Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 53 - Chain Link Fence

Photo by Hédi Benyounes on Unsplash

The main ENH Initiative campus was nearly once again as it had been the last time Frankie saw it on the night everything was swallowed into darkness. The entire property was surrounded by ten-foot high metal security fencing, edged at the top with loops of barbed wire like a military bunker in wartime.  On the eastern edge was the main guardhouse, and inside the fence was the long parking lot where he’d last seen Tabitha, Sam, and Drake.  Beyond that was ENH’s primary five-story headquarters standing tall above several scrawling acres housing multiple warehouses and laboratories, all interconnected below by an intricate series of tunnels like modern-day catacombs.   

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Frankie said as he and Olivia stumbled toward the fence with weary steps.   

“Has something changed?” Olivia asked.  It was a natural question for a time and place, a world and swirling universe, now twisted and tilted upon a different ticking timeline.  

“The buildings are the same, but I see someone who’s not,” Frankie said.

Standing at the guardhouse, peering through the gate towards the main ENH building, stood a skinny man bestowed with a bushy, unkempt mustache.  Next to him was a more portly gentleman sweating profusely in the thick July humidity.  A prim and petite girl stood between them, diminutive and fragile, with tremendously bright red hair styled in a bob that curled under her chin.

“Am I looking at Dr. Tabitha Small?” Frankie called out, a broad, toothy grin across his face.

“Am I looking at Frankie Watts?” the girl yelled in return. She was surprised at how glad she was to see him as she tilted her head to the side, placing her hands upon her small hips like a tiny superhero.  

“Well, apparently, you aged quite well,” Tabitha said as Frankie and Olivia drew close.  “You don’t look much different at all than from before.”

“Less silver hair, I suppose,” Frankie said.

“Frankie Watts?” the more portly man asked.  

“James, surely you remember Frankie,” Tabitha said.  “Husband to Becca Watts.”

James extended his hand as Frankie approached, and the two men shook hands, greeting each other with perhaps more zeal than either man expected.

“Don’t suppose you know where my wife may be?” Frankie asked. 

“Well, that answers my next question,” Tabitha said.  “You don’t know where she is, either?”

“She apparently made herself scarce once this whole thing started,” Frankie said as he pointed to the main ENH building.  “If she, in fact, survived whatever she was doing in there.  I still can see those other two getting sucked up into that thing.”

“In my car,” Tabitha said.  “Drake and Sam.”

“Drake and Sam,” Frankie repeated.  “One of them — the little one — had a weird crush on Becca.”

“Oh my,” James said.

“So,” Frankie said, turning to his companion.  “This young lady is Olivia.”

Tabitha gave Frankie a quizzical glance and extended her hand in introduction.

“Had ourselves a bit of an altercation on the interstate yesterday,” Frankie explained.  “Crazy loon popped a bullet through my arm whilst trying to steal a peanut butter sandwich.  Young Olivia was kind enough to give me a lift to the hospital.”

“It was my sandwich the man was trying to steal,” Olivia said sheepishly, realizing how ridiculous the words sounded as they came out of her mouth.

“You were shot?” Tony asked, joining the conversation.  Frankie lifted his eyes, having not yet acknowledged the skinny man’s presence. 

“Sorry,” James said.  “We seemed to have gathered our own new companion, as well.  This is Tony.”

“Tony?” Frankie asked.

“Schaufwater,” Tony said.

“I won’t even ask what that name means,” Frankie said.

“So I’m told your wife caused all this, then?” Tony said, pulling his small notepad and pencil from his back pocket.

“That’s the running theory, friend,” Frankie said.  “Though I don’t think this is exactly what she had in mind, dragging the whole bloody world back to 1986.”

“Well, what did she have in mind, then?” Tony asked.

“I’m sorry, mate,” Frankie said.    “What’s your game, then?”

“I’m a news producer,” Tony answered.  “Just trying to fill in the blanks.  If she didn’t set out for time travel, then what was she trying to do?”

“You’ll have to ask her when we see her,” Frankie said.  He hadn’t had an issue sharing personal details when first meeting Olivia, as friends come easy when you’ve shared a traumatic experience.  But Tony made Frankie uneasy by asking what felt like personal questions faster so than Frankie preferred. What did Becca have in mind, indeed?

“Was she trying to fix something?” James asked. 

“She talked about seeing things, I suppose,” Frankie said.  “Not fixing things, necessarily.  Nothing like stopping 9/11 from happening and the like.  At least not that I remember.  More like witnessing history as it was made.”

“That’s not what this work was intended for,” Tabitha said.

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Frankie said.  “Honestly, I never really believed what little of the theories she shared with me over the years. The transgalactic travel stuff? Yeah, I could get behind that.  That made some sense.  Faster than light-speed travel and whatnot.  I can see the purpose in that: traveling to other planets.  Set up colonies.  But I think the time travel thing, well, maybe you never know someone as well as you think you do.”

“I’d like to get inside there to see the large Hadron collider again,” James said.

“As would I,” Tabitha said.

“I’ve never even seen a photo of it,” Frankie said with a laugh. After all these years, if you can believe that, I never had the security clearance or whatever.”

“So that’s where it is, then?” Tony asked, his mustache twitching as he spoke. “This is where it all started?”

“This is it,” James said.

“From how you described it, I wouldn’t think it could fit in a building only five stories tall,” Tony said.  “How does something that can do so much damage fit inside a building that size?”

“Not in it,” Tabitha said.  “Under it.”

“Well, then under it we shall go,” Frankie said.  “It’s about time I saw what my wife’s been working on all these years.”

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