Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Crap. What was I thinking?

  35

  Lucas sat with his back to the wall in a corner booth of the hospital’s cafeteria on the third floor, pretending to be reading a newspaper. He picked this particular booth based on the lack of people around, and the direct lines of sight to the main entrance, the cashier, and the buffet line exit.

  The closest group was eating four tables away, though the booth next to him had just been vacated by a young, blonde woman and her three obnoxious kids. He was thankful when the noisy family finished their meal and took off; however, they never bothered to take their food trays and empty glasses to the collection station. They just left everything sitting on the table like a bunch of hillbillies. He wondered how long it would take for the lone custodial woman with gray hair, rubber gloves, and support hose to make her way over to the vacant booth and clean it off.

  His eyes swept the area, keeping watch for Lauren Falconio’s expected arrival. Earlier, she’d told Nurse Gwen in the hallway that she planned to eat before heading home. At the time, Lucas knew he couldn’t keep wandering the halls or loitering around outside, not without drawing the attention of the security staff, so he decided to take up residence in a booth and wait for her.

  But that was two hours ago. Now, he was growing concerned Lauren wasn’t going to stop in for a snack as planned. He needed her to keep her promise to Gwen, allowing him to sit down with her while she was alone and not pressed for time. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to convince her not to drive home tonight, but he had to find a way.

  The end game was simple: Keep her out of the car accident that would take her life and Drew’s legs, allowing his foster brother to grow up healthy and happy, and never be an orphan. Then he and Drew would never meet in the state home, and they’d never be adopted by the Ramsay family. No Ramsay family meant no attending college together. No college would forever change the timeline and keep the E-121 experiment from being run a second time. The logic was sound, but he needed to sacrifice his future with Drew to stop the end of the world.

  Lucas felt a tinge of emotional pain swelling inside. He needed to be strong. For Drew. For Masago. For Kleezebee. For everyone across the multiverse. It all came down to this moment in time and he couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way.

  But what if Lauren didn’t show? Then what?

  If she did, what would happen if she wouldn’t listen to him?

  What if Drew’s mom thought he was nuts and called security?

  He needed a backup plan in case he couldn’t convince her of what was about to come. Let’s face it, other than a chance meeting in the hallway earlier, she barely knew him. She had no reason to believe anything he said, let alone change her plans for the evening. He couldn’t just delay her drive by a few minutes, not with the way the timeline seemed to be autocorrecting. He needed to be sure and that meant stopping her from driving home completely.

  How the hell was he going to do that? He couldn’t lead off by telling her he was from the future and was the adopted foster brother of her tiny son. How would that sound? The more he thought about it, the more ways he imagined her seeing him as a complete lunatic.

  Maybe he should just steal her car instead, or disable it. Either of those ideas might work, but he didn’t know what car she drove. He’d have to follow her out of the hospital and into the garage, then surprise her from behind and demand the keys. They didn’t teach car-jacking at the university, so he’d have to work this out on the fly.

  But what if she noticed him creeping around behind her? She was already on high alert after the event last month with the Nabisco driver, and would certainly have her head on a swivel. He also had to be prepared in case she fought back, or drove off before he could take the vehicle from her. What if she carried a gun?

  He pictured her reaching under the driver’s seat, pulling out a .357 and blasting a hole in his forehead. It was a possibility. After all, this was Arizona, and many citizens carried a gun, especially a single mom with a high-risk job. If Lucas chose to believe the ramblings of the local news—in any time period—Arizona is the wild, wild West, and everyone has an itchy trigger finger.

  He shook his head, realizing there was an endless list of things that could go wrong, each one more troubling than the last.

  Then a new idea came to him. What if he threw himself in front of her car?

  Whether he survived the impact or not, there was a high probability it would delay her plans, sending a charge of adrenaline into her system, and stopping the accident from ever happening. She’s a nurse who’s bound by ethics to help those in need. If she followed protocol, she’d stay with him until help arrived, then hang around with the police, answering questions and filling out paperwork. If he was right, she’d call Gwen and ask her to pick up Drew from daycare, thus avoiding his brother’s whole mangled legs scenario. And Lauren would still be alive. A double win for Drew.

  Lucas was starting to like the idea, except for the part about being roadkill. He was a fan of quantum entanglement, but not quantum entanglement with a steel bumper. The impact would be painful and the timing had to be perfect, assuming he could convince his legs to step in front of a speeding car willingly. The problem was, he’d still need to follow her out of the building and to her car, running the risk of being tagged as a stalker.

  If he somehow managed to avoid detection, then he’d have to quickly deduce her exit path through the garage and sprint to reposition himself. He’d need to choose a secluded location where she wouldn’t see him until it was too late to stop, and she’d need to be traveling at a speed sufficient to cause injury. Plus, he figured he needed a second or two to mentally prepare himself for the bloody meet and greet with the grill of her car. Or truck.

  He scoffed, calculating his chances of success. All it would take is one miscalculation and the plan would fail. He only had one shot at the reversion, and he didn’t like the choices thus far. There had to be a better way. Something with a reasonable chance of success.

  A brush of movement caught his eye near the cashier. A group of four men had entered the cafeteria and made their way to the checkout stand, one of them wearing a white coat and a thick beard. The others were dressed like orderlies—one of them completely bald, but each of the entourage had a similar face. He recognized every one. It was Starling on crutches, and a trio of Lucas copies, who seemed agitated with the doctor; definitely a tense situation.

  “What the hell?” he asked in a dull whisper, holding the newspaper in front of his face before the group looked his way. He didn’t dare peek over the top of the paper, fearing his forehead and eyes might be enough to give him away. His brain took off in a race, crunching through a number of explanations as to why the Lucas copies were involved with the same man he’d run over in the hallway earlier.

  The Lucas copies were all his age and, therefore, would have been toddlers in this time period. He doubted they knew this man in the past, even in their respective universes. He figured they must have known him in the future, or were instructed to find him in this time period by someone else. Otherwise, what would be the odds of three Lucas copies randomly connecting with Starling so soon after their arrival? Minuscule at best, he decided. Just as tiny as the chances of the unlucky family dog that had run into a pack of coyotes near the stack of bloody tires in the alley across the street from the hospital.

  “Extremely low,” he mumbled. Either they were pulled back here by accident with him, and then tracked down someone they knew in the future, or they came here from some other time in the future to meet with Starling specifically. If the latter was true, it seemed likely his copies were on a mission to change the past, just like he was. The complexity of this reversion attempt just shot up to a new level, making him cringe.

  Lucas waited until a silent count of sixty passed, then lowered his makeshift shield until he could see the vintage cash register. Starling and his entourage were gone, but now Drew’s mom was in sight, talking with a g
roup of nurses. She was wearing casual street clothes and carrying a leather purse over her shoulder. A set of keys was dangling from her hand.

  Her double shift must’ve been over, and she was about to head home. He slid out of the booth and stood up, ready to go have a talk with her. He was now on the clock, tucking the folded newspaper under his armpit. He gulped, and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

  However, before he could take the first step, the hospital’s PA system screeched with three obnoxious chimes, making almost everyone in the eatery stop what they were doing and look at the ceiling with a concerned look on their faces.

  “Attention. Lauren Falconio. Please call Employee Services. Lauren Falconio, Employee Services. Stat.”

  Lauren’s eyes flew wide and she put a hand over her mouth. Her legs turned in a flash, taking her to the house phone mounted on the wall next to the dump station for garbage and food trays. She put her purse and keys on the surface between the dual trash bins, then took the white receiver from the cradle and answered it with her back to Lucas. As if on cue, everyone in the room turned in their seats and resumed their meals and conversations—all of it like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Lucas changed his course, swooping in to grab one of the hillbilly’s soiled food trays from the booth next door and take it with him. He made his way through the groups of tables, chairs, and chewing mouths, getting closer to his target. Lauren was still engaged in the phone conversation and facing the wall when he arrived. He stood in front of the garbage bins, close enough to touch her if he wanted.

  He put his newspaper on the counter next to her purse and keys, then dumped the leftover food into the trashcan, tossed the silverware into a tote, and slid the tray onto the growing stack. Then, all in one fluid motion, he angled his body to conceal his hands from the staff behind him, laying the newspaper on her keys. He scooped his hands together in a flash, tucking the keys inside a fold in the paper while pressing firmly to keep them from jingling.

  Lauren never turned her head, still engrossed in the phone conversion as he scooted past her and headed for the entrance.

  A minute later he was outside, cruising down the hall with nobody running after him.

  36

  The elevator doors opened, and Lucas stepped into the crowd inside, working his way through a gauntlet of elbows and shoulders until he found the handrail across the back of the lift. Next to him was a tall, heavyset young man wearing a jean jacket and a faded, striped gray shirt. If Lucas had to guess, he figured the plump neighbor was no more than eighteen years old based on the smooth skin of his cheeks, the acne scars across his forehead, and the starter growth of stubble under his chin. A pair of vintage Sony Walkman headphones covered his ears as he bobbed in place on his toes, holding a whirring cassette player in his hand. The device had a red label on it with the name: Leonard H.

  He made eye contact with Leonard, giving him a quick head nod before shifting a half step to the left to give the kid more room for his be-bopping moves. Lucas looked away, not wanting his growing smirk to insult the kid. Leonard may have only been a pudgy teenager, but he out-weighed Lucas by a good hundred pounds. Granted, it was mostly flab, but his mind flashed Newton’s second law of motion. It was an equation he knew all too well: mass times acceleration equals force. The kinetic energy delivered by a punch from the music junkie would have been powerful regardless of their respective ages or the tone of his muscle mass. Or lack thereof.

  His sneer dissipated when he brought his eyes forward and checked the floor buttons. His destination was already selected. In fact, the G button was the only one lit on the control panel. The descent was going to be easy and quick. No extra stops along the way since everyone was traveling to the garage.

  The doors started to close, then stopped in midmotion as a series of time distortion events smacked him in the face. Wave after wave flowed through the elevator, bringing with them changes to the people in the car with him and their positions. Leonard was there, then he wasn’t. Lucas found himself alone in the lift and then standing outside of it looking in. Each time, the doors to the lift remained open, almost like they were frozen across time and space, an oddity to say the least. During one iteration, he was the only male in a car loaded with teenage candy stripers. Four more time waves washed through the area, then the ripples stopped. As he expected, everything seemed to be back to normal. Leonard was next to him, dancing to his music and hogging up most of the space around him.

  The doors finished their close, reminding him of the final curtain of a Broadway show, but they stopped when a woman’s hand appeared from outside. The closing process reversed course and a frantic face came into view a few moments later. It was Drew’s mom.

  “Sorry!” Lauren told everyone waiting inside. She ran a hand over her cheeks, clearing away a run of tears dripping from both eyes. She was clearly upset—probably by the sudden phone call from Employee Services she’d received a few minutes before.

  Lauren sniffed twice after she stepped inside the elevator, keeping her purse wrapped in her arms and pressed flat against her chest. Her hands were shaking.

  Two elderly women wearing matching poodle sweaters and identical crocheted handbags split apart from each other in the front row. Lauren moved between them, spinning on her flats to face the front with her shoulders pinned against the ladies. She leaned in front of the grandma on her right and pressed the already-lit G button on the control panel several times.

  “Come on!” she snapped, pressing it again and again until the doors began to close. “Finally!”

  “Is everything okay, dear?” the woman on her right asked her in a slow, motherly voice.

  “My son. I’ve got to get to my son. Daycare just called and told me he fell off the monkey bars and hurt his leg. My poor baby!”

  “Is it broken?”

  “I don’t know. They said he’s crying and in a lot of pain,” she said, sobbing out loud.

  The woman rubbed her hand on Lauren’s back, consoling her like any grandmother would do. “Did they call an ambulance?”

  “No, we can’t afford that. Besides, I’m a nurse and I’ve seen what comes into the ER. I don’t want anyone moving him unless I’m there to supervise.”

  “Which daycare?”

  “ABCs.”

  “Is it far?” the woman asked.

  “Ten minutes, if I make all the lights,” Lauren answered, adjusting the straps of her purse across her shoulder. “And I will make all the lights!”

  Lucas wrapped his fingers around Lauren’s keys in his right hand.

  The elevator’s chime binged and its overhead floor indicator changed to highlight the G symbol. The doors swooshed open and Lauren took off running in an instant.

  Lucas waited for the elevator to clear and his fellow occupants to scatter. They did, like rats evacuating a sinking ship. Once the elevator was empty, he stepped out and started in her direction, following after her as she ran through a connecting hallway. He walked as fast as he could, not wanting to be seen chasing after an emotionally distraught woman.

  He looked at the ceiling, darting his eyes in search of the surveillance cameras, but there were none. Then it hit him—in this time period, Big Brother wasn’t watching everything, not like they would be in another twenty-plus years. Normally, he was a proponent of technology and the wonderful advances that came with it, but not today. He was thankful for the lack of real-time monitoring; otherwise, what he was about to do would’ve surely been caught on at least one video feed.

  Earlier, he’d been worried about Lauren noticing him as he followed her to the car, but that wasn’t the case anymore. She was about fifty feet ahead of him, locked in a half sprint and seemingly focused on a single task—getting to her vehicle quickly.

  A minute later, a blanketing shadow from the overhead structure masked her body when she entered the first row of cars. A heavy heartbeat knocked at his chest, reminding him of the difficult task ahead, especially if he lost track
of her. He changed from a fast walk to a straight-legged jog, trying to find that graceful efficiency that exists somewhere between walking and running. It worked, smoothing his stride and leveling his vision, but he couldn’t see her anymore.

  Even though darkness had her, it wasn’t time to panic. At least not yet. He had her car keys locked in his hand, so she wasn’t going anywhere. Not unless she had a backup set hiding in her purse. He figured the chances of that were slim. After all, who hauls around two sets of keys in case one of them gets lost? But she could have one of those magnetic key cases stuck under the lip of her car’s wheel well—a thief’s best friend and a vehicle owner’s worst nightmare.

  It wasn’t long before he entered the same outcrop of darkness that had swallowed Lauren only a minute before. He looked up and noticed the overhead light was out. He looked down and waited for his eyes to adjust before scanning the area. He didn’t see any movement. There should be someone around, somewhere. If not Lauren, then another staff member or a hospital visitor coming or going. But it was eerily still and dead quiet inside the parking garage, except for his feet pounding on the cement. No car doors—no car stereo music—no voices—no engine whine. Not even the distant sound of squealing tires making a sharp corner on the smooth concrete floors.

  Lucas realized Lauren might be difficult to spot, especially if she moved off in the distance. He stopped, wanting to consider his options. His hands moved on their own, making their way to his hips while he took in a few extra gulps of air to pacify his heaving chest.

  He angled his head down a few degrees and let his focus run into a soft blur. The new plan was to remain perfectly still and allow his peripheral vision and hearing to take over the search. They did, soaking in every drop of sensory input from the concrete surroundings. But alas, they came up empty, just as his normal vision had. He was stumped.