Winston Chase and the Theta Factor

by Bodhi St John

  “Ah!” said the agent. He shifted and swatted at his pocket with his gun hand. “AHH!”

  His battery ignited.

  There was a loud, muffled pop, and a burst of yellow flame erupted from the man’s hip. He howled in pain, eyes frantically searching for a way to be rid of this sudden agony. He held his gun up high and batted at his right pocket with his left hand. The scorched fabric gave way, and the phone tumbled to the ground.

  Then Winston overloaded his earpiece, and the shrill screeching was easily audible around the clearing. The man involuntarily hunched over, right hand convulsing to the side of his head. The guy would never get more disoriented than this moment.

  Winston used the small gap between them to do his best impression of the lineman tackle Shade had given Brian Steinhoff in the gym so long ago. He botched it entirely, of course. His shoulder collided with the man just below his armpit, and he forgot to wrap his arms around the man’s body. He also tripped over Shade. Nevertheless, the impact was sufficient to knock the bewildered man off-balance and reeling to the side. He hit the deadfall at a bad angle, and his knee collapsed. He fell over the log, and his gun flew far into the shadows.

  In an instant, Shade was on his knees and scrambling toward his broken blowgun.

  The agent’s hand gripped the top of the deadfall, fingertips groping for a hold. The man pulled himself up, eyes blazing, lips peeled back from clenched teeth. This was not the look of a man dedicated to truth, justice, and calm diplomacy. He jumped and got one foot up on the fallen tree. From there, his next move would be to pounce on Shade.

  Shade wasn’t waiting for that. He dove for the back part of his blowgun just as the agent leaped from the deadfall. The man’s feet hit the ground only an arm’s reach from Shade’s head, just as Shade’s hand seized around the blowgun shaft. He rolled away from the agent — no small feat of strength, since he had to go over the bulging mass of his backpack — and when he came to rest, it was with the blowgun’s mouthpiece pressed to his lips.

  The agent reached for Shade, finger’s outstretched as they clearly meant to seize around his throat.

  Shade adjusted his aim to miss the hand and blew. The dart burst from the broken end of the tube with a quiet poof and embedded itself in the man’s throat just above his Adam’s apple. Then he was on Shade, one hand locked on the front of his orange sweat jacket while the other made a fist and pulled back to strike.

  Winston grabbed the man’s wrist with both hands.

  Even as Winston pulled on the arm, trying to get the man off of Shade, Winston could see and feel the strength draining out of him. He wavered, and when he fell to the side, Winston let him go. A moment later, his eyes were closed, arms splayed out, face in the dirt.

  Winston helped Shade to his feet. They stood over the sleeping agent, dazed and breathing heavily.

  “He was going to blow my head off,” Shade breathed. “For real.”

  Winston patted his shoulder. “This is why kids should stay in school.”

  Shade gave a long sigh. “True that. Oh, by the way.” He mustered a grin. “You made his phone blow up. That was awesome!”

  “Thanks. I’m not sure it’ll be my most appreciated superpower.”

  Shade chuckled. “Yeah, probably not.” He glanced around them, searching for any signs of movement. “You know, soon as one of these guys gets found, they’re gonna call it in and bury this hill in special ops. What’s our next move?”

  Winston had no next move. He only had the impulse that his heart demanded he follow and the barest, flimsiest idea of how to pursue it.

  “I have to go after my mom.”

  Shade’s eyes narrowed. “We.”

  That confused Winston for a second, but then he saw where Shade was headed. “Dude, I can’t take you with me. I’m going back to 1966 to find Theo. I’ll be safe there, and he can give me a ride to—”

  “We,” repeated Shade more emphatically. “You are not bailing on me, understand? Stop trying to do this on your own. In fact, you need more than me, in case this whole recent experience doesn’t make the point clear enough.”

  Winston looked up and the sky and, feeling tired and exasperated, said, “I don’t have more than you. I mean, there’s Theo, but he’s back then. You’re all I’ve got now, and, as you so brilliantly pointed out, that guy was gonna kill you.”

  Shade poked Winston in the chest with his finger. Winston hated that.

  “We need more help,” Shade said.

  “Like whom?”

  “Seriously? Don’t you whom me right now. What about Alyssa?”

  Winston’s reaction came out before he could even consider the words. “No way. Not Alyssa. I mean…we need shock troops, not more kids.” Winston knew how hollow the words sounded even as he said them, but the last thing he wanted was to endanger Alyssa. “No. I can do this.”

  Shade paused to think. “She used to talk about her grandfather. He was a jet pilot in the Air Force, if I remember.”

  “I don’t think the Air Force is going to help a nuclear terrorist.”

  “But he’ll know people. She’ll know people.” When Winston again tried to dismiss the idea, Shade poked him again. “What have you got to lose, man? Just try it! You got somewhere else to be?”

  “Well…the last piece is at Hanford,” Winston said. “The nuclear reactor place in Washington. That’s our final destination.”

  “But first your mom.”

  “Yes. Although I have no idea where she is.”

  Shade nodded. “Right. And Bledsoe’s not going to just hand her over.”

  “Nope.” Winston took a deep breath. “Unless we make him.”

  “How?”

  Winston shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But I do know that he’s going to kill her tonight.”

  “OK.” Shade began to pace in front of the fallen FBI agent, head bowed. “Bledsoe is the only one who knows where your mom is, and he’s using her to get the Alpha Machine from you.”

  “Right.”

  “So he’s going to tell you where and when to show up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Unless you tell him first. It’s straight out of The Art of War. Bring the enemy to your battlefield. Don’t let him pick.”

  “But I don’t have—”

  Winston stopped as the beginning of an idea began to form in his mind.

  “Alyssa’s grandfather was in the Air Force?”

  Shade bobbed his head. “I think that’s what she said. You really should try, you know, talking to girls. It’s amazing what you might learn.”

  Winston ignored that. “All right. Then I’ll get Theo to take me to Alyssa.”

  Shade tapped his temple. “Hel-lo. Alyssa isn’t in 1966. She’s — ah, dang!”

  “Time machine,” they said in unison.

  “Can you get out of here by yourself?” asked Winston.

  “Of course.”

  “OK.” Winston finally had his tactical brainpower engaged, and possibilities started to interlock in his mind. “If you can get to the Fred Meyer back in Tillamook, I’ll figure out how to have a ride there waiting for you this afternoon. By the main entrance at, say, three o’clock.”

  Shade beamed. “Nice! Now, where are we meeting up?”

  Winston gave the idea one last spin in his imagination as he took the Alpha Machine pieces from his pack. He couldn’t think of anything better.

  “Council Crest. But before that, I think we’re gonna be hungry.”

  Shade fist-pumped with anticipation.

  37

  Arrival at Alyssa

  As soon as he landed in the fall of 1966, Winston jogged from the forest down to the blimp hangar, once again set alongside its massive twin within the airport. The old lady at the front office, once sufficiently charmed with a story about Winston having been stranded by prankster friends, let him use her phone. Two hours of pacing followed in which he waited for Theo to close up his museum and drive from Astoria. In each of those minutes,
Winston fought the urge to comb the phone book for his father’s name. The potential for damaging his dad’s plans far outweighed any emotional benefit to himself.

  While waiting, Winston debated over how much to tell Theo. The man was understandably annoyed at suddenly having to play teen chauffeur after months of not knowing what had become of Winston after his drop from the Astoria Bridge. He deserved answers, but Winston couldn’t stop hearing his father’s words in his mind: The future is slippery. If he told Theo everything, that might give Theo time to amass the army of Council Crest shock troops Winston wanted. But Theo would surely be pushing one hundred years old by then. Even with QVs, Winston doubted that time and random chance would spare him. Fewer than two in every ten thousand Americans lived to one hundred. Even if the QVs gave him a 10x improvement, those were still terrible odds. That meant whatever preparations Theo made would have to be passed off to another person, who would have to know everything about Area X and the Alpha machine — and that was more chance than Winston wanted to take.

  And, of course, the more Theo prepared, the bigger a target he would become for whatever government agency sat behind Bledsoe. That alone might undo everything and lead them to Winston and Claude before he could hide the Alpha Machine pieces.

  Theo arrived with a brown bag full of Chinese food for their ride to Portland. He appeared just as Winston remembered. Winston said nothing of the disaster at the hangar, only that he was still searching for the other Alpha Machine pieces while Bledsoe pursued him. His one slipup came as Winston went through his backpack, confirming what was in order and what had been lost along the way. Theo commented on Little e, saying he thought he’d seen it drop into the river. Only then did Winston realize that he’d left the geojumper on the seat between them, but the geoviewer he had pulled from the Japanese bomb in Theo’s museum was conspicuously missing. He quickly put everything in his bag, hoping that Theo hadn’t been observant enough to spot the disappearance.

  With a full belly and the lull of the road, Winston succumbed to his exhaustion. Maybe he would call it “jump lag” and make a bunch of memes about it if time travel ever caught on…

  Winston awoke with a start and batted at the hand shaking him.

  “Whoa, it’s all right,” said Theo. “We’re there.”

  Theo. Right.

  “Is this it?” Theo asked.

  Winston looked around, realizing that only a trace of twilight remained in the eastern sky. Rain drenched the windows of Theo’s Ford in long rivulets. It was hard to see into their surroundings, but Winston made out a cement curb before them in the bright beam of their headlights. Running parallel to this, he spied a sidewalk abutted by a wide swath of clumpy mud. More details emerged: Strewn sheets of cut plywood and 2x4 beams lay in the dirt. The skeletal frames of five houses stood along the block, all with untiled roofs and no windows or siding. At the end of the block near the end of their headlights’ range stood a squat, black obelisk bearing the white-lettered words SCHOLLS GROVE. That was Alyssa’s neighborhood. Which meant…

  Winston counted house lots. Yes. The structure across the street on his left was her home. Or would be someday.

  He nodded and indicated the building. Without doors, the open front entrance and garage seemed dark and menacing.

  “All right, then,” said Theo. “Good luck, I guess. Roads allowing, I might even make it back home in time for a date tonight.”

  Winston gave him a small grin. “Really?”

  Theo sniffed. “No need to be so surprised. Once people forgot about my trespassing charge after the bridge, Vince Lane went back to being a respectable, liked citizen.”

  “Are you two serious?”

  Theo blinked and fussed as if some speck of dust had landed in his eye. “Ah, well. She’s quite nice, but…probably not. We’ll see.”

  Winston could tell that he had cracked open a large can of worms. Perhaps another time.

  “Well, I hope you have a good time,” he said. “Meanwhile…I guess I have plans, too. Gotta go.”

  “Good luck, Winston.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for the ride — oh, and the cash.” He patted his jeans pocket to make sure the wad of bills was still there.

  Theo smiled. “Seemed the least I could do after all of your stock tips to watch for.”

  “My stock…?” Winston frowned, unable to come up with when he might have said such things.

  “Self-sealing plastic bags,” said Theo with a wry grin. “Appliance makers with gadgets that might displace manual can openers. The brands on your clothes. And, of course, whatever a Google is.”

  Winston laughed. “Well played, sir. You remember the details for getting Shade?”

  “October 7, 2013. Three o’ clock, in front of the Tillamook Fred Meyer. Prepay a taxi service to take Shade to Portland. Put it in my will if I have to.”

  “Perfect. Thank you.”

  Theo shrugged and only said, “Be careful.”

  “Maybe I’ll get to look you up again sometime.”

  “I’m sure,” Theo quipped with a grin. “You’ll probably need another ride next week.”

  Winston got out of the car, feeling the rain and chill immediately start sinking into his skin. He should have put on the coat he’d bought in Tillamook, but he didn’t plan on being out here that long. Once he was through the mud and leaving tracks inside the doorway, he turned and waved to Theo. He barely made out the movement of Theo’s wave in reply. The Ford drove away into the night.

  “Right,” Winston said. He could feel the tug of air from the front doorway to the back, icy on his face and neck. Rain spattered and dripped all around the building. The irrational, superstitious caveman in Winston’s brain wondered if there might be an attacker or even worse monster waiting just around one of the dark plywood walls.

  Winston shook himself.

  You’re just tired and spooked. Get a grip. Stop being a six year old.

  To Winston’s right, a wooden stairway, still without a railing, hugged the wall. The front living room lay to his left, adorned only with a central pile of buckets, hand tools, and an open tarp covered in bits of scrap wood. Taking extra care in the gloom, Winston kept his shoulder to the wall and ascended the stairway.

  He had never been in Alyssa’s house before — for countless reasons, all of them stupid — but he knew very well which room was hers from the outside. Upper level, street-facing, on the far left.

  At the top of the stairs, Winston paused to get his bearings. Without finished walls, everything felt like a jumble of boards and beams. It was like being inside a Jenga game built by drunk people. The world was all right angles, but nothing made sense, and one space merged into the next without clear borders. From where he stood, Winston could see from one end of the house to the other, with only a few electrical cables strung through the framed walls to break up the monotony. Winston found it very disorienting but also fascinating. It was a glimpse into how something worked and came to be.

  Fortunately, even though he wasn’t sure which walls separated rooms, the hallway was easy to determine from the clear path along the floor. Winston followed it back to what he guessed was the doorway to the last room. Taking up Little e and the two chrono pieces, Winston got to work.

  The Alpha Machine wanted to snap him back into his present, but he resisted the pull. He needed to back up a little before that, to the morning after his accidental drop from the freighter into the Columbia River. Friday the fourth at about 7:00, when she would be getting ready for school. But what if the Alpha Machine blocked that time, as well? How far back would he have to go to avoid a conflict with his other self?

  Luckily, the controls stayed green. Whatever was making the device so fickle had either fixed itself or was taking a temporary break from hating him. Either way, Winston knew he didn’t have long. The march of events in his present weren’t stopping for anything.

  In his second reality, Winston could see almost nothing but white. It took him a second to realiz
e he was staring at a closed door and blank wall.

  “Idiot,” he mumbled.

  Winston was about to step through the framed doorway in 1966 so that he could see into Alyssa’s room in 2013, but he paused. He realized that, in a sense, he would be a ghostly intruder in this dreary, damp building. What if she was writing in her diary or getting dressed or anything else he shouldn’t see? No matter the reasons, he was being a creepy stalker. He tried to cover his eyes, but he had no spectral body to block his view.

  “Ugh,” he whispered. “In advance…I’m sorry.”

  Winston stepped through the doorway.

  Now he could see Alyssa. She sat — fully dressed, thank God — before a laptop computer at a small white desk. Her room was covered in black and white decor, everything from the bed covers to the music posters to the zebra-pattern rug. He could tell from the expression on Alyssa’s face that she was mad about whatever she was reading. She stood suddenly, jabbed a finger at the screen, and talked to it as if the computer could listen.

  Winston wished he could hear what she was saying. And then he could.

  Idiot, he thought. Again.

  He needed to learn to trust the Alpha Machine and let it be an extension of his mind. Obviously, the two were linked.

  “—amazing, and I can’t wait to study math with you,” Alyssa said.

  Oh, no. She was reading the email he’d sent from the freighter.

  “Yeah, you can’t wait,” she sneered. “But here we are…waiting.”

  Oof.

  She paced the floor in front of her desk, once coming so close that, had Winston actually been there, he could have reached out and brushed her arm. Or her hair.

  Back in his physical form, Winston swallowed thickly.

  “Stupid moron!” she said, breaking his reverie.

  Yeah, guilty as charged.

  Why would she ever be interested in him? Part alien, painfully shy, hunted by the FBI. How would dinner with the family go? Oh, today was fine at school, Mr. Bauman. I got beat up, my butt glowed a bright blue, and now people are trying to kill me. Can you please pass the potatoes and let me date your daughter?