City of Ruins by Mark London Williams Read Free Book Online

with the idea of this entire planet — indeed,
perhaps its entire history — being a prime nexus, a critical node
in the history of this whole galaxy, and perhaps, of the whole
universe that exists on this plane. There is, I am coming to
believe, something for both Saurian and mammal alike to learn
here.
    “By ‘prime nexus,’ do you mean something like
a beachhead, for your planet’s invasion of our earth?” Thirty asked
me.
    “Saurians do not think of beaches as having
body parts,” I told her.
    “We could use far less pleasant methods on
you if you won’t cooperate,” she said, apparently unsure whether to
break into a grimace, or attempt another smile. Instead, she asked
a different question. “When you say ‘prime nexus,’ you mean a place
on your cosmological map that you consider to be of critical
importance? Worthy of conquest?”
    “No. This is not like one of your endless
mammal wars over resources.”
    I tried to explain to them that a prime nexus
was the point in a timeline where maximum possibilities and
outcomes lurked. Using the spot where the unknown slave Brassy had
been buried in New Orleans as an example, I told them that we had
been drawn there to the era of Clark and Lewis and North Wind Comes
because had Brassy lived, all history that came after her would
have somehow been altered.
    “For the better?” Thirty asked me.
    “Well, are you earth mammals fond of the way
history has turned out since?” I asked.
    I thought that illumination on the prime
nexus question would be helpful, and might perhaps slake their
endless thirst for “information,” most of which, I must confess,
they appear to have a hard time understanding even when they get
it.
    Usually, they would grow frustrated and send
me back to one of their holding rooms, each with various guardians
who came and went on their shifts, each assigned to watch me, to
make sure I didn’t escape again.
    Such an escape would certainly be the outlaw
thing to do, of course. But I wouldn’t have Thea’s help. She’d been
taken captive, too.
    We were all taken captive when we time-ported
back to Eli’s present, landing under the very bridge where Thea and
I once tried to rescue our friend: “The Golden Gate.”
    And it’s orange!
    And while the locals probably imagine “Golden
Gate” refers to the inlet from the ocean to their bay, I wonder if
it’s not a signal — for those who know such signs — that the “gate”
may be a place where such a nexus occurs.
    There must be some reason we keep being drawn
back to it. And from my brief studies of Earth history, it would
seem certain structures — the pyramids, a place called “Stonehenge”
near where King Arthur and Merlin lived, to use but two examples —
were built with the idea of some kind of nexus in mind, a place to
channel and control the convergence of past and future and the
fissures between dimensions.
    I couldn’t tell, after we’d arrived, whether
the soaking, chanting humans on the shore near us considered
themselves in the presence of such a nexus, and were celebrating —
mammal dancing, at last. They were certainly performing some kind
of ritual, one that reminded me of the fervor that comes in a
Cacklaw Culmination — the end ceremonies after one of the game’s
long rounds concludes — where Saurians, usually circumspect in
their spiritual leanings, all pray to the Great Makers for bounty,
blessing, and of course, better score tabulations to come.
    When these human celebrants saw us appear, or
more specifically, when they saw me, a great cry and moan went
up.
    “There it is!” yelled a man with rumpled
clothing and bushy eye hair. “Proof that heaven is torn apart and
time is running in all directions at once! And it is now in our own
hands to send time and history in a new direction!”
    There were more screams, and people started
running — away from me, toward me. Some of them had signs, which
they dropped in the sand:
    NOT END TIME — OUR