by Jake Bible
“And you haven’t?” Barbara laughed. “I think you’re getting shorted on this deal.”
“Don’t really care. I’ll get more money than I can spend before I die. If I even live. Don’t know if you have noticed, Ms.… Chin, is it?”
“You know it is.”
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but my line of work has a good amount of risk to it. Living even this long is an accomplishment. If I get some spending cash in my pocket after it’s all done, enough to keep me in beer and chicken wings, then I am good. Simple pleasures, Ms. Chin. Simple pleasures.”
Elvis let out a long, satisfied sigh as Barbara worked the brush across his back haunch.
“See? Simple pleasures.”
Barbara nodded and continued brushing. Cash watched her. They stayed that way until the light from the sunset was a purple glow and the base’s automatic lights clicked on, making Elvis grunt with disapproval and close his eyes to the artificial glare that illuminated his pen.
“It was your father,” Barbara said.
“What was?” Cash asked as he stood up and walked to her.
“That told me all about what is happening and what you are going to attempt to do,” Barbara said. She stopped brushing, causing another grunt of disappointment from Elvis, and handed Cash the brush. “He told me everything because it’s not just any mission he wants documented. It’s him going on the mission that he wants me to record.”
Cash took the brush without comment and walked it back to the tool rack. He set it in its outlined spot on the rack then turned back to Barbara, offering her heels to her.
“Nothing to say?” Barbara asked.
“You want to go get drunk and screw?” Cash asked.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” Barbara replied, looking shocked.
“Sure. Why not?” Cash said.
The shocked look fell from Barbara’s face and she took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. A smile spread across her face.
“Can we skip the getting drunk part? I’m not much of a drinker,” she said.
“Sure. I probably shouldn’t drink either considering what could go down at any second.”
“Are you offering because you’re scared you may never get a chance? A shipping-off-tomorrow screw?
“Pretty much. You’re coming with, so it applies to you too. You might not get another chance either.”
“Good point. Okay. Your quarters or mine?”
“Are your quarters bigger than a closet and has a bed that isn’t a metal cot?”
“My place it is.”
***
Cash and Barbara rocked the luxury RV for a good, long while. They took some breaks, but pretty much that RV was a rocking, so no one came a knocking.
Not for a couple hours, at least. Then the party was over.
“Cash!” Amanda shouted as she pounded on the RV door. “Everyone knows you’re in there!”
“Jesus Christ,” Cash said as he shoved the RV’s door open, dressed only in olive drab boxer briefs. “If they didn’t before, they do now. What the fuck, Mandy?”
“You done getting your rocks off?” Amanda asked. “Because we could use you back in the command center. Now.”
“You could have simply comm’d me,” Cash said as he walked away from the door.
Amanda followed and closed the door behind her as she stepped inside.
“Holy shit, look at this thing,” Amanda said, studying the inside of the RV. “This is better than my apartment back home.”
“Better than mine too,” Cash said as he hunted around the leather couch for his shirt and pants. He tossed Barbara’s skirt and blouse aside before finding his pants.
“God damn, stinks of the sex in here,” Amanda said before pointing a finger at Cash as he got dressed. “And I did try to comm you. Several times. Turns out this RV is shielded. Blocked the signal.”
“Oops, my fault,” Barbara said as she emerged from the back bedroom, her body and hair wrapped in towels. She held out a hand. “Would you mind?”
Amanda looked at Barbara and frowned. “Mind what?”
“My bra. It’s by your boot,” Barbara said. “I’d get another, but it’s my favorite.”
Amanda looked down and shook her head in surprise. “I wear that brand too. I’m wearing it now.” She picked up a sports bra and studied it. “Yeah. Same kind.”
She held it out to Barbara.
“You were expecting frilly lace?” Barbara laughed as she took the bra. “I spend twelve to fifteen hours in this baby every day when on location. Sometimes longer. No way I’m wearing some expensive, lacy piece of shit that’s only gonna end up betraying me by stabbing my boobs ten times a day.”
She waved the bra at both of then disappeared back into the bedroom, sliding the door closed behind her.
“Would it sound weird if I said I think I like her?” Amanda said. “I didn’t pick up a shitty vibe at all. Weird, huh?”
“She grew up on a cattle ranch,” Cash said, finished getting dressed.
“Oh, so she knows how to work and clean shit off her boots at the end of the day,” Amanda said and nodded. “Nice.”
“What’s the emergency, Mandy?” Cash asked.
“Yeah, right. Come on. You have to see for yourself.” Amanda pointed her chin at the bedroom door. “Her, too. Mr. Thompson has announced she has full access. You should have heard the fight he and your sister got into on that one.”
“I’ve heard plenty of those fights before.”
Cash let out a loud, ear-piercing whistle then waited. He whistled again before the bedroom door opened. Barbara stepped out in jeans and a t-shirt, heavy-duty boots in hand.
“Did you just fucking whistle for me?” she asked, not looking happy she even had to ask the question.
“You’re coming with,” Cash said. “Welcome to the chaos.”
Cash pushed past Amanda and left the RV, leaving the two women alone.
“He any good?” Amanda asked.
“Not bad considering he has two bum knees. And they are really messed up,” Barbara said as she knelt and put her boots on. “Why? You into him?”
“Uh, no, no,” Amanda said. “It’d be like doing my brother. Gross. Just curious. You know.”
“Oh, sure, I know,” Barbara said, done lacing one boot and starting on the other. “Curiosity is how this happened.”
“That and you weren’t sure you’d live to get laid again,” Amanda said, her tone serious and no longer conversational.
Barbara glanced up from lacing her boot then nodded. “Something like that.”
“Been there, sister,” Amanda said. “Every turn before personnel rotation.”
Barbara stood and grabbed a windbreaker from a hook by the couch.
“How likely is it I die on this mission?” Barbara asked.
“That depends,” Amanda replied.
“On?”
“On how well you listen to and follow orders. Do what you are told, when you are told, and without hesitation, and you might have as good a chance as any of us. Come on. Cash beats us there and I’ll catch hell.”
Barbara slid on the windbreaker and followed Amanda out of the RV. Zach, her cameraman, was waiting a few yards away.
“You want me to come with?” he asked.
“No,” Amanda said.
“I was talking to—”
“No, Z,” Barbara said. “You heard her. Go back to the van and wait for me there. Get geared up for deep field work. Got it?”
“Already am,” Zach replied.
“Then double-check.”
“Sure, boss,” Zach replied. “So this is really happening?”
“It’s really happening,” Barbara called back as she kept up with Amanda.
***
“I’m not going to be responsible for your old ass,” Cash said to Thompson. “You come with us Flipside and you are going to have to hold your own.”
“I understand the terms,” Thompson said as h
e kicked his feet up onto the console he sat in front of as the command center buzzed with activity. He looked over at Tressa who was busy arguing about something with Mike. “Your sister has already read me the Riot Act. Poor Mr. DiCenzo is catching the fallout from that.”
“You really don’t care who catches your shit when it rolls downhill, do you?” Cash asked.
Thompson sniffed and grinned. “You smell like sex, son. Who was the lucky woman? Was it Ivy? I always thought she was good for you.”
“You never put any thought into what is good for me once in your whole damn life,” Cash snapped. Thompson raised an eyebrow. “No, it was not Ivy, and it is none of your business.”
Thompson shrugged.
Amanda and Barbara came into the command center. Amanda moved to the front while Barbara walked over next to Cash. She smiled down at Thompson.
“Mr. Thompson, I want to thank you again for—”
Thompson held up a finger and Barbara stopped talking. He looked from Cash to Barbara and his grin widened.
“Fuck off,” Cash said and took Barbara by the elbow, walking her over to a couple of empty chairs.
“Hands off, alpha,” Barbara said as she pulled her arm away. “I know how to walk and sit on my own, thank you.”
“I didn’t mean… I wasn’t…” Cash sighed. “Sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Barbara said and sat down. She patted the seat next to her. Cash took it.
“Everyone quiet!” Mike shouted and the buzz died down to an acceptable murmur. There were plenty of techs working hard at their consoles and Mike gave them encouraging nods before continuing. “We have had a breakthrough in figuring out how to get you Flipside without being split in half.”
“Split in half?” Barbara asked.
Mike blinked a few times at the TV reporter then looked to Tressa. Tressa nodded her head at her father. Mike’s gaze shifted to Thompson who simply smiled and nodded.
“Oh…okay,” Mike said. “I’ll have a full briefing put together for you, Ms. Chin. But that’s later.”
“He’s saying not to interrupt with stupid questions,” Tressa snapped.
“I’ll do my best,” Barbara replied and made a point of closing her mouth with an audible snap.
“Or problem is timing, dudes,” Mike said and chuckled. “Isn’t it always, right?”
No one chuckled with him.
“Okay, so, uh, with the turn happening at only a fraction of a second, getting you from now to then poses a few obstacles. The main one being, how do we get an entire squad of operators, along with all of your equipment and support personnel Flipside if we can’t ever see Flipside except with high-speed photography?”
No one responded.
“Oh, right, rhetorical,” Mike continued. “Sorry. Anyway, normally we have two options to get personnel and supplies Flipside. We can load everything at Topside FOB and wait for the turn then move personnel and supplies outside of the bubble and into the wilds of Flipside then wait for the turn to move everyone and everything back inside the bubble and into Flipside FOB. As all the operators here know, that means staying exposed outside the bubble in Flipside for a couple weeks. Not ideal.”
There were a few nods. Mike smiled.
“Or we simply load everyone and everything into Flipside FOB while it is here and wait for the turn back then,” Mike said. “Much safer and standard protocol. Or was until now.”
“Michael,” Tressa said, rubbing her forehead. “We are all exhausted. Can you speed this up?”
“Let the man have his process, daughter,” Thompson said.
Mike looked very much like he wasn’t sure who he should acknowledge first. Deer in the headlights syndrome was in full effect.
“What did you find, Mike?” Cash asked.
“Yes, that,” Mike said and brought up feeds from several drone cams into various windows on the main monitor. “We’ve been hard at work on testing the timing of entry. I’ll be honest, we lost a dozen drones before we figured out what we needed to do.”
He pointed at the feeds.
“As you know, or maybe one of you doesn’t, everything within the bubble shifts back to then, or forward to now, with the turn. If a bird is in the sky within the bubble, then it ends up back Flipside as if nothing happens. That is good. It means when the turn happens, whatever is in the air doesn’t get smacked to pieces by a rotating hunk of the Earth.”
“We’re going in via the air,” Tressa interrupted. “We’ll fly in transport drones with all equipment and personnel loaded into vehicles that will be held aloft by the drones. When the turn happens, we’ll have to time it so the transport drones fly up and out of the bubble at the exact moment that you are Flipside.”
“Hold your fucking horses,” Cash said and stood up. He watched the feeds from the drones and shook his head. “Those are a fraction of the size of the transports. Getting them to time a tenth of a second is a lot easier than getting something that weighs a hundred tons to time a tenth of a second.”
“We know,” Tressa said. “Michael?”
“We’ve crunched all the numbers, Cash,” Mike said. “We have calculated for each transport, factoring in size, weight, wind drag, and everything else that might affect the timing.”
“And if those calculations are off even a little bit, we’re going to have transports sliced in half midair,” Cash argued.
“We know, Tre!” Tressa snapped. “Let him finish.”
Cash closed his mouth, held up his hands, and sat back down. He turned to look at Barbara, but she was focused on everyone else.
“What everyone is thinking, because I’m thinking it, Tressa is thinking it, and Mr. Thompson is for sure thinking it, is that this kind of operation is exactly what Brain was built for,” Mike continued. “Except we don’t have Brain. We have all of us.” Mike spread his arms wide and some of the techs glanced around, but got right back to work. “We’ll have to do.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cash mumbled.
“We’ll be moving transports Flipside one at a time,” Tressa said. “That way we don’t have all our eggs in one basket.”
“And we can adjust if something doesn’t time out correctly,” Mike said reluctantly.
“How many are we taking?” Cash asked.
“As many as we can, brother,” Amanda said. “Half the operators we have on base.”
“Half?” Cash asked.
“No reason not to,” Amanda countered. ‘‘I’d rather err on having too much force than not enough.”
“Your call,” Cash said.
“It is.”
“And when will we launch this ambitious operation?” Thompson asked. “I know I am considered a civilian on this mission, but perhaps we should get down to the details soon so we can all get some rest before our big day tomorrow.”
“Again, for the record, I object wholeheartedly to you going Flipside, father,” Tressa said.
“Noted,” Thompson replied. “But this could be my last chance to go Flipside ever again. I’m not passing that up.”
He grinned at Tressa.
“But thank you for your concern, daughter.”
“You know you’ll have to shut up and take orders once we’re over there, right?” Cash asked. “Otherwise, I’ll cuff you and lock you up in one of the transports the second we get there.”
“I believe Ms. Koppel would be the one to make that call, son,” Thompson replied.
“Not getting in the middle of family,” Amanda replied. “I give Cash full authority to deal with you as he sees fit in order for the mission to be priority at all times. He’s more than qualified to make that call.”
“In cuffs and in a transport,” Cash reiterated.
“Lovely,” Thompson said. “Does that go for Ms. Chin and her cameraman, as well?”
“It does,” Barbara replied before Cash could. “I have no skin in any of this other than a once in a lifetime opportunity that I do not plan to screw up.”
“Then it appears I
have been put in my place,” Thompson said. “You must all have a great sense of accomplishment.”
Cash and Tressa’s eyes met as they sighed at the same time.
“Right, so, we’re going to keep working through the night to make sure all calculations are correct,” Mike said as he cleared his throat and gestured at the drone footage. “We’ll also be using some of the larger drones to test the calculations. When you all wake up in the morning—”
“0500, people,” Amanda announced.
“—I should have every conceivable possibility for disaster accounted for,” Mike finished.
“That’s it?” Cash asked.
“That is it,” Tressa said. “Those not on night shift need to rest.” She looked from Cash to Barbara. “Rest.”
“Planned on it,” Barbara said and stood up. “I already have Zach getting our equipment ready, so—”
“Oh, about that,” Mike said. “We’ll provide all equipment. That way we know the exact specs and can factor those into the calculations. No margin for error here. Sorry.”
“Then I’ll let Zach know,” Barbara said. “Goodnight, you all.”
She left the command center and more than a few eyes shifted to Cash.
“Suck it,” he said and stood up as well. “Mandy? You need me to help with prep?”
“It’s already handled,” Amanda replied.
“Then I’m going to grab some sleep.” Cash started to walk away then paused. “Hold on. What about Elvis?”
“He stays behind,” Tressa said.
“His weight is just too much,” Mike said. “This is all hard enough without worrying about a ten-ton Ankylosaurus shifting at the wrong moment and sending everything off.”
“Even though he’s in the pic?” Cash asked.
Mike glanced at Tressa; she nodded.
“Even though he’s in the pic,” Mike said.
Cash shrugged. “Okay. You guys are in charge.”
***
Cash had maybe been asleep for a couple of hours when there was a banging at the door to his quarters.
“What?” he bellowed as he rolled over. He was on top of his covers, fully dressed, ready for whatever.
