The Integratron
February 23, 2000

    All the parts had been assembled, and it worked: The Integratron.  There were applause, cheers, and tears of joy as the tensor beams emitted from the Inducer turned the many voluntary test subjects into more youthful images of themselves.  Rachel huge smile was evident as she finished what George Van Tassel started for the Venii.  Frank Critzer was too late.
    The sixty year game of cat and mouse ended.  The Venii won, but the victory had the alien puzzled.  Immortality—why would the Venii work over two thousand years to give the human race immortality?  There were too many questions and not enough answers.
    Brazenly, he walked into the Integratron: passed the many Venii who came disguised as humans to bring missing parts to Rachel, passed Jack Van Tessel whose presence stressed the time-space continuum, passed the humans who now owned the Integratron, passed the old dog, Gusto, made puppy, passed everything and everyone to reach Rachel.  As he grabbed her arm, Byron reached for the his shoulder.  In a flash, the three were gone.  Frank Critzer risked his existence to do something he had never cared to try...

******

Everywhere!
February 22, 2222

    It was a nightmare.  All senses were attacked.  The first sense to admit defeat was not sight with the image of a desolated landscape as every possible resource on the planet was consumed as sickly pale humans resorted to cannibalism to sustain themselves, neither scent as fecal matter paved the ground that was absent of any flora, nor hearing as the population screeched in terror and ecstasy as two from the past appeared from nowhere in clean clothing, but touch as sea upon sea of unhealthy humans rubbed against each other, transversed nowhere, and suffocated all.  Frank Critzer and his entourage left two seconds later.

******

Giant Rock, CA
February 23, 2000

    The three time-travelers stood atop the Giant Rock. Still somewhat disoriented from two time jumps, Rachel somehow knew that the stranger standing among them was the enemy.  Without a second thought and with all her strength, she pushed.  He stumbled a few feet and fell off the rock to hit the ground 70 feet below.  She stepped to the edge and examined his crumbled body laying on the ground below.
    “WHAT THE **** IS GOING ON?”  Byron screamed at the top of lungs as the two stood on the rock.  “That was the future wasn't it?”
    “One of many possible ones...”  Rachel calmly explained.
    “Well, what the ****?”  Byron's voice remained close to a scream.  “You **** murderer, why did you kill the ****?  Just like Suze, Dereck, Shar, even your own boyfriend Alex!”
    Rachel's long hair flew into her face as she snapped her head towards him.  “What did you say?”
    “You heard me, you crazy bitch!  Look!  Look!”  He pointed at the slap of Giant Rock that now buried their friends.  “You **** killed them!  Why?  To create that **** monstrosity, you **** call the **** Integratron?  Kiss my ****!  People are meant to grow old and die, but they are not meant be killed by some ****, obsessed, loony bitch!  I! Hate! You!”
    “Byron...” His cruel words hurt her.  She loved Alex.  She loved Suze.  She loved Shar.  They were all her friends the last thing she wanted was to see them die.
    “Stay the **** away from me!”  He backed away as she stepped towards him.
    “Byron,” she reasoned, “this is bigger than me, bigger than any of us.  It's for a greater good.”
    “Greater good!  Greater good!  **** Rachel!”  He pointed to the split off piece of Giant Rock  “They! Are! Dead!  And if you think that an over-populated Earth is a greater good, you are **** insane bitch.”
    “The aliens...” Rachel shook her head.  “They told me.  It's part of their plan to help humanity.”
    “What the **** do they care?” Byron asked the question she never thought of asking herself.
    “Because...”
    “Because what?  You think they are **** incapable of lying?  ****, why hide from the general public?  If that's not a **** type of lie...**** Rachel, I thought you were smarter than that.”  Byron looked around.  “How the **** are we supposed to get off this rock?”
    “I can take you.”  She reached towards him.
    “I said, 'stay the **** away.'  I don't want to know you.”
    Maybe Byron was right.  Rachel turned her attention back to the body that she had shoved off Giant Rock, but to her surprise, the body wasn't there.  When she looked back at Byron, the stranger was standing among them.
    “Who are you?”  She demanded.
    He paused.  “I suppose it is time for new identity, but I guess I'll just use the one you are familiar with.  I've been known by many names, but you would most recognize my most recent name: Frank Critzer.”
    She shook her head in denial.  “He died several years ago.”
    “Would you believe I got better?”
    A stern stare was his silent answer.
    “I'm an alien, Rachel.  I really don't have a name.  In fact, I really don't have a body as you know, I've only been able to manifest a body in the last three thousand Earth years.  I'm actually a being of electromagnetic energy.  I have been fighting the Venii here on Earth for five hundred years.  Their leader is Solgonda.”
    “The one who contacted Van Tessel?”  Rachel interrupted.
    Frank Critzel continued, “very likely, and I'm guessing you too?”
    Rachel shook her head in denial.  “They are here to help us!”
    “**** that!” Byron spat.  “**** all of you!  No **** alien would come here to save the **** human race.  He **** lies, and those Venii-**** lie.”
    “No!”  Rachel denied his words with anger.
    “That's right Rachel!  Don't listen!”  The comforting voice of a Venii spoke inside her.  “They mean to do us harm, both Earthing and Venii alike.”
    “Only the Venii!”  The alien known as Frank Critzer spoke.
    “Why?” Rachel asked.  “I shouldn't believe you; you threatened me.”
    “Yes, Rachel, yes!”  The words reverberated inside her.
    “Yeah, **** you!” Byron added.
    “Do not apply human rationale to the Venii.”  Frank Critzel remained calm.  “That is simply their nature: manipulating and destroying.  They pretend to be your saviors, but they are using you.  The only reason you can time travel is because you're mother must have been abducted by them, and her embryo, you, implanted with alien, time-traveling mitochondria.  You are a tool for them.”
    “He lies!”
    “I'm telling you the truth!”  His words were adamant.
    “And I'm a flying, ****, pink pig.”  Byron snorted.
    Rachel shook her beautiful face in confusion.  “If that's true, why are you helping us?”
    “My mission here is to prevent Venii.  The Venii tried doing the same to us.”
    “Rachel, remember my warning?  They are the enemy.”
    “Okay, don't believe me,” Frank Critzer said, “but let the facts speak for themselves.  You saw the future.  Let's disassemble the Integratron.”
    Byron surprisingly supported the alien before them.  “You know...I hate the ****-head more than you do, but he makes sense there.”
    Rachel look down towards the slab of Giant Rock that buried her friends, then brought her arms up in defense as she made a decision.  “Okay, you win.  We'll disassemble the parts, and take the stone and Jack, back to the time they belong.”
    “We can't let that happen!”  Previously comforting words inside her head turned to shear venom.
    Frank Critzer turned and squinted his vision into the distant horizon.  An unidentified flying object flew towards them.  “It looks like they bought out the big guns.”
    “****!”  Byron returned to yelling.  “What do we do now?”
    “You'll fix the future.”  Their new alien ally spoke as he jumped off Giant Rock.  “I'll fix the Venii ship.”
    “Alright,” Byron asked, “how are we supposed to get off this **** rock?”
    Rachel took his hand in hers, and once again time and space were warped about them.
    Frank Critzer ran towards the spacecraft faster than humanly possible.  A cloud of dust grew from his feet pounding on the dry ground beneath him.  The flying ship came from the East as it flew over Death Valley.  Whether it flew towards Giant Rock or the Integratron, three miles South of the boulder, he didn't know.  However, if he could disable their ship, he knew that the Venii here on Earth would be isolated and without advance capability, but as he approached closer, to his surprise, it wasn't the crude vessel of the Venii that approached, but the elegant beauty of an Ashtar ship.
    The speeding alien suddenly stopped, and trail of dust blew passed him as his braking legs dug into the sun-baked earth.  Did the ancient race of the Ashtar arrive or did the Venii managed to get an Ashtar ship?  As Frank Critzer could feel the Ashtar ship charge the tensor beams, he realized somehow, some way, the Venii captured an Ashtar ship.  Invisible beams shot their way towards him from the ship.  Running back the way he came, he used his senses of the electromagnetic spectrum to  jump, duck, and dodge away before any of the focused radio waves could connect.  Although he remained confident, he knew he needed a weapon to destroy the Venii-stolen ship.
    When a tensor beam came uncomfortably close to the electromagnetic being made flesh, he realized that subtle variants in the beam were definitely identical to the less-powered, healing tensor beams in the Integratron.  He decided to gamble on a hunch.  He changed his direction towards the Integratron.  It was mere minutes before both aliens running and flying were upon the white dome that measured 38 feet high and 50 feet in diameter.
    The Venii on the ground were prepared for Frank Critzer this time, but avoiding the flying shards of lead from the native weapons of Earth were even easier than evading tensor beams from the Ashtar ship.  The Venii fragile bodies were no match against the quickly moving body of Frank Critzer as he punched and rammed his way through to get inside the Integratron.  Immediately, he sensed the orb that focused the radio waves into tensor beams.  He didn't hesitate to grab the Inducer.
    “What's going on?”  Jack Van Tassel stepped towards Frank Critzer.  Complete confusion made him headless of the danger about him.
    Frank Critzer paused momentarily to erase a couple hours from his mind.  As he stood there completely stunned, Rachel appeared to return him to his proper time.  As the alien known as Frank Critzer felt the Ashtar charge the tensor projector to obliterate the whole area, he looked at the crystalline orb in his hand.  Quickly, he tossed it a few inches and caught it, he knew what needed to be done.
    He charged out of the Integratron as quickly as he could possibly muster in the human like body.  As he left the white dome, he jumped into the air.  Like smoking lighting, the body of Frank Critzer sailed into the air higher than the Integratron, higher than Giant Rock, higher than conceivable.  When gravity finally won, and he hovered before coming back down to the Earth below, the Ashtar ship fired the tensor beams at the body of Frank Critzer.  Before that happened, the defenselessly hovering alien threw the Inducer with all his might.
    As the tensor beams obliterated the electromagnetic alien, the Inducer ripped through the hull of the Ashtar ship to connect with the Inducer inside—the same Inducer inside: Paradox—no two items can occupy the same place at the same time doing the same thing.  Anti-time and anti-space collided in the material world as time and space fought to maintain a coherent continuum.  The Ashtar ship and the Venii crew inside tore backward through time and space on a sub-atomic level.
    1992.  Although seismologist calculated that the epicenter was below ground, it was actually above Landers, California.  The massive explosive caused a 7.4 earthquake on the Richter scale.  The damage was severe.  Thousands of residents went without power for hours.  Roads buckled, while buildings and chimneys collapsed; one chimney crushed a three year old boy.
    1980.  A strong high pressure ridge formed in Arizona that extended throughout the central and southern United States allowing temperatures to soar to 90 degrees and higher.  The high pressure system also acted as a cap on the atmosphere inhibiting the development of thunderstorms leading to exceptionally severe drought conditions.  It caused the death of at least 1,700 people.
    1951.  Ten year old, David Ray Parker, was taking a leisurely stroll down in his hometown of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico when he was hit by a stray tensor beam.  His occasional sadistic desires grew exponentially.  Within the next few years, he created his own sexual torture chamber with many apparatus to inflict pain including a 12-volt motorized breast stretcher.  Over the next forty-nine years, he would sexually torture and kill sixty women.
    1947.  The gap between time and anti-time returned as space restored the gap created by anti-space.  The Ashtar ship sailed aimlessly through the air heedless of the efforts of the Venii crew inside.  As it collided with the ground at a speed near that of light, it shattered in a spectacular array near Roswell, New Mexico.
    
******

Pasadena, CA
March 10, 2000

    Spring break for Caltech was over.  It has been weeks since Byron saw Rachel, and she hadn't appeared for any classes.  He wasn't concerned.  In fact, he was relieved.  He didn't speak about what he had witnessed in the desert a hundred miles away, and he likely never would.  He missed his friends, but he just wanted to forget about it as if it was some bad dream.  He immersed himself in school work.

******

Pasadena, CA
February 9, 1978

    Frank Critzer walked out of the hotel room nearly bumping into the most beautiful human he had ever seen as he left.  “Who are you?”  He asked.  “Your not Venii, but...”
    “Just another meddler like yourself,”  Rachel said, “traveling through time.  Don't worry, we'll meet again.”
    “Well, you miscalculated.”  Frank Critzer accepted that he will get to know her in his personal future.  “You're too late, George Van Tassel is dead.”
    “I know.  I don't want to mess with the time-space continuum anymore.”  Her words were cut short by Dorris Van Tassel exiting the hotel room.  The recent widow's sobs only masked the snicker's of joy for her husband's demise.  “She killed him, didn't she?”
    “It would appear so.”
    “You could save him.”  Rachel offered.
    “So could you.” The time-traveling alien surmised.  “I too don't want to mess with the time-space continuum more than absolutely necessary.”
    She sighed and nodded her agreement.  
    “I look forward to meeting you for the first time.”
    “No.”  She shook her head in disagreement.  “You don't, but that's the way it needs to be.”
    Frank Critzer nodded that he understood and left to meet Byron for the first time.
    The beautiful woman walked into the room and passed two dumbfound gunmen locked in some kind of deep trance.  He lay in the bed: the man that had been for so long the paradigm to her life.  As she approached and knelt alongside the bed, he weakly open his eyes: “Annie?”
    Rachel couldn't speak; couldn't bare to tell him the truth.  “it...is...you...isn't...it...”
    “i...have...some...thing...for...you...”  The painful gasps of air could barely escape his body.
    “Don't,” Rachel spoke sweetly, “save your energy.”
    Weak but determined, his hands fumbled towards his inner pocket.  With the last of his strength, he fished for the gift.
    “It is not important.”  Rachel's protest fell upon deaf ears.
    “here...”  His hands bared the Inducer.  “keep...it...safe...”
    Gently, her hands touched his as her fingers wrapped around the seemly innocent, transparent orb.  As he drifted off to death, she could barely make out the whisper of his dying breath: “forgive me solgonda...but after eva's death...i could not damn humanity with immortality”
    George Wellington Van Tassel died peacefully in the arms of his granddaughter.