The Sea Within by Missouri Vaun

Author:Missouri Vaun [Vaun, Missouri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635555691
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2020-08-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

The first thing Jackson noticed was the air. The air was so clear and clean. She’d never experienced anything like this. And then the next thing she noticed was the silence. But then the longer she listened the more she heard different sounds than she was used to. Wallace was close by; he stowed a small case in the back of the forward ATV. There were two light alloy framed all-terrain vehicles and two trailers, now both loaded with gear and supplies. The tires for the ATVs were enormous, offering as much ground clearance as possible.

“How’s does everything look?” Jackson tilted her face skyward. She’d been asking about the gear, but a strange call from a bird she didn’t recognize caught her attention.

This was the world without humans. It was odd to be a stranger on your own planet.

“Everything’s loaded,” Wallace called to Nunez and Harris. “You guys ready to depart?”

Jackson walked back to the ship. Elle appeared at the rear hatch before she got there.

“It’s time to go.” Jackson held her hand out to Elle. “Is the science team ready to head out?”

“Yes, we’re ready.” She accepted Jackson’s offered hand. “Thank you. I still feel a bit unstable.”

“That will pass soon.”

“This is so utterly strange.” Elle surveyed the area around the ship.

“What?”

“If I take a step, I will be stepping into the past and the present simultaneously. Will the future know?”

“I think you should save the existential questions for when we get back. Trying to think through the timeline will make you feel lightheaded.” Jackson didn’t release her hand right away. The warm contact felt good.

“The day was the first finished work of God. If we have the technology to change the order of the days, what does that make us?” Elle searched Jackson’s face.

“Adventurous time travelers.” She placed her hand under Elle’s elbow. “Come on, Professor, let’s take a little drive to the beach.”

Ted followed on their heels. Jackson split the team into two groups. Ted, Nunez, and Wallace in the lead ATV. Harris, Elle, and Jackson in the second ATV. Jackson had said she wouldn’t play favorites, but at some point after touchdown, she’d changed her mind. There was no way she was letting Elle out of her sight for the duration of this operation.

According to the ship’s coordinates, they’d hit the target landing site. The ship was at the edge of a wooded area, nestled amid rolling grassy hills. Basically, they were in the same place they’d departed from, only at a different point on the timeline. This was what the modern location should look like, the present-day location. Except that in the present, the clumpy native grasses had been overrun by some invasive species that fueled wildfires. The terrain around the SLST command center had been ravaged by fire repeatedly, until all the gnarled coastal oaks were blackened skeletal remains. The vast contrast in how time had shaped the same location was hard to get your head around.

The trek to the coast was going

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