Footprints of Thunder Read online

  Dr. Piltcher and Dr. Coombs became reclusive for a few days, poring over their notes and manuscripts, and debating vigorously. Finally one evening, they came to Kenny and Phat in the RV.

  “There is,” Dr. Piltcher said, “a fundamental flaw in our thinking.”

  Kenny and Phat listened attentively.

  “This may not be a static phenomenon. What I mean is we have been just missing the events. They happen either before we arrive, or as soon as we arrive. I think we misled you with our historical data. We relied too much on the Zorastrus manuscript. Zorastrus detected the pattern but he didn’t have enough data to refine his model. It lacked temporal specificity. I’m trying to say Zorastrus, and we, believed the events occurred at regular intervals. That’s not the case. We now believe the events in the past occurred in waves. Waves that become farther apart as you move into antiquity. The events we are tracking, however, seem to be getting closer together.”

  From then on they fully understood the implications of the model and began to fear the future. Each day after that Kenny’s anxiety grew slowly and steadily toward the panic that drove him to desperate measures. It was the panic that made him purchase the gun and plot to kidnap his own sister.

  He couldn’t stand being a pariah much longer. Whatever is going to happen, Kenny prayed, let it happen soon.

  8. Cave Crisis

  The Lord thundered from heaven, the voice of the Most High resounded amid hailstones and bolts of lightning.

  —Psalm 18:13

  Oregon Caves

  PreQuilt: Saturday, 7:30 P.M. PST

  It took Deputy Kyle over four hours to reach the Oregon Caves. It was normally less than a two-hour drive, but he had been extra cautious and slow to get started. First he stopped by the station and picked up his climbing gear. He brought two 165-foot kermantle ropes, an assortment of oval and D carabines, tapers, camming devices, pitons and a piton hammer. He then realized his climbing shoes and helmet were at home. While he was home he decided to change into his climbing clothes. After all, he reasoned, there might not be a place to change at the caves. As long as he had his clothes off he decided to shower. He made one last stop at McDonald’s for a Big Mac, large fries, and super-size Coke. As a concession to the repeated requests for his presence at the cave, Kyle violated his personal rule about never eating while driving. Ten minutes down the road he spilled secret sauce on his climbing shirt.

  When he arrived at the cave Kyle was disappointed to find that the hostage situation had not been resolved. A park ranger ushered him through the excited crowd of spectators that had gathered around the park entrance. Off to one side Kyle spotted a small group of people who were probably the hostages’ relatives. They looked at Kyle’s climbing gear hopefully.

  In a small building near the cave entrance, fifteen people were in a strategy meeting. Three wore climbing clothes. Kyle decided they were either rangers or state police. Two other men wore ties. Kyle was introduced around to handshakes and “glad you’re heres” from everyone in the shed, comments that made Kyle apprehensive. The two men in ties turned out to be FBI agents, and Jenkins, who had wet armpits, turned out to be in charge.

  “Glad you made it, Officer Kyle. We’ve been waiting for you. I understand you’ve had some experience at this.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can.” Kyle tried to say it like he meant it.

  “Good. I understand you finished top of your class in marksmanship too.”

  Jenkins was referring to Kyle’s training in special weapons and tactics. It had been another opportunity to spend a couple of weeks with his buddies, drink beer, and end up with a little extra in his paycheck.

  Kyle laughed, and then said, “Oh not me, sir. I wasn’t at the top of my class.”

  “Oh, where did you finish?” Jenkins seemed concerned. “Second,” Kyle said reluctantly.

  Jenkins looked relieved, and his partner broke into a smile. “That should be good enough,” he said. “You’re much too modest, Officer Kyle.”

  Kyle grinned weakly, nodded, and promised himself never to take another special training course again.

  “Now listen up everyone,” Jenkins said. “Now that Officer Kyle has arrived we can get started. We are going to assign a few of you to positions inside the cave. There are only two entrances to the cave where the hostages are being held. Most of you will be assigned to positions around the main entrance. Fortunately, the egress is actually quite narrow and you will have a clear line of fire. Unfortunately, if you do fire you can’t miss the target or the ricochet could kill a hostage.”

  “Won’t a hollow point load minimize ricochet?” one of the state policemen asked.

  “Minimize, yes, eliminate, no. There will be no firing unless 1 give the word,”

  “Excuse me, Agent Jenkins,” Kyle interrupted. He didn’t like the direction of the meeting. “I seem to remember from my training that the best way to handle hostage situations is to negotiate. The best weapon in these situations is time. Wear the criminal down, maybe send in some tainted food. I’d say, for the hostages sakes, we should give this another day or so before we attempt a rescue.”

  Jenkins stared at him quizzically.

  “Thanks for your advice, but this situation is a little different for a couple of reasons. First, we are getting no demands. Every time we attempt to negotiate he refuses to talk. He doesn’t seem to want anything and has no political agenda that we can discern. Second, the man holding the hostages seems to have a deadline in mind. He keeps saying things like ‘it will be over soon’ and ‘I’ll let them go when it’s over.’ It’s a vague deadline, apparently meaningful only to him, but he appears to be getting more agitated. If he does go off the deep end … well, I’m not waiting for that to happen.”

  He was staring at Kyle when he paused, so Kyle nodded firmly with a serious look. As expected, Agent Jenkins took that as agreement.

  “Officer Kyle,” he continued, “we’ve got a special job for you.”

  Kyle felt like saying “Yippee.”

  “These rangers here”—once again Jenkins nodded toward the other climbers—-“tell me there is another entrance to that cave. They say that getting there is not an easy climb. That’s why we waited for someone with your experience. They’ll show you the way. We’ll give you four hours to get into position. Then we cut the lights and you position yourself in the cave. Then we’ll distract him and you can take him from behind.”

  As it turned out four hours was barely enough. The other climbers, Jay, Kimberly, and Shirley, were rangers. All were athletic and had the weathered appearance of people who spent more time outdoors than in. None looked older than mid-twenties. Both Shirley and Kimberly were somewhere between plain and pretty. They were both brunettes, with short hair, but Shirley seemed more animated, and her face had a few laugh lines. As the leader, Shirley directed Kyle to leave his kermantle and other gear in his car. This was strictly a free climb.

  They set off through the trees following a little-used hiking trail. It climbed gradually, but steadily. Kyle soon found himself breathing hard but tried to disguise it. After about a mile they branched off onto a barely discernible path. Another half mile through the trees, up a rocky slope, and there they faced a door in the side of the hill, a big wooden door painted institutional green, with a hasp and large lock. Shirley unlocked the door and led the way in. Kyle hesitated. Standing there on the side of a mountain, about to enter the door to the underworld, felt magical, unreal, and unsettling.

  The trip inside the cave was anything but magical. Shirley and the others were small enough and lithe enough for spelunking, but Kyle was built more for digging tunnels, not crawling through them. Twice he got stuck. Shirley had to pull on one end and rangers Kimberly and Jay pushed on the other. After three hours of crawling on his belly, squeezing through rock-strewn passages, and being pushed and pulled by his guides, Kyle was tired, sore, and had a new appreciation for toothpaste.

  They finally reached a chamber large enough to
stand in. Shirley, who didn’t seem to be winded, put her finger to her lips and pointed up at the ceiling, where Kyle spotted a dark hole. When Kyle shone his helmet light toward it, Shirley slapped her hand over it and jerked him to one side.

  “Careful, he might see it,” she whispered. “You’ll have to go first from here. We’ll follow you.”

  “But I don’t know the way. Why don’t you lead?”

  “You have to go first. You’ve got the gun. Once we’re in the chimney we can’t pass each other. If you get stuck, you’ll have to get yourself unstuck.”

  Kyle thought about offering Shirley his pistol. He thought about it seriously.

  “All right,” he said finally, “is it just straight up?”

  “You need to shinny up the chimney about thirty feet. There you’ll find a horizontal tube to follow for another hundred feet. Be quiet, because you’ll be above the cave with the hostages. Don’t worry about falling through the opening. The light from the cave below should outline it.”

  “When I drop into the cave which way is the cover?”

  “Right is closer,” Shirley said. Then she looked him up and down. “But I think we’ve got too much man and too little rock. You’ll have to scrunch down pretty small. If you have time, go left instead. There’s some pretty good stalagmites to hide behind if you can make it.”

  Shirley smiled at him again and then pointed up to the hole in the roof of the cave. It was smooth on the inside, and he had to stand on his tiptoes to feel a rock ledge. He was too stretched out to get any lift out of his legs, so he pulled himself up with his arms and then jammed his elbows over the ledge to hold himself. As he started kicking his legs, he realized he must look silly to Shirley. Then he felt hands on his rear shoving him up into the cave until he had his legs wedged into the opening. Then one of the hands came back and patted his bottom. He hoped the hand had been Shirley’s or Kimberly’s and not Jay’s.

  He put his back against the wall and his knees against the edge and began to inch his way up, first pushing his back up and then his knees. The little light from the helmets of the rangers faded as each entered the chimney. It was perfectly dark, Kyle thought, if you can use the word perfect to describe a condition where your most valuable sense is useless. The chimney widened and Kyle had to use more leg strength. He wanted to slow his ascent, but every time he did he was bumped by the energetic climber below him.

  He nearly fell out of the chimney when he reached the horizontal tube. He inched up with his legs, and when he brought his back up he flopped inside. Kyle managed to roll over and began inching his way along the tube. His eyes, perfectly dark adapted, could see light up ahead. As he approached the opening to the cave below he slowed his pace. He could feel the climber behind bumping into his feet, and he reached the opening with fifteen minutes to spare.

  Someone tugged on his pant leg and then whispered into his shoes. It was Shirley.

  “Aren’t you going to check the cave?”

  Kyle waited long enough for Shirley to think he had not heard her, then he crawled forward and slowly bent into the opening. He lowered his head until his eyes cleared the edge. Everything was upside down. He jerked his head back up and mentally inverted the scene. All the people were where they were supposed to be.

  With one minute to go he inched over the opening and. arched over the hole with his hands on one side and his legs on the other. All he had to do now was drop his legs into the cave, hang briefly by his hands, and then drop noiselessly into the cave.

  The lights went out on schedule and Kyle dropped. As he swung down into the darkness the rock in his hands crumbled. His swinging legs continued upward as he fell, bringing his head and shoulders down. He hit the cave floor with a loud thump. Pieces of crumbled rocks avalanched down on him. A large chunk smacked him in the face, bloodying the bridge of his nose.

  The hostages were screaming and crying and the gunman was yelling for everyone to “stay put” and “keep quiet.” Kyle rolled to his knees and started to get up and then he realized he’d lost all sense of direction. One way was the back of the cave wall. Two directions led to safety and one to the gunman. Each second he hesitated seemed like an eternity; the flashlights would be on soon. He flinched when a thump sounded next to him and a hand touched his side, moving up until it gripped his arm. He was pulled up and directed forward into the inky blackness.

  Suddenly a light filled the room, and he felt himself being tripped and pushed to the ground. Someone landed on top of him. More tiny spotlights filled the cavern. The gunman yelled until quiet was restored, and as he was yelling Kyle lifted his head and looked carefully around. He was on his stomach behind the stalagmites. He twisted his head around and could barely make out Shirley’s face inches from his. In disbelief she shook her head and started dabbing off the blood from the bridge of his nose. Kyle felt like an idiot and began wishing he was back on a country road aiming his radar gun at girls on horses. Shirley finished with his nose and then kissed it. Kyle hoped it was too dark for Shirley to see his face turning red.

  Time Quilt

  9. Mariel Weatherby

  One novel feature of spacetime predicted by Einstein’s equations is called a wormhole. These holes in spacetime connect one region of space with another distant region, and one time with another distant time. To travel through one would be to travel through time. One wonders in the vast universe, if there might be other spacetime phenomena that would permit such travel.

  —Robert Yee, The Einstein Revolution

  Somewhere over the Atlantic the laws of time and space were suddenly rewritten, and the resulting effect began to spread east and west. Land suddenly appeared in the ocean—not dropped, but layed down gently on a watery foundation that could not support it, and soon, like ancient Atlantis, those lands were lost beneath the waves. In the skies flocks of seagulls in flight disappeared, as did the military and civilian aircraft in the affected regions. Tourist, pilot, exchange student, airman, and junketing congressman were all treated equally and ruthlessly. The air itself was instantly changed, the replacing air either noiselessly filling the void, or, if air pressure differences were too great, violently expanding. Titanic booms were as common as soft whooshing.

  As the effect reached the East Coast it continued on land. Streets, cars, homes, office buildings t and fast-food restaurants were replaced with forest, grassland, ice, lakes, and ocean. With the artifacts of mankind went the people who constructed and inhabited them. Men, women, children, rich and poor, teacher and student, Muslim, Christian, Jew, and atheist, all whisked away together.

  The effect was systematic, but not thorough. As the effect washed across the planet’s surface, it rippledt leaving some regions untouched. People, awakened by thunderous booms, looked to see neighborhoods sundered, their houses intact, the other side of the street impossibly changed. Inhabitants of other large regions slept through the night, untouched, unknowning, only to wake to confusion.

  New York City

  Time Quilt: Saturday, 8:35 P.M. EST

  Mariel rocked by her open window, her hands crocheting while her mind listened to the sounds of the autumn evening. She didn’t get to hear the sounds very often anymore. Summer used to be the best time, but now everyone had air conditioners, and if Mariel opened her window she heard only the hum of electric motors. When she first came to live in her apartment all the neighbors would open their windows in the summer, and Mariel would sit and listen to families arguing, or the sound of radios or hi-fis. There were the sounds of people talking too, and sometimes Mariel could make out a sentence or two and follow the arguments. She never joined in, of course—that would be invading her neighbors’ privacy, but she couldn’t stop herself from forming opinions. Behind it all was the backdrop of the sounds of New York City, traffic, honking horns, and occasional police sirens.

  Mariel could hear the Ibarras having an argument two floors above her. Some of the argument was in Spanish, so she couldn’t follow it well. But the rhythm was f
amiliar to her, she had listened to so many arguments in her chair by the window. She didn’t have to understand the words to know the argument was about one of three things: money, family, or the kids. Those were the topics when she moved in back in 1955, and it had been those three topics ever since.

  Mariel could also hear the sound of a stereo from the MacGregor’s apartment below her. From the sound of rap, she knew their son was playing it. It also meant his parents weren’t home yet, because they always made him wear earphones when he played rap. Mariel also knew he would be on the phone to his girlfriend at the same time. Sometimes he talked and laughed loud enough for Mariel to hear, and it would embarrass her. She was often embarrassed by the way boys talked to girls today. But still she always listened. It was better than the madeup stuff on the afternoon talk shows.

  The air was cool, but Mariel didn’t want to close the window. So instead she went to the kitchen and put the teakettle on and then got a blanket for her lap. Mariel returned to her chair, picked up her crocheting, and listened to the argument again.

  It was winding down now. The Ibarras never stayed mad at each other for long, not like the Venuccis, who used to live next to her. How many years ago? Twenty at least, she decided. Now, the Venuccis knew how to have a fight. They yelled.and screamed at each other, sometimes for hours. Sometimes Mrs. Venucci would throw things and Mariel could hear glass shattering or things banging. When they first moved in Mariel had feared they would hurt each other, but when she saw them in the hallway the next day they never had cuts or bruises. One day Mariel stopped Mrs. Venucci and told her she worried about her. Mrs. Venucci smiled and assured Mariel she was not in any danger. “Sure,” she had said, “we fight hard, but we make up harder.” Mariel knew that was true. The Venuccis raised seven children in that apartment. The Ibarras must be the same way, Mariel believed. They had five kids.