by Ron Rayborne
“I think I’ll have one,” Karstens replied, tensely. He walked over, and, picking up a flask, poured himself a rather tall scotch. Tom smiled.
“Not professional, but it takes the edge off. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all. Go ahead,” Tom answered, slightly worried at Karstens’ sudden display of nerves.
He reseated himself, and they fell silent, listening to the various discussions.
“One minute and counting!” The suddenness of the notice made him jump. One minute. Karstens nudged him and they put on their hearing protectors. Tom’s leg was shaking. Longest minute ever, he thought.
“T-minus ten-seconds and counting!”
“Nine.”
“Eight.”
“Seven.”
“Six.”
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One. Initiating!” A low, deep groan. The lights dimmed, then came a clap of thunder. Moments later, the impact doors opened. And ... there it sat. Intact. The Strong Box, with a bit of Miocene debris upon it. Inside would be Julie and Deet. It was over. Thank God it was over. It worked! Tom Jumped up.
A loud hurrah sounded from the control room. The sound of cheering. Tom almost fell, so relieved was he at the success of the mission. He felt suddenly ashamed that he’d ever doubted Karstens. Karstens stood and extended a hand toward him. Tom grabbed it and shook hard.
“Thanks, bro,” he said.
The cheering began to subside. There was a pause. Then some crisscross discussion.
Something.
Something wrong.
Karstens called out a query, but it wasn’t immediately answered.
“Control,” Karstens said. More discussion.
“Control,” he said again.
“Bob, this is Edward in Control. Code yellow. Repeat. Code yellow.” Tom watched as the color literally drained from Karstens face.
“‘Code yellow’. What does that mean?” Tom asked.
Karstens was silent; a vein pulsed on his neck.
“What does it mean?”
Karstens eyes were closed, his breathing measured.
“What does it mean?” Tom shouted, now coughing violently.
Karstens was staring straight ahead, his mouth closed, set in a grim line. Then he said, “It means… It means…” He turned toward Tom and swallowed. “It means the box is empty.”
“WHAT?” Tom roared. “What do you mean ‘the box is empty’?”
“Julie and Jaqzen, they’re not there,” Karstens answered.
“Try again!”
“We can’t. There’s not enough energy,” Karstens said.
“What the hell are you talking about, ‘there’s not enough energy’?” Tom demanded.
“Each time we’ve launched, it takes longer and more energy to regenerate the power necessary. Fact is, I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it again. Least not for a while.”
“YOU MEAN ...YOU MEAN JULIE’S LOST?”
“I am so sorry. So truly, truly sorry my friend.”
Chapter 11
Tom had gone back to the suite, locked the doors, and drank himself into a stupor. His eyes were red and face wet with tears. Karstens came by, but Tom didn’t answer. Tomorrow, he would go back home, alone. Alone forever. Julie was gone. Dead for fifteen million years. What a fantasy to think that such an arrogant idea would be without consequence. So like us. Then he remembered the dream he’d had just before the final initiation. Julie calling out to him for help. Falling. Falling. And now he was falling.
Tomorrow he would go home and Karstens would call to tell him that he could still count on the money. Would never have to work again. Sure, it would be hard for a while, but others had been through the pain of tragedy and survived. It was an ever-present, though unpleasant, side-effect of science and discovery. There was always the chance of misfortune.
But Tom knew there was no living without Julie. Not in this world. His death would be the poetic finale on the long, sorry existence of man. A fitting epitaph.
Shortly, drunkenness overtook him, and he fell asleep on the floor.
———
Not long after the failure of the mission was communicated to his governmental superiors, Karstens received a call. It was brief. He was out. The operation would be pursued under a new leader. He had three days to gather his belongings and vacate. Further, his pension would be reviewed. He was ordered to record a public apology of no more than one minute’s length, accepting all blame. Karstens didn’t care. A man of uncommon conscience, he had been devastated by the mission failure, by the pain he had caused to innocent others. He wondered what had gone wrong.
His suspicions were confirmed when his crew brought him the note from the Strong Box, from Jaqzen. A roughly scrawled, hand written sentence on a crumbled piece of paper. It read simply:
So long, suckers! Enjoy your miserable existence and I’ll enjoy mine!
Below the fold it read:
P.S. Come after us, and you’re dead.
It never occurred to Karstens to point out to the government that it was their man who compromised the mission. Their choice. He’d never trusted Dietrich. Tried to warn them, yet had been rebuffed. And now Karstens felt shame, a profound shame and an incredible rage. He was responsible. Should have trusted his instincts. He might have found a way if he’d just pressed harder.
Then a thought crossed his mind, I can’t let these creatures do it again. To populate the past with their ilk. He now knew beyond doubt that that was their real plan. Had, in fact, found out by way of an official memo he’d been furtively passed months before, but had discounted. Too incredible. He’d blinded himself. The real modus operandi, send the filthy rich, corporate, military and governmental scum back in time. The ones who hadn’t absconded in the spheres. Let them escape their fate while the present earth dies in a hell of their making. And then they would live their foul lives in a glut of hedonistic pleasure. Pleasure in the raping and plundering of that ancient, virginal world. Eventually transforming it into another hell.
He had three days. Karstens wondered how much destruction he could cause in three days. Make it so that they could never use the accelerator again. Least, not for this purpose. Destroy machinery and records. Then, finally, himself. Otherwise, they’d get the information out of him. He grit his teeth.
Karstens was heartened when he was visited later by a trio of Institute management: Edwards, Pilagro and Olsen. They’d heard what was planned for him and were aghast at the cold callousness of it. When Karstens produced the memo he’d been handed, they were shocked. Each digested its implications in his own way, then spoke quietly among themselves. Moments later, they came into the kitchen, where Karstens sat at a table.
“Bob,” Edwards began in hushed tones, glancing around for the inevitable microphones, “you should know that we are all behind you.” Karstens looked at his associate and smiled.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think you’d much care for what I’d like to do,” he replied probingly, not looking Edwards in the eye.
“What if there was another way?” Edwards asked. Karstens looked at him. They were already on to him. Some little clue he’d spilled just before, perhaps. He’d underestimated his friends. When he’d hired them years before, Karstens was always careful to select those, everything else being equal, who he felt had more than just the intellectual qualifications necessary to do the job. He’d also looked for soul, a rarer combination. And now it was paying off.
“Another way?” he inquired.
Edwards cleared his throat. “We believe that we can find the Q required for another launching,” he informed. Karstens eyes widened.
They stared at each other without saying anything, waiting for Karstens to comprehend. He looked down at the table while his mind raced. Where could they get the energy to launch again, especially so soon afterwards? It would take ten times the energy of the last launching. He f
rowned. Then it began to dawn on him. He drew in his breath. Of course! They could do it if they tapped into the main governmental power grid, the nuclear capacity designed for the ships. Terawatts of energy stored at a site in New Mexico. It would be a simple matter. Use a back door to tie into the grid, an instantaneous and monumental rush of power across the states, the drawdown of which would put the grid out for who knew how long. Along the way, relays would trip, transformers burn out and the grid melt. It might take years to rebuild. But why? Why another launching?
“So the plan is to save ourselves?” Karstens asked, disappointed.
“No,” Edwards answered. “To save one man. One good man before we all die.” To do one good thing. It was kind of poetic. Let the concluding act in the long, tragic human drama be a compassionate one. To sacrifice the ultimate in human achievement all to save one, well, two worthy people. Adam and Eve. To prove to the universe that we are not all bad.
A shadow came over Karstens heart. It was treason, and they all knew it. Certain death would follow. He nodded in agreement.
“Yes,” he said.
There wasn’t much time. Karstens came around to Tom’s cottage at six in the morning. There was no answer. Alarm shot through him. Frantically, he used his master-key and looked around. Tom had cleared out early. Everything of his was gone. Karstens thought. Where would Tom go? Home? That would make sense. He had to catch him and set to go out, locking the door behind him. Somehow, he wanted to hold onto the memory of them there. Turning, his heart sank as he saw the nameless Suit approaching, a hard, stern look on his face.
“Going somewhere?” Nameless asked thinly.
“I just wanted to say goodbye to Tom. Seems to be gone, though. You wouldn’t happen to know where to, would you?” Karstens asked, not really expecting any help from this man.
“And if I knew, why would I tell you, a traitor to the cause?” Nameless asked.
“Dietrich was not my choice,” Karstens said
“So what were you and your friends talking about last night, hmmm?”
Karstens stared at him, suddenly angry. “What? Were you spying? Are my friends not allowed to console me, their leader for the last twenty years or so, for the unjust theft of my work?”
“There is nothing that we do not know, nowhere that one can hide and not be seen and heard. Despite your little box!” Karstens’ pulse quickened. He gulped.
“Planning a little something are you? And what might that something be? Something a little ... subversive, perchance?” That was it. The game was up. “And you do understand the consequences of your mutinous scheme, don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. “To think that you planned to hijack the accelerator. Did you really think that you could get away with it? Tsk, tsk. So clumsy.”
Karstens looked for the police, that, even now, would be descending on their location. It would be a quick trial, and then he would meet the fate of those judged high traitors. He and the others, his friends.
“Please don’t harm them. I’m the guilty one,” he pleaded. Still no police. Perhaps waiting for a confession. “It was my fault, my plan. They didn’t want any part of it.” Of course, Nameless would know that was a lie. Nameless shook his head. Then he reached out his hand. In it was a device of some kind, which he pointed at Karstens. Ah, so we’re going to dispense with the trial altogether and just go straight to the punishment. So be it, then. Karstens waited for it. Nameless laughed.
Tom, arriving home, morosely carried his and Julie’s belongings upstairs to the landing of their skyrise. He loaded it onto the elevator and then ascended to their 36th story apartment. His eyes were swollen with tears from which others looked away. Lugging them down the narrow hallway to his door, he opened it and brought them inside, turned and locked the door, then went to his room where he kept the gun. It was illegal, of course, but these days it was getting easier to find things like guns. If the money was right, you could get it from a stranger, who got it from a stranger, who got it from a stranger. He’d kept it for protection, his and Julie’s, in a dangerous world. Now it would be used to destroy him, the reverse of its original intention. He picked up the pistol and walked with it to a large window that overlooked the city. It was evening now, the evening of the world. Odd how beautiful it still was, looking at the lights below.
“Goodbye, my love,” Tom said. He put his finger on the trigger and the gun to his head, then closed his eyes. He would fall through the window and plummet down, downward to the earth.
Rushing feet. Coming closer. Tom did not hear. His finger tightened on the trigger. Then, pounding on the door. He jumped. The gun dropped and went off, shooting a hole in glass. Thousands of pieces falling, cold air rushing in, lashing at his clothes, his hair. So close, he was dizzy. The color rock glowed. The sound of someone hurling at the door. Yelling. His name. Pound, pound, pound. He lost balance, surrendering to the outside ... fell.
And was caught. Someone holding him by the arm as he spun, then, yanking, yanking him back. Back to this life, this horrible life. No. No. Let me go. Let me die.
And he was on the floor, the wind still rushing in.
A face above, embracing him, holding him. He looked. Karstens.
“No, my friend. You’ll not die tonight. You have somewhere to go. Someone who is waiting for you.”
It was a jolt, this news from Karstens. Did he want to travel back in time, fifteen million years to find Julie? The question stunned him. Then, suddenly everything was different. There was hope.
There would be dangers, Karstens explained, not the least of which was Dietrich, an experienced hunter who vowed to kill anyone who dared try to find them. Further, they were going to tap into power that in one moment would be the single largest surge the world of man had ever known. On top of everything else was the fact that Tom was completely unprepared for life in the Miocene. He might not even make it a foot outside the Strong Box. There were many unknowns and no guarantees. But if he gave the word, the team at the Institute would follow. It was not a question for Tom. His answer was immediate.
“One more thing. You’ll be traveling alone,” Karstens informed him. Knowing the trouble Karstens would face, Tom had assumed that he would be coming, too.
“What? No! Come with me! You’re a good man. Too good for this world,” Tom protested, a mixture of fear and excitement washing through him.
“I can’t. I have to stay here. It was part of the agreement.”
“What agreement?”
“I can’t elaborate.”
“Are you going to be all right?” Tom asked, putting a hand on Karstens’ shoulder?
“Of course,” Karstens lied. What Nameless had pointed at him was a GPS device that let Karstens track Tom’s car, not a weapon. He was going to help Karstens send Tom to the Miocene. In exchange, he wanted Karstens to join a growing group of powerful dissidents plotting a coup of the government. An unexpected, large-scale blackout would serve their interests as it would catch the authorities off guard. The putsch leaders believed that the biosphere could still be saved, but that it would take severely draconian measures to do so. Their concern, however, was not salvaging the earth for its own sake, but the prolongation of the human, and thereby their own, enterprise.
To Karstens, it smacked of more cloak and dagger. The kind of stupid political shenanigans the world of man had endured so many times before. Et tu, Brute? One group craving power over another. It rarely had anything to do with a desire to set things right. And he’d go along with it. But not for long. Then he’d die. An odd miscalculation on their part.
A potential glitch came the next morning when Tom was leaving to say goodbye to his old friend and employer, Paul. He was stopped by a Blacksuit who put a hand on his chest, not allowing him to get into his car. The Suit looked at him, stony, unblinking. Tom looked at the hand, then back at the Suit.
“You’d better get that hand off me,” he warned. The Suit’s eyes flashed, ready to put Tom down. Just then, a car drove up.
He looked over — it was Karstens.
“Get in,” he instructed. Tom looked at him, then back at the Suit, then turned and walked to Karstens car, opened the door and got in.
“Let’s try not to screw things up at the last moment,” Karstens said.
“Just going to say goodbye to Paul,” Tom replied. Karstens thought about that a moment.
“I’ll take you,” he murmured. He waved at the Suit, which still stood looking at them. It didn’t wave back.
“By God, this is a risk,” he said, shaking his head. “You cannot, I repeat, cannot give anything away. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to have to make it quick. If they catch us, there might be trouble. Sorry, everything’s super secret right now. Very dangerous.”
When Tom walked into the Oasis, Paul put down the glass he’d been drying, threw the towel over his shoulder, and strode over to him. He looked in Tom’s eyes, trying to gauge his condition.
“About time. I was starting to worry. Everything okay, bro?” Paul asked.
“Yeah,” Tom said.
“You look like hell, you know, but it’s good to have you back. Why don’t you set up and I’ll bring you a drink.” Paul turned to head back to the bar. Tom put a hand on his shoulder stopping him. Paul turned.
“I’ve got to go, bro,” Tom said sadly.
“Huh? You just got here!” Paul protested.
“I mean, I’m leaving, quitting.”
Paul’s mouth dropped. “What? Why? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just time. I can’t explain. Just wanted to say goodbye.” Paul looked like a man stricken.
“I don’t ... I don’t understand. You’re quitting?”
“Bro...” Tom paused. Paul had truly been the brother he’d never had. He choked up. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’m going to be fine. It’s just time for me to move on.” He waved at his instruments. “You can keep all that.” Paul looked at him, shocked. He’d known that something was amiss for a while, had halfway expected this. He nodded.