Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) (5 page)

It appeared the men were preparing to set up camp, but for what purpose? One of the unloaders—a less than handsome man with pitted cheeks and a huge, can-opener-shaped nose—used a crowbar to pry open and remove the top to one of the cartons. He put his hand inside and pulled out a wad of strawlike packing material, tossing it aside.

“What is this stuff?” he asked with a look of surprise on his face, his voice carrying fifty feet to her position.

“Cover it!” one of his fellow workers replied with a charged whisper. He leaned and craned his neck around the back of the truck, peering toward the cab. Then he looked back at the other man.

“If Hatcher gets out of the cab and catches you, he’ll have your ass. We’re just supposed to unload. Not open them.”

The other man did as he was told, placing the cover back on the crate, but left the nails protruding and didn’t pound them into the frame.

Masago decided she needed to get a look inside that box. She surveyed the area, quickly formulating a plan—continue left, then cross the water and work her way around. A trio of heavy boulders stood tall where the mountain’s runoff landed in the streambed. She should be able to sneak behind the men by using the boulders and rushing water as cover. These weren’t trained soldiers like the last time this happened, so she figured they wouldn’t be paying much attention.

Civilians. Piece of cake.

She unloaded her bow and set it aside, along with her stock of bolts and the rest of her gear. She needed to improve her mobility and lessen the chances of clatter during her incursion. She stood to move, but changed her mind when the cab door of the truck opened. She took refuge behind a bush.

The leader, Hatcher, as the other man had called him, climbed out of the vehicle and walked to the rear of the truck. He held a smartphone at arms length from his body, pressing and swiping the screen with his middle finger. “GPS says fifty-three meters, due east. Let’s get it done, people.”

“Why here? Wouldn’t it be easier to drive them to the storage location?” one of the long-haired workers said, removing his baseball cap to wipe his brow with the back of his hand. He shook his head from left to right, making his locks flop wildly in the air. Then he tucked his hair inside the cap’s brim and around the back of his neck as he put the cap back on.

“This is the closest access point for the vehicles. The rest of the way is on foot.”

“So, we carry the crates, boss? By hand?”

Hatcher exhaled a long, slow breath, shaking his head. “Look, this isn’t a debate. You have your orders. Each man grab one of the canisters inside and get moving. They only weigh about thirty pounds each.”

“They look heavier,” the ugly man with the big nose said. “I’d say fifty pounds, easy.”

“You looked inside?”

He nodded.

“They were to remain sealed until I gave explicit orders to open them.”

“What’s the difference? We were going to open them anyway,” the curious man said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. What is that shit?”

“Something the eggheads don’t want us messing with. Now, get busy. We’ve got work to do. Boss wants this done ASAP.”

“Only one more crate, Hatch,” one of the workers reported from inside the second truck. Seconds later, he and another man pushed the wooden container to the edge of the cargo bed. They spun it around on top of the lift gate, then used the hydraulic controls to lower the cargo to the ground.

“Open them up, grab the canisters, and let’s get them to the storage site,” Hatcher said, looking at his watch. “On the double, people! We’re due back in ninety.”

Moments later, crowbars were prying off the lids to the boxes and material was flying up in the air as the workers yanked it out to uncover what was waiting inside.

Just then, a squad of twelve armed men—all wearing loose-fitting street clothes—came out of nowhere and surrounded the group. Military-style AK-47s and Glock .40-caliber handguns were the weapons of choice.

“Nobody move! We have you surrounded!” one of the armed men said with his left shoulder to Masago. He was bald, six feet tall, very thin, and hadn’t bothered to button the front of the cotton dress shirt he was wearing. The shirt tails flapped in the breeze with each step he took.

Masago leaned forward, lightly prying the limbs of the bush apart to get a better look. She caught a glimpse of something else underneath the man’s open shirt. More clothing. She recognized it—a skin-tight, black uniform with gold symmetrical lines covering the material. It was the same climbing gear outfit she’d found on Lucas.

“Hands up! I won’t tell you again. Back away from the containers,” the bald man told the group of transport workers.

They followed his demands, raising their hands without hesitation and stepping back. They huddled themselves together, loosely facing Masago. The armed men shuffled their positions, forming a semicircle around their prisoners.

“What do you want?” Hatcher asked with his hands above his head, his sidearm still nestled in its holster.

“Let’s start with your weapon,” the bald man said. He moved forward and removed Hatcher’s weapon. He ejected the magazine, then tossed the gun.

Masago moved ten feet to her left, changing her position while four of the marauders closed ranks around their captives. The shift gave her a better view of their faces. One of the new gunmen had long red hair, but she recognized his face—she couldn’t believe it—he looked just like Lucas—could’ve been his twin brother!

Then she studied another man when his profile became more visible. This guy had only one arm but he, too, could have been Lucas’ brother. She caught glimpses of more of their faces as the scene played out, each one resembling Lucas—even the old man with the thick, gray-colored eyebrows and sideburns.

She was about to stand up and get their attention, planning to take them to Lucas, but changed her mind when the bald man rammed the butt of his stock into Hatcher’s knee, sending him to the ground in a heap. Hatcher screamed in pain, grabbing his leg with both hands.

The bald assailant walked behind and around the rest of the workers, now huddled over their leader, who was rolling on the ground in pain. Baldy stopped in front of the standing hostages after completing a full circle around them. He took off his cotton shirt, revealing the gold and black clothing underneath.

“We are looking for our brother. He has this same uniform and looks just like the rest of us, except he wears some odd-looking glasses. Have any of you seen this man?”

No one responded.

“Think hard. He may be injured. I won’t ask again.”

None of the prisoners said anything. Instead, they shook their heads slowly, keeping their heads down.

The bald attacker moved back four steps and waved his hand. The rest of his men opened fire, sending a blitzkrieg of rounds from the machine guns. The high velocity projectiles tore into the bodies of the helpless workers. Smoke, blood, and body parts were all Masago could see from her position. She ducked her head and covered her ears.

When the gunfire stopped, Masago looked up. Hatcher was the only worker still alive, but the bald assailant had a large-caliber, stainless steel handgun to the side his head.

“Last chance, asshole. There were two sets of tracks that came right through here, so we know one of you helped him. Where’s my brother?”

Hatcher spit in the bald man’s face. “Fuck you. I’m not telling you shit.”

Masago put her hand over her mouth, preparing herself for what she knew would come next.

The bald intruder pulled the trigger, blowing Hatcher’s head apart in an instant.

She gasped into her palm, trying to control her breath and growing panic. Something inside of her told her to run—run now—
run before they find you!
But she didn’t. Her training took over, keeping her calm and still.

Wait for them to leave. They don’t know you’re watching.

Just then, one of the attackers—the older man with the bushy facial hair—started to convulse. Milliseconds later, his body was yanked hard, like his waistline had just been attached to a fighter jet traveling at Mach 3. He flew toward the sky in an instant, disappearing into a pinprick of light. She flinched, snapping a branch in front of her knee.

The hairless leader turned his head—his hawk-line eyes looking directly at her position.

She gasped and froze.

Dr. Kleezebee advanced the month on his office wall calendar by one to show December 2012, realizing it have been sitting on November for three extra weeks. He pulled a thick folder from the four-drawer filing cabinet and carried it to the desk in his campus office. He plopped the file on the desk, sat in the high-backed leather chain, spun his legs around and opened the research. He read through the handwritten notes, page after page, scouring the data, making sure he hadn’t missed a single calculation.

Minutes later, his eyes grew tired and his mind lost focus, drifting to memories of his wife and son waiting for him back home in his universe. He smiled, enjoying the moment of peace, but it didn’t last long. Paranoia took over, fueled by the harsh reality of his situation. He shook his head, knowing he’d been gone for decades, and doubted his family would still recognize him.

What were the chances Caroline had waited for him after all these years?
Slim and none,
he told himself. She probably moved on with her life and married someone else, forgetting his worthless ass a long time ago. The question burned in his soul, fueling his desire to push his research further and his staff harder.

Nothing was off limits now. He needed to get his crew and their technology off this planet and out of this universe—back to where they belonged, before it was too late.

The world of the global Internet and networked smart devices meant instant information flow—something that couldn’t be controlled, quantified, or anticipated. Everything was happening at the speed of light, making it increasingly more difficult to keep his secrets from the public and the government. He knew time was running out; eventually, someone would discover their presence on Earth and seek to control their advanced technology. His network of underground silos were built and operational but were sitting ducks, just waiting to be discovered by some curious blogger who was simply following the money flow. If that happened, they’d never get home.

He’d been planning every detail of their exodus since his crew’s splash-landing on Earth in the sixties, but now all the hard work and covert actions came down to a single experiment. Success hinged on Lucas’s antigravity experiment, meaning the results of tonight’s E-121 power test had to be different, otherwise, there was a good chance he’d have to kiss his family reunion goodbye.

His plan to keep Lucas and Drew in the dark was a gamble, but he didn’t have a choice. If they knew the real truth, they wouldn’t understand, nor would they continue to help him. The Ramsay brothers would feel betrayed and mislead, and he wouldn’t blame them. But he couldn’t risk the chance of another information leak, not with the lives and future of his entire crew at stake. Well, everyone except Eugene, who’d gone off to join Hollywood shortly after they’d first arrived on Earth.

When Gene quit the team, he carried with him a faith and conviction to change the world with his vision of the future. Gene wasn’t a supporter of Kleezebee’s plan to get everyone home, and the professor wasn’t a fan of Gene’s planned TV series. Regardless, they still had mutual admiration for each other, not that either of them would ever admit it. Their collective pride and stubbornness wouldn’t allow it. In the end, they were two men with different visions of the future.

The professor hadn’t talked with Gene since the late sixties. Not since their heated argument over one of the Season 2
Star Trek
episodes his friend had written and aired. Gene had made a pact with him before he left to not divulge any of their secrets. Yet that’s exactly what happened, ending their relationship.

When Gene died in October of 1991, Kleezebee decided to attend the funeral but stayed in the shadows. He mourned his friend’s passing with a heavy heart, but the loss wasn’t as difficult to bear as the thought of never getting the rest of his shipmates home to their families.

Even if the professor’s plan was ultimately successful, he wasn’t sure if he’d come clean with his young protégés. Telling them he was a former starship captain from the future and from another universe wasn’t going to be an easy discussion. Neither was telling them he’d been marooned on Earth with his crew of loyal shipmates and suite of advanced technology. The truth would certainly break Drew’s heart and probably Lucas’, too.

The door to his office opened; in walked his longtime security friend, Bruno Benner, carrying a priority message envelope.

“Hey, boss, you got a second?”

“Sure,” Kleezebee said, closing the research folder on his desk. He sat back in the chair, expecting the rotund man to start off by cracking one of his silly jokes. But he didn’t. Bruno’s face was serious and stiff.

“Hector, our man inside the general’s unit just sent us an encrypted communique and samples.”

“Of what?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Bruno replied, putting his hand inside the envelope. He pulled out a swatch of black fabric covered with gold etchings that resembled the underside of a computer’s motherboard. He gave it to Kleezebee. “Some type of fabric with gold circuity built into it.”

The professor pulled at the material, inspecting its elastic properties. He opened the desk drawer and found a four-inch magnifying glass tucked behind a couple of rulers and a tray full of pencils with teeth marks along their shafts. He held the magnifier close to the cloth and turned on his desk lamp, showering the fabric in light.

“Impressive nano-circuitry. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Military issue?”

“Not sure. However, assuming these pathways are made from gold, there’s something we can test,” the professor said, pulling another item from the drawer—a powerful, rare-Earth magnet. He put the fabric on the desk and was able to pick it up with the magnet.