“We can’t change the past because we’re already part of it. Everything David and I did in the past was recorded in the Bible before we left, because it’s already the past,” Tom said.
“You don’t expect me to believe that you’re in the Bible!” Jake was near hysterical laughter.
“It’s true,” David said.
Jake switched from laughing to ferocity in a split second. “Shut up! Both of you!”
Jake entered George’s bland office through the door to the secret lab, holding his gun straight out toward Tom. He stared at Tom’s chest, locked on target, trying to judge which way Tom might jump. He saw Tom look to his left and wink. What is he winking-ack!
A massive hand reached out and took Jake by the throat. A second hand snatched the wrist of the hand holding the gun. Tom had instructed Lazarus on the dangers of guns and Lazarus already knew how to disarm a man. Lazarus squeezed Jake’s hand until he heard a crack. Jake would have screamed if he could breathe, but Lazarus’s monster hand held tightly to Jake’s throat.
The gun landed on the firm industrial rug. Lazarus took Jake by the shirt, picked him off the floor and heaved him into the air. Jake soared across the office, slid across George’s desk and into the black leather chair, which rolled across the floor and crashed into the wall. Jake’s body sagged in the chair and then toppled onto the floor.
Tom smiled as wide as the sun; Lazarus was amazing. Tom quickly checked Jake for a pulse. “He’s alive,” Tom said in Aramaic.
“Good,” Lazarus said. “I feared I had killed the man.”
Tom entered the lab followed by Lazarus, whose eyes sucked in the strange technologies surrounding him. David greeted them at the door.
“That was close,” David said. He looked up at Lazarus. “You all right?”
Lazarus looked stunned by the technology around him. “Yes… I think… What is all this?”
“We’ll try to explain later,” Tom said. “Right now we have to decide what to do next.”
“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do,” Sally said, as she stood to her feet, supporting her weight on the countertop. “We’re gonna make sure no one from LightTech ever goes back in time again.”
David smiled. Sally was back.
David felt like a child again, sneaking around, trying not to get caught. Only now if he was found he might get a bullet in his chest instead of tagged, and there was no safety zone. He was sweating, afraid, excited-and he really had to use the bathroom! As a child, whenever David played hide and seek, his nerves would send his bowel system into overdrive and he would have to run inside to relieve himself during the first game. But being in the bathroom for several minutes of the first game also gave him an unfair advantage and a reputation as being a master hide and seek player. Who thinks to check the bathroom during an outdoor game of hide and seek?
“Uh, I realize this might not be the best time, but I’ve got to use the bathroom,” David said with a whisper, as they shuffled down the dimly lit hallway.
“Are you serious?” Sally asked, as she eyed David with one eyebrow arched high on her forehead.
“Yes,” David said. He squirmed like a little boy who was about to wet himself. “I won’t be long.”
Sally led David, Tom and Lazarus down an adjacent hallway to the left. They stopped in front of a blue door. David looked at the door and the white symbol of a woman. He paused at the women’s room symbol and opened his mouth to say something that never escaped his lungs.
“David, get in there now,” Sally said.
David flung open the door and entered the bathroom.
Tom smiled. Life or death circumstances aside, this was pretty funny.
“We need to augment the watches to transport the entire contents of the receiving area. Do you or David know how to do that?” Sally asked Tom.
“Assuming that’s how our future selves transferred the material originally, any watches that haven’t been tampered with should still be configured to transfer large amounts of material. It should be a piece of cake.” Tom explained.
“I can hear you,” David shouted from inside the bathroom.
Sally looked at Tom quizzically.
“He can’t go if he thinks people can hear him,” Tom explained.
Sally rolled her eyes, spread her lips in a smile and began to walk away. Tom cracked open the bathroom door. “We’ll be down the hall,” he said with a chuckle. “But hurry up, LightTech is going to be crawling with people soon and we’re going to stick out like Gentiles in the Temple.”
“I know, I know,” said David from within a stall. “Now shoo!”
Tom and Lazarus caught up with Sally, who was watching Lazarus’s confused face taking in mirrors, framed aerial photos and elaborate paintings. “We should send your friend back.”
“Lazarus? We might still need his muscle,” Tom retorted.
“Look at him. Being brought two thousand years into the future is too much for any man to handle.”
Tom looked at Lazarus, who was looking closely at his reflection in a mirror. “Lazarus,” Tom said in Aramaic, “Are you all right?”
Lazarus looked at Tom with wide eyes. “This place, this is where you’re from?”
“Yes, this was where we worked. Just like Matthew was a tax collector, David and I worked here… But are you all right? Is this too much for you to handle?”
Lazarus shot Tom a glance that said Tom better be joking.
Tom looked at Sally, “He’s fine.”
“But he’s-”
“He’s fine, look at his-”
“Hey!” shouted a voice from the other end of the hallway. “Who are you? What are you doing?”
A young guard with bright blue eyes and a blond crew cut, walked swiftly toward them, hand on his holstered gun. There would be no surprise attacks to rescue them this time. They only had one chance.
“Run!” Tom shouted in English and then repeated it in Aramaic for Lazarus, “Run!”
The three bolted away from the guard who was already squawking into his radio and drawing his weapon. “This is Daniels. I’m in Delta Sector. In pursuit of three intruders.”
Tom knew these hallways would be awash with trigger-happy hired guns in minutes. They had to get out of this sector, and fast. They approached a T-intersection at the end of the hallway. To the right were the elevators, to the left the stairs. “The elevators are guarded, let’s take the stairs,” Tom said as they neared the end of the hall.
“No!” shouted Sally, “The elevator’s clear.”
Tom glanced back at Sally. “How do you know?”
“The elevator guard was one of the three that Jake killed. They were chasing me up the stairs just fifteen minutes ago.” With that, Sally turned right and Tom followed.
Pang! A bullet ripped through and shattered a large framed painting at the end of the hallway, causing Lazarus to dive left. Daniels was running at full speed, gun raised and ready to shoot. Lazarus attempted to cross the hallway to the elevator, where Sally and Tom were waving him on, but a second bullet crashed into the wall, missing Lazarus by inches and stopping him in his tracks.
Lazarus ducked and ran back toward the stairwell door. Tom shouted to him, “Lazarus, open that door and follow the stairs down five levels!”
“What?” Lazarus shouted.
“Five levels!” shouted Tom, pointing down with his finger as the elevator doors closed.
Lazarus ran to the door and tried to push his way through it, but it held tight. He smashed up against the door and still it didn’t budge. Lazarus looked down, saw the doorknob and pulled on it. Still nothing. He could hear Daniels’s footsteps approaching quickly as he yelled something unintelligible. Lazarus turned the doorknob by accident as he looked back at the elevator doors, hoping they would open, and felt the door open slightly. He pulled the door and nearly ripped it off the hinges. He ran inside and headed down the stairs with a series of great strides.
Daniels stopped at the crossroads and looked in either direction. He saw the light indicating that the elevator was going down. He looked to the left and saw the door to the stairwell close. He held the radio to his mouth. “Two suspects in elevator 4D, one in the stairwell. I’ll take the stairwell. Elevator has stopped on…” The guard looked at the elevator level indicator. “Level 2, over.”