Winston tried to speak, but without any feedback from his diaphragm or sensation from his torso, he found talking impossible.
Judging by the tension behind his eyes, he guessed his heart was racing, but he couldn’t feel that, either. Winston’s first and deepest fear was that something had glitched. As a half-alien, he wasn’t compatible with their transport hardware, and now he’d been sent to some buffer limbo.
Of course he did. What kind of dumb—
Winston soaked that in. OK. That made sense…sort of.
Winston realized that this had to be something like the sensory deprivation tanks he had heard about. There were several such shops in Northwest Portland, where you could pay to float in a body-temperature tank of salt water, and, if it was pitch black, you would feel like you were floating in empty space — only without having your blood boil while freezing to death. He had never experienced a float tank, but he suspected this might be the white version of it. So long as he imagined it like that, and knew that his body was safe and sound, he could cope. Gradually, he began to think straight.
Bernie seemed to consider that, which probably meant a microsecond or two of normal time.
Feeling they were veering dangerously close to a parental lecture on teen angst and self-control, Winston felt it was time to get back on track.
Winston knew what he wanted, but he didn’t know exactly when or where it was. He thought about the last moments on Council Crest, how Shade and Alyssa had loaded him in through the back of that helicopter. They must have landed somewhere and transferred to a plane. Winston wanted to see that.
And even while he was wondering how to squeeze the crossbar of Little e, which he hoped was still attached to him somewhere, the all-encompassing white around him disintegrated into a million white sparks and fell away.
It was dark. And cold. Winston smelled asphalt and trees in the wind that brushed across his face. He couldn’t see anything for a second or two, but his eyes quickly adjusted. A high-pitched mechanical whirring filled the air. Bernie stood beside him once more, hand still lightly holding his arm. A wall of wooden slats painted some dark tone Winston couldn’t make out yet blocked most of Winston’s field of view. He quickly realized this was some sort of squat building, too big to be a shed and too small to be much of a home. Dim light leaked around from each side of the building, leaving them in deep shadow.
Winston approached one end of the building and eased his way around the corner. The light came from a powerful floodlight mounted to the building’s ceiling. It pointed away from Winston, throwing its broad white beam across a long airstrip. A hundred yards away, Winston saw their helicopter, white and massive. Its rear door separated from the craft’s body and slowly descended. Not far beyond the helicopter, a small blue plane waited, its twin rotors a blur of motion. The plane showed five circular windows down its fuselage. Yes, he remembered that from when he woke up.
“What do you mean?” Winston asked with quick irritation. “They’re right there! I just need to figure out how to get them away from…me! Maybe if we go back a couple minutes, I can put the QVs in their water on the plane, or…”
He tried to improvise, but inspiration had gone on a work break.
Bernie shook his head.
Winston opened his mouth, then bit down on both lips, grimacing.
Right. Bledsoe’s attack would be in only a few hours, at the most. If the sickness alone took up to forty-eight hours to pass…
“So, how long does it take for them to be able to translate?”
“What is—?” Winston rubbed at his forehead, trying to shake some clarity into his brain. “Never mind. You know the variables here. How do I get the smallest possible time to effectiveness, and how long will that time be?”
Shade and Alyssa appeared on the helicopter’s ramp, awkwardly carrying the other Winston between them. His head lolled limply from side to side and his feet dragged down the ramp. His mother followed close behind.
Man, Winston thought. I look terrible.
He turned back to Bernie. “So, with a full meal. How long?”
Winston tried to recall the chain of events from Council Crest, but so much of it was a blur right now.
“Forget significant margin. Give me minimum reliable safety.>
Winston was shocked. Props to the aliens! That was some fast-acting virus.
“You mean as a passenger, not the driver?”
A man appeared at the top of the helicopter ramp. He wore an olive-colored flight jumpsuit and sported a gray mustache — Alyssa’s grandfather. Another man appeared from behind the helicopter, walking toward the group from the airplane’s direction. His slow manner and empty hand
s indicated that he was likely helping the group in some way.
“Well, it works on all of them. Right?”
When Bernie didn’t reply, Winston left his spot at the building’s corner and faced the alien. Bernie blinked, but Winston had no way to read his emotions.
“Bernie? Does it work on all of them?”
Winston turned his ear toward the alien. “Sorry, I don’t understand. How do you not know? You’ve done all this before.”
“What? But you—”
Winston thought back through their time together and decided he didn’t have enough information to reach any conclusions. “So, this is new? Right now…” He pointed to the ground between them. “You and I haven’t done this before in any of the iterations?”
Great. That meant he had zero guidance. Every step from here on out could be the one off the edge of the cliff, and Bernie would never be able to warn him, because he wouldn’t know. The next time there was something like a scorpion, Winston would plant his hand right on it — and die.
Winston stepped past Bernie and began to pace in the outbuilding’s shadow. His friends were so close he could nearly hear them. But Bernie was right. He needed a safe, easy time, not some instant where he had to zip in and out, where everything could go wrong. He could pick from any time in the past, but then that might mean they would have QV abilities for too long. One visit to the doctor, and they’d become lab rats forever.
No, it had to be recent.
Theo would have been able to help. He could have given the QVs to Alyssa at any point after their initial meeting…
Winston spun back to face the alien. “Bernie, I had Alyssa meet up with Theo. They were in Portland, right?”
Winston returned to the building’s corner. Alyssa’s grandfather and the stranger were shaking hands and talking on the ground in front of the helicopter ramp. Behind them, Alyssa and Shade had nearly hauled Winston all the way to the plane.
“Give me the highlights,” Winston said. “Where did they go?”
He snapped his fingers. “There! They made breakfast. That was this morning, relative time, right?”
“Seventeen hours.” Winston grimaced. “Man, that’s cutting it close. Is it enough time?”
“Bernie.”
“So…” Winston swallowed. “That sucks.”
Before that, their last encounter was when he geo-jumped into her bedroom. That would work, but it would still leave her grandpa out and unprotected.
“Does it work faster or slower with age?”
No food. Like after waking up.
“How do we look on seventeen hours for her grandpa if he doesn’t eat all day?”
“That’s even worse!”
The alien stared at him.
It was an impossible decision, but he had to make it. As he watched his mom ascend the stairs into the blue airplane’s main door, he wished he could call out and ask her advice. He nearly tried to reach her telepathically, then realized doing so could influence her during the flight and alter things later.
“Crap!”
But he already knew his mom’s reply: What does your little voice say? Just listen.
Winston tried. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He sought to ignore the sound of the aircraft engines and the chill breeze. Somewhere in him was a center, and in that center waited the answer.
His mind tried to spin through possible outcomes and what consequences they might carry. In the end, though, there were too many variables and too many things he didn’t know.
He imagined Alyssa sitting at a table with the two men, long auburn hair disheveled, eyes puffy with sleep, and a crease or two from her pillow running down the side of her face. Even like that, she was beautiful.
You come back to me, Winston Chase, she had said right after kissing him, just before the end.
Yes, he could hear the little voice.
Winston opened his eyes. “Is there time before she wakes up?”
“Can we trust her grandpa to stay quiet? Is he chill?”
Bernie’s eyes narrowed slightly, offering a hint of humor.
“Then let’s go.”
***
After confirming that the Colonel was alone in the kitchen and just getting started with breakfast preparation, Winston and Bernie arrived in the guest bedroom, a small space with thick brown carpeting and diamond-patterned wallpaper. It smelled old and forgotten. Right before them, Theo slept in a small bed with a red-and-yellow quilted bedspread dominated by tiny depictions of birds. Wispy white hair splashed across his pillow. One arm lay thrown out to the side, the other tucked under the pillow behind his head. His mouth hung open, and his snores were thunderous. Winston would’ve sworn that they made his hollow cheeks vibrate.
Winston didn’t care. After losing his new friend on Council Crest, seeing him in any living state made Winston’s heart leap.
“Theo,” he whispered.
Another mattress-rattling snore.
Winston stepped around the bed and leaned down close to Theo’s ear. OK, the morning breath was not as heartwarming.
“Theo,” he repeated.
The old man gave a little twitch. His mouth closed, and he licked his lips slowly. His breath hitched.
“Theo, don’t freak out,” Winston whispered.
Theo’s eyes opened. He saw Winston but, not recognizing him immediately, gave a small “gah!” sound and pulled away. Then his face contorted in pain. Under the covers, he lifted his left knee and seemed to reach for his foot. “Cramp!” he said through gritted teeth.
Then he spotted Bernie. His eyes grew larger, and his hands froze, the pain in his leg momentarily overshadowed by his shock.
A second later, the pain won out.
“Here,” Winston said as he moved to the foot of the bed, found Theo’s foot, and pushed against it.
Winston did.
Through his pain, Theo focused on Bernie, considering their situation, then he started to laugh quietly through the discomfort.
“Good to see you again, too,” he whispered. After several seconds, he nodded at Winston. “I think I’ve got it from here, thanks.”
Winston backed away and returned to Bernie’s side.
Theo sat up in bed, careful to keep his leg straight and toes curled back. He kept looking from one of them to the other.
“Well, come on,” he said. “Don’t keep an old man in suspense. I haven’t got forever.”
Winston fought to keep his face neutral. Of all the times to have Bernie’s gift of a completely emotionless face, this would have been it. Unfortunately, Winston felt his features betray him as his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. Even in the dim light of early dawn, Theo’s eyes caught the change, but he said nothing.
Bernie’s fingertips brushed against Winston’s arm, distracting him.
“Right,” Winston said, grateful for the prompting.
He set Little e on the end of the bed, then rested his ba
ckpack next to it. Removing the clutch of three QV vials, Winston held them out for Theo to see. The old man’s low hum and slow nod showed that he guessed it wasn’t saline or 7-Up.
Theo only asked, “Why?”
Winston glanced at Bernie.
“OK.” Winston took a deep breath. “This thing you guys are planning on doing…”
What could he say? You’re gonna die. Everybody is going to die. I’d tell you what to do differently, but I have no frickin’ idea.
Winston felt his throat tighten as once more he saw the memories of Theo’s bleeding body on those paving stones and the gray-black explosion of their plane’s cockpit as Winston fell through the air.
“…it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous,” Theo repeated. “You don’t say.” He slipped his pajama-clad legs over the edge of the bed and tested some weight on the cramping leg, grimacing. “Either get to the point or let me go to the bathroom.”
“There’s going to be trouble, and I need to give QVs to everyone.”
Theo eyed Winston critically as he flexed his toes up and down. His thin hair splayed out in every direction, apparently powered by static, as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“So far, you haven’t told me anything I couldn’t guess just from you being here.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Who needs the QVs?”
“Shade, Amanda, and Amanda’s grandpa.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “But not me.” He licked his dry lips slowly. “No, of course not. They won’t take.”
“Theo, the more I tell you, the more—”
The old man waved a hand at Winston, silencing him. “I know, I know.” He stood slowly, and Winston wondered at the progressive symphony of cracking from his ankles through his knees and up into his back. Catching Winston’s expression, Theo added, “Can you imagine where I’d be without yoga?”
Winston Chase and the Omega Mesh Page 20
