Days of Future Past - Part 1: Past Tense

by John Van Stry

  "Confirmed, opening door."

  I stepped out of the booth and into the stairwell as the door opened.

  "Would you like a tour of the facility?" I asked smiling.

  "What I want, is to shoot your insufferable disrespectful ass," Riggs growled and pointed a gun at me.

  "You do realize that killing me will set off all sorts of alarms and lock down the armory, and even with your access, you will never be able to get inside again," I told him.

  "Come out of there, that's an order."

  "Sorry, Major, but I'm just not that stupid. And honestly, you really need to work on your anger issues. You try to murder me, and now you're upset that I got a little payback?"

  "You're bad for morale; the last thing I want is my men seeing you being a wiseass to me. I can't afford that."

  "What makes you think I want to be seen with you?" I said shaking my head. "Now, let me show you where things are downstairs, and we can go our separate ways while your men unload everything. You do know about the vault in the back, right?"

  "Estanatlehi told me all about this place."

  "Well, let me at least show you where the instruction guides are for the weapons, they're not like anything you've seen before," I said and turning my back on him I walked down the stairs.

  He called out something in Navajo; I think he was calling the others to follow him.

  "Straight ahead are the racks and the weapons," I said coming to the bottom of the stairs. "I guess I won't be going in there now, because I don't feel like getting shot in the back. To the left is a lift to carry things to the surface, and to the right are the workshops, which are mostly empty right now."

  I stepped to the right closer to the door to the shops and turned to face him, he still had the pistol in his hand and a rather dark expression on his face.

  "You know, I must say, I'm rather surprised that you don't keep your word very well, Riggs."

  "I haven't broken my word to you, yet, Young."

  "I don't know, you have a pistol pointed at me," I said, motioning towards the gun, "and I'm completely unarmed".

  "I promised not to bother you after you leave here; well you haven't left here yet."

  And with that the son-of-a-bitch shot me in the leg! I damn near screamed and lunged to the side away from him as he took another shot, missing me this time.

  "You bastard!" I shouted as I fumbled with the door, yanking it open jumping through as he took another shot.

  "When you thanked me for my help, I had hoped that we'd just go our separate ways and be done with this."

  "I'm not letting you shame me again, Young!" He snarled.

  "You're doing a pretty good job of that without any help from me at all, Riggs," I said kicking the door closed with my good leg.

  "Computer! Seal workshop door against Major Riggs," I yelled.

  "Door sealed."

  "Computer," Riggs said, "Override Lieutenant Young's order and open the door."

  "Permission denied, you do not have the authority to override Lieutenant Colonel Young's command."

  If I had thought Riggs had an ugly expression on his face before, the one he had then when he heard I outranked him put it to shame as he swore loudly.

  "That won't do you any good, Young," Riggs said from outside the door. "You have to come out of there sometime, or you'll bleed to death!"

  "Oh, I'm perfectly prepared to wait you out, Riggs," I said taking off my hat and putting it over the wound and clamping down hard on it. I looked around for a first aid kit, spotting one on the far wall I got back up on one leg, and hopped over to it.

  "Computer, in twelve hours you are to seal this facility against Major Riggs and his men. You are to fire on any of them remaining. Acknowledge."

  "This facility is to be sealed in twelve hours against Major Riggs and his men and I am to fire on any remaining inside. Acknowledged."

  I got the first aid kit off the wall and collapsed down to the floor and taking out my boot knife I cut the leg of my flight suit well up past the wound, then opened up the first aid kit.

  I wasn't at all ready for the contents. The packet marked 'wound salve' wasn't hard to figure out, but the expiration date was twenty eighty-five, so I tossed that. The syringes marked 'pain killer' and 'antibiotic' were also expired and dry.

  The little box labeled 'auto-suture' I didn't understand, and I didn't want to take the time to read the instructions. But there were bandages and there were pads. So opened a small one, rolled it up and stuck it inside the bullet hole, swearing rather loudly in pain, then I put a few larger pads over it and wrapped the whole mess with a roller bandage to stop the bleeding and tied it off with a triangle bandage.

  I could hear noise over by the doorway, and getting back up I hobbled over to it to see what was going through the small window.

  What was going on, was that Riggs was now stacking empty crates in front of the workshop door. I guess he was hoping to entomb me here. I could see the others were starting to work at carrying the weapons out. I just shook my head and left him to his work. It was pretty obvious now that he really did want me dead.

  My leg still hurt like, well like someone had shot me in it. At least he hadn't hit the bone and broken it, but I could barely put any weight on it. He'd definitely slowed me down.

  I made my way back into the storeroom. Like most underground facilities, this one had a ventilation shaft that also doubled as an escape tube. When I'd worked here, we'd been drilled on all of the escape routes, part of our safety briefings. So I simply told the computer to unlock it until I was gone, and swearing under my breath the entire time I climbed up it and out of the armory. It came up over a hundred yards away, behind a building out of sight of the men who were with Riggs.

  I had to go carefully for the first hundred yards, and I had to make sure I wasn't leaving any kind of a blood trail. But it was getting late now and the shadows were getting long, so it didn't take me all that long to crawl far enough away that I was able to just stand up and hobble down to the gates using a branch I found as a cane and meet up with the girls.

  "What took you so long?" Heather asked.

  "Oh, just having a chat with an old friend," I sighed. "Turns out, he's still a complete ass."

  "What happened to your leg?" Sarah asked hoping down from her horse and coming over to me.

  "The bastard shot me, that's what happened," I said, swearing. "Could you please help me up onto my horse so we can get out of here?"

  "Wow, he must really hate you!" Heather said, shaking her head as she got down and came over to help Sarah get me up into the saddle.

  "Yeah, I guess I just have that effect on some people," I grumbled as they got me settled, and then mounted up themselves.

  - 23 -

  We made it back to the house where the others were now waiting for us about an hour after nightfall. The first thing Dianne did was to pull the bullet out of my leg and heal the wound.

  Jack had been shifting loads between the two wagons, and distributing some of the new gear onto people's mounts. The two horses that had been brought primarily as spares, Lisa's and Tim's mounts, would spend the trip back helping to pull Tim's wagon. This was now the heavier of the two. Terry would be riding with Lisa, as she no longer had a horse, and while she could sit up, she was in no condition to ride.

  "Well, we got a lot more out of this than we thought we would," Jack said. "While I don't know if I believe your story, you're still going to be a very rich man when we get back to Havsue."

  "I'm not going back," I said.

  Jack and the others looked at me, "What?"

  "I'm not going back. Not yet at least. I have to go north to a place called Sutter Buttes."

  "I've never heard of them, do you even know where that is?" Jack asked.

  I nodded, "Yes, I do actually. It's about four hundred miles north of here. I'll be leaving in the morning when you head back to Havsue."

  "Why?" Tim asked.

  "For the same reason I
had to come here," I said and smiled. "I have things I need to do. I will be taking a couple of things; some supplies, and I think a couple of rockets might come in handy. But other than that, I wish you the best of luck on the way back."

  "What about your share?" Jack asked.

  "The Alders can hold on to it until I get back. I'm sure Sarah can handle it."

  Jack looked at Sarah, who just nodded. I noticed that both she and Heather were being rather subdued, but then they'd both seen Coyote and heard him tell me where I had to go next.

  There was a lot of discussion that night about the trip back and about the alternates to the way that they had come. I warned them about Riggs and the Navajo, and that they might want to watch out for them, lest they 'confiscate' everything we had found. Something I would not put past Riggs and his free wheeling attitudes with both his word and his promises. In the end they decided to go back the way they had come, they at least knew that route was clear. Once they got to Opal, they'd just hook up with one of the normal trade caravans and go with them to New Mexical.

  I was sitting there staring at the fire in the fireplace as the others got everything ready to head out in the morning. I had made sure I had enough ammunition for my new rifles, and had given them my old rifle and ammo to take back with them. I'd grabbed two of the anti-tank rockets, just in case, and because Jack had managed to grab so many of them. I thought about taking another anti-air missile, but I figured they might have more of a need for them than I would. Plus I just didn't feel like I'd need one. I suspect that feeling came from Coyote and to be honest, with the food I was going to be bringing, I really was trying to limit the amount of stuff I was carrying.

  "So, you're just going to leave us, ya' goof?" Heather said, dropping down to sit besides me.

  I shook my head and sighed, "You and Sarah are the two best things ever to happen to me in my life. Leaving you is the last thing I want to do. But you saw him, you heard him tell me what I had to do.

  "Besides, with the two of you waiting for me, that will give me a lot more incentive to come back."

  "Still," she said, "one man by himself, especially in this wilderness with strange animals, monsters, and who knows what else, it isn't very safe."

  "Yeah, but getting a god mad at me is even less safe." I shrugged, "I did it before when I escaped from the Navajo, and all I had was a small knife that time. This time at least I have weapons and supplies."

  Heather leaned over and gave me a hug, "Let's go to bed."

  "You're not going to change my mind, Heather."

  "I'm not even going to try. But you do look like you could use some cheering up. Besides," she said with a cheeky grin, "you need to be reminded of what you're missing, so you'll come back!"

  I chuckled and took her hand as we stood up.

  "What about Sarah?" I asked looking around.

  "She'll join us in a few minutes, don't worry."

  The next morning I woke up feeling determined. Heather and Sarah had both made it very clear to me that they loved me, and that they wanted me in their lives from now on. I knew they cared about me, and I had already professed my own commitment to them the night before, so it was moving for me to hear them confess to the same commitment back.

  As I got my sleeping bag packed on my horse, along with my other supplies, I noticed that Sarah and Heather were doing the same, and Sarah was packing our small tent on her horse. I figured this just had to do with Jack's redistributing all of the supplies because of the heavy load they'd picked up yesterday.

  "Well, Sarah, Heather, I guess we'll see you back home when this is all over," Lisa said giving each of the girls a hug.

  "Yeah, just remember that if you don't come back, your father is going to kill me," Jack said, hugging each of them next.

  "Take care of yourself, and the both of them," Jack said, coming over and shaking my hand, then went over to his horse and mounted up as the rest of the group did the same.

  They all waved goodbye and started off out of the courtyard and I turned to look at Sarah and Heather who were both smiling at me.

  "What are you two doing here?" I said, trying to figure out just what they were up to.

  "What, did you think we were going to let you get away that easily?" Heather laughed. "Especially after last night?"

  "We are going with you," Sarah said, smiling. "We are a family, we belong together, and if you have to go, then we have to go too."

  I looked at the two of them standing there smiling at me, and I had to admit, if that wasn't love, then I had no idea what love is. All I knew was at that moment I loved the two of them more than I'd loved anybody in my life, and I wanted very much to spend the rest of my life with them.

  I walked over and put an arm around each of them and gave them a tight hug.

  "I love you too, both of you."

  "Yes, we know," Sarah said smiling. "Besides, without us to take care of you, you would not last a week."

  I had to laugh, "You're right, I wouldn't. Now, we have a long way to go, so what do you say we get started?"

  We mounted up then and heading out of the courtyard we turned north.

  End of Part One - Past Tense

  Continued in Part Two - Present Tense

  Afterword

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  John Van Stry

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