Time Skip (Book 2): The Time Skippers

by Craig L. Seymour

  “What does it mean?" She asked calmly. “Skipper?” She clarified.

  “Well, it’s sort of an analogy. The second time the clock turned back I thought it was as if time was an old vinyl record that kept skipping backwards. When I realized I wasn’t the only one, I started thinking of us as Skippers. I’ve just never said it out loud before.”

  “So why are you telling me this? After all these years?”

  “Can’t you tell how crazy I am about you?” He asked as if it should be patently obvious to her.

  “I can't tell anything. I don’t know what kind of act you’ve been putting on for me.” She was starting to sound peaved, but, at least she wasn’t storming out.

  “Yeah, that’s fair.” Lovelle said resignedly. “Look, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll answer any question you have. Just give me a chance to finish, and if you don’t like what I have to say I’ll get lost.”

  Lovelle calmly laid out the details of his surveillance of her. He told her what he had done and what he had decided not to do because of his feelings for her. She listened, mostly without comment, and seemed to be taking him at his word. When he had reached the end she had a single big question, “Why?” She clearly meant why bother to watch the 7/17 club in the first place, and not why he had treated her differently.

  “Because my work is controversial. I can’t expect any group of people to fully accept what I do. I certainly don’t want a group that has an agenda of non-interference, and possibly the means to stop me, to know who I am.”

  "Why would anyone want to stop you from killing Bin Laden? I can’t imagine anyone wants to see the World Trade Center fall again.”

  “Really? I can imagine it quite well. I can imagine a whole lot of people thinking that if I quit changing the past, that maybe time would finally move on. I can see them thinking that the first change they ever noticed outside of their own lives was on September 11th. Before that, I'm sure they all thought they were the only one. I certainly thought I was.” He paused to let that sink in. “Besides, Bin Laden is only one of many. I have been preemptively killing murderers, molesters, and rapists since we skipped back the third time. I’ve got blood on my hands like you wouldn’t believe. And you may not know it, because you haven’t been in the U.S. But, I know they damn sure are aware of it. They may not have figured out that it’s all the same guy, but, they have to realize that some of the most notorious crimes of our lifetime are no longer happening. And even if they’re right about how I'm affecting our chance of moving on in time, which I seriously doubt, I don’t know if I could just let the attacks occur. If that’s the price to pay for the world to move on, then it’s too damned high.”

  Maria was silent for a long time before she responded. “You know, I think that might be exactly how Cedric sees it. I’ve only met him a few times, but, he is always preaching about ‘not playing God’. He’s very persuasive, but, as someone who comes from Castro’s Cuba, it is hard to imagine not wanting to change things that you know are wrong. I worry that he will ask me not to leave Cuba the next time the clock turns back. If he does then I will still come, but, I will have to give up the club. I will lose the first connection to people who know what is really happening that I’ve ever had. It took me so long to get away from there. I was not lying when I said that I have only been in America for a year. I have failed, life after life to convince my family to come with me, and I have never had the courage to leave before now.”

  She told him how she married the same man, life after life, and tried so many ways to convince him to leave. And about her mother, who still believed in the revolution. “Because she does not know how long she has suffered under it.” Finally, when it came time to marry in this life she refused. She had decided that it had been long enough, and if the people she loved would not save themselves, she would not let them keep her. But, when the time came, her courage had faltered. It took her four more years to make the trip on her own, but, never again. Now that she was here, she could only regret all the time that she had lost. In the next life she would leave as soon as she could find a way. She wouldn’t spend one more day living under communist rule than necessary for the rest of her days.

  Lovelle reached across the table and held her hands. “Baker may control the club, but, they’re not the only ones who know what you’ve been through. If you can forgive me for lying to you, and can accept what I do, then you’ll never be alone again.”

  “You don’t have to be forgiven. I think you’re right about Baker. I think he would stop you if he could.” Maria assured him.

  Lovelle knew right then that he would come for her as soon as they skipped. He had long ago given up worrying about appearances. He would leave school and use the 19 year-old Ridge identity to get to her. They could worry about the rest when she was safely in his arms.

  ***

  The pair returned to Maria’s apartment, where they would talk most of the night away. Finally the real getting to know each other portion of the relationship could begin. She described for him the years of time wasted trying to get her husband and family to leave Cuba. The frustration of not being able to budge them. The inability to use what she knew to her own advantage, or theirs. He described for her a much more complicated life. His difficult Second Life trying and failing to stop al Qaeda. Four marriages destroyed by the time skips, and his subsequent self-imposed exile from that part of his life. His transformation into the vigilante. As he described it and put into words for the first time what he had gone through, even he found it unbelievable. It was almost like speaking of another person. Somewhere along the way, he had come to take these things for granted. In his life they were normal. But, to speak of them made it obvious how abnormal his life was. Not just the time traveling portion, but, the killer he had become. A righteous killer, yes, but, a killer nonetheless.

  “So, I am the first… what do you call us? Skipper?” Lovelle nodded his head. “Okay, I'm the first Skipper that you've ever spoken to?”

  “Sort of.” He answered and she looked at him expectedly. “Well, Baker came to see me once, back in life number four. He was checking out all the people with our birth date. Trying to find out who were Skippers, and who were Once-lers.”

  “Once-lers?” She questioned, looking puzzled.

  “Sorry, it’s a Dr. Seuss character. Do you know Dr. Seuss?” She shook her head. “Well, he’s a famous children’s author. My son’s absolute favorite. He wrote a story called “The Lorax” that I used to read to my son. There was a character called the Once-ler. I have no idea what the name means in the book, but, it seems to fit. You know, the normal people who go through life and it’s always the first time. As far as they know everything happens just once.”

  “I really love the names you give us.” She smiled. “They just seem friendlier than the ones the club uses. Not as divisive or condescending.”

  “Oh yeah? What terms do they use?” He asked.

  “Baker calls them mortals and us immortals.”

  “What, not gods?” Lovelle asked sarcastically, chuckling. “That does seem just a little condescending. So what's your name for us?”

  “I don't have one. I never needed one.” She answered plainly. “Until I made contact with the club I didn’t have anyone to talk to about us. Before that, in my head, there were just the people who repeat time and the people who didn’t. I never put a name to us.”

  “So, in your head now, do you call us immortals?”

  “No!” She responded vehemently. “I've never been comfortable with that. I don’t even like to use it when I’m talking to someone in the club. I cringe a little inside whenever I have to. So why do you have names for us? You said I’m the only Skipper you’ve talked to. Did you try to explain it to a Once-ler?”

  “No. Never. You’re the first person I’ve uttered a word to about this.”

  “You've never tried to explain this to someone, just to see how they would react?” She seemed surprised.

  “Not a soul.
I take it you have. How did that go?”

  “I told my mother once. It went very badly. When I finally got tired of trying to convince her to leave Cuba, I sat her down and explained everything. She believed I was crazy. I thought she was going to turn me in to the authorities. That was when I decided I would just go on my own.”

  “So, was that just a year ago?” He asked.

  “No, that was a lifetime ago.” They both smiled at her little play on words.

  “How long have you been waiting to use that line?”

  She just smiled a little broader and continued her story, “I didn’t want to leave things that way. With my Madre thinking I’m crazy and my husband wondering why I left him. Even knowing it would all be reset in a few years.”

  “You see, that’s just it. I always assume life is finally going to move on and I don’t want to have to live with the consequences of bad decisions. I just expected people would think I was crazy, and I didn’t want to have that to turn out to be my permanent life. The one time I did get caught knowing more than should have and needed to explain myself I just told them I was psychic. I figured that was a lot easier for them to accept. Actually, that was how I stopped 9/11 the first time. What a botched up job that was.” Lovelle groaned. “I went about that all the wrong way. Nearly got myself thrown in prison in a foreign country. Nearly failed to stop the whole thing. And then when I did stop it, all they did was regroup and attack again. Hell, they almost killed me in that second attack. Talk about karma. I was at the Las Vegas Airport when the dirty bomb went off. I rushed in to help people and exposed myself to radiation. I probably would have died of cancer if we hadn’t skipped back.”

  “I don't understand how you think that was your fault.”

  “It was my fault because I stopped it the wrong way. All I did was postponed it. And it’s not like I didn’t know that was a possibility. I spent a lot of time thinking about that. How to stop the attack, and still have people be on their guard? It was a real problem for me. I hated a lot of the things that happened after 9/11. The restrictions on our freedom. Our government spying on its own citizens. I didn't want that to happen again. I didn't want another war in Afghanistan. I just wanted people to be on their guard. But, I didn't know how to do that. How do you make people aware of the threat without feeding anti-Muslim sentiment? How do you make them vigilant without making vigilantes? And how do you get the government to step up its anti-terrorist activities without stepping all over our rights? Everything seems to lead to either more attacks or to the damned Patriot Act. I tried to do it so that people would take note. When they started to arrest the plotters, everyone could see the threat that Al Qaeda posed. But people don’t want to take care of their own security. They’ve been raised to believe that the government can and should do it. And when they saw the FBI unravel the plot, instead of becoming more concerned about the threat, they just became more confident that the government was on top of it. That was my fault. I miscalculated. But somehow, the FBI must have believed the same thing, and that was their fault. They knew damned well that I had handed them everything they needed on a silver platter. They had no reason to pat themselves on the back. They knew just how close they came to letting those men slip right under their radar. It makes me angry just thinking about it, because I did exactly what I didn’t want other people to do. I left it to the government to handle. And frankly, I don't trust the government to do much of anything.”

  “You would just love living under Castro.”

  “Yeah, I guess from your perspective, we probably seem to be quibbling over nothing. But I've got a real strong libertarian streak. And the more time I spend watching government in action, the wider that streak gets.”

  “What made you decide you should try to stop the terrorists in the first place?”

  “I was in high school after the first skip when I saw news coverage of a hijacking on TV. I immediately flashed back to September Eleventh. I had been so shook up when all those people were killed. I’ve never been that emotional about the fate of a bunch of strangers before. I remember standing in front of a television at one of my customers, watching as the first tower fell. More than a thousand people died in that one moment, right there live on TV. Right there in front of my eyes. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. That just doesn’t go away. It’s one of the few clear memories I have of things that haven’t existed since the first life. And as if what happened to people on that day wasn’t bad enough, there was the aftermath. There was the war. There was the lost freedom. They changed our country in ways I never wanted to see again. All that came flooding back and I knew right then what I was going to do. Nothing in my life was so important that I could squander the chance to stop the attack.

  “But, I realized right away that it wasn't going to be simple. I knew that I just couldn't continue on with my life as it was and expect to be able to stop them with an anonymous tip. I was going to have to put myself in the right position. I was going to have to redesign my life, not replicate it. But, I had already figured out that I’d not be able to recreate my life. I had gotten so far off track so quickly. And I knew I would get further off the course as time went on. So I just resolved to fit this new thing in. And I was right. I turned my life upside down. The girl who was my childhood crush didn’t go away to college. She became my best friend. A friend who wanted something more. And when I finally met my original wife, I drove her into the arms of another man. After that I dedicated myself to the mission. But that went off course too. I had been trying to get into the FBI. I thought that was the best place to use my knowledge. But I failed at that too.” Maria could see he was obviously still upset about that despite all the time that had passed.

  “What happened? You seem like the perfect candidate. I can easily imagine you as government agent, although, maybe a rogue one. Or was that the problem? Were they concerned with your independent streak?”

  “No, that wasn’t quite so well developed back then.” He answered. “I just got derailed. They dug up some bad history in my family. I had a cousin with some questionable associations. It just came out of left field. I didn’t even know the guy.”

  “So what did you do to stop it? How did you almost go to prison?”

  “Well I decided that I would have to tip the Feds off after all. So I figured I needed as much information as I could. I simply didn’t remember enough detail to be either credible or very helpful. So I traveled to Germany for my first attempt at reconnaissance. Only, the German version of the FBI nabbed me. They wanted to know what I knew and how I knew it. I demanded to speak to someone from my government. Once I convinced them that I knew what I was talking about, I had to explain how. So, I let them think I was a psychic. I figured that was easier to believe than the truth.

  “They had plenty of time to uncover even more than I could have hoped to, and they were able to foil the plot. Too bad they weren’t smart enough to stay after Al Qaeda, and keep them from coming back in two years. That wasn’t a mistake I was going to make again. When time skipped back again, and I got another shot at it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I joined the Army the next time around and not only learned what to do, but, got myself into the vicinity of my quarry. Part by effort, and part by luck, I managed to get special forces training without being in the special forces. That not only served me well then, but, has been the basis for my whole career since.”

  “How did you end up going from anti-terrorist to vigilante?

  “Kind of the same way. In the third life, after my marriage fell apart, I was sort of looking for a purpose. With no terrorists to track, and no one in my life to occupy me, I had time on my hands. I had resigned myself to the fact the time would skip again, so for the first time I found myself planning for the past rather than the future. Then the capture of the Green River Killer hit the news.”

  “I'm sorry.” Maria excused herself. “I don't know who that is. This is my first go around in the US.”

  “Yeah
, I suppose there are a lot of people who wouldn’t recognize the name, even in this country. It was a mostly a dead case though all of the nineties, until it was solved in 2001 and got back into the press. And since I’ve been involved it hasn’t been revived past 1985.

  “He was a pretty prolific serial killer. I think I read once that he was the most active serial killer in the history of this country. Something like 50 to 70 women all told. Unfortunately, most of those were already dead by 1985. But not all of them, so I decided I'd take him out. I did my research in the third life, and found out that he was inactive in ’85. Something to do with meeting his latest wife. So that was perfect for me. I didn’t have to leave my parent’s house on the first day and go kill a man without any time to prepare. But, he is always my first kill.

  “I lined up some other pretty notorious killers to take on in that fourth go around, and when I wasn’t taking care of those, I spent my time learning about others. Unfortunately, there are a lot of really bad people in this world. More than enough to keep me busy for an eighteen year stint. Between investigation and assassination it gets harder and harder to find time for any kind of life.”

  “Do you think one of these people may be the reason time is skipping? Is that still your goal?”

  “No. If there’s some event we’re supposed to prevent, I haven’t a clue what it is. There have been so many horrible killers in history. Arguably the worst are from before our time. There have been Cannibals and child molesters who have escaped any kind of justice. It seems to me that if the reason for the skip was to stop someone like that, then we would probably skip back earlier. Or more likely it would be a different group of people time traveling. No, at this point I’m coming to believe that there's no damn reason at all. Or at least one that isn’t related to anything I’m doing. I don’t do what I do to try and slap that record player and get time to stop skipping. Not anymore. I do what I do because I think someday something will make time move on, and when it does, I want these people gone.”