Holly/Dawn heard this over the communications system, and knew that these men were getting ready to go in. Doc was supervising the Cline stakeout, but if all went well, Cline would not know of this. Whoever she was, she would go to work and wait for the attack that never came.
The men moved in. All vehicles were covered, and then they moved silently up to the house itself. On Louis’ signal, and with no warning to the occupants, they tossed in concussion grenades in every window and then black-clad shapes crashed through doors and windows.
To say that the occupants were surprised was an understatement. Rays and conventional weapons went off all through the house. She could only sit back in Doc’s car, parked well out on the road, and imagine what was going on in there.
The house was secured in less than forty seconds. Louis was immediately inside with a small device, checking each and every one of the limp forms. Bettancourt was dead, having begun firing blindly. Sandoval had tried to jump out the second story window in the back, and he made it. His neck was broken. The mysterious man with one leg had been stunned to unconsciousness, while the terrified Austin-Venneman was in so much shock that she couldn’t even surrender. Louis went first to the mysterious one-legged man and took a reading; then he frowned. “Nothin’!” he snarled. “This ain’t Eric, it’s just their set-up man!”
Back along the road, the passenger’s door opened in her car and a dark figure got in. She turned, expecting to see one of the others or maybe Louis, and gasped.
“Don’t panic,” said Eric Benoni calmly. “Can you drive?”
She shook her head, suddenly too fearful to speak.
“All right, then I will. Don’t yell or make any foolish moves, please. I really don’t intend any harm, but such beauty can be so easily… marked.” He slid back out the door and walked around in back of the car to the driver’s side. She was frozen in panic, unable to do a thing.
He got in, looked down and saw that the keys were in the ignition, then started the car and drove off a little ways before turning on the headlights. “Damned uncomfortable, driving with the belt. One cannot lean back and relax.”
“W-what do you want with me?” she asked him, edging as far away from him as she could. She wished she had the nerve to open the door and jump, but she knew she didn’t. She felt suddenly cold and started shivering, although it was a warm night. Her head felt funny.
He noticed her discomfort. “It will pass. Thanks to your friends, all of you that still was partly Moosic, and Alfie, and Neumann, has gone. Your friends just saw to that. You won’t miss it. It will just make you more… passive, more gentle, more dependent, and, come your trip point, no brighter than the girl you now are. There—it’s passed already.”
She did feel different, somehow. On the one hand, she was terrified of him; on the other, she actually wanted him. “Wh—where are we goin’?” she managed at last.
“You tell me. Where is the belt?”
She didn’t answer, and he pulled the car over by the side of the road, turned, and pulled her violently to him. He had a knife in his hand, and his face was absolutely cold, his eyes terrifying to look into, although she could not avoid his gaze.
“I will ask once more. Then I will put a mark on that pretty face of yours. Not deep, but it will leave a permanent scar. Then, if you still don’t cooperate, we will start on other parts of your anatomy.”
She felt totally helpless. “No, please—all right! It’s in my bag in the back seat of the car.”
He let go of her and flung her back. “Get it. Take it out, turn it off, and hand it to me.”
She didn’t hesitate to do what he said. He grabbed the belt and a look of satisfied triumph came over him.
“There—see? I can be a nice fellow when folks are nice to me. At least I salvage something out of this miserable debacle of an operation.”
She stared at him. “Who are you?”
Eric smiled. “Do you know what Benoni means? No? It’s a Hebrew name, very seldom used, that means ‘son of my sorrow.’ I chose it because it was appropriate. A better way is to turn the tables a bit. I think I know who you are, or were. Was your name once Dawn?”
She nodded nervously.
He grinned and spread his hands. “Behold thy unfaithful son, Joseph.”
Her jaw dropped, and her mind reeled, unable to accept it.
“It really is, you know, Mother. And that girl playing Karen Cline is Ginny.”
“That ain’t possible!” she protested.
“In this crazy universe? Let me tell you what happened to us, Mother. They kept us back there in that Safe Zone of theirs for five years. Five lousy years, undergoing dozens of lives, growing very old very fast, while you never came back. And then, finally, they tired of us when we didn’t do their bidding, become their version of the savants, doing things just so, and they ordered us to the edge. Well, we went, of course, but not without a plan. We no sooner caught sight of the monstrosities that we were supposed to join than we acted. Two of us, Ginny and I, were in time. The other three are up there now, probably monsters.
“We kept the belts on the edge and simply changed the location on arrival. They were delighted to see us, since they had lost much of the knowledge of time travel and were afraid to try it. We were delighted to show them. They cut the power to our belts, of course, but we were there and we were in charge.”
He put the car back in gear and continued on down the road.
“Them and their plans. The Outworlders killed our father, turned our mother into a common whore, and meant to turn us into monsters. Compared to that, Earthside was downright refreshing.”
She shook her head. “But—you caused all of it. I borned you, and you made Ron into Dawn and Dawn into me. You’re lyin’. You’re just torturin’ me for fun.”
“No, Mother, you’re thinking wrong. You’re thinking that because I couldn’t have existed without the rest, I couldn’t have caused it. But, you see, it all did happen. It really did. History is simply the evidence we leave. Time doesn’t undo anything, it just cleans it up so there’s no trace left that it happened. Everything Ron, and you, lived through happened, and since it was made not to happen after it happened, we exist, but we exist with no roots. We are nightsiders. Unpeople, no more real in the historical sense than the savants are in the human sense. And since we, even now, are in the past—only the edge is real—this is merely acting out what was, not what is. There really isn’t any free choice in the downtime—we choose as we must.” He chuckled. “You don’t understand a word of this, do you?”
“No, and I ain’t sure I want to. But if what you say is true, then why I never came back is because you stole my belt and took me away.”
It was his turn to be surprised and a little shocked. For the first time, a trace of doubt came over Eric Benoni’s face—self-doubt. Finally, he sighed. “You’re right, of course. But what if you had? You would simply wind up on the edge with the monsters just like we did. Being made over into a monster but with all the memories, all the knowledge. I’m saving you from that.”
She looked out at the dark night. “Where are we goin’?”
“Not much further. My time is running out in this frame. A pity, for I wish I could find a way to save Ginny.” There was a small dirt turnout that overlooked the bay on the left, and he pulled into it and stopped. He turned off the ignition and removed and pocketed the keys. Then he got out, and after a moment she did, too. There was a warm breeze blowing, and off in the distance could be seen the lights of big ships in the center channel.