Jesus Was a Time Traveler (WATT Book 1)

by D. J. Gelner

  “Millions dead. Millions.” Corcoran shook his head.

  “I know, right! Years of war! Wall-to-wall news coverage! Famine, disease,” that smile returned to his awful little face, “In short, utter chaos.”

  Corcoran pulled out a knife and held it in front of the man.

  “You don’t scare me with your guns and knives, Commander. I know my history. The damage has already been done. What can you do to stop it? Remember, what happened, happened, right?” I reached for my sidearm; if Corcoran wasn’t going to shut this little bastard up permanently, I’d be more than happy to.

  I thought for a solid ten seconds Corcoran was about to skewer Kayoss through his right eye. Though the smart-assed little redhead shit sweated and shook a bit, the entire time his lips curled into a goading, teasing smile, almost as if daring the Commander to cut him.

  At the last moment, Corcoran relented and instead cut the ropes that bound him.

  “Ricky? What are you doing?” I asked.

  The Commander pulled Kayoss’ gun from his makeshift waistband and threw it fifteen feet away from them.

  “Take it,” Corcoran said. “I ain’t gonna shoot an unarmed, defenseless man. So take it, you sack of shit, and I’ll be happy to let you meet your maker. Though somethin’ tells me that won’t be happening unless your miserable soul was forged in the fires of hell.”

  As that evil little impish grin came over Kayoss’s face once more, it occurred to me that the “Vizier” was still doing rather well for a man who had been shot in the leg minutes before. I surveyed his wound and noticed the blood from his tunic seemingly was disappearing from the fabric, and seeped back into his body.

  “I’d be delighted to,” the agile, nerdy little fellow grabbed two handfuls of sand and cast them in the Commander’s face as he leapt toward the sidearm. Kayoss greedily seized upon the weapon, cocked it, and turned to fire at Corcoran.

  What happened next is almost like a holovid in my mind, in the sense that I remember as if it happened to someone other than me. Since my hand was already on my weapon, I pulled it from its holster and released the safety. Any tremors that I had initially experienced while brandishing the Baretta were gone; I steadied my hand and squeezed the trigger three times.

  What a perfect right triangle, was all I could think as I saw the three holes that I had formed in Kayoss’s midsection. He fell onto the ground. His body still heaved as his hand waved for the gun that now sat tantalisingly close to him. His teeth were a twisted, broad smile, his eyes wide with fury as he slowly dragged himself toward the gun.

  I was frozen by fear, paralyzed that I had actually shot another human being, as despicable as he may be. As Kayoss reached his goal, I thought that he was about to exact his revenge upon me for my display of “bravery,” however misconstrued it may have been, only moments before.

  Kayoss’s hand brushed the metal of the gun. I was utterly powerless, so helpless despite my inherent advantage.

  Suddenly, a large boot crashed down on Kayoss’s hand.

  “Eh, eh, eh,” it was Bloomington. He wagged a finger at the red-haired troll.

  A gun appeared beside Kayoss’s head, held by a dusty hand.

  “Go to hell,” Corcoran spat the words at the troll as he pulled the trigger.

  Twice.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I fell to my knees in the sun-baked sand, utterly in shock. As my shins hit the ground, my hand involuntarily relaxed and my gun tumbled perhaps three feet away from my body.

  “Yeah! Regenerate that, motherfucker!” Bloomington yelled.

  Corcoran engaged the safety on his firearm and re-holstered it. My face must have been a mess of shock and incredulousness, as Corcoran took one look at me and jogged over.

  He placed a firm hand on my shoulder.

  “Thanks Doc. You saved my life, and for that, I’ll owe ya’ one forever.”

  I was still frozen with fear as a million emotions scattered through the prism of my mind. Relief at having the wherewithal to respond to a threat so quickly, horror at having taken another human life, shock at exactly how the scene had unfolded, and curiosity that I had experienced the proverbial “out of body experience,” especially at such a crucial juncture in my life. There was something deeper and darker present, though. A feeling that I couldn’t yet put my finger on, yet somehow rung my soul like a gong. It shifted my insides around to my core.

  “Look,” Corcoran knelt down so that his eyes were at my level, “you did what you had to do, Doc. Nobody’s gonna blame you for that. I know, you’re probably a swirl of emotions right now. None of ‘em probably feel very good. Just remember: I killed him. Not you. This one’s on me. Now, that’s not to say that you didn’t put one hell of a pattern into the little prick, but—”

  I shook my head, “No. It’s on me. And that’s okay. What is a bit troublesome, though, isn’t that I feel guilty for having killed this person. Rather it’s that I don’t.” I distinctly remember that the words came out almost as if I was a robot, emotionless and matter-of-fact.

  Corcoran nodded, “And that’s fine, too. He was an awful person—one of the worst imaginable. Just…just a…” Corcoran searched for the proper word for a moment, “…a jerk. I’ve killed plenty of bad people in my day. And plenty of good ones, too. Sometimes, there’s one who’s so deplorable that you don’t think twice about it at the time.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “At the time?”

  “Oh…” I imagine that he was considering whether to tell me about the horrible nightmares that I’d soon experience, though truth be told (and as will soon become clear), I’m not certain if this was the event that triggered them. “Well…it’s like this.” He launched into a five minute diatribe about knocking over peoples’ houses to build a road, and how it’s necessary, but thoroughly distasteful. It was a screed that I found neither particularly helpful nor pertinent to my current circumstances, but I nodded along nonetheless.

  “Got it?” Corcoran asked.

  “Thank you,” I mustered a weak smile, “That was very helpful.”

  “All right, if you two are done with your little therapy session,” Bloomington predictably butted in, “We should be ready to jump again, right?”

  I thought for a moment before I nodded my head.

  “Then let’s get the hell outta here and make the second-to-last jump already…well, third-to-last for the Commander and me, I guess.”

  I was about to interrupt Bloomington to correct him before I realised that he was absolutely correct. This time period had proven so physically and mentally taxing that I had forgotten that we were nearing the end of our journey.

  As much as I had come to respect the Commander (and, grudgingly, to a much lesser extent, Bloomington), the maelstrom of emotions inside my head was cast aside for a moment as the relief of being so close to accomplishing our checklist of tasks washed over me. For wasn’t that bloody list the chief engine of all of our troubles and sorrows? Wasn’t this little game the source of so many tears? I would be happy to cast it off like the heavy paper shackles that it had become.

  And I was eager to meet my Benefactor once more to show him just how awful the whole experience had been.

  I must admit, my fantasies grew darker with each new terrible experience I was forced to endure. Initially, I hoped only to bend the Old Bird’s ear a bit, give him a proper tongue-lashing for the awfulness for which he had been the architect.

  But as I was pushed further and further away from my baseline sanity, either through these errands or as a side-effect of the time jumps themselves, I began to entertain scenarios where I’d pummel the old codger, or even return to that dark, out-of-body place psychologically where I could use my firearm against my Benefactor, and send him straight to hell to commiserate with Kayoss and the other odious time travellers that he had likely minted.

  Despite all of these thoughts, I opened my mouth and was only able to utter two wor
ds, with a nod:

  “Quite right.”

  “Somebody give me a hand with the body?” Corcoran asked.

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “The body? We can’t really just leave him here.” Corcoran said.

  “Of course. I’ll ready the on-board morgue.” I said.

  “The ship has a morgue?” Bloomington asked.

  “No, you dolt! Of course not!” I felt bad as I lashed out at the portly little scientist, but it was good to have a pressure valve for my emotions at the moment. “I’ll tell you this: that…that ‘thing’ certainly isn’t coming aboard my ship.”

  Corcoran nodded, as if he understood what I was going through. He casually squatted down over a patch of earth next to the body and scooped out several handfuls of dirt.

  “Shallow grave by the mulberry tree it is, then.” Ricky said.

  I felt bad for the Commander and soon joined him in this endeavor. Thankfully, Bloomington put what little social awareness he had at all into the task, as well, and we had the man buried within the hour.

  “All right,” Corcoran said. He dusted off his hands and wiped his brow, “I need a shower.” He sauntered toward the gangway (which was still open, since I hated finding that hand panel without the aid of my smart spectacles), and boarded the ship, with Bloomington and myself close behind.

  We took our turns cleaning up in the head and dressed in the comfortable, casual eighties clothing that Burnham had so graciously provided us. I must admit, before the trip, I was a “khakis and corduroys” fellow, but those denim jeans were actually rather comfortable and familiar, especially after I wore them several times, and especially compared to the coterie of near-dresses and horrific pantaloons to which we had been subjected.

  As I toweled off my hair, I realised that I had forgotten to shave for…what had it been? Several days now? Regardless, the stubble was beginning to assert itself over the usually clean lines of my face, and though it may have been prudent to keep such a growth around for our little jaunt into ancient Jerusalem, I decided the better of keeping such an anachronistic fashion choice around for our jump to…where was it again? Somewhere far more modern, I was sure, but I double-checked the image in my tablet for peace of mind.

  “6-2-1943: Paris: Seek out VS”

  Of course! World War II-era France.

  Perhaps we’ll have to take out an Allied convoy of medical supplies, or firebomb a church full of schoolchildren, I thought. Forgive me for such macabre attempts at gallows humour, dear reader, but I was becoming sick of the negative images and experiences associated with time travel. Oddly enough, the only truly positive experience I had enjoyed was visiting with Burnham, who had proven to be a fraud and flim-flam artist of the highest aptitude, though, to be fair, my fond memories of the period may have had more to do with my rendezvous with Cynthia than any philanthropy on the part of that drug-addled con man.

  At any rate, my suspicions about shaving were proven correct: as unhygienic as I may claim the French are from time-to-time, anything more than one of those dainty whisps of a mustache would have seemed dreadfully out of place.

  Adding to my dilemma was the fact that I usually maintained a strict ritual with regard to my own personal care: always shave first, shower second. For whatever reason, it felt “cleaner” to me, as if I could wash away whatever scum the various shave-gels (hasn’t been much innovation in that regard since your own time, save from the various razor companies adding ever more blades to their cartridges, I’m afraid) left behind.

  As I approached the head, I weighed the various benefits of shaving, then washing my face to remove that abhorrent residue, or taking another shower, whatever Bloomington and Corcoran may have thought be damned, when I heard my two companions in the midst of a heated conversation through the door of the quarters directly opposite the W.C.

  I immediately damned my obsession with soundproofing (so as the better to blunt my sleep-crippling hyper vigilance) as all I could hear were the raised tones of Bloomington and Corcoran’s voices from the far side of the room. I pressed my ear up against the door and made out little more of the conversation, though I heard a pointed “wrong!” at some point by Bloomington, and a “Fine!” from Corcoran.

  I heard the Commander’s voice more distinctively through the door as he approached.

  “Do whatever you want, I don’t care…Specialist…” it was the first time I had heard Corcoran allude to Bloomington’s lower rank in days.

  More pressing, though, was the need to extricate myself from this rather compromising situation before Corcoran opened the door. Thinking quickly, I dropped the only thing in my hand, the shaving cream, on the floor toward the head and fell to my knees.

  Corcoran opened the door as I pawed for the “dropped” bottle of shave gel. He shook his head and frowned.

  “What’s your problem now?” Corcoran asked.

  “I just dropped the shave gel,” I said in my most non-threatening tone possible.

  Corcoran uncharacteristically threw his hands up, “Isn’t anybody not a fuckup on this spaceship anymore?”

  I looked at the Commander, as even keeled as possible, “It’s a time machine.”

  “What?”

  “Not a spaceship. A time machine.”

  “But…we go into space to make the—” Corcoran grabbed his hair and pulled it with exasperation before he shook his head and took a deep breath. “Never mind. I’m sorry, Doc. But have you ever been in a situation where someone was tellin’ you what to do, and you didn’t want to do it, but somethin’ outside of your control was practically forcing you to?”

  “You mean like the past week-and-a-half?” I deadpanned.

  Corcoran finally offered a grin, “Somethin’ like that. Well, Bloomy and I are havin’ a bit of a disagreement.”

  “Anything I can—” help you with? I completed the thought in my head.

  Corcoran cut me off, “‘Fraid not. Mission stuff, the…” he took another deep breath and sighed, “…log entries I’ve been makin’. Bloomy wants me to make some changes that I don’t want to, but I practically have to if I’m gonna adhere to our orders.”

  “And you’re worried that these…changes…will have a negative impact on you and your superiors’ opinions of your performance.”

  Corcoran’s drew his lips taut and wide as he nodded, “Exactly.”

  My astute powers of deduction were able to reason that perhaps this little argument had something to do with me, and my inclusion in the reports that Corcoran would eventually turn in. Why else would they have had such a meeting in the privacy of their cabin, away from my prying ears? Combined with Corcoran’s promise to me to put me in his report, I figured that Bloomington was being a wet blanket about mentioning my involvement at all, sticking to the rules and regulations and whatnot.

  I sensed an opening and decided to plead my case, “Well, you are the Commander, aren’t you?”

  “Sure am.”

  “So don’t you ultimately have some kind of…discretion…to include and exclude what you wish?”

  Corcoran shook his head, “If only it was that simple. Sorry Doc, ‘fraid I can’t tell you anymore. It’s just…” he looked up for a moment before he leveled his eyes with mine, “Some things just are out of our control sometimes.”

  I nodded gravely. “Well Commander, I understand completely. Control is a funny thing, you know. One minute you’re cruising through time, thinking all of history is your oyster, ready to be explored. Then you find out you’re not in a time machine, a ‘spaceship,’” I nodded at him and received a hint of a smile for my trouble, “but rather on the most diabolical railroad of all time, forced to traverse a track you never wanted to and see terrible, awful things that question your faith in humanity.”

  “That’s—wow, Doc,” Corcoran’s eyes grew wide with astonishment, “So what do you do? How do you cope?”

  “Scotch,” I grinned. “Whisky. And hope. Hope that I can someday get back home. And hope that I�
��we—get all of the proper credit we deserve.”

  I believe it was at this moment that Corcoran saw through my little ruse and allowed himself a soft chuckle.

  “Well, if you’re offerin’, I’ll drink to that!”

  It had been far too long since my last draught of the Macallan eighteen year, and I needed no further prompting to grab a couple of glasses and pour two neat splashes into them.

  I heard the tell-tale “whoosh” of the bunk door opening, “Doc’s fixin’ drinks if you want one.” From the bar, I couldn’t make out Bloomington’s reply.

  “Aw, come on—let’s live a little. Couldn’t ya’ use one after dealing with that bastard outside?” the Commander asked.

  This sentiment must have proven agreeable to Bloomington, who waddled out of the room. He took the bottle out of my hand, looked at me with suspicious eyes, and poured himself a glassful before he took it down in several gulps, and retreated to the bunk once more in a huff.

  “I thought I was having a bad day,” I said. The Commander and I shared a laugh over the sentiment; though it was true, there was something ominous about the look that Bloomington had given me. Though I would normally attribute such a characteristic to his lack of social graces, there appeared to be something behind the glare, though I couldn’t put my finger on it as of yet.

  I tipped the glass and took down the (rather healthy) swallow. I savored the flavors of caramel and the waft of smoke as the warm liquid passed my gullet. I ambled over to the control panel and, as had become customary, plugged in the coordinates for my time as well as Bloomington and Corcoran’s. Neither percentage displayed warrants a mention so infinitesimally small were they.

  I raised my eyebrows knowingly at the console before I dialed in the proffered coordinates. The also-familiar “99.9%” flashed on the screen, along with the red “engage icon.”

  “Everyone ready?” I called to the back of the ship, remembering how I had apparently “startled” Bloomington previously as he shaved, despite any discernible sensation of motion within the craft as it moved.