Class Fives: Origins

by Jon H. Thompson

  The police cruiser was parked directly across from the gate that separated the garage from the street.

  Suddenly the door of the cruiser opened and that same cop stepped out of it.

  Panic seized him and he felt almost paralyzed. How long had the cop been waiting before he had come up? John had felt himself toppling almost level, to the very far edge of his endurance before his instincts had yanked him back, ending the backward fall. It had to be close to ten minutes. But the cop had waited. The cop knew.

  “John, it’s Dan Sinski,” the cop was saying as he crossed the street. In his wake, circling the vehicle, John could see a second cop, his hand resting on the butt of the gun at his hip.

  “John, you called me last night, do you remember? I just wanted to talk to you. You’re not in any trouble.”

  John moved quickly over next to one of the massive pillars that supported the heavy building above him, and pressed his back tightly against it. It was a relatively safe location, unless at the instant he landed some idiot was ramming it during a rotten attempt at parking.

  He closed his eyes and jumped again.

  A moment later he was turning to grip the pillar to keep from toppling over.

  Too soon, he told himself. Every time he jumped so soon after a prior jump it always resulted in a sudden rush of vertigo and nausea, exactly like now.

  But in this case he’d had no choice. And he had to extend his range because the cop knew.

  After a moment his sense of balance began to steady, and he managed to look up through the gate.

  The cruiser was still there. Or already there. And although they hadn’t seen him yet, hidden as he currently was in the deep shadows of the space, if their attention was directed toward him any movement would catch their eye.

  And he couldn’t jump again. Not for a while. Because if he did he’d land as nothing but a retching, spasming mess, unable even to stand up.

  Shit, shit, shit, he thought. The cop knows. And what was that he said about calling him the night before? Is that why he’d awakened this morning to find that card the cop had given him sitting on the end table next to the sofa? And what the Hell did I say, he wondered?

  He took a further moment to gather himself, letting his roiling stomach settle, then straightened, drew in a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows toward the door to the interior of the building.

  Seated in the cruiser, Jim perked up, seeing the motion.

  “There’s somebody in the garage,” he said sharply, causing Dan to turn and peer across the street.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  John met them at the front door of the building, flipping the latch and pushing it open to allow them entrance.

  “Come on in,” he said, his voice tired.

  Upstairs, he ushered them into his small apartment and moved to fetch himself a drink of water. He always felt dehydrated after a jump, as if he was somehow losing water in some way.

  “How did you know?” he said quietly as he lifted the glass of tap water to his lips.

  “You sort of told me,” the one named Dan, the one that had questioned him the other day responded.

  John set the empty glass on the counter and glanced over at where the cop stood, between the small aisle that was the kitchen and the short hallway to the apartment door.

  “I really called you?” John asked.

  “Yes, you did. But you were pretty drunk.”

  John nodded, considering this.

  “Sounds about right,” he said quietly. “Ok, so why don’t you tell me what you want?”

  Dan shot a glance toward the large room that was John’s temporary home.

  “Can we at least sit down?” he asked, hopefully.

  Ten minutes later they were still seated, Dan leaning forward, attempting to process everything John had told him, Jim pushed way back in the hard-backed chair as if to maximize the space between himself and where John slouched on the sofa.

  It really was totally insane, Dan told himself. Completely impossible. So why was he feeling so excited for just having heard it?

  “So, let me see if I get this,” he said, organizing the information he had just gathered. “You can jump backwards in time, but it’s limited. Only ten minutes at most, right?”

  John nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  “And when you arrive in the past, you arrive in exactly the same physical place you took off from. You don’t go back to where you were originally… before you jumped… at that time.”

  “I don’t change location, no.”

  “So what happens,” Dan asked, still puzzled, “To that time in between? The time you jumped over. Does that stay the same except for you?”

  John gave a weak shrug.

  “I don’t know what happens to it. I think it just… goes away.”

  “Goes away,” Dan repeated. “For whom? For everybody?”

  “I guess. I don’t know.”

  “So if some guy in China, say, gets hit by a car a couple seconds before you jump, and you arrive ten minutes earlier, then that guy hasn’t been hit by the car yet? In China?”

  John raised his eyes to stare at Dan.

  “I don’t know anybody in China. Do you? Does it matter?”

  “I’m just trying to get a grip on how it works.”

  John leaned suddenly forwards, his eyes flaring.

  “I don’t know how it works. It just works. If I want to go back, I just tell myself to go back, and then I’m back. That’s it.”

  “What’s it feel like? I mean, can you tell it’s happening?”

  “Oh yeah,” John replied with bitter amusement. “I know.”

  “So what’s it feel like?”

  “Like falling backwards.”

  “And how do you know how far you’re going?”

  “By the angle. Flat on my back is about ten minutes. Any time before that is less, depending on how far it feels like I’m angled. I just have to guess, but I got a pretty good sense of it by now.”

  “And you can pull right out of it, at will.”

  “That’s right.”

  Dan leaned back to ponder this a long moment.

  “You know,” John said, “I could undo this conversation if I wanted to. Just make it like it never happened.”

  Dan shot a glance at his watch.

  “Not the whole thing. We’ve been sitting here for twelve minutes now. You’d be just about getting to the good part.”

  John sighed and leaned back, raising an arm to drape it over his eyes.

  “I’ve got a wicked headache.”

  “I don’t wonder,” Dan said gently. “You were pretty drunk when you called me.”

  “Why do you think I did that?”

  “I think because you originally planned to just talk a couple minutes, find out what you wanted to find out, then you would jump back and the call never would have happened.”

  “Instead I passed out.”

  “You passed out.”

  “So what was I asking you about, anyway?”

  “You wanted to ask if I thought what you’d done at the liquor store was wrong.”

  “And?”

  “No, I don’t think it was. That would be really hard to explain to people, but if I knew there was going to be a murder, and I knew there was no way I’d ever be able to convince anyone of that fact, I’d do it, too.”

  “Why?”

  “To stop a murder? That just shows your values are in the right place. And you did it, despite the fact you thought you’d probably have a mess after you did it. Or undid it. Whatever. So, yes, John, I think it was a good thing that you did.”

  “Me, too,” Jim added quietly. “Fuck Morales. He’s a dirtbag.”

  “So,” John said, “What now?”

  “Now?” Dan responded. “Now nothing. We talked, that’s all I wanted to do.”

  John nodded gravely.

  “And the whole assault thing?”

  “Oh, that case is close
d already. I think Morales was enough to put it to bed. Who did it is going to stay just a question mark. Not worth the resources to track down.”

  John looked back and forth between the two cops, then raised a hand and rubbed it over his face.

  “I feel like shit.”

  “You want us to call someone?” Dan asked, suddenly tensing.

  “No,” John replied, “It’s just doing it with a hangover is a real kick in the head, that’s all. And I did it twice in a row. That always sucks, big time.”

  Dan relaxed slightly as John pulled himself together, straightening a bit.

  “So we done?”

  “Yes, we’re done. And thank you. I just wanted to verify something that had been gnawing at me. And you’ve done that. So thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” John said, rising and prompting both officers to mimic the move.

  “And if you ever feel like talking, about anything,” Dan said, “You have my card.”

  “Right,” John said, glancing down to where the rumpled rectangle of paper sat on the table.

  Dan tried to come up with something suitable to say, some kind of perfect statement to cap the mind-bending moment that was ending, but just couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t sound stupid or meaningless.

  “Okay, then,” he finally said and turned toward the door.

  “Hey,” John said, following the officers to the door, “Let me ask you something.”

  Dan stopped and turned back to him.

  “Did you really sit outside there for a half hour, because you really thought I could jump backwards in time? I mean did you really believe it, or were you just… I don’t know… covering your bases?”

  Dan considered this a moment before smiling.

  “A bit of both, I guess. I was hoping – “

  “Hoping what?” John prompted. “That it was for real? That I could really do it?”

  Dan pondered and slowly nodded.

  “I guess so.”

  “Well, I guess that’s good, then,” John concluded. “That you got your curiosity satisfied.”

  “I suppose it is,” Dan replied simply.

  “And of course you know,” John added as they began moving toward the door once more, “That if you try to do anything about this, tell a bunch of people or anything, I’m not going to like it. And I’m going to do something about it. I don’t know what, but something. You get that, right?”

  Dan stopped, hand on the doorknob, and turned to regard him.

  “Yes, John, I know. I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

  John smiled, almost bitterly.

  “I don’t really trust anybody.”

  Dan nodded slowly.

  “I can see that,” he said simply, turned the knob and opened the door.

  Closing it behind them, John deliberately threw the lock and turned to look at the kitchen counter. Was there any more of that bottle from last night left, he wondered? He certainly could use a good stiff one right about now. Maybe two.

  Dan preceded Jim out the front door of the apartment building and moved across the street toward the cruiser. Both men were lost in their own thoughts, trying to organize what they had only recently known was true about the universe and attempting to make these new puzzle pieces fit in some way, without having to bang them in place with a hammer.

  Neither noticed the nondescript black car parked far down the block, nor the man in the passenger’s seat holding the binoculars to his eyes.

  “Time,” Jones said, giving the little wheel between the long lenses a tiny turn and bringing the two distant men into even sharper focus.

  “Eighteen minutes nine seconds,” White replied, glancing at his watch, which had been tallying up the microseconds since the two officers had first exited the vehicle and approached the building.

  “Nature of the anomaly?” Jones inquired.

  “Unspecified. Further data is required.”

  Jones lowered the binoculars as the cruiser began to pull away from the curb and toward the end of the block ahead.

  “Interrogate?” White asked.

  “Not yet. Resume surveillance of the witness. But record for later action.”

  White nodded and reached into his pocket, extracting the small cell phone. He punched the single number with which it had been programmed, and heard a single ring before a connection was made.

  “Crawford.”

  “Identify,” said the soothing female voice.

  “White.”

  “One moment.”

  The line clicked off for the space of two breaths before it clicked to life once more.

  “Crawford.”

  “This is White. We may have a second anomaly. Inconclusive at this time.”

  “Explain,” Crawford said.

  “Post-questioning surveillance of the officer witness resulted in a visit to a different party than the suspected anomaly. Identity of the subject most likely John Kleinschmidt, unemployed, thirty-five years of age. Recently questioned by the officer witness in connection with an unrelated case.”

  “Go on.”

  “Other case also has questionable elements, including the statement of the victim, a liquor store clerk. He reports Samaritan neutralizing a potential armed robbery suspect upon entry to the place of business, prior to any indication of a criminal intent.”

  “How is that an anomaly?” Crawford asked.

  “Victim also states seeing the Samaritan make unexplained physical displacement just prior to the event.”

  “Very well. Note and follow up. But for now, concentrate on the accident. Find the Samaritan.”

  “Understood.”

  White flipped the phone closed and leaned to rotate the key in the ignition.

  The cruiser was just pulling away into traffic at the far end of the block. It would be easy to reacquire upon mirroring the turn.

  White cast a flat, blank glance at the apartment building as the vehicle slid by it.

  Somewhere inside, he wondered if there was anything there worth looking for.

  A few moments later they, too, had turned into traffic.

  6

  Security

  “It’s a great honor to meet you,” Marvin said, feeling a bit overwhelmed, even as he leaned forward to extend his hand and the other physicist shook it.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” Vernon responded, casting a quick glance around the office, searching for a surface he could offer as a seat that wasn’t piled with papers, but failing to find one.

  Normally he was the only one who ever spent any time here, so he’d removed much of the furniture in order to give him the space to bring in the extra rolling blackboards in case the ones that occupied most of the wall space wound up too full to take another calculation.

  He never erased them. They contained every significant concept that had popped into his head for the last several years, always awaiting him, always there for his eye to fall over when he pondered some other seemingly unrelated idea, which might suddenly trigger yet another new thought. And when they needed correction, it merely took the swipe of a sleeve over the chalk to clear the exact space he required.

  “Listen, why don’t we go get some coffee or something,” he said, “You can tell me what this is about.”

  “Sure,” Marvin replied, “Whatever you want.”

  Vernon hustled around the cluttered desk, pulled open the drawer and began to rummage.

  “So, you saw my lecture? At the conference?” he said, distractedly.

  “Actually, no,” Marvin said, a bit embarrassed, “A friend of mine, my old professor, he saw it, thought it might relate to some work I’m doing myself.”

  Vernon nodded absently, but seemed to locate what he was seeking in the drawer and extracted a small, dark object which he rammed into the pocket of his rumpled trousers and raised his head to shoot Marvin a wide smile.

  “Shall we go?”

  As they walked down the hall and left the building on their way to the s
mall café tucked in the far corner of the campus, Marvin outlined his conversation with Professor Manstein, and Vernon gave a quick summary of his concept of the layers of the universe.

  But when Marvin mentioned his need to probe Vernon’s thoughts about finding a way to detect Dark Matter, the resident physicist jerked to a halt in the middle of the walkway, his body stiffening.

  Marvin stopped and whirled, surprised.

  “What?” he said, suddenly concerned.

  Vernon stared at him, his eyes slowly clouded with suspicion.

  “Why do you want to detect Dark Matter?”

  Marvin hesitated, glancing around, not really sure how to respond, then fixed his attention back on the other physicist.

  “Something happened,” he said, simply. “And I need to know why, and if it could happen again.”

  “What?” Vernon choked, tensely.

  Marvin’s face screwed up for a moment.

  “I’m not really supposed to say.”

  Vernon seemed to consider this, then took a step toward the other man and rooted himself, lifting his head to stare seriously into Marvin’s face.

  “Look,” he said, rapidly but with a tone of deep reason, “I cannot work in an atmosphere where any concept or any data which supports or clarifies that concept is withheld. Now I have just about the highest security clearance anyone who isn’t qualified to push a nuclear launch button can get. I need one because of my work. Now if you want my help, you’re going to have to trust me and tell me what I need to know to help you. All right?”

  Marvin felt an uncomfortable sensation settle on him. He had to try and solve what had caused the displacement of the asteroids, but he was confined within the security rules. He sighed.

  “I work on Deep Look,” he said flatly.

  Vernon’s eyes flared a moment before falling back to puzzled curiosity.

  “The near Earth orbit tracking system?”

  Marvin’s face contorted with a kind of internal pain.

  “It’s a bit more than that,” he said. He had one last moment on the nearside of the security breach, then took a deep mental breath and stepped over it.

  “The primary purpose of Deep Look is to track all celestial objects within the plane of the solar system, not just near Earth.”