Scatter by Terry Hayman

Author:Terry Hayman [Terry Hayman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fiero Publishing
Published: 2022-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

I was in my chair at the dining table, sitting across from Wenling, the phone with the animal-labeled quick dial numbers lying flat in front of me.

“Do you have your new phone with you?” Wenling asked.

I shook my head. How did I get back…? Wasn’t I just…? The knife… The fucking knife!

I leapt out of my chair and stared across at Wenling in horror. I could hardly breathe.

“What is it?” she said.

“You… Oh my God. And I thought Lena was cold.”

“Explain,” Wenling said, obviously angry about being compared to Lena this way.

“You know what? I’m not going to do that. Because telling you will just make sure you do it again.”

“Do what? What will I do… Wait. Have you already done one of your time jumps?”

“Bingo! Give the lady a prize for the ability to recognize a chrono-aberration!”

“If you jumped, what was the first—“

“The first instruction? The Horse? To communicate with Shen Kong’s security and the White House that there was going to be a protest tomorrow morning by a group known as Western Freedom over Shen Kong’s meeting with President Biden. Of course, I’m not going to call Horse this time, so that protest will never be warned and will never happen, if, in fact, it was ever going to happen. No, now I’m going to call the Rat, right? Which sounds kind of ominous. You going to tell me what it will do?”

She looked evenly at me. “No. But I must ensure she is in place. Give me your phone.”

I handed it over and she dialed a number. Listened. Gave instructions. Then handed the phone to me. “Now you can call.”

“Good!” Feeling the reckless flood of adrenaline surging in me from the fact I was alive after being stabbed in the gut twice only moments ago in the timeline I remembered, I punched the second quick-dial number beside the word Rat.

Someone answered the first ring, another female, speaking quickly in Chinese. “Ninhao. Wo shi Chu.”

I looked at Wenling, who nodded. I said, “Xiaobo,” and hung up.

I hit the ten-minute countdown clock and stared at it as it started to count down. My whole body was trembling and sweating. I should have looked at Wenling. I should have asked her what I’d just done. But it was all I could do to not yell at her or go running from the room.

After almost a full minute passed, Wenling said, “Do you want to know what Chu just triggered?”

I looked over at her, not daring to speak.

“It may take another minute.” Her eyes flicked to the silent CNN reporting on the TV screen. “Or maybe not. Volume four!”

The same CNN blond news anchor was nodding her head to something being spoken into her ear bud. “Repeat that, please,” she said. Then she nodded and looked directly out at her viewers. “Our reporters at the scene of Huawei ambassador Shen Kong’s arrival at Andrews Air Force Base report they’ve seen an explosion on the periphery of Shen’s retinue.” She tilted her head, obviously reading more of the story on a teleprompter.

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