Analog SFF, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I'm not so sure. It's not what you're doing, Pam, it's what some nutcase Interventionist might think you're doing. Like the guy who threatened me."

  "You'll wrap up your job this afternoon, right?” Pam answered. “Want to meet in Cambridge at sunset? I don't want to have to worry about sneaking out of Boston tonight with the British trying to lock the place down. I was going to get dinner in Cambridge and maybe a little rest before I had to head back to Lexington."

  "Sure. I'll see you there.” She'd avoided replying to my statement, and we both knew it. But like Pam had said, she was a big girl and she had a job to do.

  Only after I'd agreed to meet her did I realize that I was supposed to jump out before sunset, returning to my home now. But it wouldn't matter if I stayed a little longer since the jump back would cost the same. The Virtual City project wouldn't cover my expenses after the scheduled end of the job, but that would be pocket change if I just stayed one more night.

  We parted ways just outside the inn. I wanted to kiss her good-bye, but with Pam disguised as a man again that probably would've attracted the wrong kind of attention in this here and now. Instead we shook hands, Pam repeated “Cambridge, at sunset, where the main road from Boston enters town,” then she headed off to rent a horse while Jeannie popped up my map in my mind and I went to deploy bugs.

  * * * *

  Boston felt different today, in that just-before-a-thunderstorm sort of way. I wondered if I was imagining it, but lots of locals were extra tense as if they sensed what I knew, that a decade of growing tension was about to burst and put history on a fundamentally different path. TIs were everywhere, giving me suspicious glances as I passed by. I recognized a few that I knew, dressed as soldiers or tradesmen or servants or ladies, all of them fully alert. We were inside the decisive events period, and those ready to try to change those events were already sparring with those trying to keep things unchanged, like unseen armies clashing beneath the surface of actions the locals were experiencing.

  I covered the last street on my grid, my coat informed Jeannie that all of its bugs had been deployed, and I headed for the only ground path out of Boston. In this period the city was almost an island, connected to the mainland by a narrow stretch of land known as Boston neck. The British would be sealing off the neck tonight, but I should be early enough to get past them.

  I managed to catch the local coach to Cambridge and reached the town well before sunset. Cambridge didn't have nearly as many TIs hidden among the populace, but once again I spotted one I knew. He meandered over to walk near me as I ambled down the road. “Business done or business to do?” he murmured to me.

  "Done,” I replied. “I'm supposed to jump out soon. You?"

  "To do. I could use some help if you want to hang around a little longer. My employers pay really well."

  "Thanks, but I'm meeting someone later."

  His glance was skeptical. “I thought you were done."

  "It's personal."

  "A local?” He grinned. Some TIs loved the fact that they had the perfect opportunity to love them and leave them. “Has she got a friend?"

  "It's personal,” I repeated. “And I thought you were on a job."

  "I'm free until just after sunset.” He looked around casually. “If you're going to be anywhere around here after midnight be careful. It's not just the British regulars patrolling all over the place. There's TIs everywhere and most of them are armed and jumpy."

  "Thanks for the warning. Take it easy yourself."

  "Sure.” He paused as we reached the place where Cambridge stopped and fields began. “This your spot? I'll see you around."

  "Hopefully not anytime soon,” I added. He winked and moved off.

  Pam and her horse came trotting in while the sun was still a finger's width above the horizon. She nodded wearily to me. “Damn redcoats everywhere, but I've got the route scoped out."

  "How long do you have?"

  "I need to leave here by about nineteen hundred so I can move slowly and be ahead of the fuss around William Dawes when he comes through.” Pam dismounted and led her horse and me back into Cambridge. “I'll have the horse taken care of while you and I spend some time."

  "Nineteen hundred?” I should have known that there wouldn't be time for another romantic interlude. Not a physical one, at least. “You're going to eat, right?"

  "Yeah. No flip tonight, though."

  After Pam dropped her horse off at a stable for a rubdown and a nice bucket of molasses-soaked grain, we found a tavern and took a table in one corner. Between the background noise as the other diners discussed the rising level of tensions with British authorities and the haze of smoke from tobacco and the hearth fire, we had a pretty decent level of privacy as we dug into spit-roasted chicken. “I'm still worried,” I finally stated.

  "That's only allowed if you're serious about me,” Pam replied, her eyes on mine.

  "I'm serious.” Now or never, Tom. Jump through time all you want, but the odds were vanishingly small that I'd ever encounter this moment again. “I'll go."

  "Go?"

  "Emigrate. I don't want to lose you. Now can I be worried?"

  She smiled broadly. “Oh, I wish we weren't in public, so I could kiss you. Yeah, worry away. But it's okay. I've got the British patrols mapped out, I've spied on the activity of TIs planning Interventions and Counters around Lexington, so I should be able to avoid any that might take me out on general principles, and Annie can tell me if any TIs get too close despite that.” Pam saw my expression. “Hey, any man of mine has to avoid overprotectiveness."

  "Understood.” I exhaled and shrugged. “I know you're good. You don't need me holding your hand. Okay. How do we handle the emigration?"

  "Here.” She paused.

  I'm receiving a certified sponsor affidavit from Pam's Assistant Annie, Jeannie informed me. It conforms to authentication requirements for our home now.

  I gave Pam a look. “You had it ready?"

  "I had confidence in you. Besides, there's not much chance we'll connect here after my job's done. You need to get out of here before you get hurt."

  "I thought you said it was safe,” I complained.

  "Not for someone armed only with a single-shot tranq crystal,” Pam pointed out. She smiled at me in a different way, then made a face. “Annie says I need to get going. Walk me to the stable."

  It was plenty dark out now in that pre-industrial way that defines dark. She stopped short of the stable, in a patch of street very poorly illuminated, pulled me close, and kissed me hard. “I can't wait to see you in my home now."

  "Pam? Did I ever meet anybody else in my own home now?"

  She looked away, then back at me, meeting my eyes. “I didn't look. I didn't review your personal history at all, just the TI trip files. Because I didn't want to know."

  And if I went uptime to be with her, I'd never know, either. Because Pam would have staged an Intervention in my future and her past, changing both. She had already changed my future, since I would have left this now already if not for wanting to meet her again. “That's okay. I wouldn't want to know either. If there ever would have been anyone else, she couldn't make me happier than you will."

  Pam kissed me again, then broke contact abruptly. “See you in several centuries. When you emigrate uptime, Annie gave Jeannie directions on how to find me and exactly when to jump to. She also transferred all the credit I've got to you. Between us, we'll be able to afford your jump uptime even though we'll be paying it off for a long time."

  Pam seemed to have thought of everything. As I stood in the shadows and watched her mount up and ride out of Cambridge toward Lexington, I hoped she really had thought of everything.

  Eventually I moved, knowing I should go ahead and jump back uptime. But some instinct made me fade into more shadows and watch the road that Pam had vanished down. I was still there when another figure led a horse out of a nearby stable, distinctly looked toward the place where Pam had left me and then down the
road she'd taken, then mounted up and galloped after her.

  I knew that man. Jeannie never forgets a detailed silhouette and she sees really well at night anyway. It was the aristocratic Brit who'd confronted me in Boston. And every indication was that he'd somehow followed me without my spotting him or Jeannie picking up his proximity, that he'd decided Pam was one of my ‘hooligans,’ and he was now after Pam.

  I wouldn't be jumping uptime. I headed for a stable, hoping a horse would be available without too much delay and realizing I was about to charge down a road populated by edgy British military patrols and who knew how many trigger-happy TIs.

  * * * *

  I made it over Alewife Brook, then through the crossroads at the place that would someday be Arlington but was now Menotomy at about twenty-two thirty, narrowly avoiding a patrol of British regulars. Paul Revere and William Dawes would be leaving Boston now to warn everyone that the main body of the British regulars was coming out. I was about even with Pierce's Hill at twenty-three hundred, when I knew the British expedition was departing Boston.

  Jeannie's warning came a fraction of a second too late. Something clipped my left side, paralyzing it. My horse screamed with fright and bolted to the right while I failed to keep my saddle with half my body not working and kept going left. I hit the road with the half of me that could feel it, naturally, then lay there trying to breathe.

  A pair of boots came within my field of vision. “Game over, mate."

  "I'm not playing,” I managed to gasp, wondering who this TI was working for.

  "Not anymore.” Everything went dark.

  * * * *

  I woke up with a raging post-stun headache. Time?

  Twenty-three thirty, Jeannie answered promptly.

  I'd only been out for half an hour?

  It was an older model stun system, Jeannie continued. I managed to nullify some of the effect. The TI responsible was himself ambushed as he lurked near us and was taken off by three other TIs.

  It had started then, but I was stuck on the road without a horse and still a long ways from Lexington. I managed to get to my feet, staggering from the lingering effects of the stun weapon, and wavered back toward the road. As I did, I heard a horse galloping my way. If I could stop that guy and get his horse—

  I would advise against leaving cover at this time, Jeannie insisted. If my estimates are correct, all hell is about to break loose.

  When Jeannie's right, she's right. Given the time of night, I realized that the man I was hearing might well be William Dawes, Paul Revere's southern route counterpart. If he was ... I hit the ground and tried to be invisible.

  Judging from what happened next, it was Dawes.

  Jeannie alerted me to energy discharges and jumpers arriving down the road where the hoof beats sounded, everything coming closer fast. I spotted a man on a horse thundering down the road, just about the time a figure in a stealth suit rose up less than a hundred meters away from me in the direction of the rider. The TI would be invisible to any local, but Jeannie could pinpoint him or her for me.

  The stealth-suited TI leveled a weapon, then dropped as a stun charge hit. Moments later the other TI who'd fired the stun charge fell, then two more TIs appeared and took out whoever had nailed the second TI. But then the stealth-suited TI reappeared, having recovered somewhen in the future and jumped back to try to finish the job. One of the last set of TIs fell, then the remaining one grappled with the first TI and knocked them both down.

  Dawes rode past the battle scene, and as he drew even with me, two more TIs appeared on the opposite of the road from me, weapons drawn. What looked like half a dozen more TIs materialized around them as the air filled with energy discharges. Another TI jumped into view just beyond the ring of six TIs, but instead of firing at Dawes aimed across the road and sent a blast into the bushes entirely too close to me. A body flopped to the ground near me, then another figure appeared, took a weapon from it, then was itself grappled by another person.

  And so it went. Interventions. Counter-Interventions. Counter-Counter-Interventions. Etcetera. I kept my head down, watching as William Dawes rode up the road toward Lexington oblivious to the silent, stealthy running battle raging alongside him every step of the way as some TIs tried to stop him and others tried to ensure he made it. I found myself wondering if Dawes had made it originally, or if Paul Revere had, or if those defending them were actually the ones doing the Interventions to change history. The original truth, if such a thing had ever existed, had long since been lost in the web of interferences by time travelers.

  People used to think, and many people still do think, that causality is linear through time. Cause has to precede effect. But the truth is that causality forms a circle through time, where cause may be hard to identify but may occur apparently after effect. Sometimes what you think is the cause turns out to be the effect. The old time-travel paradoxes weren't real because they didn't recognize that, but we couldn't learn it until we were able to travel through time and start identifying all of the deliberate and accidental Interventions going on. The more we learn about that, the more we see how tangled and interwoven the circles of cause and effect and cause are, the more people wonder if there ever was a base reality, because history as we know it already reflects countless changes from what might have been.

  But for tonight, I just needed to get to Lexington and ensure whatever changes took place didn't include anything bad happening to Pam. I started walking. Midnight. Revere should be in Lexington now, if he hadn't been stopped. Dawes would get there about zero zero thirty, then they'd leave for Concord with some other guy. Well behind me, the British regulars had disembarked at Lechmere Point and were marching toward me. I had a good lead on them, but I'd need every extra moment, since I couldn't just walk into Lexington along the main road the British soldiers would use. There'd be way too many locals and TIs posted along that route.

  When the road bent up toward Lexington I followed it until another road cut off to the left. It would take me south of the town, where another road would lead me straight up into Lexington along a route that shouldn't be nearly as hazardous. I was pretty sure it would be the same route Pam had taken. And the Brit following her. They were likely both still on horseback, with substantial leads on me. I walked faster.

  * * * *

  There seemed to be locals everywhere as I approached Lexington from the south, but they weren't hard to avoid. The Colonials wanted to force a confrontation with the British troops, so they were standing out in the open or walking into town. I merged with them when I could, blending in. Most had muskets of varying age, but I wasn't the only one not carrying a weapon, so I didn't stand out on that account. The older men were serious and grim, the younger ones hopped up with excitement and joking with each other. Funny how it's always that way. I remembered the Roman teenage conscripts laughing and fooling around before Cannae.

  Being a TI can be damned depressing sometimes.

  When I got close to the town it was still long enough before dawn that the gloom made it easy for me to fade off to the side so I could approach cautiously from overland. As it got light enough to see faces well, suspicious locals might detain me as a spy for the British authorities since no one here would know me. Unfortunately, I had no idea where Pam was planning on deploying her gear. Jeannie could tell me where bugs had been placed in Lexington before my particular job, though, so I could guess what spots had been judged in need of better coverage.

  There were so many TIs around that Jeannie kept calling warnings and I stopped paying close enough attention. Mistake.

  "Hold it.” The voice was very soft but very clear. I froze obediently, then turned my head enough to see someone step slightly out of cover, a weapon in one hand pointed straight at me. “Tom? What the hell are you doing here?"

  It was the same TI who I'd met in Cambridge yesterday afternoon. “I've got to help somebody."

  His weapon didn't move. “You told me you were done working here and now."r />
  "I am. This is personal. She needs my help."

  He shook his head. “Tom, you can't get that involved with locals. You know that. Whoever she is was dead and dust before your ancestors were born."

  "She's not a local!"

  "Another TI? You dog. I never would have guessed. But I can't let you stage an Intervention or help some other TI do it."

  I unfroze enough to make a pleading gesture. “She's not here and now for an Intervention. Just data collection. I swear it. The guy who's after her is planning an Intervention."

  "Who is this guy?"

  "I don't know. Some Brit. Looks like his family has been interbreeding with horses for generations. You know the type."

  My acquaintance grinned. “Old line nobility? Yeah. I didn't see anybody like him on this route, but I didn't get here until after I'd helped make sure William Dawes made it through."

  "This Brit left Cambridge on horseback early in the evening, so he probably got through here before you got in place."

  "Probably,” the other TI agreed. “And you want to stop him?” I nodded. “You're sure he's planning an Intervention?” I nodded again. He raised his weapon and stepped back slightly. “Then right here and now we're working for the same side. Go ahead."

  "Thanks,” I gasped in relief, but he stopped me from running on ahead with a gesture.

  "It's dangerous going into that town right now, Tom. Is this babe worth it?"

  "Yeah."

  "I wish I'd met her before you did. Good luck.” He faded back into cover, and I headed the rest of the way into Lexington as cautiously as I could. It felt like I was in one of those training simulations where enemies are on all sides waiting to pop out. Once among the buildings of the small town of Lexington, I couldn't sneak from place to place, so I walked, trying to look non-threatening.

  I came around a corner, and even though the sun wasn't up yet I recognized Pam. She was maybe fifteen meters away, her back to me, walking very slowly down one side of the street next to the houses there. I recognized her movements as being those of someone listening to her Assistant on where to go to deploy sensors.