Now & Again (29 page)

Kendall covered her hand with his own. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier after awhile, or that you’ll get used to it, but…oh well.” He rolled his shoulders and wore his familiar smile.

Leah watched him and fought off a flood of hopelessness. “I know you’re still my Kendall, but you’re not. You’re him but you’re also other Kendall’s too. It’s…upsetting.” She looked over at Josh. “And Josh is still my little boy, but the more I touch him, the more I feel the others in him touching me back.” The tears ran down her face and she did nothing to stop them.

Kendall had no answers for her. “Can I hold you?”

“I wish you would.”

He gathered her carefully into his arms. She hugged back, tentatively at first, then tighter. “It probably doesn’t help,” he said into her hair. “But just for the record, every one of your husbands love you, Leah.”

Leah’s face remained empty. “I’m sorry. I know you’re being kind but I just keep seeing all the me’s out there, and I can’t stop crying.”

Josh stepped closer and touched her hand. She smiled. He gently kissed her forehead. “All your sons send their love too.”

They stood there together, without saying anything further, until Everett found them. “It’s confirmed,” he reported.

* * *

“It’d be easier if you ordered me to do it.” Echo’s voice was warm. All were gathered around Quyron’s workstation.

“I can’t,” said Quyron gently. “I don’t have the authority.”

“Who does?” Echo asked. “Do I?”

Quyron put both hands on the table and closed her eyes. “Sometimes. But you have to decide on your own. If I were you, I’d focus on what you’ll save. That’s the authority to do it.”

Josh stood by the door listening. “Do what?”

Quyron’s voice was brittle. “End. End the nanos, end Echo. It’s why you came, isn’t it?”

Josh was suddenly uncomfortable. “Oh…”

Echo added to Quyron’s response. “I can order the nanos to stop; they’re simple devices. It may take time to reach them all, but they will be happy to obey.” Her voice was clear and tranquil. “I’m…more complicated.”

Kendall stood close beside Leah, with a hand on her shoulder. “Quyron, what happens to us if Echo…goes? I couldn’t follow your talk in the car, but it seemed to me that you and Dr. Everett were saying…”

“We all go with her.” Quyron pronounced bluntly. “Every line involved with Hahn’s jumpers and all their sub lines and all their adjacent lines. That’s what the math says. That’s how we save the rest.”

“But that’s…You’re talkin’ about whole boxes of universes!” Kendall shook his head in horror. “That’s…there must be a better way to…”

Echo politely cut him off. “I’m sorry but there is not.”

Kendall stopped talking but glowered up toward the voice with a stubborn expression.

Echo continued. “My…elimination will cause instabilities to peak in the affected lines, and bring them down. But their destruction ends the…what you’re calling
waves
. This is the only solution that preserves the multiverse.”

Leah looked stricken as she comprehended the situation. From somewhere outside the room a warbling alarm went off. Everyone automatically glanced in its direction. Their faces held the new understanding of their plight.

Everett was resigned. “Let’s get on with it. Every delay, more worlds die, and our window closes a little more.”

Leah stepped away from Kendall. “Wait! We don’t all have to die. What about Kendall and Josh? They can get out, can’t they? They can jump. And you said the multiverse needs what they can do.
Natural-born jumpers
, that’s what Quyron calls them.”

Kendall reached for her. “Leah, no…”

She spun. “You be quiet. You have no say in this.”

“She has a point,” Everett said to Quyron. “But how would we do it in the time we have? They can only jump into themselves.”

Quyron squinted her eyes. “Maybe…if we got them close to a likely location…I don’t know.”

Kendall shook his head. “No. Stop this. It’s not right. We’re the ones who…”

“You listen this time, Kendall McCaslin!” Leah grabbed his shoulders and faced him. “I need something to hope for. And you and Josh are it.” Kendall opened his mouth but Leah stopped him. “Don’t you dare say one word back at me. Not one! I need you to find a way out. You hear me? Because when the worlds end here, that’s the hope I’m clinging to. Please, do this for me.”

Kendall looked over at Josh and then stopped arguing.

Everett spoke in a clear voice toward the ceiling. “Echo, prep the corporate jet and dispatch a crew. Find a charter field in Cincinnati. We’ll figure everything else out while they’re airborne.”

There was a brief silence until Echo’s voice came brightly back. “Quyron, I hear Dr. Everett’s voice talking, but since I’m not supposed to listen to him, I’ll tell my selves it’s you.”

At the Thurgood Marshall charter terminal, a Learjet perched on the tarmac with its carpeted steps down and engines whining. An airplane mechanic, in Reivers Corporation colors, waved an optimistic signal to the busy pilots in the cockpit.

The Lexus roared up and slid to a stop beside the plane. Quyron and Josh hopped out the front doors while Leah and Kendall hurried out the back. Everyone gathered at the bottom of the steps.

Leah kissed Kendall and tenderly held his face for a final look. “Find me again. I’m depending on you.”

Quyron and Josh stood awkwardly together; neither knew what to say to the other. Quyron suddenly dashed back to the car. Josh watched her. Returning just as quickly, she clipped a tiny phone to his shirt pocket. “Here. It’s slaved to my phone. Everett and I need to iron a few things out with you. And you need to tell us when…” She swallowed uneasily. “When you’re clear.”

Josh shifted his feet. Quyron grimaced. “Oh, what the hell!” She suddenly kissed him fiercely and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Josh responded with a tight hug of his own. They held each other for far too short a time before Quyron straightened up again and took a breath. “You just think about
that
when you find
what’s-her-name
.”

“Hannah.”

“Yeah…Hannah.” Quyron’s welling emotions made her falter through her words. “Now, get your ass on that plane!”

Kendall and Josh quickly climbed on board. The steps were barely yanked up and the door secured before the jet taxied off.

Both women stood with their backs against the car, watching the plane move rapidly to get in line for takeoff. Quyron made a face. “Wanna go buy the most expensive last coffee we can find?”

Leah slowly smiled. “I was thinking about…maybe something a bit stronger.”

* * *

The Learjet touched down on runway 3-R at the Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport. Built beside the Little Miami River, the historic airfield sat on top of lands that were occupied by some of the earliest settlers in the region. The Reivers jet angled sharply onto the left ramp and taxied across the other two runways to the small business hangers. As soon as it came to a stop and began winding down its engines, a gray Mercedes limo approached. The moment the steps touched the ground, Josh and Kendall rushed from the jet and into the car. The limo immediately raced off.

* * *

Inside the quiet and luxurious interior, Josh sat back in the leather seat and looked uncomfortable. The whisper of the wind and the mild sensation of movement were the only clues that they were in motion.

The bulky driver briefly turned around and beamed at them with a mouthful of gold fillings. “Hiya doin’? Name’s Fabiszewski. Just call me Fab.”

Kendall nodded back. “Okay, Fab. I’m Kendall. This is my son, Josh.” Josh shot him a token smile.

“Nice to meet ya. No luggage?”

Kendall shook his head. “We’re travellin’ light. What’d they tell you?”

“They said to go wherever you say.” He grinned again. “And do it fast.”

“Perfect. Head for Big Mac bridge.”

Fab swiveled his head. “You from around here?”

Kendall glanced out the window and lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah…pretty much.”

Fab focused on his driving, now that he had a destination. “Okay. One Big Mac comin’ up. Why you need a bridge?”

Josh spoke up. “Hard to explain in the time we got.”

Fab hit the gas and changed lanes. “We’ll be crossin’ Combs-Hehl bridge to get to 471. How about that one?”

“No. Never used that one much,” Kendall answered. “But we crossed Big Mac all the time. I’m hopin’ a few paths intersect.”

Fab’s face put on a strange look but he kept his thoughts to himself as he drove. “How fast is
fast
?” He asked Kendall.

“Real fast.”

Fab’s face lit up. “You got it.”

* * *

The Mercedes recklessly wove its way through three lanes of traffic as it shot across the Combs-Hehl cantilever bridge over the Ohio River. The girders of the old structure completely enclosed the roadway in a nest of steel, and as they flickered by the windows of the speeding car the experience felt more like passing through an aerial tunnel than crossing a bridge.

In the back seat, Josh was on the phone. “Yeah. We’re in the car. Tell Echo we should be there in…Fab?”

“Ten minutes. Maybe less.” Fab drafted a truck and then swept around it at high speed.

The limo flashed by on I-275 and exited to 471. A few motorists honked at them in disapproval. A highway patrol car, travelling the other way, flipped a U-turn behind them and gave chase.

In the driver’s seat, Fabiszewski picked up the distant lights in his rearview mirror. Even the insulated environment of a Mercedes couldn’t eliminate the rising wail of a police siren.

Kendall glanced back. “No stoppin’ until the bridge.”

“You serious?” Fab asked.

“Dead serious.”

Fab grinned even wider and tromped on the pedal. The powerful Mercedes instantly responded with a new burst of speed.

* * *

The Daniel Carter Beard bridge carried four lanes of traffic each way across a span that connected Newport, Kentucky to downtown Cincinnati. Each side was, in effect, a separate bridge with a 15 foot open space between them. The inside lanes on both sides were bounded by 3-foot concrete barriers which were topped by 5-foot steel mesh fences. The outside lanes kept only the low concrete barrier and vertical cables, set at regular intervals, that attached to the distinctive yellow arches which gave the bridge its local nickname, Big Mac.

The Mercedes swerved around vehicles and climbed the short incline to the bridge. Not far behind, the police cruiser, in full chase mode, with lights spinning and siren going, doggedly tried to close the gap between them.

On the Ohio side, unseen from the bridge, alerted squad cars gathered on the cross-hatched area where the freeway split, three lanes continuing north, and one lane exiting to Columbia Parkway.

Kendall sat forward in his seat. “Fab! Get in the outside lane, now! And stop when I tell you.”

The yellow crisscrossed girders that formed the arches loomed ahead of them, glowing brightly in the sun. Fab fought his way to the outside lane and roared onto the bridge. “Whaddya mean, stop?”

“You heard me!”

“But I got a cop right on my…it’s your funeral.”

Kendall watched the cables click by the window as the car swooped under the arch. He shouted, “Now! Stop!”

Fabiszewski obeyed to the letter. The limo’s tires screamed and bucked as he slammed on the brakes. Bracing himself, Fab kept his eyes glued to his mirror.

In the backseat, Josh held on with both hands. He spoke rapidly into his phone. “Love you! Tell Mom too! And tell Echo it’s time.”

The Mercedes slid to an impressive stop right at the midpoint of the yellow arches – halfway across the river. Around their car, the adjacent vehicles reacted and swerved away. Josh and Kendall leaped out the back doors and sprinted by, on either side of a startled Fabiszewski, sprinting ahead of the car.

The pursuing patrol car, caught by surprise, desperately swerved and braked to miss the Mercedes. It succeeded with that maneuver, much to Fab’s relief, but instead it plowed into multiple vehicles in the next two lanes. One of those cars was shoved into the innermost fast lane and sideswiped cars there. The result was a complete shutdown of all the northbound lanes across the bridge.

All of this remained unseen by Josh and Kendall. They had never looked back. Side-by-side, they charged the low concrete barrier on the outside edge of the bridge and used its flat top to propel themselves high into the air and off the bridge.

Fabiszewski’s eyes widened as he watched through his windshield. “Mother of God!”

* * *

Quyron and Leah sat at the workstation facing the archive. Just outside the glass walls of the office, Everett could be seen calmly standing on a balcony looking into the distance. Leah stared at him. “Does he want us to tell him when we know?”

“No,” Quyron said softly. “He said he’s done.”

“Oh.”

Quyron reached out to briefly touch the three luminous dots and the square blinking in the corner of one of her monitors. “I’ll be very sad to lose you, Echo.”

Echo’s warm voice joined them in the room. “Computational reference for
sad
?”

“There is none,” Quyron answered slowly. “It’s not a calculation…there’s no way to compute it. It’s…”

“I know, Quyron.” Echo said, sadly. “I was just…kidding you.”

Quyron laughed, in the face of everything. “A joke and a tear? My God, woman! How far you’ve come in so short a time!”

The titanium barbell in Quyron’s right ear chimed. She double-tapped it and listened to Josh’s rapid-fire delivery. Her eyes brimmed with sudden tears. “You too…I will.”

She sat still for a heartbeat and then looked at Leah. “Josh said he loves you, too.” Leah gave a tiny nod and looked away.

Quyron used her fingers to clear the tears away from her eyes and sat up straighter. “Okay, Echo. I think we’re ready.” She took a breath and hesitated. “But I…”

“Yes, Quyron?”

“I’m wondering, won’t there be some splits where we don’t ask you to do this? Or we choose something else?”

Echo’s voice was patient. “Yes, no doubt, but I’m everywhere the same. I never make splits. I choose the same way each time.”