The Legend of Things Past (Beyond Pluto SciFi Futuristic Aventures Book 1) (19 page)

“Greetings, people of earth,” he said. “I am sending this
message from far away. I’ve hacked into the government’s broadcasting system so
that all may hear these words.”

A pit of trepidation formed in Donovan’s gut. What was
Tobias planning now?

“My name is Tobias Knight. Many of you may know who I am. I
regret to inform you that your government has been lying to you. Everyone
around you is sick or dying and you don’t know why. I do.

“The government was conducting experiments on human friendly
viruses. There was an accident, causing exposure to one of the most deadly of
them. From the government base of Fort Belvoir, it spread to the rest of you.
Now you’re all dying and no one has any answers.”

What was Tobias talking about? No one was sick yet, no one
was dying.

That wouldn’t happen until…

It suddenly hit Donovan that the feed they were seeing on
the walls wasn’t broadcasting to the earth of 2176. This message was being sent
to the future.

“Even when I’m sick and depressed, I love life.”

—Arthur Rubinstein

May 20, 2258

Santa Monica, CA

Nona Knight

Nona lay in the hospital bed and stared at the T.V. Her
illness had only progressed since her husband left.

Donovan had disappeared without an explanation. He didn’t
answer his watch when she called. She contacted General McGregor, but he said
he hadn’t seen Donovan since his last mission. He put a search team together
immediately.

That was over a week ago. They were still looking.

Nona was sweating profusely despite the bags of ice packed
around her body. She was beginning to fear that she would never see her husband
again. The thought of it made the fever feel comforting, like a hot blanket on
a cold night. The only thing that kept her fighting was her children. She
couldn’t leave them alone. She couldn’t leave them without both parents.

Nona kept herself up late into the night wondering what
could have happened to Donovan. She just knew someone had killed him in some
slum—his body was probably rotting away in the street. Nona could think of no
plausible reason why he would have gone to a slum.

Nona closed her eyes against the glare of the T.V. It made
her head hurt. She wished someone would turn it off. She was too weak to get up
and do it herself. The remote lay out of her reach.

Nona had just decided to call a nurse when a familiar voice
came through the screen. She was utterly confused at first—she thought that in
addition to the fever she was beginning to see things.

As the voice went on, though, Nona realized that it was
real. Tobias, Donovan’s grandfather, was really on the T.V.

“The government was conducting experiments on human friendly
viruses,” Tobias said. “There was an accident, causing exposure to one of the
most deadly of them. From the government base of Fort Belvoir, it spread to the
rest of you. Now you’re all dying and no one has any answers.”

That was right. None of the doctors there could explain
Nona’s illness. They said that it was a really bad bug—that it was up to her
immune system to fight it off. There was nothing they could do but treat the
symptoms, keep her cool.

“I have good news for you,” Tobias continued. “I have
created a cure. I’ve been hiding from the government for months. They’ve been
trying to kill me ever since they learned that I wished to expose them. Many of
you have seen reports about me saying that I have fallen into mental decline.
That is not true. It’s propaganda created by the government. I’m alive and
well.”

If Tobias wasn’t sick, Nona thought, then who was the man
they had visited in the hospital all these years? Something wasn’t right. This
man was lying. He couldn’t be the real Tobias… Or was the sick man in that very
hospital not the real thing?

The thoughts swirled in her head making her brain throb.
Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. It hurt to even try to think this
through.

“The army is attacking me as I speak.”

Nona saw footage of some rocky landscape, a tall white
building in the background. Rows of soldiers marched neatly forward. Commanders
floated above them on lift pads, shouting orders.

“If you wish to save yourselves with this cure, you must
help me. You must fight for it. I am no match for them. I knew this day would
come and I prepared for it. There are hidden teleportation devices all over
your cities. The government uses them for special missions. I will show them to
you. They have been programmed to take you straight here, to me—to the army
that is fighting to destroy your only hope for survival. Join me, if you wish.
If not, I will die here. Alone, with the cures.”

There was frantic rushing outside Nona’s room. The hospital
seemed to jump suddenly into chaos. Summoning all her strength, Nona climbed
from the bed. She edged into the hallway. People were running back and forth,
frantic. The motion made her dizzy.

Nona was confused. So confused and so tired.

It couldn’t be true, could it? Had the government really
created this virus? Is that why Donovan had disappeared? Had he found out? Had
the government killed him?

Nona returned to her room and looked out of her window. It
was dark outside. She stared at the ground. Red lights glowed all over the
place. If she looked really hard, Nona thought she could just make out the thin
tubes, just large enough for one person.

She had to get down there. Tobias was healthy—this whole
time. She didn’t understand it but she had to find him. Maybe he would be able
to help her find Donovan.

Nona braved the hall again. She was dripping with sweat. The
heat was intensifying quickly without the ice. She walked toward the elevators.
She wished she could take the stairs.

Nona’s body was weak, but she pushed through her discomfort.
Her legs shook beneath her. Her breathing came in short gasps. She collapsed, banging
her knees on the hard floor, and passed out before she had even gone ten feet.

“What is fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of
dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and
spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself- for
the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re
here to do, then just do some good.”

—Maya
Angelou

May 20, 2176

Lohiri

Donovan Knight

The images on the walls shifted to show glass tubes glowing
with red light emerging from the ground in various cities.

Donovan realized what Tobias was doing all at once—he was
manipulating the sick people in the future so that they would come fight for
him in the past. All those civilians were going to come there.

“Join me, if you wish,” Tobias said. “If not, I will die
here. Alone, with the cures.”

Donovan cursed. He ran faster. The feed died and the
projectors disappeared back into the ceiling.

Donovan, Tracee, and Brian emerged into sunlight a few
minutes later. They were on the side of the lab.

Tracee kept running, breathing hard now. She led them toward
the front of the building. Brian began to fall behind. Donovan ran back for him
and lifted the man over his shoulder, just as he had done for Jonathan on their
last visit. Except, this time, Donovan barely felt the weight and did not tire
as he ran.

They turned around the corner of the building and came to a
sharp stop. The clones were retreating! They were running into the lab.

“Why are they leaving?” Tracee said.

“When those sick civilians get here they’ll be really
confused to see clones of Tobias everywhere. The scene they arrive to has to
fit Tobias’s narrative.”

Donovan could hear the soldiers cheering. They hadn’t seen
Tobias’s message.

“Come on,” Donovan said. “We have to warn them. All those
people will be time traveling here without even knowing it. They’re angry and
confused. They’ll attack. It’ll be a bloodbath.”

Brian banged on Donovan’s back. The pressure felt like the
fists of a small child. “Can you put me down now?”

“Oh, sure.” Donovan lowered Brian to his feet. “Sorry.”

Donovan ran to the massive crowd of soldiers. They were
sitting on Tobias’s doorstep with a bomb about to go off and a small army of
the infected coming their way.

The distance was much greater than what it looked like to
the naked eye. As they slowly approached, Donovan saw hundreds of red, glowing
tubes come out of the ground. It was like a field of flowers was sprouting
before their eyes.

The tubes were about twenty yards from the soldiers. Men and
women emerged from them dressed in all different types of clothes. Some of them
even wore hospital gowns.

They quickly spotted the soldiers and began to charge,
unorganized. Many of them carried guns. Donovan heard them firing from where
they stood. The flashes of blue lights indicated that a good number of them
carried e-guns too. They were in trouble.

Donovan and the others closed the distance between themselves
and the soldiers, even as they were beginning to return fire against the
civilians.

“No!” Brian shouted. “Stop!”

The soldiers either didn’t hear him or ignored him.

Donovan grabbed the nearest soldier by the arm. “Where’s
Lieutenant Chaplain?”

The soldier pointed. “You’re alive? We thought we were
coming to rescue a corpse.”

Donovan didn’t reply. He spotted Jonathan and ran to him. He
was yelling at the soldiers nearest to him, telling them to cease fire. At
least someone had some sense. Donovan saw, thankfully, that the soldiers were
listening.

There were many of them on the outskirts of the assembly who
weren’t getting the message. They were shooting down the civilians.

Jonathan, seeming to remember something, suddenly spoke into
a microphone on his shirt. Donovan could hear his voice echoing from the
helmets of the soldiers around him.

“Lower your weapons! Cease fire! Those are civilians!”

The soldiers stopped firing but were unable to protect
themselves from the onslaught. Their suits protected them from a lot of the
fire but only at a distance. The closer the civilians got, the more soldiers
died. And there were only more coming.

“Jonathan!” Donovan yelled.

Jonathan stared at Donovan. “You’re alive!”

“Yes, I need…” Donovan was cut short as the young man threw
his arms around Donovan in a bear hug.

Jonathan let go, grinning.

“Jonathan,” Donovan said, “I need you to tell the soldiers
to run away from the building. We planted a bomb. Tracee, how much time do we
have left?”

“About five minutes.”

Jonathan looked at her in amazement. “You’re alive, too? We
thought for sure you were dead.”

“Jonathan, focus!” Donovan demanded. “There. Is. A. Bomb.”

“We need to get everyone away from here,” Brian added.

Jonathan nodded seriously. “Roger.”

He spoke into his microphone. “Retreat! Retreat! Go back to
the ships! Retreat!”

The soldiers didn’t need any further prompting. They ran.

Donovan and the others followed.

The civilians chased after them, cheering, thinking that
they had won. They followed the soldiers, anger making them intent on hunting
them all down.

They ran as fast as they could. They were halfway toward the
ships.

“How much time?” Donovan asked.

“Two minutes.”

They weren’t far enough. They would get caught in the
aftershock of the explosion.

Jonathan apparently had the same thought. He reached for his
microphone. “Faster! Run for your lives! The building is going to explode and
we’re still within range!”

The civilians had closed in on them, mixing in with the
soldiers, shooting them down. Jonathan repeated his command. A civilian nearby
heard him. From there, the news spread like wildfire. The civilians were
murmuring then shouting.

“The building is going to explode!” They were screaming,
running now to protect themselves, forgetting all about killing the soldiers.

They ran together like a startled herd of deer, all trying
to get as far away from the threat as possible.

“Twenty seconds!” Tracee called out.

Jonathan yelled into his microphone. They ran harder.

“Eight…seven…six…five…,” Tracee counted down.

Donovan grabbed her and Brian and shoved them behind a tall
rock. “Duck!” he shouted. He saw Jonathan dive behind a boulder just before he
joined Tracee and Brian Umar on the ground.

“Three…two…”

They covered their heads. The force of the explosion ripped
around them for several minutes. They could hear the booming of giant pieces of
the building that crashed to the ground. It was like being inside a
thunderstorm.

When everything finally quieted, Jonathan chanced a peek
around the rock. The whole landscape was covered in a cloud of dust. He
couldn’t see the lab. He couldn’t see anything.

Dead bodies littered the earth several yards away. They had
only been a few more steps from saving their lives. Donovan wondered how many
others had suffered such fates. There were still people coming through the time
machines when these had started running. Those later arrivals were almost
certainly dead, as well.

Donovan got up. He pulled Brian and Tracee to their feet.
They looked exhausted, covered in a fine layer of red dirt. He imagined he
looked much the same.

He went to look for Jonathan. The boy was okay. He was
already up and about, giving commands to the soldiers and civilians, not caring
in the least that less than five minutes earlier they had all been fighting to
kill.

They found their way back to the ships and sent parties of
civilians to the base. The civilians didn’t question the soldiers or try to
kill them. They just seemed happy to have escaped death. Some of them cried.

They couldn’t all fit on the ships so several trips had to
be made. It was a while before Donovan made it back to the Fort. When he did,
he was finally beginning to feel tired. He was glad for it—he had almost begun
to feel inhuman, running and fighting for so long and not showing signs of
fatigue.

Within a few hours, General Umar had explained everything to
the civilians and sent them back to their own times. To placate them, he had
them injected with what they believed to be the cure before sending them off.

They wouldn’t need the cure now that Tobias had been
defeated. The Army and Air Force would administer the cure in this time period
and none of those people would get sick in the first place.

The people of 2176 would never know they had been infected,
would never know they’d been cured. General Umar sent fresh soldiers to Lohiri
to look for survivors. They found nothing.

Donovan reported to Brian in his office, along with the rest
of his team. Everyone’s stories got pieced together.

Midway between Tracee’s report, Donovan began to feel oddly
faint. He wondered if the E-X45 he had taken was another one of Tobias’s false
formulas. He stared at his hands.

Was his skin getting lighter?

He looked up at the General to say something, but the
General was fading, too. What the hell was happening to him? Was he dreaming?

The General looked at him and jumped from his seat. The
others gathered around him, touching him, shaking him. But he could barely feel
their fingers.

“What’s happening to me?”

Donovan slid from his chair to the floor, unable to control
his body anymore. He couldn’t even feel his body. His body? Did he even have
one? Wasn’t he just a mind, floating in the space of creation?

“Donovan!” General Umar said.

Donovan opened his eyes. Oh yes, that was his name. He had
almost forgotten.

General Umar looked sad. “You’re fading, Donovan. You’ve
saved us all. Now you’ll never get sent back to the past. This version of you
won’t exist anymore.”

Donovan felt giddy. He laughed and the sound echoed around
his face like warm water. “It’s okay, General. I’m okay.” Donovan remembered
something important, but then it faded from his mind’s grasp. Why was this okay
again? It was something about Tobias not being the real Tobias. Something about
evil and good.

Donovan couldn’t remember.

Donovan? Who was that?

Who was he? Was he anybody?

He decided that he was nobody. The light of his mind fell
into an even greater light. He drifted and was no more.