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Time in a Bottle
by Abe Binder
I
"What a revoltin' development this is!" Nick Fury looked at himself in two other incarnations. One was himself from 1943 - battle scarred and rough in a torn sergeants uniform - and the other was from 1956 - a new intelligence officer who was learning the ropes the hard way in Indochina and wearing a well-pressed U.S. Army uniform with no insignia. The modern Fury was dressed in the remains of evening clothes, shredded in heavy fighting. As Director of SHIELD in 1999 he had seen many things, including time and space travel, and understood what was happening almost immediately. He hoped his other selves would as well.
It was a quiet moment in the forest in the middle of a war. Director Fury broke the silence: "Okay don't nobody say nothing. We somehow got thrown together out of time, but since I don't remember it, it ain't part of normal history, so that means anything can happen. I recognize the uniforms on the both of you, so I think I know what you were up to before we got here. What we gotta do is find out who's responsible and get `em to put us back."
"Yeesh. Since when did I start making speeches?" Sgt. Fury sneered at the other two. "I ain't got the first idee what you're yappin about. You two look like an old versions o' me. Fine. I got bigger fish to fry. The Second Decade just took the Howlers prisoner. I gotta bust `em loose before the Fuehrer finds out how bad their manners are. That would be downright embarrassin."
Lieutenant Fury picked up one of Sgt. Fury's machine guns. "I don't know what's goin' on either, but if there's a fight I'm in." He cocked the gun. "Which way to the Howlers?"
"Hold it!" Director Fury stood in front of the other two. "Lieutenant, you and I can't interfere with events in this time zone. We don't know what the consequences would be. The Sarge here has gotta work on his own while we figger out how to get back to our time."
"Get outta my way, pipsqueak," Sgt. Fury and Lieutenant Fury stepped forward, the Sgt. Leading the way. "The Howlers are in it good. I don't care what you heroes are gonna do - I'm goin after them."
The Lieutenant stepped directly in front of the Director. He was the exact same height, but at least 50 pounds heavier. The Sergeant behind him was another 40 pounds heavier than that. The Lieutenant looked the Director in the eye: "I ain't leavin' no Howlers in a jam, no matter where I am."
"Not `where' you are, ya lummox, the question is: `when' you are."
The Lieutenant looked puzzled for a moment, and then shoved Director Fury aside. "I ain't got time to cross words with you, ya blamed cyclops." He shouldered the machine gun and started into the woods. There was a loud `crack!' and the Lieutenant was face down on the ground.
Director Fury knelt by him and checked his head. He dropped the tree branch, bloody where it had struck the Lieutenant. There was a laceration, but the skull was not fractured. The only worry was that there would be a concussion. "Maybe that's why I don't remember none of this," the Director thought.
"You want a fight, mister," the Director stood and watched Sgt. Fury approach, "you got one. Only I ain't gonna turn my back."
The sergeant was almost one hundred pounds heavier, and, Infinity Formula or no, was a much younger man. He approached like a tiger: supremely confident, the consummate bully. His first lunge was like a force of nature, powerful and indifferent to resistance.
The Director was lucky to get out of the way in time. He realized that he never would have avoided the move if he hadn't been warned. He was smaller, but not quicker. Sgt. Fury was at the height of his physical prowess. He swung a roundhouse at his older self, but missed badly.
The Director rolled to his feet and struck a Mantis defence that the Shao-Lin favour when fighting demi-gods. Sgt. Fury attacked without hesitation, swinging furiously and grunting like an enraged bull as blow after blow cut nothing but air. When done right, there was no way to penetrate the Mantis with strength and aggression.
The sergeant continued his attack. It occurred to Director Fury that, while he could continue to dodge all day, the sergeant could keep up the attack at least as long. He would not tire. The Director felt for a moment as he had when he was that young; the boundless energy, the righteousness of the cause, the clear black-and-white sense of right and wrong. The world that he lived in was a dark shade of grey.
He shifted subtly from the Mantis to the Mongoose. The sergeant didn't notice, keeping up a lethal barrage of blows, any one of which could take the older Fury out of the fight. The Mongoose was the ultimate counter-puncher, perfect against an opponent who attacks and attacks.
Sgt. Fury threw another hard uppercut, and was surprised to receive a hard shot to his solar plexus. A roundhouse punch brought him a kick to his ribs. Swing after swing brought return shots to his midsection. Finally, after an hour, the sergeant crumpled to the ground.
The Director looked over his younger self. In 50 years of fighting he knew as much about field medicine as most doctors. He assured himself that there was no internal damage, even though he had delivered as many hard body shots as he had ever done to another man.
He dragged both men into the woods and lay them in a sheltered area under a fallen tree. The enemy wouldn't find them there, and by the time they awoke he'd have a couple of hours head start. He had to find and free the Howlers and get himself and his 1950's counterpart back to their proper times. Great.
He grabbed one of the machine guns and left the other for his other selves. He started following the train the Howlers had taken, seeing every footprint and snapped twig.
II
The SHIELD Helicarrier dipped below the high-altitude arc it was accustomed to. The advanced prototype fighters which always flew combat air patrol to command the skies around it still buzzed in their never-ending circuit, but were slower and less effective at the lower altitudes. The four powerful engines started to bleed energy and the huge aircraft started to leave a vapour trail which could be seen from Ho Chi Minh City to Manila.
In the darkened command centre of the aircraft, G.W. Bridge examined his computer screen and scowled. "This is not going to work. At this altitude, we use twice the fuel and we're ten times more exposed to detection."
"Why don't we go back up then?" Dum Dum Dugan sat down heavily in the command chair next to Bridge.
"Because Hydra hacked our satellite. Until we knock them out, we're sitting ducks up there. They could feed us bad navigation coordinates, or give our position to a hostile, or make us look like a hostile to U.S. anti-satellite systems. It's just too risky up there."
"Well, we can't stay here. Communications is on the horn with about 8 national air forces who don't want us in their air space. I guess the skies really aren't that friendly after all."
"No choice then. We'll have to take her down."
"Now wait a gol-darned minute! That's only for emergencies! If you think..."
"This is an emergency, Dugan. If we don't get to ground, we'll never get back up. Wherever Hydra's operating, we can't locate it. That means we have to hack back into our own system, but that takes time. We either buy time or we buy the farm."
The Helicarrier shuddered and, with an obvious effort, stopped its forward motion. The engines began to heat up with the exertion. Dark panels slid slowly down over the windows. The fighters came in and landed on the flight deck one at a time until there was an unusual silence and stillness. After a few moments the exterior was a patchwork of solids, with no openings even on the hangar deck.
The carrier dropped slowly, never picking up speed though it descended 20,000 feet. Suddenly it stopped. Below was the water of the mid-pacific, churned into a froth by the mighty engines. Just as suddenly, the SHIELD Helicarrier dropped into the water. It took an hour for the sea to settle from being torn by the huge ship, and air bubbles could still be seen for the rest of the day. By morning, it was as though nothing ever happened.
