“More bad dreams?” Straker asked Freeman on coffee the next morning in the cafeteria of their office building.
“Is it that obvious?” Freeman asked. Sometimes Straker was downright eerie in his ability to pick up what was going on around him.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“It’s probably just my subconscious working overtime, what with Trask and Superman and Nightfall…”
At the mention of Nightfall, Straker suddenly went very still. “You dreamt about the asteroid?”
“You and I and someone else were in the future, one year after the asteroid hit the planet. It felt very real.” Freeman took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t usually remember my dreams, you know. I wonder what Jackson would make of this one?”
“Was there a date mentioned?” Straker was staring at his half-empty cup as though he could read something in the reflections.
“November 15, 1994.”
Straker muttered something under his breath. It sounded like an obscenity, something Straker rarely indulged in unless it was for theatrical effect. Freeman was certain that Straker wasn’t swearing for effect right now.
“It wasn’t a dream, was it? It really happened, or will happen?”
Straker didn’t answer.
“You were younger,” Freeman continued. “We both were.”
“Tens years younger,” Straker said.
“That dream you said you had ten years ago… that wasn’t a dream either, was it?”
“I thought it was at the time,” Straker admitted. “But then I found the notes I left for myself about the asteroid.”
“And now we have the real reason why you didn’t throw a fit when Superman showed up,” Freeman stated.
Straker managed a chuckle. “Knowing a little about the future does have certain advantages.”
“You said you’d seen the future…” Freeman prompted.
“I experienced a possible future, one where my life was saved by people who won’t be born if Nightfall hits,” Straker said. “But there are flows and washes and eddies in the time stream. Apparently, in at least one possible future, I survived the effects of the X-50 drug long enough to try to use SHADO’s technology to divert the asteroid,” Straker said.
“So, the future hasn’t been written?”
“Well, I gather there are people who are very much invested in preserving their past,” Straker said.
“Including the little man in the old-fashioned suit?”
“I surprised you didn’t recognize him.”
“I have a feeling I should have, but I didn’t,” Freeman admitted.
“He’s a time traveler, Alec. A famous one.”
“How can you be a famous time traveler? Wouldn’t everybody know about it?”
At that Straker actually laughed. “Well, if the first rule of time travel is ‘don’t get caught’, then the second rule is ‘tell the truth about it in such a way that nobody will believe it’s the truth’.”
The name came to Freeman in a sudden burst of clarity. “Wells. Herbert George Wells. He came to talk to you at the studios…”
-o-o-o-
February had brought its usual miserable rain. Freeman turned his coat collar up as he left his parked car to head for the main entrance of Harlington-Straker Studios. He wondered a moment at how much longer the studios would remain active as SHADO’s cover. The war with the aliens was effectively over as of last Christmas. December 25, 1983, a day to be celebrated in history if the fact that there had even been a war wasn’t so secret.
Freeman still wasn’t sure he agreed with Straker’s plan to allow the non-warlike faction of aliens to emigrate to Earth, but so far everything had gone well. They were sharing their technology with SHADO, and that technology was enabling SHADO to deal with the attacks from the violent alien factions. The peaceful ones called themselves the Rokan-shou. It was strange to realize after all this time that they had a name. To know that the aliens they’d been at war with for so long had faces and names and personalities.
Freeman nodded a greeting to Miss Ealand who was seated in her usual place in the outer office. The door to Straker’s inner office was closed.
“He has an odd visitor,” Ealand told him. “Claims his name is H.G. Wells.”
“And you let him in there, alone, with Straker?” Freeman was horrified at the thought. Even though the war was over, there were still people who wanted Ed Straker dead.
“Mister Straker didn’t seem overly worried,” Ealand told him.
That statement didn’t mollify him. He reached over her desk and keyed the switch to open the door to Straker’s office. Then he hurried inside.
Straker was seated at his desk, hands steepled in front of him as he regarded his visitor, the man claiming to be H.G. Wells.
“I implore you, Commander, you must help me stop this Trask person, or all will be lost,” Straker’s visitor was saying.
“Well, I will say you have an interesting story, Mister Wells,” Straker said. “But I make movies. You know… pretty pictures for the masses. Now, if you have a story treatment, I’m sure our acquisitions department wouldn’t mind taking a look.”
“How can I convince you that I’m telling the truth?” Wells asked. “I’ve already told you more than I should.”
“But why ask me to take care of this problem,” Straker asked. “If he’s as dangerous as you say, why not just notify the police?”
“There are reasons that would not be advisable.”
“Like they’d lock you up,” Freeman suggested. “H.G. Wells died in 1946.”
“I’m well aware of that, Mister Freeman,” Wells said, a touch of asperity in his voice. “Nonetheless, I’m stating the truth. I am Herbert George Wells and Jason Trask is going to destroy the only person capable of saving the world, unless you stop him.”
Straker shook his head. “Tell it to the Marines, Mister Wells.”
Wells looked surprised at Straker’s decision then his lips thinned with determination. “I suppose my only recourse is to show you that I’m telling the truth,” he said, pulling a small device from his pocket. Alarms went off in Freeman’s head as Wells reached across the desk to grab Straker’s arm. Freeman reached for Wells and…
The office in the outskirts of London shimmered and vanished. They were standing under a soot black sky in the midst of the broken rubble of what may have once been a major city. It was hard to tell. Nothing moved and the place stank of death.
“What have you done?” Straker demanded.
“If you do not act, this is the future. Your future,” Wells said solemnly. “Earth’s future.”
“What is this place?” Freeman managed to ask.
“It was Metropolis.”
-o-o-o-
“Flashback?” Straker asked.
Freeman took a shuddery breath as he looked around the cafeteria. No one else seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. “I’m guessing he had a way of blocking our memories, only now they’re breaking through?”
Straker nodded.
“But you took care of Trask,” Freeman said. “So the problem is solved, or was solved, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not so sure, Alec,” Straker admitted. “Think about it. The fact that there are people actively working to preserve the past implies there are also people actively working to change it.”
“And how would we know?” Freeman asked. It was a rhetorical question. If the past had been changed then everyone’s memories, everything in books, reality itself, would have been rewritten.
“Well, there must be a way of knowing, otherwise how would the time preservation people know what to preserve?” Straker reasoned aloud.
“And you think one of those other people may be helping Trask?”
“I don’t know.”
