Saturday, 8 October 2016. 10:17 P.M. Riverport Swimming Hall.
Beth had left Sofia in Jack’s care while she shut herself in the locker rooms to tend her savaged leg and change out of her Monarch uniform. Jack had some first aid training and figured she’d be okay in the short term. There would be a scar, but the slug had done no damage to bone or arteries. He had offered to stitch her up, but Beth wanted to take care of it herself and retreated to the change rooms.
So he was stuck with Sofia.
“You don’t need to convince me,” Sofia snapped. “I’ll help you. My own calculations are very clear: the Meyer-Joyce field will collapse. Well in advance of Paul’s five-year prediction. We have a day. Two at most. Now please let me work.”
Sofia was already examining the console of Will’s machine, looking up occasionally to compare what she was seeing onscreen to some detail of the machine’s structure.
“So you do think the world’s about to end.”
“Yes, I do.”
Jack leaped on that. “Paul’s been to the end of time. He has the date. If a collapsed waveform can’t be altered, if things can’t be changed, how can he be wrong?”
“It’s his word against my expertise and a model supported by verifiable data,” she scowled. “I can only conclude his recollection is flawed.”
Beth reappeared from the locker rooms out back. “He wants you to tell him it’s possible to influence a collapsed waveform, to change events.” Gone were the monogrammed Monarch jacket and fatigues. She had prepared an outfit that was fashion agnostic: blue jeans, plain black T-shirt, mid-range leather jacket of classic cut. An outfit that wouldn’t look out of place anytime in the last twenty years. “Jack,” she said. “You have to let go of the idea that you can save Will. Focus on what’s possible.”
Jack let it go, but wouldn’t be giving up. Will was alive in 2010. There had to be something he could do.
Beth turned to Sofia. “Are we good?” She was favoring her good leg pretty heavily, but otherwise looked okay, all things considered.
They could both have used some sleep.
Sofia stepped away from the keyboard. Gathering her thoughts she said, “Before I do this, I have a question for you: your brother built something he called a Countermeasure.” Being here, looking at Will’s machine, and piecing together her own experiences with Paul Serene and Monarch, it was now clear to her that Dr. Kim had little, if anything, to do with the pioneering of chronon research. That, quite possibly, she had made a grave error in helping Monarch to achieve their goals. “‘Countermeasure.’ That is a very specific word.”
“Will built it to repair the fracture in the M-J field,” Jack said.
Sofia’s face broke into a sudden smile. It suited her. “Then it exists.”
“It existed on July 4, 2010, we know that much.”
“And that is your destination?”
Beth stepped in. “We go back, retrieve it, return here, fix all this. How soon can you get the machine working?”
“It’s ready now, if you are.”
Irene Rose was in a top-down position on the pool, her rifle’s barrel nosing through a gap in a thin and grimy window, waiting for go.
“Count all three. Joyce, Wilder, Amaral. They’re focused on the machine, seem pretty excited about it.”
Gibson was hanging out on the corrugated eave, outside the cafeteria-level window. He had just finished laying a sheet of black plastic adhesive across the pane. “Team, report in.”
“IR, roof,” Irene responded.
“Voss, rear door, ground level.”
“Chaffey, Reeves, Dominguez, rear door.”
“Gibson…” Gibson took out his knife, tapped the plastic hard. The glass pane beneath it snapped, came away clean. He laid it down carefully. “Cafeteria, top floor.” He ducked inside, unslung his carbine as a car pulled up outside, braking loudly.
Irene piped up. “Boss.”
“I got it. Count one: Caucasian male. Limp. Voss, how you coming with that door?”
“Already in.”
Shouting from the lobby bounced around the swimming hall. “Jack! Beth! You here?”
Nick ran into the hall, heavily favoring one leg. He and Beth were a matching pair.
“Thank God. Guys, Monarch knows you’re here. They’ve always known. They’re probably on their way right now.”
Jack and Beth were on the ramp to the time machine’s airlock, waiting for Sofia to give them the go-ahead to depart.
“Horatio got you out?” Beth asked. “Is he with you?”
Nick’s expression said it all. “He…” Nick struggled. “Horatio… he was trying to e-mail you something. Martin Hatch… he… he’s got something going on. Something’s not right with that company, man. Or that dude. Way, way not right.”
Beth nodded, pushed the grief down. Horatio was a good guy. “Tell me about it when I get back. Sofia?” Beth entered the airlock. “We’re going to fix this. Nick, you should get out of here. Jack?”
Sofia brought the power online, chronon particles flooding the Promenade. The bare-bones frame of the old machine clunked hard, picking up a rattle like loose change in a dryer.
“Go now,” Sofia said.
Jack moved up the ramp.
“Breach,” Gibson said.
At the back of the swimming hall, thirty feet behind the time machine, the door to the locker rooms blew off its hinges.
Jack threw a stutter bubble at his feet out of pure reflex, as the cafeteria window shattered. Bullets impacted the shield, thudding dully. Sofia shrieked, going rigid, shoulders hunched, an upright target.
Irene opened up from above. Gibson kept up fire from one end of the cafeteria as Voss swept in doing likewise from the locker rooms. The bubble protected Jack from multiple kill shots, torn between entering the machine or protecting Sofia.
A shot from above blew a crater out of the tiles at Sofia’s feet, there was a spray of blood and Sofia fell forward across the controls. Collapsed, she vanished behind the instrument panel.
“Voss! Stay wide of the machine!” Gibson shouted. “Wide of the machine! We need that.”
The airlock sucked shut.
“Beth!”
Nick fell back into the lobby, wide-eyed.
Jack ran to the airlock, but he had been here before: it wasn’t opening. Beth had her notebook out, scribbled, tore off a page, pressed it to the viewport:
CHARGE MUST EXPEND. NOT SAFE TO OPEN. SEE YOU THERE.
He was shaking his head no. Beth pressed her hand to the viewport, and stopped.
Jack angled his view, knew immediately why she wasn’t going through. Something had gone wrong: the left hatch-the door to the past, the one they were meant to take-was closed. The right one was open. The past was locked, the future waiting.
Something must have happened when Sofia went down. Had the controls taken a hit? It was impossible to tell.
The machine began to tremble violently. From somewhere in the back of the Promenade a riveted steel plate detached and crashed to the tiles.
Voss didn’t risk getting into Jack’s line of sight. Irene and Gibson held fire, waiting for the shield to drop-at least fifty bullets waiting for permission to splash right through Jack.
Jack took a chance. He stepped out of the bubble, spraying three-round bursts toward the ceiling-line windows. Dirty glass shattered as military rounds punched through rusted iron paneling, sending Irene flinching back from the edge.
Gibson took a shot, but not before Jack manifested a second shield in his line of sight that took the hits. Jack cleared the short distance between ramp and console, throwing down a third bubble as Voss opened up.
Three rounds pounded dully into the bubble, eye level with Jack.
“Boss,” Chaffey piped up in Gibson’s earpiece. “You want us in there?”