Ben frowned at the red button and shook his head.
“Gimme that.” Brandon pulled the watch from Ben’s hands.
“No.” Ben’s eyes grew wide.
Brandon mashed the red button and pulled the portal watch near his face. “Hello?”
“Hello,” said a familiar voice from the watch. “Who is this?”
“GranPat!” Ben called, and wrestled the watch away from Brandon. “Where are you?”
“Still on Terra. Where are you?”
“On Earth and on our way to Carmichael. The FBI is at your house with Dad. They turned off the beacon. Is it back on?”
“No. It’s still off.”
“Then, how did you call me?”
“Albert made at least two portal watches. As long as we have a watch in each world, we can communicate. The watches act as a secure private network to each other. We can open a portal and travel to Earth or Terra, or travel from site to site on Earth, or Terra.”
“That’s awesome. We don’t need to turn the beacon back on. Do you want us to come over?”
“No, not yet. If you bring your watch to Terra, we may lose our ability to travel between worlds, especially if me beacon is off-line. We need to keep one portal watch on each side. Are you safe for now?”
“No. The FBI is after us. I think they want the watch.”
“Oh, no. We can’t risk that yet. Without the proper safeguards, this technology could be used for the wrong reasons.”
“They’re here,” Lori whispered. “Two men and a woman.”
“You need to leave,” GranPat insisted.
Brandon grabbed Jack by the arm. “I can hold them off on the stairs.” He held up his wooden spear. “Long enough for you to teleport.”
“Good idea,” Jack said. “We’ll catch up with you later.” His eyes strayed from Brandon to Lori.
“What? No way,” Lori said. “We all stick together.” She frowned at Jack. “We don’t need another dead hero.”
Jack paled and took a half step back.
Ben eyed Brandon. “Lori’s right. Stay with us, but watch the doorway.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “GranPat, we need to go to Carmichael, earth-side. Albert’s being held at Holy Rosary Hospital.”
“Good to know. We can meet somewhere safe,” GranPat said. “I’m at Holy Redeemer Cemetery on Terra, which is Holy Rosary Cemetery on Earth. Travel to my coordinates, but stay on Earth. I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “I’ll use those coordinates, but change the T setting to E.”
“Good boy. Signin’ off. Three, two, one—”
Ben heard footsteps reverberate on the tower stairs. He released the red button, pushed the silver button, and set the destination coordinates to DL40.15-80.25E, Holy Rosary Cemetery. He turned both switches to the “on” position. A portal shimmered open where the tower window had been.
Ben saw a green wooden bench in the cemetery. A five inch gap appeared near his feet, where the dirty floor of the tower room met the green grass of the cemetery. Through the gap he could see the ground 150 feet below the tower.
“Holy shit,” Brandon murmured, “no wonder they want the watch.”
Ascending footfalls echoed on the metal stairs below them.
“They’re almost here.” Lori whispered. “Hurry.”
Ben locked the portal in place and jumped into the cemetery near the wooden bench. He turned to face his friends inside the tower. From Ben’s viewpoint, the portal was framed on either side by row after row of white tombstones. “Mind the gap.”
Brandon turned pale, dropped his spear, and froze.
Below, the agents’ steps grew louder.
“C’mon jump!” Ben called.
Jack lowered his shoulder, grabbed Brandon from behind, and drove him through the portal as if he pushed his running back over the goal line. Brandon fell on his knees in the plush green grass of Holy Rosary Cemetery. Jack hopped left, dodged a stone marker, and stayed on his feet.
Lori bounded through the portal and stuck the landing. “Whooo-hooo!”
Ben grinned as he closed the portal behind her. His friends were safe. At least for a little while.
Chapter 42
Ben let out a long breath. Luckily, he’d closed the portal before the FBI gained the tower room. The agents would have no idea where he’d gone, but they were resourceful. His stomach churned. Whatever happened, he knew he would be responsible if his friends were hurt.
Lori knelt beside Brandon. “You okay, crush-baby?”
“Yea.” Brandon moved to a sitting position. “Couldn’t process jumping from a 150 foot tower window into a cemetery.” He turned toward Jack. “Thanks for the push.”
Jack nodded. “Sure.” He met Lori’s eyes and swallowed. “Glad we stuck together.”
“Me too.” Lori stood and helped Brandon to his feet.
Ben sat on the green cemetery bench. Trees and bushes dotted the sea of grass and stone under a blue sky. Angels held lamps, or spears, and stood silent watch over family plots. A curving access road wound around the graves leading to a large mausoleum. Holy Rosary Cemetery looked peaceful, but he didn’t plan on moving here anytime soon. People need me. Alive.
His eyes swept down the hill and rested on the family plot. Sad memories swam through his mind, all of them eager to drown him in grief. Breathe.
Ben looked beyond the cemetery perimeter fence, past the busy city street, and up at the tall brick and glass building he knew as Holy Rosary Hospital. He hoped, for Jack’s sake, Albert drew breath somewhere within.
Jack studied the hospital as well. How could he best get inside and rescue Pop-Pop? Were guards posted at the entrance desk? Would they have descriptions of him and his friends?
They moved down the hill.
Jack navigated around the stones and statues to the family plot. He’d been here before, or at least, on Terra. He slowed to look at individual markers. A white marble stone read, Betty McDugan 1947-2008. Patrick had been inscribed next to Betty’s name, minus the dates.
Jack touched the stone and said a little prayer for the Grandma Betty he never knew. A few yards away Brandon and Ben stood silent beside a black stone. On Terra the stone had been a red marble marker for his brother, Ben. Jack had once left a small porcelain bear near the base of the gravestone. But this isn’t Terra, and that’s not Ben’s grave.
He stepped around the stone and joined his friends. The inscription read, John ‘Jack’ Patrick Fuller, 1996-2012, Beloved Son and Brother, May He Rest in Peace. Jack knelt before his doppelganger’s marker. Lord, help me be as brave.
Jack felt a little disoriented, but stood and faced his comrades. “A hero is buried here.” Jack placed his hand on the warm stone. “He saved Ben’s life, where I failed on Terra. But I promise, in my brother’s name, to save my grandfather and bring him home.”
“We will save Albert.” Ben placed his hand on top of Jack’s.
“We promise,” Lori’s voice broke as she put her hand on Ben’s.
“Count me in.” Brandon’s hand topped Lori’s.
“Me too.” A fifth hand, wrinkled by age, pressed down on Jack’s grave.
Ben’s face broke into a grin. “GranPat! You made it back to Earth.” He grabbed his grandfather in a strong hug. “I tried to find you on Terra. I had the portal watch the whole time. I could’ve brought you home!”
“Thanks for tryin’.” He smiled at Ben’s friends “You’ve all been very brave.” GranPat met Jack’s eyes. “I’m Patrick McDugan. Sorry I pretended to be Albert.”
“You fooled me,” Jack searched GranPat’s eyes, “but help me take Pop-Pop home and all’s forgiven.”
“Deal.” Patrick shook Jack’s hand.
Ben introduced Brandon and Lori. “They’re here to help. They know about the portal watch and the beacon.” Ben tilted his head. “Wait a minute. I thought we had to keep one watch on each world.”
“We do. Miss Betsy is safeguarding mine on Terra, until w
e can take Albert and Jack back home.”
“Good. Dad said the FBI plans to test the beacon at 10:30 this morning.”
GranPat stiffened. “Why?”
Ben shrugged. “Not sure. They’ve already hunted down the CSD agents here on Earth.”
“Startin’ the beacon would give access to the Commonwealth. I wish I’d thought to encrypt the frequency.” GranPat shook his head.
“What about the second beacon?” Ben asked. “I found another open frequency.”
GranPat’s head went up. “Second beacon? Did somebody copy me equipment?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Ben explained how they found Erde, and the brown planet’s desperate situation.
“I’d like to see for me self. This new threat may far exceed Terra’s.” GranPat looked around. “But not here in the open.”
Brandon cleared his voice. “Okay. We need a plan to get inside the hospital and rescue Albert.”
“You say he’s in the sub-basement?” GranPat said.
“We could teleport inside,” Lori said.
“We’d need the exact coordinates first,” Ben said. “It might be tricky trying to teleport somewhere below ground.” He cringed at the thought of opening a portal inside a steaming hot boiler.
GranPat nodded. “I got me an idea. Gather round. I’ve been on Holy Rosary’s board of trustees for the past thirty years. I advise on all mechanical and engineerin’ projects for the hospital and the cemetery.”
Ben felt like he was in a football huddle with GranPat as quarterback.
His grandfather rubbed his hands together. “Underground utility tunnels run under the streets of the city. One runs under the big mausoleum on the hill. It can get us close to the hospital morgue.” GranPat pointed through the oak trees toward the hospital sixty yards away.
“The morgue?” Brandon made a face.
“The morgue is in the sub-basement,” GranPat said
“What are the tunnels for?” Jack asked.
“Dates back to the late nineteenth century. They used them for water and gas lines, and later electric. The city also pipes steam generated from the city incinerator through the tunnels to keep the water lines from freezing. We can use the tunnel to get inside the hospital.”
As they followed the access road to the mausoleum, a storm front of dark gray clouds drifted toward the cemetery from the north. The sun disappeared from view and the temperature dropped suddenly. A chill breeze whistled between the tombstones as if an old man blew through missing teeth.
They followed GranPat to the large mausoleum covered in English ivy. The main entry door stood open to the public, but he saw no other visitors. As the troop filed inside, the clouds unleashed a steady downpour.
Ben followed his grandfather down a sixty-foot corridor. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with white marble mini-vaults labeled with names of the deceased. At the far end of the hallway, they came to a dead end. A locked wooden door barred their way. GranPat reached up over the wooden lintel, found a tarnished brass key, and opened the old door.
“How did you know about the key?” Ben asked.
GranPat winked. “The head groundskeeper left one here in case of an emergency. He made sure to tell the board members every time we visited.” GranPat chuckled. “Funny. I never thought I’d need it.”
GranPat stretched his arm into the dark doorway and flipped an old light switch with an audible click. Bright light lit the stairway and the cobwebs along the ceiling. They descended dusty stairs to a dark tunnel below. At the bottom of the stairs, GranPat flipped another switch that illuminated a row of amber light bulbs stretching along the tunnel in either direction. “This way.” GranPat walked south toward the hospital.
Ben wrinkled his nose. The tunnel air smelled like old cheese. As they moved south, a rat scurried from a cardboard box and ran ahead of them, leaving a trail across the dusty concrete floor. The rodent and its pink tail disappeared down an open floor drain.
“Lovely,” Lori murmured. She put her arm through Brandon’s.
As they clomped down the tunnel, their footsteps echoed ahead. The walls and ceiling crawled with a toxic wallpaper of black mold. Power conduits and old pipes lined the sides of the tunnel. Little beady eyes glistened, as the braver rats rested on the warm steam pipes and watched them pass.
Halfway down the tunnel, a tree root resembling a black snake protruded through the cracked ceiling above. The root had grown through and incorporated an old leather shoe with a rusted buckle, one whose owner no longer needed.
The south tunnel ended at an east-west cross tunnel along the hospital’s foundation. Street noise leaked through open vents above. The air grew warmer as the sweaty steam pipes dripped on the floor. They stopped at a metal service door.
GranPat held up his hand and turned to Ben. “Okay. Let’s have a quick look at Erde.” GranPat cleaned his dark rimmed glasses.
Ben grimaced. Opening a portal into Erde had proved dangerous. What if he opened a door into a combat zone? He loved firefights in War Banshee, but live rounds were dangerous. GranPat waited, Ben’s friends watched anxiously, and they all seemed to trust him. He nodded as if he were brave, but felt more like a fraud.
Ben swallowed his fear, flipped the first switch, and tuned the frequency to beacon 14:33:03, using the DL coordinates for the Carmichael house. He flipped the second switch, and a small portal opened in front of the metal door. When it grew to the size of a baseball, he pushed the silver button and arrested its growth. Leaning forward, he placed his left eye to the peep hole.
The view resembled the rear patio of GranPat’s house. The sky looked wrong and dark with dust. The sun barely penetrated the brown haze.
Ben-Gen’s beacon array, with the orange wires and car batteries, had been reassembled on the patio. A man in blue metal body armor, adorned with four silver stars on each shoulder, held a pistol to the human side of Ben-Gen’s head. A semi-circle of soldiers stood behind the four-star.
“Doctor MacDougal.” The four-star’s large forehead dripped with sweat. “In order for any of us to reach the Haven, this battalion must slide through the Way when the second beacon reappears.” The man in blue armor held out his other hand. “You have to the count of four to give me the portal device or, this . . . boy dies. Understood? One, two, three —”
Ben watched as MacDougal, a man who resembled Albert, walked forward and placed a portal watch in the gunman’s hand. Ben panned the view to the open area behind the house and saw hundreds of troops, weapons, and vehicles with missile launchers. Some soldiers looked robotic, or at least cyborg. He panned down. On the dusty brown deck in a pool of dark blood laid MacDougal’s doppelganger wearing black rimmed glasses.
As Ben stepped back, GranPat stepped forward and took a quick look from several angles, and signaled Ben to cut the portal. GranPat looked pale. He leaned back and pressed his head against the rusted metal door. “Mirrored repetition of specific events,” he murmured. “Redundant versions of me and Albert creatin’ portals in other parallel worlds.”
“What do you mean?” Brandon asked.
“It’s like . . . viewin’ me reflection in two mirrors facin’ each other. I see me self, or similar events, over and over ad-infinitum. Albert and I thought we invented somethin’ entirely unique, but here we find a second beacon on another world, and another struggle over a teleportation device.” He shook his head.
“Similarities across the multiverse,” Ben said.
GranPat nodded. “Exactly.”
“Erde is dying.” Ben told them what he’d seen and heard. “They want to cross to a healthier planet like Earth, or Terra.”
“More like invade,” Jack said. “They have an army ready to go.”
“They already killed a “GranPat” from God knows where, and forced Erde’s version of Albert to surrender a portal watch,” Ben said. “They need our beacon signal to make a portal to Earth. We can’t let them cross.” He crunched his hands into fists.
“The risk far outweighs the benefits,” GranPat lamented. “We can’t let them use me beacon.”
Ben started pacing. What could they do? Was it time to surrender everything to the FBI to gain their cooperation? No. Not after what he’d just seen unfold on Erde.
“But the test is at 10:30 today,” Jack said.
“It’s 9:00 now.” Lori said. “We need to work fast.”
“This could be disastrous.” GranPat ran his hand over his bald spot.
Ben stopped pacing and tilted his head.
“Let’s hear it, Ben.” Lori said. “I can tell you have an idea.”
Ben spared a smile for her. “I’ll call my dad and tell him what’s happening. He’s at GranPat’s house. He’ll make them stop the test.”
“Wait.” Brandon said. “Won’t they trace your phone? They’ll know where we are.”
Lori held up her hand. “Why not open a portal and make the call from far away?”
Ben grinned. “A little misdirection. That’s brilliant.”
She raised her chin and smiled back.
GranPat nodded. “Okay. Let’s hurry. Close the portal once you cross. We want the telephone signal to have one origin.”
Ben checked his current coordinates and opened a portal. The sky was cloudy above the reservoir ridge. A light drizzle floated down.
Jack went through first and scanned the area. “All clear.”
“Be careful,” said Lori.
Ben smiled. “We’ll be right back.” He stepped through and closed the portal.
Chapter 43
SAC Miller stood under a tall pine sixty yards behind Patrick’s house and tried to avoid the steady rain. He watched the Army National Guard dig in around the muddy field below.
Early this morning the ANG buried a reinforced forty-foot shipping container at the top of the hill. On the surface, a green canvas tent sheltered the thick metal door to the command post they called the ‘bunker’.
The guard had mobilized as a precaution against a possible Terran incursion during Homeland Security’s beacon test. The ANG installed strategic gun placements, perimeter fortifications, explosive charges, and two M1 tanks. They removed trees and installed a booster antenna to draw the enemy portal into a proper field of fire. Another tactician referred to it as ‘ground zero’.
Slideways Page 27
