Biding Time- the Chestnut Covin

by E W Barnes

  “And after that?” Caelen asked.

  “I don’t know, that looks like the last one.”

  “Really?” Caelen looked up surprised. He got up to examine the display with her. “There’s no record for travel to the future.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I am not sure. I was certain that there would be a record for travel to the Temporal Protection Headquarters or at least to that time frame.” He looked down at his notes. “The time travel dates recorded here are close to the article dates. See?” he held up the pad where he had taken notes next to the summaries of the articles.

  She sat down next to him and he handed her the pad while he spread the articles out on the floor. He picked up the one from the Olympics.

  “Let’s start here. What do we know about this one?”

  Sharon read from her notes.

  “The article is about the Soviet Union winning medals at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984. Except that the Soviet Union didn’t attend the Olympics in 1984, and the events in this article could not have happened.”

  “How is it that the Soviets didn’t attend?” asked Caelen.

  “According to my research, the U.S. boycotted the Olympics in Moscow in 1980, as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,” she read aloud. “In retaliation, the Soviets boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles four years later.”

  “And then the Soviet Union collapsed five years after that,” Caelen said.

  “Do you think it was connected to this?” Sharon asked.

  Caelen shrugged. “In time travel, it’s all related. Do we know anything about the athletes in the photo?”

  “Nothing,” Sharon shook her head. “Other than all three of the athletes on the podium were from the Soviet Union - see the uniforms with CCCP on them? –and that they took the bronze, silver, and gold medals for their event. I could not find out who they were.”

  “What about the position of Kevin in the picture? Does that give us any clues?”

  “It looks like he is standing where a coach might stand, and he could also be an official… or security,” she added with a sudden thought.

  “Being a member of security would give him access to everything there,” Caelen nodded. “The event venues, behind the scenes, the athletes housing areas, and knowledge of security plans, weaknesses, and information on VIPs and their security arrangements.”

  “To what end?”

  “That’s what we have to figure out… how does New York City in 1980 fit in?” he asked.

  “I don't know.”

  Caelen stood up, thinking out loud. “New York City in 1980. Los Angeles in 1984. What’s the connection?”

  “What was the reason the Soviet Union collapsed?” Sharon asked.

  “Historians think it was because the U.S. goaded them into an arms race they could not afford. They did not have the resources to keep up with the military advances the more productive U.S. could develop.”

  “Could their attendance at the Olympics in 1984 have changed that?”

  “I don’t know how… but what if their attendance at the Olympics in Los Angeles resulted from something that had already changed?”

  “Something that changed in 1980!”

  “Exactly. What could have happened in 1980 to change things,” Caelen asked himself.

  “There are only 365 days to deal with,” Sharon said with a laugh. “Let’s figure it out.”

  “366 days - 1980 was a leap year,” Caelen said.

  “Do you TPC agents have to memorize that kind of stuff?” she smirked as she opened her laptop and started a search focused on the Soviet Union and New York City in 1980.

  ◆◆◆

  After three hours of research, Sharon admitted defeat. She found nothing to suggest anything happened in New York City in 1980 that would lead to the Soviet Union attending the Olympics four years later.

  “I looked at diplomatic events, U.N. meetings and resolutions passed that year, and events related to the ambassadors of both countries. I looked at sporting events and anything athlete-training related. I even looked at charity events in case there was something related to economic relief. Nothing.”

  Caelen handed her a peanut butter sandwich with kettle chips that were heading toward the stale side.

  “We will figure it out, I am certain of that. What else do we know about the Soviet Union?”

  “You know more than I do,” Sharon answered. “I remember my grandparents talking about how they did not have much in the way of consumer goods, and people stood in line for toilet paper or jeans because there wasn’t enough for everyone. Their technology development lagged far behind other countries, too, I guess because they were putting all their energies into the arms race.”

  “What do we do now?” Sharon asked.

  “There is only one thing we can do,” Caelen answered. “We need to travel to New York City in 1980.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Three hundred and sixty-six days, hundreds of square miles, and millions of people, to find something we don’t know what it is or when it is. This is the classic needle in a haystack scenario,” Sharon frowned.

  “Things aren’t quite that bad,” Caelen answered. “We can set the temporal amplifier with the same coordinates used before. It should be the place and time of the error your grandmother identified.”

  “Doesn’t that mean we could run into… whoever made the changes, if we go back to the same time and place?”

  Caelen smiled. “You’re getting a good feel for all this. Yes, you are correct. We could run into whoever used the temporal amplifier. We don’t know who it was or if they might recognize us. We need make sure we can’t be identified.”

  “Like by wearing a disguise?”

  “I was thinking of setting the temporal amplifier for five minutes earlier. That should give us enough time to camouflage in with the local population before whoever caused the errors shifts into the timeline. We can then follow whoever appears and they won’t know we are there.”

  Even though she did not need a disguise, Sharon still felt like she should hide her identity, and settled on tucking her hair up into the baseball cap she had left in the cleaning supplies box. Caelen was more concerned that they did not have rain gear with them.

  “April in New York City, there’s a high probability of rain,” he explained.

  “You won’t need that,” Caelen added as Sharon put her phone in her pocket. She looked at him blankly. “There is no cellular or wi-fi service that will work with that phone in 1980,” he explained.

  “Oh, right,” she took out her phone and looked at it for a minute. Then put it back in her pocket. “I feel naked without it,” she said as Caelen raised his eyebrows. “Think of it as a good luck charm.”

  He motioned her over to the control panel. “Time to apply what you’ve learned,” he said.

  She pulled up the historical list and found the entry for New York City in 1980. He showed her how to set the time for five minutes before the previous shift, and how to set the time and coordinates for their return.

  "The temporal amplifier will return us automatically to this location, and to yesterday afternoon after 12 hours in 1980.”

  “Yesterday afternoon? We’ll leave today and then come back to yesterday?”

  “Yes. I want to minimize our interactions in this timeline. We can set the temporal amplifier to return us to the same time after each shift.”

  “Aren’t we both someplace else yesterday afternoon in this timeline? How can we be in two places at once?”

  “The temporal penumbra shields us from paradox.”

  “I understood every one of those words, but I don't understand what you said.”

  “It means we can be in two places at once.”

  “Right. Ok, so we’re leaving now, going back to 1980, and in 12 hours we will return to yesterday afternoon. Got it.”

  Then he pushed another spot on the control panel, and a small rectangular objec
t popped up. He picked it up and showed it to her.

  “If we need to stay longer or leave early, we can use this to trigger our return immediately or delay it. Plus, it can do limited temporal scans when we think we’ve found what needs to be corrected. Think of it as part remote control, part pocket computer… I would feel naked without it,” he added with a wink.

  “Hilarious,” she muttered.

  He pointed to a button on the panel. “Push that and we’re on our way.”

  She reached for the panel and then pulled back.

  “You’re sure no dinosaurs?”

  “No dinosaurs,” he assured her.

  She pushed the button. The temporal amplifier hummed and her skin tingled. The room warped with a faint red glow, and the library was gone.

  ◆◆◆

  They were standing in an alley about 15 feet from a busy street, the stench of sour garbage in the air. Wet, sour garbage because, as Caelen had feared, it was raining. He looked glum, and Sharon was gaping. One minute she was in her grandparents’ library, the next she was thousands of miles and decades away.

  “We must stay close by to see who shifts in,” Caelen said, wincing as a juicy drop hit his forehead and rolled down his nose.

  “Doesn’t it rain in the future?”

  “Yeah of course it does, but we use technology so we don’t get wet.”

  “Well, so do we. Hang on a moment.” Before Caelen objected she darted out of the alley and around the corner to the right. Within minutes she was back, an umbrella in hand.

  “All big city shops put out umbrellas when it rains, you know, for tourists and people who forget theirs,” she explained opening it up over them. “I hope the shop owner doesn’t look too closely at the coins I gave him in payment - they’re from the 1990s.”

  They moved toward the sidewalk and huddled against the wall under a shop awning that curved around the building and a few feet into the alleyway. From their vantage point they could keep the alley under surveillance while looking like pedestrians waiting out the rain.

  “Any moment now,” Caelen murmured.

  There was a hum, and a rippling in the air and then Kevin was standing in the dim light, ducking his head to avoid the rain.

  Sharon dropped the umbrella down to hide their faces. They watched as Kevin’s shoes hurried past them and took a left on the sidewalk. Three seconds later they merged onto the sidewalk to follow.

  “There, ahead, do you see him?” Caelen murmured. Sharon nodded. “Navy blue windbreaker and jeans. I can see him.”

  They kept him in sight until he went down a flight of stairs into a subway station. Sharon felt a little apprehensive closing the umbrella which gave them a way of hiding and then realized they had a bigger problem.

  Before they had left the library, she had scraped together all the loose change at the bottom of her computer bag. She thought it would be a good idea to have money and knew they could not use paper money because modern cash was designed differently than the paper money used in 1980.

  She guessed the modern coinage could go unnoticed; but she didn’t have much, and she’d already spent half on the umbrella.

  She mentioned this to Caelen as they moved through the crowd, keeping Kevin in sight.

  “I know, I have been thinking about that. TPC agents are given a supply of local currency, and it all disappeared with the time shift except what was in my pockets. It wouldn’t have been useful here, anyway. I have an idea,” he veered over to a busker playing classical music on a guitar, a large amount of bills already accumulated in his open guitar case. He took a gold ring she had not noticed before off one of his fingers and slipped an arm around her waist.

  “Hey, my girlfriend and I need to take the subway, but we don’t have any cash. It’s really important. Will you take this for a couple of bucks? It’s real gold.”

  Sharon had been keeping an eye on Kevin and did a double take when Caelen referred to her as his girlfriend and kept quiet. The busker didn’t appear to have noticed her startled look. He examined the ring and then handed Caelen a wad of bills.

  “Do you still see him?” Caelen asked as they moved away, removing his arm from her waist. The busker played again.

  “Yes, he is buying his ticket.”

  They got in line a few places behind Kevin and purchased their own tickets, then hurried through the turnstile behind him. Soon they were on an escalator dropping deeper under the ground. Sharon stood in front of Caelen and turned to face him. Caelen tilted his head down towards her, so they looked like a couple talking together while he kept his eye on Kevin.

  On the platform, they positioned themselves to get on the same car as Kevin and watch him from a distance. The platform was crowded but not so packed that they couldn’t see Kevin and move when he did.

  After the train arrived, they stood in the car, holding the straps hanging from the ceiling. As on the escalator, Sharon had her back to Kevin, facing Caelen, and Caelen tilted his head down towards her while watching Kevin through his lashes.

  “He’s sitting down, not looking around,” Caelen told her as the car lurched into motion. “Now he’s leaning back, arms crossed, eyes closed.”

  “He expects to be here a while,” Sharon whispered.

  They rode in silence, Caelen watching Kevin, Sharon watching the light and dark flashes of the tunnel walls outside the car. Most of the other passengers were watching the subway walls fly by or had closed their eyes like Kevin. A few were listening to cassette tapes on Walkman players. Sharon and Caelen felt the sudden reduction in speed as they arrived at the next station.

  “He’s leaning forward again, looking alert.”

  “Getting out here?” she asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  They shifted their stances to join the flow of people out of the car without making it obvious that’s where they were headed. As the doors opened, Caelen kept his eye on Kevin until the last moment.

  “Yes, he’s getting off, let’s go.” They slipped out just as the doors were closing.

  Kevin stopped, looking around as if to get his bearings. As Kevin turned toward them, Caelen dropped to one knee to tie a shoe and Sharon studied at the advertising above his head. She tensed as Kevin passed behind her, but he didn’t give them a second look. He turned a corner into a passageway leading to another platform, and they followed.

  The corridor was well lit, light bouncing off glossy tiles on the curved walls, and there was a lingering odor of vomit and old urine that made Sharon want to get through it as quickly as possible.

  There were fewer people here, only a couple of panhandlers leaning against the walls with the hands out. Needing to keep their distance from Kevin so it would not be obvious they were following him, they strolled as if they had all the time in the world. Sharon opted to breathe through her mouth.

  “Spare change?” a voice said behind them. Sharon turned and saw a young man with his hand out.

  “No, I am sorry, I don’t have anything,” Sharon said, shaking her head. The young man pulled out a knife.

  “Then how about your wallets and jewelry? Empty your pockets!” he demanded.

  Sharon froze staring at the knife and scenarios flashed before her eyes. If she emptied her pockets, he would get her phone, a technology that did not belong in this time. If she didn’t do as he asked, he could injure her, possibly seriously and emergency personnel would find the phone. He might kill her, and she would die before she was born.

  The young man flicked the knife at them. “Now!”

  Caelen’s foot came up, kicking the hand holding the knife. The knife clattered against the tile wall and the young man dropped into a crouch, cradling his wrist. Caelen grabbed Sharon’s hand.

  “Come on!” They ran to the end of the corridor and to the safety of the crowd on the next platform. The mugger did not follow them.

  The next platform was cleaner and newer looking than the last. Kevin was standing apart from the crowd.

  Sharon b
reathed a sigh of relief her heart slowing to its normal pace. They had gotten away from the mugger, protected the timeline, and hadn’t lost Kevin. Sharon looked at Caelen.

  “Thank you for that, back there.” He smiled, nodding, and said nothing.

  They kept to the side of the platform, a distance from Kevin, waiting with a smaller crowd for the next train. When they got into the car this time, they sat in seats. It was harder to see Kevin, but less conspicuous than if they had stood in the half empty car.

  It was only a few moments before the train made its next stop, and Kevin didn’t move. Almost all the passengers who entered the car were in suits and carrying briefcases and newspapers. They had reached the financial district or some other downtown business area.

  The car filled up and an Asian man sat down next to Kevin and opened a newspaper with a headline about a botched attempt to free hostages from the American embassy in Tehran.

  Caelen threw an arm over Sharon’s shoulders and leaned close. “Pretend I am whispering in your ear,” he murmured.

  “You are whispering in my ear,” she whispered back.

  “I can see him better like this.”

  “I guessed," she breathed. “What are you seeing?”

  “He’s looking around to see if anyone is watching.”

  “Can he see you?”

  “I don’t think so. Some of your hair has fallen out of the baseball cap. I am watching him through it.” She felt him tense. “He is pulling an envelope from inside his windbreaker. He set it on the edge of the seat, next to the man sitting beside him, resting his hand on it. Now he’s leaning back with his eyes closed. The man next to him is looking around. I need you to giggle now.”

  Sharon let out a low giggle, and the man turned his attention elsewhere in the car.

  “Good. Ok, the other man just pulled an envelope out of his briefcase and set it next to Kevin’s envelope. Now he’s sliding the envelope out from under Kevin’s hand. Kevin is not moving… no… wait, yes, he is. He moved his hand onto the other man’s envelope and slid it closer to him. His eyes are still closed.”