Wenzel restarted the playback, showing an overhead feed from one of the helicopters circling the mall. The first few minutes showed the energy dome working its way west from Campbell Avenue, gobbling up street signs, cars, campus buildings, fencing, and most of the university’s newly renovated aquatic center. It was hard for him to watch as a handful of students scrambled to get away from it. Some made it, others didn’t—snuffing their lives out in an instant.
The helicopter caught up to the dome and then flew directly over it. When its camera tilted down, Lucas could see deep inside the phenomenon through a opening in the crown. The aperture was like the eye of a hurricane, showing debris being carved out along the dome’s inside edge and, while suspended in midair, twisted and compacted into a long, winding rope of matter, before being flushed through a swirling black vortex in the center.
He watched partially consumed buildings collapse along the south side of the mall, but only after the energy field moved past them. While the dome was in contact with them, the damaged structures seemed to defy gravity and remain erect, leading Lucas to believe the energy field’s perimeter was acting like a stabilizing force, keeping the buildings upright until after it passed.
Lucas leaned in closer when the recording showed the energy field rumbling across the mall, consuming every inch of grass, trees, cement, and pavement, all of it stripped from the earth and wedged through the sphere’s powerful vortex.
Just then, on the screen, he saw himself in miniature on the ground. He was running up the right side of the monitor as he pushed Drew in his chair along the front of the Student Union, heading west. The perspective was a little disconcerting. He’d never seen himself on video before, and seeing his size relative to the massive dome and its destructive force made him feel small and insignificant. Sort of how he imagined the rest of the scientific community viewed him now after Dr. Green’s scathing comments about his thesis.
On the left side of the screen, two injured females—one of them pregnant—were struggling in the grass, trying to get up before the energy field reached them. Lucas had to look away from the horror when they didn’t make it. He was obviously wrong earlier when he’d told Drew the police would help those injured in the mass exodus.
The dome continued up the video screen, slaughtering people unable to escape its maw. Lucas held his breath as their bodies were ripped apart like string cheese, then mangled and distorted as they were sucked through the dome’s violent eddy.
After the miniature versions of him and his brother disappeared off the screen, the energy dome stopped moving, turned an orange color, and then dissipated a few seconds later. The news camera zoomed in for a dramatic close-up of the mound of bloody human remains left behind—the same pile they’d seen earlier when most everyone started puking.
Lucas felt like he was watching a science fiction movie, one that featured a fictional report from a war zone half way around the world, somewhere in a developing nation—somewhere remote and disconnected from real life. He had to remind himself that he’d just seen the events happen with his own eyes—and it was real, all of it within what was supposed to be the safe and peaceful confines of a university campus. A campus within the borders of the most highly developed country in the world.
Lucas looked at the producer. “Could you burn a copy of the footage onto a DVD for me? I’d like to analyze it.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it. Not without my station manager’s okay. I’m sure he’s gonna wanna see it first.”
“We don’t have time for that. Look, I’m not going to steal it. If you want, watermark the footage with your station’s logo and copyright. Just don’t obscure the important stuff.”
Wenzel hesitated before he finally agreed. Three minutes later, the producer handed a DVD to Lucas. “Can you tell me what this thing is?”
Death from above; a stupid mistake; the end of his career were the phrases that first popped into Lucas head, but he chose to hold them all back. “I’m not sure yet, but once I’ve had a chance to analyze your video, I should be able to. Give me your number and I’ll call you later with the results.”
Wenzel gave Lucas his business card. Lucas shook his hand, then climbed out of the van.
“What did you guys see?” Drew asked.
“I’ll show you later. Let’s head back to the apartment so I can check this out better.”
Neither of them said anything until after they crossed Speedway Boulevard on the north side of campus. That’s when Lucas decided to break the eerie silence. “Earlier, when I saw you with the FBI . . . What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t tell them anything except that my girlfriend was on the steps when the accident happened.”
Lucas thought the use of the term “girlfriend” was a little premature. One breakfast did not constitute much of a relationship, certainly not one that would qualify her as Drew’s girlfriend. But seriously, what the hell did he know about relationships, let alone members of the opposite sex. So he let it go. Besides, there were more important things on his mind right now. “Did you tell them you saw it? That you were there at the theater?”
“Yeah, I sorta had to. It was the only way they’d talk to me. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t stay away. I had to see if there was any news about Abby.”
“What else did you say?”
“That was it. I didn’t mention E-121 or our accident in the lab,” Drew said as his eyes welled with tears. “Do you think we’re really responsible for all this? That we killed Abby and all those other people?”
“There’s no we in this, brother. If the E-121 experiment is somehow responsible, then this is all on me. I’ll be the one to take the heat. Not you.”
“But—” Drew said.
“No, we talked about this before. It was my call. End of story. I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
“Okay, but I still think you’re wrong. Brothers should stick together, no matter what.”
“I appreciate it, but no. I’ve got this. When they come, they come for me . . . alone. Understood?”
Drew nodded, though his face clearly indicated he wasn’t happy about it.
“Let’s focus on what to do next, okay?” Lucas asked, wanting to shift gears and get back on track.
Drew winkled his nose. “Maybe we should leave town?”
“What are you saying? Hide out? Like lowlife criminals?”
“Seems like the right move to me.”
“No, we’re not running.”
“Okay, then, call it leaving town for safety reasons.”
“And go where? We don’t know if this thing will happen again, or where. If it starts jumping around, then no place is safe. Besides, if we did cause this, then the honorable thing to do is stay and find a way to stop it.”
“You’re right,” Drew said, letting his face run soft.
“And the only place we can do that is right here, in our lab.”
Just then, Drew seemed to find emotional strength. His body language, face and tone of his voice changed, almost as if the reality of the situation had taken root and charged his resolve. “That’s true. We have to stay. It’s our duty to stop it. For Abby and everyone else. That’s what Dad would’ve wanted us to do.”
Lucas nodded. “It’s time to man up. And the only way we can do that is to focus on what we do best—figuring this out. Let the police and the emergency crews deal with the rest. We can’t afford to get caught up in the middle of all this insanity. We’ve got work to do.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Lucas heard their phone ringing when they made it to the front door of their apartment. He struggled to find his keys, but eventually opened the deadbolt lock and ran inside. But by the time he made it to the phone, the caller had hung up.
He turned to Drew, who was just arriving in his chair. “I’m guessing that was probably Mom.”
“Knowing her, she saw the news and has been calling every five minutes. She must be worried sick.”
“What do I tell her?”
“Just tell her we’re okay, but don’t mention anything about E-121 or our lab accident. If she asks about us coming home, tell her we need to stay here and help. If she gives you any grief about it, remind her that Dad would’ve wanted us to pitch in and help the victims in any way we can. She won’t like it, but she’ll understand. It’s the honorable thing to do.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
Lucas went to his desk and logged onto the laptop computer. He then proceeded to copy the DVD evidence to his hard drive. Once it was on the hard disk, he uploaded the video files over the Internet to his private cloud storage space, which Kleezebee had given him for their computer’s weekly offsite backups. Lucas kept backup copies of all their research material stored there as well.
Drew rolled over to the desk after hanging up the phone. “Mom’s good, but you were right. At first, she didn’t like the idea of us staying here, but once I mentioned Dad, she understood. I told her we’ll watch out for each other so she didn’t need to worry. You done yet?”
“Just about,” Lucas said, opening the desk drawer. He searched through the pile of junk in the drawer, tossing items aside with his fingers.
“What are you looking for?”
“Have you seen the sixty-four gigabyte thumb drive we just got from Trevor? I want to make a copy of everything so we have it all in one place.”
“It’s still in my backpack. I’ll get it.”
Lucas craned his neck up when he heard the pound of footsteps walking across the floor of the apartment above them. A few seconds later, his upstairs neighbor flushed the toilet, sending a loud stream of water gurgling down the sewer pipes in the wall. But the noise didn’t stop there. The squeal of a chair rang out from above as it was being pulled across the floor.
Drew tapped Lucas on the arm, bringing his eyes down from the ceiling. He gave the flash drive to Lucas. “If you need the space, delete my study folders from last semester. I don’t need them anymore.”
“Why don’t you see what the news is saying?” Lucas suggested, pointing at the TV. He inserted the flash drive into his computer’s USB port. “The remote’s on the couch. Hit the MUTE button so I can work in peace.”
Drew rolled to the couch and did as he was told. A few minutes later, he called out to Lucas in a concerned tone. “Hey, you’d better come see this.”
“What’s wrong?” Lucas answered with only partial interest. He was still in the middle of his USB drive’s download.
“They’re setting up roadblocks around campus.”
Lucas grabbed his laptop, flew out of his chair, and raced over to the couch, where he set his computer down in front of him on the coffee table. The broadcast showed four soldiers patrolling the street in front of the north entrance to the university, while two other soldiers erected sawhorse-style barricades from one side of the street to the other. Three Humvees were parked perpendicular to the street, just behind the barricade.
“Hey, isn’t that our entrance on Speedway?” Lucas asked. “The one we just went through?”
Drew nodded. “Good thing we got out of there when we did.”
Along the bottom of the screen, the news ticker displayed the words: “BREAKING NEWS: Suspected Terrorist Attack in Tucson . . . National Guard Activated . . . Arizona Governor Declares State of Emergency . . .”
Lucas rolled his eyes and tossed his hands up. “Now we’ll never get back into the lab.”
“Maybe we should call Dr. Kleezebee. I’ll bet he can get us in.”
Lucas liked the idea and dashed to their wall phone, snatching the receiver from its cradle. He didn’t have Kleezebee’s hotel information in Washington, so he dialed the professor’s cell phone, only to have his call redirected to the professor’s voice mailbox. He left a message. “Dr. Kleezebee, this is Lucas. Please call me at the apartment when you get a chance. It’s urgent.”
Next, he tried calling Bruno on both his cell phone and his home phone. There was no answer on either number. “Damn it, where is everybody?”
“You could try Trevor. We both know he’s home,” Drew said, looking up at the ceiling.
“Worth a shot,” Lucas said before grabbing a broom leaning against the wall next to the fridge. He walked to the center of the room and stood between the couch and coffee table. Above him, the ceiling was covered with dozens of shallow, nickel-sized indentations. He picked a new spot, then raised the broom handle and rammed it into the ceiling three times, careful not to punch a hole in the drywall. “You know this would be a lot easier if he’d just get a damn phone. I mean seriously, how hard is that?”
Drew shrugged, turning his eyes back to the TV broadcast.
Lucas sat down on the couch and checked his laptop to see if the video download had finished. The progress bar showed 100% complete. He removed the USB thumb drive and put it into his front pocket.
Less than thirty seconds later, there was a knock at the door.
“Trevor?” Drew asked. “That was fast.”
“The dude must’ve sprinted down here.”
When Lucas opened the door, he was surprised to find Dr. Kleezebee standing there, holding one of the E-121 transport cases.
Lucas cleared his throat, knowing he was in trouble. Kleezebee never came by their apartment unannounced. “You back from Washington already, Professor?”
Kleezebee unlatched the container’s lid and opened it. “Where the hell is it?”
Lucas needed a few seconds to think, but his mind wasn’t cooperating. “Why don’t you come in, boss?”
Kleezebee scowled and breezed past him. The professor took the middle seat on the sofa while Lucas sat down across from him in a wooden rocking chair his father had made for them in the workshop back home in Phoenix.
Kleezebee put the material case on the coffee table. “With President Lathrop closing campus, I went to your lab to retrieve the E-121 samples. Imagine my surprise when I found this container empty.”
Time to come clean, Lucas thought. There was no way around it. He needed to address it head-on but choose his words carefully. He didn’t want to implicate anyone else. Namely his brother. Oh, and Trevor.
He cleared his throat, again, then swallowed to buy himself a few extra seconds of think time. The words finally came to him and he was ready. “Professor, there’s something I need to explain. But before I do, I need to tell you that Drew, Trevor, and Abby had nothing to do with it. It was my decision, and I take full responsibility for everything that happened.”
“Wait, Professor—” Drew said, trying to join the conversation, but Lucas held out his hand, making sure to stop him.
“No, Drew,” Lucas said. He spoke in a soft tone. “I’m not letting you take the fall for this.”
“But we did it tog—”
“Not how I see it, bro. I was the man in charge and it’s my responsibility. Not yours.”
“What the hell did you do?” Kleezebee snapped, his cheeks turning red.
“Friday night, after you left for DC,” Lucas said, taking a moment to formulate the rest of the words, “I—and I alone—decided to run the experiment again. Drew had nothing to do with this.”
“You did what?” Kleezebee said with a stunned look on his face. “No. No. No. Tell me I didn’t just hear those words come out of your mouth.”
“Maybe it’s best if I show you,” Lucas said, queuing up the reactor’s video feed on his laptop. The recording showed the core’s flash of light in slow motion, and the disappearance of E-121 and its canister.
Kleezebee’s nostrils flared and his face turned an even deeper shade of red. He just sat there, shaking his head with his jaw clenched, staring at the wall across from him.
Lucas thought his boss was about to blow a gasket, so he quickly explained, hoping to diffuse the situation. “I felt like I had to try again while I still
had access to the lab. With the committee shutting us down and you heading to Washington, I thought I might never get another chance. So I convinced Drew to help me. We cranked up the juice and used full power.”
“And we corrected your wave displacement calculations,” Drew said.
“Again, sir, it was all my decision,” Lucas added.
Kleezebee lowered his head and began to rub his forehead with his hand. Almost a full minute later, he said, “You know, there was a damn good reason why I changed your specs. I specifically told you to only use half power. You never should’ve made any modifications without checking with me first.”
“Yes, sir, I know. I’m sorry. But there’s more I need to show you,” Lucas said, starting the video of the theater’s flash event using frame-by-frame mode. He stopped the playback at the point right before he used the student’s video camera to capture close-up footage of the body parts. He wanted to prepare the professor for what came next.
“How’d you get this?” Kleezebee asked.
“Drew and I were on scene when it happened.”
“Why were you there at that time of night?”
“We were meeting Abby and her roommate at the theater for the midnight movie. It was a double date of sorts.”
Kleezebee sighed. “Were the girls already there?”
“Yes. She was on the steps with her roommate when the flash appeared. I’m afraid they’re both gone, sir,” Lucas said, lowering his head in shame. He waited for a reprimand, but it never came.
Lucas brought his head up and looked at his boss. Kleezebee’s mouth was hanging open with his eyes transfixed on the floor.
“Somebody should call Abby’s parents,” Lucas said thirty second later.
“She doesn’t have any. They’re both dead,” Drew replied.
“So I take it one of you brought the video camera to the scene?” Kleezebee asked, breaking his silence.
“No, Professor. I found it there, on a step. It belonged to one of the people waiting in line. They were using it when the . . . the event happened.”
Linkage (The Narrows of Time Series Book 1) Page 14
