Book Five, Chapter 128: The Meteor Finder 9000

🔴 REC    OCT 18, 2018 15:01:47    [▮▮▮▮▮ 100%]

“Finally got the battery charged,” I said, moving the camera around the dusty office where we used to work seven years prior.

“I’ve got Internet up too,” Antoine said. “Not through legal means, obviously.”

“I don’t really care if we get arrested at this point,” Kimberly said. “It would be a nice change of pace.”

We were back at the Museum of Crime, back at the old jailhouse.

“It’s nice to know that after our mysterious disappearances they didn’t just replace us,” Logan said.

The year was 2025. We had finally found a place to hide where we were relatively certain Generation Killer would not come looking.

Who were we kidding? He could be right around the corner. He may not like the idea of coming to 2025 to look, but his counterpart on the other side of time might have already known we were there.

“Do you make anything of those plans?” Kimberly asked, looking at Camden, who had the large roll of paper—on which the designs were detailed—spread out over a table.

“This isn’t the base communication device,” he said. “It’s something else. If you look here, you’re meant to put one of the meteorite fragments inside the device.”

Kimberly was looking over his shoulder, and I moved the camera to get a good view.

The device looked handheld. Of course it was; that was more convenient for what was coming.

“Do you think you could make one?” Anna asked.

Camden shook his head. “No. These plans are incomplete, and even if they weren’t, I don’t have enough time.” He pointed to a execution date on the plans—four days in the future.

To my eye, the device looked like a fish finder, as silly as that sounded—one of those devices that used radar to detect schools of fish underneath a boat. Except this was a handheld version with a strange handle.

“We have to assume that this is related to Event B, right?” Antoine asked.

Camden nodded but didn’t respond otherwise.

“So, if we can’t make one,” I said.

“We have to steal one,” Camden replied.

“I know just the place,” Logan said. “I’ll show you around. We can safely assume that this timeline doesn’t know about us.”

In fact, this appeared to be our own timeline, or at least a later branch of it.

Camden nodded his head.

“All right,” I said. “You keep looking at those plans. The rest of us need to be time thieves.”

■ STOP

On-Screen.

Perhaps not wanting to retread old ground, much of our trip back to KRSL headquarters was Off-Screen. I had left the camera behind. My reasoning was that the entire place had security cameras—it would be unrealistic for me to have my camera there this time. We were going under cover as actual employees or whatever it was the badges we had been given signified.

And if Carousel needed footage, well, pick a camera, any camera.

The only time we were On-Screen was when we used our new fancy anonymous key cards to get into the facility, followed by a few shots of us making our way down the hallways.

When the security guard saw our super-convenient secret badges, he got wide-eyed and super polite all of a sudden.

It was me, Kimberly, and Logan. Simple and sleek—enough Hustle to get in and out, enough Moxie to talk our way out of trouble.

What else could we ask for?

We knew the way to the lab with the device we were looking for. We stopped by the employee lounge to pick up some white lab coats so we’d look the part, but honestly, I wasn’t sure those were even necessary.

We played it cool.

How well that would work on our way out—I wasn’t so certain.

We were walking down one of the long, white hallways when we passed a group of scientists, including a much older Dr. Black—this version of whom had not died as a child.

She saw us and had a funny look on her face for a moment—not one of true recognition, yet she certainly had that look, as if she had seen us in a dream sometime. And perhaps she had.

She continued talking with her colleagues as we passed by.

“That was a close one,” Kimberly said after we were clear.

“She didn’t make us. She’s never met us,” Logan said.

“I’m not sure you’re right,” Kimberly replied. “She definitely noticed something.”

We had sought to make time travel sentimental in this storyline, and we had definitely succeeded. Because Kimberly was right. Even though I didn’t have her Social Awareness trope, I had sensed that faint glimmer of recognition in Dr. Black’s gaze—using the power of my two human eyes.

We made our way to the secret room, which was in the exact same location as before. We keyed our way in with no complications, and that’s where we found a much more sophisticated version of the communication relay we had seen before.

We must have gotten there at lunchtime because the room was empty. How convenient. This wasn’t going to be a high-conflict scene unless we screwed up.

After a few moments, Logan ushered us over to a computer screen near the relay.

“Check this out,” he said.

As he pointed at the screen, I saw the computer was processing the very messages we knew KRSL had received from itself in the past.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“We could change the message,” Logan said.

“We haven’t thought it through,” I replied. “We need a plan. Any change that we create will have ramifications, and we don’t know how large.”

“I thought you and the one-armed kid said that changes don’t echo through time—that time tries to heal itself,” Logan countered.

“Yes, which is another reason why you shouldn’t change the message. It may have no effect at all—not unless we find a really good one.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“So, where is this device we were supposed to pick up?” he asked.

“You mean this one?” Kimberly asked, pointing to the device we had only seen schematics for.

“It’s just lying on the desk?” Logan said. “The device that somehow destroys the Earth is sitting next to the paper clips.”

It sure was.

I was struck by how small the device was. If we didn’t know what we were looking for, we might have never even noticed the thing.

“How do we get this out of here?” Kimberly asked as she picked it up and examined it. “There’s no way they would let us just walk out of here with it.”

“Well,” I said, “we can either have a huge standoff, barely manage to escape through the vents, with one of us getting shot, or…”

“Or what?” Kimberly asked.

I walked to the other side of the room and picked up a cardboard box that had contained some kind of specialty-made part. I dumped it out and then held it up.

“I have an idea,” I said.

Off-Screen.

~-~

On-Screen.

The way out was a lot more stressful than the way in. Not only were we On-Screen the entire time, but security had been beefed up because—like déjà vu—a woman in a van had just rammed the outside fence to distract the guard looking at the camera feed.