Part 9 (2/2)
George wandered outside. A few of the homeless people saw him and switched direction, but he was back in his car before they came anywhere close. He checked his pockets and the dish under the emergency brake, but he didn't have any change to offer them.
He flopped back in the driver's seat and pressed his hands over his eyes. He couldn't believe he'd babbled on like that. He'd accused an Army officer of trying to kill him! His lack of sleep was now officially making him act like a maniac. He wondered if he should take a sick day or two and just try to get caught up on rest.
A thump made him look up. A filth-covered woman pressed herself against his window. She had pale blue eyes, almost gray. She would've been pretty if not for her stained s.h.i.+rt and all the dirt on her face.
George glanced at the time. He was going to be late for work. He started his car and pulled back out into traffic. If the lights were in his favor, he could still make it on time.
He was parking on campus when he realized his dead car had started back up with no problem.
TWELVE.
GEORGE SPENT THE morning cleaning windows. It was a mindless job, and on a normal day he'd have been glad for it and let himself sink into the Zen of window was.h.i.+ng. Today, though, he didn't want any extra time to think.
His eyes kept drifting over to one of the other buildings. It bothered him for some reason. He had a nagging sensation he'd forgotten something about it. There were lecture halls in there, a bunch of biochem labs, and two or three of the larger storerooms. He couldn't shake the feeling there'd been a fire there at some point, or maybe some kind of explosion.
Something in the back of his mind insisted he'd been in a fire in one of the buildings.
It was almost noon when he heard two kids chattering away as they pa.s.sed his ladder. What they were saying didn't make sense to him, so he pulled out his phone and shot a quick text to Nick. The answer came back a minute later.
Hugh Laurie is not dead, either. Y U on such a morbid streak?
George sighed. Nick was right. He was getting morbid. Madelyn's talk of doom and destruction mixed well with the weight of sleeplessness.
He flipped the phone in his hand and his fingers brushed the screen. It jumped to the default phone keypad and he paused. A string of numbers stretched across the screen. He didn't recognize them, not even the area code. It took a moment for him to remember tapping them into the phone that morning. It felt like ages ago.
He knew he should just erase the number to Sandia. It was tempting fate. He didn't want to call and ask a bunch of stupid questions that would make him sound like an idiot. An idiot if he was lucky. It was a national lab. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he felt pretty sure if they told the FBI about weird phone calls, their complaint would end up a little higher on the list than most.
And calling would just feed this whole delusion the girl had shared with him. Her fictional dreamworld where everyone was dead and he was some kind of superhero. He didn't need to get mixed up in that sort of thing, especially with a student.
Then again, if he was a superhero, shouldn't he be brave enough to make the call?
His thumb hovered over the keypad for a moment. Then, without any real thought from him, the thumb dropped down. The little handset icon flashed once and the screen changed under his fingertip.
Dialing.
There was still time to hang up, he told himself. Even when the call connected and he heard the first ring, he knew he could hit the red End b.u.t.ton. It wasn't like they'd call back on a hang-up.
The phone picked up just after the second ring. ”Sandia National Labs,” recited a male voice. ”How can I direct your call?”
”Ummmm ...” said George. ”Hi. I'm looking for, that is, I'm trying to reach ...”
”Sorry?”
The name leaped to his tongue. ”Barry. I think his name's Barry ... Burke.”
”Oh,” said the voice. ”Sure thing. One second.”
The phone clicked and a Muzak version of Bruce Springsteen's ”Radio Nowhere” echoed over the lines. His heart raced. He hadn't felt this way about a phone call since he was fourteen.
A minute pa.s.sed before the phone clicked again. ”This is Barry,” said a new voice.
”Hi,” he said. ”Barry Burke?”
”The one and only. I'll be appearing in Las Vegas next month from the fifteenth 'til the sixteenth. And this is ...?”
”I'm ...”
Stupid. George suddenly felt very stupid. The girl, Madelyn, had played him. She'd looked up the Pulsed Power machine, found some names online, and convinced him to make the call. Reverse psychology or something like that. It was some sorority prank or something.
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”I think I've got the wrong number.”
The man on the other end laughed. He sounded like a guy who laughed a lot. ”I'm the only Barry here,” he said. ”If there's another Z Machine somewhere with another Barry Burke, he'd better have a goatee and a sash.”
George chuckled. ”No, it's just ... I'm sorry. I think this is just a big mistake. Sorry for wasting your time.”
”Ummm ... okay. You sure?”
George looked over at the lab building. He thought about his dreams and the strange homeless people he'd been seeing. He remembered Madelyn's story about a best friend he couldn't remember.
”Look,” he said, ”this is going to sound really stupid, I know, but can I ask you something?”
Another laugh echoed from New Mexico. ”You're keeping me from a boring staff meeting, stranger on the phone. Ask me anything.”
”Are you in a wheelchair?”
The voice on the other end went silent. George realized what a jacka.s.s he sounded like. The silence stretched out for ten seconds, and he wondered if the other man had hung up on him.
”Who is this?” Barry Burke asked.
”I'm sorry,” he said to the phone. ”That was really insensitive of me. I didn't mean to be so-”
”Is this George?”
The phone jumped away from his head. Or maybe his hand spasmed. He stared at it for a moment, then pulled it back to his ear.
”Are you still there?” asked the man in Albuquerque.
”Yeah,” he said. ”I'm still here. I just ... you know me?”
”Your voice is familiar,” said Barry. ”I couldn't place it and then I realized you sound like the guy in my dreams. Which sounds very different than I intended out loud.”
George felt light-headed. He slumped against the wall next to his bucket of soapy water. ”You have dreams about me?”
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