Recursion - Blake Crouch Page 0,89
Watch the world remember and then get the fuck out before the soldiers come for them, even though he’s doubtful he and Helena would be found so soon. They lived under new identities this time around.
Helena takes out her phone and unlocks the home screen.
She says, “Oh God.”
Struggling onto her feet, she takes off running in her snowshoes, moving awkwardly back down the trail.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“We have to go!”
“What’s wrong?” he shouts after her.
She shouts back, “I will leave you!”
He clambers up and takes off after her.
It’s a quarter mile downhill through the fir trees. His phone keeps buzzing—someone lighting him up with texts—and despite the massive footwear, he reaches the trailhead in less than five minutes, crashing into the hood of their Jeep, breathless and sweating through his winter gear.
Helena is already climbing in behind the wheel, and he scrambles into the passenger seat, still wearing the snowshoes as she cranks the engine and tears out of the otherwise empty parking lot, the tires spinning on the icy pavement.
“What the hell, Helena?”
“Look at your phone.”
He digs it out of his jacket.
Reads the first lines of an emergency text on the home screen:
Emergency Alert
BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO MULTIPLE US TARGETS. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
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“We should’ve seen this coming,” she says. “Remember their UN statement on the last timeline?”
“ ‘Any further use of the chair will be seen as an act of war.’ ”
Helena drives too fast through a sharp curve, the tires sliding on the snowpack, the ABS braking kicking in.
“If you wrap the Jeep around a tree, we’ll never—”
“I grew up here, I know how to fucking drive in snow.”
She guns it on a straightaway, densely packed fir trees rushing past on either side as they scream down the mountain.
“They have to attack us,” Helena says.
“Why do you say that?”
“For all the reasons we talked about when I was at DARPA. Everyone’s worst-case scenario is that one country sends someone back half a century and unwrites the existence of billions. They have to hit us with everything they’ve got and hope to destroy the chair before we use it.”
Helena turns on the radio and pulls out of the entrance to the state park. They’ve already descended a couple thousand feet, and the only snow on the ground consists of melting patches in the shade.
“—interrupt this program. This is a national emergency. Important instructions will follow.” The terrifying sound header of the Emergency Alert System blares inside the Jeep. “The following message is transmitted at the request of the US government. This is not a test. The North American Aerospace Defense Command has detected the launch of Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles. These missiles are expected to strike numerous targets on the North American continent within the next ten to fifteen minutes. This is an attack warning. I repeat. This is an attack warning. An attack warning means that an actual attack against this country has been detected and that protective action should be taken. All citizens should take cover immediately. Move to a basement or interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Stay away from windows. If outdoors or in a vehicle, head for shelter. If none is available, lie flat in a ditch or other depression.”
Helena accelerates to a hundred miles per hour on the country road, the foothills falling away behind them in the side and rearview mirrors.
Barry leans down and starts to unbuckle the straps that attach the snowshoes to his snow-encrusted hiking boots.
When they merge onto the interstate, Helena pushes the engine to its breaking point.
After a mile, they enter the outskirts of the city.
More and more cars are pulled over onto the shoulder, doors left open as drivers abandoned their vehicles in search of shelter.
Helena hits the brakes as the road becomes log-jammed across all lanes of traffic. Hordes of people are fleeing their cars, hopping the guardrail, and tumbling down an embankment that bottoms out at a stream running heavy and brown with snowmelt.
“Can you get through to the next exit?” Barry asks.
“I don’t know.”
Helena pushes on, dodging people and driving through a handful of open car doors, the front bumper of the Jeep ripping them off in order to pass. The exit ramp to their turnoff is impassable, so she maneuvers the Jeep up a steep, grassy hill and onto the shoulder, finally squeezing between a UPS truck and a convertible to reach the top of the overpass.
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