No Present Like The Time [FICTOID]

The Russian mercenaries closed in on the Ukrainian TV station from all sides, tightening a noose around it until they cut it off from escape or rescue.

The captain thought it a waste of time to take the station intact -- Just blow it to hell and set up our own transmitter! -- but knew how to obey orders…

…when paid.

He expected guards around the perimeter but the structure sat surprisingly undefended.  As they approached the front doors, one mercenary hauled back his assault weapon to shatter the glass with it, but the captain held up his hand.  The mercenary paused, and the captain reached over and pushed the doorbar.

It swung open.  Unlocked.

The captain and his mercenaries entered slowly, scanning for boobytraps or signs of an ambush.

Nothing moved.  Everything was silent.

Silent, except for the astronomy video playing on the station’s monitors.

They moved deeper into the building, their guard relaxing.  “Are we the only ones in here?” one of the younger mercenaries asked.  “Did they flee and just leave it running?”

“Looks like it,” growled an older sergeant.

They made their way to the control booth.  The door was propped open so they could see in, as if the person inside wanted to make sure they didn’t fire an RPG through it without checking.

An old man with bushy hair in a white lab coat sat in a technician’s chair, looking at the big monitor before him.  He turned to grin at the mercenaries.  “Isn’t it marvelous?” he asked them, jerking his thumb to the screen.

The captain didn’t know what they were looking at.  It appeared to be some dazzling natural fractal turning in and out of itself.

“Where are the others?” the captain asked.

“They left,” said the old man.

“And you stayed…?”

“Because of this,” said the old man.  He turned his attention back to the screen, sighing and leaning back in the tall chair, resting his head comfortably against its cushion.

Crazy, thought the captain.  Not unkindly, he said, “We are formally seizing control of this facility.”

The old man waved his hand dismissively.  “Do what you must,” he said, “but first ask yourself why your high command didn’t just bomb us to hell?”

The captain hesitated.  The old man swiveled around to face him with a grin.  “It’s because they knew what we are doing here.  Oh, we broadcast television programs, but the government let us run a few experiments on the side.”

He spun back to the screen.  “Look at that.  Know what it is?  It’s a supernova that exploded fifty-three million years ago.  The light is just reaching earth, but you can’t see it with the naked eye.”

Optics experiments, the captain thought.  That explains why the high command wants it intact.

“If you’re thinking we’re using some sort of super-camera here, you’re wrong,” said the old man.  “It would take too long to explain it.  Let’s just say we found a way to tap into the very heart of that supernova.  There are light waves, there are radio waves, there are gravity waves, and as we learned, time waves as well.

“I’m an old man, dying of cancer.  I made my proposal to the government and they gave me permission.  For a hundred kilometers around us, Ukrainian people have been evacuated.”

The mercenary squad looked anxiously at one another.  Was what their brigade thought was a rout actually a planned evacuation?  And if so, for what reason?

The old man turned back to the screen.  “I said farewell to my co-workers yesterday.  This morning I prepared myself a sumptuous breakfast.  When I saw you entering the front doors I injected an overdose of morphine and turned on the timer.

“Just as the overwhelming bliss of the morphine hits, our project will activate.  According to calculation, we will tap in on a time wave and immobilize everything in an 87.6 kilometer radius in one single instant which we shall experience forever.

“Gentlemen, welcome to what our Buddhist friends would call the Eternal Cosmic Now.”

The younger mercenaries raised their weapons to cut the old man down but before they could pull their triggers the Eternal Cosmic Now hit, and everything they felt / thought / experienced would be the only things they felt / thought / experienced for all eternity.

I knew I should have gone to the bathroom before coming in here, the captain thought.

© Buzz Dixon