Fractured Futures

by SY Thompson

  “You will be transported to a small room inside the ship. No one is in there unless they’re arriving or departing the ship. Get out of that room quickly. Turn to your right in the hall and go down two doors. Go into the room on your left. That is the engine room. The mother ship is vulnerable to attack and can be damaged with an ancient explosive device. The only problem you’ll have is avoiding the patrols. They will be heavy and they will kill you on sight.”

  Finally the screen was clearing up, just a little more. There.

  Ronan stared at the screen in utter disbelief just before the image of Lieutenant Sloan winked off. She only saw him for a brief instant but there was no question as to her caller’s identity.

  She was tempted not to believe it, but the conversation she’d overheard between Sloan and Kinsky at the office came back to nag her. She had to admit that on second thought Sloan’s words of caution could be construed as an attempt to talk Kinsky out of being so aggressive toward the populace. She also remembered working for the man, how fair and honest he’d always seemed to her. Her instincts told her she could trust him and over the years, she’d learned to trust her intuition. If they didn’t have to invite disaster by going back to headquarters unnecessarily, so much the better. Ronan turned and found Sidney staring at her from the bedroom doorway.

  “What do you think?”

  Ronan considered the question from all angles quickly but held with her original reaction. “I think we can believe him. He went to too much trouble to conceal his identity for this to be a setup and I think he was the one who warned me of the Regime before I ever met you. Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t still be very careful.”

  “At least we don’t have to go back to your office. I really didn’t like that idea.”

  Ronan nodded. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes. Nothing personal, but this place scares me. I’m ready to go home.”

  “Then let’s go home. Give me a minute though. I need to take care of something.”

  Sidney frowned and realized Ronan wasn’t moving as freely as she usually did. “What happened to your arm?”

  “Kinsky got in a lucky shot down in the tunnel. Don’t worry,” she continued when Sidney blanched. “He only grazed me. I’m just going to mend this before we take off. I don’t need even a minor wound slowing us down.”

  Sidney didn’t comment. She quietly helped Ronan remove her shirt and heal the wound with an instrument taken from the medicine cabinet. Ronan thought Sidney was either becoming accustomed to her being injured or was making an effort not to dwell on things she couldn’t change. Considering all they’d been through in the last few months, Ronan was impressed with her fortitude. Once finished, she smiled and led Sidney out of the apartment and down to the parking garage. Their luck held and they didn’t encounter any more checkpoints. Ronan actually started to feel that things were looking up. That feeling intensified when they drove into the professor’s driveway and he opened the door to greet them with a smile.

  “I WAS BEGINNING to wonder if you were going to bring the old girl back.”

  Sidney smiled at the grizzled professor’s reference to his battered old sedan, but in spite of his jovial tone, she saw the strain around his eyes. Either he’d been very worried for them or news of their latest escapade had already leaked out. She didn’t know which and chose not to pursue the topic unless he brought it up. The less he knew, the safer he would be. She’d once heard such a thing referred to as plausible deniability.

  “It even has a full tank but the driver’s seat is a little damp.”

  While Ronan bantered with the scientist, Sidney was more intrigued with the smells that permeated the air. Her stomach spoke up noisily, reminding her that she had only had a cup of coffee all day.

  “What smells so good?” she finally interrupted, unable to help herself.

  Professor Horton merely grinned. “You’re just in time. I made tea.”

  “You mean you can cook, too?” Ronan asked in feigned surprise.

  “My, dear, I assure you that I can do anything I feel like doing. Even if I am nearly seventy-eight.”

  Sidney could see that the two clearly adored each other and the friendly teasing was a normal part of their interaction. But as cute as she thought they were, her stomach insisted that she find out what there was to eat. A few minutes later, she learned that the “tea” the professor referred to was actually a full meal. The professor had set the table for three people and the aromas that circulated in the air made her mouth water.

  “Now have a seat,” Horton invited. “Everything is ready. I just need to get it out of the oven.”

  Sidney took a moment to look around the room in wonder. She had easily accepted Professor Horton as a brilliant scientist. All of the sophisticated technology Ronan had displayed time and again as well as the fully outfitted lab she had seen for herself proved it. She just had a hard time connecting this cozy kitchen with its hanging pots and pans, potted plants, and modern cooking appliances with the same person.

  In a wink, Horton placed a large roast beef with all the trimmings in the center of the table, quickly followed by mashed potatoes, cream gravy, corn, baby carrots with a brown sugar glaze and dinner rolls. Sidney felt like she was in a scene from a Harry Potter movie and had just set down to a feast at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

  “This is amazing.” She loaded her plate. “You must have cooked all day.”

  “Professor, how did you learn to make cream gravy?” Ronan asked. “It’s not exactly a European delicacy.”

  The old man waited until Sidney had taken her first bite of mashed potatoes and gravy to answer. Once he saw the delight in her eyes, he answered Ronan’s question.

  “Our friend here is an American. I wanted her to feel at home in our land.”

  “Well, you certainly outdid yourself,” Sidney complimented around a mouthful. “This is delicious.”

  “So glad you approve, my dear,” he said before he tucked into his own meal. After a minute, he remembered something else. “So sorry, I forgot the wine.”

  Before he could get up Ronan stood. “I’ll get it, Professor, but I think I’d better stick with something non-alcoholic for now. By the way, four o’clock is a little late in the day for tea and too early for supper. Is there something we should know?”

  Ronan’s back was to the man and she couldn’t see the effect her words had on him, but Sidney was facing him and she stopped with the fork halfway to her mouth. His complexion had taken on an odd pallor that told her something was terribly wrong. His eyes met hers and seemed to plead with her to go along with him for now.

  “I...I decided you would bring my car back sometime today and since I know how you hate to cook, I thought I would save you the trouble.”

  Sidney watched Ronan’s back stiffen and knew she had easily seen through the professor’s attempt at casual. She expected her to confront him at once and was surprised when she said nothing. Instead, Ronan finished collecting beverages for all of them, wine for the professor and two glasses of iced tea, before she sat back down.

  Sidney sensed Horton had another bomb to drop and suddenly wished for something stronger than iced tea. Then she realized that it would be better for her to be sober to handle whatever was coming.

  “You do realize that I’m going to question you on that after we eat?” Ronan’s voice was soft, but left little doubt that she was completely serious. Professor Horton understood and reached over to pat his friend on the hand.

  “Finish your supper, Ronan. There is nothing that cannot wait until after we have eaten.”

  Sidney was happy to see her nod acceptance of his terms. Just once she wanted to relax and eat a meal in this messed up time without wondering who was about to burst through the door. Still, the look on Professor Horton’s expression lingered in her mind and the sumptuous repast turned to bitter ashes in her stomach. She forced herself to clean her plate since she had the feeling she was about to need
all of the energy her body could store. The rest of the meal was a quiet affair during which the air seemed to grow heavier with the weight of whatever the man concealed. Eventually Sidney couldn’t hope to swallow another bite and pushed her half-full plate away. She noticed that the other two pushed their food around absently and decided that was enough.

  “All right, Professor, out with it.”

  Horton sat up straight but his gaze never left the table. “I received a communiqué a little after ten o’clock this morning from someone skilled enough to mask their identity.” He stopped speaking and took a large gulp of wine. “It seems that I owe you an apology, both of you. He told me a story that convinces me that the Neue Konservatives are not the friends I believed them to be.”

  “Were you able to figure out who this guy was?” Ronan asked although she and Sidney both thought they knew the answer to that question.

  Sloan had known that Ronan and the professor were good friends. He knew about the time gate and Horton’s creative genius in all things technological. He also knew that Professor Horton was just about the only person Ronan would trust if she were in danger.

  “Unfortunately, no. He only said that Kinsky and the Regime knew that you were a threat and they would do whatever it took to destroy you. I was also told it was only a matter of time before they would send a death squad here to look for you.”

  “Dutrov’s men, no doubt,” Sidney said bitterly. She vividly recalled the treatment she had received at his hands and didn’t look forward to another encounter.

  “Perfect. So the reason they weren’t waiting for us at the apartment is that they knew where we would go.” She stood up suddenly from the table and looked at Sidney. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

  “What?”

  “Sidney, for all we know they’ve already got us surrounded. I’m not going to sit here and endanger the professor again.”

  “I’ve been involved from the beginning,” he interrupted. “Besides, I have something to show you.”

  Professor Horton stood and motioned for them to follow. He led them straight to the lab and walked over to a workbench filled with assorted components Sidney hadn’t seen before. On the end of the table there were two bands fitted with funny black boxes. Horton picked one of them up and turned toward Sidney and Ronan.

  “These are the phase inducers I told you about.”

  He passed it over to Ronan. The other he handed to Sidney. Sidney noticed that the band was small and lightweight. It would be easy to conceal it under a shirtsleeve. The small square box was also remarkably light and she assumed it was some kind of control interface.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of presetting the coordinates into the band. We need only refine the exact time you wish to reappear in the past.”

  “Do you input the information in here?” Ronan asked and tapped the box with a fingernail.

  “Yes, here let me show you.”

  Horton pointed out a small dial with a set of hash marks and a digital readout. A small computer chip inside the mechanism was already set with the geographical location for North America and a general target date for the year 2012. All they needed to do was set the appropriate date and time.

  Sidney and Ronan settled on June 15. It was well after the time Ronan had started working for her and before the stalker’s attack. Sidney would phone her producer, Vel Prince, and claim illness for taking a few days off since she’d still been filming a movie at that time. Ronan would drop an anonymous tip to the police about the identity of Sidney’s stalker. Once both of those obstacles were out of the way, they could concentrate on their nefarious visitors.

  “I guess all there is to do now is step through the gate.”

  Ronan’s voice quivered and Sidney felt her eyes water in response. Ronan was about to say good-bye again to her oldest friend, very likely for the last time. Sidney had come to know him well from spending time with him the last few days and felt like she was losing a good friend as well. Professor Horton didn’t say anything but spread his arms wide. Both women stepped into a hug and fought the sting of tears. Finally, he released them and cleared his throat before he stepped up to the control panel.

  “Don’t forget that you will be slightly out of phase when you arrive,” he reminded them while he keyed in the necessary information.

  Sidney took Ronan’s hand as they stepped toward the transmission point. “We won’t forget,” she said looking back at him.

  The sound of numerous vehicles pulling up in front of the house interrupted the tearful good-bye and all three looked at each other in sudden fright. A second later the front door shattered, hammered open by a battering ram and the sound of booted feet running toward them reverberated through the house.

  “Quickly!” Professor Horton shouted and finished inputting the numbers.

  Sidney would have run back and helped defend the scientist from the invading military but Ronan pushed her toward the shimmering temporal field with an arm around her shoulders.

  “We have to go now, Sidney. There is no time.”

  Just before she stepped through the vortex, she watched Dutrov burst into the lab with a pistol aimed straight at her. Professor Horton stepped into the line of fire and absorbed the laser fire that would have killed her instantly.

  “No!” she shouted even as sparkles filled her eyes and her skin tingled with the sensation of falling through time and space.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE FAMILIAR CONFINES of Sidney’s penthouse apartment solidified around them, but her heart still cried for the old man that she had just seen murdered. The knowledge that both she and Ronan were safe was no consolation. Sidney’s pain turned inward and she sank to the ground with her arms wrapped around her midsection.

  She rocked back and forth with her eyes closed moaning, “No, no.”

  Nothing else mattered in that moment but all of the horror she had seen since this whole nightmare began. She felt like things had started slow and now seemed to move faster and faster, like a roller coaster headed downhill. They had no control and they were fooling themselves to believe they could stop an entire army from invading. The Regime would find them. Somehow, they probably already knew where they were. If Horton could invent a time machine, why couldn’t the Neue Konservatives? Heck, if they were so advanced they could probably put one together as easily as she put on her underwear. It would be like a child’s building blocks to them.

  Gradually she calmed. Her face was pressed against a warm, cloth-covered breast, and gentle arms wrapped around her shoulders.

  Sidney pulled away and looked into Ronan’s face. “What have we done? He didn’t deserve that.”

  “I know, but it will be all right.”

  As gentle as Ronan’s words were, Sidney felt ignited by anger. “All right? How can you say that?”

  She stood and wiped at the streaks of tears on her face. She knew that her words were unfair but she couldn’t prevent them. She was so angry and frightened that she just wanted to strike back and Ronan happened to be a convenient target.

  “Don’t you care that they just murdered a sweet old man for no other reason than he happened to be there? It is not all right. Not by a long shot. They know about us, Ronan. They are going to come in here and slaughter us just like they slaughtered Professor Horton and you know what the worst part is? There isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.”

  “Sidney, I know it’s terrible about the professor. How do you think I feel? He was like a father to me, but he’s not really dead. Don’t you see? We’re in the past now and he hasn’t even been born. We can change things.”

  “Hah!” Sidney shouted. “How many times have we tried this Ronan? And don’t you see? We’ve tipped our hand. Now that they know about us in the future, what makes you think they can’t build their own machine and send agents back after us?”

  Ronan went dead still and Sidney knew she had made her point. Her anger was still at the boiling point but slightly mollified, she
walked away to wash her face. Suddenly the silence was broken as someone began to pound on the door. Both women jumped in fear and turned to look at each other. Then they heard Jordy’s concerned voice and relaxed slightly. Sidney walked over and opened the door to greet her worried chauffeur.

  “What’s going on in here?” he asked as he stepped into the room and looked around for an obvious perpetrator. When he saw only Ronan, he looked at his employer in confusion. “Ms. Weaver, are you okay? I heard shouting and I thought that stalker guy must have gotten in.”

  Sidney glanced over at Ronan. With everything that had happened, she’d completely forgotten about the stalker. In this century, she was still shooting a picture and the plane crash had never happened.

  “Everything is fine, Jordy,” she said and reached out to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Ronan and I were just...rehearsing a scene together for the movie.”

  “For the movie?”

  At first he didn’t sound like he believed her, but finally he let out a breath and drew a hand through his sandy hair. “Geez, Ms. Weaver, if that’s rehearsal I just have to see the movie. You sure had me convinced.”

  Sidney smiled and moved toward the door with her untidy employee in tow. She gestured him through the door and said, “Thanks for checking on me, but we really should get back to work. You know how Vel can be when I forget my lines.”

  “Huh? Oh, sure Ms. Weaver, whatever you say. Just try not to scare the bejesus out of me again, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” Sidney said in a light, teasing tone. “But no promises.”

  As soon as the door closed, she turned back toward Ronan. The smile that had never reached her eyes left her lips. She could see immediately that Ronan had something to say and she doubted that it was about Jordy. “What? Spit it out.”

  “You’re right about the Konservatives. Fortunately, we do have a head start. Since they killed...the professor...they’re going to have to figure out the time machine from scratch. Perhaps that will buy us the time we need to fix things from this end.”