Vortex of Evil (15 page)

Then he saw several women standing on the deck forward of the bridge.  He couldn’t be sure, but he also couldn’t launch his missile if there was any chance he would hit Erin.  He kept the zodiac on full throttle and headed straight for the boat.

Erin stood on the deck with her older version by her side.  This was the third time they had been able to spend time together.  Each time it had been more comfortable as the two of them got past the initial strangeness.  Erin had not shared her talk with Dara with any of the other prisoners since there was no hopeful message to share and they all felt enough stress as it was.  Dara had treated her politely, but there had not been any more one-on-one meetings.  Peter was still working on ways to escape the cell when he wasn’t working on his relationship with Gaby.  Erin hoped she would find something to hold on to from her talk with Dara, but she was afraid it was going to be similar to Sydney meeting the young seamstress as they both waited for their turn with the guillotine in
A Tale of Two Cities
.  Just finding a little sense of comfort and human compassion before the lights were turned out for good.

“It is a beautiful morning.  I always love this time of day on the island.  I like to get up early and listen to the surf.  And all the birds.”  The older Erin stood at the rail and looked towards the east.

Erin walked to the rail and tried her best to enjoy the scenery and the fresh sea air that was pushed around by the morning breeze.  She was just about to comment when she saw the tiny black dot of the zodiac heading straight towards them.  She also noticed that the hover vehicle was in its staging position, just about to take off.  “Look, Rin!  There is a small boat coming this way.  I wonder what is going on.”  Erin kept her voice down, but she could tell it wasn’t a secret from Dara and her metallic friend.

Rin leaned close to Erin.  “It might be your friends trying a rescue.  If I remember correctly, Doug was pretty fond of the charge in and get it done approach back when we first met.  How long have you been together now?  About a week?”

“Yes.  And I am sure it is him.  This is what he would do.  We need to do something to distract them.  Otherwise, he is going to get himself killed.”

“Why don’t we just jump in the water?”

“What about Peter and Gaby?  We can’t leave them behind.  You have your girls to think about.  You jump in and Doug can pick you up.”

Dara’s voice suddenly joined the discussion.  “Wonderful.  This is wonderful.  We wanted to see how you would analyze this situation and what moral choices you would make.  Even though you want more than anything to be with Doug, you are willing to stay here to help your friends and send the older Erin back to the island so she can take care of her daughters.  Bravo.  We couldn’t have planned this test any better.”

Dara had suddenly appeared on deck, walking rapidly to join them.  Insect man got out of the hover vehicle and climbed down to join them.  The hover vehicle sank back into its hanger and the lid closed.

“We are returning to our time now.  If you want, you should wave to Doug.  That is him out there in the boat.  We could tell from our sensors that it was someone that had been disabled by our stunpulse the other day.  So at least you can be sure he is alive before we leave.  Oh, by the way, don’t try to jump over the side.  There is a sensor array that will stunpulse you before you hit the water and we don’t always manage to retrieve jumpers before they drown.”

Erin felt the hatred simmering inside her at Dara’s smug comments.  “How long before we leave?”  Erin glared intently at Dara and spit the words at her.

“About thirty seconds.  You have time to wave.  He is probably watching.”  Dara at least said it without the cynical tone and Erin wondered if it was her pathetic effort to show some humanity.

Erin looked out at the approaching zodiac with the man she wanted to be with and waved her hand back and forth as high as she could reach.  She took off her beloved Red Sox cap and threw it as far as she could towards Doug.  It was her only way to say goodbye.

Dara took note of her gesture but didn’t say anything and didn’t try to stop her. 

Erin continued to wave as the older Erin put her arm around her and joined in the waving.  In a way, they were both saying goodbye to the island.  They both had tears running down their faces. 

Suddenly, Dara nodded and the Insect Man sprang into action.  He took the older version of Erin by the waist and picked her up with one mechanical arm.  He quickly walked along the railing toward the stern.  Erin screamed and tried to hold on to her new friend but a quick electric burst from the tall man’s elbow struck Erin and dropped her to the deck. 

Rin tried to strike her attacker but he held her at his very long arm’s length.  When he got to the stern, he set her down next to the railing and picked up a small round circular float and handed it to her.  Surprised for a second, she took it with both her hands and started to say something when he grasped the bill of her well-worn Red Sox cap with his right metallic hand and, after pulling off her cap, pushed her overboard with his metallic left hand.  She hit the water like a sack of potatoes but quickly popped up using the float he had given her. 

Doug was watching Dara’s little one act drama take place as he got closer and closer to the boat.  He couldn’t launch the missile, but he knew that his approach was no secret to the future people.  Somehow, they had orchestrated this entire event and all of them had played their parts perfectly.  Right to the script.  A minute after the person he couldn’t identify was tossed overboard, the boat moved forward slowly and then disappeared completely.  The only sign it had been there was a slight disturbance in the water.  The noise of the motor muffled Doug’s anguished “NO!” as he saw the boat disappear.  But he knew that whoever they left behind had to be rescued.

The older Erin could see the zodiac approaching and prepared herself for what she expected to see.  Her heart was sick over what had happened.  Erin, Gaby and Peter were now in the future world with the evil Dara and her insect-like henchman.  And she didn’t know if they would ever be coming back.  But for now, she had to rejoice that she could go back to her daughters.  And she could not for one minute understand why Dara had let her go.

Doug cut the motor and drifted towards the woman in the water holding the round green float.  As he pulled alongside, he immediately recognized the face and was smiling broadly as he extended his hand.  “Hi, Erin.  Would you like to come aboard?”

“Hello, Doug.  I would very much like to come aboard.”  She stared into that familiar face and couldn’t contain her emotions.  They hugged as they stood there in the zodiac, somehow managing to keep their balance as the waves and the wake from the larger boat rocked the zodiac back and forth.

“They took her, Doug.  They took her to the future.  We may never see her again.”

Doug looked at her tear stained face.  “We will.  She will be back.  Somehow, she will be back.  In the meantime, your girls are wanting desperately to find you.”

“Sounds good, but before we go back to the island could we get Erin’s cap?  I think she wanted you to have it.”

Doug smiled.  “I saw her waving and then toss it in the ocean.  Maybe you could hang on to it for her until she gets back.  I see you don’t have yours anymore.”

“The insect guy took it.  I guess he thought Erin might need it and we could swap.  I am not sure why he did it.”

As Doug maneuvered the zodiac over to where the cap was floating in the water, he also wondered why the insect man would have done that.  Why would that half-mechanical thing even conceive of a gesture that showed humanity?  Doug cursed the thought that he would have to make a little room on the positive side of the ledger for insect man.  He knew how much Erin would appreciate getting her cap back.  Even a much older and worn version where the “B” had long ago faded.  He smiled at the thought.  For now, the older Erin got a newer cap to treasure.

Erin reached down and retrieved the soggy cap.  “I guess I will let it dry a bit before I put it back on.”

“No problem.  You have always had beautiful hair and that hasn’t changed.”

Erin sat in the back of the Zodiac holding her soggy Red Sox cap and thought how much she loved being with Doug.  Any of the versions of him.

They quickly returned to the island and Doug pulled the zodiac slowly up to the rocky beach and cut the motor.  He and Erin jumped out quickly and pulled the inflatable forward so it was partially out of the surf.

“Isn’t this where we first landed on this island?”  Erin looked around like it was a lifetime ago, but to Doug it was only last week. 

“Yes.  My Erin and I got here a week ago.   Temporal fractures make for some weird situations.”

Erin laughed.  “They certainly do.  And that must be Tom.  Hi, Tom!  Remember me?”

Tom stared at Erin as if he was seeing a ghost.  “How did he manage to rescue you?”

“The bad guys let me go.  The insect guy tossed me off the boat.  I can’t imagine why, but Erin told me she wanted me to go back to be with my daughters and that she would try to help Peter and Gaby.  Our captors must have heard that and they made good on her wishes.  I only wish they would have let us all go.  It’s good to see you, Tom.  In my version of this life, you and Megan disappeared from the pirate camp while we went to John and Peter’s camp to get supplies.  We never saw you again.”

“So you mean there could be a mature version of me and Megan out there somewhere with a brood of children?  Hard to imagine.  But it is good to see you.  You are just as beautiful as when I last saw you.”

Erin looked from Tom to Doug and smiled.  “So it seems that the two of you are still serving up the blarney.  I guess that makes sense since you are still the men I first met.”

Doug was interested in that comment.  “So did I eventually stop serving blarney?  I thought it was a essential part of my being.”

“You didn’t stop so much as you refocused.  You substituted the blarney of romance for a more refined blarney of a father telling tall tales to his children.  But you never stopped being romantic.  You picked me a bunch of wild flowers on the day you . . .”

Doug finished the sentence.  “Died?  It’s ok, Erin.  We know the story from the girls.  They captured me back at the camp and filled me in on the life I missed.”

“So they came looking for me, huh?  I told them they should think of their own safety first and stay close to home.  I hope nobody got hurt.”

Tom laughed.  “Only his pride.  That he was captured by two machinegun-toting teenage girls.  Of course, he was ninety percent paralyzed at the time so their timing was perfect.”

“Was it difficult for them to see you?  A younger version than they were familiar with?”

Doug felt the emotions run through him strongly again.  “It was difficult for both of us, but we worked through it.  For now, I am their temporary replacement father and they have taken to calling me Daddy.  I hope you don’t mind.”

Erin had to pause on that one.  This was Doug.  The man she loved and had spent the last twenty years with.  But then he wasn’t her Doug and he wasn’t the girl’s father.  Any more than Tom was.  They were all the same person, technically, but they had radically different life experiences.  Erin put her hand on Doug’s shoulder.  “It feels weird to me, but I imagine it is a comfort to them.  I am ok with it.”

“Thanks.  I am feeling a lot of weird emotions about this whole thing.  I am totally bought in to the concept that they are my temporal daughters, but I don’t want to take away from anything they feel for their real father.”

“You won’t.  I will make sure we keep the two concepts separated.”

“Well, we better get going.  We need to catch up with Megan, Ying and the girls.”  Tom put his missile in the boat, along with the assault rifle. 

Doug pushed the zodiac back into the light surf while Erin and Tom jumped in.  Tom started the motor and quickly had them headed back around the south end of the island.

Doug and the older Erin looked west toward where the boat had disappeared.  Neither one said anything, but Doug put his arm around her and she lay her head on his shoulder.  This is going to be weird, he thought.  Very weird.

“I thought I had seen the last of my girls.  I can’t tell you how sorry I am that your Erin couldn’t be here too.  I fear what they might have in mind for her.”

Doug turned to look at her.  “Why do you say that?  What did they tell you?”

“There was this woman named Dara that was running the show.  She and the mechanical hybrid man were the only two people we ever saw.  They kept talking about taking us to the future for some testing.  They told us that we would all be killed once they were done.  Including everyone still here.”

“Why?  Why would they just kill everyone?”  Doug felt the wave of terror go through him at this news.  The thought that Erin was in the hands of these monsters was even harder to take now that he could confirm his worst case scenario.

“Dara told me that the Yir-Lak Command, whoever they are, believe that all the people that have passed through the temporal rifts must be destroyed in order to save their world from the condition it is in now.”

“Save their world?  How?  Do they believe that we are responsible for things happening in their timeline?  Don’t they realize that all these temporal rifts are creating their own new timelines?  Otherwise, we couldn’t have future and current versions of ourselves together.”