The Twins Paradox
Page 15
stopped 150 meters down the road. The engine died, and TJ felt very exposed.
“We’ve got to go now.” Dave declared.
He noiseless slipped across the darkened road, disappearing through a break in the foliage. Two minutes later he reappeared and waved for them to cross the road.
TJ started from her hiding place, but the strap of her sandal caught on something, and she fell heavily to the ground. Down the road she heard a car door open.
Rachel helped her to her feet and she limped as quietly as she could across the road. Dave slipped his arm around her and helped her down a narrow path to an elevated wooden walk that jutted out from the hillside. The end of the walkway was blocked by the heavy bars of a gate surrounded by razor wire. He released her and examined the padlock on the gate.
"Cover your ears and be ready to move. This is going to be noisy, so we won't have long before they figure out where we are," he stated calmly.
He raised a pistol and shot the lock off the gate, then pushed it open and rushed down the walkway. She heard the car start up and saw its lights flick on.
"I'm shooting off another lock."
The report echoed across the hillside, and she saw a car back down the road towards them.
"Have you worn one of these before," he asked Rachel, holding out a large belt.
She nodded and began stepping into it.
Dave drew another belt from a large box and knelt before her. "TJ, this is a harness. I need you to step into it. I know you don't like this stuff, but we have to get down the hill fast or they'll find us when it’s light."
He slipped the harness through each leg and belted it quickly at her waist.
"Sorry about the skirt," he grinned.
She glared at him for a moment then managed a weak smile.
"Thank you.”
Rachel extracted something metallic from the box and began fastening it to a heavy cable that extended from a pole down the hill.
"I've always wanted to do this at night," Rachel grinned, and pushed off the walkway.
TJ watched her sail away into the darkness.
"Dave, I can't," TJ began as he led her to the end of the platform.
"TJ this is perfectly safe. Housewives from Annapolis do this all the time,” he said, slapping something metal onto the cable.
She felt a tug at her waist. He guided her hand to her curved piece of metal.
"This is your brake. Don't let go of it. But don't pull it until you're almost to the next platform."
"Keep your other hand here," he continued, guiding her hand to a length of webbing.
Then he slapped her on the bottom and pushed her off the platform.
"Damn you Dave," she screamed.
Zip Line
Thursday, 4:00 a.m.
"Wait to brake," he shouted after TJ as she flew into the darkness.
Quickly he donned another harness and connected the pulley to the cable, tying an extra loop of wetting around his waist. He heard a door slam behind him, and turning saw two figures descending the path. He raised the pistol and squeezed off a shot. The figures dived off the road.
"Chao boys," he muttered, pushing off the platform.
He raced into the void, unable to see anything ahead.
I'm going to have to do this again. Rachel would do it with him, he knew, if TJ didn't kill him when they got to the bottom.
Ahead he could make out the looming shape of the tree, and a figure gesticulating wildly.
"You're almost there," Rachel yelled.
He began to apply the brake, slowing until he was stopped 15 feet from the platform.
"What are you doing?" Rachel remonstrated. "Slide all the way to the platform."
"I need to make things interesting for our friends if they follow us," he replied, untying the webbing from around his waist and re-tying it several times to the cable behind his pulley.
Satisfied, he pulled himself hand over hand to the platform.
"The next cable is around here," Rachel said, leading the way down the walkway.
"How was it, Babe,” he asked TJ.
"Better than being shot," she replied curtly as she turned to follow Rachel.
He looked back up the hill and put his hand on the cable. It's there was no vibration. They knew he had a gun. He wondered if they would follow on the zip line.
"Dave, we’re both ready to go," Rachel called from behind him.
"Go ahead, I'll wait a minute and see if our friends follow."
He heard the thump of Rachel pushing hard off the platform, and after a long pause, the more timid sound of TJ starting her descent. Then he waited.
After five minutes, he felt a vibration on the cable. So, they are coming. He lay prone on the platform and raised the pistol. Soon he caught sight of a pursuer. The man wasn't coming fast, probably scared of being shot. All the better he grinned.
The man jerked when he hit webbing, swinging violently. Dave waited until the man recovered, then squeezed off a shot. The man went limp. Dave rose and quickly moved to the next cable. A moment later he was again flying through the night. He was really going to have to do this again.
Coming Clean
Thursday 5:30 a.m.
They spotted Dave ten minutes after they reach the bottom of the zip line. She and Rachel had already climbed down from the last platform and were hiding in a nearby knot of trees. He scrambled down to the end of the ladder, jumping the last 8 feet to the ground. She stepped out of the trees and waved to him.
"Dave."
He smiled smugly and ran to join them.
"Is anyone following you?" Rachel asked.
He shook his head with obvious self-satisfaction. "If they are, they won't be arriving anytime soon. I blocked the line all the way down."
"Which way to go now?" TJ asked.
Rachel looked at Dave. "Check your phone."
Dave studied his phone. "Nothing yet."
"What is it with these phone messages?" she asked. "Who is sending them to you. You treat them like they are coming straight from God."
Verbalizing it clarified the situation for her. She planted an accusatory finger on Dave's chest.
"Dave Richards, which of Garg’s discoveries is this?"
"Let's walk and talk TJ," he evaded as he brushed past her into the trees.
She stormed after him. "Fine, we'll walk. But you better talk."
Rachel caught up with them and looked at Dave questioningly.
Rachel isn’t curious about the phone messages because she knows. For a while, it seemed that Dave would say nothing. TJ turned and hit him on the shoulder.
"I know that ‘how do I lie about this look.’ So out with it, now."
He sighed in resignation. ”Do you remember the entangled rubidium atoms that Dr. Garg was separating?"
She nodded, her mind racing ahead.
"I have a pair," he continued.
"And," she prompted.
"They're separated by 75 hours," he stated flatly.
She stopped and grabbed his arm. "You are sending the messages from the future, after you know what happens."
He nodded. "Cool, huh. Let's keep moving. I don't need a message from the future to know what will happen to us if we stay here too long."
They resumed their march, angling across the broad field. It began to grow light, and they continued on in the shelter of trees bordering a small stream. The going was difficult, the branches and brambles shredding what was left of her traveling suit. TJ hardly noticed, thinking furiously at the implications of what Dave had told her. Finally, she heard traffic ahead.
“I think that’s the coast road,” Rachel announced.
Dave nodded. “Let’s go as soon as there is a break.”
TJ planted herself in front of him. “While we’re waiting, tell me how you did it.”
“It’s complicated,” he evaded.
“I don’t think I’ll have any trouble following you.”
“I don’t think you know,” she probed. “Garg did it, didn’t he?”
“He asked me to take care of it before he was killed,” he confessed.
“And have you ever taken care of it,” she began, when a thought struck her. “Or has it taken care of you.”
“It’s clear,” Rachel called form the edge of the trees.
TJ and Dave joined her and they quickly crossed the road.
Packages
Thursday 10:00 a.m.
The office manager looked at the package and frowned. It was bad enough that she was always getting her ex-carrier fly boy pilots out of trouble with the local women and the tourists from the cruise ships. Now she had to deal with them even after they left. It was the third package she received for Biff Copland that morning. Biff had run off with a cocktail waitress from a cruise ship and hadn't been this heard from in three weeks. So why is he having overnight packages sent here?
She opened the heavy metal door and walked down the aisle of the storage room. At the third row of shelves she turned, and slipping around a crate worked her between the shelves to a large box beneath a gaudy pink alligator piñata that one of the pilots insisted on storing until Cinco de Mayo. She tossed the package into the box with the others and returned to her desk.
Swim for It
Thursday 10:15 a.m.
Rachel wondered if she looked as ragged as her companions. Her borrowed clothing was torn in a few places and streaked with a little mud, but she was positively presentable when compared with Dave in boxers and a woman’s sleeping shirt and TJ with her thoroughly destroyed suit.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
Dave quickly checked his phone. "We have breakfast, and wait for me to tell us our next move."
"I hope your next instructions work out a little better than your last plan," she complained.
He smiled sheepishly. "TJ, do you still have your