Squaring the Circle

by B K Brain

  No idea, but she was beginning to think ‘The Magnificent’ should precede her name from now on. Or maybe, ‘The Astounding.’ Which one sounded better?

  A giggle escaped Eddie like a hiccup. She couldn’t help it. “I have no idea what just happened.” She turned to Rachel. Sis only sat, silent, with mouth gaping. Her brow went low, like she was thinking hard enough to squeeze out a tumor. It was hilarious.

  Eddie wiped away a tear and laughed again. Bad timing? Maybe. Inappropriate? Sure. But she was crazy, so whatever.

  10

  Garret woke flat on his back and gazing upward to a blackened ceiling. His arm, still connected, in one piece, but only for outward appearances. Below the surface, a dreadful story told in fractures, fissures, cracks and breaks. A shocking bombshell of anguish, a splintered collage of horror.

  He reached out with his good hand. Hard, cold surface. His gun was gone. Radio too. Echoed sobbing from somewhere close by, a woman’s voice.

  What happened? How did he get here?

  He remembered four bullets – two of them his - thundering into the laboratory, at Jacobson. Clear, easy shots, certainly on target. Yet somehow the doctor stood unaffected, as if they were firing blanks.

  Impossible, but no time to ponder. With options down to one, Garret fumbled for the handheld. Compromised, he’d said. Blow the charges.

  At that point Jacobson raised a hand, made some kind of gesture. Garret and his agent were hit with…What was it? A wall of air? That wasn’t right. It was more like a yank from behind, but that couldn’t be right either. Whatever it was slammed them to the wall, Garret’s right arm and his agent’s head and shoulders taking the brunt of the collision. It happened quick, without warning.

  The bastard attacked us with his mind. Broke my damned arm.

  But no, broken couldn’t begin to say what Jacobson had done with the mere wave of a hand. Broken would be a mockery, an insult.

  Broken could suck his ass. This pain was fucking nuclear.

  He glanced to his counterpart and saw a line of blood drooling from within a devastated helmet, creating a shimmery expanding pool.

  He had to get up, get the hell out of there. Thing was, he didn’t know if he could.

  11

  David kept a hand on his shoulder, afraid that if he took it away, the wound might reappear. Given a chance, maybe the universe would change its mind. An irrational fear? Well yeah. But, come on, it vanishing in the first place was irrational. His hand would stay right where it was, thank you very much. Fuck it.

  He looked down again, scanning for a bullet hole. Okay, David. You’re okay. Calm down. Dream or hallucination, had to be one or the other. It couldn’t be real.

  Finally, he forced himself to look elsewhere. The women were still busy tying a man to a tree. “That’s everything,” Eddie said, standing over a heap of equipment they’d taken from the soldier. For only one guy, he had a lot of stuff. Body armor, helmet, handheld radio, a pistol, machine gun, two grenades, taser. And two canisters that only he, God, and his commanding officer knew the contents of. Probably some kind of tear gas, because there was a mask with a big filter on it too.

  The man was down to boxers now, bound to a tree with a length of nylon rope. The rope had been his as well. Still unconscious. Breathing, thank goodness, but out cold.

  Eddie said, “You should put on his clothes. From a distance, you’d look just like him.”

  “Yeah. We could walk in like you guys are my prisoners. That might get us back inside.”

  Rachel said, “He told them two women and a man. They’ll be expecting three prisoners. So that won’t work.”

  David agreed. “Okay. Then we need a distraction.”

  “One of those grenades would do it,” Rachel said. “if it was set off on the far side of the building. They’d all run to where it was, right?”

  “Most likely. But one of us would have to actually be on that side to do it. Whoever it is will probably get caught.”

  Rachel looked to the pile of weapons, put hands on her hips, exhaled sharply. “It’s you and Eddie that have to get inside. So I guess I’ll do the distracting. You think his pants will fit me?”

  Eddie’s eyes went wide, watery. “You sure about this?”

  A grin. “Are you kidding? You’re my sister. How can I be sure of anything?”

  A smile, tears, and a hug.

  David said, “He’s taller than you. You’ll need to roll up the pant legs. The shirt will be okay, I think. You take the big gun, we’ll take the pistol. Sound good?”

  “I’ll need the grenades too,” Rachel said, still clinging to her sister. She wiped her eyes, her nose.

  David walked closer. “You know how to use all this stuff?”

  Rachel was going pale fast. She was terrified, obviously. “How hard can it be? Pull the pin, squeeze the trigger. I’ll figure it out.”

  Eddie burst into big lurching sobs. “I don’t want you to. I don’t-”

  Rachel backed out of the hug, took hold of her sister’s shoulders. “Want to get in? This is how it’s done. I’ll be fine.”

  “But…”

  “I’ll toss a grenade and run. I’ll make my way around the building and meet you guys inside. Okay?”

  “No.”

  “Okay?”

  “Don’t you dare let them catch you, Rachel. Don’t you dare.”

  “I won’t. Promise.”

  David looked away, toward the lab. Would they catch her? Without a doubt, but it was his only way back to Cathleen.

  He checked his shoulder one last time. Nothing.

  If she starts throwing grenades they won’t just catch her. They’ll kill her. You know that.

  But maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe-

  How much blood do you want on your hands, David? How many people have to die for you to realize this is all your fault?

  Rachel seems resourceful, and smart. She’ll be okay.

  Smart didn’t help Steve.

  I have to get back to Cathleen. It’s the only thing that matters now.

  Is it, David? Are you sure?

  12

  Sam knew the Government hadn’t come to destroy the computer, they’d come to shut it down. What they were too foolish to understand was that if power were lost, so were the Gravitons. Without them the machine would be as useful at bending reality as a pocket calculator, or a toaster.

  Even a slight disturbance in temperature would scramble communication with the particles, presumably ending Sam’s connection, although nothing was sure. This was uncharted territory, after all.

  He looked toward the darkened corridor. They thought he was stupid, or at the very least, unprepared.

  Sorry to disappoint, gentlemen.

  With generators destroyed, the building had gone pitch black, all but one room. The only remaining light, overheads in the upstairs control booth, glared through the window above like a spotlight to a blackened stage - Sam’s stage. This was his show, his performance, and he, the only one that mattered.

  He squinted into the shadowed hallway, at a lifeless, broken man on the floor. The other man had presumably gone back the way he came, to join the others outside. He was still operating under the false assumption of security in numbers. They all were.

  Sam stepped over the dead soldier and continued, taking time to appreciate the darkness. No reason to hurry. He was out for a scenic stroll, that’s all, to see what he could see.

  He navigated the long corridor, basking in the shadows. It was better this way.

  The end of the hall, much brighter. He strolled around the corner to have a look. Daylight through glass double doors filled the reception area, near to far, with warm light. Beyond the quantum firewall, the parking lot. And his new friends, waiting for him to join the party.

  With the wave of a hand, the wall of heat disappeared. He made his way out to the sidewalk, stopped shy of a cracked, stained crater in the concrete. Inhaled a cleansing breath. After a moment, a dozen men opened fire
. Seconds later, a dozen more.

  Sam watched a barrage of hopeless bullets sting hot rivulets through cool morning air. He saw each one’s path as it stabbed across space and time, at him. None of the bullets connected, naturally. Each was nullified at the instant of contact, as usual. The ear-ringing attack went on for some time. Sam crossed arms and sighed, waiting for them to comprehend their situation.

  Loud, impressive, useless. He narrowed his gaze.

  Then a surprise blur, in the corner of his eye. He turned and saw smoke wafting from a canister tumbling at the far side of the lot. Then an explosion, at one of the cars. Sam cocked his head, wondering what that was about. Dissension in the ranks? A hasty, misguided throw? Or something else?

  It made no difference. Nothing did.

  An urgent voice called out for reinforcements.

  Men switched to secondary weapons, moved closer, tried again.

  Two grenades were tossed into the mix, just to be sure. The first disappeared the moment it would’ve struck his chest. The second tumbled next to his left foot. Sam kicked, and it vanished as well.

  One by one the men began to give up, astonished eyes gaping through gas mask shields. Gun sights dropped to the ground. Yelling. Curses. Then, blissful silence.

  “H-how-” a man stuttered. “How is it…possible?”

  Sam reached out an open hand, as if to offer comfort.

  “It isn’t,” he said.

  The man on the sidewalk. The shooter in the hallway. Even Leon. All of them things - necessary things - that had to be done. This was another.

  At once, gravity across the lot tripled. The surprise burden split pavement in a network of transecting snakes. Tires exploded, then glass. Shocks compressed, springs flattened. Metal bent downward, popped and buckled.

  And the men. Poor, oblivious bastards with no comprehension of Sam’s masterpiece, or what the last twenty years of his life had accomplished.

  All together, face-first to the blacktop, crumpling like insects over a windshield.

  Not sorry. Better.

  13

  Eddie and David crouched down low at the top of a hill overlooking the back side of the laboratory. She, praying her sister would be okay, he with pistol held in both hands, trying hard to look like a secret agent or something. Ridiculous.

  The two peered out to the massive structure. Sis would be around the other side by now, hidden in the woods somewhere beyond the front lot. She’d be all right, she said. Everything was going to be fine, she said. Eddie needed to worry about Eddie right now, she said. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

  Two cars had been parked along the paved road that led to the main lot, and three larger vehicles, black, the size of UPS delivery vans.

  Two men stood talking at the cars, dressed in dark suits. The others, divided into pairs, were crouched down low with rifles aimed at the building, each dressed like a man tied to a tree two miles back. Well, like he’d been dressed, before they took his stuff. Helmet, body armor, machine gun - an actual secret agent.

  She’d spotted a total of twelve SWAT team-looking guys. Twelve that I can see, that is. Were there more? Hidden in the surrounding forest?

  Who are you kidding, Ed? They’re everywhere.

  David had spotted a ladder at the back wall, leading up to the roof. That, he said, was their entry point. It would take time to reach the top, so Rachel’s distraction had better be big. That’s what he told her twenty minutes ago, just before she took off on her own: “Make it big.” She said she would.

  Eddie wasn’t totally dependent on David for protection. She ended up with the taser. Completely useless in a gunfight. They may as well have given her a can of silly string.

  She was in charge of the radio too. The volume had been turned down low, almost inaudible, just loud enough to hear with it held between her and David’s ears. There’d been some chatter over the airwaves earlier, but nothing for a while now.

  Hunkered down in the shade of a tall tree, Eddie stayed as still as she could, her legs aching from the awkward position, waiting for an explosion and an order for the soldiers to move to the front of the lab. Would they all go? If not, this whole plan would have been for nothing.

  Is that what this is, Ed? A plan?

  They’ll go, she thought. If they think they’re under attack. And then, Oh God, Rachel’s going to get caught. Maybe even killed.

  Eddie held an arm to her chest, unable to breathe.

  A barrage of gun fire began. Deafening, even from a distance.

  She knew it was coming, but nearly jumped out of her skin anyway. An explosion. Smoke wafted across the far lot. Debris tumbled and clanged.

  A voice dead ahead, a previously-unseen man. “What the fuck?”

  Then another. “Christ. Control, what’s happening down there?” Words, both live and scraping across radio static at the same time, like crappy surround sound. The pair of men, no more than thirty feet further down the hill, were well hidden under thick brush. It was a miracle Eddie and David hadn’t been seen.

  A barrage of crackling voices poured over the radio.

  Shit, David mouthed in silence. Don’t make a sound. She nodded. Was Rachel okay?

  Then the order they’d been waiting for. “Primary target at the west side. All agents to the main entrance.”

  Eddie wrinkled her nose, her brow pinched. Primary target? What does that mean?

  The agents took off for the main parking lot, rifles held rigid, ready to fire. Another man ran out from the tree line to the right, to join them. The others, the ones she’d already spotted, got to their feet and rushed away as well. All of them, unknowingly clearing the way for an unseen trek to the ladder.

  You did it, Rachel. Now run.

  “Let’s go,” David said. “Hurry.”

  Eddie couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Her sister was out there.

  David seized her arm. Yanked Eddie to her feet. Down the rocky hill he went, with her stumbling behind.

  A combination of strange sounds struck, all at once. A loud, echoed bang. Crunching. Shattering glass. Warping metal. And strangest of all, a silencing of weapons.

  What the hell?

  David didn’t stop. He ran and so did she. Toward pavement, the lab, and a precarious-looking ladder.

  14

  Rachel crouched down low behind a fallen Oak tree, peered out to the lab. This was a good spot. Thirty feet from pavement. Fifty feet from an old pickup and trailer. And at least three times that far to the entrance. A distraction at this end of the lot should give the others time to get inside. Like David said, it had to be big.

  But something was already happening up there. Men had begun rushing out of hiding places, yelling, aiming weapons. It couldn’t be Eddie because it was happening on the wrong side of the building. She and David were supposed to be around back.

  What if something had gone wrong? If so, the distraction couldn’t wait. They needed it now.

  Rachel grabbed a canister, pulled the pin and threw as hard as she could. It hit behind the truck and went tumbling end over end, spewing white smoke.

  Next, a grenade. It sailed through the air, over the flatbed, and bounced once. Twice. Three times, before rolling under a Chrysler Sedan.

  Rachel winced at the explosion, the concussive punch to her brain. It was shocking. Horrible. And most definitely big.

  It nearly lifted the car off the ground. A massive orange fireball rocked and twisted silver body panels, seared them black. Glass went to flying chunks, tires to melty, burning rubber. The inside of the vehicle burst into flames.

  Holy shit, Rachel thought. That should do it.

  The men had opened fire, but not at her. At the front doors. She spotted a man at the entrance. Not running, not ducking for cover. Just standing there. That’s who they were shooting at. Was that him? The bad man Eddie had been talking about?

  Careful to stay behind trees and brush, she took off down the east side of the lot, closer, to the building and him. She had to
get to those doors. It’s where he came out, and that meant she could get in. Hopefully.

  Then a sound, the strangest she’d ever heard. Deep, thundering, like a dozen shotgun blasts, a bending of metal, shattering glass and a crunching of splintered wood, all at once. She jumped behind a tree, peeked around. The gunfire had been silenced.

  The entire parking lot, one end to the other, had become a crumbly shallow crater. Wide cracks had sliced open in jagged, web-like streaks. Each vehicle now rested on its rims, punishing the flattened tires below. Body panels, bent and buckled, as if a great weight had fallen from the sky. Car windows, reduced to sparkling diamonds over the pavement.

  And shiny, random blotches. Here, there, everywhere. Right where the men had been standing.

  My god.

  Five feet to the right and she’d have been nothing but a stain as well.

  The man walked further down the sidewalk, probably scanning for anyone he’d missed. Or maybe just basking in his victory. This was her chance.

  She sucked in a breath and ran. To the front corner of the building, then across, toward the double doors. With a little luck and some light footsteps, she might be able to slip inside without him seeing.

  Please don’t let him turn around. Please.

  She stopped at the doors, squinted into darkness. Glanced behind.

  David said there was some kind of booby trap here, but she couldn’t see anything. It looked clear.

  No time to weigh pros and cons. Rachel dashed inside.

  15

  It took all Garret had to force himself to his feet. Everything had been smashed, the equipment bag, the handheld, his screaming bastard arm. With no way to call for help, he had to help himself. Down a dark corridor he went cradling his devastated arm. How far he made it and how long it took he couldn’t know. His sense of time had gone as blurry as his vision.

  Sometime later he discovered a small quiet room. There were boxes next to the back wall, filled with books. He used one as a chair. Tried to catch his breath.