The Legend of Things Past (Beyond Pluto SciFi Futuristic Aventures Book 1) (8 page)

Donovan had thought it was a beautiful notion—saving humans
from themselves. But now, as he stared at the ceiling of his room at Fort
Belvoir, he had to wonder, who would save the saviors?

Donovan dragged himself away from the memories of his
grandfather to focus on the present.
How was he going to clear his name?

Donovan pulled up the second file General McGregor had
attached to his watch.
The Laws of Time Travel.

Too tired to read through it all, Donovan hit the audio button.
A simulation of a human voice emanated from the watch.

The laws writ herein shall be the sovereign law of
temporal manipulation in the United States of America.

No individual or organization shall own a temporal
manipulation unit outside the express permission of the T.M.A.C.P.U.

There shall be no messages sent through time except in
states of extreme emergency such as nationwide or worldwide catastrophe.

There shall be no persons sent through time except in
states of extreme emergency such as nationwide or worldwide catastrophe. A
person or persons can only be sent through time if their presence cannot cause
further harm to the future.

Only one person can be sent through time from any given
point in time.

Only one person can be sent through time to resolve a
specific issue. That person can only be sent once. If that person fails to
resolve the issue that he or she was assigned, the government may not send that
person or any other through time to resolve the same problem.

Travelers shall not reveal their identities to any person
in another time unless strictly necessary to the task they are assigned to
complete.

Violation of these laws may cause irreversible and/or
irreparable damage to history.

Violators shall be punished to the fullest extent of the
law.

Well, that seemed simple enough. Don’t mess with time unless
the world’s going to end. Don’t tell anyone you’re from a different time
period. Easy.

Except the fact that it would be difficult for Donovan to get
any information from his grandfather without revealing who he was. He’d get
very little from Tobias as a stranger, but if Tobias knew that Donovan was his
future grandson.

But the law was clear. It had to be strictly necessary.
Donovan could probably get what he wanted without letting his grandfather
know—it would just be more challenging.

Donovan rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted from the trip in
the time machine. Adding the stress of finding out that the government
suspected his grandfather of attempting to kill off the human race made his
eyes droop heavily. He wanted to go to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t stop
racing. All he could think about was how he was going to talk to his
grandfather. What approach would he take?

Nothing came to mind.

Donovan’s stomach growled and only then did he realize that
he was starving. He got up and stretched. He readjusted his watch. He had
followed the technological development of watches for the last twenty years,
buying new models each time they came out. He had watched them phase out in
favor of the more personal capabilities of Liao Inserts. No matter how
normalized Liao Inserts became, Donovan couldn’t talk himself into getting
them.

The halls of Fort Belvoir were much the same in this time as
they were in the future—long, narrow, and full of slide show pictures of
long-dead military women and men. Standard industrial carpet lined the floors.

Donovan followed the path that would lead to the cafeteria eighty-two
years from now, wondering if it had stayed in the same location all those years.
It had, but it would clearly be remodeled at least once before 2258 came around.
The one in the future was full of stainless steel surfaces and black granite
table tops. This one still had wood tables and chairs.

On one side of the room there was an old-school-style food-serving
area. People lined up with trays and the staff behind the counter scooped the
food out of deep dishes and plopped it onto their plates as they passed by.

On the other side was a full menu hanging from the ceiling
and a counter where you placed your order. Then the cooks made your food fresh.
Donovan headed in that direction, not too intrigued by the options he saw in
the tray line.

The cafeteria was just as crowded then as it would be in
Donovan’s time. All the tables were full and the kitchen staff moved at a
feverous but controlled pace. Donovan wasn’t sure how the meal plans were
structured in 2176, but he knew he’d have free food while he was here, so he didn’t
bother trying to find out.

Donovan stepped into line behind a man with brown hair. He
was average height and, from his uniform, Donovan could tell he was a Captain.
When the man sensed Donovan come up behind him, he turned around and gave him a
friendly nod.

When Donovan was next in line, still pondering the menu,
wondering what was good, someone spoke from behind him.

“You should go for the barbeque burger. It never fails.”

Donovan turned around to see a stunningly attractive woman.
She had on a blue vest over a white t-shirt and a pair of fitted black pants. Everything
she wore had dozens of pockets. She was tall, and her muscles were clearly
visible through her clothes.

Donovan smiled at her automatically, eyes drawn to her
smooth brown skin and almond shaped eyes. Her black hair was cropped short, stopping
around her ears and had dark blue streaks running through it. Instantly,
Donovan was reminded of some jungle cat like a tiger, something both powerful
and beautiful. The way she held herself, so balanced, told Donovan that she was
probably a good fighter.

“Is that so?” Donovan asked. “I think I’ll give it a try.
Thanks for the recommendation.”

She smiled, flashing perfect white teeth. “No problem. I’m Tracee
Parker by the way. Brigadier General. Army Specialist.”

Donovan’s smile widened. “Well, what a coincidence.” He
shook her proffered hand. “I’m also a Brigadier General and Army Specialist.
Donovan Knight.”

“Oh!” She seemed surprised. “What brings you to Fort
Belvoir?”

“A special case. Can’t talk about it.”

“Ah, I see,” Tracee said.

By then it was Donovan’s turn to order. He followed Tracee’s
recommendation.

As he took his order number, she said, “You won’t regret
it.” She winked at him.

Donovan’s extremities tingled. He smiled. “Thanks a lot.”

He sat down to wait for his food, played around on his
watch, and looked at Tracee out of the corner of his eye. She was interesting
to say the least. He wondered how strong she really was, what her specialties
were. When she turned in his direction he quickly redirected his gaze back to
his watch, pretending to scroll through some articles.

When he looked back up she was talking animatedly to another
soldier. She was still chatting with him when Donovan’s order was up—they
seemed to know each other well. He retrieved his food and sat back down. He had
planned to eat in his room and go to sleep, but he didn’t feel so tired
anymore.

Tracee was still talking to the other solider when her own
order was ready. Donovan watched her grab her food and walk in his general
direction. His chest expanded. He looked down at his plate and took another
bite. When he looked up again, Tracee had passed his table and was headed out
the door.

The little bubble in his chest burst, leaving him feeling
disappointed. He ate the rest of his meal without distraction then returned to
his room. As he lay on the bed, eyes closed, waiting for sleep to overcome him,
he thought of his wife, her soft form and how she would be wondering where he
was.

He had never called her back. Would the General contact her?
No, probably not. He’d said that if Donovan was successful… then he’d never be
sent on this mission in the first place. He would change the future. His mind
bent at the thought of it.

If he stopped his grandfather from programming the Inserts
with the virus—if, in fact, that’s what he’d actually done—then he would never
get the virus and neither would anyone else. He would never get the strange
news after his first physical when he joined the army. The army would never
quarantine his house, would never scare his children. In the future, after
leaving his grandfather’s hospital room, he would go back to his wife.

A thought occurred to Donovan and he sat bolt upright.

What will happen to me? The me who’s sitting right here,
right now
?

There would be no future for him to go back to. If he
changed everything and was never sent to Fort Belvoir, then there would be two
of him when Donovan returned to 2158. Unless… Donovan’s brain seemed to twist
in his skull, trying to grasp information just out of his reach. He tried to
remember everything his grandfather had ever told him about time travel.

Then it came to him. If he was successful on this mission,
this version of himself, the flesh and blood person sitting there, would
disappear as if he’d never really existed. It would be as good as being dead.

Suddenly, Donovan felt trapped. The room felt too small and
he couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in there for him to draw breath.
He got out of the bed and stumbled to the floor, the energy gone from his body.

He understood that he was having a panic attack and crawled
to the bathroom. There had to be a paper bag in there somewhere. He found one
in the cabinet under the sink and opened the top, fingers fumbling. He breathed
into the bag, his chest rising a falling rapidly.

You’re still alive. You’re still alive.

After a few moments, he calmed down and wiped the sweat from
his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He walked back to the bed and collapsed
onto it. He made a concentrated effort not to think too deeply about the consequences
of this assignment. He shuddered, feeling weak.

No more thoughts came to him as he lay there. He slipped
into a stupor, mind blank with fatigue. He fell asleep almost immediately.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world
around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely
places.”

—Roald Dahl

May 5, 2176

Fort Belvoir, VA

Donovan Knight

Donovan awoke to the sound of a bell. It was his watch. It
was ringing. He had slept soundly, with no dreams. It was the kind of sleep
that went by quickly—when he woke up he wasn’t immediately aware that it was
the next day. For a moment he was surprised to see that he was not in his own
bed. Then the events of the previous day flooded his memory. A sinking feeling
dripped into his stomach.

Donovan closed his eyes again, not yet wanting to face the
day. Finally, he answered his watch.

“Brigadier General Knight.” Donovan recognized the voice of
General Umar.

“Yes, sir?” The remnants of sleep colored his voice.

“Report to my office at 1300 hours. You have five clean uniforms
waiting for you outside your door.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need you focused, Knight. See you in twenty minutes.”

Donovan hung up and let his arm drop by his side. He sighed.
He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to save the world if it meant he
would lose himself. He wished he hadn’t been so quick to accept this assignment
without having more information. He had trusted General McGregor too much. He
would never have expected him to do this.

Donovan had said he was ready to sacrifice everything, that
he was willing to die—and he was. But not like this. It would be okay to die if
his wife and children remembered him. This wasn’t anything like that—he would
just disappear as if he’d never been and then no one he cared about would
remember him at all.

There would be a whole different copy of himself in the
future, completely different from who he was now. In a sense, it wouldn’t even
be the same person.

Donovan dragged himself from the bed and into the shower. He
stretched under the water, working out the tight kinks that had formed in his
neck and back. When he was clean he cracked the front door and spotted a white
cloth bag. He tugged it inside and shut the door. Just as General Umar had
said, it contained five identical uniforms, each signifying his rank with a
blue and white striped pin and a gold star.

He pulled on the uniform and checked his appearance in the
mirror. He stared into his own blue-grey eyes, which looked tired.

You’re going to die.

The morbid thought was unexpected and he banished it from
his mind. He pocketed his watch and left the room.

Donovan walked into General Umar’s office at exactly 1300
hours. A group had already assembled there. The first person he noticed was
Tracee Parker, the woman he had met yesterday. He was both surprised and
pleased to see her there. Maybe he would get to learn more about her. He was
eager to test his own skills against hers. He hadn’t met very many female army
specialists before.

She gave him a small smile and a wink, a lock of blue hair
falling in front of her face. She pushed it back with a flip of her head. Only
after he had taken her in did he observe the others in the room.

There were three men, all with the rank of Lieutenant. One had
bright red hair and looked very young to be a Lieutenant. Freckles dotted his
small nose. Another had electric blue eyes and jet black hair that fell around
his ears. He ran his fingers through the curly locks, pushing the hair out of
his face. The last was short with brown hair and a large nose. They were all
very muscular and fully loaded with weapons. They had the full range of e-guns,
from stunners to rapid fire lethal shot guns.

There was also another woman, of the same rank as the men.
She was equally as fit and carried the most lethal weapons of the group. Her
dark brown hair was cut perfectly even and hung just above her shoulders.

General Umar sat behind his desk.

“Welcome, Brigadier General Knight. Now that you’re here we
can get started. Everyone take a seat.”

There were folding chairs spaced out at regular intervals
around the General’s desk. Donovan sat in the middle. Tracee sat next to him.
General Umar introduced the rest of the assembly. The redhead was Jonathan
Chaplain, the blue-eyed man, Eric Kirk, and the short man, Blaise Contreras.
The woman was Paula Kingston.

“Donovan, would you please play the brief for us?”

“Yes, sir.” He removed the watch from his wrist and laid it
flat on the General’s desk. Donovan tapped the play button of the brief’s
audio.

He leaned back in his chair and stared at General Umar’s
desk as the horror of the brief played all over again. He felt sick to his
stomach. When it was over he looked up. Everyone was looking at him. General
Umar cleared his throat.

“Well, you’ve heard it. Donovan Knight is an Army Specialist
from the year 2258. This is a mission that needs to be completed with the
utmost secrecy. You will have your headquarters here, on the fifty-fifth floor.
I may add or remove members of this team as necessary.”

“So wait,” Tracee said, “time travel…” she was shaking her
head.

“Yes,” General Umar said. “It’s real. It was invented some
years ago. Of course it cannot be public knowledge. No one can know that this
technology exists. Our job is to complete the mission while assuring the
stability of time. Everything must remain the same.”

With a look a Donovan he added, “Or mostly the same.”

Donovan was startled out of his dejected mood. So General
Umar had thought that far ahead. He knew what this would cost. Donovan wondered
if the others had realized it yet.

Probably not. They were still trying to wrap their minds
around the idea of time travel, let alone its implications.

“Parker, you’ll be in charge of all the travel details of
this mission. You will be the pilot of all vessels. You will also act as a
guard for Knight in cases of combat.”

Donovan shot him a displeased look.

“Not that he needs it,” the General added. “The rest of you
will serve as backup for Knight. You are to help him conduct searches and, if
necessary, you will help Parker to defend him. Protecting his life is a
priority. If he’s killed, our number one link to Tobias is lost. We’ll lose our
edge. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they all said in unison.

“Your first assignment is to conduct a search of Tobias’s home.
He just left town for a business trip in China. He does have surveillance in
his house. You’ll need to destroy any evidence that you were there. I’ll be
sending you his address. Approach from a distance. You’re dismissed.”

They filed out of the room. Tracee took the lead and
gestured for them to follow her. They crowded into the elevator in the hall
outside and went all the way to the basement.

The basement was where Fort Belvoir kept its fleet. There
were skycars, skycycles, jets, and space craft. All state-of-the-art vehicles
and vessels. Tracee led them to a small jetcar. It was a mix between a skycar
and a jet plane. It was slightly larger than a skycar but had the speed and
comfort of a jet. The sleek metal was a shiny silver but had blue stripes along
the short wings. Tracee pressed the button on her key and the jet beeped, much
like a skycar would. A set of stairs lowered to the ground from the right side.

The inside was all leather and pinewood surfaces. There were
two seats up front—for the pilot and copilot. Tracee sat in the pilot’s seat. Paula
took the copilot seat. The rest of the crew took seats in the back, each of
which was like a comfortable leather chair nailed down to the floor of the
jetcar. The seatbelt reminded Donovan of a child’s car seat. One strap came
from each side to buckle in the middle. Some inner mechanism pulled the belt
tight across his chest, keeping him securely in place.

Tracee turned on the engine and stood to face the rest of
them.

“Listen up,” she said. “While you’re on my aircraft, you are
to follow my orders at all times. In the event that I should become
incapacitated, the copilot will take over.”

Eric smirked. “We’re only going to search a house. It’s not
like we’re going into battle.”

“If Tobias is capable of infecting the human race with a
deadly virus, then who knows what else he’s capable of?” Tracee gave the man a
stern look. “We have no idea what defenses he has in his house. We have no idea
if this will escalate. We’ll aim to make this go as smoothly as possible, but
in the event that our plans fail, we need a chain of command in place while
aboard this vessel.”

“Yes, but…”

“That’s enough.” Tracee’s eyebrows dipped low in a forceful
warming, “That is the chain of command while aboard my jetcar. While on the
ground, Brigadier General Knight will take the lead and I will be second in
command. Is that understood?”

Something in the way Tracee stood, staring Eric down, made
him shut up and nod. Donovan was impressed. He felt that tingling in his
extremities that was becoming all too familiar.

When Tracee turned her back, the other guys fell into silent
fits of laughter. Eric’s ears turned red.

Tracee took the pilot’s seat and raised the aircraft from
the ground. It floated gently around the basement, passing all of the other
vessels as it looped up and around. Finally, they came to a huge slot in the
wall that led outside to ground level.

Tracee flew the jetcar straight ahead, picking up a massive
amount of speed all at once. Donovan was almost afraid that she would knock off
a mirror as they sped through the narrow opening. The jetcar made it safely out
and within seconds they were in the air, soaring above Fort Belvoir.

Tracee put his grandfather’s address into the navigation
system. Donovan wasn’t sure where his grandfather lived in this time period.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Atlanta, Georgia.”

The trip didn’t take long. Within an hour they had crossed
the border into the state. Tracee landed just outside the city, right at the
edge of the forest. She turned on the Mirage Builder installed on the vessel,
and it blended into its surroundings. To any passerby there was nothing more
there than trees, grass, and birds.

They walked the additional mile into the city using the navigation
system on Tracee’s watch. Once they reached the first tall skyscraper, Tracee
came to a halt.

“Tobias’s home is not far—about a mile southwest. From here,
we’ll head to the nearest rental skycar place. We’ll rent a vehicle and disguise
it with the Mirage Builder on my watch. We’re going to be in the renovation
business today. Once that’s done, we’ll enter the target’s house.”

She glanced at Donovan when she mentioned the target.
Everyone else was not so subtle—they all looked at him questioningly.

“What?” Donovan snapped.

“Well, this is your grandfather isn’t it?” Eric asked.

“What’s your point?”

“The point is,” Paula said, stepping forward, “whose side
are you really on? If you feel conflicted, we’d be more than happy to conduct
this search without you.”

Only in retrospect did his team’s random glances in his
direction and the whispers behind the hands become significant. He had been too
preoccupied with thoughts of his existence to notice that his peers didn’t
trust him.

You’re slipping Knight.
Donovan could hear General
McGregor’s voice in his head.

“Look,” he said. He looked each of them in the eye as he
spoke. “I’m risking my life for this mission. What do you think will happen to
me if we fail? That I’ll go back to my time-skipping happy life because my
grandfather managed to escape? My wife and children have this virus. When I
left, my wife was already sick. If we fail, my family dies and so do I.”

Donovan could see that they were less skeptical now. They
were ready to trust him enough to follow him into enemy territory, even if they
didn’t trust him implicitly. But Donovan couldn’t stop speaking, so caught up
in the emotion of what he was saying. It was as if saying it out loud finally
made it real.

“And if we succeed?” Donovan continued. “I still die. It’ll
change the future so that I was never raised by my grandfather—I’ll be an
entirely different person. In essence, the man who stands before you will no
longer exist. So no one gets to question my loyalty. I’m screwed either way.
But at least if we succeed my wife will still live. I may still meet her… She
may still give birth to the same children.”

Donovan realized that if he kept going his composure would
break.

“No one gets to question me.”

e stomped forward and they all stepped aside to let him
pass. He didn’t turn around to see if they had followed. He didn’t care. He
would get to the bottom of this whole fiasco with or without their help.

Moments later, he heard their footsteps behind him,
crunching through the underbrush.

Donovan searched for the nearest car rental business and put
the address in his watch’s navigation system. They arrived within minutes. Tracee
secured the skycar with the funds the military assigned to the mission. They
flew to a deserted alley with no windows and made sure the coast was clear
before using Mirage Builder to change the vehicle into a renovating team’s
skycar.

His grandfather’s house was huge—the size of a small
mansion. Donovan knew that his grandfather hated living up high in apartments.
He hated sharing space with other people. In the future, he convinced the local
government of Santa Monica to let him have his own property on the condition
that he used his land to grow food. Apparently, he’d been doing that a long
time.

Judging by the size of the place, they’d probably be there
all day. The front of the house was styled much in the way of old houses that
Donovan had seen in history books. It looked as if a mayor or senator had lived
here in 2020.