Timebound

by Rysa Walker

  “You’d have been close a week ago,” Connor said. “As of this morning, however, the CIA Factbook says 20.2 percent—they gained quite a few adherents in the last time shift. Oh, and you mentioned Vice President Patterson?” He typed a few characters into the search window on his computer and clicked a link near the top.

  The White House website opened to display a photographic slide show of Washington scenes, most including Patterson’s trim figure at a podium or photo op. Connor tapped the screen lightly with the tip of his finger, partially obscuring Patterson’s face and her perfectly styled auburn hair. “As you can see, she’s had a promotion.”

  My jaw quite literally dropped at that. Paula Patterson wouldn’t have been my choice for first female president by a long shot, but it was kind of cool to know that the highest glass ceiling had finally been shattered. “But how? Was the president killed, or…?”

  Connor shrugged. “Nothing so dramatic. Patterson just won the primary instead. She was very well funded.”

  I shook my head slowly. “That’s… unbelievable. You’re saying that nothing I remember, nothing I’ve learned in school, is real?”

  “It’s not that your memories aren’t real,” Katherine said. “You just experienced a different timeline than we did after the temporal disturbances you felt. To be precise, you aren’t the same Kate that I would have encountered if I’d started this project eighteen months ago, as I had planned.”

  I took a few moments to digest all of this. It was hard to imagine a different version of myself, with different memories. And the Cyrist Temple was on the periphery of my life. How different would the timeline be for people who grew up with that religion or whose entire families had been of that religion for generations?

  “Okay,” I began. “Let’s set aside how recently the Cyrists were created. Why do you think they’re involved in your murder? I don’t know a lot about the Cyrists, but I know they don’t advocate killing people. I’m pretty sure they have specific rules against that.”

  “Of course they do,” said Connor with a derisive snort. “All major religions have rules against murder. If they didn’t, there would be few converts. Well, at least few converts that you’d want to be in the same room with. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of people willing to kill in the name of their faith—that’s true of most religions.”

  “So why build a religion? You mentioned power—it would seem to me that there are much more direct routes to power than building a religion.”

  “Perhaps,” said Katherine. “But a minister from the 1870s—not Saul, but someone he studied—once preached to his congregations that ‘Money is power and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it.’ The Cyrists have capitalized on his advice. Above all other rules of the church, members are required to tithe. They are promised that their ‘spiritual investment’ will be returned to them many times over.”

  Katherine leaned forward, a sly smile on her face. “And it is returned many times over, if those members also follow the suggestions their leaders make for the rest of their investments. You can be quite sure that there are plenty of Cyrists who knew when to invest in Microsoft and when to dump their Exxon stock. They’ve managed to manipulate their portfolios wisely through every recession. Of course, the poorer members who can spare only the ten percent tithe are pretty much out of luck, but the others? They have, in their eyes, firsthand evidence that God will bring riches to those who believe.

  “Cyrist International is a very wealthy organization, Kate. Much of the money might, admittedly, be under the control of other religious groups if the Cyrists hadn’t… emerged. But either way, it has resulted in billions of dollars in the hands of someone with the ability to manipulate that wealth even further, by interfering in the historical markets.”

  “And Saul did all of this with just three temporal shifts?” I asked.

  “We think that there were three major shifts,” Katherine said. “The three that you’ve experienced. The first was when the temple was formed. The second—well, we haven’t quite pinpointed the cause of the shift on January 15th. The third, of course, was yesterday. We originally thought it was a minor shift for the timeline as a whole, with a major impact on anyone whose life has been intertwined with mine since 1969, because it means I never switched places with Richard, never landed at Woodstock, and never gave birth to my daughters. Therefore, Deborah never existed to meet Harry, and you were never born.”

  Katherine paused, taking a sip of tea before she continued. “But we’re seeing a lot of other changes, so I’m guessing that they timed this strategically. After all, these shifts must be as unpleasant a sensation for them as they are for you and for me. It would make sense to minimize the discomfort and do several things at once, assuming you have enough people with the ability to time travel.”

  The scariest thing to me was that some of this was beginning to sound logical. “Did you know what Saul was planning before you… ended up in 1969? Did you know that he was going to create this new religion?”

  Katherine didn’t answer, but took the stack of diaries that I had been holding from me and ran her finger along the spines, reading the dates that were embossed in gold. She shook her head and returned to the bookshelf, locating another small book, which she opened, tapping the first blank page three times. I saw her fingers move briefly on the page, as though she were entering a PIN at the ATM.

  “The short answer is no,” she said as she walked back to where I was sitting. “I didn’t know what he was doing. But I did suspect he was up to something—something against CHRONOS regulations.”

  Katherine handed me the stack of diaries. “You still need to read my official journal,” she said, “in order to become familiar with the missions. But perhaps this would be the best place to start. We were all asked to keep personal logs in addition to the official trip reports. This one on top is my personal journal.”

  Connor gave Katherine a look of surprise. I thought I caught a hint of annoyance as well, and guessed that this was one book in the library to which Connor hadn’t been given access.

  Katherine rummaged in a desk drawer and located a case, from which she pulled a small translucent disk, about the size and shape of a contact lens. She placed the circle in my palm. “Stick this just behind your ear, in the little hollow at the bottom. If you press inward, it will adhere to your skin.”

  I tried it and the device attached without a problem, but I didn’t notice any change. “Is it supposed to do something?”

  Katherine opened the journal and tapped the page three times. I watched as several tiny icons appeared, hovering above the page like a hologram. A volume icon was grayed out until I pressed it with my finger, and then I heard a faint hum. “You can pause, skip entries, and so forth using these controls. They are a bit different from the buttons on your iPod, but they should be self-explanatory.”

  As she handed me the journal, she held on to it for just a moment, as though she was reluctant to give the book over. “You can start from the beginning, but you’re unlikely to find much of interest until the entries for late April.” She paused, an odd expression on her face. “Try not to think too badly of me as you read it. I was young and in love, and that rarely leads to wise decisions.”

  10

  It seemed too intrusive to listen to Katherine’s personal journal while she was right there in the room, so I headed downstairs, grabbed a diet soda out of the fridge, and plopped down on the cushions in the big bay window. This wasn’t exactly the type of reading I had been thinking of when I saw the spot on my first visit to the house with my dad, but it was, as I had suspected, a very nice place to curl up with a book.

  Figuring out how to use the controls took a few minutes. Once I had worked out the navigation, I visually scanned several of the early entries for the year. Most of them were fairly basic. The book seemed to be a cross between a journal and a reminder calendar—a note about a New Year’s Eve party Katherine had attended with Saul;
a lover’s spat with Saul, who wanted to request larger quarters now that they were living together; a brief but embarrassingly vivid description of their Valentine’s Day celebration—the type of notes that someone might jot in a diary if she were too busy and too happy for a lot of introspection. Other than a rant about a coworker who had too little respect for personal boundaries, the entries made almost no mention of CHRONOS or Katherine’s day-to-day work with the organization.

  I noticed a gradual shift in the entries by early spring. Tapping the page three times, as Katherine had done, I pulled up the icons again. Once I had adjusted the volume, I pushed the play button on an entry registered as 04202305_19:26. The hum began again and then the words on the page shifted downward, making way for a small video window, like a three-dimensional pop-up ad. I could see a small, clear image of a young woman—pretty, with delicate features—seated at a desk, with a hairbrush in her hand. She was wearing a red silk robe. There was a bed in the background, piled with clothing that appeared to have been dumped from a large brown traveling bag.

  The woman’s long hair, which was still damp, was a honey-colored blonde. The blue eyes were familiar, as was the voice when she spoke, and I realized that I was looking at a much younger and very annoyed version of my grandmother.

  We’re back from the meetings in Boston. It was very nice to be able to take a decent shower and wash my hair after over a week of nothing but sponge bathing. Saul…

  The younger Katherine looked over her shoulder at a door, and then continued.

  Saul is at the club again. God, how I hate that place. He always wants to see Campbell and his other Objectivist Club buddies first thing after a jump these days. He didn’t even bother to come home first.

  We had an awful fight in Boston and I don’t know what in hell he thinks he’s up to. He’s likely to get both of us kicked out of CHRONOS, but of course he doesn’t think that anything he’s doing is any of my business.

  He was actually at the podium—at the damned podium!—when I entered the auditorium. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be at a meeting of the New England Woman’s Club where Julia Ward Howe was going to be honored, but they rescheduled the meeting because Howe was ill—and wouldn’t it have been nice if they had mentioned that little fact in the newspaper accounts CHRONOS gave me?

  So… I walked back to the church where Saul was supposed to be attending an annual meeting of Congregationalist ministers. He should have been observing—blending, for God’s sake—but no. He’s at the front, leading a discussion about prophecy and miracles. Several of the more practical ministers in the audience were looking at him as though he were mad—and maybe he is. The others were hanging on his every word, like sheep, so I think maybe he did something—something against CHRONOS rules, no doubt—to get their attention.

  She stalked away from the camera at that point, and I could see her back as she dug through a pocket in the traveling bag and pulled out a small opaque bottle with a label that I couldn’t make out. Katherine shook the bottle at the camera.

  And this… I was looking for his tooth powder, since I forgot to pack mine and this was in his bag. Cerazine. Of all things. He knows we are absolutely forbidden from taking any out-of-timeline articles—including pharmaceuticals—on a mission. He knows better.

  When I confronted him, he said that it was also prescribed for his headaches. How stupid does he think I am? Cerazine for headaches? That’s total bullshit. I looked it up just now and exactly as I thought—its only purpose is as an anti-cancer agent. That’s it.

  Maybe his intentions were good. He mentioned before that he was pretty sure one of the ministers he’d met had skin cancer—I’m sure he was just trying to help. But he has to understand the risks… he can’t just…

  And yes. I know, I know—I should write this up in my mission report anyway, regardless of his good intentions, or I should at least talk to Angelo about it. I know that.

  The anger seemed to be draining away, and Katherine sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes closed. She didn’t speak for about twenty seconds, and then continued.

  He swears it won’t happen again—he apologized for putting both of us at risk. He picked me the prettiest spring bouquet afterward. He just stood there, face like a sad puppy, with the flowers in his hand, saying how he’d been incredibly stupid and how he loves me so much.

  And he does. I know he does. So I forgave him and we spent the rest of the day making up. Saul can make it really easy to forget why you were mad at him in the first place, until he does some other stupid…

  I just wish he’d think before acting sometimes. He’s so impetuous, and CHRONOS rules are in place for a reason. He can’t just make an impromptu speech or give a friend a bottle of Cerazine—you never know what difference even a tiny change could make in the timeline.

  I just wish he’d think…

  The video ended, and I scanned a few more day-to-day entries before clicking on the visual for 04262305_18:22.

  Katherine was dressed in what looked like business attire, a form-fitting gray jacket with a light blue scoop-necked shell underneath and a string of small black beads around her neck. Her hair was pulled back and her eyes were pink and a bit puffy around the edges, as though she’d been crying but had tried to hide the damage with another application of makeup.

  So much for these damned implants being foolproof. I was really hoping it was just a stomach bug I’d picked up on the mission to Boston last week. One hundred and sixteen days—which would mean it happened after the New Year’s Eve party.

  And now—I don’t even know if I want to tell Saul. He lied about the Boston trip. That wasn’t just a whim, and it wasn’t the only time he’s spoken at the meetings. I think he’s using a different name and maybe that’s why the CHRONOS computer checks haven’t caught any anomalies. But I spent this morning in the library—near the bathrooms in case the nausea hit me again—and I found several references that have me worried.

  There are some scattered mentions of a traveling minister named Cyrus in the late 1800s and an entire article in something called the American Journal of Prophecy from September 1915 on how, at a small church somewhere between Dayton and Xenia, Ohio, this Cyrus predicted the Dayton Flood of 1913 in vivid detail—nearly forty years before the actual flood. He even pointed to a boy in the congregation and predicted that his home would be destroyed and that they would find a pig floating down the city street in his automobile. In 1877, no one was quite sure what an automobile was, but the comment was documented in an editorial in the local paper, and sure enough Danny Barnes found a pig sitting in his Model T as it floated away down a city street after the 1913 flood.

  And the article talks about the rumors of miracles—dozens of healings that Brother Cyrus supposedly performed in the Midwest. Tumors. Pneumonia. Arthritis.

  This isn’t my specialty, but you don’t live and travel with a religious historian for nearly three years without picking up the gist of it. I’ve heard Saul mention Sister Aimee, Father Coughlin, and dozens of others—but nothing about this guy Cyrus. And I doubt it is a coincidence that the dates when Brother Cyrus visited these towns sync up perfectly with several of Saul’s jumps.

  Brother Cyrus is Saul. I’m positive. This is all wrapped up with that lunatic Campbell and the others at his club.

  And I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that Cyrus is the name of Campbell’s damned dog—that gassy old Doberman who snarls and snaps at anyone who comes close.

  Katherine took a swig of something from a pale blue bottle labeled Vi-Na-Tality. She grimaced as though it was sour and then rubbed her eyes, slightly smearing her makeup, before she looked back at the camera.

  I have to tell Angelo. I don’t have any choice. My only question is whether to talk to Saul first—to try to reason with him. Maybe if he knows I’m pregnant—maybe he’ll realize this isn’t a game, that our lives and careers shouldn’t be jeopardized due to some academic wager with Campbell. Saul loves kids�
�I think he’ll be happy. And then if we go to Angelo together…

  She shook her head and sighed.

  They are going to kick him out of CHRONOS. I can’t see any way out of that. But maybe if he tells them everything, they’ll let me stay—even if we’re together. And at least one of us will have a decent job—he could stay with the baby or maybe they’d just let him do background research.

  She massaged her temples briefly and closed her eyes.

  He’ll be home soon. He’s been with Campbell and his other idiot friends all day. I’m scheduled for a solo jump tomorrow morning at nine. I’m going to try to talk to Saul tonight, and then with him or without him, I’m going to talk to Angelo tomorrow.

  If it wasn’t for the baby, I’d say to hell with him. But if Saul ends up on a labor farm, this kid isn’t going to see much of his—or her—daddy. And maybe things will go okay… there’s so much good in Saul. I just can’t believe that he’d…

  A deep sigh and then Katherine leaned forward to stop the recording.

  A gentle rain had begun outside while I watched the April 26th entry, and I heard a light pawing at the screen door. The earpiece brought in the sound from the journal so clearly that almost all background noise was canceled out. Judging from the reproachful look that Daphne gave me, she had been scratching at the door for a while. I was repaid for my negligence with a secondhand shower as Daphne shook vigorously to rid herself of the rain that had collected on her auburn coat.

  Connor had come in around twelve thirty, while I was watching the journal entries. He hadn’t said anything—just grabbed a fork and a plastic container of some sort from the fridge—so I assumed that lunch, like breakfast, would be just me and Daphne.

  There were several other plastic containers in the fridge, but I had no idea what they were or how long they’d been there. I poured a glass of milk and began to forage through the pantry, eventually coming up with bread and peanut butter. The peanut butter was smooth, rather than the extra chunky I prefer, and there was no jelly other than mint (yuck), so I sliced a banana on top of the peanut butter and switched the journal back on, watching while I ate.