The Past Read online

  Zheng pulls down the first lever, timing it precisely as the flames cease, and squeezes inside, followed by Dell. Moving quickly to avoid incineration, Zheng reaches the second lever that opens up a hatch to the room behind, the bunker. Pulling it down, they both hurry through, well inside the allotted 20 seconds. Their preparedness has paid off. Dell and Zheng proceed to secure the room as they wait for Alpha and VanWest to join for Phase 4, hopefully unfried.

  Alpha takes point once again, ordering Dell in an angry whisper to ‘Move out of the way’.

  VanWest glances at his timer, which feels like it has jumped forward - 00:00:58 - less than a minute remains! Alpha selfishly pulls him back, to ensure that he makes it through in time. Forcing VanWest to wait for a new sweep of flames to pass.

  With barely 20 seconds remaining to get through before the Trojan virus expires, VanWest takes his one opportunity, squeezing through to reach Phase 4 of the operation in the nick of time.

  Alpha leads them down a spiral staircase, much worn with footprints, through three floors of disorientating turns until they reach the entrance of the third basement level. The Utopians are behind the reinforced metal door, they can even hear muffled voices inside. Dell looks up and notices, to his shock, that there is a security camera. This wasn’t marked in the interface and operation planning!?

  The intelligence didn’t show this! What is more, there is no one to greet them, no agent. VanWest has been duped by the Seductress before, he fears she has double-crossed the Universal Council. It was all going a little too well.

  Waaahhhh! Before he can say anything, a siren sounds, its sharp noise jarring inside their ears and causing them to stumble back. Ignoring a message coming through from the Colonel, Phase 4 Compromised, Proceed With Caution to Phase 5, Alpha reacts without and charges the door, breaking it open with a single kick.

  Zheng and Dell unable to stop him, have no other option but to follow in. Commencing their infamous ZhengDell technique of attack, they fire their Corner Shots in quick succession, the plasma whizzing around to find targets.

  However, it is Zheng that is met first by a shot, striking him straight - boom - in the forehead, scattering his brain tissue gruesomely over VanWest’s face. Stunned, VanWest sees a flash of the Seductress leaping and then Iris. Then another flash this time of the charred and twisted wreck of ENDEA on the white sand. He knows the Utopians are commencing the leap.

  Boom-boom! An enraged Dell immediately counters, firing his Corner Shot again into the darkened room. Alpha manages to dodge the Utopian countermeasures as he charges in, throwing an electromagnetic grenade as he does so. This time Dell’s Corner Shot finds its targets, as they bounce across the walls, hitting several Utopians in quick succession. VanWest races through to take up a position behind a large concrete pillar, covering for Dell and Alpha as they push forward. Their Moggle X lenses helping them to identify and neutralise their targets.

  The firefight illuminates the whole room, revealing Mad Newton, the Seductress and Iris all crowded together in the far corner. It looks like the Utopians are doing their best to slow their progress, sacrificing themselves to keep them away from the trio. Allowing them to leap!

  The third commandment plays in his mind, to destroy all those who defy the Universal Council. It has now been over 47 hours since VanWest has returned to the Year 3000 from 1951 Paris. A period of time that has included: fighting giant cockroaches; escaping a powerplant; meeting and learning about Iris and her father, finding out more about his own past and then subsequently being tortured on the accusation of abetting them; and now this!

  With Alpha and Dell neutralising their targets in quick succession, VanWest moves to capture Mad Newton. However, he feels a familiar cold whistle, a wind pulling at him, as he approaches. The same feeling as in the cellar, also before his leap to the city of light. The Utopian’s ‘New Beginning’ having commenced.

  Boom-Boom! Alpha reaches Mad Newton first, he swings around the pillar and fires a series of Taser amplifier shots towards him. Whilst most of the shots whizz around, pulled away by the portal, one of the shots manages to find its target, hitting Mad Newton and sending him into a spasm. VanWest readies to shoot at Iris, but something stops him from discharging his rifle, he cannot fire it. He cannot kill her.

  The Seductress is closest to the portal. She leaps inside as Alpha slides into Mad Newton, securing his prize, his winning ticket to what he hopes will be Elite status. And, as VanWest foresaw earlier, he next turns his rifle on Iris. She edges closer to the portal, unsure whether to try and save her father or run. Seeing Alpha line up another shot, she is left with no other choice than to turn and leap before it can reach her. The firefight ceases as Dell discharges a 3-shot blast that pulverises the last set of Utopians resisting them.

  A furious Alpha throws an Electrolock on an incapacitated Mad Newton before storming over and grabbing VanWest by his throat. With the portal closing, he lifts him up from the floor, ‘You roachtard, you better go get her, or you will have a date with my blaster. You are not going cost me my promotion. Follow’!

  Releasing him, he throws him towards the portal. Remembering Dr King’s instruction to ‘follow’, he dives headfirst in with a last parting message from Alpha calling him a ‘Roachtard’!

  Spiralling through the vortex, he knows not where he will arrive in the past but if he doesn’t find and stop the Utopians that leapt, time in the present as he knows it will be altered. It could even be that the Universal Council, as well as his own existence, never comes to pass. His mind is conflicted with that of his heart. He could not bring himself to kill Iris, breaking with it his commandment to destroy all those who defy the Universal Council.

  VanWest asks himself, what is this feeling?

  Chapter 14 Leap to Utopia

  Splash! VanWest enters into a pool of water. Lucky to be in his Enforcer aquasuit, he finds himself surrounded by strange red and green plants, and roots of what must be trees, standing stilt-like from further below. A bright light shines, drawing him in, but as he swims across several bubbles pass him by and he catches sight of a small shiny object drifting along.

  He recognises the object, a silver necklace, snapped in half, it looks just like the one resting on the bosom of the Seductress, back in 1951 Paris. Diving deeper towards the light, his eyes widen in horror, finding that it originates from a rifle still attached to a severed hand!

  Drifting close by is the rest of the man, his face blanched and his pupils dilated, his body limp and lifeless - a small U behind his ear identifying him as a Utopian. Strangely, this man hasn’t been killed by one of the squad’s plasma blasts or grenades but by a blade - his hand severed his throat cut. The blood still seeping, the kill fresh.

  Matching his face to the Most Wanted, it confirms him to be a very high-profile Utopian: Ankit Bhargav ‘The Priest’. He must have leapt before the squad stormed the room. Being one of the most devout, he was a perfect choice for Mad Newton’s mission, their leap to this ‘New Beginning’. VanWest is puzzled, with the Seductress’s snapped necklace close by he wonders if she has met the same fate. But there is no other body.

  A Moggleapp tablet protrudes out of the Priest’s metallic grey backpack. On its screen, VanWest can make out four large letters spelling NASA. As he removes the man’s bag from the dead body, he spots in the corner of his eye a large shadow gliding along. Suddenly something scaly brushes against his leg and nudges him forward. A second nudge soon follows from the other side, knocking his plasma rifle out of his hand. The light from the Priest’s rifle revealing a creature with a long snout packed with sharp jagged teeth and scaly skin.

  VanWest turns, only to find its narrow yellow eyes glaring back at him. Three more of its ilk appear, gliding along the bottom, they encircle the cadaver of the Priest, acting as if a wild pack of dogs protecting their meal from an unwelcome stranger. VanWest has heard of these creatures, they are alligators, and thus knows to back away. Their reputation as deadly killers is well-documented
in the Universal Council’s Wiki.

  Despite these prehistoric cold-blooded reptiles surviving many millions of years, outliving thousands of species and many disasters, they could not survive man, noted extinct near to the end of the third millennium. In the end, only surviving in labs in order to provide the Elites with an exotic food, that is until they lost interest. Nevertheless, rumours persist that some still survive in remote Equatorial Earth. Marooned inside the shallow lakes of dormant volcanoes of the Central Americas where the water is still relatively low in radioactive particles. Lands that humans no longer visit.

  VanWest panics, he uses his Electroskeleton hand to emit a shockwave pulse that pushes them away and him up to the water’s surface. Hastily he swims to the shore and climbs out the water onto an elevated section of mangrove. His heart pounding and head still dizzy from the leap through the portal, he takes a moment to catch his breath. This place, this ‘New Beginning’, is covered in subtropical plant life. Nothing like this exists in the year 3000, so very green. Despite these alligators, this place does look Utopian-like.

  The air, whilst clean like that of 1951 Paris, is sticky hot. It starts to rain and the wind is picking up. Happy that it isn’t acidic, he knows he still needs to move on before the weather worsens.

  His Quantum Communicator implant activates, ‘Come in… VanWest, come in! Do you copy’?

  ‘Affirmative, copy that… Commissioner Ming’? He responds, still catching his breath.

  Commissioner Ming asks, ‘Report on situation’?

  ‘Situation critical. Landed in swamp with strange creatures. One hostile dead, Utopian called the Priest. Cannot confirm why dead’.

  ‘Captain VanWest, be sure, our intelligence tells us the location of their leap is Everglades, State of Florida, in late 1990s United States. Transmitting Wiki supplements’.

  Wiki Download

  The Everglades are a natural region of subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the US state of Florida, comprising of a large watershed in its southern half. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the shallow Lake Okeechobee. The wetlands are comprised of harmless vegetation that includes green sawgrass, tropical hardwood hammocks and pines. Home to several deadly creatures. Over 8ft long alligators and snakes. Stay out of the water!

  VanWest finds it hard to focus on his Quantum Communicator and to talk longer, ‘Affirmative, received. Commissioner… will report once establish area is safe. Remaining alert for hostiles’.

  ‘Wait’! Dr King joins the communication, ‘Lest I must say, do not hesitate to kill her. Do not hesitate’!

  ‘My liege, affirmative. One question if I may’? VanWest asks.

  ‘Go ahead’.

  ‘The Seductress’?

  ‘Kill her too! This woman is now on no one’s side but her own. Lest I must say, this deviant, devious creature wants this leap for her own selfish gain’! Dr King warns.

  The Seductress played them all, she was meant to be the Universal Council’s agent inside the bunker. She double-crossed them, as she did with the Utopians, delaying the squad’s entry into the third basement level. This seems to have been all a well-timed ruse that saw the majority of the Utopians killed and Mad Newton captured. Allowing herself enough time to leap to 1998 Florida. Her plan clear: to make this final leap alone with the only working Quantum Accelerator rod.

  With Ankit Bhargav ‘The Priest’ killed, it seems only Iris, herself and VanWest are left in this ‘New Beginning’ with no other dead body around to confirm otherwise.

  Commissioner Ming adds in an ominous voice, before ending the communication, ‘Remember VanWest, be sure the Universal is all-knowing. Remember the commandments and your mission. Do not fail us’!

  The Wiki supplement is not the only thing that has been transmitted through time. VanWest can feel his mind tingle and narrow, the Universal Council’s three commandments transfixing his thoughts, commanding him to kill both women. They take over his will, filling his head with ‘ideas not of his own’.

  Pulling out the Priest’s tablet, he interfaces with it and finds an entry titled Endeavour STS 88. Crosschecking its name with his Wiki, it returns with some interesting information:

  Endeavour… transmitting… STS 88, space shuttle launched December 4, 1998, from Kennedy Centre, Merritt Island, Florida. With the second section of the ISS, Unity Node.

  Construction of the International Space Station began on November 20, 1998, when the American-funded, Russian-built Zarya module, was launched into the orbit around Earth. Sixteen countries were involved in the project. The Unity Node - with one stowage rack and two pressurised adapters attached - was a docking hub used to join sections of the space station together. Major construction of the ISS started when Endeavour’s astronauts locked Zarya and Unity together. The US laboratory Destiny was added in 2001, followed by the European Columbus and Japanese Kibo labs in 2008. Humongous in size, the ISS took 13 years to complete at a cost equal to the yearly GDP of a wealthy nation.

  He searches for more entries and finds several photos of interest, one tagged Everglades Homestead, December 2, 1998, looks very similar to where he has arrived. Other photos are tagged with the names of astronauts and the final photo, tagged Cape Kennedy Mission Control, Merritt Island, is of a control room filled with rows of widescreen monitors. The date of this final photo is December 4, 1998. It looks like this Cape Kennedy is the Utopian’s first target.

  Continuing his search, he finds a very familiar sounding tag, The New Beginning. The same Mad Newton used when inviting him to join his Utopian mission. He reads through the text:

  Our mission is to rid the world of harmful technologies. Hans Ashtar taught us machines would influence the way we behave and that we must resist these machines’ external pressure on our moral decision-making. As Utopians, these are our five commandments.

  The Utopian Five Commandments:

  Commandment 1. Treat all post 20th-century technology as evil.

  Commandment 2. Protect planet Earth, and work to restore it to full health, including its creatures, the forests, grasslands, seas and lakes.

  Commandment 3. No man, woman or child shall consume more than is needed. All resources must be evenly spread amongst Earth’s people.

  Commandment 4. Only recognise life-forms as those created by God. It is forbidden for man to forge and create new life-forms. This includes A.I. and cyborgs.

  Commandment 5. DO NOT serve the Universal Council and any other unelected authority. Only work with non-Utopians in order to defeat them.

  The New Beginning:

  The Utopians will transcend time and return it back to December 1998, infiltrate the highest echelons and obtain positions of influence and power

  These are the following world and technological events to target if comes to pass:

  1998 – Launch of Unity Node, connecting Russian & US parts of the ISS Station

  1998 – Building of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, particle accelerator starts

  2001 – US laboratory Destiny attached to ISS station

  2002 – Founding of SpaceX by Elon Musk, focused on building Mars settlement

  2003 – China becomes 3rd nation to launch a human into orbit

  2004 – Mike Mervill flies 1st private vehicle, SpaceShipOne, to the edge of space

  2005 – Launch of Google web mapping service

  2005 – Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, maps 99% of Mars and finds meltwater

  2008 – Scientists reprogram skin cells into stem cells, without use of embryos

  2008 – Scientists figure out how to regrow human organs from stem cells

  2008 – Inaugural test of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator

  2011 – China launches 1st space lab, Tiangong, 1st step to manned space station

  2013 – Election of Chinese Premier, pro-space development

  2017 – Election of US President, pro-space development

  2019 – US Presiden
t launches a new armed service, the Space Force

  2020 – NASA first private astronauts go to space for a relatively low price

  The scale of Mad Newton’s mission is much more extensive than VanWest first thought. The bombing of the UNESCO meeting to kill Francois de Rose in 1951 Paris may have even been a decoy or a practice run to set up this ‘New Beginning’.

  The launch to attach the Unity Node to ISS is the first in a timeline of targets that stretches right up to 2020. A shrewd move, given the leap commenced a little earlier than 48 hours. In the scenario, the Utopians didn’t arrive at the correct date and place, there were further events that they could disrupt to slow and stop scientific and technological advancement. The timeline also shows another concern, the progress on stem cell science during this era, linked to the immortal Elites, humans living much longer than normal. Able to rule for far too long.

  VanWest tips out the contents of the Priest’s backpack, hoping to find more clues about the mission. It contains a handheld temporal facial re-modulation kit, several identity cards, and a printed metallic sheet with twenty codenames along with geocodes. The codenames likely those of the other Utopians that should have leapt for this mission. If it were not for the Seductress’s betrayal, then they would be here too, in the past.

  It is not entirely clear what the Seductress actually seeks, now a renegade armed not only with 30th-century technology but also with knowledge of this location and era’s history. Could it be she wants to manipulate it for her own benefit? Maybe she seeks to make herself the ruler of this world, just like the Council does hundreds of years later. If Iris is alive, she may be unaware of her betrayal. With the Priest dead she is now the only true Utopian left to carry out this ‘New Beginning’.