by Fred Alvrez
“I’m not sure. I haven’t really thought that far ahead. Maybe Auckland, since it has the most people? More chance of finding someone.”
In true doggy fashion Kevin tilted his head. “Yes, but we had a chance to stop someone and we didn’t. What makes you think we will in Auckland?”
“I don’t know, Kev. Maybe we need to arm ourselves to have some sort of insurance policy?”
“I don’t think I could hold a gun—you know, no hands.” Kevin sat up on his haunches and waved his paws in the air.
“Are you being sarcastic? I swear I could hear a tone in your voice then.”
“Hey, man, no tone, but unless we find an even more magical portal, I can’t fire a gun.”
Nathan scrubbed the stubble on his chin in thought. “Okay, well, even if we could get a gun for me, that might give us some sense of security.”
“You know we just passed an army museum, right? Wouldn’t they have guns?”
“None that work, Kev, but you’ve given me an idea. The police station is a hundred yards up the road, and they are bound to have a rifle, or even better, a pistol. Shall we wander up there?”
“Yup, let’s go. I’ll keep an ear out for more cars, though.”
Nathan smiled. “Let’s go get us some guns.”
Border collie and man wandered up the center of State Highway 1 through Waiouru, cautiously listening out for any more cars. Normally this road would be loaded with cars and large trucks with their trailers, hauling loads of stuff around the country.
Not today.
Kevin and Nathan took their own sweet time, almost loitering.
Kevin stopped to sniff a dead possum on the road. “Nate, how are we going to get these guns? I’d assume a police station would be pretty well locked up.”
“I’m not sure yet. I think we’ll have to wing it. We could always find a truck or something and ram the whole building.”
“I think that’d only make a mess and maybe destroy any guns.”
The police station stood in front of them. Nathan walked up to the door and rattled it. Locked.
“Okay, Kev, first test: how do we get inside?”
“It’s a small town; maybe the key is under the mat? Isn’t that where people leave it?”
“Only in the movies, and besides, this is a police station—they aren’t going to leave the key under a mat.”
Nathan looked down at the mat. He had to do it, so bent down and lifted it.
“See, no key.”
Looking to the garden beyond Kevin, something caught Nathan’s eye as out of place. Walking left, he saw a rock that didn’t look like the others. He picked it up.
“I don’t believe it—it’s one of those plastic look-like-a-rock things that you hide a key in. Surely not?”
He opened the panel under the fake rock, and there inside was a key.
“High security in Waiouru, obviously,” said Kevin.
Nathan went back and tried the key. The door unlocked.
“Looks like we can get into any building. With your brains and my, uh, hands, there’s no stopping us.”
“Nate what if there’s an alarm like the car place?”
“Not sure. Going to have to wing that one, too.”
Nathan opened the door and stepped into the police station, with Kevin hot on his heels. No alarm bells rang. The pair walked through the simple front desk area and into the office. On the far wall, Nathan spied a cabinet and walked to it. A sign on the cabinet simply said Firearms Inside.
“Bingo Kev—guns!”
A large padlock kept the cabinet shut.
“Come on, you’re the clever border collie. How do we unlock this?”
Nathan went to a nearby desk and started searching through the drawers for a key, while Kevin sat, looking at the lock.
Kevin gazed around the office, then walked around a bit, his claws clicking on the tiled floor. “Nate, over here.”
Nathan walked over to where Kevin was, and saw a door marked Stolen Property.
“So? What’s the plan?”
“Maybe there’s something inside here we can use to open that cabinet.”
Nathan opened the door and found the right tool for the job: a half-length sledgehammer. “Yeah, baby! This should do the trick.”
Kevin looked at the handle end. “Daisy. Someone has inscribed a name on it.”
“Well, I think it’s time to put Daisy back to work.”
Walking back to the gun cabinet, Nathan swung the sledgehammer around a bit to get a feel for the weight.
The lock didn’t stand a chance and snapped in half on the second swing.
“Much better job than breaking out a Tesla, Nate.”
“Yeah yeah, smart ass. Let’s check out our booty.”
Swinging open the cabinet door, Nathan took stock; two pistols sat in holders, along with some ammunition and a single shoulder holster. Further up, two rifles stared out at him, daring him to pick them up. He took one and felt the heft of it in his hands.
“Have you actually used a gun before? Pistol or rifle?”
“Sure! I’ve shot lots of them in games. So yeah, I guess you could say I have.”
“So you haven’t, then?”
Nathan looked down at the pistol. “Well, no, not a real one. How hard can it be? Bullets go in, bullets come out.”
“But bullets can kill, Nate. I’m worried.”
Nathan looked down at Kevin. “Hey, stop with the worried-doggy look. There’s ammo here next to the pistols. We can go and practice with it so I can get the hang of it before we really need them, okay?”
“Deal. We going to take it all?”
“Why not? No one else needs it. I’ll go back and get the car, and bring it here to load up. You see if there’s anything else we can use.”
Nathan left the police station and ambled down the highway, deep in thought.
Army trucks. Why? Some sort of military operation?
Halfway back to the Tesla, Nathan stopped in his tracks. Another car was coming.
He ran to the café at the side of the road and hid behind the bushes. Not much cover, but it would do. All he could hope was that these army trucks would go past at the same speed and not stop.
Moments felt like hours as the car approached.
A jet-black SUV with heavily tinted windows drove past. The windows were too dark to be able to tell anything other than there was at least a driver. The car disappeared into the distance.
After getting the Tesla, Nathan headed back to the police station.
Meeting Kevin at the door, he was eager to get the dog’s view on the car.
“Still military, Kev? What do you think?”
“Gut feeling says yes, or government—something like that. That car looked pretty mean. Or maybe we’ve both watched too much TV?”
“I’m not sure,” Nathan said. “Why wasn’t it traveling with the other army trucks? Only one way to find out I guess, if we come across them.”
“I’m hoping we don’t. They all give me a bad feeling.”
“Same here, buddy. Let’s get these guns and get moving.”
“Let’s not rush. I don’t want to catch up with them.”
Nathan grabbed the pistols, ammo, and holster and took them to the car. He returned and gathered both rifles, carrying them out awkwardly.
After putting the rifles in the trunk, Nathan checked out the ammo situation. He found a couple of boxes for the pistols and the same for the two rifles. It would have to do. They could always grab some more in Auckland, he thought.
“Time to hit the road, Kev?”
“Why don’t we take Daisy, too? She might come in handy somewhere else.”
“Great idea.”
Nathan went back into the police station and grabbed the sledgehammer. Before leaving the building, he turned and looked back inside.
Add breaking and entering a police station and stealing guns to my list of felonies. This is like real-life Grand Theft Auto I’ve played
all these years.
After stowing the sledgehammer in the trunk of the Tesla, he hopped in and lowered his door.
Kevin had a worried look on this face. “Nate, I’m still not convinced about the guns.”
“Tell you what, let’s stop at the side of the Desert Road and I can have a play—uh, learn how to use them.”
“Okay, I’d be happier with that. Let’s go.”
Driving out of Waiouru, Nathan felt this was a turning point. They were armed now—did that mean they expected trouble?
Another accident north of Turangi stopped their progress.
“Come on, Kev. Let’s go see if we can get through. I don’t want to leave the Tesla behind.”
They climbed out of the car, slowly walking ahead to the crash. It looked like two trucks had crashed together, blocking the road. Nathan could see where the army Land Rovers had driven onto the grass, around the crash.
“Nate, look over to the side there. If we go off road a bit like those army trucks, we should be able to go around them.”
Nathan surveyed the situation.
“Maybe, but we don’t know where we can come back onto the road past the crash. I don’t want us to get stuck either. The Tesla is pretty low to the ground and heavy. It’s no Land Rover.”
The pair walked on farther to where the main part of the crash was. As Nathan was about to walk between the two trucks, a hand grabbed him and hauled him down onto the ground.
“Stay the hell there or I’ll smash your face in!”
Chapter Eight
Captain Brian Sanderson checked the application running on his laptop. Not so easy when the Land Rover was bumping around so much.
All systems go. Hopefully this would be the final internal test.
He’d be glad to see the back of it. Brian closed the laptop’s lid. He turned to his driver.
“Sergeant Kahi, how long have we been on the TIGER project?”
“This is my twenty-fifth year, sir. That must make it your thirty-second year?”
Brian let out a long whistle. “Sounds about right. To be honest, I’m ready for it to be over.”
“It has been a long road, sir, but this latest test feels good. No more glitches like the last one.”
Turning back to look out the windscreen, Brian contemplated that statement. While the project team had called them glitches, everyone knew better; a soldier had died on the last test. As usual, the press release said they had died heroically in action wherever the action happened to be at the time—usually some Middle Eastern country.
The small team on the TIGER project always took it hard. Their friend had died somehow. Actually, no one really knew if he had died at all—he had simply disappeared, maybe to some other dimension. It would be incredibly awkward if he appeared again. The whole team knew that the prime minister had issued a shoot-on-sight directive.
They couldn’t risk the soldier appearing again, not with the military in each allied country watching the progress of TIGER so closely. And not to mention the families of the soldier seeing their dead son return.
The Land Rover continued to bounce along the highway. As usual, there were lots of crashed trucks to avoid after the latest TIGER test had started. He had to admit, when they came across trucks that had crashed and blocked the road, the Land Rovers were great for getting around them. Even though the army had stopped using them, Brian requested that three be retained just for their use.
The military convoy drove through Waiouru. That was the site of the last exit portal three years ago. Up in the hills to the right, buried in a secret tunnel, was a portal similar to the one they had entered in Trentham, in Wellington.
As they passed the turn-off to the portal location from the previous test, Brian looked over and saw the sergeant’s face crumple a bit; the lost soldier was his nephew, whom he had asked to come onto the team.
“Not your fault, Stu. It was a glitch. Nothing you or I could have done about it. We all miss Wiremu.”
“Thanks, sir. Appreciated.”
“Wiremu was one of the most dedicated soldiers I had ever met. And I mean that.”
“Yes, sir. He was.”
Brian had never asked why, but since that fatal last test, Stu had never called him by his first name again when they were alone. After a quarter of a century together working on the same project, military disciplines had been eroded when there were no other soldiers in the vehicle.
But not since his nephew had disappeared.
Turning to the driver, Brian looked down at the pistol in the holster on Stu’s hip. He was more concerned whether Stu could actually shoot his nephew on sight if he appeared again. He doubted it, and the task would fall to one of the other soldiers in the convoy.
The TIGER project had a high price, and it wasn’t only in dollars. He knew Stu had turned down offers of a regular army job where he would have been promoted to captain a long time ago. Being in a special unit such as theirs, all chance of that disappeared.
“Sergeant, estimate of how long until we get to the end portal?”
“I’d say another six hours, sir, likely longer. These crashed trucks are really killing our progress. It’s taken us six hours so far from Trentham.”
Brian thought over the numbers in his head. “Call the rest of the team on the radio. I think we should camp somewhere north of Taupo. I want us all to be fresh for portal reentry to Base World tomorrow.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Kahi grabbed the radio and alerted the rest of the convoy. “Sir, can I ask a question?”
“Of course. What’s up?”
“Just wondering why you came on this test to TIGER World. You’ve never come on any others, and you’d be too great an asset to lose if something happened, like another glitch. I’m surprised they even allowed you to join us.”
It was a good question, and a hard one to answer. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain himself.
“I guess I wanted to prove that after three more years of development, I have confidence that we’ve cracked it. TIGER is now completely safe, and there will be no more glitches.”
Brian lay back and closed his eyes. After too many decades on this project, he still had his doubts about it. When it was discussed all those years ago—thirty-two!—he thought the ability to move troops undetected would be the ultimate fighting tool. He still did.
Simply drive into a portal that leads into another dimension, travel to wherever you’ve organized the next portal to be, and drive out again through that portal. The enemy would have no idea where and when you would arrive, and couldn’t attack you while traveling.
It was a game changer—easily the biggest military weapon since the atomic bomb. In fact, New Zealander Ernest Rutherford came up with the scientific theories behind TIGER in the 1920s, and he didn’t even realize the potential behind his discovery.
Sure, it had cost billions—many tens of billions, he knew—over the course of its development, but still, everyone wanted it. All New Zealand’s allies had sunk wads of cash into this project.
And that was the issue for Brian. If everyone had it, it could destroy the whole world. While they had yet to test TIGER between countries, he had no doubt it would work—it simply meant the troops traveling in the other world would need to travel farther or over water to get to the next portal.
The science was sound, and that was what scared him.
Other than the glitches.
Hopefully we’ve seen the last of those.
Chapter Nine
When she was thirteen, Casey had had the luxury of going to Memphis to the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed, and also to the Civil Rights Museum attached to the motel. Her mother had made a point of spending the whole day there, reading with her about the atrocities that the slaves and black people of America had been put through.
Not to mention Martin Luther King being assassinated.
She might have been only a teenager at the time of the visit to
the museum, but the impact was lasting.
The attraction was huge. Could she witness this incredibly sad event in person? She was both irresistibly drawn to it and also dead against it. Could she even bear to see him shot? To witness the noise, the emotions, the horror?
Yes.
This felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she was going to take it. Who knew how long this time-travel power would last anyway?
Decision made, she removed the book from the shelves and carefully flicked through the pages to find the perfect photo for her voyeuristic opportunity.
After minutes of sifting through the pages, one shone through. A photograph from about fifty feet away from the motel, with a caption that said it was at 4:00 p.m., around two hours before the shooting. That would give her plenty of time to wander about and take in the event. She wouldn’t even need to stay to watch the shooting if she didn’t want to. Nothing was stopping her from taking her palm off the photo and simply returning to the normal world.
Making sure she was comfortable, she moved her palm toward the photo. Once her whole palm was over it, she heard a pop and was transported to Memphis, 1968.
She was looking at the motel side on, and could see people milling about. It seemed like a normal, hot spring day as she stood on the sidewalk taking in the sounds. And the smells—she could smell food cooking at a nearby diner as well, and it made her stomach rumble. She realized she hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a long time.
Not that she could eat here—she assumed again that no one could see her and she wouldn’t be able to interact with any physical objects if it was the same as the last time.
Casey walked over to a couple who were standing and talking.
“Hi there. My name’s Casey.”
The couple appeared to ignore her and carried on talking about their day. A sense of relief but also sadness came over her. There was nothing she’d like more than to sit in that diner and eat some genuine 1960s American food, and talk to some people from that era.
She looked up to the balcony of room 306 where she knew Martin Luther King Jr. would be staying, but he wasn’t outside yet. Far too early.
