Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy
Page 69
Winston grunted as he hauled himself up through another hold. He was now high enough to know not to look down.
Winston missed his grip, and his fingertips slid painfully off the crevice he’d tried to hold. On his next attempt, he made sure to test his hold more thoroughly.
That brought Winston up short, and he froze where he stood against the cliff.
“Holy crap!” Winston hissed aloud. “When were you gonna tell me about that?”
Winston eyed the handholds above him with deep distrust. He estimated that the one hiding a little houseguest was four niches away. There didn’t look to be many outcroppings or other crevice possibilities around it.
“Great. I’ll just ask it to make a store run and hope for the best.”
Another thought struck Winston as he secured his next toehold.
Winston thought it over.
Winston recognized that he had already fallen into trusting Bernie, even though he knew very little about him. He did as the alien suggested, and as he approached each chiseled handhold, he moved with extreme caution.
Winston grimaced as the pang of memory bit at him. The future is slippery, he thought.
As he inched toward the suspected niche, Winston could feel the heat starting to fade from his hands and feet as weariness increasingly burned within his calves, shoulders, and arms. He sneaked a glance at the ground, then back up to the bluff’s top, and suspected he was just over halfway. As he’d feared, there were very few places he could find a grip within three or four feet of the cutout. He needed that handhold, and he couldn’t afford to stand there, clinging to the rock face, getting colder and weaker as he wondered what to do.
If he jammed his fingers into a crevice for leverage and used the two-inch lip under his right foot to stand on tiptoe, he could barely get his eyes level with the niche. In the darkness, illuminated only by starlight and the encroaching moon still hidden behind the bluff, even Winston’s keen eyes could barely discern anything but blackness within the small hole.
Then it moved. A quick motion, dark within dark. Was it imagination, or did Winston actually see two pinpricks of light glinting at him? His breath froze in his chest. All thought of exhaustion fled. His face was only a foot from the crevice, and if the creature attacked—
Winston tried to swallow past the tennis ball in his throat.
Winston didn’t dare to let go of his left-handed grip, and he didn’t trust his ability to fetch Little e out of his pack with only one hand while dangling on the side of a cliff. With Little e, he could blast the critter out of its hole…
As soon as the thought flitted through his mind, he imagined Shade scowling at him.
No, the animal didn’t deserve to die. Of course, Winston didn’t want to risk extreme pain and possible death by invading its home, either. He might have chanced flicking it out with a stick, if only there had been a stick within reach.
A thought occurred to Winston. If Bledsoe could restart Shade’s heart with a touch, could Winston at least manage a small electric field with his bare hand?
He tried to calm himself and focus on his heart, as Bernie had instructed earlier. This time, instead of looping heat through his body, he imagined a path from his brain through his heart and out to his right finger tips. He focused as clearly as he could, imagining the conduit as clearly as any of the electric schematics he’d seen with Little e.
His fingers began to warm and tingle. He imagined the flow increasing, filling his hand, pulling energy from throughout his body.
A small blue arc jumped from his thumb to his index finger.
Now or never, Winston thought.
He raised his hand and held it before the niche. Between his spread fingers, he saw the scorpion. The thing was dark brown and black, dusty and coarse. It would have easily fit in Winston’s palm. Its segmented tail curled over its back, stinger at the ready, pincers open and signaling that it wasn’t happy. Suddenly, it leapt forward.
Winston fought the instinctive urge to fling himself aside, only catching his muscles at the last moment before his left hand lost its grip and allowed his body to back flip all the way to the desert floor. His right hand flinched away from the niche. Apparently, that was enough to satisfy the scorpion, which stood on guard, watching him tensely from the edge of the niche.
Winston’s breath came in short gasps that he fought to hold back. The scorpion’s face couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches from his own, and he was afraid that the slightest motion or stirring of air might persuade the creature to test its jumping skills.
OK, Winston thought to it. It’s OK. We’re cool. I’m just gonna move along and leave you alone, soon as you scoot and let me put my hand right there.
The scorpion only replied with still tension, stinger at the ready, claws wide enough to grasp fingertips.
Winston swallowed through the dust in his throat and fought to calm his mind. He focused on his right hand, willing more energy into it. He didn’t need flames or fireballs, only a slow, small charge. Willing his adrenaline to subside, he imagined the sparks of stars from high above flowing into him with each inhalation, and each exhalation pushing them into his right hand.
A blue spark flitted across a knuckle. The small snap of its passing seemed impossibly loud in the stillness, like the cracking of a tree branch. The scorpion twitched but made no other move.
Another breath. A little more energy. Two more sparks winked in and out of being between his fingers. Winston willed the energy into the space before his hand. As slowly as he could manage, biting back mounting exhaustion and pain in his left arm, which now had to steady him and bear more of his weight, he brought his right hand up before the niche. Winston imagined shifting the energy so that it moved from encasing his hand to spreading out from it toward the creature.
More sparks snapped in the space before Winston’s palm. A small arc jumped from his index finger to the lip of the niche almost directly below the scorpion’s claw. The creature all but jumped sideways to the niche’s right edge. Its tail twitched, but it was clearly having second thoughts about its chances.
That’s it. Just go.
Winston moved his hand closer. Another tiny bit of lightning flitted from h
is little finger into the carved handhold.
That was all the scorpion could take. The creature suddenly turned from Winston and skittered out of the niche and up the rock face away from him. As soon as it was a few feet away, Winston exhaled relief, let the energy drain away, and rested his hand in the niche. He paused only briefly as his muscles relaxed slightly.
Winston grimaced but obeyed.
Winston wondered if the alien’s flat tone was sarcastic or factual, then decided he’d rather not know.
He climbed on grimly, teeth gritted against the mounting pain in his calves and shoulders. He realized that it hurt more when he stopped, so he focused only on finding his next move and testing its solidity. There were a few slips and what had to be dozens of scrapes. His knuckles, fingers, and palms glowed a dim, constant blue as the QVs fought to repair his many abrasions. And when he at last reached the top, he wanted to cry out in relief.
Winston wondered if the alien could hear the several expletives that came to his mind even though he didn’t purposefully communicate them.
Winston found a different toehold that allowed him to peek over the cliff’s edge and onto the plateau beyond it. The good news was that a large, waxing moon bathed the rocky landscape in pale light, allowing Winston to make out a simple tent about forty yards away, near a squat juniper tree and a low, burning fire. Beside this, a figure in a heavy coat sat on a folding stool, staring into the fire and humming to himself. A rifle with a short ammunition clip lay across his lap. Beyond the fire, opening from an outcropping, stood a dark, narrow tunnel entrance framed in heavy timbers.
The bad news, of course, was that Winston was unarmed, depleted, and on the point of collapse. There was no way he could see to make it across the long stretch to the tunnel entrance without being noticed and shot.
10
Guard and Gambit
Winston had no choice. He had to get off this cliff face. His muscles trembled uncontrollably, and he could no longer feel anything but pain in his bleeding hands, which still glowed a dim blue. He forced his legs not to buckle as they shook above their precarious toeholds. The guard showed no intent to do anything except stare into the fire and hum absently to himself. He might remain that way the rest of the night, and Winston wasn’t sure if he could hold on to his perch for even another minute.
The cliff made the decision for him. Under his left foot, Winston felt something crack. He had just enough time to shift his weight and bring his right arm up and over the cliff’s lip. When the rock piece under his shoe fractured and suddenly fell away, Winston’s forearm hooked over the sharp boulder protruding before his face.
What few dregs of adrenaline remained in Winston suddenly dumped into his bloodstream as his feet dangled over the open drop. Something between a grunt and a cry escaped from his mouth and his left hand groped about and found an inch or two of jagged stone protruding from the dusty earth beside the boulder. Winston barely recognized that the guard’s head had snapped toward him.
He pulled with the last of his strength. Winston had never been able to do a single pull-up in all his years of gym class, so he wasn’t surprised to find himself unable to quickly haul himself up. In fact, despite his forearm already being over the edge, the best he could manage was to keep from falling, and even that wouldn’t last long.
Winston’s shoe slipped off the rock face and sharp edges bit into his knee.
His arms couldn’t do it. The guard disappeared from sight as Winston’s head sank behind the boulder.
At last, his right foot found purchase on something, and he lodged his toes into whatever fissure they had found. His ankle howled in protest, but the rest of him wasn’t listening. Winston’s eyes came back up over the boulder.
At the point when Winston’s leg was fully extended, his breastbone pressed against the rock before him. He pushed off his foot with the barest of jumps, and it was just enough to let him balance his chest over his forearm. With one last heave, he swung his right leg up and over the edge. His heel dug into the loose scree and did not fall. He rolled his body up, over, over—
And then he was on his back, staring up at the stars, chest heaving, momentarily unable to do anything but take in lung-splitting gasps of cold air.
“Hey!” shouted the guard. “Who’s out there?”
Winston gritted his teeth.
Using muscles he suspected had been torn to shreds, Winston sat up, back toward the guard, and shrugged one shoulder out from its backpack strap. He brought the bag around to rest in his lap. His fingers fumbled with the zipper, again finding it almost impossible to feel and grip the little metal tab. If he ever got out of this mess, he was going to tie a big, easy-to-pull loop of cord through that tab, just for occasions like these.
Winston heard the sharp pull and release of a bullet being chambered in the soldier’s rifle. Rather than use his battered fingertips, Winston placed the zipper tab between the knuckles of his index and middle fingers, squeezed, and pulled sideways. The zipper opened.
“I’m not kidding!” called the guard. “Who’s out there? Announce yourself!”
Not daring to sit up straight, Winston slipped his right hand into the backpack and felt for Little e’s crossbar, knowing that the device’s arms would be where he’d left them, still locked around the chronoviewer, which should still have the chronojumper magnetically held within it. Everything he touched felt like thousands of needlepoints on his raw nerves.
What Winston wouldn’t give right now for Shade and one of his booby traps. The thought of his friend, now lost to Bledsoe and his grenade, sent a bolt of fire through Winston’s core. His cheek twitched in anger, and he willed his hand to ignore its stinging and fierce rigidity. The backs of his fingers brushed along the wrist guard, and that was enough to guide him to the crossbar. He closed his fist around it.
Unfortunately, in his haste, he overshot his target. One instant, the guard was walking toward Winston; in the next, the second reality layer shifted into dusk, with bluish-grey light on the horizon and a different man seated before the fire. Winston saw that it was over seven hours before his present, and his body tensed in panic.
Behind him, Winston heard gravel crunch as the man stood and walked toward him.
He pulled too far to the right. Two hours and thirteen minutes before present.
Nudge. Three hours and forty-nine minutes.
Suddenly, Winston felt another presence in his mind. It was like someone standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder, pressing into him and shifting his center of balance, only it happened in his head.
He nearly let go of Little e, not understanding at first what was happening. Then the chrono controls shifted. Rather than sliding, they jumped and landed at five hours and eleven minutes before the present. Winston turned his head. In his second reality, Winston saw the guard quickly rise from his post and walk down the hill beyond the mine entrance. The indicator took the barest of hops to the right, only four minutes, and then the guard was nowhere to be seen.
“Stay where you are!” called the guard. His tone indicated that he was still unsure exactly what waited fo
r him, although he would see Winston any second now.
Winston pushed all the energy he could manage down his arm and into the Alpha Machine. He didn’t know if it was enough, but he still felt that second presence with him and sensed that it, too, was pushing outside energy along with Winston’s own.
Both realities collapsed and blew away in an explosion of blue sparks and white emptiness. When Winston’s vision returned, he found himself in the same place above the cliff, breath still hitching in overwrought gasps, and the night still cloaked in darkness save for the low fire and high moonlight. The guard was gone.
It was true. Bernie had just saved him from getting shot or captured. Nevertheless, Winston felt a deep revulsion at having someone else mentally intruding into his actions, even if just a little.
Winston didn’t know how to answer that, so he fell back on one of his mom’s favorite lines:
He had Little e release the Alpha Machine pieces, then drew the artifact from the bag. Quietly, Winston rose to his feet. His vision swam drunkenly for a moment, and he had to put out his hands wide for balance. At last, the world settled into place, and he straightened as he shouldered his bag into place.
The tunnel mouth waited for him, black and menacing. As he drew closer, he saw an iron gate across the entrance, with hinges bolted deep into the surrounding rock. A lock secured the door to its surrounding frame.
Winston ground his teeth, desperate to sit and rest.