Winston Chase and the Theta Factor
Page 26
Grandpa Clayton’s brow creased. “Shade is?”
“Winston’s best friend. He went with him when Winston split town.”
Her grandfather absorbed this. “Did he appear in your bedroom, too?”
“No! Of course not. He doesn’t have QVs, so he can’t use the Alpha Machine.”
“For what it’s worth,” added Theo with more than a trace of regret, “I can’t use it, either. QV injections appear to affect people differently. My effects were comparatively minor.”
“So, the two friends separated,” said Grandpa Clayton. “Where is Shade now?”
Leave it to Grandpa Clayton to have one eye on tactics while playing the role of overprotective grandparent guarding her virtue from time-traveling boys.
“I don’t know,” Alyssa said. “He didn’t say.”
“Hm. Continue.”
“That’s it. I need to find a helicopter and meet him tonight. He said I should get Theo to help, but I don’t trust anybody else. Except you.”
Grandpa Clayton’s eyes narrowed slightly. She thought he would ask questions, but he only waited for her to keep talking.
“OK, stop that,” she said. “This is not an interrogation. I don’t have any more information.”
He remained motionless for another ten seconds, not even blinking, apparently to make sure. Then he leaned back in his chair and sighed.
“Let’s recap,” he said. “You walk up here, out of the blue, after three years of silence.”
“You said you didn’t want to talk to Mom anymore!”
Grandpa Clayton raised one eyebrow and stared at her.
“Ugh!” Alyssa let her fork clatter on the table. “Fine. Continue. Please.”
“You come to my home with a stranger, and the first thing you ask me to do is lie to your mother on little more than a ‘trust me.’ You know my history at Edwards, and — what a coincidence! You come in here with a story that confirms all of my old suspicions and offers me vindication. But if I want real proof, I need not only to meet some schoolyard boyfriend who visits you in your bedroom, but I have to fetch him in a helicopter and transport him across state lines into federally restricted airspace.”
Alyssa glowered at her empty juice glass. “You make it sound really bad.”
“This is without his parents’ permission, I suppose?”
“I told you. Bledsoe has his mom. That’s the point of this — to rescue her.”
Grandpa Clayton’s tongue poked at the inside of his cheeks as he worked on cleaning sausage from between his teeth. At length, he shook his head.
“This is absurd. I sacrificed a good career because I couldn’t let go of this business. And you want me to jump in headfirst, even though I’m effectively blindfolded.”
“Grandpa Clayton,” Alyssa said as she leaned forward, hands flat on the table. “Do you think it was easy for me to come here? Do you think I’m doing this for fun? In all the years you’ve known me, am I the sort of kid who makes crap up and goes on crazy adventures just to get in trouble and make people do whatever I say?”
Grandpa Clayton drew a deep breath and said through barely moving lips. “No. It’s been three years, but…I don’t think you would do that.”
“I’ve seen the Alpha Machine, and I’ve seen Winston use it. I’ve heard his story, and Theo — yeah, a total stranger before yesterday — confirmed it all. I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t believe Winston. I think this really is life or death.”
Alyssa held eye contact with him for a long while. Two could play the stare-down game. At length, and without breaking his gaze with her, Grandpa Clayton said, “Theo, did you serve or were you civilian?”
“I was brought straight into Air Force R&D from the academic sector. If you’re asking whether I’ve seen battle, then no.”
“Hm.” Grandpa Clayton finally did look away. Alyssa felt a fleeting moment of victory before her grandfather pinned Theo with that same icy stare. “So, I’m asking you as a man of honor and principle, a fellow member of the armed services, and man-to-man…is everything that’s been said here accurate and true? Is there anything else I should know?”
Theo didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely true. We have everything to lose from this and nothing to gain — except survival. Believe me, if I thought we could trust any authority, we wouldn’t be here.”
Grandpa Clayton nodded. He pushed back in his chair and looked toward the kitchen. Alyssa realized that he was gazing at the counter, specifically at the white rose. The corners of his lips quivered slightly, and Alyssa could’ve sworn that his eyes grew moist.
As if responding to some internal discussion, he finally stood, crossed to the cordless telephone hanging in its cradle on the kitchen wall, and dialed a number. He kept his back to Alyssa and Theo, but the somber tone of his voice expressed everything that remained hidden on his face.
“Mike, Clayton Griggs,” he said at last. “Yeah, long time… Everything good?” He listened quietly for a moment. “That’s great to hear. Hey, Mike…do you still have Maggie? Yeah? All right. And were you serious about that favor? Yeah… Yes, you could say that. I need it. Today.”
Grandpa Clayton remained on the line for several more minutes, most of it spent waiting for Mike Griggs to check into details on his end. Finally, though, the arrangements were settled. Grandpa Clayton gave several appreciative thank yous, and ended the call with a slightly unsettling farewell.
“Thanks, Mike. I will… No, it’s better not to ask… Yes. I think I’ll get to settle it once and for all… You, too. Take care.”
He turned to face Alyssa and Theo, face stern as he reached to put the phone back in its cradle.
Alyssa stepped forward. “Hold on.”
She reached for the phone, and Grandpa Clayton handed it to her, his confusion clear.
“I have to call the FBI,” she said.
Both men quickly voiced their disapproval.
“I know, I know,” Alyssa said. “But this was the last thing Winston told me to do. Now, he didn’t say where I had to call from, so we could go somewhere else, if you want.”
Grandpa Clayton thought it over for a bit and then said, “Unnecessary. I’m sure I’m already red-flagged, and you contacting the feds directly will put everyone you know under a microscope. I just dragged my friend Mike into this by association. Hopefully…” He sighed. Never content to focus on one task when he could be doing two, Grandpa Clayton began scrubbing at the pans in the sink. “Hopefully, we’ll have this matter settled before anyone traces your location and makes the connection with me from your phone call.”
Alyssa checked her phone and dialed the number for the FBI’s Portland branch office. A very bored-sounding woman picked up on the third ring.
“Thank you for calling the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Portland branch office. If you know the extension of the party you are calling, you may…”
Alyssa tried to reach an operator but only landed at a general mailbox for recording messages. She couldn’t hide the nervous tremor and tension in her voice.
“I need to get a message to an Agent Lynch, who’s currently on special assignment with a man named Devlin Bledsoe. Please tell the two of them that they need to bring their remaining guest to the meeting place she initially made contact from, at ten o’clock tonight.”
She repeated the message one more time, just to make sure they got everything, and then hung up.
Alyssa lowered the phone to her side and gave a long exhale. “Well, that’s th—”
The phone rang. Alyssa’s taut nerves jangled, and she nearly dropped it as she jumped. The handset’s LCD read UNKNOWN.
Grandpa Clayton’s expression furrowed even deeper, from concern into outright worry. The phone rang again.
“Put it on speaker,” he growled.
Alyssa walked to the phone cradle on the kitchen counter and pressed its speaker button.
She swallowed, and her voice nearly cracked when she said, “Hello?”
Alyssa did not like how the voice paused over Theo’s false name.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“You may call me Command One,” said the voice. “I speak for Management.”
Alyssa rested her elbows on the counter, as she didn’t entirely trust her legs to keep her upright. Her breakfast swirled uneasily in her guts, as if contemplating an early, sudden exit.
Theo stepped up behind her. “This is Mister Lane. What do you want?”
“We want you to accept our help,” said Command One. “Devlin Bledsoe has broken with our organization. We believe your friend, Mr. Chase, is in imminent danger.”
“You just now figured that out?” Alyssa interjected.
“We have reassigned an agent to give you assistance,” continued Command One. “He is at your house now. Please allow him to work with you. He has been briefed on the Alpha Machine.”
“Wait!” cried Amanda. “You know about the Alpha Machine?”
The line disconnected just as the doorbell rang.
Stunned by this sudden turn of events, the three of them went to the front door. Alyssa expected some enforcer type, with black shades and a buzz cut, all sinews and hoarse commands. As Grandpa Clayton opened the door, she was greeted with almost the exact opposite. He was pale and scrawny, with a light blue polo untucked from his khaki slacks. No shades. Big smile over slightly crooked teeth. Large brown curls jostled as he extended a hand.
“Hi there,” he said. “I’m Agent Vernon Smith.”
33
Present Peril
Winston felt the hem of Alyssa’s dress — an ankle-length, white-belted blue outfit with a lotus-flower print and lace around the hems — tickle across his cheek. His emotions swirled in a frenzy. She was shockingly beautiful, with her black hair blowing behind her in the breeze and the sun sparkling in her dark eyes. Winston had the urge to pull away, both because her dress was dangerously close to billowing over his head, which would have been horrifically awkward, and because she held her Algebra textbook out at arm’s length, ready to drop it on his face.
Her fingers let go. The dress’s lace hem whisked across his forehead—
And Winston awoke.
No Alyssa. No textbook.
Winston’s first thought was that he needed to suggest that dress to her, because she would look amazing in it. Then, he realized that she would probably gut punch him for suggesting such a thing. Only then did Winston fully take in that he was sitting upright in a field of wheat grass under a clear, warm, early-morning sky. The Alpha Machine pieces lay by his side. The hem of Alyssa’s skirt had been the wind-nudged head of a grass stalk brushing over his face.
“Typical,” mumbled Winston as he got to his feet.
His joints popped and protested at returning to service after a night on the ground. Winston consoled himself that he didn’t hurt as much as when he’d slept on the Columbia River’s shore, wet and shivering. How did wild animals do this every day?
Still, he felt bad enough. The events of the previous night returned to Winston one by one. His run to this field. Retrieving Little e and losing the geoviewer to Bledsoe. The Alpha Machine resisting all of his attempts to find a solution by jumping back in time. His father’s sudden stroke and death.
He scooped up the artifacts from the ground, intending to put them in his backpack, but a thought struck. At first, it was only vague loneliness, a sense that he wanted nothing more than to go home. He wanted his mom’s embrace, the warmth of his bed, the smell of his workbench.
Then he realized — what if he did go back? What if, here in June, long before that fateful day when his classmates saw his skin turn blue and he drew the attention of Bledsoe and his superiors, he made his way back to Beaverton and warned his mother? He could tell her what was to come and give her instructions to keep from getting captured. This time, she would stay safe. He didn’t have to give her a ton of time, not enough to freak out and spend weeks changing everything. Just a day or two…
Before that thought had finished, Winston already had the chrono pieces spinning in midair above his cupped palms. He nudged the chrono controls from June to October. They changed from green to red.
He tried backing up into September. Still red.
“Crap!” he yelled as he threw the pieces into the grass at his feet. “Why?! Just let me help her!”
Then he remembered the other person who probably needed his help even more.
Shade.
Winston recalled the trail of flames and seeing his friend’s distant shape bicycling for his life up the road toward where Winston now rested. Agents had gone running after him. How long had Winston been out? Six hours? No, probably closer to eight, judging by the sun’s position. Eight hours that Shade would have been either fleeing or captured while Winston slept.
It might not be too late, though. This was Shade, after all. If anyone could hide in the woods, it would be him — for a while. In the end, though, it was Shade’s tricks and camouflage against trained federal agents and guns. Every minute mattered.
Winston tucked his artifacts into his pack, making sure all was safe and in order. Not knowing what might lie ahead, Winston plucked one of his last three energy marbles from his pocket and fed it into Little e’s wrist guard. On cue, a hole opened in the small bulge, and Winston dropped the blue ball into it.
“Welcome back, buddy,” said Winston.
The opening sealed shut with the slightest snick, and Winston closed the pack before cinching it onto his shoulders and setting off at a jog.
Winston returned to the gate across the road. Rather than mess with the chain and padlock securing it, Winston took one glance about to confirm that no one was in sight other than a few horses watching him in the distance. He quickly climbed over. At a jog, he crossed the farm’s field, heading for the tree line at the far side.
The last building on the property was a sloping, two-story corrugated aluminum structure with an attached, fenced-in area for the sheep and goats within it. A man appeared in the building’s dark doorway carrying a heavy bucket in each hand. “Hey!” he called, and Winston’s steps faltered. However, the man made no move to come after him or even set down his buckets. Winston waved as he loped along, hoping to silently convey his thanks. The man shook his head and lumbered to the corner of his barn until he disappeared from sight.
The tree line began where the flat fields met a broad hillside. Winston gingerly ducked between two lines of barbed-wire fencing that marked the property’s edge, only slightly snagging his backpack as he went through. As he ascended, old evergreen and dogwood trees towered above him. Winston’s footing slipped every so often on the dry bed of old needles underfoot. The smells of dust and grass quickly gave way to earth and bark. In his normal life, Winston rarely found the time to hike, but he and Shade typically arranged at least one or two days each summer in which to explore Tualatin Hills Nature Park, the closest old-growth preserve near their homes. As an Oregonian, he loved being surrounded by green foliage and fresh air. Today might be an exception.
Winston realized that he had no idea where Shade might be hiding, or even if he’d been seized during the night. Running around in these woods might only serve to give Bledsoe more time and, as his mom kept reminding him, get in his daily ten thousand steps. He slowed and tried to study his surroundings more closely.
What would Shade do? Would he want to disappear into thick cover or keep an eye on open areas? Off to the right, Winston saw the barest hint of a path, no more than a foot wide. It was more of a shallow brushing aside of the needles and sparse undergrowth than anything else, and Winston suspected it might be a path made by deer or some other sizable creature. A couple of squirrels chittered at each other from the treetops, punctuated by the occasional call of a crow and sporadic tapping that had to be the work of some distant, hungry wood
pecker.
Figuring he was unlikely to encounter large animals during the day, Winston sped along the path, sensing that heading toward the hillcrest somehow would be smarter than wandering the long length of the hills all day. Before he reached the top, though, Winston spied a clearing off to his left.
The open area wasn’t some picturesque meadow. An old deadfall lay rotting away into burgundy powder near its center, and several very large but also rotten stumps indicated that perhaps the clearing had been made by logging long ago. Shrubs accented the space, and bugs flitted above the tops of the tall brown grass clumps like dust motes in the sunlight.
Winston walked around the clearing and liked the feel of it. He activated the Alpha Machine pieces and scoped out the area in his present. Except for the gray October drizzle, the clearing looked much the same. He moved around the perimeter. No traps in sight, no agents walking about. On a second pass, he did notice a six- or seven-inch segment of shoelace dangling from a sinuous root jutting from the deadfall’s end, swaying gently in the breeze. Winston couldn’t be sure, but he suspected it was from Shade’s boot. If so, that was encouraging. At least his friend had come this way and maybe even sat on the fallen tree. Why would his lace have broken, though? Perhaps he had to run off in a hurry, and it had caught on the stray root?
Winston zipped up his jacket to seal in what warmth he could and took one last deep breath, savoring the stillness and safety of the place. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to notice every detail and sound.
He recognized his hesitation for weakness and mentally kicked himself. “Sorry, Shade. Be right there.”
Winston jumped to his present.
The damp chill immediately embraced him. Winston put the geoviewer and geojumper rings in his backpack, but he kept a grip on Little e. He didn’t know if he could bear to attack anyone with it, but he liked the security of having the option.
With the backpack returned to his shoulders, Winston knelt and picked up the shoelace. It felt firm and new. Then Winston noticed the bottom end. The string didn’t seem ragged and frayed, as it probably would have been if it had snapped under sudden pressure. Rather, the end was neat and even from having been cut.