Solving the Riddle: Stranded in Time 1

by Carl Johnson

Solving The Riddle

  By Carl Johnson

  Published by Publications Circulations LLC.

  SmashWords Edition

  All contents copyright (C) 2014 by Publications Circulations LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Present Day

  CAROL WREN SAT in the doctor's office, wishing she was anywhere but sitting on the curvy beige examination bed, waiting for her test results. Ever since the inexplicable kidnapping of two students from Leonard Dunkelson's class in Bristol Area Middle School, Carol's knee had felt as bad as it ever did.

  She hadn't been able to explain how her knee caused her so much pain that it made her fall when Kenneth Yardrow and Savannah Proehl had been kidnapped by a person in a heavy-looking spacesuit. But her knee had hurt too much, and those poor kids were gone, and she could not tell anyone where they were taken because she could not possibly know.

  She had tried telling the investigating detectives all that she'd seen, but they had only laughed at her. She had felt embarrassed, then guilty at being embarrassed, and then angry at the police officers for making her feel guilty, because she only told them the truth. Why would she even think of making it all up?

  Finally, she just decided to tell them that she didn't know much of anything about the incident since, a doctor could confirm, she had been immobilized with an injury. A teacher had fallen asleep at his desk, though no toxins had been found in his blood that would indicate sedation. The classroom floor had been ruined with the man's large tracks. Carol thought of him as an astronaut who must have weighed quite a lot to leave such deep indents in the tile. Yet those things were just hard to explain.

  No one around the school had seen anyone coming or going-not the janitor who had been mopping the girl's bathroom floor, not the security guard at the front entrance who had been sitting at his station watching six black and white security feeds, and none of the teachers. Certainly not Leonard Dunkelson, who had been placed on administrative leave pending a psychiatric evaluation.

  Carol Wren did not want to be placed on administrative leave pending a psychiatric evaluation. There was no way she could defend herself. The surveillance tapes had revealed nothing. No DNA samples had been found on the scene, except those of the children already present. A K-9 unit had uncovered nothing at the school that might lead to the presence of narcotics. A search team had combed through the area in a ten-mile radius, but had uncovered nothing useful.

  Every abandoned building in Bristol had been searched, many left over from the heyday of the steel boom from fifty years ago. Volunteers had spent mornings and evenings searching through the township with flashlights, night vision goggles, and even metal detectors.

  No one had been able to find a single clue of any kind relating to the two missing children, though they had found in the course of their search, a lost sheepdog and an illegal campsite made by two people who had eloped.

  The case of the disappearing children had made national headlines. The police continually repeated evasive statements which meant absolutely nothing. Though the story had been a media sensation for a week, they lost interest when no new information came up.

  She followed the story with intense interest, while her knee had not improved as it should. Full-blown attacks continued through the days and weeks that followed. She struggled through the rest of her classes until school finally let out, and then scheduled an appointment with her doctor across the border in Canada.

  She felt fortunate to live a short flight away from Canada. The first time she had wrecked her knee after stepping into a groundhog's hole a while back, she bluntly asked about the price of everything. She learned very quickly that medical procedures in Canada cost far less than they did in America. She paid out of her own pocket for the surgery that left three white scars on the skin of her kneecap. Mile long runs in the morning finally drove the memory of the painful recovery away.

  If only it was like that this time. She headed out again after calling her sister Katrina in Vermont. From there were about a three-hour-drive to see her doctor. It was uncomfortable with her left leg throbbing the entire time, but seeking treatment in Canada would save her from personal bankruptcy.

  Doctor Kerchel Russell entered the room with a folder full of papers in hand. He wore a white lab coat and smelled of antiseptic. A pair of glasses with round frames clung tight against his face. A black pen stuck out of his shirt pocket and underneath his lab coat was a white business shirt and a straight blue tie with a large brass pin. White residue from medical gloves still remained on the top of his hands.

  Doctor Russell sat down on a swivel chair and faced Carol.

  "Hello again, Carol. How are you feeling today?" he greeted her.

  I feel like hell," Carol bluntly but honestly replied. "I've got a three-hour drive back to Vermont after we're done here, so I'm hoping you have good news for me."

  Doctor Russell laid open the folder across his lap. He looked for a particular page, and then brought it before him. He furrowed his eyebrows, lost in thought for a moment, he said. "I'm sorry to have made you wait."

  "That's quite all right," Carol said, even though she felt anything but all right.

  "It's taken so long because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking at. I confirmed with everyone involved in taking your X-Rays. You see, the X-Rays we have of your leg now very closely match the X-Rays we took six years ago, when you first came to us.

  "There are a few differences, though they are so small that they wouldn't have been detected had we not enlarged the image. In fact, could you pull your pant leg up, Mrs. Wren? I'd like to have a look at your knee again."

  Carol had no idea where the doctor was going with all this. She rolled up the denim over her left leg until it bunched up around her thigh, leaving her throbbing knee in plain sight. She looked down at it, and saw what he had seen from the first. The scars of her previous surgery were not there.

  "It's exactly the same as it was the day I stepped in the hole," she said in a quiet voice.

  Doctor Russell ran a hand through his short, bristly brown hair. "I'm afraid that means we'll have to do the same procedure all over again. Although I must confess, I've never before seen a case where the scarring has disappeared completely. There's no question that if you continue to walk on that leg the way it is now, you risk putting yourself in a situation where amputation will become necessary."

  Carol had heard the word amputation before, and it had scared her today just as much as it scared her six years ago. She'd been saving up for retirement in two years, but she found herself having to choose between continuing to work for another decade, or retiring on a disability salary given out by the government.

  "How much does it cost to do that? Is the price still the same?"

  Doctor Russell had come prepared with documents detailing the cost of the procedure. Carol regretfully pulled her wallet out of her purse, sighing, but thinking that this was better than being taken somewhere where she might be suffering far more than she could imagine like those poor, kidnapped children....

  The Future: 7245 A.D.

  WHEN THE NEARLY unintelligible message from the aliens known
as the Soonseen had come, the twelve members of the Council of Thirds knew their time was drawing short. Vio Quann, leader of the Fourth Third of the Council of Thirds, directed everyone to the atmosphere ships he had ordered to the council's headquarters, called the Unbroken Tower.

  Only a few seconds had passed when the message arrived, and great green beams of energy hurtled through space from one alien ship to another.

  Dust scattered from the ceiling as the floating building shook with an impact, the type of which it had not been subject to for many hundreds of years. The rotating image around the table once had shown the face of an old Unquill Hester as Hinjo Junta, the singularly damning image that had haunted Vio's sleepless nights for the last few days.

  The single piece of information the computer told the world for days was that Unquill Hester and Hinjo Junta was the same person. After that, the computer despaired for a few days, and suddenly was working again. All of a sudden, the image had disappeared.

  In its place came a message in the Soonseen language consisting of small pictographs. Vio knew what the image said without the assistance of a reference guide to the alien language.

  The treaty has been broken. The responsible parties shall be punished.

  Once they learned of it, the other council members knew what it meant as well. Zan Gopal, fat and waddling, had left the Unbroken Tower at once, and headed for his home in Hong Kong. Quinn Yester and Loyan Axon had departed as well. That left Vio and Yill Onnu as the only remaining council members, along with their council leader, Erson Dillon.

  The past week had not treated Erson well. For many years, Vio had grown used to seeing Erson's silent, persistent presence at council functions. The man hardly ever spoke except to say something important.

  At over 1,000 years, Erson had grown so old that his skin stretched tightly over his body. His teeth had long since fallen out, to be replaced with a set of too-white dentures that betrayed themselves in their perfection. Not a single hair remained on top of his head, which had given way to so many liver spots that they had all joined together to form one large spot turning the top of his head brown.

  Whenever Erson deigned to open his eyes, Vio always had the sense that despite all the outward signs of age the man had carried, his mind had not yet given in to the ravages of time. He looked about the room with a sharp, piercing intelligence that Vio could not deny.

  Erson did not speak a word as the Unbroken Tower shook once again, spilling dust out from between cracks in the ceiling. He placed one bony, withered hand upon the table, and his fingers with broken yellow nails tapped against the green table.

  Vio said to Erson and Yill, "We must go."

  Yill Onnu did not acknowledge him. Her large, gaudy earrings pulled down her elongated earlobes even further as she stared at the message. She had tried putting on eye makeup at some point during the day, yet it had run down her cheeks in dark blue streaks.

  The streaks had remained there, even as the council met to discuss what would be done about the impending attack from the Soonseen. They had not reached a conclusion before shots soared out high above the planet.

  Erson pushed himself up with both hands. Vio saw that doing so took quite a bit of effort. The man's arms shook with the effort of pushing himself out of the chair in which he sat. In days past, Vio might have helped the old man to his feet.

  When he had done so, Erson had rewarded him with a spiteful look and a slap on the nearest body part to be found. Now, Vio watched in silence as the leader of the Council of Thirds grunted while struggling to do something as simple as stand up.

  Finally, Erson stood upright. He leaned forward against the table to support himself. A wet pink tongue emerged from his mouth, licking pale red lips, and a breath of air passed out of his lungs. He said in a raspy, croaky voice, "You will carry me."

  Vio couldn't help but smile at the old man. Such had been Erson's way for as long as Vio had known him. Instead of asking for help, his request turned into an order. What might have shamed another person became a reason for him not to bother touching the ground with his feet any longer.

  Vio circled around the table, and knelt down one knee before him. Erson's skin felt cold as he climbed onto Vio's back as best he could. After some amount of struggle, they found a comfortable position in which Erson grasped Vio's shirt with his hands and Vio put his arms behind him to secure Erson's legs in place.

  Yill Onnu continued staring into the screen displaying the Soonseen's message. A glint had appeared in her eye that Vio didn't like. The odd way her mouth quirked upwards together with the glee that appeared in her dull, gray pupils showed a unique kind of madness that made Vio hesitant to speak to her a second time.

  Yet, for all her faults, she was a council member just as he was.

  He said, "Are you coming?"

  As Yill's face turned to him, the madness in her expression increased. She reminded Vio of a chasm opening, at the bottom of which could be found nightmares beyond his imagination. He took a step back from her. Yill said, "Oh, I'd very much like to stay."

  Erson pulled a knee up into Vio's back. Carrying the most powerful man in the world upon his back, Vio Quann exited the meeting room, glad to be gone from the one place in the entire world where he had never felt comfortable.

  The Future: Around Seven Billion A.D.

  THE SPACESHIP MATERIALIZED in the orbit of the dead planet. The once yellow sun around which the planet orbited had since begun expanding into a red giant. To the Chief Scientist of the Lonnan Nation who called himself Nolan Ninal, the word giant didn't do justice to the enormous red fireball reaching out to swallow up the brown planet people used to call Earth.

  Instead, Nolan thought of a word in his own language represented by a single dark circle that, when roughly translated to the now-extinct language of English, meant, "as big as the universe."

  Nolan had traveled from the year 7157 AD into the very distant future for a singular purpose: word had reached him about a tablet in the English language, which the people of his nation could not yet understand that had been placed there by a time-traveler.

  Some others had speculated that it had remained in place for billions of years, protected as much as possible from the elements so that the words upon it would not be worn away. Nolan thought this notion was nearly impossible. As a member of a space-faring race, whom the humans of the seventy-second century called the Soonseen, Nolan existed partly as pure energy and partly as a corporeal being, still restrained within the confines of a three-dimensional plane. He floated in the middle of his ship's bridge, radiating a pure white color.

  At times, he tried to hide his color, for the color he emitted gave away his emotional state of mind. After such a long period passing through the future, however, Nolan felt within his rights to let a little happiness show.

  The bridge had been built as a sphere where workstations were found along its inner walls. Like the rest of the ship, it had no gravity. Nolan floated in the very center of that sphere while the other members of the Lonnan nation, themselves glowing pure white, hovered in front of their work stations.

  When a crewman wanted to interact with a console, they had to let a string of themselves flow out to touch a panel with no buttons or display. The ship conveyed all the information directly to each crewman's consciousness, and in return, the crew could instruct the ship to do what they wanted.

  Above, directly overhead, a circle at the apex of the sphere displayed a view of the planet outside the ship. Just looking at the slowly expanding sun, Chief Scientist Nolan felt his body growing warmer. He knew this was just a response his consciousness generated from the genetic memory of a time when his people had bodies that could feel heat.

  Even if he were to order his spaceship to fly directly into the sun, he would not feel any heat, even while the ship burned. Yet, looking at the sun, he felt a twinge of warmth spread throughout his form. If he had a mouth, he would have smirked at this.

  He lowered his b
ody to the bottom of the sphere and let parts of himself interact with the ship. His thoughts spread out to every part of the ship where a console could be found. He said; Take the ship to the tomb. We have sixteen hours to find what we are looking for.

  After the ship entered the atmosphere and landed outside a tomb dedicated to the human race, Nolan disembarked. As far as he understood the reports he read prior to his expedition, the tomb had once stood high enough to be seen from orbit. That had been before the entire structure collapsed one day after billions of years of biting, dry wind had eaten away at the structure's base.

  It had lain where it had fallen. Miles of stone rubble in every direction, long since overgrown by plants, served as the last accomplishment of the human race before its destruction.

  What once might have looked like a gigantic statue fallen to Earth had, with time, come to resemble a series of hills. The grass had since died as the red sun continued its blazing encroachment upon the skies. The ground, once green, had turned brown.

  Red light from the gigantic star cast over everything. Though Chief Scientist Nolan had been told his visual sensory organs would remain undamaged by the presence of so much ultraviolet radiation, he had not looked at the evidence himself.

  He mistrusted that conclusion, for the sun took up so much of the sky that he had to focus on dark objects, lest bright colorful spots dance before his eyes. He focused on his destination-a plain stone portal in the ground just before him. It was beneath his feet. Nolan kicked away grainy, dry dirt from the portal.

  An inscription had once been written on the portal, perhaps in the language the humans constantly used for their verbal communication rituals. While the words had not survived the years, Nolan saw the faintest ridges on the portal that, under other circumstances, might have just been the effects of weather. However, he knew it was not.

  He let the parts of himself that might have once been called feet bleed through the heavily-packed atoms of the stone. A faint blue slip of himself lit the space beneath the portal, and he pulled. using all the force he had at his disposal.

  With his body stuck into the round stone, the portal yanked free. It thudded to the ground, turning upside down. The humans had been clever enough to leave an inscription on the bottom of the portal as well as the top. He did not know what the characters signified.

  Nolan gradually pulled his body free from the stone. A chunk of the portal tore loose, still attached to a wispy appendage. He waited while the gray stone slid down, the atoms of his body reasserting the connections with each other, though in different ways.

  He had developed a hypothesis that the nearby burgeoning red giant would not affect his ability to maintain his own corporeal state. The hypothesis had been proven true. That much would make for an interesting read in the Lonnan Nation after he gathered all the data taken from the spaceship's sensors.

  The passage leading underground was dark, but Nolan's own body lit the way for him. By now, he had taken on a worried shade of light blue. He did not feel particularly worried, but his own essence never lied.

  If he was blue, then he was worried, no matter what protestations he might care to make. He wondered what he was worrying about. Whatever it might be lay in his subconscious, not yet fully actualized into thought.

  If the various pictures on the wall were any judge, the human race had been a self-centered species. The pictures, carved into the stone, had themselves worn away by a process not evident to Nolan's senses.

  He saw faint indents of animal shapes, human shapes, and shapes of spaceships. The shapes told a story of the evolution of intelligence, though if any specific event was meant to be portrayed, he did not see it. That much seemed to be an oversight to him. His research had proven that progressions in sentient beings always occurred as a result of some catalyst or another.

  At the end of the passage, he saw a single tablet encased in several layers of glass, which made it hard to make out the characters. He saw just enough to determine that he had found the relic mentioned in the accounts of future history his own people had recorded.

  This tablet had not been a part of the monument to the human race. Instead, there had once been a time capsule containing all the information which humans had deemed worthy of passing on to whatever being might happen upon it.

  A being-one which the Lonnan Nation had not yet discovered-had come for the capsule. In its place, a tablet had been left. Nolan Ninal could not take the tablet back to his ship himself without damaging it in some way. A method of extraction would have to be devised.

  Fortunately, he thought to himself, he had enough time.

  The Future: 7013 A.D.

  BLACK PAVUN KIRO had joined the United Solar Military two weeks ago.

  Since that time, he had been exposed to more privations than he had thought would be possible while living in unsanitary conditions. Cockroaches crawled across the barracks in which 120 recruits had to cram themselves in. They did so by sleeping in bunk beds three beds high.

  Unwashed laundry hung from bedposts, metal hooks, anything from which a piece of clothing could be hung. Tomorrow, the division's quartermaster and master-at-arms would gather up all the dirty laundry then send it off to be washed in great silver machines.

  For the moment, Pavun found that he couldn't sleep, even though he was not on watch tonight. Four recruits with their heads shaved just like his had stood in their places, ready to spew out phrases that had been taught to them.

  Pavun himself had recited the words once before, only to be dismissed out of hand because the man in front of him had forgotten about the challenge to be made to all visitors arriving past midnight. Pavun had felt like a fool, going through the ritual when the Greens had shown up just to pass away the long hours of the morning.

  He had trouble keeping track of military rank, as well. He knew that he was a Black, which stood for recruit. Above that was Red, the first rank gained by anyone who survived basic and extended training. Green, though, was further up the list. Was it before or after Yellow? He couldn't quite remember.

  So infrequent had been his contact with officers above Red that he never had a chance to gauge their rank by the way they acted with each other.

  As a result, when he completed his two-hour watch before going to bed, he pulled out his manual of military rank and tried to find out just how much trouble he might be in by making a fool out of himself. Green, he read, was after Yellow but before Blue. People who attained the rank of Blue could command bases, or ships. Green officers often served at the right hand of Blue officers, so the manual read.

  Did that mean that the two Greens would later relate the incident to Blue Coaxl, the base's commander? There was the story of how one recruit from the troublesome division of 385 had sputtered out meaningless words while the other, when asked the question, "And what about you," had shaken in his boots while reciting word-for-word the challenge his division leader had taught him.

  Pavun thought that if he was lucky, the two Greens would not know his name.

  His division leader, Red Oster, had mentioned on more than one occasion that the easiest way to advance in the military was to be invisible, yet productive. Don't speak up. Don't draw the attention of your superiors. Don't become too friendly too long with anyone. Don't fraternize with people of the opposite sex or the parallel sex.

  Pavun had taken that to heart and had been as silent as he could be, trying to complete his tasks as efficiently as possible.

  These had involved folding underwear, tying ropes, and arranging his blankets as neatly as possible on his bed. He continually heard Red Oster say that anyone who couldn't be trusted to fold underwear would not be trusted to fire a hand weapon.

  After enough times of hearing this line, Pavun thought it meant that he had to obey orders no matter how he might feel about them. Even if he felt tucking in the sheets of his bed every morning was a silly waste of time, if he could not do it, his failure would be taken to mean that he could no
t follow orders.

  For this reason, he had applied himself to his tasks with a zeal he didn't know he possessed. Red Oster began using Pavun as an example of a recruit who got it-whatever it might happen to be. Where other recruits might have tried to show their bunkmates the way to tie one knot or the other, Pavun had kept that knowledge to himself. He had kept his head down, mumbling his words whenever someone asked for help.

  The members of the dysfunctional unit 385 hadn't yet realized that obedience came as a result of personal effort, rather than cooperation.

  The unit had become dysfunctional from the very first day when recruits who had not gotten any sleep in thirty or more hours marched in the middle of the night to their new dorm, stepping on the heels of each other's feet to the cadence of Red Oster's voice.

  From that moment when 120 recruits had marched into their dorm, taken up their bed assignments, then been forced to march off to breakfast without a wink of sleep, the discontent had grown.

  The seed of strife had been planted by circumstance. Red Oster had not seen it, and had not taken steps to correct it.

  After a sixteen-hour day, most of which was spent waiting around, yawning and getting told not to lean on walls, unit 385 had marched back to their dorms with full bellies, though exhausted in body and mind. Red Oster felt no better, Pavun observed, which accounted for his crankiness the next morning when he found people taking their time waking up.

  Red Oster yelled for everyone to wake up, wake up, wake up, for at least fifteen minutes. Some people had slept so deeply that Red Oster pulled them physically out of their beds.

  That's when the trouble began, and also when Pavun found the riddle.

  He didn't know what it meant at first, but it spoke of fourteen and three people who could save the world.

  He thought that someone had slipped the piece of paper into his manual as a prank, just to keep him awake at night. If so, the prankster had achieved his goal for Pavun laid awake at night, thinking about the riddle.

  The word choice bothered him. He wouldn't have called himself a master of the universal language, English, yet he knew enough to say that there could be both truth and falsehood in it. He had kept the riddle in his manual, tucking it away in his personal effects when he did not have to carry it to breaks.

  He often waited in the hallways for hours at a time, pressed so closely to his fellows that he had to place the manual on the back of the person in front of him. Since Pavun was the tallest person in the division, he was always last in line. Nobody put a manual on his back.

  The riddle gnawed at him when he stripped naked in front of his fellow division members for a shower. It gnawed at him when he ran around the gymnasium, always outpacing the other recruits, who had shorter legs than him. The riddle bothered him when he finally got in the cafeteria, where instead of eating as military men had done so in days past, he was given ten minutes in a quiet room to center himself.

  During this time, he would make sure that his body's natural processes still worked the way they were supposed to. He could live to be 500 or 600, if he did not eat food and kept centering himself every day. That was what the break time was for-centering himself.

  While his body relaxed, he let his mind drift. The rhyming lines of the riddle sprang to mind over and over, no matter how much he wanted to clear his consciousness in the little time he got to himself.

  He became more convinced that the riddle served a purpose. It was more than just someone's inane ramblings put to paper. This mystery really meant something.

  So he felt when he found himself lying awake in the middle of the night, his gray blanket pulled up to his chest. Something more was needed to unlock this mystery. A piece of information he did not have, perhaps. The riddle might be incomplete, although unlikely. Whatever it pertained to, Pavun felt sure that the riddle ought to be placed in the right hands.

  Those hands, as far as he knew, were not his own. He had spent three days thinking of little else except the twelve-line mystery which had appeared in his manual while he'd been in the bathroom.

  After spending a restless night in his bunk, he approached Red Oster in his clean, immaculate office. Pavun had never thought himself capable of speaking to any superior officer. He felt that, at the very least, Oster ought to be informed that someone had...done what?

  Pavun didn't know what would come of his telling, except that the incident had to be told.

  Red Oster's office, situated next to the division's single-door entrance, smelled of cleaning solution. A mostly-full container of purified water sat lodged into a dispenser with two levers, one blue and one red. The walls had been cleaned and painted consistently, unlike the paint that had peeled off above Pavun's bunk, leaving a patch of gray stone exposed for all to see.

  The division commander's computer access terminal appeared state of the art to Pavun, who had freelanced as a repair technician before joining the United Solar Army.

  As usual, Red Oster had taken care to make sure his uniform contained no creases or blemishes anywhere. His short, black hair had grown in almost to the point where Oster would have to shave it again. He had started out his time as division commander by being nearly bald.

  He wore a pair of square, brown-framed glasses which were too big for his face, giving the effect of making him look mentally incompetent. One day of hearing him bark out orders had disabused every recruit in 385 of that notion.

  He sat in a cushioned leather chair with black arm rests on either side. If Pavun ever did get to sit down, he always sat on the floor. By Oster's black and white keyboard lay a worn book with dog-eared pages.

  The book was A Manual of Conduct, the only book allowed in the barracks. On the cover, Pavun saw a picture of a smiling man in uniform, standing outside in the wind. The man's purple neck cloth, the symbol of his rank, swayed off to one side. Pavun knew from the manual that the man on the cover held the rank of Violet.

  Oster looked up from his study of the computer to Pavun, who waited in the doorway. Red Oster said, "Black recruit, what business do you have?"

  Pavun looked away, an excuse passing through his mind. He could just say something under his breath and walk away as he had done before. Was it really worth it to risk being recognized by a superior officer just for the sake of someone's ramblings?

  "Well, recruit, speak up. I don't have the next 10,000 years to wait on you."

  Pavun gulped. He couldn't walk away, even if he made himself look ridiculous in the process. "Well, Leader Red, I've come about a riddle."

  Did that sound as silly to Red Oster as it did to Pavun, who heard himself speak it?

  Oster's mouth thinned as he considered the statement. He said, "So you finally found the courage."

  Pavun, despite being intimidated as much as he was, couldn't help saying, "What do you mean, Leader Red?"

  Red Oster picked up the book with his left hand and placed it his lap. He tapped his index finger on the cover. "It's something of a military tradition. The Temporal Constabulary found the riddle sometime in the future-300 years from now, they say. They brought it back sometime in the sixty-fourth century.

  "As a joke, a Blue distributed the riddle to his favorite recruit division. They, of course, took the riddle seriously; though the gesture was not serious at all.

  "Since then, in each recruit division that comes through, each division commander is authorized-by unspoken tradition-to give the riddle to the recruit they think is most likely to succeed. You're the recruit I chose-Kiro, was it?

  "Usually it takes recruits a lot longer to come to their division commander with the riddle. The way it generally works is that the recruit who receives the riddle asks around the division. Generally, that person makes a fool of himself. They eventually come to the conclusion that they must ask their leader.

  "It takes a great deal of courage to do what you did. So far as I know, Black Kiro, you're the first recruit on this base who went straight to their leader."

  "It's
Pavun, um, Red Leader. Pavun Kiro."

  "You still have a bit to learn, though. That's to be expected, I suppose."

  Pavun grasped at his right elbow with his left hand, trying not to be seen squirming even while his stomach somersaulted inside his body. He asked, "What do I do with it?"

  "Keep it, or burn it," Red Oster said. Then, he smiled. "Or solve it. Now wouldn't that be a trick to remember?"

  The Future: 6421 A.D.

  DESPITE HAVING BEEN around for 2,000 years, the Temporal Constabulary had never investigated the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of humanity that occurred right around the seventy-fifth century. The causes of humanity's extinction had been a forbidden topic.

  Historians and journeymen alike were forbidden from exploring that time period for any purpose whatsoever. After all, the race had thousands of years more to live.

  A sense of quiet panic hadn't quite set in until the sixty-fifth century had begun. Only 1,000 years remained until the people would no longer exist on planet Earth. With this fact in mind, the constabulary's highest officials agreed that the future had to be known.

  Though temporal physics had advanced to the point where historians had definitely proven that the future could not be changed by events in the past, there existed a small hope that the theoretical Zeta Disruption would be discovered.

  The Zeta Disruption, according to temporal theory, was a person-or animal-capable of changing the future.

  Even while clinging to the hope that many in the constabulary considered a highly improbable possibility under the best of circumstances, theoretical research disagreed on what would happen if the Zeta Disruption did, in fact, change the future in such a manner as to steer the human race away from destruction.

  Two primary theories had emerged. The first stated that the future would change, and with each change made, the time stream would accommodate the change accordingly. Research into future history would change. Information during the time of the Zeta Disruption would be altered, though to the inhabitants of that time, it would appear that the new information had always been there.

  The second theory stated that, due to various paradoxes occurring as a result of changing the future, which meant changing the entire time stream as well, information would not change as quickly. The effect would be like that of a slow-moving ripple in a pond, very small at first, then spreading ever outward with a greater area of influence.

  This was the less popular of the two theories, though no one could deny the equations underlying this theory proved to be sound.

  Falion Lustal, a historian working in the constabulary, subscribed to the second theory. In his time between research assignments, he had studied both theories extensively, going over the numbers and graphs multiple times before he grasped in full what the endless pages of numbers meant.

  He attended lectures in which temporal theoreticians spoke in complicated terms that Falion hadn't heard before. Though he himself held three doctoral degrees, the lecturers had achieved a level of knowledge about their subjects that made Falion feel like an amateur.

  He sat at his desk, stuck to the ceiling as a result of the reverse gravity the entire six-mile-tall Constabulary Headquarters used to accommodate the Soonseen skyship system which connected many buildings to one another high above the surface of the planet.

  Though having the ceiling and the floor switch positions had been disorienting for a while, Falion had grown used to it over time. In fact, he found that, when he returned to the surface, he couldn't quite understand why people stood right side up.

  Now, he rubbed at his eyes. He wore a long white lab coat over a gray wool shirt he had worn for three days. Though he often thought he would get around to changing his shirt when he applied deodorant once every twelve hours, he promptly forgot about the state of his clothing when he laid his eyes on another piece of the puzzle that surrounded the Zeta Disruption.

  He had not slept in four days, not since he felt the twinge in the back of his mind that usually signaled a discovery waiting to happen. The twinge had not went away as he spent ninety hours straight reading and re-reading theorems, speeches, diagrams, mathematical proofs, historical accounts from people who had witnessed a planet without people.

  Though many forms of life survived the human race, never again did evolution steer sentient beings towards the path of meta-cognition required for the conscious mind to gain dominance over the physical body.

  Falion Lustal had missed something. He could not tell what he had missed. He knew by a process his fellow historians would have jokingly called intuition, that one single puzzle piece remained.

  He had to locate the one fact, the one number, the one statement lost somewhere in the ocean of human knowledge that would lead to what he felt sure would be a breakthrough concerning the existence of the Zeta Disruption.

  Beginning on the fourth day, he knew he might never find what he sought. Instead, he took to recording all his thoughts, no matter how trivial. He knew how his mind worked. If he left the research to rest his body, he might never again have the same thoughts he had at present.

  The passage of time would erase the majority of information stored in his short-term memory. Better, then, to record all of his thoughts so he could read them later. He hoped that, when later came, he would not shake his head at his own words, berating himself for so much effort that would appear ridiculous when he looked at it with fresh eyes.

  He had started seven hours ago. Though he had finished, he still sat in front of his desk, letting his thoughts flow through his brain. There had to be a connection somewhere, an interaction he had not seen, something simple or something difficult that had been overlooked by everyone else. He knew it was there, somewhere.

  In this state of mind, he stopped himself from growling when his supervisor in the constabulary, a man named Kitain Fell, opened the door to Felion's private research room. Felion's cheeks reddened.

  He could not believe that he, of all people, had acted as many other researchers had acted when interrupted. Kitain, who had seen such behavior countless times, seemed not to notice.

  Kitain, who stood nine feet tall and wore mismatching orange and green sneakers, said, "Good evening Lustal. The waiting period is at an end. Your next assignment is ready."

  Felion, who felt exhaustion fall upon him like a waterfall, said in a tired voice, "May I know what it is?"

  "Certainly. You have been assigned the task of researching the causes of humanity's destruction. Just today, three journeymen have returned from each century. We've pinpointed the date-September 17, 7245. As always, I can't give you the particulars of what has been found. You will have to observe and draw conclusions of your own."

  "Of course."

  Kitain leaned against the door frame and said, "You are to stay in the year 7245 for three hours."

  Felion, who had once gone on assignment to observe conditions of the sixty-eighth century for twenty years, managed to raise an eyebrow. He did so deliberately to stop himself from falling asleep.

  Kitain grinned. "Read through your briefing when you're ready to go. Your departure date is three days from now. We've delayed things a bit for you this time in light of your research."

  He paused and then said, "Do you know, I heard of temporal scientists following your work with great interest these last few days? You've made quite a bit of progress, I'm told."

  At other times, Felion Lustal might have been pleased by the compliment. With his consciousness ready to shut down, he stood up and wiped his hands on his pants. He said, "When I get back... I want to continue."

  When Felion Lustal returned from his three hour long stay in the future, he brought an artifact with him. Such things were not unknown, though they were frowned upon by the constabulary. Small objects often went missing, never to be found again. When this happened, historians working for the constabulary stole an object they thought to be of great significance.

  Felion Lustal returned with a small
red chip tucked in a clear plastic bag. The chip, smaller than his fingernail, had been difficult to spot when he searched about for a data storage device.

  He had found one though, just for the text he read. The text, as far as he was concerned, offered more questions than answers. Those questions, he sensed, would only lead to more questions. Perhaps, he hoped, after long years of inquiry, understanding would come.

  Kitain waited as Felion stepped out of the time travel chamber. He led Felion to a soundproof room nearby, one which Felion had frequented. Felion, as always, had to remind himself that only minutes had passed between his departure and return. Three hours had been a much longer time than he had anticipated.

  Kitain sat down on side of a disposable plastic table, brushing back a strand of blonde hair from his face. He considered Felion with two blue eyes that spoke of the wonder of a mystery not yet solved. He had shrugged on a white lab coat of his own since Felion had left. He gestured for Felion to sit, which he did.

  Kitain put a black portable microphone on the table. He started, "Subject Interview Date April 14th, 6421. Subject Name: Felion Lustal. Position: historian at the Temporal Constabulary, Williamsport Division. Description of assignment: a three-hour investigation of the year 7245. Purpose: discovery of the causes regarding the disappearance of human beings from the world circa 7500. Begin recording."

  Kitain paused, and then looked up from the microphone. He said, "If you would, Historian Lustal, begin wherever you like. As always, even if you present information in a disorganized manner, we can later re-organize it into a cohesive format."

  While Felion thought of where to begin, he recalled the six months he'd spent being interviewed following his twenty-year assignment. He had gotten tired of talking, though he knew that talking was a necessary part of the process.

  People conveyed information much faster with the spoken word, rather than the written. As such, in order to relay as much information as possible, Felion had found himself speaking twelve hours a day about his experiences.

  Perhaps now, he would not have to spend so much time speaking. He laid his plastic bag on the table. The small red chip lay next to the microphone. Felion said, "I've found something unexpected. I know what causes the destruction of the human race, but I've also found how to prevent it."

  The implications of Felion's statement was not lost on Kitain, who had overseen so many research projects and recorded so many interviews that he had a passing familiarity with temporal theory. He said, "The Zeta Disruption."

  Felion slapped the table. He laughed. "Exactly! It exists, it exists! Can you imagine it? I have found evidence of the Zeta Disruption in the year 7245. Oh, but I must tell you of the evidence. The Council of Thirds took a statement from a man scheduled for execution.

  "The man's name is Hensen Var. I don't know much about him yet. In his final statement before the council, Hensen claims the Zeta Disruption exists. Not only exists, but there are two of them!"

  Kitain sat back in his chair. Coming from a new time traveler, he would not have believed what he heard. Yet, Felion had been with the Constabulary for over two hundred years. The man had gained a reputation for honesty, integrity, and above all, curiosity. Kitain said, "Continue, if you would."

  Felion tried to contain his excitement so that his words could be later understood by whoever played back the recording for entry into the central computer at Jakarta. "I'll begin with the problem. Citizens of the future, like us, do not need to eat. Their bodies produce the fluids necessary to survive all on their own.

  "I discovered, from a cursory glance through the computer, that some people had gone back to eating. This shortened their lifespan. Where procreation is impossible among populations consuming food once more, I read that they never grow taller than perhaps six and a half feet. Since they are mostly sterile, they are unable to procreate. Their population growth is extraordinarily negative."

  "I'm still trying to get a hold of that. They eat food-on purpose-knowing they cannot have children and knowing that doing so will cause them to live shorter lives. This, I believe, is responsible for the population decreases first reported as occurring in the seventy-fifth century.

  "They are led into their own destruction by a man named Hinjo Junta. This man was thought to have been a member of the Constabulary named Unquill Hester, but the council changed their minds. Perhaps he is Hinjo, perhaps he is not. I was not able to gather enough information to be sure.

  "Regarding the solution, that's in the artifact I brought with me. You see, I found a poem that might be called a question. It's rather hard to understand, this poem. I thought you might want to see it for yourself, since it seems to relate to everything we have said, though it is certainly not meant for us. The poem appeared in the database as part of a conversation between a Soonseen and the President of Jakarta."

  Kitain leaned forward in his chair, his eyes widening. He said, "The Soonseen? You are sure of this? They-they deigned to speak with a human being? In English? They have mastered our language at last?"

  "There is no other conclusion. The Soonseen claimed the poem was found on the last day of Earth's existence, placed there by a party or parties unknown. We have never investigated that far into the future, due to the problems of bringing someone back to our own time.

  "It is also difficult to predict how many unknown gravitational effects will alter the Earth's orbit, however slightly. Even if we agreed upon sending a journeyman there for a one-way trip, perhaps to be picked up by the Soonseen later, we could not accurately predict which spacial coordinates to send anyone.

  "The Soonseen, who have the benefit of space flight, don't need to be so accurate. They only need to make sure that there is no space debris in the area, and that they further don't fly into a solar flare given off by the sun. All these things are observable if they set their spacial coordinates outside the solar system, and then fly their way in."

  Kitain, who had heard such statements many times before, took in a deep breath, let it out, and then said, "Were you able to find out who placed this poem so far into the future?"

  "I was not able to find that much out. I can give you speculation, however."

  "Please do so."

  Felion Lustal said, "We know that it was not us. We could not have put the message there, for we have never attempted to travel more than 10,000 years to either the past or present. Fortunately, this has proven enough for us to understand the whole of human history. Nor could it have been the Soonseen, for when they found it, they did not know what to do with it."

  Kitain pointed his index finger at the man sitting across him. "Ah, now on that point, I will disagree with you. If the Soonseen from a period of, let's say, the eightieth century, inherited the poem from the Soonseen of the seventy-third century, they could then place it there for their own ancestors to find."

  Felion frowned. "I had not considered that. It's possible, but unlikely. Continuing my speculation, I lean towards a third party placing the poem there, one who may be human or alien, but who holds no loyalties to either race. The reason for placing it there can only be as you say-that the poem is supposed to be found."

  Kitain Fell leaned back in his chair. "Then, tell me in detail everything you learned while in the future. After that, we will try to make sense of the information you have brought back."

  The Future: 7245 A.D.

  EVEN AFTER HEARING the riddle, Savannah Proehl hadn't been able to make much sense of it, other than to figure out the number fourteen was important to her mission to save the world. After getting the Soonseen's Lonnan Nation to cease firing at a ship from their Kinnan Nation, President Kunan Slaan had asked her to stick around in the future for a while.

  The problem of the human race dying out as a result of Hinjo Junta's actions had remained. Though the immediate danger from deflected energy beams striking the planet had passed, Savannah found that she could not return home as soon as she wanted.

  Not that she actually did want to r
eturn home. The multitude of scars on her back, the scar on her leg and the scar across her rib cage all reminded her of what awaited her when she returned to her father.

  She still smelled the foul alcohol on his breath as he leered over her. She might be bleeding, asleep, or crying. So often had he beaten her that his facial expression remained the same, unlike after the first whipping Savannah had endured.

  He had been apologetic back then. He said that he regretted what he had done, and Savannah had believed him. She wanted more than anything to believe that her father had it in him to overcome his own monstrous nature.

  Yet, by the time her back fully healed from the whipping, he had done it again. He whipped her with a leather belt. He always held the buckle in one red fist. Each time the leather struck her back, Savannah lost a little more faith in her father.

  By the time she had lost track of how many times he had whipped her, any hope she had once harbored of her father overcoming his demons had disappeared. She no longer thought it would be possible for her father to become the kind, loving man she remembered.

  That man had hugged her at all hours of the day, had taken her to the park, and had watched her favorite cartoons with her. He had even laughed at the jokes Savannah thought only she understood. She had felt, back then, that she and her father had a special connection.

  Returning to him would mean that she was inviting him to hurt her again. Worse, he would likely be angrier than ever since she had left him. He had always warned her against running away, even though the idea had never crossed her mind.

  She couldn't leave him, even if she found herself hating him. Washing blood stained sheets and blankets had become routine in her household. She had never once thought that matters could be better anywhere else.

  That's why she wondered why Kenneth's body bore no scars. Every parent had to beat their child. Savannah had always thought so. Yet, Kenneth had never been beaten, if the condition of his body was any indication.

  When Savannah had first seen him with his shirt off, she had been too caught up in her emotions to think through what it might mean for her to be different, for her to have parents that acted worse than another person's parents.

  Considering the future, however, she found that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to stay. She said she wanted to go home because she had been tired of solving everyone else's problems.

  Kenneth had been right about that when he told President Slaan that the people of the future needed to clean up their own messes. Savannah felt the same way. She wanted to live in peace, apart from all the crises and disasters and emergencies.

  As far as she could tell, for all the problems it had, the seventy-third century had more peace than the twenty-first century did.

  She sat in the president's mansion in Jakarta. President Slaan had placed her in a room with three walls and several panes of glass connected to each other to form one great transparent wall. The evening sun streamed in through the glass, shining upon her braided hair which lay over one shoulder.

  An empty white can lie before her on a glass table. The can had once contained the same kind of gray nutrients she had eaten in Alexandria. She wouldn't call it food, not since she had come to regard it as little better than puppy chow.

  President Slaan had promised to bring her food from the Temporal Constabulary. The nearest constabulary base lay in Okinawa, which was further away from Jakarta than Savannah would have guessed.

  Having flown around the world of the future herself, she knew that nothing came instantly. Yet she had hoped that, as she had been promised food around midday, it would arrive in time for supper. When 7 PM had come and gone, she had given in and said she would eat more dog food if it meant she didn't have to be hungry.

  Having finished off the can of nutrients, she sat back on a white, cushioned sofa, giving her mind over to the problem of the riddle. As long as President Slaan was convinced that Savannah, together with Unquill and Kenneth could save the world, he would keep them around.

  As Savannah thought about it, the three people in the riddle could have referred to anyone. Moreover, as she considered the riddle itself, she found herself wondering if it wasn't all just an elaborate prank, or a scheme to achieve some other end.

  Solving the riddle-if it could be solved-would free her from under President Slaan's thumb. After that, she could go and do whatever she wanted. Provided of course that the people of the future found a more permanent solution for her than the temporal alignment device bulging out of the skin from her hip.

  She pressed a hand there, feeling it give way. When she removed her hand, the device returned the same bulge it had.

  Unquill had said the temporal alignment device kept her alive-at least for another seven days. She had only that much time to solve the riddle and save the world. That thought made her grin. Save the world? Not such a big deal, all things considered.

  She got up off the couch, returning to her exploration of the president's mansion. She left the empty can where it lay on the table. She didn't want to have to look at it or think about it again. Since she had eaten in the sun room on the west side of the mansion, she had to walk through the hallway to get back to the main room, where the president of Jakarta and Unquill waited.

  The soft, red carpet beneath her feet bore elaborate designs of flowers. Never once did the design repeat anywhere in the house. Each section of the carpet was unique. Busts of people Savannah didn't recognize stood on pedestals on either side of the hallway.

  A great, ancient painting of a man standing beside a black, smoking cannon had been placed on the wall at the point where the hallway took a sharp left. The man wore a silly, wide hat. He had a hand inside his button-up uniform. He looked off into the distance, towards some object Savannah could only imagine.

  She put a hand over her mouth while she chuckled at the irony of the painting. Someone had taken a great deal of trouble to paint a serious-looking man in a serious-looking location wearing the most ridiculous of clothes.

  Turning left at the painting, she passed by a guest room in which Kenneth had taken to a video game. With the central computer back on, President Slaan had suggested a bit of entertainment to pass the time. Kenneth had jumped at the offer. He sat on the floor in front of a large screen with a wireless controller in hand.

  A spaceship moved about the screen, shooting red beams of energy all around. One beam struck a meteor, vaporizing it. Savannah waved at Kenneth. He looked at her in his peripheral vision, and then gave a friendly grunt.

  Savannah walked further down the hallway, and entered the lobby, which she supposed might also be called a reception room. Six couches, in pairs of three, sat across from each other on top of a shiny black floor in which Savannah saw her reflection. Somehow, she managed to get some of the nutrients on her forehead. She licked her index finger, and wiped the food away.

  Unquill noticed her at once. For the first time in a long time, he looked happy. A smile crept over his face. Savannah realized that she hadn't seen him smile since he had run from the Black Brigade in the sky transfer station in Williamsport.

  He had always looked haggard to her, as though life had just been too much for him. Now, sitting next to President Slaan, a glint appeared in his eyes that Savannah remembered seeing when he had watched her eat a plate full of vegetables.

  Unquill said, "Significant citizen, come and join us."

  Savannah sat down on the floor in front of the couch. She rubbed the back of her neck. "You don't have to call me that anymore. I'm just Savannah. Just plain old Savannah. Okay?"

  Unquill smiled. The smile relaxed Savannah more than any words of his could have. He said, "Okay."

  President Slaan, who at some point had taken off both his socks and shoes, crossed his left leg over his right. His bare foot hanging in mid air seemed out of place to Savannah given that he still wore his best working clothes. He said, "Have you finished eating?"

  Savannah made a face at him.
"Yes, it gets worse every time."

  President Kunan Slaan shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable. He said, "I apologize for that. I'm told a week's worth of food will arrive at about 3 AM tonight. They had quite a time harvesting all the food at the constabulary on such short notice. Some of their plants aren't even ready to be harvested."

  Savannah sighed with relief. "I'll be happy to eat some real food again."

  Kunan scratched the top of his bare foot. He said, "Now then, shall we talk more about the riddle?"

  "If you like," Savannah said. She crossed her legs and placed her hands on her thighs. "Although...I'm wondering what happened to that stuff what's his name was talking about. The Okuda Drive?"

  "If you're referring to Officer Winnow Unpo of the Black Brigade, I have heard his information and instructed him to have it processed into the central computer as an ongoing case investigation. So far, the information we have is incomplete.

  "We know that three people-namely, Imam Walid Felor of Alexandria, Olon Daniel of Jakarta and Kaloa Syncrate of Europe were involved in collecting money for research and production. We also know that all three of these people are now dead."

  The smile vanished from Unquill's face. Suddenly, the haggard expression he had carried with him for the last week returned. Savannah wondered if he regretted the death of Imam Felor, or Olon Daniel. Savannah tried to forget both man-with reason.

  Imam Felor had murdered a woman in the streets of Alexandria, and he had done the same crime numerous times. He was evil and he deserved to die. While Olon Daniel had tried to kidnap her, prompting Savannah to blast him with a powerful weapon that, she knew, helped killed him, even if he'd ultimately died of a heart attack. The charge on the weapon she had received in Madagascar had been used up.

  Savannah ran a hand along her right palm, where the weapon had once rested. It gave her the feeling of control, something that had been illusive her entire life. She sighed. It also had a heavy price, but if it would save people and put evil men into extinction, she would pay it again.

  "Is this connected to the riddle at all?" she asked.

  "I think so. Mind you, it's only a guess. But so far, we have three people who have turned up dead, all of whom have a connection to a project that is supposed to make our atmosphere ships capable of standing up to the Soonseen.

  "What greater threat could there be than that? Whoever owned ships like that would have the world by the tail. There would be no military force that could stand up to ships equipped with the Okuda Drive, if the specifications I read today are correct."

  Unquill grimaced. He said, "Our primary purpose-at least for now-is to find out who is behind those three people. When I met with Kaloa, she told me she works for an organization."

  When Unquill spoke her name, his face twisted into a mask of pain and regret. He continued, "If the organization exists, it can be found. I want to find it. They-they killed her."

  Savannah asked, "Where do we start?"

  President Slaan uncrossed his legs and placed his bare feet on the floor. He said, "Since I have all the power equal to the Council of Thirds, I can authorize quite a number of things. Understand that I can't do everything they can do. I can, however, authorize a trip for you to visit Heracleion. It's underneath the Atlantic Ocean, some miles west of the Catalans."

  Savannah bit her lower lip. "Where's the Catalans?"

  "I believe in your time, this region was called Portugal? I believe that's the name. It was a country on the Iberian Peninsula. The region elected to call itself the Catalan Nations a few thousand years ago. I can authorize a flight first thing tomorrow morning.

  "I want you to poke around, let me know what you find. Now that the computer is working again, we can stay in constant contact. On my end, I will work with Officer Unpo to unravel this organization he's found."

  Savannah, who did not look forward to more traveling when she had already flown around the world more times than she could count in the last week, said, "Is it necessary to go there in person?"

  President Slaan stretched his arms out in front of him. To Savannah, he looked tired and sore. He said, "Whatever is going on there, it's not showing up in the computer records. Otherwise, we would have found it by now. This organization appears to have found a way to communicate on a worldwide scale without using the computer. Whatever their method, they will have left traces behind somewhere.

  "I want you to look at the researchers in the eye. Ask the people at that facility what their impressions are. They may confide their secrets to a stranger rather than someone they know intimately. I'm counting on that aspect of human nature to work for us. It will be up to you to convince them that you are trustworthy."

  Savannah turned to Unquill. She asked him, "Do we have to fly in? Can't we do that from here? Video conference or something?"

  Unquill sighed. He said, "I'm bone tired. I've got jet lag. I'm sick at heart. But I...I think this is the best way to go. There's no substitute for looking someone in the eyes. This is why we do research by sending people through the time stream, rather than just looking at old books."

  Savannah looked down at her hands. She concentrated on her growing fingernails rather than speak the response in her mind. There was, after all, nothing to say. She had been brought into the future against her will, and the people of the future planned on keeping her there until she helped them fix their problems.

  If she protested, she would only sound selfish, self-centered. She didn't want them having the opposite impression, either-that she was only too willing to help with whatever they needed. As a result, she said nothing.

  President Slaan said, "Then that's decided. I'll arrange for the flight now." He stood up, and walked out of the room.

  Savannah's eyes followed him. Once he was out of hearing range, she said to Unquill, "Do we have to?"

  Unquill rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of each hand. He then put his hands on his lap and said, "I don't want to either. I'd rather sleep and forget about everything. But, you know, if we have a chance to make a positive change in the world, we should take it. It's not just our lives that we affect. It's everyone.

  "We have an impact on people we haven't even met. Some of them will never even know that we changed their lives for the better. If someone offers us a chance to make that change, to improve the lives of the people in this world, shouldn't we take that chance? This world is not just made for only ourselves. It's made for everyone. Don't you think so?"

  Savannah could not disagree with him. She sighed again. "I wish you aren't so right all the time."

  AS SHE LAY on the first comfortable bed she had found in the seventy-third century, Savannah reflected on everything that had happened since Unquill had stepped through what she now understood to be a passageway through time and taken her out of school.

  She wondered why time travel had made her so sleepy-why, as far as she could tell, many people in the seventy-third century had problems with sleep. Was that the price of living so long? She didn't know.

  She had felt tired far more often than she had back home. She had flown across the sky, met robots, told she could save the world, crashed a spaceship, stolen a tank from rebels, and killed a man. Had she really done all those things and not someone else? She found it hard to believe her own memory when she recalled everything that had happened.

  She still could not understand what it was in her that had driven her to relentlessly shoot the man named Olon Daniel. Savannah had only seen him alive for a brief time-no more than ten minutes. In those ten minutes, she had determined that he did not deserve to live.

  He had drawn a weapon on her, and then told her to cooperate with him. She could not remember every moment of killing him. The memory had grown hazy in her mind, even though it had only been yesterday.

  That, among other things, led to her to believe that she had something innately wrong with her. She was not normal, not normal in the ways that the immature girls in middle school had been.
Many of them wore too much makeup, or didn't bother showering, or carried handcuffs in their backpacks. Savannah had never quite been able to figure out what those had been used for.

  The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized that everything about her life had been unique. She did not fit in anywhere, even if the boys in the A/V Club pretended to like her while they developed photographs in the darkroom.

  She brought her face out of the soft white pillow she was laying in. Moonlight shone in through the skylight, causing objects in the room to cast unusual-looking shadows. A vase full of different-colored flowers had been placed on top of the mahogany nightstand.

  Shadows of the flower petals looked like wide jaws full of teeth. The scent of flowers drifted through the room that made Savannah sniffle.

  Someone had thought to lay a brown teddy bear on the bed before she arrived. She had thrown the teddy bear across the room, where it came to rest on its head next to a closet door. The teddy bear reminded Savannah of her father. She felt sorry right after she had thrown the bear.

  The bear had feelings, too, didn't it? Then she laughed at herself for thinking a toy full of stuffing could feel anything at all. She left it lying on the floor, feeling guilty whenever she looked at it.

  Expensive-looking paintings hung on the wall which, in the dark, looked to Savannah like blurs of color. President Slaan preferred paintings that depicted actual people, rather than the squiggles of colors and lines she'd seen once on a museum tour. She found that she liked Kunan's paintings better.

  She tried to make out the painting on the wall to her left, a wide landscape in which a man stood on the platform of a guillotine, facing away from the metal blade. She wondered what the painter had been trying to express when he put that scene on the canvas.

  Though she had left the door to her room open just a crack-enough for a sliver of light to pass through-she hadn't expected it to swing open until she left the next morning. As it slowly opened, she saw Kenneth there, a blanket slung over one shoulder, his hair all askew.

  He wore blue pajamas with white stripes on them. The sleeves of his pajamas hung over his hands so that he gripped everything through blue cloth.

  He entered the room, and then closed the door behind him. He tiptoed quietly into the room, and upon seeing Savannah awake, stood up straight. He hadn't expected her to be awake. He asked, "Is it all right if I sleep in your room tonight? I'm...um. I'm scared of the dark."

  Savannah pulled back the blankets, and shifted over to give him space on the bed. She said, "You can sleep here."

  She found that, once Kenneth lay down beside her, all the thoughts that were drifting through her mind finally gave way to sleep. Deep slumber stood ready with arms wide open to hold her in its embrace. She felt Kenneth's arm holding her close to him, but couldn't tell if it was just in her dreams.