The Traveler's Secret: Book One (The Traveler Series 1)

by Jan Eira

  “No, the…the…containers are all in this evidence bag.” Detective Sparks retrieved a yellow sack from one of the officers in the back of the room. “We didn’t touch them yet.”

  “Oh, my Ringo and George,” said William, examining the outside of the gadgets and then kissing each one. “Paul and John, are you still in there? Sleeping? Alive?”

  “The beetles can’t be disturbed,” said Valerie. “If you open up those containers, two years of experiments and hard work will go out the window just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “What about the older man,” asked Detective Sparks. “How does he fit into all this?”

  “Professor Mendacium?” said Valerie. “He’s helping us out with our project. Where did you take him?”

  Detective Sparks shook his head. “He was taken to the hospital.” He sounded concerned. “He was having seizures, one after another. His temperature was over one-o-five. The ER doctor thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t turn around quickly. Last I heard, they couldn’t stop his seizures. He may be dead already.”

  CHAPTER 41

  “We’re sorry for all this trouble, Mom and Dad,” said Valerie.

  “We’ve been working on this project for a long time,” said Ellie. “We hope it’ll help our chances to get into med school.”

  “So, you do want to be a doctor,” said Dr. Rovine. “You told me you weren’t sure this morning.”

  “Of course I do, silly Dad,” said Valerie. “The four of us do.” All four teenagers nodded. “It’s our mission in life.”

  “It’s a great mission,” said William. “We want to save the world, if we can.”

  “So, Mom and Dad, do you think we can borrow the Lexus and go back to our beetle research project?” asked Valerie.

  “I’m afraid the Lucanidae beetle larvae are rather fragile,” said Ellie.

  “Ridiculously delicate,” said Brent. William nodded.

  “How much time do you need?” said Dr. Rovine. “It’s nine o’clock at night.”

  “We have to check on them every hour for a few more days,” said Brent.

  “Over the weekend,” said William. “The project is due on Monday.”

  “We’re done with the cave phase,” said Brent. “The rest we’ll do at my house. That’s where we set up the incubators.”

  Older Brent rested on the stretcher. His wrists and ankles were shackled to its metal rods. Two police officers stood sentinel outside the room.

  “Waiting for the CAT scan, x-ray, and blood-test results,” the nurse had said. “It might be a long while.”

  The hypnotic beeping from the overhead heart monitor was the only noise in the room.

  “It was thirty-six years ago today,” thought Brent. “It may be in another hour or two from now.” A tear glided down his face as he recollected the events of almost four decades ago.

  Brent, Ellie, William, and Valerie—teenagers high on life, with lovesick feelings burgeoning—sat around the campfire.

  “Can’t believe how we met,” said William, stacking up a few more pieces of wood over the flames.

  “I know, right?” said Valerie. “How weird is that?”

  “I wish the man had lived, though,” said William. “That would have made it perfect.”

  “Thanks for letting me hang with you,” said Valerie. “I need to get home in about an hour.”

  “Want some beer?” asked William. “Or pot?”

  “No, thanks. I never had either and prefer it that way. I don’t give in to peer pressure. Don’t believe in it. My body is a temple, blah, blah, blah.” She smiled.

  “OK, Miss Perfect Goody-Two-Shoes,” said Ellie. “We get the picture.”

  “Maybe I should go now,” said Valerie, getting up.

  “No, please stay,” said William, giving Ellie the evil eye. “Stay as long as you can. Please.”

  Ellie took a swig of her Bud and turned her gaze back into the flames.

  “No, sorry, William. I have to go home now,” said Valerie.

  “OK, if you must. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Soon, the two of them were ready to walk out to the parking lot, flashlights in hand. Then, they were gone.

  The moment was peaceful, quiet, and still. The flames popped ritualistically. An owl hooted in the distance. A bullfrog croaked. At the periphery of the clearing, fireflies flashed here and there asynchronously.

  “I can’t help it,” said Ellie, sitting in front of the fire. “I don’t like her a bit. She’s rude and—”

  “I know, but William’s got the hots for her,” said Brent. “What do you want me to tell you? I think we need to really give her a chance.” He smiled at her. “For William’s sake.”

  “I don’t think she’s right for him.”

  “Come on, let’s get our flashlights.” Brent extended his hand to help her to her feet. “You don’t want William to walk all the way back here from the parking lot alone, do you?”

  “All right. Let’s catch up to them. I want to apologize to the bit—”

  “Ellie, behave.”

  “The queen. Better?”

  Brent brought his index finger a few inches from his thumb and smiled. “A smidge.” Ellie smiled, too. They grabbed their flashlights, left the clearing, and proceeded down the path through which William and Valerie had disappeared into the forest moments earlier. In front of them, they saw only pitch blackness, with the exception of the thin slices of their flashlight beams.

  After several long minutes of trekking through the dark woods, they could see a faint light through the trees.

  “William,” yelled Brent.

  “Make sure they’re not making out or something like that,” whispered Ellie.

  “Why do you think I’m yelling out his name?” He smiled. “William!”

  “Help, Brent,” William said from the parking lot. “Come quick.”

  Ellie and Brent looked at one other and then ran toward the cries.

  “What happened?” said Brent.

  “She’s highly allergic to peanuts,” said William. He had his knees under Valerie’s head. She was unconscious on the ground, gasping. “She said she was hungry, and I gave her what I had in my pocket. It was a Baby Ruth. They’re full of peanuts. Next thing I know, she began to wheeze and collapsed. Before she did, she pointed to her pursue. I found this.” William held up an empty EpiPen. “I injected this stuff into her thigh as she told me to. She’s doing a bit better now.”

  “What the hell is that?” asked Brent.

  “It’s a syringe with a drug to combat severe allergies,” said Ellie, looking at the syringe. “It contains epinephrine. It says here.”

  “We need to call her parents and take her to the ER,” said Brent. “I’ll drive.”

  “She has a cell phone,” said Ellie. “See if there’s any signal out here.”

  “Nope,” said William, analyzing the mobile device. “No signal at all.”

  A nurse walked into the room and took Brent’s blood pressure.

  “I feel fine now,” he told her. “May I leave?”

  “No, you can’t leave the ER, sir. We can’t let you leave without knowing what’s wrong with you and—”

  “I didn’t ask to be brought here. And I’m OK now. I want to leave.”

  “Well, for one thing, you are under arrest,” said the nurse. “The cops have you handcuffed.”

  “No, he’s free to go, from our point of view,” said the police officer walking into the small cubicle. He unlocked the cuffs and freed Brent’s arms and legs. “All charges were dropped. He’s free to go.”

  “Thank you,” said Brent. “I want to leave.”

  The nurse looked at the officer and then back at Brent. “But you have a life-threatening fever, and seizures will come and go. The blood tests are showing you have be
en having multiple small heart attacks. You’ll probably have a massive heart attack soon and die. You need to stay. Don’t you want to get better?”

  “I’m a Christian Scientist. I don’t believe in medicine or pharmaceuticals,” said Brent. “My religious beliefs are that I will be purified by God and that all my bodily wrongs will be righted. No drug can heal me. No doctor can help me.”

  The nurse sighed. “OK. Come back if you change your mind.” She gestured toward the door. “All I need you to do is sign a form to say you’re leaving against medical advice.”

  Brent got on his feet slowly. Within a few minutes, he was ready to leave.

  He signed the necessary paperwork and walked out the main door. The first thing he saw was a car parked at the curb. The passenger’s side window rolled down.

  “Need a ride, Uncle Brent?” asked a blond woman from inside the dark vehicle.

  Brent stood there and stared at her. “Mackenzie? Zach? What the hell are you two doing here?”

  “Come on,” said Zach. “Get in. Let’s drive out of here and go somewhere we can talk.”

  Brent got into the backseat, and Zach drove off.

  “Uncle Brent, we want you to listen to this recording,” said Mackenzie. She pushed a button on the console, and an audio portion of Brent’s recent past came to life from the car’s radio speakers.

  “This is not your fault, Valerie,” said William in the recording. “Your invention allowed the manufacture of Enoxadin in pill form. You saved millions of people worldwide from having heart attacks and strokes. If it weren’t for the vasculopathic human virus—”

  “I know, William. I know,” said Valerie. “Still, if Enoxadin hadn’t been around and taken by so many, this pandemic—this Armageddon—wouldn’t be occurring today.”

  “I know what you’re going to say, Valerie,” said Brent. “And no, that is not a scenario I’m willing to play.”

  “Now, hear me out, Brent,” she said. “Use it, but only if you absolutely have to.”

  “No, Valerie. The answer is no. No way.”

  “What are you two talking about?” asked William.

  “William, do you remember how you saved my life that first day we met?” asked Valerie.

  “Yeah. Go on.”

  “Let’s say I died that day. None of this would—”

  “You have to be kidding,” William cried out. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”

  Brent spoke. “Letting you die back in 2013 is definitely not part of the plan. You and William have a wonderful life together and two wonderful children.”

  “I’m not crazy about it, either,” Valerie said.

  “I know the strategy of tainting Enoxadin is going to work out,” William said. “I know it will. It has to. Somehow.”

  “That’s definitely the plan,” said Brent. “It’ll work.”

  “That’s why we’re here, Uncle Brent,” said Zach. He pushed the same button on the console, and the audio recording stopped. “If Mom dies today, we’ll never exist.”

  “Mom dying can’t be an option,” said Mackenzie. “We’re here to make sure she survives the day.”

  “But we’ve exhausted all our other options,” said Brent.

  “We’re going to approach Grandpa,” said Zach. “If we explain the situation to him, he’ll stop Enoxadin research.”

  “We ran multiple computer models on approaching Dr. Rovine,” said Brent. “But, however we spun it, the answer was always the same. Supreme Pharmaceuticals would get another doctor to spearhead the project.”

  “We believe Grandpa would taint Enoxadin production,” said Mackenzie. “We understand that option failed when the kids tried it earlier today.”

  “The computer models revealed a strong possibility of too much change in the lifeline if we get Dr. Rovine involved in any way,” said Brent. “While working on a way to come up with a pill form for Enoxadin, he’s instrumental in developing another drug that later is modified to become the cure for two of the major lung and brain cancers.”

  Zach sighed. “Frankly, Uncle Brent, we don’t give a rat’s ass. We want to live.”

  “Kids, we all considered all these facts when we chose the paths we should take and—”

  “You talk of facts,” said Mackenzie. “But what you mean to say is ‘computer models.’”

  “How accurate are those?” asked Zach.

  “Computer modeling is the best there is at predicting things to come,” said Brent.

  “You would bet our lives on a computer prediction?” asked Mackenzie. “How dare you play with our existence with so few facts? No, Uncle Brent. Dr. Valerie Rovine-Baten will not die tonight.”

  “But you will, Uncle Brent,” said Zach. “We can take the mission from here on.”

  Mackenzie pointed a small electronic device at Brent’s chest.

  CHAPTER 42

  “I just checked on the twins,” said Valerie. “They’re out still. Did they say where they would be going this late?”

  “No,” said William. “I heard on the news that twelve of the sixty-four states have been declared war zones, and five have been declared uninhabitable due to the massive destruction of war.”

  “Wow, it’s getting worse and worse each day.”

  “Computer, continue from pause,” said William. The paused images regained movement and purpose.

  “Worldwide, the story is just as grim,” the newscaster said. “Eighty-three percent of the Europa United territories have declared internal and external war. The total death toll from the vasculopathic human virus pandemic is now estimated at three point seven billion humans. The number is growing rapidly at a rate of zero point two percent per day.”

  “Computer, mute,” said William.

  “This world’s had it,” said Valerie, sitting next to him on the couch. “There’s no hope of survival for the species, is there?”

  “No, not really.” The couple gazed into one another’s eyes. “Valerie, would you ever consider taking the easy way out?”

  “Suicide? No, I had not considered it. You?”

  “Well, we don’t have much to live for now. In a few weeks, there will be nothing at all other than destruction and devastation, hunger, disease…”

  “How would you do it?”

  “Enoxadin and exposure to the virus for all of us—the kids, too.”

  “That’s too prolonged and painful toward the end. Do you remember how Ellie suffered? The high fevers, the headaches, the chest pains.”

  William thought for a long moment. “Do you think Brent helped her in the end? Helped her ease her passage?”

  “I don’t know. He never said, and I never asked.”

  “How would you do it?” asked William. “If we wanted to end all our family’s agony, how would you do it?”

  “I don’t know.” Valerie’s eyes moistened. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Let’s hope Brent comes through for all of us.” William took a deep breath. “We believe in you, Brent.”

  “We believe in your work, Ellie.”

  William and Valerie embraced for a long moment. “We believe,” she said.

  Brent sat in the backseat of the unmarked police car. He held his breath and prepared to die.

  “No!” said Zach to Mackenzie. “Why kill him? He’s dying already.”

  Mackenzie placed the weapon inside her pocket. “I can’t kill you, Uncle Brent.” Brent exhaled.

  “Let’s drive back to where the kids are,” said Zach. “We’ll keep an eye on them and make sure mom stays alive until tomorrow.”

  Zach resumed driving. Brent estimated they were about ten minutes away from the parking lot.

  CHAPTER 43

  “We have company,” said William. He noticed Zach and Mackenzie transporting older Brent on a small chair th
at hovered a few feet off the ground.

  “Zach and Mackenzie,” said Ellie. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” said Zach.

  Mackenzie nodded to William and Valerie, who were sitting together on one side of the campfire. “We’re actually your kids,” she said to them.

  “What?” said Valerie. She and William got up and looked at the twins.

  “Why are you here?” asked younger Brent.

  Ellie had run over to older Brent’s side. “He’s shivering and burning up again. He’s only barely conscious. What have you done to him?” She removed the blanket she had around her back and placed it around him. “You guys, help me take him to inside the cave. He’ll be most comfortable in there.”

  The four teenagers gathered around the hovering transport device and pushed it effortlessly into the cave. Mackenzie and Zach stayed by the fire. The kids helped older Brent to a blanket on the floor. Ellie placed a cool rag on his forehead.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “Mackenzie and Zach want to disrupt our mission.”

  “Are they really who they say they are? Our children?” asked William.

  “Yes.” Older Brent spoke with difficulty. “Brent, trust me. You must use the neural synapse depolarizer and put them down for a few hours.” Younger Brent nodded and then looked at Ellie, William, and Valerie. He turned back to older Brent, who was pointing at the evidence bag containing the devices.

  Younger Brent picked up the bag and brought it to him. “Did the police disturb your gadgets?”

  “No. Once locked, the devices need my touch to unlock them. I’ve programmed it to allow your touches to operate it, but no one else’s.” Older Brent took a napkin from his pocket and coughed violently. Globs of blood stained the tissue. He grabbed his chest and swallowed hard. He opened the bag and held the neural synapse depolarizer. With his touch, a small red light flickered and then turned green. “Do it now. Use the element of surprise.”

  “If they’re our kids, shouldn’t we at least listen to what they have to tell us?” asked Valerie.