by Greg Logan
“The entire human race,” Jeff said. “Practically gone. And with it, all of the history that went with it. All of the culture. Gone. Gone, like it was never here.”
Quentin nodded and stared into the fire.
“I’m the last one,” Jeff said. “The last one with the power to stop them.”
Quentin said, “Don’t forget about the Darkness. He’ll fight alongside you. And don’t forget, you can survive in space. Maybe what you should do is just leave this world behind. Seek someplace else. The last survivor, essentially, of the human race. No one could blame you, really. We know for a fact now there is alien life out there, on other planets. Find yourself a world populated by aliens who are at least reasonably human. Make some sort of life for yourself there.”
Jeff looked at him questioningly. “And just abandon the Earth?”
“There’s really no Earth left. Not really.”
Jeff tossed another piece of broken pallet onto the fire, considering Quentin’s words. “I have another power, you know. Other than zeta energy. And that power is the real power.”
“Time travel?”
Jeff nodded.
Quentin shook his head. “Jeff, I think I know where you’re going with this. We’ve gone down this route before. Going back in an attempt to alter the past is foolhardy. To change an entire timeline. Mother and I both talked to you about that.”
“Maybe you were both wrong.”
“Jeff, look what happened on the Earth of Akila, when your father and Scott went back in time and your father stopped that asteroid. When you mess with the timeline, you can open a can of worms that can’t be contained.”
“Look around you. Do you really think things can get much worse than they are right now? Really?”
Quentin said, “So, what will you do? Go back and try to warn them? Us? The us that we were, back then?”
“I don’t think we ever told you, but years ago, before I even met Sara, we took a mission to the past. Scott, April, Sammy and me. I was only seventeen. We met an alien there. A shape shifter. A squid. It was in Boston, in 1880. He seemed to have created the genesis gene and was implanting it in people.”
He now had Quentin’s full attention. “Really. No one spoke of this before.”
“There was no reason to, I suppose. Simple survival seemed to be the top priority. Well, after we met him there was a fire fight. A bad one. They had captured April. The shape shifter, and an A.I. he had working for him. I powered-up and there was a hell of a fight and we rescued April, but we destroyed the alien’s entire facility and he died in the process. And the A.I. was damaged beyond repair. But before she shut down entirely, she said some things, trying to warn us of the alien invasion. That the alien armada was out there and it was coming.”
Quentin was listening intently. This was all new information to him.
“When we returned to our time,” Jeff said, “we thought we were prepared, but none of us realized the invasion had already begun. Shape shifters were already infiltrating. Sara’s proof of that. And they didn’t attack with a full scale invasion, like we figured they would. Ships swooping in from space, firing weapons. They attacked by first reprogramming our central computer from a remote location, turning it into the Machine. Before we even knew it, the defense mechanisms we had at the facility were attacking us. As well prepared as we thought we were, Scott and Dad were already dead. April was killed soon after.”
“Small armies of robot drones descended upon us and military defensive computer programs were shut down from a distance. The actual armada didn’t arrive until weeks later, but what survived of the human race was subdued before they got here. How they got so many robot drones to this world is something no one ever knew. From what I can figure, the alien agents probably built them here over a period of years.”
“That’s about what I figure.”
“And this A.I. from the past was trying to warn you?”
Jeff nodded. “But she was hopelessly damaged, and she died before she could tell us exactly when it would happen. She was too fried for even Scott to reassemble her memory circuits. We brought back some data disks from the alien’s facility, but they had to be translated from the alien language to English. And since Scott had never even heard the alien language, it was going to be a time-consuming process. He never got the job completed.”
“As incredible as all that is, it doesn’t really change anything. I think it’s a fool’s errand to try to change the past.”
“Well, we’re all just dead-men-walking, here.” Jeff got to his feet. “I don’t see how it could get any worse.”
Quentin gave a withering shrug. “This much is true.”
Jeff extended his hand for Quentin to shake. “Quentin, in case I don’t see you again, it has been a true privilege knowing you. Without you, we couldn’t have kept this band of survivors going as long as we did. I consider you a friend. More than that. Family.”
Quentin nodded, shaking Jeff’s hand. “Godspeed, Jeff.”
Jeff and Quentin hadn’t been aware the Darkness had arrived until the deep baritone spoke from the darkness around them, “Jeff, are you sure this is wise?”
“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “I really don’t. But we can’t keep going this way. If I can succeed, Sondra will still live. Mother will still be alive. We’ll have a fighting chance to stop the invasion.”
Quentin was shaking his head.
But the Darkness said, “I wish you luck.”
Jeff was about to depart, but then he stopped and looked into the darkness surrounding Quentin’s campfire. Now was probably not the appropriate time, but a question had been riding with him all these years.
Jeff said, “Before I leave, can you at least tell me your name? And I don’t mean for you to go all vengeance and the night and all that cryptic stuff. I mean your real, human name. You must have at least had one, once.”
There was silence for a moment, then the Darkness said, “Timmy.”
Jeff blinked with surprise and looked at Quentin, who was breaking into a small grin.
Jeff said, “Timmy? You mean, the most powerful avenging force on Earth is named Timmy?”
The Darkness said, “What can I say?”
All right, Jeff thought to himself. He would leave it alone. With the Darkness, the more questions you asked, the more you seemed to have. He had a mission to go on and it was time to get going.
“Take care,” Jeff said. “Both of you.”
And he parted the strands of time and stepped through, and was gone.
Quentin sat by the fire, looking into the empty darkness where Jeff had just been standing.
The Darkness said, “Do you think he will succeed?”
Quentin shrugged. “It’s very likely that, either way, we’ll never really know.”
TWENTY-ONE
2017
Kincaid surely hadn’t been expecting this when he drove to work this morning.
He had been reinstated a few months ago, all charges dropped. He had been serving time in a minimum security facility the Bureau had in Idaho. Fairly off the grid. He didn’t think anyone outside the Bureau knew of it. Few inside the Bureau knew of it. But when an agent broke the law but the publicity would be bad for the Bureau, then they were tried behind closed doors and sentenced to the little facility in Idaho.
It was comfortable. He had a television in his room and cable. He had a computer and could access the Internet. He was allowed to have a beer once in a while and could take a walk when he wanted to. Not a lot to do. He played chess every so often with a couple other inmates who were there for various reasons.
But then, Kincaid had been summoned to Washington. All charges were simply dropped and he was being reassigned to the Boston office. Turned out Tempest and Calder didn’t make up the bulk of the meta-human problem. Not even close. Turned out there was an entire community of them living somewhere in Boston. Possibly dozens of them. Another community was in New York. Another in Philadelphia. It was s
uspected there was one in London. The Bureau was trying to coordinate with Scotland Yard.
No one had more experience at this sort of thing than Kincaid. Without fanfare or public announcement, he found himself once again in Boston. His one job—find these people.
And then, out of the blue, this Cosmo character walked in and gave up his comrades. All for immunity and protection. Immunity from prosecution or incarceration, and protection from, of all people, his fellow meta-humans. Especially the ones called Quentin Jeffries and Snake.
Cosmo had talked for hours. Kincaid glanced at his watch and saw it was well after seven. Cosmo gave names. One of them was called Mother. One was called Hasani, who could teleport and travel through time. One was called Marty, who had large, compound eyes. Sort of a human fly, apparently. One was called Snake, even though he looked more like a human alligator than a serpent.
Kincaid made his decision. He picked up his phone and dialed a number. He said into the phone, “This is Agent Kincaid. I want four SWAT teams ready in twenty minutes. Full riot gear. Shotguns. Tear gas.”
2034
Jeff Calder, thirty-four years old, left Quentin Jeffries and the Darkness behind and stepped through the strands of time.
Quentin had started out as an enemy of his father and Scott. But over the past seventeen years, Quentin had fought alongside Jeff and Sammy and the others. When Snake fell, Quentin stepped in and provided leadership.
If all went well, Jeff thought, then the hell Quentin and Mother and the others had gone through wouldn’t just be over, but maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all.
Changing the future. Altering the past. He remembered years ago, Scott had lectured everyone on this. Scott had been a firm believer that the Butterfly Effect didn’t exist until what happened to Akila’s world convinced him otherwise. Well, Scott had no say in what Jeff was about to do, because Scott was dead. He had been caught unprepared. While he and Dad had been trying to locate the alien armada, trying to estimate a date for the expected invasion, alien shape-shifters were already among them. And the super high-tech virus that would alter their facility’s central computer and turn it into a glorified Skynet was already implanted, eating away at its programming.
As he lay on the bed in his quarters after that mission to the past, to 1880, as he talked with Chloe about the upcoming party, he had no idea the life he knew, the life everyone knew, would be over in just two weeks.
The actual armada wouldn’t arrive until months later, but they would find a human race already defeated and enslaved by the central computer, which most of the survivors simply called the Machine. This way the aliens had to lose very little of their own number in taking the planet.
Jeff thought of the lives that were lost. Dad and Scott early on, because they never expected their facility’s central computer to attack them. Chuck and April and Akila had gone down shortly after that.
And Sara. What of Sara? The girl he had loved so intensely. The love of his life. It sounded like an old, tired cliché, but it was how he had felt about her. Sara, whose very smile had made him feel alive when despair was threatening to overtake him. Sara, who could warm his nights with a passion that made him forget about all else. Sara, who had never really existed at all.
But he would prevent all of it. All he had to do was to land in 2017 and warn Scott and Dad. Get Scott and Sammy to shut off that computer. And then they could start searching out the Squids and try to figure a way to activate the meta-humans worldwide. When the armada would eventually arrive, it would find an army of meta-humans waiting for them. The army the alien shape-shifter from 1880 had been trying to build.
Time traveling was tough at the moment, Scott was finding. As he approached 2017, he was once again confronted with the time storm in 1384. It was sending ripples every which way. Just stepping directly back to 2017 and appearing at the mountain facility was looking to be impossible. There was like a sudden tidal wave pushing back at him.
He thought about Boston, and looked in that direction. Much easier going, he thought. Still a little tough, like trying to swim against a strong current, but he could do it.
He had to fight against the urge to power-up. Whenever he was faced with anything strenuous, the urge to power-up presented itself. However, if he did so, then the zeta energy would counteract the tachyon field he had created and he would simply pop out of the time stream wherever and whenever he was.
There. He could see it ahead. Boston. He could even see the bridge, under which many of them slept at night. An old bridge spanning a stream that fed into Boston Harbor.
He stepped out of the time stream...
2017
...stumbling because of the effort of swimming upstream. He landed on his knees and found he had to catch his breath.
It was night. Six of them stood around an uprighted barrel. They were burning trash to keep warm. The night was a little chilly.
He recognized most of them. One was a woman who was unnaturally strong. He had seen her lift a car over her head once. One was a man who could shoot infrared radiation from his eyes. Essentially, in layman’s terms, he could see in the dark. Kind of like Sara, but her eyes had glowed with an unearthly green color when she did it. Her power had apparently functioned differently than this guy’s, but the results were the same. Except this guy was real and Sara was not.
They all stared at him as though he had just popped out of thin air. Which, he suppose, he had.
He got to his feet, standing in only his jeans. He had lost his shirt in that final battle at Logan Airport. A few days ago by his reckoning. Seventeen years in the future by theirs.
“Hey, everyone,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. I have to talk to Mother and Snake, right away. And Quentin Jeffries. Do you know where they are?”
And it was then that it began. The attack by the FBI’s strategic assault team. And it began with a bullet catching the powered-down Jeff Calder in the back of the head.
He felt a sudden shock, his head being snapped forward, and that was all he felt as he fell forward.
And then gas grenades were being launched and spotlights were hitting the people by the barrel. Another eight of them, lying down and covering themselves with old cardboard, blankets, and newspapers, were located in the shadows further under the bridge. They got to their feet and began running.
A voice filled the night. “This is the FBI. Surrender now. Raise your hands over your head and you will not be hurt. I repeat..,”
And Jeff Calder lay dead, face down in the dirt.
TWENTY-TWO
2017
The seventeen year old Jeff decided not to tell his dad about Chloe’s party. Somehow, he didn’t think it would go over well. He had no reason to think his dad would object—it was just a teenager’s instinct. Instead, he said he was heading to Boston to say hi to Mother and Snake. To someone like Jeff, transportation was not an issue. He just stepped through the strands of time and emerged at Chloe’s school in California.
He was in jeans and a sweatshirt, sitting among the partiers. Three rooms at Chloe’s dorm had been requisitioned, and the party had spread beyond them out into the hallway. Nothing hard core. Just kids talking. Maybe occasionally flirting. Everyone had a beer going, or a glass of wine. Or a hard cider.
Chloe looked hot as always. Maybe more so than always. Her pseudo goth look was long gone. She had let her hair grow out to its natural deep brown and wore much lighter makeup. Her nails were no longer painted black, but a sort of faded pink with sparkles. She wore a black tank top with spaghetti straps over her shoulders and wonderfully tight jeans.
She was laughing and talking with a couple others. A beer was in one hand and she swayed her head a little with the music. Some girl who had too much to drink was singing a little off key somewhere out in the hallway. Jeff had no idea who she was and he had never heard the song before. Dividing his time between the facility in the mountains and the group living on the streets of Boston, he found himself completely cut off
from pop culture.
As freaky as his week had been, traveling to the past and fighting aliens, things had gotten even weirder when Quentin had contacted them to tell them an older version of Jeff had shown up in Boston and gotten shot in a raid conducted by the FBI. Fourteen meta-humans had been rounded up, and Snake and Quentin were preparing to launch a rescue. Dad and Scott had been invited to join.
Scott had gone to Boston and beamed back with the body. Sure enough, it was an older version of Jeff. Maybe mid-thirties. He had been shot in the back of the head. He had apparently powered-down so he could travel to the present from some time in the future, and had caught the bullet.
Scott had asked if there was any way Jeff could back-track his older self and find out when he had come from. Jeff had said not really, even though it was kind of a lie. Time moved in currents and eddies, and he might have been able to make an estimate. But maybe not, because of that storm in 1384. Truth to tell, he didn’t want to know. He wanted no part of any of this, anymore. He just wanted to live a normal life. To find out what it was like to be seventeen going on eighteen and heading off to college and trying to build a life. He would let Scott and Jake and the others battle aliens and cyborgs and whatever else from the future or the past or outer space or wherever. He would let them fly to other planets and beam over to alternate realities. He just wanted to worry about his GPA and meeting girls.
He realized Chloe was walking over to him. She had a girl in tow. Long, strawberry blonde hair. A killer smile and her eyes were the most intense shade of green he had ever seen.
“Jeff,” Chloe said. “This is the girl I was telling you about. My roommate Ashley’s sister.”
“Hi,” the girl said. “I’m Sara.”
GENESIX: TAPESTRY
ONE
2034
A Few Hours Before the Final Battle