“I don’t know how you did it, Martha,” Dad said to Mom.
It was two days after my eighteenth birthday, and I was listening through the old heating grate again.
“How I did what?”
“After you got me out of the mountain, how did you sit at my bedside - not knowing if I’d live or die - without going crazy? How did you deal with knowing that there was nothing you could do to help me?”
Mom sighed.
“It’s soon, isn’t it?” she asked.
“You know it is.”
“I remember watching the strain growing on you eighteen years ago, Cephas, as you put pieces together and concluded that you would sacrifice yourself to Henry. You fought God’s plan then, and you’re fighting it again now.”
“I wish I was sacrificing myself this time, too. This time I feel more like Abraham, being told to sacrifice Isaac.”
******
I sit for a minute with my hand on Jordan’s arm, while Hannah does the same, sobbing. After a couple of minutes, her head jerks up abruptly. She looks at Jordan’s hand, and then at me. I smile, then stand and walk outside, watched by every eye as I climb to the top of the container.
“I know you’re all waiting for me to say something. Maybe you want to hear an apology for raising false hopes. Maybe you want to hear a word of thanks - to our Lord for bringing us all together in prayer. If you’re looking for a long speech, you’re going to be disappointed, because I have only two words…”
In one fluid motion, I take the fighting stick from my back, extend it, and smash the red light that sits atop Jordan’s apartment.
“He’s alive!” I yell.
It takes a moment for the meaning to sink in; then the crowd rushes forward. I can see them reaching in - needing to touch Jordan, just like Thomas needed to touch the scars on Jesus’ hands and side. Timothy and Jake take charge in order to keep J.W. from being trampled.
By the time the crowd thinks to turn its attention to me, I’ve slipped away into the darkness.
I hear them chanting “Angel,” but I don’t stop.
News trucks rush past me, and when I do look back, the area of Jordan’s apartment is so lit up, it seems like a hundred brilliant angels are looking over the crowd.
“Be happy, great-grandfather and great-grandmother six times over,” I say.
I walk for miles. When I reach a residential district, I can see people through windows, glued to large screens on their walls, watching the scene that I just left.
A girl of about ten comes out of a house, waves over her shoulder to someone inside, and jumps on her bicycle. She’s smiling from ear to ear as she approaches.
“You sure look happy,” I say.
She points at the house she was visiting.
“That’s my friend Janie’s house. She has the gene, but now that someone has lived, maybe she’ll live too.”
“She might not,” I say.
“I know, but now there’s hope.”
“Do you happen to have one of those things people use to call each other?” I ask.
“A phone? Everyone has a phone.”
“Not me.”
She reaches into her pocket, and hands me a pink phone with yellow daisies.
I look at it, but there’s no way to input the number I want to call.
“Just say the numbers,” she says, with a roll of her eyes.
“Hello? Dave?” I say, when the connection is made. “Do you mind taking a drive into Baltimore?”
******
“You’ve barely said a word since we picked you up, and we’re almost home,” Elizabeth says, from the front seat. “Did you not find your family?”
“I found the one I was looking for. He’s nice,” I say.
“Did he tell you where you can find your parents?” she asks.
“No, but I know where I can find my brother, so I’m going to him as soon as possible.”
“That’s wonderful news!” she says. “Do you need us to take you anywhere? An airport maybe?”
“No, he’s not very far away.”
Dave looks at his watch.
“I’m going to be late,” Dave says. “Jocie? Do you mind a quick side trip to the barn? It’s almost finished and I need to meet the buyer there. Besides, I want you to see the metal truss you asked me to build. It came out perfect. From the barn floor, nobody would even notice it.”
Dad will.
“I passed it off to the owner as a safety reinforcement,” he says. “Now that it’s installed, would you mind telling me the real reason why you bought a stranger a complicated, unnecessary roof truss?”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“That reminds me,” Dave says. “Those diamonds were worth a lot more than the metal for the truss. I couldn’t get cash, of course, but here’s a card with the balance.”
He reaches for his back pocket.
“Keep it …” I say. “… as a tip.”
There’s a new and expensive-looking car waiting, as we drive onto the lot with the barn. The back bumper has a small plastic fish stuck to it. I wait in the car while Dave and Elizabeth get out and greet a man and a woman. They talk for a while, until their conversation is interrupted by a boom that echoes off the surrounding hills.
“What was that?” the man asks Dave.
“They’re closing up an old mine,” Dave replies. “There were a couple of good explosions yesterday, too.”
The Tombstone.
I jump out of the car.
“Dave and Elizabeth, I have to go. Thank you for everything … and God bless you.”
“You’re the Angel!” the woman says.
Dave and Elizabeth look at each other, and then at me.
“You cured that man in Baltimore. Millions of people with the gene are looking for you. Planes and boats filled with people are heading to Baltimore as we speak.”
I pause to reflect on that for a moment. “I’m needed more somewhere else.”
“Is that it?” Dave asks. “You appeared out of nowhere; now you’re going to just disappear without a trace?”
I hug first him, and then Elizabeth.
“There’s a trace,” I say. “In Baltimore, I left behind hope. Let’s keep everything else that I left behind our secret, okay?”
I nod to the barn and the metals hidden in the truss; then, without another word, I quickly melt into the woods.
I only walk for twenty meters before I break into a run, and don’t let up until I approach the future site of Bethany House. I’m at the tree line, looking at the ugly piles of mine waste, when there’s another loud boom - followed by laughter. Four men are standing behind a clear plastic shield, watching dust billow out of the mine shaft. The supports for the elevator and other equipment have been removed; so the shaft is now literally just a hole in the ground.
“We have plenty of leftover charges. Let’s do one more,” the youngest-looking of the men says.
“Yeah, a really big one,” another agrees.
“Enough fun. We’ve got concrete to pour,” the oldest one says. “Besides, it’s lunchtime and I don’t want any more dust in the air that might get on my food. Sally packed me some of her beer can chicken, and I want to enjoy it.”
The group moves to two white pick-up trucks. They’re parked with a view of the shaft; so there’s no way I can climb down without being seen. When one of the trucks starts, I hope they’ll all drive away, but instead I hear the radio come on.
Since I don’t want to hurt them, I’ll need to distract them somehow. The cement pumping machine that I sabotaged is out of their line of sight and a new control system has been attached to it. I turn on the display and find that it has no software security. Although the equipment is brand new - to me - it’s an ancient computer language, and I’m able to break into the source code and rewrite what I need.
When I’m done, I circle around some piles of mine waste until I’m a hundred meters behind the trucks. I have to walk back and forth several times before one of them notices the movement in a side mirror. The oldest man gets out of the truck and the rest follow. I smile, and walk into some thick brush.
“That looked just like the girl from Baltimore … the one they’re calling an angel.”
“Angel? Come back,” one of them shouts, but I’m already running silently. I hear at least two of them crashing through the bushes, shouting for me.
I make it to my pre-planned vantage point and am crouched in some brush, when I hear the diesel engine of the cement pumper roar to life by itself, due to the new coding I entered. There’s more crashing through the bushes as they all run back to see who turned on the machine. I slip over the edge of the old mine shaft unseen, as they argue about angels and ghosts.
With the sun high in the sky, light isn’t an issue, but the going is slow. When the crew removed all of the support structures for the elevator, the steel cables that I could have used to climb down quickly, fell to the bottom of the shaft. At least the side channel that the counterweight used to run up and down in is small enough that I can climb down it like a chimney.
When I reach the side channel where the time travel arena is located, I stop just long enough to pop and shake a bunch of light sticks. I throw several to the bottom, along with the metal lock box, which hits with a clatter.
The going from there seems agonizingly slow, as I have less and less natural light. When I reach the bottom, I see that the elevator must have slowly descended the entire shaft on its own after I disconnected the counterweight. It’s sitting neatly with its bottom cage fitting down into the hole in the floor.
I need that hole! It’s the only safe place to leave myself a message that won’t be crushed when Albert drops the tombstone in two hundred years. I had wondered why the elevator wasn’t at the bottom of the shaft - it’s because I moved it!
I push against the heavy metal elevator, but it won’t budge.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a long, straight piece of metal and realize that it’s the same metal bar that I’ll use in the future to dig my way under the fallen tombstone. There are plenty of rocks to use as a fulcrum, so I put one into position and try to lever the elevator cage up enough to tip it over. Arm strength isn’t enough, so I’m soon jumping on the end of the bar. The elevator starts to rock back and forth. Finally, with one big jump, the entire cage tips over and out of the way.
I look at the cheap plastic watch on my wrist that was given to me by a dying man in The Zone. I estimate the time that it will take for me to climb back up, and write a note to Austin, detailing the exact date and time that I’ll be sitting inside the time travel arena. I give myself an extra ten minutes of leeway, just to be sure. Then I scratch the note to myself on the outside and place the box into the safety of the hole.
Does the fact that I saw the note before I scratched it make this a paradox? I hate thinking about time travel…
“Do you guys see a light down there?” a voice from far above says.
I look up and see a head peeking over the edge, so I throw rocks over the light sticks.
“It’s just a reflection; get back to work on the forms.”
All the way up on my return climb, I get showered with pebbles and dust as the men above work near the edge of the hole. They talk about seeing the “Angel,” and are clearly spooked by the experience. It’s not until one of them says “Okay, last one,” that I allow my focus to shift from the rock wall I’m climbing to the men above.
“It’s going to be a big one!” the youngest one says.
I look up to see something descending towards me on a wire and know it’s an explosive. They’ve put a plank across the shaft to lower the charge down the center. I reach as far as I can, while hanging on with just one hand, but there’s no way I can reach the wire and disable it. The chimney I’m using to climb faster is on the wall opposite from the opening to the arena cave. It’s an easy horizontal climb around to the opening, so if I can get there fast enough, I can break the food shelves and use the wood to pull the wire into the opening. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing how long it will be before they set off the charge.
I’ve never taken so many climbing risks in my life, but then, I’ve never needed to climb this fast before, either. I don’t test hand holds, or estimate reach, or plan the next move. I just climb on instinct. When I reach a point opposite the opening, I hear a long blast on a siren. I don’t know if that means I have thirty seconds, or just ten, before the detonation, but it’s clear that I don’t have time to climb around or break shelves apart. My only choice is to hurl myself across the shaft, catch the wire in mid-air, and land in the opening.
There’s a second long blast on the siren. I hope that means there will be three sirens in all.
I find a good hand hold, set my feet, say a prayer, and launch myself. I know it happens in a fraction of a second, but it feels like I’m hanging forever, as I twist one hundred and eighty degrees in mid-air. My hands completely miss the wire, but it gets caught in my armpit and swings with me, as I land in a heap in the opening.
The third, and I presume final, siren blast begins as I haul the explosives back out of the pit. I have no way to cut the wires, so I have to somehow pull the detonator out of the charge. As the siren blast ends, I grab the device and just yank on the wires as hard as I can. One wire comes completely free, which is good enough; so I toss it over the edge again. My watch says I have ten minutes before transport.
Plenty of time.
I reach the back of the cave and stop in my tracks. The arena is a pile of individual sticks. The arena was designed to be a puzzle. It wasn’t designed to stand the concussive force of idiots playing with explosives.
I have ten minutes to assemble a puzzle - in the dark - that took me fifteen minutes to solve under ideal conditions. And it takes two people to do the final step.
I snap and shake all the remaining light sticks as a single bundle, then throw them into the air to scatter them around the area.
There can be no trial and error. Each piece selection has to be perfect on the first try.
I have the first dozen pieces in place, when I hear a scraping sound behind me. The men above are pulling the explosives out of the mine shaft. I just hope they’re not planning on a second attempt.
I reach the point where I have to remove pieces. I’m one-third done. I sneak a peek at the watch. I have just over seven minutes left before transport.
At this pace, I’ll only have seconds to spare.
More and more pieces slide and twist into place. I silently curse myself, as I choose a wrong piece. Behind me, I hear a bumping sound and know that the explosive is being lowered into the mine shaft for another try. I have no time to disarm it again, and even if I did, the puzzle will fall apart if I let go now. I glance up and see that they’re not lowering it as far this time. It’s stopped descending, right in front of the opening.
The first siren sounds as I reach for the last piece. The one shaped like a shepherd’s hook.
Please … I need a shepherd to look over me right now.
Without the pressure of a helping hand, the hook refuses to slide into place. I try to reach down and hold while pushing down in the middle, but there’s not enough leverage. I designed it to be pushed from the top and twisted, while someone holds the bottom. My arms just aren’t long enough to do both.
The second siren sounds above me.
Tie it in place.
I don’t have time to untie a shoelace and I don’t have any other string. My backpack is sitting open inside the arena, and I catch a glimpse of blue and white.
The scarf!
I make just a single overhand knot and pull it as tight as I can. From above, I make a desperate push and twist, and almost cry when the hook slides into place. I dive under and untie the scarf, then look at the watch, before I take it off and throw it out of the arena. I’d rather not have it fry on my wrist during transport.
Thirty seconds. Austin, please don’t be late.
The third siren blast begins.
If they hit the detonator at the end of the siren, transport will be ten seconds too late.
The siren continues on for longer than the earlier two.
Five, four, three…
The siren stops … and then so does the world.
******
What thoughts would most people have, if they were stuck for a lifetime between clicks on the second hand of a clock? It doesn’t seem like there are any more puzzles for me to solve. I just need to get back and get the toxin sample to Amelia Lake, so she can create an antivenin and save the world from an attack by Five-X. How hard could that be, given all that’s happened so far?
My thoughts start to drift to Dad. It would have been nice to repeat his mission, and meet Christ face-to-face and see Him risen, rather than going on a mission where death felt so final. The images in my brain shift to those who died in front of me in their horrible metal apartments made from shipping containers. I study their faces in my mind until I’ve pictured every detail. I listen to their screams of pain, and their pleas for mercy. When I get to Jordan, looking at me wild-eyed and saying “You’re the cure,” I can’t take anymore.
I was the cure for all of those people. My body had everything they needed to save billions of lives, and all I could do was save Jordan. Maybe my mission was even worse than watching a crucifixion. Maybe the choices I had to make were just as hard as the ones Dad had to make. Maybe they were even harder.
I find myself again standing on a rock with Dad in a rain of puzzle pieces. I’ll never think of that day as one where Dad was disappointed in me again. He was sad because he didn’t know if I’d survive the mission he knew I was destined to undertake.
Or did he?
Dad knew there was something significant under The Tombstone. Could he have dug it out before me and opened the box? Finding the same straight piece of metal, exactly when and where I needed to be - twice - was pretty convenient. Was it there the second time because I used it to tip the elevator? Or did Dad also use it, and leave it there for me?
If Dad knew I was going to return, then what was making him sad?
The puzzle piece rain continues to fall and, without realizing it, I begin to cry. I look up and find that Dad is crying too. Our teardrops join the rain, and fall as puzzle pieces. I watch as the drops form a puzzle on the ground.There are missing pieces, which are being filled in as we cry.
Why must the puzzles of my life be filled in with tears?
The picture is of Christ, hanging on a cross, with Dad standing nearby, crying … with joy. The picture suddenly shifts to Dad being tortured between two posts inside the mountain. This time it’s Jesus who is standing nearby, crying with joy.
The strength of Dad’s faith has nothing to do with the fact that he met Jesus face-to face. The strength comes from their relationship.
The section of the picture showing Dad blurs, but Jesus remains clear. He’s still crying, but I can’t see who he’s crying for anymore. Whoever it is, Jesus wants a deeper relationship with them. Then I catch a glimpse of red hair.
It’s me. Jesus is crying because He wants a deeper relationship with me.