Authors: Douglas E. Richards
He glared at Jenna in contempt. “Cargill’s
plan may have been flawless, and it
will
set me back, but he still can’t win. I’m sure that the teleported version of Nathan
Wexler is telling him where I am, even as we speak. But what Cargill doesn’t
know is that I’ve copied the best weapons experts on the planet as well. Half
of this building houses my Brain Trust duplicates, and all three buildings
surrounding us. And they’ve made breakthroughs the US military can only
dream about
. This island has anti-plane
and anti-missile capabilities more impressive than those of any country on
Earth. So Cargill’s first attack wave will fail. And I have the means to escape
into the night long before he even begins to breach our defenses.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
said Jenna scathingly. “You poor psychopathic asshole.” She shook her head.
“Here’s the thing,
genius,
Blake and
I are duplicates also. The goal was to get Nathan out, if possible, and destroy
you. We signed on for a one-way mission.”
For the first time, Knight
considered why Jenna had kept her index finger on top of her diamond ring since
this conversation had begun. He had thought it was a nervous habit, but now he
knew better. It wasn’t a ring Nathan Wexler had given her, after all.
His eyes widened in horror.
“It’s finally dawning on you, isn’t
it?” said Jenna. “You think the explosion
Aaron
triggered was epic? Well, I’m carrying a
hundred
times
as much explosive. I push down hard on this diamond and enough octa-nitro-cubane
is triggered to flatten this building and at least the three key buildings
around it, which house your Brain Trust.”
“But you’ll die also,” said
Knight, using the only card he had left. “Horribly. Your body torn to shreds. Are
you really prepared for that? Another Jenna may get to live, but it’s you who
takes the full brunt of the explosion. You who gets vaporized. It won’t hurt
any less because there’s another of you inside Cheyenne Mountain.”
Tears began streaming down Jenna’s
face. “I know,” she said. “And I am terrified. I don’t want to die. I’m not a
hero.”
“So don’t do it,” pleaded Knight.
“You said yourself I might be right.”
“I only said that to get you to
agree to give Aaron and Nathan a head start.”
“The world is a fucked up place.
The inmates have taken over the asylum. You know it’s true. I’m the only person
who can save humanity from itself.”
“You might be right,” whispered
Jenna, now sobbing uncontrollably, fear and dread written all over her face. “But
let’s hope like hell you aren’t.”
And with that she pushed down hard
on her diamond, and a fireball was created that briefly turned the center of
the island into the center of the sun, sending shockwaves for dozens of miles
in all directions.
Everyone in all four central
buildings was vaporized instantly, save for a doctor named Susan Schlesinger who
had just left the island, deciding to listen to the advice of a man who had
threatened to kill her repeatedly, but whose decency somehow still managed to
shine through.
58
Nathan Wexler suddenly found
himself in the most desolate place he had ever been. An ocean of desert receded
into the horizon on all sides, and he couldn’t find a single shred of evidence that
humanity had ever existed. Judging only by his surroundings, he could well have
been thrust back millions of years in time rather than the just the blink of an
eye.
One moment he had been inside
the chamber of one of Edgar Knight’s time machines, and the next he was here.
He tried not to think of the
other version of himself still standing in the chamber, the device now shut
down by his transmitter, while armed mercenaries out for blood swarmed into the
room like angry wasps.
And he especially tried not to
think of Aaron Blake. Whoever he was, the man was absolutely amazing. Creative,
bold, and all but unstoppable. Blake’s shoulder and leg had been shredded, and
yet he had managed to send Wexler off somehow, especially remarkable since Wexler
had witnessed a torrent of bullets ripping through the man’s body as he turned
the crank the last quarter revolution to seal the door.
He checked the phone Blake had
given him. Sure enough, despite the desolation surrounding him, the wireless
signal was strong.
God bless America
,
he thought happily, placing an immediate call to Lee Cargill as he had been
instructed.
Cargill was ecstatic to receive
his call, and was able to scramble a nearby military helicopter to pick him up
only ten minutes after he had traced Wexler’s location. After a quick stop at
Nellis Air Force Base he was ushered onto a jet and flown to Cheyenne Mountain,
arriving less than three hours after he had teleported into the desert.
There were four people waiting
to greet him on the runway just outside of the mountain, three men and a woman.
Two of the men were unfamiliar, although he assumed one of them was the
mysterious Lee Cargill. The other was Aaron Blake.
And the woman he would recognize
anywhere.
Jenna Morrison.
She threw her arms around him as
tears of joy streamed down her face, and he teared as well, both experiencing impossible
emotions never felt by any others in history.
“So it’s really true,” said
Jenna after they had exchanged a prolonged kiss. “Knight really did produce a
duplicate. But how? And when?”
“I’ll tell you all about it,”
said Wexler, “but maybe I should meet your friends before I do. Although I do
know this man,” he added happily, extending a hand toward Aaron Blake. “Or at
least one version of him.”
Blake shook the physicist’s
hand. “It’s an honor to meet you,” he said. “To meet you once again, as it
would seem.”
Wexler smiled. “To say the honor
is all mine is an understatement. I’ll tell you everything that happened, but I
can say with absolute confidence that no man alive is braver or more heroic
than you.” He paused. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“I appreciate that,” said Blake,
“but no need. As you know, I’m not the man who managed to get you out of
Knight’s control.”
“True, but we both know you and
he have an equally heroic nature and deserve the same thanks.”
Blake nodded to acknowledge the compliment.
“I’m just happy everything seems to have worked out,” he said modestly.
Wexler couldn’t help but frown.
Yes, it had worked out, at least for
this
version of himself.
But the Aaron Blake and Nathan
Wexler he had left behind were surely dead. And Knight still held uncountable
members of what he called his Brain Trust on the island, which he could use as
hostages to prevent Cargill from capturing him. The first thing Wexler had done
was to give Cargill the location of Knight’s headquarters, but the man had not
seemed to find this of urgent importance for some reason.
Wexler waited until Cargill had
introduced himself, along with his second-in-command, Joe Allen, and then said,
“Can I assume you’re planning to attack Knight’s compound immediately?”
Cargill shook his head. “We’ve
sent a mop-up crew to get as many of his supporters as we can. But the
octa-nitro-cubane made an attack unnecessary.”
“Octa-nitro-cubane?” said
Wexler.
“You know, the explosive.”
Wexler shook his head. “I have
no idea what you’re talking about.”
Cargill winced. “Why don’t we postpone
this conversation for a while. We all wanted to meet you and welcome you here,
but I know you and Jenna have a lot of catching up to do. And recent events
have left us quite busy. Jenna can fill you in and you two can get reacquainted.
We can all meet tomorrow for a more complete exchange of information, and so we
can all begin to get to know each other. Let me show you around inside the
mountain and then let the two of you have some privacy.”
“Inside the mountain?” repeated Wexler
uncertainly.
Cargill smiled. “Yes. You
definitely have some catching up to do.”
59
Nathan Wexler reacted to Cheyenne
Mountain with the same open-mouthed awe that every other person who had ever
made this trip had displayed. After the briefest of tours, Cargill, Blake, and
Allen shook Wexler’s hand warmly and took their leave.
Jenna knew how badly Cargill
wanted the details of all that had happened at Knight’s headquarters, but had
decided this could wait, that giving her and Nathan some quality alone time
took precedence.
She was really beginning to like
that man.
She wondered what the other her had
thought of Edgar Knight before she had killed him—and herself. She shuddered
once again just from the thought of how horrible it must have been for her to
trigger the explosive, knowing she was taking her last breath.
When they were alone in her cramped
quarters, Jenna melted into Wexler’s arms again, hugging him fiercely just to
be sure he was real.
“So when did Knight copy you?”
she asked again once they had separated, returning to the question she had
posed on the runway.
“Three months ago. His men hit
us with knockout gas while we were sleeping.”
“
Us?
” said Jenna in dismay. “You don’t mean to say . . .” For some
reason, she found herself unable to finish the sentence.
“Yes. He copied us both.” Wexler
paused, and tears began to well up in his eyes. “But after you and Blake
arrived at Knight’s island, he shot the other Jenna to death. The one I lived
with for the past three months. Right in front of me.”
“I am so sorry,” said Jenna
softly.
“Thanks. But being here with you
. . .
I don’t know how to feel. I’m not
sure the human mind is equipped for situations like this. I just saw the woman
I love killed. But then here you are. The woman I love. And it’s like my subconscious
is trying hard to convince me this other event never occurred. That it was
nothing more than a vivid hallucination.”
Jenna sighed. Although he didn’t
know it yet, no one understood how he was feeling any better than she did. It
was insane. The Nathan Wexler she had lived with the past three months had been
killed in front of her, and the Jenna Morrison he had lived with had been
killed in front of him. It was bizarrely symmetrical, in a funhouse mirror sort
of way.
And yet they were still Nathan
Wexler and Jenna Morrison. They shared every memory until three months
previously. And despite having witnessed Nathan Wexler’s death on Palomar
Mountain, she knew she was in love with this one. Three months of shared
memories had been erased, but that didn’t wipe out the chemistry between them,
the years they had been in love before they had been separated by a madman.
Jenna told him what had happened
to him on Palomar Mountain. Explained the circumstances.
For several long seconds after
she finished he was too stunned to speak, and she wondered how he would react. Despite
what had happened, she knew she could find a way to get beyond it all, to get
back the relationship she was certain had been lost. But could
he
?
“Okay,” he said finally. “This
is all truly horrible. And I don’t want to even begin to think of the
philosophical and ethical dimensions of it. It’s too much for me to handle. The
people we lost we loved deeply. And they died loving life as much as we do, and
feeling excruciating pain.”
He paused and stared deeply into
her brown eyes. “Yet the two of us remain,” he said finally. “The essential
essence of
us
is unchanged.”
Jenna nodded. “I’ve never had so
many conflicting emotions. I guess the trick is for us to find a way not to be
haunted by what happened. Not to feel guilty about still loving each other.”
Wexler sighed and then nodded. “I
agree,” he said. “So we both saw the other gunned down in cold blood. While
this isn’t something they probably recommend in couples therapy,” he added
wryly, a twinkle Jenna knew well returning to his eyes, “you do have to admit,
not many couples have
that
in
common.”
Jenna burst out laughing.
Part of her knew it was too soon
for gallows humor, but she also knew they had desperately needed to lighten the
mood to retain their sanity in the face of insane circumstances.
And Jenna now had her answer.
The man she loved was back. They would always mourn for those they had lost,
but it was human nature to compartmentalize, to move on. Months or years from
now it would seem like the two of them had never parted. It would all be as
distant as a bad nightmare from which they had awakened.
They instinctively began to reminisce
about the many shared experiences they did have, and less than ten minutes
later they felt almost as comfortable together as they always had. A few months
worth of divergent experiences, as traumatic as they had been, had not changed
what was at the core of their personalities, nor the palpable magnetism that
drew them together.
Jenna wasn’t quite sure how it started,
but one moment they were talking and the next they were making love with a
mindless, animal intensity, unsure if five minutes had passed or five hours.
When they were both satiated,
they turned onto their sides to face each other, a sheet pulled over them for
warmth. Jenna wanted to just lie there quietly, without a care in the world,
basking in Nathan’s closeness, but she knew she didn’t have this luxury.
She wasn’t entirely surprised
that Aaron hadn’t told Nathan about the explosives they had smuggled onto Knight’s
island. He had been busy turning himself into a one-man army. She also knew
Nathan had guessed what Cargill had meant when he brought it up, but there had
been too much to deal with, and Nathan had temporarily pushed it from his mind.
But it was time to bring him up
to speed.
Jenna explained what had
happened and the thinking behind it. That as long as Edgar Knight was still
alive he would be a threat to the world, and no one named Nathan Wexler or
Jenna Morrison could ever be safe.
Cargill had made some guesses
about what she and Blake would encounter once they were captured, but he
couldn’t be sure. So they had decided to use a dose of explosive that couldn’t
miss, even if Jenna had been placed in a lead prison and Knight was in a
distant room.
The explosion had destroyed all
life in Knight’s building and the three that surrounded it, and had caused a
number of deaths in buildings even farther away. She explained to Wexler that
while he was flying from Nellis to Cheyenne Mountain, Lee Cargill had been working
with others in the government to spin the explosion in the media, lamenting the
tragic loss of life, keeping the underlying cause a mystery, and making sure it
was clear that no radiation had been released and no one else was in any danger.
But before this happened he had
sent a number of teams to mop up, locate any time travel devices still on the
island, and capture anyone they could who had been working with Knight.
Wexler’s expression darkened as
she spoke, and it was clear just how saddened and horrified he was to learn
about the carnage the other Jenna had unleashed.
“The thought of this makes me
sick,” he said when she had finished. “There were thousands of people in these
four buildings,” he whispered. “Thousands. I worked with a number of them. You
couldn’t have known about all the others Knight copied, in addition to me, but
you probably killed every last one of what he called his Brain Trust. They were
all brilliant scientists, from every field.”
“I know,” said Jenna softly. “Before
you arrived here, Cargill’s early teams had already captured a few key players,
and had learned that these scientists had been wiped out.”
“It’s a huge blow to the world.
And I didn’t tell you, but apparently, Knight had made a number of additional
duplicates of both of us as well, who were also killed.”
Jenna sighed. “I don’t know,
Nathan. In this brave new world of time travel, nothing is easy anymore. Ethics
take on a new dimension. We didn’t know for sure about Knight’s Brain Trust,
but we figured if he had duplicated you before your breakthrough, you were
probably one of a large number he had done this to. We also discussed the
possibility that he would keep them close enough that the blast would kill
them.”
“And?”
“And we didn’t know what to
think. Not even what to root for. What if they had all lived? Now what? Do we
free them all? And if we do, there are two or more copies of numerous
scientists. The legal and ethical issues multiply exponentially. Who owns what?
Who’s entitled to what job? Do all four versions of a man owe alimony to his
ex-wife? Are three identical mothers all legally the parent of one child?”
A troubled expression crossed Wexler’s
face as he considered these points.
“And could we really just
release them?” continued Jenna. “Wouldn’t this let the time travel genie out of
the bottle?”
“It would,” said Wexler.
“Scientists around the world would work toward recreating Knight’s invention.”
“Exactly. And you saw how
dangerous this is in the hands of one man. What if it were in the hands of
dozens? Or hundreds?”
“You’re right. Nothing is simple
anymore.”
“So if the scientists Knight
duplicated hadn’t been killed, would we have been forced to imprison them the
way
he
did? Turn them into hamsters
in a gilded cage producing miracles for the world like so many elves?”
“The ethics are truly impossible,”
said Wexler in frustration. “Because this really might have been necessary. And
I was one of those imprisoned, so I don’t say this lightly. But if the
imprisonment of a few thousand duplicated scientists would ensure the power of
time travel remained largely bottled up, and their collective genius could lead
to breakthroughs in science and medicine, improving the lot of billions around
the globe, there’s an argument to be made it would be unethical
not
to do this.”
“I see you’re beginning to appreciate
what we were struggling to deal with.”
“It’s a problem as thorny as
they come.”
Jenna blew out a long breath.
“In the end, we decided to eliminate Knight at all costs. If the duplicate
scientists survived, we would cross that bridge later. As it turned out, none
did. But as tragic as their deaths are, this might just be for the best. Hard
to imagine I’m saying this, but maybe it’s true. Because all of these people
still live. Somewhere else.”
Her expression turned even more
thoughtful. “I know there have always been those who reject advances. Who think
if man were meant to fly, he would have been given wings. As scientists, we’ve
always believed the opposite. That if man were
not
meant to fly, he wouldn’t have been given a brain with which to
invent the airplane.”
“But this case pushes that
boundary to the limit, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. Because there is just
something . . . unnatural about having more than one copy of a person running
around. Certain benefits of human duplication are undeniable, but this time I’m
not so sure. Maybe this time man really wasn’t meant to be able to produce
multiple copies of himself.”
Nathan nodded. “Three months
ago, only a single copy of each of us existed in the universe. And now this is
true again. It’s hard for me to say this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”
“Given what happened, we at least
don’t have to make any impossibly hard decisions right away. We can give this weeks
and months of extended thought. Try to come to grips with our new reality.”
“And I want to do that,” said
Wexler, “no matter how complex the issues. But I have to admit, I’m excited to
get a look at the discovery my other self ended up making. Knight had me
working around the clock, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up with what
insight I must have had.”
Jenna grinned. “Believe me, Q5
is drooling at the prospect of having you involved.”
“Q5?”
“We really aren’t going to get any
sleep tonight, are we?”
“Because of all the sex?” said
Wexler with a grin, knowing this wasn’t what she meant.
“Sure,” she replied, returning
the smile. “That and all the catching up we still have to do.”
“Q5 is the name of Cargill’s
group, isn’t it? I should have realized that right away.
Q
for quintessence and
five
for the fifth force.”
“Good. I was beginning to worry all this
trauma had slowed you down,” she said in amusement. “Anyway,” she continued, “Q5
is dying to have you involved. You’ll be the only person who will understand
every nuance of the work.” Her eyes sparkled in delight. “And just a few days
ago, one of the physicists on the team had an exciting idea he needs you to
help flesh out.”
“I can tell you’re pretty enthusiastic
about it.”
“Absolutely,” said Jenna. “Your
theory involves using dark energy—an
ungodly
amount of energy—to cause a fifth dimension to push along the time axis of space-time.
But this guy asked the question, what if you could leapfrog space-time in the
space
direction instead?”
The physicist in question, Daniel
Tini, had been in awe of Nathan’s work, and had insisted Nathan would have
asked this same question if he wasn’t taken out of the picture just as he was finishing
the underlying theory. Nathan had never gotten around to an in-depth analysis
of the full implications of his theory, nor a consideration of possible
extensions, which would have been the next step. Tini, on other hand, had spent
more than a week studying Nathan’s finished work, a luxury Nathan never had.
“He’s convinced this is possible,”
continued Jenna. “And that practical interstellar travel will be the result.
But he thinks the complexities are so great that you’re the only one capable of
extending the theory to make this happen.”