“You’re forgetting the Russians. You said they eventually come back in the future to here. How do you stop that?”
“I’ll have to figure that part out later.”
Amhurst seemed satisfied with that answer, but a look of uncertainty remained. He said, “Still, we have another unanswered question.”
“What question?”
“If the readings on the Geiger counter are true, why is it that you show no signs of radiation sickness?”
Blake shrugged. He knew nothing about radiation sickness, other than what he’d been taught to fear as a child from history class lessons on Japan, and that horrid television movie that had aired a few years ago. Well, technically it hadn’t aired yet. “Perhaps I’m some kind of anomaly? That would explain why Tobias is doing well also. Maybe Wallace chose us because we’re special?”
The doctor wheezed out a chuff of laughter. “No disrespect, but you are not special.”
“Gee, thanks,” Blake said.
Amhurst shrugged. “Don’t take it personally. Exposure is exposure and it doesn’t matter who you are. You would need to take some form of medication to keep the sickness at bay and even then it would only be temporary. To even consider — ”
Blake’s hand flew up, cutting off the other man’s words again. Two floors above in his room, inside the confines of his duffel bag, several pill bottles held the answer to Amhurst’s question. Blake felt his blood pressure rise with hot anger as the truth dawned.
Enzymes, my ass! Those pills weren’t for digesting food from a decade Blake wasn’t accustomed to. Wallace, the slimy bastard, had snowed him good.
This mission had been suicide from the start.
48
Locked Up
“Checkmate,” Tobias said, grinning.
Blake looked down at the situation on the chessboard and scowled. He sat back, pulling his coffee cup toward him and weighed his options. Yep, he was screwed. Damn, he hated this game. It didn’t help that Tobias beat him most of the time. But he wasn’t about to admit defeat yet, so he took a sip of coffee and pretended to be contemplating his next move.
Time had been sliding by at a snail’s pace since Blake situated himself at Amhurst’s. Days had melted to weeks and weeks bled into months as the doctor worked on refining the process. He’d spent most hours of the day downstairs while Tobias and Blake kept themselves sequestered inside his house, away from the world as best they could.
Amhurst did most of his work alone, as Blake and Tobias were more of a hindrance than actual help at this stage. Every so often he requested their assistance for some menial task, but sitting opposite Tobias had become Blake’s routine. Meanwhile, Amhurst worked through the night on reserves of energy that made Blake feel like a wimp in comparison.
Blake didn’t like that feeling. It reminded him too much of Tobias. He comforted himself with the reminder that he wasn’t cut out for sit-down work, hashing out complex algorithms in his mind, or hunched over microscopes. He needed to be out and about detecting, and he hadn’t done any of that lately.
Being cooped up in this house, reduced to playing games of chess, checkers, and Nine Men’s Morris with his twin on a daily basis hadn’t helped lessen his irritation at the whole situation. Blake wasn’t fond of such pastimes in the first place. Getting roundly beaten by someone like Tobias, and seeing the glow of pride on the other man’s face at each pronouncement of ‘checkmate’ or cornering Blake’s final checker into surrender, scraped on his nerves like fingers down a chalkboard.
Even after the months they’d spent together, Blake hadn’t adjusted to the knowledge that this guy was someone he’d looked up to as a young man. The discrepancy between what he remembered and what he saw now made him feel antagonistic most of the time; he’d been bossing his twin around like he was Blake’s own personal butler — mostly because he knew he could.
That Tobias was able to kick Blake’s butt soundly in the form of mental acrobatics during moments like this made Blake determined to master the complexities of each game, just so he could pulverize his double during these confrontations. He’d even managed to almost win a round or two. Tobias was no dummy, Blake had surmised reluctantly; his deficiency was in the area of kick-assery, where Blake excelled.
He snuck a peek at his twin. Tobias’s face had grown serious.
“What is it?” Blake asked.
“There’s something that still bothers me.” Tobias gazed at the chessboard but didn’t say anything more.
Blake prodded, “And that is?”
Tobias met his eyes. “How did our parents end up with different names? I can’t figure that out.”
Blake frowned. “I assume you somehow manage to convince them to change their name. You know, for protection. Or whatever. I don’t know how you do it, but clearly you figure something out.”
The light that dawned in Tobias’s eyes went through Blake like a jolt. He’d just handed Tobias an opening to set that particular piece in motion … yet another part of the puzzle that he seemed intent on putting together himself. Whether he knew it or not.
Feeling suddenly sick, Blake set aside the coffee and absently rubbed his other arm as he scrutinized the game pieces arranged strategically throughout the board.
Tobias frowned at him. “Is it bothering you?”
“What?”
“Your arm.”
Blake looked down at himself. God, he missed his arm. He never realized how much he’d taken his body for granted until he lost part of it. He didn’t like the initial dependency it had created for him, or that it had played havoc with his center of gravity — and the phantom sensations drove him nuts. He’d never noticed these particulars at first, when he was running on those pure adrenaline injections.
It was in the days that followed when the infection had taken hold and sapped a lot from him. He’d been bedridden for a few days early on. It happened shortly after discovering that he and Tobias were dead men walking. Perhaps that had been the final straw, or he’d just over-extended himself so soon after losing the arm — chasing Wallace down the streets, hauling Tobias in from the train station. Whatever the cause, he was knocked flat for close to a month.
Amhurst had been too busy to provide consistent care, so that had fallen to Blake’s double. Maybe in another life, Tobias should have been a nurse. He’d faithfully administered antibiotics and other medicines while Blake was incapacitated, regularly cleaned his wound, and then, when the infection passed, had wrapped Blake’s limb with an elastic-type of material that was supposed to help with the swelling. Tobias had even changed the linens when Blake was too weak to use the restroom.
These memories pricked at Blake’s conscience; sometimes he felt bad for treating Tobias like crap these past few months. He really was a dick sometimes, but he just couldn’t seem to help himself; another byproduct of their different lives growing up?
Blake came back into the moment and said, “Nah, I’m good. Alright, fine — you win.” He pushed the chessboard away, signaling an end to game time and rose from the table, pulling some objects out of his pocket that he’d been working on before the match began.
Tobias was reaching for the newspaper and his own coffee — a beverage they shared equal affection for — when Amhurst trudged up the stairs, entering the kitchen like a wraith.
For a moment, the old man’s appearance shocked them. Blake realized it had been days since he’d actually seen the doctor. Amhurst seemed to have aged years since then, his exhaustion almost palpable.