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

“I think it’s that timer right there,” she points at a numeric display directly in front of me. It reads, ARRIVAL- 9:45:56, and counts down.

“Good enough for me,” I relax and put my hands behind my head. “I guess there’s nothing left to do but kick back and enjoy the view.”

“Or we could go back to bed?” Sammi suggests and rubs her fingers along my arm seductively.

I look up into her eyes, the wicked gleam of lust residing there becomes lit within my own. “That’s a great idea,” I agree.

After satisfying amusements physical in nature I feel fully rejuvenated and leave Sammi asleep in the bed I had awakened in. Apparently she had been so worried about me she had stayed awake much of the time I was unconscious and our recent extracurricular activities were enough to wear her out completely. So I dress and go to the bridge. As I’ve never had one before I’m curious about the ship and how it works. When I get there I snoop into the computer system to see what I can find. I try to stay away from anything that says guidance or autopilot, but eventually I run into the ship’s AI.

DOM’s (Direct Operations Mind) a friendly fellow, but not an audio type as the ORions don’t like their AIs to bother them audibly. His speech comes up on a holographic display hardcoded into a portion of the main viewport. He tells me he was aft stabilizing a malfunctioning spark arresting system link in the portside thruster or he would have been here sooner. In his words -it was misbehaving and he had to give it a wallop, and now it’s just dandy- I tell him, good enough for me.

It was through him I’m able to gain control of the ship. He doesn’t care who’s captain just as long as they’re going somewhere. This is fine by me and by the time Sammi wakes up, ten hours later, we’re in stationary orbit around Earth. The AI assures me we’re just outside of detection range.

“She’s so beautiful!” Sammi jumps into the chair beside mine and claps her hands together in front of her. “I’ve never seen her off planet before.”

“Yep, been a good mother to us, considering how badly we’ve treated her in our time. Not that we’ve always been. I’ve seen eras where we treated her with the love and respect that she deserves. So called Golden Ages they’ve been called. I just call them periods where mankind wasn’t so self absorbed, selfish.”

“Oh, where’s the Moon?” Sammi asks and jumps around to one of the smaller portholes that border the bridge.

“On the other side of the planet,” I have to tell her. “I didn’t want to be spotted by anyone there.”

First she looks disappointed, then she gives me a funny look. “There’s nobody there,” she tells me with a pretty frown.

“No one lives on the Moon?” I’m a touch disbelieving. “People have been living on the Moon for a lo-ong time.”

“Not for the last twelve hundred years,” she informs me. “After millions of years the Government withdrew all the residents because its orbit became so unstable they said it was uninhabitable.”

“And everybody moved,” I ask. “Just like that.”

“They had to.”

This I have to see. “So let’s go check it out.”

“Really?” Sammi’s eyes gleam playfully at the suggestion.

“Sure, why not?” Sure, why not, I’m feeling pretty safe at the moment.

I tell the AI to creep around the planet and come up on the lunar dark side. He complies. It’s while me make our approach we notice the dark side isn’t so dark.

“Great! Back us up, back us up!” I holler at the AI. -Keep your panties out of a bunch- pops up on the viewport. We quickly back away. “Thanks, DOM.”

-Do I detect sarcasm-

“Do I?” I kind of like this AI.

“Let’s bring ‘em on screen with the long range scanner.” I’ve always wanted to say that. I hope we have a long range scanner so I don’t sound stupid. What am I thinking, this is the future, of course we have one.

The dark side of the moon comes on the screen smack dab in front of Earth. It’s pitch black except around the edges, three large dots, and a smattering of smaller smudges.

“Now what?” I ask no one in particular. “Can we zoom closer?”

The image on the screen magnifies until it’s all black.

“Can we zoom in closer to one of the big lights, please?” I rub my temples with one hand. Maybe I don’t like this AI.

The view shifts and one of the large lights looms larger. “Zoom in ‘til we see the surface.”

The view shifts again and the light is bigger and brighter. Another shift and the outline of a structure is visible. Yet again and the structure comes into full focus. It looks like it’s made of solid gold! Far out!

“A Cryo-Dreamer is a machine that puts a person into icy stasis and causes them to live their lives trapped inside their own minds, living out a fantasy world,” Sammi's voice is reverent, almost dipping into tones of awe.

I'm back, again... or maybe it's again. I'm getting better at shaking off the confusion of transition, but having a harder time keeping my realities apart. Still, I shake my head, and answer with an unintelligent grunt. Cryogenics, huh? Makes a weird sort of sense I guess, but doesn't explain why I keep flashing between universes. If I'm not in stasis any more I should only be experiencing one reality.

“I understand.” I give Sammi's hand a reassuring squeeze. “When I come from we've been trying to develop this idea for a while.”

My mission remains the same in both realities so I do what I always do when a problem stumps me, I decide to shelve it until future developments bring in more light. Whether Sammi's past or on a spaceship, the objective hasn't changed. No matter how you look at it, we have to turn off The Chronicler, or, we have turned off The Chronicler, now is the time to shape reality and create a universe.

Even if I have to do it twice. Heck, if I have to do this until I die I will save these people from Ras and his evil!

I stop in my tracks as realization dawns: I'm no doing this for myself, or for the sake of finding TRU... I'm not being selfish. Whoa, I'm not being selfish.

“What?” I hear from beside me.

I look sideways, first seeing the slender wrist; now not quite as swaddled as it was when I first caught a glimpse of it. Traveling up the slight swaddles my gaze crests a shouder. Past the shoulder I find hair, so soft and shiny, even after all we been through, it shimmers in the harsh light.

Sammi is looking up at me, her eyes red and dry from the heat and sun around us are still the most beautiful treat this desert has to offer. “What?” her eyes smile up at me me as she shyly whispers.

I smile back at her, with both my eyes and my mouth. “Nothing,” I tell her. “Just an old time dog learning new tricks,” I tell her.

Her hand grips mine tighter and we continue walking, kicking up little plumes of dust in our wake as we move along.

After a while of walking in silence Sammi speaks up again, “Davey, I don't think we're getting anywhere.”

We stop and I have to agree. “Well, how about another timeline then?”

“Khronos, home,” I say confidently. I have just the place in mind.

“Yes, Davey,” Khronos pipes up from within my pocket and with little warning Sammi and I are thrown into the tumultuous temporal turmoil of the timestream.

Sammi holds her head sideways and grimaces with one eye squinting and a hand laid lightly against her pretty little head. “Oh, I don't think I'll ever get used to that.”

“It's worse when you're not expecting it,” I tell her through the shield of my most winsome smile.

Sammi looks at me sideways as her bearings begin to turn smoothly once more. “What do you mean?” she eyes me crossly.

I smile becomes even more winning and I grin, “I'm just saying!” Then I blow it and laugh.

“Oh you bad, bad man!” she yells and begins hitting me. Though I know she's not serious as there's a grin of her own playing almost uncontrollably at the corners of her mouth.

“Come on, people are staring. We've got to get off the street.”

I hail a passing cab and we pile in. I'm going to take Sammi to the same restaurant Staci cornered me at after my first experience with TRU. But first we're going to my laboratory apartment. The cab driver looks sideways at our dirty, disheveled appearance but doesn't say anything but to ask us where we're heading. I feed him the address and he carefully pulls back into traffic.

Sammi displays her normal childlike delight at experiencing strange, new sights and sounds. Oohing and ahing I notice she's extra special attention to all the beautiful young women sauntering down the sidewalk in their flowing summer dresses and strappy high heel shoes. Smiling to myself an idea strikes my fancy and I order the cabbie out of traffic and back to the curb.

The cab driver's look of relief shatters as I tell Sammi to wait in the car and he realizes he's not getting rid of us that easy. I jump out of the curbside door and run into the ritzy department store next to our parking spot. I'm not long in the store and jump back into the passenger side of the cab in less than ten minutes.

Sammi eyes the bag and box in my arms with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. “What did you get?” she asks.

I limit my response to a sly smile. “You'll have to wait to find out.

Sammi pouts and punches my shoulder but she's not serious and soon becomes lost within the controlled chaos of my city again, her smile the only thing that could enhance her pretty face as she stares out the window.

Twenty minutes later we're knee deep in the mess of my living room. Sammi looks at the mess of equipment and papers, then looks at me. I shrug, both at the mess and the unspoken question in her eyes.

“I don't entertain much,” I say by way of explanation. “Well,actually, I dont entertain at all.” Bag in hand, box under arm, I head towards the hall. “Come on, I'll show you the bathroom. You can wash up.”

She follows and after a quick tutorial of the toilet, bath, and shower I hand her the bag and box and leave her to her hygiene. I'm barely back in the living room and I hear her squeal happily, but she stays in the bathroom. I smile, happy about her happiness. What the heck is going on with me? I shake my head in amazement of the human heart.

Sammi doesn't take nearly as long as most of the women of my native Time would. Including my own hygienic preparations we're at the restaurant in about an hour, no more than an hour and a half. So we eat, we dance, and I can't help feeling complete satisfaction at all the envious glances the other men in the joint keep throwing our way. I can't say's I blame 'em, just look at this tasty dish hanging out with me this wonderful evening. Clinging black knee length off the shoulder silk dress with matching up the calf spaghetti strap high heel shoes, I almost popped a vessel in my, er, head when she got out of the bathroom. Even with her hair only casually brushed out to hang past her shoulders she easily takes the prize from the most beautiful of the women around us. Heck, she steals it from any of the cuties that had been on the street when I'd made the decision. I'm