Escape the Future | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Escape the Future | Previous Challenge Entry
By Art Westefeld
03/10/21
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Ruth Sexton looked out at the crowd assembled for her husband’s funeral and had to keep from shaking her head. In her time, there would never have been this many Christians in one place. The government would have found out somehow and sent troopers to arrest everyone. She looked fondly at the seven dark clad young people in the front row, who she and Andrew had mentored, the Light Force. They knew a little of what she was going to say, but as she had not shared the information from Andrew’s computer diary, they were going to get what Andrew called their cover story. As she prepared to tell the story they had agreed upon, her mind went back to the truth.

She remembered her last night in the thirty-ninth century and how it had started with a church council meeting about Operation Past Tense, the plan to change public perception of Christians.

She recalled how, in the future, the late Major Talbot had asked how only four people were going to unload a grav-truck that fifteen people had originally been needed to load. She had responded in her soft voice, “Once the grav-truck is parked, it will have space-time coordinates. We can use the time vortex to retrieve all of our gear, and no one has to carry anything.”

Talbot admitted, in his gravelly voice, “Hadn’t thought of such a simple idea. Andrew, your wife’s a smart lady.”

Andrew squeezed her hand and smiled at her to acknowledge the complement.

Reverend Heinz asked everyone to bow their heads to prayer that the operation would go smoothly.

Ruth had recently been reminded that sometimes God’s answer to prayer is "no". That seemed to have been His answer that night.

A fellow believer had obtained all the access codes to get to the time vortex. That part had gone as planned. The equipment had been transported without incident, and she and Andrew had just reset the vortex for organic travel when the doors blew in.

Talbot’s immediate subordinate was leading an operation of her own, to destroy the Followers of Christ. "Your friends have all been arrested. Everything you 'lovingly' kept in pristine condition has been destroyed.

Reverend Heinz took that news the hardest of them all yelling, “All!? Our Bibles, Communion supplies, all destroyed?”

The officer responded sarcastically, “Of course. What do you think ‘all’ means?”

She then instructed her troopers, “Kill the computer workers, but arrest the old man and the Major.”

Andrew came out from behind the console faster than she’d ever seen her husband move before. He slammed into the nearest trooper, causing his shot to go wild, killing the second trooper. From the corner of her eye, Ruth saw the major grapple with his subordinate. Then she noticed that Andrew had lost his grip on his trooper, who then attacked Reverend Heinz. Heinz, at age ninety, was little match for the younger man, but he fought with strength gained from outrage. Andrew scooped up the trooper’s fallen blaster and tried for a near miss. The blast radius would still stun the two men, but Andrew’s aim was off, and the stun blast hit Heinz right in the head, fatal at his age.

Major Talbot had died when the woman’s blaster detonated from overload, but she was only stunned. Ruth barely noticed any of this. Her attention was on her husband’s reaction. Tears streaming down his face as he rushed to their pastor and begged for forgiveness.

Heinz, though dying, had something else on his mind. “You...Ruth must be - be backup. Go... and change ...past. Escape this century and prevent this from happening.”

With his last breath, Heinz said the words that Ruth didn’t think Andrew heard through his guilt. “I forgive you, as Jesus would have…”

Andrew, seeing that the two men who were scheduled to go into the past had died, and hearing running feet heading their way, grabbed her hand and said, as though they were leaving work together, “Time to leave.”

They dashed over to the time vortex platform after setting a short delay for activating it. As they escaped arrest by going into the primitive past, the twenty-first century, she looked for the last time at everything familiar. Then, as the vortex sealed their escape, she realized that she had something familiar, someone familiar, her husband.

Now he was gone.

The Light Force's familiar faces, undergirded by God's strength, would help her escape from her grief.

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