Die Back

by Richard Hacker

  Addison stood still, his gun dropping to the ground. He fell to his knees, grief and pain rising up in him. He wept for his father whose love was betrayed, for the consciousness of his mother imprisoned in the mind of Kairos, for Nikki lost to shifting realities, for Jules trapped in an Inca nightmare, lying dead on a cold floor, and shot to death at his side. But most of all, he wept for being too late and now waiting for whatever future Kairos' twisted mind would create. All was lost.

  He took the messenger bag from her dead body and the pen from her grasp. In her other hand he found her writing pad and to his horror, a single name scrawled across a page.

  Adolf.

  A Final Inking

  Addison picked up the messenger bag, the awareness Maya may have once again changed the time continuum a tightening band around his chest. Adolf. God. She must be inking Adolf Hitler. He looked skyward, half expecting to see Zeppelins lumbering overhead. Rain poured, the air acrid with sulfur. He pulled the bag over his shoulder, his body weary from the crash. After hiking for an hour he found a timber road which he followed downhill to a small parking lot by a trailhead near a highway.

  A couple in their twenties stood by a silver Subaru hover, backpacks sitting on the vehicle's roof. Covered in blood and dirt, Addison knew he looked like the walking dead, but it couldn't be helped. The woman, her blond head just reaching the shoulder of her six-foot-tall male companion, glanced his way and gasped. The boyfriend stepped forward protectively, a collapsed walking pole in one hand. Addison didn't want a fight. He just needed the hover.

  Addison could make out the 'go away' undertones in the guy's posture. He smiled, hoping to make eye contact, but the boyfriend stepped closer, his knuckles whitening as he tightened his grip on the pole. "Uh, yeah. There was an accident. I need to borrow your hover to get to the hospital."

  "Accident? What kind of accident?"

  "Look, I don't want any trouble. I just want your hover."

  The man glanced to his girlfriend. "Get in the hover, Karen. And call Emergency Services." He glared skeptically back at Addison. "For an ambuhover and a security officer."

  "Peter—"

  "Just do it."

  She moved to the other side of the hover, speaking softly to her comm implant. The man stepped forward, courage and adrenaline rising.

  Addison held out his hands in symbolic surrender. "Don't be that way, man." He took a step toward the hover. "I just need to borrow your snowhover. I'm not going to hurt you."

  "Get back!" Peter whipped the pole around at Addison, a searing pain exploding across his shoulder. As the man's arm flashed by, Addison took hold, kicking his attacker's legs out from under him and slamming him to the ground. The wind knocked out of him, the man gasped for air with Addison astride him, the muzzle of Addison's gun pushed into his face.

  "You're going to get on your knees and place your palm on the biosensor."

  The boyfriend's eyes darted, his teeth clenched in defiance as he gasped for air

  "The other option here is that I cut your fucking hand off!"

  Considering Addison's gun and his ugly threat, Peter chose to keep his hand. Addison got into the car, the door closing beside him. Karen still sat in the passenger seat frozen in terror. He started the engine, and glanced over to his passenger. Tears streaked her cheeks.

  "I'm sorry about all of this. I'm kind of having a bad day."

  Her lips trembled, but she managed to speak. "S-sure. No problem."

  He smiled through his battered, blood-encrusted face. "You might want to get out now."

  ***

  Driving back to the city past Issaquah and Mercer Island he opened the windows using cold air to fight off the haziness and despair of fatigue. He was bleeding and in pain, but more than physical discomfort, he felt tired. Tired of death, deep in his bones.

  I've made so many mistakes, lost everyone I care about, and let Kairos ink an escape. Could Maya have been my mom? She wouldn't, she couldn't do this, unless forced against her will. Hitler. What the hell is Kairos up to? Did I just steal a hover from a couple of Nazis? God, I don't know how much longer I can do this. Hell, what am I talking about? I don't even know what to do. Every time I try to fix things, they just get worse.

  He stayed on the highway north, past Lake Union, the University of Washington sprawled to the east. The city looked the same, or did it? Condos and office buildings rose into a thick, yellow overcast, which hid any mountains beyond. High-speed ferries vied with tankers and huge gray war ships for open water on Puget Sound. Low-flying military jets roared out of SeaTac, flying through driving rain, and disappearing in thick mist and clouds. Will my house and Dad's notes about the pens still be there in whatever new reality Maya's created?

  To his relief, the house still stood, as it had before. He climbed the porch stairs, opening the door with a bloody hand. Striding through the foyer to the study, he dropped the messenger bag on the desk. His father had told him a partial translation of the Alchi̱meía was in a notebook hidden in the attic.

  He grabbed a hammer, rushing to the spot where he first found the pen. He pried several boards free to expose the empty space where the box had been hidden. Reaching under the floor, he felt around for something, anything. Maya must have stolen it. Dammit.

  Back in the study, he emptied the messenger bag onto the desk. Five pens and, to his surprise, a small, black notebook lay before him. He opened the musty volume, thumbing through pages of his father's handwriting until he found what he sought. Instructions for shifting the continuum by bringing the five pens together.

  His excitement in finding the notebook dissolved as he considered the consequences of whatever action he took next. Between Maya and himself, they had significantly altered the temporal flow. And who knew what Maya had done. Was reality something like a mirror? Before he knew about the League, when he looked in a mirror present reality reflected back. However, what if a rock impacted the mirror, sending a spider web of cracks on all directions. What would he see? Something similar to present reality and yet, different? If I shift the temporal flow what will be saved and what will be lost?

  He walked to the study window. Robotic hummingbirds glowed luminescent, off and on, like large fireflies. He wondered if they were for decoration or surveillance, or both.

  Before I inked Emmett in Cantigny, Nikki was my best friend, Beth died in a car wreck and Jules and I were inking partners. He collapsed in a leather side chair. Is the original path the one I remember? Or have I lost my way? After all the continuum shifts, layer upon layer of conscious awareness fought for control. No. Validation. Maybe I don't belong in the original continuum. A hand on either side of his head, he pressed to keep the multiverse within him from exploding, to feel something, to anchor himself in the quicksand of reality. I don't know what I'll create, but anything's better than this. If I let it stand, millions will have died and millions more will follow. And Jules. Will I ever see Jules again?

  A grandfather clock ticked with monotonous regularity. A police half-track mounted with a .50 caliber machine gun rumbled slowly down the street. A jet streaked by, his entire house vibrating in response to its roaring engines. And then the room flashed with intense white light. He ran to the front door.

  Oh my God!

  A brilliant mushroom cloud lifted into the sky. The Air Force base. They've nuked the base! He flipped on his vid screen, but no signal. His comm implant fell silent. The war had come to Seattle. With the base destroyed, the Seattle harbor would be next. He had to act.

  Now.

  I've got to put this right. Like Jules said, life is about the truth. If I'm going to live, I want it to be true and real. Not some alternate reality created by alchemy.

  He scanned through his father's notebook, wanting to bring the pens together correctly, but needing to accomplish the task before the next missile struck. The book described an instrument capable of precisely shifting the continuum to Critical Path—the original time line. But the notebook didn't reveal its l
ocation. However, the notes did outline how the original five pens could be used together, not to ink into a consciousness, but to shift the time continuum.

  He sat at the desk, staring at Thomas' notes and the five pens, waiting for some idea, some inspiration to guide him out of the hellish nightmare his inkings had created. He felt Jules' presence with him, helping him, encouraging him.

  I can't return the continuum to its original path, but I can change it.

  The pens' designer intended for the five to join together into a combined instrument of five nibs, their ink mingling with each other. He'd be trusting his salvation to a roll of the dice, but what choice did he have? Anything had to be better than the current continuum.

  He constructed the tool following his father's notes, and stepped away from the desk. In that moment Addison understood the curiosity and dread which must have flooded the thoughts of scientists working on the Manhattan Project when they exploded the first atomic weapon. On the desk rested an instrument capable of shifting the time continuum—forever altering reality.

  Would the world be as he remembered it? Or would the shift bring back his father, maybe guide Faryndon away from his alchemical discovery, the League no longer necessary? But if the League continued to exist, the knowledge he carried would lead him to Kairos.

  Kushirimay.

  With a sweep of the pens he would condemn the Inca people to a terrible fate. Is there a worse fate than the decimation of an entire culture?

  I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. Please forgive me.

  Jules, dead in two continua. Their love had been a flickering flame of possibility in one continuum and a fire in this, both snuffed out. And the Jules he knew, the one he first loved, would be lost to time. A deep yearning, an aching, haunted him. A shift might save the world imploding around him, but would separate him from Jules for eternity. To lose her physical presence was terrible. To lose her conscious existence, unbearable. His heart could find no peace in his conclusion.

  I have to do this. I have to shift the continuum. I'm sorry, Jules. Please forgive me.

  Another brilliant flash of light was followed by a deep thunderous rumble. Much closer this time. He had seconds before the blast would rip his home into a million pieces.

  He found The Time Machine and Psychology and Alchemy on the shelves. As he had done previously, he set one on top of the other, but the bookshelf remained in place. He reversed the stacking, but got no result. Frantic, he yanked books off the shelf, and pulled one of the bookcases away from the wall, exposing a tunnel. A roar like a locomotive bore down on him. He rushed through the passage into this continuum's safe room. Swinging the bookcase back, he flung the hatch door open, and descended the ladder into the Tempos Refúgium.

  Once inside, he laid out paper on the desk. Holding the large, awkward instrument in his hand, he scribed the first triangle pointing up. Fire. The second pointing down. Water. Another flash of brilliant white light. The hatch door. I left it open. No time. The muffled roar of hurricane force winds, trees snapping in half, the detritus of life smashing through the house above filtered into the Tempos Refúgium. Addison scribed the third upright triangle, bisected by a horizontal line. Air. And a fourth downward pointing triangle bisected by a line. Earth. A horrible howling rose up, as if the dogs of hell had loosed their chains, vicious, filled with blood lust. As blinding light flooded the room from the open hatch, he took a deep breath, scribing a circle around the symbols. Above the circle he wrote the word:

  Renascentia

  Aftermath

  Addison opened his eyes to the Inking room of the Tempos Refúgium, his hand still holding the pens. Did it work? Stepping into the main room he called out. "Anybody here? Jules?" Silence. Without thinking he tossed the pens and notebook into the messenger bag, and climbed the access ladder. He pushed open the hatch door, which must have blown shut in the blast. "Jules?"

  Rushing through the hatchway the continuum shift swept over him in a blur of whirling light and the familiar sensation of falling into nothingness. Addison's eyes blinked open to the smooth white plaster ceiling of his bedroom. On the radio, an NPR newscast recounted a human interest story about a guy in New York City who still delivered seltzer water to customers in Manhattan. It worked. The continuum shifted! He reached in his pocket, checking messages on his cell phone. The listing showed two from Nikki, each with a thumbnail photo of her.

  TRAINING TONITE.

  Tapping the thumbnail, the photo expanded to full screen. He kissed the image of his friend.

  "Thank God."

  Rising off the bed he reached for the messenger bag. Where is it? He pulled away bed covers, tossing pillows, finally falling on his knees to search under the bed when the realization hit him. He had been so focused on Jules, he had forgotten the pens and notebook from one continuum would be annihilated when he passed into another. At least I made the shift happen.

  He picked himself up and wandered into the hallway. "Jules?" No answer. Only the soft ticking of a grandfather clock keeping time downstairs. No Jules. Have I lost her? He turned back to the guest room, fearful of what he might find there, when a voice called from downstairs.

  "Addison. You ready yet? You know how Nikki gets when we're late, so get a move on."

  Jules? "Jules, is that you?"

  He hobbled down the stairs as fast as he could go. She stood by the kitchen counter, her arms crossed. "Of course it's me. Who else were you expecting? Come on, pretty boy. Time's a wastin'."

  Stepping toward her, a familiar dull pain in his knee slowing him, he threw his arms around her. "Jules, you made it. You're here!"

  She pried herself from his grasp. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm just happy to see you."

  "Since when?"

  Jules stood before him. The afro-punk Jules in combat boots and kilt, the Jules who gave him grief, the Jules who offered the promise of something more. Maybe love. "I missed you so much."

  "I have that effect on people. Can we go now?"

  He reached for her hand. "You know Jules, we could be friends. Better than friends."

  Her brow furrowed, as if trying to get a read on whatever game Addison was playing. "Yeah, not in this reality, buddy." She pulled her hand away. "We're partners. I'm the strong beautiful one and you're the crippled loser." Jules grabbed his cane from the coat tree, tossing it to him. "Let's go. I'm not about to be late because you're acting weird, as usual."

  He considered mentioning the passage to the Tempos Refúgium through the study, but decided he better take this new continuum one step at a time. Addison threw on a jacket, following her out the door. She wasn't the girl who had kissed him after their return from Alexandria or the Jules he struggled to save in Peru or the one who loved him enough to give her life for his own. But weren't those possibilities all captured in the woman who now walked out the door?

  She motioned for him to hurry up. "You know how pissed off Nikki gets when we don't follow her stupid rules."

  "Yeah, about that. I may have broken a rule or two."

  She stopped at the sidewalk, turning to face him, apprehension in her voice. "What did you do?"

  Addison looked around at a familiar world, a world he had brought back into existence with the pens. He smiled. "How about if we get downtown to the Tempos Refúgium, then I'll tell you both."

  ***

  As expected, Nikki didn't greet the news of Addison's adventures with much positive enthusiasm.

  "You did what?"

  She threw her mug of coffee across the room, black liquid splashing the wall, the ceramic commemorative Star Wars mug shattering. Addison wondered if Nikki had an endless supply of mugs to punctuate her emotional outbursts.

  "After you vanished—"

  "Excuse me, mon cher?"

  "It's not important. Anyway, Jules and I went to the Great Library in Alexandria to find my father."

  Jules, hands on hips, shook her head. "Don't you dare drag me into your crazy."

>   Nikki scanned the table, as if looking for another object to throw. "A real DIY'er. Fantastic. And how did that go for you?"

  "We found him and the Alchi̱meía."

  Jules glared. "You really want to keep going with this 'we' thing?"

  Addison wanted to tell her everything, but he hesitated. She wouldn't believe him, especially the part about how close they had become. "Yeah, we did several missions together."

  "Why don't I remember anything? Shouldn't I recall the other continua if I did the shift with you?" Recognition crossed her face. "Unless, of course, I wasn't there. As in, dead."

  "Other continua don't matter Jules. Present-side is what's important. And present-side in this continuum, you're here."

  Nikki got up from the desk to search for another coffee mug in the cupboard, glasses and mugs clinking with her rifling. "You two done with the love fest? I'd like to get back to the Alchi̱meía." She pulled out another Star Wars mug, Addison assumed in anticipation of smashing it against the wall once more. "You're going to stand there and tell me you, a novice with the barest hint of experience inking, found a document the League has been searching for since the 1930's? I think not."

  "We did, Nikki."

  "You two couldn't ink your way out of a cardboard box. I don't believe you."

  Addison explained about inking his father, about hiding the Alchi̱meía in the Lighthouse, inking Pizarro, and shifting the continuum with the five pens.

  Nikki gradually calmed down. "How did you know the five pens would shift the continuum? The Alchi̱meía?"

  "No, the Alchi̱meía remains hidden, but Dad left a notebook, a partial translation."

  "Excellent. Where's the notebook?"

  He flushed, embarrassed and frustrated at this lapse. "I kind of lost it. No one was here when I got back, so I rushed out of the Tempos Refúgium with the notebook and the pens. They disappeared when I entered this continuum."