by Kage Baker
“You Have Missed What Is Obvious, Son,” Budu said. “The Botanist Mendoza Is The Only Operative Who Has Moved Against The Current Of Time. She Alone Might Be Able To Learn The Truth About The Year 2355. The Company Imprisoned Her To Prevent Any Enemy From Using Her For That Purpose. Your Enemy Has Now Captured Her.”
Joseph’s eyes went wide. “That’s why he took her. What if he’s the one who brings on 2355? Oh, that’s too gruesome. What do we do? What do I do? Help me, Father, we can’t let that happen!”
“Then Take Back This Pawn Before He Can Promote Her To Queen. If You Can Recapture Her, She May Be Of Use To Us.”
“But how do I find them, Father?” said Joseph, pacing nervously.
Budu bared his immense teeth.
“Know Your Enemy,” he said. “Then Hunt Him Down.”
Joseph began with the Hangar Twelve footage. He analyzed the images of Alec Checkerfield frame by frame, expanded them, sharpened them, filtered them; compared them with his visual transcript of the mortal he had known, Nicholas Harpole. He regretfully confirmed that he was looking at the same man, though the one wasn’t even born yet and the other had died in 1555.
He had no idea how time and space as he understood them could accommodate that paradox. Worrying about it gave him a feeling as though wolves were tearing at his liver, though, so he didn’t. He went after more information instead, searching for occurrences of the name Alec Checker-field in the Temporal Concordance fragments.
There he found the transcript of the surveillance report from 2351. He was disconcerted to discover that Dr. Zeus seemed as though it would be watching Alec Checkerfield with an eye to employing him, rather than catching him in theft. He was further dismayed to learn that Alec would be, not some shifty hacker, but in fact a British peer with a considerable personal fortune and a very large yacht.
The surveillance image clinched it for Joseph.
It had been taken outdoors, against a background of some ancient city, and showed the mortal Alec Checkerfield striding along a processional way crowded with tourists. He was dressed badly, in a loud tropical-patterned shirt and bright orange shorts; he wore red canvas boating shoes without socks. Joseph very nearly felt embarrassed for him, until he studied the expression on his face.
Pale-eyed determination, sullen anger: this was a man who would let himself be chained to a stake and burned alive on a matter of religious dogma. This was a man who would risk his life to deliver weapons to political combatants, even if it destroyed both sides.
This was the enemy. This was the man himself.
And it was strange, but somehow this comforted Joseph, even as his sense of rage grew: for in all the shifting and terrifying world in which he now lived, here was one thing that had somehow remained the same. The big Englishman—whatever clothes he wore, whatever cause he fought in—would never change, could always be hated as the reliable symbol of everything Joseph opposed.
Of course, he still had to be killed.
ANOTHER MORNING IN
300,000 BCE
There’s been a lot of traffic to and from this weary island in this desolate sea in this lost epoch lately. The Temporal Fabric has thickened to such an extent as to make targeting the place in a time shuttle nearly impossible.
How many times does the murky dawn wash out the stars, how many bloody sunsets throw terrible shadows as the arms and legs on Marco’s generator race mindlessly round? How many gray waves break on the shore? Nobody on the island could tell you. Time has long since ceased to have any meaning for them.
The only one with any sense of difference is the unfortunate Grigorii Efimovitch, who is still lying out on the steel table waiting for his disassembly to continue. He’s not sure why it has stopped. He has no idea that he’s even begun to grow back a little of what’s been cut away from him over the centuries, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn it; he’s an immortal, after all.
He lies there, unable to sleep, unable to rest, unable to stop repeating endlessly to himself the last sound he heard. It was an order. He was supposed to do something. He remembers perfectly, though he does not understand. He will obey, if he ever has the opportunity to do so, because he has learned that he must never, ever, ever disobey again.
So anyway, is it days or weeks before the still air of that island is displaced with a table-rattling boom, and roaring shadows streak across the sky? Who can say? Certainly not Grigorii Efimovitch, for reasons that would unduly stress the reader if related here.
But he feels the table rattling under him, he hears the shuttles screaming in, and he hears too the shouting after they’ve landed; brusque orders given, thundering running feet. He does not see the armed mortals come pouring through the doorway, or the unarmed immortals who accompany them.
Everyone sees Grigorii Efimovitch, however. Well trained as they are, some of the mortals stop in their tracks; and the ones whose stomachs aren’t strong fail to keep their breakfasts down. For that matter, the immortals present are shocked.
Then Grigorii Efimovitch flaps and moves, screaming in silence, and is answered by half a dozen very loud screams from his audience.
A weeping mortal runs forward, pointing his disrupter rifle at Grigorii Efimovitch’s head, to do what he thinks is the only humane thing. Faster than the eye can follow, an immortal is beside him, forcing the barrel of the rifle down.
“No,” says Suleyman. “It won’t kill him.”
“But we can’t leave him like this, lord,” sobs the mortal.
“We won’t,” Suleyman says. Latif strides up to the table, reckless rage in his eyes, anger focused like a shield to keep the horror at bay.
“Secured. There are dozens of them here!” he shouts.
Suleyman by contrast is calm; his voice when he speaks is more quiet than his speaking voice normally is, more measured and slow in its cadence, almost devoid of emotion. “There’ll be an inventory somewhere. Hard copy. Look for it. That file cabinet over there, probably.” He points and Victor, who has been gazing around in silence, goes to the file cabinet and bends slightly to read the cards on its two drawers.
“Merchandise, A through M; Merchandise, N through Zed,” he says in his clear cold baritone.
“Merchandise?” says Latif. “Oh, man. One of those bastards probably thought that was funny.”
“I don’t think they know enough history to be aware of the reference,” says Suleyman carefully. “Gentlemen? Ladies? Let’s begin the evacuation, please. All the coffins. I want the file cabinet, too.”
“You heard the man. Move,” Latif orders, and his voice breaks on the last word. Mortals and immortals stop milling about in horror and begin to clear the long steel shelves of their occupants, transferring the coffins one by one out to the fleet of waiting shuttles.
Nan comes walking from the dark interior, carrying herself preternaturally upright. “Kalugin isn’t here,” she says. “Nor Mendoza.” Suleyman simply puts out an arm and folds her against him. Victor paces close, watching as she weeps in silence.
After a long moment, Victor clears his throat.
“There’s no sign of Lewis, either, I’m afraid,” he says.
“No?” Suleyman says. “Well, I suppose we ought to be grateful. Wherever they are, they haven’t suffered this.”
Victor nods slowly.
“There will be an accounting now,” Suleyman says. “There’ll have to be, when the rest of them know. With a thousand voices all shouting the same question, they won’t dare silence any one voice. They’ll have to answer.”
“And pay,” says Victor.
“Some of them,” says Suleyman.
“They’d damn well better pray that none of these people are in any shape to testify,” snarls Latif.
“Oh, they’ll testify,” Suleyman says, a dark edge coming into his voice at last. He turns to a mortal who is wandering about in a dazed fashion, carrying a holocam. “Agaja, start with the generator outside. Good shots of the arms and legs. Then this poor devil her
e, you see? And perhaps after that we’ll open some of the coffins, let the world see what’s in them. They’ll speak for themselves, whether or not they have tongues.”
LATER THAT SAME MORNING IN 2318 AD
Time might have long since lost its meaning on a weary island in a desolate sea in a lost epoch, but in the year 2318 it had a great deal of meaning, particularly in regard to tactics.
Within an hour of the return of the time-shuttles, holoimages were abruptly being broadcast before the eyes of every Dr. Zeus board member, Facilitator General, Sector Head, and Executive Facilitator on Earth. They were also broadcast simultaneously in every Company HQ and safe house, every research facility and base. As Suleyman had ordered, the images began with Marco’s generator and moved inside for a lengthy study of Grigorii Efimovitch on the disassembly table.
They dwelt awhile on the racks of instruments and Marco’s living quarters; floated over to the steel shelves, where coffins were still being lifted down and carried out into the drear light; followed them outside and focused in tight as a weeping mortal activated the release on one coffin. With a spine-chilling hiss the seal broke, the lid rose and folded back on itself. The coffin’s occupant flinched from the light and screamed its greeting to horrified immortals all over the world.
The mortal bent down and read the name engraved on the lid. “Baiton,” she said, looking into the nearest holocam. “Its name was Baiton. Does anybody know this one?”
In an HQ in southern China, an immortal named Xiang Lan cried out in grief, for she had known Baiton very well indeed.
The scene was repeated several times during the broadcast. Finally, mercifully, the camera turned for a shot of Suleyman, standing in the doorway under the scrawled sign reading BUREAU OF PUNITIVE MEDICINE.
He stared into the foremost camera somberly.
“Suleyman, North African Sector Head. For the record, I state that on twenty-fourth July I received an encoded message purporting to be from Facilitator Grade One Joseph, with whom I have worked in the past but whom I have not seen in many years. The message gave me a set of temporal/spatial coordinates and claimed there were several operatives there in need of repair.
“Fully aware”—Suleyman cleared his throat—” that there have been rumors of certain operatives disappearing without trace for some centuries now, I judged it advisable to take a full security force with me when investigating Joseph’s coordinates. This”—he gestured at the sign above the doorway—” is what we found when we arrived here. There are approximately two hundred and sixty-six individuals who have been, to a greater or lesser degree”—he cleared his throat again—” badly damaged.”
He stepped forward and looked again into the camera. “By the time you view this record, all the operatives in question will have been evacuated to a repair facility at my headquarters in Morocco. These images are being simultaneously broadcast to operatives of all ranks in cities all over the world, to ensure my personal safety and the safety of the operatives and mortals under my command, due to the fact that no official investigation of the facts regarding this prison has yet taken place.
“I strongly urge you to make the content of this transmission widely known to all operatives. And if any operatives know of a fellow immortal who has disappeared, I urge you to come forward with his or her name and last known location. As soon as we have identified all the individuals involved in this incident, a list of names will be transmitted to all channels. More information will be broadcast as it becomes available.”
He was interrupted by a mortal, pale and shaking, who emerged from the doorway behind him.
“Lord, we can’t—we can’t get that one on the table into his box—”
“I’ll do it,” Suleyman told him. He looked back into the camera. “We will do everything we can for these people. Whoever they are, for whatever reason they were sent here, this is too much. I conclude this transmission in the hope that I am perfectly understood. Suleyman out.”
Did it cause a scandal? You could say that.
Suleyman’s HQ was immediately deluged by inquiries from near-hysterical immortals worldwide. A list of the disappeared began to be compiled. It far exceeded two hundred and sixty-six names, however.
There was an immediate response from Dr. Zeus’s main offices in the future, expressing dismay at the existence of the Bureau of Punitive Medicine, as it had come to be known after Suleyman’s broadcast.
They claimed that they had learned of its existence from the Temporal Concordance, which stated that on 26 July 2318, Suleyman and his team would discover the location in the far past and liberate its prisoners. Of course, they had been unable to send a rescue mission prior to that date, since history cannot be changed, nor had they made its existence known, to avoid general panic. However, a committee was now being appointed for a full investigation of the incident, and a heartfelt commendation was extended to Suleyman for his heroic and timely action in aid of the victims.
Almost at once a second transmission came in from the future, but on a narrow channel accessible only to operatives above Executive Facilitator class, stating that their investigative committee had conclusively proven that the bureau was the work of a deranged Executive Facilitator identified as Marco.
It stated further that this individual, a Company operative since prehistory, had begun to show signs of emotional instability as long ago as 6000 BCE and had several times been called in for repair and upgrades, but had not responded satisfactorily to treatment. Before he could be hospitalized for further study, however, he had disappeared, and the Company had been searching for him ever since, though the APB had gone out on strictly classified levels to avoid alarming the rank and file.
Further, it reported that the investigative committee had been able to determine that Marco had apparently fled into the deep past and established a base for himself there, from which he had ventured only to capture other operatives, remove their tracking implants, and transport them back to his base, where he had obsessively conducted research with the aim of finding a way to reverse the immortality process, using his fellow immortals as experimental subjects.
The transmission concluded with the assurance that every effort was being made to locate Marco, and that appropriate disciplinary measures would be taken immediately upon his capture.
This was followed within an hour by a third transmission, sent only to Section Heads and Facilitators General above a certain security clearance. It stated that attempts to recover Marco were still ongoing, but that evidence had been uncovered to suggest that he might have other concealed bases at other locations in time, and might possibly have continued his experiments there after fleeing the Bureau of Punitive Medicine.
It added that if this was in fact the case, then the committee was forced to conclude that many unfortunate immortals who had dropped from sight over the years and whose whereabouts were still unrecorded might have become his victims, especially since further evidence suggested that Marco had used his Facilitator training to pose as a security technical. He was thought to have taken custody of operatives who were being transferred between bases for minor disciplinary hearings, and abducted them.
Still unresolved was the status of Facilitator Grade One Joseph, who had allegedly sent the coded transmission advising Suleyman of the existence of the bureau. Joseph, as far as the committee had been able to determine, had disappeared in 2276 under suspicious circumstances. He may or may not have been a member of the notorious Plague Cabal, most of whose members had been apprehended at that time. He may or may not have been guilty of collaborating with Marco. He may or may not have been responsible for the disappearance of another operative, Literature Specialist Grade Two Lewis. Further investigation was necessary before any conclusions could be drawn, and any operative with information that might assist the committee in its inquiries as to Joseph’s whereabouts should contact it immediately.
This final transmission concluded with the Company’s assurance that every effort was
being made to locate the missing operatives and capture Marco, and with its expression of sorrow that this situation had occurred, though adding the observation that, given the complexities of Temporal Influence, such a terrible tragedy was perhaps inevitable, and might in fact have been worse.
STILL ANOTHER MORNING
IN 2318 AD
“Hey, Father?”
Budu opened his eyes and stared down through the glass. Joseph was peering up at him from the other side, a look of bright speculation on his face.
“Got a question for you. You remember way back, oh, it must have been fourteen thousand years ago, you and I were having a conversation about whether or not history could be changed? How all we had was the Company’s word for it that it couldn’t?”
“I Remember.”
“So, what about it, really? Would it be possible, if you had enough warning? Like, if the Company had really wanted to, they might have stationed operatives to prevent Napoleon being born, or Hitler?” Joseph scratched behind his ear thoughtfully. “I was just thinking I might put it to the test. Give it the old college try, you know? For the sake of experiment. For Mendoza’s sake, too.”
He grinned up at Budu. “See, I found a few more details in the Temporal Concordance. About the guy. Alec Checkerfield. He’s slouching someplace to be born already! Only not Bethlehem. The Concordance says he’s going to be born on a boat near Jamaica on 12 January 2320. That’s just two years from now. What if I was able to prevent that? Fix it so he’s never even conceived. Wouldn’t that be great? There’d be no Hangar Twelve Man, so no Mars Two Disaster. I know it’s pretty radical, but what do you think?”
What Budu was thinking, regretfully, was that his son had gone mad in his loneliness and disconnection. It was not, however, the end of the world. Not for another thirty-seven years, at least. It was simply unfortunate, because Joseph’s obsession with the mortal man was a distraction from the more important business of plotting a strategy to bring down Dr. Zeus. Though his desire to punish the mortal was praiseworthy, and the experiment in Temporal Physics probably worth the effort . . .
