by Wyatt Kane
“Now,” April said. “Where is the President, and how do we find him?”
I brought my rifle around and held it ready. Then, even though I had no real clue where I was going, I led the way. “The Oval Office, maybe? Isn’t that where presidents conducted most of their daily meetings?”
April shrugged. “Makes sense, I guess. I have to admit to never paying much attention to anything political, so all I’ve got to go by is what I’ve seen in movies. Too busy trying to make a living.”
“About that,” I said as we walked. “What are you going to do when this is all over?”
“Caleb,” June interjected, “is this really the time to talk about it?”
“You’re right,” I said, and she was. We were walking through the literal corridors of power, armed and on the hunt for the most dangerous bug-monster I’d never known existed, and here was me thinking about the future. I should have been alert and focused.
Yet, in a way, I was alert and focused. Even back in Afghanistan, I’d walked missions with half my mind distracted by less urgent tasks. Talking to my buddies or even just humming a tune. It seemed to take the pressure off.
So I pressed on. “But do you really want to go back to stripping?”
“As opposed to what?” April asked. “Traveling through time in a rusty van, having sex with you, and trying to keep from being eaten by giant bugs?”
“When you put it that way, it loses some of its charm,” I admitted. “Although I hope the sex with me part wasn’t too bad.”
April tossed her head, grinning. She seemed to understand my need to talk as we moved through the White House. “It’s not, lover boy, but I’d hoped not to spend my life banging my man in the back of his sex van.”
I snorted. “We’ll make sure the Bedford transitions every night. I’m feeling a bit stiff after our last session on the cushions.”
“You were stiff then,” April said, smirking.
“If we’re not careful, I’ll get stiff now,” I said, winking at her.
“Oh, come on, you two!” June said. “Now is most definitely not the time.” Yet she projected amusement along with her irritation.
We passed three men in suits who had paused in the middle of a conversation. So far, my abilities had impressed even me. No one even batted an eye as we walked by.
“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully. “Haven’t you ever wanted to have sex in the White House?”
June scoffed. “That isn’t something I ever thought about before.”
“Me neither, although now that I have, I can’t not think about it.”
“I’m game,” April said with another toss of her head. “Should we find one of the guest suites, or what?”
Still holding her spear, June made a gesture of disbelief. “Why not just use Mr. Carter’s own bed while we’re at it?”
“I wonder how powerful we’d feel then?” I asked, enjoying teasing June. At least, I was halfway teasing. If the girls decided they wanted a romp in the West Wing, who was I to deny them?
But June shook her head. “We’re not finding out. Besides, the bug-monster might not be frozen. It could hear us.”
We continued to walk down a long hallway now, checking each room as we passed. So far, Jimmy Carter was nowhere to be found.
“How long can you hold everyone like this?” June asked.
“I don’t feel my hold slipping. Seems like I can do this forever.”
June’s natural concern was returning. “Last time, in the bathroom, the monster came charging after you when it sensed your power. Why hasn’t it done so now?”
“Maybe it’s frozen as well. I’m stronger now than I was.”
June frowned but didn’t say what all of us were thinking. Sure, I had grown more powerful. I was able to do things with my talent by then that I’d never even imagined earlier. But that strong?
It didn’t matter, I thought. I just needed to be strong enough. If I could slow the bug-monster down for long enough to fire a grenade or two at its face, hopefully that would suffice.
I was still envisioning that end when I heard a sound that shouldn’t have been possible.
Somebody sneezed. It wasn’t me, nor was it one of the girls.
XXXIV
I whipped around, looking for the source of the sound, my rifle at the ready. In my mind, there was nobody in the entire White House who could have sneezed. Even a household pet should have been frozen between one moment and the next.
My only thought was that somehow, the monstrous bug-demon had extended its resistance to my talent to include Jimmy Carter as well. Or did nightmare creatures from alternate universes also sneeze in a very human-like way?
April and June also turned toward the sound. I caught the dark-haired sister’s fear—my brain wouldn’t think of them as anything but siblings—even as she stood holding her spear out in front of her.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she said at the same time as April spoke in my mind.
I didn’t answer. In front of us was the heavy, wooden door to yet another room. I reached for the handle to the tune of more questions.
“Is it the monster?” June asked, her fear growing.
It wasn’t a bad idea, but I shook my head. If the specs Shell had given us about April’s shield proved accurate, the giant bug-monster shouldn’t be able to attack us through it. But I wouldn’t be able to shoot through it either.
And besides, something told me this wasn’t the bug-monster at all. For one, the sneeze had sounded feminine. And, I didn’t know how else to explain it, but I sensed that whatever was behind the door wasn’t dangerous.
At the same time, I wondered if it was why I’d chosen to come to this point in time in the first place.
“No,” I said. “Just be ready.”
“Anything.”
With that, I threw the door wide.
It was the red room, a stately space filled with elegant, red-themed furniture and a number of artworks on red-painted walls. Other than that, it seemed no different from many of the others we’d seen. Except in this one, there was a woman standing in the middle, her expression one of shock.
She was tall and beautiful, dressed in a corporate suit, and had the most magnificent mane of brilliant red hair I had ever seen. She glanced first at my weapon, then at the girls before her eyes settled on me.
“You,” she said in a tone of recognition and acceptance.
April and June started speaking at once, but my attention was on the woman. There was something about her that I knew was important. It was as if my own personal timeline had just been forever altered, and I could feel the ramifications of it on my skin.
The red-haired woman and I stared at each other.
“Do you two know each other?” April asked.
“Why isn’t she frozen?” June said. Her fear had started to fade as soon as she’d seen that it wasn’t the bug-monster.
But the red-haired woman had also found her tongue. “Are you the cause of all this?” she said, and it was clear what she was talking about.
“What if we are?” April responded.
The red-haired woman looked at the blonde. Despite what must have been a very strange situation for her, she seemed calm and collected. “Then I’m going to have to call security,” she said.
I smiled. “It won’t do you any good,” I replied.
The woman seemed to accept me at my word. She nodded, then glanced at my gun, still pointed her way. “Are you going to shoot me?” she asked.
Immediately, I pointed the rifle away. “No.”
The redhead’s skin was that shade of pale that it would easily burn in the sun, and she had the body of catwalk model, slim and perfect, but distinctly feminine as well, with her hips and breasts straining against her skirt and fitted blouse. I couldn’t help but wonder how she might look as part of April and June’s act.<
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She looked at us sideways. “So, are you going to tell me why you can walk around here when everyone else is frozen?”
“The question is,” I said, “why aren’t you frozen, too?”
“How do you expect me to know that?” she asked. She glanced at the gun. “What do you plan to do with that?”
For no reason I could understand, I felt I could trust her. “The President is being controlled by a loathsome creature bent on destruction. We’re here to break him free of that control,” I said.
The red-haired woman stared at me. After a moment, she nodded. “The President is in the room at the end of the hall,” she said.
That was enough for me. “Let’s go,” I said, and as one, the three of us turned to leave. But the red-haired woman called out after us.
“I have to know. What’s going on?”
I glanced back at her and thought, what the hell. Who was she going to tell? “We’re time travelers sent from the future to save the President. I’ve frozen everyone here between one moment and the next so we can do what we’ve come here to do, and I have no idea why you aren’t frozen as well.
The woman’s capacity to accept the incredible was amazing. She simply nodded again. “I have dreamed of you … all three of you … for years. Why is that?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. Even as the words escaped my mouth, I was thinking that maybe she had a talent similar to mine or the twins. Could this woman’s dreams have been of the future?
I turned to go, but the red-haired woman stopped me once more. “At least tell me your name,” she said.
“Caleb. Caleb Winter.”
“I’m Gwen. Short for Gwendolyn.”
“Nice to meet you, Gwen short for Gwendolyn. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.”
We left Gwen behind in the red room and made our way to the end of the hall.
<<<>>>
“Well, that was weird,” said June.
I had to laugh. “What, compared with all the other completely normal stuff that’s been happening over the past few days?”
It was enough to bring a smile to the dark-haired woman’s lips. “When you put it that way…” she said, letting her words trail off.
We’d reached the door in question. Just like back at the Excelsior, there were Secret Service agents standing guard. Just like everyone else except Gwen, they were completely immobile.
I motioned the girls to move to either side of the door. Once more, I set myself, rifle at the ready. But unlike outside the red room, this time I had a deep sense of foreboding. Somehow, I knew the prize was behind door number one.
Nor was I the only one. The girls seemed to know it too. April stood waiting and ready, and from June I sensed a mixture of fear and worry, but mostly determination.
That would do.
I nodded to the dark-haired sister, who understood my intent. She threw open the door and backed away. As I charged into the darkened room, my eyes took a moment to adjust, and I almost didn’t see the razor-sharp claw swinging at my head. Ducking just in time, I rolled onto the floor out of the way. The resulting whack against the doorframe felt like a wrecking ball had struck the building.
“Stay back!” I yelled to the girls. “The monster is loose!” And not just loose. If my efforts to freeze it made any impact on it all, I couldn’t tell.
As if to confirm my statement, the gigantic centipede-bug let out a hideous screech that was loud enough to shake the walls. I didn’t have time to wonder that the creature wasn’t still locked away within the President’s mind. Perhaps my meddling with time had alerted it. Either way, I regained my feet, took aim and fired at the monster’s head, getting off half a dozen quick shots.
The monster screamed again, but for all I could see, the bullets caused little damage. Was Shell right? Was it somehow shielded by time?
If it was, it was a neat trick. Maybe one day I would be able to do the same. If I survived long enough.
The monster rounded on me, and I had to duck out of its way. At the same time, I learned that April had ignored me. She’d followed me into the room.
“Shield him! Get him out of here!” I replied. We still couldn’t risk the damage to the timelines that might occur if President Jimmy Carter died.
Trusting that she would follow my direction, I scuttled about the room as if I was the bug under the monster’s feet, firing at anything I thought might be a soft point. It reared up tall and tried to behead me. Feeling like Will Smith fighting a bad-tempered alien, I ducked and dodged, then immediately rolled the other way to avoid being stabbed with its foot-long stinger.
“Come on, you fucker! Is that all you’ve got?” I raged at it, hoping to distract it from the girls and Carter. My eyes had adjusted. I could clearly see April and June hauling the President out into the hall, all three of them partially obscured by an energy shield that was wholly out-of-keeping with the elegant, old-fashioned décor of the White House.
The enormous bulk of the demon-bug shifted toward me, cutting off my escape. I couldn’t use the grenade launcher, not in such a tight spot, so I unleashed a hail of bullets at the same time as trying my hardest to slow the monster in time.
The air filled the acrid smell of gunfire, but the bullets might as well have been made of dust for all the good they did. My efforts to slow the bug to a standstill were marginally more effective, but even then, the monster remained mobile.
I couldn’t see April any more and didn’t know if shouting would do the trick, especially with the monster roaring and crashing about to the tune of my gun. So I thought my reply to her as hard as I could.
Take Carter! I’m going to try to finish this! Will meet you at the Bedford! But even then, I didn’t really think I could ‘finish this’. The monster ignored everything I threw at it, and it was all I could do to stay out of its reach.
Dammit, April! Leave!
I dodged again. Later, we would have to go back in time and apologize to Thomas Jefferson and all the presidents who had lived in the White House. The house shook, the walls shook, and my teeth rattled with each blow.
I kept firing, seeking some way to actually hurt it, but the monster was too big, too strong. All I could really do was try to keep out of its way.
At one point, I let it get too close. I cried out in pain as it felt like hot acid was burning my arm through my jacket sleeve. But I didn’t have time to check it. The monster charged toward me, trying to crush me under its bulk, crashing down on the floor again and again and forcing me to throw myself out of the way.
Surely not even the White House could take that sort of punishment. And maybe it would be a good thing if it didn’t…
I stopped aiming for soft spots on the bug itself. Instead, I slapped my last magazine into place and aimed at the floor. Then I fired until I ran out of bullets.
Just as I’d hoped, the monster crashed down onto the weakened floorboards. With a squeal and crash of splintering wood, the floor caved in, and the loathsome thing disappeared.
“Take that, asshole!” I yelled. I figured that if bullets didn’t hurt the creature, maybe gravity would. I just hoped there was nobody underneath it, and aimed the grenade launcher.
Before I could put it to good use, the part of the floor I was standing on also gave way. I jumped toward the door, but too late. I grappled desperately for purchase, but everything began falling—the floor, the walls, the desk. I managed to push myself away from the heavy desk so it didn’t crush me, but as I fell and fell, I realized I should have landed already.
I hadn’t. Wood and plaster tumbled all around me, but I kept falling. Everything turned dark, and there wasn’t anything for me to judge where I was. The pain in my arm magnified, and I felt legs and pincers grabbing me, pulling me into an abyss from which I would never escape.
Wit
h real terror clutching my heart, I figured out what had happened. The monster had pulled me into the same sort of pocket dimension it had used to hide within while controlling the President.
As I continued to fall, I thought of April and June, hoping they had got out and saved Carter. Would my time lock disappear if I died? It was all I could do to try to release it before pressure increased on my ribs and I started to run out of air.
Not for the first time during this mad, crazy time-traveling adventure, I was sure I was going to die.
Shit, I thought.
But here’s the thing. I’ll admit that because of my talent, my life has been a little easier than it could have been. Even in Afghanistan, I’d been able to get out of spots where the chances of survival would have been low for anyone else. But that didn’t mean I was going to roll over and die as soon as things got tough.
I hadn’t done so when facing the minor bug demons, and I certainly wasn’t going to do so now.
Instead, I gritted my teeth and held onto the last of my consciousness with everything I had. I thought about all I knew about how my talent worked, and how space and time were all one. I didn’t know of any particular spell to get me out of this, but that didn’t stop me. I gave voice to a snarl of anger and instead of reaching out with my talent, I unleashed it.
It was like an explosion of rage and passion that burst from me like light from the sun.
Then the world faded away. I had no idea if my efforts had made the slightest difference or not.
XXXV
When I woke up, I was surprised that I wasn’t dead. Somehow, I still held on to my rifle. My arms worked. The right one hurt like hell, but it worked. My legs moved on command. Everything hurt, but that was a good thing, right? It meant I still had feeling, that I hadn’t severed my spinal cord or gained some other debilitating injury.
Once I’d finished taking stock of things, the smell of dirt and plaster hit my nose. A faint light shone above. I stood shakily and turned, wary of the monster potentially lurking nearby. But I didn’t hear it, nor did I sense it in any other way. It had vanished, probably gone back into that pocket dimension it had twice tried to draw me into.