Finding Time

Chapter 16 - Daniel and Henry Atlanta

"Henry! This has to stop. We have to fight back!"

Henry turned to see Daniel had walked in.

"Well, it's been a long time."

"My girlfriend and I. We got into a fight."

"I'm not surprised."

"What do you mean?"

"Give me some credit Daniel" said Henry. "My own soulmate died herself. Do you think I don't know what it was like? To be afraid and want to fall in love with someone else? To run away from the fear inside of you - that you're not really good enough?"

"You don't think I was in love with Anna do you?"

He gave Daniel a look.

"I believe you aren't yet. That you still don't know what it is like to have someone look inside of you and see you for who you really are."

"I need a drink. Do you have some alcohol?" asked Daniel.

Henry nodded.

He fixed the transmission, playing the message to his ears, and faintly heard Daniel pouring a glass in the kitchen.

"I know what I want. She was too emotional for me. Too out of the place. I couldn't handle that."

Henry nodded his head.

"Now you can handle Adinda?"

"She's different."

"If different, you mean running off in an alien invasion hoping your boyfriend will run after you?"

"Damn it man!" yelled Daniel. "My Mom is dead."

He took off the headphones, wrapping Daniel in a hug.

"I'm sorry" he said.

Daniel sobbed.

"We can fix this."

"How?"

"I know you're not the religious type of person."

"If you mean that I don't believe in messiahs that come and die for our sins, you are correct."

Henry fingered the cross on his neck.

"I am not trying to get you to believe in my religion. I just think that perhaps it's opened my mind in a few more ways than atheism did for your brother or psychology did for you."

"Meaning...?"

"That I've always had a feeling there was something more out there. Something that can't be explained. Daniel, my sisters are still alive."

"Henry, they died. When the missile landed."

"They are still here" insisted Henry. "I've been hearing them in my dreams. Now I can hear them over radio."

Daniel backed away.

Henry reached out his hand to him.

"If you help me with this one thing Daniel, I will do whatever you want. I will send the rest of the apartment out to fight the aliens if that is the way you want to go. I can't imagine what it is like to know that your own mother has died, but we have to do this for humanity."

Humanity, scoffed Daniel. Pretty soon we would all be worshipping radios like his friend, not leaving their rooms and deteriorating back into a place of superstition and mysticism.

He put the headphones to his ear, then the message played.

"I am Nova. I have recently discovered the formula for time travel and if I'm correct, you're receiving this transmission because you're seeking revenge against the Ashanti Empire, you're trying to understand the war, or you're trying to send a transmission out to save the universe."