“But”—Moss looked all around the lab—“does it ever bother you? Do you ever consider the cost in terms of the progress we’ve made? We would lose all of this.”
“We’ve already lost it. We can’t contain or control what this is, what it means, what it can do.”
“What it can do. You can imagine how that looks through my eyes.”
Parmenter nodded. “I realize—”
“Do you? I’m dying, and this”—he looked around the room at the amazing Machine—“this could have saved me … and come on, being realistic, of course I have to wonder if there isn’t something we don’t know yet, some tiny, hidden secret yet to be discovered that could change the rules.”
Well,Parmenter thought, it’s happened.“Loren, you do remember all the steps we went through where we talked just as you’re talking now, and how those steps brought us to this pitiful point. Ifwe hadn’t stolen Mandy’s body and reverted it without anyone’s permission or knowledge; ifwe’d not tried a cover-up of Watergate proportions instead of admitting our error; ifwe hadn’t, from the start, chosen the Machine over every human life we entangled with it; ifwe hadn’t reached the point where we were actually plotting to retrace and kill an innocent young woman …”
“But you’re fine with letting your own friend and colleague die.”
Parmenter’s heart sank. “It’s more than your life and Mandy’s. It’s the nature of the Machine coupled with the nature of mankind. We’ve already demonstrated the results in this very lab, in our own choices and actions.”
“I see it differently.”
“I can understand that. I was expecting it, to be honest.”
“Is that why you didn’t trust me with Mandy’s reversion data?”
Well, now we’re getting down to it.“Loren, I would hardly trust myself, and it was an extreme act of trust for Mandy to do so. She trusted me with her life.”
Just then the hallway door opened and several men came into the room. Parmenter recognized Martin DuFresne, Carlson, and three other physicians in DuFresne’s camp— speak of the devil!There were three other men he’d seen maybe once before. They were the government interests who stayed deep in the background, unnamed, unseen, making things happen, definitely not to be trusted. Last through the door were two men he’d not seen before: one was dark, Mediterranean, perhaps Middle Eastern, the other blond, with a ruddy, pockmarked face.
He nodded at the men in greeting. They didn’t nod back or say a word as they assembled in a rough line behind the command console, eyes unfriendly, wary.
Parmenter eyed them all, then Moss. “Don’t tell me. You’ve changed sides.”
Moss gave his hand a little turn upward. “It’s my life, Jerry. If we keep going with the Machine recalibrated and Mandy no longer a factor, we might find a way to make a reversion stick.”
“Yours, I take it.”
Moss jerked his head in the direction of DuFresne and company. “They put me first in line.”
Parmenter knew he had little or nothing with which to bargain. “I could never betray Mandy’s trust. I can’t give you the information.”
Moss only smiled. “We have it.”
Mandy let Seamus walk her to her dressing room—the new one above and behind the big room stage, the one with the rich carpet, mile-long makeup counter, huge, illuminated mirror, full bath with walk-in shower, and separate lounge area where she could relax, do interviews, entertain guests. He seemed particularly pleased to show her her name on the door, just the way she liked it: Mandy Whitacre.
Facing her, his hands on her shoulders, he told her, “This is it, sweetie. But don’t think of this as an arrival; think of it as a beginning. This is where we place the bar and we rise from here.”
“I hope I can do you proud,” she said.
“I have every confidence that you will—”
She cut off his sentence with a kiss, then gave him a look she hoped would show her appreciation. “Gotta get ready.”
He enjoyed the kiss, she could tell. “We’ll all be waiting.” He threw her a little salute and backed down the hall, keeping her in sight until she closed the dressing room door.
Once inside, she rushed into the luxurious, marble-floored bathroom and washed the kiss from her face.
* * *
Parmenter didn’t have to ask; DuFresne seemed nearly bursting to tell him. “Seamus Downey was hired by our friends here, which meant he had all the inroads and connections with the government he could have needed. He got her a new identity so she’d blend into the system unnoticed, be able to work for a living and have as normal a life as possible, and most especially, confide in him when the time came.”
Moss was allowed to finish the revelation. “When she visited the fairgrounds, he was there, taking note of the time, the date, and the exact location. We ran the information through the simulator and with a little finessing we got the numbers to jibe. We can recalibrate.”
Parmenter pushed Moss to say it, maybe think it. “And then?”
“And then we recover full control of the Machine and a space-time fabric free of deflection, a blank slate. From there, we continue to explore, and I promise, we willwork out the problems.”
“You made no mention of what will happen to Mandy.”
Moss only gave his head a dismissive tilt. “It’s a foregone conclusion.”
Parmenter looked at the gathering. “Or what will happen to me.”
DuFresne spoke. “It would be impossible to ignore your immeasurable value to this project. We can only hope that, in time, you’ll be able to put the greater good above these momentary difficulties. I can assure you, you’ll be kept safe and the process will be painless.”
“As a matter of fact,” Moss added, “this is one way your invention can do you a world of good. When you wake up, you’ll be a year younger, and as far as you’ll remember, all this trouble never happened.”
The thought of fleeing had no sooner entered Parmenter’s head than a lightning bolt shot through his body and every motor nerve seemed to short out. He saw the pockmarked face above him and felt the prick of a needle in his neck, but he could do nothing about it.
At 12:54, Mandy sat alone at the oversize makeup counter where she really had to get going on her showbiz face and her showbiz hair, but had to be sure, had to try things first. Cradling her chin in one hand and keeping the other in her lap, she toyed with the lipsticks, makeup brushes, eyeliner, foundation, and blush, making them scoot about the counter like little bumper cars, each one independently controlled. A tube of mascara, an eyebrow pencil, and a lipstick brush did a drag race, popping wheelies at one end of the counter and zipping down the counter until the mascara spun out, the eyebrow pencil sputtered out, and the lipstick brush won, screeching around a tight victory circle and then dancing in victory. The foundation and a lipstick were doing a figure eight and about to collide in the middle; she made the lipstick jump over the foundation and continue on. She closed her eyes and placed herself aboard each little item as it scurried around the counter. This would have been a load of fun any other day.
As the makeup kept moving around the counter, she eyed a chair, reached invisibly, and lifted it, holding it in space. Beyond the chair, the three aspens jutted up through the floor and disappeared through the ceiling; the white paddock fence divided the room.
Sure would like to bethere right now.
“Looks like our magician friend is rehearsing,” said Moss, now in charge at the command console as his cohorts observed with unbroken attention. The monitors were showing small deflections as Mandy multiplied herself and made things move. “She is really good at this! She has twelve separate timelines working right now, each one controlling a different object.”
DuFresne expressed the sentiments of all. “We have got to master this! We need to achieve this level of control.”