Wrong Side of Time

by J. J. Green

  Laser pulses from the High Commander hit the wall they passed as they left the chamber. But they went from the frying pan into the fire. Ahead of them placktoids were approaching. “You take these and cover me,” said Carrie as she turned and fired again into the chamber that housed the High Commander.

  Cutting through the placktoid ranks with laser beams, Dave glanced at Carrie over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  She raised her weapons and shot the tunnel over her head. The pain from her shoulder was forgotten as her adrenaline surged. The scent of the burning wall was overpowering. It was like melted plastic and barbecued meat. “I’m trying to get the mountain to react.”

  “Okay...you’re what?”

  “It’s alive. They’re all alive. I can’t believe I was so stupid not to figure it out. The mountains are the Creators. They made the robots, then made them self-replicating.”

  Dave shot an approaching, massive staple remover right in its gaping jaws. The machine split in two, knocking a paperclip and hole punch flying. Dave mowed them down as they struggled to rise.

  “Carrie, have you lost it? What are you talking about?”

  “Look around you. This isn’t rock. It’s living material, with that blue liquid running through it like blood. The fans draw air through the mountain and keep it oxygenated. The robots function like...I don’t know...something like antibodies, dealing with foreign material, and they keep the mountains functioning. It’s been staring us in the face all along.”

  “Watch out,” exclaimed Dave. The placktoids had stopped attacking on his side, but more had entered the other side of the chamber they had just left. Carrie turned her attention from destroying the tunnel walls to the approaching threat. She blew the top off a stapler that was speeding towards them on caterpillar tracks and sliced a paperclip in two. Its bottom half continued on, leaving the top half to clatter to the floor, before it fell too.

  “Damage the walls, Dave,” she shouted. “We need to start a massive immune response. Now.”

  He began shooting at the walls. “How much time have we got?”

  That question had been worrying Carrie, too. But they couldn't waste a moment checking. The minute they stopped fending off the placktoids they would be dead. The result would be the same if her plan to get the mountain to react and eject the placktoids failed. She swallowed. Come on, she thought. Can’t you feel us? Do something.

  “It’s no good,” said Dave. “We have to open the gateway. It’s the only chance we’ve got.” He opened his bag.

  Damn. Carrie poured laser beams from both weapons into the waves of placktoids speeding towards them. A grinding from behind told her that the evil mechanical aliens were reattempting to approach from Dave’s side. But she couldn't cover both directions. “Dave!”

  A shudder ran through the mountain, knocking both humans from their feet. Carrie’s shots went wild, and the gateway device flew out of Dave’s hand. “No,” they shouted and scrabbled for the black box, getting in each others’ way. As Carrie’s fingertips touched the edge of the box, another shudder like an earthquake threw her to one side. The surrounding walls, scarred with Carrie’s weapon fire, buckled and bent.

  The placktoids were also struggling to function within the moving, wrenching interior of the mountain. They continued to fire at Carrie and Dave, but their shots went wild, hitting their fellows and the walls, which seemed to excite further spasms in the mountain.

  Dave lunged and landed with an agonised thump on the top of the gateway device, grimacing as the corners dug into him. “I’ve got it,” he gasped.

  Carrie was cursing her decision to use the mountains to attack the placktoids. They should have taken their opportunity to get out of there while they could. She was sure that the deadline to return to the future had passed.

  The mountain shuddered and juddered so violently it was impossible to do anything but cling on to the floor. It felt as if it were lifting from its roots and moving across the plain. Carrie hadn’t had a clear idea of what the mountain might do in response to a sustained, damaging attack on the inside. She wondered what might come next, and whether she and Dave would survive it.

  As suddenly as it had started, the shuddering stopped. Carrie and Dave looked at each other. The placktoids that still functioned began to grind, whirr and vibrate as they rose from the floor. “Good job that’s over,” said Dave. He lifted the gateway device to his lips, opened his mouth...and a great deluge of blue liquid burst out of the wall behind him and gushed over his head.

  The vessels in the mountain walls had risen to the surface and were opening. The blue liquid was pouring out everywhere. Dave was drenched. He moved out of the immediate downpour and opened his mouth to speak again. But the liquid had reached his knees and was flowing with such a strong current it unbalanced him. He staggered and almost dropped the box.

  “It’s cleaning us out,” said Carrie. “It’s washing us and the placktoids out.”

  Dave and Carrie simultaneously slipped to the floor and the current began dragging them along.

  “What’ll we do?” called Dave as he was pulled farther down the tunnel. “We’ll drown.”

  The answer bumped Carrie on the back of her head. Spitting out blue liquid, she turned to see Harriet, who had been lifted by the rushing solution and carried out of the chamber. There was no way Carrie would be able to climb inside her. Harriet’s lid was closed and they were both being born along at too fast a rate. But Carrie dug her fingers into the edge of her lower shell, where it had been bent out of shape and didn’t close flush with the lid.

  Her Liaison Officer toolkit was dragging across her chest and neck, pulling her down. She let go of Harriet with one hand just long enough to pull out a weapon and stuff it down her jumpsuit, then pull the strap over her head and release the bag. It sank with the weight of all the devices it contained. Carrie hoped against hope that they wouldn’t need them, even though she knew deep down that it was too late: they were stuck here forever.

  Harriet’s buoyancy meant she travelled faster on the current than Dave, who was struggling to keep his head free of the liquid. Carrie and Harriet quickly caught up with him.

  “Grab on,” called Carrie as Harriet’s front end nudged Dave’s sinking figure.

  His knuckles were white where he gripped the gateway device in one hand. The other hand he slotted into a gap between Harriet’s upper and lower shell. His Liaison Officer bag was also missing, lost in the flood.

  Bits and pieces of placktoid tumbled through the liquid as it rose higher in the tunnel, flowing with the two humans as they were born downwards and out of the mountain. Would they reach the outside before the liquid rose to the tunnel roof and drowned them?

  Being made of metal, the placktoids were being washed out of the mountain more slowly than the humans, it seemed. At least, no whole placktoid threatened them as they were carried along, which was just as well because, as Carrie realised, with both hands occupied with saving their lives, they couldn't defend themselves.

  Harriet, Carrie and Dave crashed into an awkward corner and spun twice in a vortex before they were torn free. Dave disappeared below the surface for a worryingly long time. All Carrie could see of him was the one hand with bloody knuckles gripping Harriet’s shell, and the other hand holding the gateway device aloft. As his head finally broke free, he gave a great gasp.

  Carrie was so preoccupied with her friend’s plight that she didn’t notice they were rapidly approaching the tunnel entrance until it was too late. Before they could do anything to prevent it—not that there was anything they could have done—she, Dave and Harriet were flying through the air, born out of the mountain and down the side on a clear blue wave.

  Chapter Twenty-Five – Painful Parting

  When the blue liquid had mixed with the fine dust of the desert and created a sludge, and Carrie had tumbled to a stop, she crawled across the wet sand to reach her friend. The waterfall had borne them careening down and deposited them at t
he mountain’s base. Dave was only a short distance away, caked in the thin mud. He was lying on his back, holding the gateway device aloft and tossing restlessly from side to side.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “I can’t remember. I can’t remember,” he exclaimed.

  “You...?” Carrie wondered if he’d hit his head before she understood what he meant. He couldn't remember the word to activate the device. Her heart rose into her throat. But surely they were out of time anyway? “We still have a job to do. We have to destroy the High Commander so he stops creating the evil robots.”

  “There’s no time. We have to leave now. We have to get back.” Dave’s eyes were wild. Perhaps he had hit his head after all. “What was it? Chagganooga? Chumbawumba? Crispynoodle?”

  “Dave,” Carrie said gently, “I think—”

  A rumble like thunder sounded from above. Was it finally going to rain on the arid planet? She looked up, but there were no clouds. Instead, she noticed that, as well as liquid flowing from all the tunnel exits on the mountain, it was also leaking from a solid patch on the side.

  Dave thumped his head in frustration, but Carrie watched the patch, her head tilted. Rocks were breaking loose and sliding down on the newly created stream of blue liquid. She rubbed her eyes. She could swear that the mountainside was bulging, as if something were pushing out from within.

  “Dave,” she said. Her friend didn’t reply. “Dave.”

  “What?” he spat.

  Carrie silently pointed upwards. If she was right, and something was behind that patch of mountain, about to be ejected, they were right under where it would land.

  “Oh, great,” said Dave. “That’s all we need.”

  They both leaped up and sped away, Dave still clutching the gateway device. Another rumble came from behind, followed by an explosion that ripped through the air. “To the side,” shouted Carrie, “to the side.” If they were in the thing’s trajectory it made no sense to keep running forward. They veered to the right. Carrie’s legs ached and her lungs heaved. The wound on her shoulder nagged. She was reaching the end of her strength, and Dave was staggering with exhaustion.

  A massive boom from the ground behind them and a vibration in the sand told Carrie the mountain had ejected something very large and very solid. She had a good idea of what it might be: the largest foreign body that had been infecting the mountain and creating malignant versions of its own beneficial organisms. A low flood of liquid washed across their feet. Carrie risked a look over her shoulder. “Stop, it’s okay.”

  The placktoid High Commander lay at a crazy angle at the foot of the mountain. The liquid that had borne it out was draining away. Above, there was a large hole in the mountainside. The liquid flowing from it was diminishing at a rapid rate. The mountain had rid itself of its interloper at last.

  The placktoid High Commander was battered and broken, but Carrie was taking no chances. This would be her only opportunity to put an end to it for once and for all and prevent it from making any more of the evil robots. She began to run towards it, drawing out the weapon she had stuffed down her jumpsuit.

  “Carrie,” called Dave. “I remember. I can remember the word. Leave it.”

  “It’s too late now anyway,” she called back. “We’re too late. I’m sorry.”

  “No, I thought of something.”

  But Carrie took no more notice. She was within firing range of the High Commander. A laser pulse flew from it, narrowly missing her. It was still alive. And it wanted her dead. Carrie blasted it, searing through its central base, slicing through its walls. The placktoid returned fire with its dying power, catching Carrie’s thigh. She screamed and fell in agony. Her weapon flew from her grasp. This was it. She was defenceless, and the High Commander was going to kill her with its last dregs of energy.

  But laser pulses appeared from behind and passed over her head to hit the placktoid square in its middle. The thing blew apart, and black metal shards thunked to the dust.

  Dave collapsed breathless beside Carrie in the wet dust. They had done it. They had completed their mission, or at least they had done the best they could.

  “I thought you were opening the gateway,” Carrie said, trying to block the pain from her leg and shoulder.

  “Yeah, and leave you to die?”

  She rubbed her eyes, which were leaking. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For making us late. We’ve missed our chance, haven’t we? They’ve put the time shield down. We can’t get out.”

  “Maybe, and maybe not.” Dave held up the gateway device. It was covered in mud but whole and unmarked. He had clearly protected it with his life as they were tossed around and ejected from the mountain. “The gateway engineers got their calculations wrong when they sent us. What if they got them wrong when they laid down the time shield?”

  “You mean they could have put it down ages ago, or maybe...?”

  “Maybe not yet.”

  Carrie’s eyes widened. “We could still have a chance.” She paused and frowned. “But what happens if the time shield is already there when we try to pass through the gateway? What’ll happen to us? Gavin didn’t say.”

  “Whatever happens, could it be worse than staying here?” They both surveyed the barren, inhospitable place. Carrie shook her head.

  “Right, let’s try, okay?”

  Carrie looked into her friend’s eyes. “Okay.”

  Dave held up the device and said, “Chacknolokankle.”

  If the time shield was down and their passage to the future was blocked, the familiar green spiral might not appear, but a mist formed and began to solidify and spin.

  “It’s working so far,” Dave said hopefully.

  Carrie chose not to remind him of what Gavin had warned them, that even if they did manage to get back to their own time their world might be so altered as to be unrecognisable. If that was the case, assuming they didn’t disappear into the ether, at least they would have each other, Carrie thought.

  Dave placed the box on the ground. “You first.” Carrie took a final look around. Her heart fell. A short distance away lay a familiar broken, busted silver robot. At first glance the machine might have been indistinguishable from all the others, but Carrie knew every dent, every twist and every graze of the silver shell by heart. It was Harriet. The friend who had saved their lives innumerable times. And Carrie had nearly forgotten her. She began to run.

  “Carrie,” shouted Dave.

  “You go first,” she called back.

  “No.”

  “I have to speak to Harriet. Please, go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She skidded to a stop next to the stricken robot. Was she even still alive? Carrie put a hand on the mangled shell where drops of blue liquid still lingered, rapidly evaporating under the heat of the two suns. “You’re coming with me.” She began to drag Harriet towards the gateway.

  Barely audible above the sound of her shell scraping along the ground, Harriet made a noise. It sounded like, “No.”

  Carrie’s hands fell away. She couldn't believe her ears. “Harriet, did you speak? Can you speak?”

  “I learn.”

  “Harriet, you’re alive. This is wonderful. You can come with us.” She looked over her shoulder to see Dave hesitating before the swirling gateway. “Go, please,” she called.

  “Not without you,” he called back. She returned her attention to Harriet.

  “No. I stay,” said the robot. “I help my people.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six – Borrowed Time

  It was a weeping Carrie who crashed into Dave in the gateway room of the Transgalactic Council starship. Several minutes passed before he could get any sense out of her. When her sobs finally subsided and she had rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and wiped her nose on her sleeve, she explained what Harriet had said, and that she hadn’t had time to persuade the robot to come with her through the gateway.

  Dave sat silent
for a moment before saying gently, “She was probably right, Carrie. She belongs back there in the placktoid past, helping to undo the damage the placktoids from the future caused.”

  Carrie sniffed. “I know. I know you’re right. I just...I just wanted more time with her, you know? After all she’d done for us, after all we’d been through together, I wanted to get to know her. But we only had seconds before the gateway would fade to nothing. And I had to choose. I had to choose between staying there and helping Harriet, and coming back here to you, and Gavin, and my family and friends, and Earth, and even my stupid call centre job...oh.” Her face fell. “Well, not that anyway, but...” Her eyes were leaking again.

  Dave rested a hand on her arm. “You couldn't have done much to help Harriet. You wouldn’t have lasted more than a few days.”

  “But she was all alone there, Dave. All she had were the other robots who couldn't think and the evil placktoids. Imagine it. It would be like being the last person left alive, only worse. All around would be people who looked human but couldn't communicate with you, and other humans who were out to get you. How long will Harriet last in a situation like that?”

  “If she had no fixed life span like the myth said, she could live a long time. And she could repair herself, or maybe she could override another robot’s programming and make it repair her.”

  “She won’t live that long,” said Carrie, shaking her head. “I left her out on the plain. The placktoids or the evil robots will find her and finish her off.”

  “I don’t see how. She looks like any other robot. How would they know it was her? They identified her before by what she was doing, not how she looked. The placktoids knew her behaviour was out of the ordinary. That was why they targeted her. And she’s smart enough to know that. As long as she copies the behaviour of the other robots while she’s around the placktoids, she should be safe. And we destroyed the High Commander, don’t forget.”