by Jake Bible
“I will not, but Brain will,” Lakshmi said, sounding tired. “He understands the different time streams and is in connection with his multiple quantum selves. I’m human and in this one time stream only, so I am as in the dark as you are. I believe we will be learning together.”
“Uh, Olivia? You will want to hurry,” Brain interrupted. “You have four giganotosaurs incoming.”
“What are incoming? I don’t know that species,” Olivia said. “But, from the name, I assume they are big.”
“They are not big, they are massive,” Brain said. “You’ll want to run. Once you reach the diner, you’ll be safe.”
“I’ll be safe from four massive teeth inside the diner?” Olivia asked as she took off running down the street.
“We have made improvements,” Lakshmi said. “They were necessary improvements.”
Olivia ran and ran then skidded to a halt when she saw the building that she used to work in.
It was no diner anymore. It was simply the armored entrance to a bunker.
Four turreted belt guns whirred to life as she approached, but they were not aimed at her.
A small door set into the two larger doors of the bunker entrance opened and Lakshmi waved at her.
“In. Now,” Lakshmi said.
Olivia didn’t argue and sprinted inside the bunker just as the belt guns opened fire.
“Look at that outfit,” Lakshmi said after closing the smaller door and pulling Olivia out of the way.
A bulkhead lowered from above then one from each side locked into place as well, sealing them inside and blocking any chance of anything outside getting to them.
“I bet you’d love a shower,” Lakshmi said.
“More than anything else in the world,” Olivia said and followed as Lakshmi led her down a dark corridor that was impossibly wide and impossibly long.
“I’d drive us in an ATV, but I need to get my steps in,” Lakshmi said. “Too much sitting at a console working all day and night.”
“I have no idea what that is like,” Olivia said.
Lakshmi paused and gave Olivia a sad smile. “No, I bet you do not. We’ll get you cleaned up then we’ll talk. Have you eaten?”
“I ate some fish yesterday,” Olivia said.
“Oh, fresh fish,” Lakshmi sighed. “I do miss fresh food.”
“I don’t,” Olivia said. “I’ll take a good old-fashioned MRE.”
“You say that now,” Lakshmi said with a laugh.
Nineteen
The .50 caliber machine guns went silent and the belt guns bolted to the hoods of the rollers whirred to a stop as Cash ordered the vehicles to halt where they were.
Bodies lay everywhere. The grounds of Flipside BOP was a killing field.
“Report,” Cash said over the comms. “Do we have Petrov?”
“We do not, sir,” someone replied.
The same answer was repeated five times more by five different operators over comms.
“Keep looking,” Cash ordered as he jumped out of the roller, his rifle at his side, barrel aimed at the ground.
The operators around him had their rifles up and were slowly sweeping the area, making sure no Russians popped out with a deadly surprise. But, considering the amount of bodies littering the ground, Cash would have been surprised if any Russians had survived.
“Sir, take a look at this,” an operator said, standing over the corpse of one of the guards. “She doesn’t look Russian.”
Cash walked over and stared at the body. If the woman was Russian, then she was from the eastern part close to China. She certainly was not of Slavic heritage.
“Sir! Over here!” another operator shouted.
Cash moved quickly to the operator’s side and shook his head.
“I knew him,” Cash said. “He’s one of the Icelanders.”
Cash moved quickly from body to body. He knew about ten percent of the faces that lay there as their bodies cooled in the Flipside air.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Some of them joined up.”
“Sir!”
“What now?” Cash wondered and jogged to the door of a hut that had been repaired many times over. It was more bamboo and wood than metal. “Petrov?”
“No, sir,” the operator said and nodded to the dark interior of the hut. “It’s been secured, sir.”
Cash gave the man a quizzical look, handed him his rifle, then stepped inside.
“Tre…?” Tressa asked as she sat on a ratty cot, an operator patching up a wound in her side. “Is that you?”
“Tressa. My God…”
Cash rushed to her and grabbed her up in his arms. She cried out in pain and he quickly let go, ignoring the look of disdain from the operator with the med kit.
“You… Christ.” He pointed outside. “Some of the guards… They’re…”
“A lot changed while you’ve been gone,” Tressa said. “Some felt that becoming the enemy was the way to survive. Some felt that fighting the enemy was the way to survive. The later did not get what they wanted.”
“And you?” Cash asked as he watched his sister closely.
“I felt that compliance without complete cooperation was the right way,” Tressa said. She pointed at her head. “It was not always easy, but it kept me sane. I never lost me.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Ivy is here!” she exclaimed. “She came back today too!”
“I know,” Cash said. “I had Liv send her and her team in. We needed the distraction while my people took the walkways and got into place.”
“Oh. That was a good plan,” Tressa said. She glanced past Cash to the outside. “It worked. You’ve set us… Olivia?”
“Wondered when you’d catch that,” Cash said. “A little slower on the uptake than you used to be.”
“Six years of borderline malnutrition will do that to a person,” Tressa said. “Liv is alive?”
“Oh, she’s alive alright,” Cash said and chuckled. “You have no fucking idea how alive she is.”
“She survived out there for six years?” Tressa said. “But she was shot. Four times in the back.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ve heard all about it over the past year,” Cash replied.
“Past year? You’ve been here for a year and didn’t come save us sooner?”
“No, I just got here a few hours ago,” Cash said. “I’ve been back Topside for a year. Training.”
“Training? For what?” Tressa asked, confused.
“Sir! We have Petrov!” a voice yelled over the comms. “He’s holed up in the armory!”
“The armory? Well, that’s just fucking great,” Cash growled. “We need him alive.”
“We know, sir.”
“Keep him in there,” Cash said. He held out a hand to his sister. “You want to see what I’ve been training for?”
“Yes,” Tressa said and stood back up.
“Come on, Cash,” the operator said. “She’s going to bleed through this bandage if she moves around.”
“Then follow us with more bandages, Dylon,” Cash snapped.
Cash helped Tressa walk out of the hut and across the base, but they did not head toward the armory.
“Where are we going?” Tressa asked.
She stared at the carnage with cold eyes.
But her eyes warmed back to something of what they used to look like as she watched the efficiency of the operators who had already secured the base. Wounded were being tended to, survivors interviewed, Russians watched closely, their arms bound behind them, non-Russian guards corralled into a single area, their hands bound also as they were interviewed.
Tressa turned her eyes to Cash.
“You’ve done this before,” she stated.
“Good observation,” Cash said. “This is my sixth base I’ve taken. I’ll say this one is harder because we wanted survivors. Our own people fighting against us doesn’t help.”
“Desperate souls tend toward treachery,” Tressa said.
“
Speaking of. How is father?” Cash asked.
“Dead,” Tressa said.
“Oh. Well, he was old,” Cash replied.
“He was an asshole and one day that got the best of him,” Tressa said. “Petrov shot him in the head while the entire base watched. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. No one tried to fight back after that day.”
“How long ago?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, I suppose not. Especially since time is irrelevant now anyway.”
“What does that mean? And why are we going to Petrov’s hut?”
“Petrov’s hut? It’s not the command hut anymore?”
“No. It stopped being that a long time ago.”
“No, it didn’t,” Cash said with a smirk and walked her right up to a door she hadn’t stepped through in a long while.
“Tell me you have it ready,” Cash said as he stepped inside.
Several operators stood around a hole in the floorboards of the hut. One of the operators was covered in dirt and stood holding a shovel over her shoulder.
“It’s ready when you are, sir,” she said.
“Good,” Cash said.
“Ms. Thompson?” Dylon, the medic, said. “Sit here so I can redo your bandages.”
Tressa complied without hesitation. Cash noted that.
Cash crossed to the hole and jumped down inside, his feet only centimeters from the frame of a large metal box. He held a hand out and up and an operator slapped what looked like a large metal key into his palm. Cash crouched, cleared away some dirt, and slid open a slot. Then he put the key in and turned it.
The box began to hum and a holo interface sprang to life. Cash swiped through several commands on the interface until he found what he wanted.
“All personnel, prepare for activation,” Cash said into the comms. “You’ll want to pop your jaws like Brain said we should.”
All of the operators in the hut worked their jaws as if they were trying to pop their ears after a long plane flight or climb up a mountain.
Cash entered a code into the holo interface and the box stopped humming.
“Huh,” Cash said. “That was a little—”
There was a loud squeal over the comms and every single operator connected across the base cried out.
“We’re good,” Brain said, his voice coming from the box and from the comms. “How are you on your side, Tre?”
“Zero casualties,” Cash said.
“That’s not what I asked,” Brain replied.
“Father is dead,” Cash said. “So are many others.”
“But Liv is fine,” Brain said. “I received the message from my past self a few minutes ago. We are right on schedule.”
“That you know of,” Cash said. “The future is new from here on out.”
“Eh, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Brain said.
“Hey, brother, how’s the rest of the family?” Raff interrupted over the comms.
“Raff? Why are you back so soon?” Cash asked.
“No one there, man,” Raff said. “Russians bugged out. Didn’t even bother to booby trap the outpost.”
“That’s suspicious,” Cash said.
“Yep. That’s why we blew it all up. Didn’t salvage a single piece of scrap. You’d think by now that they’d give up on the honey trap ploy.”
“They never give up.”
“No shit. Now, answer the question, how’s the rest of the family?”
“Tressa’s here. She’s good.”
“Ivy?”
Cash looked at Tressa. She nodded.
“Good.”
“Mike…”
“I haven’t found him yet. Gotta go, man. We have a schedule to keep.”
“And some gear to try. Fingers crossed it works Flipside, brother. Otherwise, you get to become one with the molecules of the Universe.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“My wife tells me that all the time. See ya on the Topside.”
“Petrov?” Brain asked, his voice back on comms.
“In the armory,” Cash replied.
“Hmmm… I don’t like the location, mainly due to the amount of steel around him, but it shouldn’t stop the gear from working. You need to be in line of sight, do not forget.”
“Yeah, Brain, not the first time I’ve done this.”
“It is the first time Flipside, though. Be careful. Comm us when you are ready for the full transfer.”
“Will do. Cash out.”
Cash climbed up out of the hole and again held out a hand to Tressa.
“Now you can see what we’ve been training for,” he said.
She took his hand and followed him out of the hut, across the base, and to the armory where several operators stood watching the hatch, their weapons raised. Cash stopped several meters away and made sure Tressa was steady before he walked up to the hatch and knocked.
“Petrov? It’s Captain Trevon Cash,” Cash called out. “I need you to open the hatch and come outside unarmed.”
While Cash talked, two operators lay out a thin piece of mesh on the ground. The mesh was about four feet square and electricity crackled around it.
“Ready, sir,” one of the operators said.
“Petrov?” Cash called one more time then shook his head. He walked back to Tressa. “How stocked is that armory?”
“Barely,” Tressa said.
“Explosives?”
“Oh, no, those ran out years ago.”
“Good to know.” He turned to the operators. “Our objective is to take Petrov alive. That includes making sure he does not kill himself when cornered. We hit hard, we hit fast, we hit true. If you take a round, suck it up and keep going. We’ll get you back home and patched up fast. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the operators replied.
“I’m point,” Cash said. A couple of the operators began to argue, but shut up at the look on Cash’s face. “I’ve been waiting for this, so do not think you’re going to take this moment away from me.”
He stepped onto the mesh and put a hand to his belt.
Then directly in front of him, a large oval tore through the air, revealing a dark interior. Cash was through the oval and into the darkness, rifle up, before anyone else could say a thing. He was quickly followed by six operators.
Shouting could be heard. There were two quick gunshots. Then silence.
After a minute, Cash came walking out of the oval with Petrov in his grip. The Russian was slumped and bleeding from his shoulder and chest.
“Brain! Immediate medical evac for Petrov!” Cash shouted and slapped a strip of metal across Petrov’s forehead.
There was a flash and the Russian was gone, leaving Cash holding empty air. Cash stumbled a little with the sudden loss of weight then recovered and walked to Tressa.
“Even with the training, I still can’t get used to the transition,” Cash said.
“What just happened?” Tressa whispered.
“Brain will explain it all when you get Topside,” Cash said. “And when you’ve had some time to rest.” Cash looked about. “First…where’s Mike?”
Tressa hung her head then shook it slightly.
“Tressa. I need you to take me to Mike,” Cash said softly. Tressa kept shaking her head. “Sis. Listen to me. We need Mike. He’s part of all this.”
“Tre… Mike’s… Mike’s gone,” Tressa whispered.
“He’s dead?” Cash asked, shocked. “No. Brain said—”
“No, not dead. Just…gone,” Tressa said. She sighed. “I’ll show you.”
They crossed the base once more until they reached the infirmary.
Tressa led Cash inside and around the many wounded that were being treated by medically trained operators. She led Cash to a supply closet, opened the door, stepped up to a shelf, then started to shove the shelf aside.
“Here. I got it,” Cash said and moved her out of the way so he could finish the job.
Behind the shelf
was a door. Cash turned the knob and opened the door, his hand going to his nose because of the stench. Taking a flashlight from his belt, Cash cautiously stepped into the small room.
Sitting in the middle of what was basically another supply closet, bound and wrapped up in a makeshift straight jacket made from rope and soiled sheets, sat Mike. A huge grin was on his face.
“CASH!” he yelled. “YOU MADE IT! BRAIN SAID YOU WOULD! HE SAID YOU’D COME!”
Then Mike bent over and started smacking his forehead against the floor, over and over.
“HE SAID SO! HE SAID SO HE SAID SO!”
Cash rushed in and stopped the madman from cracking his skull open.
“THANK YOU, DUDE! CAN I GO HOME NOW? BRAIN SAID I CAN GO HOME NOW!”
“Yeah, you can go home now, Mike,” Cash said and helped the man stand. “We’re all going home now.”
Twenty
“Tre. Wake up.”
Cash groaned and opened his eyes. Barbara was kneeling next to him, but her face was turned away. She was staring at something in the distance.
“What is it?” Cash asked, sitting up fast. He grabbed his rifle even though the weapon had been out of ammunition for a long while. “Teeth? Wingers?”
“No. No, not dinos at all,” Barbara said. “Get your ass up and look for yourself.”
Cash got his ass up and joined Raff, Dr. Xipan, and Pytor as they stood by a stand of pine trees, or what they guessed were pine trees, and looked out over a vast valley.
They had stopped at the rim of the valley the night before, too tired to hike down into it despite the sight of a large river splitting the valley in half. It had only been a day since they’d had fresh water and they were not going to die of thirst right then. They could have died from falling down the steep descent into the valley if they’d kept walking in the dark, though. So Cash had called it and they’d set up camp.
Now the sun was rising and what the valley held could plainly be seen.
Except it wasn’t what the valley held that they were all looking at. It was what the bubble inside the valley held that had their attention.
“Is it me or is that some Mad Max-looking Topside down there?” Raff asked.
“I see people,” Dr. Xipan said. “People walking around.”
“Heavily armed people,” Cash said. “And those are rollers. And fucking crawlers.”
