Lightning

Thelma fingered the odd material. 'Tell me again what he said would happen if you pushed the yellow button.'

'He just told me for God's sake not to push it, and when I asked why not, he said, 'You won't want to go where it'll take you.''

They stood side by side in the glow of the desk lamp, staring at the belt that Thelma held. It was after four in the morning, and the house was as silent as any dead, airless crater on the moon.

Finally Thelma said, 'You ever been tempted to push the button?'

'No, never,' Laura said without hesitation. 'When he mentioned the place to which it would take me… there was a terrible look in his eyes. And I know he returned there himself only with reluctance. I don't know where he comes from, Thelma, but if I didn't misunderstand what I saw in his eyes, the place is just one step this side of hell.'

Sunday afternoon they dressed in shorts and T-shirts, spread a couple of blankets on the rear lawn, and made a long, lazy picnic of potato salad, cold cuts, cheese, fresh fruit, potato chips, and plump cinnamon rolls with lots of crunchy pecan topping. They played games with Chris, and he enjoyed the day enormously, partly because Thelma was able to shift her comic engine into a lower gear, producing one-liners designed for eight-year-olds.

When Chris saw squirrels frolicking farther back in the yard, near the woods, he wanted to feed them. Laura gave him a pecan roll and said, 'Tear it into little pieces and toss the pieces to them. They won't let you get too near. And you stay close to me, you hear?'

'Sure, Mom.'

'Don't you go all the way to the woods. Only about halfway.'

He ran thirty feet from the blanket, only a little more than halfway to the trees, then dropped to his knees. He tore pieces from the cinnamon roll and threw them to the squirrels, making those quick and cautious creatures edge a bit closer for each successive scrap.

'He's a good kid,' Thelma said.

'The best.' Laura moved the Uzi to her side.

'He's only ten or twelve yards away,' Thelma said.

'But he's closer to the woods than to me.' Laura studied the shadows under the serried pines.

Plucking a few potato chips from the bag, Thelma said, 'Never been on a picnic with someone who brought a submachine gun. I sort of like it. Don't have to worry about bears.'

'It's hell on ants, too.'

Thelma stretched out on her side on the blanket, her head propped up on one bent arm, but Laura continued to sit with her legs crossed Indian-fashion. Orange butterflies, as bright as condensed sunshine, darted through the warm August air.

'The kid seems to be coping,' Thelma said.

'More or less,' Laura agreed. 'There was a very bad time. He cried a lot, wasn't emotionally stable. But that passed. They're flexible at his age, quick to adapt, to accept. But as good as he seems… I'm afraid there's a darkness in him now that wasn't there before and that isn't going to go away.'

'No,' Thelma said, 'it won't go away. It's like a shadow on the heart. But he'll live, and he'll find happiness, and there'll be times when he's not aware of the shadow at all.'

While Thelma watched Chris luring the squirrels, Laura studied her friend's profile. 'You still miss Ruth, don't you?'

'Every day for twenty years. Don't you still miss your dad?'

'Sure,' Laura said. 'But when I think of him, I don't believe what I feel is like what you feel. Because we expect our parents to die before us, and even when they die prematurely, we can accept it because we've always known it was going to happen sooner or later. But it's different when the one who dies is a wife, husband, child… or sister. We don't expect them to die on us, not early in life. So it's harder to cope. Especially, I suppose, if she's a twin sister.'

'When I get a piece of good news — career news, I mea — the first thing I always think of is how happy Ruthie would have been for me. What about you, Shane? You coping?'

'I cry at night.'

'That's healthy now. Not so healthy a year from now.'

'I lie awake at night and listen to my heartbeat, and it's a lonely sound. Thank God for Chris. He gives me purpose. And you. I've got you and Chris, and we're sort of family, don't you think?'

'Not just sort of. We are family. You and me — sisters.' Laura smiled, reached out, and rumpled Thelma's tousled hair. 'But,' Thelma said, 'being sisters doesn't mean you get to borrow my clothes.'

4

In the corridors and through the open doors of the institute's offices and labs, Stefan saw his colleagues at work, and none of them had any special interest in him. He took the elevator to the third floor where just outside his office he encountered Dr. Wladyslaw Januskaya, who was Dr. Vladimir Penlovski's longtime protege' and second in charge of the time-travel research which originally had been called Project Scythe but which for several months now had been known by the apt code name Lightning Road.

Januskaya was forty, ten years younger than his mentor, but he looked older than the vital, energetic Penlovski. Short, overweight, balding, with a blotchy complexion, with two bright gold teeth in the front of his mouth, wearing thick glasses that made his eyes look like painted eggs, Januskaya should have been a comic figure. But his unholy faith in the state and his zeal in working for the totalitarian cause were sufficient to counteract his comic potential; indeed he was one of the more disturbing men involved with Lightning Road.

'Stefan, dear Stefan,' Januskaya said, 'I've been meaning to tell you how grateful we are for your timely suggestion, last October, that the power supply to the gate should be provided by a secure generator. Your foresight has saved the project. If we were still drawing from the municipal power lines… why, the gate would have collapsed half a dozen times by now, and we'd be woefully behind schedule.'

Having returned to the institute in expectation of arrest, Stefan was confused to find his treachery undiscovered and startled to hear himself being praised by this evil worm. He had suggested switching the gate to a secure generator not because he wanted to see their vile project achieve success but because he had not wanted his own jaunts into Laura's life to be interrupted by the failure of the public power supply.

'I would not have thought last October that by this time we would have come to such a situation as this, with ordinary public services no longer to be trusted,' Januskaya said, shaking his head sadly, 'the social order so thoroughly disturbed. What must the people endure to see the socialist state of their dreams triumph, eh?'

'These are dark times,' Stefan said, meaning very different things than Januskaya meant.

'But we will triumph,' Januskaya said forcefully. His magnified eyes filled with the madness that Stefan knew too well. 'Through the Lightning Road, we will triumph.'

He patted Stefan on the shoulder and continued down the hall.

After Stefan watched the scientist walk nearly to the elevators, he said, 'Oh, Dr. Januskaya?'

The fat white worm turned and looked at him. 'Yes?'

'Have you seen Kokoschka today?'

'Today? No, not yet today.'

'He's here, isn't he?'

'Oh, I'd imagine so. He's here pretty much as long as there's anyone working, you know. He's a diligent man. If we had more like Kokoschka we'd have no doubt of ultimate triumph. Do you need to talk to him? If I see him, should I send him to you?'

'No, no,' Stefan said. 'It's nothing urgent. I wouldn't want to interrupt him in other work. I'm sure I'll see him sooner or later.'

Januskaya continued to the elevators, and Stefan went into his office, closing the door behind him.

He crouched beside the filing cabinet that he had repositioned slightly to cover one-third of the grille in the corner ventilation chase. In the narrow space behind it, a bundle of copper wires was barely visible, coming out of