by Scott Meyer
Once he finally stood up again, the goblin used his arms to pull on his right calf as hard as he could. His foot didn’t budge. He turned his head to look at Martin, his eye full of accusation and dread. “That’s really messed up,” he said. “You just don’t lay a thing like that on a guy! I didn’t wet the bed.”
“Well, I don’t really know that, do I?” Martin said. “But even if you didn’t, you were afraid you might.”
The goblin said, “Yeah, I’m noticing a urine motif in your work. You should maybe talk to a therapist about that.” He tugged on his calf again, then reached down, untied his shoes, and took off running, leaving a now-empty pair of canvas high-top sneakers decorated in the pattern of the United Kingdom’s flag.
Martin blinked at the shoes, and looked at the back of the wizard as he ran the inefficient, high-kneed stride of a man with tender feet and no shoes.
“Phillip!” he shouted.
The goblin stopped running, shook his head, and turned, slump shouldered, to face Martin. He brought his hands up to his throat and clenched them as if he were gripping his own skin, then moved both hands up over his face in the same motion one might use to remove a rubber mask. The green skin and fearsome features of the goblin disappeared, replaced by Phillip’s familiar face and sky-blue robe.
The two stared at each other for a long moment, then Phillip asked, “Can I have my shoes back?”
Martin released the spell. Phillip walked carefully back to where the sneakers sat. As he drew closer, Martin saw that Phillip’s beard was substantially bushier than when Martin had last seen him, with less care taken to shave the neck and cheekbones. His hair also seemed longer and stringier, and there were noticeable bags under his eyes. His robe was wrinkled and marred by numerous stains.
“Geez, Phillip, you look like hell.”
Phillip sneered at Martin’s tattered robe. “Yeah, we can’t all live up to your sartorial standard. It’s good to see you, too, by the way.”
“You’re from the future, aren’t you?”
“Oh, well done, Martin.” Phillip sat on the ground to put on his shoes. “You got it on the first guess. Of course, you had a fifty-fifty chance. I had to be either Past Phillip or Future Phillip, because if Right Now Phillip wanted to stop himself from doing something right now, all he’d have to do is not do it.”
“You haven’t gotten any less confusing over time, I see.”
“Nothing does.”
“That’s why you had Gilbert and Sid tell me to drop it. It wasn’t because I was embarrassing myself. It was because you’re the one who was attacking Phillip all along!”
“Well, yes,” Future Phillip said. “I vaguely remembered you mentioning a couple of times that you thought someone was messing with me back when I was . . . him. It was only after I saw that gormless, alarmed look on your face the other night when my package got stolen by those kids that I put two and two together.”
“HA! That package was for Phillip! I knew it!”
“Yes, Martin, you knew it. You don’t have to tell me that. The fact that you knew it is the whole problem.”
“So what was in the package? Was it a bomb?”
Phillip stood up and beat some of the dust out of his much-abused robe, thus getting it on his hands. “What? No! I’m not trying to hurt him. He’s me, after all. Why don’t you understand that? Deliberately injuring your past self is seldom a good idea, though right now I’d be happy to watch you try it. It was a boxed set of every episode of a TV show I love called The Prisoner.”
“I know of it. He already has that set.”
“No, he has an earlier set that was made while the show’s creator was still alive. It has a documentary where all of his costars talk about what a gentleman and a visionary he was. The one I tried to give him was made after the creator dies, and the documentary’s full of interviews with the same costars saying he was a bastard who was in over his head and took it out on them.”
Martin furrowed his brow in concentration. “So wait, you remember me mentioning that I thought someone was messing with you, so you remember the package and Mouse Trap, but you didn’t remember that none of it worked, or that I caught you?”
“Yes, well, I had a lot on my mind at the time, and frankly, some weird events and you talking crazy didn’t make that big an impression on me. I put up with both of those things all the time. And as for you catching me, I have no memory of it. Clearly you never tell me about it. Doesn’t seem like you’re a very trustworthy friend, are you, Martin? Keeping secrets from me like this?”
“But once you remembered that none of this crap worked, why stick with it? Hell, why even try it to begin with? You knew it would fail.”
“I knew that it failed the first time. That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t work this time. If I made it all more inexplicable, and impossible to miss, I thought there was a good chance it might work. Our destinies aren’t written in stone. Even though we’re time travelers, remembering the past doesn’t mean we can predict the future.”
“Phillip, we aren’t going to have this argument again.”
“You can’t know that.”
Martin started to argue, but looked up at the haggard face of his friend, and instead asked, “What’s the deal, Phillip? What are you trying to accomplish?”
“Look, I’m . . . he . . . Current Phillip, the Phillip you just stopped me from tarring, feathering, and foxing . . . is about to make a horrendous mistake. A mistake that leads to something awful happening. I’m trying to prevent that.”
“By attacking him with chicken feathers?”
“By distracting him and giving him time to think. Or maybe by just jostling him off of his current path. He’s pretty mixed up right now, and is just sort of going from crisis to crisis without thinking about it. If I can just jolt him out of his stupor, I’m sure he’ll think better of things. He’s a smart man.”
“Oh.”
“A very smart man.”
Martin nodded. “I see.”
“Exceedingly practical, and wise beyond his years.”
“Really?” Martin asked. “Given the situation, you’re going to keep gushing about your own intelligence after all these failed attempts to get your own attention?”
“Yes. Shut up. It isn’t his fault, or mine. You keep interfering. He might have gotten to the door faster if you hadn’t been talking to him about your girl problems. Or he might have noticed the mouse trap if you hadn’t been pestering him about Gwen. And today would have worked if you hadn’t been so hell-bent on foiling your imaginary attacker.”
“He wasn’t imaginary. He was you! Phillip, you sound like a crazy person. What happened to you?”
“I already told you, something terrible that I’m trying to prevent.”
“Tell me what it is! Maybe I can help!”
“No, Martin, you’re a good friend, and a man of many talents, but averting disaster isn’t one of them. You aren’t one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but you might well be one of their stable boys. The best way you can help would be to stay out of my way.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Look, we both want what’s best for Phillip, because you’re his friend, and I’m him. We’ve established that I won’t ever do anything to actually hurt him. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Martin thought for a moment and said, “Yes.”
“Then I have a course of action I’d like to suggest.”
“Okay,” Martin said. “What is it?”
Future Phillip said, “This,” and disappeared.
Martin moaned.
15.
Phillip and Brit the Elder sat in their windowless office, each hunched over their respective Dell econobox computers, poring over digital files.
They worked with the kind of zeal that o
nly comes when you’re doing something you find infinitely boring, and want to be done with it as soon as possible. For the last seven and a half hours, neither of them had stirred, except to make quick runs to the bathroom or the fridge (both of which were at Brit the Elder’s home, to which they would teleport), nor had they said a word to each other except to ask if the other wanted anything from the fridge, but even that was relatively rare. They were both highly focused on the task at hand, and they knew that stopping to get or enjoy anything from the fridge would only lead to stopping again, and using the restroom, and as such was doubly inefficient.
Their concentration was such that Brit the Much Elder had to clear her throat twice to get them to notice when she arrived.
Phillip turned slowly in his chair and looked up at Brit the Much Elder. She wore her usual neatly pressed suit, an electronic tablet in her hand. He scrunched his eyes shut and rubbed them with the heels of his hands. “Oh. Hi. How are you?”
“Uh, I’m fine,” Brit the Much Elder stammered, looking down at Phillip, and at the back of Brit the Elder’s head, as she hadn’t turned around, craned her neck, or in any way acknowledged that Brit the Much Elder had entered. “I just thought I’d drop in for a progress report.”
“We don’t work for you,” Brit the Elder said, without looking away from her monitor.
Brit the Much Elder asked, “I’m sorry?”
“You should be. We don’t work for you. So just popping in and demanding a report isn’t cool, okay?”
Brit the Much Elder looked to Phillip for help. Instead, she got a quality demonstration of his blinking and shrugging skills.
Brit the Much Elder took a deep, calming breath and forced a smile onto her face. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t mean that as a command or anything. I’m just wondering how it’s going in here, is all.”
Phillip pointed to his computer. “I’ve only got just a little bit more of the logs left. It’s taken two full work days, but it’s almost done.”
“Any clues?” Brit the Much Elder asked.
“Nothing.” He nodded toward Brit the Elder. “She had to scan all of those pages before she could start searching in earnest, but she’s also worked later the last two nights. Hey, Brit, how much longer do you figure it’ll take?”
She didn’t answer.
Phillip said, “I asked her that two hours ago. She said five hours then, so I figure it’ll take her about three more hours.”
Brit the Elder didn’t lift her eyes from her screen or alter her body language in the slightest.
Brit the Much Elder looked at Brit the Elder’s back and asked, “And have you found anything?”
Phillip said, “Last time I asked that, she said that if she’d found something, she’d have mentioned it, probably quite loudly, while rejoicing that she doesn’t have to pore through the journals anymore.”
“I see.”
“Of course, it would help if we knew what we’re actually looking for,” Phillip said. “I mean, we’re looking for the cause of her glitch, but we don’t know what that is. We don’t know if something caused her memory problem and that triggered the foot glitch, or if it was the other way around, or if they aren’t even connected. The only reason we believe they are is that they both popped up at around the same time.”
Brit the Much Elder nodded. “Yeah. I see your problem. And how is the glitching? Still getting worse?”
Brit the Elder kicked her left leg out and pulled up the pant leg of the dark red suit she’d stolen from Brit the Much Elder’s closet. Her exposed calf vacillated at random between looking absolutely natural and looking like it was comprised of polygons.
Brit the Much Elder cringed. “That’s not good. How far up does it go?”
Brit the Elder sagged visibly.
“Look,” Brit the Much Elder said, “I’m not trying to bother you, but this all affects me, too.”
Brit the Elder waved a hand dismissively, “Yes, of course it does. I’m not mad. I just want to get this done, you know? The glitching isn’t up to my knees yet, but it is climbing. It’s also spread to the wastepaper basket I’m using as a footrest. I plan to get rid of it and magic up a new one. Maybe if I keep running through footrests I can keep the glitch from spreading to the floor.”
“Okay. Thanks for telling me. And Phillip, how are things with Brit the Younger?”
“Fine, as far as she knows. I, on the other hand, am miserable. I hate lying to her.”
Brit the Elder said, “We understand that, Phillip, but I promise you’d hate the result of her learning that you’re sneaking out to help me even more.”
Brit the Much Elder snorted. “You’d be lucky if you got to explain yourself well enough to tell her you’re just helping her. There’s a good chance that Brit the Younger might just assume you two are having an affair. I know I probably would have.”
Brit the Elder nodded emphatically. “Oh, me too! But would that even count as an affair, technically? I mean, I’m her. Sleeping with me now would just be sleeping with her later on.”
“She’d never see it that way,” Brit the Much Elder said. “At worst, she sees you as another person who gets on her nerves, and Phillip knows that. At best, she sees you, in a weird way, as Phillip’s ex, because you used to date him, albeit in Phillip’s present.”
“But since we’re not together anymore, anything Phillip wants to do should be fine. It wouldn’t be cheating, just a post-relationship hookup with her, technically.”
Phillip said, “I’ll remember that argument, if she accuses me of anything.”
Both Brit the Elder and Brit the Much Elder shouted, “No!”
Brit the Much Elder elaborated. “Phillip, if Brit the Younger accuses you of cheating on her, even if you’re perfectly innocent, never try to defend yourself using any argument that has the word technically in it!”
“I’m not cheating on Brit,” Phillip shouted. “I would never cheat on her with either of you, or both of you.”
Brit the Much Elder said, “You’d never get the opportunity.”
“Damn right,” Brit the Elder agreed. “Never, ever.”
“I didn’t say you would. I didn’t even bring the idea up. All I was saying was that I hate lying to her, even for the two of you.”
Brit the Elder said, “We know, Phillip, and we appreciate it. Look at it this way, if she does find us out she might not break up with you over it. You know how she feels about me. If she found out you were sneaking off to see me, she’d probably blame me for it anyway.”
“Yes, but I also know that the first thing she’d do is track you down and confront you and that, as you pointed out, would probably lead to a glitch that would end the world, so either way, my relationship would be over.”
Brit the Much Elder said, “Okay, okay, this is getting a little heavy. Let’s just turn back to business, shall we? Neither of you has found anything in the interface logs or in Brit the Younger’s journals. What do you want to do next?”
Brit the Elder sighed. “If we don’t find anything helpful in the records, and it looks like we won’t, the next obvious move is to start looking at my entry in the file. Specifically, we need to find the parts that govern memory.”
“I don’t like it,” Phillip said. “It seems terribly risky. We’ve never done much research into that part of the file out of fear that even the slightest mistake might irreparably hurt—or even kill—whoever we’re looking at.”
“Well, we wouldn’t just go in and start changing things willy-nilly. We’d do research, plan our moves carefully, talk to other wizards about how to proceed.”
Phillip thought for a moment. “We could bring in Louiza. A doctor’s input might be helpful.”
Brit the Elder said, “No, she tends to be pretty cautious. She’d probably try to talk us out of the whol
e idea.”
“That’s what I was hoping,” Phillip muttered.
“No, we’d need someone who has experience in this area.”
Phillip said, “I’m sorry, but like I said, nobody has any experience in this area. We’ve never looked at altering memories because it’s just way too dangerous. We have too much regard for human life.”
Brit the Much Elder smiled. “Phillip, you say we’ve never done much research, but that only means that nobody’s ever done it while you were around.”
Phillip considered this. “Hmm, no. I’m sorry, but no. I see your point, but none of the magic users I know of would ever be that reckless.”
“Nobody?” Brit the Elder asked.
“Nobody.”
“Nobody ever?”
“Well, I mean, I can only think of two who might fit the bill, and they’re both dead, and I don’t really like the idea of going back in time and asking that murderous little swine Todd for help.”
Brit the Elder shook her head. “I’d never ask Todd for help.”
Phillip grimaced. “That leaves the other one, and I don’t really want to go back in time to talk to him at all.”
Brit the Elder pulled up her electronic tablet and started swiping through files. “That’s perfectly understandable. Luckily, we’re not going to have to.”
Phillip said, “Good.”
“Time travel won’t be necessary.”
Phillip closed his eyes. “No.”
“Yes.” Brit the Much Elder turned to Brit the Elder. “Phillip doesn’t know that Jimmy’s still alive?”
Phillip said, “No!”
Brit the Elder said, “I thought it’d be easier to just let you break the news.”
Brit the Much Elder said, “Easier for you, you mean.”
Brit the Elder said, “Yes, that is what I mean.”
