Paradigm Rift: Book One of the Back to Normal Series (8 page)

Friday, June 14, 1946

It’s still hard to imagine that our sudden financial fortunes have revolved around a four-legged steed carrying a tiny jockey. Assault won the Triple Crown (just as Ken “predicted”), and using the nice pool of money we won at Kentucky, we made a much, much bigger pool of cash. We are now the proud owners of a late 30s sedan.
(It would be priceless back home!)

We have also purchased some promising corporate stocks, which required a trip to Chicago, a few hours north of here. The 1946 skyline of the Windy City will take some time to get used to—and the lack of jets. All the commercial airliners are prop planes at this time.

We decided that sharing an apartment, combined with our erratic schedules of coming and going, could lead to many uncomfortable questions from our neighbors. We found a house on the outskirts of town for sale, fairly isolated…no prying eyes, and no prying questions. It has a large garage, which could possibly be used for research in the future. Just dreaming.

We close on the house sale on Monday. I still can’t get over the price—$7600! It sits on 3 acres, on the north side of town, not far from where Ken and I both jumped.

A fat bank account, a reliable vehicle, and a secluded base of operations…at least, at some level, some things are starting to get back to normal.

Denver shut his eyes.

He wasn’t a coward, and he sure wasn’t going to beg. He had been in enough “we’re-not-getting-out-of-this-one-alive”
firefights that he had become numb to thoughts of his own sure demise, even a real demise in a fake world.

He was always amazed at how the other senses seemed to become heightened once vision was denied. The cops’ exact positions were as clear as day. Their subtle movements were betrayed by the sounds of cloth upon cloth and shifting footwork upon gravel. He could even discern their attitudes and emotions by changing patterns of breathing and tiny vocal inflections.

He weighed his options. He was fast, but with two guns roughly two yards apart trained on him, the chances of avoiding a mortal injury in a scuffle averaged somewhere within two standard deviations of dismal.

Regardless of his options, there wouldn’t be time to enact any of them. Without warning, Denver felt two sets of hands raise him up to a proper standing position. He was almost positive he had heard a subtle chuckle in the process. His eyes opened to two grinning faces with sunglasses removed.

“Sorry 'bout this dog 'n pony show,” the Chief blurted out. “But we have to keep up appearances around these parts. How 'bout some introductions—Mr. Denver Collins, this is my right hand man, Officer Billy O'Connell.”

Billy plainly forced a grin and stepped forward with hand outstretched, but Denver locked onto the distance with a cold stare. He remained motionless. O’Connell glanced over at the Chief, then back at Denver. He withdrew his hand. It was more than obvious that a dangerous level of rage was not too far below Denver’s surface.

McCloud cleared his throat. “Look, Mr. Collins, we’re the good guys.”

Denver exploded, “Why can't you people just leave me alone? I am minutes from Chicago, and hopefully a few hours from a flight back home. So, whatever government psychological experiment or whatever it is you are conducting, I didn't sign up for it, and I want my life back! This
game
ends now!”

The Chief hesitated for few moments after Denver’s diatribe. “Government experiment? A
game
? Is
that
all you got? Heck, I thought I was on a Hollywood movie set when I first jumped! Billy, get me the dang binoculars!”

McCloud stepped up to Denver and grabbed his shoulders, turning him to face north, more or less. He pointed a stubby finger at Denver and then at the city in the distance. “Let me ask you, Mr.
I've-Got-It-All-Figured-Out
—when's the last time you were in Chicago?”

Denver had no intention of answering, but he couldn’t think of a good enough reason to stay silent. “Fourth of July, last year,” he muttered.

“Well, good, cause I'm sure you couldn't look up at all them fireworks in the sky without seeing a few hard-to-ignore little buildings. Uh, let me help your architectural recollection—namely the Sears Tower or the Hancock building?”

Billy returned and offered the field glasses to McCloud.

“So, Mr. Answer Man,” the Chief continued as he transferred the binoculars over to Denver, “take a good look through these field glasses at the skyline of the windy city.”

Denver was stoic.

“Go on,” the Chief encouraged.

He didn’t want to, but he raised them anyway, and the distant metropolis came into view. McCloud began to wax condescending. “Well, wait a minute. Where's all those big buildings? Something's wrong here, ain't it?”

Denver lowered the binoculars. He was growing uncomfortable with the fact that the fake police chief was making some real sense. He raised them again and panned the hazy horizon a few more times. It wasn’t a painting, or a mirage.

How could anyone make a simulated city on this scale?

Building on his probable success, the Chief played his next card. “Hey Billy, what day is it?”

“Friday, Chief. All day.”

McCloud put a hand on Denver’s shoulder. “Wait, isn't the second busiest airport in America here in Chicago—O'Hare International? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Denver Collins, but these ol’ eyes of mine don't see any jet contrails anywhere. It's Friday, Friday afternoon to be exact. This sky should look like a crossword puzzle by now. But, they ain't there.”

Denver dropped the binoculars once again, and surveyed the empty sky.

This is wrong, this is all wrong!

McCloud leaned in. “This may be a nightmare, Mr. Collins, but it sure ain't no friggin’ dream!“

The Chief grabbed his rifle and held it up, shaking it. “This, this is a real gun.” He fired it into the air and stared a hole through Denver. “That was a real bullet.” He ejected the casing and tossed the weapon over to Billy—who almost dropped it—then knelt to cup a handful of roadside dirt. He rose and let it drain slowly out of his hand just inches from Denver’s face. “This is real dirt. It’s all real. This is
real
…as real as it gets, son.”

Denver paused for a moment and bent over and amassed his own fistful of reality. As he stared at the falling dirt, it seemed his former excuses began diminishing as well. All at once, coffee stains on ragged paper menus and tiny babies in pink blankets didn’t seem to belong to a well-crafted illusion anymore.

In his mind’s eye, he recalled rows of houses, children and pets at play, and vast stretches of Midwest farmland. He remembered a flash of lightning and a rushed layman’s explanation in the front seat of an amusement park ride that looked awfully close to a squad car.

The impossible had been eliminated by the strange fortune of becoming probable. That which remained was a truth too terrible to comprehend, at least, all at once. He rose dejectedly and sulked about.

McCloud adjusted his tone and spoke with a depth of compassion obviously nurtured by experience. “The year is 1956. I am from 1996, and O’Connell here jumped to Normal from 1965. Like us, you’re a Jumper, Mr. Collins. You’ve come to us from the year 2014.” He cleared his throat and spat again. “The quicker you accept it, the quicker we can get on with our lives, and the quicker we can get to fixin’ this mess.”

Denver began shaking his head and picked up his pace. His walk morphed into a run, as he climbed up a steep dirt bank which dumped out onto a field. He couldn’t restrain himself, and started yelling—nothing discernible—just wordless cries expressing his bitterness and loss.

The Chief muttered to Billy as he pointed in Denver’s basic direction, “Here we go again. Have you ever noticed that Trailers are way harder than Priors?” He slapped the younger officer on the back. “Come on.”

“Go ahead, let it out. All of us have done the same thing,” McCloud called out as he topped the bank, out of breath. “And neither of us will think any less of you, trust me. I promise.”

Denver crumpled to his knees in the dirt, clutching his daughter’s photo in his right hand. His screaming may have subsided, but the emotion was still alive and raw within his chest.

Billy hung back, but the Chief eventually walked down to the broken man, a man out of time. He put a sympathetic hand on Denver’s heaving shoulder. Denver shook it off with the force of an offended high school steady.

“C’mon,” the Chief urged. “We're the good guys. I promise. You are
not
alone.”

Minutes passed and the Chief remained at Denver’s side. Standing silently with his head bowed, it was as if McCloud observed some sacred ritual, a painful rite, not unlike a graveside service. Denver was passing through his own valley of the shadow of death. There was evil…and he couldn’t help but fear it.

Several cars passed by, and a motorcycle with a hole in the muffler rattled down the rural stretch. Denver rose to his feet and wiped his hot face, leaving a dirty streak across his temple.

McCloud walked around and stood in front of him, though eye contact was apparently still out of the question. “Listen to me. Listen.
Hey
!”

It took several seconds, but Denver’s attention refocused and he locked eyes with a man who, in his opinion, shouldn’t be smiling. A man who should be as resentful and angry and bitter as he himself was at that very moment.

If McCloud believes the boatload of crap he has been saying, then how can he exude such hope and such irritating confidence?
These questions plagued Denver, but he was incrementally warming up to the possibility that the Chief might be worth listening to
. Might be.

McCloud punctuated every word. “We are going to get home, all of us.
All
of us!”

Normal’s newest time traveler looked away as the Chief started heading back to the car. “C’mon Mr. Collins,” he said. “I wanna show you something.” The Chief hesitated as he pulled a rock out of his boot and dusted off his pants.

“And this time, it won’t be a jail cell.”

Tuesday, July 2, 1946

Incredible. Truly, amazingly, wonderfully—incredible. A THIRD JUMPER HAS ARRIVED!

It may be 2 days until the 4
th
of July (they call it “Independence Day”)—but there are already fireworks of celebration in our house in Normal. Actually, it sounded a bit like the 4
th
of July early this morning as Lawrence Etherington arrived, and arrived in a big way.

3:30 a.m., sound asleep, and boom! Ken said he only vaguely remembered waking up and then passing out again. Me—I woke up, and within milliseconds, my heart was pounding with the excitement of THE HUNT!

I knew it was cloudy last night, but no storm. I looked outside: no stars. I waited for a good 2 or 3 minutes, scanning the horizon for flashes of lightning. Pitch black, except for the town lights to the south. I ran back inside and shook Ken. I told him what happened. He eventually came around and we got dressed. One problem was that we had no sense of direction. I knew it was close, but that could be 3 square miles of search-and-rescue, if there even was anyone to find.

The second problem was/is the “small town factor.” If it was New York City, no one would think it strange to see people out and about in the middle of the night, but here in Normal, in 1946—you could end up in jail or being shot. Neither of those sounded good.

But, on the other hand, looking at night would make it easier—less people around to confuse you. We decided that the benefits far outweighed the risks. If there was a Jumper, we needed to get to him/her first. A dazed and confused time traveler walking around asking questions would definitely violate the First Accord, threaten the Second Accord, and severely complicate matters.

We put on the darkest clothes we had, hoping not to look like outright bandits, and drove around with our headlights off when we could. I was never a hunter, but I can understand the rush, the thrill of the chase. There were so many thoughts that raced through my head—what if the time Jumper was from later than me? Maybe the year 2000, or even 2025. Maybe from the past—why not? 1930, or 1830…how about 1530???

We made several passes around town. First around the outskirts, starting on the north edge by our house. Ken jumped near there, and I had jumped several hundred yards from there. We hit uptown, and then almost all of the residential areas. We had probably been out for almost an hour and a half. The early glow of the rising sun was just winking at us from the East. I was driving, and it was Ken who had the eagle’s eye this day.

We were in our third pass uptown and he saw something dart between the buildings. He told me to stop, and he jumped out, about a block from the police station. I slowly followed in the car, and he ran into an alley next to the grocery. I circled around to the next street and made a left and hit the alley from the backside and turned on my lights.

And there he was. Lawrence was hiding behind a stack of pallets. Ken probably would’ve missed him, but my headlights made the dark into day. He was scared (I remember what it felt like!) and that made him very defensive. He almost took a swing at Ken! I won’t go into all the details right now, but it was a very tense 30 minutes or so until he calmed down enough to really reason with him.

That was about 18 hours ago. It is around 11 p.m. right now. Larry (he insists we call him that) and Ken are in the living room looking at some newspapers and magazines. He hasn’t eaten much. He is from Indianapolis, more or less, and he jumped from the year 1978. It seems each Jumper is from earlier and earlier…I don’t know yet (obviously) if this is a trend or just a peculiarity.

Speaking of trends, it looks like we are averaging a Jumper about every 45 days or so. Could this be a trend? And all men. No females. Should be 50/50ish split, right? Odd.

I’m going to head to the best place to find deep answers to deep questions—my soft bed.