Asimov's SF, October-November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “No.” The thin face tilted backward, teeth flashing in the light. “Because I have never particularly liked those people.”

  “Then why join up?” Collins put his hands together, squeezing the blood out of his fingers. “Why go to the trouble of leaping back to our day?”

  “I believed in their cause.”

  “Which is?”

  No answer was offered.

  “You want to change the future? Is that your grand purpose?”

  The prisoner shrugged. “In one fashion or another.”

  Collins leaned close, and for the first time he offered his name and an open hand. “You're being helpful, sir, and I thank you.”

  The prisoner shook the hand. Then he quietly said, “Ramiro.”

  “Is that your name?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm pleased to know it, Ramiro.”

  “Don't put me back into that cell again, Collins.”

  “But I have to,” the interrogator replied.

  Ignoring that answer, Ramiro said, “I have a set of demands. Minimal requirements that will earn my cooperation, I promise you.”

  “Two names and the vague beginnings of a story,” Collins countered. “That won't earn you much.”

  “And I will ask you this: Do you want to defeat the invaders?” When it served his purpose, Ramiro had a cold, menacing smile. “If you insist on mistreating me, even one more time, I will never help you.”

  “I don't have any choice here,” Collins told him.

  “Yes,” said Ramiro. “Yes, you do.”

  “No.”

  Then the prisoner leaned back in his chair, and through some secretive, still mysterious route, he woke a microscopic device implanted inside his angry heart.

  For the next one hundred seconds, Ramiro was clinically dead.

  By the time he was fully conscious again, calls had been made. Desperate orders had been issued and rescinded and then reissued. Careers were either defined or shattered. And the only soldier from a secretive, unanticipated army was given every demand on a list of remarkably modest desires.

  * * * *

  3

  My home was an efficiency apartment no bigger than Ramiro's quarters and only slightly more comfortable. But I was assured that no tiny cameras were keeping tabs on me. As a creature of status, I also enjoyed communications with the outside world—albeit strained through protocols and electronic filters run by intelligence officers sitting in the field station outside the prison. And unlike our number-one citizen, I was free to move where I wished, including jogging along the wide, hard-packed salt streets that combined for a little less than six kilometers of cumulative distance.

  No one had ever predicted “temporal jihadists,” as Abraham's agents were dubbed. Uranium-toting terrorists suddenly seemed like a minor threat by comparison. Collins’ first interview resulted in a secret and very chaotic panic roaring through Washington. Black ops funds were thrown in every direction. Ground was broken for half a dozen high-security prisons scattered across the world. But then some wise head inside Langley decided that if time travelers were genuine, then there was no telling what they knew, and if they were inspired, there were probably no limits to what they could achieve. A tropical island might look fetching in the recruitment brochure, but how could you protect your prisoner/asset from death rays and stealth submarines? How would any facility set on the earth's surface remain hidden from prying eyes? The only hope, argued that reasonable voice, was to hide underground, and short, efficient logistical lines were only possible inside the United States. That's why the last prison to receive funding was the only one finished and staffed: an abandoned salt mine set beneath Kansas, provided with a bank of generators and layers of security that kept everyone, including most of its citizens, happily confused about its truest purpose.

  Each guard was a volunteer, most of them pulled from submarine duty. To qualify, they couldn't have close families, and like everyone on the skeletal staff, they were forewarned that leaves would be rare events, and brief, and subject to various kinds of shadowing.

  Most people didn't even apply for leaves anymore, preferring the safety of the underground while padding their retirement funds.

  Life inside the salt mine was never unpleasant, I was told. My superiors—those gray-haired survivors of these last decade-plus—liked to boast about the billions that had been spent on full-spectrum lights and conditioned air, plus the food that most of the world would be thrilled to find on their plates. But nobody went so far as to claim that I was fortunate, nor that this posting was a blessing. The terms of my assignment were grim, any success would bring repercussions, and nobody with half a brain told me that this was an honor, or for that matter, a choice.

  Collins’ slot had to be filled, and I was the new Collins.

  “Ma'am?”

  I showed the guard my ID and badge.

  “I don't need them, ma'am. I know who you are.”

  I was a slow, sweat-drenched jogger who had slugged her way through three kilometers of dressed-up tunnels. Technically the guard was off-duty, and he was using his free time to fling a colorful hand-tied fly into what looked like an enormous water-filled stock tank.

  “Any bites?” I asked.

  “A few.”

  “Trout?”

  I knew the water was too warm for trout. But the questions you ask often define you in a stranger's mind, and I thought it was smart to start with a mistake.

  “Bluegill,” he told me.

  “Really?” I sounded interested.

  He was a big strong man, a kid when he arrived here and still younger than me by quite a lot. But in a society where males outnumbered females ten-to-one, I had to be an object of some interest.

  “Ever fish?” he asked.

  “No,” I lied.

  He thought about offering to teach me. I saw it in his eyes, in the tilt of his head. But then he decided on caution, forcing himself to mutter a few colorless words. “They bite, but they're too tiny to keep.”

  Surrounding the tank were huge plastic pots, each one holding a tropical tree or a trio of shrubs. Some of the foliage was thriving. Most just managed to limp along. I could see where a few million dollars had gone, and I suppose it helped the cave dwellers to coexist with living plants. But I could also imagine that a sickly lemon tree standing under fancy fluorescent lights would just as surely defeat a soul or two.

  “What's your name?” I asked.

  He began with his rank.

  “Your first name,” I interrupted. “What do friends call you?”

  “Jim.”

  “Hi, Jim. I'm Carmen.”

  To the boy's credit, he saw through me. “You already know my name. Don't you, ma'am?”

  “Carmen,” I insisted.

  But he wouldn't say it. He reeled in his feathery fly, pinning the hook to the largest eyelet, and then he did a modestly convincing job of packing up his tackle. He didn't want to stop fishing, but my presence made him uncomfortable.

  “So you know who I am?”

  Jim nodded.

  “And maybe you're wondering if this is a coincidence, our paths crossing in the park like this?”

  “It isn't,” he stated.

  “Probably not,” I agreed.

  Surrounding the stock tank was a narrow cedar deck. I happened to be blocking the stairs leading down.

  “Talk to me for a minute,” I said.

  Not as an order, just a request.

  Jim hesitated. Then with a nervous grin, he said, “Yeah. I found him.”

  “Collins?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  I didn't react.

  “Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

  I nodded. “You found him inside his apartment.”

  “Yes.”

  My sense of the moment was that the young man was embarrassed, first and foremost. Security was his duty, and one of the most important citizens of this nameless, unmapped town died during his watch.

&
nbsp; “I read your report,” I mentioned.

  The boy's eyes were open but blind. He was gazing back in time, crossing a little more than a week, standing before a long dark pool of congealed blood leading to a pale corpse sitting in bathwater that had turned chill.

  “Did you know Collins very well, Jim?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “As a friend,” I continued. “Did you talk with him much?”

  “I didn't see it coming, if that's what you mean. Ma'am.”

  “We often don't with suicides,” I assured him. “People expect depression, despair. Afterwards, we try to remember a telltale noose hanging from the high beam. But that's usually not the case. And do you know why?”

  He blinked, watching me.

  “A person is miserable, let's say. Sad and sick of being alive. Then one day, he finds the perfect solution to his terrible problems. ‘I'll just kill myself,’ he says. And in that moment, his miseries are cured. He can suddenly smile through his final days, knowing that every pain will soon be left behind.”

  Jim shook his head slowly, probably wondering if this middle-aged woman was as bat-crazy as she sounded.

  “I knew Collins too,” I admitted.

  He sighed, looking at me with curious eyes. The two of us had something in common, it seemed.

  “I'll miss him,” I offered.

  The man's face dipped.

  Then before I could ask my next question, he looked up. “Salt Lake City,” he mentioned.

  “What about it?”

  “How is it, ma'am?”

  “Carmen,” I insisted.

  “Carmen.”

  “Salt Lake is just fine.”

  He said, “Good.”

  I waited.

  He took a deep breath, drinking in the negative ions that were being generated by a filtration system stolen from NASA. Then with a trace of frustration, he admitted, “We don't get much news down here.”

  “I know that.”

  “It's hard. You can never tell what they're holding back. It's done for good reasons, I know. But we always have to wonder.”

  “Indian Point,” I offered.

  “Yeah, it was four days before we heard anything about that. And then only because somebody with clearance decided to jump protocols and tell us.”

  “Collins did.”

  “I'm not saying,” he said. Which was the same as, “Yes.”

  “Did he explain how awful Indian Point would be?”

  Jim didn't answer, carefully turning his reel two clicks.

  “The reactors and storage facilities obliterated, all of those poisons thrown up by the mushroom cloud.” My voice broke—an honest shattering. Then I managed to add, “I watched it all on the news. That wind carried that shit right over New York, and then Washington and Philadelphia, and all the mayhem that resulted...”

  “Yeah,” Jim whispered.

  “And then to learn that it wasn't just some crude uranium bomb that killed twenty million, no. But a fat fusion monster that led straight back to Russia...”

  With a nudge, I could have knocked Jim off his feet. Almost two years had passed, and the memory was still that raw.

  I promised, “Nothing big has happened lately.”

  Jim needed a couple of deep breaths. “But at least ... are things starting to simmer down?”

  I shrugged. Honestly, how could anyone assess the state of our world?

  “What about the wars?” he asked.

  “Some are worse, some better. It just depends, Jim.”

  He gave me a long, studious stare. “You know what? You don't really look like a Carmen.”

  “I need a tall hat covered with fruit?”

  “Ma'am?” he muttered, puzzled by the cultural reference.

  I stepped away from the steps, allowing him enough room to escape.

  But he didn't move, and with a soft, importunate voice admitted, “Some of us are wondering. What is your mission, ma'am?”

  “To replace Collins.”

  That's what he wanted me to say, because the other possibilities were too hard to measure, and probably even more terrible.

  “I'll meet our prisoner tomorrow,” I confessed.

  Jim nodded, trying to show nothing with his face.

  “You often stand guard over Ramiro,” I mentioned.

  “Everybody gets that duty.”

  “Of course.”

  He glanced at the stairs.

  “So what do you think about the man, Jim?”

  “I don't know anything about him,” he said too quickly.

  I said, “Good,” and left it there.

  Then he added, “He seems smart, I guess. But odd.”

  “Odd how?”

  He had a guard's burly shoulders. He used them to shrug, saying nothing else.

  “I was hoping, Jim. Maybe you can help me.” I paused, just for a moment. Just to let him wonder what I might say next. “What was Collins’ mood when you walked him back to his apartment?”

  And now the shoulders tightened, just a little.

  “I saw you two on the security videos. Walking and talking.”

  “I was going off-duty, ma'am. Carmen.”

  “Collins didn't visit Ramiro again.”

  The young man seemed surprised. “No?”

  “Didn't he see the prisoner almost every day?”

  “Most days, I guess.”

  “But that was three days before he killed himself.”

  “I'll trust you on that.”

  “So I'm going to ask you. Officially. What was Collins’ state of mind when you walked with him back to his quarters?”

  Jim's eyes gazed into the past.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “I did most of the talking.”

  “Was that normal?”

  “Not particularly. No, ma'am.”

  “You stopped at his front door for a minute,” I said.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Did he show you anything, Jim?”

  “Like what?”

  “Papers. Something with writing on it.”

  “Well, Collins had his black case with him.”

  “But you didn't see a legal pad, or anything like that?”

  Jim tried to see yellow paper, but he couldn't make himself.

  “Under the blood,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Papers got burned. Somebody incinerated them at least twice, to make sure every mark was erased.”

  “I didn't know that.”

  “How about the coin?”

  “I saw that.”

  “Beside the bath?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “A dollar president's coin.”

  “I noticed it, sure.”

  I waited a moment. Then I said, “So you walked him and his attache case back to his apartment. And Collins said nothing that you can remember?”

  “Just...” Jim held his mouth closed for a moment. Then he forced himself to look at me, and with an impressive talent for mimicry, he used the dead man's voice. Deeply, with an appealingly slight Southern drawl, he said, “'Want to hear something funny?'”

  “He asked you that?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Did he tell you what was funny?”

  Jim shook his head. “Which was too bad, I thought at the time. Collins was real good at jokes, when he wanted to be...”

  * * * *

  4

  Healthful food and regular rest, plus years of tempered exercise, showed in the prisoner's fit body and the youthful face. He was wearing beige trousers, a clean white polo shirt and sandals that looked comfortably broken down. It was easy to confuse him for a middle-management worker in the final days of a long vacation. When he heard the reinforced door being unbolted, he stood up. Ramiro didn't seem at all surprised to find a strange woman walking into his home. “Hello,” he said with a voice that had grown almost American over the years. Then he offered a warm smile and his right hand.

  I
introduced myself.

  “A lovely name,” was his response. Then the spirit of generosity took hold. He surrendered his favorite chair and asked what I would like to drink. Coffee? Tea? Or perhaps the blue Gatorade he kept cold inside his little refrigerator.

  I took the chair and requested green tea.

  There wasn't any stove, so he heated the water inside the microwave. Staring at the revolving mug, he told me, “It's very sad about Collins.”

  “It was,” I agreed.

  “In a sense, he was my best friend.”

  “This must be hard for you.”

  “Not particularly.” Ramiro seemed to relish how cold that sounded. He pursed his lips and shrugged, giving me a momentary glance. Measuring my reaction, no doubt.

  I stared at the wall behind him, gazing at an enormous photograph of the snow-clad Himalayas.

  “By any chance, did you know Collins?”

  I waited for a moment. Then I said, “Yes.”

  That delay piqued his interest. Ramiro invested the next several moments studying my face. “How well did you know him?”

  I said nothing.

  “Were you lovers?”

  “Guess,” I told him.

  That earned an easy laugh. “I know you weren't.”

  “Why not?”

  With a calm voice, he asked, “Do you like honesty, Carmen?”

  “Always.”

  “You aren't pretty enough for Collins. Or young enough, frankly.”

  “Fair points,” I agreed. “But how do you know this?”

  “Occasionally the man would entertain me with his stories.” Ramiro glanced at the mug and then stared at me. “I don't have a passionate life, I'm sure you know. But if only half of his stories were true, then the young pretties didn't have much chance against his charms.”

  “Local girls, were they?”

  “I shouldn't say. Your fraternization rules are ridiculously strict.”

  I said nothing else.

  Then the microwave beeped, and Ramiro set a tea bag into the plain white mug before bringing both to me. He didn't use the handle, and when I touched the mug's body, just for an instant, my fingertips came close to burning.

  He pulled his office chair out from under his little desk and sat before me, the right leg crossed over his left.

  “Collins and I enjoyed some professional moments,” I began. “In fact, we met long before you happened along.”

  He nodded, smiled.

  I waited him out.