Nexus of Time

by Mark Riverstone

  After checking his gun clips to make sure he has ample bullets, Nix pops up from behind the car, firing with both pistols. He shoots an exposed gunman, who has a bloodied arm, a couple times in the chest. That gunman releases a wild shot as he drops. The slide on Nix's right pistol stays locked in the backward position, the magazine out of bullets. His left pistol resets, so he has at least one bullet left in it. Nix discards the right gun, holding the other with both hands.

  Not letting his guard down, Nix moves cautiously, scanning left and right, as he passes through the middle gap in the roadblock headed toward the wrecked pickup. As he crosses to the far side, he sees among the jumble of cars parked on the side a local police cruiser, empty with doors and trunk still open. As he moves past the small cargo truck filled with stolen items, he sees one more gunman standing on the inside edge of the truck trailer. The man is shaking, holding a rifle. As Nix aims at the man while approaching, the man drops his weapon and holds up his hands.

  "Please, please don't shoot me. I didn't do anything. I didn't hurt anyone."

  "You shot at that truck."

  "But I didn't hurt none, they were already dead. I swear, I was just helping them take stuff. You want this? It's yours. I'll help you take it."

  "Did you try to stop them?"

  "What?"

  "You said you didn't hurt anyone. Did you try to stop them when they were hurting people?"

  "You saw them. They are mad dogs. What could I do to stop 'em?"

  "This..."

  Nix fires his pistol and hits the man in the center of his forehead. The guy drops out of the truck back like a sack of wet towels. All is quiet. If there were any more gunmen, they should have attacked by now. Nix rushes back to the first car in the roadblock and pounds on the hood.

  "It's ok now. You can stop hiding."

  As the couple lift their heads to see the roadside carnage, Nix rushes to the woman he knows as Linda, seeing if she is still alive in the red pickup. She is leaning against the steering wheel motionless. The front windshield is impact cracked and pocked with bullet holes. Ripping open the driver's door, Nix grabs Linda's lifeless body stained with blood. Her husband's corpse sags strapped in the passenger's seat, unaffected by the additional bullets holes from the gunman's volley.

  Nix fights to hold in the emotions he's having over Linda's senseless death, but fails. His anger at these gunmen whose greed has robbed and killed innocent people comes out through his leg as he repeatedly kicks the corpse of a gunman. His veins burn with frustration that he could not keep Linda from seeking revenge for her husband's death, a suicidal journey. Did she do it to avenge her husband, or was she so lost in rage, unwilling to live without him? Mr. Nix remembers one of his supervisors warned him not to take revenge when he was a young agent starting with the Committee, saying "If you seek revenge, dig three graves: One for the person you want to avenge, one for the target of your revenge, and one for yourself."

  Nix closes the pickup door and stands staring at the ground for a moment. The low howl of the empty wind carries away the souls of the dead.

  Inside his heart, Nix knows what he has done here will protect and save lives. There was no choice but to kill them all. Jurisprudence is not applicable when civilization has fallen, but justice is. He wonders if the Greys understand humanity better than humans. Deny power, fuel and communication, and mankind turns to carnage and barbarism. The slightest imbalance to the human's state of existence makes man his own worst enemy. Why didn't the local authorities prevent this roadblock from taking place? Nix then remembers a police cruiser parked roadside with its doors and trunk open.

  Calm enough to take in the scene, Nix sees many more vehicles lining the roadside than he realized. A few window-shattered, some bullet-punctured, all abandoned. Way too many for those pillaging to be driving. Confiscated vehicles from people passing through with nothing else to offer. If the bandits let the occupants live.

  Walking over to the police patrol cruiser, Mr. Nix searches it. There is no sign of any officers or blood, but the shotgun holster is empty. None of the gunmen held themselves as a trained lawman, so Nix doubts any of the bandits were police. On the far side of the cruiser next to the cattle fence is a lumpy mound covered with an old beat up tarp weighted on the corners by rocks.

  Driven by curiosity, Nix moves to the mound bothered by its presence. What would these robbers discard into a large lumpy mound and cover? It can't be trash; they were specific about what items they took. Lifting the edge of the tarp and releasing a swarm of humming flies, Nix sees the bodies of five men, three women, and two large dogs. From the wounds adorning the bodies, he sees some were shot, others beaten. The different stages of bloating tell they weren't killed at the same time. The civilian clothing on the corpses explains where the drivers of these abandon vehicles went, but not where the police officers are. Nix lowers the edge of the tarp. Maybe the bandits stole the cruiser and drove it here.

  The car at the roadblock that held the hiding couple pulls up next to Nix. The man's quivering voice is on the verge of tears, "We're...we're just going to get out of here. Thank you for...just thanks. If it's ok with you...we're gonna go."

  Nix nods, "Be safe."

  The couple floors it, racing off. Nix feels the weight of being alone. No more cars waiting to pass. Linda and her husband killed, the gunmen dead, and a tarp covered mound of deceased. As he moves to the shotgun woman, flatten from being run over, Nix wonders how she got tied in with these men. Maybe she once was a cop and flipped to the other side.

  Her twisted body bleeds from a head pressed under a truck tire. Nix first picks up the shotgun next to her and inspects. It has the markings of law enforcement issue. And there was one missing from the police cruiser. He then searches the woman's lifeless body, thinking she might hold a badge or official Id. Instead, Mr. Nix finds a pocket knife, cash, shotgun shells and a set of handcuff keys, but no handcuffs. The recent tattoos on her hands and the large tattoo crawling the side of her neck makes it unlikely she was a cop.

  Nix takes the keys, instinct telling him keys without cuffs means there are cuffs without keys. If a Committee or a Secret Service agent learns anything, they learn what isn't present is as important as what is. He tries to determine what is missing. So many vehicles, but looted and empty. His eyes then catch the small cargo truck. They were loading the goods into there. Everything not with these vehicles must be in there.

  He peeks into the truck's open cargo hold. Stacked columns of boxes, piles of soft goods, and a row of gas cans fill the opening, but block his view of what is deeper inside. He notices one stack is shorter than the other, blocking a narrow opening that leads to the back of the trailer. Climbing in, Nix pushes the short stack aside, then winds and weaves between boxes and piles, working his way deep within. As he reaches the back, Nix spots two bodies in police uniforms seated in the corner, with hands cuffed, ankles tied, and hoods covering the heads.

  Not sure if they are dead or alive, Nix grabs both hoods and yanks them off simultaneously, revealing the duct tape covered mouths of a black female and white male officer. Their eyes pop open at the sight of Nix, displaying panic and uncertainty at Nix's presence. Nix removes the tape from the black woman's mouth, then moves to do the same to the white man, but notices the duct tape covers the man's mustache and stops.

  "What do you want? I told you I won't help you get into our station house, no matter what," yells the female trooper defiantly.

  Nix looks at the male, "I'll let you remove your tape. Sit tight."

  Nix pulls the handcuff keys out of his pocket and removes her cuffs. Nix's soft demeanor and action to free them throws her off guard.

  "Are you with them?" she asks.

  "No. I'm here to let you go. I'm an agent with the Secret Service."

  Nix removes his handcuffs.

  "Where are the assailants?" she asks.

  "Dead."

  "Did you kill them?"

  Nix says to her, "I'll let you free
your ankles and get out of here," and then says to the male, "I'll let you get that tape off your mustache." Nix pulls out a pocket knife and drops it at the female's feet. "I'm going to get my Humvee, pull it over here, take a few supplies, then get going."

  "Where are you going? Why are you here? Not that I'm not grateful."

  "Washington, DC. I'm glad I could free you two. Be warned, you are going to see a mess out there. It isn't pretty."

  Using the pocket knife, the woman officer cuts through the ropes binding her ankles. In an authoritative tone, she says, "Sorry, you need to answer a few questions before I can let you go. You haven't even proven to me you are government. How do we know you're not another criminal?"

  Nix laughs, "You are alive, and I'm letting you go. Consider yourself luckier than everyone out there. I'm in a hurry. One thing...you'll find a couple dead in a red pickup. Give them proper respect. Those two helped save your lives as much as I did. I can answer a few questions for you once you get free, but I need to be on my way so make it quick."

  Nix works his way out of the cargo back, while the female officer frees her ankles. The male trooper winces while carefully peeling the duct tape off his mustache. Outside, Mr. Nix takes a second look around the carnage. Somehow, finding two alive people among this mayhem makes the scene even more foreboding. He remembers the promise he made himself not to leave people in distress, and those officers may need Nix to get back to their station. These officers may slow him, but not bearing the guilt of plowing forward while leaving others behind makes his burden lighter.

  With a sigh of resignation and relief, Nix sits on the back bumper of the cargo truck, waiting for the two officers to free themselves.

  Side Tracked

  Chapter 35

  Outside Police Station, Northern South Carolina.

  Mr. Nix stands by the Army Humvee outside an abandoned police station. A police cruiser is parked out front next to a civilian SUV and a two-door hybrid car. A shotgun rests on the Humvee hood. Nix fiddles with his wrist communicator. A mile away poking out above the tree line is the upper section of a massive terraforming Deconstructor crawling forward.

  The white male officer Mr. Nix rescued from the roadblock is sitting on the curb out front the station loading his shotgun with shells, appearing lost inside himself. The black female police officer he rescued comes over to Nix carrying a ballistic vest matching the one she wears.

  "I found an extra," she says handing him the vest.

  While Mr. Nix puts it on, she asks, "You sure you don't want to take the police cruiser? It's well equipped for civil unrest."

  "I won't sit in the caged back seat, nor will you, and we are not taking prisoners. Plus, its gas tank is near empty. I checked." Affixing the last Velcro vest strap, Mr. Nix motions his head toward the male officer, "Your partner there. He has me a little worried. I wouldn't mind locking him in the backseat cage in case he loses it, but I don't think he'd go for it."

  "You could be sensitive to what he's going through. He doesn't know where his wife is, or if she is alive."

  "I sympathize, but I won't take on his burden. There are two kinds of people in a world gone mad. Those who survive no matter what happens around them, and those who get lost in the chaos and end up emotionally or literally crushed by the destruction."

  "Just give him time. He'll come around. That SUV is more comfortable than this Humvee, and it's civilian so no backseat cage."

  "That tank is empty, too. The Humvee is less comfortable, but it has dual tanks for gas, and an Army vehicle gives us a presence. Especially as we head into DC."

  The female officer counters, "If you want to save gas, we could take my hybrid car. It gets quadruple the gas mileage of this Humvee."

  "True, but it lacks power and durability. If we go off-road, the gas mileage won't matter when we get stuck. That last town we went through, the streets were gobbled up by that Deconstructor. This Humvee had no problem crossing the soft soil it left in its wake. In extreme conditions, high-tech vehicles are not easy to fix. We are better off with a low-tech gas guzzler."

  She gives in, "Your trip, your call. I'll scrounge up extra ammo, flares and stuff, and rain gear in case we need it."

  Mr. Nix addresses her in a reserved tone, understanding what he is asking, "I know you are law enforcement, but consider breaking into the snack machine and bag as many nuts and carbs as you can."

  "You want me to be a vandal and a robber? Fine. I'll also see if I can find some bottled water."

  "If you can't find much, look for an extra bottle...tank...cask...one of those 5-gallon refills for the water dispenser. And take your partner with you. He's a little too focused on his weapon."

  "I'll worry about him. You make sure no one comes along and pilfers our stuff," she says, heading back to her partner. After touching the male officer on the shoulder and talking to him, he stands and follows her into the station. Her partner's face remains glazed with sadness.

  Once alone, Nix starts the recording program on his wrist communicator.

  "I'm hoping this will be one of my last entries into record. I stand in the parking lot of a local South Carolina police station near the border of North Carolina. From a road map I saw on the station wall, I am only four hundred and eighty miles from the access tunnel entrance in the outskirts of Washington DC, which will take me underground into central DC and the Committee HQ without having to deal with whatever chaos is taking place in the DC streets.

  "I am with two local police officers who will accompany me on the trip. From the dangers I've seen, I could use the backup. I rescued these officers from a civilian roadblock made to raid passing vehicles for supplies. It wasn't my intention to let them follow me. When I released them from bondage, I told them the truth about what is going on, so they could make sense of what is happening, and that the dangers are greater than local citizens turning survivalist. The female trooper wanted to join me right away and help me get to DC.

  "Her name is Dixie Brown. That woman is full of fight. First black woman I ever met named Dixie. She said her grandmother who raised her and recently died gave her that name. Dixie explained it was because civilized Southerners find it endearing, and racist good ol' boys have their asses chapped at the idea a black woman took their identity of southern pride. I don't agree with naming a child in a way that creates confrontation, but Dixie is as tough as nails, and her name surely made her that way. With her grandmother recently passing and a brother somewhere in Maryland, I invited her to escort me to DC. She agreed. Then, once I get there, she'll head off to Maryland to find her bother. She'd make a great Committee agent, I can see it in her focus and strength, but now is not the time to take in fledglings, so I'll let her go once we reach my destination.

  "Robert Lane is the male officer. I think he's going along for the ride because he doesn't know what else to do. Confusion surrounds him since the moment I rescued him, as if it destroyed his masculinity. Held captive by bandits made Dixie angrier and stronger with resolve to fight back, while Officer Lane regressed feeling exposed and weak, stripped of his police authority.

  "I didn't invite Officer Lane to join me on my way to DC, though I invited his partner Dixie. Officer Lane gave me the impression being a police officer was a job, not a calling. On the way here from the bandit's roadblock, we passed through the town where he lived with his wife, where the town once was. His home was gone, gobbled up by a terraformer. Who knows where his wife is, or if she is still alive? No one was around; the whole town turned into a field of dirt. Feeling lost, Officer Lane invited himself, and his partner welcomed him, as a true partner-in-service. I'm not in agreement. I've seen hundreds of men grieving over loss, but the dangerous ones are a blend of anger, despondency and silence. He is all that and holding a shotgun. This is the end of my entry, though I fear this moment is far from over."

  Dixie and Robert come out of the station carrying bunches of supplies and dump them in the Humvee back. As they return to enter the station, Mr. Nix ca
lls to Dixie.

  "Officer Brown, could I speak with you for a moment?"

  "Sure thing. Lane, why don't you grab the last of the supplies. I'll be in to help you in a second."

  Officer Lane nods and heads back into the station. Officer Brown approaches Mr. Nix.

  "Yea, what's up?"

  "Ahh...I don't think Officer Lane should come with us."

  "Why not?"

  "My job with the Secret Service included talent identification and profile assessment. He doesn't have the mental aptitude to make this journey. He's not dealing with his wife's disappearance or his capture very well."

  "The guy just realized his wife may be gone forever."

  "And 'may' is the operative world. He's acting as if his whole world was destroyed and he is the only one left alive, and yet we can't say if his wife is still alive or not. Point blank, you have what it takes, and he doesn't."

  "And what makes you think that?"

  "You are a black female officer who willingly transferred to a rural Southern assignment."

  "My grandmother lived here, rest her soul."

  "True. But with racism, sexism and everything else you put up with as a black female officer, you are unshaken by it. When I freed you at the roadblock, you were calm, your hands weren't shaking, you immediately resumed your officer role, and you took everything in observationally, not emotionally."

  "Don't confuse what I tolerate as an officer of the law, and what the popular assumption is. Despite the hype and disinformation of the media, I haven't experienced sexism or racism as an officer. Us officers are all the same race. We are blue. Not black. Not white. Blue," says Dixie in a scolding tone.

  "That is exactly what I am talking about. You don't agree with me, and you are not afraid to correct me. You are honest, professional and real. I bet you didn't experience those things because people can tell right away you won't accept those things, and if they treat you as such, they are in for a fight. But your partner, despite his blank demeanor, is struggling to keep it together. When I freed him at the roadblock, his hands were cold, sweaty and shaking. His wife is missing, but it doesn't put a fire in him to search for her. Instead, he resigns to hopeless despair, assumes that she must be dead and nothing can be done. He hasn't cried or hollered. He has no purpose, and he is following you to DC because he has resigned to believe nothing is here for him.