by E. R. Mason
“Okay, why you then?”
“I volunteered. One very knowledgeable person, leading one other extremely talented person is much less likely to do greater harm to the timeline. There’s more, but it’s too much to go into.”
“Again, what exactly happens to us if we are successful?”
“Get me into that ship so we can set the Z-particle generator and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Why do you do this insane kind of thing?”
“Why do you stay with me?”
Jax hesitated. “Because I think I love you.”
Skyla rose and stepped close to him. “And I love you.”
As Jax searched for the right words, Skyla reached out and slowly tugged away the towel around his waist. She let it fall to the floor and stood staring shamelessly at his naked body. Jax froze like a deer in the headlights, trying to overcome the urge to crouch over and conceal himself. Skyla looked up and gazed lustfully into his eyes and as she did so she unfastened her robe and let it fall slowly to the floor.
The first real woman Jax had ever seen naked now stood just two feet away and she happened to be the most perfect, beautiful creature imaginable. Her figure was delicate and precise. Her skin tone had a slight hue of blue to it and was as perfect as ivory. There was an aura about her that seemed to flow erotic colors that beckoned him to come closer.
Skyla inched slowly forward and took his hand in hers. “We are out of normal time. We cannot join. You understand?”
Jax tried to reply but was only able to swallow.
She moved in against his body and embraced him with her head on his chest. Purely by instinct, Jax gently captured her head with one hand and embraced her with the other. Skyla kissed him on the chest and pushed him backward toward the bed. His mind was spinning from passion as he went over backwards into a soft ocean of blankets. Skyla fell upon him and began kissing his neck and chest.
The wave of passion washed Jax’s insecurity and inexperience aside. He began to move with her, following her leads, allowing her to direct him in the finer arts of intimacy. Jax felt himself merge with this incredibly sensuous woman, though no actual carnal connection was made. Time became irrelevant. They were one, touching and exploring one another; it went on and on, separated only by brief periods of sleep, each waking bringing a new awareness of one another.
Morning light brought Jax back to reality. Skyla was standing by the side of the bed, dressing. She smiled at him as she pulled on wrinkled clothes.
“We made it through the night without any bombings,” she said.
Jax searched his inner self trying to understand how the previous evening might have changed him. It was too much to grasp. He looked at Skyla with a new kind of love, much deeper, much more dedicated.
“You were dead to the world this morning,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone sleep so soundly. We’d better get food in you and get going.”
Jax spoke with a cracking morning voice. “I remembered something last night while I was dreaming. Something I don’t get. You remember that first time we went in the house, I thought I saw a motorcycle cop in one of the rooms downstairs?”
“How could I forget.”
“Yeah, well I realize now that what I actually saw was a man in a German SS uniform. You know, the high black boots and all.”
Skyla started to smile but suddenly jerked to a stop and looked back at him worriedly.
“What? What’s a matter?” he asked.
“Yesterday we saw Demon House secured by the British military and being used as an early detection warning center.”
“Yeah, so?”
“If you really saw a man in a German uniform inside Demon House, I mean if an SS soldier really was in that house at some point, it could only have happened before the place was taken over by the Brits. Are you sure you saw a Nazi SS officer and not a policeman?”
“Yes. So?”
Skyla looked fearful. “That means the Nazis and their UFO must have arrived here before the British advance warning installation was set up. It means we’re not all the way back in time to when this all started. We could still be thrown back again.”
Jax stood up from the bed, a look of fright etched on his face. Suddenly his skin began to tingle. “Do you feel that?” he asked.
“Oh no! Not now!” exclaimed Skyla and she lunged toward him.
Jax charged naked from the bed, opening his arms to catch her. As he did, the golden light flashed by like the first wave of a tsunami, and as the light faded, Jax found himself closing his arms around empty space. Skyla was gone.
Chapter 13
Jax stood naked in a bombed out room filled with smoke and dust. There was the drone of engines overhead and the sound of bombs being dropped in other places. With each explosion, the building shuddered as though in fear. The room was barren, no bed, no blankets, nothing but rubble and broken walls. Jax picked his way through the rubble and reached the open door and hallway. Except for bomb damage, it was as barren as everywhere else. He hurried as fast as his bare feet would carry him and found a staircase down. Below, the bodies of several soldiers were scattered around the disintegrated lobby. Small fires were burning here and there and getting bigger by the minute.
Jax made it down the stairs and walked among the dead. There was a crushed man in civilian clothes still holding onto an open, scattered suitcase. Within the pile of ash covered clothing was a uniform. Jax struggled to untangle it, then hopped amid the rubble to pull the trousers on. Within the pile there were boots tied together by their laces. To his surprise the clothes and shoes fit perfectly, even as battered and soiled as they were.
Suddenly the bombing began to grow louder and louder. Jax charged for the hotel entrance but never made it: a loud whistle, crash, and the momentary crack of explosion his last memory.
For a time consciousness was unavailable. There were sensory inputs here and there, but nothing structured or meaningful. Sleep was the only pathway.
Then a kind of vision began to switch on. It was of no real benefit. It was merely color and shapes enmeshed within each other like looking out the side window of a speeding car. There was also a piercing ringing of the ears and nothing else.
When visual forms finally did begin to take shape, it was almost an unfortunate development. Far in the back of Jax’s mind he already feared what kind of reality awaited. When the ringing had subsided enough, a female voice kept trying to make contact. Soon after, a blurry image of a red-haired person with bright red lipstick staring down came into view.
“Mr. Kent? Mr. Kent? I think you can hear me well enough now. It’s not necessary to speak, in fact your doctor would prefer you did not speak for a while. You have a bruised larynx. But I can update you now. You’re doing well. You were hit on the head, but there’s no permanent injury, just a moderate concussion. Two or three days and you’ll be up and around. We found your ID and orders in your shirt pocket. We contacted your unit. They said you did not list any emergency contact information for anyone. Is there someone we should contact to let them know you’re alright? When you get a little stronger maybe you can write down who we can call for you. You were scheduled for flight training in three weeks. The doctor says you’ll be okay to begin that on limited duty, so nothing to worry about. You were so lucky. You were the only one they got out of that building before it collapsed and burned. It was a very close call. So just rest and get better, okay? If you need anything someone will be nearby at all times. Sleep is the best thing. Try to get some more. I’ll be watching over you Mr. Kent.”
As the nurse started to leave, Jax managed to raise one hand and move his lips. She quickly returned and leaned in close.
As painful as asking was, Jax needed to know. “Da-daaa-te?”
“Date? Oh, you want to know how long you’ve been unconscious. Well, it’s January 7th, 1941. Does that help?”
Jax fell back into a deep sleep.
There was one silver lining to being so injured that speech
and communication was unavailable. It gave Jax many hours to sort through the sordid events that had brought him here. January 7th, 1941 meant it had been roughly a 3 year jump back in time. Skyla had thought the previous jump to have been the one that placed them at the beginning of the time corruption but she had been mistaken. 1941 was close to the beginning of the war. This time period had to be the real start of the German UFO crisis. If he was right, at this moment there were SS troops underground beneath Demon House trying to get their aberrant attack plan to work.
Jax lay in his bed flushed with too many emotions to control. Skyla had said the only way to neutralize the Nazi ship was by planting the Z-particle generator in it. The bitch of it was, he and Skyla had mistakenly buried the generator 3 years from now. If he returned to the site, the generator would not be there and he’d have to wait three years for its arrival. It meant there was no way for him to take out that ship.
He needed Skyla. But, she had not materialized with him in the bombed out hotel. That meant she had ended up somewhere, or sometime elsewhere. It was possible she had not survived the jump at all but that was too painful to consider. Since he was most certainly back at the beginning, that meant she had most likely fallen short of this time and was probably somewhere in the future, maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe years.
There was still the prearranged meeting place. The Leigh Library building should still be there unless it was bombed out and waiting to be rebuilt. He could still check in there at noon each day in hopes of catching up with her.
But there were problems with that plan. He could not assume she would show up in a day or two. Having been thrown back completely naked he did not now possess any gold coins or anything else that might help the situation. He would need to survive somehow in this time period possibly for several years. The only possessions he owned were the stolen uniform and whatever items had been in the pockets.
What would happen next? They would treat him and then send him on to wherever Mr. Kent had been assigned.
What were the options? Either wait for the right moment and sneak out of the hospital and disappear, or continue to masquerade as Kent.
If he snuck out of the place where could he go? What would he do for food and shelter? There was no hope of destroying the Nazi ship now, so what could he do out there? This was World War II, and he was of prime military age. Britain was fighting for its life. It wouldn’t take long for people to start asking questions. Why wasn’t he serving? Why wasn’t he fighting for the country? An American tourist story would not fly here. This was a war zone. If it took a long time for Skyla to reappear, he would never be able to hide out and wait for her. So, no money, no clothes, no food, no place to stay, in a city being relentlessly bombed by a tyrant. This was like being reborn into the world naked with nothing, and starting over.
But there was the Mr. Kent. If he continued the masquerade, all of those problems would be temporarily solved. If Skyla showed up, he could go AWOL and eventually disappear through time with her, no harm done. The only danger would be trying to live a military life in a time of war. What an ominous thought that was.
There was really no choice here. No choice but to continue being Mr. Kent until Skyla returned or the situation got so out of hand going into hiding became necessary. At least there might be time to set up an escape plan.
Jax’s head began to throb with pain. The kind nurse appeared out of nowhere. “It’s time for your shot. Is the headache any better?”
Jax raised one hand and touched her on her arm. His hand and arm looked like someone else’s. He tried to speak but managed only a few horse sounds.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she replied. “The doctor says the swelling is going down. The headaches should start easing up tomorrow. It’s time for your pain shot. It will make you sleep. You’re doing well.” She set the needle and gave him the shot. A flush of well-being came over him. He closed his eyes for just a moment and was gone.
There was no way to tell how many days had passed. Vision returned. The shrill whistle in the ears was now a steady low tone. Jax’s head still felt two sizes too big but he was able to look around now and use both hands. This was a long narrow room filled with patients on either side on foldable cots with thin mattresses set atop them. There were IVs at most of the bedsides. Nurses and orderlies were constantly moving about. Jax tried to raise his head but it seemed to outweigh the rest of his body. The angelic nurse appeared beside him.
“Well, those blue eyes are fully opened today and they’ve cleared up nicely. How are you feeling?”
“How long have I slept?” Jax’s voice was hoarse but understandable.
“About twenty hours, Neil. Tomorrow you will be sitting up eating real food. Any longer and they would have had to put a feeding tube in.”
“What’s your name?”
“Abbey. I’ve been watching over you since you arrived.”
“I think I love you.”
Abby laughed. “I get that a lot.”
“Water?”
Abbey picked up a bottle with a long flexible straw and placed it near his mouth; he sucked in the warm water so hard she had to pull it away. “Easy there, Neil. You need to acclimate slowly. How’s the headache?”
“Not bad, but waiting to pounce.”
“Yeah, well, tomorrow we start easing back on the pain killer. You may not like that so much. I’ll have to give you extra TLC.”
“Doesn’t sound all bad.”
“Sense of humor? Wow! That’s a very good sign. Ready for the shot?”
A male voice woke Jax from the blackness. A man with a stethoscope was bent over listening to his heart. He straightened up and wrote something on a chart. He smiled down at his patient. “Time to get you on your feet, Mr. Kent. Your commanding officer is anxious to have you back. Something about training scheduled to start and you not missing any of it.”
“Thanks for taking care of me, Doctor.”
“Well, thank you for taking care of all of us,” he replied. “Some orderlies will be coming to get you on your feet. Nurse Abbey will be bulldogging them. You’re in good hands.”
“How far am I from getting released?”
“Day after tomorrow. But you’ll be on limited duty for a week. Strictly classroom work.”
Several more long sleeps brought Jax to the day of release. He stood on rubbery legs and dressed in his freshly cleaned stolen uniform. He sat on the side of the cot and realized he had no idea what was happening. Any time now a military driver would show up to take him to points unknown. Jax fished in his breast pocket and found his ID and orders. He unfolded the dirty, charred paper and stared down at it.
ORIGINAL
Department of the Territorial Force
British Regents Security Group
Box 201
APD 178635 England
TAH80 NR: 63019 I Y__________
From: Commanding Officer, Halfelden Holt, Security Group
To: Mr. Neil Kent **1519
AND
NO
OTHERS
SUBJ: Temporary Duty Orders
Report NLT 15 14:50-15:35 15 Jan 1941
Certification as to availability of government quarters is required.
You are directed to read, to gain an understanding of and comply with
Class A Base Procedures 8818.1 (series C) prior to arrival.
Cost of this TAD is chargeable to appropriations.
Upon completion of PRC processing you will report directly to: TBD
A rush of fear came over Jax from the greater reality of his planned impersonation. This soldier was British. Jax would need to use a fake British accent. That was not a problem. He had lived here so long he was already developing one anyway. But the thought of that deceit made him realize the depth of his deception.
There was no choice about this. This wasn’t even his time. There wasn’t any place to go. If Skyla showed up perhaps there could be an escape. If not, he would need to survive for up to th
ree years until she and the Z-particle device reappeared. The whole thing was too complicated to even consider right now. The after effects from the concussion were not helping. He needed to stop playing this over and over in his mind.
Jax looked up from his orders to find an MP standing in front of him. The man wore a white helmet with “MP” on it. He wore a grey uniform with a belt over one shoulder, a sidearm, and knickers. He smiled and nodded to Jax.
“I’m your ride, Mr. Kent. People call me Dutch. My orders are to deliver you to the PRC and remain on standby to take you to number 4 EFTS in Brough, Yorkshire. Can you walk alright?”
Jax flushed as he realized he was looking a new reality in the face. With shaking hands he refolded his orders and struggled to put them back in his breast pocket. He stood with a bit of a sway that alarmed the MP.
“Maybe one hand under an arm might be a good idea, Kent. They would have liked to keep you here longer but they need the bed. The PRC has been ordered to make short-term accommodations for you.”
With that the MP slipped one hand under Jax’s upper arm and led him along the row of beds to the exit.
Outside, it was morning and the rising sun was bright. Jax had to shield his eyes with one unsteady hand. He paused to look around and Dutch patiently cooperated. They were crossing a dirt parking lot that had once been the foundation of a large building. There were several cars parked along the way and just as many bicycles. Farther ahead a portion of the city came into view. Cars, bicycles, and people were going about their business on the street. Across the crowded street, Jax could make out the Hancock building, five stories with large columned windows on each floor. Next to it was the Stoves building, six stories with tall domed windows. Both buildings were grey and well dusted but fully intact, but across the street from them were bombed out buildings of which only the foundations were left. Piles of broken concrete with rebar sticking out filled the empty spaces, although some steel framework remained standing.