Chapter 35
Six Days, Four Hours, Fifty-Eight Minutes
On the mattress, Frank Parker lie perfectly still, his arm under the pillow and his head cradled in softness. He kept his eyes closed, trying to do as Talmadge had instructed, trying to get some quality sleep, but the reality of his situation kept nagging him from any true prospect of rest.
Was he really a danger to everyone around him?
Backstepping became the purpose behind his existence – a fragile one, he knew, but weren't they all? After being recruited to the program – after being given the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of a government he had long served and believed betrayed – Parker dedicated himself to being the best that he could once more. He committed his efforts to becoming a chrononaut – to making a difference in not one, not two, not three, but in the millions of lives he would never see, never know, and never touch in any other way but making things right. Sure, he continued to drink. Sure, he continued to womanize. He was human, after all, and he accepted the psychological and physical baggage that came along with the flesh, but backstepping – in its own logical and illogical ways – excused those inconsequential flaws. You save the world, you open a six-pack. It went hand-in-hand, as far as he was concerned. Who wouldn't toss back a stiff shot of Jack Daniels after righting the wrong of nuclear annihilation? His job – if there were any – drove him to drink, but it never impaired his ability to correct injustices. He never allowed that to happen.
But here ...?
And now ...?
The fact of his mere presence – the principle of temporal contamination – posed a threat to every person he would encounter. Frank Parker – United States Government highly classified savior of the planet itself, humankind's best kept secret – couldn't so much as walk a single city street without unleashing a plague of epic proportions in his wake. Whomever he came in contact with – if he believed what he had learned in the last few hours – would die. Whomever he met would become a statistic. Whomever he touched was doomed. Each person would suffer an excruciatingly painful demise – not a simple winking out or a peaceful passing over onto the other side – and these deaths would be his fault. How could he do his job? How could he save this world? How was anything possible? If what Mentnor said were true – if saving this world meant the very survival of two unique timelines – how could he do any good?
"Sleep," he muttered to himself. "Quit fooling yourself, Parker. Like you're going to catch forty winks with this kind of weight on your shoulders."
"You don't deserve any rest," he heard.
Rolling over, Parker faced the glass. On the other side stood a man – a tall, trim, athletic blond – whom he didn't recognize.
"I just watched three men – three very well educated and gifted field agents in the service of the CDC – die," the man explained, his face giving no hint of emotion. "I knew each of them from years of service to this country. One of them – hell, one of them I even trained with, for a short time, in the Central Intelligence Agency." The man heaved a heavy sighed as his eyes momentarily glazed over. "But I stood there, and I watched each of their faces lose hope, Frank. I watched helplessly as their bodies tried to sweat the poison you brought with you when you crossed into this world attacked their immune systems. I watched each man as he shriveled up on the hospital gurney. I watched as their vitals dipped below safe levels, and their bodies crashed. I watched as the med techs tried without hope to revive each of them when their hearts stopped and their souls drifted to wherever souls go once the body fails ... and, now, I'm standing here watching you."
Parker didn't say anything.
"You're alive," the man continued. "You're alive, and you're lying here in perfect health. Hell, you're practically a specimen of good health, put in a tank and on display. Kept under glass." His words trailed off, but, finally, the man smirked. "You're like a relic, Frank. A national treasure – locked away under lock and key – placed on display for anyone who'd want to walk up and see him. You're a museum piece ... only, this time, there's no audience waiting in line to admire the great Frank Parker."
"Do I know you, pal?"
"You're about to get to know me."
"If that's the case, then I sure as hell don't like what I've learned so far. How does that sound to you?"
The man laughed briefly.
"Is something funny about what I asked you, or are you just looking to release some misdirected testosterone at the wrong time and the wrong place?" Parker pressed harder, rising easily from the bunk and approaching the transparency.
The blond leaned against the frame, crossing his arms. If he were unnerved in any way, he didn't show it.
"I should be asking you the same question," he replied.
Locking eyes with the man, Parker said, "Look, I'm sorry about what happened to your friends. I am. If I had known that this was going to happen when I came out of the Backstep, then you take my word from one man to another that I damn straight never would have stepped into the Sphere ... but that isn't my job. I'm the chimp, you know? I'm the glorified monkey on each and every one of these test experiments, and there is no way possible for me to know what's waiting for me at the end of the time tunnel I'm forced down each and every time I get into it." Taking a breath, Parker forced himself to relax, to calm, but he saw the sarcastic expression on the blond man's face, and he couldn't help himself any longer. "Maybe you think there's something terribly funny about this situation that we find ourselves in, but I've been leaping through time long enough to know that – if there's one thing any person involved with Project Backstep should have – it's a healthy sense of humor. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to know what you think is so damn funny about all of this."
Unflinching, the man said, "I think you're funny, Frank."
"How do you know my name?"
"The legendary Frank Parker?" he offered.
"You can drop the 'legendary,'" Parker spat. "You've been calling me Frank since you walked up to the glass. There's no reason to be any nastier than you've already been, blondie."
"But shouldn't all of us know your name, Frank? Shouldn't all of us get down on our knees and worship the very soil you tread upon?" Righting himself, dropping his hands to his side, the man continued. "Or, now that you've become a menace to every possible cause you've ever served, why should we consider you anything but a laughing stock? A cartoon of your former self? An animal that instead of being put away safely in a cage should be killed, dissected, and studied so that not a single good man, woman, or child ever has to die again?"
Parker felt his rising anger, and he knew the man was only trying to intentionally piss him off.
"I've asked you your name," the chrononaut stated flatly. "I won't ask you again, and the only thing from beating it out of you is this glass that neither of us seems to be fond of ... so, why don't you do the both of us a favor, blondie? Why don't you go back down the corridor, make whatever turn you need to, and find the door that lets you inside here, and then the two of us can finish this conversation man-to-man?"
Sighing as if bored with Parker's refusal to admit any wrongdoing, the man smiled. "My name is Channing Michelson."
"Channing?"
"That's right."
"And what do you do around here, Channing?" Parker tried.
"What do I do?"
"That's right," he said. "Are you hard of hearing, or are you just good old-fashioned dumb?"
Michelson stiffened at the insult.
"What?" Parker asked. "Are you anybody important associated to the Backstep Program? No? Are you a security guard who woke up one morning and decided he should be in charge of the missions around here? Are you one of the technicians trained to refit the Sphere after it goes through another time warp? Or are you nothing more than a janitor who's lost his broom?"
Michelson lost his smile. "I'm the present chrononaut."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"You took as the lead chimp when I sacrificed myself on 9/11?"
"That's right."
Parker relaxed where he stood. "Then you of all people should understand how high up to my elbows I'm standing in your bullshit right now."
"Is that it?"
"So far as I see it, Channing, there's nothing else to see here. If you could see past your own stupidity, then you might reach the same conclusion."
Slowly, Michelson shook his head. "Don't expect any pity from me."
"Pity?"
"Yes," he said. "Isn't that what you want?"
Frustrated, Parker leaned one hand on the glass and drew his body closer to the man. "Pal, you're one misguided son-of-a-bitch! While you're preaching on about pity, we should be talking about saving life as we know it!"
"I wouldn't argue with that," Michelson retorted, "and, so long as you're stuck in this timeline, life itself remains in the greatest jeopardy."
"And you think that's my fault?"
"Who else is there to blame, Frank?"
Aghast, Parker held back his reply.
"Isn't that what's bothering you, Frank? You want to help, but you can't dismiss the guilt?"
The caged chrononaut didn't say a word.
"I mean ... you do want to help, don't you, Frank?" Michelson asked. "You want to rush out there like Frank Parker has always done, eh? The temporal cowboy on his personal crusade to alter the flow of events? You want to run out there, catch Black Bart, save the world, kiss the girl, and come back home to throw it all aside over a case of beer? Just you and your buddy, Donovan?" The man blinked several times, feigning any real interest in Parker's dilemma. "Tell me where I've missed a step, Frank. I'll be glad to walk you through it again."
Again, Parker restrained himself – he held back the torrent of anger he wanted to unleash on the man – and he stood there, facing the glass, ignoring the obvious taunts.
"What is it that's upsetting you most?" Michelson pried. "Help me to understand you, and I'll be glad to disappear. You know a thing or two about disappearing, if I've read the file correctly. You never cared much for being kept in your quarters, Frank, so you found your way through some of the facility's ventilation ducts into your own private space ... a place where you could escape, read, think, drink, or do whatever else you believe personally justified your continued participation in the program, right? I mean ... that's how serious you took this job, Frank. As I said, it's in your file. You deserved your privacy. Now, you have it ... and you're still not happy? So, tell me what it is, and I'll walk away."
Parker held his tongue. He wasn't going to cater to the angry man, and he certainly knew better than to cater to an angry man who had just watched three men die.
"Tell me, Frank," Michelson persisted. "Is it really about not being able to rush out there and do some good ... or is it that – for once in your life – you're completely unable to kiss the girl?"
"What's your problem with me, Channing?" Parker gave the man. "What is it? Did I do my job too well for you to handle? Did I set the bar too high? Are you ashamed to follow in my footsteps? What?"
"You're my problem, Frank," Michelson told him. "You've always been my problem. For the record, you were nothing but a problem to this entire program. I'm not talking about the tricks you pulled on security. I'm not talking about the disrespect you showed Bradley. I'm not talking about the pranks you pulled on Ramsey. I'm talking about just plain you." He gasped an angry breath when he said, "There are plenty of folks at the NSA who went on record after your death to say so. People whom you thought were your friends, your supporters? They bailed on you, Frank, and they did so because you were a risk to their careers. The people who really mattered to the long term success of a program like Backstep asked for re-assignment after that stunt you pulled on 9/11. They gave up the opportunity of not only their lifetime but, perhaps, the lifetime of humanity's existence all because they didn't want to be anywhere near any secret Senate subcommittee investigating what you did for the course of human history." Michelson's face had grown red. He paused, catching his breath, and added, "In your short, sorry life, you were more of a national disgrace than you'll possibly ever know."
Parker didn't say a word.
Exhausted with his vicious reply, Michelson nodded his head. "All things considered, I don't think I need to worry about you any longer."
Grimacing, Parker said, "It sounds like you have it all figured out, Channing."
Michelson cocked his head. "Come on, Frank. None of us – not even you – have it all figured out. If we did, then there wouldn't be the need for any Backsteps ever, don't you think?"
Parker considered the alternatives. Given what he knew and Michelson's disposition, he didn't know what to say.
"You can relax, and you can leave the dirty work to the adults now, Frank," the blond finally answered his own question.
"You think so?"
"I'd bet my career on it."
"No thanks," Parker denied. "I've already had your career. I wouldn't want another."
"You're crazier than your psych profile indicates if you think that the NSA will allow Bradley Talmadge to let you out of here any time soon, cowboy" the blond finally answered his own question. "No. You're going to sit here while the rest of us do whatever it is that's completely necessary to fix this mess of yours." Pointing at the chrononaut sealed behind the glass wall, Michelson added, "And I'm going to personally see to it that you don't so much as take a single breath any where near Olga ever again."
Olga?
"Olga?" Parker asked, surprised.
"You heard me."
Finished with his tirade, Michelson turned and started up the hallway. His steps were quick and stiff.
"Channing, what does any of this have to do with Olga?"
Craning his neck, the blond tried, "Wasn't it always about Olga with you, Frank?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Smiling back at the glass wall, Michelson continued to walk away.
End of Chapter 35
Six Days, Four Hours, Fifty-Eight Minutes
On the mattress, Frank Parker lie perfectly still, his arm under the pillow and his head cradled in softness. He kept his eyes closed, trying to do as Talmadge had instructed, trying to get some quality sleep, but the reality of his situation kept nagging him from any true prospect of rest.
Was he really a danger to everyone around him?
Backstepping became the purpose behind his existence – a fragile one, he knew, but weren't they all? After being recruited to the program – after being given the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of a government he had long served and believed betrayed – Parker dedicated himself to being the best that he could once more. He committed his efforts to becoming a chrononaut – to making a difference in not one, not two, not three, but in the millions of lives he would never see, never know, and never touch in any other way but making things right. Sure, he continued to drink. Sure, he continued to womanize. He was human, after all, and he accepted the psychological and physical baggage that came along with the flesh, but backstepping – in its own logical and illogical ways – excused those inconsequential flaws. You save the world, you open a six-pack. It went hand-in-hand, as far as he was concerned. Who wouldn't toss back a stiff shot of Jack Daniels after righting the wrong of nuclear annihilation? His job – if there were any – drove him to drink, but it never impaired his ability to correct injustices. He never allowed that to happen.
But here ...?
And now ...?
The fact of his mere presence – the principle of temporal contamination – posed a threat to every person he would encounter. Frank Parker – United States Government highly classified savior of the planet itself, humankind's best kept secret – couldn't so much as walk a single city street without unleashing a plague of epic proportions in his wake. Whomever he came in contact with – if he believed what he had learned in the last few hours – would die. Whomever he met would become a statistic. Whomever he touched was doomed. Each person would suffer an excruciatingly painful demise – not a simple winking out or a peaceful passing over onto the other side – and these deaths would be his fault. How could he do his job? How could he save this world? How was anything possible? If what Mentnor said were true – if saving this world meant the very survival of two unique timelines – how could he do any good?
"Sleep," he muttered to himself. "Quit fooling yourself, Parker. Like you're going to catch forty winks with this kind of weight on your shoulders."
"You don't deserve any rest," he heard.
Rolling over, Parker faced the glass. On the other side stood a man – a tall, trim, athletic blond – whom he didn't recognize.
"I just watched three men – three very well educated and gifted field agents in the service of the CDC – die," the man explained, his face giving no hint of emotion. "I knew each of them from years of service to this country. One of them – hell, one of them I even trained with, for a short time, in the Central Intelligence Agency." The man heaved a heavy sighed as his eyes momentarily glazed over. "But I stood there, and I watched each of their faces lose hope, Frank. I watched helplessly as their bodies tried to sweat the poison you brought with you when you crossed into this world attacked their immune systems. I watched each man as he shriveled up on the hospital gurney. I watched as their vitals dipped below safe levels, and their bodies crashed. I watched as the med techs tried without hope to revive each of them when their hearts stopped and their souls drifted to wherever souls go once the body fails ... and, now, I'm standing here watching you."
Parker didn't say anything.
"You're alive," the man continued. "You're alive, and you're lying here in perfect health. Hell, you're practically a specimen of good health, put in a tank and on display. Kept under glass." His words trailed off, but, finally, the man smirked. "You're like a relic, Frank. A national treasure – locked away under lock and key – placed on display for anyone who'd want to walk up and see him. You're a museum piece ... only, this time, there's no audience waiting in line to admire the great Frank Parker."
"Do I know you, pal?"
"You're about to get to know me."
"If that's the case, then I sure as hell don't like what I've learned so far. How does that sound to you?"
The man laughed briefly.
"Is something funny about what I asked you, or are you just looking to release some misdirected testosterone at the wrong time and the wrong place?" Parker pressed harder, rising easily from the bunk and approaching the transparency.
The blond leaned against the frame, crossing his arms. If he were unnerved in any way, he didn't show it.
"I should be asking you the same question," he replied.
Locking eyes with the man, Parker said, "Look, I'm sorry about what happened to your friends. I am. If I had known that this was going to happen when I came out of the Backstep, then you take my word from one man to another that I damn straight never would have stepped into the Sphere ... but that isn't my job. I'm the chimp, you know? I'm the glorified monkey on each and every one of these test experiments, and there is no way possible for me to know what's waiting for me at the end of the time tunnel I'm forced down each and every time I get into it." Taking a breath, Parker forced himself to relax, to calm, but he saw the sarcastic expression on the blond man's face, and he couldn't help himself any longer. "Maybe you think there's something terribly funny about this situation that we find ourselves in, but I've been leaping through time long enough to know that – if there's one thing any person involved with Project Backstep should have – it's a healthy sense of humor. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to know what you think is so damn funny about all of this."
Unflinching, the man said, "I think you're funny, Frank."
"How do you know my name?"
"The legendary Frank Parker?" he offered.
"You can drop the 'legendary,'" Parker spat. "You've been calling me Frank since you walked up to the glass. There's no reason to be any nastier than you've already been, blondie."
"But shouldn't all of us know your name, Frank? Shouldn't all of us get down on our knees and worship the very soil you tread upon?" Righting himself, dropping his hands to his side, the man continued. "Or, now that you've become a menace to every possible cause you've ever served, why should we consider you anything but a laughing stock? A cartoon of your former self? An animal that instead of being put away safely in a cage should be killed, dissected, and studied so that not a single good man, woman, or child ever has to die again?"
Parker felt his rising anger, and he knew the man was only trying to intentionally piss him off.
"I've asked you your name," the chrononaut stated flatly. "I won't ask you again, and the only thing from beating it out of you is this glass that neither of us seems to be fond of ... so, why don't you do the both of us a favor, blondie? Why don't you go back down the corridor, make whatever turn you need to, and find the door that lets you inside here, and then the two of us can finish this conversation man-to-man?"
Sighing as if bored with Parker's refusal to admit any wrongdoing, the man smiled. "My name is Channing Michelson."
"Channing?"
"That's right."
"And what do you do around here, Channing?" Parker tried.
"What do I do?"
"That's right," he said. "Are you hard of hearing, or are you just good old-fashioned dumb?"
Michelson stiffened at the insult.
"What?" Parker asked. "Are you anybody important associated to the Backstep Program? No? Are you a security guard who woke up one morning and decided he should be in charge of the missions around here? Are you one of the technicians trained to refit the Sphere after it goes through another time warp? Or are you nothing more than a janitor who's lost his broom?"
Michelson lost his smile. "I'm the present chrononaut."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"You took as the lead chimp when I sacrificed myself on 9/11?"
"That's right."
Parker relaxed where he stood. "Then you of all people should understand how high up to my elbows I'm standing in your bullshit right now."
"Is that it?"
"So far as I see it, Channing, there's nothing else to see here. If you could see past your own stupidity, then you might reach the same conclusion."
Slowly, Michelson shook his head. "Don't expect any pity from me."
"Pity?"
"Yes," he said. "Isn't that what you want?"
Frustrated, Parker leaned one hand on the glass and drew his body closer to the man. "Pal, you're one misguided son-of-a-bitch! While you're preaching on about pity, we should be talking about saving life as we know it!"
"I wouldn't argue with that," Michelson retorted, "and, so long as you're stuck in this timeline, life itself remains in the greatest jeopardy."
"And you think that's my fault?"
"Who else is there to blame, Frank?"
Aghast, Parker held back his reply.
"Isn't that what's bothering you, Frank? You want to help, but you can't dismiss the guilt?"
The caged chrononaut didn't say a word.
"I mean ... you do want to help, don't you, Frank?" Michelson asked. "You want to rush out there like Frank Parker has always done, eh? The temporal cowboy on his personal crusade to alter the flow of events? You want to run out there, catch Black Bart, save the world, kiss the girl, and come back home to throw it all aside over a case of beer? Just you and your buddy, Donovan?" The man blinked several times, feigning any real interest in Parker's dilemma. "Tell me where I've missed a step, Frank. I'll be glad to walk you through it again."
Again, Parker restrained himself – he held back the torrent of anger he wanted to unleash on the man – and he stood there, facing the glass, ignoring the obvious taunts.
"What is it that's upsetting you most?" Michelson pried. "Help me to understand you, and I'll be glad to disappear. You know a thing or two about disappearing, if I've read the file correctly. You never cared much for being kept in your quarters, Frank, so you found your way through some of the facility's ventilation ducts into your own private space ... a place where you could escape, read, think, drink, or do whatever else you believe personally justified your continued participation in the program, right? I mean ... that's how serious you took this job, Frank. As I said, it's in your file. You deserved your privacy. Now, you have it ... and you're still not happy? So, tell me what it is, and I'll walk away."
Parker held his tongue. He wasn't going to cater to the angry man, and he certainly knew better than to cater to an angry man who had just watched three men die.
"Tell me, Frank," Michelson persisted. "Is it really about not being able to rush out there and do some good ... or is it that – for once in your life – you're completely unable to kiss the girl?"
"What's your problem with me, Channing?" Parker gave the man. "What is it? Did I do my job too well for you to handle? Did I set the bar too high? Are you ashamed to follow in my footsteps? What?"
"You're my problem, Frank," Michelson told him. "You've always been my problem. For the record, you were nothing but a problem to this entire program. I'm not talking about the tricks you pulled on security. I'm not talking about the disrespect you showed Bradley. I'm not talking about the pranks you pulled on Ramsey. I'm talking about just plain you." He gasped an angry breath when he said, "There are plenty of folks at the NSA who went on record after your death to say so. People whom you thought were your friends, your supporters? They bailed on you, Frank, and they did so because you were a risk to their careers. The people who really mattered to the long term success of a program like Backstep asked for re-assignment after that stunt you pulled on 9/11. They gave up the opportunity of not only their lifetime but, perhaps, the lifetime of humanity's existence all because they didn't want to be anywhere near any secret Senate subcommittee investigating what you did for the course of human history." Michelson's face had grown red. He paused, catching his breath, and added, "In your short, sorry life, you were more of a national disgrace than you'll possibly ever know."
Parker didn't say a word.
Exhausted with his vicious reply, Michelson nodded his head. "All things considered, I don't think I need to worry about you any longer."
Grimacing, Parker said, "It sounds like you have it all figured out, Channing."
Michelson cocked his head. "Come on, Frank. None of us – not even you – have it all figured out. If we did, then there wouldn't be the need for any Backsteps ever, don't you think?"
Parker considered the alternatives. Given what he knew and Michelson's disposition, he didn't know what to say.
"You can relax, and you can leave the dirty work to the adults now, Frank," the blond finally answered his own question.
"You think so?"
"I'd bet my career on it."
"No thanks," Parker denied. "I've already had your career. I wouldn't want another."
"You're crazier than your psych profile indicates if you think that the NSA will allow Bradley Talmadge to let you out of here any time soon, cowboy" the blond finally answered his own question. "No. You're going to sit here while the rest of us do whatever it is that's completely necessary to fix this mess of yours." Pointing at the chrononaut sealed behind the glass wall, Michelson added, "And I'm going to personally see to it that you don't so much as take a single breath any where near Olga ever again."
Olga?
"Olga?" Parker asked, surprised.
"You heard me."
Finished with his tirade, Michelson turned and started up the hallway. His steps were quick and stiff.
"Channing, what does any of this have to do with Olga?"
Craning his neck, the blond tried, "Wasn't it always about Olga with you, Frank?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Smiling back at the glass wall, Michelson continued to walk away.
End of Chapter 35