by Glenn Smith
What was… Sound? Had he just heard a sound?
Yes, a sound.
He’d heard a sound! No deafness! He could hear!
His ears were ringing.
From somewhere far off in the foggy distance, that same faint sound reached out to his ears and echoed through his mind again. “Are you all right?”
No, not just a random sound. It was a voice. It was a person’s voice. The same voice both times. Someone was speaking. Someone was asking a question. Were they speaking to him? Were they asking him a question? After a moment—or was it several minutes later?—the voice repeated the question once more, much more distinctly this time. “Sir? Are you all right?”
Someone...
Another sensation. Another feeling, but of a very different sort. Movement. Someone was lifting him... No. Not lifting him. Examining him? Yes, someone was examining him. Probing him. Someone was probing the back of his neck with... with their fingers? They moved his head and the pain in his neck eased. Relief.
Rolling him over now. No, not rolling him. At least, not very far. Turning him slightly. Turning him and feeling his back. Probing his back. Probing his spinal column in the same manner as they’d probed his neck. Someone was checking him for injuries.
Someone was trying to help him.
Why did he need help? What had happened to him?
“Sir? Are you all right?” the voice repeated once more.
Much clearer this time. Sharper. And closer. Not a distant sound echoing in his mind, but a person. A real person, very close to him, speaking to him.
With more effort than it should ever have required, he opened his eyes... Light! ...and quickly closed them again.
There was light! Bright, blinding light, but no blindness. He’d seen shapes! He could see! He could feel and breathe and hear, and he could see!
He opened his eyes again and forced himself to keep them open this time. He was alive, and as best he could tell an entire world surrounded him. It amounted to little more than a bright, indistinct blur at first—various shapes in shades of gray and white—but it was there. It was real. And as his vision began to clear and his ability to focus returned, he realized that his earlier presumptions had been correct. He was, in fact, lying on his back, on hard pavement, and now he was hearing all the sounds of this world that surrounded him, feeling the touch of one of its people, and gazing up at its bright blue sky.
But what world was it, and how had he gotten here?
The front of his head hurt. It throbbed in time to his pounding heartbeat. Gathering his strength, he lifted one arm—heavy, as though it were made of lead—and reached for the pain, but something stopped him. Something grabbed hold of his arm and kept him from touching his fingers to his forehead. No, not something. Someone. Someone had stopped him. Someone had grasped his arm, pulled it away, and even now still held onto it—an act that no doubt required very little effort on their part at the moment.
“He’s awake, Josh,” the voice said. Definitely the same voice as before.
He tried to focus on the blurry mass that suddenly appeared directly above him—little more than a dark silhouette against the bright blue sky, but distinguishable as human... or at least as humanoid. No, definitely human, and probably male from its look. Was he the person who’d been speaking?
“I’m really alive?” he heard himself ask. Weak. Little more than a whisper.
“Yes, sir,” the silhouette answered. The same voice. “Did you think you were dead?”
“Not anymore,” he answered. “I just needed to hear it from someone else.” What a stupid thing to need, he realized after he’d said it. And an even more stupid thing to say.
“I promise, sir. You’re really alive.”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Cadet Vinson Cosgrove, sir,” the silhouette answered. “This is my friend, Cadet Joshua Targanian.”
Cadets? As the face above him finally came into focus, his first impression was that the boy was several years older than his girlishly melodic voice had let on. More a young man than a boy, really. Easily old enough to be a cadet. But judging from his smooth complexion and his fine brown hair, he still couldn’t have been very long out of high school. A freshman then, or perhaps a sophomore at most.
Grunting with the effort, he lifted his head up off the ground to try to get a look at the young man’s friend and fellow cadet, and he immediately regretted doing so as the whole world began to spin around him. He quickly surrendered and let his head fall back. Thankfully, the young man—Cosgrove, was it?—caught his head before it struck the hard pavement. Cosgrove. Yeah, that was his name. Cosgrove.
Pavement? Was it really pavement? He felt around with his hands, dragging his fingers across the surface. Hard, slightly bumpy, a little rough in spots, but generally smooth overall, and warmed by the sun. Yes, it was pavement of some kind. So where was he? Was he lying in the street? He hadn’t heard any cars drive by.
He rolled his eyes from left to right and back again. Buildings on both sides. One very tall, at least a dozen stories but probably more reaching into the sky, made of some kind of tan stone with rows and rows of large windows. A typical office building. The other, much older from its look, only three or four stories tall and made of rough red brick, with an old-fashioned metal fire escape on the side facing him. Both buildings seemed to loom over him as though about to fall upon him as he looked from one to the other and back again.
A fire escape? Why would anyone need a fire escape? No one used flammable materials in construction anymore.
A city street with no traffic? That didn’t make any sense.
An alley perhaps.
“Do you know who you are, sir?” the young man asked. Cosgrove.
What an odd question. “Of course I know who I am,” he answered, looking the young man in the eye, although he wasn’t quite able to focus that sharply yet.
“What’s your name?”
“My name’s...” He hesitated. What was his name? Rather, what was his name supposed to be? He was on a mission... wasn’t he? Yes. Yes, he was on a mission. A classified mission. He had instructions. What were his instructions? God, his head hurt. His instructions. Real name, false rank and service division. Those were his instructions. “Sergeant Dylan Graves, Solfleet... Solfleet Security Police.” Just a few short moments ago he might not have known what to say. But it was all starting to come back to him now.
“Well at least that’s consistent with his uniform,” the other young man commented. What had Cosgrove called him? ‘Tar’-something? Tarcasian? Targennon?
“Yeah, but he should know better than to wear it around this part of town,” Cosgrove replied. Then he asked, “Do you know where you are, Sergeant Graves?”
Dylan hesitated for a moment, then answered, “I believe I’m lying on the ground.”
“Yes, sir,” Cosgrove confirmed over his friend’s snicker. “But do you know where? What neighborhood, or at least what city?”
“You men are cadets, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I guess I’m in... still... in Geneva,” Dylan surmised. It was as good a guess as any.
“Geneva?” Cosgrove’s friend responded with surprise.
What the heck was his name? “I’m not in Geneva?” Dylan asked, setting the question of the other young man’s name aside for the moment. It wasn’t important anyway.
“You’re not even in Switzerland,” Cosgrove expounded. “Or anywhere else in Europe, for that matter. You’re in the United States, Sergeant Graves. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to be exact. Josh and I are U-S Aerospace Force R-O-T-C cadets at Drexel University.”
“Philadelphia?”
“Yes, sir. What’s the last thing you remember?”
A good question. What was the last thing he remembered?
An older man. An older bearded man. Benny. Benny, shouting and grabbing... grabbing Akagi. Yanking him to his feet and pulling him along. An attack. Bom
bardment from space. Piles of ancient ruins exploding all around them. Benny crying out! He was down! Wounded! “No, Dylan! Go! Before it’s too late!”
The Portal. Running. Bright flashes. Rumbles. Explosions all around him.
Akagi. Words... instructions... shouted in the ancient Tor’Roshan language.
The ancient ruins, exploding, disintegrating all around him.
Handcomp. The timer. Dropping into the double digits.
A massive explosion. Akagi!
Eighties, seventies, sixties... More explosions.
Fifties, forties, thirties... A blinding flash. Nuclear weapons!
Twenties... The shock wave approaching!
Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen... Imminent death.
Ten, nine... They were all going to die.
Seven, six, five, four... The thunder approaching.
“Here it comes...”
Three... A swirling, billowing black wall of oncoming death.
Two... At least it would be a quick death.
One...
“Here I come, Lord.”
Zero.
And then nothing.
He opened his eyes again. When had he closed them? “God Almighty,” he whispered in disbelief as realization suddenly washed over him. He’d made it! He’d actually gone through the Portal! He was on Earth! But when? Thanks to the cadets he knew where he was, but he didn’t yet know when he was.
“Philadelphia,” Dylan repeated. He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He’d finally gathered his wits about him, for the most part. He briefly considered asking Cosgrove what the date was, but then decided to hold off on that for the time being. He’d told the cadets that he thought he was ‘still’ in Geneva, so now he had to explain his presence in Philadelphia to them to assuage any suspicions his bad guess might have aroused. Trying to explain why he didn’t know the date on top of that would only make it harder.
Suspicions? They were just a couple of cadets. What did they know? Then again, that was the point. He didn’t know what they might know, so he had to cover his ass. “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “Now I remember. I left Switzerland yesterday. I arrived here late last night.”
Philadelphia. He’d grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs. Coincidence?
“You have a pretty nasty gash on your forehead,” Cosgrove told him, “and it looks like it’s starting to swell up. Any idea what happened to you?”
“No, I don’t remember,” Dylan answered truthfully rather than trying to make something up, remembering what he’d learned at the S.I.A. Academy about what could happen to an agent if he or she lied unnecessarily during a mission. The more lies an agent told... the more lies that agent had to remember and keep straight... the greater the chance he’d make a mistake and blow his cover, and thus fail to complete his mission. And that was the truth. He remembered the Portal. He remembered the shockwave heading right for him. But everything after that was one big blank. He honestly didn’t know how he’d ended up on the ground with a cut on his head. He clarified, “I don’t remember anything after... after getting off the maglev.”
Cosgrove sighed. “Well, chances are around this part of town that whatever happened to you wasn’t an accident,” he said. “I thought everyone in the fleet knew better than to come around here in uniform unarmed. Were you armed?”
“No, I wasn’t armed,” Dylan answered, “but I’m new in town. It’s my first time here, so I didn’t know...”
“Oh,” Cosgrove’s friend replied. “In that case, welcome to Philadelphia.”
“Josh!” Cosgrove scolded.
“Yeah, thanks a lot,” Dylan replied sarcastically.
“Sorry,” Josh offered sheepishly.
“Forget it,” Dylan told him. “Just do me a favor and help me up, will you?”
Cosgrove adjusted his grasp on the arm he was still holding, and once Josh took hold of his other one the cadets slowly and carefully sat him up. A second or two later Dylan felt a small trickle of warm blood tickling his brow and trailing down over his left cheek.
“You look like you could use some medical attention, Sergeant,” Cosgrove pointed out to him. “Why don’t you let Josh and me take you to the University Hospital?”
Dylan waited until the world stopped spinning around him again, and then answered, “I think that might be a good idea. Thank you.”
“Are you ready to try standing up?”
“I think so.”
The cadets helped Dylan to his feet and brushed off his back for him, but then had to catch him and hold him up when a wave of dizziness washed over him and his knees suddenly buckled. He found his footing and straightened up again but needed another moment to regain his balance and be sure he was strong enough to stand on his own. Then, when he felt like he was ready to try to walk, he said, “All right, gentlemen. What do you say you get me to that hospital of yours?”
“Yes, sir.” Still holding onto him by the arms, they guided him slowly through the alley toward what looked to Dylan like a main street.
Lacking both the strength and the will to hold his still throbbing head up for very long, Dylan let it bow forward. It felt good, stretching the muscles in the back of his neck. Likely thinking that he was losing consciousness, the cadets draped his arms around their shoulders with some urgency and grabbed hold of his belt to hold him up. He wasn’t losing consciousness, but he did have to fight the urge to close his eyes, choosing instead to focus on one small stone in front of him after another, counting them in his head as they walked by them. Doing so occupied his mind and helped ensure he remained conscious.
He glimpsed movement on the ground several meters ahead, or at least he thought he did. In his current condition he couldn’t be so sure. Hell, in his current condition he couldn’t be all that sure of anything. But assuming he hadn’t just been seeing things, what could it have been? What could have moved on the ground ahead of them? There wasn’t anything there but a dirt stain and a bunch of loose pebbles. What could have...
There. There it was again. A shadow had just moved on the ground in front of him. Just a simple shadow—an irregular but roughly oval shadow atop what was obviously the red brick building fire escape’s shadow. It hadn’t moved very far—a foot or two at most—but that had been enough to draw his attention. So... someone was up on the fire escape, probably watching them. So what? He tried to lift his head and look back over his shoulder, just to satisfy his own curiosity, but he quickly abandoned the effort when a mild wave of nausea washed over him. So whoever it was would remain forever unknown. Didn’t matter. Getting a look at them certainly wasn’t worth all the pain and dizziness.
Odd that he’d even given it a second thought.
He could see his blood running down the side of his nose now, and he could still feel its tickle as it trickled farther down over his cheek and ran forward along the bottom of his jaw. He could taste its salty warmth on his lips. He tried once more to touch his fingers to the wound on his head, but quickly abandoned the effort. He couldn’t come close to reaching it while his arms were slung around the cadets’ shoulders.
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, sir,” Cosgrove said. “Your hands are pretty dirty. It might get infected.”
“You sound like my mother,” Dylan remarked.
“Obviously a very wise woman, sir,” the other one commented. Josh.
Despite his condition, Dylan managed to grin and said, “Indeed she is, Cadet.”
They emerged from the alley, turned left, and started down the street. Even near the edge of the sidewalk farthest from the building they were in the shade, Dylan noted, and looking out into the street he saw that the shade extended nearly halfway across it. That relatively small brick building was blocking the sun, which meant it was either the early part of morning or the latter part of afternoon. Which one he didn’t know.
“Stop right there, gentlemen!” someone demanded, his deep voice filled with confidence and authority. Whoever owned that voice was obviously u
sed to barking orders, and probably to having those orders obeyed without question as well.
The cadets stopped and turned to look behind them. With more effort than it should have taken Dylan turned, too, but as he did the world started spinning again and he couldn’t find and focus on whoever it was who’d spoken to them.
“What the hell happened to him?” the same voice asked.
“We don’t know, Officer,” Cosgrove answered.
Officer? Must have been a policeman.
“You don’t know?”
“No, sir, we don’t. We just found him a few minutes ago, lying unconscious back in that alley. We’re taking him to the University Hospital.”
Dylan finally suppressed the overwhelming sense of nausea that had churned up within him and found the man whose authoritative voice had stopped them in their tracks. He was right. The guy was a City of Philadelphia police officer—a veteran, judging from the medals he was wearing under his silver shield—clad all in black, complete with leather jacket and highly shined jack boots. The traditional uniform of at least a part of their department for as far back as two centuries or more. Having grown up just outside the city, Dylan had seen a lot of them throughout his childhood and had always felt a little bit intimidated under their gaze. But unlike those officers he’d seen and had occasionally even talked with all those years ago, who’d always acted friendly toward him, this one was standing there with his hand resting atop his holstered sidearm, no doubt prepared to use it quickly if he needed to.
“What are your names?” the policeman asked, his tone demanding they answer.
“Vinson Cosgrove, and this is my friend Joshua Targanian,” Cosgrove answered. “We’re Aerospace Force cadets at Drexel.”
“And you say you found this man unconscious in that alley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long ago?”
“Just a few minutes ago, sir.”
The policeman looked them over for a few more moments, then shifted his hand from his sidearm to one of his belt pouches, out of which he pulled something—a small cylinder of some kind. “Sit him down on that step,” he said, pointing at a doorstep a few feet behind them as he approached. The cadets obediently guided Dylan to the doorstep the policeman had indicated and helped him to sit down.