by Brad Raylend
It was now almost 7 a.m. The sun was climbing higher in the sky and more people were walking around the quiet town. Todd peered around the corner at what he believed to be the doctor’s office and spotted the saloon. He chuckled at the sight of the cliché double swinging doors at the entrance. Using thermal vision, he looked inside over the top of the double doors. He magnified the image, seeing at least two individuals inside. He imagined busting in through the doors, causing the typical piano tune to stop mid play and every drunk cowboy to look up in disapproval, slowly reaching for their six shooters. The humorous thought eased his mind and helped him think of a more realistic alternative. He noticed a parked wagon on the side of the building full of wooden crates. He could climb up this and use it to get to the roof where he would sneak into a window on the balcony. Hopefully he could snag something to wear out of a dresser or closet of one of the guest rooms. As for his suit, he would have to cloak it and stuff it in a barrel or crate outside.
Todd was about to get up and make his way to the side of the saloon when a tall man wearing a brown duster coat and black felt hat came stumbling out of the double doors. Todd observed him as he stopped at the hitching post and leaned over it, dry heaving without any payoff.
Todd laughed inside his helmet. “Good God, it’s seven in the morning, bud.” The man stumbled out into the main road and walked over to the side of the building where the wagon was hitched. Todd watched him as he struggled to climb up on the wagon with little success. The wagon itself had no horses connected to it, and Todd doubted it even belonged to him. Todd got up very calmly and strolled across the street to the drunk man, who was picking himself up from his second attempt to ascend the wagon. Todd walked up to him, so close that he could see his eyes drifting off as he stood up, his upper body making small orbiting motions.
Todd removed a small anesthetic injector from his kit and grasped it with his right hand; with his left, he pulled down the man’s collar, giving himself some room to work with. He stuck the injector in his neck and the man grunted and fell over unconscious. Todd looked around to ensure nobody had seen the man’s sudden collapse; then he dragged him by his arms to the back of the wagon. He felt a hint of pity as he removed the man’s coat and boots. He pulled off the dark duster and held it up; it was a little too small to try and throw it over the armored suit. He removed his helmet and placed it on the bed of the wagon, using the lens as a mirror. It was still far too obvious that he was wearing the suit underneath. He sighed and looked down at the man. He wore a light blue blouse with a loose bandana around his neck, and over his trousers he wore leather chaps.
Todd realized that he was going to have to take it all in order to fit in. A few minutes later, the man lay beneath the wagon with nothing but his long johns. Todd stood looking at himself in the reflection of the helmet. He looked like a real cowboy, with the exception of the modern-day pistol that he wore back behind his hip, hidden by the long duster coat. The only thing he didn’t like was the hat. It was obnoxiously large and the front curved up in a way that he imaged an old dusty prospector would wear it. He returned the hat to the man, placing it over his face. He connected the helmet to the neck of the suit and activated the cloaked mode. He then placed them in a wooden crate on the back of the wagon. He messed up his hair a bit, to better look the part, and headed for the double doors of the saloon.
The long spurs on the boots he wore jingled with every thunderous step made by the heavy boots. He grinned at this. He pushed through the double doors to reveal the interior of the saloon. As he did so, every person in the saloon stopped talking and looked at him. He walked up to the bar and scanned behind it for the bartender, who was nowhere to be found. He could sense the eyes of the three individuals sitting at the bar to his left. He looked around the interior of the saloon, pretending not to notice the men staring at him. The bar was a polished oak with dark stains across it. The shelves behind the bar were shallow and held a small variety of drinks that ranged from bourbon, scotch, and what he assumed to be tequila. There were a few circular wooden tables set out in the middle of the saloon and a group of men sat at one of them playing cards. A man who Todd assumed was the bartender, since he was wearing a white dress shirt with a thin bow tie and bands on his arms above the elbows, was taking the chairs off the remaining tables. The man either didn’t notice him, or didn’t bother looking up.
“Excuse me!” Todd said strongly, trying to intimidate the men at the bar with his commanding voice.
Without looking up, the bartender replied, “What can I do ya for?”
Todd froze for a second; it was the first time he had heard someone from this time period say anything and he marveled in the moment.
“Uh, I was wondering if you could help me find someone,” he said, trying to maintain his commanding demeanor.
The bartender was in the midst of placing a chair on the ground when he met Todd’s eyes. He dropped the wooden chair on the hard floor. “Look, Mister,” he said, putting his hands in the air as if to keep Todd calm. “I don’t want no trouble …”
Todd looked at him with his eyebrow cocked. “No trouble, I just need your help finding some—”
One of the men at the bar interrupted. “You said you’d be gone, after the last time,” the man said, a small stream of tobacco leaking from the corner of his mouth into his thick beard.
Todd looked at him in confusion for a moment. He then began to grasp the situation and tried to find a way out of it.
“My older … twin brother came through here a while back. I reckon you must’ve heard something as to where he might’ve been going.” Todd did his best to sound Western-like.
The man continued to glare at him. “Your older twin brother?” he said in disbelief.
Todd cursed in his head for not having planned his story better, then came back with a quick rebuttal. “Uh yeah, he came out of my ma a few minutes before me, so technically he’s the older one.”
The bearded man spat a wad of tobacco into the tin at his feet. “Have scars on his face, did he?”
“Yup, he got those while fighting a Chinese feller by the name of Jackie Chan, during his work on the railroads.” Todd was doing his best to maintain a serious expression.
The man looked back at the two sitting next to him. They nodded at each other, then he turned back to Todd, who was standing with his thumbs in his belt buckle.
“Goddamn Chinamen,” he said, shaking his head, “carved that brother of yours up pretty good.”
Todd smiled. “Any idea where he went? Ma and Pa are worried.”
One of the other men answered. “He said he was headin’ west, last time I seen him. He had just finished a tussle with one them Moore boys who rustle cattle a few miles of here.” The man took a swig of his dark drink and winced. “That’d been about …” He looked over to one of his companions, “whaddaya you say? Two … three weeks ago?”
The two others nodded in agreement and looked back at Todd, who was displeased with this news. He was hoping to have only missed him by a few days. Several weeks, and he could be hundreds of miles in any direction by now. And finding him in this day and age would require primitive techniques and a lot of asking locals.
He looked back at the bearded man, who still had his gaze on him. “Who’re these Moores you mentioned?” Todd asked.
“There’s four of ‘em; they’re ah bunch of assholes. Four rotten brothers, runnin’ around with a group of fellow rustlers from all over. They’re no Stockton gang, but a bad bunch for sure.”
“How many of them are there?”
The man pondered for a moment then replied, “Ah, I reckon thirteen or so. Maybe only twelve now.”
“Why’s that?”
The man chuckled. “Well, that brother of yours busted up the younger one, Winston, pretty bad the last night he was here. The little shit had been gettin’ rough with one of the workin’ girls and your brother knocked nearly all his teeth out. Busted up his nose real bad too.”
&nb
sp; Todd breathed out quickly through his nose, humored slightly. The bartender was behind the bar now, leaning up against it. He chimed into the conversation. “You look a lot alike, you and him … besides all the scars he’s got.”
Todd nodded. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
The three men chuckled. Todd thought about the change to the mission that had just presented itself. He not only would have to track his same-self through nineteenth century America, he now had an outlaw gang out looking for him. If they even saw Todd, they would most likely mistake him for York.
Todd got as much information out of the three men as he could. He asked them about the weather he would most likely encounter as well as best methods of travel and what areas to avoid. From what he had gathered, York had most likely traveled west to a nearby town.
“Do you know where I can get a horse?”
The bearded man looked confused. “You ain’t got a horse?” He chuckled. “What’d you do, fall out of the darn sky?”
Todd grinned and shook his head. “My horse was stolen. I’m looking to find another so I can start headin’ west.”
The three men pondered for a moment, then the third man at the end who had been the least talkative spoke. “There’s a rancher by the name of McWilliams, he lives about a day’s ride south of here. He breaks in wild horses for a livin’. Maybe he could help ya.”
Todd nodded, then thought about the statement “a day’s ride.” What the hell was a day’s ride? Twenty, thirty miles? He sure as hell wasn’t about to go on foot, but he also wasn’t about to ask these men for a lift. He decided to end the conversation here. He thanked the three men for their help and said goodbye. He headed back out into the town, which was much livelier. People were all around, strolling down the streets and sitting on porch chairs. The sun was high in the sky, shining down on the town like a movie set. Todd placed his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. The air was crisp and cool, and it swept past him with a hint of sage that brought him back to his childhood. He thought about what his next move would be. He needed to get ahold of a horse so he could start tracking down York, but Todd had never even ridden a horse. He decided he would need to find the Mr. McWilliams the men had mentioned. As for learning to ride, Todd had always been a hands-on learner anyway.
* * *
April 26, 1986
I stood on the roof of a small building on the outskirts of Pripyat. Three klicks away, I could see Chernobyl’s large chimney looming over the dark facility. The night was cool and clear, and crickets scraped their legs, giving a peaceful soundtrack to the moonlit setting. Ukraine had turned out to be quite lovely actually. I inserted during the late afternoon, giving me time to scout out a suitable observation point within the city, where I would detonate. I planted the explosives in Reactor 4 around midnight. It had been a smooth operation, up until that point. I encountered two individuals.
The first caught me as I was planting the explosives. He came up behind me and noticed a strange device that was being tampered with by a transparent figure. I whipped around, causing him to stumble backwards in fear. I drew my pistol and put two rounds in his chest, then one more in his head just to make sure. I continued setting the charge, then pulled his body close to it so that he would be completely vaporized in the blast. The second guy I took out as I was leaving. I was creeping down a long corridor, heading for the door, when he emerged from a side room, reading some notes on a clipboard. He seemed rushed. Apparently, they were running tests of some kind that night. I clocked almost forty workers who were running tests within the facility; fortunately the majority of them were all co-located. I leveled the sights of my suppressed Sig on him, but thought and stopped myself from pulling the trigger. I couldn’t shoot him. If there was any reason to believe that the incident had been a covert operation, the entire event could be used as an act of war, bringing a much quicker WWIII. And even if the operation went as smoothly as intended, the possibilities of conspiracy theories were almost guaranteed.
I holstered my pistol and sprinted towards him. He looked up just in time to see me come out of the cloak and grab him. He screamed in confusion as I muscled him up against the wall. He began to fight back, throwing wild blows to my helmet and kicking sporadically. He was moving around far too much to finish him with a blood choke. Grabbing him by his long hair, I smashed his face into the wall over and over until there was a chunky splotch of blood oozing down it. His nose seemed to disappear into the red mush that was once his face. The explosion would no doubt level this portion of the building, so I didn’t worry about forensics. I dropped him to the ground and continued out into the night.
For the next hour, I ran towards the lights of the populated city of Pripyat, hopping over small fences and running across open fields. When I reached the city, I ascended the fire escape of the building I’d chosen for my OP. I chose to detonate from such a far distance for obvious reasons. I knew the fallout would affect a substantial portion of the region, but had no idea just how devastating it would end up being. I looked down at the MTX; the connection to the explosives was still live. The time was 1:23 a.m. I looked back out into the city behind me that was home to over fifty thousand civilians, all sleeping peacefully, unaware that their world was about to fall apart. My mind went to a familiar place of anger and confusion because there I was, once again ready to sacrifice the lives of possibly thousands so that a generation a few decades from now may live longer than they originally had. I had spent so much time fearing the future that it had become like a cancer within me. For a time, I felt like it was just waiting to resurface and claim my life as it was always intended to do. I looked back down at the MTX. It was now 1:24. I pressed “Detonate.”
I heard the distant boom of the explosion within the reactor and then saw the large orange ball of flames erupt from the top of the facility. I quickly hopped up into the air and pressed “INITIATE” and the explosion disappeared, taking with it the beauty of this place. It was now 2014 and heavy clouds loomed over the dark landscape. I turned and a chill ran up my spine.
There wasn’t a single light on throughout the city. The buildings were a dark gray, overgrown with vegetation and cluttered with rust. Light snow and debris from the endlessly flaking walls blanketed the now untamed ground full of shrubs and the rusty carcasses of vehicles. I scanned the eerie, post-apocalyptic metropolis. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was a real-life nightmare.
The howl of wild dogs let me know of what life remained in the distance. I was now responsible for the deaths of thousands. I would later look over the images of mutilated men, women, and children affected by the radiation.
The images haunt me to this day.
A DAY’S RIDE
Todd walked down the center of the main road like Wyatt Earp on his way to the O.K. Corral. He walked with a purposeful stride that made several heads turn as he passed. The trail to York was about as hot as a day in the North Pole, and Todd was still no closer to obtaining a horse. He checked out the remainder of the town, looking at the different establishments and briefly conversing with the local populace.
The people of this time period, or at least this town, were extremely polite. Every person he met greeted him with a “Hello,” or a “Mornin’, Mister.” He was slightly disappointed that he had yet to receive a “Howdy, Partner.” At the far end of the main road, opposite the saloon, he came to a train station labeled “Silverton Railroad” with a single teller inside. She was an older woman, and she wore a dark blue dress that closed tightly around her neck right under her jawline. She sat behind the wooden desk, a pair of glasses perched on her nose, reading a dusty leather-bound book. Todd walked into the small room and scanned it, then walked over to her.
“Excuse me,” he said calmly. “When is the next train due?”
Without looking up from her book, she answered slowly, “Next train isn’t due until next week. Got held up down south in Farmington.”
“Shit,” Todd mumbled.
“Watch your mouth, young man!” she said, once again without looking up from her book.
“Sorry,” Todd said, feeling somewhat embarrassed.
He left the train station and walked back down the street towards the saloon. He was beginning to feel like his options were running out. He was already a week or so behind York, and he didn’t have a method of transportation. The townsfolk continued going along with their daily routines as Todd calmly walked to the side of saloon where he found his drunken friend still unconscious beneath the wagon. He chuckled to himself, then hopped up on top of the wagon and opened the crate that contained his invisible suit. He pulled it out and set it on the bed of the wagon and began undressing, keeping an eye out for passersby. His body seemed to disappear into thin air as he eased into the suit. Once he was fully in, he felt around the back of the wagon until he found his helmet and put it on. He stuffed his “borrowed” clothes into the large pouch on his pack and clipped it back on to his web gear. Staying vigilant, he softly made his way back down the backside of the buildings towards the south side of town. It proved to be quite difficult as there were many more people he had to tiptoe past. It was fascinating to him to see people of this era living and interacting with each other. They seemed much more vocal and polite to each other than the people of his time.
He reached the end of town and looked at the road that curved southwest out through the mountain pass. He pondered for a moment, thinking about walking. He still was unsure as to what a day’s ride was, and he pulled up the “Navigation” option on the MTX. The large hills surrounding the town imposed a feeling of hopelessness that began to set in on him. Even with the knowledge of the future, and the most advanced technology on his side, he couldn’t escape the hardship of time. He was about to just start walking when he heard the loud patter of hooves coming down the road towards him. He ducked behind a small shrub and saw a wagon being pulled by two horses making its way out of town. Two men sat on the bench, the one on the right holding the reins connected to the bit within the animal’s mouths. Todd studied the contents in the back of the wagon. There were a few crates, along with some personal effects. He could see room back towards the tailgate. If he could do so quietly, he could hop in the back and just ride along for a few miles.