Now & Again (19 page)

In the control room inside, Nsamba was frazzled and irritable. They had been running line after line for hours. The screens in front of him refreshed with new versions of the same images of pharmacists and paper boys and mail trucks. He rubbed his eyes. “Faster, Echo. Whatever’s next, it doesn’t matter. Just get it done.”

The computer’s female voice remained unruffled. “The next line is loaded. Variances are as follows: the neighbor is not outside since he finished cutting his grass, a late paper boy is on a bike, the pharmacy is behind with their orders since Doug decided last night to…”

Nsamba snarled an interruption. “Enough. Good enough. Echo, stop!”

“You do not want a full presentation of variances from this child line to the last timeline?”

“No. By now we could do this in our sleep. A few changes won’t matter. Quicker is what matters.”

Echo’s voice sounded clipped. “As you wish.”

Nsamba spoke rapidly into his headset. “Okay, the next line is loaded. Julie, Vinnie, quicker this time, okay?”

Julie’s voice zipped in his headset. “Understood.”

Vinnie’s was just as quick. “Got it.”

Will briefly scanned his side of the control panel and appeared satisfied. “Pharmacists look good. Mailman’s six blocks from alpha and moving. All cradle readouts are nominal.”

On the other side of the panel, John toggled between a few screens, yawned, and nodded his head tiredly. “Rock and roll.”

* * *

At the main gate to
the Point
a uniformed guard peered through his window as a chauffeured Mercedes pulled up to the secured gate and waited. The cranky guard walked stiffly over to the driver with a clipboard and a cold look. Ricky smiled at him and thumbed towards the back window. The guard dutifully moved to the rear of the car and bent slightly next to a tinted side window. The glass whispered down and the Reivers Corporation President and CEO stared frigidly at him.

The gate guard’s gruff attitude evaporated. “Oh! Mr. Everett, sir. Ah, do you, ahh, have an appointment? Sir?”

“I don’t need one.” Everett’s tone was pointedly neutral. “And that gate better be opening as soon as your sorry ass is back in that guard shack.”

The guard was already hurrying away as he answered. “Ah, yes sir. Right away.”

He rushed back and the gate immediately slid open. Everett’s window whispered closed again as the Mercedes glided through the opening and onto the campus of
the Point
. Behind them, in the gate house, the panicked guard was on the phone.

In her control room, Hahn punched the input button to switch from watching the pharmacists to watching the mail truck as she actively tracked Nsamba’s latest timeline assault.

Beside her, Vandermark was turned away to speak into his phone clip. His face was tense. “Understood. You know who to contact next? Yes…perfect. See that you do. And leave the rest up to them.” He disconnected and stared at Hahn. “Well, Everett’s back.”

The color drained from her face. “What?”

“He’s headed here. He just came through the gate.”

“Here? How can he be here?”

“He flew back without telling.”

“Should we stop monitoring?” Her fingers moved across the control panel keys, ready to end the transmission.

“No. Relax. It’s past time I settled this. He’s a good theoretical physicist, but he’s never been much good at anything else, except in his own eyes.”

He slid his chair sideways to a nearby workstation and activated a log-in screen. “He thought he’d surprise us – and he did. But one good surprise deserves another.” He executed a series of practiced keystrokes and finger touches until an icon, in the shape of a button, appeared. Satisfied, he slid his chair back and resumed watching Nsamba’s team.

* * *

Doug, the male pharmacist, with Julie in control, exited the drug prep area carrying the prescription bag. He walked hurriedly up the aisle toward the front and was completely surprised when an older female customer blocked his path.

Quite agitated and brandishing the determination of the expert ailing, the old woman launched right into him. “You work here? ‘Course you do, you’re wearin’ one of them white coats.”

Doug started a reply but she cut him off.

“Hey, I got this rash again, ya know?” She waved a crabbed hand in the general area of her side. “Starts as a red patch and itches like sin itself. And the more ya scratch it, the worse it gets.”

Doug attempted to step around the old woman but she moved nimbly enough to stay in his way. “And later, it makes these sparkly blisters, like teensy red grapes, you know?”

Julie used Doug’s mouth to snarl at her. “I’m busy, lady. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Just let me by!”

He tried again to go around. She blocked his move. “But you work here, don’t you? I know I seen you before.”

“Ask someone else. I’m in a hurry.” Doug forced his way by her. The old woman couldn’t prevent him but she managed to stay near, dogging his steps.

“Then the blisters pop and crust over and then…”

“Get away from me!”

The pharmacist rushed to the front of the store, passing the checkout station. The teenage cashier looked up at the commotion and spotted the prescription bag. “Is that a charge, Mr. Johnson? Or did you guys ring it up already?”

The distracted pharmacist stopped, caught off guard again, and hesitated in a growing fluster. “We, ahh…look, we rang it up in the back. Yeah. It’s okay. Ah, don’t worry. Don’t…just don’t ask me anything!” He turned quickly for the door.

The annoyed old lady once again stood resolutely across his path. “The last fella said Calamine lotion. But that ain’t it. That helped the itch but didn’t do diddly-squat ’bout the blisters. So, whadda
you
say?”

The pharmacist lunged at her. “Let me out of here, you old witch!” He knocked her backwards. She collapsed into a tall display of children’s lunchboxes. The old woman screeched in terror as everything crashed down on her. The traumatized cashier rushed to help but slipped and fell to the floor herself. Doug, with Julie inside, furiously kicked through the debris to get out the door. The old lady howled at his back as Doug disappeared outside.

Across the street, Salazar, in the mailman’s body, waited nervously. His fingers tapped a fast tempo against the steering wheel. His eyes were glued on the drugstore. He reacted immediately to the pharmacist’s hasty appearance out the doors.

“About time!” Sal groused loudly. “What the hell took ya? We’re s’posed to be speedin’ things up!”

In a hurry, he looked the wrong way, and stomped the gas to whip a U-turn. There was a frantic honk and screech. A brutal side impact viciously propelled the mailman into his metal sorting shelves. Envelopes and junk mail exploded around him.

The mail truck rebounded from the collision and violently spun into oncoming traffic. A second car, a heavy Chrysler, speeding the other way, smashed the other side of the truck and glanced off. Sal’s head ricocheted against the windshield leaving behind a round pattern of cracks.

At the curb in front of the drugstore, the hapless pharmacist stood frozen in terror. The looming Chrysler smacked him dead-on. It swept his body up, crushed him against its impressive grill, carried his limp figure straight through the drugstore’s double doors, and didn’t stop until half of the car’s length was tucked inside.

* * *

In her cradle within the Reivers’ truck, Julie’s head snapped up. Her mouth contorted in a silent scream. Her whole body shook with spasms, and then dropped slack.

* * *

Inside the drugstore, the young cashier was pulling the old lady to her feet when the Chrysler hurtled through the doors. Both women screamed and desperately scrambled across the fallen lunchboxes. Glass and debris blasted into the store like shrapnel.

* * *

“Get to Julie! Her readouts are in the red! Get her out of there!” Will screamed into his mike.

“STAT! STAT! Julie’s cradle!” called John.

Nsamba wrenched off his headset and jumped over to the door to the cradle area. He yanked it open and looked.

In the back of the trailer, Julie’s cradle was powering down. A flurry of techs were getting in each other’s way in the cramped space as they scrambled to help. One fought to unlatch her cover but his panic made his hands clumsy. Seen through the glass, Julie’s shoulders twitched a few more times and then went still.

* * *

The prescription bag skittered across the smooth tiles near the front of the drugstore and slid to a stop right at the feet of Cecelia, the young female pharmacist. She bent down and picked it up.

The sidewalk and street in front of the drugstore was a warzone. The first car to strike the mail truck was stopped and hissing in the middle of the street. It’s hood had buckled all the way to the windshield and steam poured up from the radiator. The stink of burned rubber was pungent in the air. Pressing a bloody handkerchief to his head, the woozy driver stumbled out. A crowd was quickly forming, drawn from the nearby houses.

Spanning both lanes of the road, the mail truck was tipped on its side and bleeding liquids. Traffic began to back up because neither direction could easily pass by. A few Good Samaritans jumped out of their stopped cars to see if they could help.

With his truck smashed on both sides, Sal had to kick out the fractured side of his windshield in order to painfully crawl from the wreckage. Dazed, and bleeding profusely from his forehead, he realized he had an obvious compound leg fracture when he attempted to stand. His shrieking collapse to the street brought someone to his side with a towel. That’s when he noticed the blood pouring from his head. He looked toward the ruined drugstore and closed his eyes. “To hell with this!”

The mailman’s body jerked and shuddered as Sal dismounted. The unlucky mailman abruptly was returned to himself. He opened his eyes to excruciating pain and rolled tightly in on himself. Other bystanders moved to lend assistance. Sirens started wailing from a few blocks away.

* * *

Techs gently extracted Julie’s body from her cradle as Sal returned to awareness in his. “Sal, back on line. Shit!”

In the control room, Nsamba slapped his headset back on and adjusted it as he shouted. “Sal! What the hell happened down there?”

“I looked the wrong way! I was tryin’ to hurry up and…I told you…I forgot…” Sal’s voice trailed off as he watched the techs wrestle with Julie’s lifeless body. Her head hung to one side.

Across the control panel from John, Will flicked through his readouts and screens. “John, what’s our current jump status?”

John was still shook up. “I…don’t know.” He looked over his panel and studied the multiple screens, but nothing seemed to stick or make sense. “Um…Julie’s out. No eyes on Vinnie. Sal is back but the mailman’s out. Drugs are…gone. Looks like a scrub to me…”

“Wait!” Nsamba’s voice thundered in their earphones. “I see Vinnie! There! At the back of the crowd.” Nsamba was tapping a finger on one of his small monitors. Right under his nail, the female pharmacist could be seen moving at the edge of the gawkers, and in her hand was the pharmacy bag.

John toggled to a similar angle on one of his monitors and used a joystick to zoom in. “I can’t believe it. He’s got the drugs. How the hell?”

“Silence!” Nsamba ordered. “We can still do this.”

Will jerked up. “What? How?”

Nsamba studied his other screens. “Shut-up and give me a second.”

Salazar used the targeting screen in his HUD to pan the crowd at the crash scene. Two police cruisers had arrived and the officers were trying to deal with the injured. Off to one side, Sal slid his targeting reticle over a fifteen-year-old kid with a BMX bike. He blinked for a second. “Hey, Taylor, if you look to the left side of the crowd, at about 8 o’clock, I got a kid with a bike.”

Nsamba flipped through his own screens showing different parts of the crowd until he found the kid. “Okay. Got it. What’s your thought?”

“Let me jump him. I can still move the drugs down the block. Gimme a shot to make this right!”

Nsamba looked intensely at his screens, planning. “Okay. You’re on. When you get the drugs, tell Vinnie to get back here, he has to do the injections. Take the kid. Go! We’ll find somebody to meet you at the other end.”

Sal centered his targeting on the kid’s face. “Copy that. I got a lock. And go!”

* * *

Fifteen-year-old Jimmy Thompson had never seen a car accident in his entire life – not even a lousy fender bender. And now he’d seen two smash ups and even blood! The rapt teenage boy suddenly squinted and cocked his head. Vaguely lifting a hand he abruptly jerked, straightened up, and started looking around at the people. From inside Jimmy, Sal spotted Vinnie still hovering at the outer edge of the crowd. Sal looked down at his BMX and smiled.

* * *

“Archive visual in 4, 3, 2, and now!” John hit the timer and watched the kid on his screen cock his head and then lift a hand. “Will, what’s the word on Julie?”

Over his headset, Will’s voice floated back. “Checking. Wait one.”

In his cradle, Kranzie studied the well kept yards near the McCaslin home. People were drifting out of their homes, drawn by the accident at the end of their block. An EMS vehicle had just arrived with its siren and lights going.

“John, this is Kranzie. I got their neighbor lady on the lawn.” In his VR screen he was tracking an elderly woman crossing her yard to get a better view of the crash site.

John isolated her on one of his screens. “Copy that, Kranzie. Good catch. Waiting on the drugs and Vinnie.”

Will swiveled in his seat and glanced up across his panels to John. He dropped his voice. “She didn’t make it back, John.”

John was intent on one of his screens and he automatically replied. “Say again.”

“It’s Julie. She’s dead. She didn’t make it back.” Will hesitated. “I mean, her mind didn’t.”

John sat still for a long moment and took a breath. He didn’t look at Will when he answered very calmly. “Okay.”

Sophia, Newbauer’s administrative assistant, was methodically sorting through a directory of corporate clients on her computer. She heard the outer office door rattle sharply as it swung open. Startled, she saw Quyron stride through with a hostile expression.