The Didymus Contingency

TWENTY THREE
Resolve
2005

Arizona

Tom held his chest and grunted as he attempted to stand. As David hurried into the room, he could see Tom was hurt, but he couldn’t imagine Spencer capable of inflicting it. Whatever the case, things would come to an end with Lazarus standing between Tom and Spencer, fists clenched tightly, muscles burning with energy.

David hurried to Tom and grabbed his shoulder, causing Tom to flinch away. “Tom, it’s me.”

“David, thank God.”

“What’s going on? Why was Spencer attacking you?”

“He’s blocked the functionality of the watches with some kind of device he got from the future.”

“The future?” David knew his own watch wasn’t working, so what Tom told him made sense, but why would Spencer go to all this trouble?

“We need to destroy it.”

“Where?” David asked, pushing aside any doubts to Tom’s story.

“Sally…”

David stood up straight and scanned the room He saw Sally lying on the floor, clutching a small device that looked like a pixilated sphere. David looked back at Tom. “Are you all right?”

“Just need to catch my breath,” Tom said.

Without glancing to see how Lazarus was fairing with Spencer, David ran across the room. “Sally!”

Sally looked up from the sphere and saw David approaching. “We need to destroy this thing. I’ve been smashing it on the floor, but haven’t made a dent.”

“Let me see.”

Sally handed the round device to David, who carefully inspected every nook and cranny, looking for an opening, a chink in the armor. He found nothing. “When all else fails…” David said with a hint of a smirk.

David lifted the device above his head and hurled it at the floor. The device hit the floor and rolled to a stop next to a computer console. It wasn’t even scratched. David stared at the device with squinty eyes, as though it offended him. He bent down and took the sphere in his hand.

Crash! David jumped back as Lazarus landed on the console in front of him, shattering the expensive computer components beneath his dense body.

David stood up quickly. “Lazarus!”

After rolling off the computer console onto his feet, Lazarus looked at David with a dazed expression. “I’ll live.”

“What happened?” David asked.

Lazarus rolled his neck and looked at Spencer, who was walking steadily toward them. “He is stronger than any man I have encountered.”

David looked at Spencer, gangly and small. “Spencer?”

“It’s not Spencer,” Sally said. “It’s something else.”

“What do you mean?” David asked quickly, as Spencer closed in.

“I don’t know. He refers to himself as ‘we’.” Sally’s eyes bounced back and forth, searching for a memory. “Tom… Tom called him Legion.”

David’s heart pulsated beneath his ribs like a child squeezing a water balloon. Legion. His palms grew moist. Legion. His eyes stung with sweat. “Legion!”

Spencer stopped and focused his attention on David. “Ahh! The gang’s all here! David, so nice of you to join us! We were just telling Tom how nice it was to see him after all this time… It’s been so long since Zambia… As we recall, you were there too… He was there! We saw him too! We always wondered how you came and went so quickly! But now we know! You were breaking the rules! All of them! Time travel!”

David’s knuckles turned white as he squeezed them. “Be quiet, demon!”

“You don’t want to hear the rest? I don’t think he does. Tell him. You tell him. Let’s ask! About how we killed Tom’s wife? And what a nice surprise it was to meet you there. We nearly killed you. We wanted to, so badly.”

“You killed Tom’s wife?”

Spencer giggled as he spoke. “Indeed! It was us! All of us!”

Tom sprinted toward Spencer. “Bastard!”

David reached out his hand. “Tom, no!”

Tom tackled Spencer from the side with amazing speed and force. Both men toppled to the ground. Less then a second passed before Tom shot into the air, kicked off by Spencer. Lazarus reached out his long, strong arms and caught Tom, only inches before his head crashed into the corner of a desk.

David knew this had to end now, before Legion killed anyone. He knew he was the only one that could stop what was happening. David rounded the computer console and headed toward Spencer, who was floating up into a standing position, as though someone were pushing him up from behind.

“David, don’t!” Sally yelled.

“He can’t hurt me,” David replied.

“We’ll see about that. Yes we will. Yes!” Spencer hissed.

Spencer strode toward David, fingernails growing and mouth dripping foam with each step. Spencer raised a hand in the air, ready to slash David’s throat with his sharp nails.

David stood his ground, raised an open palm at Spencer and said, “Stop demon, in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Spencer gasped like someone punched him in the gut. “Quiet, human! We are more powerful than even Him. More powerful! We will kill you!”

David’s muscles relaxed. He was in control. “I speak in the name and with the authority of Jesus Christ.”

“No! No! Stop!” Spencer pleaded as he fell to his knees.

Like a drunken man whose body was caught in an invisible centrifuge, Spencer began spinning himself on the floor, pushing his body with his knees. His eyes were wide and his entire face was convulsing with emotions. His torso began to shake and his teeth chattered loudly. Blood poured from his legs as he dug into them and held on tight. “We will not let go! He is ours! We will kill you!”

“Leave his body, in the name of Jesus Christ!” David shouted. “Leave this room, in the name of Jesus Christ!”

Spencer writhed on the floor and froth spat from his mouth as he spoke. “This is not over! Not over! We will find you again! All of us! We will-”

“Leave this place now!”

The sound of fifty wailing voices shot from Spencer’s mouth as he arched his back violently. David shuddered at the sound.

When it was over, Spencer’s body flopped onto the floor and lay motionless. David closed his eyes and rubbed them with his hand. It was over. He opened his eyes again and looked at Tom, Sally and Lazarus. All three were staring at him as though he were an alien.

Sally opened her mouth to say something.

“I’ll explain later,” David said. “Right now we have to figure out how to destroy that device.”

Tom took the device from the floor and looked it over. He handed it to Lazarus and asked in Aramaic, “Can you destroy this?”

Lazarus looked at the device. “I will try.”

The softball-sized contraption looked the size of a tennis ball in Lazarus’s hand. He gripped the sphere tightly, wound up and flung it at the concrete wall, putting every muscle in his body behind it. It whistled through the air like a cannon ball and hit the wall traveling over eighty miles per hour. It shattered into peanut sized shards that rained down across the room.

Seconds after the device was destroyed, the receiving area filled with a brilliant blue flashing light. Boom! The room exploded with illumination as its entire contents flashed out of the present and into the future. Only the soft glow of fluttering sparkles remained afterwards.

David smiled, but then noticed Spencer had yet to move. Legion was gone, but Spencer had not returned. David knelt down next to Spencer and placed his hand on Spencer’s throat. After a moment, he shook his head, clearly disappointed by the results. David looked up, his eyes wet.

Tom sighed. “He’s-?”

David nodded.

“Damnit! Why? Too many people are dying over this! It needs to stop! When will it stop, David?”

David looked at the floor, buying time to find an answer that Tom might accept. He didn’t find one. “I don’t think you want to hear my answer.”

“If you say it has anything to do with Jesus or God’s will…”

“It has everything to do with Jesus.”

“David, Jesus is dead! We saw him die, just like Spencer, and just like Spencer, Jesus is not coming back!”

“Maybe we should go back and find out?”

“No, David. I’m done. All we’ve done is get people killed.”

“Tom, you can’t just-” “Can and will, David. I’m going back for Mary and then I’m-”

Bang! The entrance to the control center exploded open as a slew of guards carrying assault rifles poured into the room like army ants.

“Set your watches!” David whispered, as he grabbed Lazarus’s wrist and began pushing buttons.

The room filled with a series of metallic clicks as the guards readied their weapons and took aim.

“Time to go…” David whispered through clenched teeth.

All four pushed a single button on their watches.

“No!” Jake shouted as he entered the room and saw four flashes of light expanding and growing brighter behind David and the others.

“Shoot them! Kill them all!” Jake screamed, as desperation caused his voice to crack.

David dove behind a computer console. “Get down!”

Tom, Sally and Lazarus hit the floor next to David and covered their faces as shards of debris burst into the air from computer consoles and desks being ripped apart by scads of hot bullets. David looked at his watch and smiled as it disappeared into a brilliant luminosity. They’d done it.

The series of four loud booms could not be heard over the thunder of the gunfire, but the bright flash of light and glowing cloud of particles revealed to Jake that he was too late.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Jake yelled after the lights dissipated.

Jake ran down to where Tom, David and the others had been hiding. No one was there.

“Damnit!” Jake shouted, as he pounded his fist into a computer console. He turned his rage toward the guards. “Where did you idiots learn how to shoot?”

Jake turned away from the stone-faced guards before they could intimidate him as his mind began to sort things out. David, Sally and Tom had escaped him. But at least they were gone. They were out of his way and he could freely proceed as planned. He still had a watch. Jake glanced at Spencer’s dead body and saw the watch still attached to his wrist. Two watches. As long as the good doctors and Director McField stayed in the past, Jake could care less. He smiled at his victory.

Jake turned to the guards, who were waiting for orders, but a strange burning sensation in his lower back gave him pause. The millions of pins and needles quickly spread up his spine and into his brain. He could feel something…hear something…someone… Voices, so many voices, rushed into his mind, like an explosion…crowding in…taking over.

Jake snapped his head toward the nearest guard. “Give me your weapon.”

The guard looked at Jake quizzically, “But sir, they-”

“Now!”

The guard handed Jake the weapon. “What are you going to do, sir?”

Jake punched a few buttons on his watch and turned to the guard, eyes jet black, mouth foaming, “We’re going to kill them! Yes we are! Yes! Yes! Kill them all!”

Tom fell through an endless void. His arms flailed for something to hold on to. His legs kicked for the ground, not knowing when it would come or how hard he would hit. He didn’t remember time travel feeling like this before. He didn’t remember it at all before.

Everything came to a stop and Tom felt his feet touching solid ground, though there was nothing to stand upon, just darkness. But he wasn’t alone. He could feel the breeze created by bodies moving around him, smell their foul breath and hear their slight whispers. Tom spun in every direction. Everywhere he turned looked the same. Up was down and left was right. Nothing made sense.

Then a beacon of light caught his eyes. Like two yellow headlights moving through the darkness on an abandoned street. Then two more, and more, until the vision of headlights disappeared, replaced by hundreds of glowing eyes.

He found himself standing alone in a pillar of light that shone down from an obscured source. He was surrounded by the darkness that had once held him tight. Looking down, Tom saw a stark floor and in his hands…a sword.

The cloud of angry eyes began to whirl around him, goading him, but he stood still and gripped the sword tightly. As the blackness, full of yellow eyes, swirled in on him, he raised the sword in the air, ready to strike. When the first black shadow reached him and the sword came down, he woke.

Tom’s limbs flailed as he fell from the bed. He hit the stone floor hard. “Ugh!” Tom clutched his bandaged ribs. They had been back in ancient Israel for several days now and while Tom’s wounds where healing nicely, his ribs still throbbed from time to time.

“Are you all right?” Mary asked, as she rushed in from the next room and bent down to Tom.

Tom rolled over and looked into Mary’s deep eyes. He smiled. “I’m fine. Just a nightmare.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It would scare you.”

“It was only a nightmare,” Mary said with a smirk.

“I can’t remember much of it anyway,” Tom insisted, as Mary helped him to his feet.

Mary shrugged indifferently. “I’m glad you’re awake. We’re eating breakfast soon and you have a long walk ahead of you.” Mary kissed Tom on the forehead.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said.

After Mary left, Tom rubbed his eyes with his hands, trying to erase the images of the dream. The blackness, the glowing eyes, they had burrowed into his conscious mind. Tom shook his head and rubbed his face.

The dream had been as real as any experience throughout the course of his life. Tom reminded himself that scenarios like the one in his nightmare could never happen. They weren’t real. Demons did not exist. Legion was some kind of psychosis, some sort of delusion that affected people of the past, brought to the future by their jaunts through time. That’s how Spencer was infected… But that couldn’t The stress caused by dwelling on supernatural subjects was overwhelming. Tom forced his mind to think of other things. He pictured Mary in the other room preparing food with Martha. He pictured Lazarus working up a sweat outside, pruning the fig trees. He thought of David and Sally, reunited after all this time and finally finding love. This was a happy ending even if Jesus was dead.

Tom’s thoughts drifted to the disciples. Peter and Matthew, laughing, remembering jokes told and drinks shared. He felt like a senior in high school on the last day before summer break. He was going to say goodbye to friends he would never see again. It broke his heart. But there was no reason to stay. Jesus was dead and had been for a week now. There was no message of Jesus being alive, being risen from the dead. Jesus was a fraud and Tom loathed him for it.

Tom knew that deep inside he wanted Jesus to rise from the dead, to prove he was God incarnate, to prove that there was some kind of eternal hope, to justify Megan’s death, at least to prove she didn’t die for a fraud. But she had. Megan’s savior was lying in a cave rotting. Just like everyone else eventually does.

The end had come and David was wrong. Jesus was a fake-of that much Tom was sure. But he was also an incredible man, and Tom missed him sorely. Tom found his eyes growing wet as he remembered Jesus hanging on the cross. The way his body fell limp at the point of death. The way his voice sounded as he cried out to God. It occurred to Tom that he hadn’t given the passing of his friend much thought in the week since it happened. Tom’s eyes stung, as they grew damp with tears.

“Tom?” David said, as he entered the room. “It’s time to-”

David saw Tom’s tears and stopped moving.

The embarrassment a man feels when caught crying was the furthest thing from Tom’s mind. He left his face wet. “What good came from Jesus’s death, David?”

David pulled up a sturdy, wooden chair and sat down.

“And don’t tell me that savior of the world crap, either. You know it’s BS too.”

“When you first left, when all this began, I had a conversation with Sally. She wanted to know what the danger of you coming back in time to disprove the story of Jesus would be. This was before I knew time could not be changed and what you were attempting, in my mind, could have destroyed everything we know and love about the world.”

Tom had wiped the dampness from his face and was staring at David. He was listening.

“Try to imagine a world without Jesus.”

“Easy. Megan would still be alive.”

“Okay, imagine a world without Christianity.”

“Same answer.”

“Think beyond yourself, Tom. Think about the global ramifications.”

Tom was feeling compliant and let his mind pour over the global ramifications of what David was asking. He though about several old world cultures that wouldn’t have existed, but held no emotional tie with him. They would be missed, but really, they didn’t matter much. He thought about all the marriages and babies born of Christians and Christian couples-people who met at church, couples whose religious commonalities brought some together and kept others apart. Without Jesus, babies conceived by Christians would never be born and billions of lives would be altered… okay, that’s bad, Tom thought. “I get the picture.”

“Do you really?”

“If I had somehow messed up the Jesus story, billions of people might never meet, copulate and have children that formed the future of our world.”

“True, but that’s just a small part of the larger picture. Frankly I’m surprised, Tom. Maybe all this time breathing fresh air and eating non-genetically engineered and untreated food has dulled your mind?”

“Hey,” Tom was offended by the insinuation that he couldn’t grasp the whole picture and sent the full resources of his cranium to the forefront. Images, colors, sounds, flashed through his mind, putting together a picture of a world without Jesus, like a montage of possible histories and futures played in fast-forward.

David watched Tom’s eyes fluttering, revealing Tom’s mental processes. David smiled; he knew Tom would figure it out.

Tom looked up. “America.”

David nodded.

“I never thought of that… America would never have been born.”

“One nation under God.”

“Under Jesus…”

“Neither of us were born Americans, but we’ve made it our home. And I don’t think we’d have it any other way. America was founded on a belief system that would not exist without Jesus.”

“But not everyone believes in Jesus,” Tom added.

“True, but the majority of founding fathers-not to mention the European civilizations that came before them-did. This is bigger than just America. You would be undoing two thousand years of history.”

Tom shrugged. “You’re right.”

David sat up. “I am?”

“The world as a whole is a better place because of Jesus, God or not. But individuals still suffer because of him. If he were really God, wouldn’t he have worked it out so that everyone was helped by his existing, and not just the general populace? What about the people who live and die in his name?”

“He loves them most of all, I imagine.”

Tom smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he? I miss him.”

“Me too,” David said.

“Let’s get this over with. I just want to say goodbye to Peter and Matthew and go home,” Tom said, as he headed for the door. He had proven Jesus to be a fake, but had also realized that the teachings and life of Jesus had an impact on the world that was greater than any other man in history. Jesus wasn’t God, but he had earned Tom’s respect.

It took Tom, David and Sally three days to walk the distance between the home of Lazarus and the home where the disciples had been staying since the death of Jesus. Normally the trek might have taken only a day, but between Tom’s still healing injuries and Sally’s soft feet, the trip lingered on.

They had only a quarter mile left and had entered a grove of red grapes that twisted and stretched its vines toward a white brick home.

Sally looked at the home. “Please tell me that’s where we’re stopping. My feet are swollen.”

“Be glad you’re still wearing sneakers,” Tom said. “It was an entire year before I got used to these sandals. I don’t think my feet will ever become smooth again, even after we get back to our own time.”

“Tom, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” David said.

“About what?”

“Going home.”

“What about it?”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Of course. What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s Mary.”

“She’s coming with me.”

“What about Lazarus, Martha, her family? She has more reasons to stay than you do to go…” David flashed his watch to Tom. “And I can always come to visit.”

“I…I just don’t belong here… I don’t fit in. What good is a quantum physicist in 30 A.D.?”

“Maybe you have more to offer than your science…”

“Like what?”

“Didymus! David!” Matthew’s voice boomed through the air as he barreled toward them.

“Matthew!” Tom shouted with a smile.

Matthew gave Tom a crushing hug, lifting him off the ground. “Where have you been? I have so much to tell you! You’re not going to believe it!”

Tom’s face was turning red as the air was squeezed out of his injured chest. “Okay! Okay! Just put me down, you big ape.”

Matthew put Tom down and noticed Tom holding his chest. “You’re injured? What happened to you? Was it the Romans? Or those wretches in Jerusalem?”

“It’s a long story, my friend,” Tom said, as he stretched out his chest, realigning his ribs.

“Is it them?” Peter yelled from the doorway of the home.

Matthew cupped his hands around his mouth, “Indeed it is!”

“Have you told them yet?” Peter returned.

“No!”

“Told us what?” Tom asked.

Matthew turned to Tom, looking him straight in the eyes with a large smile. “Jesus…he’s back.”

David clapped his hands together and started laughing. Sally looked at him, confused. “David, what’s going on? What did he just say?” Sally asked in English.

David took Sally by the shoulders. “Before you came, Tom and I were traveling with Jesus. Actually, Tom was one of his disciples.” David felt his mind about to go into a tangent of detail that was unnecessary. He blinked hard and focused his thoughts. “Before you came back for us, we saw Jesus die on the cross.”

Sally squinted one eye. “Jesus, as in Jesus Christ, Jesus?”

“Yes,” David said with a grin, “That Jesus. What Matthew just told Tom is that Jesus is alive again, that he has risen from the grave.”

Sally squinted the other eye, “That’s not possible.”

“I know! That’s what makes it so great!” David was giddy with excitement. The moment he believed would come, the scene that every child in Sunday school learns about was here.

“I’m not laughing, Matthew,” Tom said angrily.

“But I’m not joking,” Matthew said, as his smile faded.

Tom was losing patience. “Matthew…”

“Come inside. Ask the others!”

Tom stared into Matthew’s eyes. He knew Matthew was a jokester, but his sparkling eyes usually gave away any secrets. Tom couldn’t see that sparkle, that glimmer of humor, ready to deliver a punch line. Tom could see that Matthew was serious, and that just meant he was crazy.

Tom walked around Matthew and headed to the home. Matthew let him go and turned to David. “David!” Matthew looked David over. “You don’t have any injuries, do you?”

“No, just tired from walking.”

“Good!” Matthew said, as he picked David up and bear-hugged him.

The air was squeezed from David’s lungs as Matthew held him in the air. After David had coughed and laughed sufficiently enough, Matthew put him back on the ground. Matthew’s attention then shifted to Sally. He looked at her sneakers, and then back to David. “Who is your friend?”

“I’ll introduce you later,” David said. “Right now, I don’t want to miss what’s about to happen.”

David headed for the house with Sally. Matthew watched them walk by.

“What’s about to happen?” Matthew asked, as he began lumbering after David.