A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) (30 page)

“He won’t be coming,” she answered. “He said he had a lunch commitment. He offered, at first, to try to get out of it. It seems odd that people still have plans and appointments, but of course he didn’t know anything when he made the appointment. I just told him today.”

“I said she should tell him it was the end of the world,” said Marak. “What else could be more important?”

“So I told him what Dani was going to be doing,” Kat continued. “He asked some questions about timing to be sure people there wouldn’t interfere. Asked if we needed him to request a special assignment for her. I said no, and told him how we had arranged to empty the lab and free her up. And then he said his lunch meeting was with someone from the institute, and he’d better keep it so things would seem as normal as possible.”

Doc nodded. “I was looking forward to seeing him again, but that makes sense. He has always been a big picture kind of person.”

“He was worried that Dani would try to stay in the lab at lunch, but I reassured him that she was going to eat in the cafeteria. I should send her a message to remind her of that.” She raised her hand to her temple. Then she put it down again. “Can’t. The institute blocks all the signals from outside. She can’t get incoming calls.”

“Why would he care about her staying in the lab?” asked Lexil.

“He said the institute has been increasing the monitoring of employees lately, due to concern about the protests. They’re feeling political pressure. It might flag something if she was seen in the lab, and they might escort her out.”

“Nice to have someone on the inside, even if he can’t make any changes,” said Marak.

“Wait. I’m getting a call. Maybe Dani? Nope, Neferyn.” Kat made a face. “Probably calling to confirm. I’ll switch to the house connexion so you can hear.”

She accepted the call. “Everything ready?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the voice on the other end. “The timing was a little tricky, but everything is ready to go.”

“What was the tricky part? Making an anonymous call?”

“No.” He laughed. “That will be easy. This is an external connexion, untraceable, or I’d never be talking to you! The next call will be to the institute. No, the tricky part was last night. They had some additional monitoring devices set up when we went to place the bombs.”

“You planted fake bombs?” Kat frowned. “I think the threat would have been enough to clear the place, without those.”

“Fake? You think I’m going to waste an opportunity like this on fake bombs? Not a chance. These are real, and there’s nothing small about them. They are going to tear the place apart!”

Kat inhaled sharply.

The voice on the other end continued. “If it were me, I wouldn’t have called in the threat. I’d have let them all die.”

“Neferyn!” she said desperately, “this whole arrangement was to clear it out so my friend—my best friend—could be there alone. She will be in the building. You can’t set those off!”

“Too late.” His voice was calm. “They’re on timers. Can’t get close enough to change that. If you want to call your friend and get her out of there, better do it now.”

Lexil reached up to call Dani. Kat saw him, and shook her head. He remembered. Dani was off the nexus. He started for the door, then hesitated. “Find out where the bombs are,” he whispered. She nodded.

“We can’t reach her. We’re going to have to go find her. Where are the bombs?”

“You’re going to have to hurry, then.” He laughed. Laughed! “One is right by the front entrance. It’ll go off at 1:20. Just enough time to clear the building after my guy calls at 1:05. There are ten others timed at three-minute intervals. They are planted all the way around the perimeter. Yup. Blaze of glory! The whole thing will collapse. I’m going to watch from the hill!”

Kat ended the call with a look of disgust. “Go!” She told Lexil.

“Take the helicar!” said Doc.

“I’ll go with you. I’ll drop you off right at the door,” said Marak.

Kat started to protest.

“They’ll be telling me to go report on it soon anyway. Might as well be on the scene where I can help.” He kissed her. “I’ll see you—and Jored—this afternoon!”

RIACH LABS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1250, Wednesday, June 14, 2215.

Dani barely noticed what she had for lunch. She ate only to give herself a reason for sitting in the cafeteria. Lunch would be over soon and then she could make her way to the lab.

Just a few more minutes now. She picked up her tray and headed toward the exit. If she could be first to arrive in the lab, it would make it easier to hide when the bomb threat came in.

She left the cafeteria three minutes early, hoping no one would stop her. So far, so good. The back hallway, lengthy as it was, would give her the best chance of getting to Lab D undetected because it bypassed the lengths of Labs A and B, taking her directly to the shorter hallway that contained the doors to all the labs.

She felt in her pocket for the memory rod. The whole plan, the entirety of the timestream repair, depended on an object that could hide completely in a closed hand. There it was, among the other four objects that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to the store room. Soon she wouldn’t need a metal disk to remember Jored. Her spirits lifted. So close!

The back hallway would take her past the VAO converter. She marveled that such a simple process—recording, rather than just letting someone experience—the past, would have become the source of so much havoc. She hoped that the notes in Lexil’s notebook would be enough to point out its dangers to those in the other timestream.

It will have to be enough, she thought. It was all they could do from here.

“Dani!” A voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked up, startled.

It was Kat’s Uncle Royce. “Kat updated me on all that you’ve discovered in the last few days. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

“Thank you. I had a lot of help.”

“So I hear. Seebak and that boy of his. Both of ‘em geniuses, if I’m not mistaken.”

She nodded. “They are amazing.”

“You’ve been to their lab, I hear.”

“Yes. It’s impressive. Nothing like here, of course.” She wondered how much Kat had told him. So much had happened in such a short time! Did he know what she was doing today? He was a sweet old man, and she wanted to be polite, but she was getting fidgety. She needed to let him know she had to hurry.

“So this is the day, is it? You’re putting us back on track?”

Oh good. That made it easier. “Yes, I’m heading for the lab, right now. Did Kat tell you about, uh, getting people cleared out?” She wasn’t sure how to phrase that. She didn’t want to say anything about a bomb threat if he didn’t already know about it. She could just imagine the confusion that would cause, and the explanations it would require, and she couldn’t afford the delay.

Just then, the speakers in the hallway clicked on. “All personnel, please move to the nearest exit in an orderly manner. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.” The announcement continued with more specific instructions. She was behind schedule. She was supposed to be hidden in the lab by now.

“Oh yes. That’s your cue, isn’t it? Will you need any help?”

“No, I don’t think so. But thank you for the offer.”

“All right then. I’ll let you get back to it.”

She nodded, and watched him head back the way she had come. Now she would have to hurry. She passed the door to the VAO converter at a fast walk. She heard the machine doing its wind-down noises. It always took so long to shut off! Hurry, don’t stop, she chided herself.

But the delay had cost her the minutes she needed to get ahead of the crowd. In desperation, she watched the stream of workers go past her on their way out. She needed to cross the hall. She could see the doors to Labs C and D right across from her. But if she stepped into that river, she’d be carried far down the hallway and might not be able to get back until the stream stopped.

“Excuse me, I need to get across the hall,” she said, trying to push through.

“This is not a drill. Didn’t you hear the message?” A tall, thin intern grabbed her by the arm. He was stronger than he looked.

She finally wriggled her arm out of his grasp. “You go ahead. I’ll be right there.”

“You’re crazy.” He shrugged and moved on down the hallway.

Others were looking at her, wondering why she wasn’t following. She needed to hide somewhere until the hall cleared enough for her to cross without attracting so much attention. She decided to go back to the VAO converter room and wait. It would only be a few minutes. It wasn’t as if the others would be allowed back into the building before the bomb crews had combed it, looking for the explosives. She would have plenty of time.

The machine had finished its shut-down routine by the time she got there. Had it been only yesterday that she had coaxed it into revealing its secrets? She wondered how Detective Rayes was doing with the names of the blackmail victims.

It occurred to her that the easiest way to discover who the blackmailer was would be to happen upon him in this room during lunch. Too bad she couldn’t have been there 20 minutes earlier. She’d have known then.

Not that that would do any good. Whatever she learned here wouldn’t survive the timestream fix anyway.

RIACH LABS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1255, Wednesday, June 14, 2215.

“Go, go, go!” Lexil muttered. It didn’t help. A tree that suddenly popped up in the middle of a restaurant had attracted onlookers, and the flyways had been completely rerouted as a result. Traffic was snarled.

He and Marak finally arrived just before the first threat was to be called in.

“You get out; I’ll go find a place to park,” Marak said.

“Park anywhere,” said Lexil. “Doesn’t matter if you get a ticket. Doesn’t even matter if the helicar is stolen while you’re gone or damaged by the explosion. If Dani succeeds, we have do-overs. If she fails—”

“—the car may grow horns and a mermaid tail anyway,” Marak finished. “I know. Now go! Help her finish before this whole thing goes down.”

Lexil knew he’d have to get inside the building with the lunch crowds if he was to have any chance at all. He bypassed the irisscans by dropping his hat and bending down to pick it up. Then he stood up on the other side of the scanners. Nobody noticed. He was surprised by how easy it was. Royce had said there was heightened security, but he didn’t see it.

Now, in through the door. He didn’t see signs to the lab, but he saw people putting on powder blue lab coats. Dani had one of those. He guessed that they would be heading where she would be heading. He followed a big group of the blue coats down a display hall. Memories from childhood flooded back. It was his mother’s display hall, he realized. But no time to stop and remember. He had to find where the lab was before the alarm sounded and they all turned around to go out the doors they had just come in.

He did his best to look like he belonged. Look straight ahead. Walk purposefully. Don’t run, no matter how much you want to.

And then he saw the sign to the labs. He wished he knew which one she’d be in, but at least from here, he could find the labs, even if the alarm—

And there it was. Every person in the crowd stopped abruptly to hear the announcement. “All personnel, please move to the nearest exit in an orderly manner. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. Pass through the irisscan at the exit to assist us in accounting for all employees. All personnel, please move….” The message repeated several times.

Lexil could hear the deliberate rhythm in its instructions. It was almost hypnotic. He marveled at how calmly people walked, almost marched, to its cadence. He could see signs to two exits. One was just before the first lab, Lab A. It pointed to the right, down a long hall. The other was beyond the last lab, Lab D. The distances looked about the same. Half of the group he was with diverted to the right. Among those who remained, he slumped and bent his knees so his head and his lack of a lab coat wouldn’t be so obvious, preparing to enter Lab A as they went past.

The door to the lab was closed but unlocked. A part of his mind was counting off seconds since the alarm was announced. He knew the first bomb would be at the front entrance, and the others would go off in intervals. But he had no way of guessing how long he had before the one at the end of this hall went off.

He entered Lab A. The pieces of equipment were more elaborate than he was used to, but their functions were easy to recognize. First were the projectors, with big screens for groups of people to experience the same recording at the same time. Then were the scanners.

According to the plan, Dani should be at her scanner in one of the labs, setting it up for the procedure, or in the object library, getting the padlock. The scanners had tinted glass, so he could only see inside the nearest ones. He stepped up on the raised platform in front of the projectors. It didn’t help, and she could as easily be in the aisles, hidden between them, as inside. He’d make a quick tour of the labs and then head for the library.

Halfway down the first aisle, he heard, then felt, the shock of the first explosion. Three-minute intervals, Neferyn had said. He started running. Noise wouldn’t matter now. Two aisles later, he knew for certain: No Dani in Lab A. He would have to check the other labs, then the object library.