‘And that’s what saved your life, while every other living thing on the Moon and Earth was wiped out?’
‘Maybe.’ Mitchell shrugged. ‘At least I can’t think of any other explanation. The next thing I remembr is being revived, and I couldn’t believe it when I learned I’d been brought back into my own past. I remember staring through the window at things I was sure I’d never see again – things like trees, birds, grass. They started interrogating me straight away, but there wasn’t much I could tell them.’
‘Then you broke out?’
‘I had to, because by then I’d started to remember things. After that, it was just a matter of time before I figured a way out.’
‘And then you came looking for me,’ said Jeff.
Mitchell smiled softly. ‘And then I came looking for you.’
Jeff had hugged himself, as if warding off a chill.
A metal panel, set into Arcorex’s main entrance, flashed from red to green as Jeff approached. He half expected alarms to begin blaring the moment he crossed the threshold, but, once again, nothing happened.
Get a grip
, he told himself. As far as anyone else was concerned, he was just another member of staff coming in for an all-nighter.
Jeff swiftly crossed an atrium, partly lit by moonlight spilling down through angled panes of glass, and walked past a reception area, where a single security guard sat on a mesh-backed chair. The man flicked his eyes towards the new arrival for a moment, then returned his attention to a bank of screens. Jeff gave him a bare nod and continued across the expanse of polished marble until he arrived at a row of elevators.
As the elevator carried him below ground level, his UP began flashing a standard warning that he was now entering a high-security area. When the doors hissed open, he found himself at one end of a whitewashed corridor that was bleakly illuminated by strip lights. Mitchell had said he remembered seeing the letters B3 painted on one wall, which would mean he had been held in the lowest basement level, where all artefacts from Site 17, and other far-future locations, were analysed under strictly controlled conditions.
He moved further down the corridor, peering in through windows at labs where often incomprehensible alien machinery was X-rayed, chemically tested, blasted with radiation or simply picked apart by teams of engineers. He finally stopped and looked around, feeling frustrated. There was nowhere they could possibly be keeping Mitchell down here. In that case, how could he . . . ?
Of course. How could he have forgotten?
Beyond the labs, there was an emergency ward at the very far end of the corridor; but, given Arcorex’s excellent safety record, the ward had never been used – at least until now. If they were going to keep Mitchell anywhere, it would be there.
He turned a corner and kept walking, until he reached a door where the corridor ended. Looking in through a window, he spotted four hospital-style beds, all of them vacant, but noticed an airlock at the far end of the ward that clearly led into a separate isolation unit. He entered the room, squeezed inside the tiny airlock, before using a standard staff-access code to unlock the door beyond.
He found the other Mitchell lying there on a single-size cot, various pieces of medical equipment arranged around him and an intravenous tube taped to one wrist. Jeff half expected him to open his eyes and say
Gotcha
. It was exactly the same man he’d left waiting for him outside – but, at the same time, it wasn’t.
It was at that moment he decided to think of the man lying on the cot as ‘Present-Mitchell’. Working carefully, he pulled the tube loose from Present-Mitchell’s wrist. Present-Mitchell moaned and shifted in response.
‘Okay, Mitch, got to wake up.’ Present-Mitchell grunted and tried to push Jeff away with weak hands, as he tried to persuade him to sit up. The man’s eyes flickered open, but failed to focus on Jeff’s face. His paper pyjamas crinkled noisily as Jeff finally dragged him upright, and he nearly slid to the floor while being helped off the cot.
‘Hey . . .’ Present-Mitchell finally mumbled, looking around himself. ‘What . . . ?’
‘C’mon,’ Jeff urged. ‘Time to get moving.’ He propped Present-Mitchell up against one wall, then slapped him hard on the cheek, desperate to get him to focus. It wouldn’t be too long before those security teams he’d seen patrolling the grounds eventually worked their way round to the basement area.
Jeff pulled his hand back to deliver another slap, but Present-Mitchell reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist, spinning him around and locking one arm around his neck like a vice. Jeff was far too startled to resist.
‘What . . . ?’ Mitchell’s voice wavered, but his grip was remarkably strong, despite the drugs ‘. . . what the
fuck
are you doing with me?’
His grip suddenly loosened, and Jeff pulled free as Present-Mitchell crumpled to the floor, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath.
Jeff stepped around behind him, pulling him up under the shoulders. Present-Mitchell seemed to come awake once more, and feebly reached out in an attempt to steady himself. He didn’t resist this time, as Jeff helped him get upright, with one arm flung around Jeff’s shoulders.
‘Okay,’ Jeff gasped, turning them both around until they faced the airlock. ‘We’re getting out of here. You ready?’
Present-Mitchell shook his head like a man in a trance. ‘Jeff,’ he mumbled, ‘it’s you, isn’t it? What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Getting you out of here. Weren’t you listening?’
‘Out?’ Mitchell coughed, then sneezed wetly. ‘Okay, good. But I need to lie down first . . .’
‘No!’ Jeff saw Present-Mitchell’s eyes start sliding shut again. As he dragg me?&rs further, he heard him mumble something else, but by then had managed to manoeuvre him out through the airlock.
Just then, Future-Mitchell contacted him from outside. ‘You got him?’
‘Yeah, I got him,’ Jeff replied. ‘You sure all that shit in the back of the van is wired up right?’
‘Who are you talking to?’ mumbled Present-Mitchell, hearing only Jeff’s side of the conversation.
‘You,’ Jeff replied curtly.
‘It’s wired up just fine,’ Future-Mitchell assured him. ‘Do you want me to send the van in now?’
‘In a couple of minutes,’ Jeff replied, then cut the connection.
‘Hey,’ Present-Mitchell seemed suddenly more alert, ‘what’s going on?’
‘We’re getting you out of here, remember?’
Present-Mitchell grabbed one of Jeff’s hands. ‘First you tell me where the fuck we are, Jeff. Then you tell me what’s going on.’
‘I’m here to rescue you, you dumb bucket of shit,’ Jeff snapped. ‘They brought you here all the way from Site 17 and, unless you do what I say, they’re either going to keep you in here for ever or cut you open to try and figure out how you survived. Now, come on.’
This time, Present-Mitchell didn’t resist as Jeff dragged him out into the corridor. But an alarm began to wail, the sound of it loud and abrasive, before they were even halfway to the elevator.
Jeff felt his insides turn to ice water. That was it. They were screwed.
‘I can walk,’ Present-Mitchell slurred, trying to push him away.
‘No, you can’t,’ Jeff snapped. ‘But just try and stay awake.’
He hauled him inside the elevator, the sound of the alarm becoming more muted once the doors closed and the car began to rise. He then pushed the semi-comatose man against one wall, holding him upright.
‘I’m fine,’ Present-Mitchell mumbled. Jeff peered into his eyes and saw that he did, in fact, look a little more awake than just a few moments before. He stepped away and this time Present-Mitchell managed to stay upright without any help.
The doors slid open and Jeff found himself staring down the barrels of three Cobras aimed at their heads. He reached out to hit the close button, but one of the three guards stepped forward, jamming his boot against the door before it could slide all the way shut.
The next minute passed in a blur. One of the guads reached inside and grabbed Jeff by the shoulder, before dragging him out of the elevator and pushing him face-first down against the polished marble floor. As his arms were wrenched behind his back, he was conscious of the alarm still braying discordantly. Jeff glanced to one side to see another guard securing Present-Mitchell similarly, while the third one kept his Cobra trained on them both.
Light flickered across the polished marble, and Jeff lifted his head slightly to glance at the glass doors at the main entrance. He saw Future-Mitchell’s van accelerating straight towards them, flames billowing out of its open windows.
Someone shouted a strangled warning just before the driverless vehicle rammed through the double doors in a shower of glass, then continued on across the atrium before ramming into the reception desk. The sound of the impact was loud enough to drown out even the wail of the alarm.
Jeff felt the intense pressure on his back suddenly relax. The three guards seemingly had forgotten them, and were firing wildly at the van, while backing away from it. Clouds of choking black smoke spilled out of the van’s windows and began to fill the entire atrium. Though several large windows shattered under the impact of stray bullets, it was a still and windless night, so the smoke lingered, quickly reducing visibility to barely more than a few metres in any direction.
Jeff scrambled upright, while Present-Mitchell simply stared around in abject confusion. Whatever they’d been pumping into his veins, Jeff reckoned, it must have been powerful stuff. He leaped up, and once again helped the other man to his feet. They then stumbled out through a shattered floor-to-ceiling window, and into the cold night air, coughing desperately.
Jeff heard the screech of rubber on tarmac, and turned to see the sedan that Mitchell had stolen come bumping down the manicured slope separating the Arcorex building from its car park. It swerved to avoid several bushes, then crashed to a halt at the foot of the slope. Future-Mitchell leaned out of the driver’s window, gesturing frantically.
While Jeff dragged his half-comatose ward after him, Future-Mitchell jumped out and took hold of his doppelgänger’s other arm, helping Jeff guide him into the back seat, where he slumped with a groan. Shouting erupted from behind.
Future-Mitchell slid back behind the wheel and reversed hard, before Jeff had a chance to pull himself fully on to the front passenger seat. The sedan accelerated backwards, at an angle, up the landscaped slope, and Jeff managed to haul himself all the way inside just as the vehicle came crashing down level again at the top of the slope. Gunfire sliced the chill air, and a rear passenger window exploded to his right. Jeff immediately ducked, the side door still swinging open as Future-Mitchell spun the vehicle through a hundred and eighty degrees.
‘Keep your fucking heads down!’ he screamed, twisting the wheel.
The sedan rammed into something Jeff couldn’t see, slewed around, then accelerated away once more. As the door swung back towards Jeff, he managed to grab hold of it, finally pulling it shut as further shots echoed around them. He hunched over, paralysed with fear, as he imagined those bulles tearing into his own soft and vulnerable flesh.
The car screeched to a sudden halt, then accelerated once more. Jeff pulled himself slowly upright, to see they were back on the highway.
‘I think we’re out of range now,’ announced Future-Mitchell, with a look of grim determination. ‘How is he?’
A total of three windows had been blown out, and there were also several large holes in the sedan’s roof. Jeff squeezed the upper half of his body between the two front seats, the sedan reconfiguring itself, and becoming slightly wider, in order to allow him more room. He glanced back at Present-Mitchell, who still lay sprawled on the rear seat. His eyes were closed, but his lips moved, and Jeff could hear him mumbling incoherently.
‘Well?’ asked Future-Mitchell, sounding tense. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Why? Don’t you remember?’
Future-Mitchell grunted. ‘Point taken.’
Jeff glanced through the shattered rear window to see that Arcorex had already vanished into the distance. ‘Can they catch us, do you reckon?’
‘I don’t know,’ Future-Mitchell replied, as he swung the sedan on to a turn-off leading back towards Omaha. ‘They’ll know who we are as soon as they check the surveillance recordings. What happens after that depends on whether they choose to tell the police or not. Personally, I’m guessing not.’ He glanced over his shoulder at his doppelgänger. ‘Is he still unconscious?’
‘Completely.’ Jeff nodded. ‘He’ll probably sleep for a day before he even begins to wake up again.’
It wasn’t long before they arrived back at the motel, where Future-Mitchell helped Jeff haul their unconscious charge up to the room. They dumped him on the bed, and Jeff glanced back and forth between his two companions.
‘No matter what you tell me, or how much you try to explain,’ said Jeff, gazing down at the prone figure sprawled on the bed, ‘this does not get any less weird.’
Future-Mitchell nodded. ‘Imagine how
I
feel.’
The man on the bed snorted and his eyes briefly flickered open. He mumbled something, and made motions as if he was about to sit up, but his eyes slowly slid shut again and soon he resumed snoring.
‘Okay,’ said Jeff, nodding towards the door. ‘I guess that’s it. Now we go get Olivia, then head for Florida and the Array.’