Iād never felt so much fear on a drop before, but this one was painful in more ways than one. Normally I would half-sleep my way through it, contemplating the danger and brushing it aside like the memory of a bad date, but this one meant too much.
No pressure then.
Although right now pressure is what I needed on the gash in my side that refused to stop bleeding, but I didnāt have time for that.
It felt like my heart was being pulled through my chest as I punched warp. Beads of blood flowed backwards from the wound. For a split second it felt almost therapeutic, watching droplets of my life slip away in slow-motion. The intense pain, the overwhelming exhaustion. I could have quite happily bought into what should inevitably follow.
Death right now would be peaceful.
No.
Death right now would be irresponsible.
Arrogant, I know, but when youāre the only person with information that individuals, with seemingly infinite knowledge have, and when that piece of information is so precious and painfully full of truth, then death right now isn't even an option.
āGet a grip. Get. A. Fucking. Grip.ā I shouted into the ether with all the effort I could muster, then along with my body and the ship, I disintegrated through time.
Itās a difficult concept to understand or explain. One of those "you kinda need to do it" type things because Iāll be damned if I can put the experience into words. Maybe it really is like dying suddenly. One minute youāre there, then thereās a bright flash, then youāre floating up (or maybe down, letās not kid ourselves) to your eternal resting place.
Sounds elegant actually. Respectful.
Which is totally not what traveling through time is like. I know this because when you end up where you programmed the console to take you thereās nothing but immense pain. Deposited at velocity onto what can only be described as āsandpaper terrainā.
We know where most stuff is back in time. We have huge databases of evidence. Weāre designing future tech from future tech, for Christ's sake. We could literally program ourselves to land anywhere safe (and soft for that matter) with the resources we have, so why was I hauling myself up from gravel and dust?
"No amount of make-up is gonna cover that many lacerations." I smirk at my own humour, as I limp towards my destination.
At least Iām not dead.
The town I was in could only be described as quaint. Almost like it was stuck in time. A single shop, run down bar, few other essential amenities. The gash in my side thanked God there was a drug store though. I dressed the wound (badly but at least I'd stopped bleeding) before continuing on my way.
They used to say in the Wild West that if a town didnāt have a railroad it wouldnāt prosper. Well, you just had to look around to know this place didnāt have one, but it did have a school, which was good, because thatās exactly where I was heading.
The bell had just gone as I entered the building. The halls flooded with kids pushing, shoving, desperate to escape the daily monotony.
I watched in wonder at this moment. A pang of jealousy, maybe even a little anger, went through my chest, fluttered around in there for a few seconds, then exited along with half the kids onto the front lawn.
We donāt have schools in my time. Most stuff is learnt remotely or, depending on your age, with implants, so I couldnāt help but feel envious of this social interaction.
The timing was good though. The less people around the better. I knew exactly where I needed to go. Implants, you see. Information readily available in the blink of an eye. We remember everything.
Through the small glass window in the door, I watched a man in goggles clear the desks with gloved hands, careful not to spill chemicals. He then pulled off his overalls, throwing them into a yellow, plastic laundry bin before heading to an open laptop. A smile crossed my face as I watched him happily tap away on the keyboard. I wanted to savour this moment. Iād heard that he was eccentric and he didnāt disappoint.
Had he forgotten to remove the goggles or did he just like the comfort of them? Whatever it was, he looked ridiculous but even more annoyingly his face was obscured so I couldnāt get a clear read on his identity.
Scanning the room, I didnāt realise heād noticed me. My gaze locked with his briefly before he waved me in.
With his attention immediately back on the laptop, goggles still on, the silence in the room, except for the tapping of his fingers on the keyboard, was awkward to say the least. Something was more interesting than my presence as he didnāt even look up from what he was doing when he asked, āYou looking for me?ā
Of course I was looking for him.
Of course he wouldnāt know that.
In fact he couldnāt know that. I just needed to do what I came to do and leave.
Easy.
It would have been if I actually had a plan. Iām generally a "fly by the seat of my pants" kinda girl. Like I said before, I normally take stuff in my stride but I needed to be very careful about what I did next.
As it turned out, racking my brains to come up with carefully chosen words was conveniently interrupted by him pulling his goggles onto his forehead. The encyclopaedic database that was my mind crackled through my ears and pulsated against my brain as I stared dumbfounded at him.
It wasnāt him.
My eyes blinked through information as I scanned his face.
Nothing. No data. No identity. This man was a ghost.
āIt surprises you every time Carla,ā he said with a smile, like I was meant to know what he was talking about. āThose scratches look worse this time too. Painful landing was it?ā
I touched my face, traced a finger along the deepest scratch on my cheek. I could feel it beginning to scab over.
āWho are you?ā A strange feeling permeated through my body like I hadn't needed to ask that question at all. I felt numb.
āJust focus. We donāt have much time,' he replied as he led me to a store cupboard behind the white board. I didnāt have a clue what he was talking about or what I was doing following him around the room like a lost puppy, but suddenly I felt compelled to be in front of a cupboard door with this man. Taking a key from his pocket, he touched it to his lips, pausing for a moment in thought.
āWhen you see him, donāt hesitate,' he muttered, then turned and handed me a knife. The carved handle was beautifully ornate. I rolled it in my hand, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with it.
The key clicked in the lock. I gripped the knife tightly. He mouthed the count of three and yanked the door open.
I didn't know what I was expecting to see. A monster. An alien. Something indescribable, dark and desperate, but what I actually saw was a young man.
His hands were tied behind his back and he leant against the wall, eyes closed, tapping it softly, calmly, rhythmically with the back of his head. He wore a white overall and had goggles dangling around his neck. After a few slowing head knocks he opened his eyes and turned his gaze to me.
Instantly the information Iād expected scrolled in front of my eyes. That was the man Iād come to see. But what was with the replacement and why the hell was I standing there staring at a man on the floor as if I was frozen in time?
My brain was in overdrive, questioning everything. I didnāt hear the shouting from behind me.
āCARLA!ā
It felt like a distant echo and I soon realised just how delayed my reaction was to it as one minute I was looking at a man tied up sitting against a wall and the next I was feeling an immense pain in my side and I was looking into an empty room.
The knife I'd been holding was embedded deep. I couldnāt help but notice those delicately carved grooves in the handle were now acting as channels for my blood. I wrapped my hands around it and pulled it firmly, letting out a yell that unnaturally resonated through the room and out into the halls clattering every locker, ripping off every poster, reverberating off every wall.
And then there was silence and I was alone, on my knees, putting pressure onto the gash in my side, desperate to stop the bleeding.
A faint pinging permeated from the laptop on the desk. It was irritatingly regular, pitched just at that level of monotonous but somehow disturbing, like listening to a dripping tap then realising youāre undergoing water torture. The pain I was feeling was so overwhelming for a moment though, that the sound --that intensely annoying ping, ping-pinging-- was quite hypnotic, strangely comforting. It distracted me from the realisation of what a dire situation I was in.
I struggled to my feet and staggered towards it. I had to see what was on that screen. I didn't even think about approaching with caution. The pain, the need for help, the knowledge that I was more than likely dying seemed to brush aside any rational thought and instinct I'd normally have. This could be a trap. A literal ticking time bomb, but I didn't care. Deep down in what was left of my diminishing psyche I somehow knew this is what I needed to do.
I reached out my hand to turn the laptop round. Blood smeared across the screen. The pinging, still monotonous, still regular, was now accompanied by a flashing word: Reset. I blinked through the disorientation taking in that word. Reset? Reset what?
I'm not stupid. I know what reset means. I know what a reset button does. But what exactly was I resetting here? An hour? The day? My life? Everyone's lives? The monotonous noise seemed to increase in volume and pace, encroaching on my space, bringing claustrophobia and nausea with it. Or maybe the gash in my side was causing that.
The more I stared at this word on the screen, the quicker it seemed to flash. Like it was begging me, urging me to notice it. The word was getting impatient. I couldn't quite make it out and I'm sure it's because I was delirious from my injury but it was as if it was talking to me, screaming at me in fact. I swear to God I heard through the noise and delirium 'What the hell are you waiting for? Punch me already.'
And so I did.
What else was I supposed to do? Sit there and slowly bleed out alone? Or take a chance that this might be my salvation?
So, I slammed my hand onto that screen so hard it sent the laptop hurtling across the desk and heading to the floor. You'd expect a crash as it hit, but it didn't hit. It didn't even make it to the floor. It hung in the air, trapped in time, as did everything else around me, but my erratic breathing, my struggling movement, my grimacing in pain remained in real time.
I let out a long breath in the deafening silence. I could see it hanging in the air, which was freezing around me. Splinters of ice began to cover surfaces, crack over the windows. The wetness from the tears on my eyelashes began to crystallise. It was as if I was in another lifetime, another world. I briefly surveyed this surreal moment and then I was gone.
I don't know where I went. All I knew is that it was dark. Pitch black. Was this death? I wasn't convinced. I was still in immense pain. Surely ethereal powers would have some compassion and empathy for the plight of an injured dead person and not leave them writhing in agony? What an irony that would be that even in death you aren't at peace. I'm a cynic, don't get me wrong, but even I couldn't see this being the case, so, no, I didn't think this was death. I didn't know what the hell this was.
The pitch, the silence, was soon consumed with muffled whispers and dull flashing lights. Snippets of a story once told, like an old movie reel clicking and struggling to transmit, flickering into view. I could see myself. I could see the goggled man. We were talking. He handed me the knife. The key clicked in the lock...
And then I saw him. Not the man that had been tapping his head gently against the wall, the relatively calm tied up man that registered on my information database.
I saw him.
The real him.
His face was covered in a strange, chalky residue. His eyes, a piercing, intense blue, were desperately sad.
Heartbreakingly sad.
His image flickered and distorted in front of me.
He looked tired, exhausted in fact. What was odd though was that the information I was receiving about him as he started walking towards me was the exact same information I had received when I looked at him sitting on the floor in the cupboard. But how could that be?
This man was considerably older. His greying hair scruffy, his skin withered.
Not the young, clean-cut man I'd looked at before. My confusion shrouded my ability to move as I watched him slowly approach me through the sketchy transmission, through my dream-like, possibly close-to-death state.
The images jumped and then he was right in front of me. This was the man I'd come to see but the information was suddenly confused, struggling to relay in my mind. Something important was being concealed. I sensed it. I didn't know what it was, but I suddenly felt I was being lied to.
I could hear muffled shouts of my name from somewhere else in the room. Was I supposed to react? Stab him? Is that what the goggled-man had meant by 'when you see him, don't hesitate'? If that was the case, why hadn't he been clearer? Was I supposed to make that decision myself? Was I supposed to somehow know?
I stared at this man, pondering these questions.
I was hesitating.
His eyes burned through me, holding my stare, mesmerising me. Was he a threat?
I couldn't seem to look away. Was he putting me in a trance to then hurt me?
The shouts from behind were becoming more frantic and angry.
Then I felt it.
His hands on my shoulders.
Comforting. Patient.
And suddenly it felt like coming home. I dropped the knife. Not because of some sinister brain-washing act he was inflicting on me. I didn't want to resist this man. I didn't want to hurt him.
He smiled.
And that's when I lost it. It was that kind of smile. Only someone with pure love in their heart could smile that way. I sobbed.
His hands grasped me tighter. Splinters of ice began to cover surfaces, crack over the windows. The wetness from the tears on my eyelashes began to crystallise. That other lifetime I'd felt before, that other world was forming around me, dissolving away the lab, the chemicals in the cupboards, the whiteboard, the whole school.
My head jerked back. My eyes widened. It was as if he was performing an exorcism, casting out a demon that was possessing me.
I slowly looked at him. I felt awake. I mean truly awake. As I stood in this weird half world flicking between a frozen wilderness and a mundane school, I knew.
'Dad?' I said, hesitantly. Not really believing it myself.
He squeezed my shoulders.
'Watch and remember, Carla. We don't have much time.'
His deep blue eyes drew me into that frozen world. I was suddenly armed, standing next to him, my skin chalky and white like his. Right then, at that moment, in that split-second in time, I knew.
I knew who he was. I knew who I was.
It was desperately cold. I looked at our surroundings. Everything around us burning or in ruins. My father drew his sword and pointed the blade towards a group of people slowly materialising from the smoky air in front of us.
'Stand behind me,' he said sternly pushing me back.
He stood firm, shielding me from the approaching ghostly silhouettes. They looked human, but their eyes were clearly not. They flickered and pulsed as if scanning information at a rapid speed. They were soulless. Dark. Dead.
As the smoke around them cleared, so everything about them became more human until there I was looking at the very man I'd just met in the school. The goggled-man.
'You're losing it old man. You're a dying breed and so is your world.' he said.
My father laughed hard. 'You can't harm me here. You know it. I know it. It drives you crazy knowing it.'
'Then we'll just have to face you away from here. Everyone has a weak spot.' The man stepped closer. 'And we have information now that tells us what yours is.' He drew his sword and aimed it towards me.
'Isn't that right, Carla?'
I looked at my father, confused. He He stood firm, staring at the goggled-man, but I could see there was now a sense of worry and doubt on his mind. He slowly turned to me.
'You're the only one that can destroy me. They will trick you. Program your mind. I can't protect you from this.'
He gripped my hand tightly.
'But a father-daughter bond is strong. I trust you. I love you. Resist it. Fight it. Find a way to reset it.'
My head jerked back again and I was there, in the classroom with my father gripping my shoulders, a tear rolling down my cheek as I stared into his desperate eyes.
He smiled, but this quickly turned to a look of pain. He inhaled sharply as the goggled-man drove the knife hard into his back, then, right before my eyes my father disintegrated into ash. Only burning embers floating in the breeze, settling slowly on my clothes and falling like feathers to the floor, were left behind.
I screamed out. Anger filled my whole being as I stared at the goggled-man, but before I could react he stepped forward and thrust the knife into my side.
'For fuck's sake, Carla. Why? Why can't you just do as you are told?'
His eyes pulsed and flickered. He paused, then seemed to calm, like it was necessary, like he'd resigned himself to do it, like he didn't have a choice.
'How many times are we gonna go round?'
I didn't have time to object, to speak up about what and who I'd just seen, to question, to even think as he pushed the blade in deeper.
I wrapped my hands around the handle, closed my eyes and pulled, registering my voice screaming through the halls and back into the room.
Then I dropped to my knees.
Alone.
Just a faint but irritating pinging for company.
You know the rest.
Laptop.
Reset.
Floating.
Trapped in time. But for how long?
Was this the reset my father had talked about? Or was I trapped in this perpetual circle of events forever?
Was it over?
Was it...
Was...
It felt like my heart was being pulled through my chest as I punched warp. Beads of blood flowed backwards from the wound.
Death now would be peaceful.
No.
Death now would be irresponsible.
I had to get where I was going, do what I had to do and get out as quickly as I came.
I shouted in determination into the ether. Then along with my body and the ship, I disintegrated through time...
So, when I said we remember everything, I lied. Well, I didn't.
They lied.
You have to wonder why they tell us these things knowing it's not true. I remembered everything they wanted me to remember.
Implants you see. Information readily available in the blink of an eye. Their implants. Their information. Their orders.
I had to kill my own father. They needed me to kill him to win a war, to take our world. That was his weakness.
I was his weakness.
It had to be me who did it. No one else.
Easy, right?
Well, I suppose that's what they thought as they hacked my mind.
But this time - this time it would be different. I worked it out, you see. So many times round. The little things get ingrained. That was their downfall. You can never eradicate everything. Not even on a reset.
I knew exactly what I had to do as I headed to that school, because my father was right. A father-daughter bond is stronger than any lie.
Jaime Bree's love of writing grew during her time at Cambridge University while studying a B.Ed in Drama. Whilst her day job sees her successfully writing and directing stage productions for children, at night, her other writing life concentratesĀ on sci-fi, fantasy and some darker themes. She surprises herself sometimes where her characters take her and loves how deeply involved she can get in creating the visuals for new worlds.
Losing yourself is a must.