"You’re abandoing us," my sister had said, her voice cold, hard, logical. “You think you’re going to save everyone, but you’re only running away.”
"Come with me," I said. "There’s room."
"And leave them?" She had shouted. "Leave them to this?"
Outside the windows of my workshop, the sky had been dark. Dark at noon. Ash and dust choked the sun, fell over everything like a sad, gray, toxic snow.
"There won’t be anything left," I said. "I have to bring them hope."
She had watched me set the last parameters, enter the final commands.
"I love you," she hugged me. The face masks of our radiation suits clicked. I felt her arms through the thick, stiff material. No warmth came through. "Good luck," she said.
"I love you too."
She stepped back. "Look me up when you get there," she joked. "I mean, maybe by then people will be living for over a hundred years."
I sealed myself in the pod. The countdown began. All the world’s knowledge and I, taking a one-way trip to the future.
And now I was here.
"What if no one listens to you?" My sister had said. Her words echoed in my mind as I turned the wheel to unseal the pod. "What if they think you’re a witch and smash everything you’ve brought them."
"Their problem, not mine," I had snapped back, tired of her arguments. At the time I didn’t care. Now I did. Now it mattered. I had to make this work.
Sunlight streamed into the pod. I hadn’t seen sunlight in months. At least the sun was still working a hundred years in the future. Green, I saw green. Plants. Life. We hadn’t managed to kill the whole planet. I laughed, tears streaming down my face, and doubled over with the agony of relief, one hand of my radiation suit clutched tight on the hatch opening.
Radiation levels normal. No toxins or known bio-weapon agents. All the readings were good. I took off my helmet and breathed the warm, sweet smell of a field of corn.
A huge field of corn, unbroken all the way to the mountains ahead of me. Distant, silent machines moved through the corn, harvesting maybe, I couldn't tell. I turned around and found myself facing an impossibly tall city. The buildings, cylindrical and metallic, rose high into the blue sky.
They hadn’t needed me at all. I could have stayed. I might have done more good if I had stayed.
Guilt gnawing at my chest, I sealed the pod and began making my way toward the city.
read the next part
Showing posts with label time travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time travel. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015
Thursday, January 1, 2015
#71 Time Witch
The sound of the grate creaking open overhead woke me from my sleep.
I didn’t move, not quite yet. I was still sleepy. I wondered what they had brought me this time? Another scrawny thief? The political executions were often the best, some fat, juicy official who had angered the king in some way. At any rate, the emptiness in my stomach would soon have something to fill it.
My ears twitched at the sound of something, make that someone, falling to the floor. The soft thud betrayed someone light, small. I was disappointed.
I cracked my eyes open. The flickering firelight from the torches held in a ring above the grate showed me that a small girl had been dropped into my pit.
She stared back at me, her dark eyes wide, but not with fear. “Oh,” she cooed, “you’re beautiful”
Angry, I pulled myself up from the floor of my prison. I had been beautiful once, yes, but not anymore. Years of no sunlight, no hunting, nothing but human garbage for food, had left my coat patchy and my muscles weak. How dare this small, impudent creature call me beautiful?
A small meal, perhaps, but an easy one. I lunged forward and clamped my jaws down…
…on nothing.
Was she an illusion? I spun around, searching to see where she had gone. She stood behind me now, in the corner by the wall where I slept, still staring at me with that wondering look.
Time witch! No wonder someone so small had fallen under the ire of the crown. She was a time witch. That meant she’d be a challenge to catch after all, but not impossible. I could wear her down until she was too weary to slip through time and escape my pounces. My tail twitched eagerly. I could catch her. She had been caught before, at least once, or she never would have been thrown into my pit.
I bounded into the corner, staying on my toes, not committing myself, so that I could make a quick turn when she slipped away. She vanished, but a quick thought whispered in my ear, “If you kill me, I can’t help you.”
I growled and twisted my body, sniffing the air to find where she had gone this time.
She still wasn’t afraid. Her face was as calm as if I were a kitten she’d found in the street. This time, before I’d even moved, she had vanished again. Another whisper, “I can help you escape. I can take you with me.”
In a sudden burst of fury, I charged around the edge of the pit, determined to catch her if she was sulking anywhere against the wall. I bounded into the middle, and came close enough to snatch away a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress. Above us, those watching murmured in approval and satisfaction.
“You’ll have to pretend to catch me,” the time witch said, with perfect confidence. “They won’t open the door again unless they think I’m dead.”
I couldn’t so much hear the words, as that they were suddenly in my mind, whispered to me from outside of time as she brushed by, invisible, intangible. I turned my head and snapped at her presence, but she had gone to the other side of the pit again.
“Stand still, then,” I growled. “Let me catch you.”
She vanished once more. Another message, “When they open the door again, I will stop time. Carry me with you, out of the pit, and run while everyone is frozen.”
It was a tempting offer. Freedom. How long had it been since I had tasted freedom? I had forgotten what it meant, but I wanted to remember.
The time witch stood with her back against the wall, her hands gripped the stone tight behind her, as if she had to hold on to keep herself from slipping away from me. She gave me a slight nod.
I lunged, and this time my jaws closed on flesh. Only so tight, though. Not enough to break it. We would make this deal, then, and see if she would keep her bargain.
I didn’t move, not quite yet. I was still sleepy. I wondered what they had brought me this time? Another scrawny thief? The political executions were often the best, some fat, juicy official who had angered the king in some way. At any rate, the emptiness in my stomach would soon have something to fill it.
My ears twitched at the sound of something, make that someone, falling to the floor. The soft thud betrayed someone light, small. I was disappointed.
I cracked my eyes open. The flickering firelight from the torches held in a ring above the grate showed me that a small girl had been dropped into my pit.
She stared back at me, her dark eyes wide, but not with fear. “Oh,” she cooed, “you’re beautiful”
Angry, I pulled myself up from the floor of my prison. I had been beautiful once, yes, but not anymore. Years of no sunlight, no hunting, nothing but human garbage for food, had left my coat patchy and my muscles weak. How dare this small, impudent creature call me beautiful?
A small meal, perhaps, but an easy one. I lunged forward and clamped my jaws down…
…on nothing.
Was she an illusion? I spun around, searching to see where she had gone. She stood behind me now, in the corner by the wall where I slept, still staring at me with that wondering look.
Time witch! No wonder someone so small had fallen under the ire of the crown. She was a time witch. That meant she’d be a challenge to catch after all, but not impossible. I could wear her down until she was too weary to slip through time and escape my pounces. My tail twitched eagerly. I could catch her. She had been caught before, at least once, or she never would have been thrown into my pit.
I bounded into the corner, staying on my toes, not committing myself, so that I could make a quick turn when she slipped away. She vanished, but a quick thought whispered in my ear, “If you kill me, I can’t help you.”
I growled and twisted my body, sniffing the air to find where she had gone this time.
She still wasn’t afraid. Her face was as calm as if I were a kitten she’d found in the street. This time, before I’d even moved, she had vanished again. Another whisper, “I can help you escape. I can take you with me.”
In a sudden burst of fury, I charged around the edge of the pit, determined to catch her if she was sulking anywhere against the wall. I bounded into the middle, and came close enough to snatch away a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress. Above us, those watching murmured in approval and satisfaction.
“You’ll have to pretend to catch me,” the time witch said, with perfect confidence. “They won’t open the door again unless they think I’m dead.”
I couldn’t so much hear the words, as that they were suddenly in my mind, whispered to me from outside of time as she brushed by, invisible, intangible. I turned my head and snapped at her presence, but she had gone to the other side of the pit again.
“Stand still, then,” I growled. “Let me catch you.”
She vanished once more. Another message, “When they open the door again, I will stop time. Carry me with you, out of the pit, and run while everyone is frozen.”
It was a tempting offer. Freedom. How long had it been since I had tasted freedom? I had forgotten what it meant, but I wanted to remember.
The time witch stood with her back against the wall, her hands gripped the stone tight behind her, as if she had to hold on to keep herself from slipping away from me. She gave me a slight nod.
I lunged, and this time my jaws closed on flesh. Only so tight, though. Not enough to break it. We would make this deal, then, and see if she would keep her bargain.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
#19 The Hike
I stepped out of my house into sunshine and the sound of some good music. Next door, Sara bent over her guitar, the bright green and pink strap of her swimsuit tied behind her neck. She sang for her sisters and their friends, all sitting around in her open garage, in a bunch of folding camp chairs. I walked past them and they all waved.
Next house down, Peter sat on the ground on his front porch, hacking at a coconut husk with a good-sized sharp knife. “Hey, Pete,” I called. “Nat and I are going on a hike, want to come?”
He squinted up at me. “Nah, I got work later.”
“K, see ya,” I said.
I met Natono at the trail-head at the base of the hill behind my street. It led right up into the Hawaiian jungle. He already had his machete out. We were going to hack our way straight through to the top of the ridge, then hike around to some waterfall I hadn’t been to before.
It was a hot day, but not too bad in the shade of the guava trees. Their long, skinny trunks covered the hillside. Invasive species, I thought. Just like me. Natono picked a few and tossed one back to me. It took some work to suck the sweet fruit away from the huge wad of seeds in the middle.
We found a dry stream bed and followed it up the hillside until we came to a big pile of rocks in our way.
“Rock slide,” Natono pointed up the side of the slope. “Looks new. See that bush, it’s half-buried.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, is that a cave?”
We climbed up to the dark, round entrance.
“Is this some kind of lava tunnel?” I asked, stepping inside. It was narrow, but it went back a long way. In the dark my foot touched something soft that crunched a little. My eyes were only beginning to adjust to the dark. I reached down and felt soft feathers, then something dry and hard, like dried palm leaves. There was something long and white there too, like a stick.
Bones! It was bones, and the feathers were part of a cape. I jerked my hand away. I could see dark shapes of wooden carvings now, with broad faces, big eyes, and fierce frowning mouths.
“My dad is going to freak!” I said.
“Yeah, he’s some anthropologist guy, right?” Natono said. “Better not touch anything, it might be cursed!” he teased.
“Yeah, right, more like my dad would kill me. I want to go back and tell him, right now,”
We scrambled back down to the dry stream bed and started home, but we couldn’t find the guava grove we’d passed through on the way up. That was no problem. In Hawaii it’s really hard to get lost. You go downhill and eventually you get to the ocean, and before the ocean there’s a highway, and there’s only one highway, so there’s no way to get really lost.
We ended up sticking to the dry stream bed and following it down. A flash of red darted by and at first I thought it was a cardinal, but then when it landed I saw it wasn’t the right shape. It had a long, curved beak.
“I’ve never seen a bird like that,” I said.
“I’iwi, I think,” Nat said. “I've never seen one either.”
A few more steps and the jungle parted into a beach.
We hadn’t crossed a road.
Next house down, Peter sat on the ground on his front porch, hacking at a coconut husk with a good-sized sharp knife. “Hey, Pete,” I called. “Nat and I are going on a hike, want to come?”
He squinted up at me. “Nah, I got work later.”
“K, see ya,” I said.
I met Natono at the trail-head at the base of the hill behind my street. It led right up into the Hawaiian jungle. He already had his machete out. We were going to hack our way straight through to the top of the ridge, then hike around to some waterfall I hadn’t been to before.
It was a hot day, but not too bad in the shade of the guava trees. Their long, skinny trunks covered the hillside. Invasive species, I thought. Just like me. Natono picked a few and tossed one back to me. It took some work to suck the sweet fruit away from the huge wad of seeds in the middle.
We found a dry stream bed and followed it up the hillside until we came to a big pile of rocks in our way.
“Rock slide,” Natono pointed up the side of the slope. “Looks new. See that bush, it’s half-buried.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, is that a cave?”
We climbed up to the dark, round entrance.
“Is this some kind of lava tunnel?” I asked, stepping inside. It was narrow, but it went back a long way. In the dark my foot touched something soft that crunched a little. My eyes were only beginning to adjust to the dark. I reached down and felt soft feathers, then something dry and hard, like dried palm leaves. There was something long and white there too, like a stick.
Bones! It was bones, and the feathers were part of a cape. I jerked my hand away. I could see dark shapes of wooden carvings now, with broad faces, big eyes, and fierce frowning mouths.
“My dad is going to freak!” I said.
“Yeah, he’s some anthropologist guy, right?” Natono said. “Better not touch anything, it might be cursed!” he teased.
“Yeah, right, more like my dad would kill me. I want to go back and tell him, right now,”
We scrambled back down to the dry stream bed and started home, but we couldn’t find the guava grove we’d passed through on the way up. That was no problem. In Hawaii it’s really hard to get lost. You go downhill and eventually you get to the ocean, and before the ocean there’s a highway, and there’s only one highway, so there’s no way to get really lost.
We ended up sticking to the dry stream bed and following it down. A flash of red darted by and at first I thought it was a cardinal, but then when it landed I saw it wasn’t the right shape. It had a long, curved beak.
“I’ve never seen a bird like that,” I said.
“I’iwi, I think,” Nat said. “I've never seen one either.”
A few more steps and the jungle parted into a beach.
We hadn’t crossed a road.
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