History Shattered

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” – Albert Einstein

“While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I’m no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, especially women.” – Stephen Hawking

Their reality had seemed much simpler only moments ago. If the wormhole was still open, they would return to Station 28. If it wasn’t they would be forced to find a way to eke out an existence here in the past someplace other than Caffa. It had been a set of two straightforward alternatives. The sighting of the soldiers in pursuit had complicated the mix of potential outcomes dramatically. They might still escape through the wormhole. Now, though, there was the possibility that the soldiers could pursue them into Station 28 through the wormhole. That was an alternative neither Monica nor Tyler had considered until this moment.

If the wormhole had vanished, then the prospects of escaping to forge a life somewhere else in the fourteenth century now seemed quite remote. If they failed to escape through the anomaly, they would almost certainly be captured and taken back to Caffa. There they would be executed, perhaps as soon as this afternoon, a quite unceremonious conclusion to their journey through time. Tyler estimated that they had a half-mile of mostly downhill or flat road to cover before reaching the anomaly. Given their level of exhaustion and the fact that Monica had twisted an ankle in the darkness, he figured it would take five or six minutes to reach safety. The galloping horses could cover the mile-and-a-half by which they trailed their prey in that amount of time. It was going to be close.

Tyler began thinking of strategies he could employ as defenses against the soldiers. He had no weapons unless he used his flashlight as one. If he entered the wormhole and was transported to the Station 28 end, he expected he would be rendered unconscious, which would prevent a defense at that end of the anomaly should the soldiers decide to follow them into the energy field. If a stand needed to be made, it would need to be made here…, at the edge of the road. Maybe he could at least buy enough time to allow Monica to escape back to the future. Monica’s damaged ankle was slowing her further. The pounding of the downhill and the slipping from the loose dirt were causing additional damage with almost every step.

The horses crested the hill as Monica and Tyler approached within about a hundred fifty yards of the wormhole. They could not yet see if it still existed, but if it was gone, they were as good as dead. The gap between pursued and pursuers was now only about six hundred yards and closing fast.

The final stretch of ground was flat, but they needed to move to the far end of the anomaly to make their escape. That was the end that would feed them back into Station 28 when the energy wave was moving in the proper direction. By the time they reached it, the soldiers had begun pulling up their horses at the near end of the anomaly. The pursuit was now too close for them to even be able to take momentary comfort in the fact that the wormhole was still there, although less than half the size it had been when Monica had last seen it. The soldiers with swords and spears were dismounting. The archer wasn’t wasting time to do that. His horse was trained to remain still when he was shooting, and he had already pulled an arrow from his quiver and was notching it on his bowstring. Whatever was going to play itself out on this roadside would all be occurring within the next minute.

The wormhole’s wave pattern was just completing a surge toward the Caffa end. Since it was smaller now, the wave should be surging back to the 28 end in the next thirty seconds. Tyler helped Monica down to the edge of the anomaly as the first arrow zinged past his head. If he hadn’t just bent over to help Monica, the arrow would’ve struck his shoulder. He glanced up to assess his opponents. The swordsmen would not reach him in time, but they would be close enough to launch their spears. The archer was already reloading. He had come tantalizingly close with his first arrow. That would’ve provided him with valuable information regarding both distance to his target and wind direction, not that he seemed to have had much difficulty properly determining either of those factors on his first attempt. Tyler glanced back down. Monica had now been almost completely absorbed by the anomaly. Only the hand and forearm he had held when lowering her were now protruding from the anomaly’s surface. A few seconds later, even those had slipped inside the energy field. Monica was safe; at least she was as long as the soldiers didn’t pursue them into the wormhole.

He looked up just in time to dodge a spear thrown in his direction. Another one, tossed by a soldier farther away, had come up short and was now being slowly absorbed by the mass of energy. As he was looking at the lone remaining soldier capable of launching a spear at him, he felt pressure in his right shoulder. He looked down to see an arrow protruding from it. As he looked back up, he felt something stab into his left thigh. The final spear had found its mark. Tyler reached down and pulled the spear out with his fully functional left arm. He then painfully reached out his right hand toward his pursuers in a stopping motion and yelled at the soldiers in Latin.

“Stop! Come no closer. This is the gateway to Hell, my friends. I have chased the heretic away. She can do you no more harm. The good people of Caffa will now be safe. Bless you all.”

With that message delivered, Tyler allowed himself to appear to stumble and fall face first into the anomaly, being slowly absorbed by the energy field, almost like a stone dropped into a vat of honey. He made no attempt to move or resist, wanting to give the appearance of the energy field having taken his life immediately upon contact. He felt the energy dancing over his skin. That was his last cogent thought before the world went dark.

His message had been quite clear to the pursuing soldiers. The archer dismounted and joined his fellow soldiers a safe distance from the edge of the anomaly. They watched as Tyler was completely taken within the viscous liquid-like surface. A few seconds later he was no longer visible. One of the soldiers walked the perimeter of the wormhole, not daring to actually make contact with something that might be connected to Hell. There was no sign of either the heretic or the doctor. They were gone, swept away to eternal peril, apparently. The soldiers remained for another fifteen minutes, watching as this evil gateway continued to shrink. Although it looked like a liquid, they knew it was not water. It must be something evil. At the rate of its dissipation, it would be completely gone before they could make their way back to Caffa and return with anyone else. They were completely convinced of the sincerity of Tyler’s words. The man had done nothing but good since his arrival, and he was clearly the smartest man any of them had ever encountered. If he believed it was a gateway to Hell, and that the demon woman had been banished back to that place so she could no longer hurt anyone in Caffa, then who were they to disbelieve. Tyler was immediately branded a martyr and a hero. They were now filled with regret that they had injured the man who had obviously been attempting to protect them and the good people back in their settlement. His apparent death would be viewed as a great and tragic loss.

~~~~o~~~~

Pat’s team had tried everything they could reasonably attempt to keep the anomaly alive. All that their best efforts could do was slow the wormhole’s rate of decay. There was a sense of hopelessness and defeat amongst the team. Pat tried to keep everyone focused and positive. Perhaps both Tyler and Monica had made it out of Crimea alive and were already safely inside Station 28. There was no way for them to be certain their efforts were failing. Despite his encouraging words, the team felt as though they had let their colleagues down. Their optimism had bled away along with the anomaly’s energy through the second breach.

Elsewhere inside PD, Jasmine and Chandler had been continuously scanning the historical record and global population numbers for any sign of change. They were hoping to find some indication that Monica had successfully traveled to the past. It had only been a little more than five hours since the particle collision, but that would translate into almost two days at what they hoped was still the Caffa end of the wormhole.

The first change they picked up on was the global population number. It began declining from nearly nine billion, and after an hour of changes, the number had lowered to just over eight. The second indicator of some measure of success on Monica’s part was the reappearance of the term ‘The Black Death’ in reference to the European plague pandemic of 1347 A.D. As soon as that showed up, Jasmine and Chandler hastily called a meeting to report the two bits of positive early news to their colleagues. Monica must’ve successfully traveled to Caffa, and history would once again be changing. How much it might change, how far reaching those changes might be and even when the present 2031 might shift or to what date it might shift to were all still unknowns. But for now, it buoyed everyone’s spirits to know that initial reports appeared favorable, and that this second repair mission looked as though it could be labelled as at least a partial success.

PD’s military leaders took this new information in stride. It confirmed that their ongoing discussions were correctly focused. Within an hour of the most recent particle collision, Colonel James had called another meeting of his senior advisors. This meeting did not involve any scientific presence. The meeting which was attended by Monica, Pat and Jasmine had convinced him that despite their intelligence and best intentions, the scientists lacked an appreciation for the military’s role at PD, and PD’s potential to offer up military solutions.

It was actually the willingness of the scientists to dispatch Monica on a second mission to repair the past that had swayed the military minds to recommend pursuit of time travel as a weapon. If the scientists felt comfortable enough with the technology’s potential to send the facility’s scientific director on a mission to meddle for a third time with history, then it was as if they had issued a green light to their military colleagues. To the soldiers at the facility, the scientists were already utilizing time travel as a de facto weapon, even if their motives were completely altruistic. The military brain trust could justify any military action as being for the greater good or as a protective action. In their minds, there was little difference in their intended use and the actions just taken consecutively by the science nerds.

They had already been preparing a position paper regarding the time travel implications of the particle collisions. They would be recommending a shift in the facility’s funding, with a much larger portion of the budget coming from military sources and with a corresponding de-emphasis on scientific applications. Black funds would need to be redirected, and there would need to be a few closed door meetings with the proper Congressmen and Senators. A few of the larger corporate players in the military-industrial complex would also be brought into the facility’s staff. Testing would shift to include wormhole creation and monitoring techniques with every particle collision test. Time travel was destined to become as dominant a focus of the facility as the actual collisions themselves had been up until now.

The scientists’ collective roles would shift more in an advisory direction. The purity of the science would be forever altered. There would still be pursuit of fusion as an energy source as a major particle collision effect, but even that would be bastardized somewhat as it could be turned into an efficient way to fuel wormholes and keep them open indefinitely. This had the potential to become a technology that was centuries ahead of its time; a real watershed moment in human development as well as history. Had Monica’s team of scientists been aware of the dialogue occurring in PD’s military wing, there would’ve been a collective gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands, but they were all focused on simply keeping the wormhole alive for a few more minutes and seconds. In some ways, this had been a military coup. There would be no opportunity to stuff this particular genie back in the bottle if the facility’s officers maintained such a position.

~~~~o~~~~

Monica regained consciousness to find herself still inside the anomaly, but she could see the cloudy images of the inside of Station 28 through the shimmery grayness of the energy field. At least she had escaped from the past. She had a headache, but beyond that she couldn’t detect any ill effects from her ordeal. She looked quickly behind her and saw Tyler lying on the floor. He had a wound which appeared to still be bleeding in his left thigh, and there was an arrow lodged in his right shoulder. He was unconscious and his breathing seemed quite shallow…, but he was alive.

She immediately began tending to his leg wound. She was able to move slowly inside the anomaly, which still seemed to occupy much of Station 28’s interior. She grabbed a disinfectant, bandages and scissors and cut away Tyler’s pants. The bleeding had largely stopped, letting her know it had missed any major arteries. She debrided the wound and bandaged him up as best she could. Monica was a bit more reluctant to deal with the arrow still lodged in Tyler’s shoulder. She was fearful that removing it would create additional bleeding, and she didn’t know how much blood Tyler had already lost. At least once he regained consciousness he might be able to walk her through the proper technique of dealing with a puncture wound like the one the arrow’s penetration of his shoulder had resulted in.

Over an hour passed before that happened. To Monica, it seemed like the eight-ish hours it would’ve been on the fourteenth century end of the wormhole. She had attempted, unsuccessfully, to communicate with anyone outside Station 28. In addition to whatever other properties the anomaly possessed, it most certainly had the ability to stifle communication. The anomaly also gave the appearance of dissipating quite rapidly. Monica’s view of the interior of Station 28 outside of the energy field was growing clearer, and the field itself seemed to be shrinking rapidly. Monica was just paranoid enough to believe that a Crimean soldier might be entering Station 28 at any moment, armed with sword and spear. She was anxious for the anomaly to completely vanish to prevent any such opportunity, to allow for trained medical aid for Tyler, and to find out how much success or lack thereof her mission had met with.

Tyler groaned, and Monica immediately rushed back to his side. She had him propped up, with the open shoulder wound above his heart to minimize the effect of the blood loss, and she had all the medical implements and supplies she thought she might need standing by. Tyler opened his eyes and began looking around. It took him a few additional moments to realize he was still inside the anomaly but that he and Monica were now also inside Station 28.

“Am I awake? Are we really back?”

“We are, Tyler. We made it. You’re hurt, though. You’ve lost a lot of blood. I did what I could for your thigh, but I wasn’t sure what to do about the arrow still stuck in your shoulder. I didn’t want to pull it out in case it’d make you bleed out or something.”

“Good thinking…, how long have we been here? Inside 28, I mean?”

“Probably between an hour and an hour and a half.”

“Then the risk of infection probably outweighs the risk of me bleeding out. We need to get the arrow out. You’ll need to pull it out. Are you up for that?”

“If that’s what I need to do, then I am. I find myself doing lots of things I wouldn’t have thought I’d be doing these days.”

“OK…, I see you’ve got a pair of pliers. That’s good. That’s what you’ll use. You need to get a really strong grip on the shaft of the arrow, and you need to try to pull it straight out, as quickly and cleanly as you can. That’ll lessen the chance that anything will break off and remain in the wound to cause infection. I’m sure my immune system is still totally trashed from the flu and the plague so it wouldn’t take much to kick its ass right about now. You’re probably gonna want to put a knee in my chest to brace yourself. I want you to have as much leverage as possible when you start pulling.”

“Is it gonna be that hard to pull out?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been shot with an arrow before.”

“OK, here goes…”

Monica tried to put her right knee and calf across Tyler’s abdomen. He grabbed her right belt loop with his free left hand to provide added stability. She grabbed the shaft of the arrow with the pliers and squeezed the plier grips with both hands.

“Ready?”

Tyler nodded, gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes. Monica didn’t pull with all her strength initially, but after a moment without movement she began to pull harder, using her back and her leverage against Tyler’s body. Once the arrow began to move, it came out rapidly…, so much so that she fell backwards off Tyler onto the tile floor of Station 28. Tyler picked up a piece of gauze and held it against the wound, knowing the flow of blood would resume. Monica grabbed the small mirror she had brought to the makeshift operating suite and held it so Tyler could look at the injury.

“It could use some stitches after we clean it up, but for now, let’s just get a few of those large butterfly bandages on it. When we get outta here, I’ll have the doc open it back up. He’ll make sure the wound is free of all debris, and he’ll probably do a set or two of internal stitches that’ll dissolve before he sews me up. I’m sure I’ll make a complete recovery. In the meantime, why don’t you raid the antibiotics cabinet. There’s gotta be something in there I should start taking.”

Monica returned with a couple of different bottles of antibiotic tablets and a bottle of water. Tyler picked one, popped a couple of pills and washed them down with the water. He wasn’t quite up to standing yet, but Monica helped him into a chair.

“Is it my imagination or is the wormhole about gone?”

“No, it’s much smaller and, I guess I’ll say thinner, or maybe less dense, than it was when I regained consciousness. I’d say at the rate it’s shrinking that it’ll be totally gone in another hour.”

“So does anyone know we’re back yet?”

“I haven’t been able to reach the outside world, yet. Evidently one of the wormhole’s characteristics is that it inhibits external communication.”

“That would probably make sense given the amount of energy involved, but then I’m not the physicist.”

“Well, we’re also in a lead-lined bunker here in 28. That may be a contributing factor, but it definitely makes sense that it would affect our comm capabilities.”

“Mon, I don’t know how you feel about it, but I don’t think we should be trying to time travel anymore. We’re playing with fire. It’s impossible to have any kind of human contact without altering history.”

“I don’t disagree with you. Assuming we were mostly successful in restoring some kind of equilibrium to history, we should probably quit while we’re ahead.”

“Even if we weren’t successful I think we should stop. There’s a far greater opportunity to screw things up than there is to fix ‘em.”

“Maybe you’re right. I guess we’ll find out in a little while. It’s weird to think that we don’t even know what year it is outside Station 28…, to think that there’ll likely be people we don’t know and the ones we do know will be different ages than they were.”

“You don’t have to tell me about that. At least I was lucky enough to know how hot you’ll still look in your late fifties. Plus, at least this time we shouldn’t have to go through the ordeal of having to convince anybody that we actually traveled through time.”

“Nope. We seem to have done a decent job of figuring out how to track that aspect of how this all works. That must’ve been a completely surreal experience for you the first time.”

“Well, it was probably a blessing that I was so sick. It forced me to concentrate on my illnesses rather than some of the more esoteric aspects of this whole mess. I mostly left that to the rest of you eggheads.”

The lights inside 28 flickered suddenly, or perhaps they just seemed to darken. Tyler and Monica both looked upward. The interior of Station 28 seemed to be growing cloudier.

“Monica, either I’m losing consciousness or something’s happening.”

“It’s not you, Tyler. I’m seeing it, too. It’s the anomaly…, it looks like it’s getting stronger…, but that should be impossible.”