Which I did. Quickly, blessedly. We found a stash of once-white scrubs in an adjacent closet, and used several to fill in our wardrobe as needed, stuffing a few yellowed cloth masks in our pockets that we could wear in case we wanted to hide our identities. Now, how to get out of the building itself and find Spud?
John hid beside a shattered window, whose remaining glass shards were blanketed with fine dust, and peeked out at the courtyard below. “One sentinel at every corner tower, and the rovers are in pairs. About five minutes between patrols. If we can create a distraction for the tower guards, we’d have a break to make it to the east entrance.”
I pointed to several large dusty tanks, topped by rusty dials. “I think that’s oxygen. Anybody got a light?” If only Spud, who was always ready for a smoke, were here, we could build an explosive device…
But John and Aliyah’s heads were buried in a tall cabinet. Not again. “What’s so fascinating?” I chided, “You realize every minute we waste here increases our chances of getting caught.”
John turned to face us, his right hand holding a large jar filled with a yellow liquid in which floated a brown mass. “What does this look like to you?”
“I’m assuming you don’t want the obvious answer,” I returned.
“It’s a heart. A small one,” interjected the Professor, “in serum.”
John pulled open the cabinet door to reveal several shelves of similar jars, each containing small lumps of tissue in fluid. Some resembled identifiable organs. Livers, eyes, hearts, a pancreas, kidneys. Others were amorphous balls.
Dr. Malamud pointed to one of the balls. “This specimen is a more primitive form. Based on its length and shape, it seems to be developing into a stomach.”
“Wow. What were these people doing in here?” I scanned the room, noting a broken surgical table on the far wall. “Besides waterboarding Persian spies, of course.”
The Professor’s voice was a whisper. “I would hypothesize they were promoting organ regeneration for transplants. My parents spoke of these myths, that such knowledge existed, but I never believed them.”
“Myths?” John asked. Organ regeneration was elementary medicine at Zyga’s universe-renowned Nejinsen Medical Center. But then again, this was Earth. Ancient Earth.
“My parents served as doctors. My mother worked with transplantation of donor and artificial hearts.” Dr. Malamud paused, averting her eyes. Blinking, she added, “But no moderns have ever successfully stimulated progenitor cells to differentiate into new organs.”
“I’m afraid that knowledge gained can just as easily be lost,” John said, replacing the jar with the heart back on the shelf.
“History is full of such tragedies,” he added, sighing. “Like the library at old Alexandria.” His frown returned. “Well, no makeshift bombs, no fires, that’s for sure. We’ll have to try to escape quietly. I don’t want to be responsible for derailing this world’s medical progress.”
I nodded my agreement. “Besides, we’ll have to limit any physical damage to the building so we can retrieve our Ergals before we split.”
“So we can split,” corrected John. “Which means we before we break out of these prison walls, we’ll have to break in.”
Chapter 21
Babylon IV
John took the lead, gripping an IV pole like his bat, as we snuck out of the surgical section. We made our way down a dimly lit hall past darkened operating rooms towards an abandoned central nurses’ station, which was brightly lit by the setting sun’s rays through a row of cracked windows. I brought up the rear, behind the Professor, my eyes peeled for any hidden intruders that might try to surprise us again. All of the operatories were also abandoned, their double doors rusted with broken hinges. Except one. A light shone through the slit between its double doors—I saw shadows within and gestured to John and Aliyah to move past the room quickly and quietly. We all exhaled only after we’d reached the nurses’ station. But something was nagging at me. Something was off.
“What?” John whispered. “Let’s go—there seems to be a door on the other side.”
“Wait.” I stood frowning, staring back down the hall towards the operatory with the light. “It seemed like there were people in there.”
“An even better reason to keep moving, right?” said John.
“But when I walked past, it was just weird. The only place I saw shadows was in the top half of the slit between the doors, not the bottom. Like somebody was flying—“
“Or levving,” John nodded. “I’ll go check.”
“Both of us,” I insisted. “Professor, you stay here and hide bethind these counters. In case you need to run and get us help.”
John tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for us to tiptoe back to the lit operatory. We peeked through the slit and confirmed that the shadows seemed to be close to the ceiling, not the floor. John positioned his IV pole like a Geryon, and counted down with his fingers—3-2-1. We burst through the door, ready to fight off our unknown enemies, and stopped in mid-tracks.
Hanging from an IV hook was a young man, coughing and gagging, his feet bound and his arms tied behind his back, his face tinged violet, a rope tugging at his bruised and bleeding jaw.
“Spud!”
We raced to his side, and lifted him up and over the rope that had been digging into his mandible. He collapsed into our arms, taking deep, wheezy breaths, as we untied him and watched his skin assume a healthier beige hue.
“Thank the Omega Archon…” escaped my lips.
“Hardly,” a hoarse voice responded, “Twas my anatomical investigations that allowed me to contract and relax my sternocleidomastoids and manoeuvre the rope into my mandibular notch.” Spud took another deep breath. “Thereby relieving the pressure on my larynx.”
“We thought someone was levving,” said John.
Spud shook his head and winced as his muscles complained. “I did take the precaution of hiding my Ergal ring someplace I never thought they would search. But, alas, they left no cavity unturned.” He rubbed his neck with a dirt-caked hand. “I’d been attempting to swing my legs up and over and release my head from the noose completely, though I am most grateful that you both were there to break what would very likely have been a painful landing on this stone floor.”
“Well,” my voice radiated caring, “at least they didn’t waterboard you.”
Spud’s expression seemed to indicate that my attempt at empathy had been misguided. “But I told them nothing. I shudder to think what these savages might do if they could manipulate an Ergal.”
John interrupted, “We’d better go before they come back for your—for you. I think I spotted a way out of here. Can you walk?”
Spud stood up, albeit unsteadily, and nodded. “Let us make haste.” He frowned for a moment, sniffing. “Do I detect the faint odor of--”
“Come on,” I urged. “We’ll explain later.”
* * *
Aliyah and I spotted Spud as John led us to yet another deserted wing that offered us entry to a spacious room. The suite was barren except for several lopsided chairs and a scratched wood conference table with glass place mats.
“Looks like they could use a new housekeeper,” I offered, tracing a line in the dust on the glass with my finger.
Spud leaned in close to the mats, smelling the edges, and feeling the rims with his hands. “I believe,” he said, lifting one of them off the table to show us the wires attached to the underside, “that these rectangles were a type of primitive holo or tablet. A computer.”
“Wow. Way back in 1000 AD?” John exclaimed. “Can you get it to work?”
Spud’s eyes panned around the room. “I see no viable power source in here.” He ran his fingers down the length of the wire, then shook his head.
“Guess we’d better keep moving. The soldiers should’ve found our guilty guards by now.” I moved to the door, peeking down the dark hall
. “Clear.”
CRASH! The building shook violently, plaster and dust showering us with a white coating. So much for my clean shower.
“What was that?” whispered Dr. Malamud.
“Another bomb, I conjecture,” said Spud, pointing out a broken window, through which we could hear the loud beat of revolving blades. “And another aircraft.”
Dr. Malamud took a peek herself. “That’s an autogyro! I’ve seen sketches in our historical files.”
“Looks like a helicopter to me,” said John. “A big one. Military issue. Which side?”
“The Daedalus autogyros were critical to the success of the Roman campaign to defend the East Mediterranean.”
“You don’t have them any more?” asked John.
“No,” Dr. Malamud said, “When the fossil fuels ran out after the Crusades, we returned to wind-powered airships for a few hundred years. The USA still uses them today.” She brushed a piece of plaster from her cheek. “Ion propulsion has only been functional in the past century for our supersonics, and we hope it’ll take us back to the moon someday.”
“Back?” Spud’s ears perked up.
“Gaia and Selene were considered the sisters of Isis. Historical records describe several ventures to the moon before the Crusades, in the hopes of claiming our satellite for Rome and Horus.” She snorted. “However, many of our modern scientists believe that, judging by the period’s modest level of technological development, such missions were spun from wool draped over their citizens’ eyes.”
“I doubt they’d have the technology to get through the Van Allen Belts,” John injected, “The radiation belts around Earth.” Spud and I exchanged glances. John probably didn’t know what we’d discovered--that Benedict’s dimension-traveling experiments had actually created that radiation only a few years before our own time.
“Granted, the nuclear winter that followed the Crusades would have been a challenge to navigate through. But the missions were reputed to have occurred much earlier than this Holocaust. On the other hand, skeptics insist these ancestors, with primitive computers, aluminum craft, and petroleum fuel could never truly achieve extra-atmospheric travel.” She smiled at us. “Nevertheless, I’ve always had faith that the reports were true, and that humans like us will someday spread their wings again in space.”
Grinning, John put his hands together and gave the Professor a slight bow. “Namaste”. Seeing her puzzled expression, he added, “Maybe, after we’re done here, you’ll give me the chance to take you for a ride.”
“He’s doing that right now,” I muttered, shaking my head. Louder: “Hey, if we don’t get going we really are going to be done here. We don’t want to fall into the clutches of Officer Waterboard a second time.” To Spud: Any ideas? Can you get any of these 2-D holos working?”
“There may be light,” nodded Spud, “if I were able to pull your brother away from the Professor to lend a hand.”
“On it,” I said, grabbing John’s arm and tugging him towards the table.
* * *
“Dude!” I offered my fist to Spud for a fist bump. Rigging the glass computer to a makeshift power source would’ve been hard enough without the deafening alarms blaring from a crackling speaker system hanging from the ceiling, as well as the shouts from the guards making their way through the building in search of their escaped prisoners—us. Connecting the computer to the speaker wiring was a stroke of genius. But then again, that was our Spud. No slouch in the rabbit-pulling arena himself.
The glass lit up, flickering several times before displaying several menus in both Arabic and Cyrillic letters. Without Ergals, we would have to try to decrypt the writing manually. Professor Malamud was able to transliterate some of the Arab-esque, no pun intended. John did surprisingly well with the Cyrillic. I’d forgotten that he’d studied Russian journals to bolster the research he’d been doing on high energy subatomic particles at the University of Maryland synchrotron.
“Select this one,” John suggested. “Appears to be an index of hospital departments.”
Spud and Dr. Malamud pored over the list. “No, let’s try ‘zatvor’ . Corrections,” she said.
John squinted at the uploading display. “It looks like at least half of this hospital was a prison. Wouldn’t shock me if they did medical experiments…” He waved a hand in the direction of the surgical suites.
“The list of prisoners includes adherents of Ishtar, Aten, and,” Dr. Malamud’s voice caught on the last word, “Yahweh!” Her hand covered her lips.
“Zardosht, Zoroaster,” she continued after a trembling breath, “preached the philosophy of asa, truth, and free will. How could his followers have chosen to abuse others?”
“No such thing as free will in purgatory,” John snorted, “We are all prisoners of our creators’ whims.”
“Disciples of a sect have not always adhered to its founding tenets,” interjected Spud. “We do not have enough information to answer your question,” he added to the Professor. “Perhaps the disciples of Zarathustra were the liberators and not the imprisoners here. Isis may have tended the embers of peace, but Horus, Osiris, and Dionysus are not out of place in the violent pantheon of Jupiter and Mars, God of War.”
Was this really the time to be debating religious doctrines? I had to step in. I pointed to a section of the diagram across from our location. “You think that wing there could be where they’ve stored our Ergals--among other things?”
“You’re right, Shiloh,” John nodded. “Translates as pharmacy. Those are usually locked.”
“Locked or unlocked, we’ll have to figure out a way to make it past our former cells and those guards and possibly ‘the cavalry’, which I expect is approaching post haste,” Spud agreed, “judging by this horrid unceasing alarm.”
“If only we had an Ergal,” John sighed.
“Ha,” was the only response I could muster.
Chapter 22
Life is a Carousel
Three catascopes and a sharp stowaway brainstormed a salad bowl of strategies for our next steps.
I suggested we return to the surgical suites and build an armory of makeshift targeted mini-firebombs that we could use as a distraction, or, even better, for an aggressive frontal assault on our captors. John was in favor of a more delicate approach. There must be a stash of anesthetics in the operating rooms, he insisted. Spud weighed in with my brother, suggesting we disperse some “ether” into the ventilation ducts, knock out our enemies, stride into the vault and retrieve our belongings. By the time they’d wake up, we’d have long departed via for the ether of space-time.
Dr. Malamud advocated for us to try to negotiate. Spud and I patiently explained that she was fortunate to have grown up in a civilized modern society that was relatively free of deceit, villainy, and war. In this world, it was much more likely that we’d be handed our—ahem--assets on a platter. We had to be sure these “savages” didn’t find us. It sounded as if our oasis would soon be breached.
Spud headed back towards the suite’s door, opening it a crack to listen for the approaching soldiers. “I’d estimate they are three to five minutes away,” he whispered to me as I peeked into the still-deserted hall. “They are doing a room-to-room reconnoiter.”
“Then we should grab the computer and get moving,” I said. “John, Professor, we have to go.”
What the heck? I looked around the room. Where was John? And the Professor? Spud and I were alone.
“Your brother seems to have also taken the computer,” Spud observed, scanning the room for another opening or door.
“Where?” I shook my head. “There’s only the one door.” Beyond which the sound of shouting and banging by our captors was clearly getting closer and louder.
“Over here,” a voice behind us spoke.
We turned to see a smiling Aliyah with her arms around a grinning John standing on the other side of the conference table, both dresse
d in pristine, pressed togas. John’s extended right hand was holding—
“Our Ergals!” I gasped. “How did you do that?”
John doled out our prized rings. “Wish I could take the credit, but it was our buddy, Les, who saved the day.”
Spud’s eyebrow rose to his hairline. “Lester Samuel Moore?” No sign of the alienist here. “How?”
“You kids weren’t paying attention,” John chided. “Les didn’t give us that merry-go-round lecture for nothing. He was trying to tell us we could leap from our universe’s ‘carousel’ to an adjacent universe’s ‘carousel’. Then, all we had to do was wait til the time we wanted to travel to rotated by us again and then leap into it—presto, you’re back in the past.”
“Mr. Moore’s exact words said that such travel requires ‘means and method’,” Spud said with clear irritation.
“Means,” John opened his toga to reveal the Somalderis covering his hips. “And the method was that computer you were so kind to power up. Wasn’t quite as good as an Ergal, but, with a few simple calculations from my Maryland days, we--“
CRASH! Apparently the armed guards had made it as far our wing and broken into a nearby hallway. The walls shook as what sounded like an army of footsteps and shouts headed our way. John put his arm around Aliyah’s waist, and waived us closer. “I’ll explain later—we gotta fly.”
The door to the conference room slammed open and a cadre of helmeted soldiers sporting automatic weapons stormed into the room, guns ablaze. But they were seconds too late as our Ergals had just whisked us away. Holding hands and hoping for rain, the Babylon Four had left the building.
* * *
Golgotha—two thousand years ago. We hoped.
We M-fanned in a glade near a nest of juniper bushes behind a low hill. While Spud and John confirmed our location on their Ergals, I Ergaled me and Spud some era-appropriate clothing: long linen flowing robes. And demure headscarves for me and Aliyah. I wasn’t a fan of togs that wouldn’t let me fight or run, but I figured that our stowaway might not be able to deal with me anamorphing into a different gender before her eyes, as I was prone to do in these less progressive countries and eras. On the other hand, she’d impressed me as being pretty adaptable, after all.