by Shawn Jones
“We need a body that… ”
“Not just a body.” Cort interrupted. “It has to be her body. The fire was put out quickly. I recognized both of them in the wreckage. On the other hand, if there is no body, I don’t think Addison would react the same. Given his history, he would look for proof that she was really dead.”
He shifted his weight to sit fully on the desk. He wrapped his legs behind Kim and pulled her closer, and her hands braced against his chest. “What do you mean, proof?”
He told her Addison had killed a lot of people. Important and deadly people. Without a body, Diane’s body, the man wouldn’t make the same decisions Cort did. “Just like when Dalek was taken by the Tapon, if they had killed him, I would have acted differently.”
“That’s the point I’m trying to make, too. If you just take her, it would have a dramatic effect on our past. But if Addison finds Diane’s body, he will react the same way you did back then.”
“If you are talking about putting her mind in an avatar like George’s or something, forget it. I’d rather alter time.”
Cort would be okay with that, in fact. Fuck the rest of the universe. They could snatch Diane, go to Solitude, and build a whole new society. What if we did? He could walk away from his self-imposed obligation to the rest of the galaxy. Everyone involved would be dead by the time any of them were born in the future. What effect would that have on the timeline? Fuck ‘em. I’d have the only things that matter to me. The sound of Kim’s voice pulled Cort from his fantasy.
Her suggestion was to extract some of Diane’s blood to make a clone that would be exchanged for Diane, so that they could fool Addison into thinking his daughter was dead, and lead him to make the same decisions as Cort had in the past.
Though probably immoral, the idea grew as they discussed the benefits and feasibility of it. When Cort agreed to the plan, Kim sighed, and he felt her relief as she melted against him. She told him she’d already talked to Ceram and they needed eight days to grow a child, and twenty to grow an adult.
Cort realized what Kim meant. “I don’t need an adult.”
“Yes you do, Baby,” Kim replied. “Well, you don’t, and I certainly don’t, but Diane does. You have to save Angela too.”
Cort heard her thoughts clearly. I can’t believe I’m saying this. Another one for me to compete with.
“Diane will have you.”
“And I will love her as if she came from my own womb, Cort. But someday she will know about all this. When that happens, will you be able to tell her you chose not to save her mother?”
“I’ll deal with that when it happens,” Cort said coolly, as he turned his head to take a sip of his coffee.
“No, you have to deal with it now. This is your only chance to make this decision.” Kim took Cort’s hand and turned his body to face her again. Then she reached up and tilted his face to look in his eyes. “You’ve been given a chance to right a horrible thing, Cort. But you have to do it right. You are being given a gift, and you have a chance to give Diane one too.”
“Angela wasn’t much of a mom.”
“But she is Diane’s only mom. As much as I wish she were mine, and as much as I will love her, Angela is still her mother, and Diane needs her. If you don’t do this, someday she will find out about it, and she will resent you forever, even while she loves you.”
Cort looked down at his wife. His telepathy abated, and he could only sense general emotions from her. He pulled her against his chest, feeling the swell of her breasts as she breathed. “Kim, how would you feel having Angela alive though? We’ve always been on common ground, both widowed. That wouldn’t be true anymore. How would you handle it?”
Kim lied, and Cort knew it. “Before you told me the truth, I was a little jealous. I can’t explain it. I probably still am. But since then, knowing you don’t want her anymore, that she hurt you, I don’t care. She’s nothing to us, but she’s important to Diane. That’s what matters right now.”
Cort said, “I never thought I’d be listening to my wife tell me to spare the life of my other wife.”
The mental spike from Kim caused Cort to shake his head, but not quickly enough to avoid the full force of Kim’s hand across his face. She pushed away from him and truth spilled from her mouth like bile.
“I’m your wife! She’s not!” Kim screamed. “Gods damn you! Don’t you ever say that again! I’ve had to share you with two universes, that fucking whore Faulks, and now I have to share you with another one of your bitches! Don’t think for a minute I’ll tolerate you calling her your wife, you miserable son-of-a-bitch! I’m your wife! Me and me alone! And the next time your dick finds itself somewhere else, I’ll cut it off! I don’t care what the reason is!”
Without waiting for his response, Kim walked out of the office. Bane stood up, alert, and Shart ran into the room. A moment later, Dalek walked in with sleep in his eyes.
“Why is Momma crying?” he asked.
More reason to let Angela die, and go straight to Solitude.
—
With his mind focused on his trip to Earth, Cort looked at the viewscreen, and the planet spinning slowly below the Remington. It was the Earth he remembered. He could see the lights of major cities as they were before the Cull. Before that plague wiped out billions, New York City still punctuated the east coast. Chicago cast its glow on Lake Michigan. None of the great cities of the world had yet been abandoned and left as great monuments to the folly of organized religion and the hate it fostered.
Diane was down there. According to the ship’s chronometer, she was in school right now. She would be going to lunch and recess soon. Addison was probably there, getting ready to teach the kids in Diane’s class how to play foursquare. Angela was probably drunk. Or in bed with her new lover. Fuck. It’s been a full day. Kim’s never avoided me that long. What the hell?
Kim was still doing her job. She was relaying information to and from Bazal; she was helping George finish the holo-model of the enemy ship; and she was helping Clem figure out how to build a platoon of Marines from the few fighters there were among the refugees. But not a single personal word had been spoken. At supper the night before, the only thing words she spoke to Cort were to ask him to pass the salad.
The bedroom door was locked. It would have been nothing for Cort to rip off the sliding panel, but something stayed his hand. He hated the lock, though. It, and everything it represented. Fuck it. I’ve got other problems, too.
He left the quarters and went to his armory to plan a war.
—
When they started planning the attack on the enemy ship, George suggested that his AI control a few CONDORs remotely, rather than use untrained humans. But after simulations and testing, he couldn’t be sure he would be able to run the suits while the other ship was in motion. Instead, he printed a dozen small combat drones that Cort would be able to operate from his own CONDOR. George maintained secondary control and could take over if necessary.
Leaving him to figure out the logistics, Cort allowed himself a few moments to speculate on possible scenarios he might encounter on Earth. How would he get past Addison? He had to be careful not to get caught, because he couldn’t kill the man. If he came face to face with him, how would Cort explain? What would it be like to have a conversation with himself? The thoughts filled him with both apprehension and excitement.
—
As the ship orbited Earth above the crowd of man-made satellites, but below the Moon’s orbit, Cort searched for a place where he could safely make entrance onto his home planet without being detected or drawing attention to himself. The thought of reacquainting himself with a time long gone, yet still present, felt surreal to him. George remotely connected to Earth’s global data network, and listened as Cort outlined several orders.
Five hours later, Cort walked out of the Remington’s shuttle bay. There was no way to jump to the surface without a shock wave from the warp bubble, and if he entered the atmosphere in freefall, he
would leave a trail like a meteor. Both would have meant detection, so George had printed a small engine that attached to the back of Cort’s CONDOR. It gave him the ability to match Earth’s rotational velocity, and descend straight down, over the area he wanted to land.
It took nearly six hours to reach Earth’s atmosphere. As much as he had been in space over the years, very little of that time had been spent in a weightless environment. He felt constricted and claustrophobic as he tried to look around. It was an ironic emotion to him, feeling so totally alone in the vastness of space, yet at the same time, restricted by his powered armor. He passed within a few hundred meters of an old booster module from some rocket. It had Cyrillic lettering, so he assumed it was from either a Soviet or Russian launch.
An hour later, the glow of Earth’s ionosphere gradually appeared. He knew that it was only an image projected onto his Head-up Display. While the human eye couldn’t see the ionization of the atmosphere, the sensors on his CONDOR were able to detect it and display it as an ethereal green ghost on the inside of his helmet. He thought the overlay must be what the Northern Lights looked like, but from the inside. It took another four hours to pass completely through the atmosphere to the surface without generating a heat signature.
The external temperature of the CONDOR rose enough to approach the observable spectrum, and he had to slow down twice to avoid being visible. While its optical active camouflage would keep someone from seeing his suit, if the air around the suit became superheated from the friction he generated, it would still glow in the atmosphere. At one point, the jet stream caused the suit to vibrate and shake, but George adjusted the engine output, and moved Cort down and under the turbulence.
He landed in Rockville, California, near a bike trail that passed through a wetlands preservation area. He was racked with memories of that time in his life. He remembered riding his own bike along the trail with Diane in her little trailer, then later as she rode her own bike beside him. The smells and sounds of the small forest and creek caused him physical pain. It was exacerbated by the fact that for the first time, Kim hadn’t kissed him goodbye.
As he took the CONDOR off and hid it underneath a fallen oak tree, he thought of how easy it would be to kill his former self and try to relive this life. I could fake some injury to explain my different appearance. But the thought was fleeting. Kim woke me up. To stay here without her would be a nightmare.
Cort jogged to his old neighborhood in just under thirty minutes. On the way, he had to avoid young lovers, people walking dogs, and other late-night wanderers, which prolonged his journey. Finally, he stood looking over the back fence of his old home, and allowed his eyes to roam the street. Two houses down, a beagle named Lucy was barking at something. He could hear the next-door neighbor arguing with his elderly mother. A few months later, Addison would break the man’s arm for shoving the elderly woman against a wall.
On the other side of the street was a rental house owned by Addison and Angela. Angela’s dad had lived there until his death. Now it was rented by a young couple. When Addison found out they were expecting twins, he would give his own house to them. That would be just days before he moved away from society.
He turned his gaze, almost reluctantly, to the backyard of Addison’s home. He could see the top of Diane’s playhouse. With the enhanced vision of the FALCON’s mask, the wear on its green canopy was evident. I bought the new one a day before the wreck. Never put it on. I just left it for the couple across the street.
He stood, nearly invisible, on toes clad in flexible black armor, and peered over the fence. The view before him jogged his memory, and images of a patio chair and a broken bottle in the bottom of the pool, seemed crystal clear. He knew the patio table was leaning on a bent leg, and that in a couple of days, he would replace it. The new table would last all of three hours. He remembered that Angela was passed out in the living room, and Diane was asleep. Addison was also asleep in a chair just inside Diane’s door. That would complicate things.
Cort looked at the corner of his HUD and whispered, “George, run something for me. What happens if I kill Addison and bring the other two back with me now? How will it affect the future?”
“It is not advisable or possible, Father. Addison would not exist to take part in the experiment, so when we return to our time, the universe will be inconceivably different. The discussion is irrelevant though, because you do not have the equipment to bring them back, and the engine you have is needed before I can finish the shuttle which would allow for it.”
Cort thought for a few minutes. George was right of course. But what if I stayed here? What if I sent them all to the future? No. Addison doesn’t know or love Kim. And Kim doesn’t know him. She thinks she does. But he was a different person than the one who climbed into Barr’s transition chamber.
Cort jumped the fence and landed in the soft grass. He crept across the yard and around the pool, avoiding broken glass and spilled food. He found his hidden key, and walked to the front of the house.
“George,” he whispered, “I’m ready, disable the alarm system.”
A moment later, the corner of his HUD flashed green. So I remembered the code. He inserted his key into the lock, and opened the door. Angela was on the couch, just as he’d remembered. There was drool on the side of her face, and her pants were gone. Based on the position of her hand, she’d fallen asleep touching herself.
Cort reached into a small pack on his chest for an electronic syringe with the word Adult Sample written on it. Fuck her. I’ll figure out what to say to Diane.
He turned to the back of the house, and Kim’s voice was suddenly in his ear. “Take the sample, Cort. Now.”
She knows I can’t respond.
“Take the sample. We can argue about it later. Keep the option open.”
Cort turned around and crept back to Angela. He held the syringe to the surface of her bicep, and pressed the button on its end. After a few seconds, the device turned green. He put it back in his chest pack, and moved silently through the house.
In the hallway, he saw Diane’s shoes near her door. He looked at another location on his HUD and blinked. A tachyon scan gave him a map of the room, and he saw where both Diane and Addison were. Dammit! I’m too light a sleeper. Pulling a small tank and a hose from his pack, he pushed the tip of the hose under the door, and pressed its control pad, activating the tank. Ceram’s messages told him it would be ten minutes before it would be safe to enter the room. Cort just hoped there would be enough of the aerosol to keep them both unconscious.
While he waited for the sedative to take effect, he looked around his home and turned his gaze to pictures on the wall. Realizing they weren’t images he had, he recorded some of them with his optic sensors. He would have George print them later. There were images of his parents, Angela’s parents, some of Diane, and one of him with Stephen Hawking. That day was a hot one, he thought. One of the greatest minds in human history, and his life depended on one of the deadliest.
He recorded what he could, while he could. He imaged everything, even the mess in and around the pool. In the closet, he found a box filled with old family photos. He had to turn off his emotions to get through the pictures he would later share with Clem.
On a ship more than a hundred thousand miles above, Kim looked over his virtual shoulder, analyzing and over-thinking every moment her husband spent in his past. Beside her, Ceram watched, monitoring Cort’s vital signs. George scanned defensive networks and telescopes across the planet, looking for any indication that they had been discovered.
Cort walked into Angela’s closet and took scans of the clothes she would be wearing the night of the crash, so that George could print duplicates.
Finally, the timer on his HUD changed hues, and he approached the bedroom. Taking a deep breath, Cort opened the door.
Seeing himself in the chair by the door caused a wave of vertigo, which was magnified by his enhanced optics. Dizziness overcame him, and his stomach churned w
ith nauseous bile that left him unable to move. His first thought was to not touch Addison, even as he nearly fell into him. The same matter cannot occupy the same space, though he didn’t know what would happen. Then he remembered George explaining the physics to him. He wouldn’t actually be touching the same matter. The skin cells on his own body were not made of the same atoms that had made up the skin cells on Addison’s body. George lost him when he tried to explain why it wouldn’t matter anyway. Cort was still going to avoid it. He trusted George’s science, but he also didn’t want to wake himself up.
Cort leaned against the doorframe to keep from falling into the sleeping form. He looked at Addison, and wondered what the man would think of him. Addison carried the burden of a hundred deaths, and he truly believed every single one was justified. How would he feel about that number having reached billions or more? When he first jumped forward in time, Cort lived in black and white. Right and wrong. But after a decade of building a galactic empire, he saw the grays. His greatest allies were made from an enemy that had destroyed entire planets, but when his son was kidnapped, he exterminated a species that only wanted their ancestral home back. What would Addison think of that? Have I mellowed? Or hardened?
