Innocent Bystander (21 page)

“Why have you done this to us?”
The chorus of voices, bitter and malevolent, demanded an answer.

“I didn’t do anything,” Burnett protested.

His denial further infuriated the souls behind the query. “
Why? Why have you done this to us?”
The question grew deafening in his ears.

The charred remains of Los Angeles spread out to the horizon in every direction. The people, the cars, the buildings, and the endless rows of palm trees had vanished in seconds.

In the distance, the gigantic mushroom cloud billowed toward the heavens. A peculiarity in the light and dark shadows caught his attention. Within the churning caldron he witnessed the shadows morph into the shape of Henri’s final, mysterious equation. The clouds swirled and roiled, but the equation remained stationary.

He gaped at it, spellbound by its awe-inspiring power. Still, its meaning eluded him. Nothing existed with which to compare it. To Burnett, it bordered on nonsensical.

However, its influence was undeniable. The unique, bizarre combination of numbers, letters, and shapes pulsed as if alive. It almost felt as if the thing was calling to him.

“Why?”
The voices shouted from behind.

He barely heard. The equation commanded his full attention.

“Why?”
The chorus refused to be ignored.

Hypnotized by the equation, he could neither speak nor move.

The disembodied voices surrounding him cried out in unison, determined to be heard. Soon the volume became unbearable. Pressure inside his head expanded, like some terrible beast clawing its way through his skull.

Just when he thought he could no longer stand it, his body shook. The scorched rubble of the City of Angels faded. Blackness enveloped him while an unbearable fear, compounded by extreme cold, engulfed him.

I failed. I couldn’t stop the world’s destruction
. As the cold suffused his being and fear swelled to terror, his strict Catholic upbringing advised him there was only one thing left to do—pray.

His mind scoured its depths for the perfect prayer. Before he could locate one, or create one for the moment, he felt his body being shaken.

“You okay?” a soothing female voice asked.

Inside the blackness he noticed a diffuse light. With every ounce of energy he could summon, he concentrated on it. When it came into focus he recognized it as a porch light. Someone grabbed his arm and shook him again.

“Hey, you still with me?” the female voice asked. This time he recognized it as Emma’s.

In an instant it all came back to him. They were hiding from the police behind Dr. Stone’s house. “Yeah,” he said, with no conviction.

“Thank God.”

Her voice sounded distant, his responsibility for humanity’s fate near.

The rain had stopped, but his damp shirt stung in the chilly wind that had whipped up. His legs, now numb, begged to regain some feeling.

Although he now knew where he was, the horror of the nightmare lingered. He feared he might be losing touch with reality. What if the “dream” was real and the crisis with Desmond a dream?
What if I’m already responsible for the deaths of countless millions?

Something inside insisted his dream hadn’t happened, yet he remained unsure how certain he could be. His knowledge of physics reminded him that time and reality were ninety-nine percent subjective.

The astonishing sight of Henri’s equation, stationary within the mushroom cloud’s swirling shadows, appeared in his mind. Though he’d endured the nightmare numerous times, he’d never noticed this. Had the dream changed, or had he simply missed it before?

“Bad dream?” Emma asked.

Burnett nodded without thinking. Then he realized she probably couldn’t see his nod in the dark.

The time had come. He needed to tell her about the dream. It no longer mattered if she thought he was crazy or losing his mind. If he continued to keep it to himself, he
would
lose his mind. “You know how Henri had been having that dream, and Audrey claimed to know all about it because she was from the future,” he said, not as a question but a statement.

“Of course. Why was he so reluctant to tell me about it?”

“Probably for the same reason I’ve been. For the past six nights I’ve had the same dream. Nightmare would be a more appropriate word.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I could. Henri refused to let me read his paper. Wouldn’t even tell me the subject. But once he told me about his nightmare, I had to read it. When I got to the bottom of the last page I felt a jolt of energy surge through me. Like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. I can’t explain it. But that night I had the same dream. And every night since.”

She remained silent beside him. He assumed she had no clue how to respond. That was okay since he had nothing further to add.

At least he’d told her, and that alone provided enormous relief. One of the heavier weights trying to drown him had been cast off.

His thoughts returned to Henri’s paper, the final equation in particular, and he tried to imagine what his friend had uncovered. Burnett suspected it was during or after one of his visits to the East Village that he’d written the paper, and more important, conceived the equation. In such a fertile environment there was no telling what kinds of ideas might have been bandied about. He needed to know more about what went on when Henri spent a weekend in Manhattan.

He pressed his memory in an attempt to recall whether Henri had ever mentioned anything specific about his visits to the city; something that might explain the strange nightmare or the stranger shock he felt. The harder he tried to force his memory to cooperate, the more it rebelled. The only response his brain offered was the onset of a retaliatory migraine.

Perhaps Henri had told Emma.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” Burnett said.

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I don’t know what to either. But I need to find out what the hell’s going on. One more reason I have to get a hold of Henri’s laptop. Somehow there’s a connection between the paper he was working on and the dreams.”

“How is that possible?” she asked.

“I have no idea. But I need to ask you something. What do you know about the trips Henri took to the East Village?”

Emma responded with a long, frustrated sigh. “He became obsessed with that. He told me he was only going once a month, but I know he went more often. Especially the last few weekends.”

“I know he met with some people. Do you know what they talked about? Who he met with?”

She waited a long time before answering. “He wanted to join this group, some super-exclusive, high IQ group. I think they’re called the Meta Society or Mega Society. Something like that. They literally accept only one person in a million. One of the guys he met with was a member. I think Henri took the test and just missed getting in. You know how he was with tests.”

Burnett arched a knowing eyebrow.

“Anyway, he was devastated at not getting in. He was determined to prove them wrong. I think that was a driving force behind his paper as much as passing the class. I also thought it was the reason he didn’t want anyone to read it.”

“So he wanted to blow everyone’s mind,” he said.

“Sounds like maybe he did.”

“I know they discussed some pretty exotic stuff.”

“Weird stuff,” she said. Once again she paused before continuing. “He told me once they spent an entire weekend figuring out the odds of the earth being swallowed by a black hole. Crazy things like that.”

“How many of them were there?”

“Four in all. One was a Nobel Prize nominee. I think he went to Yale. Another was a professor from Brown. I can’t remember the third one.”

Burnett’s mind raced. The Nobel Prize nominee was probably Lawrence Eggelson. He’d been nominated for his work in astrophysics when he was the department chairman at Columbia.

Henri had applied to Columbia, but aside from math and physics, his grades were mediocre.

Last Burnett had heard, Eggelson was living in the Upper East Side, though it was rumored he was now a recluse. Perhaps Henri had convinced him to catch the 6 train down to the village once a month.

Burnett couldn’t imagine who the professor from Brown was, but knew of his friend’s long-standing fascination with Ivy League schools.

He leaned forward. “With that kind of brainpower helping him, it’s no surprise he came up with something extraordinary.” He leaned back, disappointed. “Still doesn’t explain the reactions he and I had.”

“What would?” she asked.

He tried to assemble the pieces, but too many were missing. Henri and his colleagues had discussed exotic subjects like black holes. No doubt they debated a topic like time travel as well. Four geniuses seated around a table, at least one as eccentric as Henri. There was probably no fear of ridicule; all four freely spoke their minds. It was his private think tank in the middle of the East Village.

The first hint of awareness twitched across the base of his brain. It rose higher and higher. Intuitively he understood, yet at that instant he couldn’t verbalize it.

His pulse hastened. Had Henri done it? If so, he hadn’t been the first.

Years ago Burnett had been leafing through a dog-eared copy of
Nature
. In an interview, Edward Whitten, the distinguished theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study, a man who’d been awarded every honor the field has to offer except the Nobel prize, expressed his belief that string theory was twenty-first-century physics uncovered in the twentieth.

Like many radical new ideas, it encountered considerable resistance early in its life. Only after decades of scrutiny had it been granted a degree of mainstream acceptance.

Had Henri done the same thing? What if, as a result of one of his East Village meetings, he stumbled upon something not meant to be discovered for decades or more; something the rest of the world had not yet even imagined; a twenty-second-century concept uncovered in the twenty-first?

“What would explain it?” Emma asked for what was probably the fourth time. She touched him on the shoulder.

Burnett decided he’d shocked her enough for one night. Besides, he wasn’t a hundred percent sold on his theory. At that moment his previous suspicion seemed more likely, that his “dream” was real and his crisis with Desmond a dream. “I don’t know.”

“I thought I’d lost you there again.”

Burnett responded with an ironic chuckle.

“So how do we find out what’s going on?” Emma asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said, uncertain how else to respond. Then he spoke the next thought that entered his mind. “But it sure seems like someone or something is trying to tell me something.”

“Something?” Emma said, emphasizing each word. “You’re starting to scare me.”

“This is no ordinary dream,” he said. The person to talk to was Desmond. Burnett needed to know whether he’d had the same reaction to the paper and the equation.

“Talk to me,” Emma said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Sometimes I’m not even sure I’m really here.” He hadn’t intended to say it; it simply slipped past his defenses.

“What?”

“How do I know this isn’t the dream? Maybe I survived the nuclear holocaust I caused, and now I’m dreaming about the past.”

“How?” Emma said with an oddly flat tone. “I’ll show you how.” She kissed him on the mouth; not a long kiss, maybe three or four seconds.

After she pulled away, he licked his lips and tasted her strawberry lip gloss. The exquisite sensations of those three or four seconds returned. He clenched the moment like a drowning swimmer clenches a life raft.

The most beautiful woman he’d ever met had just kissed him. For two years he’d watched Henri treat her poorly more than he treated her well—disappearing into the city, not showing up for dates, not being there when she’d needed him. Burnett had kept his envy stuffed down deep for a long time.

Then, like a demon vomited up from his unconscious, came the question:
Did she kiss me just to make a point?
Emma, the woman he’d pretended to have no interest in beyond friendship, had just kissed him, and he couldn’t determine if she’d been motivated by passion or something more dispassionate.

The moment was over. The fate of the world once again forced its way center stage. A heaviness filled his body, heavier and darker than before.

The ICBM arced overhead and entranced Desmond, as it did every night. He twisted his head and watched the missile descend upon Central Park. A brilliant flash engulfed the city.

That was the trigger he had created to awaken inside his dream. As the mushroom cloud surged skyward, and the torrent of debris swept outward, he realized he was dreaming. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, he raised his hands and the effects of the blast curved away from the financial district. A moment later the cloud vanished.

All became still. He floated a thousand feet above the remains of central Manhattan, and wondered what in God’s name was going on. Every night the ICBM, the mushroom cloud, the devastation, and every night the disembodied voices blaming him for the horror. How could a paper on time travel cause such destruction?

Perhaps he felt a hint of guilt about placing his name on Henri’s paper; maybe a smidge more guilt about the young man’s unfortunate decision to jump from his balcony. He understood. His unconscious had taken on the dream because he had a conscience.

“Why the exact same dream every night, though?” He posed the question as if speaking to another person. A moment later he regretted asking when the familiar chorus chimed in,
“Why have you done this to us?”

“I’ve done nothing,” he said. Despite his protests, the refrain, as always, grew louder and more animated. Soon it reached a level he could not tolerate. He had arrived at the moment in the dream where he would normally awaken. He clenched his teeth and waited. This time he did not awaken.

He slid past the point where he felt his skull would burst. His objections only intensified the pain. The accusations echoed like cracks of thunder inside his head. Unable to endure the agony one second longer, he screamed, “Stop!”

Silence ensued.

“What is going on? I have never heard of dreams like this, not even lucid dreams. I don’t know what this is, but it would be nice if I could get something a little more useful from it. Could I find out how well my paper will be received?”

He turned and realized he now stood before a podium. A brilliant spotlight forced him to squint. Hundreds of people crowded the hall. He searched their faces and recognized many of his fellow instructors from the university seated in the first few rows.

It could only mean one thing. His paper had impressed the right people, and he had received a prestigious award. He glanced down to check the notes for his acceptance speech.

The final page of the time travel paper rested on the podium beneath the microphone. At the bottom of the page, the mysterious equation, highlighted in bold type, called to him.

He looked up and noticed the crowd’s attention not on him, but on a spot high above his head. Behind him, an enormous screen displayed the equation two hundred feet across.

When his gaze fell back to the podium, he realized the other four pages of the paper were missing. He searched the floor around him and beneath the podium, but they were nowhere to be found.

“Why have you done this to us?” three hundred people boomed in unison. “Why have you done this to us?” The words reverberated through the hall.

“I did nothing,” he replied out of habit. He shut his eyes. When he opened them, the audience had swelled to thousands.

“Why have you done this to us?” the crowd bellowed.

“Stop!” Desmond demanded, and the audience fell silent. “How about someone telling me where Burnett is hiding.”

No one spoke. As he formulated a follow-up question, Dr. Stone, who had been seated in the second row, stood and cleared his throat.

“Why?” Stone asked.

Desmond waited for more, but his colleague remained silent.

“Do you know where Burnett is?” Desmond asked.

“Why?” Stone repeated.

Desmond stared at him, plagued by uncertainty. Why was Stone the only one standing? Why was he the only one who had spoken?

He knows. More than that, he is hiding Burnett.

Before he could question Stone further, he awoke. This time there was no need to survey the room to orient himself. He knew where he was and, despite his lack of sleep, felt sharp. Beside him rested an empty pillow. How he wished he could share his excitement with someone.

Was it just a dream?
His recurring nightmare had proved anything but ordinary. Since reading the time travel paper, it felt like something had taken ahold of his mind while he slept and dragged it through the same horrible episode every night. Could that same ‘something’ have bestowed Burnett’s location upon him?

He recognized the absurdity of the question. While he suspected the human mind was capable of far more than most realized, he did not subscribe to any of that psychic drivel like remote viewing or clairvoyance. Awake or asleep, it made no difference—some things were simply not possible.

Yet he could not escape the gnawing suspicion that he had been provided valuable information. In two ways it made sense. Burnett was in one of Stone’s classes. And Stone was the kind of bleeding heart who would offer help, even if it meant placing his family at risk.

Burnett remained the primary obstacle to his aspirations. Although Ryder would probably kill him just for disturbing him again, never mind what he would do if Burnett was not there, he decided to take a gamble.

He snatched the phone from its cradle on the nightstand and punched in Ryder’s number. The man answered on the first ring. Caught off guard, Desmond could think of nothing to say.

“Better be calling to apologize for that fiasco you put me through last night,” Ryder said.

Technically it is still the same night
. “I know where Burnett and the girl are hiding. Less than two miles from here. A professor from the school.”

“How the hell do you know this?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Ryder spouted a string of profanities and hung up.

Desmond stared at the phone, then lowered it to the bed. An astounding, if bizarre, opportunity had presented itself, and if Burnett really was there, he didn’t want to pass it up. The phone rang. He raised it to his ear.

“What’s the address?” Ryder asked.

“33 Ardsley Place. Right here in—”

“If he ain’t there, I’ll kill you instead. And charge your wife for the hit.”

Before he could reply, a dial tone buzzed in the handset. He staggered into the bathroom, turned on the cold water, and splashed some across his face. Then he gazed at his reflection:
What have you done?

* * *

At 11:45 p.m. Detective Mayweather stepped from the black sedan. Farrow exited the driver’s side and slammed the door. The police station parking lot was well-lit but quiet at this hour.

Mayweather had informed his partner of his conversations with Burnett, but had chosen to reveal few details. He’d emphasized repeatedly how he’d encouraged Burnett to turn himself in. Much to his regret, he’d also mentioned how Henri Laroche had tinkered with Burnett’s phone, enabling him to use it with anonymity.

Farrow had barely spoken during the ride from Desmond’s home. A couple of questions, uttered with annoyance and frustration, were all he’d asked. Mayweather had gotten the impression his partner was more disappointed in him than angry, like a father scolding his son when he knew the child should have known better.

From the route they’d followed, Mayweather knew their destination long before they arrived. He also knew the reason for their return to the station at this hour.

Farrow strode around the sedan and stood beside him.

“You’re going to call him back, and we’re going to find out where he’s hiding,” Farrow said. “Or at least as close as we can get.”

He despised Farrow’s condescending tone. Since there was little he could do about it, he swallowed his anger.

“We’ll see to it your name shows up on his caller ID,” his partner added. “That’ll encourage him to answer.”

A silver Prius lurched into the parking lot and stopped alongside them. The acoustic guitar of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” carried through the closed windows.

Benton Crowhurst exited the vehicle. He stifled a yawn and, elbows resting on the roof, gazed at Farrow.

“Sorry to drag you out of bed,” Farrow said.

“Eh, sleep is overrated anyway,” Crowhurst said. He scratched his scraggly salt-and-pepper beard and walked toward the station. Mayweather and Farrow jogged a couple of steps and caught up with him.

“Some new information’s come to our attention,” Farrow said. “Burnett’s still using his phone, but he’s done something to make himself invisible. How close can you get to his location if we make a connection?”

“Depends on a bunch a factors,” Crowhurst replied. “First and foremost is what he’s done to the thing. If he’s invisible, he must have disabled the GPS system. At the very least I can tell you what tower’s being used.”

“How much time will you need, once a connection’s established?”

“Again, depends. Since I don’t know what he’s done, I can’t tell you much ’til you engage the call. If you want more than a tower, I may need a minute.”

Farrow turned to his partner. “Can you keep him talking that long?”

He’d given Burnett his chance. He’d risked getting suspended, or worse, on more than one occasion. The time had come for Burnett to take care of himself. “Yes.”

* * *

Knees drawn up to her chest, and fingers interlaced above her ankles, Emma pushed against the mound of soggy dirt. Burnett fidgeted beside her. Her mind, a pinball in the dark, bounced between his dream revelation, her kiss, and their dire situation.

From seemingly nowhere, an extraordinary thought jumped into her head:
Henri’s paper is the key, and I might have a copy.

Ten days ago he’d handed her a flash drive and insisted, almost demanded, she take good care of it. He’d claimed it contained music and videos, which it did, but there were more files, none of which she’d opened.

Now she realized he’d probably placed a copy of his paper on it for safekeeping. Perhaps he’d hoped she would read it. Perhaps he feared something might happen to him, and he wanted her to have a copy.

“I think I have a copy of Henri’s paper,” she said.

“What?”

After she recounted the story of how Henri had given her the flash drive, he agreed it probably contained his paper.

“Where is it now?” he asked.

“My parents’ house.”

“We’ll need to get it later. It’ll help prove Henri was the author of the paper.”

Burnett shifted his position and they huddled together, struggling to keep warm. She recalled again the moment she’d chosen to risk everything to find the truth; the very instant she’d decided to hire Mr. Frank to locate him. At that time her primary concern had been what had driven Henri to take his life.

The time she’d spent on the run, though, had been nothing like she’d expected. And should that run end badly, both of them would go to jail for a long time. Her dreams of saving the planet would be over. Her hopes for a career and family finished.

As her teeth chattered from the damp chill, a troubling thought tugged her in yet another direction. Detective Mayweather hadn’t contacted them. He should have found the computer by now.

Desmond had no doubt gotten rid of it, just as she’d suspected. There would probably be no way to trace it back to him even if it was found.

Her body grew heavy. She could sense her face drop.

Beneath her gloom waited a startling discovery. The adrenaline she’d felt earlier still pulsed through her system; not anywhere near the level from before, but undeniably there. And it was tied to the man who sat beside her in the dark.

With Henri, she’d never experienced the degree of exhilaration she’d felt earlier. Granted, they’d never been dropped into a situation like this, but their relationship had never known a genuine spark.

Had things become too predictable? Too familiar? Whatever it was, she recognized that the relationship had gone stale and she’d been oblivious to it.

The man you planned to marry just took his life, and you dismiss him like that?
The “little” voice inside her head had long been hard on her, often reminding her that she was ugly and that men flocked to her only because she came from money. It often insisted she was too dumb to ever graduate from college. She readied a rational, convincing argument—as she had done countless times before—but stopped short of unleashing it. From experience she’d learned not to get drawn into an unwinnable fight.

She knew her feelings for Burnett were irrational. That knowledge changed nothing. He’d filled the void left by Henri’s death. With him, she’d shared an adventure unlike any she could have envisioned. In twenty-four hours she’d discovered a part of herself she never dreamed existed, laughed when she believed she would never again, giggled like a child when all hope appeared gone, and come to realize a man she’d known for years was nothing like she’d imagined.

They had little time. They had no future. She held him tighter. The instant of relief this action granted was soon replaced by a feeling of depression so dark, so deep, so vast, she felt powerless to resist it.