This better be good, Will thought as he stumbled towards the knocking. Less than three hours had passed since his shift had ended. He liked his job at the Valberg Fire Station, but sleep was not the easiest thing to come by in a firehouse. A day off was sacred. If another Jehovah’s Witness was out there at eight in the morning on a Saturday…
With a sigh, he pulled the aluminum door until the security chain was taut.
“Yes?” He grumbled.
“Mr. Barnett, my name is Julius Harris.”
Harris was taller than Will, but at least a good thirty pounds lighter. He was a slender man with bright blue eyes and precisely-shaped blonde hair. He carried a thin chrome briefcase and held a clear plastic cup full of Starbucks tea. Will took one look at Harris’ suit and surmised that it had cost more than his car.
“I’m an agent with Horizon Publishing. I want to speak to you about your book.”
“Wait, my book?” Will blinked twice.
“Yes, may I come in?”
Barnett closed the door and slid the chain free.
“Please,” he said. “Come in.”
Will looked down at his attire: dark grey sweats and a white T-shirt. Great, he thought. At least there aren’t any stains. He kept his dark hair cut short as well, so it was not a concern.
“I didn’t think publishers made house calls.” Will gestured towards a chair past the entryway and felt an inward cringe. His house was not messy, not by his normal standards, but now was it clean by any means. Popular Mechanics magazines were strewn on the coffee table, and he still had a plate on the table from the night before along with the wrapper of a frozen burrito.
Harris took in the minor dissaray of the living room, an amused look on his face.
“We don’t often, but I was in the neighborhood with a separate client. I was reading your manuscript on the flight over.”
Harris paused to sip his tea.
Will’s heart jackhammered in his chest as his mind flew back to the ad.
Wanted: Your Ideas. LF unpublished fiction, new creative perspectives. Accepting from 5,000 to 75,000 words.
“So…” Will licked his lips. “What did you think?”
Harris walked around the living room, glancing over the bookshelf and computer desk.
“It was interesting, Mr. Barnett. You have an intriguing perspective regarding problem-solving.”
Will nodded, but something about Harris’ tone didn’t match his words.
“Right, if the ending's a problem,” Will said quickly, “I can change it. It wasn’t set in stone.”
Harris never looked back at him.
“No, the ending is fine with us. We‘re more concerned about what to do with your ideas. Are you interested in having them seen by a larger audience?”
“I’d be happy with any audience.” Will chuckled.
Harris nodded sharply.
“We have a large market, mostly out of the U.S.” Harris froze midstep and looked at the kitchen, a disgusted look on his face. “Is that rust?”
Will followed Harris’ eyes to an old, cast-iron pot, rust peppering the side. He felt his cheeks flush.
“Yeah,” he said as he shuffled into the kitchen. “I just haven’t cleaned that up for a bit.”
He grabbed the pot, and threw it in a cupboard.
Harris coughed into a white handkerchief and looked up at Will.
“Mr. Barnett, do you think you may be able to come with me?”
Will blinked again.
“What, you mean now?”
“Or soon,” Harris looked at his watch. “It would be better if I could get you in on a conference call with an editor. It wouldn’t take long.”
Will’s eyelids felt heavy, but how often would he have a chance like this? He wanted to change and thought about his old suit.
“Where are we going?”
“Not far from here,” said Harris quickly, looking at a message on his cell phone. “I can run a conference call from the California Herald downtown.”
Will nodded. The building wasn’t far from the firehouse.
“If you’re not interested, we can do this some other time. This would just speed up the process.”
“No, no. It’s fine. Just give me a minute,” Will replied instantly, holding up a hand as he walked towards his bedroom.
“So, William Barnett, you’re willing to come with me and work with Horizon?”
William squinted at him. “…yeah, why—”
“Thank you,” replied Harris chipperly. “Catch!”
He tossed Will the phone.
There was a pop, something like an explosion without heat. William snapped open his eyes. He hadn’t realized he had closed them. A chalky taste covered the inside of his mouth. He was laying on his back. A warm wind was in the air.
Why is there wind in my living room?
“What is this? Where are we?” Will sat up and looked around at the open air, trying to get his head to clear.
“We haven’t moved far,” said Harris, offering him a hand. “That is your front yard.”
He pointed, still holding his tea cup, at a patch of browned grass, more dirt than turf.
Will slowly stood and gathered his bearings. He stood on the side of a small rise, overlooking barren landscape. He followed Harris’s finger. Six pine trees grew up on a patch of earth near the bottom of the hill. They were similar to the ones Will planted a few years ago, although they were a good fifteen feet taller and empty of needles. Then, there was a small dry creek just down the hill and…
“Wait. We traveled through time?” Will felt like he was swimming.
Harris chuckled.
“Honestly, moving through time is the least complicated part. Do you realize how fast your planet is moving? You blip out of existence for a few seconds, blip back in and you’re more likely to be in the center of a star than back on your planet. You could have been incinerated, frozen, exploded, imploded or any various combination of the previous. And all you manage to comment on is that we are in the future?” Harris shook his head in dismay. “People rarely have any appreciation whatsoever for the little things.”
Will centered his weight and started moving forward. “What do you want me to do? Thank you?”
Harris shrugged, still holding his tea, but Will noticed the briefcase was gone. “Just appreciate that this was more complicated than you might imagine.”
“Apparently, you don’t appreciate sarcasm,” Will muttered. Then, something struck him. What phrase did Harris just use… “What the hell have you done? And what do you mean my planet?”
“What the hell?” The emphasis on the last word rang with curiosity. “You agreed to this. I needed your agreement before I could proceed.”
“Agreed to what?” Will was fuming. “We were talking about my book. You were going to publish my book.”
Harris bent over and picked up his cell phone, brushed off his slacks, and then turned to the disgruntled Will.
“Mr. Barnett, I said we would take your ideas to far places. I’m planning on doing that.”
In a rush, Will charged Harris and grabbed him by his lapels.
“Take me back—” Before another word could speed out, Harris’ free hand grabbed Will’s wrist like a vice. It turned Will’s arm over as easily as a flipping a card. Will gasped in shock as he felt a lance of pain in his shoulder as his whole body was torqued off balance and Will’s grip slipped off Harris’ coat.
“Laying hands on me was not part of our agreement, William. Now we need—” Light flashed a football field away. “Too late, move.”
Will felt the grip slip from his wrist. He wheeled on Harris, but the agent was halfway down the street and starting to turn the corner onto Bellenzona Avenue. The cup of tea landed with a wet thud, and poured out over the hard earth.
“What the hell?”
Will rubbed his shoulder and turned towards the flash. On a patch of dry earth, which looked like the ruins of the old little league field across the street, he saw—something. It stood nearly twenty feet tall on spined legs, shining bright as silver. It looked like a giant metal statue of an arachnid.
Then, it moved. From a hundred yards away, it leapt half the distance, landed with a massive crash and, immediately, broke into a run. The tapered legs drove forward with grotesque velocity; the shining monster was on top of Will before he could react.
One of the leg’s ends opened into a scorpion-like pincer and grabbed Will around the waist. The grip was tight, unbudging. Will tried to take a breath, but only managed a gasp.
The spider lifted him and stared– at least that’s what Will thought it was doing. Will didn’t see any eyes, just brightly glowing creases along a polygonal-shaped head. He pulled at the pincer, but there was no give, none at all. He got the distinct feeling he knew exactly how a fly felt.
Thunder erupted and the gigantic spider ignited like a firecracker, throwing Will across his front yard. An ache of pain lanced across his back as Will skipped like a thrown pebble off of the ground and thumped into a tree. He rolled over and sucked in a breath. The pincer was still attached to his waist. Will drove his hands between himself and the metal claw, forced it lose, and tossed it to the side.
The broken pieces ignited like a grease fire. One scrap landed on Will’s arm and burned like acid— he yelled out in pain. Harris picked Will up by his good arm. He was holding a slim pistol shaped object although it didn’t look like any gun Will was familiar with.
“We need to leave,” said Harris.
Will started to argue. Another flash of light interrupted him, striking a quarter of a mile off.
“MOVE!” The command was primal, unnatural coming from the slight Harris.
Will recalled the tone from his job as a fireman, a warning of danger, and he moved. His mind raced, trying to figure out what was happening. Harris was fast; Will rounded the corner of the street a good twenty feet behind him.
He heard nothing at first, and then loud cracking, like boughs breaking, following a rhythm. He looked back again and saw the monstrosity, another spider-thing, splitting pavement as it stepped, its narrow legs digging into concrete. He didn’t dare look back again, but the cracking sounds came quicker.
Harris stopped in the middle of the street over a manhole cover. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, put it over his hand and lifted the rusted steel plate like it was a pancake.
“Jump in.”
For the urgency of the situation, Harris didn’t seem nearly as concerned as Will thought he should be. Will slowed just enough to baseball-slide into the hole along the dusty pavement.
His feet hit a ladder and Will climbed down until he could see the bottom. He dropped with a thud, and Harris followed. Will bent over and sucking in deep breaths.
Ten years ago that would have been easy, he thought. That’ll teach me to take a desk job.
Harris pulled out a chemical light stick, cracked it, and shook it until a bright orange light stretched along the sewer. He turned down the right corridor at a quick jog.
“Wait!” Will yelled between pants.
“No time,” said Harris without turning. “Let’s go.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” muttered Will, but he followed.
Whatever was going on, he would have to put up with Harris at the moment. The jog was not as hard on him as sprinting. He still had to drill with the team from the firehouse, so he wasn’t that out of shape. Once his breath got to a regular rhythm he was able to keep a good pace.
Will took the time to try to reason through what had happened. All he knew for sure was he wasn’t home anymore. Something monstrous had chased them and, if his instincts had any accuracy at all, almost ate him. How could something like this happen?
Well, that’s a stupid question, he realized immediately. We’re human We do stupid things regularly. The only consistency in science is that we find some way to cause havoc and destruction.
Will let out a deep breath. Simple thoughts were better. Harris brought me here, Harris can take me out, he concluded.
Will knew grappling with Harris was a bad idea. He had turned Will’s arm behind him with a practiced-hand. In his past, Will was accomplished in Judo. Even out of practice, no one thirty pounds lighter could disable Will without an exceptional amount of skill and strength. He’d either need to talk Harris down or wait for an opportunity.
A second ladder led down lower into the sewers and Harris jumped down the hole. Will blinked twice in the dim light, and then climbed down after him. His feet felt the give of soft earth and Will turned. Harris was standing at the edge of a chamber.
A small lantern hung from the wall. Harris grabbed it, flipped a switch on it, and it produced a light bright enough that Will could see the entire room, maybe twenty feet across, with an earthen floor.
“They always get the calibration wrong in these things,” Harris sighed. “Terrible workmanship. I veiled your signature personally, but the wretched system must have sent out some excess energy. We were supposed to arrive with at least an hour before being noticed.”
Will stared at him.
“An hour, what are we supposed to do in an hour? Hire a giant exterminator?”
Harris leaned against the wall calmly, not a hair out of place on his head, and rolled up his sleeves.
“To begin with, we’re supposed to get you up to date on your objective.”
“Objective?” William barked with a rumble. He felt a raw rage broiling. “My objective is to get the hell out of here. And you’re going to take me back.”
Harris tilted his head slightly.
“You keep saying ‘hell.’ Why?”
What kind of question is that? Will thought.
“Because your pissing me off and I’m getting ready to send you there.”
“Oh,” said Harris, an enlightened expression on his face. “So Hell is an undesirable location.” He nodded curtly, as though the matter was settled. “Now. About your task. You need to find a way to stop the Bastian.”
“What?”
“Black, metallic, six appendaged automaton, just tried to eat you... Don’t tell me you forgot it already?” Harris raised his eyebrows.
Will looked into Harris’ eyes. There was no sign of deceit or even insanity, not that Will was an expert. If Harris was insane, he believed everything he said. Will still needed an opportunity so, he decided to go along with Harris. Keep him talking.
“Ok. You want me to stop your Bastian. What is it?”
“A guardian— synthetic organism that harvests antimatter from locations of desired teleportation to power its travel. It‘s quick, self repairing, self replicating, and ridiculously destructive. Right now, it patrols and removes anything deemed a threat in the western hemisphere. That would be you, by the way.”
Will tried to wrap his mind around it.
“So, a teleporting mechanical spider-thing is trying to kill me?”
“If you must be so colloquially imprecise, yes.”
Will chuckled.
“How am I a threat to it? Is there a giant boot somewhere I can use to step on it with?”
Harris puckered his lips in pondering.
“If you prefer, you could consider yourself vermin in their eyes. It’s the same consequence.”
Will nodded, trying to see Harris’ perspective. Will doubted he could fight the man, nor could he force him to help him get home. Harris was the only source of information Will had.
“How did I get here, and how do I leave?”
Harris smiled.
“What do you know about Quantum Physics, particularly teleportation?”
Will stopped and thought back to a recent articles from Science and Mechanics.
“Takes a lot of energy. You can send a molecule from one place to another, as long as you have a marker.”
Harris nodded, looking pleased.
“Good, now you know how we got here. My laptop,” he sounded like he was referring to the tooth fairy, “holds a quantum imager. It scanned both of us and sent us here. It works well on most items, just has some issues with living tissue, at least higher organisms.”
Will got confused for a second.
“If flesh gives it trouble how are we here?”
“Yes, well technically, I’m not alive, and you’re, well, human, which is… well like I said, higher organisms have problems. You don’t exactly qualify.”
Will felt his temperature rise.
“No offense, of course,” said Harris quickly. “For some reason it doesn’t seem to leave you people a puddled mass of pulp so to speak.”
Somehow, Will understood that there was no insult intended. Harris didn’t seem to care enough to offer affront. He moved on to his next reservation.
“Alright, what do you mean, you’re ‘not alive?’”
“I am a cybernetic organism. A robot,” answered Harris plainly.
Perfect. Will nodded and decided to end this show.
“Prove it.”
Harris wore his curious look again. “Mr. Barnett, you traveled through time, accept that we are being hunted by a race of predatory robotic arachnid, and you have trouble believing I’m a robot? Why do you question the mundane?”
"Any liar will tell you to never bluff something that can be easily disproven." Will smiled. “Prove it, or I’m leaving,”
Will began to turn towards the ladder. Before he could step, both of Harris' arms and leg’s opened into metallic compartments. Inside his legs looked like an automotive shop with strange mechanical tools neatly arrayed. Metal bars hinged and stretched out from his form, growing a foot taller and leaving several spaces that Will could see straight through.
Will’s head swam and then was swept under the current. It was real. This wasn’t a terminator make-up job. He knew it was real before, but… it was real. He couldn’t convince himself otherwise. Will staggered sideways and stumbled. Harris closed up in a far too simple motion and grabbed Will by his shoulder.
“Relax, William. This is not anything you are not prepared for. Just breathe.” Will did. The world spun less as he took in air. Harris nodded. “In the long run this will probably be more traumatizing for me than you. Who knows what type of oxidation will happen now to me?” Harris sighed nervously.
Will glared at him. “Rust? That‘s your big concern?”
Harris straightened. “Do you have any other questions which need answering?”
Will thought about it. He could accept this. There was no way not to and, given the state of events, only two questions remained. One would get an answer right now.
“If humans are exempt from higher life forms, who does teleportation leave a puddle of pulp? Who sent you to me?”
Harris sighed with irritation.
“You’re worrying about the wrong questions. You need to focus on your task. Until it is completed, I am not able to return you.”
Will gritted his teeth.
“What do you mean, not able? You brought me here, you can take me home.”
Harris smiled apologetically.
“The scanner will not even activate until you are either dead or successful. I have no control of it. They worry that I’m getting soft.”
Will wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he accepted it as a necessary reality for now.
“Fine. What is my task?”
Harris nodded, looking enragingly pleased again.
“We need to stop the world from being destroyed.”
Will laughed.
“Is that all? If the rest of this world looks like my home, there isn’t much left.”
Harris paused for a moment. “I wasn’t talking about this world.”
Will shot to his feet, a sudden realization striking him.
“So, you come up with these critters, let them loose on us, and turn tail and run when they turn on you?”
Harris' head tilted.
“Turn tail, what are you saying?”
“You panic because your plague has turned on you.” Will snarled, showing his teeth.
Harris shook his head.
“None of this conversation matters. What matters is that you need to find a solution. You need to think one up.”
Will couldn't believe it.
“Think one up? Want me to shine your shoes for you too? That’s the biggest load of—”
The echo of thunder rang in the air, interrupting him.
“Come, William.”
Harris turned towards one of the walls, carrying the lamp. As the light neared the wall, Will made out an old metal handle. Harris grabbed it and slid a thick steel door like it was the old screen back-door Will had, or at least, used to have, on his home.
“Here. Now.”
A sound like the largest nail ever to be placed on a chalk board clawed against Will's ears. He moved, and saw a sharp tendril slice through the ceiling of the sewer tunnel, sparks raining.
In a second, Will was through the door and Harris grinded it shut. The man, or whatever he was, reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a pen. He placed it over the crease in the door. Bright light flashed, leaving stars in Will’s eyes. When Harris turned to run, a thick welded line traced the door's crease. Will followed Harris, running through the tunnels.
Will followed Harris for a mile at least, maybe farther. Finally, they took a ladder up a floor into another chamber. A drain sat just above Will. No water, but daylight, with a tinge of brown, came through the crack.
For the first time, Harris looked tired. For some reason, it cheered Will up.
“William Barnett. You can choose to stop them, or you can choose to die. You do not have another option.”
William shook his head in disbelief.
“How can I stop them? You have the cannon. You have technology way beyond me.”
“I can injure them,” said Harris solemnly. “But I can’t destroy them, they self repair. With quantum teleportation it makes matters worse since they can teleport in the particles they need.”
Will nodded. He leaned back against the far wall, letting the light hit him.
“Why not teleport them,” he offered tiredly. “Different parts to different locations?”
“We tried that, they all self-repaired. It created a bigger problem. But this is good, William. Keep going.”
Will frowned.
“What do you mean keep going?”
Harris shook his head sharply.
“Don’t lose your train of thought, what else could we try?”
Rage started to flow through Will again.
“I’ve had enough.” He stalked out of the light. “Why don’t you think something up? I get picked up from my living room, lied to, and almost killed. I’m in a screwed up place, or time, or whatever. And I’m forced to put up with you sitting here and telling me that it’s my objective to find a way to fix your problems. It's insanity.”
Harris sat down tiredly on the ground across from Will. His hair was tousled and black stains were on his expensive shirt.
“Your pompous race—do you really think it’s that easy? Do you think I like coming here?”
Will wasn’t buying it.
“Why do you need me?”
“These are not desirable trains of thought. You need to stay focused if you want to live.”
Will lowered his voice to a vicious snarl.
“Oh, I’m focused. Focused, stubborn, and sick of this garbage. Harris, I run into burning buildings for a living. I made my peace with death a while ago, so unless you feel as comfortable with it as I am, you can tell me what I need to know to do my job or watch that little world of yours start looking like mine.”
Will felt it was a good bluff. That spider thing scared the crap out of him, but he needed to end Harris’ advantage. Will could hear his heart beating as he waited. He, or it, smiled. For once it looked like a real smile, although tinged with annoyance.
“Ideas are not as easy to come by as you might think, William. Consider this. Humans’ main source of energy is combustion. Explosions! Do you comprehend how ridiculous and dangerous a source for energy that is? It’s laughable to think about, but you’ve left your planet with it.
“Most worlds I’ve visited take thousands of years to make the advancements your people have in the last decade. In a century, you went from explosive propelled balls of metal to explosives capable of ending your world.
“Honestly, William, your kind invents stories, entire worlds that don’t exist. You people do this for fun. Entertainment. Do you understand how absurd that concept is? Do you actually think the ability to do such is common?”
Will stared at Harris and let it sink in. He thought about the history of man, the capability the human race had found and perfected in the last century alone. Technology's rate of advancement surprised Will at times, but he never thought of it as anything but natural.
“William,” said Harris. “I have just about every technology imaginable marked. I can get what you need. I just need a way to make it work."
“Alright,” William said. At least this he could wrap his mind around. He didn’t really trust Harris any more than a few minutes ago, but at least this he began to understand.
He started thinking. Solutions were usually found within the problem: Quantum Mechanics, the ability to shift things from one space to another, uninterrupted. His knowledge on the topic was light, but he was well-read.
“Can you interrupt the teleportation? Have the matter be lost somewhere in space?”
Harris paused for a second.
“No, the time is nonexistent between and their markers have fallback locations.”
Will nodded and moved on.
Okay, next, he thought. What is needed for teleportation? There needs to be a marker of sorts, something to determine the location.
“How do they mark locations?”
“At this point, they have the entire surface referenced. That’s why we went underground, it’s the only way we have time. It’s difficult for them to teleport down here, but we can’t stop it.”
Barnett sighed and went back to thinking.
There requires a large sum of energy that is expended, both on breaking down and arriving.
“How is the energy gained for the teleportation?”
“The energy is produced through a protonic disintegration using antimatter, exceptional amounts of energy. The same energy is implanted when reformed using the marker to force the energy back into it’s original form.”
Will started thinking out loud.
“So, energy from antimatter and information sent back and…What about a field?”
Harris raised one eyebrow, but Will continued.
“The flesh problem. A field can be created, one that corrupts the information as it arrives. Make them more random like complicated flesh. Then, just give them the wrong information, set up fields where the energy is absorbed and then rearranged, leave them a pile of scrap like the pile of flesh you see when you try to transport higher lifeforms.” The bitterness in the last two words lingered in the air.
Harris paused again, thinking, or more accurately, computing, Will realized. Harris smiled.
“That… may work. Change the information. Give them changes to their code. Mutations of sort.”
"Or a virus," Will offered.
"Not really," said Harris sounding annoyed, "but the fact that you can't understand the difference won't stop it from working."
Will smiled.
“Good, now get me home.”
Harris’ smile stopped abruptly.
“That can not happen yet.”
“Why?” Will snarled.
“We need to test it.”
Will blinked twice.
“You told me we needed an idea. I gave you one. Now, get me the hell out of here.”
“Yes, well, not all ideas are good. It being theoretically sound has little to do with reality. The first idea usually fails in practice.”
Harris crouched down, and his eyes fluttered.
“Don’t worry, I’m calling in the tech I need.”
Something caught Will’s ear. First idea…Usually…
“How many people have you brought here?”
“That’s not an important question,” said Harris, his eyes still fluttering. A small piece of electrical equipment materialized on the floor next to him. A second piece of equipment began to appear next to the first, this one larger and taking just more than an instant to appear.
“From where I’m standing, it’s a very important question,” Will replied. “So you better answer or I‘ll tear whatever wires hold you together apart.”
“William, you irrational meat sack, this is rather difficult so please be quiet. I’m your only means out of here, so you will just have to deal with me.”
There was a quick push of air. Will saw energy crackle behind Harris. The outline of a spider started to form itself. Harris twitched for a second, but his eyes fluttered obliviously.
“New plan,” said Will.
Will stomp-kicked Harris back into the forming arachnid. In an instant, Harris’ eyes opened wide.
“Why-”
The matter from the spider arrived inside of Harris. Will dove into the ladder’s crawlspace, latching onto the bars. An explosion erupted above as atoms collided in the same space. A small siren for several seconds before Will poked his head above the hole.
“Was it the meat sack comment?” Harris’ head asked from its perch against the far wall, severed from the rest of his body which appeared to be missing. A hole was blown clean through to the street above. Rubble and less than a third of the body of an eight foot tall arachnid form lay on the ground in the room.
“Pick me up and run, we don’t have much time.”
Will raced across the room, grabbed the robot’s head by the hair, and climbed up the pile of debris to the street above.
“Since the spider was having trouble teleporting underground, I thought it might be destroyed if you occupied it’s space after it had already cleared the area of matter.
“I could have told you that would not have worked.” responded Harris, his voice tinny. “He will just repair now.”
Will flashed a grin.
“Worth a shot I guess.”
“It was the meat sack comment wasn’t it?” Harris asked, irritation in his voice. “I don’t care how interesting you are. I can’t stand your species.”
Will turned down the street and kept running.
“Yeah, well, we were dead if I didn’t try it anyway. So, where can you start your teleporting again?”
“I can’t,” responded Harris flatly.
“What?”
“My marker was in my chest, so to speak, which, thanks to you, has been atomized, combined with antimatter, and obliterated completely.”
“Ah, hell.” Will cursed. Then, he stopped. “Wait...”
William turned down a street at a sprint. He saw the ruins of the old baseball park down the street from his house.
“The laptop,” said Harris, seeing Will’s plan. “Get me there. I’ll get it done.”
Will ran down the street, not feeling the wear in his legs, and raced into what had been his living room. The laptop rested against one of the walls, folded up.
“Put me down, and keep your eyes open,” said Harris quickly. In a second his eyes were fluttering again, and machines of various sizes came into view in rapid succession.
“Is that laptop quicker at teleporting than you?”
“Yes,” responded Harris quickly.
“So, you’re second rate equipment, or were at least. Am I right?”
Will swore he saw Harris’ jaw tighten at that. Will backed against the remnants of a broken wall, squatting down and looking over the city. In under a minute, an array of devices Will couldn’t begin to imagine how to operate started to hum lightly with power.
“Bastions should be teleporting in in a matter of minutes, but we need to make sure they land within the field. It will only be about forty feet across.”
Will turned and looked at the severed head.
“How do we do that?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea. That’s your job, or did you forget that as well?”
I’m getting chewed out be a severed head. Will almost wanted to laugh. As it came down to it, there was only one way he knew of to make sure they teleported in at the right location.
“Ah, hell.”
“What did I do?” asked Harris in an indignant tone of voice.
“Nothing. Set the field up around me, and let them track me.”
“Bait,” Harris’ chin moved slightly, it probably would have been a nod if he had more of a neck. “Done.”
It took no time at all. As soon as the words left his mouth, a bastion arrived directly in front of Will, so close he could take a step and kick it. Will fell back and started to crawl away like a crab, but the spider didn’t move. At first. Then, with a slight sound like rustling tin foil, the spider crumpled like ashen wood in a hot fire, sliding down to the ground in pieces.
A second came not long after, then a third. They looked like they were coming to see what happened, what had gone wrong, and, as each appeared in the field, they all crumpled to the same fate. For a good dozen, one after another fell into shattered ash. Will started laughing hysterically.
As quickly as the others, a bastion appeared down the street, a good stone’s throw away. The bright creases of the metal body shone brightly and began to crackle with energy.
“That’s not good,” said Harris shortly.
The light erupted like a bolt of lightning striking the severed head of Harris. The skull skittered off the ground and bounced, flying over the open field behind what was once Will’s home, not landing within sight. A second bolt struck Will right in the chest in the middle of a chuckle. The burn was instantaneous and intense. He fell back against a broken wall of what was his home, pain racing through him.
“Well done, Mr. Barnett,” said Harris. Will forced his eyes open and found he was on his back breathing heavily. He still had Harris’ cell phone in his hand. Harris reached down and gently took the cell phone out of Will’s hand and helped him up.
“We made it back,” muttered Will between breaths.
“Not really,” said Harris dryly. “We never left. But that did take much fewer attempts than I thought it would have.”
Will shook his head as he looked around his intact, although unclean, living room.
“We were in the future. We destroyed those things, several of them. And one shot me.”
Harris smiled again like he was talking to a small child.
“Did you actually believe that you traveled through time? Ridiculous. The only thing more laughable than power by explosion is your theory of relativity. There is no time travel, but I needed to put you in the right frame of mind to get the job done.”
Will stared at Harris, anger rising.
“So, what did you do, take me somewhere and experiment on me?”
Harris laughed.
“William, you have no idea how difficult it is to acquire the permits to take a lower life form off planet. It’s entirely…just be happy to know you never left your living room.”
“Are you joking? We were—”
“You were in a program, of sorts—a dream, or several of them, actually. Once you agreed to help, the phone you grabbed started running a program in your subconscious. Simulations. Human dreams happen rather quickly in succession. It makes the concept of trial and error in life or death much easier to work with.”
“It was a dream?”
“A programmed simulation. Human dreaming was the medium used to run it, and I do believe your design will work, William. Your idea may be taken to a very wide audience.”
William scoffed, trying to get his mind back to reality.
“Do I get a cut?” he asked.
“No,” said Harris quickly. “We will not harm you after this.”
“No, a cut, a portion of the profits that come from the experiment. It is my idea.”
Harris disapprovingly shook his head.
“Greedy meat sacks. You may receive a payment if it proves successful.”
Will chuckled for a second, most of the memory was fading, just like his other dreams, after time. As the images of the broken future were fading, an incensing thought occurred to him.
“Wait, Harris. How many times did I die in simulation before we figured out something that worked?”
Harris started to speak and stopped.
“I believe you would desire me in Hell again if I answered that. Have a good day, William.”
Harris picked up his briefcase and tea, and turned for the door.
“So, that's it,” asked Will grabbing him by the shoulder. “That’s all you wanted?”
Harris tilted his head slightly.
“What did you think I would want?”
“I don’t know…test subjects, experiments, enslave the human race. Take the world, plunder it’s resources.”
Harris chuckled, shaking his head.
“Resources? You’re atmosphere eats iron. Who the hell would want to live here?”
He, or it, laughed again, taking the doorknob into his hand. He brushed off his feet on the welcome mat and opened the door and walked out. Will could hear Harris muttering to himself.
“Seriously, you humans are interesting.”