Time Flies

by Larry Buenafe

  Pasquale looked down, and a shadow of a smile crossed his face. “Is not much of a choice. I am Italian; not just Italian, I am Sardinian. We are born for adventure. If you will have me, I will stay. I don’t have any magic powers, but I am smart. Perhaps I can help in other ways. These others, these bad ones, we must get the, what is word… revenge, that is it. One way I can help is I know strategy of war. I study great generals, famous battles, and I learn how they overcome great odds. One strategy, get them to… I don’t know, in Italian is suggerimento la loro mano.”

  Denise thought for a moment, and then said, “Tip their hand? Like in poker?”

  “Yes, yes, is it. We need to know all that we are facing. So far they hide from you, they say they are many but you don’t know. Makes sense, yes?”

  I said, “Well, yeah, but…” and the apartment door opened and closed, and into the room came Ling, Gabriella, and Rafael.

  Chapter 15

  “Man, am I glad to see you guys. I was wondering when you were going to show up. What happened? Did you find Ariel?”

  They stared bug-eyed from Denise to Pasquale to me, and then Rafael spoke, in his low, melodious tone: “Mr. Ferdie, perhaps you should first describe for us what has happened to you, and who our new friend here is. You do not look well at all, and Ms. Denise, what has happened to your leg? Angel skin is not easy to pierce; I suspect you had an interaction with another supernatural being.”

  “Oh yeah, we probably do look pretty crappy. This is Pasquale. He is, or was, Leonardo Sanna’s grandson. Denise, let’s fill them in.” We spent the next hour describing all that had taken place on our failed and disastrous trip to Sardinia; it took so long that in the middle we stopped to get something to drink.

  When we were finished, Gabriella and Rafael seemed totally crestfallen. Gabriella offered, almost whispering, “I am so sorry, Ferdie, Denise, Pasquale, this is a tragic outcome. I think you have made the best of this situation, but so sad to lose Leonardo. Denise will heal very rapidly, but Ferdie, I think you may need medical attention. You look quite blistered, and it must be painful.”

  I hadn’t really had time to think about it, but it was true; I was hurting from the burns. “I think I’ll be ok; I probably just need some ointment or something.”

  Ling darted into the bathroom and returned with a couple of jars and tubes, saying, “Ok, please try to be still, Ferdie, I will apply.” She smeared various salves and ointments on my face and arms and it stung, but I bit my tongue and let her do her work.

  “Ms. Gabriella, you are a good historian; when was the last time two angels met in battle?” queried Rafael.

  “Oh, it has been quite some time. The most recent was the battle that led to the end of the dark ages… just a little over a thousand years ago. Before that, it was the conflict that ushered in the dark ages, roughly sixteen hundred years ago. There have not been many, and when they do occur, it means drastic changes are coming, whether good or bad.”

  Denise gulped and said, “So I had the first angel fight in a thousand years?”

  Gabriella’s eyes darkened. “Yes, and again, this generally is a sign of, shall we say, adjustment, but we already knew that we were nearing a historic moment.”

  Denise looked stunned. Eventually it was time to move on, and I said, “Ok, you’ve heard our sad story, now what happened over there in Kansas?”

  They looked at one another, as if trying to decide who was going to provide the bad news that was evident on their faces. As usual, Rafael spoke first: “Mr. Ferdie, I am afraid that we have nothing good to share. We followed every lead, spoke to dozens of contacts, perhaps even got a little bit, shall we say, insistent with a few of them, but no one has the slightest clue where she has gone.”

  Ling said, “We were most careful. Ferdie. When you fixed my eye, something else in my brain changed also. I can now do much better your mind trick; I can see the thoughts of others if my concentration is powerful enough. It is very hard and I feel ill afterward, but I can do it. Even so, I did not use it ever on our trip. We knew that we could be attracting The Others, so we did not want to take the chance. We cannot be sure, but I believe all of the friends were telling the truth. They do not know where your sister is.”

  “We searched every inch of the town and the surrounding area, thinking that she may have found a hiding place, but we were unsuccessful,” added Gabriella.

  Dude, this is giving me a bad feeling… what if she’s gone permanently? What if The Others found her and are planning to use her against me… that would be awful, I don’t think I would have any defense against that… if they hurt her I think I would probably lose it…

  “Did you see my Aunt Martha?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ferdie, we did see her. She is recovering nicely, but as you would imagine, she is very concerned about Ms. Ariel, as are we all. Unfortunately, that is all we have to report at this point,” said Rafael.

  Ok, Ariel’s smart, and tough, I don’t think she would be easy for them to catch… she probably got far away, that’s what I would have done… what can I do? I have no way of making sure she’s safe… I don’t think there’s anything I can do right now, so we have to keep going… Suddenly I felt like crying; I was tapping my head brutally, and the rest of the group wore expressions of extreme concern.

  “It’s ok, I’m ok, I’m just worried,” I stammered. “If there’s nothing we can do about it right now, we just have to keep moving ahead. Anyone have any ideas about what to do next?”

  “Ferdie, is it possible that Marshall could do more searching for another of The Seven? Maybe there is another we can find,” Ling offered.

  “Well, let’s see… there’s you and me, that’s two. Old Leo’s gone, sorry Pasquale, that’s three. Denise’s one of The Seven, what was her name? Oh yeah, Aida Fernandez, that’s four. There’s The Coward, and let’s assume that his master is one of The Seven too. That leaves one that we don’t know about. It’s probably worth a try; I’ll ask Marsh-dog about it. What else?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Pasquale raising his hand; we had been leaving him out of the discussion. “Sorry Pasquale, we’re doing a lot of talking over here, but I bet you have some ideas.”

  His long dark hair threatened to cover his eyes, but not the gleaming smile that seemed to light the room. “Thank you, thank you, my friends, I think this would be good idea, and will be unexpected by The Others. Here it is: you all have the supernatural abilities, and these Others can find you when you use them. If you separate, go to all different places in the world, then all use your powers at same time, this will let you know what The Others can do. Then, you can fight them on the spot, or retreat very quickly through… what do you call it? In-between? This will give you much information, yes?”

  “Hey, yeah, maybe if we get lucky, we can pick them off one at a time, like they’ve been trying to do to us. Ling and I will need to figure out how to defend ourselves against an angel or a demon, because they have different kinds of powers than we do. We can do great against humans, and probably against other members of The Seven, but I don’t know how I would shield myself against what I saw Denise and Anita do.”

  “Well, Ferdie, perhaps there are still powers for you to discover. You have already exceeded all others, so who knows? I suspect there is more that you can do. You will need to use your creativity,” added Gabriella.

  There’s that word again… it means more than I think it does… there’s a key in there somewhere… “Ok, I don’t know about you dudes, but I think Pasquale’s idea has some potential. We’d need to be careful in working out all the details, though. So, we have two ideas: see if Marsh-dog can work his computer magic again to find another of The Seven, and, oh, let’s call it Pasquale’s Divide and Conquer. Does that sound about right?”

  Pasquale beamed in pride at the nods and murmurs of agreement. Look how happy he is just to be able to contribute… wish I could be like that… “Ok, I’m gonna go visit the smartest dude I know and see what
he thinks. Don’t tell him I said that “smartest dude I know” thing, by the way. I’ll be back in a while. After that, I think I need to go visit my Aunt Martha; I can’t just leave her out there wondering. Maybe in the meantime you guys can start strategizing, working on Pasquale’s idea, and see if you can come up with any alternative plans too, just so we have some choices.” Then, I faded out of the apartment…

  Chapter 16

  …and into the beautiful, confusing world of the in-between. As I stared, I felt a flick on my ear, and of course standing, or should I say floating behind me, was Marsh-dog. “You’ve got to tell me how you do that, Marsh.”

  “I would tell you, but you’d probably sell my secrets to the bad guys, and then where would I be?”

  “Alright, alright. Dude, I got a lot of stuff to talk about. But first, what kind of music do ghosts dance to?”

  “Soul music, man, everybody knows that.”

  “You are never going to let me win, are you?”

  “Nah, man, you got to beat me, I’m not going to let you win. You wouldn’t learn anything from that; it’d be like getting a participation trophy.”

  “Ok, but I will beat you one day, and that will usher in an era of glory.”

  “Hey, wait a minute, you’re all burned up, dude. I think you need some medical attention.”

  “Nah, I’ll be alright. It hurts a little, but I’ll be ok in a few days.”

  “Yeah, but what about my eyes? You’re a scary sight, even more than usual, if that’s possible.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of jacked up right now, but I’ll recover, and you’ll still be a ghost.”

  Marsh-dog slapped his knee and chuckled, “Ha! You got me!”

  “There’s a first time for everything, I guess. Were you listening to what happened on our trips?”

  “Yeah, man, both trips were major bummers. Sorry they didn’t find Ariel, dude. I just feel like she got away somehow. I don’t know, man, I feel it pretty strong.”

  My head tapping was threatening to return, but I forced my hand away. “Yeah, I feel the same. Some sign would have shown up if they had gotten her; The Coward could not have resisted gloating.”

  “Yeah, dude, and it would have been good to have Old Leo around. But, at least we know the other side doesn’t have him.”

  “Ok, do our plans seem good to you?”

  “You know what, I think this dude Pasquale might be on the right track. It makes sense; we’ve been beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out where they are and how to stop them, so let’s flip the script, make them come to us separately, so they’re not at full power. Lots of details to work out, but I think it’s pretty good as far as strategy goes.”

  “What about cranking up the computer skills again to see if we can track down the last of The Seven?”

  “Well, it’s still pretty complex, but maybe slightly easier since we have three points of reference now instead of two to work with. I don’t know, though, I don’t think I can do it from here; I think you’d have to go see Dr. Reyes, see if you can talk him into running it again. Since the simulations are pretty refined now, I don’t think it would take too many iterations, yeah, I said iterations, look it up, but it’s still gonna be tricky, and might take a while.”

  “Alright, I don’t mind going to talk to Dr. Reyes. Once you get to know him and get past his hyperactiveness, if that’s a word, he’s really cool. But do you think it’s worth trying?”

  “Yeah, probably, but we have something else that might make it all moot. Not moo, like a cow, but moot, like not important anymore.”

  My eye roll was almost audible. “I know what moot means. I know more words than you do, you know.”

  “Yeah, I’ve always said, I got the math, you got the language; if we could smash our brains together, we’d really have something. Speaking of having something, you feel like meeting my new friends?”

  “Wait, is this the thing you were trying to figure out?”

  Perhaps the biggest smile of all time exploded on Marsh-dog’s face, and he said, “Dude, wait ‘til you get a load of this, you’re not gonna believe it. I can barely believe it myself. Hang on a minute; let me see if I can call one of them over.” Marsh-dog closed his eyes, concentrating intensely; his lips were moving, and he seemed to be reading something, or maybe reciting something, I couldn’t tell. Although it only took about a minute, it felt like a long time. When he was done, just to the left of Marsh-dog, about waist high, a small, pure white light blinked. It disappeared, blinked again, on and off, at maybe half-second intervals, very regular, precise.

  Marsh-dog opened his eyes, turned to the flashing light, then over to me, and said, “’Nando, say hello to my little friend… he’s one of the Time Flies.”

  Chapter 17

  As I stared at it I found my mouth hanging open; I snapped it shut and said, “Say what?”

  Marsh-dog doubled over laughing, and said, “You should see your face! I wish I could do that a thousand times; I knew you were going to react that way! Oh, man, that was funny!”

  Two more of the little lights popped into view, distinct against the dark, cave-like atmosphere of the in-between. All three were to Marsh-dog’s left, and they formed an oddly shaped triangle, although their positioning looked random. Each was flashing, but at different rates. I couldn’t stand it anymore; I blurted, “Ok, dude, what are those things? Where did they come from, and you can anticipate all the other questions that I am going to ask, so tell me what’s going on, Robin!”

  Marsh-dog wagged his finger, and said, “I told you I was going to haunt you if you called me that. This is gonna take a while, so have a seat.” Somehow a chair had materialized directly behind me.

  “How are you doing that?”

  Marsh-dog laughed again, and said, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, if you just calm down a minute and stop tapping your head. These are the Time Flies. I named them that, because when I first noticed them, it was from a distance, and I thought they looked like fire flies. Later I found out what they really are, so I changed the name to Time Flies. Pretty catchy, huh?”

  Clearly, Marsh-dog was enjoying his time in the spotlight.

  “Yes, very catchy. What are they? What do they call themselves?”

  “Well, they don’t really call themselves anything; they can’t relate to things like names, but they don’t mind that I call them the Time Flies. And as far as what they are goes, that’s one of the things I’m not completely clear on. I’m not sure if each one is an individual thing, or if they’re all part of one massive thing; they don’t seem to be able to relate to that question. And there are lots of them. Maybe an uncountable number of them, and you know how I like numbers.”

  “Well, are they alive? I can’t tell if they have little bodies, or what.”

  “Yeah, that’s another thing, they flash like that, but when they aren’t lit up there doesn’t seem to be anything there. I don’t know if all they are is light, or if they’re carried on light particles, or if the rest of what they are is in a different dimension or universe. I think they have shrunk themselves down so small they can ride on light particles, but I don’t know for sure. I’ll see if I can get that out of them.”

  “Ok, so can they, like, talk? Are they… oh, what’s that word… sentient?”

  “Oh, yeah, dude, they’re not just sentient, they’re the sentient-est.”

  I leaned forward in my Marsh-dog-created seat. “Dude, this is very confusing. What does that mean?”

  “First let me tell you how I figured out how to talk to them. I started seeing them popping up here and there, sometimes just for a second, sometimes for days at a time, and the flashes seemed like they were related to how long they planned on hanging around, although I could just be reading into that. I started trying to talk to them, but they acted like I wasn’t there. I tried talking to them in the few words I know in Spanish, then the little bit of Chinese Ling taught me; nothing. They didn’t seem dangerous, though;
it was just like they were floating there, checking things out. I tried swinging my hand at one to see what would happen, but it didn’t move and I couldn’t touch it; my hand stopped when it got near to it. It didn’t hurt or anything, I just couldn’t get any closer than an inch or so. I sat back and watched them, and eventually I noticed that they look kind of like a cursor on a blank computer screen, just sitting there flashing, waiting for some command they could understand and do something with. So, you know I’m good at coding, all the way back to binary, bits and bytes, all that kind of stuff, and it occurred to me to try communicating with them in binary. I had no good reason to think it would work; I only thought of it because of how they reminded me of that little flashing light on a computer screen. I worked up a couple of things to say using binary code, and I approached one and said the binary code to it. I could tell that it was paying attention to me. It actually seemed like it understood what I was saying, and then, in an instant, there were a bunch of them, maybe thousands, all around me. They didn’t seem aggressive or anything, it just seemed like they were surprised and interested that someone would figure out how to talk to them. Yeah, I guess that’s it, they found me interesting.”

  “Wait a minute, so they speak in binary? They’re computers?”

  “Yeah, they speak in binary, but that’s not exactly correct… it’s more like binary times infinity. In their early days, though, they used binary, and it was enough like ours that they understood what I was trying to say. And no, they’re not computers, although they kind of think like computers, but again, it’s like computers times infinity; just let me keep going, I’ll probably answer most of your questions along the way. And, dude, there are some big surprises, I mean totally unbelievable.”