Time Shards--Tempus Fury

by Dana Fredsti

The medic looked up. “We can stabilize him, sir.”

  “No, not yet,” Mehta said. Reaching into his satchel, he pulled out the hypodermic pistol, and knelt down to swiftly inject the fallen man in the flesh of his neck.

  17

  Outside the tank, the wide Alexandrian boulevard continued to unroll—a glorious sight, magnificent, beautiful and peaceful. Inside, the claustrophobic walls echoed with the insane radio chatter that was coming over the wireless—unintelligible shouts and screams that sounded like the ravings of lunatics. Dietrich frowned.

  What the hell is hitting them out there? The temptation to go up top was strong, but he resisted it. They were almost to the palace. Must stay sharp. He gave the order to turn left, up a side street lined with fine houses, temple buildings, and a theater reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome. The palace lay straight ahead, just a few blocks away.

  As the seventh and last Panzer turned the corner off the main roadway, the rumble from the column drowned out the sounds of the truck engines and the squeal of brakes. Even so, there was no missing the two trucks coming in from the cross street to cut them off. Quick as a slamming door, the trucks pulled alongside each other to form a double-thick wall, completely blocking the street. No one in the tanks heard or saw the third truck do the same behind the column.

  The truck drivers bailed out.

  “Ambush!” Dietrich shouted. “Smash those trucks!”

  A shrill whistle split the air, and high above them, from the rooftops and the upper decks of the theater, a battalion of street urchins popped up to rain down roof tiles and mud and filth by the bucketful. Machine-gun fire broke out from all the tanks, firing blind, and Dietrich’s gunner fired as well, blasting the trucks.

  Even in the tank they could feel the heat of the explosion as the vehicles burst into flame. Their windows covered in filth, they could still see nothing, the crews struggling to clear the viewports.

  “Driver, forward! Smash through now!” the commander barked. As the driver revved forward, another whistle sounded above, and the pelting stopped.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  * * *

  At Hypatia’s signal, the women all along the rooftops chopped their ropes, releasing bundles of stone pillars, each one as thick as a ship’s mast. They rumbled down the tiles and came crashing down upon the Panzers with the force of an avalanche. Some crushed main guns or stripped the machine guns away, easy as pine needles. Others crumpled turrets or the engines.

  * * *

  In the lead tank, Dietrich clawed for support as the vehicle rocked crazily, its treads caught on the rubble as it tried to move forward. He heard more impacts up top—gentler ones, like those of shattering pottery—and with them, the smell of oil. Then smoke began to come through the ventilation ducts.

  Cursing, he threw open the top hatch, his Luger drawn. A young Arab woman in a headscarf threw a burning blanket on their air intake. He shot at her, but she disappeared down the tank’s side. He reached over and snatched away the flaming cloth. Behind him, all down the column, attackers with torches or mallets piled on the tanks. Others simply poured amphorae of oil into the street. None of them were more than teenagers, some even younger.

  Firing quickly, he shot down three of them before a shooter opened fire on him. The Arab girl, her headscarf gone now, blazed away at him with a Sten gun. Bullets ricocheted off the turret with a sharp metallic twang, narrowly missing him as he ducked back inside.

  Almost immediately a little round jar shattered on the open hatch above him, spilling shards of pottery and a handful of pale scorpions into the interior.

  The wireless operator slapped at his neck and began to scream.

  * * *

  Back at the rear of the column, Cam and Kha-Hotep slipped behind the hindmost tank as it went into reverse, trying to ram the truck behind it. Armed with a small boat anchor, Cam swung it like a hammer into the moving tread. Gear teeth eagerly ground down upon it, and then the whole tread belt buckled, snapped, and clattered off the wheels. The tank lurched to the side and halted.

  The top hatch snapped open, and the tank’s commander drew his pistol on Cam. Kha-Hotep slammed the hatch down on his head, pulping his face against the mouth of the opening. His features a bloody wreck, the man dropped back inside, and Kha quickly poured in a basket of asps after him.

  * * *

  Nellie blew the whistle again. Her rooftop crew, including Ibn Fadlan and Harcourt, lit their sheaves of straw and sent them cascading down like reverse paper lanterns. A moment later, the whole street burned.

  * * *

  “Get us out of here! Now!” Dietrich yelled, stomping on the tiny monsters. With a last lurch, the tank cleared the stony rubble and roared ahead, smashing with ease through the wreckage of the two trucks.

  Thirty meters out, Dietrich gave the order to halt and raised the hatch for a look back at the site of their ambush. Two other tanks had followed them out. The rest of the wedge were crippled and burning.

  “Any of ours still alive, sir?”

  The only survivors in sight were the enemy, their fleeing shapes silhouetted against the roaring flames like capering pagans at a bonfire. The commander shook his head.

  “How many shells left?”

  “We’re down to four, sir,” the loader replied. Dietrich wiped a bead of sweat from his chin and rotated the turret.

  “We’ll spare one for here. Fire on that balcony!”

  He pointed to the terraced upper floor of the highest villa on the block, the palatial home of some great noble house. A moment later, the blast tore it apart, first with a thunderous explosion of tiles, stonework, and marble that rained down upon the pavement stones. Then, with a shudder, the building’s entire facade came crashing down, crushing anyone below and shrouding the ruined city block below with a smoking cascade of fiery debris.

  Dietrich swung his gun back around to the fore and the three German tanks rumbled on ahead.

  * * *

  Behind the wreckage of the fallen noble house, a blinding cloud of ash, plaster dust, and burning cinders settled upon the atrium gardens and its fruit trees—as well as on Nellie and Hypatia’s band of guerrilla fighters. They slowly came to their feet, coughing and waving away the fumes as they dusted themselves off, then quickly slipped away to continue the fight.

  18

  At the stab of the needle, DeMetta’s eyes opened. An agonizing pounding wracked his entire body with every beat of his pulse, and his head spun as he struggled to see through the haze of pain and delirium. A surreal sight came into focus—his own face, staring back at him with a reptilian look of malice.

  Even as he fought to stay conscious, part of him recognized that he was face-to-face with his target. Pushing past the pain, he concentrated on bringing a telepathic attack to bear—but nothing happened. Instead, he could feel his will draining away…

  Chemical attack, he thought. I’ve been drugged.

  His training kicked in. Counter it. Increase neuroresistance… He sent orders to the appropriate parts of his brain, mounting a defense.

  “Hand me that,” he heard the man say. A bright beam shone into DeMetta’s eyes, constricting his pupils. The flood of brightness overwhelmed the optic nerve pathway—Mehta’s device was designed to trigger photic reactions in the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes to augment the drug’s psychotropic takeover.

  DeMetta tried to fight it off. He couldn’t.

  “Can you hear me?” Mehta’s voice came from far away, like an echo from the bottom of a well.

  “Yes,” he heard himself answer. “I hear you.”

  “Very good,” the man replied. “Now, here is what I want you to do…”

  Sinking deeper beneath the surface, DeMetta knew he was outgunned. Time to try a different defense tactic. He compartmentalized, mentally castling his core psyche even as he felt Mehta’s hooks sinking into his mind’s higher functions. He would be a free man trapped in the body of a puppet, but all was not lost. Not yet, thou
gh life was slipping away from him.

  Only one option left, he realized. The part of him that remained free called up the memory of the abandoned mosque in the ruins of Cairo… the secret he had seen there in the girl’s mind.

  Sensemayá.

  He would never be able to duplicate her world-shattering abilities, but there was one thing he had learned from her.

  * * *

  “Your mental abilities,” Mehta said. “You can teach them to others?”

  “Yes,” his double responded mechanically.

  “How long does it take to learn?”

  “If you wish, I can… place the knowledge… directly into your mind…”

  Mehta smiled, eyes gleaming.

  “Excellent! Do it now!”

  “Yes…”

  While Mehta spoke, the medics huddled over the prone man, trying to save his life. One of them looked up.

  “We’re losing him, sir.”

  Mehta shoved them out of the way and crouched down, a new urgency in his voice.

  “Listen to me,” he demanded. “Before you die, you must show me your power. He peered down. “Do you understand?”

  There was no response, and the silence stretched on for so long that he feared it was too late. Then with one final effort, the prone man looked up, locked eyes with Mehta, and smiled. He could not speak, but Mehta still heard the dying man’s voice quite clearly in his head.

  “Oh, I’ll show you my power, you son of a bitch.”

  19

  All is lost.

  On Pharos island, overlooking the battlefield from high above, the sentry stood haunted by the apocalyptic visions he’d just witnessed. He gripped the marble balustrade with white-knuckled hands, trying to decide whether or not to throw himself over the railing.

  Leaning forward, he peered over the edge, all the way down to the waves crashing against the rocks. Surely it would be a quick death, he thought. Then a flash of movement to the southwest caught his eye. Something was riling up the Germanians at the periphery of the flattened necropolis. He heard the chatter of their weapons, angry shouts in their harsh language. What was causing the commotion?

  Then he saw it. A single man, riding one of their small vehicles, speeding into the center of their nest. Furious chaos erupted in his wake until his wild ride ended with a crash, enemy warriors swarming the stricken man. Surely he was doomed.

  It would be fitting to join him, the sentry decided, peering outward one last time to see if he could glimpse the man’s fate. As he squinted, a blinding brightness flared up, like a newborn sun, swallowing up land, sky, and sea in an eerily silent burst of white-blue light so intense he had to shield his eyes.

  An instant later, just as colors started to return to his sight, a thunderclap knocked him backward with the force of a gale, threatening to blow him off of the tower like a speck of grit on the wind. When he dared to open his eyes once more, releasing his death grip on the railing, he stood there, shocked at what he saw.

  * * *

  What just happened?

  Amber found herself lying on the ground, staring up at an empty sky. DeMetta was gone. So was the motorcycle. So was the battle.

  No sounds of cannon.

  No gunfire.

  No dinosaurs.

  Only a deathly stillness remained. She stood, brushing herself off. Gruesome chunks of brontosauruses and shattered pieces of Panzer tanks were strewn all around. When she turned her gaze to the south, she gasped.

  A smoldering crater, more than one hundred yards across, lay where the German army had been a few moments earlier. Looking at it, Amber realized that the core of the German forces had simply been… erased. Numb, she stumbled toward it in a daze.

  When she finally reached the lip, a crisp ozone smell of burning electrical wires still hung in the air. The heat of whatever caused this had fused the sand into a smooth glassy surface that shimmered with a darkly beautiful iridescence. She stared, trying to make sense of it all, until she realized with a start that she wasn’t alone.

  A lone figure sat nearby, his back turned to her. It was one of the German soldiers. The man’s arms were wrapped around his legs, and he rocked gently back and forth. Kneeling beside him, she gently touched his arm. He looked up at her, eyes wet and uncomprehending.

  “Zu hell…” he whispered, his voice hoarse and broken, “zu hell…”

  Too bright… too bright…

  A crunching sound behind them caught Amber’s ear, she turned toward the noise. In the gloom, ghostly figures were approaching. She stood in alarm, her eyes widening as the three emerged from the last of the dwindling smoke and dust. A turbaned Sikh, a man carrying… bagpipes? And…

  “Blake…?”

  “You’re alive,” he said simply.

  She nearly knocked him over with her enthusiastic embrace. He returned the hug, arms wrapping around Amber so tightly it took her breath way.

  “I thought you were done for after I spotted Mehta, taking you away on the motorcycle,” Blake said, voice rough with uncharacteristic emotion. She was confused for a moment, then realized what he was talking about.

  “That wasn’t Mehta. That was, he—” she hesitated, unsure of how best to explain. “Well, he’s kind of like Merlin—he looks like Mehta, but he’s on our side.” She looked around anxiously. “Have you seen him?”

  “Gone.” Blake shook his head. “Obliterated, with most everybody else on the field,” he said, staring at the devastation. “What the hell did he detonate? He lit the place up like bloody Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” The other two soldiers looked at him blankly.

  “Oh.” That was all Amber could get out before dropping to her knees, head spinning. She felt sick. Blake knelt down next to her, resting a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  “Amber…?”

  “The… the man on the motorcycle. He was… he…” She couldn’t finish. It was like losing Merlin all over again.

  “I’m sorry.” Blake’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Your friend… he saved us. He saved Alexandria.”

  The soldier in the turban spoke. “What do we do now?”

  Amber looked up as the man’s question triggered something in her mind.

  * * *

  ///Amber, you need to know…

  I don’t have a lot of answers for you, I wish I did. I only know what I have to do, and that’s keep you alive so you can do what you have to.

  I don’t know what that is, either, but years ago, the PreCogs told me I would meet you, and when I did, you’d be our best hope for saving the world.

  I hope they’re right. Good luck///

  * * *

  “Right, good question,” Blake said, all business again. “I’ve got a plan for us to get mobile, but it’s not going to be easy, and we’ll all need to work round the clock. First, we need to take stock of all the engine parts we can salvage here, and then—”

  “No.”

  Amber’s voice was soft and distant as she stared off into the horizon, but that one word stopped him mid-sentence.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “I know how we’re getting to the South Pole.”

  20

  The Mediterranean Sea

  off the Coast of Egypt

  Two days before the Battle of Alexandria

  The ship was gone, destroyed by a surface-to-air missile, but even in its death, it protected its passengers.

  Harcourt’s emergency cocoon brought him safely to a splash landing on the Mediterranean, where he remained afloat through that day and night. The following morning, a trio of Carthaginian fishermen rescued him. Its job done, the cocoon-turned-coracle dissolved into a tadpole-shaped glob and moved away.

  * * *

  The white glob immediately attracted the eye of a large Jurassic ammonite, its coiled shell the size of a bulldozer tire. The cephalopod lashed out with its tentacles, expertly snagging the pale fishlike prey. Acting on pre-programmed instinct, the white glob promptly dispersed into a clo
ud of tiny wriggling tadpoles, leaving behind the frustrated octopod.

  Each of the synthetic tadpoles contained a staggering amount of information—every cubic micrometer easily encoded more information than one hundred Libraries of Congress. Despite that, each one was focused on just two concerns—where it was headed, and what it would do when it got there.

  Attracted by the shimmering movement, hungry fish quickly descended upon the school of ship-stuff. A garfish swallowed one, spitting it out again immediately. Unfortunately, the robot tadpole was snapped up by another less-fussy fish—a bony-beaked prehistoric monster that looked like a demon-eyed tuna in a suit of armor.

  Unfortunately for the fish, tunneling out of a Devonian-era carnivore posed no problem for the robot, either technically or ethically. It was bright white, eel-shaped, and ten times its original size by the time it cut through the surf on the Mediterranean shore and began slithering over the wet sand. It wound its way over the rocky breakwater and crossed long, hard-packed stretches of sunbaked grayish-yellow earth—a milky stream flowing with quicksilver grace over the dunes and rolling across rocky flats like a pearl.

  At one point it slipped over the knife-edged lip of a wadi, a parched streambed etched long ago through the plain. The smooth banks thwarted the droplet’s efforts to flow up the side, so it grew tiny crab legs and spidered up the wall before reverting to its mercurial form.

  Now and again the motile little globule would meet up with other stray blobs like itself. When that happened, they would glom on to one another, increasing in size and sometimes breaking up again as needed later. But always, keeping on the move, hurrying to rejoin their siblings at the rendezvous point.

  Miles inland, the tenacious droplets finally reached their destination, a blackened smudge of scorched earth covering approximately half a hectare of the desert. A network of slender arterial rivulets reached across the blackened ground, bearing steady streams of sand down into an opening roughly a meter across.