Flux Read online

  In a painful flash, I realize I might have fallen into a modern version of the trap that ensnared so many people in coal country. But that doesn’t make Synergy a target for corporate terrorism. They might be just another soulless corporation, but aside from the grumbling of locals still loyal to their previous master, I haven’t heard any complaints about the company, any negative news reports, and have never had to fend off protesters. “What have they done that’s so bad?”

  “We’re in the damn past,” the man says through grinding teeth. He’s losing his patience. “We’re tearing through it. Shattering it. Have you even considered what the ramifications of all this might be? Outside of your own death, I mean? Try to forget, for a moment, that you’re a grunt. Focus on the big picture. On the thousands of what-if scenarios. For all we know, this is happening all over the planet. Our world could be tearing itself apart. And you’re worried about what? Cassie?”

  “You know a lot about me,” I say, taking some comfort in the fact that he doesn’t seem to know my father and younger self are on this mountain, being whisked through time alongside us and a growing collection of violent, long-dead Appalachians. “But there are a few things you don’t know.”

  “Try me,” he says.

  “I’ve been awake for fifteen minutes.” I turn toward him for the first time. He’s seated beside me, still wearing his black pants and T-shirt, his head stained with blood from where I struck him. He meets my gaze, unflinching. “And…” I draw my hands out from behind my back, shedding the rope used to tie me in place.

  Then he surprises me by revealing his own hands. “These assholes have no idea how to tie a knot.”

  Tension swells between us. We both have reasons to attack the other, but that would only get us shot. The only way out of our predicament is to work together, and we both know it, no matter how much we don’t like it.

  As we both set to work covertly untying our feet, I ask, “You got a name?”

  “You can call me Minuteman.”

  “Cute,” I say.

  “I’ll just call you Owen.”

  He’s goading me, knowing I can’t react. “You’re kind of a dick.”

  “I’ve been told.” He slips the loosened ropes up and over his toes, and then leans back, sitting like he’s still bound.

  My efforts take a little longer because I’m doing my best to appear unconscious, which means moving very slowly. Minuteman is mostly hidden behind me, affording him a little more freedom of mobility.

  “Despite what you think, I’m not your enemy.” He sounds sincere, but he’s no doubt been trained in the art of deception, just like me. Part of modern guerilla warfare is working your way into an existing community, gaining their trust, and recruiting them to fight alongside you. The more people you convert to the cause, the greater your chances of success. It’s a technique I’ve used several times in the past without flaw…until Boone.

  “And despite what you think,” I say. “I’m not a killer. These people might be the ancestors of people I know from our time.”

  “Pretty sure a paradox is the least of our worries,” Minuteman says. “If it will help you sleep better, I’ll try not to kill them. But if they don’t leave me a choice…”

  I nod. I’ve made the same call several times already today. “I get it.”

  “Do you?” he asks. “Here’s the real difference between us. The only value my life has over these people is that they can’t stop what’s happening.”

  “And you can?”

  “I know to try.”

  “By killing a bunch of scientists at Synergy.” I have zero doubt that was the original plan. Search and destroy. Equipment and personnel.

  “First, I’m going to help them undo all this shit. Then…I suppose that depends on whether or not they’ve learned their lesson.”

  “And the people who try to stop you?” I ask, thinking of my crew still inside the facility. My friends.

  He shrugs. “You know the deal. It’s not personal. But I am giving you a chance to do the right thing. We could walk through the gate together. Instead of me blowing it up.”

  It’s a tempting offer, but without a way to confirm anything he’s said, it’s possible he’s just running a con-game on me. In his position, I’d do the same. Hell, we’re about to run one together. But that’s where our collusion comes to an end. His goal includes causing harm to the people I’ve promised to protect. That puts us at odds, even if we want the same outcome—to be returned to the present.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  In answer to his question, I flop onto my side and start spasming, making sure to keep my feet together and my hands behind my back. With all the movement, it’s unlikely anyone will notice the ropes are missing.

  “Hey!” Minuteman shouts. “Someone help him!”

  Voices rise. A handful of men and women hobble over, their feet slurping through the mud created by burning fires and melting snow. But they don’t lend a hand, or even get close enough to attack. They simply form a semi-circle around us and laugh at my misfortune.

  “Look at him go!” a man shouts. “Like a fish with a hook in ’im!”

  One laugh is louder than the rest. Closer than the rest. I open my eyes to find a beast of a woman standing just three feet away. She’s dressed in a trench coat—my trench coat. Well, the coat I took from a dead man two hours ago, and thirty years from now. What I don’t see on her, or anyone else, is my P220. But there is little doubt about who has the gun. Boone might not have been impressed by me or my story, but he had eyes for the pistol. Ultimately, that might have been my undoing. Immediate satisfaction of greed can sometimes outweigh the long-term benefits of patience.

  Knowing my chances aren’t going to get any better than they are right now, I shove my feet off the ground as hard as I can, spinning my body around. Laughter comingles with gasps. And then, before anyone can react, I kick out hard, connecting with the woman’s knee.

  The crack of bone, and the scream that follows, silences the laughter entirely. In the brief respite that follows, I hear the sound of distant gunfire. Then our fight starts.

  15

  I want to tell these people that violence isn’t necessary. That they can avoid the pain and potential death by just letting us go, and getting the hell off this mountain before time slips again and they find themselves, like us, caught in the flux.

  But I know it’s not possible. I’ve seen enough killers to know these people won’t think twice about taking our lives. We’ve seen their operation, and now I’ve attacked one of their own. I have no doubt Boone was planning to put bullets in our heads once he was done with us, so I don’t feel horrible about what comes next.

  But I do regret it.

  Taking a security job kept a gun on my hip, but I never believed I’d have to use it. The business of taking lives—for survival or for Uncle Sam—weighs heavy on the soul. I’d hoped to spend my life wandering Synergy’s wooded fence line, accompanied by the memory of my father, letting my demons fade into the morning fog.

  Alas…

  I spring from the ground as the oversized woman collapses in a writhing mass, clutching her ruined knee. She’ll survive the blow if she stays down, but she’ll have a limp to remember me by. A rifle cracks as I kick it to the side. The man holding the weapon snarls in frustration, but the sound is cut short when I chop his throat.

  The rifle comes free as the shooter crumples to the ground. I wield the weapon like a baseball bat, clutching the hot barrel and swinging hard at a woman charging with a rusted butcher knife. As the blade comes down, I connect with her clutched hand. She shouts in agony as her fingers break. The blade twinkles like a disco ball as it spins away, forcing several of the bootleggers to duck.

  In the brief respite, I glance at Minuteman, watching him work through a gaggle of men and women with the same speed, skill, and ruthless attention to subduing his enemy without killing them.

  He’s an impressive fighter, and if I’m honest, a
bit more in his prime than I am . His attacks are fluid, lacking any trace of hesitation. He’s ten steps ahead of the bootleggers, who are half drunk on their own product, and likely haven’t been in a fight with anyone who wasn’t also inebriated.

  No matter how impressive a fighter is, there’s not much he can do about a shotgun shell, though. When I spot a man with an early pump-action shotgun, raising the weapon toward Minuteman’s back, I abandon my fighting stance and dive over the woman with the broken hand. A quick roll and I’m back on my feet. The man doesn’t see me coming until I’ve already got a hand on the fore-end. I pump the weapon in rapid succession like I’m working out with a shake-weight, ejecting four shells and rendering it useless just as the man pulls the trigger with a click.

  “On your six,” Minuteman says. It’s not a thank you, but there’s no doubt now. We’re in this together. For the moment, we’re brothers in arms.

  I kick hard without looking and feel the soft impact of a man’s gut. A loud, “Oof!” is followed by the sound of a crumpling man desperate to suck in a breath. Like the other people we’ve incapacitated, he’s out of the fight for now, but will live.

  When I turn to look at the man, I’m caught off guard by the sight of two women, barreling over him, empty hands outstretched, dirty fingers hooked to rake and claw. There’s no avoiding or deflecting them. The pair collides with me, and the three of us spill to the ground.

  They lay into me like beasts, screaming and scratching. But there’s no skill behind the attack, and even less thought. They’re lost in rage, probably because I’ve injured someone important to them. Instead of kneeing me in the nuts, or gouging at my eyes, they tear at my chest, doing a number to my shirt and scratching my skin, but little else.

  As a man with a ridiculously large mustache closes in with a hammer in his hand and murder in his eyes, I clutch the womens’ hair in my hands. With a yank, the pair comes apart, and with a shove, their heads collide. It’s not enough to knock either unconscious, but it knocks the fight out of them.

  The mustache-man swings hard with the hammer, letting out a bellow. I roll backward, narrowly avoiding the strike. Instead of hitting me, the hammer slaps into the muddy earth. The man gives it a yank, but the tool-turned-weapon is stuck. He pulls hard with a grunt, giving me time to get to my feet and plot a counter-attack.

  But it’s not necessary. Minuteman soars through the air, driving his foot into the side of the man’s head. The man topples like a felled tree, landing in a cushion of slush.

  I spin around, fists clenched, ready to continue the fight. But it’s over. A dozen men and women are on the ground in various states of consciousness and injury. But none are dead.

  Minuteman doesn’t strike me as the merciful type, and his business on this land, in any time, is illegal. He’s a killer, of that there is no doubt, but he’s also a professional. Though they were armed, it was clear none of these people were a significant threat, not like Chafin and his men, and not like Boone and his.

  I’m about to ask him why he went easy on our attackers when the distant pop of a 9mm handgun reminds me that the bootlegger hit-squad has gone after Cassie and Levi.

  When Minuteman turns toward the sound of gunfire, I say, “I could use your help.”

  He turns away from the gunfire, looking uphill. I’m not sure if he’s looking toward the carved-flat summit where the Synergy facility was built, or if he’s thinking about his own people. Either way, it’s clear his attention is someplace else. “I could ask the same of you.”

  I back away, stepping downhill, resisting the urge to sprint. I’m not comfortable letting this man out of my sight, but subduing him in time to help my friends isn’t possible. Hell, I might not even be able to take him. And if I could, what am I going to do, run down the mountain with him slung over my shoulders?

  I decide to put a pin in our confrontation. “Whatever you were planning—”

  “It’s too late to finish,” he says, crouching down to recover the pump shotgun and its ejected shells. “We’re clearly too late.”

  As he sets about reloading the weapon, I ask. “You were trying to prevent this?”

  “This is just one of a dozen theoretical outcomes for what they were doing.”

  When I say nothing, he says, “You really have no idea, do you? What they were doing? The forces they were playing with?”

  My blank stare is answer enough. He shakes his head, not quite in disgust. It’s more like disappointment.

  “You’re not exactly the bad guy I was told you’d be.” he says and then he grins. “Would have made killing you easier.”

  I’m the bad guy?

  My face must betray my twisted up emotions, because Minuteman chuckles at me, shaking his head. He pumps the shotgun, chambering the first of four shells. When the mustached man reaches up for the weapon, Minuteman slugs him back down to the ground.

  I stop in my tracks as his last words filter past my confusion. Would have made killing you easier.

  Instead of putting a handful of metal pellets in my chest, Minuteman catches me off guard by throwing the loaded weapon to me. I catch it by the barrel as the sound of more gunfire rolls up the mountainside. The sharp crack of a rifle tears across the landscape, no longer being answered by the 9mm’s report.

  “Better get moving, soldier,” he says. When I turn around and sprint downhill, I hear his voice chasing me. “Good luck.”

  I race through the camp, leaping from the clearing into the woods, and I charge downhill without returning the sentiment.

  What Minuteman and his people had planned to do at Synergy is a mystery, but a man like him could be capable of anything from corporate espionage to wholesale destruction. Based on the state of my truck before I was swept into the past, I’m thinking it was the latter.

  My thoughts focus on the truck. Why did he wait to detonate the bomb? Minuteman isn’t the kind of person that makes mistakes like that. Despite his parting joke, killing me had never been the plan. It’s conceivable he hadn’t intended to kill anyone, which begs the question: What was he planning?

  And why?

  Having to ask that question at all irks me. Now, anyway. Before today, I was happy to live a simple life, collect a paycheck, and do my job. But my ignorance to Synergy’s work has put me, and those I’ve brought to the company, at risk.

  And that seriously pisses me off.

  The cold air burns my lungs as I sprint. My body groans from the effort, not so much from the run—gravity helps me along—but from the cold. I forgot to reclaim my coat, and my backside is still wet from sitting in half-frozen mud. If I don’t warm up soon, I might have to add frostbite to my growing list of problems and physical ailments. The small hole in my arm and the wound on my head are bad enough. Missing a few fingers might make firing a weapon or even throwing an effective punch a challenge.

  The sound of gunfire stops. I try not to consider the mind-numbing scenario in which I’m too late and my friends have been gunned down. But it’s impossible not to think about, and if that’s the case, Boone and his men will not receive the same merciful treatment as the men and women sprawled out in the slush behind me.

  A body on the ground slows my run to a jog. With snow underfoot, a quiet approach is impossible, but slowing down prevents me from missing details. Like the spent bullet casings covering the ground like pepper over mashed potatoes. They look homemade, the kind you’d expect to find in this era. I slow even more at the body, taking a moment to look at the fallen man’s face. I wince at the two, small bullet holes in his forehead. They’re dead center and just an inch apart—the spread of a marksman…or woman.

  Farther on, I pass two more bodies and then a scattering of 9mm shell casings. There are enough of them that I’m positive Cassie ran out of ammunition, which is probably why I haven’t heard shots in a while. Scanning the collection of tracks, I piece together the scene. The initial point of conflict is marked by a line of deep footprints facing off against two more sets,
just ten feet away. There’s a lot of movement through the area as Cassie and Levi moved to several fallback positions behind large trees. Then I find Cassie’s and Levi’s path of retreat, which has been followed by more than a dozen men, all of them headed downhill.

  Away from Synergy and the answers held within its walls.

  Shotgun in hand and ready to even the odds in favor of my friends, if they’re still alive, I charge downhill. I make it only ten steps before a branch slides out from behind a tree and between my legs. There’s a stab of pain in my shin as I stumble. When I look back to face my attacker, I fail to notice the large fist approaching my face until it’s too late.

  Aww, shi—

  16

  “You need to get up.”

  The warm comfort of darkness surrounds me, beckoning me back to unconsciousness. “I’m staying here.”

  “No choice in the matter.” It’s my father’s voice, calm, but with a hint of irritation. He’s not one to easily lose his temper, but this is an old fight, and one I never win.

  With a click, my bedroom light flares to life, squeezing my eyes shut. I reel back from the glow, like a vampire from the sun, pulling blankets over my head. “Can’t we just skip one week?”

  My father’s weight on the bedside rolls me against his back. I’d never tell him, but I take comfort in his strength, in his indomitable will, and his strident sense of right and wrong. He brings order to the world. “You know why we go.”

  I do, but I’m not going to say it.

  “The last thing your mother asked me to do was raise you in the church, and come hell or high water, I aim to fulfill her dyin’ wish.”

  “But why?” I ask. “She’s not here to know.” I instantly regret the words, but I stand by the question. Fighting against the urge to apologize, I wait for an answer.

  “Son…” His heavy hand rests on my back. “I struggle with my faith. Ain’t no secret in that, but I’ll be damned before I give up the possibility of seeing your Ma again. So I go to church, every week, and try to scrounge up enough belief that I might someday find myself in the same place as your mother. Had you known her… Had you had the chance to love her…I reckon you’d want to do the same.”