Soul Source: Back and There Again

by Charles Vella

  "You know," Ted said when he'd stopped chuckling. "Jokes would be funnier if you explained them as you told them."

  Tomas was spared answering that one by the opening door.

  "What the hell is that?" Tomas jumped back in his chair as a mechanical...man?...thing?...without a face lurched into the room and clasped its hands together with a small slap.

  "The venture capitalists are here early." The thing, whatever it was, didn't have a mouth so the voice rose from somewhere around it like the fog in an old movie.

  "This is Dutch," Ted said proudly. "I've been working on him with Abe."

  "Abe? The doctor? Why would a doctor help build a robot..." Tomas's words trailed off in horror as he realized he wouldn't need this joke explained.

  "He's a cyborg I've been putting together in my spare time."

  "A cyborg?" Tomas rolled his chair back even further. "You mean to tell me that, that thing's got human parts?" What would the venture capitalists make of that? Their money going to create Frankenstein's monster. He tried to push visions of young men in Armani suits with pitchforks and torches out of his mind.

  "Only some tendons, right now anyway," Ted said, oblivious to the disgust in Tomas's voice as he was to most things. "But I'm treating him as if he'll eventually become primarily human."

  "That's very kind."

  "Don't mention it Dutch. For instance," Ted went on without noticing that Tomas had barely managed to catch himself before his chair tipped over. "I'm making some adjustments to Asimov's laws of robotics."

  "Asimov's laws of robotics?"

  Ted ticked them off on his fingers. "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law." Ted shook his head. "Those obviously can't work for a cyborg. Not without some modification."

  "Obviously." The blank face was turned to him. Was it looking at him? "Are you going to give it..." the thing's head twitched..."er, him, a face?"

  "I mean," Ted went on. "If he's partly human, we can't just subordinate his welfare to some other human, can we?"

  It must be looking. Its head swiveled each time one of them talked. But why'd it need to do that? It didn't have any ears. Tomas shuddered.

  "We can't?"

  Ted sat back down and stared at Tomas in triumph. "The programming's quite interesting. It's all verbal, sort of very advanced machine learning."

  "I see," Tomas said, trying not to look at the blank face. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Why'd he lower his voice? Because the egg-shaped head'd tilted at him when he'd said it? A shiver ran down his spine.

  Ted looked back at him quizzically. "I never thought about it." He turned to Dutch. "Go ahead and tell them we're on our way."

  "Have a secretary do it," Tomas added quickly. The thing nodded. It didn't look offended. Did it? How could something without a face look offended?

  The thing lurched through the door and closed it behind him, it. The last thing Tomas saw was the mechanical hand on the knob as the door closed. He shook his head.

  "Remember Ted," he said as he rose, trying to shake the faceless vision out of his mind. "It's possible."

  Ted rose and they both stopped, turned toward the gentle tap on the door. "What now?" Tomas asked in exasperation. "Come in." The door swung open and Tomas's eyes widened. "Oh my God." He reeled back and caught the edge of the desk with one hand. Fell into a chair just as the migraine exploded in his brain and everything went dark.

  That's the question

  1

  Time Travel Protocol 4-7-2015-a* (Deviations):

  Deviations occur when the present and future change due to an intervention in the past by the chrononaut. (Cross reference Protocol 4-7-2015-b). Deviations are expressed as a percentage and used to describe categories of interventions for administrative and performance evaluation purposes.

  *(Highly Confidential: Paper Copies Only)

  "WAY."

  "NOOO WAAAY."

  Andy's words rode a wave of alcohol-laced breath the width of the doorway, bounced off Britt's numb face, and died against a wall of driving guitars, pounding drums and shouting voices that shook the house. Andy's face was the color of the beet soup mom used to make. Britt hated that soup, but loved the way it made his piss turn red. Britt sucked in beer-soaked air until it felt as if the pressure from his lungs'd pop his eyes out of his head.

  "WAAAAAAAAY."

  Britt drove it out with all the force in his thin chest but the word barely made it from his mouth to his ears over the pounding music in his head. No. That wasn't right. The music wasn't coming from his head. It came from the cavern of a room behind him. He turned toward the sound. White moonlight through two uncurtained windows shone on faceless heads moving up and down, back and forth at the edge of the dark, like spirits dancing their way into hell.

  Britt staggered back. At least he tried to. But his back slammed into something almost before he'd moved. After a few seconds of bovine wondering the concept doorjamb popped into the alcohol fog in his brain, prompted by the other side of the empty door he was staring at. Andy. Andy? Andy'd been there. Right there. Where'd he gone?

  And the girls. The ones they'd been trying to impress by shouting about...what'd they been shouting about? Britt's head swiveled, threatened to take his entire body with it. He caught himself. There they were, slinking away in a huddled mass like a six-legged centipede. Britt caught one rolled eye over a shoulder before she was swallowed by the dark room. Well the hell with them anyway. There's four girls to every boy on this campus. They sent recruiters out to get boys. That's what dad said. College was somewhere even Britt could get laid. Dad knows how things operate. But why'd he have to say it like that? How'd he know Britt was a virgin? Why hadn't he spent more time with Britt? He loved Dad. Dad loved him didn't he?

  Britt shook his head like a kid drying his hair after popping up out of a pool and wiped the stinging in his eyes. His skull throbbed with the base line of whatever that song was blasting over and over. When he stopped shaking his head the room kept going. The floor sloshed back and forth like a bucket of water in a car on a winding road. Britt set his feet and tried to steady himself against the roll, but his stomach abandoned him and tilted with the floor. After a year of college he knew that feeling as intimately as he knew how it felt to show up at an exam hung over and clueless. He turned and stumbled down the rickety steps and into the yard, picking up speed, following the queasiness erupting from his stomach, chased by the driving bass that followed him out into the quiet as if the band were trying to catch him. 'Stop him. He's getting away.'

  People standing around in the dark yard ignored Britt as he stumbled past, his legs trying to keep up with his head and the rising contents of his stomach. He crashed into the tree line swinging his arms around his head in case there were spiders and shit hanging from the branches. He hated spiders and shit. Found the first place that offered refuge for his dignity but a heaving four-legged form'd already claimed it. Crashed further and further back through the trees. He clamped a hand to his mouth to hold it in.

  Lucky it was a small tree. It gave a little and flung Britt back several steps while his mind tried to register what'd happened and figure out how that tree was running away from him into the dark. The force of the collision almost made him forget why he'd come out to the woods, but his heaving stomach was a force of nature that was beyond Britt's curiosity about the tree or the pounding in his head that'd stayed after the music'd died away in the distance.

  Everything he'd eaten since third grade shot out from his mouth in a brown arc that must've traveled ten feet. When the arc spent itself into a dribble he dropped to all fours and heaved in cold air. Seconds, minutes, hours, or days later, couldn't be days because it was still dark and his head sti
ll pounded to the beat of the distant music, he flipped over and pushed with his feet until his back was propped against a tree. Wiped a forearm against his mouth then against the sweat beading on his forehead in spite of the cold, realized he should've done them in the opposite order, wiped his forehead again with his other sleeve. He lay with his eyes closed and listened to his pounding heart.

  "What the hell?" Britt's voice creaked as his eyes widened and for a second he forgot all about his pounding head and lurching stomach. "What the hell?" he murmured again. Then he passed out.

  "What's that?"

  Monica turned her head. Followed Sarah's eyes into the dark. Squinted. Walked over to the form crumpled against the tree.

  "Passed out," Monica said over her shoulder, her voice barely carrying over the pounding music coming from the house beyond the woods. "What's he doing all the way out here?"

  Sarah may've shrugged. Monica couldn't make it out in the dark. "Think he saw us?"

  "Doesn't look like he's seen anything for a while." Monica wrinkled her nose in distaste and stepped back. "Nothing we can do about it except note it for the file." Monica turned and looked off in the direction of the music. "Ready?"

  But Sarah'd already turned and begun walking toward the house, swaying gently in the scanty clothes that outfitting'd put them in. It was cold but archives'd told them they wouldn't see girls in parkas. Monica took another look at the drunk kid slumped shivering against the tree. She fought the urge to intervene, chased the question of whether he'd freeze to death from her mind, turned and followed Sarah toward the house. First trick'd be getting Sarah's thinly veiled curves through a roomful of drunk college boys without her killing one of them. Second'd be trying not to look like Sarah's mother. Sarah's mother? She wasn't that old for God's sake. Barely thirty. Well, almost barely thirty. Anyway, if the rest of them were half as drunk as the kid in the woods no one'd notice if she were a grandmother. And outfitting'd been happy with how she looked or they wouldn't've sent her, although Minnie had spent a lot of time tsking over Monica's make-up, murmuring, "...well. It'll be dark." Monica shook her head, fought off visions of divorced soccer moms chatting up college-age waiters in singles bars and walked shivering after Sarah.

  Sarah stopped at the tree line and waited without turning. Impossible to get lost. The house was almost completely dark but seemed to throb with the music. People, kids, stood around in a dark yard that wrapped in front and around the side. They walked past a kid wearing sunglasses, sunglasses? His black lenses followed them as they passed. Didn't neighbors complain? About the noise? About drunk kids passed out in the woods? No. Because according to research the neighbors were all frat houses and no doubt at the party. The frats'd all moved off campus after the universities'd begun insisting on closed circuit TV cameras. That left the frats free to run without adult supervision and gave the schools plausible deniability. A win-win for modern education.

  Monica caught up to Sarah until their arms were locked together and they stepped across the yard, clinging to each other the way archives'd told them to. Passed through knots of kids with little but alcohol protecting them against the cold. The only interest any of them showed in Monica and Sarah was the occasional hungry glances of drunk adolescents. See. She wasn't that old. They were both being ogled. No doubt about it.

  The house loomed in front of them, its door a mouth shouting thumping bass at them like obscenities. Archives'd briefed them that it'd been a dress in black party for Halloween and so they both wore black dresses, but Monica hadn't imagined the effect of disembodied heads bobbing around in the dark past the door like loose teeth in an open mouth. A sheet nailed above the door with HALLOWEEN 2035 scrawled in dark red paint, running off the bottom to look like blood, shone dully in moonlight filtering through the trees.

  They pushed through the front door into the fog of noise, heat, and alcohol. You could see why the girls clutched each other. They didn't want to be culled from the herd by predators. They managed to bounce their way through the rooms on the lower floor like a slow motion pinball against swaying bumpers until they had their backs pressed against the wall under the staircase. The music was so loud it felt like a physical assault. The heat of half drunk, sexually charged young bodies raised the temperature at least forty degrees from outside and Monica could feel the thin material of her dress start to cling to her sweaty body.

  Kids in adult bodies. Pouring alcohol down their throats. Amazing it didn't happen more often. But it did, didn't it? Happen more often. Much more often than was ever reported. Kept happening in spite of continuous vows by universities to put a stop to it, even though, they were quick to point out, those houses weren't actually on campus so there wasn't much they could do. The lack of college educated men, which Monica could sympathize with, made it even worse. Yes, it was twenty thirty-five and women were still being attacked on college campuses. That must be the reason for the mission. A spectacular case to raise awareness. Why else send them back for a crime that was small potatoes compared to the riots, police killings, and mass murders that normally provoked a mission? Why else send them back in such a hurry and with so little preparation?

  Faces floated in the gloom. Glazed eyes caught Monica's then scanned down her body. She crossed her arms over her chest in spite of the heat. She was old enough to be their mo..., older sister. Maybe a youngish aunt. Monica's eyes swept the room. All the legs springing down from too short skirts were like sticks. She could tell from the looks that hers weren't as skinny as everyone else's. She snuck a hand down and tried to tug the skirt down so it at least covered something. It hadn't been that short when she'd tried it on. How had it...

  "Kenny."

  That skinny geek'd been hanging around outfitting when she'd been fitted. Sarah shot her a quizzical look. Monica smiled encouragingly. Sarah couldn't've heard her over all that noise, could she? Focus. Stay in the here and now. There'd be plenty of time to snap Kenny's scrawny body in two after this was over.

  The party ebbed and flowed around them like a rough sea. How long would they have to stand here and try to look inconspicuous? Monica resisted the urge to project a screen and check the time. Travel'd told them they had a half hour to move from arrival to the staircase. Time to get there without hurrying and let their eyes adjust to the dark. It hadn't seemed like much time in the briefing room but standing here in the pounding music and press of bodies the minutes pulled her down like a cinder block around a swimmer's neck. Then Sarah saw her.

  Monica knew from the force of Sarah's nails digging into her arm. She yanked her arm away and turned toward Sarah, then looked past her. Her stomach knotted and a chill ran down her spine that made her forget about the pain in her arm. There they were.

  No matter how extensive the briefing, and this one hadn't been extensive, it was always worse, much worse, in person. Only a few feet away and she could barely make them out in the gloom. The girl, Sharon, looked small and frail between the two hulking forms half walking, half carrying her up the stairs. Only two. The others must already be upstairs. The witnesses hadn't been clear on who'd been where. Monica's eyes scanned the dark room crammed with drunk kids not paying any attention. Not hard to believe that. She turned back to where they'd made their way up a couple of stairs. Couldn't tell which two they were. She'd seen video of them of course, walking into court in ties and neatly pressed suits. The boys next door. The jury should see them like this. Piggy eyes darting back and forth over Sharon's head in adolescent conspiracy. Their bodies filled the narrow stairwell, radiating heat and sweat, looming over Monica and Sarah as they dragged the girl up the stairs between them like a limp doll they were afraid to break. They rose into a feeble light leaking from the upper floor, blocking it like an eclipse. Feet the size of canoes shuffled and tripped as they carried Sharon, slack jawed, eyes closed, between them. Monica raised her head so that her contact lens camera followed them up. No ambiguity about who was where when they got to court. The video would automatically
adjust to the dark. The jury would see it. All of it.

  They waited until the feet'd disappeared thumping up the stairs. Monica took a look around. No one was watching. No one cared. They'd towed Sharon upstairs like a wrecked car in front of a roomful of people and no witnesses. It'd sounded unbelievable bordering on absurd hearing it on the news and at the briefing. But here, looking at the dark room, the smell of alcohol floating on the air, the pounding music. Most of them wouldn't notice a car driving through the front door. Look at them. Kids. Falling back into adolescence by trying to look adult. Focused on themselves. No one'd noticed Sharon and no one noticed Monica and Sarah following, pressed together so close that Monica could feel Sarah's thumping heart, their shoulders pressed against the wall, eyes on the second floor slowly dropping to meet them.

  They got to the top of the stairs and looked down a long hall. Empty. Well, empty except for the dirty dishes mingled with piles of dirty clothes. Eew. What slobs. Downstairs'd been cleared away to make room for the drunk college students so Monica hadn't gotten a sense for daily life in the frat until they'd gotten up the stairs. Was it like this when their mothers and sisters came to visit? No, but then they didn't get their mothers and sisters drunk and drag them upstairs either.

  The hallway had two doors to the left and four to the right. They'd gone through the floor plan with archives so Sarah moved right as her foot landed on the top step. Monica followed her down the hall, the target door now on their left. Monica laid out a restraining hand but Sarah had already moved into the doorway.

  "They'll see..." Monica stuck her lips against Sarah's ear but her voice trailed away as she got a glimpse inside the room. There wasn't anything to worry about. They weren't paying any attention to anything except the limp form on the bed. They'd worked fast. Even drunks can be efficient if the incentives are right. Sharon lay on the bed, stripped from the waist down. Out like a light she was trying to roll over on her side to sleep while two of them each grabbed an ankle and pulled her legs straight. A third wrestled with her shoulders to get her flat on her back. They grunted with the exertion as they stumbled around and on the bed in the small room while the fourth stood at the end of the bed and tried to pull his pants over his shoes.