by Lilly Mance
Zack had said that history has a way of readjusting itself, but it also has a way of surprising everyone. One of Zack's snooping endeavors resulted in a tidbit of strange info. We were all left under the impression that Michael had been taken out by the Death Squad, but it wasn't so. That added to our suspicions that things were not what they seemed. As a matter of fact, a morally corrupted person shouldn't be able to time-travel, and Zack's informant told him that Michael was now on a Death Squad team. That didn't sit right.
“My informant, Jessica, is an Elder,” Zack said one day in our bathroom aka safe room. “She's Michael's best friend. That's how she knows Michael isn't dead.”
“Can she be trusted?”
“No-one can,” Zack smiled, faintly, “But we have to take some risks.” He took my hand in his, staring into my eyes.
I knew he was worried, especially since we've been through that Michael situation. He took a risk with him, and it backfired, but we had to move past it, so I asked, “What else does she know?”
“When Michael's wife died, they started digging deeper, and found some gruesome things,” Zack shifted in his seat.
“Like what?”
“She said Michael had no real intentions of killing you. Their goal was to get Michael on the Death Squad, and the only way he could, was to try to kill someone,” he swallowed hard.
“So DS isn't what we were lead to believe,” I said more to myself, than him.
“Not at all. They found out that DS is some sort of an army serving Zoe and Harold. There are thousands of them,” his eyes rounded.
“Jesus,” I breathed, “Zoe and Harold are working together?” He nodded. “What do they need an army for?”
“We don't know,” he clasped his neck. “Apparently, there's a third memory bank, a secret one that is not under any access codes. It's guarded by Death Squad. That's why they needed Michael to get on that team.”
“It makes sense. What do they plan to do now that he's there?”
“He's gonna steal the chip and give it to Jessica. Allegedly, this chip is filtered from all the redundant personal crap, and contains the entire chain of events.”
“And she's gonna let us see?”
“Uh-huh. It's going down tomorrow,” he stood up and sat next to me on the tub. “There's one more thing.”
“Which thing?” My head snapped toward him.
“Jessica told me,” he paused, “That whenever a TGA member or an Elder became a liability, Zoe and Harold would find his or her soul mate, and arrange for them to meet.”
“A liability?”
“If they knew too much, or started snooping around. Anyway, after being coupled, they would be immersed into their love, and stop paying attention to other things, stop questioning methods.”
“Geez,” I covered my mouth, “So Zoe and Harold aren't enemies. They are responsible for your coma?”
“That's what she said,” he draped his arm over my shoulders, and kissed my cheek, “And I'm glad they did that.”
I smiled. Sometimes good can come out of bad things. “Why were you a liability?”
“My memory omission. Zoe and Harold apparently thought it would be best to occupy me with you,” he pulled me into a cinematic kiss, then broke off by saying, “So I wouldn’t become a problem. Not that I can hold it against them now that I have you,” he smirked.
~*~
Jessica and Michael's plan worked. He stole the chip and sent it to her, then she forwarded it to us. It took us hours to go through it. After it was over, we stared at each other in shock.
The originals didn't invent time travel. A team of archeologists in India discovered a set of ancient scrolls that were originally a part of Mahabharata. It was a manual on how to construct all forty-eight weapons listed in Mahabharata, plus several other things such as time travel. After careful examination of the scrolls, the World Council decided that it was too dangerous to let anyone get a hold of it. It could have had serious consequences on world peace and balance of powers. The scrolls were locked in a vault in India with a time lock. It was decided that humanity wouldn't be ready for it for another century. The originals begged to differ, so they broke into the vault, and stole the scrolls.
As soon as they mastered time travel, and it didn't take them long since the manual was pretty clear on how to do it, they killed everyone that knew about it. Time travel itself had a sole purpose of helping a developed civilization in finding their soul mates in time-space. It was supposed to be a reward for people that were highly developed in spiritual and technological plane. It wasn't supposed to serve as a tool for changing history. Spiritually underdeveloped originals, guided by their own desire for power and knowledge, used it for all the wrong reasons. What they didn't expect is higher intelligence that ruled all realms. In their self-worship, they didn't believe anyone could stop them, and no-one in particular did. There was a hidden part of time travel tech—if it was used for any other purpose besides finding soul mates, it would bring about the end of time.
When it first happened, Zoe and Harold took command. They were supposed to learn from original's mistake, but they didn't. Born in an earlier time, without a fear of elimination, they saw it as an opportunity to use it for their own agenda. They forged a plan to divide the remaining time travelers into two factions—TGA and Elders—that would fight each other until they weren't necessary anymore. Both factions would serve as a cover story for time endings. One would be trying to fix history and the other would be against it, neither would suspect a devious plan Zoe and Harold had. A perfect divide and conquer scheme.
Zoe and Harold wanted to rule the world from its beginning till the end. They intended to change history in a way that they would be seen as Gods. All traces of normal human history would be gone, and humanity would serve their two Gods. With the ability to travel through time, they would make their appearances in any time-space they wanted, creating an illusion they were omnipresent and omnipotent.
The first end of time came because of the originals. The second end came when Zoe and Harold founded the Death Squad—their personal evil army that would take out anyone who would stand in their way. By reverse engineering, they found a way to give the time travel ability to those driven by hate or otherwise morally corrupted. The third end came when they reverse engineered a piece of technology that would enable Zoe and Harold to be visible in both realms.
The last piece of technology that Zoe and Harold needed before annihilating all time travelers and establishing world dominance was the ability to move their cryoboxes to an earlier time combined with significant life extension. Nothing could stand in their way if they managed to achieve that, and based on what we saw, they were close to it.
Stunned by what we saw, we knew Zoe and Harold had to be stopped.
“Zack,” I broke the silence, “How do we stop them?”
“We have to go to the source,” his glance conveyed pain, and I knew why. The source was time travel tech.
“We know where they found the scrolls,” I swallowed a knot, “If we move them—”
“—time travel won't exist,” he finished, closing his eyes, and lowering his head.
“It's the only way. They'll cause new end-time anyway,” my gut clenched as it dawned on me––we were predestined to lose each other one way or the other.
“I know,” his eyes, full of hurt, latched onto mine, “But I can't willingly give you up,” his voice cracked.
Suppressing tears down my throat, I breathed, “Neither can I. But do we have a choice, really?”
“We never did, did we?” Those gorgeous green eyes held my gaze, and I knew what he said was true. Who were we fooling? For the most part, only ourselves.
“We either wait for the new end-time—you get deleted from existence, and I live in sorrow while watching the world become enslaved. Or we hide the scrolls—“ My throat closed up, cutting my sentence short, “—and have our memories erased. It will be as if we never even met.”
Zack let out an a
nnoyed snort, “So to save the world we have to sacrifice our love! Great! Just great!” He sprang to his feet, and started pacing around the bathroom in anger.
“We've already been sacrificed. You will be erased anyway. We never had a chance,” I grumbled, feeling the pain overwhelming me.
“I can't do that, Lyra,” he gripped my arms, “I just can't! I don't care about the world if you're not by my side!”
“You're not the one who'll have to live in it,” I glared at him, “You will die, Zack! I will have to live without you, and watch my parents become slaves to false Gods!”
“I don't want that, Ly. But I can't make myself give you up,” he knelt down at my feet, and placed his head in my lap.
“I don't want to give you up, either. I love you too much,” I said, entangling my fingers in his black hair, “But I can't be selfish, and trade world's fate for what could be a couple of days or years. We know now that new end-time is inevitable.”
“We could stop Zoe and Harold,” he sputtered, hope sparkled in his eyes.
“No, Zack,” I cupped his cheek, “There will always be another Zoe and Harold. You know that.”
“I don’t care, Lyra. I won’t give you up, and that’s it. End of discussion,” he stormed out the bathroom.
Left all by myself, I cringed. I couldn’t stand the thought of giving him up, of going back to my old life, and never remembering he existed. But at the same time, I couldn’t live with myself knowing I could have done something about Zoe and Harold. Billions of innocent people would have to pay the price because two people were so evil and wanted to make them slaves, and other two were weak to do something about it when they could. I pictured my parents’ happy faces in my mind turning into taunted slaves. I shivered. I was selfish enough to go with Zack into the future and cause them pain, but I’m not selfish enough to stay if that’s gonna make my parents into slaves. First time, I chose Zack, this time I must choose my parents.
At that moment, my bracelet signaled an incoming memory transfer. I glanced at who it might be. Michael. What did he want? Wondering if I should first inform Zack about it, I hesitated on pressing play. What the heck!––I thought, and pressed play.
Pleasantly surprised, I watched Michael and his wife before she died. I saw their happiness, and it reminded me so much of Zack and me. Soon after, they started fighting about differences in opinion. Michael wasn’t so sure about his loyalty to Elders when it came to losing his wife, so he started digging around. What he and his best friend Jessica had found, besides the soul mate scam, made them sure they were on the wrong side. Not knowing the whole story, they decided it would be best to join the TGA. But, when Michael told his wife about it, she thought he was crazy, couldn’t believe any of the things he had said, and left him during one of the worst fights they ever had.
He showed me his agreement with Zack, and his wife’s return. The grief after her passing away was soul shattering, and I wanted to stop his memories, feeling my insides respond to it as if it were my own grief. Luckily, his memories moved on to his forced retirement from Elders. Then he showed me Jessica and her findings about the Death Squad, along with their plot to get on the team. When Zack contacted him about my Antarctica plan, they saw it as an opportunity to get on DS team. He showed me how much he didn’t want to hurt me, how it was a scam, how they planned to tell us the truth, and wanted Zack to fake my death. His memories came to an end.
Another signal from my bracelet showed an incoming message. Michael’s face was in front of me again, but this time it wasn’t his memories, it was as if he had recorded a video message. He smiled saying, “Hey kiddo. Hope you don’t mind. I omitted some personal stuff from that transfer.” Crap! I didn’t even notice that was missing. “Jessica’s a tech expert. Before I let the Death Squad capture me, she downloaded my memories to a chip, and then erased them from my head to prevent anyone from seeing them. False amnesia,” he chuckled. “For this transfer, I asked her to manually remove steamy parts. Anyway, it’s down to you and me. Knowing Zack, he won’t give you up, and Jessica is watched too closely to do anything. If you’re interested, meet me at these coordinates in five hours. We don’t have time to think about it. By noon, history chip theft will be discovered, and all hell will break loose. Or we’ll end time travel. Your choice, kiddo.”
The message was over. I stared at the coordinates unable to move. My heart was in overdrive. Five hours. That’s how long I had to make a choice. There was a knock on the door.
“Lyra?”
“Yeah,” I answered, hoarsely.
“Everything alright?”
“Sure. Be there in a minute,” I straightened my clothes, and went to get myself ready for bed. Five hours. Oh, God!
~*~
Zack was tucked in bed, waiting for me, already half asleep. I jumped in, and molded my body to fit the shape he was in. He snuggled closer, burrowing his nose in my hair, and kissing the back of my neck. His arm fell over me protectively, pulling me closer to his warm body. Mentally, I noted how each point where our bodies connected felt. Five hours. I thought, this could be our last night. Dread gripped my insides. I turned around and kissed him as if it were our last kiss. A soul-scorching kind of a kiss. He responded eagerly, but then broke off slightly, murmuring, “I love you,” against my lips. I felt as if my body and soul would shatter into pieces from pain. How could I let this go? Five freaking hours! Damn Michael, damn Zoe, and damn Harold! I never wanted this war. All I wanted was Zack, and yet, I can’t have him. I kissed him harder, hiding my inner monologue, then said, “I love you, too.” He smiled, kissing the top of my nose.
An hour into the night, I was still awake. Zack’s steady breathing kept reminding me how monstrous it was of me to consider leaving him like that. He made it clear he would never give me up. But by noon, Zoe and Harold would turn everything upside-down to find out who stole the chip. They would know their plan was in jeopardy. We’re risking the only chance we have to make it right. Maybe they’ll kill everyone, maybe that’s why there are so many Death Squad soldiers. My mind raced. I have to do it, I resolved. No matter how much it hurts, I'm doing it.
~*~
The remaining four hours flew by. I watched Zack sleeping peacefully, and with each breath he had taken, my heart had sunken more. I prayed we would meet again. In some other life, some other time. Once, when it’s meant to be, when we could have our happy ever after. I kissed his lips tenderly, and said goodbye in my mind. He just stirred, but didn’t open his eyes. It won’t hurt him. He won’t remember me—I assured myself while sneaking out of bed.
I got dressed as quickly as I could, and transported myself to Michael’s coordinates. When I got there, I started crying and screaming from the top of my lungs. The pain was unbearable, tearing through my body. Michael grabbed me into his embrace, “Shhh,” he said, “I know how it hurts. But you have to get ahold of yourself. We don’t have time.”
“I CAN’T!” I screamed at him, letting out a couple of animalistic cries.
“You have to,” he shook me violently, “We’re all dead tomorrow if you don’t!”
That sobered me up instantly. The last thing I wanted was to get Zack killed. I sniffled, and looked at him. His face was serious and frightened.
“Here,” he handed me a tissue. “You did the right thing, you know.”
I seared him with a long glare.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where? How do we do this?”
“My cryo is in Africa. Where’s yours?”
I studied his face, wondering if that was something I was supposed to reveal. To hell with it! I wasn’t sure I could trust him, but I told him anyway, “New Zealand.”
“Here,” he took out a handful of money, “This should be enough to get you to India. When you get out of your cryo, Jessica will be there to give it to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to take it with you.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “Where do we meet?”
“Jodhpur airpo
rt in India,” he glanced at his bracelet. “Now let’s get going.”
“Wait! How do I get out of my cryo?”
“Oh,” he chuckled, “Type your cryo code here,” he extended his hand to show me where on his bracelet.
“Thanks.”
“Sure, kiddo. See you there.”
~*~
Waking up in my cryo was easy. Being with my thoughts all the way to India, however, wasn’t. It was pure torture. I kept justifying my actions, and regretting my decision at the same time. Good thing, though, was the difference in time between realms. No-one would be up before we got this done, and that was somewhat soothing. I could only pray that everything would go according to plan.
Michael was waiting for me at the airport. He had a compass and a GPS in one hand, and waved to me with a map in the other.
“We have a tight schedule, so we have to hurry,” he said when I reached him. I nodded, and followed him out. No how was your trip? Are you okay? Nope. Straight to business.
We entered a jeep that Michael rented for this purpose, and were on our way into the unknown. The top of the car had all kinds of tools fastened. The shovel was all I recognized, but didn’t dare to ask what other stuff was. Michael didn't seem to be in a good mood. Neither was I for that matter.
For a good part, Michael drove down the road with me reading the map, and then we turned to an uncharted territory. Jessica managed to extract several snapshots of the place from the memory chip, and that was a huge help given the circumstances. When we arrived at the coordinates, there was nothing but wasteland all over. I spread Jessica’s images on the hood to see if anything remotely resembled our surroundings. Nothing.
Michael tossed and turned the pictures over the hood and then exclaimed, “That! Over there!”
I looked at the direction he was pointing, but couldn’t see what.
“That rock is this one,” he put his finger on one of the pictures.
“Oh, yeah,” I saw it, “And this one is over there,” I smiled. Thank God, rocks were durable, and changed very little over long periods of time.