“Jess, get up here!” Gabe yelled.
“I’m coming!” she yelled back. “Keep the batteries running.”
She glanced up at the large lizard ship above the city. She saw the cannon rotate toward them.
She leaped at the ladder and scrambled up into the craft.
“Go, go, go!” she screamed.
The ship took off. Jessica stumbled to the floor, then pressed against the back wall of the small ship as it blasted out of Sacramento, leaving the more massive ship lumbering behind.
When Jessica regained her balance and stood, she walked to the front of the ship, where Gabe stood next to the pilot and co-pilot, both dressed in red robes.
“Listen,” she said, extending her hand, “I don’t know who you are, but thank you for—”
The co-pilot turned to face her, and Jessica found herself staring at the same type of reptilian face that had just tried to kill her.
3
Jessica stepped back.
“What the hell, Gabe?” she asked, raising her purifier.
Gabe stood in the way of her shot, extending his arms as if to catch the blast.
“These are not the Guardians,” he said.
“Should we stay on course?” the co-pilot asked.
“Yes, just travel south, down the coastline, for two hundred miles. You’ll see a clump of buildings. That’s our base.”
“Gabe,” Jessica said, lowering her weapon. “You just told the enemy where our people are.”
“They aren’t our enemy, Jess. They aren’t the Guardians.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jessica exclaimed. “They look just like—”
“We are Slaxxian, just as our brethren, but we do not believe what they believe in,” the co-pilot said.
“You are what now?”
“That’s the name of their race,” Gabe answered her.
“Long ago, generations past, ours was a race of warriors who valued honor and strength above all,” the co-pilot said. “We conquered, we colonized, this is true. But we did it in the name of our empire.
“Then the Mulvari came. When our leaders heard about the time stream and saw their use of it, they decreed we would be the guardians of their race, we would be the guardians of time itself. At least that’s how they wrapped propaganda around it.”
“And you don’t believe the Mulvari are gods?” Jessica asked.
“Of course not. The Mulvari may see all of time, from beginning to end, but I believe—my comrades believe—that time can be changed. We have our own free will to do so. Our life is not predetermined.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica saw the pilot gesture. He made the shape of an hourglass in the air. She chuckled and turned to Gabe.
“They’re Atheists,” Gabe said, and Jessica nodded.
“Your friend keeps saying that word,” the co-pilot said.
“It’s not a bad word,” Jessica reassured the co-pilot. “It’s a word we use to describe a group of people who believe...well, exactly what you believe.”
“What’s your name?” Gabe asked the co-pilot.
“I am Slithen. This is Sleek.”
“Well, Slithen, how many of you are there?”
“We are approaching your coordinates,” Sleek said.
“Wait!” Jessica’s voice rose. “Hold up here.”
Gabe looked at her.
“They can’t fly over the base,” Jessica said. “Our people won’t understand. They’ll try to shoot us out of the sky. We need to explain it to them first.”
Gabriel nodded, understanding.
“Sleek, how far out are we?” he asked.
“Our sensors show an installation matching your description just beyond the range of those hills.” Sleek’s green-scaled claw pointed toward a foothill range that could be seen through the ship’s front window. The field looked brown, parched, but that was refreshingly normal.
“Set us down on that range,” Jessica said. “Slithen, I almost shot you, and you saved my life. We need to explain to our people that you are not a threat. You’re an ally.”
Jessica saw the reptile’s eyes water. “Ally,” he said. “That is a word we have not heard in thousands of years.” He sighed. “We are small in number—a few hundred thousand. We have hidden in plain sight, among our brethren, among our leaders, waiting for a race to be strong enough to stand up to the Guardians’ oppressive tactics. To beat back genocide. We believe that humans are that race. You are that leader, Jessica Waters. We have been watching you for a while now and your activities with the group you call the Anarchists.”
Were they watching when Delta sacrificed herself?
“Do you have the technology to extract—”
“Sadly, no.” Slithen knew where she was going with that unfinished question. “In point of fact, no one, no race, not even the Guardians, know how to kill a Twallick. But you were able to accomplish that feat, Jessica.”
“Alpha,” Jessica corrected him.
“As you wish. The fact you were able to destroy it, as well as engage our kind three different times and emerge victorious has our clutch leader extremely worried, Alpha. That is why he sent Slithendor to track you.”
“That clown thought I was Thorpe. Do you know why?”
“The Guardians have been monitoring your activities since we entered your solar system,” Slithen said. “They are under the impression that Damien Thorpe is the mastermind behind this resistance.”
Jessica and Gabe both laughed.
“Yes, well, a few influential comments and affirmations by our group may have helped in that regard,” Sleek said.
“Well done, Slithen,” Jessica said, smiling. She sized up the reptile once more. How long ago was she a sarcastic wise-ass, riding in that slot bus with Kaylan, Gabe, Miguel, and Travis, thinking she was hot shit to be picked to even enter the TPC campus? Less than a year, but it felt so long ago. Now she was talking to lizard people.
“Wait a minute,” Gabe said. “If you were monitoring us, that means the Guardians knew where we were the whole time. Why didn’t they just kill us while we were traveling to Sacramento?”
“As we have said, Gabriel Stern, we have hidden in plain sight, among our leaders. It was an easy thing to divert their attention elsewhere, keeping our...allies safe.
“All right,” Jessica said. “How did the Guardians even know Thorpe captured the Mulvari? How did they know he abused them?”
“Was it some secret distress call the Mulvari can send?” Gabe asked.
Slithen shook his head. “The Mulvari can peer into all of time,” he answered. “And so it has been said that one day the leader of our race asked the Mulvari if any race had done them harm, is doing them harm, or will do them harm in the future.”
“And the Mulvari told him,” Sleek added. “A list of races that, in our leader’s mind, committed—”
“Blasphemy, heresy, yeah, I get the picture,” Jessica said, rubbing her temples. So humanity was on the hit list long before Thorpe had the bright idea to capture the Mulvari. Probably before Jessica was even born. Maybe even before the dinosaurs died out. Who knew?
“So, at the appropriate times, our leader has sent entire clutches out to exact holy justice. In truth, he has committed genocide, many times over.” Slithen lowered his head.
“So how many are in a clutch?” Gabriel asked. “How many are here?”
Slithen and Sleek looked at each other.
“Our clutch contains roughly over seven million Slaxxian,” Slithen said. “They are in the one thousand ships—such as the one you saw above the town in which you met Slithendor—positioned around your planet.”
“Jesus,” Jessica whispered. “I was way off in my calculations. We don’t stand a chance.”
“Why don’t they just use those cannons on their ships to, you know, blow up the planet?” Gabe asked.
“It is not about obliterating your planet from the stars,” Sleek said.
“Remember, you have committed
the highest act of treason our laws acknowledge,” Slithen said.
“Thorpe did that,” Jessica countered. “Why don’t they just kill him? You’d be doing us all a favor.”
Slithen shook his serpentine head. “It’s not about that either, Alpha. They want to send a message. Plain and simple.”
“Yeah. ‘This is what you get if you mess with us or those under our protection.’ I get it.” She thought for a minute. Slithen and his group had stayed hidden for the entire journey here. Until now. She looked around the ship. It was the size of a small two-story building, nowhere near big enough to hold a few hundred thousand.
“You are wondering where the others of us are,” Slithen said.
Jessica nodded. “You wouldn’t have risked saving us unless you were ready to make your move. The second Slithendor saw your ship and saw what you did, your time of hiding in the shadows was over.”
Slithen nodded.
“Slithen. Slithendor.” Gabe stepped close to Slithen. “Are you related?”
“All of us are part of the same clutch, Gabriel Stern,” Slithen answered. “But within the clutch are clusters. What you would call...siblings. Slithendor and I were born into the same grouping. We are...brothers, you would say.”
Jessica whistled and shook her head. “That is one family reunion you better hope never happens. So you’ve hidden your group away. Somewhere the Guardians would never suspect, I suppose?”
“The advantage of being small and mobile is we can outrun and outmaneuver our main ships that blanket your planet. They will not find us,” Slithen said.
“We need to strike sooner rather than later,” Jessica said.
“Agreed,” Slithen said. “Every second now is a second they realize some of their number are not with them, but against them. They will realize this is not such an easy mission after all, and they will prepare for an all-out battle. It is not what they wish. They will want this over quickly.”
“So maybe we use that to our advantage,” Gabe said. “Slithen, in our history, there was a war waged between an empire and an upstart rebel colony. No one expected the colony to win. The empire thought the war would be an easy victory. The colony used the empire’s arrogance against them and won their independence. Maybe we can do the same.”
“The Revolutionary War wasn’t fought with purifiers and massive spaceships, Gabe,” Jessica said.
Gabe looked at her.
“Hey, I’m not an expert, but I passed the basic education track,” she whispered, smiling.
“Well, no, I’m not suggesting we win a war in the same way, but maybe we can send a message of our own,” he said.
Jessica nodded, understanding what he meant.
“Is there a way we can contact you?” Jessica asked Slithen.
Slithen handed her an item that looked like a small, oval rock that was polished to a smooth shine and black in color.
“Just speak into that. We will hear you. We will come.”
“When I speak into it, you’ll need to be there within thirty seconds.”
“We will be there, Alpha,” Slithen assured her.
Jessica nodded.
“All right, drop us, and we’ll be in touch,” she said.
The ship dove to hover above the base of the foothill range. All that could be seen from the front window was the brittle brown weeds covering the foothill slope. The ship’s bottom hatch opened, and the ladder dropped. Gabe climbed down, and Jessica grabbed the ladder.
“Slithen?”
Slithen, who was headed back to his co-pilot’s seat, turned. “Yes?”
“You exposed your group. You bet it all on me.”
“Well, you and your race, yes.”
“I hope I can live up to that.” She looked down for a moment. “So far I’ve been getting through this doing what I think is the right thing to do. I don’t know if I’m the leader you were hoping for.”
“I have faith in you, Alpha,” Slithen said.
“Faith?” Jessica smiled. “That’s a little bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”
For the first time, Jessica saw a Slaxxian smile, and she noticed they had many, many teeth.
“I suppose, but aren’t all who have faith hypocrites?”
Jessica smiled back, nodded, and climbed down the ladder. Immediately she smelled the smoke-free, sweet air of the open field. She was going to make it back home.
Alive.
EARTH 10359
M y name is Kaylan Smith.
My father’s name is Thomas.
My mother’s name is Dorothy. She died saving the universe from my grandson.
My actual father’s name...is Damien Thorpe. He’s the reason...He’s the reason...what reason? He’s the reason I’m in this mess.
Damien Thorpe...what did he do? Damien Thorpe...captured the Mulvari, and now the Guardians have come to my Earth.
I am...what am I doing? I am...gathering an army to fight them.
I hope to get home, to 2075, before I die.
Kaylan breathed a heavy sigh of relief and opened her eyes. She was in an alleyway across the street from a four-story nondescript white building, surrounded by a perimeter fence. The sign on the building was simple with no lighting to it. Kaylan had not seen this building in any of her visits to any of the other Earths.
The sign on the building read: Greater Denver Psychiatric Hospital.
Given Kaylan’s difficulty in reciting her mantra, which had started a few dozen Earths ago, she wasn’t surprised that the Kaylan of this Earth might be in that building.
It had been ten years since Kaylan met her telepathic mutant self, give or take a month. She knew there were some days she’d forgotten to tick off on her current sheet, and Kaylan was pretty sure she misplaced a sheet or two.
She believed she was close to sixty, though, so she factored that in to her journey.
She had close to nine thousand strong in her army, ready to meet with her on the fields of her own Earth. Was that enough though? Maybe just a few more. She had gotten great at locating the Kaylan of the Earth she traveled to, obtaining consent, and moving on quickly. Not as slow as when she first began.
Staring at the hospital on this Earth, though, she had low expectations. She looked at her device and wondered if she should just press the button and move on.
She shook her head as she walked toward the front gate. What if this were the Kaylan who could turn the tide against the Guardians? She couldn’t afford to take a pass. On any Earth.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
The guard at the gate made Kaylan’s mind reach back for something similar that happened to her years before, but she couldn’t quite remember all of it. Just a similar image of what she saw now. She remembered the experience didn’t turn out well, whatever it was. She hoped for a better outcome here.
“Yes, my daughter is here, and I wish to see her. Kaylan Smith?”
The guard looked at a small electronic device that looked like a U-Board, but Kaylan had heard it called by dozens of different names: iPad, Windows Notepad, Lynyx Sheet, Samsung Note, Android Panel, and others, but Kaylan had forgotten them.
“Yes, there is a Kaylan Smith here. There’s a note next to her name. Uh, the director is going to want to talk to you first.”
Kaylan worried this would not turn out well until she saw the face of the director, her long blond hair, her big smile.
“Jessica?”
“Yes, I’m Jessica Waters. I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’m glad you’ve finally answered our emails, Dorothy.”
Kaylan shook her hand.
“Are you OK?” Jessica asked. “You’re crying.”
Kaylan wiped away her tears. “Yes. I’m just anxious to see my daughter.”
They walked to the front lobby. The air inside the hospital smelled stale. Jessica walked to the reception desk, took another electronic pad, traced a signature on it with her finger, then set it back on the counter.
“Well, Kaylan is in the ca
feteria now. Follow me.”
They walked down a long hallway with a cream color scheme.
“Is she...Is she OK?” Kaylan asked.
Jessica shrugged. “She has good days and bad. She is one of our more...troubling patients. It’s the things she says.” Jessica stopped. “Most of what she says is...well, ‘creepy’ is what our orderlies say.”
“What do you say?”
Jessica was silent for a long moment. “There were three classifications of narcissists until your daughter came to us. We created a fourth classification for her. I think she suffers from delusional narcissism. Talk to her, try to get through to her. It might help her if she feels a human connection.” Jessica gestured for Kaylan to walk ahead into the large room. “She’s sitting at the end table, near the window.”
Kaylan slowly walked into the room. There were only a couple of people in the cafeteria. One young man was chirping like a bird. An old woman whispered to herself. And there, at the end of the table closest to a large barred window, sat a woman with long brown hair, disheveled to the point that it looked more like the end of a mop. She wore pale pink pajamas. Kaylan stared at her younger self. Her eyes were wide, but her large black pupils suggested she was not really here. Not in any way that mattered.
“Can I sit here?” Kaylan asked.
Her younger self continued to stare out the window. Kaylan sat.
“Do you...Do you know who I am?” Kaylan asked.
“You’re the one I’m the one everyone’s the one I’m everyone and everyone is me because you are me and I am you and we are we—”
“Yes, I’m you, from another Earth,” Kaylan whispered.
“The silver messengers drop from the sky and ride the waves tick-tock tick-tock like a clock and a rock into a pond that causes ripples through time that’s what you do but there is only one rock only one just one—”
“Yes, you’re talking about the Mulvari. We are the One, but I don’t know what that means.” Kaylan kept her tone low.
“All these voices in my head, all from us, crowding my mind. We’re a doctor, we’re a lawyer, we’re a mother, we’re a widow, we’re a Viking, we’re a killer, we’re a circus clown, we’re insane, we’re a magician, we’re the president, we’re an alien, we’re not on Earth anymore...so many voices. Too many. I think I should just kill them all. Kill us all, yes, that’s the answer. The killer told me how I can do it.”
Minutemen- Parallel Lives Page 13
