Parallelogram : Day Two : Chapter
Five Days, Fourteen Hours, Forty-Four Minutes
... and then Parker heard the seal on the airlock gasp.
"No!" he screamed.
From what he knew, Larnord told him that – in one manner of speaking – Frank Parker's arrival in this timeline – in this continuum – was sure to spell the death of the world, of existence, of everyone he knew and held dear. There was no way – if he took the alien timelord at its word – of stopping it. Since his arrival, he had caused several deaths from temporal contamination. An odd turn of events – not necessarily of his causing – had led to the apparent death of the President's son-in-law, Trace Hightower. Ebdon Finkle, an innocent bystander, had almost died. Then, moments ago, gunfire had broken out in the Pentagon subchamber that housed the support staff caring for Larnord, and – there was no doubt in Parker's mind – scientists and guards and administrative crew were dying out there.
Now, someone was opening the seal to the Mallathorn's chamber, and, if the current train of events set precedence, he would inadvertently infect everyone out there – the good, the bad, the innocent – with temporal radiation. There wasn't a thing he could do about it.
"The hell there isn't!" he shouted, leaping toward the massive steel door that cracked away from the frame and crept slowly into the room. He lunged, landing his hands on the cold metal, and he pushed. "No! Stay out of here! I won't be responsible for another death! Stay out! Stay out! STAY OUT!"
Suddenly, the force opposing him grew stronger, and Parker slipped down to his knees in disgust, pounding on the hard surface as he lost his footing, lost the struggle to save countless others, and started to lose his very mind.
Then, a helmeted face popped around the edge, and Parker gazed up into the eyes of Nina Welles.
She wore his protective containment suit.
Behind her, Ebdon Finkle – nine millimeter pistols in each hand – entered into the room.
"What the hell has gotten into you?" he asked.
Exhausted, Parker smiled. He slipped onto the floor and sat with his back to the door, resting all of his weight against it. "Thank God."
"Thank God is right, thank you very much," Finkle snapped.
"I thought you were the others."
"Who?" the old man tried. "The ones who've stormed this place and are out there shooting the hell out of everything?"
"Yes!" Parker replied. He brought his hand up and brushed it hard across his face. "I thought I was going to infect everyone!"
Finkle grimaced. "Get some sense, will ya, Frank?" He gestured at the doctor. "Do you think I'd be stupid enough to bring her in here without some sort of protection?" Leaning down, he barked, "Didn't I tell you I'd take care of things?"
"All right, all right!" the chrononaut shot back. "My mistake!"
"You're damn right, it was your mistake!" Cradling one of his pistols under his arm, he reached out with a hand and helped the younger man to his feet. "Did you think we were going to sit out there and wait to be shot up like the rest of them sorry Pentagon paper-pushers?"
"No, Ebdon, you did the right thing."
Holding out her hands, Nina stepped forward. "We really didn't have any other choice, Frank. They placed us in the connecting chamber to give us what protection they could, but you can tell by the gunfire that those men are breaking through what resistance the scientists here have been able to muster. Ebdon came up with the idea to shelter me from contamination by wearing your suit, and it was the only chance we had left." She shrugged. "Otherwise, we were sitting ducks to the military."
"The military?" Parker glanced around her, into the airlock, and he saw it unoccupied. "You've got to be kidding me? Why would the United States military attack their own Pentagon?"
"I don't know," she said. "It makes absolutely no sense to me, either." Then, shifting uncomfortably within the suit, she added, "Jesus, I never realized how much this thing weighed!"
"Welcome to my world, doc," Parker quipped.
Quickly, he ushered the two of them clear of the airlock, and, with Ebdon's help, he heaved on the plating, pushing the door closed. It clicked into place, and Parker took one of the pistols from the older man. After warning them to stand back, he fired three shots at the series of buttons and knobs that controlled the mechanism. Sparks erupted from around the seal of the door, and Parker was certain that had done the trick.
"What are you doing?" Nina asked.
"I'm sealing us in here," he explained. "If those military men do break through, then the next place they're coming is in here."
"But why?"
"That is a very good question, young lady," Larnord announced. The Mallathorn was suddenly hovering in the air, not far from where they stood, its arms crossed, its tentacles dangling loosely like airborne leaves around its head.
In response, Nina screamed, and Finkle pulled up his remaining pistol. Quickly, Parker reached over and put his hand on the gun.
"No, no," he cautioned. "You don't want to shoot Larnord. If you think we have trouble now, can you imagine what kind of madness we'd be in if the Earth were suddenly surrounding by this guy's fleet of flying saucers?"
"The Mallathorn ships are not saucer-shaped, Frank."
"Well, pardon the insult."
"They are far more similar to your Earthling's teardrops."
"Then cry me a river, Larry."
In a decidedly human expression, Larnord narrowed the slits of his eyes at the chrononaut.
"Sorry," the man offered. "Larry, these are my friends."
"Yes."
Parker took his hand from Ebdon's gun. "This wiley old coot is Ebdon Finkle."
"A bodyguard?" the alien tried.
"No," Finkle answered matter-of-factly. "I run a restaurant."
"Really?"
"That's right. A damn good one, too, if I don't say so myself."
"I have no doubt, Mr. Finkle."
Extending his hand over, Parker took Nina by the shoulder and pulled her forward. At the sight of the alien, she had stepped back, retreating slightly behind the two men, but Parker wouldn't let her hide. It would be courteous. "This is Dr. Nina Welles. She's on loan to the BackStep Program from the Centers for Disease Control."
Majestically, Larnord gracefully lowered itself to the floor. "I've heard about your work, Dr. Welles."
Reflexively, the woman blurted a slight scream.
Parker slapped her lightly on the cheek. "Nina!"
Breaking from her trance, she shook her head. "What?" she tried, her expression one of sheer cluelessness. Then, she relaxed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize Mister ... uh ... Mister Larnord. I've heard about you. I've based much of my research at synthesizing Chroniticin on information that you've passed on to your Pentagon stewards. It's just that ..." She shuffled a bit where she stood. "It's just that I sort of freaked when I heard the first alien I've ever met say my name." She cleared her throat.
"You need offer no apology, doctor," the Mallathorn replied. "Given our present circumstances, I find myself slightly apprehensive about our fate."
"You?" Parker interrupted. "Larry, you know the future. You know what the hell is going on here. There's no reason that you – of all ... er ... people – that you should be apprehensive. Why don't you cut the crap and let us in on what's happening out there?"
"Frank, please."
"Don't try that 'we're old friends' routine on me, Larry." Parker glanced in the direction of the shielded viewport, listening to the distance bursts of repeating gunfire. "This facility has been surrounded, from what my friends tell me. Your staff out there are dying, all to protect you. Now, if you've altered the timeline as you've said – if you've taken these various events and thrown them on the floor like a deck of cards – then I'm willing to make an educated guess that you can still see the faces on those cards. You can still see what's happening when and where and why. If I'm right, then you know what's going on out there, and we have every right to know."
"Why?" the Mallathorn asked.
"Why?" Parker repeated. "Why what?"
"Why do you have every right to know?"
At wit's end, Parker yanked the pistol up and aimed at the alien.
"Right now, we're the only thing between you and them."
"How do you know, Frank, that these men are not here to kill you?"
"Don't play Yoda with me!"
"Who?"
"Look," Parker tried, biting back a vicious retort, "this is the Pentagon, Larry. Now, where you're from, your people may not have a Pentagon, so I'll fill you in. This place? It's the grand poobah of military intelligence. In fact, it is the military. You don't storm the Pentagon unless you have a personal death wish. These men? If they have the ability to do this, then killing me would be easier than taking a baby away from its candy. They could've killed me any number of ways. An assassin could've infiltrated the Temporal Response Team that recovered me. A squadron could've stormed NeverNeverLand. Some rogue element could've shot down the airplane we flew from Nevada to Washington, D.C. All of those plans would've been far easier than breaking into the Pentagon, Larry, so don't even try to tell me that they aren't after you, and, if you try to do that again, I'm gonna start blasting my own holes in any number of these stockpiles of your Book of the Month collection ... so start talking!"
The Mallathorn grinned at the man. "You're correct, Frank. These men are here for me."
"Why?"
"They're following their orders."
"To do what?"
"To kill me."
A breath of cold air washed over the chrononaut. He had imagined that any number of groups within and beyond the United States military could have a multitude of reasons for wresting control of time out from under the hands of the government, but he hadn't imagined that anyone would want to kill the alien. Sure, every government of the world had an expressed interest in killing an alien visitor if for no other reason than to preserve the status quo, but Larnord had been here for awhile. He had given the United States a replacement Sphere for the one that had been destroyed in their version of 9/11. He had obviously warmed up to the elite and the powerful within the country's borders ... why would they want him dead?
"You're not telling me everything that you know, Larry."
"In time."
"We don't have time."
"We do ... so long as we keep these events from slipping out of our control, Frank," the alien countered. "Of all people, you should know that better than most."
With a start, Parker suddenly shook, the floor beneath him trembled. He heard the muffled explosion in his ears – the blast on the other side of the airlock – and he knew that the men had broken past what resistance the Mallathorn's keepers had provided, and they were advancing into the antechamber.
"All right," Parker agreed. "You win ... for now. But this conversation isn't over."
"Agreed."
Stepping forward, Finkle spat, "Now, if you two lovebirds don't mind, could we start discussing the plan for our getaway?"
"I'm agreeing with Ebdon," Nina offered. "There's no way out ... at least, there isn't any back the way we came in."
Curtly, Parker nodded. "Larry?"
"Yes?"
"Larry," the chrononaut continued, "like I said: this is the Pentagon. You don't expect me to believe that the United States government put you down here – way down here in this sub- sub- sub-basement – and they didn't leave you a way out in the event of emergencies?"
Sniffing, its tentacles swishing this way and that, the Mallathorn said, in resignation, "Follow me."
END of Chapter 40
