by J. D. Tew
The chamber dramatically transformed into a capsule, capable of catapulting me through the omnipresent time-space continuum. As I leaned into my chair, the mere touch caused me to wince and reminded me of the flames that burnt upon my back earlier. A silicone-like encasement covered me. I panicked, but before I could go berserk and break free of my restraints, a robotic arm bearing a needle injected me. I was slipping into a slumberous daze. A gooey substance filled the chamber and coated me; it was dephlocontis. The burns on my back soothed and healed. There was a light that shimmered within the time machine; it was a beautiful, heavenly incandescence that glowed and teamed up with the sedative to relax me.
After a brief moment of bliss, I sat up straight as I experienced jabbing pains all over my body. I felt like my molecules were being torn apart and violently scattered about, including my thoughts. I now felt if as if I was an essence, a spirit passing along time’s continuum, zipped to a targeted point in a time of King Trazuline’s choosing. I guess I didn’t know for sure it was Trazuline that was behind all of it, but I was hoping.
After the time travel transport concluded, I started to feel again—and think. My matter was now reassembling, back into the body I had known and protected all my life. Then there was a weird sound as if my ears were ringing, ‘SHEOWK!’ It is important to stay very still, as any unnecessary movement can cause a discrepancy in body formation, damaging cells that are materializing.
Once I had fully materialized, I quickly gasped as I took in my surroundings and felt stings on my ankles and shins. I was in immediate trouble. The time machine had initiated my cellular regeneration upon a pile of tiny angry insects near a road. The red insects were acting as a tiny vicious army. They let me know quickly that I had seconds to vacate their property. I smacked myself continuously to stop the stings of the bugs, not knowing they were the red ants of Earth—nasty critters.
I had never ported in that fashion. I always used wormholes from standard grade-B time machines, monitored by the Council, but never an Urilian chamber stolen by a rogue King. Compared to the usual Council-sponsored time travel devices, this was a luxurious trip. I knew from my experience in past missions that within moments of arrival, I would typically see a clue that would lead me to my target.
The mysterious planet’s sun was pleasantly beautiful, a blinding sliver over the edge of a low range of rust colored hills. There was road about twenty feet to my side. I was in the open desert and I figured I needed a ride, so I ran toward the road in a hurry in case the human was disinclined to stop.
I glanced at the computerized portable digifile as I darted over. It noted the time and place, which was the sixth day of August, 2001 in Earth-referenced time. My galactic coordinate indicator said I was near Fort Bliss, Texas, a place not too different from my adopted homeland in terms of climate.
On the screen, there was an image of a man that looked familiar. Not someone that I have ever known, but looked like someone I knew or met. Finally, coordinates for exfiltration. The top line of the instructions read: You will assume the name Theodore. An order to assume the name of the child messiah was an effort by my contractor to aide in the befriending of this human.
As my boots skid across the gravel, I stopped, and heard the low hum of a motor. I put the digifile away and waved down an Earth-type vehicle that neared from off in the distance. If there was a reason why I was placed in that desert, it was because that car was soon to approach. I nearly laughed at the design and technology of the car—Earthlings were so backwards with their automation! Internal combustion engine! But I had to swipe the smug smirk off my face; my soon-to-be benefactor would not find my snobbery entertaining.
Even by Earth standards, this approaching car was poorly engineered and by the looks of it, could not withstand the test of time—in short, a lemon. I walked up to the car and the driver within said, “Alright wanderer, what the hell are you doing out here?” Immediately, by identifying him visually, I knew him to be the point of contact in the file, but he didn’t seem to be the time violator. This man was human, and definitely not the one I was sent to arrest. Even back in my time, Earth had not yet discovered time travel. The emissions of the vehicle stunk of pollution. I answered the man with the near exact response from the digifile.
“I was out partying late and just woke up out here. I think my friends were playing a nasty prank on me. Maybe I was being an asshole or something,” I said.
“That’s a pretty screwed up joke to play on someone. You were probably ruining their chances with the local girls, eh? The NCO club maybe? Hop in, I will take you were you need to go.” I grabbed the handle of the back door on the driver’s side and he asked, “I’m not a goddamn chauffeur. The passenger side, knuckle-nose.” I still didn’t have a clue where or how to get in this antiquated Earth vehicle. I ran around to the other side and pushed in vain on the handle. Vehicles commonly used for ground transportation on Karshiz were simply activated by touch and fingerprint recognition.
“Sorry,” I said, “the lock doesn’t work. Is there a voice command?”
He shook his head with irritation. “You pull up on the handle.”
“Oh,” I said, a blush creeping up my face.
As I successfully opened the door and sat down, he leaned over to me and whispered to me, staring straight ahead at the horizon. “You’re not from around here, are ya?”
I snickered at him for shaking his head at me. After all, it was his car that was poorly designed, not me. I laughed and I told him that if I seemed off, it was because I had a hangover from partying with my friends. I figured it was always a valid reason, because men of all times and places experience a share of poison for the sake of a good time.
“What’s your name wanderer? What do you do here in Tay-has?”
“My name is Theodore and I’m an investigator,” I said. Lying was a skill that I had tailored to suit my profession.
“An investigator ay? Well, like for the cops? You look a little young to be on the force. My son…”
“No it’s not the cops,” I said, interrupting him. I didn’t want him to think I was local law enforcement officer, because I didn’t want him to clam up with me.
“Alright, so like a contracted PI or something? Ah, you don’t have to tell me. Anyway, I have a son named Theodore, like you.”
His son’s name is Theodore? I gritted my teeth, trying not to show any reaction to this driver. Then this is it, I thought, he is the man I was supposed to make an acquaintance with.
The driver prattled on, “My name’s Bill. I’ve been stationed in the Army down here for a couple years, but soon I’ll head back north to Minnesota, where my parents live.”
Minnesota! That’s where Theodore Crane was from, I thought. The coincidences were compiling and it was no longer an equivocal encounter, this was exactly where my contractor wanted me to be.
Bill looked at me. “You have kids? Nah, you’re too young to have kids.” After a few seconds, he grumbled under his breath, “You don’t say much do ya?”
Bill was pushy, hopped-up on caffeine, and definitely not my target. My knowledge of violators was that they tried not to interact with strangers. Bill was short, but strong, all decked out in military camouflage.
I snuck my digifile out of my pocket and held it near the side of my leg, where Bill couldn’t see it. Because I completed the correct point of contact, a new countdown had begun. And this time with only one-hundred and twenty morgets—about an hour in Earth time. Thankfully, Bill’s eyes were on the road. Then he spotted my digifile and said, “Hey! Is that a new cell phone? What carrier do you have? That thing is amazing.”
“Ugh, yeah, this is a new cell phone.”
“Can I see it?”
“You are operating a vehicle, sir.”
“Well, if you don’t wanna let me see it, you don’t need to make such a big fuss about it,” Bill said, grousing.
After a few minutes, I said, ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t want to pry. This is going
to sound strange, but my apartment is being renovated and I was staying at my uncle’s house for the week. Do you think you could put me up for a night?’ I read the digifile’s suggested comment verbatim, with my eyes turned downward toward the screen. It was impossible to not sound like I was reading, but Bill wasn’t a genius.
“I don’t know. I have a full house and my sergeant comes by in the morning to give me a ride to company headquarters. The brass doesn’t like people staying on post with us during the week, but they don’t forbid it. I have a cot in a shed out back that we could set up in my living room. I use it from time to time, because my wife has a knack of throwing food at me when she gets angry, then I show her I’m the boss, if you know what I mean. Right?” He was nudging me incessantly and laughing. I couldn’t understand the man’s humor.
I said, “I don’t, but thank you.”
After accepting the invite, I continued to read my file during the drive. Bill’s mannerisms seemed so interestingly familiar.
I stared at this man that I was finally recognizing as Theodore’s father. He looked like the sixteen-year-old Theodore, yet older by probably five years. Not only did my contractor put me in close proximity to Theodore, they gave me a direct link, through Theodore’s dad.
After ignoring me as he drove, Bill finally snapped at me. “What’re you staring at?”
“Sorry, sir,” I said, as I slowly diverted my eyes away.
“Sir,” he chuckled. “You’re so polite, aren’t you?”
We entered through the ten-foot steel wire fence that encircled the base, with razor sharp rolls of wire on top. A few minutes had passed while Bill signed me in. I didn’t have identification, and that presented a hassle for Bill at the desk. Once finished, strolled away from the military police office, and then told me that he had to sign for me, essentially vouching for me, and said, “You better not cause me any troubles.”
We started driving through, and Bill was waved through the compound by soldiers dressed in woodland camouflage. After about a minute of driving, he parked in a parking lot, and with his thumb indicated where his house was. The sun was totally set. Long shadows leaped at me as I strolled down the street with Bill.
When we arrived at his house, which was absurdly attached to another home—a townhouse—he called it, I noticed there were ten of these dwellings bundled together, and that there were even more similar neighborhoods established everywhere on this base. The majority of their yards had weird plastic pools full of water resting upon them. A man, who was wearing a white shirt and what seemed to be underwear shorts, was out hosing down a three-foot square of short-trimmed green vegetation with water. He was sucking on a shiny metal can that read: Pabst.
Bill led me quickly into the back to secure this cot device from the shed. I was busy obsessing over the clouds and saw a large vessel with steel wings pass over head, noticing it was very loud and cumbersome looking. Earth was still quite young, and only a type-I society.
“Follow me.” He led me into his house and to a room on the main floor. There was a dry and wrinkled chair that looked like it was made from animal hide. Shiny circular discs scattered everywhere on the frayed shag carpet. A flat projection device was showing video images of humans acting out all sorts of drama and blaring out quite a din. Unknown to me, that was a television set, which we did not have on Karshiz.
Bill returned with a folded tan fleece blanket and an interesting food concoction that appeared to be a spongy wheat-based cooked dough covering slices of processed meat in the middle, with some bright yellow substance oozing out. It smelled incredibly salty. ‘Here is a blanket, and a bologna sandwich. Use the cot there to sleep. Sorry it’s the best I can do. This isn’t the Hamptons, and military pay sucks. My wife is already reading in bed and tending to the baby. I’m going to head upstairs.’
“Thank you. I will be gone in the morning.”
I heard a baby cry, and Bill said, “Crap. I have to go. You look tired. Get some sleep.”
I thought, could Theodore be upstairs? I was intensely curious to see him as a baby, and then, if I got back alive, to tell him what I saw. He would be so embarrassed such that I would earn bragging rights over him for at least a year. I looked at my digifile, and for some reason, the countdown jumped incredibly. I only had five minutes in Earth time. I started panicking. The digifile only updated countdowns when new information is gathered remotely from time monitoring detectives.
Trying to figure out my next steps, I accidentally sat on a remote device that changed the picture on the flat projector. I was increasingly paranoid. I picked up the remote and figured out how to turn the picture screen off. I heard the toddler’s cries cease and a bedroom door close.
The anxiety of the mission was compiling. Usually, I would find the time violator immediately and arrest them, but there I was, with no obvious directive. I only knew that I needed to protect the boy, who I thought to be Theodore. Maybe I should go upstairs to check, even if I invade their privacy…
I heard the steps of a cunning intruder—the quiet imprint of feet against this strange cloth floor. I peeked through the crack in a sliding accordion-style partition and saw a lurking stranger. He was taller than Bill and his style of hair was different. Before I could identify him further, he donned a mask. And his eyes caught the glimmer of moonlight, which was beaming through the house windows.
He looked at the folded partition that hid me, with eyes as fearful as mine—we shared the same suspicious look. As I moved to the side to get a better look, I accidentally banged my head on a lampshade. He must have heard me hit my head on the lampshade, as he immediately turned to the direction of the stairs and bolted.
Thrashing open the partition wide, I ran to the top of the stairs to pursue this time travel violator. As he stood in the hallway, crouching, the dim light set off a glimmer of the gun in his hand. He saw me! I dashed after him as he ran toward Theodore’s bedroom.
“Bill, watch out!” I yelled. The intruder was now aiming at something in the bedroom—to what, I did not know. As he fired a shot, I raised my Urilian portaplasmoid gun and depressed the trigger, firing off a blast that rocked the hallway. The trespasser shrieked in agony as my shot tore a chunk off his left shoulder. Chills stabbed my back as I heard a woman’s shrill scream from within, then Bill’s full-throated roar of fury. As I rushed into the bedroom, I saw the perpetrator dash past a crib, a double bed, and ultimately to the window. I was acutely aware of Bill and his wife shrieking on opposite sides of the room, cowering against the walls as the suspect ran past them, clutching his injured shoulder. But I ignored the anguished parents. In my haste, all I could focus on was killing the fleeing man, right now.
He suddenly jumped through the window and landed outside. As I stuck my head through the window, I saw him screaming and clutching his right foot, as if he had sprained it. Blood gushed out his left shoulder, and he thrashed about on the ground. I turned my head and I realized I had to check on Theodore—a baby boy with an intense relationship to the future of our galaxy. Looking at the crib, I could barely breathe. Is he dead? I thought, frozen by the shock of a baby’s silence after all of that commotion.
The baby started screaming, causing me to double over once relief seized my body. I hyperventilated, while my senses urged me to pursue the madman. Bill’s wife screamed, “Theodore! He’s been shot! Help him, help him!”
“Anne, call the police, Goddamn it!” Bill shouted, as I clambered through the window and dropped to the parched grass.
Seeing me land behind him, the time travel violator immediately jumped up, and ran off. I could hear commotion behind me as people shouted out at us from the adjoining townhouses. When I looked over my shoulder, there were lights in almost every window as the alarm was raised. As I ran after the gunman, a furious Bill was rounding the corner behind his house to chase after’ us.
I tore after the suspect, closing in the gap quickly. My breathing came in spurts and gasps as I ran at full throttle, anger propelling
my body. Desperate, the severely wounded time violator tried to evade me, but had a serious limp as well. Giving up the prospect of beating me in a long distance race, he sprinted into an old abandoned shack. I barreled through as he slammed the flimsy door back against me.
He was now caught in a dead end. I tackled him, eager to pummel him into oblivion. We tumbled, rolling over each other, scrambling for a dominant position. As we traded blows, I saw a device in the violator’s hand, blinking with several tiny lights dotted all over.
Immediately we started to dematerialize, as it seemed the time violator activated a traveling device. Theodore’s dad slammed through the door and aimed a gun directly at us. After the muzzle on his gun flashed in the dark, everything went blank.
We disappeared in a burst of light and departed from Earth; we then rematerialized in an abandoned warehouse elsewhere, location unknown. After coming to, I once again realized the fistfight just seconds ago and snapped back to attention. But as I prepared to pull back my fist to smash it into his face, I realized that he was no longer resisting. Rather, he was withdrawing from the fight. He was writhing in pain. Bill’s shot in the dark had wounded the violator in his stomach before we transported. And, on top of that, he was wracked with severe agony from his shoulder plasma injury and his sprained ankle. He was no longer in a state to fight back; he was ready to give up and embrace any fate I would administer to him.
I glanced around quickly at my surroundings. We were in a large industrial warehouse, with several rows of overhead lights. Moreover, we were wrestling inside a gigantic machine of Dacturon design—possibly the other time travel machine that was missing, and one that the Council dearly craved to eliminate.
Immediately I checked the wet substance on my body. It was blood from the scum varmint in front of me. It struck home just how badly wounded he was—if anything, he needed drastic medical intervention to save his life. A dark liquid gushed out of his guts and a sickening yellow substance congealed within his pool of blood on the floor.