Chapter 29

Bobby

February 19^th^ 1947

"You're lucky I placed a tracking spell on the girl," Jim said as the sun began to rise, driving away the freezing desert. "Well, I put it on the other girl, but I guess she got a part of it too." He gave Jessica a quick look. She smiled and looked away.

Bobby stared at the two from the back seat, holding his nose. "When was the last time you cleaned up back here?" he asked Jim. "There's food sticking to the seats."

"I could've left you back in the scorching sand, or you could reach through to the trunk and shut up," Jim shot back.

Grumbling, Bobby opened the seat and stuck his hand into the trunk. His eyes went wide as he pulled out a guitar. "Is this Kansas'?"

"Yep. He said you could use it to make the music you need to get yourself back. I can't help you with that one." Jim coughed. "My skills are about drawing out what's in nature and enhancing it, and I'm nowhere near as powerful. For me, the natural rhythm of the music is more about enhancing than creating. I can't do what you do, travelling through time. According to Millie, though, you got the math right, so you're halfway there." Jim was silent as he swerved around a dead coyote in the road. "Who taught you anyway?"

"Self-taught. Just lucked into it."

Jim scoffed. "Hedge witches. God, I hate them. Full of talent, but always one mistake away from blowing their own blasted head off."

"Why do you think I made myself forget it? If I hadn't been forced to remember, I'd still be living in bliss." Bobby tuned the guitar, hefting it up and down. It felt right and had the energy from a real musician infused into it. He ran his fingers over the strings, bringing out a slight noise. Placing it in his lap, he started playing a riff from Crue.

The car swerved and almost went off the road. "What the hell was that squawking? Did you break Kansas's guitar?" Jim shouted.

Jessica took her hands off her ears and rolled down the window to let in some fresh air. The heat remained and grew stronger.

Jim turned around and shouted at Bobby. "You're supposed to caress the natural vibrations. Not murder them."

"Eye's front, boy," Bobby said. "It's a Motley Crue song, Save Our Souls. The lyrics and theme are perfect for what I need. The music has to match the situation and connect you to nature. I can see your point, though. Even if it was their worst song, I liked it." He tuned the guitar a little more, wincing as his shoulder pulled at him. They had left the bullet in and just taped everything up. A forced walk through the desert hadn't helped. He wished the nanites hadn't cut out after twenty-four hours.

Jim continued to drive. "It's getting too hot here, and the sun's getting too high. I passed a rest stop on my way here, so we'll break there. This hunk'a crap won't last the heat."

Bobby nodded and stared out the window, watching the heat radiate off the desert floor. The wind rolling through the windows provided some relief, but not enough. Fever racked Catherine's body. His body. He didn't want to die here.

Jim drove in silence for a few miles. The sun beat down on the car, making the leather seats painful to touch. "Can you play it again? Without the screeching parts?" he asked.

Bobby lifted his head. "Save Our Souls? Sure." He started on the opening rift. "It's slower than a lot of their stuff and works better if there's percussion," he said. He got to the chorus and started rocking his head back and forth, especially when he repeated the same lines over and over. There was something about the words that just infused him. The poetry filled him with promise.

"Stop there," Jim said.

Bobby put the guitar down. "What? Did you catch something?"

Jim was silent as he navigated the road. Jessica stole glances at the young black teen. She was fingering the package Ming had left for her. She hadn't opened it yet, but Bobby could tell it was thick. Ming had been thorough. She'd spent the whole night writing the thing, discarding draft after draft.

"Have you tried slowing down the beat and adding the rhythm from Weed Smoker's Dream?" Jim said. "If you can combine the two, it might create something that could harmonize with the world. You need the correct beat to open the path, right? After that, the math can guide you to where you need to go."

Bobby's eyes shot open, and he smiled. "You might be right. I'm just opening a path back to my body. That's the easy part, and reality will help me out there. The hard part was already done coming here." He turned back to the guitar and practiced his fingering. There was no way the two songs could be combined easily. They shared a similar tempo, but the theme and topic were completely different. However, Jim was on to something. Bobby sighed. There was something else he needed to take care of.

"I have about a day left here before I die. Jessica, what are you going to do after I'm gone?"

"Bobby! Why would you say that?" Jessica turned in her seat and glared at Bobby. "You're going to be fine."

"No, I'm not." Bobby pulled down the shirt to show her the bandage. Black lines were radiating out from underneath. "They left the bullet in there, and the rot has already set in. I'll be dead before the end of this day, tomorrow at the latest."

Jessica started crying and turned around to huddle in the seat.

"Why'd you have to lay bad news on her like that? Don't you have a heart, mother-fucker," he yelled, pounding the wheel. He glanced away from the road and laid a hand on Jessica's back, rubbing it in small circles.

Bobby shrugged. "I'm a realist. It's important to lay all the cards on the table and then make your decision." He noticed Jim becoming a bit more protective of Jessica. If he put a tracking spell on Ming, it probably bonded the two of them together. Jessica as well. He gave a sad smile. At least someone will look after you, Jessica.

He fingered the guitar again and added the sound from Weed Smoker's Dream, but said the lyrics from Save Our Souls. The mismatch was odd, but had potential. If he had several days to work on it, maybe he could find a way to get himself back. It would have been so much easier with his computer. The programs there could do all the hard work. Whoever had it must have just wanted Ming.

"Probably the Detective," Bobby grumbled.

They drove through the desert until eleven. The afternoon sun was getting too hot, and Jim pulled off the side into a shaded area. He got out and gave Jessica some water. Bobby watched them walk off into the desert, hand in hand. Jim said there was a small oasis around the back. "You had to step just right to get in, but the place was beautiful."

Bobby may be a hedge witch, but when two people were into each other, the signs were clear. They would have enough trouble without him getting in the way.

He fingered the bandage and winced again. The pain was getting worse. That quack in the hospital had killed him this time. He snorted. Dying almost fifty years before he was born. Vlad was always overstepping himself. He needed to learn his limits and not mess with things he had no right to.

"I wish I knew what you wanted, ya dirty Metallica shill," he grumbled.

Bobby ignored the guilty pang in his stomach and played the guitar. It was just as much his fault that he was here as his brother's. He's the one who used the code in the first place. When he showed it to Vlad, he had no idea what his brother would do with it. That the twat would copy it, ending up with Bobby stuck here, swelting in fifty-degree heat. He never got the whole Fahrenheit thing.

He shook his head, getting rid of the distractions. He was getting somewhere with combining the two songs, but it wasn't quite there yet; the heat was too oppressive.

"Why don't you just give it up, Petor?"

Bobby spun around at the voice and saw Vlad walking through the desert. Heat waves rising from the floor distorted his features, making him appear like a ghost, but it was him. He looked the same as the last time he'd seen him.

"Why are you still wearing that fucking ugly shirt? Tie-dye went out years ago."

Vlad plucked the front of his shirt and shrugged. "This is your hallucination. You tell me. Besides, it's a classic. They never go out of style."

"I've missed you, Vlad, even if you fucked up the code you tried to shove into my brain. There are much easier ways to hack a human body than using pink windows. The code is a thing of beauty, not something you shoehorn in," Bobby chuckled.

"I've missed you, too, you butt-ugly troll."

"Haw! I'm in the body of a beautiful woman now. You can't call me ugly." Bobby smiled. Nobody insulted him as well as his brother.

"Are you still wasting your potential?" Vlad said, staring down at Bobby.

The heat of the desert flowed through him and blasted Bobby. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and plucked a few strings.

"What do you mean?"

"You could have had anything with that code. Freed us from Gregory and saved Ivan. Why'd you throw it away?"

Bobby was quiet. The music filled the small shaded area where he sat. "I was lucky to find the code and CD in that computer," he started. "It was great to get everything I wanted at first, but after that final assignment in Korea and what happened to Sasha, I wanted nothing to do with it. The consequences of messing around with it were too high. The code was too seductive to use." Bobby looked up at his brother. "Power like that should be earned, not found. I had no right to it, and I wasn't worthy of it. Hell, I was scared of it."

"You could have learned to control it," Vlad said. "Harnessed it for good instead of throwing it away."

"Yes, I could have. But I wasn't ready. I may be one day." He thought of the name Barbie called him. If she was telling the truth and if she was who he thought she was, then one day, maybe he would be. Until then, it was best to keep the code under lock and key.

Vlad shook his head. "How are you going to get home, you piece of rechewed fish shit?"

"It's been a while since I've heard that one." Bobby sighed. "I don't know, but it's time for you to go now, Slazney."

Vlad paled and stepped forward. Bobby played a riff on the guitar, sending the shade blowing away into the wind. It was too early for hallucinations even with the heat, and Vlad always did tend to overplay his hand. He never really understood how to use the code. The computer was there to act as the catalyst and correct any of the problems that crop up. It was also the failsafe, preventing a meltdown. You have to work with the natural world, not force your will on it. The modern world wants results too quickly.

Probably why he had to use the windows. You always used a hammer to open a package when a small knife would do the trick, Vlad.

Sending a vision through time was child's play. However, with all he was doing, the casualty payback was going to be a bitch. It probably explained the Mad Max-like world back when the code first invaded his mind.

Bobby turned his head to where Jessica and Jim had disappeared and heard some sounds coming from behind the rocks. She was going to be trouble, but Jim seemed like he could handle it. They were about the same age, and he knew how to respect nature. Hopefully, they would be all right.

The sky was blue and clear. Bobby took one last look around and stood up. He set the guitar down and picked up a stick. Starting at the top corner of the sand nearest the shade, he scratched the math into the dirt. Two hours later, Jessica and Jim were silent, but the stark beauty of the code stared back at him. Sweat poured down his body. He'd taken his shirt off, and the sun had turned his skin a beet-red. He was finished. The path was clear to his eyes. With it, he could do anything.

"I have to try." Bobby stood up and stretched. The wound had stopped hurting.

He was ready to die, but first, he had to play. Dropping the stick and picking up the guitar, he started belting out a riff, mixing the two songs. The music filled his soul. As it lifted and pushed away his doubts, he could feel the effects of the code swirl up from the desert sand and settle around him. He winced. His skin tingled as the math converted itself into the power he needed and dug itself deep into his bones. "Nature is so hard to read." He shook his head. "One minute it beats you down, the next it embraces you."

He couldn't use a computer's battery for this and needed life energy to complete the code. This body was almost gone, but the blood would still give it that extra oomph he needed to break the barrier and send him home.

"Mother?"

Bobby looked up from the music. Jessica was peeking over the ridge where she and Jim had disappeared. He averted his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Jessica, but you can't call me that anymore. I'm sorry for the pain I'm going to cause you, but I have to leave early. I know your mother loved you. I can feel it in my own soul. It's probably what drew us to you and her in the first place."

Jessica nodded and turned away. Jim put his arms around her and held her close. Her shoulders shook as sobs filled the spaces the music missed.

"God damn you, Vlad," Bobby said. "I'm going to make sure you pay for this." He played to the end of the piece and used his foot to fill in the last line of the code. With the final beat of the song filling the air, he stomped his foot down, and a bolt of lightning crashed through the sky, shaking the desert sand, sending up a cloud into the air. Blackness engulfed him and took him away.