A Loop in Time (2 page)

John Doe woke up with a start. He had been reliving the crash again in his dreams and when he opened his eyes, there standing over his bed was Lieutenant Granger.

“Now you have to answer to me, Son; Doctor Ralston is not on duty today.” Granger sneered.

We have a problem then. Your questions are going to have to wait. I have to go to the bathroom,” John replied. He enjoyed watching Granger’s face go from smug to confused.

“Nurse,” Granger yelled when he got his composure back. “Can you stick a catheter in this one until he answers my questions?”

The nurse was one that John had never seen before. She was a little on the large side with light brown hair but she had a nice smile. He wondered where Susan was.

“No. I will not traumatize the patient for your convenience.” The nurse scowled at Granger. “Come with me, Sir. I will help you get to the bathroom.”

John leaned on the nurse until he reached the bathroom door. He then grabbed the rails along the walls. He could not believe how weak he had become. Or was he naturally weak? He did not know. He was frustrated that he could not remember anything. ‘What has happened to me?’ he wondered. Now Granger was going to grill him for information that he did not have.

When he had finished, he allowed the nurse to help him back into bed.

Lieutenant Granger had been pacing back and forth, waiting for John to get back.

“Let’s start with the simple stuff, shall we?” Granger said in a sarcastic voice. “What is your name?”

“I don’t know.” John knew that Granger would never believe that one.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” The Lieutenant was red faced.

“I have amnesia.”

“Liar!” Granger screamed. Everyone in the ward was now watching the scene.

“Ask the doctor if you will. I don’t remember a thing.”

“Sir,” one of the MPs interrupted. “It’s true. I have been here the whole time.”

“Who asked you?” Granger snapped.

The MP did not say another word.

“Now let’s try this again. Who are you? Where are you from? What type of aircraft was it that you were flying?”

“I have amnesia. I will not be able to answer any of your questions.”

The yelling had caught the attention of the doctor on duty and he was running down the ward. “Stop this at once!” he bellowed at Granger.

“I have to find out if this person is a Russian spy,” Granger yelled back.

“Russian spy? I am no such thing.” John was indignant.

“How do you know? You can’t remember anything!” Granger said turning back to John.

By this time the doctor had reached John’s bedside. “Lieutenant, I need you to leave. Your superiors will hear of this, I assure you.’

Granger just scowled at the doctor then turned and walked away. Things were not going well for him.

“I am sorry for the brutal treatment. I will see what I can do to get rid of these MPs too. You need your rest if you are going to regain your memory.” The doctor was flustered.

“Thank you so much, Doctor.”

The doctor went back to his office and started making phone calls. Granger had crossed the line this time and he was going to have to face the repercussions.

 It took an hour but Colonel Rodgers, the base commander, was called and met with Doctor Ralston, who had come in on his day off, and Lieutenant Granger. The Colonel was angry at being called in on his normal day off and he was already scowling at Granger.

“What was so important as to interrupt my Sunday morning golf game?” The Colonel had short cropped brown hair and was tall with a medium build. He looked a lot younger than his 45 years. His troops knew that when his cheeks started turning red, he was getting very irritated and unpleasant things would soon follow.

The doctor started, “Sir, the Lieutenant has MPs guarding one of my patients and he was interrogating the man against doctor’s orders this morning. There is no proof that this man has done anything wrong except suffer a plane crash. Furthermore, the man has amnesia, so it is pointless to harass or question him at all.”

The Colonel looked over at Granger. “What are you thinking? Have you gone mad?”

The Lieutenant stiffened. “Sir, the pilot was flying an advanced craft of unknown origin, possibly Russian. Until we find out who he is, I suggest we keep him under guard.”

“Colonel,” the doctor said calmly. “He doesn’t even know who he is. The only thing that we are accomplishing here is to suppress already suppressed memories. If we let him have a calm recovery, his memories will come back sooner.”

“I must protest,” Granger said. “Even though he does not know who he is, he might still be very dangerous when he does get his memory back. I still want him guarded.”

“He is not a threat. He has no weapons and he has a concussion. He isn’t going to be a problem.” Doctor Ralston replied.

“What if we keep an eye on him without the MPs?” The Colonel was having an idea. “If you put one of your men in the bed next to him to watch over him, you can guard him without him knowing you are. The man can get to be friends with him and get information without interrogating him or suppressing his memories.”

“That won’t work,” the Lieutenant said flatly. He gave no explanation.

The Colonel’s face went beet red again. He had calmed down for a while but now his blood pressure was peaked. “That was not a suggestion, Lieutenant. That was an order.”

Granger looked like someone had slapped him, “Yes, Sir, of course, Sir.” He was stumbling all over himself. He had not intended to upset his superior officer.

“It’s settled then,” the Colonel replied. “If you will excuse me, I must finish losing my golf game.”

Doctor Ralston and Lieutenant Granger both saluted the Colonel as he got up and left.

“Good then, find a man to stick in a bed. I will alert my nurses of what is happening. Meanwhile get those MPs off of my floor.”

Granger replied, “Yes, Sir.” He wanted so very badly to say something else, but he kept silent.

Granger marched over to John Doe’s bed straight from the meeting and relieved the guard. He turned and scowled at John before turning on his heel and walking out. John scratched his head. He had had no idea why he was being guarded and now he had no idea why he wasn’t. He also wondered why Granger hated him so much.

It was now up to Granger to implement the Colonel’s orders. He walked towards to Sergeant Johnson’s desk. The Sergeant had not guarded the prisoner yet so he would be an unknown to him. Granger did not like the Sergeant, either. The Sergeant was married and Granger always considered that a sign of weakness.  He had served with married men during the war and he wondered if they were more concerned about their wives and kids back home than they were their brothers in arms. He needed to trust them to be brave in a firefight instead of running and hiding so they would live long enough to see their families again. He kept this prejudice with him even after his return home from the war.

When Granger got back to the office, he approached the Sergeant. “I have an assignment for you.” The Sergeant was a husky man who loved to lift weights. He was around five ten, with large muscular arms and chest. His jet black hair was a contrast to his bright blue eyes and square jaw.

“Yes, Sir.” Johnson knew that Granger did not like him, but he did not know why. He knew if the Lieutenant had an assignment for him, it was going to be an unpleasant one.

“You will pretend to be a patient at the hospital to get close to the John Doe that is in bed 203. You will not reveal to him your real name or the fact that you are a part of the military police force.”

“How long is this assignment?” Johnson’s family lived on base and he liked going home every night.

“It could take months. We don’t know who this guy is because he has amnesia, but he could gradually get his memories back. You need to be there when he does. You are to get to be his friend. Your name will be J. J. Smith.”

“But my wife and children...Sir, will I be able to go home to them every night?” Johnson looked very alarmed.

“Not for the duration. You will have to stay in the hospital. Your family will not be able to visit you because they might slip and call you by your real name.”

“But, Sir…” Johnson did not get to finish his statement.

“Those are your orders. You will present yourself here at seventeen hundred hours where you will be given a hospital gown and your new identity.”

“Yes, Sir,” Johnson said through a tense jaw.

Granger left the room smiling to himself. He always got a perverse satisfaction out of making someone else miserable. ‘After all,’ he thought to himself. ‘The army didn’t marry your wife, you did.’

Major Carl Stubbs looked over the wreckage from the crash site. It was like no plane he had ever seen before. There were a lot of pieces to it and it seemed that none of them had been made out of metal. All of the pieces were a black fabric looking material, but hard, very hard. The craft had gone in nose first and then shattered. There were wing pieces and tail pieces that were still intact, but the fuselage, if it ever existed, wasn’t there.

“What is this stuff?” one of his sergeants came up to ask.

“I have no idea. Never seen anything like it. Make sure the men get every single piece of this thing picked up, no matter how small. We have been lucky so far as the locals think that this is a military plane crash. I don’t want to be all over the news in the morning trying to explain any of this.”

“Yes, Sir.” The Sergeant went back to work.

Five military vehicles were sure to draw a lot of attention, but Stubbs had preempted a lot of that by announcing to the local radio stations that an experimental military helicopter had lost control and crashed. He asked the public to stay back because of the sensitivity of the desert ecosystem and the top secret military hardware involved.

Those working on the wreckage would be sworn to secrecy and the plane would be taken to a secure hanger on the base. The main problem was the hot
Arizona sun. It had already taken out three of his men with heat prostration. After that they started working after dark, but now they were dodging rattlesnakes. Still the sun had taken three and so far the rattlesnakes had not gotten anyone, so he would continue working in the darkness.

Lights had been set up on the trucks that were parked around the crash site so the working conditions were not so bad. One of the Lieutenants came up to him. “Sir, are we looking at an alien craft here?”

The Major smiled, despite his best attempt not to. “I saw the pilot when they brought him in to the hospital. He looked human enough. But what do I know? I have never seen an alien.” His own words caused him to reflect a minute.

“I recognize circuit boards and some of controls, but the rest might as well have come from Mars. It has a lot of boxes with electrical components in it. I have no idea what they do.”

The Major shifted his weight. His subordinates always took that as a sign that he was getting nervous about how the conversation was going. “What about the main wreck? Are we going to get that out of here by morning?”

The lieutenant nodded. “Yes, we have a crane truck. I thought we would have to bring in something a lot heavier to lift it, but this stuff is light. We won’t have any problem getting this stuff out of here with the equipment we have on hand.”

“That’s good news. I want the major pieces out before the sun comes up. I don’t want a plane flying over us and asking, ‘What the heck is that?’”

“Yes, Sir, we have all the large pieces strapped up. We should have them in the trucks and under tarps within the hour.”

“Great, let’s get back to work.” As the Lieutenant walked off, the Major reflected on what he had said about the stuff around him looking like it could have come from Mars. It bothered him a lot. What if it did, and it was infected with some type of germ? He and all of his men would be spreading it throughout the world. He called another one of his officers over. “Everyone here is quarantined for the next thirty days. We will put this group in a separate barracks. I don’t want to chance anything.”

“Yes, Sir, what about the alien?”

“Alien?” It took the Major a minute to realize who he was talking about. “You’re right, by now the whole base would have been contaminated by him or those who have come in contact with him. I’ll talk to the Colonel. I believe we should lock down the base.”

 It wasn’t until the last truck arrived from the crash site that the orders to lock down the base reached the ears of the Colonel. It wasn’t the Major’s place to order that so the Major was sent for to explain himself.

“Are you mad?” was the first thing out of the Colonel’s mouth. He had been saying that a lot lately. His face had the red glow that showed he was upset.

“I was going to seek your approval before the order was carried out, Sir. We have a craft of unknown origin that has crashed not far from a military base. We have a pilot that we do not know anything about. If I am in error here, it is only because I am willing to err on the side of caution.”

The Colonel had to sit and think about it for a long time. He finally replied, “I don’t want to cause an uproar for no reason. Let me talk to the doctors and see if that is something we need to consider.”

“Yes, Sir.” the Major replied.

The Colonel called Doctor Ralston. The doctor had already given up on the idea of taking the day off so he was still on base. He wanted be around in case Granger tried something new.

When the Doctor arrived the first thing out of the Colonel’s mouth was, “Is that John Doe an alien?”

Despite himself, the doctor let out a brief laugh. When he got his composure back he replied, “He is as human as you and I are. Whether or not alien worlds are populated by humans, I don’t know. I have not been to one as of yet.”

“Do we need to quarantine the base because of unknown viruses or other diseases?” The Colonel had managed to look past being laughed at.

“No, I really see no reason for it. The patient isn’t running a fever or anything like that. He goes into cold sweats at night, but I know it’s from his frequent nightmares.” The doctor was being as honest and open as he could. “He is just a scared man, trying to get his memories back. One of the memories is causing him a lot of trauma; that is why his consciousness is suppressing it. He does not want to relive it.”

“Do you think that he is a spy? Maybe a Russian, like Lieutenant Granger thinks?”

“If he were a Russian, he would have started out by speaking Russian when he came to. He has amnesia; he would not have remembered to speak English. If I were a guessing man I would say he is an American of Scottish descent, like I am. As a matter of fact, if you look at him closely, he looks like he could be my son.”

“I see,” the Colonel had a lot to ponder. “I will take what you said under advisement. Thank you for your assessment.”

The doctor excused himself and went back to his office. He thought it was funny that one unknown had gone through and caused the whole camp to go into a panic. Talk of quarantine, aliens and guards on prisoners. What was the world coming to? When he got to his office, he locked it and then headed home. He had had enough of the craziness that was going on around him. He hoped that cooler heads would prevail in the morning.

Sergeant Andy Johnson was pushed into the ward in a wheel chair. The bed next to John had been vacant, so it was the perfect spot for the Sergeant to get close to him and find out more about him. They had put a cast on his right forearm and a bandage on his head. None of it looked authentic because the nurses who put it there did not like what was happening, and did a sloppy job of it,
but John wasn’t looking closely so it didn’t matter.

They put him into bed. Andy had to consciously not help; otherwise he might just give everything away. When he got settled in, he decided not to talk right away. He did not want to come over as overbearing. He would miss his wife and kids. Leave it to Granger to use the only married guy in the outfit in an assignment more suited to someone who was single.

When it was dinner time they brought Andy’s meal to him. His wife was unquestionably the best cook on the base. He looked over his hospital food and grimaced. He knew for sure he was going to have a long, hard, miserable time of this.