Winston Chase and the Omega Mesh

by Bodhi St John

  Before finishing with his pack, Winston also pulled one of his last three granola bars from a side pocket and ripped it open with his teeth, keeping careful to stash the mylar wrapper back in his bag. He supposed there was an outside chance that someone in 1948 might have designed an advanced parachute like his, but coming up with mylar two decades before NASA designed it for the moon missions? Probably not.

  Winston forced himself into a jog, found the single-lane road, and headed east toward the gap between the distant bluffs. Within a couple of minutes his shivers subsided.

  From somewhere in the distance before him came the echoing howl of a desert animal, probably a coyote. The sound was high and clear and forlorn. A few seconds later, another joined to form a chorus. The pair were slightly discordant, two notes failing to merge into a chord, and the sound made the hair rise on Winston’s neck.

  He slowed. Should he risk a flashlight? Would that scare them off or draw them closer? Did coyotes even attack humans? The hungry ones probably did. And there didn’t look to be much to eat out here.

  Behind him, he heard a distant rumble and, turning, saw the approach of two small headlights.

  A ride.

  He hadn’t anticipated that possibility. Should he hide or try to hitch?

  If the base was guarded…

  He nearly laughed. Of course it was guarded. With a nuke and an alien stashed underground, it would be guarded to the hilt, but he probably wouldn’t even see the defenses until it was too late. And if he encountered a secure perimeter with armed guards and a ten-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire, how would he get through? He’d thought he might be able to slip through the bluffs and perhaps climb them to study what lay beyond in the full light of day, but if it was going to be hours until daylight, he might freeze to death out here first. He didn’t have much running left in him.

  That left the car.

  Winston quickly pulled off his makeshift gloves and stuffed them in his pack. He made sure to put Little e and the Alpha Machine on the bottom and cover them with his underwear and a dirty T-shirt. That was as much as he could do. Now he had to cross his freezing fingers and hope some kind of cover story popped into his head.

  As the vehicle approached, Winston moved to the edge of the road and stuck out his thumb in the age-old plea of hitchhikers. Was it sixty-five years old, though? Winston had no idea.

  Fortunately, it worked.

  The car slowed as it approached. Its headlights were circular and brownish-yellow with desert dust. Below the word DODGE, a rectangular chrome grill sat above a gently smiling bumper with two posts jutting up from it like goofy canine teeth on a bad underbite. A high ridge ran down the center of the hood, sweeping back down the all-black exterior to the low-domed cab. Winston couldn’t see the driver inside.

  He took a couple of tentative steps toward the car when it stopped before him, then bent over to peer inside the passenger door. All he could tell was that the driver was a man in a dark-checkered shirt. He had dark hair and leaned across a white woven straw hat on the passenger’s seat. He stretched a hand toward the door and made some odd pumping motion Winston couldn’t see. The window slid down slowly.

  Winston suppressed a smile, remembering his mom’s Civic and its seemingly antiquated manual car windows.

  With the window down, the man straightened. All Winston could see was the end of his nose and his smile.

  “Hey there,” he said. “You must be lost.”

  Something in his voice sounded familiar, but Winston couldn’t put his finger on it. Did this guy become famous someday?

  “Not exactly,” said Winston, desperately wishing he’d thought out a cover story in advance. “I have to find someone who works at the research base.”

  The man’s smile faltered, and he leaned back slightly. “Oh, yeah? What base is that?”

  What if this guy was a civilian? He might not have a clue what Winston was talking about.

  “I’m not supposed to say,” said Winston. “But…there’s an X in its name.”

  This time, the man’s lips pursed together. “I might have heard of something like that. Who are you looking for?”

  “My uncle,” said Winston. He swallowed and rolled the dice. “His name is Claude Hawthorne.”

  “You don’t say. Although…” The man leaned forward slightly. No, there was something about that jaw line. “Your uncle, huh? That’s funny. I thought Claude was an only child.”

  “He doesn’t tell many people,” said Winston.

  “Even his friends?”

  The man ducked down to take a good, critical look at Winston. He was thin and clean-shaven, with thick, round glasses and curious eyes that looked bloodshot in the faint dashboard light. Winston’s breath caught in his chest as the differences of two decades fell away and recognition dawned. It took all of Winston’s self-restraint not to shout Theo’s name in relief.

  “Sounds like you’ve got an interesting story to tell,” Theo said as he levered open the door handle. “Hop in.”

  Winston didn’t wait to be asked twice. He slid into the seat as Theo set his hat on the floor. Winston was careful not to crush it with his backpack, which he rested between his feet. The car leather felt deliciously soft and warm after the frigid desert night. He automatically reached for the seatbelt at his right shoulder but failed to find one. Neither was there any evidence of a lap belt. Winston made a vague attempt to straighten his jacket to cover his awkward searching. He fiddled with his fake fur-lined hood and nearly pushed it back, then decided to wait a bit, unsure if he should reveal more of his face.

  As he rolled up the window, Winston said, “Thanks so much for this. You’re a real lifesaver.”

  “Quite welcome. What’s your name?”

  “Wi—” Winston started, then caught himself. Theo from 1948 would have no idea about Claude hiding Alpha Machine pieces for future Winston. He covered his mouth and faked a cough. “Sorry. William. William…Shatner.”

  “William.” Theo extended his hand as he resumed driving. “I’m Theo Tremaine.”

  Winston shook the offered hand. “Great to meet you.”

  In the following pause, a weak, gravelly voice from the back seat said, “Apparently, I’m chopped liver.”

  Winston started in surprise and spun around. A man laid across the back seat, head against the door behind Winston and his body covered in a dark blanket. Even in the near-darkness, Winston could see that the man was quite ill. His skin appeared waxen. Dark bags under his eyes, combined with the pot on the floor near his face, indicated a terrible stomach illness. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, but there was no mistaking his eyes. Those narrow, cunning eyes.

  “I’d shake your hand,” he said with a too-familiar Southern lilt, “but you don’t want this bug.”

  In his shock, Winston could only nod.

  “Still, good to meet you, William,” said the man. “I’m Devlin Bledsoe.”

  8

  Chancing the Checkpoint

  Winston’s first thought was to wonder if Bledsoe was just as crazy and evil in 1948 as in 2013. Probably not as much. He hadn’t had all those years to gnaw on his plan for starting another world war and taking Winston’s mother as his unwilling bride.

  Theo shoved on the stick shift into gear, and the Dodge lurched forward with a spray of gravel pinging from its rear panels.

  In the awkward silence that followed, Winston said, “Nice car.”

  “It’s Devlin’s ’46 Custom,” said Theo. “If he felt better, he’d regale you with the long tale of how he got it for a steal — only thirteen hundred. And that’s with heat, taillights, radio, and clock.” He pointed to the circular dial clock set into the dash directly before Winston.

  “Wow,” said Winston. “That’s…some deal.”

  Theo shifted into second gear. They seemed to be accelerating awfully quickly considering it was dark, they had no seat belts, and the dust-crusted headlights might as well have been candle lanterns. Winston
could barely see twenty feet ahead. He hoped Theo knew the road well.

  “So,” said the disconcertingly young Bledsoe. “Where you from?”

  “Vancouver.” Winston winced. That was too close to home. “Vancouver, B.C.”

  “Canada? I guess that explains the strange parka thing you’re wearing. You gonna take that off?”

  Winston fumbled over this, then he realized that his winter jacket must be completely odd to 1940s eyes. Did they even have hoods? The jacket’s ugly brown shell was polyester, which would be a dead giveaway if they got into the light.

  “Um, not yet,” he said. “I’m totally frozen.”

  “Uh huh. And Claude’s your uncle?” Bledsoe continued. “This gets better and better. Keep going, kid. Why are you looking for Claude?”

  The seed of an idea popped into Winston’s mind. “A few weeks ago, he asked me to help him with…something. Something he wanted to test. But I don’t think it’s going like he hoped. I need to tell him there’s something wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Theo took his eyes off the road to give Winston another few seconds of close scrutiny, forcing Winston to stare straight ahead so Theo couldn’t make out his features around the hood’s fuzzy lining. It took all of Winston’s self-control not to grab the wheel as they drifted toward the road’s edge. From the corner of his eye, Winston could see concern in Theo’s face. The man was surprised, but not incredulous.

  Winston chanced a glance back at Bledsoe, only to find the man’s eyes narrow with skepticism. He already had his suspicions about Claude — and more. Winston had to remember that this Bledsoe was already head over heels for his mom and frustrated that she had chosen another man. He was a rattlesnake in the desert waiting to strike.

  “Well,” Winston said while struggling to think of his next move. “I haven’t been feeling well for over a week now. And my hair. It’s starting to turn white.”

  Winston looked toward the passenger window to hide his face but pulled back the left side of his hood to expose his hair and its plainly visible white stripe. Theo studied Winston’s head in the scant light and pursed his lips. “What in the world would do that?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  Bledsoe chuckled. “Kid, you’re wanting a ride to a maximum security military research facility, and you’re sitting in a stranger’s car out in the middle of nowhere. You’ve trusted us this far. You might need to trust us a little more.”

  Winston ducked his head slightly and let his voice rise a touch, just enough to make him sound a pinch younger and more scared — which wasn’t very hard under the circumstances.

  “My uncle is testing this stuff. It’s supposed to help you, make you stronger or something. I’m not…very tough. I get picked on at school. Uncle Claude wanted to test it on someone where it wouldn’t be seen, and he thought it might help me. So I said yes.”

  Theo took the bait. Winston could see it in how he furrowed his brow and stared fixedly at the road.

  “Did this stuff have a name?” Theo asked.

  Winston intentionally flubbed it to appear to know less than he did. “Quarterback.”

  “What?”

  “Well, that’s what I call it, because of the initials. I think my uncle called it QB.”

  “He gave—” Bledsoe started, then paused. Whatever misgivings the man might have had about Winston’s Canadian cover story vanished at the arrival of this new revelation.

  “I’m sorry,” rushed Winston. “I know we shouldn’t have. But Uncle Claude said to come find him as soon as possible if there was any trouble after our first weekend. Will…will you guys help me? And not tell anyone?”

  Theo stole a look over his shoulder at Bledsoe. Winston didn’t want to act too desperate, so he stared at his hands, trying to seem pitiful.

  “So this…Quarterback,” Bledsoe said at last. “Did it help you at all? Make you stronger?”

  “Not really.” Winston saw Theo’s shoulders slump with disappointment. “But I do run really fast now. And sometimes I hear things, like people talking to me.”

  Bledsoe gave a short, weak laugh. “Kid, that usually means you’re missing a bolt in your propeller assembly. Remind me to tell you about my Crazy Cousin Darryl sometime.”

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Theo asked.

  Not yet, Winston thought.

  He shook his head. “They think I’m visiting my uncle’s place for the summer, doing odd jobs and taking care of the place.”

  Winston realized his mistake immediately.

  Please don’t ask where my uncle’s place is, he thought desperately. Perhaps if the men had been less absorbed in thinking about the QVs, they would have picked Winston’s story apart on the spot.

  “How long ago did Claude give you this…Quarterback?” Theo asked.

  “Gosh…two weeks?” Winston ran a hand through his hair, feigning deep thought. “Maybe three. I had a bad fever for a while and sort of lost track of some things.”

  Winston cautioned himself to say as little as possible. Overconfidence in his storytelling would eventually backfire if he kept it up.

  The Dodge bled off speed as they approached a gentle bend in the road. Winston caught a flash of three flat-topped rocks go by, stacked in a short pile — obviously some sort of roadway marker.

  “We’re almost there,” said Theo. “Anything else you want to tell us?”

  “I’m really nervous?”

  Bledsoe laughed. “I like you, kid. Let me know if you need a second uncle.”

  Winston felt his last protein bar rise up from his stomach. The thought of Bledsoe being related was a little too close to home.

  As they continued around the tip of the southern bluff, Winston saw the outline of a chain link fence stretch from the bluff cliff off into the middle of nowhere in the desert night. For a top-secret military installation, Winston thought the fence looked surprisingly flimsy. Even their Dodge could run through it with no problem. Then he realized that the fence wasn’t meant to repel intruders. It was only a boundary scattered with “MILITARY — DANGER — KEEP OUT” signs every several dozen yards. The space beyond the fence was probably riddled with land mines and whatever other anti-intrusion weapons they had in 1948.

  The road paralleled the fence line for half a mile or so until a squat guardhouse appeared in the headlights. The building looked much like a toll booth, with small windows on every side and one narrow door. An oil lamp shone from within the little building, casting a broad beam of dim yellow light onto the red and white striped barrier set across the gap between stretches of fence.

  “Shouldn’t I hide in the trunk or something?” Winston asked.

  Theo shook his head. “That would be far worse if he does a sweep. Perhaps just tell him that you hitchhiked out to see your uncle and we found you while driving back from town. You…” He trailed off for a moment, thinking. “You might want to omit the parts about Quarterback. For now.”

  Winston was stuck, with nowhere to run and no time to figure out an alternative. How could he have been so stupid and not come up with a better plan?

  Theo rolled down his window, and cold desert air whipped through the car. Winston licked his lips nervously and tasted dust.

  A uniformed man emerged from the guardhouse. He wore woolen pants and a thick woolen jacket, both dark green. A scarf surrounded his neck, and fingerless gloves kept his fingertips free as they brushed the stock of the rifle slung lazily over his shoulder. His manner seemed relaxed, almost sleepy, until he caught sight of Winston in the passenger seat.

  “Evening, Arth,” Theo said.

  “Almost morning, Mr. Tremaine.” The guard bent over to peer at Winston, his breath making white plumes before him. A heavy black cap sat low over his eyebrows, but Winston could still see the caution and distrust in his eyes. “Who’s your guest?” He spotted Bledsoe in the back seat. “And what’s with Mr. Bledsoe?”

  Theo presented Winston to the guard with a manner that said huh-what-do-y
ou-know? “We picked him up on the road from town. He says he’s Claude’s nephew, come to find him because of some family health emergency. As for Devlin, he took ill while we were out tonight.”

  The guard gave Bledsoe a twitch of his mustache. “A bit too much at the Brassy?”

  Bledsoe groaned. “Twice as much went out as in. That toilet and I are now on first-name terms.”

  The guard wrinkled his nose. “You choose your friends in life, Mr. Bledsoe. Now, then.” His attention returned to Winston. “What’s your name?”

  Nothing. The question sank into Winston’s brain, but nothing returned. Only a moment later, when the image of Captain Kirk sitting in his chair aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise popped into Winston’s mind, could he say, “William Shatner. Sir.”

  Tinnitus bloomed in Winston’s right ear just as the guard spoke. The sound rang out, warbled, split into two separate notes, and then three. Its volume subsided but didn’t entirely fade.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Winston asked.

  The guard’s face darkened with irritation. “I said, who is sick?”

  “Um,” Winston stumbled. “Me.”

  The notes in his head separated again, continued to fade, and then, with perfect clarity, a voice located somewhere in the center of Winston’s head said,

  The voice bore no accent and was strangely neutral, neither obviously male nor female. Had it not been for his mother communicating with him mentally at Council Crest, Winston might have been taken completely by surprise. As it was, he stiffened but never broke eye contact with the guard. The voice could only belong to one person…or alien. At a different moment, he would have been awash with relief.

  “He looks sick,” said the guard, pointing at Bledsoe. “You were out hitchhiking in the middle of the night. I’m guessing you’re not that sick. And why are you wearing a parka?”

  Theo turned back to Winston and nodded skeptically. He waggled a finger toward Winston’s head. “I hear what you’re saying, Arth. But he got really chilled in the desert, and he’s still trying to warm up.”