Paradigm Rift: Book One of the Back to Normal Series (12 page)

Tuesday, December 24, 1946

I am about to spend my fourth major holiday in Normal. It is Christmas Eve. The undeniable fact that three outsiders like us have stepped through time, almost miraculously, brings the essential tenets of Christmas into the arena of discussion. The idea that the ultimate outsider, God, has stepped into time, miraculously, well, Ken is highly uncomfortable with that prospect.

Larry largely avoids any theological or philosophical implications of our plight, but Ken and I, especially of late, seem to approach these topics regularly, and with passionate and mostly polite differences.

The tradition of gift giving, of a selfless act to benefit others, has made me evaluate our situation here. Our accumulating financial successes and our potential time-travel successes which may grow as well—are unintentionally creating an environment of temptation.

Wealth and the ability to manipulate time could combine to create unimaginable power. We need safeguards against this dark path of personal exploitation, the lure of using our knowledge, our wealth, our technology for strictly personal or harmful purposes. It is time for a new accord.

The First Accord: Walk Without Footprints

The Second Accord: Filter the Future

How about: The Third Accord: Prevent Personal Profit

For the second time in less than five hours Denver faced the strong likelihood of his own death. It occurred to him that perhaps these good old days weren’t properly named.

The Chief looked down at his watch. “How much time do we have?”

Doc probably didn’t give him the answer he had hoped for. “At the current rate of acceleration, I would anticipate somewhat less than seven minutes.”

“
Engager les tiges du réacteur, manuellement!
Manual!” Papineau demanded above the noise.

Ellen looked over at Doc. “What?”

“I believe that my French colleague is insisting that the control rods will have to be manually engaged.”

“Where is the manual override?” McCloud asked as Ellen rushed over to the window in the reactor room door and pointed.

“There!” she yelled.

Denver, Shep, and the Chief caught up to her. “But the temperature in that room is over a hundred and thirty degrees,” she cried out, “and the caps are becoming unstable. Just the right conditions could lead to an electrical discharge that would level the factory and potentially scatter highly enriched uranium for miles, depending on the weather and wind.”

They huddled close and peered through the thick, plate glass and spotted a red lever, about twenty feet away on the far side of the steaming hot room.

Denver dropped back from the group and pulled out his photo of Jasmine. As his heart raced, he couldn’t begin to imagine the prospect of not seeing her again. He had endured the daily horror of several years of a bad marriage, and he had put up with the ridiculous demands of an estranged spouse, just to gain a few precious hours with her.

He longed to reminisce about all the milestones of watching her grow up, but now, in a fit of ironic cruelty, for this time traveler there simply wasn’t
time
. He traced a finger across her face, and whispered to her in his heart, as if across time itself.

If any of us survive this, people will probably think that I was brave for what I’m about to do, but actually, I'm just terrified that I'll never see you again. This is for you, sweetie.

He stashed the photo away, and made a move for the reactor room door.

Ellen lunged in front of him. “
Denver
! What’re you doing? You could die in there!”

“Like Doc said, if someone doesn't pull that lever, we're all dead anyway.” He pushed toward the door a second time.

“Wait,” Ellen pleaded, “you'll at least need to wear a protective suit. That room is hot, and not just the temperature.”

She ran to a freestanding closet and grabbed a bright yellow reactor suit. Everyone pitched in to help him don the gear.

“It won't be very comfortable,” she admitted, “but it should give you a few minutes shielding from both the heat and the radiation.”

Doc raised his voice above the commotion. “We have less than three minutes! And Mr. Collins: whatever you do, do not initiate a voltage discharge!”

Denver paused before sliding his awkward helmet down. “
English
?”

“A
spark
, Mr. Collins,” Ellen clarified, “don't cause a spark. Hurry!” Ellen shoved the mask down and sealed it. He gave her a fast thumbs up as Shep and McCloud opened the heavy reactor room door, just enough for him to squeeze through. Everyone lowered their goggles as he entered and the thick door was immediately secured behind him.

The heated vapors in the chamber instantly steamed up his helmet, making an already difficult task a hopeless cause. He attempted to wipe it away with his gloves with miserable and varying results. He glanced to the right and saw rows and rows of large cylinders with heavy-duty wires crossing and crisscrossing them.

Must be the capacitors. Okay, avoid sparks. Get to red lever.

His feet slipped and slid in the cumbersome boots.
Marbles on glass have better traction than these boots! Focus, Collins. No sparks, red lever. Probably less than two minutes. Concentrate.

He hadn’t felt it before now, but the rising heat had become suffocating. Almost intolerable. He hoped that the tingling on his skin was from nervousness, the temperature, or stress—anything but nuclear radiation.

Don’t be distracted, soldier. Red lever. That is your mission. Red lever. Objective dead ahead.

Just outside the heavy door, Doc studied his watch. “Sixty seconds!”

Denver could only hear his own heartbeat, his labored breathing, and his own mantra:
No sparks, red lever.

He wiped his facemask once again. The manual override was less than three feet away.
Mission nearly accomplished. Focus.

He raised his heavy right arm and reached out for the bar. But, in the confusion of urgency and his near blindness, he did not see the sudden change in the floor’s elevation. His right boot struck the ledge, jarring him off balance, and he crashed face-first into the wall. Denver fell, scraping all the way down, missing the lever by inches.

Ellen cried out, the rest just shook their heads.

He was not injured, but the thick coating of hot moisture coupled with the unforgiving suit transformed the simple process of standing up into a heroic feat. He made several valiant attempts, but failure dogged him.

Doc heralded their desperate state. “Thirty seconds!”

Denver fell against the wall once more. His prize was in sight.

Red lever. Focus
.

He screamed out and lunged upwards with his right hand. His glove graced the lever, but failed to latch on, and he crumpled down upon his right knee. A blast of nauseating pain shot through his thigh, almost blacking him out. He recomposed himself, gritting his teeth so hard he was sure his molars would shatter. He couldn’t see the lever through the agony, steam, and condensation, but he knew exactly where it was.

Red lever. Focus.

He managed to get one leg under him, and he found just a hint of traction for his right boot on the lip of the step. Denver’s internal clock was basically accurate:
Last chance, Collins.

He raised his right arm and thrust himself skyward with everything he had left within his tortured body. His hand caught hold of the lever just as his boot broke free and careened out from underneath him. He hung from the bar and swiveled from side to side until he was able to get some semblance of footing.

A small round of nervous applause broke out beyond the door, but it faded when Doc cried out, “Ten seconds!”

Denver managed to get both hands onto the bar as he stood up all the way. He took a deep breath and shoved down on the rod with a massive push. Denver thought he heard it creak, but the lever refused to budge. Years of moisture, oxidation, and the lack of use had all but fused the mechanism.

“Five seconds!” Stonecroft lamented.

Inside the reactor room, Denver pounded on the lever.
Nothing
.
What do I do?

In a final act of desperation, and with a right knee on fire, Denver jumped as high as the suit would allow. He locked his arms straight out as a ramming rod and came crashing down upon the handle. He wasn’t sure if it was his bones breaking or the bar giving way, but he heard a distinct pop, and the red lever reluctantly tripped downward with a sickening grind. Carried by his own considerable momentum, Denver slammed into the hot floor, chest first and bounced. He gasped for breath that wouldn’t come.

“Two seconds!” Doc cried out.

Ellen peered through the window as the control rods descended. She knocked the Chief backward as she spun about and rushed to the panel to her right, shedding goggles along the way. She made a rapid survey of all of the gauges as Doc Stonecroft drew alongside. “Well, Ms. Finegan? Will it be Chernobyl all over again? Are we among the living dead?”

She frowned. “Uh, Chernobyl…what?”

Doc adjusted his glasses. “An unintentional slip, sorry my dear. But back to the question at hand…“

Ellen hunched over and watched a meter with great interest. She smiled and grabbed an unprepared Doc Stonecroft. “It…it worked! Radiation levels appear to be returning to normal! They are returning to normal! He did it! He did it!”

Doc collapsed into a nearby chair and removed his sweaty glasses with trembling fingers as hugs and handshakes filled the room. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and spoke to himself, “Well done, Trailer Collins. Well done, indeed. Perhaps Providence has sent you to us for such a time as this, my friend."

Dr. Papineau reset several switches and the piercing alarm was silenced, along with the incessant warning light. Ellen hurried back to the tiny window. Through the sauna-like conditions it was possible to discern that Denver was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.

What no one could see was that he was still struggling to catch a full breath. Glancing up through a condensation-covered helmet and the lessening mist, he could barely make out the exit door. His throbbing knee and bruised chest were the least of his concerns at the moment. Denver knew that each second he lingered was adding to what could already be a lethal radiation exposure.

With considerable effort, he clutched the manual release lever and hoisted himself to his feet. It felt as if a red-hot knife was being plunged into his right knee cap. He almost went down again. He gasped.

Mission accomplished, soldier. Not with grace, or with style, but accomplished, nonetheless. Thank God.

His arms and legs felt like buckets full of lead. He remembered from his military training that severe fatigue often follows high doses of radiation. He rationalized that his condition was due to emotional and physical exhaustion.

Denver took a few unsteady steps as Shep watched through the thick glass. “Can we open the reactor door yet? Is it safe?”

Doc rose and examined some instruments. “I would not recommend opening it until I absolutely had to, Mr. Sheppard. Radiation levels are still elevated, but not lethal. But every moment helps,” Doc said. “Of course, there’s no way of predicting what our dear friend’s body has just been exposed to.”

Ellen shot him a hopeless glance. The Chief spoke up. “How long til, um, til we will know if…he will make it?”

Ellen rubbed her forehead. “It’s, it’s hard to guess, Chief. Acute Radiation Syndrome can sometimes take weeks or months to manifest itself. Even years.”

“Or it can be fatal in less than twenty-four hours,” Doc added grimly. They all turned to him. “But that’s in very rare cases, only the most extreme of accidents. And our dear friend was shielded…to some extent.”

Shep faced the reactor room again. “So, you’re telling me that he could be a walking dead man? That guy right there! The one that just saved all of our sorry asses?”

Doc framed it in the best light. “He could be as healthy as you or me, Mr. Sheppard, God willing. Only time will tell.”

In the reactor room Denver had expended a tremendous amount of energy just to reach the midpoint back to the door, fighting injury, fatigue, and slippery conditions the entire way. He paused for a moment and was encouraged when he saw Ellen nodding through the window. He smiled back, but with the hazmat helmet concealing his response, he could’ve stuck his tongue out, and she never would have known the difference.

He caught his second wind and began moving again. The pain forced him to favor his left side, creating an irregular waddle. Three steps later, his left boot slipped outward in a small puddle and collided with a capacitor wire running along the floor. He looked down in terror just in time to see the cable break loose from a terminal.

No sparks, Collins
was the last thing that went through his mind. There was a spark, triggering a blinding flash of sizzling, white hot light, followed by an explosive shockwave that sent the hero hurtling back across the room. His body slammed directly into the concrete wall like a projectile and he bounced off and plummeted to the floor in a crumpled and scorched heap of melted plastic and burnt skin. The force of the blast cracked the glass in the door and sent many of the capacitors cascading across the wet floor like so many bowling pins.

Ellen pounded on the door in horror. “Denver!” She screamed at Shep and McCloud, “Get this door open,
now
!”

The two men yanked hard on the release, but something was wrong. Shep examined around the edges. “The explosion must’ve warped the door somewhere.” He turned around and scanned the area. “Get me that rope over there!”

Papineau retrieved it, and Shep secured it to the handle. “Everyone grab ahold of it, we will pull on three.” They all obeyed. “One, two….
three
!”

The massive door was jammed, but it was no match for the combined force of five people powered by pure adrenaline. The hinges protested, and creaked, and then gave way as the door opened with an unearthly sound. Doc would later describe it as being akin to the screech of a foot-long nail being pulled through a piece of dense wood by a claw hammer.

Ellen dropped the rope and darted into the suffocating heat of the chamber, warily navigating around possibly-live wires and displaced capacitors.

“Careful, my dear Ellen!” Doc called out.