Microstory 218: Friendly Fire (Part III)

Part I: Triple Threat

Part II: Wreckless

When I was in elementary school, I had a best friend. He and I did everything together in the beginning, but with each passing year, we grew further and further apart. I was more into sports, and he started not liking the outdoors so much, so we stopped having all that much in common. A few years ago, much to the joy of all my girlfriends, I finally signed up for Facebook. I don’t use it all that much, but a lot of people prefer it to any other form of communication. The other day, my former best friend, who I hadn’t so much as spoken to since early in high school, popped up on a list of people I may know. He was the only person on my list who I chose to send a friend request to. Everyone else had friended me instead. After he accepted, I browsed through his profile page, and discovered that we both ended up living in the same city. He had moved recently, and didn’t know anybody else, so I told them that he could call me if he ever needed help with anything. I didn’t think he would take me up on it, but then he calls me this morning. He’s just been in a car accident and is sort of freaking out, asking me if I know of any lawyers that would be cheaper than the ones at my firm. His license plate tags are out of date, he can’t find his registration, and he thinks his turn signal light wasn’t working. He thinks he’ll be the one at fault since his black truck looks menacing. I don’t remember him being so dramatic. I don’t have anything to do today, so of course I decide to go down and help him out, pro bono. I’m driving down the road, just as a I normally would, but I notice the heat gauge thingy is all the way up to the H. It’s not all that hot outside, so I don’t believe it should be like that, but I don’t know anything about cars, so I ignore it and hope everything is fine. It isn’t. Just as I’m turning onto the last street, and can see the accident up ahead, my feet start to feel warm. Then the floor catches on fire. The floor..freaking..catches on fire. What the hell am I supposed to do?

Part IV: Police Brutality
Part V: Bad Thoughts

Microstory 217: Wreckless (Part II)

Part I: Triple Threat

I grew up on a farm, and so I’ve been driving heavy machinery since I was eleven years old. When I moved into the city, about the only thing I could do to make money was driving. I drove a cross country truck for a couple years, a cab for a couple more, and I even spent several months as a chauffeur for fancy people. But at the end of the day, I decided to go with tow trucks. I looked into a few different companies, but landed on one that requires every driver to have experienced precisely zero vehicular collisions in their lifetime. I’ve always been a pretty outgoing guy, but I’ve also been told that I have a very calming and comforting voice. They never send me out to tow vehicles that have been abandoned for one reason or another. No, I’m the dedicated people person. Whenever the company gets a call from someone who sounds particularly frustrated or distraught, or if it’s a repossession with a strong likelihood of encountering the owner, I go in. And man, do I love what I do. For me, this is just any other day, but for our clients, this could be an extreme inconvenience. It’s my job to get them where they’re going safely, making sure that the process is as smooth as possible, and I take it very seriously. These aren’t just numbers on a clipboard; these are people, and their feelings matter. Today is a weird one, though. The call doesn’t go through dispatch; it goes straight to my cell phone. I remember immediately the man on the other end of the line, along with his little red sedan. I didn’t have to work on his car when we first met. He had run over a cooler that had fallen onto the highway. He thought that it had punctured something under his car, but the fluid appeared to have been coming from the cooler instead. Still, we kind of hit it off, and I gave him my card. Now he’s a bit frenetic, but he says something about hitting two cars at the same time, and that there was a pedestrian in the middle of it. I hop into my truck and carefully speed off. I’m nearing the intersection, close enough to see what the client is talking about, when a bus runs a red light and crashes into me, costing me my job.

Part III: Friendly Fire

Part IV: Police Brutality

Part V: Bad Thoughts

Microstory 216: Triple Threat (Part I)

I step out of my house and climb into my car. I’m just about to turn the ignition when I stop myself. It’s a waste of gas and electricity, especially for my crappy old car, to go a few blocks. So I get back out and start walking. As I’m nearing my destination, I realize how great I feel. I’ve always wanted to get in better shape. Why am I even so much as entertaining the idea of going out for the sole purpose of buying chocolate? No. I’m better than this. I smile proudly as I pass the store. I almost wave to it, but there are people around, and I already feel a bit out of place. I only go a couple of miles, and I’m sure people walk those kind of distances on the regular, but it feels far to me. I’m waiting patiently at a crosswalk, farther than I’ve ever walked from my house. In fact, I’ve never been to this part of town. Everything I need is either closer or in a different direction. Still, it’s lights. I know how to navigate traffic lights. The indicator changes from the redish-orange hand to the whitish figure in midstride. I’m noting that the white van to my right is inching just a little too much, but I keep an eye on it, and prepare to walk briskly. It’s not enough. I could have either raced across, or raced back, but I panic and end up just trying to run away from it. The little red sedan to my left that’s trying to turn right is completely missing its mark, and is heading for me as well. The driver seems distracted. Now I really need to get back to my first corner, but I can’t think straight. I don’t walk. I never walk. I’m not a walker! Why do people walk so much? This is stupid! Why even try to exercise when nonsense like this is going to happen? A black truck coming from the opposite direction of the sedan, and trying to turn left is coming for me as well. That’s when my true acute stress response kicks in and I freeze, mentally resigned to the fact that one of these vehicles is going to crash into my fragile fat body and take my life away. But I do manage to keep my eyes open, and use them to witness an insane miracle. The corner of the white van turning left hits the red sedan turning right from the adjacent street. The black truck from oncoming traffic turning left hits the red sedan and the white van. All of this forms an untouched triangle of safety of which I am in the middle.

Part II: Wreckless
Part III: Friendly Fire
Part IV: Police Brutality
Part V: Bad Thoughts

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 30, 2054

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Mr. Halifax merged his graveyard with Leona’s prison suite and swept her away to the garden inside of the hospital where she and Mateo had first met. He was waiting there for her so that they could get some rest and talk in private. “Ello, love,” she said, in her best Australian accent.

“How did he treat you?”

“Like I was the most important person in the world.”

“Did he hurt you? Assume the meaning of the word hurt to be extremely broad.”

“I’m fine, Mateo,” she said comfortingly.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Horace asked you out when you two were younger? That’s a pretty important detail to leave out while he’s trying to kill us.”

She dismissed this, “for Horace Reaver, the day he asked me out was one of the most important days of his life. But for me...it was Tuesday.”

“I’ve heard you say that before. What does it mean?”

“It means that I don’t recall Reaver asking me out because he was a kid back then, and we’ve done so many things since. Lots of people asked me out. You can’t expect me to remember every single one of them.”

“That’s one of your rules,” Mateo pointed out.

“It’s two separate rules, actually. Keep track of everyone you meet,” she paraphrased, “and treat them with respect, because they may return later.”

“I’m the poster child for that,” an eavesdropper said. It was hard to tell how old people were these days, but he was probably well past what used to be considered midlife.

“Do we know you?” Leona asked.

“You do not,” the man replied. “But he does.”

Mateo squinted to get a better look at him. “Kyle?”

“Indeed.”

“Kyle?” Leona repeated. “He’s the one who was with you in the cemetery when you first disappeared, yeah?”

“I was,” Kyle confirmed.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to apologize.”

“I don’t remember you doing anything wrong.”

Kyle began his story, “after I watched you quantum leap in front of my eyes, I became pretty unstable.”

“I remember. I’m the one who should apologize. Again.”

“I ended up having to live in a facility so that I could find my way back to reality,” Kyle continued. “A part of me didn’t believe him, but I met a kid in there who claimed to be from an alternate timeline. I can’t say for sure how much was a coincidence, or if any of it was orchestrated, but he certainly opened my eyes to some things.”

“Kyle...” Mateo tried to say.

“I took little Horace under my wing and we helped each other. Despite my recovery, I ended up maintaining my position that I witnessed one of my friends time travel from a cemetery. I had to keep my knowledge secret from everyone, of course, but I did keep in contact with Reaver. In two-thousand-twenty-one, you asked me to drive you to the train station. You lied about where you were going, to everyone, but Horace figured it out, and found a way to sabotage your train so that it was on that bridge at the very right moment. I didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but I’m not going to lie and say I thought he just wanted to talk. I knew he was your enemy, and I didn’t ask him his intentions. It was that failure that convinced him his only course of action was to become rich and famous to win Leona’s heart. Even after realizing that he wanted to run you over with a train, I provided legal advice as he was trying to start his business. He had some pretty radical ideas, but as you know, it’s because he’s literally seen the future. He wanted to have control over this new future, but even with all his foreknowledge, he couldn’t go it alone. I was there. I helped create the man you know today.

“We worked together for ten years until he kidnapped your family. I’m not saying I’m a good person, but that definitely did cross a line. I finally felt strong enough to break ties, so we parted ways, and I haven’t seen him since. But I still need to show you remorse for my actions. I’m glad to see that he kept failing. I just wish I hadn’t enabled him to hurt so many other people on our way here.”

“You’re right,” Mateo said.

“I’m right about what?” Kyle asked.

“You’re right that you’re the poster child for there being consequences for dismissing an acquaintance.”

“I shouldn’t have told Horace about your train.”

“I shouldn’t have killed his wife.” Mateo stood up and gave Kyle a hug. “I forgive you. And I’m sorry for not checking in on you more than just the one time.”

Kyle smiled and began to walk away.

“Hey, you’re not one of us, are you?” Leona called up to him.

Kyle just lifted his hand and waved to them once without turning around.

Mateo looked over to his love. “We should probably mark that down as a maybe. Just in case.”

Leona stood up and straightened her clothes. “Everyone is a maybe.”

A Stonehenge doorway of three stones appeared down the promenade. “I was thinking, should we get back in touch with Duke Andrews? It’s been a while.”

“He died of an age-related condition several years ago, Mateo. Keep up.”

“Oh no, that’s sad. What about the Colorado nurse who gave me the leg cast a month ago? Or the nurse who took a blood sample from me in this very hospital way back on my second day?”

“We’re not doing greatest hits. If they come back, we just need to be ready.”

“Are you sure? She may still be working here.”

“Let it go.”

They walked through the stones and teleported to Stonehenge. This time, it looked more or less as Mateo remembered it from internet photos in his original time period. The Delegator was pointing to another opening that served as a portal to a beach. “Visiting Hours have begun,” was all he said.

Mateo and Leona continued talking to each other without saying a word to The Delegator. This was just sometimes how they traveled now. Mateo was worried that his third grade teacher might show up at any moment, but Leona assured him that such a thing was unlikely.

Guard Number One was waiting for them on the beach, in full uniform. “Welcome back to Easter Island.”

“Are you really going to leave Reaver’s prison cube here?”

“Seems as good a place as any.”

“What exactly is that magical pit down there?”

“I’ve not been informed,” One said with the air of honesty. “But I’m sure the explanation is very exciting.”

“How’s your husband?” Leona asked.

“Great,” he replied. “The powers that be took us to the past for a few months, but realized that this was a problem since we were trying to be in a same-sex relationship. When I’m not on shift for Reaver or Ulinthra, we live in the 23rd century. We have two beautiful children.”

“That’s lovely,” Leona said.

“Ulinthra is locked up too? She was doing better.”

“Not good enough, I guess,” One said. “Another salmon team was dispatched to bring her in. She was considerably easier, and agreed to go quietly. I think they told her something about what she did in another timeline.”

“Oh right, yeah. All those murders. Yikes.”

“So,” One said with excitement. “Would you rather hear about your reward for capturing Reaver, or go down and speak with him first?”

Mateo and Leona looked at each other. “We have no need to speak with him again,” she said.

“It’s over,” Mateo finished.

“You should know that he managed to get some kind of message outside. He’s apparently sending it through time with the hope that it falls into your hands at some point. I’ve been told that we can’t stop it.”

He was referring to the device Daria gave to Mateo which he ended up taking to the year 3118. It caused an explosion that ultimately resulted in Mateo inadvertently taking a pathogen back to 2025. And this had caused his mother’s death. “We can’t stop that,” Mateo said quietly. He had grown more accustomed to his situation, and had a better understanding of time travel protocols. “It’s going to have already happened. Just like when you and the other guards later take Horace back in time to attend Daria’s funeral.”

“Very good, Mateo,” Leona said, nudging him with her elbow. “You have less time travel tense trouble than you used to.”

“Wibbly-wobbly, time-wimey, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“All right so, Christmas presents,” One said, clapping his hands together. “I give you...” he lifted his hands towards them like he was bestowing a great power. “...the ability to survive in spaceships.”

“What does that mean?” Leona asked. How did she not already know?

“In 2036, you were desperate to get back to Earth from the moon before midnight. You were worried you would reenter the timestream in the vacuum. You were right, but not anymore. If you ever need to go offworld, and it will take you longer than a day, you’ll jump back to the ship, no matter how far it’s gone.”

“Great, thanks,” Mateo said, unenthusiastically.

“It’s 2054, man. This power is becoming necessary. You didn’t think you would stay in the solar system forever, did you?”

“Can’t they just take us through one of Saga and Vearden’s doors? Or with The Graveyard? Or via Stonehenge?”

“You would have to ask one of the choosing ones.”

“Well, right now, let’s just get back to our family.”

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Reavers Wobble: Second Chance (Part IV)

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Horace Reaver was in prison. He had spent the better part of a year dealing with the hassle of court. He had to sit through every single day of the proceedings twice, but there was nothing he could do increase his chances of winning. Even knowing the line of questioning ahead of time wasn’t going to help. Sure, he could respond to their questions succinctly and without surprise, but there was no difference in the answers. The fact was that everything they were saying about him was true. They had even left out a few of the awful details. He really had caused a car accident that resulted in his wife’s death. Following that, he really had purposely given his now enemy, Mateo an exorbitant amount of hospital drugs that resulted in his extremely unpleasant overdose. And after that, he did indeed kill everyone in the immediate area. During the case, the truth about Allen’s death came to light. The authorities had figured out where the body was literally buried. Yes, Horace’s life could get no worse, and he made a point of expressing this to the wall in front of him in solitary confinement.

“I’ve seen worse, father,” a voice came from the opposite corner.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Melly.”

“What?”

“I’m a time traveler. The Melly you left behind when you were sent to the clink disappeared from foster care, and will eventually become me.”

Horace did not respond.

“Do they still call this the clink?”

“Why are you here?”

“Is that any way to greet me?”

“I do not know you. My daughter’s a toddler. I have no idea what you’ve been through. I clearly didn’t raise you, and hopefully you’re nothing like me.” He turned his head away. “You should stay away from me.”

“You don’t even want to know why I’m here? And you aren’t even slightly interested in hearing what I’ve been through?”

“Yes. I’m a terrible father. Shocker. The mass murderer makes another bad decision, and you’re questioning it.”

“You weren’t necessarily a bad father. I mean, I don’t remember the first three years of my life, but they seemed fine. You didn’t have a chance to prove any different. We will never know...”

Horace rested against his palm and pointed to his chest with the other hand, piercing Melly with his eyes. “Again, I’m a mass murderer. I’m a bad person, so I could not have been a good father. Whatever you’ve been through, wherever you lived, it was better than what I could have provided you with.”

Melly sat up straighter and did her best impression of an aristocrat, “I live a life of luxury.”

“Is that so? The powers that be gave you some kind of lovely form of time travel, did they? Only take you to the good times?”

“They didn’t give me anything. You did.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not a salmon, father,” Melly said sweetly. “I’m one of them. I’m a choosing one. I’m part of the group of people who jack with time. I know the person doing this to you personally. He’s kind of a dick, I’ll give you that. I would do it myself, and make it easier on you, but I’m not allowed.”

Horace just stared at his young adult daughter, not having a clue what to say.

Melly decided to continue, “that’s how it works. The child of two activated salmon will be born as a choosing one.”

Horace nearly cut her off, “Leona was not a salmon.”

Melly laughed disturbingly. “She was. She just never told you. She had her reasons.”

Horace tilted his lizard brain. “You’re not lying.”

“I’m not.”

“How did I not notice?”

“Not all salmon have long term patterns. Some of you are thrown to a different time and kept there. Some are just dropped off briefly so they can complete one task. One time, I sent a late 21st century photographer back to Ancient Egypt so that she could document the building of the pyramids.”

“Huh?”

Melly looked to the side as she was thinking out loud, “but I think I’m going to change her pattern and send her to other planets in the new timeline.”

“I don’t care about that bitch! Tell me what Leona’s pattern was!”

Melly jumped back into the conversation, “oh yes. She went to college in the 2150s. That’s how come she’s so smart.”

“I saw her diploma.”

She looked at him like he was a dum-dum. “Yeah, we faked that. Well, I mean we had someone fake it. Choosing ones don’t do anything for themselves. That’s, like, the whole point.”

“That’s the point? You screw with innocent people’s lives just so you can get random things done...but not have to actually do it? You have control over time and space, you have access to infinite technology...”

“We’re also immortal,” Melly added.

He didn’t know about that. “You’ve cracked immortality,” Horace finished. “You could do so much more. You could probably alter history just by thinking about it. Why go through all this trouble? Why recruit people to do your dirty work? Why hire a human when it would be cheaper and easier to invest in a proverbial machine?”

Melly acted like she was contemplating his question, but seemed pretty blasé about it. “Because human involvement makes it more interesting.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You seem to be under the impression that we have some sort of goal in mind; that we’re...looking for the best possible outcome. We’re not doing that at all.” She shrugged, almost excitedly. “We’re just having fun.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, I don’t know everything about the history of salmon and the choosing ones. In fact, I’m not sure which came first. We could be the result of future tech, we could be some kind of shadow species that evolved alongside regular humans; I don’t even care to find out. What I can tell you is that you people read books, watch plays, go see movies, and sometimes you even kill each other for sport. Well that’s boring to people like us. Time is our entertainment.” She took a moment to choose her words. “We just like to see what you’re gonna do.”

“That’s terrible,” was all that Horace could say after minutes of doing his best to absorb the information without having a heart attack.

She shrugged again. “If you were one of us, you would feel the same way.”

“You’re right,” Horace agreed. “I would feel that way. But I’m a freak. I’m literally insane, Mel. I’ve killed thousands of people. Rewind or not, I enjoy taking lives. I killed my whole fucking family. Then I went back in time, and ended up killing them again years later, but this time around, there was no going back. I’m the bad guy of the story. Are you telling me that out of all of you,” he waved his finger in her general direction, indicating a theoretical group, “there’s not one person who wants to do the right thing? There’s not one single person who says, ‘hey! Let’s put right what once went wrong’? Why do I find that hard to believe?”

She felt no further need to explain her and her people’s intentions. “We don’t, but I think you might.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can modify patterns. I can send you back in time, but more that just the one day. I can give you a real second chance.”

He peered at her suspiciously. “How far back?”

“To when you were a teenager, before you started killing. Well, except for your mother that one time when you were a child, but I think we can let that slide. You could save her,” she pitched. “You could stop my mother from being anywhere near New Jersey.”

“I thought choosing ones couldn’t be in charge of their relatives.”

“They can’t. The others are gonna be pissed. We have rules. But most of them are arbitrary, and they can be subverted, just like when a normal person breaks a rule. Other things will be different. I’ll be making some other adjustments to the timeline, but there will also be consequences that are out of my hands. I don’t know what,” she looked around the room before continuing, “but isn’t anything better than this shithole?”

Horace slid his back against the wall and got to his feet. “Do it.”

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Microstory 215: Okay, Phone

Jan Albani was being sexually assaulted. The stranger in the zorro mask cliché held her down by her wrists. Miniscule holes in the kitchen tile grout took hold of her hair as she threshed around, trying to get free. He jammed his knuckles into her side, causing her to twist away on reflex. Her knee flew up and knocked his leg off balance, dropping him down on top of her. Jan called upon all of her might and pushed him to the side, slamming her palm into his nose before rushing into the other room. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, leaving a smear of his blood behind, but the broken nose wasn’t stopping him. He tackled her as she was trying to input her passcode. When she was fell to the carpet, her phone bounced under the bed. “Okay phone,” she tried to call out, “call nine-one-one!” The voice activated assistant dinged onto the screen and informed her that it was contacting emergency services. The man laughed and hung up her phone before sending it smashing against the wall. Jan continued to struggle against him, searching desperately for another opening to incapacitate the stranger and get away. “No!” she screamed repeatedly, pleading for him to spare her. But he just continued to laugh. They began to hear a noise from his chest. It sounded like a voice, but it was very faint. He continued to hold her down, but sat up to take a look at his phone. The screen shown into his beautiful green eyes. Jan couldn’t help but notice that they looked very kind, and that she might find him attractive under normal circumstances. Come to think of it, they were actually quite familiar, as was his jawline. She could not remember his name, but she had several times rejected his advances at work when she was handing out the mail on his floor.

“Mona? Hello?” he asked into the phone. When Jan had tried to call the police from her phone, it had also activated his artificial assistant, and called one of his contacts automatically. “Honey?” That was his mistake. He should have dropped the call immediately.

Jan cried out, “help! He’s hurting me!” Her attacker had run all the way out of the house in fear before she had the chance to sit up and catch her breath.

Microstory 214: Xenautopsy

To the alien’s surprise, and Noah’s relief, Olivia somehow understood what he wanted her to do. She reached into the back of his pants, pulled out the gun, and shot the alien in the face several times. Noah grabbed the body before it could tip over the railing of the bridge. “I’m glad you realized that I stood between you and it because I wanted you to use my gun, not because I was trying to protect a damsel in distress.” He turned his phone on and started up the recording app before taking out his knife and hovering over the alien’s body. He sliced it open and began the examination. “It is unsettling how humanoid the subject is. Its skin is more grayish, and less translucent. It is more elastic, but tougher on the whole. Two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes. The organs are extremely difficult to reach; each protected by its own shell. The shells are fibrous like ligaments, but harder like bones. I realize as I’m sitting here that, since this is our very first encounter with this species, I cannot be sure that it is extraterrestrial. It could be the result of genetic engineering on human subjects, which would explain how much biology it shares with us. Assuming the subject did not originate on Earth, I must assume some kind of panspermia by a common ancestor. My instinct is that this happened naturally, but I cannot rule out the possibility that an ancient ancestor seeded both of our species with intent. Due to the subject’s clear evolutionary advancement, along with likely technological superiority, I must also recognize the potentiality that the subject is our genetic forefather. Despite our progress historically being held back by religious intolerance and stubborn royalty, we are unlikely to have evolved first. Lastly, I entertain the idea that the subject was responsible for the plane crash that was survived only by me and one other. Since we were unable to communicate with the outside world, I am just glad that there happened to be an armed air marshal on board. We will make our way through the trees to civilization with the subject, hoping to share our knowledge with some kind of authority.”

“How would a shoe salesman know how to perform an autopsy on an alien?” Olivia asked.

“I read a lot,” Noah replied.

Microstory 213: Store Front

Every day for a year, I would pass by a strip mall on my way to work as a lifeguard. It was all very nondescript, and I never really paid attention to it. But then one day, I noticed that the name of one of the stores had changed. I couldn’t remember what it was before, but it was now Happy Pets. I thought I might play with the puppies on my way back, but ended up not having time. The next day, the storefront had changed again; this time to a place called Brilliant Treasures. That was weird, but I figured the rental agreement fell through after the sign was put up, and so it was passed to the next one in line. I looked in the window, because it was only open while I was at work, and I could see a ton of knick knacks and other random crap that no sane person would want. Then the day after that, it had changed to Silly Toys. Same thing; stocked completely full with inventory. Each day following, it was an entirely new store. Winter Bundles; Gatlin Gunns; Just Underwear, Nothing Butt. I tried stopping people on the street to ask them if they had any clue what was going on, but they either ignored me, or hadn’t noticed a change. And no matter when I tried, I could never be there during business hours. They would always adjust the hours to be closed, as if someone was trying to keep me away. After months of this, something even more unusual happened; the day’s store was called Valdemar Bristow Gas and Lighting. This was ridiculous, because no one in the world other than me could possibly have that name, and I would never have anything to do with gas or lights. As luck would have it, however, I was able to enter this time. There were several desks on the floor, arranged like a military recruitment office. Only one of them was occupied, by a woman who greeted me like she knew who I was. Without saying a word, I walked into the back and sat down in my office that was already decorated with some of my things. This is my life now. I sell lighting fixtures and natural gas, and I am somehow very good at it.