Nexus of Time

by Mark Riverstone

  At the gap entrance, he peeks around the corner and sees imprints of compacted snow marking the ground, with the stride length of a very large biped. The prints are capsule shaped, resembling a shoe or foot, but perfectly flat. Nemolopolus tries to study the markings that lead away from where he stands without looking directly at them. Nemolopolus' concern is that something is there watching him, so he doesn't want it to know he sees the footprints.

  Captain Nemolopolus dismisses that these could be human. The size of the footprint is impressive even for a basketball giant, and humans don't have the technology to render a person invisible. The Greys possess the ability to invent an invisible suit, but Greys would attack the Barge, not spy on it. Nemolopolus has never seen a Grey foot the size of these footprints. Whatever is here observing the Barge is willing to sneak away without engaging or interacting, but behaving as if curious.

  What being would observe the Barge and allow Nemolopolus' crew to continue working uninhibited? Captain Nemolopolus ambles along but veers away from the prints, trying to give the impression he is not following them. In the corner of his eye, he can see where the footprints stop. He knows something is standing in that spot right now. Silent and unmoving, waiting for Nemolopolus to walk away.

  Without warning, Captain Nemolopolus lunges at the spot where the last set of prints is, throwing his body into the air full force. His shoulder stings as he hits a hard, large body, causing it to topple over from impact. Snow puffs up from the ground as the invisible being falls flat, Nemolopolus atop it. With great strength, the invisible being tosses Nemolopolus aside, causing another cloudy puff of snowy impact.

  As the invisible creature leaps to its feet, tufts of snow can be sees forming from footprints running away. Suddenly, an invisible door opens, revealing a blackness inside, before the invisible door closes. Without delay, a loud thump blows up snow in a large area, blinding sight as a small invisible ship quietly lifts off the ground and rockets away, releasing a soft whooshing of an unknown propulsion. The snow settles around an impression left in the snow from the invisible craft.

  Shaking the snow off his face, Nemolopolus stands holding his stinging arm, sore from the collision with the invisible creature. Nemolopolus can see a messy imprint in the snow caused by the creature's body hitting the ground. Removing a communicator with a mini video camera from his pocket, he takes images of the imprint. It is three meters long with a narrow oval head on top. He moves over to where the ship left an imprint in the snow, and records the imprint. The ship imprint is smaller than the Mantis or a Grey escort ship.

  He shuts off the video recording, puts the communicator away and heads back to the workers cutting ice. As he comes around the corner of the ice gap leading to the Barge, he sees his men chaining the massive ice block to the box-shaped snow vehicle. A worker sees the captain returning and holding his arm.

  "Captain, you ok?"

  "Yeah, just slipped and jammed my arm. Once you secured the ice block, tow it back to the clamp and leave it until they finish installing the coils for Walter. I'm heading back now to see how long until they are done."

  Captain Nemolopolus climbs onto a snowmobile and rides it toward the Barge. He is not sure what to think about his invisible encounter. If it has anything to do with the Greys, the Barge's mission has once again failed. The Greys will know where they are and attack.

  If it wasn't the Greys, who the hell was it? What lands way out here, watches them, content to do nothing but observe? Is it possible there could be a third player in this war other than humans and Greys? As much as he wants to keep silent, he needs to talk with Walter. Nobody knows the Greys better than Walter. If this was the Greys, Walter and Dr. Black should take the Mantis and head to the sub-nautical transmitter, immediately sending a message to the past, explaining they failed yet again. However, if Walter and Dr. Black leave to send a message and the invisible being wasn't Grey, then their rush to judgement will sabotage this current time loop by giving up too soon. Captain Nemolopolus can't let that happen either. He needs Walter to make sense of this.

  As he approaches the ship riding the snowmobile, Nemolopolus sees Walter exiting the ship's front docking bay doors between the clamps. Crewmen on ropes and scaffolds carve grooves into the clamps into which tesseract coils will be mounted, while other workers affix coils outside the docking bay doors. Parking near the docking bay, Captain Nemolopolus dismounts the snowmobile, then approaches Walter, who is hollering instructions.

  "...no, don't mount the coils into the clamp grooves until the metal has cooled...check that section of the scaffolding where I am pointing, it appears a support might be loose...yes, that one there..."

  "Walter, how are things progressing?" asks the Captain.

  "Good. We need deeper weld grooves in the clamps than I initially anticipated, and must extend the block support framework between the clamps where I want the ice block held so the ice will be completely within the rift. But those are small adjustments. It is only necessary to make sure the ice and the clamps meld with the hull of the Grey ship, but not to each other. If the ice combines with the clamps in the rift, it will weaken the clamps, making the clamps brittle, and potentially cause the connection between the Barge and the Grey ship to break and detach. If that happens, we won't be able to board, or if crew already boarded, trapping them on the Grey craft with no way back.

  "These adjustments should guarantee when their hull enters the rift containing the clamps and the ice, the hull and ice will merge and unite in here," pointing, "this location. Then, closing the rift, we can melt a hole in the structurally weak ice-hull, while the clamps and hull unify over here," pointing, "away from the ice, merging into a structurally strong material. The only problem is when we melt the ice, it will destroy this whole section of the rift coils."

  "And what problem will that cause?" asks Captain Nemolopolus.

  "It will prevent us from activating the rift again. We will be bound to the Grey ship. Our plan is to tow the Grey ship so we can steal the technology on it, but if they Greys send reinforcements before we get away, we won't be able to detach, escape or defend ourselves. We'll have an albatross around our necks," underscores Walter.

  "If that is our only option, there is only one place we can escape to. The Committee Colorado Mountain Facility. It is big enough to house both ships connected, and the only place we could get to fast. But we must find a Grey ship to attack within Colorado. Once in the safety of your mountainside landing strip, we can take our time getting the ships disconnected, and both ships will be out of sight and hidden from detection."

  "But the Greys will be able to track the ship until we tow it there."

  "Not necessarily," explains Captain Nemolopolus. "The primary object they track is the Zeus Box. If we remove it from the ship once we board it, we can place it in the same room we store the Zeus Box on the Barge. Ying created a dampener to prevent that one from being tracked. Once we do that, they won't be able to find it."

  "That works. From what I've seen from the Grey craft we recovered, the ships contain a few reserve power cells that provide the engines enough power to hover and continue life support for a short time after the Zeus Box is removed, but those cells can be turned off, so we must make sure they remain on after disconnecting the Zeus Box. Towing a craft as large as a Fabricator ship might not be possible if the Fabricator ship loses its ability to hover. For that, we need Dr. Black to cure Ying. Only he understands and can operate Grey controls."

  "I have faith in Dr. Black. An unusual woman, and one I don't underestimate. We should send word to the Colorado Facility to let them know we'll be coming."

  "To get landing approval with the Committee's Colorado Mountain Facility ahead of time, we have to send messages with requests and purpose, then wait for permissions. That will require messages that the Greys can intercept. If they track communication to the Barge or the mountain facility before we being our assault, they Greys could attack first," reminds Walter. "We can't risk that. W
e'll have to show up unannounced and hope Burt doesn't turn us away on his doorstep."

  "Agreed," concurs the captain.

  "Let me finish the tesseract coil mounting so it will be ready when your crew tows the ice block here. If you'll excuse me..."

  "There is something else to discuss, to show you."

  "It must wait until I finish here, Nemo."

  "It can't, I need you right now."

  "What is it?"

  "Come with me, Walter. You can come right back. I need you for a few minutes."

  Walter hesitates, then yells, "Make sure that mounting is outside the rift block, and at least a foot away from docking bay doors, got it! I'll be back in a minute to confirm the work. Don't mount the ice block until I get back."

  Walter follows Captain Nemolopolus as they go into the open cargo bay door between the clamps. Inside the docking bay, Walter speaks up, "What's this about?"

  Nemolopolus says nothing as a crew member passes by. Walter follows Nemolopolus into the docking bay control room and closes the door behind them. Inside, they pull off their goggles and hoods. Captain Nemolopolus removes the communicator from his coat which he used to record the impressions in the snow. He activates controls that cause the recorded video to appear on the bay control room visual console.

  "Look at this."

  The video shows a white snowscape.

  "I see snow. What are you showing me?" asks Walter

  "Wait, let me try a few filters, see if I can make the texture come out."

  Captain Nemolopolus shifts through color and monochrome filters until one causes the impressions in the snow to appear.

  "Ok, I see imprints. What am I looking at?"

  "When I was out there cutting the ice, I saw the snow hitting something invisible. I followed it to these imprints you see. It was standing at that spot right there," points Nemolopolus. "I don't know what came over me, but I had to prove to myself that something was there, so I dove and tackled it. Or tried. It hurt like running into a steel pole. I knocked it over, and it landed there, then it flung me aside. Now those impressions around the lower section are from me on top it before it tossed me, but the mid to upper section is where it fell back and hit the snow. That oval is from a head impact, and from the length of the impression, it has to be nine feet tall. But skinny. And that large bowed thin triangle-shaped impression is where its ship was."

  Walter studies the impressions, "Did it become visible when you hit it?"

  "No. That's what was really strange. Whatever caused it to be invisible wasn't powered or projected and didn't react to impact. It is as if the object was invisible."

  "Are you saying the creature and its ship where transparent?"

  "It appeared that way, but no. When that thing entered the ship, and a door opened, I could see a blackness inside the ship, and then it closed before taking off. If the inside was visible, it means the ship and creature had to be visible, just covered with something that by its nature was invisible."

  "Nothing here is reminiscent of Greys," says Walter.

  "I agree."

  "If it was, we'd be under attack right now. What species spies on us, doesn't attack, and leaves us alone?"

  "Could it be something from another dimension?" asks Captain Nemolopolus.

  "No. If it was from another dimension, you couldn't tackle it nor could it leave impressions in the snow. This thing was three dimensional. It is possible something is watching both us and the Greys. It wants to hide from us because it wants to hide from them."

  "You are proposing an alien species?"

  "It's the most plausible explanation."

  "If so, then who, or what, is it?"

  "From our dealings with the Greys, and what Nix has compiled on Grey history which they divulged to us, the only alien species to reach earth in the last five thousand years was wiped out by the Greys for trying to integrate with humans on Earth. That was in ancient Egyptian times. Any species aware of the Greys understands their fate if they mess with Earth and the Greys. That explains why it was hiding. And if avoiding Greys was their intent, they need to hide from us, since we are being attacked by the Greys. Unfortunately, this makes no difference to us. If they are afraid of the Greys, they must avoid us."

  "Maybe they can help us."

  "How? All this means is that another species we can't see might be here to witness our downfall, or remote success. You told no one, right?"

  "No. I didn't want any of my men looking over their shoulders for invisible creatures."

  "And neither should we. Let's just hope they aren't against us. We must finish our work here as soon as possible before this temporal loop reaches its elliptical nexus."

  Walter replaces his goggles and hood, and heads back into the docking bay, exiting the ship. Captain Nemolopolus removes his coat and heads into the warm bowels of the Barge.

  Breaking the Mold

  Chapter 44

  Engine Room, The Barge.

  Atop an industrial work table is the assembled pressure suit Engineering Officer Evascott made for Ying. Inside the helmet, seen through the faceplate cage windows is Ying hardly breathing. Oxygen is being pumped in through the intake valve while CO2 exits the outtake valve. A third hose connects from the helmet's liquid valve to a heated pump mounted under a huge cylinder of liquid gallium.

  Large heat lamps surround the table directed at the suit, but not turned on. Two technicians man extraction pumps with flexible hoses to fit into Ying's mouth and orifices. Other technicians stand by with additional suction hoses mounted with vacuum heads. A scientist deactivates equipment monitoring Ying's vitals. Another scientist plugs a thick electrical cable to a helmet socket, powering the suit's rift coils and explosive bolts.

  Everyone is dressed for surgery, donning caps, gloves and masks.

  Dr. Black's masked mouth speaks, "Everyone, time to begin. Ying's vitals are minimal. When I call it out, cut the oxygen, and activate the tesseract coils. When the inside of the suit has become a rift, Evascott, begin pumping in the liquid gallium. Once the gallium volume is equivalent to the suits internal volume, Sandy, deactivate the tesseract coils, closing the rift. Then, the suit's explosive bolts will be triggered by Evascott, allowing for removal, which means every person here needs to grab a section and pull the pieces of the suit off Ying as fast as possible. At that point, we will be working against the clock to keep Ying from drowning on the liquid gallium. We'll need the heat lamps on full power, and to insert the extraction hoses into his lungs to suck out the gallium that has not infused with his living tissue. If we work fast enough, we should be able to expunge the gallium from his breathing passages, get his heart restarted and lungs active before he is brain-dead. No room for mistakes, people. Is everyone ready to give this a try?"

  Sandy speaks up, "What if it doesn't succeed? With all due respect, Dr. Black, this looks like a procedure in ancient alchemy designed to kill him."

  Dr. Black agrees, "You are right. We are trying transmutation, turning lead into gold. And Ying's life is our gold. There are no statistics on the probability of his survival. But I am certain he will die in an hour if we do nothing. So, everyone ready to give this insanity a try?"

  No response.

  "Good. Is the gallium pump ready?" calls out Dr. Black.

  "Ready," responds Evascott.

  "The extractor pump ready?"

  "We're ready," replies a technician.

  "Sandy, is rift activation ready?"

  "Powered and prepped," says Sandy.

  "Turn on the heat lamps," orders Dr. Black.

  The heat lamps fire up bright as they warm the room.

  "Activate the internal rift."

  Sandy activates the rift. A rift bubble forms inside the suit, causing Ying's face to disappear from view through the small helmet faceplate windows.

  "Cut the oxygen and seal the valves," snaps Dr. Black.

  After the oxygen is turned off, a technician removes the oxygen hoses from the helmet valves a
nd seals them.

  "Pump in the liquid gallium," calls Dr. Black.

  The gallium drains from its container into the suit, disappearing into the internal rift. In no time, the cylinder is empty of gallium.

  "Time?" asks Dr. Black

  "Twenty-seven seconds," reads Evascott.

  "Seal the gallium intake," orders Dr. Black.

  A technician shuts the gallium valve and releases the hose from the helmet.

  "Close the rift!" yells Dr. Black.

  As Sandy cuts the power, the rift bubble inside the suit disappears. Through the faceplate windows of the helmet, Dr. Black sees shiny gallium pooling in the nooks of Ying's face.

  "Everyone, step back and cover your faces. Evascott, dismantle the suit now!" commands Dr. Black.

  As everyone shields their eyes, Evascott hits a switch causing the tiny explosive bolts on the suit to blow. Bolt heads skip off the table and rain onto the floor.

  Quickly, everyone around the table grabs parts and plates from the suit, tossing them to the floor, uncovering the body of Ying. Liquid gallium overflows his open wounds, mouth and eye sockets, and drips out of his ears. The intense warmth from the heat lamps causes the gallium to remain liquified.

  "Use the siphon to pump out his mouth now! We need to evacuate his throat and lungs. Hurry!"

  While a hose is shoved into his mouth, sucking out the gallium, technicians use smaller hoses to clean his ears and wounds. Two workers spread Ying's legs, working a hose into his rectum. Ying's body tenses and jerks as if he is suffocating.

  "Hold him still while they siphon. You two, use the monitor to guide those two narrow hoses into his lungs while this larger hose goes down his esophagus to the stomach. Hurry!"

  While the silver gallium flows up the hose, the technicians maneuver them deeper into his body, clearing his lungs.

  "Get that esophagus hose into his stomach faster. We don't want him choking on gallium vomit."