Tourists of the Apocalypse (40 page)

My head reels from all the information. I try to sort it out, but wind up sitting down near her and try to order my questions in a meaningful way.

“Why are people going to be evacuating the building?”

“The Inversion Reactor under this building is going to explode in forty minutes give or take,” she tells me, nodding at the cell phone.

“As a result of the pulse bomb?”

She nods.

“And you are responsible for the pulse bomb?”

“Yes, we thought there was a certain irony to using an EMP weapon to disable the reactors’ shutdown protocol. Once it pops, the cooling system goes offline. The reactor will just wind up till it blows.”

“Peddle down till we blow,” I recite under my breath, recalling Izzy saying that in the station wagon.

“Huh,” Lucy asks, tilting her head down to look in my eyes.

I think back to the reactor built by Lance’s people. There is supposed to be a man-made lake next to it that will flood out the reactor if it overloads. They had trouble getting enough water to fill it in West Texas.

“There’s no body of water to stop the reactor from blowing?”

“Impressive,” she chuckles. “You’re not just a sunburnt relic from the past then. Who told you how these things work?”

“I saw one being built.”

“Interesting, and yes there is a retention pond next to the building, but the water will never get anywhere near the reactor. Fear not, this place will be a smoldering crater very soon. You should be happy about this. It will take them a long time, if ever, to get another
Quantum Displacement Tunnel
up and running.”

“A what?”

“Time Machine,” she snorts, always seeming annoyed at my responses.

“And you already set the EMP to blow?”

“It’s inside my car parked in the handicap space right outside,” she winks. “It’s a directional pulse so it will take out the building and some stuff west of here, but the auxiliary lot will be fine. EMP’s are line of sight weapons. Use the car, get to my father and live happily ever after.”

“Okay, so when I come out in the lobby,” I suggest, tapping a finger on the tile next to her thigh. “You’re going to meet us where?”

I am looking at her legs when I say this indicating she doesn’t look like she’s preparing to escape. She stares at me with blank eyes. Her tiny head shakes slowly and she looks annoyed yet again.

“Don’t worry about me. Just make sure you kill anyone you don’t want going through.”

“Going through?” I stutter, confused by the topic change.

“Seventeen people upstairs. The four security guys you’re going to have to kill. The tech guys and the power specialist will run away on their own and you should let them. They aren’t going to be a problem.”

“Two science guys?” I toss out, recalling the list from earlier.

“Flynn and one other,” she nods. “Probably a stuck-up blonde. Do me a personal favor and shoot Flynn.”

“Why?”

“The man invented a time machine,” she bristles. “Just shoot the bastard if you get the chance.”

“Fine.”

“That leaves the eight who are planning to go anyways. You’re taking Isabelle, which leaves seven that might still go through if you leave them alive.”

“Does that matter?”

“Technically no,” she shrugs. “But if they go through, they will be going to a new timeline in which another version of Dylan Townsend resides unaware of what is about to happen.”

“The Apocalypse?”

“That’s kind of a dramatic way to put it, but yes.”

“So, I either shoot them or send them out through the lobby to safety,” I mumble to myself.

“Here,” she blurts out, handing me the gun which I had set down. “Sort them out with this. I recommend you shoot anyone who you’re on the fence about.”

“You were just about to tell me where I can meet up with you?”

“Stop being so passive-aggressive,” she complains. “I’m riding this thing out down here. Just promise to tell my family I took care of this. Make sure my father knows that I did not fail.”

“He’ll know that when he sees me won’t he?”

“He’s pretty hard to impress,” she smirks. “Wait, tell him I killed a guy while I was waiting for you. He will love that. Hell, tell him I shot two if you like. My legend won’t suffer for it.”

Standing, I see a counter running on the wall. It’s reading +20:32 at present. Looking back down I see her smashing a glass vial on the floor and removing another red cigarette. She cuts her hand, putting the bottom side in her mouth and sucking it clean. She is brash and yet frail at the same time. I now find myself in a quandary. I have no problem with the fact that I am about to go upstairs and kill a few people. I resigned myself to do what’s necessary when I left my child behind and came here, but leaving this moppet here to die is bothering me beyond measure.
Why do I care?
This reminds me of Izzy telling me to stop playing God and that we couldn’t save them all.

“You need to be in the elevator in five minutes. EMP goes off in seven and the lift will be disabled temporarily,” she warns.

“It will come back on? I thought EMP’s killed electronics for good?”

“The power will go down; the lift is hardened. Being so close to the reactor it’s shielded,” she explains. “After ten minutes the whole building will switch over to reactor power and you’ll have a chance to get out.”

“It’s quite a plan.”

“Spent my whole life getting ready, the last fifteen years working here and getting the details right,” she grins, lighting the red cigarette and puffing the smoke out of her nose. “It’s perfect.”

“It’s exceptional, but we need to get you out.”

A scowl comes over her face that’s almost scary. She takes a deep drag that burns so hot I can hear it crackle. Holding the smoke in, she shakes her head at me aggressively, then blows the smoke up through her bangs.

“You’re a serious disappointment Dylan,” she blurts and spits on the floor at my feet. “The great Dylan who was willing to wade through hell to get to the woman he loves and avenge her murder. What a crock.”

“I can carry you and then you can come with us.”

“You want to open the elevator door and start shooting with me over your shoulder,” she snarls holding out her hand. “Gimmie that gun you moron.”

I start to hand it to her then freeze.

“Why?”

“So I can shoot you myself,” she snarls. “You’re an unbelievable disappointment.”

“What’s with the death wish Lucy? You don’t want to get on with your life?”

“So what, you’re my life coach now?” she chuckles. “You don’t know me. You don’t have any idea what I went through to get here. Most ludicrous of all is you think any life I could have is worth living.”

“I have some time,” I sigh, checking the clock. “Do tell what’s got you determined to die in an explosion?”

“I so hate you,” she exclaims, her voice cracking at the end as her resolve seems to wane. “You want a history lesson, that’s fine by me. It was between me and my older brother. Given the date you were set to arrive; we were the only kids in the all the families who were the right age. Who do you think they choose to fulfil the prophecy? I can tell you it wasn’t a skinny little girl,” she growls angrily, a single tear running down her cheek. “I wanted this responsibility. I wanted it so badly that I slashed my brother’s throat as he slept to get my name to the top of the list. Have you ever wanted something that much?”

I shake my head, but think about my current situation. Is what I am about to do upstairs any less horrifying?
I am clearly about to kill for Izzy.
This rolls around in my head, but then realize I’m missing the conversation.

“We needed to get the gun in here. As you might imagine the security is a bitch. So at thirteen, my grandfather amputated my legs,” she sighs and pauses, brushing a tear off her cheek. “I’ve been a self-made cripple most of my life just so you could have the gun you currently hold in your hands. Then there was the schooling in things I didn’t like or have an aptitude for. Working here for years, letting perverts grope me to get the necessary information. All this I did to fulfill the prophecy in your little letter. Now, after all that you want to screw it up and make my life count for nothing?”

“I didn’t—.”

“That’s for frigging sure,” she cuts me off. “When you wrote that did you stop to think about what it would take for your little request to be granted? Did you even consider the cost?”

Raking my hands from my forehead back through my hair, I shake my head. It feels like the veins in my forehead are going to explode. Her voice is like fingernails on a blackboard as the manic rant continues.

“Or who had to pay for it?” she complains. “Entire generations of families forced to live outside the wall just to remain near this installation. You’re unbelievable.”

My belly churns and I prepare to be sick, stomach acid bubbling up in my throat. This is like a bad dream that I can’t wake up from. Is it possible that I’m dead and this is some sort of last dream caused by the time bungie thing? What she is telling me cannot be possible. She watches me, smoking through more tears. In all my life I have never felt this disgusted with myself.

“Times up you annoying little prick, but don’t you worry. I have a contingency plan for everything,” she sighs, pulling a glass syringe from her lab coat. “Now, you’re going to go upstairs and do what you have to do. Then you’re going to go meet up with my father and tell him how I made this happen. You be sure to tell him I was amazing.”

Before I can move, she stabs the needle into her thigh and pushes the plunger down. I reach down and wrestle her for it, but it’s too late.

“What was that?”

“Morphine,” she scowls. “I’m about to die of a nasty overdose. Don’t you worry though, I’m going to go out one happy little girl.”

“You’re insane,” I mumble in shock. “Clinically insane.”

“Whatever gets you up that elevator,” she suggests, her speech slurring at the end. “Oh, wow, it’s so warm in here. Mmmm, fuzzy bunnies.”

I watch as she reaches out for an imaginary rabbit. Grasping only air, her eyes close halfway, lids flickering. The clock tells me it’s time to go and unwilling to let all of this be for nothing, I stumble to the lift. While waiting for it to come, I watch her through the glass. She shakes a bit, and then falls over in a pile of medical wrappers torn off things used to save me. Arms hanging at her sides, she doesn’t make any attempt to break her fall as she noses into the refuse. The lift door slides open and I slip inside, swiping the card.

Anger starts bleeding out of me in cold sweat. Unable to direct it at first it burns my eyes from inside my skull. As the levels pass, causing a loud beeping inside the enclosed space, the answer comes to me. I grip the makeshift shotgun assembled from the crazy girl’s legs and grit my teeth.

“In this life or the next.”

…

The gun’s appearance lends itself to a shotgun. It’s a single barrel, but oddly a second tube hangs above it full of shells. Playing with a thumb lever on the forward section of the butt, which is a prosthetic foot, I see that the two barrels spin allowing the user to shoot nine times, then spin to a fresh barrel and begin again. She fired once so seventeen rounds left.

The floor wobbles underneath me before the doors open. I raise the gun to my shoulder and flex my knees. There are two men standing on either side of the door. They are within arm’s reach and I put the barrel on the first man’s head and pull the trigger sending bits of his skull and contents flying onto a smooth black marble floor. I assume they don’t get a lot of intruders up here as the second man flinches from the shot before freezing like a statue. I step out of the lift, turning the gun on him and press the tip against his uniform shirt before pulling the trigger.
You have to break a few eggs.

This entire floor is wide open with the occasional beam running to the ceiling. There’s a huge glowing corridor ahead with electronics in a wheel around it. It reminds me of the Hadron Super Collider in Switzerland. I saw a documentary about it once and they showed a cross section view during repairs when a section of the pipe was removed. A group of people stand in front of it, but the glow is so bright I can’t make out any faces.
Izzy must be among them.
To the right, a bank of monitors and glass top tables with lights dangling over them fills one corner. Several men in white lab coats have stopped and are watching me with horrified expressions.

A third guard who stands between me and the lab coats pulls what I judge to be a Taser device, but he fires into his own foot. After a grisly electrical shock sound he drops to the ground in a seizure like mess. Forgetting him for the moment, I search for the last security man, but fail to see anyone dressed like the first three. I march in the direction of the lab coats, who all drop to the polished stone floor behind various consoles except one. This man is grey haired and studious looking wearing thick black framed glasses. On his wrist is a hexagon bracelet with a blue light glowing dimly. When I get within ten feet of him he speaks to me as if annoyed.
This has to be the guy Lucy was talking about
.

“What on Earth do you think you’re doing?” he barks. “Put that down this instant.”

“Ian Flynn?” I croak, my throat running dry.

“Yes,” he states in a confident tone. “And who are you?”

“Lucy sent me,” I inform him, and then pause before blowing him off his feet.

He lands on his back, hands clutching his chest. At anything but point blank range the shots are more like buckshot than bullets. I step forward, noticing two other men crouched down as I pass. Flynn’s face has run white, his glasses sideways across his nose.

“Anna sent you?” he gasps, eyes wide.

“No, Lucy.”

“Oh,” he sighs looking confused. “I thought it would have been Anna.”

I have no idea who Anna might be or why he is expecting her. I drop the barrel on his chest and fire a second time.
Hopefully this puts an end to time travel.
Turning, I point the gun at the men crouched down and wave a hand at the lift.