A few minutes later, she’d matched a key to a sport utility vehicle, and climbed in. The electric engine started with a slight hum. She put the vehicle in gear and headed north towards Back Lake.
Fort Evergreen wasn’t marked on the map, so it took her a bit of wandering around to locate it, but knew she’d found it when she saw it. The three-story, largely windowless building surrounded by a double-line of concertina-wire-topped, stressed-metal fencing clearly had secrets aplenty.
She crashed the SUV through the main gate, then parked at the foot of the steps leading up to what she thought was the main entrance. Hefting the heavy backpack containing her breaking, entering, and escaping kit onto her shoulders, she mounted the steps, crowbar in hand. Four smashed doors later, she was in Corcoran Fallon’s spartanly decorated office on the third floor.
It took her another hour to break open Corcoran’s safe. She found what she was looking for inside. Corcoran kept a journal, dating back to his initial arrival in 2020, and updated just this past week. It wasn’t a daily diary, but a quick scan told her that he’d noted the most significant events in the Republic’s history. She’d take it with her to review in detail later.
She also found a portal generator in the safe. From the layer of dust on it, she guessed it hadn’t been used in quite a while. She picked it up and turned it on. The screen flashed, then read “no signal”. That was strange. Artifacts of Mike’s generator seemed to work just fine. She slipped it into her pack. Maybe it would work once she was back in the living universe.
The computer on Corcoran’s desk finally finished booting up and she sat down to see what she could learn from it, but was disappointed when it asked for a password to access the files. A quick search of the safe and his desk failed to reveal it, so she moved on to the filing cabinets in the outer office. There wasn’t much of interest there, except for the four-drawer safe against the back wall. An hour later she still wasn’t able to penetrate it, so she gave up and wandered around the building, looking for anything else that might be helpful.
The back end of the building included a three story bay, with a loading dock and overhead crane. A half-dozen shipping containers, each painted forest green and emblazoned with an Evergreen shipping company logo, were arranged in a row on the bay floor. One of the containers had the universal marker for radiation hazards mounted on the door.
From her position on the second floor mezzanine, Anna looked carefully around the huge room. In addition to the lifeless guard she’d just passed in the vestibule, there were half a dozen other bodies in the bay, all of them armed. Whatever was in the containers was important to the Fallon Party.
She scanned the room more carefully and discovered a number of automated security systems, in addition to the guards. She wasn’t sure how all of them worked, and didn’t want to find out the hard way, so she turned and went back the way she’d come.
* * *
Two hours later Anna was back in her room at the Hotel LeClerc, a room service espresso in one hand and the artifact of Corcoran Fallon’s journal in the other. On a page dated Friday, August 8th, 1834 she found an account of Mike’s death by suicide, before he could be tried by secret tribunal for the death of Dwight Carver’s wife. She stopped to wipe the tears from her eyes, then continued reading. Just as Jennifer had told her, Mellissa Carver had died falling from her horse during the event. The event Anna herself had caused during her rescue of Jake, although she had no memory of it. Given the choice between losing her mother and never meeting Jake, Anna wondered which Jennifer would choose. Anna put the rhetorical question aside and continued looking through the journal.
On a page dated March 1st, 1845 she found an uncharacteristically profane entry.
Fuck! The portal generator is still not communicating with the time machine up in 2110. O’Malley’s theory that it would start working when the temporal tide from Wilcox’s jump to 1988 passed through 2110 is shit. Now she says it might start working when the tides from his jumps to 1832 or 1834 pass through 2110, but that won’t be for decades, too late to impact the American Civil War, and stop the plague.
Forte’s theory was probably the right one. But since that asshole Wilcox lost his portal generator in the fire that killed his girlfriend, we’ll never know. Damn him to hell!
Anna was stunned. If the journal was accurate, she had the only working portal generator in this world.
Which meant she held all the cards.
She flipped back to 1834 and confirmed that all of the Fallon Party’s portal generators had, in fact, stopped working on the day she had jumped back in time to save Jake. And that Corcoran believed she was dead. All that time hiding from the Republic, for no reason. She felt like a great burden had been lifted.
She took the artifact of the portal generator she’d taken from Fallon’s safe and switched it on. It still read ‘no signal’, so she switched it off and disposed of it by briefly activating her own portal and dropping it though. Then she returned the working generator to its hiding place in her makeup box. Republican fashion wouldn’t allow her to keep it in its usual place on a lanyard around her neck.
Something nagged at the edge of her mind.
She flipped back to the 1834 entry and read it again. ‘…and stop the plague.’ What does that mean? Alarmed, she flipped all the way back to the last entries in 2035, before the Fallon Party jumped to 1832. The Great Cancun Plague had not been prevented, only delayed five years. And there it was, in black and white.
O’Malley and Forte won’t commit either way, but Keating is convinced, and I agree with him. Wilcox’s time jump to 1988 probably undid all our efforts to stop the plague. Six billion lives sacrificed so he could pot a bird he hadn’t seen in forty years!
The burden of responsibility came crashing back down, crushing her soul.
She slammed the journal shut, not wanting to see the awful words. Two minutes later, Fallon’s journal had joined the broken portal generator in a dead world. She began to feel nauseous as she returned her working generator to its hiding place.
The feeling got worse. She couldn’t seem to get enough air. She grew faint and fell down. A bolt of lightning shot through her right wrist when she hit the floor, and she screamed. Her vision flickered, then the pain started in her chest. I’m going to die. Die and go straight to hell.
* * *
“Mrs. Roberts? Anna? Can you hear me?” The voice seemed to come from very far away.
“Ja, Ja, I’m awake. Wo bin ich? Where am I?” Anna opened her eyes. A woman dressed in green scrubs stared down at her.
“Welcome back. You’re in the emergency department at St. Patrick’s Hospital. I’m Doctor Morton.”
“Did I have a heart attack?”
“No, ma’am, we think you had a panic attack. We’re doing some tests just to make sure. And it looks like you broke your right wrist. Once we’re sure you’re stable, we’ll send you to X-ray.”
“A panic attack? I felt like my chest was exploding.”
“Many first time panic attack victims think they’re having a heart attack. The sudden release of adrenaline causes a cascade of symptoms that can feel like a heart attack. Any idea what triggered the episode?”
Anna knew, but she’d regained enough of her faculties to realize she couldn’t answer truthfully.
“My son is about to get married, and I’m having some misgivings.”
“Your son told me you have a history of drug abuse. Did you take anything last night?”
Anna looked away. She’d taken a Vicoprofen, but if she said so, she’d have to explain where she’d gotten it.
“Nein, I didn’t. I did have quite a lot to drink last night.”
“We might know more when your blood tests come back.” Anna could hear the skepticism in Dr. Morton’s voice. “You rest, and I’ll be back in a bit to check on you.”
“Can I see my children?”
“Not until we get the X-ray and get you moved up to a ward.” Dr. Morton gave her a war
m smile, and left the curtained-off cubicle.
Anna looked around but there wasn’t much to see. She was lying in a standard hospital bed, with wires trailing from a bank of monitors to leads on her chest. A steady sinus rhythm danced across one of the monitors. There was a blood pressure cuff on her right arm that periodically inflated and deflated on its own. The wall behind her head was the only solid one in the cubicle – the others were all pale green curtains, with human shadows moving back and forth across them. Above, a hanging ceiling surrounded banks of fluorescent lights.
Without anything to occupy her mind, she dwelled on that accusing journal entry. She was growing more and more depressed by the moment.
Suddenly the curtain at the foot of her bed was pulled back and a black woman dressed in purple scrubs entered the cubicle.
“Mrs. Roberts? Oh my God, it really is you! You looked so familiar, but you’ve changed your name.” Anna looked at the smiling face and, after a moment, recognized the woman.
“Zahra? You’re here, in the Republic?”
“Thanks to you! If you hadn’t helped me, I’d be long dead.”
“But what are you doing here?”
“I’m an X-ray tech,” she said proudly. “There’s a lot of former slaves here in the Republic. A good many of them are here because of you. Do you remember an escaped slave named Joseph Smith? He’s says you appeared out of nowhere while he was wading a creek and chased off a whole pack of slave hunters.”
“I remember him, but it was quite a bit less dramatic than that – I think there were only three of them.”
“Joseph’s stories always get better with age,” she said wryly. “Anyway, I’m now Mrs. Joseph Smith. I’m sure he’d love to see you if you’re going to be in the Republic for a while. He’s off on maneuvers this week.”
“Is Joseph in the ISRM?”
“Yep, he’s full time active duty, one of the few. Getting ready for the big fight coming. Folks like yourself have done a lot of good work, but there’s still nearly four million men, women and children living in slavery in the United States.
“Anyway, let’s get you down to X-ray and have a look at that wrist.” Zahra disconnected the wires attached to Anna’s chest, then released the wheel locks on the bed.
As Zahra rolled her through the hospital corridors, Anna realized there might be hope for her yet. Millions weren’t billions, but it was a start. Corcoran Fallon seemed to think winning the American Civil War could somehow stop the plague. He was prepared to use nuclear weapons to do it. If I turn the working portal generator over to him, can I trust him? If not, what other options do I have?
38 - ANNA
Republic of Indian Stream, Saturday, September 13, 1856
Jake and Jennifer were married on a beautiful fall day at St. Bridget’s Church. The church was packed with family, friends and well-wishers, including Jennifer’s relatives from Canada and the United States. The reception at the Hotel LeClerc lasted well into the night. The happy couple then spent a ten day honeymoon in Niagara Falls.
Peta and Jake both started school the following Monday, while Jennifer got back on the job at the Fire & Rescue Department.
Anna did not travel back to Omaha with Paul, Miriam and little Allen. The evening after the wedding, she had a wonderful dinner with Zahra, Joseph, and a dozen other former slaves she’d helped escape north. The next morning, she checked into the drug rehabilitation center, on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Hospital. Dr. Morton had made the recommendation based on her positive blood test for opioids. It was going to be a tough month, but Anna had a newfound determination to kick the habit once and for all.
About ten days into her rehab, one of the staff nurses told her that she had a visitor. They were buzzed through several doors, and finally arrived in the lobby, where a man in a business suit and a female Sheriff’s Deputy awaited them.
“Mrs. Roberts, I’m Brian O’Rourke, ISRM chief intelligence officer, and this is Deputy Wilson. We’d like you to come along with us to answer a few questions, please.”
Anna didn’t bother to ask what they wanted to question her about.
She already knew that ISRM Headquarters was located on the second floor of Fort Evergreen, significantly, one floor below BLE corporate headquarters, and that ISRM Intelligence Branch was located on the first floor, so she wasn’t surprised when their vehicle pulled up to the front gate.
She was somewhat surprised when she was taken straight up to a conference room down the hall from Corcoran Fallon’s office. Deputy Wilson took a seat outside in the corridor as O’Rourke and Anna entered the conference room. The room was windowless and spartanly furnished with padded metal chairs and a wood-veneer covered metal table. A whiteboard adorned one long wall, and a projection screen the opposite wall.
“Welcome Mrs. Roberts, or is it Carlton?” the Supreme Councilor said. “Or should I say Miss Mannheim?”
“Anna will be fine, danke,” she replied levelly. “I don’t deny I’m the Anna Mannheim that Mike Wilcox rescued from a Stasi prison cell in 1988. How did you find out, if I may ask?”
“Have you ever seen a woman dance for the first time in high-heels?” asked Corcoran. “They don’t dance the way you did at your son’s wedding. So we started looking into your background, asking questions.”
Anna took it as a good sign that Fallon was hiding any role Dwight and Jennifer might have played in her discovery. If they planned to kill her, they wouldn’t make the effort. She was determined to remain civil during this conversation with the men responsible for Mike’s death; her own life depended on it.
“The clincher was Jake’s DNA,” O’Rourke said.
“DNA? I don’t understand,” she said.
“A person’s DNA is as unique as their fingerprint, but it also has identifiable markers from both their parents,” replied O’Rourke. “In the early 21st Century, techniques were developed to map an individual’s DNA and store the information electronically. We take DNA samples from all our militiamen to aid in identification of bodies. Jake submitted a sample when he applied to join the ISRM. Normally we don’t try to match samples in the data base, but since we had Jake’s sample, we ran it through both the military and criminal databases. Low and behold, he’s a familial match to Mike Wilcox.”
“I never dreamed Jake would join the ISRM. I spent the last twenty years hiding from you people,” Anna said, folding her arms across her chest.
“That’s not all you’ve done,” Fallon said. “You had a role in emancipating more than a few of our citizens from slavery in the South. The ones we’ve questioned over the last few days all speak highly of you. Why’d you quit the Underground Railroad and move to Omaha?”
“Some members of our network got caught and talked before they were lynched. A posse showed up at my door. I took Paul and Miriam and ran west, hoping to find Jake. I didn’t expect to find him in the arms of an ISRM officer.”
“But you did, and now you’re here.”
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, in the 19th Century?” she asked.
“Ending the Civil War and liberating the Confederate prisoner of war camps in the South prior to the summer of 1863 was and is the primary goal of the Fallon Party Transit to 1832,” O’Rourke said.
“Why is that important,” Anna asked.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Fallon suggested.
“Good idea,” O’Rourke replied. “In the original history of the human race, a terrorist biological attack occurred in the year 2030. The result was the Great Cancun Plague, which killed nearly six billion people before it was brought under control. What was left of the civilized world descended into chaos.
“A small knot of scientific enlightenment survived on the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, off the coast of Ireland. Two centuries later their descendants developed time travel capabilities, and decided to try and change history.
“They sent Corcoran and several others back to 2020 to avert the plague by destroying the
terrorist group that altered the plague virus and released it. Unfortunately, the plan failed.”
“But Mike said they had stopped it,” Anna interjected.
“Your husband hijacked a time machine to rescue you in 2028,” O’Rourke responded. “At that time we believed that the catastrophe that was to occur in 2030 had been prevented. It turned out we were wrong. The plague occurred in the new timeline, just a little later, in 2035, and with a strain of the virus that had sufficiently mutated so that the vaccine developed in the original timeline was useless.”
“There are those among us who believe that Mike’s jump to 1988 to save you is what triggered the new outbreak,” Fallon said ominously. “Once we discovered that we had failed to prevent the plague, we decided to try again. I believed the next best opportunity to stop the plague was to end the American Civil War before the first strain of Thunder pestis appeared in mid-1863. We know that the original strain of Thunder pestis emerged in the Castle Thunder Confederate prison camp outside Richmond, Virginia, in July 1863. In the filth and squalor of the camp, a strain of the bubonic plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, mutated into Thunder pestis, but lost most of its potency. It spread throughout the rebel prison camp system by the end of the war.”
“The original strain that caused that outbreak was very contagious but only caused mild illness,” O’Rourke said. “It was genetically altered later, probably by the Animal Justice Brigade, an eco-terrorist group.”
“When we attempted to program the time machine to bring us back to a point in time when we could influence the Civil War, the machine’s programming would only allow us to piggyback on the time jump Mike made to 1832,” O’Rourke continued. “Your husband was under the impression he was following us. It was actually the other way around. Time is funny like that – cause and effect can switch places depending on who initiates a temporal transit and when they do it. So we got a thirty year head start, which allowed us to start preparing the medical community to better deal with the Thunder pestis epidemic, if it occurs.”
The Legend of Indian Stream Page 20