He turned back to the craft and froze.
It was gone.
Lying on the ground where he’d expected to see the time machine were several objects he’d not noticed in the craft, possibly items that had been stored in the trunk. One looked like a bag containing clothing. He opened a small pouch and was surprised to find a large supply of copper, silver, and gold coins. He closed up the pouch and examined a third item, which looked like a piece of paper. He flipped it over and noticed writing there, which moved as he touched the surface of the paper. It was a computer, the size and texture of paper, operated by a touch sensor. And the image of it being a letter was a correct one. Will read the note.
Will Stark —
You are reading this at the end of your journey in the time machine, no doubt wondering why the machine has disappeared, why you are in an open field instead of a dense grove of trees near your home, and why you have doubts about the actual nature of your journey.
You see, we’ve known since before we retrieved you from your backyard what your true journey would be, and we knew that, even for one as devoted to duty and family as Will Stark, that simply telling you what needed to be done would frighten any man into avoiding that duty. We say this not as an insult to you, but from the perspective of knowing how great the ask of you would be.
We knew that, in order to complete your journey, you needed to be adequately trained in Energy usage, be well-supplied with nanos, have a basic grasp of the history of the Aliomenti — and not have an Alliance tattoo on your palm. We also believed that you needed to make the decision to climb into the time machine, rather than being forced into it. Our actions since bringing you into the future have been designed to meet these ends. We realized that knowing the true identities of Fil and Angel would lessen the likelihood that you’d make that choice, and as such they hid their identities. Fil, against his every true desire, played the role of one seeking to push you away, invoking guilt and anger where necessary, to ensure that you’d be more eager to leave.
We created an elaborate story about the decisions you might need to make during your journey in time, knowing full well that you’d never need to make any of them. But you needed to recognize that it was not a journey or a mission to take lightly, and thus we pushed various horrific scenarios at you to reinforce this truth.
On the night of the fire, you will, in fact, successfully teleport your wife and son away from an assassin and into a secret underground bunker beneath your home, a bunker created by your wife without your knowledge. She built that bunker for just that occasion, for she knew the attack was coming, and knew that she’d need to teleport the two of them to safety. In the face of the assassin, however, she froze, and but for your action they might have died. You do, in fact, save them.
How is it that Hope could plan to teleport anyone to safety? How did she know what would happen that night?
She knew because someone from the future told her. She could plan to save herself and her son because the woman you know as Hope Stark had been alive for nearly a thousand years before the assassin entered your house that night.
The woman you know as Hope Stark was born in the village where the earliest Aliomenti made their first homes, the first and only child ever born to at least one Aliomenti parent until Josh Stark was born many years later. Hers was not a happy childhood, Will. Her father decreed her to be the one subjected to all manner of experiments to find what exercises, substances, and foods would trigger the Energy they’d seen others use, the one to test if a given substance might be useful or harmful. Her mother fought for her, and the viciousness of that battle tore the village apart. Factions developed supporting husband and wife, but in the end, the greed — the desire of having another to absorb the pain needed to make progress — won out. Her mother died with a broken heart.
This left Elizabeth, as she was known, without a protector. Her health deteriorated, for no one loved her, and her own father watched his own power over the community grow in exchange for his daughter’s suffering. She needed someone to save her, to remove her from her hellish existence. And her hero arrived one day.
Her hero was — and is — you.
You see, Will, the reason that the Hunters and the Leader and all the rest of the Aliomenti know of a mythic hero named Will Stark is because that man arrived in that first small Aliomenti village as Elizabeth celebrated her sixteenth birthday. Unknown to everyone in that camp, Will Stark had just arrived in their area from a different part of the world, and in their time from the distant future. That is why, Will, you are standing in a field in the wilds of England in the year 1018 A.D., armed with clothing and coins appropriate for the time and place. You will guard Elizabeth’s life, not just in the near term, but for the next millennium, for she must survive to meet a young man named Will Stark in the twenty-first century. She must survive to give birth to Josh and Angel. And she must survive to ensure that the events of the night of the fire come to fruition, to ensure that Will Stark, a man born in the late twentieth century, is in a position to be carried into the future, trained, and sent to the past.
Would any man willingly make the decision to live a thousand years in the past, guarding the woman he loves yet unable to marry her, so that his future self can do so? We know of a man who did so, though he was deceived into doing so. Yet we believe that his love for her was so genuine that he would choose to make that sacrifice. It is easy to give your life for those you love in death; it is far more challenging to give your living in the same cause. You may see our dilemma; we needed you to be prepared for a mission of great significance in the past relating to saving your wife, but we couldn’t know if you’d make the decision if you knew the whole truth. We hope you forgive the deception. The decision needed to be made, for you, Will Stark, are a critical piece of history, and it is a mission you needed to undertake.
We have supplied you with clothing and coins appropriate to this region. This paper will periodically provide you with key information through your journey. Our first is this: the village with the early Aliomenti is to the west. Remember: you have yet to meet anyone in that village, no matter how familiar they might seem. You know nothing of Energy. And Elizabeth is not your wife. You must take the time to develop your back story, acclimate yourself to this time, and set out.
We have ensured that nothing visible or tangible from the future, save for this paper, remains behind. You do not have a gun or a flying craft. You do have a massive swarm of nanos, for your future clothing and the whole time machine are now part of your arsenal. Use them — and your hidden, Shielded skills — wisely.
We wish you well in your journey, Will Stark. We beg your forgiveness for our deception. And we look forward to speaking to you again in our present, your future, at a time of your choosing.
Adam, Angel, and Josh
P.S. Josh nailed the assassin with a fastball that night. He learned well.
Will spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to process what he’d just read.
It explained his inability to teleport to his home, as the building wouldn’t exist for a thousand years. He glanced at the bundle of clothes and the pouch of money. They’d at least prepared him for those essentials. The letter told him that he should travel to the west, for that was where Hope — no, Elizabeth — lived, and she needed his help.
For her, he truly would do anything, even live a thousand years to protect her from harm.
Will went to the pile of clothes, removing the nanos from his body. They joined his full original allocation, along with those which comprised the time machine. He donned the outfit in the bag, not without some difficulty as the style was completely foreign to him. He picked up his money pouch, and put his paper computer from the future in a pocket. Using the sun as a guide, he oriented himself to the west, toward his destiny, and towards Hope.
The journey of a thousand years would be taken one step at a time.
His mission established, his duty accepted, he moved forward. One step at
a time.
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed the ongoing saga of Will Stark and the Aliomenti. To find all of the books in the series, check here.
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Thanks again!
Alex
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Other Books by Alex Albrinck
The Aliomenti Saga
Book 1: A Question of Will
Book 2: Preserving Hope
Book 3: Ascent of the Aliomenti
Book 4: Coming in 2013!
Copyright (c) 2012 by Alex Albrinck. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact [email protected].
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Question of Will Page 31