This is an excerpt from a time travel epic I have been working on called The Traveler. In Part I, Charlie arrives from in the year 2024 from the future, requesting the assistance of Laurel Verona to help him stock an impeding apocalypse known as The Dark Day. In Part II, Charlie and Laurel travel to Charlie's time, the year 2123, where two factions battle to repair damages made to the timeline.
In this scene, Laurel and Charlie are tasked with recovering information about the assassination of Vice President Andrew Schmitt, an event that is believed to trigger global war, leading to the end of the world.
Approaching The Confluence
June 13, 2123; 0630
Charlie
and Laurel were about halfway through their trip when the latter realized
that "the Confluence" was Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny and
Monongahela rivers converged (a confluence) to form the Ohio. She felt silly
for not having realized it sooner—but she forgave herself. She had a lot on her
mind.
Charlie told Laurel the story on route:
Chicago was the first American city nuked, followed quickly by San Francisco.
Realizing that America's cities were under attack and NATO defenses were no
match for the Russian missiles, people abandoned major cities by the millions,
turning them into massive ghost towns. While world war raged on, nuclear
weapons were still used; however, Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas were
never attacked. The world fell apart before that ever happened, Charlie said.
Charlie’s
grandfather had been alive for Vice President Schmitt’s assassination—he
remembered his father being a fan of Schmitt since he was anti-war. But his
death had sprung the United States into a war that would cost the entire planet. Laurel didn't
really follow politics—the upcoming election would be the first she could vote
in—and it seemed like it was just a choice between the better of two bad
options. But what little she knew about Schmitt led her to believe that he was
different. He wasn't really God damned old, so that was a plus. And, yeah, he was blatantly
anti-war, which, considering the long string of wars that America had been
involved in during the last seventy years, was refreshing.
But it also may have gotten him killed.
Whoa, Laurel thought. That was weird.
Referring to Schmitt's assassination in the past tense, which was technically correct, because the
assassination had taken place in 2024 and it was currently 2123 so it was the past...but Laurel hadn't experienced it yet, so was it really the past for
her?
"Gah!" she yelled...
"What is wrong?" Charlie asked
through the headset.
...out loud, apparently.
"Nothing. Just a hiccup,"
She looked to the left (port, she thinks
it is called in a plane) and sees the moon setting against the blue morning
sky.
"You are quiet," Charlie said.
"Just looking at the moon. This may sound really dumb, but
I guess I assumed that the moon would look different a hundred years in the
future. But it doesn’t. It looks exactly the same.”
"Aldo said men landed on the moon in
1969. I did not know that."
Aldo, Laurel thought. She missed him more
than she could say.
"Yup. 'One small step for a man, one
giant leap for mankind.'"
"Where else did mankind go?"
Charlie asked, back to his innocent, naive, I'm-from-a-dystopian-future
mindset. "Other planets? The stars?"
"Uh. Well. Not exactly, no. After we
went to the moon, we built the space shuttle."
"What did that do?" Charlie
asked.
"Oh, you know," Laurel said.
"Orbited the Earth."
"That is it?"
"That's it."
"Why did mankind not reach farther
out into space? Why give up?"
"Well," Laurel started.
"We didn't exactly give up, per se, you see, because we—well, yeah, maybe
we gave up."
"Yes. You gave up."
"Charlie, you know I wasn't around
for any of this, right? Nor was I ever in charge of the National Aeronautics
and Space Agency."
"I understand. But humans landed on
the moon in 1969 and in fifty years never went any farther?"
Laurel shrugged to herself. "Yeah. I
guess so."
"That does not make sense. The
Dakota would not just quit like that."
"Well,"
Laurel responded pointedly, "as your sister informed me, I'm not Dakota.
And neither are people from my time, I guess."
"That is not what I mean," he
responded, sounding frustrated, a mood Laurel had not yet experienced from him.
"Like I said, we are all man. We are all human."
"I think you are confusing the terms
'man' and 'mankind.' Mankind is about doing what is best for everyone. Man is a
selfish creature who only thinks of himself. We did have advancements in
technology in my time, but they were less about humanity exploring the great
unknown and more about self-indulgency. Perhaps even a bit of narcissism."
"I guess one could say the
technology of the twenty-first century serves man, not mankind. Maybe it was
best that—"
There Charlie stopped.
"Best that what?" Laurel asked.
"We are here," he said,
pointing straight ahead. "The Confluence."
The aero-v soared over a hillside ridge
populated by old, abandoned buildings. Beyond the hillside was a city, a
cluster of buildings tucked in between two rivers.
"Jesus," Laurel remarked.
"It looks the same, but empty. No cars on the streets, no boats on the
river. Does anyone live here?"
"Not that we know of," Charlie
said. "Most people today are too afraid of the city to live there."
"But the war was so long ago."
"Yes, but I suppose the fear still
remains."
"Old habits die hard," Laurel
said.
"Yes. That is true."
Charlie flew towards the federal
building, its glass sides
reflecting the dawn, its rooftop points poking the morning sky. Down in
the streets between the buildings was green, not gray—grass, shrubs, even trees
had sprouted up where traffic had once gridlocked the city. Many of the
buildings were streaked with rust, the occasional window smashed out. But in
general, the contour of the cityscape was just as it had been in 2024—the dark brown monolithic US
Steel Building, the spire-topped Highmark Building, the futuristic (at the
time) PNC Tower.
The aero-v switched into hover mode and
descended, landing in an open area adjacent to the building that had once been
called Market Square. The last time Laurel had been here was around Christmas
when she and Ethan had gone ice skating. They'd had so much fun, had every
intention of coming back this year. Now, for so many reasons, that would never
happen. Forget about the
whole apocalypse thing—her and Ethan weren’t even friends anymore.
Charlie pulled out his blaster, a dull
gray weapon that looked more like a baseball bat than anything else. He held it like a gun, however, his
right hand down near what would be the stock, fingers over some kind of
trigger. At the other end, the weapon opened up, an obvious hole from which
Laurel assumed lethal energy would be unleashed at the behest of whomever
wielded this futuristic gun.
"Is that really necessary?"
Laurel asked.
"The Confluence is neutral
territory," Charlie explained. "But that does not mean there have not
been battles here, Third-party clans may patrol the area. And the Order cannot
be underestimated. Dangers are always around. Which means we must be cautious.
Are you ready?"
"Yep," Laurel said. "Fifth
floor, Room 5186. File cabinet marked '2024 NOV.' Everything we need we will
find there."
"Sarcasm?" Charlie asked.
Laurel grunted. "We'll find out
soon, won't we."
They exited the aero-v via the rear
hatch, and Laurel took her first steps in Future Pittsburgh. One small step for a woman, one giant leap
for womankind, she thought to herself. Market Square, like the rest of the
city, was overgrown with greenery. Windowless abandoned cars with faded paint
rusted away along the curbs. Old fire hydrants that had once been red or yellow
had dissolved to a corroded orangish-brown. Around her were the sounds of bird
calls—with closed eyes, she'd think she was in a forest.
Of course, she kinda was in a forest.
They trotted carefully to the main
entrance of the federal building—locked, perhaps, but the glass had all been
smashed, so they walked in with ease. If Laurel thought the idea of nature
reclaiming the city streets was something, it was nothing compared to what it
looked like inside the building. The entire lobby was saturated by a lush,
green color. Grass covered the entire floor like a carpet, bushes and trees
sprung up all over. It was funny to think that this building used to host an
international Christmas tree display, and now there were actual trees growing
inside. They were only in the building for about ten seconds before she saw a
deer...inside the lobby! It was almost like being in one of those
post-apocalyptic movies...
Of course, she kinda was in a
post-apocalyptic movie.
"No elevators, I guess," Laurel
said as the deer, a doe, walked slowly away, ignoring the sudden human
presence.
"I would not recommend it."
"Shoe-leather express it is,
then."
They took the stairs to the fifth floor
where they found the office for the Pittsburgh branch of the United States
Secret Service, signs still hanging in place. It had seen better days—more
smashed glass made an easy entrance, mold decorated the walls like nature's
graffiti, curling around dark, circular burn marks.
"What caused these?" she asked.
"Ion blaster weapons," he said,
gesturing to the sidearm he carried. "Someone has been here before."
"Looking for the same thing we
are?"
Charlie nodded. "Perhaps." He
lifted his gun. "We should do this quickly."
"Why didn't I get a gun?"
Laurel asked.
"I did not have time to train
you," Charlie said.
“You
assume you’d need to train me,” she said under her breath.
“What
did you say?” he asked.
“Nothing,”
she said. They had enough to unpack at the moment.
They moved through the office space, the
floor between the desks in the bullpen completely covered with debris. She
hoped that what they were looking for wasn't in this infinite pile, because
it'd take them days to sort through all this—not to mention that most of it
seemed water damaged.
Room 5186 was at the far end of the
bullpen and still displayed the placard Section Chief Jonathan Roy on the door. Laurel felt a tingling sensation as she
reached for the door and turned the handle—
Locked.
"Shit." She looked to Charlie,
then to his gun. "Why don't you shoot it open?"
He raised the weapon. "Stand
back." He fired, sending a blast of blue-white energy at the door knob,
melting most of it, knocking the solid metal that remained to the floor.
Charlie went to push the door, but it
still wouldn't budge. He pushed with his shoulder, but nothing.
"Come on," Laurel teased.
"Put your back into it."
"You are welcome to try," he
said, slightly out of breath.
Laurel did try—she used her shoulder, her
hips, her butt. She tried kicking Section Chief Jonathan Roy's door, but it
felt as though there was a literal ton of weight keeping it in place.
"It won't open," she said, more
winded than Charlie was. "And according to The Seer, we need to get in this office."
"Perhaps there is another way."
They split up, investigating the small
rooms around Room 5186. Laurel took the small office to the left, another room
littered with documents and document folders, more needles in the exponentially
growing haystack. Laurel considered that perhaps the whole world looked like
this, spaces that had once been neat and orderly, that had once served a very
important purpose were now left behind so that chaos and disarray could fester.
A useful building that no longer had use. She now felt like she was treading on
sacred grounds, disturbing the specters of those who used to run this branch of
the Secret Service. Surely, anyone who worked here would be dead by now, right?
She inspected a bank of file cabinets
along the left wall, but nothing with the markings they were looking for
presented itself. It would not be here. Laurel wished it to be true, knew it
would not. While she didn't want to agree with The Seer, somehow, someway,
Laurel knew that what she was looking
for was not—
Papers shuffle to her right. Laurel turns
in the direction of the sound, sees a mound of cast aside documents rise up, like she was living an episode
of Scooby-fucking-Doo or something.
"Charlie!" she shouts.
He's there in less than three seconds,
and just as his footsteps sound behind her, the growing mound of papers breaks
free in the center to reveal a...God damned possum.
No. A God damned baby possum.
"Holy fuck," Laurel gasped.
"Holy fucking fuck. I thought that was a gh—"
Charlie squinted in her direction.
"A what?"
"Nothing." She turned back to
the possum, mostly so that Charlie wouldn't be able to see her flushed cheeks.
"Hey there, little guy. Or little gal. Sorry. Didn't mean to assume your
gender." She reached her hand out to the tiny gray creature, who, for the
briefest of moments, looked as though he/she/they/whatever may have taken a
morbid curiosity in Laurel's outstretched hand. But then, apparently thinking
the better of it, the infant marsupial turned and scurried off behind a bookcase
that sat against the right wall.
"Ah, no, wait! I wasn't going to
hurt you!" Laurel yelled, feet pounding across the spilled documents as
she rushed towards the bookcase. The space between the massive piece of oak
furniture and the drywall was narrow, but wide enough to see through.
"Charlie," she said haltingly.
"Yes?"
"It's gone."
"The possum?"
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
"Look for yourself," she said.
"There isn't a whole lot of real estate back here."
Charlie stepped over and looked for a
moment or two. Suddenly, his eyes widened, as though something was formulating
in his mind. He stared at the wall, like he was trying to stare through it, and
then back to the small sliver of space where the possum had vanished.
"Stand aside," Charlie said,
acquiring a firm grip on the two meter by two meter bookcase.
"Stand aside where?"
But Charlie was already pulling, and with
a labored groan, the bookcase tipped, spilling what few books and picture
frames remained. A second, maybe a second-and-a-half of silence followed before
the shelf hit the floor with a calamitous crash, sending a paper shockwave
scattering in every direction.
When the clamor dissipated, Charlie and
Laurel turned to the now uncovered portion of wall.
"Well, how about that?" Laurel
remarked.
Down against the floor where the bookcase
stood just seconds ago was a one-meter hole in the wall which led right into
Room 5186.
----
"Holy
fucking fuck!!"
Laurel crawled through the hole in
the wall, came out the other side, and leapt back upon seeing the full-bodied
skeleton sitting in the chair behind the desk, bits of faded clothing still
sticking to the bones. Charlie raced through and stood behind Laurel, letting
out a low, mournful sound.
She carefully leaned over the body as
though it might jump out at her to ask her how she was doing, and saw a
handwritten note sitting at the center of the desk:
I have taken great lengths to ensure that I will never
be found. If you are reading this, please do not tell my family what happened
to me.
-Jonathan Roy
Laurel looked up, noting that the heavy
door had been barricaded with a couch that had been attached to the walls
around the door with heavy-duty bolts. Leaning up against the couch was a bookcase, three file
cabinets, and a desk. Along with the couch, steel weightlifting plates had been
bolted into the corners of the door. Nothing short of the United States
Army could have gained
access to this room.
The U.S. Army, or a gaggle of possums.
"Laurel," Charlie said quietly,
and she turned in his direction to find him staring at the top of the skull.
She joined him, seeing a large hole at the top of his head. On the floor to the right of the
chair was a snub-nosed revolver, dull silver body with a wooden handle.
"Jesus, Charlie," she hushed.
"He trapped himself in here so no one could get to him, then shot
himself."
"Why?" he asked.
"Think about it. The world was
falling apart. End of times. Cities nuked left and right. And as everyone was
fleeing Pittsburgh, he stayed behind. Stayed behind to die."
“I
still do not understand. He did this to himself?”
"Because protecting the vice
president was his job," Laurel
said, touching the note. "His responsibility, and he failed." She
picked up the gun, held it in her hand, switched the safety on. "He stayed
here, waiting for the bomb to fall. But it never did. So, he took care of it
himself."
Laurel
met Charlie’s gaze and knew immediately that he still did not understand. Every
second of his life had been purpose-driven, every choice he made already picked
for him. The notion of suicide was incomprehensible to him, like warmth in
Antarctica or rain in the Atacama Desert. He turned away towards the file
cabinets that were acting as a barricade to the door, and Laurel suddenly
remembered that night that felt like and quite literally was a hundred years
ago when Charlie had arrived in her life. How could she ever explain her
presence there at the bridge if suicide was such a foreign concept to him? He
was looking at self-termination firsthand and still couldn’t grasp the idea.
"Laurel," he said quietly, turning towards her.
She looked up and saw what Charlie was
pointing to: a filing cabinet labeled: NOV.2024.
They pulled open the drawer and found a
number of folders—thankfully, it didn't take them long to find exactly what
they were looking for.
"Active investigations," Laurel
read. "I think this is it." She pulled open a file and read:
United States
Secret Service - THREAT REPORT
Report Type: ASSASSINATION
Target: VP
ANDREW SCHMITT “TRUMPET”
Details: VP
WILL BE ASSASSINATED BY A JAYWOOD 6100 AT
FLATROCK HIGH SCHOOL
ON 11/1/2024 AT 4:37 P.M.
ASSASSINS ARE
THREE WHITE MALES APPROX. 40-60 YEARS OF AGE.
Reporting Agent: N. JOURDAIN 10/28/2024
Investigating Agent: N. JOURDAIN 10/28/2024
"What is a Jaywood 6100?"
Charlie asked.
"Not sure. Maybe a rifle? I know a
little about guns—" She directed some side eye in his direction— "but
I've never heard of this."
He looked around. "How can we find
out? Hey Siri, what is a Jaywood 6100?"
Laurel's eyes widened. "Charlie! Another joke!?"
He smirked bashfully. "Not the right
time, I know—"
"No, this is actually the perfect
time for a joke. Jokes
help relieve stress and anxiety—Hey! Here's an idea—let's see if we can
find this N. Jourdain's desk. If he was investigating this threat, he might
have the info out and handy."
"That means we have to go back out
into that mess," Charlie said disdainfully.
"Yup. Sooner we get started, sooner
we get done."
They crawled back through the hole in the
wall and went back out into the main bullpen. Laurel immediately understood
Charlie's anxiety—it would take them a very, very long time to find anything of
any use here. Still, they had to try.
And they did—one desk at a time,
searching for any indication that the materials in the general vicinity
belonged to an N. Jourdain. The deck had been heavily stacked against them, and
then thrown on the floor. It was hard to believe they were going to get their
information here.
Laurel approached her sixth, maybe
seventh desk, and became overwhelmed by the morose feeling that at one time—in
her time—this had been someone's space, someone's work area, where they had
dedicated a large portion of their life to perform a very important job. A place of intense purpose that
no longer had purpose. A useful desk that no longer had use. Was the ghost of
the person who worked here watching her right now, waiting for Laurel to
unearth something that was important? She saw the top edge of a picture
frame laying facedown on the desk. When she picked it up to set it right-side
up, she got a sudden jolt of adrenaline when she realized who this desk
belonged to.
"Charlie!" she shouted,
bringing him over within seconds. "Look."
In the picture were two people. One was
an older man, white skin and white hair—tall, in shape, wearing a light-colored
suit, his left arm wrapped around a young woman with light brown skin and long
dark hair, dressed in a white graduation cap and gown. This young woman, Laurel
knew, was the same agent who had been following her back in 2024.
"That's her, Charlie," she
said, her voice growing in volume from the excitement. "From the stadium,
from my house." She rifled through the mass of papers until she found the
nameplate, buried under a stack of manila folders. "Shit. There I am,
assuming genders again. N. Jourdain. Natalie
Jourdain. This is here. It's gotta be here. It's gotta be here, Charlie."
They tore through all of the papers and
files and books around Jourdain's desk. It only took a minute before Charlie
held up a thick stack of papers—jaywood 6100 operational manual typed in big bold letters on the front.
"Eureka!" Laurel snatched the
manual from Charlie's hands with glee. "Jaywood 6100 high- powered
remote-controlled long-range rifle."
"Remote-controlled?" Charlie
repeated.
"Technology that benefits man, but
not mankind, right?"
"Yes," Charlie looked through
the windows to the rising sun. "It is getting late. We have what we need.
We should go."
They descended down the staircase much
faster than they had come up—partly from the aid of gravity, but partly from
the excitement that they had succeeded, found what they were looking for, and
were now properly prepared to go back and save Schmitt's life, ending The Dark
Day.
When they reached the lobby, that
excitement vanished—Laurel spotted a huge man and a tiny woman standing out in
the square between them and Charlie's plane.
"Charlie," she said quietly.
"I will handle this," he said
ominously. "Stay behind me."
They trotted carefully back into Market
Square. The woman was short in stature but stood tall, a cruel expression on
her bony face. The man was a giant, like a bodybuilder from her time, his black
uniform straining from the muscular mass underneath.
"Charlemagne!" the woman yelled
in a thin, cutting voice. "You have grown since I saw you last." Her
eyes shifted to Laurel. "There is no reason to be afraid, Laurel Verona. I
have been looking forward to meeting you. I am the Commodore, leader of the
Order of Eras, and this is my military commander, General Prowse."
"Sup?" Laurel grunted, lifting
her chin in casual greeting.
"The Confluence is neutral
territory!" Charlie shouted across the distance between them. "And we
have no quarrel with you. Let us by."
"Charlemagne," she said, a note
of chastisement in her tone. "How wrong of you to make assumptions. I mean
you no harm. I only mean to recover whatever it was you found on the fifth
floor."
Laurel's blood turned to ice. How did she know where they were?
"We found nothing," Charlie
said. "Your own people must have whatever you are looking for. Perhaps
they are hiding it from you."
"Now, now, Charlemagne. Dishonesty
is beneath you. We know that you went back to 2024. We know you failed. We know
where your secret time machine is—close by to where you shot down one of our
aero-v's, no? We know The Seer sent you here. We know everything, Charlemagne.
Give General Prowse what you found and I promise no harm will come to
you."
Charlie made a subtle move for his
sidearm. "Take another step, Prowse, and I will reduce you to sub-particle
matter."
Prowse reached for his own blaster.
"You sure about that, boy?" His face twisted into a condescending
sneer. "Are you willing to bet your life that your shot is truer than
mine?"
"Stop this, Commodore!" Charlie
shouted, relenting some. "Let us pass. This is neut—"
"This is far more important than the neutrality
of these grounds," the Commodore interrupted. "This is about the
redemption of humanity. And it cannot be left in the hands of simple thinkers
like you and your father."
"Humanity must be set free, Commodore," Charlie argued.
"Your intention is to enslave mankind."
"Look around, you fool!" she
bellowed, her voice broadening, finding new overtones. "You think like a
child. This is what happens when you
let the commoners run things. We will put back the order, we will set things right. Give me the artifacts and let me
do what the Arthurian dynasty does not have the strength to do."
Charlie shook his head. "Never. You
will have to kill me."
The Commodore smiled, an unnatural look
that unnerved Laurel. "We do not need you,
Charlemagne. We only need—" She gestured to Laurel— "the anomaly."
Quick as a lightning strike, Charlie
withdrew his blaster from his holster—but somehow, Prowse was still faster. A
burst of blue-white ionized energy fired from his sidearm and hit Charlie
square in the chest, knocking him back into Laurel who was barely able to keep
him up right.
A flash. Laurel is in the same time and place, but not quite.
Charlie lays on the ground, a bloody gaping wound where his chest used to be,
singed rib bones protrude from the mess of torn skin and muscle. He is dead—his
heart, gone; most of his lungs, gone; and Laurel looks up to see General Prowse
approaching her, blaster raised.
"That was your warning,
Charlemagne!" Prowse shouts, and Laurel is back in the present—her present—and Charlie is standing
tall, facing this Ahnold-wannabe down. "Do not fool yourself into thinking
I cannot hit the same target twice."
Laurel knows his armor is damaged, knows
what will happen next. She opens her mouth to say something, but Charlie is
already reaching for his blaster.
Prowse fires.
In an act of desperate futility, Laurel
reaches her hand out, like a mom on a sidewalk watching a speeding bus racing out of control towards her baby, like maybe Laurel can stop
the blast of energy from reaching Charlie.
Turns out, she's not totally wrong.
That same blast, the one that seemed to
have reached Charlie in an instant before, now moves noticeably slower as it
travels from Prowse's gun to Charlie's body. Everything seems to be progressing in slow motion around her, the
sounds of the birds taking on a lower pitch, sparks falling from Prowse's gun
as though affected by a moon-like gravity, not that of Earth. The Commodore is
currently halfway through a blink, making her look super derpy and awkward.
Laurel laughed, but stopped when she realized that even though things had
significantly slowed down, time was still moving forward, and that deadly burst
of energy was halfway to its destination—Charlie.
Somehow, she was being afforded this
unusual opportunity to do something about the situation, so she stopped
thinking and started acting. With the bolt a meter out, she pointed her toes to
the right and rolled on the balls of her feet. Leaping forward, she caught the
ion bolt with the armor over her left hip. Rolling, she flipped upside down,
and just before she handed, Laurel withdrew the revolver from the holster
attached to her rear armor.
Her head hit the ground first—despite the
helmet that Charlie had made her wear to protect her from, whatever, she saw
stars as she continued her roll, and her surroundings resumed their normal
speed. Pushing through the pain, the disorientation, she sat up on her left
knee and lifted the pistol into firing position, steadied her hold with her
left hand, and disengaged the safety.
Laurel aimed like Aldo had taught her.
Squeezed a shot off.
Contained the recoil. Re-aimed. Fired
again.
Laurel was certainly no expert, but based
on what Charlie had told her, she assumed the armor was only good at repelling
energy-based weapons, and she was correct. The first shot hit Prowse in the
abdomen, possibly taking out his left kidney. The second hit the Commodore in
the thigh—not what Laurel was aiming for, but at her range and her novice
expert level, she'd have to be happy with it—both of her targets were on the
ground, crumpled in pain.
"Come on!" Charlie yelled,
grabbing her by the arm and pulling her along to the plane, past the
incapacitated Commodore and Prowse. They scrambled aboard and were airborne
within thirty seconds. Laurel was sucked back against her seat as Charlie
pulled some G's thrusting forward—south, back into Dakota territory.
"How—" Charlie started, shook
his head to himself, then tried again: "How did you do that?"
"Charlie," she gasped, still
trying to catch her breath. "I have no idea."
