by E W Barnes
Computer workstations were placed along the walls and several technicians were intently focused on their work. None of them looked up when Richard and Sharon entered.
Petrone tilted his head toward a computer away from the other technicians, and Richard headed for it as Petrone directed his attention to a monitor next to the Roman Ring chamber. The keyboard differed completely from what she was accustomed to, laid out in Cyrillic characters she couldn’t read. Richard apparently knew what he was doing, however, and began typing rapidly. All the computers were designed to be used while standing and there wasn’t a chair in the room. Sharon tried to look busy doing nothing standing next to Richard.
After 10 minutes of typing, Richard went to the vault. Sharon was curious and wanted to look into a porthole, but Petrone shook his head. Richard surreptitiously placed the remote-control device he carried against the painted steel. The hairs on Sharon’s arms stood on end. There was a hum and a flash of light through a porthole.
“What are you doing?” a technician hissed in alarm.
The other technicians stared at their comrade in surprise, as if speaking in this room never happened. The first technician grabbed what looked like a phone receiver on a nearby wall.
“Security, we need you in the temporal laboratory,” he said, not taking his eyes off Richard and Sharon.
Sharon looked to Petrone who had assumed the same fearful and outraged expression as the laboratory technicians, and she understood. He would let them be captured to protect his role in the dissident movement.
The room was full of security in moments. The next thing she knew, she and Richard were being escorted out—to be taken for questioning.
The obchestpol that searched Petrone’s apartment had said the two strangers were wanted for questioning at headquarters. Now they were in custody at headquarters heading for questioning—exactly where they didn’t want to be. Visions of bright-light grillings, sleep deprivation, cold water wakeups, and other torturous interrogation techniques flashed through Sharon’s terrified mind. She wondered if she’d ever see Caelen again.
It came as a surprise, therefore, when they were led into an office with large windows and a view of the city and told to sit in comfortable chairs in front of a desk. Sharon was even more perplexed when the security guards left them alone.
A moment later a woman walked into the room and sat at the desk. She cocked her head at Sharon, then Richard, and broke into a smile. Sharon was sure she’d seen her somewhere before.
“My name is Anna. I’m the head of temporal research and I know all my staff. You are not among them. Who are you?” she asked.
When Sharon and Richard didn’t answer, the woman, Anna, laughed and shook her head.
“We have ways to learn what we need, and I assure you, they are not pleasant. It would be easier if you’d simply answer my questions.”
“I’m Richard,” Richard said.
“That’s a start,” Ana responded. “Richard who?”
“Kern, of course,” Richard said as if Anna should have already known.
“And you?” Anna looked at Sharon.
“I’m Sharon,” Sharon answered.
“Also Kern? Or am I supposed to know already?”
“Why are we here?” Richard interrupted.
“Because you are unusual. Do you know how hard it is to get into this building? It’s even harder to get out. You are not one of my staff; you are in this building illegally; and we found you next to the Roman Ring chamber. That looks like attempted sabotage to me, and the only way it could have happened is if you had help. The Union does not take kindly to dissident traitors committing acts of terrorism. But there are things I want to know before I hand you over to the Black Operatives.”
“Black Operatives?” Sharon whispered to Richard.
“Their secret police,” Richard whispered back.
“You see? This is what I mean. Unusual. How can you not know of the Black Operatives? Everyone knows and fears the Black Operatives, but you don’t. And there’s more,” she leaned forward. “Our computers recorded an unusual temporal event last night. It was as if someone traveled here from another world. Today two strangers appear in my lab, strangers who don’t know of the Black Operatives. You see what I mean? Unusual. You wouldn’t know what I’m talking about, would you?”
Richard and Sharon remained silent, but Anna nodded.
“I see. You do not talk, but your eyes tell me everything. Very well. I see I have no choice but to also tell you everything.”
She got up from her desk and closed huge metal shutters over the windows, plunging them into a gloom lighted only by the lamp on her desk.
“My technicians could not recognize the implications of the data they recorded last night. It confused and perplexed them. They thought it was an anomaly, an error, and were inclined to dismiss it. But I recognized what it meant. I knew it was a shift across the rift between worlds because I have made that trip myself.”
Anna watched Richard and Sharon closely and again Sharon felt familiarity. When they had no response, Anna nodded again.
“It is a difficult shift,” she said. “One of the most terrifying I’ve ever experienced. The howling, the freezing cold—I thought it would never end.”
Sharon looked out of the corner of her eye at Richard, wondering what he would do. Anna accurately described the shift across the rift as if she truly had experienced it.
“How long have you been here?” Richard asked.
“Long enough to set myself up as the head of this department,” Anna answered. “The Temporal Protection Corps sent me here in 2126, after the Alexander Event, to prevent this world from ever opening a rift to our earth again. Now I ask once more: Who are you?”
“We are TPC agents, too,” Richard said. “In our world the temporal nexus has been disabled by a virus in the temporal mainframe, and the invasion of our world has come and gone leaving destruction in its wake.”
Anna blinked, her eyes wide.
“What are you here to do?”
“We’re here to use the temporal nexus in this world to go back in time on our world and stop the disaster,” Sharon said.
“I see,” Anna said. “How can I help?”
Sharon frowned. Just like that this woman was going to help them? But then there was that feeling as if she knew her. Perhaps like Astrid Berg, the first head of temporal security whom Sharon had met when trying to correct the “Email Timeline,” Anna was an unexpected ally they could trust.
Richard held up the remote-control device.
“I just need to activate this while in contact with the Roman Ring chamber,” he said.
“And then you will go back in time,” Anna nodded. “How then will you cross over the rift?”
“I’ve modified the device to shift us across the rift at the same time.”
“Very well,” Anna said, rising from her desk. “But I must ask you to take me with you. If this world will invade our earth in my future, then my mission here has failed, and I can better serve the TPC there now.”
Richard nodded slowly. Sharon blinked. Something about Anna’s logic didn’t make sense; but perhaps there was more to Anna’s mission than Sharon realized.
“This way,” Anna said. She opened a door behind her desk, a private passageway to the Roman Ring chamber. Anna entered the temporal laboratory first.
“Please excuse me—I must do some classified testing now. You may wait in the antechamber.”
A moment later she ushered them in. Petrone was nowhere to be seen and Sharon hoped he had escaped safely. Anna was typing on a computer workstation keyboard, but Richard went straight to the Roman Ring chamber and placed his hand on it. Without looking at Sharon or Anna, he activated the remote control.
There was a flash of light and then blackness. Sharon saw nothing, felt nothing. She tried to reach out, to touch something, anything, but there was only oblivion. Consciousness slipped away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
> Between Universes
Sharon opened her eyes. She was sitting on a floor against a wall. Her legs were splayed out in front of her on what looked like the shiny floor of a brightly white hallway in an office building. She groaned and pulled herself up, trying to get her bearings. There were voices nearby, and she followed them, staggering and leaning against the wall as she walked.
Gradually her head cleared. She recognized the CERN facility where she’d been held after her arrest by Agent Berg in 2126. No, it was the facility where the descendants of the TPC staff lived in 2337, except the last time she’d been there they were under attack by the raiders. There was no evidence of an impending attack now.
The voices grew louder as she eased her way around a door frame, and she saw Miranda and Agent MacGregor. She gasped with relief and pleasure at seeing her dear friends and colleagues. Everything would be all right now.
“Miranda!” she cried out. “Agent MacGregor! I’m so glad to see you.”
Neither responded. They didn’t turn toward her or give any sign they knew she was there.
“Miranda! Agent MacGregor! It’s me, Sharon.”
Still nothing. It was as if they couldn’t hear her. Sharon moved in closer, waving her hand in front of Miranda’s face. Miranda did not blink. Not only could she not hear Sharon, she couldn’t see her either.
“What the hell…?” Sharon asked herself.
“We’ve got to hurry!” a voice shouted. “Secure these doors here and here and erect a barricade there.”
Sharon turned to see people running down the hallway carrying large pieces of plastic and metal. The hallway was no longer bright and shiny, and the people were wearing grey-green jumpsuits. They were the people of the community in 2337, racing to hold off the raiders’ attack.
“We’ve tapped the temporal nexus for energy,” a man in the room said. Sharon didn’t recognize him. Miranda and Agent MacGregor were gone. No, Agent MacGregor was still there, but now he was older, graying at the temples.
“Well done. The community can use a renewable source of power.”
Now there were more people in the hallway, walking and talking. Sharon didn’t recognize any of them, either from the TPC in 2204 or the community in 2337.
Slowly it dawned on Sharon that she was seeing overlays of time, the many years of the people who lived in the facility after the evacuation in 2204. But she could interact with none of them.
Caelen appeared. She watched him access the temporal mainframe in 2337, talking urgently with Lucinda while preparations to fight the raiders went on around them. Then he was lifting pieces of metal into place, helping to construct a barrier. Then he was in his small apartment, sitting on the bed staring at the wall.
She tried to talk to him, to touch his arm, to no avail. She sat on the bed next to him until he turned off the light and fell asleep. She stayed all night watching him.
Days went by and still Sharon was trapped in a ghost state. She didn’t feel hunger or tiredness, just frustration at not being able to be heard or seen. Finally, she accepted that she would be stuck in this state forever.
“If I’m going to be a ghost flitting around this place for all eternity, I’ll do it in the company of the people I care for the most,” she said to herself.
Sharon knelt next to Miranda as she mourned the loss of Director Veta and pondered how to keep their people alive after losing everything. She followed Agent MacGregor, admiring his leadership skills in helping people move forward when faced with obstacles and challenges. She sat with Caelen when he was alone and stood with him when he fought against the raiders.
Caelen braced himself, a metal bar in hand, ready to fight and kill if raiders made it through the barricade. She heard men grunting and shouting as raiders tried to batter down the doors. Caelen’s expression was grim, and Sharon wished she could hold his hand.
“I’m here Caelen, even though you can’t hear me or see me. I’ll stay with you for as long as I’m able and no matter where you go.”
She took a deep breath, feeling that it was now or never. “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you, but it never seemed to be the right time. I thought maybe I could tell you on our date, but that didn’t happen, and now it looks like it never will. I wanted to tell you about us, what happened with us in the other timeline that you can’t remember. About how we fell in love.”
Then Caelen was in 2204 again. This time he was accessing the temporal mainframe on a computer workstation in an empty CERN conference room. Nizhoni Diogo walked in and they discussed their most recent attempts to eradicate the virus.
Suddenly there was a shout in her ear.
“Wake up! Wake up!”
Sharon opened her eyes. She was in a foggy place. Everywhere she looked there was a grey mist.
“Hello?”
“Sharon, it’s Richard.” His voice came out of the mist. Sharon tried to find him but couldn’t see anything through the grey.
“I’m here, too,” Anna said.
“Where are we?” Sharon asked. “It’s so foggy.”
“Foggy? It’s a beautiful day,” Richard said. “I’ve never seen the garden look so lovely.”
“I think we’ve somehow landed between universes,” the voice of Anna said. “I think something went wrong and we’re in some kind of nowhere.”
“But I was just in the CERN facility in our world, just a moment ago. It was strange, like I was a ghost. No one heard me or saw me.”
“You’ve been here the whole time,” Anna answered. “You lost consciousness,” she added. “Perhaps you dreamed being there.”
“It felt so real,” Sharon murmured. She tried to see either of them in the fog but failed. “How do we get out of here?”
“Why would we want to leave?” Richard asked. “This is such a beautiful place.”
“My people have theorized about the existence of a realm between parallel universes,” Anna said, ignoring Richard. “We called it fold space or a fold universe. Unfortunately, we never theorized about how to escape.”
“We’ve got to find a way out of here,” Sharon said, her voice shaking.
This was worse than being a ghost. At least as a ghost she could watch over the people she cared about even if she could do nothing to help them. Here it was claustrophobia and agoraphobia all wrapped up in one horrible place.
“Today, I’d like to prune the gardenias,” Richard said. “And perhaps cut some roses for a vase. They smell wonderful when they’re in bloom.”
“Is there anything to explore here?” Sharon asked. She tried to stand or even crawl but while she felt her limbs, she couldn’t make them obey her commands.
“I’m thinking,” Anna said.
Sharon felt something touch her hand, and she nearly shrieked. It was hard and plastic, about the size of her palm. As she wrapped her fingers around it, she recognized it as the remote-control device Richard carried.
She didn’t know if Richard had given it to her in his delusional state or if he’d dropped it in this strange fold space and she’d found it. Not waiting to confer with the others, she pushed the button, relieved to see the telltale rippling of a temporal shift.
They emerged into a beautiful space, a garden full of green grass, ferns, and bamboo following along flowing waterways and tended paths. Sharon knew this place. It was the grounds of TPC headquarters. They had made it back.
With no pockets in her stolen uniform from the parallel earth, Sharon tucked the remote control into her sock and helped Richard to his feet. Anna appeared no worse for wear for their adventure in “fold space” and was looking around her curiously.
Sharon led the way along the winding paths heading toward the building. She was so glad to be back she had to stop herself from running, but she allowed herself to grin in anticipation of seeing her friends for real this time.
She held open the doors to the atrium for Richard and Anna and followed in after them, feeling joy at her homecoming. But it was short-lived. Standi
ng in the center of the atrium as if she were waiting for them was Yorga Zintel.
“We’ve been expecting you,” she said with a cold smile. “Welcome to the headquarters of the Chestnut Covin.”
Security officers standing out of sight on either side of the doors took up places behind Sharon and Richard.
“The shift between worlds took longer than we expected,” Yorga said to Anna.
Anna looked at Richard and Sharon for a moment as if pondering how to answer and then turned a smile on Yorga.
“Yes, it did. We encountered something interesting on the way, what my people have theorized as a space between the worlds. It might be the perfect place in which to lose… unwanted baggage,” Anna finished with a significant look at Sharon and Richard.
“The knights are coming, your majesty,” Richard said. “The tournament should be especially magnificent this year.”
“This one has temporal aberration disorder,” Anna said, pointing a thumb at Richard. “Pay him no attention.”
“You planned this,” Sharon breathed as she realized Anna’s deception. “You planned this all along. Your story about being an agent, about your failed mission—it was all a lie to capture us, to get here.”
“It must be difficult for you to believe that not everything is about you, yes?” Anna said to Sharon. “I had plans to return even before we found you next to the Roman Ring chamber. Discovering the famous Sharon Gorse in my temporal laboratory was a bonus, an appropriate gift for my friend Yorga here.”
Yorga smirked. “And you have my thanks.”
“There will be gifts given, of course,” Richard tried to bow but a security officer placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him still. He satisfied himself with a stately nod of his head.
“How did you know who I was?” Sharon asked.
“I was shown a picture of you, in case you showed up. You have a history of showing up where you’re not wanted, you know.”
“And the stop in fold space? Was that planned too?”