The Long Road :: 'Because, although we dance around it, time marches on without us.'

By Penny Weber

Philadelphia Science Fiction Society

2008 Young Writers Contest

Second Place; High School Category

Myrna smiles at the weary girl and pats her on the shoulder. "You're free, now, love." The girl nods and steps forward. The door slides shut with a nigh-silent hiss, and I slump in relief.

"There was no mind behind her eyes," Linnet says, from his seat at the controls. He runs a hand through his silver hair. "Nothing there but obedience."

"That'll change," I say. "It has to." The possibility that it won't is not something I want to consider. It would make all we've done, everything we've worked toward, pointless.

"We humans are amazing at bouncing back from things," Myrna teases, taking her seat. "Really, I think you'd know that by now, old man. How long have you spent saving us from ourselves?"

"Long enough to know you'll always need it." Linnet refuses to tell me how old he is or what planet he's from, even after all these years. It makes sense to me that he might not tell Myrna. She's new, after all, and her enthusiasm makes him wary. But it hurts, a bit, that I still don't know.

"You'll never get it out of him," I say. "Get some sleep, instead. I'll need you both on top of your game, tomorrow."

"Why?" asks Myrna, brushing her red curls behind her ears. "We'll be doing what we do every day. It's you that'll be doing all the work." There's no jealousy in her voice. If anything, she sounds nervous for me. Worried.

"You'll be doing the same thing, yes, but the stakes are higher than ever before. Don't underestimate the Factory staff. They'll have word of us by now. We've been a thorn in their side for long enough that they'll be watching. Be careful, alright?"

"Sure." Myrna rises and takes another door to her quarters, glancing back at me. "You, too, Caid."

I nod and look at Linnet, who looks back. It's as much of a promise as he'll give. He knows that sometimes heroic comes before careful.

I sigh and go to sit next to him. "How did we get here?"

He taps a few keys, sending us simultaneously into orbit and to the present day. "You got us here, brought us together, the three of us, started us on this crazy mission to save the world. You tell me."

I shake my head and open the window to stare at the earth below. "That's not what I mean. Humanity. How did we go from the diverse, warring world of the ancient texts to..." I wave a hand. "This?"

The surface of the earth is wrapped in smoke. A rusting steel spire shows here and there, massive enough to be seen from space. Smoke stacks. Observation towers. Cranes. They dot the planet like porcupine spines. The galaxy's largest factory, an entire, living, breathing race exploited to line a cruel few people's pockets.

Except for Myrna, me -- and those we've already saved. Those we whipped away into the distant past, before anything went wrong, to rebuild their minds and their culture.

At first, we brought them to other planets. Venus, for example, where they could be paid for the skills they learned as toddlers. But they were swiftly taken advantage of. "Nothing but obedience," Linnet had said, and it was true. The first small-time hustler that appeared would have the humans wrapped around its fingers and sold into a sideshow as a rare example of their fabled race.

No, the past was a safer, cleaner, and all-around better choice.

"No one knows," says Linnet. "No one but the Supervisor, that is. When we finally get in there to kill him, ask him first. I'm sure he'll tell us why he destroyed all records of history from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 25th, and why Lady can't make it there, the junker."

I patted Lady's hull. "There, there, he doesn't mean it."

Linnet turned to me. "Caid," he said seriously, "are you sure about this?"

I think about it. "I think I am, yes." I look him in the eyes. "We need this. We need to strike where it really hurts." I stand, and start to pace. I've had this conversation with myself a dozen times, a hundred times, in the past week.

"We've been doing good, yes, taking out the little factories, setting people free. But unless we take out the brain, the body will always function. They'll build new factories on top of the abandoned ones. People will have babies, either by choice or by being bred, and those children will be put to work, filling the shoes of those we've freed. Unless we take out the breeders. Take out the architects. Take out the ones that profit from all this, and make the future as beautiful as the past."

I stop, looking out the window again. "We can't just evacuate people to the past forever. Because, although we dance around it, time marches on without us. All of this will still happen. If taking people to the past changed that, we'd see the effects in the present. As much as I don't like it, it seems that this future, this horrible earth, is an inevitability. We owe it to the future generations to end it."

Linnet stands and looks at me, his orange eyes oddly warm. For a moment, I think he's going to kiss me, and then he bows, bows lower than I've seen him bow to anyone. "Thank you." His voice is rough with gratitude and something I can't identify, and it curls around me as he walks away.

*****

In the morning, they leave, Myrna smiling her brittle, ready-for-anything smile, Linnet tall and solemn in his tailcoat. I give Myrna a hug and return Linnet's bow, like it was any other day, like this was any other Factory. Normally, I would head out, as well, to smile my way into the workforce, to do as they were doing.

But today, I take a moment to make myself presentable. Today, my road is longer, and I have no idea how long. I have to work my way up the ranks, become a figure in the Escher-like bureaucracy of the place, and an influential one, at that. I have to worm my way into those worms' trust, find their Achilles' heel and then, when the time was right...I'd set Lady to bring me Linnet and Myrna, my fists, and we would strike.

I smooth the circles from my eyes, darken my lashes, brush my hair so it's shining golden. I leave it long, and, for the first time in years, I look like a woman. I slip Lady's Key into the hidden pocket in my coat and set off.

*****

Myrna looks up from her vat, her face smudged and dirty. She scans the slice of hallway that she can see from her post as she has every hour, every day for the past two weeks.

Caid is late. Caid has Lady, a time machine, and she's late.

But there's something different in the hallway today. Something different in the stream of people walking by, the regulation distance from one another, pushing their carts. One of them is Linnet, and he puts one hand to his temple, the other to his elbow.

Myrna grins in glee, pushes over her vat, and runs at him, screaming, "You bastard! I'll kill you for that!" He stands to meet her, and when she reaches him, punches her in the face.

The rest of the workers pause in their work, bewildered as the two roll around, fighting. When the security drones descend and haul off the two struggling figures, they continue on their way, silent.

Myrna slips the wrench from the lining of her uniform. She undoes the from panel of the drone, careful not to touch anything but the directional core -- after all, it's carrying her over vats of mercury, she does not want it to let go. She taps the tiny touch screen, her eyes following the streams of data like a hawk. When she's done, she closes the panel again, tosses the wrench to Linnet, and whispers a few words into the auditory channel of the 'bot. It swerves left, out beyond the edges of the courtyard and to the alley where Lady waits.

Linnet arrives a moment later, and they use his key to get in. No time for thinking, for wondering why it took so long, what delayed Caid. Only time for action.

Linnet hits the sequence that'll send them hurtling back to the future -- Caid's present. Future-travel is impossible. Lady is only a Past and Present machine. It just happens that the Present it came from is Myrna and Linnet's future.

The ride is smooth, seamless, and they've hardly landed before they're out the door and diving into another hallway, like the first, punching each other again, screaming at the top of their lungs.

Again come the drones. They leave them alone this time, every muscle tense. If Caid is not in place, they could be riding to their deaths.

*****

I stalk down the hall in stiletto heels. My hair is a golden mane, my face done up in a mask of femininity.

I walk into the courtroom as I have every day, ready to say "guilty" on cue. The trials here are simple mockeries, the Supervisor's joke to the criminal. Make them think they have a chance. Make them think they can save themselves, and their deaths will be that much sweeter.

It feels like a dream when I see Myrna in the criminal's chair, with Linnet behind her. She is dirty and sweating and scared, but she winks a barely perceptible wink at me. I turn my eyes to Linnet, and the look in his eyes nearly breaks my heart. He believes in me. He believes in me so strongly that he's here, risking his life. He has no idea what I've been through, no idea how long it's been since I saw him last. I used to love him, I think.

I face the court and lock eyes with my enemies -- my enemies who had been my friends, my rivals, my neighbors, my lovers. My eyes are burning the blue of justice, and it feels almost too right to open my mouth and bring them all down, crashing, their towers shattered.

"Not Guilty."

There's a moment, a pause, and then confusion breaks out. Someone starts to laugh, someone else shouts in outrage, and then everyone is talking, babbling.

I step forward and hold up my hands for silence. I get it.

"Not guilty." I say again. "In fact, they are the only innocent people in this room. I am arresting all of you on charges of extortion, murder, slavery, and child labor. Not to mention..." I pick them out one by one with my eyes.

"Rape."

"Money laundering."

"Trafficking drugs."

"Possession of drugs."

The list is long and repetitive, and eventually a high, nasal voice interrupts me. "Excuse me."

I stop, and look at Jason Banes, who spoke. I don't like him very much. I never have. And he's always returned the sentiment.

"While this is extremely amusing and highly revealing about many of my coworkers," he sneers, "what the hell kind of authority do you think you have? You may have slept your way to your position as assistant security chief -- "

"Security Chief." I correct him, my voice steel. "As of last week."

"Hm, yes, indeed." He narrows his eyes. "It still means nothing in the grand scheme of things, girl. I ask again: On whose authority is this arrest?"

"Mine." I reach into the secret pocket of my jacket and flip out my badge. "Natalia Kincaid, last of the Earth Police."

A startled laugh breaks out from the masses of scum, and Marlin Terra slaps his knee in delighted surprise. "Caidie! Of course! You're the one causing all the trouble in the smaller factories!"

I nod and give him a smile. Mar may be my favorite of the assembled. He reminds me of Myrna, always able to see the bright side. Of course, that may have more to do with the anti-depressants he fills his veins with twelve times a day than his base attitude.

I turn back to the rest, who are giving Mar looks full of poison mixed with downright puzzlement. "I am also, as I have said, Security Chief here at the Factory, thanks to you," I bow slightly in the direction of George Harmell, who I did, in fact, sleep with, but not just to get the job. "Which means I can do this."

I pronounce a string of code and the doors open, security drones flowing in like water through a broken dam. I keep speaking the code, and they descend on my colleagues, taking them away, one by one. Some of them will be put to death for their crimes, some of them taken back to the past and imprisoned for the workers to deal with how they saw fit.

Mar makes his way over to me, still chuckling. I give him a wistful smile. "I'm sorry about this, Mar."

"No, no, it's the most fun I've had since...well, ever! Good gracious, miss, if I knew this is what you meant when you asked me to join your rebellion, my answer would certainly be different!"

I shake my head. "No, I mean, I'm sorry for this." I glance over his shoulder at the security drone, waiting.

He turns. "Oh." His smile becomes softer. "Well, I see." He leans forward and kisses my cheek. "Thank you. This way, I die laughing."

"Marlin Terra, possession of eight kinds of illegal anti-depressants." I say softly as the drone flies off, Mar serene in its grip.

*****

"Brilliantly done." Myrna congratulates me, when it's all over. "How long did it take? They looked so surprised!"

I open my mouth to tell her, to try to put those two-and-a-half decades into words, but the truth burns my throat. "Fifteen months." I lie through my teeth. "They were a lot easier to crack than I thought."

"You let us stew for two weeks!" Her voice is accusatory, and a lump rises in my throat. "What was that about?"

"Sorry. You know how it is, I forgot the date, working Lady is complex, and it had been a long time since I last used her."

Myrna shrugs off the lies like raindrops. "Well, c'mon! A rousing victory or not, we still don't want to hang around long."

I nod and start forward, but Linnet holds up a hand. "You go," he says to Myrna, looking at me. "We'll join you in a bit. Get Lady into orbit, and I'll use my wrist." He tapped the short-range teleport. I'd forgotten it was even there.

The door slides closed behind Myrna. "Fifteen months." Linnet's voice makes the statement half question, half accusation.

I start to cry, hollowly, and he catches me before I fall. "Twenty-five years." I choke out, curling into his chest. "Twenty-five fucking years, and no one to talk to. No one to understand what I... Do you have any idea how hard it was, Linnet? Do you have any idea how many times I nearly gave up, nearly slit my throat for putting all of those poor, poor people to death? And it was so easy, so easy, just 'guilty', 'guilty', 'guilty', just a word, and it ended lives."

Mutely, he shakes his head. "You're older than me now, if it helps."

I laugh brokenly, and he tightens his arms around me.

"I fell in love, you know. Fell in love with that scum. They were friends, some of them, almost as many as the ones that were enemies. I had friends... lots of friends, friends other than you and Myrna, and I..." I look up at him. "I just killed them. I just fucking killed all of them, or sent them back to the past to be killed by their employees."

I fight free of him and run back through the streets, looking for a security drone, mumbling. "I should go with them, I should. I killed like them, I tortured, like them, I watched my entire race, slaves, and I did nothing for so long, for twenty-five years..." I began screaming to the skies the code that would bring the security drones down upon me.

Linnet tackles me to the ground. "Caidie! Listen to me. You're wrong, because you didn't give up. You looked at those faces, those deaths, and you used them. You used them to keep the fires of justice alive in your heart, and then, when you could, when it would do the most damage, you struck."

I look up at him, shaking. "But people died, every day, for twenty-five years, Linnet. Every day."

"And they would have died for twenty-five more, fifty more, a hundred more, if not for you. You're a hero, Natalia Kincaid of the Earth Police."

I start to cry again, weeping helplessly, all of my strength gone, and he picks me up bodily. He hits the button on his wrist, and we're in my quarters on Lady, orbiting the earth that I was, am, and always will be trying to save.

The End