Behind him, Mark waits another few seconds, thinking. How’d it all go so wrong… how’d it get to this?
The only answer that comes are the sounds of the guards’ footfalls getting closer. Mark doesn’t want a fight with them — he doesn’t doubt for a second that they’re just doing their job, just taking orders from General Anderholt.
How deep is he in it? Mark wonders as the general crosses his thoughts. How much does he know?
The questions will have to wait. The footfalls are closer, just a dozen feet away now. Without another thought, Mark steps through the gate.
19 — Dulce Depths
The men exit the room marked ‘storage room,’ leaving the time shed behind them. Turn is amazed to see that they’re back in Dulce Base.
“Here?” he says.
“Was the last place programmed into the time shed,” Bennewitz says.
“Yeah, but why?’ Mark asks.
“And when are we?” Walter adds. “In case you’ve forgotten, we blew the hell outta this place with Stu’s CED device.”
“Good question,” Mark says, nodding his head. “We don’t want be around here when…”
The men narrow their eyes and look at Mark as he trails-off. He’s got his own eyes narrowed but is looking past them. The others turn to see what he sees, and their eyes go wide.
“What the hell?” Turn says as he watches himself run by. Before anyone can answer, Andy, Johnny and then Aaron run by as well.
“We’re in Dulce, and just before the place blows,” Bennewitz says.
“And just before Aaron betrays us,” Walter adds.
“So let’s stop him!” Turn nearly shouts, nearly bolting away on his fast legs as well. A hand on his shoulder from Mark stays him, however.
“No,” Mark says, shaking his head, “that strand of time has already run its course, and we’ll let it do so again in this timeframe as well.”
“Timeframe?” Turn says. “Hell, Mark — Aaron killed two of my friends back there… you think I’m just gonna let him do it again?”
“I don’t think, I know,” Mark says, a coldness in his eyes as he looks at Turn. “We didn’t come here to chase after Aaron.”
“Yeah, we came here to get away from Blue Lake… and didn’t even know that here was here!” Walter says.
“But now that we are here,” Mark says, “let’s make the best of it, let’s see why that time shed was set to this time, and this place.”
No one argues with that, though Turn does take in a deep breath and lets it out in a slow sigh, shaking his head all the while. No one much pays attention. Instead they begin to move in the opposite way that Aaron and the others had gone. They start to… but then stop. They hear more footfalls behind them, rushing toward them this time and not away.
“Get back,” Mark says, urging them up against the wall. A moment later, Aaron reappears, a bloody knife in his hand. He moves past them, far enough away and moving fast enough that he doesn’t see them, and then takes a bend in the long tunnel and disappears from view.
“C’mon,” Mark says, “let’s see what he’s up to.”
“Oh, so now you wanna follow him, after he’s killed Johnny again.”
No one says anything to that, they just start down the tunnel. Walter is around it first, and he’s just in time to see Aaron duck into a door marked ‘storage room.’
“Well I’ll be damned,” Bennewitz says. “Bastard time-hopped outta here just before the others took off in the X-22.”
“But Aaron was on the X-22 with me!” Mark says.
“Musta jumped out and then right back in,” Walter says. “You know that with a time shed, anything is possible.”
Mark nods to that, then looks from the door to the others. “Let’s see where he goes.”
“Oh, not again!” Bennewitz says. “You know how badly jumping into an unmanned time shed can turn out.”
“Yeah, but we got enough time to read the display and see where it’s going this time,” Mark says as he starts toward the door.
The men get into the storage room and do just that, Bennewitz going up to the control panel to decipher what the light and button display is telling him. After a few moments he shakes his head, puts his hands on his hips, and turns back to them.
“Sure you wanna know?”
“Tell us,” Mark says.
“Alright, but you ain’t gonna like it.” He shakes his head again before blurting it out. “Venus… looks like Aaron went to Venus.”
“Venus?” Turn says.
“Only one thing’s at Venus,” Walter says, looking to Mark.
Mark nods. “Then let’s get on board.”
With that he steps into the still-shimmering gateway and disappears. After giving a few uneasy looks to one another, the other three men do the same.
20 — On Board
Turn comes out of the shimmering gateway and into a place he doesn’t recognize. The room the four of them find themselves in looks about the same size as the room they were just in a few minutes before back at Blue Lake, though there’s no chair, no Carl or Anderholt, no base guards, and certainly no aliens. Not yet, Turn thinks on the latter, and continues to scan his surroundings. The place certainly isn’t Dulce, Turn knows. That place was strange, but not this strange. It’s not that the room is different — it’s that the whole construction and design is different. He can’t recognize the metal used for the floor, or what the walls are made out of exactly. The lighting is strange, like nothing he’s ever seen before. Even the door in front of them looks funny, like nothing you’d ever see on Earth.
“Welcome to space,” Bennewitz says, and Turn looks up to see the wild-eyed man smiling at him.
“Space?”
Walter chuckles at Turn’s surprise. “I imagine my face looked about the same as yours does the first time I was teleported out here.”
“’Out here’… where’s out here?”
“Venus, like I said back at Dulce,” Mark answers, not paying attention to Turn as he checks his pockets. A moment later Bennewitz taps him on the shoulder and hands over 9mm pistol.”
“Not the sharpest tool in the box, but it’ll do,” he says as Mark takes the weapon.
“Venus,” Turn says again, “…so what do we do and how do we get back?”
“What we do is follow Aaron,” Mark says, nodding at the door. “He would have came through as the coordinates of the teleporter weren’t changed.”
“And what the hell’s he doin’ on a mothership 162 million miles from Earth, huh?” Bennewitz says.
“It’s time we find out,” Mark says, and moves to the door, opens it, and then after looking both ways and pulling his head in to give the others a nod, he heads through it. The others are right behind him.
They start moving down the corridors quickly, a half-jog almost.
The inside of the ship looks nothing like Turn imagined it would. The ceiling is tall, perhaps ten feet above their heads. The walls look metal but Turn can tell they’re not. They’re solid and almost seem to undulate, and here and there a control panel can be seen, God knows what function they have, Turn thinks. The walkways are metal. Some sections are solid while others are fence-like grates, allowing them to see down to sections below. Their booted-feet send a ‘ringing’ sound echoing down the corridors as they move. The lighting is dark and a faint orange, though here and there a purplish light can be seen. It’s hard to make things out, and not for the first time does Turn wonder if he should put on his night vision goggles.