Oh Hell No! (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 3) (2 page)

The man next to her chuckled. The
noise sounded wet in his thin chest. His lice might have caught a pneumonia
that they passed on to their host. He should probably be quarantined from the
lab, but they were all sick and getting sicker, so what difference did it make?
As Loriei considered this, he said, “Hopefully fixing it will just be difficult
instead of impossible.”

“How long have they been gone?”
she asked.

He stared at her for a moment.
“Local time or travel time in the past?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“Local: they jumped thirty minutes
ago. Time spent in the past: we’ll have to see when they return. There is no
other way to know, Loriei.”

She closed her eyes for a few
breaths and heard the violin’s sadness and missed notes in her memory again.
She opened her eyes still staring at the jump platform. She muttered. “Greetings,
we come in peace. We are here to retrieve a sample of your lice to save our
kind.”

***

In rural Ohio, in the year of
1955, a warm breeze blew through the meadow, playing with a few elegant white
flowers of an Autumn Cherry tree. The evening was peaceful and a few cottontail
rabbits were leaping between the short grasses. A large moon was emerging on
the horizon. The moonlight was creating a glittering mirror image on the
surface of a pond, where hours earlier cattle have been sipping from. A tractor
is parked nearby.

Brandt’s family owned the farm for
two generations. He had finished the work for the day and entered the house. He
is a large man, on his 60’s, wears a jeans overall and a cap.

“Supper will be ready in 15 minutes.”
Says his wife from the kitchen.

“Okay.” Brandt replies with a hint
of tiredness on his voice.

He removes his cap and sits on the
recliner. With his right hand, he scratches an itch on his scalp.

There is a bright flash somewhere
in the field outside. Brandt stands up while looking through the window.

“Helen, I reckon the rustlers are
trying to steal our cattle this time. I will teach them a lesson they will
never forget.” He opens a cabinet with firearms and retrieves a 45 and a
shotgun. He walks up to a small table and grabs a flashlight.

“If I don’t come back in 10
minutes, call Mr. Smith.”

“Are you sure you want to go
alone? Oh dear, please be careful!” Helen shouts from the door, as Brandt walks
toward the darkness of the night.

Brandt can see a silhouette of two
men standing on the pasture. He is normally a calm man, but two trespassers
that don’t run away when they see the land owner is bad news. Maybe he should
have called for help after all. He stops 15 feet away from the duo and points
the flashlight.

Brandt shouts “Whatta hell…”

“Greetings, we come in…” Starts
one of the men. But Brandt can’t pay attention on the words as the light from
the flashlight uncovers the deformed head and bodies of the uninvited guests. A
piece of skin and hair falls off from one of the men.

The sound of a shotgun crosses the quiet night.

***

The man next to Loriei is excited “All
we need is one louse to splice the gene into,” he said. “Then, we return it to
the past one more time and erase all of this. Relax. We spent a lot of time and
research selecting the wording and the timeframe. It will work.”

Light crackled around the
platform. The shadow image of two figures showed for less than a second and
then were gone. The light dissipated like evaporating water. In its place was
left the headband with the mounted camera. The wristbands and sample container
were back. The metal on the wristbands was blistered and blackened.

“We’re all shadows.” She
whispered.

Engineers approached from all
sides as heat rose from the objects in squiggles of distortion.

“Don’t touch anything.” Loriei’s
voice boomed from the railing and echoed off the hard walls of the lab. They
froze in place and she handed her notebook off to the scientist next to her.
She took the stairs and pushed through the others to reach the platform alone.
“Everyone, stay back, please. We don’t want their sacrifice to be in vain.”

If the bands were back and the
jumpers were not, that meant that they had been lost and the failsafe engaged.
Despite knowing better, she touched the sharp blisters on the surface of the
wristbands. They were still hot enough to cook on and stung her fingertips. The
heat required to disintegrate the bodies would have been great and even more
intense if they were still standing close together. The heat also had to be
intense to destroy the bodies of their lice to prevent infestation of the past.

Loriei rolled the canister to its
side and ran a scan of the contents. The screen indicated empty. She looked up
and saw all eyes on her. She shook her head and everyone around her exhaled.
They were all thin from the lice feeding on them, but they seemed to deflate
even further at the news.

She lifted the headband and
accessed the camera. As she rewound the recording, one of the men behind her
said, “We’ll need to download that and transcribe to get the full story.”

“Just a moment,” she said.

Loriei overrode the controls and
let the sound bleed through harsh from the piece next to her ear as she let the
uneven image roll through the eyepiece in front of her. It was dark and she
could hear the heavy breathing of the time jumpers that had just arrived. The
image was dark, but then adjusted into a sickly, green tint over the night. On
the left was a field of corn. On the right were cows that were still and quiet
even after the flash of the jumpers’ entry. The jumper that wore the head band
turned his head enough to show his partner standing. Loriei could not remember
their names and she wasn’t sure she could blame that on the lice. Someone was
shouting and approaching from a house in the mid ground where the lights were
now on as the jumper looked back. The green adjusted down to compensate for the
light pouring out from the widows and porch. The jumper wasn’t holding his head
still enough for her to focus on the figure that was approaching in the frame.

“The images may need to be
enhanced,” someone said behind her.

“Be quiet. I’m trying to hear.”

The slender, grey arm of the
jumper waved through the frame waving the cloth for the white flag. She had
forgotten the white flag. The farmer shouted back toward the house about
burglars and the cows. She could not pick up on the whole phrase due either to
the ambient noise in the recording or the man’s accent. The farmer had so much
bulk and mass. He hardly seemed like a person, but rather like a bear charging
them. He carried something long and skinny across his chest.

“Where did they land …
geographically?” Loriei asked.

“Um … Ohio. Central Ohio 1955
outside of Griffin’s Pointe. There was a lice outbreak recorded there. We
thought it was a good place and time to collect.”

“Shhh.” She waved a hand behind
her. “Okay. Let me hear.”

The farmer said something. His
eyes were wide in the half light. He breathed something about aliens. She
missed most of it and was about to rewind. The flag waved in frame again. He
brought the object up catching the light from the porch behind him down its
barrel.

“Oh, no,” she said and shook her
head. Since the image was over her eye, shaking her head did not spare her from
seeing it unfold.

A piece of skin fell through
frame. Loriei only had a moment to register that the jumper was molting. His
lice were laying eggs and the skin was separating to make room. Loriei had just
gone through it herself back in the bunker at her old home during her brief
fugue. Even with the caps sealing off the actual flocks in their scalps to keep
them from infesting the past, skin would fall from the forehead and sometimes
the cheeks.

“Greetings, we come in peace. We
…”

Both barrels unloaded and Loriei
jumped as one of her ears rang from the distortion through the speaker. The
other scientists in the lab jumped as well, so it must have been loud enough
even through the earpiece for them to hear the report through the laboratory.

She stared down at the charred wristbands
with one eye as she watched the jumper fall to the grass in the other. The
blades of grass obscured the image, but she could see the other jumper holding
his chest and bleeding through his fingers on the ground. The scene flared
white as the inferno surrounded the bodies before the gear was snapped back to
the present.

“What is an alien?” Asked Loriei.
But no one responded.

The sound hummed through the
blank, white image.

Loriei pulled the headband off and
dropped it to the floor. Everyone was looking at her as she said, “We need a
new plan.”

***

The flash of light vanished
leaving Loriei standing in the nighttime wind under a waving pine tree. She
found herself heaving to catch her breath from the incredible pressure of the
jump. As she did, she looked up at the bows of pine needles and cones waving
above her head. She had seen pine trees in her lifetime, but not recently. The
ones she remembered were scrawny and yellow like everything else in the world
after the plagues.

The man on her left was taller
than her, but just as skinny. He wore the headband with the camera this time.
They had on plain, gray suits and rubber masks that looked like the facial
structures of ancient humans. In the darkness, she thought the faces looked
like death masks. The masks had big dark plastic covers hiding each eye.

Her voice was muffled through her
mask. “This isn’t going to work.”

The man held up his wrist showing
his wristband between them. “Should we snap back now?”

Loriei shook her head. She thought
she felt one of her lice move under the sealed cap. She wondered if the process
of the time jump negated the sedation on the lice. She waited a moment, but
there didn’t seem to be any movement. She decided it was just her imagination.

She said, “No, we’re fine.”

She turned her head and the man on
her right was shorter than her and also wearing the mask giving his face a
waxy, unreal quality.

She was not sure that bringing
three jumpers back was the right move, but this was a different mission now and
she thought it was best. All the changes were her call and the consequences
were on her.

She took a moment to concentrate
and to remember their names. The taller man wearing the camera was Salvo and
the shorter one was Corsin. She found herself hoping against hope that she
could get them both out alive.

A dog started barking and the
shock of it made her heart hurt in her chest.

She cleared her throat and said
muffled through the mask, “Let’s go.”

They moved forward through the
grass and along a chain link fence. A double wide trailer marked the forested
property. It had a brown roof designed to look like the pattern of wood even
though it was clearly metal. The white sides of the trailer were ribbed in
pattern. A black truck sat nose outward along one side of the trailer. Light
shown through the blinds over the windows from inside. There was a pale, yet
bright floodlight casting a broad beam of light on the grass, but it was on a
pole on the other side of the trailer.

The dog pulled to the end of its
chain on the other side of the fence. The other end of the chain not connected
to the collar pulling against the dog’s muscular chest was hooked on a post in
the dirt leaning sideways. The dog was agitated and seemed to be hurling its
body and head into each bark for greater emphasis. Thick, foamy slobber cast
off its lips as they peeled back from the animal’s teeth and black gums.

Loriei traced with her eyes a
worn, dirt trail from the gate of the fence to the wooden steps of the trailer
that curved out of the reach of the angry dog as long as its chain held.

In Loriei’s time, dogs roamed free
in packs through some cities and out in the open wastes. The lice usually
resorted to the dogs, if a human host wasn’t available. The dogs did not last
as long once infected by the lice. She wondered briefly, if trying to collect a
sample from the dog might work, but changed her mind quickly as the teeth
snapped at her between barks. Seeing a pack of dogs usually meant the end for
someone caught outside. She wondered if they were seeking revenge for the days
that humans put them on chains. She shook her head. They were probably just
hungry and humans were the easiest prey.

She stared at the gate for a
moment before raising the metal latch. It gave a light squeak and a metal on
metal clink. She pushed the gate inward and the hinges gave a louder shriek.
She paused after a few inches of turn and waited with her teeth gritted behind
her rubbery mask.

As she listened between barks, she
heard voices inside. There was music. She heard a car engine rev. A car inside?
Loriei tilted her head. The dog continued barking and the sounds from inside
grew gradually louder. The quality of the sound reminder her of listening to
the recording through the earpiece on the headband after the last jumpers were
killed. She realized she was hearing a television. She knew what they were, but
the sound seemed loud to be considered any sort of relaxing entertainment.
Those noises would not make her feel relaxed at all except that it meant the
man inside might not hear the barking or gate which did relax her a bit.

She pushed the gate the rest of
the way open with a creak. The sound of the television continued to vibrate the
sides of the trailer, but the door at the top of the wooden stairs remained
closed.

The dog jumped at the end of its
chain still barking and snapping.

Loriei motioned with hand behind
her for the other men to stay on the path out of the dog’s reach. She glanced
over her shoulder to be sure they understood. The eyeholes of her mask shifted
making it hard to see at that angle, but she could tell Salvo and Corsin did
not need her instruction. They were hugging the side of the trailer as far from
the dog as they could get.

She turned her attention back
forward and stalked toward the bottom step of the stairs. Loriei kept watching for
the handle on the glass and metal door to turn. If the subject came outside,
that might make this easier. The site was secluded which was part of the reason
they were here. It was a few weeks before the gravitational wave which was another
reason she had chosen this site. It was also detailed in her notebook which was
most of the reason they were walking slowly up the steps.

If he came out too soon though,
then they would not be in a good position to deal with him. They needed to get
to him before he came looking to see what had the dog so upset.

Loriei made the last few steps and
went to her knees beside the door. She leaned out to peer through the glass.
There was a metal screen on the other side of the thin glass distorting everything
inside with a gritty haze. She saw light from bulbs from three different lamps
in the room including one glass hood on the ceiling.

The television was flat like the
monitors in the lab and sat free on top of a wooden cabinet positioned in front
of a reclining chair. Crushed beer cans lined the cabinet on one side.

Loriei had expected a boxy set
with the television tube inside. She supposed it was the early twenty-first
century, so it made sense that the change over in technology would have
happened, but in her mind she always thought of the modern technologies
beginning after the gravitational wave event. There was no amount of research
that prepared a person for jumping back in time.

She saw his arm resting on the
scratched leather of the arm of the recliner. He had a long, blue sleeve that
was unbuttoned and rolled up unevenly past the elbow. He gripped a remote
control in his fist. His arm was dotted with hair. It was not thick enough to
hide the skin underneath, but it was enough to appear furry like some species
of animal rather than a human. She knew that technically she and others of her
time were still mammals, but a lifetime of molting from the infestation of the
lice had shed all remnant of their hair.

This man’s arm was thick, muscled,
and hairy. That was what humans were supposed to look like without the lice and
this was the state they were seeking to put humanity back into by bending time
and breaking every rule that humanity still had in place. However inhuman this
man might look, this was how they were supposed to be and would be again, if
this mission was successful.

With the dog still barking at her
back and the musical car chase blaring from the set loud enough to vibrate the
glass at her face, Loriei balked at her next move. If the mission was
successful, they might be erasing the timeline entirely. It was possible that
they would just create an alternate timeline and a quantum division. Both
timelines might exist and all her team would go on living in the world they had
created while a new humanity lived in the other.

They might erase it all or create
some dire paradox. It was that fear that had made the study and implementation
of time travel illegal back when humanity thought they still had a chance.

They might fail. This possibility
hung heaviest upon her. In a way, it was the worst of all the possibilities
even though it was somehow the most simple and elegant. Time could block their
success to protect itself. Their own incompetence might do the work for time by
getting themselves obliterated in twenty-first century Georgia the same way
they had in Ohio in 1955. Did the fact that they were still there mean that
they were doomed to fail?

Loriei put her hand on the handle
and paused again. She stared at the wristband. It would take her back one way
or the other. The snap back could propel her back forward in time once they had
the sample or needed to abort the mission. It would also cook them to ash and
go back on its own, if it came to that, like before.

Her eyes focused out from her
wrist and spotted the notebook on the counter that led into the kitchen area.
The pages were not frayed around the edges and the cover was not yellowed and
split, but it was the younger version of the same one she had retrieved from
the bunker.

It was the one from the bunker she
had grown up within. It was the bunker this man would one day take a family to
try to hide from the coming plagues.

Loriei whispered. “Danforth …
Brady Danforth.”

Salvo whispered behind her.
“What?”

She put her finger over the
rubbery lips of her mask as if anything could be heard over the bark of the dog
and the commercial for erectile dysfunction drugs on the television. The
commercial seemed louder than the car chase even though it was just an old
couple in outdoor bathtubs watching the sun set. People did not get old in her
time anymore, she noted. Their heads split open and they fell down dead as the
lice finished feeding.

Loriei lowered her finger from her
lips. “Be ready to move quickly.”

Corsin took out the syringe and
held it out. He nodded, but did not say anything.

She pulled the handle down and
around slowly. She felt the grinding of the latch as it moved inside the
mechanism. The medicine commercial switched to one about dog treats. The camera
followed from the dog’s point of view searching the house for his treats and
talking. She wondered if the commercial was meant for the dog. The latch popped
free of the frame and she froze again staring at Danforth’s hairy arm.

She found that she expected her
ancestor to be brown-skinned like the model in the pasted page on the pavement.
But Danforth appeared to be pre plague Caucasian. She knew he as a Vietnam
veteran, but that was all. She wished she knew more about the details of her
family history.

Loriei pulled the door open and
watched the cheap, hydraulic arm extend. She held it with her open palm as the
others followed her inside. Salvo stepped around her, but then Corsin lost his
grip on the door. It hit Loriei in the leg and she froze.

The commercial switched to
Iphones. She wondered how many of these ads played in a row. Did the show ever
come back on? How many of these were they required to watch?

Corsin took hold of the door again
and pulled it back open.

Danforth moved. He let go of the
remote and let it thunk to the floor sounding hollow through the underbelly of
the trailer. Loriei heard another can crinkle, but could not see it.

For a moment, she hoped he was
asleep.

Danforth pushed down the foot
platform with his socked feet – black with golden stitch across the toes. He
sat up. He was balding and had broad shoulders. He scratched vigorously at the
edge of his hairline as he stood. “Damn cooties …”

Brady Danforth took two steps
before he turned and saw the three people standing behind his chair in his
living room.

Loriei waved Corsin forward, but
her partner stayed by the door with the syringe gripped in his hand.

Danforth screamed with a high note
that made Loriei think of frightened babies. The dog redoubled its barking
outside. Salvo took a step toward Danforth from around the chair.

Danforth dove for the chair. His
heel hit the remote and the television turned off dropping the room into a
heavy quiet. Danforth fell across the arm of the chair and something broke with
a twang down inside.

He came up with a handgun and aimed
over the chair at Salvo. Salvo closed both fists over the gun in Danforth’s
grasp. His gloved hands looked so small over the top of Danforth’s thick
fingers.

The gun went off up in the air
punching a hole through the paneling on the ceiling. Loriei heard a piercing
ring after that. It was so much louder than through the earpiece.

“Corsin, now.” She yelled
wondering if his hearing was as stunted as hers.

He did move though.

The door swung closed. Salvo and
Danforth wrestled from side to side over the chair with the gun. It went off
twice more shattering the glass in the door.

Corsin pressed the syringe to
Danforth’s neck. It was not immediate, but the man wavered and then collapsed
backward onto the floor with an awkward thump. His back was arched and Danforth’s
hands opened and closed absently as he blinked up at the hole in the ceiling.

Salvo looked at the hand gun in
his grasp. He opened his hands and let it fall onto the seat of the recliner
like he was afraid it might bite him. It might just do so. She wondered if
every pre plague human carried one. It seemed like the world was just as
dangerous before the plagues as after; at least that is what the people of the
time seemed to think.