Rabbit Holes

The Keeper stood in the shadows against a support beam against the wall, scratched pocket watch gleaming in his hand and a device in his other hand that had the appearance of a a compass mixed with a watch but with the complexity of a chronometer.  He looked up; the Guardian stood in the sewer passage in front of him, in usual brown hoodie, red hair flowing out of the pulled up hood.  She had a similar device in her hand as the Keeper's; a watch of scratched silver was in her pocket.  She looked up at him.
"You know I'm glad I was selected as Guardian.  I always thought the Keeper's outfit was a little queer."
The Keeper gave her a look as he tipped up the brim of his top hat.
"As usual, Gee, your comments are helpful and filled with insight." he said mockingly sweeping off his hat.
"Time?" she asked.
"1:43.  You know, you have your own watch?"
She ignored him and looked at her chronometer.
"It's close.  Be ready."
They waited in silence for roughly three minutes, heads turning every now and then to look down the sewer tunnel.  At 1:46 their chronometers began ticking.  Slowly at first then building to a rapid, metallic klaxon.  An area of space about five feet down the sewer from them began blinking, almost in rhythm with the building chronometer alarm.
"Right on time," the Keeper said, trudging toward the place, "Watcher called it right this time."
The Guardian followed closely behind, pulling out an orb of energy surrounded by a silver metal; a device given to the first Guardian.
"Wait, damn, something's coming through!"  the Keeper exclaimed, throwing back an arm.  They dashed behind two support beams on wither side of the passage; the Guardian readied her bell and the Keeper cranked a gear on his chronometer.  The distortion of space before them which was now a swirling vortex as apposed to blinking, was called a rabbit hole; a rent in time and dimension.  Through them entire worlds lay, all the possibilities, all the "if"s lay on the other side of rabbit holes.  Alice Realities they were called.  And every so often, a rabbit would come out of the hole.  The Rabbit was a grotesque creature from a dark Alice Reality.  The creature was once possibly human, but had been twisted into something other.  The Keeper had encountered only a few of these types of Rabbits before but he knew they could cause serious damage to the city if not sent back to their reality quickly enough.
"Damn it!" he swore and cranked his chronometer up all the way.
His device sent out a pulse rippling toward the Rabbit; it hit, but the creature merely shrugged it off.  The Guardian let a bolt of azure energy out from her orb.  The beam had a greater effect, hitting the creature with a small explosion.  The Rabbit let out an injured howl then sped past them at such a speed that the two were knocked to the ground by a shockwave.
"Gee, get after that thing!  I'm going in!" shouted the Keeper as he slogged up to the portal, splashing through the sewage of the tunnel.
The Guardian's orb turned into a long-barrled gun of the same material, she nodded at her companion then splashed down the sewer after the distant Rabbit.  The Keeper sucked in breath then exhaled, cranking back up his device.  He stepped into the rabbit hole.  The same, well-known feeling of falling; the tingling in his gut, coursed through him as he slipped from one world to another.  He stumbled into the Alice Reality and looked up to iron gray skies and walls of fog filling the drab streets of a drab city. Great, it was one of those Alice Realities. 

The Last: Unexpected Friends

Victor jumped off the roof of the hummer, an AK-47 in his hands.  Part of me, the part left behind in college dorm rooms, classes, and friends thought that owning an assault rifle was illegal.  The rest of me sitting in the hummer with the burning Boston skyline in front of me told that part to suck it up and focus.  Victor jumped back in and sped down the destroyed city street.  It had been several hours now since the bathroom incident and we had hardly seen anyone; a single fleeing business man here, a pack of scared people there, and a zombie and a-not-so happy meal every know and then.  Victor would stop if it was only one or two zombies, open up the door or roll down the window and blow their brains out with his gun.  Yeah, the trunk was pretty much packed with food, first aid kits, and guns.  That's godfather Victor; always prepared.  Anyways, I couldn't believe how fast things had gone to hell: the streets were filled with dead bodies, broken down cars, trash and all that debris dropped by dead fleeing people.  I think Victor was trying to find a safe respit 'cause the sun was going down and we couldn't get out of the city right now.  Yeah apparently the city was like in lockdown or something.  I slouched in the chair, staring dumbly out the window as we drove and drove; the V8, all-wheel drive, barricaded hummer punching through most road obstacles, including zombies.  In my stupor I actually noticed those.. things, the infected, go all "deer in a headlight" when a car is speeding at them with headlights on.  I think I chuckled a bit as Victor tested this theory.  I must have dozed off just a nod when Victor exclaimed something.  I jumped up in my seat, eyes gummy and a fleck of drool hanging out my mouth.
"What's it, Victor?"
"Lights, boy, it's gotten dark we gotta stop."
It had indeed gotten darker while I had been dozing.  The smoke from the downtown towers blotted out the stars in front of us.  The lights were coming from a building just two blocks down the road.  As we got closer it looked like the building must have been an office or part of a college campus, but it doesn't really matter anymore does it?  It was a brick building with several stories and annexes with a courtyard around it and a brick wall around the courtyard with one of those Tim Burton wrought iron gates in the wall.  Yeah, real fancy.  There were lights in the most of the windows and what looked like the silhouettes of a ton of people inside.  When we pulled up next to the gate we also saw there were police officers inside the courtyard.  Victor rolled down the window.
"Hey, over here!  Open up the gate quick before those f–kers come!" he yelled.
Some of those riot police guys, you know with the black padding and riot shields came up along with several normal city cops.  One of the regular cops walked up to the gate, he must've been the chief.
"How many?" he asked quickly.
"Just two." Victor said.
The chief motioned and the gate was pulled open hurriedly.  The hinges squealed pretty loudly.  Did they not even think to grease them?  Victor slipped inside; the courtyard not in front of the building's main doors was packed with cars, motorcycles, and shopping carts for some reason, I guess to carry people's crap.  Victor parked the car as near the gate as he could in case of a quick escape I guess.  The chief and some other cops approached us, man, they looked like they were about to pass out.
"We weren't expecting much more survivors in this area.  Where 're you too from?" the chief was pretty beat lookin' with bags under his blood-shot eyes and his hair was all disheveled.  His mustache, which was pretty cool– one of those manly bushy ones– was snarled sticking out all funny.
"I'm from out of city, the kid here's from the state college.  How many people you got bottled up in there, officer?"
The chief turned to some subordinate, "Brown, how many checked in?"
The other cop, Brown, flipped through the pieces of paper on his clipboard, "Around 450, Chief."
That's quite a lot of people." Victor said to the chief, "They're all packed in there and ya' got the lights on like it's some f_king college party!  This ain't Woodstock, man!  You need to cover up those windows, turn off most of 'em lights, and tell those people to shut up.  We saw you a mile away and you're usin' up huge amounts of electricity and I'm bettin' the power stations are probably about to go."
The chief's shoulders sagged and his eyes drooped.
"You can take it up with Chief Freeman inside.  Now, get inside quick."
The double doors into the building at least were reinforced and there was a pile of furniture that the cops on the inside had to move away for us to enter.  Now the building wasn't huge and 450+ people is a lot of people.  Every inch of space was filled with some sweating, anxious, self-concerned person and their metric tons of "important and life-saving" junk.  I mean really, suitcases and trunks of shoes, clothes, jewelry, and other crap.  I even saw a flat screen TV.  What are these people thinking?  Cops were here and there trying to get control of the situation.  As we entered the main room of the ground floor, a cop, as beaten down as the ones outside, came out of the sweltering pack of bodies as thick as a wall of trees.
"Two?" he yelled hoarsely at us over the collective din of hundreds of scared shitless people.
Victor nodded affirmatively.  The cop shouted into his walkie talkie.
"Two new ones.  Room?"
A voice crackled back over in response.  "We got room third floor."
Our cop jerked his thumb to the stairs, "Third floor!  Go!"
We ran up the stairs to the third floor.  It seemed just as packed as the ground and second floors.  We made for a less packed corner of the floor.  We found a room that might've been a lounge just two days before.  Twenty or so people filled the room, sitting on sofas, tables, window sills, and sleeping bags.  Victor dumped his pack on the floor and pulled out two sleeping bags.
"I'm gonna go get some extra water f I can and try and talk some sense into the cops here." Victor spoke as he pulled the sleeping bags out.  I saw other gear and foodstuff in there, how much had he crammed in that pack?  In a quieter voice he added, "Be ready to run, ok?"  he left the pack on the floor and walked out of the room into the oven-hot crowd in the main room.  I sat on the sleeping bag, head in my hands, my numb brain still not excepting what was going on.  I just wouldn't, couldn't, understand this.  Footsteps near me.  I looked up.  A guy with graying tan hair and blue collared shirt hanging over his belt had walked up to me from the corner.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Mike Mancini, I see you just got here.  Eh, what's your name?"
"Uh... uh... Adam." I mumbled.  We shook hands.
"Do you know what's going on?  They won't tell us anything ever since we got here.  They're not letting us leave.  I don't know how long we can survive hear."
I shook my head wearily; I was very, very, sleepy.
"Sorry, I only know as much as you.  This morning I was a college student studying for a test... then, hell broke loose.  You come here in a group, Mike?"
"Yeah, I came with a group from Geneva Avenue.  Some of 'em fell behind on the way here.  We were split up once we got here so I'm just here with Nicki now." Mike pointed with his thumb behind him to the young woman that had been sitting with him.  She looked up at us with blue yes, then gazed back down at the floor.
Victor burst in, slamming the door behind him scaring us all witless.  He stomped over to us muttering something about bureaucracy and procedures.  He threw himself down on a sofa next to my sleeping bag.
"Hi there, I'm Mike, I–" Mike began when Victor stood and hushed him with a look.
"Don't tell me your name, sir, situation like this I don't need to know it nor do I care.  Just tell me where you're headed."
Mike blinked, then cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Oh, um, I'm tryin' to get up to Gorham, New Hampshire... see if my wife's still alive." he said the last part quietly with a downcast look.
"Nice to meet you, Gorham, best of luck to you.  I'm Charleston and this here's Russia.  Any idea what the hell's goin' on?"
Mike, or "Gorham" shook his head.  Victor was pretty adamant about this whole not telling each other our names thing.  He said it helped stopped us from getting to attached to others, especially if we told them more about ourselves.  Nicki came over to where we were all standing.  She was pretty, real pretty.  And pretty pale too.
"D– do know–?" she stammered to Victor.
"Nope, stop asking." Victor grunted. She snapped her mouth shut.
"What's yer destination, miss?" Victor asked.
"Uh.. um.. well, I'm trying to get to Chula Vista.  That's.. that's where my parents are." she spoke softly.  She, Nicki, was cute; she had black hair in a pony tail, blue eyes, and smooth pale skin.  She had on a little gray hoodie and black, work-out pants.
Victor whistled, "That's mighty far, Chula Vista.  Besta' luck to ya."
"Hey, maybe for the time being we could, I don't know, team up?  Pool resources?  You know I'm a mechanic– Mancini's Auto Repair– we could help each other!" Mike, er, Gorham said.
Victor raised one of his bushy, gray eyebrows, "I ain't one for passengers."
"So is that a no?" Gorham asked, uncertain.
"Hell yeah." Victor grumbled, he then turned to me. "Kid, get some sleep.  Now.  I'll wake ya' up in a couple of hours.  I don't want to stay here long, just enough o rest and get my bearings."
"But, Vic– Charleston, they won't let us leave!" I mumbled.
He put a hand on my shoulders.  "Just get some shut eye, I won't let them stop us."
I think one of those classic "once their head hit the pillow they fell deep asleep" things happened to me because all I remember after that is Victor shaking me awake and cussing.
"Wake the hell up, boy!  Shit's broken loose!  Get the f–k up!" he yelled.
I leaped up, blinking violently; strange noises were coming from the lower floors of the building.
"What's goin' on?  What time is it?" I moaned, rubbing my eyes.
"They're climbin' over the wall, they're at the f–king doors!  It's still dark out, boy, pack up the sleeping bag!"  Victor was getting red in the face as he barked orders at me.
I felt like I was till asleep.  I felt like a sleepwalker as I stuffed the sleeping bag away and shouldered the pack.  Victor dashed over to the windows, peering out and dashing over to another.  He finally peered out the right window and smashed it open with his boot.  A fire escape led to the paved courtyard three floors below.
"Get your ass out the window, boy!" he yelled at me.
I threw myself out the window and waited for him to leap through.  Gunfire and these horrible, blood-chilling screams could be heard around the front of the building.  And over the screaming and raucous was the droning growl of those things.  Gorham poked his head groggily out the window after us.
"H-hey, can we come with you guys?"
"No!  Just get outta the building ok?  Don't follow us!" Victor roared back up the metal ladder.
"Victor, come on, man, it's just two of 'em!  I mean the guy's a mechanic, that could be useful!  C'mon, they're scared and we could help each other out.  Strength in numbers, y'know?"
"Yeah, and also a bigger meal... but fine, if you love 'em so much they can come." Victor grumbled.  Man, he was unhappy.  "If ya' wanna come along, get yer ass down here right now!" he barked up to the window.  The sound of a breaking door reached our ears: they were inside the building.
Gorham scrambled out the window followed closely by Nicki, er, Chula Vista.  We all clattered down the fire escape, hitting the ground running at the bottom.  Victor halted us with his arm as we weaved through the sea of cars to the front of the building.  The hummer was near the gate and currently those zombie-things were gnawing at the iron gate or climbing over the wall.
"On my mark we run ok?  Ya' fall behind, yer left behind." Victor had turned back to us, giving Gorham and Chula Vista a hard look.  He turned back and watched, and we waited.  Hours passed, but  y'a know it was really just seconds.  Then Victor waved his hand forward.  He all broke into a dead run for the hummer.  Scream,growls, and gun shots filled the confused night, 'course I wan't really paying attention, I was focused on jumping over the mess of cars and not getting eaten.  I reached the hummer first, flinging myself into the passenger seat and slamming the door.  Victor was in the driver's seat a second later and turned the key to start the car.  Gorham and Vista leaped up into the back seats; Gorham just had a single little backpack and Vista had her purse only.  Victor swore as he turned the key again and again; the car wasn't starting.  Then the things noticed us.  My heart thumped loudly in my ears as they leaped over other cars or the wall and began banging on the doors and windows, a couple of 'em climbed onto the roof.  The hummer finally roared into life, Victor swore some more as he sped the hummer backwards , slamming into a car and setting off its alarm.  He turned the car sharply and floored the gas, flying through the gates and shooting down the street, flinging all the things to the side.  One of the ones on top fell in front of the car promptly disappeared under its tires.
Victor looked at the gas meter.
 "Good thing I filled up earlier." he said as we sped off into the night.
I think I fell asleep again after that.                     
     

Branchton

Erin sat by the fountain that filled the center of the brick pavement in front of Branchton University; this was her favorite spot to read, and watch the clock tower.  The clock tower stood in the heart of Branchton, towering above all other buildings, even the library and university.  The clock tower– while an accepted, even coveted, monument– was different from the rest of the buildings of the city.  While a majority of the buildings in the city were of brick, concrete, or even steel, the clock tower was made of sleek metal, possibly steel, and looked as if it were made in a different era perhaps.  But that was not what interested Erin the most in the clock tower.  The first time she had first noticed the peculiarity was two years ago as a young freshman at the university.  She and the other incoming students had just been officially welcomed to the school and the dean and faculty were departing when Erin had looked up at the edifice; and she saw it.  Something about the tower had changed.  She couldn't quite explain what had changed, it had sort of "blinked", it had looked different but only for a moment.  This had happened several other times since.  She stared over her book at the clock tower; if the professors caught her staring into space again they'd mark her for wasting time.  Citizens of Branchton were discouraged not to waste time.  The book slid from her hands; she had been staring off into space in the direction of the enigmatic tower.  She jumped, then bent over to book up Ashfield's Hypothesis on Reason when a pair of hands came down and picked the book off the ground and handed it to her.  Erin loked up blinking; she hadn't seen anyone come up to this side of the fountain.  It was a man, a man in a worn coat and top hat who must've been in his late thirties or early forties; there was also a small, plastic name tag clipped to the left breast pocket of his coat.  He smiled at her as he stood up straighter and adjusted his fingerless gloves.
"You dropped this; though I can't blame you, I never could get my head around Ashfield." he said.  His eyes were a deep, piercing blue and the tanned skin around his eyes were wrinkled.  He was, all together, quite handsome.
Erin blinked again, then remembered her manners.
"Oh yes, thank you.  I was, um, looking at the time." Erin managed to smile back.  Then she finally saw what was on the name tag.  In straight, printed, white letters, the top third of the tage said "Hello, my name is" on a blue background; below that the rest of the card was white and filled with the scrawled word "the Keeper".  The Keeper!  Here?  Erin blushed.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she stammered, "I didn't read– oh I'm such an idiot!  My apologies, Keeper." how could she have missed it?  The coat, hat, and the name tage.
The Keeper just chuckled and smiled again in his warm, friendly way.
"Don't worry about it.  I'm just passing by." he pulled a scratched gold pocket watch out of his right breast pocket and clicked his tongue when he opened it up.  "Yes, best I be off now, speaking of time.  It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss–?"
"Erin, Erin Carr."
"Miss Erin Carr.  Good day and good luck with that book!" the Keeper waved to her as he strolled away across the pavement towards the great double doors of the university building.
Erin gazed at the shrinking brown coat back and top hat until they vanished inside the university.  She cast one last glance at the clock tower then resumed her reading.

The Watcher swept up a pile of graphs, charts, maps, and other scraps of paper into his long arms and deposited them onto a side table; the Guardian leaned back in her chair, boots on the main table.  The Watcher cast her a sidelong glance through his glasses.
"Where is he?" the Guardian yawned.
"He went out to do some errands, you know how he– "
"What time is it?" she suddenly sat up, pushing the chair away from her, red hair flying up around her face.
"Almost one o'clock." the Watcher grumbled from the blackboard at the front of the long, main table.
"One o'clock?  He needs to be here!  One o'clock is a tricky hour."
The Watcher looked at the Guardian over his thin framed glasses.  "He'll be here, don't worry." he turned around, scooping back up some of the charts and papers and began to climb up the black iron staircase to the upper floors of the clock tower.
"Besides," he called back down, "he'll end up here, one Keeper or another."                  

01/01/2162

All, right, it's working.  Uh, hi, I guess, I'm Connor Smith and this is day one of my new life on Rhea.  Um, so it took the shuttle like six 'er seven years, two months, and I think twenty days to get here.  Man, cryo is weird; it ain't like your normal anesth-sleep.  You don't feel like you're asleep in cryo, years go by and it feels like you blinked.  God, seven goddamn years just in transit.  Anyways, I got here... uh, lemme look... five hours ago; took the drop ship from the shuttle down to Elysium's Gate, the forward base here on Rhea and Marine garrison for the settlements.  Oh yeah, the shuttle that brought me here was the, uh, UESS Yamazaki.  It's big man, I think it's like the flagship in the transpo fleet; oh and its got like these ion-plasma jet engines that like cause these explosions that propel the ship forward at like 1% the speed of light or somethin', Dr. Oxfield tried to explain it to me when I arrived.  So I'm all checked in and in my room here in Elysium– see you can see it behind me– pretty simple, just how I like it.  There ain't too much luxury here on Rhea.  So when I was all cleared in, me and the other new arrivals were given a briefing by the commander of the Colonial Marines, Col. Shepherd.  Man, it was kinda like the old days with a good old-fashioned ops speech.  Shepherd's a cool guy; brisk, hardy, demands respect.  Tomorrow at o-seven hundred I'm being sent to, uh, a lab some two klicks from here to meet the science team that I'll accompany out in an expedition in three days.  Hopefully I'll see my brother, Michael, he shipped out here as a science guy in the shipment before me.  Oh yeah, about me, said my name earlier I think; Smith, Connor Smith.  I'm a Marine sergeant from the UE Corps, uh... saw action in China, Bulgaria, and Chile; did a space-op durin' the conflict in Chile.  I was born just about thirty years ago in the Boston quarter of New York City... um, grew up in a little apartment near Jamaica Plains– 'ts a little neighborhood in the Big City.  And yeah, now I'm here.  All right, I'm gonna shut off, it's like eleven forty-five right now and I'm wiped, I'll probably have time tomorrow for another video log.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot: happy New Year back on Earth!  All right, logging off.