The Time Surgeons

Ron looked out the window of his latest country mansion, lost in thought. He had done well over the years, the lies and deceptions not weighing too heavily on his soul. It is all for the greater good, isn’t it? Doesn’t that justify anything? Or was it all stuff and nonsense, with me the greatest fool of them all? The man who would be the world’s greatest conman, victim of history’s greatest con.

But now he was getting old, and he could feel the aches in his bones speaking to him that his part in the saga was drawing to a close. Will I live to see it? Will I live to see it a lie? If there is someone to pray to, please let it be a lie.

He knew he should live to see it. His mysterious visitor would not reveal all the details. Perhaps it was as he had said, and the danger of knowing too much was a danger too far. Or perhaps he did not know himself. But he had been firm that Ron had time to prepare, time to build the plan, time to execute it. Plenty of time, but it had to be completed before the end of the year 1983. Decades away. A lifetime.

But time had passed, as it always does, with nobody able to say where it had gone or, once it had passed, how the decades stretching so far into the future could be as mist once they had gone.

And now it was 1983, and Ron was afraid. I do not know whether to fear that I have done it all for naught, or that I have not done enough.

When that passenger jet had been shot down, the lives of all those people on a routine flight turning to flame and ashes, his senses had gone into high alert. But nothing had happened and he had calmed down. Yet his fear felt particularly sharp and in focus today. Perhaps his visit entangled me with the timelines, and I can sense the coming apocalypse.

He frowned. Or my mind is going. The ramblings of an old man.

He tapped the ash from his cigar into the silver ashtray on the low marble table beside him. He liked marble. The cool, elegant stone, speaking of the lives of a billion shellfish who had struggled and lived and died, bequeathing their skeletons to the ages; the mysterious swirls speaking of the titanic forces that had converted limestone to marble. A stone that men would one day dig out of the earth and then, according to their talents, turn into the David or a table supporting an ashtray.

More ramblings of an old man? Get a grip, Ron.

He rang a bell, and one of the servants came to him, bearing the drink the servant knew he would request at this time of day. “Stay,” ordered Ron, drawing more fragrant smoke into his lungs then tapping its ash into the tray.

“Sir.” The man stood, as if at ease on a parade ground, unsure of why his presence was needed, sure only that obedience was his primary duty.

“It is a fine day, don’t you think, Jensen? Blue skies, just a hint of wispy cloud, with the occasional hummingbird dancing like a butterfly among the flowers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if I had said it is a foul day, with too hot a sun drawing out too much annoying wildlife, would you have said the same?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What if I wanted an argument?”

“Then I would not know what to say, sir. You do not employ me to argue, a skill in which I am sure you are my superior; you employ me to serve, and so I do. Sir.”

“Don’t look so worried. I just need company. I don’t know why.”

“Is something wrong, sir?”

Ron looked to the far horizon, the blue Californian sky temporary home to a flock of clouds. Like this is my own temporary home. But it is good here. A good place to live out the rest of my days, if I am given them to live in peace. Yes. I think we might keep this place. I have roamed enough for one lifetime.

“Just thinking about the future, Jensen. Thinking about finally sending down roots, here. What do you think?”

“I think that is a fine idea, sir. You will have more time for thinking and writing.”

“What, Jensen? Expressing an opinion?”

“You suggested you might want an argument, sir. I am testing the waters with an opinion.”

Ron smiled faintly, the smile turning to a puzzled frown at something he thought he saw in the far sky. The nearest city lay in that direction, though you could not see it from this vantage. He felt an ugly flip in the pit of his stomach. Don’t be a fool. My, you are jumpy today, aren’t you? he scolded himself.

Then there was a bright flash from the horizon, brighter than the sun, and Jensen’s eyes also jerked toward the sight.

“What the fu… hell was that!? … Sir?”

To Jensen’s surprise, or what room there was for another surprise in the presence of the first, Ron did not look surprised, or frightened, or any of the other emotions he might have expected. He just looked wearily sad, as if contemplating some immense disaster not suddenly facing him now but known from long ago.

That there was no terror in his face sent a shiver of ice to Jensen’s belly, when Ron looked at him bleakly and replied calmly but with a steel certainty, “The end of the world, Jensen. The beginning of the end of the world. Let’s get into that shelter you wondered why I had built, but first: radio out Emergency Code Omega. We have little time left, so let’s not waste it.”

For I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

Code Omega would trigger those assigned to the Refuges to seal their new homes and begin scanning their communication channels for intelligence on the war. As far as possible the Refuges would pool resources and intelligence; where it was impossible they would do what they could. It was an idea Ron had come up with over the decades since the Visitation, and as he sat looking at the walls of his own refuge and into the fiery liquid in his glass, he wondered.

They wanted me to leave a legacy to another future. A way to help mankind restart, hopefully soon enough to make a difference. But what if there is a better way? So I will leave them my own legacy. Maybe they won’t need it, our new children. But maybe they will… maybe they will…