The Portal

That long silence in the car was broken when David’s cell phone started to ring. He quickly fished it out of his pocket and answered it, as he could tell who it was by the ringtone that was blaring.

“Hey boss,” David said, trying to act calm. “How are you doing?”

“How am I doing?” the director replied, “I’m at the hospital, and both you and your brother are not here!”

“Oh, that.” David said, taking a deep breath. “I took him out of the hospital because I didn’t want to put anyone else in the line of fire. Too many civilians, high chance of collateral damage. All those cute nurses, I just couldn’t handle the guilt if something were to happen...”

“Shut up,” his boss interrupted. “It’s your brother, I get it. Someone’s gunning for him and your natural Marshal instincts are kicking in. He’s family, so I’d do the same thing in your shoes. Do you need me to authorize a safe house to stash him in till this blows over?”

“We got a place,” David replied, “But I really appreciate the offer.”

“Keep this line open,” The director ordered, “So I can keep you updated on this end and vice versa. That’s not an unreasonable request.”

“It is not,” David said, relieved to hear he wasn’t in trouble. “I’ll get back to you once we’re secure and snug.”

“Fair enough,” the boss said, slightly calmer. “Be careful.”

David disconnected the line and looked back at Gail who was giving him the eye wives would save for their husbands.

“What?” David asked, unsure what was going on in her head. “You are not tossing this phone. Don’t even think about it!”

“Alright,” Gail said, looking forward. “Not like you’ll get a signal at the house anyway.”

“Dammit,” David said as he remembered, “There’s no cell tower out there? Why?”

“We don’t use cells,” Rickey replied, “Just seemed like a waste.”

David sat there and didn’t say anything else as he waited for Gail to drive them back to the house. It took her a little under forth minutes to drive from the hospital to the property that David hadn’t seen in almost decades. He left when he was nineteen and didn’t look back. Now there he was, almost thirty-eight, long in the tooth but still fighting the good fight in his books. Now he was watching the house creep closer as Gail drove down the long and very familiar driveway. Once she had pulled up, she got out of the car and started to call for someone. Two people came running out, kids no older than sixteen.

“When did you guys have kids?” David said, looking back at Ricky.

“They’re adopted,” Ricky informed him, “We took them in because they needed a place to hide.”

“Hide from what?” David asked him.

“Not now,” Ricky said, “Help the kids with the gurney.”

David got out of the car, and opened the door beside his brother as the two teenagers came over with was an odd looking gurney. More worried about his brother’s health, David helped him into the gurney and then helped the two young teens carry it into the house. Once they were in the house, nothing had changed. Every picture, every piece was in the same place since the day David had walked out.

“Get the gurney to the turbo lift!” Gail could be heard ordering, as if she was a sergeant and they were her soldiers.

“Yes, Ma’am!” they called out as they took the gurney past the kitchen and down a flight of stairs.

David paused for a moment when he realized something: this staircase was the first new thing he noticed. He looked over at Gail, with a confused look on his face.

“Where the hell does this lead?” He asked his sister-in-law.

“Come with me and find out.” Gail said, grabbing his arm and dragging him down the staircase with her.

At the bottom of the stairs was a well lit hallway and on one side of the hall was a tunnel, a very long tunnel. The two teens had already loaded Ricky onto what looked like an oval tube the size of a car and strapped him in. there were four other seats besides the place to put the gurney down onto.

“Get in!” Gail ordered, “And put your seat belt on.”

Once they were in the tube and everyone was strapped in, Gail hit a button that didn’t start the tube down the tunnel, but first closed a door leading into the room. She paused for a moment, and when a light beside her turned green, she smiled.

“The house is secure.” She said before hitting another button.

Without warning the tube fired into the tunnel as it if it were fired from a gun. David had no idea how fast it was going but it was only moving for about ninety seconds before finally coming to a stop in another room very similar to the one they just left. As she opened the door, there were two more people waiting for them, both of them in their early twenties. They had another gurney waiting for Ricky to jump into. Once Ricky was loaded onto the gurney, they wheeled him out of the room and down another long hallway into what seemed like a hospital but was far, far more high-tech than the one they had just left. There a massive machine that looked like an MRI machine, but when the gurney rolled into it like loading a bullet into a gun, David began to suspect that it was far more advanced than he first imagined.

Once Ricky was inside the machine, it started to show x-rays of his body on a massive screen in front of them.

“Holy crap,” David said, stunned by the marvels before him. “Where the hell did you get this stuff?”

“Is he for real?” one of the younger teens asked, trying not to laugh.

“Behave Howard,” Gail said, not tolerating any nonsense. “David is new to this, so it’s going to take him a while to get a grip on what’s going on here.”

“Okay,” Howard said, looking back at David. “Sorry.”

“No biggie,” David said as he backed away to see what else was inside this makeshift hospital.

“It’s a real mess in there,” one of the older kids, a lady in her early-twenties said to Gail, “It will take a few hours, but the machine can clean it up. He should be back on his feet by supper.”

“On his feet?” David repeated, “The doctors said he might not walk again, so how is that possible?”

“The machine will repair the damaged vertebrae,” the lady explained, “Ricky will be good as new in a few days.”

“Where did you get this technology?” David asked, despite the fact that he was already suspecting the answer.

“This technology hasn’t been invented yet,” Gail answered, “We kind of burrowed it from the twenty-seventh century.”

“You stole from the future?” David said, covering his mouth at the thought.

“Why not?” Gail countered, “As long as it doesn’t leave this room, history moves on like it’s supposed to without skipping a beat.”

“Alright,” David said, feeling a little dizzy. “I need some air. I gotta get out of here.”

“Come with me,” Gail said, taking him by the arm. She looked over at the older girl. “You stay down here and keep an eye on Ricky.”

She walked David out of the room and down the hall to where there was an elevator. David was confused at first, but when the door opened, Gail walked him in and then pressed a button. Moments later, they were four floors higher as the door opened to reveal an enormous kitchen that was above ground.

“Come on in,” Gail said, pushing him into the kitchen. “I’ll get you a drink. You still drink Crown, right?”

“Where the hell am I?” David called out, looking around what was a magnificent kitchen. It was twice as big as the one that in the older house and it looked spotless and immaculate. Right out of a magazine.

“Where do you think?” Gail called out, “You’re in my kitchen!”

“So, this is your real house,” David said, as he took the glass that was half filled of crown from her. He drained the glass in seconds as he was processing what was going on. “You’re using the old house as a decoy. No one knows that this house exists. How far are we from the old house?”

“At least twelve miles,” Gail answered, “Every time your Dad and Ricky wanted to use the Portal, they had to hike an hour just to get to it. Seemed like a waste of time, so eventually Ricky decided to build a base of operations closer to the Portal without taking away from the old house.”

“So Ricky built this house?” David asked.

“Pretty much, but he had help.” Gail continued, “We cheated here and there, but nothing significant. If bringing anything here changed something, we were smart enough to put it back when we were done with it to make sure those changes didn’t cause any problems.”

“What changes?” David said, putting the glass down. “Yes, I would like another. Now that I think of it, just give me the bottle.”

Gail was aware of how long it was going to take for her husband to recover so she passed the bottle of whiskey to her brother in law. David poured two fingers into the glass, a modest serving before draining it quickly.

“We’re in a kitchen,” David observed, “Any chance I could grab something to eat. I’m not a picky guy, I’d be good with leftovers right about now.”

“I made some lasagna a few days ago,” Gail informed him.

“Perfect,” David said, eager to toss down some food with his liquor.

Gail went to the big fridge behind David and looked inside. There were two pieces of the pasta left, but considering the situation she put both pieces onto a plate and tossed them into microwave and heated it up for about ninety-nine seconds before putting the food in front of her bother-in-law along with a fork.

“Dig in,” she said, “I’m going to check on your brother. I’ll be willing to answer as much as I can when I get back.”

“Alright,” David said, already with a mouthful of pasta. “Thank you.”

He watched as she went back into the elevator. As the doors closed, David couldn’t help but exhale as he was still trying to process what was going one. The second house miles behind the first, the turbo lift as they so eloquently called it, and even the high tech medicine that makers the hospital they left behind look like the blood dark ages. David didn’t have much time to process what was happening, but he wasn’t being given much of a choice. With all he had seen, time travel was starting to look more and more plausible.

Once he finished both pieces of the scrumptious lasagna, David began to regret not coming over to dine with his brother more in years past. Despite their differences, David wouldn’t deny that Gail was a pretty decent cook as what she had given him had hit a spot and made him a little more comfortable. Rather than stand in the kitchen like a dupe and wait, David decided to wander around the house and look through a few rooms for clues and things that could help verify what he brother had told him earlier that day. As David strolled into what looked like the living room, it almost felt like he was walking into an antique store. Every single thing in there looked old, and expensive. Either Ricky won a lottery or he was not just a time traveler, but a collector of artifacts as well. He strolled around the room and looked at each item, and while history wasn’t David’s best subject he didn’t have much trouble figuring out where some of the pieces he was looking at had come from. He then stopped for a moment as one of the pieces on the shelf looked very familiar: an urn.

“Hey Dad,” David said to the small object, “Good to see you again.”

David gave the urn a half assed salute and then took another swig right out of the whiskey bottle. He then walked up to one of the dressers and picked up a baseball, and looked at it absolute disbelief. The ball was not just autographed but was personally sighed out to his brother. That was impossible to fathom because the man who signed it died decades before Ricky was even born. David took a seat on one of the couches in the living room, and stared at the ball while drinking the whiskey straight out of the bottle. He sat there, staring at the ball as it represented the truth that Ricky had been trying to tell him all day. A wild, crazy story that David appeared to finally believe was the truth. It was difficult for him to even consider, but as he looked around the living room and its historic décor, it was hard to deny.

“Pretty awesome stuff, eh bro?” a voice called out.

David stood up but could hardly believe it. His brother Ricky was not only back on his feet, but the bullet wound that was in his belly was gone. It was as if the shooting had never occurred.

“You’re looking better,” David observed, smiling at him.

“Now you know why Gail was so upset.” Ricky explained, “She knew using a regular hospital was not only a waste of time, but they’re still going to bill us and you know how much she hates to waste money.”

“Most wives are like that,” David informed him, “Or so I’ve been told.”

“They would be correct,” Ricky said, walking over as he took the bottle from his younger brother. “I think you’ve had enough bro. Let’s get some coffee and sober up a bit. We need to talk.”

“Lead the way,” David said not fighting to keep the bottle. He kept the baseball as he followed his brother back into that amazing kitchen. Once they had a seat, Ricky looked into the fridge, and then looked back at his brother.

“You ate the lasagna, did you?” he asked.

“I sure did.” David replied, smiling. “And it was damn good too.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ricky said, as he proceeded to grab a carton of orange juice and poured two glasses.

“You forgot the vodka.” David pointed out.

“No, I didn’t.” Ricky said, almost laughing. “When did you become such a slush, David?”

“I’m not,” David corrected, “I just drinking because I’ve seen a lot today and I need to unwind.”

“Well wind back up,” Ricky said, sliding a glass of OJ his way. “Your trip down the rabbit hole has just begun.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” David said, taking the glass and taking a decent gulp. “You’re going to try to convince me that time travel is real and you’ve been doing it for...”

“About nineteen years now,” Ricky informed him, “Almost half my life.”

“And this is supposed to convince me?” David said, holding up the ball.

“Nope,” Ricky retorted, “That’s just for me. You know what kind of baseball fan I am. ”

“Fair enough,” David said, handing the ball back to him.

“You’re in a unique position, David.” Ricky explained, “I don’t have to convince you that time travel is real, because I can show you.”

“Because our blood is the key?” David said, remembering what he was told earlier by his brother.

“Yes,” Ricky confirmed, “You and I can go in and out of the Portal anytime we want. Rather than explain it to you, why don’t we take a field trip?”

“Sure,” David said, just before tossing back the rest of his juice.

“Follow me then,” Ricky said, gesturing to the other door in the kitchen.

After walking through the house for a few moments, Rick opened a door that lead into the woods that the new house was in the middle of. There was a path that was probably created by Ricky walking it so often to their eventual destination. David remembered what Gail had told him earlier that before the new house was built it used to take everyone a lot of time to hike to the Portal. David also suspected the second house was kept a secret, so that if anyone came looking for them, like those bad people who tried to shoot Ricky, then all they would find is an old house with nothing in it. Rather smart when David really thought about it. David wasn’t in the mood to take a walk, but they were on the beaten path for only ten minutes when Ricky grabbed his brother by the arm and pointed at something.

“Over there,” Ricky said, smiling. “That’s where we’re heading.”

David looked up and there was a decent opening into the ground, big enough to hold a car but not a full sized truck. As they walked closer to it, the more creeped out David felt. Was his brother really telling the truth, or has he just been hanging out in a cave. Rather than have his doubts, David tried to give his kin some slack as he remembered the baseball and the amazing medical technology that was in his house.

Rick stopped just shy of the opening of the cave and turned around. “Dad never thought you’d be here. I know I’m happy to have you here. You’re a tough guy David, and I could use a little muscle, as you saw at the hospital.”

“You never were the physical type, were you?” David asked, already aware of what the answer was.

“Nope, but I excelled on other areas.” Ricky said, laughing as he walked closer to the cave. “Are you ready to have your mind blown, brother?”

David sighed. “I’ve come this far, might as well check it out.”

When David followed his brother inside the cave there wasn’t anything special to report, as it looked no different than any other cave did. Ricky took about ten steps in and then and stopped and reached his hand out to him.

“We need to stay in contact if we want to travel together.” Ricky informed him, “Just stand here and try not to panic.”

“Okay,” David said as he stood beside his brother and took his hand.

“No matter what happens, don’t let go of my hand.” Ricky insisted, “You can travel on your own after you get the hang of it.”

David took a deep breath and went with it. “Okay, so where are we going?”

“I thought we’d do something simple for our first trip.” Ricky replied, “Visit someone you haven’t seen in while.”

“So how does this work?” David asked.

“Well you’re going to not think about anything.” Ricky told him, “But I’m going to close my eyes and think about where and when I want to go. The portal will hear my thoughts and send me there. So hang on, we’re about to start.”

David stood there and held onto his brother’s hand and it didn’t take long for him to feel something. The ground startled to shake a little as if there was s small earthquake. Despite being told to close his eyes, David cracked them open just a little bit, which was enough to see that there was a light emanating from the back of the cave and it was traveling down the cave at them! David’s first instinct was to use his arms to protect himself, but Ricky told him not to let go, so he stood there and closed his eyes. Seconds later, what felt like a bit burst of wind flowed right by them and that’s when things changed.