The Tank Man

by William Oday

  The door shut and the elevator swooshed open a short time later.

  Zhang stepped out, praying he didn’t run into anyone that would question him. His nerves buzzed as the conflicting voices in his head fought to gain control.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Zhang jerked and spun around. Ice poured down his spine. So much for the plan.

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Bob chuckled and then the laugh ebbed away as he noticed Zhang’s panicked face. “Are you okay, doc?”

  Zhang coughed loudly while nodding. He eventually spoke. “Fine. Sorry. Just edgy before the big event.”

  Bob scratched his cheek. “Haven’t seen you down here in the bowels in a while. Thought you abstract thinker types preferred the office floors above?”

  “Just wanted to see it with my own eyes before heading back upstairs. Something real for a change.”

  Bob nodded and returned to pushing a mop across the glistening smooth rock floor.

  Zhang strolled over to the security door that led to the tunnel and swiped his card over the reader. It buzzed and blinked red. He swiped again. It buzzed again and stayed red.

  He turned to see Bob watching.

  “The wrenches must be pretty touchy about whatever you folks have cooked up for today. They’re kicking everyone out earlier than usual.”

  Zhang clenched his jaws. “Bob, would you mind doing me a favor?”

  “As long as nobody dies, sure,” he replied with a chuckle.

  Zhang forced a laugh that came out too high-pitched and brittle. “Would you mind swiping me through with your card?”

  Bob’s eyes widened.

  That was one of a few inviolate rules in the installation. No one was ever allowed to borrow anyone else’s security card.

  “I need to check on a few readings we’re seeing up in HQ, and the hardware team doesn’t have anyone available to take a look right now.”

  Bob considered that.

  “It would be doing me a big favor. Dr. Ganesh is crawling up my backside waiting for confirmation.”

  Bob chewed his lip.

  Zhang waited in silence and then saw it wasn’t enough. He threw out a final attempt. “You know what? Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. Tell Marjorie I hope the treatment gets her back on her feet soon.” He turned to head toward the elevator.

  “Okay.”

  Zhang paused and waited.

  “Sure. How long you need?”

  Zhang suppressed a maniacal shriek from escaping his lips. “Half an hour at the most.”

  “Let’s keep this between us,” Bob said as he walked over and swiped his card over the reader. It beeped and blinked green and the magnetic locks disengaged. He opened the door for Zhang. “Marjorie and I are so thankful for what you did for us.”

  Zhang pursed his lips together and nodded. “Glad to help. Be back in a few.” He, of course, wasn’t going to be back in a few minutes. Best case scenario, the round trip would take a little over two hours. So less than one hour before ignition protocols began in earnest.

  Cutting it close didn’t cover it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Zhang hurried down the east service corridor passing doors and corners, praying he wouldn’t run into someone that would question his presence. He ran into no one and finally arrived at the entry hatch to the ring.

  He grabbed the red handle and pulled it down. A massive concrete door scraped open and Zhang stepped into what looked like an endless subway tunnel. A single large blue tube traveled through its center accompanied by a dazzling array of pipes, wires, support structures and diagnostic gear. The ring appeared to go on forever in each direction. The barely discernible curve terminated in a distant point where everything converged.

  The concrete door rasped shut behind him and sealed with a muffled thunk.

  He’d never been inside the ring alone.

  The palms of his hands grew damp and his fingers tingled. Zhang broke into a jog heading east toward the closest data access point, which was a further three miles into the tunnel.

  With no shuttle to take him there.

  He arrived over an hour later sweating and light-headed from exhaustion. He doubled over holding his knees, trying to keep from vomiting. Forty-two years of mainly intellectual pursuits weren’t doing him any favors.

  The data access point was a large enclosed box attached to the smooth concave wall. He used the ratchet clipped to the side to remove the front panel. It looked like the inside of a robot’s brain.

  Which it kind of was.

  But the robot didn’t vacuum your floor or mow your lawn. It smashed particles together at near the speed of light.

  And if today’s test went well, maybe a good bit beyond.

  He yanked the tiny drive out of his sock and scanned the jumble of wires, cables, and circuit boards. There had to be a port somewhere.

  Nothing obvious.

  He shoved bundles of multi-colored wires aside looking behind each in turn.

  There!

  He plugged in the drive and logged onto the terminal. It took far too long to figure out, but he eventually had it so that all the raw data passing through the point would first save to his drive before it continued on its normal path to the servers upstairs.

  He glanced at the time on the monitor. Less than an hour to go and it had taken him just over an hour to get there. He didn’t have a second to lose!

  He replaced the front panel and secured it in place. He wiped the beading sweat from his brow and turned back to face the tunnel to the west. Three miles stood between him and escape.

  Terror surged in his belly. He leapt into a jog and prayed he’d get out in time. He hadn’t made it three feet before that possibility failed completely.

  In his haste, Zhang didn’t notice the thick cable laid across the path. His toe caught it and he sprawled forward and bashed his head into the concrete.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sirens loud enough to make his teeth hurt jolted him awake. Zhang clamped his hands over his ears and sat up. Yellow lights flashed along the corridor disappearing into the curved distance in each direction.

  No!

  Zhang dragged himself up and winced at the pain in his forehead. He touched it and his fingers came away bloody. He started into a jog, frantic to get out before the twenty teraelectronvolt beams collided and blasted radiation into the tunnel. Fear energized his legs and made them wobbly at the same time.

  Nearly an hour later, with his heart pounding and head throbbing, he saw the maintenance hatch ahead. A hundred yards away.

  He was going to make it.

  The flashing yellow lights turned red for a minute and then went dark. The sirens went silent. All of the auxiliary lighting shut off and the tunnel dropped into darkness.

  Tingling waves engulfed him, leaving goose bumps behind.

  A faint hum grew louder and louder until the booming sound drove him to his knees.

  The pulsing beat echoed in and out of sync with itself, separating and coming together.

  Zhang fell over squeezing his head to keep it from exploding.

  A pressure like a hundred needles pierced deep into his brain.

  A flash of light blinded him.

  His insides twisted and he vomited. He wiped the bile from his chin and, through squinted eyes, saw the air waver and shimmer like a blanket of glowing water hung out to dry. Less than ten feet away, it shifted through a kaleidoscope of colors. The blinding glow dimmed and a vision of another reality merged with his own.

  The two wove together like two different colored threads forming a pattern in the same cloth. A chill wind blew into the tunnel, whipping snowflakes into swirling eddies around his head. The shifting colors settled and an impossible portrait formed in front of him.

  A wide valley with towering mountains beyond. A massive glacier filled much of the valley. In the center of the valley, a deep crevasse of white-blue ice sparkled like diamonds under a bright sun.

  Was h
e going crazy?

  Going?

  Had he gone crazy?

  The collateral radiation had probably fried his brain.

  But it felt real.

  Not like a dream.

  But maybe a damaged brain would think that.

  He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue as another gust of snow blew through. A fat snowflake landed on it and slowly melted. He blew out a breath and it fogged into a tiny cloud. He inhaled and the chill air filled his chest.

  What was happening?

  There couldn’t be wind and snow so far underground, much less a vista of snow-covered mountains.

  Confused and curious, he crept toward the shimmering vision with his hand outstretched. His fingers dipped into the wavering sheet like one might test the temperature of bath water.

  An electric current buzzed in his fingertips. The sensation inched up his arm as he pushed further into the fabric.

  Fear wrestled with wonder as he paused, wanting to fully commit but terrified of what might happen.

  The fresh scent on the wind changed. It grew sharp and heavy.

  Smoke.

  He squinted and noticed a faint trail of smoke leading deeper into the vision. It disappeared behind a small snow-covered hill to the right. His obviously fried brain tried to formulate likely scenarios and came up empty.

  Another gust of wind brought with it something even more unexpected.

  Voices.

  Faint voices.

  But human all the same.

  What was happening?

  Curiosity won out over caution and Zhang stepped into the shimmering curtain. His thin leather shoes sunk into a foot of snow. He took another step and the crust crunched and again swallowed his pant leg up to the calf. A vast winter land surrounded him on all sides.

  He pivoted around nearly losing a shoe in the process. The wavering fabric hung in the air behind him. Beyond it was the dark interior of the collider tunnel. A snow drift on the concrete floor piled higher as he watched.

  The collider test had opened some kind of window to another place. A tear in the time-space continuum. A gateway between locations. Perhaps this was some kind of stable field of quantum entanglement. Teleportation was theoretically possible via such a mechanism.

  A short distance away, he spotted another wavering in the air, like a slow-motion waterfall with no beginning or end. Through it, he thought he could make out a forest of Sitka Spruce—the same type of trees that covered Barometer mountain and many other parts of Kodiak Island.

  Did that window go back to the island? Or to somewhere near enough to it to feature similar flora? He couldn’t recall if Sitka Spruce were exclusive to the island or had a wider range.

  He scanned the frozen landscape, wondering if there were more such windows, and didn’t see any.

  A shouting voice nearby jolted him out of the reverie. He strained to listen. It hadn’t sounded like English or Chinese, the two languages he understood fluently. It was gruffer, simpler.

  A chorus of indistinct voices responded, clearly coming from the same direction as the smoke, beyond the hill. Even if he didn’t speak their language, maybe one of them spoke passable English. Enough to tell him the name of this place.

  Zhang’s heart thundered in his chest. The thrill of discovery swept away all caution. He gathered his coat around him and started off.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By the time he made it to the crest of the hill, his feet burned with chill. Putting more and more distance between himself and the shimmering curtain of air that was his escape route seemed like a bad decision. But he’d come this far and was close to finding out what was beyond the hill.

  Zhang trudged forward hoping whoever he found had a heated shelter and some extra clothes he could borrow. They’d have to be well equipped. No one would survive out here overnight without a warm place to sleep and the right gear.

  He made it to the top and peered down into the small hollow below.

  His legs gave out and would’ve collapsed had the muscles not been nearly frozen in place. He stared with mouth agape and brain free from rational thought.

  A small gathering of people surrounded a large man standing on a rock. The man’s back was to Zhang. He shouted something and lifted aloft a heavy branch with flames crackling on the end.

  Many of those watching screamed and backed away like it might leap from the end of the stick and attack them.

  Zhang was about to call for help when the details of what he saw below sunk into his consciousness.

  These were not ordinary people.

  They wore layers of tattered animal skins. Their faces were so dirty, it was hard to make out much detail. They carried no modern technology of any kind. No phones. No flashlights. No technical gear made to withstand subzero temperatures. An old man standing near the entrance to a dark cave leaned on a crooked stick. He glanced up and spotted Zhang up on the hill. He lifted his stick, pointed, and shouted something.

  The leader on the rock circled around and bellowed something in a language unlike any Zhang had ever heard. He shook the branch at Zhang in a threatening way. In a split second, he leapt off the rock and bounded through the deep snow toward him.

  Zhang tried to run. He desperately wanted to flee. But he couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t move. Whether from the biting cold or mindless terror, his body wouldn’t respond.

  And so he stood like a statue as the man with the flaming branch approached.

  The man stopped a few feet away.

  The fear that had been coursing through Zhang’s veins like ice water now froze solid.

  This was not a man.

  Not in the usual sense of the word.

  A prominent brow ridge sloped back to a low hairline. Bushy eyebrows perched above dark, sparkling eyes. A broad nose matched a broad face, both of which were half-hidden beneath a shaggy beard that blended into the animal skins below. He easily carried in one hand a tree branch that any normal person couldn’t have lifted with both hands.

  Zhang’s interests had always centered on the grandiose mysteries of the universe, but he’d read enough about human history to recognize what he was seeing.

  A biped. A hominid.

  But not a human.

  Not a Homo Sapien.

  This was a Neanderthal.

  A real, live Neanderthal standing three feet in front of him.

  Which meant one thing. One very big thing.

  That the collider test had been a success.

  A success beyond their wildest dreams.

  Particles that travelled beyond the speed of light were no longer just a theory. They were real. Tachyons were real. And they’d somehow created a temporal gate to a time in history when Neanderthal man existed. Zhang’s recall of the timeline of human evolution was rusty, but he seemed to recall Neanderthals lived from around half a million years ago to around 40,000 years ago. And no one conclusively knew why or how they’d gone extinct.

  The ancient man reached out a hand and was about to touch Zhang’s face when he froze. His eyes widened as they rose above Zhang’s head and stared beyond.

  A deep growl made the hairs on the back of Zhang’s stand on end.

  He spun around and a scream died in his throat.

  A bear larger than any he’d ever seen stood on its hind legs not ten feet away. It towered above him at over twice his height. Its paws were the size of car tires.

  It roared and its breath stank of blood and carnage—a smell he remembered from the night in the square so long ago.

  Zhang raised his hands to defend himself, but it was no use.

  The beast lunged at him with jaws open. Its huge teeth sunk into his neck.

  He shouldn’t have stepped through. He should’ve stayed in his world and delivered the data as the Chinese government demanded.

  As his warm blood leaked into the snow, Zhang Yong could think of only one thing. He would never see his wife again. Never meet his son.

  I’m sorry.


  He was no hero.

  He was just a man. A man trying to do the right thing.

  And here at the last, he’d failed.

  THE END

  Turn the page for a preview of Sole Prey, book 1 in the Recovering Eden series.

  SOLE PREY

  — A Preview —

  William Oday

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  September 12, 2008

  Kodiak, Alaska

  If the coffee was any more bitter, it would’ve been medicine. Which it was. Charles took another sip of the scalding brew and waited for the caffeine to seep into his sleepy limbs. Last night, somewhere out over the Gulf of Alaska, the plane had run into problems with the navigation systems. They’d gotten rerouted to Juneau where he’d spent the night cobbling together the fastest route for the remainder of the trip.

  Two plane rides, three car rides, and a long walk later, he’d arrived on Kodiak Island as the sun peeked over the ocean to the east.

  Dr. Langridge had said a bush pilot would meet him here at Queen’s Diner at seven. Aside from the coffee, it was a fantastic diner experience. Spacious booths lined the walls with large windows that looked out on the breathtaking natural beauty of the island. The center of the black and white checkered floor was crammed elbow to elbow with small tables.

  He was glad he’d arrived early enough to snag a booth.

  Charles checked his watch.

  7:32 AM.

  He exhaled slowly trying to let the frustration trickle out.

  A server wearing a pink smock with a pen stuck behind her ear glided over and tapped the table. “Need anything, hon?”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

  That couldn’t have been less true.

  “Well, you let me know the second that changes,” the woman said with a genuine smile and then drifted off.