Paul Jones - Towards Yesterday

“I’m just trying to do my job,” Simone shot back.

“You do realize what’s at stake, don’t you? Nothing less than the future of humanity. For all we know, the future of the damn universe is in the balance here tonight. If we don’t get this right, that’s it… it’s all over.”

“Well perhaps if you hadn’t seen fit to meddle in the first place we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we? Have you thought about that little gem?”

He wanted to fire back some pointed comment, but instead Jim fell silent. He had forgotten how infuriating his ex-wife could be sometimes. But, she was right of course; science was responsible for the S lip, and now they were frantically scrambling not just to try to repair the mess they had made, but to also try to stop the disaster from becoming even worse. It’s hard to be a hero when you’re also the villain of the piece, he realized.

Rather than replying, Jim fixed his gaze straight ahead, and continued on his way to the receiver room.

The room was even more cramped than the transmitter room. Rebecca and Adrianna were busy setting up the receiver and the recording equipment they would use to monitor the effect of the transmission, when Jim popped his head around the door.

“Stupid question, but are you busy?” he said, smiling at the two women.

Rebecca looked at her watch. “With less than twenty minutes to go before we begin the experiment that will determine whether we save the world or help plunge us back into nonexistence, you ask ‘am I busy?’ Come on in,” she said, matching his smile with one of her own.

Jim walked into the room, closely followed by Simone and Beaumont. He was sure he felt the temperature of the room drop as they entered.

“You’ve met Simone and her crew?” he asked.

“Yes, we met earlier today, when she interviewed us. Nice to see you again Simone,” said Rebecca.

Simone smiled perfunctorily back at the younger woman and then turned her attention to the equipment scattered across the table.

Adrianna did not bother to fake any esteem for the church team. Instead, she regarded the interlopers with a patent disdain that bordered on open hostility. Mumbling something under her breath, she climbed back onto the specially made raised dais that allowed her to reach the workbench and its equipment.

“So, tell me,” said Simone. “What is the purpose of this equipment?”

“It’s the sister—unit to the transmitter you saw in the other room,” explained Rebecca. “When the signal is sent at midnight we will pick it up here and be able to confirm its success. This other equipment,” she pointed at a bank of electronics near the far wall, “will record the data for us for later analysis.”

“Assuming it works of course,” said the soundman.

“It will work,” Adrianna said, turning to give the skinny man her very best cold hard stare.

Beaumont returned it with equal ferocity, “Well, for all our sakes let’s hope it does.”

Once again, Jim found himself caught in the middle of a potential conflict, and once again he found himself defusing the obvious dislike that was perilously close to escalating into full-blown conflict between the stick—thin Beaumont and the diminutive Adrianna Drake.

“Mr. Gallagher has been a while,” Jim said finally, hoping to distract them both. “Mr. Beaumont. Maybe we should go and make sure he’s not lost.” Beaumont didn’t argue and with a final smirk at the red-faced Adrianna, he left the room through the door held open by a waiting Jim Baston.

“Kids today,” said Beaumont sarcastically as the two men made their way along the corridor leading back to the transmission room.

“You check in there,” said Jim, as they reached the door to the transmission room, “and I’ll go see if he’s still in the men’s room.”

Beaumont nodded and pushed through the door into the bustling transmission room. Jim caught a glimpse of Lorentz still busily checking the equipment and heard a snatch of his voice reading off some figures before the heavy door closed, sealing the room. He continued down the corridor until he arrived at two doors marked with the universal symbols for male and female bathrooms. Pushing open the door to the men’s room, Jim stepped inside.

Immediately, the astringent smell of disinfectant and stale urine filled his nostrils, reminding him of long ago hospital visits. The automatic overhead lights were already on, which only added to the antiseptic feel of the bathroom as they illuminated the white tiled floors and walls. The lights were motion activated and set on a timer of a few minutes before they switched off, so either the Gallagher had recently left or he was still here in one of the cubicles.

“Mr. Gallagher, are you in here?” Jim called out, his voice echoing off the tile floor. There was no answer for a few seconds and then he heard a quiet cough and Gallagher’s voice issued from one of the nearby cubicles.

“Yeah, I’m in here” said Gallagher, “Won’t be too long.”

“Well you’re cutting it pretty close,” replied Jim glancing at his watch. “You think you will be okay?”

“Sure thing, I’m about done. You go on ahead and I’ll meet you in the transmission room.” The sound of the toilet flushing emphasized the sentiment behind the statement.

He was a strange one that Gallagher, thought Jim. He still wasn’t sure what it was about the man that made him uneasy whenever he was around. Maybe it was the shit-eating grin he always seemed to have plastered on his face? Kind of like he knew something you didn’t. Or, maybe it was the way he watched the women? Whenever they were near his eyes would always be following them, even though his mouth was still talking to you. Whatever it was, this time tomorrow Gallagher and the rest of the Church appointed team would be out of his hair, and no longer his problem.

Thank God for small mercies, Jim thought as he exited the bathroom and walked slowly back toward the transmission room.

Tony Gallagher listened until he was sure Baston had left. He ducked outside the toilet stall and doublechecked the bathroom. When he was sure he was alone, he slipped back into the stall and closed the swing door, locking it behind him; just in case. Dropping the seat-cover on the toilet, he sat down, crossed his legs, and leaned back against the water cistern. He would have to give that guy Baston a minute to get back to the transmission room before he made his move.

From the breast pocket of his shirt, Gallagher pulled a small nondescript calculator, caressing it with his big hands like it was some priceless jewel. And in a way, it was. This tiny solar-powered calculator was the key to everything . It worked just like a regular calculator, but if he typed in a specific string of numbers and then hit the % button, it would send a radio signal to the passive receiver—unit hidden in the video camera he had left sitting on a table in the transmission room. The signal would detonate the explosives lining the inner walls of the camera unit and it would be game over.

He, and the church, of course, would win.

The wonderful thing about General-Munitions Haywire Gel was that it was so malleable, which meant it could be easily disguised or hidden just about anywhere. Easily molded into virtually any shape or size desired, it made the perfect explosive for smuggling into a complex such as this. It was also impossible to detonate the explosive by dropping it, stomping on it or throwing it. Its shock resistance made it the ideal tool for this kind of covert job.

The only way to detonate the explosive was to trigger it with a smaller blast from another explosive; in this case, it was a tiny amount of black-powder hooked up to the receiver of the low frequency detonator. He had wired the detonator directly into the battery of the camera, so it needed no telltale secondary power source for the security scanners to pick up—as long as the camera’s battery remained charged, the bomb was ready to rock-and-roll.