Chapter 8

My eyes open and I'm screaming loudly. My breath is staggered and I look around to notice that I'm lying in a bed. The floor and walls are decorated somewhat like a hotel room. There's a wardrobe on the other side of the admittedly small room and the bed I'm resting on is fit low to the ground. I hear footsteps outside of the room and then the door to my left opens. Kate runs through, half-awake and somewhat-droopy.

"Nate, is everything okay?" My heart is still beating nearly out of my chest. I turn towards her, I must be back in the Republic Plaza.

"I…I'm fine. I just had a bit of a nightmare," I say, not entirely lying.

Kate walks further into the room and sits down on the foot of the bed.

"Is it anything you want to talk about, dear?" Kate asks. This has kind of crossed into a weird zone.

"I think I'm fine, that's alright," I reply.

"Okay, well, I was coming to wake you up anyway."

"Really? You looked like you just woke up yourself," I say.

"I did. Do you want to get a start on the day?"

"I guess so," I say.

I really need to find out what year it is.

"Okay, don't forget we have to go to my father's lab first thing, remember?" Kate says.

"For…what again, exactly?"

"Today's the day my father's prototype is shown off, that's what!" Prototype? Prototype of what, exactly?

"You get dressed and I'll meet you down there, okay?" Kate asks.

"Yeah, sure." She nods and smiles. She then slides up the bed and kisses me on the lips. My eyes go wide and I nearly topple off of the bed.

"Woah, that must've been one crazy dream to get you so spooked like that," Kate says.

"Y-Yeah…you have no idea," I say.

"Alright, don't take too long!" she says, walking out of the room. Just what the hell had happened here?! I wait a few moments in silenced horror and then I scramble to the digital clock beside my bed.

4/01/13.

So, this is before the government shutdown…but that would also mean that my parents would be dead by now.

Wait a minute, why is Kate here? Why am I here? Why is Mason still here?

I run out of the room to see the white hallway. Sure enough, this is the same hallway, isn't it? Why is this memory conflicting with everything I know? I look down to myself and notice I'm wearing a set of pajamas, weird. I walk back into the room and walk over to the wardrobe. I throw on a pair of long gray pants and a black long-sleeved shirt.

I'm also glad to realize that the pain I'd felt from the last memory hadn't carried over. I walk back outside of the room into the monochromatic hallway. Now, if only I could figure out which way I'm supposed to go. I never knew each of the scientists had personalized labs.

"Nathan! Where are you going?"

I turn around to see Kate on the other side of the hallway.

"Well, I'm heading to your father's lab, of course." I mumble out.

"Oh! I understand what's going on. No, I do that sometimes too. Come on, it's this way," Kate says, motioning her hand. I turn and walk over her confusedly.

"Do…what sometimes?" I ask.

"Think of the old building. It's such a mystery to me why we decided to rebuild this place to look exactly like the western. It just makes everything so confusing," she says.

The eastern branch! Of course! How could I have forgotten?!

We begin walking down the hallway and the elevator opens at the end, just like the other building. Instead of hitting the button for the fourth floor, Kate instead hits the button for the seventh floor.

"I don't see why anyone even would think it would make sense trying to cram a fifty-six story building into a twenty three story one. It's less than half," Kate says. The elevator begins moving downward. There is a tense silence in the air. Kate grabs my hand in hers and I can feel my heart beat increase in speed. She must notice, because she gives me a weird look.

"Are you alright? You've been acting a bit strange," she says.

"It's just…that uh, nightmare really got to me," I say.

"Oh, I know how that feels. Sometimes I have nightmares about things that are absolutely horrible."

"Like what?" I ask.

"This…Radical-9 stuff. I actually dreamed about it before it happened. I saw people dying and…" she trails off.

"It's okay, you don't need to talk about it if you don't want to,"

"I saw you."

"What?"

"I saw you…die. It's this terrible war-zone, people dying everywhere and I saw you die."

"When…when was this?" I ask.

"Back about a year before I'd even met you. I hadn't put the pieces together back then, because who remembers a nightmare they'd had that long ago? Then I had it again, a few nights ago. I remembered everything and I remembered seeing you."

"Was there anybody else there you can remember?" I ask.

"There was a few, but I don't remember them all too well. I do remember seeing another girl, seventeen or eighteen. She was crying over you, cradling your body. She had dark red hair," Kate says, obviously distressed.

"It's just a dream though, right? It isn't real," I say, not confident in my own words.

She was one of the people infected with Radical-9.

"Yeah, it's just a dream," Kate says quietly.

The elevator doors open and we step out quietly. We're in a hallway that is long and narrow, various paintings litter the walls. I see various recognizable paintings like the Mona Lisa, or Starry Night as I pass by. We enter a large room that extends out both sides beside us. I see Mason and Jay. They're standing on top of a small set of stairs in the wide laboratory. Tables and desks clutter the floor and all sorts of papers clutter the tables.

"Well, there you are!" Mason says.

"Sorry, we kind of overslept," Kate replies.

"Now, Nathan, I'd like to be the first to humbly thank you for your service here in our efforts to stop Jack. You've been more help than I can imagine and your father would be proud," Mason says.

"M-My father?" I ask.

"Yeah, Greg would sure be proud of you," Jay reiterates. Wait a second...what?

"Son, we know you're Gregory's kid. You look just like him," Jay says. "We also know the kinds of things you're going through right now."

"What? Wait, this is…?" Kate asks.

"By the looks of it, you shouldn't really be in this time, should you?" Mason asks.

"You know because you two have Radical-9 in your systems, right?" I say. Mason nods.

"That's why my thanks earlier were made, your power to travel through time is something truly amazing." Mason says.

"How long have you known?" I ask.

"The first day I met you," Mason says.

"Likewise and it's lucky that Jack didn't give two shits, or he might've caught on too. That's why we played along," Jay says.

""Just one moment, I'm having trouble understanding," Kate says. "How can he have been a time traveler if he's been here every single day for like, six years?!"

"It's difficult to explain, but he's only just rejoining us, is that correct?"

"Right. This morning is the first I've ever been in this building personally. The last time I saw it it was still kind of a wreck." I say.

"N-No, that's impossible, you've been here this whole time," Kate says.

"You remember me being here this whole time. In reality the reason Jack never suspected anything is because I didn't meet him back then. Neither did Jay, or even David. That first day I left when we were on the rooftop."

Kate holds her hands to her head, "This is all so confusing."

I turn towards her, "I'm not from this time. I'm from the general area, yes, but not this time specifically. I am infected with Radical-9 and I can send my consciousness into other times where my body could exist," I say.

"Marvelous," Mason says.

"It's limited, as far as I know, I can only stay for a few hours at a time until I can control it fully, but I've recently learned that I can sort of slip through different times as if it were like flipping through chapters of a book," I say.

"I think I understand. So, when you left the first time, who was it that stayed here?" Kate asks.

"I'm not sure. It could have been me from any point in time. It was me, but it wasn't…me," I explain.

"Well, this is all fantastic and now you're here to witness me reveal the world's first automaton!" Mason says and he picks up a small remote on the nearby desk.

"Automaton?" I ask.

"Yes, a machine made to look like a-"

"-Human," I finish.

"Precisely," Mason says. Jay's been here helping me finish the prototype. Mason presses the button and a section of the floor opens up between him and Jay. It opens pretty wide and I see that something is rising up from below.

"Let me be the first to announce that the Automaton Project is officially at the testing phase!" Mason says.

"Let me tell you, he would not shut up once he finished this thing," Jay says to us. Rising from the space beneath the floor is a figure, a pure white humanoid shape, completely featureless. It's somewhat like a mannequin.

"This is the beginning of our attack on Jack," Mason says.

"Logically we cannot harm him, but if we could find something to be our go-between we'd at least be much safer.

Jack probably got the idea for this from Mason in the future.

"Mason, however impressive these things are now, it isn't you who has control of them in the future," I say.

"What?" Mason asks.

"The reason I'm here now is because my body, where I'm actually coming from is the year 2060. Jack is waiting for me on the other end, so to speak. He's there monitoring me and he's got the knowledge on how to build these things, probably en masse." I say.

"Well, then I guess that I have a lot of work to do to catch up, huh?" Mason asks.

"Mason, maybe he has a point," Jay says.

"Jay, we've come this far. If we finish these faster, then we can end this faster," Mason says.

"You need to destroy this thing and fast. Maybe you can change history all the faster," I say.

"The Automaton shall remain as it is, under my command. I can even prove that it will do no harm to us," Mason says.

He presses a button on the remote once more and I hear a low mechanical hum.

"Mason, don't make the same mistake my father and Jack made," I say.

The Automaton slowly shifts its head to the right and to the left. It is somewhat like a clockwork figure, turning on process and logic. It turns its head slowly in almost full rotation, but it returns to its normal gaze staring forward once more.

My heart is pounding and I have the unending feeling that something was supposed to happen, something more. And then it does. The Automaton lunges to the side, knocking Mason off of his feet. It jumps on top of the nearest desk, nearly smashing it into two pieces.

"Dad!" Kate yells out.

The Automaton turns its head towards the direction of the sound and I see its hand open up to reveal a syringe.

"Mason! You need to shut it down, NOW!" I scream.

Jay runs up to tackle the Automaton, but it shoves him off with one stroke of its heavy arm. I see not just one syringe in its hands now, but three. I hear Kate running towards her father, but the Automaton is one step ahead. It jumps behind her and takes her by her hair. She yelps and is then thrown to the ground. Not wasting another moment, I find myself jumping onto the Automaton's back, grappling its neck. It takes notice and then I feel a sharp sting in my right arm. I look down to see the creature had stabbed my arm with the syringe. Another second and it stabs my left too. I can feel the liquid being drawn in and I lose my grip on the Automaton.

Kate gets up off of the ground and is backed against the wall. I fall off and I can see it ready the third syringe, but it isn't aiming it at me. It's aiming it right at Kate. I start seeing flurries of different colors and shapes, but one, single thought penetrates all of it. I must save Kate.

I'm up in a matter of seconds, my arms are losing their feeling. The Automaton readies its arm and I see Kate cringe. I scream out and I'm running out in front of the Automaton. I push Kate out of the way. In the next moment I see darkness. There is a quieted silence and then light comes back in fuzzy, distorted shapes.

I'm breathing heavy and the pain of it all comes in one fell swoop. I grasp around my face, screaming and then I feel it. The syringe is lodged in my right eye. The pain of it all is worse than anything I've ever felt. My vision is fading, but I can see Mason using what looks to be a high tech pair of spark plugs to finally end the cruel monster. It falls to the ground with a loud thump.

My brain is working in overdrive and I get a quick look at all of their relieved faces. They don't stay that way for long, because when they see me they turn into a shared look of horror. The next thing I know everything goes dark. Is this how it ends? By a memory? Did I…fail?