by Anthology
“Hey,” he shouted, feeling the light wrap around him protectively, clinging to his back, his neck and legs—everything. “What the . . . hey!”
“Don’t worry,” I told him, watching the seconds tick off on my PTChronometer—four . . . five . . . six—”it’ll all be over in a couple of seconds.”
“It, it,” he groped for a moment, touching himself, touching the shielding, marveling without understanding, “. . . feels cool.”
Yeah, I thought, just put up with it for a few more seconds, and then you can bowl your night away while I get home to see what’s on the dinner table. I watched the PTC climb steadily—ten . . . eleven . . . twelve . . .
“This is crazy, man.”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off my chronometer, but having to agree with him nonetheless.
Nineteen . . . twenty . . . twenty-one . . .
The light around Quentin was beginning to do more than simply reflect white.
Twenty-eight . . . twenty-nine . . . thirty . . .
People were beginning to notice. Games were stopping. All about me, rented shoes were turning in our direction.
Forty-five . . . forty-six . . . forty-seven . . .
“Hey, I feel, I, I dunno . . . weird. Sick, kinda—”
He wasn’t the only one. I had no instructions past keeping him alive with the reflector. I had been assured that absolutely nothing could go wrong.
Eighty-eight . . . eighty-nine . . . ninety . . .
Not with a ten second job.
One hundred-five . . . one hundred-six . . .
Ten stinking seconds.
Quentin’s face began to shrivel, sink in, its color dropping to ashen as if he were dying. As if the energy on his soul was beginning to be leached from his body.
One hundred-fifty-seven . . . one hundred-fifty-eight . . .
Tears began to form in his helpless eyes. He offered me my money back, clawing it from his pockets, bills spilling out across the polished wood of the stadium.
Two hundred nineteen . . . two hundred twenty . . .
By this time people had gathered around to see what was happening. Their presence did not interrupt my beam’s ability to defend Quentin, but they made it harder to concentrate, harder to keep the focus from beginning to dissipate.
Two hundred thirty-two . . . Two hundred thirty-three . . .
Instructions and questions rang in my earpiece. I did my best to both listen and answer. Watching Quentin’s life slip away helplessly as the PTC continue to tick—
Three hundred fifteen . . . Three hundred sixteen . . .
“Gink-a-dink!” I cursed, not caring who heard. “You can’t let this happen!”
My curse was wasted, because happen it did. Quentin shook, his arms trembling, teeth chattering. His life force was being torn away from him across decades, maybe centuries, there was no way to tell. His tears combined with the snot dripping from his nose to make his last words unintelligible. He fell across the gutter, his hands crumpling beneath his body. I stared at my useless equipment, burned out, searing the flesh of my hands. Then, I disappeared, recalled to TeePee Central.
Of course, no one had any answers. Every single gravity well in existence had been monitored. Active or inactive, down to the ones that had been placed on courthouse lawns in little towns too new to have Civil War cannons, or Beverly Hills Holocaust souvenir kiosks, if they still had an outer shell and even half the parts necessary for operation, we had someone there. Just in case.
Just in case—
And it still hadn’t been good enough.
Quentin Peasley, average, unformed, uncomprehending Quentin Peasley was dead. He would now never cross paths with Jenna. Their unborn Cedric and Marshall would remain that way. That meant pain and destruction smashing its way through Proven Time for decades forward from his death—coupled with the other murders, perhaps centuries.
It had to be stopped. But, how did you stop something from happening that was impossible? That the murders were being committed with a gravity well was undeniable. It was proven fact. It had to be. But, as best anyone could tell, it was also a proven fact that every single gravity well ever built had been cleared of involvement.
And then a thought hit me. Perhaps my logic was faulty. Yes, unless there was a basic building block of science missing from our knowledge, Peasley and the others were murdered through the use of a gravity well. But . . .
I radioed my thoughts to central while on my way to the garage. My request for extra rangers was met—ten TeePees were hauling weapons to vehicles when I arrived myself. Obviously my notion had been found to possess some merit. No one said anything about it to me and I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to make certain no other Quentin Peasley’s had to pay the price for our smugness.
On the way to our destination, I received Jehovah confirmation and my calibrator was unlocked all the way to 10. During the coming raid, I had been awarded Supreme authority. I was acknowledged final judge, jury and executioner and no one could argue with me. I also couldn’t be reprimanded later or penalized in any way for actions during the raid.
Of course, that didn’t mean I could stop along the way and pay a hostile visit to the bully who made my life hellish in the seventh grade. But, those granting me my temporary powers knew that wasn’t in the equation. I had been motivationally scanned before any decisions had been made. They knew my mental make-up of the moment. Those in power knew the only thing I cared about and gave me the means to obtain what I wanted.
When we reached the front gates of zVz, the guards denied us entry. I flashed my Jehovah badge. I did not bother to say anything. There was no need. Suddenly pale, their joints turning to the softest of putty, they waved us in as if welcoming the parents of the bride to her wedding. One of our people stayed behind to make certain our arrival was not communicated to anyone inside.
Within two minutes we had reached the central meeting room of the board of directors for zVz. They were, arguably, among the most powerful human beings who had ever walked the face of the planet. Their fortunes were unthinkably large, their futures as vast and magnificently laid out before them as the stars of the heavens stretched out before any of the travelers using one of their gravity well-propelled ships to move through the universe.
“And who are you people?”
Thomas Gadius Thorn, the single most powerful man who ever lived stared at us from his perch arranged at the far end of a table so massive it struck one that there shouldn’t be trees large enough for it to have been built. It would have to be a big and thick and powerful table, however, for in the center of it was the thing overlooked, the device not predicted.
“Rick Rambler, Time Patrol,” I said automatically. With hand gestures I moved my people around the room. Each of them moved behind a collection of board members and started to take readings. Letting my badge hang from around my neck, I kept my hands free as I told Thorn;
“You’re under arrest.”
The thing in the center of the table, of course, was a gravity well. It had never dawned on anyone that a well would ever be built and then not registered. The only person capable of doing such a thing would be the head of zVz, and what could the reason be? To make illegal profits? Why would someone who would need to spend 18 trillion credital units a day for the next two centuries, just to go through what he had already stacked up in various vaults around the solar system need to steal any more?
“On what charges?”
But such thinking had been painfully short sighted. And Quentin Peasley was just the most recent poor bastard who had paid the price of its limitations.
“Tampering with Proven Time.”
“Not murder?” Thorn’s voice was rasping, but giddy. The only emotion he seemed capable of showing then at the moment of his judgment was amusement.
“Murder was the means of your tampering. Perpetrated through means of an illegal device, an unregistered gravity well. Built, it can only be concluded, for the purpose of murd
er—”
“Oh no,” answered Thorn, his voice snickeringly self-assured. “Not built for murder. No profit in murder.”
All around the room, the men and women of the zVz board joined in with their lord and master, their sniggering noises making the great hall sound as if it were filled with rats. Rising from his place, Thorn made to walk the great length from his spot to mine. I motioned those agents under me to allow him passage.
“Solid Men do not need to stoop to such dull pastimes.”
“Solid men,” I asked.
“Indeed,” responded Thorn cheerfully. “My companions and I, we are The Solid Men of Society. We are the doers, the builders, the obtainers of fortunes, the makers of dreams. We are the backbone of progress. We are humanity’s most righteous citizens.”
Pointing to the gravity well in the center of the table, he paused to stare at it as he said;
“I know even a lesser individual such as yourself can recognize the break-through this device represents. The model G-9, 149 times, lighter, more compact, than the smallest well in production. That much smaller, and yet capable of doing at least half as much work as a full size model. Think of it, Mr. ahhh . . . Mister . . .”
“Rambler,” I reinformed him, adding, “so you admit that this is a functioning, unregistered gravity well?”
“Of course, and so much more. When Cardinelli reported what she hoped for it, that it could power vehicles beyond space, further than time, but sideways as well—we were, obviously, excited here.”
“Why was that, Mr. Thorn?”
“Please, Ranger Rambler. To no longer be dependent on Wezleski’s infernal love boats. No more need for undying romance between pilot and navigator . . . to simply be able to hoist one’s anchor and power to whatever, wherever, whenever, however . . . even you can grasp the enormity of that.”
He was right, of course. I could. As easily as anyone alive. It would have meant an unbelievable surge in the fortunes of zVz. So . . .
“So,” he answered my unthought question, “why didn’t we? Register it? Release it? Turn it over to the profiteers of the world? Because, first we had to test it. And that was when we discovered it enormous side benefit.”
I simply stared, waiting for an explanation. Thorn shrugged, smiled at me, and then returned to explaining.
“Normal gravity wells are heavily shielded, of course, because of the mind-bogglingly dangerous amounts of lethal things going on within them. That shielding had been reasonably, we thought, reduced for this newer model. But, what no one realized is that those extra layers of shielding, as well as keeping so much from escaping the wells, was keeping something else from entering them.”
Thorn danced in a circle for a moment, laughing as he did so. Then suddenly he skidded to a halt, his face aimed in my direction, and saluted me. I waited a few seconds, after which he began laughing again, talking as he did so.
“The new wells are soul-collectors. They reach out and simply suck them free from people. Cardinelli turned it on, and instantly his life essence was drained from his body. The well was shut down by remote backup, but the damage had been done. And then, the most wonderful thing was discovered. Those of us present, we became the beneficiaries of this tragedy.”
As he drew nearer, Thorn stared at me, something in his eyes letting me know he really cared if I understood.
“His soul, removed from his body before its time, not ready for rebirth, fled to the nearest flesh for safety. Our flesh. Can you imagine it, Mister . . . Rambler, is it? Can you?”
Thorn had almost reached me at that point. I rested my hand on my side arm. He did not seem to notice. Perhaps he no longer understood the gesture. Feeling safe for one reason or another, the CEO continued on toward me, still jabbering.
“Human energy, Mr. Rambler, is but the building material of the soul. Not all people grow them. Children, animals, they do not possess them—they can’t. For you see, the soul is created at that incredible, powerful moment which is the awakening of the thinking mind. Not the instinctive mind, the knee-jerk response levers which keep the knuckle-draggers moving forward, but the moment where the lizard brain actually stops worrying so much about what it will be chewing next, and finally, for a moment, begins to ponder.”
All around the table, the others were nodding, their eyes as filled with stars as Thorn’s.
“The sharper the brain, the more incisive the thoughts, of course. Cardinelli’s vast gray matter had charged his soul with a texture and taste beyond compare. He was . . . delicious.”
I rocked a touch, my body staggered by what I had just heard. Yes, it had been an accident. They had been flooded with their companion’s life force before they could react, but after the deed had been done, it had not been long, Thorn delighted in telling me, that they had decided to relive the moment.
“Have you ever had a creative thought, Mr. Rambler,” the CEO challenged me. “Have you? A truly creative thought? If you have, you know the thrill of that moment, the power you feel coursing through your every fiber. Think on that for a moment, and then, try if you can to comprehend what it feels like, to suddenly have every ounce of a person’s creative life flash through your system. Even a pimple like Peasley learned to tie his shoes, count to ten, tell green from yellow—it’s all creativity—”
The horror in the room finally hit me. The board of directors of zVz, the richest, most powerful group of people in the known universe, were drug addicts, and the drug they craved were human souls. Techno-vampires, they had thrown away all of society to perch above it.
I looked at the indicators on my Jehovah. If Thorn wanted me to have a creative thought, he was getting his wish. I suddenly pieced together that he had to know we were coming, or at least that we would come. He and his fellow ghouls had been waiting for us, determined to have it out with us then and there. Take us down while we were still blind to what was happening.
The CEO had already been intelligent. Now he was flooded with the best energies of five other people. Abruptly, I knew the power of the Jehovah calibrator would not be enough to contain that which was surging through Thorn’s body. He had crippled my resolve with knowledge, sneaking ever closer in through the defensive wall of distance to where he could nearly lay hands on me. Knowing I had only seconds, I kicked outward, catching the CEO off-guard, sending him crashing into the table as well as two of his fellows. As they spilled out of their chairs and went down in a tangle with their leader, I shouted;
“Slaughter! Keep them busy—I’ll be right back!”
As my people unlimbered their sidearms and blasted away at the surprisingly resilient directors, I thought orders for an emergency transfer and, thanks to my temporary calibration, was instantly granted my travel request. In the same instant I finished saying the word “back,” I reappeared within the wilds of New Jersey, specifically within the walls of the bowling stadium in which I had watched Peasley die.
Throwing a wall of cancellation over my former self and the crowd, I approached Peasley and screamed at him;
“You know you’re dying—right?” When he nodded, I shouted, “I can’t stop it, it’s already happened, but I can tell you why. If you don’t want anyone else to die this way—listen to me!”
And, as Peasley began to crumple, I gave him what I hoped would be an awakening moment. As quickly as I could, as simply, I revealed to him the secrets of time travel—that it existed, that it was real, and what it meant for all humanity.
As I disappeared once more, I watch the dying face of Quentin Peasley experience epiphany.
Then, just as fast as I had left, in the instant I disappeared, I reappeared as well. I actually felt myself leaving the spot in which I arrived, almost knocking myself over. My people were just pulling their blasters, were just pulling on the triggers I had watched them pull a moment earlier when I signalled them again to stand down. There was no longer any need. Thomas Thorn had told me how to stop them.
I had extrapolated, it true, but I’d been corre
ct. After the rich taste of their scientist’s soul, they had turned their machine on hungering for more wonderful rushes like him. I don’t think they had found any. Thorn’s begrudging admission that even Peasley had had something to offer made me think—
What if his mind had held wonder?
What if he had been experiencing that rarest of human moments, an explosive instant of epiphany when they gobbled down his soul? I had hoped for something like the reaction any other kind of drug addict experiences when after many highly cut doses they were suddenly gifted with the pure stuff. Sure enough, Thorn and his fellows were all helpless with fascination, overwhelmed with their stolen moment of self-satisfaction.
Knowing it would not do to waste my hard-won advantage, I stepped to where Thorn still lie tangled with the others. Placing my foot upon his neck, I looked into his eyes, and said;
“I sentence you, Thomas Gadius Thorn, to death by disbursement. Your atoms will be scattered. Your fortunes will be forfeit. You are ended.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. His drool-leaking mouth smiled at me, his eyes promising he was still filled with surprises too ample for me to overcome. Gesturing for me to come closer, his weak voice croaked past my heel to tell me;
“Oh, Mr. Rambler, you weren’t paying attention. I told you the G-9 worked across dimensions. When it gathered unto us Mr. Peasley, don’t you know, it gathered unto us, all the Mr. Peasleys there are. Just as it gave us all the Cardinellis, and all of all the others, plucked from every dimension, across all the expanses . . .”
“Meaning . . .”
“Meaning, Mr. Rambler, that you’re too late. So you eliminate me. What does it matter? Across every dimension, a billion, billion other Thomas Thorns know what I know now. They all understand time travel now. They all want to taste what I have tasted. They shall flood here to stop you. You and your Proven Time are doomed! We win, Mr. Rambler—”
His laughter became a thing unbearable to hear. Shifting my foot just a bit, I brought my calibrator to bear on his forehead. As I did so, the rest of my force picked a target and did the same. Looking into his eyes one last time, I said;