Langdon silences me with a raised hand. “While I appreciate your loyalty to your home…and to this company, I’m afraid off-topic tangents at this crucial time will just not do. Tsul’Kalu. Tell me more.”
“After one of the last jumps back, the burial mound was gone.” I point to the screen. “Which I reckon means the man on whom the legend was based could have been alive and taken along with us.”
“That’s not a man, dude,” Kuzneski says. “Those fingers are like bananas. Like big fuckin’ bananas.”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “He was a giant.”
Langdon’s eyes widen. “The burial mound. Was it present in your time?”
“Stories about the clearing being an Indian burial ground were passed down by my family, but the mound was never there. Not in my lifetime, or my father’s. Why?”
“There are legends, not just in Appalachia, but throughout North American Indian tribes, of a race of giant men with six fingers and six toes. Double rows of teeth. Dark red hair. Slanted eyes.”
I nod. “But they’ve never been more than rumors. Legends.”
“Because there is no evidence,” he says. “Not because it doesn’t exist, but because it was gathered up and sequestered by people who feared what it meant for humanity.”
“Who would gather up giant skeletons?” Kuzneski asks.
“The Smithsonian Institute,” Future Langdon says. “It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but most conspiracy theories are born out of a nugget of truth. In my experience, even an atom-sized bit of truth leads to amazing discoveries.”
I’m about to unleash a little sarcasm, but I’m distracted by a surfacing memory—not of an event, but of a passage from the Bible. I spent my childhood ignoring sermons, but keeping an open Bible on my lap. I would read what I considered the interesting bits. The fall of Jericho. David and Goliath. Pretty much all of Revelation, and a certain passage in Genesis that always sparked my imagination. “Nephilim.”
Langdon nods. “That is one theory, yes. Demon-fathered demigods living among us.” He turns to the screen. “And dying among us. Nephilim or not, at least you know it can be killed.”
Damnit. This is why I’m here. Why he’s taking a risk with me. He needs someone with my skill-set to kill the one thing left he perceives as a threat to his personal mission.
I’m about to pre-empt his request for aid with a ‘Hell, no,’ when one of the drone pilots says, “Sir!”
At first, I can’t tell which of the men has spoken, until he adds, “I might have something here.”
“What is it?” Langdon asks, as we crowd around the man, looking at the footage from his aerial drone. “Hold on, there’s a fire, too, I think.”
The column of smoke is easy to see. “It’s a campfire,” I guess. “Someone is trying to stay alive in this frozen hell.”
The drone maintains its altitude, some two hundred feet above the mountain’s slope, flying closer to the smoke column. The camera angles down, revealing three people huddled around what is closer to a bonfire than a campfire. Remembering how cold it was out there, I’m not surprised. It would take a significant heat source to combat the Ice Age chill. Whoever built it knew what they were doing, digging a large pit first, big enough for the blaze and several people to escape the wind. But it’s a stop-gap measure. The snow will melt out from under the fire, extinguishing the flames.
“How long until the next flux?” I ask.
“What makes you think this isn’t our final destination?” Langdon asks, showing a complete lack of concern for the people trying to fend off frostbite.
I consider it for a moment. The cozy foyer seems to fit the theme, but not even a madman would want to live atop a frozen mountain. “How long?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “It’s not an exact science. But I know the duration between the gravity waves is growing longer, carrying us further back with each…what did you call them? Flux? I rather like that.”
Seven years does change a lot, I think, remembering the younger Langdon’s sour face when he adopted the term.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m talking over you without explaining.”
“Don’t bother,” I say. Not only do I have a pretty good idea how all this is happening, I also know how to stop it. I just need the chance. To him, I just sound uninterested, because I am. Big picture or not, the lives of the people below the drone concern me, in part because of my humanitarian instincts, but also because I recognize one of them.
Inola sits by the fire, hands raised toward the flames. She’s got the shotgun and the Winchester with her. I’m not sure who the other two people are, but their clothing suggests they’re some of Boone’s crew.
“Just let me get out there,” I say. “Those people—”
“Which one?” Langdon asks, leaning closer to the display. “Which one of them do you know?”
I don’t see any point in lying. Inola’s association with me was short-lived. He has no reason to fear her. The problem is, he has no reason to risk resources to bring her in from the cold, either.
I tap my finger on the screen, pointing out Inola. Behind me, the screen-Nazi groans when my finger leaves another smudge. “It’s not even your screen,” I grumble, and then I say, “Her name is Inola. She’s a Cherokee Indian. She told me about Tsul’Kalu.”
With that, I’ve solidified her value as an intel source. The giant stalking Adel is a bump in the temporal road that he had not accounted for. His drone army can deal with any human threat they encounter, but Tsul’Kalu—if that’s who’s really out there—has proven to be too much for his machines. If she had information about the giant, especially how to kill him, then that’s intel worth retrieving.
“Do you have any transports?” I ask.
“For this terrain?” Langdon asks, shaking his head. “She will need to be rescued…on foot.”
“I’ll need a team,” I say without hesitation.
“Hell to the no,” Kuzneski says. I can’t tell if he’s still playing his part, or if that was a genuine reaction. The threat is real. Reaching Inola and those people is going to hurt. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take, and I know a few other brave souls who will take the risk with me.
“People I trust,” I say. “Just a handful. To watch my back. If that thing is out there, I’m going to need—”
Langdon waggles a hand at me, already nodding. He levels his gaze at his Kuzneski. “Get him who and what he needs. Then…how does the saying go? Grow a dick and go with him.”
“I’m not sure that’s actually a saying,” Kuzneski says, and when Langdon glowers at him, he adds, “But, yes, sir.”
“Umm,” the drone operator says.
When I look back to the screen, Inola and the two people are frantically dumping snow on the fire, extinguishing it. Without the heat, they won’t last long. So what could… “Do you have audio?”
The operator yanks his headset cord out and the audio feed switches over to a pair of speakers. A haunting howl fills the command center.
Tsul’Kalu.
I grip the pilot’s shoulder. “Take the drone down!”
“Do it,” Langdon orders, willing to take the risk for what Inola knows.
The drone drops down through the leafless trees, maneuvering its way through the web of branches. Twenty feet from the ground, sliding through the steam cast off by the now soggy firepit, the drone comes to a stop. Framed in the center of its lens is Inola, shotgun raised up. She holds her fire, knowing the drone might not be a threat, but that firing will further attract the attention of a very real threat.
“How do I talk to her?” I ask.
The drone operator reaches out and toggles a mic. Despite being in VR, muscle memory guides his hand.
I lean closer to the mic. “Inola.”
“William?” She sounds hopeful, and in doing so has given away her closeness to my father.
“Owen,” I say. “Listen. I’m coming for you. Just try to stay hidden. Try to stay aliv
e.”
A howl replies. Louder than the first. Inhuman.
“We can’t stay here,” Inola says to her companions. “Go!”
While the two strangers make a break for it, leaving easy to follow tracks in the deep snow, she turns back to the drone. “Hurry.” She glances toward the sound of cracking wood, eyes flaring wide. Then she bolts.
The drone tracks their flight for a moment, and then spins toward the sound of yet another roar.
The pilot shouts in surprise as what looks like a stone-tipped spear impales the flying machine. Gears grind as the drone drops from the sky, landing upside down, the camera still sending its live feed. The sound of large feet, crunching through the snow, booms from the speakers. We watch in silence, transfixed as a massive foot, with six toes, steps in front of the camera.
“Holy shitlesticks,” Kuzneski whispers.
The drone is lifted off the ground, passing by the mostly naked form of a massive man, covered in thick tufts of red hair. Sasquatch, I think, trying to make sense of the monstrous form by identifying it as a modern myth, rather than an ancient one. A moment later, when the thing opens its mouth, I know I’m wrong. Its two rows of large teeth, the canines as large as my thumbs, crunch down on the drone, killing the feed—and my hopes of finding Inola alive.
But I’m still going to try.
I clutch Langdon’s shirt and pull him close. “Is there any way to get there faster?”
He glances at my hands.
I release him.
Then he turns to Kuzneski. “See to his needs. Show him the tunnels.” Then to me. “If you find yourself in dire circumstances, there will be no help coming.”
“Wouldn’t expect it,” I say, and I head for the door, Kuzneski at my back, and what seems like a fairly good chance of a horribly painful death ahead of me.
36
“Tunnels?” the younger Langdon whispers, when I explain what’s happening. “There are conduits running under the ground, stretching to various parts of the collider, and the power station on the far side of town, but tunnels? No. They must be future additions.”
I look over my shoulder to confirm that Future Kuzneski is waiting by the door. Inside man or not, the people kept in this small prison don’t like him, and he isn’t keen to stand among them. Gives me a chance to have one last private conversation, assuming the microphones hidden around us aren’t sensitive enough to pick up our hushed words.
“Where is the power station?” I ask. It feels like a ridiculous question. As Synergy’s head of security, I should have been made aware of such things, but even present-day Langdon kept some secrets.
“Far side of town, to the south. Oak Tree Lane. It’s fed by the solar array, but…it was never designed to handle the load this facility must require, nor the particle collider’s continuous function.”
It’s easy to read between the lines. Whatever was there before has likely been upgraded. “And to shut it down?”
He shrugs. “I’d assume there is a main breaker, but there should be people monitoring the power station. They’ll know how to shut it down.”
And will probably be heavily armed.
“You’re sure about this?” Flores asks, looking over my shoulder toward my father and my younger self. His concern is touching in that it is neither for himself nor me, but for my family. When I explained about the tunnels connecting the facility to various parts of the mountain, the collider, the town, and the power station, the response was mild surprise. When I told them we were going after Inola and might have to face the actual Tsul’Kalu, I saw a mixture of trepidation and disbelief. And when I said that both my father and Owen would be accompanying us, utter shock was the response.
“Aren’t they safer here?” Cassie asks.
Common sense says yes. They’re protected by buildings designed to withstand the rigors of time travel and the various environments encountered along the way, and to repel a paramilitary force led by my now-dead older self. Beyond these walls is an unforgiving, ever-changing ancient world full of threats known and unknown, but in here, they’re bargaining chips.
Future Langdon knows that. With them here, my hands will be tied. I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of them leaving, but he told Future Kuzneski to get me what I wanted and never explicitly said to hold them. If Kuzneski is the man he claims to be—or wants me to believe he is—he’s not going to defy me.
“Okay, so, quick recap,” my Kuzneski says. “Step one, take the tunnels out. Two, rescue this Inola chick from some big, dead god-dude named Tuna Casserole or some shit. Three, instead of coming back where things are safe and warm, we push on to the power station and…flip the switch?”
“Then we come back,” Flores says, “And put an end to this for good.”
We all know that he intends to kill Future Langdon. I’m not sure I’m on board with that—execution removes any chance at redemption, and if there is any chance of undoing this mess, it will happen only with his cooperation. While the younger Langdon doesn’t believe it’s possible, I haven’t lost all hope of returning to the present.
But now is not the time to have that discussion.
“You don’t have to come,” I tell them.
Younger Langdon raises his hand. “I—I’m not.”
Not only is the scientist not built for the challenges ahead, I suspect he’d never leave without taking his wife. And right now, she’s even further away from him than the future is from us.
Since there is no question about Cassie’s and Flores’s choices, all three of us turn to my Kuzneski.
“Oh, like I’m the only one who might be a chickenshit, is that it?” His offense is partly genuine, but mostly good humored. He knows as well as we do that the allegiance of his future self is questionable at best. Speaking of which…
I turn to Flores. “The other Kuzneski claims to be my inside man, that he was planted here in the future. Any truth to that?”
He looks unimpressed. “If he did, he kept it a secret from me. But you were a bit…paranoid. Played your cards close to the vest. Only Cassie had your full trust.”
“And I’m not her,” Cassie says.
“We can’t trust that motherfucker,” the younger Kuzneski says, and his opinion tips the scales. No matter what he says, or how he acts, Future Kuzneski is still the enemy.
“Until we’re away,” I say to Flores, “you need to keep playing the part.” I motion to his old clothes.
“I reckon that won’t be too tricky, y’all.”
Cassie and I share a wide-eyed glance. Flores’s Southern accent is one of the worst I’ve heard.
“Are you supposed to be Australian?” Kuzneski asks.
“Just…don’t talk.” I stand and head for the door. “We’re leaving in one minute.”
I haven’t told my father all this yet. He’s still in the main room, seated with the Cherokee people he and Owen have befriended. But I don’t think it will take long to get him on board.
Upon hearing the plan, my father pauses for a moment, looking down at Owen. I know how seriously he takes the job of being a father, how it would crush him if anything ever happened to his son. I’ve been on the other side of that situation. I think if anyone else had approached him with such a dangerous plan, he’d have shot them down.
But I am his son, too, and if anyone cares about Owen as much as my father, it’s me. “If I thought it would be safer here—”
“We’re coming,” Owen says to me, and then to our father, “We’re going. Inola needs us. Black Creek needs us. We can’t just sit here and do nothin’.”
My father huffs a smile. “Like son, like son.”
“And father,” I say, knowing he’s warming up to the idea.
“What did you see out there?” he asks.
“Nothing good,” I say, and I catch Cassie’s eye as she steps out of the bedroom. I tilt my head toward Owen and she understands.
“Owen.” She motions him over and crouches down to speak with him.
Afforded a moment’s privacy with my father, I come clean, in part to help him understand, but also because he might be the only person that can help me process what I’ve experienced.
“What is it?” my father asks.
“I found…me,” I say. “Another me. Older than you. He was leading an attack on Synergy to stop all this, but he failed. He’d been tortured…cut open. God knows what else.”
Tears form in my father’s eyes. Despite the age of my future self, he was still my father’s son. “And you agreed to work with these people?”
“His—my—dying wish was for me to stop all this, and protect my family. I can’t do that if you’re here. I can’t—”
“Your dying wish?”
“I—he…killed himself.”
My father sags a bit, shaking his head.
“I’m not sure he would have survived if he hadn’t, but—”
“He died on his terms,” my father says, collecting himself.
“He did.”
“And so will we.” He puts a strong hand on my shoulder. “Now, let’s go. And this time there isn’t a single Hatfield to slow the McCoy boys down.”
I smile and say, “Just a nutjob with a drone army and an ancient, Cherokee, giant god-thing who enjoys hunting people for sport.”
“You assclowns ready to roll?” Future Kuzneski asks from the entrance. He’s dressed in winter gear and armed with an AA12 Assault Shotgun. It’s a beast of a weapon, with so little recoil it can be fired one-handed—if you’re strong enough to hold it—and the drum magazine contains thirty-two cartridges.
“Someone’s got their panties in a twist,” the younger Kuzneski replies, heading for the door. “Shit, you’re grumpy.”
“Fuck you,” Future Kuzneski says.
“Fuck you,” the younger replies.
“Let’s go.” I lead our ragtag group toward the door.
“Whoa, whoa,” Future Kuzneski says when he sees Owen among us. “You want to take a kid out there?”
I’m not sure if he’s concerned or trying to keep Owen here without being blunt about it. Neither makes a difference. “He’s coming.” When I move past him with Owen in tow, he says nothing else.
Flux Page 21
