by Greg Logan
“Sara,” he said again. A few strands of hair had fallen over her face, so he moved them aside.
She seemed to become aware that he was there, and her eyes tried to focus on him. “Jeff? Jeff, is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“You look so...you look so..,” she seemed to be having trouble focusing her thoughts. He couldn’t blame her.
“I’m from the past,” he said. “I know it’s hard to explain, but...”
“No. You’re a time-traveler. You told me that..,” she winced at a sudden spasm of pain, “...years ago.”
He pulled his tricorder and said, “Scan Sara.”
Results popped up on the screen. Looked like she was having a cerebral hemorrhage. Her blood pressure was through the roof.
He needed to get her medical attention, but where would he find it in this time period? The entire city looked like a deserted war zone. And she was too weak to make the journey back to his own time. Yanking other people through time could be a little rough on them, unless they were prepared.
“Sara,” he said, “what were they doing to you?”
“Killing me,” she said. “Punishment. For...”
She winced again. Closing her eyes tightly. A spasm of pain. “For...loving you. For refusing to betray you.”
Loving him? Punishment?
“Sara,” he said, “they were aliens. I’ve met their kind before.”
She nodded. “So am I. So’s my sister, Ashley. I hate to admit this to you. Please don’t hate me.”
Sara was an alien?
“You have to know,” she said, talking fast in clipped phrases, “you have to know...I didn’t want to...my love for you is real...I’m so sorry..,”
He looked at the digital read-out on his tricorder. “Sara, these readings indicate there’s something in your head. On the left side, just inside your skull. Some sort of synthetic device.”
She nodded. “We call it a controller box. It’s how they controlled me. Made me infiltrate. But I fought them.”
“Sara, we have to get you out of here.”
She shook her head. Her breathing was coming in short gasps now. “Jeff...the date...September Twenty...Chloe’s party..,”
“Chloe’s party,” he said. “Yeah. You remember that? It’s where we met.”
She nodded.
He said, “It was only a few days ago, by my reckoning.”
She nodded again. “There’s still time..,”
“Time for what.”
“Destroy it...central computer at the mountain...destroy the computer..,”
“What? Destroy what? The computer at the facility? Is that what you’re saying? Why?”
But she had stopped breathing. She was simply staring with lifeless eyes toward the ceiling. He rested her head gently back down to the floor, and then closed her eyes.
He got to his feet. Was this the world Dead Jeff had fled from? Who could blame him?
And yet, Jeff didn’t believe his dead counterpart would flee danger, especially if it meant leaving someone like Sara behind. Apparently there had been a relationship between them. Because after all, his dead counterpart was actually just a future version of himself, and there was no way in hell he would have run away from danger and left a woman like Sara behind.
Sara was apparently an alien shape-shifter, too. His tricorder scans hadn’t caught that. According to the tricorder, she was as human as he was. More so, because he was a meta and she was not. He glanced at the read-out on his tricorder, confirming this.
Whoops, hello there. The genesis gene was present after all. He hadn’t seen this at first. So, Sara was a meta, too. He wondered if Chloe knew this. Probably not, or she would have said something about it.
Time to get out of here, he decided. He had gone as far as he dared into this future. He would go back to his own time and tell Scott. Give him a detailed report and let him analyze the tricorder readings. Maybe, if this was indeed the future waiting for them, he would be able to bring back some sort of information that would be helpful in preventing it.
Scott wouldn’t be happy that he was bringing back future information, but too bad. From the looks of things, if this was what was waiting for them in the future, then the timeline could use a little polluting.
He grabbed the pistol from the floor, where he had dropped it after he pulled it from the shape-shifter, just before knocking him out. Some kind of ray gun. Harmless to him when he was powered-up, but it looked like it packed a wallop. He would bring it back for Scott, too. Let him see some of this alien technology close-up.
He began to power-down, knowing he had about two minutes before he would be able to enter the time stream again and get the hell out of here. And this was two minutes longer than he wanted to remain in this future. As he powered-down, he would be making himself vulnerable, and he didn’t know the players or the rules here. He wasn’t sure how to fire the ray gun, but he held it ready just in case.
Questions ran through his mind. What exactly was the future Sara talking about? September Twenty. It wasn’t September in this future. It was June. But then it dawned on him. It was September in his own time. It had been the fourteenth when he left for the future. Was she telling him something was going to happen on the twentieth? And to destroy the central computer?
He continued to power-down, not entirely sure what to do. It was obvious these aliens were the enemy, but Sara was not, even if she was a shape-shifter. He doubted she would give him information that was anything other than good. And yet, what did it mean?
He was almost ready to go. Another few seconds. And it was in those seconds that he had an idea. If something was wrong with the central computer, who could detect it the fastest? Chloe. Scott could run a diagnostic on it, but that would be only after Jeff had managed to convince him. If he could convince him. To Scott, Jeff was just a high school kid. But Chloe would trust him enough to go along without a whole lot of explanation. Because, if they were in danger of this sort of dystopian future becoming their own, and the central computer at the facility was in any way connected to it, he had to know now. He wouldn’t have time for involved explanations. Those could come later.
Okay. He was ready. He reached out and parted the strands of time, and stepped through and away.
FOUR
2017
Chloe was in her dorm room. It was a Saturday afternoon and gray outside. Looked like rain. You didn’t see much rain in Los Angeles. She was at her desk with a book open. One thing about college, there was lots and lots of homework. Made high school look like kid stuff. Which, she supposed, it was.
She had discarded her bra and her jeans and was in her t-shirt and panties. One leg was pulled up under her. A half-empty bottle of Mich Light was standing on the desk within reach.
She felt it, more than hearing it—a sort of sudden change in air pressure, which meant someone had opened what she could only think of as a time tunnel. There was a sudden slight breeze that caught her hair.
“Jeff?” she said, rising out of the chair and turning around.
Jeff was standing in the center of the room, in his red battle suit. In his hand was something that looked like some kind of weapon.
Chloe was long-legged, with curvy thighs. Before Jeff had met Sara, seeing her like this would have started his hormones flying. But any thoughts like that were now totally aimed at Sara.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to get to the complex, now.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely. You know that.”
“Then, come on.”
She glanced to the bed where her jeans had landed. “Well, let me grab my..,”
But he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away and into the time stream.
There is no sound in the time stream. Or, at least, Jeff could talk but no one else seemed to be able to. Though they were in the stream only a couple of seconds, it was enough for Chloe to open her mouth
in a silent scream.
A scream that was not so silent when they materialized in Scott’s lab.
Scott was at the computer monitor on one of his lab tables, studying the alien language. Jake was standing idly, a beer in his hand.
As Jeff and Chloe appeared, her scream sort of faded into existence.
She then dropped to her hands and knees and threw up the beer she had been drinking and the pizza she had eaten before that.
She then sat back, looking visibly shaken. “Jeff, I hate time travel. You know that.”
“Sorry, Sweetie,” he said, kneeling down and grasping her shoulder with one hand. “I couldn’t even give you time to brace yourself. We could all be in real trouble and time is of the essence.”
Scott had gotten to his feet and he and Jake were staring at the spectacle, not knowing what to do.
“Jeff,” Scott said, “where have you been? You’ve been gone over an hour.”
Jake said, “What the hell’s going on?”
“Chloe,” Jeff said, ignoring them, “concentrate on the central computer. Is anything wrong with it?”
She had broken out into a cold sweat, and reached up to push some hair from her face. “What?”
“The central computer. Is anything wrong with it?”
“Like what? What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Just connect with it. Talk to it. Make sure everything’s okay with it.”
“Jeff,” Scott said. “What could be wrong with the central computer?”
Chloe thought this all sounded crazy, but Jeff had asked her if she trusted him, and she had said absolutely. The reality was she could trust him with her life. Without even having to think about it. So, still sitting on the floor, she closed her eyes and began reaching out to the computer.
The thing was massive, with thousands and thousands of gigabytes of active memory and so much programming it almost boggled the mind. It wasn’t like just tapping into a laptop. She could do that as a parlor trick. And there had been a time when she tapped into ATMs to get money for the Boston community of metas.
“Wait,” she said, her brow dropping into a frown. “Wait..,”
“Jeff,” Scott said, “if you think there’s something wrong with the computer I can always run a diagnostic.”
Sammy was now in the room. Jeff hadn’t seen him come in. He must have been in the alcove and heard the commotion.
Sammy said, “I ran a diagnostic just a few days ago. I can assure you, it’s in perfect operating order.”
“Wait..,” Chloe was saying. Then she said, “No, it isn’t. Something’s wrong.”
Alarm klaxons began blasting away. The lights dimmed and emergency lighting came on.
She opened her eyes. “Jeff, you have to destroy it. Now.”
The panels on one wall began to slide aside, revealing a laser cannon.
Scott reached to his belt, activating a force field just as the cannon fired. The force field enveloped all of them and deflected the blast.
Jake was powering up. Jeff was, too. But Jeff had always been faster. Probably because he had been this way from birth.
No time to be subtle. Jeff stepped out of the force field and grabbed the laser cannon and ripped it from the wall in a shower of sparks.
Jake had also stepped free of the force field. “What’s going on?”
Jeff said, “We have to shut down the central computer. Right now.”
“Hurry!” Chloe called out. “It’s accessing the orbiting Star Wars platform.”
Sammy said, “The same one I accessed years ago.”
“It’s going to start firing! My God! It’s targeting Washington!”
Jeff ran to the other side of the room and knelt and drove his fist through the floor. A second punch widened the hole and he dropped down to the central computer room. His father followed.
The computer consisted of large rectangular units with lights and switches, all attached to various cylindrical units. Mother boards and drives and what-not. Jeff was no computer expert. But he charged at the nearest rectangular unit and began tearing into it with his fists. Powered-up like he was, it was like ripping through tin foil.
A wall panel slid back to reveal another laser cannon but Jake was on it. The thing fired at him, ripping away his t-shirt before he could grab it. But then he got his fingers around it and pulled it from the wall. Then another fired at him.
But then, it all went dead. Jeff had caused enough damage.
Jeff emerged from the wreckage that had been the computer. He had a fleeting thought that he hoped Chloe and the future Sara were right. If there had actually been nothing wrong with the computer, then Scott was going to kill him.
He looked at his father.
Jeff said, “Well, I see you liked the Christmas present I got you.”
Not only had Jake’s shirt been blown away by the first blast, but the second one had fried his jeans. He was wearing boxers with the Boston Red Sox logo splattered across them. Intended as sort of a joke present, because his dad was a rabid Red Sox fan.
Jake said, a little sheepishly, “I didn’t have time to grab my battlesuit.”
FIVE
April and Akila had gone to Boulder for some coffee. Though April wasn’t really a coffee drinker, sometimes she just found herself in the mood for a good latte. Coffee had been a new taste for Akila when she first came to this Earth, but she had quickly developed a fondness for it.
When they got word from Scott about what was going on at the facility, and that with the computer now in shreds there would be no way to beam them back, April said, “I can take care of that.”
They stepped into a lady’s room, and Sara took Akila by the hand and transformed them both to living quantum energy, and shot them back to the facility. They were there literally at the speed of light, standing in Scott’s lab.
“One thing about going quantum..,” April said.
She and Akila had gone to the Starbucks in skirts and tank tops and nice shoes. It wouldn’t do to show up in a place like that in a battlesuit. But the clothing hadn’t transported with them.
Akila finished it for her. “You come out of it buck naked.”
April nodded with a grimace.
She and Akila were not even wearing jewelry, as they stood before everyone else.
Chloe said, “Well, now I don’t feel so bad standing around here in my panties.”
April and Akila got some clothes from their quarters, and they brought some sweat pants for Chloe. And then it was time for Jeff to give an explanation.
Rick Wilson had been absent for all of this. He had put on his battle suit and gone out for a run. The others could run laps in the gym, but for him to really stretch his legs, he had to get outdoors. And for him to get a run that could really give him some exercise, it meant running from the Colorado mountains all the way south to the Mexican border, and then a hundred miles beyond it and then all the way back. For him, a half-hour run.
“If the Republicans put up the wall they want along the border, then I’ll have to start running north instead,” he said as he stepped into the lab, his hair soaked with sweat. “Hey, why are the lights out?”
Chuck Burroughs had been in the gym attempting to work out with some weights. He was more disciplined about hitting bars and trying to hit on women than he was about working out, and he was starting to get a little flabby in the middle. Not that he cared so much about physical condition, but he wanted to look good for the babes. He had been in the middle of what he claimed was his fortieth rep doing curls with thirty pound hand weights, though no one believed he had ever done any more than five, when the lights went out.
Jeff was sitting on a lab stool and everyone else was gathered around him. April was sitting on a lab table. Chloe was standing with a bottle of water in one hand. Scott’s arms were folded in front of him and he was looking impatient, which it seemed to Chuck that Scott usually was. Jeff was in his red battle suit and going into a lengthy explanation of wh
at had led to the lights going out.
All eyes were on him. Except for Chuck, who was trying to discretely check out Chloe’s butt. He went to the dorm fridge for a beer.
April looked at him with disgust.
“Hey,” he said. “The power’s out. All the beer’s gonna go bad. We should finish it before it does.”
April rolled her eyes. “I keep trying to remind myself you really are necessary to the team.”
Chloe shook her head. Akila chuckled.
“Hey,” Chuck said. “What’d I say?”
Jeff continued with his explanation. He had gone to the future, even though Scott had explained it was dangerous to do this and Snake and Mother had lectured him about the hazards of it.
“What were you thinking?” Scott said. He wasn’t quite shouting, but close enough. “How could it possibly occur to you to just jump into the future like that? Risk contaminating the time line. Don’t we have enough going on right now?”
“That’s just it,” Jeff said, jumping to his feet and matching Scott for intensity. “We do have a lot going on. We have a whole bunch of aliens out there waiting to descend on us. And what are you doing? Sitting around trying to figure out the alien language. You had Dad up there in the atmosphere putting a satellite into place. But the rest of us are doing absolutely nothing. Akila and April are off having coffee. Chuck’s off in the gym trying to work out.”
“Hey,” Chuck said. “I was working out.”
Jake thought maybe he should step in. Jeff was his son, and the tone coming out of him was what would be considered disrespectful. The way Jake was raised, kids just didn’t berate adults. And yet, Jake had the feeling Jeff was making a valid argument and he wanted to hear his son out. Besides, he knew how maddening Scott could be. Jake had torn into Scott more than once, and probably would again.
Scott, however, stood his ground and glared back at Jeff. “What’s your point?”
“The point is, we need information.”