A car pulled up outside. I shot a worried stare at Michael. He walked to the window and peeked outside. Then he moved to the door and opened it. I rose and walked toward him. I saw Manuel get out of a large black SUV and walk toward the house.
Michael looked at me. “I told you I had everything under control.”
We stood aside to let Manuel enter. He held two large plastic bags in each hand.
“Everything okay?” Michael asked.
Manuel nodded and emptied the bag’s content onto the living-room table. He’d brought a large selection of food.
“Did Vijay ask many questions?” Michael asked.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. I just told him you wanted a car of your own to drive for the next few days.” He looked at Michael after the bags had been emptied.
Michael gave him a single nod and Manuel moved everything to the kitchen next door.
“Right,” Ray said. “I’ll be leaving.”
Michael opened the door for him. Ray shook his hand, nodded at me and walked out. Seconds later, the Cadillac’s engine roared to life and Ray drove off. Michael went into the kitchen and spoke to Manuel for a little while. Then I heard the stocky limo driver walk down the corridor.
When Michael returned, I stood up and met his gaze. “Is everything all right?”
“Sure. The SUV is from one of my guys up here. He keeps some of my cars for me.”
We sat beside each other. “Where’s Manuel?” I asked.
“I sent him to bed. The poor guy’s been looking for us all day.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
Michael yawned and stretched his arms. “I wish I could sleep, but I just can’t.”
I knew exactly what he meant. “So what do we do now?”
Michael shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”
“We carry on,” said a voice from the corridor.
Doug was approaching us with determination on his face. His thick beard was gone; he now wore only stubble. He cleaned up quite well. I rushed to my feet and grabbed his shoulders and eased him onto the sofa opposite Michael’s.
“You don’t have to nurse me, Rachel,” he said.
I caressed his hair. “Yes, I do.” I peered into his eyes. “You saved my life.”
He smiled and nodded. I sat back down and noticed Michael withdraw a scowl when our eyes met. God, he’s jealous.
“Have you heard anything?” Doug asked Michael.
“Nothing. Nothing on the news or anywhere else.”
“What about your work?”
“I’m not taking their calls yet. Too risky.”
Doug frowned at the ceiling. Michael stared out the window. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. “Are we gonna talk about what happened at the gym?”
They looked at me but didn’t speak.
“They can control humans. I mean, Willie didn’t even remember anything. God knows who else they’ve already corrupted.”
All I got were blank stares. Then Doug leaned forward. “We’ll be able to tell. That guy had no emotion in his eyes. He was looking past us rather than at us.”
I scowled and stared at the silent TV set. He was right. Back in 2043, Angela was working with the Shriniks, but she seemed to be doing so willingly, without being controlled.
We all sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Michael coughed. “How did you get here?” he asked Doug.
Doug looked at him, confused.
“Which portal did you use?”
“I popped out in Nevada, probably a few miles from where the meteor hit.”
“Nevada?” I said.
“Don’t ask me how, but that’s where I landed.”
“Then why did I arrive in Barstow?”
They both shrugged. I frowned at the floor and then looked at them with wide eyes. “What if the meteor didn’t even fall from the sky?”
Michael stood up. “You mean—”
“Yes. What if it came out through the portal? What if it wasn’t even a meteor?”
“We need to go out there,” Michael said. “See if anything else comes out. Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to figure out what the hell is going on.”
“You kidding?” Doug said. “In case you haven’t realized, we need to be keeping a low profile right now. Besides, we won’t be able to get near it. There’ll be agents everywhere.”
Michael rose and picked up the remote. He changed the channel to one showing a scene of the site. A number of people were on top of nearby hills, watching government agents collecting samples from the crash site.
“See what I mean?” he said in a raised voice. “There are people out there. We can blend in.”
Doug scratched his beard and stood up also. “But we can’t go out there and just wait for a portal to appear.”
I could feel the tension in the room. I rushed to my feet and stood between them. “You’re right, Michael, we need to get out there. But Doug is also right. We can’t just go there and wait. We need a plan.”
Doug paced, glancing at the screen every few seconds. “The Shrinik that helped me said that the portal reacted to extreme heat.”
Michael held his palms up. “So?”
“What if we could trigger the portal ourselves? With some powerful explosives, we could do just that.”
“Explosives?” Michael said. “You crazy? Do you know how much attention that will attract? You said it yourself: We need to be keeping a low profile.”
“It’s still better than going out there and just waiting.”
Michael kicked the couch and walked toward the window. Then he turned and faced us. “What if we go through the hassle of getting these explosives, and they don’t even work? What if no one comes through? What if it turns out to be a big waste of time?”
“Then we’ll go to where I came through,” I said. “They could just as easily come through the Barstow portal.”
“I’m telling you,” Doug said, “it’ll work.”
“It actually could,” I said. “But we’ll need to wait until the area is cleared out.”
Doug and I looked at Michael. We needed him behind us before we could do anything. A single nod of Michael’s head told us all we needed to know.
“Will it be a problem staying here until we go?” Doug said.
Michael shook his head and stood up. “I’ll start working on getting the explosives.” He walked toward the corridor.
“We’ll need guns, too,” Doug said, “lots of them.”
Michael turned around and sighed. “Why don’t you write up a list?”
“Fine, I will,” Doug spit.
“Come on, guys,” I said. “Let’s not do this now. This could really work.”
Michael nodded. “I’m on it.”
We spent the next three days eating, sleeping and watching footage of the crash site. The scene was like a circus, with people camped out on the hills above, having parties and getting drunk. A number of reporters interviewed some and asked why they were there. Some said they wanted to be part of history. Some believed the world was about to end and some just wanted to party. I struggled to grasp how some people in 2013 thought. We didn’t see behavior like this in my day. The government didn’t allow it. I began to understand why freedom of speech had been banned around the world in 2030. Unless, of course, the Shriniks had something to do with it. I didn’t know how far their influence spread or when it had began.
I got into my bed on the third night after taking my medication. I had taken it at the same time each of the previous nights, but it was a struggle waiting twenty-four hours between doses. I knew I’d have to start taking it more frequently soon but didn’t want to think about what would happen when I ran out. I just hoped I’d have found Dylan by then. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. Then the same nervousness and sense of distrust that had been plaguing me for the past two days returned. It lingered in the air whenever we all sat down to eat and even when we just sat watching TV. I guessed it was to be expected. After all, Doug ha
d claimed that Michael was one of the people who had caused everything. But Doug also told us he’d come back with the help of a Shrinik. And after what happened to Willie, it was obvious that a human could do a Shrinik’s bidding. Except that if Doug was working for them, he was doing so willingly, whereas Willie hadn’t been. But then again, Angela wasn’t controlled.
I erased all negative thoughts from my head. I didn’t want to keep questioning the people with me. They were all I had.
I fidgeted for a moment before diverting my thoughts to Kevin and how I wished he were with me. He probably would have gotten along with Michael and known what to do. I kept thinking that I might have been doing things in the wrong order, that there was something right in front of me that I was missing. Something Kevin would have thought about. I wiped the tears from my face and stared at my shadow on the ceiling. I shifted my thoughts to Dylan. I couldn’t get what Doug had said out of my head, about one in five of the children sent back being Shriniks. I hit the bed with my fist and turned onto my front. There was a slim chance that Dylan was a Shrinik. But I thought back to his smile and the sheer joy in his face when I held him. He had to be human. He couldn’t be anything else.
The engine of the SUV pulling up outside the house woke me the next morning. I stretched and walked to the window. I shaded my eyes from the glare of the sun and saw Manuel grab three traveling bags from the trunk. He strapped them over his shoulder and trudged toward the house. It must have been the guns and explosives he’d gone to get from one of Michael’s contacts. I ran into the bathroom and had a quick shower. I put lotion on, sprayed on some perfume and put on black pants and a white shirt. When I got to the living room, Michael and Doug had just finished unzipping the bags. Doug stared down at them, drooling like a kid at Disneyland. Manuel stood a few yards in front of them with his arms folded. I took another two steps before Michael noticed me.
“Rachel,” he said.
Doug and Manuel nodded at me.
I walked forward and eyed two of the bags for a moment. Inside were assault rifles, sniper rifles, pistols and shotguns. I shifted my gaze to the last bag and counted fifteen plastic explosives. I’d seen them only in movies before. Doug fiddled with some of the guns before resting them on the floor.
“Got everything you need?” Michael said.
Doug gave him a coarse grin. “You’ve outdone yourself this time, Mr. Galloway. Is there anything you can’t get?”
Michael smiled. “Acquaintances in high and low places, my friend. Gotta be ready for this kind of thing, being me.”
Doug held up a long dark-green sniper rifle with a pearl-black scope. The silencer on the muzzle was long and thick. “I love this. The SV98.” He placed it on the floor and reached into the bag again. He placed a few more guns on the floor before holding one up and stared at it, nodding. This one was definitely a submachine gun and, like the sniper rifle, also had a silencer
“The AN-94.” Doug smiled at Michael. “Now, this is one hell of a gun.”
They continued in the same vein, like a bunch of schoolkids admiring new toys. I squatted beside Doug. “So which one’s mine?” I asked.
Doug stared at me. I could feel Michael’s and Manuel’s eyes on me, too.
“What?” I said. “I’m not going out there without a gun.”
Michael squatted, too. “You ever fired guns like these?”
I shook my head.
He stood and walked to the window. He stared out at the bright skies. The sun was still shining. “Manuel, pack up the guns and take them to the car,” he said and headed toward the corridor.
I followed him. “Where are we going?”
He turned and smiled. “My gun range.”
Manuel parked the SUV beside a small hut about two miles from the house. The grass here was not as thick as it was by the house. I couldn’t see anything for miles aside from hills and lots of trees. The air carried a sweet scent like honey. Michael grabbed one of the bags and got out of the car. I followed him and waited outside the hut with Manuel and Doug. I looked in every direction but stopped when I saw five wooden frames about two hundred yards away. Five more were about four hundred yards away and another five at least six hundred yards away. Michael walked out after a few minutes with five paper targets and a red mat. Manuel took the targets from him and strolled to the first set of wooden frames. Michael carefully placed the mat on the ground, opened the bags and pulled out the sniper rifle Doug had called the SV98. He held it toward me and I took it. He took a step back and smiled at me.
“You want me to just—”
“Why not?” Michael said.
I eyed every inch of the gun and dropped to the mat. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I’d seen too many people do this on TV to not know how to at least begin.
“Wait,” Doug said. He lay on the ground beside me and pressed his hands against my back so that I was flat on my stomach. Then he spread my legs and dug them into the mat. I looked through the scope and scanned the five targets two hundred yards away. I heard Manuel’s footsteps returning but didn’t look up. I rested my aim on the center target and held it. The sun had gone down. There was a slight wind blowing east, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I counted to three and pulled the trigger.
I stayed in the same position for a few minutes before standing up, the sniper rifle by my side. Manuel had already begun sprinting to get the target. He returned and held it up. My shot was only a few inches right of the “X.”
“Not bad,” Michael said.
I smiled. “But it was only two hundred yards.”
“Let’s go again,” Doug said.
I nodded and dropped to the mat once more. We stayed with sniper rifles for three hours, and I managed to hit the “X” five times at two hundred yards and twice from four hundred. Then we moved on to the machine guns, which were harder to fire but way more fun. I fired at the paper targets and the trees over and over. We even practiced firing while moving and sliding across the ground. It was like full-blown weapons training, which I loved. As much as the three of them made me feel secure, I had to know I could take care of myself. It was nearly 6 p.m. when we returned to the house. I now knew every gun they had and could tell them apart at a glance. But the best part was being able to handle them like a professional. Well, I thought I did anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The sound of footsteps outside my door woke me the next morning. I rubbed my eyes before getting up. I opened my door and saw Michael walking toward the living room with the two large bags of weapons across his shoulder. He held the third one in his hand.
“What’s going on?” I said.
He stopped and turned around. His gray fatigues looked as if they’d just been washed. His white sweatshirt completed the casual look well. “We’re leaving. The spectators are gone.” He continued walking.
I ran back to the room and packed my medication, the remaining money and everything else I needed into a medium-size traveling bag. Then I had a quick shower and applied some powder to my face. After gathering some of Bethany’s clothes and perfumes, I changed into a long gray summer dress to keep comfortable. When I walked into the living room, Michael wasn’t there but Doug was standing by the window, staring at the acres of green grass that surrounded us. He wore black pants and a matching black T-shirt.
“Hi,” I said.
He turned to me and nodded at the TV. I sat on the sofa opposite it. Scores of government sedans and other cars were being driven away from the scene. The whole area was empty. I looked at the breaking-news feed at the bottom of the screen. The same thing was repeated over and over: “Scientists leave disaster site but will continue with their investigation.”
Michael walked in and approached Doug. “The phone I gave you.”
Doug reached into his pocket and put it in Michael’s hand. Michael threw it to the ground and stamped on it. Then he looked at me. I hesitated for a moment but pulled my cell out and handed it to him. I winced each time he
stamped on it, reducing it to pieces. He then pulled out three identical touch-screen phones and handed one to Doug and another to me. He put the third one in his pocket. “From now on, we communicate only with these. They’re all encrypted and untraceable.”
Doug put his in his pocket and I threw mine into my bag. Michael nodded and headed back down the hall.
I looked at Doug. “What’s his problem?”
“Beats me.” He stepped out of the house and walked toward the car. I continued watching the TV. Michael returned with Manuel five minutes later. Manuel wore gray fatigues identical to Michael’s but had a blue sweatshirt on instead of white.
“Ready?” Michael said.
I nodded and we walked out of the house and got into the SUV.
We arrived in Tonopah eight hours later. I yawned and looked out the window. Desert sand greeted me in all directions. Michael yawned in the passenger seat and stretched his arms. Manuel took a sharp left off road and went uphill for a few miles. Then he parked in what looked like the middle of nowhere and shut the engine off.
“Are we here?” I asked.
Michael glanced at Doug. “Well?”
Doug opened the door and stepped out without speaking. We all got out and stood beside him. The air was moist and humid, with barely any wind to accompany the heat. Doug was staring east. I followed his gaze but didn’t see anything. He pointed into the distance. “There.”
I looked closer and then I saw it. The hole in the ground was huge. From this distance, it looked like a crater the size of a football field.
Doug pointed higher up in the same direction, toward the hills to our right. “We’ll camp up there until nightfall and then we’ll use the C4.”
I stared at the crater a little while longer before returning to the car. “Let’s go then.”
Twilight was approaching when we arrived at our destination. Manuel left the SUV at the top of the hill beside a small cave. We all got out and made our way down a set of steep slopes until we got to within thirty feet of the crater. Manuel and Michael set up a tent where they could start assembling the bomb. The sun had disappeared by the time they’d finished. I walked inside and looked at five blocks of plastic explosives and a number of wires and metal casings. I squatted. “What can I do?”
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