“You must be Major Strauss,” Archer said with a halfhearted salute. “Senator Strauss will be very happy to learn that you’re unharmed.”
Helena and I exchanged glances, our eyes wide and surprised.
Major Strauss? Senator Strauss?
Oh, boy.
As for Archer, his look lingered on “Major Strauss” a second longer than I would have liked. Considering his past, I immediately grew suspicious.
“Just as an aside, Hunter,” he said, covering his look rather well, “the President wasn’t too happy about certain parts of your journal…” his voice trailed off, and he settled with just pointing between Helena and I.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
He looked at me sharply. “Don’t play dumb with me. You two are supposed to be officers. We have rules about these things for a reason. The President feels…”
“Listen buddy,” I interrupted angrily, “you get stuck in ancient Rome for four and a half years and we’ll see if you do something stupid…”
Helena offered me a sour look.
“Oh you know what I mean,” I said with a dismissive wave before turning back to Archer. “You can go tell this so-called ‘president’,” I said throwing up air quotes, “that he can take my journal and shove it up his a…”
“That’s enough, Jacob,” Artie interrupted. “He understands where you’re coming from; he just wished you would have been more professional in your journal.”
“It’s not an AAR,” I told her, even though memory reminded me that it was. “It’s just a stupid journal. I didn’t even really think anyone would actually find it. It was just something to keep me focused.”
Helena almost laughed at that comment.
“Whatever,” Archer piped up, annoyance obviously evident in his voice, “but to answer the major’s question, no, that wasn’t our first thought. Remember, it took us a few weeks before we could translate the journal. The fact that we picked up a transmitter signal was odd, yes, but hardly confirmed anything. The tech was so far beyond us that we thought it was Persian. It wasn’t until we called in Diana after we had the first part of the journal translated that we confirmed it was Hunter. A final DNA and dental record test confirmed it. Like she said, Jacob, even though we parted on such bad terms, even I too found it very creepy.”
I nodded absentmindedly. I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. The sheer absence of any kind of normality to the situation had to have been mind-blowing. I tried to picture Archer, a tough guy SEAL through and through, trying to sit there and listen to a bunch of eggheads try and explain what was going on. Despite being a jack ass, Archer had always been a patient thinker, exactly what the military looked for in their 21st century officers. It had made him a good platoon leader, if not a good person, but I knew that if I had been in his shoes, even with all the TV I had seen over the years, I’m not sure how I would have dealt with it.
Helena always joked that when we’d first been sent back, I’d handled it so well because it was almost like I welcomed it, or even planned it. She’d been fairly right, as always, but I countered by explaining how I’d always been good at adapting to new situations, which was true, and that I’d always hated movies where people could never actually figure it out that zombies were in fact attacking, or aliens were invading, or monsters were maiming, when it was clearly happening right in front of them.
Did people not watch movies in the movies?
That never made sense to me. It was partially why I was so impressed that Archer and whoever else was involved managed to come to the logical, if not obvious, conclusion as quickly as they had. These kinds of things don’t happen every day.
“Just out of curiosity,” I started, “just how much time has gone by between when we disappeared and now?”
Archer and Artie exchanged glances.
“A month,” Artie answered sadly.
“A month, eh?” I asked. “A fucking month!? We’ve been stuck in Rome for five years! Five years!”
“How could you possibly blame us for that, Jacob?” She asked.
“Do you know what we’ve gone through?! What I’ve gone through?! Do you know how many times I’ve had to watch things happen that have been slowly pecking away at my soul?” I yelled, poking my head and chest in frustration, my anger burning inside me. “Years!”
“Hunter, you’re the expert here,” Archer said, holding a hand out to calm me down. “All we know is what you described in your journal, which sorry to say, some of which was lost. And you didn’t really do a great job describing time travel theory in there, anyway. Like you’ve said, you have had five years to think about this. Your sister and the other scientists back home have only had a few weeks.”
Artie looked at Archer, finally some of that original resentment I knew she felt towards him surfacing. If it’s only been a few weeks like Artie said, they’re breakup was still technically rather fresh. Peace or no, I couldn’t imagine she was enjoying working with him.
“I’m an engineer, Archer, not a scientist. I do math. I don’t spend my time developing theoretical concepts about wibbly wobbly time travel theses.” She turned her attention back to me. “We don’t have much, Jacob, but I know how you think. To me, your journal read more like a movie script than a doctoral thesis. You always did watch too much TV. By the way, I’m sorry to say, your movie isn’t going to happen. The whole thing is classified.”
I looked at Helena again. “Figures.”
“You had a lot of pseudo-science in there,” Artie continued, “and don’t get me started on your claims of ‘magic.’ You can’t even imagine the laughs that got from the scientific think tank assigned to figure out your story.”
“That hardly seems fair,” I snapped in annoyance. “Those dorks are probably just compensating for all that time playing they’re little games about fairies and dragons. Losers…”
“Jacob, don’t pretend like you’ve never played those as a kid…”
“As a kid!” I quickly defended, glancing at, but not quite making eye contact with Helena. “I grew out of that like forever ago.”
Artie glanced at Helena.
“He’s the worst bluffer on the planet. It’s always so easy to tell when he’s lying. He hates the word, ‘like,’ but uses it constantly when he knows he’s wrong.”
I saw Helena looking at me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare turn to look.
This is a nightmare. Sister and girlfriend in the same room together? God help me.
“No offense,” Archer interrupted, “but I can do without this little family reunion. I need to check on my men.”
“Wait, Archer, quick question,” I called before he could leave. Of all the questions I could think of, oddly, there was only on my mind. “Where’s that Balisong knife I gave you a few years ago?”
He cocked his head to the side quizzically. “What’s a Balisong knife?”
I gulped. “Also known as a butterfly knife…”
“Oh, right,” he said, pulling out a very familiar looking object from his pocket, flipping it open. “You mean a Xenophon knife.”
My head dropped to my chest before I snapped it back up, turning it towards Helena. “That fucking kid.”
“I told you,” she said, patting my hand.
Archer pointed at me, his face in a state of shock. “Wait a second… Xenophon Knives have one of the most mysterious origins out there. More so than Stonehenge or even the Bermuda Triangle. Legends go that it was designed by a child from Greece. They said it was impossible because it was made in a way and with materials that couldn’t be replicated for another two thousand years. The National History Museum in London still has the original one on display. No one understands it…” he paused. “Don’t tell me it was you!”
I shrugged. “Maybe…”
He grasped the side of his head with his hands and laughed. “I can’t believe it! I’ve discovered one of the world’s most unexplainable mysteries, and of all explanations, it was you who caused it! Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Still laughing to himself, and without offering any further ado, Archer threw his hands in the air, turned on his heels, and left.