Out of Time

by E W Barnes

  “Ok, that just leaves you Chausiku,” the Director said, moving closer. “Take your time.”

  The discharges exploded in intensity and frequency. There was no gap through which Agent MacGregor could run. He was trapped on the other side of an electric blizzard.

  Then there was silence. The discharges stopped. Agent MacGregor took a deep breath and sprinted. When he reached halfway a huge bolt shot across the opening and he dropped to the ground. Caelen and Director Veta leapt in, pulling him out of the tunnel as fast as they could. They were almost to safety when another discharge surrounded them. For a moment it looked as if they had vanished. They reappeared and fell to the ground unmoving.

  “Medical assistance!” someone shouted as they pulled them out. “We need medical assistance!”

  “How are they?” Agent MacGregor groaned as he pushed help away.

  He was uninjured, but the same could not be said of Caelen and Director Veta. Caelen was writhing with seizures, but there was an ominous lack of activity around the Director.

  “Ferhana?” Agent MacGregor croaked. The medical assistant shook his head.

  “I’m sorry Agent MacGregor. The Director is dead.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  2337 - The Community

  “Come out slowly with your hands up.” The command came from the man standing in the center of the group. He held a weapon—It looked like a gun, Sharon thought—and it was pointed unwaveringly at them.

  “They don’t look like raiders, Emory,” a woman said. Sharon could not see the speaker, just many more of the same gun-like weapons, all pointed in her direction.

  “No, and they don’t look like surface dwellers, either,” the leader, Emory, replied. He gestured with his weapon as he demanded: “Who are you?”

  Sharon heard the tiniest of whispers from Richard and her heart sank. Stress was sending him back into his temporal aberration disorder. She knew she’d better speak up quickly before Richard’s hallucinations spoke for them and things went downhill.

  “My name is Sharon Gorse. I am, I was, an agent with the Temporal Protection Corps… a long time ago.” She stepped out of the break room into the hallway with her hands up, trying to project calmness to both the group facing them and to Richard.

  “An agent with the Temporal Protection Corps,” another man whispered while the woman behind the leader murmured: “Sharon Gorse?”

  The man called Emory, and the woman exchanged glances. He raised his weapon toward the ceiling, and while the others did not follow his lead, Sharon saw the tension in them easing.

  “Come with us,” Emory said.

  With their hands in the air, Sharon and Richard were escorted away from the elevators. Richard was still whispering to himself, but he was cooperating with their captors and not yet talking openly of things only he could see. Sharon heard other people moving nearby, out of sight, but their five captors remained silent except to issue instructions. They ushered them down two hallways until they instructed them to enter a room on their right.

  With a shock Sharon recognized it as the same conference room in which Agent Astrid Berg had met with Sharon and Caelen in 2126, when she helped them stop the “Email Timeline.” Or failed to stop it, Sharon thought bitterly.

  Where before it was a comfortable professional space, now the room spoke of a fierce battle. The glass overlooking the Large Hadron Collider was shattered, held together only by the window frame. There was evidence of fire—the walls were scorched and there was a faint smell of burning. Punctures in several walls and pieces of furniture made Sharon think of bullet holes.

  “Please sit,” Emory said.

  A table still occupied the center of the room, though it was now scarred and stained, accompanied by mismatched chairs. Despite their damaged appearance, the table and chairs were clean and in good repair, suggesting regular use.

  As she looked more closely, Sharon perceived that they had purposefully contrived the disarray. They placed chairs in a heap in such a way that they could be used easily and then returned to their disordered appearance. Overturned file cabinets had been placed in front of the windows apparently haphazardly but blocking anyone from accidentally pushing through the shattered glass and falling out the window to the long drop below.

  These people had been here a long time, Sharon realized. They created the appearance of a vacant and useless space to dissuade raiders and other unwelcome guests. But the appearance of abandonment was false, designed to deter those who might do them harm. She wondered how long they had been here—perhaps since the beginning of the war. Excitement kindled within her, though she didn’t immediately understand why.

  The man named Emory closed the door, and he and the woman sat at the table across from Sharon and Richard. The rest of their escort remained in the hallway, ready at a moment’s notice to assist their leaders if needed.

  “My name is Emory Hawkins,” the man started. “This is Lucinda Diogo. You say you are Sharon Gorse of the Temporal Protection Corps.” Sharon nodded. “Ok,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Prove it.”

  Sharon frowned at the man who called himself Emory Hawkins. How could she prove who she was? It wasn’t like she’d brought along identification when Richard kidnapped her to the future; and even if she had, how would that serve as proof to these people?

  “She is who she says she is,” Richard said. “She’s the queen and you owe her your allegiance.”

  Emory and Lucinda shifted their attention to Richard.

  “Excuse me?” Lucinda said.

  “This is Richard Kern,” Sharon offered. “He’s a TPC agent, too. He was injured when a temporal amplifier was sabotaged and suffers from bouts of temporal aberration disorder.”

  “Temporal aberration disorder,” Emory repeated. “Right. Ok, I think you’d better start from the beginning, and we’ll decide if we believe you.”

  “We can’t start!” Richard exclaimed. “It is time for tea and crumpets! The queen has a schedule to keep.”

  “It’s all right, Sir Richard,” Lucinda said. “The queen’s tea is on the way.”

  Was this woman making fun of him? Sharon felt a familiar defensiveness. She tensed, ready to jump to Richard’s defense, as if one of her friends had teased about her mother. But Lucinda’s demeanor was kind and understanding. She was trying to reassure Richard and ease his anxiety.

  “All right,” Sharon said, glancing at Richard. He was humming now and smiling at the ceiling. “From the beginning.”

  Sharon talked until her mouth was too dry to continue. Punctuated by Richard’s nods and grunts of agreement, she explained what Richard had told her about the future timeline created by Yorga Zintel’s escape. She told them how the safeguard to prevent another Alexander Event was never developed in that timeline, and when the parallel earth reopened the rift, it opened across multiple timelines including their own. Finally, she described how Richard kidnapped her from 2204 and brought her to the future.

  “He says there’s some way I can prevent what happened,” she croaked. “But he hasn’t said how.”

  Emory glanced at Lucinda.

  “I think it’s time for, uh, tea,” Emory said. Lucinda nodded and opened the door.

  “You can come in now,” she said.

  For a moment, Sharon thought the worst: Emory and Lucinda didn’t believe her, and they would imprison them, send them back to survive on the surface, or some other terrible fate. Then she smelled cooked food. Wordlessly Lucinda put a plate in front of each of them, along with a large cup of cool water.

  “Excuse us. Please enjoy your food,” Lucinda said as she left the room with Emory, firmly closing the door behind them.

  Richard sniffed at his plate and broke into a big smile before shoveling in a mouthful using the all-purpose utensil provided. Reminiscent of a spork, Sharon used hers to poke at the food to get a better idea of what it was. It smelled fried and looked like mushrooms. She took a tentative bite. It was earthy flavored, a little salty and
rubbery, but it was not unpalatable. Richard finished well ahead of her, but she was not far behind him in cleaning her plate.

  She was gulping down the last of the water when Emory and Lucinda returned.

  “I’m guessing you liked it,” Emory said, noting their clean plates.

  “We were starving, thank you,” Sharon answered. Richard was humming again.

  “We’ll get to the point,” Lucinda said. “We believe you are who you say you are and how you got here.”

  “You do?” Sharon repeated, not trusting her ears.

  “While you ate, we analyzed recent activity within the temporal nexus. We confirmed that a time shift took place 18 hours ago, though how we don’t know and are eager to learn,” Emory replied.

  “More importantly,” Lucinda said. “We have been waiting for you, Sharon Gorse. We have been awaiting your arrival since the year 2204.”

  “Waiting for me?” Sharon said. “Why?”

  “Because we knew you’d come,” Emory answered.

  Sharon pursed her lips in frustration. She wanted more information than Emory’s circular response.

  “In 2204 the rift between worlds opened and the parallel earth invaded,” Lucinda started. “Those at TPC headquarters at the time were trapped. The temporal mainframe was sabotaged by a virus and all available water had been purposefully contaminated. Director Veta led her people through the original tunnel dug to build TPC headquarters and arrived at the main CERN facilities level. She got almost everyone here safely. We are their descendants.”

  “So many years, so many babies,” Richard said nodding approvingly.

  “You said almost everyone,” Sharon said warily. “Who didn’t make it?”

  Emory and Lucinda exchanged glances.

  “We’re sorry to tell you this. Both Director Veta and Agent Caelen Winters were killed in the evacuation.”

  “Caelen…” Sharon whispered.

  “Stop this,” Richard said, standing. “You’re upsetting the queen. I cannot have her upset.”

  “It’s ok, Richard,” Sharon said, pulling the chair out for him to sit again. She took a deep breath, pushing aside her grief. “What does this have to do with expecting me?”

  “You disappeared from TPC headquarters just as the invasion started. Before the temporal mainframe failed, they learned you’d been shifted to the future. While they didn’t know exactly when, we knew that it was likely we would see you again. We just needed to catch up to when you were taken.”

  Sharon nodded. Once they explained it made perfect sense. “Tell me everything,” she said.

  Together Lucinda and Emory described how the parallel earth opened the rift and invaded.

  “It happened so quickly. The World Government had no time to react,” Lucinda began. “One minute the skies were clear the next they were filled with air machines. Those aircraft that didn’t drop bombs carried soldiers. Within hours they reduced every major city in the world to rubble. There was no time to mount a defense. The world surrendered in a matter of days.”

  Horror flooded Sharon as she saw in her mind’s eye the ruins of the city she and Richard had escaped, remembered the desperation of the people who remained. That this terrible thing had come to pass was almost beyond comprehension.

  “Surely, someone put up a fight,” Sharon said, holding her head in her hands.

  “Of course,” Emory responded, his voice brittle. “There was a valiant struggle against overwhelming odds, just like in all the stories. Except this time the bad guys won.”

  “The invasion didn’t happen all at once all over the globe,” Lucinda added gently. “Some parts of the world mounted a defense. Our weapons were superior—but they had greater numbers.”

  “In the end, our defenses were whittled down to resistance fighters engaging in guerilla warfare,” Emory concluded.

  Next to her, Richard hummed a cheerful tune. Sharon was so powerfully reminded of her mother, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She fought down her annoyance and tried to stay focused.

  “What happened to the TPC?” Sharon asked, inhaling deeply to master her emotions.

  Emory described how the TPC lost power, trapping staff in the underground headquarters and the journey through the tunnel to the CERN facility.

  “We’re not sure why the energy discharges suddenly increased in frequency and intensity when they did,” Emory said. “If the pattern had remained the same as it had for hours, they wouldn’t have lost anyone.”

  “We think it was the virus in the temporal mainframe,” Lucinda added.

  “Or the saboteur,” Richard said.

  “Saboteur?” Sharon said eyes widening as Emory and Lucinda nodded.

  “Someone purposefully poisoned all the water sources. And someone planted the virus in the mainframe.”

  “It could have been Yorga Zintel,” Sharon said darkly. “She could have sabotaged the TPC before she fled.”

  “Perhaps,” Lucinda said. “But our ancestors believed the saboteur was someone with them. They never found out who it was, and he or she is long dead now.”

  “What did the people from the TPC do after they made it here?” Sharon asked.

  “They found no one left—the facility was abandoned. The stairwell to the surface was blocked, and it took days to dig through the wreckage. When they reached the surface, it was all over,” Emory said. “They had devastated the world. Everything of value was taken or destroyed, and most of the population was kidnapped and enslaved, taken back to the parallel earth. Those who escaped were in hiding. A few of our people found family, loved ones, friends, but only a handful. They brought them here and sealed the entrances. We’ve lived here ever since.”

  “How did you do that? How do you get food, water, power?” Sharon asked waving at the lighting overhead.

  “We get our water from an aquifer untouched by the devastation of the war,” Lucinda said with a smile, glad for the change in topic. “Our ancestors developed a way to use the energy of the temporal nexus to produce power. With that we generate light and heat for the arboretum and hydroponic installations, and enough energy for our basic needs. It’s not a luxurious existence but we’ve made this place a home and a community. The Community, we call it.”

  Emory stood. “Come, we will show you.”

  Sharon and Richard followed Lucinda and Emory through a series of doors, the last of which was guarded by two sentries who nodded as they passed. Once through the final door, all evidence of battle and warfare vanished. The spaces were clean, bright, and well-organized. Offices were converted to apartments for private use, while larger spaces served as public areas, including a large kitchen and public cafeteria, and a communal bathing and washing area.

  “We don’t have the resources for running water in private spaces, so we created these public facilities,” Lucinda explained as they passed. “Our community does all its washing here, and all our eating in the dining room.”

  Sharon thought she caught an unpleasant sewage smell. “What about, uh, you know…” Sharon started.

  Emory chuckled. “Yeah, we know. There are composting toilets in the private and public spaces, and we use the disinfected results in the arboretum. The fungus in particular thrives on it.”

  Sharon swallowed a wave of queasiness as she remembered her earlier meal.

  There were a few curious stares and muttered conversations as they walked through the communal areas, but most people went about their business. Sharon wondered how often they had newcomers to this group or if they already knew about their visitors.

  They passed through a set of double doors reinforced with a thick plastic and stopped in front of a large glass tube extending from floor to the ceiling. It enclosed a bright light that appeared to be floating. There was motion within the light, but it eluded the eye and no matter how hard Sharon tried to focus on what was moving she could not clearly see it.

  “You use the gravitational energy,” Richard said nodding.

  “Y
es,” Lucinda said. “While we can no longer use the temporal nexus for time travel because of the damage to the temporal mainframe from the virus, we’re able to tap into the energy of the temporal nexus to help us survive and thrive.”

  “So, this is the temporal nexus,” Sharon said.

  “You’ve never seen it before?” Emory raised his eyebrows.

  “No,” Sharon answered, now watching the motion the way she would a fountain, enjoying its pattern instead of trying to make out individual movements. “I remember Dr. Aayan saying something about micro-wormholes, but I didn’t fully understand it.”

  Lucinda nodded. “That’s correct. The temporal nexus is made up of three micro-wormholes tethered in gravitational sync.”

  Richard stepped closer, reaching toward the glass. “Yes, this,” he breathed.

  When his fingers met the glass, there was a low rumble. Emory and Lucinda looked around in alarm. The temporal nexus flashed suddenly. It was only for a second and if Sharon had not been looking directly at it, she would have missed it.

  “What’s going on?” Sharon asked taking a step back.

  “I don’t know,” Lucinda answered as she headed to a nearby computer workstation.

  There was a ripple of sound, as if the glass were vibrating. Richard did not move his hand. His eyes were now closed.

  At a loud crackling noise, Sharon took another step back, half expecting the glass enclosure to splinter. The room was bathed the room in brightness as if by a strobe light. Blinded, they blinked until they could see again.

  A body had appeared on the floor next to the temporal nexus.

  Emory dropped to the ground and rolled the man over, checking for a pulse.

  “He’s dead,” he said, his face pale.

  Sharon stopped breathing. It was Caelen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  2337 - Reunited

  Lucinda sprinted through the double doors, shouting for help. Emory started cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. Moments later Lucinda returned with people carrying medical supplies and a stretcher. The medical personnel took over for Emory and tried to revive Caelen.