Chapter 12
9:28 a.m. – 15:50 to Termination
Transmission
Translation by Shelby Partlow
Simon,
This is unprecedented.
Synchronicities are rare, but three within a few hours’ time is statistically impossible. Something else is going on here—something we haven’t seen before. I need to examine the data to be certain, but for the moment, I’ve deactivated the automated systems and am monitoring the situation myself. The system will no longer try to autocorrect.
Because the boy is still alive, the project is corrupt. I am sure your team has questions, especially with regard to the project’s termination. Please assure them I don’t anticipate any immediate decisions. Our goal is to learn, and because of the unusual nature in which we reached this corruption, the project may now afford a unique opportunity to achieve this goal. Remember, sometimes more can be learned from failure than from success.
I will examine the data and be in touch. Please direct your team to stand down and wait for further instructions.
– Sadie
Chapter Twelve
I teach that all men are mad. —Horace
“Hello, and welcome to Walmart.”
Nick stood on legs that felt slack. He leaned against an empty shopping cart for support and picked at the stubble on his chin.
The smell of McDonald’s French fry grease hung in the air.
Shoppers walked in and out of the store.
“Hello, and welcome to Walmart.”
He’d started counting them as they came in, one by one. He’d lost count somewhere in the seventies.
Every man, woman, and child entering or leaving the store had identical timers. Every man, woman, and child entering or leaving the store would be dead by 1:18 a.m.
No. Not just by 1:18 a.m., but at 1:18 a.m. Thirty-two seconds past 1:18, to be exact.
“Thanks for shopping at Walmart. You have a good day.”
At first, he’d suspected the football game. A freak accident—or maybe some kind of terrorist attack. Something that would cause the sudden death of dozens or maybe even hundreds of attendees.
But this went well beyond the game.
“Hello and welcome to Walmart.”
1:18 a.m.
In a massive accident—the collapse of football stands or an explosion—there would still be varying times when people died. Some would die instantly; others might die on the way to the hospital. Still others in the days or weeks to come. Variations by seconds, minutes, hours, and days.
But there were no variations. The timers were identical.
To the last second.
The greeter turned and nodded at Nick. He had a missing tooth and a friendly smile. “Can I help you find something, sir?”
Nick stared back at the man, then shook his head.
Theories tumbled around his mind like cats in a dryer.
A nuclear bomb. The Yellowstone Caldera. An asteroid.
He tried to retrace his steps over the last few days to remember when the timers might have changed. Ron from Crumb Brothers had called on Wednesday to help him unload a truck. Fifty dollars and a couple of day-old ciabatta loaves for two hours of work. He’d seen six or seven people. It had been hot work, and he’d taken off his hoodie. He couldn’t remember seeing any timers, but he must have. Yesterday he’d stayed at home. He might have seen Mrs. Ewel. And then today . . . he’d walked through the store with his head down. Even when he went back in, he’d kept his hood pulled low. The only timer he’d seen was Celeste’s.
He watched and thought and counted another hundred customers in Walmart. He counted until he needed a cigarette, and then he went outside.
The smoke calmed his nerves. Put steel into his legs. A middle-aged woman in a skirt and blouse walked through his smoke, waving her hand in front of her face and sputtering out a fake cough. Nick ignored her. He found it hard to feel anger toward someone who would be dead in less than twenty-four hours.
A prickling touched the base of his neck. He almost never noticed the feeling of being watched anymore. It was a constant in his life, though at times more intense. A white noise, ever-present and in the back of his mind. But he noticed it now, and it made him angry.
He thought about running. He could flee the valley of death. In seventeen hours, he could make it to the Pacific Ocean. Or to Canada. How far would he have to go to be safe?
All these people were going to die, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. While he felt a mixture of emotions, if he was honest with himself, the emotion that bubbled to the top was relief. Relief that, for once, he couldn’t do a goddam thing. This was a peace he hadn’t known since before Little Cowboy. He’d been facing an afternoon and evening of tracking the girl from the grocery store. A confrontation, most likely. Perhaps another run-in with the police. Fighting the damn timer.
And now it didn’t matter. Now there was no decision to make.
He’d found a measure of peace in impotence.
He dropped the cigarette butt to the ground and stamped out the ember. He wouldn’t run to the ocean or to Canada. He’d go home, heat up his burritos, eat his Moon Pies—every last one of them—and hopefully fall asleep before the end came for them all.
He had one foot on the floorboard when a single thought flitted through his mind. A curl of curiosity twisted inside. An idea that might give him a clearer picture of the puzzle.
A small boy followed behind his father, who was walking toward the store. The child took large steps and placed each foot where the man had stepped. Both timers read 1:18. Nick wanted to stop the man and tell them both to go out and enjoy the day. Play hard. Do something they usually wouldn’t. And put it all on the credit card. Give each other hugs and go to bed happy.
The pair disappeared through the doors. Nick stared at the storefront, and his curiosity grew.
Closing the car door, Nick slipped the keys into his pocket and walked back toward the store.
“Hello, and welcome to—oh . . . I mean, welcome back.” The greeter grinned. “What’d you do, forget your wallet?”
Nick pulled his hoodie down and strode past the greeter toward the rear of the store. He turned right at the baby clothes, then left into electronics. He stopped in front of a bank of televisions. Half of the TVs showed a movie—a cartoon with colorful birds that may or may not have been a Disney film. The other half showed a big man wearing close-cropped hair and a suit. He sat at a desk and talked sports with a smug smile on his face. Only a few of the sets had their volume turned up.
A young man wearing a blue vest stood by the electronics register. He was about Nick’s age, lanky and with curling hair. He flirted with a younger girl who wore a matching blue vest.
Nick approached. “Hi, do you have cable here?” He pointed at the bank of TVs.
The young man looked over, then back to the girl. “We do, but we can’t change the TVs for customers.”
“I just need you to check one channel for me.”
“We only have basic cable. We probably don’t even have—”
“Channel ninety-six. It’s on basic cable. Come on, man, it’ll only take a minute.”
The girl picked up a box of DVDs on the counter. She smiled at the other clerk, held his eyes for a moment, then walked away. The employee turned to look at Nick, his face darkening at the interruption.
“I already told you I can’t change the TVs for customers.”
Nick felt the familiar warm flash of anger. He took a breath. And then another. He knew how to keep calm in a tense situation.
He leaned over the counter, resting an elbow on the surface, and brought his face closer to the clerk.
“Look. I’m thinking of buying a TV. The best way to judge a set is by watching a low-quality video feed. Channel ninety-six on basic cable is CSPAN, and if you’ll let me look at that channel for about 30 seconds, I’ll know which TV I want. I’ll make my purchase and be on my way.”
The young man stared, saying nothing.
Nick leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “If you don’t change the channel, I’m going to come around this counter and beat the shit out of you.”
The clerk’s eyes widened, his pupils dilating. He stared at Nick for a moment. Nick smiled.
The clerk reached under the counter and pulled out a remote. He pointed it at the bank of TVs and tapped it twice.
Nick turned. Half of the screens had changed from colorful birds to a video feed from the U.S. Capitol building.
The video feed from the nation’s capital was live.
He stepped over to a TV and placed his hand on the top of the screen. He counted eight people in the House chambers. Two looked like representatives. A few people in business attire stood milling about. The rest were staffers. None of that mattered. Nick cared only about timers.
Eight timers. Eight times. All ending in a little over fifteen hours.
Nick looked above the clerk’s head and back to the TV set. The timers were identical. To the last tick.
Two thousand miles away, and these eight people would die in the same instant.
This went way beyond a caldera or an asteroid. This was something else entirely.
Nick straightened.
“Do you need anything else, sir?” The clerk’s voice was pissy, and Nick probably deserved it.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I need some alcohol.”
The clerk squinted at Nick in confusion, then pressed the remote and turned the station back to the cartoon birds.
Nick left the electronics department and walked along the back of the store. A girl who looked very much like his sister Jane caught his eye in the shoe section. He stopped and pretended to look through a bin of DVDs. A woman, perhaps the girl’s mother, helped her try on a pair of red sneakers. She kneeled on the floor and pressed her thumb against the girl’s toe.
“How does that feel? Is it too tight? We don’t want them tight; you’re already growing so fast.”
The girl shook her head, her face bright with a smile. “They’re perfect, Mommy. I love them.”
Nick had read once that the human brain was not wired to understand the big picture. Data and statistics didn’t change minds. Stories did. Show a person a bar graph that represents society's ills, and that person will shake their head in regret. But tell them a story of a child who is hungry, and now that same person will reach for their wallet.
Nick was no different. He couldn’t comprehend eight billion deaths. This scene before him, however, broke his heart. At that moment, he wished he could do something.
The girl beamed and wouldn’t let her mother put the shoes in the cart. She hugged the box close to her chest. Shoes that should see days in the park, adventures with cousins, and trips to and from school.
A familiar darkness settled over him. Somebody was playing with him. Poking and prodding at him like a rat in a cage. As the mother and daughter left the shoe section, he made a promise—one he’d made and remade many times before.
If he ever found the person responsible for the timers—be it man, alien, or God himself—he would strangle them with his own bare hands.
He turned left at the soda section. He thought about getting some Coke and maybe trying to find some rum, but then he remembered he’d spent the last of his money on root beer extract and dry ice—dry ice that had turned to vapor on the pavement on Lee’s parking lot.
Three steps past the freezer section Nick came to a stop. He looked to his right and took two steps back.
A woman wearing a white lab coat over a blue dress sifted through pre-packaged meals in the freezer; a security access badge hung off one pocket. The woman’s timer was identical to the others he’d seen today.
She spoke into the freezer case with a loud voice, and Nick realized she was on the phone. A car seat sat perched on a shopping cart behind her. A baby slept, tucked in with care under a pink fleece blanket. A bow sat in the middle of wispy dark hair.
The woman’s back was toward both Nick and the baby.
He gaped at the timer above the infant’s head.
The timer. The goddam timer.
Six inches up and just a little to the right. Three columns. Eleven rows. Two symbols—repeated.
ФФД
ДДД
ДДФ
ДФД
ФФФ
ДФД
ДДФ
ДДД
ДФФ
ФДД
ФДД
Ninety-four years. The baby’s life thread spun into the void, crimson, and pulsing.
The baby in the car seat, with her head nestled gently to one side, and her lip quivering silently as she dreamed . . . this baby would live for another ninety-four years.
There was no time for debate. No time for rational thought.
The woman still spoke into her phone. Still pushed items around in the freezer, searching for something.
Nick lowered his hood. Two steps, and Nick was next to the cart.
He undid the buckle, plucked the baby from the seat, and carried her away.
