The Dogs of God

by Chris Kennedy

  There are a lot of rumors like that. Based on what little I actually know, they all sound plausible. Who knows, though, if they’re actually legit.

  When I think about it, I realize a couple things. First, it doesn’t matter if the humming fades or it becomes so loud that it blows out my eardrums. Really, none of it matters except whether I live or die in the moments after this is over.

  Second, even if these things are true, it’s just because of coincidence and not because anyone who speaks of such things actually knows what this will be like. No one that has ever stood in the line where I currently stand has been seen again.

  Not even the survivors.

  * * *

  The few scientists in the room are the only ones who could vouch for what happens on this side, and they know best of all that if they say anything to anyone, if they enter notes into a computer, even if they scribble something into a daily journal, it will eventually be found. Then, instead of standing in a line like the one I’m in, they’ll be standing in a firing line.

  There’s no telling how many other scientists know about what’s going on in this room. There’s a chance that these five are the only ones, and that if they die there will never be another chance for people like me to line up for the opportunity to make things better.

  That’s why there’s so much secrecy surrounding what we do. It’s one of the reasons this experiment, if that’s what you want to call it, is happening underground. It’s why the cinderblock walls are reinforced with a double layer of brick, and why the front door is made of steel.

  * * *

  That’s also why the scientists don’t know our real names, and I don’t know the scientists’ names.

  They didn’t even bother to say something like, “You can call me Mrs. Light,” or “Refer to me as Dr. X.” They just asked me to verify my codename, nodded when I gave the correct word, and then motioned for me to change clothes into the standard burlap uniform.

  I don’t know any of the men beside me, either. The whistler has a codename. So do the ones who stand silently.

  It’s better this way, lest one of us is caught alive.

  * * *

  The growing hum is joined by the first signs of light. It emanates from the pair of metal boxes on either side of the room. Thin strands of light begin to spread out through the metal coil connecting each of our ankles, and also from another thick metal band positioned above our heads.

  Rumor says the light will continue to expand until the entire room is glowing and the line of ten men is almost invisible behind the wall of light. Once the pure energy from the machine at the start of the line connects with the energy from the machine at the end of the line, the reaction will start. That’s when we’ll know if we’ll live or die.

  But again, this is just a rumor.

  * * *

  The humming has grown loud enough that it sounds like the vacuum cleaner has moved across the room and is now directly beside me. I hear a pair of low clunks that cause all of the scientists to freeze in place for a moment. The man beside me turns and glances at me, and then at the others just past me. He does not look confident. The youngest of the scientists walks to the steel door—the only way in or out of the basement—and leans his head to it. Compared to the other people in lab coats, he looks like a kid. He tilts his right ear until its only inches from the door. That’s when I realize the two thunks I heard were probably much louder than I first estimated, due to the buzzing.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  The scientists look at each other in turns. None of them says anything. Silently, they all agree to continue doing what they’re doing and ignore whoever is standing outside.

  * * *

  “Why would you do this?”

  That’s the question that not just Mrs. Ellis would ask, were she here, but also just about everyone I know. Trust me, I’ve asked myself the question enough times for all of them.

  I have a decent job. I have a mother and father who love me. My brother has always been there for me. I have a girlfriend who might be the one, as they say.

  I don’t have suicidal tendencies. I don’t have a criminal record. I don’t even have any credit card debt! The lowest grade I ever got was a C+. That was in Mr. Peterson’s Calculus class.

  As far as the rest of the world is concerned, there are no indications that I would be the type of person to do something that’s not only highly dangerous, but also highly illegal.

  After all, if the State knew what I was doing here, they would kill everyone in the room before labeling us traitors in the media.

  * * *

  Personally, I don’t care if I’m labeled a spy against my country or whatever else they’ll say about me, but I know that must be a powerful piece of propaganda, because it’s one of the most common tools the State uses to destroy someone’s reputation. For the serious crimes, you either disappear, or you’re found dead of what’s declared a suicide. For lesser crimes, you’re ostracized by everyone in the media. It doesn’t sound so bad, but it adds up. A thousand people repeat the same line, and it becomes truth. Everyone around you, people who don’t even know you, look at you with mistrust. No one speaks to you except to yell curses at you. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times.

  Even the people who don’t really dislike you will spit in your face or bump your shoulder. If the State’s cameras and informants see someone being friendly to one of these traitors, they could easily think they’re also a sympathizer. And if that happens, they’ll get a knock on their door from men in suits whose goal it is to determine if they’re a traitor. If they show up, it’s likely they’ve already made that decision.

  The cycle repeats until everyone either falls in line—or else they disappear.

  * * *

  Why on earth would I do this?

  One way or another, I’m going to vanish. It might as well be on my own terms, in the hopes I can make things better.

  * * *

  Maybe a random person off the street could be confused as to what’s happening in this room. The State doesn’t even know what we’re up to. If they did, they would have their goons out on every corner to round up everyone who has ever said something against one of their policies. If not even the State knows about what we’re about to do, ordinary people will be clueless as to what’s going on in this basement.

  It does kind of look like a science experiment. I’m not part of some university research study, though. And although the white light continues to expand from the pair of boxes and envelop more of the space between them, I’m not trying to reach the afterlife.

  I’m trying to go back in time.

  * * *

  My brother is one of my best friends. My job is pretty decent as far as those things go. My girlfriend is much too smart and sexy for me. Why would someone in my position dare to go back in time, especially when the chances of living aren’t good, and it’s a one way trip with no chance of ever seeing the people I love again?

  Why would I do it? Exactly because I have a family I love and a girlfriend who outclasses me in every regard. Exactly because I have friends who deserve to be happy and because, on the other side of the world, there are innocent people who have never known peace because of the State.

  I’m risking my life because one day, the State could determine my girlfriend said or did something they didn’t approve of, and then she’d disappear. I’m going back in time because I refuse to have children in a world where the State listens to every word anyone says on the phone and monitors everyone’s online activity. But it’s not only the complete lack of privacy. It’s the people who disappear, or the ones the media says killed themselves, even though we all know they didn’t. It’s the laws that control every aspect of our lives. It’s the fear that if we don’t fall in line, our lives could be ruined. It’s knowing that if someone speaks up, they won’t be the only one who gets a visit from the State. It will also be their friends and family. It’s knowing that every day, the State finds a new
law to pass to restrict freedom and privacy just a little bit more.

  It’s also the wars. The endless wars. Those are the reasons I stand here and let the white light cover my feet, because millions of lives are lost each year as the State picks yet another frivolous reason to begin bombing people on the other side of the world who just want to live in peace and quiet.

  * * *

  In those terms, I’m not crazy for risking my life. I’d be crazy if I didn’t.

  * * *

  The goal: go back in time and prevent the Republic from devolving into the State.

  The only problem, as demonstrated by the estimated mortality rates, is that time travel is still in its extreme infancy.

  * * *

  The hum is loud enough now that I can no longer hear if the whistler is still doing his favorite show tunes. It sounds like someone is using a power washer above my head. The youngest of the scientists moves back toward the door. Was there another pair of knocks? Is it the State, or just a janitor wondering what’s going on?

  I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s not like the scientists could open the door and explain the situation in a way that would soothe bystanders. The bright white light. The loud buzzing. The fact that the steel door is locked from the inside with both a deadbolt and a slide lock. Anyone on the other side would be forced to immediately report the suspicious activity to the State unless they wanted to be considered an accomplice.

  But what if it’s not some random guy who lives on the first story and hears the ruckus going on beneath him? What if it’s the State? The thought makes my heart quicken.

  I remind myself that, for me at least, their arrival doesn’t matter. In a matter of minutes, I’ll be gone. The average foot patrols won’t have enough firepower to blast down the steel door. They’ll need to call for one of the State’s tactical squads to blow down the door with explosives. By then, either alive or dead, I’ll already be gone.

  It’s the scientists whose fates hang in the balance. They can’t jump into the light. They aren’t prepared. After the ten time travelers are gone, the five people in lab coats will still be here to deal with the State. I imagine they’ve thought of this possibility and have a course of action. Maybe they all have a poison capsule they’ll swallow. Maybe they have a device rigged that will destroy the room’s contents, themselves included. They won’t allow themselves to be interrogated by the State because no one is foolish enough to think they can withstand the slow and methodical torture that will ensue.

  We’ve all seen pictures. Initially, it just happened to people on the other side of the world when the State said they were terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Then it happened to the State’s own citizens when they were unlucky enough to be arrested in foreign countries. And then it happened here. Just like with all of the State’s evil doings, there was a slow incrementalism that allowed the anger and disapproval to die down at each step in the escalation before the State did something even worse.

  The scientists helping to make sure the equipment remains stable know their fate. None of them says a word about what is or isn’t happening outside the room. I know this even though I can’t hear anything they say. I know it because all of them are hunched over computers and the conductors on either side of the room. None of them says anything at all.

  I offer a silent hope that the State won’t know about what’s happening here until the scientists can pack up and leave, but I know that’s foolish.

  * * *

  People think the State hears, sees, and knows all. They have access to the electronic home assistants that hear your every word. They have access to the cameras in your computer and phones. They have little flying cameras hovering above every city. But even with all of these tricks, there are still a couple things the State doesn’t know.

  The fact that I’m in this line without soldiers in black body armor bursting through the door is proof enough of that.

  * * *

  The funny thing is that it’s the State’s own disdain for science that keeps them from having the technology we’re using in our attempt to go back in time and prevent them from existing in the first place.

  * * *

  While we do have the capability, I’ve heard that there have been scant few instances of it actually being tested. Experiments in this realm are a luxury the scientists don’t have. It takes a lot of energy to complete the cycle. It takes a lot of subterfuge to get ten time travelers and a couple scientists in an underground room together without the State noticing and thinking something suspicious is going on.

  Because of that, the scientists have determined that time travel is possible, and the process repeatable, but they haven’t had time to refine the mechanisms.

  I know I’m not part of the first batch of people to attempt the journey back in time. The woman I met with to sign up for the mission told me that much. But it’s very possible that I’m part of the second batch, or the third.

  Like with all things, it’s a matter of time until the State’s cameras and microphones learn of our existence and the ability to travel back in time. It might happen when one of the scientists is detained for a completely different reason than being involved in this group. Maybe one of them will fail to cheerfully display the State’s flag on his or her lapel. Maybe one will check out a book at the library that the State deems to be problematic. There’s a 50-50 chance that the subsequent questioning could lead to some form of torture. Maybe solitary confinement until they confess to whatever it is the State wants. Maybe something more painful. It would only be a matter of time until the scientist reveals what he or she knows.

  * * *

  From the little I’ve gathered about time travel, based on the few snippets we were told when we agreed to this mission, I’ve learned that the trip back into history doesn’t work the way most people think. By its simplest definition, time travel occurs when someone goes from one point in time to another point in time. It could be the difference of minutes, days, or years. It’s important to note, however, that time travel is only relative to moments in time, not to points in space. Because of this, time travel simply can’t work the way it’s been depicted in movies and on TV.

  This is because the world and the entire universe is always moving. Our planet is revolving around the sun. Our solar system is moving within the galaxy. The universe is expanding at astounding speeds. Because of all of these things, a time traveler who was sent back one year in time, without an anchor from which to base their travel, would appear trillions of miles away from Earth. They’d be floating in the middle of space.

  Luckily, gravity provides the necessary anchor to ensure we reappear back on Earth when we go back in time. The same way that Earth’s core pulls a falling apple to the ground, it pulls the time travelers back to the same latitude and altitude from which they left.

  That’s not to say that traveling back in time is made simple because of gravity. Even though the planet’s gravitational force ensures a time traveler won’t appear in outer space, there are still more things that can go wrong than right.

  After all, the planet is spinning. If the time traveler reappears at any time in history other than the exact hour, minute, and second from which they left, they’ll appear in a completely different part of the world.

  That’s why most of us will die.

  * * *

  Without thousands of tests to refine the practice of time travel and make it absolutely precise, it would take a miracle to reappear in the room from which you departed. The best that science can currently promise is to make us appear at exactly the same elevation and axis point from which we leave.

  But Earth completes one revolution on its axis every 24 hours. That means it’s spinning at a rate of 1,040 miles per hour. For the time traveler, this spinning determines where we will appear. If we’re on the equator and travel back in time exactly one hour, we will still reappear on the equator, but we would be 1,040 miles away from where we are now. It might be over the o
cean. It might be over a mountain range. It might be a land mass thousands of feet lower than where we departed. All of this means our first and last action after going back in time might be falling thousands of feet to our deaths or appearing in the middle of an ocean without a boat or even a life raft. If we reappear lower than where we started from, we could be transported underground, merged with rock, and immediately cease to exist.

  It’s a pipe dream to hope for precise calculations that can send us back to the exact same spot in Earth’s rotation. The scientists are lucky to be able to send us to the correct millennium, let alone the right century or decade. Because of that, there’s no way of knowing where we’ll reappear along the latitude from which we leave.

  None of it is encouraging. All of it, though, explains why the survival rate for time travelers is estimated to be so low.

  * * *

  Would I rather reappear just to drown in the ocean, fall out of the sky to my death, or immediately become a mixture of stone and earth? Not really the type of choice I’d like. I’d rather pick between getting punched in the nuts, having a horse kick me in the stomach, or have a skunk spray me in the face.

  * * *

  I guess drowning. I’m afraid of heights. I don’t want to fall. And while forgoing any suffering by appearing in rock and instantly not existing might sound good, it would also mean that I never knew for sure that I’d gone back in time. I’d just go from seeing the light all around me to nothing. Something about that isn’t satisfying. At least if I drown, I’d have a couple minutes to know I tried my best to help save people from the State’s cruel brand of misery. And I’ve heard that once you go underwater, your brain goes into shock. Drowning might not be so bad.