Recursion - Blake Crouch Page 0,76
such frequency—at least once a week now—that Shaw brings on a new agent to lighten the burden on Steve and Timoney, who are beginning to experience the first signs of mental degradation from the stress of dying again and again.
Day 160
Helena rides down to the parking garage of her building and heads for the black Suburban with Alonzo and Jessica, feeling more hopeless than she can ever recall. She can’t keep doing this. The military is using her chair, and she is powerless to stop them. The chair itself is kept under 24/7 surveillance, and she doesn’t have access to the system. Even if she managed to escape from Alonzo and Jessica, considering what she knows, the government would never stop hunting her. Besides, Shaw could simply send an agent back into a memory to prevent her escape from ever happening.
Dark thoughts are whispering to her again.
Her phone vibrates in her pocket as they head south on FDR Drive—Shaw calling.
She answers, “Hey, I’m on my way in.”
“I wanted to tell you first.”
“What?”
“We got a new assignment this morning.”
“What is it?”
The sky disappears as they pass through the Manhattan portal of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
“They want us to send someone back almost a year.”
“Why? For what?”
Jessica hits the brake pedal hard enough for Helena to jerk forward against her shoulder harness. Through the windshield, a sea of red taillights illuminates the tunnel ahead, accompanied by the cacophony of drivers beginning to honk their horns.
“An assassination.”
There’s a distant burst of light, followed by a sound like thunder, deeper in the tunnel.
The windows rattle; the car shudders beneath her; the overhead lights wink out for a terrifying second before flickering back on.
“The hell was that?” Alonzo asks.
“John, I’ll call you right back.” Helena lowers her phone. “What’s going on?”
“I think there was a wreck up ahead.”
People are beginning to get out of their cars.
Alonzo opens his door, steps out into the tunnel.
Jessica follows him.
The odor of smoke pushing through the vents snaps Helena into the present. She glances back through the rear window at the cars gridlocked behind them.
A man runs past her window, sprinting for daylight, and the first flicker of fear slides down Helena’s spine.
More people are coming now, and they all look terrified, rushing between the cars back toward Manhattan, trying to get away from something.
Helena opens her door, steps outside.
The commotion of human fear and despair echoes off the tunnel walls, and it’s rising, drowning out the idling of a thousand car engines.
“Alonzo?”
“I don’t know what happened,” he says, “but it’s something bad.”
The air smells wrong—not just of engine exhaust but of gasoline and melting things.
Smoke rolls out of the tunnel ahead, and the people stumbling toward her look shell-shocked, their faces bleeding and blackened.
The air quality is deteriorating fast, her eyes beginning to burn, and now she can barely see what lies ahead.
Jessica says, “We need to get out of here, Alonzo. Right now.”
As they turn to go, a man emerges from the smoke, limping and holding his side, in obvious pain.
Helena rushes toward him, coughing now, and as she draws near she sees that he’s holding a fragment of glass that’s embedded in his side. His hands are drenched in blood, and his face is smoke-blackened and wrenched in agony.
“Helena!” Jessica yells. “We are leaving!”
“He needs our help.”
The man falls into Helena, gasping for breath. Alonzo hurries over, and he and Helena each take one of his arms and drape it around their shoulders. He’s a big man, at least two-fifty, and he wears a half-incinerated shirt with the name and logo of a courier service across the lapel pocket.
It’s a relief to be heading for the exit. With every step, the man’s left foot squishes in his shoe, which is filling up with blood.
“Did you see what happened?” Helena asks.
“These two semis stopped in traffic. They were blocking both lanes a little ways ahead of me. Everyone was laying on their horns. It didn’t take long for people to start getting out of their cars and approaching the trucks to see what was wrong. Just as this guy stepped up onto one of the rigs, I saw a bright flash and then the loudest sound I ever heard. Suddenly this ball of fire is rushing over the tops of all the cars. I got down in the floorboard a second before it reached my van. The windshield exploded and then the inside was on fire. I thought I was going to burn to death, but