by Agster, Joe
Just then, something unexpected comes into view. It’s the lookalike man! He is making his way into the club, passing through the door after being checked by the bouncers. Friend quickly shields his face with his hands. This is not going to work, he tells himself, trying to plot an escape without incident. After a few tense moments, the lookalike eventually meanders toward a different area of the club and out of view. Realizing this is his moment to evade detection, he gets up to leave.
As Friend quickly makes a beeline toward the door, he comes face to face with Cassie. He so consumed with anguish at the thought of being caught, it causes him to bump into her on accident. She smiles, excusing herself, but he can’t help being caught and frozen by her eyes, giving him a moment of paralysis. After about a second, she breaks eye contact and walks past him, accompanied by her two friends, unaware of his grand scheme to try to save her.
I need a new plan, he ruminates. He wanders about the hotel, eventually concluding that he’ll need to approach her in a more private, secluded location. A place that is ideal for containing her initial reaction. He has the perfect place in mind: her hotel room. But in order to be allowed up there, he’ll need a room tag… her room tag. He can’t wait around to follow her, because he needs to meet with Max. He instantly comes up with an idea.
The registration lobby is bustling with scores of anxious travelers wishing to check in to their rooms. He spots, Juna, the heartbroken hotel agent that always helps him when he reserves a room for himself. Friend laughs to himself, this time he does have an ID, but it’s useless for what he is about to attempt. He patiently waits in line, until Juna is free, waving him to come over.
“Hi, I lost my room card,” Friend says sadly. The plan should work. Pretend he is Wyatt, after all he knows his full name, Wyatt Horton. When she asks for ID, he’ll just say he lost it.
“What is your name and room number?” She asks calmly, with a hint of sadness in her voice.
“My name is Wyatt Horton, room number 19056.” Friend responds with a corresponding sad tone.
“Do you have your ID?” Juna asks.
“This is going to sound strange, but it was stolen from me,” Friend cries out. “Actually it was my now ex-girlfriend. Can you believe she just left me yesterday, on Christmas?”
She immediately makes a sympathetic face, knowing the feeling.
“I am so sorry. I know exactly how you feel.” She comforts him before switching to a more official, business tone. “Okay, I just need a phone number associated with the room to confirm your identity.”
Friend reads her Cassie’s phone number. A number he memorized during the first iteration, but never thought he’d need. After some checking at her terminal, she reveals that the number belongs to Cassandra and not Wyatt. He explains they must have gotten the numbers mixing up during booking. Juna is satisfied, and uploads the room tag to Friend’s smartwatch.
Friend returns to the Uvia hotel to meet Max at his room at 21:00 as planned. His watch reads 21:01 as he approaches the entrance to the resort. He makes his way to the elevator area. Suddenly he sees him, Stewart and a couple agents, making their way into some sort of back room, escorted by hotel security. They are on to Max again! Discarding that device didn’t buy them much time. Friend quickly hurries to the elevators, then checks with the elevator guard before being allowed up to the 25th floor.
Max swiftly opens the door right after Friend knocks.
“I was able to contact my guy at FEMA. You are in luck. He will issue you and your friends bronze cards, as you expected would happen. And yes, you are right about one more thing,” Max explains, handing him the envelope. “In that envelope is a letter to my sons. Promise me you will hand deliver this letter.”
“I will,” Friend promises. He looks into the envelope and sees the silver cards, instructions on finding the location, and the letter. He feels redeemed, finally holding this envelope one more time. Unfortunately, he needs to now reveal the bad news.
“The FBI is in the building,” Friend tells Max. “You must have tipped them off somehow, some other way. I need to get you out of here.”
“What the—” Max gasps, stopping himself from swearing. “Out of here? But where?”
Friend emits a hologram of the room tag from his watch, representing Cassie’s room. “I know just the place.”
Max grabs what he can, hastily packing a duffel bag with clothes and other key items. “Let’s go then. We’ll need to take the stairs. They have cameras in the elevators.”
They hustle down the stairwell, the northern side one that faces the Metropolitan hotel. It’s twenty-four floors of descent minus the thirteenth floor, not as bad as going up, but strenuous nonetheless. They cautiously exit through the door leading directly outside. Friend knows these grounds well, traversing them several times in his travels between the two hotels.
“Follow me. I’ve done this plenty of times!” Friend commands.
They cut through the jagged landscape behind the hotel, eventually making their way to a crosswalk. They then cross the street when clear and enter into the Metropolitan hotel through its side entrance. They breathe a sigh of relief, slowing their pace as they make their way to the elevator area. They make their way to the 19th floor, then Cassie’s room, Friend closing the door behind them.
“Now what are we supposed to do?” Max wonders.
“We wait. She will return eventually,” Friend responds.
“So who is this girl anyway?” Max asks, sitting at the large desk toward the window.
“Her name is Cassandra Whittle,” Friend replies. “She’s smart, attended Caltech, one of your most prestigious engineering universities I’ve come to learn. She wants to be like you, work for NASA.” Max smiles inside at the whimsical conclusion, knowing that MIT, where he graduated, is the premier engineering university.
Unable to resist his curiosity, Friend looks through her stuff. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, just clothes, makeup, a portable computer of some kind. Stuff he’s already seen after spending time with her. Then he sees something he hasn’t before: a picture of her with her family, when she was a little girl. She is about ten or so years old, cute and adorable, and so innocent. Her chubby, shorter brother looks up toward her. She shares the same smile as her father. But her mother doesn’t smile, instead appears stern, almost as if she was forced into the photo. He puts it back as he found it, then continues to looks though Wyatt’s effects. It’s always a good idea to keep gathering information, to use as leverage in case the need arises.
“So she is your girlfriend?” Max wonders.
“Oh no. She doesn’t even know I exist yet,” Friend responds, trying to be straight with him.
“WHAT?” Max gasps in reply, placing his hands upon his sweaty forehead to gesture in absolute confusion.
“I told you,” Friend casually replies. “I live the same six days over and over. Just like you, I know her well, very well.”
“Right, I forgot.” Max humors him, going further. “If you are right, you would be spawning a new, alternate timeline every time you die. There is a theory called the multiverse theory that postulates such a concept.”
“I suppose it’s something like that. After being killed by the asteroid… or sometimes being shot, I am transported back to a desert east of Las Vegas, on December 26th at 8:21. And every time, it’s as if nothing has changed. I just learn more, become smarter, more knowledgeable, but to you and Cassie, I am just a stranger.”
“So then you must know what exact time will she be arriving, right?” Max questions.
“Good question. I don’t know. This is my first time staking out in her room.” Friend explains.
Max continues to debate the probability of what Friend is saying. Intrigue is barely the word to describe it. Wanting some type of confirmation, he proposes an idea.
“Let’s conduct an experiment,” Max suggests. “I will tell you something only I know, something so personal and profound that I will have no ch
oice but to believe you the next time I hear it. Are you ready?”
“Yes, tell me,” Friend responds.
“Three days ago, I almost committed suicide. I was sitting in my car, in a parking garage in downtown Houston. I loaded a bullet into the chamber, put the gun into my mouth, and gently started squeezing the trigger. All of a sudden, my phone app rang from my device. I didn’t answer it. Instead I sat depressed for a while before the idea of coming here hit me… coming to Las Vegas.”
As Max gives this heartfelt personal account, Friend cannot help but empathize. In the midst of his heartfelt emotions, Friend teeters on telling him about the feds chasing him, killing him almost every time. But he pulls back, just as he hears a noise.
The time on Friend’s watch reads 11:38 when they hear the juggle of the door, followed by muffled voices from behind it thick wooden structure. Suddenly the door opens, and to their surprise, Cassie and her friends see the two strange men in their room!
“What the hell?” Cassie gasps out. “Alaina! Call security!”
“Wait! Cassandra. Hurry, close the door!” Friend calls out, hoping to calm her down. Friend realizes he needs to improvise in a hurry, and get Alaina and Wyatt on his side.
“Cassie, Alaina, Wyatt, what I am about to tell is going to change your life, forever, so hear me out,” Friend pleads, holding his hands out to get them to simmer down.
“How so?” Cassie snaps, arms folded.
“An asteroid is about to hit the Earth, in less than six days. In this envelope is your key to survival. It contains access to a massive, underground government shelter capable of keeping a small set of the population alive.”
Friend slowly opens the envelope, then hands one of the cards to Cassie. She inspects it thoroughly; its authenticity holding her in disbelief. She slowly begins to relax from feeling frightened by the two strange men. All kinds of thoughts are racing through her head. She senses a familiarity in Friend, along with a strange aura of trustworthiness. Have they met before? It’s faint tingle of a feeling, something like déjà vu, persisting in her mind, her heart. It’s almost impossible to ignore.
“But the asteroid, it’s being dealt with I thought,” she mentions, with an apprehensive voice. Alaina stays close behind her friend, placing her arm on Cassie’s right shoulder as she remains wary of Friend’s intentions.
“By the way my name is Friend, and this is Max,” Friend introduces them, sensing the uneasiness. “Max works for NASA. He is the chief project scientist for the Asteroid Defense System.”
“Wait. So a NASA scientist and a seemingly good looking man who should be out clubbing decide to camp out in my room? All to save me from an asteroid? Does this sound crazy to anyone else?” She bursts out with a pinch of sarcasm, looking to her friends, then around the room. Did I just call him good looking out loud…?
Just then Max pulls out his NASA badge, tucked in his wallet, complete with his picture and his title. Her eyes widen as she views it in a state of awe. She figures there must be an explanation though, because she is not yet connecting the dots.
“So why are you doing this again?” Cassie wonders, this time her voice is appreciative, her mind still full of questions.
Friend takes a moment. Why is he doing this? He thinks back to those final words again. He thinks about her father, he saw something, a glimpse of the future. Like Max’s experiment, Friend realizes the key to her mind is though her most private thoughts, thoughts that no one would know. He dares not to reveal her exact words, just proof that he knows.
“Your father,” he tells her, stunning Cassie, and causing silence among everyone in the room. He continues, “Because of what he saw in you. What he told you before he died.”
Cassie is overcome with emotion, so much so that it forces her to sit down on the bed. No one just simply throws around intimate details of her life. No one just elicits her father unless they know something, something special that she has never shared with anyone. In that moment, when the words came off his lips, she understood right then and there, it is her destiny.
She stands back up, looking directly at Friend, staring in his eyes, searching for familiarity. Her eyes gradually become slightly watered in the moment.
“How… how can you… how can you possibly know that?” she stutters as she asks him directly, Max looking on in amusement, as he observes further confirmation of Friend’s predicament.
As the conversation takes place, Wyatt looks out the window and sees something peculiar downstairs, near the valet entrance. He continues to watch in keen interest, as the conversation unfolding between Cassie and Friend becomes just background noise. He feels compelled to say something. “Guys! Check this out, it’s like an army of cops and FBI agents down there!”
Max jumps up, suddenly surprised at the observation. “What! Are you sure?”
Max sees for himself, then turns to Friend. “I gotta go. Remember my promise, Friend. Deliver the letter. Watch my sons read it, and tell them I love them both very much.” Max sentimentally issues his final plea to Friend before he opens the door and flees the room.
“It’s only a matter of time before they link him to us,” Friend explains.
In a split second, Cassie needs to make the most critical decision of her life. Trust the strange man before her, or kick him out. Her deepest intuition answers her, and like hearing an alarm she starts packing unflinchingly. Alaina and Wyatt are frozen by the recent events, surprised by Cassie’s bizarre submission to the stranger.
“Cassie, are you sure about this?” Alaina asks. She senses something wrong, a fleeting and faint gut feeling. But Cassie’s never let her down before.
“He’s right. The FBI will head here. There are four cards in that envelope. If you’re coming we gotta go now,” Cassie pleads.
“I don’t want to stay here and die,” Wyatt interjects, siding with Cassie.
Alaina is convinced enough and starts packing with the others. Within three minutes they are ready. They leave everything else behind and head to the elevator and downstairs.
As they make their way toward the underground parking structure they see more agents and cops heading in the opposite direction, back toward the elevator. They hastily descend three floors to where her car is located, quickly make their way over to it, load their stuff, and get inside.
Friend sits in the front, Alaina and Wyatt in the back. Cassie’s car is spacious despite its outward compact size. She commands the car with her voice, shouting “ON.” The car responds in kind, telling Cassie “hello,” then asking for a destination.
“Where to?” Cassie asks, demanding an answer from Friend.
“I don’t know, just get us moving!” Friend commands.
“Destination, home,” Cassie commands to the car.
The car replies a confirmation of her command. It starts to drive itself casually through the garage, but the snail’s pace is not tolerable for the jittery group. Cassie finally has enough and shouts “mode, manual,” before taking control of the wheel.
She maneuvers the vehicle quickly out of the garage, in some cases zigzagging around cars. Meanwhile, Friend opens the envelope with the destination. “It reads Hanford, Washington,” he informs her.
“Mode auto. Destination, Hanford, Washington,” Cassie commands.
The car resumes driving itself, giving Cassie a moment to lean back in her driver’s seat, the black cushion providing a minor sense of relaxation. It eventually reaches the freeway where it accelerates to a high speed, rapidly putting the Metropolitan hotel and the rest of the Strip in the distant background. The fading colors of the Strip now give way to the darkness of the ordinary city that surrounds it.
“So, why is the FBI after your friend?” Wyatt asks.
“Max left his post at NASA in Houston two days ago. He realized earlier the ADS was a big failure, and couldn’t bear the guilt of putting on a charade while the world blissfully ignored the danger.”
That’s a convincing point, Wyatt thin
ks to himself. Alaina stays quiet, tearing up as the city fades. Cassie has been eerily quiet as well, in a trance in her own world.
“At some point we’ll need to stop, recharge the car, get some food. I’m not sure Cassie has enough power in the fuel cells.” Wyatt speaks, looking at the gauges on her dashboard.
Just then, bright white lights shine on them from above. It’s a police monitor drone, keeping pace while hovering over the vehicle about ten meters and blasting a screeching siren. A few moments later flashing red and blue ones close in on them in pursuit. They quickly close in, several large black SUVs, more spotlights beamed on the car. Cassie’s car starts to slow suddenly on its own, without command, as it is being controlled by the pursuers.
“Shit man, they’re pulling us over!” Wyatt cries.
The car comes to a stop, and immediate the large SUVs completely surround the car. Moments later FBI agents emerge, guns drawn, all pointed at the car. The agents issue commands over a loudspeaker, to stay still and not move. So much for his plan to save Cassie, Friend bemoans. That’s all out the window now.
The FBI agents order the four of them out of the vehicle. They are escorted by gunpoint to an unmarked large black van, handcuffed and shackled to the seats on the side. They are secured for transport, locked in, before the van drives away.
About fifteen minutes later they arrive at a nondescript building of some sort, somewhere in a governmental section of the city. The building, like the others around it, is plain on the outside, with official government symbols decorated on the signage, walls, and doors. They confiscate all their possessions, including jewelry, watches, wallets, everything. Then they have their picture taken. They are then placed in a holding cell, a room about five by five meters wide, with one small window, concrete walls with concrete benches, and a heavy door with a tiny window.
“Some plan, Friend,” Wyatt cries out. “Just an hour ago I was partying and having the time of my life. Now I’m stuck here.”
Cassie stares off in the distance. How could this be? This isn’t what she expected when she was overcome with wondrous feeling when Friend told her about her father. She had been deceived in the worst possible way. She may have only met this Friend an hour ago, but now she despises him.
