“Those vehicles were used only inside the towers you saw. The towers were made so the vehicles could fly inside them. Outside of the towers, the vehicles could not fly. So they could not fly here.”
Lindsey was still looking at her map. She said, “We’re a thousand miles from our home. How long will it take?”
Again Addison looked at the ground. “If things stay as they are now, it will take eighteen thousand, three hundred sixty-seven seconds.”
Lindsey frowned. “Okay…”
Bobby helped out. “Sixty seconds is a minute. Sixty minutes is an hour. How many hours is that?”
“That is five hours, six minutes, and seven seconds.”
Lindsey looked at the clock on the dash. “That puts us there at nine-thirty. Peter’s news announcement isn’t until noon tomorrow.”
They all got quiet, probably imagining, like Quentin was, what it would be like to show up at their homes. How would their families react? How would their other selves react?
Bobby broke the silence. “Addison, did your nanobots get into these pizzas?”
“No.”
Bobby kept one box and passed the other forward. “Don’t want to waste them, then.”
Addison hadn’t altered the van’s dashboard, so the simple digital compass was the only navigation instrument they had. But navigating was not difficult. Lindsey kept her eye on the map, and they flew north until she spotted I-40. The double ribbon of highway was easy to see from a great distance, and the next few hours passed in reasonable comfort. To avoid landing, Quentin convinced them to pee in the soda cups that had accumulated on the floor. This was not an easy sell for Lindsey and Ashley, but the van’s back seat offered a modicum of privacy.
They followed I-40 through New Mexico and Texas, and into Oklahoma without incident. Occasionally they spotted small planes flying far below, and Quentin hoped none saw them. To avoid flying over Oklahoma City, they cut to the north to follow I-35 to Kansas City.
That’s when their luck changed.
“Um, you guys, we have company,” Carlos said.
Two military fighter jets were closing in on them from the east, their contrails streaming behind them into the distance. The jets passed overhead with a deafening roar. Quentin spun around and watched them split and circle around in opposite directions.
“They’re not going to shoot us down are they?” Ashley said.
“Addison, can we go fast enough to outrun them?” Quentin asked doubtfully. The jets flew at terrifying speed.
Addison looked at the jet circling before them. “It would not be safe for you.”
There was nothing they could do but watch the jets circle and fly by them again, one from ahead and one from behind. The relative velocity of the jet from behind was low enough that they clearly saw the pilot as he overtook them. He tapped the side of his helmet over his ear. Then he was past, and he cut off to circle back.
“He wants to talk,” Lindsey said.
The jets made another pass from behind, and the pilots repeated the same gesture. Lindsey shrugged and shook her head to make them understand that they didn’t have a radio. On the next pass, the pilot changed his approach. He held up a white clipboard. Written by hand was one word: FOLLOW. He flipped the board over. It said TINKER AFB.
Lindsey turned around to Quentin. “What do you want to do now?”
Ashley said, “You guys, I kind of have this fear of getting blown up in mid air.”
They had little choice. If the Air Force thought they were terrorists—and they probably did—then they might actually fire on them. So now what? Quentin looked through the window again at the van’s thrusters, which could turn in almost any direction. They couldn’t outrun the fighter jets, but they could probably out-maneuver them.
“Everyone buckle in and hold on,” Quentin said.
“What are you doing?” Lindsey said.
Quentin fumbled for his seatbelt, and suddenly the thin strap seemed ridiculously inadequate. “Maybe we can lose them if we fly closer to the ground.”
“Okay, no,” Ashley said. “That doesn’t sound like a plan.”
Carlos called from the back seat, “They’re coming back!”
Quentin’s mind raced. “Addison, wait until they pass by us and then try to descend without them seeing.”
“Mr. Darnell?” It was Bobby. “I think it’ll be better if you just let Addison figure something out. Just be sure to tell him that no one should get hurt.”
Quentin hesitated. He gripped the arm of his seat.
The jets came up from behind on both sides. And there was the clipboard again. FOLLOW. The pilot flipped it over. OR WE FIRE.
Quentin considered Bobby’s suggestion. “Addison, those jets have weapons they can shoot at us. Can you get us away from them without getting us shot?”
“How do the weapons work?” Addison said.
“I don’t know! Rockets, maybe. They shoot self-propelled rockets that have explosives in them. Or maybe they have guns that shoot metal bullets.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I can get us away without getting us shot.”
Before he could change his mind, Quentin said, “Then do it.”
Without warning, the thrusters flipped around and blasted in the opposite direction. Quentin was thrown forward and the seatbelt dug into his flesh. The fighter jets shot ahead and rapidly shrank in the distance.
And then the van fell like a rock.
There was no screaming; they were all too petrified to scream. Quentin was lifted off the seat, and he felt his stomach in his throat.
“Do not be afraid,” Addison said.
Quentin was pulled even harder toward the ceiling, and he realized they weren’t in free fall. They were actually accelerating straight down. He wanted to scream at Addison that they would be killed, but he couldn’t speak. The thrusters rotated again, and Quentin braced himself for a deceleration that would likely shatter the van’s frame and crush their bones. But it didn’t come. Addison skillfully slowed at a rate that was only barely uncomfortable. Then the pressure shifted again. Quentin was pressed into his seat as they shot forward. He looked out the side window. They were nearly on the ground. Trees flashed by in a blur of green, and then gave way to an open field, and then another flash of trees. The thrusters rotated once more, and again the seatbelt dug into Quentin’s flesh as their velocity dropped to nothing in only a few seconds. A swirl of leaves and dust shrouded the van until the tires touched the ground, then the thrusters fell silent.
They were hidden in a patch of trees. The jets roared by overhead.
“I believe I have done what you asked,” Addison said.
Bobby sat with Carlos on the ground outside the van. Dusk was coming, and the light under the trees that hid them was starting to dim. Bobby heard the pulsing of a helicopter in the distance. The Air Force was still searching.
Ashley said, “Let’s just find a motel so we can get some real sleep.”
Mrs. Darnell was still studying the map. “There should be several small towns just to the east. Maybe we can land near one and walk in.”
Mr. Darnell sat in the van with his legs hanging out the door. “We can’t do that. Flying in the dark is probably our only chance of making it to Newton. We have to keep going.”
“I’m not sure I can navigate in the dark,” Mrs. Darnell said.
Carlos said, “Can’t they use radar? It probably doesn’t matter if it’s dark.”
Dark or not, Bobby figured they were more likely to get caught the closer they got to home, since the FBI probably knew where they were headed. They needed a better way to get there. Bobby considered this for a moment, then rose to his feet and went around the van to where Addison still sat in the driver’s seat. “Addison, can I talk to you?”
Addison stepped out and followed him away.
Before speaking, Bobby thought back to the disaster at the hospital. He would have to pick his words carefully. “Addison
, I think the only way to get home is for you to teleport us there, or zap us, or whatever it is you do.”
“I cannot do that because—”
“I know, because you haven’t been there. So what I’m thinking is, you could leave us here and go there yourself first.”
Addison’s brows wrinkled. It was the first time Bobby had seen him do that. “Your home is three-hundred miles from this place. It would not be safe for you, even if I go there first.”
“But could you do it?”
“Yes. But it would not be safe for you.”
“Well, I know it’s not safe for us to fly the rest of the way in the van.”
“There is a chance you would be hurt.”
“How much of a chance?”
“I cannot know.”
“Okay, if you teleported us there a hundred different times, how many times would we get hurt?”
Again Addison wrinkled his brow. “Two times. Maybe three times.”
“That’s all?”
“As I said, it would not be safe for you.”
They were in the air only a few minutes before spotting a town. Hovering low near the edge of it, Quentin strained his eyes to see details in the encroaching dark. Soon he saw two long structures with a parking lot between them. It looked like a motel. Only a few blocks away a small river lined with forest wound its way by the edge of the town. On the other side of the river was open farmland.
Addison landed in some trees on the far side of the river. They left the van hidden there and walked in the twilight along the border between the forest and a milo field. As they walked, Quentin asked Addison the same question for the fourth time.
“You really think there is at least a ninety-five percent chance it will work?” He had explained percents to Addison.
“I cannot know, but that is what I think. There is a chance you will be hurt.”
“But less than a five percent chance.”
“That is what I think.”
The plan was crazy, but crazy had become a way of life. It now seemed unlikely that they could fly the three hundred miles to Newton undetected. But Addison said he could do it without them, because he could fly differently. Quentin guessed that meant faster, or lower—perhaps maneuvering in ways that would crush their bodies.
They came to a bridge Quentin had seen from the air. The bridge road would take them the few blocks to the motel. Only one vehicle, a pickup truck, passed them as they walked the road. Quentin glanced at the license plate to make sure it wasn’t a government vehicle.
A blue and gold Economy Inn sign marked the motel. Only a few cars were there, but the office appeared to be open for business. The others waited behind one of the rows of rooms while Quentin and Lindsey went into the office. A red-haired woman in her sixties sat behind a counter watching a small television. When she saw them, she looked surprised.
“Didn’t hear you drive up,” she said. “Where’s your car?”
“We had a flat tire,” Lindsey said. “We left our car down the road a bit.”
The woman nodded, picked up her phone, and started punching a number. “Friend of ours has a garage. He can probably fix it tonight.”
“No!” They both said it at once. The woman held the phone.
“We can fix it ourselves,” Quentin said. “We’ll do it in the morning. Right now we’re exhausted. We’d like a room.”
Frowning, she replaced the phone and turned to a computer. “Just the two of you?”
They should have rehearsed this.
“We have our daughter with us,” Lindsey said.
The woman looked out the front windows. “She didn’t want to come in?”
Quentin raised his voice. “Can we please just have a room? We’re very tired.”
The frown faded and the woman’s face became a concrete wall. “Certainly, sir.” She started entering information on her computer. She asked for their license plate number. Quentin started to give her his own car’s number then he changed his mind. Instead he gave her the number from the truck that had passed them minutes before. He told her they never carry a credit card and then paid for the room with twenties. They left the office before she could ask more questions.
The door to their room was in plain sight of the office. Quentin went around back and told Ashley to come now. The boys were to sneak in when the woman wasn’t watching. The room was small, but at least there were two beds. A telephone and a small pod with a connector for wired Internet access sat on a table between the beds. Quentin eyed the phone and wondered if using it would bring the military down on them. Then he picked it up and dialed the number Peter had given him. A woman’s voice came on.
“Economy Inn office. Do you wish to make a long-distance call?”
Quentin hesitated. The woman had caught him off guard yet again. “Yes, I do.”
“That’ll be an extra charge, sir. You can give me a credit card number or you can pay a cash deposit on the call.”
Quentin gritted his teeth. He dug out another twenty-dollar bill and asked Lindsey to take it to the office. A few minutes later the woman came back on.
“I’ll connect you now.”
Quentin held his breath as the phone on the other end started ringing.
“Wooley here.”
“Peter! This is Quentin. We talked earlier.”
“Glad to hear your voice, Quentin! Are you safe?”
“For the moment. We’ve had some close calls. Peter, I can’t talk long. I just wanted to check with you about the plans for tomorrow.”
“I’ve managed to arrange a significant event. The secrecy of it has worked in our favor. The media channels are suitably intrigued. Should be a ripper party. Please tell me you will be there tomorrow, Quentin. If it ends up a bust, I may not be able to rally them again.”
“If our current plan works, we’ll be there tomorrow, at the address I gave you.”
“Excellent. I can be there myself by noon, local time.”
Quentin hadn’t expected this. “I thought you were in Brisbane.”
“I’ve worked most of my life for this, and I wouldn’t miss it. I’m at LAX at the moment. Folks are rather cranky here. Why do I have the feeling you have something to do with that?”
“We’ll have to explain later. I should go now. Noon tomorrow.”
“Yes, indeed. But tell me Quentin, have you considered what you wish to say or do? Expectations will be high, you know. Mere words may not be sufficient.”
Quentin knew what he meant. “Don’t worry. When we’re done, there will be no doubts.” And then he realized he had left out an important detail. “Peter, if you happen to get there before us, there is something you should know. There is another person there by the name of Quentin. And there is a Lindsey and an Addison.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Please just trust me. Those other people don’t know the details, so try to humor them until we get there. I can’t explain any more right now. We will see you then, okay?”
“Ace! Quentin, may I ask a quick favor? You have indicated that it is in the form of a boy. Do you think I could speak to this boy for just a moment?”
Quentin hesitated. Then he held the phone out to Addison. “Peter wishes to speak to you.”
Addison inspected the phone before holding it to his ear. “Peter,” he said. There was a pause as Peter talked. “Yes, I can do that. At the time you were in the village, you were afraid you would die, because others would not know what you had learned. But there was someone you wanted most to know. You thought of her as Rose, but you knew her name to be Rosalyn. She was very important to you. Peter, did you return to Rose and tell her what you wanted to tell her?” There was a long pause. “I understand, Peter. I am sorry. Peter? Recently you have started having visions again when you sleep—visions of my creators.” There was another pause. “Because it is time, Peter. Yes, Peter. Goodbye.” Addison handed the phone back.
They stared at him. “What was that all abo
ut?” Quentin said.
“Peter asked me to prove to him that I am what you say I am. So I did.”
Bobby peeked through the curtains. “It’s pretty dark now. Addison should go.”
Lindsey spread the maps out on one of the beds. From the room receipt, they knew they were in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. So she showed Addison where they were and how he could get to their hometown. Then she described how to navigate through Newton to their house.
Quentin’s reluctance to let Addison go took him by surprise. After all, this was not his son. Why, then, did he have to fight the urge to hold the thing close to him?
Apparently Ashley had the same urge. She threw her arms around Addison. “You be careful,” she said. “We’ll be waiting for you.” Addison did not embrace her back. Lindsey sat on the bed watching and made no move to get up.
Quentin and Addison slipped out the door and around the corner. Quentin had intended to walk Addison back to the waiting van, with hopes that he would come up with some adequate words. But Addison stopped just behind the motel.
He gazed at Quentin’s face. “Do not be afraid, Dad.” And then the boy was gone, replaced by darkness and a sharp pop of collapsing air.
In Newton, Missouri, Quentin sat on the bed, nervously twirling his raccoon bone. This had been one of the strangest days of his life. He hadn’t been able to shake the haunted feeling he’d gotten from the early morning caller claiming to be his identical copy. Then there was the mass of feds. And the false report that the suspects had been caught. And now the TV reporters. They were here for a different reason—Peter Wooley’s mystery announcement.
Lindsey came into the bedroom with two glasses of wine. She handed one to Quentin and sat on her side of the bed. For a few minutes they sipped the wine and stared at the TV. The news stations were reporting the happenings in Newton, but they didn’t know much, so the same sound bites were being repeated again and again.
Lindsey switched the TV off. “Addison’s still watching this crap. Says he’s not tired.”
Quentin dropped the bone and put his hand on her thigh. “It’s been a big day for—” A burst of wind outside suddenly cut him off. Then there were men yelling, the national security guys—so much for their promise to be inconspicuous.
Diffusion Box Set Page 45
