by Simon Bown
Barton smiled sympathetically and put his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “I can answer all of your questions but I would rather we found a more private place.”
Lucy looked around the room and realised everyone had stopped to watch them.
“If you come with me all will be explained.” Barton said. He turned and walked toward the exit.
As Lucy was left with no real sense of her own decision making she followed.
The path took them out of the large desolate town into the desert. Dust blown up by the hot wind attached itself to Lucy’s sweat soaked, sunburnt skin but made little or no impression on her. She continued into the scorching sun paying no attention to this sore nuisance. A small stone lodged itself in her shoe, she tried to walk on and ignore it but the pain was causing her to limp. She leant against a boulder while she took off her shoe and found the rock too hot to stay in contact with. She hobbled along behind Barton as she tried to put her shoe back on.
Barton stopped to look back at the awful muddled mess of humanity. “It does get better you know.” He said. “The future of mankind is really something to see.”
Lucy paused next to him and considered the town. She found herself caught between elation and despondency, polar opposite emotions competing for attention but neither succeeding. The future of humanity may be bright as Barton said but her escape from this time and place was a dream that would not come true for the people she left behind.
Barton stopped in the shade of a large boulder. “This should be fine.”
Lucy sat down close to the large rock grateful for the shade. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and looked up at Barton. “Well why have you brought us out here?” She asked.
Barton reached into his pocket and retrieved a stunning object. Without true form it glimmered in his hand and was illuminated apparently from within. The item faded out of existence and then returned in a matter of seconds. Light slipped off its surface.
Lucy put her hand to her forehead and squinted as she tried to get a firm grasp on the object with her eyes. She was simply awestruck by its quiet elegance. “What is that thing? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“This is an isolated control mechanism for the gravity emitter. With this you can open and close a rift from any point in time and space. You are not limited by the location of the equipment.” He handed the device to Lucy.
“But what you describe is impossible.” It had no weight whatsoever, in fact he couldn’t feel the object at all. “If it can communicate across time and space how does it overcome the quantum boundary?” He handed it back to Barton.
“You are thinking of space on a multi-dimensional level but you haven’t made the multi temporal link. And remember that perception is reality, your perception will always colour your interpretation of the universe. So much so that it has been argued we all live in our own universe. The remote exists between normal space and the foundation upon which the space sits. It is not truly in this cosmos and yet it is. It can communicate with the emitter as your perceived barrier does not exist.” Barton closed his fingers around the object. A sudden bass tone pulsed around them and shook the sand beneath their feet.
Lucy fell backwards and closed her eyes to shield them from the inevitable blinding flash of light.
A pinpoint of bright blue luminosity three feet above the shifting soil appeared and intensified. The pitch of the bass tone dropped to an almost imperceptible subsonic as the tiny glint of radiance expanded into a rift in space time.
Lucy followed Barton through the rift into an unfamiliar circular room. She had expected to find herself in her basement lab but she was in an entirely different place. The single curving wall arched over to a high peak that imposed upon Lucy the sense of an overwhelming organic embrace. The colour echoed the dark purple red of an internal organ and Lucy couldn’t help but feel a slight claustrophobic apprehension. The small size of the gravity emitter gave away its advanced development. She felt deflated by this clear sign her time space machine was not the first. To compound her sense of failure several pieces of equipment were completely foreign to her. “Where are we?”
“England, the day after you left for Las Vegas.” Barton placed the remote device on the reactor at which point the whole system shut down. A section of the wall split and opened to produce a doorway. “Please follow me we have a lot to discuss. I dare say you could use a bite to eat.” The hallway matched the disconcerting design of the room and stretched into the distance curving out of sight. An opening dissected ahead of them and Barton led the way into a room identical to the last. He motioned for Lucy to sit at the table and collected her a plate full of food from an adjacent room.
Lucy finished her lunch and looked at Barton, waiting for him to speak first.
Barton took his cue. “You asked me how I was able to get to Las Vegas and I think I have answered that question.”
“How did you find me?” Lucy asked.
“I have been watching you since your first attempt at time travel. Every movement in space time sends out ripples across the foundation of the cosmos. It was not difficult to trace yours back to you.”
“But what about the lecture? Surely you didn’t know me until then?” Lucy felt she had been spied upon.
“It was not complicated to travel back in time six months and send a letter to your Mr Purcell offering my services as a lecturer.” Barton got up from his seat and retrieved a glass of water for them both.
“But why are you interested in me? Your apparatus is far more advanced than mine. How could I help you?”
Barton stood opposite Lucy and took a moment to study her. “I come from a planet on the other side of the galaxy, a place where humans will not arrive for thousands of years. My planet is part of a greater human civilisation we call the Amalgam. I work for a security agency and I need your help to track down a group of very dangerous people we believe are hiding on Earth.”
Lucy’s mind came to a halt. She gazed at his empty plate waiting for his thoughts to come together. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll help me.” Barton caught Lucy in an intense stare.
“I think all this success in space time technology has affected your brain. You don’t honestly expect me to believe you do you?” Lucy stood and looked for the doorway. “This building is very impressive and the gravity emitter is obviously very advanced but I can’t believe you are from another world.” The doorway did not appear as she had hoped and she approached Barton. “If you are from the other side of the galaxy and the future your technology must be far more evolved than mine. Why would you need me? Surely you can catch them yourselves.”
“Their leader is a very powerful telepath, he would be aware of my presence. It is enough of a risk for me to be here now.”
“Well can’t he sense you at the moment?” Lucy put her hands on her head. “Look at me! I’m actually falling for this nonsense!”
“He cannot perceive me now as I am able to shield myself at this distance.”
“Well if he is so powerful why won’t he sense me searching for him?”
“Because you are a…” Barton paused.
“I am a… I am a what?” Lucy was sarcastic.
“You are a telepathic dead zone.”
Barton’s sympathetic tone puzzled Lucy.
“In fact a lot of the human race is at the moment. I’m sorry to break it to you like this.” Barton was just a little too apologetic.
“Why should you be sorry?” Lucy asked.
“As time passes the human race develops an awareness of the telepathic state, some people are highly gifted and some are not but it is rare for a person to be born who cannot communicate on some level. To be as deficient as you would be equivalent to being deaf or blind.”
Lucy turned to face the wall and awaited the door opening. “You must let me leave now.”
The wall dissected as Barton moved forward, he paused but Lucy said nothing. Barton led him out of the
room and down the corridor. After a few yards he indicated a door. “When you wish to know more or you need me for any other reason please return here, I will be here.”
Lucy climbed the stairs and turned a corner into an old concrete passageway, she continued fifty yards to the end where she stopped at an old steel door. It opened without her touching it and she passed through and found herself in the local park close to her house. She turned and recognised the door as the entrance to a world war two air raid shelter.
The old Victorian house was silent upon entry. Mrs Mackenzie was nowhere to be seen which was a little odd. She stopped and listened to the old house. There was no sound whatsoever, even the large clock in the hall was no longer ticking. She quickly made her way to the basement door fearful of some sort of intrusion. The door was unlocked and upon entry Lucy very nearly fell the ten feet to the floor. The stairs were missing. She leant forward into the room, clutching the doorframe for anchorage and switched on the light. The basement was completely empty. The intruders had been so thorough they had even stripped the floorboards of lacquer and the walls of paint. She surveyed the emptiness with concern and confusion.
“Lucy?” Barton’s voice was unmistakable. “Lucy are you there?”
Lucy went to the front door and angrily pulled it open. “What have you done?” She seized Barton’s elbow and pulled him through the doorway. She tried to push him against the wall.
Barton spoke slowly. “They have already tracked you back to your gravity emitter. We must leave here now.”
Lucy brought her face closer to Barton’s and trapped him in an intense gaze. She raised her hand and pointed an accusing finger between his eyes. “Did you do this?”
Barton returned her stare with an equal intensity and laboured to speak clearly. “Just after you left an alarm sounded, somebody was moving through space time and intersecting with this area. The profile was definitely not yours so I came as quickly as I could. I was worried they had found you.”
Lucy released her grip. “But why would they be interested in me anyway?”
“As soon as you successfully travelled through space time you became a liability. If they cannot control you then they want you out of their way. Please, it is not safe here we must leave.” Barton made his way out of the door but Lucy remained still.
“I have some things upstairs, I must get them.”
“Your room will be equally empty.” Barton moved to stop Lucy and held her arm in a surprisingly painful grip. “If you had been here they would have killed you. They may be on their way back here right now.” He pleaded with Lucy. “We have to leave.”
Lucy watched him go out of the door. “But what of Mrs Mackenzie?”
“Who?”
“My landlady, Mrs Mackenzie.”
“If she was here they would have killed her.”
Lucy followed Barton through to the back garden. She remained silent as Barton opened the gravity rift in front of her and stepped through wondering what had happened to her own personal reality. A few days ago her normal mundane life seemed so dull and lacking of any real excitement, except of course for her reactor, but now she was wondering if she should have started down this road of discovery at all. Barton closed the rift and made his way along a hallway with Lucy following close behind. After a few yards a door dissected on her left,
Barton stopped and motioned her inside. “I prepared a bedroom for you. It’s not very luxurious but I’m sure you will rest adequately.” He pointed at an open doorway in the wall opposite. “You’ll find the bathroom in there.”
Lucy sat on the bed. Her saddened state had reduced her voice to a whisper. “What have these people done?”
Barton answered in a quiet dry tone. “They have killed many millions.” He hesitated for a few seconds.
Lucy watched him closely. She became aware for the first time of a deep sorrow, which until now Barton had kept well hidden. Lines of despair creased his forehead and he closed his eyes in what Lucy understood to be an attempt at holding back his tears.
Barton cleared his throat and continued. “They launch asteroids at planets, so far they have chosen smaller rocks but the resulting impact has been enough to kill hundreds of thousands with each strike.”
Lucy sat forwards, somewhat shocked. “Why would they do that? What is so important they would kill so many?”
“Hundreds of years ago a race of telepathic, trans-dimensional beings took control of the Amalgam by force. The terrorist’s aim is to drive them out and return the human race to a state of self-government.”
“But that sounds like a legitimate claim for independence.”
“It does except everyone in the Amalgam is happy with the status quo. Before the beings, the Mezzyima, took control every planet had a large military. There was not a moment in time when there wasn’t a war being fought somewhere. After the Mezzyima arrived the fighting stopped, the military was dissolved and all the resources that were going into them were used elsewhere. There has been peace in the Amalgam for eight hundred years.”
“If you asked them to leave would they go?”
“I honestly don’t know. But why would we want them to leave?”
“Somebody does. Enough to kill.”
“Some people will use any excuse to kill. Others kill through twisted beliefs. Their claims for independence may be legitimate in any other circumstances but they cannot be considered now. The very act of murder has put them beyond legitimacy.”
“Have you tried to reason with them?”
“These three individuals can’t be reasoned with simply because they are not reasonable people. They are ruthless killers. Their leader, a man calling himself Teafu, has a desire to drive the Mezzyima out of human space. Why he is so obsessed no one knows, but he has proven his lack of compassion many times.”
Lucy sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Right now, get some rest.”
Consciousness first came in small, slight breaths of perception. Without light and without sensation, knowledge of self surfaced from the gloom of much needed, heavy sleep to peer outward and test awareness. Lucy opened her eyes and coughed lightly. She considered the unfamiliar surroundings. The curving blood red ceiling immediately reminded her of how quickly she had been propelled into the unknown. Just days ago her life was relatively normal, no terrorists, no Barton and no intergalactic human civilisation. A couple of little trips through time and she found she had been recruited to help track down a very dangerous group of people.
A selection of clothes hung over a chair opposite the bed. After she had showered she dressed and went in search of Barton. The door opened as she approached the wall and she stepped through into the oppressive corridor. She looked left and right, the curvature of the hallway concealed the true extent of its length, for no sound reason she chose to go to the right. As she made her way a cacophony of garbled, confused sounds became apparent. The mess of noise led her to an opening through which she could see an impressive stairway. She descended cautiously all the time aware she might stumble upon something Barton had intended she should not see. The foot of the stairway led her to an enormous spherical hall. Moving pictures of various sizes decorated the circular wall each with its own soundtrack and each at an unusually high volume. She took her time examining every image. There were scenes of places so extraordinary she knew they couldn’t possibly be on Earth. This realisation of the truth of alien worlds and the fact Barton was an extraterrestrial human shook his already substantial understanding of the universe. She became aware of Barton watching him.
“Lucy.” Barton motioned her to join him at a large three dimensional display. The holographic imager projected an unstable cubic grid. Many globes of various sizes moved across the field of view pulling at the network of lines and distorting their positions. The larger spheres moved on a stable path through the confusion but the smaller ones moved in a haphazard fashion and often changed direction as they encountered each other’s influence on
the grid.
“What is this?” Lucy asked.
“This is a representation of the local space time lattice. The movement you see is the normal interaction of mass intense objects moving through space.”
“It all looks so unstable.”
“Well it’s quite normal. The passage of planets, asteroids and the cosmic debris we see here leaves the lattice in a constant struggle for stability. When you travelled through time the intense focus of your gravity emitter caused massive stresses too localised to be a natural event.”
“Why are all the planets moving so fast?”
“I have increased the speed of the search. To look at a normal pace would take far too long.”
Lucy felt suddenly foolish to have been so obviously exposed. “What are you looking for now?”
“I have set up a search for other such events to see if I can pinpoint Teafu using his gravity emitter. The problem is there are so many such events that I have to fine tune the search parameters to seek out the specific fingerprint of Teafu’s emitter.”
Lucy suffered the tell-tale heat of a rush of blood to her face. “I’m sorry, did you say, ‘there are so many events’? Do mean that there are time travellers passing in and out of our locality all the time?”
Barton smiled. “It is more a case of two or three individuals making a lot of journeys rather than lots of people making a few trips.”
“But who are they?”
“Well historians mostly. You didn’t think your invention would go to the grave with you did you?”
“I didn’t give it that much thought.”
Before Lucy could ask another question two red icons appeared. One over Antarctica and the other over Europe. “I think we have something.” Barton closed his eyes and breathed deeply, his face cleared of any expression and took on a passive almost characterless shape.