Time Salvager, page 11
“How did you do that?” the first scientist said, stunned.
“Get out of here before the platform sinks!” James yelled, expanding the netherstore container and pushing the machine inside.
The second scientist stared as the sequencer disappeared into the opened black mouth of the netherstore. “You’re … you’re stealing it! You can’t. You don’t know what you’re doing.” She lunged at James.
“I’m sorry,” said James as he swung an arm, lashing out with a kinetic coil that struck the scientist in the stomach and threw her against the wall. The first scientist screamed and scrambled toward the exit. James let him go. There wasn’t anywhere to run. He closed the loop on the netherstore and made his way toward the Head Repository. The last one was going to be tricky. It was located near Sector Five, and there were bound to be crowds of people in the area.
He was running out of time. James bulldozed through the crowds, knocking anyone in his way off their feet. Between the drain on his netherstore and the platform sinking much faster than anticipated, his window of opportunity was shrinking rapidly.
There was also the matter of the chronostream residue from last night. It hadn’t been eight hours since he had detected it. It wasn’t a strong tear, but it could still hamper his escape jump. Standard protocol on a detected tear was to clear the tear by any means possible. In other words, abort the mission and leave the area or wait out the tear. But the promise of a golden ticket pushed both James and Smitt on. Right now, James had to be extra careful. He was operating without the safety net of a return jump.
James reached the Head Repository and used Elise’s badge to get inside. His mind drifted to her. She was no doubt with the rest of the hopeless masses trying to get on a transport. He hoped she died quickly and without pain. The building was unexpectedly full for a place that was about to sink into the ocean. Men and women ran back and forth, frantically trying to stem the damage and coordinate emergency services. Others shouted into communication arrays, desperately calling for help.
James had to credit them for their dedication to their work. They were still trying to save the platform. Most ignored him as he strolled down to the data center on the lower level. Here were where the critical central databases and control mechanisms for the entire facility were stored.
Elise’s access got him inside without any problems. The systems were still online, running on auxiliary power as they tried to upload as much of the databases as possible. James knew that the high radiation would corrupt the majority of the uploads, but the system would stay plugged in until the very last second.
He studied the blinking cores and weighed his options. He wasn’t sure if unplugging the systems now would cause a time line ripple, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He couldn’t afford to wait. If the sector fell into the ocean right now, he could die with it. He ripped the systems apart and moved them into the netherstore. It was near capacity and barely holding the containment field in place.
There was a loud squeal of bending metal and then the room tilted violently. James kept his balance and focused on the task at hand. He floated the last few components that made up the core system into the netherstore. A woman’s sharp gasp broke his concentration. James turned around, a coil ready to lash out. He saw Elise hanging on to the railings, staring at him with her hand over her mouth.
“I saw you walk into the Head…,” she stammered, her voice hoarse. “What are you doing?”
James froze and dissolved the coil. The smartest thing to do would be to kill her now. He had very little time left to finish the job as it was. The last thing he needed was a distraction. The exo around his hands lit up again. He looked into her terrified face. It was the same look he’d seen a hundred times before. She should be just another in a crowd of ghosts. But she wasn’t.
“You have to go,” he said. “Get to the transports.”
“You just blinked my life’s work into nothing,” she said. “How did you do that?”
“Go!” He couldn’t stand seeing her any longer. He didn’t need another ghost haunting his life.
“Not without the core!”
“This place is sinking into the ocean. Just go!”
Elise shook her head. “Security thinks this sector’s foundations will hold. This project is too important.”
If only she knew how wrong she was. He heard more grinding and another whine beneath his feet as the weakened plates and beams that held up the platform fragmented. The slant of the floor below his feet grew steeper. He had seconds left to finish this job. He moved the last few systems into the netherstore and tied it shut.
“Where did the core go?” she asked again, planting her foot on the floor and crossing her arms. “Answer me!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You need to—”
The room shook violently, and then gravity abandoned them. Suddenly, they were in free fall. James powered on his exo and braced for the impact. He looked over at Elise, clinging to the railing for dear life. When the tower hit the ocean in a few seconds, she would die. The impact from falling across the room to the opposite wall would kill her. Or she would get impaled by the many jagged metal objects shifting in the room. Or if she somehow miraculously survived all those ways to die, she’d drown in the rising water. There were so many ways to snuff out her life.
Elise screamed, arms flailing as she lost her grip on the railing. She plummeted past him across the room. He gritted his teeth, caught her with a kinetic coil, and enveloped the shield around her. Half a second later, the tower struck the ocean. The entire room seemed to cave on top of them, burying them under an avalanche of electronics, steel, and concrete. Ten tons of debris stood between them and the exit. Then the ocean began to seep in. James prepared to jump. He reluctantly let go of her arm.
Elise looked at him and quivered. “Why are you glowing? What’s happening here?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”
Tears streamed down her face as the water rushed into the room, creating dozens of small waterfalls. “Go where? We’re trapped. All those poor people.” She wiped her sleeve against her face and looked at him.
James checked the pressure. They were sinking into the ocean fast. He had held off jumping because of her. He should have left minutes ago.
“Good-bye,” he said, trying to convince himself that he meant it this time.
“Smitt, jump me back,” he thought.
“About damn time,” Smitt responded. “Jumping in five, four, three…”
James watched Elise as the water rose up to her waist. She looked terrified but kept her composure. “I guess you’re right. Good-bye, Salman. At least we won’t die alone.” She reached out to him.
She was wrong. James closed his eyes. He couldn’t stand to look at her right now. He couldn’t even provide her that small comfort. In that instant, he loathed every fiber of his being.
“Two, one…” Smitt said.
“I’m sorry to leave you,” he said, his voice breaking. “And good-bye.”
“Jumping!”
James waited for the yellow flash. Nothing happened.
THIRTEEN
EXPLAINING
James froze in shock as the mesh of metal closed in around them. Both his atmos and exo were straining against the outside pressure caving in on them. “What’s the problem, Smitt?” he thought urgently. “Why didn’t we jump?”
“Hang on, checking,” Smitt responded. A few seconds later: “You’re still too close to the tear. You can’t jump until you’re downstream!”
“Why the abyss were we not informed? I want someone’s head when I get back! Is it from an illegal jump?”
“I don’t know, James. The tear is weak; you must be on its edge. You just have to hold out a little while longer. Stay alive!”
James checked his levels: 35 percent. He was cutting it close. Elise huddled close to his body. If she got more than half a meter away from him, the pressure would kill her. Should he let go?
Elise closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling as she struggled to remain calm. Her lips moved as she whispered a prayer. James could feel the rapid beating of her heart. She opened her eyes and looked straight into James’s. “Mom said it’s useless to waste tears. It was nice knowing you, Salman.”
“Hold on,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing her tightly. He threw out two kinetic coils and parted the debris, pushing it aside as he launched at the wall. Then with a concentrated burst, he punched a hole through it with a third and escaped into the open water. They found themselves floating deep in the ocean. Wreckage from the surface rained past them in slow motion, disappearing into the darkness below. Above them, an angry red and yellow kaleidoscope of lights danced on the ocean’s surface.
Elise touched the edge of the shield. “How is this possible? How are you doing this?”
“Stay close to me,” he said as he pushed upward. Between keeping the shield strong against the underwater pressure and maintaining the integrity of the netherstore, his levels were depleting rapidly. He had to get to the surface and lower the drain. If the container failed, this job would be a complete loss.
A moment later, his head broke the surface. They were floating on the ocean in the middle of a firestorm. The water burned from the oil that had ignited on the surface. Explosion after explosion blew more plumes of smoke into the air. The normally clear blue sky was tainted with black clouds that blotted out the sun.
With Elise still clutching his waist, James swam toward a piece of floating wreck. He powered them onto the platform, taking a few cautious steps as it bobbled on top of the fiery waves. Elise let go of him and tried to step away.
James tightened his grip and pulled her back abruptly. “Stay inside the shield.”
She looked like she was about to snap back, and then hesitated. The two stood close together and watched the remnants of the Nutris Platform, the destruction stretching out as far as the eye could see. There were still people alive. At least a hundred survivors clung to fragments of the wreckage.
How had history reported this a total loss? First-response teams to this disaster arrived within hours. Surely, some of the people here must have held on until rescue. James checked the readings in the area and then realized why: there was so much radiation, someone might as well have dropped a nuclear bomb on top of them. The poor survivors floating out there hoping for rescue would be dead soon from a fate worse than drowning or fire.
Elise struggled to get away from him again. He held her even more tightly.
“Let go of me.”
“Listen, Elise,” he said. “There’s enough radiation here to cook you to a crisp.”
She stopped struggling and looked up again at the glimmering shield surrounding them. “And this thing is protecting us from it?” she asked.
He nodded.
“And that’s how we were able to survive underwater?”
He nodded again.
Her mouth fell open. “That’s not possible. I mean, technology like this doesn’t exist.”
“Not in your time.”
It took a few seconds for those words to sink in. “That’s not…”
James shook his head. “Assume for a second, as we’re floating on a hunk of metal in the middle of a radiated ocean, that I’m not a liar. Because we’re still alive, and unless it’s some kind of voodoo magic I’m summoning from the depths of the abyss, it’s obviously possible.”
“Touchy,” she said, a hint of the Elise from last night returning. “So if your glitter bubble is protecting us from the radiation, what about all those people out there?” She motioned at the dozens of people close by, shouting for help. By now, many of them were probably already succumbing to radiation sickness.
James shook his head. “I can’t do anything for them.”
“Those are people out there!” she said, horrified.
“I can’t help everyone, Elise.”
“They’ll die, Salman! We can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“My name’s not Salman. It’s James.”
“James,” she said flatly. “James the time-traveling jerk who leaves people to die.”
“That about sums it up. Now, stop squirming. We’re not out of trouble yet.”
“What happened to you not being a liar?”
“I lied.”
He pushed her down to a sitting position and took a seat next to her. He checked his levels: 22 percent. It was dropping too fast. At this rate, the shields would fail before he cleared the tear. He could release the netherstore containment; that would reduce the power usage enough to wait the situation out. But then, he would lose the entire salvage and any hope of leaving ChronoCom.
“How is it looking, Smitt?”
“The tear has almost passed but is still close enough to keep you from jumping. I don’t think it’ll be that much longer. Hang in there.”
James looked out at the sea of destruction. He watched as a young woman pulled herself onto an overturned platform—a piece of a roof, it seemed—and looked over at him. They stared at each other for a few seconds, ten meters of ocean separating them, and then she spasmed, spewed blood, and fell to her knees. James’s stomach churned as she wasted away before his eyes.
“I can’t stand to watch,” Elise moaned, burying her head in his shoulder. “What are we doing here? We have to do something!”
“We are,” said James. “We’re waiting.”
“For them to die?”
James’s eyes wandered from the woman, who had now collapsed, to the group of six wailing people hanging on to a beam in the water, to a man who swam into the burning fire to end the pain. Death was putting on a fine show today and James had a front row seat. He had seen thousands of deaths in his lifetime, but these were by far the worst. He looked at Elise. His most egregious sins were yet to come. When he jumped, her lingering death would start as well.
He should be merciful and kill her right now. It wouldn’t take much. A quick squeeze of his exo-powered arm would crush the life out of her in seconds. It would be more humane than exposing her to this radiation. If he cared for her at all, he would kill her right now.
The young Nazi soldier appeared, standing on a piece of burning wreckage off to the side. The boy waved. James tore his gaze away and looked again at Elise. His stomach twisted into knots.
Elise looked at him, alarmed. “Are you all right? I thought you said your shield would protect us.” She gently cupped his cheeks with her hands and studied his face. “Okay, I need to know. Are you responsible for all this? Did you cause this explosion?”
He shook his head. “I had nothing to do with this. I swear.”
She studied him for a few seconds and then finally nodded. “I’m not sure I believe you, James the time-traveling liar, but you saved my life. I owe you one. If we get out of this alive, I’ll show you around 2097.”
That forced a grin out of him. “I would like that.”
She still didn’t believe who he was, but, except for Grace Priestly, no one ever did. In nine months, World War III would consume the planet, marking the end of the Final Golden Age and killing a quarter of the world’s population. Following the war, a worldwide famine would ravage civilization for another thirty years. Then the outbreak of the AI Wars in 2170 would kill another quarter of the population. No, death now would be a blessing. At least, he kept telling himself that.
The Nazi soldier, suddenly standing next to him, murmured in his ear, “You only think that.”
James checked his power: 15 percent. Maybe he was losing that option after all, but he wasn’t returning to the present without the damn salvage. Might as well just die here. He knew in his heart he couldn’t survive another five years. He’d rather fly into Jupiter than endure any more of this. So either he came home with the goods or he died here with Elise. He could think of hundreds of worse ways to leave this life.
“What’s the future like?” she asked, leaning against him.
“Are you making fun of me or do you actually believe me?” he asked.
“Little of both,” she said. “Anything to keep my mind off what’s happening to all the poor people out there. What year are you from, James the time-traveling liar?”
“Twenty-five eleven.”
“Snazzy. You guys must be flying to Alpha Centauri by now. Must be grand.”
James’s response caught in his throat. Maybe it was better she didn’t know. After all, was there a point in burdening her with the knowledge that the future was a desolate shit hole?
“It’s pretty grand,” he choked the words out. “Beautiful and prosperous worlds.”
“Unicorns and spaceships for everyone, huh?”
James looked down again at his power: 9 percent. He could lower the shield level to extend it. It would leak a little radiation in, not enough to kill him, but it’d make them sick. It would buy a few more minutes, at least. Or maybe he should give up the netherstore. Give it up to live or risk keeping it and possibly die? The choice was obvious.
“James,” Smitt’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “You’re out of the tear. Just in the nick of fucking time. Your power is about to fail. I’m pulling you out now.”
“Give me a minute, Smitt.”
“No time…”
“Give me a fucking minute. I’ll let you know when to initiate the jump.”
There was a pause. “All right. On your mark, but hurry up. You’re at eight percent.”
He grabbed Elise and squeezed her, and she squeezed back. His thoughts drifted back to Sasha and his mother.. He had failed them both. His failure to protect the ones he loved was the one constant, and now this pattern was about to repeat itself. He lifted her chin with his finger and stared into her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
He leaned forward, arched her back and kissed her, a gentle touch of the lips. At first, she stiffened in surprise and pushed back, and then she relaxed. He felt the coolness of her wet skin against his, and the warmth of her tongue as she reached up and pulled him into her. At that moment, his heart hammered his chest so hard it threatened to break out. He could hear it screaming at his brain as his brain told his body to let her go.
