Flux

by Jeremy Robinson

  I still remember where we kept the kit, in my right-hand cargo pants pocket. We carried it with us every time we ventured into the woods, but never had a reason to use it, until now. Owen produces the kit and hands it to my father, who pops open the plastic container, revealing sterile bandages, band-aids, antibiotic ointment and a few other tidbits, none of which make a lick of sense to Inola.

  She looks from the kit, to my father, and then to Owen and me. “Where are you from?” She motions to Boone, who is wandering the field, maybe looking for tracks, but who shows no sign of running. “Him, I understand. You three… Even your clothing is strange.”

  “That’s hard to explain,” my father says, and I think he’s actually going to try explaining the concept of time travel to an ancient Cherokee woman. “We are from a faraway place. A more…advanced place, technologically speaking. Look…” He cracks open the package and pulls out a roll of gauze. “It’s a bandage.”

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  “I only want to help,” my father says, and something about the way he says it—the earnest look of his eyes, I think—puts her at ease and brings a smile to her face.

  “And in return?” she asks, still suspicious. It’s the question of a woman whose life hinges on bartering. Or, at least, it did. Now she’ll be forced to move westward on a journey she might not survive.

  “How about your friendship?” my father says. Inola almost winces at the suggestion, perhaps because we’re strangers in the woods, or because we’re all white men, or simply because it’s a strange request in any time. But she once again finds comfort in my father’s eyes, which makes my father happy in a way I’ve never seen. When I see Owen’s confused expression, I know it’s not something he’s ever seen, either.

  I have no idea if my father dated or even fancied a woman after my mother’s death. I was a kid, so the subject never really crossed my mind. But he never brought anyone home to meet me, and never seemed to pay any particular attention to women at church—the one place we mutually socialized. But there is no doubt about it, my father is attracted to Inola…and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  There’s a part of me that’s always pictured him as a hopeless romantic, married to the memory of my mother, who at this point in his life has been dead for eleven years. I don’t feel any real loyalty to my mother. I never knew her. I just hadn’t considered that my father might be lonely. Then again, I’m his age and single, too. So, there’s that. Maybe what I’m feeling is jealousy.

  Inola lifts her arm toward my father, agreeing to his offer of medical treatment.

  My father takes a small bottle of alcohol from the kit and unscrews the cap. “This will clean the wound, but it will hurt a little.”

  “If it hurts a lot, you will share the pain.”

  My father’s smile is wry.

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  And now he’s flirting. I’m out. And so is Owen. We step away together, hands in our pockets. After a few steps we stop in front of the burial mound and look at each other.

  He raises an eyebrow, and I match the expression.

  He wiggles both of his ears, and I do the same.

  I remember practicing these things in the mirror.

  Flaring nostrils come next.

  “Easy,” I say, and flex my nose.

  “You’re not like most adults,” he says.

  I’m not sure that’s true, but I say, “Okay.”

  “I mean, you’re old. Like really old. But you’re nice.”

  “How do you mean?” I ask. He’s seen my violent side on full display.

  “Like Pa.”

  Like Pa.

  “Your Pa.”

  He rolls his eyes.

  Hold on a second…

  “What?”

  “You know what.”

  I’ve never pictured having a conversation with myself, but I’m not really surprised with how it’s going. We might not be thinking the same thing, but we’re on a similar wavelength, like twins separated by thirty-four years. He’s missing a lot of what I’ve gained over the years, and I’ve forgotten most of what’s still fresh for him, but somewhere in the middle, we’re the same person.

  “When did you figure it out?” I ask.

  “Well, it wasn’t your good looks,” he says and chuckles. “What happened to us?”

  I don’t remember being a witty kid. I do remember trying to make people laugh and failing. Conservative church goers in Appalachia aren’t well known for their senses of humor. I suppose we have the same sense of humor, though.

  “You still kind of look like me,” he says, more seriously. “And there’s this…” He points to the scar beside his eye, received when he—when I—tripped into the corner of a table. “And this…” He points to a scar above his eyebrow, delivered by a German shepherd who decided to eat my cheeseburger at a church BBQ, and then my face. It’s a unique set of scars.

  “Wasn’t until I saw the photo of you and Grampa that I was sure, though.”

  “Think Dad knows?”

  Owen shrugs. “Didn’t say anything about it, but why would he? Even you’ve been trying to hide it. Not sure why.”

  “Back to the Future,” I say.

  He nods. “Paradox. Right. Well, too late for that. I mean, you and your friends killed some people that weren’t supposed to die today, right? We saw the bodies.”

  When I say nothing, he asks, “Where did you learn that anyway?”

  “I was…you become…a Marine Raider. Special Forces.”

  His eyebrows rise. “Like MegaForce?”

  “‘The good guys always win,’” I say, quoting the movie.

  “‘Even in the 80s,’” he finishes, and we have a good laugh.

  It’s official, I like me. “But we didn’t have flying motorcycles or gold spandex suits.”

  “Too bad,” he says, and we stand there, side by side for a moment, looking at the massive grave site. I think he’s probably picturing himself as a futuristic soldier, but he catches me off guard by asking, “Why wasn’t Dad in the photo?”

  I’m frozen for a second. How can I tell myself that my father is supposed to die tomorrow? I can’t, is the answer. “He took the photo.”

  “Huh,” is his noncommittal response. I’m not sure if he believes me or not, but I get the sense he also doesn’t want to hear the truth. I’m glad when he moves on. “So your fake name… That wasn’t very smart, using Cass’s last name.”

  “Suppose not.”

  “So, what about her? Does that mean you’re still, we’re still…?”

  “Friends? Yeah.”

  “Just friends?”

  My young self catches me off guard again.

  “Yeah.”

  “Too bad.”

  Did I have crush on Cassie? I’ve had so much history with her that it all just kind of blends together. What he doesn’t know and what I can’t explain is that after Dad died, I had trouble getting close to anyone. The pain of death changed me. This time tomorrow, he’ll be just like me. Maybe. “Things just didn’t work out that way.”

  “I like you a little less,” he says with a grin. “I suppose she’s married to some fella we don’t like, and has kids of her own?”

  “Actually, no. She’s here, with me.”

  “She came back in time with you? And you don’t… You haven’t…” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Didn’t work out. Wait, she’s the one we’re looking for? Who’s in danger?”

  The kid’s feathers are ruffled. All traces of apprehension are swept away. However strong my feelings are for Cassie, eleven-year-old me wore them a lot closer to his sleeve.

  We spend the next ten minutes waiting for Dad to finish, and talking about Owen’s life and mine. I avoid the details of how things happen, just in case, and he tells me about things I had forgotten. Each story chips away at old memories and feelings, long since walled away. I nearly cry a few times but hold it in because he’d no doubt sense I’m
holding out on some painful information.

  “Hey,” Boone says, crouching by the clearing’s edge. “Whataya make a this?”

  He waits for Owen and me to approach, then he raps his knuckles on the ground. Instead of a dull thud, there is a hollow, metallic gong. I crouch and slide my hand across the smooth surface of a metal pipe that should not exist in this ground, let alone in this time. Given the subtly of its arc and the resounding nature of the sound, I’d guess it’s close to eight feet in diameter.

  “This is from the future,” Boone says, eyes a little wild, “ain’t it?”

  “Reckon it is,” I say, “But I didn’t know it was here.”

  “Me neither,” Owen says. Our house is less than a mile south from here.

  I gauge the pipe’s direction and turn my head toward Adel, laying down an imaginary track. If it continues straight, it would work its way up, straight toward Synergy.

  “What’d you find?” my father asks, walking over with a patched-up Inola by his side. She looks as confounded by our discovery as I am.

  I give the pipe a knock and know my father will understand it. “Runs toward the peak.”

  “Toward the mine,” he says.

  “If it’s from my time,” I say, and it looks like it is—the metal is free of rust or corrosion, “then it’s not the mine it leads to.”

  “Your time?” Inola says. “What are you—”

  Before she can finish the question, the answer comes rolling down the hill.

  Owen manages to ask, “Already?” before the flux hits.

  Now that I’m ready for it, the nausea caused by the wave of sound and distortion transplanting me through time is less severe. My father and Owen handle it fairly well, too. Boone is laid out again, writhing and cursing. Inola falls to her knees, eyes closed, body trembling. She’s feeling every bit as horrible as Boone, but is managing it far better.

  My father crouches beside her, a gentle hand on her back. “It will pass.”

  And then it does. The flux rushes beyond our sight, leaving a lush green summertime downpour in its wake. Lightning cuts through the sky above. The boom of thunder makes Boone squeal in fright.

  Before I can fully take stock of our situation, Owen tugs on my arm the same way he does to my father. When I look down at him, he motions his head toward the far side of the field, where the burial mound is.

  Where the burial mound was…

  22

  “That can’t be good,” Owen says.

  “Just means that whoever was buried there isn’t dead yet,” I tell him.

  He nods. “Kind of what I was sayin’.”

  “And maybe wasn’t born yet,” I add. “Either way, he wasn’t a god.”

  “Tsul’ Ka… Tsul’ Kabuki?”

  I have a good chuckle at my expense. “Tsul’Kalu. If there’s a twelve-foot-tall hunter-god wearing a kabuki mask in these woods, I’m liable to shit a brick.”

  Owen’s eyes spring open. “You said—!”

  “You will, too.”

  “But Dad will—”

  “Dad uses the same language,” I tell him. “Just not around you. But, I wouldn’t give it a whirl any time soon.”

  My father steps between us. “What are you two yammering abou—” He sees the now empty field. “Oh.”

  “What has happened?” Inola asks. She’s looking at her hands, watching the rain run over her skin. She turns her eyes to the sky full of twisting gray clouds, angry at our arrival. The air is thick with ozone and humidity. Had I been at home, I’d have sat on the front porch and enjoyed the spectacle, at my age, and Owen’s. Out here, without cover, trapped in the past, it’s not exactly a good time.

  “We haven’t gone anywhere,” my father tells her, motioning to the clearing, which is familiar in every way except for one. “It’s time that has changed. We’ve traveled into the past.”

  Instead of reverence or awe at the burial mound’s absence, Inola looks mortified. I thought she’d be happy about the apparent resurrection of a god. “Tsul’Kalu wasn’t a nice god of the hunt?”

  “He wasn’t like your Jesus Christ,” she says. “Mercy, grace, and forgiveness are not his virtues.”

  “What were his virtues?” my father asks.

  Inola’s frown deepens. “Hunting. Everything.”

  “Everything?” Owen asks. “Including every…one? Like people?”

  “He was a monster. The slayer of man and beast. My ancestors’ reverence for him was not adoration, but fear.” Inola looks ready to bolt, but manages to hold her ground.

  “Then why were you paying your respects?” my father asks.

  Inola is disgusted by the suggestion. “I came to spit on his grave, on behalf of all Cherokee, before we left our lands for good.”

  “Well, then it’s a good thing he was dead when you spat on him,” I say with a smile. I nearly say something about how a real god couldn’t die, and certainly wouldn’t be buried on a mountainside in Appalachia, but her sour reaction to my comment clamps my mouth shut.

  “How is this possible?” she asks.

  My father starts to explain the situation as best he can, and Owen and I step closer to where the mound had been. There’s not even a hint that something is missing. The ground is flat and covered in tall green grass, bending under the weight of heavy rain.

  “What do you think?” I ask my younger self.

  “It’s horse…” His voice drops to a whisper. “…shit.”

  “What is?”

  “The god stuff.”

  “Yep. Anything else?” I’m really just trying to distract him from the horror of our situation, not that he’s struggling. Maybe it’s me who’s struggling. At age eleven, I haven’t experienced the mind-numbing pain of loss, or seen men under my command gunned down. He’s seen a lot already, but he’s still been spared the worst life has to offer.

  He looks around the clearing, eyes locking on where we’d been standing. “Look at the grass. It’s missing where our legs were.” He’s right, and it’s an observation I failed to make.

  We crouch by the leg-sized holes. There are beds of neatly cut grass blades where our toes had been. Where our legs stood, there’s nothing. “Objects from the future displace what’s in the past.”

  “That’s probably a good thing.” Owen says and then he scans the field. “Where’s that kooky guy?”

  Shit.

  Boone.

  I stand up, worried that he’d finally decided to cut his losses and strike out on his own. But he’s right where we left him, by the field’s edge. He’s on his hands and knees pulling up grass.

  When Owen and I approach, Boone looks up. “It ain’t here no more.”

  I don’t need to ask what he’s talking about. The massive pipework in the ground is more of a mystery than the burial mound, and it’s much more pertinent to our situation. I’m intrigued by Inola and her stories—this is my backyard—but it’s not going to keep us alive, find my friends, or get us back to our own times.

  I kneel down beside him and start yanking up grass. Owen joins us and we quickly clear the growth and then several inches of mud. When my fingers scrape against something solid, I stop digging and give it a knock. The metallic echo is the same as before. Apparently, there’s just more soil atop the pipe in this era…whenever that is.

  Hands covered in muck, I hold them out and let the rain rinse them clean. My whole body is saturated. If not for the summer heat, I’d probably be shivering. If we jump back into winter right now, we’re screwed.

  Lightning flashes and thunder booms, as a stiff wind blows through the trees, pulling green leaves free and twisting them through the air.

  Boone ducks from the sound and shouts over the rolling roar, as it fades into the distance. “We need to find shelter!”

  “Our house isn’t far,” Owen says, and then he thinks better of it. “Oh. Our house isn’t there yet.”

  Honestly, I’m not sure if it would be there or not. These pipes are from the present,
but so was my truck.

  Unlike Boone, shelter is not at the top of my priority list. And right now, neither is finding Cassie and Levi. The shift from winter to spring made finding them a near impossible feat. With the rain obscuring our visibility and the thunder and wind drowning out our voices, we could pass within fifty feet of them and never know it.

  The best way to help them, and my family, is to get to Synergy, find out what’s going on, and put a stop to all this before Minuteman and his people turn the place into a shooting gallery. If that’s his intention. Circumstances put us at odds, but do the laws of the United States apply when the country hasn’t been founded yet? Whatever is happening here, it’s bigger than Synergy. Bigger than my present. And the potential ramifications grow with each jump back in time. I’m not sure how far back we are now, but it won’t be long until we’re the only people of European descent on the entire continent.

  My father leads Inola over. She looks confused, but not quite outraged by what he’s told her. Then again, she believes in a giant human-hunting god, so maybe the concept of moving through time won’t be a stretch.

  “You see?” my father says, motioning to the exposed pipe. “This is from the future.”

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “A pipe,” I tell her. “A tunnel. Made of metal. Big enough to…” It’s big enough to walk through, that’s for sure. That there is any part of the facility I don’t know about is problematic. It’s my job to protect it. The existence of this conduit means I haven’t been told the truth about the facility’s size. How far-reaching is it? Where does this tunnel lead?

  I turn left, imagining the pipe’s progress. It would cut past my house, maybe a hundred yards to the side, where some road work was done a few years back. Beyond that, it would eventually reach town. From there, it’s anyone’s guess. There’s no way to know where it ends, but I know where it begins.

  “We need to reach the peak,” I declare.

  “What ’bout yer friends?” Boone asks.

  “They’ll have to wait,” I tell him. “Along with your men. Not that you’re concerned about them.”

  He gives a noncommittal shrug.

  “What is on the peak?” Inola asks.