by Thomas Hay
“You wouldn’t happen to have a plan ‘B’ up your sleeve, would you?” I asked Tom-Tom.
He frowned and shook his head, “afraid not.”
It looked like Monroe would be the hero this day. This wasn’t going to look good on my resume.
Put them through the distillery, they smell like human waste. Then escort them to the prison compound, Monroe told his warriors.
After being stripped naked and sprayed with a fine sweet smelling mist, we were clothed in a gray metallic outfit that everyone wore in this future culture. We were then marched to a building that resembled a prison compound and separated. I was put in a small room and strapped to what appeared to be a hospital operating bed, resembling those in our present-day hospitals. I was then left alone to ponder my demise.
As I surveyed the room, I noticed a small table with a tray containing various utensils. The utensils looked similar to what you see in a dentist’s office.
This didn’t look good. In fact, it became downright depressing. I was definitely between a rock and a hard place, and up the creek without a paddle. I couldn’t remember having scheduled a dentist appointment for today.
Okay Tom, time to think this through. What would 007 do in a situation like this?
How about nudging the bed closer to the table, grabbing a sharp utensil knife between my fingers, cutting through the strap, freeing myself from the bed, rescuing my comrades, escaping from the building, blowing up the shield’s power grid, killing all the aliens, stealing a time craft, returning to 1978, and living happily ever after with my leading lady?
Absolutely brilliant idea, Tom!
There was only one small problem. This was not the movies and I was no James Bond.
Monroe brought me back to reality when he entered the room.
Well, earthling, there is no need for any more tricks, he said.
As you humans would say, it is time to get down to the nitty gritty, so I will get right to the point.
Thank you for leading us to your clone. We allowed the rebels to shoot down our craft and rescue you. We suspected they would plan to disable the shield, so we were waiting. Now you can provide us with the rebels’ base location and their identities’.
Apparently, their rat was the one who got vaporized, since Monroe still needed that information.
Uh oh. I was in a heap of trouble now. I hadn’t bothered to get any names, except for Tom-Tom, and they already knew him. Plus I don’t recall Tom-Tom having GPS.
I would if I could. No one told me their name and I have no idea where their camp is, I said, knowing that was probably the wrong answer.
You can read my mind, so you must know I am telling you the truth, I thought.
Ah, but the rebels have probably trained you on how to hide some of your thoughts, said the alien.
I knew it! I suspected all along there was a way to hide them, and he had kept it from me.
I was hopeful you would cooperate. If not, then I will be forced to cause you much pain, Monroe said.
I’m telling you the truth. My mother taught me to never lie, I wisecracked.
By the look on his face, I could tell he wasn’t appreciating my sense of humor. Somebody must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.
You will not think it to be funny when I demonstrate how much pain you can tolerate.
Monroe, or whatever his name was, picked up one of the utensils and started yanking out my teeth.
“YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH,” I screamed, as I spat blood at him.
“That hurts. Don’t you have some truth serum you could use?”
I prefer primitive methods. Much more effective, the alien said, with that shit-eating grin on his face.
And, when I am done pulling out all your teeth, I will start on your fingernails and work my way to your toenails.
Christ! Who was it that outlawed water boarding? I had a bone to pick with them, right about then. I think it is about time to abandon the hero stuff.
I told you I don’t know any names or where they are hiding, I said, as I started to choke from the blood filling my mouth.
Oh, by the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any ibuprofen or extra strength Tylenol handy, would you?
I figured it couldn’t hurt anymore to ask.
He must not have had a funny bone anywhere in that alien body, as he grabbed another tooth and yanked it out.
“YOU MOTHER FUCKER!” I shouted. (Mom, cover your ears).
Pardon my French. My temper was getting the best of me. I’ve heard that stressful situations can bring out the worst in people. I was definitely a little stressed at that moment. I would certainly be experiencing some post-traumatic stress disorder after this ordeal.
“That’s the last straw,” I said, as I spat more blood at the alien.
“Do you have any idea what my dentist will do to you when he sees what you’ve done. Then after he is done with you, I’m going to pluck those big weird eyes out and tear your fuckin’ weird-looking head off that scrawny ass body of yours,” I screamed at him.
Superman and Batman would have been proud, but I had to remind myself that this was not the movies. That was real blood, not ketchup, oozing out of my mouth and real pain shooting through my brain.
You are not in any position to make any threats, earthling, Monroe pointed out, as he yanked out the last remaining tooth.
It just so happened to be my only gold one. Can you imagine the price of gold in 2191? That little sucker would have done wonders for that cranky portfolio of mine.
I suppose you really do not know anything, or else you would have at least thought it by now, Monroe finally said, as he pressed a button on the wall.
Two other aliens entered the room.
Terminate him along with the others. They are of no use to us anymore, Monroe told them.
“HEY! WAIT! DAMN YOU TO HELL,” I screamed at him.
“I still got the fingernails and toenails?” I yelled, grasping at a last straw. Anything to delay my demise.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. I thought I was the good guy. Good guys were supposed to prevail. Someone had gotten the script wrong.
The aliens weren’t listening as they rolled me out into the hallway. I heard screams coming from behind each door we passed. They rolled me into a room that smelled of death and had me gagging even more. The room was smoking hot from the inferno coming from a furnace.
Human and other types of corpses covered the floor. Squiggly worm-like critters crawled from their eye sockets, ears, noses, and mouths. The critters got bigger and bigger as I looked upon the frightful sight. Another dream had come true. Only now my dreams were turning into one humongous nightmare.
Time to wake up, Tom.
Problem was, I was already awake.
I had to admit that I was scared shitless. I’d never been this scared in my life. Fear within itself is impossible to define. It must be experienced to know its meaning. Right about now, its meaning was coming in loud and clear.
I had found out that this Buck Rodgers crap wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. No wonder he had retired a long time before. It also seemed highly unlikely that my Marvel superheroes would come to my rescue anytime soon. It appeared I had met my Waterloo and would be disappearing from the face of the earth in the past, present, and future.
One of the aliens pulled out his laser gun, pointed it at my head, and said, sweet dreams, earthling, as he pulled the trigger.
“NO!” I screamed, as my head exploded, revealing the alien half of me. I heard the fat lady sing as I kicked the bucket and bit the dust. I was as dead as a door nail.
How can the Comeback Kid come back from the dead? Surely this isn’t The End?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Reconciliation
“I think he is regaining conscious,” my nightmare said.
Tom, can you hear me now? I recognized Monroe’s thoughts. He must be trying to reach me on a cell phone.
“Yes, I can hear you. Wh
at happened? Where am I?”
My head felt like someone was pounding on it with a hammer.
You are in the infirmary, recovering from the crash.
“Infirmary? Crash? Oh! My! God! My teeth!” I gasped, as I remembered what had presumably happened.
I put my hand to my mouth and relaxed when I felt that my teeth were still there.
You have suffered a concussion in the accident and have been unconscious for two days, said Monroe.
An accident? What accident?
Our craft malfunctioned as we were entering the dome and we crashed. We were smart to be wearing our seatbelts.
But I saw you shoot me, I replied, confused.
Why would I shoot you?
You mean I’m not dead and you’re not an alien?
An alien? No, Tom, you are not dead. Why on earth would you think me to be an alien? I have already explained all this? You must have had a hallucination in your coma.
I had an hallucination and was in a comma? You got to be kidding me. You mean to tell me the last chapter was nothing but an hallucination? You certainly had me fooled.
Wow, what a relief. Some hallucination, I thought.
Ha, another curve ball or was it a change-up. Bet you weren’t expecting me to throw those pitches, were you? Hallucinations, nightmares and dreams. Are we getting a wee bit confused? I bet you thought for sure I was history. I know I did.
My headache quickly passed, and the futuristic healthcare had me back on my feet before you could shake a stick.
Ok, it’s time to quit jacking around and find out why my future ancestors had cloned and brought me back to the future. We seemed to have gotten sidetracked somewhere. Hadn’t Monroe said something about my cloned brother requiring my assistance?
Monroe and I departed the infirmary and walked to another structure. Once inside, these futuristic facilities became translucent. You couldn’t see any walls that separate the rooms.
In the lobby, you will never guess who I saw. My two no-name NASA buddies heading out of the building. They were now wearing helmets too. Remember them? They were wearing the same one piece gray metallic cloth outfit that everyone wore (except the warriors) in this time frame. One need not worry about being in style in this day and age.
I wondered what they were doing here in the future. I had thought I had left them in the past.
“Hey guys, what’s up?”
Neither bothered to acknowledge my presence. I know they heard and saw me. Oh well, they had always been a little snobbish anyway. Who needed snobbish friends? Then it dawned on me. They must have been cloned too. Were they here for the same reason as I?
As we passed through the lobby, an opaque image in 3-D could be seen in the middle of the room. It was suspended in midair and looked to be similar to a hologram. A crowd had gathered and was cheering the announcement that the Metropolis Cardinals (formerly St. Louis) had just come from four runs behind, in the bottom of the ninth inning, to win the 2191 World Series. Someone named Freese V had hit a grand slam!
Hey, Monroe, that’s my favorite team. Go Cardinals! I shouted.
The announcer went on to say that this was their forty-third World Series championship, putting them one up on the Metropolis Yankees.
Seven of these championships had occurred during my lifetime. Well, I guess it was eight now.
1943 The year of my birth
1944 My first birthday
1964 USS Hancock entered the Vietnam War
1967 My first child was born (on the exact day).
1982 I became a born-again Christian.
2006 I retired
2011 I published my memoirs
2191 I met my cloned brother
As it turned out, Monroe was a Cubs fan, so he didn’t share my enthusiasm. It also turned out that the poor Cubs were still seeking their first World Series. Unbelievably! Hey, it was 2191 and the Cubbies still hadn’t won a World Series? It was hard to understand those Cubs fans, they had to be an unusual and complicated species. Still, you had to admire them for hanging in there all those years. I would imagine their tears over the years would form a pretty big lake.
As I surveyed the room, I noticed pictograms displayed. They would adjust in height to the person observing them. I walked over to them, noticed that they were commemoratives of human history that involved time travel.
The first one that caught my eye read:
“June 13, 1947. Roswell, New Mexico. In memory of three brave pioneer’s who died in the first attempt to conqueror time travel.”
Holy Cow! I thought. The Roswell story was true after all, except, at that time, they mistook the bodies to be aliens.
Also on display were numerous old style military uniforms that covered many decades of history. A plaque displayed under one uniform caught my eye. It read:
“In memory of USN Grumman TBF-1 Avenger Torpedo crewmen. Flight 19, Dec. 5, 1945. Bermuda Triangle.”
I remember reading about them, I told Monroe, as he joined me. It is one of the greatest mysteries of human history.
In the early days of time travel and abductions, unfortunately, some things went wrong, Monroe replied.
I sensed he didn’t want to continue the conversation.
Not to change the subject, but how about a round of golf? They do still play golf, don’t they? I asked.
Yes, we do, but at the present we have more important matters to attend to, he said, as he guided me toward the elevators.
What could be more important than golf? I thought, knowing full well he could hear me, as I saw him roll his big eyes.
I bet you’re afraid I’d whoop your ass.
That stopped him dead in his tracks. His glare and then his thought went far beyond my comprehension.
Okay, forget it, I said. No need to get all riled up. It was just messing with you.
We took an elevator to the fifth floor. I guess you would call it an elevator. It was nothing like I’d ever ridden and nothing I could possibly describe. It was like riding on air. There were no visible walls or floors. It messed with my equilibrium and I kept losing my balance. Monroe had to help steady me. It was kind of scary, cause I kept thinking I would fall through to the ground floor.
We departed the elevator and walked down a hallway. The hallway floor was also translucent, and I could see through all the way down to the bottom floor. Again, my equilibrium was thrown off. It was the weirdest sensation!
We finally settled in a small room. Once in the room, the walls, floor and ceiling became opaque, rather than translucent. The room contained a chair and a couch, with a small, low table wedged between them. A man, who looked to be my twin, jumped up from the chair to greet me as we entered.
“Hello, brother. I am so excited to meet you,” Tom-Tom said as he grabbed and shook my hand.
It reminded me of when my half-brother Mike had greeted me for the first time in the hallway in junior high, except for the fact that there had been no hand shake and he certainly didn’t look like my twin.
It was weird to be looking at myself without a mirror. I suppose identical twins would know the feeling. Tom-Tom’s handshake was firm, so I knew he was no hologram.
He wasn’t wearing a helmet, so I spoke out loud, “Hi, nice to meet you too.”
It was all I could think to say, as the cat seemed to have my tongue. It’s not every day one meet’s oneself.
D-Day had arrived. To say I was nervous and a little apprehensive would have been an understatement. The air became thick with suspense. You could have heard a pin drop, as I waited for Monroe to explain exactly what we were doing here.
We require the two of you to trade places, was the bombshell he dropped.
Tom, we need you to stay here in this time frame and have Tom-Tom take your place in your time frame. My grandson continued to say.
Trade places? You want me to trade places with my clone? I asked, as I could scarcely believe what I was hearing.
That is why he was created, Monroe added
.
Monroe reminded me that human gene splicing and evolution had caused future human generations to become sterile. Humans could no longer reproduce. Cloning was supposed to have solved the problem. Unfortunately, the clones were sterile too. A program was adopted to have the clones trade places with their originals. The originals would come and stay in the future to help preserve the human race.
Are you getting this? That’s what all this had been about from the beginning? Starting with my abduction outside Clinton, to the abductions in Oklahoma and California. Stealing my sperm, enhancing my genes, cloning me, and all because the future human generation went sterile and couldn’t reproduce.
I can hear you saying it now, who is going to believe this shit?
Monroe further explained that abductees couldn’t just disappear from their time quantum. It would disrupt future events and cause a tear in the time line. That’s where the clones came in. The clones would continue with their human original’s life events and life span. This would keep the time line from erupting.
The originals selected for this switch were those known to have had no more children and to have lived a normal life span. This switch would not affect history. No one would suspect it had occurred, not even the clones, as they would be given a memory block.
Many clones and originals had already agreed to the switch and were in their places. My clone was ready and willing to take my place. He was anxiously awaiting my decision.
Wow! I think I will need a few minutes to absorb all this, let alone believe it, I said.
I understand, but you need to make a decision within the hour, Monroe said.
“What’s the hurry? You should have all the time in the world.”
It is too complicated for you to comprehend the vast details. Press this button on the wall when you have made your decision, he replied.
With that, he and Tom-Tom departed, leaving me to contemplate the situation. Do I really have a choice? What would they do if I refused?
Actually, I had already made up my mind. There was no way I could be dreaming all this up. I had finally become a bona fide believer.
This led me to wonder about something else that I had in the back of my mind. With all this time travel and technology, maybe Monroe could do me a little favor, in return for me helping save mankind from extinction. He hadn’t been gone for more than a few minutes when I pushed the button.
