City of Ruins

by Mark London Williams

  In none of these do Saurians come off as particularly insightful, well-meaning, or even approachable.

  As for the slaversaur, he — or perhaps she (I couldn’t tell, since the subject of egg-laying never came up) — was like a Saurian who never knew the Bloody Tendon Wars came to an end.

  He ate a lot. Of mammals. Then he drooled. And slavered.

  Each time the guardian watched one of these, he’d move his chair farther and farther away from me, get his weapon and start cleaning it, and practice his aiming.

  Sometimes in my direction.

  “So who’s evolving now, T. Rex?” he said, after one of his Saurian entertainments, pointing his gun at me.

  “I didn’t realize on your planet evolution was voluntary!” I said, hoping to strike up friendlier relations.

  It didn’t work.

  “If everything was voluntary, you think I’d be stuck down here guarding you? And stop talking to me, it’s not right.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “I said stop it!”

  He waved his gun, and seemed to be getting a bit gerk-skizzy —that shakey condition that derives from Saurian slang for a gerk-drive gone bad.

  So I stopped talking to him.

  It was on that particular night, after one of his numerous repeat viewings of Slaversaur! that the building’s emergency alarm system went off — a loud, persistent WHIT! WHIT! WHIT! sound, as if an unoiled flywheel was grinding its gears and couldn’t be stopped.

  “I knew it!” the guard screamed. “Alarm bells! It’s a dinosaur attack!” And then he fled, one last glance to make sure the bars would still hold me, leaving me alone with just a flickering Comnet screen on the other side of the bars.

  If he’s hearing bells and I am hearing a whit-like noise, perhaps the sound waves of the alarm are perceived differently by each listener. Indeed, perhaps they are using neurotransmitters to feed directly into the brain, bypassing soundwaves entirely. Could this be another experiment? A security precaution? Meanwhile, on the screen, there was at last something new:

  Slaversaur II: The Feasting.

  But I never got to find out if the slaversaur redeemed his own outlaw status, left unresolved after his first adventure. For after only a few moments into the electric pantomime, the scene where two fledgling humans tell their nest-sire, “Pa, there’s something terrible growling in the shed,” my chilly acquaintance Thirty arrived, a contingent of guardians at her side.

  As usual, she made little small talk.

  “There’s been a security breach. We’re moving you.”

  And then they proceeded in the ritual of turning off the energy field surrounding my cell, opening the bars while leveling their beam-powered weapons at me, then clamping my arms and legs in restraints before leading me down the hallway.

  “Something’s gotten in, and we don’t know what it is. Perhaps one of your fellow gray aliens, Mr. Klein, checking to see if you’ve turned our compound into one of your prime nexuses.”

  “Friend Thirty, you cannot make a prime nexus. You can only strive to understand them. As I, like the slaversaur, seek to understand and come in from the shed.”

  “I am not laughing, Mr. Klein. There is more at stake than you realize.”

  Not laughing? Well, no. But then, this was not a laugh-round of school students seeking to make fun of teachers during class break, either. What odd responses these humans have!

  Eventually, after a long walk down several descending tunnels, into areas that grew increasingly dark and increasingly damp, my security escorts deposited me in what was not so much a room but a sunken arena, surrounded by metal walls and an outer perimeter of electrified wire, patrolled by security personnel with even more convincing weapons than the ones who escorted me here.

  In the middle of it all was much dirt and foliage, and to my surprise, the remains of the Saurian time-vessel, which I’d last seen some two hundred Earth Orange years previously, outside the settlement at New Orleans.

  They had apparently taken my observations about prime nexuses pretty seriously after all; they had transported the entire area where my time vessel had crashed, and where the anonymous slave Brassy had died, to this facility. The very Brassy who may have changed the history of Earth, or at least that section of it that calls itself America, had she been allowed to live.

  But where had this prime nexus existed in the two hundred earth “years” since we went through it? Had it lain undiscovered all this time? Or had it always been a secret possession of the governing class, preserved so they could study its mysteries, they way they attempt to study me, in all the time since?

  Did these reconstituted ruins come with a trail of bones behind them, too?

  It was actually a fascinating idea: If a prime nexus is a combination of time-and-place that acts like a beacon, attracting time voyagers — the way Alexandria attracted me and Eli — what happens if you move the beacon?

  It wasn’t just the crystals of the lighthouse tower that brought us to Alexandria, it was the ideas that Thea’s mother, Hypatia, had. Just as it was the essence of the mysterious Brassy — combined with the choices made by her contemporaneous mammal, and, admittedly, the crash landing of my Saurian vessel — that made that particular spot a nexus of its own.

  Would these remains, these plants, this soil — and Brassy’s bones — still act like a nexus if they were taken from their place and time? I would have to note that question for extra credit someday.

  Though what if I found points docked from my research because the stranded Saurian technology was now interfering with the normal flow of Earth Orange history?

  And mammals are so hot-blooded, that things flow only in the most gerk-skizzy way here, anyway. I hope I have not made their problems worse.

  “This is the most secure area of the entire complex,” Thirty said to me, bringing me back from my contemplated studies. “Several levels below where you were being kept. Until we find out what’s happening, you’ll stay here.” She looked at the guardians surrounding me. “With the restraints on.”

  No top-stomping for me. Shackled like this, I could barely move, like a hatchling still wet with egg shine.

  And here I’ve remained, in all the stretched moments since— the whit! whit! whit! of their alarm system still sounding in the background—and I believe my earlier observation stands: these mammals are really only happy when they can go from one crisis to the next.

  It seems to give them purpose. It is, I suppose, another kind of dance. But not the happiest one.

  Meanwhile, I have had a chance to study what remains of the Saurian vessel.

  I use the term “study” advisedly, of course. The entire planet is one vast uncontrolled experiment. And there isn’t a single decent Saurian syllabus here. But as I suspected previously, the plasmechanical material of the ship has somehow interacted with its Earth Orange environment and been transformed by it.

  Saurian technology is being mutated, changed, on this planet. The plasmechanical material appears to have absorbed the slow pox virus, as I discovered when doing my field research in the time of Clark, Lewis, and North Wind Comes, and may be experiencing a kind of cellular mutation. This mutation seems to be causing a kind of nervous system to form inside the material’s organic components, resulting in a type of biologically-based electric grid, or what the humans call a “computer,” one that is developing its own intelligence.

  This could be something new, and never before seen. Something that could, perhaps, link previously unconnected types of Saurian artifacts — like time-vessels and lingo-spots—into a neural network of their own.

  And since lingo-spots are designed to tap into the neural network of the wearer, everyone with lingo-spot material could in theory become connected to each other, via the plasmechanical material.

  And then what if all of Earth Orange becomes a single unchecked living entity, if this Saurian mutation is allowed to continue here under such fervid mammalian conditions? Imagine an
entire planet able to move back and forth through time, or acting as a giant lingo-spot for all its inhabitants.

  Would the results be wonderful? Or terrifyingly destabilizing for the rest of the universe? Could such a hypothesis come to pass?

  Kngaa, a voice whispers to me. The Saurian word for “yes.”

  But no one is speaking.

  What is my lingo-spot translating for me now?

  Perhaps my own intuition? Or are my thoughts no longer my own?

  Have they already become part of something larger? Am I likewise undergoing a change here on Earth Orange? Something akin to Melonokus’ jail-time observation that “great shifts can happen in small places — in the confines of an eggshell, or a room where they try to lock away new ideas.”

  So many hypotheses to test.

  “Hey! You’re not supposed to move around in there!”

  “I seek only to test a hypothesis!” I say as I hop toward one of the trees fused with remnants of the time-vessel.

  “I said don’t move! This is a restricted perimeter.”

  “But you were the ones who escorted me here.”

  “Stay where we can see you!” He flips open his visor, so he can in fact see me better. “Those are dangerous remains!”

  “A good time to meet!” I tell him; it’s the guard who originally sat with me outside my cage, and watched his Comnet entertainments. No wonder he fidgets like a new-hatch.

  I try to hop away again, but with the restraints, it’s hard, and I fall toward the remains of the ship, which, over time, have fused with the trees.

  “I’m authorized to stun you!” It’s not much of a warning, since he fires as he says it, hitting the very limb where I was so recently jabbersticked by the warrior Crow’s Eye.

  I am knocked against the trees, and fall down, and appear to have little options for avoiding the next shot.

  “I mean it!”

  I try to turn away, and in a welcome bit of merrikus, the beam hits the hard metal of my restraints, fusing them and ricocheting up toward a branch.

  Where it severs apart the limb.

  “You’re ruining the remains! The evidence! The project!” the guardian shrieks, and I wonder what sort of project the guardians and generals of Eli’s planet might have in mind if they were able to not only understand the idea of a “prime nexus,” but to harness one for their own ends?

  And what would that mean if the entire planet does become an active prime nexus? Could it be controlled? And who would do the controlling?

  “Stop!” My guardian is full of fear, unable to separate me from the movie Saurians that he’s watched for countless hours.

  But then I ask myself a question: What would a slaversaur do?

  Might he try and find a gerk-drive under such extremely difficult conditions? The very gerk-drive that allows the Saurian ship to move through dimensions and through time itself?

  Perhaps I can get them to regenerate whatever remains of the gerk-drive, by forcing them to aim their energy weapons at the heart of the ship?

  I roll away toward the time-vessel, but I don’t want to get too close, as I am unwilling to be absorbed by it, the way the nearby foliage has been absorbed.

  What would the slaversaur do to make the guard fire?

  Bite something, I imagine. I chomp down on a tree branch embedded in the ship’s material. I growl and shake my head convincingly.

  The guard then obligingly fires at me. I move just enough to allow the beam to penetrate the plasmechanical core of the ship’s remains behind me.

  And a small bit of dormant gerk-drive material is energized. Another branch cracks, and the remaining ship’s material starts puls—

  Before I can finish the thought I see the long colors of the Fifth Dimension, very briefly, then find myself in a small dark space, having been transported, I hope, to another prime nexus, where things will be made clearer to me.

  I seem to be surrounded by a plumbing structure, however, and the restraints are still clasped to my limbs.

  But then a door swings open, and I see the face of my friend Eli.

  “Clyne! What —?” He looks around, making sure we’re not noticed.

  “How did you get in the bathroom?”

  Chapter Five

  Eli: Surprise Party

  February 2020 C.E.

  In makes perfect sense to Clyne that he suddenly appeared in the transported, rebuilt bathroom of my mom’s old hotel room, and the first thing he does, after greeting me, is insist we look for Thea.

  “Find Thea? Clyne — they have alarms going off, everything’s locked down. How did you get in here? How did you get in here in…handcuffs? Clawcuffs. And yeah, we can’t go looking for anybody until we get you…what did you just call it? ‘Unfettered’? Which I guess means getting you out of those things.”

  “You are right, amigo Eli. But though I made it through Dimension Five with these snkkk! impediments, I will only hinder your own escape thwkkk! It is better if I stay here and perhaps try and find another small fold in time-space.”

  “‘Amigo?’”

  “It is a word I picked up watching a pantomime about Gwangis — Saurians, lost in Mexico.”

  “We’ve got to get you out of those irons, Clyne.”

  “No. I am afraid I am stuck, and would only slow you down.”

  “Sit down and let’s get those shackles off.”

  Crrrk!

  Too late. The hotel door — the jail-room door, whatever it is now — is opening. Somebody already knows Clyne’s in here, and they’re coming to lock us up somewhere even deeper and darker.

  It’s hard to get a break when you’re tangled up in time.

  “Son, are you in here?”

  Son? But that’s not my dad. Who else calls me —

  “Son?”

  It’s A.J.

  Andrew Jackson Williams. The preacher. The motel owner. The guy giving the sermon on the beach when we landed back here in 2020. He was with his — what’s the word the adults like to use? — flock.

  Or, rather, a new flock. But how did he get here? The last time I saw him, it was the 1940s, and World War II, and he was some kind of chaplain in the Army.

  Somehow, he’s tangled in time, too.

  “We’ve got to hurry.” Another voice — there’s someone with him.

  Mr. Howe!

  That’s one thing about growing up — you start to learn there’s always a bigger surprise behind the first one.

  He looks raggedy, unshaven, his eyes kind of crazy — like A.J.’s. Or like Arlington Howard’s, his long-ago ancestor who worked for Thomas Jefferson.

  “We’ve got to hurry. Come on!” Mr. Howe is waving us on.

  “A surprising time to meet!” Clyne says.

  “I don’t believe we officially have met,” A.J. tells him. Then he looks him up and down. “You’re not a hell demon, are you?”

  “No. An outlaw. I was merely trying to complete a science project,” Clyne says. “But landed on this world ftttt! instead.”

  “Trust me, anyone who really knows what’s going on these days is bound to be outside the law. At least a little. And you—” A.J. winks at me, “—it’s good to see you again, son.”

  “But how did —”

  It’s the same question I had for Clyne. Even though I’m a time traveler, everyone else seems to be getting around a lot more easily than me, lately.

  “Now!” Mr. Howe interrupts, waving us on.

  “Mr. Howe.” I point to the irons around Clyne’s arms and legs.

  “Boy, they really want the two of you to stay put.” Mr. Howe bends over and looks behind Clyne’s knees, like a doctor.

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s the time-release model.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Almost impossible to pre-empt, until the time sequence unlocks it. Sheila didn’t want him going anywhere for a while.”

  “Sheila?” I ask.

&n
bsp; “You call her Thirty,” Mr. Howe says. “We’ll have to leave him here. We’ll just have to find your other friend and get out.”

  “I won’t leave Clyne! He just got here!” I decide it’s my turn to ask Mr. Howe some questions. “And why are you helping me get out? You’re one of the people always keeping me in!”

  Just then, there’s a loud click!, and the shackles fall off of Clyne’s body, and clatter to the floor.

  We all look at the cuffs, and then at each other. Clyne looks at the three of us.

  “Perhaps the time-fold thkkkt! changed the settings.”

  Mr. Howe shakes his head. “No wonder I always thought the two of you were dangerous. Let’s go.”

  We leave the room — my mom’s old room at the Fairmont. It’s become part of the government’s collection now, like my family and friends.

  It’s not even a place I can say goodbye to. And if growing up is learning how to say goodbye to people and places and things, how will I ever grow up if there’s no one around to say goodbye to? How can I measure the growing-up part of my life if Thirty and the others have taken all the measuring sticks?

  “This way. Now.” Mr. Howe is waving us outside the door. I can see the scaffolding holding up the walls of the hotel, all the unfinished wood, the bright lights. It’s like being backstage, like the hotel room was just some kind of set.

  “Wait.” I stop. “You said we were going to get Thea.”

  There’s a trench next to the platform where the room has been reconstructed, with train tracks on the bottom. The cold strips of metal seem to add to the feeling of dampness, though you can barely see them in the dark. That doesn’t slow down Mr. Howe, who’s climbing down toward them on a ladder. He pauses on the rungs.

  “We haven’t forgotten your friend, Eli. But Andrew Jackson Williams has helped me see,” he said. “Helped me understand how urgent the situation is.”

  “What situation?”

  “A man in a shirt like that” — A.J. points at the House of David jerse, which I’d forgotten I was wearing— “should know that all things eventually get revealed in time.”