Threader origins, p.11
Threader Origins, page 11
Reacting instinctively, he pushed hard on the Shepherd’s Thread, not knowing if it would even work. The dog yelped and faltered and Darwin was hit on all sides by the pack. Teeth grabbed at his leg and his world slowed to a crawl.
The German Shepherd attacked the other dogs, unused to being the last one to the prey.
He felt his jeans resist the pressure of a dog’s teeth squeezing his calf.
Two dogs left the attack, turning to face the threat from the Shepherd.
His jeans gave way in a sudden release, and sharp teeth punctured his skin, sending searing pain lancing through his calf.
Two more dogs backed away, looking uncertainly between Darwin and the Shepherd.
Blood flowed from Darwin’s veins, soaking through his pants and rushing into the dog’s hungry jaws.
Darwin slid to the ground and a mangy mutt rushed in, its bared teeth reaching for his throat.
He rolled to the side and his world began to fade as he felt a sharp tug at his shoulder. Another yelp pierced the air and the darkness dragged him under.
* * *
• • •
Darwin floundered awake in a darkened room, memory and pain rushing in to fill the place left empty by sleep. The bed he lay on smelled of dust and old age and when he moved he could feel a cloud rise and re-settle on his face.
From a closed door on the opposite wall, voices sounded like they were arguing. He shut his eyes, pushing through the urge to sneeze, to hear what they were saying.
“. . . Darwin Lloyd . . .”
“. . . superficial . . .”
“. . . leave him here . . .”
“. . . Enton . . .”
“. . . No . . .”
There was a brief moment of silence followed by, “He’s awake.” The voice sounded excited, and Darwin heard a faint slap. The door opened and two men walked into the room. Silhouetted in the light streaming through the door, they looked like twins.
Both men wore dark pants and shirts and had short-cropped hair. They weren’t wearing the Qabal blue smocks, but Darwin wasn’t sure that meant anything away from Qabal headquarters.
He glanced quickly to the window, dismissing it as an escape route. Maybe if he rushed them fast enough he would be able to squeeze through the door and get out.
“I wouldn’t do it,” said the one on the left.
“Yeah, not a good idea. The window isn’t either. We’re on the second floor,” said the other.
“He could do it, though.”
“Yeah, maybe. There are the bushes right underneath. They might break his fall.”
“Nah, too close to the building. You’re right, it is a bad idea.”
Darwin raised himself to a sitting position in bed, realizing for the first time a thin sheet had been pulled over him. They had talked about both of his ideas to escape. Either they had done this before, or they were reading the Threads to See what he was planning to do. That meant they were either Qabal or with Michael’s group. Or another group he didn’t know about. Either way, this didn’t feel like a place he wanted to be
“We cleaned out the bites on your leg and wrapped it. You won’t need a healer; the damage was fairly superficial. Bled like a bugger though. You’ll need new pants.” He bent over and picked up a pant leg, torn at the calf and cut just above the knee.
The one on the left spoke up again. “The shoulder was just a scratch. We stopped that dog before he could do any serious damage. So, how did you get here?”
Darwin just continued to watch them.
“Last we heard, the Qabal still had you. If you got away from them you should have been with Michael.”
Well, that made that clear. They weren’t Qabal, but they were with Michael and his group. On one hand, Darwin felt relieved. He was pretty sure if they hadn’t found him, he’d be pieces of meat in a dog’s belly. On the other hand, he was back where he didn’t want to be. What did it take to get away from these guys?
“I guess the dogs got his tongue as well. We kind of forgot to check that.”
The one on the right laughed and elbowed his friend in the stomach. “Good one!” He looked back at Darwin and got serious. “Now, Carlos here has first watch. Until we figure out what’s going on, you are basically a prisoner. One of us will be watching,” he made a double quotation mark in the air with both hands, “all the time. Even when you go to the bathroom.”
“Hey, that’s your job, not mine,” said Carlos.
The door closed on their arguing. Darwin could See steel-blue Threads form and cover the glass-filled window and the door.
He collapsed back onto the bed, the new cloud of dust finally releasing the sneeze that had been threatening since he’d woken up, and fell into a fitful sleep, his calf throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
* * *
• • •
The phone on his desk rang, and Darwin pulled himself from the equations and simulations running on his screen. He was only halfway back into the real world when he picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Darwin, come down to the lab. We’re having an issue calibrating the quantum receptors and I’d like you to look at it.”
“Andy knows more about that than I do, or Rebecca.” He was already looking back at his screen. His math was off, and some of the results he was looking at weren’t making any sense.
“Andy isn’t in today. His kids are sick and he stayed home to be with them.” His dad’s voice sounded angry, which meant he was so deep into a problem he didn’t have the extra capacity to be polite. “You worked with him on this. Pick up the calibration schematics from my office on the way down.”
The line went dead.
Darwin took one more look at the screen and rubbed his eyes. It would take hours to get back into the problem, but when your boss called, you jumped. Especially when it was your dad. He pushed himself to his feet and left the cube he’d been assigned, heading for the stairs that would take him to his dad’s office.
He walked into the lab ten minutes later, pulling the anti-static smock over his shoulders while trying to keep a grip on the rolled-up schematics. His dad was in the QPS room, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Garth. Both men looked up at him when he walked in, but only Garth smiled.
Rebecca walked past him, her back rigid and a frown on her face.
“Bring over the schematics and help us figure out where we went wrong. Andy picked a hell of a day to take off.”
“I thought you said his kids were sick.”
Darwin’s dad sighed. “I did. I’m not mad at him, it’s just . . . we’re so close.”
Darwin unrolled the schematics onto the floor and kneeled beside the QPS. “What’s the problem?”
“All the readings are off. Not by much, mind you, but enough to make most of our calculations invalid. We’ve swapped out the board already, and the problems stay, so we’re not sure what’s going on,” said Garth.
His dad got to his feet, knees cracking as he straightened them. “Garth and I have been over this thing a dozen times. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will help.”
Darwin moved to where his dad had been and pulled the test equipment closer. “Okay. I’m pretty familiar with the anti-oscillation circuit. Why don’t we start there?”
It took them over half an hour to find the issue. Garth double-checked all the readings while Darwin narrowed down the trouble circuit. His dad was leaning over them just as the readings flipped.
“That’s it! Where the hell is that?”
Darwin reset the tester and took another reading. “Something in the photonic sensor board. Let’s see if I can narrow it down.”
“We’ve replaced that damn thing twice already. What is it, a manufacturing problem? We’re paying those guys way too much for shoddy work.” His dad started pacing the floor again.
Darwin pulled the sensor wiring harness and checked the major system points. Everything looked good. He plugged the harness back in, and the readings faltered.
“It’s the wire harness to the data collector, or the data collector itself.”
“Let’s replace the harness, Garth. See where that gets us,” his dad said. He turned to Darwin. “You must get your patience from your mother, Darwin. We’d only been working on it for fifteen minutes before I was ready to throw everything away and start again. Good job!” He squeezed Darwin’s shoulder before leaving the room.
Darwin stared at his dad’s back. The reference to his mom’s patience took him by surprise and filled him with a sense of accomplishment. It didn’t matter how old you were, it seemed you always needed to hear stuff like that from your parent.
He passed Rebecca again on the way out.
“Was it the data collector?” she asked.
“Yeah, or the harness. Why?”
“I told them that’s what it was before they even called you down here. It seems a man has to find the solution before it’s believed. I’m sick and tired of being treated as if I don’t know what I’m talking about just because I’m a woman.”
“I wish you would have said something to me,” Darwin said. “I would have loved to have gotten out of there sooner, and I would have told them who’d come up with the solution.”
Rebecca gave him a small smile and turned back to the computer in front of her.
* * *
• • •
Darwin woke to the sound of rain splattering against the bedroom window in a slow steady rhythm. The soft sound had kept him in a half-asleep state where dreams of his dad warped his reality and made him feel like he hadn’t slept at all.
The dream made him think about his mom, about how many times he thought he’d seen her over the years since the accident, and how the frequency had increased at the Qabal headquarters. Had Rebecca been manipulating him through that as well, using the girl that looked like his mother to make him feel even more at home, make him more compliant?
Though the light from the window was dim, he took time to examine his surroundings as best he could. The window coverings were simple blinds, blue by the look of it, though that could have been reflected light from the fine mesh covering the glass. The blinds swayed with every gust of rain, which helped explain the temperature in the room.
The bed was small, a single with a plain square headboard that looked more like a piece of plywood than anything manufactured. Everything shouted low cost. If this was a regular place these guys hung out, it wasn’t in an expensive part of town, but it looked to be in decent condition. He shivered in the cold that seeped through the walls and snuck in the loose-fitting window.
Rising from the bed, he grabbed the top sheet and wrapped it around himself. Every part of him still ached, most of it probably from the run with Michael, but he was sure the dog attack had contributed its fair share. As well as having most of his pants chopped off, his shirt was missing, and he saw scratch marks covering his exposed shoulder from the dog’s attack.
His first step made his calf pound, but after he moved around the room for a short while, the feeling subsided to a dull ache, blending in with the rest of the soreness.
The door opened and Carlos walked into the room.
“About time you were up. We need to get moving. We’ll talk later.”
“I need some clothes.”
Carlos looked over his shoulder and yelled, “Hey, Wally. He talks today! Looks like I owe ya.”
There was a muffled response from somewhere in the house.
“You’ll have to borrow from one of us until we get back to SafeHaven. We’re not stopping so you can go shopping. As for the rain,” he glanced out the window, “we have a spare garbage bag we can cut holes in for your arms and head.” A grin spread over his face.
Darwin chose to ignore it. “I won’t be able to walk fast.”
“And there won’t be much walking, so you’ll be fine. We’ll be in SafeHaven in four days, if all goes well. From there, Enton can figure out what to do with you. Now head downstairs and let us get some cleaning done.”
Carlos stepped back into the hallway as Darwin limped past him. The interior of the house felt a bit warmer than the bedroom, a small reminder that the sun still carried some heat. All that seemed to have abruptly ended this morning with the clouds and the rain.
Darwin leaned against the railing as he headed down the stairs to the main floor, almost hopping instead of walking. Most of the stiffness seemed to have left his leg already, and it didn’t feel that bad, but he figured he might as well play it up. If they thought his leg was worse than it actually was, they might lower their guard and he’d be able to slip away. As long as he could stay away from the dog packs, he would probably be okay. He reached for the knife on his hip. It was gone.
Wally sat on the floor in the middle of the living room. To Darwin it looked like he was meditating, but when Darwin walked in, he glanced up.
“Wait at the bottom of the stairs. I need to finish cleaning.”
Darwin waited, still keeping most of his weight off the bitten leg. Apparently, “cleaning” meant sitting and waiting. He opened himself up to the Threads to See if anything was happening there. It surprised him that he had blocked them without even thinking about it. Bill would have been proud. He shoved away the thought. Bill was dead and there was no point in always bringing him up.
“Look, but don’t touch,” said Wally.
Darwin used the banister to lower himself onto the bottom stair. The sudden bending of his knee relaxed his calf, making it hurt again. He straightened it out along the steps. How had Wally known he’d started Seeing? He hadn’t done anything except look, and even then only superficially.
Now that he was looking, the room was a maelstrom of Threads. There were so many he couldn’t even follow them. Generic Threads of gray were covered in tiny strands of green, moving the gray ones around the room. Without thinking about it, he slowed a Thread, trying to figure out what was happening.
“I said don’t touch,” snapped Wally.
He pulled back immediately, embarrassed by what he had done, and the quick flash of anger at being yelled at turned to guilt that he had been caught. He sat and watched, but still couldn’t figure out what was going on. Not all of the Threads seemed to be present or real, but in a different way than when he saw how a stick would fall in the future. He opened himself to the images Bill had called ridiculous, and they slammed into him.
An image of a mouse running across the floor and then skittering back in panic the way it had come dissolved. Half-visible green Threads rebuilt the movement, continuing the mouse’s path around the living room, until it linked back to where the original mouse had stopped.
A fly buzzed in through an open door, landing on the floor to explore the debris. A foot came down beside it and the fly took off. He watched the foot reverse its course until it faded into nothing.
Wally was remaking history. Things that had happened in the past were being altered to make it look like no one had been here. Concentrating harder, Darwin could See it wasn’t that the past was being replaced, but that the view of what had occurred was changed. Whatever had scared the mouse, probably Wally or Carlos, was slowly being altered from the truth.
Darwin’s head began to pulse and he pulled back, closing off his view of the images and the Threads. He knew he had overextended again and was paying the price.
Not knowing how else to describe what he had Seen, Darwin said, “You’re changing the past. Hiding that we were here.”
Wally opened his eyes and looked at Darwin. “Superficially. The past doesn’t change, but a quick look at the Threads will show nothing out of the ordinary. If someone decides to look deeper, all this work falls apart. But if you’re searching a hundred houses for us, chances are you won’t be looking too deep.” He closed his eyes and continued.
It seemed there was more to the Threads than Darwin knew.
7
WHEN ALL GOES FLAT
DARWIN ENDED UP getting an extra pair of jeans from Wally, and after they had argued for a while, a plain black t-shirt from Carlos. He was as happy about giving it up as Wally had been about the jeans, though when he handed it over he gave Darwin a wink.
The pants were too long and Darwin had to roll them up, making a donut-shaped cuff at his ankles. He looked like a dork, but it was way better than walking around in torn pants and a bed sheet.
The rain outside had stopped and turned into a fine mist that hovered in the air. Darwin fought against wearing the garbage bag raincoat, but Carlos and Wally both insisted.
“The mist will soak you through to the bone in no time flat,” Wally had said with a straight face, “and we’ll be walking a bit, to keep some separation between where we sleep and where we hole. We don’t want it to be easy to detect where we stay.”
He finally caved. His mom had always told him to pick his battles. If you tried to fight all of them, you were bound to lose the important ones. His hand automatically moved to where he kept his phone, and he patted the empty pocket. He missed his music, and the connection it gave him to his memories.
They almost fell on the floor laughing when he put the garbage bag on.
Externally, Darwin ignored them as best he could. Inside, he collapsed into a tiny ball, his stomach churning. It was his fault he was here with them. He was the one who wasn’t paying attention when he came out of the store. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t know them, he didn’t like them, and what they did or said didn’t matter. He threw up the barriers he’d perfected after the accident to keep everyone as far away from him as possible, locking himself in his safe place. It had never really worked.
Despite trying to push everything away, his mind continued to churn through what had happened, reviewing his actions and what he could have done differently to avoid the situation. By the time they moved outside, he’d managed to convince himself that this was different. It was as though the three of them were part of the joke, instead of him being the brunt of it.
