Darrin—big-scary-red-headed-future-homo—and some creepy-quiet-military-contractor-CIA-type dudes, had taken them in three cars to Annapolis to board a really big tricked-out yacht, said to belong to Mister Shuei, their laid-back-Fu-Manchu-future-boss.

They were segregated into three teams during most of the Atlantic crossing: Three-Rivers, Bruco and Angh; the two hot chicks and the Spanish pervert; and his party, Jay, Eddie, Terrence the big D.C. brother, and Jacques the stuck-up Canadian geek.

Once a day Angh would run a briefing for the people with brains—which included Eddie—on how to operate and care for the event capacitator. Eddie was the capacitator geek on their team. They could not actually crank the things up, but they did a lot of study and discussion and plenty of dry runs with plastic models. Eddie operated on Terrence and Jacques, inserting the little clear bracelet “keys” that matched them to their capacitator into their left wrists. He would have to do this to whoever Jay snatched for the extraction back to the 21st Century. Jay was already key-matched to another capacitator and was good to go.

Jacques was basically Eddie’s technical advisor, would implant Eddie’s key, and would egress back to this time almost immediately after the initial jump. Terrence was pretty much just there for moral support and body mass, so that they could haul plenty of gear to the past. The rule was: you go alone you go naked; you go in tandem then you arrive with just the clothes on your back and the stuff in your pockets; you go as a trio then you can haul some gear and side-arms; if you travel in a quad you can go in heavy, and Jay-Bone was going in heavy.

Jay would be wearing a lot of clothes and body armor and was hauling an arsenal: ten bows; a hundred arrows; two samurai swords; two huge knives; and a combat harness. Eddie would also be wearing military body armor and helmet and hauling a lot as well: blankets; tarps; fire-starting equipment; medical kits; cord; and an extensive sewing kit with needles so big it could belong to the Jolly Green Giant’s mammy.

Jay’s only demands of Eddie had been that he practice sewing and making fire and rendering first-aid. The first-aid part had included standing in with Doc London during surgeries back at the Center, and operating on bums that Jay’s evil brother Randy used to pay to get sliced by Randy and then sewed back up by Eddie. This had of course been done in the back of a van in Washington D.C., without Jay’s knowledge. Randy had said he didn’t want Jay to know because he had a soft spot for losers and bums. But Randy made damn sure Eddie would be able to sew his brother back up again. He even ripped open his own thigh with a hacksaw blade and stood over Eddie and cussed him while he had to close it up and inject the antibiotics.

Son, the past scares the shit out of me. But not having to live with that maniac skulking over me is going to be like heaven! You just have to be a pyromaniac that sets up tents and sews up people and clothes. That is your part son. You can handle that.

He had stopped working on his raps. He was into old school blues now: Muddy River; Hilly Dewault; Linwood Taylor, all them old dudes. He had bought an old harmonica and a new one too. He sawed and sang through the nights. It relaxed Jay-Bone. The man had problems sleeping. On nights when Eddie had played tunes or sung Jay slept fine. Otherwise the man was up before dawn pacing the deck like a tiger at the zoo.

They were getting set. It was a windy mist-driven day above. They were in the English Channel and they would be jumping from a Zodiac boat, so as not to endanger the yacht. Jacques said that the Channel would actually be a valley in the time that they were headed too, and that the capacitator would equalize their trajectory and that they would not translocate a hundred feet above the valley floor, but on its surface.

They were in the stateroom surrounded by the other teams as they geared up. Terrence and Jacques were already geared. Jay-Bone was naked, smearing himself with month-old bear grease from a poor beast that his brother had poached from a national park in West Virginia.

They then put on a moisture-wicking body suit, socks, and cap. Next they donned the Gortex overalls, wool socks, and thermal caps. Then they put on the Kevlar body armor and helmet, mountain boots, harness with canteens and pouches. Then Bruco strapped on the fifty-pound backpack while Jay-Bone slung his arsenal of bows, arrows and swords over his shoulder.

Three-Rivers stepped forward and extended his hands, saying a prayer, “To the World of Winter Past may you go in safety, with welcome. To this World of Nearest Sunset may you return, safely, and with a blessed child of those people long lost.”

Bruco checked their gear one last time, and hurried them up on deck, where Hoost and his sinister contractors loaded them onto the zodiac.

This is off the hook son. You’re going to get tossed into the sea.

Fortunately Jacques held the capacitator, secure in its Gortex case, as Terrence steered them out among the swelling waters. The whine of the zodiac’s engine could barely be heard above the ocean, and the yacht was pulling off into the distance already, not wanting to be associated with what was about to happen.

They stood in a small circle in the bottom of the rocking zodiac as Jacques sketched the foundation equation on the base of the boat and placed five magnetic rods: one within, and four around, the equation. This was only necessary when using the special branch capacitator that would shortly—or ages from now—be placed in Eddie’s care. The other capacitators did not require this, and it would not be required for the use of this one again unless the mission was aborted and they came back with it before affecting a successful time branch. He was told that this would be indicated by the hollow platinum ring gaining about ten pounds: thirty times its current weight.

Jacques and Terrence were heavily dressed in parkas but were not equipped in any way. They were to return as soon as they hit high ground. They were simply lending their mass and auras to the jump; permitting gear to be hauled into the deep past, where there was definitely not going to be a Home Depot or even a 7-11.

The Canadian team member now set the five dials on the platinum hoop, which began to glow somewhat. When he set the final dial and stepped back there was a humming sound and the zodiac appeared to grow heavy in the water.

As Jacques let go of the capacitator it hovered and there was a magnetic whooping sound; a crack perhaps, like the sonic bomb of a military jet overhead.

Jacques then bravely grabbed a hold of the hovering ring and instantly looked like a heroin addict going through the shakes. The man was drooling like a methadone junkie from the neck up and jerking like a fiending crack-head from the waist down.

Terrence grabbed the ring next with his left hand and turned into a mass of quivering gelatin under his coat, somehow not falling or tipping the zodiac—which was definitely beginning to sink! It was amazing that either man remained standing, but they appeared to be held up by the force radiating from the crackling hoop.

Next Jay-Bone grabbed the hoop, and just seemed to relax, breathing deeply and winking at Eddie as he reached out and held his hand.

Eddie reached out and grabbed the hoop. He was immediately tazed by the entire planet, which he could feel spinning like a merry-go-round! The piss pouring down his leg could be heard cooking off into acidic steam as his entire being was fried, roasted, tossed like the cannibal-psycho-ward-hood-rat-salad-from-some-racist’s-wet-dream—and then the worst; he was being elongated and drawn into the open end of the tube, which was way too small. But then again he was turning into spaghetti, and that hurt so bad he thankfully lost consciousness.

He was no longer thankful when he found that there was a place beyond consciousness peopled by Jay-Bone’s barbaric memories.

He was stretching along a corridor of black. Off in the distance he could hear the terrified gurgling of Jacques and the sobbing of Terrence. But all around this endless corridor of darkness raged horrible pitiless battles between Jay, wearing a hooded cape of human hair and wielding some ridicules looking sword, and various colorful blood-mad Native American and medieval warriors. A tsunami of blood was washing the landscape of a denuded mountainside as horses screamed in agony; giant dogs were eating people in a pit; some big exotic-male-dancer-looking-freak was sodomizing Jay who howled like a wounded wolf; Jay was climbing over a pile of dying men to beat some old conquistador to death with a severed head; a bunch of pirates were ripping apart some old Indian dudes while Jay blew off heads with a nine millimeter...

He floated on, surprised that another man’s nightmares could be worse than his own…until the tunnel widened to admit his memories: Aretha leaving him sitting in his stroller by a dumpster in a back alley while she sucked an old wino’s cock; one of her men watching a game show while he sat next to him on the couch, and every time he missed an answer—which was often—he turned and beat him in the forehead with the plastic spoon he was using to eat his red beans and rice, of which little Tommy got none; Aretha was taking money from The Priest, as the man took off his white collar and looked across the room longingly at him; Big Shiv was grabbing the back of his head and forcing him down in their cell on the tier; Randy Bracken was standing over him while he tried to sew up the man’s torn leg, snarling, “If you come back without my brother homeboy I’m gonna bone ya and gut ya en use ya for a wet suit…”

There was light ahead and he was feeling lighter, alive almost, beginning to take form. He had a body now—perhaps. A sinking rush, as if he were plummeting down to earth on a roller coaster, made his guts flip and he knew he had a body. A rushing of wind sucked him through a portal of light into a world of mind-numbing cold below a sky of unmatched blue. A bolt of lightning seared his ass and blew off the top of his head, and there he was…ZOOOOM!

He never felt so good. Jay was standing before him like a sentinel, looking about. Terrence was on one knee throwing up. Jacques was writhing in pain on the thick snow-covered grass.

Suddenly overcome with guilt he bent to care for Jacques.