Monsters and Aliens: Deadline

Chapter 1: The Time Traveler

5/11/1810, Ingolstadt, Germany

The sun had set three hours before, and no one was left in that place on the hillside, except two men. As the shadows had consumed the many headstones and other grave markers of ancient times, hiding them from the naked eye, two pairs of mortal eyes looked into one of the graves. Yet, one of those men was completely unaware that the other was there.

The first of the men was tall and slim, with a prominent forehead and a smile on his face. Indeed, there was something unnatural about the way he went to his work, digging away at the grave with the large, heavy-looking shovel. At last, however, just enough dirt had been removed, that the wooden surface of a coffin lid could be seen in the light of his small lantern. Slowly, using both the shovel and his gloved hands, he cleared away some of the dirt, then took a pick from the ground nearby, attacking the side of the lid with it, until it began to give under the assault. Finally, after putting a cloth over his face, he was able to pull the lid open, and there, he seemed to be astonished by what he'd found.

Slowly, muttering to himself, the man put down his pick and picked up what looked like a bag of surgical tools. That stage of the work seemed to take only a small amount of time, before he removed something from the coffin, closing the lid back up. Then, in just a moment, he seemed to have packed his prize away, and was getting back up out of the hole. Soon, he'd started on the task of replacing the disturbed dirt, and that seemed to take longer.

As the first man finished his work, however, and began to walk towards the cemetary exit, muttering to himself, the second man made his decision. The time had come to approach him.

The second man went by the name of Mark Lightley, and he'd been hiding in the shadows for the entire time. He wasn't as tall, or as thin as the first, but his hair was the same color of dark brown, and his face held a similar look of wide-eyed curiosity over the things that surrounded him. Still, his expression, at the moment, was grim, because everything was riding on his success.

As Mark had watched the graverobber finish his work, however, there was something that he hadn't noticed. A strong gust of wind had swept over him in the darkness, just as the graverobber had been picking up his tools to go. Mark hadn't thought anything of it, at the time. One expects wind on a night like that one, but just as he was about to advance towards the graverobber, and confront him, he felt strong hands seize him from behind, pulling him back behind the mausoleum, which he'd been hiding near.

At first, Mark felt close to a panic, until he looked into the face of the one who'd grabbed him, and gasped in alarm at what he saw. It was his own face, though it looked just a bit older and more worn.

"Did..." Mark whispered to his attacker, "Did I do something wrong? Is that why you're here?"

"Yes." his double replied, "Your plan isn't going to work. I came back here to try something else."

It was very confusing, and certainly, the first time that Mark had ever met a double of himself, but it made some sense to him, at least. Finally, after only a second or two, he nodded, and replied, "You know what needs to be done better than I do. Go ahead. I'll wait here, and we can discuss things when you get back."

However, the other him was shaking his head a moment later.

"We'll both go." he said, pulling a small machine from his pocket, with a series of buttons in the middle, "Don't worry. I know it's confusing, but you'll understand everything in a moment."

Then, Marks double pressed a button on his small machine, and in a flash, he began to fade from sight. It was stunning, but as he vanished, the remaining Mark felt memories flood into his mind; memories drawn from something that no longer existed, and it was a very strange feeling. Suddenly, he remembered his first attempt at approaching the graverobber, and his first failure, when an electrical charge had sprung forth from the severed arm, which the graverobber had stolen, shocking him into unconsciousness. It had been quite a spectacular failure, and it had tought him one thing; he needed to try to reason with the doctor, even though that didn't seem likely to work either.

Of course, there were other differences too. He remembered several more days' worth of experiences, and the machine, which the other version of himself had been holding, had found its way into his hand. He also knew what the machine was, and what it was for, and quickly slipped it into his own pocket a moment later. He knew there wasn't any more time to waste. In just a second, he'd stepped out from the shadows to intercept the graverobber, just as he was about to reach the cemetary's main gate.

For a moment, the graverobber started to look as though he was panicking, but that was when Mark held up both hands, in a universal gesture of truce.

"Don't worry, doctor. I'm not a policeman, and I don't mean to turn you in. I'd just like to talk with you, if that's alright."

The doctor seemed to have calmed down a bit as he heard those words, but the wide-eyed, curious look that he'd had, a few moments before, had turned into a casual frown.

"I'm a very busy man." the doctor replied, trying his best to brush past Mark. However, the new arrival stayed with him.

"I'm sorry, but I must insist." Mark continued, "This may be the most important matter that you ever discuss with anyone, in your entire life."

It was only then, that the doctor stopped where he was, and turned to face the man who'd just accosted him. There was a curious, and yet annoyed look in his face, but in a moment, he was watching the strangers eyes as he replied.

"I'm sure you don't know what I've really been up to here, so I'll tell you." the graverobbing doctor began, "I'm at work on unlocking the secrets of perhaps the most important scientific discovery ever; eternal life. Eternal life, sir. Do you know what that means?"

"I know more about your project than you could guess." Mark said, however, "You plan to use that body part, and numerous others like it, to create, from a mix of real and artificial parts, a living, breathing, human being. Isn't that right, Doctor Frankenstein?"

The doctor's eyes grew wide when he heard those words, but only for a moment. Soon, they'd narrowed again, and a suspicious tone had come into his voice when he spoke next.

"Just how do you know all of that?" Victor Frankenstein asked, clearly distrustful of the newcomer, "I thought I'd kept this a secret from everyone. Have you been spying on me?"

"No, doctor." Mark replied, however, "It wasn't necessary to spy on you, in order to find this out. I'll be glad to explain to you how I came by this knowledge, but in exchange, I want you to hear out a request of mine."

The doctor still looked suspicious, but after a few moments, raising his lantern, to get a good look at the other man's face, and apparently satisfying himself that it wasn't anyone he knew, he nodded and gave a slight jerk of his head, to indicate that the other man should follow him. So, a few moments later, the two men were traveling down the hillside together, and although there was still no guarantee that anything good would result from their meeting, Mark couldn't help but smile just a little. Things certainly seemed to be going better than they had last time.

At last, the two men arrived at a large manor house, which sat on one of the hills, within walking distance of the cemetary. Frankenstein had unlocked the door, pushed it open, and invited his guest in first, following behind, then closing the door and locking it. In just a moment, he'd placed his lantern on the table in the central of the room, which was just to the left, past the entrance hallway, and invited his guest to take a seat at the table, while he, in his own words "got them some light." Soon, the new arrival could hear the hum of an electric machine of some kind, and a short time after that, there was the sound of some electrical discharge as well. In just a few more moments, Dr. Victor Frankenstein had returned with a pair of small lamps, which he place on either side of the room. The light was still dim, compared to what the traveler had been used to recently, but with the lantern itself factored it, it was enough for their purposes.

"Now, you wanted to know who I am, but I'm afraid I can't tell you my real name." the traveler began, "If you need something to call me, though, 'Mark Lightley' will do. I've gone by that name before. This story of mine is going to be hard to believe, but I hope you'll at least try to take me seriously. You see, I won't even be born for another fifty years."

Doctor Frankenstein did look a bit perplexed when he heard those words, but soon, he'd taken a seat at the table, opposite his guest, folding his hands on the table top, and listening intently.

"As a young man," Lightley explained, "I rose to the top of my class in college, and made a name for myself in debating in favor of certain controversial subjects."

"Such as what?" the doctor asked, leaning forward, and watching his guest intently.

"Why?" Lightley asked, starting to feel confused, "Do you need to know every detail?"

"Sir, I'm a scientist." Frankenstein replied, growing irritated again, "Of course I do."

"But we'll be here all night!"

"Do you have some other appointment tonight?"

"No, but..."

"Then give me details, please. Be thorough."

Lightley sighed, leaning back in his chair just a little, but at the very least, it seemed as though Frankenstein was taking his seriously, and that was positive.

"Alright, then." Lightley replied, "The truth is, I argued in favor of two claims; one sociological; that human beings were, at base, decent, and that everyone really understood the most basic kind of human morality. Now, that doesn't mean people always do the right thing; just that they know the basics of what the right thing is, even if they don't realize it. In spite of everything, I still see people as basically decent."

"And your other claim?"

"My other claim is the more relevant one to this discussion. I argued that time and space aren't the separate things that they appear to be, but are merely two dimensions of a single, combined whole; a spacetime continuum. This theory has been given a few names since then, and I couldn't prove it conclusively at the time, but now I can. You see, if any other theory of time were correct, time travel would be impossible."

At first, the time traveler had been afraid that Doctor Frankenstein would interrupt him at that point, with scorn and disbelief, but instead, he only looked more intently at his guest, and remained totally silent. It made him feel more confident when he saw that, so he quickly continued his story, describing his experiments into temporal physics, and his first prototype time machine; a tiny, hand-held device, which he'd sent off into time on its own. They, he began talking about the full-sized machine, and his first trip into the far future, where he'd found a world empty of human civilization, and inhabited only by the weak and helpless eloi, and by the brutal, savage morlocks. Distant relations, perhaps, of men, but none of them fully civilized. In the process, all of Lightley's theories about time travel had been confirmed, though he'd also gotten the sense that some future catastrophe, either natural or man-made, would bring human civilization to an end at some future date.

"At the time, nothing seemed odd about that." Mark explained, "After all, I'd gone over eight hundred thousand years into the future, and I hadn't expected humanity to last that long. I was disoriented by the strange things I'd seen, so I traveled back to my own time, and spent a while recuperating. Once I had my mind back in order, I admit that the ultimate fate of the world still didn't trouble me, because my next action was to gather some friends together, to see if any of them would believe my story without further evidence. Of course, not one of them did, and somewhere inside, I think I felt hurt by that, though it was probably silly of me to expect them to believe me. In any case, the fate of the world hadn't been troubling me, because I was still too consumed by the prospect of proving that my machine really worked. I got together a camera, a notebook, and some small bags for samples, and got back into my machine."

"The machine worked, just as it had before. Soon, I was traveling forward through time again at an enormous pace. My first thought was to return to the future time I'd visited in the first place; perhaps even the very same time I'd left, but my memories of the savage morlocks kept me from that course. Instead, I decided to visit another future time; a closer one, so I began to turn the dials, watching the flowers outside my window grow and wilt, then be covered over with snow in seconds. Soon, snow was falling and melting, and the sky seemed to flicker with the passage of days and the falling of rain. At last, the building around me began to fall into ruin, and the nearest city began to rise to enormous heights, shimmering as it did so. I'd seen it all before, but it was still quite a sight."

"At last, however, I saw that the lights of the city had gone out, and weren't coming back on again. I immediately slowed my machine down, until I'd realigned with the proper flow of time, and the moment I did, something happened, which filled me with dread."

Mark felt the machine shake underneath him as he came to a stop; not as though it were grinding to a halt, but as if something had gone wrong in the machine itself. It almost forced his heart into his throat, to think that when he needed it most, something might have happened to his machine. However, there was no question that something had indeed gone wrong. He almost felt as though he was in danger of flying right out of the machine, but he gripped the front bar for support, and soon, the feeling passed. Still, that feeling was far from the worse thing that he was about to face, he realized, as he looked at the display on the time machine, to discover that none of the meters were moving. However it had happened, his time machine had stopped working completely, just as he'd returned to the normal flow of time.

Quickly, Mark got out of his machine, tapping the lid on the side of it, to be sure that it was safe to touch it, and in a moment, he'd found that, in fact, it felt colder than normal after a trip. Soon, the lid was open, and he was examining the insides of the machine for anything that might be causing the trouble. The visual inspection only took a few seconds, but unfortunately, he couldn't spot the source of the problem. It was just that nothing seemed to be working. The various tiny components were all in their proper places, but none of them were receiving power.

Still, after thinking it over for a few seconds, Lightley realized that there were a number of clues about what had happened. For one thing, the fact that it had happened so soon, after returning to normal time. It wasn't the jolt of rejoining the time continuum that had caused the problem, because nothing had been shaken out of its proper place. That meant that there was only one possible explanation. There was something in that time period, which was interfering with the normal functions of his machine. For just a moment, he wished that he'd thought to build pedals into it; like a bicycle, if only to get it out of the empty plot of land, where he found himself, but there wasn't much that he could do about it at that point. He had to face the reality of his situation. He was trapped, alone, in another time, and the machine that he'd counted on to take him back was useless, either for transporting him home, or even for telling him the precise date or year.

He didn't like the idea of just leaving his machine there, but knew he didn't have a choice. If he was ever going to get it working again, he needed to know just what had made it stop, and that meant leaving, to find some people, and get some kind of explanation from them, and perhaps some supplies. He had a few provisions in the compartment, which he'd built into the space behind his seat in the time machine, but they were only enough for about three days.

Still, Lightley had removed his provisions within a minute or two, heading off down a nearby road, which was surprisingly-smooth and flat, and made of some substance that he didn't recognize, although it was cracked in several places.

The obvious thing to do had been to travel towards the city. If anyone was left in that area, they'd be more likely to be there, rather than out in the fields somewhere, he'd decided. Still, he'd originally underestimated the distance to the city. It turned out that, actually, the city buildings were much larger and further away than he'd thought, at first, and he needed to stop several times, to take a drink from one of the canteens of water that he'd brought with him. He was walking in the direction of the city for what felt like hours, though he couldn't tell exactly how long it had been, and he still hadn't reached the buildings on the outskirts, when something happened, which changed his plans.

It had seemed, for some time, as though there was no one around for miles, but suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Lightley saw a shadow move behind one of the nearby bushes, and stopped where he was for just a moment, to get a better look.

Sure enough, when he squinted, he could just make out the shadow of a human head behind the bush, looking as though it were trying to conceal itself a little better, and not really succeeding. It almost made Lightley smile, because he knew that it was the head of a child, who didn't know they'd been discovered. Still, he needed answers, and that was the first person he'd spotted in hours, so whatever reason the child had for wanting to stay hidden, Mark would need to get his attention.

"Excuse me..." Mark said, but the head just squirmed a little in response, and tried to retreat further, which only resulted in the child's lower legs protruding a little from behind the other side of the bush, and becoming even more visible.

"May I ask you some questions?" Mark asked, but again, the only response was for the child to back off again, becoming even more visible. He waited for several more seconds, but somehow, he knew that the child wasn't going to give him a response, so in the end, he had to be direct. Advancing towards the child's position in just a dozen or so long steps, the time traveler was pleased to see that, at the least, he was getting a reaction, and a better look at the boy. Still, the sight of the boy almost made Mark cringe.

He was a ragged boy, dressed in old clothes, which were incredibly finely-woven, but were falling apart at the seams, as though they'd been designed to do just that. He was skinny, to almost the point of being skeleton-like, and was clearly dehydrated and malnourished, but there was a cold, calculating look in his face, as he watched the time traveler, which seemed strange, since he was clearly very scared as well. Overall, he looked like just the sort of boy who'd had a great deal of practice at mastering his fears. By itself, Mark found that troubling, but after getting over his initial shock, he found that all the boy really made him feel was pity.

Slowly, Lightley bent down, to the point where his head was only a foot or so over the boy's, and when he spoke again, he noticed something else. There were bruises up and down one of the boy's legs.

"Lad..." Mark said, letting his feelings finally show on his face, as he reached out one hand for the boy, "Are you living by yourself, or has someone been mistreating you?"

However, the boy still didn't respond at first, and he didn't take Mark's hand.

"Can you tell me what happened here?" Lightley asked, trying to coax something out of the boy.

Still nothing, so he decided to try a different approach, even though it would probably cost him some of his own provisions.

"You look like you could use a good meal and something to drink."

With those words, the boy's face brightened up, so soon, the man from the past had brought out his supplies, and handed some of them to the boy. Still, what the boy did then was a surprise. Instead of immediately starting to eat, he took each piece of food in turn, and carefully smelled it, then took a bit of this and that, rubbing it on his hand. When he was done with that strange procedure, and had done the same with some of the water, he took just a small taste of the bread, the meat and one apple, then a short sip of water, and sat down on the ground again, silently, watching the food, as though, at any moment, it might spring to life and attack him. He remained in that position for several minutes; perhaps as many as fifteen or twenty, before a happy smile finally came to his face, and he begain to devour the food in front of him, though even so, he was frugal with the water. At last, he was finished, and his grin was contageous. Then, with the most relieved expression that Lightley had ever seen, the boy looked up at him, as though expecting something else, but not daring to request it.

"Go ahead." the time traveler said with a smile, the moment that he saw the pleading look on the boy's face, "If you can speak, speak."

"You remind me of Jake."

"There we are. I knew you could talk." Lightley observed in relief, following it up with, "Who's Jake?"

"Jake the survivor. The man living in the cabin just... just..."

For a moment, the boy paused, as though unsure of whether or not to continue, but finally, he said, "Sorry, but Jake says not to tell folks where he lives."

"Well, that's alright." Mark replied, smiling a little more broadly, "I didn't really come here looking for Jake. I just need to ask a few questions. That's all."

"Shoot." the boy said, nodding his head a couple of times as he took another sip from one of Mark's canteens.

"I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Shoot."

"Is there something wrong with the water?"

At that point, the boy looked at him strangely, but also with a sense of great curiosity, before finally replying "No, I just mean that you can ask me stuff if you want to."

Mark didn't waste any more time after that.

"When I first arrived here, I was using a machine, and it stopped working almost immediately. Do you know why that is?"

Again, however, the boy looked at Mark strangely when he said that. Still, after a few seconds, he nodded, and made his reply.

"It was probably electric. Electric machines haven't worked since before I was born."

It was clear that the boy had questions of his own, but he decided to sit on them, for the time being, as he took another nibble out of an apple.

"Do you know why they stopped working?" Mark asked next.

"Not sure." the boy replied, however, "Aliens or something, I heard."

Lightley had a hard time believing that explanation, but he still had a few questions to ask.

"Do you know anyone who would be able to tell me more?"

The boy's expression grew stern at that point, but he replied quickly enough.

"Jake could tell you. He knows lots of stuff, and he answers questions too."

"May I speak with Jake?"

However, it was disheartening when, a moment later, the boy repeated one of his previous answers.

"Not sure."

"Why?"

"I'd take you to meet Jake, but only if he says it's okay. I can't let anybody find the way to his place if he doesn't want me to."

"I can understand that." Mark replied, though his expression had grown more serious as he'd been listening to the answers. Jake sounded something like a gang leader, and he still didn't know if it would be a good idea to trust him. Still, he knew that he liked the boy, and he didn't seem like a bad sort, so in a moment, Lightley had moved on to his next question.

"What's your name?"

"Ryan the Student." the boy replied without hesitating for a second.

"Your last name is 'Student?'" the time traveler asked, curiously.

"Jake says it's best to have a last name that says something about us."

Lightley had to think about that for a moment, because he'd never really thought about what kinds of last names would be best to have. Family names described where one came from, to a degree, so he just hadn't questioned it, and he wondered what kind of environment could make a person discard their family name, as that boy seemed to have done. Still, he wasn't terribly concerned about that topic; at least not as much as the next question that he wanted to ask.

"Jake... I assume he's not your father. How did you get those bruises on your leg?"

The time traveler had expected the question to be unwelcome, but the boy didn't look offended in any way; just a little confused, when he asked, "Why? What's up?"

"Well, I'm concerned about you, and I thought I might be able to help."

"Don't worry about it." the boy replied, however, "I've got some good friends, and we'll stick together. It'll be alright for me."

"Then just tell me this; was it Jake who did that to you?"

The response to that question came quickly, however.

"Nah. Jake's just trying to help. These are from... somebody else."

"I suppose that's all I really need to ask." the time traveler said, after watching the boy for a moment or two, "Will you let me know if Jake agrees to meet with me?"

"I guess so," the boy replied, getting to his boney feet, "but first off, who are you? What's your name, and where are you from?"

That, it turned out, would be the most difficult thing to answer, because while Mark could give the boy his assumed name, and answer to it, explaining where and when he'd come from would be a pretty hard ordeal.

Author's Note: Yup. This is a sequel story, of sorts, to the original "Monsters and Aliens: Bloodthirsty Savages" story that I did a while back. It's going to be pretty long, I suspect, and honestly, I don't expect to finish it. Still, I've got plans for the entire first arc of the story already. I'm taking this story at a somewhat relaxed pace, but I am enjoying myself writing it. The overall theme is the combination of all sci-fi/horror that will fit into the same continuity, and will also fit in with the story continuity of Bloodthirsty Savages. I hope you'll enjoy the story as much as I do.

Bra1n1ac