Days of Future Past - Part 1: Past Tense

by John Van Stry

  "You are starting to worry me, Paul," she said in a low-pitched voice.

  "Only now?" I said and looking at her I smiled. "We should be there tomorrow; I don't think we'll make it tonight. Once we get there, I'll tell you everything I know, and we'll see if I still have a girlfriend, or if I'm all by myself."

  "I have a better idea," Sarah said and smiled, "You tell me now or I will zap your ass with a lightning bolt and we will go on without you."

  "You can't get inside the armory without me," I said.

  "I have already seen enough stuff here for us to make this trip worthwhile and with Terry laid up, the sooner we head back, the better. I have trusted you, Paul. It is time for you to trust me."

  I could see the entrance ramp for the freeway up ahead, it looked fine, so I led us in that direction. We had about ten miles to go to the exit I wanted; I figured we'd be getting there in a couple of hours.

  "I worked there, one summer, when I was a cadet in college."

  "You worked there? How could that be? Everything is gone, destroyed."

  "It was before the war. Long before the war, maybe a hundred years. The last time I came down this road? I was in a car, with some buddies. We'd been out drinking, illegally I might add, and we were heading back to the barracks for the night."

  "That does not sound possible!" she said looking at me. "You would have to be hundreds of years old!"

  "I'm twenty-three. Remember when I said gods were involved?"

  She nodded.

  So I told her about my last check ride, I told her about the Indian goddess named Estanatlehi and what she had said and done to the both of us. Then I told her about Coyote, what he said he'd done, and why, and the things he'd helped me with.

  By the time I was done, we'd come to the second exit and the sun was starting to get low in the sky. I figured we had about an hour left.

  "So, you are willing to trust a god who has completely ruined your life, and taken you away from all that you have ever known?" Sarah said, looking at me like I was mental.

  "My life was already ruined. Riggs was going to throw me out of the service as soon as we landed. I knew it, he knew it, and he admitted as much after we landed." I shrugged, "If what Coyote is telling me is true, well, I signed up to serve, so it's all the same to me. Besides," I said and smiled at her, "I got to meet you and Heather. Trust me, it was worth it."

  Sarah blushed so profusely then, that it reached all the way down her open shirt top and I suspect to her rather ample chest. I was impressed; I'd never seen her blush that hard before.

  "So, what does he want you to do with the weapons?"

  "He said we can take half, except for some special ones, he'll let me know just how many of those we can take."

  "And the rest?"

  "They're for Riggs. Whatever Riggs' mission here is supposed to be, he's going to need weapons. Like I said earlier, I'm just the backup in case Riggs doesn't succeed. Though I have a suspicion that having Havsue better armed will help as well."

  "And after we get the weapons, then what?" Sarah asked, looking at me.

  "Then I do whatever it is I'm told to do, and you and the rest head home with everything you're allowed to take."

  "You will leave us?"

  I could hear the sadness in her voice; lord knows that leaving her and Heather wasn't something I wanted to do.

  "I don't know that I'll have a choice," I admitted.

  "You could refuse to do what he tells you."

  I chuckled at that, "Right, not only would you have me disobey a god, but you'd have me disobey Coyote, who is probably the most dangerous one out there."

  "Coyote is not the most dangerous god, Paul. He is not the most powerful, he is not even close."

  "The others would just kill me, he'd make my life a living hell," I pointed out.

  Sarah smiled wanly, "You make a good point."

  We found a house within twenty minutes of turning down the road. There were a lot of structures along the road, I guess the location of this valley had protected them from any man made or natural disasters. Plus the house was made of poured concrete, covered in badly chipped stucco. The doors were mostly in good shape, and the windows all had shutters that were closed. Whoever had lived here had it build like a fort.

  So we were all rather happy to take advantage of it and set up for the night. There was even an attached courtyard with a high wall, which was where we put the horses and the wagons.

  I went over the route that we'd be taking in the morning; it was maybe ten to twelve miles from where we were to the gates, if the scale on the map was correct, and another four from that to the armory I had worked at. It wasn't the only armory on the base, there were a couple, but this was the biggest one. So we'd be there before lunch.

  "We'll be leaving Lisa's wagon here," Jack said, surprising me.

  "Why?"

  "Because that lets us put four horses on Tim's wagon. That will let us get in there quick, load up as much as we can fit, and get out of there quick. We'll come back here to spend the night again, rebalance our loads, and see if we need to lighten the load in Lisa's wagon at all.

  "It's been my experience that when you make a good find, there's usually a few vultures around, so it's always good to be able to pack up quick and hightail it out of there as fast as you can."

  "And then there's Terry, I don't want to bring her with us, she's not really in any condition for any rough traveling we might have to do tomorrow, and if we get into any kind of trouble, she'll be a liability. So we leave her and Dianne here to lie low for the day.

  "Sounds good to me," I said and looked at Sarah and Heather who both nodded. I got up then and held my hands out to each of them. They looked at me a little curious, but each took my hand and I helped them up, and then led them back to where I'd pitched our tent, a little further away from the others than usual.

  "Feeling a little frisky tonight are we?" Heather asked with a grin.

  "Yes, tomorrow is the big day, and I don't know when I'll get the chance to make love to either of you after that."

  Sarah didn't say anything, and Heather just smiled.

  I spent half the night making love to both of them, and telling them just how much I cared, and that yes, I did love them, very much.

  "So, what's going on, Paul?" Heather asked me as we all cuddled in post-coital bliss, bliss number five or six I think, I'd lost count.

  "Hmm?" I replied.

  "You're acting like you may never see us again, and Sarah obviously knows, so tell me what's going on," Heather said and gave my neck a nip.

  "I'm not doing this for the money, I didn't bring us all the way out here for me to go back and make a fortune."

  "What's wrong with having a fortune?" she grumbled.

  "Nothing, actually I'm all for it. But the truth is, I'm here to get some special weapons. Once I have them, I'll have to go off and use them."

  "Where are you going? And will you be coming back when you're done?" She asked softly.

  "I have no idea where I'm going, I haven't been told that yet. As for coming back, trust me, there's nothing I want more than that. I wasn't lying about my feelings, Heather; I've been in love with you for some time now, same for Sarah."

  "So what happens then tomorrow?"

  "We load up the wagon with as much as we can, I get the things I came for, and you all head back home."

  "And you?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I'll be heading back with you, maybe not. I just don't know."

  "But you'll know tomorrow?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  "The guy I'm working for will tell me."

  "How?"

  "Go to sleep, Heather," Sarah said softly. "I'll tell you all about it in the morning."

  Heather grumbled a bit, but she pulled herself a little tighter against me, and stopped asking any more questions. A few minutes later her breathing slowed and she fell asleep.

  I joined her not long afterwards.

&
nbsp; - 21 -

  We left just before sunrise, I was riding in the front with Jack, Heather and Sarah were behind me, then Keri and Glenn, then Lisa who was leading Tim's horse, followed by Geoff with Tim in the wagon bringing up the rear.

  We'd also unloaded most of the supplies we had in Tim's wagon into Lisa's, and with four horses pulling it, Tim was having no problems at all keeping up with us as we traveled at a very fast pace.

  We came to the end of the road we had camped out on as the sun finally started to rise and we turned right, took that road down to Mission Ave, then took that south to College, crossed over the now empty river bed and then turned up the road to the gates.

  I wasn't surprised to see the gates had been destroyed. I figured that when all hell broke loose, for whatever value of hell that there was, a lot of the people in the area probably stormed the base thinking of either food, protection, or just stupidity. Then of course as time went on, a lot of people probably came here to steal or scavenge whatever they could find.

  I wondered if the main runway had survived, it was on the other side of the ridge from us. There was a secondary armory over there, I'd been to it a few times, they used it to load out their aircraft when going to the range, but the main one was here, closer to where the troops were kept. Also it was easier for the many gunsmiths and armorers to get to as well.

  The building was set really close to the ridgeline, and what most people did not know, unless they worked there or had been there for some time, was that the majority of the armory was underground, the building we had worked in was really just offices for the GSA types. The weapons, the ammunition, the shops, all of those were buried. I didn't know if it was done during world war two, the cold war, or for some other reason. But during the hot summers that the area was known for, we had a nice cool working place that didn't require air conditioning that none of the other buildings had anyway.

  You just had to get used to the fact that everything around you was older than you, and looked it, even if it was clean, painted, and functional. I turned us down towards A street and took the shortest route I knew from memory.

  When we finally pulled up in front of the building I pointed out the loading bay, and then taking off my duster I slung it over my horse. I'd put on my flight suit this morning, because Coyote had told me to bring it, so apparently I needed to be in uniform. It was strange wearing it again; it was a little looser around the waist, and tighter around the chest. I pulled out my flight cap, and put it on.

  "What the hell is that?" Jack asked looking at me. Heather and Sarah had seen me get dressed that morning, so they already knew.

  "My uniform. Back before the war, I was assigned here for a while. Now, let's go see if I can still get in."

  Jack just gaped at me as I walked up to the front door, which was missing, and looked back at the others, "Wait here," I told them and stepped inside.

  Turning to my left I walked down the hallway towards the entryway to the stairs that led into the armory proper. There were several ways in, but this was the main entrance. When I had been here last, it was a metal reinforced door in a concrete blockhouse, with a man sitting behind a window at a desk next to the door. He would be the one to let you in and out.

  "Halt and identify," An anonymous voice said.

  "Lieutenant Paul Young, United States Air Force, serial number niner zero seven five three three six six one."

  "Approach the sign in station, Lieutenant Young."

  I walked ten more steps down the bullet-scarred hallway, which had some rather suspicious stains on the wall as a light came on and I could see the door. It was black metal now, and had no doorknob or any other mark on it. Where the window had been, there was now a display, with a keypad on it. There were also two guns to either side of the display.

  "Show identification," the voice said, emanating from the ceiling. I pulled out my military ID and held it up for scanning.

  "Lieutenant Paul Young, United States Air Force is listed as missing, presumed dead," the voice said.

  "I have been found, and returned to service, obviously," I said.

  "I do not have that in my records."

  "I am Lieutenant Young, am I not?"

  "Identification is not complete; I do not have retinal images for Lieutenant Young."

  "You do have my fingerprints, do you not?" I asked.

  There was silence for a moment, and then a red circle appeared on the screen.

  "Please place your hands upon the screen inside the red circle."

  I stepped forward and did as requested.

  "One moment," the voice said.

  "Fingerprints confirmed. Insufficient biometric identification to gain access."

  "What else do you need?" I asked, and tried to think of what other records the air force had on me.

  "A second parameter," the voice replied.

  "Can you scan my mouth? You have my dental records."

  "This unit is not equipped for dental scanning."

  I thought back about in-processing and all of the stuff they had us do. Then I remembered one of the more gruesome tasks, well it wasn't gruesome until they told us why they wanted them.

  "How about my footprints?"

  "Footprints are not a standard identifier."

  "If you examine my records, you will see they are for flight crew, and mine are on record."

  There was a pause then, "Confirmed. Please put your foot in the red circle."

  I pulled off my boot quickly, removed my sock, and then hopping on one foot I stuck the other one on the window.

  "Identity confirmed, access rights confirmed, what is your need for access, Lieutenant Young?"

  "Resupply and maintenance," I said, remembering one of the standard requests.

  "Access granted," the voice said and the door popped open.

  "I have several government workers with me who are not in the system. I'd like to grant each of them full access."

  "Please bring each of them to the scanner, and identify them, Lieutenant."

  "Of course," I said and putting my sock and boot back on I walked back to the door.

  "I need each of you to come in, single file, so I can identify you to the computer that controls the complex, so you can have access. You're all government service employees, GS eight, except for Sarah, you're a GS fifteen, remember that."

  They all looked at me.

  "Come on, get a move on! We haven't got all day! There are other people coming here soon, and I want to be gone as quickly as possible."

  That got them moving.

  Ten minutes later, I had each of them scanned into the system and my own retinal eye patterns added.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," I said once we were finished, "Let us go see what our friends the marines have left us."

  Opening the door I started down the stairs as lights started to come on in the stairwell. It was three flights down, and then we were in a small room with a cargo elevator on our left, a closed door on the right, facing a short tunnel that opened up into a very large room.

  "Oh, my!" Heather exclaimed

  "You got that right," Jack agreed.

  The room was fifty feet wide, and fifty feet long, with a ten foot ceiling. To either side of the center aisle that ran down to another door at the far end, there were floor to ceiling racks, spaced at five-foot intervals, with nothing but rifles stored on them.

  "Tim, ask the computer if the lift to the loading dock still works. Everyone might want to grab one of these for themselves, let me see if I can find ones still in their packing crates, that might make moving them easier."

  "Crates take up weight and space," Jack said. "We don't care if these get scratched up or not, just as long as they work."

  I nodded, "Fine with me. Only take from the right side, leave the left."

  "Why?"

  "Because we'll need the extra room for some of the other goodies in here," I said with a smile, "And also because I told you to."

  "Other goodies?" He sa
id looking at me, "What other goodies?"

  "Hey, what kind of rifles are these?" Glenn said, taking one down and looking it over.

  I looked at what he was holding, it looked a little like the AR-15's I had seen where I was here before, but only a little. The barrel was thicker, the action looked squarer, and I didn't recognize the design at all.

  "I don't know, why don't we go ask the computer?"

  Going over to one of the terminals in the room I queried the machine and the information came up instantly. The rifles, it turned out, were handheld gauss guns. The latest development and only recently deployed, before everything got destroyed. They had a magazine with a hundred bullets in it, and a small battery pack that would fire a thousand times. They even had units to recharge the battery packs that were stacked against the far wall.

  Jack and Tim immediately started to load the rifles onto a cart that Geoff had found. Glenn had a second cart that he was loading cases of battery packs and ammunition on.

  "Don't forget to grab a few of the recharge units," I said to Jack, and then I went to the door to the next room, and opened it.

  This room was the same size as the last, but the weapons in here were different. The barrels were much heavier, and longer, the design of the receiver was also bigger, they each had an integral scope and I saw each one took a larger magazine. They also weighted about twice as much as the gauss guns and were more about the size of an AR-10. The gauss guns had been fairly light, so I wasn't too upset about the weight. There were probably one hundred of the rifles in the room, and another two hundred bolt-action rifles with impressive scopes on them.

  "Sniper rifles," Heather said picking one up.

  I went over to a nearby terminal and queried it again.

  "Rail guns," I said looking over the specifications.

  "What's a rail gun?" Sarah asked.

  "Apparently something nasty," I turned to Geoff who had followed us into the room.

  "Carry forty-eight of these out to the cart. Make sure you grab a couple of crates of ammunition."