The Didymus Contingency

TWENTY
Verdict
30 A.D.

Tom was horrified by the events of the past few hours. Jesus had been taken and beaten. He had been whipped, beaten again and then made to carry a large wooden cross to a hill, while people who, only a week ago had welcomed him with cheers and palm branches, now taunted him with insults and stones. Then came the clanging of metal upon metal as Jesus’s wrists were pierced by large nails, binding him to the wood like a plank. After hearing Jesus’s screams, Tom had left, knowing that if he heard the tortured sound of his friend again he might go to the future and return with an assault rifle.

Hours later, Tom and David had struggled against the crowd of onlookers to reach Jesus, to see their friend before he died, but the crowd was too thick and unfriendly to recognizable followers of the man they had nailed to a cross. Tom and David retreated to a hillside opposite Golgotha-which resembled the shape of a human skull-atop which the Romans had crucified three men. Even from his distant viewpoint, Tom could see the stained dirt coating the top of Golgotha. He could see blood dripping from Jesus, his friend, hanging on a cross, twitching and dying for teaching his beliefs- how could these people think that deserved death? It was almost too surreal to believe.

Standing beside Tom in equal shock and horror were David, Matthew, Peter, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. They stood silently on the hill, watching, waiting for the inevitable, afraid that any utterance, any disturbance might permanently break their spirits. But when a voice broke through the air, it wasn’t one of them; it was Jesus, pushing out his words with his last breath.

“My God, My God,” Jesus’s voice echoed from Golgotha, “Why have you forsaken me?”

The voice of Jesus was recognizable, but it was coarse, filled with anguish. Then Jesus’s body went limp, hanging tight on the nails in his wrists and feet. Tom found his face wet and his throat constricting. Tom fell to his knees and wept quietly, completely unaware of how his friends were reacting.

Mary crumpled into tears and fell toward the ground. Lazarus saw Mary fall through his clouded, moist eyes and caught her just before her head hit the ground. Martha was wailing loudly into Matthew’s chest as he held her tightly. Peter stormed off in a rage, cursing the Romans and Pharisees under his breath. And David… Tom looked up at David who was crying, but not like everyone else, who had seen a friend die that they would never see again. David was smiling through his tears.

Confused thoughts raced through Tom’s mind in an effort to make sense of David’s reaction. Could David really be so confident that Jesus would rise again that he could smile at Jesus’s death? Did he really have that much hope? Was he really that naive?

Tom became aware of his surroundings again and heard Mary crying. As he stood and walked to her, she saw him coming and fell into his arms. Tom held Mary as tightly as he could and she squeezed back. They had both felt the pain of loss before, but now they each had someone to share it with. Tom placed his cheek against hers and held her head in his hand.

“Take me home,” she said.

Tom looked toward David, “David.”

David had watched Tom with Mary. He had heard her request. “Go.”

With nothing else to be said, Tom turned with Mary and they left. Lazarus and Martha followed close behind.

David turned his gaze back to Jesus on the cross. Matthew stood next to him. “You’re the most faithful man I’ve had the pleasure of knowing,” Matthew said.

“Not faithful enough,” David replied, as he looked at Matthew, who appeared uncommonly small.

“None of us are,” Matthew said.

The two stared at Jesus for a few moments, watching as the bloodthirsty crowd dispersed. Matthew shook his head. “I better find Peter before he gets into trouble.”

David nodded and placed his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Until he rises again.”

Matthew smiled. “Indeed.”

With that, Matthew headed down the hill, leaving David alone.

After a step forward, and then another, David found himself walking toward Jesus at a steady pace. He reached the bottom of the hill, looked up at Golgotha and could no longer see Jesus or the cross. David started up the hill and became aware of how few people were still around. And those that remained were leaving.

The top of Golgotha came quickly as David walked forward, keeping his eyes on his feet. When the dirt beneath his feet turned red, David stopped. He stood still, afraid to look up, afraid to see what he had only witnessed from a distance. But his eyes wandered briefly and found the bottom of a wooden post. He followed the post up and froze on a pair of pierced, bloody feet: Jesus’s feet.

David looked up all at once and found Jesus, hanging on the cross, dead. His wrists were nailed to the wood by what looked like railroad spikes, as were his feet, and his side was wet with what remained of Jesus’s coagulating blood, where a Roman guard had stabbed him after his death. Above Jesus’s head, written in Greek were the words: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. David’s knees shook and gave way. He fell into a kneeling position and found his emotions exploding. He was crying uncontrollably, sobbing loudly. His nose became blocked with mucus. His eyes clouded with thick tears. His head pounded with every quickening heartbeat.

“I’m sorry,” he said like a child pleading to angry parents. “I’m so sorry.”

David’s memories of Jesus were triggered and he remembered their first encounter on the Mount of Olives. David had lost control of his emotions on that day as well. And Jesus had stopped his outburst by reaching out, touching David and saying, “Peace be with you.” But Jesus wouldn’t be reaching out for David today. He wouldn’t be calming David with kind words. Well, David thought, at least things couldn’t get any worse than this.

Whack! David slapped his neck. Something had stung him. He crushed the bug with his hand and brought the remains down in front of his eyes, but he couldn’t see through his blurred eyes. A tingle at the back of David’s neck took his attention away from Jesus hanging above him. What kind of insect had stung him?

David wiped his eyes and blinked several times, making a concerted effort to calm himself and clear his vision. He stared at the insect in his hand. It was still too blurry to make out in detail but he could see that it was a copperish color from front to back. He could also feel that it was hard and heavier than an insect should be. David blinked three times and on the third time, his vision cleared.

David looked at the bug and stood immediately to his feet. The insect in his hand was crushed, but he could make out its components…components on an insect? This was a machine! David saw infinitesimal wings made from a clear, ultra light polymer. He saw miniature gears that gave the robotic wonder life. He saw a hypodermic needle that served as a stinger and he saw the small, empty vial attached to it.

David felt his neck. It was swelling quickly and the tingling sensation was spreading down his spine. David’s eyes widened. LightTech was still trying to kill them, and this time they might succeed!

David ran from Golgotha without looking back. He sprinted down the hill and turned left toward Bethany, toward the home of Lazarus. Toward Tom.

David’s chest felt like it was going to explode, but not from running. He had covered the distance between Golgotha and Lazarus’s home in twenty minutes and now was only one hundred yards from his destination, but he wasn’t sure he would make it that far. His eyes were swollen so badly he couldn’t see more than a sliver of light. His thighs stabbed with pain. His calf muscles felt as though they were being twisted into knots. His arms were limp and his organs burned within him. LightTech had picked a powerful poison and it was working fast. David only hoped he could warn Tom in time.

“David!” Lazarus yelled from the home. “David, come quickly! You-”

As blood began to form a rim around his lower lip, David thought Lazarus must have noticed he was moving like the walking dead. But what worried David was that Lazarus sounded panicked before he saw that David wasn’t right. “Tom…” It was all David could say.

After covering the three-mile trek from Golgotha to Bethany, David couldn’t go another step. He fell to his knees with all his weight, tearing them open, blood mixing with dirt. Lazarus had starting running toward David an instant after he saw him, which was good, because he arrived just in time to catch David. Lazarus hoisted David over his shoulder and ran for the house like a linebacker.

The conversation between Mary and Martha was muffled and fading as David struggled to listen in. To makes things worse, Mary’s voice was quivering too much to tell what she was saying, and the ringing in David’s ears was growing louder. David suddenly felt himself lying on his back.

“Lazarus, what’s-” Martha said, though David couldn’t see her.

“He’s sick too.”

“What sickness is this? What could do this to a man?”

“I don’t know…”

“Mary should say goodbye.”

David struggled to make out the voices of Martha and Lazarus, but he understood the meaning of the conversation. He tilted his head to the left and saw Tom lying next to him. Tom looked dead already. What was left functioning in David’s brain became a turbine of confusion. This couldn’t be happening. David could die, but not Tom. Tom had to David heard the front door crash open.

“Who’s there?” he heard Lazarus yell.

David’s thoughts drifted. He no longer felt his body. He was floating in a black abyss and he saw the face of an angel floating above him, surrounded by a glowing white light… No, not an angel… It was Sally. He smiled and said, “I’ve missed you. Sorry I stayed away so long.” David laughed. He knew he was dying and that he was talking to a vision produced by his misfiring synapses. But he accepted it. He couldn’t imagine a nicer way to pass on than seeing her face again.

“I’m sorry I never told you,” David said.

“Told me what, David?”

David grinned ever wider. Now his hallucination was responding.

“That I love you,” he said.

“If you hang on and your friend doesn’t kill me you might get the chance.”

Now that was odd. What a strange thing for a hallucination to say. David suddenly realized that the voice he heard wasn’t inside his head; it was through the ringing in his ears, above it. An incredible sadness swept through what remaining senses David still processed. He realized that Sally wasn’t a vision. She was with him now, in the past, and he would never see her again. The ringing in David’s ears grew intolerable and waves of color danced in his vision. The last thing David felt before he slipped from the conscious world was a small prick on his limp arm.

With a flash, David felt his arms, legs and head. He could smell, taste and hear. His senses rushed back to him and reality slapped him in the face.

“Whoa, David,” said Lazarus.

David opened his eyes to find himself sitting up in bed with Lazarus holding his shoulders. “I’m alive.”

“Tom lives as well, though he still sleeps,” Lazarus explained.

“How?”

“A friend of yours, I think. From where it is you come from. We cannot understand her language.”

David felt a constriction in his throat, but not from the poison he had survived. “Where is she?” David asked.

“Outside.”

David made it from the bedroom to the front door in less than five seconds, but his feet became stuck to the ground at the sight of Sally, standing with her back to him, black hair blowing in the wind. She was wearing a tight, black outfit, from head to toe. Her gaze was toward Bethany at the bottom of the hill. It was an amazing view that David had often enjoyed, but it paled in comparison to the woman standing in front of him, who risked her own life to save his. He wanted to watch her, remember her every curve, drink in every hair on her head, but he couldn’t wait another second. He ran toward her as quick as he could. “Sally!”

With a burst of excitement and a bright smile, Sally turned around and saw David running toward her. She covered her smiling mouth and reached out for David. It was a response that was both unexpected and very welcome. David wrapped his arms around Sally and spun her in the air. For her it had been a day since they last saw each other. For David it had been three years, and he wouldn’t waste another second.

David returned Sally to her feet, gripped her by the waist, pulled her close and kissed her firmly on the lips.

Sally was shocked but surrendered her mouth to David and held him tight. She knew how long David had been gone. She knew how hard the past years must have been for him. His passion for her was tangible and with his kiss, she felt all the danger, mistrust and deception from the past day disappear.

David released Sally from his embrace and looked her in the eyes. They smiled at each other. “I’m sorry,” David said.

“Don’t be.”

“But… I don’t understand… How long have I been gone in your time?”

“Only a day.”

David squinted one eye and scratched his head. “A day? But yesterday you would have killed me for doing that.”

“A lot can change in a day.”

“And you came back to save us?”

Sally nodded. “I couldn’t let my two best scientists die, could I? It doesn’t make good business sense.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Have you seen any sign of Roberts yet?”

“Roberts… He didn’t last long.”

Sally looked surprised, but then became distracted. “David… When you were…in there…dying. You were speaking English.”

David shuffled nervously. “Did I say what I think I said?”

Sally smiled.

“I was delirious. Don’t-”

“David… I think…” Sally stepped closer to David and held his arms. “I know… I love you too.”

David nearly fainted. This woman, who just yesterday was threatening his job, was professing her love for him?

“But…how? It’s only been-”

“When you were dying. I thought I was too late. I thought you were going to die. I realized then that if you died, my life would be somehow emptier…meaningless. But even then, I still didn’t know…and then you said it, that you loved me and I knew that second that I loved you too.”

Stunned didn’t do justice to how David felt. He was simultaneously ecstatic and mortified. He looked into her deep brown eyes; she was telling the truth. “Sally… You don’t know how long I-”

Whack! Sally slapped her neck.

“What happened?” David asked.

“Something bit me,” Sally said, just slightly annoyed.

David suddenly remembered slapping the bug on his neck. It nearly took his life.

Sally’s forehead grew uncharacteristically wrinkled. “David?”

With a wave of concern, David took the hand Sally had used to slap her neck and looked at it. The remains of another robot bug rested in her open palm. “Damn!” David cursed. “How did you cure Tom and me?”

“I injected you with the antidote… David, my neck.”

“I know. Do you have any more?”

“I only brought enough for you and Tom.”

“What about in the future?”

“It’s in George’s office. A secret room…but it’s got to be guarded like Fort Knox by now.”

“Can you think of a time when it’s not guarded?”

Sally looked David in the eyes. “It’s going to be close.”

“I’m used to close.”

Sally smiled despite the tingling sensation stretching down her spine. David had become strong, resilient, brave. She adored the man more than ever.

“Come with me,” David said, “I have an idea.”

George’s office was empty and the secret side room was wide open. Jake left in such a hurry that he forgot to close up, which David found very convenient. David crinkled his nose at the dry, over circulated air. The pale colors of the room were dull to his eyes. The future seemed dead to him now, but the woman next to him was still breathing and he wasn’t going to let her go.

David laid Sally on the floor. He didn’t want to bring her with him. He thought it would be too dangerous. But her condition worsened so drastically that he couldn’t risk not giving the antidote to her the second it was in his possession.

Sally didn’t move. Her eyes were swollen shut and her arms and legs had become like Jell-O. Only her chest still moved, slowly rising and falling with each labored breath. David rifled through the small lab and quickly found the antidote. He removed the syringe from its foam protection in the silver briefcase and removed the plastic protective stopper from its tip.

He fell to his knees next to Sally, ignoring the stinging pain from his dried gashes. He took hold of her arm and held the needle above her skin. David had never given anyone an injection before. What was that they did on TV? Oh yes. David flicked the syringe twice with his finger and squirted some of the fluid out. To get the air bubbles out, he remembered. David placed the needle on Sally’s skin and “Who the hell are you?”

David looked up. It was Jake, and he was holding a gun!

Jake quickly raised the gun toward David. “David, of course, David. How nice of you to come back to us.”

David froze. Would Jake use the gun? If David didn’t inject the antidote soon, Sally would die. If he injected it now, Jake might shoot them both.

Jake walked toward David, taking in his clothing, the amount of dirt on his feet, the length of his beard. “You’ve been gone for quite a long time, haven’t you?”

“What do you want?” David asked, as he noticed a stain of sprayed blood on Jake’s clothing. “What have you done?”

Jake looked down at his clothing and smiled. “Security guards can have loud mouths.” Pointing at Sally, he added, “They saw her go back. They knew too much. Just like you… So I removed them from the equation.”

“We’ll get out of your way. We don’t want anything to do with you or this company.” David said with an honest desperation.

“It’s too late for that, David. With those watches, you could change everything. I can’t let you do that,” Jake said, as he thrust the gun at David’s head.

“Take the watches, just let us go.”

“I don’t think so,” Jake said, as he thumbed the gun’s hammer.

“Hold it, Jake.” David was relieved to hear Tom’s voice.

Jake whipped around and leveled the gun at Tom, who had Captain Roberts’s gun trained on Jake’s chest.

David saw his chance. He stabbed the syringe needle into Sally’s arm and pushed the liquid into her as hard and as quickly as he could. Now it was only a matter of time.

“Put down the gun, Jake.”

“I’ll use this,” said Jake, glancing at his gun. “Will you?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen my report. You know what happened in Zambia. You know I’ve killed before. What do you think happened to Roberts?” Tom said with a cocky grin.

Jake stood frozen for a moment, his eyes probing Tom’s. “No…no…that’s not how it happened. You couldn’t.”

Jake took a step toward Tom. He was a cornered wolverine, ready to attack.

“Slow down, Jake,” David urged. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Shut up, David,” Jake said.

David stood to his feet. If bullets started flying around the room, he didn’t want Sally being hit. Jake seemed to sense the pressure of David behind him, but didn’t dare take his gun off Tom.

Tom sensed that David was trying to move the action into the office and away from Sally, which was just fine with him. Tom backed up into George’s office, giving Jake space to move.

“Keep him coming this way,” Tom said to David in Aramaic.

“What are you going to do?” David replied in the same language.

Jake bit his lip and then shouted, “What are you saying? What the hell are you saying?”

“I brought a friend,” Tom finished in Aramaic.

Tom’s last statement was enough to push Jake right to the edge. His finger squeezed the trigger half way down. He was going to kill them all or die trying.