“Don’t deny it,” I say, “but we also didn’t know about it, and we’re doing what we can to stop it. To set things right.”
“You just crawled out of a hole in the ground, armed for a fight, and expect me to believe you’re here to help us? I ought to—”
“You ought to put that fool thing away.” My father has climbed to the surface behind Cassie and me. When he steps out around us, Hardy is confused and then dumbfounded. “Willy?”
“Back from the dead,” my father says with a smile. “Though from my perspective, that never happened.”
Hardy slides back inside the courthouse, slamming the window closed behind him.
My father and I glance at each other.
“That a good thing?” I ask.
My father shrugs. “Been a while since he’s seen me, I reckon.”
“You knew him well?”
“He was one of the Hell’s Balls.”
“Hell’s…balls?”
“High school bowling league team. We thought it was a funny name.”
“You bowled?”
How did I never know that about my father?
“Before your mother and I…” He smiles. “I was never any good.”
The courthouse’s front door opens as Hardy charges out, arms open, a smile on his face. The only thing he’s armed with is open arms. He embraces my father, giving him a few manly pats before leaning back and saying, “Lord, it is good to see you again. You’ve aged a might better than me. You look about as young as you did last I saw you.”
“For me, it’s 1985,” my father says.
“Not just you,” Hardy says, his eyes darting around the town. “We got folks from all over history. Was chaotic at first. Some ruffians from the 1800s stirred up trouble. A few people died in the ruckus, but things have calmed down since we made sense of all this.”
“You made sense of this?” I ask, sounding more doubtful than intended.
“We had help,” he says. “But before you meet him, I need to be sure you all are on the side of angels.”
“Buddy,” Kuzneski says, as he climbs from the manhole. “We are the fucking angels.”
“You work for them, too,” Hardy says, his anger returning, “and you ain’t even a local.”
“Is that supposed to be a bad thing, because—”
I put a hand on Kuzneski’s shoulder. I don’t think he realizes how fiercely loyal and how easily offended long time residents of Black Creek can be when their home is insulted.
Snow crunches behind us and Hardy takes a step. “Who all else do you have hidden away down there?”
As we separate and turn to face the newcomer, I’m half expecting to find Flores, rifle aimed at Hardy’s head, ready to end the discussion with the threat of violence. Which would be a very bad thing. While I can’t see anyone in the courthouse windows, I have no doubt we’re being watched by more than a few folks with guns—and the know-how to put them to use.
Instead, it’s Owen, dragging himself up into the snow. My father reaches down and lifts him up, holding him.
“Mr. Hardy, you look old,” Owen says.
Hardy smiles, looking back and forth between me and Owen.
“I’m trying to keep my family alive,” I say. “Same as most people in town, I’d guess.”
Hardy gives a slow nod. “As hellish as this all’s been, it’s been a godsend for a few folks, yourself included it would seem.”
“Is Cassie here?” Owen asks, eyes darting around the ghost town. “You know, my Cassie? Young Cassie.”
“Watch it,” Cassie says, getting a smile out of my younger self.
“Reckon she’s around here somewhere,” he says, confirming her presence. “Anyone else in that hole?”
“A man from the future,” I say. “A good man. And a Cherokee woman in need of a hot fire and something warm to drink.” I could leave it at that, but I opt for full disclosure. “Synergy has a number of folks held captive on top of Adel. Men and women from different ages. They’re safe, for now, but—”
“Ain’t none of us safe,” Hardy says. “And don’t you go thinking it for a second, or you’re liable to wind up like some of the others in town.”
You have no idea, I think, but I keep it to myself. Old Hardy is spooked enough as it is. If he knew there was an army of heavily armed drones, Ice Age predators, and what might very well be a Nephilim demi-god stalking the mountain, he probably would have put a bullet in me the moment I stuck my head up out of the snow-laden street.
He looks over at my father and Owen. “Ain’t it something?” Then he puts his fingers to his lips and lets out a shrill whistle.
Behind him, the courthouse doors open. A ragtag group of temporal survivors from various time periods steps out. While some still sport their ancient clothing, most are clad in modern winter gear and shoes, no doubt taken from the sporting goods store at the end of the street.
A woman I don’t recognize steps past Hardy, holding out a black winter jacket. “Thank you,” I say, slipping into the fleece-lined sleeves, zipping up, and hugging myself.
I turn at the sound of more opening doors, and I find people emerging from most of the buildings lining the streets, coming to take a look at the newcomers, perhaps looking for loved ones from their present, or past.
“Owen!” the voice is instantly recognizable, and it all but breaks my heart. Young Cassie breaks away from her mother’s hand and sprints through the snow.
Owen squirms out of my father’s arms and meets her halfway. I’m caught off guard by the affection they share, wrapping their arms around each other. This is what I passed up on, all those years, bitter at the world for taking my father, afraid to love anyone again.
Adult Cassie and I share a smile, and I take her hand. I’m done missing out. Done not risking my heart and the potential pain that vulnerability creates.
When Owen and Young Cassie separate, he whispers quickly and then points to me and Adult Cassie. The girl’s eyes go wide. When she spots our interlinked hands, she looks pleased. Then she approaches.
“Hey,” Adult Cassie says, looking down at her younger self. “This is weird, right?”
“Totally,” the younger Cassie says.
Adult Cassie crouches and reaches out, embracing her child form. “It’s good to see you again.”
The younger Cassie giggles. “My voice got deeper.” She pulls back, inspecting her adult body. “And I got boobs!” While the rest of us have a laugh, she turns to her mother, who’s approaching more cautiously with a large number of people. I know some of them, but most are remnants of times past, including several Cherokee who have been accepted into the town. Hundreds of people fill the snow-clogged street. Black Creek is alive and well, its population swelled, but how long can they survive?
Probably until Tsul’Kalu figures out they’re here…
“Mom!” Young Cassie waves her mother over and then points to her older self. “Look! It’s me!”
There’s a moment of confusion as Mrs. Dearborn looks at her grown daughter. It fades when their eyes meet. Adult Cassie embraces her mother, calm and casual. “Hey, mom.”
Unlike me, Cassie would have seen her mother, maybe even this morning. Mrs. Dearborn, on the other hand, is shaken. “You’re…so old.”
Cassie chuckles. “About the same age as you, old lady.” Then she looks around. “Dad here?”
Mrs. Dearborn frowns. “He was out of town while we were shopping. It’s just us.”
“I’m…sorry,” Cassie says, her face sinking with the realization that unlike my father, her father will not be resurrected.
“You’ll never be without family,” my father says, gently touching her arm. He and Mrs. Dearborn aren’t close friends—that kind of thing wouldn’t have been appropriate in their day—but our families attended events together and had the occasional game night at Cassie’s and my insistence. I also believe she and my mother were good friends before I was born.
Before any more reunions can take place, we
need to move indoors, regroup, and then get on our way. While I want another flux to take us out of this frozen hell, we need to be prepared to stop the super-collider when that happens.
“Are you in charge?” I ask Hardy.
“Thank the good Lord, no,” Hardy says.
“Look out,” a voice says, emerging through the ring of people forming around us.
Hardy points toward the voice. “That’d be him now.”
I turn toward the slowly parting crowd. “Let me through. C’mon y’all. Hurry up and—”
The crowd separates, revealing Levi, dressed for winter, a shotgun over his shoulder. His jaw drops open when he sees me and Adult Cassie. Then he looks to the sky, mouths, “Thank you, Jesus,” and says, “Father Abraham in a bathrobe, is it good to see y’all!”
41
Gathered around the courthouse’s large fireplace, which has been decorative for more than a hundred years, but was functional before that, I start to feel warm. Inola has regained consciousness. She’s sipping on, and very much enjoying, some Swiss Miss hot cocoa. Not only is the chocolate drink new to her, but she is mesmerized by the little sweet marshmallows.
Once Levi vouched for us, and our identities were revealed as being mostly Black Creek locals—not including Kuzneski or Flores—the overcrowded town returned to their individual buildings, just trying to stay warm, while Levi, their fearless leader, worked on a plan.
As soon as our group was whittled down to the three McCoys, the three Dearborns, Flores, Kuzneski, Inola, and Hardy, Levi revealed his true colors, asking—begging—to know if we had a plan. He all but melted with relief when I filled him in on Synergy, the particle accelerator, the power station, and our plans to shut it down. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about being stuck in the past, or maybe he was just afraid to tell generations of Black Creek residents they’d never return home.
“Had a feeling you were faking it,” Hardy says to Levi, when I’m done explaining the plan.
“Faking what?” I ask.
“The confidence. The answers. The boy isn’t a real leader.”
“Ain’t gotta convince me,” Levi says, then nods at me. “I’ve just been trying to act like him.”
I’m flattered, but he’s wrong. “Isn’t a leader in all of history who didn’t fake it, at first. And in this mess, no one knows what’s happening. Near as I can tell, you’ve done a fine job keeping people calm, organized, and alive.”
“Wasn’t all me,” Levi says.
“Modesty is another good quality in a leader,” I say with a smile. “But…how did this happen? No offense, but you are just a kid, and no amount of acting can change that.”
He shrugs. “After me and Cassie got split up, I headed for town, figuring I might be able to find help. When I got here, things were…”
“A right mess,” Hardy says. “Lots of fighting. Factions between time periods were forming. Tribalism was setting in. Didn’t help that we had actual tribal people among us, neither.” He turns to Inola. “No offense.”
She just keeps sipping her cocoa, happy with the sweetness and the warmth.
“When I arrived in town, I broke up a fight between someone from the 1920s and someone from the 1980s.”
Hardy chuckles. “He gave them a right awful lecture about what it meant to be a resident of Black Creek in any time. Said we was united through the generations. That most of us were kin. That the land was in our blood. Dumbest shit I ever heard, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.”
“After that,” Levi says, “I told them what we thought was happening. Wasn’t really answers. Just theories. But I suppose it was enough. People started asking me what to do, and I started telling ’em.”
“You did good,” I tell him. “Maybe you can run for mayor.”
“Well, I sure as shit ain’t working for you all.”
After the group has a good laugh at Synergy’s expense, a heavy quiet falls over us. I take a moment to take it all in. Owen and Young Cassie are seated by the fire, throwing pine cones into the blaze, only half paying attention to us. They’re mostly whispering to each other, picking right up where they left off the day before. Mrs. Dearborn sits nearby, watching them, smiling at their closeness. My father sits beside Inola, who’s wrapped up in a blanket, clutching her mug, all signs of hypothermia fading. He’s not exactly doting on her. She’s a strong woman, and wouldn’t have it. But he hasn’t left her side, and near as I can tell, she’s okay, if not happy, with that.
Kuzneski stands at the back of the room, arms crossed, his frown perpetual. Seeing himself die has shaken him to the core. I understand how he’s feeling, but I admit he’s got it worse. While my future version killed himself using a poison pill, Kuzneski saw his future self’s head crushed in the fist of a giant.
Flores stands by the meeting room’s tall windows, hands clutched behind his back, at ease, but vigilant. He’s keeping watch as well as he can, staring out at the white coated town, the forest, and Adel...
It’s Flores who breaks the silence. “Losing the light.”
The sun creeps toward the horizon. With all the snow, it’s still pretty bright and will remain so if there’s a full moon, but the temperature is going to drop. And no one wants to be outside in the dark with a bloodthirsty god of the hunt.
“Dad,” I say, “I want you to stay put.” He’s about to argue. I don’t give him the chance. “People here need protecting, too.” I glance toward Owen, little Cassie, and her mother. “I might be your son, but what we’re about to do…well, it’s what I do best. And having you with me, honestly, I’d be too distracted about the possibility of losing you again.”
My father’s argument deflates. “So long as you come back.”
“That’s always part of the plan,” I tell him.
But not always guaranteed.
“Flores, Kuzneski…” Cassie takes my hand and squeezes, forcing me to say the name I’d rather leave out. “…Cassie, and I will head for the power station.”
“I’d like to come, too,” Levi says. “Finish what we started together.”
“And I’m staying here,” Kuzneski says. “I’m just…I’m done.”
There’s not even a trace of Kuzneski’s good humor in his voice.
“Being in town doesn’t mean there won’t be a fight,” I say.
He nods at that. “But the odds are better. I’d rather be one among thousands, than one among five who, I’m sorry to say, have kind of a big target on their asses. Langdon’s not going to take our disappearance sitting down.”
Several faces sour at his pessimism. I wish I could say he’s not right, but Langdon’s response to the elder Kuzneski’s death and our escape is probably not going to be gentle. Everything he has to lose is safe at Synergy. The rest of us, especially if we’re threatening whatever his endgame might be, are more than expendable. And he’s already proven he’s willing to kill people who get in his way.
Inola hands her mug to my father and slips out from under the blanket warming her. Despite everything she’s been through, her resolve might be the strongest of all of us. “I will join you.”
“Great,” Kuzneski says, throwing his hands up. “Now I look like a massive puss.” Having lifted the burden of risking his life in the woods, his humor is returning.
“You can’t,” my father says. “Not after what you’ve—”
His argument is quashed by a glance from Inola.
My father raises his hands. “Never mind.”
“Five is enough,” Flores says.
He’s right about that. The more people we have with us, the bigger our footprint. Most special ops, including any good guerilla campaign, values stealth, smarts, and surprise over brute force numbers. If a mission can be completed without firing a shot, that’s a win.
Then again, future me brought a six-man team against Synergy and all but one of them is dead. I suppose the mistake that version of myself made was not knowing about the power station. Soft targets are always preferable
to hardened ones. Seems Langdon managed to keep that secret for seven straight years.
“You trust all of them?” Flores asks, but what he’s really asking is if he can trust them with his life.
I look from Cassie, to Levi, to Inola. “Well, they’re not operators, but they’ll have our backs.”
“Who’s this guy, anyway?” Levi asks, pointing at Flores.
“He’s from 2026,” I say. “Was trying to stop all this before it happened.”
“Only we didn’t know exactly what would happen,” Flores adds. “Just that it would be bad.”
“We?” Levi asks.
“Had a team,” Flores says, and then he turns to face us. He points to me. “His team.” He nods at Cassie. “And hers, if you’re going by who called most of the shots.”
“You all have future yous?” Levi’s smile fades when he sees no one else sharing his sense of wonder. Then he figures it out. “You said, ‘had a team…’ They’re…”
“He’s the last of them,” I say, “And now he’s with us.”
Levi lets it go with a nod. “Future, huh? You got flying cars?”
“Food shortages, mostly,” Flores says.
“Geez,” Kuzneski says. “No shortage of wet blankets in the future, though, huh?”
Hoping to get us back on track and then deployed, I ask, “What’s the weapons situation?”
“Shit ton of shotguns, a few ARs, and a boatload of hunting rifles. Pistols and blades. Good number of bow and arrows, too.”
“Think people will give up a few?” I ask.
“Will if they know what they’re being used for.” Hardy grunts as he stands from his chair. “I’ll go rustle up what I—”
“Uhh, I really don’t want to join Team Wet Blanket, but you know all the guns in town won’t do shit against that thing.”
Hardy’s face twists with confusion, but what Kuzneski says next makes the old timer forget all about it.
Kuzneski steps into the middle of the room, looking out of the mountain-facing windows, where Adel is front and center. “And…that.”
A billowing wave of distortion explodes up from the mountaintop, spreading high into the sky and outward at a rapid pace. Despite being several miles away, it’s going to reach us in seconds. In awe, I step closer to the window, looking up into the sky. The wave is miles high already and careening toward us.
Flux Page 24
