Pinball (12 page)

Then, on the last page of the pamphlet, in Appendix XXI, he found a reference to something that revolutionized his understanding of the Guardian units and gave him hope for escaping the slavery into which they had stumbled.

“Guardian Remote Access and Central Egress Unit,” he read out loud. The diagram and information described what seemed to be a remote control for the Guardians, referred to as the Grace unit.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
thought Steven.

It appeared that anyone in any timeline or location who possessed a Grace unit could summon and control the Guardian that the Grace unit was programmed for. If he could find one — and he felt reasonably certain that if the priests had a reference guide for one, there must be a Grace unit here somewhere —it might just be the ticket out of here for him and Samuel. He just hoped that, if he managed to find the Grace unit that went with this manual, it didn’t happen that he had, eight centuries ago and untold light years away, beaten the shit out of the Mini-Guardian that it belonged to.

Chapter 29

Jonathan Wilkerson had been born in the town of Dothan, Alabama. He was raised by his grandparents after his mother died of ovarian cancer when he was just seven. Jonathan had never known his father; the neighbors whispered that he had been a soldier at nearby Fort Rucker who had shipped out to Afghanistan before Jonathan was born, leaving behind the child growing in pretty young Beth Wilkerson’s belly. Whoever dear old Dad was, he’d never returned.

Wilkerson learned the finer points of life in the South from his grandfather, whom he affectionately called “Pawpaw.” One of the things that he learned was that the “Yankee shitheads” who made the rules had taken away the old traditions that Southerners used to enjoy, including what Edward Rutledge, South Carolina’s representative to the First Continental Congress, had once called “our peculiar institution,” the privilege and right of owning slaves. Now, two centuries after Rutledge’s time, blacks were considered equal to whites in every way, which was a thorn in Pawpaw’s side.

When Wilkerson turned eighteen, some three weeks after his high school graduation, he walked into the UAA Military Recruiting Station on Montgomery Highway in Dothan and said, “I want to enlist.”

Now, just over five years later, he had moved up in rank to Staff Sergeant and was one of the NCOs in charge of security at the South Central Montana Vehicle Depot. Ostensibly his position had to do with making sure the small fleet of Humvees, trucks and other vehicles garaged at the facility were ready for service at all times. In reality, he was one of the senior guards over the mysterious green vortex that had been kept top secret by the DIA and the Army for nearly fifteen years.

As he was not part of the research team, SSG Wilkerson was not privy to much of the information that had been learned about the vortex; however, he did have one advantage: he knew people.

One of the people he knew was Erica Denver, the wife of the project’s head research scientist. He knew Erica
very
well indeed.

Dr. Denver, Erica’s husband, shared information with her in casual conversation that technically should have been considered top secret. She, in turn, shared this information with Wilkerson after their sexual encounters.
The STAMINA project isn’t the only covert operation on this base,
Wilkerson grinned.

Over the course of some months, Wilkerson had formulated a plan that would change his life and that of the nation forever.

According to Erica, her husband was actually the son of the first person to have disappeared into the anomaly that they called STAMINA some fifteen years ago.

According to what Dr. Denver had told her, the records from the initial investigation showed that “subject #1” — Mr. Denver — had used cans of compressed air to maneuver inside the anomaly, and was able to visit other time-space locales and return again. In November 2014, approximately six months after the initial base had been established, the Army had sent a team of four soldiers into the vortex, equipped with the latest Compact Manned Maneuvering Units (cMMUs) obtained from NASA, to attempt to find Mr. Denver, as well as to explore the interior of the anomaly. They had never returned.

A second expedition was sent to attempt to find them three weeks later, and was thought to have been lost as well. However, those four soldiers emerged from the anomaly three and a half years later, reporting that, according to their sense of time, they had been gone only six hours. They were shocked to discover that it was the late spring of 2018.

Another acquaintance of Wilkerson’s was a junior research assistant at the base whose name was Lawrence Rasmussen. Wilkerson soon discovered that Rasmussen was quite resentful that his boss, Dr. Denver, was twelve years his junior.

Wilkerson had run into Rasmussen once at a bar in Bozeman, pretty much the nearest place a thirsty soldier could go for a cold draft beer. The two quickly became drinking buddies, and Wilkerson was pleased to discover that when Rasmussen had a few beers in him, he liked to talk. No, he
loved
to talk. Wilkerson learned to encourage Rasmussen’s drinking, the payoff being a wellspring of information. 

According to Rasmussen, the research staff had invented an instrument which, when carried into the anomaly and directed at the orange interior of one of the vortexes, would provide the date and location which that vortex connected to. In the years since, they had developed unmanned drone probes that could navigate the void and record the data on the various locations that it encountered.

With a little bit of pressure, Rasmussen agreed to provide Wilkerson with a copy of the database that showed the locations of the individual vortexes in the void and what location and time each one led to. Three days later, Wilkerson was pleased to find a CD-ROM in his office mailbox. It was unlabeled, but he knew what it would contain. Now he just had to find somewhere that he could access it; he had no computer in his office.

The next time he had the opportunity to leave the base, Wilkerson drove to an Internet café in Bozeman. He bought a large coffee, two hours of Internet access, and found a station far from the counter where he could have a modicum of privacy.

He put Rasmussen’s CD-ROM into the drive and waited. He hoped that it would automatically start a program that would open the database, because he wasn’t much of a computer whiz.

After a couple of minutes, nothing had happened. Wilkerson looked around and saw a teenager at a station a few tables away. He approached him quietly. “S’cuse me,” he drawled, “I have this CD with some stuff on it that I need to look at, but nothing happens when I put it in the computer… I’ll give you $20 if you can help me figure it out.”

The young man’s eyes lit up, and Wilkerson forced a smile. Even in 2028, twenty bucks was a lot to a fifteen-year-old.

The kid went to Wilkerson’s computer and opened some kind of file utility. “Oh, okay,” he said. “It’s an Excel file, and it doesn’t look like Excel is installed on this PC. You can use Google Docs to open it, though.” He opened a website and did something with the mouse; momentarily a spreadsheet appeared on the screen.

Wilkerson thanked him and handed him a crisp twenty dollar bill. The young man walked away smiling and Wilkerson eased back into the chair.

He examined the information listed in the cells on the screen. As far as he could tell, they listed the direction of approximately seventy of the vortexes and about fifty of those had locations and dates listed. The remaining twenty or so were listed as
UNKNOWN,
and several of those had the word
POSSIBLY EXTRATERRESTRIAL
in red next to them. he scanned down the list. C
ONNECTICUT, 1872.
S
IBERIA, 1908.
S
INAI
P
ENINSULA, C. 1500 BC.

There were a few entries where the date entry simply read P
REHISTORIC
. Then Wilkerson found what he was looking for: an entry which read N
EW
J
ERSEY, 1860
.

He smiled coldly, made note of the coordinates listed, removed the CD from the drive and left.

Chapter 30

Steven began to manufacture excuses to request that either he or Samuel, or sometimes both, be allowed to leave their duties in the Archive to seek information in other parts of the castle. At every opportunity, they made subtle inquiries of slaves, priests and common people that might provide clues as to the location of any storage locations where unusual artifacts might be kept.

Their search was fruitless for nearly two months, and Steven was beginning to give up hope, when fate rolled the dice in their favor.

They were at work in the Archive one afternoon when a slave came in with a message from Brother Eleazer directing them to go to one of the buildings outside the fortress wall and report to Brother Yanos, who served as the quartermaster of Centra.

When they arrived, Yanos told them that he had heard nothing but good things about their service to Eleazer, and therefore had requested that they be assigned to him for a temporary duty cataloging the inventory of his collection of artifacts.

Steven and Samuel glanced at each other, an unspoken message of hope in their eyes. “We would be honored to serve the Brotherhood in any way requested,” Steven told him.

Chapter 31

Over the next three weeks, Steven and Samuel cleared shelf after dusty shelf and untold numbers of boxes and crates from the large storeroom. There were all sorts of items, ranging from the familiar (books which were to be transported to the archive, broken musical instruments resembling lyres, zithers and bouzoukis, and lengths of clay pipe of the sort used in the castle’s drainage system) to the unusual (a large lens that appeared to be made of ruby, a crate of what seemed to be the tanned hides of some squirrellike creature with burgundy fur, and a dozen or so boxed electric fans, although nothing in this version of Centra used electricity) and the downright bizarre (a six-foot long skull that appeared to belong to some sort of canine — but was made of a shiny metal resembling the chromed bumper of an automobile).

Steven recognized the resemblance to the construction of the Mini-Guardian he had destroyed in what now seemed to be another lifetime and knew that this could very well be from the Wolf described in the Guardian operating manual. He only hoped that if and when they found the remote control they were seeking, it was programmed for some other Guardian than this one.

Finally, on the 22
day of their assignment, they found what they were looking for. Samuel actually was the one who discovered it, opening a small cardboard box — another anomaly, because almost all the other containers in the storage facility had been wooden boxes and crates or burlap or leather bags. He let out a whoop as he wiped a thick layer of dust off the top of the box and saw the Guardian logo.

They both looked around, hoping that no one had heard, but they were alone. Samuel brought the carton to the table where they were working and set it in front of his father. “Here, Dad,” he said, his voice shaking a bit.

Steven found himself hoping beyond hope that the box would actually contain the remote — how many times at home had he reused empty product boxes to store other items? Or that, if indeed the remote was there, that it would function.
What if we’re stuck in this goddamn place for want of a pair of AAA batteries?

He opened the top of the box and found that there was a Styrofoam block filling the inside of the carton.
Six hundred years and they still pack electronics the same way?

He pulled the packing out and separated the halves. There, still in a plastic bag, was a shiny silver rectangle studded with buttons and a small LCD screen. The Guardian logo appeared at the bottom. He turned it over and saw that there was no apparent battery compartment door.

In the bottom of the box was a small white booklet which bore the text, GRACE 2700 SERIES. He opened the booklet and scanned the information it contained. When he read the final paragraph, his face lit up with the first genuine smile he’d smiled since the two had arrived in Centra.

It read:
The GRACE remote control unit is powered by a #93487 Plutonium Power Source (PPS). Life of the PPS is estimated at 10,000 years.

Chapter 32

In the middle of the night on January 14, 2029, SSG Jonathan Wilkerson awoke at 0230 to prepare for the mission which he knew would be the most important of his life.

By 0300 he was fully dressed in his combat uniform, armed with his standard issue sidearm, an M9 pistol. As an NCO whose primary function was sitting in an office overseeing PFCs that guarded the anomaly, he was not issued a rifle, but he certainly knew where to obtain one.

He had selected this night for his mission because it was the new moon, and overcast. No stars were visible. Only the night guards were on duty; one PFC at the main gate, which was easily a half mile away, and a corporal at the guard shack by the anomaly itself.

Wilkerson went to his office, avoiding lighted areas, and quietly entered. He retrieved the large key ring from the drawer of his CO’s desk and slipped back out.

He then went to the armory and took an M4A1 carbine and ten full clips of ammunition. He placed the ammo clips in his pack. He also selected a carbon fiber body armor vest, one of the newest items in the Army’s defensive array, and put it on.

Next he went to the research center storage facility and found one of the Compact Manned Maneuvering Units (cMMU) that were used when it was necessary for human personnel to traverse the void. They were kept in perfect operating condition on order of Maj. Richard Scott, military commander of the base, in case they were unexpectedly needed. Wilkerson strapped the unit to his back and headed for the fenced area at the center of the camp.

Chapter 33