Chapter 5

C, a tall, stern-looking woman in a black tube skirt suit with her white hair pulled tightly back into a bun, calmly walked up, looked down at Ralph, and asked, "Who or what is this, and what was that portal thing that has now appeared twice? I want some answers. Bring him to the infirmary." She walked away. She was obviously in charge of this facility.

Several agents said, "Yes, ma'am," and began scurrying.

A stretcher was brought forward, and Ralph was placed on it and rushed to the infirmary, where he was shifted to an examination bed. Large chrome rings came from around the bottom and rolled over Ralph's arms and legs, holding him to the bed. Both human and alien doctors examined him using medical devices of various types. It was soon determined that he was human primarily but with small amounts of alien DNA from an ancient alien race that was now extinct. Ralph remained unconscious for over two hours.

Ralph opened his eyes and saw several people and several types of aliens surrounding the bed. He tried to sit up but couldn't move. He looked down at his body and saw the chrome rings holding his arms and legs. He pulled at the rings but couldn't budge them. In his mind, he asked, 'Suit, what is happening?' Suit didn't respond. He could only feel a slight vibration coming from the suit. Frantically, he asked, "What have you done to Suit?"

Everyone looked at each other, and one woman in a black suit said, "We haven't done anything to your bio/cyber suit."

Ralph asked, "Have you seen a woman with black hair come through a portal? She would have the same type of suit I have on?" Everyone shook their head—or what Ralph assumed was a head in some cases.

"Damn, those guys messed up again and sent me to the wrong timeline!" he exclaimed, with a concerned look and shaking his head.

He pulled on the restraints and demanded, "Let me out of here! I must go back and tell them I'm in the wrong place. I have to find Pam." Then he remembered he couldn't go back for one week. He stopped pulling against the restraints and said, "Damn, I can't go back for a week. I'm stuck here."

The woman who had spoken before said, "Release the bonds. I'll take responsibility for this one." The rings rolled back from around his arms and legs, and Ralph rubbed his arms to regain circulation.

He sat up and said, "Thank you. I'm Ralph Hinkley."

She was a short, pretty black woman and said, "I'm Agent M. Where are you from? You were saying something about a different timeline."

Ralph smiled and said, "That is hard to explain, and I don't understand all the science involved. If Suit was conscious, he could explain it all to you. Yes, I'm from another timeline, is all I can tell you."

M asked, "Your suit is sentient?"

Ralph answered, "Yes, but he isn't responding to my prompts. Going through the timeline, the transverse portal must have done something to him. I hope he returns; we've been together for a long time."

M asked, "Mr. Hinkley?"

Ralph said, "Call me Ralph, please."

"Ralph, our medical examination of you shows that you are mostly human but with a small amount of alien DNA from a civilization that is now extinct."

Ralph replied, "Yeah, that's the DNA enhancement, as the green guys called it. They never told us it was their DNA they were giving us. There have been a few side effects from that."

M said, "You called them green guys."

Ralph said, "Their language is in hisses, squeaks, and whistles; we could never understand it, let alone speak it, so we started calling them green guys, or rather, my partner at the time started it because their skin was all green."

M said, "So they are alive in your timeline?"

Ralph answered, "Yes, but only a few are left. There is only one ship of the little green guys; they are the ones who gave us the suits," pointing to the suit. "They are good guys and told us they want to help our garden planet, not destroy itself as they had destroyed their planet. We found out later that the large green guys, whom the little green guys had a war with, were not all dead and had been hiding in underground bases on their planet. They attacked Earth, and we Heroes—what we in the red suits call ourselves—had to fight them to save Earth. We closed the wormhole they had opened so they couldn't come through, but they're still out there, and we figured they would be back. That was why our scientists were looking for other timelines that could help us with advanced technologies that we could use against the large green guys. My wife Pam was accidentally pulled into the first open portal."

M said, "Ah, so Pam is your wife; that is why you are so frantic to find her."

Ralph replied, "Yes, and she is pregnant with our first child. I don't know if any of this portal jumping will harm the baby."

M asked, "The symbol on your suit, where did that come from?"

Ralph answered, "That was there when I got the suit. It is also on the green guy's uniforms. The large green guys have a black version of our suit with a different symbol. I always assumed it was some form of clan sign."

M" said, "Let me show you something." She brought over a computer screen and started punching buttons on the screen. An image of a man in long robes with long grey hair and a long beard appeared on the screen. A red shirt with the same symbol as on Ralph's suit could be seen between the robe openings in the front.

Ralph looked at it and asked, "Who is that?"

M answered, "That is Merlin, the magician from over 1500 years ago. We all know this symbol from the King Arthur legends. Don't you have that in your timeline?"

Ralph said incredulously, "Yes, we have Merlin and King Arthur, but Merlin never wore a red suit with that symbol in our timeline."

Then it hit him. He exclaimed, "Do you think Pam somehow went back in time and met Merlin in your timeline when she came through? That would explain the symbol on Merlin's chest and why Pam wasn't here when the scientists swore this was where she came through. The only way Merlin could have gotten a red suit was from another Hero—it must have been Pam."

M replied, "It makes logical sense."

Ralph exclaimed, "Great, now we have to figure out how to time travel as well," closing his eyes, shaking his head, and rubbing his mouth with his right hand. "I will be stuck here for at least another week."