Time Crossers 01: The Final Six Days

by Agster, Joe

  Now he sets his mind to the goal at hand, to help Max see his plan through to completion, and hopefully uncover his key secret. Friend browses the closet of the owner of the mansion, discovering a wealth of clothing that matches his size and style. Some of it is a bit too extravagant for him; tee shirts with black unicorns, shirts adorned with golden stars, and chain mail sweaters don’t suit him as much. He flashes back to those moments when he would acquire new clothes, especially with Cassie, but the convenience of having this vast wardrobe collection at his disposal means less preparation time and more time to implement his plan.

  He suits up in a pair of dark, stylish jeans with a thick black belt and silver buckle, a purple and gray sweater and a utility large collared black waterproof jacket, all suiting his style perfectly. He heads to the kitchen to freshen up on water and juice, accompanied by a bowl of dry wheat cereal. He wraps up his meal with haste, as his watch reads 10:08. Now it’s time to go.

  Friend teleports to a predetermined spot near the back of the Percolation coffee shop building in Fontana, safely out of view from bystanders. The back faces a busy freeway, with a garbage station that is rarely frequented. He walks toward the front of the shop and makes his way through the doors, just as a young couple is exiting. To his mild surprise the seating areas are barely populated. Friend deduces that the Christmas holiday yesterday combined with being an hour or two after the peak coffee time are most likely the cause.

  He spots Max immediately, sitting at a small table adjacent to the window, in perfect view of his rental vehicle. He is fixated on his device, poking away at it in an entranced state, finalizing business of some sort. Friend decides to order an iced coffee first from the automaton barista, extra cream and sugar. While waiting for the silver and green humanoid to make his beverage, he scans the seating area for a possible danger; perhaps a rogue FBI agent is tailing Max. But all he sees are young hipsters and students, buried in their devices or computers. One twentysomething girl with blue hair marvels in some type of music, bopping her head along to harmonious sounds, almost oblivious to the fact she is in a coffee shop in the first place. None of these people pose any type of danger. He collects his iced beverage and takes a few sips with pure enjoyment, concurring to himself the time is now to engage Max at his table.

  Approaching Max has become an art form. The incessant need to always break down the walls of his apprehension, his paranoia of being caught, always poses a unique challenge. As Friend walks right up to his table, grabbing a chair with hesitation and taking a seat, he confidently assures himself that engaging Max is something he has down to a science.

  “Hello, Max,” Friend speaks directly to him, at his eye level sitting down.

  Max looks around in confusion, scanning the outside to confirm whether or not he has been caught. After a nervous sigh, he belts, “What do you want?”

  Friend tries to ascertain the level of linking he had established with Max. There seemed to be some evidence of a link, especially in the last two iterations arriving at the bunker. Max senses familiarity in his presence, something he couldn’t explain. It was as if he had met Friend in a dream. From Friend’s point of view however, there seems to be no link, not one that Max is outwardly admitting anyway. In any case, he needs to get right to the point. The more he talks the more it will jar his memory.

  “My name is Friend. I am going to accompany you on your journey to Las Vegas. I am going to help you fulfill your mission of revealing your secret to the world.”

  Max pauses at the intensity of the statement. He wonders how this strange man just walked into his life and has details about his destination and his intentions. It’s impossible, beyond scientific explanation. Then it hits him, a faint gut feeling that this was always going to happen, a feeling formed just a few days ago after his suicide attempt. He had never been a religious man, and since that moment he had been attempting to assure himself that there wasn’t a diving presence guiding him to the end of days, only to relent and accept the inevitable truth that science doesn’t have all the answers.

  “Okay, Friend, who exactly are you, and how exactly are you going to help me?” Max asks sternly, but in a whispering voice.

  “Let’s go to your car, your silver rented one right there. Then I’ll explain everything to you.” Friend speaks back in assured tone, getting up, knowing that Max will do this same.

  Max gets up in reluctance, but eventually he follows Friend and they head to the car. It unlocks as soon as Max comes into proximity and Friend wastes no time entering on the right passenger side. Just as Max utters his first syllable to probe further, Friend beats him to it.

  “Max, I’m going to make this simple and plain. I live the same six days over and over, starting from today until the asteroid crashes. I know everything about you by now, since we’ve met so many times. I know about your suicide attempt a few days ago. My question to you is, do you remember anything about me? Information from the past? Someone significant person in your life confiding in you that’d we’d meet one day at a critical moment?”

  Max soaks it all in in perplexed amazement. Friend is used to the expression on his face by now, but hopefully there is a link and that would speed up the familiarization process.

  “There is something. I can’t explain it. A sort of knowing this meeting would happen. I felt it after I attempted suicide.”

  Max ponders on his belief in the multiverse. But if Friend is creating a new timeline with each new six-day episode, creating a new fork in time, how is his presence permeating backwards in time such that it is creating this feeling of awareness in him? Is it possible that a fork in time is not a fork at all, but a complete parallel thread of time from the beginning to the end, and the strange man is just jumping across them, like vines in a jungle?

  “If you can’t explain that, wait until we travel to Las Vegas. It will defy all your scientific presuppositions,” Friend speaks aptly. “We need to find a convenient spot to ditch your car, you won’t need it any longer. Somewhere we won’t be seen.”

  Max decides that in his own curious interest he will just do as Friend suggests, seeing just how far down this rabbit hole goes. He drives along a frontage road to the main expressway until he comes to a small country road, perpendicular to the one he is on. It passes underneath the expressway toward one end, and winds up a mountain on the other.

  “Take this road toward the mountain, this should do.” Friend suggests.

  They continue on the country mountain pass for about two kilometers before pulling off to the side, Max reaching his limit before demanding an explanation. He shuts the car off, and before he can utter his first words, Friend vigorously grabs his arm, and they instantly vanish out of the air.

  They arrive at Friend’s hideout mansion, right in the center of the main living room. The total time in the void of nonspace during teleportation was a fraction of a second, but Friend realizes that Max must have been stunned at disbelief, as he now stands paralyzed in it.

  “We teleported to Las Vegas,” Friend explains immediately, adding more, “We can go to the balcony and you can see for yourself.”

  Max remains quiet as they swiftly head to the balcony, Max almost running, eager to find some proof of what he suggests. And as he opens the double doors onto the elevated porch, he sees the city of Las Vegas from a high up view in all its realness.

  “How did you…?” He stutters as he continues his gaze on the city, hands firmly wrapped around the outer balcony wall.

  “Listen Max, we can go into it another time. Right now, I need you explain to me your intentions. What are you planning?” Friend demands.

  Max initially freezes, but realizes Friend is here to help. “I’m meeting a contact tomorrow. You obviously know about Icedragon and I’m sure the president makes his address, probably sometime tomorrow night. I have information the world needs to know. She is going to help me.”

  “She?” Friend asks.

  “Her name is Maria Villanueva. She’s a
n investigative journalist for World News One. Of all my media contacts, she’s the only one brave enough to meet with me and let me reveal this terrifying secret once and for all. Let me tell you we are going to shock the world.”

  The big secret, Friend ponders. Something he doesn’t even yet know, Something’s he’s avoided wanted to know, understanding the danger. If he were captured by the FBI he would not be able to plausibly deny his knowledge of it. Then again, he can teleport now, among other powers. It’s not like he is a mere mortal the last time he was captured. The FBI is but a minor nuisance now, so there is no danger in knowing the truth.

  “So what is the secret Max?”

  Max is taken aback by the question. He becomes amused that despite all of Friends iterations, he still doesn’t know about this very secret. He has a bit of leverage after all.

  “Help me meet with her, and you’ll find out,” Max assuredly tells Friend.

  They return to the living room area. Friend rolls out the giant clearboard he has been using to illustrate his plan. The clearboard is computerized, enabling Friend to save and retrieve drawings, as well as pull up information from the network. He pulls up his current drawing, detailing exact minutes of various events: Max at the coffee shop, Max arriving in town, his meet with Fisher, the FBI encounter, the president address. It also shows a scribbled diagram of the strip, the hotel layouts, dotted trajectories of Max and Cassie’s movements. Max is impressed with the wealth of information present in front of his eyes.

  “So when is your meet with his Maria?” Friend inquires.

  “Tomorrow, at noon. In the circus district at the north end of the Strip there is a restaurant called The Fireside. I’m going to lay the news on her, and her and her crew will set up a discreet location to do the post-address announcement.”

  Friend inserts this meet time into his timeline on the board, scribbling the time with his finger and watching as the computerized board converts his imperfect handwriting into a legible font. He then wonders how they are going to pull this off, any sighting of Max, especially outdoors will trigger a FBI response.

  Friend asserts, “I’ll go. It’s just too risky for you to be seen anywhere. The FBI has drones everywhere probing for you.”

  Max hesitates, but understands Friend knows a lot more than he does about the manhunt underway for him. “Very well. But I’ll need my stuff, we left it behind in the car. My device too.”

  “That device is how they track you. I’ll go retrieve your stuff and dispose of that device.”

  It takes only a matter of moments for Friend to whisk around space and accomplish the task. He retrieves the device from Max’s car, then teleports to the gangland neighborhood and drops the phone off, turned on, before returning to the car and grabbing Max’s luggage and all his effects. He returns to the hideout, with Max and his belongings safe from the prying eyes of the government. Now they make preparations for tomorrow.

  Day 2 – December 27

  Friend puts a tiny apparatus into his ear. It is transparent with some flesh coloring. It’s like a tiny medicine tablet, about a half centimeter across, that molds itself to the inside of his ear canal once inside.

  Friend bought it, along with a prepaid device, at a small outpost in Acapulco. The device works equally well in Las Vegas, as Max explained, due to an ubiquitous wireless standard put in place about a decade ago that the whole world has adopted. Citizens can travel to any nation without fear of their device failing to function, but as Max laments, the side effect is that the governments of the world can more easily spy on them. This annoyance has luckily been mitigated when Friend paid a technician to remove the beacon chip. He distinctly recalled his conversation with Cassie over this, how she explained how it was used to track Max. The technician explained how this is illegal, but Friend has little concern for this world’s smothering abundance of senseless laws. He just hopes it all works.

  Friend teleports to a little used parking lot toward the backside of the district’s main areas, a place he had visited only once before with Cassie during their tour, on day four of the very first iteration. The circus district is another one these aggregations of shops and restaurants wedged between two resorts. But this one is much older, and since it has mixed ownership, it does not operate under one centralized name, like the Sparq. It’s calling of “circus district” is just a de facto label, originating from seasoned tourists and residents alike. Cassie explained all of this during their tour on those first days.

  The Fireside restaurant sits in a pale beige brick building, equipped with outdoor seating that seemed to be the norm, and a large opening entrance. He enters the establishment, and at first the eatery doesn’t seem busy, but in the three minutes it takes Friend to activate the call with Max back at the mansion, it fills up rather quickly. As he looks down toward the black, shiny concrete, his watch currently reading 12:04, he urges himself to get with the program and find this Maria immediately.

  “Max, are you there?” Friend peaks into his hand, disguising his conversation into the earpiece.

  “Yeah. Okay Friend listen, she is wearing a red blouse and a faint pink fedora hat.” Max replies.

  Friend scans the inside of the restaurant looking for a short dark haired woman with a red top, and spots her right away. He’s not sure what a fedora hat is, but the thing she is wearing is pink and large for sure. She is an older woman, dark black hair, similar in style and color to Cassie’s. As he approaches, he notices her slightly agitated facial expressions and fidgeting of her hands, full of anxiety that perhaps no one will show.

  “Miss Villanueva?” Friend casually calls to her. She stares back, wearing large and thick black sunglasses, unable to remove them for any stranger nor even acquaintance. She sits nearly motionless in her seat, but extends her arm just enough to shake his hand, greeted by a warm smile.

  “You must be Friend. Interesting name. Please call me Maria.”

  “Thank you, I chose it myself,” he replies in complete seriousness, proud of that fact. “Now I’m sure Max filled you in on his predicament. I speak on his behalf.”

  Max buzzes into his ear. “Tell her about the asteroid.”

  “So Maria, before we go further I need to tell you something you may not like hearing. The president will be making a statement tonight, informing the world that the asteroid will indeed crash.”

  She sits back in pause, her sunglasses masking her eyes’ reaction, but he senses a hint of expectation in his words, as if she already knew.

  “You already knew that,” he confirms to her.

  “… Yes,” she stutteringly replies, still in complete anxiousness over the fact.

  Her voice softens. “If what Max told me about his secret is true, I want to be there, letting the world know, and anyone who survives it to know.”

  Friend has developed a soft spot for her, a profound respect. He can visualize the turmoil in her eyes through the dark lenses. She is brave, unrelenting, knowing the danger, and knowing her life is at stake. All of this he can sense. It is brave people like her, along with Max and Cassie, who this world should be saving.

  She then imparts details about the meet. “The broadcast will take place at the Planet Real. In the ‘Out of This World’ suite, room 3601. Use the name Roy Brown when checking in with the guard. Be there with Max by 19:30 for prep.”

  “Thank you Maria. We will be there, but we’ll be sneaking in. I hope your crew is keeping this under wraps. The FBI is doing everything they can to put a stop to Max.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve been doing this for thirty years. This is the most important story I will ever do in my entire life. I’m leaving nothing to chance.”

  Friend shakes her hand once more and wishes her luck.

  19:26

  Planet Real Hotel, 36th Floor

  The teleport insertion point on the thirty second floor seemed adequate enough, but the four additional floors is not an issue, even for Max. The intensity and weight of the moment fills him with adren
aline, propelling him to climb those stairs with ease.

  When they arrive at the door they discover it’s locked, something Friend didn’t anticipate. He considers a singularity burst before realizing it may endanger the mission with the immense sonic pulse it gives off. He takes a deep breath, and with a quick tinge of super strength, rips the door open but just quiet enough not to attract attention. As he pushes the door outward, an assistant was already approaching the door. The long hair and bearded assistant immediately guides them to the room.

  Inside, two large, multiscopic cameras and several spotlights are set up and spaced points, peppering heavy doses of light to two inwardly angled chairs. The room is incredibly large, with couches, a separate room area, and an adjoining bar off to the right. Directly behind the chair is a stunning view of the Strip, with the Metropolitan just off to the left edge of view. The view is facing northwest, something Friend quickly determines. If the FBI doesn’t intercept the message he sent to Maria somehow, the view itself will provide the unmistakable clue to their whereabouts. It won’t matter though. Once the secret is out, there is little the agents can do. Their mission to prevent it from spreading to the world would be a complete and utter failure.

  Max awaits nervously on the couch nearby, Maria looking on but too wrapped up in preparation. An assistant covers his face with some type of powder, customary it seems as he sits unflinching. Friend steps toward him, looking at his watch.

  Sensing Max is gripped with anticipation, Friend hopes cast light into what happens in the near future. “The presidential address occurs at exactly 19:50. It lasts for eight minutes as your president spits out empty affectations about the end of civilization, before taking cover himself.”

  Max sits in amusement at Friend’s take on the president’s demeanor, almost laughing, dispelling some of the nervousness he had been harboring. Friend also laughs, feeling good about uplifting his spirits.