Infinite

[unimatrix]

*looking for characters and the plotline. Specifically whether or not they are back in time or stuck in an alternate reality*

 

A flash and burst of thunder hit the room as the space dispersed allowing the three bodies to materials. The slight pressure wave knocked over foam cups of coffee and moved empty folding chairs in the medium sized room used for young couples Bible Study on Sunday mornings at the Faith Fellowship Church. The nineteen in the room sat stunned as the three mysterious strangers appeared seemingly out of thin air. Oddly no one screamed or shouted, but the blast wave had to have been heard by others.

 

"Don't think I'll ever get used to that," Penelope Bennett said softly with only a hint of her Italian accent. She grew up in Italy, her mother a native and her father a US Air Force Colonel at Aviano. All three were as disoriented as those in the room. Penelope's olive, Mediterranean skin glowed a bit as she checked to make sure her long, think jet black hair was still pulled back and secured.

 

"Oi, that was bloody awful," Alan Blevins complained with his trademark Bristol accent. “How often do ya do that?” Belvins added shaking it off like a bad, but short, hangover. He was the tallest and stockiest of the three built on the frame of a 5' 10" rugby player. He still had a boyish round face with a ruddy complexion and short brown hair. Alan looked around at the shocked and overwhelmed room full of people.

 

Hector Clark Schroeder jerked his neck to the side cracking a few of the bones loud enough everyone could hear. "Well," he began looking around the room at the faces still in shock. "People are alive, that's a start." He drew constant, deep breaths trying to focus. Everything was fuzzy, a side effect of their mode of transportation.

 

"Where the bloody 'ell are we?" Alan asked.

 

"When is a better question," Penelope offered meekly.

 

"Well," Schroeder said still holding the quantum field manipulator in his hands. "Both are damned good questions. We just made a quantum jump, or shift, or something like that...the guys with white lab coats were still debating which exactly."

 

"What's the difference?" Alan shrugged. “Either way it feels like I drunk too much.”

 

"Not a clue. But we either went backwards in time or we punctured a membrane and ended up in another universe. Either way, though, we're still alive and that's all that counts," Hector said. Hector was an American with a good mix of Nordic and German blood. Although his once bright blond hair had faded into more of a sandy color in his twenties, his blue eyes remained as bright as ever.

 

"Clark?" a familiar voice beckoned from behind the 5' 8" tall 32 year-old man.

 

Hector stood there frozen for a moment as his mind processed the voice. It was female. With a look of frustrated horror he snapped around and scanned the faces. "Joanna Daugherty?

 

"Joanna Fletcher now," she replied with a gulp. "This is my husband, Kendall."

 

"Ah," Hector said really not sure what to say as he noticed she was expecting. His mind went completely blank. As many quippy remarks as he made, there were even more times when his mind would just suddenly empty leaving him standing like a fool in front of a group of people.

 

"You two know each other?" Penelope asked.

 

Alan turned around and recognized the face, "Wasn't that the bird you almost married?"

 

"Yes," Hector began but his voice began to quiver with uncertainty, "Maybe. Depends...if we're back in time or..."

 

"In another universe," Alan completed pulling out his mobile. He tapped a couple keys and a few seconds later, Hector's cell phone began to range.

 

Schroeder tapped his ear bud to answer, "GCTS."

 

"The mobiles still work, that tell us sumth'n?" Alan's voiced seem to echo. Once into Hector's left ear and then a split second later from the ear bud in his right ear.

 

"Maybe," Hector said hanging up. "Or we've slipped into a world that is almost exactly like ours."

 

"Except that everyone seems to still be alive," Penelope offered.

 

"Alright, who's the Prime Minister?" Alan asked the room.

 

Hector huffed, "Your talking to a room full of ordinary ignorant Americans." He paused a moment. "We are in America, right?"

 

"Yeah," Joanna replied extremely confused.

 

"Bush is president, Tony Blair the Prime Minister of England?" Hector continued the quick interrogation.

 

"The UK, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Not just England, mate," Alan corrected.

 

"Yeah," Joanna nodded cautiously.

 

"If our mobiles work, why didn't they ring us?" Alan questioned. "You know the other us, that is if we've traveled back in time." He shook his head, this was all too much to get his mind around. Alan left the heady work to Penelope and Hector. Penelope understood all the details including how to do the math. Hector understood, but never cared about the math.

 

"Okay, that is a bloody good question," Hector commented as he thought about it. "I don't have a clue." Hector straightened up and tried to stand as tall as he could, partly to try to make himself as superior to Kendall as possible. It was male bravado at it's finest. "What's the date?"

 

"June twenty-fifth," someone in the room answered.

 

"We could call Apex," Penelope suggested.

 

"Yeah, and they'd haul us in for interrogation. What a lot of bloody good that will do," Alan said grabbing his pack of cigarettes from his inside coat pocket. He began to smack the bottom of the pack. It helped him to think. "Don't suppose we could go and meet ourselves, do ya?"

 

"We could warn ourselves. If it is the twenty-fifth, then we have four days!" Penelope remarked.

 

“But?” Hector asked.

 

“But there is any number of causality paradoxes and,” Penelope shook her head. “And we just don’t know. I mean, come on, we’re talking time travel. We’re smart enough that one doesn’t mess with time travel.”

 

“Apparently not, luv,” Alan offered.

 

"Four days still what?" the Small Group Leader asked. He was an older gentleman about fifty-five, silver headed, with reading glasses.

 

The three strangers looked at each other. "Should we tell 'em?" Alan asked the others.

 

Penelope made a quick fake cough, “Causality?”

 

"Well, we do know what will happen if we just stand here," Hector reminded his two companions.

 

"Which is?" the Small group leader asked again.

 

Hector cocked his head slightly and gazed out into depths of space-time, "The end of the world, mate."

 

“Hey, that’s my bloody line,” Alan objected. “Although you do have a pretty good accent. You almost could pass ‘fer English.”

 

“Thank ya,” Hector answered with a hint of sarcasm.

 

Penelope looked at Hector with a look of terror on her face, “You’re making jokes?”

 

“Of course, natural defense mechanism,” Hector retorted.

 

The room was filled with gasps and whispers. Could these strangers be telling the truth? Several members began flipping to the end of their Bible to begin another frantic study of Revelation.

 

"Do trumpets sound and...." one of the group asked.

 

"Not exactly...and no horsees either," Hector interrupted. Something occurred to him. "Where are we exactly?"

 

"Earth," someone sarcastically mocked.

 

"More specific, please," Hector retorted.

 

"Faith Fellowship Church," the Small Group leader told them. The three strangers' faces all instantly drained when they heard that name. "What?"

 

Hector stood there slack jawed and still gazing into nothingness. He shook his head, "No, no, no, this can't be a coincidence."

 

“I agree,” Penelope suggested. “I mean let’s say we’re wrong and we’re in an alternate reality or whatever. Given the fact that our mobiles appear to work is…well infinite that we would have landed in one that is damn near our.”

 

“Infinite?” Alan questioned.

 

“Yeah. There is an infinite number of universes, so we think, that are almost like our, an infinite number that are nothing like ours, and an infinite number that don’t even have life,” Penelope said.

 

Alan gave her a perplex looked and scratched his head. “How could there be an infinite number of each. I mean that’s…infinite.”

 

“Exactly,” Penelope answered with gusto. Hector just looked at the pair and shrugged.

 

Alan looked around, "So if this is that Church than The Key is here. I mean in The Key is in this bloody build'n?"

 

“Key?” the Small Group Leader.

 

“Yeah,” Alan answered. “Wee lass, about eight. Totally evil.”

 

"Assuming we only went back in time," Penelope reminded the pair.

 

“Wait a minute, I thought we’d settled on back in time?” Alan said.

 

“No I was just laying out…”

 

“Okay, let’s go with what we know,” Hector interrupted. “It’s four days in the past, no matter the universe, and we’re in a Church. The Church with the Key. And if the Key is here…”

 

"We could stop it,” Alan’s ruddy face lit up, “We could stop it right here and now!”

 

"Assuming, again, that we are just back in time," Penelope said. She stood there glancing back and forth between the looks on Alan and Hector's faces. They were intent on stopping what they were witnessing back in their own time, or universe. "Okay assuming there is no such thing as fate and we can prevent it, you two aren't seriously suggesting?" She paused, as did the rest of the room as Penelope waited for an answer. One she knew she was not going to like.

 

Hector nodded. "Like Allan said, we can end this right here."

 

"Or we can try and help her!" Penelope objected.

 

Hector shook his head, "Um, yeah, we tried that last go around. How exactly did that end again?” Hector waited for an answer, but Penelope just shrunk away. “Yeah, thought so,” Schroeder mumbled to himself. “No we have a chance to end this, I say we take it." Hector turned to the Small Group Leader, "Is there supposed to be a healing service this afternoon?"

 

"Yes, Ms. Shelton's daughter has been having some problems," the Small Group Leader began, "Shame, poor girl."

 

"Shelton? Becky Shelton?" Penelope asked her eyes growing even wider.

 

"Yes, why?" the Small Group Leader asked as a sudden shudder came over him.

 

"The Key," Hector growled. “That answers that.”

 

“The fact that the device brought us back to here, I mean this place at this time,” Alan began. “That can’t be bloody luck.”

 

“Well if Penelope were Irish, maybe,” Hector offered deadpan. “But I agree. It’s not coincidence.

 

Penelope sighed, "Just for the record, you're talking about shooting down an eight year old girl in cold blood."

 

"It's her or everyone else dies," Hector reminded her. He paused a brief moment to take a slight gulp. His mouth was dry with a metallic taste in it. It was like just having a cavity filled at the dentist.

 

Penelope turned to Alan for back up, but he was shaking his head. "Sorry, but Hector's right. We have to stop this."

 

"And we are still assuming that we're back in time, right?" Penelope said again just to ensure her two partners understood the ramifications of what the Quantum Field Manipulator might have done. "Because if we're wrong..."

 

"One person dies," Hector countered. "If we're right billions will die."

 

“And if we’re wrong, could you live with that?” Penelope countered.

 

“Having see how things otherwise play out, oh yeah,” Hector answered without hesitation.

 

"And we still have no way of knowing that for sure," Penelope pleaded. "Time _could_ be fluid."

 

"Or fate could be fixed," Alan countered. "I'd rather we try." He turned and looked at Penelope, "Sorry, luv, but I agree with Hector."

 

Penelope shook her head, "I will not shoot an eight year old child down in cold blood! Not when we have other options that have not been exhausted. Last time we only had hours. Now we have days. And if it fails, we have that device."

 

"Only works once," Hector sighed. The brilliant purple crystals were a dead dark purple now. Signs that the power source had been depleted and there was no way to recharge it that they knew about. "So that means we have one shot, and I'd rather play it safe."

 

"I'm not shooting the girl," Penelope sternly objected.

 

“Never said you did,” Hector argued.

 

"So plan?" Alan asked trying to change the subject before his two companions got into one of their shouting matches.

 

"Simple," Hector began firmly, "Find the cheerleader, kill the cheerleader, save the world."

 

"Just like the TV show!" Kendall smiled.

 

"No that's save the cheerleader, save the world, mate," Alan corrected.

 

Kendall shook his head, as did several others in the room, "No it's kill the cheerleader, save the world."

 

The trio of strangers looked at each other again questioning where exactly they were. "See," Penelope crossed her arms. "Not so sure are we?"

 

"And they could be shitt'n with us too," Alan remarked.

 

"No, the tag line for Villains is kill the cheerleader, save the world," Kendall said with a straight face. No one else in the room made any gestures. Either they were all in on the joke, or it was true. "The plot is that these people have super powers, but they have to do a terrible things and maybe end up doing the right thing," Kendall attempted to explain. "It's all a bit..."

 

"Ironic," Alan remarked.

 

"I was going to say complex," Kendall shrugged.

 

"And this is a Christian Church, right?" Hector asked the Small Group Leader who simply nodded. "Evangelical?" Again a nod. "And I'm guessing Conservative?" Again a nod. Hector turned around to Joanna, "Okay pardon me if this is rude, but there are a greater things at stake. My father died before college?"

 

"No, your mother," Joanna said. "Stroke, then heart attack four months later."

 

"That's right, your mum is dead," Alan remarked.

 

"Yeah, spot on," Hector said.

 

"Sorry, I didn't know," Penelope offered with a gentle hand on Hector's back. She knew that his mother was dead, but he never bothered to say what had happened and she never pried. It was none of her business.

 

"So far," Hector continued, "And I proposed to you in the park on a warm spring day by that big hill on tax day?"

 

"Yeah," Joanna said adding under her breath, "Not exactly the most romantic."

 

"We broke it off that December?"

 

"Yes," Joanna answered. "Why do you need to go through this."

 

"Lived in the same apartment complex?"

 

"Yes, I lived to buildings over," Joanna said.

 

"Ring was one and three quarters round cut?"

 

"No Princess," Joanna answered.

 

"Is that right?" Alan asked.

 

"Yeah," Hector answered. He was varying his questions, some true, some false, and some partially true. It was standard interrogation technique they had all learned. "Went to DC on spring break."

 

"Yes," Joanna said blushing.

 

Hector looked at his two companions, “Good enough for me.”