JAA Ch. 02: Time and Again

Doctor Wizicoff glanced up then back down to the papers in front of him. Then he slowly raised his head again to stare wide-eyed at me with a knife to his colleague's throat. Placing my index finger to my lips in the universal sign of silence, I moved the knife from Flemming's throat.

"Gentlemen, I'm sorry for the intrusion, but I have a matter that can't wait, to discuss with you."

"Who...I..."

"Doctors, let me introduce myself I am Doctor John Abernathy, now a little background. In two months, you will publish the paper you are now working on. Wait...I'll get to that in a minute. A year from today, cursory trials will have begun and by 2015, most of the population of the United States will have been inoculated with your longevity serum. However, there is a problem, an unforeseen problem. It only works on thirty-five percent of the population. It kills a significant percentage, within ten minutes to twenty-four hours of the injection.

"The rest of the population, approximately fifty percent, becomes what I have become. You might ask what have I become."

I took off my hat and shook out my hair. I pulled my vest and shirt open.

"Doctors, I am seventy-six years old."

"What are you doing here? What kind of doctor are you?"

"I am the result of your old age serum. This is what it turns fifty percent of the population of the world into. In my time, 2026, we are all that is left of people on the planet, except for a scattered few hold up on islands in the Pacific. We killed them all, for food."

"What are you talking about?"

I pulled a flash drive from my pocket, except this was a special drive as it contained a complete computer with a holographic display system. I set it on the table and pressed the start button. A cube, a foot on each side flared into life and displayed pictures of what I would look like in a feeding frenzy.

"My god, what is that?" Doctor Flemming asked.

"That would be me if I was hungry." I smiled at him.

I had prepared for this moment. I took a chunk of beef out of my pocket, took it out of its wrapper, then sniffed. The reaction was immediate. Both doctors jumped as I snarled and growled at them. I popped the beef in my mouth, took my canteen out and drank. I shivered as I changed back.

"What caused this to happen?"

"Your serum, your longevity serum...the stuff you have been working on your whole lives."

I reached down in front of them and picked up the papers they were working on and read them, quickly.

"This shit," I yelled waving the paper in front of them.

"No, this could not cause that. It couldn't cause the things you describe. Impossible, just simply impossible," yelled Flemming.

"Doctor, I assure you, it does. Computer, change track, sequence four-five-one-bravo."

The picture on the screen changed to Doctor's Flemming and Wizicoff accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Both doctors stared. Then a series of headlines appeared on the screen, each of them worse than the last. After fifteen minutes, both doctors were still in denial.

"Still not convinced?"

"We have spent the better half of our life researching this and now you tell us it's a bust? How did you get here? You have time travel in the future?"

"Yes and no. We did have a way to travel back in time, those few of the human race that are still left found a time portal machine at Argonne National Labs. We studied it and finally figured out how to make it work. Just as the portal opened, the others breached our security perimeter. From what I gathered as I went through the portal, I was hit by the blast and I have to assume the machine was destroyed."

"You talk about those like you as completely different from you."

"I am different. I don't kill humans to survive. A group of us chose not to become what the rest are and sought help. A group of doctors who fell into that thirty-five percent of the population worked tirelessly to find a temporary solution to our problem. They did, but it is only temporary. Very temporary. I have maybe a day or two before I revert and it won't be pretty. You see, one of the things about your serum, it made us indestructible. I can't be killed I will regenerate quicker than you know."

"Why are you here?" asked Wizicoff.

"I'm here to stop you from publishing this paper, to keep you from releasing that serum. I'm here to stop you from destroying the human race."

"Is this some...wait you're serious aren't you?"

"Computer, time sequence one, one, one, execute."

In the cube, the picture changed to a devastating scene.

"Doctors, this is what is left of Chicago. Doctor Flemming, that is where your house stood, stands now. The others roam the face of the planet looking for food, live food. They prefer humans, but they will settle for anything alive. Soon, in a month or two back in my time, there will be nothing left but them. I dare say, cannibalism is not beyond them."

"We did all this? With our simple serum to push back the ravages of time?"

"Yes."

I stood looking from one to the other, shaking my head.

"That I am still standing here means you don't believe me."

"What do you mean?"

"I have traveled from the future. If that future changes so do I along with the timeline I happen to be in, that's the theory anyway. So, the fact remains...I'm here and you have no intention of not releasing your discovery to the public."

Both doctors smiled at me.

"I should have told you about that thirty-five percent of the people who the serum worked for, like you. They, you, are not indestructible."

Their eyes widened in amazement as I took my rifle from my shoulder and pointed it at them. They both raised their hands in front of them as I squeezed the trigger. Thirty sliver-clad bullets ripped into their bodies, splitting their heads wide open. I watched the bullets impact them. They lay on the floor broken and dead.

Shelly's eyes widen with surprise and shock. Her hands move to cover her mouth as she gasps.

"Gunshots, lots of them, oh god, I hope John isn't hurt. I see myself still waiting."

"Oh god," Susan growled.

"Susan, shush. Wait, I see flames flickering from inside the house. There is a fire inside. The..."

I was still here, which meant what we had hoped for wasn't true. Glancing down at the tabletop, I saw their papers spread across its top. Gathering them in the center, I pulled a lighter from my pocket setting them ablaze. As the paper burned, the things around me started to fade and as I watched the flames flicker across those papers, blackness washed over my mind.

I sat there wondering why I was here, in my car, parked on a street I didn't recognize. I thought I had heard gunfire just a moment ago, but as I listened, all was quiet. Shaking my head, truly confused, I put my car in gear and pulled away. Why was I out here, I really should be home. My daughter would be expecting me to read her a story before bedtime. I love my daughter and she tells me the most amazing stories, about people she couldn't possibly know. I bet she'll be a writer one day. She has such an active imagination. Looking in my rearview mirror, I see flames flicker in the distance. It looked like someone's house was on fire. I truly hoped no one was hurt.