by John Barnes
“I see.” I took a sip of their strangely flavored coffee and decided that I might just get to like it. “Am I the only person in my timeline you’re tracking?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “There are eight others. Six of them were with Blade of the Most Merciful—they’re the ones I think are ringers from another timeline—and the other’s in Pittsburgh, but you wouldn’t have any reason to know her, at least not yet.”
“All right, and what happened after we got rescued?”
Ariadne Lao smiled, and that’s very impressive and pleasant. “Well, Mr. Strang, it so happens that we were able to fix things up pretty well. Your vehicle was repaired while you were asleep, and I’ve taken the liberty of returning it to its locked parking space—a few seconds after you left it. I moved the damaged delivery vehicle down to where yours had been, so now the witnesses will be in hopeless contradiction … moreover, when you’re feeling ready for it, I’m going to have you visit the police station on some small matter of business at just the right time to give yourself a complete set of alibis.”
I thought about that for a bit and shuddered. “So I’m going to be within a few miles of myself …”
She looked very sympathetic. “It takes getting used to. Yes.”
“And—er, about my being an agent for you—”
“Well, that’s the odd part,” Skena said. “We aren’t supposed to recruit agents from a timeline until at least the leadership knows about us … and you don’t even have a unified leadership, you know. So clearly you’re supposed to come to us irregularly …”
“Can’t you just look?” I asked.
They explained a lot more to me that day; in later years I was to realize just how much I hated briefings, which are never brief. They couldn’t just look because timelines are braided and twisted through the past, and different ones are close to different others at different times. And although it’s cheap to jump crosstime, it’s terribly expensive to jump back in time along one of those lines. So to find a critical incident would require an agent leaping back to about when it should have happened, staying in the field long enough to find out if it had yet or not, and if it hadn’t, jumping forward till it had … and then once the incident was finally found (kind of like running down a runner between bases), observing it. By that point, apparently, they’d have expended enough juice, or whatever it is that time machines run on, to power a small planet for several days.
What Harry Skena was doing was nudging our timeline toward the ATN path. That meant in general he was working for personal freedom and against dictatorships, but other than that he had very little in the way of a program; mostly he just tracked the people he was supposed to track and kept an eye on things. I got a distinct feeling our timeline was a backwater, but Ariadne said no, several important timelines were descended from it, and if it had really been a backwater, they wouldn’t have had an agent on station.
That was Skena’s tide, Special Agent. A Special Agent was “our man in that timeline” and in charge of either keeping it headed for the ATN or turning it that way. “I had an assignment when I was younger in a timeline that was headed the Closer way,” he said. “One where Stalin got the nuclear bomb way ahead of everyone else, and then lived clear till 1975. The Closers hadn’t found that timeline yet … and the job was to get it loosened up before they found it. Scary job, and I had to do a lot of things I’m not very proud of. That’s why I got sent to your timeline—because it was an important one, headed our way, that the Closers didn’t know about.”
“But they do,” I said. “Didn’t you say Blade—”
“Oh, yeah,” Skena said. “They do now. And worse than that, they’re better equipped than we are in that time—because they’ve got a crosstime gate installed in a world they control. That’s why they can hide so effectively and have so many resources—because their bases are in a world where Hitler won World War II. At least a lot of their gear looks like souped-up descendants of German stuff …”
“Can’t you do anything about it?”
“All kinds of things, if we could find the timeline they’re coming out of,” Harry said.
“You just said it was the one where Hider won World War II.”
Ariadne coughed. “It takes some getting used to, Mr. Strang. There are just over eight hundred timelines in which Hitler won.”
I whistled. “That seems like a lot.”
“It’s not, relatively speaking. There are about eighty thousand in which he lost. And then there are just over a million where he never existed or never amounted to anything.”
I thought about that for a little bit … and then for a little bit more. It seemed like a huge number … that was all I seemed to be able to think about. “And that’s how many timelines there are?”
“That’s how many we know about. The Closers probably know about more, since they’ve been at it longer. They don’t talk to us, exactly, they just send people over to demand that we surrender.”
“I’m familiar with the style,” I said.
“Our best guess is there might be around a billion timelines with human beings in them. And then of course there’s all the lifeless ones, all the ones with no intelligent life, all the ones with alternate intelligent life … but it’s the ones near you that are easiest to find, and so we’ve only made a couple of sampling probes and small expeditions. Despite the comforts of this place, Mr. Strang, we are at war. The first attack of the Closers leveled the Acropolis; one way you can spot our agents in any timeline, I’m afraid, is we always find an excuse to go see the Parthenon.”
“Ours is damaged,” I said, I guess to have something to say, but Harry Skena sighed and nodded significantly. “I’ve still been there four times,” he said.
Ariadne made a face. “Wretched security practice. I would bet that the Closers set up somebody to watch the Acropolis within half an hour of arriving in a new timeline.”
“Have you ever gotten to see it?” I asked.
“No, and I’d crawl through fire to. But seeing the Acropolis is not likely to come up—unless the next time Citizen Skena gets into trouble he has the good taste to do it in Greece somewhere.”
I looked back and forth between them. “Uh, I’d figured you must be his supervisor?”
Harry Skena shook his head. “She’s my Den Mother.”
She looked as puzzled as I felt, so I figured the translator had not picked that one up either.
“I’m a Crux Op,” she said. “Crux Operations Recovery Specialist. A ‘crux’ is one of those places where events are being manipulated to form a new timeline; manipulating the events is called ‘special operations.’ Every so often we stop getting messages from a Special Agent like Citizen Skena, or we get a distress call like the one he sent us. We know our agents well enough to know they don’t cry wolf—so if we get such a call, a Crux Op jumps in to get the agent out, and if possible to make sure the original mission gets accomplished.”
“Search and Rescue,” I said.
“Exactly. Now, as far as I can tell, I’ve straightened it out; while you were asleep I raided every Blade HQ Citizen Skena had identified, and staged a bunch of very nice massacres if I do say so myself—leaving evidence pointing to other Blade groups. Your FBI and CIA, at the least, will be all over them during the few weeks after you return—they’ll think an internal war broke out in the outfit. So if I return you and Citizen Skena, I’m probably done—unless I’ve missed a loose end somewhere.”
“I don’t think you have,” Skena said. “And as much as you’ve stirred them up, maybe there’s a better chance now of finding their crosstime gate. Especially since I’ve now got a much better native guide.” He looked at me significantly. “Could you stand to have a secret client for a few months, one who pays you a lot, in cash?”
“With a big risk of getting killed,” Ariadne Lao pointed out.
“And a good shot at Blade of the Most Merciful? Maybe even tracking them back to where they came from?” I grinned at th
em. “Not to mention my ankle feels better than it has in years. Oh, yeah, I’m in. Just try to keep me out.”
From the way they laughed—and the glint I saw in both their eyes—I knew I had finally found my own kind of people.
6
It didn’t take long for me to get reequipped; they’d cleaned and pressed my clothes and in fact repaired some spots that I’d been careless about. I suspected nanos had had a hand in that, and knew it for sure when I noticed that all the bills in my wallet had become crisp and new.
Going back wasn’t quite so dramatic; I knew what was happening. It got dark, and quiet, and then gray, and then sound and sight came back. Harry Skena and I were standing by Panther Hollow Lake, a scum-covered pond in Schenley Park that hardly anyone goes to, especially in the middle of a warm day. We had half an hour to go establish my alibi. Right now I was opening my second beer in the tub … but that was a week ago to me.
Time travel won’t be popular till it’s reasonably easy to find your way around, I decided.
Skena was just going to lay low in some hideout or other for a few hours, someplace where he knew Blade wouldn’t find him; if he just didn’t poke his head up where they saw it until tomorrow, things should be fine—they’d be on the run, not him.
I had a perfectly great excuse to go down to the police station—I had to swear out a complaint against Brunreich, as I explained to Skena.
He got a very strange expression. “Brunreich.”
“Yeah, Roland Brunreich.”
“You were guarding—”
“His wife Angelica Brunreich. And their daughter Porter. If you get an offer of a double date, pick Angela for sex and Porter for conversation.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” He grinned at me. “By the way, now that we’re in this timeline, I would consider it normal for you to call me Harry—I noticed you were having to remember to address us as ‘Citizen.’”
“Just not used to it. And you know how we Americans are. Every damned receptionist and car rental guy and mechanic addresses you by your first name. So I didn’t want to give offense—”
“Not wanting to give offense is one of the more charming characteristics your people have,” Skena said, “along with apologizing for what in fact is generally fairly polite behavior and a lot of willingness to learn other people’s customs. You should see what the Frenchmen are like in the timelines where Napoleon’s heirs went on to rule the world.”
I had the odd thought, climbing up the path to the bridge that would take me out of the park, that he’d made me just a bit proud to be an American. It seemed only fair; he was certainly proud to be Athenian …
Visited the Acropolis four times. And just glowed when I mentioned it.
It was the same nice spring day it had been, but now I was rested and my hand was healed. It occurred to me that I wasn’t going to have much of a civil case for medical expenses, but I didn’t let that bother me much.
I figured I’d just walk across the Pitt campus and catch a bus downtown. The area right around the library and the Cathedral of Learning is sort of nice, except they tore down Forbes Field, where the Pirates belong, and the last place in which Babe Ruth ever played professional ball, to build a butt-ugly classroom building that looks like something Albert Speer rejected for one of his Naziera city centers. I always take a moment to spit on it as I go by.
Another thought that occurred to me, crossing the street, was that there were a lot of short skirts and bare midriffs around. Either I needed to give Melissa a call, or … well, hell, who would I ask?
“Mark! Hey, Mark!” It was Robbie—she’s in some kind of part-time program at Pitt, one that seems set up so that you can get your law degree just before you die.
“Hi! How are you doing?” Aside from the fact that she’s a friend, and I’m always glad to see her, there was also the strength to be added to the alibi.
“I didn’t expect to see you awake quite this early. How’s your hand? Did you have a doctor look at it? I know it’s too much to hope that you’d have a natural healer look into it—”
“Whoa. Yeah, the doctor checked it out, and it’s fine—here, look, see? Moves in every direction it’s supposed to. Good as new. So I don’t need anybody to wave a feather rattle over it—”
“You’re incorrigible. Got time for coffee or something?”
“Well, unfortunately, I’m supposed to be heading downtown to swear out the complaint against Brunreich. Assault, battery, being a weenie …”
“At least twenty counts of being a weenie. I can give you a ride if you like—”
“Deal.”
Her van was parked nearby, and traffic was fairly light with rush hour not yet started. Mostly we talked about old jobs, scrapes we’d been through together, that sort of thing.
In five years there can get to be a lot to talk about, especially because old friends have a way of sharing stuff. “You know,” she mentioned, “there are some detective agencies that won’t hire us because me and Paula are, um, together?”
“Their loss,” I said. “Are you not getting enough business?”
“It’s tight. Real tight.”
“I’ve got a new heavy client that just came aboard this afternoon,” I said, “and I can throw you some business I’m sure. Maybe not before next week. And I’ll pay you as soon as the Brunreich check clears.”
“That’s what I was hinting around about,” she said, smiling a little. “Stupid business, eh, boss-man, where we have to get paid in cash and all? Takes the fun out of being a paladin.”
I grinned back at her. “You see yourself as a paladin? When there really were knights-errant and all that, you’d have been flat on your back under some fat drunken lord, getting pumped full of babies.”
“Boss-man talks nasty. Kids would be okay. I’d just have to talk His Obesity into taking off on a crusade … and staff the castle with some buxom serving wenches. So what about you? I know either of us could get a better job than this; hell, you could be Professor Strang someplace in no time. Why do you stick with a moron job?”
“It’s not a moron job,” I said, a little defensively. “It’s just not a book-smart kind of job. And you know how I—”
“I know how you got in. I’ve heard Hal Payton tell that story many times. But why the hell do you stay in? I mean, for your own good, Mark, this is a business where you mostly get bashed up when you aren’t being bored.”
I shrugged and told her the truth. “Well, in the first place, I like to beat people up. But in the second place, the client I’m going to be covering is … um, well, dealing with outside terrorists coming into the USA, let’s say. I don’t think he’d want me to tell you his business. But suffice it to say what I’m going to be beating up, or shooting, is people a lot like the ones who killed my family. So for this job, anyway, I know exactly why I’m doing it. Okay?”
Robbie made the turn by the back of the City County Building and said, “Well, sorry if Aunt Robbie has been tough on you. And it sounds like your new client is going to be interesting.”
Inside it was the usual routine; fill out forms, talk with cops, get papers in order. Norman, my lawyer, has a “kit” for all this that I use—sort of a checklist to make sure I’m giving the prosecutor enough to work with in the unlikely event it ever comes to trial. The purpose of pressing charges isn’t usually to put these guys in jail—most of the people clients are afraid of are their “loved ones,” and they don’t want them imprisoned—it’s to have a bargaining chip so they can’t sue me, and in the case of a few very dangerous aggressors, to give the prosecutor something to crack them open with, make them confess to the more serious crimes that would otherwise be merely their word against the client’s.
About an hour into the process, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a voice behind me said, “I think I’ve got bad news for you.”
I turned around and found myself facing Lieutenant DeJohn Johnston, a guy who looks more like an all-pro linebacker than anything el
se. I should say I was facing his chest.
DeJohn’s an old friend, so I looked up to make sure this wasn’t a joke, and saw right away it wasn’t—he was making the kind of “sorry to tell you about this” face that meant bad news.
My first thought was that Blade was on the loose again, and they’d attacked Dad or Carrie—I have nightmares about them getting Sis at home alone, Payton’s guards drawn off or knocked out, with her trapped in her wheelchair and with just the little 9 mm she keeps strapped beside her to fight back with.
DeJohn said, “I think your car has been stolen and used in a major felony. At least the garage where you park it is where there was some kind of shoot-out, and we have a description from a Mrs. Goldfarb and her four children that matches your Mercedes, so—”
I wanted to laugh with relief, not to mention the thought that Mrs. Goldfarb was going to look pretty stupid when they found the Mercedes where it belonged and a Berto’s pizza wagon shot up in its place. But I still had adrenaline pumping from when I had thought it was my family, so I was able to let my jaw drop, and say, “Somebody stole a car out of the locked area? And a big obvious red 510SL, instead of something that would blend into traffic?”
“Unhhunh. Sounds like. I’m real sorry to tell you about it, buddy.”
“Shit.” I did my best to look disgusted.
“I’ll drop an unofficial request to the squad car at the scene so that they’ll check it out, but it sure sounds like yours. Wish I had better news for you … you going to make the softball game this year?”
It’s a standing joke; every spring there’s an “ops versus cops” game at South Park, a bunch of private investigators and bodyguards from around town playing ball with a bunch of policemen. It has to be one of the greatest places ever developed for picking up rumors.
“If I’m in town, you know I won’t miss it.”
“Well, try not to hit so many straight into the ground by third base this year. My arm gets tired.”
