Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells' the Time Machine (31 page)

IX

An image was the greatest breakthrough. Ricky succeeded in building a camera that took a photo, not of what was in front of it, but of what had been there twenty minutes earlier. It wasn’t sending an object back in time, but it was a step in the right direction.

It bothered Angelica that this breakthrough had come from Ricky. It should have come from Saul. “Saul Baron. By his sacrifice we live. By his sacrifice we love. By his sacrifice we sacrifice.” She still said the prayer every night, struggling to keep faith despite what she saw right in front of her eyes. Time was running out.

Eight years left. And then seven and then six. Still the camera was their only tangible achievement. Many in the compound still had faith in Saul even though he wasn’t a genius. They told themselves, he’ll be the one to make the final suggestion that will click things into place.

Angelica was too rational for such blind faith. She had formulated another theory. Ricky will develop the time machine. Of course, it made sense. Ricky will develop it and Saul will be sent back in time and when all the members of the United Nations ask him, he will lie. Anyone can see how much he hates Ricky and he’ll have the choice of telling them about Ricky or taking the credit. He’ll think, I’m the one here. I’m the one who’s going to die of radiation sickness. Of course he’ll take the credit. He’ll say, I developed the time machine. I’m the genius.

There were holes to Angelica’s theory, but she was no paradoxologist so she didn’t fret over the holes.

X

The explosions came—staccato constellations of fire against the force field accompanied by tremors in the earth. There were screams and confusion. The children had no idea what was happening. The council members ran to the weapons bunker. The force field would not stay up long. It had been designed to deflect surveillance, not weapons fire.

While the others armed themselves, Angelica searched for Saul and Ricky. She had no illusions. The compound would fall and most of them would be killed in the attack. Those who weren’t would stand trial and either be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Angelica didn’t fear death. She feared that now, just when they were so close to success, it would all fall to ruin.Three years, that was all the time they had left.

Angelica found Saul, Ricky and Gabriella hiding between two buildings. They were staring up at the bursts of flame speckling the rapidly waning force field. “Listen to me,” she screamed over the deafening explosions
.
“We lied to you. We lied to you for all your life and you may never forgive us.” There were tears in Angelica’s eyes now. The force field had fizzled out of existence and she heard the rattle of gunfire. The future was falling apart around her. She continued screaming, desperate that Ricky and Saul would remember her words. “But even if you hate us, you must finish. Ricky you must build a time machine and Saul, you must go back in time to 2032 or all life on the planet will end. When you are taken to the surface, things might look fine, but they are not. In three years, if you don’t go back in time, the world will end.”

An invisible force propelled Angelica forward. She slammed into Saul and they both fell to the floor. At first he thought she was dead but then he realized she was as stiff as a board. Every muscle in her body was tensed and her eyes were wide open and unblinking.

Several yards away, a Hispanic man in black combat fatigues was pointing a stun rifle at them. His expression changed, jolted by shock. “Gabriella…Gabriella? Is that you?”

XI

“
I never gave up looking for you,” Fernando Esposito explained when the chaos had died down. Gabriella stared at him blankly. “You don’t remember me,” he realized. “How could you? It’s been 12 years.”

Fernando had never stopped looking for her. Even after his sister killed herself he had not given up. When Fernando had begun to discover that an unsettling number of children had disappeared in other countries on the same day as Gabrielle, he had started to coordinate his efforts with Interpol. Interpol had expected to find Gabriella and eight of the other children. They had not expected to find the rest. It was only later, when they had transported the children back to the Cape Town police headquarters that they took their names. When Saul answered, the man questioning them laughed. “What’s really your name?”

Saul repeated his name and the man’s countenance became murky. He left and returned with a superior. The man had coal black skin and a thick moustache. “What did you say your name was?”

“
Saul Baron.”

“
It can’t be him,” said the man who had been questioning the children. “Saul Baron’s in America. He was probably just named after him.”

The man with the thick moustache shrugged. “You know they found a research centre underground. I heard them say it was something to do with time travel.”

“
But…”

“
Look closely at his face,” he pointed at Saul with the back of a pen. “Age it a few years. Doesn’t it look familiar?” He did not wait for a reply. “Bring him.”

“
Follow me,” said the man who had been questioning the children.

“
No,” replied Saul. “I won’t go anywhere they don’t.” He pointed to Gabriella and the others.

Two policemen grabbed Saul by the arms and dragged him out. They put him in a small room and the door was locked behind him. He was clearly in a prison cell. The only furniture was a bed, a chair and toilet. Saul sat down and tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the last few hours. The attack, the explosions, Angelica saying’ we lied to you’ and then seeing it was true as they were transported up to the surface—the surface that they had always thought was nothing but irradiated rubble.

They had been led out of caves into a bitterly cold night. Icy Atlantic winds had knifed into the children’s cheeks as they were herded into a large van. They had not been given any explanations. Saul had looked out of the van’s window and watched as they drove into a city just like the ones he had seen on vid-screens depicting the ‘distant past’: tall sky scrapers with rows of flickering lights and hover cars weaving their way along magnetized roads.

Now, in the prison cell, Saul wrestled with questions. What could be trusted? What couldn’t be? Who were these people? Why had he been taken away from the others? The silence terrified him. It was endless and hungry. He waited, whistling to himself and drumming his fingers against the tabletop to combat the silence. No-one came. Occasionally, he could hear people walking outside the cell and voices speaking. He could not make out anything; the words were muffled or in another language. All he could do was wait. Angelica’s words reverberated in his head.
We lied to you?

Why would they lie to us? How much had been a lie? He wished he could speak to Angelica and get her to explain things. She was strict, often harsh, but he could not imagine her lying without good reason.

No-one came until much later and then it was a woman with a plate of food. “What’s going on?” he asked her. “Where’s Gabriella?”

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know anything.”

“
Why am I being treated like a criminal? I need to talk to someone!”

The woman left the food and closed the door. Saul heard the click of the lock sliding back into place. He looked down at the plate. It smelt delicious. He grabbed the plastic fork and began downing the food. The flavours burst across his tongue; the heady richness was overwhelming.

Later, he vomited.

XII

The next day the man with the thick moustache came into the room with a ration package. “Your stomach can’t take normal food yet. You’ve spent all your life eating these.” The man tossed him the silver packet. “Life without roasted chicken and cassava, you’ve missed out son.”

“
Where is Gabrielle?”

“
She your girlfriend son? Good looking girl.”

“
Where is she?”

“
She’s with her uncle. He’s the one who figured out where they were hiding you. Insane if you think about it. Y’all have been right under us for over a decade and we had no idea.” The man paused and fixed Saul in a penetrating stare. “Did they tell you who you are?”

“
I’m not answering any questions until you tell me where I am and what’s going on.”

“
I can’t answer any of your questions, son. We don’t even understand what’s been going on ourselves.”

“
Why am I being kept here?”

“
Because you’re Saul Baron.” The man chuckled at himself because of the bewilderment on Saul’s face. “The fuckin’ messiah and you don’t even know it.” The man got up and began walking out.

“
Tell me something,” Saul begged.

“
Sorry son.”

XIII

The ration packs were the only thing that indicated the passage of time. Saul soon gave up on asking the woman who brought them questions about Gabrielle and the others. “Can I get a book?” He asked instead. She didn’t answer.

Six ration packs (two days?) later, the woman entered the room with a different gait. She was glancing from side to side as though she was worried someone would catch her. “Are you really Saul Baron?” she whispered.

He nodded.

Her eyelids widened. “Could you… could you…” she began sheepishly, “Could you bless me?”

This was even more confusing than the previous reactions to his name. He decided to play along. “I’ll bless you if you tell me why my name means so much to you.”

“
You saved us,” she replied. “I don’t know why they are treating you like this. They should have put you in the best hotel in Cape Town and brought you anything you want.”

“
What did I save you from?”

“
I’ll lose my job,” she replied and she scuttled out.

XIV

Time, Saul realized, must be the key.

Angelica had told him that he had to go back in time to 2032 or the world would end. The woman who brought him the food seemed to believe that he had already saved the world. The man with the thick moustache had called him ‘the fucking messiah’. Somehow all these pieces connected.

Time must be the key. They had spent all those years trying to build a time machine. Clearly Angelica and the others had wanted to send someone—him—back in time to change something. If not because of a nuclear holocaust, then what? She definitely believed some disaster was going to happen in three years.

XV

Eight ration packs later, the man with the thick moustache returned with a group of policemen.

“
You’re out of our hands now Saul Baron. Should have kept you for ourselves but the African Coalition are pussies.”

Saul followed them through the labyrinthine corridors and out into white heat. Saul flesh seared at the blazing kiss of the sun. He looked up, squinting his eyes. Between the towering buildings, he could see threads of cloud. “Candy floss,” he murmured.

“
What’d you say son?”

“
Nothing,” Saul replied.

He was driven to the airport. By daylight, the city was even more sprawling. Every building was a skyscraper and conical tubes connected each building to the one adjacent to it. Reflections of sunlight on glass burnt Saul’s eyes and he stopped looking upward. He kept his eyes on the road and listened to the flood of unfamiliar shrieks, whoops and whines. He had expected the grandeur of the city but the frenetic cacophony was overwhelming.

At the airport the South African police relinquished him to a group of Americans. The one in charge was a fat brown haired woman. Layers of loose flesh jiggled beneath her chin when she talked. Her obese entirety was squeezed into a grey business suit, the jacket of which would not have fit her were its top three buttons fastened. She smiled at Saul and pulled him into an awkward embrace. He tore himself out of her arms.

“
Just tryin’ to be friendly,” she enunciated. “You should be nice to me. I’m the Mother Hen, the lady with the answers.”

Later, he found out her name was Caitlin Bartner. In the air, he asked her. “Do you think I’m going to save the world too?”

She let out a thick, syrupy chortle. “Getting right to the point on the first date.”

She took out an envelope and handed him a glossy photograph. It was a picture of a man who resembled him standing in a room of men and women. “October 12 2032, during a meeting of the UN Security Council, you, well a version of you, appeared in the middle of the room. That Saul Baron bore technology and knowledge that proved he was from 50 years in the future. He outlined the sequence of events that would lead to a war that would devastate the planet. A few hours later, that version of you died. Autopsy revealed that the cause of death was excessive radiation.”

Saul stared at the image. The Saul Baron in the picture was rake thin and he was dressed in a ragged brown body suit caked with dirt. He was holding a tiny metal object that looked like a hand mirror.

“
Nothing worldwide has been the same in the 46 years since,” Caitlin explained. “Systems of government have changed, wealth has been redistributed, nations have disarmed…well…somewhat. The world is no Utopia but we are alive and it’s all because of Saul Baron.”