by Karl Morgan
Bea pulled Zeke away from the wall just as Kally stepped into the room with the control console still under his arm. The woman said, "Good job, Kally."
Zeke looked back at the shimmering black circle on the wall. There was an audible snap, a flash of light, and it disappeared. "What's going on, Bea?"
"First things first," she replied. "Zeke, this is my grandmother, Colonel Aria Watson. Grandma, this is—"
"I feel I already know you, Ezekiel Thompson," she said as she shook his hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Colonel, but please just call me Zeke," he responded.
"Sure, Zeke, and you can call me Aria," she noted. "Breakfast is waiting in the other room for everyone. Kally, I'll lock up the console so you can eat too, okay?"
"Where the heck are we, Bea?" Zeke asked.
"Don't be too disappointed," she said as she opened the door and they walked into the great room of the Hawaii house. "As you can see, we didn't go anywhere."
Zeke was in shock. Nothing made sense. Minutes ago, he heard gunfire and people trying to break down the door. Now, he was back and nothing seemed to have happened. He had thought Bea was insane, but realized her insanity was contagious because he had lost all sense of reality. He walked over to the nearest couch and sat down heavily. He held his head in his hands and rocked back and forth trying to wrestle with his confusion. Sensing his pain, Bea and Aria sat on either side of him. Aria put her arm around his back while Bea rubbed his knee and stroked his hair. After a minute, she put her lips to his ear and whispered, "You're not going crazy, Zeke. You're just confused."
It hit him like a ton of bricks. He sat up straight and said, "We traveled in time!"
"Bingo!" Aria exclaimed.
"When is this?"
"August 24, 3267," Aria reported.
He turned to Bea and said, "But why? I thought you told me I was going to be a prophet or something in my time. How can I do that here?"
Bea giggled and replied, "You are going back, silly. This was just an emergency, Zeke. Someone else was trying to change time, and we had to avoid the intended consequences."
"Why did I buy that ticket?"
"Not everything is about you, Zeke," Bea began. "There are others out there who want to stop my society from existing. We had expected an attack on your parents, but not you." A look of despair crept across his face. "Don't worry, we are protecting them."
"Zeke, we did not consider the attack on you," Aria noted. "There was an anomaly in time near the Maui house this morning. We expected it in Chula Vista. I immediately ordered Kally and Bea to extract you before Untor could act. This is all my fault. I should have surmised that he would try to distract your father from writing by killing you. If I had thought that through, this would not have occurred. Believe me, Zeke, we don't want you to learn about our time yet."
"Who is this Untor?" he asked.
Bea kissed his cheek and said, "Zeke, you have to trust me. Let's go have some breakfast and Aria and I will tell you everything we can. As soon as we get an all-clear from your time, you and I will return, okay?" He nodded and kissed her soft lips. They stood and headed for the lanai and their food.
§
The all-clear signal came shortly after they ate. Now it was 10:00 a.m. and Zeke was sitting on the lanai in his own time again. He told Bea he wanted to be left alone for a while to digest the story they told him in the other time. He felt shortchanged by the lack of specifics, but realized that too much knowledge might change his actions in this time and that would defeat the purpose of everything they were trying to do. According to this story, a man named Fola Untor had been the leader of a secret police unit that terrorized the largest society of humans in the universe. The actions of one of Bea's grandfathers caused him to be disgraced and thrown from power. He had vowed revenge on the man and planned to kill him, but had first created two back-up plans in case the murder attempt failed. His first plan was to travel to his own future, kidnap the man and then strand him on an isolated planet in the distant past. Untor thought the man would then suffer and die even if the murder attempt failed. Planning his evil acts, Untor had to learn a lot about the humans of Earth. He learned about the war and the actions of the Thompson family. That gave him another plan. If the Thompsons could be stopped, the future Bea's grandfather lived in would never exist. When Untor then went to the man and attempted to murder him, the plan failed and Untor died, but the other plans still moved forward. Ultimately, the kidnap plan failed as well, and the teams on Earth were now working to stop this only unresolved thread. When he had asked Aria whether there could be more such plans that no one knew about, she had just shrugged her shoulders.
The thing that had driven him to distraction happened when Zeke noted that they were still there, and so the plan must have failed. Aria said something about how time was fickle that way and some nonsense about multiple universes and membranes of space-time. At that point, his brain shut down for protection. He looked back at the house. The dream house was beginning to look like a prison. He yearned to run down the beach and get away from all of them, but in the back of his mind, he saw Untor waiting to kill him.
He saw the patio door open and Bea stepped out and approached him. He looked at her and wondered what she wanted now. Hours ago, he had kissed her and groped her body, and now he only wanted her to leave.
She sat and smiled at him. The twinkle in her eyes and quick smile melted his mood and he struggled to keep it. "It's okay, Zeke. I understand."
"Just tell me everything will be okay."
"Everything will be okay."
"I don't believe you."
She laughed out loud. "You're a lot like my grandfather, Dave. You're a hard nut to crack. Zeke, I want to give you a couple of things. First, let me see your phone." He handed it to her. She pulled an identical-looking phone from her bag and handed it to him. "This phone is a bit upgraded, so please don't ever take it in for maintenance or upgrade. It's from my time. If you look, you'll see Aria's and my numbers are there now. Yes, you can call us in the future with it. But don't ask me how that works, because I have no clue."
"What if it gets stolen or broken?"
"We'll know and deactivate it. The phone can tell if someone else is using it. If that happens more than once in a row, the unique components will dissolve. So don't loan this thing around. If you lose or break it, someone will come and give you a new one, okay?"
He smiled at her and said, "Thank you, Bea."
"You're welcome, Zeke," she smiled. "I really need you to trust me on this next one."
"That doesn't sound good."
She opened a small case and offered a large green pill to him. "Please swallow this."
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Are you poisoning me?"
"Never, Zeke," she scowled. "It's for your health."
"Some kind of future medicine?"
"I can't tell you that either."
"Bea, I think I'm falling in love with you," Zeke said.
"Are you saying that so you don't have to take the pill?" she laughed.
Zeke took the pill and washed it down with his glass of water. "Shit! That thing tastes disgusting. What was in it?"
"I'm falling for you too, Zeke," she said. "I have one more gift." She pulled a ring from her purse and handed it to him.
"An engagement ring, how nice."
She laughed again. He loved her laugh. "It's not an engagement ring, Zeke. Don't you remember? That's your job."
"I thought it might be different in the future."
"Sorry, some traditions go on forever," she said. "Zeke, this ring detects temporal anomalies. The stone will flash red if there is a disturbance in time. If that happens, it might mean Untor is coming back. If you see red, press down on the stone and someone will come to your aid, okay?"
"What if I'm asleep or in the shower and don't have it on?" he asked.
"It will also beep and shock you just a bit," she replied. "
But please try not to take it off."
"Will it shock me if you step into that black circle again?"
"No, the electronics know when it's one of us. You'll get a green flash."
He slipped the ring on his finger and said, "Thank you, Bea."
She sighed. "I'm really sorry to tell you this, Zeke, but we all have to leave now." He looked shocked. "The activity this morning alerted the police, and it's too hot for us anymore, at least for a few days."
"Where are we going?"
"Zeke, my team and I are going back to the future," she said with tears welling in her eyes. "We have booked you a suite at the Grand Wailea for tonight. You can take the Bentley. Tomorrow, someone will pick it up there."
"I don't want to leave you, Bea."
"This is the way it is for now, Zeke. I will see you again soon, please trust me."
"And tomorrow?"
"The FBI is picking you up there at noon. They'll be holding on to you for a while. Don't worry, they've got nothing on you. Look at it as a free ride on a private plane back home to San Diego."
"What do I do now?"
"That's totally up to you, but if you like, you could check out that spiritual retreat on the island and see your best friend Peter Smith again?"
Chapter 6
After loading his bags into the trunk of the car, Zeke looked back at the house that his parents would buy in a few short months. He wondered if he would ever see Bea Watson again. In the few days since she came into his life, his perspective on life and existence had changed completely. She had told him his talent at premonition would become his life and not the burden and terror it had been to date. He wondered if he really had traveled to the future. From what he knew about physics, that was not supposed to be possible. But if it was true these people came from the future, perhaps the knowledge of what was possible had changed? Something had happened when he stepped into the inky blackness—that was for certain. He thought for a moment about running back inside and jumping through the circle with Bea and living in the future. Now he just stared at the house, feeling lonely and heartsick.
"Excuse me, Zeke," the guard said.
"Yes, Taron?"
The guard was quite tall with a unique skin coloring, somewhere between olive and brown, and startlingly green eyes. He wore black body armor and carried some kind of rifle across his back and two odd pistols clipped to his belt. "HPD will arrive here in less than fifteen minutes, and we all should be gone before they arrive."
"I understand," Zeke sighed as he looked back at the house one last time. "Is Bea still here?"
"No, she and the others have used the portal and taken the console with them," he reported.
"How are you getting back?"
"Don't worry, Zeke, we have a safe house in San Diego. I'm catching a flight to the mainland in a few hours," Taron noted.
Zeke stuck out his hand and Taron shook it. "It's been fun, and I hope to see you again."
"You will see us all again before you know it, Zeke." He pulled a small pill bottle from a compartment on his belt and handed it to the other man. "Bea wanted to make sure you got these."
There were three more of the large green pills in the bottle. "Ugh. I thought one was all I had to take."
Taron laughed. "They are pretty disgusting, I grant you that. Take one tonight before you go to bed and the other two in the morning. Four is the magic number."
"What the heck are these for?"
Taron patted him on the shoulder. "Sorry, that's classified; but trust me, they are for your own good. Take care, Zeke."
"All the best," Zeke replied, and then climbed into the car. "By the way, can I give you a lift?"
"That's okay. I have a few friends waiting outside the gate."
"From the future?" Taron only smiled back at him. With nothing else to do, Zeke drove the Bentley down the drive, out of the gate, and headed down the road. Taron ran down the drive and pressed a button to close the gate. A black van pulled up, and he climbed into the passenger seat. The van drove away.
After driving a couple of miles, Zeke pulled the car into a convenience store parking lot and stopped. He removed the card for the retreat from his pocket and keyed the address into the GPS. Once it was set, he pulled out of the lot and followed the route guidance. He had no idea where he was going and was not really certain why he was following Bea's advice right now. He wondered if he should head back to the airport and try to fly out before the FBI caught up to him. Then he realized that was a stupid idea. He had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. If he ran, that would be very suspicious for an innocent man. He drove for hours and found himself traveling up the slope of Haleakala. Finally, the GPS told him to turn left on a gravel road. He followed it for a mile or so until he came upon a closed metal gate in the middle of a long stone wall. He pulled up to it and stopped. He climbed out of the car and approached the gate. There was an intercom on one of the pillars supporting the gate. He pressed the talk button and said, "Hello?"
A female voice said, "Sacred Life Tranquility Retreat, how may I help you?"
"I was hoping to learn more about this place."
"Were you referred to us, sir?"
"Yes. I met Peter Smith on the flight over and he gave me your card," Zeke replied.
"May I have your name, sir?"
"I'm Zeke Thompson. And you are?"
"Zeke, my name is Judy Vance. I'm opening the gate now. Please just follow the asphalt road until you reach the main buildings. Welcome friend. Reflect in peace." The gate began to open and Zeke rushed back to the car and drove through. He continued slowly along the winding road. To his left was a forest. Through the trees, he could see a large lake with small islands scattered about, each of which held a small wooden or stone temple. To the left was a large open field, punctuated by flower gardens and stone cottages spaced far apart. The road crested a small hill to reveal a massive stone temple, reminiscent of Roman ruins, and a long two-story wooden building that looked like a hotel. The main road ended in a parking lot in front of that building. The main building was built like a log cabin with large picture windows. He climbed out of the car and walked toward it. He stepped up on the broad veranda encircling the building and through a pair of tall glass doors. The chill of air conditioning reminded him of the midday heat on the island. There was a small counter on one side of the room. The rest of the large space was filled with seating areas. A few small groups of people sat in some of the areas while most were vacant. He stopped and looked around until he noticed a woman walking toward him. As she approached, she held out her hand, which he shook. "Hi, Zeke. I'm Judy, the one you spoke with. Please come with me." She led him to a group of four chairs in a conversation area and sat on one of them. Zeke sat opposite her.
"Judy, this is quite the place you have here," he said at last.
"Thank you, Zeke," she replied. "By the way, I've sent word to Peter and Reverend Paul, who should be joining us in a few minutes. We're all glad you came to see us."
"What kind of retreat is this place?"
"Well, first of all, we are ecumenical. We treasure all people of faith and want to give them the opportunity to reconnect to the spirit within. Are you a man of faith, Zeke?"
"Yes, I think I am."
"You don't sound so sure, Zeke, but that was not unexpected," she replied. "Ah, here they come now." She stood up and Zeke followed as two men approached them. One was definitely the man from the plane. The other was an older man with a white beard and shaved head. His face was heavily lined and he wore a long tunic and a brocaded robe. "Zeke Thompson, this is Reverend Paul Isaac, and of course you know Peter."
After everyone was introduced, Judy went back to her office while the three men sat down. "Zeke, this is a pleasant surprise," Peter said.
"I just thought I'd stop by to learn more," he replied.
"Your friend seems conflicted, Peter," the reverend said. Zeke looked surprised but said nothing.
Peter chuckled and said, "
It's okay, Zeke. Reverend Paul has a knack for that sort of thing. He does it to all of us."
Paul reached forward and put his hand on Zeke's knee. "Son, you are among friends here. I can feel the turmoil within you. If you want to tell me, I will listen and not judge you. Are you in trouble with the law?"
"No!" Zeke exclaimed. "At least I don't think so."
"Zeke, you can say whatever you want or nothing at all," Peter said. "If you want me to leave you two alone, I'll do that too."
For an instant, Zeke felt trapped, as though these men would hear his tale and realize he was insane or worse. That feeling passed quickly when he remembered he would definitely be trapped tomorrow when the FBI came to collect him. All his life, he kept his notebooks a secret from anyone outside the direct family, and they had sworn never to tell anyone. But the knowledge of future events gnawed at him. His ability was a terrible curse. He knew one day he would foresee his own death and know it was inevitable. He would see his mother and father die in the days before the actual event and know he could do nothing about it. Or could he?
Zeke Thompson told them everything. He gave a detailed account of his notebooks and as many events as he could remember presaging. He told them about Bea and the people from the future, including the books that Bea had read from. He told them about the lottery ticket and the FBI and even the man from the future who was trying to kill him. He talked for hours, it seemed. When at last he finished, he sat crying in front of them. Peter gave a look of deep concern to the reverend who only smiled back at him. Zeke felt empty inside with no hope, yet somehow lighter. He felt warmth starting to grow in his body. It was a feeling he had not felt for a long time.
"Son, would you like to stay here tonight?" Paul asked.
"I'm supposed to be at a hotel so the FBI can pick me up tomorrow," he replied without looking up at them.
