Zero Time

By Kenneth D. Reimer

Thirty-three years from today, a beautiful young artist will take a job at the MacLean Toy Company. She will start paying off her student loan. She will fall in love with her new employer, and she will begin to travel through time.

When the employees of a toy company uncover a dusty and oddly wired mechanical monkey that enables them to travel through time, one of their team witnesses a terrible truth and spirals into madness. His companions are compelled to track him through an increasingly dangerous space-time continuum where their efforts are sabotaged by a mysterious stranger from the distant region of Zero Time.

They must act, but they feel transfixed by questions. In the quest to save their friend, will they too fall prey to the force that has driven him insane? What is the true nature of the entity that they sense lurking in the continuum? And finally, does the killer who hunts them also hold the key to their salvation?

Although they can travel through time, time itself is running out . . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth D. Reimer
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310738968

Kenneth D. Reimer

Kenneth D. Reimer was born and raised in Western Canada. He shares a home with his wife, Lisa, and a cat named Nazca who likes to bite him on the leg. Lisa is Kenneth's most honest editor, and she critiques and edits everything he writes. They share a love for wandering the globe, and their home is decorated with photographs and artifacts that document their explorations.A love of literature is the passion that has shaped Kenneth’s life. He has three degrees, including a Master of Arts with a major in English studies; however, his education as a writer came at the hands of Lovecraft, Hemingway, and Robert E. Howard. As a literary artist, his works challenge categorization, ranging from horror to dystopian fiction, and from travel writing to poetry. Ultimately, it is the short story that provides him with the most effective platform for his ideas.

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Zero Time

Kenneth D. Reimer

Zero Time

Copyright 2014 by Kenneth D. Reimer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the writer except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

A handful of people have been instrumental in bringing Zero Time to publication. Rob Notenboom and Don Balas have both given me instructive criticism that was much appreciated. Roland Reimer, Doug Reimer, Jeff Reimer, and Toby-Anne Reimer, all volunteered to read the manuscript in draft form, making this work largely a family affair. I thank you all for the feedback, and I hope this final copy satisfies your concerns. I offer a special thank you to Rolly for rekindling a fire that had begun to smoulder.

Most importantly, I have to thank Lisa Powell for the countless hours that she put into this manuscript. She is invaluable to me. As writers, we are yin and yang, and she never hesitates to let me know when something is just dumb. Every writer should have such a skillful and honest critic. Truly, she should be given dual credit for this novel.

Prologue

It begins as it ends….

And at the centre of things—poised between future and past—there lies the MacLean Toy Company.

At this moment in time, darkness has come to the small building that houses the company. It wells about the exterior brick walls. It laps at the window sills and presses against the splintered frame of the broken back door. Sagging on its hinges, this door threatens to collapse, while through cracks in the wood, the darkness seeps into the interior of the building. Moving sluggishly, it spreads in a widening pool across the hardwood floor of the company warehouse, rolling past shelves cluttered with supplies and lifeless toys. Finally, it touches the feet of a woman standing before a workbench on the far side of the warehouse. A light upon this bench casts a feeble illumination that only just halts the progress of the night.

The woman has stood there, immobile, for several minutes, fettered by a sense of hopelessness more debilitating than the darkness. In her hands she clutches the broken form of a toy, and though her face is turned toward it, her eyes are misted, gazing far beyond its plastic countenance.

The woman struggles from her reverie and sets the toy on the workbench, leaning forward to regard its shattered frame. Originally, the toy had the shape of a monkey dressed in a red and blue band uniform with a cap balanced jauntily on the side of its head, but that head now hangs by a lone, twisted piece of wire, and its eyes, which once flickered with light, are dark and lifeless. Its tiny shoulder and back are cracked in half, and its right arm is completely gone, lost somewhere in the shadowed recesses of the warehouse. More than a child’s ruined plaything, it resembles the victim of some atrocity. Like entrails hanging from a wound, a confusion of wires spills from its insides. This wiring was not part of its original construction, but it is essential now to the toy’s current function, and, although the toy itself is destroyed, the circuitry seems undamaged.

The woman came to the company warehouse intending to repair the damage done to the toy, but now she realizes the impossibility of this task. She could never conduct repairs on the original wiring of the toy without first dismantling the additional circuitry, and it is impossibly complex, far beyond her rudimentary understanding of electronics. There is no way she can tear it apart then remember how to piece it back together. Nor does she understand the technology well enough to adapt the wiring to a different toy.

Legs weakened by despair, the woman turns her back to the bench and slides down its front panel, sinking to the warehouse floor. The inevitability of defeat makes her chest feel numb, and in an attempt to stem the hopelessness, she lets her eyes search over the warehouse shelves, desperate for some—any—form of salvation. Unwillingly, her attention is drawn to a spot on the warehouse floor where the apparition of a stain discolours the hardwood, and she grimaces at the sight of it. She forces herself to gaze elsewhere, and it is now that she sees the other toy monkey. Perched on a shelf only a few steps away, it leers at her with its lifeless, plastic eyes. Half buried behind a pile of oily rags, it appears to be hiding. At the sight of it, the woman swears under her breath and looks away, suppressing the urge to destroy this monkey as well. She glances back at the broken monkey on the workbench then twists around to stare at the toy on the shelf, and she realizes the opportunity that Time has given her.

She takes hold of the top of the bench and pulls herself to her feet. She has no desire to use the toy, in fact, the sight of it sickens her; however, she has just realized that if she keeps the wiring intact on the original, albeit inoperative monkey, it may be possible for her to imitate the chaotic electrical design on the undamaged toy. The woman walks to the warehouse shelf, reaches behind the rags and takes hold of the monkey. Lifting it into the light, she carries it over and places the toy beside its broken twin on the workbench. Then she begins rummaging through the warehouse for supplies.

Two hours later, the woman solders the last connection on the new toy and conducts a painstaking inspection to be certain the imitation wiring is accurate. Everything appears correct, and she is satisfied that she has successfully created a new machine. All that remains is for her to transfer the jump device from one toy to the other.

Once this is done, she loads the toy with batteries, almost dropping them with her trembling hands. Then, after pausing a moment to control her breathing, the woman flicks on the switch at the back of the toy. Immediately, a bluish aura envelops the monkey’s brutish countenance. The woman expels a deep breath.

The moment she fought for so desperately has finally come; escape is possible, yet the woman hesitates. She knows that the batteries won’t last the night, and the chances of anyone discovering the toy before morning are almost non-existent, yet it troubles her to leave the machine running. She is also aware that the people from Duncan MacLean’s estate will arrive in the morning, and everything in the warehouse will be boxed up. The toy will be hidden, tucked away somewhere on a back shelf. Yet still she hesitates. The paradox of her leaving the toy behind, knowing who will eventually find it, is almost too frustrating for her to accept. Yet there is nothing else for her to do. This is her final option.

The woman curls her fingers about the base of the toy, touching it apprehensively, then she draws a deep breath and leans in close. Her head and shoulders are enveloped by the aura. Through the bluish haze, the monkey stares at her, but she does not notice—her gaze has already penetrated the chaotic whirlwind of the continuum.

Standing eviscerated on the workbench, the broken monkey watches as the woman bends toward its doppelganger. Her head and shoulders become indistinct as they merge with the smouldering energy field, then, scarce moments later, the figure of the woman disappears altogether. The air stirs, rushing in to fill the sudden vacuum.

…And in the impossibly distant reaches of Time, colossal, embryonic eyes flicker into awareness. Sluggishly, a malevolent sentience regards her actions.

Part One:

The Spencer Paradox

Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.

Ray Bradbury

A Sound of Thunder

I

Colby Austin sat hunched on the steps of the Natural History Museum and struggled to keep himself awake. His eyelids betrayed him, drooping down heavily and pulling his head forward into exhausted slumber. Time and again, he jerked awake, startled into awareness as his body almost toppled from its perch. He breathed deeply, trying to sharpen his dull senses, and he swore silently at the absurdity of his circumstance. He felt like a human bobble toy, but the comparison was in no way a humourous one.

Perched midway up the stairs that narrowed to the museum entrance, Colby was dwarfed by the building behind him, an unusual structure that presented its viewers with a contradiction in time. Less than a century old, the museum had the appearance of being plucked from the pages of antiquity. Constructed in imitation of a Roman courthouse, it was two thousand years out of place, and the blocks of Tyndall stone that covered its façade were etched with fossils of creatures that had not lived upon the Earth since the Cambrian epoch. Built to house the fractured remnants of time, the building was itself an artifact.

In contrast to the museum, which had not changed externally in seventy years, the street it dominated had gone through many alterations. Initially, the area surrounding the museum had been a city park, but the land had been sold and then re-zoned to allow for the construction of warehouses.

Decades later, after concerted efforts to revive the downtown district of the city, most of the warehouses had been converted to serve other uses. Condominiums, assorted shops and trendy sidewalk restaurants now enlivened the area. One of the few buildings that still served its original function was situated directly across from the museum, a small business called the MacLean Toy Company. It was the presence of this company that had drawn Colby to his perch on the museum steps. From where he sat, he had a commanding view of both the Toy Company and the street surrounding it.

He had been there for four days, and time pressed heavily upon him.

Fatigue frayed the edges of his consciousness, and Colby’s appearance testified to the desperate nature of his situation. He sat in a slouch with his elbows braced on his knees and his forearms hanging in front of his legs. His clothes were wrinkled, and his face was haggard with the beginnings of a beard. A cigarette dangled loosely from his lips. Every so often, he ran his fingertips along a flesh-coloured bandage that stretched across his right temple. The skin around the cut was a dark blue, and a bruise ringed his eye.

Not only was Colby reaching the end of his mental and physical reservoirs, his supplies were also nearing exhaustion. At his feet, a half empty container lay on its side. Its lid was loose, and beads of water slipped from it like the sand of an hourglass. Repeatedly, a small patch of moisture dampened the stone step and then evaporated quickly in the heat of the day. Beside the bottle, a worn plastic bag teetered on the breeze. Days before, that bag had been stuffed with food which Colby had stolen from a convenience store less than a block away. It was empty now, and his stomach had begun to ache. A warm gust lifted the bag from the step, and it moved in a slow swirl toward the museum entrance where it got snagged by the limb of a tree. Colby was oblivious to its passage.

Without thinking, he pulled out his cell and checked for messages. With a curse, he thrust it back into his pocket. As it had been the hundred times before, the screen was blank, registering no pulse from his sub-dermal implant. He knew the implant was working, but there was no satellite signal to send it data.

Early that morning, he had returned to the same convenience store intending to steal more supplies; however, the clerk had driven him away. Colby didn’t know if the woman suspected he was a thief or if she simply worried that he might frighten her other customers. In any case, he had not alleviated his hunger, nor was he willing to wander any further in search of an alternate source of provisions. He had to keep the MacLean Toy Company in sight. His sole purpose for being there was to be at the company when his friend, a man named Spencer, finally arrived. Ironically, Colby had no idea if Spencer would even come to that location, but it was a possibility, and everything Colby had endured for the past days would be for naught if he missed Spencer’s appearance. He could deal with hunger, but failure was unacceptable. More than food, what he really needed was sleep. His supply of stimulants was running low, and he knew that when they were gone, willpower alone would not be sufficient to keep him awake. The longer he had to wait for Spencer’s arrival, the less his chances of success.

Thrice since his vigil began, Colby had found it expedient to hide from the police. The steps of the museum were framed on both sides by small, landscaped terraces filled with indigenous vegetation. On one side of the steps, Colby had formed a small hollow within a cluster of bushes. Whenever he spotted an approaching squad car, he scrambled from his perch to crouch in hiding amongst the foliage. It was undignified, but he didn’t know if the city had laws against vagrancy, and he wasn’t willing to risk an encounter with the authorities. If questioned, he would have no plausible explanation for his apparent obsession with the MacLean Toy Company, and if searched, the weapon holstered under his shirt was certain to be discovered.

So Colby waited, and Colby watched, and Colby wrestled against the insistent whisperings of Morpheus.

The museum itself had few visitors during the day, but due to its location, the sidewalk in front of it was busy. People meandered by, and, invariably, their glances came to rest upon Colby’s unkempt appearance. A couple in their early twenties—Colby’s age, strolled silently past, enjoying the summer weather. The female was blonde, attractive and fit, the kind of girl Colby had dated before an unexpected discovery sent his life spinning into chaos. Colby watched the muscles of her thighs flex beneath the thin fabric of her skirt. Her breasts were small and firm, and they thrust against her tight blouse. As if feeling Colby’s eyes upon her, the girl glanced up and discovered his attention. Forgetting himself, Colby flashed a smile and was momentarily shocked at her immediate look of revulsion. Noting the exchange, the girl’s companion shot a glare. Colby’s smile twisted into a grimace, and, in a timeless gesture, he straightened the middle finger of his right hand. The couple looked away and quickly walked past. Colby hung his head in despondency, still stunned by how abruptly his life had fallen apart.

Days before, he’d received little or no attention from passersby, but that had changed as his appearance deteriorated. Lack of interest had surrendered to curiosity. Curiosity degenerated into vague unease. Eventually, displeasure and open hostility were all that Colby saw on the passing faces. The strongest reactions came from people who worked in the area and had seen him repeatedly over the past days. Colby hadn’t looked at himself in a mirror, but he imagined the worst.

Just that morning, his clothing had lost its enviro functions. He’d been chilled by the morning air and had reached absent-mindedly to depress one of the temperature controls in the collar of his shirt. He had heard the muted tone, indicating that the heat had been activated; however, the material never warmed up. For some reason, the thermal mechanism had failed. Most likely, he had been too inactive over the last few days for the viral battery to generate a charge. Worse still, the material was beginning to cling to his skin, and Colby noted in mortification that it was becoming increasingly malodorous. The cool morning had long since passed, and the heat of the day only served to intensify Colby’s discomfort.

He studied his painfully familiar surroundings. The sun hung a little south, but the museum was situated on the north side of the street, so it baked in the relentless heat. The pale Tyndall stone dazzled Colby’s vision, and it seemed to his over-taxed senses that the ancient trilobites inched across the building’s façade—sleep deprivation was making him delirious. On the south side of the street, where the angle of the sun allowed a small degree of respite from the heat, a narrow strip of shadow darkened the entrance of the MacLean Toy Company.

Twenty minutes earlier, the street had been quiet—no cacophony of horns or slamming car doors, but since the beginning of the lunch rush, it had become congested with vehicles. Occasionally, the acrid stench of gasoline reached Colby’s nostrils, and he wondered at the unfamiliar smell.

The sidewalks too, mostly vacant for the morning, were clustered with people who had spilled from the surrounding businesses in search of lunch at one of the sidewalk restaurants; their voices merged into a collective murmur. Cognizant of his status as an outsider, Colby imagined himself to be an anthropologist studying the customs of a primitive culture. The truth, however, was that the fashions they wore were not appreciatively different from his own; except, he noted sardonically, none of them had quite the look of a vagabond that he had cultivated over the past few days. He ran a grimy hand through his short, blond hair and wondered what they thought of him. His muscular physique and youthful, albeit unshaven face, would suggest that he could work if he desired to, but to all appearances, he had chosen to live on the street. Did they pity him? Despise him? Well, he considered, unless they interfered with his mission to retrieve Spencer, their opinion of him meant nothing. It was a lie to himself that he only half believed. He raised his gaze above the rabble and looked once again at the MacLean Toy Company—that was what mattered.

Aside from a few details, the building was pretty much as he remembered. It was a single story, freestanding structure of brick and wood. There was a small parking lot on one side and a lane leading to the back alley on the other. It was flanked by warehouses that had been converted into condominiums. The hand-carved sign above the front door was new, with fresh paint and none of the cracks in the wood that Colby had grown accustomed to. The large windows bracketing the door were washed clean, and he could see an array of bright toys displayed within. Structurally, the building looked in much better condition than he recalled: most notably, the dip he was familiar with in the left front rooftop, where rainwater cascaded down every thunderstorm, was still level and straight, evidence that time and neglect had not yet ravaged the building’s foundations.

Still, it was the MacLean Toy Company, and Colby knew it like a second home. Actually, for some time before this journey, it had been his second home. He grimaced at the thought, bitterly regretting the discovery of the artifact that had cast his life in turmoil.

Leaning back, Colby propped his elbows on the stone stair and looked upward at the deep, blue sky spiralling away from him into the cold vacuum of space. He sucked in a long drag from the cigarette then exhaled, coughed, and watched the smoke dissipate. The poison billowed into his lungs, choking his capillaries but sending a smooth note out along his veins. His chest burned, but he didn’t care; the nicotine kept him on edge. He’d noticed the cigarettes at the convenience store where he’d stolen his food and had taken them as well. Where he came from, smoking had long since been outlawed, but he had a vague recollection of his father smoking when he was a child, and he was curious.

Four days, he thought. Four fucking days. No one had ever been on such a lengthy step—except, perhaps, Spencer, and Colby had no desire to end up like Spencer. Where could that madman be? he wondered. Colby realized that when he’d stepped, he had miscalculated his re-entry into the continuum. Evidently, it would take more practice to become accurate with the Toy, practice Colby had no intention of getting. Once he got home, if he got home, he promised himself he would never use the Toy again.

He wondered about the other members of the research team, if they were suffering like he was. Their rendezvous time was fast approaching, so he would find out soon enough. No, not soon enough—the day before wouldn’t have been soon enough. Of the other three team members, he’d only spoken to Jana, and though communication through the Toy was shaky, Colby had gotten the impression that Jana was particularly upset. No doubt her feelings for Spencer were making the entire ordeal more difficult for her than it was for the rest of the research team. She had informed him that she hadn’t spoken to any of the other researchers, and, more importantly, she had not found Spencer.

When they had first connected through the Toy—a technique that they had not been able to perfect, Jana had appeared surprised to see Colby. The distortions made it difficult to be certain, but he thought that her dark eyes were moist, as if she’d been crying. Perhaps he had merely sensed that the lengthy duration of their step was beginning to take its toll on her—it weighed heavily enough on him—yet there’d seemed more to it. She appeared guarded, as though she had been hiding information from him. Colby felt a flash of guilt, for he was himself keeping a secret. There was something that he had experienced on an earlier step that he needed to tell Jana, but he couldn’t bring himself to reveal it. Because he couldn’t predict how the information would affect her behaviour, he feared the consequences of telling her what he knew. Their circumstances were so unusual, with so many variables and paradoxes involved, that it was difficult to know what was safe to disclose and what was dangerous. While they were talking, he convinced himself to reveal the information, then something Jana said had changed his mind and precluded the disclosure. Once again, he’d pulled his secret close to his chest and said goodbye to her, not certain if he was making the right decision.

Afterward, sitting on the steps of the museum, Colby could not avoid the conviction that he had been wrong, that he should have told Jana everything he knew. He wondered how long the Toy would keep things connected and hoped that he would get a chance to correct his mistake.

Grimacing against the stiffness in his joints, Colby stood and stretched his cramped muscles. He tugged the sweat-soaked shirt away from his skin and groaned at the smell that wafted outward. Almost devoid of hope, he resumed his perch and once again focused his attention on the Toy Company entrance.

Futility huddled close beside him on the steps.

Colby was not aware of it, but he was himself the object of scrutiny. Less than half a block away, on the same side of the street as the museum, a young man studied Colby’s peculiar behaviour. The youth’s name was Gillian Child, and he sat at an outside restaurant, partially hidden behind a low, wrought-iron fence. Gillian had the face of an aesthetic, and his slate-grey eyes glimmered with a fanatical light. His porcelain skin looked as though it had never been touched by the sun. Occasionally, when he turned his head, a strange lump became visible, thrusting out against the skin at the base of his skull. His long, black hair had been tied back in a ponytail in an attempt to conceal the presence of this abnormality. He wore a pullover shirt and black pants that shimmered oddly when he shifted in his seat. His jacket had no collar and was of an unusual cut. It was of sufficient length to conceal the handgun tucked into his belt. One hand rested in his lap. The other cupped a glass of wine.

An aura of finality hung about him.

Gillian did not know who Colby Austin was, or why Colby displayed such a keen interest in the Toy Company. He was not even certain that Colby was the individual he had come so far to find, but he did know that Colby was a traveller like himself and had no business being in that place at that particular time. Despite his emotionless façade, Gillian struggled with indecision. It was very likely that Colby was destined to perform a destructive act, one that had to be prevented, but Gillian did not know the specific nature of that act or exactly when it was to take place. Gillian knew that it would be expedient to kill Colby before he had a chance to interact with anyone, but there was a possibility, however slight, that Colby’s actions were of no real consequence, and that his death was the very thing that Gillian had come to prevent. Though he was uneasy with the decision, Gillian reasoned that he should simply wait and hope that when the moment came he could react quickly enough to prevent Colby from causing a disruption.

It so happened that on that particular afternoon, neither Colby nor Gillian would have much longer to wait.

Back in front of the MacLean Toy Company, Colby’s vigil came to such an abrupt conclusion that, for a moment, he was too startled to react. Across the street, the man for whom he’d been waiting stepped quickly from out the front doors of the Company, turned left, and began walking purposefully down the sidewalk. It was Spencer. After a moment of stunned hesitation, Colby leapt to his feet, flicked the cigarette from his fingers and rushed down the steps of the museum. He almost collided with several people on the sidewalk and had to forcibly thrust them out of his way; angry voices arose at his passing.

Cars crowded the street, and Colby was compelled to pause for a frantic moment until a break in traffic allowed him to sprint across to the MacLean Toy Company. One driver braked anxiously, and the sound of his horn echoed sharply off the surrounding buildings. As Colby ran, he tugged the weapon he carried from the holster under his shirt—a handgun of a curious design. Spencer had not yet seen him and continued in his hurried stride, unwittingly heading in the direction of the youth watching from the restaurant. Gillian had not seen Spencer, but he had noted Colby’s sudden animation and in response had left his chair and begun running toward the museum. Cursing his indecision, Gillian realized that he had waited too long to act; he should have killed Colby the moment he found him.

Although hindered by the crowd of pedestrians, Colby still managed to close in on Spencer. He called Spencer’s name, and when his erstwhile friend turned, Colby’s worst fear was confirmed—Spencer’s tormented countenance was that of a madman. Even so, recognition flashed in Spencer’s eyes, and a low moan rattled from his throat; then he snarled and sprinted recklessly into the rushing traffic. At the same moment, a