by Turner, Ivan
Rogers stayed away from me until the seventh. That morning, he came to sit with me at breakfast.
“That man don’t mean to do you no good,” he said to me over a plate full of eggs and toast.
“I know,” I told him. “But I need to do my part to help find a cure.”
“A cure? Man, they ain’t trying to find no cure.”
He had this gleam in his eye and at that moment I was a little afraid of him.
“Little Mat, they see themselves a weapon here. All they needs is to go backwards.”
“How will that help them?”
“Think it through, man. They can sneak into any place, grab what they want and then get it back ‘fore anyone knows it’s gone. Governments would kill for that.”
Indeed, according to what Igor had told me, our government already had.
“There ain’t gonna be no cure,” Rogers repeated. “This thing just grabs hold and robs you of everything you’re supposed to be.”
I didn’t understand what he meant and I told him so.
In his own vernacular, which was a mixture of the slang used by slaves, the slang used by railroad workers, and the slang of the seventies, Rogers began to explain to me how he had been born for greatness. When preaching as he was doing then, he sometimes lapsed into incomprehensibility, but I was able to glean that he thought it had been his destiny to free his people from slavery. His early jumps had made it impossible for him to organize while the later ones had taken him past the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement. All that he was destined for had gone up in smoke with the advent of equality. It was the first time Rogers had ever evidenced any dissatisfaction with his life. Another man might have been ecstatic at having been spared the long life of a slave, but not Rogers. He was so sure that his place was at the head of that fight. He was a hero denied his heroism.
“Maybe you’ll find your way later on,” I suggested.
He made a sound of disdain through pursed lips. “Later on, I’ll be dead. There ain’t nothin’ to fight for in this world and I ain’t never gonna see the next. Hell, I ain’t jumped in close to eleven years.”
At this I nearly dropped my juice. Was he serious or was this just another of Rogers Clinton’s yarns? There was no way to be sure just by talking to him, but the notion of it was so enticing that I began to question him furiously. I thought that I would give up the remainder of my life afterward to have eleven years with Jennie. I begged him to help me, to tell me how he had managed to control the affliction, but he dismissed me with a wave and that sound again.
“Man, I am just too bored to jump,” was the only explanation I could get from him.
Breakfast then became an extremely irritating affair during which he consumed his eggs and toast and I contemplated ways to broach the subject from a different angle. Ultimately, though, Rogers finished eating, burped loudly, and bid me good day. I sat there for a while, playing around with my food and feeling sour when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone had just passed beyond the doors of the cafeteria and in a hurry.
Curious, and eager to take my mind off of time jumping and Rogers Clinton, I stood, leaving my dirty dishes, and stepped out into the hall. I caught a glimpse of someone at the end of the corridor, making a quick turn and moving hurriedly away. If it weren’t for the graceless gait and shock of blonde hair, I would never have known it was Wil. There was something cradled in his arms and I could have sworn it was a rifle.
“Something amiss there, Mathew.”
I glanced over to find Neville at my shoulder.
“They’ve been running around like that all morning. No one’s saying a word.”
We discussed it briefly (or, rather, he bounced ideas off of me and I dutifully listened to them) before he suggested we check the internet. So that’s what we did. We didn’t go to the library but instead chose to seek out Awen Mohammed.
As it turned out, Mohammed was not a writer, but a computer programmer. Neville had discovered this during his very brief conversation with the man. In fact, he confided in me that his sole purpose in approaching Mohammed was to get a look at what was on screen at the time. Though Neville knew nothing of computers beyond the use of them, he could recognize computer code when he saw it.
As we sat down near Mohammed, he passed me a bland look and Neville a bitter one. There was no love lost there despite such a brief encounter. I suppose it was possible that Mohammed had divined Neville’s ulterior motive and held it against him. Either way, Neville was not to be put off. After a couple of false starts, he got right to the heart of the matter. He wanted to get some real news about the world which meant he needed to get past the securities put into place on our internet connection. Mohammed considered him for a long time, his fingers poised over his keyboard, his unblinking eyes locked on the Scottish pilot.
“You will join me in my room,” he said finally. Then he looked over at me. “You are Mathew Cristian. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
I smiled in spite of myself, flattered by the simple genuineness of the statement.
He shut down his laptop and we walked together through the complex and to his room. We passed some of the other personnel on the way and noted the tense looks in their eyes. Wil also appeared briefly. He wasn’t carrying anything this time, but his easy smile had gone and he refused to look me in the eye.
“Something wrong, mate?” Neville asked him.
“Nothing,” he answered, the life gone from his country boy accent. “Just tired. Busy, you know.”
“I know,” Neville replied. “Keep it real, then.”
He ushered us away, but I glanced back at Wil, noting the slope of his posture and the lackluster look in his eyes. I was suddenly afraid.
Mohammed’s room was spotless and we were extremely surprised to find Samantha Radish there upon entering. The morning was wearing on and she had obviously slept late and was just coming out of the shower. Why she had slept in Mohammed’s room as opposed to her own was obvious. Despite my initial shock, I quickly adjusted and lost interest. Neville tipped her his imaginary hat and went right to the computer.
Mohammed pulled a chip from a drawer and inserted it into the slot. The familiar file screen popped up and he navigated through the directories and ran a specific file.
“You will now be able to access any web site you wish,” he said. “Please be quick. If the program runs for too long, it may be noticed.”
This was a warning Neville took seriously and he began to explore. Samantha retreated back into the bathroom to dress but came out with questions. Mohammed didn’t have many answers for her so I filled in the details as Neville typed and clicked and clicked and typed. Finally he looked up, but his grin was lopsided and strained.
“Listen to this,” he said. “’Government sources have released rumors of secret installations where there have been experiments in time travel. It has been reported that a number of individuals have been given the power to leap forward in time. While no definite reason for the experiments has been released, it has been speculated that companies and, possibly, foreign powers are working to create super spies.’
“Well, that’s it then,” he said.
“That’s what?” Samantha Radish asked.
“And do you think they are preparing to fight?” Mohammed asked.
Neville nodded. “Without a doubt, mate. The question is who are they going to fight?”
Rogers Clinton’s words hung in the air before me. That man don’t mean to do you no good, he had said about Igor. They see themselves a weapon. And yet Igor had warned me about the government. Government agents had murdered Morty. Government agents had murdered Dr. Mason. That is, those things had happened if Igor was telling the truth.
Mohammed was starting to look panicked. “What can we do?”
Neville reclined in the chair a moment and thought things through. The thing about him was that he was a natural leader. As the rest of us began to sweat and fea
r the future, Neville seemed to grow more calm and more confident. He rubbed his chin in a way that suggested cockiness. He wasn’t considering a plan that might mean the difference between life and death. He was mulling over a difficult clue from a crossword. He was selecting a pastry from the counter.
“It doesn’t seem to me that they’re arming up to fight the government. GEI would stand to lose everything if it resists. That means they mean to pen us in and hand us over when whoever it is that’s going to come for us comes for us.
“Since we haven’t got arms or experience, we’re really just a bunch of sitting ducks.”
“What will they do with us?” Samantha Radish moaned, slipping onto the bed.
“They’ll turn this into a prison,” I answered, looking around me.
Neville nodded. “Why throw away a bunch of good spies?”
“Perhaps we should try and escape,” Mohammed suggested. I had a sudden flashback to my days as a worker for the United Arab Nation. Sheltered in Carlos’ room in the middle of the night, we had spoken of escape. It was Samud who had gotten us out. Poor Samud whose actions had cost him his career and his freedom. Perhaps his life. He had been my friend and now he was gone. There was no Samud in this world.
Or was there?
I left them to consider it and went straight away to a telephone. I wanted desperately to call Jennie, to hear her voice one last time. This was the end. I knew it was. Even should the GEI personnel prove to be our protectors, I knew they would be woefully inadequate against soldiers. And if we survived there would be no phone calls. There would be no internet. My freedom was forfeit even if my life was not.
So I phoned Igor. There was a person who manned the telephone room at all times. She seemed perplexed at my request and virtually laughed at the idea that Igor Grundel would even consider taking my call. But I was stern and she placed the call anyway. Her face fell when the secretary put her through and she had to hand me the phone. I took it from her with no reassurance. An older, much younger version of Mathew Cristian would have tried to make her feel better in the wake of her insolence. But by then I was just fed up and scared.
“Igor?”
“Mat? Is that you?”
“It’s me,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” It almost came off fluidly but Igor had lost a step. Maybe it was due to age or maybe it was just a result of his decadent lifestyle. I knew he was being evasive.
“Are they coming or aren’t they?”
He breathed into the mouthpiece for some time, refusing to make any other sound. I grew impatient and was about to repeat my question when he finally answered, “They are.”
“When?”
“They are already there, encamped in the mountains and the surrounding towns. That’s why we haven’t gotten you out. There’s just no place to go.”
“I saw Wil with a rifle.”
“The facility is not entirely without defenses.”
“So you plan to fight them? Fight the government?”
He cleared his throat. “When the time comes, it will be best if you just follow instructions.”
“When?” I asked. “When will the time come?”
“I don’t know, Mat. I’m sorry.”
That was it, then. I said goodbye and knew that my fate had already been decided. Whether Igor had instructed his personnel to fight or not, we were finished. They would not win if they fought and we wouldn’t win either way.
Neville caught up with me outside the telephone room and asked what was up. So I told him.
“Well that’s it then?”
I scowled, finding it easier than ever to show my disdain for my situation. Regret piled onto me. I kept thinking of Jennie and how I would never see her again. I could have had that time with her instead of wasting it in a futile attempt to cure myself. I promised myself that if I ever had the opportunity to make this mistake again, I would die first. Literally die.
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked him as if I expected him to know.
He shrugged. “If there’s a fight, we might be able to get away.”
“And then what?”
So he shrugged again. “Then we can die marching across the mountains.”
“I think Rogers Clinton can make himself jump.”
In his way, Neville considered this unprecedented statement. Once again, I was amazed at how he took the news casually, considered it with calm fluidity of thought. Of course, jumping through time was one way out. It had saved my life in 2014 and it could save his life here.
In the end, Neville smiled. “I guess we’d better have a word with him then.”
Rogers Clinton was shaking his head back and forth. “Why would you think that, Little Mat?”
“You said you haven’t jumped in eleven years.”
Finally, Neville was surprised. “Is that right?”
We’d found Rogers in the library, reading a book on the American Revolution. Rogers was a voracious reader. According to him, he had learned to read in the early 1900s while working on the railroad. You could see it, too, when he poured through a book that he did not take the skill for granted. Unlike most of us, who learn to read as children and accept it as something all people should be able to do, Rogers saw it as a power. If not for leaping through time, it was a skill that would have been denied him. He read and absorbed every word, both individually and in context. He skipped none and remembered the information as if he had conceived it himself.
“You are Neville MacTavish,” he said as if just noticing the pilot.
“That’s right. Rogers Clinton, yes?”
He nodded. “Now we are friends.”
Neville grinned. “We are, are we?”
Rogers nodded as if Neville no longer even had a choice in the matter.
“So be it. Then you mind telling your friends your little secret so we can all jump the hell out of here.”
Rogers laughed a booming laugh. Joanne Li, who was sitting across the library with an English reader, looked up at us with disapproval.
“I don’t know how to jump,” Rogers said.
“But…”
He raised an open hand. “I said I had not jumped.”
“You said you were too bored to jump.”
Nodding, he considered it. “Are we gonna fight?”
At first I thought he meant him and me and I was taken aback. Then I realized he meant on the same side. Was there going to be a fight? Us against them. There was a gleam in his eye.
“Yeah,” Neville said in the silence caused by my hesitation. “There’s gonna be a fight.”
Rogers laughed again. “Then maybe I won’t be so bored, huh? You try not to be bored, too. Maybe then you’ll get your wish.”
And just like that, our conversation with Rogers Clinton was over. He went back to his book.
October 8th passed in frustrating silence. All tests had been cancelled and still we weren’t told why. But I knew. And Neville knew. And Rogers knew. The others were kept in ignorance, sensing the anticipation that surrounded the staff. They ate and went about their activities but there was an underlying tension that couldn’t be ignored. Awen Mohammed came to us to ask if we had any more information and we shook our heads. I think he knew we were lying, but he let the matter drop. Samantha Radish clung to him like a frightened kitten, but I think he needed her more than she needed him.
In the afternoon, Neville and I left the facility for a walk along the grounds. Such sojourns were discouraged but not forbidden. Almost nothing was forbidden. If nothing else, we were meant to feel free and at home. I wondered how much control Igor actually had over the facility. I suppose it didn’t really matter.
As the wind whipped around us, Neville kept his eyes on the range of mountains that surrounded the facility as we walked. I can’t imagine why he had chosen me as his confidant, but that was what we became. I guess it was just circumstance. He said that he admired my level head and, when it came down to it, he’d ra
ther have me at his side than someone who would break into pieces, like Awen Mohammed, or someone who was consumed by his own lunacy, like Rogers Clinton.
I was flattered.
In the ridges and crevasses that surrounded us, Neville could see places where soldiers could be encamped. There was no quick way into the valley except by air and we hadn’t heard any foreign aircraft so he guessed they must have marched in over the course of several days, set up a supply line, and entrenched themselves in strategic positions. That was, if Igor was telling the truth.
All of our discussions came back to that point. No matter what he had done for me, he was not to be trusted. Based on what I’d seen and what I knew of his character, there was no way I could be made to believe everything he said. Though Neville had never met him, he was inclined to agree. I had shared with him my experiences before my last jump and his reaction had been mixed. I think the fact that I had placed myself into the hands of a man who had at one time had those hands wrapped around my throat damaged my integrity in Neville’s eyes. Of course, going to the facility had been a move born of desperation and desperate men will do anything. But I wasn’t supposed to be a desperate man. I was supposed to be level-headed.
At night, we parted and went to bed. Neville suggested every night that we retire early and stay well rested.
On the morning of the 9th, I awakened, showered, and went down to breakfast. Neville was not there, but I didn’t think anything of it. I sat with Rogers and we talked about nothing for thirty minutes while I ate a light meal and he consumed piles of eggs and toast. Neville still had not shown up when we were done and I began to grow restless. It wasn’t as if we usually ate together. Before a couple of days earlier, we were on friendly terms without being friends. Now, though, I found that we were joined together by the oncoming storm. He was my link to sanity.
