F
U T U R E B A R R I E R
( The
3rd Novel )
Secret Technology,
Unrequited Love, Absolute Vengeance
© July 2018 Written by David Wicker
Please do
not reprint without permission
 CHAPTER 60 -
"The Courteous Mr. Hum"
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CHOOSE A
DIFFERENT
CHAPTER TO
READ ]
* * *
This chapter is Rated: TEEN
Meeting back at Central's Computer at the designated location, EK-483, Murphy, Learby, Summers, Dr. Yandu, and Dr. Philips had all arrived wearing protective gear that covered them from head to foot.
This was needed because computers in this day and time, one million years in the future, bled hard radiation and were required to run in subzero temperatures to prevent them from blowing up.
There were row beside row of computers, all clicking away, taking care of every little event that took place in their world. But right now, Murphy was more interested in one particular console he was entering information on.
In reply, the computer slowly slid out a panel revealing what appeared to be small colored glass rectangles and triangular wedges, like ice crystals.
He pulled out three shards to examine. Even in the dim light, these shards emitted an internal energy revealing codes and numbers that Murphy checked and double-checked with his records as well as the scientists he called for to make subtle changes to the records so security was released and true DNA could be extracted from them.
After several hours of hard and tedious work, Murphy spoke, and although his voice was muffled by the heavy protective gear, everyone could hear him as they were in direct speaker contact.
"Okay, people, these are the crystals containing the engrams of the three soldiers we lost due to their mishap in time travel. They are each now encoded to allow a total recall - to life. Let's now meet at Transport #UA3."
They all left, removed their protective gear, and in citizen and company garb went to the place in question, a large room that allowed for teleportation of both people and objects. Once there, Murphy set a code disabling it, so anyone who needed teleportation would have to use another transport.
Inside the room Murphy and the scientists keyed in figures on the console, and with Learby authorizing permission to drop security and protections from danger, the console was ready to admit new input and - if they were successful, they would be converted from their crystalline form into true life, on the transport pads.
Dr. Yandu and Philips had used precision tools to make modifications to the transport so the input no longer took a single card but allowed room for the 3 shards of information on the soldiers.
Everything was ready. Murphy carefully inserted the 3-shards, one at a time, then ran the makeshift program that Summers had written to - create new life !
Almost at once, there were problems. There was not enough power. They would only be able to bring one at a time. But Murphy stated this would not work, they must bring all three back at once to create the new time window - or it would not work at all.
The mission you remember was not to recover their lost lives but to create a "favorable" reality that would cancel out the previous one that called for the Langoliers to eat the discrepancy in time.
So another hour was spent hauling in massive power modules from various city blocks. There was barely enough room to move in the now crowded transporter room. But this time, there was enough energy for it all.
With the three crystals still in place and Summers' code, the program was ran again, and this time there was sufficient energy to convert all 3 crystalline patterns to real human bodies.
Three of the five transporter rings on the floor lit up and were considerably brighter than they normally were indicating there was a problem.
"Cut down the power, don't stop it though." Murphy called. Controls were adjusted slightly and the brightness decreased. Wispy waving tendrils of blue energy started to coalesce on the transport pads. But what was seen was horrendous beyond measure. Whatever the computer was trying to do was failing. They had human all right, but they were twisted and malformed.
One victim of this regeneration method shrieked in the transport beam, an unearthly wail indeed that shivered everyone to their bones.
"Murphy ?" Learby called out fearfully. Murphy was unmoved, frozen at the horrors that were being formed on the pad.
"Murphy !" Learby yelled, finally kicking him into awareness.
"What ? Oh ! Yes. Yes. Okay, remove the pattern. Try Delta Alpha Nine. Apparently trying to conceive them from 100% definition won't work. We're not planning on keeping them anyways, but they DO need to be perfectly human."
Summers was at the controls. She spoke, "Adjusting pattern for Delta ... Alpha ... Nine. Commit !" She quickly entered in the new figures and the nightmarish quasi-human figures vanished.
Suddenly there was an explosion behind them. All whirled to look. It was one of the energy modules they had borrowed to power the experiment.
Dr. Yandu went to investigate and spoke, "Burnout. We can't afford any more errors ! This power setup won't last another failure conversion. Let's get it right this time !"
Murphy nodded. "Do we have Delta Alpha Nine ?"
Summers nodded. "Already plotted in."
Then the three transport pads showed new creation. And this time it looked a lot better. Humanoid figures were appearing and they looked normal without any distortion.
Suddenly the console to control teleportation sparked out one of its controls. "I'm at the edge !" Summers yelled. "It's now or never ! We've got to cut power !"
Murphy looked to the figures. If the power were cut now their semi-living selves would vanish. He needed more time !
"Hold it just a little longer, Summers !"
She was frantic, "I can't hold it ! It's burning up the controls !"
"Just a bit more !"
Suddenly one of the figures on the transport, winked into existence. It was Captain Corrigan ! "Wha - what happened ?" he said, still caught in the dazzling blue light of creation.
The sides of the transport console now took on an eerie light as if it were somehow teleporting on its own. "Now !?" Summers yelled.
* * *
Murphy held a hand out. "Yes, now ! Cut power !"
Summers' hit the switch and at once retracted her hand in pain. She fell against the back wall and held her hand up to her sight shrieking at what she saw. The console itself was losing cohesion and seconds later eerily vanished into nothingness leaving a black outline of where it was once was. Total molecular implosion.
Summers' was looking at her hand where the fingers were semi-transparent and finally vanished. The tips of where her fingers were burned over in an extremely painful cauterization as tiny bits of anti-matter reacted with her own flesh. The pain was so extreme that she fainted.
Dr. Yandu was up in an instant to tend to her. "Teleport burn." he said tersely.
There were many kinds of burns you could get. You could get burned from a high temperature or a low temperature, but teleport burn was something entirely different. In early stages of developing teleportation, many accidents occurred where human flesh would contact a teleportation signal.
And as that flesh was not part of the configuration of creating corporeality, it literally nullified whatever contacted it. One fellow lost his whole arm to a terrible incident working on stabilizing a transport energy field.
As it was with Summers' she was lucky to only lose a few fingers that could be replaced with comperable robotics.
"I asked a question." Corrigan said, completely confused at all that was happening around him. "Where am I ?"
Murphy looked to the other two transport pads and was relieved to also see Hudson and Micks, whole of limb and looking normal.
"Readings." he requested.
Dr. Philips approached with a device that measured life. "They're here - but they won't be able to stay. I project a minute, maybe two, but no more than that."
Learby was monitoring the time flux and saw that the Langoliers had paused.
He spoke, "Langoliers are still there, but they aren't moving. They seem confused. It's working !"
"Where the hell am I !?" demanded Corrigan.
Murphy approached, "You're - well, that's a little hard to explain. You're here, created from your teleport signature, to undo an error in time your team must've made back in the past."
Corrigan understood time mechanics well. His face turned white with fear, "So - we can't stay ?"
Hudson and Micks whirled to look at him with concern.
Murphy looked down at the floor, "I'm - sorry. But it's your three lives over millions. You must understand."
Corrigan sighed. Then he addressed the other two. "Stay on the pads. If you step off, it will jeopardize the mission and you will be torn asunder from leaving the protective field. These pads are the only thing keeping us alive right now."
The other two soldiers nodded and maintained their position.
Murphy looked to Corrigan. "We'll make it as painless as possible. I promise you."
Corrigan was shaking a little in fear, but suddenly stiffened up and saluted. "Central !" he said. His two soldier comrades did likewise.
Murphy looked rather tired after this whole ordeal but returned a firm, "Central !" back to him.
"Learby ? What's the status now ?"
He replied, "The Langoliers are vanishing. All the damage they did has been replaced by the earlier time design. Apparently this is being accepted this as the new reality. These soldiers, according to the time flux were now never killed in the past, and are in fact - here."
Corrigan spoke, "We died then ?"
Murphy nodded, "Yes. And - you need to go now - here as well. It's time. I'm sorry, there's no other way."
Corrigan looked to Murphy. It was clear he was terrified of oblivion, which is clearly what awaited him if this experiment was successful. But he stood firm. "Do it." he finally said.
As there was no console to activate the teleport, it had winked out in a fractured reality bubble, Learby went to a side wall and tapped it. An emergency console appeared. He looked at the meters then spoke.
"We have just enough power to phase them evenly. It will be painless."
Murphy nodded, "Do it. We've done what we need to here."
Learby tapped some controls and pulled very gently on a metal vertical bar. He watched the reaction in Corrigan to ensure he wasn't under any pain. Corrigan stared blankly ahead. Learby pulled on the control an inch at a time and saw their images peacefully wink out of existence.
A moment later, It was complete.
Murphy then spoke, "Take Dr. Summers to ER for immediate surgery. The rest of you, let's - get this cleaned up. We were successful. And heaven help us if we ever had to try something like this again."
But once all the power modules were disconnected, one of the transport disks on the floor lit up in activity.
"Learby ?" Murphy asked.
Learby shook his head. "All power is cut. There is no energy output. None is being sent to the transport. Whatever is appearing - is appearing of its own free will ! This is well beyond our technology as readings indicate there is no energy being sent into or received back from this location !"
Murphy pointed with his hand, "Whatever it is, send it back ! Negate the fields !"
Learby held his hands up helplessly. "I said there is no power ! We'd have to hook up one of the power modules to try and reverse the signal, and that could take minutes."
Murphy looked to the transport signal. Whatever was beaming in was incredibly tall, at least 8, no 9-feet in height, and thin, like someone emaciated. The face appeared to be a kindly old man's. But Murphy knew better. This could be a trap set by Darceon to catch them unaware.
Without a word he rushed to grab one of the anti-gravity lifts to push one of the power modules on to it. He then shoved it to the console and tried to hook it up, but then the light behind him went dark and - whatever it was that was beaming in - had fully done so now.
There was nothing he could do to send it back now.
Murphy was still facing the console, his back to the unknown arrival when - it spoke, in a voice that sounded rather old but friendly nonetheless.
It laughed slightly, "I'm dry as a bone here. Bless me, I'm parched. I could sure do with a nice cold glass of lemonade."
Murphy steeled his nerve and turned to look. For all sake and appearances, it seemed to be an old man, incredibly tall, wearing a Panama Hat that had a single red ribbon encircling the top of it.
The man was wearing long white pants, a white shirt, a white kind of jacket, white socks, and shoes. His face was whiter than a normal man's and creased with lines of age, but not especially so.
To his side he wore a visible pocket-watch that seemed to be of considerable value as it shone with a gold luster and semiprecious jewels dotting the edges.
The only strange thing about him outside of his powder-white face was that he truly was about a quarter (25%) size bigger and taller than the average human.
The tall man stepped forward, towering over the others and spoke, "You must sincerely forgive me. I deeply apologize. You can call me Mr. Hum if that's alright with you. And as much as I do enjoy a good time, sadly I am here strictly on business. Yes yes. I do hope you understand."
END OF
CHAPTER 60
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