In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  Viznir stares up the side of the building. “That’s going to take a while. What do you want us to do while we’re waiting for you?”

  “If I can, I’ll travel back to a little after now once I get to where the objective is, that way you won’t have to wait as long. See if you can figure out which side of the building I’ll be on. The objective won’t have any gravitites in it so I won’t be able to jump it out by anchor, but maybe I can drop it out to you somehow. We’ll have to figure that part out.” I pull the tablet out of my satchel and hand it to Tucket. “Show me how to work this thing. With all this fancy stuff on here, it has to have a phone somewhere, right?”

  Tucket walks me through how to access the tablet’s different functions. He locates his own I.D. and Viznir’s and puts them in the corner of the screen so I only have to tap them, then shows me the camera and the 3D map. He is about to go into more advanced functions, but I stop him. “That should be enough to get me through.”

  I reach for the device, but he pulls away. “Wait. This is different . . . I wonder . . .” He gestures to something on the screen and grins. “It is! It’s a metaspace window.” He turns the tablet back to me and holds it up so I can see it. “They did give you a way to view the metaspace. You’ll just have to look through this.”

  I take the tablet and scan it around the plaza. People and synths are highlighted with tags above their heads like a video game. I use the zoom functions at the side of the screen and can navigate in and out of the three dimensional space. Messages and art adorn the ground and walls. Even the sky is full of information. I play with some of the symbols and one de-clutters the screen, eliminating ads and highlighting new objects. Another symbol causes velocities and trajectories to appear around all the moving objects and people, predicting their paths and even recommending a route for me to take if I should like to navigate the plaza.

  A child flings a toy into the air and it sprays a fan of light, whirling in brilliant colors through the sky. The spinning disk leaves a rainbow in its wake as it arcs away from the child, but the item is suddenly highlighted in orange and then red as it nears me. The disk skips off the ground a few yards away and skids to a stop at my feet. I stoop to pick it up. In reality, it’s merely a flat, blue ring made of plastic or nylon, nearly identical to the long range Frisbees of the twenty-first century.

  I study the disk briefly before tossing it back to the little girl, who shrieks joyfully and catches it. Her mother waves to me and guides her daughter back toward a less populated area of the plaza. Beyond the mother and daughter, I spot the vendor selling more of the Frisbees as well as dozens of other toys and doodads. The cart looks tame to the naked eye, even boring, but when I hold the tablet up I see the full onslaught of the man’s marketing. The air above his cart is flashing different colors like the Frisbee and his name hovers over him. Firell’s Fireworks and Toys. Every few seconds a colorful firework launches out of his stand and explodes. I lower the tablet and observe the undisturbed sky above him.

  “So you guys can see this stuff all the time?” I turn back to Viznir and Tucket.

  “I turn most of it off,” Viznir replies. “You can view just the necessities if you want.”

  I look through the screen and press the de-clutter symbol a few more times and much of Firell’s marketing fanfare disappears, leaving only his business name hanging over his cart. I lower the tablet and turn to Viznir. “You have any money from this century? I want one of those Frisbees.”

  “Why?”

  “Did you see how thin it is? It will make a great anchor to slip under doors. And it flies.”

  Viznir agrees to get me a Frisbee while I play with more of the functions of the metaspace.

  “Hey, Tucket, will the guard be able to see me with this thing on? It must have some kind of perceptor in it, too, right?”

  Tucket’s eyes train on the device and he tries to focus. “I can’t see it. It won’t highlight at all in the metaspace. It must be shielded.”

  “So I can get past the guard. What other security measures will they have in place? I can’t be the first non-perceptor-wearer to try this.”

  “I don’t know. They might have more security, but I’ve never been inside. It’s a science center, so I’m not sure how tight the security is.”

  “Okay. At least it’s not a bank.”

  Viznir reappears next to me and hands me the Frisbee. “There are no banks here. Money is all digital.”

  I slide the tablet back into my shoulder bag. “Then where do you keep all your tiny portraits of presidents?” Tucket laughs and I toss him the Frisbee. I back up a couple paces and we toss it a few times so I can get the feel of it. I deliberately toss it to the ground twice to make sure it keeps the same side up. As I hoped, it doesn’t flip over, even when it skips off the pavement.

  Viznir crosses his arms. “You gonna do this sometime today? This is a race, you know.”

  I grab Tucket’s final toss and slide the Frisbee disk into my bag. “Yeah. I’m good.” I start walking toward the lobby doors. “I’ll call you when I’ve got it. Be ready.”

  My return through the lobby is uneventful, and as I approach the guard, I veer left, trying to look casual. She doesn’t look at me at all, but stares straight ahead, like someone lost in a daydream. Do robots dream?

  On a whim I enter the elevator again and move out of sight of the guard while I extract my tablet. This time I can see the controls. I try actuating the up button, but am met with a buzz and a message on the screen asking me to log in to the system. I frown and delete the warning. I fiddle with a couple other controls but receive the same response. I am about to exit to go look for the stairs when two women step into the elevator. Both are jovial and relaxed. Their age is hard to pin down, but I’d guess at mid-thirties. I notice a tiny spot of sauce on the darker-haired woman’s mouth before she turns away. I do my best to look absorbed in my tablet as the doors close.

  “Which floor?” The fair-haired woman asks.

  “Oh, sorry.” I jolt from my tablet and smile. “Same one, actually.” I gesture toward the nothingness on the wall where the buttons were and nod. “That’s lucky.”

  The woman surveys me once from head to toe, then goes back to the conversation with her friend. As I browse through more of the information on my tablet, the women discuss one of their boss’s new policies on turning in project results and I do my best to look insignificant. When the doors open, I search for some indication of what floor we’re on but see nothing. I smile and let the two women exit ahead of me, then use my tablet to scan the walls. As suspected, the floor number is highlighted on the wall in two large digits. 86. Getting closer.

  The two women vanish through a door to the left that clicks solidly behind them. I scan the hallway. Another closed door to my right is also locked when I try the handle, but when I test the third door, just left of the elevator, the handle turns easily, revealing the stairwell. Thankfully, the stairs are walled in and I don’t have to deal with a view of eighty-six floors below me. The walls are barren and sterile, but when I view the stairwell through the metaspace, it’s tastefully decorated with colored walls and some framed art. The far wall of the next landing, a half dozen steps up, shows a window to the outside with an expansive view of the city below. I climb the steps and cautiously press my hand to the wall before daring to look back through the tablet. I feel like I’m looking through a magic portal that I could slip through and tumble into the sky. I back away from the wall and slide the tablet back into my bag, concentrating on the solid stairs instead.

  I bound up the stairs two at a time at first, but after a dozen flights I slow as beads of sweat begin to dot the front of my t-shirt. I trot up the next five before I hear the noise above me. I freeze and listen as voices echo down the stairs. Without being able to see the stairs above me, I’m limited to the view of the half dozen steps above and below. I descend to the landing I’ve just come from, halfway between floors 102 and 103. I dial my chronometer for a
twenty second jump and wait, hoping I can pull the same disappearing act I used on the aqueduct guard in Rome. Another minute goes by and I realize the footsteps have stopped. The voices are arguing back and forth, a man and a woman from the sound of it, their conversation echoing down the stairs. The woman is chastising the man for something he’s said to one of her friends, and his responses get repeatedly cut short by her admonishments. Their voices are raised and carry in the stairwell, so I can’t tell exactly how far up they are. I eavesdrop on the conversation until it’s clear that the woman is breaking up with him.

  God. This could take a while.

  I creep upward till I can try the handle for the door to the 103rd floor. It’s locked from this direction. I pull out my tablet to see if there is a way to unlock the door, but when I attempt it, I’m again met with the request to log in. Frustrated and trapped, I realize that if the people keep descending I’ll have no choice but to retreat downward. I decide to make myself an anchor point as a fallback position.

  I extract my Frisbee from my messenger bag and lay it on the landing of the 103rd floor then descend to the 102nd, leaving it alone for a few minutes and writing the time in the journal. I repeat the process with the Frisbee on the 102nd, this time climbing a floor above it and writing the time, thus giving myself an option of climbing or descending away from my present self should I have to use it. I make a point of not listening for retreating footsteps while I wait, even going so far as sticking my fingers in my ears so I won’t hear a future version of myself vacating the vicinity and accidentally cause some kind of paradox. Despite my efforts, when I pick the Frisbee up from the lower landing, I do hear something. Footsteps are thumping on stairs and not making a particular effort to be quiet. Furthermore, they are not retreating away from me, the way a future version of me ought to be. Instead they are climbing toward me, and they are close. I curse inwardly and climb away from them. I can’t hear the couple above me anymore, making it hard to know if they are still there or if they have left the stairwell. Two floors farther up, I round a corner and almost collide with the man, who is sitting on the stairs holding his head in his hands.

  “Whoa! Sorry, dude.” I dodge to the side and skirt around him. The man looks up, teary-eyed, but merely makes a weak gesture with his hand to wave off the intrusion. I leap up the next few stairs and put him behind me as quickly as possible. A floor later, more voices trickle from above. I continue on and keep my eyes averted as I pass a group of gray-haired scientists on their way down. I am just even with them and trying to squeeze past their group when one of them breaks off his conversation and addresses me.

  “Excuse me there. You need proper I.D. in this facility.”

  I wave at him and keep climbing. “Yeah, getting that sorted out with the—” I mumble something unintelligible—“department.” I take the next few stairs in pairs and disappear around the corner, but his voice follows me.

  “This is a secure facility, young man. You need to stop—”

  I don’t stop. I break into an all out run, as fast as I can climb. I’ve made it to the 117th floor, just one floor shy of my destination, when the guards appear. There are three of them. Two are synths from the look of their smooth skin and glowing eyes, but the third is mostly human. He’s big. An easy fifty pounds heavier than me, and his arms bulge with muscles that could be straight from a comic book. The single inhuman feature that I can’t help but notice is a distinctly metallic gleam from his knuckles.

  “Halt. You are not authorized.”

  The man pulls a weapon from his belt that looks like zero fun to be shot with, so I hold my hands up. I have the Frisbee in my left hand, so I let it drop to the floor, making sure it lands right side up.

  “Sorry guys, my mistake.” I take a step to the side and stand directly atop the Frisbee. The two synths move to my sides and the first one is reaching for me when I get my hand on my chronometer. His fingers close on my right wrist.

  “You will be detained for question—”

  I press the pin.

  I’m alone again. I look down at the Frisbee at my feet, back on the 103rd floor, but mere minutes before.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” I mutter under my breath as I climb up and away from my earlier self. In a few moments he’ll complete his anchor point on the floor below and start his climb. The scientists will be above me momentarily. I’m trapped again. Mentally I scramble for options. I could jump any amount of time forward or backward just using the wall or the stairwell floor, but without any known safe time to arrive, I could collide with someone and end up fused together like Ajax, or die instantly. The odds of colliding with someone are low, but still more significant than I’m willing to risk. I only have one good option I can think of. Getting help.

  I pull Mym’s geode from my bag and use the silver degravitizer on it, scanning the cupped end over it as fast as I dare. When the green light on the degravitizer finally illuminates, I know I only have seconds till the earlier me will be climbing past. Where can I put this thing where I won’t see it? Didn’t see it. I spin around in the barren hallway. There’s nowhere to hide it where it wouldn’t be noticeable to the earlier version of me. There’s nothing at all between the scientists and me—except a disconsolate man on the stairs. I look at the orientation of the geode in Mym’s photo. It could work. I wrestle with the idea for only a moment before I start climbing. I only let the toes of my sneakers touch the edge of the steps as I work my way silently to the spot where I almost collided with the man on the stairs. When I am just below the landing he’s on, I inch my way upward on my hands and knees till I can just see the toe of his left foot sticking out beyond the corner of the wall. I can hear his muffled sobbing. I ease the geode forward and nestle it into the space along the wall just outside of his black leather shoe. I double-check the photo and dial in the time coordinates on my chronometer. I’m lying on my side on the stairs at an awkward angle to the anchor, but the geode in the photo is on a shelf at least five feet off the ground. It’s doable. I quietly tuck my feet up to the highest step I can to give myself clearance from the ground when I arrive. Footsteps echo on stairs below me. My footsteps. That’s my cue. I take a breath and push the pin.

  My chronometer hand glances off a shelf and I crash to the floor in a heap. A handful of geodes I’ve dislodged from the shelves rain down around me. I protect my face, and when the commotion has stopped, I open my eyes and roll over. A pair of legs in black boots are directly in front of me. I look up the legs to the hooded figure they belong to. The rest of her clothing is also black and a semi-transparent veil shrouds her face. Her arms are crossed at her chest but through the mesh of the veil I can make out a pair of smiling blue eyes.

  “Hi, Mym.”

  22

  “Some people go on spiritual journeys to ‘find themselves.’ Time travelers find themselves all the time. We usually take journeys to get away from ourselves.”–Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2010

  Mym surveys the fragments of mineral on me as I get to my feet.

  “Anything else you want to break now that you’re here, or do you think you got it all?” Her voice is playful. I can see the corners of her mouth turned up through the mesh over her face.

  “I think I’m good.” I smile back and dust myself off. “What’s with the ninja outfit?”

  “Precautions.” She extracts the mineral I used as an anchor from the rubble I’ve created, and moves slowly toward a dusty glass door. I study the room, taking in the catalogued shelves of rocks before following her. The door opens automatically and we step onto a covered wooden walkway.

  The environment couldn’t be more removed from the urban skyscraper I just left. Beyond the walkway, a scraggly lawn has a tenuous foothold on the red sandy earth before it blends with sparse woods and brush. To the left, the ground tapers downhill to a pond, and an earthen trail winds it’s way into the trees.

  “Where are we?” I crane my neck upward. Even the sky looks different. The puffy cumulus clouds o
f England and Northern France have been replaced by wisps of cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere.

  “Mungkan Kandju.”

  I lower my gaze to the woods. “God bless you.”

  Mym laughs. It’s a sweet sound that springs out of her, and despite her somber appearance, I can tell she’s happy. “It’s the name of this place. It’s a forest.”

  “Is it Africa?” The lean trees stretching toward the sky around us look as though they’ve been wanting and needing their whole lives, never getting quite enough.

  “No. Queensland, Australia. This used to be a national park. Now it’s owned by the Academy of Sciences.”

  “Students of this school really get around, don’t they?”

  Mym leads us along the plank walkway and around the corner. More single story buildings are scattered in a loose rectangle. A colorful flock of parakeets is chirping away atop the roof of the building nearest to us. “You figured out how this school works, right?”

  “You mean the metaspace? Yeah. It’s pretty fancy.”

  “Take a look at this place.” Mym gestures to the ramshackle buildings around us. It takes me a moment to realize what she’s suggesting, but then I reach for my tablet and hold it up. Through the screen, the area is completely transformed. The wooden one-story buildings are now a series of interconnected towers with catwalks and bridges. The scraggly grass is lush and green and, to my surprise, the place is bustling with people. I have to lower the tablet and double-check my surroundings to make sure they are not really walking past me.

  “Wait, so they’re—”

  “They call it commuting.” Mym plucks a wildflower from one of the weeds and twirls it in her gloved fingers. “They used to maintain this campus as a real site in addition to the metaspace version, but people stopped coming. They preferred the illusion.”