Out of Time by Jason Ronin (top 5 ebook reader txt) 📖

-- who was being throttled back over a table.

With a vein pulsating out of his forehead, Billy Joe screamed, “Take it back, Jonesy!”

Steve Jones could not take anything back, even if he tried, as he was rapidly turning blue. Luckily, for him, though, Ben pried Billy Joe’s hands off his neck before he got Smurfed.

Standing between the two men, Ben grunted, “Let me guess, Ike again, wasn’t it, Steve? You two, alone, are worse than a pack of caffeinated Cadzinn!”

Billy Joe was a superb computer geek who also happened to be related to Ike Clanton, of Tombstone / OK Corral fame, and all the other guys at the Station loved to wind him up about it.

“Sorry, Boss,” said both men as they straightened up and looked sheepish. Steve Jones looked around absent-mindedly, rubbing his neck. Billy Joe just looked around.

The control room they were in was eight floors below the Radar tower, but it suspended above the Room in a Panopticon viewing chamber, with windows all around it. The main computer station that ran the Riken was here, as were all the gadgets and gizmos required for running different experiments in the Room below. Ben quickly checked each device for damage from the two men’s tomfoolery, and everything was in working order.

A chittering sound issued from the corner of the room. Ben turned and saw Xatacho, the Cadzinn Overseer, looking glassy-eyed as usual. The Greyling was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a Snickers bar in the other. He gave Ben a pelvic gesture of greeting. Ben rolled his eyes and turned to the monitoring station, knowing Xatacho won’t remember him in two minutes anyway. “Progress report Billy; if you’ve calmed down enough.”

Before Billy Joe could speak, a high-pitched whining-sound filled the room. It seemed to ‘tilt’ and ‘stretch’ before it ‘snapped back’, throwing everybody to the floor. Everybody except Xatacho, who screeched in response then started to dry heave erratically, spilling its coffee.

“What the…” grunted Steve Jones, getting to his feet.

Ben jumped up and flew across the monitoring station, checking several monitor displays as he went. “These results don’t check,” he shouted to nobody in particular.

Billy Joe got up and went to look at the CCTV camera monitors that were recording in the tubes and focused on the Chair. In a hollow tone, he said, “Boss, you better take a look at this....”

Ben Sheppard then Steve Jones walked over to the CCTV monitoring station. On camera-4, they could see Cameron sitting placid in the Chair, his eyes closed. He was still deep in his self-imposed trance that he used to get “in the zone” to access his powers within. The Chair itself looked like a hi-tech dentist’s chair, but with cables leading off it to the Riken. However, in front of Cameron’s quite form, there pulsated an ethereal greenish-blue mist, a kind that the Montauk Boys had never been seen before.

In the silence of the Control room Xatacho farted as Steve Jones, Billy Joe, and Ben Sheppard watched ... something walk out of the blue-green mist. It was a ... a ... a cowboy! complete with a six-shooter, a roughened leather trench coat, and a black pilgrim’s hat.

Ignoring the three humans, Xatacho chattered to himself as he staggered into the middle of the control room. He let out a loud belch stopped him in his tracks. Then, in a drunken stupor, the Greyling wobbled for a moment before he face-planting on the tile floor. His coffee cup and Snicker’s bar flew out of his stick-like hands.

“Shit!” shouted Ben. “We need to get down there, fast!... No, no! Wait!” He tapped his top lip. “One of you, Steve! come with me. And you, Billy, stay here to keep monitoring!”

Billy Joe saluted, “Sir, yes, Sir!” as Ben Sheppard and Steve Jones ran out of the radar tower’s control room, into the access tube, and descended to the Room below.

The drunken, disgruntled cowboy looked down at the man asleep(?) in the torture chair(?). He pushed back his pilgrim’s hat, and cocked his six-shooter, alert as a coyote at night. He looked back at the blue-green mist and saw … he wasn’t sure what he saw, because he never saw anything like it before. That is, before he had stepped through it the first time. And he had seen a lot of crazy stuff in his life. Especially on peyote! But now that he was seeing this mirage from the other side, it reminded him of a bonfire and a sandstorm brewing together, but neither was consuming either. He was shocked to see what should have been the rear of the Bird Cage theatre, where he was going to take a leak. But, now, instead of … of ... the back alley of the theatre, he was in this place ... wherever this place was. He shook his head, took off his pilgrim’s hat, rubbed his head and his eyes, put his hat back on, and then, against his better judgment, walked back through the blue-green mist....

Moments later, Ben Sheppard and Steve Jones showed up on camera-4. The blue-green mist had began to dissipate before they entered the Room, but it lingered around long enough for them to see it close up. Through it, they saw the drunken cowboy looking back at them, not sure if he should shoot them. The two men, one dressed in army fatigues and the other in a smock, looked at the bewildered cowboy through the milky mist that cut through space and time. Then, like smoke, the mist continued to thin out in an unfelt breeze. But, unlike smoke in a breeze, the blue-green mist stood within an invisible boundary, until it faded away into nothingness.

“Boss!” Billy Joe’s voice boomed over the Room’s intercom system. “Boss! Can you hear me?”

Blinking a few times, Ben closed his mouth before he walked over to the wall speaker to answer. “Yeah, Billy, I can hear you loud and clear. Did the cameras pick up the event?”

Up in the control room, Billy Joe looked over at the monitor station. “I’m checking the data bank now, Boss. I’ll report back in a few minutes.” Behind him, Xatacho picked himself up off the tile floor. He had a bewildered look that only a Greyling can have.

Down in the Room, Steve Jones wandered over in front of the Chair, to where the blue-green mist had been a moment ago. He put his hands up, expecting to find a gossamer leftover. Instead, he felt a cold oily space in its place. “Hey, uh, Boss…?”

“Yeah, Steve?”

“Come feel the air right here.”

“What,” said Ben, his attention turning from the wall speaker to Steve Jones, then to Cameron, then down at to floor again, then back up to Steve Jones. “What?!”

Continuing to grope the empty air in front of him, Steve Jones said, “This space right here, it’s … it’s different somehow. It feels cold, and … uh, oily. See for yourself, Boss. How would you describe it?”

Ben stopped besides the undisturbed Cameron, sitting rigid in the Chair, and sniffed. “It smells like sulfuroxide,” he said. “And burnt ozone.” He stepped over to Steve Jones, who also sniffed.

“Yeah, Boss, you’re right!”

“Boss!” Billy Joes’s voice burst over the intercom again. “It looks like the entire event was recorded by each camera. Unfortunately, there was a small jump in each video when the portal opened. From the looks of it, that’s when we were hit by that ultrasound distortion about, uh, five minutes ago. How’s Cameron doing?”

Noticing that the air in front of the Chair did, indeed, feel colder and … oily? Slick ... like after a rainstorm, Ben thought. But aloud, he said, “Cameron’s alive and well. But, you know the procedure, Billy, ‘Clear and quarantine’.

Without comment, Billy Joe slammed his hand down on a button that activated the procedure of sealing off all doors to the Room below. Xatacho, however, was wandering around control room, searching for his lost cup of coffee and the Snicker’s bar he had. Oblivious to the Greyling, Billy Joe quickly studied the myriad of displays about him then activated the intercom. “Guys, I’m getting a strange reading here from the area about six-feet in front of the Chair.”

Ben asked, “Radiation?”

“No,” answered Billy Joe. “The readings are, uh, stranger than radiation but safe.” He rubbed his chin while glancing over the monitors one more time. “I’m getting a zero-time reading in front of the Chair, Boss. It’s covering an area of about eight-to-ten feet in diameter. And all the other readings are either up, down, or off our known scale!”

Ben scratched his head, then said, “Try adjusting the Delta-T by 90 degrees and see what happens.”

Billy Joe input the information, and the Delta-T antenna rotated into a new position. Then Billy Joe adjusted the power input from the Riken. A deep hum filled both the control room he was in, and the Room below where Ben and Steve Jones were at.

A flick of another switch and two Tesla Coils lowered down on either side of the zero-time area in the Room below. Billy Joe’s voice burst out of the intercom speaker again, saying “I have activated the Tesla array, boys. Be careful not to get zapped down there.”

At his cautioning, Ben and Steve Jones moved to the back of the Room behind a shielded workstation. The deep hum increased, and the two men heard the ‘crackle-snap’ sound of the Tesla Coils powering up. Little bolts of lightning began to spark off the top of both. As the lightning began to grow, it snaked and arched in a wild, illuminating show, making the air pop and sizzle and feel electrified. The blue-green mist started to reappear.

“Shepard!” It was Colonel Eichen on the intercom. “What in Sam-hill is going on down there?”

“Sir, we had a containment breach on the collider, sir.” Ben lied. “No injuries occurred, but we had to seal ourselves inside just in case of radiation. There seems to be none so far, but we’re sorting out the situation, sir.”

“Okay, then....” The Colonel chewed his lip for a moment. “If this is down to you, Sheppard, or if you’re up to somethun, you best bet I am gonna have your gizzard on a platter, boy!”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Ben grimaced and silenced Eichen’s channel, pleased to do so.

Huge forks of lightning shot up between the Tesla Coils. The surging energy mounted, waiting to work its way up to the Delta-T antenna perched above the Sage radar. With an audible bang, and a shiver down the back of each man on station, full power was reached and a stream of electricity joined the Tesla Coils to the Delta-T antenna. Light and shadow danced around the Room worse than before. And, in the zero-time area, the image of a doorway began to appear within the swirling blue-green mist. The entire image rippled like a pool of disturbed pool water.

Up in the control room, Billy Joe worked furiously, moving from station to station, manipulating the huge gigawatts of power seething throughout the Riken. After ten minutes, he sat back and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had done it: the zero-time area was completely stable.

Turning to view the readout screens, he studied each intently. Now that he was calmer, the readouts started to make sense. Kind of.... Xatacho wandered over to where he sat, and the Greyling’s thoughts echoed in Billy Joe’s mind. “You have achieved portalisation to the past,” it said. Although the Cadzinn can