The Ultimate Collection of Science & Speculative Fiction Short Stories (Short SSF Stories Book 5)

by Nicholas C. Rossis

  My skin crawls as he stands up, revealing bright red stains on his white clothes. Blood? When he makes his way to us, I fight to stop from running away, back to the safety of the crowded streets. His mouth twitches and he mumbles something unintelligible before grabbing my arm. He picks me up as if I’m made of straw. I let out a cry of protest and glance at my bodyguard. I expect him to spring to action. Instead, he stands still like a flesh statue. The wizard must have put a spell on him.

  Panic swells in my chest. I struggle to hide it for a moment, but my lips open on their own and a muffled scream escapes my mouth when I realize we are headed for the bed. The wizard lifts me onto the hard surface and pushes me down. When I protest, he pushes two fingers against my jaw until it relaxes enough for him to empty a small glass bottle into my mouth. He then pushes my jaw closed until I have no option but to swallow. A sickly sweet liquid burns my throat. When his monstrous hands let go of me, I spit out as much as I can. It’s not much. I’ve already swallowed most of it. My gaze darts around the room. I need something to wash away the foul taste, but no water is on offer.

  I let out the scream I’ve been holding in my lungs all this time, in the hope that my bodyguard will break free from the malicious spell and help me. The wizard takes a stunned step back. I try to jump off the bed, but the man leans forward again and pins me down with his outsized hands. I fight with tooth and nail, but he’s stronger than me. That’s when it hits me. My scream—that’s how I fight him.

  I let out another, even louder, scream. I expect the man to let go of me long enough for me to make my escape. Instead, he grabs a ceremonial, round dagger and stabs my thigh. Blood soils my skin. My eyes widen in terror. This time, the scream is real. Pain and panic fill me in equal measure. The room spins.

  Just as I’m about to collapse, my bodyguard finally frees himself from the spell and springs to action. He dashes to the bed and helps me to my feet. My panic swiftly turns to rage and I shoot a furious glare at him, but gratitude soon replaces my anger. I stumble to the door. He guides me out on quivering legs.

  With one hand he pushes the creaking door open, his other arm consoling me. My heart swells at the sight of the exit at the end of the corridor. I can’t stop shivering. Sobs shake my body. Tears streak down my cheeks. What madness is this? What did I do to deserve this?

  “Let me take the little princess outside and I’ll be right back,” the father says as he takes the wailing little girl into his arms and wipes her eyes with the back of his hand. “Her mother must have arrived by now. She’ll take care of her.”

  “Of course,” the pediatrician says before making his way back behind his desk. He sits down and wipes his glasses with a silken piece of cloth. “I have to update her records, anyway. This was her second round of shots, right?” When no one answers him, he looks up, but the two of them have already left. He places his glasses back on his face and stares with dismay at the red smudges soiling his bright white shirt. That damn pen. On a brand new shirt, too. He sighs and turns his attention to the computer screen facing him. “I knew I should have become a gynecologist,” he mumbles to himself as he taps the keyboard. “These kids all look at me as if I were some kind of monster.”

  Shoot the Devil (Redux)

  “Papieren,” a voice barks behind me.

  I freeze in my tracks. My heels stop clicking on the pavement. I thought I could sneak into my destination unseen at this late hour, but this city has more eyes than cobblestones. Act natural, my instructor’s voice whispers in my head. The same thing he’s been repeating daily during our six months of ceaseless training.

  I turn slowly around, one hand in the air, the other digging into my purse for my battered wallet. Since leather is no longer used in the twenty-second century, this is an heirloom brought along specifically for the purpose. I fish out my pass to hand it over to the impatient hand.

  A young man roams his eyes over the length of my body and down my dress. Despite the heavy coat, I feel him stripping me with his eyes. As if these fabrics weren’t bad enough. I cringe and shut my eyes for a moment. In my head, I rip off the itchy wool dress and stockings and scratch my whole body from head to toe. I hate the twentieth century.

  “Papieren, bitte,” the man corrects himself, making me open my eyes again. A flirty smile is now playing on his lips.

  Yech. As he reaches for my papers, two soft pops break the silence of the night, a crying baby in one of the nearby apartments almost drowning them out. His eyes widen. Flirting morphs into shock within a split second. He crashes on the cobblestone pavement before he has a chance to realize what has happened.

  I can’t stop staring at his clean-shaven face. God, they’re so young, I think. The countless hours spent training have not prepared me for the stark reality of Nazi Germany. Somehow, I had expected everything to be more cinematic and less… well, less real. That’s the problem with time travel; everything is so similar, yet the smallest detail can seem odd.

  The copper smell of blood hits my nostrils. It soils the pavement and spreads onto the street. My stomach turns. I bring my fist to my mouth to force down bile.

  “Will you just stand there?”

  My partner emerges from the shadows to kneel next to the soldier. He presses two fingers to the man’s throat. Satisfied that the soldier’s heart is no longer pumping, he grabs the body by the shoulders and drags him into a building’s entrance. He pauses just long enough to throw me a silver torchlight. “Clean up.”

  I flip a switch on the device. A pulsing blue light flashes against the stones. I direct it at the blood trail. Within seconds, the light dissolves the clotting blood, leaving behind nothing but a moist smudge that no one will notice.

  My partner pulls out a skeleton key and jiggles it into a rusted lock until it clicks softly. We hurry inside a medieval building and shut the door behind us, before slipping into a dark corridor filled with the reassuring stench of boiled cabbage. A baby’s plaintive cries attack us from an apartment to my left, followed by a faint argument.

  We push the body down a dark staircase and wait until we hear a thump. I use the blue light to clean up red streaks from the wide stones, while my partner hurries down the stairs to hide the body in the basement. It will soon be discovered, but we’ll be long gone by then.

  I am about to head downstairs to help him when a brown door on the side creaks open to reveal a woman’s ancient face. She throws me a stern, suspicious look as I squeeze the torch into my pocket.

  “Who are you?” she asks me in German, glancing at the bulge under my breasts.

  “A friend…” I rasp in German and cough to clear my clogged throat. “A friend of Dr. Schumann’s. He’s visiting family in Berlin.”

  My heart pounds as she takes this in, her eyes never leaving my face. I straighten the hemline of my dress with long, nervous strokes. Finally, she shoots me a venomous look. “Tell him he’s late for the rent.”

  “I will,” I promise. Without a word, she slams the door.

  I wipe beads of sweat from my brow as my partner emerges from the staircase. “The light.” He extends his hand until I hand him the torch. A few moments later, he reappears. “Done. Now, where to?”

  I point upstairs and we make our way into Dr. Schumann’s apartment. As we climb the stairs, I pull out a dull gray metal cylinder from a hidden pocket in my thick coat. It hisses when I pry it open, expanding into a two-barreled gun. With a soft whir, a laser scope snaps in place at the top, projecting a red dot on the wall across from me. Its comforting weight in my hand helps my breath slow down.

  We slink inside and I wrinkle my nose; the apartment reeks of alcohol. I blink for a moment before moving any farther, my eyes still getting used to the low light.

  “Greetings, Doctor,” my partner says to a still silhouette on an armchair while I hang my coat on a nail by the door.

  No reply comes. Like our intel had suggested, Dr. Schumann is lying in his favorite corner of the room, dead as a lanky doornail, the victim
of chronic liver failure. His half-open eyes reflect the soft light coming from outside through the dingy, tattered curtains. I pad over to close them, avoiding his lifeless stare.

  The soft music coming from the huge radio facing him comes to an abrupt end, followed by a yelling announcer. As my heart skips a beat, I wonder if I should keep it on, then decide that my nerves are too fraught for sudden sounds. I turn the knob, welcoming the ensuing quiet.

  A thin beam of pale light cuts through the middle of the tall window overlooking the small plaza where Hitler will arrive in less than an hour. As my partner heads toward it, he trips over an empty bottle and kneels to plonk it onto a table.

  I consider turning on a light as he pries the window open to glance outside. Chances are no one will look up, but we have already maxed out our luck for one night, and I don’t want to take any risks. I pull the gun out of the coat’s pocket and join my partner next to the window. He pulls a nearby chair for me and I sit down, then examine my gun under the streetlamp’s soft glow. The laser sight whirs and turns as it calculates distance, a red dot pointing at the ceiling.

  “Can you do it?” my partner asks.

  I look through the scope and see the magnified vision of two stone columns, a thick, ornate wooden door between them. “Yes.” At this range, and with this weapon, even a half-blind man could do it. All I have to do is tag Hitler the moment he appears. The smart bullet will do the rest. Even if I aim at the ceiling, it will fly out the window and explode upon contact with its target.

  I take deliberate, slow breaths to calm my nerves. My partner notices this.

  “I thought you’d done this before,” he says.

  “I have. But not for real.”

  He clicks his tongue. “Sure it was. You blew this bastard’s head clean off. I’ve seen the vid.”

  I shrug. “And then I came back, and nothing had changed. As per protocol, a time agent stopped me before the timeline could change. They rebooted history and the Nazis went through with their crimes.”

  “Well, this time it’s different.” He places a hand on my shoulder, sending goose bumps along my spine. My eyes leave the scope and meet his worried gaze. “Do you want me to do it?”

  I push off his hand, annoyed. “I told you, I’ve done it before. You just focus on your end. Make sure they can’t change the timeline back.”

  “I told you, you got nothing to worry about.” He sounds miffed. “I’ve set up the detour. Instead of the recovery room, we’ll end up in time to stop the agent. Besides, it’s already played out, hasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I confess and bite my lip. “Time travel, paradox fields… It’s all a bit too much for me.”

  He places his hand on my shoulder again and gives me a light squeeze. “All you need to know is that tonight, we make a difference.” His voice is now softer.

  I say nothing for a few moments. I know it’s just nerves, really. He cares for me, or he would never agree to break every oath we took; every rule we’d been taught; every instinct we had. Preservation of the timeline is the number one concern of every time traveler. I still can’t believe he has agreed to help me break it. But Hitler has to pay for his crimes. For real, this time.

  I return my eye to the scope and lose track of time staring at the twin columns. I jolt when a car speeds into the plaza and four dark-clad men jump out. I instinctively draw back into the room’s shadows as they study the surrounding buildings. After a moment, they disappear toward the plaza’s four corners, while the driver parks the car under my building. It won’t be long now.

  I rub sweat off my palms and pull a pair of gloves from my pocket. The last thing I want is to have the gun slip through my fingers as I pull the trigger; I only have one chance at this. I stare with disdain at my sweaty, shaking fingers as I push them into their soft constraints.

  The sound of more cars screeching outside makes me hurry up, snapping the gloves on my hands. I steal a look outside; three cars have stopped before the City Hall’s entrance. I have no idea what the Fuehrer wants there at this late hour; our intel doesn’t extend that far. Nor do I need to know, of course. Like countless Jews before me, all I want is a shot at the man who had nearly destroyed my people.

  With a flick of my thumb, I switch the laser off and stare down the scope, focusing on the car in the middle. I almost slam the trigger as its door flies open and a bodyguard steps out to glance around, then force myself to sit still, any sudden movement certain to draw attention. When the man steps to the side, holding the door open, I have him in my sights.

  The monster who was responsible for millions of deaths springs out of the car with an agility that catches me off guard. I curse silently, flicking the laser sight on with my thumb. A tiny red dot, clearly visible through the scope, dances on the stone steps, trying to lock onto the short man rushing toward the yawning doors of the building. I hold my breath and tag him with the laser until a soft beep confirms the lock.

  As if knowing that something is wrong, my target pauses for a moment and his gaze darts around. I squeeze the trigger just as the Fuehrer lifts his head to face my way.

  The soft bang is barely perceptible. The breaking of the window, on the other hand, makes me jump. We should have opened it, I realize. For a split-second, Hitler’s mustached lip quivers at the loud crash as he stares at me, bug eyed, then his head explodes into countless tiny fragments, spraying warm droplets over his stunned bodyguards. Blood flies onto the steps below like swirling scarlet raindrops, baptizing the marble in his blood. The Fuehrer’s knees buckle, sending his body to crash against the stone.

  Loud yells and shouts shoot from outside. A woman screams as I jump up and bring my hand to my mouth to drown a cackle. I pull back into the safety of the dark apartment. I did it! My heart fills with primal joy as my pulse pounds on my temples.

  My partner grabs me by the shoulders and kisses me hard on the lips. “We have to go,” he says as he breaks the kiss. “Just like we said.”

  I nod, my head still spinning. A countdown starts in my head; we have to stop Zion from resetting the timeline. Rotating the buckle on my belt to reveal a small indentation, I click it with my finger. The buckle splits open and I press the inconspicuous button inside, before releasing the breath of relief that has caught in my throat.

  Normally, we would return straight to the recovery room, while an agent travels back in time to stop us from entering the time machine, thus undoing the assassination. But my partner has set off a different course for us. A detour that will lead us straight into the sphere room. For better or for worse, there will be no going back. Not to the same future, anyway. I clutch my partner’s hand and shut my eyelids as the room starts to spin and fade away.

  When I crack them open again, I stand in an arched room with a large silver sphere in the middle. My head pounds—one of the unfortunate results of time travel. I almost lose my balance and stumble forward. Thankfully, my partner grabs my arm and steadies me.

  Careful, he mouths.

  I nod and stare at my feet, waiting for the room to stop spinning. It doesn’t help that the room is round, or that a blood red light is flashing over the secured twin doors. At least the walls are a dull, plain gray. Anything more exciting and my lunch would be coloring the concrete floor.

  My partner nudges me and nods toward a man in a plain khaki uniform stopping a previous version of us from entering the sphere. A blue beret is sticking from his right shoulder strap, making him our target.

  “Right now, you should be recovering,” he tells our past versions. “The recording to show you the assassination should be on our server. So, it’s time to deactivate the paradox field generator.”

  I take a step forward and catch my self’s eye. She winks at me. I take another step and a wave of nausea hits me. I nod at my partner, who tiptoes to the agent and taps his shoulder. The man’s eyes bulge as he spins around and sees us.

  “You’re not supposed to—” The past version of my partner sneaks up on him
and brings his arm around the man’s neck. The agent grabs his arm and twists his body in a vain attempt to escape the chokehold. After a few endless moments, he stops flopping and goes limp on my partner’s arms with a soft sigh.

  I rush to his side as fast as the spinning room lets me. “Did you…”

  He shakes his head, panting. “He’ll be fine. Just unconscious.”

  I notice that my self from the past is gaping at us. “Hurry up,” I shout and motion toward the sphere’s open door. As if snapping from a dream, my past self drags my past partner by the hand and into the sphere. Within a couple of seconds, it blinks out of existence.

  “That was easy,” I say.

  My partner rubs his chin. “Almost too easy,” he says, just as an alarm starts blaring.

  With each blast, my head feels like exploding. I push my hands against my ears. Floodlights snap to life, fixing on our position.

  “Now what?” I shout to be heard over the deafening noise.

  “Now we wait,” my partner shouts back.

  The doors to the room burst open. Armed soldiers storm inside. We both raise our arms in the air. I hold my breath and close my eyes. A gentle gust of wind makes me open them again. Our surroundings rapidly turn transparent, like one of those fadeout effects you see in old movies. The guards, too, fade away. They look around them and at each other, their eyes as wide as the floodlights fixed on us. I blink and the room is gone, along with the startled troops.

  Instead of the sphere room, we find ourselves inside the blackened end of a hollow crater, towered by the twisted skeletons of ruined buildings, sticking out of the ground like fossilized fingers of some prehistoric monster. Crumbled edifices and broken columns are all that remain of once proud skyscrapers. A light breeze stirs the omnipresent dust and ash. Like gray snowflakes, ash particles dance lazily around us for a moment before settling back down on the ruins.