The man taped to the chair struggled. If only there was a clock. The hour, the minute, the second of reckoning must be close now.
And as he felt the terrible anticipation of it, he knew now that he didn’t want to perish; that he would rather live as a hero, or at least a very wealthy fugitive, than die as a martyr. He struggled, twisting his wrists and ankles against the tape, feeling his skin threatening to peel back like a grape, but getting no closer to freedom.
The tiger-man leaned in and studied his face closely, his expression solemn. “I guess you’re wondering what the future says about you, guy-who-I-taped-to-a-chair. See, the fact that I don’t know your name should tell you something. They vaguely remember the explosion, but not the exploder.
“They don’t know your name, or the name of your little outfit of international troublemakers, or in fact, the names of any of the countries involved in your little squabble. In the great scheme of the future, none of you count for crap.
“I had to follow a long trail of clues and future breadcrumbs to track you and your little plot down, because the future barely remembers you at all. In the long-term, people are what’s important. Civilization, culture, that’s what’s important. All your borders and factions and religions are just fractures in the whole that keep breaking the future apart before it can happen.
“Like that bomb of yours!
“Speaking of which, explosions are funny things. A few yards in one direction or another can be the difference between survival and death. Change the shape of the explosive just a little and the force of it becomes directional. Put it between two pieces of heavy metal, like say, a couple of man-hole covers, set things up just right, and the explosion shoots mostly out the side like a circular-saw blade. And the piece of metal on top? Well, that goes sailing hundreds of feet in the air, like somebody tossing a coin at a basketball game!
“So, if you were to put this whole thing up on the very top of a building, like on the top of a clock tower, most of the force would go straight out and hardly damage the building at all. Well, except for that flag pole. That baby would get cut off at the base and go tumbling right over the side of the tower.
The man taped to the chair froze.
What had this fool done with his bomb?
But then he reassured himself that the man in the tiger suit had done nothing at all. This was just talk. The man taped to the chair had built the bomb himself. Once it had been placed in the suspended ceiling over the conference room and activated, it couldn’t be tampered with. The timer could not be stopped, and there were sensors and traps so that any effort to move or disarm the bomb would have set it off.
No, it had to be right where he had placed it, and it soon would be going off. The conference was already going on, he was sure. He thought of the idealistic fools, speaking their empty words, chasing their impossible dream that any kind of peace could be possible between their peoples...
He looked at the tiger-suit-man. The man in the tiger suit looked back, and he was smiling just a little, his eyes narrowed, as though enjoying a secret joke.
“Did you know, if you show up at the kitchen door of Gastronomo with a Thermos in one hand and a credit card in the other, they’ll happily fill that baby up with liquid nitrogen for you? Three hundred and twenty degrees below zero. Cold enough to send even a tamper-proof bomb into suspended-animation sleepy-time for a little while.
“Long enough for a fifteen floor elevator ride. Long enough to open a door with a key and to climb a couple flights of stairs.
“Long enough to slide the frosty little death-machine into the space you’ve arranged between two man-hole covers you’ve set up sitting on top of a ventilation unit.”
The tiger man leaned in close, stared into his prisoner’s eyes. The smile was gone, the tiger-man’s face somehow now like a real tiger, contemplating its prey, getting ready to strike.
“I can’t kill you, you know. No matter how fun that might be. I kill you, or even turn you over to the authorities, who I’m sure would love to see you, and you become a martyr, and others will be inspired to copy you, and instead of making this problem go away, I just make it worse. And I can’t let you go, because you’ll just try something like this again.
“No, I’ve just got to let events run their course. Let the dominos you’ve set in motion fall where they may.” He looked up again. The tiger-man seemed very interested in the ceiling. “I can’t let you have an infamous death. No sir. Not even an anonymous one. I’m going to let you come undone. I’m going to let you scrub yourself completely out of history, except maybe as a joke. The only death you can have now is a ridiculous one.”
He looked up again. “Don’t worry. The fifty-foot flagpole that crashes through the ceiling and stabs through your chest won’t have time to kill you. It will just pin you down for the man-hole cover that slices off your head.”
From somewhere far above came a chest-thumping report, like the sound of distant cannon fire.
“Gotta go. Dominoes are falling and the future is calling. Never a dull moment.”
The tiger-man grabbed his tiger head, its cloth features happy and smiling, placed it back over his own, then started to slip out of the room. But halfway through the door, he hesitated. The tiger-man turned back, his real face unseeable, unknowable.
Overhead, something whistled through the air.
The tiger-man’s voice was muffled by the costume, as though he was already far away. “You know what causality is?
“Causality is a bitch.”
Introduction to “Unstuck”
In the next twelve months, D.K. Holmberg’s novels will hit print. Lately, this Minnesotan has focused on writing short fiction, much to our benefit.
“In my day job,” he writes, “I sometimes see people who think that others would be better off without them. The time travel theme gave me an opportunity to look at that [assumption] in a different way.”
Unstuck
D.K. Holmberg
Jason leaned against the old F150 staring at the night, unable to shake the fight with Rachel from his mind, the one she seemed so intent on starting. Moonlight prickled through the oaks he’d planted at the edge of his land and splashed across the paint remaining on the chipped black hood. He sighed as he slid down the edge of the brown paper bag, taking a long slow drink of bourbon straight from the bottle. At least it wasn’t the cheap stuff, the kind that burned when you swallowed it. This went down smooth. Already he felt his head swimming.
Maybe Rachel would be better off without him.
He rocked his head back and stared upward. The full moon, as it seemed to do so often, frowned back at him, seeming to pass judgment. Stars faded into the darkness, as if the heavens themselves sided with Rachel. The rest of the sky looked just as bleak, clouds rolling in from the south, the threat of another August storm hanging in the air. It would be just his luck to get drenched.
Not that it mattered. Not for much longer, anyway.
He sighed, taking another drink. He didn’t even like bourbon but it had been the only booze in the house, bought months ago when his brother-in-law visited, the kind Robbie—Robert now—said he learned to drink while in school out east. Jason had just thrown it in his truck on the way out, grabbing it off the shelf in the garage. If there was a night to drink, tonight was it.
This had been the worst fight yet. And maybe the last.
After two years of marriage, the fights came more frequent. At first they were over simple things. Money, which they never seemed to have enough of, or his job. She always wanted him to do more for himself than just work in the factory, spitting out bolts and nuts at his spot on the line, coming home stinking of grease and grime—now he didn’t even bother to wash it off every day—maybe even take some night courses so he could move up.
He knew what she was saying…that she wanted more than him. Maybe that was why she started in on him tonight, telling him he needed to “get unstuck”, whatever that meant.
An
d Rachel deserved better, deserved more than this little town, hidden on the prairie on the edge of nowhere. She deserved culture, deserved comfort, deserved…things he just couldn’t provide. Not here in Little Nord, North Dakota, and not on his income.
Jason sighed, taking another long drink.
He’d known that when he first met her, known that from the first time he saw her in high school, her dark hair flowing down her back, deep brown eyes catching his with an almost bemused expression, that she was out of his league. And somehow she didn’t care. She made sure to go off to college to study business up in Dickinson instead of all the way over in Grand Forks like her daddy wanted her to. Jason made the trip up every weekend, driving his rusty old pickup to campus, always feeling out of place even though she made a point of showing him off. And then, when she was done, she came back home.
Jason should have just let her go after high school. Maybe she would have been happier then. She could have found someone who deserved her.
It sure wasn’t him.
Tonight had been different. Tonight she brought up kids again.
“How can we have kids if we ain’t got no money?”
“We’ll make it work.”
Make it work. No, he understood what she needed even if she didn’t want to admit it.
“Fuck!” he shouted, shaking the bottle at the judgmental moon. The only answer he got was the first cold drops of rain falling on his face.
Jason stayed there, drinking occasionally, letting the rain wash over him, soaking his t-shirt and jeans. Wind started picking up, blowing in with the storm. Even then he didn’t move.
Only when the clouds covered the moon did he decide it was time.
The door creaked mournfully as he opened it. He slid onto the long bench seat, the torn cloth long ago covered by a blanket. The air in the truck smelled like old pine, the faded air freshener hanging from the mirror twirling from the wind streaming through the open door. He gripped the steering wheel, clutching it between his hands and leaning back against the seat, bottle tucked between his legs.
Rain began pelting the truck, huge thick drops that slammed into the metal, like a drummer marching him to the end. Violent streaks of lightning ripped through the night, streaking almost to the treetops, and he jumped, thunder chasing quickly after rumbling the truck.
“Hear you loud and clear,” he slurred.
His head felt heavy but he had a moment of clarity; sleep this off and talk to her in the morning. Let her know that it was okay if she wanted to leave. Let her know that he understood.
Another bolt of lightning shot down as Jason finished off the bourbon. Then another. And another.
Soon there was a flurry of lightning strikes, all shades of blue and purples, colors he had never seen in lightning before. They seemed to flicker around him, and he felt the hairs on his arm rise, a sense of urgency growing.
Most struck just over a nearby ridge. Damn if he would pass out before seeing why.
Jason fumbled with the clutch as he shifted the truck into drive, driving over ground toward the small rise. Lightning erupting in angry waves lit his way and thunder seemed to chase him. As he topped the rise, he stopped, not sure what the hell he was seeing.
Where the lightning struck, the ground below him was charred and glowed. Small fires burned, fueled in spite of the sheeting rain. Huge holes gashed the ground, leaving it looking as if the earth was splitting.
He slammed on the brakes but momentum and earth sopping wet from the recent rains pulled him down toward the flames, toward where the lightning struck the ground.
Another bolt blinded him.
He felt its energy through the truck.
Thunder rumbled.
He was thrown violently, truck and all flung into the sky.
Somehow he was tossed from the cab, flailing against the rain and the night, everything blurring around him. He passed out when his face slammed into the soggy ground. The last thing he remembered was the taste of mud and the smell of oil.
***
Bright sunlight burned through his closed lids, forcing Jason to flicker his eyes open slowly. Dry grass rested against his cheek and he smelled the thick stink of oil somewhere nearby. His body ached as if he’d just spent the entire day in the saddle.
What happened?
Moments passed before he remembered: the drink, the storm, the truck. Rachel.
Damn. Somehow he was still alive.
He pushed himself slowly up and looked around. Last thing he remembered was sliding over the small rise in his truck. And then the strange lightning surge.
There was no sign of the ridge, no sign of destroyed earth, and no sign of his truck.
Where the hell was he?
No truck meant walking. Already it was hot so he didn’t look forward to a long walk back to town. He staggered to his feet, boots stirring up dry dirt, as he looked for something familiar. His head pounded like he had been trampled by a herd of cattle and his mouth was dry, his tongue fuzzy and thick, and he tasted the dirt he had lain in all night.
Not far in the distance stretched a line of trees, tall oaks with faded leaves, that he suspected signified the river that ran through much of this land. He couldn’t have driven much past the border of his land. Once back on his own land, he would be able to reorient himself, find a way back to town.
He knew what he needed to do. It was time to tell Rachel to move on without him, give her permission to leave.
Jason staggered among the oaks and saw the river cutting through a shallow streambed. With as much rain as they had been having recently, he was surprised to see how low it was. Hadn’t it been nearly flood stage?
“Hey!”
He looked up. A woman came walking along the riverbed wearing leather pants in a strange cut that flared around her hips. A long sleeve shirt of grey and blue had sleeves rolled up over her forearms. A wide brimmed hat tilted on her head. Dark hair bound in a loose tail spilled out beneath. She carried a small box that she slipped into her pocket when she saw him.
“Yeah?” he said.
She froze and frowned, her brown eyes narrowing. The expression reminded him of Rachel. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Jason pushed himself off the dry ground and managed to steady his feet. Dirt stained his palms and he wiped them on his jeans. He squinted against the sunlight, the pulsing in his head making it hard to think straight. “I think so.”
“Then why are you on my land?” she asked. She stood with her hands on her hips, and though she was tiny, she looked as if she demanded an answer.
“Your land?” he asked. His head felt thick and cloudy, but most of the riverbed was his land. He was too hungover to care, too hungover to make a big deal about it, and needed a ride back to town. “Can you get me back to town?”
Her eyes narrowed and she looked him over, staring at his sweat stained shirt and jeans before stopping and staring at his boots. She slid a step toward him, coming up out of the riverbed a little. “Which one?”
Jason shook his head, the question confusing him. How far had the lightning storm thrown him? “Little Nord,” he said.
Her mouth twisted in a bemused expression, her lips parting as if she wanted to say something, but cut off instead. “Come with me,” she finally said.
She started off, not waiting to see if he followed. She took him up to a small dirt road where a sleek grey pickup was parked, hood more sloped than any he’d seen, just a trace of dust coating the shiny paint. He recognized the Ford logo on the front, the same that had been on his, wherever she now rested. Jason hadn’t seen the new models but didn’t much care for them.
He popped open the door and climbed in and sat on a cracked leather seat. The truck had all the new electronics, lights and panels lining the console. Even though it looked new, it had the same smell to it that his truck had, a sense of age and character.
The woman saw his face and shrugged. “Yeah, sorry. Kinda of an older model. Doesn’t have all the newer stu
ff but she still runs good…” She shrugged again. “Besides, kinda hard to keep anything nice out near the field, you know?”
With the pounding in his head, he wasn’t sure he heard her right. “Sure,” he answered, but knew plenty of ranchers with brand spanking new trucks pretty much every year. “Do you have anything for a headache?” he asked.
She grunted and shook her head. “Maybe when you get to Little Nord.” She said the town’s name with a smirk.
“Whatever.” He pressed his hands against his temples and closed his eyes as they started off, waves of nausea rolling through him as they drove.
“What were you doing out by Little Muddy?” she asked after they’d driven a little ways.
So at least it was Little Muddy River. Jason was beginning to wonder what had happened. “Dealing with regret,” he said.
The woman looked over at him. “Why out here?” she asked.
He sniffed and looked out the window. “Trying to find perspective. Make some hard decisions.” Time to let Rachel go, he knew.
She looked over at him. “It can’t be all that bad,” she said.
Jason shook his head. “You ever feel like there’s a part of your life you’re doin’ wrong and it’s easier to just go along and not make any changes?”
The woman watched him for a moment and shrugged.
“Well…I’ve finally realized what needs doing.”
“Just because you don’t like your past don’t mean you can’t like your future.”
Jason leaned back and closed his eyes. “Are you some kind of therapist?” he asked.
She chuckled. “Just got common sense. No need to get stuck in time.”
Jason shook his head, thinking that sounded like something Rachel kept trying to tell him.
“So. What’s your name?”
Jason didn’t even bother opening his eyes as they bumped along the dirt road. “Jason,” he mumbled.
The woman grunted, making it sound like a laugh. “Jason, I’m Mel. Where am I taking you?”
Time Streams - Fiction River Smashwords Edition Page 6