Out of Time by Ryan Matthew Harker (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

I duck, I dodge, I weave, I even bounce in my erratic flight away from my faceless pursuers. I turn a left hand corner at the end of the block. Another hazardous glance tells me these soldiers are indeed firing bolts of energy from their bare fingers as the building next to my head explodes in a shower of organic material.

A right hand corner and I drop to one knee, flinging my trench coat out so I can bring my AR clear as I do so. I need to buy some breathing room and this is the best chance I have of doing so. Short bursts bark from my rifle’s barrel and three red troops hit the pavement, at least I think it’s pavement, I haven’t really taken the time to analyze it. More troops are in pursuit though, until I drop them with hot lead. Eventually I feel like I can make the five block point so I spring back to my feet and continue my flight towards freedom from the Temporal lock.

My AR’s return fire has taken effect for the blasting barrage issuing from arrears has lessened and Khronos informs me that we’ve made it out of the Temporal lock’s range of influence. “Well Trav...!” I begin to yell when a sudden explosion nearly knocks me out of my shoes.

The sound of dripping water awakens me to the taste of dirty brick in my mouth and opening my eyes reveals dirty brink mere inches away. I pull my face from the damp wall I’m leaning against and an agonizing throb begins in my medulla oblongata. I can feel my heartbeat in that throb and my breathing hitches to its rhythm as I grope through my pockets. Though my vision refuses to be anything but a teary blur it’s not because I sob with relief at finding the familiar black shape of Khronos nestled deep within my trench’s inner pocket, though sob I do! I don’t believe I could handle being stranded again.

One hand still fondling Khronos’ curves the other seeks purchase on the dirty brick as I swoon precariously to my feet. My knees knock and my hips sway unsteadily but I keep my grip on the wall and manage to stay upright. Ow, my head! Closing my eyes I pull my hand from my pocket and cradle my sweat coated forehead in its clammy embrace. I’ve had hangovers that felt better than this. My whole body aches and shakes. So, at least it’s not just my legs that are having difficulties.

The air is damp as I breathe it, every inhalation chills my lungs, and, thus warmed, every exhalation produces a puff of steam as it escapes my lips. Looking around reminds me of an underground drainage system, like something one might find under the streets of New York, or London. My brain, still partially addled, briefly wonders about the likelihood of alligators in these sewers and I chuckle aloud as I grope along the dirty walls towards what appears to be a better lit area of this dank subterrain world.

“What was that?” I hear a voice ahead of me and stop the travel of my stumbling feet. “Who goes there?” the voice inquires.

Not knowing if the voice represents friend of foe I still the labor of my breathing and hesitate to answer. In the back of my mind I feel vaguely desperate to find out how it is I’ve taken up residency in these tunnels but, if the voice belongs to an enemy, I’m loathe to further betray my presence.

“Stranger, is that you?”

The voice inquires politely, and I’m torn. If this voice belongs to the enemy and knows about me then how is it I was left alone, untrussed, and still possessing Khronos? At the memory of Khronos I decide to take a chance.

“Who do you mean by ‘Stranger’?” I whisper loudly.

A figure emerges from what I mistook for a deeper shadow among the many shadows along the brick walls, I cannot tell if it’s male or female but it, carrying what appears to be a projectile weapon of some sort ranging in the realm of cannon proportions. A swaddling of dirty rags completely covers its face, accounting for the muffling of its voice. I aims the hand cannon at my face and I attempt to shrink back the way I’ve come, hiding myself in shadow as the figure again asks, “Is that you, Stranger? Are you the one I brought below from above and saved from the Zenociders?”

“If by Zenociders you mean those faceless, red soldiers... then yes, I am that stranger,” I answer.

“Oh. Good,” the figure is obviously relieved and lowers its weapon. “I was just coming back to check on you and for a moment feared you were an agent of the Zenociders.”

“Who are these ‘Zenociders’?” I ask.

The sound of a rat scurrying down another tunnel startles my swaddled rescuer and it raises its weapon defensively. “Please, if you’ll come with me I’ll do my best to answer your questions.” Then it turns and vanishes back into the shadow from whence it came.

Not having many other options, and feeling this to be part of the mystery I must resolve, I stumble after.

“The Zenociders are Temporal Overseers,” Swaddler begins and I don’t know what to say.

“Time cops?” I ask.

“I am unfamiliar with this term, ‘cops’,” Swaddler grunts as it traverses a pile of debris.

“Um, police,’ I attempt to clarify with a grunt of my own as I scramble over the same pile.

“Police,” Swaddler considers this new word carefully for a moment before deciding, “Yes, police, of a nature, but corrupted and grown evil from many centuries of undisputed power.”

My head has slowly been clearing itself of the cobwebs left over from the explosion I’d suffered on the surface and I (CAREFULLY(thesaurus)) consider the information Swaddler is giving me. I can’t help but wonder about the man who knows me as Galileo though. He’s a leader of some stature, I surmise, and I probe Swaddler on the subject by bluntly asking, “And what about the man with the golden eyes and the black hair?”

In the sporadic lighting I see Swaddler shiver more than the damp chill warrants. There’s a quaver in the muffled evasiveness that, along with the shiver, betrays a hate rooted deep in fertile soils of fear. “Golden eyes?” Swaddler stalls.

“Yes! Black hair, golden eyes, seems to be the honcho Zenocider!” Come on Swaddler, I know you know who I’m talking about!”

“Swaddler?” Swaddler’s leaning towards bewilderment at that one.

I sigh heavily, “Forget about that! Who’s the man with the black hair and the golden eyes?”

Swaddler sighs just as heavy and shivers again before answering in that fear bound, hateful quaver, “He is Ras Adoc Davison. He is a man for whom Time has no meaning, with no place of his own in Time, and he is the man responsible for laying the yoke of the Zenociders upon our shoulders; in this Time and throughout Time.”

Finishing its recitation Swaddler grows silent, and I grow contemplative. Ras ‘Adoc’ Davison, huh? I can’t help but wonder if this so proclaimed Time Lord has any ties to my Mysterious Gunman, Adoc Raheem. It just may work out if he does but at the same time I can’t help but think, this is all I need.

Swaddler and I travel subterrain tunnels for some time in silence, it thinking upon whatever it is a far flung future inhabitant thinks upon while I ponder the events of the past (Past, ha, such a relative term!) three and a half years that have led me to this point. Three and a half give or take a few million. So lost in thought I fail to notice the tunnel brightening ahead of me and my MYSTERIOUS guide.

“Almost there,” Swaddler’s confiding muffle shatters my reflective peace and I look up from where I’m placing my feet.

I’m astounded, to say the least.

The dank, dimly lit, moldy, cramped little tunnel that I’m almost doubled over walking through suddenly opens into a massive, extremely well lit, and cleanly chamber. I rub my eyes with the backs of my filthy hands, hardly do I believe the sight they behold. It’s as if we’re to step into the 20th century, except underground! There are people everywhere, God’s honest people, everywhere! Some are dressed in swaddled clothes like my guide, others in jeans and t-shirts just like I’m used to from my good ol’ western civilization, others still look like their garb came from India, Russia, Rome, Sparta, Greece! The cathedral-like cavern seems to hold and house peoples from all walks of life, all over the globe, all across Time.

We must be quite a distance underground to allow for a cavern of this size. I look back the way Swaddler has brought me and notice for the first time a slight declivity to the slime slick stone floor. We traveled quite a while in silence, not to mention however deep we’d already been when I’d come to in this abysmal world, so I imagine we must be fairly deep under the city.

“Wow,” I exhale in wonder. “How deep are we?”

Swaddler turns to me with a muffled reply, “Nearly two and a half miles.”

I whistle appreciatively. “Wow,” I repeat.

Swaddler exits the mouth of the tunnel and enters the fringe of the bustling cathedral. I follow closely, admiring the variety of sights as we go.

The perimeter of the cavern appears to consist primarily of housing, I dub it the Housing District. Huts, hovels, and ramshackle dwellings of every shape and size have been built over, on and all around each other. Lumber, plywood, sheet metal, fiberglass, and even some of the strange glowing organics that the towering structures on the surface are made of have been used as building materials. The dirty amalgamations, thrown together in the most haphazard fashion I’ve ever seen, look like a bunch of children got together to build tree houses. All this beside everyone in this underground community appears happier than almost anyone else I’ve seen in any other society in any other Time.

So caught up with my examination of my strange new surroundings I’m not even stopping to consider where we’re heading at first, until it all of a sudden dawns on me to blurt the question out, “Where are you taking me?”

Swaddler doesn’t slow or turn in the slightest but answers while keeping up a steady pace through the perimeter of houses, cutting straight across the mile wide tunnel.

“We’re going to conversate with the Curator. “Of course.”

“Of course,” I mutter, adding, “Conversate?” with a smile.

The Curator, huh? But I suppose I really don’t have much of a choice in the matter so I keep pace with Swaddler and keep my thoughts to myself. I figure I can use Khronos to travel to another Time, but to what avail? There’s a mystery here I’ve got to solve, something imperative to my ever seeing TRU again; I feel it to the very core of my being. I was led to this era and somehow this Ras fellow is involved. I can’t leave until I found out how. Swaddler and this Curator person are my only leads and I intent to follow up on them.

Marching close on Swaddler's heels we leave the Housing District and enter the interior, which I hereby coin: The Hub. The Hub reminds me of an ancient bazaar. Hundreds of multicultural, multilingual, people hustle and bustle around a multitude of little booths, shops, and even woven mats spread across the hewn stone ground. Salespeople of every size, shape, color, and dress are hawking their individual wares in loud voices that do nothing to detract from the swirling chaos of the underworld bazaar. A place of madness I can barely hear myself think as I hug