THE STRADIVARI ANOMALY By Michael Priv

1

The red fox watched the screeching seagulls soaring above, taunting their mates, welcoming the rising sun. From the edge of the cliff the fox could hear the warm Ligurian Sea crashing against the dark, barely visible in the first morning blush rocks below. Sparrows darted around the chestnut trees, chirping hysterically, ushering the arrival of the new day—a day similar to many others and yet, unlike any other. A bit earlier, the Noise visited them, the loudest and the scariest sound the fox could ever imagine. The Thing appeared in the sky with an incredible roar and smashed into the forested hill about an hour trot from the old Castle, Castello di Santa Margherita Ligure. The Noise it created must have permeated the entire World.

The fox threw a nervous glance at the Castle, the veritable cornucopia of rats and delicious scraps. That is exactly where he would have preferred to forage for his breakfast this morning, instead of chasing mice in the stubby grass, if only it weren’t for the ramparts bristling with muskets and the dogs on long tethers—especially the dogs. This was not the morning to sneak around the Castle. The fox understood the fear humans felt. He witnessed the Noise just as they did. 

A sudden explosion shocked the already edgy morning. The ground shook. A huge plume of smoke and dust emanated from the exact point where It impacted. Now It exploded bringing the hill down onto itself, burying itself deep in rock, dirt and splintered chestnut trees.

Mice for breakfast it is! The fox prudently decided.  

The new day had arrived to the outskirts of Genoa, Italy, in the spring of the year of our Lord 1684.

2

         “Chief!”

         His awareness was doggedly working its way up the dark, claustrophobic, winding tunnel through the sea of pain—up, up, up…

“Chief!”

He felt a prick of a needle on his neck. There it was again, that unsettling sound. That’s me, he realized with a start. Chief means me. I am the Chief Petty Officer Damian Grower, Gunnery, US Navy Aviation. With effort, Damian opened his eyes but could not get them to focus. The ringing in his ears subsided a bit, giving way to more pain.

Things arranged themselves, coming into focus. Grinning a bloodied smile, Brice Hoffman in his flight coveralls in all his 5-feet 6 chubby glory was towering over him. Right on the edges of that grin there was fear and pain in Brice’s eyes. In his right hand Brice held an empty blue-colored syringe from the first aid kit. Color blue indicated opiates.

Damian couldn’t quite make sense of the scenery. The interior of the craft was dislodged, stuff strewn about—the ammunition crates, spare power supplies, parts of the destroyed main computer console and more debris. The entire cockpit area was staved in. The bodies of both pilots were still strapped to their seats, their necks in rigid yokes that held transparent battle assist screens in front of their eyes, their hands on the wrecked controls of the pulse propulsion engines. Somehow and somewhere Damian lost his ability to grieve during the four long years of the War.

Damian tried to move—unsuccessfully. Straining to look sideways in his rigid neck link support, hardwired to the transparent target acquisition screens fixed in front of his eyes, he saw a ragged piece of the outer armor rib protruding from his right shoulder. He noted with surprise that the pain in his shoulder was indistinguishable from the general pain he currently experiences all over his body. How could that be?

“Are we dead?” Damian asked 

“Can I get back to you on that?” The entire right side of Brice’s face as well as his neck and the front of his flight coveralls were covered in blood. Blood must have also been trickling from his nose earlier but the dark rivulets have dried up now. The way he held his left arm against his side indicated to Damian, experienced with this sort of thing, that his friend had a broken rib, maybe several. Security harnessing would do it to you at a high speed impact.

“You’re the CO now,” Brice stopped grinning. “Congrats and all that. How’re you feeling, Chief?”

Damian preferred not to answer. True, he was in command of their Corsair-120 attack craft now, or what was left of it.

“Anybody shooting at us?” he asked.  

“Nah, all quiet. Whatever’s happening is not so much what but when.” There it was again, that fear in Brice’s eyes. “Hear the chimes?”

“What’re you talking about? Last I remember is being shot down over northern Italy. Right? The Euros got lucky with a pulse gun. One of the shields must’ve failed…”

“No, the shields held fine or we’d all wake up dead right now.”

“What’re you saying?”

“You hear that sound? Just listen.”

“Hell, no!” Damian’s heart fell as he pulled that horrifying sound apart from the rest, isolated it from the cacophony in his head, sparks crackling in the destroyed ship’s circuitry and several different alarms sounding off simultaneously. The gentle chimes signified trouble far worse than being shut down over enemy territory—the temporal displacement, referred to as the “spook” among the rank and file, a huge can of worms on many levels. They’ve gone spook. An extremely rare but not unheard of event, the spook was a jump in time triggered by an accidental resonance between the incoming pulse blast frequency and that of the craft’s pulse propulsion system. The resonance gone mad caused uncontrolled amplification, a chain reaction of sorts—blah, blah, blah.

Damn, who knows where in the past we ended up, or rather when. “And the beacon?” Damian asked with a premonition.

“Busted. Can you believe it? The thing’s built like a brick.” Brice confirmed, getting a good hold on the pike in Damian’s shoulder. “Do you want another morphine shot for this?” Brice asked.

Damian shook his head. He couldn’t afford to get stoned. “Give me some cannabis oil,” he ordered.

Brice handed him a small plastic vial. Damian squeezed out a drop on his finger and rubbed it into his gums, noticing how things lightened up a bit as the pain dulled down.

“This may sting a little. Hold this for me.” Brice inserted the plastic handle of his standard issue combat knife across his friend’s mouth and gave his all to the yank on the pike with both hands. He howled in pain, grabbing his side with one hand and holding up a jagged piece of steel dripping with blood in his trembling other hand.

Damian passed out from pain momentarily but was coming around again.

“Up already?! Coffee?” Brice greeted him with an unconvincing smile on his bloodied face.

“Did it come out?” Damian croaked, getting the explosions of light and splotches of darkness in his head under control.

“Like a hot knife from butter! Nothing to it.” Brice busied himself plastering a gauze pack to his friend’s wound.

“Help me up,” Damian said. This is bad.

Brice unstrapped Damian from his gunnery console. Attempting to get up, Damian collapsed with a scream. His foot was broken, as well as several ribs on both sides.

Brice jerryrigged a make-shift splint on Damian’s foot and took a breather.

“Okay so between the two of us we have a totaled plane, two dead pilots, maybe half a dozen broken ribs, probably some internal damage and hemorrhaging, a broken foot, a bloodied nose, a bumped head and a spike through the shoulder,” Brice summarized. “The beacon's dead and we don’t know what time period we are in and how to get home, we got provisions for a few days and neither one of us has a girlfriend, is that it so far?”

“Let me see that beacon.”

In a minute Brice handed Damian a large, brick-like, heavy metal object with black, helpful letters etched on its side NOT FOR SALE. PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. There was a multitude of small holes on its front, making it look like an audio speaker. On the back there was a manual switch supposedly protected by a thumb cover, presently all staved in by the impact.

Useless. “Can we try activating this thing from a computer?” Damian asked.

“I still have my tablet but the on-board main is fried.”

They both gave it some thought.

“Any idea how this thing works?” Damian asked.

“Hey, I’m the 2nd Gunner, remember?” Brice raised his chin in mock indignation and knocked his fist on his chest. “Give me the 2nd gun and I’ll immediately, like an unstoppable juggernaut… And I do mean unstoppable…”  

With a roar a fire started at the mangled bow of the craft.

Damian interrupted, “We grab what we can and get out. The ammo’s about to blow. Grab the first aid kit. Don’t forget your tablet and whatever spare power supplies you can find. We’ll need to search your data base.”

Brice stared at the fire.

“On the double!” Damian yelled, straining to get up.