by Grant Fausey
"Dangerous," he muttered, answering sure. "Why...."
"Because of who you are. Come in, quickly! Slide the door!" The door slide open and Callen leaped back a step, looking cautiously inside. The room was vast and dark, filled with an iridescent glow. He stepped through entrance, and watched it slid shut behind him.
A woman, supported within the acceleration beam of living light encased the replicant of Sara Jolland. Beside her, incased in a spectral image of a forming his own creation––another of his kind being born of regeneration.
Callen paced before her, wondering if he could touch her with his hand, but he couldn't. It was as if time itself didn't exist. "Jolland," he whispered. "Is that you?"
"Why have you come, Callen?” The image smiled at him. “You take such risks for me."
"Tanna and old Sheers discovered a way to reverse the process, but Tanna killed him before...." Callen stopped, turned away from the glowing light and paced from side to side in front of the chamber. He thought for a long moment then continued. "Before he realized how to restore the universe to its normal path." He shivered. "But I don't..."
Callen backed away. "You're not Sara Jolland, are you? You can't be––"
"Callen," said the woman. "You're so naive The truth lies at the birth."
"You're birth?"
"Recognize the child within, Callen," said another voice. Callen snapped to attention. "In the future even you have recreated yourself as a bounty hunter."
"No––" said Callen as he turned around, coming face to face with Tanna. "I'm no bounty hunter."
"His name is a Jaggard, Callen," alleged the woman. "Only you know his identity."
"Jaggard," remembered Callen. "The cargo?"
Tanna stepped out of the shadows into the glowing light. "You shouldn't have followed me. A clone's life is too short as it is without putting his existence on the line for something you don't understand."
"I understand enough," bellowed Callen. “You're not who you pretend to be. Tanna would never do what you've done."
The rogue took a step closer, crossing in front of the living light chamber. "And neither would you!"
"At least, I have a conscience!"
"Perhaps. But then I have you."
"Me?" Tanna stopped less than a meter from Callen and opened his eyes wide, revealing the burning red light of the Acreen.
"Kellnar––" he realized, speaking out his name.
"You've cloned Kellnar into different forms. Like this thing you're creating now."
"Very perceptive of you. It's too bad your friends aren't here to help you.”
“I've always known there was some intelligence to the process."
"You'll make a good rework," he said, turning his attentions to the obvious target as he hurtled himself at Tanna. The Acreen of Kellnar hit the floor, sliding away in black ooze. The liquid rejoined itself in the living light glowing within the regeneration.
"Oh shit," he mumbled, picking himself up off the floor. "What the hell is that? This is going to be harder than I figured."
"You may possess the skill with which to find me, but you've nowhere near the power to prevent the living death that I have endured for these countless centuries."
Jolland's voice called out again, this time desperation mocking his words. "You must find the real me. Remember, there is really only one of anybody."
Callen backed away from the light, disappearing through the doors into the night while in the shadows, Kristic and Gayla, watched from the eclipse of the corridor with Avenall and Travis. They had found what they had come for.
• • •
Bogar's starship completed its molecular shift traversing time in a blinding amber light to exit the corridor. Its descent spiraled to a soft landing just above the surface, hovering momentarily above the molten ground of a reforming planet.
The starship skimmed across the surface toward a large, floating circular platform, supported by the shoulders of a spherical palace. "Welcome to hell," said the galactic trader to Jolland, taking a moment to readjust the view screen windows. "Looks like you're going to be taking another giant step for mankind as a woman. It's just too bad it's going to take a few million years for anyone to notice your accomplishments."
"This isn't Earth! You can't leave me here," demanded Jolland. "Not here, not alone."
"On the contrary it is, Earth," smiled Bogar talking out of the side of his mouth again. "Besides, I wouldn't think of leaving you here alone. I've already seen to that. In fact, I'm the reason you've been invited to spend some time here." The mounds of blubber around his stomach rocked as he stood up, facing his prize catch. He stuffed his face with gobs of grapes, and continued, "You'll get used to it after spending a little time in conversion.”
"Genetic regeneration," cringed Jolland. "Why?"
The huge man laughed. "I thought that was obvious. It will be a simpler life––a shrub, maybe a meadow, or stream fish. I'm sure it's one even you can endure."
"Maybe you'd like to go with her." Bogar slapped Jonsanna Klue on the back. Jonsanna looked up at the blob, and held his tongue. "I thought not," continued the galactic trader. "Too much of a hobo's life for a bounty hunter. Well––I've another surprise for you. I've another little catch that fits the bill. But I'm afraid she'll be joining you."
Sara Jolland looked at Jonsanna. What Bogar was saying didn't make sense. The perfect plot placed her in restraints. She was the logical choice. What could he possibly have on his mind? Bogar held out his hand for all to see. His henchman entered the chamber with another, somewhat startled Jolland, her eyes burning from the darkness. She smelled of the cargo hold prison. She rubbed her arms; there was still a feeling of unseen crawling inhabitants. She was sick and weak, drained of her will to fight, but she held her head high, proud of what she had done. She smiled at the other Jolland, realizing what her father had meant. She was not alone in the universe. There was something much larger than her own being at stake, and she understood.
Bogar crossed the room with her in tow, watching from the main windows as the cylindrical starship sped across the surface, obscured against the size of the floating regeneration facility, which itself was in transit. Its journey devoured every living thing that existed in the path of the regeneration waves, it reconstitution forming a new matrix. Green valleys, covered with towering forests disappeared at an accelerated rate, returned to an environment of barbaric, hostile origins.
Bogar wanted to spend as little time as possible, so with the diligence of a slimy snail, he gripped both Jolland's by the arm and played a little game of who is going and who is staying.
The platform's docking arms latched onto the ship, securing the gantry. Bogar had other designs that would bring him great wealth and a place in the new Senate, a mechnocrat with power forced or delivered otherwise. He thought himself the man of the hour, even if the glory would only last a moment.
He had the vision; made his choice and Jolland hit the floor, but this time reunited with Jonsanna Klue, even if he was a different version of the original Jake Ramious––An alleged legendary hero from beyond the cascade of the Nexusphere.
Bogar's starship settled in drawn to the station by the docking port cradle. The galactic trader turned to his machines, and raised an eyebrow. This was what he came for. "You may show them in, guards," said an eerie voice from the past. Deep within the facility, Trithen Kellnar awaited the approach of the newcomers. Two tall, nearly life-less drones hovered near the main entrance…imperial guardians at the rear; he walked from the windows, faced the splintered remains of tree machine, Rallumn's biomechanical body stretched out on the floor like a poorly watered garden, and leered at the dissenters.
"You see," he said to the carcass. "I told you your creations would come. I possess her as I possess them all."
"You have yet to realize your dream, replicant," uttered Rallumn. "Not all is as easy as it seems. There is more to the course.”
"And what might that be Wizard, you?"<
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Rallumn's branches slid across the floor, outstretched like some proverbial adventure destined to punish the do-gooder. "I may yet prove of interest to you," the wizard continued. "Soon you will stand alone, and the Nexus will once again turn from within to without, perhaps then you will find the truth stronger than the reality you have imagined."
"You talk in riddles, Trigennian. Not even the calculated mathematical curve of the future can change the fabric of the universes, I command. The junction is at hand, and forever more time and space will overlap with another. This is the Nexusphere, not some laboratory experiment."
"True, replicant, but there is more to timelines than you’re pick-up sticks." The clone laughed, walking the length of the facility's throne room. He turned around to face the newcomers. "The possibilities of Rallumn minuscule tangents had little chance of changing things to come."
"Nevertheless, Replicant," repeated the Trigennian, "your pathways into tomorrow are limited, like the leader you’ve always been. This Earth will return to it's beginning, perhaps once again become a wilderness where man can thrive and flourish. That day will be like no other in the history of the universe, as you will soon see."
The replica of Trithen Kellnar considered his captives, shaking his head. He snorted hardily at the old wizard, speaking in grandiose overtones. "We shall see, Trigennian" he groaned. "We shall see."
––– 47 –––
BOGAR
Bogar watched as the entrance hatch lowered, supported by the strength of the landing dock cradle. The ship's landing supports locked into place and Bogar exited first, followed by his mechanical henchmen who immediately took up guard positions about the entrance to the ship. Jerolda Manchi poked his head out of the hold and looked at Jonsanna and the two Jollands as the started down the ramp. "Oh," he said cautiously. "It seems they've gone off and left us here alone."
"No way," added Tee, bluntly challenging his companion's sense of reasoning. "They aren't that stupid."
"Aren't they," Jerolda Manchi stated very calmly, pointing to the entrance with a flick of his hand. Bogar's pundit mechanical henchman, snarled back at the two tiny living machines. Jerolda Manchi immediately changed his tune. "Maybe not!"
Tee shook his head. Jerolda Manchi flashed red with embarrassment. Tee communicated in a binary code. He sat up scanning the interior of the ship, locating what appeared to be the ship's drive mechanism. He scanned back to the entrance hatch, locating the gangster machines. The numbers changed again, in random patterns. Jerolda Manchi turned to Tee and smiled. "Oh no!" shouted Tee, "Not now!”
Jerolda Manchi became frantic. "You wouldn't––would you? You would!"
"Shit!” he said. “We're taking off!"
The engines began to hum, first as a whimper then a whine. The lead gangster bot stood up in the entrance, bewildered. "What the––" he said wide-eyed, listening to the hum of the starship's engines. Bogar stopped dead in his tracks, turning to look back at his ship. Jonsanna Klue seized the opportunity to escape with Jolland. "Not now," he screamed, tearing down the ramp for the jumping ship.
"This way," shouted Jolland, following the other Jolland over the side of the ramp. "This is the quickest way down." Sara Jolland was right … it was straight down.
"Stop!" The henchmen yelled. Screamed in horror. "Open fire!" They missed of course, and the others disappeared over the railing and dropped into the city below. "Damn," shouted Bogar. "We'd better do better than that!"
Bogar's ship lifted into the air, retracting its ramps and landing supports. The two gangster machines looked each other and screamed, leaping from the entrance. The engines flashed white with thrust, pounding the exhaust against the platform. The blast hit Bogar in the face, striking him evenly in a scorching heat that instantly incinerated him and his assailants. Below, on the platform, the city's streets filled with dust and stale air, the smell of regeneration and frightened. Jolland followed her counterpart Sara Jolland, racing behind Jonsanna Klue into an old world market place. They were in some kind of tree city: A beautiful metropolis on the edge of the Netherlands Nexus.
"Damn," said Jonsanna, coming to a halt in front of a vegetable stand. "Where are we, Baghdad Malunna?"
"Close," answered Sara Jolland. "I think it's Panic–a–Rama."
"Let's get this straight," interrupted the other Jolland. "I take it you two know each other, right?"
"You could say that!"
"Yeah, he's my savior. Damn bounty hunters! There isn't one of them you can bet your life on. Not a one."
"Okay," said Jonsanna Klue, "so I made one little mistake!"
"Little!"
"All right," Jonsanna conceded. "Let's find a way out of here."
"What's that––" again Jolland, interrupted.
Jonsanna Klue turned around, staring at the horizon, passed the city, past the Nexusphere itself to the metropolis of Atlantis; to the distant sky, past the futuristic towers, flying cars and hover railway systems, to the heavens rotating visibly in the morning sunrise.
"New Haven," exclaimed Jonsanna, questioning the vision of his own eyes. Like a giant wheel in space, the artificial solar system size universe, curved majestically across the horizon. It's artificial created central sun at the pinnacle, aligning with the great eye of the Trithen Barrier––the Netherlands Nexus. A beam of energy struck its way across the skyway approximating a sword slicing through the massive regeneration facility a trillion, billion light years away.
The structure shook absorbed in the energy, radiating an expanding ring of brilliant illumination across the surface. The surroundings blossomed in a sparkle that engulfed the planet, expanding across the surface to the heavens leaving ripples in the water, the rings of time continued to expand, drawing the universe nearer to the world of the Triad; to New Haven. The infinite universes of the Netherlands Nexus were collapsing, traversing the corridors of time itself in a reunification of the Universe. Time had reached its point of Jantis Atilies.
Jonsanna Klue and both Jollands stood perfectly still, engulfed by the expanding light, but nothing changed. Time remained the same without custody or conviction. Only the world shifted. The faces looked familiar, caught in a moment of indecision, not knowing whether their world continued to exist, or cease to endure the slippage of time overlapping time.
Bogar's surviving mechanical henchman took charge of his own reality, passing a moment in their lives all to clear. His damaged components survived the disintegrating thrust of the ship's exhaust, and although his master Bogar and counterpart gangster bot were destroyed by the ship's blast. It seemed reasonable to take revenge on his disabler.
Jolland didn't want any part of the idea and the thought of being someone else's captive was anything but pleasing, so when the gangster bot came face to face with her in the moment of madness, it seemed only reasonable for her to act accordingly, escaping back into the illuminated zone. Instantly, the chase was on.
• • •
The light snapped like a rubber band, cracking against an object twice its delicate size until the momentary effect ended and the temporal vortex created by the bending of the infinite universe with the crossroads of the Nexusphere forged a single stream of time, overlapping within itself. The Past, present and future formed all in one place.
Jolland looked behind her, the images blurred as if overlapping pictures taken by some mystical camera cast her vision. Allowing her to see the past, present and the future coinciding at the same moment.
Sara Jolland hurried through the street, down a set of stairs and across the platform into a shop that dead-ended; she was trapped on the lower level of the tree city.
The vortex overlapped the curved metal distorting the surroundings into a blended mass that overextended itself. "Jolland," screamed the mechanical henchmen catching up to her. "If only you understood why it's so important for you to die, Rex."
Jolland stared at the machine, repeating his words. "Rex," she countered. "What’s this had to do with Trinod
Rex?”
"Everythingggg," stuttered the killing machine, facing the wrong wall. The robot refocused, confused as to where Jolland was really standing. He was disoriented by the overpowering sweep of the temporal distortion. His eyes strained, dripping fluid down his cheeks. "Well–– " he said, spinning around to face Jolland from another angle. "It's time to meet your maker."
Jolland twitched and the machine triangulated on her three images, taking a calculated guess at which one was within his reach. It didn't matter which one he struck out at, sooner or later he would find the right one. The machine moved into the attack, blistering smoke out of his abdomen. His gears grinding with the pressures of biomechanical engineering to the end of the line.
Jonsanna Klue reached the edge of the stairs, took in a deep breath and started down the stairs, replayed again and again in his mind the shrill of her voice, the impact of her cry. This was a call of desperation, a plea for help from the nearest available source.
The steps dropped away one by one, under Jonsanna's feet as he leaped to the bottom searching for the right direction.
"Shit," he uttered under his breath. "Which way?"
He looked to the left and searched to the right. There wasn't a sign of violence. No overturned carts, no ruffled traders, or peddlers. The streets where only mildly active, trading suspended for the moments of the temporal overlap. Nothing was being swept up into the vortex, or hurtled away in a tornado. Yet, there was a battle going on, one being fought in a hundred other universes at the same time. The world was an island with only the fringe edges submerged in the stream of time.
Jonsanna Klue's mind bridged the gap, drowning in a sea of desperation. The timely movements had surrendered to reoccurrence, a blending of both ends of the spectrum. The journey to the other end of time was an endless darkness from which all things emerged to form the universe. The light was beyond bright, beyond dark in essence, beyond belief.