The Curiosity Killers

by K W Taylor

“I don’t want a woman,” Claudio explained. “I want a child.”

  Part II: The Scholar

  I’ve built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate.

  –Paul Simon

  Monday, March 14, 2095, Avon, Vermont, NBE

  Benoy Jonson took the trolley back to his home, a large brick affair built in the late 1800s that survived through two civil wars and countless natural disasters. Throughout his stalled academic career, Ben spent nearly half of every interest check from his trust fund restoring the house to its original Queen Anne glory, installing embroidered furniture, doilies, and marble-topped tables in every room. The trend toward Victorian rebirth slowly migrated into the former New England states from the end of the war in 2082, when Ben was still working on his undergraduate degree. Now it was less fashion and more necessity, as the neighboring country labored to prevent the importation of silicon-based technology this far north.

  Today’s return home was a joyless one. Ben didn’t understand being told “no.” He knew there were people in the world—people on the same continent, in fact, and people who weren’t his indulgent parents or teachers—who might not love him on sight. But he’d also always thought that was for stupid reasons, bigoted reasons that spoke to the unreachable minds of the less educated. He never thought it was because he was actually not lovable, not brilliant. Of course, his family suffered for being Indian in a nation settled by Europeans, but only intermittently, and their brilliant careers mitigated much.

  And yet today, he was being rejected for the very thing he prized the most—his innate need to understand the world’s deepest mysteries. It was Ben’s mind that was being rejected, not the color of his skin or his personality quirks or even prejudice against his family money. It was what made Ben Ben, and it stung like a slap in the face.

  “I don’t have the sense that you feel your work,” his advisor told him. “You understand history cognitively, but there’s no passion, no sense of its rich, living qualities.”

  Ben shook his head. “No, no, I can assure you. These issues matter to me. They haunt me, even.”

  “That explains your fascination with the more macabre eras.” Professor Summit rested a fleshy jowl on the palm of her hand. “I mean, really. Unsolved serial killings?”

  “Doesn’t it bother you,” Ben said, “knowing these mysteries have never been solved?”

  “Not particularly.” She closed Ben’s file and handed it back to him. “I’m sorry, Ben, but I just don’t see this edit as being any more promising than the last three. The chair is going to ask that you reconsider your ability to defend by December. I don’t honestly see any way to it unless you have a breakthrough and vow to abstain from sleep.”

  A stone seemed to drop into the pit of Ben’s stomach.

  Last chance. This was my last chance, and I blew it.

  Professor Summit rose. “I worry that the department accepted you in the first place because of your family’s accomplishments.” She smoothed the sleeves of her jacket and kept her eyes from Ben’s. “Perhaps I shouldn’t speak so frankly, but having the last son of a legacy of esteemed scientists choose to study a humanities discipline was a coup.” She gave Ben a sad smile. “Did you go this route just to rebel?”

  He thought of his father’s long, painful death, tethered to oxygen in a quarantine tent. Their goodbye was through clear plastic with layers of latex and paper masks between them. That was what the great Biren Esh Jonson’s bravery led him to—dying of the diseases he traveled the world curing. A man of action and science could not pursue his noble ventures long and would cough up blood in a sterile hospital ward at fifty-six, already a widower, not yet a grandfather.

  “I never rebelled from anything my father taught me and wanted for me,” Ben said, “except that I would wish for a longer life.”

  As he collected his things and left the professor’s office, he considered this more. His parents saw the world, but they both died for it in one way or another. His uncle, too, killed in a hate crime committed by Rénartians. By studying the past, Ben always hoped to save the future. And by studying it from a distance, the distance afforded by books and databases and words, he could save himself. Now that dream was gone.

  Ben entered his front parlor to find his personal assistant, Kris, attending to his mail. “Heya, boss. Am I gonna get to come with you to the college when you start teaching?”

  “There won’t be any teaching,” Ben replied.

  The young woman’s elfin features melted from happiness to shock. “Wait, what? Is it because they want to give a job to someone…” Kris looked around the room. “Eh…someone who like needs to work? Because the way the funding for schools has been going, I know they can’t really afford to have a big faculty.”

  “That’s not it.” Ben sighed and sank down in the chair on the other side of the desk. “It’s not that they wouldn’t hire me. I can’t even finish my doctorate at all. My project’s died on the vine, and my time’s run out. If I tried again, I’d have to do a new set of courses, and probably at another school entirely.”

  “Oh, man.” Kris scurried to Ben’s side and patted his shoulder. “You could do that, though, if you wanted? I mean, not to be crude about it, but your folks left you pretty flush.”

  “By the time I picked a school, moved, got my coursework done…I’d be pushing fifty, if I were lucky.” Ben shook his head. “No, I need to change course. Pick a new career.” He gave Kris a weak smile. “You can go home for the day. I need a good wallow. See you tomorrow.”

  Kris nodded and collected her things from the coatrack. “Oh, almost forgot. I put a guy on your calendar during your foundation hours tomorrow. Notes are in your book. Kind of rude, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Wants funding help with some science-y thing. I told him that wasn’t normally your specialty, but he wants to pitch to you anyway.”

  Ben shrugged. “I could use the distraction. Hell, maybe I’ll just be a layabout philanthropist instead of a professor. I’ll pay other people to be amazing if I can’t be amazing myself.”

  Kris tried to give Ben a pep talk, but he wouldn’t hear it. After she left, Ben consulted her notes in his appointment book. “Doctor Edward Vere, physicist, Avon University.” The meeting was set for just after lunchtime at a nearby teahouse.

  Of course he’d been from AU. The school that won’t give me my degree? Why should I help one of their faculty?

  Still, physics was worlds away from history, and this man had nothing to do with his proposal failure. Hearing him out wouldn’t cost him but an afternoon at most.

  That’s all I have now. Nothing but time to kill and money to burn.

  Wednesday, July 7, 2100, Dayton, Ohio, NBE

  “This isn’t Doctor Vere’s laboratory,” Wilbur said. He stared at a garishly painted building with blinking lights festooning every visible surface. Small vehicles that he’d seen on his first trip to the future—Vere called them “hovercars”—sailed beneath an awning and pilots exited.

  “What are they doing?” Wilbur pointed to a pilot pulling a long string from the rear of his vehicle.

  “Refueling,” Alison replied. She elbowed him and pointed to a building in the opposite direction. “I think we’re in the right time, but not the right place. Doesn’t that look familiar?”

  It did indeed—a few yards away was a large stone church from Wilbur’s neighborhood, only now instead of cheery row houses flanking it, it was bordered by something called a Video Station on one side and Milton’s Fine Clothier on the other.

  “What the devil happened to my house?” Wilbur demanded.

  “Never mind,” Alison said. “Keep your voice down.” She threaded her arm through Wilbur’s and nudged him toward the refueling station. “We can rent a car here and get back to Vermont in about four hours.”

  “Four hours?” Wilbur was astonished. “It takes six times that long to get to New England. Why, when we flew from New York to—”

  “Look.” Alison sto
pped walking, hands on hips, and glared at Wilbur. “I am gonna find this story super interesting when we’re safely on our way to the university, but I don’t think it’s so helpful right now. Just don’t stand out too much, follow my lead, and nobody’ll look at you funny.”

  “Miss Keller, why are you so upset? I do apologize for finding the future still so wondrous, but you seem unduly angered by our location.” Wilbur took her hand in his and gazed at it, surprised at his own boldness. “You promised Kitty you’d protect me, but I dare say I bear the responsibility of some protecting as well.”

  Alison smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes. “Look, Mister Wright, you’re sweet. Seriously. There’s something more off than just where we are.” She looked around. “I don’t think this is the right year.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help there.” Wilbur shrugged. “It all might as well be Jupiter as far as I’m concerned.”

  “See, that’s just it,” Alison said. “Some things look like that to me, too.”

  “Do you think perhaps we changed something, when you followed me to my own time?”

  Alison looked around again. “Maybe that’s it.”

  “You’re skeptical of that theory.”

  “I’m a skeptical sort of gal.”

  Wilbur ran his thumb across the back of Alison’s hand. “The best way to test your theory is to find some evidence, hmm? Do they still publish newspapers?”

  “Some, in the NBE but not the RAA. They have only TV, but we don’t have TV anymore. We only have internet and print.”

  “Rephrase without speaking another language, please.”

  At this, Alison laughed aloud. “Come on, old timer. We’ll find one of them fancy bits of writin’ for ya.”

  The station’s shop opened its doors for them as soon as they were a foot from the entrance. From within came the forlorn sounds of a man singing about how a rock feels no pain and an island never cries. There was a news rack just inside, and Alison’s temporary joviality disappeared as soon as she saw it. She tapped the page and handed it to Wilbur.

  “When was it we were last with your employer?” Wilbur asked.

  “Thirty years ago,” Alison replied, keeping her voice low. “I was aiming for 2070 in Vermont, but instead we stayed in Dayton and it’s thirty years later than I intended.” Her face was turning crimson. “Shit. What’re we gonna find when we get back home? Oh, my God. What if Doctor Vere’s dead?”

  “Would your retrieval system have worked if he were?”

  Alison put the paper back on the rack. “I have no idea.” She shut her eyes and rubbed at the closed lids. “We gotta get to the university.”

  “Well, you said it only took a few hours.” Wilbur gestured at the counter, where a bored-looking clerk punched keys on a screen.

  Alison pulled a wallet from her pocket. “I don’t know if my credits will work. Hell, it could cost three times as much as it did to rent a car.”

  “We won’t know until we try.”

  Alison made her request to the young man without making eye contact. He quoted back a price that gave her pause, but she nodded and handed over a small flat object.

  “This is expired,” the clerk said after sliding the object through a slot in the screen in front of him. He squinted at the display. “Oh, but it says this account is linked to another one.” He nodded. “Yeah, you’re good. Your dad paid your bill or something. Here.” He handed Alison a tiny black box. “Can you drive hydrogen-fueled?”

  “Oh, thank God, they still use hydrogen transmissions.”

  The clerk blinked. “Still? Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Nothing, never mind.” She took the box. “Thank you.”

  “It’s the green Tesla Twelve in space Z2.”

  Wilbur followed Alison out to the car. “What did he mean about your father paying the bill?”

  Alison spun around and grinned. “I saw what his system said. Doctor Vere is alive, Wilbur. At some point, he had all my bank records put into his name by claiming to be my father.” She paused. “Kinda presumptuous, actually, but hell, I’ll yell at him about it later. The point is he’s alive.”

  Wilbur smiled as he climbed into the vehicle beside her.

  Tuesday, June 17, 1890, Rio, Wyoming, USA

  This wasn’t a trip with purpose. This was Claudio trying to stay calm, focused, to pursue interests outside of blood and lust and pain. The prairie was quiet, the weather warm and windy. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the sweet scent of cactus flowers.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was face to face with a winged creature, its head canted to one side, studying him. He shrieked and took a step back, stumbling in his haste and landing hard on his seat.

  The creature was on two legs, wings twice as long as its body, and its head was an amalgam of man and bird, the eyes laser-red and piercing into him. Claudio couldn’t move. His heart battered out a frighteningly fast rhythm in his chest. “What are you?” he whispered.

  The bird-thing screeched and took flight. When it reached a point in the sky a few feet above Claudio’s head, it disappeared, but not in an instant, more as if an invisible window hovered there and the thing slid through it, head to foot, each part of it becoming invisible down its body.

  Claudio racked his brain. Something about the beast was familiar. Was it alien? Myth? He activated his return device; there was no way to research from here, unless he wanted to speak to someone from the reservation. He sniffed.

  As if that would happen.

  The lab was empty and dark when he returned. He rushed to his office, where he conducted fast searches on his tablet.

  Mothman.

  He thought of the way the creature slid through to invisibility, as if passing through a doorway. Could that be the source of the things? If time travel existed, was it so very far-fetched to imagine portals, or even a wormhole such as what Ambrose used for his machine, but one that went elsewhere than into the past?

  It could be another planet, even.

  And where there was another planet with an advanced civilization, there was the potential to have an advantage against the NBE, to potentially even wipe it out. If he could ingratiate himself with the other plane, or perhaps harness or exploit its resources…

  I have to get someone there.

  Wednesday, April 12, 1587, Roanoke Island, British colony

  Two young men stood sentry at the gate. As the woman staggered into their field of vision, they each gave a start and trained their muskets on her.

  “What witchery is this?” one demanded.

  “Ye are not of the colony,” the other accused. “Who goes there?”

  The woman opened her mouth but then immediately closed it. She held her hands up in surrender. “I…I mean you no harm!” she called. She attempted a smile. “I am, ah, Goody Fallon, of…Newfoundland. Yes, just a ways up the coast to the north, with Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s collective. I was shipwrecked upon your shore and seek asylum, kind sirs.”

  The guards exchanged a glance. The one to the left of the gate, a broad-shouldered blond youth, lowered his musket. “Aye, come in peace, mistress. We can offer you aid.”

  The guard on the right seemed taken aback. He was slightly older and sported an auburn beard. “Goodman Cage, we are not permitted to—”

  “Goodman Warner, this woman is our elder and in clear distress,” the first guard interrupted. “We will do as our conscience dictates. The governor will understand.” He smiled at Fallon. “You are our neighbor, after all, and we presume a fellow former English subject?”

  Warner gave Cage a dubious look but stood aside and lowered his own weapon. Together, the two men tugged the gate open and bowed low, entreating that Fallon enter. “Welcome, mistress,” Cage said. “Welcome to our humble party.”

  Fallon bowed her head and passed through the open portal. They failed to see the slight upturn of one corner of her mouth as her skirts swished the ground between them. Once inside, the gate swung shut behind
her. She looked up and gasped.

  Cottages, light, and even the faint sound of music…it was civilization indeed, or at least as close an approximation as could be found on the island. Laughter spilled out of a makeshift public house. Torches glowed, and upon every available spot, there grew small, cordoned-off gardens filled with the start of green sprouts and vines.

  A huge, ancient apple tree sprung forth in the quadrangle of several large buildings. Its fruit was still yet unripe, but Fallon gazed at it.

  At her left stood Cage. “Ye shall be wanting a place to pass the night,” he told her. “I must rouse the governor, if he is not already about.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, dear, I don’t want to trouble him.”

  “’Tis but a moment’s inconvenience, mistress. Do not fret.”

  Before she could protest again, Cage was already scurrying off, slipping inside the largest of the buildings near the apple tree.

  Fallon leaned against the wall’s interior, taking an overly casual posture as she stared after the guard.

  “Jesus, this is a helluva lot weirder than I thought,” she muttered. “Trippy. As. Fuck.” She shook her head, smirking.

  ~

  The council members’ voices fell to a hush. The strange woman stared at White as if he were a veritable angel, winged and haloed and lit about the edges in gold and silver. She was an odd thing, shorthaired and wearing finery gone to tatters. In the colonies, however, White wasn’t ill used to seeing the effects of weather-borne destruction. Still, he was unaccustomed to celebratory treatment, as if he possessed any shred of fame beyond his own people.

  “Governor, it is in an honor.” The woman bowed low, sweeping a hand beneath her bosom in a most bizarre manner.

  The governor felt this gesture seemed improper, especially performed by a woman of her age. He frowned.

  “Do get up, mistress,” he implored. “I am neither king nor countryman.” He raised one ginger eyebrow at her. “You are from the Scottish settlements?”