Tomorrow's Guardian

by Richard Denning

CHAPTER THIRTY–ONE – WHATEVER THE COST

  Tom could see that Septimus was out cold – perhaps dead, maybe just wounded, but bleeding heavily from the bullet wound. Edward and Charlie were struggling with four of the Captain’s guards. Mary was panting, slumped down on a rock, but was somehow managing to keep her grip on the barrier that was preventing any more guards from joining the fight. Within the barrier itself, time flowed slowly like treacle: each second took hours. So anyone trying to move across it would take an eternity to do so.

  So it came down at last to Tom and Redfeld. And the Captain, standing in front of him on the rocky path, was the one with the gun.

  Redfeld moved closer. Tom backed away but then realised the path was running out. He glanced behind him; saw a sheer drop to the rocks below. There was nowhere further to retreat. Redfeld gave a shout of evil laughter.

  “Give in, boy. The only way this can end is with me winning – one way or another. If you somehow defeat me, the secret of what really happened to your parents will die with me. Think about that for a moment, boy. Your father, your mother,” he paused as Tom looked even more uncertain, “…your little sister. Where are they now – wiped from existence? If I die, they will never live again. If you die, their last hope will have gone. Don’t be the foolish hero. Give in and do as I say and I promise you will see them again within moments.”

  Tom thought about this. He truly wanted to see his family – so much so that it actually ached inside him. Yet Redfeld was not to be trusted. He would betray Tom in an instant given the chance. But he was also right. If Tom somehow beat this man, how would he ever get his parents back? The dilemma was anguish and it brought tears welling to his eyes.

  “What ... what do you need me to do?” he said quietly.

  A look of triumph blazed from Redfeld’s eyes. “At last you have made the sensible choice, boy. Firstly, you will repair for me the portal between this reality and my reality. I need it wide and tall; big enough for fifty men to walk abreast. Then later, I need you to take me, and many others as well, to dates in your world’s past. We are going to alter time, you and I.”

  “But why do you need me? Why not go yourself? You went back and killed my parents didn’t you?”

  “I did, but not alone; I was helped by the Custodian. Your power worries him. You can visit any time and place in this reality. You can take companions with you. You have massive potential to change time and that scares him. He and I did a deal. He gave me power to travel once to your parents’ past and effect the changes that should have, in his mind, removed you from existence. I helped him and he granted me physical presence in this reality.”

  “So, I was right, you didn’t have the ability to touch things. That’s what you lacked. You needed me to make your plans happen. Then, when I refused to, you made this deal with the Custodian and wiped out my parents, but I lived because I was out of time at the instant you also moved back in time, and so I was protected from the murder of my parents.”

  Redfeld looked surprised for a moment but then he smiled a nasty smile.

  Suddenly Tom realised there was more. It was as he had suspected. “No,” he said. “That’s not the total truth is it? You planned it so I would live, didn’t you. So you timed your journey to occur at the same moment, but that means you must have been watching me.”

  “Well it is true that I did see you asleep on that park bench on your sports day,” Redfield shrugged. “I was touched when you gave money to that veteran. Very nice, I felt,” he smirked.

  “But why go to that trouble? Your deal with the Custodian was for me to die, I assume?” Tom glanced at the fight going on behind Redfeld. Charlie was bleeding now. Tom knew he had to come up with something fast or he and his friends were lost. He looked back at Redfeld, who was nodding.

  “Simple really; I needed you alive, boy. After you rejected my demands that you use your powers as I suggested, I realised you would never willingly betray your world. I had to find leverage.”

  “But what leverage? My parents are dead, so why should I help you?”

  Redfeld shook his head. “You are forgetting my talents – to create alternative realities. I can create an alternative past in which your parents do not die,” he said.

  “But that’s not real. It’s just a mirage!” Tom shouted.

  “Not anymore. Don’t you see, Thomas,” Redfeld wheedled, “with your power I can alter events – any events. Between us we will forge this world of yours into an image of my world: a glorious Reich over two realities!”

  So, he had been right, thought Tom, that was Redfeld’s ultimate goal. “You are mad, Redfeld,” he spat out the words.

  Redfeld’s face went red at that. “Careful boy – don’t forget that we can also use that power to save your parents and sister.”

  So there it was at last: the choice; to serve this evil man and help him change this world into an image of his home reality for Redfeld’s Führer to rule over unchallenged. A world of slaves and oppression and jack boots kicking in doors in the cold light of dawn. Of millions killed; of genocide. But, in such a world, Tom’s parents would live and so would his sister. Would they want to? Would he?

  Or say he refused to help. This world would be safe, but his parents would stay in oblivion and Tom himself would probably perish. How to choose? What would his parents have said? As tears began to spill from his eyes, he recalled his father’s words all those years ago, the time when he and Andy broke the windows in ‘orrible old ‘enry’s house and they had to go and apologise: “Sometimes doing the right thing is not pleasant and nice. Indeed sometimes it is horrible and painful. But deep down you know in your heart that it’s the right thing and you do it anyway, whatever the cost.”

  Whatever the cost ... whatever the cost ...

  “So boy, what is your decision? Do we have an understanding?” Redfeld said lowering his gun slightly, “do you wish me to alter the past and restore your parents? Will you serve me?”

  Alter the past. Tom suddenly had a thought. He remembered that moment when his teacher seemed to recognise him for an instant. He remembered Andy, after they collided near his house, also seeming to know him before shrugging it off. He thought of the difficulty of finding many solid facts about the fire at his house at the records office, apart from one newspaper article. He thought of the fact that his house was still a burnt out wreck years after the fire. Then, there was that strange sensation when he walked back to his house in 1999. Now he remembered when he had felt it before: when Redfeld took them to that alternative Islandwana and to the U–boat. Why did Redfeld need him? Could it be that ... suddenly, Tom knew that his parents were not really dead; that Redfeld’s power lay not in bending time, but in bending minds, so effectively that people believed what they saw. Himself included. But what if he was wrong ...? Tom suppressed a shudder.

  “Tell me, Redfeld, why you need me. Could it be that you still cannot change time? Could it be that despite your little deal with the Custodian you still have little power apart from lies and illusions? Could it be, in fact, that there was no fire and my parents are still alive?”

  Redfeld’s gun was back pointing at Tom again, his face split in a horrifying grin, his teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Careful, Thomas, you are close to losing your parents forever.”

  “No … I don’t think so. Because, all this is an illusion,” Tom said with a wide sweep of his arms. “It’s impressive, I’ll give you that, Redfeld, but it’s still an illusion.”

  “I’m warning you boy!” Redfeld shouted, his face going red.

  “The whole thing is a lie. A massive illusion, but that size of illusion – altering time to that degree, must be hard and details slipped by you. I spotted those mistakes, but I only realised it just now. In other words you did a shoddy job ... Captain!” Tom shouted.

  Redfeld now looked fit to shoot Tom, but he controlled his temper. He paced round Tom waving the gun back and forth. Finally he stopped pacing.

  “It may have
been a shoddy job, Thomas Oakley, but you do not know how I did it and you have no idea how to undo it,” he sneered. Only I can do that, young sir. This is your final chance. OBEY ME ... or die!”

  Tom felt his heart pumping; he tried to swallow, his throat suddenly dry and tight. Yet, from far away, he heard those words again. “... deep down you know in your heart that it’s the right thing and you do it anyway, whatever the cost,” and taking a deep breath he pulled himself up to his full height and looked Redfeld in the eye.

  “You know, for the longest time I wanted rid of these powers. I thought they had ruined my life and perhaps they still have. But in the end, I realise – at least right now – that I want them. I want them to protect my world from you and folk like you. So NO, Captain Redfeld, I will not. I will not obey you. I will not change my world into yours to save myself and my family ... whatever the cost.”

  Redfeld stared at him in silence for a long time, his eyes wide, his mouth fixed in a snarl. Eventually he spat out, “Foolish boy! You are not worthy of my world, or yours!” and he raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

  There was a loud eruption of sound, the crack of a bullet firing.

  Tom heard Mary scream. He shut his eyes; waited for the searing pain.