by D. J. Gelner
Somehow, I eventually summited the terrifying ladder, and re-joined the chase along the bank of rooftops. Corcoran gained on the Vizier, but the clever little man continued to leave obstacles in his wake; an untethered clothesline here, a discarded storage basket there.
Corcoran remained resolute; by the time we reached the end of the rooftops, we were back toward the outskirts of town. There was no ladder for egress. Instead, the Vizier jumped off the building and into a pile of straw on the ground. His guards turned to face us. Each man wielded a scimitar-esque sword.
The Commander raised his weapon in the air and fired a warning shot. To their credit, the quaking guards stood their ground as we approached.
“Don’t make me…” Corcoran shouted before he stopped, aimed, and unloaded a round in each man’s outside leg. The force of the slug turned each man toward the outside as they cried in pain.
“Sorry,” I offered to the men without stopping as we galloped by. Thankfully, they didn’t recover until Bloomington, who brought up the rear, as usual, had passed.
We tumbled into the hay below. The Vizier was perhaps two hundred metres ahead of us, and was already passing through the gates of the city. I dusted myself off, though the Commander didn’t bother with such decorum, and I think Bloomington would need a power sprayer to “dust himself off” so caked with grime was he.
We gained ground on the Vizier, who dispatched two more guards from near the walls to deal with us.
“Un-fuckin’-believable,” Corcoran said as he raised his gun at one of the men and pulled the trigger. The guard recoiled in pain; though Corcoran hadn’t aimed for a vital organ, the wound appeared in the man’s stomach, which I imagine would lead to an unfortunately painful death in this day and age. The rest of the guards thought the better of challenging us and dispersed behind the city walls.
I gritted my teeth and increased my speed to an all-out-sprint. I wasn’t so much mad at the Commander for dispatching the poor guard, but rather at this “Vizier,” who appeared to be yet another meddlesome time traveller, content to trade the lives of these poor souls to save his own hide.
The Vizier climbed one of the hills outside of town, and we closed within perhaps fifty metres. The red-haired little man wildly fired off cover shots, which I think only increased the anger of the Commander and myself.
Finally, when this Vizier turned around once more, either for want of ammunition or to dedicate himself to getting away, Corcoran bolted forward, like a cheetah stalking a gazelle. Ricky lunged for the man’s legs in what would’ve been a fantastic rugby tackle.
The Vizier collapsed in a heap. He grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in Corcoran’s face. The Commander recoiled for a moment as a smirk crept over the Vizier’s countenance. The Vizier pushed himself up and took a step…only to find himself unable to move.
I must admit, dear reader, I had closed the gap and grasped the man’s ankle myself. He looked back in terror as I pulled myself toward him.
“Say goodnight, darling,” I said with a grin as I landed a punch that made my earlier assault of Bloomington seem like a pat on the nose.
“Ow! Fuck!” The man cried out. I frowned; I had expected to knock him out with that one blow, so perfectly-struck had it been. I hit him once more, only to more protestations.
Finally, a fist came out of nowhere and connected with the red-haired man’s jaw, and he crumpled to the ground, out like a light. The Commander shook his hand for a moment before he wiped his brow on the sleeve of his robe.
“That’s for the SAND IN THE FACE!” He screamed at the man as he gave him two well-placed kicks in the ribs.
Bloomington huffed his way over towards us and stomped the man awkwardly three times.
“And that’s…for almost… giving me…a FUCKING …HEART…ATTACK!”
“Well, gents, I think he’s out,” I said. “I suppose you didn’t bring any kind of restraints with you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Doc. Fresh outta cuffs. I didn’t expect to be chasing slippery little bastards all day long in the goddamned desert heat.”
“We could just wait for him to come to,” Bloomington offered.
“And then what? Replay this little scene over and over again until we somehow can restrain him? I think not,” I said.
“Come on,” Corcoran said. He already bent over to grab the man’s arms. “Let’s carry him back to the ship. You have some rope, dontcha Doc?”
“What kind of a time traveller would I be if I didn’t?” I asked, hopefully able to hide my genuine concern that I may not have rope back at the ship.
We spent most of the rest of the day into the night carting the zonked-out Vizier back to the craft. I was amazed that the man remained out for so long, to the point where I’m now almost convinced that he faked at least a portion of his unconsciousness. I suppose it didn’t help him any that Bloomington would run up to him and knee him in the head intermittently when we refused the pudgy scientist a rest break.
Thankfully, what few travellers crossed our paths acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary as these three giants carted another giant across the landscape. We arrived at the mulberry tree that marked the craft’s location when it was nearly dark. I fumbled around in the low light for the hand panel and lowered the door. Corcoran and Bloomington moved to bring the little man aboard.
“Stay here,” I held my hand up to them.
“What? Why?” Corcoran asked.
“I’m not taking any chances on letting that…that ‘thing’ aboard my time machine.”
Corcoran and Bloomington looked at each other, shrugged, and set the man up against the tree. They had long since disarmed him, but much to Bloomington’s chagrin, Corcoran still refused to give him the sidearm, and instead kept it for himself. The Commander now trained both pistols on the Vizier, eager for the slightest twitch so that he could inflict further pain upon the man.
Fortunately, I had remembered to throw some rope in the glove box and triumphantly emerged from the ship wearing a million-dollar smile on my face.
Corcoran was still all business. He grabbed the rope from me and hogtied the little bastard. When he was finished lashing him up that way, he propped him up against the tree and tied the rope around him and the tree several more times.
“I think he’s secure,” I said.
Corcoran turned to look at me, “You sure?” he asked.
I didn’t dare question the Commander, especially when in one of his moods, and instead watched him finish tying up the Vizier.
“I’ll take first watch,” Corcoran said. “Doc, you take next. Bloomy, you take third. I’ll start a fire—we all sleep out here.”
“Commander, I assure you, I have no plans to abscond with the ship in the dead of night—”
“Oh, I trust ya, Doc. It’s him,” he nodded toward the man tied to the mulberry tree, “I don’t trust. If he starts to rustle, we need all of our guns out here, ready to go.”
I nodded as gravely as I could manage given the circumstances, after which Corcoran got up and began to gather firewood.
“Watch him for a minute, will ya?” He asked.
“Sure thing,” I said. Once the Commander had created a rather impressive fire, I found a cozy spot a good distance away and drifted off to sleep. I had one of those dreams where I was falling endlessly, though I seem to remember that what I was falling through was a never-ending time travel vortex.
I was jostled awake to a beautifully clear night sky for several moments. As uncomfortable as the contact lenses may have been, especially after sleeping in them for several hours, a few blinks yielded sharp colours and the stark contrast of twinkling stars set against the night sky. The fire offered the only light pollution for miles; I was even able to make out the Pleiades and the dark violet, cloudy strip of the Milky Way.
“Your watch, Doc,” the Commander said.
“He’s still out?” I asked. I had fully expected the man to wake up at some point during the Commander’s watch
.
“Yep—or he’s fakin’. Look alive, will ya, Doc?”
I nodded and took my place seated in front of him, gun pointed toward the Vizier, whose robes were now thick and brown with sand and dirt. I had nothing with which to otherwise occupy myself, so I studied the man’s features, which were somehow younger than I expected. As such, it was all the more revolting that a young twenty-something fellow so carelessly and callously disregarded human life as when he used those unfortunate guards as little more than human obstacles to impede our progress.
More than anything, I wondered what we’d find when the man finally came to. Would he yield a new piece of the puzzle? Something to bring everything into sharp focus? Or would he just end up being another temporal tourist? A meddler, one of the stains on the timeline I had come to loathe?
I’m also ashamed to admit that the other thoughts that danced through my mind were contrary to what I had told the Commander. I was entertaining my own ego in considering whether to simply leave Corcoran and Bloomington behind to deal with this mess, to make the next jump myself and thereafter arrive safely back in my own time period. It was a primal, base instinct, one that didn’t sit well in my gut, but one that my pride demanded that I debate internally nonetheless.
If I could leave them here, I thought. Lost to history. Then I could become the great Commander Corcoran, the first to invent time travel. I didn’t know if it was the lack of sleep or time disassociation that gnawed at my sanity, but I almost rose from my perch several times before I finally realised that, handsome though I may be, certainly someone who worked on the project with Corcoran and Bloomington would recognise that I was an utter fraud, even twenty years after the ostensible “failure” of their experiment, should I return to my own time period.
As I simultaneously pondered these and several other more mundane physics concepts related to my eventual goal of developing the time travel technology further to be utilised in interstellar travel, the sun peeked over the hills in the distance. I turned to gaze at the magnificent sunrise, and when I moved to turn back to the mulberry tree, a hand grasped my shoulder.
It understandably startled me, and as I grabbed for my sidearm, I noticed that our prisoner was still lashed to the tree. I looked for the source of the hand, and found the Commander.
“Mornin’,” he said, in somewhat better spirits than the previous night. He held a mug outstretched toward me. “Earl Grey, right? Scalding hot?”
I took the mug apprehensively. “How’d you know…?”
Corcoran shrugged, “Got it off the ship last night, and cooked it up this mornin’ myself. Better be what you like—that’s all you got.” He pointed at the prisoner, “I see our little princess is still out like a light, bless his heart.”
“Didn’t move a muscle all night,” I nodded.
“Let’s change that, shalln’t we?” The last two words were said in his ever improving, mocking English accent. This time, it was even close enough to force a chuckle from my still-stiff upper lip. Corcoran grinned as he wandered over to the Vizier. “Hey…Poncho…” Corcoran raised his voice at the man.
“What?” Bloomington asked from behind a log on the other side of the fire.
“Not you, Bloomy. I’m talking to this piece of shit who made me kill an innocent man.” Still no movement from the man tied to the tree. Corcoran wasted no time; he raised the back of his hand above the man’s head and thrashed it down upon his cheek. The Vizier’s skin cracked as his eyes jumped wide awake.
“Fuck!” He yelled his familiar refrain.
“Rise and shine, asshole,” Corcoran said to the redheaded young man.
The little man narrowed his eyes momentarily at his unknown abuser. His eyes focused on Corcoran, then went wide with fear.
“Whoa…Commander Corcoran? Is that you?”
“How in the sam fuck do you know who I am?” Corcoran asked.
“The news…that famous interview…everyone thinks you’re a hero,” the Vizier’s mouth curled into a prickish little smile, “‘Cept for me of course.”
“And me?” I asked the man.
“His boyfriend?” The red-haired man laughed maniacally as I sighed at the juvenile insult. Corcoran slapped him across the face once more.
“Ow…fucker!” the red-head spat out again.
“Let’s try this again,” Corcoran said. He pulled his Baretta from its holster and trained it on the man. “Who the fuck are you, and why the hell have you time traveled back here?”
“I could ask the same of these two,” he nodded at myself and Bloomington in turn. “And why are they along with the great Commander Corcoran? Maybe you should untie me first, and then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” The red-haired man wheezed an odd, almost gargling laugh.
“I have a better idea. How ‘bout you answer every question my colleagues and I have, or I start turnin’ your legs into swiss cheese?”
“How ‘bout…fuck yourself?” the nerdy little redhead said, a bit too aloof.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Corcoran said. He casually aimed at one of the man’s legs and fired a round. Instantly, the Vizier’s tunic brightened and reddened around the wound.
“Fuck! FUUUUCK! Oh my God, oh my God!” he screamed similar obscenities for several more moments before he calmed down.
“I’m not fuckin’ around, hoss. You answer my questions…now.”
“Okay, okay! Fuck, it hurts. Do you guys have any medigel?”
“Fresh out,” Bloomington shook his head. I could tell he relished being able to play the role of the badass, assuredly an uncommon occurrence for the portly little scientist.
“We do have medical supplies, and can tend to your leg once you comply with the Commander’s wishes,” I said, fully ready to allow the little shit to bleed out.
The redhead nodded as tears began to well in his eyes. He shook them out and the green orbs returned to their beady little selves.
“My name is Skylar Osborne, but anyone who’s anyone where I’m from calls me Kayoss. With a ‘K’ and a ‘y,’ but I guess I don’t have to explain everything to you fu—” Corcoran cocked the pistol again, “—ffffine gentlemen. I’m from the year 2041. Cedar Rapids, Michigan. Now, can you please untie me?” Kayoss squirmed under his restraints.
“Why’d you come back in time?” Corcoran asked, unfazed by the question.
The man sighed with exasperation. “I have a lot of powerful friends, you know. Hacker friends that know all kinds of information about you, Commander. Information you’d never want to see the light of day.” I thought he was overplaying his hand a bit, especially given that Corcoran wasn’t exactly in a glad-handling mood.
“Dead men tell no tales,” Corcoran responded, with just the right amount of bravado.
“Kayoss” gulped. “Don’t you get it, man? The war? The Dome of the Rock?”
“We’re all quite familiar,” I nodded at my companions.
“It’s the ultimate troll!” He gargled again. His laugh really did sound like a sewer drain after a particularly nasty downpour.
“Pardon?” This time Corcoran appropriated one of my favourites.
“My buddies and I, we like getting people wound up on-line. Trying to find that one, sweet tender spot that’ll set ‘em off and jab at it a few times with insults. Get morons nice and riled up. We have our site where we coordinate our little attacks, and report back on all of the fucking idiots we’ve trolled in a given day.
“When we heard about deregulated time travel, we got our hands on enough cash through some fairly nefarious means that I’m still not at liberty to discuss,” a short gargle, “and we sat around and thought, ‘what can we do that would be the ultimate troll?’ Like, historically?
“So it came down to assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinating Kennedy, pretty much a lot of assassinations, but we aren’t the killing types, you know? I urged them to think bigger, to think what could possibly fan the flames historically, make us famous
.
“For a little while, some of us wanted to try the 9-11 thing,” I cringed with utter disgust and nearly was sick, “but that would involve killing ourselves, and how could we brag to each other if we were dead, you know?
“I knew we were on the right track, so I thought what’s the biggest fucking shitty thing we could possibly start? What could really make people angry. And, obviously, the answer is World War III. So we started planning how to blow this fucker,” he nodded toward the Dome of the Rock, “to kingdom come! But, again, suicide and whatnot—we had to scuttle it again.
“So why are you here, then?” I asked.
“He still doesn’t get it! You must be a fucking—” Corcoran pistol-whipped the scrunched-faced little man before he could finish, though this only brought a smile to the Vizier’s face. He gargled and coughed a few times before he continued. “Why go to all of the trouble of blowing the thing up, why get all of the explosives and whatnot when you can go even further back, and make sure that the building is placed in the one spot where it would be sure to start World War III?”
“You’re a fucking psychopath,” I could tell the Commander wanted to strike the man once more, but he was worried that he might knock him out.
“How did you do it?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” More gurgles. “Bring a gun back, you tower over everyone, before long I had ‘converted’ to Islam, and was one of the Caliph’s most trusted advisors. I convinced the Caliph that this was the spot where the Prophet ascended into heaven. And I mean, shit, for all I know, it was.” A broad, evil smile washed over the Vizier’s face, “though something tells me a few million more will be joining him in ‘ascending,’…oh…in thirteen hundred and fifty years or so, give or take.”
“That’s totally fucked,” Bloomington’s face was growing red. Despite his own nerdishness, it was apparent that he was far better than to lower himself to Kayoss’s level.
