Defying Fate: Paradox, #3

By Henry Brown

Ike Jaeger has made it to college, earning a degree he may put to use colonizing Planet Valhalla, or designing a warp generator that will revolutionize time-space jumps. But he's not going to let academics distract him from what's most important: playing football, racing hot rods, and chasing girls.

 

Handpicked by Coach Stauchel, Ike steps into the limelight as the starting quarterback for the Yosemite Pumas. With the weight of the team's aspirations on his shoulders, leading them to victory outweighs maintaining a low profile.

 

Scholarly pursuits may fail to interfere with gridiron glory, but unforeseen misadventures just might: a wrong turn into a postapocalyptic future, an ill-fated obsession with fighting in World War Two, and encounters with an array of vivacious vixens. Will the clairvoyant African prophetess in 1960 Sierra Leone capture his heart? What about the glamorous Hollywood hopeful in 1942, or the vampish Marxist professor teaching his political science class at Yosemite Polytechnic?

 

Ike escaped his own dystopian destiny, but Fate is a vindictive mistress, hell-bent on dragging him back into her cruel clutches. Will she gain revenge with a blind-side cheap shot by a hulking defensive lineman, by using communist occupational forces to blow his antique fighter-bomber out of the sky, or by exposing Ike to pan-continuum assassins as a time-traveling fugitive from an alternate reality?

 

Paradox is more than an exhilarating tale of time-travel and triumph; it's a saga of a young man's extraordinary journey from the cusp of adulthood to the pinnacle of his potential. In Defying Fate, Ike blazes his own trail to manhood, and perhaps even greatness, against all odds. Join him on this epic adventure, where the boundaries of time, love, and destiny blur, coalescing into an odyssey that truly transcends the imaginable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Virtual Pulp Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223840176

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NO PART OF THIS BOOK may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Events, characters and organizations depicted herein are products of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously.

Jap sons of bitches, I said. They started it; but we're gonna finish it.

Dad took a breath, gazed into my eyes, then down at my clenched fist.

In a weak, tired voice, he said, Don't do it, Sprout.

His tone of voice surprised me as much as his words did. I turned my attention from the radio to him.

I had never seen Dad look so old.

Huh? Don't do what?

Join up, he said. Go off to fight in this great crusade.

I should have expected he could read my intentions. Ever since driving into Los Angeles and seeing all the men prepared to go over there, and the civilians united in support of them; since reading the posters, hearing the music, feeling that incredible zeitgeist...and the shame of receiving reverent glances I didn't deserve, because of my phony uniform...I wanted to set the world free. For real.

I needed to do my part.

I wanted to fulfill a role in something that was bigger than myself. On some level I knew that a lot of the war effort was hype and jingoism. Yet it was so...enormous. I wanted to be a cog in the machine that would achieve something awesome, something desperate. Something dangerous, profound, historic, heroic, definitive.

The America I came from was a self-hating, cancerous wretch rotting from within and dying the death of a thousand cuts. This America in 1942 was an awakening giant full of a terrible resolve, ready to kick ass and bring down righteous wrath on the forces of evil.

"Look, Dad: I know the good guys win. It's a done deal. They'll do it without me. I know that. But I don't want them to do it without me. I know I could be killed. I know I could be crippled. I'm willing to take that risk. I need to take that risk."

Dad wore a sad frown. "I gave you a family, Sprout. Not biological, but just as good. Better. You see that, right? You don't need to sacrifice or prove yourself to me, or Hortensia, or Angelina. You're already valuable to us. There's nothing you need to do...nothing you can do, to make yourself any more valuable to us. You're maxed out. You're not gonna find family in the Army, Navy, or Marines. Not now, not ever. Not in the Air Force in 1991. Not in the Space Force in 2024. Not in the Roman legions, the French Foreign Legion, or Napoleon's Imperial Guard. No matter how many badasses wear the same uniform in any war, it'll never be a family to you. At least, it'll never be as good as the one you got right here, or in Bakersfield, or—"

Why was he on this family kick again? It was strange that he could nearly read my mind on every subject but this one.

I know I've got family, Dad. This isn't about me thinking military service will be a better family than what I've got. It's not that at all.

I struggled to find words that weren't corny or grandiose.

This point in history...this war...it's...

It's huge, Dad finished for me. It's momentous.

"It's important, Dad. There's never been anything as important since. The country is united, like it never will be again. People have put their petty differences aside, and are working together to accomplish something good. Something...noble. I know that sounds corny. But I'm not a total idiot. I don't want to be cannon fodder in some 'police action' where we're supposedly containing communism while communists here at home stab us in the back and rape the country from the inside. I don't want to go destabilize the Middle East for some bullshit excuse about what Saddam Hussein did, or might have done. This is something different. There's never been a time when right and wrong were so plain to see. This is good against evil, and everybody knows it. Nobody, even in Congress, even in the media, even in Hollywood, is bickering with each other about who is on the right side and the wrong side. Nobody is protesting the war or badmouthing the country. That's unthinkable, here and now. Good and evil have never been so obvious—not in my lifetime, not in yours. I don't know how far back you'd have to go to find something so clear-cut...if there ever was. This has meaning, Dad. As good as the life is that you set up for me, I'll never find anything as meaningful as this, here. Not of this magnitude. I could never have taken part in something like this in the life I was born to. But here I am. How can I not step up and try to do my part? Even if, in the grand scheme, my contribution doesn't really make a difference, how could I not at least try? Even if I fail, it would still be the greatest thing I could have ever done."

Dad surprised me again by quietly saying, I know.

I stared at him. He closed his eyes, squeezed his temples, twisted his lips, then pushed his knuckle into his brow. I felt bad about causing a stress headache that was obviously very painful.

Dad put his hand down and blinked his eyes a few times. I understand everything you said, Ike. I don't think you're being corny, and I know you're not a fool.

He raised both hands and jammed knuckles to brow again. I could tell by the whitening skin at the point of contact that he was putting serious pressure behind his fists. Then he lowered his hands and blinked again.

This is my fault, he said. There were some things I meant to show you. I still need to show you. I should have made the time to do it. And I will.

Chapter 1: Easy Times

We exited the church from youngest to oldest—Debbie, Lana, Wyatt, Me, Mami, and Dad. Well, it seemed to be in age order, anyway. Technically, Dad and I were the youngest, We wouldn't be born for decades, but my mother and siblings didn't know that.

Okay...biologically speaking: they weren't really my parents and siblings. Dad was really my uncle. I was not related to Mami other than through unofficial adoption, and not related to the kids except through Dad. Confused yet? Just wait.

Other people, dressed in their Sunday finest, smiled and bid us goodbye, tipping hats or waving. Mami responded to each, cheerfully. Dad tipped his own hat and replied as if conserving the energy it took to move his mouth. Debbie would have taken off running to who-knew-where, had her older sister not held a firm grip on her hand.

We strolled across the parking lot to Dad's yellow '37 Cord. Dad opened the passenger door for Mami. Then came one of those fascinating feminine maneuvers she was so adept at: she whirled so that she faced away from the open door and fell slowly backwards into the seat. While on the way down, the hand not holding her purse reached around behind her and pressed against the fabric of the new dress Dad had just bought her, sweeping it over to pull taught against the back of her thighs right before her rump hit the seat. It was timed perfectly so that her hand cleared just before getting caught between the car's seat and...ahem...her seat.

I herded the kids into the back seat behind Dad, then I climbed in behind Mami. Dad cranked the engine to life.

Sweet music! Wyatt exclaimed, grinning at the Cord's bass rumble.

As with most of Dad's vehicles, the Cord's powertrain was far from stock, and almost 50 years anachronistic. He and I had built the engine and transmission in 1986, in a garage at Texas Station—one of Dad's many properties scattered strategically across the post-Industrial Revolution region of the space-time continuum. He sunk it in gear and got us rolling.

Mami leaned across the front seat and kissed him on the cheek. Thank you for taking us to church, my love.

He turned his head and grinned at her.

Dad didn't care for organized religion, But he did care for Mami, and was willing to sit through Sunday services to please her. I found myself wishing, for the thousandth time, that he would give up his other lives, his mistresses, all his mad scientist schemes, and just settle down with Mami. Keep her happy full-time.

At this point in my life, I could understand him wanting to have a life and a squeeze at every time-space coordinate. I was spinning plates of my own, by then. But if Mami was ever to find out Dad was playing house with other women, it would break her heart.

She half-turned, craned her neck, and made eye contact with Wyatt, who sat on the edge of the back seat, his hands gripping the front seat on either side of Dad's neck.

You are just like your father, she said. You both like loud things. Then she tried to imitate the exhaust note with her voice.

My sisters giggled at her impression, but Wyatt rolled his eyes. My Spanish had improved to the point I could follow these conversations without missing anything important.

"Oh, are you too grown up for my engine noises now, Mijo? It wasn't that long ago when you would laugh, too. She tried some more sound effects, then turned to her daughters and declared, in English, The only difference between men and boys is the eh-size and expense of their desired toys."

Lana and Debbie giggled some more. Maybe they understood everything, maybe not—but they knew Mami was acting silly and teasing Wyatt.

Dad arched an eyebrow and threw a sidelong glance over his shoulder toward me. We exchanged a grin. The Cord purred along at 70 miles an hour.

Vroom! Vroom! Mami continued, and apparently her sound effects were never going to get old for the girls.

When we arrived at the Orange Grove, Dad parked by the front porch and asked me to put the car away. He walked around to open Mami's door and give her a hand climbing out.

Wyatt let himself out, then held the door open for his little sisters.

As my family went inside, Dad turned back toward me as I slid behind the wheel. Meet me at the temperature wheel when you get changed?

I nodded, and steered the Cord over to the enormous building comprised of several garage bays and a few aircraft hangars. Bays in the building were kept locked, ostensibly to discourage any thieves who ventured all the way out to the Orange Grove to see what they could steal. The more compelling reason was that Dad kept some stuff here that had not been invented or manufactured yet. I parked and locked the swing-up garage door before strolling to the hacienda to change.

It was hot at the temperature wheel and Dad probably wouldn't ask me to meet him there if there wasn't some maintenance required. I dressed in my greasies—jeans already so stained by petroleum products that they shouldn't be worn in public, and an equally ruined sleeveless shirt (undershirt at these coordinates, muscle shirt or wife-beater in the era I came from).

As I drew near to where the temperature wheel and generator (really an alternator) were housed, a rhythmic scraping/grinding noise grew more prominent in the ambience.

The outer building looked like a large barn, but once inside, it was obvious that it had no roof—flat or otherwise. All it had was a fairly narrow arch spanning from one wall to the other. The sun shone directly down into the vast space. Lining the walls were sturdy steel shelves loaded with banks of nickel-iron batteries, each larger than a footlocker. The huge alternator sat at the south end of the structure, turning quietly while providing electricity for the hacienda and the rest of the estate. Attached to the power source was a gearbox. The spinning shaft driving the gearbox extended through a hole in a small greenhouse in the center of the huge barn.

I entered the greenhouse and the sweltering heat blasted me. Dad was already inside, sweating buckets. What drove the shaft was the temperature wheel. The outer band of the wheel was composed of multiple airtight tanks, with pipes leading like spokes from each tank to a central hub surrounding a circular housing from which the shaft extended. The top third of the wheel extended up through a slot in the greenhouse roof, rotating under the arch across the top of the barn—so that it was always in shade, but exposed to the breeze. The bottom of the wheel sat in a metal trough full of water kept hot by the ambient heat of the greenhouse. Inside the tanks and pipes of the wheel was freon—which transformed from gas to liquid form just from a few degrees change in temperature. It was heated into light gas form down inside the greenhouse, expanding up through the pipes into the tanks. Up in the shady breeze, the gas cooled inside the tanks, transforming to heavier liquid. The weight of the liquid caused gravity to pull the tanks back down, and the wheel turned. It rotated slowly, but with massive torque. The torque was overdriven in the gearbox so that the alternator spun fast enough to generate scads of electricity.

The scraping/grinding noise was loud here inside the greenhouse. Dad, dressed much like me, stooped over next to the central housing, opening a toolbox.

Okay, he said. This should go quick with both of us. You know what that noise is?

A bearing gone bad? Even without him honing my mechanical aptitude over the last several years of relative time, I would have known the sound was caused by friction, and the repetitive nature of it meant it came from a rotating part.

Dad tapped his temple and nodded approvingly at me. He looked up at the bright sky visible through the slot in the greenhouse roof. Now, we could wait until after dark, when this thing stops spinning anyway, but who wants to do this at night? Engage the clutch, if you would, Ike.

I pulled a large lever from vertical to horizontal, and pinned it in place to hold it down. As the clutch engaged, the wheel spun faster, while the shaft spun slower and came to a stop after a few moments. The awful noise stopped with it.

Thankfully, the bearing for the wheel itself was fine, or we would have had no choice but to work on it in the middle of the night. That wheel was going to spin as long as the sun and breeze caused the temperature disparity. There was no stopping it until after the temperature disparity ended.

Inside a cardboard box decorated with black handprint stains was the replacement roller bearing, which Dad had already packed with grease. Dad and I chatted while we worked together to get the old bearing out and this new one in.

What did you call your pals there at Poly, again? Dad asked, with an amused expression.

The Tumultuous Trio, I said, also amused, just thinking about my college roommate and the two other upperclassmen who had begun football training camp hazing me, but had since more-or-less welcomed me into their clique. Wherever they go, it's like a storm hits whoever is there.

Rowdy, I guess?

I chuckled. Well, there's Bartok—offensive lineman. Intelligent enough, but still...yeah, rowdy. He's about the size of Godzilla. His footsteps make the ground shake. He also likes to mess with people. Has a dry sense of humor.

Big corn-fed boy, Dad remarked, nodding, still amused.

And my roommate, Gartenberg. He's like the straight man for the other two's comedy routine, quite often. Zeppo or Gummo, I guess, playing off Chico and Harpo. I considered this assessment for a moment, then corrected myself. Well, sometimes he can be like Groucho, actually. He's got a dry sense of humor, too. Vicious wisecracks and comebacks, sometimes. Probably the smartest guy on the team.

What position is he, now?

Flanker, I replied. He also plays guitar and sings. He introduced us to this beatnik bar not far from campus. Weird crowd—they snap fingers for applause instead of clapping. They'll actually sit and listen to freestyle poetry and seem to enjoy it.

It's gonna get even weirder in the '60s, Dad said. You'll see.

Then there's Kiley, I continued. Linebacker. Solid muscle—including between his ears.

Dad grinned.

"A redneck, with cowboy hat, cowboy boots—the whole rig. He's the most hilarious of all, but I wouldn't say he even has a sense of humor."

Dad cocked an eyebrow at me.

As near as I can figure, I said, life for him is just one ongoing phallic comparison chart.

Dad busted out laughing. He didn't do that very often.

Gartenberg said one time that Kiley isn't even human—he's a walking, talking penis. And...yeah...he might be right. Outside of football, penis size seems to be all he thinks or cares about.

Still chuckling while recovering from his guffaw, Dad remarked, And he's got the biggest one ever, I'm sure. Seven feet long, or so?

Oh, nobody in the whole history of penises was ever hung as heavy as Kiley, I assured him. Just ask him—he'll tell ya. It would shatter his whole world if he ever found out different. I mean, he literally seems to have no other interests in life. Gartenberg and Bartok are hot-rodders. But 'hot rod' means something else entirely to Kiley.

Dad shook his head. On a serious note: isn't it amazing that most young men knew how to work with their hands once upon a time? Get past 2000 or so and they can't even change a tire or give a jump-start. Cruising, racing, wrenching—it was all part of the culture. Then somehow it went to playing videogames and surfing porn. Yay, progress.

I know which culture Kiley would find superior, I quipped. But yeah: the most popular hobby, by far, is modifying cars. Roomie's got a T-bucket. Bartok's got a chopped-and-channeled '49 Mercury.

Classic lead sled, Dad declared, nodding, still grinning.

They were talking smack about the Studebaker, so we drug it on out to a lonely road nearby, and I blew their doors off. I guess that's part of why they eventually seemed to give me some respect.

Dad sobered. Remember what I told you about keeping a low profile.

Yes sir. I sandbagged so that I just barely beat them. Wouldn't let them look under the hood. I explained the fat tires by borrowing your cover story about secret research-and-development prototypes.

Don't ever forget we're taking a serious risk, Dad said, frowning now. The Erasers don't just come after troublemakers who split the timestream. They murder temporal fugitives, refugees, temporal tourists...anything they find that doesn't belong, they eliminate. I still don't know how they found you in St. Louis, and that goes to show you they have resources we don't understand, yet.

The Erasers had murdered my biological family back at my native coordinates in 1988.

Back in the future.

The continuum is a gigantic haystack, Dad continued. The TPF...the CPB...they have limited resources and can't find every single needle. We don't want to help them get lucky.

TPF stood for Temporal Police Force, which Dad once worked for, but deserted to become a time-space fugitive. The CPB was the Continuum Protection Bureau—the TPF's parent company. The Erasers were an elite, clandestine hit team from the TPF.

Hot-rodding is good, he continued. Playing football is fine. Those help you blend in—to a point. But if too many people find out how fast your car is, that could start a buzz. If that buzz reaches the ears of somebody working for the CPB, your new identity will be targeted. And if there are photos of you available, that just makes it easier.

I skipped Picture Day every year in high school, at Dad's urging, so there would be no visual reference of me in the yearbook. I was in the group photo of the football team, but Dad had somehow gotten access to the negative before printing, so that there just happened to be a blemish in the film where my face was.

Dad and I had built the Stude together. The suspension and powertrain were composed of parts from decades in the future. It was much, much faster than any other street legal vehicle at my adopted coordinates...with the exception of Dad's '41 Willys. So much faster, that anyone with knowledge of a particular data set might decide it was an anachronism, and that its owner was a person of interest.

Yes sir, I replied. I was careful, like I said. And I'll stay careful. But how many CPB assets would even know enough about street racing to...if they somehow learned everything about it...decide the Stude doesn't belong where and when it is?

Dad shrugged. Probably nobody—though there is this tool called the Internet. You may have heard of it.

The Internet and World Wide Web were unknown to Joe Public at my native Coordinates, and earlier. But I had been introduced to it in trips to BH (Brazilian Highlands) Station in the 2000s.

Okay, I said. But wouldn't they have to know a lot even to research the right information online? I mean, they'd have to know smoke when they see it, before they start looking for the fire.

"Listen, Hero: this is not a situation wherein you want to live out on the edge, seeing how much you can endanger yourself and get away with it. You might be able to step out to the very edge of the cliff and not fall over, but you need to stay far, far away from the cliff so no bad actor can push you over."

When he called me hero, it was best that I just kept my mouth shut and listened.

When you're young and in great shape, you assume you're invincible, Dad went on. But the Cabal has assets that can kill you like that. He snapped greasy fingers to make his point. When you don't even know you've been targeted. Don't ever try to defy Fate. Do whatever you can to avoid even drawing her attention.

It was normal for Dad to personify fate. He spoke of it as he would some heartless, sadistic femme fatale.

Dad might be eccentric by some measures, but he was far from delusional. Neither was he superstitious. Yet he believed there was some supernatural or paranormal being who shadowed his every step, waiting for opportunity to pounce and visit disaster on his life. By escaping to different coordinates, Dad made it harder for that entity to track him. And me.

Sometimes I found myself adopting that same personification of Fate. Especially when I thought about my past life.

WE GOT THE NEW ROLLER bearing in and put the machinery back together, then returned to the hacienda to clean up for supper.

Mami had roasted a chicken, fried potatoes, baked bread and sauteed vegetables. Again, out of respect for her beliefs, Dad said a prayer of thanks and asked a blessing on the meal, to a God he didn't see as merciful, like she did. He might not have even believed He existed—though he did occasionally mention God, in a speculative way.

I heard the Germans attacked the Russians, Wyatt said, around a mouthful of potatoes.

Don't talk with your mouth full, Mami warned him.

Wyatt swallowed his food and said, I thought they were allies.

Dad nodded. The USSR was part of the Axis for a while. Remember: they both invaded Poland.

"Why did the Germans attack them, then?"

It was bound to happen, Dad said. One of them was going to betray the other one, sooner or later. Hitler wanted to strike first, before Stalin's numerical advantage could be fully brought to bear.

Why?

"The National Socialists want 'lebensraum', Dad said. Space to live. They need real estate for their population to grow, so their empire will last a thousand years—and they think the best lebensraum is to their east. The International