The Temporal

by CJ Martín

With his vision impaired, he couldn’t be sure, but he felt that she was raising her arms and that her hands each held something. The arms were moving in small circular motions that increased in swiftness as the vision progressed. He could only hear a constant whoosh and see a blur of motion in the corners of his vision.

  He had now lost the gnawing anticipation and desire, but he still could not break his gaze or move his feet. The angel stopped broadcasting the light and McGregor could now clearly see that she was holding two very sharp long-bladed daggers. She had also moved much closer to McGregor; her face was bloodied. Upon closer inspection, that single face somehow was an amalgamation of the faces of the girls—the girls he had murdered.

  “No! Help me.”

  “You didn’t help us,” said the woman in a voice resembling a duet.

  “I... I wanted to help you, Becky, Michelle!”

  “Now it is our turn to help you.”

  The angel crossed her arms in a pose resembling that of a mummified pharaoh before lashing out, blades forward, in the direction of McGregor’s neck.

  McGregor found himself flat on the ground, looking up at the red headed woman who had returned her glasses to her face. His hands were on his neck, but it was not moist with blood or cut by the blades he had seen.

  “Would you like to see more?”

  “No—No, ma’am.”

  “Get up. We have work to do.”

  Chapter 26

  After carrying Agent Cobbs through several blocks of the streets of New Orleans, Suteko said that they had gone far enough. They carefully set him down against a wall, his body conforming to the angle of the brickwork.

  Sam was amazed that his muscles were not sore nor were his legs tired from carrying a full grown man for so long.

  “Stay here. I won’t be long.”

  With that, she ran away faster than he had ever seen her move, faster than he had ever seen anyone move. She turned the corner with a blur in the direction of the old theater. She returned after what seemed to be ten minutes—although Sam knew there was no proper way to measure time, with its flow having been stopped.

  “Sorry, I had to move as many of the others away from whatever was released by the explosion.”

  Suteko grabbed Sam’s hands as she had done before. In an instant, Cobbs animated with a startle, birds chirped, and a breeze already mid-blow splashed against their faces.

  “What the...?! What did you do to me?”

  Cobbs was surprised, confused, terrified even. One moment he was looking down at Sam with the coffee shop behind him. The next moment, he was looking up at Sam with trees and a swing-set behind him. He had been standing; now, he was sitting against a wall. He searched Sam’s eyes for answers, but Sam had only a slightly less puzzled look on his face.

  Suteko quickly leaned over, touching Cobb’s shoulders. “Please do not be afraid. You are safe.”

  “Where am I?” Cobbs brushed away Suteko’s soothing touch and began groping up the brick wall behind him, trying to stand.

  “The bomb went off. We took you to safety.”

  “Did I pass out?”

  “No.”

  Sam looked at Cobbs’ utterly confused face and wondered how Suteko would explain the unexplainable.

  “No, I realize this will be hard to grasp, but…”

  “You stopped time, didn’t you?” Cobbs said, surprising the two fugitives.

  “Yes, sort of.”

  Cobbs was standing now. A confused look still remained, but the fear had vanished.

  Cobbs stepped back. Letting his hand fall to his belt, he pulled his pistol from its holster.

  “I don’t know what your intentions are, but you are both under arrest.”

  “Yes, I understand. I broke your laws, but our purpose for coming was to stop this bomb, to save lives.”

  Cobbs held the gun between Sam and Suteko. Sam backed up a step, but Suteko stood motionless.

  “Looks like you failed spectacularly,” Cobbs said, keeping the gun up.

  “There are other bombs.”

  “Other? Why didn’t you report this to the authorities?”

  “I only just learned about the multiple bombs,” Suteko said in a calm voice—too calm for Sam’s raging nerves; being held at gunpoint didn’t seem to faze Suteko. “We had hoped we could stop this one before anyone needed to know. Besides, what would we tell them? We had a dream about a bomb?”

  “Is that how you knew about this bomb and that there are others?”

  “Sam and I both had the same dream. A little research led us here. But the fact that there are other bombs, I learned from you—a you from some time in the future.”

  The reference to a future Agent Cobbs didn’t throw off the present Agent Cobbs.

  “That man back there. Who was he?”

  “We don’t know. We had no idea what to expect.”

  “There could be more bombs,” Cobbs said lowering his pistol somewhat, but not completely. “I noticed the countdown was originally set for thirty-six hours before he must have pressed a panic button.”

  “A coordinated and simultaneous attack would certainly cause wide-spread panic.”

  “Look,” Cobbs said while re-holstering his weapon. “I don’t know what is going on, but you had opportunity to escape or to do me harm and you didn’t. You could have removed my weapon and you didn’t. As crazy as it sounds, I believe what you say is true and that you wanted to prevent the bomb from going off. I don’t understand it, but the video feed from the airport shattered my understanding of reality. Help me stop the other bombs, and I will do my best to make the customs incident go away. But you,” he said, pointing a finger at Sam. “Assaulting an officer is a different matter.”

  “I understand. I’ll...”

  A cell phone that Sam didn’t know existed began to buzz from within Suteko’s pocket.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded and then pressed “end” not five seconds after answering.

  “I have an email waiting for me. The old man has found something out.”

  “The old man?”

  “A friend of ours.”

  Suteko pulled up the email app on her phone and then moved to create a huddle where the three could read it together.

  His name is Todd McGregor. A professor at Coastway Community College (SF, CA).

  Some other cities are: Boston, NYC, New Orleans, and DC. Prob only one per. There may be other cities...

  This information came costly. Make good use of it.

  “This must be a list of targeted cities. Can you have the security heightened in those cities?” Sam asked.

  “Based on what? An email? What are the targets? Should people walking into a supermarket be frisked? We need more specific information before we start a panic.”

  “Then, we work with the name,” Suteko said. “We need to find out about this McGregor. We have less than thirty-six hours. I suggest we visit California.”

  “Shouldn’t we examine the bomb site before leaving?” Sam asked.

  “Leave that to the Hazmat crew,” Cobbs said. “There is no guarantee it will be safe for hours—maybe days. That’s time we simply don’t have. I can pull the strings necessary to be kept in the loop.”

  Suteko nodded. “Let’s go.”

  An hour later, the three were waiting in a line with tickets in their hands. A few hours after that, they landed at the San Francisco International Airport.

  Cobbs thought it best to simply tell his superiors that a recent transaction on Sam’s card meant they were heading to California and that he would follow them. Until he understood enough to be able to say something without sounding crazy, he decided this was the best course of action. It wasn’t his main concern, but he wanted hard facts before risking his spotless record. Besides, getting permission often got in the way of doing what had to be done.

  “The site in New Orleans is clean now,” Cobbs said after ending a phone call. “Whatever the bomb sent out—they are still working on what
it was—it dissipated quickly. The death toll is exactly two. I would have expected much more—at least a dozen people were fairly close to the explosion.” He looked at Suteko. “Let me guess... You had something to do with that? My contact reported a few people who claimed to have been near the building and yet were a block away an instant after the explosion. And that sounds mighty familiar to me.”

  She smiled and Cobbs continued thumbing his phone, checking email. His screen lit up with detailed data from the scene.

  “And now let me guess, one of the two deaths was Todd McGregor,” Sam said, wishing McGregor’s end had occurred a few hours earlier than it had.

  “That’s what is puzzling. I shot him twice at least, and he was inches away from the bomb. If he survived the bullets and the explosion, the chemical it released would have been most potent at his location. And yet his name isn’t on the list of recovered dead. And even if your old man got his name wrong, the two victims don’t match the bomber’s age or sex. Most peculiar, there weren’t any bodies in the building where the bomb went off,” Agent Cobbs said with severely crumpled eyebrows.

  “He wasn’t wearing a gas mask. Could… his body have been scorched into nothing?” Sam asked, hoping for some logical explanation.

  “There was an explosion—we all saw the flash, but the report states there was only limited damage to the building. The explosion couldn’t have been very big. I would expect a singed or even crisp body, but according to my contacts, there wasn’t even a body. Still, the list may not be complete.” He turned toward Suteko. “Was he… one of yours?”

  “One of mine?”

  “Yeah, you know. Super powers, stop time, that sort of thing.”

  “No. He couldn’t have been. But I think you overestimate what we can do. I have only been able to step outside time so completely as I did twice in my life. It is a rare gift that cannot and should not be taken lightly.”

  “We have just over thirty hours. Let’s get to Professor McGregor’s college and talk to his buddies. My contact will call back in a few with the perp’s home address.”

  ★

  “Are you with law enforcement too?” The man’s high, girlish voice seemed oddly mismatched with his large body. Dr. Philip O’Conner was the Coastway Community College president.

  Cobbs looked at Sam and Suteko before answering, “No, I’m with Immigration Services, but was Professor McGregor wanted by local law enforcement?”

  “Not local. The feds. They wouldn’t tell me what exactly it was about, but they looked serious. Professor McGregor has been gone for two days. No word from him, no canceling his classes. He just vanished.”

  “What did he teach?”

  “Well, we had him across the board—remedial English, English Lit, Social Studies, things like that, but his main interest was Arabic studies. He was well sought out, I hear, for his expertise on Islam and the Arabic language.”

  “And yet he taught remedial English at a small community college—no offense,” said Cobbs.

  Cobbs’ phone vibrated in his pocket indicating a new message. Glancing at the screen, he suddenly put the phone away and said, “Thank you for your time.” Holding up the card Dr. O’Conner had given him, he added, “If we have further questions, can I reach you at this number?”

  The principal nodded as Cobbs motioned for Suteko and Sam to follow. They did so with some reluctance.

  “Why didn’t we ask more questions about McGregor?” Sam asked once out of earshot of the school president. “Shouldn’t we at least get his home address from Dr. O’Conner?”

  “No need. I have that now,” he said holding up his smart phone. “But we wouldn’t have been able to find anything without a warrant—unless you use your super powers to enter without me watching or knowing—but now we may be able to legally search.”

  Before Sam could ask another question, Cobbs had his phone to his ear. They only heard his side of the conversation, but it was clear he was trying to get a contact of his to get them access to McGregor’s investigation files and a warrant to enter his home.

  “There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel. I suspect we will learn a lot more and learn it faster by reviewing his investigation files. Then we can bother Dr. O’Conner with any follow-up questions. Besides, my contact is usually fast and well connected. We need to start heading over to McGregor’s apartment.” Cobbs was now picking up his pace as he led them to the school parking lot and to their rental, a beat-up Honda Civic.

  Sam opened his mouth to ask something when he was interrupted by Cobbs’ phone.

  “Yes. Uh-huh. Good.” The call lasted only a few seconds but Cobbs was smiling. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 27

  NEW ORLEANS

  McGregor followed the mysterious red-headed woman a few blocks and then turned a corner where a black limousine was idling. With unsmiling lips, she told him to get in. He was prepared to do anything she said as long as she kept her sunglasses on. And yet, inchoate sparks of desire began to grow and burn inside him. Fear had kept the lust at bay, but he knew he would want her eyes again no matter the consequences. He knew it would be soon.

  She sat next to him in the back; through the thick crimson curls, he could only see the profile of her nose and the dark rim of her sunglasses. She lifted her head slightly, revealing rich, succulent lips. McGregor tingled with hunger and desire.

  She pressed a button and the darkened window between them and the nearly motionless driver whirled down obediently.

  “Go.”

  The partition window returned to its closed position and the car moved forward. McGregor could not see the driver or the road ahead. The windows to his left and right were dark enough to make the bright morning seem to be early evening or perhaps mid-morning with a thunderstorm rolling in.

  McGregor watched as block-shaped people were walking and shopping as if nothing had occurred. It made him think how easily distracted uninformed humans can be. Even if they knew of the disaster that just befell some of their fellow human beings, how many hours or days would it be before they began shopping and gossiping again?

  Then the scenery changed.

  The people faded into the gray buildings and the structures lost the little color they had. This dull gray was replaced by magnificent colors flashing before his eyes. Reds, yellows, and greens. Through the windows to his right, left, and behind, McGregor saw what appeared to be beautifully colored leaves falling from a grand oak on a brisk autumn evening.

  And then mere seconds after it begun, it all stopped. The colorful whirlwind and any sense of motion from without the car stilled.

  “Take this list to the editor.” She held out an 9x12 envelope. “Tell her you have knowledge of when and where the next bombs will go off.”

  McGregor looked at the woman as if she was speaking ancient Phoenician.

  “Leave your name for your alibi, but state emphatically that you want no credit. You only want the truth to get out.”

  “But...”

  “You are a helpful citizen, doing the work the police won’t. The press will love you. Tell them you had tried to warn the police, that you had called 911 to warn them. But they didn’t listen.”

  “But I haven’t...”

  “Yes, you have. Just do as I command.” She touched the brim of her glasses causing McGregor to nod fiercely in obedience while grabbing the envelope. “Good. You will explain that you came across this information online, that a Middle-eastern friend of yours had passed the knowledge on to you. You had not believed your friend until you saw on the news that a bomb had gone off in New Orleans. It was a day earlier than your friend had said, but clearly the information was more than a coincidence.”

  “But, wouldn’t she be suspicious since I’m already in New Orleans?”

  She smiled and said, “Look out the window and tell me what you see.”

  McGregor was startled to see the window automatically roll down even while the woman’s hands remained in her lap. The building direc
tly out his window was huge, but his eyes fell upon the writing above the doors. The gold lettering read: “Los Angeles Times 145 South Spring Street”

  “H—how?”

  “Go. Tell them you have information regarding the terrorist attack in New Orleans. Warn them of the list. Tell them you expect other cities will experience the same within thirty-six hours. Tell them the information is on condition of anonymity but that you felt compelled to do what is right.”

  McGregor nodded.

  “Remember,” she said, lowering her sunglasses enough to allow him to see the reflection of stars shimmering off the dark glass. Her voice echoed in his head, filling him with confidence and purpose. “You are Professor McGregor. The world needs you. You are a concerned citizen. You alone can warn them. You alone can stop these bombs from going off. Go!”

  The woman’s glasses once again slid up the bridge of her nose and covered her eyes. As the stars disappeared, McGregor found himself stumbling backward, falling onto the street curb. The car was gone a moment later.

  Instead of a feeling of embarrassment, McGregor stood up, brushed off his pant legs, and while gripping the envelope tightly, he smiled. He knew what to do; he was a new man. He was Todd McGregor, the savior of the world.

  Chapter 28

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Cobbs flipped the switch and verbalized his first impression. “This place is a dump.”

  Even with all the lights on and the curtains pulled back, McGregor’s apartment was a mess, a dark man-made cave, dank with obscene odors. Empty beer and soda cans were scattered throughout the rooms; a single trashcan sat unused in the corner. When they had turned on the lights they heard various scurrying sounds that sounded too large to be cockroaches.

  “Yeah, he was an ass and a pig,” said Sam who even now as a bachelor couldn’t imagine living in such squalor. They had already spoken with his neighbor, Mrs. Felds and had learned her preferred nickname for McGregor—ass.