by John Hulme
“Only so you wouldn’t have to live the hard lives they did. Only out of love.”
As much as Shan felt the hurt and anger coursing through her, the voice had spoken honestly.
“Sorry, little flower. I’m only trying to help.”
“How?” Shan forced the tears back into her throat. “By making me feel bad?”
“By showing you the world you’ve created for yourself.”
The Briefer had to admit, it was not a pretty world she lived in. In fact, it strangely mirrored the one she resided in now: cold, dark, and lonely. And yet if the voice was right, and that world had been one of her own creation, then it stood to reason it was possible for her to make a new one.
“Now you’re starting to see the light.”
“Yeah, but what good will it do me if I’m stuck here in Meanwhile?”
“No,” said the voice, and Shan almost felt like someone had whacked her on the back of the head. “You’re really starting to see the light.”
It took her a moment to see that the voice wasn’t talking about a metaphorical light but a real light that was emanating from somewhere ahead in the distance. It wasn’t much—just a change in the shade of the blackness, really—but it was the first inkling that there might be a way out of this abyss.
“Well,” said the voice, and its eyes would be twinkling if it had any, “what are you waiting for?”
Having no answer to that question, Shan got up off the ground and slung her Briefcase over her shoulder. She was tempted to thank the voice or ask for its name, but she still wasn’t positive if there was a voice at all. So she just started tramping off toward the light.
“You’re welcome!”
Shan stopped in her tracks, afraid she had offended the speaker (or herself), but a good-natured laugh greeted her instead.
“Travel safe, little flower. And don’t forget—it is you who make the rules of the game . . .”
1 Train, New York, New York
“Next stop, 28th Street!” came the barely audible crackle from the speaker above. “Please stand clear of the closing doors!”
Sully and Becker stood inside a packed subway car and held onto the metal straps for dear life. A slideshow of graffiti, pipes, and mosaics zipped by the windows, matched only by the theater on the inside—commuters of every shape, size, and color, all looking a little worse for the wear after a long day on the job.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” marveled Sully. “To be in the presence of the Plan in action instead of listening from afar?”
“How did you end up in History, anyway?” asked Becker, ignoring the woman in a business suit who jostled him from behind. “That’s a pretty random job.”
“Actually, I used to work in the Big Building.” Sully switched his grip to one of the passenger poles. “But that was another life ago.”
“The Big Building?” Becker was struck by a moment of recognition. “Waitamminnit—you’re not Danny Sullivan, are you?”
A wistful smile crept across the Keeper’s face.
“That would be me.”
Everybody in The Seems knew the story of Danny Sullivan. He had been one of the top Case Workers in the Big Building, and rumored to be in line for a spot among the Powers That Be. That Danny Sullivan had effortlessly managed entire Sectors and was famous for pulling sweet moves, sometimes years in the making, that led his Cases toward a greater sense of happiness. But his fall was nearly as meteoric as his rise.
“They found me staring at the wall in my office, catatonic,” Sully confessed over the tinny hip-hop piping out of some kid’s iPod. “The transfer to History was more of just a sympathy vote . . . so I could keep my benefits and not embarrass anyone. But it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The door leading to the adjoining car slid open, and with it came the squeals of the metal juggernaut as it barreled down the tracks. They turned to see a man with no legs and a simple cardboard sign that read “VETERAN—NEED $ FOR FOOD” wheel himself into the car. Most of the crowd pretended he was invisible and cleared the center aisle, though a few people dropped coins into his paper cup. Becker searched his own pockets thoroughly, and finding only the supply of Slim Jims he’d requested from Central Command, sheepishly handed one over. The man in the wheelchair issued a “thank you, brother,” then moved on to the next car.
“It’s hard to believe in a Plan that allows for that, isn’t it?” asked Sully.
“Tell me about it.” Becker was not only thinking about the vet, but about the people on the train platform in Time Square, about Amy Lannin and Tom Jackal, and about all of the painful moments that were still so fresh in his mind.
“That’s why I got burned out, man,” Sully explained. “Every day the decisions I made affected thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives, and when it worked out, it was the ultimate rush. But when it didn’t . . .”
Sully’s eyes fell to the floor and Becker didn’t want to ask what terrible Move or Chain of Events had sent the ex–Case Worker over the edge. When the train arrived at the 18th Street station, the crowd thinned out a tad, and he and Sully were able to find adjoining seats.
“The thing I could never come to terms with was why so many hard knocks, bad breaks, and natural disasters were built into the Plan.” Sully waited for the train to head into the tunnel before he continued. “But once I got to History, I finally saw the big picture and started to understand.”
“You mean there’s like a really Big Picture on the wall in the Hall of Records?” asked Becker, wondering how he’d missed such a thing.
“No, no, no, no. I’m talking about seeing everything that happens in its proper perspective . . .”
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Suddenly, the Receiver on Becker’s belt—which he had hidden beneath his black tee—started ringing off the hook.
“Hold that thought.” As Becker lifted his orange headset to his ear, everyone on the train wondered: a) Where did that kid get such a funky, retro cell phone? And b) How was he getting service in the subway tunnel?
“Dude, I can’t really talk right now,” whispered Becker into the phone, trying not to be rude. “I’m on the train.”
“I just wanted to let you know the Containment Field is locked and loaded,” Tony the Plumber’s Staten Island accent sounded right at home on this car. “All we’re waitin’ on now is for that Split Second to come to papa.”
“Nice work, #26,” Becker complimented the only other Fixer from the Tri-State area. “Any idea when it’s gonna get there?”
“Better be soon. We got runoff Essence spoutin’ into The World like a leaky pipe.”
“I thought I felt something.” Becker’s stomach had been bothering him ever since arriving in the Hall of Records, but he’d hoped it was just the combination of the Jackal family dinner and being Lost in Time. “Have we considered sending someone up to the In-Between to divert future runoff?”
“C-Note’s on his way.”
“Cool. Gimme updates on the half-hour.”
“Aye, aye, #37. And have a burger at the Corner Bistro for me, a’ight?”
“You got it, T.”
The Fixer hung up the phone feeling almost optimistic.
“Good news?” asked Sully.
“Hope so,” Becker tried to reassure himself as much as his traveling companion. “Just keep your ear on the Time Being, all right?”
“Next stop, 14th Street! Please watch your step as you exit the train!”
Meanwhile, The Seems
The closer she got to the light, the more Briefer Shan felt the oppressive weight of Meanwhile lifting from her shoulders. What had once been just the hint of a break in the darkness had become a healthy glow after a few minutes of walking, and now that she was jogging (if not sprinting) toward it, that glow had grown into what appeared to be a rectangle of bright yellow light.
“It must be the doorway out!” Shan shouted to herself aloud and doubled her pace. “I’m gonna make it!
I’m really gonna make it!”
But it was more than just the prospect of escaping from this dreaded location that brought a giddy smile to her face. Whereas once she would have gloated over being one of the few to break out of Meanwhile, her thoughts were instead focused on her brother Bohai and the rest of her family, and the possibility that she would one day see them again.
But Shan also knew this reunion could never happen if the Time Bomb planted by The Tide had already destroyed The World. Her 7th Sense had suddenly reactivated when she’d seen the unexpected light, and judging from the chills running down her spine, she had to assume that there was still something terribly wrong in The Seems. Her only hope was that there was enough time to—
“Hold on a second.” Shan’s feet skidded to a halt. “That’s not a doorway . . .”
Indeed, now that her mad dash had brought her close enough to the source of the glow, the Briefer could see she’d been mistaken. What she’d assumed to be a portal to The World outside Meanwhile was actually a large glass box—perhaps ten-feet square—that held the intense yellow light within its transparent walls. She could also detect a faint, high-pitched sound emanating from within. Shan again pulled out her Night Shades, this time because her eyes were having trouble adjusting to the bright light, and approached the mysterious structure.
The glass was thick, like ice on a pond in the middle of winter, and the floor of the interior was lined with red clay and dirt. Scattered all over the ground were a collection of perfectly spherical rocks, as silver and reflective as the shell of the Split Second that she carried in her Briefcase. She knew the small ones to be Thirds and the ones that were as big as boulders were Firsts—two of the three building blocks of Time—but she had no idea what they were doing in here or what inside the box was causing this fierce illumination.
“What are you?” she asked aloud, hoping the voice that guided her from the darkness would give the answer. But hearing none, she leaned forward and pressed her ear against the glass. The hum inside was not steady but rhythmic, and she could feel by the vibrations on her cheek that it was actually being caused by something hitting the walls. Something moving so fast it couldn’t even be seen . . .
“It’s a Containment Field for a Split Second.” A voice did give the answer, but this time it was a man’s voice, hoarsely ringing out from the other side of the glass box. “The damn fools are gonna destroy The World!”
Though the man was clearly furious, his words sounded muffled, as if spoken through gritted teeth or a wired jaw. But it wasn’t the quality of this new voice or even its totally unexpected appearance that made Shan’s heart feel like it was about to burst through her chest. It was the fact that she recognized its owner.
Slowly she made her way around the enclosure, determined to hold her ground should this be yet another of Meanwhile’s psychic assaults. But the person she found on the other side— his mouth gagged, his hands and feet tied to an old wooden chair—was undeniably real.
“Mr. Chiappa?”
Greenwich Village, New York, New York
The brownstone at 274 West 12th Street was on the hard-to-find block between West 4th Street and Greenwich Avenue (not to be confused with Greenwich Street). Like all the buildings on the street, 274 had a stoop. Unlike its neighbors, it also boasted two granite lions that stared out onto the street, as if standing guard.
“What do we do now?” asked Sully.
“I guess we see if she’s home.”
The two visitors climbed the concrete steps and leaned in to read the list of names posted on the intercom.
“Al Jelpert, #1” was boldly written in pen at the bottom, followed closely by “Funkytown Productions,” which had been labeled #2 by a Brother P-Touch. Apartments #3 and #4 were just blank scrawls of metal, but it was the small handwritten label for the top floor that sent a jolt of electricity straight through Becker’s body.
“There she is.”
He pointed to the well-formed cursive letters that were capped off by an elegant picture of a flower. There was no first or last name, only a simple declaration that led straight to buzzer #5:
For the Time Being . . .
Both of them just stood there, not quite sure what to do next.
“Aren’t you going to push it?” Sully finally exclaimed, unable to take the pressure any longer.
“You push it,” replied Becker.
“You’re the Fixer!”
“You’re the Keeper of the Records!”
This type of bickering was certainly uncalled for, especially with the fate of The World at stake, so Becker finally pressed the black button and sent an electric signal up through the building walls. Tentatively, they waited for an answer—not sure what the Time Being’s voice might sound like or if she would let them in—but only silence came back over the line. A second press of the button set off the same buzzer, but the result was the same.
“She’s not answering,” Sully worried aloud.
“Or maybe she’s just not home,” Becker speculated. “C’mon, let’s find a good spot to stake out the building.”
Across the street was the famed Corner Bistro—the same hole-in-the-wall burger joint that Tony the Plumber had recommended—but seeing a line stretching out the door, they opted for the small Italian coffee shop that had just opened up next door. As Becker and Sully ordered lattes and sat among the other bohemians who called the West Village their home, the Fixer told himself to be patient, that all of this was going according to Plan. But given the present circumstances, it didn’t bring him much comfort.
“Back on the train,” Becker stirred in the sugar with a wooden stick, “you were talking about seeing the big picture.”
Sully perked up at the mention of his favorite topic. “Oh, yes. Of course.”
“Care to expand on that?”
“Like I said before . . . once I began to dig into the Records, I started to realize that all those things I thought were so terrible—as small as someone breaking her arm to as big as war or hunger—take on a different light when looked at through the prism of History.”
“What kind of light?”
“Most of us look at things in a cause-and-effect kind of way. ‘I hit the lottery, therefore life is good.’ ‘My child was hit by a car, therefore life is bad.’ But what we don’t see are the Chains of Events that are connected to those things.”
Sully took another sip of coffee and continued.
“A doesn’t lead to B, Drane. A leads to B, which leads to C, which leads to D, E, F, G. And you can’t tell if A was a good thing or a bad thing until you see how it ripples across the rest of the alphabet (not to mention all the letters that came before A!). Therefore, it can be said that the very idea of cause is an illusion . . .”
“I don’t believe that,” said Becker, and even though all the things he relied upon felt shaken by this day, he truly didn’t.
“Neither do I.” Sully smiled, happy that the boy had beaten him to the punch. “In fact, after studying the History of the World since back in the Day, I have come to believe that there was only one thing behind the Plan on the day it was implemented, and there is only one thing behind the Plan as we speak.”
“Which is?”
Sully leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.
“You’ll have to read my book.”
Becker flashed back to the stacks of paper sticking out of every possible nook and cranny of the Hall of Records (along with a host of equations, calculations, and graphs that had been half erased from multiple chalk and grease boards). Back then, he’d been pretty sure Sully had lost his marbles, and though the Fixer still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t, he wanted to hear more. But before Becker could pry any further, he spotted something across the street.
“Dude, is that . . . ?”
The woman who was heading up the stairs of building 274 had silver hair—the kind that only comes after years of being blond—and wore a simple white blouse, ankle-length skirt
, and leather sandals. Her wrists were covered with bracelets and she was carrying a bakery box, but the only thing Becker and Sully were looking at was her face.
“I think it is, Drane,” Sully whispered, incredulous. “I think it is.”
Both of them recognized that face from paintings in The Seems—most notably the masterpiece known as “The 13th Chair,” which depicted the founding members of the Powers That Be gathered around their conference room table. Sitting next to the symbolically empty seat at the head was the original Second in Command—the same woman who was now fumbling with a set of keys and opening the outer door to the crooked brownstone.
“Excuse me!” Becker rose to his feet and called out across the street. “Can we speak with you for a second?”
As a thirteen-year-old Fixer and a mangy-haired Keeper of the Records tentatively approached the person they believed to be the Time Being, they did not notice a figure stepping out of the Corner Bistro with a paper bag in his hands. He was tall, thin, and bearded, his faded jeans and suede jacket fitting in perfectly with the downtown hipsters. In fact, the only thing about him that stood out from the crowd was the strange pendant that dangled from his neck—forged of black pewter and shaped into the image of a cresting wave.
The stranger sat down on the curb and started to eat his cheeseburger, all the while paying close attention to the conversation across the street. After a few more words were exchanged, the older woman opened the door and the trio disappeared inside.
“Trés bien, Draniac,” said Thibadeau Freck, licking his fingers and putting on a pair of Serengeti shades. “Trés bien.”
21. 1. Taste. 2. Touch. 3. Smell. 4. Hearing. 5. Sight. 6. Humor. 7. The 7th Sense. 8. Direction. 9. Style. 10. ESP. 11. I See Dead People. 12. Common.
22. A derogatory term hurled by Manhattanites at citygoers who hail from the outlying boroughs (and particularly New Jersey).
10
For the Time Being
Mountain Time Zone, Department of Time, The Seems
Tony the Plumber pulled off his “Iovino’s Plumbing & AC Repair” hardhat and wiped the sweat off his furrowed brow. High above the mountains the sun blazed down and reflected off the Babbling Brook, a tributary of the Stream of Consciousness that flowed directly through this Time Zone.
