by Scott Meyer
Phillip looked at her, sitting there, staring miserably at the empty glasses in front of her. She made it sound so futile. I’m sure that’s just the booze talking, he thought, then he thought, No, it’s her talking, but it’s the booze thinking.
He wasn’t far wrong. The alcohol in her system was affecting her thinking. Brit looked at Phillip and thought, He’s cute, in a rumpled, worn in kind of way. Older me wanted me to get to know him. I don’t know why, but I tend to think I wouldn’t like it if I did.
They made eye contact. They smiled. Then, there was a hollow, popping noise, like someone opening a bottle of champagne. Phillip looked alarmed, then in one movement stood up and swung his staff very fast overhand toward Brit’s head. Brit instinctively cringed, shielding her head with both arms. Phillip shouted something she didn’t quite catch, then her world was nothing but noise and confusion.
Gwen and Martin heard the crash from the balcony. They ran into the hall and found chaos. The lights came up. Martin could see that one of the large goddess statues that stood around the circumference of the room had fallen. There was a base, a pair of sculpted feet, and a nasty, ragged break at the thinnest part of the goddess’ ankles. In front of that there was a field of dust, shards of broken statue, crushed tables and chairs, and in the middle of it all stood Phillip, his staff held far out in front of himself like an axe stopped mid-swing. The debris on the floor was piled thick everywhere except for a perfect circle radiating outward from the tip of Phillip’s staff. Inside the circle, free from any damage, were Phillip, the table he’d been sitting at, the chair that had been opposite him, and in the chair, directly under the tip of the staff, and as such, at the center of the protected circle, Brit the Younger, looking confused.
Phillip said, “Forigi ŝildo,” and for an instant the outline of a dome of energy could be seen covering Phillip and Brit, before it disappeared. Phillip practically ran around the table and took Brit by the hand, helping her up.
“Are you all right?” He asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”
Martin and Gwen slid to a stop after running across the hall. “Are you two okay?” Martin asked.
“Yes. We’re both fine,” Phillip said. “Was anybody hurt?”
By this time, everyone who was still in attendance was standing around looking at the damage. Nobody seemed injured. It seemed that Phillip and Brit the Younger were the only people who had been in the statue’s landing zone.
Gwen looked at the damaged statue’s base and asked, “What happened?”
From across the room, a woman’s voice called out, “I’ll tell you exactly what happened.” Everyone turned to see Brit the Elder walking serenely through the crowd. She reached the debris field, and said, “Just as I remembered it, Phillip was listening to me, complaining about the trivial things that seemed like problems to me at that age.”
Brit the Elder walked to the table and looked at the three empty whiskey glasses in front of Brit the Younger’s chair and shook her head. Brit the Younger’s face turned bright red.
Brit the Elder said, “The hard stuff always did make me mopey. Anyway, dear Phillip saw the statue break and start to fall, and did some very quick thinking in his attempt to save me from being hurt.” She bent at the knees, reached down, and picked up a broken piece of statue about a foot long. She stood up again and examined the chunk of debris.
Phillip said, “It really wasn’t much. It’s just a simple shield spell.”
“It was very sweet of you,” Brit the Elder said, “and also unnecessary. Much like you, we’ve manipulated the file to make ourselves impervious to damage.” To emphasize the point, Brit the Elder smashed the piece of debris she was holding over Brit the Younger’s head. Brit the Younger flinched and yelped, but it was out of surprise, not pain.
Brit the Younger said, “You didn’t know that, though, and it’s the thought that counts.”
Brit the Elder said, “I agree.” She turned to Brit the Younger and said, “And I think it’s about time for you to go get some sleep.”
12.
Jimmy stood in the corner of the room with one leg and both arms drawn up in front of him defensively. “Get that thing away from me!” he shouted.
Agents Miller and Murphy were both up on their feet, gesticulating wildly.
“What’s wrong with you?” Agent Murphy cried.
Agent Miller yelled, “You idiot, get out of here before I smack you!”
They were in the conference room that Agent Miller and Agent Murphy had claimed as their command center at Seattle Police Headquarters, and they were all addressing an officer who was standing in the door, holding a laptop computer.
“What?” Officer Kyle asked. “You said you needed a computer.”
“I said we’d need a computer. I didn’t say I wanted you to bring it to me,” Jimmy said, still forcing himself into the corner.
“Get that thing outta here!” Miller bellowed.
“What?” Officer Kyle said, still not understanding. “This is a good computer.”
“Exactly,” Jimmy said. “And if you get it too close to me I’ll destroy the hard drive.”
Officer Kyle asked Jimmy, “Are you threatening to damage Seattle PD property, old man?”
“He’s not,” Miller said, “but I promise to damage a Seattle police officer if you don’t get outta here!”
Jimmy took on the most soothing tone he could muster while still actively cringing. “I’m not threatening to do anything, son. I just have a strong magnetic field, and I break any computer that gets too close to me for too long.”
Kyle said, “Oh, that’s nonsense. This computer works fine. I turned it on to make sure. Look, I’ll show you.” He opened the computer and looked at the screen. Nothing happened. After a second, he hit the space bar a couple of times. Still, nothing happened. He pressed the power button. When nothing continued to happen he said, “I’ll be damned. It was just working a minute ago.”
Officer Kyle timidly left the room. Agent Miller angrily watched him go. Agent Murphy and Jimmy reclaimed the seats they had hastily vacated when the officer had entered.
“Let me get this straight,” Agent Murphy said. “You can’t prove that what you’re telling us is true without access to a computer, but if we get a computer anywhere near you, it stops working. You didn’t think this out very well, did you, Jimmy?”
“I have a plan, Agent Murphy. I promise you I do, and the first step of the plan is to keep whatever computer we end up using far away from me.”
“Great,” Miller said. “Step one: You don’t use a computer. Done. What’s next?”
Jimmy said, “I have designed a system that will let me direct one of you while you use a computer. There’s a list of items we’ll need in one of the notebooks you confiscated. I assume they are locked in the evidence vault. Sadly, it’s a rather bulky apparatus, so we’ll need a lot more room than we have, even in this conference room. Once we have that, I will direct the two of you to the file that will prove that I’ve been telling you the truth.”
Miller shook his head, “So, after we move you to a larger space and buy you a bunch of stuff, then and only then, you’ll prove that the cock-and-bull story you’ve been feeding us is true. I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
“I assure you that none of the items on the list are expensive or dangerous,” Jimmy explained.
Agent Miller walked to Jimmy’s end of the table. He towered imposingly over the older, seated man. “Look,” he said, “you know a bunch of things that nobody outside of our investigation is supposed to know, but that doesn’t mean that Murph and I have to buy everything you say. You’re asking us to believe that everything in the world, including us, is fake. Well, I wanna see some proof before I even bother to look at your list, let alone buy you any of the stuff on it.”
Jimmy said, “First of all, I’m n
ot saying that anything is fake. I assure you, Agent Miller, you and your partner are real. You’re just real parts of a computer program, that’s all.”
Agent Murphy said, “There, Miller. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”
Agent Miller didn’t look like he felt any better. Jimmy continued. “As for proof, how much proof do you need? You’ve seen what my presence does to any electronics. I’ve noticed neither of you brings your cell phone anywhere near me anymore. You saw Martin Banks disappear right before your eyes when you had him in custody. How do you explain that? Come to think of it, how did you explain that? You can’t have written ‘the kid vanished’ on your official report. If you could, I doubt you’d be desperate enough to still be dealing with me, would you?”
The door to the conference room swung open. Officer Kyle bounded in, triumphantly. “Good news, I found you another laptop!” He held the computer up like a prize as he started across the room to give it to Jimmy.
In an instant, Jimmy was back on his feet, pressing himself into the corner, trying to put as much space between himself and the computer as he could. “Don’t bring it to me!” Jimmy cried. “I don’t want it! Just keep it out there and let Agent Murphy look at it.”
Officer Kyle stopped, confused. “You told me to get you a computer. I got you one. I’m sorry the last one didn’t work, but this one does, I promise. Look.” Officer Kyle opened the laptop, and instantly looked stricken. “I promise, it was just working. I’ll reboot it.”
Agent Murphy stood and guided the young officer to the door by the shoulder, saying, “You do that, and if this computer doesn’t work, you find us another, and when you do, just leave it outside the door and come get us.” Officer Kyle mumbled noncommittally as he left the room. Agent Murphy closed the door behind him, and the room returned to some sort of normalcy.
Agent Murphy said, “To answer your question about how we explained the Banks kid’s disappearance, we just wrote that he escaped custody via unknown means. We don’t really have to come up with an explanation until we catch and prosecute him.”
Jimmy said, “Yeah, I’m sure your supervisors will find that real satisfying. You can’t explain what Martin did, how it was illegal, or how he got away from you. “
“And you can?” Agent Murphy asked.
“And I will,” Jimmy answered, “but for what it’s worth, I don’t believe you’re going to end up prosecuting Martin, or anybody else. I don’t think any of us have broken any laws.”
“He deposited tens of thousands of dollars into his personal bank account without doing anything to earn it, and without being given it by anyone. How can he possibly do that in any way that’s legal?”
“The way he did it is legal, as I’ve told you before, because nobody’s made it illegal yet. He didn’t steal it from anybody. Nobody was deprived by his actions. He didn’t take the money from anyone. He created it himself.”
Agent Miller smirked. “Sounds like counterfeiting to me.”
The door blasted open again, and Officer Kyle bolted in, holding the laptop. It was open, and the screen was showing a desktop cluttered with icons. He held it facing away from himself, so as to show the men in the room. “Look, see, I told you it worked.”
Jimmy didn’t bother to get up this time. He just looked at Officer Kyle, pointed at the computer, and made a twirling motion with his index finger. The officer turned the computer around, looked at the screen, and yelled, “Damn!”
13.
The first full day of the summit got off to a good start. The same hall that hosted the reception had been converted overnight to house the summit. This struck Martin as odd, but Gwen would later point out that Brit had worked at a large resort hotel and had designed this room as a sort of convention center.
Tables large enough for two adults to sit comfortably were arranged in neat rows. Each table had a place card naming two representatives and the time-traveler communities from which they came. Also, the statue of a toga-clad Harriet Tubman that had caused all of the commotion the night before had already been replaced. Phillip asked one of the guards why the statue had fallen, and was told, “Brit the Elder seems to know what’s going on,” which Phillip agreed was true, but pointed out, was not an answer.
All of the delegates found their way to their assigned seats. The tables were arranged alphabetically/chronologically, so if there were two teams from a given place, whichever team was from an earlier point in history came first. This meant that the table next to Martin and Phillip’s was assigned to Gilbert and Sid, the two dandies from nineteenth-century London who had been so hostile the night before.
The Atlantis delegation was last to arrive. Both of the Brits; Ida, the president; and several other women, Gwen among them, all arrived together. Brit the Younger and Ida took their places as delegates. At the head of the room, a dais held a podium where Brit the Elder took her assigned place as the speaker. The rest of the team from Atlantis took seats in the observers’ areas set along both sides of the hall.
The proceedings began with a brief overview of the schedule and a list of the topics to be discussed during the summit. It was all perfectly straightforward. The first item of business was the adoption of a formal name for the time-traveling, magic-using peoples being governed by the summit. Brit the Elder mentioned offhand that she favored the term Time Travelers, and that until the formal vote, that was the term she would use—not that it mattered, since she also mentioned that she remembered that this was the term the group would vote to use anyway. Other than that, most of the agenda dealt with prevention of abuse by time travelers of the indigenous peoples and other time travelers.
The only part that confused those listening was when Brit the Elder announced, “Sessions will begin promptly at nine o’clock each morning, and will run until five each evening, except for next Sunday, which we will have off, and today’s session, which will end abruptly this afternoon after something unexpected happens.”
The morning session proceeded past Martin like a slow-motion blur. It was a room full of earnest people having serious conversations about topics of great importance and very little interest.
At one point Phillip caught Martin on the verge of nodding off. Phillip prodded Martin with his elbow. Martin sat up and tried to look interested, but he grumbled while he did it.
“What’s wrong with you?” Phillip asked.
“Ugh, sorry. Watching parliamentary procedure always makes me bored and angry. I think it has to do with the Star Wars prequels.”
Phillip furrowed his brow. “Wait a minute. They made prequels to Star Wars?”
Martin winced. He remembered that he, Tyler, Gary, and Jeff had all sworn never to tell Phillip about the Star Wars prequels. “There are some things about the future that he’s better off not knowing,” Jeff had argued.
Like all events designed to help people meet and better understand each other, most of the real progress took place during breaks. The highlight of the day was during the lunch break, when someone pointed out that Phillip, a pure-bred Englishman, was eating a burrito while one of the Aztec delegates had magicked up an order of authentic London fish and chips.
After lunch there was another monotonous barrage of absolutely vital discussions. Martin managed to stay awake, but just barely. During the afternoon break he made his way out to the corridor. He produced a large cup of coffee from his hat and was just about to take a sip when he saw Gwen. He made a bee-line for her, mostly because he loved spending time with her, but also because he knew that she was from a time near his and would understand his Star Wars prequel reference, which had sailed right over Phillip’s head.
“Hey, Gwen. How’s it going?” he asked.
“Good, Martin,” she replied. “How are you today?”
“Fine. I’m fine. I gotta say though, this meeting, with all of these motions being raised and seconded, I feel like I’m in one of the
Star Wars prequels.”
“I know!” Gwen enthused. She proceeded to go on at length about how much she loved the Star Wars prequels, and how particularly the parts set in the Galactic Senate gave all of the events much more of a sense of gravitas.
Martin drank his coffee as quickly as he could and tried to pretend the conversation wasn’t happening.
Finally, mercifully, a bell rang, announcing that the break would end in one minute. As Martin returned to his seat, he noticed that Phillip had apparently spent the break sitting in the president’s empty seat, talking to Brit the Younger. Phillip walked back to his own seat, smiling. Brit remained at hers, smiling as well. Phillip was nearly to the table when the hall resounded with a dull pop. Phillip looked stricken. Martin saw Phillip make an involuntary grasping motion with his right hand, his usual staff hand. Martin also saw that Phillip’s staff was still on the table next to where Martin sat.
Phillip spun around just in time to see Brit the Younger, still in her seat, looking upward at another of the toga-draped goddess statues, which, like the one the night before, was falling directly on top of her.
Martin yelled, “Phillip!” He threw Phillip’s staff at him, but it was far too late. The statue hit the floor with astonishing force. A deafening crash reverberated throughout the hall. People dove for cover as chunks of statue flew through the air.
Once the noise subsided, the delegates turned to look at the damage. They saw the ruined base of the statue and a great deal of rubble. Phillip was still standing exactly where he had been when the statue first started to fall, and in the center of all the rubble, there was Brit the Younger, sitting on the floor amongst the splintered kindling that used to be her chair and table. She looked at the ruins around her, and at the empty space where the statue used to stand, and she said, “Seriously?”
