2 Minutes to Midnight (15 page)

"Wait till you guy’s see what I have
in my bag for the weekend. Party favors!" Sean shouted.

"What you got this time, weed, coke,
uppers?" George shook his head.

"Nope, I do have some weed, but I
never touch the hard stuff. It’s something we ain’t seen in a
looong time. I scored some mushrooms," he sang. "We're gonna' to be
tripping balls this weekend boys!"

The other two exchanged surprised
glances and an electric spark went through the party. It was going
to be a wild weekend away from wives, kids, and jobs, a time where
responsibility would fly out the window. All three men felt
sixteen, free, and all relished the sense of escaping the
totalitarian rule of their parents to go exploring the great
beyond. It was exhilarating. Tony had almost missed the mile long
driveway due to the overgrowth of small trees, bushes and
weeds.

"We should go hiking tomorrow while
the turkey is baking." Sean said.

"Right, the turkey! It is
Thanksgiving. Who brought what for the feast?" Tony
asked.

"Sean brought the turkey, I’ve got
stuffing and George brought the cranberry sauce in a can." Tony
said.
"Because, if the cranberry sauce isn’t shaped like a can," said
George.

"Then it’s not real cranberry sauce!"
Sean finished. They all laughed.

The vehicle reached the cabin just as
the sun was descending over the trees, and the three of them
unpacked the car. It was too late to go hiking that day, so they
rolled some joints and hung out around the fireplace drinking beer,
eating tortilla chips that George had brought, and conversing about
their misspent youth.
"Do you guys remember the time we camped out in Nick Fredrick's
woods and got lost in the dark?" Sean asked.
"Yeah, our acid was kicking in when we got to his house and not one
of us brought a flashlight." Tony laughed.
"Hah! Yeah, all we had were cigarette lighters to try and find our
way with." Sean said.
"Damn, it was dark out there! I swear we walked for about thirty
minutes before we found the trail again, and the whole time that
LSD was screwing with our heads." George said.
"Riiiight! We were looking for the campsite, and never found it,"
said Tony.
"Yep, and when we found that trail again we said to hell with it
and built a camp fire right in the middle." George said

"We were tripping balls out there all
night long." Tony said.
"We had a cool fire, too. I remember looking into the coals and
seeing skulls and bones in them, which was trippy." George
said.
"Oh my god, and Roger what's his name was there with us. He grabbed
a branch and called it his wisdom stick, thought he was a shaman
all night. Hah, ha!" Tony laughed.
"The best part was when the sun started to come up and..." Sean
started.
"We were fifty feet from Nick's house. Holy shit were we loud. I
bet they heard every crazy thing we talked about that night."
George finished.
"Well, if they did nobody ever said anything. I sure loved hanging
out at Nick's when we were kids. His family's property felt like it
was deep in the mountains, but five minutes from civilization."
Tony said.
"That place was fifty acres of fun." Sean nodded.
The next morning they would head out on a day hike to the Linville
wishing well, a watering hole for hunters that was dug during the
pioneer days of the eighteen hundreds. Today, it was defunct and
more of a hiker's attraction than a survival well. The well had a
somewhat sinister past, and it was rumored that more than one
troublesome revenue agent from the government had been dumped into
its depths during the days of prohibition. Those hills had a lot of
moonshine stills back in the day, and many of them were still in
production.
"You think people were really dumped up there in that old well?"
George asked.
"Not sure, but that thing goes down to an aquifer, so if you strap
a big rock around someone and dump em' over the side, well, they'd
never be seen again." Sean replied.
"Hillbilly justice. Yikes, man." Tony said.
The three slept that night to the deafening sound of remote
wilderness silence. No cars or ambulance sirens, or neighbors
slamming car doors in the middle of the night. In the morning they
ate breakfast and started out for the well. It was located more
than ten miles up and over the mountain and the going would be
rough in some places, so in order to make it back by nightfall they
would have to move at a brisk pace. The three of them had eaten
several of the psilocybin mushrooms Sean brought, and as they hiked
the psychedelics brought them all into a weird space. All of them
knew the way to the well like the back of their hands, so there was
no getting lost regardless of how high they became.

"Guys, remember the ravine up ahead,
and stay alert. We almost lost one guy a few years ago when I came
up here with some co-workers." Tony said.

"Yeah, that sounds good man. Is anyone
else feeling really funky after eating those shrooms? My head feels
like a balloon." George said.

"The force is strong with those
mushrooms man, but I'm reasonably sure they're all organic. But,
yes dude, I am feeling the funk all of a sudden" Sean grinned. The
three of them hiked into the wilderness laughing like hyenas as the
sun rose high above their heads. George stopped to tie his
shoe.
"I'll catch up in a minute." George said.
"You sure man? We can wait." Tony replied.
"Go on ahead; I'll jog to catch up." They shook their heads and
left him there.
As George stood up he became disoriented, lost his balance, and
stumbled toward the ravine. At the edge his footing slipped and in
a moment he was tumbling head over foot down a sixty-degree
incline, landing at the bottom with a broken leg. During his fall
he hit a tree and it fell on top of him, crushing his right leg.
The pain was excruciating and sobered him up enough to realize he
was in trouble.

"Help me," he whispered.

"Oh, they won’t hear you. Not in the
state you all are in, anyway." A voice said.

"Who’s there? Can you help me,
please?" George begged.

"Sure, you're a living mess there on
the ground." The owner of the voice sounded like a Liev Schreiber
from the movie Mixed Nuts.

George was staring up at
the sky trapped under the tree while a large rock dug
uncomfortably into his spine. The owner of that gruff voice began
to come around the tree, and George felt as if he was losing his
mind. The creature standing over him was perhaps five feet tall,
with the body of a man, the head of a goat, and long black wings.
It was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with the picture of a funky
looking bookstore that read
Greetings,
from the Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind.

"Am I insane? Who or what are you? Did
the mushrooms do this? Oh my God, please don’t kill me!" George
babbled.

The creature rolled its eyes at the
trapped man and stood hands on hips over him with
disgust.

"I am a Given, and I came from a
dimension parallel to yours."
"What are you doing here?"
"I like your planet." He laughed. "And, sometimes when I need to
get away I spend time in your forests. I'm not going to kill you,
but you may die of exposure if your friends don’t find you." The
Given studied George, and then looked up the ravine George had
tumbled down shaking his head slowly from side to side.
"Can you please get this tree off of me?" George
pleaded.

The hallucinogens had really done a
number on his brain and he was still unsure about whether he was
speaking with a real being. George had seen visions before after
taking too many mushrooms, mixed with one or two other
hallucinogenic drugs, but this was different.

"No, you are not imagining me, I'm
quite real," he said, removing the tree from George’s leg. "I can
see the look on your face," said the Given.
"Do you have a name?" George asked.
"My name is Gaz." He replied.
With a great deal of pain, George was able to sit up, and as he did
the Given reached into one of his pockets and brought out an
emerald crystal. He held it out in the palm of his hand as it
glowed a brilliant emerald, then he knelt down, touched George’s
leg and closed his eyes. The Given seemed to be in a trance, and
George could feel heat building in his broken legs, as if they were
on fire. The pain was so intense that George had to close his eyes,
and when he did he was transported to another realm in his mind. He
could see creatures soaring through the air like birds on a forest
planet that had beautiful oceans and rivers that cut through the
land. Massive strange fish swam in schools numbering in the
millions, as dinosaurs roamed the land above them.

All of it seemed strangely familiar to
George as his mind began to take him higher into the sky, and
suddenly he was above the planet, soaring in space. Looking down he
noticed that the planet he had been transported to was earth at
some point in the prehistoric past. Between the North American and
eastern continents was a large landmass he had never seen before on
any map.

"That’s the lost continent of Mu. It
sank into the ocean thousands of years ago during one of my more
turbulent visits," said Gaz.

"How old are you?" George
asked.

"I have been alive for nine millennia,
and my people have been traveling to your realm for over sixty-five
million years. We were here when your ancestors arrived from
there." Gaz pointed to the sky.

"Arrived? From where?" George
asked.

"In time your people will remember
where you came from and begin to understand your place in the
singularity of existence once more. You have simply forgotten
yourselves."

George could not
understand what Gaz was telling him. His attention drifted.
"My legs,
they're...better!"
"Of course they are." Gaz fixed him with a questioning gaze. "Would
you like to see where I came from?"

George stood up, brushing
some leaves off of his clothes, and hair as Gaz watched him in
silence.
"Sure, how do we get there?"
"Walk around the tree ahead of you, and you’ll see a thin line in
the hill. That’s the gateway, until I close it anyway." Gaz
replied. George walked around the tree.
"I don’t see a thing."
"Un-focus your eyes and look into the hill."
George saw a shimmering, waving thin line in the hill that looked
like a mirage. He put his hand into it and felt a cool breeze brush
by his fingers. He heard the rush of wind, and smelled fresh air
that was different from the kind found on earth. A moment later,
Gaz took George by the waist and whisked through him through the
portal. With George in his arms, Gaz flew high above a windswept
beach below watching ocean wave's crash gently into the shore. A
lush forest canopy carpeted the land, and castle spires rose from
the treetops like beacons. George saw some blue castles, some
rainbow swirled, one colored a burnt sienna, and other myriad
assortments of strange colors and styles of architecture.
"This is beautiful!" George looked up at twin suns above his head,
and lost his breath.
An orange planet ten times the size of earth’s moon lingered in the
sky like a giant marble. White clouds swirled around inside giving
the planet a distinctive orange Julius appearance.
"She’s Cratona, the fourth planet in our solar system, and in orbit
with us through the cosmos." Gaz smiled.
Gaz flew toward an enormous castle at the top of a large cliff
overlooking the ocean.
"This is my home, Vadiya Castle." Gaz said.
The walls were massive, angular, and constructed of granite, with
little rectangular windows that were spaced several feet apart on
every level of the castle forming an oval at the top one each tiny
portal. They came closer and George could see the heads of serpents
as keystones above each window. In the courtyard was a large maze
of high hedges, some of them were shaped like people, others were
trimmed to form birds and dinosaurs.
"The maze is a game for children. It’s hours of fun for them and
the adults get a break, of course. The walls occasionally move to
give them a bigger thrill. They go in and are lost for hours among
the corridors of green. Once last year a child got lost in there
and forgot the magic word which would have opened an exit, and
wandered around until we realized she was gone and began to fly
around looking for her." Gaz shook his head.
"Your children can't fly?"
"No, not until they reach adulthood, usually around eighteen
hundred years." Gaz explained.
"It’s amazing that you live so long." George trailed off, looking
at the maze from above with curiosity. "The maze doesn’t look that
difficult."
"From high up many things seem clearer, but if you’d like to try
going through I can arrange it." Gaz chuckled.
George had always loved mazes because of their seclusion and
mystery. When he was a child he spent his summers with his
grandparents, and one of their favorite places to take him was an
old hotel in the mountains. This majestic old haunt had a complex
maze of trees and bushes that he would find himself lost in for
hours. The designer left maze walkers bread crumbs along the way,
to let them know they had taken a correct turn, with little bushes
trimmed in the forms of arrows, rabbits, a cat, a dog, and one near
the exit was a squirrel wearing a Santa hat.
Gaz landed on the roof of his castle, and a tiny robot shuffled up
to them. It stood two feet tall, and looked like a miniature
wastebasket with tank tracks for feet.
"Welcome home, sir. Will we have a dinner guest this evening?" The
robot said.
"Hello Percy, yes, my friend George will be dining with us
tonight."
"Very well, sir." Percy replied, and turned to go. George listened
to his little tank tracks whine across the granite roof.
"He spoke perfect English, that's amazing. Do you have a lot of
those robots here?"
"It's how Givens get most of their manual labor accomplished. We
outlawed slavery a millennia ago, and so we needed an alternative
for free labor. Percy is a life saver."
"He seemed so…real. Do they think and feel?"
Gaz sighed. "Yes, unfortunately, Ragal Wasron, a robot designer,
and crackpot, decided--about three hundred years ago--to make them
sentient, and in turn they revolted against unfair labor practices,
formed a robot union, and made a mess of the whole idea of robot
ownership. I pay my robots to work for me now. Ridiculous,
right?"
"I don't have a frame of reference, Gaz. I still feel like I'm
going to wake up with a tree on top of me."
Smoke rose on the horizon as the setting twin suns illuminated the
sky with a deep orange glow.
"There's a war being fought over there, and I'm afraid it's
approaching my castle. I brought you here as a distraction from the
horror heading our way, but I'll make sure you're back home before
the fighting starts."
"What's it over?" George asked.
"A faction of warbots have begun mass producing themselves in
factories around the planet, and their central intelligence has
deemed the Givens unnecessary. They are trying to wipe us
out."
"You created them... how's that possible?"
"The prodigal son, George. Our Frankenstein’s monster has returned
home to destroy his master. So far, we've been able to stop a lot
of the chaos and shut down many of their factories, but they have
nuclear weapons now, and are a bigger threat than in the
past."
"You've got the same problems here that we do on earth." George was
amazed.
"Hah, you're not kidding. Your people have become so primitive, so
much further from what you used to be. I wasn't around when the
last cataclysm hit your planet, but my father would tell me stories
of your great technology. It rivaled our own in complexity and
power."
"What happened to them?"
"Your makers became frustrated with your independence, your
debauchery, and warfare, and so they sent an asteroid toward your
planet." Gaz explained.
"So, it's all true... that TV show Ancient Aliens isn't far off."
George said.
"I've seen that program from time to time. They try to
sensationalize for ratings, but the premise is good, and the
majority of those involved have solid science behind their
findings. I rather enjoy watching the program when I'm on your
planet. Let's go inside and find something to eat. I'm sure one of
the bots has made something for dinner, and you can meet the
wife."
Something buzzed overhead as Gaz opened the door leading down.
"Drone!" He yelled, and a moment later the world erupted with a
thunderous explosion. Gaz took to the air chasing the robotic
plane, and from his front jeans pocket produced a small black
cylinder. George was thrown to the ground in the blast, but was
otherwise unharmed, and watched Gaz with wide-eyed fascination. The
Given and drone were in a dog fight above his head, and from the
tiny black cylinder a laser shot across the sky. The drone had
another bomb attached to its belly and as it dived Gaz launched
himself, firing the laser into the nose cone. A small black hole
opened in the drone, and George could see sparks, and flame coming
from within. Then, it dropped from the sky, Gaz giving chase. He
slowed the falling drone before it could crash to the ground and
detonate its final bomb. Hugging the drone, Gaz brought the
destroyed plane to the ground with gentle care, laying it on its
top, the bomb facing up. George stood at the edge of the castle
wall looking down.
Percy wheeled out to Gaz, accompanied by a troop of other bots of
varying shapes and sizes. They dismantled the drone in short order
and began to eat the parts. Percy and another fatter, larger bot
took the bomb apart and began to eat everything but a small round
ball. Gaz took that and flew back up to where George was
standing.
"Ever hold a nuclear bomb in your hands?" Gaz smiled.
"No, never. Is that what that is?"
"Yes, the first bomb was designed to open a hole in the wall, while
the second one is a chaser and would have caused much more damage.
This castle would be a smoking hole in the ground had the drone
been successful. I collect these for when I need them, and the time
is almost near. I've got about a hundred of these little fellow's."
Gaz said.
They surveyed the damage to Gaz's castle.
"Not too bad, it only took out the wall to my workout room."
"How are you going to use the bombs?" George asked.
"I have a launcher, or course. It'll send one of these fifteen
miles from here. Once the robots are within twenty miles from me
I'll attack, the only drawback is we'll have to leave the area for
several thousand years, or die from radiation poisoning."
"Wow, I'm sorry, man."
"Small price to pay. If we leave before the fighting gets here my
home will be destroyed anyway, and I've got some warbots to kick
ass on." Gaz tossed the nuclear bomb in the air like a baseball
catching it absent mindedly.
"Could you not do that, please?" George asked.
Percy rolled up to them. "Dinner's ready, sir."
"Let's eat." Gaz tossed the bomb to George.
"Aaagh!" George barely caught the nuclear device.
"I'll introduce you to Loina, my wife, and Wavri and Lamuni, my son
and daughter. They've never seen a human in the flesh
before."
"How old are your kids?"
"Five hundred and fifty years next week, they're twins. It goes by
in a flash when you become a parent."
Through the doorway and down they went, passing by family apartment
rooms on their way to the dining room. After winding through
multiple corridors they came to a grand staircase constructed of
marble and granite tile. On either side were crafted handrails with
carved granite spindles supporting a curved mahogany rail,
lacquered to a pristine shine. George, for a brief moment, thought
about sliding down the rail until the saw the large orb shaped
baluster knob at the bottom.
"I wracked myself rather well on that when I was a child." Gaz had
seen George's expression.
"Yeah, I'm not interested in de-balling myself in your home."
George grimaced .
"Loina, I'm home, and there is a dinner guest with me."
"Hi dear, welcome back...you brought a human." She sounded
disappointed.
"Be nice, this guy is good people."
"I'm George, nice to meet you, uh, Loina." He was nervous and began
to sweat.
"OK, Gaz. Welcome to our home, George." Loina smiled. She had the
body of a human super model, the same goat head as Gaz, and white
wings instead of black like her husband. Loina wore a white draped
toga, and sandals with diamond studded thong straps that wrapped
around her ankles.
"Madam, the food is getting cold. It has dropped approximately five
degrees since you began talking." The bot standing behind Loina
explained.
"Thank you, Galdor. We'll be a minute." Loina replied.
"These robots are a hoot, aren't they?" Gaz said. "If they weren't
so darned convenient, I'd get rid of them." Gaz shook his
head.
"Sir, you really are asking for a sneezer." Galdor said over his
shoulder while pouring wine.
These bots looked almost Given, with some sort of rubberized
plastic for their skin, real fur, and convincing facial
expressions. If they did not walk almost a little too stiff it
would have been hard to tell the difference between Given and
machine.
"Let's go have a seat; the kids are already at the table."
George entered a large dining room with a long grey stone table
that looked as if it was carved from one piece of giant rock. Two
small Given children sat at the table drawing and doodling with
chalk on the table. They looked like their mom and dad with the
exception that they had no wings.
"You're going to get all of that on your clothes. Children, this is
George, from Earth." Gaz said, guiding Loina to her chair, and
sliding it back.
"Hi George," they said and went right back to doodling.
Dinner was served and the conversation turned from where George was
from on earth to raising children, and finally to the robot
war.
"This whole war was avoidable. If only cooler heads had prevailed
before our people had decided to make warbots to fight their wars
for them. It was a mistake to make them sentient, because once they
learned that we were a destructive and warlike race, they sought to
destroy us. We're a threat to their society."
"Are...
all
of the
robots against you?" George lowered his voice.
"No, ours will fight with us, because
they
know we need each other. The
warbots on the other hand are nothing but programmed destructive
killing machines."
"But the robots are sentient, right? You said they think and feel,
so can't you reason with them?" George asked.
"We tried that, but their basic software is tied to battlefield
logic, and although they think and feel much like we do, the
warbot's primary directive is to eliminate anything that appears to
be a threat." Gaz explained.
"Hey, we've got warbots back home, only they're called politicians.
What do they look like?"
A knock came at the door. Rap...Rap...Rap. Galdor went to answer
it, and as soon as his hand touched the knob the door exploded in a
hail of wood chunks and splinters. Galdor was torn apart by the
blast, his head popping off his body, hitting the top step of the
stairs, and then rolling back down. A second later a hovering robot
with spinning blades around the center of its body zipped through
the hole. To George it looked like an oscillating fan turned on its
side. Gaz fired a beam at it with his pocket weapon, destroying the
warbot in a single shot. He looked out one of the windows, and his
courtyard was filling with warbots.
"They've come! Run to the safe room!" Gaz yelled.
Everyone ran, and George followed them down a secret staircase off
the kitchen, to the basement past a large cistern that fed the
castle's water needs, and entered a room with piles of the hand
grenade sized nuclear orbs that Gaz had retrieved from the earlier
drone attack. There was an elevator shaft with a button panel on
the right side. Mounted on wall racks were long cylindrical
tubes.
"Grab a pile of bombs, everybody. We're heading to the roof to take
down some warbots." Gaz said.
"Won't those orbs blow us up as well?" George asked.
"We've got a ship, George. You didn't think we just flew around
with our wings did you?" Gaz pressed a button and the elevator
doors opened.
They rode to another floor that housed a large room where in the
center sat a hovering rectangular craft. George could see heavy
guns hanging off the wings.
"We load the bombs into those cannons, and shoot into the center of
those bastards, and wipe them out. I took precautions long ago when
I saw the politics heading in the direction of war and had another
castle built far north of here in the current safe zone."
Loud explosions could be heard from elsewhere in the castle. Gaz
raced toward the ship and a ramp lowered. "Get in!" He
yelled.
Inside was a hopper that he instructed everyone to place their
bombs in, with care, and he took the pilot’s chair. Gaz pressed a
few buttons on the console as everyone took a seat, and Loina's
seat was beside her husband in the right chair. The ceiling slid
back, and in the blink of an eye they were airborne, high above the
castle. Gaz pressed the fire button on his control stick, and a
round orb launched into the hole they exited from. He zipped out of
the way before a massive mushroom cloud erupted from his once
majestic castle. The warbots were taken by surprise and half the
courtyard was littered with the broken, smoking pieces of shattered
death machines. Gaz fired once more into the remaining crowd, but
not before one of the bots could fire a laser straight into Gaz's
ship.
"He hit my ship!" Gaz screamed. His aim was true, and the rest of
the attacking warbots went up in a cloud of nuclear debris.
"Gaz..." Loina whispered, and slumped forward.
"Mommy!" Lamuni screamed.
He looked over to see that his wife had been struck in the abdomen,
and was bleeding through her white toga.
"Loina! George, get my wife to the Critically Wounded table in
back."
George said nothing and grabbed Loina around the waste, her blood
draining onto his shirt as he lifted her limp, lithe body, carrying
her to a padded table that extended from the wall. After laying her
down a series of little finger-like instruments began prodding and
poking her, and then one of them entered her wound. It shone a
white light that brightened the back of the dark ship as the
mechanical wonders repaired the hole in her side. A voice came from
a speaker in the wall beside the medical instruments. The children
sat stone still, in shock from seeing their mother get shot.
"She'll be fine with two day's rest. No moving or lifting heavy
objects. Have her take two of these for pain when needed. The
bleeding has stopped, and her wound is healed, but the nerves will
still need to repair themselves." A glass vial of little white
pills dropped into a dispenser slot.
When George walked back to the front of the ship Gaz motioned for
him to have a seat next to him. After cleaning out the blood from
Loina, he took a seat next to his new friend.
"Thank you for helping my wife, I'm sure she owes you her life.
Once we land at our new home I'll return you to your realm."
"You're welcome, Gaz. This has been like a funky dream and I
wouldn't trade the short time I've had here for anything. We are
well met, Sir." George smiled.
"I agree, George from Earth." Gaz nodded.
"Are they going to follow you, the warbots, I mean?" George
asked.
"Perhaps, probably...I don't know, but we'll deal with them if they
do. I have enough of their bombs to keep fighting until my children
are old and gray."
The land they flew over was beautiful to George, and far from any
city or town. Waterfalls cascaded through winding rivers, cutting
through the dense forest, feeding nature, and carrying the song of
life to faraway places. George did not want to leave. In the
distance he saw a spire rising high into the sky, and a beam of
flight scanned their vehicle.
"Security system. If a warbot gets so much as ten miles from my
home here in the outer reaches my defense system will blast them to
dust." Gaz grinned.
This castle was the color of ivory, and was constructed of a
material George had never seen. One moment it appeared translucent,
and in another it looked like solid matter .
"The translucence is by design, so that we can choose which
sections of the castle to open up to sunlight, but the walls are
nine feet thick, lined with steel, and can withstand a direct hit
from one of the warbots best shots."
Gaz landed the craft, and a ramp descended as a group of robots
exited the new castle, gently carried Loina inside, her children
following close behind.
"Bye, George." Wavri waved.
"Goodbye, it was nice to meet you." George smiled.
Gaz produced a small clicker device from his pocket and when he
tapped it, the air around them began to shimmer, and George could
smell the bad air coming from his planet.
"I never realized how polluted our air is." George said.
"You get used to it, but I always smell like fish when I come from
there." Gaz replied.
"Thank you for your help, Gaz. What can I do to repay
you?"