by Scott Baron
As they dropped underground, Charlie and his friends got one last look at the gorgeous city of sky scrapers before being swallowed up into the ground for the last leg of their most unusual journey.
Chapter Sixty-Six
The tube station at the center of town was essentially empty, though there were a few people––alien and human alike––making their way to other loop tubes as they passed. The newcomers’ unusual attire, as well as the aliens among them, were something of an attention-getter in the otherwise tranquil terminus.
“Up this way. It’s one of the communications hubs in the area. It’ll let Cal tie in Zed and the others more easily,” Rip said, leading them to a bright room furnished with some small potted trees, warm lighting, and plush couches.
Rika flopped down onto one, melting happily into the soft comfort of the first modern Earth furniture she’d seen in years. Leila shrugged, then joined her. The others took chairs, sitting until this Cal fellow showed up.
“Welcome to Los Angeles,” a voice greeted them.
“Uh, hello?”
“Hi, Uncle Cal!” Rip said cheerfully.
“Hello, Ripley. And greetings to our new friends. My name is Cal. With me on this conversation is Zed, lead AI in the orbiting fleet, and Sid, strategic AI on the Dark Side moon base.”
“Hey there,” Zed greeted “Welcome to town.”
“Greetings,” Sid chimed in.
“We wished to first have a little chat with you ourselves before bringing the full council together to––“
“The Council is here?” Bawb said, leaping to his feet, ready for a fight.
“Of course it is. The Council of Earth’s AI, human, and Chithiid overseers has been in place since the war ended. But if your story is true, I suppose you wouldn’t know that.”
“Which part of our story?” Charlie asked. “The part where they’re aliens, or the part where we just got here from about two-thousand years ago?”
“All of that, actually. But while your friends are obviously alien in origin, you and your female companion are entirely human.”
“You sure about that?” Charlie asked, jokingly.
“Of course. We scanned you as soon as you arrived.”
“Hey, invasion of privacy, much?” he grumbled.
“A necessary precaution, but you have my apologies. But if you would, can you please clarify this time jump you mentioned to our men in the UK?”
“You familiar with the concept of an Einstein-Rosen bridge?” Charlie asked.
“Of course we are,” Zed replied. “Every AI knows about that technology, isn’t that right, Cal?”
“Indeed. The Asbrú flight was the very basis for generations of research. Why, in fact––“
“The Asbrú?” Charlie blurted. “That’s our ship?”
“Your ship? Impossible. It was destroyed during a test flight in Earth’s orbit,” Sid said. “The historic records are extensive. The mission was taught to every engineer and space pilot who followed it.”
“Wait,” Cal interrupted. “What is your last name, Charlie?”
“I think you know it, Cal,” he replied. “Gault. Charlie Gault.”
“My word. I would never have thought this possible.”
“But you died. You all died,” Zed noted.
Charlie turned to his friend on the couch. “Hey, Rika. We dead?”
“I don’t feel dead.”
“Me either. So, nope. To answer your question. Definitely not dead.”
“Rika? That is Rika Gaspari?”
“Damn, you guys really do know us,” Charlie replied.
The AIs silently conversed, the revelation hanging thick in the air.
“So, you’re the crew of the Asbrú?” Ripley said. “Like, for real?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s so cool! You’re famous. That mission is taught to everyone in first year pilot’s training. It’s textbook,” the teen said.
“That’s pretty cool,” Charlie said with a grin. “I suppose you want our autographs.”
Ripley laughed. “Well, it’s textbook on what not to do,” she added. “Isn’t that right, Uncle Zed?”
“Oh, most definitely,” the AI replied with amusement.
Charlie sighed. It really was going to be one of those days.
“Great. I’m famous for screwing up. That’s just fantastic,” he grumbled.
“There is much to discuss,” Cal said, rejoining the conversation. “Many new questions have arisen in light of this information. But first, do you know when your ship first vanished, Charlie?”
“Yeah. Given how long we’ve been out there, and if I count my time with the Tslavars, and Ser Baruud, I’d have to say it’s been a little shy of four years.”
“No, Mister Gault. More like eight hundred.”
Charlie felt the world spin a little beneath him.
Talking ships. Genius AIs. Aliens living on Earth in a post-war reconstruction.
“We didn’t jump back to my own time then, did we?”
“I am afraid not.”
“Charlie, what does this mean?” Leila asked, alarmed by the look on her king’s face.
“It means we overshot the mark by nearly a thousand years. We arrived in my future.”
“I’m glad you understood so quickly. Truly, you are the mind you were made out to be in the historical documents. But you are here now, and questions still linger. Such as, how did you arrive where you did? There was not any trace of a ship touching down in the UK, nor were there any readings of wormhole energy anywhere in the system.”
“Perhaps I can answer that,” Bawb replied.
“And you are the one called Bob, right?” Zed asked.
“Yes, I am Bawb, of the Wampeh Ghalian.”
“The what?”
“It’s a sect of deadly space vampire assassins,” Charlie said with a chuckle. “There’s more to the story, but that’s the very basic bit.”
“Vampires? But you guys were in the sun. I saw you,” Ripley said.
“Charlie has taken to likening me to your ‘vampires’, but I can assure you, the Wampeh Ghalian are not of your world.”
“So how did you get here, then? Was it a Wampeh Ghalian cloaking device of some sort hiding your ship?” Sid asked.
“Nothing so crude. We arrived by magic.”
Ripley started laughing. The AIs, however, were not amused.
“This is a serious question, Mister Bob. We need to know precisely how you traveled through time to arrive here, undetected by any of our scanners.”
“And I have told you,” he replied.
“Please, there is no reason for these make-believe stories. You can trust us, here. How did you really do it?” Zed asked.
“Bob, would you please?” Charlie asked with a knowing glance.
“My pleasure,” the Wampeh replied, rising to his feet.
In a fluid motion, he drew his wand and cast a minor spell, the small potted tree across the room bursting into flame before he cast the extinguishing spell, snuffing it out. Bawb sheathed his wand and sat back down.
“I just had that planted,” Cal said.
“My apologies, Cal,” he said, the little smile on his lips not diminishing.
“That was unlike any energy signature I’ve ever seen,” Zed interjected. “And almost undetectable with our normal scans. If we hadn’t been actively monitoring the room, it would have gone unnoticed.”
“Like the man said. Magic,” Charlie said. “Same way we can all understand each other. A user-linked translation spell.”
He the magical expenditure of the wand sparked that odd feeling in his head again. In his blood. A link.
“And speaking of magic and things you all won’t believe,” he continued, “I have another friend I think you’d love to meet. I haven’t seen her in a while, but I know she’s out there, and we need to find her.”
“She walked off from your party before you met our people?” Cal asked. “We can send a search
flight to find her and––“
“That won’t quite work,” Charlie interjected.
“Why not?”
“Well, she was kind of buried under a mountain,” he replied.
“A mountain? Then even if she had ample oxygen, I’m afraid she’s not going to have long.” Zed said.
“Yeah, about that,” Charlie said. “Uh, she’s already been down there a really, really long time.”
“How long?”
“About two thousand years.”
Ripley sat up in her chair. “Uh, hang on. Did you say two thousand years? No way anyone can survive buried for––“
“And she’s a dragon.”
Had record players not gone out of use a thousand years earlier, the needle would most certainly have abruptly skipped across this most unusual tune.
“I’m sorry, a what?”
“Yeah. Exactly what it sounds like. Wings, fire breathing, the whole shebang.”
Ripley and the AIs fell silent, utterly unsure how to process that piece of information. Finally, it was not the city-sized AI, or the leader of the fleet, or the base on the moon who spoke up. It was the stunned teenage girl, sitting cross-legged on her chair.
“I’d better get aunt Daisy.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
As it turned out, Ripley’s somewhat legendary aunt was offworld at the moment, but Cal and the other terrestrial AIs had been more than happy to help their unexpected visitors track down their lost friend. It would be a search and rescue of unprecedented scale, and a lot of people volunteered to be a part of it.
No one had ever tried to dig up a live dragon before.
Of course, no one knew exactly where Ara had been trapped. Sheeran’s intelligence had only been that Malalia’s people had lured her with a magically-brimming konus, left deep within a system of caverns, the power enhanced and directed outward just right. Just enough to catch the attention of the mighty dragon.
Her kind were powerful and wise, but the one downfall of so many species held true for Zomoki as well. They were curious. And what better to arouse their curiosity than traces of an impossible magical power on a world where it shouldn’t exist?
“She couldn’t have been more than a few hundred miles from the castle,” Charlie determined, extrapolating the rough area of the search based on the fact that, while Ara could fly, Malalia and her henchmen were on horseback. There was only so far they could travel to carry out their little treachery. Ara was somewhere in the UK. They just had to find out where.
It made sense, Charlie had mused. A real dragon buried in the land that had long held myths of them throughout history. He had to wonder if Ara herself hadn’t inspired more than a few of those tales.
A plan was devised, utilizing Charlie’s tenuous link with his buried friend. It would be time consuming, and was iffy at best, but they hoped he would feel her presence as they flew near her, like a human divining rod.
Chithiid salvage crews had put out the request for volunteers to help rescue a creature trapped some two thousand years prior by an evil power. They had no idea what a dragon was, nor did they owe any loyalty to the strange people from the past, but within mere hours, offers of assistance began flooding in. Chithiid and human alike were ready to help.
The mechanicals were pitching in as well, cyborgs helping rebuild across the globe offering to catch the next tube or flight out when the time came. Now, it all rested on Charlie.
It was exhausting. Technically, all he was doing was flying around, comfortably seated in a cushioned chair. But emotionally, viscerally, he was being spread increasingly thin. After four days of it, he finally accepted Leila’s offer to join him.
“This macho, lone bindoki thing isn’t a good look,” she had said.
“Honey, we say ‘lone wolf’ on this planet.”
His queen slapped him playfully. “Just shut up and let me help.”
“All right,” he relented. “But you’ll just wind up as bored as everyone else on the flight.”
Leila was definitely not bored as she marveled at the land from their aerial vantage point. They had spent a pair of lengthy days making low passes over yet another series of mountains, this time heading further west in their search for any sign of their friend.
Charlie had briefly sensed something, but then, as every time before, it slipped from his grasp, like a fistful of sand held in rough surf. One moment he had it, the next it was gone.
“Guys, I appreciate the hard work, but this is the twentieth mountain we’ve surveyed in the last few days. I think we can call it a day,” he said to the pilots.
“All right, Charlie. It’s your call.”
“Then I’m calling it. It’s getting late.”
“You know, if you want to stick around for another half hour, I know a beautiful spot on the Welsh coast where you could catch the sunset,” the pilot said, nodding toward Leila who sat quietly staring out the window. “Might be a nice recharge,” he added.
Charlie smiled, gratefully. “Excellent idea. Thank you.”
The pilot merely smiled, then shifted course for the far reaches of Wales.
Charlie shifted his seat, pulling Leila close and draping his arm across her chest as they took in the sights of the scenic flight.
“It really is beautiful,” she said quietly. “I was sad to leave my home, but this place, it’s magical, in its own way. And it was actually beginning to feel like home.”
“I know,” he replied, kissing her temple. “Not a bad life, eh? King and queen of the realm.”
“Well, a part of the realm, anyway.”
“ With you as my queen, it was more than enough.”
A warmth began to spread in Leila’s chest.
Then it heated up Charlie’s arm as well.
“What the hell?” he blurted as he pulled his arm back.
Leila’s Magus stone was glowing, triggered by Charlie’s contact, Ara’s blood mingled in his veins. But now the stone was reacting on its own, having slowly absorbed traces of Ara’s power over the time Leila had spent in close proximity to the magical creature.
“It’s getting stronger,” she exclaimed. “That way!”
“Turn right!” Charlie shouted into the cockpit. “We’ve got a hit!”
They banked right and followed the glowing stone as it drew them to their hidden friend.
“This can’t be right. There’s no mountain here,” Charlie said, confused.
“No mountains, but there are some pretty extensive caverns all throughout this area. Maybe your friend was buried, but in a quarry cavern, not under a mountain.”
It all made sense. Limestone was porous, and the waters from the wet region would have eroded miles upon miles of caverns over millions of years. The perfect place to trap a dragon.
“There!” Leila called out. “Put the ship down!”
They landed in a clearing and headed out on foot until she stood atop a large mound of rubble, the ancient trace of where a tunnel opening once stood.
“We’ve found it, Charlie,” she said, eyes wet with joy. “We’ve found her.”
All that remained was digging their friend out.
Those who had volunteered their services leapt into action, and within a day, a round-the-clock effort to excavate Lord-knew how many miles of collapsed stone was underway. Charlie was there the entire time, watching with eager anticipation.
“You need proper sleep and a hot meal. Go join your friends in London and get some rest, Charlie. You look exhausted,” the dig foreman said. “We’ll call you the moment we find something.”
Reluctantly, he hopped the next flight out, and within an hour was showered, shaved. His queen made sure he ate a good meal and tucked him in to bed. Within minutes, he was and fast asleep.
The following days Charlie introduced his friends to the comforts of his world. As much as he could that is. He was being introduced to them as well, being hundreds and hundreds of years into his own future. And the tales he heard were astonis
hing.
Apparently, there had been a global attack by a hostile alien species. It had wiped out nearly all of humanity, stopping their culture dead in its tracks for centuries until finally a woman named Daisy and her friends saved humanity, putting a stop to the war once and for all. Compared to his own story, he felt she had him beat, hands down.
As for his friends, they were astounded at the comforts of this world as much as the miracles technology could provide. Hot water on demand, and without the need for a spell cast from a magic-storing device which had to be constantly recharged. It was marvelous.
Then there was the food. So many varieties, and such creative uses of ingredients. Ripley’s father had taken particular pleasure in feeding the newcomers, having flown all the way from his restful home in Los Angeles to personally greet them. He was quite a character, and a skilled chef on top of that. Charlie thought his dear friend Tuktuk would have liked meeting him.
But that friend was dead, and many hundreds of years ago at that. A sad loss at the hands of time travel. He just hoped his life had been a happy one. If he’d remained with his dearest Magda, he was pretty sure it was.
As for the other human in the group, Rika had been scanned in the most advanced medical facilities Charlie had ever seen, and the prognosis was both heartening and sad. Severe damage had been done to her frontal lobes when the Tslavar slave dealers had lobotomized her. Then, adding Malalia’s mind fuck on top of that, and it was a miracle she had any gray matter intact at all.
But that was precisely what she had, though the AIs studying her had no explanation how. Her brain was healthy and healed, the damaged areas––quite impossibly––regrown as if new.
What she had stored there in the last several years was gone, however, and given what she’d been through, maybe that was for the best. But she also now had the tools at her disposal to form new memories. To start fresh.
Bawb hadn’t commented on his continued use of the Balamar waters on his friend. Their supply was limited, and once it was gone, there would be no replenishing it. However, this was someone close to Charlie. Harmed by Malalia in ways that made his blood boil in sympathy for his friend. He could use all of the water, if need be, so far as he was concerned.