The Children Who Time Lost (43 page)

Doug took a few steps forward with Michael. I stood by the door, still studying the area. Michael looked back and urged me forward. When I reached them, we shifted our eyes among the many doors spread around the hall. There were eight—four on each side—in perfect symmetry, each leading to some unknown destination.

“Everything okay, guys?” Curtis said through the earpiece.

We didn’t answer right away.

“Guys?”

“What is this place?” Doug said. “Which path do we take?”

“The third path on the left leads to the archives room. The journal should be there.”

“Where do the other paths lead?” I said.

“This and that. First on the left leads to the portals, but as I said, those sections are quite well-guarded.”

“And where’s the containment chamber?” I said.

Curtis didn’t speak.

“Curtis?”

Curtis coughed through the earpiece. “It’s the fourth on the right.”

Doug started heading right. We chased after him. Michael called out to him, but he didn’t answer. Curtis and Manuel also shouted his name through the earpiece, but he kept walking. I knew how he felt, but his anxiety about seeing his wife could also have led to desperation and mistakes. I shouted his name and he stopped and turned around. He looked at Michael and me with a steel glare but didn’t speak.

Michael held his hands out as if pleading for calm. “I know how you feel, but you don’t know your wife is there.”

Doug just kept scowling.

Michael pointed left. “We know the journal is there and it’s not heavily guarded. Let’s at least get that. We can figure out the rest after.”

I knew deep down that Michael was being sensible, but I understood how Doug felt. I couldn’t see past saving Dylan. I just wanted all of us to be levelheaded about it and avoid costly mistakes.

“I don’t care about the journal,” Doug said. “If Sophie’s in there, I’m gonna save her.”

I turned to Michael. “I’m going with him. If there’s even a chance that Dylan is there, I’ve got to save him.”

Michael shook his head and paced around us. “And if they’re not? What then?”

Neither Doug nor I spoke.

Michael pointed right, toward the path to the containment chamber. “There are Shriniks there. We don’t even know how many.”

“I don’t care,” Doug said. “I’m not leaving my wife.”

“What if she’s dead?” Michael said before looking at me. “What if—”

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t you dare say that.” I stomped toward him, tears falling from my eyes. “My son’s not dead. I know he’s not. And if you won’t help me, I’ll go myself.”

Michael nodded and backed away.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Doug said. “I’m not leaving her to rot in some containment chamber.”

“Guys,” Curtis said, “whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it now.”

I sniffled and wiped the tears from my face. “Is there another way to the archive room from the containment chamber?”

“Yes,” Curtis said, “but you might run into a lot more resistance if you go that way.”

I walked up to Michael. “Will you help me get my son?” I turned toward Doug. “And his wife?”

Michael faced the doors leading left.

“We can always get the journal after,” I said

We stood in silence before Manuel spoke.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but we’re talking about stopping these aliens from messing our planet up. And if we can only do that by finding this journal, I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.”

No one spoke.

“Your son’s probably not here, Rachel,” Manuel said. “And, Doug, I feel your pain, bro, but you know your wife is probably dead.”

Doug scowled. “No, we don’t know that she’s dead, bro. And if you have nothing productive to say, shut your mouth.”

“Guys, listen to yourselves,” Mandy said. “You sound like bickering schoolkids. You’re exposed in there. You need to make a decision now.”

Michael pressed his fingers against his right ear. “Curtis, will you be able to guide us to the journal from the containment chamber?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Fine.” Michael nodded at me and faced Doug again. “We’ll go to the containment chamber first. Then we can go for the journal.”

I ran forward and embraced Michael. Doug patted him on the shoulder and wiped a tear from his eye. “Thanks.” He jogged toward the fourth entrance to our right and we both followed him.

The lights grew dimmer the farther we walked. Then a loud recurring sound, like a hundred generators running at the same time, filled our ears. I grimaced and paused. Michael stopped and ran back to me, asking if I was all right. I nodded and kept walking. Doug turned back around and urged us to hurry with a wave of his hands. We reached a crossroad five minutes later and stopped. The noise was still too loud to hear anything through the earpiece. Michael pulled his cell out and typed a message to Mandy. We stood behind him and watched the screen. A response came seconds later: “Left.”

We proceeded in the same manner, with Curtis relaying messages to us through Mandy, until the noise ceased when we reached our fifth crossroad almost fifteen minutes later. I could now hear Curtis.

“The containment chamber is halfway down this corridor,” he said. “But be careful. There are Shriniks in the room opposite.”

“Experiments?” I asked.

“Yes, but they’re still just as dangerous. These are wild Shriniks. They don’t think, they just kill.”

“Got it,” Doug said. He continued down the path.

We reached two large doors opposite each other in the middle of the corridor after five minutes of walking. Doug gestured for us to wait. He stood between the doors and pulled the binoculars out. He looked through the door to our left and motioned us forward. I closed my eyes and waited. Could Dylan be on the other side?

“Shriniks,” he said when we reached him. “Lots of them.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. All the vines here were covered with fungus. Michael reached out for the binoculars, but Doug shoved his hands away and shook his head. Michael raised his hands in a surrender gesture and retreated. Doug turned around and looked through the other door. This time I left my eyes open. Doug’s hands shuddered and he dropped the binoculars to the floor.

I picked them up and paused. Was Dylan there? Did I really want to see what had made Doug react like that? I looked through the door. Then I swallowed and felt sick to the bone at what I saw. There were at least forty glass chambers with naked men and women inside. Long cables attached to every corner of their bodies and through their mouths and noses ran to the ceiling.

“Oh my God.” I kept looking but didn’t see anyone else. No children, no babies. I almost felt relief that Dylan wasn’t there, but at the same time anguish. Where was he? Would I ever see him again?

“What?” Mandy said. “What is it?”

Michael took the binoculars from me and looked through them. He lowered his hands seconds later and looked at me with shocked eyes. Doug scowled and threw himself against the door, but it didn’t budge. He drew the small silver gun from the future and held it up, but I pushed his hand down.

“We can’t do that. It’ll make too much noise.”

He glared at me.

“Curtis,” I said, “do you know how we can get in here without making too much noise?”

“The green control panel to the top right of the door,” Curtis said. “See it?”

We all looked up and saw it at the same time. It was a transparent lime-green circuit breaker with red buttons.

“Got it,” I said.

“You’ve got to open the cover and shoot it. There’s no other way. Noise will be minimal.”

I nodded at Doug, who put the alien gun away. “Spot me,” I said.

Doug gave me a boost, and the cover to the circuit breaker was open within seconds. Doug eased me back to the floor and we both stood aside. Then Michael raised his silenced Glock and fired. Green sparks flew out, but Curtis was right—the noise was minimal. Seconds later, the door opened.

“You haven’t got long,” Curtis said. “The breach will be detected soon.”

Doug ran in after the door opened. Michael stood by the door and held his right ear. “How long?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes, tops.”

Michael and I ran into the room. Doug stood in the center and looked around him at the men and women in the containment chambers. They looked as if they had been experimented on for weeks, their bodies butchered. A tear dropped from my eye as I scoured the room.

“Sophie,” Doug screamed.

I followed his gaze to a young woman, maybe in her twenties. I couldn’t tell her hair color in the green liquid that covered her body. He ran to her, and we followed. In addition to the cables inside her body, there were openings everywhere.
How can anyone do this? This is worse than death.

I looked at everyone else in the chambers. There were more men than women, but I didn’t recognize any. I looked at Sophie again, and then it hit me. I had seen her before. I glanced at the woman beside her. She had short hair and a mole above her lip.
Megan Forrester. This can’t be real.

I scrambled from chamber to chamber, studying the rest of the women.

Michael ran to me. “What is it?”

“It’s them. All of them,” I said.

“What’re you talking about?”

“I recognize seven of these women.” I ran back toward Doug and stared at his wife. “I recognize her, too. Their pictures were all over the news in 2022.” I grimaced and faced the floor. “I might have been a child then, but I never forgot their faces. These are the women who were lost in the portal with the children who came back here.”

We all studied the women. “What about these other women?” Michael said. “Or the men, for that matter? Who are they?”

“They could be anyone,” Curtis said through the earpiece. “They experiment on humans from all over.”

After all that time, they were still alive. I couldn’t believe it. But where were the children? Where was Dylan?

“We need to release her.” Doug said. No one spoke back. He looked into our eyes and growled. “We need to release all of them.”

“If you do,” Curtis said, “they’ll all die. They now need the machine to live. Their lives have been drained.”

Doug dropped to his knees and burst into tears. He pressed his hands against the glass holding his wife, his hands unsteady. I knelt to console him but didn’t know what to say.

“Doug,” Curtis said. “I’m so sorry for all of this. I hoped your wife wouldn’t be here. But you’ve got to let her go. There’s nothing you can do for her.”

Doug didn’t seem to hear anything any of us had to say. He just kept looking at his wife.

“There must be a way we can save them,” I said. “Curtis?” He didn’t answer. I looked at Michael. “What about your doctor? Can he do something?”

Michael faced the floor.

“There’s only one thing we can do to save them,” Curtis said. “And that is to let them die.”

“How long will they have outside of this thing?” Michael said.

“Ten minutes,” Curtis said, “maybe a bit more.”

“I’ll take that,” Doug said. He stood up with purpose. “I’m not leaving my wife here to suffer. If there’s one thing I can do for her, it’ll be to give her a true death.”

Michael took a step back and nodded.

“How do I get it open?” Doug said into the earpiece.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Curtis said.

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. To the right of the chamber should be three buttons. They’re green, yellow and red. The red drains the liquid, the green opens the chamber and the yellow will remove the cables from her body.”

Doug charged forward, but Curtis’ voice came again.

“If you do this, there’s no going back. If you take those cables out, she’ll have no more life support.”

Doug looked at Michael and me. Then he pushed the red button. The liquid inside Sophie’s chamber gushed out through the bottom. She coughed water from her lungs and thrashed like a fish thrown onto dry land. Doug looked at us with scared eyes.

“What’s happening?” he shouted into the earpiece. “Why’s she shaking like that?”

“Sever the cables,” Curtis said. “Now.”

Doug pressed the yellow button and the cables retracted from Sophie’s body and hung loose in the air. She slumped down and rested on the glass, specks of blood where the cables had been. Doug pushed the green button and ran to catch her when the glass opened. She shuddered in his arms, but her thrashing had ceased. He laid her on the floor and held her head up. She blinked rapidly and her mouth twitched. Doug rocked her like a baby. I felt horrible, as if it were my own flesh and blood lying there, close to death. I remembered the sick feeling I’d had in my stomach when Lorenzo ordered Kevin’s death. Then I thought of Dylan’s scared face when Lorenzo had started to change. I shuddered when I thought about what must have been going through his little head. Visions of Madeline surged into my head, too. It was the same vision of her falling to her death, but she wasn’t screaming this time. Instead, she stared at me without fear, smiling as if to tell me she forgave me for letting her die so young. I grabbed my chest and stopped myself from heaving. I’d endured two members of my family dying, and my son abducted, and there was nothing I could have done to help them. I looked at Doug again and understood exactly what he was feeling.