The Theta Prophecy

by Chris Dietzel

  Another woman offered to take his wet clothes, which he had bundled in a ball under his arm. Yet another brought him a pair of thick trousers, which he immediately put on.

  Even the simplest of words offered by these women were lost on him. He could tell they were trying to use as few words as possible, but even basic things like “EE-wah,” Chitick,” and “froom” made no sense to him. In response, he would smile and say, “hello,” “thank you,” or “nice to meet you.” This would cause everyone near him, even the most stoic hunters, to break into laughter. And when they did, Anderson smiled and joined them, as if even he thought the sounds he was making were silly.

  His first assumption, that he had been transported too far back in time to prevent the Tyranny, was confirmed by what he saw around the village. In addition to the wooden bowl he was eating out of, the natives’ tools were mostly made of stone and carved wood. There were some metal tools, but these were rare compared to the wood and stone varieties. There was no sign of plumbing or electricity—nothing resembling modern civilization.

  Some of the women wore fancy necklaces and bracelets made out of what appeared to be gold, and some of the men had daggers with gold handles and intricate designs. But these would have existed hundreds of years before truly industrial technology arrived on these lands.

  He knew he should be crestfallen, bordering on suicidal even, knowing that he had left his wife and son and it had all been for nothing. Those emotions would come in time, but for now they were crowded out by the fresh immediacy of his recent ordeal. Only an hour earlier he had been in a basement, hoping that he would be part of the thirty percent of time travelers who survived their departure. Part of the reason he was too overwhelmed to think about never seeing his family again was the sheer improbability that he had survived at all. He had fallen out of the sky. He had appeared in a foreign place in an unknown time. It was all too much. In the following weeks and months, he would have time to reflect on the choices he had made and would have time to decide if, given the chance, he would do it all over again. But as he watched a women carry his wet clothes to a giant stone, sniff them and cringe, then begin hanging them to allow them to dry, he couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with everything he was seeing for the first time.

  All around him, children were working, contributing to the village’s wellbeing. The few elderly people he saw were followed everywhere they went by someone much younger, someone who helped them with whatever they needed.

  As the sun started to go down, he was offered a thick blanket and directed to a hut at the village’s edge. Two other young men already had blankets on the floor. Anderson picked a vacant spot, unrolled his bedding, and joined them. When he next opened his eyes, the sun was coming up. The two young men were both gone and the village was already bustling with activity. Unsure of what he was supposed to do with himself, he stood aside and watched how the community functioned. After ten minutes, a young girl took him by the hand and pulled him over to where she was keeping a rabbit in a cage made of twigs.

  “Very cute,” he said, and the girl giggled.

  As the days went by, he picked up a few words here and there. He learned how to say hello and goodbye. He learned the Mi’kmaq words for birds, fire, water, and cold. What he noticed, however, was that the tribal people picked up English much quicker than he picked up their language even though he was immersed in their culture and they only had one person to learn from. The children were especially quick to understand. After a month, some of the children could carry on basic conversations with him, albeit in broken English, but it was still better than the few things he could say in their language.

  One boy stopped to visit before going to help his father with some chores. “Nice meet you, Anderson,” he said.

  “Have a good day,” replied Anderson, smiling.

  “Is no much cold today,” a girl said.

  “It is not very cold today,” he said, and the girl nodded. He was sure she would say it right the next time.

  After a year, he was able to carry on limited conversations with people in the Mi’kmaq language. Some of the native children, however, had already learned to use English contractions and slang. Of course, there was plenty they could never understand just because their existence was limited to a coastal village hundreds of years before he was born. They would have no idea what he meant if he spoke of the Theta Timeline, the Tyranny, AeroCams, or anything else from his time.

  So simple was their life that when he spoke of things outside their village, they accepted what he said as a fairy tale rather than someone’s reality.

  “The evil Ruler kills everyone who disagrees with him,” he told a group of children who had gathered around him.

  “But why?” one of the kids asked, and Anderson could tell they had no concept that someone would abuse the power they had been given. Their village leaders were selected to do what was best for the village and, because they always had, the children could not grasp the idea that leaders might instead be corrupt or serve their own self-interest.

  “Some leaders don’t want what is best for the people,” he said. “They only want what is best for themselves.”

  One of the boys had actually laughed at this before jumping up to go help his father hunt for rabbit. It was too unbelievable to be real.

  A girl frowned and said, “Why people have a leader who is not good for them?”

  He could tell them about laws for the sake of controlling people rather than protecting them. He could tell them about prisons that were hundreds of times larger than the entire Mi’kmaq village, where people were treated like animals. But these things would only confuse them even more. The children understood that they had basic rules they needed to follow if they wanted to be respected members of the tribe. That was all they were concerned with.

  “It’s a long story,” he said and ushered them all to go help their parents.

  Left to himself, he thought about his wife and his son and if there was anything he could do to change the Theta Timeline. Visions of a better life for them floated in his mind, a life free of checkpoints and armed men dragging people away for the things they said and wrote. But even as the fantasies played out—his wife and son getting in their car and being allowed to drive wherever they wanted without having to wait in line for an inspection and interrogation—reality quickly crept back into the scenario.

  “Road trip!” Carter would repeat, the way he always did, “Road trip! Road trip! Road trip!”

  His wife wouldn’t be able to contain her smile. But instead of driving to the park or into the city or anywhere else they wanted, they would have to go through at least one checkpoint first.

  His wife would frown while also reassuring her child. “It’ll be quick.”

  It would be anything but quick, however. The line of cars would stretch for miles. People would have to add hours for even the simplest trip just so they could get through the crawl of vehicles.

  When it was their turn to go through the checkpoint, a man in a black uniform would approach her window.

  “Where you going?” he would ask, leaning against the car, his holster pressed against her door to remind her who was in charge.

  “Just wanted to take my son out for the day. Enjoy the fresh air.”

  “I’m sorry,” he would say, looking down her blouse. “I’m going to need you to get out so we can do a search.”

  “But I’m just—“

  “Out,” the man would say.

  Carter would start to cry when he saw a man with a badge and blaster touching his mommy. When the man slid his hands up her shirt, Carter would cry even harder.

  “Go molest someone else,” his wife would say, pushing the guard’s hands away.

  With a shiver, Anderson blinked himself out of thoughts of his former reality. He knew what would have happened next. The guard would slam his wife against the side of the car. His son would be screaming. The Tyranny’s men would either kill Debbie right there, claiming sh
e had resisted arrest, or else they would take her away, have their way with her, and then drop her in one of their prisons.

  What plagued him more than anything else was the knowledge that his disappearance would likely cause just this very kind of confrontation between his wife and the Tyranny. And it would all be for nothing. Men in black suits would show up at his wife’s door, accusing her husband of being a Thinker. If things went as they normally did, they might shoot her and Carter right in their own home, then claim Debbie had been reaching for a blaster. It wouldn’t matter that she didn’t have any weapons in their home; just the claim would be enough for the killing to be considered justified.

  “It is nice day for warm sky,” a Mi’kmaq girl with pigtails said, pointing to the sun and the cloud-free sky.

  “It is,” Anderson said and gave a playful chase until the girl safely darted away, leaving him alone once more on the shore, looking out over the water.

  He needed for there to be a different future. Not just for his wife and son, but for everyone. For everyone who suffered because of the Tyranny’s wars. For everyone who lived in fear of what their leaders would do next. Looking around, though, with no sign of modern civilization, the sad fact was that if the future were going to be changed, someone else would have to do it. If the Theta Timeline could be shifted to a different reality, it would have to be done by one of the other time travelers. Certainly not him.

  6 – Keep Digging

  Date: 1795

  Samuel kicked at the dirt that was packed underneath the spot where the flagstone had been. “What now?”

  “Keep digging,” Daniel said.

  But after another two feet of dirt was excavated—the same amount they had uncovered before finding the flagstone—they still only saw more earth.

  Anthony said, “I’ve got to head back. My pa is gonna raise a stink if I’m late.”

  “We have to come back with shovels and buckets,” Daniel said. “We need proper equipment if we’re going to uncover this treasure.” The only way he could force himself to leave whatever riches were buried down there was if he got all three friends to promise they would come back and try again.

  The other boys nodded.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Each boy walked away with broken fingernails, cut hands, and filthy clothes, but also with bigger grins than any of them had seen in recent memory. Treasure was buried somewhere beneath them. Anthony was right; it was better to get back home a little early, clean up, and regroup, than to show up late for supper—in ruined clothes no less—and be forbidden from any similar adventures in the future.

  They were halfway back to the canoe when Daniel stopped and said, “Wait. We all need to promise not to tell anyone else about this.”

  He didn’t have to tell them why. If news of the secret spot got out, everyone from town would investigate and it would be someone else, not he and his friends, who found it and became filthy rich. Without saying anything, all four boys formed a circle, put one hand out into a collective pile, and swore a silent oath to keep what they had found a secret.

  The next day, though, as Daniel was walking back from the carpenter’s shop, a boy called out, “When you going to find the treasure?”

  Daniel acted as though he hadn’t heard the boy and continued on his way.

  A hundred feet later, an old woman, her wrinkly face sagging into her wrinkly neck, pointed at him and laughed. “When you find your riches, don’t forget about all us regular folk!”

  He could do nothing more than growl and continue walking back toward his parents’ house. One of the other boys had already let the secret out.

  What he didn’t know was that it wasn’t just one of his three friends that had told someone else, it was all of them. Samuel had told his older sister and younger brother. Anthony had told the men down by the dock. And poor old John had told that hand-holding floozy, Sarah Cunningham, in hopes that it would impress her enough that she might hold his hand too (it hadn’t). Each of those people all ended up telling two or three other people. Within a day, everyone in town knew about the supposed treasure hidden out on Oak Island.

  As much as Daniel wanted to be mad, he couldn’t be. After all, to his own surprise, he had told his father about the island, even recounting the specifics of the block and tackle and the stones arranged two feet underground.

  To his even greater surprise, his father hadn’t scolded him, hadn’t laughed at his childish hopes of finding treasure, hadn’t belittled the ways his boy spent his time. He had merely stuck out his lower lip the way he did when he heard something he didn’t expect to hear and grunted. “Huh.”

  Daniel couldn’t be sure if it was the day’s fatigue or the beer that made his father more thoughtful than usual. He still had no idea why he had told his father. He certainly hadn’t planned to. Now, the next time he should have a day off from his chores, his father wouldn’t feel bad about telling his son to stick around and help around the farm if all he was going to be doing was hunting for some fool’s treasure.

  After that pint was empty, however, and his father was halfway through another one, Daniel actually heard the question: “So, when are you going back?”

  For a moment, Daniel was afraid to answer. Part of him wished he could go back in time and not tell his father anything. If he said “as soon as possible,” his father would burst out laughing and, the inevitable scorn hitting Daniel across the face, say “never thought I’d have a son who believed in all that pirate treasure nonsense.”

  “On my next day off,” Daniel said, holding his breath.

  His father downed the rest of his beer. He did not make a joke out of the treasure hunt. Nor did he shake his head and wonder aloud at all the better ways his son could spend his time.

  He merely said, “Tomorrow. You have the day off tomorrow.” And when Daniel opened his mouth to offer a reminder of all the chores he was supposed to do the following day, his father added, “I can handle everything for a day. Go be young while you still can.”

  The few other times Daniel’s father had said things like this it had turned out to be a putdown, a reminder to his son that he still had a lot to learn about life. But tonight, there was an honest and friendly tone behind the comment, as if he remembered how hard his own childhood had been, how little time he had to laugh and play before, at age eight, he had started spending days out on the field with his own father. And without being told as much, Daniel knew he was being given another chance to have a carefree day while there was still time.

  That night, right before going to sleep, Daniel didn’t fantasize the way he always had of finding a beautiful woman stranded on one of the nearby islands. That daydream didn’t seem as important as it once had. Nor did he envision himself finding some forgotten land filled with dinosaurs or other fantastic beasts. That idea no longer seemed as adventurous as it used to.

  Taking up the empty space left by the two fading fantasies was the only dream still remaining, the possibility of finding riches, of uncovering vast amounts of gold and jewels. He would discover so much wealth that he would never have to worry about plowing fields or milking cows. The fantasy grew larger and larger until it filled the void left by the other two. He saw himself in the nicest house money could buy. All of his meals would be prepared by professional chefs. It went without saying that he would never have to work out on the fields another day in his life. So much gold would be uncovered that he would be able to ensure his parents never had to work either.

  And then he fell asleep.

  The next day, it took a lot of wrangling to get the other three boys to join him. It turned out that as much as Daniel viewed his father as the hard-ass in the lot, he was the only one who let his boy go free for the day without a lot of begging and promises to make up the missed time.

  When the boys arrived back on the island, though, they had with them four shovels, four buckets, two lengths of rope, food and water, and even a lucky rabbit’s foot. Daniel expected the hole to b
e deeper than they had left it—someone from town having sneaked over to the island after hearing everyone whisper about the mysterious stone circle the boys had found—but it was just as they had left it, still four feet deep with the flagstone pushed to the side. If anyone else had come to look at the supposed treasure spot, they either hadn’t found it or else saw the pit that the boys had started and thought the task too great for them.

  Without speaking, the four friends all took up their shovels and began to dig. Using actual tools instead of their fingers, their rapid progress was encouraging. After only a few minutes, they had dug down another foot, to the point they needed one of the boys to climb back out of the hole to receive the full buckets. After another two feet of progress, even this became a burden and they strung one of their ropes through the same block and tackle Daniel had seen in the sunlight, guiding them to this spot in the first place. Using the existing pulley system, one boy hauled up buckets full of dirt while the other three boys kept digging.

  After another two feet, one of their shovels thumped against a hard surface and Samuel yelled, “I think I found something.”

  “What’d you find?” Anthony asked from ten feet above them, peering into the shadows for whatever the boys had stumbled upon.

  None of the others answered him. They were too busy using their hands to wipe dirt away from whatever the shovel had hit.

  “A treasure chest!” John said when he saw a series of wood planks.

  But it wasn’t a wood chest at all, just boards laid all the way from one side of the circular hole to the other, the same way the flagstone had been. Daniel grabbed his shovel and used it to pry one of the planks away.

  “What in the world?” he said.

  “What is it?” Anthony said again from ground level, but none of his friends answered him this time either.