A SECOND BYLINE

By Stacey

CHAPTER FIVE:

Gayle opened the door to her over-priced and sparsely-decorated loft apartment, kicking off her shoes and absently dropping her purse on an armchair as she passed by.

She’d had an interesting evening, to say the least. As she rifled through her stack of mail, she couldn’t help but wonder about that man who showed up in the bar and looked so much like Alex Ross. Alex had said the guy was just someone he was doing business with. Well, he is a writer, so he could have been talking to the guy for a story, maybe? Sure did look as though he could have been his older brother, though. All sorts of conspiracy theories danced about in Gayle’s head as to why the two were meeting at that bar tonight.

She smiled to herself, thinking, Well, at least the creative juices are finally flowing.

Tossing most of the stack of mail into the trash-bin, Gayle flopped down on her couch and flipped on the television. Now that she was out of a job, she’d have plenty more time to catch up on some shows, she sighed.

As the TV flickered on, the screen was suddenly filled with a familiar face – that of the man she had seen talking with Ross earlier this evening back at the bar – that of one Terry Thorne, acting CEO for NanoCorp!

“NanoCorp?!” she exclaimed, immediately turning up the volume control on her remote.

Meanwhile, back at the bar, Ross sat in the corner booth with Terry and Deidre...

“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Ross said, leaning across the table towards Terry. “NanoCorp is... er, was, involved in some sort of secret technologically advanced research that involved pulling out characters from... movies?” Terry and Deidre slowly nodded, as they watched Alex’s reaction to what he’d just heard.

“Oh, boy!” Ross laughed, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve heard some whoppers in my life, but this takes the cake!” He looked at them, sitting quietly, staring across the table. They weren’t laughing, though, and that bothered him even more than what they were telling him.

“Next you’ll be telling me that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real!” he chuckled again. What kind of fool did these two really take him for, anyway?

“Heh... not unless Sid managed to pull them out of a movie, too,” Deidre snorted.

Alex cocked an eyebrow. “Sid?” he asked.

“NanoCorp’s founder and CEO,” Terry supplied. “And, he was the first one to figure out how to get out of his movie.”

“So, what? We’re all just some sort of actors or something? So how come I don’t remember being in a movie, then?”

“No, not actors – exactly. Like I said, it’s complicated.” Terry sighed, rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers. Shit, it had been a long day. “Look, why don’t you just come back to my place with us and I’ll show you. It will all make a lot more sense that way.”

Alex hesitated. There was a lot he’d do to get a good story but he wasn’t sure if this was one of them. He looked skeptically across the table at the two sitting facing him, thinking that he could see tomorrow’s headlines now: “Reporter Missing: Alex Ross, last seen chatting to couple in

local bar.”

He was just about to make some snappy comment when Terry’s cell phone rang. Pulling it out of his pocket, Terry looked at the caller ID, then glanced over at Deidre.

“Rachel,” she said. His look had said it all.

“Excuse me, I need to take this,” Terry told Ross, putting the phone to his ear as he slid out of the booth and walked out of the bar.

“Alone at last,” Ross said, with a cocky grin at Deidre.

“In your dreams, lover-boy,” Deidre chortled, dramatically scooting farther away from him.

Ross grinned wider, “I’m sure I’ll be dreamin’ a lot about you, slim.”

“Oh, please,” Deidre snorted, looking off to where Terry had gone.

Ross chuckled, then took a swig of beer.  Just then Terry came walking back to the booth, a look of concern on his tired face.

“What’s wrong, Terry? Are they... okay?”

“For now,” Terry sighed, sliding back into the booth, next to Deidre. 

“Oh... my... God, Terry, please tell me he hasn’t found her,” Deidre gasped.

“Not yet, but apparently he knows where they are. They’re heading out. I told them we’d meet them as soon as we can.”

“Wait a minute,” Ross cut in. He’d been quietly listening, taking everything in up until this point. “Who are you two talking about and does any of this have to do with NanoCorp?”

“We’ll explain on the way, but right now we need to get going,” Terry replied curtly. “Arrangements need to be made, and quickly.” He just hoped he’d be able to get the two of them out of the country without the authorities – or Sid –finding out. And then, of course, there was the issue with what to do about Ross.

He looked over at Ross. “You live close by?”

“Uh, yeah, got an apartment not far from here,” Ross nodded, then asked, “Why?”

Terry and Deidre exchanged looks. “Need a safe place to lie low for a bit, work things out. Where are you parked?”

“Walked here, actually,” Alex replied, “Office is just up the block. My car is parked ‘round back in the lot.”

“Fine,” Terry said, “We’ll drop you off at your car, follow you to the apartment.”

Alex’s head was spinning as the three of them headed quickly out to the parking lot and stopped in front of Terry’s car. Was all this some sort of a ruse to get him off their trail... to get rid of him? Alex couldn’t help but wonder to himself. Stranger things have happened, he thought to himself, remembering that little adventure he’d had with Myra a while back.

He stopped short of Terry’s car, placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Wait a minute,” he said, worriedly.

“We don’t have a minute,” Terry snapped, unlocking the car door and motioning for Ross to get in the back seat.

As Ross was about to object, Terry’s cell phone rang again. “What now?!” he exclaimed, hoping it wasn’t more bad news. He quickly glanced at the caller ID – Bud. Again. Terrific.

Terry walked away from the car, out of earshot from the others. When Bud went on to explain about how Sid no longer needed a warp device to get where he wanted to go, the ramifications of it suddenly hit him – Hope. Sid was going after Hope. He needed to call Cort and Rachel immediately and warn them.

Ross lit up a cigarette as he watched Terry animatedly talking on the phone to whomever it was on the other line. He could tell the man was upset and wondered if it had anything to do with NanoCorp and the explosion.

This story just keeps getting stranger by the minute, he mused, leaning his back against the side of Terry’s car.

Deidre was on the opposite side of the car from him, keeping her distance, as they waited on Terry to return.

“What’s going on?” Ross asked worriedly as Terry finally came walking back up to them with a grim look on his face.

“Change of plans, Mate,” Terry told him, pocketing his cell phone again. “We need to get to the airport, stat.”

“Terry, what is it?” Deidre asked, worried something bad had happened to Caroline.

“Two ticks, Nolia, I’ll explain everything,” he told her, rubbing one hand over his face and then quickly dialed the number to Rachel’s cell phone.

As Deidre listened to Terry telling Rachel about how Sid somehow got around using a machine to warp – how he now was the warp – panic set in. “Oh, my God, Terry! You know what this means?! He can get any of us... take us anywhere... any time he wants!”

Alex had been quietly taking in everything he’d been hearing. “Look, maybe I should just hook up with you two later,” he told him, nervously, “after you’ve gotten back from your little trip and all.”

“I think that’s a great idea, Terry,” Deidre cut in, “I mean, how can we trust him enough to bring him along? He is a reporter, you know. ”

Terry had been wrestling with this since they were back in the bar. Could he trust that Ross wouldn’t go and do something stupid - like leak information back to his boss? Of course, leaving him behind could be worse, especially since he didn’t have the complete knowledge yet of how he came to be, or seem to really believe them, for that matter. Might go off and write up a story anyway, with what little information he did have on them.

He clenched his jaw tightly and sighed. Shit, but this was all giving him one big headache. “Think it might be a worse idea to leave him alone to his own devices right now, Nolia,” Terry told her, looking her in the eyes.

Understanding what he meant, she reluctantly nodded, and got into the passenger’s side of the car.

“You? Trust me?” Alex chuckled. “Who’s to say I can trust you two nut-jobs? If I went to my editor with that wild tale you told me back in the bar, he’d have me locked up in a loony bin somewhere for sure.”

“We’re the least of your concerns at this point, Ross,” Terry told him. “Now, please, get in the car.”

“So, I guess I have no say in the matter then?” Alex asked. When Terry just looked at him, stone-faced, Alex nodded then reluctantly slid into the back seat, wondering just what he’d gotten himself into and if it was all worth it.

Terry jumped into the driver’s seat, pulled the car door closed, and started up the engine. A moment later the three of them were heading down the road into the night.

“Yeah, Dino,” Terry said into his cell phone, as they sped down the road. “It’s me, Mate. Look, no time for chit-chat, I need you to arrange for Dee and me to get out of the country... immediately... yeah, same place... Ta, mate.”

“Out of the country?!” Alex exclaimed, leaning forward and placing his hands over the back of the front seat. “Where exactly are we going?” He was growing more nervous by the minute.

When Terry and Dee both ignored his question, he leaned back in his seat, thoughts of trying to jump out of the moving vehicle and making a break for it buzzing around in his head.

“Hang on, Dino... got another favor to ask... need you to baby-sit for me while we’re away,” Terry said, looking at Ross through the rear-view mirror. “Owe ya big time, mate. On my way now, thanks.”

They’d been driving for a while when Terry’s cell phone began to ring once more. “It’s Bud... again,” Terry groaned, quickly answering the phone and asking, “What now?”

Terry’s face had gone a bit pale, as he sat with his head tipped back against the headrest, staring at the ceiling. He let out a string of very colorful swear words, quickly stopped the car and pulled over to the side of the road, got out, and then began to pace around.

Cort was there at the safe house... Rachel was dead.... Sid had Hope. Terry choked back the tears that he felt coming on from hearing the news of Rachel’s death. “Keep it together, Mate,” he said to himself, after he hung up the phone with Bud, “They need you.”

After placing a few more calls, one being to Canfield, asking him to hurry over to the safe house to check out Cort, one to Dino, canceling the travel arrangements and another to Cody back in Australia, asking him to recover Rachel’s body for him, Terry stood thinking, with his back towards the car.

Finally, he took a deep breath of the night air, held it a moment, then let it out, before sliding back into the car. He sat there silently, staring into space. How was he supposed to tell Dee that her best friend was dead? How?

Deidre could tell something was seriously wrong by the way Terry avoided looking at her. He appeared as though he were barely holding it all together. He’d been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and by the look on his face, it must have finally all come crashing down on him.

Placing a hand on his arm, she said softly, “Terry, what’s happened? Please, tell me. Is it Caroline?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she asked again, panicking a bit, “Is it... Rachel? Hope? Did that bastard get her?”

Terry turned to face her, tears in the corners of his eyes. When he nodded yes, she screamed out, “Oh-dear-God! No! No!” and covered her hands over her eyes. Terry pulled her close, held her to his chest, and stroked her hair.

After a few moments, he told her softly, “Nolia, we need to get going, luv. Cort's back, at the safe house with the others.”

“Safe house? What's going on here? Is someone dead?” Alex suddenly asked from the backseat. He didn’t like the sound of any of it. This was getting way too much for him and he wanted out.

“Calm down the fuck down, mate. It will be okay,” Terry told him, trying to keep his cool. “Just another slight change of plans, is all. Hang tight and everything will be explained once we get there.”

“Yeah, you keep sayin’ that, buddy, but things just keep getting weirder and more fucked up by the minute,” Alex snapped back, pulling out his pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and popping one into his mouth. He sat back, blew out a puff of smoke, causing Dee to cough. She looked at Alex in the visor mirror, then let down the window a bit – the cool night air drying the tears that ran down the pale skin of her cheeks. Catching her stare, Alex blew out another puff of smoke and grinned at her.

Deidre glared at him, quickly snapping the visor up.  Alex chuckled to himself and shook his head. Dames, he thought, shaking his head, then settled back in his seat and stared out the side window.

A short while later, they arrived at their destination, sitting quietly as they looked for any signs that Sid might be there waiting for them.

Once he was satisfied the coast was clear, Terry got out of the car, followed by Dee and Alex – who reluctantly followed the others up to the front porch of the house.

Terry hesitated a moment, looked at Deidre. She was still sobbing a bit, her tired face streaked with tears. Putting an arm around her and pulling her close, he knocked on the door.

MERGED NOW WITH "A LOVE FOR A LOVE" AND CONTINUED TOGETHER

AS "HOPELESS"

BACK TO NANOCORP INDEX

BACK TO CHAPTER 7 OF "A LOVE FOR A LOVE"

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE