Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You)

by Rachel Carter

  I turn, holding both the folder and notebook in my hands.

  “You can’t take those!” Faust yells though his voice is weak, his face lined with deep wrinkles. “There’s nothing else like that in the world. If you destroy it, you destroy me. You destroy everything Tesla and I have built.”

  “From what I’ve read about Tesla, I don’t think he’d approve of what you’ve been doing with his ideas,” I say.

  The doctor’s mouth falls open. It is the worst insult I could have given him.

  Wes looks up at a clock on the wall. “If we want to meet Althea in the TM chamber, we need to go now.”

  “Should we hide his blood?” I glance around the room and see a lab coat resting on one of the chairs in front of the desk.

  I grab it as Wes lifts the doctor up. He’s a short man, but heavy, with thick arms and a rounded stomach. We shove him into the new lab coat, keeping the thick handkerchief pressed against the wound in case it starts to bleed again. It makes him look like he has a slight growth on his shoulder, but all we need to do is get him to the TM chamber without anyone noticing.

  Dr. Faust groans and leans heavily on Wes, who winces under his weight. I pull out the gun and point it at him. “Stop being so dramatic. You can walk. You weren’t shot in the leg.”

  As soon as he sees the weapon, he stands up straighter.

  I hand the notebook and the folder over to Wes. He takes them, then reaches down and grabs the open journal off Faust’s desk, a few drops of blood already drying on the pages. “We can’t leave this here either. Who knows what’s in it.”

  I press the gun into Faust’s side and lead him to the door. “You’re going to be really quiet, or I’m going to shoot you. And I won’t miss like Althea did.”

  “What are you doing with me?” The fear is back in his voice.

  “We’re going to send you into the past.” I push him forward. “Just like you tried to do with Dean Bentley.”

  “Tried? He didn’t end up there?”

  I don’t answer.

  “And you, how did you make it out?” He looks over at Wes. “Your blood was on the floor of the chamber.”

  “Stop asking questions,” Wes growls. “If you’re quiet, we won’t kill you. It’s that simple.”

  The doctor presses his pale, thin lips together. I hide the gun in the folds of his lab coat, prod him in the back, and we slowly walk out of the room.

  We turn another corner, and I hold my breath, only letting it out when I see that the hallway in front of us is empty. I keep my head down, the butt of the gun jammed into the doctor’s side. He winces with each step he takes. Wes is behind us, ready to act if Faust tries anything.

  “You won’t get away with this,” the doctor whispers.

  “That’s such a cliché,” I respond softly. “Now be quiet.”

  We reach the end of the corridor. We are so close to the TM chamber, only a few feet away. If we can just make it around this corner—

  “Doctor!” The shout comes from behind us. I slowly turn, guiding Faust’s body.

  A younger scientist with white-blond hair is running down the hall. He reaches us and bends over, breathing heavily. “I’ve been looking for you,” he gasps. “But you weren’t in your office. I have the results of the new serum. We were up all night testing it, and it seems to be working.”

  “Incredible,” Faust breathes. “Did the subject make it through alive?” He jerks forward, and I dig the gun into his back in a silent warning.

  “We’re still waiting, but so far his body has not rejected it. We’ll test it on the TM if the results are positive.”

  Wes shifts so he’s standing in front of us, blocking Faust as much as he can without looking suspicious.

  This is taking too long. I push the gun into Dr. Faust’s back and he hisses under his breath.

  The scientist narrows his blue eyes. “Are you all right?” He looks from Wes to me, taking in our black uniforms, our grim expressions. “Who are these people?”

  I tense. If Faust says the wrong thing then I’ll have to kill both him and this scientist. This is not the same as handing Sardosky a drink. This is blood and bullets and staring into their eyes as they die. But there’s too much at stake not to pull the trigger.

  “They are new subjects,” Faust answers. “I am bringing them to the TM.”

  The blond scientist’s expression turns assessing, and he appraises us like we’re cattle. “Are you sending them through now? Should I come help?”

  “There is no time for that now. The serum is more important.”

  “Of course. I’ll bring you an update as soon as I can.” He turns to leave.

  My muscles finally loosen. Wes takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  “Dr. Roberts!” Faust yells suddenly, stopping the younger scientist in his tracks.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper urgently.

  His voice changes, deepens, his accent thicker as he says, “There’s a sliver in my foot.”

  The blond man’s eyes widen, then he turns and takes off down the hallway, disappearing from sight.

  “Shit, it was a code.” Wes moves to run after him, then looks back, clearly not wanting to leave me alone with Faust.

  “Let him go,” I say quickly. “We don’t have much time. We can barricade the door and fight our way out after we set the timers.”

  He looks doubtful, but turns with me and grabs Faust’s arm. We don’t bother to be subtle as we sprint with him down the hallway. When we reach the door of the TM chamber, Wes shoves it open, pushing Faust through first. He stumbles and falls to his knees on the floor.

  Althea crawls out from under one of the desks. “Where have you been?”

  “We’ve been made.” Wes runs toward her. “Help me block the door.”

  Althea jams a chair under the knob, while Wes sweeps pencils, paper, and a telegraph machine off one of the desks. They each grab an end, drag it to the door, and shove it up against the chair.

  I point the gun at Faust, still lying on his side, one hand pressed to the bullet wound in his chest. “What happened to keeping quiet?”

  He lifts his uninjured shoulder. “What was the risk? You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “We’re not going to kill you, just send you back in time.”

  “Isn’t it the same thing?”

  Althea steps away from the door and looks at Wes. “The timers are on the table. Send me back now. I already set the date.” She points at the large, boxy computer consul sitting on one of the desks. “You just need to push the button.”

  She starts walking to the TM, but stops and turns back to Wes. She steps close, hesitates, then puts her hand on his arm. Wes doesn’t move at all, his face unreadable, and she pulls away slowly. “I guess . . . well, good-bye.”

  “Good luck.”

  She nods and approaches the TM, the door sliding back for her when she gets close enough. She steps in and spins around to face us. Her brown eyes seem larger, the color in her cheeks high. “They won’t be able to control me anymore, will they?”

  Wes walks over to the consul and clicks something on the keyboard. The door to the TM closes, cutting off the look of careful hope on Althea’s face. The machine starts to shudder and quack. The room fills with throbbing light and the familiar buzzing. I shield my face when it gets too bright, when the TM seems to explode outward, the glass on top swirling with smoke and color, Althea’s body disappearing into time.

  I can’t say that we liked each other, but I hope she finds what she wants—a life without the Project.

  Wes is still at the keyboard, typing rapidly. “What date for Faust?”

  “I don’t care. Maybe sometime in the Middle Ages.”

  I hear the doctor’s sharp intake of breath.

  Wes pushes another button. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll get the plague.”

  I glance at Wes over my shoulder. And then I see his face change, his eyes getting wider, his mouth opening. I hea
r a scraping noise from behind me and turn to look, but something hits me in the stomach, the impact throwing me to the ground. Faust is standing over me, panting. The gun falls from my hands, slides across the floor, and he lunges for it. I launch to my feet, but it’s too late. Dr. Faust is holding the gun, and he’s pointing it at me.

  “I made a mistake, last time, trying to send you both through time.” His voice is still weak, but it is angry too, lashing out at us.

  I back up, inching closer to Wes.

  “Don’t move!” Faust screams.

  I freeze.

  “I should have killed you. Shot you, like you shot me. I won’t make the same mistake again.” He looks over at Wes. “You’ll be first. I need more of your blood. We’re so close to making the serum. If we just have a bit more, we’ll succeed, I know we will.”

  Something hard slams against the door, and all three of us jump, the gun wavering in Faust’s hand. The table and chair start to shake as the metal is hit over and over.

  “See? They’re coming already. You have no hope.”

  Wes moves forward so slowly that at first I don’t even notice. If we can just stall Faust for another minute . . .

  “There’s always hope,” I say quickly, and Faust’s attention swings back to me.

  “You think so?” He smiles, a teeth-clenching grin where it looks more like he’s in pain. “How about now?” He points the gun at Wes and pulls the trigger.

  “No!” I shout, or maybe breathe, or maybe think the word. One minute I am standing near the door and the next I am in front of Wes, pushing his body out of the way.

  Wes gasps as he falls to the side and slams into the corner of the desk, his head whipping back to stare at me in horror. I hear the bullet leave the chamber of the gun, I watch it cross the room in slow motion, and I feel it when it rips into me, tearing through skin and muscle, leaving only blood and burning in its wake.

  Chapter 25

  “Lydia!”

  Wes’s voice. Screaming.

  I fall to my knees, clutching my elbow. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I whisper. “Stop him.”

  Wes takes half a second to see the neat hole in the flesh of my lower arm, spilling blood across the white floor. But it’s not enough to kill me and we both know that.

  He flies across the room, before Dr. Faust figures out that the weapon is automatic. He raises it in Wes’s face at the last second, but Wes spin-kicks him in the chin. I hear the bone crunch, watch the doctor’s face twist. By the time Wes lands on his feet, Faust’s mouth forms a distorted O that he cannot reshape. He tries to speak, but only moans, incapable of moving his jaw. Wes kicks the gun across the floor, grabs the doctor’s arm, and drags him over to the TM, throwing his body into the base of it as soon as the door opens.

  I crawl across the cold floor on my knees and grab the gun, holding my other arm tight against my body. The bleeding is slow, but the pain is so strong that I’m pretty sure the bone broke when the bullet hit it.

  “You’ve earned yourself the prehistoric age,” Wes says to the doctor.

  Through it all, the banging never stops, as if the guards outside are using a battering ram to try and push their way through the metal door of the chamber. The table and chair are holding for now, though there is a large dent forming in the middle of the door.

  I stand up, holding the gun high and pointed at Faust. Wes turns his back on the TM and keeps his eyes on me as he walks to the consul and pushes a button hard. Faust scrambles to his feet, ready to throw himself out of the machine. I step forward. When he sees the gun he cowers against the metal wall, whimpering as the door closes in his broken face.

  Wes and I both ignore the rumbling and the lights and the smoke as the doctor is torn into fragments, hurtled through the wormhole. He has sent so many other people to this fate—lost in time, no thought to where they would end up or how it would destroy their lives. Now he is the one displaced, and hopefully he will die in some forgotten era, if the TM doesn’t kill him first.

  Wes strides over to me and carefully grabs my shoulders. “Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay.” He has to shout over the banging from outside, over the constant buzzing of the machine.

  “I think my arm might be broken, but I’ll live.” I glance at the door. “We don’t have much time. We need to rig the bombs now.”

  He nods, but doesn’t let go, his gaze roaming over my face. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “Save your life?” I try to smile. “Shouldn’t you be a little more grateful?”

  “I’m grateful. Believe me.” He leans down and presses his mouth to mine. His lips are hard and the kiss is more harsh than pleasant, as though he is trying to convince us both that we’re still alive. He pulls back, then leans in again, and this time it is softer, a graze, a promise, his hands cradling my face, his nose brushing against mine. I wrap my good arm around his bicep and tilt my head up, and we kiss as the TM dims, then flashes, the light so powerful it would blind us both if we let it.

  As soon as the TM quiets, Wes rips off part of his shirt and wraps it around my arm as a makeshift bandage and sling. I feel my vision blur when he touches the bullet hole and shake my head to focus it.

  Together, we yank open Wes’s knapsack and pull out the bombs. I lay them on the table as Wes gets the timers, and together we start to fit them into the pipes.

  The pounding on the door echoes the pounding in my chest, and the fingers of my good hand slip around the delicate wires.

  “I’m done,” Wes says.

  “I can’t . . . my hand.”

  “Let me.” While he finishes, I grab the two bombs that are ready and set them on the floor on either side of the TM. Each bomb has a small timer attached to it manually, with a long wire connected to a master timer that sits on the desk.

  Wes grabs a screwdriver from the bag and fiddles with the back of the larger timer. I take Tesla’s notes and Faust’s journal and place them on the floor, right next to one of the bombs. The small blasts will be enough to cave in this room and demolish the TM, though the outer wings—where most of the officers, scientists, and kidnapped children are—should remain unharmed.

  “Done,” Wes says again. He sits back from the desk and wipes his forehead.

  “Wait.” I put my hand out, still crouched down next to a bomb. “Do you hear that?”

  He turns to look at me. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The banging stopped.”

  I glance over at the door. The dent in the middle is more pronounced, a concave point, but the guards weren’t able to break through.

  “They must be trying to find another way in.” I straighten from my crouch, my bad arm suspended against my chest. The bleeding has stopped, but the pain hasn’t, and I fight the urge to throw up as I move toward the door.

  Wes stands, placing the final bomb on the floor in front of the TM. “We’ll only have two minutes to get out of here before the bombs start to go off.”

  A loud cracking noise cuts through the room, and I twist my head to see a small spiderweb of lines appear in the middle of the blackened two-way mirror.

  Wes quickly turns to me. “I think it’s time to unblock the door.”

  I push the table out of the way, but then I hear another crashing noise. The fracture in the mirror is getting bigger, spreading across the thick, bulletproof glass.

  Wes concentrates on the main timer, and I stare at his back as he sets it for two minutes from now. “Ready?” I ask.

  He nods and pushes a button. Nothing happens. He pushes it again. The analog clock on the front should start counting down, the small hand sliding slowly backward. But it isn’t working.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Wes answers, but I can tell he’s lying. “The clock is jammed, but it’ll be fine. I’ll reconnect the wire.” Another crash. The spiderweb of cracks now covers the entire mirror. “You should go, Lydia. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I don�
�t turn away from Wes. “Do it now. Reconnect the wire now.”

  “Lydia . . .” He smiles at me over his shoulder, but he can’t quite hide the panic in his eyes. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Just do it now!” I shout.

  He turns back to the timer. I see a drop of sweat slide down the side of his bent neck. His arms move quickly. Another crash, and a tiny piece of glass falls from the mirror, hitting the floor with a pinging noise.

  “They’re coming, Wes,” I whisper.

  “I know. I know. I almost have it. Go. Get outside.”

  “Not without you.”

  Thirty more seconds pass. He throws the timer down in frustration. “It’s not working. The master timer’s broken. We’ll have to set the other timers. It’ll take a little longer.”

  “We tore out that function when we connected them to the main timer, remember?” I can’t keep the horror out of my voice.

  He stares down at the useless clock in front of him. “Then the only way is to light the fuses manually.”

  “Wes.” More glass falls to the floor, sparkling against the white tiles. “That won’t give us any time to get out of here. We won’t be able to leave before the bombs go off.”

  He turns to face me, his expression grim. “I’ll have thirty seconds. I could get out.”

  “Why are you saying I? What happened to we?” My voice is shaking, my hands, my body, everything is shaking. I step toward him.