Timelines

by Bob Blink

  Anger won out over common sense. She slid behind the rifle and centering the cross hairs on the alien’s chest, she fired a round. At this range she didn’t need to take much time to ready the shot. Who knew? Maybe the shield was damaged by the slide. Luck was against her. The shield flared once again, the shot failing to reach the target. Now she had given away her position.

  Damn the thing! What would it take? She chambered another round without thinking. The alien’s reactions were slowed. It knew she was there, but hadn’t fired back as yet. Maybe the weapon was damaged. She wondered where the weak point was. Head and body would have to be protected. She brought the cross hairs down towards the single leg on which the alien stood. Maybe the shield didn’t extended all the way. Maybe she could slip one shot under the shield and bring the alien down by taking out the other leg.

  Suddenly she saw the alien bringing the weapon to bear. It was slow, as if the arm holding the weapon might not be working correctly. She knew that one shot was all that she had left to her. Then the alien would have fired. This distance was too close based on what had happened to Dix. Just as she was applying pressure, she changed her mind. Adjusting the sight picture, she took aim on the spot where the alien weapon pointed towards her. Unknowingly, she had come to the same conclusion her husband had just a few days before. She steadied herself, and let the rifle fire.

  Chance had a lot to do with it, but great marksmanship did also. The bullet reached the alien just as it fired. The bullet passed though the temporary weakness in the barrier that allowed the alien to fire from behind the energy shield. The weapon was tuned to living flesh and the copper and lead projectile was unaffected as it passed through the beam of energy released from the weapon. It smashed into the weapon, causing it to explode, releasing most of its energy in the explosion rather than in the beam of energy it was attempting to direct at Naiya. The alien was killed by the destruction unleashed by its own weapon.

  Naiya was not spared completely. While the blast was significantly reduced, the alien had been on target. The tracking and aiming software that linked the weapon to the alien’s harness had pin-pointed her position. The wave reached her shortly after she fired, tearing into her left side and knocking her briefly unconscious.

  She woke to incredible pain. She screamed when she tried to move her left arm. Just barely she avoided passing out again. Head down, her nose against the earth, the smell of the pine needles that covered the ground on which she lay filled her senses. Bracing herself, she raised her head and looked out across the valley in front of her. Miraculously, the alien was down. However, she had thought it dead before. Biting down against the pain, she carefully used her right arm to work the action of the rifle. Chambering a round, she looked through the scope. The alien still looked dead. Taking careful aim, she fired, sending one of the 165 grain Speer softpoints into the head, causing it to rupture. The recoil sent another wave of pain through her damaged body. She whimpered, but managed to place her eye against the scope and see the damaged remains that had been the alien’s head. No doubt now. It was dead.

  Laying her head down, she rested for a moment. There were pain killers in Dix’s pack. She just needed to make her way over there. Then she would see. After a few minutes, she felt ready to make the attempt. Slowly she gathered herself for the push away from the ground. The rifle would have to do double duty as a crutch. She made it to her knees and was leaning heavily on the rifle trying to make it to her feet when the pain became too much. The rifle slipped from her hand, and she collapsed, falling onto her back, unconscious.

  When she regained consciousness she knew she was dying. Her mind was playing tricks with her. Jim had come. Oh, how she missed him. He was talking to her, trying to wake her. She didn’t want to wake up. It hurt! But he was insistent. Slowly she opened her eyes. Hazy, but it was his face she saw above him.

  “You’re late!” she managed to croak out. A private joke. She didn’t know why it was important now. A faint smile crossed his lips briefly, his eyes shiny with tears.

  “You’ll be okay,” he said gently. Whether he was trying to convince her or himself she didn’t know. She was beginning to come to. It wasn’t a dream she realized. Somehow Jim had come for her. A faint sting as someone injected her with something.

  “How?” she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t concentrate on it now. “Dix,” she said, her voice already blurring in response to the drug. At least the pain was going away. “You’ve got to get Dix,” she managed before she slipped into unconsciousness from the drug.

  Chapter 47

  Time Complex

  Sunday Evening, 1 October 2006

  John was at the other end of the tunnel room when Carol, Al and I exited the tunnel that led from the base where we had been meeting. Doc had stayed behind to check on his patients. He had a staff that was keeping an eye on them, but he felt better having made a personal check. Almost everyone had recovered, which had raised spirits a bit. The losses had weighed heavily on all of us. To see the wounded recovering was a reassuring sight.

  John started my way with a happy grin when he saw us coming into the tunnel room. I wondered what had happened to have delighted him so. I was about to ask, waiting until he was a bit closer, when I heard a gasp from Carol. I looked in her direction, and noticed she was staring, open mouthed, at the wall behind John. It took a moment to register. I think I had been avoiding looking in that direction since it had happened. Now, instead of the small depression where the tunnel that had taken Naiya had closed, a new tunnel, fully complete, opened in the side of the tunnel room wall. This had to be the reason for John’s glee. I was afraid to ask. I knew it wasn’t possible, but . . . .

  John had walked from across the room and now stood next to us, a little to one side so as not to block the view. He knew where we were looking. Knowing what I wanted to ask, but feared to, he answered my unasked question.

  “That’s the tunnel that Naiya took, Jim. We managed to re-open it.”

  I was at a loss for words. I was afraid to hope. It couldn’t be done. We knew it. At the very least it would take weeks. Naiya had been gone a couple of days. Long days. I feared for her safety. I wondered if she was still alive. If this was really a path to where she had gone I owed John everything I valued. My voice didn’t want to work.

  “How is that possible?” Carol asked before I could get my voice started again.

  I didn’t care how. If the way was open, I had to go. I started that way, when John stopped me.

  “We’re going Jim. Just give it a few minutes. They are putting together a team. They already have one of three ATVs setup over there. In about ten minutes we’ll be ready to go. There is still an alien out there somewhere. We need to go prepared.”

  I nodded. He made sense, but I had to force myself to wait. Finally, I found my voice. “Tell me,” was all I could manage.

  “Cindy again,” he explained fondly. “We have become so used to tracking their dates, we ignored something right in front of our eyes. You and Carol were curious about the current date in our reference system. Taking some of the logs off the ship we got the most recent time and converted it. Nothing difficult. Not anymore. That might have been the end of it, but something connected in her brain. She went back and checked. Then she came to me.”

  He smiled again before continuing. Carol made the connection already. My brain was in neutral. “The ship’s date was the same as this uptime tunnel,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  “You guessed?” he asked.

  “Not until just now. I was originally just curious how far uptime from us they lived. I hadn’t thought any further than that. But from what you just said. . . .” She hesitated.

  I was still playing catch-up. “The ship and the tunnel are operating at the same date? Why?”

  “The tunnel that Naiya took was unique. Unlike all the others, it isn’t a time tunnel. It simply uses the other feature of the tunnels here.”

  Al was now fully on-board. “Of course. We
know the complex can locate the tunnel exit anywhere on the surface. The spatial aspect. It can also locate in time. But in this case the time factor wasn’t needed. The tunnel is simply a device to get down to the surface. That might explain why they have shown such an interest in that particular time.”

  I was starting to catch on. “You mean that all this time, Naiya has been down there?” I pointed through the floor towards the planet that lay beneath us.

  “That’s right,” John replied. “The tunnel opens onto the surface of the planet beneath us. Now, current time.”

  “How did that help with re-opening the tunnel?” I asked.

  “No time factor,” Al guessed correctly. “The restrictions we have encountered were all based on time effects. In this case there are none because we are operating in the same time on both ends of the tunnel. So I guess it was simply a matter of finding how to re-open the pathway.” He looked at John for confirmation.

  John nodded. “Once we knew that time wasn’t a factor, we suspected there was a chance to reactivate the tunnel. I didn’t want to say anything, because we didn’t know.” He looked at me carefully. “I didn’t want to raise false hopes.”

  I understood. I would have gone nuts if I’d known there was a chance. If the attempt had failed it would have been like losing her all over again. “How did you learn the means to activate and operate it?”

  “I remembered the video when the alien went through. He activated the status panel here.” John walked over and touched the wall in a specific place. The wall glowed with the readout covered with the strange alien characters. He pointed without touching. “This one here is a toggle. It will open or close the tunnel. It takes a couple of minutes either way. It’s that simple.”

  “And you’re sure it goes to the same place?”

  “Absolutely. We have gone through and checked. It’s the same time and place.”

  “Naiya?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We didn’t see either Naiya or Dix. Don’t forget they both went through.”

  I hadn’t forgotten, but my focus had been centered on Naiya. So they hadn’t stayed around. I knew she must have discovered the tunnel had been closed. I could only wonder what she must have thought. Given the reason she followed the alien through the pathway, I knew she would have headed after it. But she hadn’t known what we had learned. Her rifle wasn’t going to be of much use against the creature. We needed to get to her before they had an encounter; an encounter she would surely lose.

  I had another thought. Time. “What time of the day is it there?” I asked John.

  It was strange. Up to now we had thought of the complex as being independent of time. Each of the destinations had an associated time, and frequently the time of day varied considerably from place to place. It made planning a bit difficult, but no more than traveling to another time zone on earth. But now it seemed the center should be considered linked to the time of the tunnel John had just opened. They were the same time, and in a sense, the true time of the complex.

  “Early morning,” he replied. “The sun is just coming up. You’ll have a full day of daylight for your search.”

  I made a quick calculation. Naiya and Dix had spent two nights there. I wondered how they had fared. They had been tracking the alien for all of the previous day. But they were on foot. We would be able to cover ground much more quickly with the ATVs. We should be able to find them in a couple of hours, assuming we could determine which way they had gone. I was suddenly nervous. Before I had been scared for her, and depressed at the loss. Now I was afraid I would be too late.

  There was more to discuss with John, but not now. Four men had arrived, bringing with them another pair of the versatile ATVs. With the ATV already waiting, six of us could travel easily; two per vehicle. I noted the men had brought three of the alien rifles. That only left three in the complex, because Thomas and his team had a couple. The three remaining would have to suffice for now. Where we were going, it was certain an alien was going to be encountered. They were the only portable means we had of dealing with it.

  I started to go, and sensed Carol behind me. I turned and knew she wanted to come along. I started to say something, and then realized that she already knew that she had to stay behind. With everything happening at the moment, we couldn’t afford to have all of us absent from the center. Especially given the potential danger. Naiya could be dead. The rest of us might get killed going to look for her. Too much was happening that needed to be coordinated. I was going. Nothing could have held me back. That meant she had to stay and deal with logistics, again.

  “Jim,” she said simply, her hand resting on my arm.

  “I’ll try to be back before we hear from Jeff. You may have to deal with his people on your own.” It wasn’t what I wanted to say, but words were still coming hard.

  She nodded. “Go and find her,” she said softly. “For both of us.” She hugged me quickly and then gave me a slight push in the direction of the gate.

  As I headed into the tunnel, one of the men handed me a windbreaker. “It’s not really cold, just a bit cool this early. Sun will be up in a bit and then you won’t even want that.” I smiled my thanks.

  I wasn’t armed. Not even the handgun I always wore when I ventured on one of these field trips. But this time it didn’t matter. The only weapons that counted were the three alien mini-rifles. The men who carried those were much more familiar with their operation than I would have been. Even though my .45 auto probably would make me feel better, I wasn’t about to waste any time going to get it.

  I followed the last of the men through. The ATVs were already loaded up on the other side. The local area had been scouted, but as expected there was no sign of anyone close to the cave. With the tunnel closed, there hadn’t been any reason to hang around. In the back of my mind a glimmer of a thought was trying to get my attention. The alien had closed the pathway on purpose. Knowing that he wasn’t stranding himself in some random time, but was simply down on the surface of the planet, he might have had a specific destination in mind. I wondered if he had a means of contacting his friends from down here. Well, finding the thing and killing it would solve that problem as well. I would think about it more later. Now I needed all my attention focused on finding my wife.

  We headed out, two men per ATV, one of the sturdy vehicles in front and another behind the one on which I rode. I was driving, leaving the man behind me, Norm I had learned just before we headed out, free to operate his weapon should the need arise suddenly. He was the same man who had given me the windbreaker inside the complex. I could see what he meant. Once we started moving, the breeze was a bit cool. There was barely enough light to see, and only the fact the man driving the vehicle ahead of me had been here numerous times before allowed us to proceed with any speed. We were headed directly away from the hills, moving across the flat toward the river I knew lay a bit ahead. I had been here a couple of times, but not for a long time.

  It didn’t take us long to reach the campground that had been setup by the two men who had chosen to wait out the arrival of the aliens here in this future era. I knew one of them had wanted to investigate the ruins more completely. His searches in the past had been blocked by the collapse of the older cities. He had found some underground structures that he felt might shed some light on what had happened, but significant digging, or blasting as he had told me he had planned, was going to be required to break through the rubble.

  “Graves.” The man behind me had seen the simple markers as we rode up on the tents still pitched beneath the high trees not too far from the stream. I felt my chest tighten, but we completed our check of the area, making sure no surprises waited, before going to investigate.

  No one or nothing was waiting in the campsite. There was enough light now to make out the crude markings on the markers that had been pounded into the soil. I recognized the names of the two men. So, they had been surprised when the alien burst through the tunnel and discovered them. I’m sure
they hadn’t given it much of a fight.

  “Dix and your wife must have found them,” one of the men suggested.

  I wondered why they had taken the time to bury them if they had been chasing the alien.

  “Probably spent the night here,” suggested another. “It would have been getting late when they came through the other day. Must have found the men and stayed to bury them. Probably stocked up on supplies as well. They didn’t come through expecting to stay.”

  I realized the time difference had caught me again. What he said made sense. They couldn’t track at night. Getting better equipped would have been a priority for Naiya. It was good. That implied they had only yesterday to chase after the thing.

  Gene came walking back from where he had been checking a bit up the valley. “Some tracks,” he informed us. “Not many because the soil is a bit rocky. But I found tracks that might belong to Dix and your wife, although they could be from these guys. In a couple of places there are tracks that look like those odd boots all the aliens seemed to wear.”

  A few minutes later George returned from his scouting the other way. “Nothing up that way,” he explained. With that settled, we started down the valley. It was the likely direction, and we had the alien print to point us in that direction as well. It wasn’t necessary to stop and look for tracks since there was little option most of the time. The hundred-foot walls that bounded the ravine weren’t easily climbed, and those few places where a possible side path presented itself, we stopped and checked. A few places we had trouble getting the vehicles over the rocky ground, but for the most part it was rapid travel.

  Ten miles down the trail we found a side path that showed signs of use. The footprints indicated Naiya and Dix had veered off from the floor of the ravine, seeking higher ground. George looked ahead on the valley floor, finding some of the alien prints, but none that could belong to either Dix or my wife. So they had split off here. I could think of one reason. Ambush. They had wanted to get above and ahead of the alien. This was yesterday. The realization made me very uneasy.