The Place Beyond

by Ryan Lohner

  “Your point is still escaping me. And believe me, my patience at the moment is extraordinarily short.”

  Matt added, “Yeah, you want to quit showboating already?” If anything could actually get him on the same page with Charlie, it was that.

  “Okay, okay. Point being, they have all kinds of features that I’m guessing none of your people got close to finding, with how little you were interested in them. But there’s one in particular that’s quite important to our current situation – speakerphone. Isn’t that right, Lilah?”

  The voice came from the phone for all to hear. “It certainly seems that way.”

  Matt said, “Wait, how is she on the line with you?”

  Jane raised her hand, her smile suddenly as big as Jim’s. “We talked it over after Charlie outlined the plan for today. You were already asleep, and we figured any more discussion would just give someone else a chance to overhear. I figured sacrificing one phone would be worth it if this paid off.”

  Charlie’s face seemed frozen. “But … Lilah, why are you doing this? You’d help them over me?”

  Lilah’s voice was oddly sad. “I didn’t want to believe it. But some of the things you’ve done since these people came here … I spent time with them. I got to see that they were just nice, regular people who wanted nothing more than to go home, and yet you insisted on treating them like some kind of enemy. So when they approached me with this idea, it didn’t seem like there was any good reason to say no.”

  Jim’s smile grew wider. “You see, I learned something from you. You just said it, even – never leave anything to chance. This was going to be your last opportunity to do anything about us if you were going to, and given the marvelous reception we’ve gotten from you this whole time, I was guessing you’d take it. I didn’t know how, and I certainly didn’t expect the secret teleporter. Nice one there, by the way. And since Jane was the one closest to Lilah, I left the pitch up to her.”

  Jane picked up the thread. “Jim called my phone right before we came out here, and the line’s been open the whole time. We did worry briefly about the bill, but then we figured, who’s going to know? It’s not like any cell towers back home are recording any of it. Anyway, since we left the base, Lilah’s been sitting in the gym, along with anyone else who wanted to listen to the mission in real time.”

  Lilah spoke up. “And that was quite a few of them. Say hello, guys!”

  The result was only audible as a burst of white noise, but Matt liked to think he heard a good deal of anger in it.

  Apparently Charlie did too, as most of his face was still frozen, but sweat was now visible on his bald pate, and his eyes were swiveled towards the outside, so that Matt half-expected him to say his name was actually Eye-Gor. His mouth opened and closed a few times with no sound coming out. Finally, he was able to make his vocal chords work. “That many people?”

  Lilah chuckled darkly. “And we’ll be sure to tell everyone who opted out. You have my word on that.” Suddenly her voice had a hard edge Matt had never heard before. The betrayal was clearly having quite an effect on her.

  Charlie abruptly stumbled and thrust out a hand to catch himself on the wall. Unfortunately, he picked the hand he was holding the pulser with, so there was no purchase to be made and he ended up on the floor, dropping the pulser on the way. Tom quickly stepped forward to pick it up, Charlie making no move to stop him.

  “It was all for the good of this whole world. That’s the curse men like me live under. I would have been a good ruler. Everyone would have been much happier than they are now. You see, I never lied to any of you about my goals.”

  Lilah’s voice came through again. “Well, from where I’m standing, it seems like you wouldn’t have been much different. We all get sick while you go anywhere you want in perfect comfort. You look down on all of us, seeing us as nothing but tools in your rise to power. Maybe you started out just like you wanted us all to believe, but you’re not that man anymore. If you’d got all that power, what else would you have convinced yourself was justified in the name of keeping it? I’ll give you one thing, though. You brought us all together. People with a common goal, and the will to do what it took to achieve it. Problem is, you don’t have that goal. I don’t know what’s going to happen to you up there, but if you end up surviving, don’t come back here. You won’t be welcome.” There was the beginning of a cheer from the crowd, and then it was abruptly cut off as she hung up.

  Charlie remained on the floor. For a while he simply made silent motions with his hands. Finally, he spoke again. “So there you have it. Years of work, planning every last detail, and you people destroy it all. And you still think I was wrong to work against you so much?”

  Matt was surprised to see he was crying. “So are you going to kill me, or what?”

  Matt turned to Jim. “You’re the one who’s spent the most time with him, and it was your plan. What do you say?”

  Jim shook his head. “We don’t kill people. Not like this, anyway,” he judiciously added, looking at his father. “Everyone agreed?”

  Everyone did.

  Tom said, “Well, there you go. We condemn you to live in the mess you’ve made. Just go, and make whatever you want of this chance.”

  Charlie didn’t thank them, or say anything at all to them. He didn’t even glance in their direction as he stood up and moved some distance away, to where Matt figured his personal teleporter was set to pull him from.

  “Street level, building exterior,” he said, and disappeared.

  “It’s a shame,” said Mary. “This place definitely could use some of what he was doing. But he just wasn’t the right man to do it.”

  Tom shook his head. “I just wonder if anyone is. Hopefully those people he brought together won’t be hurt too badly by this.”

  Jane said, “They’ve got plenty of good people down there. I think they’ll be fine. Better, actually. Now they can actually decide for themselves how to fight this fight. But what are we standing here for? The control room is right down that hall, if I remember correctly.”

  * * *

  The crew for the corridor proved just as compliant as the last time. In fact, Jane was pretty sure she saw one of them rolling his eyes, as if the whole thing had become like a routine now.

  As they entered the coordinates, Matt said to Dave, “So what was that thing they didn’t know?”

  Dave said in a completely even tone, “What do you mean?” But Matt noticed a tiny glance to the side before he said it.

  “You know what I’m talking about. When you sprang that trap on Pren, you said they did all kinds of stuff to make you go back to their side, but you knew something they didn’t that helped you resist it. But you never got around to saying what it was, so I guess I’m kind of curious.”

  Dave looked around some more, clearly uncomfortable, but finally took a deep breath. “I guess I should explain that. And you deserve it, more than you know. See, when I first came to your world, I was just another clone soldier. I did what I was told and I only took on any other identity because it was my job. But then I saw those jerks hassling you, and somehow it just seemed like the right thing to do was to stop them. I also have to admit, my being a fan of your parents was a lie. I was confused by what I’d done, so once you talked about them, I made up an excuse to spend more time with you, and try to figure out what was going on in my head. And I did. Spending time with you, I realized I enjoyed having just an ordinary life. It felt so much better than what I’d been doing before. But it couldn’t last.” He paused to look at the floor before continuing. “More orders came to us, me and the other clone playing the part of my father. We were being recalled back to Krell, with just a day to get any affairs we felt like in order. Which for me meant dropping you that hint about the woods. So it’s really all my fault you went through all this.”

  Matt put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, take it from a guy who’s been beating himself up over that for days now – it doesn’t help. It happened,
and I’d say everything’s turned out about as well as we could hope for. But what does any of this have to do with my question?”

  Dave looked him straight in the eye; Matt had never seen him look so serious.

  “Everything. You brought me out of the life I was doomed to plod through like so many others of my kind. And watching you go back to your world two months ago, I realized one very important fact about why that happened … I love you.”

  Matt took a few seconds to comprehend what had just been said, it was so foreign to anything he thought would come out of this conversation. Then he realized he was only making this more awkward by stretching out the silence, so he said the only thing that came to mind. “Come again?”

  “That’s what kept me from submitting. I just thought of you. So there’s the big secret. Are you okay with it?”

  As this new piece of information wound its way through Matt’s mind, he found himself examining a few things in a new light. The absurd lengths he had gone to simply to find his friend. The depth of betrayal he had felt upon discovering Dave had told him such a big lie. And how absolutely sure he had been and still was that Dave had then been telling the truth about everything else. He looked his friend in the eye. “Yes, I think I am.” And then followed what happened any time two teenagers were in love.

  * * *

  As Jane watched the spectacle before her, she simply thought, well, so much for that. And then she had to give a little laugh at how absurd she had been to develop feelings for both boys. It was all she had time for before the voice came from behind them.

  “You really thought I wouldn’t have an engineer in that crew who could fix the teleporter himself? How stupid do you think I am?” Pren stood in the doorway, pulsers in both hands and with a look of more rage than they’d ever seen from him before.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  There was nothing of the Pren they’d known before, the cocky, dramatic punk, chafing about no one appreciating him. In his eyes was simply a cold hatred directed at every one of them. Matt realized with a chill that he had been pushed one too many times, and by his best guess now would only be satisfied by killing them all.

  “I was the one who caught you people first. It was supposed to be my big break. My ticket out of this drudge work and into a place where I could actually have some fun. And what did you all do? Make me look bad in every way, and ensured I’ll probably be stuck where I am for the rest of my life. But none of you will be there to see it.” He moved his aim with the pulsers around the room to each of them in turn. “They’re both set to kill, and once those shots are down, I just drop them and pull out two others.”

  Matt noticed that he did indeed have several other pulsers stuck in his belt. It would have looked funny if the threat wasn’t so deadly serious.

  “And none of you can cross the room to me in time to make a difference. So here’s what it all comes down to – you’ve been able to think your way out of every other problem you’ve had, but just put you up against something as simple as this, and there’s nothing you can do.”

  Matt realized with a sick thud in his gut that Pren was right. They were completely out of options, simply because one of their enemies was desperate enough to try something like this. He looked around at his friends and saw an equal feeling of defeat on all their faces. None of them said a word, because what was there to say?

  So Pren kept talking. “And that leaves me with just one problem – who to kill first? I’ll be honest, I was kind of hoping one of you would try to run at me, but it seems you’re making me make the decision myself. Well, no matter. The ending is the same any way it happens. So I think I’ll go with—”

  But the person he was going to name would remain a mystery. Because just at that moment, Pren lurched forward, dropping both pulsers. He turned to face the door and Matt followed the same line of sight to see that Chapman was entering the room, holding his own pulser with the column indicating the lowest setting now rising back into place.

  He looked Pren in the eye, said, “I never did like you,” and as Pren was just beginning to pull out one of the pulsers on his belt, Chapman flicked his weapon to kill mode and fired again. Pren was flung back into a console, where he slumped to the floor. “Sorry about that,” Chapman said to a technician working nearby who was now glaring at him.

  None of them could say anything for a few seconds, both from the shock of the sudden death, and just for want of anything they possibly could say. Then Jim broke the ice. “Not to sound ungrateful or anything but, well, it’s pretty obvious why I’m not seeing this as any great improvement.”

  Chapman slowly blinked. “Yes, I suppose I deserve that. The last time we saw each other was bound to not leave the best impression.”

  Jane crossed her arms. “Oh, you think?”

  “But I have to thank you for something. What you all said to me that day stuck with me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. You may not believe this, but I joined the military because I really did want to do good. I thought it was the best hope the world had to keep from collapsing into chaos. And when I learned about a whole other universe, well, I volunteered. Some of my men weren’t so happy about that,” and he made a brief gesture to Pren’s body, “but I was fascinated by the whole concept, even if it involved what could be seen as dull grunt work most of the time. And as egotistical as it might sound, I thought my being there would be the best chance for a peaceful meeting when the time came, as we were assured it would. I’m not blind to the flaws of some of my colleagues, even people with the same rank as me, or even higher. Some of them still think we should just attack your world with everything we’ve got. I didn’t want to think about what might happen if one of them was in charge of the expeditionary force. So that’s what led me into the job where we first met.”

  Matt coughed. “Yes, it really makes you look good. But we’re still waiting for an explanation for why you screwed things up for us.”

  Chapman looked away for a second. “Yes, that was far from my finest moment. When my career was threatened over the mess this had all become … I can’t really explain what went on in my head. But the way it ended up was that I convinced myself that what I told you that day was true – it was ultimately to the greater good that I keep my position, and that meant stopping you.”

  Dave said, “Some of this sounds very familiar, actually. I spent a lot of time questioning myself when I started becoming attached to their world. But there’s still one big question – what are you going to do now?”

  Chapman briefly glanced toward the pulser in his hand, then at Pren’s body. “I’d say I have a pretty good model of what not to do, wouldn’t you? Because you were right. No matter how I justified my actions before, the simple fact is it was the wrong thing to do. I guess I’m just lucky that I now get the chance to correct that mistake. Heh, the general himself actually ordered me to come here, because he was sure I’d be the best one to handle the situation like I did last time. To be honest, I’m still working on how I’m going to explain this, but that’s not your problem.” He turned to the technicians, who had stopped working while all this was going on. “Men, resume your work. Send these fine people back home, close to the time they left if you can manage it. And don’t worry, you’re doing it all with my authority. If anyone ends up taking a fall for this, it’ll be me, not you.” Looking back at the group, he focused on Dave. “I assume you’ll be going too?”

  “Absolutely. What’s left for me here but more of the last two months? They’d never believe me again now. Besides the …” he and Matt smiled at each other, “other reasons.”

  Chapman smiled back. “Well then, the best of luck to you. And thank you all for reminding me why I signed up for this job. I’ll be doing things a bit different from now on, assuming I’m not just kicked out.” He chuckled softly. “I suppose there are always the rebels, in any case. If you’re still angry with me, and I wouldn’t blame you, maybe you can see that as atonement enough.”

  Jan
e said, “Wait a minute.” As Chapman paused she continued. “One more thing’s occurred to me. We may be going back to the same time we left, but Dave and Jim are still considered missing back home. Plus, now Dave doesn’t have a father. How do we explain all this?”

  Chapman snapped his fingers. “You would do well in the service, miss. Always thinking ahead. And to answer that, I believe one of these will come in handy.” He went to a corner of the room and made a long stroke down the wall. It opened up, revealing several spheres similar to the one Tom and Mary used to detect the corridor opening. He picked one up. “These are what we use to record footage from your world. The trip through the corridor is rather hard on the devices we usually use for that sort of thing, but these are what the lab boys came up with to survive it. We’ll begin like so,” and he tapped the top three times. A rectangular portion opened up and emitted a light that moved down Chapman’s body from head to toe, and then disappeared. “It’s now locked on to me and is recording everything I’m saying and doing. Point it at anyone else, and it will lock on to them instead.” He then tapped the raised portion again and it lowered, after which he tapped the bottom. This caused a similar section to lift out there, which projected the image of what Chapman had just said, looking just as real as the actual person standing next to it and complete with the background behind him. Finally, he tapped both sides three times. “And now it’s erased. The downside to these things is that they don’t have much recording capacity, but one should certainly suffice for our purposes here.” He tapped the top of the sphere again, and after it locked on he began, “I am Captain Aaron Chapman of the Krell Special Forces. You will not have heard of us, because we are from a dimension separate from your own. In fact, I am standing in it right now …”

  * * *

  After Chapman had made his introduction, he had given the recording sphere to Matt, who narrated all parts of the story that seemed prudent, while passing it to Jim, Jane, Dave, Tom, and Mary in turn, to tell their parts. By then the corridor was ready, so they all stepped in, keeping the sphere turned on the whole time. Matt stepped through last of all, and as the now familiar New Jersey Pine Barrens replaced the corridor room, he concluded, “And now we have all returned home. I don’t know how much anyone will believe of this, if anything, but all I can say is that it’s the truth of what happened. Make of it what you will.” He tapped the top of the sphere, and the recording ended.