by Paul McAuley
‘It worked out so far,’ Tom said. ‘He hooked you and Adam up with me. And now we have to go forward.’
Linda nodded.
‘So you’re going to become this guy,’ Stone said. ‘Is that what you’re telling me? You’re going to use the time key, travel back into the past and start killing Eileen Barrie’s doppels, and end up in Pottersville. ’
‘Not if I can help it,’ Tom said. ‘I’m sure Tom Waverly Two was a great guy, but as far as I’m concerned he had one very serious flaw. He’d gotten himself a bad dose of radiation, and he was dying from it. I don’t intend to make the same mistake. I’m going to break the loop. I’m going to change history.’
Tom said it with such solemnity that Stone couldn’t help laughing.
‘He’s serious, Mr Stone,’ Linda said. ‘We’re both absolutely serious about this.’
‘You bet I’m serious,’ Tom said. ‘I’m fighting for my life here. And for the life of Susan Nichols, too.’
A hot stab of anger cut through Stone’s fatigue. ‘All this craziness about you I can take, but don’t for one fucking minute joke about that.’
Tom didn’t even blink. ‘It’s no joke, Adam. I can use the time key to travel into the past. We all can. We can stop everything that’s happened before it begins, collapse history in on itself. We can make it so you’ll never need to be called out of retirement, you’ll stay right there on the farm with Susan Nichols and her kid. And I won’t get a lethal dose of radiation and end up killing myself.’
‘Go fuck yourself, Tom. If you really are Tom. And even if you’re not, go fuck yourself anyway.’
‘I know how you feel, Mr Stone,’ Linda said. ‘I’ve had a while to work this through, and I’m still having problems coming to terms with it.’
‘It’s real, honey,’ her father said. ‘It’s real, and we’re right in the middle of it.’
‘You’re both crazy,’ Stone said.
His anger had gone as quickly as it had arrived. All he felt now was a deep, languid weariness; even the pain of his various burns and bruises seemed to have receded to a great distance. When Tom started to explain that they had to get to White Sands and use the time key to travel into the past so that they could do a number on Operation GYPSY, Stone shook his head and said that they could talk about getting back to the Real tomorrow.
‘I need to sleep,’ he said, and lay down and did just that. He woke some time later to find someone had laid the coverlet over him. Tom sat close to the TV, clicking from channel to channel, the sound turned down to a barely audible murmur.
‘You’re really here,’ Stone said.
‘Better believe it.’
‘It’s pretty hard to believe, Tom.’
‘It’s like the worm in a bottle of mescal,’ Tom Waverly said. ‘You have to swallow it whole.’
12
They left the motel at dawn, joining commuter traffic that was already beginning to build up along the Interstate, stopping for breakfast at an International House of Pancakes on the far side of Indianapolis. Everything seemed amazingly normal. Coffee in brown glazed mugs, pats of butter dissolving into transparent grease on blueberry pancakes, brittle strips of Canadian bacon, maple syrup in an aluminium pitcher with a hinged lid. Sunlight burned through the plate-glass windows, picked gleaming highlights on blond wood and red leatherette banquettes, sharpened the haze of cigarette smoke, gilded ordinary people bent to their ordinary breakfasts, and shone on Tom and Linda Waverly as they leaned side by side across the table from Stone, tracing routes on gas-station road maps like a pair of regular tourists. For a moment, Stone could believe that this was the only reality, that everything else was a dream.
Back on the Interstate, the station wagon merged with the bunched rush of traffic. Linda drove with a sure, light touch. Her father slouched beside her, his cassette playing on the stereo again. While Dylan sang about a desperado on the run with his woman in the Mexican desert, Stone watched cars go past. Americans on the move, in their natural habitat. A man in a battered pickup with a yellow hard hat sitting on top of the dash. An old woman with a puffball of white hair in an enormous powder-blue Cadillac. Kids tussling in the back of a small red car the shape of an inverted bathtub, driven by a woman who showed every day of her life on her face. Two swarthy guys in the cab of a slat-sided truck loaded with orange pumpkins that reminded Stone of the pumpkin patch beside Susan’s barn. The memory a little stab in his heart. A barechested black teenager in a rusty brown Toyota, a red handkerchief knotted on his head and one arm hung out of his open window, sped past in a booming blast of music. Look for America? Here it was: passing, repassing, changing lanes, merging, turning off. An unending stream of restless lives. A young woman steering her station wagon with one hand as she touched up her lipstick in the rearview mirror. A businessman in a white shirt and tie driving a black Volkswagen, his suit jacket swinging from a hook behind him like a ghost . . .
The desperado died in the arms of his woman, hoping that she would escape his fate, giving her his last benediction in Spanish. Don’t cry, my love; God watches over us. Tom Waverly sang along with the first line of the next song, something about a passport showing a face from another time and place, then turned to look at Stone and said, ‘That’s us, brother. I think we should talk about where we’re heading. I tried to tell you last night, but you were pretty much out of it.’
‘How are you feeling, Mr Stone?’ Linda said, the third or fourth time she’d asked that morning.
‘I’m fine. Rested up and ready to go.’ It was more or less true. His limbs and torso were stiff with bruises and the cigarette burns in his scalp and on his ears had puffed into itchy blisters, but he felt strong and alert. ‘We’re heading for the gate at White Sands,’ he said. ‘What happens after that?’
‘We’re going to take down Operation GYPSY,’ Tom said.
‘I believe you may be too late,’ Stone said. ‘There’s a big flap right now. No one would come right out and tell me, but from what I’ve been able to put together, the Company found out about GYPSY and is in the middle of dismantling it.’
‘Maybe they caught some of the little guys, but I know they didn’t touch the main men. And that’s where we come in.’ Tom paused, then said, ‘Did they tell you what GYPSY was planning to do?’
‘I heard it was something to do with assassinating the President.’
Tom shook his head. ‘It’s far more serious than that. They were planning - they’re still planning - to use the time key to change history and restore the Company to its former glory.’
Stone decided to play along with Tom’s fantasy, see where it led. ‘So they’re going to send people back in time and assassinate Carter before he assumes office, something like that?’
‘Do I detect a mocking tone?’
‘I’m interested to see how far you can take this.’
‘A lot further than mere assassination. GYPSY’s game theorists played around with the idea, but it turns out that killing individuals, even presidents, isn’t guaranteed to cause any major changes. If you went back a few years and killed Carter, there might still be some kind of investigation similar to the Church Committee, a similar humiliation of the Company, a similar reduction of its influence. No, to really change history, you have to think big. You have to use a much blunter tool than assassination.’
‘What kind of tool?’
‘Nuclear war.’
‘You’re kidding.’ But Stone remembered that in Pottersville Tom Waverly - the other Tom Waverly - had said something about delivering a few good men and a few hundred megatons in the right place . . .
Linda said, ‘From what I’ve been told, it seems to me that GYPSY isn’t much different from the covert actions the Company used to be involved in. Like the one you worked on right here, Mr Stone, or Operation LOOKING GLASS in the American Bund. But rather than supporting opposition movements and using black propaganda and sabotage to destabilise governments, GYPSY planned to travel back in time to known
crisis points in the histories of pre-contact sheaves, and use nuclear devices to turn those crises into full-blown wars.’
‘How would that help the Company?’
‘Everyone agrees that we should help out post-nuclear sheaves,’ Tom said. ‘Especially bleeding-heart liberals like Carter. It’s a major part of the Company’s work, even now. The idea is, if you go back in time and create enough post-nuclear sheaves, the Company would become so strong and influential that no President would ever dare challenge it. Go back in time and change history in just the right way, and there’d be no Church Committee, no black marks on the Company’s history, no cutbacks in expansionism. Carter’s dismal term of office would never happen, and the Real would keep expanding without interruption, spreading freedom and democracy into every corner of the multiverse.’
‘Are you saying that these guys were willing to kill millions of people for the sake of the Company?’
‘For the sake of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Like the old saying goes, after breaking a few eggs, you can’t help but make omelettes.’
‘And you were part of this?’
Stone was beginning to believe that there was a kernel of truth hidden inside this fantasy of time travel and rewriting history. If you had a nuclear bomb and were prepared to use it, you didn’t need to go back in time to change history. You could do it right here, right now. Use it to commit some atrocity in the Real, for instance. Blame it on terrorists, stampede the administration into attempting a quick fix by declaring war on dissidents in the Real and in every client sheaf . . .
‘He was blackmailed into helping them,’ Linda said. ‘And he got out. He’s ready to do the right thing.’
‘But I need your help,’ Tom said. ‘I need you to front for me, Adam. I’m a broke-down renegade with a price on my head, but you’re a clean-cut all-American hero who did the right thing in front of the Church Committee. After we go through the mirror back into the Real, you can give up the time key and explain where to find the men who built GYPSY.’
‘Dick Knightly recruited you. And he recruited Marsha Mason and Nathan Tate, too. How many of the other cowboy angels are involved in GYPSY? And who are they working for?’
‘All in good time, Adam. We’re playing for high stakes here. I’m not about to reveal my hole card until I know I can collect the pot. But believe me, if this works out, you’ll be instrumental in bringing down the biggest act of treason since Booth shot Lincoln. Carter himself will pin the Distinguished Intelligence Cross on your chest. Hell, they’ll probably put up a statue of you right in front of the Allen Dulles Center.’
‘There’s only one reason why I’m going along with this,’ Stone said. ‘I want to catch up with the people who sent Marsha Mason into the First Foot sheaf.’
‘You want revenge for the murder of your woman,’ Tom said. ‘I hear that. Well, don’t you worry, old buddy. I’ll give you that, and a lot more besides.’
After they crossed into Missouri, they pulled off the highway and filled the station wagon’s gas tank at a service station and bought lunch at a hamburger joint called Big Wendy’s. Tom loudly asked the teenage staff behind the counter who Big Wendy was and if he could meet her, he always liked a woman who enjoyed her own cooking. The other customers looked up from their plastic trays of fast food and stared at this big grey-maned maniac; he grinned at them and asked them how they were doing. A little later, after Tom went off to use the restroom, Stone said to Linda, ‘What did he tell you that he isn’t telling me? What’s behind this dumb story about time travel?’
‘It isn’t a dumb story, Mr Stone. Turing gates access other sheafs, so why can’t they access other times, too?’
‘I was there at the very beginning of the exploration of parallel universes, Linda. I remember how profoundly it changed everything. After it became possible to move from one universe to another with a single step, nothing was ever the same again. It was like discovering that Earth wasn’t the fixed centre of the universe, but revolved around the sun like the other planets. But every sheaf we’ve ever accessed shares exactly the same time as every other sheaf, down to the nanosecond. Asking me to believe that you can use a Turing gate to step into the past is like expecting me to believe that I can bicycle to the Moon. Or Mars. It’s easier to believe that Tom is crazy, or he’s lying, he’s laying down a smokescreen. He’s spun a very nice story about bringing down GYPSY, but I can’t help wondering if he’s planning something else. I wish it wasn’t so, but there it is. And I think you have your own doubts, too.’
‘My father isn’t lying, Mr Stone. Maybe he is crazy, just a little, but he’s also alive, right here, right now. How do you explain that?’
‘Perhaps it was a doppel back in Pottersville. A doppel, or some kind of trick. A set-up. Smoke and mirrors.’
‘You’re clutching at straws, Mr Stone.’
Linda was pale and tired. There were dark pouches under her eyes. She’d picked at her hamburger and fries but hadn’t eaten very much. Her hand shook when she lifted her paper cup of ice water.
Stone said, ‘You should rest. Let me take a spell at driving.’
‘You’re in worse shape than me. Besides, I like driving. I’m good at it.’
‘I noticed that when you came blasting up to rescue me, outside Freddy Layne’s club.’
It won a small smile from her. Stone said, speaking quickly, knowing that her father would be back at any moment, that he might not get another chance to talk frankly, ‘He’s taking us to White Sands. That part I have no problem with. He doesn’t want to use the gate at Grand Central Station and neither do we, because Walter Lipscombe’s people will be watching it, and the gate at White Sands is the only other way out of this sheaf. What we have to do before we get there is figure out our next move, so we know what to do when we go back into the Real.’
‘He’s my father, Mr Stone. Don’t try to turn me against him.’
‘I want to help him, Linda. That’s why I came out of retirement in the first place.’
‘But now all you want is revenge for the murder of your friend. And you think that my father has something to do with it.’
Her words stung because they contained more than a grain of truth. ‘I want to find the people responsible for Susan’s murder,’ Stone said, ‘and you want to vindicate your father. I don’t think those two things are incompatible.’
‘My father needs your help to change what’s going to happen, Mr Stone. That’s why he risked his life to save you from those two gangsters. Please promise me that you’ll be patient. Promise me that you’ll go along with this, even if you don’t believe it.’
Her gaze was searching his face, looking for some sign of agreement.
Stone said, ‘Even if this thing he stole is some kind of time machine - and I don’t for one second believe it is - his story doesn’t hold up. It’s full of holes. For instance, Tom claims that his future self, Tom Waverly Two, used this thing to go back into the past. He kills Eileen Barrie’s doppels, he ends up in Pottersville. Okay, I have no problem with the part about killing Eileen Barrie’s doppels because I know that’s what happened. But what about the time key? What happened to that? What did he do with it?’
‘Dad and I talked about that. We think that Tom Waverly Two knew he didn’t have long to live, and didn’t want the time key to fall into the wrong hands. So he ditched it.’
‘He stole something that cost him his life, and he threw it away? I don’t think so. My guess is that we didn’t find any time key because the doppel we met at Pottersville never had it in the first place.’
‘You’ll see when we get to White Sands,’ Linda said, and looked up.
Stone turned and saw Tom Waverly walking toward them.
‘You two have been talking about me,’ he said with a grin. ‘Don’t deny it.’
‘Mr Stone doesn’t quite believe your story,’ Linda said.
Stone felt a little dip of disappointment, knowing that he’d blown it, he’d
gone in too hard, had been too challenging.
‘I know he doesn’t. But he’ll find out soon enough,’ Tom said. He picked up Linda’s cup and drained it, ice cubes rattling against his teeth, and thumped it down on the table. ‘Let’s hit the road.’
13
They drove across Missouri. They drove across Oklahoma. They pushed for long hours across the plains of Oklahoma, wind battering the station wagon while tarred cracks in the road raced under its nose like ticker-tape hieroglyphs written by a vanished race to appease their sky-gods. Tom Waverly had bought another cassette at the service station. As they drove through small towns and farmland Dylan’s sly wire-cutter voice hymned lost souls, cowboys, hoboes, and other citizens of a lost, weird republic. Mailboxes stood on planks and posts at intersections with dirt roads that ran out to the flat horizon. Red and silver mailboxes, mailboxes painted with the Stars and Stripes, black mailboxes like little houses of the dead. A ruined farmhouse was stranded like a shipwreck on a rise in the middle of a ploughed field.
Tom and Linda took turns at the wheel. There wasn’t much conversation. Stone dozed, or stared out of the window at empty farmland, trying to work out the angles of what he’d walked into.
He was pretty sure that the man who’d shot himself in Pottersville had been a doppel. A patsy, a dupe. In the bad old days before the Church Committee, the Company had neutralised especially troublesome individuals in client sheaves by replacing them with compliant doppels; it had been a running joke in Langley that several senators and congressmen in the Real might well be doppels, too. Tom had found out where one of his doppels had lived, so why couldn’t he have found another, someone with nothing to lose? As for the time key, it was clearly some kind of experimental device tricked out with a defence mechanism that he’d triggered by accident. He’d been in bad shape after his session with those two sweethearts in the hotel room, the thing had given him an electric shock, and he’d suffered some kind of fit. All the talk about time travel was a smokescreen. What this was, when you got down to it, Stone thought, was a heist, pure and simple. Tom had stolen something valuable and he was trying to figure out what to do next, whether to sell it back to GYPSY or sell it to the Company. Tom was crazed, but he wasn’t crazy. There was method to his madness. He had a plan, and Stone and Linda had their parts in it, witting or unwitting.
