Linkage: The Narrows of Time Read online

  The second EMT opened one of the medical boxes, pulling out gauze and other supplies. He handed them to Dana.

  “Let me know if you need something for the pain,” she said, dabbing the gauze on the wound. The pad turned a dark red color almost immediately.

  Drew leaned back to rest his head on the pillow. His eyes closed unexpectedly.

  * * *

  Lucas had been sitting alone for almost an hour when he heard muffled sounds of tools clanking against rock and cement. He used a rebar stump to pull himself up to the opening at the top of the debris pile. He yelled through the cavity, “I’m here! I’m here! Can someone hear me?”

  A male voice from the other said shouted back, “We can hear you. Hold on, we’re digging our way to you.”

  “How’s my brother doing? Is he okay?”

  “He tore up his leg pretty bad, but the paramedics took him to the hospital. You might want to stand back in case some of this stuff shakes loose.”

  Lucas nearly jumped off the wreckage in excitement. He quickly descended to the ground and waited for rescue. While he was waiting, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around. It was Larson. “Shit, you scared the hell out of me.”

  “Sounds like rescue crew’s on the other side,” Larson said with a gleeful tone. “Hopefully, they’ll have us out of here soon.”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “I got tired of waiting. Do you have a problem with that?”

  Lucas shook his head.

  “No, I didn’t think so,” Larson said with a smug look on his face.

  Lucas wanted to drop him right then and there, but didn’t.

  Larson used his left arm to nudge past Lucas, moving closer to the base of the cave-in. He just stood there with his hands on his hips, looking up at the opening at the top of the wreckage.

  Lucas moved to within a step of the man’s backside. He raised his hands together and considered wrapping his fingers around Larson’s neck. He wondered what it would feel like to squeeze Larson’s throat until the asshole stopped wiggling.

  Larson shuffled back a step.

  Lucas did the same, lowering his hands so he did not bump into him.

  Larson looked over his shoulder at Lucas. “Stop crowding me. What are you, gay?”

  When Larson faced forward again, Lucas flipped him the bird and mouthed the words “Fuck you.”

  * * *

  Drew woke up in a hospital room to the sounds of medical equipment beeping all around him. There was an IV stuck in his left arm and a blood pressure cuff pumping around his right bicep. His thigh was throbbing with every heartbeat, which was odd since he only had minimal feeling in that part of his body. When he reached down, he found a pressure bandage wrapped around his leg. He sat up and found a friend sitting in a red easy chair to his left. “Trevor, you’re alive!”

  Trevor just smiled back at him.

  “What happened?” Drew asked.

  “You lose much blood. Ambulance bring you to medical center.”

  Drew read his patient ID wristband. He was in the University Medical Center, less than a mile north of campus. “No, I meant what happened to you, when you left the NASA meeting?”

  “Kleezebee send me on errand.”

  “I thought you might have been in the lab when it was destroyed.”

  “I vas south of town.”

  “Where’s Lucas?”

  “They just rescue him. He be here soon.”

  “Then he’s safe?”

  “Ja.”

  “Thank God. What about the others?”

  “They get them out, too.”

  A doctor and nurse walked into the room.

  * * *

  Fifty-five minutes later, Lucas strolled into Drew’s hospital room, pushing a wheelchair with a can of grape soda, a jumbo Snicker’s bar, and a bag of barbeque chips sitting on the seat. He had just bought the food from the vending machines near the entrance to the hospital. Drew’s backpack was hanging off the back of the chair.

  “Hungry, little brother?” Lucas asked with a huge grin on his face.

  “Lucas!” Drew cried out.

  Lucas leaned down to give Drew a hug.

  “You brought my chair?”

  “Kleezebee made sure the firemen brought it up when they were rescued.”

  Lucas shook Trevor’s hand. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece, big fella. We thought we might have lost you.”

  Trevor stood aside and offered his chair to Lucas.

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll stand for a while.”

  “How’s Dr. Kleezebee?” Drew asked Lucas.

  “Last I heard they’re putting a cast on his ankle.”

  “And Dr. Suki?”

  “That dude’s in rough shape. They took him into surgery,” Lucas said, fluffing his brother’s pillow. “How are you doing?”

  “The doc said I can leave in the morning. They want to monitor me overnight for sepsis.”

  “Then I guess I’m bunking here tonight,” Lucas said, opening the can of grape soda and giving it to Drew.

  Drew took a drink, and then let out a low-pitched belch.

  “Sounds like you’re feeling better already,” Lucas said, smiling. He held up the candy bar and the bag of chips. “Which one do you want?”

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to eat those in here. Don’t I need the doctor’s permission first?”

  “Come on, pick one. I know you want some,” Lucas replied, dangling them in front of Drew. He continued to tease his brother until Drew snatched the Snickers bar from his hand. “I’m surprised you didn’t pick the chips. They’re your favorite.”

  Drew tore open the wrapper, took a huge bite, and began to chew it. He smiled and said, “The chocolate just sounded good.”

  Lucas pried open the bag, and ate of handful of BBQ chips. He licked his fingers afterward. “They’re a little stale, but edible.”

  There was an orange suitcase sitting along the wall next to the door. It was a wheel bag the size of a footlocker, with a black pullout handle and a pair of casters on the bottom. They didn’t own a piece of luggage that size, so he presumed it belonged to Trevor. “You wouldn’t happen to have a change of clothes in there for me, would you?” he asked, pointing at the bag.

  Trevor shook his head. “Sorry, no clothes.”

  Chapter 16

  Tuesday, December 25

  Lucas woke at 6:00 AM the following morning in his brother’s hospital room. He was slumped down in a red armchair next to Drew, who was snoring in his hospital bed. Lucas didn’t remember sitting in the chair, let alone falling asleep in it the night before. He sat up and looked around for Trevor, but his friend was missing, as was the orange wheel bag. He assumed Trevor had slipped out during the night.

  The side of his neck felt like someone had slashed it repeatedly with a hockey stick. He rolled his head around in a circle, trying to stretch out his neck muscles. When that failed, he started rubbing the sore spot with his right hand, trying to loosen it up—it finally did. In the process, he found some type of tacky residue on his hand. It felt like leftover wood glue that had partially dried between his fingers; he thought it’d come from grape soda or the BBQ chips.

  He walked into Drew’s private bathroom, closed the door to muffle any noise, and then washed his hands under the faucet. He had to lather up and rinse multiple times, but he finally got rid of the sticky stuff. When he moved to the towel rack to dry his hands, his right shoe stuck to the floor for a moment.

  He returned to Drew’s bed and found his brother wide-awake and talking to a short, chubby nurse with plump cheeks, who was wearing a Santa Claus hat. She could have doubled for Santa’s wife at the North Pole. Her nametag said “Rose.”

  “Looks like you get to go home today,” the nurse said, after taking his temperature. “No sign of infection.”

  “When can I leave?”

  “As soon as Dr. Marino discharges you.”

  Lucas asked her, “How
long will that take? We’d like to be home in time for Christmas dinner.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. There’re only a handful of patients left with the evacuation underway.”

  “I’m surprised this place is still open.”

  “It takes time to stabilize and transfer a thousand patients,” she said, scribbling something into Drew’s chart. Before she left the room, she told Drew, “You can go ahead and get dressed, if you like.”

  Lucas held up Kleezebee’s car keys in front of Drew’s eyes. “As soon as we get out of here, we’re going back to the apartment and pack for home. I’ve had enough of Tucson for a while.”

  “It’ll be nice to spend some time with Mom.”

  While Lucas was helping Drew out of his hospital gown, he saw that Drew was missing something. “Where’s your leather pouch?”

  Drew felt around his neck and chest. “I didn’t even realize it was gone. Is it in the clothes bag on the counter?”

  Lucas searched the clear plastic bag, but only found his brother’s pants, shirt, wallet, comb, watch, socks, and shoes. “It’s not here. When was the last time you remember seeing it?”

  Drew didn’t respond right away. “It was when I first got rescued. I was sitting on a gurney by the stairwell.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I remember feeling a little dizzy when some lady put gauze on my leg. Next thing I know, I woke up here in this bed.”

  “Maybe the EMTs took it off you for some reason? Do you remember the name of the ambulance company? I’ll call their lost and found.”

  “I don’t remember,” Drew said, shaking his head. “Geeze, I can’t believe I lost it.”

  Lucas knew it was unlikely they would ever see the pouch again. It’d probably been tossed into the trash during the chaos. He patted Drew on the back. “I’m sure it’ll turn up.”

  While they waited, Lucas turned on the TV. He scanned the channels to see if there was any new information about the energy fields. The local news channel reported that dozens of domes were destroying cities all over the globe and each time they appeared, they were getting larger and lasting longer. “It’s definably spreading,” he said, “but at least they’re not showing any more of them around here.”

  “Maybe those things are done with Arizona.”

  “That might be wishful thinking. The sooner we can get away from here, the better. In fact, we should probably take Mom away from Phoenix and go hide in the mountains somewhere. The domes seem mainly interested in large cities.”

  “One of us should call her and let her know I’m getting released.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Hand me the phone.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Lucas and Drew were still sitting in the hospital room, waiting for Dr. Marino to sign off on Drew’s discharge. Lucas got tired of waiting, so he tracked the doctor down, finding him near the nurse’s station, looking over a chart. He gently reminded the doc that they wanted to get home in time for Christmas dinner. Marino apologized and thirty minutes later, Drew was released.

  “How’s your leg doing?” Lucas asked, pushing the wheelchair across the parking lot in front of the emergency room entrance.

  “It’s still sore.”

  Lucas was shocked by his brother’s response since Drew only had marginal feeling in his lower extremities. “If you can feel it, then it must be excruciating.”

  “It definitely hurts,” Drew said, right before his stomach growled loud enough for Lucas to hear. “Can we stop at Dairy Queen on the way? I could go for a large Oreo Blizzard and maybe even a chocolate sundae.”

  “That actually sounds pretty damn good right now, but I doubt they’re open, and that’s assuming the building’s still standing.”

  When they entered the ice cream parlor’s parking lot, Drew said, “Their lights are on.”

  “But I don’t see anyone inside,” Lucas said, walking up to the door. He reached for the door handle and pulled at it. It opened. “Somebody forgot to lock up. I’m surprised this place is still in one piece.” He looked around for signs of looting, but there was none.

  “Let’s make our own blizzards,” Drew said, wheeling his chair forward. “I’ll go first.”

  Lucas closed the door before Drew could get inside. “No, we’re not going to steal ice cream.”

  “Come on, I’m starving. Where else are we going to get food? Everything’s probably closed.”

  “Okay, but I’m leaving ten bucks on the counter,” he said, pulling out his wallet.

  After making and eating their ice cream treats, they walked the rest of the way to their apartment complex and pressed the call button for the elevator, but it didn’t light up. “The electricity must be out. Looks like I’m carrying you up more stairs,” Lucas told Drew.

  He carried Drew up the third floor, then returned to the ground level to fetch the wheelchair. Once Drew was in his chair, he followed Drew to their apartment door, unlocked it, and they both went inside. Lucas opened all the blinds to let sunlight in so they could see what they were doing.

  “You get started packing. I’ll grab the laptop and few of our books,” Lucas said, taking Drew’s knapsack off the back of the wheelchair. He unzipped the center pouch and put it on the study desk next to the computer. He slid the molded plastic chair out and sat down. He drew in a long, slow breath and then exhaled—it soothed him. He let his mind drift to thoughts of recent events, as his fingertips brushed across the smooth, wood-grained surface. So much had happened—it was hard to process, even for him.

  He tried to remember life before the campus tragedies, but couldn’t seem to recall it clearly in his mind. He felt like he was on the outside looking in, viewing the memories as if they belonged to someone else. Nothing felt as it should, not even his own skin. Deep down he knew the visions were his, but now they seemed foreign, tainted in some way. Certainly, this was not what he expected when he enrolled at the university as a wide-eyed teenager.

  He often wondered what constituted a normal college life. Was it the endless beer bongs and hookups, or was it something more? If he had to do it over, would he join his classmates in the occasional alcohol-induced, three-day bender, or would he stick to the original plan? One path was about hangovers and unchecked venereal disease, and the other was about duty and responsibility.

  It was easy to fantasize about a different life. One filled with playful days of innocence and guilt-free Sunday mornings. Yet, he knew it was a hopeless illusion. You are who you are and there’s no going back. Life is a series of mistakes—some critical and some not so much, and he’d certainly made his share along the way. He hoped that if someone dissected his life, they’d find that he always tried to do right by Drew and his adoptive parents, even if things spun sideways.

  Sure, he had a bit of a temper and sometimes overreacted, but who doesn’t on occasion, especially when family is involved? Was he really so different? Everyone struggles with their own personal demons, just some are better at hiding them than others. But today was one of those days when control seemed just out of reach, as if his footing in reality was slipping. He wondered if he listened hard enough, would he hear the malignant shadows closing in?

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Lucas stood up from his wood-grained study desk and leaned forward with his thighs pressing hard against the center drawer. He thumbed through the physics material on the top shelf in his Tucson apartment, looking for his quantum field theory book. He found it next to the reference notes on spatial anomalies, and slid it out. Slips of yellow notepaper fell from within the pages, scattering like forgotten dreams across the river of unpaid bills on his desk. He gathered the notes, trying to put them back where they belonged, when he realized they no longer mattered. Neither did his anti-gravity research. Years of accelerated graduate study, plus eighteen months of tireless research gone in a flash.

  Lucas dropped the red, 600-page physics book on the floor when someone started pounding on the front door.
The book landed perfectly flat, making a bang that ricocheted through the room like a gunshot. His heart pounded at the walls of his chest, trying to break free from its cage.

  “Dr. Ramsay, we need to speak with you. It’s urgent,” a man shouted from the other side of the door.

  Lucas walked to the door and looked through the peephole, but could only see a close-up of a man’s face—maybe a Hispanic—Lucas did not recognize him.

  “Dr. Ramsay, please open up,” the man insisted. “It’s urgent.”

  Lucas hesitated, then decided to open the door, expecting it to be someone from the university. Immediately, a second man, a white guy with a dimpled chin, scrambled into view with a rifle pointed at Lucas’ face. Both men were wearing combat fatigues, and equipment packs, and helmets with MP stenciled on the front.

  “Wait, don’t shoot!” Lucas said, raising his hands above his head.

  “Are you Dr. Lucas Ramsay of the Astrophysics Department?” the Hispanic soldier asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Is your brother with you?”

  Lucas moved a step closer to them with his hands touching both sides of the upper doorframe. He looked past the soldiers, down through the open railing bordering the catwalk outside his apartment, and saw two green Humvee trucks parked outside the manager’s office on the ground floor. To the west and south, massive fires burned as looters took to the streets.

  “He’s in the bedroom. What’s going on here?”

  “We’re here to take you into custody by order of Major General Rafael Alvarez.”

  “What the hell for?” Lucas asked, knowing that martial law had been declared within the Tucson city limits a few days ago.

  “For the murder of one hundred and twenty-seven people on campus. Both of you need to come with us, immediately.”

  “Look, you need to understand. It was an accident. My brother had nothing to do with it.”