Humorous Science Fiction
Date Published: May 11, 2021
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
At every crossroads he has encountered in life, Sean Brody has made the safe choice. In the year 2046, at the age of ninety-three, Sean is given one final opportunity to deal with his greatest regret. Sean is the only man Marshall Grissom and Marta Hamilton can find who might be able to save Sheila Schuler, their friend and fellow traveler lost in the distant reaches of time. If Sean accepts the task of traveling to his childhood in a parallel universe—with no guarantee that any aspect of the past can be changed—Sean must also accept his death in the only world he knows.
Marshall’s response didn’t register, though, because Sean
looked beyond Naomi and saw two huge gleaming globes flanking a white, brightly
lit platform tinged by a throbbing green
glow beneath its surface. Banks of computers, monitors and cameras edged
the platform on three sides.
The globes pulsed with a bluish electronic sort of ooze
that seemed to creep along their surfaces in random patterns. Where Sean could
have sworn an instant before had been empty space between the globes, he saw a
lovely, petite, and very nude black woman standing before him. He wondered if
she had been there all along, and he’d somehow missed her among the computers
and cameras and other shiny things. But . . . no. Old as he
might be, Sean was pretty sure he could still tell the difference between a
computer and a naked lady.
He felt frozen. He could not bring himself to speak or
move. Like a needle stuck on an old phonograph record, his mind simply could
not jump beyond this particular groove.
A comforting arm slipped through his and Sean found Naomi
beside him.
“I’m sure you’re finding this a bit overwhelming. Do you
need to sit? Can I bring you a bottle of water?”
Sean stared silently into the small Chinese woman’s black
eyes for a moment before turning back toward the nudist.
“Hello, Mr. Brody,” said the woman, who now wore a white
robe. “I know my entrance was a little theatrical. And I apologize for that,
but we wanted to impress you. I’m Marta Hamilton. I think Marshall has
mentioned me? You’ve just witnessed my return from a brief conference with my counterpart
from another universe a few days past. And I do have to admit the timing wasn’t
coincidental. We needed to get your attention.”
Sean continued to stare. He found this reality too much to
process.
“I know Marshall hasn’t given you all the details yet. I
sincerely hope you will agree to help us, though. We will be asking—”
“My
God,” Sean croaked through a sandpaper dry throat, believing all this for the
first time. “You people want me to be fifteen years old again.”
That’s when the horror began. Bizarre scenes flashed
through Amanda’s brain, crowding everything comforting and familiar off to one
side. Each thread of this torrent was snapped by some vivid instantaneous image
of people she didn’t know, and a world she didn’t recognize. Each image seemed
to be swallowed by another as soon as it appeared. She saw herself, naked and
terrified as a leering man reached for her. She saw—and heard—a stark, white
empty space filled with voices. She encountered a parade of people she’d never
seen before. But she knew their names—Marshall, Marta, Elvin, Gretchen, Naomi.
Then she saw herself again. She tasted raw fear. She felt everything about
herself slipping—no being dragged—away. She saw death reaching a skeletal hand
to her throat.
Her face became a picture of abject fear. Her eyes darted
wildly.
“Concussion!” shouted Miss Best. “Young lady, you must not
go to sleep!”
With an aside to the rest of the class Miss Best added,
“You must never allow someone who has suffered a concussion to sleep.”
“Miss Best, shouldn’t we call someone?” Joni asked.
Miss Best squinted at Joni and said, “Don’t panic, Miss
Miller. Right now, we have to call someone. Mr. Janson, would you please go to
the office and tell them we need medical assistance in the chemistry lab.”
Joni knelt next to Amanda.
Amanda felt an overwhelming darkness marching across her
brain, taking pieces of her as it went. She was being strangled mentally. Now
the darkness began to encompass her. She summoned her strength to make one,
desperate plea. I . . . I am Amanda. Amanda Page. The
blackness began to retreat. But this other pervasive presence, the other
existence, remained.
“Amanda,” Joni pleaded, “Amanda. Please! Tell me what’s
wrong!”
Joni’s voice wove itself into the other voices and all the
images thundering through her perception. She clamped her hands over her ears,
squeezed her eyes shut and said with stark desperation, “There’s someone in my head! Get them out! Please! Get them out!”
About The Author
Mike Murphey is a native of eastern New Mexico and spent almost thirty years as an award-winning newspaper journalist in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. He left journalism in 1998 to form a business related to adult amateur baseball. At the age of 60, he stopped procrastinating and revived his life-long ambition to write a novel. He is author of Sections, an award-winning coming of age novel set in Eastern New Mexico where Mike grew up. He is also author of The Conman … a Baseball Odyssey, another award-winning novel. Killing Time is the third novel in his Physics, Lust and Greed Series. Mike splits his time between Spokane, Washington and Phoenix, Arizona where he enjoys life as a writer and old-man baseball player.
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