Stolen Time Page 8

  “No fever, pulse slightly elevated, pupils normal, skin slightly clammy,” Dix muttered and shuffled wildly through a stack of papers on his desk.

  Karl glanced at his double, who appeared resigned to his interaction with the annoying scientist.

  “Ah-ha!” Dix said, holding up a sheet covered with scrawled text and numbers, then he turned back to Karl. “Were you touching the machine when you traveled?”

  Karl shook his head. “We were fighting. I had hold of his shoulder.”

  “Which one?”

  “Left.”

  “And which hand was holding the device?” Dix peered up at Karl.

  “It was taped to his left forearm.” He was tired of the questioning, so his answer resembled a growl.

  Dix raised an eyebrow again. “Interesting,” he murmured, returning to the table to scribble on a notepad.

  “Do you know what's wrong?” Karl's double mirrored his impatience.

  The question jerked Dix out of a mathematical reverie.

  “What? Oh yes. I believe I do.” He retrieved the paper he had brandished earlier. “Dr. Bertrand postulated the possibility of shared time travel via the mechanism of human touch, but this method had its problems.”

  Karl and his double waited for Dix to continue, but he merely stared at the paper. Finally, Karl made an impatient sound.

  “The amount of borrowed time is greatly reduced.” Dix looked Karl over with a frown. “Down to a fraction of normal.”

  “So how long do I have?”

  Dix found a calculator and punched in numbers. “How old are you?” he asked Karl distractedly.

  “Fifty-eight.”

  Dix's stubby fingers pressed more keys. He frowned at the result, which set off another flurry of tapping at the small device.

  “Well?” Karl and his double demanded in unison.

  “Four hours, more or less.” Dix shook his head. “Bertrand never had an opportunity to test this, so his math is an estimate.”

  “And you've been here how long?” The double peered at Karl.

  Karl looked at his watch and realized it was still set to 2015 time. “About an hour and a half.”

  “If you can get to the original device, you can return before the time runs out,” Dix pointed out.

  Karl's double looked at him, but he shook his head. He had no idea where Relevont and the PDA would be. Or do I?

  “You move against Relevont tomorrow?”

  His double confirmed the plan.

  “We need to act now,” he said to his copy. “No doubt he is here to warn his current-time counterpart. We can grab them before they are ready and perhaps catch the future copy with the PDA as well.”

  His double grabbed his cell phone. “I'll call Reed. Have him get the kleine Soldaten ready.” He used his nickname for the three-man squad, his “little soldiers.”

  Karl wiped more sweat from his forehead.

  “Who's Relevont?” Dix asked, causing both Germans to flinch.

  “That is category Alpha information.” Their voices were nearly in unison.

  Dix smirked, perhaps at the stereo effect, but seemed unperturbed at being denied an answer.

  “I'll lead the raid,” Karl said. “If the PDA is there, I may require its immediate use.”

  “They will pick you up downstairs.” Karl's doppelganger went back to dialing his cell phone.

  Karl turned to leave the lab, but Dix's hand on his arm stopped him. He turned back to the scientist with an inquisitive look.

  “Make sure any PDA you touch is the right one. The one used to bring you here.” Dr. Dix’s eyes held a strange intensity, a mixture of concern and fascination.

  “Why?”

  “If you touch the wrong device, say, one from this time, it's all over.” Dix displayed an uncharacteristic seriousness. “Your atomic structure destabilizes, and flash — total molecular implosion.”

  In contrast to his dire words, the doctor could not contain his eager interest in the horrible yet undoubtedly spectacular demise. “Sure would be cool to see that happen,” he said quietly before coloring a bit. “Not to you, of course.” He gave a guilty smile.

  Karl gave a grunt and followed his double out of the lab. The minutes he had left were slipping away, and he would use what remained to ensure Relevont would not win the fight.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Danger!

  Monday, June 7, 2010, 6:55 p.m.

  The spaghetti sauce bubbling merrily on the stove was the perfect counterpoint to Angie's mood. She considered her life to be as well crafted as a good sauce, and the fragrant contents of her pot confirmed the allegory in her mind. Angie enjoyed cooking, and Ness relished eating her creations. In fact, she suspected there would be a lot more of Ness if not for his regular trips to the gym along with his tai chi training. He always had a healthy appetite but failed to gain any weight. As she diced green peppers for the sauce, the doorbell broke into her contemplations.

  “Ness, can you get the door?” she called.

  “Sure thing.”

  Angie only partially paid attention to Ness answering the doorbell as she stirred the diced peppers into the sauce. It took a second to register that she had not heard anything since. She grabbed a towel to wipe her hands and strode to the living room. “Who’s at the door?”

  The odd expression on Ness’s face stopped her cold. Her eyes slid to the man in the doorway, who was wearing jeans, a bright red T-shirt proclaiming, “Jack Bauer for President,” and a gray hoodie. She knew Ness owned the exact same shirt, although he had never worn it around her. Her gaze finally fell upon the visitor's face, and her mouth opened in shock. Their visitor looked exactly like Ness.

  He broke into a large smile at seeing her, stepping into the room.

  “Angie.” The doppelganger’s voice was choked by a surprising amount of emotion, and he enveloped her in a hug before she could react.

  She froze, looking over his shoulder at Ness. Her husband gave her a reassuring gesture as he shut the door. She awkwardly returned the hug, but her body instinctively recognized the embrace of her husband. The height, the shape of his body, and even his scent confirmed his identity. He shook slightly as he held her.

  Is he crying? What in the world is going on here? She looked at Ness again, and he smiled back tentatively. Their visitor had obviously been unexpected, but the presence of his perfect duplicate did not appear to unsettle her husband.

  “Maybe we should sit and talk,” Ness said after a minute.

  His double finally released her and took a step back, tears in his eyes, then sat in the room's single chair. Ness took her hand and led her to the couch. Once they were seated, she studied the duplicate of her husband. Although identical in most respects, he somehow appeared older, not because of wrinkles or graying hair — in fact, he looked exactly like her Ness. But the eyes were different, full of sorrow and bitter knowledge. She prayed that whatever his burdens were, he would not pass them to her husband.

  “We need to get Angie up to speed,” their visitor said, “and it would be better coming from you.”

  Ness gave a resigned sigh and nodded. He turned to Angie, meeting her eyes with difficulty.

  Ness knows what this man is talking about! Feral dread gripped her along with a terrifying certainty that his words would change their relationship forever.

  “This is going to sound strange.” Ness hesitated. “But I have a time machine, one of Dr. Bertrand’s inventions. This is another me from a different time.” He paused to allow her to absorb the information.

  Angie let out a sharp laugh then covered her mouth with her hand at their serious expressions. She knew the scientist well. After all, he had been the best man at their wedding. Ness and the professor had debated many aspects of time travel over the years, but she'd never imagined Dr. Bertrand might build a time machine.

  “You're kidding, right?” She yearned for some sanity in the conversation.

  The two copies exchanged a look.

  “No
, I'm serious. This man is not a long-lost twin brother.”

  Ness’s sincere expression never wavered. She searched his face for any sign of a joke, any evidence of mirth, but she saw none. Her husband was telling the truth, and cold dread inexplicably seized Angie’s heart.

  “He is me from another time. He got here using the time machine Dr. Bertrand entrusted to me.”

  She blinked, looking at one then the other.

  “OK, assuming this is even possible, why would he give a time machine to you?” Angie sounded more judgmental than she had intended but did not temper her words. Clearly, it would be an exceptionally curious conversation.

  “He sent it to me for safekeeping some time ago,” Ness said. “It's a long story, but — ”

  “Before us?”

  He's had a time machine for the last twenty years and did not tell me? She watched as the two men shared an identical guilty glance, one she had become all too familiar with in the last couple of years. The undercurrent of thought between them became obvious to her. This is what he's been hiding from me.

  “No, only — ”

  “We don't have time to go into past adventures,” the copy interrupted. “He can tell you about them later. I have something more immediate you need to know now.”

  “All right.” Being put off from finally learning something of the mystery miffed her. “If you are a time traveler, where did you come from?”

  “Tomorrow, when everything went to hell.” The doppelganger turned grim. “First, you were shot and died in my arms.”

  “What?” Angie's voice rose, and her husband stiffened beside her.

  The other Ness paused briefly as his eyes grew moist again. He wiped the liquid away before it could fall. “I retrieved the time machine and used it to stop the shooting.”

  “Who did it?” Ness demanded.

  “It was me, you… us. A copy from 2015.”

  For several moments, the two versions of Ness could only stare at each other.

  The copy clenched his fists. “But he did it because his Angie, the one in the future, asked him to.”

  “Why on earth would I want him, or you, to kill me?” Angie’s confusion mounted. What could happen to me over the next five years to make me crave such a dire conclusion? Could I change so much in so short a time?

  Angie could not conceive of any situation in which she would seek to end her life, much less ask Ness to pull the trigger.

  “When I prevented the shooting, you were abducted off the street and taken away in a rusty white van.” The replica from the future gave Ness a pointed look.

  Stunned at the news, her husband slumped back on the couch, shaking his head. “Intellisys,” he whispered.

  “Apparently, after Angie's abduction, they coerced me into performing whatever tasks John Fletcher required. For example, my neurotic double was supposed to be assassinating a senator a few years from now with a well-placed bullet.”

  Angie's head spun as she tried to assimilate the fantastic scenario. “Are you saying Ness turned into a time-traveling hit man?” She could not have been more incredulous. “Do you even know how to shoot a gun?”

  “In many ways, it's not significantly different from photography.” Ness’s countenance turned grim. “All you need is a steady hand and the ability to squeeze the shutter button without jostling the camera.”

  His double shrugged. “Perhaps they call it 'shooting' for a reason.” They exchanged another look.

  “So I was kidnapped,” Angie said, impatient for the rest of the story. “Then what?”

  “Well, I went to the future and impersonated myself,” the double said.

  “You didn't go back to prevent the kidnapping?”

  “No. I wanted to see what would convince me to kill you,” the doppelganger answered.

  She frowned. “You left me there?”

  Ness leaned over and touched her arm. “Angie, he's warning us now,” he said quietly. “By coming here, he's making sure it won't happen again.”

  Angie considered that briefly then gave the doppelganger an apologetic nod. She kept getting confused, trying to keep track of the shifting cause-and-effects.

  “John's plan for domination was well underway,” Ness's double continued. “Martial law had been declared, and the National Guard was patrolling the streets.”

  “Here?”

  “Probably over the entire U.S. Anyway, they took me to where they were keeping you.” He choked up and examined his hands, which were gripping each other tightly in his lap.

  “You had been given a poison, one that causes a lot of pain,” he said, still avoiding eye contact. “They had an injection to temporarily stop the torment, but it didn’t stop the toxin from slowly killing you.” He gave a big sigh and finally looked at her, tears gleaming. When he had gathered himself enough to continue, his voice held a ragged edge.

  “You were thin, desperately so, and your mind had been warped by the constant agony over the years. You asked the Ness from this future to kill you before the abduction.”

  “I told you this?”

  He nodded bleakly and stared at Angie with his ruined eyes, as if he could will her to comprehend what he had experienced.

  “God help me, I understood why he did it,” he said. “Your body was still alive, but you were already gone.” He looked away, and more tears ran down his cheeks.

  Angie froze, stunned by the depiction of her future. She could not refute that he was a copy of her husband. She had seen nothing that betrayed any falsehood in relation to his identity. As to what he had told her, his emotions had done as much to convince her as his words. A shiver traveled through her. She was truly afraid of the future he described. The vision of pain and torment rocked her, but anger grew in equal measure to her fear. Who are these men, and how can they get away with this?

  “Why now, after all this time?” Ness’s question jerked her out of her reverie.

  “I suppose John waited for the smoke to clear after the investigation following the events at Dr. Bertrand's house. He also took time to build a private base of operations at his home.”

  “And the abduction happens when?” Angie asked.

  “Tomorrow evening,” the copy provided.

  “OK, so we have time to get away.” Plans formed in her mind. “I won't be there to kidnap.”

  Ness’s double looked uncomfortable.

  “I don't know how much time you have. I made a blunder.” He looked abashed. “I was so angry after seeing the future you, my rage got the better of me, and I attacked your captors. Remember Thing Two and Three?”

  Her husband frowned and nodded.

  What in the world?

  “Well, I thumped them pretty good.” Their visitor’s grin matched the one on her Ness's face. “But I ended up fighting another man. A German. I tried to escape to this time during the fight, but he grabbed me, and I accidentally brought him along. I was so stupid. I could have just returned to my home time, but I was so consumed with rage and horror I only thought about getting physically away from Fletcher’s house.”

  His expression was so forlorn that Angie reached across the space between them and gave his knee a squeeze. He gave her a small smile.

  “You said he traveled with you?” Ness shifted to the edge of the couch.

  “Yes, but he ran off when someone stopped him from trying to steal the device from me. I can only assume he will get with his double at Intellisys. He likely doesn't have much time.”

  “Why not?” Angie was trying to keep up, but the gaps in her knowledge were problematic. Apparently, Ness had some explaining to do, because she still did not comprehend many elements. She struggled against getting lost in details that still made no sense, but a tide of questions rose in her mind, and she was having trouble staying focused on the conversation.

  “Because he wasn't touching the device. He had a hold on me. Dr. Bertrand told me it cuts the amount of borrowed time drastically.”

  That meant nothing to Angie
, but she could see from Ness’s expression that those words held meaning for him. It spawned yet another idea she filed away in her mind for later clarification.

  “You saw Dr. Bertrand?” Ness asked his double.

  “Yeah, at the diner. I had a few questions for him, given this situation.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  “He said two people can travel with a normal amount of borrowed time as long as they are both touching the device.”

  Their visitor suddenly rummaged through his pockets and eventually pulled out a silver device with a short cord.

  “Here. You're gonna need this.” He handed it to Ness. “It'll charge the device from normal batteries. The doctor said if it runs out of power and you don't have a way to charge it, then it's game over.”

  Ness inspected the charger, opening it to reveal the two AA batteries that provided the power. He closed it before slipping it into his pocket.

  Angie regarded the copy of her husband, whose eyes bore a weight as if his recent experiences had produced a melancholy that seeing her hale and hearty could not fully eliminate. Even the simple act of checking his watch seemed to take extra effort, and her heart nearly broke for him.

  “I should be leaving.” He looked at Ness. “Keep Angie out of their hands, and all I have gone through will no longer happen. I'm counting on you.”

  Her two husbands stood and shook hands. Angie felt odd being the crux of a conflict she did not fully comprehend. Nonetheless, she had been touched by how events had affected Ness's double. He turned to her, and she rose to meet him. After an uncertain pause, she spread her arms and once more offered him her embrace. He accepted it gratefully, holding her tight. She was vaguely aware of Ness leaving the room. After a minute, the copy released her and took a step back to peer in her eyes. He caressed her cheek tenderly.