by Jean Rabe
What were the other departments? There was one for actors and other performers, where the Marilyn Monroes and Bruce Lees and Lenny Bruces went. There was one for artists, writers, and philosophers, which got the van Goghs and Sylvia Plaths and Camuses. Even a Socrates or two. A lot of psych counseling went on there. There was a high-security one for dangerous subjects—not just Hitler and such, but the occasional serial killer or other madman that some sick person thought it would be fun to haul out of the timeline; it seemed every six months or so, some idiot grabbed Jeffrey Dahmer or Vlad the Impaler. There were really serious criminal penalties for that sort of thing, but it didn’t deter everyone.
And then there was the Personal Department.
“What’s that?” John asked.
Nick took a deep breath, let it out. “Well, we do a fair amount of background screening, cross referencing against intended place-time destinations, but we don’t catch everything. Sometimes people go back for their own reasons. To find the mother who died in a fall when they were ten. The estranged brother who had a heart attack before they could reconcile. The daughter who drowned in the backyard pool when she was six.”
He stopped, letting it hang there. Watching the stricken look on John’s face. A drunk driver had killed Lennon’s mother when he was eighteen—it was in his dossier. The thought that he could go back and save her hadn’t occurred to him . . . until now.
When John finally spoke, his voice was quiet, subdued. “That must be . . . a terrible place to work.”
Nick nodded, let the moment pass. He mentioned the smaller departments for sports figures, for scientists, another to catch the ones who didn’t fall into any simple category—Anne Frank, for instance—and that was it. John was out of questions or, more likely, thinking about the Personal Department had drained him of the desire to ask anything more.
“All right, then,” Nick said, and checked the time on his Reader again. Right on schedule—he’d done enough Lennon interviews to know, within a minute or two, when one would end. “That’s your prelim done. Let’s get you to your acclimation group, and you can get started.”
They went out into the hall, Nick leading the way while John followed, silent, thoughtful. They passed the other interview rooms on their way to the elevators. Two were occupied, the first quite crowded because yet another daredevil had decided to grab Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens all in one go while their plane was going down. In the second sat a big bear of a man with white hair and a beard.
“That looks like that bloke from the Grateful Dead,” said John.
“It is,” Nick said. “You’d remember him younger—he died about fifteen years after you.”
When their elevator came, Michael Jackson was on it, but of course John didn’t recognize him at all. They eyed each other, and Michael got off on one of the counseling floors. Nick and John rode the rest of the way alone, and headed out onto another floor that looked just like the one where they’d gotten on: beige carpet, gray walls, acoustic tiles, and LED lights.
The only strange thing was the artwork on the walls—paintings by Andy Warhol and Frida Kahlo, photos by Diane Arbus—though none of it had been produced in their lifetimes, of course. One of the nice things about working at Timeshares was the amount of art that was always flying around from men and women whose deaths hadn’t stopped their urge to create. Nick even had a Kirchner in his living room, though no gallery would ever accept it as real because it was only two years old. That sort of thing was one of the perks of working in Anachronisms—like all those Versace suits.
“The practice spaces are this way,” Nick said, leading John down the hall. “We’ve got plenty of instruments and recording equipment, and the best pool of band-mates you could ever want. We even have your Rickenbacker around here somewhere—your wife gave it to us a while back, before she passed on.”
“Yoko . . . she knew about this place?” John asked.
“She used to come here sometimes, to see you.”
“Oh.”
Nick went on, not letting him dwell. “Anyway, the guitar’s yours—you can play it whenever you want. Assuming one of the other Lennons hasn’t grabbed it first, of course. This floor’s open day and night, if you want to record anything or just jam.”
A muted noise, like the world ending, was rumbling away behind one of the doors, a red light shining above. They paused to crack the door open, Nick smiling.
“I love this band,” he said.
The music was so loud, it made them both wince—and this was only the control room, not the actual practice space. They walked past a couple of staff engineers and peered through the glass. A five-piece was cranking out something incredibly grinding and heavy, like a prehistoric beast rumbling through some primeval jungle.
On drums, John Bonham. On bass, John Entwistle. On vocals and rhythm, Joe Strummer. On slide guitar, Robert Johnson. And playing the organ and singing backup . . .
“Good God,” said John, “That’s me.”
The other Lennon didn’t see him. He just pounded on the keys, glasses off, thundering away with the godfathers of rock and metal, punk and the blues.
“They’re damn good,” John said after a while.
Nick nodded. “Every now and then, we leak a song from one of the house bands into the market. The revenue from the downloads paid for a fair chunk of the island. Of course, no one’s ever figured out who these bands are, but the music stands for itself. This bunch calls itself The Afterparty.”
He glanced at John and grinned. Lennon had the look in his eyes—the same gleam pretty much all the musicians got when they realized what they could do here. He wanted to start a band and get playing right now.
“Don’t worry,” Nick said. “You’ll have your chance. And it’s even better on the island. There’s even an all-Lennon band there, I hear. Named John and the Johns. Come on, let’s find your group.”
Things got quiet again down the hall. Through a couple crash-bar doors, around a corner, and here were the larger meeting rooms, a few with doors shut. Meetings under way. “You’re in room 518, right here,” said Nick, stopping outside one door. “Nothing to worry about, no expectations yet. You’ll get to know the others in your group, then learn what’s happened in the world since you died. Basic stuff first, the end of the Soviet Union, global warming, the net, China’s lunar colony. They’ll give you a Reader after lunch so you can look stuff up on your own. When class is done, one of the staff will show you to your dorm.”
John nodded, bemused. “What about you?”
“I’ll be checking in with you tomorrow,” Nick said. “And every day till you’re acclimated. After that, you’ll head to the island.”
“When will that be?”
Nick shrugged as if he didn’t know, though this was a Lennon and so he did. “Could be three months, could be six, or even a year. Whenever you’re ready.”
Which would be four and a half months, give or take a couple days. Always was.
“Here’s my card,” Nick said, and handed one over. “Message me on your Reader if you need to talk. Otherwise, I’ll see you at nine tomorrow.”
John looked at the card, shifting it to change the rainbow hues of the Timeshares hologram. Then he tucked it into his shirt pocket. He opened the door and walked into a conference room. Georges Bizet was sitting at the long table, with Glenn Miller to his left. Then Patsy Cline. Notorious BIG. Charlie Parker. Selena. And, yes, two other Lennons.
“Hello there,” he said. “I’m John.”
Nick shut the door and started back up the hall. He was getting off the elevator and heading back to the interview rooms when his Reader rang. He tapped the screen, saw an image of the incoming caller, and picked up.
“I was wondering when you’d phone.”
The man on the other end said what he always said. “Yes, of course,” Nick said. “I’ll arrange it for tonight.” He hung up, got to the interview room, took a deep breath, and walked in. Sitting at the table
was a young man of thirty-five, pale and sickly-looking and bewildered. He was one of the few who, though ill, still survived abduction. Most of the time, anyway.
“Guten Tag, Wolfgang Amadeus,” Nick said.
The group breaks up, finally, at six, the sky dark now outside the window, the rain still coming down. They leave, one by one, some going to dinner, others back to their rooms. Bird and Biggie head to the studios to jam. The other Lennons leave without trying to talk to him, which is a relief. He’s still not sure how to make conversation with them; it feels too much like going crazy.
The group leader, an enthusiastic young black woman named Erica, is talking with a man in a black hat and string tie, with a patch of hair on his lower lip—another new arrival whose name John can’t remember. Stevie something, apparently quite good with a guitar. Erica has promised to take them both to their rooms, to point them toward the cafeteria, and show them the amenities. John just wants to go to bed.
This has been the longest, strangest day of his life.
Or, he supposes, not of his life.
Whichever.
He is surprised, then, when there’s a knock on the meeting room door and it’s Nick Mendez. A bit relieved, too. There’s no shortage of familiar faces around here, but Nick’s at least doesn’t bring to mind an obituary John once read.
“Good evening,” John says.
“Hi, John. I’m going to just steal you away, if that’s all right with Erica.”
Nick looks at her, and she makes a twisting motion with an upraised hand-whatever you want to do. “Just make sure he knows his way around the dorm after you’re done,” she says, and she and Stevie leave.
“What’s going on, Nick?” John asks. “I thought you said tomorrow morning.”
“Plans have changed,” Nick replies. “You have a guest. Come with me.”
At once, John has a feeling, like a jolt of electricity running through him. He knows who someone is, but he doesn’t say anything. Saying it feels too likely to make it untrue. Pushing up his glasses, he follows Nick out into the hall, to the elevators, and back up to the interview rooms.
John’s heart hammers in his chest the whole way.
“I didn’t know we could have visitors,” he says. “Aren’t we supposed to be secret from the rest of the world?”
“From the general public,” Nick replies. “A few people are allowed in, provided they sign a non-disclosure agreement. Even then, though, security’s pretty tight.”
They’re at the door now, and John is sweating. He swallows. “Go on, then,” he says. “Let’s see who it is.”
Nick opens the door and steps back, saying nothing. John steps in through the door. And Sean turns to greet him.
His Sean. Five years old when this long, long day began. Now he must be almost sixty, nearly twenty years older than John himself. He’s wearing the same round, wire-frame glasses. Aside from the gray hair and a bit of Yoko in the eyes, like a ghost, it’s like looking in a mirror.
“Hi, Dad,” he says.
The tears come, swift and unstoppable. Yielding to them, John goes, at last, to his son.
It’s Just a Matter of Time
James M. Ward
James M. Ward on James M. Ward: Obviously, he was born, and not quite as obviously, he has lived a pleasantly long time. He married his high school sweetheart, and she’s put up with him for almost forty years. He has three unusually charming sons: Breck, James, and Theon. They in turn have given him five startlingly charming grandchildren: Keely, Miriam, Sophia, Preston, and Teagan. In that same stretch of time he managed to write the first science fiction role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha; he worked for TSR and did lots of Dungeon & Dragons and After Dungeon & Dragons things; and designed the best-selling Spellfire and Dragon Ball Z collectable card games.
He has written all manner of things that he is unusually proud of—the Dragon Lairds board game, the novel Halcyon Blithe, Midshipwizard, the My Precious Present card game, and the role-playing game supplement Of Gods & Monsters. He’s working with a computer company to produce the Panzer General board game.
He reads a lot, greatly enjoys fencing with a rapier when he gets the chance, and constantly gets beat in board games with friends in the area. Currently, he is the managing editor for Troll Lords’ Crusader magazine, and the go-to guy when his sons need a babysitter.
Jason Nips was possibly the richest man in the world. He’d stopped counting his money a long time ago.
He currently stood in line waiting for his turn into the temporal field like the five other rich tourists. Mr. Nips was the owner of Refresh, a corporation responsible for keeping a youthful look on the faces and hands of the rich. Standing five- foot-eight, Jason didn’t look a day over sixty. He was far older, but the products from his company kept him looking younger and fitter than almost any other man his age in the world.
What’s the sense of owning one of the largest companies in the world if you couldn’t take advantage of it?
Zap!
Another tourist walked into the field dressed as a Roman soldier, and the line grew shorter. In front of him stood a lovely woman in Renaissance garb, a man in some sort of Raj costume from India’s past, and a woman in a short Greek tunic with a bow and quiver on her back and a bronze helm on her head. Jason’s suit was a dull black, typical of the style of dress in the 1880s, and he held a worn leather satchel at his side. His heart raced in his excitement, but his face never showed it.
Zap! Zap! Zap!
The glowing neon sign said TIMESHARES™ Incorporated above the desk. The badge on the man’s chest read TIME TECH GLEN JOHNSON LEVEL 3 TECH.
“Your forms and birth certificate please,” the Time Tech asked, his hand out.
Jason handed over the prepared materials.
The tech read over the information.
“Mr. Nips, I’m a huge fan of your company. My parents won one of your public lotteries and got treatments free. Would you mind giving me your autograph?”
“Sure, my boy, and thank you for asking.”
“Wow, a real paper birth certificate from 1910,” the tech marveled. “We don’t get many of these. Your papers say you want to go back to your grandfather’s time in 1887.”
Jason looked down at his birth certificate. The perfect forgery had cost him a cool million dollars. In his mind, it was worth every penny. “Yes. I want to refresh my memories of the place. I didn’t get the chance to say good-bye to my grandfather before he died.”
“I suggest you don’t talk too much to your grandfather. We don’t want to risk Temporal Divarication, do we? As you know from your three previous briefings, Temporal Divarication happens when you deal with the immediate relatives of your past. We’ve found that in some instances just touching your parents or yourself can force a readjustment in the timeline. I think it was Mike Gray and his time studies that . . .”
“I’ve studied time travel with the designers of your unit. They’ve given me some good advice. I think I’ll be all right. Thank you for your concern.”
“I’m just doing my job,” the tech said, obviously not liking being cut off from his normal lecture. “Show me your remote and you can go right through.”
Jason took the device out of his pocket.
“Excellent. Just press that when you are ready to come back. If you don’t press it, in thirty days you will come back automatically. Enjoy your stay.”
“Thank you.”
The one- hundred-and-twenty-five-year-old posing as a ninety-five-year-old walked into the temporal field and into his own history, breaking the number one rule of the Timeshares Company.
He appeared on the edge of Red Gulch, South Dakota. His mouth tasted of vile vinegar and the place stank to high heaven. He popped an illegal breath mint in his mouth, but he could do nothing about the smell. Cow dung mingled on the street with horse and pig dung as the animals walked about, ignored by the townsfolk. Nips hadn’t remembered the stink of his hometown. He took out a piece of pap
er and read over his notes.
“One, I have to meet myself and talk about our grandfather. Two, I have to attend the ice cream social and get myself to buy Annetta Falkensturm’s lunch box. Three, we have to use our inheritance to buy the oil land. Four, we have to save the life of our brother from the Yancy Gang.”
Jason looked up from his notes and his eyes beheld a vision. Annetta Falkensturm and her mother just walked out of Tuttle’s Grocery. She was a goddess in black and white. Her dress perfectly outlined her amazing hourglass figure. She had full breasts, a wasp waist, and wide hips. She swayed slowly down the boardwalk with her eyes modestly downcast. Jason thought she was prettier than any movie star. Her skin was white under her parasol, and there wasn’t a blemish anywhere. She had to be the loveliest woman in the whole world. He had been a fool to not buy her lunch box at the social those many years ago. His heart ached at the sight of her, and he chastised himself for never pursuing her. He wouldn’t be making the mistake of not buying her lunch box this time.
Struggling to tear his eyes off the girl, he moved to Hal’s blacksmith shop. He had worked there far too many hours, and that would never happen this time around. As he entered the shop, the old fool Hal walked up to him, wiping his soot-covered hands with an even more soot-covered rag. “What can I do ya fer, old timer?”
Hal stood five foot and was as wide as he was tall. His hair was sticking out in all directions and he had a soot-dusted beard. His overalls hadn’t seen a washing in a long, long time.
“I’m after a new horse with all its tack,” Jason said. “I’m told you give fair prices. I want to buy the best you have.”
“Well, we can take care of that right away. Jason! You come on a running with Thunder.”
Jason saw his younger self pop out of a stall with a pitchfork of dirty straw. He dropped the fork and ran for the back of the barn. In minutes, he brought out a large stallion.
