Out of Time

by E W Barnes

  Darkness fell. It had taken Sharon and Richard almost all day to cross the open space between the ruined city and the transportation center. As night came on still the dog pack remained.

  Richard slept where Sharon had dropped him. His breathing was steady and his color was good. What she could see of his injured leg concerned her. But when she moved even a few inches, the dogs grew even more alert, and she did not want to rouse them by trying to see the wound more closely.

  Hours passed. Sharon was painfully wedged against a seat, though even if she had been comfortable, she would not have been able to sleep with the pack outside the car.

  Sharon guessed it was after midnight when the pack finally gave up. Perhaps hunger drove them, or the scent of easier prey. The lead dog yipped once and trotted out of the transportation center. The other dogs followed, some eagerly, some reluctantly. Within 10 minutes Sharon and Richard were the only living things remaining.

  Sharon waited another hour to be certain the dogs were truly gone before she moved. Standing, she stretched her arms and legs to work out muscle knots earned from running, crawling, carrying, and not moving. The stink they had picked up in the pipe had grown ripe in the enclosed space and she longed to be clean.

  She sat again, trying to get a look at Richard’s leg, but could see very little of the damage in the dark. She eyed the pocket where he kept the remote control, debating whether to extract it as he slept. She decided against it. In such a small space he could seriously injure her if he woke violently, and two of them wounded was likely a death sentence in this world.

  Finally, she surrendered to her exhaustion. She curled up on the floor of the autocar facing Richard with her back against the seat and, despite her fear and discomfort, was soon asleep.

  ✽✽✽

  “Where am I?”

  A ragged voice woke Sharon. Blearily opening her eyes, she wondered why she was sleeping on the floor. A man’s leg was directly in front of her. Light was coming through glass marked by the attacks of the dogs. Full memory returned, and she sat up in alarm. Scrambling onto a seat she looked out the smudged windows. The dogs had not returned.

  “We’re outside the CERN facility,” Sharon said in a weary voice as she slumped into the seat across from Richard.

  “How did we get here?” he asked, but she did not have the energy to tell him about the vigil with the pack.

  “Where to next?” she responded.

  “Now we enter the building before the queen does,” he said trying to stand up and failing.

  “What?”

  “Oh, there you are, your highness,” he made to bow, but his injured leg made it impossible, and he leaned against the side of the car instead. “All has been made ready.”

  “Right,” Sharon sighed.

  His behavior was uncomfortably familiar. Her mother had been the same—seeing things that weren’t there, talking to people as if they were someone else. Sharon had learned just to go with the delusions. Resigned, Sharon tugged on the doors which slid open much more easily than they had closed.

  “You know where we’re going, I’ll follow you,” she said to Richard. He responded by waiving his hands with a flourish.

  “After you, your majesty,” Richard said bowing again, which almost knocked him off balance.

  “Wait a minute,” Sharon found a torn section of her dress that wasn’t black with dried sewage and finished the rip with a yank. “We should wrap your injury.”

  “No need, no need,” Richard replied with an airy laugh.

  “Your queen commands you,” Sharon said imperiously.

  Richard blinked and reluctantly raised his leg so she could bandage it.

  “Does that feel better?”

  He nodded. “It does, thank you,” he said.

  There were no signs of life as they crept out the doors and limped across the transportation center to the walkway that led to the CERN entrance. The clean air was refreshing but Sharon was uncomfortable leaving the relative safety of the autocar. They hurried through the now brown and crumbling garden that had flanked the walk to the building and darted across the road and up the steps as fast as Richard’s pace would allow.

  Here, as in the ruined city, no window was left intact. The lobby was open to the elements and a drift of dirt had formed on the floor against the closest wall. They squeezed past the jagged glass that had once been double doors to the lobby into the gloomy interior.

  “What we need is in the underground section,” Richard said.

  His temporal aberration disorder relapse appeared to have receded, and he was lucid again. He headed toward the double doors and the long hallway that led to the elevators to the lower levels.

  “You mean TPC headquarters?”

  “The TPC headquarters you knew is gone,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, coming to a halt. He didn’t respond until he realized the sound of her footsteps on the gritty floor had stopped.

  “There was sabotage,” he said, gently taking her arm. “The TPC you know was evacuated. They set up headquarters in the old CERN space, for a while. Before the end. That’s where we need to go.”

  The double doors on the other side of the hallway were gone, the doorway now opening into blackness. The limited light showed the dim outline of the remains of the security desk and the layer of dust and dirt that had accumulated on every surface. There were no footprints in the dust.

  “Where are the stairs?” Sharon asked.

  “Over here,” Richard answered pointing to the wall opposite the elevators where a door stood, slightly ajar.

  Richard tried to open it, giving it a shove before falling against it when his leg would not support him.

  “Damned merry-go-rounds. Always in the way,” he muttered.

  “Let me try,” Sharon said as she set her shoulder against the door and pushed.

  It gave an inch as Richard braced against the door frame. There was just enough space for her to insert her head in the opening. In the gloom she saw huge mounds of debris, which had settled into unmovable mountains blocking their path. They could not get in this way.

  “Now what’re we going to do?” Sharon asked.

  She glanced at his pocket where he kept the remote control, but he did not notice. Instead, Richard was staring at the elevators.

  “There’s only one other thing to do,” he said nodding at the elevator doors. He wrestled a small piece of metal from a debris pile and used it to pry open one, then the other door, leaning forward to peer down each darkened shaft.

  “Are you afraid of heights?” he asked as she approached.

  “Not normally,” she answered, refraining from pointing out the obvious that this situation was not normal for her.

  He pointed to the elevator shaft on the right. “That car is down only a few floors. It’s not as far down as we need to go. I can’t see the car in this one, which means we should be able to climb down to the level we need.”

  Sharon cautiously leaned forward to look down the left shaft. The dull light illuminated only a few feet of the shaft beyond which was dark.

  “Wouldn’t it be a better idea to climb down the right shaft? We could get into the car through the roof and open the doors to that floor. The stairs might not be blocked, and we can walk the rest of the way.”

  Richard shook his head. “If the car has stopped between floors, there’s no way we can move it. And it’s likely the stairs are blocked for several levels. Either way, we’d have to climb back up and my leg won’t make it.”

  “There’s got to be another option,” she started.

  “There’s no other way. And if you’re thinking about the remote control in my pocket, it won’t work. Not without a functioning temporal nexus.”

  He found another debris pile, pulling out a second rod of metal about a foot long, and handed it to her.

  “We need to climb down 10 levels. I’ll go first that way if my leg gives, I won’t take you with me. We’
ll use the bars to pry open the doors on level 10, whoever gets there first.”

  Without waiting for her to respond, he jammed his metal bar into the back of his pants and reached inside the elevator shaft. Rungs were set every foot, serving as a ladder running down the wall next to the elevator doors. He carefully swung his leg over and began to climb down: hand, hand, foot, hop; hand, hand, foot, hop.

  Sharon looked around, desperately trying to think of some other way for them to access the lower levels without climbing down an elevator shaft. But nothing came to her.

  “Ok, there’s enough space now, you can start,” Richard’s voice floated up out of the dark hole.

  Sharon took several deep breaths. She kicked off her shoes—it would be easier to climb in bare feet than in heels. She hung the shoes from the metal rod through their open toes and rested the rod on her back across her shoulders, holding it in place with her dress sleeves and bra straps, the shoes hanging down her back. It was awkward and difficult to get in place, and once it felt secure the metal dug into the skin of her shoulders, promising blisters.

  “Ok, I’m coming,” Sharon said in a trembling voice as she reached for the closest rung.

  It was cold and gritty under her hand. She swung a leg out, securing her foot on a lower rung, then letting go of the wall and grabbing the rung with her other hand. Her legs were shaking as she gingerly took her first step downward.

  Slowly the square of light from the open doors above them grew smaller. She scrupulously kept her eyes in front of her, avoiding the terror of looking down into nothingness and the terror of looking up to see how far she was from safety. The climb itself was not as hard but, as she’d suspected, the metal rod was rubbing her skin raw every time she moved her arms.

  As she relaxed into the repetitive motion, she realized Richard was talking to himself. He was hallucinating again, conversing with people and creatures that were not there. She thought about calling out to him, to help him snap out of it, but decided against it. Perhaps the hallucinations distract him from pain and fear, she thought.

  The square of light above had almost disappeared and there was no sign of the elevator car below them. What if the car was at the bottom of the shaft? Sharon couldn’t remember how many feet down it was to the old TPC. Many hundreds she suspected.

  Worse what if the car had been destroyed and there was a pile of jagged metal waiting for them? Her palms grew wet with perspiration. She stopped climbing, resting her forehead against a cold metal rung as she took deep breaths to calm herself. Then she realized the shaft was silent. Richard was no longer murmuring.

  “Richard?” she called. There was no answer. “Richard,” she tried again. “Are you all right?”

  She heard a gasping breath many feet below her.

  “Where am I?” he asked, panic in his voice.

  “You’re ok,” she reassured him. “We’re climbing down the elevator shaft to get to the TPC, remember?”

  “The TPC. The TPC. We have to get to the TPC,” he croaked. Sharon relaxed. He remembered; he was on mission again.

  There was a scraping sound, followed by a bang and a squeak. Richard let out a cry, a cry that arced away from her downward. He was falling.

  “Richard!” she screamed.

  There was no answer. She was alone, hanging in the dark over an infinite drop into nothingness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  2337 - The Beginning of the Story

  Sharon clung to the ladder, shuddering. He’d kidnapped her and brought her to this terrible place against her will, but she would never have wished such a horrible end for Richard. And she couldn’t help but think: Was the same a terrible end waiting for me, too? Without Richard she did not know what to do next. He’d not explained what he needed from her or the TPC. Whatever plan he’d had died with him.

  She considered climbing back up but realized she didn’t know what she would do after that. She had to find some way to shift out of this time frame. Whatever he might claim about it, she needed the remote control Richard carried. He wouldn’t have kept it if it was useless. If she could get it, she might figure out a way to get home.

  The answers were downward. The only way out of this was to find Richard’s body, get the remote control, and figure out how to use it to send her home. She looked upward. The square of light was gone, and the darkness was complete. But she knew the light was up there and it gave her courage. She sighed and began mechanically climbing down again. The only sound was the slap of her skin on the metal, the grate of grit as she moved from one rung to the next.

  Her foot contacted something lumpy. Thinking of rats in the dark, she stifled a scream, pulling her leg back up. Her heart was thudding in her ears. She forced her foot down again. This time she felt a cold, solid surface next to the lump. She’d found the elevator car. Richard was lying on top of it.

  Carefully she eased herself onto the roof of the car and knelt by Richard. She uncurled her stiff fingers to find his arm and checked his pulse. He was still alive, still breathing. The fall had not killed him, only knocked him unconscious.

  Hissing, she pulled the rod of metal from across her shoulders, hearing the shoes drop dully onto the car. Her skin burned and stung where the rod had abraded it. She reached around Richard trying to find the rooftop access panel. Her fingers felt a seam, then another, though Richard was lying across most of it.

  She pushed him away just far enough for her to reach the panel. As she shoved the metal bar under the panel’s edge, she kept her movements small so that neither of them would go tumbling over a side she could not see. It took a long time. Finally, she felt the panel give.

  “I think you’ve got it,” a voice said, startling her, and she dropped the rod with a yelp.

  “Richard!” she gasped, her voice shaking.

  “Thanks for coming to get me,” he responded.

  Sharon pried again with the metal rod, feeling the panel rising and reaching her fingers underneath to pull it away.

  “I came to get the remote control,” she said.

  “You come for one, you come for the other. You can’t use it without me,” he breathed, and she imagined he was smiling in the dark.

  “Whatever,” she muttered as she pulled the panel up.

  Light from the car flooded the shaft, blinding them. Sharon held the panel open with one hand while holding the other hand in front of her eyes.

  “Can you make it?” she asked Richard.

  “No other choice,” he answered. He rolled into the opening, catching the edge with his hands and mostly fell into the elevator car.

  Sharon groped for her shoes, dropping them into the car once Richard pulled his legs out of the way. In her dress there was no way to hold the panel open and get into the car in a lady-like way.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  “Already done,” he answered.

  She swung her legs around and dropped into the car, stumbling on her shoes and catching herself on a handrail before taking a deep breath.

  Someone had wedged the elevator doors open, and she was looking down a familiar hallway. They had found the first headquarters of the TPC.

  “How is there electricity here?” Sharon asked as she stepped into the hallway. Her shoes were hanging from her fingers and the cool tile felt good against her sore feet. “This is the first sign of any kind of power generation we’ve seen.”

  “Maybe it’s an automatic function,” Richard said, limping behind her. “Something independent of the world system and left on since the catastrophe.”

  “Is there anyone left?” she asked.

  “So many died…” he trailed off, but without answering the question, she noted.

  There was much less debris here than on the surface, though everywhere there were signs of a struggle. Tables were knocked over, doors were hanging on their hinges, and a thick layer of dust suggested it had been a long time since the conflict had taken place. But there were no bodies and no sign of the humans who had taken
refuge here. It felt like a ghost town.

  The fourth door was off its hinges and lying on its side on the floor. The room beyond it looked like a break room. Sharon set an overturned chair upright and eased Richard into it before finding another chair for herself. They sat, not speaking, resting after their long climb. Then Richard groaned as he bent over to inspect his injury.

  “Let me look at that,” she said as she slid out of the chair and onto the floor.

  His exertion had stressed the wound, but it appeared to be healing cleanly, despite the filth they’d exposed it to over the last day.

  “I think you will be ok if you can take it easy for a couple of days…” she stopped, distracted.

  Wedged in a corner under a table was something that looked familiar. She crawled across the floor, easing the table aside as Richard watched.

  “What is it?” he said, but instead of answering she faced him, raising a prize in each hand over her head.

  “Water!” she said triumphantly.

  She opened one for herself and finished it with a gulp. It tasted terrible, stale, and smelled strangely, but it was good enough to drink.

  There were three more bottles wedged in another corner under wrecked chairs which she extracted and brought to him.

  “We can use some of this to clean your leg,” she said, washing the dust and sweat from the area around the wound as he drank deeply.

  There was nothing to wrap it with, however, and she didn’t have enough dress left for another bandage.

  “You don’t happen to see any food under one of those tables, do you?” he asked.

  She made a wry face. “Unfortunately, no.”

  He eased himself off the chair, moving carefully across the room to rest on the floor with his back against the wall, facing the open doorway. Sharon joined him on the perpendicular wall. She was growing cold after the exertion of climbing down the elevator shaft and her dress offered no insulation. After she rested a little, she would search the rooms for something warmer and more practical to wear. Maybe something was left behind.