In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  Interesting. I’ve jumped into a part of the timeline prior to them knowing Mym has already given up the warp clock. It’s coming, but they haven’t gotten the call yet. They must have a tachyon pulse transmitter somewhere if they are going to communicate about it. Maybe there’s a way I can use it to call for help.

  “Let’s get going,” Wig Guy says, “before we lose the daylight.”

  I’m not great at riding horses. I’m even less great with my hands tied in front of me. At least I’m not obligated to do any steering as my horse is being led along behind the others.

  I try to get my bearings as we ride. We’re out in the countryside. The weather is blustery and cool, with red and gold leaves drifting down in a lazy sort of rain from the trees overhead. I’m grateful they haven’t blindfolded me because otherwise I’d have no idea how to get back to the time gate. I’d also be missing what is inarguably a magnificent vista. My two captors have lapsed into silence as we trot along. Perhaps even they are feeling reverence for the incredible view.

  I don’t know for sure which state I’m in. If they came here to abduct Benedict Arnold, then it narrows it down. Connecticut? I suspect it’s somewhere in New England at least.

  My captors don’t seem especially worried about my presence. They look back to check on me periodically, but they don’t seem concerned that I’ll fall from my horse and try to run for it.

  One advantage of being earlier in the collective timeline, these two won’t have heard about any of my previous escape attempts. They seem to be handling this hostage-taking thing rather casually. That may work to my advantage.

  I need a plan. The bad news is, these guys aren’t my main problem. My main issue is time itself. If the other me they have hostage is Piper’s dad, I already saw the video of this timeline’s future, and one of us is going to get shot. If I change that outcome, I don’t really stop it. Depending on the intensity of the paradox I create, I could enter an entirely alternate timeline where we both survive—a timeline B. But then I’ve duplicated the streams, and I have no idea what will happen to the other me in timeline A who didn’t get shot. Will anyone save him?

  The only way I know for sure how to avoid a duplicate timestream and not double my problems is to not change the events. But then one of us gets shot. How do I manage that?

  All things considered, a change to the timestream will still be preferable to dying, but if there’s a way to save us that doesn’t involve condemning alternate selves to a worse fate, then I at least have to try.

  I’m still puzzling over a solution when we reach our destination.

  It’s a typical New England farmhouse. Another reason I don’t love colonial times is that the houses are pretty boring. Nine windows symmetrically spaced around a door in the center of a rectangle. Sloped roof. Chimney in the middle. I guess they hadn’t thought up front porches yet. I’m helped from my horse under the watchful eye of the big dude I’ve decided to call Smiley. He seems the type of guy who ought to have a name that’s the opposite of his actual appearance. Tiny would work too.

  Tiny Smiley shoves me toward the house.

  “You’re going to stay inside and shut up,” the guy in the wig says. I’ve decided his name will be Wiggy McWigerson. “You give us any trouble, you get a beating. Got it?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of giving you any trouble,” I say. “Not with such charming hospitality.”

  Wiggy scowls at me but points toward the door.

  The sun has disappeared below the horizon, and twilight is taking a grip on the landscape around the farm.

  As I’m approaching the corner of the house, I notice two hitching posts jutting from the ground at the side. The spot from the video.

  Shit. That doesn’t bode well.

  A door opens ahead of us. They have a friend. He’s wearing a coat with shiny buttons and epaulettes on the shoulders. I recognize the outfit from the video too. George Washington Mask. The shooter.

  “’Bout time you made it back. Expected you half an hour ago. Who’s this?”

  “Apparently they sent us a second hostage,” Wiggy says.

  “What for?”

  “Do I look like I know?” Wiggy throws up a hand. “You know Franco never tells me shit. It’s like he thinks we’re mind readers or something.”

  The man in the doorway appraises me. “A younger one. Maybe they just wanted a spare, in case the Quickly girl won’t give up the clock on the first try.” He looks at Smiley. “Go unsaddle the horses. We won’t need them anymore tonight.”

  Smiley crosses his arms. “You better not get to thinking that because I’m dressed up like a slave, and we’re in olden times, that I’ll be taking orders from you.”

  Epaulettes considers the big man and frowns. He turns to Wiggy. “Fine. You go unsaddle the horses then. Somebody has to do it.”

  Wiggy looks exasperated but doesn’t argue.

  I’m led into the house by Smiley and shoved into an open room. A stone fireplace dominates the far wall with various cooking implements hanging from the mantel. Cast iron skillets and heavy fire pokers catch my eye, but I don’t have time to consider possible alternative uses for them because I am marched toward a wooden rocking chair in one corner of the otherwise open room.

  Smiley shoves me into the chair and glares at me, as if securing me there with just his mind. It’s working. My hands are only loosely tied in front of me, but I have zero desire to get up and piss him off. He strides over to a door in the corner. When he swings the door open, it reveals a pantry lined with wooden shelves. The shelves are loaded with preserved fruits, sacks of flour, beans, and barrels of what might be beer or mead. The pantry isn’t only storing food, however. Seated among the canvas flour sacks and casks of beer is a man in a floppy shirt like mine. He lifts his head.

  It’s me.

  Smiley gestures for the other me to get up, and as he exits the pantry, our eyes meet. His eyebrows raise but he doesn’t speak. My other self isn’t bound, but he notes the guns in our captors’ hands and maintains a passive silence. I likewise keep my mouth shut as Epaulettes drags another chair over next to mine and deposits the other me in it.

  “May as well get the video done.” Epaulettes pulls a phone from his pocket and fiddles with the camera settings.

  “Mym isn’t going to comply with this, you know,” the other me says calmly. “I don’t know why you think taking me hostage is a good idea.”

  He’s wrong, but I just keep my mouth shut and stare at the floor.

  “Shut up and look at the camera,” Smiley says from beside me. His fingers grasp my scalp and yank my head up, forcing me to look at Epaulettes.

  “It’s too dark out,” I say. “I’ve seen this video. It happens during the daytime.”

  Epaulettes stops the camera and glares at me. “What are you on about now?”

  “I’ve seen the video. My guess is that you’ll get a message from Franco, sometime tonight. He’s going to give you new instructions on what to do with us. You’ll send the video to him after. If you do it now, you’re just wasting time.”

  “Bloody know-it-all time travelers. You’re the reason we’re out here, you know? So nobody tells us what to do every damn second. Get up.” He walks over and grabs me by the shirt, pulling me to my feet. He looks like he’s going to punch me.

  At that moment the front door opens and Wiggy McWigerson walks back in.

  “Hey. Got a ping on the TPT. Supposed to tune in for a message from Franco sometime tonight. Says he’s got new instructions for us.”

  Epaulettes releases his grip on my shirt, then turns to berate his companion. “Hey. I didn’t say nothing about scheduling more calls. You were just supposed to take care of the horses.”

  “What, and I don’t get free will around here?” Wiggy scoffs at him. “You’re gettin’ to be as bad as Franco. Who died and made you the boss?”

  Smiley turns and engages in the bickering too. While they’re distracted, I pivot and pilfer a flat, cast iron plate f
rom the mantel and shove it up under my shirt. It’s not the easiest feat with my hands bound, and its weight threatens to pull my pants down as I tuck it away. But by the time Epaulettes turns back around, I’m standing quietly with what I hope is an innocent-looking expression on my face.

  “Fine. Screw it. Get these two back in their cell. I’m tired of all this nonsense. We’ve got a government to change here. Our mission is more important. I’ll deal with this warp clock shit in the morning.”

  Smiley grabs me by the arm and shoves me toward the pantry. My other self is plucked from his chair in the same manner and forced inside as well. The heavy wooden door slams shut and is secured from the other side.

  My older self slowly turns to me, the concern evident on his face. “You said you’ve seen tomorrow on video. Tell me you came here with a plan.”

  I reach under my shirt and awkwardly pull the cast iron plate from my waistband. I drop it onto the lid of one of the barrels. “Honestly, I’m kind of making this up as I go. I’m hoping you might help me with the details, because come morning, one of us is getting shot.”

  20

  “There is a common misconception that love is without cost. I would argue that we pay for love daily, and the currency it requires is time.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2001

  “It’s not that I’m not happy to see you,” the other me says. He brushes a hand across his brow. “But I was kind of hoping for a bigger rescue party.”

  After being unceremoniously locked into the pantry, it only takes a brief look around to reveal that there is little chance of escape. There are a few wooden barrels and multiple bags of grain but no windows and little that could be used to help us. The floor is dusty and only dimly lit by a single candle burning in the corner. I sidestep a loose potato on the floor. “They treating you okay?” I ask.

  “Not really. But they haven’t started chopping off fingers yet or anything, so I guess it could be worse.” He keeps his voice low to avoid being overheard by anyone on the other side of the door.

  My other self unties the knots at my wrists, letting the ropes fall to the floor.

  He has a shirt similar to mine with a lace-up collar. Had we both been wearing the same clothes in the video? I can’t recall.

  He picks up the cast iron plate I’ve pilfered from the mantle. “Is this part of your master plan?”

  “Worked in Back to the Future III.”

  The other me looks skeptical. “He stole it from a Clint Eastwood movie first though, right?”

  “Yeah. I think so,” I say. “But I’ve only ever seen the Back to the Future version.”

  “Either way it’s a very Hollywood solution.” He appraises it doubtfully. “You don’t have a better plan? With two of us, it at least evens the odds in a fist fight.”

  “We can’t attempt any escapes until after that video tomorrow, otherwise it’ll create a temporal paradox,” I explain. “We have to go through with it.”

  “The video where one of us gets shot.”

  I nod.

  “You know which one of us it is?” He rocks the cast iron plate back and forth in his hands.

  “Actually no. Both of us had bags over our heads in the video. I just know it was the guy on the right that gets shot.”

  “When do they do it?” my other self asks.

  “Not sure. It’s outside. The hitching posts.”

  “And you saw that exactly? One of us gets shot for sure?”

  “Kind of hard to forget.”

  He sets the plate down and moves over to the bags of grain. He’s made himself a sort of couch out of them. “And there’s no changing it without creating a paradox.”

  “I suppose we could try, but it would be breaking a lot of rules. It would almost certainly make a new timestream.”

  “We’d duplicate ourselves again,” he says. “But shit. We’ve had enough of that already for one lifetime. If we create another timeline and we all survive, we’d have to share the rest of our lives with more versions of us. You’d have to share Mym. I’d have to share my daughter.”

  I consider the mess my life has been since becoming a time traveler. I’ve definitely had my fill of other selves. But then again, I’m not sure I can even claim to be the original version of myself anymore after all the timestreams I’ve survived. And I’d rather be alive than dead. My eyes fall on the cast iron plate. If he doesn’t plan on using it . . .

  “How is Mym?” he asks.

  “Terrified, I imagine. She’s probably worried sick about us.”

  “Us? Does she know I’m here?” He looks hopeful. “Mym from your time?”

  “How much do you know about what’s going on?” I ask.

  He crosses his arms and leans back against the wall. “Not much. I’ve been in here since this morning when they grabbed me, but they haven’t been especially chatty. I only know they’re after something Mym has, and they want to use me as leverage.”

  “Not just you.” I slump to the floor beneath a set of shelves, then explain what I know about the warp clock.

  The other me listens carefully until I mention the part about how it shuts down all the chronometers.

  “Whoa, hold up! So no one else will be able to get to us once they have it?”

  “Not unless we find this clock and get the chronometers turned back on,” I whisper, encouraging him to keep his voice down.

  “Wow. That’s bad. I didn’t even know that was possible,” he mutters.

  His statement and this situation confirm one thing I was fairly certain of before but had to be sure about. He’s not me. Well, I suppose I should say, I’m not going to be him in the future. Whatever life I lead from here won’t wind back around in a causal loop and leave me in his place again, because I would most certainly remember the day I’ve just had.

  “I also met your daughter.”

  The other me sits up straighter and looks me directly in the eyes. “Where? Is she okay?”

  “For the moment. But we need to get back to her.”

  It takes rather longer to give him the story of my day with Piper, even the abbreviated version. He looks at times shocked and other times relieved to hear that we even survived. When I get to the part about Franco, he gets angry.

  “An arena full of the worst people in history? And they put a little girl in there? I thought these guys were a bunch of numb nuts, but I didn’t think they were downright evil. Who does that?” Frustrated, he rubs a hand through his hair, then stands. “Her mom is going to be horrified.”

  The mention of the older Mym stirs another issue to mind. Since it seems like we aren’t going anywhere, I figure I may as well ask.

  “What happened with you two? In the future? Piper let on that you weren’t living at home anymore. Did you get . . .” The word seems stuck in my throat. “. . . divorced?”

  The other me shakes his head. “Not officially. I guess you can say we’re separated. Whatever that means as a time traveler.” He pulls a jar of fruit preserves from the shelf, pauses, then offers it to me along with a wooden spoon. I reach forward and take it eagerly. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten that I’ve passed beyond hungry. My stomach seems to sense that relief is near, however. It does a little flip in my abdomen as I spoon the first of the peaches into my mouth.

  “I wonder if my Mym even knows I’m here,” he comments, grabbing his own jar of fruit from the shelf.

  “Was it that bad?” I ask, garbling through a mouthful of peaches.

  “It’s just been a while since I’ve seen her.”

  I consider the man before me. He’s perhaps ten years older than me, but he has a definite air of resignation as he settles back to his seat.

  “I don’t really want to pry, but I feel like it might be important that I do. You mind letting me in on what happened? I don’t mean to be insensitive, but Mym and I are doing pretty great these days. Life is good. I’m surprised it could ever get so bad.”

  “I remember those days,” Ben says. “The easy time
s.”

  “I wouldn’t call it easy,” I object. “We have our share of arguments. Nothing catastrophic though.”

  “Why would it be?” Ben shifts his position on the bags of grain. “You have it made right now. No real responsibilities. Nearly inexhaustible funds. You can get up any given morning and travel anywhere in the world. You can relive the same day if you want. You’re young, in love, and you’re totally free.”

  His statement feels like I’m headed toward a cliff. “Yeah? And?”

  “I’m just saying that you’re still living the honeymoon. It can’t last forever.”

  “It’s been a couple of years,” I argue. “At least I think it has . . . Things are still great.”

  “You have the conversation about kids yet?” He cocks an eyebrow at me.

  I narrow my eyes. “Sure. We’ve talked about it. We’re going to wait awhile.”

  “And you think that’s what she wants? To wait?”

  “It’s what we want,” I clarify. “We’re not ready to settle down yet.”

  My other self sits up straighter, then leans toward me conspiratorially. “I’m going to fill you in on a little secret, since I actually have the voice of experience to back me up. You are the one who doesn’t want to settle down. Mym has been ready for a long time. Since before you were married. She’s been a time traveler her whole life. She’s not the one craving adventure and freedom anymore. You’re the only one left in that boat.”

  I set my empty jar of peaches on the floor and study the ring on my finger. “We’ve had the discussion.”

  “And you’ll have it again. But let me give you another tidbit. Getting dragged into parenthood backward won’t work. If you don’t look it in the eye, you’re going to get run over.”

  “Time travelers have kids,” I say, finding myself echoing Mym’s own argument. “It can’t be that much more complicated than for any other couple.”

  “You don’t think so?” My other self studies me. “Has anything about being a time traveler made your life less complicated?”