Ishoved a curl of stiff wallpaper back up to the water-stained ceiling and stuck the corner with a thumbtack. Smoothing out the dry gold flecked paisley paper I readjusted the rusty metal tack to take in the slack. The crude map drawn on the plaster wall and hidden by the wallpaper offered salvation to the human species. Or maybe its ultimate demise.
I stepped down off the toilet lid and stared at bloodshot eyes in the mirror. The gaunt bearded face staring back at me demanded to call in sick for the day. I pushed my face close to the mirror with the tiny hope of seeing a flash of the young, vibrant man I used to be, an alpha male, a player. Instead, the corruption of metabolizing alcohol yellowed my skin, bulged my eyeballs, farmed my cheeks with a blossom of spiderwebbed capillaries, my breath was foul. Each night's alcohol consumption spelled doom most mornings, yet a prerequisite to find paradise. With a painful rotating stretch I cracked my neck bones as a familiar rap on the bathroom door said my allotted time in the bunkhouse pity pit was up. I flushed rusty water down the toilet and checked my khaki uniform. Ava wanted the bathroom, and unless I desired an early morning battle, my boss would get it.
I groaned noisily and splashed mildewed sink water on my face and hair, the unpleasant aroma sure to silence questions from Ava. I stuck out my dry tongue to the mirror then hurried to escape the cramped bathroom. I kept my gaze focused on the wooden floor with its dull yellow lacquer peeling like the skin of desert reptiles. I wanted no part of Ava's menu of expressions, suspicious pity, accusatory, judgmental, scorn, each morning different and nuanced, regardless of our previous interaction. Ava exhaled a quick dismissive blast of air, her disgust obvious as she took my place in the coveted grooming room. The twins, Victor and Vicki, waited against the wall of the long narrow hallway. I grunted a "good morning" then picked up my backpack and hustled downstairs to the lobby. I found my name on a white cooler box filled with lunches and drinks and shouldered the strap. I hesitated at an identical box with Ava's name tag, tempted to see what madness might ensue if I switched the predetermined lunch menus.
The morning was chilled, the desert landscape timeless, the fog of my warm breath preceded me with each step. The 500 meter hike up the narrow road offered time and clean air to clear out the chardonnay fog clouding my head. The silence of the canyon was medicinal and complete. The access road tested my heart as the steepness of the grade increased. Giant spires of sandstone rose high above hillsides of vibrant juniper and mesquite brooding with their magnificence. I tipped my ballcap to the hefty sandstone eagle watching over the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a focal point for tourists visiting the Sedona Valley, long before all the people simply disappeared. I grabbed my knees and sucked in huge gulps of air. Four Pink Jeeps idled, spilling a mist of noxious carbon monoxide to disappear into the cold air. My coveted position as a tour guide with the Time Displacement Consortium was a convenient way to muzzle the protests I would have raised back home.
The maintenance manager, Jaxter, stepped from between two of the open-air transport Jeeps and chuckled. "Another rough night for the Ozzy-man." Jaxter shook his head. "They'll rotate you back out once Ava finds proof you know."
I sucked in a last gasp and stood tall. "Maybe I won't go back. Maybe I'll live here like a native."
Jaxter smiled wide. "And no doubt you would thrive with so much alcohol waiting to be consumed."
I shuttered my eyes and nodded my head. My alcohol use was no secret among the cadre of tour guides but Jaxter was not to be trusted. The basement in the Chapel Home contained thousands of bottles of wine, just waiting to be consumed by someone who might appreciate the nuances of vineyard fermentation. I could claim research for a future thesis, and no one could dispute my findings.
I offered my free hand to Jaxter, beckoning him to point out which tour Jeep to load the cooler box into. He snickered and pointed to PJ201 idling at the end of the vehicle clique like an outcast. I dropped the cooler box into a metal slot atop the passenger seat. I pulled my wrinkled and sweat-stained safari hat from my backpack then tossed my belongings on the floor beneath the seat. I checked the dashboard for fuel, warning lights, mileage calibration, then walked around the rear cargo seats checking for trash and misplaced items. Jaxter had done his job.
"I'm good, Jax," I said and offered my hands in surrender.
Jax smirked. "The departure pool just paid off on a hundred to one longshot for you being first to arrive. Ozzy for the win. I had you, brother."
"Fuck you," I said.
The hair on my arms lifted as thunder boomed high in the deep cobalt blue sky and lightning crackled in the shadows of massive red rock cliffs. I turned my eyes away as brilliant bolts of electricity penetrated the roof of the Chapel. The brief storm of time transference dissipated, leaving ozone and bitter sulfur to mist the cold crisp air.
"How about the manifest, Jax?"
"Sent to you twice already. That booze is fucking with your neurotransmitter again."
I shrugged and began a hustle up the slick curved walkway once used by humans relegated to using wheelchairs or mechanical assistance. Jaxter liked to play games with the passenger manifests, slow play the tourists against their special requests, maybe throw a forbidden candy bar into a meal meant for the glucose intolerant. A sadistic game played to elicit a simple chuckle on his short walk back to the barracks.
The manifest downloaded into my ocular screen. I slowed my approach to the chapel proper, assimilating the information dump. The DeMarco's, a family with two female children. A family dynamic certain to drain my patience before lunch. The Christoph's, a wealthy newlywed couple seeking the ultimate rock-climbing adventure would require minimal effort. The Casey's, an elder couple searching for a forgotten past, sadness and melancholy sure to accompany them at departure. Been there. Done that.
A mixed bag of tourists traveling back from Earth year 3173.
I waited at the open front doors of the chapel. A large bronze statue of a man nailed to a faux wooden cross waited in front of picture glass windows and stared down at my group, each dressed in identical fluorescent pink jumpsuits. I refused to engage with the group standing rapt beneath the statues pained expression.
I clapped my hands twice to get their attention. "Welcome to 2033. You see before you a monument to the ancient beliefs of an extinct culture, and beyond those windows waits one of their cities, unspoiled, one you are about to experience as if you lived here a thousand years ago. My name is Ozzy, and I am your tour leader. As you know we have strict guidelines for this tour. Let's get you loaded into the Jeep then we can go over the rules."
The tall male Christoph raised his hand. "We decided on Cathedral Rock. The climb requires every minute of time allowed. Will that be a problem?"
I offered a grin practiced for years. "Understood M. Christoph. You and your partner will find the Cathedral Spires waiting just as the sun rises. You are responsible for your own gear, sustenance, and safety. Pink Jeep Tours will deliver and return only."
The androgynous man/woman nodded with appreciation.
The elder male, Caddis Winman, checked the others then stepped forward. "My wife wants to experience the vortex at the old airport. Just want to make sure that's on your map?"
"Yes, sir," I said and bowed slightly. The viewpoint was on my map. Every stinking trip.
The wealthy Demarco family patriarch pinched his oldest daughter's shoulder as if to squeeze out a question. Mira Demarco, fourteen, mid-school phenom, enjoined to a caste privileged to experience the uniqueness of time travel. A perfect antagonist to foil a mundane day of showing the sites.
Mira stepped forward. "Why did the ancients worship this place?"
A softball question, one answered easily if their tour leader wasn't hungover from an over-tasting of forbidden wine. "Miss DeMarco… ah, Mira, I'm sure you have that answer in your data files but I can expand upon what you have downloaded as we proceed to the vehicle."
I offered my hand towards the door to usher my small herd forward. Mira was the first tourist to exit and paused to gape upon the pristine red rock cliffs and towers.
I introduced the Sedona landscape. "Take in the grandeur of Sedona as you make you way down the ramp. The confluence of seven major energy vortexes and countless smaller ones will explain why this is one of only two sites on the planet capable of sustaining the rigors of time displacement. You will feel the subtle energy of each vortex as we visit them up close."
The slog down the walk was slow, as usual. Fingers pointed up to Eagle rock overlooking the Chapel, Mira traced the outline of Snoopy Rock for the others to understand. Thunder exploded as lightning sizzled and crackled above the chapel as the next group arrived. I directed the group to climb up the Jeeps three step ladder and sit on benches in the cargo area of a vehicle foreign to them, regardless of the instructional vids they had probably ignored.
Mira was helped in first, and she checked the seats, the views, then sat behind the driver seat, within earshot to ask incessant questions. My daughter Chloe might have done the same, had she lived to see her teen years. Climbing ropes and equipment loaded. Check. Passengers loaded. Check. Vehicle status nominal. Check.
Each morning the awe-inspiring landscape of Sedona saved me, often muting the redundant questions of tourists sprinkling their conversation with wealth, status, superior positions within our authoritarian government. Their own existence dwarfed by the timeless red cliffs and massive towers jutting up from a desert of scrub and mesquite. I stepped on the gas pedal to get the Christoph's to Cathedral Rock before the sunrise. The dizzying tight switchbacks didn't help but we reached the trailhead with light to spare. The oblong parking area was crammed with abandoned automobiles displaying monikers from different districts. Colorado. Missouri. California. I often wondered about the interactions between denizens of so many districts, did they squabble or assert dominance based on their locations.
My group today was gracious as they helped the climbers with their ropes and gear to the base at a tower of red sandstone soaring high into a clear sky. The slight detour might have caused dissension, animosity, a bevy of negative emotions until I reminded the group to be mindful of the major energy vortex residing within the enormous tower of stone.
Mira grabbed my index finger and held on as we descended cut stone steps at the base of Cathedral Rock. I tried to pull my finger away but her small hand held tight. The same grasp my nervous four-year-old daughter, Ciri, used as I escorted her to a classroom on Lunar Colony Six. One. Two. Five steps and my resistance relaxed. I wondered if Ciri would still hold my hand had she not been killed in a shuttle accident along with my wife eight years ago, or was it a thousand years from now, to be relived, over and over again.
"You never answered my question," Mira said.
"You tell me," I said. I checked the others stepping carefully down the fenced walkway, making sure shoe tracks in the silty sand were the only thing that remained. Gangly and in the throes of puberty, Mira would challenge everything I said.
Mira cleared her throat. "Jesus embodied the hopes of a species destined to perish. Science was the paganism of His time. Now He is the pagan. Kinda simple if you ask me."
I smirked but kept moving forward. Youth thrived on simple answers. "What if Jesus was exactly what old religions deemed him to be. Can you say for sure He didn't swoop down and take his people back to heaven."
"Now you're just being obtuse," she said and ran ahead to the Pink Jeep.
The group loaded into the vehicle, I steered down an asphalt road with switchback curves jackknifed into the steep hills. I slowed to point out foraging javelinas, a coyote skulking in the shadow of a juniper, and a slow-witted tortoise determined to block the road and mangle my schedule. At a dead-end of the road, I made a stop in a cul-de-sac with a single domicile gated off from entry and attached to a large field of tall grass blending into the dense Oak Creek bottomland. A herd of genetically unmodified black cows grazed.
Mira stood up quick and pointed towards a stand of dense cottonwoods. "What are those?"
I smiled. "Horses. Extinct in our world. The big black one is the stallion, and the others are mares."
She squinted with confusion.
"Males and females. The females follow the male," I said.
Mira groaned.
The tour continued along the main highway, where I explained the tourist economy and the shops advertising mystic crystals and aura photographs. We found gravel turnouts offering panoramic vistas of Thunder Mountain, Steamboat Rock, Coffeepot Rock, silent, lonely monoliths waiting and watching for visitors.
We parked in the shade of enormous elm and cottonwood trees, and I set up a table stored unnoticed in the cargo hold. The rushing water of Oak Creek steps away, I distributed lunchboxes to my people sitting patiently at a picnic table. In this land of abundance, I watched the group slurp algae steak and kelp sandwiches transported from home. I turned my back and stare at crystal clean water soothing a course downstream.
Mira broke the quiet peacefulness. "All that water wasted. No wonder they became extinct." She surveyed the faces at the table. Her subtle challenge was unmet.
I kept my eyelids shuttered as the creeks gurgling offered a calming influence on my psyche. Yet the demands of my job description said an answer was required. "Alright. We have a tight schedule and need to get going. Mira, can you gather those lunch packs and place them on the Jeeps tailgate for reconciliation. Please check around for any items you might have missed and lets get going. Lots to see."
Mira sneered. "You didn't answer my question again. Maybe Ava would have been a better guide."
The pubescent girl obviously carried within her neural implants petabytes of data concerning the era's relevance to our own culture and environmental issues. I turned on the combative girl, a teen flailing to wield her immense intelligence. "You didn't offer a question. Only an observation. Rephrase and resubmit." I waited. The others gathered at the tailgate, the metal ladder waited for my command to unfold the steps.
Mira narrowed her eyes and nodded. "Water is life. Why did the current culture waste so much water?"
I nodded acceptance of her query. "This water you see sustained more than just the dominant species of humans. These trees, grass, the animals we have seen, this water sustained all. The water we have back home is… limited…a precious resource to be managed much differently than what you see here."
"Yes. But they could have stored all this and found ways for future generations to use it. They could—"
"They did what they thought was best," I said.
"Then they were fools. Just like you." Mira crossed her arms and joined her family, trying to hide within a mix of bright pink suits.
We drove to Chimney Rock, circled Sugarloaf Mountain and up into Boynton Canyon with its infamous energy vortex. My narration and stories were true and by the book. Mira peppered me with questions about the geology, fauna, and flora. Her tone sought to find untruths or fabrications in my answers. None to be had. I steered the Jeep into a trailhead parking lot used by visitors to the Palatki ruins, an abandoned settlement of native Americans.
Mira jumped from the vehicle and sprinted for a dirt path marked by warning signage and trail maps. She glanced back at me with narrowed eyes then sprinted up the silty trail. I looked back at her father, but he merely closed his eyes and shrugged. Her neurotransmitter signal weak but sufficient for me to broadcast a shutdown command. Mira froze, her left foot inches from the sharp spikes of a prickly pear cactus. I climbed out and walked up beside her, studying her face. Her blue eyes darted about. Her nostrils flared. I tilted my head and pressed my face close to hers. Her kelp sandwich wafted from her breath.
Her adolescent conditioning had failed, a mind-warping education designed by the world government to reign in dissent and prevent rebellion by the next generation. Mira wasn't angry at me, she was a normal teenager, searching for her own identity, angry with the bleak conditions of her future. No one could blame her – but no one could rescue her either. I circled her then feigned to press the nodule of her implant, a reset to total compliance.
I whispered in her ear. "You can't escape your future running in the past." The exact words I was required to tell her. Then I repeated myself. "You can escape the future running in the past."
I pulled my face back and studied Mira's eyes. Blue as an ancient ocean. Alive and searching for the reason of my misspoken words. Soulful innocent eyes, a reminder of my dead child.
Except I didn't believe my own words. Sipping wine, memorizing trails and roads on Arizona maps by candlelight in the basement, an escape into the past was forbidden. And still I planned to live my life in the past.
I released the paralyzing hold on Mira. Her boot struck the cactus and broke a nopale off from the main stem. A transgression requiring her immediate return to the Jeep and the time portal. She looked up at me with horrified eyes, her jaw dropped. Her words died before reaching her lips.
"Just return to the vehicle. No harm, no foul. Unless you choose to continue," I said.
She turned quickly and hurried back to the Jeep. Protocol dictated I report the improper behavior and her damage to the cactus. A single cloud suddenly shaded the bright afternoon sun, casting a pale dullness over the brilliant red desert. I kicked the nopale into the dense growth surrounding the cactus and returned to the vehicle.
Our arid home, one Mira would return to in just hours, was void of clean water, absent of vegetation or forests, with most humans living underground, surviving beneath artificial sunlamps, unless you counted the Lunar and Mars colonies still striving for a sustainable existence.
The group sat quietly as I steered down deserted roads and through vacant subdivisions capable of housing thousands. I announced one final stop before we would rendezvous with the climbers and return to the portal. I kept the Jeep's speed to a crawl as we ascended a steep grade to the Sedona Airport, allowing the group to absorb the grand vista expanding with each meter of elevation. We stopped at a worn gravel pullout where they could climb a steep sandstone knoll to view Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, Courthouse Rock, the Oak Creek bottomland and experience the Airport Energy Vortex. Mira avoided my eyes as she held her younger sister's hand and ran ahead. I lagged the group, allowing them absorb a splendor unseen in their current time zone. Mira and her family stood close together, as any family on vacation might.
The Casey's waited arm in arm, the elder couple had smiles stretched across their wrinkled faces. The setting sun reflected off the abundant sandstone cliffs miles away, bathing the elder couple in the solar energy of a vortex. The old man nodded at me to come over and I obliged. The spectacular panorama belittled me, humbled my thoughts of having to return to the a depressing world.
The old woman finally spoke, her voice confident and sure. "Billions of people disappear in a flash. What do you think happened to all the people?"
A question asked a thousand times. I crossed my arms across my chest. "It's all conjecture but the reasons run the gamut of alien abduction all the way to the outlawed Theory of Rapture. Nothing—"
She had turned her head to stare deep at my eyes. The golden red glow of the sunset glinted off her dull gray eyes. "You. What do you think happened? A beautiful world such as this and ninety-nine percent of our species simply disappears?"
I swallowed grit and wished I was sitting back in my vehicle. Maybe the energy vortex loosened my tongue, maybe the wine had killed too many brain cells, maybe I didn't care what came out of my mouth anymore. "I can't really say for sure. But I think the time displacement mechanism finding this exact place and time offers a new beginning for our species. Infrastructure, roads, farms, utilities, everything intact and waiting to be claimed. A chance to live free like our ancestors, only cleaner, smarter, a sustainable future our primary goal."
Mr. Casey cleared his throat. "The government would be wise to listen to you when you return. Probably mulch you for the algae vats instead."
A tiny gasp escaped my mouth. I turned to return to the vehicle, pausing to see the silhouettes of a small family admiring the view, one missing Mira. I searched the hillsides and the heavy vegetation below before spotting the girl sulking in the back the Jeep. I moved down and climbed into the driver's seat to sit quietly and enjoy the absolute silence accompanying the approaching twilight. Mira slid the soles of her shoes over fine sand coating the metal floorboard, a grating sound sure to get my attention.
I stared at the dashboard. If I looked at her then I might begin to fear my own return to the future, but answers to my questions would not be ignored. "Why'd you pick the Palatki trailhead to run? Bullshit me and your father will have to carry you back up to the portal."
A huge exhale. "It was the most north on the tour. Closest to the boundaries where—"
"Where you would become lost, dehydrated, and fodder for the coyotes."
Mira whispered a weak sarcastic retort I chose to ignore.
"You would've been better served to take off at our picnic area. The creek would've masked the sound of footsteps, the big trees would have shielded you from surveillance. And the saved your skin from the burning sun. Downstream you would have found plenty to eat at the abandoned farms and ranches. Then you would've found the railroad tracks. You know about railroads. An ancient invention that opened this land to colonization a thousand years ago. All kinds of different railroads out there. After that, who knows."
Mira shifted to sit behind the passenger seat. "How would you know?"
I ignored her question. "With time travel experience on your resume you could apply for a tour leader position within a few years. A glowing recommendation from a Pink Jeep guide and imagine what a young, spirited mare might bring to this position."
"I'm not a freaking extinct horse."
I chuckled. "No, you are not. Bullheaded but not a horse."
"You'd really write a recommendation? Even after—"
"Even after," I said. "But remember to research railroads. Especially the underground railroad of the 1800's. Maybe find others interested in that particular type of railroad."
We enjoyed long minutes of silence together before the others climbed into the jeep. A ten-minute drive and we found the two climbers waiting at the Cathedral Rock trailhead parking area. Gear catalogued and checked, I took a slow meandering drive up the access road, letting the group admire and inhale the last vestiges of an unparalleled journey.
The Chapel of the Holy Cross loomed as we emptied the jeep. Hands shaken, hugs squeezed, goodbyes said. Ava beckoned the group up to the time portal.
Mira stood to the side, a wraith unaware of her haunt, then she stood in front of me, a malicious smile on an impish face. She pressed a tiny obsidian arrowhead into my hand. "I would have made it." She ran to catch her family.
I looked down at the trinket commonly found in the curio shops lining the main streets, a stop forbidden by the commission and one we never made. She must have found the arrowhead at a trailhead or on the path at Cathedral Rock. Maybe her father or mother had known she was going to flee and had given it to her.
My field reports filed with Ava, I returned to the two-story manor the tour guides and maintenance crew used for sleeping quarters. I slumped onto my small bunk and stared at the posters of Arizona pinned to the old planks of cedar covering the walls. Maps showing roads, elevations, rivers and creeks, mineral mines, forests and low elevation deserts. The great chasm of the Grand Canyon prominent at the top of each. My eyes grew heavy then my door opened. Ava slipped in and closed the door behind her. Her tongue probed her cheek as her eyes pitied me. She removed her safari hat and shook her hair to fall onto her shoulders.
"Your replacement arrives with tomorrow's guests then you go home," Ava said.
I stiffened. "I am home."
"You've had too many runaways, Ozzy. Pack your things and be ready first thing in the morning." Her eyes challenged me. To protest, or argue, or grovel.
I shrugged. "Whatever."
Ava waited long seconds then turned and departed.
I thought about Mira and her family. Did they have something to do with my termination? I shook off the possibility. Two years as a tour guide and I had chalked up fourteen runaways that had not been recovered. But the other guides had seen equal numbers. I put my hands behind my head, laced my fingers and stared at the large map of Arizona pinned to the ceiling. A hundred thousand square miles of remote wilderness just waiting to be explored. Those runaways would never be found.
My body weary and my heavy eyelids said a nap was in order. The night would be long and arduous.
The scent of wood smoke drew me to the encampment. I crouched behind an escarpment of basalt boulders spiced with colorful pumpkin lichen and watched a group of people busy with the daily chores of survival.
Three weeks ago, I had stuffed my backpack with the tools needed to survive my escape from Sedona. My biometric tracking chip ran haywire from the weeks of over-indulgence of wine, allowing me time to cut the chip from just beneath the skin at my temple. Blood oozed down my face, frightening me until the crude surgery clotted and blood flow finally stopped. I buried the microchip in a foot of sand then constructed a rock cairn as a tiny monument to my freedom.
I had taken my own advice to Mira. I followed the Oak Creek bottomland downstream to the confluence with Verde River. The unfiltered creek water rattled my bowels for three days then subsided. The canopy of old growth elms and cottonwoods shielded any attempt to find me from above. I moved south, perpendicular to the sun, at night if possible. Unnerved by the sudden crack of twigs, hoots of unseen creatures perched in the treetops, a symphony of howling coyotes, I kept my feet moving until a pair of rusty metal rails overgrown with luscious green grass crossed my path and led me west into a brilliant orange sun casting shadows into the past.
A few days later a line of empty wine bottles blocked my path yet directed me to a viewpoint.
I pushed my face forward and recognized the tall skinny man emerging from a wide mouthed cave entrance nestled beneath a broken cliff face diffusing the woodsmoke. Raymond, the tour guide I had replaced took off his safari hat and waved it at me. I stood up and raised my fists to signal my victory. I hurried down the slope of loose basalt scree and was greeted by a group of men, women, boys and girls, some still wearing fluorescent pink jumpsuits. Each wore a tiny arrowhead around their neck, or in a hair clip, even as earrings.
People clapped me on the shoulders and arms. Infectious smiles of joy. I recognized a few faces, runaways from previous Sedona tours. Raymond shook my hand vigorously. "We were getting worried about you. A group of your escapees just headed towards Prescott yesterday to start a new community. They're gonna be happy to see you again."
"I can't wait," I said. "Oh, and I brought a gift for the camp." I removed my backpack and pulled out a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and offered it to Raymond.
Raymond cradled the bottle in his hands as if it were a newborn child. He chuckled. "A 2006 Caymus…I haven't seen one of these in…in two thousand years. We'll enjoy this tonight then set the bottle free to join our railroad signal."
He pushed his face close to mine, a pleasant perfume of woodsmoke drifted into my nostrils, his brown eyes intense. "Will there be more coming, I mean, other runaways?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. A few had possibilities. I threw out some subtle hints and directions. I planted seeds. Let's see what happens." I truly did not know how to answer his question. The Sedona tours might stop temporarily with my escape. Stricter controls implemented. A governmental show of absolute authority to intimidate future escape attempts. Short term solutions. But the popular tours would continue. And people would find a better world.
A leather cord with Mira's curio dangled from the zipper on my backpack. The fingernail of black obsidian arrowhead continued to haunt me. How Mira came to possess the forbidden stone was confounding.
The tenacious rebellious nature of her youth might yet provide her a new beginning. Perhaps for all of us.