Chương 1: Vol 1. Supply Run

Morton Christian was not an unusual sight roaming the abandoned outback of the Chihuahuan Desert: a man in his late forties, with a weather-worn visage, the gruff cadence of a chain-smoker, a muscle-bound body toned in the arms and legs but still with a gut that said he enjoyed a good whiskey or two or ten, his hair thick around the sides and thinning on top, hidden beneath a Stetson hat, a curly, straggly beard black as could be, with a few grey bits beginning to show, and a red-plaid, collared button shirt.

He wore ageing, dirty denim around his legs, splayed across the back of a mutt of a stallion. No, he was quite an ordinary sight in these forgotten lands, but the situation he was about to find himself in this afternoon certainly was not. His horse came to a slow stop atop a hill overlooking his target: an abandoned government building surrounded by a small concrete wall.

The building itself was red-bricked and dilapidated, still guarded by a couple of folks; they must have already found this place and taken refuge. No matter. He just needed to get in there, ransack any supplies they might have, then get the hell out. He never thought he would be the type of man to commit so many acts so stringently against the good Lord's book: lyin', robbin', stealin'… killin'. But almost all the rules of society that his father had instilled in him had been tossed out the window long ago.

Those values hadn't been worth a damn since the Second Civil War. Morton dismounted.

"Go on, buddy. I'll meet you back at the camp," he said. He slapped the horse's rump, and it let out a loud cry, then stamped off into the distance. Morton didn't mind walking back to camp if it meant that crazy horse of his wouldn't be in any trouble. This was his mission, and he was going to complete it. He got to his knees and carefully hopped across the rocks, slowly and methodically, step by step, making sure he couldn't be seen while keeping one hand close to one of his holsters, just in case.

There were three men outside the building now, holding rifles, each wearing clothing similar to Morton's, except that their sleeves were rolled up and swastikas were tattooed on their right forearms, surrounded by a crude attempt at the Lone Star flag. Great, he thought, fuckin' Nazi bastards. Any moral qualms he had about what he was about to do had vanished. Quickly, he shifted forward, hid behind a plant, then shifted again quietly until he was leaning against the building's wall. Morton took a deep breath.

He reached down for his Smith and Wesson, pulled it out, and aimed. Bam! A bullet flew through the first man's head, leaving a sizeable hole in the bastard's forehead; blood flew across the pavement. The body fell limply to the ground. Morton ran for cover behind the dilapidated concrete wall. RAKAKAKKAKKA! Rifle fire flew above him. A couple of rounds hit the wall, sending bits of ancient dust into Morton's eyes and lungs. He wheezed, pounding his chest as a burning sensation overcame his lungs.

Posthaste, he jumped to his feet, turned, fired, then dropped back onto his rump. RAKAKAKAKKAKA! He popped up again, squeezed off another shot, then ducked. RAKAKKAKAKA! A couple of bullets nearly grazed his ear. He rose once more, fired towards the muzzle flashes, then ducked again. There was no rifle fire. He looked over the wall: the other two men were lying crumpled in a pool of their own blood and piss. Hopping over the wall, pistol still tightly gripped, he marched towards the two iron doors of the building.

Bam! A bullet flew from the chamber, hitting the lock on the door and breaking it into many pieces; the chain fell and dangled like a loose vine. Morton kicked the door a few times before it heaved open for him.

"What in the hell?" he muttered. Before him lay a hallway with walls of studded iron panels and a floor of decorative quartz tiling, leading to a hatch. He marched forward cautiously. Morton had been unsure what this building had been used for; all he knew was that the Texas government had once owned it and that it now lay in ruins. Upon reaching the opening, he peered down the hatch with one eye: supplies! But also more neo-Nazi assholes.

He reloaded his revolver, then jumped down and landed on both feet with a hefty thump! The Nazis turned around, startled by the sudden entrance, and attempted to reach for their weapons, only to be met with pistol shots to the face: bam! bam! bam! bam! bam! bam! Each shot was swift and precise, creating a hole perfectly in the centre of each Nazi's forehead. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Morton was about to start searching through the supplies when something in the corner of his eye caught his attention: a computer, a big, antediluvian one, like the old types he used to see in his grandpa's day, the kind that took up most of a room. It had all these gears and gizmos and lights on it, but it was the middle of the computer that caught Morton's interest the most: a crystalline chamber, floating, attached to wires strewn indecorously.

In front of it was a console; it looked like the Nazi bastards had been attempting to mess with it, having opened the side panel and pulled out much of the guts. Morton strolled over to the panel. On it was a green screen, like a Game Boy.

"Huh, the hell is this?" Morton wondered aloud. The screen came to life, and little green writing appeared: Lifeform Detected. Scanning… Identifying allegiance… American detected. Welcome. Would you like to see the options screen? Y/N"I guess, uh, yes?" Morton said. Inputting: Y Would you like to release the entity? Y/N This was beginning to freak him out a bit.

"Uh, yeah, I guess." Inputting: Y Now releasing the entity. The room became tremulous; Morton felt the vibrations travel up his legs, turning them to jelly and causing him to fall onto his rump. The crystalline chamber glowed a brilliant white. Then a crack appeared on its surface. Then another. The wires fell off it. The dials on the machine spun wildly. Lights flickered. Then— Stillness; a void; inky blackness; peace. Morton didn't know where he was.

He couldn't see, smell, touch, or hear, but for the first time in a very long time, he knew he felt at peace. Then a soothing, feminine voice said to him:"Morton Christian is your name, correct?""' Deed it is, ma'am," he said, although he could not hear his own speech.

"I thank you for freeing me. I came to your reality many generations ago. Although, where we are now, time is neither real nor unreal, neither existent nor nonexistent, many of your people sought to trap me in your time. To use me. They could not comprehend infinity, so they tried to make it something they could."

"I beg your pardon. I don't know what it is you're spoutin', but I am always happy to help a stranger," Morton said.

"It is what my daddy taught me, although I don't get too many opportunities these days."

"Yes," the feminine voice said.

"While I was trapped in that prison, I saw what your people had done to your wonderful planet. It is truly a shame that things had to turn out the way they did. Tell me, Morton, would you miss this land if you could go somewhere else?"

"No," Morton said.

"There ain't nothin' left to save. It's a husk of what it once was, and my family has been gone for quite a long time now. It's just my horse and me these days, and I will tell ya, I'm getting a little tired of keeping that brat of a stallion alive."

"I see," the feminine voice said thoughtfully.

"Morton Christian, you have saved one of the ancient primordial beings who keep timelines on the correct track"—so the big man has angels helping him with his plan; makes sense, Morton thought—"and there is a timeline in which, if a butterfly effect does not happen, it will end just as yours did, and this timeline is sentimental to me—one of the first I took care of when I came into existence. Would you wish to be the butterfly effect?"

"I don't know what any of that means, but, hell, why not?"

"Oh, thank you," the feminine voice said.

"You will not regret this, Morton Christian."