Winston Chase and the Alpha Machine

by Bodhi St John

  The current whipped them around another bend. Up ahead, Winston saw white light glistening off the walls — not the reflection of Little e’s light. Real daylight.

  “That’s it!” he cried.

  “I see it!” said Shade. “We’re gonna make it!”

  The light blossomed before them as they careened closer and closer to the tunnel’s mouth. The air smelled less stale, and without realizing it Winston let Little e go dark as the daylight took over.

  With his sharper vision, Winston saw the problem before Shade did, but there was nothing he could do. Black bars descended from the roof of the tunnel, disappearing into the water cascading around them. They weren’t going to pour out into the Willamette. They were going to smash into a steel grate at top speed. There was nothing to hold on to, no way to slow down. It was like being strapped to the hood of a car hurtling into oncoming traffic.

  Shade saw it. “Umm, Winston?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Ideas?”

  “Hit it feet first?”

  Even as he said it, Winston imagined his shoes slipping between the bars on impact, the slick metal sliding up his legs until, a split second later—

  “No, forget I said that. Turn. Backpacks first.”

  “Got it.”

  Shade used his free hand to start backpedaling against the water. It was enough to slow himself slightly and trail behind Winston. In his turn, Winston worked to bring his body around and trade places with Shade, but it was difficult, especially with Little e still gripped in his hand. As soon as he got sideways with the current, it got much harder to balance. Suddenly, he was kicking and flailing just to keep his legs under himself. Panic came rushing back at him. From the corner of his eye, he saw the tunnel mouth looming large just in front of them, everything beyond the bars a wall of blinding whiteness.

  The water was too fast. Winston couldn’t get his body turned.

  “Let go!” he yelled.

  Shade understood and released him.

  Freed from the anchoring weight of his friend, Winston tried to twist himself, but the current was too wild. The water churned in a hundred directions as it squeezed to escape its narrow bottleneck.

  In an agonizing, one-two punch, the bars hit Winston first in the hip, and then his shoulder. He started to howl in pain, but water poured into his mouth, trying to force its way down his throat. Winston felt Shade hit the bars beside him. He had managed to turn himself to collide back first. His backpack took the brunt of the blow, but not enough of it.

  The chaotic tumult of water kept Winston from seeing or hearing exactly what happened. All he had was a flash of motion as Shade’s head jerked back, hit a bar, and then his body went limp.

  “Shade!”

  Winston pulled his body around so that his chest was against the bars, water jamming into his back and trying to squeeze the air from his body.

  Shade was on his left, eyes closed, body also pinned against the bars. The water couldn’t support all of his weight. Slowly, he started to slide under the surface.

  Winston grabbed the front of his friend’s shirt, balling the fabric in his fist and trying to hold him up. He let go of Little e’s crosspiece and hooked his fingers around both one silver rod and one of the grating’s steel bars. This gave him enough leverage to keep himself high in the water, but he wouldn’t last long trying to support Shade’s weight, even with most of it buoyed up by the current. The water broke and roiled around Shade’s slumped chin. Another few inches and he would drown.

  Winston panted with the strain and wondered if his friend was already dead.

  “Shade?!” he cried. “Shade, can you hear me?”

  “Apparently not,” called a man from only a few feet away.

  Winston craned his head around. For the first time, he looked beyond the grate and saw that he was suspended above a triangular wooden dock. Water rushed into the triangle’s center in a gushing fall. Just to the side of the cascade stood a man in a casual black suit. His thick, dark hair, sunglasses, and sly smirk were all too familiar.

  “Hi, Winston,” said Bledsoe. “Seems you need some help. Oh — what’s this?” He pointed dramatically to the side of the bars, just beyond Winston’s field of view. “A crank for raising the gate?”

  Winston could only grit his teeth and strain to keep Shade propped up. He didn’t dare speak for fear of losing his breath and letting his friend slip.

  “Luckily for you,” said Bledsoe, “you have some things I want. Shall we make a deal?”

  25

  Drowning With the Devil

  “What do you want?” asked Winston.

  The water roared around him, pushing on his chest, frigid fingers brushing around his neck. His knuckles ached from gripping Little e and the steel grating so tightly. His right arm burned with the effort of trying to support Shade’s weight and keep his mouth above the water. Now Winston envied his friend all those years of sports practice. He was a heavyset kid, built like a tank, and all Winston had to lift that tank was one spindly arm.

  “Are you asking philosophically or immediately?” Bledsoe asked. Winston could hear the laughter in his voice.

  “Just let us out of here!” said Winston. “My friend, I — I can’t hold him!”

  Even as he said it, Winston felt Shade’s body slip against the tunnel grate. His mouth and nose dropped under the surface.

  Winston cried out in pain and frustration, heaving with his whole quivering body. He managed to get Shade back to where he had been. But his friend didn’t move. His eyes were closed. Damp hair hung in clumps across his forehead.

  “I’ve seen the movies,” said Bledsoe. “I know this is the part where I’m supposed to monologue and lay out my whole plan, right? I really don’t feel like it, though. Suffice it to say that I’m going to save America, get the girl, and see the wrongs of long ago finally made right. And that starts with you giving me all of your little objects. Did you find what you wanted down here?”

  “No!” said Winston through clenched teeth.

  For an agonizing moment, no one spoke. Winston wanted to see the man, try to read him, but he couldn’t take his eyes from Shade’s face.

  “I have plenty of time, you know,” Bledsoe finally said. “Nothing on TV. Nothing in the oven. I can wait here…all day.”

  “Fine! Yes! We found it. In a can under Voodoo Doughnut.”

  “Well, give it here!” Bledsoe said cheerily, and his hand and sleeve appeared through the cascade next to Winston, slipping between two bars.

  “I don’t have it!” groaned Winston. “Some idiot decided to flood the tunnels, and I had to leave the can to go after Shade.”

  Instinct told Winston not to mention that Agent Smith had taken the can. Something in Smith’s face, his eyes…something had given Winston the impression that the agent wanted to help them, not just hand them over to Bledsoe. It was too much to hope that he would hide or destroy the Alpha Machine piece. But maybe if he delayed a bit, sat around thinking about things for a few hours, and if Winston could somehow get them out of this mess…

  That thought vanished from his mind almost before it was formed. They were done. Shade was unconscious and about to drown. Winston wasn’t going to leave him, but he sure couldn’t drag him around, and Bledsoe probably had a row of agents nearby waiting to take him into custody while…

  While he went off to find the remaining Alpha Machine pieces, “save” America, and get the girl?

  His mom. It had to be. This time traveling whack-job was going to go back to the 1940s, probably kill his dad, and somehow take his mom — and that would be the end of Winston. He would have never existed.

  “But you have the thing in your hand and whatever was in the bank vault,” said Bledsoe. “Let’s start there.”

  Winston was shaking all over now, both from cold and exhaustion, and he couldn’t hold Shade’s weight anymore. Winston watched as Shade’s face dropped inch by inch under the water, and there was nothing he could
do to stop it. He cried out, trying to find more strength, but there was none left to give.

  “So, we have a deal?” Bledsoe asked in the same tone he might use for ordering drive-thru.

  Winston knew he had no choice. Bledsoe apparently had all the time in the world, and if they just stayed like this, Shade would certainly drown, and Winston seemed likely to be right behind him. For that matter, Winston remembered seeing Bledsoe’s gun. He could just shoot Winston through the bars and then open the gate. Little e and the Alpha Machine piece were as good as Bledsoe’s already. He was just enjoying this part, toying with Winston like an already-full cat batting around its prey.

  “Fine!” cried Winston as he felt Shade drop farther. His arm was now fully extended, and he felt his left hand start to slip around the grating bar.

  “Fine?”

  “I’ll give them to you! Just open the gate!”

  “And you’ll come with me without a fight? No more delays?”

  “Yes!”

  Winston felt like he’d already walked off the edge of a cliff. What was a couple more steps while already falling? It made no difference.

  A few seconds later, the sound of metal scraping on metal cut through the constant babble of tumbling water. Screeeek. Pause. Screeeek. Pause. Bledsoe must be turning the wheel crank. Slowly, much too slowly, the top of the steel grate started to pull back into the tunnel along a pair of rails in the roof as the gate’s bottom inched up along another pair of rails in the wall.

  Shade had already been underwater for — what? Twenty seconds? Thirty? He didn’t have the extra minute it might take to finish raising the gate.

  Winston watched as the gate retreated along the tunnel ceiling, trying to judge the gap that must be opening above the floor. It had to be at least a foot now, probably more. With each screeeeek, the gate’s angle grew a bit more acute.

  That was it. He couldn’t wait.

  Winston took a deep breath, made sure that his grip on Shade’s shirt was as tight as possible, and let go of the gate.

  They dropped like rocks. Winston felt Shade’s weight ease at the end of his arm, then his body collided with the floor as the water pinned him down.

  Pinned. His right shoulder wedged under the steel bar running along the bottom of the gate. He couldn’t get out. Between the rushing water pressure, the weight of his backpack, and the gate’s angle, he couldn’t get back up. Winston forced his eyes open, but that didn’t help. The world was nothing but pale-blue, swirling mayhem. All that registered in his mind was the back of Shade’s head on the floor next to him, brown hair waving in a tousled frenzy, and the steel gate creeping up far, far too slowly.

  Panic filled Winston’s mind. His anger at Bledsoe condensed into a black, all-consuming terror. The water was everywhere, all he could see or feel or touch. Its coldness sucked at his core. The cacophony of it howled in his ears. He needed desperately to breathe, and the water was there at his lips, in his nose, trying to force its way in. Winston wanted to scream but couldn’t. He thrashed and squirmed, trying to dig his body under the gate.

  His arm and leg went through first, dangling and waving over the little waterfall. Suddenly, Winston’s body shifted as his hips cleared the bar. Now it was only his backpack keeping him from squeezing through. A thought flitted through his fear: He was thinner than Shade. When the gate opened enough, he would be swept through first, and once Bledsoe saw that Winston was out, he might not bother opening it any farther.

  Winston released his hold on Shade’s T-shirt and groped a few inches to the side. He found one of Shade’s thick shoulder straps and locked his fingers around it just in time.

  The gate shifted another inch. Winston slipped a bit farther under the bar until something above the center of his back snagged on the steel. He wriggled and pulled, and the pressure holding him down suddenly released.

  Winston slid along the floor, pushed like flotsam by the stream’s incredible strength. As he’d pictured, Shade remained stuck under the gate, now trapped by his own backpack. Winston’s legs hung free over some precipice. He could feel the concrete ledge biting into his belly, but it supported just enough of his weight to let him keep his hold on Shade’s strap. He pulled hard on the backpack once, twice, then tried wriggling it from side to side.

  The gate ascended one more inch. Winston dimly heard a pop through the water and felt through his arm the vibration of something in Shade’s pack giving way. The world went from immense pressure and tension to complete lightness and free falling in an instant. Even as his legs and the arm still clutching Little e waved through the air, Winston had to fight the incredible urge to take a breath. The world had changed from light blue to an impossible frenzy of white spray. He only had time to register the Willamette rushing up to meet him.

  Winston struck the water feet first. Shade hit the surface in a gut-wrenching belly flop right beside him, then they were both back under. Winston kicked frantically, pulling on Shade’s limp, descending body. He waved with what little strength remained to him, trying to paddle through the river. For a second, Winston thought he was making headway. They were rising toward the surface. He could see it there, wavering only a foot in front of his face. Then Shade’s weight took over and they sank.

  I’m done.

  The words ate through the center of his panic. All he saw or felt or touched was water. He could feel it reaching into him with soft, icy insistence. Soon, it would fill his lungs and short out his mind, just as he had always instinctively feared, as if he’d somehow known this day was coming. Yet even through the terror and thrashing desperation, a small, detached part of Winston’s mind still formed words and sentences, as if part of him were somehow separate and looking down on everything.

  I’m done. I tried my best. I failed my parents. I failed the world. I still have Shade, but he’ll be dead in a minute, so I guess I failed him, too. Shade was right, after all. I couldn’t do it alone. I couldn’t even do it with his help. I should have trusted more people.

  And with that, Winston saw a hand plunge through the surface and grab his outstretched arm right below Little e. The grip was remarkably strong. The wavering silhouette of a man’s form against the blue sky loomed above him, leaning out over the dock. He felt his direction change as the man pulled them upward.

  A second later, Winston’s head broke the surface. He took one gigantic gulp of air, and his mind cleared a little. The grip released him, and, coughing wildly, he hooked his arm over the edge of the dock. Winston tried to pull Shade to the surface and couldn’t.

  “Help!” he gasped. “Get Shade!”

  Only then did Winston see Devlin Bledsoe kneel beside him, bend down almost far enough to put his face in the water, and thrust his gray-suited arm under the surface.

  The weight dragging on Winston eased. When Bledsoe leaned back, Shade came up with him. Bledsoe braced his black loafers against the railing and heaved. With what seemed remarkably little effort, the man brought Shade over the rail and rolled him onto the dock.

  Shade’s face was ashen, his lips blue. He wasn’t breathing.

  “Shade!” Winston cried as he pulled himself over the railing. “Oh, God, Shade!”

  His friend didn’t move.

  Winston knew some CPR from the day of training they’d fumbled through in PE class. He wasn’t sure if he remembered how to do it. Bledsoe obviously wasn’t going to help. The man was already several paces away, studying his nails.

  Winston put his ear to Shade’s mouth and neither heard nor felt the faintest stir of air. Without a thought for teenage jokes or self-conscious awkwardness, Winston shrugged off his backpack and set Little e beside it. He leaned over, pinched off Shade’s nostrils, set his lips around Shade’s open mouth, and blew two long breaths into him. Shade’s skin felt terrifyingly cold.

  Nothing happened.

  Winston felt through Shade’s sodden T-shirt for the bottom of his breastbone, measured up two fingers’ distance to judge where to place the heel of o
ne hand, then laced the fingers of his other hand through the first.

  How many times to pump? He couldn’t remember! Five? Ten? Fifteen?

  Winston rose higher on his knees and started shoving all of his weight into Shade through his hands.

  “How many pumps?” he shouted to Bledsoe.

  The man shrugged and gazed out over the river. “I hope you know I’m letting you do this so you’ll be more cooperative.”

  How many was that? Three or four?

  Winston counted off to ten, visualizing the heart under Shade’s ribs that he desperately wanted to start beating again. He stopped, pinched Shade’s nostrils, and blew two more long breaths into his mouth.

  Still nothing.

  During the next set of ten chest pumps, Bledsoe casually walked by, bent down, and picked up Little e. Winston didn’t even realize it was gone until he switched to blowing in Shade’s mouth again. Bledsoe stood several feet away, turning the device over and over in his hands, smiling faintly.

  “You know,” he said, “the last person I saw use this was a chimpanzee.”

  Winston knew he should have made some strong, witty come-back, but all he could think of as he started shoving his palms into Shade’s chest again was Come on. Please. Help me. Shade. Someone. Anyone. Help! Me!

  By now, Winston was breathing hard, and his already-strained arms were quivering with the exertion.

  The high-pitched ring of tinnitus filled Winston’s ears. Normally, it only appeared on one side, but now it seemed to fill his head, no doubt driven by some odd mix of blood pressure, stress, and whatever fueled his odd condition in the first place. However, whereas every other passing bout of tinnitus came and vanished on the same frequency, this case suddenly shifted from his usual note — B-flat, Winston knew from having matched it with an online synthesizer — to a lower note. Then that note suddenly split into two notes, then three, forming some strangely dissonant chord. Winston had experienced bouts of tinnitus for as long as he could remember, and none of them had ever done this. He almost stopped giving CPR, but in a couple of seconds, the sound faded and was gone.