Gary Gibson - Final Days

The doors slid open and Jeff found himself staring down the barrels of three Cobras aimed at their heads. He reached out to hit the close button, but one of the three guards stepped forward, jamming his boot against the door before it could slide all the way shut.

The next minute passed in a blur. One of the guads reached inside and grabbed Jeff by the shoulder, before dragging him out of the elevator and pushing him face-first down against the polished marble floor. As his arms were wrenched behind his back, he was conscious of the alarm still braying discordantly. Jeff glanced to one side to see another guard securing Present-Mitchell similarly, while the third one kept his Cobra trained on them both.

Light flickered across the polished marble, and Jeff lifted his head slightly to glance at the glass doors at the main entrance. He saw Future-Mitchell’s van accelerating straight towards them, flames billowing out of its open windows.

Someone shouted a strangled warning just before the driverless vehicle rammed through the double doors in a shower of glass, then continued on across the atrium before ramming into the reception desk. The sound of the impact was loud enough to drown out even the wail of the alarm.

Jeff felt the intense pressure on his back suddenly relax. The three guards seemingly had forgotten them, and were firing wildly at the van, while backing away from it. Clouds of choking black smoke spilled out of the van’s windows and began to fill the entire atrium. Though several large windows shattered under the impact of stray bullets, it was a still and windless night, so the smoke lingered, quickly reducing visibility to barely more than a few metres in any direction.

Jeff scrambled upright, while Present-Mitchell simply stared around in abject confusion. Whatever they’d been pumping into his veins, Jeff reckoned, it must have been powerful stuff. He leaped up, and once again helped the other man to his feet. They then stumbled out through a shattered floor-to-ceiling window, and into the cold night air, coughing desperately.

Jeff heard the screech of rubber on tarmac, and turned to see the sedan that Mitchell had stolen come bumping down the manicured slope separating the Arcorex building from its car park. It swerved to avoid several bushes, then crashed to a halt at the foot of the slope. Future-Mitchell leaned out of the driver’s window, gesturing frantically.

While Jeff dragged his half-comatose ward after him, Future-Mitchell jumped out and took hold of his doppelgänger’s other arm, helping Jeff guide him into the back seat, where he slumped with a groan. Shouting erupted from behind.

Future-Mitchell slid back behind the wheel and reversed hard, before Jeff had a chance to pull himself fully on to the front passenger seat. The sedan accelerated backwards, at an angle, up the landscaped slope, and Jeff managed to haul himself all the way inside just as the vehicle came crashing down level again at the top of the slope. Gunfire sliced the chill air, and a rear passenger window exploded to his right. Jeff immediately ducked, the side door still swinging open as Future-Mitchell spun the vehicle through a hundred and eighty degrees.

‘Keep your fucking heads down!’ he screamed, twisting the wheel.

The sedan rammed into something Jeff couldn’t see, slewed around, then accelerated away once more. As the door swung back towards Jeff, he managed to grab hold of it, finally pulling it shut as further shots echoed around them. He hunched over, paralysed with fear, as he imagined those bulles tearing into his own soft and vulnerable flesh.

The car screeched to a sudden halt, then accelerated once more. Jeff pulled himself slowly upright, to see they were back on the highway.

‘I think we’re out of range now,’ announced Future-Mitchell, with a look of grim determination. ‘How is he?’

A total of three windows had been blown out, and there were also several large holes in the sedan’s roof. Jeff squeezed the upper half of his body between the two front seats, the sedan reconfiguring itself, and becoming slightly wider, in order to allow him more room. He glanced back at Present-Mitchell, who still lay sprawled on the rear seat. His eyes were closed, but his lips moved, and Jeff could hear him mumbling incoherently.

‘Well?’ asked Future-Mitchell, sounding tense. ‘Is he okay?’

‘Why? Don’t you remember?’

Future-Mitchell grunted. ‘Point taken.’

Jeff glanced through the shattered rear window to see that Arcorex had already vanished into the distance. ‘Can they catch us, do you reckon?’

‘I don’t know,’ Future-Mitchell replied, as he swung the sedan on to a turn-off leading back towards Omaha. ‘They’ll know who we are as soon as they check the surveillance recordings. What happens after that depends on whether they choose to tell the police or not. Personally, I’m guessing not.’ He glanced over his shoulder at his doppelgänger. ‘Is he still unconscious?’

‘Completely.’ Jeff nodded. ‘He’ll probably sleep for a day before he even begins to wake up again.’

It wasn’t long before they arrived back at the motel, where Future-Mitchell helped Jeff haul their unconscious charge up to the room. They dumped him on the bed, and Jeff glanced back and forth between his two companions.

‘No matter what you tell me, or how much you try to explain,’ said Jeff, gazing down at the prone figure sprawled on the bed, ‘this does not get any less weird.’

Future-Mitchell nodded. ‘Imagine how I feel.’

The man on the bed snorted and his eyes briefly flickered open. He mumbled something, and made motions as if he was about to sit up, but his eyes slowly slid shut again and soon he resumed snoring.

‘Okay,’ said Jeff, nodding towards the door. ‘I guess that’s it. Now we go get Olivia, then head for Florida and the Array.’

Something in the look on the other man’s face brought him to a halt.

Future-Mitchell shook his head slowly. ‘We’re not going to the Florida Array. It’s like hat aid yourself, they’ll be expecting us to try and make our way there.’

Jeff’s expression turned incredulous. ‘What, you mean you were lying to me?’

‘No.’ Mitchell shook his head again, ‘I wasn’t lying. We’ll go get Olivia, like I said, and then we’ll head for the Moon. But I don’t want to try and get there via the Array. I already learned the hard way it’s too risky.’

‘Mitchell,’ said Jeff, his voice cold and flat, ‘you’d better tell me right now what the fuck it is you’ve got in mind.’

‘Do you remember when me and Saul did that space-dive? All the way down from near-Earth orbit just in glider-suits? You were the one who put me in touch with the company that runs the flights, I seem to recall.’

‘Yeah,’ Jeff nodded, ‘what about it?’

Mitchell studied him for a moment. ‘Something bothering you?’

‘Apart from the fact that I have no idea why you’re bringing this up, no.’

‘Bullshit.’ The other man gave him a knowing look. ‘It’s because I mentioned Saul, right?’

Jeff made a sound of irritation. ‘For Christ’s sake, Mitchell. The guy had an affair with my wife, is all.’

‘Your ex-wife,’ Mitchell reminded him. ‘And it’s still bothering you?’

‘Maybe not so much recently,’ said Jeff, knowing that it was a lie. ‘It was a long time ago but, ever since me and Olivia got back together . . .’

Future-Mitchell nodded like he understood. ‘Sure.’

Jeff sucked in air, then expelled it in a rush. ‘Anyway, what about the space-dive?’

‘Your friends at the company, they also run flights to the Moon for rich idiots, am I right?’

‘Sure, on replicas of the original Apollo rockets, that kind of thing, along with the standard VASIMRs.’