by Alan Averill
“Charles figured that if he could eliminate every living thing inside a timeline, then it would, in essence, cease to be. To do this, he needed something that could enter a timeline, kill everything inside it, then remain there without disturbing the observer effect. Something smart enough to do the job but not technically alive.”
Judith brings her other hand out of the blanket to illustrate this point, causing the entire thing to drop. At this, Tak just turns away and stares out the window, a flush rising in his cheeks. “This is totally crazy, Judith. You’re telling me that Yates managed to create some kind of undead killing machine?”
“He didn’t create it. He found it.”
“How? Where?”
“In another timeline, one you never visited. He found it, and he put it into the Machine and set it loose on all the timelines of the world.”
Behind him, Judith finally realizes that she’s been lecturing in her underwear and scrambles for the blanket. But she needn’t have bothered because Tak’s mind is suddenly very, very far away. “You’re talking about the creature,” he says. “The one that looks like a baby bird.”
“Yes.”
“What is it? I mean, what the hell is it?”
“It’s a virus. A virus that strikes at time itself. It moves through the timelines and finds things that aren’t supposed to be there and wipes them out. Yates engineered it to think that everything in reality needed to be destroyed, then he set it free. So even as we speak, it’s working its way through the timelines and destroying them one by one.”
“Why does it look like a bird?” asks Tak.
“I think…I think the creature is something so alien and unbelievable our brains aren’t able to comprehend it. So they force it into the closest shape they can, which just happens to be a bird.”
“A baby bird,” repeats Tak, reaching for the bottle. “With huge black eyes and furry feathers.”
“Listen, I don’t understand all of it either,” says Judith. She waits for Tak to finish drinking, then snatches the liquid from his hand and takes a drink of her own. “Maybe it means something to Yates. Maybe he’s scared of birds or something, I don’t know.”
“So what did you do?” asks Tak. “I mean, when you learned all of this, what did you do?”
Judith looks out the window, unable to meet Tak’s gaze. “…Nothing. I did nothing. By the time I discovered this, he’d already set the plan in motion. Reality was ready to fall; all he had to do was overwrite the solid timeline and get the hell out of there.”
Tak stretches out his arm and swings it wildly across the glass window of the condominium, highlighting a darkened, empty city. “Is that what happened here? Mr. Bird came through and ate everybody?”
“Yes. It’s happening in nearly all the timelines now, much faster than even he anticipated. The birds are multiplying. There are billions of them now. Maybe more.” She stands up, letting the blanket fall to the ground, and walks over to her clothes. Though not quite dry, she picks them up and begins to put them on.
“Samira and I were heading for Australia,” says Tak. “We were going to find the fail-safe, but that was before…Before I knew any of this. Now that seems like a pretty lame idea.”
Judith snaps her blouse with practiced hands, sending a spray of water across the condo entryway. “No,” she says as she buttons up the shirt. “That’s the only idea. In fact, that’s why I’m here.”
“So great! Let’s go, let’s do this thing, and then let’s…” Tak stops talking as a strange expression comes over Judith’s face. “Oh, what? Come on, what is it? What now?”
“How much did I tell you about the fail-safe?”
“Um, I don’t know. Nothing? It was years ago. You told me that you made a backup copy of reality and stored it inside a conduit named Vincent, and that if anything ever went wrong, I should go turn it on.”
“Did you ever wonder why the fail-safe would work?”
“…Should I have wondered that?”
“When I designed the fail-safe, I knew I couldn’t just reset time to the way things were four years ago because the same events would simply happen all over again. I had to make a change; something small enough that it wouldn’t upset reality but important enough that it prevented the Machine from ever being used.”
“Yeah, okay,” says Tak, whose head is beginning to throb. “So what’d you do? What’s the change?”
“The change is that I never call you in the hotel room. So you never come work for Axon, and we’re never able to make the Machine go anywhere but that red desert wasteland. And because of that, none of this will ever happen.”
Tak stares at her for a second, then begins to laugh. It’s a loud, hearty laugh, the kind he hasn’t made in a very long time. She smiles a little at it, but he doesn’t even notice; he just keeps laughing until he’s doubled over on the floor.
“Oh God,” he says. “Oh God, this is perfect. This is just fucking perfect. So in order to save the entire world, I have to go back in time and finish committing suicide?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Hoooo!” says Tak, as he struggles to a sitting position. “Oh my God, this is a fuckin’ riot. I love this town. So where’s the fail-safe?”
“I have it.”
“You have…Oh, come on. Really? You mean it’s in your brain right now?”
Her only response is to tilt her head back and drain the rest of the bottle. And really, that’s all the response Tak needs. He wobbles up on his feet, smooths out the wrinkles in his suit coat, and moves over to the window. “So how do we get back? I mean, if we’re really gonna do this, how do I get out of here?”
“The briefcase I used is different than yours,” says Judith. “It’s not a one-way ticket; I can use it to send us both back.”
“Great. So let’s make for Australia.”
“We’re not going to Australia, Tak. We’re going to Montana.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s another Machine there.”
A rich combination of alcohol and surprise causes Tak’s vision to swim. “Okay, whoa. Hold the phone. There’s another Machine?”
“Axon constructed a second Machine in case something happened to the first. It’s never been tested, but there’s no reason we can’t use it to activate the fail-safe. And it should be practically unguarded, if that makes you feel better.”
“Oh, yeah. That makes everything goddamn peachy.” Tak takes a step back from the window and watches the reflected candle flames flicker in the glass. This is a shit plan, he thinks. But then again, most of my plans are shit.
“Okay,” says Tak finally. “I’ll do it. But you have to do something for me first.”
“What?” asks Judith.
“Send me to Australia.”
“Tak, that’s crazy. Charles is there. His people are there.”
“Yeah, and my friend Sam is there,” he says. “So before I do anything else, I’m gonna go save her ass.”
Judith mulls this over for a very long time. “No,” she says finally. “It’s too risky. We don’t have the time.”
“Then fuck it. I’m not helping.”
“Tak!”
“I’m not leaving her, Judith. I don’t care if the world ends or whatever. I’m not leaving her again.”
Judith sighs and shakes her head, angry. Then she looks up at Tak and sees his stupid grin and something inside her caves. “Okay,” she says. “But I can’t come with you. I have to get to North America in case you don’t make it back. Which I probably don’t need to tell you is a pretty distinct possibility.”
She reaches down to the briefcase at her feet and opens it. Tak stares, curious, at the insides of the new device. It contains twice the knobs as the one he is familiar with, as well as a small keyboard and what appears to be a thin strand of shiny copper wire. “Come here,” she says. “Grab the wire, and I’ll get this started.”
Tak moves over and does as she asks, kneeling in front of her like a knigh
t waiting for confirmation. She flips the knobs back and forth a few times, then types on the keyboard. “I’ll try to get you as close as I can to Axon, but this isn’t the most accurate thing in the world. You’ve probably got a few hours of travel ahead of you.”
“That’s fine,” replies Tak. “What about you? Should I meet you in Montana?”
“I’d rather not go there alone if I don’t have to. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to download the fail-safe out of my own head.” She types a few more times, then turns a knob with force. Green light flashes out of the case and crawls down the walls of the condo. “I’ll find a place to hole up and wait for you, then we can go to Montana together.”
“What if the birds show up?”
“I think I’ll be okay; they seem to have trouble recognizing people who have used the Machine. They’d eventually get around to me, I’m sure, but hopefully they won’t be a problem quite yet.”
“Let’s meet in Seattle,” says Tak, as the wire begins to buzz and tingle against his fingers.
“That’s a bit far.”
“Yeah, but I know that city better than most. If there’s trouble, we can get in and out fast.”
Judith thinks about it for a moment. “Okay. Seattle. Where do you suggest I wait?”
“How about the downtown police station? You can just hang out in the lobby or something.”
“If not, I’ll find a way to get arrested…. Hurry, Tak. Find her, get out of there, and come back as fast as you can. I can give you a couple of days, but that’s it. After that, I’ll need to strike out on my own.”
“Got it,” says Tak with a grin. He looks down at his fingers and sees them starting to stretch across the surface of the wire. “Oh hey, Judith?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful, yeah?”
“You too.”
She smiles briefly at him and clicks a final knob. The last thing Tak sees before everything dissolves is a shock of bright red hair and the trembling fingers of its owner. Then his world melts into a brilliant shade of white.
the man with a plan
chapter twenty-three
Tak’s jeep, stolen from a clueless tour group outside the town of Coober Pedy, Australia, chugs along like it’s happy to be free. When he appeared next to the tourists in a blinding flash of light nearly an hour ago, they all assumed he was some kind of ancient desert mystic and greeted him with open arms. This hearty welcome lasted long enough for Tak to shake a few hands, pose for a picture, then leap into the driver’s seat of their jeep and peel away in a cloud of dust. A hundred yards or so up the road, he stopped to toss the stunned group’s backpacks onto the highway before continuing on his way. Tak would have found the whole thing funny if he wasn’t convinced the world would end at any moment.
He’s currently traveling along the Stuart Highway, or what locals simply call The Track. It’s a long, winding ribbon of arguably paved road that cuts through the middle of the continent, beginning at a southern scrap of a town called Port Augusta and ending at the northern paradise of Darwin. Tak had traveled this stretch many times over the last four years, including once a few days prior when he had a special briefcase in the truck and a rough plan in his head. That last journey feels like it took place years ago.
He’s heading for a place called Alice Springs, a town located almost in the dead center of the continent. From there, he’ll detour onto a poorly maintained strip of dirt called the Haasts Bluff Road, which he will follow for nearly one hundred bone-jarring miles. Eventually, that road will peter out into nothing, which is when he plans to engage the four-wheel drive and head south into the desert, driving another thirty miles over hard-packed red sand until he arrives at a magnificent white building where no such structure should possibly exist.
But that is getting ahead of himself. Right now, he’s on The Track, moving at a steady ninety-five and enjoying the ride. He likes driving, especially when it’s on a long stretch of lonely road where he can imagine he’s the only person left in the world. His only regret is that he doesn’t have a bandanna-wearing dingo to curl up on the passenger seat beside him. He knows it’s silly, this happiness he feels. A smarter person would be scared out of his mind at the thought of storming the headquarters of the world’s most powerful and dangerous man. But Tak is filled with the confidence and fearlessness that comes with an empty stomach, little sleep, and the knowledge he’s on a quest to save his childhood love. And so he drives and allows himself to believe that everything’s going to be all right.
Trouble comes near a dot on the map called Erldunda, whose biggest claim to fame is the intersection of The Track with the Outback’s other major road, the Lasseter Highway. Tak is motoring along, listening to the wind blow through his open window and thinking positive thoughts, when he notices a strange shape in his driver’s-side mirror. At first, he dismisses it as another car, or a shadow, or just his own overactive imagination. But the more he stares, the more he starts to worry. Because whatever it is doesn’t move like a car—it isn’t touching the road so much as gliding over the top of it. Also, there’s no dust kicking off the back tires and no sunlight gleaming off the windshield. If it’s a car, it’s unlike any Tak has ever seen.
The Track is flat and long and completely unbroken, which gives Tak plenty of time to watch the darkened blur. Distance is hard to gauge in this stretch of the world, but if he were to guess, he’d put the thing some fifteen miles behind him. Fifteen miles and closing fast.
“What are you?” he asks himself. “Police? Some of Yates’s goons?”
That seems likely—if the shape was an SUV, the lack of glint could come from tinted windows. Tak quickly turns his attention back to the road to make sure there’s nothing waiting for him in the distance; his eyes find nothing but a thin strip of pavement moving off into the dusty horizon.
A few seconds later, he glances over his shoulder again, expecting to see the stubby form of a gas-guzzling security vehicle. But what he sees instead makes a spark of horror leap up his spine and right into his brain. The dark blur is closer now, and it’s most clearly not one of Yates’s men. Nor is it a highway patrolman or an innocent tourist or a bloodthirsty biker gang searching the road for juice.
It’s the bird. And it’s moving like a motherfucker.
Tak whips his head back around and floors it. The jeep lurches in response, as if unsure that it can even process such a request. Slowly, far too slowly for Tak’s liking, the needle on the speedometer climbs until it finally tops out at the disappointing speed of 118 miles an hour. Gripping the steering wheel hard enough to leave small indentations in the plastic, Tak leans forward until his face is just inches from the windshield.
“Come on, you piece-of-shit car! Move! Move, move, move!”
In response, the jeep makes a horrible whining sound and slows by a couple of ticks. Tak screams in frustration and slams his hand on the dashboard, which causes the glove compartment to pop open. Colorful brochures spill out and land in a sad little pile on the passenger’s seat, each one extolling the spiritual virtues of a “Real Aboriginal Walkabout!” Such false promises would normally make Tak scoff, but right now he’s got bigger fish to fry.
He raises his foot from the gas pedal for just a moment, then slams it down again. The jeep begins to shake like the wheels might fly off but somehow picks up speed. Behind him, the bird is screaming up the road with something like a smile spreading across its beak. A pair of stumpy pale wings, little more than nubs of flesh with a few scraggly feathers, churn through the air with surprising power. Clawed feet float just above the surface of the highway, occasionally dipping down and scraping against the worn asphalt. Each time this happens, a small spray of black ooze flies into the air.
The jeep slows a bit as he crosses a small incline, then picks up a couple of miles an hour down the other side. Once Tak crests the hill, he sees a large semitruck trundling its way across The Track some five miles distant; but aside from this and the winged nightmare fast a
pproaching, the area is completely deserted. There are no roads to turn off on, no places to hide. It’s just the semi, a psychotic bird, and about a thousand miles of red sand in every direction.
“Shit!” screams Tak, pounding the dash again. “Not like this! Not here! If I’m gonna kick off in the middle of the goddamn desert, I at least want to be smoking peyote!”
Behind him, the bird crests the hill. A thin watery cry issues forth as it closes the gap between itself and the stolen jeep. The creature weaves across the yellow line like a small-town drunk on a Friday night, useless arms flailing excitedly in the air. Tak knows he doesn’t have much time—maybe thirty seconds at the most—before the thing cracks through his skull with a translucent white beak and sucks out everything that makes Tak real. It’s a horrible, helpless feeling.
A few seconds later, the bird flaps into the second lane of the highway and closes the gap on the jeep. Tak sees the monster approach in his driver’s-side mirror—the words objects may be closer than they appear leaping out as an ironic twist he could have done without—moving faster and faster until it finally reaches the rear of the vehicle. When this happens, Tak closes his eyes and waits for the thump that will tell him the creature is on the roof and ready to stab through the thin metal shell so it can enjoy the tasty cream filling within.
But that doesn’t happen. Instead, the bird races up to the driver’s-side window and begins to keep pace with the car. For nearly a mile, they move as a single unit—the scared time traveler and the virus engineered to destroy time itself. Eventually, the creature turns to stare at Tak with a pair of dead, black eyes before uttering a caw that’s somehow audible over the whine of the car and the howl of the wind. Then it looks forward again, lowers its head, and races away up the road.
Tak drives on in stunned silence. He doesn’t even think to brake or turn around and try to escape in the other direction; he just keeps pushing the jeep as fast as it can go as the bird soars effortlessly ahead of him. The creature gains ground on the semitruck in the distance, moving faster and faster until it finally pulls even with the driver-side door. Tak doesn’t understand how the trucker could possibly miss the sight of a giant baby bird soaring next to his window, but apparently that’s the case. The vehicle doesn’t speed up, doesn’t waver back and forth across the road like one would expect when faced with something so horrific; it just keeps moving at a steady sixty-five like it doesn’t have a care in the world. And then, before Tak even knows what is happening, the bird turns its head to the side and goes crashing through the driver’s-side window and into the cab.
