Sispyhus Rising
My words just break and melt
Over the following week, life for the crew of the Sisyphus went on more or less as normal – or as normal as was possible while remaining planetside. Sia returned home the morning after her meeting with the crew, leaving behind a promise that she would get in contact as soon as she could. Shannon pitched in around Merewether to make sure the school was ready to welcome students for the new academic year. Sarika rode her borrowed bicycle around Five Points during the day, collecting supplies to restock the ship's kitchen and infirmary, and drilled Taylor in Mandarin in the evenings.
And every day almost from dawn until dusk the cargo bay of the Sisyphus was transformed into a training space, as Jared taught Taylor how to wield his new weapon.
"Easy, easy!" Jared cautioned loudly as Taylor's staff came close to giving him a rather violent haircut. "You're not supposed to try and take my head off!"
"Sorry!" Taylor apologised. "I didn't mean to!" He went to try and spin the staff around in his hands again, but it slipped from his grasp and fell on the mats that were laid out on the floor of the cargo bay.
"I think that's enough for right now," Jared said as Taylor bent down to pick up his staff. The weapon was almost as long as Taylor was tall, which meant there was one major downside to carrying it – unlike Shannon's pistols or Jared's knives, he couldn't hide it away in a holster or sheath to keep it out of sight. On the other hand, it could be used as more than just a potentially lethal weapon, giving it a distinct advantage over the weapons most people in the ‘Verse carried. "Staff away, and we'll grab a bit of lunch."
Sarika had left lunch for them in the ship's kitchen that morning, stored in one of the chiller compartments under the bench. They collected the plates of chicken and salad, along with knives and forks from the draining rack next to the sink, Jared closed the compartment door, and they went across to the kitchen table.
"Can I ask you a question about the ship?" Taylor asked as they sat down.
"Of course."
"Where did you get the name from? It sounds kind of Greek to me."
Jared eyed Taylor with one eyebrow raised. "It's not ‘kind of Greek' at all. It is Greek." He speared a piece of chicken with his fork. "How much do you know of Earth-That-Was mythology?"
"I know little bits and pieces. Not a lot though, I never studied it beyond high school."
"Did you ever learn about someone called Sisyphus?"
Taylor frowned, biting his bottom lip. "I might have."
"Well, Sisyphus was a king of Corinth in Ancient Greece who would kill travellers and his guests, in violation of the laws of hospitality. It was something that he took a great deal of pleasure from because it meant he could maintain his position of dominance. Not only this but he seduced his niece, took over his brother's throne, and betrayed the secrets of the god Zeus."
"Sounds like a major piece of work," Taylor commented.
"Oh, he was. After that, Zeus ordered Thanatos, or Death, to chain Sisyphus up in Tartarus – that's the level of the Ancient Greek underworld even lower than Hades," he explained, nearly as an afterthought. "Sisyphus asked Thanatos to show how the chains worked, and when Thanatos did so promptly secured the chains in place."
"Which meant that nobody could die."
Jared nodded. "Right in one. Ares, the god of war, was particularly irritated by this – his battles had lost all their fun because his opponents just wouldn't die, no matter what he threw at them. So he marched right into Tartarus, freed Thanatos from his chains, and sent Sisyphus there in Thanatos' place."
"I'm guessing that's not the end of it," Taylor said.
"Not by a long shot. Before Sisyphus was sent to Tartarus, he told his wife to throw his naked body out into the middle of the public square, supposedly as a test of her love for him. She did so, but then Sisyphus bitched to Persephone that his wife had disrespected him. This persuaded Persephone to allow Sisyphus to return to the upper-world so he could scold his wife for not burying him. Once he was back in Corinth he refused to go back to the underworld and had to be dragged back there by Hermes. At one point he also decided that he was on the same level of the gods and could therefore report their indiscretions. His punishment for his trickery and his other misdeeds was to spend an eternity rolling a boulder up a very steep hill."
"That doesn't sound like much of a punishment."
"That wasn't the whole of it. Every time he came even close to reaching the top of that hill, the boulder would roll straight back down to the bottom, and he'd have to start all over again."
Taylor let out a low whistle of awe. "Damn. That'd drive me insane."
"Which is exactly why the gods punished him in that manner. Shannon and I chose the name Sisyphus for the ship because of the myth. It's kind of a reminder that we shouldn't consider ourselves to be better than anyone for any reason. We're all human, after all."
They resumed training after lunch. Fifteen minutes in Jared's communicator chimed, and he held up a hand to pause the session. The call, it turned out, was from Sarika.
"Jared, Sia's on your mother's Cortex," she was saying. "She needs to speak with you and Taylor – it sounds pretty important."
"All right, thanks Rika," Jared replied. He ended the call and returned his communicator to its place on his belt. To Taylor he said, "Go take a shower, and meet me in my mother's office in twenty. If I'm not mistaken, Sia may have just come up with a way to get you home."
In response, Taylor snapped off a mock military salute, picked up his staff from where it had fallen on the floor, and headed up the stairs toward the crew corridor. His bunk was next to Sarika's, on the left hand side as he entered, and he propped his staff up against the corridor wall before opening the entry. At that point he felt as if he could sleep for a week, but he knew well that eight hours that night would have to do. Once he had climbed down into his bunk he stored his staff away up on its wall brackets and gathered up some clean clothes to change into after his shower.
He met Sarika, Shannon and Jared in Constance's office slightly more than twenty minutes after training had ended. "Are we all here now, then?" he heard Sia ask as he took a seat at Constance's desk next to Jared.
"We're all here now," Shannon confirmed.
"Good, good," Sia said, sounding satisfied. "I'm sure you're all aware of the reason for my wave this afternoon."
"Somewhat, yes," Jared replied. "Though I have a feeling it's not exactly what one of us was hoping to hear."
"Unfortunately," Sia said. "I spoke with my colleagues and looked over all of our calculations, even tried tweaking a few of them. And I am really quite sorry to say that the furthest someone can be sent back in time via the wormhole is about fifty years."
At those words, Taylor felt like his world was ending all over again.
He was well and truly stuck now. Sia's wormhole was to have been his best chance at getting home to the twenty-first century, but now it looked as if he had to try and find another way returning to his own time. He had known that Sia couldn't make any guarantees about getting him home, but that didn't mean it hurt any less to be told it wasn't possible.
"So I guess that's it, then," he said, unable to keep disappointment from creeping into his tone. "I'm stuck here for good."
"Not necessarily," Sia said, in an effort to reassure him. "I'm going to keep at this and see if we can't figure something out. Technology is advancing all the time, and who knows – in a few months, we might have made enough modifications and improvements that a trip of five hundred years might be perfectly feasible." She gave him a smile. "Two weeks ago travelling back fifty years was completely unheard of – the best we could manage was six months. So you never know your luck."
"Didn't you say something about echoes?" Sarika asked.
"I did, now that you mention it," Sia replied. "And I think we can manage that quite easily. When would you all be able to come here to Cobbham?"
Jared and Shannon glanced at one another. "Tomorrow morning at the earliest," Shannon replied. "You'd need a full day, shì?"
Sia nodded. "I would, yes, particularly if I can send Taylor back as an echo for as long as I believe I'll be able to."
And once again everyone forgets I'm even in the room, Taylor thought a little bitterly as Shannon and Jared worked out the details of the second meeting with Sia. I wish they wouldn't do that.
"She's doing her best, you know."
Taylor looked back over his shoulder at Sarika. "Yeah, I know. I guess I was just hoping for a lot more."
"I know you were. But this isn't the end of it – you heard what Sia said, two weeks ago being able to go back as far as they can now was pretty much a dream to them." She put a hand on Taylor's shoulder and squeezed gently. "She'll find a way to get you home. I know she will."
Early the next morning, the Sisyphus lifted off from the grounds of Merewether, bound for the town of Cobbham. Constance had offered the use of her personal shuttle, but as there was no telling how long they would be away from Five Points it had been decided that the Sisyphus would be the better transport for this particular trip.
"Sia will be expecting us at around nine," Jared said as he walked into the dining room. Shannon, Taylor and Sarika were sitting around the room, each absorbed in their own specific activities – Shannon was cleaning and maintaining his pistols, Sarika was stretched out on her back on one of the lounges with the earphones of Taylor's iPod jammed in her ears and her eyes closed, and Taylor sat leaning against Sarika's chosen spot with one of his language books propped up against a knee. "Hey, are you three even listening to me?"
"We heard you," Shannon replied without looking up from his self-appointed task. "Nine o'clock."
"Sarika's not listening," Taylor said, also not looking up. "She found the Genius function on my iPod last night and she's been listening to it ever since." He reached back to Sarika with his free hand and poked her hard in the side without even looking, before holding both hands up in the air. He kept his right thumb folded down against his palm for just long enough that Sarika could register what Jared had told them. "What time is it now?"
"Quarter to," Shannon replied. "Judging on how long it took Sia to get to Merewether in the first place, and that we've already been in the air five minutes, we'll be in Cobbham at ten to. It's not far to Leviathan after that. Easy. You're worrying far too much, Jared."
"Well…okay then." Taylor looked up from his book just in time to see Jared turning back toward the crew corridor, before he obviously thought better of it. "And I do not worry too much!"
"Yes you do," Sarika said from behind Taylor. "You've been worrying too much ever since Taylor came on board."
"Of course I was worrying then, he was hurt!"
"And also, as they say, a fish out of water," Shannon continued. "But he's healed up now and settling in nicely. No need to worry any longer."
"I'm right here, you know," Taylor pointed out in irritation.
"Sorry, Taylor," Shannon apologised.
Sia was waiting for them in the reception area of Leviathan Technologies when the crew entered the main building of the company's complex. "I'm glad to see that you've all made it here safely," she said as they shook hands all around. "Come on through to the main lab, and I'll explain the process." She smiled warmly at them before turning around and leading the way down the corridor.
"So how does this work?" Jared asked once they were inside the laboratory. It was a very clean and sterile space, all unfriendly white and cold stainless steel, and it made Taylor shiver a little. Right in the centre of the room was a recliner that looked too much like a dentist's chair for everyone but Sia to be comfortable with its presence.
"There is a drug that is used to place…well, I hesitate to use the word ‘subject', but it's really the only word that applies here. It's called epaxoyin, and one dose is enough to put a fully-grown adult into a trance – the only thing that separates it from byphodine is that it doesn't simulate death."
"Is it safe?"
The question had come from Shannon. Sia nodded. "It's very safe. The only side effects are disorientation after coming out of the trance, and fatigue that is remedied by a few hours' sleep."
Here she turned to Taylor and motioned toward the chair. "Once you're seated I'll hook you up to a machine that controls the echo state by means of a series of electrodes. After you are dosed with the epaxoyin, you will enter a trance almost immediately, one that lasts for about six hours. Nobody will be able to see or hear you for the time you are in the trance, and you will not be able to touch anyone or anything." Sia gave him an apologetic smile. "I'm truly sorry I can't do more."
"Is there some way you could increase the power input?" Sarika asked, and Taylor shot her a look of gratitude. His technical knowledge extended only as far as tinkering with and making repairs and modifications to his sonic screwdriver. That being said, he was learning more every day – especially since after their training sessions Jared had begun teaching him the ins and outs of the Sisyphus' engine and how to maintain it. The science and technology behind time travel was far beyond him.
Sia frowned and studied the screen of the tablet she carried. "And this would accomplish what, exactly?" she asked without looking up from its display.
It was Taylor who spoke up to answer Sia's question. "Before I left home that morning, I promised my wife that I would come home, just like I always did. Obviously that day I didn't. I just…" His eyes dropped closed briefly. "I just want to tell her that I'm sorry, and that I still love her – and that I always will love her, no matter what happens. And I want to hold her one last time."
Sia seemed to consider what both Sarika and Taylor had said. "I can give it a shot," she replied at last. "But I can make no promises or guarantees."
"I understand," Taylor replied before Sia had a chance to change her mind. He started to dig around in his pockets, obviously in search of something he had brought with him, finally coming up with his sonic screwdriver. "Would this help?"
Sia took the tool from Taylor and looked it over. "Yes, I believe it would," she said after a few moments. "I'd need a demonstration of its workings, but it should be enough to ramp up the power that the machine requires."
A crash course in the use of the sonic screwdriver followed, concluded by Taylor demonstrating its unlocking function on a wall cabinet that required a combination and a thumbprint scan to be opened without setting off an alarm, and he handed the instrument over. "How long would I have with Caroline if you can increase the power?" he asked as he sat down in the chair.
"Around an hour." Another apologetic look. "If I could do more, I would."
Taylor nodded quickly. "Wo zhi dào," he told her.
Pretty soon Taylor was settled in the chair, and Sia had attached what seemed like hundreds of tiny electrodes to his head, face, insides of his wrists and ankles, and the pads of his fingertips. All of them were wireless, the largest of them barely bigger than the button on the one pair of jeans Taylor had managed to bring to the twenty-sixth century with him. He looked up at the ceiling, focusing on one of the downlights as he waited for Sia to dose him with the epaxoyin.
"Are you ready?"
His focus shifted to Sia's face and he nodded, not entirely sure he could trust his voice were he to speak. Sia seemed to understand his anxiety, and she gave him a smile of reassurance. "Everything will be okay," she said. "I promise. You will not physically leave this room."
"I just have one question," he said as Sia readied the required dose. "Would I be able to bring anything back? Because I just have this feeling that Caroline will try to send something back with me."
"I think there's only one way to find out, and that's to try it for yourself." She flicked the tip of the syringe, the barrel of which held the dose of the drug, and took up Taylor's left hand in her right, turning it so that the inside of his wrist faced upward. "One hour," she reminded him. "Once you enter the trance, you will have one hour and no longer. Dong ma?"
Taylor nodded. "Wo dong," he replied quietly, and returned his focus to the ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sia inject the epaxoyin, managing to remain aware of his surroundings for just a few moments longer. The drug worked as quickly as Sia had said it would, and barely five seconds later he fell into darkness.
He opened his eyes to find himself standing on the footpath outside the apartment complex he and Caroline had called home for so long, and he fought the impulse to grin like an idiot. "I'm home," he whispered, before giving himself a metaphorical smack upside the head. Sixty minutes was all the time that Sia had been able to give him, and that time was ticking away too fast. He took in a deep breath before walking up the path to the complex's front door and buzzing himself inside.
Caroline looked up from her reading at the knock on the front door of the apartment. Nowadays it was just her and Elizabeth living there – Rhiannon had started a family of her own, and Lucas was off at college in New York. Even so, with Elizabeth in school and working part-time, she spent most days alone.
"I'm coming," she called out as she set her book down and stood up off the couch. A short walk to the front door later she was squinting into the corridor through the peephole, and she frowned. "Lucas William Hanson, you had better not dropped out of college or so help me God," she said as she pulled the door open, "I'll put you over-"
Much to her shock, it wasn't Lucas at the door. Standing there in the corridor, not looking a day over twenty-eight and very much alive, was someone she hadn't seen in almost eighteen years.
"Oh my God," she whispered, barely daring to believe her eyes. "Taylor?"
His response shocked her even further – he nodded. She pressed a hand to her mouth and started shaking almost uncontrollably, the grief that had been sparked almost two decades earlier returning in full force. "It's not possible," she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. "Y-you died…"
Taylor didn't say a word at first. He stepped inside the apartment and caught Caroline up in a tight embrace, burying his face in her hair and closing his eyes tightly. "I missed you so much CJ," he whispered at last. "So, so much. I'm so sorry I left you…"
"How can you be here?" Caroline asked in a whisper. "They told me you died when the truck crashed into your car." She shook her head again. "It's not possible…"
"It's completely possible, CJ. Believe me on that. I don't have the time to explain why, but I can tell you that I am very much alive." He led her across to the couch, and they sat down. "I only have an hour here, and five minutes have already ticked away. After that…" He shrugged, as if what would happen to him was unknown.
"You've come back to say goodbye," Caroline realised.
"Pretty much, yeah. I really wish I had longer than an hour, but it's the most they could give me." He tucked an errant curl back behind Caroline's left ear. "Are you doing okay?"
"Honestly?" Caroline asked, and Taylor nodded. "I'm doing the best that I can. The first few months…that was hell. Your mother and brothers helped out as much as they could, but it really wasn't enough. I used to cry myself to sleep a lot, and so did Ree – I don't think Lucas understood, not at first. And Lizzie…" Caroline looked down at her lap. "I wish you could meet her, Tay. She's amazing – looks so much like you."
"Do you have any photos I could look at?"
Caroline nodded. "I have a lot – I'll go grab them." She got up from the couch and darted across to the bookshelves, taking down a photo album. "There's some of Lizzie by herself near the middle," she explained as she handed it over for Taylor to look through.
"She's beautiful," Taylor said as he paged through the photographs of the daughter he would never be able to meet. He stopped at a portrait photograph of Elizabeth, which judging from the date written beneath had only been taken a few weeks earlier. She really did look a lot like him. He could even see small hints of Sarika in his daughter – the eyes were the biggest giveaway. Both Rhiannon and Lucas had dark brown eyes like their mother, but Elizabeth's eyes were the same as Taylor's – a clear, bright blue. "Why Elizabeth?"
Caroline bit her bottom lip. "I almost named her after you," she admitted. "But then I remembered that you had a grandmother named Elizabeth, so I just substituted your middle name for your grandmother's. Lizzie's full name is Jordan Elizabeth Hanson."
They spent the next half-hour or so just talking, trying to bridge the gap that now separated them. Taylor was particularly careful during their conversation not to tell Caroline about when or where he had come from. Even though he knew that the world was already going to hell, he didn't know what sort of effect that telling Caroline about the twenty-sixth century would have on the future.
He realised that his time was running short when he started to hear a faint, incessant but steady beeping in his ears that he knew was his heartbeat. "I don't have long left," he told Caroline, wishing that he could stay with her for the rest of his life. As grateful as he was to have gotten this opportunity to see Caroline one last time, he knew that once he returned to Cobbham he was going to regret leaving her behind even more than he did already. A spark of an idea ignited in his head, and he did something he thought he would never do.
He took off the necklace that held his wedding band.
"I want you to give this to Lucas the next time you see him," he told Caroline. "Tell him that he is to hand it down through his family after he gets married, to his second-oldest son, and so on down his family line. If I'm as right as I believe I am, I'll get it back eventually." He handed the necklace to Caroline. "Make sure he looks after it."
"I will," Caroline promised.
The beeping in his ears grew almost maddening, and he knew his time was almost at its end. "Tell the kids I love them," he said as he and Caroline embraced for the last time. "I'll never stop loving them." He drew back slightly so that he could look into Caroline's eyes. "And I'll never stop loving you. I still remember my vows – I will love you until the day I die. I promise."
"I'll always love you too," Caroline assured him.
Out in the corridor, the photo album held tightly in his arms, Taylor slid down the wall outside the apartment's front door and squeezed his eyes shut. He missed Caroline like crazy already – somehow, being able to see her one last time and to finally say the goodbye he hadn't properly been able to say made him feel even worse than he had already. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that it would get even worse in the days and weeks to come.
"Wo huì yong yuan ài ni, Caroline Rhiannon Hanson," he whispered, seconds before a bright flash of light overtook him.
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Translations
Mandarin:
wo zhi dào: I know
wo dong: I understand
wo huì yong yuan ài ni: I will love you forever
Slang:
byphodine: a drug that when administered, slows the body's metabolic processes down enough so as to simulate death