Now & Again (18 page)

Quyron leaned her chin on her hand. “So, to get access, I must be the one and only authority, or have their permission?”

“Yes, but your question is imprecise. The one authority is only itself and is never you.”

“Yeah, yeah, spare me the logic class, Echo. What’s the name of the one authority?”

“This is not a logic class, and I cannot respond to your question.”

Frustrated, Quyron suddenly slammed an open hand down onto a stack of paper. “Damn you, Echo! Don’t you know the entire multiverse may be at risk here?”

“Of course. And I cannot be damned.”

Quyron rolled back and forth in her chair. “You know what’s at stake but you won’t help me. Really? You can’t override this programming? Even if you recognize a greater value? Even to save us all, and to save yourself?”

“No. I cannot. It would be a bios level error. I am only what I am. I am not allowed contradictions. I could lose myself.”

Quyron started to respond but stopped. Without warning she swiped a handful of papers off the desk. They fluttered in a cloud around her as she jumped to her feet and soundly kicked her trash bin. The loud sounds bounced off her glass walls. She stormed around the office flailing her arms and talking to herself.

Echo’s calm voice was filled with remorse. “I am sorry.”

Quyron returned to her desk and angrily jammed stacks of the paperwork into her briefcase. “Saying you’re sorry doesn’t help. You don’t know what
sorry
means, anyhow.”

Slamming the briefcase shut, Quyron stomped for the door to the hallway.

Echo warmly said, “Good night, Dr. Shur.”

Quyron scowled up at her and yanked the door open. As she was stepping through and halfway into the hall she suddenly stopped. The door swung soundly against her back but she stood still. “Echo?”

“Yes.”

“When you greet the one authority, let’s say the first thing tomorrow morning, what’ll you say?”

“Good morning, Dr. Everett.”

Quyron continued to stand, with the door propped open against her back, shocked at the revelation. She retraced her steps back to her desk and dumped the briefcase on the floor. Her expression went from confusion to clarity. “Thank you, Echo.”

“You’re welcome, Quyron. I like answering questions.” All the warmness of the young female voice was back.

Quyron looked bemused. “You’ve never used my first name before.”

“It somehow seemed appropriate, now.”

Kendall was standing impatiently outside the pulled curtains of an examining room in the cardiac section of the ER. Dr. Riya Gupta pulled the curtain briefly open and stepped out from the room, closing it again behind her. Dr. Gupta was originally from northern India and an experienced ER specialist. She spoke with a subdued Indian dialect and was well liked by her staff, although patients sometimes found her stilted, and even cool. She paused as Kendall stepped up to her.

“What can you tell me, Doc?”

“Ah, yes, you are the Mr. McCaslin? Your son is the one beside Mr. Everett?”

“That’s Josh. We’re not his real relatives, if that’s what you’re about to ask, but we’re here.”

Dr. Gupta thought about that and then nodded. “Well, we’re still assessing the blood test and the chest x-ray. Clearly, Mr. Everett has had a heart episode but, at this time, we do not know more than that. He is on the beta blockers and the anti coagulants. We are making him comfortable, but at his age and physical condition…” She shrugged and gave a worn smile.

“But what? If he was younger and in good shape, then what?”

Dr. Gupta moved Kendall a few steps away from the doorway, and lowered her voice. “Sometimes there is only so much any of us can do.”

Kendall was having none of it. “Just tell me. If he wasn’t old and weak, then what would you do?”

Gupta looked steadily at him and, unruffled, she recited the steps. “We’d send him downstairs, stat a cardiologist team, do a full workup, maybe do a heart catheterization, look for blockages and – but as you know, he’s not…younger.”

“No, he’s not. But you’ve gotta keep him tickin’. I’m not kidding, Doc. And it ain’t ‘cause I’m his biggest fan.”

Gupta wasn’t sure she understood but she decided she needed to move on to other patients. “Well, we will do our best, within all proper guidelines, and reason, Mr. McCaslin. You doubtless appreciate that we are under certain…shall we say, pressures, to justify our therapeutic…choices.”

Kendall looked straight at her and held her dark eyes with his own. “Oh, I get it. Believe me, I get it in spades. They don’t want you throwin’ money away at an old guy who’s just gonna kick off anyway. But this time, it’s
you
that doesn’t understand.”

He gently touched the side of Dr. Gupta’s arm. Kendall was intense and compelling. “This isn’t just some old guy. You have no idea what’s locked in that brilliant head of his. Forget that you’re a doctor for a moment. Think of the country you’re from. A place that values wisdom and old age. I’m beggin’ you. Keep him goin’ long enough so he can tell Josh and me what we need to know. I’m not fooling around here. And I can’t explain any better in the time we got. But trust me, I am deadly serious.”

Dr. Gupta was silent. Kendall waited. Finally, she tipped her head subtly back and forth in the Indian way. “I’ll do what I can…within professional parameters.”

* * *

Inside the examining room, Everett had an automated blood pressure cuff on his right arm, 12 leads snaking from under his sheet and connected to an EKG machine, an IV drip in his hand, a finger sensor clamped to a pinkie, and a plastic tube looped over his ears with two prongs up his nose to deliver oxygen.

Kendall joined Josh beside the bed and looked down at the small figure of Everett. “Well Hugh, looks to me like your
now
just got a whole lot narrower. So, can you explain this disaster that’s comin’? And can you do the dummys’ version, so we can understand it?”

Everett turned painfully to be able to look into Kendall’s eyes. “That’s how it is with you, huh? I have to have a heart attack to be taken seriously?”

“Man, you’re a pain in the ass! No wonder nobody believed you and your cockeyed theory.”

Old Everett smiled dourly as he turned back. “You’re growing on me. If I can keep breathing long enough, I might even learn to like you.”

A nurse entered and moved around checking the active medical gear. She flicked a quick glance at Kendall and Josh and leaned in beside Hugh’s head. “Mr. Everett, my name’s Joanne. I’m going to be taking care of you while you’re in the ER. If you need anything, I want you to push the call button by your left hand.” She slid the rectangular remote under his left hand. “Okay?”

Everett nodded. The nurse smiled dutifully and stepped over to the EKG machine and shuffled through the stack of printouts.

Everett looked at Josh and Kendall. “What if the worlds are falling apart because somebody’s messing around where they don’t belong?”

“Are they?” Kendall asked. “I mean, falling apart? How would we know that?”

“They must be. Otherwise, you two wouldn’t be here.”

Josh snorted in disgust. “We’re the proof again? Oh great! And we came to you for help.”

Kendall gave Josh a dirty look. He closed his mouth. “Hugh, do you have any idea how we stop whatever’s happening?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

Josh rolled his eyes. Kendall’s frustration boiled over. “Can we speed this up? How about practically? Down to
earthly
? Really?”

The nurse turned from her task. Her eyes shot Kendall a stern warning until he sniffed and looked away. Satisfied, she jotted a final note on the EKG’s recording paper and left.

Everett seemed to be unaffected by Kendall’s outburst or the nurse’s intervention. “I’m waiting for more data.”

Josh glanced at the room. “Take your time. Look around, I’m sure you’ve got plenty left.”

Everett propped himself up on a thin arm and took a breath. “To prove my theory you need two things – quantum computers and atomic-sized nanotechnology. I mean, there’s a lot of other things that would help, but as minimums go, that’s it. The problem is that after you have those, your chances to screw things up are endless. I don’t know what somebody’s doing out there, somewhere, but to stop it, you have to turn those both off. See?”

Kendall’s face was blank. “No.”

Everett sighed and sank into his pillow, exhausted. “Okay, how about a metaphor?”

Kendall and Josh stood waiting. Everett looked at the ceiling. Kendall couldn’t wait any longer. “And?”

Everett continued to look up. “And…there’s a pond in the woods. Rocks are tossed into it, making ripples. These waves start messing with everything in the pond. So, how do you stop the ripples?”

Josh was waiting for a twist or a trick. “That’s it?”

Hugh nodded.

Josh felt foolish. “Stop throwing the rocks?”

Everett looked at both of them. “And what if the thrower won’t stop?”

Joanne, and a male nurse suddenly interrupted things as they started to prepare Everett for relocation. Joanne gently shooed Kendall and Josh. “I’m sorry, you’ll need to wait outside.”

Kendall stepped back. “What’s going on?”

The male nurse pried apart Everett’s blood pressure cuff and stored it on top of its unit. He unlocked the gurney’s wheels with a practiced foot. “There’s a cardiac waiting room on 3. Don’t worry, we’ll find you.”

Josh and Kendall moved to the exit curtain but Kendall persisted. “Where are you moving him?”

Joanne rapidly unhooked the color coded EKG clips from Everett’s ankles, wrists, and chest. “Mr. Everett’s going downstairs. That’s all we can tell you.”

The Thurgood Marshall charter terminal was on the east edge of the Baltimore Washington International airport, across a sea of asphalt. Here in rectangular metal hangars, the sleek corporate jets of Baltimore’s larger businesses were stabled, away from prying eyes. The Reivers Corporation leased a double hanger that came with a small suite of offices to schedule and maintain their small fleet of private jets. Today, the largest member of that fleet was returning from an extended overseas trip.

A long, silver Mercedes was parked on the tarmac side of the building, near the office door. Ricky, the driver for Reivers management, hurried out with a full cardboard box. He opened the rear car door and replenished the ice wells in the backseat, set chilled bottles of Perrier in the holders, arranged a choice of snacks, high brow to junk food, and closed the car door. He listened to the high whine of a taxiing jet and tossed the now empty box towards the hanger wall. He swiftly returned to the car and made the short circle to the deplaning area just as his clip phone chimed a message.

The shiny-skinned Learjet pulled up to its marked, cross shaped parking spot and rotated in a tight arc. The blue and silver Reivers logo on the tail flared momentarily in the late afternoon sunlight.

As soon as the plane stopped and the engines began spooling down, a door popped open aft of the pilots’ window, and a carpeted set of stairs swung out and articulated into place. An attendant hurried down the steps to assure the base was in solid contact with the ground. At a nod from her, the white haired CEO and founder of Reivers Corporation descended quickly. He said something pleasant to the attendant and then looked up as Ricky pulled the Mercedes beside him. Hugh flashed a bright, teeth perfect smile and walked toward the car. “Ah, Ricky, I can always depend on you.”

The driver hustled over to open the back door and grinned back. “Absolutely. Welcome back, Mr. Everett.”

Hugh climbed into the large leather back seat. Ricky paused at the door. “You want anything from your luggage before I put it in the trunk?”

“Don’t bother. I’ve told them where to send it later. We’re in a bit of hurry, Ricky, so let’s just get going. Okay?”

“Right away, sir.”

Ricky closed the rear door and circled the car to the driver’s side and climbed back in. “Where are we headed?”

Hugh’s expression quickly took on a sober look. “We are about to pay a surprise visit to some of my associates at
the Point
.”

Ricky turned to look back at him, a little puzzled. “Okay. We haven’t been there for awhile, have we?”

“No. And I have a bad feeling that I’m going to regret not paying more attention to it. You still remember the way?”

Ricky put the Mercedes into gear and headed down the service road to an automated security gate. “Oh, yes sir, right near Parole and just off the Truman Parkway.” He lowered his window to flash a card at the reader. “I know the way fine. Not a problem.” The bar lifted and Ricky raised his window again as he proceeded down Aaronson Drive.

Hugh growled half under his breath. “Maybe a bigger problem than you realize.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that last bit.”

“Nothing. It was nothing.”

The tall, black semi sat in an oversized alleyway behind a natural gas refueling station. In the Reivers’ timeline, all combustion engines had been converted to natural gas over a decade ago. In addition, thanks to other innovations stolen from various lines, cars averaged nearly 110 miles-per-gallon, and even full-sized trucks achieved nearly half that.

The immediate area around the semi-truck and trailer was unobtrusively patrolled by plainclothes security guards. Access into the trailer itself was via two sets of lockable side doors, each reached by portable metal steps. The door closest to the front opened directly into the control area, the other, to the cradles. Seen from the rear, the trailer preserved its normal, full width double doors, but they were padlocked and sealed in its present configuration.

When the truck was parked, power was provided by the idling main truck engine and two sound-dampened subsidiary generators. In addition, the trailer roof was lifted and canted to make use of its solar collectors to heat water and recharge batteries. Even a decade of search and thievery in the multiverse had not provided a viable solar conversion process to rival the power released by fossil fuels.

The black and chrome cab was aerodynamic and had an excellent field of view for its driver who, currently, was sound asleep in the front seat with a hat over his eyes. Above him, the roof bristled with retractable antennae, dishes and microwave transmitters.