Time Bandits (Age of Abundance Book 1)

by Dean C. Moore

  A snake hurtled itself off a tree, flattening itself to make a better sail to catch the wind, and landed on Clyde. It resumed its round shape and slithered about his neck for warmth. Perhaps it was practicing for when it would be old enough to strangle him and swallow him whole. Clyde started to peel the snake off him but then took to the neck warming effect as the winds picked up. “It suits you,” Notchka said. “Living jewelry. It’s lurid green color captures the deathly pallor of your face perfectly.”

  Clyde smiled at her absently as he took her rising hostility as an invitation to channel and redirect her energy. “So what are Kendra and Torin up to?” he asked.

  “Sheez. You think we’re lost in space, you should get a load of those two.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kendra’s conscience keeps nagging her about abandoning the search for us. So she keeps seeing her other investigations in that light, as leading her back to us somehow.”

  “Explain ‘somehow’.”

  “Now she’s convinced that their destiny is to chase after time bandits like us who would steal the childhood and adolescent phases of entire worlds, forcing enlightenment on them. And she can’t abide by this because she and Torin had their childhoods stolen from them in the same way.”

  “Go on,” Clyde said testily. His blood must have been on the rise because he peeled the snake off of him and set it back down in the forest to the side of the trail.

  “I suppose her thinking is right as far as it goes, but she’s missing the bigger picture. That the flipside of an Age of Abundance is that it’s also a progressive apocalypse.”

  “Interesting insight.”

  “Every day that more and more minds become empowered like us to screw with things on a planetary, if not a cosmic scale, the house of cards comes closer to caving in.” A branch broke off in the rising wind and fell with a thundering crash somewhere near the trail as if to punctuate her point. “Sure, society is even more shockproofed because just as many minds are empowered to keep the others in check. The upgraded chip- or nano-enhanced humans on Earth become ever more interlinked with one another to tackle bigger projects. The more interconnected everyone is, the harder it is for rogue agents to destroy civilization. But if you’re one of the ones whose job it is to keep the rogues in check…”

  “As they are…”

  “Then it’s easy to see the progressive apocalypse side of the coin more than the other side. And Kendra is even more afraid of technology than she is of her father. So no big surprise this insight will be a long time coming.” Speaking of long time coming, that castle wasn’t getting any closer for all their walking, Notchka thought.

  “You have surprising insight into adult psychology for one so young, Notchka.”

  “Please. You’re all broken dolls I get to play with. Real adults, if such a thing exists, would perfect the craft of fixing the busted pieces of their psyche.”

  Clyde smiled. “So where do you think I’m broken?” He gripped his walking staff harder, as if bolstering for the impending blow to his ego.

  “Well, look at the clues. You believe you commune with God better than anyone, that you understand His plan better. You and He have some kind of special rapport.” The sky exploded with sound as the overhead dragons shrieked at one another, as if they were voicing the almighty’s distaste over what she was saying. “And that if you don’t make the most of that special connection, all of humanity is forever lost. Does the word megalomania mean anything to you?”

  Clyde laughed.

  “An Age of Abundance is your worst nightmare. Because in it, everyone gets to play god.” Notchka telekinetically flung a fallen tree trunk that was just going to be too much trouble to get around out of their way and into the valley. Clyde’s wincing at the gesture just played up the validity of her conjecture for her. “In an Age of Abundance, everyone is liberated from being a wage slave just to survive. They have all the free time in the world to be all that they can be, to divine their own mission from God that will elevate humanity and advance the greater good. In such a world you would be common. Not special. And since there’s no avoiding the inevitable, you somehow have to make yourself responsible for it. It’s too late for your home world. But maybe if you affect the Ley lines running through the cosmos like you plan, then maybe, just maybe, as the Age of Abundance spreads throughout the cosmos, as it matures, it’ll be on account of you, as opposed to evolution proper.”

  Clyde was seeing the vista with greater visual acuity than his aging, tired eyes should allow with Notchka’s help. She figured she would throw in a little more rhetoric to point up just how much she was enhancing his take on the world. “Why do you think I need to feel so special, Notchka?”

  She shrugged. “Absentee parents who didn’t validate you enough when you were growing up? Kendra and Torin are right; all evil in the world comes down to someone’s hurt inner child. Learn to love yourself, learn to make yourself feel special, in ways your parents never could do for you, and the rest of us can take a breather from being subject to your grand schemes.”

  He smiled. “You never fail to amaze, little girl.”

  “And you never fail to ignore my wise counsel.”

  “Like you say, we all need to play god in our own way, to feel like we’re the most important person in all of creation. Otherwise we’d never overcome all the resistance to completing our missions. Who’s to say I’m wrong about my destiny?”

  “You do strike me as a kind of psychic doctor. Instead of passing your hands over someone’s head to heal them, the way they do with Reiki, you attend the cosmic Ley lines, in hopes of healing everyone from afar. Sort of like Sasquatch folklore, the way they say the Yeti attend to the planet’s energy meridians, keeping the energy flowing so the planet as a whole doesn’t get sick. There’s plenty of precedence for people like you in New Age folklore, even if you may well be the first of your kind working on such a cosmic scale.” She pointed to the day-glow monkeys liberating fruits from branches before they had a chance to break under the weight. They seemed to be doctoring their section of the planet in their own inimical manner.

  “Sometimes I can’t tell whether you’re for me or against me.”

  “It’s all a matter of perspective. To Kendra and Torin, you’re the villain. I can see their point. But it’s just as easy to make a case for cosmic scale acupuncturists and healers like yourself. I guess if their childhood psychology trips them up, so does mine. Maybe I need to see things from all different perspectives before acting because I always felt powerless before an all-powerful, yet creepy adult figure like yourself. Since I couldn’t act to free myself, I developed a defense mechanism of justifying perpetual inaction. Like a philosopher who prefers to bandy ideas than to take action on any one of them.”

  Clyde smiled. “It’s hard to change compulsive behavior. It has its own rewards after a while. It becomes your safe place. To get over yourself you must risk being uncomfortable for a while.”

  “We’ll pick up this conversation at a later time. For now, we’re where you need to be. And the window of opportunity is brief.”

  “We’re still no closer to that castle.”

  “Yes, I’ve become convinced it’s one of the castle’s defense mechanisms. A feat of magic maybe, considering the type of world we’re in.”

  “You can get around it?”

  “Of course. Dipsy-doodles think they can foil cyber-chick, they got another guess coming.”

  Clyde smiled. “I guess we can say goodbye to the adult inside you for a while. Probably for the best.”

  She waved her hand and in a flash they were inside the castle. “Now do what you gotta do, because I got a date to ride a dragon.”

  Clyde beheld the giant at the end of the long crudely-hewed wooden table. “Why isn’t he moving?”

  “Duh! I made sure that we’re vibrating at a higher rate than him. That’s why I said time is of the essence. In less than a minute, the planet’s energy will be focused. The
alignment with the Ley lines too strong for me to contain him.”

  Clyde moved brusquely to inject the giant with the finished formula he’d tested on the world with the sex-changing farmers. His neck was thicker than Clyde’s waist. But then so were his arms and legs. Clyde crawled up him like a young child eager to sit in his lap. When he was in position, he injected him in the jugular. Up close, he couldn’t say that he fancied the giant’s grooming habits. Big Boy had braided the hair growing out of his ears and both braids dangled beneath his neck. His bald head and puffy cheeks made his face look like a stack of boulders on top of the human mountain.

  The giant was stirring. That was Clyde’s cue to climb off.

  By the time he hit the ground the giant was up, groggily knocking things over and growling. He saw the two humans and charged them. As Notchka and Clyde ran for the door, Notchka said, “Don’t think I don’t appreciate this children’s fairytale come to life, or that I believe for an instant it’s more for my benefit than yours.”

  “Maybe you could chide me later?”

  The stomping giant behind them made the floor shake, the walls vibrate. Furniture danced on the floor, sending fruits and ornaments rolling, and making the ground beneath their feet all the more unsettled. Each time they had to pick one another up off the floor, the giant narrowed the gap between them. “Now’s a good time to beam us out of here, Notchka.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but he’s the one adept at channeling this planet’s energy, not me. And his psychic energy is keeping us trapped here.”

  “I guess we find our way to the exit the conventional way, then.” Clyde picked her up, perched her on her shoulders and ran like a man who forgot he was using a staff just to walk earlier.

  The next thing he knew they were running down the trail from the castle. He thought he’d blacked out from the rising blood pressure. Notchka explained, “looks like I’m not totally devoid of powers.”

  “Just running on low batteries.”

  The ground was shaking just as much out here as it was inside the castle. Trees were falling over in the giant’s wake. Other trees he uprooted with his hands and tossed at them like javelins. He wasn’t beyond eating a monkey or two en route to getting his mitts on them.

  “Enough of this marathon man nonsense.” Notchka raised her hand to the sky and summoned one of the dragons. Held in check by her psychic abilities, it flew down and settled itself long enough for the two of them to climb on and then it was off.

  The giant leaped from the ground and soared into the air high enough to grab the dragon by its talons, though they were several castles high off the ground by now. The dragon shrieked and breathed fire on the giant, but he appeared immune. “I’m sure you have some reason for jacking up his powers with that cocktail of yours that makes sense to you and only you,” Notchka said, watching the giant fighting the hellacious winds and the flames to get closer to them. To say nothing of the dragon’s acrobatic rolls in its determination to free itself of its stowaway. Notchka and Clyde would have been thrown already were it not for Notchka’s melding their bodies to the dragon so they were literally growing out of it like a pair of tumors.

  “Just imagine what this kind of confidence will do broadcasted throughout the cosmos for uplifting souls trapped forever in low self-esteem.”

  “Yeah, right. My self-esteem could use a little elevating right about now. Oh, I know what to do!” She psychically signaled the dragon to climb.

  Once they were high enough in the atmosphere, the giant had to fight for air. As he grew increasingly light-headed he lost his focus on the two of them and dropped to the ground.

  Notchka, seated in front of Clyde, craned her neck back to him. “You still think what we’re doing is a good thing? Because at times like this, I have my doubts.”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Since when did the city become such a maze?” Torin asked. They’d been wandering in circles since leaving Petro Dolari behind in his submerged lair.

  “You forget how psychically impressionable our world is.” Kendra coughed, as if choking on the truth.

  “Let me guess, this is you not sure how ready you are for that confrontation with dear old dad.”

  “Don’t put this off on me. You could be the one who feels ill-prepared to have it out with his parents.”

  Torin sighed. “I suppose it’s remotely possible for the City AI to feed into thwarting us. It would take some pretty mighty psychic stress on both our parts.”

  “I’m surprised it’s still possible. Aren’t all these flowering plants supposed to be emitting pheromones to dampen down the city’s responsiveness to our every whim?”

  “You forget we emit pheromones of our own, and occasionally they’re just potent enough to make the plants do something they weren’t designed to do. We then have all the mind magnifying power we need to…”

  “…be lost forever.”

  “Well, it isn’t exactly the lost world, age of the dinosaurs.” Torin took her by the arm and led them straight up the narrow canyon, framed by red sandstone, something out of Arizona, maybe, but from another era, judging by the dinosaurs, only now visible, roaming about and the T-Rex roaring their way, intent on having them for dinner. All in all, quite the Ninth Street makeover. The Manhattan City AI was definitely outdoing itself.

  “You were saying?” she said as they both fled in the direction the T-Rex was stomping, in the insane hope of outrunning it.

  “I was saying all is not lost and this is not the end of the world, just the end of your resistance to the idea of confronting your dad. And as it is the end of your resistance, it’s only fitting that the final conflict be one battle royal.”

  “Why this dark period from Earth history?” she asked, somewhat breathily, as she hadn’t coordinated chitchat with being quite this on the run before, with her jogging, maybe.

  “Because this is your all is lost moment, that’s why? And that isn’t T-Rex, that’s your father relative to you, the big, all powerful, intimidating parent, and you’re just the small child, minute by comparison.”

  “And how come all this isn’t growing out of your resistance over the idea of confronting your parents?”

  “If this had anything to do with my resistance,” he said panting, “we’d be running from two T-Rexs, not one. Though I have no doubt my anxieties are feeding your thought projections.”

  They turned down a side street to avoid T-Rex’s jaws closing on them at the last second, taking advantage of their ability to turn on a dime a lot faster than he could.

  “It’s time you do what the child couldn’t,” Torin said, “not back then, anyway. The child in you now has some tools at her disposal that the young Kendra didn’t. Maybe you should avail yourself of them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a plan of how you’re going to confront him, what you’re going to say, and what you’re going to do if that doesn’t work.”

  “I don’t know. I think I’d much rather try and face down T-Rex.”

  “Good, because he’s just a stand in for your father.”

  She gazed back at the creature just as it was lowering its jaws around them and the image faded. Suddenly it was just overgrown New York City, with ivy crawling up every building, looking as if someone had gotten a post-apocalyptic take on Manhattan confused with the eco-conscious Acropolis paradise version of it.

  Torin grimaced. “I suppose now we have to wait for your dark night of the soul to come to an end.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m guessing that’s what the maze is about.” He took her in arm and led them in another direction, feeling just as lost as ever. The city he knew and grew up in as a child had totally morphed on him into something entirely unrecognizable.

  “Since it looks like we have some extra time to think,” he said, “don’t you ever wonder what would have happened if we’d taken in that young girl, Clyde Barker’s apprentice? I
f we’re both suffering from wounded-child syndrome, what better way to heal ourselves than by raising her? It’s salvation by proxy. And who better to focus on saving but that child? I mean, the world in the end has us all to take care of it in our own way, by simply fulfilling our missions in life, whatever they are. But that little girl, she just has the two people that are most right for her.”

  She glared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “And what makes you think that’s us? Successful relationships involve more than just matching up neuroses, Torin. When it’s just about getting our needs met through one another, that’s more a formula for staying the same forever than for finding God.”

  “Maybe. But it doesn’t strike you as just a little bit strange that the most obvious path forward for both of us to take, was the one we never even considered?”

  She gave him a wary look. Was she defending against psychological pain she didn’t want to feel now just like she didn’t want to feel it then when the idea had occurred to her as well to take in the little girl? Or was she actually opening up to the pain for the first time?

  Maybe this was just her mind’s latest attempt to hijack her thinking, derailing it from thoughts of confronting dad. The subtext of the rhetoric being that if she could first get her hands on Notchka, do as Torin suggested, use their healing of the child to heal their own inner child, then she would finally have what she needed to confront her father; she’d finally be strong enough to do so. Of course, part of that subtext involved forestalling the inevitable confrontation with her father yet again. She wasn’t going to allow herself to get played this time.

  But she couldn’t help but wonder if she was putting the cart before the horse. Would she meet with success healing her relationship with her father in this timeline as a result of the detour not taken? Or would such success only come in that other timeline, when she’d succumbed to the rhetoric of her unconscious?