Forty Leap

by Turner, Ivan

  I opened the door a crack and peered into the corridor. Sure enough, I was still in the GEI facility in the Rocky Mountains. Ahead of me was the passage down which we had been marching moments/years ago. Much of it had changed. The warm colored paint had been replaced with a sterile looking grey coat. Arrows pointing every which way directed personnel around the complex; at least I wouldn’t get lost. But the most drastic change was the apparatus that had been set up just where I had been walking. It looked quite like a cage, but not just so. A glass encasement had been set up. It stretched from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Orange symbols were painted all about it, warning people off I suppose. There were also cameras affixed to the top. Fortunately, all of the cameras pointed inward. Stenciled onto the side was my name. Apparently, they were expecting me. But had they set this up immediately after my jump or had they known I was coming now? It seemed more likely that they had set it up right away. I remembered Lieutenant McSwain ordering a containment team just after Neville’s jump. Perhaps it took a containment team to set up this apparatus.

  I had no idea what I was going to do. Clearly, the installation was still in the hands of the government, or at least people who sought to cage us. All I could think to do was to try and remain inconspicuous and make some observations. Stepping back into the closet, I pulled a utility belt off of a rack. There were various cleaning implements which fit neatly onto the belt (a squeegee, a duster, a spritzer, a universal handle…). I loaded up and then grabbed a broom handle and a cart with several different heads. Lieutenant McSwain’s comment about the fake beard stayed with me so I thought to find a way to disguise my appearance. Who knew whether or not Mathew Cristian was instantly recognizable in this time period? But I couldn’t take any chances. There was no fake beard available so I had to do with mussing my hair and streaking some grime on my face. Insufficiently disguised and feeling very self conscious, I stepped back out into that hallway and into two people in white coats.

  I was startled and nearly jumped out of my skin. I apologized profusely, trying in vain to disguise my voice. They seemed perturbed, but brushed past me just the same. They did not try to look at my ID badge. I, however, did notice theirs. They were doctors. One was a woman and one was a man. I had missed what they were saying beforehand, but I listened carefully as they picked up the conversation walking away from me. They were speaking about a “patient” who had responded badly to tests. She had not survived.

  Badly shaken, I moved off in the opposite direction from them. They had moved left down a T-junction and I moved right, the stem leading to what would have been my containment. I followed the signs towards the research areas, trying to forget what I had grown accustomed to as the old layout. For me, it had only been a few minutes since this facility had been a comfortable place for me and twenty one other time jumpers. Pointing in the direction of what had once been our suites was a sign that read, Staff Quarters. They had remade the place. Amazingly, I suddenly knew that I had to find out where they were keeping the patients. I didn’t know what I would do then, but the idea of uniting with my fellows was somehow comforting.

  As I moved through the familiar, yet alien complex, I tried to steer clear of any further encounters with other people. The building was eerily silent, sparsely populated with doctors and soldiers and administrative staff. The few doctors and administrators that I saw seemed far too preoccupied to notice me. The soldiers were tougher but not much. Many of them were joking with each other as if there was a party going on. Only the maintenance staff seemed alert. I met one around a corner rather accidentally and he gave me a very queer look as he asked me who I was and what I was doing in his section. Without even an explanation, I mumbled an apology and walked quickly back the way I had come. I could only hope that there would be sufficient ambivalence in the man for him to ignore the encounter. After that, I was most careful to avoid maintenance staff. Though the rest of the people might not care if they didn’t recognize me, the other janitors definitely did. Fortunately, they were as absent as the rest of the personnel.

  Eventually, I found my way down to the research sections. Moved out of our old rooms, I guessed that all of the jumpers would have been moved close to the testing areas. I was correct. Again there were signs clearly labeling Patient Compartments. I moved quickly in that direction and stumbled into them before I even knew what had happened. I was amazed at how light security was. There were no doors requiring identification. There were hardly any doors at all. Most of the corridors just opened up into different sections. There were no guards. I was literally able to turn a corner and see the cells that held my fellow patients.

  And cells is what they were. The time jumpers were held in twenty foot by twenty foot plexiglass cubicles. Each was set with its rear against a wall and there was a changing screen that hid a toilet (I could see it from an angle). Beyond that, each prisoner, for I could no longer think of them, of us, as patients, had a cot and a table and a chair. Some of the tables had books or magazines on them, but the rooms were otherwise bare. The door to the cell was made of plexiglass as well, with plastic hinges. The locks were not immediately visible and there were no handles. I imagined that the doors responded to some sort of electronic signal and either swung in or out with a push.

  The first cell was empty. There was a paperback on the table, a piece of paper serving as a bookmark jutting out of the middle. The changing screen was moved slightly to the side, revealing the unoccupied toilet. The blanket and pillow on the bed were ruffled as if the occupant had been sitting there and lifted directly away. Or jumped. There were leapers in many of the other cells and most of them were asleep.

  In the second cell, counting on his fingers, was Neville MacTavish. I didn’t believe it at first so I stood, frozen in place, just watching him. He was a bit older, as if he had spent a long time without jumping. I wondered about Rogers Clinton, but not enough to look for him. Neville was dressed in plain grey fatigues, like scrubs but a little bit heavier. They were loose fitting and without pockets. His hair was ruffled and his face was drawn. He had lost weight. But that fire was still in his eyes and there was a meditative quality to his activities, as if he did it to keep himself from going insane. He looked up briefly, saw me, and looked down again. I just stared.

  Eventually, he looked up again, drawn, I suppose, by the fact that I wasn’t moving. He looked at me closely, scowling, then asked, “Is there a problem? Never visited the freak show before?”

  “Neville,” I said.

  “Mathew!” he shouted suddenly. “I don’t believe it. How’d you manage it?”

  I shook my head. “What? Like you, I guess. I was scared and agitated…”

  “Not that!” he chided. “When I popped back into reality, they had a cage set up for me in just the right spot. I never stood a chance.”

  “Oh, that. They missed.”

  At that we just both broke up laughing, as if we were old friends sharing a private joke from long ago. But I had seen Neville just an hour or so ago. For him, however, our separation had been much longer.

  “You’ve got to get me out of here,” he said, then amended himself. “You’ve got to free all of us.”

  I approached his cell. “How…”

  His hands came up quickly in a warning. “Don’t get too close! If you don’t have the right badge, you’ll set off the alarms.”

  “Then how am I supposed to get you out?”

  Neville smiled and I realized how little of him had changed. “You see that broom handle on your cart?”

  I looked back, nodded.

  “Take that and find a soldier who’s alone. It shouldn’t be too hard to locate one. It’s late and it’s July 4th. Still your country’s Independence Day. Well, one of them anyway. Anyway, just find a soldier and hit him over the head as hard as you can with that broom handle. Take his keys, gun and his badge and get back here as fast as you can.”

  I looked again at the broom handle, then back at Neville. The doubt must have b
een pretty clear on my face because his smile turned into a frown.

  “I know you don’t think you stand much of a chance…”

  “I don’t even know if I can do it.”

  “Well think of it this way. If you do this, the forty of us can make enough trouble to at least get some of us out of here. If not, well, there are plenty of empty rooms.”

  “Forty?” I asked.

  He made a sweeping motion with his hand and I looked anew at the rows of cells. “Thirty nine prisoners currently, here and in the other ward. You, my friend, are number forty.”

  I looked at the cells and the forlorn faces of those within. A number of those not sleeping had taken an interest in my conversation with Neville, but no one offered any opinions. There were a variety of faces by shape and skin color. There were men and women. Who knew how long each of them had been imprisoned? What did it matter? I had to do something.

  “I’ll be back,” I promised, pushing my cart back the way I had come.

  I had no idea how I was going to find it within myself to commit an act of unprovoked violence against another person. It was bad enough that I had no experience with that sort of thing, worse still that I was squeamish about it. I wandered for the better part of an hour, seeing a number of soldiers and never moving to intercept. In the first place, there were always other people around. Few of them, it seemed, were on any sort of duty. Instead, they were laughing merrily and obviously taking part in the celebration. Neville had said it was the Fourth of July. I knew that I couldn’t hope to succeed against more than one person, especially more than one soldier. So I needed to find one all by himself. Where could I do that?

  I thought about visiting the soldiers’ quarters, but I was worried about setting off an alarm. Before heading to see Neville, I hadn’t thought much of alarms. I suppose I had been pretty lucky. Now, though, I was being excessively cautious, aware of the consequences of getting caught. Too many people were depending on me.

  In a flash of insight, I realized that the best place would be the bathroom. I found one that was close to where the recreation areas were and went inside. A couple of people saw me, but no one said anything. After all, how odd could it have been to see a maintenance man go into a bathroom? The room was small, with three urinals and two stalls. There was no place to conceal the cart so I just left it out in the open. After my brief encounter with the other maintenance man, I was leery about pretending to clean the bathroom. I didn’t know the schedules and, apparently, different workers had different sections. It seemed more reasonable that I would be using the bathroom if someone should come in. So I took a small bucket off of the cart and filled it with water. Then I pushed the cart off to the side, armed myself with the broom handle, and slipped into a stall.

  The first time I heard the door open, there were two voices so I stayed inside the stall. As they finished and began to wash, I poured some of the water into the toilet to make it sound as if I was urinating. Their conversation carried on without pause so I felt safe enough when they left. Once I heard the door close, I went back out and refilled my bucket.

  I had to repeat this process a number of times. Neville had said to target a soldier so I kept peeking out to make sure of the people coming in. Once, I actually just used the bathroom instead of faking it with the bucket. Finally, I had my opportunity. A soldier came in by himself. He was larger than I would have hoped, but he stepped up to a urinal, his back to me and the stalls, and began to do his business. I think he might have been drunk. This left me a window of about thirty seconds to act. I felt cramped and self conscious in the small bathroom. I wasn’t sure I would be able to swing the broom handle hard enough or in a wide enough arc to do what I needed to do. I didn’t know if there was a special spot I should attack. I was completely inadequate for the task at hand. And yet I was determined so I placed my bucket on the toilet paper dispenser and stepped out of the stall. I made no attempt to sneak up on him. He already knew I was there and any hesitant motions might very well have made him suspicious. Giving myself some room, I lifted the broom handle high and wide and brought it around against the side of his head.

  He crumpled like a marionette.

  There were tears in my eyes as I knelt beside him, trying to avoid the spilled urine and blood. I quickly checked to make sure he was breathing, which he was. I was disgusted with myself. I thought to tie him up and stash him in a stall, but I knew that it might take me too long so I just grabbed his ID badge and his keys (which weren’t actual metal keys as I remembered them) and his gun (which was exactly as I remembered guns) and left the bathroom.

  I was sweating now and must have looked as guilty as I felt. There was no exhilaration to accompany my success. He wasn’t like the man Jennie had killed on the ruined streets of New York. This man could very well have a life and responsibilities. I kept thinking of him as he might have been as a child and a school boy. I kept thinking of the circumstances that might have brought him into the army and out to the Rockies on this assignment. I kept thinking of him as a victim and I didn’t like it that he was my victim. I walked quickly back to the cells which were as devoid of staff as they had been before. Neville looked up immediately and there was a mixture of surprise and respect in his eyes. I suppose he was glad to see me, but had never really expected it. Then the alarms went off, my victim found I suppose.

  “Show me the keys!” Neville cried.

  I did and he pointed out which one to use. It fit into the clear door by one of the hinges and the locks made an audible chunk as they disengaged. He pushed his way free, nearly toppling me in the process, just as two doctors rounded the corner. A soldier was behind them. Neville grabbed the gun from my belt and lifted it without a second thought. He fired three times and all three of them went down. The soldier never had a chance to grab his own weapon.

  The other leapers were looking up now. I saw in their expressions nothing that resembled hope. But they were eager to be free for however long they could be.

  “Free them,” Neville said. “Free them all.”

  Horrified by what I had just witnessed, I stood frozen in place, the keys dangling from my hands, my eyes fixed on the dead and dying people at the end of the corridor. Neville had no such feelings. He took the gun from the soldier first and then relieved all three people of their ID badges. When he noticed that I hadn’t moved, he shouted at me. “There are no innocents here!”

  He stood and marched right up to me. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t take my eyes from the people he had just shot. Maybe they had families. Maybe someone needed them.

  “Look at me.”

  I couldn’t.

  “Look at me!”

  I just stared.

  I knew there was no time, but I think I was in shock. Neville had no patience for it and no patience for me. He shoved me hard up against the wall and stripped off his shirt. His chest and arms were riddled with scars and tracks. Now I couldn’t look away from him, from his mutilated body.

  “This is all of us, Mathew,” he cried. “If we get caught, then it’s you, too.” Then he grabbed the keys from my hand and began to set all of the other leapers free.

  I stood there, paralyzed, awash in grief and hopelessness. My gaze was fixed on Neville’s discarded shirt, just laying in a heap on the floor. It had concealed something terrible, something I had always feared every time anyone mentioned anything about experiments. This was it. This was the real horror of it. We weren’t human to these people. We were subjects.

  I didn’t hear the charging footsteps and I didn’t realize we were to be attacked until the shooting started. I was in the middle of it all. A unit of soldiers, maybe four of them, came around the corner with their rifles ready. But Neville fired first and two of them were down before they had a chance to return fire. The crack of their rifles was much louder than the comparable pop-pop of the handgun. I jumped with each shot. I heard someone cry out but didn’t look. Then the other two soldiers went down.

  “Get
the guns,” I heard Neville say but he wasn’t talking to me.

  Two men and two women went to the fallen soldiers and took their rifles and pistols. They began distributing the weapons among the other freed leapers. I looked over at them, gathering at the opposite end of the plexiglass corridor. There were maybe twenty of them in all, several now armed, all angry. Neville said something about the other ward and then came up to me.

  “I won’t expect you to fire a gun, Mathew. You got us out and that’s enough. But don’t stand here and die.”

  “What?” I didn’t understand. There was blood on Neville’s chest but it wasn’t his. I looked down the corridor to see one of the newly freed leapers slouched on the floor, a wound to her arm. She must have been near to Neville or maybe he had tried to help her.

  “Just stay close to me.”

  He grabbed me by the elbow as if I were a disobedient child and began to drag me out of the corridor. Many of the others had already left and we were really just following. Two turns later, we found ourselves in another corridor that looked exactly like the first one. There were two rows of cells, about fifteen deep each and most of them were filled with people. When we had finished freeing them, there were forty of us in all. In the background, the alarm klaxon blared on endlessly. But no more soldiers came. Maybe they didn’t really know what was happening yet. Maybe they were all too busy recovering from their celebration.