Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 60 - Off Balance

Photo by Chris Lynch on Unsplash

“Someone’s been here,” Becca said to Gordon.

“The lock’s been cut off,” Gordon confirmed.

A heavy, broken padlock and chain rested in the overgrown weeds nearby. The lock’s curved metal shaft was jagged at the spot where someone apparently struggled to cut straight through before dropping it to the ground. Gordon nudged it with his foot. The chain-link gate that was once held shut by the lock at the primary entrance to ENH Initiative’s now-modest parking lot was pulled open just wide enough for someone to slide through.

“That worries me,” Becca said. “I would have at least shut the gate behind me. A scavenger would not.”

“What’s there to scavenge?” Gordon asked as he bent and further examined the now useless padlock.

“Copper wire,” Becca said. “Computers, propellants, and other equipment. I don’t know. There’s plenty of value in there.”

“Anything nuclear?” Gordon asked, having no idea how one would power a contraption powerful enough to instantly transport an entire civilization through a wormhole of space and time. Becca responded with a piercing glare as she slipped through the gap in the gate.

“Why would you jump straight to nuclear?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Can coal power a random black hole generator?”

“Shut that behind you, would you?” she instructed, walking toward the front entrance.

It had taken them the entire day to walk their way through the city, ducking down vacant alleyways, avoiding people whenever possible, except at one point when the overwhelming scent of food pulled them off course until they finally discovered a hole-in-the-wall pizza parlor where the Italian family running it scrambled to serve slices for ten bucks a pop to the line of hungry vagrants — themselves included — who’d stumbled upon the smell of baking bread and tomato sauce, sausage and sautéed onions.

Dusk crept upon them, and the July evening was awash in a deep pinkish-orange, with overcast clouds thickly dotting the sky in clotted blotches. The smell of pizza from hours before was replaced by the early signs of rain and the lingering threat of storm clouds hovering over the city. The crackle of electricity in the air was pervasive and seemingly inescapable.

“We should get inside,” Becca said as she surveyed the skyline between the surrounding buildings. I don’t like the look of this storm.”

As if to confirm her discomfort, a lightning bolt cracked through the sky, surrounding them in a blanket of blinding light. This was immediately followed by an instantaneous crashing of thunder that rattled the windows of the building they were approaching. Gordon felt the thunder in the very soles of his feet.

“That’s going to be a humdinger right there,” Gordon said, peering skyward from under the portico entranceway to ENH.

“The front door is locked,” Becca said and began to fish through her purse.

“So if there’s a scavenger around, they didn’t get in.”

“At least not here, they didn’t.”

“Could it be a competitor, you suppose?”

“A competitor?”

“Another organization,” Gordon said. “You said that others would be interested in this work. That what you did was top secret. And what’s that other group you mentioned?”

“When?”

“On the way here. You were driving. So I guess maybe around Tennessee?”

“CERN?”

“Yeah, that’s it. The European group that’s doing stuff like you. You said they were a particle physics laboratory, too, right?”

“Yes, of course, but you could say we had a slightly different focus,” Becca told him. “And they weren’t a competitor as much as an ally, at least for most of what we were doing.”

“Yeah,” Gordon said, shrugging his shoulders. “But given what you did, wouldn’t they be more than interested in you now?”

“We don’t need conspiracy theories,” Becca said. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a small water thermos and offered it to Gordon. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s water,” she said, handing him the bottle. “We’ve been walking all day. You should drink something.”

“You’ve been carrying this with you all along?” Gordon asked.

“I filled it at the apartment.”

“You want some?”

“No,” Becca said, continuing to rummage through her purse. “That’s all for you.”

Gordon took a long drink, gulping deeply from the bottle, surprised with each swallow to realize how thirsty he’d become without even knowing it.

“There! Found my keys,” Becca said, holding them up. “Haven’t used keys in years. Always used an entry card. Fingerprint scanner in some places.”

Like earlier in the day, as Becca expertly navigated them through the increasingly humid backend streets of Chicago, through McKinley Park, and down several blocks toward Cicero, Gordon felt displaced once more as they entered the ENH Initiative not through a central corridor, but through a byway staircase entrance on the far left side of the interior lobby that circled downward several flights. The air grew more chilled with each step of their spiraling decline.

“How far are we going?” Gordon asked, suddenly winded. “Air feels thin down here.”

“The ventilation and temperature controls are tightly monitored in a laboratory,” Becca said. “Costs were cut in the stairways and other areas. It’s disorienting at first. You’ll get used to it. Need to stop?”

Gordon nodded, momentarily alarmed at the overwhelming need to bend over as he tightly grasped the cold metal handrail. He awkwardly lowered himself and took a seat on a cold concrete step.

“Just a sec,” he said. “My face is all tingly.”

“It’ll pass,” Becca said. She glanced impatiently at her watch. “Listen, why don’t you sit here for a few minutes, and I’ll return for you?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll just go ahead for a minute and come right back.”

Still clasping the handrail, Gordon managed to lift his face and look at her. He found it increasingly difficult to open his eyes.

“This…” he said. “…Something’s not right.”

“I’ll be back,” Becca told him.

“No,” Gordon said, his panic rising. A frightening, familiar interior alarm blared throughout his brain. He felt the same sense of vertigo, off balance, when they’d first learned of Marie’s cancer, sitting there in the nearly blinding white sterility of her oncologist’s examination room, Marie clasping his hand as if there was nothing else holding her from falling. It was the same, too, when he was pelted with unfounded accusations in his boss’ office at Walmart, wrongfully convicted of inappropriate conduct, and terminated. He’d felt it another time when he was assaulted behind the gas station, just before falling into blackness, falling deep and far away and thinking perhaps this was not so bad. It was the feeling that his world was precariously and ominously balanced like an avalanche threatening to come crashing down.

Or maybe it was the fact that there’d been no rest after such a long journey — a journey with no specific end or destination in mind. This was not a bad thing — to rest, to be done with the constant moving. Isn’t that why he’d gone to Florida? To escape the lingering sorrow that was the soundtrack to his every day?

He suddenly felt everything slipping away again. Sitting on that staircase, now everything was eclipsed by a calm nothingness despite the fact that it was abundantly clear everything was very wrong.

“Why are we even here?” Gordon slurred. His head leaned against the cold concrete block wall. He wiped at his lip, and his hand came back wet with drool.

“Becca?” he asked, but he received no answer and realized he was alone.

Becca had left him abandoned on the staircase. His vision was completely blurred, milky, and unfocused. A faint light came from further down below, but everywhere else was all blackness.

As his vision faded completely, Gordon mustered one last tangible thought, an undeniable conclusion.

“Why did you bring me here all this way?” he asked out loud to no one. “Why bring me here just to do this?”

Becca hadn’t just given him a bottle of water.

“Just to do this?” he mumbled and fell forward, toppling down a dozen stairs as everything gave way to darkness.

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