Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy
Page 68
As they continued around the tip of the southern bluff, Winston saw the outline of a chain link fence stretch from the bluff cliff off into the middle of nowhere in the desert night. For a top-secret military installation, Winston thought the fence looked surprisingly flimsy. Even their Dodge could run through it with no problem. Then he realized that the fence wasn’t meant to repel intruders. It was only a boundary scattered with “MILITARY — DANGER — KEEP OUT” signs every several dozen yards. The space beyond the fence was probably riddled with land mines and whatever other anti-intrusion weapons they had in 1948.
The road paralleled the fence line for half a mile or so until a squat guardhouse appeared in the headlights. The building looked much like a toll booth, with small windows on every side and one narrow door. An oil lamp shone from within the little building, casting a broad beam of dim yellow light onto the red and white striped barrier set across the gap between stretches of fence.
“Shouldn’t I hide in the trunk or something?” Winston asked.
Theo shook his head. “That would be far worse if he does a sweep. Perhaps just tell him that you hitchhiked out to see your uncle and we found you while driving back from town. You…” He trailed off for a moment, thinking. “You might want to omit the parts about Quarterback. For now.”
Winston was stuck, with nowhere to run and no time to figure out an alternative. How could he have been so stupid and not come up with a better plan?
Theo rolled down his window, and cold desert air whipped through the car. Winston licked his lips nervously and tasted dust.
A uniformed man emerged from the guardhouse. He wore woolen pants and a thick woolen jacket, both dark green. A scarf surrounded his neck, and fingerless gloves kept his fingertips free as they brushed the stock of the rifle slung lazily over his shoulder. His manner seemed relaxed, almost sleepy, until he caught sight of Winston in the passenger seat.
“Evening, Arth,” Theo said.
“Almost morning, Mr. Tremaine.” The guard bent over to peer at Winston, his breath making white plumes before him. A heavy black cap sat low over his eyebrows, but Winston could still see the caution and distrust in his eyes. “Who’s your guest?” He spotted Bledsoe in the back seat. “And what’s with Mr. Bledsoe?”
Theo presented Winston to the guard with a manner that said huh-what-do-you-know? “We picked him up on the road from town. He says he’s Claude’s nephew, come to find him because of some family health emergency. As for Devlin, he took ill while we were out tonight.”
The guard gave Bledsoe a twitch of his mustache. “A bit too much at the Brassy?”
Bledsoe groaned. “Twice as much went out as in. That toilet and I are now on first-name terms.”
The guard wrinkled his nose. “You choose your friends in life, Mr. Bledsoe. Now, then.” His attention returned to Winston. “What’s your name?”
Nothing. The question sank into Winston’s brain, but nothing returned. Only a moment later, when the image of Captain Kirk sitting in his chair aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise popped into Winston’s mind, could he say, “William Shatner. Sir.”
Tinnitus bloomed in Winston’s right ear just as the guard spoke. The sound rang out, warbled, split into two separate notes, and then three. Its volume subsided but didn’t entirely fade.
“I’m sorry, what?” Winston asked.
The guard’s face darkened with irritation. “I said, who is sick?”
“Um,” Winston stumbled. “Me.”
The notes in his head separated again, continued to fade, and then, with perfect clarity, a voice located somewhere in the center of Winston’s head said,
The voice bore no accent and was strangely neutral, neither obviously male nor female. Had it not been for his mother communicating with him mentally at Council Crest, Winston might have been taken completely by surprise. As it was, he stiffened but never broke eye contact with the guard. The voice could only belong to one person…or alien. At a different moment, he would have been awash with relief.
“He looks sick,” said the guard, pointing at Bledsoe. “You were out hitchhiking in the middle of the night. I’m guessing you’re not that sick. And why are you wearing a parka?”
Theo turned back to Winston and nodded skeptically. He waggled a finger toward Winston’s head. “I hear what you’re saying, Arth. But he got really chilled in the desert, and he’s still trying to warm up.”
The guard’s right hand closed around the rifle stock just behind the trigger guard.
“Look, Arth.” Bledsoe raised a hand innocently. “The kid was out there, says he’s sick, and wants his uncle. What would you do?”
The guard gave Winston one more long look, then straightened up with a groan, leaving only a small cloud of breath where his face had been. “I’m not taking the blame. I’m gonna call it in.”
Arth opened the guardhouse door, and Winston caught a glimpse of an ancient black rotary phone on a shelf supporting a wired handset big enough to club someone. As the guard reached for the phone, Winston lifted his backpack into his lap and slid a hand around within it. Too much stuff! He grabbed a handful of fabric and pulled out his tube socks.
“What are those?” Theo asked.
Seriously? No athletic socks in 1948 either?
He dropped the socks in his lap and dug through his shirts until he could feel under the Alpha Machine and found Little e’s wrist guard. Something, perhaps a T-shirt, seemed to be stuffed inside it.
Arth lifted the handset to his ear and cranked the dial.
Winston considered bringing out Little e and decided against it. They might interpret the device as a weapon, which, Winston supposed, it was. His fingers dug through the fabric and closed around the doughnut-sized chronojumper. He grabbed it with his left hand and continued rummaging with his right. In another second, he seized the chronoviewer.
“Wait,” said Theo, gazing down at Winston’s hands. “Those look like…” His head jerked up toward Winston, eyes wide with alarm.
Winston heard movement from the back seat. “What is it?” asked Bledsoe.
“Sir, I have Misters Tremaine and Bledsoe at the checkpoint,” said Arth. “They have a boy with them who’s requesting—”
Winston set the chronojumper within the chronoviewer, gripped the ring in his left hand, and shoved open the Dodge’s passenger door.
Theo tried to grab at Winston’s sleeve, but he slipped away, backpack open and dangling in his right hand. His tube socks lay scattered on the ground. Oh, well.
Arth emerged from the guardhouse, working to slide the rifle strap from his shoulder.
Winston saw the chrono controls in his lower-right vision. His first impulse was to lean on the time slider and jump as far from here as possible, but that’s not what Bernie had said.
Winston obeyed. The time readout changed from 4:18 AM to 3:55 AM.
Arth leveled his rifle at Winston. The Dodge shielded Winston from the chest down, but even a head shot wouldn’t be tough for a trained shooter at this distance.
“Hands above your head!” the guard shouted.
Winston slowly raised his right hand, the one holding the handle atop his backpack. He kept the Alpha Machine pieces low and out of sight of everyone except Theo. He nudged the slider again, moving the readout to 3:38 AM. Again. 3:20 AM.
Winston heard a click as Arth flicked off his rifle’s safety.
“Drop what you’re holding!” he shouted.
The chronojumper twisted and spun within the silver ring. He to
ok a deep breath…held it…and nudged again.
2:43 AM. Close enough.
“Just let us talk to—” Theo started to say.
Winston suddenly darted to his right, as if trying to make a run for the protection of darkness. Perhaps they would all think he’d slipped away when they went searching for him. At the same time, he mentally gripped and released the chrono controls.
The world flashed white, like the burst of a camera strobe, then returned to darkness. The guardroom and its orange candlelight remained, as did the fence, dirt road, and that vast swath of stars filling the world above the rocky bluffs. The Dodge and its two passengers were gone.
Winston let out a long breath, which hung about him, pale and ghostly, in the cold silence. His tinnitus flared again, but quieter this time. It started with multiple notes and quickly dissipated like the steam of his breath as Bernie’s voice spoke in his head.
Looking closer, Winston did make out the top of a head leaning against the guardhouse’s inner corner, topped by a very thick woolen cap.
He tiptoed to the traffic gate, all too aware of each pebble that crunched under his soles. Rather than chance lifting the hinged gate, Winston crouched and duckwalked under it. Once clear, he rose into a crouch and gingerly stepped past the guardhouse. Winston saw through the window that the gently snoring Arth had his rifle propped between his leg and the wall.
He made it ten yards, then twenty.
A stone cracked under his weight, and to Winston it sounded like a pistol shot. He froze.
Winston kept walking, all his weight on the balls of his feet, careful to hold the Alpha Machine pieces and his pack close to his chest to keep them from reflecting any lamplight.
Bernie didn’t reply, and Winston moved as fast as he dared. Fifty yards, then maybe seventy.
He heard movement behind him. Something hard tapped on a window, likely the rifle barrel. Winston chanced a backward glance and saw Arth’s torso in the window, back arched and arms bent as he stretched. He was turned away from Winston.
A hundred yards.
At last, Winston allowed himself to step on his heels, much to his calves’ relief, and walk faster.
Winston didn’t know which part he should object to first.
Winston liked the sound of that.
Winston rolled his eyes in the darkness and strongly suspected that Bernie must have kids back home.
9
The Scorpion Ascent
By the time Winston reached the shattered boulders and strewn scree that formed a skirt about the bluff’s base, his teeth were chattering and he could no longer feel his fingers. Compounding the problem, the scattered debris forced Winston to slow his pace and watch his steps, otherwise he was bound to turn an ankle. Converse sneakers might be great for school halls, but they were only a step up from flip-flops for hiking.
As Winston scanned up the cliff, it seemed impossibly tall, as if he were faced with scaling a skyscraper that ended in the dead of space. This wasn’t a gym class rope climb. He had no tricks pulled off YouTube. He had missed death aboard the plane by seconds, narrowly missed death again from Bledsoe’s pistol, and now he was the only one left. Every single person he cared about was dead.
In that moment, staring up a harrowing climb as his body began to shiver, the past few hours caught up to him. He felt much as he had after the blimp hangar — utterly drained and hopeless. What good was continuing to run when everything kept getting stolen from him piece by piece?
After a pause, the alien said,
Bernie’s words rang hollow in Winston’s mind. He realized that he didn’t care whether he could make the climb or not. The problem was that he no longer wanted to. What was the point? Bledsoe hadn’t killed him, but the man had ripped out his heart.
Despondent as he was, Winston had to admit that sounded like a fine idea. Along the way, he’d paused to settle the chrono pieces in his pack and stretch out his sweat jacket sleeves so that the ends protruded from his coat sleeves and could serve as a poor excuse for mittens. He had both hoods up and cinched around his face. Still, his lips and nose felt frozen. His teeth were cold enough that they ached from the temperature change whenever he closed his mouth.
Winston hadn’t been jogging that fast, and his breathing slowed easily now that he was still. He did as Bernie asked, admiring how far the steam from each exhalation traveled before him.
Before he had even completed half a dozen breaths, Winston could tell that something was happening. He felt warmth in his cheeks, and his fingers tingled as sensation returned.
“Huh,” he muttered aloud. “How does this work?”
Winston converted the number to five miles. Of course, even aliens used metric.
He looked up the cliff face. From this angle, Winston could see that it wasn’t exactly vertical, nor was it some impossible face with sections that jutted out, which was good. He couldn’t imagine dangling from his hands, feet hanging free over a three hundred-foot drop. Rather, the face did have a slight slope, and the rock was jagged enough that he should be able to find occasional points where he could stand with his weight on his feet, especially if those chiseled-out handholds were conveniently placed.
Winston took a deep breath and began.
“I knew I should have participated more in those two weeks of weight training,” he mumbled as he lifted himself off the ground.
Winston saw the first handhold five feet above his head. His hands slid along the rough, jagged rock face, seeking anywhere his fingers could grip. For now, he was glad for the light flexibility of his Converse sneakers, but he suspected it wouldn’t be long until he was wishing for something with more ankle and arch support. Small pebbles and dust fell from under his hand, peppering his face. How did people do this for fun?
After a pause, Bernie replied,
Winston reached into the first handhold and gave it most of his weight so he could slide his left foot up and out to the side to test a spot for his next step.
Winston paused as he tested his next handhold.
Bernie paused before he answered,
Something in Bernie’s hesitation, combined with his surety about when and how Winston should move, caused a thought to strike Winston.