Traffic had been stopped for a while and Buck didn’t have much room in front of him, but he turned anyway.
“Right on, Dad,” Garth encouraged him.
Garth smiled at Lydia, then grabbed her hand. “I told you my dad knows what he’s doing. He won’t let us down.”
Buck gave it a little gas and turned left, causing the Peterbilt’s front bumper to tap the car in front of them. A few seconds later, he was free of the line of cars, and he drove off the far shoulder and into the weedy field in front of the fence.
“I trust you and your nice father.” Lydia smiled.
To his surprise, she grabbed Big Mac’s collar and pulled the Golden close as if to protect him.
Please don’t disappear.
Twenty-Four
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
After the guards had unloaded warning shots, she’d had to throw the phone on the ground to smash it. She didn’t want to implicate Benny, even though his newspaper was clearly involved. Minutes later, she was dragged into the main control room of the collider, where Dr. Johnson was waiting for her.
“Faith, I’m very disappointed in you. How could you not know I would figure out where you were? You weren’t even hiding. From what I gather, you’ve done a good job of keeping this operation running during our overtime scenario, but this trashes all of it.”
She laughed in Dr. Johnson’s face. “Is that what you call this? Your experiment won’t stop running on my collider, and you think this is overtime?”
“Your collider? You obviously don’t know who pays the bills.”
The government had had a hand in the preliminary financing and construction, but she believed private money, like Azurasia Heavy Industries, had powered most of the science once the facility was running. However, she couldn’t deny that many things had been hidden from her.
“You’ve just destroyed a billion-dollar facility and the people who ran it. How can you stand there and lecture me about anything?” She tried to spit in his face, but it wasn’t in her skill set and her spittle missed by a mile.
The pudgy man used both hands to wipe his whole face as if she had landed a direct hit. “You have no idea what’s going on out there, but know this. Your little stunt of having me talk to myself did nothing but speed up this process.”
“It wasn’t a stunt,” she broke in. “The other man was you. I talked to him twice. He’s you in a timeline where you aren’t a prick who runs projects your peers don’t know about. If you’d listened to him, he could have helped you solve the problem you created here.”
“Stop!” Dr. Johnson barked. “He was not me. And even if he was, he’s gone. I was told just now that five nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles crossed the Alps from one of our ships in Italy. They wiped Geneva and everything under it right off the map.”
She fell hard into one of the plastic chairs in the control room where she’d been brought.
“I failed?”
“Totally,” the man replied. “CERN is gone. I don’t know how you could possibly argue with me, but we are now safe.”
She looked up with concern, her analytical mind refusing to ignore the details. “Are the beams off? Are we unlinked? How long ago was the attack?”
“A couple of minutes. The press picked it up on shortwave and blabbed it on the radio almost in real time, the bastards. They can’t keep anything quiet. That was why we forced Shinano to recant and lead people astray.”
She didn’t know who he meant, but she watched as he turned on a video screen.
“Now,” he went on, “we get to see if the cost was worth it.”
The monitor had four feeds on it, like a split screen with four shows running at the same time. The top left was a view of the Four Arrows box. The blue light linking it to CERN was still lit, suggesting the link was still there.
The top right box showed a black screen.
Dr. Johnson pointed to the blackness. “That’s CERN.”
The bottom right was a blue reservoir surrounded by green trees. She recognized it as one of the foothill lakes on top of SNAKE. There was nothing out of the ordinary on the image.
The bottom left screen was also easy to identify as the town of Sedalia. One highway ran through town on the east side, and a few blocks of houses were to the west. It was even smaller than when they went through Kiowa. However, it looked like Woodstock had come for a visit, because a huge number of cars were parked in the fields to the east of the village.
That caught her immediate attention. “They are parking outside the collider ring. Why are they outside?”
He didn’t turn to look at where she pointed.
“We control everything, Faith. This facility only has limited supplies, plus what we brought for ourselves. I’d love to save all those people, but they’re only going to be a drag on us if we let every single one of them inside. It’s more humane to cut the cord now, at the beginning.”
“I have to warn them,” she implored. “Get them to safety, like you said.”
She’d spent all her time cooped up inside the science lab while everyone else suffered on the outside. It seemed like a cruel twist of the knife that she was destined to survive solely because of dumb luck, while those outside were slated to die because of the vile act of an uncaring scientist.
Faith casually turned toward the door, wondering if she could make a run for it, but was stunned to see six or seven soldiers watching her from beyond the threshold.
General Smith would say go for it.
“You are out of the game, Doctor,” he said with mock sadness, perhaps sensing her internal dilemma. “I brought you up here to show you I was right.”
“We could have easily saved all those people until the time anomaly cleared up.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “I hope you understand that I’m trying to save the best and the brightest for what comes next. This isn’t just the end of the experiment, it’s the beginning of a new world.”
“That sounds like the ravings of a lunatic.”
“I didn’t show you everything in the film with the laser beam and the lead plate. I cut it off before the final frames because I didn’t think your peers were ready for it. I don’t have a projector on my person, but would you like me to give you the punchline?”
She watched the video feed of Sedalia. The image began to dance and jitter as if an electrical charge was interfering with the screen.
“Sure. Why not.”
“About fifty yards behind the man standing at the lead plate, there is an arboretum on the property of Malmstrom Air Base. Several of the plants and trees within the direct path of that laser experiment exploded with growth. Some punched through the clear roof in a matter of minutes.”
She was awestruck at another potential benefit for mankind. Instant growth of food-bearing plants and trees could save billions of lives from starvation.
“Do you know what that means?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“I am,” he said in a businesslike manner. “It means that the change state of the outer edge of the energy pulse does not reverse itself when the main source is discontinued.”
Faith understood his tech talk.
“Oi. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
He wasn’t lying. It really was a punchline. “Nothing is ever going back to the way it was,” she suggested.
“I told you, this place is a lifeboat. Everything outside the ring of your collider will cease to exist in about—” He looked at his watch. “Now.”
She turned back to the video feed.
Something was happening outside.
Sedalia, CO
Phil felt like he was starring in a movie about the Civil War. He waved the American flag for all he was worth, and somewhere nearby there were enemy soldiers who wouldn’t take kindly to his brash action. It would be worth it, though, if he could save
some lives.
“Come on!” he yelled to the civilians. “This way!”
The highway was filled with idling vehicles waiting to turn right into the fields of parked cars. He only needed a few of the mobile ones to come his way and start a new line to the left so those still on the road would follow.
The first vehicle out of the line was a large black tractor-trailer that looked like it been splashed with tar while doing a hundred miles an hour. The driver angled the big rig out of line and drove deliberately toward the fence.
Too late, he realized the hole he’d made with the pickup wasn’t going to be wide enough for the giant truck.
He waved his arms faster, hoping the driver knew what he meant.
“Just go through!” he screamed.
Like any good ol’ boy, the guy laid on his horn as he gunned the motor. He made no effort to slow but went directly through the fence, knocking down one of the wooden posts holding up the ten-foot-tall wire mesh.
“Shit, yeah!” he screamed.
Phil stepped back to give the trucker plenty of room to plow on through, and he thought he saw the face of a familiar-looking woman riding shotgun. She wore a toothy white smile, as if she were enjoying a thrilling roller coaster ride.
“Welcome to salvation, lady!”
He turned to Grafton, who had scooted into the driver’s seat of the pickup truck.
“Open up more sections, okay? I’m going to wave people in.” Phil pointed toward town, which was where he wanted to break down the fence.
A few seconds after the black truck went through, a little blue spark shot out of the broken fence and arced over to the top of the borrowed pickup truck. The “zzt” sound of electricity made him hop back.
At first, he thought maybe the fence was electrified, but the tendrils of blue began to appear on and between vehicles parked on the highway.
“Holy hell, it’s happening now!”
Murphy’s words came haunting back into his mind. “I don’t want to disappear.”
How much time do I have?
He’d trained all his life to protect the people of the United States. Sitting in guard towers in remote locations in Afghanistan sometimes made him question his usefulness to individual citizens, but this was the exact opposite. Thousands of his countrymen now depended on him to step into the breach.
Phil imagined that was literal. He stood near the gap he’d created by running down the first bit of fence. There was a larger hole where the semi had punched through.
Now he had to get people to follow.
“Fucking Rangers lead the way!”
He ran for the highway.
Sedalia, CO
Buck drove the truck about a hundred yards into the scrubby field.
“This should be far enough.” He put on the brakes and stopped.
“Why here?” Garth asked.
“I wanted to give the other cars enough room to follow us through.”
It didn’t appear as if many drivers had followed them. Cars were coming through, but they stayed closer to the fence line. He also noticed something else.
“Shit, there’s blue fire back there. That’s the energy I saw in the sky when all this started.” The outline of the sparks ran along the fence line next to the road and curved away from the parked cars on the other side. It appeared as if the soldier with the pickup truck knew the rescue effort was FUBAR and wanted to make things right.
“What does it mean, darlin’?” Connie drawled.
Buck hesitated when he looked at his girlfriend. He wondered if his son was thinking the same thing as him.
Is this the end of Connie and Lydia?
“Stay here,” Buck yelled. He opened his door and flew out.
About two seconds later, someone slammed the passenger door.
You crazy woman.
Connie ran to the gap between the tractor and trailer, hopped onto the fifth-wheel frame, then ran across it to be with him. He met her when she sat on the edge.
“Buck, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think this is the big one. The woman on the radio said we’re safe, but I don’t know if that includes me. I just wanted to say…”
“This isn’t that!” he protested.
She shushed him. “Just kiss me, you goofy Marine.”
He intended to, even leaned in for it, but he briefly glanced at the frothing blue light again. Before she opened her eyes, he gave her a quick peck on the lips. When that was all, she grabbed his Hawaiian shirt, intent on more.
He pulled back. “Connie, this isn’t the end, I promise you. I think we were shown the way by that Army dude because we’re supposed to do more than sit here and celebrate.”
Her eyes broadcast a brief look of confusion until she got on the same wavelength. “You want to help those people?”
A few cars and pedestrians were running through the two holes in the fence, but a city’s worth of vehicles was still parked beyond the roadway. The Army guy was still there waving his flag, but someone drove his truck down the fence and created a third hole. He looked like a mouse taking bites out of a sequoia, there was so much fence left.
“I know how we can do it. I’m going to unhook the trailer. You open the back and get those college kids out. Tell them the price of freedom is bringing more people to this side of the road. I’m going to do my part with the Peterbilt.” He let her go and popped off the pigtail connections between the tractor and box trailer, then scooted underneath the trailer to unhitch the kingpin.
“Buck, don’t be the hero, you hear me?” She spoke in a stern voice he couldn’t recall her using before.
“Connie, I can’t let that Army asshole save all those people by himself. I’ll get beat up at the VFW hall if this is how my story gets told.”
He spoke in an old-man voice. “Your Granpap was a Marine, by Jove, but he preferred to sit on his ass and let some weak-ass ditch-digger get all the glory while he polished his—”
“Okay, I get it.” She laughed.
“I’m not wearing a uniform, but I’ve got to show him up.” He laughed to hide his feelings about the danger level of what he had in mind.
“Charlie Mike,” she said with a mix of disappointment and pride.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” he assured her, not knowing if he could possibly live up to that promise.
Probably not.
“Oh, and if the college kids ask, tell them this is Amarillo!”
He snickered at the look of horror on her face.
Twenty-Five
Sedalia, CO
Buck unhooked the kingpin and detached the trailer in record time. Without a trailer, his semi-truck was free to go bobtail-style, which made him more maneuverable.
Don’t do anything stupid, he reminded himself.
“Garth? Where are you?”
He and Lydia came around the front bumper holding hands. The furtive look he flashed at the pioneer girl next to him was precisely how he felt about Connie when she took off for the rear of the trailer.
He thinks she’s going away, too.
Buck pointed away from his rig. “Guys, go stand over there. I’m going back to the fence to help the rest of those people.”
“But Dad, it’s already started!”
His heart skipped a beat, knowing he was putting himself in danger, but as long as Garth was safe behind the finish line, he had to live up to his own code of honor. He’d never forgive himself if he sat idle while people suffered a hundred yards away.
“Trust me, this has to happen!”
He hopped up and reached for his door handle, but Garth came over and held him back. At first, he thought it was because he wanted to stop him, but he realized it wasn’t that at all.
Garth gave him an awkward hug. “Thanks for saving us, Dad. Go get ‘em, but be sure to bring yourself back.”
Buck hugged him for a second, then gently pushed him away. Lydia was close by, smiling, so he spoke to her as he climbed into the cab. “Take care of him, okay
? Don’t let him out of your sight!”
“I will!” she said as if she’d been given a task she very much wanted.
He got the Peterbilt started, amazed by how messy she had become over the past several days. The outside was a disaster, with the blanket of locusts only being the last in a long line of things splashed and wiped on the paint. However, the inside was a wreck now too. They’d tracked in dirt, rocks, and bug slop over the last thousand miles. Garth’s things were piled in the back, with all the organization of the front lawn of a rural mobile home.
“I need a name for you,” he said to the cabin as he turned the truck around. “I’m not going to call you Locust, because that’s not pretty. How about Lorraine? It’s an L-name and sounds fancy.” Buck’s policy was never to name his vehicles because he didn’t like saying goodbye to inanimate objects after he’d been with them for a long time, but he would make this exception because the Peterbilt had treated him so well. She deserved special recognition.
“All right, Lorraine, we’re rolling hot.”
Buck passed Eve and Monsignor as he headed back to the fence line. Neither had unhitched their trailers, so he didn’t expect any help from them. It wasn’t a knock, he reasoned, because he hadn’t known what he was going to do until the last second, either.
Far to the left, Humvees flew out of the town of Sedalia like angry hornets coming to defend the hive. Some came along the line of fencing, while others went toward his trailer.
“You’re too late,” he said, hoping he was right.
The blue sparks had grown in the short time since they began. The deer fence was crackling with lots of energy, but so were some of the cars on the roadway beyond it.
“Don’t pass out, Buck.” The energy wave reminded him of what had happened back in Wyoming when everyone around him fainted. Now he was heading into an electrical storm.
He blared his horn as he bounced over the field.
The soldier with the flag waved people through the hole he’d created, and some cars came through the gap Buck had opened, but it wasn’t enough. Traffic was piled up as far as he could see on the highway, and most of them likely had no idea what was taking place at that one section of fence.
Begin Again: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (End Days Book 4) Page 18
