D. MacHale - The Pilgrims of Rayne

I grabbed the hands and pulled, dragging it along. I couldn’t take my eyes off the head as it bounced along the gravelly track bed. I don’t mean to be gruesome about it, but it was kind of gruesome. I had to keep telling myself it was a machine. Just a machine. Just a machine. A toaster oven. A lawn mower. A weed whacker.

Then the machine grabbed my leg.

I screamed like a little girl. The thing was still alive! Or whatever the robot equivalent of “alive” is. It yanked my leg, trying to pull me off my feet. I grabbed a fistful of rotten clothing and struggled to drag it the rest of the way into the flume cavern. I now had two body halves to deal with. The legs were dead. The upper torso wasn’t. I kicked at it, trying to get the grisly thing to let go. It was the single creepiest thing I had ever experienced in my life. Finally I gave the arm a sharp kick with my free leg and knocked it away. Without hesitation I ran for the flume and shouted, “Quillan!”

The flume came to life. I spun to face the upper half. It lay next to its lower half, facedown. Unmoving. I wondered if it had grabbed me in some kind of involuntary reaction, or if it could still think. I didn’t want to take any chances. I walked cautiously back to the legs, keeping my eyes on the upper half, ready for it to grab at me again. I bent down, grabbed the legs, and quickly dragged them toward the mouth of the tunnel. The thing still had its holster on with the pistol. I thought of grabbing the gun but remembered the blast of energy had no effect on dados. With a grunt I heaved the legs up and used the weight of its butt to fling the whole mess into the flume. It was time to get the upper half.

Unfortunately, the upper half decided it was time to get me. When I turned, I saw the dado up on its hands, bracing its body in a macabre handstand. Worse, it was running toward me. It was like some twisted horror movie. I moved one way, the torso mirrored me. I moved the other way, the torso did too. I faked back, then quickly circled behind it. Now the torso of the robot was between me and the flume. It may have been relentless, but it didn’t have much agility. It turned around to face me. Yes, face me. The head was upside down, but the eyes fixed on me. Its prey. It wasn’t going to give up.

Neither was I. The explosion of light and music blasted from the flume. I ran forward, swept up the torso, spun, and heaved it into the light. Even as it sailed away from me, its hands grasped at the air, trying to grab me. That’s a nightmare I won’t soon forget. The thing disappeared into the light, headed back to Quillan. Along with its legs. Good riddance.

I felt the tug of the flume as it tried to suck me along with it. The idea of sailing through the flume along with those gruesome body parts gave me the burst of adrenaline I needed to dig my heels in and back away from the tunnel. I didn’t need to be grappling with half a robot in the flume. I needed to be on First Earth, with Courtney.

Courtney. Right. Where was she? I wasn’t done yet. I had to get out of the gate and past the subway wreck without anyone realizing the crash was sort of my fault. We hadn’t been on First Earth for more than ten minutes and I was already longing to be somewhere else.

(CONTINUED)

I had to get gone. The last thing I needed was for some panicky victim of the train wreck to stumble onto the gate, throw it open, and see me standing there out of breath, looking like an idiot. I cautiously opened the wooden door and peeked out. The last of the three subway cars was right there. Luckily the door to the car was already past the gate. People were starting to climb out, helping one another slip down the few feet to the track bed. Choking smoke was everywhere. That was okay by me. It was good cover. I slipped out of the gate, closed it behind me, and walked quickly to join the others. I hoped nobody would notice one more victim.

“Keep moving!” shouted a firefighter with a flashlight. “Everything’s okay! The platform’s not far. Keep moving!”

I put my head down and got in line behind an older guy who was having trouble making his way over the uneven surface. I took his arm to steady him and helped him the rest of the way. The guy needed a strong arm. I needed cover. Perfect. There wasn’t any panic.

I think everyone was too dazed for that. I helped the older guy all the way to the cement stairs that led up to the station platform.

“Thank you, son,” he said gratefully. “I can take it from here.”

He was a little shaky, but okay. He climbed the stairs and disappeared into the mass of people on the platform.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” a policeman yelled. They were trying to herd people toward the exits. “It’s over! Nothing to see here!”

Actually, there was a lot to see, but I guess that was their standard line. I stood next to a white-tiled pillar to get away from the crowd of people who were moving toward the exit. Now that I was just another face in the crowd, my head was already on to the next challenge. Find Courtney. The station looked the same as I remembered it. This was 1937. People were dressed up. The men had on suits and hats. The women wore dresses. No jeans or sneakers anywhere. On the far side of the platform I saw a newsstand.

A newsstand! With newspapers. With dates! The big question was still out there-what was today’s date? The success or failure of our trip to find Mark would ride on when the flume had deposited us on First Earth. I pushed my way through the crowd, which wasn’t easy because nobody was going the same way I was. There wasn’t a whole lot of interest in buying newspapers just then. Finally I stepped up to the newsstand and grabbed a copy of the New York Times.

The date? November 1, 1937.

Was this good or bad? My mind flashed back to the library on Third Earth. History showed that the patent for Mark’s Forge thingy was filed in October. We were too late to stop that. But the computer also said that some kind of announcement was made between that KEM company and the Dimond Alpha Digital Organization in November. Mark disappeared right after that. According to the paper, today was November 1. Whatever happened to Mark probably hadn’t happened yet. We might have arrived in time to find out what exactly had happened. Or what was going to happen. Or… you get the idea. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the news. Yes, we had a shot at intervening in Mark’s history. Did that mean First Earth was about to have another turning point?

“Hey! You gonna buy that paper or what?” came a gruff voice.

I looked to see the exact same newsguy sitting behind the counter who chewed me out for the exact same thing the last time I was there. He was a porky little gnome wearing a red plaid shirt. He still chomped on the little stub of a cigar and still needed a shave.

But he wasn’t talking to me.

I heard a girl’s voice bark, “Oh, relax, Yoda. People are too busy running for their lives to buy your stupid newspapers!”

It was Courtney. She was standing a few yards away doing the same thing

I was-checking the newspapers for today’s date.

“Yoda?” I called out with a smile.

Courtney lit up with a big, relieved smile. She ran over and gave me a hug like she thought she’d never see me again. “Bobby! I never thought I’d see you again!” See.

“What happened?” she asked frantically. “Are you all right? What happened with the dados? Did they cause the wreck of the-“

“O-kay!” I shouted, cutting her off. “Let’s talk outside.”

“Yeah,” the newsguy grumped. “Take it outside and stop getting fingerprints all over the goods.”

“It’s old news anyway,” Courtney sniffed. “In case you missed it, there was a train wreck.” She always had to get in the last shot.