Out of Time

by E W Barnes

  “What’s the impossible choice?” she asked thickly.

  “We have to stop the virus in the mainframe,” he said, turning back to the control panel of the temporal amplifier. “We have to stop it before it spreads, before it incapacitates the temporal nexus. Then the invasion can’t happen. We can stop the apocalypse and no one at the TPC will die.”

  He raised the remote-control device from the parallel universe.

  “This contains a patch, to eradicate the virus from the temporal mainframe. It can’t stop the infection once it begins, but it can stop it before it starts. Like a vaccine, instead of a cure.”

  “Tell me the impossible choice,” Sharon said again.

  “I downloaded the patch from the computer system in the Roman Ring chamber on the parallel earth,” he continued. “But I have to upload it to a temporal amplifier not already infected. This one was removed, in what you call the ‘Email Timeline’ by Jonas Fernley before they released the virus.” His laugh was giddy now. “And because Natalie Johnson changed this timeline by launching her bombs, the temporal amplifier in this time frame is free of the virus. We use Natalie Johnson’s ignorance to defeat her.”

  “What is the impossible choice?” Sharon asked slowly. Her tone made it clear she would not ask again.

  Richard looked at Sharon’s mother, still standing in the doorway.

  “Running the program, the patch to stop the virus, is not how the temporal amplifier was designed to be used,” he gestured to the control panel. “It will push the system to its limits, releasing a kind of temporal radiation. The temporal penumbra will protect you and me; but not your mother.”

  “What do you mean?” Sharon asked, struggling to her feet.

  “The temporal amplifier will injure her. She will develop temporal aberration disorder,” he said meeting Sharon’s horrified eyes. “You must make the choice—do we proceed or not?”

  Sharon's eyes were drawn to her mother, who looked so young.

  “Can’t we move her into the temporal penumbra with us? Or somehow make it bigger so it includes her?” Sharon asked.

  He shook his head. “We can’t change the size of the temporal penumbra—that’s a static aspect of the temporal amplifier. And we’ve tried different ways of protecting your mother and each one failed. I’m sorry.”

  “Why me?” Sharon’s voice cracked.

  “Your grandmother made me promise,” he breathed. “She… she discovered me in one of the first loops,” he started, sounding as choked up as Sharon. “She told me that when the time came, you had to be the one who made the choice, not me. I didn’t understand what she meant until I brought you into the mission and we ended up here the first time. Then I understood. You must be the one to initiate the program.”

  Words couldn’t describe her agony. She had to choose whether to save the past, the present, and the future, or to save her mother from the disease that stole years from her.

  This is what Richard had meant when he’s said it had to be Sharon on the mission. It was not because of her Chestnut Covin expertise. It was not because he was comfortable with her or trusted her; not because of her skills as an agent; or her experience chasing through centuries to save the TPC.

  It had to be her because she was the next of kin to the woman who’d wandered into the wrong room at the wrong time.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Closing the Loop

  Richard watched in sympathy as emotions flooded Sharon. Disbelief. Horror. Fury. Anger flared hottest and Sharon clenched her fists. How could Grandmother Rose do this to her? How could she demand this choice be made by her?

  “And if I don’t choose?” Sharon asked through gritted teeth.

  Richard sighed.

  “If you don’t, then everything is lost and we start all over again,” he said in a tired voice. “I’ve tried every other way I can think of. I’ve tried doing this in the future, in the past, in the parallel world, and nothing has worked. This is the only way.”

  This is where the mission had always ended before, she realized. He’d kidnapped Sharon from the future, tried to stop the end of the world, failed, and time reset, over and over again. Every time Sharon refused to be the one who caused her mother’s illness.

  “I don’t believe you,” she spit out.

  “You never do,” he said sadly.

  Sharon paced the floor crossing and uncrossing her arms. Why can’t you push the button? Why does it have to be me? She wanted to shout, wishing he would just do it, urging him in her mind to start the program, to save them all. To save her from the burden of the decision. She loathed him for being the one to put her in this position. She loathed him for his calmness as he waited for her to decide.

  She stopped pacing, staring at the bookcases.

  “You know, it was in this room that I learned about time travel,” she said in a small voice. “My grandmother left me a letter telling me all about it.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “No, I didn’t know.”

  “I haven’t told you about it during one of our loops?” she asked sarcastically. “And now my time travel has caused the end of the world—if I hadn’t traveled to the past, left my phone where it could be discovered, Natalie Johnson would not be in the future dropping bombs. All because of a damned message on the walls of the crawlspace.”

  Richard shook his head. “Crawlspace?” It was almost a whisper.

  “Yeah, right there on the wall,” she pointed to the seams in the wall he’d missed. She walked over and poked the spot that released the door. “See?”

  The door swung open a few inches and as it did a folded piece of paper fell to the floor. Sharon froze.

  “What is that?” she asked, taking a step back.

  “I don’t know,” Richard answered.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You said you’ve lived these experiences over and over.”

  “This has not happened before.” He paused. “Are you going to pick it up?”

  “No,” she said.

  He reached down and turned it over. The word Sharon was written across one side in her grandmother’s handwriting.

  “No.”

  He barely heard the word. She was pulling away, shaking her head. “No,” she whispered again. Then: “NO!”

  Sharon ran toward her mother, toward the door, but was repulsed by the edge of the temporal penumbra that held them in observation mode. Unable to run further, she stood weeping next to the frozen figure of her mother.

  “I won’t read it,” she said through her sobs. “You can’t make me read it.”

  “I will not ask you to,” he said quietly.

  Sharon sighed, a long shuddering sigh. “No, but she knew. She knew I would read it eventually,” she said, her voice thick with tears and sorrow. “She always knew.”

  He picked up the folded paper and held it out to her. With shaking hands, she accepted it. She pressed it against her chest, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath before opening it.

  Dearest Sharon,

  There isn’t much I can say that would be of help to you on the most terrible day of your life.

  All I can say is this: That if you trust your instincts, all will be well. You are braver than you know.

  I love you with all my heart,

  Grandmother Rose

  Sharon read it again and again, eventually just staring at the paper as Richard waited.

  “Trust my instincts,” she muttered. “She told me to trust my instincts, and this is where it led me. I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”

  Then, to Richard’s amazement, she started to laugh.

  “I would hate you if you did it, you know,” she said, chuckling as she wiped her face. “I would never forgive you. Grandmother Rose knew that. She didn’t want you to suffer that, or me to bear the burden of hate. Just the burden of guilt,” she ended in a murmur. Her laughter stopped, her tears flowed and she could not stop them. She had decided.

  “How do I start the program?�
�� she said.

  He stared at her in disbelief and, stunned, pointed to the temporal amplifier control panel.

  “This one takes us out of frozen time. This one initiates the program.”

  Sharon’s hand trembled as she reached for the control panel. Richard held his breath. She deactivated observation mode and the sounds of chaos outside resumed, louder and more desperate.

  Her mother took a deep breath.

  “Who are you?” she demanded of Sharon and Richard.

  Sharon’s hand was shaking now, and silent sobs were heaving her chest. She groaned as she activated the control panel one last time.

  “Mom!” she sobbed as she and Richard shifted away in a whirlwind of howling and Sharon’s weeping.

  ✽✽✽

  In 2337 the battle to protect the community raged. The raiders had broken through the barriers erected to protect the stairwell. Those who could accurately fire weapons were in defensive positions facing the doors, picking off the raiders coming through one by one. But the raiders kept coming.

  They positioned Caelen in the second line of defenders, the last before the children, vulnerable, and injured being rushed into the escape tunnel. He had argued for remaining with the temporal nexus, in a last desperate attempt to get it working again so they could shift to safety, but Emory refused. Emory’s focus was the here and now, not the past or the future, and he wanted all able bodies between the community and the raiders.

  Now Caelen stood in a doorway around a corner from the stairwell barricade defense line. He held a long metal bar in one hand. Emory chose not to trust him with one of only a few energy weapons because Caelen had never used one before. Caelen was confident, however, that he could solidly swing his metal rod at raiders’ heads when needed.

  Caelen wiped his damp palm on his pant leg and listened. The sounds of battle in front of him were getting louder, as were the sounds of evacuation behind him. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Shouts and screams erupted from the front line. Caelen hoped they were from raiders, but he doubted it. Cries of fear echoed the screams among the refugees behind him. They were panicking. A loud crashing noise drew his attention, followed by the sound of running footsteps, shouts, and thuds. A man came around the corner—a raider. Caelen readied his metal bar.

  There was a buzzing sound, and the raider dropped in a heap at Caelen’s feet. Caelen exhaled, and a woman came around the corner. She was wearing the jumpsuit of a member of the community, her weapon pointed behind her as she ran, steadily firing at her pursuer. A knife caught her in the chest, and she dropped to the floor gasping, her eyes rolling in confusion and pain.

  Caelen ran out of his hiding place to pull her to safety but was only halfway across the hall when the raider caught up to them. He raised the metal bar, deflecting a knife with a dull metal clash. The raider’s arms moved like lightning as he switched the knife from left to right, trying to find an opening. Caelen, standing over the woman, parried every strike with the metal bar. He saw more raiders edging around the corner, fighting hand-to-hand. It was then he understood they would lose.

  In that distracted moment, the raider’s knife slipped past the metal bar and sliced his wrist, but instead of drawing blood, the knife went through him as if he wasn’t there. The raider looked up at him in surprise, first staring at Caelen and then at his knife. They exchanged a moment of shared confusion—the first time Caelen felt recognized by his attacker as another human being—and then the raider disappeared.

  No, not disappeared. He faded away. Caelen reached down to haul the woman to safety, but his hand went through her arm as she, too, vanished. Caelen stepped back in panic. The walls grew transparent. The shouts and cries receded. He dropped the metal bar, looking at his own hands and seeing the floor through them.

  “Sharon,” Caelen said as he and everything around him disappeared.

  ✽✽✽

  Nizhoni Diogo felt it immediately, moments after Richard and Sharon rippled away: a change in the air, like an almost indiscernible low thrum or vibration. It didn’t register on the temporal nexus monitor, but the sensation was undeniable.

  Nizhoni didn’t have time to investigate it, however. From within the battling figures in the hall a man tried to leap over the rapidly shrinking barrier of overturned chairs and tables blocking the mangled doors. She shot a bolt of energy into the pile and he fell back, cradling his hand after receiving a moderate electrical shock. Nizhoni did not want to hurt anyone but understood that injury or worse might be required to stop the Chestnut Covin from reaching the temporal nexus.

  Another man shoved Jonas out of his way and attempted to climb the pile but threw up his hands as there was a blinding flash of light. He fell backwards, shielding his head with his arms as he landed in the center of the melee.

  Nizhoni exhaled as she lowered the weapon, raising it again quickly when she heard a grunt from behind her. Carefully holding the weapon in readiness, she crept around the workstation, her back to the bedlam just feet away.

  Caelen Winters was lying on the floor rubbing his eyes and shaking his head.

  “Ugh. What happened?” he asked himself.

  Nizhoni looked back through the doors at the fighting getting closer and closer. There was Caelen Winters struggling with Jonas. And here was Caelen Winters on the floor next to the temporal nexus. She lowered her weapon.

  “It’s 2204, the Chestnut Covin is fighting to get access to the temporal nexus, and you just arrived from…?”

  “2337,” he grunted as he sat up.

  “What was it like?” Nizhoni couldn’t help but ask as she offered a hand to pull him up.

  “A lot like this,” Caelen answered as he took in the fighting just feet away from them. He edged around the room until he reached the doorway.

  “It looks like we’re losing,” he said in a low voice. He stiffened. “And apparently I’m helping,” he added in a growl.

  “Yeah, that’s your parallel earth counterpart,” Nizhoni said in a whisper from over his shoulder.

  “That’s disappointing, and a little embarrassing,” he admitted.

  “The other you has a thing for the brunette shouting orders over there,” Nizhoni responded.

  “At least I’m loyal,” he said. He pulled back suddenly as a metal table leg flew through the doors. He looked at Nizhoni, who had pressed herself against the wall.

  “They’re coming,” was all he said.

  She nodded and readied her weapon. Caelen darted from the wall to retrieve the table leg. It was better than nothing.

  There was a scraping noise as the last of the piled furniture was pulled away from the door. The fighting ceased and there was a sudden silence.

  “It’s time to come out,” Natalie Johnson called. “We have defeated you. There’s no need for further violence.”

  Nizhoni took a step forward.

  “What are you doing?” Caelen hissed.

  “They don’t know you’re here,” she muttered through closed lips.

  She slowly moved toward the opening, her weapon pointed downward. She scanned the hallway battlefield. Jonas was held by three men. Blood was running down his face from a cut on his cheek and one eye was swollen shut. The other eye still held fire and defiance and he imperceptibly shook his head. The parallel universe Caelen Winters stood near Jonas. Director Noon and Agent MacGregor were back-to-back in the center of a circle of opponents poised to kill them as soon as the fighting resumed.

  Nizhoni froze. There it was again—that feeling like a low vibration. Except it was growing louder and she was not the only one who felt it. There was a buzzing noise from the temporal nexus and another blinding flash of light. She risked a look behind her, but no one new had materialized. She looked back and made eye contact with Miranda.

  “It’s time to end this,” Natalie said to Nizhoni. “Put down your weapon and come out slowly. No one else will be hurt.”

  “That’s not her decision to make,” Miranda said in a weary voic
e.

  “It will be her decision if we kill you,” Anna responded with deadly calm.

  “You won’t be killing anyone else, today,” a new voice said.

  Several people spun their heads around looking for the source of the voice, and Miranda closed her eyes and smiled. It was a smile of recognition, of relief, and of renewed hope. She turned her head to look at the blond woman who had appeared behind the mass of Chestnut Covin followers.

  “Welcome to 2204, Agent Berg,” Miranda answered.

  Agent MacGregor’s eyes bugged, and he stood up straighter.

  “Thank you, Director Noon,” Agent Berg said as TPC agents from the past spread out behind her. In a moment it was clear they outnumbered the Chestnut Covin two to one.

  “As you can see, the situation has changed,” Miranda said to Natalie and Anna. “Surrender peacefully and no one will be harmed.”

  “There will be no surrender,” Natalie said.

  “I don’t see that you have a choice,” Agent Berg responded.

  “There is always a choice,” Anna said. She touched a device on her arm, hidden under her sleeve. It made a high-pitched whine which was echoed by corresponding devices held by Chestnut Covin followers.

  “What is that?” Agent MacGregor demanded, but no one answered him.

  Anna beckoned to the Caelen from her universe. That Caelen grabbed Jonas and dragged him to stand next to Anna. Then the three of them vanished. Natalie Johnson followed, and soon Chestnut Covin followers were disappearing everywhere. There was a stunned silence.

  The battle was over.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  2204 - Hellos and Goodbyes

  The Chestnut Covin’s retreat left behind almost half those fighting for it—followers not gifted with the devices Anna and Natalie had activated, or not standing close enough to one to be transported away.