But Thomas knew right when it happened. He was there! Saw it all first-hand! He told Sigmund all about it in detail later. Well, it was weeks later. Thomas wouldn’t speak to him at all at first.
He really wasn’t happy about his new living arrangement. It was quite a step down from the Army barracks at the Presidio. Twenty-four steps down, to be exact.
Thomas should have been grateful–at least he got a bed! Astrid was sleeping on the floor now. And although he was shackled to it, he had a servant. Astrid made sure he was fed and watered; a proper nursemaid, that girl. It didn’t take much to get her to comply. Years of thorough discipline had made that easy.
Thomas, on the other hand, was hard to break. What finally worked was Sigmund punishing Astrid for his noncompliance.
Thomas really did not understand just how much Sigmund was protecting him. By hiding him in the basement, he was making sure the CIA didn’t find out about him. The CIA had been busy lately. Their MKUltra experiments were producing a plethora of Manchurian candidates, and the body count was stacking up. MLK and Kennedy were the most prominent, but there were so many more.
If Thomas opened his mouth to the wrong people about what he had seen…it would not be good for Thomas. Especially if he told them that he had tried to protect Kennedy when Sirhan Sirhan had charged forward. His valor was ineffective, of course, since his body wasn’t actually there. But his intent would have been unacceptable in the eyes of the CIA. The MKUltra project was about creating MC’s, not White Hats.
To make matters worse, Thomas also insisted that Sirhan Sirhan wasn’t the only gunman.
Gee, where had we heard that before!
But Thomas was adamant. There were too many gunshots for it to be only one gun. He also suspected Sirhan Sirhan wasn’t in control of his actions, said that he’d looked him in the eye and they weren’t the eyes of a ruthless killer. There was only terror in them, like the assassin was appalled by his actions.
Thomas could not be let loose on the world ranting that kind of talk. The US government killing one of their own? He’d end up in the body count.
Sigmund shook his head and walked to the window of his new office. He was moving up in the world. The cityscape rolled out below him now. Unlike the rolling green hills of the Presidio or the prissy rainbow of Haight Ashbury, the jagged gray steel and concrete bit hard against the senses, like teeth Sigmund would use to take his bite out of the world.
Thomas was essential to Sigmund’s master plan. He had a gift! A gift that could be developed and utilized to change the world.
He pulled the key to Thomas’s shackles from his pocket and twirled it in his fingers. Things were moving quickly. Sigmund only needed a few more investors. Three to be exact. Five had already committed millions of dollars in exchange for positions on the board. He only needed a telecommunications mogul, a high-ranking media executive, and a military defense tycoon before his board would be complete.
He slipped the key into his pocket and turned to his desk. He had a one o’clock call scheduled to close the deal with his first choice from the television network. He made sure his talking points were ready, though he knew his spiel by heart now. He was confident he’d get buy-in easily.
He turned his attention to the artwork that was also lying on his desk. He picked up his favorite one. The designer had gotten it just right: a perfect geometric reproduction of the lemniscate of Bernoulli which, in Sigmund’s view, aesthetically represented the potential of infinity in a superior manner. You could hop on the continuum at any point and Travel in uninhibited flow through time and space.
Except in Sigmund’s master plan, something disrupted that flow: two golden I’s intersecting the focal points of the perfect infinity symbol. Infinium interrupted.
That was the whole purpose of Sigmund’s vision: disrupt the natural, cosmic order of things, control the material world and all the people in it. Thomas and the successes of the MKUltra experiments had convinced Sigmund that the potential existed to block the ultimate reality of the universe from the masses and utilize it for the benefit of the few–the elite–who had invested in his technology.
He lifted the logo off the table, allowing the diffused sunlight to play upon the iridescent curves of the symbol and glint off the gold of the lettering. Sparks of light flashed in his eyes, entrancing him with the brilliance of his creation.
A loud tap hit the window behind him. Thinking a bird may have hit the glass, he turned to look, but the refreshing floral breath that breezed by told him it wasn’t a wayward bird at all. It was her.
“Well, hello there,” he said out loud. “It’s been a while since you’ve been around.”
The air went icy.
“Awww, don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you. Come in! Have a look around! See what you’re helping me to create!”
The air grew colder as she moved through his office. He could sense her moving past the framed newspapers on the walls. Past the USS Pueblo edition of the Chronicle, or as Sigmund called it, The First Revelation. Then she moved past the MLK and RFK assassination front pages. Last, but not least, she stopped in front of Sigmund’s personal favorite. Hot off the presses today, November 12, 1969, and still unframed: My Lai. Although it was actually The Second Revelation, from March 12, 1968, it had just been confirmed to the public. Twenty months from vision to final proof!
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
The room was ice in response. The phantom was frozen in place before the images on the newspaper page. To the faint of heart, photographs of the massacre would be horrifying. But to Sigmund they were beautiful, and they held promise.
“Come here, dear,” he called to her. “Come look at what I’m doing.” He coaxed the ghost his direction, and surprisingly, she bent to his will. He had to laugh at himself for being so afraid of her before when she’d appeared all those months ago during his morning bath. He’d thought he was going crazy. But now he realized; she was proof, too! Her appearance was evidence that his vision, his corporation, existed in the future! He would be successful! She was his personal messenger angel.
“See! This is our symbol. It will be on everything: our building, our letterhead, our clothing. I envision a room buried deep in the earth with walls of stone and molten glass, and a tower reaching for the surface, for the light that shines through this logo in stained glass and pure gold.”
He held it up and let it shimmer in the light again. The apparition moved away.
“Don’t tell me you aren’t impressed? You should be! You’ve helped me understand! Helped me see! Because of you, and Thomas of course, I understand the nature of reality, the nature of human existence and the material world! I know how we can take advantage of all that now!”
Sigmund took a deep breath, inhaling the beauty and power of it.
The phone erupted on his desk. Sigmund looked at his watch. “Five minutes early. See! Everyone else understands. And they can’t wait to be a part of it.
“Thanks for visiting, but I have work to do.”
Sigmund whacked at the air, shoving the ethereal waif back out the window from where she came.
Thirteen
Aislen fell out of the window of Sigmund’s office. The windows reflecting the sun’s glare strobed and streaked light as she kept falling toward the ground, though the ground didn’t come. She kept falling and falling through space, becoming nauseous from the velocity and g-forces. She couldn’t take anymore.
“Stop!” she cried out before she threw up.
Miraculously, she stopped, landing feet first on a slab of concrete. The air was dank and still. She caught her breath while her eyes adjusted to the lighting. She was standing at the bottom of a flight of wooden stairs, painted white but worn grey in the center from foot traffic. She heard footsteps at the top, shuffling then clattering, someone working in the kitchen.
Aislen surveyed the room. It was void of decor except for a shelf at one end covered with jars and cans of food. There was a thin mattress on the
floor near the shelves, with a grungy flat pillow and a neatly folded stack of blankets resting on top.
Did someone sleep there? It wasn’t even fit for a dog.
“Who’s there?”
Aislen nearly jumped out of her skin and looked toward the voice. Thomas was sitting up on a bed in the opposite corner looking her direction. He was alive! Like Lange had said!
He was in the same clothes Aislen had seen him wearing in the brothel, and his right ankle was shackled to the metal frame of the bed with an ancient cuff and chain. He looked thinner, and his unshaven face had grown into a short beard. He’d been here for a while, a few weeks at least. He searched through the darkness with wild eyes. They could have been her father’s eyes except for the pent-up look of a caged animal that was in them.
“Who’s there?!” Thomas whispered gruffly, sounding a bit crazed.
The door at the top of the stairs creaked open, sending a slash of sunlight into the darkness and spotlighting Aislen. She looked down at herself, seeing only a snow of dust dancing in the beam. She was still in the dream, if she could even call it that anymore. Was it really a dream if you were actually in the past? She wasn’t confused about where she was, only about when she was. She felt lost in time. Wherever or whenever, she’d been there too long. She felt captured by the unconsciousness, like Thomas was trapped in this room.
Astrid appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a tray with food. She walked through Aislen’s non-existent form. Aislen caught a whiff of her emotions, a fear so constant that it felt normal, a sadness for the poor man shackled to her bed, and the recent additions of guilt and shame that she was partly responsible for this man’s suffering.
Astrid walked to the bed and set the tray on it, bowing like a servant as she shuffled back to the mattress on the floor. She crouched down in a ball on the makeshift bed and watched Thomas watching her.
“Astrid, please,” Thomas whispered. “Please… you can help me.”
Astrid curled into a tighter ball.
“Astrid, help me get this chain off. We can cut it with something. Find a saw or a bolt cutter. Then I can get out and find help.”
Astrid covered her eyes with her hands and put her face in her legs, shutting the only door she had.
“God damn it!” Thomas screamed, sweeping the tray and all its food off the bed. The plate splintered. Food flew into every corner of the room. The glass shattered, sending a rain of orange juice sprinkling down on Astrid’s head.
Astrid looked up at Thomas, then at the mess, horrified. A thin cry sang from her, and fast as light she bound up the stairs, then back down with a broom and dust pan. She scurried around the room trying to gather up all the glass and china and food that she could.
Thomas watched for a while, then grumbled to himself, lying back down on the bed and turning his back to her frantic activity.
Astrid ascended and descended the stairs, carting away the destruction.
“Vater wird mich töten,” Astrid repeated the worried mantra under her breath as she tried to mop up all the stains from the juice. “Father will kill me.”
Aislen understood, but Thomas kept his back turned to her in oblivious apathy.
The dusky light of the basement grew darker as evening fell in the world above. Astrid was upstairs trying to wash the remaining evidence of the catastrophe away when suddenly there were footsteps. Astrid was at the top of the stairs in an instant, shutting the basement door behind her and quickly but ever so quietly descending into the darkness. She rushed back to her mattress and squatted into the tiniest of balls as a key turned in the lock and the front door opened.
There were the ominous footsteps of Sigmund Lange…and the drop of his briefcase by the door. There was the sound of the closet door opening and shutting as he hung his coat. There were the footsteps that stopped at the door at the top of the stairs and the vacuum of his listening. Then there was the scrape of a chair across the floor that continued like nails on a chalkboard all the way back to the basement door.
Astrid let out a quiet thread of a whimper, hushing herself as Sigmund descended the staircase, thumping the kitchen chair behind him. He walked past Aislen in her dusty corner and stopped, looking over his shoulder, sensing her there, before continuing toward Thomas who lay still facing the wall on the bed.
“Wake up Thomas! We have some catching up to do.”
Thomas didn’t move. His only way to protest.
“Thomas! We have to talk about Kennedy. You’ve had enough time to recuperate.” Sigmund set the chair down and waited for Thomas to sit up and face him. But Thomas did not.
Sigmund marched to the bedside and kicked the metal frame several times. “Thomas Reed! Up and at ’em!”
When Sigmund set his foot back down, there was a loud crunch under his foot. He lifted it back up, bent down, and picked up the tiniest shard of glass lying on the floor. He stared at it, embedded in the tip of his finger, then turned his head slowly toward the little ball in the corner. He walked back to the chair.
“Astrid, come here.”
Astrid knew not to tarry. The punishment would be worse if she did. She went to her father.
This got Thomas’s attention, and he rolled over and sat up.
“Behind the chair, Astrid,” Sigmund commanded.
“Mr. Lange,” Thomas interrupted. “That is my fault. I lost my temper and threw the food at her.”
Sigmund turned to Thomas and flicked the glass off his finger.
“No, you don’t understand, Mr. Reed,” Sigmund said as he circled the chair behind his daughter. “It is always Astrid’s fault. You are my guest. It is her duty to keep you happy. And the sooner you cooperate, the sooner your situation will improve. And Thomas, by improve, I mean vastly improve. You have no idea the breakthrough your last trip was or the plans that I have, which you can be a part of.”
Sigmund took Astrid’s right hand and placed it on the back of the chair, opening her fingers so they weren’t gripping the back.
“Astrid’s only job is to keep you happy until you decide to stop being so stubborn. And she is apparently failing.”
Sigmund picked up her left hand and placed it on the back of the chair, lifting her fingers one by one so they couldn’t hold on. “Isn’t that right, Poppet?”
“Ja, Vater,” Astrid whispered.
Sigmund unbuckled his belt and slid it from his waistband.
“Mr. Lange, please don’t. Please. It’s my fault. I’ll do what you want; I’ll talk. But don’t hurt her.”
Sigmund moved into a position behind Astrid and folded the belt in half.
“Well, Thomas, I am very pleased to hear that. And I am going to hold you to that, too. But let this be a lesson to you of what happens when you are not fulfilling your end of the bargain.”
As Sigmund pulled his arm back, Aislen covered her ears and closed her eyes, blocking what happened next. But she knew, and it turned her stomach violently. She doubled over in pain and repulsion.
She watched the cement floor as it faded into black, then into light again, night into day in mere seconds.
Astrid got up off the mattress, folded her blankets, and headed up the stairs to make her father’s breakfast. Thomas watched her from the bed; remorse reeked from him. The chair remained sitting in the middle of the basement floor as a reminder.
Aislen watched as the light grew bright, then dimmed, grew then dimmed. Time passing; one, two, three. Aislen watched from her space: Astrid rising, working, feeding Thomas, cleaning his bedpan. They didn’t speak; he only watched her, full of unformed apologies. In a blurry fast forward, she watched them sleeping: Thomas tossing, turning, and crying out. Astrid startling awake, watching Thomas with growing worry.
Then time slowed, and one afternoon Astrid brought Thomas his food, setting it on the bed as usual. Only this time, Thomas reached out and rested his hand on top of hers. Astrid jumped as if lit her on fire and cowered back towards her isolated cushion.
“As
trid.” Thomas tried to stop her, raising his hand like he was trying to calm a frightened animal. “Please…I’m sorry. I don’t want to frighten you. I don’t want to harm you or bring any more harm to you. I’m so sorry for all of this. For everything. So, so sorry.”
Astrid slowly sank down on the mattress and pulled her knees up to her chest. She sat there peeking over her knees at Thomas for a long time.
Time sped up again. Night to day. Day to night. Ascending, descending, the cooking, the feeding, the sleeping, the nightmares. One, two, three, four.
Sigmund came down each evening, walking through Aislen and turning back, acknowledging her with a smile. He sat in the reminder chair, notebook in hand, interrogating Thomas. Thomas always compliant. Astrid always watching from the corner.
Time slowed down another day. Astrid brought Thomas his food, and he rested his hand on hers again. Only this time she didn’t flinch.
“Thank you, Astrid,” he said, looking at her hand.
Her eyes, usually glued to the tray, glanced at his hand for a half-second before she slipped hers away and went back to her place.
Time sped up. Shadows then light, shadows then light, over and over. Astrid up the stairs, Astrid down the stairs. Thomas touching Astrid’s hand and saying, “Thank you.” Sigmund’s evening sessions. Thomas’s nightly terrors. One, two, three, four, five.
Time slowed. Astrid was watching Thomas finish his meal. She got up, retrieved his tray, and took it upstairs. This day, when she came back down, she was carrying a tub filled with soapy water and set it on the floor by Thomas’s bed. She went up and down the stairs several more times, bringing towels, scissors, a razor, a comb, and finally a clean shirt.
“You can wash yourself and change,” Astrid told Thomas. “I’m sorry I don’t have the key.”
“You speak English?” Thomas was shocked.
“I know English.” Astrid kept her eyes on the floor. “Vater only allows me to speak German.”
“Vater?”
“Father.”
“I see.”
Time Walker: Episode 2 of The Walker Saga Page 10