The Time Tribulations

by Travis Borne

  Follow-up time was spent out and about, with her, holding hands and walking in the park, and with his friends who were all healed because of the tech he brought back. The town—especially Amanda, his ex who seemed disappointed—didn’t understand how he could have fallen for the one he’d once hated, and they never would, and Jim and Jess didn’t fart as much as a care. The remaining people of the town, Rico, Ted, Rob Price, Ron, Devon, the twins, even Amanda, who had good feelings for Jim, now, and Bertha and the lenders, shared a magnificent feast. They celebrated Jim’s speedy return, the mission success, to their health, and to Jewel City which had been repaired magnificently; it was a gleaming oasis with a colossal gate to the outside world, as well grand looping pathways that could allow anyone, anytime, to climb the wall and see the humbling, distant views—mostly Jim’s, the old Jim’s ideas. He smiled humbly at its grandeur, and them all, his friends; they were family. And they toasted with coffee or corn liquor (a stash was found in Fran’s apartment), to the plan Jim said he had, to the plan he pronounced to reveal after this one day, a single day with no work, and no talk of war. Although, he did say it was very good news for everyone in the town, as well the planet.

  She pleaded so masterfully, with love pouring from her heart. He almost ceded while she sobbed with her head on his chest later that evening, after they’d finished making love for the first time, using their human bodies, in his old room at lender housing. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it no matter how well she articulated. And Jess was a poet with words. Eventually she fell asleep in his arms. She was the only one who knew—besides Martin and Ted, who’d witnessed the direct interface with Martin in the control room while Rico was recovering in his stock-room-converted quarters—that he would be leaving soon, and of his new powers, as well, that Rafael was on his way with something very special.

  Jim no longer needed sleep, but she was exhausted. He snuck away before sunrise, pulling himself out from under her arms, then stood gazing at the nude, sleeping beauty one last time. Her cream skin was silk. He could lose himself in her blond locks—and her eyes, although shut, sent shivers deep into and beneath his skin. How lucky can I be? he thought, wishing only the best for her, grateful to have spent some time with her. Jim hoped she could, in the aftermath of what was soon to come, find a good man. He implanted the memory of her beauty in his mind, as well the sound of her delicate snoring, and her naturally salty sweet smell; with it came the rush of every memory they shared in both heaven, and the hell that came after their fall. He smiled seeing only the good, and without using his new mental power he achieved extreme objectivity.

  But he was constantly being drawn back into the new world of his new mind, so he didn’t know if it was really happening or not: he saw himself kissing her hand, then placing it gently back on the bed; she pulled her body together as if a friendly ghost had tickled her and the faintest noise came from her lips: I love you, James Derek Otts. And he fell into himself like a universe imploding; he let the subjective entrancing grace of this moment, as well her radiating aura, which he could see as if she was glowing pink and sleeping in Heaven, plow him straight into the most peaceful state of bliss he ever had the pleasure of stepping into.

  Then Jim floated out the window; he descended on the heli-jet. His orange aura was bright and he lit Jewel City as if an ember from the sun was a falling feather on fire. Touchdown.

  He got in and started the engines.

  Martin already knew of the plan as Jim disclosed much—but not all—during his sudden takeover of an interface. Using the old heli-jet, and solo just before sunup, Jim took to the sky. Defenses, while useless to stop him anyway, allowed passage and Jim soared up and away then headed due east. Not a cloud and the morning was fresh. The horizon radiated a faint pink glow; soon he played chicken with the speeeeew that was the first pulse of sunlight. The magnum opus delivered a needle of musical ballads to his eyes and he swerved the ship gracefully, east-northeast. The pink morphed the dark sky into violet and the distant ground-hugging haze became apparent as exaggerated greens and purples. The moon’s halves had 2 o’clock and were sinking under Venus; glimmering chunks of lunar rocks were sparklers working their way into the horizon. Stunning, and he wondered how he could have ever been unhappy with the world he’d been so lucky to experience; he was someone else now but realized everyone gets a pencil at birth, life is the canvas, and the drawings are up to the owner of the pencil. Some end the life with lead, and some use the pencil until it’s just a nub. The eraser at the end gets worn, some things can be fixed, erased, or tackled anew, and some can’t. Every person he’d met, every choice, and everything he could not control, were just one of the steps in this life, and all of that made him who he was.

  Jim engaged the thrusters. Then he gave the heli-jet a helping hand—just like he’d done with Jess after departing the bunker in Vallecito together. The love of his life, she had been his one and only passenger and they held each other’s hand for the entire, very short trip.

  His contentedness for all of it made him bow his head. And he took another look at the photograph on the dash. It was faded and yellowing. The sun came up, blazing his path like a desert-mirage trail to an oasis; he tinted the glass and swayed north.

  The photo wedged into a groove on the instrument panel stole his attention again: Herald and Ana, Red’s mug on the left, Maggie's slipping in on the right. Happiness exploded from four young faces, one without the signature, big, fat, red beard. Between beardless and his wife, a smile on Herald’s face was another sunrise, the grandest he could dig up from within all of his handed memories, memories he now knew were a result, more so a collateral aftereffect of the system itself, and Herald’s DNA all the way down the line.

  Jim smiled and relished Herald’s moment, employing the sphere in his head as though tightening a fist. The unlocked device made human and machine, one plus one, equal three, more so any number that could be imagined. One plus one was God. And although he felt like one, and had the power to affect the universe around him in remarkable ways, he, after all he had learned, chose to remain humble. He chose sacrifice, salvation for others, and, good over evil—just because he wanted to.

  The ship was zipping along and Jim was in a state of trance. He continued to wade through the memories in his head, triggered because of that photo—and it allowed him to push aside the coming conflict.

  Herald, he’d just handed over Archeus to the supercilious board members, those he had once so deeply despised. He slammed the heavy door that often had to be replaced because of Herald’s insanity, what others thought was just another one of his eccentricities. Herald lifted his head and, shoulders high, walking tall, made his way to the heli-jet with his lungs full of air. Although Herald knew the world would be coming to an end he was at peace with his decision; and though he didn’t completely understand it at the time, it was the only way to save a sliver of humanity.

  It wasn’t so much a sacrifice, Jim thought, but only another angle of looking at things. Herald made a choice and acted upon it, solidifying his purpose—and he didn’t look back.

  Jim wasn’t looking back either. Now, he reconstructed the bubble shield around the craft that ran faithfully like an old sled dog, and passed the outer defense ships. He took it for a loop, just for the fucking fun of it, thinking he could now do at least half as well as Amy—and he smiled a universe. His hands gripped the yoke and he pulled back, enjoying the feel of every tendon acting between every muscle and bone, and the feel of his own face as it went full blown; he was a kid again, smiling as if he actually had gotten to ride that real roller coaster.

  The battered support ships animated then arced upwards. Their talons were still magnificent. Each passed at ludicrous speed and dispatched a farewell salute: their lasers activated in a magnificent, red-light starburst display. Jim saluted in return, making the very space around him pulse and glow with every color of the visible spectrum; he smiled even brighter, thinking of the orgasm Amy had manufactured in
the beach map, and the prismatic aura that had surrounded them both as they rose into the sky—and he mimicked both it and the feeling. He selected that feeling and kept it, then straightened out and zipped along like a light pulse fired from a particle collider, between the floor-and-ceiling red carpet of laser lights the support ships were laying out into infinity. And his helping hand made the heli-jet glow.

  Bright yellow, and the tail seemed to wrap the wasteland of a world. The heli-jet stretched out with space and became as long as a mile or more, with Jim focused, purposing his memories, the bad, the morbid, the twisted and bloody, and the good, all for good—while smiling as if he was with them again, his friends, the important parts of a life: Amy, and he knew he’d see her again, just then, somehow; Jess, the articulate, fun, beautiful-inside-and-out part of his life; Rico, great friend whom with he wanted to experience more adventures; Jon, his new, as-if-they’d-always-known-each-other, best friend—and all of the others in every colorful splendor. They were his family.

  Ahead, space became distorted then opened up as if a volcano’s maw had been forced through the plastic wrap that was space-time. Like the eclipse of a phantom planet, below and left of the rising, blazing orange sun, the anomaly’s edges pulsed with lights like electrostatic branches on Herald’s white-lightning tree. Jim lowered his head and pushed forward on the yoke. The heli-jet dove into the two-dimensional black void and it closed with a blinding snap.

  111. Soul Mates

  “Is it done?” Ana asked, taking his arm. He nodded. “How do you know for sure?”

  “I can feel it. The branches on the white-lightning tree,” Herald said. They stepped out from the portal. “I can feel every choice, and the path as if seeing it consciously within my subconscious, guiding me back. Trillions of choices sprouting infinite branches, which were always in part my choice, a part of the grand plan of every anomaly who has a power to add to it.” Ana looked back through the closing portal, through the foggy edges of the tunnel and beyond the bot Herald had guided, the bot that stood frozen, dumbfounded, awakened. She gazed upon her love as he was, when he was so young. And there he stood, sprawled out like a statue at the window in his office, still frozen in time: Rab, before Herald, and only a few months before they met. She smiled.

  “And you have sealed this fate upon us.” She didn’t completely understand his role in everything—yet was beginning to. She realized from the network within her own mind, a new significance was about to be born, but she couldn’t put a finger to anything specific.

  “Yes, I suppose,” Herald continued. “I’ve fixed one of the largest fissures and now we are free. There is no longer a binding fate for us or those who should have perished on Earth in 2025. The possibility of victory, now, is completely in their hands. And, the universe has stabilized.”

  “You were sure that Q would come around, so the others could embark on their own missions, to repair their fissures?”

  “He’s crazy, not suicidal. But yes.” He looked into her eyes. “I am going to miss him and the others.”

  “Me too. We can’t go back, can we?”

  “No, but—” Leaving her side, Herald turned around as the portal closed. He glanced left at the wall of hardware still operating at maximum, then up through the glass to the pitch-dark, near starless sky. A million-year-old man moving round as slow as the second hand on a clock in a bubble of a habitat: his lab, the only one remaining. Half of the massive planet stared back at him like a gray toad’s eye peeking above the surface of a lake, its central crevasse carved as if a mountain lion had spun it on a pottery wheel before giving it the claw. He looked back to the wall of computers and slowly, with his frail body, walked toward the mainframe. “Ana…there is a little remaining. Before we—well, is there somewhere else you would like to go?” She moved her equally frail body toward him.

  They stood looking at it, the sphere housed in the middle of a wall of computing wonders, a machine between the planes. It contained an iridescent liquid in the center and only a small pool remained at its bottom, like a puddle of swirling magic. She smiled and turned her old face up to meet his—and didn’t say a word. Herald, understanding her wish, held his hand on a panel for a moment and closed his eyes. The portal reopened behind them.

  “What do you say, old man,” Ana said, “one last, teeny-weeny paradox?”

  He puffed out a chuckle. “You know, you read my mind—what the hell. Then, after, we’ll leave them and disappear, retire.” He rotated his thin, frail body around and stood as tall as an ancient man could, then lifted his elbow. She took it like a bride taking her man’s arm at the altar, and her head floated to the side, resting on his shoulder. One step toward the portal, in unison they marched gracefully, assisting one another with every step.

  The smell hit her first and she turned her head in disgust—puke, piss, and surely a recent shit blast, maybe even some bloody pads—the rush of memories went up her nose and into her brain, activating a youthful smile on her thousand-year-old face. And she turned to face Herald. “Shall we?” He nodded and they opened the stall door and walked out, exiting the disaster that was the woman’s bathroom.

  The walls shook as if there was a wrecking ball crashing into the street above. And the laser lights made her and him squint. She knew they were just in time—to witness it. Like a young girl, only wearing this skin costume of an old lady, she giggled. They stepped out of the bathroom corridor tunnel and into Club Subterranean. And there she was, bottom center.

  Her younger self was dancing with the two she’d met just a week ago—the moment that saved her life. She knew exactly what her younger self was thinking, too. This was a long time ago, and the memory of that feeling came to her as if she was a being haunted by an old ghost, one that could paralyze her. In her mind old Ana hovered over the mob of dancers, toward her young skinny self and into her body.

  “La última noche,” Ana said in her mind, while dancing with Tanya and Maria, “and it just happens to be in company of the craziest, quirkiest, goth loonies in the world.” In Spanish, and like that short evil guy turning the crank on his shock box, the nightmare of her current situation unfurled. “If Maria hadn’t cut her lip…I don’t know if I could've taken it again. He always wakes after the tequila wears off, wanting it again. Yes, this is the best way to end it, one last night out, then done, do it, Ana, get it over with. Goodbye world. So, I’ll try to be happy tonight, enjoy this. Then I won’t have to deal with him anymore. And my mom will be safe.”

  Last week was the worst, she thought, trying to smile and dance, and not think about it. I can’t go through it, not even one more time, and I don’t want to tell my foster mom what’s been happening. It’s embarrassing, my fault. I should have been strong the first time it happened. And, Rosario would feel guilty for what happened, what is still happening. She would be destroyed.

  Ana tried to be happy, relax, unwind, just dance. She tried to reel back some innocence, at least the feeling of it, a feeling she could hardly remember, the good and wonderful feeling she’d had once upon a time—before he came into her life. She tried to portray just another young woman at the club, a normal one, one who wasn’t afraid, ashamed, damaged, but she knew it wasn’t as simple as just dancing with a fake smile on her face.

  The real reason she was there, had accepted their invitation—she hadn’t told that to anyone. All because of a bottle that had broken. She left her room atop the clinic and met the two after being woken for a late-night stitching session. It was the best thing that ever could have happened to her because it gave her an excuse to get away from him.

  Lorenzo, that filthy slob. He’d been doing it for a while, sneaking into her room. Told her he’d kill her foster mom, Rosario, if Ana ever said a word. And if Ana cooperated and did every sick and twisted thing he told her to do, he’d leave the others alone too. So, Ana did do as she was told and the abuse occurred over the course of a year. Rosario didn’t know about any of it: that her man, an older, rough-looking, shor
t businessman who lived across the border, had been doing what he’d been doing. He had money and power, and Rosario loved that she had finally found someone.

  Ana danced.

  She’d snuck away for this invite, knowing that she was supposed to be there. Lorenzo was coming over. And if she wasn’t there, as he told her countless times, things wouldn’t end well for her foster mom.

  Ana was going to kill him when she returned, then herself.

  Ana returned to her old body as if she had fallen back into the top of her old head. Herald stood next to her and she looked up at him. A tear navigated its way down her dark, wrinkled cheeks. And she let the wall in her mind, the wall she had been able to create since she was a young girl, fall. Although on this plane he shouldn’t be able to read her mind—at least not clearly like the higher levels—a power she had never revealed made it possible.

  Old Herald jerked his old head back as if he was having a seizure. And below, young Ana and young Herald met eyes for the very first time. Flash! Young and old made a connection: Herald at the bar holding a beer and talking with Jon, Ana dancing with her new friends below; and the old couple standing at the edge of the dark tunnel in the back.

  “Thank you,” old Ana said, injecting old Herald with her secret memories. First came the good, her foster mom, herself working with and helping the patients…

  He never knew. He never knew she possessed a power such as his—and she had the ability to conceal her deepest thoughts in the highest-level plane. He saw that she had the power to sense grand moments on the approach, and she could veer into them just as he had done; she possessed her own unique gifts. He realized Ana was a key just like Amy was the key to escaping the coming nothing. And here, in this pivotal moment, Herald was able to see the totality of her gift, her part in the big picture. He saw it as if she’d just lent him her eyes. Her perspective on things. Everyone perceives the universe and each of its supertemporal tiers in their own unique way—she was doing her thing, just as she’d always been doing. Her part in the grand scheme. He was the gateway and she was the key to myriad secret portals branching through and beyond it in every possible direction.