 
### Journey Through Time Part 1

#### By GJ Winters

#### Published by Publications Circulations LLC.

SmashWords Edition

All contents copyright (C) 2013 by Publications Circulations LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

**~ ~ ~ ~**

### The Smallest Giant

### Children of Time Part One

### 

### Chapter One

### Day Zero

WHEN CAROL WREN woke up at five in the morning for her two-mile run, she hadn't expected that the day would be any different from the others she normally experienced.

As a gym teacher in Bristol Area Middle School in Bristol, Pennsylvania, she knew all about school shootings, Amber Alerts and anything else that ensured children received a good education. Of all the teachers at the school, she had received the most training in what was euphemistically called "assault management."

This, Carol thought as she slid her shoes on, was just a clever way for petty politicians to describe the unnatural fixation some people seemed to have with ruining the lives of children who had never done anyone harm.

Well, Carol thought to herself with a grin, mostly never.

Kenneth Yardrow, a child in one of her morning gym classes, might be the exception to the rule.

Yesterday, he had been caught writing colorful monosyllabic words on the school lockers prior to homeroom. Even after he'd been scolded by the school's vice-principal, John Hoover, Kenneth had just sat in the chair smiling as though he didn't have a care in the world.

Kenneth always chose to sit out gym class, declaring it a waste of time. Rather than provoke an argument, which usually inspired him to commit yet another prank, Carol let Kenneth have his way. She knew that wouldn't go on much longer, yet she couldn't think of a thing that would resolve the solution.

No matter how much the school tried to reform him, Kenneth always did what he wanted.

That, she thought as she tied her brown hair back into a ponytail, might be the whole problem with the school system, not just in Bristol but everywhere.

She couldn't think of a way to solve it, much less explain the necessary changes that wouldn't cause the administrators to frown at her and shake their heads as if to say, she's only a woman. They didn't dare say that these days, at least not since Wanda Tanner, the school nurse, had filed suit against the district after a seventh-grade history teacher had harassed her.

There were some days that Carol wanted to be rid of the entire bloody system that didn't seem to care about anything other than test scores and corporate profits.

This, she decided, was one of those days.

Stepping out her front door, she observed that the rain had come and gone the previous night.

The pre-dawn air had a cool, moist taste to it. It reminded Carol of the days she had spent as a child in rural North Carolina. The sky overhead remained dark, with a bare hint of light that would soon creep over the horizon. A silver crescent moon hung in the sky, obscured at times by gray clouds. The stars shone particularly bright that morning, the light from millions of years ago from another part of the galaxy only now just arriving.

All of it provided illumination to light Carol's way.

THE FIRST STEP'S both the easiest and the hardest.

She had been told this by her personal trainer after spending seven months rehabbing a knee injury. Her commitment to take the first step-figuratively and literally-always proved to be half the battle required for physical exertion. Once taken, the first step invariably led to another, and then countless more, all originating from that initial single step.

While this morning felt no different than any other, in the back of her mind remained the sheer agony that had come with twisting her knee out of place.

All it had taken was one errant misstep straight down into an abandoned groundhog's hole. Caught in mid-stride, her leg suddenly wrenched, tearing tendon inside her knee.

She hadn't screamed, at least not until she pulled her leg out.

There, grotesquely attached to her hip, protruded a limb that she didn't recognize.

Never before had she seen anything as twisted to the side as her leg had been.

She had always wondered in the back of her mind if this would happen, despite the precautions taken. She had always stretched appropriately during her pre-run warm-ups and knew the route she ran by heart. She even made sure to stay on the road's concrete shoulder.

THE FEAR THAT came with the recollection of her injury dissipated when she took the first stride leading out of her driveway and onto the country back road that lay parallel to her property.

Before long, she found herself running along the road, her sneakers pounding the ground in a soft, steady cadence that was reassuring.

Both knees felt the same that morning, and for this, Carol felt grateful. Her knee ached most of the time. Other times, it throbbed just enough to be a bother. Her doctor had told her that her running days might have to end soon, but she didn't believe him.

One step, and then another.

A short time passed before her breathing became heavy.

She remembered the lesson she'd learned in the Air Force, taught to her by a mean-spirited man with wide, thin metal glasses. Mind over matter, he'd said. A person could force themselves to breathe normally if they focused. Oxygen would reach the muscles, staving off cramps.

She only had to focus upon it.

She concentrated now, running down the side of the road.

One breath in, one breath out.

Her feet moved without her thinking about it.

Before long, the running came easier.

After her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the usual sights along the road.

The painted white line marking off where the shoulder began diverted in a half-circle around some obstacle the road-painting machine had encountered where it had last painted. Water dripped from the leaves of trees on either side of the road. Birds called out their warbling songs here and there. A few of them flew across the road.

A brown squirrel ran across the gray asphalt, stopping at the double yellow line. He stood on his hind legs, intently watching Carol approaching. In his small hands he clutched an acorn that looked far too large to eat. Carol smiled.

FURTHER UP THE road, a grungy-looking Frank Charles plodded out to his mailbox on the side of the street in a blue bathrobe, his tangled hair appearing as if someone had held a magnet over his head. He ambled along in sopping-wet blue slippers, oblivious to his surroundings.

Opening the mailbox and sticking an arm inside, he came away with a hunk of mail that he held to his chest as he plodded back towards the house.

Carol didn't speak to Frank, nor Frank to Carol. She could count on one hand the number of times either of them had so much as even looked at one another. It had been that way as far back as she could recall. They ignored each other, for that was how things were in Bristol. Neighbors rarely bothered each other, except to utter a brief hello or to ask a favor.

Since Frank had never asked Carol for anything, Carol often had the sense that she ought to move somewhere different, back to North Carolina, perhaps.

The awkward silence that passed between them as Carol ran past only reinforced this idea.

Before she knew it, she reached the halfway point of her run. A pothole in the shoulder marked off exactly one mile away from her house. A puddle of dark water had pooled up in it, rendering it deceptively shallow. Carol knew better.

She turned around, running back the way she came. By this time, she felt as though she could run for a good long while.

Nothing in her body hurt.

Her breathing came free and easy.

Her opinion of the day gradually changed.

She felt it might be a good day after all.

If anyone had told her just then that two students would be kidnapped in the most bizarre way possible, she wouldn't have believed them.

So occupied was she with her morning run that she didn't notice the man sitting on the front porch of the abandoned property across from her own, staring at her.

### Chapter Two

WORMS CRAWLED ABOUT on the paved recreational area behind Bristol Area Middle School. The chilly April rain had come around four in the morning, but had tapered off around seven, leaving a dense fog in its wake. As the sun rose, the fog dissipated. The ground, still wet, brought all the writhing pink crawlers forth, fresh from the loam that protected them from the usual predators. Some had been eaten by birds braving the weather. Some would perish on the pavement, separated from their place of sustenance by what, to them, proved to be a considerable distance.

As the morning's gym class assembled to listen to their teacher's instructions, one particular worm caught the notice of Kenneth Yardrow, known to his friends as Kenny, and known to his enemies by a variety of unpleasant nicknames.

The worm didn't look any different than the others wriggling about at the edge of the grass. In fact, its similarity to the others was what had caught Kenneth's attention. He had earnestly expected to see some of varying length, perhaps of varying color, yet when he glanced about, they all seemed the same to him.

He knelt before the worm, extending one thin finger to poke at it. The worm felt slimy to his touch and curled up into a ball when he made contact.

From past experience, he knew the worm would stay that way for some time, at least until it thought a perceived danger had passed.

Kenneth thought about putting the worm in his pocket-he had done so before-yet the day had only just begun.

He didn't want a repeat of last time when he'd forgotten about the worm he'd collected. He'd discovered that one squashed to juicy bits in his pocket when he'd put a hand in there.

He could think of only one thing to do.

He picked up the worm with two fingers and threw it, under-handed, back into the grass. He didn't know if a worm could survive such a throw, yet he hoped it did.

"Mr. Yardrow, care to join us this morning?"

The gym teacher had asked this question amidst silence, which to Kenneth meant that he'd been asked a previous question, one he hadn't heard.

Three girls standing together giggled at him.

The gym teacher, a thin, wispy woman known to Kenneth as Mrs. Wren, scowled at him. In her wrinkled right hand, she held an old wooden tennis racket with white tape about the neck. She'd judged the morning weather warm enough for all the students to go outside in their tight white t-shirts and loose green shorts, yet she herself had opted to wear a white windbreaker jacket with gray sweat pants and green sneakers. Her salt-and-pepper graying hair swayed in the morning breeze. Beside her sat a plastic barrel full of plastic tennis rackets. Another barrel, unopened, contained frayed white shuttlecocks.

The class was set to play badminton, as they had done the previous day.

Kenneth turned away from his study of the worms. He glanced at his teacher before looking down at the ground. "All right." He sighed.

"Good. Then let's start. You all remember the rules, right? We're short one net today, so you'll have to split into teams of three. Let's see, there are thirteen of you, so one person will have to be a substitute."

Kenneth, already knowing where this was going, sat down on the damp ground. The rest of the class, understanding all too well, pulled out rackets and shuttlecocks. Before long, the sounds of children playing badminton could be heard throughout the courtyard.

Kenneth noticed that one team only had two players. A tall girl with thick glasses had paired up with a boy who had yellow sweat stains decorating his armpits. The boy's left shoe was untied. The girl's hair appeared not to have been washed recently.

The student who was supposed to be their partner, a thin girl with a hole in the top of her sneaker, sat down next to Kenneth. Kenneth huffed.

"I don't want to do this either," the girl said.

Mrs. Wren, occupied with demonstrating the finer points of serving to a group of three, hadn't noticed her. The girl swiveled her head towards Kenneth. "I'm Savannah. You're Kenneth, right?"

"Only when I'm awake," Kenneth said.

Savannah pulled at one of her two pigtails, frowning. "I don't get it," she said.

"It's supposed to be a joke. You know, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? They both transform when they sleep by the dark of a new moon."

"What, both of them?" Savannah studied Kenneth's face intently, trying to discover if he was lying. "Who do they transform into?"

"They change into each other. They're like, what do you call it, alter egos. They're two people sharing the same body. You know what I mean? When I sleep, I turn into somebody else."

"I don't believe you. You're not a werewolf," Savannah said.

A short girl whose ponytail had come halfway undone took a clumsy swat at a shuttlecock. So close was she to the net that the object struck it, bounced off and dinked her on the forehead. She dropped her racket, falling to her knees, tears coming to her eyes as she began wailing. Mrs. Wren, having seen such episodes before, did not hurry to remedy the situation. The game continued in spite of the girl's crying.

"Like that, see? Like how Sarah there can turn on a dime into a weepy mess," Kenneth said, pointing.

"You don't turn on a dime. That's too small to turn anything on. Anyway, she's always like that. One time, in sewing class, she dropped her needle onto her shoe. She didn't even cut herself, but there she went. Stupid Sue, we all call her. Always crying about everything. That's not like sleeping in the presence of a new moon."

"Meh, you don't understand anyway. Why am I even talking to you?"

Savannah grumbled, "I'm the one who started talking to you."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I thought I could stop you from being such a smelly face. I can see that I was wrong about that."

"If I have a smelly face, then you have a smelly butt."

"If I have a smelly butt, then you have a smelly belly button."

"How would you know that?"

Savannah said, "It's obvious, isn't it? Everything about you is smelly, even your belly button."

"What would you know? You're just a girl."

Savannah, who had heard this statement many times before, got up and joined the team she had left. By this time, Sue's crying, with the teacher's consolation, had subsided into sniffling sobs. Kenneth crossed his arms over his chest.

"Play all you want. See if I care," he said.

### Chapter Three

AFTERNOON CAME THE same way it always did for Kenneth. The day drew to a close while he sat at his homeroom desk, waiting to hear his bus announced as being ready for departure.

He was only one of two students in his class who rode the number seventy-four bus, along with Savannah. The thought of sharing a bus with her made Kenneth remember everything she'd said during gym class.

They hadn't spoken to each other all day, even during lunch when they stood next to each other in line to get french fries. He decided that when his bus number was called, he'd be the first one to board so he could sit as far back as he wanted. Savannah always sat in the front seat next to the door.

Kenneth found himself doodling on a piece of scrap paper when bus number fourteen was called over the PA system.

Fourteen had always been called after seventy-four. He probably missed hearing his number, but if he had, Savannah, sitting on the other side of the room, also missed it as well. Kenneth had never known her to be absent-minded about anything, particularly when it came to leaving school for the day. She never hesitated to leave, unlike Sue, who sniffled every time it was time to go home.

Kenneth glanced over at his homeroom teacher to see if anything might be amiss.

Mr. Dunkelson sat behind his desk, grading papers as he always did at the end of the day. If he had observed anything unusual, he hadn't thought it significant enough to look up from the motion of his red pen upon white paper. By this time of day, stubble had started growing on his face so that his normally open, smiling mug looked older than usual.

He reached with an index finger to push his glasses further up his nose. He seemed not in the least perturbed, not from where Kenneth sat.

Bus number thirty-three was called.

Kenneth's foot tapped against the floor.

He resisted the urge to bite his fingernails, a habit which had drawn the ire of his mother one too many times for his liking.

Only two more buses to go.

Seventy-four might be late, but surely not this late.

Eighty-three and forty-one were called.

Kenneth found himself sitting alone in the classroom with Mr. Dunkelson and Savannah.

To Kenneth's surprise, his teacher appeared drowsy.

Dunkelson's head drooped while his eyes, half-closed, failed to observe that he had scribbled red marks on the surface of his desk instead of on a test. Shortly thereafter, he fell asleep.

That was when everything changed.

### Chapter Four

A COLUMN OF air shimmered in front of Mr. Dunkelson's desk and bent in upon itself, as though from a nearby source of heat.

Kenneth had no other way to describe the phenomenon he observed.

It split vertically down the middle, like he'd seen on that Charlton Heston movie they put on television every Easter. In the movie, Heston had raised up his staff, and the sea had split apart so the Israelites could escape the pharaoh's chariots.

Now, the very air in front of Kenneth was doing the same thing.

A vertical blackness opened up, a blackness so complete that Kenneth thought no light could ever penetrate it.

A faint whirring sound echoed throughout the room.

Kenneth saw Savannah put her hands over her ears.

He wondered where the sound was coming from.

Then, he noticed a pencil suspended in mid-air next to his leg.

He'd knocked his pencil off his desk, yet it hadn't completed its fall. The pencil pointed upward, stuck in mid-air as though encased in glass.

Kenneth reached out a hand to grab it. The closer his hand got to the pencil, the more resistance he felt.

It reminded him of the time in science class when the teacher had him work with magnets. He had tried to nudge both north poles together, but no matter how hard he tried, they would slide away from each other of their own accord.

He thought of this as his hand slid off to the side, as though an invisible force prevented him from grabbing his pencil.

He tried standing up.

Before his knees could strike the underside of the desk, the resistance made itself felt again.

His whole body slid off abruptly to the left.

He struck the carpet, backside-first.

Kenneth blinked in surprise.

He hadn't expected that to happen.

He stood up, trying to get his bearings.

His feet felt unusually heavy.

The yawning chasm in front of Mr. Dunkelson's desk had grown wider.

Kenneth saw Savannah laying on the floor, curled into a ball.

All thoughts of the names she'd called him during gym class vanished from his head.

Trying not to touch anything, Kenneth staggered along slowly, awkwardly in front of the row of desks, struggling to maintain his balance, grunting mightily as he fought to walk across the room, something he had done countless times before, no more than ten, maybe twelve steps at most, but had never given much thought to until now.

What the hell's happening?

He passed the chasm.

He thought he heard a voice, though whatever sound registered in his ears had been so faint that he couldn't make out what had been said.

Had Mr. Dunkelson said something?

No, he remained sleeping at his desk, even as the whirring noise frantically increased in pitch.

Kenneth reached Savannah.

An angry purple bruise lay on her arm.

Kenneth looked down and saw that similar blotches had developed on his knees.

He hadn't noticed the pain until he looked down.

The throbbing suddenly made itself known.

Pain pulsated in his knees, nearly causing him to collapse.

He wondered if this was how magnets felt when they were forced towards together.

If so, he regretted all the time he'd spent in the classroom pushing metal objects with the same magnetic charge together.

Savannah, still curled in a fetal position, seemed not to notice him. Yet when Kenneth's fingers touched the bruise on her arm, he didn't feel the same force repelling him away.

Amidst the increasing chaos of the classroom, Kenneth had time to consider that he must not be repelled from Savannah because they must have opposite magnetic charges.

Why that should matter now when it never mattered before, he didn't know.

The black space widened until Kenneth saw it for what it was-a doorway.

He had seen such things on television before, though he hadn't ever expected a man to walk through.

Yet a man did walk through.

The man wore a spacesuit so cumbersome that he had to lift one foot up to the height of his shin before he planted it back down. The spacesuit, made completely out of metal, bore markings Kenneth didn't recognize.

By now, the whirring sound had increased so much that the desks were vibrating. Kenneth felt the sensations in his feet. Even so, each step Spacesuit took rang loud above the din. Every plodding footstep made produced a crash which left an indentation upon the tile floor. Debris sprang up in the air, slowed, then stopped before they could touch the ground. As a result, by the time the man reached Kenneth, he'd left a trail behind in midair to mark his passage.

Kenneth tried to speak.

He heard the words inside his head, yet all the noise around him drowned out all sound.

Spacesuit touched Kenneth on the shoulder with one hand.

Kenneth felt something puncture his skin.

Without warning, he felt his consciousness drifting away from him.

He struggled to stay awake even while his head drooped.

He had time enough to register Spacesuit touching Savannah on the back.

He wanted to shout a protest.

Instead, he crumpled to the ground.

### Chapter Five

THE AFTERNOON HAD become unseasonably hot.

Carol Wren had sweat her way through the afternoon gym classes, thankful at least that she didn't have to be reminded of Kenneth Yardrow for the rest of the day.

As she changed out of her sweaty, sticky workout clothes in the faculty restroom, she felt a twinge in her knee.

She held her shirt above her head, stopping to consider what that might mean. Other than her morning run, she hadn't exerted herself too strenuously. Her day had consisted of walking around to make sure each student was able to play badminton or volleyball without injuring themselves.

Now, of all times, when she finally had a moment to herself, her knee had twinged.

That meant something, but she did not know what.

She heard from a distance a sound she wouldn't have expected to hear in a middle school.

A great roaring noise erupted from somewhere.

She had time enough to think that someone had torn a hole in the universe, except that idea surely had to be the product of a feverished, overworked mind that had seen too many science fiction movies.

She slid her t-shirt over her torso and bolted out of the restroom, heedless of the duffel bag she left beside the toilet.

Behind the roaring, she heard a crunching noise.

It sounded as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to a classroom floor.

She brushed shoulders with Iris Oulette, the eighth-grade science teacher, hardly noticing the other woman's astonished expression, nor her insistent pleas to do something for God's sake.

Carol herself didn't know what to do other than push open the door of Leonard Dunkelson's homeroom class.

She was suddenly in the presence of a figure in a heavy metallic suit walking forward towards a gaping, black nothingness.

The figure carried two children under each arm.

Upon seeing both children Carol's knee gave such a painful complaint that she wondered if the injury had finally come back with all its unrelenting ferocity.

She struggled to step forward.

Taking the first step wasn't as easy as she expected. She moved as though mired in molasses while reaching her hand to the girl dangling like a rag doll underneath a powerful silver arm.

If he even noticed Carol at all, the silver-clad phantom paid her no mind. Each step he took left a four-inch-deep indentation in the floor, pulverizing blue and white patterned tiles.

He stepped into the black space.

Harold Dunkelson slumped over sideways, crashing to the ground.

The figure passed through the portal just the black space closed in upon itself.

Carol toppled forward just as she had been about to reach it.

Her knee had given out on her.

At that moment, her brain spinning and her stomach churning up bile, she didn't feel that pain that would haunt her for weeks to come.

She didn't even feel her head strike the floor, or see the blood that was leaking out from somewhere.

She blinked her eyes once, twice, three times.

She knew enough to say she was awake and alive, but more than that, she could not have explained anything that had just happened.

### Chapter Six

### Day One

KENNETH AWOKE WITH a metallic taste in his mouth.

Upon opening his eyes, he saw five bright lights above him.

He squinted his eyes shut, putting an arm over them.

He groaned.

Someone had set him on a hard-packed bed similar in feel to stone that Kenneth felt sore all over. His mind whirled about, trying to recall what had happened to him.

He felt as though he'd been thrown around in so many ways that he had lost all sense of direction.

The number seventy-four stuck in his mind, though at first he couldn't remember why this should be significant.

Then he recalled that this had been his bus number.

My bus hadn't arrived, and...

Kenneth sat up.

Doing so set off alarms of pain throughout his body. He blinked open his eyes, trying to acclimate himself to the light. Bright red stars danced along his vision.

Kenneth saw that he still wore his school clothes, which had been a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt with a superhero symbol on it. Two twin bruises decorated his knees. He remembered banging into the desk, though some part of him wanted to believe that all of it had been a dream. He did remember falling asleep in study hall, then being woken up by a teacher.

Through parched lips, he called out in a hoarse whisper, "Savannah."

Someone must have heard him, for directly behind him a door opened.

He didn't hear the door open. He saw it in the reflection from the shimmering metal walls all around him.

A tall adult figure entered the room.

Kenneth turned around to look.

The man wore a toga after the style Kenneth had read in the history books about ancient Rome. The toga was gray with green trim at the top. The man's left shoulder lay exposed, though his right shoulder did not. He had a long, shiny mane of black hair that ran down his back to his hip. Kenneth saw that the man had bushy eyebrows.

The thirteen-year-old boy might have laughed if he didn't hurt as much as he did.

"Good morning, significant citizen," the man said. "I trust you are well?"

The words came to Kenneth as though they traveled a long way to reach him. He put a hand to his forehead, already despising the headache that he felt growing there.

"What?" was all Kenneth could utter. The back of his eyes felt like they were being punctured by shards of glass and he blinked his eyes in rapid succession, trying to will away the pain.

"I am your introductory guide to the 73rd century. My designation is Unquill Hester. Please be at ease. You were chosen out of an infinite number of lives in the time stream because you are special." The man, larger than any man Kenneth could remember seeing, looked delighted. He couldn't stop grinning.

A light danced in the man's eyes. He looked to Kenneth like a scientist who'd just discovered a particularly fascinating insect in its natural habitat.

"Say what?" Kenneth violently rubbed at his face with both hands.

The man bowed before Kenneth. His hair flopped over the front of his head in a way that Kenneth could not help but find comical.

"Ahh, yes, do forgive me. It always slips my mind that time transport subjects often experience a certain amount of-shall we say, disorientation-upon entering another point in time. Please don't be alarmed. It is not my intention to cause you distress. You have been chosen, you and one other. The other remains asleep at present. Shall I wake her for you?"

"The-the other. You mean Savannah?"

Kenneth didn't think he liked the idea of being alone in the future with a girl who had just got done insulting him only a few hours before. He started thinking of all the things he would say to her. Many of them he would not repeat to his parents.

"Is that her designation? A geographical area that is neither plains nor forest, yet a mixture of both. This land type vanished completely from record around the 30th century when-"

"Let her sleep," Kenneth said. "I'm hungry, and sore. You have anything to eat?"

"Ahh, yes," Unquill's green eyes glowed. "The consumption of nutrients. This possibility has been foreseen, fortunately. In preparation of your arrival, we have begun growing edible plants. We have not done so for many, many years. Such a long time it's been. But then, it's too much to expect citizens of the past to have evolved beyond the need for nourishment."

Kenneth grunted. "Whatever. I don't understand what you're saying. Just bring me anything. I'm hungry. It's supper time."

Unquill seemed to grow taller for a moment before he left the room.

Kenneth ran a hand down his face, trying to grasp his situation. He'd heard something about centuries and time stream.

Time travel, then?

He considered the possibility of Unquill being an actor hired by somebody as a part of an elaborate farce. Yet the man had seemed too genuine to Kenneth, too willing to serve while at the same time establishing the notion of his own superiority.

If he really was in the 73rd century, the man in the spacesuit must have brought him here.

With the room to himself, Kenneth tried to recall every detail he had observed before he had passed out. The behemoth he had seen touch Savannah on the back looked to be about the same height as Unquill. The black passage had appeared all of its own accord. Kenneth had just been getting ready to decorate the school yards with toilet paper when the mysterious rift had appeared.

The prank had been at the back of his mind, not yet fully formed into a conscious thought. Yet, he recognized it now as a true thought, one that would have remained if the bus didn't show when it was supposed to.

He thought about the math and geography homework he had been assigned, which he usually didn't bother doing. Kenneth liked math about as much as he liked waiting. The numbers had always filled up his head until he couldn't keep them straight anymore. Then the textbook would ask a question about trains or cars, or some other improbable event that never happened, and ask him to figure out the solution. Kenneth hadn't ever really understood why the people who wrote those math books didn't solve the problems themselves, then give him the answer. Even at thirteen, he knew the world worked that way. Those who couldn't solve problems on their own didn't try to improve their problem-solving skills but relied instead on people who could do the work for them.

The evening meal back in the twentieth century would have been leftover chili from the weekend. Kenneth's stomach growled, thinking of the two bowls he would have had-might still have, if he got back in time for supper. Unlike the school cafeteria food, which Kenneth had always found gross to the point of absurdity, his mother's cooking always left him with a full belly before he sat down in front of the seventeen-inch television in his room to play video games.

He wanted to play Super Violent Girls now. He wondered if anyone even knew of that game over five thousand years after its release.

While Kenneth was lost in thought, Unquill returned with a plate full of broccoli. Kenneth had never liked broccoli, even when his parents had smothered it in soy sauce. Unquill lay the plate of green vegetables on the bed. Kenneth felt it might be rude to refuse any kind of food after he'd asked to be fed. He picked up one piece of broccoli and bit into it. The vegetable tasted better than he expected, crisp and wholesome. To his own surprise, Kenneth found himself eating vegetable after vegetable until he'd eaten them all. Then he ate up the leftover pieces from the plate, licking his fingers afterward.

"That was good," Kenneth said. He surprised himself by meaning what he said. He hadn't intended to compliment anyone on futuristic food, especially when all the vegetables he had tried always tasted bland.

Unquill appeared on the point of tears. He clasped both hands before him, as though in supplication. "Oh significant citizen, you must forgive me. What a moving sight I have just witnessed. The past has come alive right before my very eyes. I never thought to see it! Oh, what a pleasant ritual it must be to consume plants. Tell me, is it true that people from your century consumed animals as well? Such things are forbidden today, of course. I cannot imagine yet. Is it even possible?"

"Yeah, we did that sometimes. Chicken and beef, mostly," Kenneth said, thinking of the pieces of hamburger meat in the leftover chili.

"Oh yes, I'd forgotten that as well. So many facts about your time had to be learned that I glanced over what I deemed to be minutiae. Now I can see I was wrong. How significant for you to be brought forward in time to a people who have forbidden activities you find commonplace. You must think us extra-terrestrials."

"Not really. You look like a Roman glam rocker," Kenneth said, smiling. He patted his stomach and suppressed a burp.

"Oh? I do not understand these terms. What is a 'Roman glam rocker'? Is that your terminology for asteroidal geologist? Oh, but people didn't start exploring space seriously until the 28th century. Dear me, it's all so confusing. You are from the 21st century, are you not?"

"Yeah," Kenneth said. "What difference does that make?"

"All the difference in the world, my young significance! All the difference in the world. Do you not know that at the beginning of the 22nd century, there was-oh, but perhaps I should not tell you about that. You are scheduled to return in two weeks, after all." Unquill looked away from Kenneth, blushing as though he had embarrassed himself.

"What do you mean, scheduled to return? You're going to send me back to school after all? I think I'd rather stay here." Kenneth crossed his arms over his chest. He was prepared to stay right there in that spot, even if the man called Unquill proved to be as strong as he appeared.

"Ahh, yes, antipathy for public education. Well, I can hardly blame you, given the nature of the education given out during your time. Most historians agree public education from those days more closely resembles propaganda than the dissemination of fact.

"Ahem, yes, to answer your question, you have been brought here to solve a problem we cannot. I regret to tell you this, for it is the shame of our people to interrupt the lives of two of the most important citizens in the time stream, yet I must tell you. Otherwise, how would you know what to do while you are here? Oh dear, troublesome indeed."

"Let's just start from the beginning," Kenneth said.

"The universe has no beginning," Unquill replied. He furrowed his eyebrows, trying to understand the meaning of Kenneth's statement.

"The beginning of...whatever it was that happened."

"Ah yes, that beginning. Yes, I can tell you that story safely enough, I believe."

### Chapter Seven

UNQUILL PAUSED FOR a moment.

To Kenneth, it appeared the tall man collected his thoughts. When Unquill spoke, the tone of his voice dropped. He sounded like a completely different person to Kenneth.

"We call this the Golden Century, for in all of our studies of the time stream, we have yet to discover a society more prosperous than ours. We live in the 73rd century. I told you that, yes? In the middle of the 75th century, there will occur a spiritual re-awakening which will lead individuals to question the wisdom of their current way of life. We have seen this. Afterward, people will have great faith. In exchange, they will begin consuming nutrients again. With our population of one hundred and twelve trillion-"

"Trillion?"

Kenneth was incredulous. He'd heard the word used when people on the news spoke about debt, but he hadn't ever really understood the significance of the word. How many fingers would he have to count on before he reached a trillion? A trillion, of course, he suddenly thought, answering his own question. That didn't bring him any closer to conceptualizing the number in concrete terms.

"Yes, with one hundred and twelve trillion people, there just won't be enough nutrients to go around for all. It will be a time of great upheaval. The prosperity we have enjoyed thus far will come to an end, as we are told all things must come to an end. The spiritual re-awakening occurs because of a single man. He is designated Hinjo Junta. We-that is, myself together with the other members of the Temporal Constabulary-don't have a lot of information on him. We know he was born on a Saturday sometime during April 7201. We know he will die in the year 7454, during the re-awakening. His cause of death will come as a result of his refusal to continue utilizing his body's own natural processes to stay alive. A foolish man, perhaps, yet one many will come to see as a martyr. We have grown too much, we are too many, they will say.

"So it will happen-or, from the perspective of one who can see the time stream, it has already happened-that many citizens of this world will follow Hinjo's path. Death upon death upon death until the world becomes paralyzed from the loss of so many of its citizens. By the year 7500, it is estimated that a total of one hundred thousand people will remain on this planet."

Kenneth involuntarily startled. Though he didn't know exactly what a trillion was, he had a sense that the number was far greater than one hundred thousand, a number more easily imagined. One hundred thousand had always been the number his father wanted to pass in yearly salary from his job working at a pharmaceutical company.

"Ah yes, I see you realize. It is the end of our history as we know it. One hundred thousand people will remain, many of whom have lost the ability to procreate. The human race, all of its successes and failures, all of it will be destroyed by a single man. Kenneth Yardrow, I wish for you and your companion to speak with this man. To do so, you will first have to find him. We've not been able to do so. We, the Temporal Constabulary, hope that you will succeed where we have failed."

"You said, 'significant citizen' a few times," Kenneth said. "What does that mean?"

Unquill cocked his head to one side, as though he did not understand why anyone should ask such a question. He cleared his throat, then said, "Why, you are significant. It has been determined by an evaluation of the lives of every person throughout history. I won't bore you with the details. It would take eons to explain. We only have, well, half an eon. Suffice it to say that you will do great things when you grow up. Great things. Greater than any other human being who has ever lived. Your companion is of no less significance than yourself. Both of you make a couple which continues to fascinate historians even unto this day."

"Couple?" Kenneth grimaced at the word. "But I don't like her. She said my belly button smells."

"How could it do that? You don't have a nose over your stomach."

Kenneth laughed. "It's a, whatchamacallit, an expression."

"Regardless of how you may feel, it's already happened." The corners of Unquill's mouth perked up as he smiled. "We suspect that-well, I won't tell you now. It would spoil the surprise. It's such a terribly difficult thing, to know all of history. Of course, one's own history is forbidden to be known. History, especially future history, is too rigid. To know the course one's life takes, oh dear, that would be too much."

"Why did you say I have two weeks?"

"That's the allotted time we have based on your temporal alignment device. You may have noticed it attached to your hip?"

In fact, Kenneth had not noticed the device. He lifted his shirt up, looking down at himself. He found a small bulge on the right side of his hip underneath his skin. He pressed his fingers there. The device had been implanted without his permission. When he applied pressure to it, the device gave way. When he released the pressure, the device bulged forth from underneath his skin once again.

"This is a temporal thing-a-ma-jig?"

Unquill nodded, pleased. "It's a temporal alignment device, but you may call it a thing-a-ma-jig if you find the name easier to remember. While it has been placed under your skin, you needn't worry about any ill effects. By the fourteenth day, it will have dissolved into your blood stream. It is a piece of organic technology that maintains your temporal charge so that you don't-well, explode."

Kenneth asked his next question carefully. "Explode?"

"Yes, yes, yes, don't worry. It won't happen as long as the device is in place. Were it not place, your presence here in this time would cause too many problems with your biology. We have studied the phenomenon in close detail. Our first time travelers, whom we sent a day forward into the future, bridged the void easily enough. Yet, I fear to report that a prolonged stay caused rather, um, unfortunate results. We know such things have happened to travelers in the past, for our historical records tell us so. The human body synchronizes with the time period in which it exists. Here in the 74th century, we've learned how to prevent that occurrence. So while you are here to complete a task, you only have fourteen days to do so. After that, if you have not completed your task, you will die."

"I don't understand what you mean about all that stuff," Kenneth interlocked his fingers behind his head, leaning against a wall. He looked away from Unquill. "I'm just a kid, remember? Sheesh, stop talking to me in all that complicated language. The only part I understand is that I have to find this guy, convince him not to be a prick, and I can go home, right? Is that all there is to it?"

"Well, not exactly, but-"

"Okay, then let's get started," Kenneth said. He jumped off the bed. Standing before Unquill, he remembered that he was short for his age. Unquill, at least eight feet tall, towered over him. Kenneth looked up. "If it's a mystery, Kenny Yardrow, Private Eye is on the case! There's no kickball too far for me to find, no lost hanky that I can't locate. One person should be easy."

"Yes? I certainly hope so," Unquill said.

Sweat trickled down his forehead.

### Chapter Eight

WHEN KENNETH ENTERED Savannah's room, he found her still sleeping.

The door, made of green energy, hadn't made any noise when it turned off to let him through. Nor did it make any noise once it came back on. With both himself and Unquill in the room with Savannah, Kenneth had the distinct impression that the room was a holding cell, rather than a guest suite.

He turned to Unquill, who raised his shoulders in a shrug. Unquill then clapped his hands. So big were his hands that the clap resounded through the room.

Savannah started awake. She rubbed at her eyes. Both her pigtails had come undone. Her brown hair lay about her shoulders in a tangled, knotted mass. Circles had developed under her eyes. Someone had replaced her buttoned shirt with a plain, loose white t-shirt. A yellow and pink friendship bracelet lay around her left wrist.

Kenneth hadn't noticed that before.

She blinked a few times before recognizing him.

"Good morning," she said, yawning. "What's for breakfast?"

Kenneth had a moment to wonder whether she really was awake, or if her brain had stopped somewhere along the way to unconsciousness. He had expected her first question to be about where she was, who the giant standing before her might be.

Instead, she had thought with her stomach.

Kenneth found that idea amusing.

Unquill seemed ready to burst with anticipation. "Once again? May I?"

"Wha...?" Savannah rubbed the back of her neck.

Kenneth said, "Old man, get some food, will you?"

"I'm not old," Unquill said. "I'll have you know I'm a stately three hundred twenty-seven this year. But I will comply with your request nonetheless. Such a joy it is to see antiquated rituals in person."

Once Unquill left, Savannah sat up in her bed. She looked at Kenneth for answers.

Kenneth shook his head, smiling. "I don't understand half of what he told me. You can ask him to explain, I guess. You might have better luck than I did. Basically, we've got to find this dude called Hinjo."

"Hinjo," Savannah repeated.

She stretched her arms out in front of her.

One of her elbows cracked.

They waited in silence until Unquill returned. Once he did, they both felt relieved at having someone else in the room. He brought with him a bowl full of cauliflower. Savannah made a face at the bowl. She took a tentative bite, then, just as Kenneth had, ate as though she hadn't eaten anything in years. She handed an empty bowl back to Unquill.

She said, "Why can't they make vegetables like that at home?"

"I am told they use a process called-"

"Hey, old man, come on, we're short on time or whatever. Let's get started," Kenneth said, poking Unquill in the wrist with one finger.

Savannah furrowed her eyebrows. She licked her fingers clean, then said, "What am I doing here?"

"Ah yes, let me explain," Unquill said. Then, he said to Kenneth, "Please do not interrupt me, significant citizen. I will accord her the same courtesy I have accorded you. Now then, to answer your question..."

### Chapter Nine

AFTER UNQUILL FINISHED explaining, an explanation during which Kenneth interrupted anyway, Savannah sat on the edge of the bed she'd slept in, her eyes wide. No one spoke.

Kenneth leaned against a wall, fatigue coming over him. He didn't know why he felt tired after he had just finished sleeping.

Savannah said, "The 73rd century? You haven't gone, I don't know, crazy or something? This isn't a dream, right? If it is, it's not a very good one. I'm very sore, and I don't want to be here with this smelly head."

Kenneth waved a hand in the air, dismissively.. "It's not my fault if your sense of smell doesn't appreciate me. I can't do anything about that."

Savannah put her hands on her hips. She said, "Well of course I can't appreciate anyone who smells as much as you do. Smelly head."

"Now, now, please don't argue," Unquill said. "You two have to work together on this. One of you alone won't suffice. Both your minds are needed for this task."

Savannah turned away from Kenneth. "How hard can it be to find one man when you can see through all of space and time? I'll do it myself."

Kenneth turned from Savannah and said, "If you apologize for calling me smelly, I'll work with you, Savannah. Not before."

"Why should I apologize for something that's true?"

Unquill wrung his hands together. "But, but, but, this isn't the way married couples behave. At least, not in-"

Savannah suddenly whirled to face Unquill. "Married? Are you kidding? You really are crazy! This really is a dream!" Her face clouded and her words tumbled forth in a staccato burst of annoyance mixed with anger. "I'm a kid. I mean, he and I are kids. Married? There's no way. Absolutely not. Forget it. I mean, it's out of the question-totally out of the question! Never in a million years!"

"Then I shall take you both to the year 1,000,001 and you can be married."

"I'm thirteen years old! Thirteen-year-olds don't get married! And what makes you think I'd want to even be with old Smelly Belly here, anyway?" She paused long enough to cast a baleful stare at Kenneth.

Kenneth rolled his eyes. He snorted derisively. "Uh-uh. You gotta be kidding me. No way in hell am I marrying her." He paused, letting his annoyance at the situation subside. Then he suddenly spoke again, his voice tinged with resignation. "Look, I can't say I like the idea much either. I don't want to be around her any more than I need to. Even I know there's not much of a choice. But we might as we look for this dude or whatever. We've got nothing better to do." He paused again before changing the subject.

Anything to stop talking about marriage.

"Hey, you don't have video games here, do you?"

"Ah, no, I'm afraid we don't."

Savannah fumed, "And I bet you don't have horses either. You know, the ones you can ride?"

"Horses? I, um-"

"Never mind," Kenneth said. Then, turning to Savannah, he spoke in a softer, more conciliatory tone. "Look, can you stop insulting me? We don't like each other. I get that. That won't change. At least for now let's do this as fast as we can so we can back to our old lives. Okay?"

Savannah didn't answer. She turned to Unquill. "Can you take us back if we finish the job before the time expires?"

"Not I-but the Temporal Constabulary can. The answer to your question is yes. You can be returned to your own time whenever it is convenient to do so. All that is required is to make a request with the agency, which they will grant. Then, everything takes care of itself."

"Hmph, fine. Whatever," Savannah said. "Let's just do it then. I'm tired of arguing. Where do we begin?"

"With sleep," Unquill touched each of them at the nape of the neck. Kenneth felt his consciousness suddenly deserting him. "I'm afraid that I can't let you stay awake too long on the first day. The strain of-"

### Chapter Ten

### Day Two

IN ANOTHER ROOM, not far from where Kenneth and Savannah had slept, a cavernous door opened up before them.

A large, black pillar dominated the room from its position in the center. Energy pulsated through the pillar as it thrummed out a rhythm. Cords as wide as Kenneth's bed ran along the floor, all leading to the ebony obelisk. The resultant effect made the room look like it had several unmarked speed bumps designed into it. Four work stations, each containing a metal seat, a keyboard and screen, encircled the imposing black structure. Kenneth noted that even after the passage of so many years, the basic design of the keyboard hadn't changed. It even retained the INS key that he'd ripped out with a pair of pliers from his personal laptop.

Kenneth, Savannah and Unquill stood before a large computer screen. Unquill explained that the screen, larger than the chalkboards at school, represented access points to the planet's central computer. The computer, the only one in the world, had access points at every Temporal Constabulary station throughout the planet. There were over one hundred thousand of those, Unquill said.

The physical hard drive wasn't located in any one place. Instead, each component connected with one another so that the system as a whole only worked when their version of the internet-as Kenneth understood it-functioned properly. Since there hadn't been a malfunction in one hundred eighty-four years, Unquill felt confident about using it for their purpose.

Images came and went so fast that Kenneth could not keep up with them all. He tried focusing on several in particular, only to have them disappear out of sight before he could discover what they were.

He finally was able to discern a metal object that resembled a rickshaw, a woman sleeping on a couch, and a fluttering red bird. No matter how long he stared at the images, he couldn't see any pattern that might lead to Hinjo.

After several moments, he said, "What is all this?"

Unquill did not take his eyes off the screen. "I am searching for Hinjo, just as I have searched many times before. I entered his name into the search field, just as you saw. The computer brings up all the relevant results that might lead to his location. I have spent a total of three hundred fourteen hours in front of this screen, watching all the results. I have not yet seen anything that would provide a clue about him."

Kenneth sighed. "And you entered the same keyword into the field every time?"

"Why yes," Unquill said. "Naturally. Since the computer is constantly acquiring new data, one must repeat a search to account for new results."

"Why don't you try something like religion?" Savannah said. She looked at the floor, unable to keep her eyes upon the screen.

Unquill beamed. "Ahh, yes, I had not considered that. A different keyword. Yes, it's possible. I will try it."

A few moments passed. Kenneth frowned. He saw the images clearer this time: the metal rickshaw, the woman, the bird. He said, "Try another search. Look up, oh, I don't know, barn owl."

"I don't see what that has to do with Hinjo, but I will try it." Unquill said, resetting the search and entering the keywords.

With the third search, Kenneth saw the same procession of results. They came in the exact same order every time. "Unquill, I think your computer has a problem."

Unquill didn't say anything at first. He kept staring at the screen. At last he said, "I think you may be right. Oh dear, this is rather a bother."

"I don't understand what's going on," Savannah huffed. "It's just a lot of random stuff up there, right?"

Unquill paused for a moment, considering how best to reply. He shifted from one foot to the other. Having opted not to sit down in the chair, Unquill now gave Kenneth the impression of someone made uncomfortable by a person half his size.

"These images are anything but random. Terrible truncations, I think-well, the computer is returning the same search results for every query I enter."

"What does that mean?" Savannah asked.

Unquill massaged his right wrist with his left hand. He replied, "We can't rely on the computer. Or, at the very least, we'll have to fix the computer before we can get any information about Hinjo Junta."

Savannah said, "Can't we just hire a private eye?"

Kenneth had to keep himself from laughing.

"Eh? I don't see how a private ocular attachment could assist in this situation."

Savannah sighed. "I guess not."

Kenneth spoke up. "How long does it take to repair the computer?"

"Oh dear, oh dear, I really can't say for certain. I can't even say for certain where the problem is. It could be anywhere." Unquill paused, lost in thought.

Suddenly, he brightened.

"Indeed, it might not even be the computer that's giving us the same information over and over to us. It might be one of the access points. Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Yes, that's possible. I'll check."

Kenneth and Savannah looked at each other for a moment.

Over one hundred thousand of them.

Unquill was going to check them.

Savannah took a step back.

### Chapter Eleven

KENNETH HAD NEVER considered patience a virtue.

Even during gym class, where he typically sat out all the class activities, he had always been restless, waiting for the period to end.

At first, it had been a game for him to fight with Mrs. Wren about whether he'd do anything other than twiddle his thumbs in a corner somewhere. Some days, he'd even show up to gym class in his jeans, not having changed into his workout gear. After a while, Mrs. Wren came to ignore him. When that happened, Kenneth had always been left on his own to pass the time in whatever way he could.

Sitting alone in the access room reminded Kenneth of those class periods.

He had to watch while Unquill fiddled about with the computer. Unquill's hands flew about the keyboard while he whispered to himself under his breath. Savannah had sat down on one of the wide power cords under the floor, away from Kenneth. He glanced at her once, just long enough to see that her eyes drooped. He didn't want to look too long, lest she sense his gaze.

He thought about what Unquill had said about marriage. His own parents had separated for two months when he was eleven. Kenneth had blamed himself. He remembered distinctly how it felt to walk on eggshells every minute while at home, lest the slightest word cause a blow-up.

He had decided one day that, if all he could expect as a result of attempting conversation was irascibility, he just wouldn't say anything.

Before long, he found himself staying quiet in class, even when called upon. He had been brought into the guidance counselor's office. The man with the off-color brown mustache smelled of wood shavings.

Kenneth had confessed everything right then and there.

The dam had burst.

He hadn't known that the counselor's report would reach his parents. If he had, he wouldn't have said anything.

Soon afterward, his parents got back together. Three months passed before Kenneth felt safe enough to ask for the salt at the dinner table.

In Kenneth's opinion, marriage had caused all those negative consequences. He didn't think he would ever get married, even if that meant learning how to cook his own meals.

Moreover, he couldn't see himself getting married to Savannah, a girl he barely knew.

He wondered why she had come to him that day.

She hadn't ever done so before.

They shared gym and English class. In gym class, she had always been aloof, separate from everyone. In English class, her favorite subject, she always had her hand in the air. Kenneth felt the classes might as well have been conducted as a conversation between the teacher and Savannah alone. All the other students only had to listen. Kenneth hadn't ever liked English, so he'd found himself doodling during that period.

He couldn't see himself spending time with her every day.

He found himself wishing that Unquill hadn't brought him forward to the future. The future, as Kenneth perceived it, turned out to be a boring place. They didn't even have pizza.

SAVANNAH HAD TRIED to understand everything Unquill had said.

Bits and pieces of information floated through the barrier she believed was blocking her path to knowledge.

She had been abducted and brought into the future. Furthermore, she had been brought to this place in order to speak to a man who would destroy the human race.

Savannah didn't know what she thought about that.

She supposed there would be no one around to preserve the works of Robert Frost, a poet she particularly enjoyed reading while in study hall. That, to her, was the worst consequence that could come out of humans no longer being alive.

She understood the word marriage well enough, though. She had dismissed it at once, especially after Kenneth's reaction during gym class.

She, like him, hadn't wanted to play badminton that day. A little conversation never hurt anyone, yet he had persisted in drawing forth from her mind a few words Savannah had heard her own father mention at six o'clock when the phone always rang as he sat down to eat.

She didn't want to repeat those words, partly because she didn't understand them all and partly because she knew the word that galled him the most.

After searching the computer with Kenneth, Unquill worked on his own, trying to determine the problem. Savannah didn't have the slightest idea what he was doing. She yawned. Images flashed across the screen. Unquill typed so fast that Savannah wondered if he'd break the keyboard. Whenever she'd sat down in front of the computer, she'd always found herself looking at the keys to see where they were. She couldn't imagine being able to type as fast as Unquill did, or how much training had to be required in order for him to do so.

She suddenly felt tired. She wanted to sleep, but at the same time stay awake.

Staring at the flashing images on the screen, she began to sense that many of them did repeat themselves. She watched Unquill cycle through a restart process, only to find it unchanged.

She lay down on a cord. Her hair spilled out in all directions. She rubbed at her eyes.

Savannah wondered if they made flip-flops in the future.

### Chapter Twelve

UNQUILL WAS SHORT.

He knew that he shouldn't be ashamed of his height.

Eight feet tall had been the utmost maximum many humans throughout history could be said to expect to grow into. Yet, with the standard height of ten feet tall, eleven at most, Unquill had always been aware of his size.

Everyone looked down at him. He could tell when they did this, for each person, irrespective of gender or age, always possessed that same odd glint in their eye.

Unquill couldn't explain it.

He often felt as though everyone went about patronizing him.

In his first hundred years of life, when he'd tried to fit in as a normal member of society, the camaraderie he'd experienced with his colleagues always left him feeling inadequate. He knew that how he used his body mattered more than what his body looked like, yet he also knew that, even after many thousands of years of recorded history, the human race remained a species which always judged books by their covers.

Unquill didn't like his cover. He often wished people would look inside, even if only for a little while.

These thoughts crept through his mind while he performed the mind-numbing task of trying to determine what the problem was with the computer.

It would still let him play games, though, if he wanted. He could enter a command to enter the world of Battleship Centaurs, yet any serious search activity of the computer always produced the same maddening sets of repeating images.

When the plan to retrieve the two small human children from their time had been conceived at the highest levels of the Temporal Constabulary, Unquill had made no comment.

He'd seen them in his future.

They all seen the children in their future, impossibly short, always loud, always eating, always needing to use the bathroom.

They had been thought defective at first. Beings which produced noise without substance could be no better than animals.

Yet, when Unquill had been asked to give his opinion, he had stated that he could find no two citizens with greater significance to history than the two selected.

The Constabulary had seen his evidence.

They could not dispute it.

Nor did they try.

However, with the search function not presently working, Unquill wondered if time was indeed absolute as he'd always been taught.

The whole basis of the project was to prove that it was not, after all.

If he had seen the destruction of the human race as an event that had already happened, what would then occur if the destruction could be prevented?

Unquill wondered at the implications of that.

Preventing the destruction of the human race would mean that he, at various points in the past, would never have seen it.

He then would have never taken steps to avert it.

If such steps weren't taken, then the destruction would happen anyway, which would mean...

Paradoxes hadn't been his specialty.

Within the Constabulary-a group already perceived as rule-mongering pencil-pushers-he had been a journeyman. He had always been the one to wear the protective suits that kept him safe while a tunnel through time opened around him. He had traveled to various points in history, just to see if such places warranted further investigation.

Moreover, given the planet's rotation about the sun, calculations for spatial displacement had to be applied as well. At every time landing, Unquill came close to passing out. He always arrived just at the edge of unconsciousness before his body's natural processes asserted themselves.

The historians-those individuals who spent long stretches of their lives within the times in which they visited-didn't experience the same repeated sensations that a journeyman like Unquill did.

If he'd paid more attention in his ten-year theory course, perhaps things might have turned out differently.

Remembering temporal theory gave Unquill a jolt.

He stopped typing. He looked at the screen, which continued to flash the same images at lightning-fast speed.

He recalled a lesson where, sitting outside in a chair too big for him, he'd heard the instructor talk about the Causality Paradox.

First discovered in the 64th century, journeymen and historians alike had the ability to go forward in time in order to see how they solved any complicated problem. Seeing how they solved it, they then went back in time to apply their solution. However, as the instructor had been careful to point out, depriving the mind of its ability to work out the problem by itself could lead to the problem not being solved in the correct manner. What the time traveler perceived as a solution might, in fact, complicate matters.

Unquill could, in theory, test the Causality Paradox concerning the matter of Hinjo.

He could go forward to see if a solution had indeed been found.

If events could be changed, such information would prove revolutionary.

Every respected theorist, of which there were many, agreed that the time stream could only be known, not changed.

Knowing this, Unquill wondered why he'd been allowed to stomp about in that room of stone and wood before taking history's two most significant citizens.

Had he always taken them?

He could not say for certain.

Perhaps the people with greater levels of responsibility than himself knew something he didn't.

Some minutes had passed while Unquill had stood lost in his thoughts.

The images on the screen slowed.

A primitive bicycle, a great roaring beast, a remote-controlled machine moving along a world of red sand.

His eyes widened when the computer did something it hadn't done before.

It stopped flashing images past.

It showed, in clear detail, the image of Hinjo Junta, as the future historians had recorded him, emaciated and dying.

Unquill pressed the escape key.

Nothing happened.

SAVANNAH AWOKE TO the sound of a man whooping in excitement.

She knew she hadn't been asleep long, for she'd developed the headache she always got whenever someone interrupted her sleep.

She saw the image of a man, his skin stretched tight around his face, his eyes dull, emotionless.

To her, this was the image of a man who had given up on life.

She felt sorry for him, for she knew that he would soon die.

She turned her face away, unable to look at the man.

A flicker of recognition in the back of her mind told her that she'd seen this man somewhere before.

Even while Unquill shouted the name Hinjo, she knew it had to be true.

Here was a man who would, according to Unquill, destroy the human race, yet she had met him before.

He had to have been a time traveler, she thought.

She looked up to catch Kenneth staring at her.

She stuck his tongue out at him.

He turned his face away, pouting.

Savannah stood up, feeling the weariness in her bones.

Her mother had often said that Savannah had no business being tired or sore since she was so young, yet Savannah couldn't help it. She had caught the insomnia bug earlier in the year. Now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't sleep more than three or four hours a night. As a result, she found herself growling at Unquill's exclamation, who, when he turned about to give her his good news, looked abashed.

"What's going on?" Savannah asked.

"This man, this is Hinjo," Unquill said.

Kenneth stood up. "Really? He doesn't look that dangerous to me."

Unquill smiled.

To Savannah, the smile looked rather sad.

"This is an image taken at the end of his life. No other images of him exist because he had not come to be known among us before he made his choice. We tried locating him before this, but with no success."

They all studied the image for a while. Savannah couldn't shake the feeling that she'd seen the man somewhere before.

Though his his hair lay in tufts about his head, his chin and forehead retained a certain something to it.

At that moment, Savannah happened to look at Unquill.

She saw that, where he hadn't bothered brushing his hair in the back, Unquill had the same pattern of tufts that Hinjo did.

Savannah swallowed.

She took a deep breath before speaking. "Unquill, that man-it's you."

Unquill's mouth hung open in shock.

He approached Savannah until he stood in front of her.

Then he knelt before her.

Their eyes met.

Unquill's eyes retained the animation of life whereas Hinjo's did not.

Yet, they were the same color.

Up close, so close that Savannah could feel the heat of his breath on her face, she became ever more sure of herself.

Unquill backed off.

He pulled a weapon from his belt. "You believe what you say. I don't see any deception in you. Then, if you are right, I will kill myself here and now. That will end all the problems once and for all."

Kenneth spoke up. "No, it won't."

Savannah turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Do we know how old Hinjo was when the photograph was taken?"

"Surely, all you need to do is calculate how old I am now, together with how many years will pass between now and then," Unquill said.

Savannah picked up Kenneth's train of thought. "Unless you factor in how many years you'd been alive while traveling to some other time. That might explain why you can't find, well, yourself. It's because you popped back in right at the moment when everything got started. You've been expecting Hinjo to live a normal life in obscurity like everyone else, right? What if that's not how it is? What if Hinjo travels-traveled-from a point in the past or future to the critical point you've been worried about?"

Unquill said, "Such things are forbidden. One must always return to the precise point from which one has left. To do otherwise would lead to a banishment from the Constabulary for all time. Some have tried it, believe me. All have failed."

Kenneth scratched his nose, then his chin, deep in thought. "If you went forward to study a future in which people don't exist anymore, you could just use their thingies whenever you wanted, couldn't you? No one would stop you."

Unquill's eyes widened for a moment. "I had not considered that. Perhaps it's time we put this matter before the Council of Thirds. If indeed it is I, then-"

The more Savannah looked at Unquill, standing before her and Hinjo on the screen, the more she felt certain that Unquill and Hinjo were the same person.

### Chapter Thirteen

SCHEDULING A MEETING with the Council of Thirds proved to be less of a problem than Unquill had said it would be.

Kenneth wondered if the Council, like Unquill, had knowledge of events that hadn't happened yet.

Had they set aside some time in their schedule just for a meeting they foresaw?

Kenneth could not say for certain.

The notion made him curious about the world he'd been transported into.

If one saw the future, then prepared for it, all the surprise of life would be gone-provided, of course, that people looked into their own futures.

Kenneth thought these people did.

He'd been so busy talking with Savannah about her idea-that Unquill and Hinjo were the same person-that he hadn't noticed himself exiting the computer room, or boarding a lift.

Nor had he even observed Unquill strapping him against a wall.

Looking about, he realized that while he hadn't paid attention to his surroundings, the world had gone mad for a moment.

He struggled against the yellow straps that held him tight against the cold steel wall even as he observed Unquill strapping himself in place. Kenneth noticed Savannah, pinned against the wall as he was, counting up to one hundred with her eyes closed.

The door of the lift closed with a loud thrum. The pungent scent of motor oil wafted through the tight, confined space.

The overhead light switched off, replaced by a red emergency light.

A countdown sounded from somewhere.

Kenneth counted up to five when the floor vanished underneath his feet.

He yelped, kicking his feet about.

Then, he fell.

The wall itself conveyed him downward, together with Unquill and Savannah. Kenneth felt himself hurtling forth at a speed he never would have guessed he could endure. He felt his stomach rising while various floors whizzed past him, numbers flashing by so quickly that he missed them when he blinked.

After ten seconds of falling, he squinted his eyes shut. His whole body felt heavier, as though it mocked him for even thinking he could be thin.

Just as soon as it had started, the ride ceased.

The wall slowed his descent gradually so that, by the time he reached the bottom, he felt the mechanisms slide home when the wall locked into place.

Everyone's restraints let go at once.

A white bag inflated around Kenneth's feet.

He picked it up and retched into it, leaving the bag on the floor.

While Unquill looked no worse for wear, Savannah looked pale. All the color had drained out of her face. "What was...that?"

"Instant gravity transport," Unquill said. He then saw her expression and added, "It's the fastest way to transport oneself from one level of the Constabulary to another. We are now at the topmost level, 126-A."

"Top?" Kenneth said in between ragged breaths.

"Yes, the Constabulary maintains a system of artificial gravity so that, for lack of a better way to put it, one stands on the ceiling and reaches up to the floor. This system was constructed to accommodate our mode of transit from one area to another. You will see, you will see," he said, beckoning them both to follow him.

Savannah grabbed her unused inflatable bag, carrying it with her. Kenneth didn't want to carry his along with him. He held his stomach, trying not to think about the method of transit Unquill wanted them both to use.

At the top level, Kenneth noticed that the air felt somewhat thinner than it had before. He grew tired easily. Neither he nor Savannah could keep up with Unquill's long, flowing strides.

Unquill soon left them behind in an enclosed hallway. Kenneth sat down on the floor. Savannah followed his example.

They struggled to catch their breath.

Before long, Unquill came to fetch them. He didn't say a word as he pulled Kenneth up by his arm.

Kenneth didn't know where he found the strength to complete the journey down the long hallway, yet he found it, for after some time had passed, he found himself standing at the end.

The end, to Kenneth's surprise, was a bullet-shaped craft, painted red with a thick purple stripe along the middle. Unquill touched a part of the craft and a door disconnected, tipping over until it served as an entrance ramp. Savannah boarded first, walking with slow steps, fearing some mishap. She sat down in a leather seat, strapping herself in at once.

Unquill prodded Kenneth along, who found a seat next to Savannah. He worked at the restraints for a time until he managed to secure his neck, legs and upper body. His arms hung loose at his sides.

Unquill did not strap himself in. He stood at the forward section of the ship, only short strides away from Kenneth, while the door retracted. It latched shut with a hiss of air.

A visual display materialized in front of him. He moved various objects around until he found the configuration he wanted. Then he pressed his palm in the middle. The display turned green, then faded from view.

Unquill lay face-down on the floor.

Before the craft had moved more than a few inches, the gravity normalized. Unquill fell upwards into what Kenneth saw was a padded ceiling.

Savannah's hair stood straight up, as though attracted by magnetism.

Kenneth felt blood rushing to his head.

For him, nothing had changed. He still thought of the floor as the floor and the ceiling as the ceiling.

His sight told him otherwise, for Unquill stood up, having suffered no ill effects from the change.

He pushed a button on Kenneth's chair, and then Savannah's chair. The chairs rotated in place 180 degrees. Kenneth's head stopped pounding once the motion completed.

Unquill said, "You may unstrap now."

THE CITY APPEARED as nothing Kenneth had ever seen before.

Looking down, he couldn't make out much of the surface. He saw metal polygons, shapes whose function he could not discern. Around him rose all manner of buildings, some extending so high he could not see their summit.

Vehicles moved about in every direction across the bottom of a system of beams that reminded Kenneth of train tracks. The beams never intersected, nor crossed one another. Instead, they existed in layers, a great number of layers.

Kenneth could not see where the system began or where it ended.

He expected the craft to leap out of its starting position to race along its beam. Instead, the craft lurched its way forward before establishing a slow, easy pace. Kenneth then saw all the other craft moved in the same manner. He supposed that, if a person happened to live for hundreds of years, no one bothered much with speeding. He further supposed that the future did not have its own equivalent of stock car racing.

Now and then, he saw what he could only describe as a spaceship passing across the top of the world. He saw ships shaped like oblong eggs with a conical spike at each end. He could only guess at how such craft moved about, for he saw nothing like the warp engines he'd seen on television. He thought about asking Unquill, yet the large man seemed not to notice anything.

Savannah kept her eyes shut.

Kenneth remembered she was afraid of heights.

The journey lasted over an hour. Kenneth couldn't take his eyes off the gigantic metal jungle that was the city. A city, Unquill said in a solemn tone, called Williamsport.

He hadn't quite believed Unquill's claim of the world containing one hundred twelve trillion people, yet looking around at all the activity, he found that he could believe it. The human activity was so relentless, in fact, that Kenneth thought about asking Unquill if he'd got the number right. One hundred twelve trillion, to Kenneth, didn't seem like enough.

The craft came to a stop at its destination. Unquill said, "If we have time, I will teach you the proper ways of reverence for the gifts bestowed upon us."

Savannah, who found she could look about again, said, "Gifts? What do you mean? Why do you have that gravity thing going on? I didn't see why the accommodation needed to be made."

"You had your eyes closed."

### Chapter Fourteen

SAVANNAH DIDN'T LIKE his answer. She said, "I'm afraid of high places. So explain it to me anyway."

Unquill looked out the window, a thoughtful expression flickering across his face.

"They're called the Soonseen. At least, that's what we call them. They have a name for themselves which we can't pronounce. Soonseen is the closest pronunciation we've been able to make. I believe you'd call them aliens. In point of fact, they are protoplasmic beings with psychokinetic potentialites which have-"

"I don't understand those words," Savannah said.

"Ah yes, do pardon me," Unquill wiped his forehead with his hand. "Such things are assumed as common knowledge today. Suffice it to say they are...aliens. Yes, let us use that word. They gave us the skycarts over seven hundred years ago with only two conditions: we must not alter any of the material they give us and we must always use the routes they established. We are not allowed, for instance, to drill a hole in the bottom of the craft so that we might enter from below. Nor are we are allowed to place the skycarts on top of their rails, lest we break our agreement. In such a case, the Soonseen would take it all away from us. So they have promised.

"As a result, we invert the gravity of all buildings which use the skycart system. Have you seen them, significant citizen? Their ships still orbit the planet, watching over us."

Kenneth frowned. "I saw them, but-" he paused. "I saw them in space?"

"Ah yes, we are in the thermosphere at present-very high up," Unquill said. "In the measurements of your time, we are perhaps three hundred miles above the planet's surface? I don't know if that number is correct, but-"

Savannah gulped. "We won't fall, will we? Not from up here?"

Unquill laughed. "Oh no, no, we shall not. Many live up here. Mind you, it's not the most ideal place to live. The temperature is very hot up here. Much radiation shielding is required just to make a passage across. The fact that we can see out the window without getting burned-that's a mystery we've never yet been able to figure out.

"That is why we honor the conditions the Soonseen have set before us. They have made the impossible possible. They gave us extra room at a time during our history when we thought no more room existed. The human race, do you know, has always perceived personal space horizontally. Yet, no one had ever thought to view it vertically. That is the frontier we explore-the frontier of the sky."

Savannah didn't understand how the sky could be a frontier. She kept her questions to herself as they disembarked the craft, entering another hallway. This time, Unquill did not pace himself so quickly. He took a few steps, waited for her and Kenneth to catch up, then took a few more steps. They proceeded in this fashion until they reached an unmarked door.

Unquill placed his palm upon it. The door opened.

A blast of cold air greeted her as she entered.

Savannah put her hands in front of her face.

She had always heard people complaining about the middle school never having a strong enough air conditioning unit. She had never heard anyone complain about the air conditioning being too strong, yet those same faculty members who always grumbled during the months of May and September would struggle in the situation Savannah endured.

Unquill urged her forward with a hand on her back.

She took a few steps forward.

The cold air stopped assaulting her.

She looked back and up to see a frosted metal vent blasting its fury all over Kenneth, who let out a yelp of surprise. Turning forward, she beheld the room she'd entered. All manner of people came and went. A large round kiosk manned by twenty people stood in the center of room. Some stood in lines to be served. Others moved through the lines as some moved back to make space. Savannah saw other people emerge through portals like the one she'd passed through. They went under the cold air. They seemed not to notice.

"Here we are," Unquill said. "Williamsport Station. From here, it's just a short journey to the Council of Thirds."

Savannah didn't like the word "journey." To her, that implied a lengthy process. For as high up as they were in the sky, it also meant she'd be sitting in a vehicle Unquill called a skycraft for a bit longer, perhaps a while longer, with only a layer of metal between her and a very long drop.

Though if she understood Unquill correctly, she'd burn to death before she hit the ground. She tried to picture herself igniting in mid-air even while she plummeted endlessly. She dismissed the picture from her mind.

"I hope it's a short journey," Savannah said.

UNQUILL RETRIEVED HIS transit pass for inspection. Together with Savannah and Kenneth, he stood in line behind seven others. He had only seen the Council of Thirds twice before-once for his induction into the Constabulary and again when the Hinjo problem had first been discovered.

During the trip from the Constabulary to the station, he could only think about what might cause him to violate the rules, as Kenneth had suggested. In the middle of his fourth century, he had no complaints. Many people lived longer than he had. The oldest recorded person, to date, happened to be a man of 1100 years whose body had finally given way to the dictates of time.

Another few hundred years wouldn't go amiss, Unquill thought. So why throw all that time away?

He could only come to one possible conclusion: his life was coming to an end, no matter what he might choose for himself. He, like the majority of citizens in the world, had been forbidden to view his own end or any circumstances surrounding the end of his life.

If indeed he was Hinjo, the Council of Thirds would have no choice but to view that information from the time stream themselves.

Then Unquill would know for sure.

In a room full of people taller than himself, the two children at his side drew stares from all directions. The badge pinned to Unquill's chest proclaimed him to be an officer of the Constabulary. That badge alone, he perceived, kept curious citizens from grabbing up Kenneth and Savannah for their own purposes. Unquill had never liked his badge, nor had he ever made a point of reminding everyone why no one crossed the Constabulary.

Yet now, stuck amidst a sea of strange faces, he felt glad of his place in the time stream.

Minutes passed. The people in front of him received their service, then went on their way. When Unquill's turn came, he stepped forward.

A tall woman wearing the black and silver Transit Company uniform sat in front of him. She, like all the other representatives, shaved her head as part of the company's dress code. Unquill presented his identification card.

The representative said, "Greetings, citizen Hester. How may I service you today?"

"I am in spatial transit from the Constabulary to the Unbroken Tower," Unquill said. "With me are two citizens from the time stream. Please make the necessary arrangements."

The woman blinked. No one asked to visit the Council of Thirds. In fact, everyone did their best to stay away from there as often as possible. She said, "Certainly, citizen. One moment," she pressed a series of buttons on the translucent display in front of her. "And there you are. Skycraft 91024 is ready and waiting for your departure. Have a safe journey, citizen."

Unquill led Kenneth and Savannah to the 91000 block of departures. With only one hundred thousand skycrafts in service, Unquill couldn't help wondering if he'd been handed the short end of the stick. Savannah stayed close to him, hiding in the shadow of his torso. Kenneth seemed not to notice that, by comparison to his own size, he walked about in a world of giants, for walk they did. They walked their way across the oxygenated building. Unquill had heard once that people had gotten lost past the 50000 block. He made a point of stopping at every kiosk he saw to verify their location and destination.

Savannah rode on top of his shoulders by the time they passed the 70000 block. Unquill felt himself growing weary, despite all his conditioning for any possible temporal necessity, such as having to run away from any large armed force he might encounter. Kenneth continued on, though he appeared ready to keel over himself.

Unquill had by now lost track of how long he'd been walking, or how often he'd seen another person look at the girl upon his shoulders, then the badge on his chest, before looking away.

The crowd thinned out by the time he reached the 90000 block. Unquill sat down in a row of black metal chairs, huffing out his breath. Savannah climbed down off his shoulders. When Kenneth sat down next to him, he fell asleep at once.

Staring straight ahead, Unquill saw a display which said in red letters, "91024 Departure."

He knew the skycraft would wait twenty-four hours from the time he registered his departure at the service desk.

He could afford to wait a moment to catch his breath.

### Chapter Fifteen

SAVANNAH HAD ALMOST fallen asleep riding on Unquill's shoulders. She thought she might have been able to if his every step didn't jostle her body.

By the time she sat down next to Unquill, a soreness developed along the inside of her thighs. Her feet and back ached. She stretched her arms above her head.

A giant of a man passed by, so large that Savannah felt fear grip her stomach with a claw of iron. The man wore impossibly large boots, a sweater with sleeves that only came down to the middle of his forearms and a pair of denim jeans that left nothing to the imagination. His legs, bare below the knee, bore so much hair that Savannah might have called it fur. Like Unquill, the man had grown his hair out so that it fell past his shoulders, down the middle of his back. He possessed a head the size of an automobile tire with shoulders so broad that Savannah could have sat on either one of them. His hands hung by his side, each as large as a spade.

Even in passing, Savannah heard the sound of his loud breathing. She stared at the man's back while he walked away from her. He glanced back, his large eyes widening for a moment. He had not seen her in passing. Now, glancing over his shoulder, he marveled at her small size while she, never having seen anyone she could call a giant before arriving in the future, marveled at him in return.

She watched the passers-by while she waited for Unquill. She saw what she judged to be teenagers, five and six feet tall each, thin and gangly with arms and legs too long for their bodies. An old man, who to Savannah appeared to be a smaller giant, walked with the aid of a metal appendage attached to the small of his back, shaped like the number seven. The metal rod served as a third leg for the man, one which met the ground from behind. The rod rose and fell with the motion of his right leg, which he favored. The man cast a glace full of aspersion at Savannah. She looked away.

Just then, an alarm sounded, piercing the air with a tone that suggested mortal danger.

Savannah plugged her ears with her fingers, yet still she could hear it.

The announcement over the loudspeaker came through so clearly that she might as well have not tried to impair her hearing at all. "All citizens are requested and directed to locate and detain citizen Unquill Hester of the Temporal Constabulary. Repeating. All citizens are requested and directed to locate and detain citizen Unquill Hester of the Temporal Constabulary. This is a priority one alert."

The alarm continued.

Kenneth said something Savannah couldn't hear.

Unquill grabbed both of them by the arm, bringing them up.

Everyone in the area looked around. The alert hadn't provided any information as to what Unquill looked like.

Savannah didn't know if he was a household name for his work or not. The alarm continued for another ten seconds, then ceased. The people around them went about their business as normal. Anyone who saw Unquill didn't know his name.

Unquill said, "Why would they...?"

Savannah knew the answer.

She suspected that Unquill knew the answer too.

Instead of pointing out what they both thought, she said instead, "Let's board the thing-a-ma-jig and meet this council, okay?"

Unquill said, "Yes, let's meet the council. I'll be able to clear up everything."

As they walked towards through the archway that led to their departure, the display overhead turned from red to yellow.

Instead of "91024 Departure," it now read "Flight On Hold."

Before Savannah had made five steps into the departure tunnel, a loud, earsplitting whistle sounded from behind her, alongside a command in a language she did not understand.

Savannah turned to see large men in black uniforms standing at the threshold of the tunnel. Each wore a helmet with a visor covering the face. Two red stripes slashed diagonally down the torso of each uniform. The man blowing the whistle did so with his helmet off. He had cut his hair into a short buzzcut of brown fuzz. He had a hard jaw together with an expression like rock.

He called out, "Citizen Hester! Surrender at once. No further notices will be given."

Kenneth asked, "Who are they?"

"They're the Black Brigade," responded Unquill, his voice a bit unsteady. "They're like police. Well, not exactly like police. They don't hurt people without a reason. But-"

"Never mind that," Savannah said. "We have to get going."

Unquill protested, "But, if I leave now, I will become an outlaw."

"That doesn't matter," Savannah said. "Just go to the council and explain the situation. I'm sure they'll listen."

Unquill looked down to the tunnel to where the entrance to the skycraft lay, then back at the men in black waiting for him. He wrung his hands, then said to them, "I reserve my right to a hearing before the Council of Thirds. This is my destination. Would you like to accompany me?"

The man without a helmet called back, "Citizen Hester, you have been deemed by Council Leader Dillon to be an enemy of humanity. Your rights are null and void. You do not have the right to a hearing or trial. You will be detained for the remainder of your life. This is the judgment of the Council of Thirds."

Savannah tugged at Unquill's arm.

"Never mind, just run!"

Savannah ran first.

Unquill and Kenneth followed quickly behind.

They ran into the skycraft, the uniformed men close behind them. Someone pounded on the door of the skycraft with a melon-sized fist. A resounding thud echoed through the craft.

"Oh dear, oh dear," Unquill said, bringing up the control screen. "I have to override this-ah, there it is."

A warning flashed on the screen.

Unquill seemed not to notice.

The skycraft started moving.

As it did so, the men of the Black Brigade aimed palmed-sized weapons at the craft.

Bursts of blue energy followed.

The craft shook.

The firing continued even while Unquill, frantic at the controls, mumbled something about shielding.

Savannah wasn't sure if she should strap herself in or not. She closed her eyes, hoping beyond hope that none of the shots would puncture the craft's hull.

NONE DID.

The firing stopped.

Kenneth, with a headache from having his sleep interrupted, saw the men fade into the distance as the skycraft proceeded along. Before long, he could only see the massive station behind them and the criss-cross network of beams all around. He yawned. He wanted to go back to sleep.

Before he did, however, he asked Unquill a question. "Why are they after you?"

"They think I'm Hinjo."

Kenneth shrugged. "But you're not, right? At least, not yet. They can't put you in prison for something you haven't done yet."

"They can," Unquill said. He stepped back from the controls. "I used an override to change this craft's status from holding to active. That is in violation of our agreement with the Soonseen. Even they think I'm Hinjo, so it doesn't matter. Oh dear, I'm a criminal now."

"Why is the Council of Thirds against you?"

"They must have better evidence than a photographic resemblance. There are sealed records about Hinjo, of course. I don't know what they saw. This will be a long trip with a short ending."

"What do you mean?"

"The Black Brigade will be waiting for us when we depart. They may not even believe that you are citizens from the time stream. Since I have defied them, my word is worth less than nothing now."

"Then we'll just bust through them," Kenneth said, smacking his fist and his palm together. "The Council can't be far from the departure area, can it?"

"No, not very far," Unquill said. "But they won't meet with us even if we do manage to get past the Brigade. They will simply lock their doors against us."

Savannah spoke up. She said, "Then how do we determine if you're really Hinjo or not?"

"We can't," Unquill said. "They've already decided. Enemies of humanity are those who pose a great enough risk to the whole of the human race that they must be apprehended at once, regardless of what they may or may not have done. I can't believe that I-that I am one of them. The last enemy of humanity was apprehended seventy-seven years ago. The next one should have been apprehended five days from now."

Kenneth felt a chill run down his spine.

He grasped at once what Unquill seemed to miss.

"Do you suppose that, this person who gets arrested in five days, do you suppose that's you, Unquill?"

Unquill's eyes widened. "I had never thought about it," he spluttered. "But-but information on enemies of humanity are always sealed to members of the Constabulary who are not preparing for long-term missions. It could be me.

"But that would mean-how do I avoid getting caught for five days?"

No one had an answer for that question.

### ~~~~~~

### The End

### ~~~~~~

### The Riddle

### Children of Two Futures Part One

### 

### Chapter One

### Present Day

CAROL WREN SAT in the doctor's office, wishing she was anywhere but sitting on the curvy beige examination bed, waiting for her test results. Ever since the inexplicable kidnapping of two students from Leonard Dunkelson's class in Bristol Area Middle School, Carol's knee had felt as bad as it ever did.

She hadn't been able to explain how her knee caused her so much pain that it made her fall when Kenneth Yardrow and Savannah Proehl had been kidnapped by a person in a heavy-looking spacesuit. But her knee had hurt too much, and those poor kids were gone, and she could not tell anyone where they were taken because she could not possibly know.

She had tried telling the investigating detectives all that she'd seen, but they had only laughed at her. She had felt embarrassed, then guilty at being embarrassed, and then angry at the police officers for making her feel guilty, because she only told them the truth. Why would she even think of making it all up?

Finally, she just decided to tell them that she didn't know much of anything about the incident since, a doctor could confirm, she had been immobilized with an injury. A teacher had fallen asleep at his desk, though no toxins had been found in his blood that would indicate sedation. The classroom floor had been ruined with the man's large tracks. Carol thought of him as an astronaut who must have weighed quite a lot to leave such deep indents in the tile. Yet those things were just hard to explain.

No one around the school had seen anyone coming or going-not the janitor who had been mopping the girl's bathroom floor, not the security guard at the front entrance who had been sitting at his station watching six black and white security feeds, and none of the teachers. Certainly not Leonard Dunkelson, who had been placed on administrative leave pending a psychiatric evaluation.

Carol Wren did not want to be placed on administrative leave pending a psychiatric evaluation. There was no way she could defend herself. The surveillance tapes had revealed nothing.

No DNA samples had been found on the scene, except those of the children already present. A K-9 unit had uncovered nothing at the school that might lead to the presence of narcotics. A search team had combed through the area in a ten-mile radius, but had uncovered nothing useful.

Every abandoned building in Bristol had been searched, many left over from the heyday of the steel boom from fifty years ago. Volunteers had spent mornings and evenings searching through the township with flashlights, night vision goggles, and even metal detectors.

No one had been able to find a single clue of any kind relating to the two missing children, though they had found in the course of their search, a lost sheepdog and an illegal campsite made by two people who had eloped.

The case of the disappearing children had made national headlines. The police continually repeated evasive statements which meant absolutely nothing. Though the story had been a media sensation for a week, they lost interest when no new information came up.

She followed the story with intense interest, while her knee had not improved as it should. Full-blown attacks continued through the days and weeks that followed. She struggled through the rest of her classes until school finally let out, and then scheduled an appointment with her doctor across the border in Canada.

She felt fortunate to live a short flight away from Canada. The first time she had wrecked her knee after stepping into a groundhog's hole a while back, she bluntly asked about the price of everything. She learned very quickly that medical procedures in Canada cost far less than they did in America. She paid out of her own pocket for the surgery that left three white scars on the skin of her kneecap. Mile long runs in the morning finally drove the memory of the painful recovery away.

If only it was like that this time. She headed out again after calling her sister Katrina in Vermont. From there were about a three-hour-drive to see her doctor. It was uncomfortable with her left leg throbbing the entire time, but seeking treatment in Canada would save her from personal bankruptcy.

Doctor Kerchel Russell entered the room with a folder full of papers in hand. He wore a white lab coat and smelled of antiseptic. A pair of glasses with round frames clung tight against his face. A black pen stuck out of his shirt pocket and underneath his lab coat was a white business shirt and a straight blue tie with a large brass pin. White residue from medical gloves still remained on the top of his hands.

Doctor Russell sat down on a swivel chair and faced Carol.

"Hello again, Carol. How are you feeling today?" he greeted her.

I feel like hell," Carol bluntly but honestly replied. "I've got a three-hour drive back to Vermont after we're done here, so I'm hoping you have good news for me."

Doctor Russell laid open the folder across his lap. He looked for a particular page, and then brought it before him. He furrowed his eyebrows, lost in thought for a moment, he said. "I'm sorry to have made you wait."

"That's quite all right," Carol said, even though she felt anything but all right.

"It's taken so long because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking at. I confirmed with everyone involved in taking your X-Rays. You see, the X-Rays we have of your leg now very closely match the X-Rays we took six years ago, when you first came to us.

"There are a few differences, though they are so small that they wouldn't have been detected had we not enlarged the image. In fact, could you pull your pant leg up, Mrs. Wren? I'd like to have a look at your knee again."

Carol had no idea where the doctor was going with all this. She rolled up the denim over her left leg until it bunched up around her thigh, leaving her throbbing knee in plain sight. She looked down at it, and saw what he had seen from the first. The scars of her previous surgery were not there.

"It's exactly the same as it was the day I stepped in the hole," she said in a quiet voice.

Doctor Russell ran a hand through his short, bristly brown hair. "I'm afraid that means we'll have to do the same procedure all over again. Although I must confess, I've never before seen a case where the scarring has disappeared completely. There's no question that if you continue to walk on that leg the way it is now, you risk putting yourself in a situation where amputation will become necessary."

Carol had heard the word amputation before, and it had scared her today just as much as it scared her six years ago. She'd been saving up for retirement in two years, but she found herself having to choose between continuing to work for another decade, or retiring on a disability salary given out by the government.

"How much does it cost to do that? Is the price still the same?"

Doctor Russell had come prepared with documents detailing the cost of the procedure. Carol regretfully pulled her wallet out of her purse, sighing, but thinking that this was better than being taken somewhere where she might be suffering far more than she could imagine like those poor, kidnapped children....

### Chapter Two

### The Future: 7245 A.D.

WHEN THE NEARLY unintelligible message from the aliens known as the Soonseen had come, the twelve members of the Council of Thirds knew their time was drawing short. Vio Quann, leader of the Fourth Third of the Council of Thirds, directed everyone to the atmosphere ships he had ordered to the council's headquarters, called the Unbroken Tower.

Only a few seconds had passed when the message arrived, and great green beams of energy hurtled through space from one alien ship to another.

Dust scattered from the ceiling as the floating building shook with an impact, the type of which it had not been subject to for many hundreds of years. The rotating image around the table once had shown the face of an old Unquill Hester as Hinjo Junta, the singularly damning image that had haunted Vio's sleepless nights for the last few days.

The single piece of information the computer told the world for days was that Unquill Hester and Hinjo Junta was the same person. After that, the computer despaired for a few days, and suddenly was working again. All of a sudden, the image had disappeared.

In its place came a message in the Soonseen language consisting of small pictographs. Vio knew what the image said without the assistance of a reference guide to the alien language.

The treaty has been broken. The responsible parties shall be punished.

Once they learned of it, the other council members knew what it meant as well. Zan Gopal, fat and waddling, had left the Unbroken Tower at once, and headed for his home in Hong Kong. Quinn Yester and Loyan Axon had departed as well. That left Vio and Yill Onnu as the only remaining council members, along with their council leader, Erson Dillon.

The past week had not treated Erson well. For many years, Vio had grown used to seeing Erson's silent, persistent presence at council functions. The man hardly ever spoke except to say something important.

At over 1,000 years, Erson had grown so old that his skin stretched tightly over his body. His teeth had long since fallen out, to be replaced with a set of too-white dentures that betrayed themselves in their perfection. Not a single hair remained on top of his head, which had given way to so many liver spots that they had all joined together to form one large spot turning the top of his head brown.

Whenever Erson deigned to open his eyes, Vio always had the sense that despite all the outward signs of age the man had carried, his mind had not yet given in to the ravages of time. He looked about the room with a sharp, piercing intelligence that Vio could not deny.

Erson did not speak a word as the Unbroken Tower shook once again, spilling dust out from between cracks in the ceiling. He placed one bony, withered hand upon the table, and his fingers with broken yellow nails tapped against the green table.

Vio said to Erson and Yill, "We must go."

Yill Onnu did not acknowledge him. Her large, gaudy earrings pulled down her elongated earlobes even further as she stared at the message. She had tried putting on eye makeup at some point during the day, yet it had run down her cheeks in dark blue streaks.

The streaks had remained there, even as the council met to discuss what would be done about the impending attack from the Soonseen. They had not reached a conclusion before shots soared out high above the planet.

Erson pushed himself up with both hands. Vio saw that doing so took quite a bit of effort. The man's arms shook with the effort of pushing himself out of the chair in which he sat. In days past, Vio might have helped the old man to his feet.

When he had done so, Erson had rewarded him with a spiteful look and a slap on the nearest body part to be found. Now, Vio watched in silence as the leader of the Council of Thirds grunted while struggling to do something as simple as stand up.

Finally, Erson stood upright. He leaned forward against the table to support himself. A wet pink tongue emerged from his mouth, licking pale red lips, and a breath of air passed out of his lungs. He said in a raspy, croaky voice, "You will carry me."

Vio couldn't help but smile at the old man. Such had been Erson's way for as long as Vio had known him. Instead of asking for help, his request turned into an order. What might have shamed another person became a reason for him not to bother touching the ground with his feet any longer.

Vio circled around the table, and knelt down one knee before him. Erson's skin felt cold as he climbed onto Vio's back as best he could. After some amount of struggle, they found a comfortable position in which Erson grasped Vio's shirt with his hands and Vio put his arms behind him to secure Erson's legs in place.

Yill Onnu continued staring into the screen displaying the Soonseen's message. A glint had appeared in her eye that Vio didn't like. The odd way her mouth quirked upwards together with the glee that appeared in her dull, gray pupils showed a unique kind of madness that made Vio hesitant to speak to her a second time.

Yet, for all her faults, she was a council member just as he was.

He said, "Are you coming?"

As Yill's face turned to him, the madness in her expression increased. She reminded Vio of a chasm opening, at the bottom of which could be found nightmares beyond his imagination. He took a step back from her. Yill said, "Oh, I'd very much like to stay."

Erson pulled a knee up into Vio's back. Carrying the most powerful man in the world upon his back, Vio Quann exited the meeting room, glad to be gone from the one place in the entire world where he had never felt comfortable.

### Chapter Three

### The Future: Around Seven Billion A.D.

THE SPACESHIP MATERIALIZED in the orbit of the dead planet. The once yellow sun around which the planet orbited had since begun expanding into a red giant. To the Chief Scientist of the Lonnan Nation who called himself Nolan Ninal, the word giant didn't do justice to the enormous red fireball reaching out to swallow up the brown planet Earth.

Instead, Nolan thought of a word in his own language represented by a single dark circle that, when roughly translated to the now-extinct language of English, meant, "as big as the universe."

Nolan had traveled from the year 7157 A.D into the very distant future for a singular purpose: word had reached him about a tablet in the English language, which the people of his nation could not yet understand that had been placed there by a time-traveler.

Some others had speculated that it had remained in place for billions of years, protected as much as possible from the elements so that the words upon it would not be worn away. Nolan thought this notion was nearly impossible.

As a member of a space-faring race, whom the humans of the seventy-second century called the Soonseen, Nolan existed partly as pure energy and partly as a corporeal being, still restrained within the confines of a three-dimensional plane. He floated in the middle of his ship's bridge, radiating a pure white color.

At times, he tried to hide his color, for the color he emitted gave away his emotional state of mind. After such a long period passing through the future, however, Nolan felt within his rights to let a little happiness show.

The bridge had been built as a sphere where workstations were found along its inner walls. Like the rest of the ship, it had no gravity. Nolan floated in the very center of that sphere while the other members of the Lonnan nation, themselves glowing pure white, hovered in front of their work stations.

When a crewman wanted to interact with a console, they had to let a string of themselves flow out to touch a panel with no buttons or display. The ship conveyed all the information directly to each crewman's consciousness, and in return, the crew could instruct the ship to do what they wanted.

Above, directly overhead, a circle at the apex of the sphere displayed a view of the planet outside the ship. Just looking at the slowly expanding sun, Chief Scientist Nolan felt his body growing warmer. He knew this was just a response his consciousness generated from the genetic memory of a time when his people had bodies that could feel heat.

Even if he were to order his spaceship to fly directly into the sun, he would not feel any heat, even while the ship burned. Yet, looking at the sun, he felt a twinge of warmth spread throughout his form. If he had a mouth, he would have smirked at this.

He lowered his body to the bottom of the sphere and let parts of himself interact with the ship. His thoughts spread out to every part of the ship where a console could be found. He said; Take the ship to the tomb. We have sixteen hours to find what we are looking for.

After the ship entered the atmosphere and landed outside a tomb dedicated to the human race, Nolan disembarked. As far as he understood the reports he read prior to his expedition, the tomb had once stood high enough to be seen from orbit. That had been before the entire structure collapsed one day after billions of years of biting, dry wind had eaten away at the structure's base.

It had lain where it had fallen. Miles of stone rubble in every direction, long since overgrown by plants, served as the last accomplishment of the human race before its destruction.

What once might have looked like a gigantic statue fallen to Earth had, with time, come to resemble a series of hills. The grass had since died as the red sun continued its blazing encroachment upon the skies. The ground, once green, had turned brown.

Red light from the gigantic star cast over everything. Though Chief Scientist Nolan had been told his visual sensory organs would remain undamaged by the presence of so much ultraviolet radiation, he had not looked at the evidence himself.

He mistrusted that conclusion, for the sun took up so much of the sky that he had to focus on dark objects, lest bright colorful spots dance before his eyes. He focused on his destination-a plain stone portal in the ground just before him. It was beneath his feet. Nolan kicked away grainy, dry dirt from the portal.

An inscription had once been written on the portal, perhaps in the language the humans constantly used for their verbal communication rituals. While the words had not survived the years, Nolan saw the faintest ridges on the portal that, under other circumstances, might have just been the effects of weather. However, he knew it was not.

He let the parts of himself that might have once been called feet bleed through the heavily-packed atoms of the stone. A faint blue slip of himself lit the space beneath the portal, and he pulled. using all the force he had at his disposal.

With his body stuck into the round stone, the portal yanked free. It thudded to the ground, turning upside down. The humans had been clever enough to leave an inscription on the bottom of the portal as well as the top. He did not know what the characters signified.

Nolan gradually pulled his body free from the stone. A chunk of the portal tore loose, still attached to a wispy appendage. He waited while the gray stone slid down, the atoms of his body reasserting the connections with each other, though in different ways.

He had developed a hypothesis that the nearby burgeoning red giant would not affect his ability to maintain his own corporeal state. The hypothesis had been proven true. That much would make for an interesting read in the Lonnan Nation after he gathered all the data taken from the spaceship's sensors.

The passage leading underground was dark, but Nolan's own body lit the way for him. By now, he had taken on a worried shade of light blue. He did not feel particularly worried, but his own essence never lied.

If he was blue, then he was worried, no matter what protestations he might care to make. He wondered what was worrying about. Whatever it might be, he deduced that the concern lay in his subconscious, not yet fully actualized into thought.

If the various pictures on the wall were any judge, the human race had been a self-centered species. The pictures, carved into the stone, had themselves worn away by a process not evident to Nolan's senses.

He saw faint indents of animal shapes, human shapes, and shapes of spaceships. The shapes told a story of the evolution of intelligence, though if any specific event was meant to be portrayed, he did not see it. That much seemed to be an oversight to him. His research had proven that progressions in sentient beings always occurred as a result of some catalyst or another.

At the end of the passage, he saw a single tablet encased in several layers of glass, which made it hard to make out the characters. He saw just enough to determine that he had found the relic mentioned in the accounts of future history his own people had recorded.

This tablet had not been a part of the monument to the human race. Instead, there had once been a time capsule containing all the information which humans had deemed worthy of passing on to whatever being might happen upon it.

A being-one which the Lonnan Nation had not yet discovered-had come for the capsule. In its place, a tablet had been left. Nolan Ninal could not take the tablet back to his ship himself without damaging it in some way. A method of extraction would have to be devised.

Fortunately, he thought to himself, he had enough time.

### Chapter Four

### The Future: 7013 A.D.

BLACK PAVUN KIRO had joined the United Solar Military two weeks ago.

Since that time, he had been exposed to more privations than he had thought would be possible while living in unsanitary conditions. Cockroaches crawled across the barracks in which 120 recruits had to cram themselves in. They did so by sleeping in bunk beds three beds high.

Unwashed laundry hung from bedposts, metal hooks, anything from which a piece of clothing could be hung. Tomorrow, the division's quartermaster and master-at-arms would gather up all the dirty laundry then send it off to be washed in great silver machines.

For the moment, Pavun found that he couldn't sleep, even though he was not on watch tonight. Four recruits with their heads shaved just like his had stood in their places, ready to spew out phrases that had been taught to them.

Pavun himself had recited the words once before, only to be dismissed out of hand because the man in front of him had forgotten about the challenge to be made to all visitors arriving past midnight. Pavun had felt like a fool, going through the ritual when the Greens had shown up just to pass away the long hours of the morning.

He had trouble keeping track of military rank, as well. He knew that he was a Black, which stood for recruit. Above that was Red, the first rank gained by anyone who survived basic and extended training. Green, though, was further up the list. Was it before or after Yellow? He couldn't quite remember.

So infrequent had been his contact with officers above Red that he never had a chance to gauge their rank by the way they acted with each other.

As a result, when he completed his two-hour watch before going to bed, he pulled out his manual of military rank and tried to find out just how much trouble he might be in by making a fool out of himself. Green, he read, was after Yellow but before Blue. People who attained the rank of Blue could command bases, or ships. Green officers often served at the right hand of Blue officers, so the manual read.

Did that mean that the two Greens would later relate the incident to Blue Coaxl, the base's commander? There was the story of how one recruit from the troublesome division of 385 had sputtered out meaningless words while the other, when asked the question, "And what about you," had shaken in his boots while reciting word-for-word the challenge his division leader had taught him.

Pavun thought that if he was lucky, the two Greens would not know his name.

His division leader, Red Oster, had mentioned on more than one occasion that the easiest way to advance in the military was to be invisible, yet productive. Don't speak up. Don't draw the attention of your superiors. Don't become too friendly too long with anyone. Don't fraternize with people of the opposite sex or the parallel sex.

Pavun had taken that to heart and had been as silent as he could be, trying to complete his tasks as efficiently as possible.

These had involved folding underwear, tying ropes, and arranging his blankets as neatly as possible on his bed. He continually heard Red Oster say that anyone who couldn't be trusted to fold underwear would not be trusted to fire a hand weapon.

After enough times of hearing this line, Pavun thought it meant that he had to obey orders no matter how he might feel about them. Even if he felt tucking in the sheets of his bed every morning was a silly waste of time, if he could not do it, his failure would be taken to mean that he could not follow orders.

For this reason, he had applied himself to his tasks with a zeal he didn't know he possessed. Red Oster began using Pavun as an example of a recruit who got it-whatever it might happen to be. Where other recruits might have tried to show their bunkmates the way to tie one knot or the other, Pavun had kept that knowledge to himself. He had kept his head down, mumbling his words whenever someone asked for help.

The members of the dysfunctional unit 385 hadn't yet realized that obedience came as a result of personal effort, rather than cooperation.

The unit had become dysfunctional from the very first day when recruits who had not gotten any sleep in thirty or more hours marched in the middle of the night to their new dorm, stepping on the heels of each other's feet to the cadence of Red Oster's voice.

From that moment when 120 recruits had marched into their dorm, taken up their bed assignments, then been forced to march off to breakfast without a wink of sleep, the discontent had grown.

The seed of strife had been planted by circumstance. Red Oster had not seen it, and had not taken steps to correct it.

After a sixteen-hour day, most of which was spent waiting around, yawning and getting told not to lean on walls, unit 385 had marched back to their dorms with full bellies, though exhausted in body and mind. Red Oster felt no better, Pavun observed, which accounted for his crankiness the next morning when he found people taking their time waking up.

Red Oster yelled for everyone to wake up, wake up, wake up, for at least fifteen minutes. Some people had slept so deeply that Red Oster pulled them physically out of their beds.

That's when the trouble began, and also when Pavun found the riddle.

He didn't know what it meant at first, but it spoke of fourteen and three people who could save the world.

He thought that someone had slipped the piece of paper into his manual as a prank, just to keep him awake at night. If so, the prankster had achieved his goal for Pavun laid awake at night, thinking about the riddle.

The word choice bothered him. He wouldn't have called himself a master of the universal language, English, yet he knew enough to say that there could be both truth and falsehood in it. He had kept the riddle in his manual, tucking it away in his personal effects when he did not have to carry it to breaks.

He often waited in the hallways for hours at a time, pressed so closely to his fellows that he had to place the manual on the back of the person in front of him. Since Pavun was the tallest person in the division, he was always last in line. Nobody put a manual on his back.

The riddle gnawed at him when he stripped naked in front of his fellow division members for a shower. It gnawed at him when he ran around the gymnasium, always outpacing the other recruits, who had shorter legs than him. The riddle bothered him when he finally got in the cafeteria, where instead of eating as military men had done so in days past, he was given ten minutes in a quiet room to center himself.

During this time, he would make sure that his body's natural processes still worked the way they were supposed to. He could live to be 500 or 600, if he did not eat food and kept centering himself every day. That was what the break time was for-centering himself.

While his body relaxed, he let his mind drift. The rhyming lines of the riddle sprang to mind over and over, no matter how much he wanted to clear his consciousness in the little time he got to himself.

He became more convinced that the riddle served a purpose. It was more than just someone's inane ramblings put to paper. This mystery really meant something.

So he felt when he found himself lying awake in the middle of the night, his gray blanket pulled up to his chest. Something more was needed to unlock this mystery. A piece of information he did not have, perhaps. The riddle might be incomplete, although unlikely. Whatever it pertained to, Pavun felt sure that the riddle ought to be placed in the right hands.

Those hands, as far as he knew, were not his own. He had spent three days thinking of little else except the twelve-line mystery which had appeared in his manual while he'd been in the bathroom.

After spending a restless night in his bunk, he approached Red Oster in his clean, immaculate office. Pavun had never thought himself capable of speaking to any superior officer. He felt that, at the very least, Oster ought to be informed that someone had...done what?

Pavun didn't know what would come of his telling, except that the incident had to be told.

Red Oster's office, situated next to the division's single-door entrance, smelled of cleaning solution. A mostly-full container of purified water sat lodged into a dispenser with two levers, one blue and one red. The walls had been cleaned and painted consistently, unlike the paint that had peeled off above Pavun's bunk, leaving a patch of gray stone exposed for all to see.

The division commander's computer access terminal appeared state of the art to Pavun, who had freelanced as a repair technician before joining the United Solar Army.

As usual, Red Oster had taken care to make sure his uniform contained no creases or blemishes anywhere. His short, black hair had grown in almost to the point where Oster would have to shave it again. He had started out his time as division commander by being nearly bald.

He wore a pair of square, brown-framed glasses which were too big for his face, giving the effect of making him look mentally incompetent. One day of hearing him bark out orders had disabused every recruit in 385 of that notion.

He sat in a cushioned leather chair with black arm rests on either side. If Pavun ever did get to sit down, he always sat on the floor. By Oster's black and white keyboard lay a worn book with dog-eared pages.

The book was A Manual of Conduct, the only book allowed in the barracks. On the cover, Pavun saw a picture of a smiling man in uniform, standing outside in the wind. The man's purple neck cloth, the symbol of his rank, swayed off to one side. Pavun knew from the manual that the man on the cover held the rank of Violet.

Oster looked up from his study of the computer to Pavun, who waited in the doorway. Red Oster said, "Black recruit, what business do you have?"

Pavun looked away, an excuse passing through his mind. He could just say something under his breath and walk away as he had done before. Was it really worth it to risk being recognized by a superior officer just for the sake of someone's ramblings?

"Well, recruit, speak up. I don't have the next 10,000 years to wait on you."

Pavun gulped. He couldn't walk away, even if he made himself look ridiculous in the process. "Well, Leader Red, I've come about a riddle."

Did that sound as silly to Red Oster as it did to Pavun, who heard himself speak it?

Oster's mouth thinned as he considered the statement. He said, "So you finally found the courage."

Pavun, despite being intimidated as much as he was, couldn't help saying, "What do you mean, Leader Red?"

Red Oster picked up the book with his left hand and placed it his lap. He tapped his index finger on the cover. "It's something of a military tradition. The Temporal Constabulary found the riddle sometime in the future-300 years from now, they say. They brought it back sometime in the sixty-fourth century.

"As a joke, a Blue distributed the riddle to his favorite recruit division. They, of course, took the riddle seriously; though the gesture was not serious at all.

"Since then, in each recruit division that comes through, each division commander is authorized-by unspoken tradition-to give the riddle to the recruit they think is most likely to succeed. You're the recruit I chose-Kiro, was it?

"Usually it takes recruits a lot longer to come to their division commander with the riddle. The way it generally works is that the recruit who receives the riddle asks around the division. Generally, that person makes a fool of himself. They eventually come to the conclusion that they must ask their leader.

"It takes a great deal of courage to do what you did. So far as I know, Black Kiro, you're the first recruit on this base who went straight to their leader."

"It's Pavun, um, Red Leader. Pavun Kiro."

"You still have a bit to learn, though. That's to be expected, I suppose."

Pavun grasped at his right elbow with his left hand, trying not to be seen squirming even while his stomach somersaulted inside his body. He asked, "What do I do with it?"

"Keep it, or burn it," Red Oster said. Then, he smiled. "Or solve it. Now wouldn't that be a trick to remember?"

### Chapter Five

### The Future: 6421 A.D.

DESPITE HAVING BEEN around for 2,000 years, the Temporal Constabulary had never investigated the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of humanity that occurred right around the seventy-fifth century. The causes of humanity's extinction had been a forbidden topic.

Historians and journeymen alike were forbidden from exploring that time period for any purpose whatsoever. After all, the race had thousands of years more to live.

A sense of quiet panic hadn't quite set in until the sixty-fifth century had begun. Only 1,000 years remained until the people would no longer exist on planet Earth. With this fact in mind, the constabulary's highest officials agreed that the future had to be known.

Though temporal physics had advanced to the point where historians had definitely proven that the future could not be changed by events in the past, there existed a small hope that the theoretical Zeta Disruption would be discovered.

The Zeta Disruption, according to temporal theory, was a person-or animal-capable of changing the future.

Even while clinging to the hope that many in the constabulary considered a highly improbable possibility under the best of circumstances, theoretical research disagreed on what would happen if the Zeta Disruption did, in fact, change the future in such a manner as to steer the human race away from destruction.

Two primary theories had emerged. The first stated that the future would change, and with each change made, the time stream would accommodate the change accordingly. Research into future history would change. Information during the time of the Zeta Disruption would be altered, though to the inhabitants of that time, it would appear that the new information had always been there.

The second theory stated that, due to various paradoxes occurring as a result of changing the future, which meant changing the entire time stream as well, information would not change as quickly. The effect would be like that of a slow-moving ripple in a pond, very small at first, then spreading ever outward with a greater area of influence.

This was the less popular of the two theories, though no one could deny the equations underlying this theory proved to be sound.

Falion Lustal, a historian working in the constabulary, subscribed to the second theory. In his time between research assignments, he had studied both theories extensively, going over the numbers and graphs multiple times before he grasped in full what the endless pages of numbers meant.

He attended lectures in which temporal theoreticians spoke in complicated terms that Falion hadn't heard before. Though he himself held three doctoral degrees, the lecturers had achieved a level of knowledge about their subjects that made Falion feel like an amateur.

He sat at his desk, stuck to the ceiling as a result of the reverse gravity the entire six-mile-tall Constabulary Headquarters used to accommodate the Soonseen skyship system which connected many buildings to one another high above the surface of the planet.

Though having the ceiling and the floor switch positions had been disorienting for a while, Falion had grown used to it over time. In fact, he found that, when he returned to the surface, he couldn't quite understand why people stood right side up.

Now, he rubbed at his eyes. He wore a long white lab coat over a gray wool shirt he had worn for three days. Though he often thought he would get around to changing his shirt when he applied deodorant once every twelve hours, he promptly forgot about the state of his clothing when he laid his eyes on another piece of the puzzle that surrounded the Zeta Disruption.

He had not slept in four days, not since he felt the twinge in the back of his mind that usually signaled a discovery waiting to happen. The twinge had not went away as he spent ninety hours straight reading and re-reading theorems, speeches, diagrams, mathematical proofs, historical accounts from people who had witnessed a planet without people.

Though many forms of life survived the human race, never again did evolution steer sentient beings towards the path of meta-cognition required for the conscious mind to gain dominance over the physical body.

Falion Lustal had missed something. He could not tell what he had missed. He knew by a process his fellow historians would have jokingly called intuition, that one single puzzle piece remained.

He had to locate the one fact, the one number, the one statement lost somewhere in the ocean of human knowledge that would lead to what he felt sure would be a breakthrough concerning the existence of the Zeta Disruption.

Beginning on the fourth day, he knew he might never find what he sought. Instead, he took to recording all his thoughts, no matter how trivial. He knew how his mind worked. If he left the research to rest his body, he might never again have the same thoughts he had at present.

The passage of time would erase the majority of information stored in his short-term memory. Better, then, to record all of his thoughts so he could read them later. He hoped that, when later came, he would not shake his head at his own words, berating himself for so much effort that would appear ridiculous when he looked at it with fresh eyes.

He had started seven hours ago. Though he had finished, he still sat in front of his desk, letting his thoughts flow through his brain. There had to be a connection somewhere, an interaction he had not seen, something simple or something difficult that had been overlooked by everyone else. He knew it was there, somewhere.

In this state of mind, he stopped himself from growling when his supervisor in the constabulary, a man named Kitain Fell, opened the door to Felion's private research room. Felion's cheeks reddened.

He could not believe that he, of all people, had acted as many other researchers had acted when interrupted. Kitain, who had seen such behavior countless times, seemed not to notice.

Kitain, who stood nine feet tall and wore mismatching orange and green sneakers, said, "Good evening Lustal. The waiting period is at an end. Your next assignment is ready."

Felion, who felt exhaustion fall upon him like a waterfall, said in a tired voice, "May I know what it is?"

"Certainly. You have been assigned the task of researching the causes of humanity's destruction. Just today, three journeymen have returned from each century. We've pinpointed the date-September 17, 7245. As always, I can't give you the particulars of what has been found. You will have to observe and draw conclusions of your own."

"Of course."

Kitain leaned against the door frame and said, "You are to stay in the year 7245 for three hours."

Felion, who had once gone on assignment to observe conditions of the sixty-eighth century for twenty years, managed to raise an eyebrow. He did so deliberately to stop himself from falling asleep.

Kitain grinned. "Read through your briefing when you're ready to go. Your departure date is three days from now. We've delayed things a bit for you this time in light of your research."

He paused and then said, "Do you know, I heard of temporal scientists following your work with great interest these last few days? You've made quite a bit of progress, I'm told."

At other times, Felion Lustal might have been pleased by the compliment. With his consciousness ready to shut down, he stood up and wiped his hands on his pants. He said, "When I get back... I want to continue."

When Felion Lustal returned from his three hour long stay in the future, he brought an artifact with him. Such things were not unknown, though they were frowned upon by the constabulary. Small objects often went missing, never to be found again. When this happened, historians working for the constabulary stole an object they thought to be of great significance.

Felion Lustal returned with a small red chip tucked in a clear plastic bag. The chip, smaller than his fingernail, had been difficult to spot when he searched about for a data storage device.

He had found one though, just for the text he read. The text, as far as he was concerned, offered more questions than answers. Those questions, he sensed, would only lead to more questions. Perhaps, he hoped, after long years of inquiry, understanding would come.

Kitain waited as Felion stepped out of the time travel chamber. He led Felion to a soundproof room nearby, one which Felion had frequented. Felion, as always, had to remind himself that only minutes had passed between his departure and return. Three hours had been a much longer time than he had anticipated.

Kitain sat down on side of a disposable plastic table, brushing back a strand of blonde hair from his face. He considered Felion with two blue eyes that spoke of the wonder of a mystery not yet solved. He had shrugged on a white lab coat of his own since Felion had left. He gestured for Felion to sit, which he did.

Kitain put a black portable microphone on the table. He started, "Subject Interview Date April 14th, 6421. Subject Name: Felion Lustal. Position: historian at the Temporal Constabulary, Williamsport Division. Description of assignment: a three-hour investigation of the year 7245. Purpose: discovery of the causes regarding the disappearance of human beings from the world circa 7500. Begin recording."

Kitain paused, and then looked up from the microphone. He said, "If you would, Historian Lustal, begin wherever you like. As always, even if you present information in a disorganized manner, we can later re-organize it into a cohesive format."

While Felion thought of where to begin, he recalled the six months he'd spent being interviewed following his twenty-year assignment. He had gotten tired of talking, though he knew that talking was a necessary part of the process.

People conveyed information much faster with the spoken word, rather than the written. As such, in order to relay as much information as possible, Felion had found himself speaking twelve hours a day about his experiences.

Perhaps now, he would not have to spend so much time speaking. He laid his plastic bag on the table. The small red chip lay next to the microphone. Felion said, "I've found something unexpected. I know what causes the destruction of the human race, but I've also found how to prevent it."

The implications of Felion's statement was not lost on Kitain, who had overseen so many research projects and recorded so many interviews that he had a passing familiarity with temporal theory. He said, "The Zeta Disruption."

Felion slapped the table. He laughed. "Exactly! It exists, it exists! Can you imagine it? I have found evidence of the Zeta Disruption in the year 7245. Oh, but I must tell you of the evidence. The Council of Thirds took a statement from a man scheduled for execution.

"The man's name is Hensen Var. I don't know much about him yet. In his final statement before the council, Hensen claims the Zeta Disruption exists. Not only exists, but there are two of them!"

Kitain sat back in his chair. Coming from a new time traveler, he would not have believed what he heard. Yet, Felion had been with the Constabulary for over two hundred years. The man had gained a reputation for honesty, integrity, and above all, curiosity. Kitain said, "Continue, if you would."

Felion tried to contain his excitement so that his words could be later understood by whoever played back the recording for entry into the central computer at Jakarta. "I'll begin with the problem. Citizens of the future, like us, do not need to eat. Their bodies produce the fluids necessary to survive all on their own.

"I discovered, from a cursory glance through the computer, that some people had gone back to eating. This shortened their lifespan. Where procreation is impossible among populations consuming food once more, I read that they never grow taller than perhaps six and a half feet. Since they are mostly sterile, they are unable to procreate. Their population growth is extraordinarily negative."

"I'm still trying to get a hold of that. They eat food-on purpose-knowing they cannot have children and knowing that doing so will cause them to live shorter lives. This, I believe, is responsible for the population decreases first reported as occurring in the seventy-fifth century.

"They are led into their own destruction by a man named Hinjo Junta. This man was thought to have been a member of the Constabulary named Unquill Hester, but the council changed their minds. Perhaps he is Hinjo, perhaps he is not. I was not able to gather enough information to be sure.

"Regarding the solution, that's in the artifact I brought with me. You see, I found a poem that might be called a question. It's rather hard to understand, this poem. I thought you might want to see it for yourself, since it seems to relate to everything we have said, though it is certainly not meant for us. The poem appeared in the database as part of a conversation between a Soonseen and the President of Jakarta."

Kitain leaned forward in his chair, his eyes widening. He said, "The Soonseen? You are sure of this? They-they deigned to speak with a human being? In English? They have mastered our language at last?"

"There is no other conclusion. The Soonseen claimed the poem was found on the last day of Earth's existence, placed there by a party or parties unknown. We have never investigated that far into the future, due to the problems of bringing someone back to our own time.

"It is also difficult to predict how many unknown gravitational effects will alter the Earth's orbit, however slightly. Even if we agreed upon sending a journeyman there for a one-way trip, perhaps to be picked up by the Soonseen later, we could not accurately predict which spacial coordinates to send anyone.

"The Soonseen, who have the benefit of space flight, don't need to be so accurate. They only need to make sure that there is no space debris in the area, and that they further don't fly into a solar flare given off by the sun. All these things are observable if they set their spacial coordinates outside the solar system, and then fly their way in."

Kitain, who had heard such statements many times before, took in a deep breath, let it out, and then said, "Were you able to find out who placed this poem so far into the future?"

"I was not able to find that much out. I can give you speculation, however."

"Please do so."

Felion Lustal said, "We know that it was not us. We could not have put the message there, for we have never attempted to travel more than 10,000 years to either the past or present. Fortunately, this has proven enough for us to understand the whole of human history. Nor could it have been the Soonseen, for when they found it, they did not know what to do with it."

Kitain pointed his index finger at the man sitting across him. "Ah, now on that point, I will disagree with you. If the Soonseen from a period of, let's say, the eightieth century, inherited the poem from the Soonseen of the seventy-third century, they could then place it there for their own ancestors to find."

Felion frowned. "I had not considered that. It's possible, but unlikely. Continuing my speculation, I lean towards a third party placing the poem there, one who may be human or alien, but who holds no loyalties to either race. The reason for placing it there can only be as you say-that the poem is supposed to be found."

Kitain Fell leaned back in his chair. "Then, tell me in detail everything you learned while in the future. After that, we will try to make sense of the information you have brought back."

### Chapter Six

### The Future: 7245 A.D.

EVEN AFTER HEARING the riddle, Savannah Proehl hadn't been able to make much sense of it, other than to figure out the number fourteen was important to her mission to save the world. After getting the Soonseen's Lonnan Nation to cease firing at a ship from their Kinnan Nation, President Kunan Slaan had asked her to stick around in the future for a while.

The problem of the human race dying out as a result of Hinjo Junta's actions had remained. Though the immediate danger from deflected energy beams striking the planet had passed, Savannah found that she could not return home as soon as she wanted.

Not that she actually did want to return home. The multitude of scars on her back, the scar on her leg and the scar across her rib cage all reminded her of what awaited her when she returned to her father.

She still smelled the foul alcohol on his breath as he leered over her. She might be bleeding, asleep, or crying. So often had he beaten her that his facial expression remained the same, unlike after the first whipping Savannah had endured.

He had been apologetic back then. He said that he regretted what he had done, and Savannah had believed him. She wanted more than anything to believe that her father had it in him to overcome his own monstrous nature.

Yet, by the time her back fully healed from the whipping, he had done it again. He whipped her with a leather belt. He always held the buckle in one red fist. Each time the leather struck her back, Savannah lost a little more faith in her father.

By the time she had lost track of how many times he had whipped her, any hope she had once harbored of her father overcoming his demons had disappeared. She no longer thought it would be possible for her father to become the kind, loving man she remembered.

That man had hugged her at all hours of the day, had taken her to the park, and had watched her favorite cartoons with her. He had even laughed at the jokes Savannah thought only she understood. She had felt, back then, that she and her father had a special connection.

Returning to him would mean that she was inviting him to hurt her again. Worse, he would likely be angrier than ever since she had left him. He had always warned her against running away, even though the idea had never crossed her mind.

She couldn't leave him, even if she found herself hating him. Washing blood stained sheets and blankets had become routine in her household. She had never once thought that matters could be better anywhere else.

That's why she wondered why Kenneth's body bore no scars. Every parent had to beat their child. Savannah had always thought so. Yet, Kenneth had never been beaten, if the condition of his body was any indication.

When Savannah had first seen him with his shirt off, she had been too caught up in her emotions to think through what it might mean for her to be different, for her to have parents that acted worse than another person's parents.

Considering the future, however, she found that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to stay. She said she wanted to go home because she had been tired of solving everyone else's problems.

Kenneth had been right about that when he told President Slaan that the people of the future needed to clean up their own messes. Savannah felt the same way. She wanted to live in peace, apart from all the crises and disasters and emergencies.

As far as she could tell, for all the problems it had, the seventy-third century had more peace than the twenty-first century did.

She sat in the president's mansion in Jakarta. President Slaan had placed her in a room with three walls and several panes of glass connected to each other to form one great transparent wall. The evening sun streamed in through the glass, shining upon her braided hair which lay over one shoulder.

An empty white can lie before her on a glass table. The can had once contained the same kind of gray nutrients she had eaten in Alexandria. She wouldn't call it food, not since she had come to regard it as little better than puppy chow.

President Slaan had promised to bring her food from the Temporal Constabulary. The nearest constabulary base lay in Okinawa, which was further away from Jakarta than Savannah would have guessed.

Having flown around the world of the future herself, she knew that nothing came instantly. Yet she had hoped that, as she had been promised food around midday, it would arrive in time for supper. When 7 PM had come and gone, she had given in and said she would eat more dog food if it meant she didn't have to be hungry.

Having finished off the can of nutrients, she sat back on a white, cushioned sofa, giving her mind over to the problem of the riddle. As long as President Slaan was convinced that Savannah, together with Unquill and Kenneth could save the world, he would keep them around.

As Savannah thought about it, the three people in the riddle could have referred to anyone. Moreover, as she considered the riddle itself, she found herself wondering if it wasn't all just an elaborate prank, or a scheme to achieve some other end.

Solving the riddle-if it could be solved-would free her from under President Slaan's thumb. After that, she could go and do whatever she wanted. Provided of course that the people of the future found a more permanent solution for her than the temporal alignment device bulging out of the skin from her hip.

She pressed a hand there, feeling it give way. When she removed her hand, the device returned the same bulge it had.

Unquill had said the temporal alignment device kept her alive-at least for another seven days. She had only that much time to solve the riddle and save the world. That thought made her grin. Save the world? Not such a big deal, all things considered.

She got up off the couch, returning to her exploration of the president's mansion. She left the empty can where it lay on the table. She didn't want to have to look at it or think about it again. Since she had eaten in the sun room on the west side of the mansion, she had to walk through the hallway to get back to the main room, where the president of Jakarta and Unquill waited.

The soft, red carpet beneath her feet bore elaborate designs of flowers. Never once did the design repeat anywhere in the house. Each section of the carpet was unique. Busts of people Savannah didn't recognize stood on pedestals on either side of the hallway.

A great, ancient painting of a man standing beside a black, smoking cannon had been placed on the wall at the point where the hallway took a sharp left. The man wore a silly, wide hat. He had a hand inside his button-up uniform. He looked off into the distance, towards some object Savannah could only imagine.

She put a hand over her mouth while she chuckled at the irony of the painting. Someone had taken a great deal of trouble to paint a serious-looking man in a serious-looking location wearing the most ridiculous of clothes.

Turning left at the painting, she passed by a guest room in which Kenneth had taken to a video game. With the central computer back on, President Slaan had suggested a bit of entertainment to pass the time. Kenneth had jumped at the offer. He sat on the floor in front of a large screen with a wireless controller in hand.

A spaceship moved about the screen, shooting red beams of energy all around. One beam struck a meteor, vaporizing it. Savannah waved at Kenneth. He looked at her in his peripheral vision, and then gave a friendly grunt.

Savannah walked further down the hallway, and entered the lobby, which she supposed might also be called a reception room. Six couches, in pairs of three, sat across from each other on top of a shiny black floor in which Savannah saw her reflection. Somehow, she managed to get some of the nutrients on her forehead. She licked her index finger, and wiped the food away.

Unquill noticed her at once. For the first time in a long time, he looked happy. A smile crept over his face. Savannah realized that she hadn't seen him smile since he had run from the Black Brigade in the sky transfer station in Williamsport.

He had always looked haggard to her, as though life had just been too much for him. Now, sitting next to President Slaan, a glint appeared in his eyes that Savannah remembered seeing when he had watched her eat a plate full of vegetables.

Unquill said, "Significant citizen, come and join us."

Savannah sat down on the floor in front of the couch. She rubbed the back of her neck. "You don't have to call me that anymore. I'm just Savannah. Just plain old Savannah. Okay?"

Unquill smiled. The smile relaxed Savannah more than any words of his could have. He said, "Okay."

President Slaan, who at some point had taken off both his socks and shoes, crossed his left leg over his right. His bare foot hanging in mid air seemed out of place to Savannah given that he still wore his best working clothes. He said, "Have you finished eating?"

Savannah made a face at him. "Yes, it gets worse every time."

President Kunan Slaan shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable. He said, "I apologize for that. I'm told a week's worth of food will arrive at about 3 AM tonight. They had quite a time harvesting all the food at the constabulary on such short notice. Some of their plants aren't even ready to be harvested."

Savannah sighed with relief. "I'll be happy to eat some real food again."

Kunan scratched the top of his bare foot. He said, "Now then, shall we talk more about the riddle?"

"If you like," Savannah said. She crossed her legs and placed her hands on her thighs. "Although...I'm wondering what happened to that stuff what's his name was talking about. The Okuda Drive?"

"If you're referring to Officer Winnow Unpo of the Black Brigade, I have heard his information and instructed him to have it processed into the central computer as an ongoing case investigation. So far, the information we have is incomplete.

"We know that three people-namely, Imam Walid Felor of Alexandria, Olon Daniel of Jakarta and Kaloa Syncrate of Europe were involved in collecting money for research and production. We also know that all three of these people are now dead."

The smile vanished from Unquill's face. Suddenly, the haggard expression he had carried with him for the last week returned. Savannah wondered if he regretted the death of Imam Felor, or Olon Daniel. Savannah tried to forget both man-with reason.

Imam Felor had murdered a woman in the streets of Alexandria, and he had done the same crime numerous times. He was evil and he deserved to die. While Olon Daniel had tried to kidnap her, prompting Savannah to blast him with a powerful weapon that, she knew, helped killed him, even if he'd ultimately died of a heart attack. The charge on the weapon she had received in Madagascar had been used up.

Savannah ran a hand along her right palm, where the weapon had once rested. It gave her the feeling of control, something that had been illusive her entire life. She sighed. It also had a heavy price, but if it would save people and put evil men into extinction, she would pay it again.

"Is this connected to the riddle at all?" she asked.

"I think so. Mind you, it's only a guess. But so far, we have three people who have turned up dead, all of whom have a connection to a project that is supposed to make our atmosphere ships capable of standing up to the Soonseen.

"What greater threat could there be than that? Whoever owned ships like that would have the world by the tail. There would be no military force that could stand up to ships equipped with the Okuda Drive, if the specifications I read today are correct."

Unquill grimaced. He said, "Our primary purpose-at least for now-is to find out who is behind those three people. When I met with Kaloa, she told me she works for an organization."

When Unquill spoke her name, his face twisted into a mask of pain and regret. He continued, "If the organization exists, it can be found. I want to find it. They-they killed her."

Savannah asked, "Where do we start?"

President Slaan uncrossed his legs and placed his bare feet on the floor. He said, "Since I have all the power equal to the Council of Thirds, I can authorize quite a number of things. Understand that I can't do everything they can do. I can, however, authorize a trip for you to visit Heracleion. It's underneath the Atlantic Ocean, some miles west of the Catalans."

Savannah bit her lower lip. "Where's the Catalans?"

"I believe in your time, this region was called Portugal? I believe that's the name. It was a country on the Iberian Peninsula. The region elected to call itself the Catalan Nations a few thousand years ago. I can authorize a flight first thing tomorrow morning.

"I want you to poke around, let me know what you find. Now that the computer is working again, we can stay in constant contact. On my end, I will work with Officer Unpo to unravel this organization he's found."

Savannah, who did not look forward to more traveling when she had already flown around the world more times than she could count in the last week, said, "Is it necessary to go there in person?"

President Slaan stretched his arms out in front of him. To Savannah, he looked tired and sore. He said, "Whatever is going on there, it's not showing up in the computer records. Otherwise, we would have found it by now. This organization appears to have found a way to communicate on a worldwide scale without using the computer. Whatever their method, they will have left traces behind somewhere.

"I want you to look at the researchers in the eye. Ask the people at that facility what their impressions are. They may confide their secrets to a stranger rather than someone they know intimately. I'm counting on that aspect of human nature to work for us. It will be up to you to convince them that you are trustworthy."

Savannah turned to Unquill. She asked him, "Do we have to fly in? Can't we do that from here? Video conference or something?"

Unquill sighed. He said, "I'm bone tired. I've got jet lag. I'm sick at heart. But I...I think this is the best way to go. There's no substitute for looking someone in the eyes. This is why we do research by sending people through the time stream, rather than just looking at old books."

Savannah looked down at her hands. She concentrated on her growing fingernails rather than speak the response in her mind. There was, after all, nothing to say. She had been brought into the future against her will, and the people of the future planned on keeping her there until she helped them fix their problems.

If she protested, she would only sound selfish, self-centered. She didn't want them having the opposite impression, either-that she was only too willing to help with whatever they needed. As a result, she said nothing.

President Slaan said, "Then that's decided. I'll arrange for the flight now." He stood up, and walked out of the room.

Savannah's eyes followed him. Once he was out of hearing range, she said to Unquill, "Do we have to?"

Unquill rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of each hand. He then put his hands on his lap and said, "I don't want to either. I'd rather sleep and forget about everything. But, you know, if we have a chance to make a positive change in the world, we should take it. It's not just our lives that we affect. It's everyone.

"We have an impact on people we haven't even met. Some of them will never even know that we changed their lives for the better. If someone offers us a chance to make that change, to improve the lives of the people in this world, shouldn't we take that chance? This world is not just made for only ourselves. It's made for everyone. Don't you think so?"

Savannah could not disagree with him. She sighed again. "I wish you aren't so right all the time."

AS SHE LAY on the first comfortable bed she had found in the seventy-third century, Savannah reflected on everything that had happened since Unquill had stepped through what she now understood to be a passageway through time and taken her out of school.

She wondered why time travel had made her so sleepy-why, as far as she could tell, many people in the seventy-third century had problems with sleep. Was that the price of living so long? She didn't know.

She had felt tired far more often than she had back home. She had flown across the sky, met robots, told she could save the world, crashed a spaceship, stolen a tank from rebels, and killed a man. Had she really done all those things and not someone else? She found it hard to believe her own memory when she recalled everything that had happened.

She still could not understand what it was in her that had driven her to relentlessly shoot the man named Olon Daniel. Savannah had only seen him alive for a brief time-no more than ten minutes. In those ten minutes, she had determined that he did not deserve to live.

He had drawn a weapon on her, and then told her to cooperate with him. She could not remember every moment of killing him. The memory had grown hazy in her mind, even though it had only been yesterday.

That, among other things, led to her to believe that she had something innately wrong with her. She was not normal, not normal in the ways that the immature girls in middle school had been. Many of them wore too much makeup, or didn't bother showering, or carried handcuffs in their backpacks. Savannah had never quite been able to figure out what those had been used for.

The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized that everything about her life had been unique. She did not fit in anywhere, even if the boys in the A/V Club pretended to like her while they developed photographs in the darkroom.

She brought her face out of the soft white pillow she was laying in. Moonlight shone in through the skylight, causing objects in the room to cast unusual-looking shadows. A vase full of different-colored flowers had been placed on top of the mahogany nightstand.

Shadows of the flower petals looked like wide jaws full of teeth. The scent of flowers drifted through the room that made Savannah sniffle.

Someone had thought to lay a brown teddy bear on the bed before she arrived. She had thrown the teddy bear across the room, where it came to rest on its head next to a closet door. The teddy bear reminded Savannah of her father. She felt sorry right after she had thrown the bear.

The bear had feelings, too, didn't it? Then she laughed at herself for thinking a toy full of stuffing could feel anything at all. She left it lying on the floor, feeling guilty whenever she looked at it.

Expensive-looking paintings hung on the wall which, in the dark, looked to Savannah like blurs of color. President Slaan preferred paintings that depicted actual people, rather than the squiggles of colors and lines she'd seen once on a museum tour. She found that she liked Kunan's paintings better.

She tried to make out the painting on the wall to her left, a wide landscape in which a man stood on the platform of a guillotine, facing away from the metal blade. She wondered what the painter had been trying to express when he put that scene on the canvas.

Though she had left the door to her room open just a crack-enough for a sliver of light to pass through-she hadn't expected it to swing open until she left the next morning. As it slowly opened, she saw Kenneth there, a blanket slung over one shoulder, his hair all askew.

He wore blue pajamas with white stripes on them. The sleeves of his pajamas hung over his hands so that he gripped everything through blue cloth.

He entered the room, and then closed the door behind him. He tiptoed quietly into the room, and upon seeing Savannah awake, stood up straight. He hadn't expected her to be awake. He asked, "Is it all right if I sleep in your room tonight? I'm...um. I'm scared of the dark."

Savannah pulled back the blankets, and shifted over to give him space on the bed. She said, "You can sleep here."

She found that, once Kenneth lay down beside her, all the thoughts that were drifting through her mind finally gave way to sleep. Deep slumber stood ready with arms wide open to hold her in its embrace. She felt Kenneth's arm holding her close to him, but couldn't tell if it was just in her dreams.

### ~~~~~~

### The End

### Into the Unknown

### The Magaram Legends Part One

### 

### Chapter One

### PRESENT -- 2000'S

He put his right hand up, sticking out his thumb which blocked the sun's rays. After closing his left eye, he proceeded to measure the sun's lowest point against the mountain's highest peak.

He nodded to himself. It was close to five in the afternoon by his estimation. He had learned this measure many years before, almost eight decades to be exact. He smiled as he gazed upon the terrain that lay before him.

Rice paddies stretched out to both sides of his view, the rice stalks dancing to the tune of the late afternoon breeze. With close to five score years to his name, he was amazed at what little affect time had on this remote barrio.

Barrio San Miguel, a town named after the archangel himself during the Spanish occupation, was a remote town almost inaccessible to modern civilization. As it was then, so it is now. He remembered the layout of the town exactly as it was in the days of his youth. Nothing major had changed. The main road that led out of the barrio was still the center of the small town that boasted one small market, a chapel, a small elementary school beside an even smaller high school, and a 20-foot wide stage used only on special occasions.

Except for a few modern adaptations, the town was just like he remembered it. There were now more houses located near the center of the town, one out of five households already had electricity and the more prominent households boasted the inclusion of televisions sets which, depending on the day of the week, can get up to two grainy broadcast channels. A quarter of the houses now had some manner of concrete, most often just the walls.

The only other noticeable difference that the small barrio had over the span of many decades was the streetlights, and the addition of large rocks to the main road which had leveled off over the years and gave the impression of a stone road.

When evening came, the similarities of the barrio today and the one from his childhood became even more striking.

At night, his memories came alive, when fireflies traveled in all directions along the rice fields, and the sky was dotted with the same set of constellations he had known since childhood. Not even the dim lighting of the electric posts was able to block out the thoughts he held most dear.

At 97 years of age, he had no illusions; he didn't even know why he still existed. Sure he had lived a fruitful life, his six surviving children from a group of eight were now all retired and were scattered across the nation's islands. Three of them lived in the opposite province. To the best of his knowledge, he had 13 grandchildren, most of who were already working, with more than half of them abroad. He could not remember the exact number of great-grandchildren he had.

Ingkong Julio, or Inkong, as all elderly people were respectfully called in this remote town, had already outlived all of his childhood friends.

The next oldest person in the town was young enough to be his child. He lived with a great-grandniece in his old house which his brother had taken once he ventured out of town in his youth.

Although far from being senile, Julio knew his body would not last long. His eyesight, hearing, and thoughts were still intact, but the same could not be said about his body. Considering his age, it was good that he still could manage to move about with a cane, albeit at a much slower pace than the year before, or the year before that.

There was nothing more that he loved than gazing upon the sights that resembled his half-remembered dreams.

This was the reason why he chose to come back to the remote barrio of San Miguel. Located at an equal distance of some fifty kilometers from the two more economically successful towns of Jiabong and Catbalogan, the barrio was considered remote, even by today's technologically proficient standards.

Life was easy here, even for one such as him. The farming community lived simply, their needs were not dictated by the whims of modern economic players, at least not that much.

Most of all, however, this was the place where his life's story began.

Now sitting below the ancient thorn tree, he reminisced, as all old people are wont to do on a daily basis. He thought about how his life would have turned out had he not encountered the series of events that had made him who he was.

He observed the movement of the rice stalks in the fields and looked for the signs that only experience could discern.

He looked up at the boughs and the leaves of the thorn tree hoping to catch a pattern that didn't quite fit right.

There were none.

He focused his attention to the wide row of coconut trees that spanned the edge of the rice fields. Already, even though it was barely five in the afternoon, the shades of the coconut grove were becoming darker.

And with darkness came clarity.

This he knew and deeply believed.

From the periphery of his vision, he spied three small figures approaching from the right. Five paces behind them, another four lagged. He recognized the three figures instantly -- Pedro, Yayong, and Manuel. Three of the many children who had made it a part of their day to hang out at his favorite spot. They always hope to strike up a conversation with the renowned Ingkong. Better yet was to get a story out of him.

Julio recognized the influence he had over the children that came to hear him weave his magnificent tales. Any person in town could tell that when these children started playing, they would almost always use Julio's stories as the basis for their play acting. Stories of demons and legendary beings, good versus bad, fantastical creatures, hidden pathways to the great unknown.

Even the invisible beings that coexist with the townsfolk formed part of his inexhaustible repertoire; while even the more mature listener could not help but be awed.

Most townsfolk regarded him as a master storyteller-while a few thought he was just causing trouble. They were concerned that his stories promoted daydreaming instead of labor, the latter being integral to the lifestyle of the farming folk.

Even if there were differing opinions about him and his stories, all the townsfolk regarded him highly, and mostly for one reason-he had a knack for healing most common illnesses and had a higher chance of healing one who was severely affected by an unknown cause. Even the most skeptical townsman could not risk annoying the gifted healer, in case something happened.

"Oi, Inkong!" the child Manuel, called out to him, "How come no one visited me last night? I gathered wild berries just like you said, I washed them in the river, then I lay them on top of a layer of salt in my window when the sun set like you instructed. Nothing came. I fell asleep waiting!"

"No one?" the old man asked.

"No one! I fell asleep waiting! I got many scratches in my hands and legs just to get those berries, and nothing happened!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" the child declared, raising his hands, "I fell asleep waiting."

"That is strange," Julio replied pensively, "the Monatson never fail to retrieve their gifts. Tell me; were the berries still there when you woke up?"

"No," Manuel replied, "the rats took them. I showed everyone this morning!" said the child with conviction.

The four children that lagged behind the first three joined the group and looked at the old man with an intensity that only childish curiosity could produce. Julio let it hang; he wanted them to think. He knew the pleasures that curiosity and pure thinking bring, and he didn't hold back. Although their eyes were on him, their minds were busy thinking about possibilities. He looked to the distant coconut grove and squinted his eyes for added effect before speaking.

"Hmmm," he started, pausing for a long time, "and the salt?"

There was no reply. The group seemed lost in thought. One by one, their eyes started to light up but no one dared to speak.

"Tell me, what about the salt? Can anybody tell me what has become of the salt? Did it also disappear?"

The children exchanged glances before one of them spoke.

"It was still there," replied Lito, a child of no more than five years old.

"It was still there? Was it disturbed? Err, scattered?" asked the old man, feigning curiosity too.

"No," came Pedro's quick answer.

"Oh!" the old man exclaimed, not giving anymore explanations.

The children fidgeted by themselves, uncomfortably glancing at each other; their eyes were a mixture of emotions. He could see it -- wonder, amazement, excitement, and most of all, regret for a chance now lost.

"I told you, they took it! The plant tenders took it!" spoke Yayong this time.

"They did not!" lashed Manuel, "I did not see them take it!"

The old man smiled at the last statement. He knew the child desperately wanted to believe. Even if he was lying, he knew Manuel wanted to believe; they needed to believe -- more out of boredom than anything else.

He knew that life in one of the most remote places in the country takes its toll, even in the most imaginative minds of children.

"If you weren't such a sleepy head, I'm sure they would have greeted you," he spoke at last.

The old man's words diffused the uneasiness of the children and they all burst out into laughter, at Manuel's expense. Manuel held his ground but with each taunt, his reserves slowly diminished.

But it didn't take long before he was joining the others in hearty jeers and taunts.

### Chapter Two

JULIO ENVIED THE simplicity of youth and the uncorrupted minds. He remembered a time when he followed his heart's desires and there, he had been at his happiest.

A brief cloud of gloom followed his thoughts as he remembered the reason why he spent most afternoons under the thorn tree in the first place.

"Ingkong, what will I do if I meet them?" asked Yayong.

"Them? There are many more kinds than you can count. But if you do, show them respect. They are much like you and me."

"But last time you said they are different."

"Yes, I suppose I did."

"So why are they like us?"

"Because like us, the Magaram can think and because they can think, they can choose what's right or wrong."

"But they are not people!" Manuel quipped.

"What's truly right," explained Julio, "...or wrong is the same everywhere. If you lie to someone, even if you were born somewhere else, it's still wrong."

"Do they have flying creatures?" asked Elia, the only girl in the group.

"Like birds? Of course they do, they have more flying creatures than you can count," he answered.

"Do they have dragons?"

"Bigger, better, and scarier creatures live in the Magaram's realm -- dragons would be tamer compared to them."

"There are monsters, too?"

"There are no monsters."

"But you just said there are scarier creatures in their world," Lito pointed out.

"There are, but just because they are scary doesn't mean they are monsters."

Julio surveyed the gathered children to see if they understood. He hoped they would not, and he was proven right.

"But monsters are evil!"

"That is correct and monsters are scary, too."

"See? It's the same!"

Julio shook his head to accent the fact that it was not true. The children were silent as they tried to understand what the old man was trying to say.

"To be a monster or to be evil means that you have the ability to know that what you choose to do is not good for anyone. If a man goes to a house and hurts the people living in that house, that man is a monster. If a snake, however, or any other animal gets inside a house and ends up hurting all the people inside, that animal is scary."

"I get it! I get it!" Manuel exclaimed excitedly, "Monsters can think!"

The other children looked at Manuel with admiration. The smiles on their faces told of the satisfaction that can only come from learning new things. Julio let it sink in before speaking.

"You are right and you are also wrong," the old man said, "All living creatures have the ability to think."

"Even animals?"

"Why yes, that's why they do whatever it is they do."

"Like the rooster crowing in the morning?" asked Elia.

"Or the birds perching on trees before sunset?" quipped Ondo, the shy boy who said one or two phrases every time they came for his stories.

"Yes, children, yes. All animals that move and do things can think, but that does not make them monsters."

"Like humans!"

"Yes Pedro, like humans."

"But if thinking does not make a person a monster, and all animals can think," wondered Yayong.

"There are no monsters! I knew it!" Manuel excited exclaimed.

The old man was pleased with the outcome of the exchange, although the children had gotten it wrong so far; the way their simple, one track minds worked had never failed to surprise him.

"No, Manuel, that is not it," he saw the boy's expression knot, "The difference between monsters and creatures, us included, is that monsters can plan. Even animals can think about what to do next, but to be a monster means to plan what to do, to know what to do, before even doing it."

"To do evil things?" Lito queried.

"Yes." The old man answered, smiling.

He let the children ponder on that. They always had a moment of silence when thinking about the things they just heard that seemed a little hard for them to believe. He knew the questions would come.

"So if a man decides to do evil things, he is a monster?" Yayong asked.

"Correct, even if only for a short time."

"Are the Magaram evil?" piped Elia.

"No, they are not evil, they are good. Inkong Pablo told me that before!" said Pedro.

"The Magaram," started Julio, "are just like us. Most of them are good, but there are still some of them that do evil things."

"So they are like people, too?"

"In a way, yes," answered the old man.

"But no one has lived among them, how do you know?" this time it was Manuel.

"Oh, but that is not true. Many have lived among them but don't tell the story. Some of them cannot tell the story."

"Cannot?"

"Yes, they may want to tell their stories, but cannot."

"Why?" came the question that was almost spoken in unison.

"Because they are already living with the Magaram and chose not to come back."

"But their parents will miss them!" Elia sounded off, voicing her concern.

"That is true, but only for a short time."

"That is not true, if I go missing, my father would not stop looking for me," declared Pedro.

The old man saw that he was at a loss at how to proceed next. He knew that what he was about to say would make a great impact upon the children. On the other hand, he did not want to disappoint them. He decided to tell them.

"They will Pedro. Especially if they thought that you have already died."

"But if they don't see me, my body, how could they think that?"

"They will see a body, and they will think it's you."

"How? I don't like that, it's not me!"

"Remember that when you go to live among the Magaram, it is your decision to go. You have decided to do it, which also means that you know you will not be coming back. For the people left behind, the Magaram will create a very hard illusion of a dead body so those who look for you will stop looking."

"I have heard of this from my Uncle, he said it's just banana trunks," Elia said.

"So when you go, you will not be a person anymore?" Manuel quickly followed up.

"So to speak. You will become one of the Magaram."

"Can you go there without becoming a Magaram?" asked Lito once more.

"Why yes; in fact, like I said, many people do so."

"So why would anyone choose to live there?" wondered Elia aloud.

"Many reasons, love, magic, adventure...," the old man could not finish his sentence.

"Adventure!" the group exploded, finishing off with wild gestures portraying magic and epic swordfights. Even Elia, the only little girl in the group, was running in circles, pretending she was flying.

The old man laughed with them. His last phrase, unfinished as it was, gave away what the children was looking for this day - adventure through imagination.

He waited for it. He knew the children would soon be begging him for a story about adventure, one involving the Magaram, that mythical race of people that only existed, they would say, in the fragments of the dreamer's imagination. Some claimed they had met the Magaram, only to end up waking up from a dream. Everything would feel so real, and it would have been. But there would be no chance to prove it because all trace of the experience would be gone except a memory that would most likely make one insane.

"Inkong! Inkong! Tell us a story of adventure!" Lito requested.

"A story with monsters and scary creatures!" suggested Yayong.

"Heroes! I love Heroes!" declared Manuel.

Julio noted that the sun was already red; burning its last for the day. Soon, fireflies would come into view, acting as mobile stars in the rice fields, and the stage would be set.

He found it easier to tell them stories at such an hour, just before they ate supper. At this hour, the children would be much focused, absorbing everything he said, in part because of the gathering darkness all around that made it easier to ignore distractions.

"Well, little ones, I might have just the story for you."

"Is it magical?" asked Lito excitedly.

"Yes, it has adventure and it even has love."

"Eeew," reacted Manuel.

"Yeeech," followed Pedro.

"Yay!" squealed Elia.

The last reaction had all eyes on Elia. Everyone, including Julio, was surprised.

"You all will find that like all things, love is essential for great adventures. Shall I begin?"

"Yes!" was the unanimous response.

Summer, 1937.

He dragged the large wooden bucket behind him. Upright, its height was a little higher than his knees, and on its handle was a length of rope.

He could have easily hoisted it over his shoulders but he dragged the bucket behind him anyway. It was not due to lack of enthusiasm for the task he was assigned to do.

No, it was not that.

It was because he knew that an hour from now, he would be coming back down this same earthen road bearing that same bucket on his shoulders. He would be making his way back to his house which was half an hour away from the well, but this time with a heavy load of water. He preferred to get lost in his thoughts while traveling that road which became dusty on dry summer days.

The well, his destination, was located at the side of the mountain the people in his town called Bright Mountain. He never believed the stories about that place, or any other place they cared to talk about.

It seemed to him that every place in town had a story to it, including familiar nearby spots that were a walk for hours in any direction. The elders were fond of talking about it, and he once enjoyed the stories they had about magical creatures and evil ones that lived among them.

He particularly loved the stories of the enchanted beings that inhabited the forests.

But that was then.

He was 21 now, 21 since the first month of the year and in all of his years. He spent most of his childhood alone, climbing trees and mountains, yet had never seen any of these creatures.

He wished for them to be true, but wishing would not make it so. With repeated reprimands from his father to act his age, Julio turned away from his thoughts of that world, the world of the Magarams.

This time, he shifted to what he was going to do with his life.

Being 21 meant settling down; at least that was the custom in town. Either you marry early, or you have to be married before it was too late. Usually that meant no later than the age of 25.

He pondered over this dilemma. There were only three women close to his age that he could think of courting.

There was Elena, the daughter of Lucio, the town's resident woodworker.

He hated that spiteful man. Because he was the only person able to trade outside of town due to the fact that his work was somewhat commercially attractive, he made it a point to let everyone know about this. Even when selling to his fellow townsfolk, he charged high prices. When coins were not available, ridiculous trade demands in exchange for his work would be the only solution.

There was nothing wrong with Elena, she was somewhat beautiful, he thought.

It was her father that made it not worth the trouble.

He shuddered at the thought of serving under Lucio in order to get his favor and blessing. Toiling away under his supervision, never being able to satisfy the man, hearing his boasts all day and the remote chance of not getting his approval in the end somehow didn't add up to Julio.

If only her father was a little bit amiable, he could have given it a chance.

As he made a slight turn at the bend that brought him to the foot of the mountain where he would follow a long, turning road, his thoughts fell on the second probable candidate -- Eulalia.

### Chapter Three

EULALIA WAS A free spirit. She was a strong-willed 18 year old girl, who insisted in going out with her father, the lovable Marko, three times a week to hunt in nearby forests for wild boar and other kinds of meat. They usually came home with an assortment of birds which were more than wild boar, but it was enough to carry them over. The town that lived mostly on free range chicken and a few pigs welcomed any manner of meat that the family caught and traded joyfully with whatever they can afford.

Marko was an understanding man who possessed exceptionally good hunting skills. He remained approachable and loved spending time with the children who frequented their little stall in the middle of town where they sold their catch. Julio believed he could get along well with Marko. His daughter, however, was another story.

Julio frowned unconsciously when he thought about Eulalia. She was more skilled than he was. He once saw her help her father repair their small house. Being an only daughter, she was now frequently seen drinking with her father and his friends, and although that was just one of the things that were not proper in a woman, Julio also admired how she handled those friends when they became drunk.

He recalled an incident that happened just a few nights ago, one he heard from his mother. Eulalia punched one of her father's drinking buddies and knocked him out cold.

He shook his head.

He could never get married to a woman like that, she would just dominate him. Aside from climbing trees and getting lost in the woods, he never had any real skills to be proud of. The occasional help he lent to whoever needed it during harvest season was nothing to boast about; even little girls could manage that.

He admitted to himself that he had probably wasted his life daydreaming and running after mythical stories hoping they were true.

If he were to marry, it should be with someone who could not outmatch him in anything.

Marcela naturally came to mind.

As he rounded the final bend that would take him to where the well was located, he examined his chances with Marcela.

She was the only woman in town, 22 years old already, who probably had not had a job for the rest of her life. The only daughter of Narcisso and Yesenia, the town's only poultry and livestock supplier, Marcela had it good.

Though their business was not that big, it was enough for the town. Her father Narcisso was one of the few in town who could boast of his trips to nearby towns. He went out of town once a month to buy goods and came back to sell them at twice the price. He also took on requests to sell the other townsfolk's goods for a commission. Although he could only afford to slaughter one adult pig every month, the entire town looked forward to it. Other households only had one or two of them and were usually saving them up for occasions like birthdays and fiestas.

Marcela was fair. In a town of brown people, mostly of the darker sort, Marcela, who never had to do any work her entire life, stood out. Her skin was fairer than everyone else's. Before she was born, her mother was the fairest in the entire town but now, even her mother paled in comparison.

Unfortunately, she was also spoiled.

Though her beauty was known all throughout even to the neighboring barrios, her tantrums were also legendary.

Never mind the two overprotective brothers, Julio thought, beware of the witch!

He chuckled to himself with that thought and made light of fact that he was no wiser now about how to get himself a wife than when he first started thinking about it.

He was almost at the well now, five minutes more. He busied himself with the view.

He was at the side of Bright Mountain, halfway up, and this part offered him a view of the trees that made up much of the forest that stretched as far as his eyes could see.

In his own estimation, he had been to about half of the forest already before he gave up his illusions and decided to grow up.

Julio remembered being in the forest by himself for the first time.

He was 16. Everything he saw was new. The trees were the most awe-inspiring things he saw, towering above the forest floor with limbs wider than both of his arms outstretched. The sweet smell of highly fertile soil had assaulted his nostrils, it was truly a great experience.

Perhaps it was because he was still looking for traces of the Magaram, hoping he could see them, maybe even live with them as the stories suggested.

But now, even with unenthusiastic eyes, he was still in awe of the power that the forest held. It hosted a plethora of life, supported by its own rules, and isolated itself from the harsh weather patterns.

It seemed to him that the forest itself was one, big, self sufficient individual. One that not even the changing seasons could disrupt.

As he saw the well, he remembered the reason why he was doing this daily trek -- it was summer and the season he hated the most. Because of the heat, people stayed indoors, and those that found comfort under the shade of the trees either did not want to share or did not want to be bothered.

The folks who tended to the rice fields also did not like to engage in banter of any kind. Julio found that the heat caused people to be irritable. If only it was as simple as just cooling off in a bath.

But the stream, located only 50 paces from the edge of the town and was their main source of water, dried up during summer seasons. Absence of rain also made it hard for the townsfolk to stock up on water, so everyone flocked to the well during the mornings and late afternoons when the sun was tolerable.

Julio did not like going there in the mornings or late afternoons -- the time spent lining up and waiting for one's turn was time wasted for him. He preferred going there close to noon -- no lining up, no unnecessary talking, and no reprimanding if he took a quick nap since no one was behind him.

His destination was one of the two wells drilled by the Americans. From the stories he had heard from the town elders, the well he was heading for was the first one built, just before the First World War broke out. Julio was born two years before the said war had ended, he was 21 now, and the well still worked.

The other well was located inside the small army base that now housed around 10 American soldiers. He heard that before, during the war, there were more than five times more men stationed near the well he was headed to. Even though the town's location was remote, the location of the well had directly faced another strategic point for the American forces -- their main base, and access to the open sea from where their forces initially arrived.

It was two days worth of marching to get there, or so he had been told, the straight line of sight provided a clear, uninterrupted view of whatever signals they would be sending either through flares at night or through radio.

After the war ended the Americans set up a base closer to the town and left just a few garrisoned soldiers there, rotating every two or three months.

Julio never much cared for soldiers; even their fancy radio which he had been told could communicate with anyone many miles away did not impress him.

The same could not be said about his father, Francisco. He and his older brother Fidel were both orphans under the care of a priest in the island of Surigao. They both took a chance in stowing away on an American ship when Fidel was just eight, and Francisco was six.

They were discovered halfway on the trip, and when the ship docked in Hawaii, they were given to the care of a local jail warden while waiting for the next ship to take them back home.

Having been mercilessly tutored by priests at a young age in subjects that made them proficient in both English and Spanish, the two brothers soon found themselves in the favor of the warden.

The warden could not deny the uniqueness and the intelligence of the two and he soon adopted them.

### Chapter Four

WHEN RUMORS ABOUT the First World War broke out, Francisco signed up for the army without thinking twice. It was just a few weeks after he turned 18.

Francisco was one of the first soldiers to land on Russian soil by the time the World War I came into full bloom. He was given a choice between going back to the United States or to the Philippines, which at that time much like today, was still under American rule, after he had completed his tour there.

Sensing more adventures at hand, he chose to go back to his country and landed in the town of Catbalogan towards the start of the second half of 1915, a little over a year since he stepped on Russian soil.

The only adventure Francisco had upon coming back, however, was one that involved women and wine.

It came as no surprise to Julio that he was born a little over nine months after his father set foot on Philippine shores. He had served as the de facto ambassadors with the Filipino locals for a time. As Ingkong Juan told Julio, his father was renowned for his great bravery as well as his physical might all throughout the surrounding barrios.

It did not surprise Julio to hear this. His father was a short-tempered man with an affinity for wine. When his father's antics became legendary, the American commander was forced to remove him from active duty.

However, that didn't stop Francisco from identifying with the American troops. Having nothing to do in the sleepy town, his father, who only knew soldiering as a way of life, always spent time in the small garrison he had just passed by.

Julio was sure that his father would be drunk when he came back-he hoped he would be too drunk to even start a ruckus. Otherwise he would have to sleep in his makeshift bed atop the old star apple tree again.

Julio was roused from his thoughts when he saw that the well was not more than 20 paces away.

His heart sank. Someone was there before him, so he didn't have the well to himself.

Unless the person there was almost done, he would have to spend at least 20 minutes before his turn came. Given the small amounts of water that came out of the deep well's pump, it would take another half an hour before he could fill the huge bucket.

Already, his eyes were scanning the area for a place where he could spend time under the shade of a tree to sit or doze off until it was time for him to work the pump.

He squinted to get a glimpse of the person whose back was to him as he neared, and was surprised. It was a woman! From where he was he could see that either she was his age or she was taller than most. He was too far away to decide which was true.

He pondered about it as he got nearer. Even with his drum dragging loudly behind, she did not even cast a glance his way. Either she was deaf or she just did not care for company like him. It was as if he did not exist. Julio slowed down without being aware of it, with his focus all on her.

He knew all of the people in town, but he could not remember seeing her. The ray of light that peeped through the canopy of leaves directly overhead bore down on her hair and seemed to lend her an ethereal air. Her hair appeared to take on a light, reddish hue against the sun's rays. She was wearing a simple house gown that was common in town and yet, tried as he might, he could not remember seeing the same pattern.

At ten paces away, he started to go to the side to at least see her profile. Then he noticed something that stood out like a sore thumb.

She was light skinned!

Unlike the American soldiers he had seen, her skin looked like it had never seen the sun since birth. Her arms, her nape, and her cheek almost seemed to be impervious to light. Aside from the shadows that fell in one or two places, her pallor appeared uniform all throughout.

He was near enough also to notice a high forehead that gave way to the thin nose that angled slightly upwards before tapering off above her upper lip.

If she noticed him, she gave no indication. Her entire frame was intent on pumping water from the deep well. Her left hand held the top of the pump's handle while the other lifted and pushed down rhythmically. Her frame was bent forward a bit, one foot in front of the other.

He noticed her hands. He was sure that her hands were the daintiest pair of hands he had ever set eyes on.

Julio was staring at her profile so hard he didn't notice that her bucket was already full. When she started turning to where he stood, it was too late to turn away.

Then he could finally see her face.

"Greetings," her voice sounded as if it was one with the air, "Would you be able to help me get this bucket upon my shoulder?"

He was stunned. It was not because she talked like the old people did back at the town.

It was not because her bluish eyes almost shone with a radiance that bore deep into his, nor was it the symmetry of her angelic face that lent a little aura of pureness and incorruptibility.

It was because he had been caught staring, rather rudely, at her fineness. She was just so beautiful. When she talked, the soft sound reverberated inside of his head like church bells. But instead of frightening him, it confused him because he liked the sound very much.

Julio, for the first time in his entire life, was instantly smitten by a woman.

It was enough to mess him up.

"S-Sure," Julio stammered, "Are you sure?" he asked, looking at the wooden bucket filled with water that was almost as tall as the one he had been dragging for the last half hour.

"I am sure," she replied, the corner of her lips lifting up a little as if she was avoiding not to laugh.

Julio could not tell if he was walking or ambling over to where she was. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, and his eyes could not help but be glued to her face.

Something inside him was stirring, like a chorus of distant drums that set his blood to race in his veins. The woman had finally acknowledged him in the form of a smile as he approached. When she did, he felt like he was going to burst into flames.

Every piece of him was screaming for the woman, something as old as the memories of the forest he had gazed upon earlier began to work within him.

Like an automaton with only one focus, he approached. Though no more than a few steps apart, he felt like he had been walking for a long time.

His eyes settled on her face. Everything blotted out around them, and all that was left was color of the leaves and the light of the sun through the canopy above.

"You are kind," she spoke again, but this time with a shy, lovely smile on her face. "Gratitude."

What he had known about the town of which he had never set foot outside in all his 21 years heavily contradicted the woman. There was the peculiar way she phrased her words. Her unique physical features were an absolute mystery.

He wracked his brain to discern where she might be living. But he knew of no place where people look or talk like her. He was so lost in his ruminations that he did not even notice the weight of the bucket that he was slowly lowering unto her shoulders.

She rocked a little as she balanced the weight of the bucket. He half expected her shoulders to give. He knew how heavy that bucket was. He could not last 10 minutes without taking it off and replacing it on the other side.

But she surprised him.

Although the middle part of the bucket's bottom was extending outside her right shoulder, her left hand stretched out and held the rim from that side.

Her right hand was underneath for support. Very little water spilled out. Then, without saying a word, she started walking towards the narrow path opposite where he had come from, and disappeared among the tall grass.

THAT NIGHT, JULIO did not wait for his father to come home. After cooking rice on their earthen stove and skillfully grilling what remained of their stock of dried fish over the embers, he ate with his siblings and mother in silence. Being the eldest meant he also washed the dishes before leaving.

He made sure everything was done before he left. He wanted to spend the night alone, up in his makeshift bamboo bed up on the old star apple tree's boughs.

He had not yet recovered from his brief encounter with the strange beautiful woman that afternoon. He considered himself a prisoner of the town in which he grew up. Many times during his trek back with the bucket of water upon his shoulder, he thought about just how isolated his town was.

If the lady he had seen was just a sample of what was out there, he didn't want to waste time.

He wanted to get out.

To say that the woman assaulted his senses was an understatement. When he replayed the encounter over and over in his mind, Julio found no difficulty recalling everything.

From the patterns on her clothing, to the sandals she was wearing.

He pictured the stray strands of hair that fell down her back, laying comfortably on her shoulders.

The weird, reddish tint of her hair and the spotless skin that covered her entire body were lovely but enigmas to him. The combination of both worked a magic that he had only heard about in folk stories, told and retold all over the village.

The color of her eyes was light-colored, of the palest blue. He shivered in his makeshift bamboo bed when he remembered when their eyes met.

When her lips almost turned into a smile the moment she said "Gratitude," Julio felt he would melt.

It was almost dawn when he finally let go of every detail of the encounter to wonder where the lady might be living.

### Chapter Five

SO JULIO REMEMBERED that she took the small path and he frowned.

No one ever went there.

That side of the mountain angled down and stretched towards the fields of tall grass which gave the field the appearance of endlessness, if not for the row of trees in the horizon.

As far as he could remember, nobody lived there except insects and snakes. Julio remembered that had she made a hard right. If she continued, she might actually end up in San Juan \-- after half a day of travel.

But that wasn't the shortest way towards San Juan. Strange.

His eyes had started protesting and he was tired and sleepy, so he finally decided to find out where she was from.

Tomorrow, he would head out there and see if he could retrace her steps. He planned his entire day. He would arrive at the deep well earlier just to be sure he got there first, so he would see where she came from.

He would then follow her when she left, maintaining a respectable distance so as not to be discovered.

Smiling to himself to what seemed like a busy and exciting day, he fell asleep underneath the blinking stars.

JULIO WOKE UP late. It was close to 10 in the morning.

He hurriedly headed home and was thankful to know that his father, had come home past midnight, expectedly drunk, and was still sound asleep.

His mother just gave him a look that spoke of what chaos there might have been if his father had woken up to find that Julio was not there to be bossed around, and chastisement because he was supposed to be the one to cook. His mother had already taken care of that, though.

So without wasting time, he headed out to the well with the large bucket. The water he had brought home the previous day had already been emptied into one of the big earthen jars that they owned.

Julio knew that even if he would not go to the well today, they would have at least two days stock of water. But he went to the well daily to get away, as his father would not leave the house until a few hours past noon.

But this wasn't the only reason now. He was filled with excitement at the possibility of seeing the beautiful fair lady in the well. He wasn't sure if he would have the strength to talk to her. But he could just follow her to where she lived to get a feel of who she was, of how she treated other people. If his wits could not give him the strength to walk up to her to talk, he could at least watch her until he could be brave enough to get to know her.

He was definitely smitten. There was no one like her, she was beautiful beyond words. She was unlike any other woman he had seen in all his years living in the small town.

Just thinking of her was enough to get him excited; and the notion of just seeing her again was enough to make him happy. When worse come to worst, he would be content just to be able to see her everyday.

Today might just be the start of those days, but it didn't faze Julio.

As long as he saw her again.

THE PLAN WAS to arrive there early, and hide, so he could watch her as she came.

He had already calculated the amount of time it would take for her to fill her bucket. With the measly amount of water coming out of the deep well on summer days, she would be there at least a quarter of an hour before filling the big bucket that she had with her-and a quarter of an hour for him to behold her beauty before revealing himself.

Due to his excitement, Julio brushed aside the possibility that she might not even show up in the beginning of his furious planning.

Then he began to worry. She might come at a later time, she might come at an earlier time, or she might not come at all.

That thought did not sit well with him. Every time he thought of it, he felt like having a fit.

In the end, he decided that he just had to believe that she would be there.

He held onto this until he got there.

He saw someone at the pump and immediately knew it was the woman even when he was still far away. Aww! There was no way for him to find a place to hide so that he could spy on her beauty, unless he cared just to watch her from behind.

Julio did not know what to do. He had arrived considerably earlier than the previous day and he knew he made good time getting there.

There was only one way to go about it. He had to approach and engage her in small talk until she was done. That way he would be able to delay her leaving.

His stomach knotted at the prospect of talking to her. But he had a need to do something, even if it was the scariest prospect he had ever had in his life.

It seemed like ages before he was able to approach her. His mind started working on opening lines.

She was still wearing a house gown but this one had a different pattern. The plain white of the fabric was covered in intricate designs of gold and green. Julio found it odd that she was wearing clothing that not only looked new but looked expensive as well.

Back in the village, new clothing was synonymous with expensive, as there was very little trade available for that sort. Buying new clothes was considered only for gifts and special occasions. Almost everyone in town was clothed in hand-me-downs.

And yet, there she was. The clothing she was wearing could easily have cost Julio three harvests' worth of pay! This did not help ease his worry, and the water on the lady's bucket was almost full!

Julio's heart sank. Barely there and already he was faced with the prospect of not gaining more time to be with her. All his planning the previous night was worthless.

Then she turned around.

Awkwardness, happiness, embarrassment and panic hit him all at once. He fought hard not to shake.

He felt stupid standing there, rooted to the spot, staring at her.

Thankfully, it did not last that long.

"Good morning," she started off with that voice that enchanted him. "Would you do me the favor of lifting this bucket to my shoulders so I can be on my way?"

Again, Julio noted the peculiarity of the way she said her words -- very formal, very old. Like the wording in an old song. But her eyes seem to be twinkling, even if her rosy lips were not showing the mirth he suspected she was feeling.

"Of course," he managed to reply without stuttering.

She did not laugh.

She smiled as her lovely pale blue eyes held his.

His eyes were glued to her face - he just could not help it. In her was a calmness and peacefulness that Julio had never seen in anyone. Julio carefully lifted the bucket, big and being full of water, without making it splash.

He placed it on her, whose shoulders gave no indication of any hardiness or enough muscle to support it.

"Gratitude, again," the woman spoke and again, so formal the word, but with a graceful nod of her head.

She began her walk without much ado, turning away in a move that seemed like a dance as soon as she thanked him and headed the same way she went the previous day.

Julio grabbed his bucket and placed it under the pump. He began pumping slowly, making sure that the sounds that the pump made were kept at a minimum.

This was no accident. It was a last minute attempt at deception. He wanted her to think he was pumping and when she was at a farther distance, she would hopefully not hear the sound.

He saw her begin her descent on the side of the mountain where she disappeared yesterday and slowly stopped what he was doing.

When her head was the only thing that he could see in the distance, he immediately stopped and ran excitedly towards the slope that the girl disappeared to. He saw her already at a considerable distance from where he was. He saw her heading for a stretch of land that was covered in knee high grass ending in a gully probably 10 or 12 feet wide.

She walked in an almost regular cadence, and Julio mentally calculated the distance he could cover if he moved quickly. He decided to wait until she had reached the grassy part of the small clearing.

The lady reached it in less time than he anticipated, and Julio compensated by almost sliding down the slope littered with grass and shrub patches in an unpredictable pattern. He reached the bottom of the slope in no time, worried he had been heard. But glancing in the direction of the lady assured him that she didn't.

He started to follow her at an angle that would bring him closer to the grassy ground while not losing sight of her. He was right; she was going to the gully. Crouching or even lying low on his stomach on the grass would be a good strategy if she ever wheeled around.

Once he reached the grassy area, he saw her weaving her way across the small rocks that dotted the entrance. It bended ahead so Julio moved faster to get closer before she rounded the bend. He had never been to these parts before and was unsure if there were any crossings or side paths where the woman was heading.

Then a few things struck him as odd.

First was that in all his years, he could not remember anyone coming from any area in that general direction. There probably were people living there somewhere, but there should be easier routes to the village.

The next was that it must have been 10 minutes already since he had placed the bucket on that lady's shoulders, and even he needed to put down his bucket before replacing it on the other shoulder.

Unless the lady only went there for the water on the deep well regardless of where she lived, and unless she was possessed of strength that was not evident in her frame, Julio knew nothing made sense - precisely the reason why he had to find out.

### Chapter Six

GULLIES USUALLY GO straight, he kept thinking as he saw her start to round the bend. When she disappeared, he hurried until he reached the gully and then took careful strides towards the bend.

He exhaled in relief when he saw her still walking in the distance.

The sides of the gully seemed to go higher and higher with each step. When he saw another bend ahead, he realized that the once wide spaces on both his sides had narrowed down, and the sides of the gully now stood a few inches above his head.

Carefully treading so as not to make any noise, especially that there was a thin line of water streaming in the opposite direction, Julio got out of the second bend.

Then his heart sank.

In plain sight were two side paths a few feet from each other, both marked by the obvious space carved through the soil and rock that made the sides of the gully. The main path he was on stretched on farther. And the woman was no longer in sight!

His heart picked up its pace. He could not lose her this far.

Not even thinking of the sounds his feet were making, Julio quickly dashed to the first side path and saw that it turned. He went through it to take a look if she had gone there.

She didn't. The first path went straight and she was nowhere to be seen.

Naturally, Julio headed for the second path. His hopes went up -- though he did not see the woman yet, the path was full of turns and bends. It was as if there was a turn or a curve every six or seven steps. So she just might be lost in one of those bends, and if he only made good time, he would be able to catch up with her.

As he navigated the new path, the sides had become double his height. The space had become narrower and would only accommodate two people walking abreast. He also noted that the trees that made a canopy on the pathway had quickly become denser, and their leaves were now almost sealing the entire path.

There were only a few spots where light came in, more than enough to see his way. But it has remarkably become darker.

But for some reason, this actually made the entire place look beautiful.

The unique sound of the forest-as if the rustling leaves proved they were alive-and chirps of birds made him feel he was not entirely alone, but in a good way. Even the air seemed to have its own sound, soothing and friendly. The forest always made him feel welcomed. But a mix of both excitement and apprehension came over him as he saw that the path was already coming to an opening that marked the end of this turn.

He could see that there were lines of trees in that area and that gave him more spring in his step. When he reached the end of the path, he felt dizzy and disoriented.

But it only lasted for a few seconds.

And then frustration crept in.

He was in an area littered with an assortment of trees. He tried to guess where he was in the woods if he had been standing infront of the mountain. He could be in its right side now-and he has never reached this far before inside the woods. Trees and vegetation here were thick and seemed to have more life than anywhere else.

He looked to the left and then the right -- there was no sign of the woman.

The density of plant life made it hard for him to determine which way she had gone. He was not a hunter like Eulalia or Marko, so he relied on the vegetation to give him clues. He looked for something out of the ordinary in a lush, mostly untouched forest like this. A sign of disturbance in the natural plant life would help him a lot.

But there were none. There was not even a sign of a commonly used path!

Julio walked forward. Not even caring if he made a loud noise, he trampled the greenery beneath him and headed forward like a man driven by purpose. Low hanging branches and a few fallen trees slowed him down. He kept reminding himself to look up every so often. With the leaves forming a thick blanket on the forest's roof, it seemed hard to tell if the sun was at its peak or if it was setting. He knew he would have to go back the same way he came, so he took care not to deviate too much from his straight approach.

How much time had passed, he had no idea.

What Julio knew the moment he stepped out of the forest and into a wide clearing was that he had never seen a place so simple and yet so beautiful in all his life.

The clearing, almost half the size of the center of his village, was surrounded on all sides by trees, rounding off all corners. The green grass smelled the way grass smelled in mornings.

But when he looked down, his shadow was slightly cast to the side -- a few minutes to an hour after midday.

He squinted as a curious sight in the huge clearing met his eyes.

In the center of it was what appeared to be a hut, small by the usual standard, with perfectly round sides. It was intriguing because from afar, it did not look like it had a door. Some sides were boarded up and the roof was made of what appeared to be wooden slats. It had the look of considerable age, yet it didn't have the feel of age.

Standing in the middle of the clearing, the little hut looked like a strong and defiant place, perfect for the travel weary.

It was intriguing, and Julio was weary, so he headed for the hut.

When he reached it, he was surprised to find that it was not actually a hut but a well! Its round sides were of moss-covered stone and the wooden construction on top of it was indeed made of aged wood.

The distance between any opposite two points was easily a yard by his observation. The wood that topped the moss-covered stone including four posts felt cold to the touch and when he knocked on it, it felt like stone. There was a small pail tied at both sides by a length of rope that was hanging from what was once the branch of a tree that was acting as one of the four posts of the well.

Julio looked down and immediately got a feel of how deep the well went. Although the sun was just a few degrees off, the surface of the water could not be seen. The thought of how cold the water was suddenly made Julio realize that he was thirsty.

Taking the small pail off of where it was hanging from, Julio released it from his grip and let it fall down the well. It was a good three seconds before he heard the pail splash on the water below.

Almost simultaneously, the cluster of trees that surrounded the clearing burst out with activity. A flock of house sparrows broke off from their shade in the trees, flying with frenzy towards the opposite side.

It was bizarre, he thought with a frown. Birds did not behave like that for no reason. He was sure there was no rustling among the tree branches, no sound of squabbling among the flock just before they took off.

Unless there was a snake in the trees where the birds came from that attacked and therefore, terrorized the entire flock into flight.

He shrugged and turned his attention to the well. The small pail had already hit the water so he let some of the rope slack to let the pail tilt to its side. For a moment, the little wooden pail seemed to be at ease in the water, so he alternated between pulling the rope up, giving it a little swing, and then letting it splash down on the water again to force it to tilt. He knew it would fall to its side eventually.

Every time the pail hit the water, he was reminded of how deep the well went. In the silent clearing where not even the rustling of trees could be heard, the sound that came up the well seemed to magnify, like it had a presence to it, like it bounced off many times before finally making its ascent. Julio thought about it but discarded it as absurd.

The rope became taut. He hoisted the pail up with no great effort. The pail, brimming to capacity, spilled some of its contents back into the well as it climbed up the height of the well.

Each sound that the drops made seemed to grow louder as the pail went higher.

Julio finally got a hold of the pail and he took a big sip off the pail. Some of the water ran down his upturned chin and made its way down his throat. Mid-drink, Julio realized how full and almost sweet the water tasted.

He felt re-energized. Cool breeze gently blew on him, relaxing him more. And it seemed to be coming from the ground.

As soon as he thought that, he thought, too, That's strange.

But he was not imagining it.

### Chapter Seven

THERE WAS A stream of air coming out of the well. Now it was coming out in gusts, growing stronger and stronger!

And it was not just cool. It was cold.

Too cold for a breeze in the middle of the day!

From below, as loud as thunder, a shrieking sound boomed that made him jump back and away.

His skin filled with goosebumps and his hair stood on its ends. The shrieking sound magnified by the well, in the silent clearing, was deafening.

The gusts of air was so strong now. But either through curiosity or stupidity, Julio still looked down the well.

Another shriek came, he covered his ears as he stumbled back. There was a very strong gust of wind.

And then something big flew out of the well, into the roof of the hut, and there was the sound of wood and things breaking.

And it was only Julio reflexes that saved him -- he didn't even realize he was already lying on the ground until a broken piece of wood hit him on his left cheek.

Whatever it was that came out was strong enough to blow through the wooden slats that roofed the well. Thinking that the rest of the frame would go down, Julio rolled to his side immediately, narrowly escaping a huge portion of the roofing from smashing down on him.

He was on his feet the next second. He ran back to the trees, looked around and scanned the immediate vicinity for whatever it was that broke out from the well.

Julio did not see anything, and it prompted him to look behind twice just to be sure it wasn't at his back.

Then a realization came over him, and he finally ran for the cover of the trees.

The creature! It could fly!

His gaze went up as his right arm shielded his eyes from the sun. He scanned the air to find whatever came out the well. Julio jumped when his back bumped into something solid and hard, but it was only a tree. He immediately went behind its thick trunk and crouched, never taking his eyes off the sky.

Silence.

There was so complete a silence, not even the rustling of leaves could be heard.

Julio became aware that his heart was racing fast, thudding so hard that it deafened his ears. His hands were shaking and goosebumps still covered his skin. He knew he'd become pale. He felt when his blood left his face. It felt cold.

The waiting was killing him! His eyes darted back and forth, scanning. He'd never hated the silence so much until now.

Then the shriek, almost wraithlike in its power to drain him, came again. This time, it was longer, and sounded even more menacing. It was coming from the trees but he could not determine where exactly. It sounded like it was coming from all directions.

His hands and feet were so cold, but his sweat poured from all over his body. Julio dropped to the ground on his stomach from sheer terror.

Then, the creature sped from the trees opposite him, so fast was its approach that it was a blur. All that Julio saw was a mass of bright colors hurtling towards him.

He closed his eyes and accepted his fate.

It didn't come.

Not yet. He felt a strong gust of wind and when he opened his eyes, the creature had somehow changed its route and managed to soar upwards at a steep angle, shooting high into the sky.

Julio was at a loss for words. He had not seen any flying creature do this -- not even bats, surely not from any species of bird. That was what the creature looked like to him, a great bird.

It swooped down shrieking and just as abruptly as moments earlier, glided just as it almost hit the treetops. It then circled the clearing on its edges from above, the shrieks becoming more frequent.

Julio had no other way to describe the sound it made. It was definitely not a chirp-not even a loud equivalent of a chirp-and more appropriate for a four-legged beast than for a bird. It was deep, and yet it seemed to come from such a high pitch.

Julio was so overwhelmed with fear and terror that he remained on the ground, his mind unable to handle the conflict between the instinctual and the logical. His eyes remained transfixed on the creature as it ended its circling and hovered just a few feet from the ground with its back to him. Incredible!

He had never seen any flying creature that big hover! It was intent on something among the trees across him. He saw its great wingspan stretched out and, even more incredibly, he saw a second set of smaller wings on both sides of its torso, connected at the base, working in harmony to achieve the almost fantastical feat!

From the vantage point that he had, his observations only brought more fear and awe. The creature's feathers were very colorful and had a certain kind of gloss on them that made it look like they were reflecting light. The colors were deep shades of red, blue, green and black while the entire length from the top of its head all the way down to the tail was punctuated with the brightest shade of yellow he had ever seen. It almost seemed like the creature had golden feathers!

Its tail also did not look like any bird's tail. It was not flat; rather, it looked like a bunch of those wonderful plumes stuck and coated around a long piece or rope. The feathers almost curved to the side, creating a colorful spiral of feathers thinning out to the end -- where another feature made Julio swallow.

The end of the tail was not tapered off. Instead, there was what looked like a fork made of three prongs -- the middle one spiked straight while the other two also spiked up with additions of a downward spike that resembled that of a fishhook! Its color was deep black and it appeared to be very solid. And very dangerous. Like its razor-sharp claws.

The creature shrieked once more, its powerful wings sending it higher, and then it took off straight into the trees. Silence ensued once more. Seconds seemed like minutes to Julio, his heart still frantically beating. He heard the creature shriek once more and this time he heard a rustling. It sounded like panicked creatures hurtling through the leaves.

In a moment, he distinguished the new sounds -- birds!

He willed himself into a kneeling position, curious to see what was happening.

From far off above the treeline, he saw one, two and then all at once, a flock of colorful birds taking off!

The panicked flight of these little birds was the rustling sound that he heard. He saw the creature shoot up and once clear of the treetops, leveled into a glide after just one flap of its wings for adjustment -- from vertical to horizontal in one graceful move!

Julio wouldn't have believed it if someone had just told him.

As scattered as the flock of birds were, all lined up in the direction it went soon had their lives extinguished. Unlike hawks, it did not use its claws but instead tucked it away and used it's opened beak to capture its preys. The poor birds did not even have time to squeak, their avian bodies broken and lifeless before they were dropped to the ground.

Parrots. They were parrots. The pretty colors of their feathers now looked gruesome as they remained still and lifeless-and bloody-on the ground.

It just took pleasure in killing the poor birds. It wasn't even eating. Parrots rarely lived closed to humans and they live deep in the forest. It made him wonder how deep in the forest he was. It made him wonder how the creature managed to find the flock. How many times did it leave the well? How many times had it flew over the forest to find other helpless creatures to kill this way?

He saw it change its angle as gracefully as it did earlier. It now flew upward. It did a quick flip once it was vertical and almost immediately hurtled in the opposite direction flying upside down, slowly rolling until it was in its regular flying position once again.

Julio feared this creature now more than ever. The act of spying on it had removed the initial fear, but now he was certain that if it somehow sense him, he would be as good as dead.

The creature continued its rampage overhead, leaving dead birds falling down to the ground in its wake. He knew that predatory birds would find one victim, would stick to it and then would devour it. But this one just wanted to kill as many as it could, as evidenced by the raining mass of bloody parrots. Finally, the rest of the dispersed birds were too far off to hold the creature's attention, so it just glided in a few circles, shrieking, before coming down on the ground.

The way it landed was the most beautiful landing of a winged creature he had ever seen. No suddenness to it the way small birds did, or hesitant pause those larger did when perching. It dropped aimlessly towards the ground and at the last moment, repositioned its upper body so that it was upright.

It flapped its huge wings once, flattening the grass, and with its second set of wings working in a frenzy, the creature landed like it was just a freefalling feather.

It landed with its side to him and only then did the apparent ferociousness of the creature sink in.

With its feet on the ground, it was as tall as he was, and the creature was bent forward. Its three-pronged tail not only touched the ground but was swaying back and forth, the way dogs or other four-legged creatures did!

Its long beak and head were bent forward, and it walked with an easy gait, almost as if it were a bipedal. The entire length of its feet all the way up to its thighs was not covered in feathers but scales that were, from his vantage point, jet black. Even its claws were of the same color; it was the same color as the tip of its tail. When the creature walked a little closer at an angle, he saw that all the parts that would have been vulnerable in any other bird were covered with the same scale-like formation all the way to its neck. The sides of its crown seemed to have a thick layer of the same material.

No wonder it was able to break the roof of the well's covering, he thought, his heart beating in his throat.

He watched as the creature strode forward and once it found one of the dead birds, it looked around, side to side, then looked down on the dead prey, stepped on its head and ripped its body apart with its beak holding the neck. This resulted in just the head being separated from the body while the remaining part, hanging from its beak, got swallowed in one single motion.

So, now was when it starts eating.

The creature continued this for about a few more birds when it suddenly stopped.

### Chapter Eight

JULIO'S HEART LITERALLY stopped. He held his breath. He realized that it was no more than five feet away and although he was in a prone position behind a tree with a large trunk, it was not enough to hide him should the creature look his way.

It raised its beak up then tilted its head sideways, first to the right, then to the left. When it stopped, noises came from its beak, like gargling coupled with a dog's growling.

As the sounds coming from it became louder and more aggressive, it swung its neck from side to side but for the head that remained motionless. Every few repetitions of its neck-swinging were accompanied by a change in the head's angle.

Then the creature added a new move to its repertoire. Aside from just swinging its neck from side to side, it started spreading then tucking both sets of its multi-colored wings.

Julio felt that it would be only a matter of minutes before he would be discovered!

But while Julio gaped at the ferocious, awe-inspiring creature, it had already spotted him seconds before. The creature lurched forward in one move with its neck elongated and body bent forward. Then it rotated both its wings at an angle by the joints on its torso, much like how men move their arms backward.

The jet black bony, hook-like edges where its wings folded were now pointing at him.

Julio was rooted to the ground as he guessed horribly one of the uses for its long, pointed tail.

With another fearsome cry, it took off from its feet, pushed its entire body into the air and twisted so when its feet landed on the ground, it was facing the other way. Its wings were now tucked and it was running, not hopping, towards the trees. A few feet away from the first tree, the creature threw its right leg to the side and bounded from it.

Julio watched in shock as, just when it passed near the closest tree to him, its long tail shot out and struck the tree. It came out the other side -- straight at him!

Its wings opened once it came clear of the tree and with one flap of its primary wings, it was shooting in his direction! It appeared to swim in the air instead of glide or fly.

But Julio came to himself at the last second.

He rolled sideways to shield himself from it by another tree. Everything happened so fast. Just as he cleared away from the creature's trajectory, the creature's beak suddenly came into view. He heard the gurgling, almost growling noise as the creature sped by him, but saw it execute a reversal in mid-air. It was so quick that had it not been huge, he might not have seen this. When it was done with its mid-air back flip, its claws found the trunk of a tree and its legs did the rest of work to cushion the force.

In a heartbeat it was on the ground, facing him.

Again.

It spread its wings and gave a mighty cry, then tucked both wings to the side and ran for him.

Again.

But Julio had hit the ground running way before the creature finished its wail.

He didn't know where he was going; all he knew was that he had to get away from the monster. He headed into the clearing without thinking, feeling the creature hard on his heels. It was so massive that the ground beneath him trembled while it ran. He had passed the broken hut-like construction with the well when it descended down in front of him like an arrow dropping from the sky.

He tried stopping but couldn't. He tumbled forward. He just rolled, fortunately, because the moment the creature hit the ground its long beak shot forward before it could fold its wings. He would have been impaled! He rolled on the grass until he bumped into a stop.

On the creature's feet! It had moved without him seeing! It quickly rotated its wing by the joint and stabbed the pointed, hooked joint down at him. Julio barely had time to react. The pointed black spike of its wing grazed his right shoulder just as he rolled as close to the creature's feet as possible. It stung but he barely minded it. He was very much still in danger!

The creature was now towering over him. One of its feet was on shoulder level; the other was at waist level. If he try to sneak in between its legs, it would take too long. While it was now aiming its other wing at his legs!

No time to think. He swiftly curved both legs, and kicked the nearest leg as hard as he could. This launched his lower body up over his head, rolling him backwards and getting up on his knees in one swift move. When he looked up, it was using its wing to regain the balance lost due to his kick.

That didn't take long to do. The creature swung its head in his direction and squealed that ungodly squeal.

Julio bolted for the debris near the well. He remembered seeing some of the wooden beams of the well's hut-like canopy in the debris. They were of practical length and could fit in either of his hands.

With all the speed he could muster, he bolted for the well. He sensed rather than saw when the beast beat its wings and came at him screaming. At no less than 20 feet, Julio felt the gusts of air generated by its mighty wings. He felt as it launched itself up then swooped down. And he knew even without looking it was going straight to him.

It was so quick that he had to fall onto his stomach to escape the creature's claws. It passed above him flapping its wings to gain altitude, and then circled back.

Julio did not run this time. Once he was up, he faced the direction that the creature was coming from and slowly backed away towards the destroyed hut. He knew, with the speed and flexibility that the creature had already shown that he had no chance of outrunning it. He backed away at an angle, estimating the circumference of the well. He planned to circle it or perhaps locate himself behind the waist-high stone construction that lined the well. He had to reach it before...

He did, when the flying menace began its descent once more.

This time, Julio crouched low, using the stones of the well to shield him. If it was that strong and it somehow destroyed the well, then it would mean his end.

And it was almost so!

It indeed broke the stones like it was nothing more than sand, but it did not reach him. He was crouched so low, bunched into the fetal position. Fragments of stone rained over him. That was how he knew the creature had already passed. That was how he knew he needed to move.

The creature had landed on the ground and menacingly, almost calculatingly, approached Julio again. Its head bobbed up and down as it walked, its scaly parts glimmering in the sun. It looked as if it was sizing him up and Julio, in that very moment, knew it was all or nothing.

Now!

With a scream, more out of desperation than of bravado, he launched towards the approaching, gigantic bird. It launched itself backward doing a half flap of its wings mid-air. It landed about five feet from where it was. This confused Julio momentarily and he stopped on his tracks.

Julio moved once more, and the creature once more retreated. No sound came from it, not even the gurgling-growling noise he had heard earlier. It just took off backwards, still landing in front of him at a comfortable distance. Even with the small wooden beams in both his hands, there was no way he could throw a strike at the creature and score a hit.

He could not afford to lose ground. Julio attempted to launch himself at the creature once more. He hoped he could have it backed up near the trees and he would make a run for it. But it has its plan, too. At the last moment, it launched itself up but this time, it did not go backwards. It landed right in front of him.

Its primary wings formed a canopy over his head. The bony parts hit Julio squarely on both sides of his shoulders. He almost swooned with pain because it felt like he had been hit with steel.

Only falling to his knees had saved him from getting stabbed with the pointy ends of its secondary wings. He was able to twist his torso and got away with a long gash on his back. He felt the pang-he felt his flesh tear as the bony protrusion of the wing hit his back. Moving in instinct now, the need to fight to survive, he swung his right arm to the side in a wide arc with all his might, landing a blow on the creature's elongated neck.

### Chapter Nine

IT SHRIEKED AND was momentarily fazed.

Julio ran!

His left arm leveled the wood he was carrying as his other arm shielded any possible attack. He brought down the full weight of the wood with all the strength he could manage on the creature's left wing, and scored another hit.

But not before it started to launch itself. As it shrieked in apparent pain, it bumped Julio's body in mid-air, depositing him on his back with wooden weapons still in hand. It proceeded to move forward flapping its wings, jumping a couple of times before it managed to take off.

Even in flight, it seemed a little shaken. But whatever it lost in terms of the fight it was in, it more than made it up for it in fierceness. Julio saw it as a blur again as it swept down. He rolled aside as fast as he could, stopped when he felt the heavy thud of the creatures feet hitting the grass. He stood up to face the beast.

Or tried to. When he was up, he immediately felt dizzy, and the creature was already heading in his direction! Julio backed off, raised his wooden weapons in hope that it would ward off the beast or at least keep it at bay.

The creature landed just a few feet away from him. Though everything was still spinning, he swung the wood in his right hand in an upward stab. But it just raised a wing and the wooden pole hit the center of its bony wing. Julio felt like he had hit stone! Then it moved again and hit his elbow solidly, sending pains up and down the length of his arm. The wood fell from the grasp of his right hand.

But as he wheeled to the right, his left hand had aimed for its head in reflex. It reared back and the hit landed on the base of its neck. He drove the pole hard enough that splinters buried themselves in his palm. His body went with it, the momentum saving him again from being impaled. It also gave him a little advantage.

As the beast was starting to retract its right wing, his left hand came swinging hard from below, scoring a strong hit on the side of its head. The pole almost broke as it bounced back. He swung again and missed the head, but hit the scale-laden clavicle of the beast. But the pole did not bounce back this time-because he'd found skin.

Not hesitating, he drove the hit home!

He quickly grabbed the other wood he'd dropped and swung it high in a slicing motion, hitting the other clavicle. He swung it again, this time from the left side, and brought it down, hitting the middle of the creature's neck. Again using momentum, Julio again raised his weapon and hit the other side of the creature's neck.

The pole hit something hard. The creature had recovered and had blocked his attack with its bony wing, then swung its tail from the left, under its wing! The barbed end of the beast's tail tore through the flesh above his right knee, burrowing under his clothes, continuing all the way up to just a few inches below his right breast.

Julio felt his skin tear inch by inch. Blood soaked though his worn shirt and shorts. He could smell it, and he realized the creature did, too.

It was suddenly more aggressive. Its beak came forward at a dizzying speed while the pointed protrusions of its wings alternated in trying to stab him. Julio had to step back several times, his bravado all but gone.

Then the creature stopped using its wings to attack and just used its beak. Julio could see as its powerful neck muscles moved as it snapped its head back and forth at such dizzying speed. It flapped its wings while attacking him. Oh, Julio was in the most desperate position he was ever in.

He was still bleeding. He could feel his blood trickling down, the fabric of his clothes that could not soak up any more. He was bleeding and growing tired. The adrenalin, the fear, the fighting and the wound were now starting to take their toll on him. He was barely able to catch his breath.

With his physical reserves draining off by the second, he would be a sitting duck when it tries to eat him-alive. He wouldn't even be able to outrun it in the trees. It was just too fast.

But he could not think of succumbing. He did not step back too much as to leave a big gap between him and the creature, nor turned to present his back to it. He provoked it with his weapon to keep its attention. Every time his wooden pole landed on any part of its body, a guttural, fearsome growl issued from its throat. It was getting incensed. It might not have been familiar with prey that fights back as long as it breathed. It had never taken on someone like Julio.

And incensed, it acted like a predator. When he was sure that he had provoked the creature enough, he backed off really fast. He knew it was a gamble but his gamble paid off. The creature went wild when it thought its prey was escaping. Instead of flying, it ran after him with great bounds of its powerful feet.

Julio knew he had to act fast. He ran screaming towards the creature, his abrupt attack and the noise he made surprising the enemy. It was all he needed.

He slid down, his entire body dragging in the grass.

The friction between him and the ground halted his progress but as he'd expected, the great bird did not stop but continued to follow him with its beak, its body moving in the same direction. He quickly held the pole firmly in place, one end pointed to the scaly underside of the creature's torso, the other embedded in the ground, hoping the creature would use its own momentum against itself.

It did.

The beast let out a mighty shriek, flapped its wings and fell to the side. Then its shrieks died down almost into squeaks.

Julio scrambled up to look for more weapon. The creature's noise and its frantic flapping of its wings warned him that it was still alive and her was afraid that when it got back up, it would come at him more fiercely. He ran back to the scattered debris near the well to find something. But all manner of wooden implements he could use were short and would prove to be a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

When he looked back, the creature was getting back on its feet!

Julio panicked. He was almost there. Later, he knew he would think that it was impossible he was even able to fight the best back-if there would be a later. It tried to fly, but awkwardly. It was hurt badly.

But the creature's wings were synching. He had to do something! He couldn't think, the growing need to take action pressed upon him with each second. He scanned the clearing. His eyes fell upon the most unlikely of weapons--the small wooden pail that was tied at both ends by the rope. It looked unwieldy, but he had no other choice. He ran to get it.

The creature, once again thinking its prey was about to disappear, filled with renewed energy. But after lifting up a couple of feet from the ground, it could not sustain its flight and fell heavily upon its feet. With its flight option scratched off of the equation, it had no other way to attack but to go for Julio.

Julio did not bother to gather the entire length of the rope to see how far it would go. He just remembered how long he had to let it go in order to get water earlier. Julio just gathered the end of the rope as it had been removed from where it was tied off and picked up the other end with the solid, small wooden pail. He started swinging it above his forehead.

The creature came at him at great speed. Julio waited, and waited some more. The intensity of the moment was bearing down on him that everything seemed to take a long time. Except for his thoughts. His thoughts were all focused on releasing at the right moment. When the creature came near enough, he launched his roped missile into the beast with all his might.

It went wide, far over the creature's shoulders. It would have gone on further had there been no rope attached to it. He missed! Julio yanked the rope back hurriedly, hoping he could retract it in time before the creature got too close. But something happened that he had not counted on.

When it advanced, a long portion of the rope went over its shoulder. When Julio pulled it back, the pail dropped. The creature, with its wing partially opened in order to point the hooked protrusions at Julio, took no notice it. But more movement snapped the rope in place, wounding itself on the base of the creature's wing!

Julio stopped, and the rope forced the creature to stop, too.

Thus ensued the hardest tug-of-war Julio had ever played.

The creature's objection to being tied up was apparent in the loud, almost roar-like noise that erupted from its scaly throat. It stood its ground and yanked its torso to the side. Julio pulled back and the creature lurched forward. But in a battle between him and the creature, Julio knew he would not win in the long run. Even if it was already injured.

With every pull, he backed two steps off. He found that slackening the hold on the ropes every time the creature pulled back made it easier for him when it was his time to pull. His aim was to get the rope around the stones of the well to make it harder for the creature to pull back.

Julio only needed an advantage. When the rope completely circled the well, he stepped on it to bring it lower, and then tied it. Ignoring the creature's noise, Julio frantically looked for his first wooden pole. He saw it easily this time, ran towards it, and then recovered the other still embedded into the soft earth.

Taking caution against the creature's tail, he approached it from the side.

In his exhausted state, bloodied and out of breath, Julio realized that he was no longer afraid of the creature.

Whatever the reason, he really just wanted the encounter to end. Weighted with his dread and will to live, he approached the creature and once within range, started his battery of hits. With as much passion as that of a butcher, Julio rained down a beating on the creature's torso that was only rewarded with the prompt growling and shrieking that the creature offered in exchange.

The creature was straining hard against the rope, the wooden pail serving as a lever under its wing that stopped the creature from tucking it in. Although its tail flailed wildly at Julio, it could not reach him either from over its shoulder or from under it.

It was getting hurt; the barrage of hits it was receiving from its attacker caused it to lose some of its majestic feathers and some of its scales.

### Chapter Ten

THEN ONE OF his hits missed-the creature had been able to back off a few steps. Its straining at the rope had caused the loose knot to give way a little. He resumed his attacks and after a few seconds, the creature was able to back away again, because this time the rope was only entangled in a few places of that creature's wing. He stepped forward, a move that proved to be almost fatal.

It was then that the creature was able to free itself from the rope. It twisted hard to the right, the other wing opening. Julio ducked and escaped the wing-but not its dangerous tail! It shot at him while the creature turned. He was able to duck but it still caught him. Too fast. The bony barb caught him on his back, again, immediately producing another tear.

Julio had to back off fast.

The creature faced him and screamed. It flapped its wings as if testing the damage. Julio did not like seeing that those wings were balanced as they flapped. It could still manage to fly! When its flapping got faster and stronger, Julio discarded all rational thought and sped off towards the great bird.

The same instant that its claws started to ascend from the ground, he screamed.

He saw the bird already swinging its wings high above its head. One flap down and it would be out of his reach. Four feet away, Julio jumped, straining hard on his calves as he took off, launching him high over the air.

He caught the bird's tail in time. The force of the air moved by the powerful wings was very strong that he had to shield his eyes. He used his right hand, still holding the pole, to land a series of strikes on the creature in whatever direction he was facing -- the base of its tail, its underbelly and even its feet.

Its tail did not try to pull him up. Its clawed feet did not try to reach him. The creature was having great difficulty in steadying itself with his weight in its tail. He would not let go when it tried to shake him off. They went around in dizzying circles. It could not get rid of him.

He rained his blows hard, giving it all the remaining strength that he got. He focused his hits on the base of the tail, the area between the legs, and on the creature's underbelly. His only hope was to weaken the creature, or it could fly with him above the treeline and drag him on the treetops until he fell!

Finally, his weight and his hits started to take a toll on the beast. The flapping of its wings became erratic and with each flap, they went closer to the ground rather than up. This continued until they finally crashed to the ground. Julio jumped and skidded on the ground as it crashed hard into one of the trees that marked the clearing.

Breathless and almost wheezing with exhaustion, Julio tried not to waste time. His muscles screaming, he willed himself to get up on the creature's tail again. The tree the creature crashed on was not one of the gigantic ones but one whose circumference was about two feet. He ran for it but found that it was not easy. The creature was going in the opposite direction!

Julio fought with every ounce of strength to steer the creature's body in the direction he wanted. It took a long time but he eventually won out. He dragged and pulled the creature's tail around the tree emerging on the creature's right side. The creature followed but Julio quickly circled and with each attempt, Julio scored on or two hits on the creature's back, neck, wing, and even its head.

The dance continued and with Julio safely out of the range of its wings, claws and beak. It took many shrieks and attempts to fight before the creature realized what he was doing. When it did, it fought harder.

It pulled itself away from him as if it had renewed its strength somewhere. Julio found it hard to fight to keep its tail wrapped around the tree.

Until one great pull finally got it free.

The bony protrusions wounded his hands as it pulled away. The creature did a quick run and tried to fly, but it came back down. Faint from his bleeding wounds and exhaustion, Julio did not try to follow. He remained behind the tree and observed from there.

It tried a second time, this time managing to stay on the air longer. It crashed still. The third time, the creature jumped up, flapped its wings, and just when Julio thought it would crash into the trees, it maneuvered a quick turn, gained altitude, and circled the clearing from above.

Its shrieking terrorized him. Julio knew that if the creature gained enough rest, it would come for him. He was seriously considering to make a run for it, even if he knew it would be next to impossible to outrun it. Its circling came faster and faster until he almost grew dizzy watching it. He almost fainted this time but managed to hold himself together. He could not faint. He was still too much in danger. He has to hide.

The great bird was still circling above with the same grace it showed before. It shot up high into the sky, executing a slow reversal. And when its head was pointing to the ground, it tucked its wings and fell.

Down into the well it went.

Julio waited with bated breath. He waited for what seemed like a long time. He waited for something to happen, for a sound to warn him. But for what seemed like an eternity even when it was but a few, long minutes, nothing else happened.

Was the creature really gone? From the beating he gave it, it seemed like a victory. But from all the wounds he had taken, it felt like a loss. If the creature comes out again, he didn't want to get caught out in the open.

But he was more afraid of running, looking back all the time, afraid that a moment of not seeing would mean his death from the creature's beak.

He has to be sure.

So he waited.

After what seemed like hours, Julio cautiously walked back to the well. He listened intently for any sound. None came. It was as if nothing had happened. He became acutely aware of birds chirping off in the distance. Content of these signs, Julio surveyed the area and could not help but be proud for holding his own in an encounter with a great creature yet unknown.

Scanning the clearing, he found traces of their scuffle. Disturbed earth and scattered pieces of wood littered the place. He saw the creature's feathers. He stooped to pick them up, collecting two. A few steps forward and he found a scale, shining in the sunlight. He picked that up, too.

As adrenaline eventually settled down, he became mostly aware of the stinging sensations all over his body. He inspected them all and found that there were minor cuts all over him, even when he was wearing a shirt. But none of them stung like the large tears in his flesh that were left by the great creature.

He decided to find his way back.

He located the spot where he emerged and headed straight for it. He hoped it would take him to the winding earthen pathway and eventually to the gully where he had followed the enchanting woman.

Remembering the reason why he was there in the first place brought a bit of sadness to him. He did not even see her. How long would it be when he sees her again? Would she believe him if he ever found the courage to ever tell her the story of what happened the day he tried to follow her because he was in love with someone for the first time?

He must be. After surviving something so unbelievable and going home still alive, the first thing he thought of was telling her about it. And he hadn't even been brave enough yet to start conversation with her!

Escaping with his life however, proved to be more than a cause for celebration. With that thought in mind, he continued on.

If he went home later than usual, he would have some explaining to do. And for the life of him, how could he explained what just happened to him?

Who would even believe him?

HE WOKE UP.

Rather, he was woken up. It was not the sun seeping through the leaves; it was not the hard trunk of the tree that his body was propped up against. It was Enrico.

Enrico was young man, a couple of months younger than he with whom he sometimes spent time with at the village during harvest season. Enrico was shaking him by the shoulder.

"Hey," Enrico started when he came to, "your bucket is full, mine too. Let's head back."

He dazedly looked around, like when a person wakes up from a deep slumber. He was on the side of the mountain where the deep well was, seated next to a tree and apparently dozed off.

"What time is it?" Julio managed to ask.

"Two o'clock, maybe."

Immediately, he frowned. That did not make sense. Julio knew more time had passed than that. By his estimation, it would have taken at least an hour just following the lady until she disappeared. Then there was the incident with the creature. And then he would have had to walk back.

If Enrico was right about the time, either he went back after losing sight of the girl, or he went just went to sleep and never bothered to follow her.

But he remembered everything! As clearly as if it just happened.

Wait. Had he been sleeping for days?

He quickly stood up and immediately, regretted the decision. His entire body was sore, reminding him of his fight with the great bird.

But when he looked at his skin and his clothes, he was baffled even more.

Not only was there no cuts, there was no sign that he had bled!

He looked up to get an estimate of where the sun was, as they were taught in childhood, and found out that Enrico was being honest.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"I don't know, when I arrived here you were already asleep and your bucket was full."

His confusion became more pronounced that Enrico was able to read it from his face.

"I saw you head out earlier with your bucket then about half an hour later, I found I had nothing better to do today so I came here."

"And I was already asleep?"

"Yes. My pumping did not even wake you up."

Julio got more confused. Now that he knew it was the same day, the timelines didn't make sense! He inspected the parts where he remembered being gashed. There were no wounds, no scars -- nothing. Just the painful muscles underneath.

Then he remembered the souvenirs he collected, two feathers and one scale. He quickly searched and was relieved to feel it inside his pocket. Something that Enrico did not miss.

"Are you alright?" Enrico asked.

"What do you mean?" Julio asked back.

"Just a second ago you looked like you did not know where you were, and now you seem like the happiest man in the world!"

"Well, I thought I had been sleeping here for the whole day," he lied.

Thankfully, Enrico did not push further.

"Both our buckets are full," Enrico stated, "let's go back now."

Julio did not answer but headed to the deep well. Enrico took that as a yes and walked behind him. Julio bent down to carry his bucket and found that his muscles were too weary for that.

After only being able to raise it a few inches from the ground, he set it down. He looked at Enrico's bucket, it was smaller than his.

"Hey," Julio said, facing Enrico. "My muscles seem to be very sore, would it be OK if we trade buckets?"

"That's a large bucket!" Enrico replied, "And it's a long way!"

"I don't have money, if that's what you're implying."

"You don't have to tell me that, we all have no money."

"So, will you trade buckets with me just this time?"

"If you would go and help my father make brooms this coming weekend," Enrico stated, smiling.

"How many?"

"Not how many, how long?"

"What do you mean?"

"We need to make as many brooms as possible before we send it to the nearby town for selling."

"So, how long?"

"The entire weekend."

"I could do it, but only in the afternoon," Julio said.

"Great! It's a deal."

With their problems sorted out, the two carried their buckets on their shoulders and headed back to town.

There was not much conversation the entire time; Julio's mind was filled questions.

What really happened? Did he just imagine it all? Did he just dream that fearsome creature?

But if he just dreamt it, why was he feeling all the soreness and pain in the right places where he had been injured when he fought that creature?

What really happened to him? Was he played with? Was it the water in the well? Everything changed after he'd drunk that water.

If it was only a game, why did he feel that if he died, he surely would have remained dead?

Questions to which he didn't have any answers.

### ~~~~~~

### The End

### ~~~~~~

**Read the next book by GJ Winters:**

**If you like this book, you will also like Journey Through Time Part 2...**

### Three stories in one book!

# THE SECOND VOYAGE

# Children of Time Part 2:The Invisible Base

Kenneth and Savannah, humans from another time, have been taken \- quite against their will - to the 73rd century to find a mysterious and dangerous man named Hinjo Junta. All past and future histories point to him being the cause of destruction of the human race - and of the known civilization.

With the help of the scholarly "journeyman" Unquill, a gentle giant and their guide, Kenneth and Savannah must find Hinjo before it's too late. But when Unquill is found to have a "future" identity as an enemy, they became fugitives instead of heroes. With the Constabulary and the members of The Black Brigade in hot pursuit, the three discover they must work together. To survive, and to fulfill their destinies.

Will Kenneth and Savannah succeed in their mission to find the true Hinjo Junta? What role will Unquill play in protecting the two underlings... and in preserving a future history where humans still live and has not become extinct?

# Children of Two Futures Part 2:The Underwater Factory

Savannah Proehl, Kenneth Yardrow and Unquill Hester visited Heracleion to find out what exactly is behind the murder of Imam Walid Felor, Olon Daniel, and Kaloa Syncrate. The only thing connecting these three people is their participation in a project that is supposed to make atmosphere ships capable of standing up to the Soonseen.

The Okuda Drive is perhaps the most important undergoing project, as it puts humanity on an even footing with the Soonseen. Who can possibly be trying to stop a project that will protect the Earth from invasion? There is only one way to find out \- get to the center of all the events themselves.

But will they make it in time, when before they even got there, the unknown enemy has already set a plan for their destruction?

Follow Kenneth and Savannah as they find more answers as secrets unravel right before their very eyes....

# The Magaram Legends Part 2:Braving the Fire

Following his obsession, his quest to find the woman that consumes his imagination, young Julio finds himself in a place unlike anything he's ever known. Battling a fierce creature again \- and surviving, he felt, by pure luck again, he decides he will not be caught unaware the next time.

It has been a year since the encounter and Julio has already written off the event as a memory. He has not seen the lady again, and has accepted that it will never happen again. But on the exact date that she appeared the previous year, she appeared again.

And Julio follows her once more, but as last year, the events that follow are not as simple. Surviving another Magaram encounter, he finally realizes that everything isn't just a chance encounter. There are forces as old as the first folk stories at play. For reasons still unknown, he somehow has reached the fabled realms of the Magaram, a race of beings whose abilities and achievements are likened to that of the gods - a legendary race that till then has only existed in folklore and superstition.

When the reason is unclear and the outcome is uncertain, will he find the courage to brave the fire?

If you wish to read more, download and find out what happens!

**Unravel more of this fascinating book, continue reading Journey Through Time Part 2...**

**~ ~ ~ ~**

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**How to Beat Procrastination**

Procrastination is the habit of putting off responsibilities until the very last minute. People have different reasons for procrastinating, but the end result is almost entirely the same; work is completed late and of a much lower quality than it would be if completed on time. Some people will claim that they work better under pressure and that procrastination is just part of their genius. This is all well and good if the procrastinator is writing an epic novel or trying to build a ship in a bottle, but when others depend on work being done on time and as requested, it seems unfair to rely on the excuse that genius prevented the work from being done. If it's a boss in a corporate setting who expects work to be done at a certain time and in a certain way, failing to meet expectations could result in professional stagnation, inability to promote, and feelings of "always being looked over" for special assignments. If it's a client in a contract setting, failure to have work completed as requested could result in being unable to collect payment for work done or, worse, losing the client to the competition forever.

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#### How to Beat Procrastination

First, Still the Mind

One of the main reasons people procrastinate is because they feel like they have too much on their plate, or too many responsibilities to manage at once. Even if the person was able to sit down and get started on one of their tasks, he might feel an inability to focus or concentrate because of the nagging feeling that he is neglecting other responsibilities. This kind of response is often brought on by an overactive brain; a brain that tries too hard to work and worry about several things at once.

Relaxation techniques like meditation and deep breathing have been reported by practitioners to be very successful at helping the brain stay cool, calm, and collected, even in the face of seemingly endless tasks.

A few minutes of meditation may not make the workload seem any lighter, but it can keep the person more motivated to finish their tasks by relieving them of the mental and emotional worries they were experiencing.

The type of meditation or breathing technique used doesn't even matter. Any relaxation technique that helps the person calm down and feel more comfortable with the tasks in front of them is a good relaxation technique. One of the most popular techniques is to sit comfortably in a chair, back straight, palms down on the thighs, feet planted flat on the floor, and eyes closed. From this position, which can be accomplished in any office chair, the person will imagine being in front of the ocean, on a beach, watching the water move in and out from shore. Once they have this image in their mind, they will begin to focus closely on their breaths, evenly spacing and drawing out breaths so that each inhale and exhale is the same length. After focussing on their breathing for even just a couple of minutes, and after spending a few minutes in an imagination vacation, the person will notice that they seem less stressed and probably less "on edge" about their daily tasks.

When a feeling of calm is reached, the person can begin chipping away at their tasks one by one. If at any time the feeling of stress begins to creep back, the person can try repeating this phrase, an ancient proverb, as they work:

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

This means that, no matter how daunting and long a list of chores might be, there is no way to ever accomplish them without first taking them on one by one.

Second, Energize the Body

There are no two ways about it; many procrastinators just feel lazy. They probably can't explain why, but unless a deadline is looming overhead, they would rather rest and relax than get down to work. This kind of attitude can often be attributed to a lack of energy in the person. Sometimes, a cup of coffee or energy drink is enough to get a person through their responsibilities, but these are only short term solutions, and it's just not healthy to rely on sugary drinks to get through work.

To give the body more energy to make it through the day and to face the tasks it has to face, a healthy diet should be incorporated into every person's daily routine. This isn't the same as going on a diet, but a strategy for long term health and energy by introducing healthier foods into every meal.

The best source of long lasting energy are raw fruits and vegetables. Unlike processed foods, which are full of empty calories and artificial preservatives, raw fruits and vegetables provide healthy doses of vitamins and minerals that can energize better than any sugary energy drink. However, many people don't' even get their full daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables, much less enough to give them all day energy. This might be because they don't like the taste of raw fruits and vegetables or because they like the tastes of other foods too much. So, instead of trying to replace entire meals with buckets of fruits and vegetables, people looking for more energy throughout the day should infuse raw fruits and vegetables into each of their regular meals. For example, eating a bowl of fruit before a bowl of cereal will give the person energy throughout the morning and will even make them feel more full and less likely to reach for a mid-morning snack. At lunch and dinner, salads before meals have the same benefits; they make the person feel full longer and gives them real energy that they'll feel almost immediately.

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By eating a bowl of fruit or salad before each meal, and by drinking home made fruit and/or vegetable juices throughout the day, people may soon notice that they have enough energy throughout the day to avoid sugary coffee and energy drinks. Not only will they feel more energized and have more motivation to face the tasks they've been putting off, they'll probably even end up shedding a few pounds in the process.

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