Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) (32 page)

“Roger that.” Zed put the glasses to his face, looking out across the property.

Rocket’s mind drifted to thoughts of his sister and the war games they used to play across the sprawling desert. Usually the scenarios ended with a verbal spat, mainly because Masago was a high-spirited chick with her own rhythm and approach to everything. Her beliefs were deadpan strong, as were his, yet they still couldn’t seem to find common ground when it came to the ideology of being prepared for the end of days. Dad had preached the same dogma to both of them, but somehow the words resonated differently within him than it did with his sister.

In the end, it didn’t matter whether they agreed or not. Their blood ties ran deep and nothing could, or would, ever change that. If there was one thing he’d learned during his years of government torment on this rock, it was that a happy family unit was not predicated on universal, like-minded thinking. In fact, differences in opinion strengthened the group, though it was a bit exhausting at times.

He turned to make his way down the ladder but froze when he heard a powerful roar of thunder coming from the northwest. The handrails of the platform they were standing on began to vibrate in his fingers as the sound grew progressively louder with every beat of his heart. He looked up and scanned the sky for the source. It took a few seconds, but his eyes finally locked onto three fighter jets screaming his way, leaving a trio of exhaust trails behind them.

“Here comes Uncle Sam,” Zed said while the planes ripped closer through the atmosphere, making a slow, banking turn south.

Rocket realized they were on a high-speed intercept course with his location, meaning it would only be seconds before they arrived—not enough time to sound the alarm and evacuate. He wasn’t worried since this wasn’t the first time they’d been visited by the air force. Nothing hostile had happened in each of the previous four encounters, and he had no reason to think this time would be any different. “Fast movers. Been a while. This should be interesting.”

“Looks like F-16s. Must be tasked with checking us out again,” Zed said, putting the glasses down. “Just like last month and the month before.”

“Count on it,” Rocket said with certainty. “They know we’re here. NSA watches everything with their birds orbiting this shit-hole of a planet.”

“Yeah, well fuck them and the horse they rode in on.”

The planes leveled their wings and angled their noses sharply lower, as if to start a strafing run. A few seconds later, they made a low-level flyby of the camp.

Rocket ducked and grabbed onto a safety rail. So did Zed as the platform shook violently from the turbulent shockwave. When the jets passed directly overhead, their pilots kicked in the afterburners, injecting fuel into their exhaust systems to supercharge the flaming thrust. The roar was instantaneous and deafening, the kind of roar that sends chills down your spine in awe. It was an impressive show of power and speed, but not one Rocket would let himself enjoy.

“Fucking 355th.”

“What a bunch of adrenaline junkies,” Zed said with contempt.

“Maybe so, but this wasn’t some random flightpath. They were sent here with a message,” Rocket said, flipping the bird at the aircraft zooming away, apparently heading for downtown Tucson.

“What message?” Zed asked, taking his Glock from its holster to check the chamber and magazine.

“We haven’t forgotten about you.”

“And we haven’t forgotten about them.”

“If my father was still alive, he’d say we should bug out and relocate.”

“You’re not considering that, are you?”

“No. Never. We stand our ground. Right here and right now. Let them come. They have no idea what they’re up against.”

“No, they don’t.”

“This is our land and goddammit, nobody is going to force us from it. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Fucking fascists.”

“Do you think it’s time to activate your sister’s tracker?”

Rocket hesitated, considering the idea before he answered. “I’d hate to waste the battery if she’s not within the transmitter’s ten-mile range. Unless she’s at her bunker, we’re going to need to move a whole lot closer to Tucson first. And you know how much I hate that frickin’ town.”

“You ain’t the only one, boss. It’s too bad we didn’t think about installing a permanent locater in Junior. Would’ve had a much stronger signal.”

“How could we have known? This is the first time she’s ever asked to take my wheels for a spin,” Rocket said, sifting through his options. He wanted to go search for his sister, but there was a camp full of people to protect, too. Which would it be? The needs of the many, or the needs of the one? His one. It was a tough call, but he made a decision.

“No, we stay here and mind the fort. Masago knows this is the rally point. She’ll show up when she’s good and ready. She can handle herself, trust me.”

Just then, a massive, blinding dome of light pierced the sky near the horizon. It was located in the same direction as the jets were flying, indicating that whatever had just happened was centered somewhere near Tucson. He blinked, and a second later, the dome’s intensity was gone.

“What the hell was that?” Rocket gasped, trying to organize his thoughts. A dozen scenarios flashed in his mind, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. The flash was amazingly bright, especially for the daytime. He’d never seen anything like it before. His worry level shot up tenfold.

“Did they just light up Tucson?” Zed asked.

“Nuke civilians? Are you serious?”

“It was too big to be an industrial explosion. Or a plane crash. So what else could it be?”

“If that’s true, where’s the mushroom cloud? The shockwave?”

“No, you’re right. Not a bright boy.”

“I don’t know what we’re dealing with, but that was no explosion, otherwise we’d see smoke and hear something by now,” Rocket said, turning all his thoughts to his sister.

He felt Zed put his hand on his back. Then his friend leaned in and spoke in a soft tone. “Now do we go find her?”

Rocket nodded, letting his heart take control. “Let’s stop at her place first. It’s on the way. When you gear up, be sure to grab the buzzer and make sure it’s charged. We may need it.”

“Watch out!” Lucas felt a twinge of pain in his knee as he yelled from the front passenger seat of Rocket’s truck, watching Masago narrowly miss a pair of teenage girls running across the street with shopping bags in their hands. His mind was still reeling after they’d all just witnessed the initial dome of energy take out the Student Union. His greatest fear was now reality—the Krellian invasion had started and done so ahead of schedule, at least according to the original timeline.

“Are you trying to hit these people?” he asked her.

“Everyone just needs to get the hell out of my way!” she yelled, swerving to miss more pedestrians, taking the truck onto the sidewalk. She jammed on the gas, squealing the tires in the process. The front bumper caught a stand of newspaper vending machines, sending the periodicals flying in the air before the tires found the street again.

“What was that thing?” young Lucas said from the backseat, still wearing his bright-yellow t-shirt. The wide-eyed scientist was sitting next to his brother, Drew with their friend Bruno hogging up the far end of the seat.

Drew jumped into the conversation. “Some kind of explosion? But why no sound?”

Lucas from the future turned in the front seat and leaned over the headrest, locking eyes with his younger self. “When you ran the experiment a little while ago—and did so without permission, I might add—did the E-121 module vanish without a trace?”

“That’s classified,” Drew answered.

“The hell it is!” future Lucas snapped, slamming his hand against the seat.

Masago flinched, making the truck swerve for a second before she corrected it. “Calm down, boys, I’m trying to drive here.”

“That’s what you call it?” young Lucas said.

“Who said that?” Masago asked, glancing over her shoulder. “Lucas one or Lucas two?”

“That depends. Who’s one?” Drew said.

“Front seat is one. Backseat is two,” Masago said.

“It was two,” Bruno told her, sitting next to Drew. “Though I’m sure they’re both thinking the same thing. As am I.”

“I’m starting to sense that,” Masago said, leaning to her right to make a corner at high speed.

“I’d prefer to be called Lucas Prime,” Lucas one said. “Like in Star Trek, plus it’s how you should label the first. And I am the first—the original.”

“But not one of a kind,” Lucas two said from the back.

“Fine. Whatever,” she answered, with her eyes focused on the road ahead.

Once again, Lucas Prime trained his eyes on Lucas two in the back. “You can’t keep the truth from yourself. I know. I’ve tried.”

“What?” Lucas two asked.

“I already know it vanished, remember?” Lucas Prime said. “Go ahead, Bruno, tell him.”

“Oh, no. I’ve already been through it once with him in front of the science lab. It’s your turn.”

“This whole from the future thing is a little hard to believe,” Lucas two said, pushing the face of Prime away with his hand.

“Okay Einstein, what else can explain my presence here?” Prime said, leaning back over the seat again.

“Cloning, for starters. Or plastic surgery. Or some random anomaly in the gene pool. Everyone has a twin, right? After all, there are billions of people on the planet. Statistically speaking, it is possible.”

“Unreal,” Prime said, rolling his eyes.

“Besides, your scars are different. If you were from the future—my future—they’d look precisely like mine. Scars fade but they don’t change location.”

“That’s true,” Bruno said. “Why are they different?”

“Long story. Let’s just say I had my mug fixed, then it got jacked again. Now the scars are different. Does that work for you?” Prime asked his younger self.

“No, they’re just words. Say what you want, but there’s no way to prove it.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Drew said. He looked at Bruno. “Do you have your Benchmade with you?”

“Benchmade?” Masago asked.

“It’s a brand,” Prime answered her.

“Brand of what?”

Bruno leaned to the side and put his hand into the front pocket of his pants. He pulled out a dark-gray, four-inch folded pocketknife. He gave the knife to Drew, who then passed it to Lucas two.

“Careful with that. I keep it razor sharp,” Bruno said.

Lucas two held the knife up. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Use the blade on your arm. Let’s see what happens,” Drew told him.

Lucas two’s eyes lit up. “Are you serious? You want me to cut myself?”

“Do you want proof or not?” Prime said. “Or, are you a chicken shit?”

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

He opened the blade and held it in his right hand, then pressed the edge against the skin on his left forearm. He winced and let out a deep moan as he pulled the blade toward him, opening a bloody, inch-long gash in his arm. He gave the knife to Drew and covered the wound with his palm. Blood seeped through his fingers and ran down his arm. “Fuck, that hurt.”

Drew pointed at Prime’s arm. “Okay, let’s see it.”

Prime held out his left arm over the back of the seat. There was an inch-long scar exactly where Lucas two had just cut himself. He sneered at everyone in the backseat. “Anything else?”

Prime waited for an answer, but only quiet was heard from the young Ramsay brothers. “I’ll take that as a no,” he said before flying sideways against the window when Masago turned sharply again. He righted himself, then pointed at Drew and his brother. “You two assholes caused that flash.”

“Yeah, how do you figure that?” Drew asked.

“You’re the asshole, asshole,” Lucas two said.

“Guys!” Masago yelled.

Lucas Prime ignored her. “When you cranked up the power, the E-121 was sent across time and space. It penetrated another dimension and caught the attention of a predatory race, who then sent a probe here to investigate. Its incursion into our space is what just took out the Student Union. A lot of people died today. That’s why I’m here. Trying to stop all of this.”

“Looks like you failed,” Lucas two told him.

“No,
I
didn’t fail.
We
did. Just like before. Only this time, things are different. Both in the past and in the future.”

“Now you’re talking in circles,” Lucas two said, looking at Bruno. “You believe any of this shit?”

“The professor did. That’s good enough for me.”

“Fine. So, now what?” young Lucas asked with a smirk on his face.

“A swarm of energy fields are going to attack Earth, destroying everything and everyone in their path. Probably soon, if I’m trending the changes in the timeline correctly. Millions of people are going to die unless we pull together and find a way to stop this.”

“You need to listen to him, boys,” Masago said, never turning around to speak. “He’s telling the truth.”

Prime spun forward and sat down in the front seat, hanging his head. He let out a long, slow groan.

Masago rubbed his leg. “What’s wrong?”

“I just realized I’m wasting my breath.”

“Why?”

“If Fuji sends me back earlier and I’m successful, then none of this will ever happen. Why am I wasting energy in this timeline trying to convince a stubborn me to listen to what I have to say, when everything is going to be replaced with a different reality anyway?”

“Don’t you still need their help?”

“Not really. I have the glasses and the suit. Just need to get someplace safe so I can make contact and get the hell out of here.”

“So . . . if you go back in time, what will happen to me? Will I remember you? Or us?”

Rocket Fuji stood in front of Masago’s mountain complex, staring at the rubble and debris pattern. The egress hatch and connecting tunnel were gone and buried, leaving only a pile of destruction and a set of ultra-wide tire tracks in the dirt. The tread pattern was distinctive: a knobby, waffle-board pattern—those of the Tumbler—that led away from the area.

“What do you think happened?” Zed asked.

The facts smacked Rocket in the face, even though they didn’t make sense. “This didn’t just happen, otherwise we’d see signs of my truck tires in the dirt. She must have detonated the place earlier and took off in the Tumbler to come see me. But why didn’t she tell me about this when she came to get Junior? She knows she can trust me with anything, so what the hell happened?”