One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  "What the…!" Goran began.

  When the other Romio, the copy, came close enough to the duo, Goran looked around in shock.

  "What is this sorcery? How did you do this?" Goran felt the threads of his sanity fray as he gazed, dumbfounded at the impossibility of what lay before him. Two Romio’s? And one had killed his trusted advisor. Goran began to grow angry and panic in his confusion.

  "I'll take it from here. Thank you for your help, Romio." The Romio copy said.

  "My pleasure." The first Romio replied.

  The first Romio's face contorted into a mask of pain as his body began to stiffen like a board while he looked upon his other self, facing his own paradox. The second Romio looked upon his other with sympathy.

  "Move west brother, and be free." The Romio copy said.

  "How is this possible?" Goran asked.

  The first Romio froze and turned to a pillar of ash. Then, he crumbled into a pile of swirling grey dust.

  "A paradox cannot exist, and since I was here in this space-time first, the universal mind allowed me to stay, while my other returned to the source field." Romio said.

  "But…"

  "I know, how, right? You have to understand that we are all astral projections of our true selves in the field of consciousness. This body you inhabit, and everything you touch, taste, and smell: none of it is real. It's all an illusion. I'm surprised you didn't discover this with the high technology the Nebulonian's possessed. But then, you were good at only one thing: killing your own kind."

  "I'll kill you for your insolence, Romio, or whatever you are. I am your king!"

  Goran looked around, and realized to his horror that he had been surrounded by the frowning faces of Tiamatians and Nebulonians alike.

  "Goran, your hatred destroyed the homes and lives of too many people to count, and now you have to pay. But thank you for helping us end our petty squabbling and live in peace with the people of Tiamat. An amazing feat."

  "But why, how… are you all living together?"

  "The control mechanism for the Saturn weapon was destroyed when Nebulon exploded, putting all of us on equal footing, and since none of us had a home, we all ended up here. We've been here for almost fifty years, and we’ve set our differences aside. We grew our new society while living in between the two time structures until you three arrived here, and now the time stream has been corrected. I'm sad to report that the nanobots ran their course some time ago and have all died off, but now that we have your ship I think we can begin to travel to Earth and rebuild both our societies on a much more habitable planet."

  "We can rebuild together! I'll help, and with my leadership as king we can rule that planet as well!" Goran said.

  Romio glared at him with eyes like daggers, and shook his head slowly from side to side.

  A tall blond man with a red beard appeared from behind Romio, a frown contorted his face as his eyes traveled the length of Goran's body, up and down. Goran knew that this man was a hybrid of Nebulon and Tiamat, a child of the new age.

  "You don't look like much." The man said. Before Goran could say one more word, the man pulled a gun out and shot Goran in the left eye, dropping the false king of Nebulon to the ground with a thump. Goran's reign was over, and with their talent for innovating high technology and their new understanding of each other, the people of the moon would move their colony to earth and begin constructing the great pyramids in a pact of peace for another eleven thousand years.

  let's do the time warp!

  A twenty-three-year-old thief and hacker finds his way into a secret underground lab and steals a device that can do things he never thought were possible.

  Jason ran down the hallway, sweat beading on his forehead and rolling down his cheeks in tiny rivers, as masked guards in black uniforms gave furious chase. He laughed as he ran, cackling at the ceiling. He had finally done it. He was deep underground, in a facility so secret that only a handful of those—on a need to know basis—knew of it. His ability to hack into an unsecure server and access the badge ID of every officer in the installation allowed him to create a computer chipped ID card resembling the official badges the guards carried.

  In the palm of his hand, Jason held a device that was the stuff of dreams, and so highly classified, that if he were to be captured, a certain and rapid demise would follow. Close footsteps behind him made Jason run even faster. The tiny machine in his hand resembled a can of soda, and there were three buttons on the outside near the top. One of them was labeled Time Slip, another had been marked Time Warp, and the final button was labeled Home. Jason pressed Time Slip as he ran and dodged around a corner. The men in black uniforms ran by as if he were not there. He saw them as a blur in his current state.

  "its true time travel does exist! Hah! I did it." Jason said.

  He checked the time on his watch and it read twelve-thirty. Then, still in the time-slip, he walked back toward the lab where he stole the device, because he knew there was an analog clock on the wall and he needed to see if his slip had created any change outside of his personal time-position. He saw no one around, so he pressed the button again and reappeared. Lab tables were filled with various tubes and bubbling mixtures, waiting for future experiments. The lab also carried a medicinal odor, reminiscent of hospitals. White lab coats hung on hooks along the wall, and various genetically modified animals moved back and forth inside their cages. Jason thought they more closely resembled monsters from his childhood nightmares than animals though. Dogs with the heads of cats, ducks that were half chicken, and more extraordinary horrors than he could imagine, sitting on shelves behind a thick glass window. The cages stretched from floor to ceiling, and some of the monstrosities eyed him with curiosity, as if they were interested in what he was doing. He looked up, amazed to see the clock read six-fifteen, but his wristwatch hands had moved only two minutes. For almost seven hours he had been standing between the hands of time, waiting in the hidden space between moments as the men in black suits searched for him. A motion sensor-equipped security camera moved in the corner of the room and his position was compromised. Soon the footsteps would be back, and he would be once again trapped. Jason waved at the camera and smiled.

  "Hiya boys! I'll be seeing you." Jason said. He pressed the button that read Time Warp and an instant later, a large translucent orb appeared in the room. Inside were clouds swirling around as if the sky had been trapped within the sphere.

  "Whoa. Ok. What now?" Jason looked into the orb with trepidation. "Just go." He said to himself.

  As he heard the soldiers tromping back up the hallway, Jason ran at the orb, and jumped into it head first. When he touched the bubble, the sensation was like that of hitting a giant rubber ball, with the exception that this ball was dragging him in, guiding his passage like a million little hands pulling him forward. Jason tumbled through the portal, landing on a hard floor, and for a moment he thought he might still be in the laboratory far underground in New Mexico. But when he stood, Jason saw that he was no longer anywhere he had ever seen. The floor upon which he stood was not really a floor, but a plane that stretched far and wide in every direction. Above him, and all around were distant stars, and he could see planets orbiting in their celestial precession through the galaxy.

  "I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore." Jason whispered.

  He turned back the way he had come in, and could see soldiers pointing rifles at the bubble. Jason pressed the Time Warp button once more and the soldiers vanished as the bubble closed. Jason began to walk forward in an effort to find his way out.

  "There's air in here." He said to himself. "Warm, but not too warm, and comfortable. Where am I?" The last question echoed like when someone yells into the Grand Canyon. "Don't question it, find a door."

  A moment later, Jason stood in what appeared to be a train station with six pane glass doors on each wall, but he could not see out the windows. The ticket counter behind him was a cinder block wall that held train schedules and post boxes. Jason sur
mised, from the look of it, that this train station must have been over a hundred years old. The musty smell of ancient wood plank floors wafted into his nostrils, causing a familiar sense of nostalgia. Benches where passengers could wait for their departing trains sat unused in the center of the room. Jason felt a sensation that he had been there before, in this very train station, but he knew that he had never actually been on a train in his life. Still, quiet, and peaceful, he relaxed and sat on one of the benches for a moment to collect his thoughts, and just as he did he noticed that there were now people in the station, sitting all around him clothed in period dress from the late eighteen hundreds. Two men in suits chuffed on tobacco pipes, reading newspapers while their wives stood talking to one another, stopping conversation to chase the occasional small child who had wandered off. Then he saw himself on the other side of the station. The other Jason stood across from him, wearing a conductor's uniform, and sporting a handlebar mustache. He was helping a young lady with her bags and opening the door for her. She curtsied as he smiled and nodded, and just before he exited the building with her, she stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. Jason felt a desperate need to make contact with this man who looked so much like him.

  "You look just like me." Jason whispered to himself. "Hey, man! You look familiar!" Jason yelled.

  The man did not appear to hear him, and as Jason stepped forward to get closer the spell was broken. One by one, the people in the train station began to fade away, back into the recesses of his ancient memories. His past life was receding like a wave on the beach. For the first time since entering the time bubble he felt alone, and decided to look for a way out. The sensation that he was lost in time crept over him like dread from the grave. With a sudden jolt of surprise Jason hit the floor as his tiny train station world began to rock and sway, and then he saw one of the doors at the end of the station glowing, as if he sun were trying to burst through into his room. He got to his feet and started to run toward the door, and the closer he got the less brilliant the light became, until he could clearly see a small park outside his window. Jason took hold of the door handle, slowly turned the knob, and opened the door.

  Fresh, cool air rushed in and he instantly felt like he was back home again as a kid in the mountains of Pennsylvania. It reminded him of lazy fall days when the trees danced with wild color, shedding their summer coat of leaves, falling asleep until spring. The park was empty, but as a gust of wind picked up he saw a merry-go-round turn in a slow, counterclockwise motion. He checked the cargo pocket of his pants to make sure he still had the time travel device, and then he stepped through the door. When he turned around, the bubble and his door were gone and he was alone in a strange place again.

  "Ok, where the heck are you?" Jason said. He turned in a circle to see if he could recognized any landmarks or familiar sights, but it was all new to him.

  Houses lining the perimeter of the park were large, old, Victorian two-story homes, with gaslights standing in front each home. They were painted black, and as Jason walked closer to one he could see metal skulls designed to look like some kind of monstrous toothy creature welded to them. When he reached out to touch one, he heard the faint sound of a child's laughter. He turned sharply, and saw a little girl running up the street kicking a ball. This child seemed happy, but as she drew closer, there was something not quite right. Part of her face was missing, and the little white dress she wore was partially stained a dark burgundy. She was ten feet from him now as Jason stood with his mouth open, and his head cocked a bit to the side in disbelief.

  "Hello." She said. The little deformed girl giggled a little at the stunned stranger watching her.

  "Oh uh, hello. What's your name?" Jason asked. He couldn't think of anything clever to say.

  "I'm Felicia, what's yours?" Part of her mouth smiled at him, but the other half exposed rotting flesh and broken teeth.

  "Jason. Where am I? What, um planet is this?" Jason asked.

  "Don’t you know, silly? You're in the town of Haven, on the planet Erthe. I'm five years old and I know that." Her speech was somewhat slurred due to the massive injuries on her face.

  "Oh yeah, I forgot." Jason said. He was grinning sheepishly.

  "What's wrong with your face? What happened to it, you know? It's so… pale, and all together." She asked.

  "I don't know. I guess I…" Jason began.

  "Felicia!" A woman yelled. "Felicia, where are you?"

  "Here momma! Talking to a strange man." Felicia answered.

  "I think I better get moving. Thanks for the conversation, little… Felicia." Jason forced a smile.

  "Who is that? Who are you? Tell me this instant!" Felicia's mother yelled. The woman moving toward him was wearing a maroon Victorian ball gown with a French bustle. Pretty dark ruffles crossed her chest, and she reminded him of wealthy women he had seen in pictures from the late eighteen hundreds. "You there, what are you doing to my child?"

  She was coming closer and he could now see that she was grey, emaciated, and withered, a walking corpse. As the child's mother yelled at him, Jason could see that many of her teeth had fallen out, and that her eyes were sunken deep in dark sockets. She had no nose, and that terrified Jason the most. He began to feel a chill in the air as the sun set, and leaves blew around the street carrying on tiny gusts of wind. The gaslights flickered to life and he could see Jack O' Lanterns glowing in the flames. Jason felt as if he were trapped in some sort of strange Halloween world, a nightmare where every monster he feared as a child came to life. A wolf howled in the distance and Jason felt his blood chill. He had put the time device in his pocket, and now stuck his hand in, feeling reassurance from the cold metallic cylinder. His thumb played with the buttons, and for a moment he thought about pressing one of them.

  "Don't run off!" The woman yelled. She approached Jason with curiosity. "Come inside with us. It's safe." She finished. With increasing jitters, Jason considered his options.

  "What are you going to do to me?"

  "What are you, some kind of alien?" She asked.

  "Let's have him for dinner mommy!" Felicia squealed.

  "Shhhhh, be calm child." Her mother said, smiling at Jason. "Yes, why don't you come inside for dinner?"

  Jason realized that while he had been chatting with the two undead ladies, the street had become busy with more ghouls. Jason saw there were many more of them coming toward him in a horde.

  "Hey earth man! Get over here if you want to live through the night!" A female voice screamed.

  The undead stopped and looked back to see a that there was a pretty girl, who was no more than nineteen, with a dirty mop of hair, wearing a torn leather jacket, holding the door of a small shoe shop open. Jason could see dirty streaks on her face and the tired look in her eyes of one who has been hunted. He turned and ran toward her. Felicia's mother was screaming for the army of zombies to get him, but he was too fast. Jason ducked inside with the girl and she slammed the door shut, sliding a board across two iron u-shaped brackets, temporarily locking the dead inhabitants of Haven out.

  "That won't hold them for long. Come on." She said.

  The dirty girl led him through a back room and into an alley outside. It was dark now, as starlight gleamed down from the heavens while they paused and breathed in the fresh evening air. She stopped in the middle of a cobblestone alley and pulled back a sewer grate, revealing a dark hole and a ladder leading down. The sounds of their approaching pursuers were getting louder by the moment.

  "I'm Jason." He said.

  "Great! I'm Shannon, now go down the ladder." She looked annoyed with him.

  Without another word, Jason dropped down the hole and descended into the darkness, wishing he had a flashlight. A million movie monsters appeared inside his mind, and he imagined them grabbing his feet to pull him down into their lair.

  "Go, I need to get down, soon!" She whispered. Shannon's voice was strained and Jason could feel the increasing urgency.

  Jason landed at the
bottom of a dry tunnel and looked up as the girl's body came through the opening, blocking what little starlight he could see from above, enveloping him into pitch-blackness. He began to panic when he felt her hand in his.

  "Follow me. Don't talk, and don't let go of my hand. I know the route." She said.

  They were off as she led him down one tunnel after another, twisting and turning their way through an underworld of darkness. Jason tripped over something and hit the ground hard, slamming his head into a wall. The stars above offered little to brighten the tunnel, as there were only small slits and cracks in the ceiling that were able to let light in, but Shannon found him again after a moment. He got to his feet and followed her without a word until she stopped at a ladder. She began to climb.

  "Wait here." she whispered.

  Jason’s imagination ran wild. He suddenly felt spiders crawling all over him. Again, his hand grabbed the device and he considered jumping out to some other place in time for a moment, but then he considered the girl. Who was she, and how had she gotten here? He had to know. She climbed through another grate, and a few moments later he saw the outline of her head over the hole.

  "Come on up. We're safe, for now."

  He did as she asked, and when he reached the surface Jason saw that they were now in a basement laboratory. Jason was amazed at the number of beakers, test tubes, and glass pipes that wound their way through the lab. Each glass tube had the dried, caked-on residue of whatever experiment had been going on before it was all shut down. Spider webs crisscrossed the deserted lab, their eight legged inhabitants spinning traps for passing insects. Jason could not help but think of the Charles Addams quote—Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.