Free Gravewalkers: Dying Time by Richard T. Schrader

already
came back. If you will just relax and trust me, this will be
entirely safe and nearly painless as you said so
yourself.”
    Critias indulged the man,
“So I go back in time to change history?”
    “ Not at all,” the doctor
patted Critias’ shoulder. “You were there already as a happened
fact of our current history, only for this you, it still remains
part of your future. Think of it as a wormhole with one end fixed
in the past when you arrived there long ago, and for that reason
alone, it will be possible for me to open this end here and now.
The doorway has been traveling here for centuries since before you
were even born. Think of it as your destiny, which it
is.”
    Critias wanted to test the
logic, “And if I don’t go now?”
    “ You will willingly,” Kine
assured him, “but for the sake of argument, I suppose we discover
what happens when you actually do change the past and cause a
paradox. You’re not going back to change history with a paradox
because it is you going back now that is preventing one. We are
only here now, because you were already there then. You
see?”
    “ This is the craziest
thing I’ve ever heard, doctor,” Critias told him honestly. “How do
we know that my going back like this doesn’t cause the Outbreak in
the first place?”
    Kine explained, “Because
you won’t be going back that far. The infection has already ravaged
the world in the time when you arrive.”
    Critias saw no use in
arguing about things he could not understand. He was sure that
Grand Marshal Wayne had sent him to Doctor Kine to cooperate and so
that was what Critias would do. “When do I leave then? Do I have
time to make preparations?”
    The doctor led Critias to
the machine that would send him, “Everything you need will be there
waiting for you. You step into here, and I’ll take care of the
rest.”
    Critias climbed into the
center of a confining focal point of flux generators then asked,
“Why are things ready for me?”
    The doctor began typing
commands into one of his computer interfaces, “I’ll start sending
all of the equipment you require after you go so that it arrives
before you. There is nothing to worry about; you already made it
home safely. All you need to do is enjoy the ride.”
    The selected machine was
huge and intimidating for all its weighty complexity especially
when Critias stood in the middle of it with all the comforts of
being at the center of a circular firing squad. Mammoth
superconducting magnets encased Critias within an extreme
electromagnetic field. That field captured an infinitesimally small
quasi-dimensional hole that had been on its way for centuries to
arrive just in time for the doctor to bombard it with charged
hydrogen atoms that he detonated with a fission laser. Atomic
energy expanded the hole to the size of the encompassing field
where Critias vanished in the whirlpool midst of it.

Chapter 3: Dying
Time

    When Critias awoke on his
back, he stared upward at a dirty ceiling with a rusty pipe that
ran across it. Underneath him was an inflatable mattress from a
crash survival kit. The dim light came from a single florescent
lamp upon a cargo crate, both of which had originated in his time.
Upon glancing around, Critias counted a dozen more crates in stacks
around that dank and cluttered cellar.
    “ Swell,” Critias said as
he sat up then rubbed his aching head. He had no idea where he was,
when he was, or what he was supposed to be doing there. He examined
the labels on the crates then thought aloud, “At least I have
supplies.” The crate markings showed one contained weapons and
another held his mechsuit. There were crates of science equipment
he didn’t know how to use. In total, he had enough food and gear to
survive for the time being.
    Something bumped above the
wooden ceiling of his chamber that caused some dirt to fall.
Critias moved quietly to the weapons crate then opened it to remove
his teslaflux pistol, which he loaded with ammo. By