In A Flicker

by George R. Lopez

  Approaching the entrance to the small alley where the Flicker door awaited him, Ethan surveyed the area and even passed by it, covertly glancing down the corridor to the brick wall several times, making certain that no one was watching him from the street or a window above. Due diligence was tantamount, he was nothing if not thorough. The last thing he needed was to return to the year 2020 and read about a historical claim from some homeless vagrant seeing a man in fancy clothing passing through a brick wall in Whitechapel during the time and crimes of Jack the Ripper. Dreading a return to an alternate reality, he made sure he couldn’t be tracked to the future. Dissecting every detail of this mission from the start, here he stood at the finish line. Confident his entrance into the alley wasn’t witnessed he quickly slipped in and down the narrow, twenty foot long passage. Reaching the end of an alleyway he placed the bag down long enough to remove the pile of crates he placed in front of the wall where the Flicker should be, clearing his path. He snagged the bag then stood facing the invisible doorway, taking into his lungs a deep breath of this place and time. Holding it inside the same set of lungs that once rejected it as poison, the act was oddly comforting to him now. How many times he thought of this moment throughout his stay, knowing the hazmat team awaited his arrival, one of several in shifts, prepared for him, aware the time could and would vary but would be on this date. If he did not jump through as scheduled, missing the window of his expected arrival, it would be protocol to reset the Flicker, sending someone back to an earlier point during his mission to assess the reason for his absence. To his knowledge, no one had come to call because he was still right on schedule, the stickler for details. Ethan took one more look over his shoulder at the empty alley then raised his free hand, reaching out, through the wall, confirming the presence of the invisible door. To both his relief and fear, his hand passed directly through the solid brick structure. With one more deep breath he stepped through Flicker, a flash of pure, white light.

  Ethan’s eyes were instantly forced to make a necessary adjustment, much like strolling into a dark cave after being out in the brighter desert sunlight. The corridor was shadowed. He saw beyond the glass encasing of the decontamination chamber, what looked like several hazmat crew members dressed in yellow from head to toe. As Ethan let out his breath and began to speak he drew in his first breath of air from the 21st Century in over two months, inhaling clean oxygen in the containment unit. The sterility and purity of the environment sent Ethan’s head spinning, causing him to immediately become dizzy and disoriented, collapsing to his knees then quickly losing consciousness, blacking out. Gone.

  The sounds of voices surrounding him, medical team members hovering above him, all the beeping and buzzing from monitors near his head, Ethan began to regain consciousness, greeted with what could be best defined as a pressure migraine. He didn’t know how long he’d been out but he was now flat on his back being wheeled along on a gurney, wearing an oxygen mask which obstructed his view, worsening the pressure in his head. His vision was grainy, at best, but Ethan could faintly see the familiar LHC fluorescent lights passing overhead while ushered along, flanked by medical staff on either side of the stretcher.

  “P? Can you hear me? You’re alright mate. Just breathe.”

  Ethan tried to refocus. The voice was familiar. It was most likely Colin Bishop who was holding Ethan’s hand inside his oversized glove. Straining to see through the glass mask covering the face on the suit leaning over him, obscuring the visage behind it, he could finally see that it was, indeed, his best friend Col.

  “Hang in there, mate. You passed out. They are taking you to the med lab now, to check you out.” The raw emotion of worry was detected in Colin’s words.

  All Ethan could do to respond was give him a big thumbs up with his free hand, but it was only free momentarily before a second glove grasped that one, as well.

  “Look who’s here to welcome you home!” Colin blurted out excitedly.

  Turning his head to the other side of the gurney, Ethan followed the hand which had just grabbed his own, scanning upward, tracking the yellow arm of the hazmat suit to the mask covering the face of Maggie Daley. The intern smiled down at him with a few visible tears streaking her cheeks. They had both been waiting for him.

  “Hello, professor!” Maggie stated gleefully. “It is wonderful to have you back!” In spite of her voice being muffled by the mask, the sincerity in her quivering words was unmistakable. There she was – his muse, his inspiration, his Maggie.

  Ethan returned his gaze to the ceiling lights passing above him. The oxygen rich headache was depleting him of energy, focus and ultimately, consciousness. Before fainting again he smiled, saying something barely audible from beneath his mask. Those around him could only make out one word of it before Ethan passed out cold. He said the word “God”.

  Given the weekend to rest undisturbed before The Consortium would begin the debriefing, a barrage of tests conducted on the returning time traveler, Ethan knew it was only a matter of time before he’d have to address the details of the jump. The dizziness and headaches subsided by the end of the first day in this heavily-guarded infirmary room at the LHC. He had become so accustomed to the deplorable smells of Whitechapel that when he passed through Flicker into the untainted air in the lab he was overcome by the drastic change in atmospheric conditions. It required some hours for his brain and lungs to get reacquainted with purer air. Regaining his senses by midday Friday, Ethan knew if anyone from the staff or a list of approved visitors came into the room and saw his eyes open, all the questioning would come too fast and too soon. Thankfully, the areas surrounding his room were quiet enough to hear a pin drop so, if he heard any footsteps approaching, he could feign being sound asleep. Most of the traffic would come from medical staff charged with monitoring his meds and vital signs. He had EKG sensors and some kind of intravenous fluids connected to him which several nurses came in to check on frequently. While his eyes were closed he’d recognized the voices of Anson and Colin hovering over him on a few occasions, telling anecdotal stories about Ethan like he had died. He was bursting at the seams to tell them how right they were. The man they’d once known was indeed dead, killed a mere three days into his jump by two murderers: one he would never meet, the other he would meet literally face-to-face in the mirror or in passing a pane of glass, as his own reflection. Killed by the events he was forced to simultaneously perform and watch. Killed by Jack. Killed by Time.

  By Saturday Ethan could no longer pretend to be sleeping it off. An examination would result in an instant diagnosis, discerning that he “should be” alert, completely recovered. Too much make-believe and this playacting would raise suspicions. As an educated man of substantial intellect and training, including the medical research he did for his jump, Ethan knew, at least for a little while longer, he could falsify a status of being in a weakened condition and only have visitors for small periods of time but once the nurses then doctors passed word that he was awake, the jockeying for position would begin, his peers lining up for a chance to speak with him. Ethan played it for as long as he could, for all it was worth, taking his time to think as the patience of others wore thin. Detecting some shuffling beyond the door, it became somewhat loud, disturbing his peace of mind. The doctors, holding true to their oath of serving their patient, ordered most to leave, stating too much excitement was not in Ethan’s best interest. The star-struck audience, those awaiting with bated breath, diminished rapidly, forced to shelve their curiosity until Monday along with the rest of the debriefing council.

  The first familiar face to visit him was no surprise at all. As the director of the program, Anson carried the most clout. His project clearance gave him the priority position, first contact, even above Colin Bishop. Ethan peeked through the slits of his eyelids, observing Anson enter like a cartoon character, maneuvering his hefty frame as quietly as possible through the room on his tippy toes, gritting his teeth in an effort to be silent. Ethan could not hide his delight in
the image, chuckling aloud as he opened his eyes to receive his first guest. Arriving bedside, his voice drowned out anything electronic making noise in the room. Nothing soft spoken about him, its resonance, that deep baritone, caused Ethan’s sternum to vibrate.

  “I figured you were tiring of all the pretty nurses tending to your needs. Thought it might do you good to see my face.” Anson laid his hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

  Ethan began to mutter a counter to his wit before Anson stopped him.

  “Quiet now lad, you need to rest your voice. There’ll be plenty of time for you to talk once your debriefing begins come Monday.” Glancing around the room, he felt compelled to comment further. “You and I may both need to ‘check in’ here for a vacation after all of it is said and done.”

  Both men grinned at each other before Anson turned to leave. Stopping near the door, he returned to Ethan’s bedside, leaning toward him with a serious expression.

  “I flipped through your journal, lad. I know you identified the Ripper in there.” After a dramatic pause, he continued. “I’d just like to hear it from your own lips.”

  There was a silence in the room which probably seemed like minutes to Anson but was only a few seconds as Ethan stared back at him blankly then the corners of his mouth turned ever so slightly into a smirk before he spoke one word.

  “Kosminski.”

  Anson smiled then turned again to leave. Ethan watched him going. The instant before disappearing through the ward doorway he saw Anson make a clenched fist and elbow jab, gesturing as if he’d just thrown a strike in a bowling tournament or won a big bet. Ethan gave him precisely what he wanted and would give the rest of The Consortium exactly what they wanted, too: a perfect Flicker project. Ethan had completed enough questionnaires, surveys and Valley trial paperwork as well as all his Scope research to predict how the next week would follow. Now a god, he could readily manipulate the process and convince them of his cover story, meticulously catalogued in his journal, information Ethan would soon begin to impart flawlessly. In numerous interviews at various departments, verbal as well as written testimony, he would elucidate every angle of the leap until every participant in the process was satisfied. An exhaustive effort in terms of time invested, Ethan made it look easy.

  No Scope had ever been tasked to make a jump then bring back hard evidence. Bringing any modern recording devices, be it audio or video, would and could not be permitted to pass back in time. Should anything be lost or stolen, the technology could lead to quantum time shifts due to reverse engineering. No, the reasoning for the intense ethics scrutiny was because every Scope had to be trusted enough before being sent back to be taken at their word of what they witnessed when they returned. There would be no true scrutiny of Ethan’s jump. Any remaining doubt would have been removed well before his journey into the past. He knew they’d take his word as gospel. “Gospel”. An appropriate term when hearing a god speak. Ethan did not fancy himself “Thee God”, more a philosophical deity who understood telling the truth to mere mortals would only harm their fragile psyches. He needed to provide them the security blanket they required to reassure them all was right in their little world view. Only he knew the truth and would take it with him to the grave.

  “Fucking Scopes, always on their bloody backs. You training to be a hooker?”

  Ethan immediately recognized the voice and began to smile before opening his eyes. Colin was propped in the doorway to his room.

  “Hooker?” Ethan said, raising his head. “My good man, at my rates, I’d prefer you use the term Lady of the Evening.”

  Colin approached, his arm extended in advance. The friends shook hands, Colin keeping the greeting playful, just under the length of discomfort. Ethan knew he’d been missed these many weeks and knew Colin would want to spend as much time as possible with him during the debriefing. Yet, Ethan purposefully insisted that his longtime friend not be allowed to partake in any of the meetings, nothing that didn’t directly involve Colin’s part in the project, citing the stringent rules of impartiality, his excuse for any perceived slight. Colin was the best friend of the Ethan who had jumped into the past but he posed a threat to the Ethan who returned. He also posed a threat to Ethan’s new best friend, Time. The two men only spoke for a few minutes and only superficially, discussing nothing of substance. Colin knew the protocol. If he were to ask anything about the mission, he knew Ethan could not and would not respond, the line in the sands of time clearly drawn by The Consortium.

  The debriefing process was as unoriginal and predictable to the deity known as Ethan as he’d expected. What was scheduled as five full days of anticipated intense recall and documentation took just over three. Ethan asked Anson for the paper trail part of the process; no actual paperwork, but rather, transcripts on tablet to forward with more efficiency. He completed every question asked of him in nine hours flat. The interviews and examinations, of course, came up clean and absolutely concise. The play’s the thing and Ethan was playing all of them for fools, replaying the entire experience like a concert violinist in the orchestra pit, knowing the tune all too well. Mostly he wanted to speed up the process, to get the hell out of there and back to England, as there was still a small paranoid voice nagging at him with the thought: the longer he stayed, the greater the chance he would be discovered. Finally, after all the tests and interrogatories, he was allowed to return off-site to his humble but comfy staff quarters, to a cold, gray room on a cold, gray Thursday morning. Ethan unlocked then opened the door to living space that now felt foreign and unfamiliar. Somewhat disoriented by a change in venue, he missed the brightness of the LHC infirmary but here, at least, he had some privacy. Here, he would spend the last few hours resting then packing his belongings before heading back over to the complex for the final project review, a formal meeting with the Debriefing Council before catching his flight back to England later on that afternoon. After a long, hot shower he dressed for the far cooler temperatures, common in early November. Finding his dapper suit hanging in the closet where he’d left it, Ethan reached inside the pocket of his trousers. His fingers found it, his precious antique timepiece embossed with the three-legged horse... his only friend. If he had anticipated it might be missing, it wasn’t the case.

  Ethan opened it up. It hadn’t been wound for over two months, the time stopped at 3:26. Had it stopped around the same time he was beginning to carve up his first victim, Mary Ann Nichols? Regardless of the timing, a more puzzling and troubling consideration entered Ethan’s thoughts. Having first purchased the timepiece while doing one of his run-throughs in 21st Century Whitechapel, what were the odds he’d find his original watch, then purchase it again in the 19th Century? He was certain Abigail had lifted it from his room as her token, a keepsake of her love for a god. It seemed unlikely she would pawn it or sell it, no matter how desperate she got. Perhaps she’d kept it until her death and descendants sold it instead, unaware of its sentimental value, finding its destiny in an antique shop, back in Ethan’s hands once again, one hundred and thirty years later. When he returned to England he would have to do some deeper research on this timepiece. Right now, he had to get to that final meeting on time, his final role play. Packing up what little he’d brought with him to Switzerland, the time had come to return to the LHC complex where all the department heads would report their findings compiled from all their examinations of Ethan to the Flicker Director, Dr. Anson Van Ruden.

  Ethan’s transportation van arrived right on schedule, the drive back to the LHC taking longer in daytime traffic than it had in the wee hours of the morning when he made the jump months ago. Pensively staring out the window, taking in all the splendid scenery, his view of the Swiss countryside was breathtaking as a series of snapshots taken in memory of his trip. Saying nothing to his driver for the duration of their journey, it never occurred to him to engage the man. Ethan was saving all his energy for the onslaught he would undoubtedly deal with upon his arrival. Sure enough, when the van pulled into one of the
many access points at the LHC, one of The Consortium valets escorted him in to their large meeting room. Most of the key players were already present, mulling around with their cup of coffee or tea in hand. Ethan was approached with offers of congratulatory handshakes from all he passed as he made his way to the one seat positioned on the opposite side of the table, place holders bearing the names of the principle participants, wireless microphones at the ready. There were several photographers / videographers granted exclusive access to the proceedings, permitted by The Consortium to record this historic event, just as every part of the project, before and after, was documented for posterity.

  As Ethan made his way over to the seat reserved for him he heard that familiar, bellowing laughter. Anson Van Ruden was making his presence known, arriving in his usual larger-than-life style. Loud and boisterous to the point one could not help but notice and pay attention, a large assortment of manila folders tucked underneath his left arm, he began greeting everyone with handshakes and high-fives all around. It was as festive an atmosphere as one might expect, as there was much to celebrate given the successful outcome of the project. Anson was jubilant about it, launching his words into the stratosphere, causing an eruption of applause.