The Gatespace Trilogy, Omnibus Edition

by Alan Seeger

  Things did not go so smoothly with his mother.

  Oh, the tears his mother had shed, the way she’d wailed that he would get to Los Angeles, get into drugs and all of that money would go up his nose or into his arm, and they’d never see him again because he’d die alone in some seedy apartment or back alley, a filthy, disease-ridden junkie.

  Despite his assurances to the contrary and promises that he would see them at least a couple of times a year, his mother cried non-stop right up until the time he finished loading the white late model Suburban that he’d bought the day before, said his goodbyes and pulled out of the driveway.

  Now, two days later, Brad was driving down Interstate 15 toward southern Nevada. He’d been on the road for about ten hours that day and was still a good six or seven hours from L.A. He planned to stop for the night in St. George, Utah; he could see the lights of the city up ahead in the distance. He would have a good dinner, get a motel room and watch some TV, play his acoustic guitar for a little while, and then get a good night’s sleep; no party boy, he. Tomorrow he would snoop around Vegas for just a little bit, maybe stay the night there as well, or maybe not, and then move on to L.A. the next day.

  CHAPTER 15

  2802

  “Get a move on!” the stranger with Uncle Andrew’s face barked at Calliope. “You are late again, as usual. You know that I was assigned to make sure you aren’t tardy to your assignment any more. One more time and there will be consequences.”

  That didn’t sound promising. Callie hurried through getting dressed, self-conscious because the man who wasn’t Uncle Andrew was standing there, giving her no privacy whatsoever. Then he rushed her out the door, down the hall and out to a waiting vehicle where four other people waited impatiently.

  “What’s the deal, Sullivan?” asked one of the men in the car. “Are you trying to get us all in trouble?”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, still confused. What was going on here? This wasn’t her life!

  The Uncle Andrew lookalike climbed behind the wheel of the car and they roared off down the road toward a large grey building. The sky was grey, her clothing and that of everyone else was grey, the vehicles, the buildings — all a dull, dead shade of grey. What in the world had happened to the familiar setting she’d lived in yesterday?

  They arrived at the building, where they all filed in and Calliope discovered that they were all workers in a factory, working on an assembly line, manufacturing some sort of mechanical equipment that she couldn’t even begin to identify. The work was simple enough, and Callie quickly fell into the routine, but after a couple of hours it began to become mind-numbingly monotonous.

  “How long do we —” she started to ask the person next to her.

  “NO TALKING,” said an echoing, amplified voice that seemed to be blasting directly into Callie’s ears. She flinched and went back to work.

  After several hours of this, the same voice announced, “MEAL BREAK.” All the workers filed into a dining hall of sorts where they were fed some sort of bland, beige gruel that looked like oatmeal but lacked any real flavor. The break lasted only about fifteen minutes, and then the same voice announced that it was time to return to work.

  Callie was shocked at the short break, and started to say so, but was interrupted by the same voice, which said, “SULLIVAN. NO TALKING.”

  When at long last the workers were dismissed for the evening, Callie stumbled out of the factory. She declined a ride home and made her way down a certain, seemingly familiar street, hoping to find the answers she sought at one particular door.

  BOOK TWO

  CONFUSION

  Distant thunder rumbles 'cross the prairies

  Summer lightning flashes thru my soul

  I can't believe what we're becoming

  It's about to make me lose control

  Because the heart of Amerika is bleeding

  I can't believe all the selfish things we do

  Saying to a generation, you're just cannon fodder

  We pull the strings, and you don’t have a clue…

  “Heart of Amerika,” Brad the Bard

  CHAPTER 16

  2020

  Colorado’s Republican Senator Christopher Ferguson woke up in his suite at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, less than ten miles from his sprawling log cabin home in the mountains outside the city. He had decided to remain in town all week for quick and easy access to any news teams that might want a last minute interview during the final days leading up to the election.

  As it was a Wednesday morning, Ferguson rose and donned a dark blue jogging suit and running shoes. He rode the elevator downstairs with his Secret Service detail, two of whom were similarly attired. There, his motorcade waited to whisk him to Washington Park, some four and a half miles to the south, where he would spend about two hours alternating between a brisk walk and a jog. At 61 years of age, his hair was a silvery white, but he was hale and strong, and proud of it. The Fergusons came from strong Scot bloodlines, and few in his family had ever suffered from heart ailments or cancer. More than thirty years ago, he had made up his mind that he wouldn’t be the first, and began walking or running several times a week, including a five-kilometer jog every Wednesday morning. When Ferguson went to Washington, first as a Congressman at the age of 33 and then as Colorado’s junior Senator in 2004, he continued to make sure that, come what may, he got his running time in, whether it was in a park, an indoor running track or a treadmill in a workout room.

  On this particular morning, he was in a good mood. Despite the shaky administration of his predecessor, the polls were slightly in his favor — Reuters had it at Ferguson 48 percent, Winter 46 percent. The Libertarian Party’s candidate, Leroy Atwater, was polling at just over one percent, and it seemed that five percent of the people were still undecided — apparently there were still a few voters out there that withheld judgment until the last minute.

  The entourage arrived at Washington Park at 8:59 AM. Ferguson was finished with his run at 9:37, and when he arrived back at the limo, he discovered that several local news stations plus CNN and MSNBC had reporters there, asking him to take a few moments to comment on the campaign, the Paris economic summit, and other issues. Never one to be accused of missing an opportunity, Ferguson spoke at length about the shameful manner in which the Pan-Asian Alliance had neglected the necessity of dealing with the emerging global economic crisis, and the way in which he, as President, would coax them into rejoining the world effort to rein in the out-of-control money woes of the planet. They had stood there in the parking lot of Washington Park for more than twenty minutes. Then Ferguson walked toward his waiting limo, looking forward to a hot shower, a cup of coffee and his one real vice, a breakfast pastry. It was 9:59 AM.

  Just then something in the northern sky caught his eye. He looked up to see an object that had the appearance of the meteors he’d enjoyed watching since he was a boy, except that it seemed to be traveling more slowly than what he was used to seeing. It was a brilliant point of light, descending from the sky at a slight angle, moving toward the outline of the Denver skyline. As he watched, it seemed to multiply into a dozen or more points of light, which moved away from each other, seeming to tumble across the sky. One seemed to remain where it was, as though it were hovering, or perhaps coming straight for the spot where they were all standing.

  Ferguson’s brows knit together slightly in puzzlement. “What’s—” he began to say, when the world seemed to vanish in a brilliant white light.

  It was 10:02 AM.

  CHAPTER 17

  2802

  Calliope made her way across town, noting the decrepit condition of most of the buildings, doing her best to avoid the mobs of people that were everywhere as she passed near the center of the city. Several men gave her curious, leering looks; they didn’t appear to be the type of men she had any interest in getting to know. She hurried along, frequently looking back to make sure no one was following.

  Worst of all, the stat
ue of her Grandpa Steve, known to everyone outside of her own family as the Greatfather, which had held a place of honor in the town square since before she was born, was gone. In its place was a large bronze statue of a feral looking old man that she didn’t recognize.

  This was very bad.

  At long last, she found the building she was looking for, although its exterior was much different in appearance than she remembered, a rather plain and rough brick exterior, without much ornamentation. She found a sign on the door which read North Central Positronics, but it was worn and battered; nothing about the place was like the sleek glass facility that she remembered.

  With some hesitation, she climbed the steps to the weathered front door and knocked.

  A few moments later, a slot opened in the door, much like in the old vids of gangsters and speakeasies that she had seen growing up.

  “Yes?” said a man’s voice.

  “Is Nigel here?” Callie said, a note of panic in her voice.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nigel. I’m looking for Nigel. Please, I need to speak with him.”

  The viewslot closed. A few moments went by, and Calliope was about to knock again when she heard the latch being unfastened and the door opened.

  “Come in,” said the same man’s voice.

  CHAPTER 18

  2019

  Brad pulled into Las Vegas around noon the next day. He was glad he hadn’t pushed on the night before; he knew he would have been drawn in by the lights of the glittering city and urged to explore the casinos and shows. Even in the daylight, it was extremely hard to resist.

  As it was, he’d found an excellent mom-and-pop burger joint in St. George, enjoyed a chili cheeseburger and onion rings, washed that down with an enormous Diet Dr Pepper, and headed back to his motel room, where he put in his standard thirty minutes of guitar practice before crashing out on the bed while watching Jimmy Fallon.

  Now, the next day, he was driving up and down the streets of Las Vegas, knowing that he was gaping like a tourist — But why not, he figured; I am a tourist!

  He knew better than to leave his truck unattended, packed full of his musical equipment. He wasn’t too interested in going into a casino at this point, anyway. Spinning a roulette wheel or playing the one-armed bandits didn’t hold any particular fascination for him. Besides, he figured that once he got established in Los Angeles, he could always come back for a weekend visit. It wasn’t that far.

  CHAPTER 19

  2802

  Calliope walked into the building. The door was being held by a slight man with eyeglasses who appeared to be in his thirties.

  “May I ask your name?” he said to her sharply.

  “Michael, it’s me, Calliope Sullivan.”

  “I apologize, Miss Sullivan, but my name is Terry Cambridge. There’s no Michael here. What is your business here?”

  “I, uh… I’m sorry. I was here once, several years ago, with a problem, and Nigel and Michael helped me.” She was very nearly in tears. “I woke up this morning, and everything… everything’s changed! Everything is terrible! I don’t know what’s happened, but the only thing I knew to do was to come and find Nigel,” Callie said, now nearly in tears.

  “Changed, how? What do you mean?” said the man, his tone now beginning to soften.

  “When I went to bed last night… I lived in a world where the skies were blue almost every day. Things were perfect. Everyone, for the most part, was happy. Out there,” she said, indicating the direction of the center of town, “in the square, was an enormous statue of the Greatfather. It’s gone, and a statue of some horrible looking man is there in its place. I —”

  “Come with me, please,” said the man, leading her down a hallway. “My wife Sarah and I work here with Nigel, along with a few other people,” he told her. “What we do is not publicly known in this timeline.” They walked into a meeting room where a woman with long auburn hair was seated, looking at data on a laptop computer.

  “This woman is asking for Nigel,” Terry said. “This is Sarah,” he explained to Calliope.

  Sarah looked at Calliope. “How do you know Nigel?”

  “We’re old friends,” Callie said. “He’s helped me with some… problems in the past.” The two exchanged a long look.

  “What sort of problems?” Sarah said.

  Callie glanced back and forth at the two of them, uncertain of how much to reveal. Her memories of having traveled back to 2009 to help work out the convoluted problems that had twisted up Grandpa Steve’s life were still fresh in her mind. Nigel had been helpful with that situation, but was he even the same person in this new timeline? And could she trust these two people, whom she had never met before?

  “Um… they were…” She hesitated. “Time travel problems.”

  Terry and Sarah looked at each other. “Time travel?” Sarah said flatly.

  Oh, great. They don’t know anything about Gatejumping, Callie thought. “Uh… yes,” she replied.

  There was a moment of tension when Callie was sure they were going to toss her out on the street, then they both smiled and visibly relaxed.

  “Come on,” said Terry, getting to his feet. “Let’s go see Nigel.”

  CHAPTER 20

  2019

  It didn’t take too long for Brad to get established in the City of Angels. Since he had more than adequate funding, he could afford to be choosy about where he decided to live, although he knew better than to be extravagant.

  He wound up renting a modest apartment in a building with excellent security, since he didn’t want to have to worry about his musical gear being stolen. The apartment came with utilities provided, including fiber-to-the-home internet, so Brad got on his laptop and began to search for musicians who were interested in forming a band. He discovered that it was a little overwhelming; there were thousands of starving musicians — some of them literally starving — in the Los Angeles area.

  It took a few weeks to comb through the listings on Craigslist, the Los Angeles Times classifieds and a few other places, but it wasn’t long before Brad found a group of musicians to his liking.

  They were four guys who were a few years older than Brad; they had been playing the Los Angeles bar circuit for about two years. Calling themselves “SheetMetal,” they were a quartet playing extended trippy jams in the vein of the Dead or Phish, with guitarists Benjamin Gregg and Wade Anthony, bass player Stefan Braun, and drummer Gerry Lorefield sharing vocal duties with mixed success. They had decided to seek out a full-time vocalist after a string of comments and reviews that said that their instrumental chops were strong but their vocals were weak. The last straw was a one-word review that appeared in the L.A. Weekly’s Music Blog: “ShitMetal.”

  The band had a rented rehearsal space on the west side, and Brad met them there on a Tuesday afternoon. He brought his Telecaster and the Marshall combo that had served him so well for the last five years. After being introduced around the room, he set up his gear and they began to discuss what songs they knew in common.

  Brad’s time playing parties all over Montana as well as a few in Idaho and Wyoming had given him a pretty extensive knowledge of 70s and 80s rock music. Soon they were blasting out ragged but decent versions of tunes like Alice Cooper’s “Be My Lover,” AC/DC’s “You Shook Me,” GN’R’s “Sweet Child o’Mine,” and the Beatles’ “Revolution.”

  They stopped and the four band members murmured among themselves briefly, with much facial expressiveness and waggling of eyebrows. Then Gerry turned to Brad and said, “If you want the gig, we’d love to have you as our fifth member.”

  CHAPTER 21

  2802

  Terry and Sarah led Calliope through a hidden door into a concrete-walled control room that appeared to have been built down into the ground beneath the building. There were computer terminals positioned on banks of consoles, facing a large display screen.

  Nigel was seated at one of these, and Calliope breathed a sigh of relief when she saw his famili
ar face. “Nigel!” she exclaimed. Hurrying to him.

  The tall Englishman looked up, and at first the look on his face made Calliope think he didn’t recognize her. Then he said, “Hello, Calliope. I am quite glad to see that you have come through the alterations in our timeline without suffering too many ill effects.”

  “What is it that’s happened, Nigel? Last night when I went to bed, everything was perfect; the sun shone all day, the sky was blue, and everyone was friendly… and now this? The city looks… ravaged. And where is the statue of the Greatfather? Who is that monstrous-looking man that they’ve made a statue of instead of my…” She burst into tears.

  Nigel looked at her and his expression softened. “I know. It’s difficult to comprehend how something like this could happen. The statue is of some government leader named Hyde-Stephens. Hideous old man, isn’t he? The worst of it is that the average citizen, who hasn’t had some sort of personal connection or experience with the Gatespace, seems to have no realization that things are different and no memory of what came before.”

  “It could be worse, I suppose. What if none of us knew anything had changed? Then there’d be no one to try to fix things,” said Terry.

  Sarah, looked at the main display screen and said, “What have you been able to find out, Nigel? Do you know what seems to have caused this timeline shift?”

  Nigel shook his head. “Not with any degree of certainty. There appears to be a… I don’t know what to call it but a fissure in time, like a tear in the timeline we live in. It reaches back all the way from our time to somewhere around the year 2000 or shortly thereafter. I’m trying to determine with a little more precision exactly when it began, and then from there, what caused it.”