State of Time: Beginnings Series Book 6

  STATE OF TIME

  by

  JACQUELINE DRUGA

  State of Time – Beginnings Book 6

  By Jacqueline Druga

  Copyright 2013 by Jacqueline Druga

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Thank you Cindy P for everything, you are tenacious and I am glad to have you helping me.

  Cover photo thanks to © James Thew Fotolia.

  CHANGE

  HENRY’S JOURNAL

  November 27

  Sitting here ten years in the past, writing this, waiting, I know this can’t continue. The power supply for the Quantum Regressionator is limited. It can’t be wasted on fixing any more time ripples. Frank’s phone call. He just wanted to get Robbie to Ashtonville at the onset of the plague so he could come to Beginnings and the world wouldn’t make him bad. Robbie went Ashtonville early all right, so early that he and Ellen got married. But Robbie . . . was still bad. Now I wait for Dean and Frank’s return. They are trying to stop the phone call. Instead they plan to mail a letter and try again. Get Robbie to Ashtonville at the right time. Conform Beginnings. I’m afraid to step back through the time machine door and see what Frank and Dean have done to my world. But this is it. No matter what, we must accept the changes and go on. We have a virus in our future to beat. And we have a trail to find that hopefully will lead us to the Caceres Society. Find out what we have in Beginnings that they want so badly they would destroy us for it. No more changing the past., only the future.

  CHAPTER ONE

  November 27 - Present Day

  Beginnings, Montana

  Jason Godrichson worked diligently with Joe on the future time trip. A trip planned, nearing launch, and one with a lot of details, both mechanical and strategically left to hash out. In the quantum lab they worked, Jason by his computer, Joe by the counter. One of Jason aspects of the team were to make sure that when they went into the future, Dean, Ellen, and Henry wouldn’t be unleashed into some black hole that would suck them up and cause their inability to return. Chuckling at that thought, Jason crossed his arms over his tall thin body and peered out his window again. He waited with anticipation and excitement for the arrival of the Centers for Disease Control Mobile.

  Clearing his throat with a slight laugh, Joe Slagel looked up from his notebook. “What did I tell you? Watching for it won’t make it arrive. John said if they can’t get it moving by dark . . .”

  “I know. I’m just anxious for my new neighbor. I’ve been lonely way out here.”

  “And you’re so full of shit,” Joe said in his usual gruff way. “You just want to see it before Dean does. Little scientist rivalry.”

  “Exactly.” Jason smiled.

  Joe stood up with his notes and headed Jason’s way. “O.K. With the stuff the time trio . . .”

  “You mean Frankie, Spanky, and Cranky?” Jason snickered. “Sorry, go on.”

  “With the stuff that the three stooges of time . . .” Joe added his own dig. “…brought back from their past trip, I would say the Cleveland Run is our best option. See if we find anything there that will take us on our next trip to the past.”

  “And the future trip will either give us the virus to work on or tell us of no virus. Therefore we will know if our concentration must be divided between the two or just on the Society itself. Coinciding the two is a time saver.”

  With the sound of a power surge, a bright light, and a slight warm breeze, Jason and Joe turned in oddity to the Regressionator archway. It lit up and walking through were Frank and Dean, pushing the motorcycles with Henry behind them.

  Jason nearly flew back in surprise into Joe. “Holy shit.”

  “Fuck.” Frank’s towering body stopped cold. His mouth dropped open. “It didn’t work.”

  With his small framed body looking buried behind the huge motorcycle, Dean peered clueless to Henry. “What’s going on?”

  Henry shrugged and tried to hide that he was laying a pendant on the counter.

  Joe took a step forward. “That’s what I’d like to know. What is going on?”

  “And . . .” Jason added. “Why are you three walking through my time machine? Right now. At this time?”

  “You don’t know?” Frank asked. “Wait . . .” Lost and confused he looked at Jason. “Did you lie?”

  “About what?” Jason questioned..

  “You said you weren’t going to be here.” Frank said.

  “When?” Jason tossed his hands up.

  “When you sent us through,” Frank explained. “You said, ‘I won’t be here to pull the door ‘. . .” Frank grunted loudly when he felt the backhand into his gut by Henry. “Hey.”

  “Shut up, Frank.” Henry spoke through his forced smile he gave Jason and Joe. “Let’s just go. Dean?” Henry came from behind the duo and hurried to the door.

  Dean followed the lead. “Bye, Joe. Jason.” Pushing the bike, he stopped with Henry by the door. “Frank. Come on.”

  “Frank?” Joe looked to him.

  “Shh.” Frank held a finger to his lips. “Just pretend you didn’t see us.” He looked up at the moans from Dean and Henry. “What? If they don’t, they shouldn’t know. Right?”

  Again Dean and Henry moaned only they added a cringe of their bodies.

  “What?” Frank shook his head, walked a little and stopped. “Oh, Dad? Is Robbie here?”

  Busted. As a warning, both Dean and Henry moaned their loudest yet.

  Frank jolted a little, groaned perturbed at them then looked back to Joe. “Is he?”

  “Is Robbie here?” Joe repeated the question then shifted his eyes around. “What the hell is the matter with you Frank? Of course he’s not here. Why would your brother be here?”

  “No . . . no reason.” A sadness took over Frank and he walked out of the quantum lab behind Dean and Henry. He pulled the door closed.

  Henry grumbled a complaining whine, “I can’t believe you were in there spewing your mouth, Frank. It’s bad enough walking through the time machine. We could have made something up. But no, you have to . . .”

  Dean’s shifting eyes caught what Henry did not, Frank’s demeanor. “Henry.” Dean said calmly. “Enough. It’s all right. No matter how we reacted or what we said, we still came through that machine. There’s gonna be questions.” Dean looked to Frank who was mounting his bike. “I’m sorry. I really am sorry this didn’t work for you.”

  Frank only nodded. Solemn exuded from him. “Well, at least things are probably back to normal.” He looked at his watch. “And since it’s a normal workday, we should slip back to work.” With a slight lift of his body, Frank started the bike and took off.

  Dean got on his motorcycle. “I better head back to work, too. See you later Henry to review history?”

  “Yeah.” Henry nodded. When he heard Dean start the bike, Henry prepared to hop on for a ride, but Dean took off. “Hey!” He called out. “Shit. Now I have to walk.” In a wincing manner he started walking off. “As if my life isn’t hard enough...”

  Joe and Jason didn’t know how long but they stared at the closed Quantum door in shock and speechlessness.

  Slowly Joe faced Jason. “You sent them through? Returning or arriving?”

  “My guess . . . returning.” Jason picked up the pendant Henry had laid on the counter.

  “Did they have to divert something? Make things different? Like with Dean?”

  “Highly doubtful.” Jason said. “If it was a planned trip I would have ha
d the foresight to send a note for myself. No, Joe.” Jason exhaled. “I think our three stooges of time did something and I sent them back to fix it. And if I sent them back.” A long whistle came from Jason. “It must have been bad.”

  “Next question,” Joe said. “If our little time travelers just floated into this lab, what the hell happened to the Frankie, Cranky and Spanky that were be-bopping about Beginnings a few minutes ago?”

  The doors to the chapel in town banged loudly but they paled in comparison to the loud, deep screams that came from Dr. Andrea Winters. Hysterical and shrill shrieks came from her as she ran around frantically, hands waving in the air, zigzagging through the town.

  From her hover over her microscope, Ellen Slagel lifted her dark blonde hair from her eyes when she raised her head to the sounds of Andrea’s scream. “Dean?” She turned her head to the right. Oddly enough, Dean wasn’t there. To her left she turned her view to Johnny Slagel who sat across the lab. “Johnny, where did Dean go?”

  “Don’t know.” Johnny continued in his work. “Hey, is that Andrea screaming out there?”

  “Yeah.” Looking once more to where Dean was a moment before hand, Ellen shrugged and went back to viewing her microscope.

  Pulling Frank’s office door closed, Greg, a bigger and stocky security guy stopped before walking any further. He gave an irritated shake of his body, turned and knocked on the door. “Frank, “he called out as he opened it. “Sorry, I forgot my . . .” Greg froze. “Frank?” The small security office was empty. “Um, Frank. I forgot my clipboard.” He walked to the desk and grabbed the clipboard he had left behind. “Where the hell did he go?” After wondering if maybe Frank had hurried and slipped into the closet to take a nap, Greg turned around to leave. As he did, Frank walked in through the office door. Greg, again, froze in his tracks.

  “What’s wrong?” Frank asked.

  Greg said nothing. He looked at Frank, looked back to the empty desk, and took off from the office.

  ^^^^

  Former Quantico Marine Headquarters

  It seemed like massive pandemonium the way military truck after military truck packed with people, were lined up just inside the main front gates. Caceres Society soldiers formed a blockade around the trucks. But it was far from pandemonium. It was the return of the highly successful and highly organized survivor sweeps that the society did. Sweeps that would build the population needed to work the armies and industries the Caceres Society planned to rebuild.

  Even though he was the former president of the United States, George Hadley felt like the uniformed flunky leader of the society. He knew what was going on, yet he was far from in total control. Everyone else performed the task. And sequential leaders in the society handed out most orders. George expected that much. After all, the lower ladder leaders were in charge and running things when George himself was inside trying, but failing, to take over Beginnings.

  George watched whom he considered his top men, Sgt. Timothy Doyle, who ran the military portion and training, and Steward Lange. Steward was not only the best ‘Peace Ambassador’ as they called them for the sweeps, but also George’s right hand man. Trusted by George because George had known him long before the plague had wiped out the world.

  Update time. And George knew the news was good when he saw a smiling Steward head his way.

  “Moving them in?” George asked. “Big crew. Are we setting up new sectors?”

  “Won’t need to,” Steward answered. “Camp masters in sectors twenty-four through thirty report they have enough to ship out. Agriculture further west needs hands. Also, we are moving people to industries, both north and south.”

  “Excellent. What about soldiers?”

  Steward smiled again. “Sgt. Doyle is proud to report that he has capable men he can send out to the Minnesota and Alabama installations.”

  “Who will be in charge out there?”

  “Sergeants Mason and Greene.”

  George nodded. “Any news on our perpetrators last night?”

  Steward shook his head. “Definitely they are not coming in packs but individually. It’s easy to slip through our perimeters. How much information is missing?”

  “Nothing we don’t have back up on but it’s still information we don’t want in their hands.”

  “Do you think it’s Beginnings?” Steward asked.

  “How?” George tossed his hands up. “Our inside person says they haven’t a clue where we are. Then again it’s hard to get good information when we’re dealing with Morse code.”

  “We’re working on that.” Steward said. “Phone line computers aren’t coming back up. Hey, at least we have power.”

  George grumbled. “We have to find out who came in here last night. They obviously came in for a reason and got what they sought. Where they are, is the next question.”

  Sgt. Doyle interrupted. “I may have an answer.”

  George turned to him. “What do you have?”

  “With some concerns we had over the past couple days, concerns myself and Mr. Lange hadn’t taken serious,” Sgt. Doyle explained. “When I received this information, it made sense.” He read off a clipboard. “Our moving teams reported what they believe is a small camp of civilization about ten miles northwest from here near a town called Bethel. They weren’t there last week.” Sgt. Doyle raised his eyes. “Whoever broke in here last night was close enough to get here by foot. And check out the numbers. Our people said between forty and fifty . . . all men.”

  George’s attention was caught. “Possibly our recently defected?”

  Sgt. Doyle grinned. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Ha!” George snatched the clipboard from Sgt. Doyle’s hand and looked at it only after smacking Steward with the object. “And you two said they were nothing to worry about.”

  Steward interjected, “The camp could be the perpetrators, but we can’t be sure they’re our defectors.”

  Refraining from hitting Steward again, George shook his head. “The numbers match up. We had forty-two slip out last week.” He handed the clipboard back to Sgt. Doyle. “Send a two man team to scout out this camp. Watch for a few hours and get back to us.” He received a nod from Sgt. Doyle. “And make sure they know Morse code. I don’t feel like waiting a goddamn half hour for a four word message.”

  With a chuckle, Sgt. Doyle stepped back. “Yes sir.”

  Pleased and proud, George watched Sgt. Doyle walk off. He then noticed the looks he was getting from Steward. “What!” He barked.

  Steward took a deep breath. “I have to get back to work. Just . . . just let me leave you with this.” He took a courage filled pause. “You are worried about forty-two men when we have what? Over six thousand right here?”

  George didn’t flinch at the blast of reality Steward gave him. He was so used to living in Beginnings, forty men sounded like a massive take over. And even though George could have been viewed by others as an overreacting, ranting fool, he kept up the ‘concerned and threatened’ exterior. He had to. Even if he himself secretively had to pull some of the more stupid society recruits aside, tell them it was a drill, and set up a violent raid on Quantico, he would. George wasn’t about to be proven wrong. Ever.

  ^^^^

  Beginnings, Montana

  Hands in pockets making a jingling sound with his keys, Joe walked down the main corridor of the clinic. He could see Dean standing outside the lab door, looking frazzled. Pacing a little, probably a habit picked up from hanging around Henry. “Dean.”

  Dean let out a breath. “Joe.” He tossed his head back. “Thank God.”

  “Is she in there?” Joe twitched his head to the door.

  Dean nodded. “Hysterical too. I can’t calm her. Andrea says she won’t leave or step outside until she speaks to you.”

  “Is Ellen in there now with her?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah, but Ellen’s working so Andrea’s just sitting there . . . crying.”

  Joe moaned. “What am I supposed to do?”
<
br />   Dean just shrugged. “She wants you.”

  Another moan and Joe reached for the door.

  “Joe.” Dean grabbed his wrist. “She’s really upset, so . . . be compassionate.”

  Joe nodded and stepped into the lab. He looked at Andrea sitting on a chair, her arms folded close to her. Sounds of her shivering sobs carried out intermittently with her hysterical, ‘Sweet Jesus, Sweet Jesus’.

  “Compassion, Joe.” Dean whispered then moved to Ellen who was giggling. He nudged her to get her to quit.

  Another step, another cry, another wince from Joe. “Andrea.” Joe spoke up. “What in Christ’s name is wrong with you?”

  Frightened was how her cry was when Andrea sprang from her chair and leaped at Joe. “Henry’s gone.”

  “Henry’s not gone.” Joe said a bit annoyed, removing Andrea’s tight grip. “Sit down.”

  “He’s gone, gone. Gone.” She sat down and let out a hyperventilating breath. “It’s the . . .” Her voice graveled with deepened fear. “It’s the rapture.”

  “The what?” Joe asked.

  “The rapture. When the Lord calls us, he calls us and takes us.” She snapped her finger. “Took Henry right before my eyes. Sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus.” She rocked back and forth shaking her head. “I knew he was a good boy. I knew it. And the Lord called him home. Right before my eyes he turned into blue and silver sparkles, faded then disappeared.”

  “He did, did he?” Joe asked looking at Dean.

  Andrea nodded and seeped another sob. “The apocalypse is upon us.”

  “Andrea, Christ.” Joe snapped. “The apocalypse was upon us six years ago.”

  “No!” Andrea stood up. “The Lord’s apocalypse. It’s judgment day, Joe.” She grabbed his arms. “Judgment day. He’s calling his chosen home.”