The Time Rippers Book 2: Gettysburg by Pete Bertino - HTML preview
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CHAPTER 5 REBEL SCUM
AM removed the Qpads from the pack, to asses the damage in hopes only one had been hit. But they both had been, AM’s took the brunt of the shot. The glass of its face was cracked and spider webbed three quarters of the way down. AM tapped the
screen, an ugly rainbow of violent colors
dominated most of the screen its top most part still showed the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, when
he turned the Qpad, they both could hear small
objects rattling inside.
Dig’s Qpad had taken considerably less damage,
its glass facing was warped but not cracked. The bottom corner of its casing was nearly gone on its backside, it probably being what had injured Dig.
The solar battery panel was shattered. AM tapped
the screen and was some what releaved to see a fuzzy semi respondent touch screen, but like his Qpad there was a rattle of small objects inside.
The sun was setting behind the green rolling hills of Pennsylvania, as AM sat on the ground with a Qpad opened in front of him and laid them upon the
shirt he had used to make Dig’s bandage. He had managed to unscrew the casing on his with the
tweezers.
It was tedious but after an hour the final screw was removed. AM sighed heavily at what he
looked upon. The Qpad’s insides were scorched,
the motherboard, which was nothing more than a
flat piece of green plastic, was blackened with a corner of the board broken off in a pie piece
shape. Most of the tiny wires encased in rubber had melted revealing its copper inside.
The six axis component that allowed wormhole
control was broken off, next to the mess of his Qpad was Digs. It’s touch screen was the least of its problems. It was on half battery power and
could no longer be charged, and AM judge by the similar sound of rattling the six axis on this Qpad was broke as well. AM didn’t need to unscrew Dig’s.
The two screws on the side that had broken and
fallen out allowing AM to peer inside, Dig sat beside him and lit a match to give him aid in
looking. The bullet had hit the side of the solar panel and deflected it into Dig’s shoulder as AM
had surmised. The screen had warped from the
heat of the shot, the hit of the bullet had not penetrated the Qpad’s innards but managed to
break the axis as well as break a corner off.
“Can you fix it?” Dig asked.
“Quake could maybe fix this, the mother board was burned and broken on mine. Can’t repair a
motherboard.”
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AM put the Qpad down and tapped the screens
worm locator icon but it did not respond. He
tapped the media player icon and still nothing
happened. The screen would brighten but that was all.
“See if the messenger works.”
AM tapped the envelope icon three times before
the box to write came up, he was about to start
typing a message when he realized it would be useless.
“Quake can’t help us.”
“What do you mean!? Quake can rip...” Dig said
emphatically.
AM though was shaking his head.
“He’s knows how to ride but he is not the out
doors type and would get lost. Didn’t you say you almost lost me?”
“Yeah, if I hadn’t heard you talking and those
ladies constantly praying, I would have lost you in the fog. I wasn’t itching to pull out the Qpad incase someone was watching.” Dig said getting up.
AM was silent for a moment.
“What did you hear me say?” AM asked.
“Fundamentalists you said and something about
being lost, it was hard to hear you half the time. I
thought maybe I was tricking myself into hearing you. I could hear the Witches of Eastwick though, they didn’t ever seem to shut up. But I guess you
know that first hand.”
AM thought for a moment, he had been gagged for the entire trip. They only removed it when they had stopped at night when they allowed him water but not food. Surely if he had said that word aloud their leader would have left more than a swollen lip on his face. He had been thinking they were lost or that he would be killed and left in the woods for his carcass to be feasted upon by all manner of creatures.
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And the women hardly spoke at all, and only in
whispers even during prayers which they did only before eating. How could Dig hear them? AM filed that question away for now to focus on the problem at hand.
“So what do we?”
AM thought for a moment, the only chance was to send Quake a message and hope he would be able
to find them.
“Send Quake a message and ask him to come get
us.” AM said slowly looking up to Dig.
Dig could see AM didn’t think Quake would be
able to do all of that, especially with out all the comforts of the early twenty first century. He
wasn’t likely to get the message anytime soon, and the wait would be long. AM typed in the message and after a couple of tries it finally sent.
“So now we wait.” Dig sat back down feeling the weight of the entire day.
AM quietly began to gather wood, trying not to
think about the days events and its effect on Dig.
AM wondered if Dig wasn’t about to break. He
swore that he could hear him talking, as well as those women.
What if he were as Quake had warned him, losing his shit? Dig had also said he heard a young girl in the present singing a song similar to something Marisa said to him before she died in 1993, was that another sign he could be losing his mind?
But was that fair? Hadn’t he once again come
through with great odds stacked against him? Is it crazy to feel sick with emotional pain, hardly any sleep and still save his friends life, a friend who
could relate just the littlest bit to Dig’s problem?
He wasn’t going crazy, despite if he thinks he
heard people talking. AM gathered enough wood
too cook a large meal though they were not hungry.
He had the fire burning in just minutes, and sat across from Dig to tell him his story but Dig spoke first.
“I have blood on my hands.” he said watching
flames consume the larger sticks in the pile.
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AM could see the flames reflected in his eyes, he looked angry and sad as the flames rose and
looked to be licking his face.
“I am leaving this for good, AM. I can’t do this, I should have stopped when I got Marisa killed.
What if that guy...”
But he couldn’t finish the thought because it could have led anywhere. Who was that guy going to be, was he supposed to survive Gettysburg? And
Marisa, what damage might he have caused in
some distant future because of his loneliness?
Dig thought for moment about that night he caught
Cammy cheating on him. Wondering if maybe instead of tossing the vodka in the river, he
should’nt have jumped in after all. An immediate sense of alarm filled AM, he didn’t know why but he felt the urgent need to tell Dig his tale.
“Dig,” but Dig interrupted.
“Fuck! Don’t you get it.” Dig shouted getting up angrily.
His outbursts had startled some animals as a tree not far off shook with excitement and twigs
snapped from something large stepping on them
loudly even closer.
“ If I hadn’t gone with you Marisa would be alive.
What I did was selfish and wrong.”
“No, Dig you don’t...”
“Don’t what!? You were stuck for years and you
didn’t...”
“I did.”
Dig’s back was facing the fire, but he quickly turned and looked at AM wide eyed. He watched
his friend closely, he sat Buddha style near the fire which was roaring. Dig didn’t say anything, he
simply sat down across from AM Buddha style as
well.
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“I was stuck, same as you, during a time we had both lived through already. When I first ripped to 1998 I was attempting to go to 1993. If it had been
any other time for you and I, we may not have felt so compelled to go exploring.”
AM looked into the flames watching sparks jump
from the sticks of pine wood still filled with sap.
“I think, going back to the time of our youth was only a minor part, but it was enough to make the loneliness worse, because the 1990‘s were a time we had lived through. We feel at our best during a time when we were both still young and new to the world, we wanted to feel as we did then.”
“Like looking through a living photo album, or a high school year book.” Dig said, thinking about
the sports headline of his line drive framed at McClusckers, and the feelings it evoked.
“Yes, I spent over a year just waiting underground, below the city before I started going stir crazy. I
had to leave of course for food I had plenty of cash on hand, but I was afraid of affecting something. I had gone out twice for food in those first 16
months.”
He sighed heavily, staring into the flames again, his eyes unfocused and looked beyond the flames into his past.
“ This was a time I was already around for, I had been to the city numerous times during high school.
If I were to run into myself, I was convinced the universe would implode on its self the moment it happened. It was the Winter of 1999, when I left the third time for food. I was...”
Date: January 8th 1999 Universe: 1
walking down Broad street towards a twenty four hour Seven Eleven at the cross streets of Broad and Wolf. He wasn’t hungry and still had food for a whole month, but had left to buy food anyway.
Just a mini mart at two thirty in the morning on a week day, no big deal he told himself.
His thought about his last trip above in early September as he walked, he left in haste for a trip to the same mini mart he headed for now. It was just before sunrise, he had been down there since the middle of spring before that.
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He had quickly walked to the Seven Eleven at
Broad and Wolf that September night, he grabbed every item with words Ramen and Nissin on its
label. The safe room had running water and a
hotplate, the basic ingredients for Noodle ala Beef Ramen.
He took the soups up to the cashier, the same old man who had rung him up when he came the
previous Spring. He was in his sixties, his head was completely bald and shined like a mirror and had friendly grin despite working the graveyard shift.
“Late night studying again?” the cashier asked with a wink.
“You remember me?” AM asked with a look of
utter shock.
“Sure I remember ya.” he said “You’ll have to excuse me, it so quiet this late and I’m usually a big talker. Your the only person ever to buy that stuff. Two for a buck, ha, you get five for a buck at the Shop Rite.” the old man said pushing keys on the register and bagging the noodles.
“I’m Gus by the way. Thats six even.”
AM gave Gus a five and a one, thanked him and
left quickly with his noodles before the cashier asked him something else. Paranoid of talking to someone and affecting the future, but now he
almost looked forward to seeing Gus. He wouldn’t say much to the cashier just a hello and head back to the safe room.
To wait. The Qcalc said he could wait as long as four years for a wormhole, after almost one and a half years he couldn’t take it anymore. It was forty four degrees and the safe room was only a little warmer, but AM was hot from walking the
labyrinth for hours while reading aloud to himself so he felt like he was talking to someone. For
months it had been a routine which was second
hand to AM.
But still, he felt lonely. His longest rips were just a few weeks long, and he would spend the majority
of that time either researching or gathering provisons or attempts at locating. But he had no purpose in 1998, the cube couldn’t be seen in this year.
So he walked miles of labyrinth and read aloud
scores of books mostly history with the occasional Douglas Adams to lighten his spirits if MST3K
didn’t do the trick. He spent hours debating with himself about going outside for just a quick breath of fresh air.
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He came out to a dark crisp winter night. The
streets were all but empty, a woman with a large fur coat and a platinum blonde wig was standing on the corner she smiled at AM as he walked by, he nodded politely.
AM had felt exhausted and nauseous while
debating about leaving the underground, but after walking five feet in the chilly wind, he felt refreshed and awake. He looked North down Broad street facing the city’s skyline , the buildings only light at such a late hour was a blinking red light above Liberty One the cities tallest building at that point in time.
He had grown used too seeing Comcast Tower as
the pinnacle of the Philadelphia skyline, he was having the same reaction to it, that Dig would have
five years earlier. And like Dig, AM dreaded what he was doing, but felt unable to stop it. Time was suspended in the safe room, it was becoming a
prison.
Another cold breeze brought him out of his
flashback of Septembers trip, he blanked out his mind and saw how the street lights were lit
brightly all through out Broad street, soaking the pavements and buildings in a pale drab orange
color. To AM, they were a blessing compared to
the constant buzz and whiteness of the fluorescent bulbs in the safe room and labyrinth. His breath
plumed out of his mouth in white clouds.
He didn’t walk as quickly as he usually had, he was in no rush to shut himself back down in the safe room, for another six to twelve months. The January wind swept through his body, washing
away the sick feeling that was inside him for so many months.
His heart would flutter every time he thought about what he was doing, but would ignore it as he
concentrated on the bright green and orange store sign that lay ahead. He entered the store, and was warm again from a vent blowing hot air just above the door and into the establishment.
Gus was not behind the counter, no one was for that matter. A door behind the counter marked
supply closet was opened at an angle, AM could
see someone bent over rummaging through
broomsticks and shelves filled with cleaning
supplies.
As AM walked closer inside the store, the scent of picante stung his nostrils. A few feet away was a puddle of chunky red salsa with bits of green, red and yellow with shards of glass.
He carefully stepped around the mess and grabbed the dozen or so packs of Ramen on the shelf, six beef, four or five chicken and two oriental
flavored. He had also eyed a Snapple peach tea on a tiny cooler that sat on the counter, he had been craving peach tea for sometime.
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He gathered up the noodles and made his way to
the cooler when the supply closet door finally
closed. The person behind it stood up with dust pan and brush in hand.
“Hi. Are you all set?”
AM felt giddy when she looked at him and smiled, her blond hair was up in a ponytail in a purple hair
tie. A blue bic pen sat on one ear, and a Newport in the other. She wore a faded black T-shirt that proclaimed she was “The God of Fuck” in angry
red letters, A yellowing tag with the 7-11 logo was pinned to her left breast, the name Angie was written on it in graffiti style style.
“Sorry,” she said still smiling “I didn’t hear the bell when you came in.”
“That’s OK,” said AM who couldn’t stop smiling.
“Where’s Gus? I thought he was the ships captain after hours.”
She giggled, and adorned him with a sweet look.
“He retired, so I’m the new captain. Now the
captain wants to know if you plan on buying all these noodles for yourself.”
“Yes, why?”
“Because I planned on making that my dinner
tonight.” she said with the same contagious smile.
“My apologies, captain. How should I make
amends?” he said playing along with a hand upon his chest in mock serious tones. “Perhaps I should help you swab the deck.”
“No that’s cool. It’s my mess, and I get paid to clean it. You can make it up some other way.”
“As long as I don’t have to walk the plank.”
“That would be a waste of a good man.” She said ringing up the noodles.
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AM felt a charge run through him when she said
that, following it up with another smile.
“Here, you can have some noodles. I feel bad
leaving you here with a mess and no dinner.” he said opening the bag she just handed him.
“Well my mother always said never refuse
something free, I think I’ll go with oriental, it sounds racist but delicious.” she said picking two blue packets that looked like bricks of noodles when opened.
“Excellent choice, captain.” AM said with a laugh.
She looked at him and smiled.
“Well, captain I’ll leave you to your duties.” AM
said heading for the door.
“Well, thanks for buying me dinner. I haven’t dated in along time.”
“Well it’s the best date I ever had. Good evening.”
AM said and walked outside into the cold evening feeling her smile as he left.
For the first time in a while, AM had felt
something other than stir crazy. He felt almost like a boy again, he though of the autobiography he read of Ben Franklin and his desire to be around
women. They made him feel young and alive, AM
could finally understand what the good doctor had meant.
Not that he was an old man, not at all, he was on the good side of thirty Although he was scrawny he as healthy as any man his age could hope to be and was still handsome in his own humble opinion.
The young woman may or may not have been
flirting but what she said had made AM feel good.
A confidence boost if he could ever use one was what he chalked it up too.
He ignored the golden hue of her hair and her
bright green eyes, and the way her smile seemed to melt the negative emotions inside of him.
“Yes I’m ignoring it alright.” he said still shaking the memory of her creamy skin.
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AM stopped at the door and began to bight down on his tongue, in an attempt to push the image of the
Seven Eleven girl out of his mind. He was back
down inside the labyrinth, and the beige walls
began too shrink around him. He could feel the
pressure of total isolation for the next few years building up around him.
In a desperate attempt he went to the safe room for his Qpad, and found his way to the wall where
player 1 start was spray painted just beneath it. It was the first thing Quake did when he had first successfully programmed an app for time ripping.
AM brought up the app and tried to lock onto the Willy, he felt the force jerk his arms immediately.
He began to think of the debate clock back in high
school, it was only a white face with a red hand that moved every second. In his mind though it was spinning backwards in a blur, giving the clock a red face.
AM held his arms tight against the force of the wormhole that wanted to go the other way, sweat began to grease up his palms. The Qpad began to slide out of his hands, with all his strength he gripped down firmly on the Qpad, not caring if it broke.
With a firm footing he pushed, but suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his left arm below the elbow. AM
cried out and fell to the floor on his back careful to hold the Qpad in one arm and hold his injured arm out.
The next twenty four hours had been beyond
painful, he had tried to ignore the pain and go to sleep. The pain was too great to sleep, so he tried to occupy his mind but still the pain was too great.
He had wrapped and rewrapped it numerous times
with an Ace bandage from a first aid kit that was in the safe room, but it was only making the pain
worse.
In great reluctance, he walked to the hospital six or seven blocks from the labyrinth. He knew enough
first aid for minor injuries, and although he was a nurse it was of a very primitive sort with hardly enough tools to deal with a bone break if that was what it was. Without an x-ray he would never
know and was afraid of long term damage.
If the hospital could x-ray him and tell him exactly how bad it was, he would more than likely be able to take care of it himself. He entered the ER
waiting room shortly before dawn and was told to sit and wait for registration, it was just after nine by the time he had been finally seen.
He had given the nurse at the desk a fake name and address, but had claimed he had left his wallet at home because the pain had been so unbearable he couldn’t think straight. And it
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was fine the nurse had said, and that they would mail him the bill. AM thanked her for being so
informative.
After another two hours AM had gotten his x-ray and had anticipated another hour or so wait before the doctor would comeback with the results. But the doctor was back in just a few minutes.
“OK, Mr. Brown. I have good news and bad news.
Would you like the bad first.”
“Bad news is, Emmet, it’s broke. Good news is its just a hairline fracture.” He said holding up the x-ray to the bright fluorescent on the ceiling.
AM could see the bones of his arm, a few inches below his elbow was a clear straight line that didn’t look deep.
“Damn it.” AM said with a sigh.
Although the doctor put the Xray down, AM
looked at the fluorescent bulbs and thought back to the labyrinth and shuddered.
“I’ll have the nurse give you an air cast and sling.
You can’t move your arm for the next four to six weeks. The nurse will give you a prescription for pain too if you like.”
AM refused the prescription and slowly made his way back to the subway station and the safe room below. With his arm cast the pain was mostly gone and only really noticeable when he tried to move it which was often. Being stuck with one arm made
cooking his noodles nearly impossible.
He tried until he felt too much pain too eat, after a week of barely being able to get a half a meal he though about the McDonald’s that could very well exist in 1999, it was a coffee house at some point in time but wasn’t sure when.
He looked at the time on the Qpad, it was just after midnight. They would have been closed by now if it wasn’t still a coffee house, in 2011 most drive thrus where open all night. The only place nearby that would be open was Seven Eleven.
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So with hunger, pain and loneliness wearing down his will he left the safe room and ventured above.
The dread he felt was similar to his previous visit above. He read Wells and felt like one of his
Morlocks when ever he had left, a creature that belonged underground.
It was a busy world by the 1950‘s, he would be
just another face in the crowd. He was more likely to draw notice if he were wondering around in the 1800‘s when not many people were nearby. But it wasn’t until he ripped to the 1990‘s did he have a personal encounter that he didn’t plan on.
“She was being a friendly cashier, you fool.” he said feeling ridiculous at the idea of her flirting with him.
Still, he had felt a stir inside of him when she smiled. How long had it been, since he had even been close to a women. Six, seven years? Not
including time spent ripping. His early twenties, now gone, saving the universe or at least trying too.
The first rip out to locate a cube had failed, and although he would not age a day during his stay, time will still pass in its own special way. Slowly when their is pain, and much too quickly when their is joy. But this was a job, he wasn’t here to find happiness but something much more important than his wants and needs.
He walked on, arm cast in a sling towards 7-11.
Perhaps someone else would be cashiering, he
thought. She seemed too young and carefree to
need to worry about money. He opened the door
and was greeted by the warm air and a soft jingle of the bell.
He wasn’t sure what he would get to eat,
something that didn’t require both arms to prepare.
He came through the vestibule to the counter on his left, Angie was hunched over the counter and
appeared to be drawing on a sheet of paper. Her hair was tucked behind her ear which once again had a Newport nestled between. She looked up
from her paper with a smile which turned to mild O of surprise when she saw the sling and air cast.
“Oh, shit. What happened?” she said putting the pencil in her hand in her other ear.
“I fell, it’s not all that bad.”
“Well, let me help you.” she said making her way around the counter.
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“No that’s not necessary.”
“Yeah right. I’ve seen you shop, you’ll need as many hands as you can get.” she said coming
towards him.
Her hair had come untucked from her ears, and AM
thought how beautiful she was. He felt lightheaded for a moment, she enchanted him. No, you’re hungry. His mind retorted.
“Well, I am handicapped and needed something
“Do you like Hot Pockets?I guess there not good for everyday,though huh.”
“Well, I don’t have a microwave.”
“Seriously?” she asked placing her hands behind her back.
She wore a black T-shirt with a faded album cover from an all female group group called Kittie. The shirt was one size to big for her and stopped above the knees of her baggy cargo pants.
“Yes, I have a hot plate. I’m trying to save money and have been on a strict budget.”
“That sucks.”
A soft jingle nearby drew her attention away, an man in his late teens or early twenties came in, his eyes were red but relaxed. He made his way
towards the counter and took two Twinkies from
the box on the rack beside it and placed them on the counter.
“Hold on a sec, OK?” she said and went back behind the counter.
AM walked towards the magazine rack a few feet
away, it held various magazines and newspapers.
Most of which had cover stories about the
impending Clinton Impeachment trial. AM
chuckled quietly and shook his head.
“So how long are you on the disabled list?” she said handing the stoned customer his change.
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“A month or so.”
“So am I helping you with the groceries or what? If you don’t have a microwave though your stuck
having to come here to make your dinner.” she said to him making her way back to the other side of the counter.
“Yes, I suppose.”
“I’m here most nights anyway, I could always use company. Some nights it’s like the world is dead until 6 a.m.”
“I know the feeling. Why do you work this late
anyway, if I may ask.”
“I’m paying my way through the Art Institute, and graveyard shift meant an extra fifty cents an hour.”
“Your an artist.”
“Thats what I keep telling myself.” she said with a wrinkled nose and looked away briefly.
Her face softened though when she looked AM in
the eyes.
“I’m Angie.” she said and lifted her hand for him to shake.
He knew telling her his name was Emmet Brown
was risky, if she had ever seen the Back To The Future films, but he had been so caught up in her green eyes he told her just that.
“Nice to meet you, Emmet.” she said still smiling, apparently she hadn’t seen the films.
He genuinely liked Angie, but pushed the guilt of lying to her in the back of his head. He kept himself personally at a distance. He was gifted at diverting a conversation away from the things he didn’t wish to tell her.
AM had wanted to keep their friendship brief but he felt drawn to her like a moth to a flame. He visited her often enough to know her work
schedule. Instead of microwave
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burrito and hot pockets she began making lunches to share with him, and was always helping him
take his hoodie off and on.
He had learned a great deal about her as his arm healed, she learned very little about him. It was easy to be friends with her, the world was still dead a 6 am. It was something that kept playing over and over in AM’s head. A chant to ward off the bad feelings that would arise on Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday nights and every other
Sunday.
He could talk to her about a great many things, including art which was something AM usually
found boring. Angie’s art work however was
Graffiti, one night she had brought in her portfolio.
She had photographed her work and made an
“You didn’t get in trouble for these?” AM asked.
“Not if it’s your wall, and it’s in your back yard were it can’t be seen.” she said. “It’s my grams house. She lets me tag it as much as I want. Its her
way of helping me, she don’t have a lot of money to help with tuition.”
AM smiled and turned the pages, one was a dragon in bright red surrounded by gold coins, another was a group of children running through a field of sun flowers.
“It’s amazing. You did this all with spray paint?”
“Yeah, this is some of my early work.” she said turning towards the back of the book.
The work here was mostly words, with an
occasional caricature. There had been one of Bill Clinton with the caption ‘Just say inhale’ that made AM chuckle.
“I started tagging with my older brother Mike when
I was eight. We would go to the rec center at 2nd and Jackson after lights in the basketball court went out and my brother would write 2J
everywhere...”
“2J?”
“Yeah 2nd and Jackson”
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AM nodded understanding.
“It was our corner, the cops would chase us out if we got to rowdy but we’d just come back later.
Give the five oh a little goose chase.”
“Sounds exciting. Where you the only girl?”
“Sometimes there were girls but I got along better with guys. Girls are bitches.” she laughed.“My
brother would let me hang out with them cause I could get cigarettes for them.”
“I thought he was older your brother.”
“He is, but the guy at the corner store knew he smoked so he wouldn’t sell him cigarettes, but
he’d sell them to me cause he figured I was too young to actually smoke so I bought them. I’m
trying to quit.Will you come outside while I smoke a cigarette?” she asked.
AM laughed.The night was brisk, a lone cop car
was parked at the far end of the block facing
downtown. Other than the cop, Broad street was
vacant. Angie put on a hoodie and lit her cigarette, she inhaled deeply and shook out a chill before exhaling.
“Nights like this are good for tagging, it’s cold everyone is home asleep. Or stuck in some
graveyard shift rut.Even the five oh is asleep.”
She took another drag and zipped up her hoodie.
“It was easy to sneak out at night. Parents were always fighting, ya know? Mike is super paranoid and he would bring me along to keep look out for cops while he tagged, but I’d get bored so he let me throw some tags nothing great just some kids stuff. I started doing animals, like cats on their haunches or like this one time I did a saint Bernard with rabies like Cujo. That movie scared the shit
out of me...Oh God, I don’t shut up do I?” she said sheepishly after crunching her cigarette under her boot.
“I like hearing you talk.” and he had been sincere, he enjoyed listening to her story.
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The world is still dead at 6 am, he reminded
himself when he walked her home after work. It
was still and dark at 6 am and icy cold. She would ask him to come in sometimes, not often. And each time he would refuse, saying of the pain in his arm being too great.
He had managed to tell her very little still, he told her of an apartment he was living in nearby that was unfurnished and that he suffered from
insomnia. He made his living collecting
unemployment until he could find another job.
She took out the monotony of wandering around
waiting for 2002, he thought his mind was disciplined but he felt powerless to prevent things from progressing. He was mysterious to her, he
could talk to her about anything but still be an enigma to her.
“There’s just something about you Emmet.” Angie said one night to him while they talked.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I mean, like the way you talk. You sound....”
“Snobby?” AM said with a wink.
“No, silly. I mean you talk with confidence, you have something in your voice. It’s charming”
“Charming?” AM said with raised eyebrows and a
laugh.
“I mean, you’re sure about what your saying.”
“I think your making fun.” he said with a smile.
“No, I’m not. A lot of guys are all bullshit when they talk. They pretend to know shit or act serious about stuff they don’t care about so they can get in your pants. You’re not full of shit, that’s a good
AM felt a twinge in his stomach but ignored it, he gave a slight smile.
“I’m to old to pretend I guess.”
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“How old are you?” she asked looking at him closely.
“Thirty.And I’m not going to ask.”
“Well thank you for being a gentleman but tit for tat. I’ll be twenty three in July.I wouldn’t have figured you for more than twenty five.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, I’m old enough to know better but still to young too care if that helps.”
“You’re not a disappointment, the few guys I’ve dated were all my age and they just wanted to
drink on the corner at night and try and fuck me on their mom’s ironing board.”
They were both silent, before AM doubled over in gales of laughter. Angie although quiet was
“Please tell me your kidding.” AM said still
hitching with laughter.
“I wish. I was at this bar with a couple friends. I just wanted sip on a coke and just chill. Then this guy came up to me and we talked most of the night.
He seemed cool and all so I go home with this guy who said the master bedroom was being painted so we had to go into his rec room” she said miming quotation marks.
“Not a rec room.”
“It was a basement with a moldy pool table and a rusty ass ironing board. I guess his mom walking in on us in the middle of it was the first hint he was not being totally honest about his living situation.”
“Did that actually happen?”
“Yeah. You think I should stay out of the bars?”
“Might be a good idea.” AM said with a dry tone.
“Shut up.” Angie said sticking out her tongue in a childish way making AM smile.
It was an image he would always remember, her
leaning just slightly over the counter a few inches above him giving him that comical look that even to this day would make him smile. When ever he
walked in she was always standing there, either reading a book of poems or drawing. Her hair was almost always up, with just the bangs hanging
down.
Her jade eyes coming to life when they met his
grey ones, on one occasion she had her hair tied back in a bun. When he entered the store she turned her head towards him. The tie holding her hair had broken just then and her hair came down in a
golden wave across her shoulder, AM witnessed it and felt a fiercely strong surge of love enter his heart.
He chanted again, the world was dead until 6 am, to quiet his fluttering heart, he ignored the fact that something was going to happen. He was prepared
to let it happen, he didn’t know if he was really falling for her or had it just been an attraction on a physical level.
With the splint on his arm he would be unable to do anything of that sort. However he had awoken one day laying on his arm, there was hardly any pain, just a dull ache that was gone with a couple of Tylenol. If he could move his arm again, then he didn’t need to go back to see her.
Now he could dust off the hot plate and begin
counting the days again. Yes, he would. He had no reason to go back outside.
“I’ll stay here tonight.”
He almost did, he watched MST3K most of the
day. Though he couldn’t recall what episodes he had watched, he kept thinking about Angie and her wave of golden hair spilling across her shoulder.
He would shake the picture but it would stubbornly stay in his minds eye, sometimes changing, the hair cascading down a naked shoulder and covering a
nude breast...
“Stop it!” he shouted a loud to himself in the safe room as his heart beat increased to three times its normal speed.
He spent over half of an hour standing in the
shower letting cold water soak his body, hoping it
would cool his desires as well. The following hour though he stood at the steel door that lead to Miffilin street above. He thought of Wells’
Morlocks and laughed, it echoed dully around him.
He chanted to himself the world was dead until 6
a.m.
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He came in through the door, and heard the soft jingle of the bell. On the counter was a radio
playing music softly:
‘Oh-oh, oh-oh, love is a flame
Neither timid nor tame’
She looked up from a drawing and saw him, she
pushed a few loose strands of hair behind an ear which held a Newport 100.
“Hey,” she said adoring him with her lovely
emerald eyes.
“Hello, did I miss dinner?”
‘You make me so crazy, baby
Could swallow the moon’
“No, looks like you’re almost completely handy capable again.Your not gonna take the cast off?”
Angie said noticing he was without his sling.
“You think I should? It doesn’t hurt too bad.” he said teasingly giving his arm a squeeze that looked bigger than it actually was.
“Don’t hurt yourself!” she said.
He felt a rush of adrenaline from her look, their was a sexual tension building between them.
Though he told her very little about who he really was, they enjoyed many of the same things. One
night while he had visited her, she brought in a VHS of Richard the 3rd starring Ian Mckellan. It was on of AM’s favorite movies and was Angie’s
as well.
When he would walk her home, she would call him
‘My Lord Protector’ which was a line from the
movie, before going up to her apartment. Seeing her had become a routine for him, it was as if a hypnosis had come over him. It was easy for him to spend 16 to 18 hours a day wandering around the labyrinth like the Minotaur, if he spent those other hours with her.
The world was still dead at 6 am.
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She showed him, that she cared. She shared with him, her childhood of neglect. How her brother had
gone to jail before finishing high school for assault and how her grandmother had taken her in when
mom and dad had split for places unknown.
He felt guilt, but he couldn’t resist her company.
Her inner strength and vast knowledge of classic literature drew him to her. They spent the most of one snowy night discussing the feud between Poe and Longfellow when he asked about how she
became an artist.
“Well Mike got sent up for five years as an adult, so I dropped out of school. I just hung out all night at the corner. I didn’t even tag, I would sleep all day and party all night. I lost my virginity to some asshole like a normal girl. I had a bunch a friends that were always cuttin class so I was never alone during the day, but I felt alone.”
She looked at him, seeing if he understood.
“I know the feeling.”
“So I started tagging again, I thought it would help me feel better, so one night I was behind this
church, St Monica’s, and I was outlining a big tag when this guy grabs my arm all of the sudden. He screamed in my face 'What are you doin?!’ and I just jumped back cause it was like he came out of nowhere.”
“The police?”
“No it was a priest, he was still in uniform or whatever and was just standing there watching
before he grabbed me. I thought, Jesus Christ it’s a ninja!’”
AM and Angie laughed.
“So this priest held on to me until the cops came.
They took me downtown, finger printed me the
whole thing. I acted like whatever about it. I found out in jail for the first time I was an artist, well not really jail just a room with a bench at the 1st district police station. This lady cop had taken pictures of the tags on the church and came in to talk to me. At first I thought she was just trying to rag on me, but she told me she had talked to my gram, let her know I was OK. She talked to the
priest who was pretty ape shit about the whole
thing but she got him to calm down and to drop the
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“This doesn’t have to be an end, kid.”
“She gave me a GED class schedule and a
pamphlet for the Art Institute, I had to scrub the walls of the church if I wanted to keep a clean record.
“Did your gram handle it all OK?”
“No, I hurt her. She didn’t really talk to me, other than ‘Hey dinner’s ready or fold the laundry’ for a few days. she knew how to make me feel bad,
cause in the middle watching The Simpsons. That was our thing, watchin that show, I just started ballin. My gram came over and gave me a hug for the first time since I got in trouble.”
‘I can’t watch you throw your life away, like
Mikey. You hear me?’
“She held me tight and I told her I’d go back to school. I wanted to actually go back to my old
school, but they wouldn’t let me because I had cut so much they said it would be a risky tax burden, so I got my GED. It took six weeks, I couldn’t understand how six weeks was the same as four
years in high school but it was.”
AM did his best to keep some distance on a
physical level but he always found himself inching closer towards her while they would talk.
“Where did you grow up?” she asked him one
night.
“Some place with out an alley cat defecating in a phone booth.” AM said pointing across the street laughing.
“Defecating? I guess people don’t take a shit
where you’re from.” she asked with a smile.
“The cats do, actually.”
They were both quiet for a second, then they
erupted in laughter. She poked his stomach and
went behind the counter and took a pen and a
yellow legal pad to take inventory.
“So where are you from, Emmet?” she asked
looking at the items on a shelf and lightly touching each one with her ring finger quickly.
She was wearing a black T-shirt with 1950's style pin up girl drawn as a female devil with the
caption ‘Lead Me Not Into Temptation, I Can Find It Myself’ underneath it. AM could see the orbs of her breasts pushing through the shirts thin material.
Though she asked him in an off hand manner, AM
could see her swift finger movements of counting slacken and a slight highness in her tone of voice suggesting she was more than curious.
“From the country, we had a farm. I was an only child so I never had many friends or brothers and sisters to talk to, it’s probably why I’m so quiet now. And talking in front of a group of people, forget it. I think I’d have a heart attack.” AM said in a way he wanted to suggest he felt ashamed that he was so peculiar.
“Oh, hey. I’m sorry.” Angie said holding the clip board to her chest and looking at AM with wide
eyed sadness. “I didn’t mean to make you feel
bad.”
“Hey, I should be more open. You’ve been sharing your Tofu with me, so thats at least one piece of info about me you get to hear in exchange.”
“OK, tell me about your first time.” she asked with her head tilted slightly while she looked at him closely. “Tell me what a savage farm boy you really are, or no more Ramen noodles.”
“I..” AM smiled a small smile, he could feel his face heating up. “It was more awkward than
savage my first time, but it was...” he tried to find the words.
It was an oddly short relationship he had had his senior year with a girl from another homeroom,
Denise Tomas she had been in the debate club ,
junior year which was how AM knew her at all.
They chatted on and off until senior year when he asked her if she would like to see a movie called
‘Dracula 2000' a movie AM thought bad enough to be on MST3K.
She wanted to be a doctor and had been accepted to Temple, he had learned on that initial date. She had long hair that was not quite as blond as
Angie’s, that she would always put up in a pony tail at school, but she had let it down for their date.
After they had gone out on a third date they ended the night at her place on the couch making out
minus a few articles of clothing while her parents where asleep upstairs.
Then one Saturday night she had all but ripped his clothes off and she took a Trojan condom from her purse. His stomach was doing flips, but Denise
was all business and took the
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initiative. They had split still on friendly terms, but had only slept together that one time.For AM it was...
“...very fine.”
She smiled. “Just fine? Thats too bad.” she
laughed.
“Is that funny, too you?” AM asked in a mocked hurt tone.
“It’s not supposed to be fine, Emmet!” she said nodding her head back and forth. “Its supposed to be wonderful for a girl, not fine for you. No
wonder you’ve’ve been stuck with Ramen
noodles.” she said with a smile and making the tsk tsk sign with her fingers.
“I didn’t plan on having sex it just happened.” he said with a helpless smile.
She upturned her nose at him playfully and went to the counter to ring up a customer.
The world is still dead at 6 am, he said again and again.
This morning was so far the same, it was early March and the wind was howling. In the distance a
bus was loading passengers bundled up against
another cold day. They walked up to a cozy little row home near 4th and Snyder avenue on a side
street called Hoffman.
It was originally a house, but was spilt into a duplex, she was on the second floor. The whole
night prior at 7-11 she playfully teased him with a length of red rope Licorice. She would caress and tickle his hand with it, she would fake getting upset when he moved his hand away.
“Let my rope touch your hand, it feels good baby.”
Angie said in a horrible attempt at mimicking a male voice.
They both laughed at its horribleness.
“Let me take off your cast, I can be gentle.” she said eying him with a twinkle.
AM felt his heart palpitate at twice the speed
while she looked at him. It was a look he hadn’t seen since...Denise? No, it was Denise’s first time as well her eyes showed curious desire. Angie’s eyes were showing more than curious desire.
“I...don’t think...” he laughed nervously trying to speak.
“Oh, I’m just kidding.” she said poking his cheek with Licorice, though her eyes still had a sparkle to them.
The look she had given him made his heart thunder, even in the early morning cold he could feel the heat pouring off of him. She opened the door to a set of stairs, lit by a yellowing bulb that shone a warm inviting light.
“My Lord Protector, see’s me home again.”
She stood on the top step with her back to the door, AM was down a step looking up at her. He hadn’t planed on standing so close to her, but he didn’t want to go down a step.
“I want you to come up.” she said it to him without hesitation.
AM felt too light headed to speak or even move.
“Silence, gives consent.” she said and gently took him by his good arm and lead him up the stairs.
They went inside and she closed the door behind them. She walked up to him and kissed him, AM
held back for a moment.
“What are you doing?” he said while she began
biting his neck.
“Fucking you!”
At some point in time, AM had awoken in a bed
that was not his own. He was startled to see it was night again, though they had spent who knows how many hours having sex. It had been wild and
carnivorous their had been grunting and groaning and biting and scratching,
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he could feel the light welts she left on his back. At some point in time his cast had come off but he
It had been intoxicating, and he felt different. Much different than any other time he had been with a
woman not that there were many. He looked over
on his left, she was still fast asleep. He got up and walked over to the bedroom window wearing
nothing but the light of the TV screen, and looked at the city just getting ready for another cold night, he wondered where his teen age self was right
now.
The skyline was still its twentieth century outline, he ignored the worry with a quick chant and looked at this woman who was lying in bed. He didn’t
want to think about the smile she put on his face or the cheer he put in his lonely heart.
He stood there taking in his entire life at that point.
AM Lincoln, sixth cousin to President Lincoln,
charged with saving multiple universes. Standing here looking towards a cold dark future were duty lies.
It was the only point at that time when he
considered an alternative to abandoning her as he looked upon her sleeping body. The nights he had spent talking with her, even when they had nothing to talk about. The world was at stake, though.
He accepted the fact he would leave her with out word. He wouldn’t dwell on it, it would only make it hurt unnecessarily. He crawled back into bed with her, and walked away from his future for the time being.
He awoke a few again hours later still in the dark of night, to Angie smoking a cigarette sitting up in bed. The TV was showing the news, it was on
mute and showed a man in orange prison coveralls being led to a van shackled, with the caption 'John William King receives Death Penalty’ . She
covered her breasts with a sheet in her free hand while finishing her cigarette in the other.
“Hey you.” she said softly when she saw he was
awake. “I guess your insomnia is getting better.”
“Perhaps,” he said without understanding what she meant at first.
He felt alarm when he remembered that he told her he was afflicted with insomnia, then she said
something that made him think he was caught.
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“I’m scared.”
Did she mean him? He sat up, and looked at her.
He wasn’t sure if he would just leave now or wait longer, he wanted to ask.
“What’s scaring you?”
“Everything I guess. I’m scared that I’m wasting time, at school. I keep hearing people at school talk about starving artists. How do you make a
livin drawing pictures? What if I’m making the
wrong choice. What if I should be doing something else, I mean I could fail at this. I saw this girl I went to school with working at the fucking
Walmart. We used to plan on back packing through Europe back in the day, she would sleep over in sixth grade and we planned on seeing Rome Paris, all kinds of places.”
”You‘re afraid you‘ll get stuck?”
She stubbed out her cigarette, picked up the pack and lit another one. She blew out a puff of smoke that looked like a blue fog. She held the sheet covering her chest tighter and continued.
”She wanted to be an actress. She used to go on about it so much she‘d annoy me sometimes. I think
it might of been why I started hanging with my brother more often was because of her never shutting the fuck up about it. I hadn‘t seen her since I dropped out a couple years ago.”
She looked at her cigarette while she spoke,
absently flicking ashes into a red plastic ashtray.
“I used tell myself she was a poser, cause she
wanted to be something. Then I decided I wanted to be something and then I saw her cashiering at Walmart and I just started to get all panicky. My heart was just pounding and I had to leave. What if I fail and get stuck at 7-11 for the rest of my life.”
She put out the cigarette, and picked up the pack again but tossed it to the floor without removing one.
“I’m afraid,I can’t do it.”
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“You can’t give up,you must do it. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. You must charge through with all of your courage, even if failure is imminent, never give up. It will weigh on your
soul.”
“You sound like my gram.” she said with a hollow
“She is, right. In life you must do the hardest thing, the most impossible thing. It is in that journey we become stronger, so that when you fall you will and must rise. If you are held down you are to
fight, and fight to the death.”
She looked at him for a moment in silence, she
looked down at her lap before speaking.
“I’m afraid.”
AM gently lifted her face by the chin and looked her in the eyes.
“It’s OK to be afraid. You have courage, you are strong.”
He wasn’t lying to her on that, he felt attracted to her because of her strength. She like most people on Earth, suffered from self doubt.
She looked at him, and let the sheet drop revealing her near flawless breasts. She pulled him close and kissed him. She laid her head upon his
shoulder and held her naked body to his.
“Thank you, for telling me that. You make me feel like I can do anything.”
AM felt the guilt turn his stomach over and over as he laid a hesitant arm around her and kept her as close as he could for that night.
The following week they had spent between 7-11
and her apartment. She had no classes for two
weeks now that Spring Break had arrived. Twice
she had asked him to meet her gram, but AM had
refused without giving a real reason.
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He hadn’t been abruptly short with her, simply
vague and non committal about the idea. She had become more assertive about knowing more about
him as well. AM didn’t even give her a lie, it had just made him angry to try and think of one.
“Are you mad at me?” She asked in a shy manner.
She had been doing inventory of the cooler and
was counting milk when she asked about his
parents.
“No, I was off in my own world. What did you ask me.”
She turned back to the cooler and began counting again, AM couldn’t judge by her look if she was upset, annoyed or angry.
“I said tell me about your parents.”
Her tone seemed even to AM.
“They’re farmers.”
She stopped counting and appeared to sag her
shoulder the tiniest bit and walked away from the cooler.
“I gotta count the drawer, it’s almost six.” she said absently.
Six a.m., the world would be waking up soon.
He had walked her home, she took him up stairs
and they made love for a few hours and slept. AM
woke up just at twilight, it was almost April and the sun was staying out longer and longer each day.
It was warm enough for Angie to sit with the
bedroom window open as she smoked a cigarette.
She sat on a bean bag chair wearing running shorts and a black sports bra. Her hair was up in a pony tail, she noticed he was awake and smiled at him but said nothing. She looked closely at her
cigarette before taking a final drag and tossing it out the window.
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“You hungry? There’s this Thai place a few blocks away we could go to, my treat.” she looked at him closely when she asked.
“Let’s order in.” he said with a smile that felt hollow.
Angie looked back out the window as she spoke.
“This really sucks, ya know. Cause I’m falling for you hard. You don’t wanna be seen with me?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you push me away, why won’t you go outside with me during normal hours. Why can’t I see your place. Do you have a wife, or something?”
“No.”
“Then why do you keep hiding from me, why are
trying to be so vague about yourself.”
“I told you, I just don’t talk much.” he said firmly.
“Oh bullshit, just like your insomnia. You sleep really god damn well for one by the way.”
AM was quiet, he didn’t know how to answer that.
He looked slightly away from her sad eyes.
“I might be afraid of things. But you wanna know what I think? I think you’re afraid.”
She leaned over in her chair so that she could catch his eyes with hers, he looked back at her.
“What are you afraid of, Emmet?”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m afraid of, I can’t be with you.” he said it without looking at her in the eyes until he finished speaking.
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She looked at him wide eyed for a moment, hurt
and betrayed. She furrowed her brow and bit down on her lip. With a quick arm movement she
grabbed a pack of Newports and hit AM directly in the forehead.
It made a loud bonk noise when it hit. The pack was almost full and stung a little, AM quickly
stood up and backed away.
“You fucking coward! Get out, you fucker!” she
grabbed a T-shirt and tossed it at him with a red face.
AM felt his insides fill with ice so cold it was burning like fire. He left his socks and his hoodie and quickly went out the front door as she began to cry. He was out on the steps of the apartment
before he had his shoes tied. He left in the
direction of the labyrinth thinking of the world and that it needed to be saved, that was all that
mattered.
Dig sat watching the flames crackle in the fire while AM spoke. It was dark, back west the sun
was set but a red light still hung in the sky in the direction of Gettysburg though the trees obscured the sky almost entirely, distant sounds of cannon fire erupted, sometimes frequently, most of the night. The story though had made Dig forget about the battle and their deadly encounter with General Scarface and his child soldiers.
“You know, AM, if this story is supposed to make me feel better it’s not working.” he said.
“I’m trying to let you know that your not at fault for feeling alone and wanting to get out. I never
warned you about the isolation, the loneliness. I failed to stress that, I know your hurt is the worst kind. But you didn’t cause it, I did it.”
“Fuck that! I’m weak.” he stood up and said with a anger.
“No, Dig you’re not. You’re human. I fucked up
too! Dig, I owe you for saving my life twice now.
You’re not weak, Marisa knew that too, and you’re afraid just like I was.” AM said getting up to face his friend
“Damn it, because of me people are dead...”
“But, we’re still alive, Dig!”
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They stood across each other from the fire, the flames lighting up their faces. Dig nodded his head as he looked at AM’s eyes before looking off into the woods.
“Yeah. We lived.”
It felt empty, he would have given up the rest of his life for just one more day with her. To smell her hair and to let the ends of her pink and raven hair caresses his palm.
“I guess we’re both guilty of being self destructive assholes,” Dig said sitting back down with a thud
on the ground. “we’re saving the world though, I guess a few lives have to be lost.”
The assessment was mean but accurate. AM sat
back down as well and began to poke at the fire embers with a twig, realizing Dig was right. He had been worried Dig hadn’t understood the
seriousness of time ripping, but it appeared he was the one who failed to understand.
Perhaps, he had been failing. They we’re stuck because he had been caught up in watching the
battle unfold around him, if not for that he and Dig could have escaped before gunfire had erupted and destroyed the Qpads.
“So Angie was from South Philly?” Dig asked
tossing an acorn in the fire.
“Yes.” AM said quietly looking into the fire.
“Marisa was too. What is it about South Philly
girls?”
“They are strong willed, a good quality for
anybody.” AM said not looking away from the
dancing flames.
They sat in silence for a moment before Dig spoke again.
The guy on the horse back in town,” Dig asked
slowly “did he say rebel scum?”
“Yes. Isn’t that a line from a movie?”
“It’s from Star Wars.”
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“Oh,”
They sat in continued silence watching the fire burn down as an owl hooted some yards off, and a branch snapped even closer by but the sounds went unheard. They went to sleep with only coats for pillows. They didn’t speak, but their bodies burned with exhaustion as their minds raced with worry that they might never get home again.
Date: August 5, 2011 Universe: 1
Quake sat quietly in the safe room of the labyrinth staring at the wall behind his metropolis of PC
towers and looked blankly and the smooth bland
concrete wall. It would happen when deep in
thought during long sessions of coding better ways to interface with the cubes. Staring at a blank surface helped to unwind his thoughts, or listening to some type of techno music which was playing
softly, he only turned it up when coding. The
rhythm of the of its electric beat helped him to think more swiftly when crunching numbers. To
Quake techno music was a computer that could sing beautifully.
Quake looked away from the wall and down at a
Qpad in front of him. The Qpads were becoming a nuisance for his cousin and their friend. The six axis was what made them really shixplight, but it was possibly going to be unnecessary now. Thanks to the box, perhaps he could change the interface from an Ipad to an Iphone.
“Agwa!” Quake said
Agwa, the box like the cubes required a device to literally hold down the wormholes. The Ipad six axis was better than any current technology to do such a thing. He had gone through all the latest motion controllers and sensors, even what was on the black market, still the Ipad...
“Agwa! Qpad!”
...Qpad was the best choice for control, it was hot down in the safe room. Quake knelt down under his desk and opened a tiny fridge that held a multitude of energy drinks, and the occasional tall boy of Mountain Dew.
He sat down again and popped open a can, and
took a large gulp. He stared again but this time at the alien box that was glowing a bright green. He had been working on a few new apps since AM
and Dig’s departure, and working on a few old
ones as well.
And a few secret ones, just ideas. Something AM
would have adamantly opposed. Quake was trying
to figure out how to turn it into a weapon. He had a few diagrams drawn, and some mathematical
equations written out, but that was all.
Very simple ideas, at least for him. Someone with enough knowledge and tech savvy might have been able to stumble on something useful, however...
“Shit-fuck!” Quake cried loudly in surprise as a set of speakers hooked up to the large PC tower with the green Sonic emitted a loud beep for three
seconds.
It was an app Quake had been been working on
sporadically for months. It was the distress app it would continue to beep for three seconds at ten second intervals until it was turned off. Quake
didn’t believe it had been working yet, he had only changed a few codes since acquired the box, but
that had been all. He only had loaded it to the Qpads out of habit.
The app would self activate on the Qpad through the cube to his computer if the Qpad was no longer working giving exact coordinates to the last time and location just before malfunction, it was an app used by police operators to trace calls it was the most difficult app so far he had successfully
hacked. Quake sat close to the computer as he
absent mindedly readjusted his black rim glasses.
He hit the enter key and the screen of one of the monitors on the desk went black and began reading out lines of code in a white bold font. Quake
finished his energy drink in three gulps, and after a satisfyingly loud burp he began typing on the keyboard.
Colonel Bueller thought he knew what pain was, he was wrong. The blood of his only son was smeared on his shirt and stained the edge of his long chin hairs. He stopped when he heard the shot behind him and came back to the town house.
His son laid in a pool of his own blood, Bueller stumbled over to him. And clutched his sons
lifeless body which was still warm.
“My boy...” he sobbed quietly as he pressed his chapped lips to his sons fore head.
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He took off his jacket and placed it over his sons charred and bloody torso. A tear escaped his eye as he closed the lids of his dead sons eyes. He wasn’t a praying man but The Colonel felt the urge to do so, when a sudden gasp from behind startled him.
He quickly stood and un holstered his revolver. On the floor was the other private, he was coughing harshly. Bueller went to him and gripped him by his arm, the boy gasped and was frightened by the disquieting eyes of The Colonel.
“Where did they go?” he asked in a fiery but
controlled voice.
The boy was still gasping for breath, The Colonel slapped the boy and asked him again.
“dunno....s-sir.” he said in a scratchy whisper as tears began to pour out of his eyes.
Bueller let the boy drop and ran out the kitchen door to the alley. It was a dead end to the left, so he ran down the far end. He saw no one come out the front and had assumed they escaped through the back. When he reached the end of the alley he turned onto a connecting road and saw Yankee Officer going one direction and saw the two
prisoners going in the other.
He watched as both Yankee and his POW’s left his field of view, with his son dead he took hardly a second to decide and went after his son’s killers.
He kept his revolver up and ran towards the
enclosing forest. Although past fifty years old he ran quicker than Dig could while dragging AM.
He was within shouting distance of them when he stopped just as AM did to gawk at the Yankee
soldiers march out of the deep forest, a couple of Yankee Privates were hacking at the wild brush
and saplings with a machete to open up a path.
The Colonel saw that he might die any second
when them damn Yankees see a rebel in their
midst. So he began firing at the murdering bastards, as the blue-backs began firing on a platoon of his men less than a fifty yards parallel to them.
He ran after them once he spent his last bullet, he could hear the whistle of rifle shells piercing the
air with impending death or dismemberment, as the opposing forces traded shots. The brushes and low lying trees he and those two murders where
running through was camouflage enough to keep the damn Yankees from paying them any mind.
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He had a proper Officers uniform when the
campaign began. Crisp clean white shirt and a grey coat minus officer insignia and trousers. The white shirt was gritty with blood and dirt now nearly black, his trousers were so caked with mud they looked brown, and his coat...
The though of where his coat was gripped at his heart and kicked up his blood lust, he wasn’t
worried about the war now. He would get those two for what they did, he wanted blood. He was slowly gaining, and was about to close the distance to a few hundred feet when he began to think.
His revolver was useless and he had no other
weapon.
“Only your wits you useless, welps!” said a voice from Buellers’ past that sounded like it had
terminal laryngitis.
The voice of Lieutenant Rand Talon Curds, he had
been one of Buellers instructors back at West Point when he was still a boy. Curds was the meanest
son of a bitch God ever put on this Earth. He was a tough soldier, who had marched with General
Andrew Jackson into New Orleans and lost his left hand from cannon fire, it was a story Curds told to new pupils at the beginning of every semester.
“The limey fuckers took my hand” he said looking down on his pupils intensely through his bushy
white eye brows. “my weapon.”
“Left me for dead, figured I’d bleed out and be food for the rats.” he said in a hard gravely voice.
The cadets feared Curds, even he had. When he
spoke he sounded like he was chewing nails,
though he had no teeth, with a look in his eyes that dared you to cross him. Just seeing him made you feel like a goose walked on your grave as he made his way slowly with a look of building fury as he hobbled on a leg riddled with arthritis. However Bueller forgot his fear when Curds told his tale of New Orleans.
“They walked on, barely a glance did I get. You welps would be shitting your pantaloons, no room for COWARDS!” he thundered, a few cadets
jumped Bueller’s heart skipped a beat but he remained still.
“Little bastards wouldn’t know what to do next.”
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It wasn’t a question, but Bueller wanted to try and prove his worth to the Lieutenant.
“I’d follow’em and make’em pay.” Bueller said.
Curds head turned quickly towards Bueller as a
tiny gasp escaped from a cadet sitting nearby. The room was deathly quiet.
“Who spoke?” he asked through a set of grimy
wooden teeth.
Bueller stood slowly and swallowed, his mouth
felt dry. Curds walked quickly over to him and grabbed him by the arm with gray liver spotted hand that was strong. Curds twisted just a little, Bueller grit his teeth but didn’t make a sound.
“ten or twelve redcoats, yer bleedin out yer fuckin stump, you got no weapons an no one else to help ya wipe yer ass! Ya gonna bleed on the fuckin
royal quiff?!”
Curds anger was controlled, his actions looked like a show for Bueller who probably hadn’t been the first to try and impress him. Bueller though wanted to show Curds he wasn’t just talk.
“Lieutenant, I would follow at a distance so as not to be seen and listen...” he stopped to take a breath.
“for information.”
The fire left Curds eyes and he loosened his grip on Bueller, but only a little.
“You forgot you’re bleedin to death. Bah, I did too.” he said and released Buellers arm. “What’s your name, Cadet?”
“Cadet Nat...”
“Not your fuckin life story, name!”
“Bueller, Lieutenant.”
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“You welps, may want to listen to this southern boy. If you follow him in battle you might live to only get your hand blown off. Information is
power, to know your enemies next move is the best advantage for a soldier.”
“Information is power,” Bueller said to himself in the Pennsylvania wilderness and slowed to a jog with an open ear.
Killing them would be a quick satisfactory out, but what of the war? And his son. Whatever this dark mirror was, Bueller intended to find out and make use of it for the southern cause. If not for him, then for his son.
Bueller crept slowly towards a tree with a huge base that was just ahead, the two murderers
slowed and eventually stopped on the other side of the tree just ten feet from The Colonel. He
crouched and came around to their left and began to crawl slowly through brush and thicket and was within a few feet from them when he could finally hear them.
He laid quietly in the dirt and sticks in blood soaked clothes, listening and waiting for them to sleep. He was still perplexed as to what that dark mirror was, it was all he could do to keep his
blood lust at bay. This mystery had to be solved.
The information he gathered was very little and nothing that told him what this ‘Qpad’ as they
called it really was, which turned out to be
damaged from rifle fire. The Colonel was
disappointment but the cube sitting on top appeared to be undamaged.
“We’re stuck,” said the short one as he picked
through a litter of what looked like carnival glass broken to shards.
As far as Bueller could guess it was a
communication device. But who were they trying
to communicate with? An odd sort of terror
grabbed at his heart, when he thought back to his boyhood, when Halley’s Comet had streaked across the sky.
He had been very young, not quiet twelve years old when he saw its ghostly tail streaking across they sky like a white fire. The sight of it sent a shock wave through him when he grasped what it meant.
There are other worlds, than these.
It sat heavy on him when he slept that night and dreamed it had crashed to the ground, people that had come to watch it zoom across the sky had
gathered excitedly around the comet to get a better
closer look at it. The Colonel not yet a Colonel, still a boy in that dream hollered and screamed for them to stay away.
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He tried to push his way through the crowd which had grown to hundreds, to warn them that it was from another world. That it might hurt them, but they either didn’t care or didn’t hear, the blackened comet had begun to emit white plumes of steam as a crack appeared at its top, small at first, but quickly spider webbed all over its surface.
Bueller had finally gotten to the front when the comet split wide open and a horrible smell of shit filled his nostril as he woke up and realized he had messed himself. It had haunted Bueller for many years, though he knew his fears had been childish, he wondered now if he hadn’t had good reason to be afraid after all.
Looking through the gaggle of prickers and bush, Bueller waited for the sun to set before he dare standing up. Despite the risk of exposure he needed to move eventually if he wanted to get them and their equipment. He pushed himself out of the brush slowly and methodically as the sun sunk lower in the sky.
He waited until the stars were the only light in the
sky before he made his way closer, he wanted to be as close as he could and at the ready when they
went to sleep. He inched closer until he felt a twig snap sharply under his foot and stopped cold.
They should have heard it, but like the people in his dream, they either didn’t care or didn’t hear.
They didn’t expect to be followed, just another mistake in The Colonel’s favor. He could feel the heat from their fire as they began talking about a woman, seemed like the only ordinary thing they spoke about.
He heard them use the word time ripping a few
times, and of either a place or a person called Quake. Bueller felt as if he had walked into the middle of a play with out a bill.
Though it may not matter, thought Bueller. The dark mirror was broken and they said they were stuck and this Quake or whatever could not help them.
Bueller heard the short ones tale to the end and felt more questions than answers burning his brain.
It had been almost an hour since they both laid down, the bigger one was breathing slowly with a hat placed over his face. The other one just laid down stiff as a poker and looked up at the sky, after a while though his eyes closed and he
Bueller watched as the short mans head turned
away from him as he began to snore, a scowl
appeared on The Colonel’s face. He took a rock
the size of his fist from the ground and walked slowly towards the dying fire where they slept. He planned on smashing the big
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fellas head in hopefully killing him with one hit, he might be loose lips but he was nearly as big as The Colonel and was strong.
Maybe with his friend dead, the other would feel more obliged to talk. Bueller got close enough to
see the hairs in the short one’s nostrils . He turned to his left and looked down on the bigger one and raised is arm holding the rock in a death grip, he took a deep breath ready to smash his head in, but a strange feeling suddenly came over him.
Not over him but around him, the air around him felt the same as it did before a bad summer thunder head. He felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his body but he could still breath. The air no longer felt still as The Colonel’s vision had gone bleary.
He rubbed his eyes, but nothing. He realized it was
not his eyes but,(the air?) started to swirl right in front of him he imagined this was what a twister might look like up close. He slowly backed away, afraid it would follow him and swallow him, it
was deathly quiet, despite the air swirling faster and faster.
The two murders heard nothing, Bueller watched
the illusion carefully, but it moved no closer to him. He felt compelled to walk towards it, an urge to touch filled him but he caught movement from one of the murders out of the corner of his eye and he quickly squatted behind the bushes.
It was the short one who awoke, he looked over to his right and stared blankly at the swirling air. He reached over and shook the other awake, who was sitting up in a flash looking ready to pounce in The Colonel’s opinion.
They spoke quickly and rapidly began gathering up the broken mirrors, they finished gathering their few items and stood for a moment looking a the
swirling air, the short one gestured at the airy illusion, the big one nodded and shook the others hand.
They both walked into the swirls at the same time and disappeared into thin air. Bueller saw them
one minute and gone the next, the rock fell with a thud from his limp fingers. Although they were
gone the swirling continued, he walked towards it and stood just a few inches from the swirls that seemed to defy logic.
He reached out with his hand and let his fingers trace the swirls, he didn’t expect to feel anything but maybe a breeze from it, what he felt though was something that felt somewhere between a solid and a liquid. He plunged a finger and felt a slight pull.
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He pulled his hand out quickly, fearful.
Remembering his dream of the comet again and the way it had cracked open like an egg laid by some strange unsavory creature. This was big, his mind told him. Bigger than he or his son or the
Confederacy, bigger than the whole god damn war.
He thought of Chaucer’s Canterbury tales and the journey that would never be completed, he didn’t know why that thought occurred to him but it did.
Fear had never stopped The Colonel, though he
was overflowing with it at the moment, he closed his eyes and took a single deep breath.
“For Francis,” he said and jumped through.
Date: August 6, 2011 Universe: 1
Colonel Bueller saw blackness, then white. He
though he was suffocating and panicked as he fell on the ground. He had fallen on his side but had the air knocked out of him. He had expected to fall on a grassy terrain, not...stone?
He sat up and rubbed at his aching shoulder that had taken the brunt of the fall. The ground, or floor,
was flat and even and as gray as a storm cloud. In a garishly bright green letters on the floor were the words, ‘Player 1 Start’ written haphazardly. He looked up and was blinded by a grate hanging from the ceiling which shone an eye watertingly bright white light.
Bueller slowly got to his feet and shaded his eyes from the brightness, the room as far as he could see was lined with these other worldly looking grates of light. He silenced his panicking mind and tried to listen.
At first all he could hear was an insectile buzz which appeared to come from the grates, he though of the insects that would buzz around the lanterns of his barn during summer, but he saw no insects.
He slowly walked to one end of the room when he
discovered it was not a room but a hallway, made to look as if it were just a room.
The Colonel went to the end of the hall that was a t junction, he traveled down one end only to find another t junction which then led to another then another, he had passed numerous doors that all
looked the same but behind each one he opened
had a wall behind it. This place was meant to
confuse intruders, he surmised, this place should have been home for a Minotaur. He would have to listen closer but the damn buzz of those lights made it hard to hear anything else.
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He thought of his son again and took another deep breath, released it slowly and closed his eyes. He heard the ungodly buzz and made his ears get
passed it, he had learned to do such things in battle and it was a useful talent.
He slowed his breath and listened, it was a few seconds of nothing until he heard a horn blowing in the distance, repeatedly. Bueller locked onto the sound and navigated his way through more hallways as quickly as he could.
After a minute it had stopped, the Colonel froze in mid step and closed his eyes to listen again. What was that blaring? Another horn sounded this time much closer, and it seemed to be approaching.
Bueller turned his head slightly to the wall on his left, something was coming.
He walked up to the wall and put his hand on it as a sound that was actually familiar was so loud now he could feel it in the walls. Whatever it was, it clanked and screeched and blew a loud obnoxious sounding horn.
“Trains?”
Bueller felt that was right, he had heard trains plenty of times this summer, the sound of iron rails and wheels was ingrained in his head, such an
unpleasant sound of trains coming to a stop was hard to forget. He used his ears to guide him
around, and stepped lightly incase the two murders were nearby.
He stayed close to the wall and came around to a hallway, that was similar to the other except there was a door at its end. Bueller walked towards it and placed an ear against it, with eyes closed. He could hear much louder noises people maybe, but it sounded too unnatural to be human. Perhaps he was in some kind of factory.
He placed a sweaty palm on a knob the was shiny
and cool, he waited before turning the knob, expecting it to be locked, it wasn’t. He pulled it open and looked at a flight of steps built from metal that went up, he cautiously leaned in and looked up at another door with a strange metal bar that ran across its middle.
He slowly climbed up the stairs, leaving the khaki colored walls behind him as the door closed. He heard the noise grow with each step closer to the door that had no knob. He touched the bar judging it to be the way to open the door, with adrenaline pumping he gave the metal bar a big push guessing it would be hard to open, but it opened up with out protest and The Colonel nearly broke his nose
tripping on the door jamb.
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Bueller kept from smashing his face by landing on his hands, he was startled by the bright sunshine and fell on his side, he had expected to still be indoors. Just a few feet from him, men and women walked by. Though they hardly noticed him, he was still given a wide birth.
He stood up slowly, as people in spurts kept
appearing from a dark gateway out of an
underground passage. Bueller thought of coal miners he had seen coming up through Virginia, though the people he saw now hadn’t looked to be carving out the rocks of the living earth covered in coal dust from head to toe. Here they were as many
women as men coming out of these mines or whatever this place was.
They were people dressed in all types of garments, some looked familiar and some that looked
freakishly clown like to him. One similarity that most shared appeared to be talking or thumbing
some kind of tiny object that was amazingly similar to what that crazy witch had found.
He watched in silence as a young girl, wearing a band of cloth around her chest and denim pants that had no legs, walk confidently as she shouted
obscenities into her hand, she didn’t see Bueller until the last second and veered away smacking her lips.
“Nasty cracker. Not you jackass!” she continued her conversation walking away.
The Colonel walked around the side of the train yard and was greeted by lines of peculiar carriages (he could only guess though these things sat on large wheels with odd designs and markings on
them) of many colors and sizes sitting empty lined up end to end all along the large avenue. He
walked towards the carriages, and was taken
aback when one of them emitted a loud roar.
“Watch it ya dirty fuck.” said a man who appeared behind him.
Bueller stepped back as the man, who wore a
strange garment that looked almost like a suit but with a cut to suggest broadness at the shoulder and a fat length of maroon cloth that had to be a tie. The man skirted around the front of the carriage and opened its door.
After he sat inside, the roar grew louder for a moment before the carriage reversed and pulled
out on the avenue of the flattest blackest road Bueller had ever seen. Then saw with amazement
that there were still more of these powered
carriages, driving down the large avenue at speeds ranging from slow to suicidal.
He saw that some of the carriages, emitted bluish white smoke that smelled thick and dirty.
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“Certainly not steam.” he said shakily to himself.
Bueller closed his eyes and tried to think clearly.
Where am I? He opened his eyes and looked past
these odd people and things and looked above eye level for a sign. At the far corner was a large
metallic pole that went up fifteen feet and had an arm stretched over the entire length of the avenue.
On its arm was a pair of yellow boxes with three lens of green yellow and red. Between these boxes was a green sign with white letters that said:
Broad street. He looked to the door he came out of and went to open it, there was a normal knob on this side he grabbed it and twisted.
“Damn.” the door could only be opened from this side with a key he guessed.
“Too much damn guessing.” he said to himself.
There was a sign on the door that was a warning to stay away, Bueller scowled and stepped back to
see the entire building that was built out of the ground. It was a structure of glass and stone and metal that was dreary and covered with writing in certain areas that looked like another language to The Colonel.
He looked for some other sign and walked around the building. He came around to its front where there were people going in and out. Above the
opening was an orange sign with bold white letters that said: Orange Line Tasker Mifflin Station.
The people exiting gave him peculiar looks noticing his shirt which was a ratty blood stained mess, but The Colonel did not notice them or the two men in blue shirts with gleaming badges on
their chests behind him.
“Look it that guy. Hey, Jablonski.” said the taller officer to the other who was nursing a soda and watching mid day traffic.
“What?” said Jablonski disinterested.
“The vag with the bloody shirt.”
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Jablonski looked in the direction of his partners finger and saw a man between fifty and sixty in muddy trousers minus a shoe with a torn and blood soaked shirt and a beard that was a mixture brown, grey and red. It was a long shaggy mess.
“Want me to take care of this?” the tall officer asked his superior.
Jablonski took a sip of his soda and tossed it into
the waste can nearby, his partner was six months new to the force and was always anxious to do his job. After a dozen years walking the beat Jablonski grew tired of chasing vags around the
neighborhood, and was happy to let his rookie
partner cut his teeth.
“Oh, I suppose.” he said acting a little
dissapointed but feeling relieved to skip twenty questions with a vag who probably though he was Jesus Christ because he forgot his skitzo meds.
“Just don’t agitate him, Jones.”
Jones smiled proudly, he was a young black man
from North Philly who grew up in urban plight and saw the carnage of violence growing up. He was a good observant officer, that believed this vag was more confused than dangerous.
He approached him with a pleasant smile with
hands on his belt and tipped his cap up just a little so the vag could see his eyes.
“Everything OK, sir?” Jones asked.
His reaction to Jones was not what he expected.
He looked at Jones right in the eyes in surprise, total wide eye surprise, followed by horror or possibly disgust. The vag stared at him for a
moment before looking around again.
Jones looked back at his senior, who shrugged his shoulders but remained standing where he was.
“Sir.” Jones said minus the pleasant smile.
The vag looked back at him, with a scowling smile that revealed a deep groove on his face partially obscured by his erratic beard growth.
“Nigger.” he said loudly and turned to leave.
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Jones placed a hand on mans shoulder to stop him, Bueller who had learned many hand to hand
combat techniques at West Point, grabbed the
officers hand and twisted it to the point of breaking.
Jones screamed through his teeth as Bueller
attempted to break his hand clean off, when the white man in the same uniform pulled out a strange yellow device from a holster. Before he could
register what was happening every muscle in his body went tense as his heart sped up rapidly
followed by a force as great as cannon fire
knocked him down to the ground and into
unconsciousness.
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