Paul Jones - Towards Yesterday

Simone had smiled at Jim, thanked him for his time and left, along with her crew. Now here she was, explaining to her viewers the process of the experiment and its set up. Her voice was hushed and concerned as she spoke directly to the camera, her back to Lorentz. The microphone, suspended from the limb of the boom-mike held by the cadaverous Beaumont, hung over her head as she spoke directly to the camera.

Lorentz was concentrating on calibrating the equipment; Jim could see his eyes scanning over the figures displayed on his VDU, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he entered data into the system. With a final stab at the enter key he swung around and collided with Simone’s back, sending her staggering forward. The cameraman threw out a free arm and caught the stumbling woman before she could fall.

“Good God almighty,” bellowed Lorentz, “Must you follow me everywhere? I have a job to do here. Do you people not realize what’s at stake? Do you think your God is going to wave a finger and stop what’s about to take place from happening? Do you? Well do you?” Spittle flew from his mouth as his rage and frustration began to manifest.

Simone stood up and adjusted her crumpled suit, turned to Gallagher and said something to him that Jim did not catch. He immediately brought the camera to bear on Lorentz and Jim watched the color in the Doctor’s face go from pink to nuclear red.

“You have been quoted as having accepted the blame for the Slip , Professor Lorentz. Father Pike has also been quoted as saying that he believes that is just scientific ego attempting to claim responsibility for God’s great work. How do you feel about that?” Simone finished her question with a slight inquisitive tilt of her head, awaiting the professor’s reply.

Lorentz raised his finger and pointed it directly at the camera, seemingly on the verge of exploding. No words came from his mouth such was his rage, they were trapped behind his teeth, battling to be first out, first to make the cutting blow that would reduce this bunch of interlopers to so much chopped liver. A pale Mina Belkov stepped up to Lorentz and took his elbow in her hand, but the scientist shook her off.

Unarmored and unarmed, Jim jumped into the fray. “Why don’t I show you the rest of the facility,” he said softly to Simone as he stepped between the camera and the glowering Lorentz. “Follow me,” he continued, his tone of voice making his words a command rather than a request.

Simone gazed at Jim before saying, “Sure, but we will need to be back here for the final experiment—come on, let’s go.”

“I need a bathroom break anyway,” said Gallagher as he laid his camera equipment on a table near the doorway. “The damn food here is playing havoc with my system.” As if to emphasize the point, he let loose a loud belch. “I’ll catch up with you in the other room.”

Jim escorted the group out into the corridor and pointed in the direction of the men’s bathroom. “The men’s room is down there,” he said to the cameraman. Looking back into the room as the door closed behind them he caught sight of a fuming, visibly shaking, Professor Lorentz speaking angrily to Mina.

When will this day be over? he wondered.

Something was happening with the crowd outside the security fence.

From his position within the security-booth at the complex’s front gate, Corporal Robert Parsons heard the murmur of a thousand voices whispering as one. It sounded like the distant rumble of half-heard thunder.

Glancing at his watch, the young guard saw it was nearing twenty-five minutes to midnight. Outside his warm booth, the overhead security lights illuminated the darkness to only midway across the perimeter road. It was too dark for him to make out the massed church demonstrators who had set-up camp on the opposite side of it. They remained hidden from him in the darkness of a starless night.

Opening the door to his security booth, Parsons stepped outside into the cool night air. The noise from across the road was louder outside of the sound proofed glass booth, but it was still little more than an unintelligible murmur to him; like a conversation heard through the plasterboard wall of a cheap motel.

But the young soldier could sense something was going on and it set the hairs on the back of his crew-cut head tingling. For a moment, Corporal Parsons felt a creeping unease claw its way up his back, but then his training kicked in and he took a step closer to the closed security gate.

The twenty-acre lot housing the Project Tach-Comm team and its precious experiment remained secure on all sides thanks to the miles of deadly high-voltage electrified fencing surrounding the complex’s perimeter. If anybody was stupid enough to try to gain access to the facility through the fence, well, they would be in for the shock of their lives: literally.

The gate the young soldier guarded was the only entrance into the complex, so if there was going to be any trouble, it would be focused here. He was confident he could call up sufficient reinforcements to hold the gate from any kind of assault, if the need arose. Within a few minutes he could have thirty-plus heavily—armed soldiers at his side, all it would take was a simple radio call from him.

Suddenly, the rhythmic sound of the chanting voices ceased, replaced by a silence broken only by the chirruping background hum of a thousand cicadas.

Corporal Parsons took another tentative step closer to the gate. There was something moving out there, he was sure of it, out there deep in the shadows beyond the security lights. His eyes strained to see past the umbra of the high—intensity floodlighting, but he could not make out any discernable shapes.

When they finally stepped into the light, the startled soldier let out a sharp gasp of shock. A thousand men, women and children were walking purposefully from the darkness across the road toward him, their arms interlocked with their neighbor’s in a line which stretched off in both directions along the road.

He staggered back as their collective voices suddenly cut through the air. The night was abruptly alive with a mass of voices singing as one, praising the glory of God on high as they marched in unison across the road towards the security fence.

Shaking off the shock of what he was witnessing, the Parsons sprinted back to the security booth, grabbed the red emergency phone and quickly dialed in a four-digit number.

“Sir!” he shouted into the phone, trying to make himself heard over the rising surge of voices outside. “We have a serious problem out here.” Parsons quickly relayed what he was witnessing to the person at the other end of the line who in turn told him exactly what he should do. “Yes, Sir,” he replied and slammed down the phone.

Grabbing his M16 from the rack, he rammed home a magazine of live ammo and hit the large red button fixed to the wall near the door of the booth. Immediately the Waaaa-Waaaa drone of the emergency klaxon began ululating through the still night air of the base. Parsons knew that right now all off-shift security personnel would be frantically throwing on their uniforms, grabbing their weapons and making their way to his location. It was a reassuring thought for the young man.

He could see the glare of the lights from the mobile security patrol’s electric carts already heading his way.

Glancing at the front gate, and the approaching hoard of protestors beyond it, he chambered a round into his weapon and stepped out to face them.

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Jim tersely asked Simone, as he escorted both her and her soundman, Beaumont, down the corridor toward the room housing the project’s receiving equipment.