter circled around, pointing
its high altitude camera at the massive dome, which was now moving
away from the cement plant, traveling south while smothering all
six lanes of the Interstate. Bruno’s sedan slid sideways, leaving a
trail of smoke and skid marks, right before its inertia carried it
into the northern edge of the energy field.

The helicopter flew over the dome, allowing
the camera to capture Bruno’s sedan being whipped around. The sedan
was shredded into chunks and sucked through the vortex.

“And then there were ten,” Lucas mumbled,
thinking of his security friend.

The helicopter swung around to show Alvarez’s
convoy approaching at high speed from the north, while the energy
field continued its southerly trek toward the Green Valley
retirement community.

“Do you think they bought it?” Drew
asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Kleezebee
said.

Chapter
23

Revelation

“Are you two ready for a road trip?”
Kleezebee asked.

“More than ready, Professor,” Drew answered,
sliding the theory notebook into the zippered pouch of his
knapsack. “Can we check on Mom before we leave?”

“Sure,” Kleezebee replied, before telling his
techs, “Inform the security team we’ll be up in ten. Make sure they
bring the climbing gear.”

Lucas turned to ask Kleezebee, “Uh, how are
we going to get past the soldiers guarding the hole to the QED
lab?”

Kleezebee stared at the video screens for a
few seconds, then turned to face his lead tech. “Twins ought to do
it.”

The tech picked up one of the three phones
sitting on his console desk. “Who do you want me to send?”

“Seven and Eight. But make it clear—stunners
only.”

“You got it, boss,” the tech replied with the
phone’s receiver plastered against his right ear.

“Twins?” Lucas asked.

Kleezebee smiled. “A pair of young, beautiful
women should be hard to resist, wouldn’t you agree?”

Lucas figured Kleezebee was going to use the
twins as some form of distraction, but he wasn’t sure how.
Kleezebee’s matter-of-fact tone gave him the impression that the
professor expected him to put the pieces together on his own, and
he certainly didn’t want to disappoint his boss. “Great idea,
Professor.”

Kleezebee opened a yellow travel bag sitting
on an unoccupied section of the video control desk. “Did you
remember the boosters?” Kleezebee asked the tech.

“They’re in there, sir.”

“Excellent.” Kleezebee flung the tote bag
over his shoulder. “We should pick up some bottled water on the way
up.”

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Lucas followed
behind Kleezebee as the professor inched his way along the outside
of the Math Building toward its southwest corner. Kleezebee gave
his crutches to Lucas, then pressed his back against the building’s
red-bricked wall to peek around the corner. Ten seconds later,
Kleezebee whispered to Lucas, “Seven and eight are pulling up now.
Let’s hope this works.”

Lucas looked back at Drew who was sitting in
rear passenger seat of the Humvee that had brought them to campus
from the silo. One of Kleezebee’s armed security guards was
standing near the Humvee’s bumper-mounted winch, looking directly
at Lucas. The silo’s senior lab tech—a replica who had introduced
himself as Billy Ray—was sitting in the driver’s seat with his
hands wrapped around the steering wheel. Lucas gave his brother and
the other men a thumbs-up signal.

Lucas crouched behind the professor and
leaned slowly to his left. He could see four soldiers in combat
uniforms only a few hundred feet away from him. They were clustered
together just to the left of the open shaft that led down to NASA’s
underground bunker. One of the soldiers was doing all the talking,
when suddenly, the entire squad erupted into a collective
laugh.

That figures, Lucas thought. Leave it to the
military to waste resources guarding an open pit, especially when
the rest of campus and most of Tucson had been deserted. If he were
in charge, he would have boarded up the hole and called it a
day.

A blue mini-van squealed around the corner
and approached the soldiers from the west with country music
blaring from its open windows. Two blond-haired women sat in the
front seat. The vehicle swerved across the center stripe and rammed
its front tires into the sidewalk about fifty feet from the
soldiers’ position. The stiff, southerly breeze riffled through the
van, sending strands of blond hair flapping across their faces.

The two girls—exact copies of Mary
Stinger—stumbled out of the van, wearing faded blue jean cutoffs
and skin-tight white tops that accentuated their identical figures.
They wandered together near the driver’s door and giggled loudly,
before they each took a swig from a liter-sized bottle the driver
was holding in her left hand.

Kleezebee winked at Lucas and said, “Wild
Turkey. Bruno’s favorite.”

The four soldiers, now standing side-by-side
and facing the girls, had been struck dumb. Not a one of them moved
or said anything.

“At least I’m not the only one to fall for
that one,” Lucas mumbled under his breath.

Mary1, the driver, leaned her butt against
the driver’s door and waved at the soldiers. “Hi, boys,” she called
out as her twin walked erratically toward the men, swinging her
hips almost as wildly as her arms. Ten feet into her journey,
Mary2’s ankle rolled over and she fell to the ground, laughing. All
four soldiers sprinted to her location, showering her with
attention.

“Works every time,” Kleezebee whispered to
Lucas.

Mary1 reached into the driver’s seat, pulled
out a stunner, then snuck up behind the solders. She fired the
weapon several times, striking each of the men in succession,
sending them limp to the ground. One of the blasts hit Mary2, but
she seemed unaffected. Lucas figured BioTex replicas were immune to
electrocution, probably due to their latex substructure.

Mary1 turned back to Kleezebee and blew out a
shrieking whistle with two fingers inserted into the corners of her
mouth.

“That’s our cue,” Kleezebee said, grabbing
his crutches from Lucas, while both Marys morphed their appearance
into Bruno’s likeness. “Why don’t you go see if Seven and Eight
need any help getting the soldiers into the van? Drew and I will
meet you there in a minute.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Lucas unclipped the
rigging harness from his chest, after being lowered by rope into
the open pit that used to be NASA’s elevator shaft. Billy Ray, the
lab tech who had preceded him into the shaft, took hold of the
harness and rope after Lucas slid out of the gear.