Winston Chase and the Theta Factor Read online

  Winston cried out, stretching with futile desperation after the tumbling artifact. Pain roared through his body as he lunged for Little e, but it was too late. Only a second later, he saw the small splash on the black river’s surface, and the device was gone.

  For an instant, Winston considered letting go of the rope and chasing the device, much as he had done when falling from the freighter and into 1966. Even in his anguish, though, Winston knew that such an idea would be fatal.

  It was gone. The device his father had hidden away for him over thirty years ago, the device that might well be instrumental to defeating Bledsoe, was lost. Even if Winston could make it back to 2013 alive, why bother? If not for Little e, Winston would have been dead or captured long ago.

  Winston’s despair threatened to overwhelm him, but a voice sounded in the back of his mind. At first, he couldn’t place it and thought it belonged to his father.

  This thing? I told you. This is for chimpanzees.

  No, not his dad. Bledsoe. Bledsoe hadn’t needed Little e to restart Shade’s heart. It had only taken a touch of his hand. For that matter, hadn’t Winston simply used his mind to control his Stadlerator 7000 robot?

  What was Little e, then? An amplifier? Some kind of placebo? Was it the equivalent of alien-energy training wheels?

  Even without Little e, he had to finish this now. Another minute or two out here and his arm would simply rip off.

  With stinging sweat seeping into the corners of his eyes, Winston reached into his pack again and grasped the chronoviewer ring. This time, he was careful to watch as his fingers gripped it tightly.

  Little e is only an amplifier, he thought. I don’t need it. I can do this without it.

  As Winston gripped the ring and felt it bond with his mind, the chronojumper snapped into place within the slender circle. The torus bumped against the bag’s canvas interior as it tried to turn.

  Winston held the Alpha Machine pieces up, allowing the chronojumper to gain speed.

  “2013,” he growled. “Home. Go home.”

  Earlier, atop the bridge, Winston had carefully navigated from 1966 all the way to his target date. It had been easy with Little e’s help. Now, just becoming aware of the time slider took supreme effort. Winston gasped and wept as he worked to channel the pain of his body into controlling the Alpha Machine.

  The grip in his left hand started to give way. Inch by inch, his slide down the rope continued. He couldn’t hold any tighter, especially while concentrating on using the chronoviewer.

  Seeing the time slider was hard, but bringing the future into view behind his current reality proved far harder. The future kept slipping away, fading from sight, and it took Winston four tries before he could hold both times in his awareness. Fortunately, the point in 2013 he’d viewed earlier carried a sort of marker on the time slider. As Winston felt the tug of his present on him, that marker acted like a beacon or magnet. He went straight to it and again saw the figure descending from a helicopter onto the cargo freighter.

  Winston mentally nudged the slider a pinch, barely enough to elapse a few minutes. He ignored the synchronization warning as the helicopter quickly withdrew. The freighter approached so close that its bow passed below Winston’s feet — at least fifteen or twenty yards below his feet. That two-story jump from Safeway was like a playground hop in comparison.

  The deck was too far away. If he dropped from here, Winston suspected that even reinforced bones wouldn’t keep him from being crushed like a soda can. No, he had to hold on for the control tower, a white, rectangular slab that stood fifty or sixty feet higher than the deck. However, the tower’s top was a much smaller target to hit, and if he missed it, he’d have steel waiting to catch him rather than water.

  Winston felt the end of the rope slip through the inside edges of his shoes. With that grip lost, all of his weight fell on his left arm. He put every possible bit of strength into clenching his knees together, but they offered little help. It slowed him, but not enough. Then the rope’s end slipped past his knees.

  The freighter sped quickly along below. Seen from above, cargo containers seemed to race by in a blur of color. The white tower was getting close…closer…

  Winston wanted to scream, but couldn’t. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There was only the fire of feeling what must be every bone in his arm cracking and the kaleidoscope of colored containers passing below.

  The tower was coming. White-walled. Tall, tinted windows. Antennas on the roof. Still a drop of many feet. Dozens. Much, much too far.

  The end of the rope passed before Winston’s face, and he let go. Gravity took over, pulling greedily on his body. Winston’s stomach leapt into his throat, and his last thought was to push the mental button at the center of his time navigation software. Reality blossomed into the center of a white fireball.

  Then his body suddenly changed from weightless wind into a boulder striking a valley floor.

  17

  Crusher and Capture

  When Winston opened his eyes, the belly of the Astoria-Megler Bridge still hovered over him. Sunlight danced among the girders, strobing painfully in Winston’s vision, as the freighter sailed on. He felt as if a team of Brian Steinhoffs had spent the day going over him with baseball bats. Every joint howled. Every muscle threatened to cramp. He forced his fingers to flex and whimpered as the skin protested. Yet through blind luck or some incredible feat of stamina, he had managed to land atop the white tower, not fall off, and not die. A cool wind blew over his damp body. Seagulls called in the distance, and he heard as much as felt the low rumble of the freighter’s engines.

  He had made it back to 2013, after all.

  Thank you, Theo.

  Now, assuming he could stand, he needed to find Shade. They had to get off this boat before the Hanjin Portland II reached the river’s mouth and their next stop involved eating lots of Chinese food — in prison. Moreover, whomever that helicopter had dropped off would now be combing the ship searching for him and Shade.

  Winston realized that two pieces of the Alpha Machine were pinned between his chest and the tower’s roof, held down by the bulk of the military surplus pack still strapped across his front. That was the good news. Unfortunately, his body protested with silent screams as he tried to roll off his side and onto his back.

  Winston gasped with sharp, fresh agony, the pain so intense that he couldn’t even cry out. His ribs must be cracked. Could he have punctured a lung? In the movies, that would have left him coughing up blood.

  He tried more slowly, and, ever so gradually, his limbs allowed themselves to be moved. “Good to be home,” he groaned.

  Winston glanced to his sides, realizing that even moving his eyes made his head hurt. About him lay the white metal roof of the freighter’s control tower, dotted with various antennas and cranes. The aft edge was only an arm’s reach away from his head. The white railing around the tower’s circumference did little to sooth Winston’s nerves. A second later on his jump and he probably would have missed the platform.

  With each movement, glass shards ground between Winston’s muscles. He sat up gingerly, sucking quick hisses between his teeth with each new movement. Eventually, he freed his pack, buckled the Alpha Machine pieces within it, and returned the bag to his back, aware of how much smaller it felt without Little e. All the while, he tried not to use his left shoulder, which burned and throbbed.

  Winston glanced inside his jacket. Sure enough, the skin along his right side from his upper chest to his belt line and no doubt farther glowed a bright blue. If it had been night, he probably could have lit up a small room. He knew this meant the QVs were hard at work repairing his injuries, but he’d never seen himself look like this.

  His body begged him to lie still and wait to be healed, but there was no time. He had to know what was going on in this ship. Winston suspected he could get some info by mentally tapping into the freighter’s Wi-Fi again, but a direct connection would likely yield more information.
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  On his knees and right hand, Winston crawled to the nearest antenna. The five-foot oblong dish rested on a thick, motorized arm mounted atop a knee-high steel pedestal. Chinese characters decorated the dish’s inner curve. He couldn’t be sure, but it made sense that this would be the ship’s main satellite link. Winston suspected this was the closest he would get to the ship’s systems short of sitting at a login terminal.

  He pulled himself up the pedestal until he could sit on it. Winston paused, struggling not to breathe deeply through the pain since that only made his chest hurt more. When he felt ready, he grabbed the two cables that snaked down from the back of the dish to a pair of weatherproofed holes in the base beside him. He closed his hand around the cables, shut his eyes, and concentrated.

  Winston felt the current through his fingers, stronger and more definite now. He sensed the edges and curve of the satellite dish looming over him. In his mind, nearby objects formed dark shapes amid a chaotic snow of static. Gradually, he perceived the electrical flow and data transmissions within these shapes as blue lines forming and spreading away from him as he extended his awareness. The patterns weren’t as clearly defined as they had been at the central library. With Little e, this electronic reality had looked almost like a three-dimensional blueprint cascading away all around him. With no help, the current flow seemed less distinct. Glowing lines wavered and appeared soft around their edges.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have far to push his awareness. He followed the data lines down from the satellite dish and into the control tower. The coaxial cable traveled only about three feet before snaking sideways for another twenty, then it dropped straight down again. Winston figured there must be a crawlspace for lights and wiring above the bridge, just like in office buildings. That would help explain why workers weren’t already swarming the roof after the noise of his impact. He wondered if there was any way to access the crawlspace from the roof, because that would make an amazing hiding place.

  After the second drop, the data line fed into a router, which then fanned out into at least ten other lines for power and data. From that point, Winston struggled to track each trace line. He could try to tap into their Internet connection, as he had before falling back to 1966, but that could take a while, and he couldn’t see how it would immediately help.

  No, he had to find Shade and get off this behemoth of a boat. With the Astoria Bridge falling into the distance, he knew they couldn’t have very long.

  Winston managed to find the ship’s intercom link, an old, feeble system on what had to be copper wiring. He felt voices on the connection, and his brain processed the signal as audio, but the result was still a conversation between two men in Chinese. No help there.

  He followed more and more branchings throughout the control deck, trying to find connections buzzing with live use. The sun beat down on his neck, and the breeze cooled the sweat on his face and hands. His body felt hot, especially his torso, and he figured it had to be a result of the QVs’ energy consumption. Hopefully, that meant he was healing.

  Winston passed over two communication lines, recognizing them as more old wiring. At first, he took one of them to be an AM/FM radio playing some talk show. However, a phrase he caught in passing stood out. Had the DJ really said “terror”?

  He focused on the little glowing blue filament again, willing his connection to be stronger, even though he felt the effort was battling for energy the QVs required for his body. With the image solidifying, Winston realized he was dealing with a CB radio. People still used those?

  “…so sure,” said a heavily Chinese-accented voice in English. “This boy does not look like terrorist. More like runaway. He says his name is…how did you say?” The distortion of a handset being brushed against something muffled the line for a second, and, very faintly and indistinctly, Winston heard Shade’s voice. “He says his name is Wesley Crusher. Over.”

  Winston simultaneously wanted to sob with relief and burst out laughing. Leave it to Shade to pass himself off as the dorky kid from Star Trek: The Next Generation. His friend was still in good enough shape to crack jokes and flick his captors some attitude. This also meant that Shade had been pulled from confinement and might be easier to rescue. Somehow.

  Then Winston realized the implication of this discussion. Shade was probably standing next to the ship’s captain, and they were likely in the control room directly below him.

  The line went from a bright to a dull glow as the captain or perhaps his assistant released the connection, and, a moment after, it glowed bright again as the other party began speaking.

  “His name is not Wesley Crusher,” said the serious American voice. “Tell him his obscure science fiction references are not amusing. Over.”

  False, thought Winston.

  “I am sending you a photo right now,” continued the American. “Please tell me if either of those boys are in your possession. Over.”

  Winston knew he should do something. Maybe he could overload their radio. With Little e, it would have been easy. He had so little energy left, though, Winston didn’t think he could summon the force necessary to attack their devices. In the back of his mind, he again heard Bledsoe on the Willamette River dock laughing at him and his feeble attempt to compete against the man’s greater strength and experience with QVs. If he hadn’t had a few of Little e’s energy balls in his pocket—

  Winston remembered that he had three of those blue marbles left in his jeans but many more in his regular backpack, the one he’d unintentionally left behind with Shade. He needed that pack. Perhaps there was a way to use those balls to take out the ship’s communications just as he’d taken out Bledsoe’s head.

  If the Chinese crew had taken Shade, though, then they’d probably also found his bag. Perhaps both were in the control room underneath him.

  Another thought intruded: What about that figure Winston had seen descending from the helicopter to the freighter. How long ago would that have been in 2013 real time? Two minutes? Ten? Winston spotted the helicopter following the ship from high up. Whomever had descended that ladder would be important and probably a government agent. It might even be Bledsoe. But where had the person gone? Why wasn’t he or she on the CB rather than the ship’s staff?

  Still tapped into the CB line, Winston felt and saw the connection click open. A second later, the Chinese man said, “I have your photo, Lieutenant. The boy on the right. That is him. Over.”

  “Uh-huh. Shade Tagaloa. Have you seen the other one? Over.”

  “No. I am sorry. Over.”

  “Thank you, Captain Gao. The Coast Guard understands your schedule, and we don’t wish to detain you any longer than necessary. Please stand by while we decide how to get this boy retrieved from your vessel, and we’ll have you on your way shortly. Over.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Harris. We will stand by. Over.”

  The CB line clicked off and Winston leaned back. This was mixed news. At least the freighter wouldn’t be powering out to China at top speed for a while. Unfortunately, that was because the Coast Guard was en route to grab Shade, and Winston had no idea how to stop them. He wished he had an hour for a power nap or even a snack.

  “Hey!”

  From the forward end of the tower roof, a black-haired head poked over the edge. Two hands gripped the top of the ladder where it looped over the tower’s side. Apparently, his arrival hadn’t been as silent as he’d hoped.

  Winston thought about talking to the man, but he didn’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese or whatever it was. Even if they could communicate, what would he say? That he’d been up here to work on his tan?

  Winston spied the top of another ladder at the tower’s far corner. The newcomer called to him again, more urgently this time, and Winston bolted for the other ladder.

  At least, that was his intent. As soon as he got to his feet, though, the world tilted and careened around him. He felt dizziness beat through him, and his stomach lurched. Every step felt like several fists slamming
into his ribs at once. His steps faltered, wobbled, and he nearly fell on his face. Even as he heard his pursuer pounding across the white rooftop, though, the world steadied around Winston and he stumbled the distance to the ladder.

  Winston didn’t allow himself to look down the six-story drop to the deck. He paused well before the ladder. Even on a good day, he was clumsy enough to trip and swan dive over the side, and he doubted that QVs could repair a broken neck.

  The crewman, a middle-aged guy in navy-blue coveralls, was already most of the way across the roof. Winston grabbed on to both ladder rails, biting his way through the pain in his right wrist, and set one foot on a rung. As quickly as he could without chancing a slip or trusting too much to his still-wobbly balance, he started to descend.

  He hadn’t gone more than eight or ten rungs before he heard a familiar but muted voice cry out, “Winston!”

  Winston paused to look between the rungs before his face. The tower glass was tinted dark green, but he could still see inside the control room. Surprisingly, it looked a lot like in the movies, with a room-spanning stretch of windows; a spacious, open floor; and a twenty-foot-long, crescent-shaped desk filled with computers, gooseneck lamps, and desktop microphones. Two plush, high-backed chairs sat empty behind the desk. Beyond these stood several Chinese men, and in their midst, smiling broadly, stood Shade.

  For the life of him, Winston couldn’t imagine why his friend might be smiling, because right now their situation looked pretty terrible.

  “You come down!” shouted a voice from below him.

  Winston glanced to the deck and found two crewmen, also in navy coveralls, standing at the base of his ladder. Above him, Winston’s pursuer now stood on the top rung.

  He could try to fight his way out, but Winston was no fist brawler, and he barely had the energy to stay on the ladder, much less perform some alien energy attack.

  He was beaten. All that work to get back to 2013, not to mention sacrificing Little e, had only come to this.