She rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard some whoppers before, but this one takes the cake. You don’t seriously expect me to believe any of this, do you? Even my high-strung brother wouldn’t buy this one.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but consider the facts. When you found me in the desert, I wasn’t wearing a climbing suit. It’s called a Smart Skin Suit and its made of advanced nano-wire circuitry that allows me to travel across time and space with the help of a powerful machine on the other end. Earlier, when you asked me if I was in the military, I told you that I wasn’t. Those helicopters weren’t trying to rescue me, they were trying to kill me and all the copies of me. My copies and I had just arrived on Earth when General Alvarez and his men swooped down and started shooting. Until a few minutes ago, I thought I was the only one lucky enough to have escaped. Apparently not. Now I guess they’re looking for me.”
She pinched her eyes and tilted her head, taking a few seconds to respond. “Okay, I’ll play along. Why?”
“They think I’m responsible.”
“For what?”
“Bringing them here.”
“Are you?”
“Well . . . yes and no. My incursion brought them here, but it was an accident.”
“And now they’re pissed and want revenge.”
“Or maybe they just want to go home. I’m sorry they hurt you.”
She hesitated again, then responded in a softer voice, “One of the men was wearing the same outfit as you.”
“That’s a Smart Skin Suit. We were all wearing them when we arrived. None of us could have gotten here without it.”
“Or go home, I’ll bet.”
“Exactly. That’s why I was upset earlier when I found out you cut a piece off and burned it.”
She nodded slowly, looking at the ground.
“Think about it. All the versions of me, the helicopters trying to kill us all, the Smart Skin Suits, the copies showing up outside—all of it. It can only add up to one thing.”
She made eye contact with him, giving him a skeptical look. “If what you’re saying is true, why do they think you’re responsible for what happened? Why not one of the other copies? After all, you all look alike and were wearing the same outfit.”
“Remember those glasses I asked you about?”
“Yeah.”
“They are part of my time traveling equipment, but I was the only person wearing them. That’s why they think I’m responsible. I had the extra technology. You know, like on Sesame Street—one of these things is not like the others.”
“I hated that show.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“What are the glasses for?”
“Basically, they’re a head-mounted supercomputer that sees all and knows all. Plus, it allows me to communicate with my team back home. I must’ve dropped them somewhere when I tumbled down the cliff. If you help me find them, I’ll prove all of this to you, I swear. But first, you have to believe me. I’m telling you the truth. Some of this is top-secret, classified information.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s all a bit much.”
“I agree, it’s a lot to process,” he said in his most sincere voice. “But if you step back and think about it for a minute, everything I’m saying lines up perfectly. Who would make up a story as ludicrous as this?”
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe someone who fell down a mountain and cracked his face open, then went into a fever coma after a snake sunk its fangs into his knee.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“Then again, all it would take is some paranoid lunatic to make up a story like this. The desert is full of crazy.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” he said, wishing he could control his lips better. He searched for a better explanation. Something that could shake her stance and make her believe. “Let’s start over . . . How many men did you see in the clearing?”
“The ones that looked like you?”
“Yeah.”
“Twelve at first.”
“What do you mean, at first?” Lucas asked, wondering how many of his copies had survived. If they were gunning for him, his odds of survival or success were dropping fast. “Were some of them killed?”
“No, not exactly. The oldest version of you disappeared into the sky. It was like he was folded up and then yanked to heaven. That’s when I flinched and they noticed me watching from the bushes. What happened to him?”
“I saw the same thing when I first arrived. I think the universe sent him home.”
“Seriously?”
Lucas nodded, hoping to summon the proper words to make his theory sound plausible. “It’s a given there’s a specific and finite amount of matter and energy in our universe. We also know that matter and energy get recycled, keeping the levels perfectly balanced. Now, if the other copies were from dimensions like ours, where the laws of physics are the same, it would mean that when they were pulled here, their universe was thrown out of balance. Since the imbalance was created artificially with technology, it left an energy trail that the multiverse could follow to locate the displaced matter.”
“If that’s true, then won’t they all be sent home, eventually? Including you?”
“Maybe. But it’s just a theory. It’s just as likely their incursion point became unstable and they simply blinked out of existence.”
“I think I like the first theory better.”
“So do I.”
She exhaled, staring into space for a few moments. “This is all pretty incredible.”
“Yes, it is. But sometimes things happen that are a little hard to explain, but it doesn’t make any less true. Sort of like the drawings in the chapel.”
She gasped. “You saw those?”
“Yep. Imagine my surprise.”
“You shouldn’t go snooping around like that. Those are private.”
“Sorry, I was just looking for supplies.”
He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. He thought she was about to start crying. “It’s okay, Masago. It really is. I found them by accident. I’m sorry.”
“You must think I’m a freak, just like my dad.”
The knife blade tugged at his skin with each of her emotional trembles.
He needed to keep her calm. “I didn’t say that. In fact, I think it makes you very special. You obviously have the gift of precognition.”
She nodded, lowering the knife. “I’ve been seeing your face in my dreams ever since I was a little girl. That’s why I draw it over and over, trying to get it out of my head. It’s like you’ve been haunting me all my life.”
He was stunned, unsure what to say. “Is that why you decided to help me?”
She shrugged. “Partly. But mainly because it was the right thing to do.”
“I think I’m starting to understand. That’s what you meant earlier when you called it destiny.”
“Yes,” she said as a tear dripped from her eye. “I don’t care what my dad says, I know in my heart that we were meant to be together.”
He thought about telling her about his real mom and dad, and their drug dealing exploits, but decided not to. She was already overwhelmed.
She looked at him with soft eyes. “So, you don’t think I’m weird?”
“Well, we’re all a little weird in our own way. That’s just the human race in general. What you are is special and if your old man can’t see that, then he’s a bigger idiot than mine.”
She blinked but didn’t say anything.
“Look, Masago. You have a gift you can’t explain but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. There are things in this universe that science can explain and things it can’t. Trust me, I’ve seen some stuff that would blow your mind. I should write a book about it. Probably be a best seller.”
She hugged him, wrapping the knife around his back along with her arms. “Thank you for believing in me, Lucas
.”
He waited until she let go of him to speak, wanting to keep the weapon where he could see it.
“You’re welcome. But now, I need you to believe me. Can you do that?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“Thank you. Truth is, all it takes for time travel is a little math, some advanced tech, massive amounts of power, and a big set of balls. It’s really not that hard to do, especially if your name is Fuji.”
“How do you know that?”
“Know what?”
“My last name. I never told you.”
Lucas’s brain froze for a few seconds as the revelation soaked into his neurons. “Your name is Masago Fuji?”
She smiled. “So, you think I have a big set of balls?”
“I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me. I’m the dumb-ass who took a leap of faith and risked his life by stepping into an untested time machine.”
“What’s that have to do with my last name?”
“I have a friend in the future whose name is Master Fuji. He’s a little spud of a man, but a brilliant mathematician. He’s the one who built the powerful machine that sent me here. We call it the Incursion Chamber.”
“Master Fuji? Really?”
“Yep. And he was a proud member of the Akashic Field Guild, just like your dad. How about that?”
“Do you think Master Fuji and I are related?”
“If I had to guess, yes. Especially after everything I’ve seen and done. Nothing surprises me anymore. If I’m right, it would explain a few things,” he said, realizing his tiny friend must have known this before he sent Lucas back in time. He figured the monk learned of Masago’s existence and her location after tapping into the Akashic Field during one of his intense meditation sessions. That was why he chose the mountaintop as the landing point—so she’d find him.
Back in the future, when they were on the remote outpost, Fuji did say this timeline thread was directly tied to Lucas—that it went through him and was affected by every decision he made. If that was true, then it stood to reason that it flowed through Masago as well, meaning their lives were entangled at the quantum level across time and space.
Masago’s intuition was correct. Meeting her was not some random event; it was meant to happen and Master Fuji knew it. The monk must have seen it in one of his visions while tapped into the Akashic Field.
She tapped him on the arm. “Hey, time traveling Shake-O-Potamus. You still with me?”
He snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her. “Yeah, sorry. Just running through some stuff in my head. You were saying?”
“If we’re related, that would mean I’m his—”
“Grandmother from another dimension, with a whole bunch of ‘greats’ in front of it. Four hundred years worth,” he said, letting the facts percolate a slew of possibilities. “Damn, this just keeps getting stranger by the minute!”
“Okay, I’ll help you,” she said with certainty, then her face dulled. “But please tell me I can trust you.”
“You can. I promise. We’re in this together. I could’ve walked right past you here and never stopped to help. But I didn’t. That has to count for something.”
“It does. But I do have one more question.”
“Go ahead and shoot. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Those evil men outside . . . If they’re exact copies of you—”
He knew where she was going and jumped in to stop her. “Just because they’re copies, doesn’t mean they’re the same as me. There are an infinite number of alternate universes, and not all versions of me are going to be law-abiding citizens. There are bound to be a few assholes and scumbags in the mix, just like the group who attacked you.”
“Statistically, though, you’d think some of them would’ve been good men.”
“Not with my luck. In fact, I should have expected it. Nothing ever seems to go as planned—or unplanned, for that matter,” he said, when a new, random thought entered his brain. He wondered where the Lucas copies obtained the firearms. “You said earlier that my copies were armed, right?”
“Yep. All of them.”
“That means someone must be helping them, because all of us arrived on Earth without weapons.”
“Or, they stole them. There are a bunch of prepper camps around here and I’m sure all of them are well armed.”
“I can’t see them overpowering a trained force like that. It’s more likely someone gave them the guns.”
“Lucas? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a personal question.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you have a girlfriend back home?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer her question. He didn’t want to upset her, especially since she’d just agreed to help him. Take a neutral, disinterested stance, he told himself. “I guess that would depend on what constitutes a girlfriend.”
“What does that mean? Either you do or you don’t,” she said with anxiety in her words.
“It’s a long story.”
“Then how about you give me the short version.”
“Okay, sure . . . I almost had one, but then she died. It was right before I traveled back in time and met you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay. You couldn’t have known,” he whispered into her ear. “I lost a lot of good friends that day, including my brother. That’s why I’m here. Trying do undo everything that went wrong.”
“I understand,” she said, letting go of him.
He stood on the makeshift crutch and held out his palm. “You ready to go?”
She nodded, then took his hand. Lucas pulled her to her feet.
“Wait!” she said in a loud whisper, leaning her head to the right. “Do you hear that?”
Lucas stopped moving and listened. He could hear a smattering of sounds echoing from deep within the darkness ahead—they were footsteps, several pairs at least. Their volume and frequency were growing in intensity with each passing second. Three flashlight beams began to dance off the wall and ceiling at the point where the tunnel made a sharp left. “Shit, they found us!”
“We’d better jet,” she told him.
Lucas nodded, hopping his way to the top of the ladder with Masago close behind. He used the ladder first, planning to help her at the bottom. She climbed down after, taking a few seconds to close the hatch at the top of the opening before finishing her descent.
“What’s the plan?” he asked when she landed on solid ground.
“Evacuate and detonate.”
“Detonate?”
“Follow me,” she said, limping her way to a steel bookcase on the left wall. He followed.
Masago started yanking books from the top shelf, heaving them into an unorganized pile behind her. Lucas joined in and took care of the books on the second shelf. She emptied the third shelf and he the fourth.
Once the bookcase was empty, she moved to the side of the shelving unit with her shoulder against the wall. “Help me with this. Hurry!”
Lucas took position on the other side and together they dragged the bookcase away from the cement wall. Behind it was a man-size, irregular-shaped hole. It looked like someone had used a sledge hammer to bust through the wall, then cover it up with the bookshelf. He assumed the hole was an afterthought in the design, certainly not part of the bunker’s original schematics. He wondered if the secret passageway led to weapons or explosives. Maybe both, he mused.
“Where’s that go?”
“Shortcut,” she said with a smirk on her face. She went through first and Lucas followed.
When he got to the other side, his heart almost stopped beating.
8
Lucas couldn’t believe the size of the underground hollow before him. It was enormous, both in height and width. The irregular-shaped ceiling and striated rock formations of various colors and textures told him he was standing inside a giant magma cha
mber with honeycombed crevasses embedded into the ceiling.
He knew the Catalina Mountains were part of a dormant chain of volcanoes that last erupted over seventy million years ago, but didn’t realize the scope and density of its activity field. Only a massive volcano would leave behind an empty cavern of this size.
“Your dad bought this place? From who?”
“Washington. Took him ten years of negotiating before they’d part with it,” she said, limping ahead. He asked, struggling to maintain her pace. She was moving faster than he expected with a bullet hole in her leg. Probably the adrenaline.
“This place took some serious cash to buy. What kind of scientist was he?”
“He worked for the National Security Agency. Spec-ops division. He developed gadgets and highly specialized tech just for them.”
“That explains it. The NSA has an unlimited budget and unlimited power; all in the name of national security. My brother and I got paid dick by the University,” Lucas said, taking a quick inventory of the manmade items stacked inside the chamber: shrink-wrapped, scientific computer equipment, row after row of boxes and crates, solar panels, and dozens of fifty-gallon barrels labeled as DIESEL. However, what he didn’t see were firearms and ammo. “Where are all the guns?”
“There aren’t any. My dad hated them.”
“Really? That seems odd for a prepper.”
“I told you he was a survivalist, not a prepper.”
“Right, sorry.”
“He believes the government is planning to halt the sale of ammo to the public. That’s how they plan to control guns and gun owners. Why else would Homeland Security and other domestic government agencies be purchasing bullets by the millions? They want to control the supply.”
“Or they’re preparing for something.”
“Yeah, like civil unrest. If they’re the only ones with ammo, we can’t fight back.”
“Maybe they’re planning for an extra-solar event, like an alien invasion.”
Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) Page 7
