Time Series: Complete Bundle

by Claire Davon

  “We can’t,” Illiria admitted. “But I can’t live with the knowledge that if we don’t do something everything we know and love will be gone in two hundred years. Can you live with that? Do you know what it’s like? We get fragments, bits and pieces passed up and down the timeline. That’s how we knew about you, the Traveler. You were inserted into our lore at some point and are part of our culture. Sometimes we meet people who are at one end or another of their time limit who encountered others who were at the end of theirs and the stories can be fascinating. But there is nothing from the time close to the Event. It’s frightening.”

  Fiona looked at Sonder and relaxed.

  “Okay, I guess we have to move forward. I hate not knowing.”

  “Kale mou? Did you hear something?” He pointed to the air. “You looked as if you had seen a ghost a moment ago.”

  She smiled. “The Voice told me it must be corrected.”

  Rogald slapped his hands. “Let’s get started.”

  Chapter 5

  They moved the supplies into the bomb shelter in silence, shifting the needed goods to the safe place. When they were done, she looked around at the claustrophobic walls and tiny space.

  “This is a last resort thing, right? For me and whoever I bring with me to the Event? If we have to go this route?”

  Rogald nodded.

  “It’s time to go to the bunker. I want to see what we’re dealing with.” She’d seen it in the TV show, and online research had yielded more information. It was supposed to be huge, eighty two thousand feet of underground concrete World War II facility buried under San Francisco. Concrete and steel reinforced, it was no wonder the thing could survive the Event. The pictures showed life above earth was unsustainable, but there might have been some under the earth life that survived, for a time. People could have gotten to their underground facilities and lasted for a little while.

  And…then what? With nothing on earth topside that was viable, and howling winds, the Event destroyed the Earth, and all life on it. When it happened was semantics.

  “Let’s do this,” Rogald said. “Your belt or mine?” He gestured to the devices that hung between the three time travelers. “Fiona, we need to get you one for decoration.”

  She smiled wanly, realizing he was trying to lighten the mood. “No thanks, Rogald. It doesn’t go with my wardrobe.”

  “We use Fiona,” Illiria said, after a glance at Sonder. “Keep the belts at full charge, but keep them off. They are a lot better now that tech from the future came in from the Liberators.” She gave Rogald a sharp look. Fiona knew Sonder had been able to keep pace with the Commander because of new batteries given to him by the Liberators.

  “Agreed,” Rogald said. “We don’t want to be tracked yet.”

  “He must know we’re here,” Fiona said after a short pause. “He must know we’re going after him.”

  Sonder looked grim. “Of course he does. I am careful, but I am sure he noticed he was being tailed. He wants to be caught. Remember, he can’t get all the way to the Event either. None of us can. He can only set things into motion and help his descendant.”

  “I can,” Fiona said. “I can get to the Event. I can take all of us there. I could take him there, but I wouldn’t.”

  “We know,” Illiria said. “He will come after you at some point, if he wants to get to the Event.”

  She had known that, but hearing it didn’t make it better. “So I’m bait.”

  “Not bait, kale mou. You’re all any of us have. You’re the one who can make a difference. Without you we have no chance of stopping it. With you, we do. He knows that. He also knows that if he wants to meet his descendant, you’re the only way he can.”

  “But he tried to kill me. He didn’t want to meet his descendant then.”

  “I told you,” Illiria said, and her voice was strained. “The scenarios don’t work.”

  “Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. So what are we going to do in the bunker?” She gestured to the bomb shelter. “Can we get out of here? I’m feeling claustrophobic.”

  Once back in the house, she sighed. “Come on, let’s do this. No time like the present.”

  Sonder looked at her. “Kale mou, do you need a minute? We could go get some coffee in New York, take a break, and come back.”

  “New York?” Fiona said in mock horror. “Please. This Boston girl wouldn’t go to New York for coffee. I’d love to go to Pino’s Pizza, or Golden Temple, to see them as they were when my mother was there.” She shook her head. “No, Sonder, I don’t want to run. I mean, I do, but I’m not going to. I don’t need a minute. I need a lot of minutes, but all of them will wait until after we do this.” She looked at the collected trio. “Let’s go see what this bunker has to offer.”

  #

  Hoping the graffiti she’d seen in the TV show was still there, Fiona reached out with her mind and found the picture she wanted. It was a wide open space, bigger than many apartments, with dust and some debris on the floor. The ceiling was high, maybe twenty feet, and the walls were dotted here and there with rusted remains of something metal. She didn’t know what they were used for, although the show had said it was to move ordnance. She shivered. There was so much in this world that was left over from various wars, yet they had managed not to blow themselves up.

  Once again she wondered if they were doing the right thing. Maybe she did something to make it worse. She wished they could see all the way to that time and get a sense of what was going on.

  She was used to having an idea of what to expect before going into a situation. Now they were flying blind. It had never bothered her before she discovered time travel, now she couldn’t live without some foreknowledge.

  “Let’s hope that graffiti is still there,” she mumbled. “And that no bums or anything are down there. I’d hate to shift into something or someone.”

  “It’s possible, but unlikely, Traveler,” Illiria said. She gestured to her belt, and switched it on. “You’re stalling.” Her movement made it clear that with or without Fiona, they were going to the bunker.

  Fiona rubbed her clammy hands together. “Yes I am. Come on.”

  The shift was easy, a blink of an eye and the three of them were down below the surface of San Francisco. They were far enough down that it accommodated the huge, echoing space, as well as the untold tons of thick concrete that surrounded the space. She blinked. All of them turned on their belt flashlights. She felt like their belts were a little MacGuyveresque sometimes, always something useful on them. All she had was time travel.

  The space was as large and imposing as the TV show had shown. She had learned it was a World War 2 munitions bunker. It was a time when Japan was considered a deadly enemy and the threat of an attack on the Pacific Coast was real. It was no wonder they had built structures like this, she thought, with the thought of war on the horizon, over the ocean.

  There wasn’t much on the floor, but a few scattered empty containers showed old survival supplies, and some empty liquor bottles. She wondered how a homeless person could have found their way down there. It was the little things that tripped up big inventions. She was sure that, like Luke with the shaft where he dropped the bombs to blow up the Death Star, there was a small way in that wasn’t accounted for.

  Fiona Jensen, you are really random sometimes. That voice was her own.

  “Anything?” Illiria asked, watching Rogald and Sonder scan the space with their flashlights, making sure no corner was left unmolested. Nothing stirred but dust and the edges of the long discarded package.

  “Nothing here.”

  “What time frame did you shift us to?” Rogald didn’t cease moving, sweeping the area from one side to another. Shadows moved as their lights shone around the space, creating dancing figures in their beams. Dust motes sparkled in the bright light. His voice echoed, booming off solid concrete.

  She looked at the graffiti. It looked fresher than in the TV show and she thought it was about ten
years earlier than the show, or so.

  She shrugged. “I focused on 1985. This,” she pointed to the graffiti that was a big white stylized block that said “Crime in the city.” “I did research and this is from the 80s. It wouldn’t have existed prior to 1980, thus 1985. It seemed round numberish, and safe.”

  Illiria gave her a sharp look. “Nothing is safe.”

  Did the woman ever let up?

  Their boots kicked up small eddies of dust but they saw no other fresh tracks. Whoever had been down here, and when, it hadn’t been recent.

  “No sign of the Commander,” Rogald said. Sonder returned to her and switched off his flashlight, throwing his face into shadow. “I think it’s too early. I don’t think he’s in this time frame. Good job, Fiona.”

  She was pleased by the praise. Sonder made a noise, as did Illiria.

  “Now what?” she asked, and nodded to the pouch Sonder carried. “Your clock, I assume, Mr. Michan. What are we doing with this?”

  He pulled out the futuristic looking clock and handed it to her. It was sleek, with no visible knobs or seams, a continuous piece of metal with a display she would have called LED in her time frame, but was no doubt some future tech where LED was obsolete. The readout gave the day and time in military format. Currently it was set to nothing. As Fiona watched, it shifted, and transformed. It was blinking again, but now with a steady stream showing the date and time of 1985, as Fiona had suggested.

  “We need to confirm the date,” Illiria said. She pointed to an air shaft that went up, with a rusted steel ladder cut into the wall next to it. “Sonder, go and find out what day it is so we can determine if this is correct. We’ll scout here.”

  Sonder nodded, as if taking orders from her still came naturally to him. Fiona bristled, but said nothing. When the world was at stake, it paid to be cautious, she supposed.

  She had thought about jumping to her birth date, but that would be too obvious. If the Commander was looking for them, a date like that smacked of a rookie maneuver.

  “Now what?” she asked, looking around again. It was unnerving, knowing they were under so much rock and dirt. She regarded the small pile of supplies. The food and water seemed useless in this context, a few containers standing between themselves and death. It wouldn’t sustain anyone for long. The suits, however, looked useful. They were sleek and almost like the racing suits speed skaters wore but she knew they were far more than that.

  “Now we explore,” Illiria said. She picked up a helmet, something that seemed like today’s tech more than the futuristic tech than the clock seemed to be, and donned it. Switching on the light, she moved her head around the chamber.

  “Rogald, set up that standing light over there,” she said, and pointed to the edge of the cavernous space. As before, her voice echoed, the bounce back spooky.

  Fiona had taken notes from the TV show and other websites and knew they were about eighty feet underground, if the references were to be believed. She imagined that when this was a military complex used to prepare for invasion there were fences, maybe even guards.

  The clang of the steel ladder rang in the space as Sonder ascended. It seemed to take him a long time and he disappeared around a corner of the shaft. She hoped he would hurry back. It was sort of funny when you thought about it. They could do all this jumping around, but when it came down to verifying the date, a newspaper was the best thing. Low tech at its finest. In this day and age newspapers were prevalent and she didn’t doubt Sonder could get one…if he had money. Fiona had forgotten about that. She gave Illiria a quick look and decided that particular nicety had already been addressed. The woman didn’t miss much.

  “Illiria?” Fiona asked. “What would happen if people knew time travel existed?”

  Illiria frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  Fiona shrugged. The cavern made her think of the war, and its outcome. It made her think of the Commander, and what they were trying to do. They were trying to change the future, in order to preserve the present world. It seemed like a noble thing. Would people think the same thing if they knew about time travel? Would they want to go back to events and change them for their perceived good, depending on their ideology? The Liberators claimed they wanted to change things for the better, but the truth was they protected the time stream as much as the Guardians did. Neither group acted rashly.

  But Fiona’s idea of good and another person’s idea of good would be different. One person may stop the German scientists from going to America, so they never designed the atomic bomb. There were a hundred ways, large and small, where changes could have dramatic impact. The anomalies rippling out of breached caused small shifts in natural disasters, but what if people had access to time? People would be trying to mess with things that a permanent time rupture could occur. She was reminded of the classic Ursula LeGuin novel The Lathe of Heaven where George Orr was forced to change things so many times that the continuum snapped.

  She gave Illiria and Rogald a measured look. Both of them must have sensed something in her because they stopped what they were doing, looking at her with puzzled expressions.

  “People can never know, can they?” She supposed up until that moment she had a vague notion that if they saved the world she could let the secret out. But she never could. Whatever happened, the only people who would ever know were in this room. She would be the unsung Traveler, unknown savior of the world.

  That was okay with her. With great power comes great responsibility. She had just realized what that meant.

  “It would be a disaster,” Illiria said. “We’ve…”

  Fiona smiled. “I know, you ran scenarios. You probably ran one on what would happen if I revealed the truth. How did that go?”

  “Not well,” Illiria said. “You don’t want to know.”

  Fiona studied her, and turned to Rogald.

  “She showed me. Humanity will try to destroy what it doesn’t understand. That can’t happen, Fiona. Once we do this job we have to go back to the way things were. We will be Liberators and they will be Guardians. We have a job to do and if we fix the Event, then we will have to continue to do that job into the future. Nothing would be different.” He looked solemn a moment. “Nothing will be different, except we saved the world.” He grinned and Illiria gave him a sour look. Then she relaxed and smiled.

  They heard clanging and they all whirled. The helmet Illiria still had on swung its beam, casting shadows and light over the large space. Rogald switched the lamp on and bright light filled their piece of the giant space. It wasn’t powerful enough to illuminate all of the room, but it was enough.

  Sonder came down with a San Francisco Chronicle and a white bag of something. He handed the paper to Illiria and passed out croissants to everyone.

  “Fresh baked,” he said, and flashed Fiona a smile. He looked at Illiria. “I had change,” he said when she looked at him fish eyed. “What else are we going to do with it?”

  “Currency is hard to come by, Sonder,” she said. “Don’t use it frivolously.”

  A shadow passed across Sonder’s expression, the sadness that had been there ever since he discovered he didn’t appear to be in future records, or the memory of future travelers. There could be any reason for it, or so she told herself, but she knew it lingered in his mind. He was hers, she thought, and no Event and no Commander was going to take him from her. She would see to that.

  “Now what?” she asked, clapping her hands together. Small bits of the flaky croissant clung to her skin.

  Sonder took a helmet and donned it. “Now we explore.”

  Fiona paused in the act of wiping her hands on her jeans and looked at him.

  “We do…what?”

  “We need to find a room the Commander is unlikely to discover,” he said. “Then we store the gear in there and flash the rest of the food and water forward to the Event. If we don’t need it, fine. If we do, it will be there. Fiona, you yourself said it wouldn’t last all that time. We may as well put it where we�
�re going to make use of it.”

  “I, um, sure, but…” she trailed off again, unable to think of anything coherent to say. “By ‘we’ you mean me.”

  “Of course,” he said. “You’re all we’ve got. You’re the only thing that will get us there, and back.”

  “Hopefully,” Rogald chimed in. “The back part.”

  #

  After exploring what seemed like miles and miles and miles of huge cavernous space they found a door with a rusted handle tucked away in a back corridor. There was no reason for anyone, including the Commander, to come down this way. Whatever he or his descendant were going to do down here she doubted they would venture to small, dark spaces with no apparent use. That was the theory. But he was smart, and might be one step ahead of them.

  “Sonder, Rogald, we have the coordinates to this room, correct?” Illiria asked. “We will be able to find our way back?”

  Sonder was taking pictures with their tablet, and Rogald was doing the same. Both of them were also taking pictures with battery powered digital cameras she supposed could be used if there was no power to their tablets. All of the pictures would assist them, or other time travelers if necessary, to find the spot again. She committed it to memory as best she could, wishing they had natural light.

  Sonder tried the handle and to Fiona’s surprise, the metal door creaked and then gave. No locks, which when she thought about it made sense. Once you were down here, you were supposed to be here, back in the day when this was operational.

  The room was small and dark. Rogald pulled another lamp from his pack and set it up on a small tripod. The room filled with light. Here there was no litter, no debris, nothing to indicate the homeless, the graffiti artists or the spelunking club had discovered this room. Dust was thick on the floors and the walls were scored with dirt. Nobody had set foot in here since the bunker was abandoned after the war. Perfect.

  They piled the supplies in one corner, covering them with a tarp. Even abandoned, the accumulated two hundred years that awaited this equipment would take its toll in dust and small debris.