Beginnings (Book 1): Future Apocalypse

by Gilbert, Barbara J.

  Paulette carefully removed Danni’s helmet, removed all the secured digital SD cards from all the cameras, and took them back to her computer. Inserting one card at a time, she uploaded each video to her hard drive. All three of them were excited to see what the cameras captured. A few minutes later, Paulette queued up the first video. The video started out with her buckling Danni into her seat and the then her entry into the wormhole. What appeared next, astounded all three, as they sat there watching a swirling of colors and lights while the time pod twirled its way through the wormhole. At one point, all light dissipated, then reappeared a moment later. Moments later, the wormhole opened into a beautiful sunny day; and the time pod landed in a forested area, with the outline of Seattle in the distance. Paulette checked the other videos to see if there was anything interesting or intriguing in them. She brought up one of the door cameras that pointed toward the northeast and forwarded past the wormhole travel until the forest appeared. They again saw Seattle in the distance but also noticed objects flying around in the air. Paulette zoomed in on the video, and their mouths dropped open. What they were seeing were flying vehicles of all makes and sizes, and Seattle had a more futuristic look to it. All of this in fifty years. This was amazing. She could hardly wait to see what two hundred and fifty years brought.

  The whole time they were watching the videos, Danni was lying under Paulette’s desk, sleeping off her long ordeal. Paulette, Greg, and Susan stood up and headed out of the project room with Danni still sound asleep. Paulette whispered to Danni, telling her she’d be back for her in a little while. Danni didn’t even stir.

  An hour later, Paulette came in to get Danni. She called for her and Danni lifted her head and stood up, coming over to stand next to her. “Hey, it’s time we get you to your least favorite place,” she said with a smile. Danni wagged her tail and followed along next to her left leg as they headed out to Paulette’s old beat-up Subaru. She had purchased the Subaru after the last earthquake had demolished her other car. She liked this car much better, because it was her favorite color — blue — and it had four-wheel drive for those nasty winters they occasionally got in Seattle. They arrived at the car, and Paulette opened the back door and patted the seat. “Danni, up,” she commanded. Danni jumped in, turned around, and lay down, and Paulette closed the door. Opening the driver’s side door, she slid into the seat, fired up the car, and headed down the hill to the vet clinic. Traffic was light, so it only took about twenty minutes to get to her destination.

  She slowed down and then turned into the parking lot of the clinic and found a parking space near the front. Getting out of the car, she opened the back door and told Danni to sit while she picked up the lead and attached it to her collar. She motioned for Danni to jump out of the car and then closed the door and led her inside. The receptionist checked them in, and they took a seat on the cushioned benches as they waited for someone to call Danni back.

  It wasn’t too long when the vet technician came out, “Danni,” she called. Paulette stood up, and she and Danni headed over to the vet tech. “Can you have her step onto the scale please so I can get her weight?” the tech asked.

  Paulette led Danni over to the scale. “Danni, on the scale and sit,” she commanded. Danni walked onto the scale and sat down while the scale read her weight. It showed Danni weighed a healthy forty-eight pounds. Satisfied, the technician led them back to the room they’d wait in. Paulette and Danni entered and sat down on the brown leather bench in the corner. Danni looked around her environment, inspecting everything. The room consisted of a stainless-steel counter, where the smaller animals were checked, and a sink and cupboard to the left of the counter. There was a small computer monitor on the corner of the counter space under the cabinets that the doctor used to log all the information in for the animals he examined. After a few minutes, the doctor came in.

  “Good afternoon, Paulette,” Dr. Eric Tyson said.

  “Good afternoon to you, Dr. Tyson.”

  “What brings you in with Danni today?”

  “Well, I wanted to get a complete workup on her. I’ve been putting her under a lot of stress lately. Could you do everything, like blood work, x-rays, dental exam, and such?”

  “Sure, I can. I don’t see why we need all these tests, but if that’s what you want, then I’ll get them done. It will take a while, if you want to wait in the waiting area.”

  “All right, thanks,” she replied.

  Dr. Tyson led Danni out of the room and into the back to perform all the requested tests, while Paulette left and went to the waiting area.

  To keep her mind occupied, she shuffled through the myriad of magazines available to read. She always enjoyed looking at the dog fancy magazine, so she picked one up and thumbed through it, stopping occasionally to read an article or two. It took longer than she had anticipated, and she had already read several articles in multiple magazines and drunk several bottles of water and a diet Pepsi.

  “Paulette, the doctor is ready to see you again,” the technician stated.

  Paulette looked up from the current article she was reading in the latest horse magazine, smiled, put it up, and followed the technician back to the room she had come from earlier. She walked in to see Danni sitting there, wagging her tail and excited to see her again.

  “So, Paulette, I’ve run every test imaginable, and the good news is, I can’t find anything wrong with her. She is in perfect health. Her teeth need a little cleaning at some point, but everything else is perfect.”

  “That’s great. I’m so thankful that there is nothing wrong with her. Thank you so much, Dr. Tyson.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Paulette took Danni by the lead, and they headed out to the front to pay the enormous bill she had run up, but it was worth every penny. She could barely contain her excitement. She knew, in her heart, Danni would be able to safely go to the future and return safely back home. She could hardly wait to try out the time machine, herself. She’d have to leave Danni behind for the first short trip but would have Greg modify the time pod to include a seat for Danni when she got back, so that she could take Danni, her best friend, with her on the next, longer excursion.

  It was time to go home and get some much-needed rest. For soon, she’d travel to the future, and couldn’t wait to see what marvels awaited her.

  Chapter 16

  Spring 2030, Present

  Spring 2280, Future

  Day 1

  This was the moment Paulette had been waiting for all her life — the moment she proved to all her friends and family that it was possible to travel in time. Greg and Susan helped her into the pod, buckled her in, and shut the clear door. She put the clear door on so if there was something to see while she traversed space and time, she could witness it firsthand. Once the door was closed, she turned her head and entered the year 2280 into the computer. She had decided to go two hundred fifty years into the future to see how humanity had progressed technologically and just all the changes, in general. She then programed in the location. She thought it would probably be safest to land in a field surrounded by trees at a higher elevation so no one could find her time machine. The last thing she needed to do was to hit the enter key and hold her breath — not literally, of course — as she traveled through time. She looked out of the clear pod door and saw that Greg and Susan were giving her the thumbs up. She took a deep breath and hit the enter key. The engines fired up, and she saw the wormhole appear before her. Using the flight stick, she eased the time pod into the wormhole. At first, it seemed as if nothing were happening, but then she felt a huge pressure on her and everything began to spin, shake, and vibrate. She thought it would tear her apart. She tried looking out the door, but all she could see were vibrant colors streaming by as she traveled through the wormhole she had created. After what seemed like forever but was only a few minutes, the ride came to a jarring halt. The last bit of the trip had surpassed the g-forces she thought she’d endure, and it caused her to black out.


  Her eyes blinked open, then closed, then opened again as she tried to regain consciousness and determine her whereabouts. I sure hope I landed in the right time and place. She thought as she tried to stay awake. It took a few more minutes to regain full control of her thoughts and body. When she did, she unbuckled the seatbelt and tried to stand. Successful at standing, she unlatched the door, swung it open, took a step, and stumbled out onto the grass.

  “Well, at least I’m in a field with trees like I planned, so I should be able to step through and see the futuristic Seattle,” she said out loud. She couldn’t wait to see the flying cars for herself, and to investigate other futuristic technology. As she regained her balance, she walked north to find a clear view of the city. As she was walking, though, she realized that she could only hear the sounds of birds and animals. She should have been able to hear all the noise and commotion of the city just below her and planes overhead, or even spacecraft taking off. She paused for a moment and wondered if she had gone somewhere else entirely. Naw, she thought. It’s just me. The time travel must have messed with my hearing a little, and that’s why I can’t hear anything, or maybe the technology is so advanced that they can mask the sound.

  She continued her journey and found a clearing. She headed toward it quickly and with intense anticipation. As she jogged out of the clearing, she barely caught herself from falling off a cliff and into the ocean. Looking out across the expanse of water that shouldn’t be there, she saw degraded and ruined skyscrapers covered with vines and moss and, who knew what else, growing on them and sticking out of the ocean. Shocked and frightened by what she saw, she quickly ran back to the time pod, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. Arriving back at the time pod, she climbed in, closed the door, buckled herself in, typed the year 2030 in the computer, set her destination, and hit the enter key. Silence ensued. Then tons of alarms and red lights went off, and she sat there in total shock. Her thoughts were racing. This can’t be. I know I programmed everything correctly, and I know, for a fact, my plan to get back to the present was right. So, what the hell just happened? Why am I still here? This is crazy! Panic set in. She was hyperventilating and had to shake herself out of it and take deep breaths. She continued to rationalize out loud. “So, maybe, the problem has to do with time dilation, or time refraction; or maybe the mouth of the wormhole threw me into hell.”

  She decided to see if the problem had something to do with time refraction, or time hallucination. She got back out of the time pod and headed back the way she had come. As she got close to the clearing, she slowed down, then went out to take another look. What she saw hadn’t changed. She collapsed onto the ground and sobbed uncontrollably, snot running down her nose all over everything. Her eyes soon became swollen and her face red from all her crying. The last time she had cried that hard was right after hurricane Jackson, during her eighth-grade year in school, when she lost her father and everything she ever owned. She couldn’t bear to think that she had worked so hard to accomplish her dream of traveling through time, only to find that there was no future to go to. Several hours later, she gathered herself together enough to head back to the time pod. She had to think about shelter from the night and whatever was hiding out there. She was thankful that she had brought her go bag, sleeping bag, pistol and rifle, and a week’s worth of water and food. Although it gave her some comfort knowing she had the tools to survive, to some extent, it still didn’t give her much hope in making it out of this hell she found herself in. She decided, despite how uncomfortable it would be, that it would be safer to sleep in the chair in the pod for the night. She figured when she woke up, she’d do a little exploring of her surroundings and see if she could determine what might have caused the destruction she saw. Until then, she’d grab something to eat and then get some sleep. She settled into the uncomfortable seat after eating dinner, and before she knew it, she was out like a light.

  She spent the night in a restless sleep, with nightmares plaguing her every moment. It seemed as if she’d never wake up. Soon the sun rose and placed a spotlight of sun rays right through the clear door practically blinding her while she slept, she woke with a start and immediately covered her eyes and cursed about the direction the pod had put itself in. Errg, what a nightmare, and that sun is too bright. Wish I had brought my sunglasses, she thought. She spent the next few minutes getting her bearings when she realized that she was still in the nightmare, except it wasn’t a dream. It was real. She didn’t know what to do, where to go, or if she’d even find anyone still alive; but she had to do something. She needed to try and find out what happened to this place. Was it only Seattle, the United States, or the entire world? All those thoughts and questions were large ones to tackle if she were the only living human being there. She got up, picked up her go bag and some granola bars, and went outside to sit and eat, while she contemplated her next move.

  As she was eating, she decided she’d start by exploring the nearby area where she landed. Maybe she could find some clues to what might have happened. She had all kinds of theories, some of them based on all the doomsday predictions about global warming. But she needed to find out the answers for herself. That’s just who she was and part of the reason she was so smart. She cleaned up her breakfast mess, strapped on her go bag, and proceeded to the ledge where she had been the night before, to get another look at what used to be the great city of Seattle.

  She arrived at the same spot and scanned the horizon, looking for anything that could help her. If she could find a boat or something, maybe she could get a closer look at the remaining buildings that were above water. Unfortunately, she saw nothing useful nearby, so she skirted the edge of the cliff, working her way around to check out the different areas. As she walked, she became more aware of the destruction. Some skyscrapers were leaning over against other buildings, and many of them had crumbled. Anything from an earthquake to a tsunami could have caused such damage. She filed her observations away in her head for later retrieval and kept walking. As she walked, she noticed the fresh air and scent of the pine trees, and even the grass. She hadn’t smelled these scents in a long time. In her present, she only smelled gas, exhaust, and other human-made smells. Rarely, did she ever have time to go hiking or camping, so she didn’t get away from the city to enjoy the fresh air and other smells found out in the wild. Now, here she was in the future, hiking around in an apocalyptic world, and all she could think about were the smells she missed so much from her childhood. She chuckled under her breath at the thought of finding something wonderful in a place so horrible. She continued her survey of the area, keeping track of things she saw, like the deer and birds, and other critters, and land structure and other formations. She looked out to the distant horizon trying to see some sign of what had happened, but nothing was registering. Before she knew it, the sun was getting low in the sky, so she turned back and headed to the time pod to get dinner, ponder what she observed, and get some rest.

  She slogged up the hill to the time pod, deep in thought. She had been so engrossed in her thoughts she almost tripped and fell into the pod. She laughed at herself for being so focused that she didn’t pay attention to her surroundings. A few minutes later, she had a small fire going from some small branches she had collected on the way back. The fire gave her some much-needed warmth and allowed her to have her first hot meal. It wasn’t the same as a nice home-cooked meal, but the camping meals worked well, in a pinch, and allowed extra room to pack more food. She cracked a smile at the thought of her ransacking the local sports store to buy up all the camping food before her trip to the future. At least she got something right, she thought. She enjoyed the spaghetti and meatball dinner, and a hot cup of cider she heated over the fire. She took her time eating dinner and afterward sat back to enjoy more cider and the warmth of the fire. She stared into the flames and scrounged around in her memory to recall what she had seen and heard that day.

  Suddenly, she sat straight up when she realized that there were a fe
w things she didn’t see that hadn’t registered with her earlier. The Northwest was known for its beautiful, dormant volcanoes. Some of them were so tall they could be seen in the Seattle skyline, or just from the highways when driving around. The mountains there were tall enough; she should have been able to spot at least one or two. When she was looking to the north of the city, she should have seen Mt. Baker in the distance, but as she recalled what she had seen earlier, she realized she hadn’t seen it. She scurried around in her memory to recall what she had seen to the south. To her surprise, she couldn’t remember seeing Mt. Rainer or Mt. St. Helens. She paused in her thought process for a second to absorb this new information. “What could have happened to those tall wonders,” she said out loud. Then it hit her that maybe the huge earthquake everyone feared would happen in the future, actually had happened but with a lot more impact than anyone could have imagined. Something cataclysmic must have happened for the tallest mountains in the Cascade Mountain Range not to be visible. As she began to let it all sink in, she suddenly recalled that the entire Cascade Mountain Range seemed smaller. The only thing she could think of that could do what she had seen was a total shift in the tectonic plates. There must have been something huge that caused the Pacific Plate and the Juan de Fuca Plate to crash into and under the North American Plate, producing an apocalyptic earthquake that caused the West Coast to sink into the ocean. Under normal circumstances, the Pacific Plate going under the North American Plate might have caused the mountains to grow a few centimeters a year, but maybe, just maybe, that earthquake everyone had feared was what caused this. Of course, it was all Paulette’s conjecture at this point. She couldn’t prove one way or the other what happened.