The Disciple and Other Stories of the Paranormal (17 page)

Weapons technology wasn’t the only thing The
Order focused on – saving great scientific minds had been a
priority from the start, and their “think tank” was impressive.
Finally enough great minds were together long enough to come up
with the ultimate breakthrough – time travel.

Initial tests – going back an hour, then a
day, then a week – worked well, with one drawback. Coming back to
present day caused brainwave issues, and the longer the jump, the
worse the problems.

Armand called all the operatives together.
“We’ve lost the one-year team,” he said without preamble.

“
I saw them,” Hannah
protested. “They looked fine.”

Armand shook his head. “Their bodies
returned. Their minds didn’t.”

“
We can tell they did what
they were supposed to,” Liam said. He was alive, which proved the
time-travel was working, since he’d been killed twelve months
prior. The year-back team’s mission had been to save his
life.

We’d known their task had been completed
because suddenly Liam was with us. The scientists had prepared us,
so his reappearance, and its effect on our memories of him – both
those that showed he’d died, and those that showed him being with
us for the past year – weren’t too skewed. We’d all taken a drug
that ensured everyone in present time would have no trouble
aligning the memories.

Liam had been given the same drug, so he was
also able to align his dead self with his now-living self. He could
also confirm that the year-back team had come, saved him, then
disappeared.

“
Yes,” Armand said slowly.
“The trip back is completely effective, and clearly the operatives
retain their present-day memories when they arrive in the past.
However, we have to scrap our plans to make short jumps to the
past. I’ve decided to cancel the rest of the short-term jumps
because we can’t regain the teams.”

“
Can’t we give them the
same drug we took?” I asked.

Armand shook his head. “We tried that.
It…made their madness worse.”

“
Why not send the three-
and five-year teams back and let them do their work?” Jonathan
asked. He was on the five-year team, and clearly disappointed to
lose the mission he’d trained for. “Leave us there. We’ll catch
up.”

“
It’s one thing to go back
and return,” Liam said. “It’s another to go back and stay
there.”

Armand shook his head. “The tests all agree
– the space-time continuum can be negatively affected by leaving
the shorter-jump teams in the past for too long.”

“
Meeting yourself is never
a good thing,” Marcus said.

Armand nodded. “Yes, exactly. And that’s
only one of the problems.”

“
So, we’re giving up?”
Adrienne asked, sounding appalled.

“
No. But…” Armand
sighed.

“
But?” David
asked.

“
But if we hope to save
humanity today, we must send a team back farther in time. So far
back there is no hope of them ever returning.”

“
This team wouldn’t be
able to get help, to know if their work was successful,” Marcus
said. “You go back forever, you live and die in the
past?”

“
Yes.” Armand looked
around. “We will be sending the next team back a thousand years.
Whoever volunteers will never know if their efforts saved us or
not. You’ll only be able to do what you can, for as long as you
have.”

My hand was already in the air. Armand
smiled at me. “I knew you would offer. I’m sorry we have to cancel
our plans for the three and five year jumps.” The three-year team
was to have been tasked with saving my family.

“
I understand.” I did. We
needed to save everyone, not just my family. “If I can change the
past, then maybe Violet will…” I couldn’t finish, couldn’t say that
maybe if we were successful, then my little sister wouldn’t have to
die by my hand.

“
I’m in,” Marcus said,
filling the silence my throat tightening had created. He put his
arm around my shoulders. “Can’t let you be the only
risk-taker.”

He was tall and handsome, with black hair
and sparkling blue eyes. I smiled up at him. “You know I don’t need
protecting.” I liked going on patrols with Marcus. I liked doing
other things with him, too.

Marcus grinned. “Absolutely. I just want to
visit the motherland.”

Everyone chuckled. “Marcus brings up a good
point,” Armand said. “We can have only those of clear European
descent on this team. Those of us who won’t blend in at first sight
can’t go.”

“
All races were there at
the time,” Lin protested. She was Armand’s wife, and I knew without
asking that she’d hoped the two of them could go back with us. But
her Chinese heritage was as clear as his African-American
roots.

“
Yes,” Armand agreed, “but
most were in their home countries. The occasional traveler from
foreign lands was a rarity, and the less time spent explaining to
the locals what the team is doing there, the better.”

There were arguments from those operatives
whose features would force them to remain in the present. Armand
let it go on for a minute or so, the he raised his hand. Everyone
quieted.

“
We stay here. Not only
because we’ll stand out, but because our place is to deal with
whatever the changes in the past cause in the future – our present.
We’ve made the decision to send a team, we have to be here to deal
with the ramifications. That’s the fate of leaders, or it should
be,” he added, looking at Lin.

She nodded slowly. “I agree.”

Armand smiled widely. “Besides, won’t it be
wonderful to discover there are no ’Pires when we wake up the day
after the thousand-year-back team leaves?”

Everyone laughed and agreed this would be
wonderful. Everyone but those who were busy volunteering for the
team. We were discussing other things.

None of us spoke of dying.

Seven was the most that could be sent at one
time without risking the travelers being lost in the time-stream.
It ended up that the team was made up of three women and four men —
me, Marcus, Hannah, David, Liam, Adrienne, and Jonathan. We were
all fair skinned with the right looks to be Europeans of the
day.

More had volunteered to go, of course. But
out of all the volunteers, we were the best trained operatives and
had the most ’Pire kills.

“
We shouldn’t let Liam
go,” Lin said. “We worked too hard to get him back.”

Liam was short and stocky, with a wide grin
and a shock of red hair. “Sorry, but I was resurrected for a
reason. I’m the medieval scholar, remember? You don’t get to keep
me here when I’ll be more useful there.”

Best of the best or not, we trained long and
hard, learning every form of martial arts known, becoming experts
in a variety of weapons we might come across in our travels,
learning about the mores, classes, and expectations of the day.

Our hearing and vision were medically
improved – we could hear a whisper a mile away and read the lips of
the person sharing the secret. Our bones and teeth were
strengthened, our bodies immunized against ancient illnesses as
well as modern ones.

Our blood was altered, a dangerous and
expensive process. The taste of garlic, tang of iron, bite of
silver, and smell of oak made our blood vile to the ’Pires, which
ensured we wouldn’t be turned. Because of its new properties, our
blood also provided no nourishment to them.

Blood alteration was easier than time
travel, but the process was slow and the ’Pires were working fast.
If we’d found that serum a decade earlier, maybe we could have
immunized the population and scrapped our time-travel plans.
Instead, we used it for those in The Order, but, even though our
preparations had taken another eighteen months, there was no time
for mass distribution.

Once trained and physically prepared, the
Far Away Team, as we called ourselves, were outfitted. The Order
wanted to ensure we’d be well-equipped – and we were.

We were given two Nightsticks each, two
pairs of infrared-heat goggles, medicines and first aid supplies,
clothing we hoped would allow us to pass for, if not natives, at
least people of the time period, and gold, though not as much of
that as we’d have liked.

All our supplies but the Nightsticks stored
in carrying bags that were leather on the outside and lined with
water-, shock-, heat-, and cold-resistant material that would
protect the contents, potentially for centuries.

Everyone had full-body underclothes which
were a cloth hybrid that would keep us cool in hot weather and warm
in the cold. We all wore leather boots rolled up over our knees,
and secured our leather pants with a thick leather belt from which
our Nightsticks hung. The belt also “looked” like it was holding
our pants up, which allowed us to hide our more modern
fastenings.

For protection as well as adornment, we wore
leather vests over black shirts. The shirts’ color would hide
stains and the fact they were a special blend of several layers of
silk with gold and silver threaded through the fabric.

Each of us had a cloak as well, made from
the same fabric as our shirts, with the addition of a middle layer
of the lightest chain mail made of the metals and woods mixture we
knew would keep us safe.

Speaking of adornment, we were also given
gold and silver jewelry. We wore two necklaces with two charms –
the Star of David and the Cross of Christ. One necklace was under
shirts, one was worn out, to be seen. We had charm bracelets on
each wrist, worn the same as the necklaces – one under our sleeves
and hidden by our leather gloves, one worn on the outside.

We were all clergy and well versed in the
purification ritual, so holy water wouldn’t be a problem. However,
we each carried stainless steel vials of it, because it never paid
to be without.

The eighteen months passed swiftly, but not
fast enough. Humanity’s numbers went down while we prepared. By the
time we were ready – standing in front of The Order for the last
time, dressed in the clothes we’d spend the rest of our lives in –
we knew, without a doubt, that we were humanity’s last hope.

Armand hugged me. “Be true to your training,
your goals, and yourself.” He kissed my forehead. “You’re like my
daughter. I look forward to finding you in the new world you’ll
create, so I can tell your other self about how you saved us
all.”

I hugged him back tightly. “I’ll make you
proud, I promise.”

“
I’ll take care of her,”
Marcus said as he hugged Armand. “I’ll protect her with my life, I
promise.”

Armand put his hands to our cheeks. “I hope
to see you again, somehow. But we’ll meet again in Heaven, if
nowhere else.”