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by JJ Green
When Caris came through, she fell to her knees on thick leaf mould. Her hands thudded into the ground before her, sinking into the damp, decaying surface. Humidity prickled her skin with sweat. She lifted her heavy head and tried to focus her swimming vision. Shades of green and brown danced and shimmered, then sharpened and slotted into perspective. She staggered up and checked behind her. Ferns, vines, trees, scattered pools and striations of light, the same as the scene in front. A din of cicada, frog and bird calls assaulted her ears. She rubbed her hands down her thighs and wiped the sweat from her face. One hour. First, she should try to find some clothes.
Caris was no expert on trees, but she guessed the largest ones she saw as she stepped through the jungle were more than forty to fifty years old. She was supposed to be in Stockbridge, Florida. Had they got the coordinates wrong? Or was it possible Stockbridge no longer existed? Without a trail to follow, she headed downhill. Downhill led to water, and water usually meant people.
She eased through the thick undergrowth. Damp foliage, branches and vines soon covered her bare skin in grime and a haphazard pattern of scratches, grazes. Hand-sized spiders hung suspended in webs between the trees, and snakes and lizards slithered and scattered at her approach. Rivulets of sweat cut tracks along her sooty skin.
The first building Caris saw appeared to rear up at her, it was so well hidden by the jungle. A half-crumbled wall, a vacant door and window frames collapsed and rotting. She stepped inside. The building was open to the sky. The remains of the roof littered the ground, and strong saplings sprouted among the cracked tiles and decayed timbers. She searched among the ruins. Anything and anyone that had once existed in the house was long gone. Nothing was there but dead leaves and the burgeoning life of the forest.
Caris wondered how much time had passed since she’d arrived. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? She fumed at her superiors. What was she supposed to discover in just sixty minutes? Leaving the building, she surveyed the trees around her. One had a branch just above head height, and was taller than the others as well. She jumped and pulled herself up onto the branch. Grabbing vines, branches and knots she hauled herself up the tree until, balancing on a thin, springy branch and gripping fistfuls of shoots, she pushed through the canopy.
Sunlight pierced her eyes. Adjusting to the increased light, she became aware of a cloud of butterflies spanning the treetops as far as she could see. Floating, hovering, gliding; deep browns, purples and blacks shimmered, iridescent in the sunlight. Butterflies alighted on her, as if she were just another part of the canopy, and she grinned in delight. But puzzlement took over. Shading her eyes and looking into the far distance, all she could see was an ocean of leaves and butterflies like foam on the waves.
A sudden thought struck her. Was her hour nearly up? And if it was, she was about 75 feet above the ground. Would she be dragged back at the same height? She slid off the branch and descended rapidly, skittering monkey-like down the branches. Cursing as she acquired more scratches and bruises, she prepared mentally for a fall from mid-air. Fifty-foot drop. She might live if she fell from here. Twenty-five feet. She could get away with broken legs. Fifteen feet. If she executed a perfect roll, she might walk away.
They grabbed her as she jumped from the bottom branch. Caris' stomach lurched and her knees slammed into hard tile. Vomit forced its way up her throat. She spewed it out and pitched forward. Her head struck the floor and she slid through the pool of vomit in a dead faint.
#
“Should we contact someone? Husband? Relatives?” asked Lieutenant Merritt.
General Nancarrow shook his head. “She's single. No partner. No close relatives. That's one of the reasons she was chosen. Less chance of her letting something slip.” The two army officers stood at Caris' bedside in a windowless hospital room.
“Okay, I'll ask the nurses to keep an eye on her so there's someone around when she wakes up.”
“Thanks for taking over as her psych support at such short notice. We need to be careful. She'll most likely be groggy and disoriented. We can't risk her saying anything that sounds odd. You know what I mean. And we need her ready for debriefing as soon as possible. So stick around, is what I'm saying.”
Merritt nodded and the general left. The lieutenant looked down at the unconscious figure on the bed. She had short hair and her thin face was bruised and scratched. She didn't look at all like his mental image of a time traveller, tough, exotic and strange. She looked very ordinary and vulnerable.
A screen was embedded on the wall next to the bed, and Merritt scrolled through the information. Twenty-six years old. Parents dead, one from a drug overdose and the other in a bank hold up, as the perpetrator. Foster care kid in numerous homes. Enlisted at sixteen. Exemplary record of active service. Prodigious technical talent. Merritt scrolled ahead to the psych evaluation. He scanned it, and went back to the personal history. Strange. Her psych score was nearly perfect, which was completely at odds with her upbringing.
He glanced down at Caris and started. Her eyes were open and watching him.
“See anything interesting?”
“Hi, Caris. Glad to see you're awake. I'm Lieutenant Merritt.” He took out his ID and showed it to her. “I'm here to make sure you're okay. How are you feeling?”
“Like death.”
Merritt drew up a chair and sat down. “It'll ease over the next few days, I expect. Time travel must be like an exaggerated version of long haul flights. You're experiencing a form of jet lag. Or time lag, I suppose I should say.”
“Hmph. So... you aren't a medic. You're the new psychiatrist?”
“Psych support officer. Hungry?”
“Nope. What happened to Lieutenant Norris?”
“He's in intensive care. Stroke. Thirsty? How about a drink?”
“That's for me, right?” Caris looked at the jug of water and tumbler on the table next to her bed. “I'll be okay.” There was a silence. “Look, you don't have to hang around. I'm okay. I won't say anything to anyone, if that's what's worrying you.”
Merritt stood up to leave, but hesitated.
“Really, I'm okay,” said Caris. “I'm sure you have plenty to do.”
Merritt leaned toward her and said in a low voice, “Caris, you've just been a hundred years into the future. Don't you want to talk about how you're feeling? You know, share? It must have been quite an experience.”
Caris thought a moment then said, “No, I'm good.”
Merritt tilted his head and smiled. The woman seemed perfectly calm and relaxed. He regarded her battered face. Gel coated the worst cuts, holding the edges together and healing them. In a few days' time, under the hospital's state-of-the-art care, she would be as good as new. And the physical effects of the first extended journey in time would have left as few effects on her body as it appeared to have left on her mind.
“You sure you don't need anything?”
Caris shook her head, smiled and gave Merritt a thumbs-up.
The next time he saw her was at the debriefing. She stood in uniform before an assembly of most of the highest-ranking military personnel in the country. Merritt scrutinized her facial expression and body language. She appeared entirely unfazed.
Nancarrow stood and turned to the other officers. “I propose we let Warrant Officer Elliott tell us her account, then ask questions. Are we in agreement?”
Caris spoke for twenty minutes, giving each detail of her experience from start to finish, describing the physical geography, flora and fauna she encountered, the single, tumble-down building she had found, and the view of endless jungle she had seen. A tutting admiral interrupted.
“There's surely been some kind of error here. That sounds nothing at all like Stockbridge. Is there something wrong in the calculations, or a problem with the machine? We must have sent her somewhere different. We sent her to the Amazon, or some such other place.”
Nancarrow stood again. “Can we wait for Warrant Officer Elliot to finish?”
“General Nancarrow, I'm done. It was at that moment I was retrieved,” said Caris.
“Right. Thank you, Corporal. Well, let's commence questions, then.”
Merritt watched Caris. The officers fired off questions, interrupting one another and repeating themselves. The volume of noise in the room rose and petty squabbles broke out as each tried to make him- or herself heard. A heated argument on the possibility of global warming creating a jungle in the area broke out. Caris answered each question patiently, giving the same information over and over again. Merritt would have expected anyone else to experience frustration, but Caris only looked bored.
He took her back to the hospital for a final physical exam before she was discharged. The autocab whipped through the streets, equidistant from every other vehicle.
“Caris, I have a question for you about your experience, if you don't mind.”
“Shoot.”
“How did you feel about it?”
Caris sighed. “Look, I know you're just doing your job, but I'm okay. I'm not going to have a mental breakdown or anything. I'm not like that.”
“I know. I'm your psych support, remember? I didn't mean that. I meant, what was it like, being there? A hundred years in the future. I mean, wow.”
“Hmph.” Caris watched the streets of Stockbridge fleeting past. Clean, neat, sharp-edged and modern. Glass-fronted stores glinted in the sunlight. The pavements were even, the signs bright. She thought back to the expanse of jungle that, as far as she could tell, would take its place in one hundred year's time. She turned to Merritt. “You know what? I felt great. It was beautiful.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It was alive, you know? So alive. I've never seen anything like it. It was how it must have been before we took over the planet. It's kind of nice to know there comes a time when we return the Earth to a natural state.”
Merritt tried to imagine.
“Hey, you're okay, you know,” said Caris.
“Huh?”
“The rest of them, they didn't care. All they wanted to know was where all the people had gone. No one else tried to understand what it was like. How it felt to be there.”
#
The second time they sent her she had two hours. A pig, a dog and a monkey had survived four hours in the future, so there was no reason to suppose a human wouldn't survive half that, they had reasoned and she had agreed. Caris sat down to be transported. The last thing she saw was Lieutenant Merritt's face through the observation screen. He looked anxious, poor guy. Anyone would think it was him travelling into the future. Then came the dizziness and blurred vision.
The Stockbridge of fifty years hence surrounded Caris. It was a wrecked town. The buildings that were still standing were advanced in the process of disintegration. Weeds and saplings opened wide cracks in the sidewalk and roads. Concluding it wouldn't be safe to enter any buildings, as they all seemed in a state of imminent collapse, she leaned in through the windows. Rats scuttled away at her approach.
Apart from the rats, the place seemed devoid of life. It was silent and nothing moved in the streets. Caris walked to the places she knew, the sun hot on her skin. The sports stadium was a shell and the shopping center had clearly at some point collapsed in spectacular fashion. Now it was little more than a heap of concrete blocks, glass, rusting girders and dust. She remembered a small post office a few blocks downtown and headed there.
What remained of the post office was in no firmer state than the other buildings, but Caris had to risk entering it if she wanted to try and find out what had happened. Piles of yellowed, decaying papers covered the floor. Letters, postcards, bills, advertising. She dug down to reach less weathered paper on the lower layers, but they were sodden mush. The print on the papers on top was so worn and rain-damaged it was illegible. Caris lifted telephone receivers and listened to the silence. The computer screens were dead and cracked, the wiring rotten.
Caris estimated she had about forty-five minutes left. Enough time to get to the government buildings if she ran. Her orders were to bring back information on future technologies and survey the broader aspects of civilian life. If there was anyone left at all, they could be there. She ran through the empty streets, the sound of her footsteps echoing from the vacant, desolate buildings. A faint tingle of unease ran down her spine. The absence of life intruded into her senses, and the hairs rose on her neck. The empty windows seemed full of eyes, watching her. What had happened to all the people? Where had they gone? The derelict buildings seemed to be burgeoning with their ghosts, willing her to find out.
Caris stopped, resting her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She stood straight and looked around at the buildings, willing the illusion away. Closing their eyes, the ghosts retreated.
In another five minutes she was at the central offices. The wide glass doors had shattered and glass crumbs adorned the grassy weeds growing through the sidewalk. Placing her bare feet carefully, Caris stepped inside. The ground floor had retained its ceiling, and the interior was dark. Caris waited a moment to allow her eyes to adjust, but she knew she had only a few minutes left. Squinting into the shadows, she walked through the reception area. Her foot caught, and she stumbled. Turning back to see what had tripped her, she gasped. Rotten clothes hung from a skeleton. She stood, and swiveled, surveying the room. Similar heaps were scattered across it. Bones and skulls, yellowed and stained, made disorganized piles on the floor. Caris' hackles rose as she felt herself grabbed back.
After the vomiting came oblivion.
#
Merritt offered to take Caris out to eat after the debriefing, and he wasn't surprised when she accepted. Her demeanor was altered, and it wasn't due to the arguing, shouting and chaos of the meeting. She was preoccupied and anxious, and he noticed her hands trembled. She was as laconic at dinner as she had ever been, however, and they ate in silence for a while.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked. When she didn't hear his question for the second time, he placed his hand on hers.
“Hey,” she said, pulling her hand away.
Merritt raised his hands. “Just trying to get your attention.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It sometimes helps to talk things through. “
Caris sighed and closed her eyes. “I know. I do know that. It's just I'm not used to...”
“...feeling bad about stuff?” Merritt offered.
“Feeling bad about stuff. That's a good way of putting it.”
“It's normal. Hell, if I'd been thrown into the future and dragged back again I'd be a wreck.”
“Lieutenant Merritt...”
“Call me Ben.”
“Ben,” she said. “Ben, I've seen death. I've seen it happen to enemies and to friends. And I've stared it right in the face. Death's terrible, you know, but it is what it is. It comes to all of us. But there... that place... Ben, there was nothing. Nothing but rats, and silence.” She shuddered. “And it's the future. That's what's coming, right?”
“No one knows, Caris. It's a possible future, certainly. But we don't know whether it's the only one. Some theories say time is already complete and part of the physical universe... that we're only experiencing the illusion of travelling through it. Others say there are multitudes of futures, each decided whenever there's a choice of possibilities. That's one of the things they're trying to find out, by sending people like you through. Only...”
“What?”
“The individuals that go through must be psychologically robust. You know the transporter only works for living things, so you can't take any recording equipment with you, and you can't bring any artifacts back. The reports you give must be reliable, and not influenced by your mental state...”
“Are you telling me I'm not fit to take the next run?”
“Caris, no one even knows whether there will be another run.”
“I'm fine, Ben. I'm fine. Come on, don't tell them I'm not fit. You should have seen that place. We've got to find out what happened. So we can stop it happening. Don't tell them I'm not fit, please.”
“Caris, as far as I'm concerned you're experiencing a normal reaction to what you saw. You just need to talk it through. I don't think you're unstable at all. But... talk, okay?”
While the President, the Cabinet, the generals and admirals debated and argued over how to proceed with investigating the future, Caris and Ben met daily for counselling sessions. Caris talked about what she had seen and how she had felt in the future Stockbridge, about her time in the army, the tours she'd been on, and her childhood going from foster home to foster home.
“Do you want to talk about how it felt? A new home, a new family every year or even more often?” asked Ben one day.
Caris shrugged. “It wasn't so bad. They were okay—the foster parents, I mean. Others had it worse than me.”
Ben laughed and put down his pen.
“Did I say something funny?” asked Caris.
“Caris, I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, but I just don't understand how you've coped so well with everything that's happened to you. I've counselled soldiers with severe psychological disorders, PTSD, the works. And they haven't experienced half the trauma you have. I don't get it.”
Caris looked out the counselling office window. “I don't know, Ben. Maybe it's different for some people. Maybe my experiences brought out the best in me. Maybe if I'd had an easy life I'd be a wreck.”
“It's an interesting idea. And it's interesting talking to you, Caris.”
She smiled and he smiled back. Their eyes locked a fraction too long, then they both looked away.
“You know, Ben, I never really understood the point of counselling before,” Caris said. “but I needed these sessions, after my last assignment. They've helped.”
Ben looked down at his notes.
“Is something wrong?” asked Caris.
“Caris, please believe me when I say it's nothing to do with anything you've said or done, but I have to step down as your counsellor. I'll find a replacement for you. A good one.”
“What? Why? If it isn't me, why are you stepping down? What's wrong?”
“I'm afraid my professional code forbids me telling you that.”
“Then don't tell me as my counsellor. Tell me as a friend.”
“Caris, I can't be your friend, either.”
Caris looked at Ben across the low coffee table that separated them. Moments passed, and he refused to meet her gaze. She got up, walked halfway to the door, then stopped. She walked back and stood next to Ben's chair. As he looked up at her, opening his mouth to speak, she stooped and kissed him.
#
A low moaning was the first thing Caris heard when she went through the third time. Ben's smiling face through the transporter room glass was still in her mind as, blinking her vision clear, she saw movement ahead. A beggar, staggering toward her. She sidestepped, but he grabbed her arm and pushed his face into hers.
“Help, help me,” he breathed.
Caris turned her head to escape his foul exhalation and grabbed his arms to hold him away from her. She looked around, but the street was empty except for the two of them. She pushed the beggar gently away and stepped back.
“I'm sorry, but, as you can see, I need to find some clothes.” She walked quickly away. When she had turned a corner, she slipped down the side path next to a house with no cars on the drive. Trying the back door, she was surprised to find it open. The house was empty, and it looked as though the family had left in a hurry. Dishes thick with mould filled the sink, and an unemptied rubbish bin sent out a stench. Upstairs, she put on clothes she found among the many left in the open wardrobes.
She looked out the bedroom window. It was about three in the afternoon but the street was empty. No one in the yards, no cars, no pedestrians, not even any kids playing on the sidewalk. Caris felt her knees buckle and she sat down on the unmade bed. The beggar, the hastily vacated house, the deserted street. This was only two years in the future. Whatever disaster was going to befall them, it was going to happen within two years. They had two years left?
For a while, Caris sat on the bed, unable to move. She looked out at the blue sky, sunshine and clouds, the silence pounding her ears. Then she stirred. Perhaps, if she could find out what had happened, they could put it right. They might be able to prevent the disaster happening. Ben had said there might be many possible futures. She needed to make at least one future safe.
She ran down the stairs and found the home computer, but it was dead. She flipped a light switch and cursed. The electricity was off. She could not access the autocab system even if it was still running. She would have to travel on foot again.
Caris jogged from house to house, knocking at doors and peering in windows. At one place two dogs barked and yelped. The sun sank lower. Caris ran through street after street. She could not find a single human being. Then she saw the front door to a house standing open. As she drew nearer, she smelled a terrible stench. She knew what it meant, but went inside to investigate anyway.
Downstairs was empty, so she went up to the bedrooms. A busy hum of flies came from the master bedroom. A brief look inside revealed what might once have been an old couple, lying in each others' arms. She ran to the next house. The front door was unlocked. Opening it, she was greeted with the same stench, and at the next house, and the next.
Caris ran down the street. She stopped and sank to her knees. For a moment she hugged herself, rocking, then forced herself to her feet. Blinking back tears, she looked around, got her bearings, then set off at a sprint. As she neared the hospital, she noticed banners draped across the signs. Hospital full, they said, in large, capital letters. Please return home. Wait for assistance.
Panting, Caris slowed to a walk. The hospital grounds were deserted. The ambulance bay was open. The automatic doors to the reception area stood apart. Caris stepped through and a nurse in a surgical mask and dirty scrubs ran up.
“Who are you? Have you come from the government? Have you brought supplies? Are they going to turn the electricity back on?”
“I... No, I'm sorry.”
“You're a patient? We can't take any more. We can't help you. You have to go home.”
“I'm not a patient. I just want to know what's going on.”
“You want to... Where have you been?” The nurse's eyes grew wide above her mask. “If you haven't been in contact with anyone, you might stand a chance. Get away. Get away now. Go back wherever you came from.”
“Please. Tell me what's happening first.”
“It's a virus. It takes a few months to kill you, but it's deadly, and extremely contagious. Skin contact, breath, anything. No one knows where it came from, but it started here in Stockbridge and it's spreading everywhere. If you haven't touched anyone with it, you might be okay.”
“If I haven't... “ Caris remembered the beggar. “No. No... “She looked at the sun. How long did she have? Five minutes? Ten? She pushed past the nurse.
“Don't touch me! Where are you going?”
Caris started stripping her clothes. “I need a pen. And a scalpel.”
#
Ben waited for Caris to reappear. Two hours in the future didn't mean anything in the present. For him, it had only been five minutes since she left. One second the transporter was empty; the next, she was there. He stared. She was lying on the floor, writing covering her from head to toe. Blood seeped from her wrists. The guards at the door tried to stop him but he was too fast. He shoved them aside and ran into the room. He grabbed Caris' limp form and pulled her into his arms. Her face and lips were white, lifeless.
“Caris...”
He heard a voice vaguely. “Step back, Lieutenant.”
Hands pulled at him, dragging him away. Caris' body slipped from his grasp and slid onto the floor, her head lolling.
He tried to speak but nothing would come out. Avoiding Caris' glazed, vacant eyes, he read the writing on her body. It made no sense. The same three words written over and over again.
Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me.
-o-
J.J. Green was born in London's East End within the sound of the church bells of St. Mary Le Bow, Cheapside, which makes her a bona fide Cockney. She first left the U.K. as a young adult and has lived in Australia and Laos. She currently lives in Taipei, Taiwan, where she entertains the locals with her efforts to learn Mandarin.
Homepage: http://jjgreenauthor.com
