Short Stories

Across An Aeon (end)

*** Continued from previous part. Holly used a condemned time machine to follow her husband and daughter into the future, but they went further than she could have guessed. ***

∞

In the world Holly had come from, she could not walk through solid walls.

The alien must have technology she could not begin to fathom. When she stretched out her trembling hands, expecting to encounter freezing concrete, her hands encountered a cold liquid instead. A waterfall. Maybe the illusion of a wall had been projected onto it.

She stepped through as quickly as possible. It felt like stepping through a torrential downpour. Her clothes were soaked, and her teeth chattered from the cold.

Yet she couldn't help staring in wonder. Bioluminescent coral glowed everywhere, between cascades and pools of water. The huge alien looked comfortable in this watery grotto.

"Pick up the suit on the floor," it said in its singsong voice. "You must wear the suit or you will die."

A plastic wrap floated on the watery scum of the floor. Holly picked it up. When she shook out its folds, it looked like a trash bag, although it had the consistency of tough rubber. She examined it, trying to figure out how it might protect her.

"Put it on," the alien's voice said. "The suit will inflate and protect you."

Holly stepped into the transparent bag. When she pulled it up to her shoulders, the open edges began to cling together. Air hissed into the bag, and as it inflated, the opening knitted together. She ducked her head and fought against claustrophobia. "How do I know I won't suffocate in here?"

The alien's voice was intimately close. "Without the suit, you will die."

"Okay, but ..." All questions fled her mind as murky liquid splashed into the grotto. The water level rose in a flash flood. The rubbery bag formed an airtight seal over her head. Her ears popped from the change in pressure.

"We made a habitat for humans," the alien voice said. "I will take you there."

Water surged upward, knocking Holly off her feet in her inflated air bubble. She tumbled within the bubble, carried into a seemingly endless space, spinning until she lost track of direction. Up or down, right or left, might be anywhere.

Something yanked her at high speed in one direction.

I'm safe, I'm safe, Holly repeated in her mind, yet she didn't feel safe. Dirge-like moans sounded in the distance. Slow, gloomy clouds of silt obscured cliffs all around her. Crusty rocks hid multi-hued lights, as distant as skyscraper windows. She floated in an undersea alien city.

The alien appeared to be towing her, bubble and all, through the murky ocean. It pumped ahead like a chubby squid, bioluminescent spots rippling between the wires along its body.

"Is the whole world covered in water?" Holly asked.

"Yes," the alien's voice replied. "Humans made this world best for us. They departed eons ago. Will there be more late arrivals like you?"

Eons ago. Peering at a nearby cliff, Holly realized that it was the bent frame of a ruined skyscraper, bumpy with coral. This had once been Baltimore. National Laboratory had been in a tree-lined office park, which must have been replaced by a booming downtown. And now? All the trees and cars were gone. Everything was ossified, decayed, and crushed by tons of liquid.

The alien's voice spoke with patience as deep as the ocean. "Will there be more late arrivals like you?"

The first time traveler, Dana Thuan, must have surprised the aliens. They wouldn't have had time to set up an air bubble suit, a greeting room, or a puppet human. Dana would have appeared at the bottom of a cold, dark ocean. Alone. Twenty-four years old. She must have drowned, thrashing, silvery bubbles rising from her mouth in a death scream.