CHAPTER 33
2012
Riley’s Hideout - Abandoned Factory Building
Earth
The wind formed into a spiral, drawing everything toward it, then the spiral warped into a rapidly-spinning orb. The walls, steel rails, tanks, and everything else in a twenty-foot radius were covered with frost. The orb grew as lightning emerged from its core, sparking violently. It expanded suddenly with a sound like thunder, followed by a shockwave that burst out in every direction. The orb hissed and melted into a thick fog. When the fog cleared, Riley was standing in its place, inside his armor. To his left was a metallic cocoon and on his right was Bethany, also in full armor, still holding her huge sword and swinging it down at a vilis that was no longer there. Bethany shouted with frustration as her sword struck the ground. She turned to Riley and retracted the head of her armor. She shook her head, then turned and walked toward the cocoon.
Riley flicked his fingers. The cocoon dissolved into nanites and flowed into the Vindex armor. Isaac fell to his hands and knees and vomited. He stayed there for minutes, trying to regain his senses. Riley retracted his armor, revealing the bulky black suit underneath. Bethany did the same.
Isaac looked up and saw Bethany standing before him with a warm smile on her face. He immediately knew it wasn’t the same Bethany he had been with mere minutes earlier. This Bethany was older, wearier. Her smile couldn’t hide that. Isaac slowly pushed himself up. He staggered and almost fell, but caught himself and regained his balance. He looked around the vast building, wide-eyed.
“Where am I?” Isaac asked, struggling for breath.
Bethany held out her hand to Isaac.
He stared at the hand, then turned away. “Where the hell am I?” he demanded. The industrial surroundings took him by surprise but they bothered him less than the sudden heaviness he felt. When he inhaled, something tasted familiar in the air. It was unlike the air he had breathed on the Titan II space station. This tasted different and smelled different. It seemed real.
“Don’t you want to know who we are?” Bethany asked.
Isaac backed away from Bethany. “I already know who you aren’t and that’s all I need to know.” His eyes continued to search around the room. Isaac could tell he was somewhere outdated, somewhere old.
Bethany shrugged and sighed. She looked over to Riley, who stood watching them both with a blank expression. Bethany took a few steps toward Isaac.
“I think you already know what this is,” Bethany said. “You know where you are and that we are whom we appear to be.”
Isaac looked into Bethany’s eyes. Her voice sounded so different. He had never seen her look so fearless and it made him uncomfortable. The Bethany he knew was confident but not fearless, not in the way he saw in this woman’s eyes. Whomever this Bethany was, it couldn’t possibly be his Bethany. Isaac’s eyes drifted to Riley, who was staring back at him. When their eyes met, Isaac felt a chill down his spine. It was the first time he had seen Riley in almost thirty years and he still vividly remembered that soulless glare.
“This… this is Earth,” Isaac stuttered, “but I watched Earth perish. So, we’re in the past and you’re both from the future?”
Riley snorted and shook his head. “See, I told you he’d figure it out.”
Bethany pulled a coin from her suit and tossed it to Riley.
Riley caught it and pocketed it. “There’s a lot to do,” he said, “and we don’t have time to waste standing around,” He started walking toward the factory building.
“Why?” Isaac shouted after him. “Why did you bring us here, Riley? We found a way out. We found planets we could inhabit. Now I’m here and Bethany is there, alone.”
Riley stopped without looking back. Bethany’s expression softened when she saw the pain in Isaac’s eyes.
“We didn’t find a way out, Isaac,” she said. “We found the planet where Riley hibernated but we didn’t last a day, none of us did.”
Isaac’s eyes widened. “That isn’t possible. We must have survived. At least, someone did, or you wouldn’t be standing here. What happened on that planet?”
Bethany glanced toward Riley, then turned away from Isaac. She knew he could tell there was more to it. Bethany needed Isaac to trust her and Riley. That would be far more difficult if he discovered the truth of what happened on Exoginos.
“All that matters is we’re here now,” Bethany said.
“That isn’t an answer,” Isaac replied.
“I happened,” Riley answered.
Bethany and Isaac turned to look at him.
“I’m the reason none of you made it off that planet. Because I killed everyone.”
Isaac stumbled away from Bethany, his entire body trembling.
Bethany glared at Riley. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“It was,” Riley said and disappeared behind the tanks.
Bethany walked to Isaac and he allowed her to pull him into an embrace. They held each other for minutes. She wouldn’t permit herself to say it, but she missed him more than she thought possible. She released their embrace and dragged Isaac outside. When Isaac tasted the open air, his anger and fear seemed to quickly fade. His mouth hung open in awe, overwhelmed by the beautiful sky overhead and the wind touching his face. It felt as though he had been dead all this time and was now resurrected. It had been three decades since Isaac was last on Earth and the nostalgia was overwhelming. Isaac fell to his knees. He cupped the sand in his hands and let it flow between his fingers. He looked around. The place was desolate, with metal parts and plastic waste strewn everywhere. Even so, at that moment, it felt like Heaven. Isaac fell back onto the sand, looking up at the sky and feeling the warmth of his home planet.
Bethany couldn’t help but smile. She removed her tactical suit, revealing her sleek jumpsuit, and joined Isaac on the ground. They lay beside each other, looking up at the sun in the sky. Neither of them said a word. They simply stayed there, stretched out on the ground until sunset. Eventually, Isaac sat up.
“You were right all along,” he said.
Bethany smiled and nodded.
“I can’t believe I thought you were crazy, that he was crazy. You always believed in him. But I guess it was more than that, wasn’t it?”
Bethany dropped her head. “Riley isn’t the bad guy; he’s the only one doing anything to save the world. You don’t know what he’s given, what he’s still giving. When I look in his eyes, it may not look like it, but Riley cares more than he lets on. As far as he’s concerned, you, me, Ethan, Sayeed, we’re family. The worst price he’s had to pay was watching himself murder the people he cared about.”
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Isaac shook his head. “It seems the Riley you and I know are different people.”
Bethany chuckled.
“I’m trying to find the logic in all of this, but I can’t. Why did he save us? Why do it years apart?”
“He came for you first but couldn’t save you, so he saved me instead. Time travel isn’t a simple business. We had to wait until we were ready again, until I was ready. There’s so much you don’t know yet, Isaac, but I’ll tell you everything. I promise.” Bethany stood up and brushed the sand off her silvery jumpsuit. “You must be famished. I know I was the first time I traveled.”
Isaac looked up at Bethany. “Except this wasn’t my first time. I just didn’t know it until now.”
Bethany nodded and held her hand out to Isaac. He took it and she helped him up.
“But yeah,” he said, “I am famished.”
Bethany smiled. She started walking toward the entrance of the factory building. Isaac took another look at their surroundings, exhaled, then followed her. She took Isaac to the open space she and Riley had prepared. Riley was waiting, standing beside a box with his arms crossed.
“Is that a holo-cube?” Bethany asked with curiosity.
“It’s broken,” Riley replied. “Can you get it working?”
Bethany hurried to the box and knelt to examine it. She pushed every button she found, trying to make it turn on, but it didn’t. She frowned. “It isn’t coming up.”
“That’s what broken usually means,” Riley said, dryly. “Get it working, there’s something you both need to see.”
While Bethany tinkered with the holo-cube, Isaac stood by the rail, watching Riley with suspicion. Riley stared back at him for a moment, then left them to fix the cube. Riley went to the sleeping area, sat on his bed, then reached under it and pulled out a box. The box had a number lock. Riley entered a code and the lock opened with a click. He opened the box; it was full of chips and tools. Riley rummaged through the contents for a few minutes until he found what he was looking for. It was a data chip with a green LED. He closed the lid and slid the box back under the bed. Riley stared at the chip for a moment, then got up and returned to Bethany and Isaac. Bethany was on her knees, poking at the cube with a screwdriver and pliers, while Isaac sat by the rail, eating food and watching her.
As Riley emerged from behind the tanks, the holo-cube vibrated. Bands of blue light illuminated around it. Bethany stood up and stepped back. The cube tilted until it was standing on one of its corners, then spun on its axis. The corner facing the sky shot a narrow beam of light about twenty feet into the air. Riley walked to the cube, crouched beside it, and inserted the data chip into the feeding slot. Once the cube had swallowed the chip, Riley stepped away from it. The thin beam of light expanded into a large beam, then it stopped, and parts of the beam split away to form a holographic image of a talking cat. The cat danced briefly, then bowed and fragmented into tiny cubes on the floor. A few seconds later, the tiny holographic cubes floated up and merged to form an array of flowing data.
Isaac put his food down, stood up, and walked toward the hologram as though in a trance.
Bethany did the same. “Riley, what are we looking at?”
Riley crossed his arms and frowned. He looked at Isaac. “You want to know why I went through so much to save you, why I brought you here?” He turned to Bethany. “It’s not because I care. It’s because I need you to figure this out.”
Isaac slowly moved his hands through the hologram. It distorted around them. He pulled his hands out and the distortion stopped.
“All I see are numbers and letters,” Riley said. “but between you two, you’ll figure out what we’re looking at.”
“Riley, what the hell is this?” Bethany asked.
“It’s something that doesn’t belong, nor something that shouldn’t exist here. You’re looking at the object that ended the world.”
Bethany and Isaac immediately turned to look at Riley. Bethany had so many questions but she knew Riley wouldn’t explain anything until he was ready to. Over the past couple of years, she had gotten used to it. In most cases, she found he was right to hold back. She sighed and bit her lower lip. Bethany walked around the flowing data. There were thousands of flowing numbers, letters, and symbols. Each column flowed in a different direction. The longer she stared at it, the more she felt like it was looking back at her.
Bethany approached Isaac. “What does it look like?” she asked.
Isaac interlocked his fingers behind his head. “These symbols, I’ve never seen them before. Did you notice the curve at the end of each symbol?”
“What about it?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He turned to look at her. “If we’re going to figure this out, we need some context.”
“Okay,” Bethany nodded, “I’ll talk to him. But first, there’s something I need to show you.”
Bethany took Isaac into a small room toward the far end of the building. Pinned to the walls were several newspaper clippings, marker drawings, photos, and a thread connecting them. On the left wall was a photo of three men wearing black suits and glowing goggles. The picture had been stuck to the wall with a knife, and below it was a handwritten text: ‘Children of the Corn’.
Isaac squinted and adjusted his glasses when he saw the photo. He grabbed the knife’s handle and tried to pull it out, but couldn’t. Bethany tried not to smile. She grabbed the knife and pulled it out with a slight grunt. The photo fell but she caught it in her other hand and passed it to Isaac.
“Can't say this is what I imagined Stephen King's fanbase to look like” Isaac muttered.
Bethany nodded. “They’re from the future, dozens of them, maybe hundreds. They’re a sort of time police, but not exactly a regular one. They’re brutal and cruel and have no sense of reason. At least, that’s what Riley thinks.”
Isaac rubbed his chin. “You don’t agree.”
Bethany looked down and took a deep breath. “I don’t believe anyone can be that unreasonable. I think he just hates them and wanted nothing to do with them.”
Isaac nodded. He wasn’t sure why Bethany was bringing it up, but he was certain he didn’t want to know, at least not right now. He only wanted to get back to the hologram and find out what the flowing data was. He removed his glasses, traced his finger around the frame, then put them back on.
Bethany smirked. She knew Isaac well enough to know what his gesture meant. “They’re after you, me, and Riley,” she said.
That seemed to grab Isaac’s attention. His eyes widened and he leaned closer to Bethany. He opened his mouth to ask why, but the word didn’t come out.
“Their sole purpose is to correct aberrations in the timeline. As far as they’re concerned, we are one. Or two, I guess.”
Isaac pushed at his glasses. He took another look at the clippings and sketches on the wall, and they began making sense.
“If we’re caught,” Bethany continued, “they’ll return us to the exact point in time where Riley took us from, or the point that best preserves the timeline, and they’ll kill Riley.”
“And you’re trying to prevent that by finding a point in time where we can go without affecting the timeline?”
Bethany nodded. “They’re the reason I needed to toughen up and why we stay as quiet as possible. If we leave any trace in this time, they would know, and they’d find us.”
“Have you tried reasoning with them?” Isaac asked.
Bethany looked down. “One of them came after Riley on Exoginos. He was terrifying. If you were there, you would have some idea of what we’re up against.”
Isaac glanced at Bethany’s muscular arms. “And you think I need to do the same?”
She nodded. “Riley saw the future, our future, and the next time the Children of the Corn show up, it’ll be nothing like all the times before. It will be a war, and Riley can’t fight it alone. He can’t worry about protecting you.”
Isaac took off his glasses and stepped closer to Bethany. “What happened to you, Beth? You were never a person who embraced violence.”
“I still don’t. Sometimes it’s the only way.”
Bethany stepped out of the room and Isaac followed. They moved along the hallway until they reached the gun range. Bethany flipped the light on, and Isaac’s jaw dropped when he saw all the weapons on the wall. Bethany walked to and took DMR rifle from the wall, then walked to the table at the back of the room. She removed the magazine and replaced it with a fully loaded one. She walked to the firing line and stopped.
“I watched you die once before, Isaac,” Bethany said as she raised the gun and fired at the targets, hitting everything on the head until the bullets ran out. “Riley watched you die twice.”
Bethany returned to the table and loaded two more magazines. She reloaded the gun and fired at the targets until she ran out. She looked at Isaac, who was covering his ears. Bethany pulled out the empty magazine and slid a full magazine into the gun. She smiled at Isaac and tossed the gun to him. Isaac didn’t expect it and almost dropped the rifle, but he managed to hold on.
Isaac was no stranger to wielding a firearm; he had fired weapons many times before. It was a compulsory exercise for every member of Titan's personnel, so they knew how to protect themselves if such a situation ever arose. Even so, he had not touched a gun since he was twenty and had never handled something with so much firepower. Isaac looked at Bethany nervously. The calmness in her eyes made him want to cry out. It bothered him that Bethany had been living like this and that she seemed so relaxed about wielding guns and waving a sword. Isaac scoffed. He believed Bethany’s calm demeanor to be a front, that deep down she was afraid, and he could hear it in her every word. Isaac smiled and concluded that the Bethany he knew was still in there somewhere, the woman who cared about saving lives rather than ending them.
Bethany walked to the wall and picked up another rifle. She checked the magazine and saw that it was full. She got into the firing line next to Isaac, then cocked the rifle, showing him how to do it. She pulled the stuck against her shoulder and raised the gun.
“Never again,” she muttered and fired several rounds at the targets, as Isaac flinched at the sound of gunfire.