Now & Again (17 page)

In her headset, she heard Will’s voice reply. “Copy that, Julie. Wait one.”

In his cradle, Vinnie returned and blinked rapidly, acclimating himself. “Vinnie back on line. On backup.”

“Copy that, Vinnie,” Will said and checked all the cradle readouts across his board. “John, all cradles are go.”

John glanced at his screens and nodded. “Taylor, everything looks good. On your call.”

Nsamba waited until the moving mail truck on one of his screens stopped. “Thank you. The mail has arrived. Vinnie stays as backup. The rest have a go. Repeat, all go.”

Julie locked Leah in her crosshairs, smiling in anticipation. Leah’s expression changed as if she felt something, and abruptly set her coffee cup down. The hot liquid sloshed onto the table. Julie squeezed the jump button. Leah pushed her fingers against her head and groaned.

Fargo grinned at the active image of Kendall in her VR glasses and thumbed the trigger. Kendall dropped his fork and jerked stiffly in his chair.

Rose got a lock on Josh. He squinted and rubbed his temples. Rose activated her jump. Josh fought it but he was too late; Rose was already riding him.

Kranzie tracked the tall, elderly neighbor across his yard until he stopped the mower to dump clippings. Locking on the target, Kranzie pulled the trigger. The neighbor cocked his head as if listening to a far off sound, and stiffened.

* * *

Inside the McCaslin kitchen, Leah, Josh and Kendall got up with difficulty and headed for their living room.

Outside the house, their next door neighbor walked to the curb where a mail truck was waiting. The mailman handed him a white pharmacy bag.

In the living room, Josh and Kendall calmly sat side by side in straight backed chairs next to the couch. Just behind them, Leah stood waiting. The neighbor entered the front door and handed Leah a syringe from the bag. Leah, with Julie inside, held it up to make sure of the contents, unsnapped the cover exposing the needle, and moved to Kendall.

“Fargo, pull the shirt away from your left shoulder, would you?”

Kendall mechanically exposed his upper shoulder. Leah injected him in the large muscle near his neck. She pushed the entire content of the syringe, pulled it out, recapped it, and handed it back to the neighbor. Franzie, inside the neighbor, took the empty and handed her a second full syringe, this one was milky and marked with a green
X
.

As Leah prepared to administer the second shot, Kendall turned slowly and glanced up at her. “Hey, I ain’t waitin’ around. Everything’s startin’ to go grey. I’m outta here!”

Kendall faintly shuddered as Fargo dismounted. Leah unsnapped the top and injected him with the second drug. Kendall’s eyes shut as his head slumped forward onto his chest. His body settled heavily into the chair.

They moved on to Josh and did the same. When all was complete, the neighbor collected the syringes into the bag. He rolled it up tightly, and left. Leah calmly retraced her steps to the kitchen.

In the now quiet living room, Josh and Kendall sat silently, comatose in their chairs.

* * *

“Fargo, Rose and Julie are back on line.” Will spoke quickly into his mike as he confirmed their cradle readouts.

“Copy that” John replied.

“Okay,” Nsamba confirmed. “Waiting on Sal and Kranzie.”

The activity level in the cradle bay was high. Techs unlocked and hoisted off the large transparent covers from the cradles. Others powered down equipment in the racks.

Fargo ripped off the VR glasses and lifted her wire laden helmet. “Man! That’s some wicked shit you guys stuck into me.” She ran her hands through her short hair and scratched vigorously. “Creeped me out!”

Rose, in the cradle behind Fargo, piped up. “Yeah, that was bad. I could feel everything going dead. I was scared I wouldn’t get out in time.”

Julie pushed up out of the seat in her cradle and leaned over its curved side to look at them. “Sorry. Told you these drugs were nasty – or weren’t you listening when I made my pitch? Anyway, just stay through the first injection; after that it doesn’t matter.” She smirked at them. “C’mon though, other than that, don’tcha think it was kinda fun?”

* * *

In the lawn next door to the McCaslins, the neighbor stopped next to the yard waste container and dropped in the bag with the empty syringes. He lifted the mower bag and dumped the grass clippings on top of it. Putting the catch bag back on the mower he halted. “There you go mower man. All back together. Be seein’ ya.”

The neighbor shuddered, as Kranzie dismounted, and then jerked awake with a sudden breath and a look of panic.

Back near the drugstore, the mail truck slapped the curb and stopped. The door slid open and the mailman staggered out onto the boulevard. He stood bent over, with his hands on his knees, and began to weep.

* * *

Kranzie and Salazar snapped back to local awareness in their cradles, and immediately checked in.

“Kranzie, back on line.”

“Sal, back.” He flipped off his VR glasses and bellowed. “Hey! What’s the deal? How come none of you geniuses remembered that mail trucks steer from the wrong side?”

* * *

Up in
the Point
control room, Vandermark and Hahn watched the screens. Vandermark nodded in satisfaction. “That went well, despite your concerns about
my
people. One down.”

Hahn sat unmoved. “Thirty-four to go.”

It was a cold, clear morning, and Kendall had the car heater going as he turned onto Weaver. Just ahead of the car, a frantic squirrel darted half way across the road and froze. As they drove closer, he suddenly bolted back in the opposite direction, and vanished into the trees.

Josh watched the little episode and looked at his Dad. “Yeah, how ‘bout animals? They make choices. Do they make timelines?”

Kendall rolled his eyes. “Aw c’mon! A new world every time a squirrel loses a nut? How would…” He looked up ahead and sobered instantly. “Uh oh, what’s goin’ on over there?”

They both looked ahead at flashing emergency vehicle lights at the front entrance to the nursing home. Kendall raced into the parking lot and slashed the rental into the first open space. They both jumped out. Ahead of them, a flashing ambulance sat beside the main doors. A small group of staff and a few ambulatory residents had gathered on the sidewalk.

As Kendall and Josh rushed up the walkway, Josh observed, “It might be anyone, you know. There’s lots of people here that could use an ambulance.”

“I know,” Kendall tossed back, “but I got a real bad feeling about this.”

They reached the group at the doors just as two paramedics wheeled out a padded gurney with a small, blanketed figure strapped to it. Even wearing an oxygen mask, it was easy to identify Hugh Everett. Kendall took a few tentative steps forward but the shock of the event held him still.

The chatty nurse’s aide spotted him and hurried up to Kendall, grabbing his hand. “Oh, Mr. McCaslin, it’s your Hugh. I’m so sorry. He couldn’t catch his breath this morning. And his skin – oh, it was so dry! He looked at me, and his eyes just rolled back in his head, and then…”

Kendall shook his head. “That’s crazy. We were just with him last night.”

The male paramedic smoothly opened the tall double doors in the back of the ambulance. The female paramedic rotated the gurney so Hugh would go in head forward. Beneath the plastic mask his eyes were closed, and his color was pasty white. Josh watched helplessly while the paramedics collapsed the gurney wheels and carefully slid Hugh deep into the bright interior.

“What’s wrong with him?” Josh asked.

The nurse’s aide touched his shoulder lightly. “We think…it may be his heart. Lord knows he’s old enough.”

Josh stepped toward the ambulance. He looked in as one paramedic put a blood pressure cuff on Hugh’s arm while the other attached EKG straps to both his wrists and one ankle. “How bad is it?”

The female paramedic looked up as she clipped a heart sensor to a finger. “Don’t know. Looks like a heart. Sooner we get him in the better.”

She powered up the monitor equipment and started digging in the cupboards. The male paramedic climbed down and closed one of the doors.

Kendall moved up beside Josh and put a hand on his back. “Josh, ride with him. I’ll follow you.”

The male paramedic held the door and looked at Josh. “You a relative?”

Josh nodded. “We’re all he’s got.”

The paramedic looked in at his partner. “Okay with you?”

Sitting in a chair next to Hugh, the female paramedic shrugged and readied a needle.

“Hop in, then. Hurry up.”

Josh scrambled into the bed of the ambulance as the door closed behind him. He found a place to sit on the other side of the gurney and heard the cab door open and close. He watched the paramedic give Hugh a shot and looked concerned.

She said softly, “Don’t worry. It’s just some Heparin – blood thinner.”

The ambulance began to move. The paramedic studied the readouts on her machine. Josh slid closer to Hugh’s mask and looked down at him to check if he was really breathing. Everett slowly opened his eyes and looked up at him, confused.

“Hey. It’s me, Josh. How ya doin’ in there?”

Hugh looked at him strangely for a moment. His small voice was muffled by the mask. “Better than before…except for the fat lady sitting on my chest.”

Josh smiled in relief. “Give us a heads up if she starts singin’, okay?”

Everett smiled painfully at the joke. On the other side of the gurney, the paramedic grinned. She looked down at Hugh. “Well, since you’re back, I have a few questions to ask.”

He looked back at her. “That’s what everybody says.”

The Capital Beltway system was clotted with morning traffic but luckily the ambulance was moving against the flow as it sped along, helped by its lights and siren, headed for Holy Cross Hospital.

Following close behind in the rental car, Kendall struggled to keep up.

Quyron was surrounded by stacks of actual, physical paper, marked, dog-eared and highlighted. Her multi-screens were also full of open programs and cascades of miscellaneous data files, but it was the paper that held her interest. “Echo, doesn’t it seem strange to you that I’m trying to find out something that you already know?”

“Explain
seem strange.
” Echo’s voice floated from the ceiling.

Quyron pondered the request for a moment. “Odd. Out of the normal way. An action or…a request that’s different than expected. I don’t know, something that just doesn’t feel right.”

“No.”

Quyron blinked. “No what? No, you don’t understand?”

“No. Not strange,” Echo instantly answered.

“Why not?”

“It is the way people normally interact with me. They are most often searching for things that I already know.”

Quyron leaned back in her chair and linked her hands together behind her head. “Oh, so you have all the answers, huh Miss Smarty trousers?”

“I recognize your tone as sarcasm, so I will ignore my new name. The answer to your question, if I can approximate sarcasm, is yes, I have all the answers; my problem is, I do not know all the right questions.”

Quyron tipped forward in the chair and settled her arms on the piles of worn paperwork. “Echo, you know my team and I are searching everywhere for answers to these timeline fluctuations.”

“Yes, Dr. Shur.”

“So, why do I get the impression that parts of you are walled off from us? I was told I’d have full access.”

There was no reply. Quyron waited. She watched the three dots and the square pulse slowly in the lower corner of her right screen. “Echo? I know you’re still here.”

The young female voice cheerfully spoke up. “Computational reference for the word,
impression,
please?”

Quyron was irritated; this felt like stalling.
Could a computer decide to stall – even a quantum computer?
“A human expression describing a probability greater than 50% that is…ah, computed by weighing a physical feeling.”

“A guess?”

Quyron’s voice snapped back with sudden seriousness. “Look, I’ve found repeated paperwork references to a project called
the Point
, okay?”

Echo’s voice was meek. “Okay.”

Quyron went on the attack. “Invoices, deliveries, design work, all laundered, but all pointing to Hahn, Vandermark, or Newbauer, over and over again.” She picked up clumps of paper and brandished them in the air. “Everything’s subtle, almost hidden, but clear, once you know what you’re looking for. On paper! Okay?”

“Okay.”

“But whenever my computer searches get too close to
the Point
you deflect me somewhere else. Every time! Why is that?”

“Are you certain of the spelling? Is it
pointe
with an
e
?”

“See?” Quyron barked. “You’re doing it again! Are you stopping me from access to data on
the Point
?”

There was the slightest hesitation before Echo replied, “I cannot respond.”

“Why? I mean,
precisely
why can’t you respond? You know the answer, but you’re withholding it from me.”

“I am instructed to say that I cannot respond.”

“By whom?”

A longer hesitation. “I cannot respond.”

Quyron turned in her chair, her eyes bright. “Let’s try this. How much of your capacity is directed toward projects initiated at
the Point
?”

“My capacity is always expanding. Your question is…” The voice paused, “…ambiguous.”

“You’re evading. Does
the Point
demand significant portions of your computational attention?”

“I cannot respond.”

“I’ll take that as progress. Will you allow me access to your databases related to
the Point
?

“No.”

“No? Is there an authority that you
will
allow the access to?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I cannot respond.”

Quyron considered her next question. “Is there one or many with such authority?”

Echo’s female voice sounded peeved and resistant but she responded just the same. “Only one. But this authority can grant permission to others.”