by E W Barnes
“I think in a day or two,” the medic replied. “You’re recovering well.”
“I think I’d like to talk to this Richard in a day or two,” Caelen said darkly as the medic left.
CHAPTER TEN
2337 - The Attack
A day later, in a meeting with Lucinda and Emory from his hospital bed, Caelen was officially informed that he, like Sharon and Richard, was welcome to stay and become part of the community.
Once fully healed, they released Caelen to his own small room, close to Sharon’s. As the days passed, Sharon and Caelen worked hard to fit into their new home. They assigned Sharon to assist in the arboretum, a huge space which the original TPC staff had dug out of solid rock after it was clear there was no hope on the surface. Now it was an oasis of green and beauty, and soon Sharon was on her hands and knees digging, planting, tending, and harvesting.
Richard was tasked with childcare, at first to keep him as far away from the temporal nexus as possible; but it turned out he had a knack for relating to children. Naturally patient, he readily joined their make-believe and role-play games. The children didn’t notice his occasional temporal aberration disorder lapses, assuming they were part of the play. He continued to refuse to hand over the parallel earth remote control to Emory and Lucinda, however.
Caelen was asked to work with the group still trying to repair the temporal mainframe. The virus in the temporal mainframe still existed, even over 100 years later. Lucinda explained that Nizhoni Diogo, her ancestor, could never eradicate it. They were pleased to have Caelen’s experience and expertise as a first-hand user of the equipment, and continued to hope they could reactivate time travel using the temporal nexus.
But even with Caelen’s help, they could not resurrect the temporal mainframe and reactivate the time travel equipment. When Lucinda muttered something about not having the device Richard was withholding, Caelen reminded her it came from the parallel world and it was unlikely it could help them, anyway.
Their days settled into a routine, a routine that left Sharon and Caelen a lot of time to talk. They spent hours walking through the arboretum or sitting away from others at a table in the community dining area. They dissected what happened in the “Email Timeline” and analyzed everything they could have done differently. Each time, their examination of every step they’d taken always ended at the conclusion that there was nothing more they could have done.
They also talked about Jonas and his betrayal of the TPC and of his friends.
“I thought I was a pretty good judge of character,” Sharon said for what felt like the 1000th time. “My instincts always told me he was a good and loyal friend. But I didn’t see it coming.”
“I didn’t either,” Caelen reassured her. “And neither did Miranda. Jonas kept his feelings deeply buried. I honestly don’t think he even realized what he was feeling.”
“You think he made a rash decision?”
“I think he didn’t know what to do,” Caelen answered thoughtfully. “He wasn’t used to the kind of stress we were under. He’d always relied on following the rules to keep him safe, and when the rules changed, he had nothing to guide him except his feelings.”
“What do you think he was feeling when he sold us out to the Chestnut Covin?” she asked acidly.
“Fear,” Caelen answered solemnly. “I think he was afraid.”
To that Sharon had no answer.
✽✽✽
One evening, after they finished the last meal of the day, Sharon and Caelen were called to see Emory and Lucinda.
“How’re you settling in?” Emory asked.
“As well as can be expected,” Sharon answered.
“It sounds like you enjoy working in the arboretum,” Lucinda smiled.
“It’s a rejuvenating space,” Sharon answered. “It helps me feel better about not being able to go home.”
“Lucinda tells me you’ve been very helpful,” Emory said to Caelen.
“I’ve done the best I can,” Caelen said. “I wish there was more I could do.”
“Maybe there is,” Lucinda said, turning to a computer workstation behind her. “One of our historians came across something odd and we wanted to get your thoughts on it.”
Sharon and Caelen read the record Lucinda pulled up. It was an account of the evacuation of the TPC in 2204. Director Veta’s name was now listed as the only casualty.
“According to this, you are no longer listed as having died in the evacuation,” Lucinda said to Caelen. “But I remember, as do all the historians and everyone in our community who has studied our past, that you and Director Veta were the ones who were killed the day of the evacuation.”
“What does that mean?” Sharon asked.
“It means something has changed,” Caelen said slowly.
Emory and Lucinda nodded. “Something that changed history but allowed us to retain a memory of it. That suggests a working temporal amplifier still exists somewhere and we are caught in its effect.”
“I agree,” Caelen said.
“Do you know how this could happen?” Emory asked.
Caelen shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”
Lucinda pulled up another record. “According to this new record, you survived the evacuation and lived with the TPC group that relocated here until your death of natural causes in 2278.”
“That suggests he was alive in two time frames,” Sharon said. “Like the other Caelen I saw in 2204 at the same time you were there,” she said to Caelen. “Didn’t you think that was a you from another timeline?”
“That was the theory,” he said furrowing his brow. “If that’s true, instead of dying in 2204, I was shifted here and another me took my place.”
“To what end?” Lucinda asked.
Caelen shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Emory narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps your friend Richard knows.”
Sharon shook her head. “He might, though whether he is able and willing to discuss it might be another matter.”
“Do you know what happened or what this means?” they asked Richard after he joined them, explaining how history had changed.
Richard smiled happily. “It means it’s almost time.”
“Almost time for what?” Lucinda said frowning.
“Don’t worry, my dear, everything will be ok. It has to play out as it is meant to.”
Emory’s face darkened. He was running out of patience with Richard’s refusal to help, dodging direct questions, and dancing around the truth. Sharon worried about how Richard would react when faced with Emory’s anger.
There was a loud rap on the door, its sharpness conveying an urgency that made Sharon’s stomach clench. The door opened.
“We have a problem,” a man said, breathing heavily as if he’d been running.
“What is it, Lee?” Lucinda asked, rising from her chair. If there was an issue with the temporal nexus, she needed to contain it before it caused damage to their community.
“We’re under attack,” Lee answered. “It’s the raiders.”
Lucinda and Emory quickly activated two additional workstations on a table along the back wall and reset the one they had used for reviewing the historical anomaly of Caelen’s survival. Now displayed on the screens were closed-circuit videos from cleverly concealed surveillance cameras positioned in the stairwell, elevator shafts, and the lobby. The community had known she and Richard were coming the day they arrived, Sharon realized.
What they displayed now made Sharon’s blood run cold.
It wasn’t just five or six young men like those who had confronted Sharon and Richard in the ruined city. There were at least 100 men in the lobby. They had formed a bucket brigade, moving debris from the stairwell and passing it along to each other until they threw it into a growing pile around the corner from the elevators.
“At this rate they will clear the debris in eight hours or less,” Lucinda said, a small shake in her voice.
“Do you have any other ways
of defending the community?” Caelen asked.
“We are welding the ceiling panels in the elevators now,” Lee said to Emory. “We started as soon as we saw the scope of the attack. Once that’s finished, we’ll seal the elevator doors with electro-magnets. So long as we have electrical power, they can’t get in that way.”
“What about putting electro-magnets on the stairwell doors?” Sharon asked.
“That won’t work. We lost the original metal doors in the attack in 2204. The replacement doors are a plastic composite and can’t be magnetized, though they will hold for a while.”
“There are so many of them,” Lucinda whispered, eyes still on the screen.
“Have raiders tried to attack you before?” Sharon asked.
“Yes, two or three times over the last 100 years,” Emory answered. “They know we are here, and they want our resources. But never this many at once.”
“They think we are a utopia where food and women are plentiful,” Lucinda said with fear in her voice. “Except they will clear out this place like locusts and then move on, leaving nothing behind. If they get in, they will destroy us and everything here.”
A woman stuck her head in the room. “Emory, Lucinda, we have some ideas on how to reinforce the stairwell doors, and we’d like your input.”
“We should gather weapons and strategically place those who can use them,” Emory said. “Just in case,” he added when he saw the alarm on Lucinda’s face. They exited the room leaving Sharon, Caelen, and Richard alone.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Sharon asked Caelen not taking her eyes off the screen. The raiders were deeper into the stairwell and showed no sign of slowing.
“Possibly,” Caelen answered.
“Of course, we can,” Richard said. He alone appeared unconcerned about the imminent attack.
“How can we help?” Sharon said.
He pulled his parallel world remote control from his pocket. “We finish what we started.”
“How will that help?” Caelen demanded crossing his arms.
Even though they were the only ones left in the room, Richard leaned in close as if to not be overheard. Sharon and Caelen followed his lead until their heads were almost touching.
“It’s simple. Once we get to the other side, we access the temporal nexus of the parallel earth. We go back in time, cross back over to our earth, stop the virus in the temporal mainframe, and stop the invasion,” he murmured in a low voice.
“Simple. Right. How do we do that?” Caelen asked derisively.
“Not we,” Richard barked, making Sharon and Caelen jump. “Just her and me.”
“Why not me?” Caelen said, his voice rising.
“My contacts there, my allies. They won’t trust you. They will trust her.”
“Why does she need to go at all?”
“Because it must be her.”
“Why? Why does it have to be me?” Sharon demanded. She slammed her hand down on the table as she raised her voice. “You know, you’ve been very sly with the information you share and the information you hold back and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of how you seem to know everything but share almost nothing and I’m not going anywhere with you until I get a straight answer.”
Caelen crossed his arms and sat back, clearly in agreement with Sharon. Richard stayed hunched over the table, staring at its surface.
“Remember the day you shifted to Olvera Street in 1951?” he asked in a soft voice.
Caelen uncrossed his arms and looked suspicious.
“Yes,” Sharon answered slowly.
“For your training you picked an event that was not one of the great and influential events of history,” Richard continued.
“How do you know this?”
“You selected instead an argument between a husband and wife, an argument which was lovingly resolved.”
He paused, but she remained belligerently silent.
“Your choice confirmed what your grandmother told me about you.” He looked up and smiled at her. “That you’ve always instinctively known that there’s more heart in the simple things than in the great events that make history.”
“How do you know this?” Sharon repeated in a whisper.
“I was watching you that day on Olvera Street. Both of you,” he nodded at Caelen. “I wanted to be sure.”
“Sure of what?” Caelen said, still not convinced.
“That what Rose told me was true.”
“How could she have told you anything?” Sharon sputtered. “You were gone before I was born!”
He chuckled. “A Temporal Protection Corps Agent asks that question.”
“What did she say?” Sharon breathed.
“She told me to tell you to trust your instincts.”
“My instincts tell me this is a waste of time,” Caelen said leaning forward again. He was ready to end this discussion.
Sharon put her hand on Caelen’s arm, forestalling his next response. She took a deep breath and rubbed her face with her hands. Part of her was screaming "no!" at the idea of going with Richard to the parallel earth. But another part of her knew that he was telling the truth, that going with him was the only way.
“Ok. What do we do?” she said in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere else.
“We must bring food and water, and we need to get close to the temporal nexus,” Richard said.
“And if we don’t?” Caelen said angrily.
“Then everyone dies,” Richard said with a dry cackle. “And nothing matters anymore.” His eyes were closed as if he was working hard to remain coherent. “We must eliminate the beginning, or it will be the end.”
“Is there anything else we need to bring?” Sharon asked Richard. Like guns? Flamethrowers? Baseball bats? she said to herself.
“Just our wits and courage,” he answered.
Sharon looked to Caelen.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
“No, I’m not. But my instincts tell me it’s the right thing to do.”
Reluctantly he nodded. With a last glance at the screens where the raiders were now deep into the stairwell, they left the meeting room.
There were few people in the hallways—most were preparing to defend the facility. Some were working on reinforcing the doors to the stairwell and preparing additional barricades should the stairway doors be breached. Others were retrieving weapons crafted and stored for just such a situation.
More were collecting emergency supplies and placing them in the shaft through which the TPC staff had evacuated in 2204. If worse came to worse, they would retreat into the tunnel and seal the entrance. Sharon suspected these efficient people had already prepared the TPC headquarters building, abandoned so many stories below, as a contingency should the upper levels become uninhabitable.
The arboretum was empty, which surprised Sharon. She expected to find people harvesting food as emergency supplies. All the better, she thought. Acting quickly, Sharon found a large backpack and filled it with vegetables.
Caelen was waiting for her outside the temporal nexus room, but Richard had not yet returned with the water.
“It’s all set,” he said frowning. Everything about him radiated his doubts about this plan, but he kept his arguments to himself.
“Excuse me, where do you think you’re going with that?” a voice called from across the room. Richard was walking quickly toward them, carrying a large bag over his shoulder. Behind him a young man was almost running to catch up with him.
“We must go now, we must go now,” Richard sang to them under his breath.
Caelen opened the doors to allow Richard and Sharon through. The young man’s haste turned to alarm.
“Hey! What’re you doing?”
“Good luck,” Caelen said.
He took one last look at Sharon before closing the door. Sharon heard banging and shouting. Caelen was blocking pursuit by keeping the door closed, but he could not hold out long.
Standing next to t
he curved enclosure, Richard placed his palm flat against the glass, and pulled the remote control out of his pocket.
“Ready?”
“Not really,” Sharon said, glancing back at the doors. It looked like they were slowly being pulled open. “Just get it over with!” she barked.
There was a blinding flash from the temporal nexus and the sensation of a thousand pins in her skin. For a terrifying moment Sharon was sure there had been a malfunction, and they were caught in a temporal nexus shutdown. The sensations of pain and howling winds were the same as when she and Caelen had endured a shutdown while in observation mode. But this was worse. She felt icy cold and her eyes saw nothing, only darkness. She felt as if she were being thrown around, numbed, losing all sense of time and self.
She was lying on her back under a tree. It was night and she saw stars through the branches and beyond the silhouettes of buildings in the distance. She was on a planet in another universe and yet she could have been in a city park on her own earth. Perhaps there had been a mistake, and they did not shift to the parallel earth after all…
“Get up,” Richard whispered, grabbing her by the arm.
He half-pulled, half-pushed her into the shadow of a nearby tree and peered around it, watching. Two figures moved through an open space of grass, shining lights under the trees, illuminating patches of darkness before moving on to the next black patch.
“Who are they?” she whispered.
“The obchestpol–Soviet police. They’re enforcing the curfew,” he said.
“What happens if they find us?”
“They’ll take us in for questioning,” Richard breathed.
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t want to know,” he answered.
The revealing light moved closer. After silently taking off their packs and holding them to their chests, they pressed themselves against the tree and waited. Seconds later the ground around the tree flashed with gray-green brilliance, the shadow of the tree a long black finger pointing away from them. Then the light blinked away, and Sharon exhaled in relief. She was about to move when Richard squeezed her arm hard. She froze as the light flared around them again.
