And the Tide Turns

by Timothy Dalton

  Their holding area was roughly forty feet in width and depth, with pipes running along the walls and overhead. One light hung in the middle of the ceiling, the meager illumination of its bulb almost swallowed up by the encroaching darkness of the room.

  With aching muscles and a sore back, Blake slid to his butt in a corner farthest from the door and leaned against the concrete fortification. He hugged himself in a vain attempt to ward off the chill in the air.

  “Where are we?” Ethan said in a hushed voice.

  Blake’s teeth chattered, echoing in the small chamber. “Take a wild guess, Einstein. Russia probably.”

  “I figured that much, but where?”

  Blake answered with a shrug and more clicking teeth.

  “What do they want from us?”

  “The watch, of course.” Blake grinned then, despite his misery. “But I sent it very far away. It was one of the first things I did when I came back to this year.”

  “What? You had the watch until a few hours ago.”

  “I went on a little vacation out west, to plot a point with the watch. It was a failsafe, you see – just in case I needed to send it somewhere safe for a long, long time.”

  “And where would that be?”

  Blake eyed Ethan. “The less you know the better.”

  “So what happens next, then?”

  “They didn’t blindfold us, so I assume it’ll be torture, then death. There’s no need to keep us alive.”

  The lock on the door disengaged, and a screech of metal on metal ricocheted off the walls as the door opened. A man walked in, silhouetted through the doorway from the back light of the outer room, his face bathed in shadow. Two more men entered behind him, wearing headsets and bearing automatic rifles. They stood on either side of the opening.

  The first man strode forward, his features still hidden in darkness. “We have been trying to locate you for a long time, Mr. Tannor. And when we do find you, we find a second you as well. How interesting.”

  Stirring from his seated position, Blake stood to his feet, using the wall for support. He was still caught in an uncontrollable shiver from the bitter cold. “Is that the sound of a ghost? Because I swear it resembles a dead man I know.”

  The man gave a soft laugh and took another step, into the dim light of the ceiling bulb. “I am no ghost. I am immortal. But enough about me; I have questions for you.”

  “Who the hell is this guy?” Ethan asked, taking measure of the man who stood in the center of the room.

  Blake ignored the question and pushed away from the wall. He locked eyes with the newcomer as he answered Ethan. “His name is Gernot. He’s a shit-stain I killed twice before – well, at least once directly – and I will do it again before the night is over.”

  As Blake stared at Gernot he noticed once again the absence of the red burn scar. Of course – just like the earlier version in the apartment across the street from Jo Ann’s Café … in the timeline his face had not been ruined. Yet.

  Gernot checked his watch. “Your window is closing. You have eight minutes and ten seconds.”

  At this, Blake limped forward another step in defiance but said nothing. Ethan moved closer as well, and the men by the door raised their weapons. There was no sound; no cocking, no clicking of safeties. These weapons had been primed and ready to use. Now they were each pointed at the Tannor boys.

  Ethan halted, but Blake took another step. “Maybe you are immortal in a sense, but you’re still a man here and now, and I can’t allow you to live another second where you don’t belong.”

  Gernot looked at his timepiece again, watching another second tick by. Then he gazed back into Blake’s hard eyes. “It seems I continue to disappoint you. You know, there is something about you that I admire. Your determination, perhaps – or is it your stupidity? You are like one of those, what is the word …”

  “Your executioner,” Blake said.

  Gernot’s hand flashed out and snatched Blake around his mouth and jaw. Ethan jerked forward, but the guards pushed him back. Gernot ignored their movements, focusing his gaze on Blake’s face.

  “I will travel back and kill everyone you have ever known. Any woman you have ever laid eyes on, any friend you have ever had, or any person who has had the misfortune of shaking your hand. They will die. It will be done for my amusement and it will not be painless, I promise you.”

  Cruelty contorted his face as he said, “For my added enjoyment, I will make you witness each of them die. You won’t even know why it is happening to you, why your loved ones are dropping around you. I will be a phantasm that haunts you. When you think you have seen enough, there will be more. I will not kill you. I will allow you to save one of those dear to you with the sacrifice of your own life.”

  Unbidden, the visage of every person in Blake’s life floated before his mind’s eye. He thought of his parents, of Art and his entire family strung up in front of him and screaming in agony. He even thought of Lisa Saunders, his first real girlfriend. What Gernot promised was brutal and painful to think about, because he knew it was possible.

  Gernot still held Blake’s jaw in a death grip. He felt the Russian’s other hand grab the nub of his forearm. Gernot scrutinized the missing hand quizzically. “Did I do this to you?”

  Blake tried to shake his head, but Gernot’s hold was too tight. When he spoke his words came out slurred. “No. Satoshi, one of your enlisted men did that. You died like a little bitch.”

  Gernot released his hold on Blake’s arm. “Never heard of the man, but I will make a note of it.”

  By now Blake had lost count of how many times he’d questioned if his actions were still impacting the past. Had he just provided this cold-blooded killer a contact to use? Or had it always been this way – just one more cycle within a cycle?

  “Coordinates have already been set,” Gernot was saying. “I could easily have them changed.”

  “Why not just go now with your own watch? No one is stopping you. Why use this facility?”

  “I’m not as foolish as Wallace, to send living sacrifices on a one way trip. By using the reactor core here, I will preserve the power of the watch and when I’m finished I will return.”

  At that moment Blake remembered the defeated Gernot vanishing into thin air in Amhurst’s lab and taking the meteorite with him. He’d never had the chance to use the watch to go forward after all. He’d gone back and gotten stuck in an infinite loop. Perhaps Gernot was not aware of that.

  The Russian studied him warily as he spoke. “In less than two hours I will be making the journey back. Where should I go first? Should I kill you when you are child?” Gernot’s fingers dug deeper into Blake’s chin and mouth, the blunted nails pressing half crescents into his skin. “Or should I take the lives of your parents before you are born?”

  He seemed to reflect upon something of great importance before saying, “Knowledge is such a powerful tool. Once an event is known, it can just as easily be averted. Perhaps I could add an explosive device to that hotel room door across from the diner. Or I could just find out where Wallace’s facility is and burn it down. I can’t allow him to have the meteorite fragment. It is a variable I cannot live with any longer.”

  “What about the radiation?” Blake asked.

  “There is a cure for that. It is beyond your grasp, but not mine. Now, where is the rock?”

  A cure. So that was the plan – to travel into the future where the medical advancements were. If that was possible, then maybe –

  The hand on Blake’s face pinched again, pulling him out of his thoughts. Gernot shoved him with brutal force. Blake crashed down, unable to soften the blow of his fall, and felt his spine slam hard into the concrete. The blow sent jolts of pain up his spine and into his head.

  “I said, where is the rock?” Gernot demanded.

  Everything had cascaded into vibrant colors for a moment and Blake was unable to answer. He clutched his back, still reeling from pain. His stomach lurched as a wave of
nausea swept over him, threatening to make him vomit.

  Ethan helped him to his feet, and when he was upright again Blake grinned at Gernot. “The rock is in your heart, and it can only be found if you are open to the word of the Lord.”

  Gernot made a noise of frustration and spat out a few lines of Russian to one of the soldiers behind him. The soldier lowered his weapon, put a hand to his ear, and spoke in quick Russian through the headset device.

  “I see you prefer torture,” Gernot said with ill-disguised anger. “Tell me what I want now, and I will kill you quickly, thus sparing your friends a very horrible death. There are so many ways to take a man’s life, but for you … I will destroy your soul. You will plead for death before the night is done.”

  Blake shook off Ethan’s supporting grip. He straightened, his earlier cold and shivering forgotten now that blood was pumping fast in his veins. He locked eyes with Gernot and said, “Your window is closing.”

  ***

  April 26th, 1986 12:21 AM

  “We are going to play a game. It is called, ‘Which one of you will break first?’” Gernot said.

  Blake was strapped to a table that had been carried into their holding room, his legs and arms fastened at the corners. His pants had been hiked up, the bare skin exposed just above his knee. He could still move his head and did so now, craning his neck to look around. He saw Ethan tied down as well on another table a few feet away.

  Something bad was about to happen, and all he could think of was how miserably his plan had failed. Ethan had trusted him, and now the escape by suicide option at New York Medical seemed preferable.

  Gernot walked between the two tables, looking down at the men. “Which one of your legs should we take first? I say we flip the coin. I’ll even let you call it in the air.” He pulled a coin from his pocket and tossed it up, catching it easily as gravity brought it back into his palm.

  Neither of the Tannors spoke.

  “I guess since no one wants to play by the rules, I will change them. I’ll take one leg from each of you, unless you say otherwise.”

  Gernot motioned with his head to one of the other men in the room, who stepped up and stabbed Blake in the shoulder with a needle that looked similar to those he’d used months ago in Adelaide after losing his arm. Only seconds after the injection, Blake’s heart revved up in his chest like it wanted to jump through his rib cage.

  “I want you to feel everything,” Gernot said. “This is to keep you awake –” he plastered on a cruel smile, “- for the experience.”

  Blake and Ethan remained silent, but as a power saw roared to life from somewhere in the room, they both began to struggle against their restraints.

  Sweet Jesus, why hasn’t it worked? Did I not put it in deep enough? Blake’s eyes jumped around frantically, trying to see where the assault would come from.

  A man holding the saw came between the tables to stand beside Gernot. “I guess it will be age before beauty then,” Gernot yelled above the sound of the machine. “If that is how the expression goes.”

  The makeshift surgeon moved closer and Blake shuddered at the thought of losing another limb in just a few bloody moments. Now he knew what it felt like to be in Mikhail’s shoes. This was going to hurt like a motherfucker. His chest still felt like it was about to explode like that scene from Alien, and the breath of the blade against his unprotected skin rose goose bumps across his whole body. He could swear the saw’s teeth were millimeters from ripping into his flesh and bald panic surged through him. A thunderstorm of heartbeats roared in his eardrums, but there was something else too …

  He strained to listen to the new sound. There it was, audible over the pulsating in his brain – the screech of a blaring alarm.

  The saw powered off abruptly, and the blowing of air on his naked shin whispered to a stop. Gernot stared at something behind the table.

  Tilting his head back to look behind him, Blake got an inverted view of the room. The two Russian door guards were huddled with four new soldiers. Commands were issued, and they each got into position.

  The sound of an explosion came from somewhere outside the room. Blake felt a tremor course through the table from the force of it, and he was thankful Dr. Sawblade didn’t lose his grip on the cutting machine.

  Another forceful detonation – much closer this time – and the wall Blake was staring at crumbled. When the dust began to clear, Blake saw a large hole where the smooth concrete used to be.

  Beyond the wall, a bitter chill rolled in from outside. The frigid air ushered in something that would have been far more terrifying if Blake hadn’t known who they were. Two rifled men in matching black uniforms and masks ran in at a crouch, holding guns up by the stocks and grips, using their sights as they peppered off shots in three-round bursts.

  Blake worked to pull his arm free as he gave another quick look behind him. Two of the six Russians were down; one unmoving, the other pressing his hand over one of three chest wounds in a helpless attempt to keep the last bit of life from leaving his body.

  Blake saw Ethan struggling with his own ropes. Then he looked back to the newly formed fissure in the wall. A third uniformed man breached the room, his black outfit and gear in a silent battle with the night as to which was darkest – and striking out in bright white against the gloom was the nightmarish Death Mask. Reaper! His plan had worked after all.

  Hex and Tinman were still clearing the room, and the Russians were now down to two soldiers and Gernot. Kill that son-of-a-bitch! Blake screamed in his mind.

  He heard a stray bullet whiz by. Getting shot in crossfire during his self-arranged rescue was not an appealing thought. He renewed his efforts to loosen the bindings.

  To Blake’s right, Hex was firing his assault rifle. There was a click as the cartridge emptied and he released the weapon, letting it dangle by the strap around his neck. In a flash of movement he went for his sidearm; it was quicker to grab a new gun than reload the old. As if Hex had read Blake’s mind, he took aim at Gernot.

  Tinman was moving forward as well, and from a shadowy corner, the saw roared to life again as one of the surviving Russians ran at them in a mad dash, wielding the bulky machine.

  Hex pivoted fifteen degrees and ended the chainsaw massacre before it started. The man dropped to the ground, still holding on to the machine. The blade showered sparks when it collided with the concrete floor before grinding to a halt.

  Hex turned back to Gernot, who was now heading for the door. He’d taken a rifle from one of the dead soldiers and fired back wildly. It was more for cover than actual aim, but Hex was hit. He rocked back from the gut shot into his body armor, and then another in the chest. He barely seemed to notice, but still retreated behind one of the concrete pillars in the room.

  Blake noticed how smoothly Hex was moving. He remembered his scuffle with the commando in the hallway of The Knotty Beaver so long ago, remembered shackling Hex’s ankle to the door, and afterwards, seeing Hex gingerly test the pained ankle as he supported himself on parallel bars in the rec room at Wallace’s New York location. Now the man seemed unbothered by his injury. Then Blake remembered. Oh yes … of course. That hadn’t happened in this timeline.

  It was down to the last Russian commando now; he chose self-preservation and ran for the exit as well.

  Hex broke from cover, bringing his pistol around for another shot. Gernot saw what was coming and snatched the fleeing soldier, holding him in place as a human shield just as Hex pulled the trigger.

  The unfortunate man’s body gave a spasm when the bullet hit, and he seized, arms contorting in a strange position. Gernot still held the shaking man upright, dragging him backward as he drew closer to the door. But the commando was dead weight now, the heels of his boots scraping the floor as Gernot pulled him along.

  Gernot seemed to realize his friend, the bullet catcher, was no longer useful. He let go of the man, but not before snatching something from the soldier’s belt as a parting gift. He passed through the entr
yway and tossed the item into the center of the room. It soared through the air, bounced on the ground, and rolled to a stop in the midst of the group.

  Then Gernot was gone, and all eyes flew to the small object on the floor. Everyone in the room mentally counted to three.

  64 Loc, Clock, and Two Smoking Barrels

  April 26, 1986, 12:36 AM

  Who was to say this wasn’t how it was supposed to be? That this had already been preordained by a higher power. Was it not all just a construct of moments that flowed in the correct line and pacing? Had it not been written, that this is what would come to pass? That it all boiled down to a series of unchanging events? Or was it all predestined from the beginning?

  Each man in the room held their own beliefs, reactions or thoughts. Blake’s and Ethan’s were mirrors of one another: We’re fucked!

  Tinman was in the corner of the room, still near the dead soldier with the power saw. Too far to do anything for anyone other than himself.

  Jackman was torn between duty and choice. The grenade was positioned between the two tables. If it went off now, both Tannors were forfeit. Or he would have to make a choice to save one over the other – but which? The time constraints permitted only one.

  It was Hex who seemed to give the least amount of thought to the situation, and yet he gave the most. Or had it just been instinct? With the amount of time given only enough to save one, Hex made a different choice. He chose to save all.

  But was it a choice of free will or God’s will? He’d always taken the most risk on missions. He believed, as he’d said before, “You can’t change shit.” Why? Was it foolish thinking? Did he believe this had happened before? An endless cycle of repetition that couldn’t be changed regardless of the route chosen?

  In the end, none of that mattered. All that did was what happened next.