Agent of Time

by Nathan Van Coops

  Across the expanse of grasses and water stretching to the distant shoreline, the rumbling of rocket engines is causing the wild birds to take to the air in droves. As they stream past my perch on top of the abandoned radio tower, their cries are lost in the roar of the machine beyond them. I have a clear view of the amber glow from the Saturn V rocket. Apollo 11 is hoisting humanity’s dreams toward the heavens in a historic panorama in front of me, but I can’t stop looking at the girl.

  This is the third day I’ve woken up and existed as an affront to the laws of nature. I’ve bent them before of course, but this is the first time I’ve journeyed beyond my own lifetime—what should have been my lifetime in any case—and she’s the one who got me into this.

  Mym’s arms are draped on the lower railing while her legs swing gently as they dangle over the edge. Her chin is propped on her arms and her blue eyes are on the rocket streaming its way skyward. After a moment they narrow slightly. “You know, Ben, I may stop taking you awesome places if you aren’t even going to pay attention.” Her voice is scolding, but when she turns her head, her eyes are playful. She tries to hold her mouth tight in an expression of aggravation, but as I glower back at her, her cheeks start creeping upward until she’s grinning uncontrollably.

  My legs are crossed below me, a safe distance back from the edge of the platform. A month ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of being this high up. A lot of things have changed about me in a month. For one, I used to stay in my own time. The chronometer on my wrist changed that. Mym’s dad let me keep it. I did save his life, but I don’t believe that was his reason for letting me have it. I think he wanted to let me into this world of his—the world where time is no longer about straight lines, but about paths not taken, a secret world where consecutive events in your life don’t have to be consecutive at all.

  Last night, we caught the Beatles in their last concert at Candlestick Park. This morning, I ate my breakfast a table away from Salvador Dali at a café in Spain, and still made it here to Florida in time for the launch. Not a moment was wasted in airport security or waiting for a calendar page to turn.

  Mym leans back onto her hands and watches the twisting trail of rocket smoke dissipate in the wind. She looks happy.

  “Do you just wake up amazed every day?” I ask.

  She tilts her gaze toward me. “Don’t you?”

  “I do now. This is incredible. It’s like every day is your birthday, or Christmas.”

  “I know a guy who does that.” She smiles. “He only does birthdays and holidays. I think every day should be a good day though, if you’re doing it right.”

  “Well, this certainly makes that a lot easier.” I twist the dials on my chronometer. “You get to pick out the really good days.”

  Mym studies me briefly then turns skyward again. “It’s easier to have good days now.” She closes her eyes, soaking in the sunshine. I nod, though I know she can’t see me. In the excitement of our traveling the past couple of days, I sometimes forget that she spent the last few years trying to find a way to keep her father from being murdered. It hasn’t been all good days. But she doesn’t seem to be thinking about that now. Her face is relaxed, her skin lit by the sun. She looks young. I wonder again how old she is. Early twenties? Does she even know? If I hadn’t spent the last quarter century with my days encapsulated in sequential boxes, if Thursday could come after Sunday or spring follow fall, would I know my age? Would I feel it somehow? Would I care?

  Mym is still an enigma to me. As I watch her chest slowly rising and falling with each breath, I wonder—not for the first time—why she picked me to come with her on this adventure. She’s the type of girl who doesn’t seem to realize the effect she has on people. I’m the opposite. I feel like I’ve always known where I stand. I get a few glances from the girls, maybe not all of them, but the ones who don’t mind a guy who gets his hands dirty for a living–the ones who don’t run off if I occasionally let a long swim at the beach pass for a shower, or pick them up for a date on my old motorcycle. I used to know where I stood anyway until I met her—a petite, blonde time traveler with a taste for adventure. Now it’s like starting over.

  I let my gaze drift back to the now vacant sky. “So where’s the next stop?”

  She opens her eyes. “Hmm. We’re still in the sixties. Anything else you want to catch while you’re here, or do you want to head to the seventies?”

  “You’re the pro at this. I’m totally at your mercy.”

  “Ooh. Totally?”

  “Um, maybe I’m going to regret that.”

  “Nope. You said totally. I know exactly where I’m taking you.” She swings her legs up, tucking one underneath her, and faces me.

  “Oh God. That smirk on your face is scaring me. Where are we going?”

  “You just dial the settings.” She rifles through her messenger bag and hands me a long silver tube and a hard rubber wheel. It takes me a moment to identify the wheel without the rest of its parts, but then it dawns on me.

  “We’re going roller skating?”

  “Better. It’s roller disco!” She beams. “Degravitize that.”

  “Oh Lord. Disco?” I roll my eyes, but set to work with the silver degravitizer, scanning it across the roller skate wheel like Mym taught me, removing the gravitite particles inside that enabled it to follow us through time. I consider objecting to the idea, but I have to be honest with myself, I’d probably follow her anywhere.

  “So where does one go to roller disco in the seventies?”

  “The beginning.” Mym rummages around and removes more items.

  “And where is the beginning?”

  “Brooklyn.” She’s intent on something in her hands. “I’m taking you to The Empire.”

  She’s studying a photo of a shelf with an iron, a bowl of whisks, and a pair of purple suede roller skates on it.

  “Is that at the roller rink?”

  “No. We can’t make it to The Empire straight from here. It’s too far to jump with these chronometers. That’s okay, we need to stop and pick up my skates anyway.” She stands and adjusts her satchel, then sticks her hand out for the wheel. I toss it to her, and she sets it precariously on the railing. “Okay. Don’t shake the tower.”

  I step cautiously toward her. “What’s the date?”

  “May 18th, 1973. 1600 Zulu.”

  I dial the time into my chronometer and reach for the top of the roller skate wheel. “We good on elevation?”

  Mym extends a tape measure to the platform at our feet and checks the height of the railing. “Perfect.”

  My right hand is poised atop my chronometer, the fingertips of my chronometer hand pressed to the wheel, keeping firm contact to our anchor in real time.

  “Wait. Hang on.” Mym squints at the photo and then rotates the wheel 180 degrees. “We don’t want to end up in the floor.” She grins up at me. “Ready?”

  “Ready as I’m going to be.” I eye the long drop from the platform, then quickly bring my attention back to the wheel. Once we’re gone, the wheel will likely tumble to the ground, but we’ll be years away.

  “Three . . . two . . . one . . . push.”

  I press the pin on the side of my chronometer and blink.

  The room smells like dust and potpourri. I take my fingers off the roller skate on the shelf in front of me and eye my surroundings. Old women are picking through clothing racks and bric-a-brac as dim light filters through dingy subterranean windows. In the corner, the cash register drawer dings as it shuts. The chime blends with the muffled sounds of car horns and traffic.

  “You keep your skates in a thrift store?”

  “It’s not easy to find purple suede skates in my size.” Mym picks up the skates and holds them to her cheek. “And they have rainbow laces. You have to snatch treasure up when you find it.”

  “I guess so.” I smile and follow her toward the counter. I almost collide with her as she stops at a rack of sunglasses and plucks a pair of men’s aviators from among them
. She turns and slips them on.

  “What do you think?”

  “Um, I think they’re a little big for your face.”

  She considers me briefly. “I feel bad for you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re going to have to keep looking at them. I love them.” She grins and spins back toward the counter. A bell rings as the door to the basement shop opens and a gust of wind follows a middle-aged woman inside. It brings the smell of truck exhaust and hot dogs. I step toward the door and grab it before it closes. Outside, the concrete steps lead upward to a sidewalk full of foot traffic, and beyond the road, a six-story apartment building. I glance back briefly at Mym paying for her skates and then climb upward into the urban noise.

  Cabs and trucks clog the street as pedestrians stream past me, a fashionable mix of wide collars and ties, plaid bellbottoms, paisley shirts, and a smattering of turtlenecks and sweater vests. I stand on the top step of the thrift store entrance and breathe in 1973 New York. Despite the exhaust and a faint odor of trash, there is a tang of salt breeze in the air and a pleasant mix of ethnic foods. After a few moments, Mym joins me. “It’s great, right?”

  “Sure is busy.”

  “Well, it’s the middle of the day in Manhattan.”

  “Where’s this place we’re going skating?”

  “It’s in Brooklyn, but that’s not for a couple of years yet. Come on, you want to grab lunch?”

  “Yeah, I could eat.”

  “There’s this little Italian place called Angelina’s on Mulberry Street that has the most amazing calzones. It’s a bit of a walk, but it’s worth it.”

  “I’m in.”

  It’s cool in the shade of the buildings, and I relish the brief moments of sun on my bare arms as we traverse the corner crosswalk. I dodge pedestrians while trying to keep up with Mym’s brisk pace as she plunges into the shadow of the next building. She moves with the confidence of someone at home in her surroundings, flitting among the foot traffic with fluid ease, her purple skates hung casually over one shoulder. I narrowly miss being run down by a bicycle and stuff my hands into my jeans pockets to make myself a little thinner. As I skirt past a pair of rabbis, I find Mym waiting for me near a streetlight.

  “Come on, pokey. I want to beat the lunch rush.”

  “Hey, I take up a lot more space than you do. I think these people treat that as a sin.”

  “People here live fast.” She observes me over the rim of her new sunglasses. “Better learn to keep up.” She winks before leading the way on. I appreciate her figure as she walks away, watching the curves that my hands have yet to touch. I entertain the thought for just a moment, then jog to catch up.

  “You come to New York a lot?” I fall into step beside her.

  “I try to. There are some great people here.”

  “There’s certainly enough to choose from.”

  Mym slows to look at me. “You’ve never been to New York?”

  “I passed through once as a kid with my parents, but I’ve never explored it as an adult.”

  “Then today is your lucky day. After lunch I can give you the tour.”

  “You going to show me the constructing of the Empire State Building?”

  “Hmm, that would be a long way back,” she muses. “Although I’ve always wanted to get a picture of me like one of those guys eating lunch up on the girders over the city. We might have to add that to the extended tour.”

  “Ha. You’ll have to have one of the workers snap that shot. No way you’re getting me out there on one of those.”

  “You just wait, Ben. A few weeks of traveling with me, and we’ll have those heights issues vanquished.”

  My heartbeat quickens. I haven’t asked how long she plans on traveling around with me. The idea of getting weeks with her makes me feel happy enough that I imagine I might be coaxed onto a few girders after all. I try not to show the eagerness on my face. “I guess we’ll see.”

  An opening shop door halts me in my tracks as a group of women spills out onto the sidewalk from a boutique. A pretty young mother snags a wheel of her stroller on the doorstop, bringing the ladies behind her to a halt. I grab the door handle and open the door farther to help her extricate it.

  “Thanks so much.” The woman smiles, and another half dozen ladies thank me as I hold the door for their exit. The press of women moves onward along the sidewalk and I stretch to peer over their heads.

  Mym is three shops down, shaking her head, but smiling. As I close the door behind the last straggler, another figure lurches up from the next shop entrance. In a tattered corduroy coat and porous straw fedora, he ricochets off a planter near the doorway and staggers toward the women. The group parts like a flock of swallows, reconvening beyond him with titters of consternation and a few hands held to noses.

  The vagrant ignores the slight and tips his fedora in delayed cordiality, but stays his stumbling course toward me. I step to the side, but he sways with me, reaching out to my arms, raised to avert our collision. His right hand wraps around my wrist and clamps it with a near painful strength.

  “Whoa, buddy. You doing okay?” I plant my other hand against his chest, to keep him at a distance and prop him up. His lean face is lined and dirty, but his stark, gray eyes have a sharp clarity despite his unbalanced state. I recoil from the scent of stale beer and halitosis, but before I can free my wrist from his grasp, he teeters and falls, dragging my arm across my body and down to the ground. Pain shoots up my wrist as my palm strikes the concrete and my vision suddenly goes dark. I’ve landed partially atop the vagrant, my other hand outstretched to the sidewalk beyond his head. I jerk my left arm out of his grip and jolt back to my feet. The world is changed.

  Shaded sunlight has been replaced with an ink black sky. Streetlights illuminate sidewalks only populated by a few restaurant patrons retreating into the night. Mym is gone. I spin around and search the way I’ve come. I’ve been displaced. I check my chronometer. It still reads the settings I had from my last jump. How is that possible? Shouldn’t I have ended up on this sidewalk in daylight?

  The vagrant is struggling to get back to his feet. His left hand is crushing his straw hat as he tries to get his legs under him. He stretches a hand out to me for assistance. I sigh and grab his wrist, pulling a little more firmly than necessary. On his feet, the man gives me a scowl. “You didn’t have to knock me down!” This is followed by a jerk as he pulls his arm from my grip and staggers toward the wall, a trail of slurred curses in his wake.

  I look back to my surroundings and rub my wrist. My pulse throbs against the band of my chronometer. I gingerly remove it and hold it in my hand. This is the second time I’ve injured my wrist in a week. It was only just beginning to heal from the first fall. On that occasion, I plummeted out a window trying to save my friend. I considered myself lucky to have walked away with just a sprain. Getting knocked down by a random homeless man seems far less worthwhile.

  I recheck my chronometer settings. Still set to 1600 Zulu. So how is it nighttime? Did the jolt from the fall break it? I study the different concentric rings, seeing if anything is amiss. Nothing is wrong externally. I give it a shake and listen for anything loose inside. Nothing.

  Shit. What am I supposed to do now? I look around, hoping that at any moment Mym will suddenly appear to scold me for being careless and take us along our way. There is no one except a cab driver sitting outside a bar at the end of the block, his hazard lights pulsing their warning to the night. At a loss for what to do, I walk back the way I’ve come. The streets are less inviting in the darkness. The towering buildings no longer look inspiring, but loom overhead on the fringe of night, lifeless hulks obliterating the stars.

  I slip my chronometer onto my other wrist and fidget with the dials. I consider trying to jump back to the time I left. Will it still work? I don’t even know how far I’ve gone. Will I have enough power to get back? My mind goes back to Dr. Quickly’s lessons, and the varied tales he told of ways tim
e travelers could meet their demise. They involved everything from fusing into walls to flinging yourself off the planet into the void of space. Those were things that could happen with a working chronometer. What about if it’s broken? Am I going to blink myself out of existence? I’ve heard stories of time travelers not anchoring themselves properly for a jump and vanishing completely. Some say there is a place you go that exists outside of time, but there the line between science and urban legend starts to blur. Every time traveler learns early on to avoid that scenario.

  Those lessons feel as though they’re a long time ago, though for me it’s only been a matter of weeks. History would say it hasn’t happened yet. It will be nearly a decade till I’m even born, farther still when I’ll first be sent through time. But this is time travel. Middles can come before beginnings, and it’s anyone’s guess where the end might be.

  As I cross to the next block, I glance down the side street and note a cluster of young men loitering on the stoop of an apartment building. A dozen eyes follow my progress. Without my usual method of escape, I feel suddenly vulnerable under their gaze. I check myself to keep from walking faster. I continue with feigned ease for another half block until I’m well out of sight, and then stop.

  Get yourself together, Ben. You’re fine. You’re just in New York . . . in 1973. I glance back at the vacant street behind me and then force myself to think. What now? I do a mental inventory of my belongings. Besides a possibly broken chronometer, my possessions are down to a wallet, pen, Swiss Army knife, and Mym’s degravitizer that I forgot to put back in her backpack. I also have Dr. Quickly’s worn leather journal stuck in my back pants pocket. I pull that out and walk a few steps toward the nearest streetlamp to read it. I flip through the handwritten scribbles and drawings, searching for the section on the workings of the chronometer. The book had been a gift, but a utilitarian one, filled with the carefully depicted details of a lifetime of research.

  I stop on a page showing a partially disassembled chronometer. Staring at the drawing of the component parts, I immediately realize I’m out of my depth. Even if I had the tools, there’s no way I would even be able to recognize what was broken. I slap the journal shut. A murmur alerts me that the men from the stoop have moved to the corner behind me. The tallest of the bunch is eyeing me from under a disheveled mop of hair, one hand conspicuously lingering in the pocket of his sweatshirt. The expressions on the young men’s faces range from frigid to glacial. I break my eyes away and continue walking. A subtle shuffling indicates that I won’t be alone.