Barriers

by Patrick Skelton

  “How?”

  “I’ll get to that, dear.” He flashed a teasing smile, then pointed to the beginning marker on Ellis Three’s timeline, then to the end marker on Earth’s timeline. “This is where both timelines intersect, the moment where the Fold collapses: a future date on Earth’s timeline and three thousands in the past on Ellis Three’s timeline.

  “How far in the future on Earth’s timeline?”

  “According to the data in the Archives, a convoy from Earth will pass through the Fold around ninety years from now. As they do, it will collapse on both sides. They become trapped on Ellis Three, in the ancient past, unable to return to Earth. Likewise, humans from Earth will no longer be able to travel to Ellis Three.”

  “So how did humans on Ellis Three eventually annihilate themselves?”

  “Much of the data was destroyed or corrupted during the Great Ellis Three War. Humans here fought a hundred-year global conflict for control of water supply. As our scientists have theorized, Ellis Three had the same problem as Mars—it’s magnetic field deteriorated and surface water eventually dried up.”

  “With the exception of underground water sources like the one Elliot Gareth discovered. We’re drinking from one of those, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Was the war nuclear in nature?”

  “Beyond nuclear, Jillian. I’m talking extinction-level energy weapons that Earth has never seen. Missiles that bend space-time and land anywhere on the planet in eight seconds. Humans here built intelligent machines and sophisticated androids that fought their wars. Those machines turned on their creators, hunting them down and slaughtering every living thing. Then they turned on each other.”

  “Which would explain the bits of cybernetics we’ve found here on the surface over the years.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jillian leaned back in the chair and took it all in.

  “It’s a lot, huh?” Tyler said, his eyes sympathetic. He came over and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll tell you more in the weeks to come.”

  23

  Nathan sat up in bed and scrubbed his face with his hands. His shirt smelled like a cocktail of whiskey, vomit, and body odor. He gagged and puked into a trashcan that wasn’t normally beside the bed. After a few rounds of dry heaves, he sat on the edge of the mattress, face buried in his palms.

  Someone entered the bedroom.

  “Sarah?” Nathan mumbled, his pupils still adjusting.

  “There can’t be anything left in you,” she said, sitting beside him. “You’ve puked twice now since I’ve been back, and not much came up this last time.”

  Nathan glanced at the nightstand. The bottle of Jack Daniel’s was gone. “What did you do with it?”

  “I threw it away—what do you think I did?”

  “How long have you been back?”

  “Thirteen hours.”

  He ran his hands through his greasy hair.

  “Why don’t you take a shower, Nathan, and then we’ll talk.”

  She helped him to the bathroom. He undressed and stepped into the shower, barely able to stand—every muscle and bone in his body ached. He leaned forward and pressed his hands against the tiles, warm water spilling over his shoulders and back. How many days did Ian have left? Was it three? His brain felt so scrambled he just didn’t know.

  He dried off twenty minutes later and threw on a t-shirt and pajama pants, then staggered to the bedroom and joined Sarah sitting on the bed. Her head was bowed in prayer, eyes closed and lips moving. Curtains were open and moonlight poured into the bedroom.

  She looked up. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been run over by a bulldozer.”

  “Ready to talk?”

  “I guess now is as good a time as any.”

  Nathan told her everything. How Bennie had played him like a fiddle at the memorial service, the bike path, the meeting in California with Preston, then the cabin, culminating in his father’s death at the Mt. Rushmore ruins. Followed by the horrific interrogation afterward. The men dragging him into their house and making him look like a drunk when the police arrived, how it was a good thing she wasn’t home when they did it—who knows what they would have done to her.

  “Is there…anything else?” Sarah asked.

  “If you’re wondering about Ian’s synaptic device…” Nathan fought to keep his voice steady. “Dad wasn’t able to complete it. We can’t save Ian, Sarah.”

  She clamped her hand to her mouth, unable to speak. Her face crumpled, her breath came in gasps.

  He wrapped her in his arms and they both sobbed.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so much lately,” Nathan managed to say when he regained his composure. “I should have been here with you and Ian, not searching for my father.”

  Sarah wiped her face. “What’s done is done, Nathan. Stop beating yourself up.”

  “I should have been smarter about how I tried to save him, Sarah. I panicked at the hospital and got us both banned. Now we don’t even get to say goodbye to him.”

  Sarah cupped his chin and directed his eyes toward hers. “Listen to me, Nathan,” her voice soft. “You were there for Ian in that horrible hospital. Protecting him. Telling him you loved him. Fighting for his life. You have to accept that sometimes we pray and we fight and we try our hardest, but we still don’t get the outcome we’d like. I don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is sometimes.”

  Tears continued to glaze his cheeks.

  They stretched out on the bed, Sarah resting her head on his chest. They were asleep within minutes.

  _____

  Nathan awoke the next morning with clarity of mind he hadn’t had in weeks.

  He gave Sarah a peck on the cheek and gently rolled her over to her side. He stretched and opened the blinds.

  “What is it?” Sarah asked with a yawn, squinting in the daylight.

  “I had a dream last night,” he said as he peered out the window.

  “What kind of dream?”

  “I dreamed Ian was back here with us. We need to keep fighting. This is going to work out in the end, I just know it.”

  “Maybe so, Nathan, but—”

  “Right before dad killed himself he told me not to give up on Ian. He mentioned that if his team succeeded in diverting the missile from Black Ghost, millions of people like Ian would be saved.”

  “What’s so important about that spacecraft anyway?”

  Nathan turned. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is.”

  “First things first.” He reached for a pair of khakis in the closet. “I’ll throw on some respectable clothes and pay mom a visit. I need to break the news to her about Ian. She deserves to know her grandson only has two days left. And he could use all the prayers he can get.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And while I’m out, keep making calls to anyone you can think of who might know someone in Sanctuary Admin who can pull some strings for Ian.”

  Sarah sat up. “I’ll keep trying, but it’s frustrating. Sanctuary Admin is a bureaucratic black hole, and they’re about as secretive as the CIA.”

  “Just do your best. We can’t stop fighting.”

  “I will, Nathan.”

  He kissed her lips and rushed out the door.

  24

  Previously

  Jillian sat up in bed, massaging the chronic ache in her back. She glanced at the date on her watch: only two nights left on that dreadful mattress.

  Thank God.

  Twelve weeks on Ellis Three with Tyler and all of it still felt surreal. His warm body in bed with her every night. Their sparse living quarters a mile below the surface. The mainframe where they trained morning until night. Tyler’s calm, confident voice coaching her as she learned the basics about energy shields and Barrier substructure coding. She had learned how to seize a Barrier mainframe in Antarctica; how to head up a reconnaissance mission; how to survive sub-zero temperatures; ho
w to kill if necessary.

  Too bad she woke up each morning not feeling like a ray of sunshine in the slightest. She wished she did. After all, she was no longer alone in bed. No longer staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, wondering if Tyler was still alive or if she’d ever see him again.

  Truth be told, she officially hated the queen-sized bed they collapsed onto each night, and it had nothing to do with Tyler, or her being a fussy middle-aged woman. The bed in Encounter Five’s sleep chamber was firm, but nothing like this. Sure, the mattress felt squishy and soft and luxurious when you first closed your eyes, but things went painfully downhill from there. Night after night, exhausting nightmares of her body bound to a slab of cold concrete plagued her sleep. And she could feel it in her back the following morning. Similar to waking in the middle of the night after dreaming your legs were on fire, and thinking your skin was burning as you sat in bed trying to catch your breath. But after your heart calmed and your mind realized where you were, the sensation faded.

  Tyler’s theory was that living a mile underground put your body closer to the center of gravity, enough for the small gravitational difference to affect REM sleep. This made sense to Jillian, she supposed. The mass of Ellis Three was slightly larger than Earth’s, making the human body a few pounds heavier on the surface. The difference between Earth’s and Ellis Three’s gravitational pull never affected her sleep on previous missions, but then again, she’d never slept five thousand feet below the surface. Maybe it was the thinner air in the Archives messing with her brain as she dreamed. He continued to remind her that he too had such dreams during his first year below the surface of Ellis Three until his body adjusted.

  Other things troubled her more than the bed, however. Things she could no longer ignore.

  “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” Tyler said, handing her a plate containing two protein patties.

  She winced. Nasty things. The first thing she’d do when she got back to Earth was visit her favorite steakhouse and order a Porterhouse, corn-on-the-cob, a baked potato and a glass of red wine. Real meat, real vegetables, real fruit. Did life get any better than that?

  “Not funny, Tyler.” She pushed the plate aside.

  “Sorry.” He came to the bed and rubbed her back, the area that always ached for the first ten minutes after waking.

  Jillian closed her eyes. “Feels wonderful. Don’t stop.”

  “Unfortunately, we’ve only got two days left and there’s so much to get done.”

  “About that,” Jillian said. “How about today I call the shots?”

  He stopped rubbing. “Oh?”

  “If I’m going to lead a special ops team back on Earth, then I need to be in charge for at least a day or two.”

  She went to the bathroom and freshened up, then came back in her white jumpsuit, hair pulled back.

  “That was fast,” Tyler said, shoving a protein patty into his mouth and zipping his jumpsuit.

  She left the room and hurried to the lab down the hall, with Tyler on her heels. She entered, turned on the lights and booted up the mainframe. “The first thing on today’s agenda, Tyler, is to get some answers. I want answers.”

  “What kind of answers? I’ve told you everything you need to know about the mission.”

  “Ah, so our conversations are on a need-to-know basis. That implies withholding information, doesn’t it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I want to meet Elliot Gareth.” Jillian booted up another long line of terminals and servers. She looked up at one of the cameras. “I know you’re watching and listening, Elliot. Time to come out from behind the curtain.”

  Tyler walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe it’s best if we get through the next two days first. There are still some things we need to review.”

  Jillian pushed him aside and shouted at the camera. “Elliot, I want to know more about this underground river you claim you’re mining oxygen from. You know, the one that’s kept my husband breathing for a decade down here. Surely the Archives contain footage of this great oasis in the desert.”

  Only the buzz and whirr of computer servers responded.

  Her cheeks started to warm. “There is no river, is there, Elliot? My stay here is limited to three months because you only recovered enough water and oxygen supply from the crash for twelve weeks here and the flight back to Earth. And if there’s no water source, there aren’t any worms for your scrumptious protein patties. Am I right, Elliot?”

  No response.

  “Cat got your tongue? You awake out there?”

  Adrenaline surging through her, Jillian grabbed a loose coil of cabling and heaved it at the camera. “And that hard, horrible bed that isn’t so warm and fluffy after all…don’t even get me started.”

  “Relax, Jillian,” Tyler said, attempting to stroke her back.

  “Don’t touch me.” She flung his hand away and he stepped back with a look of bewilderment.

  “Show yourself, Elliot, if you are in fact real, if any of this is real. Show yourself now or I’m going back to my quarters and staying there until I deplete the oxygen supply.”

  A crackle interrupted the silence.

  “I was hoping we could finish the training before meeting,” Elliot said. “But I see that simply will not do.”

  The room started collapsing around her…Tyler, server racks, mainframes, computers, conduits, the ceiling and walls. Then bright twisting light…

  She blinked her eyes and squinted.

  She was on her back in a hospital gown, on a hard table with cold metal clamps restraining her arms and legs. Blinding light struck her from a lamp dangling over her face.

  She tried to sit up, but the clamps dug into her flesh.

  Her back was pressed against a cold, metal table.

  Yes, she recognized this place.

  She was on the operating table where Elliot Gareth had first spoken to her after the crash. Where he told her she’d be okay, she would recover and begin her training soon.

  The clamps unlocked and a door across the room opened. She sat up. The light on her face was so bright, she could barely see what was beyond.

  “Proceed through the door and follow the corridor to the ninth room on the right,” Elliot’s voice instructed. “Walk carefully, Jillian. I’ve administered daily injections to prevent total muscular atrophy, but your quadriceps and abductors are still very weak.”

  Jillian put her bare feet on the floor and stood. It was cold on her heels and toes, and her legs felt weak and rubbery as she wobbled forward. She squinted through the bright light—six more tables like hers were positioned around the room. All were empty. “How long have I been on that table?”

  “Eighty-four days.”

  She staggered down a dark corridor identical to the one she’d walked down with Tyler over the last three months.

  She counted doorways and stopped at the ninth. A plaque beside it said: Great Ellis Three War Preservation Chamber. She and Tyler had passed this door many times. He told her it was sealed with advanced technology, and Elliot had never figured out how to get inside.

  The door unlocked and swung open. Frigid air blew on her skin as she entered a large, dimly lit room. The floor was so cold she could barely keep a foot on the surface for more than two seconds. She hobbled in place, like a barefoot kid on hot pavement in the summertime. She shivered and wrapped her arms tight around her gown.

  Rows upon rows of steel tables with transparent capsules lined the room. Some contained human bodies, others displayed skeletons. All were clothed in military uniforms.

  “What is this place?” she asked

  “Decorated soldiers of the Great Ellis Three War.”

  “And the skeletons?”

  “Those who perished before the preservation process was implemented—the early casualties.”

  Freezing air stung her cheeks. “Why have you brought me in here?”

  “Did you not ask for the truth, Jill
ian?”

  Jillian was shivering too severely to respond.

  “Proceed to Capsule 356. Twenty rows forward, thirteen to the right. I’ve replaced the original occupant with another…a Homo sapien who was of great importance to this mission and deserved commemoration.”

  She stumbled through the graveyard of capsules, her toes almost completely numb. She reached Capsule 356 and froze, unable to break her stare from the closed eyes of the body inside. No, this couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

  Her knees buckled.

  She collapsed onto the floor, burying her face in her hands. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks. Her whole body felt numb, inside and out, and she wanted to shut her eyes right there and never open them again.

  Anger welled up in her chest. “Show yourself, Elliot!” she screamed.

  Heavy footsteps moved down the hallway outside the room, then stopped. A tall figure filled the doorway.

  She gasped.

  25

  Nathan found his mother in the greenhouse pruning vines, tottering on a wobbly stepladder.

  “Your father used to trim these almost weekly,” she said under a sun hat, snapping the shears forcefully. “They’ve gotten out of control.”

  Nathan moved toward her. “Let me get that, mom.”

  “No, no, I have to get used to doing it myself.”

  “Can you come down for a minute? We need to talk.”