“You know nothing will happen,” Hank said.
Timmy didn’t smile, but those blue eyes of his were wide and bright. Hank, finishing his sandwich, enjoyed seeing that look in his son’s eyes. That was his weakness, wasn’t it? He just couldn’t stand to disappoint them.
***
The elevator was still there an hour later, as big and out of place under the searing rays of the afternoon sun as it had been in the hazy light of morning. Sleek gray concrete, shiny blue metal, not a spot of dirt anywhere. He’d hoped maybe it had been some sort of illusion, a kind of mirror thing, and that whoever had set it up would have made it go away by now. But there it was, still waiting. Approaching it, holding the closed black umbrella aloft like a knight might hold a sword, Hank felt knots forming in his stomach.
“I’ll hit the button,” he said.
With the metal tip of the umbrella, he reached for the top oval button. He felt a little silly with the umbrella now, but it had been the handiest thing to grab. A few inches from the button, the tip of the umbrella began to tremble, a little at first, then a terrible shaking.
“Careful, Pop,” Timmy said.
“I’m being careful!” Hank snapped.
He retracted his arm, took a few snappy breaths to steady himself, then lunged forward and jabbed the button. He hit it so hard the crack of metal hitting plastic sounded like the pop of a pistol. They both flinched. The button, though, appeared undamaged. That wasn’t the most amazing thing, though.
The most amazing thing was that the button started to glow.
This was no reflection of the sun, no trick of the eye. It really was glowing—a bright, luminescent blue, an electric neon. They both stared at it in wonder.
“How?” Timmy asked.
“Part of the trick,” Hank said. “Look for a cord buried in the dirt. It’s probably around—”
He stopped short when the elevator began to rumble—at first a faint hum behind the doors, then growing louder, the groans of metal and machinery. They were just the sorts of sounds an elevator should make.
“Very funny!” Hank called out to his corn, his bravado not quite masking his fear. “Come on out now! You’ve had your fun.”
Nobody showed themselves. The rumble stopped, there was a ding, and the doors opened. Hank tensed, fearing a pie in the face maybe, but there was nothing inside except an empty elevator, and a fancy one at that: oak panels on the bottom, mirrors on top, a silver rail separating the two, and an orange and red carpet similar in the style of an Oriental rug. The top button no longer glowed.
They stared at the inside of the elevator, neither of them moving. There was no sound except for the buzz of the crickets. Then, inexplicably, the boy jumped inside.
“Hey, get out of there!” Hank cried.
“Aw, just for a second,” Timmy said. “Look! There’s buttons and stuff!”
“Don’t touch anything!”
It was too late. Timmy had already punched some of the buttons. There was a ding and the doors began to hum. Timmy looked out, startled, and Hank knew the boy was too surprised to jump out in time. So Hank jumped in to grab him, but then the doors were closing, closing fast, and Hank froze, too, not wanting to get caught in the middle of the doors when he didn’t know what would happen if he did.
They were trapped.
“Now you done it!” Hank barked, his voice booming in the enclosed space.
“Sorry,” Timmy said.
Hank glared at him, but the boy’s eyes watered and his bottom lip quivered, so Hank looked away to spare them both the embarrassment. He focused on the panel instead, shiny silver with ten buttons, three of them glowing blue. There were tiny black markings on the buttons like Chinese characters but not quite Chinese, something else. Was there one that would open the doors? He was afraid to touch anything.
It was as cool inside as the frozen food section at the grocery store. Air billowed on his head through three circular vents in the ceiling. He shivered. With the abrupt cold mixed in with the sudden churning of his stomach, he felt a wave of nausea pass over him.
“Open up!” he shouted. “If you don’t quit now, I’m calling the Sheriff!”
As if responding to his threat, the elevator rumbled. Hank felt vibrations through the floor, a jolt, then his weight pressing down on his knees. The rumble became a steady hum. Even as his heart pounded and his mouth went dry, he had to marvel at the thoroughness of their prank. By God, he really felt as if they were going up.
Timmy grabbed his hand. “Pop,” he said.
“It’s okay. They’ll let us out in a second.”
Timmy tightened his grip. Amidst the churning of the machinery, there were other sounds far more disturbing—the murmur of voices, the words indistinguishable; sharp, barking laugher like the harping of seals; loud, obnoxious music like cats trying to mewl in harmony. The sounds rose and fell just as they would if they were really in an elevator passing each floor. That was when doubt finally crept into Hank’s thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t a prank.
There was a jolt, a ding, and then sudden silence—followed by an ever so faint buzzing beyond the doors, like a hive of bees just over a hill. When the doors opened with a rush of cool air, he pulled Timmy into the corner.
The buzzing grew louder. The sight that greeted them was unlike anything Hank could have imagined. It was as if the doors had opened directly into space, a brilliant, panoramic view of millions of stars, brighter and more evanescent than any stars he had ever seen, even on the clearest, stillest nights on his farm. Even the blackness between the stars was more vivid, like shiny black silk. Off to the right, partially cut off by the edge of the elevator door, there was also the gentle curve of a green planet, so close Hank imagined this was what the Earth must have looked like from space—if the Earth had been green and oddly translucent, like a glass ball with ever-swirling vapors of gas trapped inside. The cool air rushing inside smelled faintly of sulfur.
Hank was so in awe of this spectacle that he unconsciously relaxed his grip on Timmy’s hand, not completely, but just enough that when the boy darted forward in his enthusiasm his fingers slipped free.
“Son!” he cried.
But Timmy was already out of the elevator, running across what at first seemed empty space. That’s when Hank realized that what appeared to be empty space was actually some kind of glass, solid but with perfect transparency. Heart pounding, Hank followed, one tentative step at first, then another, then bursting into a run. The green planet loomed below and to his right. Like a fool, he still clutched the damn umbrella.
Fortunately, Timmy, in his amazement, had slowed his pace to take in his surroundings, and Hank was able to quickly overtake him. The buzzing was all around them. He grabbed Timmy by the scruff of his shirt, yanking him to a stop.
“Idiot!” he shouted.
The boy looked up, and Hank would never forget the expression he saw there. It was not shame or fear or anger, not even a hint of remorse. It was something he’d seen before, but not on his youngest son’s face. On the others, yes, towards the end, but not this one. It was pity.
“What’s wrong with you?” Hank cried. “You want to die or something?”
Before Timmy could answer, something shifted around them. The space itself moved, bent, warbled, first to their right, then to their left, then in a dozen different places, like the rustling of a million curtains. The buzzing grew so loud they wouldn’t have been able to talk even if they’d wanted. It took his eye a few seconds to see the silhouettes that the shimmering forms revealed. They were people, or people-like, wearing cloaks perfectly camouflaged like the stars.
As the cloaked figures approached, their faces were revealed inside their hoods, and if they were human faces, then they were human only in the loosest sense. The skin, though pink, was impossibly smooth, like the skin of a newly painted doll. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, all the features were there, but the eyes were bigger and brighter, the nose a round little button, the mouth a tiny faint l
ine. The eyes were their most striking feature, as big as saucers and mostly filled with their luminescent irises, every color in the rainbow and each as vibrant as the stars themselves. Not green but sparkling emerald. Not gray but shiny silver. Not yellow but glimmering gold.
“Get—get back,” Hank said.
He waved the umbrella at them. Undeterred, the figures crowded in closer, the buzzing deafening. Even with their cloaks, they moved with grace, swishing side to side rather than walking, swaying in rhythm. Hank, still gripping his son, retreated a step. The cloaked figures followed. He backpedaled quickly, stumbling but catching himself before they went down. The cloaked figures picked up their pace, but steady, never hurried.
“Run!” Hank cried.
They sprinted for the elevator. It was the first time he’d turned around and the other side was just as impressive, a sweep of starry night with the glowing yellow interior of the elevator suspended in the middle of it. They ran hard and crashed inside, slamming against the oak panels. In the reflection in the mirrors, he saw the cloaked figures zooming toward the doors.
Hank spun around and stabbed at the first button on the panel with his umbrella, hitting it again and again. The cloaked figures stopped suddenly at the doors, like flies alighting on a web, first a few, then a dozen, filling every inch of space with their bright saucer eyes. The buzzing rose to a higher pitch until the doors dinged and slid closed, muting the sounds.
There was a jolt, a rumble, and the mild sensation of falling. They rode in silence except for their ragged breathing. When the doors opened, they stumbled into the bright sun, the air so hot after the coolness that it singed their throats. They crashed into the hard earth, dirt on their lips, the tall stalks of corn the only ones standing witness to their escape.
When Hank heard the distinctive ding, he scrambled to his feet in time to watch the doors close. Timmy smiled.
“Let’s do it again!” he said.
“No,” Hank said.
“Aw. It was fun!”
“We’ll bury it,” Hank said.
“What?”
“In a couple days, when it’s cooler. Dig a big hole and push it inside.”
“But Pop—”
“Don’t argue, son. Go fetch me the duct tape from the tool bench. I want to tape it up good.”
“But—”
“Do it now!”
Timmy’s blue eyes shimmered, the look they would get whenever he was going to cry, but he also glared with open defiance. Hank raised his arm as if to strike Timmy with the back of his hand and the boy flinched. Seeing this, Hank felt ashamed. He’d never struck Timmy or his brothers or any living person, for that matter, even though he’d felt like doing it a million times, never so much as raised his hand until now. The boy was all he had left and here Hank was raising his hand. What was happening to him?
Timmy peered out through cracked open eyelids. Hank let his hand fall limply to his side.
“Just do it,” he said.
He’d spoken in a whisper, a plea more than a command, and Timmy stared for a long time. Then the boy shrugged and walked toward the house. Hank watched him go, his shame melting into a kind of sadness. Something had changed between them, just as it had with his brothers. Hank could feel it.
***
They taped up the elevator just as Hank had wanted, round and round until the roll was spent, so much shiny gray tape that only a few glimpses of the blue doors could be seen. They taped it and left it there and went back to work, repairing the fence on the south hill, firing up the combine and letting her run until the old engine stopped coughing and spitting, and taking the horses out for an evening ride so they got some exercise. Then they ate some reheated spaghetti and watched game shows until bed.
In the morning, they didn’t speak of the elevator, the boy not so much sulking as working with a fierce focus. This went on for a few days. They made some small talk, a few jokes, but Hank could see that Timmy’s mind was somewhere else.
Finally, it was time to harvest the corn. They woke when it was still dark outside, a crescent moon casting its silvery light on Hank’s windowsill. He went to wake the boy and found that he wasn’t there, his bed already made, and nobody in the bathroom either. Pulse quickening, he headed downstairs and found the house silent and dark except for the oven light, the one they left on all the time and which emitted a low, distinct buzz.
Hoping Timmy had departed for the barn to get an early start, he headed for the front door.
“Pop,” Timmy called.
It came from the kitchen. Perplexed, Hank walked to the open arch, where he found the boy sitting at the table, dressed in the leather jacket his Ma had given him, one that was still roomy in the shoulders. He rested his hands on the checkered tablecloth, fingers clasped as if he had been praying, and looked up wearing a sad little smile.
“Up already, huh?” Hank said. “You’re certainly not dressed for it. You’ll roast in that jacket inside the combine.”
“I’m not going to the combine, Pop,” Timmy said.
“You’re not? Well, if you don’t want to, I guess. You been begging for the chance to drive it on your own, but I can do it again. We just got to get the corn harvested one way or—”
“Pop, I’m not harvesting the corn.”
It took a few seconds for the implications to reveal themselves, and when they did, Hank saw everything that was going to happen just the way it would happen. It was the kind of realization that only happened a few times in a man’s life, at least in his life, and always meant profound sadness and loss would follow. He swallowed.
“You went back, didn’t you?” he asked.
The boy nodded.
“Well,” Hank said.
“I been going at night,” Timmy said. “Cut the tape just the right way so you couldn’t tell unless you were right up close. I been up lots of times now. They’re real nice, Pop. I like being with them.”
“You cut the tape,” Hank said.
“I know you’re mad, Pop. But I had to do it, don’t you see? I couldn’t just let it sit there. Pop . . . Pop, don’t look at me like that. It’s okay. Don’t you see? It’s the future—way, way in the future. It’s how things are going to be.”
Feeling the weight of his years and all the toil it entailed in a way he never had, Hank slumped into the chair across from the boy. He fixed his attention on the dark window, not yet even a hint of dawn in the night sky.
“The future,” he sighed.
“It’s not so scary,” Timmy said. “You just have to get used to it a little is all.”
“I don’t want nothin’ to do with it.”
“Pop—”
“You’re going back, aren’t you?”
Reluctantly, softly, the boy said, “I have to.”
“I could make you stay. You know I could.”
“Like you made my brothers stay?”
To this, Hank had no answer. He wanted to say it was different, but he couldn’t say how. Maybe Timmy was a bit younger, but that wasn’t much of a reason, was it? If the boy wanted to go, he would go. Hank wondered if he’d been too easy on him, on all of them. He wondered if he’d been too hard. Maybe that was the problem. He needed to choose one or the other and he was forever caught between the two.
As if reading his mind, Timmy rose and placed his hand on Hank’s shoulder. “You were a good pop,” he said. “You didn’t do nothing wrong. It’s just something I gotta do.”
Hank kept his glistening eyes and trembling lips facing the window—a large window that looked out on his bounty of cornfields, the target of all his toil, the source of his sense of worth and purpose. Dawn’s first brush of crimson painted the stalks in feathery strokes of orange and red. Why could no one see the farm like he did? Timmy kept his hand on Hank’s shoulder for a while, the fingers warm, the grip firm, and when he finally let go, Hank felt so much colder than before.
“Please don’t,” he said softly.
“It won’t be forever,
” Timmy said.
“If you go—”
“Pop, don’t—”
“If you go,” Hank continued, his tone bracing, “if you go, I don’t want you coming back. You hear me? You leave—you leave and you’re not welcome here.”
Even then, Hank couldn’t look at his son. His whole face felt like hardened wax. Timmy sighed. With a last pat on Hank’s shoulder, he walked out of the room. Hank remained as still as a statue until Timmy opened the door and walked into the night, waited while the footsteps on the dirt faded into silence—waited still more, until he was sure the boy was out of earshot.
Only then, did he bury his face in his hands and let out all the sorrow he’d trapped in himself. He didn’t know what he’d do now. He was in the one place he’d always feared he’d end up, no matter how many precautions he took, no matter how much he prayed the day would never come.
Alone.
Introduction to “Radio Free Future”
Usually we cherry-pick the writer’s biography for our introductions to the stories, but the information that Steve sent us is too charming to edit. He writes, “J. Steven York once toiled in the mines of media fiction, where he wrote things like Star Trek, Conan, and Mechwarriors. Using a soupspoon and a sewing needle compass he escaped, and now writes mystery in his Panorama Beach series and the occasional sf/f story such as his Clockwork Cowboy steampunk western series. He lives on the Oregon Coast with his wife, Christina F. York, who writes mystery as Christy Fifield.”
“Radio Free Future” delves into the realm of destiny and prophecy, and examines what would happen if someone could actually see into the future.
Radio Free Future
J. Steven York
“Hey,” said the human sized tiger leaning into his field of vision, its voice muffled, “welcome back, sleepy-eyes! The voices in my head said you were about to wake up, and let me say, the voices in my head are rarely wrong.” The tiger made an exaggerated tilt of its head to the right. “Hey! Got a question for you: You know what causality is?”
Time Streams - Fiction River Smashwords Edition Page 4
