Past, Present, and Future, Page 4

  *

  Her first day of college was fast approaching, which would get her out of that backwards, suffocating home and give her an opportunity to live the life she wanted. But that appeal had vanished in light of recent revelations. A once joyous date had become a frightening deadline.

  Choosing Victorian Britain was out of the question. That left twenty-first century Earth, or Station Three in the far future.

  At first, she thought her choice was obvious. It was an utterly terrifying thought to throw herself into a completely new world, on a space station where she would probably never be able to set foot on Earth or go outdoors again. Her own time was far from perfect, but she knew this world, she knew how to navigate it. She could go to college, get a job, and, with any luck at all, find some kind of home for William, whether in a foster home or... somewhere.

  With her mind nearly made up, she made another Jump, this time again to Station Three. The familiar pristine white halls and the humming of the life support systems greeted her.

  Jerah met her in minutes, much to her vast confusion. Before she could even open her mouth to ask how he’d known she was coming, he flashed her a brilliant smile and said, “Tanya had a sensor set up to detect temporal distortions so we’d know when you showed up.”

  “I see,” Melanie said. “Well, I guess I’m ready to continue that tour, if you have a minute.”

  “For you, I will make a minute,” he said.

  Jerah quickly started the tour where he’d left off. The station was so big – at one point she’d asked how many people called it home, and the answer had been around 200,000. “It’s about the same on the other four stations,” Jerah clarified.

  Melanie counted. That would mean the human population had been reduced to a mere million. Sure, other species had survived after being reduced to lower numbers, but the thought was still chilling.

  Jerah seemed to sense her distress and changed the subject to Earth, and what it had been like. He seemed interested enough that Melanie began to suspect he was something of a history buff. He asked her everything, from how many humans there had been in her time, to the names of various countries (he called them Nation States, and she couldn’t remember the names of half of them for the life of her), to how different it felt being on a planet as opposed to a space station. He then started asking about her, first general questions and then more personal: about her parents and what she liked to do.

  “I’m sorry, I know this is going to sound abrupt, but, why do you have such an interest in me?” she asked during a break in the barrage of questions, fearing the answer. She never went to parties anymore, not after all the times the worst of humanity had tried something. When she had been younger, she’d been outgoing and nice, and her decent looks certainly had not hurt anyone but her. After the death threat and the restraining order had been issued, she’d almost withdrawn entirely from social behavior.

  Learning just how low humanity’s numbers had fallen, and realizing how important new blood might be, she suddenly suspected his motives as being less than noble.

  He sensed what she was thinking immediately and stopped, looking at her with sad eyes. “Would you follow me? This isn’t something I want other people to hear,” he said, glancing around at the lightly populated study area.

  Forcing down her fear at the thought of being lured to a deserted part of the station by a strange man, it took Melanie a moment to be able to speak words of agreement, but eventually she forced them out.

  “I just want to talk,” he assured her, clearly seeing the fear on her face.

  Her expression softened a little. He seemed so concerned and sincere; she began finding it harder and harder not to trust him. “All right.” She then allowed him to lead her down the hall and down another corridor that was much narrower than most she’d ventured down so far. The lights were even a little dimmer when he stopped and turned to face her.

  “How it works around here,” he began, “is that we’re allowed to choose who we take as our spouse, and are encouraged to do so for the sake of repopulating our species. The Population Council only steps in if the population on the station shows a lack of genetic diversity or our numbers get too high or too low. In which case, they ask for volunteers, or arrange for some individuals to transfer to another Station. Once, we actually had to build a smaller station that acts as a satellite to our own. We’re not the only ones who have done this – Station Five actually has three small satellites.”

  “Are there any other... population control measures?” she asked, suddenly frightened that some of the rather unsavory ways people had tried to control their numbers before or in science fiction – forced sterilization or lottery killings – might be in practice here.

  He looked at her oddly, then seemed to realize what had her concerned. “No. We’ve never killed anyone. Our goal is to grow our species and widen our gene pool, not limit it.”

  “So what does this have to do with me?” she asked, a different kind of concern coming to mind. It couldn’t be...

  “Well...” Now he looked embarrassed. “I’ve met a lot of the young women around the station, and dated a decent amount of them. But...” His expression turned to one of sorrow. “I haven’t found anyone I’m interested in. But since you arrived...” An awkward pause, and then he explained hurriedly, “It’s not like some weird love at first sight thing, I swear, I don’t like you or anything.” Realizing what he’d said, he backtracked fast. “I mean, I like you, but not in that way, yet, I mean, uh...”

  Melanie’s eyes twinkled. She hadn’t expected to, but she found his antics oddly charming. “Go on. It’s okay,” she encouraged. All she could see was herself confessing her feelings to her first crush, a young and awkward adolescent.

  “Right, sorry,” he said, averting his eyes and coughing to hide his embarrassment. “Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like being around you, and if you’re all right with it, I’d like to get to know you a little better, see where it goes.”

  In spite of the abruptness of the statement and the strange circumstances surrounding it, Melanie found herself flattered. He seemed like a nice enough young man, with the ambition to become a valued person on the station while also displaying a charming awkwardness. A good balance, in her opinion. She didn’t know him well, but was okay with becoming acquainted with him. Even though nothing might ever come of it.

  “I’d like that,” she said, and his face brightened as if the rays of the rising sun had just washed across it.

  “Great!” he exclaimed. Another awkward pause. “Um, I’m not entirely sure what you like to do, but I have a group of friends getting together to play some tabletop RPGs within the hour. Would you like to join me, or... is that not your thing?”

  Actually, it was her thing, even though she hadn’t played with other people in a long time. “Well, you’ll have to introduce me to the game, but sure, I love RPGs.” She couldn’t believe they still had them in the future. She wondered if it would be a game from Earth’s past, or a new one the station dwellers had created to pass their time.

  It turned out to be a completely new game, as it consisted entirely of their fantastical ideas of what life on Earth had been like. Jerah’s group consisted of three women, two of which were about his age and another who was considerably younger, and another man about his age. Jerah seemed to be good friends with all of them.

  Melanie wondered how he was going to explain her appearance, and was a little surprised when he came right out and told the truth. After the initial shock and awe of having a time traveler join them for a role-playing game faded, the group began to play.

  Melanie proceeded to help their game in ways that no other living person could, pointing out and correcting facts about twenty-first century Earth life that almost immediately won her the respect of the group. They all seemed to be perfectly nice people and she found herself having a great time.

  When she felt the pull of the time stream upon her again, she felt more remorseful t
han she could remember feeling before, as if she had just looked at the clock and realized an amazing night out was at its end. For the first time, she tried to fight it, to have just a little more time, but the pull was too strong still. She supposed it would only begin to weaken when time to choose was running out.

  The encounter left her more unsure than ever. Her next Jump was to the future again, in which she sat down with Tanya, confessing to the other woman her confusion and how the choice she had to make was tearing at her heart. She asked if anyone else had been able to bring another person along with them when they Jumped, and got a noncommittal answer. If anyone had ever done so, there was no record of it.

  Fortunately, her next Jump was to Victorian London, giving her the opportunity to see if she could indeed bring William with her. This time, she found herself by what appeared to be a prison, a filthy place on the bank of the Thames. Those nearby seemed to stay well clear of it, and the odd moan, cry, or scream echoed out of those walls, as if behind them lay hell itself.

  Suddenly afraid, she wondered why she had appeared here. Where was William? Was he here somewhere? Or... Her blood froze. Was he... inside that place?

  “William?” she cried before she realized what an unbelievably stupid idea it was to draw attention to herself in a place like this. Her surroundings didn’t seem to be any more prosperous than the shanties back where William lived. The few people who were nearby cast hungry glances her way that only served to heighten her anxiety.

  She stopped and began to take deep breaths, as she had trained herself to do whenever an anxiety attack came on.

  “Mel?” the voice of a young boy, one she recognized quite well in spite of only having met him twice, suddenly came from behind her.

  No one had called her Mel since she’d been a young girl, and William certainly hadn’t done so before. But calling her that was a strangely intimate gesture, one she found herself appreciating. She turned, a smile breaking out across her face in anticipation of seeing her young friend again. Her happiness immediately vanished when she saw he wasn’t alone. William did stand there, but his hands were bound and two police officers stood on either side of him.

  “What happened?” she asked of no one in particular, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

  “Got myself caught, it seems,” he said with a brave smile that seemed forced.

  “Where are you taking him?” she asked, struggling to keep the whine out of her voice. She looked the police officers dead in the eyes, silently demanding an explanation.

  In return, they gave her confused and disgusted looks, immediately pegging her as crazy. Of course, she was in jeans and a t-shirt talking in an obviously American accent. But she didn’t care about blending in anymore. She had to know what was going to happen to William, and what she could do to prevent it.

  “He’s going to Stalworth Prison, as you can plainly see,” the first officer, who was heavyset and sported a beard, said.

  “For what?” she demanded.

  The second officer spoke, his tone making it clear he thought she belonged in a mental institution. “For stealing. He sure didn’t embezzle anything!” he said with a hearty laugh.

  How could they even think about tossing a child into that place?

  “Just stop, Mel, don’t worry about me,” William said, though he sounded resigned.

  She wanted to say more, to talk to him, but she certainly didn’t want to do so in front of these two men, and it seemed clear William didn’t want to have a conversation then and there either.

  With parting glances, the officers pulled William down the road that led to the prison. He didn’t fight them.

  When the time stream came for her again, she welcomed it. But even with her enthusiasm to get the hell out of there, she could feel how weak its pull was getting. This had to be what Tanya meant by that feeling of finality.

  The moment she appeared on Station Three (which she was exceedingly thankful for) she called Jerah on the intercom and waited for him to arrive, which he did with astonishingly quick speed.

  “I know this is a long shot, but can you show me how to look someone up? Like, in any historical records you might have?”

  He gave her an odd look, but led her over to a public computer in the nearby lounge and showed her how to pull up the information she was searching for. “What year?” he asked, the indicator hovering over the early twenty-first century.

  But Melanie shook her head. “Further back than that. 1880,” she said, remembering the date from a poster she’d seen in the time she’d spent sitting in an alley after watching William get carted off to prison.

  An unsure expression on his face, Jerah pulled up the search, and Melanie was about to put in the boy’s name when she remembered that he’d never told her his last name, presumably because he didn’t have one. She almost gave up in despair in that moment, until a thought occurred to her. He’d been in prison. He would have had to give them some kind of identifying information, and a prison was bound to keep records. It was a stretch, but it was all she had. She typed in the name William Geyer. Melanie almost started crying when she saw a lone record pop up. There was no picture, but from the prisoner’s description, she knew it was him.

  “It looks like he was listed in the prisoner registry, which is the only historical record of this kid,” Jerah commented. He looked at her suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

  Melanie’s face visibly paled as she looked at the dates on the records. There was a date of death. William would die of disease only a few short months after his admission to the prison. She felt her heart clench in anxiety. He was going to die? No, no, she couldn’t let that happen. He’d used her name, he’d…

  She fought back tears. “I need to break him out of there and bring him through time with me. If it’s at all possible, I need to do it. I... can’t explain why. But he needs me. And if he died in 1880, then there’s no possible way I could screw up history by rescuing him, right?”

  Jerah shrugged. “I think the risks are nonexistent, if that’s really what you want to do.”

  The small probability of drastic consequences for saving William only fed her determination. Her biggest concern then became getting into the prison in the first place. She never seemed to have control over where she appeared. On the other hand, she had always appeared close to William, meaning she might get lucky and appear inside the prison. Either way, she now was on a time crunch. He would die in four months.

  “You really are going to do it, aren’t you?” asked Jerah. It was clearly a rhetorical question.

  “If I can,” she replied.

  He shook his head in amazement. “It would be nice if everyone was as determined to help someone else as you are.”

  She took the compliment with a gracious smile.

  When she Jumped again almost an hour later, she was disappointed to find herself back in her house, rather than Victorian London, though she was grateful for the extra time to prepare herself. The best she could hope for was to get stuck in the same cell as him, because the amount of time she spent in any one era always seemed to be a bit random. If she could just get close to him, then it didn’t matter whether or not she could get back out of the prison, which, given her poor knowledge of the prison and the surrounding area, was unlikely. She tried to do some research but it didn’t yield much useful information.

  She spent her last days of summer jogging and reading, doing her best to appear normal but growing more detached than before. After mentally counting, she realized she had performed twelve Jumps, and given how weak the pull of the time stream was becoming, she had a feeling she was approaching the end.

  It was a weird feeling to not care much about being home again, even though her mother avoided her as much as before. Slowly, Melanie found herself wanting to be on Station Three more than her heart desired to remain in the present.

  Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, she did not have to wait long before her next Jump. It occurred in
the morning, right after her mother left for work while deliberately ignoring Melanie’s wish that she have a good day. This Jump ended up being weaker than the one before, and Melanie had to concentrate deeply on the feel of the time stream coursing through her body. If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to describe the sensation well to anyone else, but in just a short while, Jumping had become as natural as breathing.

  This time, when she opened her eyes, she was in a dark, dank place. She had never seen these surroundings before, but she had a pretty good idea where she was. She sighed in irritation. Why couldn’t the time stream have come a little later, after she’d gotten dressed? She was in a white tank top without a bra and fleece sleep pants with bears all over them. Hardly the best attire to wear to a prison breakout, and certainly not what she wanted to be wearing if she ended up unable to leave. Her irritation changed to fear as she swallowed hard, trying to force the possibility that she had just experienced her last Jump aside. She had to focus on finding William. After she did that, well, she would figure it out. A different kind of fear came for her then, the fear that she wouldn’t be able to bring William with her to the future, or worse, that she would never find him at all.

  It appeared to be nighttime, which was beyond fortunate because only a handful of guards were roaming the halls. Years of playing paintball came in handy as she ducked behind cover and did her best to avoid being seen, by both the guards and the prisoners, whom she had no doubt would rat her out.

  She found the line of cells he was in by pure accident. She had been wandering around long enough to know there were four wings, one for each cardinal direction. Good fortune appeared to have smiled upon her, as William was in the first cell in the western wing, which just so happened to be the first one she decided to sneak down. Her plan had been to search each wing in a set pattern, diminishing the possibility of going past him without noticing. That plan now abandoned, she moved to the next step: finding a way to open the door.

  The wing had been secured behind a thick wooden door with a barred window. She had waited carefully for the guard patrolling that hallway to turn his back before she bolted forth and squeezed through the door. As a child, she had practiced moving as quietly as possible for the fun of it, pretending to avoid monstrous ogres. Now her little game had come in handy, and taken on a whole different level of seriousness.

  The wing was also quiet, almost disturbingly so. Intermittent hollers of what sounded like a very deranged man could be heard from the other end, and every now and again someone coughed or rolled over on their very creaky bed, but for the most part silence cloaked the place like its kin, the darkness. She had the sinking feeling that most people condemned to this place did not live long.

  William was deep in an uneasy sleep, curled up on blankets filled with holes. One of them even appeared to have started molding. Instinctively, she wanted to call out to him, but forced the cry down and started fiddling with the lock.

  The noise, though not substantial, caused William to stir and Melanie to halt her efforts. His eyes opened sleepily and as he moved she got a better look at him. He looked like hell. His clothes were torn and there were obvious bruises on his neck and arms. A swollen red cut on his face looked to be in the early stages of infection. Fear crossed his face for a moment, unsure who had woken him. He even flinched a little as if expecting a blow. But then he saw his rescuer was Melanie, and his face brightened, if only a little. “Mel. You’re a little late.”

  “How long has it been?” she asked anxiously.

  He blinked, as if trying to figure that out. “I’m guessing about two months, maybe longer.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I don’t have control over...”

  “I know,” he said softly. “I’m just glad you’re here now.”

  “I’m going to get you out. Any way I can,” she promised. She took in her surroundings, unsure how she was going to honor that promise, but knowing she’d have to figure it out. Somehow.

  Just as she was seriously considering setting up an ambush for a guard to beat him senseless and take his keys, William said, “Here, try this.” He reached through the bars and handed her a small piece of wire she could only assume he regularly used as a lock pick. She looked at him curiously and he shrugged. “I tried but I couldn’t reach far enough to get a good angle.”

  She took it, having never picked a lock before but figuring now was as good a time as any to learn. She gently inserted the wire into the keyhole and began rummaging around, having no clue what she was doing.

  Her incompetence was so painfully obvious that William noticed immediately and offered his assistance. “Push in, twist a bit, and then up. If that doesn’t work, try...” She was only at it for less than a minute in total, but in that terrifying place, it felt like she was fiddling with that stupid thing forever. She almost muttered some words that most decidedly should not be heard by children, but held herself back, not so much for William’s benefit but more out of concern they would be discovered.

  Finally, the lock clicked and Melanie released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  “So, how are we getting out of here?”

  Melanie paused, trying to think of a plausible explanation, but she hesitated long enough that he put two and two together and fixed her with a disbelieving look. “You don’t have a plan?”

  “No,” she admitted. “As I mentioned before, I don’t exactly have control over when the time stream decides to take me on a joyride. Not to mention the fact that I don’t know much about prisons in Victorian England...”

  William cut her off with a frantic shush and she stopped abruptly to listen. Sure enough, the sounds of footsteps were coming down the hall.

  Without a second thought, Melanie slid into the cell and shut the door, leaving it unlocked but closed.

  “What did you do that for?” he snapped.

  “We’re never going to be able to break out of here,” she whispered as softly as she could. “So we’re going to take another way out.”

  “Some rescue this has turned out to be,” William muttered under his breath. But he sat down and closed his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart and presumably not get his hopes up too high.

  Once the footsteps had quieted, she asked, “Did you try and steal the brooch? Is that how you ended up here?”

  He looked away and nodded sadly. It was clear he didn’t have it. It looked like he would have to leave his mother behind in the past.

  Melanie let out a deep breath. “Do you want to come to the future with me?”

  “Is it even possible?” he replied, as if daring to hope.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m sure as hell going to try.”

  He didn’t say anything, but nodded decisively.

  They sat there for the better part of five hours. Rays of light were beginning to slide their way in through the few windows that lined the hall and the small barred window on the side of William’s cell.

  Melanie did absolutely everything in her power to prevent making her fear of not being able to Jump again known – that the two of them might be stuck there until they could find a way to escape, or, much more likely, they met their deaths.

  She almost screamed in joy when she felt the time stream lap at her consciousness. It was so weak, and she just somehow knew this was it. Now or never. Stay here or let it carry her to whichever time it chose. It scared her, to be in such little control over her own destiny. But she would prefer either time to this one, and if she could just take William with her, she swore she would look after him for as long as he wished.

  “William, our ride is here,” she said gently as she reached out with her mind, feeling the now familiar sensation of the time stream. It truly felt like being immersed in a river, and carried along with the flow.

  All she could think about was him, and taking him with her, praying to a God she no longer believed in that she could. She reached ou
t to embrace him, a movement he flinched away from at first, breaking her heart even further, before he ultimately accepted it and held her right back.

  She was eternally grateful when the dank prison faded away to be replaced with the now-familiar white walls of Station Three, and with that realization came a feeling of great security. She glanced down, frantic to see if William had come with her, even though she already knew he had by the way she could still feel him gripping her, never wanting to let her go again.

  No matter how often the scientists on Station Three analyzed the data from the signals they picked up that day, or the numerous tests they performed on both Melanie and William, they were never able to explain how Melanie had been able to bring William along with her. The theory that eventually prevailed conjectured she was somehow able to toss him into the time stream along with herself. Melanie had been unable to convince herself that her entire journey had not held a semblance of spirituality to it along with the science – how else could she explain her constant proximity to William whenever she shifted? It was as if fate itself had decided she was to be his caregiver.

  As for Jerah, Melanie eventually decided the two of them were a good match. They were married exactly two years from the date of their first meeting.

  No matter how long she waited, the time stream never came for her again, and her hope that she might be able to return home one more time, or at least have a choice as to which time she called home, faded. Even though, as the years went on, she became more and more certain she was meant to remain on Station Three, she always resented that the choice had been taken from her.

  But she had a son who had given up on hope, and a husband who had given up on love. She had been able to bring light into their worlds, and into her own. Due to her unique experience, she enjoyed a long and successful career as an historian. That was good enough for her.

  Melanie, now old and gray, watched the live footage of the first humans setting foot on Earth with a soft smile.

  About the Author

  Karen Lofgren has been writing since she was in third grade. She attended Knox College where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. She is the author of several science fiction and fantasy works, including the urban fantasy Imagine Someday and the epic space opera saga The Souls of the Stars. She lives in Missouri with her pet rats.

  If you enjoyed Past, Present, and Future, please consider leaving a review and checking out Karen Lofgren’s other works, available now from Loyalty Press!