The Temporal Key

by Adam Benson

  “I’ve got our stuff,” Thalia said.

  “Alright, let’s go.” Dayk suddenly vanished behind his cloaking device.

  “Good luck,” Naomi said. “I’ll come back and get you when they’ve gone.”

  “We’ll see them,” Thalia said, and then disappeared behind her own cloaking device.

  Only a moment later, Naomi heard the back door open and shut as they left the house. She turned and looked back out the window as the succession of Jeeps and men made their way toward her house. She stepped away from her window and looked around her house, looking for anything that might be obviously out of place. Right off the bat she saw the pillows and blankets laid out on the couch. She grabbed them and ran them back to her bed room where she tossed them on the bed as naturally as she could make it look.

  When she got back to the living room, she saw two glasses on the coffee table and took them into the kitchen and set them in the sink. With one last look around, everything appeared to be in place just as a Jeep pulled up in front of her house and four men quickly came up to her front door.

  “MPs,” one of the men said as he pounded on Naomi’s door.

  “Can I help you Private?” Naomi said as she opened the door, still in her uniform.

  “Sorry to intrude Captain, but we’re under orders from General Ramey to search every building on the base, including the residences,” the young private said.

  “Well, of course,” she said politely as she opened the door wider for them. All four men quickly pushed their way in and started quickly going through Naomi’s house. “What is it that you’re searching for, Private?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, Ma’am. It’s classified,” he replied while he pulled opened drawers and quickly sifted through contents.

  “Is this about the flying saucer that went missing from the hangar an hour ago?” she asked.

  The private slowed his search when he heard her say it, but then quickly resumed his duties. “I’m not at liberty to say Ma’am.”

  Naomi smiled at herself when she saw the Private’s expression. “Have they finished destroying the biology lab yet? I would like to get back to work.”

  “Sorry, Ma’am. I don’t know anything about that.”

  “No, of course you don’t,” Naomi smiled smugly.

  After only a few minutes of rummaging, each of the military policemen called out “Clear!” when they finished searching their designated areas, and then they all filed back toward the front door.

  “Thank you for your time, Ma’am. I apologize again for the disruption,” the Private said as he left Naomi’s front porch with a quick salute.

  “Have a nice day, boys!” she called out at them, and then walked back inside and shut the door.

  “That didn’t take long,” a disembodied voice said as she came back inside. Dayk suddenly reappeared from behind the cloaking device. “We came in as they left.”

  Thalia reappeared in a flash. “My heart is racing!”

  “It’s a good thing these houses aren’t very big,” Naomi said.

  “Still, I don’t think we’re safe here any longer,” Dayk said. “We’re going to need to get off this base.”

  “What?! Why?” Thalia asked.

  “Thalia, this is a military laboratory base. There’s already confusion floating around this place. Some of these people still know what happened here, and obviously they’re looking for us. We can’t stay.”

  “Well, then where are we supposed to go?”

  Dayk hadn’t thought that far ahead yet and had no answer for her.

  “Dayk. The other rescue team should be here within four days! Shouldn’t we stay with what’s left of the ship? I mean, what if this is the temporal contamination you were worried about?” Thalia started to argue.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We can’t leave the stuff in that lab unguarded.”

  “Well, it’s certainly under guard right now,” Naomi huffed. “Or I’d still be in there learning everything I can about you guys before it disappears.”

  “I’m afraid you aren’t going to get a chance,” Dayk said solemnly. “We’re going to have to get in there and collect everything that’s left.”

  “That figures,” she said.

  “Dayk! They’re hunting for us! You want to go out into the middle of it?” Thalia said.

  “You’ll have an easier time tonight,” Naomi added. “Cover of darkness. This search will start to wind down as the troops need to rest. And there will only be one or two guards in the lab once everyone goes to bed.”

  “Or, we could just wait for the rescue team to come and find us and the contaminated lab!” Thalia argued. “They’ve already searched this house; they won’t be coming back!”

  “It’s still temporal contamination!” Dayk argued back. “Every chron we leave it in there it has the potential to do more harm to the timeline! And… and no offense intended, Naomi, but we can’t have these people spending any more time with that technology than they already have. We have to get it out of there.”

  “That’s okay, Dayk. Just promise that you won’t wipe my memory,” Naomi said.

  “I promise we won’t,” he said to her. “Thalia, it’s our duty to get that tech out of the lab, and into your archiver. Once we do that, then we have no reason to stay here. It’s dangerous, and there’s already been two incidents here! A crash and a botched recovery?! If a third ship shows up in this same place, while half of these people still have their memories, we would be looking at a major disruption in the timeline!”

  Thalia bit her lip in a frustrated huff. After a chron she balled up her fist and let out an angry grunt. “Dhregh! Dayk!” She banged on the wall and then paced around the living room as she processed their situation. “Ok, so… then where do we go?”

  “Somewhere remote,” he replied. “We just have to camp out in an isolated area for a few more days.”

  Naomi sighed, realizing that she was about to lose all of her work over the last few days; any trace that she had really made contact with alien beings, whether from the future or from other worlds would soon be gone. She thought briefly about the consequences and then an image of a place popped into her mind. “I might know where you can go. At least for a while,” she said.

  “Where?” Thalia asked.

  “I stumbled upon it a year ago, when a friend of mine and I went on a hike way out in the desert. There’s an old miner’s camp that we came across. It’s got a few shelters built and everything. I don’t think anyone’s been in that thing for at least sixty years.”

  “How do we get out there?” Dayk asked.

  “I’ll borrow Julia’s car,” Naomi replied. “She won’t mind. I’ll tell her I need to head into Tularosa to see a friend of mine.”

  Dayk gave her a grateful smile. “All right. Thalia, we’re going to need a few things from the archiver.”

  The sun had set, and Naomi drove Julia’s car, with two time travelers hunkered down in the back seat, out toward her own place of work in the biology lab. The car bumped and shook as it went down the road, tossing them around in the floorboard as they approached their destination.

  “Are you sure you want me to stop this far away? I can get you a lot closer,” Naomi said as she pulled off to the side of the road.

  “No, this is perfect,” Dayk replied.

  Naomi turned off the headlights and the ignition. “So, how long do I wait?”

  “We should be in and out of there in about…” Dayk calculated the time difference quickly in his head, “half an hour. If all goes well, maybe less, maybe more. Give us one hour, and if we’re not back by then then head off without us. If we get delayed, we’ll try and make it back to your house.”

  “All right,” Naomi said.

  Dayk opened the car door and he and Thalia stepped out into the night. There was no one on the road, and while their cloaking devices were at the ready, they remained visible to the world. “We’ll see you in about half an hour,” Dayk said as
he shut the door, and then he and Thalia started walking toward the laboratory.

  “Do you have it ready?” Dayk asked her as they walked along.

  “Yes, but are you sure this is really a good idea?” Thalia responded while she held the small hypo spray in her hand. “It seems like a direct violation to me.”

  “Well, we don’t have any memory tools, or incapacitators at our disposal. We have to make use of what we do have,” he said.

  They walked a little more than half a kilometer to the laboratory and then stood silently outside the door, building up the courage to step inside and get the job done. They looked up and down the road. The base was mostly asleep, but a few people were wandering around in the distance.

  Are you ready? Dayk asked at last.

  Ready as I’ll ever be. Thalia replied.

  In a nanoChron they both disappeared behind their cloaking devices and then Dayk pushed open the front door and they both walked in.

  A young MP was standing guard at the front desk when the front door to the lab suddenly opened up and then quickly shut with nobody coming in or going out. He stood up quickly and put his hand on his side arm as he walked around toward the door. “Hello?” He said. “Who’s there?”

  No one answered and the young Private moved forward cautiously. As he got close to the door, he could see no one in the room with him, and so he opened the door to look out into the night for any sign of whoever had opened the door. Looking up and down the street he could see no one, and so he stepped back into the room.

  The guard perused the room still looking for whomever or whatever had caused the door to open, but he found nothing out of the usual, and so he started to make his way back to his desk. Then something pinched him hard on his thigh with an accompanying “pssht” sound. The guard spun around to see what had caused him this brief pain, but nothing was there and then blackness suddenly washed over him and he crumpled to the ground unconscious.

  “That’s one,” Dayk said whispering invisibly. “Let’s check the back.”

  They left the guard and went past the desk to the door that lead into the main biology lab. No one was inside and the whole room was dark. They could both see pieces of their former ship glowing red in their enhanced vision. Trace elements left on glass slides, whole objects stored in small refrigeration units, and test-tubes full of diluted chemicals and traces of things that did not belong in this time period. Finally, they saw a locked cabinet full of the remaining samples that sat at the back of the room.

  “Let’s collect everything into a single pile and archive it all at once,” Dayk suggested.

  “That might be a bit much for this archiver,” Thalia replied. “It’ll have too hard a time distinguishing all of the little samples without taking the table with it.”

  “Then take the table with it. The sooner we’re out of here the better,” Dayk said as he started collecting a rack of test tubes.

  “What about the locked cabinets?” Thalia asked.

  Without a word Dayk pulled Nocta’s gun from his pocket and pointed it directly at the locking mechanism on the door. With a thought, he lowered the weapon’s energy output and then he shot the locks open with one quick green burst. “Will that work for you?” He asked stuffing the gun back in his pocket.

  “That’ll do.” Thalia immediately jumped in and started helping to collect everything they could find to pile up in a single spot on the table that occupied the middle of the lab. “There’s more here than I thought there was,” she said as she took a bunch of slides off of a shelf and moved them over to the table.

  “Well, don’t worry about being gentle. Let’s just get this over with.”

  They had nearly everything they could find piled up on the table in just a few hectoChrons and Thalia started checking the archiver to see how much storage space remained. “This is only barely going to fit,” she said as the scanning beam began evaluating the table and all of its contents.

  “Barely is good enough,” Dayk replied as he kept an eye out for approaching dangers. “How long should it take?”

  “About four hectos,” Thalia replied. “It’s a lot to archive at once.”

  “Well, let’s get it started,” Dayk said as he placed the last of their technology on the table.

  Thalia started the bright blue beam and instantly the table began to slowly de-materialize. Dayk felt impatience as soon as he saw the archiver start. The situation was making him anxious and suddenly, no matter how fast the process was, it wasn’t going to be fast enough to satisfy his desire to leave. He watched all around them for glowing figures approaching from beyond the thin walls of the rough military biology lab. “How much longer?” He asked impatiently.

  “It’s just started!” Thalia said. “Still over three hectos.”

  Then, on the horizon, Dayk saw two armed primitives coming down the road toward the lab. He had no idea if their approach was coincidental, or if this was part of their rounds, but they could wreak havoc if they came into the laboratory now. “Better hurry Dr.”

  “I can only go so fast,” Thalia complained. “I have no control over the speed of the archiver.”

  “Well, it’s looking like we may have additional company soon.”

  “What?!” Thalia looked up on the horizon and could see the two people coming directly toward them in her enhanced vision, glowing red through the walls as they approached. “Dhregh!” She exclaimed when she saw them. “Dayk, they’ll be here before I get his done.”

  “I’m on it,” Dayk said. “Keep working, I’ll do what I can from the other room. Hand me the hypo spray.”

  Thalia reached in her pocket and handed Dayk the medical tool and then went straight back to babysitting her archiver. She quietly wished her portable archiver was as powerful or fast as the one that was built into the Chronis. “Good luck,” she said. And with that Dayk left the room, activating his cloaking device as he went.

  Two MPs came into the lab finishing a laugh that they had been sharing as they made their rounds. Their smiles melted as their eyes locked onto the body of Private Dunkirk crumpled over in the floor. Faster than either of them could think their guns were drawn and they sprang into action around the room.

  “Oh shit! Private Dunkirk?” PCF Harding said as he pointed his weapon around the room. “You all right?” There was no reply. “Cole. Get on the horn and call for reinforcements. I’m going to secure the building.”

  “Yes, sir.” Private Cole said as he moved quickly over to the desk and picked up the phone.

  PFC Harding bent down and checked Private Dunkirk’s pulse and made sure that he was still alive and then quickly stood up and started moving around the room looking for signs of danger. There was nothing. Harding moved cautiously around the office and then made his way toward the main laboratory. As soon as he opened the door, he could see a bright blue glowing beam and the disintegrating remains of what had once been a lab table. “Cole! Get those reinforcements here now! And then get your ass in here!”

  Private Cole picked up the receiver started to speak, “Operator get me…” and then, “Pssht”, there was a sharp pinch in his thigh. “Hey…” he started to say, but in an instant, he collapsed to the floor unconscious.

  “Hello? Sir?” The tiny voice in the receiver was barely audible as it hung from its cord.

  “Private Cole?!” PFC Harding looked over his shoulder through the open door and saw his partner collapsed with the phone receiver dangling from the desk. He whipped his gun around and scanned the room. There was no one there! He whipped his gun back into the other room and watched the blue beam slowly disintegrating the table. “I’m going to need some help in here!” He yelled at the top of his lungs! “Somebody!”

  “Hello?” The operator’s voice could be heard over the phone again. “Sir?”

  “Pssht” came the sharp pinch from the hypo-spray.

  “What the….” Unconsciousness.

  “How long now?” Dayk said as he climbed over the unconscious
body of PFC Harding, disengaging his cloaking device as he entered the room. “We need to get out of here.

  “About two hectos,” Thalia replied.

  “Hello? Sir? Do you need assistance?” the operator’s voice was almost completely inaudible back in the lab.

  The chrons ticked by so slowly that Dayk’s nerves were completely frayed. It felt like the archiver was slowing down as the three unconscious men lay staring open eyed at them while they finished their work.

  “I’ve got it,” Thalia finally said as she disengaged the archiver.

  “Put your cloak back up and let’s get out of here,” Dayk said. “We seriously don’t have any time!”

  They both disappeared again and opened the front door out into the night.

  “How long do you think before anyone finds those men?”

  “No idea,” Dayk replied as they ran in the dark to where Naomi sat waiting in her car. “That sedative will only last for about four kilos. That means we don’t have very long before this whole base goes on high alert.”

  They ran as quickly as they were able back to Naomi’s car. Dayk could feel sweat dripping down his face in the hot air of the rebreather mask. When they got to the car, Dayk banged twice on the door.

  “Jesus!” Naomi yelped; she was startled by their arrival. She leaned over and opened the passenger side door. “You weren’t gone very long.”

  “The job went a lot faster than we expected,” Dayk said as he climbed invisibly into the car.

  “Did it work all right?” Naomi asked. Suddenly the passenger side door slammed shut.

  “I’m in,” Thalia said.

  “Yes and no. We don’t have long, I’m afraid. We need to get off this base!”

  Naomi started up the car and drove toward the front gate while Dayk and Thalia stayed cloaked alongside of her. As they drove passed the biology lab three pairs of headlights appeared down an adjacent road barreling toward them at top speeds. “I think you might have overestimated how much time we have, Dayk,” Naomi said as she stepped on the gas. In the rear-view mirror, she saw the Jeeps stop directly in front of the biology lab, and a dozen men jump out and rush inside. “Much less.”