The Didymus Contingency (33 page)

“No, David. I’m done. All we’ve done is get people killed.”

“Tom, you can’t just—”

“Can and will, David. I’m going back for Mary and then I’m—”

Bang!
The entrance to the control center exploded open as a slew of guards carrying assault rifles poured into the room like army ants.

“Set your watches!” David whispered, as he grabbed Lazarus’s wrist and began pushing buttons.

The room filled with a series of metallic clicks as the guards readied their weapons and took aim.

“Time to go...” David whispered through clenched teeth.

All four pushed a single button on their watches.

“No!” Jake shouted as he entered the room and saw four flashes of light expanding and growing brighter behind David and the others.

“Shoot them! Kill them all!” Jake screamed, as desperation caused his voice to crack.

David dove behind a computer console. “Get down!”

Tom, Sally and Lazarus hit the floor next to David and covered their faces as shards of debris burst into the air from computer consoles and desks being ripped apart by scads of hot bullets. David looked at his watch and smiled as it disappeared into a brilliant luminosity. They’d done it.

The series of four loud booms could not be heard over the thunder of the gunfire, but the bright flash of light and glowing cloud of particles revealed to Jake that he was too late.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Jake yelled after the lights dissipated.

Jake ran down to where Tom, David and the others had been hiding. No one was there.

“Damnit!” Jake shouted, as he pounded his fist into a computer console. He turned his rage toward the guards. “Where did you idiots learn how to shoot?”

Jake turned away from the stone-faced guards before they could intimidate him as his mind began to sort things out. David, Sally and Tom had escaped him. But at least they were gone. They were out of his way and he could freely proceed as planned. He still had a watch. Jake glanced at Spencer’s dead body and saw the watch still attached to his wrist. Two watches. As long as the good doctors and Director McField stayed in the past, Jake could care less. He smiled at his victory.

Jake turned to the guards, who were waiting for orders, but a strange burning sensation in his lower back gave him pause. The millions of pins and needles quickly spread up his spine and into his brain. He could feel something...hear something…someone…. Voices, so many voices, rushed into his mind, like an explosion...crowding in...taking over.

Jake snapped his head toward the nearest guard. “Give me your weapon.”

The guard looked at Jake quizzically, “But sir, they—”

“Now!”

The guard handed Jake the weapon. “What are you going to do, sir?”

Jake punched a few buttons on his watch and turned to the guard, eyes jet black, mouth foaming, “We’re going to kill them! Yes we are! Yes! Yes! Kill them all!”

*   *   *   *   *

Tom fell through an endless void. His arms flailed for something to hold on to. His legs kicked for the ground, not knowing when it would come or how hard he would hit. He didn’t remember time travel feeling like this before. He didn’t remember it at all before.

Everything came to a stop and Tom felt his feet touching solid ground, though there was nothing to stand upon, just darkness. But he wasn’t alone. He could feel the breeze created by bodies moving around him, smell their foul breath and hear their slight whispers. Tom spun in every direction. Everywhere he turned looked the same. Up was down and left was right. Nothing made sense.

Then a beacon of light caught his eyes. Like two yellow headlights moving through the darkness on an abandoned street. Then two more, and more, until the vision of headlights disappeared, replaced by hundreds of glowing eyes.

He found himself standing alone in a pillar of light that shone down from an obscured source. He was surrounded by the darkness that had once held him tight. Looking down, Tom saw a stark floor and in his hands…a sword.

The cloud of angry eyes began to whirl around him, goading him, but he stood still and gripped the sword tightly. As the blackness, full of yellow eyes, swirled in on him, he raised the sword in the air, ready to strike. When the first black shadow reached him and the sword came down, he woke.

Tom’s limbs flailed as he fell from the bed. He hit the stone floor hard. “Ugh!” Tom clutched his bandaged ribs. They had been back in ancient Israel for several days now and while Tom’s wounds where healing nicely, his ribs still throbbed from time to time.

“Are you all right?” Mary asked, as she rushed in from the next room and bent down to Tom.

Tom rolled over and looked into Mary’s deep eyes. He smiled. “I’m fine. Just a nightmare.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It would scare you.”

“It was only a nightmare,” Mary said with a smirk.

“I can’t remember much of it anyway,” Tom insisted, as Mary helped him to his feet.

Mary shrugged indifferently. “I’m glad you’re awake. We’re eating breakfast soon and you have a long walk ahead of you.” Mary kissed Tom on the forehead.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said.

After Mary left, Tom rubbed his eyes with his hands, trying to erase the images of the dream. The blackness, the glowing eyes, they had burrowed into his conscious mind. Tom shook his head and rubbed his face.

The dream had been as real as any experience throughout the course of his life. Tom reminded himself that scenarios like the one in his nightmare could never happen. They weren’t real. Demons did not exist. Legion was some kind of psychosis, some sort of delusion that affected people of the past, brought to the future by their jaunts through time. That’s how Spencer was infected... But that couldn’t—

The stress caused by dwelling on supernatural subjects was overwhelming. Tom forced his mind to think of other things. He pictured Mary in the other room preparing food with Martha. He pictured Lazarus working up a sweat outside, pruning the fig trees. He thought of David and Sally, reunited after all this time and finally finding love. This was a happy ending even if Jesus was dead.

Tom’s thoughts drifted to the disciples. Peter and Matthew, laughing, remembering jokes told and drinks shared. He felt like a senior in high school on the last day before summer break. He was going to say goodbye to friends he would never see again. It broke his heart. But there was no reason to stay. Jesus was dead and had been for a week now. There was no message of Jesus being alive, being risen from the dead. Jesus was a fraud and Tom loathed him for it.

Tom knew that deep inside he wanted Jesus to rise from the dead, to prove he was God incarnate, to prove that there was some kind of eternal hope, to justify Megan’s death, at least to prove she didn’t die for a fraud. But she had. Megan’s savior was lying in a cave rotting. Just like everyone else eventually does.

The end had come and David was wrong. Jesus was a fake—of that much Tom was sure. But he was also an incredible man, and Tom missed him sorely. Tom found his eyes growing wet as he remembered Jesus hanging on the cross. The way his body fell limp at the point of death. The way his voice sounded as he cried out to God. It occurred to Tom that he hadn’t given the passing of his friend much thought in the week since it happened. Tom’s eyes stung, as they grew damp with tears.

“Tom?” David said, as he entered the room. “It’s time to—”

David saw Tom’s tears and stopped moving.

The embarrassment a man feels when caught crying was the furthest thing from Tom’s mind. He left his face wet. “What good came from Jesus’s death, David?”

David pulled up a sturdy, wooden chair and sat down.

“And don’t tell me that savior of the world crap, either. You know it’s BS too.”

“When you first left, when all this began, I had a conversation with Sally. She wanted to know what the danger of you coming back in time to disprove the story of Jesus would be. This was before I knew time could not be changed and what you were attempting, in my mind, could have destroyed everything we know and love about the world.”

Tom had wiped the dampness from his face and was staring at David. He was listening.

“Try to imagine a world without Jesus.”

“Easy. Megan would still be alive.”

“Okay, imagine a world without Christianity.”

“Same answer.”

“Think beyond yourself, Tom. Think about the global ramifications.”

Tom was feeling compliant and let his mind pour over the global ramifications of what David was asking. He though about several old world cultures that wouldn’t have existed, but held no emotional tie with him. They would be missed, but really, they didn’t matter much. He thought about all the marriages and babies born of Christians and Christian couples—people who met at church, couples whose religious commonalities brought some together and kept others apart. Without Jesus, babies conceived by Christians would never be born and billions of lives would be altered...
okay, that’s bad
, Tom thought. “I get the picture.”

“Do you really?”

“If I had somehow messed up the Jesus story, billions of people might never meet, copulate and have children that formed the future of our world.”

“True, but that’s just a small part of the larger picture. Frankly I’m surprised, Tom. Maybe all this time breathing fresh air and eating non-genetically engineered and untreated food has dulled your mind?”

“Hey,” Tom was offended by the insinuation that he couldn’t grasp the whole picture and sent the full resources of his cranium to the forefront. Images, colors, sounds, flashed through his mind, putting together a picture of a world without Jesus, like a montage of possible histories and futures played in fast-forward.

David watched Tom’s eyes fluttering, revealing Tom’s mental processes. David smiled; he knew Tom would figure it out.

Tom looked up. “America.”

David nodded.

“I never thought of that... America would never have been born.”

“One nation under God.”

“Under Jesus...”

“Neither of us were born Americans, but we’ve made it our home. And I don’t think we’d have it any other way. America was founded on a belief system that would not exist without Jesus.”

“But not everyone believes in Jesus,” Tom added.

“True, but the majority of founding fathers—not to mention the European civilizations that came before them—did. This is bigger than just America. You would be undoing two thousand years of history.”

Tom shrugged. “You’re right.”

David sat up. “I am?”

“The world as a whole is a better place because of Jesus, God or not. But individuals still suffer because of him. If he were really God, wouldn’t he have worked it out so that everyone was helped by his existing, and not just the general populace? What about the people who live and die in his name?”

“He loves them most of all, I imagine.”

Tom smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he? I miss him.”

“Me too,” David said.

“Let’s get this over with. I just want to say goodbye to Peter and Matthew and go home,” Tom said, as he headed for the door. He had proven Jesus to be a fake, but had also realized that the teachings and life of Jesus had an impact on the world that was greater than any other man in history. Jesus wasn’t God, but he had earned Tom’s respect.

*   *   *   *   *

It took Tom, David and Sally three days to walk the distance between the home of Lazarus and the home where the disciples had been staying since the death of Jesus. Normally the trek might have taken only a day, but between Tom’s still healing injuries and Sally’s soft feet, the trip lingered on.

They had only a quarter mile left and had entered a grove of red grapes that twisted and stretched its vines toward a white brick home.

Sally looked at the home. “Please tell me that’s where we’re stopping. My feet are swollen.”

“Be glad you’re still wearing sneakers,” Tom said. “It was an entire year before I got used to these sandals. I don’t think my feet will ever become smooth again, even after we get back to our own time.”

“Tom, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” David said.

“About what?”

“Going home.”

“What about it?”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Of course. What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s Mary.”

“She’s coming with me.”

“What about Lazarus, Martha, her family? She has more reasons to stay than you do to go...” David flashed his watch to Tom. “And I can always come to visit.”

“I...I just don’t belong here... I don’t fit in. What good is a quantum physicist in 30 A.D.?”

“Maybe you have more to offer than your science...”

“Like what?”

“Didymus! David!” Matthew’s voice boomed through the air as he barreled toward them.

“Matthew!” Tom shouted with a smile.

Matthew gave Tom a crushing hug, lifting him off the ground. “Where have you been? I have so much to tell you! You’re not going to believe it!”

Tom’s face was turning red as the air was squeezed out of his injured chest. “Okay! Okay! Just put me down, you big ape.”

Matthew put Tom down and noticed Tom holding his chest. “You’re injured? What happened to you? Was it the Romans? Or those wretches in Jerusalem?”

“It’s a long story, my friend,” Tom said, as he stretched out his chest, realigning his ribs.

“Is it them?” Peter yelled from the doorway of the home.

Matthew cupped his hands around his mouth, “Indeed it is!”

“Have you told them yet?” Peter returned.

“No!”

“Told us what?” Tom asked.

Matthew turned to Tom, looking him straight in the eyes with a large smile. “Jesus...he’s back.”

David clapped his hands together and started laughing. Sally looked at him, confused. “David, what’s going on? What did he just say?” Sally asked in English.

David took Sally by the shoulders. “Before you came, Tom and I were traveling with Jesus. Actually, Tom was one of his disciples.” David felt his mind about to go into a tangent of detail that was unnecessary. He blinked hard and focused his thoughts. “Before you came back for us, we saw Jesus die on the cross.”