by Unknown
Willy nodded his understanding. “Okay, but what if CERN does work? What if they are able to send Earth back in time?”
“Again, underground is the safest place to be. The theory is—and it is just a theory, I have to warn you—the wormhole, which is currently in quarantine, will be unleashed and pounded mercilessly with protons faster than the speed of light. It will be an Earth-crust directed force, calculated with precision to take the planet back in time.
“The science of it, with the force directed laterally, is that only the sphere itself and everything within it—in other words, underground—will transcend time. Everyone and everything above ground will vanish with the time transfer—painlessly, and instantly. They’ll be replaced by the actual people and structures above ground that exist back in 1963.”
Helen gasped at hearing that, and thrust her hands up to her mouth.
Willy whispered, “Jesus Christ…this is too weird.”
Allison wrapped her arms around Helen and hugged her gently.
Then, she spread her glance around to all three of them. “Quantum physics is fascinating, although scary as hell. But, fate has brought us together at this point in time, for whatever reason. Willy’s encounter with the x-ray machine happened for a reason, I think. We were all meant to meet in the here and now, and Willy was meant to give us warnings about the imminence of Gargantuan.”
She smiled warmly at Wyatt. “And I was meant to fall in love with you.”
Wyatt mouthed the words, “I love you, too.”
“So, either way, you’re safest underground with me, folks. What’s it going to be? My chariot is waiting for us at the airport.”
Willy walked over to his son. “Wyatt, it’s your decision. We’re with you, here or there, whatever you decide.” He turned his head in his wife’s direction. “Right, Helen?”
She nodded nervously.
Wyatt looked down at the ground, and shuffled his feet. The conflict in his mind and in his heart caused him to hesitate. “All these people. Our friends. This city. I’m the police chief. I have responsibilities. It feels as if I’d be running away.”
He looked up at Allison, and saw that her eyes were beginning to mist over.
She whispered, “You can’t help them, Wyatt. And, we can’t save everyone. If it helps with your decision, think of it this way—you have a responsibility, first and foremost, to live. And, to love…”
They were all silent for a few moments until Allison finally broke the stillness again. She wiped the corners of her eyes, turned on her heel, and walked across the lawn without a single backward glance. Wyatt heard her cry softly, “May God be with you all.”
This time, there was no warning rumble. It could only be described as a crash, followed by a loud roar reminiscent of the collapse of the Twin Towers.
Five parked cars disappeared in a heartbeat.
The road split right down the middle, expanding into a sinkhole about 50 feet wide. The dark chasm snarled like a T-Rex from Jurassic Park, and spewed steam and black particulates upward like a fountain. An ash cloud wasted no time in spreading its ghostly fingers out in every direction.
Wyatt couldn’t get the words out fast enough.
“Alison, wait! We’re coming!”
Chapter 48
Except for the smooth hum of the jet engines, it was as quiet as a mausoleum. But, it sure didn’t look like one.
Wyatt allowed his eyes to wander around the cabin, admiring the walnut paneling and grass cloth window shades. He ran his fingers along the supple beige leather of his seat, and pushed the recline button. Unlike commercial jets, this plane’s seats actually reclined—flat.
Of course, there was more room in this jet than a commercial airline, being that it was outfitted for only twelve passengers. Wyatt thought that was ironic, considering the owner was a billionaire member of a group called Majestic 12.
This was certainly the way to travel if you could afford it.
Soon, though, luxuries like this would mean nothing. In fact, in Allison’s case, she’d have to leave it behind when she transcended back to 1963, including her massive wealth. Assuming, of course, that the plan worked.
He tried not to think of the chaos he’d left behind in Nelson. His conscience was tugging at him; the feeling that he’d abandoned both his community and his responsibilities was a tough thing to reconcile.
But, then, so was the rest of this hocus-pocus.
It was still a blind spot in his brain. He couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, wrap his mind around the concept. She’d explained it as best she could, but Wyatt just didn’t get it.
He turned his head and glanced towards the back of the cabin.
Allison was sitting at a conference table with Willy and Helen—they were playing some kind of card game and talking together in hushed tones. They must have thought he was asleep.
He stood up, stretched, and walked back to where they were sitting. Slid into a seat, then covered the card deck with his hand stopping the game’s progress.
Allison smiled at him. “You’re awake. Do you want to play?”
“No, I want a science lesson. I know it doesn’t really matter whether or not I understand this stuff, but my head is spinning.”
Willy nodded. “Me, too. I wasn’t the best science student in school, but this wormhole business is beyond anything I could have even imagined.”
Allison clasped her fingers together and looked from one to the other.
“Okay, I probably haven’t explained it properly.
“And, you have a right to try to understand it, because you’re all going back with me to 1963. If it works, that is, and I pray that it does. Not just for us, but for all of mankind.”
Willy scratched his forehead. “But, if it does work, what happens to everyone here? You said they’d all just disappear. I don’t get that.”
“Well, picture it this way. The wormhole is kind of a time machine, but not really. It’s more of a mechanism for an alternate universe. Since it’s located deep underground, its energy force will be confined to anything beneath the surface.
“Everything above will cease to exist, instantly, with the transference. It will be as if none of it was ever there in the first place.”
Wyatt tapped his finger on the table. “That’s the part I’m struggling with the most.”
“I understand, Wyatt. As I said before, a lot of this I just don’t get either. It’s bizarre, to say the least. But, we’re tampering with time and space. We’ve learned a lot about matter, density, the Big Bang, Black Holes, and…wormholes.
“The public hasn’t heard too much about wormholes because they’re just too impossible to fathom…and they’re scary as hell. In a lot of ways, we’re playing God when we fool around with these things that we don’t quite understand yet.
“But, we have an extinction level event on our doorstep, and the time for experimentation is over. We don’t have the luxury of time any longer. So, we have to trust the instincts and brains of our brightest people.
“Let me tell you, some of these scientists at CERN are scary—their brains are off the charts. You’d be spooked if you chatted with them. A lot of them are actually autistic savants—scary smart. Makes me think sometimes they themselves have alien DNA!”
Willy picked up the deck of cards and started shuffling it. “Allison, if we all manage to go back, Earth, the way I see it, will be two different worlds. An underground world, and an above-ground world. Is that basically right?”
She nodded. “That’s it in a nutshell, Willy. As I said, kind of an alternative universe, rather than time travel, but in essence they’re the same thing—and time travel is probably the easiest way to understand it. But…as of the moment of transference to 1963, Earth at that time changes to include those of us from 2015 who are underground, and excludes all those from 2015 who were above ground. Alternate universes—2015 underground, and 1963 above ground.”
“What are people going to think once we sta
rt crawling out of the ground?”
“It will be as if we’d always been there. The structures we’ve built underground will be intact, and we will come out just as if we were merely hiding in a bomb shelter, which of course was quite common anyway back in the sixties.
“Anything we change while we’re there will change the future 2015, just as if this current 2015 never happened. Going back is like creating a clean slate for that time, and fixing things back then will clean the slate for the future.”
Wyatt rubbed his tired eyes. “I guess this is all like believing in God. No one can really understand it, but they believe it anyway. I mean, we scoff at things like what you’re talking about that just sound crazy and unbelievable, yet we’ll go to church and pray to a God we’ve never met, who’s supposed to be comprised of three spirits—one of whom was born to a virgin. And, that he died and rose from the dead. And, that his father in heaven created the universe in a week’s time. And that he lives, but doesn’t really live—in fact, he’s timeless. And, if we’re good, we get to go to a place called heaven, and live for eternity. If we’re bad, we go to a fiery hell. Now that I’ve just recited all that bunk, what you’re telling us is starting to sound pretty realistic!”
Allison chuckled. “That may be the best way to look at this. Just believe, as we’ve been taught to do without question from day one about religion. There are some mysteries we’ll never truly understand, I guess, including where the hell we came from, and who created us. For now, until we know better, some of us will believe in the only thing we know, and that’s God.”
Helen shook her head, and jumped into the conversation. “But, wait—we’re going to look different than the rest of them back in the sixties, and we’re going to have tools that they didn’t have—like computers and iPhones.”
“Good point, Helen. But, the looks part won’t matter. No one really pays much attention to people who look different and, as you well know, the people in the sixties all strived to look different and…individual.
“As for the tools, naturally our phones won’t work because there won’t be any cell towers, so no need to carry those around with us. But, we have laptops that will just need to be plugged into a power source.”
“There was no internet back then.”
“No, Wyatt, but we won’t need the internet. We’ll have all of the information from the future downloaded onto our hard drives, so we just have to plug in and show them.
“That’s where our meeting with Kennedy will be important. We’ll be able to show him all he needs to know to convince him to start building CERN. We’ll be able to demonstrate the reverse engineering we’ve done of alien technology, and show him the kind of defenses that Earth is going to need when it finally reaches 2015 and the threat of Gargantuan is again on our doorstep. The Earth will be better prepared than we are now, if we get a head start. Kennedy will give us that head start, if we’re able to convince him.
“All of the CERN scientists I talked about will be safely underground when the wormhole sucks us back, as will many other scientists around the world. We’ll be adding to 1963 an element of advanced intelligence that will be simply overwhelming, and extremely beneficial to mankind. Maybe by 2015, we’ll even be far more advanced than Gargantuan’s inhabitants. Which means we’ll win…and survive.”
Wyatt rested his elbows on the table, and stared into Allison’s hypnotic blue eyes. “Meeting you has turned our world completely inside out—no pun intended. I feel like this is just a dream. A dual dream—happy having you in my life, but a nightmare with what you’ve told us.”
Allison squeezed his shoulder. “We play the hand we’re dealt, and this is it. Ninety-nine percent of the population knows nothing about any of this, so I guess in that respect we’re the lucky ones.”
“Are we, though? We’re going back, but we have to live with the knowledge that all of these people are going to die.”
Allison shook her head furiously. “No! That’s the one point you’re missing! There’s no concept of ‘death’ with what we’re doing. If this works and we go back to 1963 and manage to convince Kennedy to begin preparing the Earth for the future, then all of these people will still exist—they’ll just get a do-over. They’ll still be born, grow up, and reach 2015 in a safer state than they’re in right now.”
Willy poured himself a glass of juice from the jug on the table. “That wouldn’t be entirely correct, would it? I mean, if we can change that one aspect you’re talking about, we will all probably change a lot of other things, too. We’ll be populating their world now—probably in the tens of thousands considering how many bunkers like yours exist around the globe. Some people we know now may not exist in the future 2015 if we put our interfering stamp on things.”
Allison nodded slowly. “Yes, Willy, that’s right. I stand corrected. We have to look at mankind as a whole instead of the individuals we know and love. So, collective mankind will still be alive in 2015 and will have a better chance of survival if we do this right. But, some of the people we know now won’t be here then. There’s no doubt that we’ll change a lot of things, so the world could indeed look considerably different in the new 2015 than the old one we’re used to now. That, alone, will be fascinating—our memories of what once was, against what we watch it become.”
“What about me? If I go visit myself as a younger Willy, and perhaps cause the younger me to have an accident and die, would both of us disappear?”
“First of all, Willy, I must warn you not to do that. We don’t know what having contact with your younger self would do. It’s a scary unknown. But, as far as your younger self dying, no, I don’t think that would have an effect on the older you.
“You’re thinking of that movie, Back to the Future, where Marty starts to fade away. That movie was based on the fantasy concept of time travel, which isn’t really what we’re doing. As I mentioned, our approach is really an ‘alternate universe’ for those beneath the ground that we’re sending back. So, you’ll exist back then no matter what might happen to your younger self. Understand?”
Willy laughed. “No, not really, but I guess I’ll just have to suck it up. This is the strangest stuff I’ve ever heard—even stranger than my side effects from an alien beam weapon.”
Allison chuckled, and then looked up as the co-pilot approached their table. “Ready to land, Dave?”
“Yep. If you could all get back to your seats and buckle in, we’ll have you on the ground in about fifteen minutes.”
“Great. Okay, folks, after we arrive in Penticton, we’ll be driving down to Osoyoos. If you think all of this is strange, wait until you see your new quarters!”
Wyatt got up and started heading for his seat. “Do you think your friend is safe? Any updates?”
Allison nodded. “Yes, I think everything’s fine. Gerndle texted me to say that the guy who was asking about the senator never came back. So, she must have convinced him that he wasn’t hiding out at the winery. She’s a good actor, and she’s German. Those Germans can be pretty poker-faced; hard to recognize their emotions sometimes.”
Chapter 49
“This one doesn’t feel right to me.”
Cliff steered the black Lincoln onto the secondary road and drove through the tunnel of lush grapevines and fruit trees.
He turned to his partner. “Bert, once they start feeling right, you’ll know you’ve completely lost it.”
“But, you were here this morning. She said he wasn’t there. What are we going to do, torture her?”
Cliff blinked his eyes several times—the dust from the road was finding its way through the car’s filters. “We’ll just scare her a little. She’ll give it up.”
“But, what if he’s not here? How do we know for sure?”
Cliff shook his head. “No, he’s here. The technology is solid. The cell signal came from this winery.”
“What did they say to you?”
“They told me to go back and try again. That this is an importan
t one.”
Bert looked at the image on his cell phone. “The guy’s a famous senator. High profile. I don’t like this type of job.”
“That’s why the payday’s so lucrative, Bert. Don’t complain.”
“Why do they want him dead?”
Cliff shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re never told why anyway, you know that.”
“Yeah, but I figured in this case you might have been given a hint.”
“No, not at all. You never get the assignments—they all come through me. So, as I’ve told you before, I never even know who’s assigning the jobs to us. These things are done through double and triple blinds; even the voices on the phone are electronically altered, and the phones they use are untraceable. Probably satellite.”
Bert looked out at the dense foliage they were driving through. “Feels like a trap to me. Christ, people could be hiding amongst all this crap and we wouldn’t even see them.”
“The manager’s just a harmless little lady, Bert. And, this is just a fucking winery. It’s not a trap. Why would anyone want to trap us? We’re not important, not relevant. We’re just machines.”
Cliff could feel Bert’s eyes boring into him.
“I can handle popping people, Cliff, but torture’s not my thing. If that’s what you’re planning, count me out. Tell me before we go any further along this fucking jungle road.”
“We’re not going to torture anyone. I promise. We’ll be in and out. It’s a goddamned winery. Aside from the trees, where could he hide? Maybe a wine barrel?” Cliff laughed at the image he’d created in his mind. “Yeah, a wine barrel—I like that. We could just roll him out of here.”
Bert wasn’t amused. “I’m surprised they didn’t just cancel the hit once you told them he wasn’t here.”
Cliff smiled wryly. “You seem to have forgotten. Orders are always irrevocable. We don’t even know who’s giving them to us, so how could they be cancelled? How would we know if the proper authority in charge was giving the order to cancel? No, Bert, the only way an order can be cancelled is to execute us. That’s the only way it can be stopped. That keeps the certainty part of our business intact. We do it, get paid, and the customer’s happy. Hell, we’ve already been paid half for this one. Do you really want to return your quarter million? I sure as fuck don’t.”
