Flux

by Jeremy Robinson

  Owen nudges me. “It wants us to see.”

  We look into each other’s identical eyes.

  “The flux is over,” he says. “We don’t need to hide. And I feel stronger than ever. Don’t you?”

  I hadn’t taken stock of my physical state, but the moment I do, I know something has changed. All the aches, pains, bruises, wounds, and muscle pulls my body has been subjected to over the past day are gone. But that’s not all. My body feels…new. I feel young. Stronger than ever.

  As does the elder Langdon, still seated, grinning at his wife, who’s still hidden from view by the chairback.

  He did it… I have no definitive proof, but my doubt slips away. We’ve been undone and remade whole.

  The clang of metal on tile snaps my attention to Tsul’Kalu. He’s still locked in his pose of anguish—or is he begging? The blade he used to stab the white pre-human has fallen from his loosened grasp. Blackened fingers crumble, giving way to white bone. His face looks sunken and burned, his flesh desiccated and cracked. Strangely, the saber-toothed head and skin were unaffected by whatever turned him into a husk.

  But is he dead?

  Has to be, I decide, and I allow curiosity to guide me out from under the table. I hold on to the table edge to keep myself upright in the zero gravity. Owen takes my hand and allows me to guide him out.

  “What are you doing?” Cassie asks. As aghast as she sounds, she slides out from hiding.

  When I push off with Owen, she joins us. An uncharacteristically silent Levi follows. Flores meets us part way, offering his hand to me as we glide on a collision course with the large creature that has killed men before, and is capable of killing us. But I think it means us no harm…for now. With a tug, he redirects us toward the dome’s edge. I catch the wall and cling in place, allowing Owen to hold himself against the sill.

  Cassie slides up beside Owen. To my left, Levi, Flores, and then the young Langdon arrive, all of us staring out through the thick window, watching as the world is formed. A string of giant rocks rolls through space, colliding and merging, growing larger and larger, until we’re a part of it all, looking out at a crude horizon.

  Gravity takes hold, gently at first and then pulling down with a force we’re all familiar with. Our feet perch on cabinets and furniture, anything to keep our heads above the glass.

  There’s an explosion of dust, and then, as the Earth continues to form, the dust in orbit drifts together in a ball. Soon the moon is born, its surface pummeled by a string of smaller asteroids.

  The pre-human creature chuffs, and I think it might be a laugh. When I meet his black eyes, I sense no anger. The cold stare I saw out in the forest when we were strange trespassers in his world has been replaced by a rabid fascination.

  How evolved is he?

  How much more evolved will his kind become?

  My questions don’t seem all that important compared to what lies outside. So I ignore the twenty-foot long, intelligent, albino dinosaur-man and watch the show.

  “What is it?” the elder Langdon asks. “What can you see?”

  He’s clearly afraid to unbuckle, maybe because there’s a bumpy road ahead, or simply because he doesn’t know what kind of road lies ahead. Then again, maybe he’s just afraid of our Cretaceous stowaway.

  I flip him the bird and return to the view in time to see the sun’s appearance. This far back in time, night was day and day was night. We flicker forward in time, the sun becoming a blur of light, as it moves through the sky.

  Mountains rise and fall around us, glowing with magma. Oceans rise, covering the dome for a good ten seconds that represents millions of years, and then fall again. Green springs to life, emerging from the ground in thin sheets before growing tall. Generations of landscape whoosh past, growing, twisting, evolving. It’s not hard to see the planet growing and aging like a living thing. A life of its own, carrying infinitesimally small beings on its surface, like bacteria on skin.

  The world is recognizable now, and I’m pretty sure we’re roaring past the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. If the pre-human knows we’re passing his stop, he doesn’t react. He’s lost to the sight, marveling at the creation of the planet our two species called home without ever meeting or knowing the other exists.

  When the world goes white and the Appalachians spring up around us, I know the journey is nearly complete.

  Future Langdon clutches the arms of his chair.

  “Hold on!” I shout, lowering myself to the floor as Adel grows up and around us, sealing us in stone. Even the pre-human follows our lead, dropping down. Nimble fingers clutch onto a chair, while its long prehensile tail snaps out and latches onto a support beam.

  Light flashes back into the penthouse when the mountain is carved away, bringing us into the final hundred years of our journey.

  And then…nothing.

  The blue sky above us is unchanging.

  “What happened?” Levi asks. “Are we there? Are we back?”

  I push myself up and head for the window, but motion outside provides the answer for me. A crow flies through the sky, unaware that anything strange has happened.

  “What do you see?” the elder Langdon asks.

  I answer without thinking, “Birds.”

  “Anything living outside would have died during the vacuum,” he says, sounding hopeful. “We’ve made it!”

  Despite his hope, his words strike a chord. Everything outside would have died in the vacuum of space… Every animal. Every dinosaur. Every person. All of this, for one woman.

  No, I decide, for a broken man.

  “Now,” the elder Langdon says, sounding bold and in charge. “If you’d all get the fuck out of my house, I will allow you to live and enjoy what remains of your lives, having seen the marvel of creation first hand.”

  Future Langdon holds an AR-15 and looks like he knows how to use it. As we back away from the window, I wonder if I could draw my sidearm fast enough to shoot him. I doubt it, and it looks like some of the others were disarmed during the chaos. Their dropped weapons floated away in zero gravity and could be anywhere now. As I raise my hands and step into the center of the room with the others, the pre-human remains at the window, stretching its long neck to take in the Appalachians in all their summer glory. It’s oblivious to the confrontation taking place behind it and has no idea what he is saying.

  “Each of you may leave,” Future Langdon says. “I have not, and do not, bear any of you ill will.”

  “You were willing to kill thousands,” I tell him. “My father among them.”

  “Regrettable. But that time has passed,” he says, slipping his finger around the trigger. “Last chance. You can all walk out that door…” He glances at Tsul’Kalu’s ruined body, and then at the pre-human. “…and take your albino pet with you. Please. You are all free to go. Well…everyone except him.” Future Langdon raises his weapon, turns it on his younger self, and pulls the trigger.

  The bullet punches into young Langdon’s gut, slips through the soft organs within, and passes out the far side, spraying a cloud of blood onto the charred giant’s face…where it is absorbed.

  55

  “What did you do?” Jacqueline shouts, vocal for the first time, probably because she suspects what has happened, even though she’s still strapped down and unable to turn and look. “Who did you shoot? Elias!”

  “Still…here…” The younger Langdon holds his hand over the wound on his front side, but he can’t do anything about the exit wound on his back. My instinct is to help him. With proper medical attention, the wound is survivable if the bleeding can be stemmed. But I don’t think his older self will allow that to happen. He wants Jacqueline to himself, even if she’s a prisoner.

  At the same time, I want to leave, not just because Future Langdon could mow us all down, but because I don’t like how Tsul’Kalu’s body absorbed that blood.

  “You should go,” the wounded younger Langdon says. “I am not worth your lives.”

&
nbsp; “Elias…” Jacqueline says through tears, making her elder husband grimace with annoyance, no doubt because he has just saved her life. But she’s more concerned about the man who he knows failed to do so.

  Future Langdon rotates the rifle from one person to another, flinching when the weapon and his eyes turn toward the pre-human. It’s no longer looking out the window. No longer distracted. It’s facing him, head lowered, body poised to pounce. When they make eye contact, the creature bares its teeth and hisses.

  Sensing Future Langdon is about to shoot, I step between them, arms raised. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” My concern isn’t just for the strange beast ripped from the past. If Future Langdon pulls that trigger, I suspect he will not stop until we’re all dead.

  When he holds his fire, I turn to face the creature. Its bared teeth and furrowed brow instill a deep sense of fear. I manage to say one more, “Whoa,” trying to emanate calm.

  The creature’s black eyes burrow into me. I can feel it in my head.

  Is this how its species communicates? Having already seen it control the younger Langdon’s mind, I have no doubt. For a moment, I consider trying to have it control the elder Langdon, but if its influence on his actions is not immediate, he might still gun us down.

  So I imagine the pre-human leaving with us, calmly, without incident.

  Its expression softens. Then it looks toward the door.

  “Yes,” I say, nodding, despite the fact that both word and gesture are meaningless. Assuming anything with arms and hands understands a pointed finger, I motion to the exit. “Go. Please.”

  I’m not sure if it understands anything other than how I feel, but it looks at the door, then back to me, and then to Future Langdon. There’s a moment of stillness, and I can sense it thinking about what to do. Then, it wisely turns toward the door and starts walking. It moves with surprising grace and silence, its long body slipping through the air like a blade. My eyes are drawn to the red blood on its back, already starting to dry. I trace it back to the creature’s shoulder, but the wound is gone. Like us, this thing was healed by whatever it was we encountered at the beginning of everything. Cosmic energy? God? Both? All I really know is that it wasn’t nothing, and it wasn’t an accident.

  ‘Who touched my garments...’

  What the hell does that mean?

  “We’re leaving,” I say, backing up so I’m standing in front of Owen again. Strange that I’m protecting him from a man with a gun, rather than a monster out of the Cretaceous.

  “Owen,” Cassie says, the tone of her voice saying: we can’t let him get away with this.

  “Leave,” the younger Langdon says. When she looks down at him, he flicks his eyes toward Tsul’Kalu. He’s noticed what I have—the subtle rise and fall of the hunter’s charred chest, the twitch of a pulse on the side of his neck. The beast is in shock, but not dead. And if he comes to, while we’re all lingering about…it will be a blood bath.

  Cassie understands. As do the others. Without complaint, we follow the pre-human toward the door. It ducks down and maneuvers itself through the hatch without grazing the sides.

  I can’t begin to figure what we’re going to do with the thing. And I can’t imagine how strange all of this must be for the creature. Could it have any concept of science and technology?

  It did use the younger Langdon to open a biometric lock. So it either understood the tech, or his thoughts on how to use it. Maybe both. More importantly, the creature has shown itself to be intelligent and capable of empathy, wonder, and curiosity. It might not look like homo sapiens, but it is more human than the broken man who tore us through time. The real problem is that if we reveal the pre-human’s existence to the world, it will receive none of those attributes in return. It doesn’t deserve that fate.

  Tsul’Kalu on the other hand…he can go visit his father in hell.

  And he can take Future Langdon with him. The elder Langdon escorts us toward the door, weapon trained on my back. That he didn’t just kill us reveals the man’s strange dichotomy. He’s not a blatant murderer. He doesn’t want to pull the trigger, but he has no trouble sacrificing the lives of people he can’t see.

  The generations of Black Creek residents have been dead for a long time. He might view killing them in the vacuum of creation as returning things to the way they were. But that’s not accurate. If this is a new dimension of reality, then all of these people have new lives to live. New futures.

  And if they are dead…

  A cold hand wraps around my heart, the anger kindled by my father’s death returning.

  Not yet, I think. His time is coming. Get everyone out.

  I lean to the side and spot the elevator at the end of the short, barren hallway. The doors are a ruined mess, the spot where the car should be is an open void. The pre-human steps into the open space, bracing itself with hands, feet, and tail, fearless over the drop. Then it surprises me by reaching out a hand.

  “Tarnation,” Levi says, and turns to me. “Ain’t no way.”

  “And here I thought you’d grown a pair,” Cassie says.

  “Hey,” he starts, but whatever argument he was about to make is quashed when she steps around him and reaches out her hand.

  The pre-human guides her to the edge. Its tail snakes up out of the hole and wraps around her waist.

  “Be gentle,” she tells the thing, and then to me. “See you downstairs.” She’s lifted up and lowered from view.

  I grasp Flores’s arm, whispering, “Get them downstairs and outside. If shit goes sideways, get them off this mountain and out into the world.”

  “I’ll get it done,” he says. “Assuming there is a world out there.”

  When I see Owen freezing up, just outside the pre-human’s reach, I say, “You can do it, Owe. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He gives me a withering look, his strong will drawing the line at intelligent-dinosaur tail rides. Then he waves and takes a step closer, allowing the tail to wrap around him and whisk him away.

  When I turn back to face the elder Langdon he snaps the rifle up toward my face. A twitch of the finger is all that separates me from the afterlife. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Offering you one last chance at redemption,” I tell him. “Let me take them.”

  “And all will be forgiven?” He scoffs. “I know you better than that. I know you blame me for your father’s death.”

  “He died in 1985,” I say, which is the truth…but also not. Not anymore. He died less than an hour ago. Again. Because of… I force my rising emotions back down, focusing once more on the living. I motion to the younger Langdon, now lying still on the floor, one arm pinned under his body. “Him living or dying won’t change anything for you.”

  “But everything for her.” He motions to the chair in which his wife is still held prisoner.

  I can hear her, crying.

  Behind me, Flores is lifted up and transported down the elevator shaft. The pre-human directs its gaze toward me, waiting. There’s a stab of pain in my head, and then an intense feeling of being rushed.

  It’s telling me to hurry.

  Tsul’Kalu is waking up.

  But the creature doesn’t have the full picture. Doesn’t sense the smaller pieces coming together. And neither does Future Langdon.

  “You think she’s going to choose you because you’re the last man standing?” I ask. “Does that sound like the woman you married?”

  His face spasms a bit. Driven by a broken mind, he hasn’t considered the logic behind any of this. Hasn’t given thought to the ramifications of his actions on the people involved, the world or universe at large, or even the woman he’s supposed to be saving. “She will be grateful. In time.”

  My response is subtle—a raised doubtful eyebrow—but it’s enough to make him consider his future and not like what he sees. His eyes fill with fury as his finger tightens around the trigger. “She will choose me, because she will have no other choice!”

  “Yes,” the
younger Langdon says, rising up behind his counterpart, as I drop to the floor. “She will!”

  He plunges the knife dropped by Tsul’Kalu into his older self’s back. The AR-15 unleashes a torrent of bullets, as Future Langdon screams in pain and flails back. The weapon falls from his hand as he drops to the floor. He claws at his back, trying to reach the blade that hasn’t killed him yet, but certainly will if he manages to pull it out.

  The younger Langdon clings to the wall, blood-soaked and barely standing. I look down the hall toward the confused and somewhat aghast pre-human. “Help him!” I shout, and then I charge back into the penthouse, Langdon’s AR-15 in hand.

  I round the chair holding Jacqueline. Her face, normally so calm and pleasant, is streaked with mascara tears, and it’s twisted with emotion. She looks up at me with sadness and regret. “Oh, Mr. McCoy…I tried so hard,” she says, “to not upset him. To keep him calm. To find his soul. B-but there was nothing left of him. Of my husband.”

  “Your husband,” I unbuckle the belt across her waist. She couldn’t reach it because her hands were zip-tied together “…is alive.” I pull her to her feet. “And on his way outside.”

  A raspy breath cuts through the room’s air.

  “Which is exactly where we need to be.” I pull her to her feet and guide her toward the exit. The elder Langdon, knife still in his back, reaches for us as we pass.

  “Jacqueline! Please, I—”

  A swift kick from his wife silences him. She hurries past, enters the hallway, and screams. She throws herself into me, trying to flee from the pre-human, which she had yet to see.

  “He’s with us,” I tell her.

  “No, no, no…”

  The poor woman has endured a lot, but she really has no choice here. To linger means facing Tsul’Kalu trapped in the equivalent of a human-sized fishbowl…sans the water. I put her up over my shoulder and carry her to the pre-human. She trembles when it takes her, but she manages to contain her screams as she’s lowered from sight.

  When I head back to the penthouse a pulse of pain in my head conveys frantic concern.