The Sphere: A Journey In Time

by Michelle McBeth

  "We're going to rebuild this place. Noah and I will be in charge. You can stay, you'll never have to destroy another person's mind again, I can promise you that."

  When she looked up her face was clearly marked with pain. "I can't stay here. Now that I'm free to go-there are just too many memories here that I'd prefer to leave behind. I'm not proud of a lot of what I've done." She looked apologetically at us. "I'm sorry. There are other doctors here who can take my place. I'll leave copies of all my work, but I have to get out of here."

  I thought about how Jim had the same reaction, the unwillingness to continue at this place now that they were able to leave with no repercussions. I nodded slightly. "I understand."

  Doctor Crebbs’s eyes welled up before she turned away from us. I led Daphne and Noah to the other side of the room and through the door. The lights of the White Box were blinding. "Well at least we'll never have to use this room again." I turned to Daphne and gave her an apologetic look.

  "This is where you made people come back?" She seemed appalled.

  "Well the padding would protect people when they collapsed, and the mats were easy to clean up if someone vomited. Plus the lights made it easy to see if you brought back anything you shouldn't have and-"

  "Enough!" She held up a hand to stop him. "Let's rip this out and put in some plants or something can we?" She looked uncomfortable in the room.

  I couldn’t blame her. The mats on the floor still struck me as looking moldy, and for the first time ever I noticed another door on the other side of the room. I walked over to it but it wouldn't open. Noah came and stood next to me. “That’s where they take our stuff away to inspect it. That must be where they store the sphere too.”

  “That would explain why it’s locked.” I sighed. There were a lot of places that we’d have to explore, and my last expedition hadn’t gone well. I wanted to go into the rooms off Doctor Lancing’s office and see what they were like now. I wondered if Eliza would already be in that hospital room.

  "Come on, Adelaide. We have a few more things to deal with." Noah left the room, and Daphne and I followed him back through the examination room and the other return rooms to the hall. We turned left and continued onward.

  I stopped Noah again in front of a door that I knew was the boardroom. It had been locked the last time I was here. Noah looked at me in confusion. "I don't want to go in there," I told him. It was not just the fact that I knew the board was dead, it was also the unease from my only memory of being in there.

  "That's okay. I’ll check it out." Noah squeezed my shoulder and took a deep breath before opening the door. Daphne and I leaned with our backs against the wall facing away from the door. Noah went in and the door closed behind him. He was only in there for about half a minute when he reemerged, his face grim.

  "Well?" I asked him.

  "They're not in there, but I'm pretty sure you still don't want to go in."

  "If the bodies aren't in there, how do you know the board is dead?"

  "Trust me, nothing that had been in there survived. Come on, let’s find Doctor Lancing."

  I stopped at a door that was familiar to me, but it took a few moments to remember why. This was the door I had noticed just a few days ago, where the older version of Noah had been kept a prisoner. "Montgomery," I whispered. I stepped towards the door and paused. “Noah, I think you should wait out here.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I have something rather personal to deal with. I can explain it later. Daphne.” She stepped up beside me as I made to open the door.

  “Wait, she’s allowed to go in but I’m not?”

  “Noah please, just wait.” I opened the door and pulled Daphne in after me.

  Montgomery was lying on the bed. He looked weak and exhausted. I ran into the room and knelt by his bed. Daphne lingered by the doorway. "Montgomery, I'm so sorry."

  "Adelaide,” he said in barely a whisper. “I knew you'd come back for me.” He glanced at Daphne in the doorway. “What's going on?"

  "It doesn't matter Montgomery, we're sending you home."

  “Adelaide,” Daphne broke in, “are you sure you can trust him not to talk about this place?”

  I looked back at Montgomery. He nodded and I smiled. "Not like anyone would believe you anyway, hey? Okay. Let's get you back home." I took his hand and helped him up. Daphne walked over and handed me the box as I heard the door slam and looked to the sound to see Noah.

  "Who the hell is that?" Noah had followed us. I should've known he wouldn't have listened to me.

  I looked at Daphne. "His study, a few moments after he disappeared. Can you see it?"

  She closed her eyes and was still for a few moments. I watched as the spark of recognition ignited the rage inside Noah.

  “Daphne.” My voice both pleaded and warned her at the same time.

  She held her finger up to silence me. She would be taking us into a split she hadn’t yet traveled in herself, but could at least see now. "Go."

  "Good." I gripped his hand tighter and hit the button. We stood for a moment. I put the box down and let go of his hand, ready to catch him if he should collapse. How long had he been a prisoner in the lab, I tried to remember. Three weeks? "You're home." His frame trembled a little before he collapsed onto the floor and burst into tears. I knelt on the floor beside him, put my arm around him and tried to steady him. "Montgomery I am so sorry for everything that happened to you. I can only promise you that it will never happen to anyone else and we will never bother you again."

  He tried to contain his emotions and pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket while wiping his eyes with his shirt. He handed it to me with a shaking hand. I barely had to open it to realize it was the note I had left for him.

  When I wrote it, I had thought for sure it was full of lies. I tried to keep my face pleasant as I stood back up. "I have to go."

  He nodded. I grabbed the box off of the table. I opened it, but following an impulse I didn’t quite understand, bent over to kiss his forehead before pushing the button to return to the lab.

  "All good?" Daphne asked.

  I nodded.

  Noah had had a small outburst. A chair was overturned in the room and he was raging about, yelling about his right to a real life.

  I had now seen three different versions of Noah. It was interesting how his experiences and memories had shaped the man he was. "What did you expect?" I yelled at him.

  He stopped short. Daphne glanced nervously between us, I could tell she was uncomfortable with this version of Noah. She didn’t quite know what to expect from him.

  I continued my rant, "Did you think he'd be happy to see you? Like you'd be one of his sons and you could hang out together and it would make up for him losing his entire family?"

  Noah glared at me. "It's not that. I would never want that life. Never. No matter what that man said to you. You should have let him stay."

  I glared at Noah, but I didn't want to fight with him. I knew he'd claim that he knew himself better than I did, and there would be no winning that argument for me. I left the room with the calm silence and air of someone with the absolute certainty that they had just done the right thing, Daphne hurrying after me.

  Noah barged back into the hall after me, turning to head back to the living dome.

  “Noah!” I yelled.

  He hesitated and turned back to look at me, a scowl still on his face. “What?”

  His anger disarmed me. I needed his support in this. “Please. We still have to deal with Doctor Lancing.”

  Noah hesitated. He knew he wouldn’t be needed for this part of the plan either, but the desire to see the man who had made his life a living hell was too strong to resist. He also saw the fear in my face, and drew himself up to demonstrate his courage. He walked past us and continued on down the hall, leading the way. He stopped short as he rounded a corner and his eyes narrowed. The two of us hurried up to him to see what made him stop.

  He stood there, at the e
nd of the hall in front of the closed door to his office as though he had been waiting for us. He looked completely calm yet there was something in his eyes that I found unnerving. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly in a lopsided cross between a vicious smile and a deadly frown. "Adelaide MacDuff." His voice sounded ancient though he looked to be no more than twenty.

  I froze. Though his voice betrayed no trace of a southern drawl, I recognized it, and him, from our conversation on the road. A chill crawled up my spine. He had known who I was, even back then. Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance? I realized that was in the future, in a different timeline that no longer included me. This man would never have that chance.

  Noah leaned towards me, a bit of smugness in his voice. "He's just a man, Addy."

  Daphne moved forward to stand at my side. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, took a deep breath and walked forward slowly. "Doctor Lancing."

  He stepped forward as well and we slowly started to cover the length of the hallway. "I knew you'd show up at some point."

  My immature side wanted to respond with a chiding remark, but I knew better than to give anything away. I remained as silent as possible and tried to keep my breathing steady.

  "It's like a drug, isn't it?” he asked. “The power of the sphere." I still said nothing. "It's how I got you all to obey. Best not ask too many questions, don't make too many waves? Heaven forbid you be denied access to your venerable sphere."

  My fear abated slightly at his mocking tone. Now I was just getting annoyed. I felt a renewed confidence and answered his mocking with a slight eye roll. I shouldn't have given away my position. He re-adopted his silent stare and again I was unnerved. It seemed like he knew something I didn't. As though he already knew my plan and had a way to stop it.

  We stopped a couple of feet away from each other. He was unarmed, but he gave off the air that he could kill me with a thought. Though he was not a large man, there was an impression of enormous power in his frame. I was struck immobile by my irrational fear and tried to calm my breath. I thought about Eliza, and the vision of her torturing Noah. I felt Daphne's presence at my back.

  "Who's your little friend?" he asked.

  I kept silent still.

  His eyes ran over me and paused at my right hand. There was a moment of hesitation in his countenance, and I tried to cling to that. "What's in the box, Addy?"

  I inwardly cringed at his use of my nickname. I raised the box with my right hand, opened the lid and glanced in, keeping the opening away from him so he couldn't see inside. My breathing accelerated, and the corners of my mouth crept up slightly. "Nothing," I breathed.

  In an instant he cleared the distance between us and wrenched my wrist to turn the box around and see inside. His grip was wiry like that of an old man who has worked with his hands all his life, and the fingertips dug painfully into my forearm. He looked at the empty box and looked up into my face, confusion wracking his features.

  His eyes widened and he let go of my wrist, but it was too late. Daphne released my shoulder and took a few steps back, keeping the lid to the box in her hands open and cradling it close to her, her thumb poised over the button. I dropped my empty box on the ground and looked around at the circle of people surrounding us. They had torches and were dressed in dark cloaks that hid their faces from us. “Sarah?” I called out. I stepped slightly away from Doctor Lancing and Daphne followed me. He whirled around, trying to figure out what was going on. I took advantage of his confusion to further increase the distance between us.

  Sarah moved forward from her place in the circle and pulled her hood back down so I could see her face. She held up her left hand and gently waved a wrinkled piece of paper. I recognized it as the note I had tucked into the back of Noah’s journal. It crumpled slightly in her hand as her grip tightened in rage. “Is this the man?”

  I responded in a raised voice so Doctor Lancing would be sure to hear me as well. "Delivered, as promised. This is the man who will deceive you and kill many of your people. Do with him as you like." I turned to grab Daphne’s hand and watched his face twist with rage as the torches closed in on us. He leapt forward to try and grab us, but landed in empty space.

  Back in the hallway, Noah saw the pang of guilt on my face. "He may have just been a man, but he was a downright evil one." He walked down the hallway to rejoin Daphne and me, and patted me roughly on the back. “You did the right thing.” He was always quick to forgive me. “Now let’s fix this pigsty up so we can get back to work!”

  Chapter 24

  Noah started heading back to the entrance, toward the main living dome. “Wait a second, Noah?”

  He stopped and turned to look at me again.

  “There’s something else I want to check out, that was here when I was here in the future.” I half expected him to want to come with me again, but he nodded and continued back down the hall.

  “I’ll see how the remaining folks are taking the news,” he said. Daphne glanced toward him and back at me.

  “You can come if you want.” I had no idea what to expect, but I didn’t want to force her to go with Noah if she wasn’t comfortable with him. “Okay then,” I said, when she stared at me silently.

  I led her through the door at the end of the hall, feeling a bit more confident now that I knew Doctor Lancing was out of the picture. The lights were already on, so nothing changed as we walked through the door. We went over to the dormitory first. Beds were untidy, as though they had recently been slept in and hastily made. There were a few more pictures of children still sitting on bedside desks. “What is this place?” Daphne asked me.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Some sort of dormitory for children. Maybe the children they kidnapped to be programmers.”

  Daphne shuddered beside me.

  “And more.” I walked over to the picture of Eliza with the ball and looked at it again. I had thought it had been taken shortly after she had tossed it in the air, but now I knew, she was levitating it. I showed it to Daphne. “This girl---I met her in the future.”

  Daphne took it in her hands. “How did you recognize her if she was so much older?”

  “Well that’s the thing, she wasn’t older.” I let Daphne absorb the information. “Also, I’m pretty sure she’s levitating that ball in the picture.”

  Daphne laughed once. Then quickly quieted and looked at the picture with trepidation. Her breathing accelerated. “Levitating?” She handed the picture back to me.

  I nodded. “I don’t think time travel was the only abnormal thing going on around here.” I placed the picture back on the desk and turned to the door. “Come on, let’s see if she’s still here.”

  Daphne didn’t move. “Adelaide.”

  I turned back. “What is it?”

  “I’m frightened.”

  I smiled and thought of my own unnerved feelings from my last trip in here. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” I said, trying to reassure her. After all, I told myself, she’s just a young girl. “Come on.” I took Daphne’s hand and she let me lead her out of the room and back into the office. We walked over to the door to the hospital room when I turned back to her. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “I believe that girl in the picture is in there.”

  Daphne shook her head and backed away, her eyes widening. “No. I don’t want to see her.”

  “Okay. I’ll just be a few moments.” I tried to give her a courageous smile and opened the door. I quickly entered as I heard the soft beep of machinery and closed the door. Eliza was there. She looked exactly the same as I remembered. “This can’t be,” I whispered to her. I could see the cable coming out of the back of her head but kept my distance. My eyes fell once again on the helmet. I walked over to the chair and lifted the helmet out of it. I took a deep breath to try and steady my nerves and was about to place it on my head when I heard Daphne scream my name. “Daphne!” I yelled and let the
helmet drop back into the chair.

  My heart sped and I ran back to the door into Lancing’s office. My eyes scanned the room but I couldn’t see her anywhere. “Daphne!” I yelled again.

  “Adelaide!” Her voice was coming from the hall.

  I ran out into the hall. She stood at the end, torn on where to go. “It’s Noah!”

  I sprinted to meet her and the two of us ran through the halls back towards the entrance. I heard Noah call my name along the way and called out to him, “Noah!”

  We turned the last corner and saw him a few feet from the entrance, a gun in his hand, pointed at the doors. A group of about a dozen people were pressed around them, banging their hands on the glass. “Noah, what’s going on?” I asked as we approached his position.