Maria sat looking pensively for a moment. “Just living life over and over again is hard enough. I can't imagine putting that kind of burden on myself.”
“That's funny, I can't imagine not.”
“So is that how you look at the rest of us? As if we’re doing nothing?”
“No! I didn't mean that at all. It’s never occurred to me to condemn anyone for not choosing the path I’ve laid out for myself. I'm not some altruist. I don't believe we have some inherent duty to our fellow man, other than to respect each other’s rights. You know, do unto others. I think if anyone actually demanded that I do what I do, I might chuck it all. But it’s me that demands it of myself. That's who I am, how I’m made. I don't expect it of anyone. Just me. And I don't look at someone else and say, ‘Hey you’re not doing enough.’ I'm not in their shoes. I don't know what they're doing, or how they work. What they’re capable of. All I know is I do what I do because I want to. I am compelled, but, I’m compelled by me. When I say I can’t imagine not being a vigilante, it’s because I know what I’m capable of.”
“I guess I still just don't understand. I don't see how you can say that you don't believe you have a duty to other people and then do what you do. It seems like a huge sacrifice. You’ve given up your whole life, and I don’t see what you get in return besides a lot of frustration and looking over your shoulder. And I don't see how anyone would do that unless they believed it was their duty.” She was more than a little confused by his personal philosophy.
“Well, I can understand your confusion. Even in this country most people seem to believe in the sacrifice of the individual for the greater good. I heard once that a bunch of college students were asked where the phrase, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ comes from, and most of them attributed it to our founding fathers. That’s your public education system for you. Not only do they not know that it’s a Marxist tenet, but, they actually don’t understand that it runs totally contrary to the principles that this country was founded upon. They might as well have been educated in Cuba, for all people seem to understand about individual liberty. But, I don't believe in that stuff. I believe in the individual. I believe that the only duty you have to your fellow man is to not get it their way. Let them do what they want to do so long as it doesn't interfere with what you want to do. That’s your only obligation to your fellow man. For me, duty is a contract. You don't have a duty to do anything until you’ve signed on for it. So I do what I do because it's what I want. What I want is a world without those people in it. That is a better world for me and for everyone that I care about. And to the extent that I have the power to do that, I will. Not, for the greater good. Oh, it's fine if that works out that way. But, that’s not my obligation. Like I said, if people demanded that of me I might resent it so much that I’d sit on my butt and let the bastards have at it.” Lovelle was pretty hot under the collar. This was a topic he had often mulled over in his mind and never had the opportunity to discuss. He could see her discomfort.
“I’m sorry.” He apologized, trying to soften his tone. “That’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask and I don’t want you to think I’m angry with you or anything. That’s just a little something that has been simmering in me for a lot of years. I’m sorry you knocked the lid off that.
“You know, as far as the sacrifice part goes, it didn't start out that way. I really didn't think I was giving up that much. It’s not like I was in any real danger. And when I chose this path, I had already decided to separate from the rest of my life. I realize now how hard that has been on me, but, I didn't then. So it didn't seem like a big sacrifice. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I didn't know how to fill it. I didn’t have any interest in forging new relationships to replace the ones I’d given up. There hadn’t been anything wrong with the old ones except for the fact that they were always in the shadow of my big secret. Any new ones would have the same lie at their foundation. And I wasn’t about to start cavorting with the other Skippers. At first I resented them. Not for anything they had done, but, just for the fact that they existed at all. Knowing that I wasn’t alone robbed me of my sense of efficacy. It crushed my belief that it was within my power to move time. I might have gotten over that, but, when I learned what Baker was about, I saw them as a threat.
“Without any other viable options, doing away with really bad men gave me satisfaction. I never expected it to consume me. And now, I can't imagine not following through. Knowing what I'm capable of, I don't see how to stop.” What Lovelle was still afraid to say, for fear of scaring her off, was that he hoped she would save him from being taken over by that part of his life. That she could give him back some of what he had sacrificed. She saved him the trouble of saying it.
“Well, now I'm here. Now you can be a vigilante, and have someone to share your life with too.”
Lovelle grinned broadly. “That sounds pretty good.”
“You know, it’s funny how differently you reacted to finding out about other Skippers. The others I’ve talked to, and I, all felt a sense of relief at knowing we weren’t the only ones. When you stopped the attack the first time it was just a comfort to know that I wasn’t going through this by myself.”
“Sure. If I had seen some evidence that there were others in the first skip I probably would have been comforted too. But, I didn’t know there was anybody else until after we found out that we were going to keep skipping back. I had convinced myself that there was something I could do about that. And up until that moment I really believed I had done it. Bin Laden was dead and I thought that was it.”
“So what made you decide to go after Bin Laden yourself? Were you always the hero type?” Maria asked, a little tongue in cheek.
“Hey, I never claimed to be a hero.” He protested.
“Really? Wasn’t it just a few hours ago that you compared yourself to Batman.” She teased him.
Lovelle chuckled. “Yeah, okay, I concede the point. But, only in the broadest sense. Believe me, I’m no hero.”
“Okay then, what do you call someone who risks his life to do what you do?” She asked, seriously.
“Well, for one thing, I don’t know if risking my life is a very accurate description. As Baker would say, I’m kind of immortal. Really, I'm just a guy who does what needs doing. There are a ton of guys who do what I do if they had the knowledge I have. Plenty of them would do it without knowing they couldn't be killed.”
“And when did you find out you could not be killed?” She asked.
“One of the club members died back in the fourth life. I don't know what the circumstances were, but, I watched the other members go to the funeral. She was back in the next life.” He paused for a moment. “I wonder what that was like. Can you imagine?”
She ignored his attempt to change the subject. “And how many years was that after you started your quest?”
“Alright, I concede the point, again.” He blushed, “I didn’t know it wasn’t dangerous when I started. You don't have to make a fuss about it."
“Nope, no fuss. I’ve made my point. So why did you decide to make an exception for me?” She jumped all the way back to where their discussion had begun.
“Hu… what…” Lovelle stuttered, missing the transition.
“We were talking about you never telling anyone you’re a Skipper. I want to know why you made an exception for me?”
“Love at first sight.” He answered, the inflection of his voice trying to convey the obviousness of his assertion. She cocked an eye at him, letting him know that she wasn’t buying that answer. “Okay, I don’t actually believe in that. But, as soon as I saw you I knew I had to meet you. It was a gut reaction. Probably because of the instant attraction and a thought somewhere in the back of my head that it might actually be okay to fall in love again, if I could finally admit to a woman who I really am. You're the first woman in a very long time to make me feel that way.”
“And have you?”
&nb
sp; “Have I what?”
“Have you fallen in love again?” She said, exasperated.
“I think you know I have.”
“A woman likes to hear the words, Curtis.” She called him by his real name for the first time.
“I love you, Maria!” He declared.
“I love you too.” She answered softly. She rose and crossed to his side of the dining room table. She sat down on his lap and kissed him softly. Moving her lips close to his ear she whispered, “Now show me.”
His secret revealed, Lovelle felt like an intense pressure had suddenly been removed. Not only was there an extreme relief at getting past the shadow hanging over their budding relationship, but, there was the simple catharses of finally speaking of life as a Skipper with another person. He hadn’t even realized how much tension there was in keeping that bottled up inside for so many years. No longer concerned about false pretenses, he also felt free to finally be intimate for the first time in a very long while.
Over the years, since he had made the conscious choice not to pursue any of the great loves of his life, Lovelle had allowed himself a couple of casual flings. But, he had chosen his partners based almost entirely on their lack of suitability as a mate. And he had found that intimacy without some sort of emotional attachment was hollow and unfulfilling. It had been more than 30 years since he had been with a woman, and that too was something he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed.
After that night there was never any question about being together. She had lots of questions about his life and why and how he did what he did. But, she knew without doubt that he was totally devoted to her. She believed in the principle of what he was doing, and if she found she had a problem with his method they could hash that out together. She would never betray him or abandon him. She considered herself extremely fortunate, after so many years of feeling exactly the opposite. She had someone to share her life with, her real life, whether time ever continued past 2003 or not.
Chapter 6
Lovelle wondered whether any of the other Skippers had found love amongst themselves. Some of them had clearly found companionship, like the 7/17 club and the birthday party in China. But, although thrust together by circumstances, how many of them had even really bonded as friends, let alone fallen in love. Lovelle and Maria had been isolated from the others for the first six skips, him by choice and her by location, with no one to share their experience. But that seemed so unimportant, now that they had each other.
In short order the pair settled in to his place in Las Vegas, and he went back to work. She found a local job then made contact with the 7/17 club. They had agreed that she would continue to attend the occasional meeting and save him the trouble of snooping around. She wasn’t to press for information. It could be bad for both of them if anyone became suspicious of her. But, he would find out more from her casual attendance than he had ever been able to learn from the outside.
The most interesting things he would learn from the club she already knew. Whereas he had pieced together what he could about being a Skipper, they knew so much more just by the simple pooling of information. The Skippers were apparently not only all born on the same day, but, seemingly at the same time. The time of birth of every member with reliable documentation could be tracked to midnight somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. That fit with Lovelle’s own birth hour, which was reported as 6:59 am. That also explained why Baker had showed up on his doorstep back in life number four, trying to find out if Lovelle was one of them. He wasn’t blanketing all the people with their birth date. He had a more narrow focus than that. That also meant that Lovelle was on a much shorter list of suspects for being the vigilante than he had thought.
At the time, Baker had tracked his address, still in Detroit, and simply shown up at Lovelle’s door. He introduced the 7/17 club, which to anyone who wasn’t a Skipper would seem ludicrous. By then, Lovelle was already fully involved in his new vocation, so he played dumb. “Dude, I don’t know what you think is so special about being born on July 17th. It sure hasn’t made my life all that special. I’m just barely scraping by myself. I don't have time to be tryin’ to help anybody else.” Baker had gone away, seemingly satisfied that Lovelle was just a regular guy. Lovelle had monitored the club ever since.
According to Maria, the club estimated that there was about a one minute window of time where all of the Skippers were born. Baker discerned this from both the known times of birth and the number of Skippers they had identified in North America. Based on that, he thought he had a pretty good idea of how many there were around the world, and even some idea of how they might be distributed. Their best guess was that there might be 150 to 170 Skippers, or immortals as they styled themselves, around the world.
“I don’t see how they can come to that. How do you extrapolate out from such a small sample? How can they even be confident that they've identified everyone here? They already know there's at least one more. What makes them think it's only one?”
“They’re assuming one extra. They’ve never said why, but, it wasn’t hard to figure out, even before you showed up in Miami. And they’re right. They've either connected the Bin Laden assassin and the vigilante, or they're assuming the assassin is from somewhere else. I guess they figure the odds that it is two different people, and that they are both from America are too small.”
All of this was interesting, but, not very relevant. There were really only two things he needed to know about the 7/17 club. Did they have any useful theories on how to end the time skips? And, did they have any plans to come after him? As far as he knew, they never had. But, it might be that they just hadn't come close yet.
They could easily identify at least some of his targets, as they were high profile. They could probably figure out some more by extrapolation because of his methodology. His subjects died the same way over and over again. But, not in the same order. He assumed they would see that as well, so if they wanted to catch him in the act they were going to have to be patient. As yet he saw no sign that they were trying.
***
As time passed in life seven Lovelle continued his work without any significant events. With time on her hands during his frequent missions, Maria became a semi-regular at the club, and befriended one of the other women. Caroline Berghdorf was one of Baker’s earliest recruits. She was a bright woman with a big heart. Maria genuinely liked her, but, was disheartened to find she was a devoted disciple of Baker. It was from her that Maria found out exactly how the group viewed the vigilante, and by extension, Lovelle.
“I remember waiting for news of the attacks that first time we repeated September 11th." Caroline told Maria. "I had braced myself for the news, and I was stunned when they didn’t happen. I was so happy that all of those people were still alive. But, I think I was even happier to realize that I might not be the only one reliving the past. Then, when all of those airports got hit two years later I thought, well that’s what you get for trying to change destiny."
Marie told Caroline that she had felt much the same way. What she couldn’t tell her was how devastated Lovelle had been when he realized how he had failed. He had sacrificed so much of his life to stop the attacks and all he had really done was postpone them. Whether by fate, karma, or sheer coincidence, he had even been there to assist the first responders after the dirty bomb attack in Las Vegas.
Maria couldn’t exactly point out how he had learned his lesson from that failure. But, she had seen the effect of it herself. Even in Cuba she was fully aware that he had successfully changed tactics. The assassin had clearly decided that it was a mistake to leave things to the FBI to take care of. He had decided to go after Al Qaeda himself. He had cut off that snake’s head before it ever got rolling and Al Qaeda hadn’t materialized as a threat in any life since.
When Maria pointed this last fact out to her friend, Caroline was quick to answer, “How are we to know if there isn’t another attack about to happen? If time ever kept going there might be a massive attack
the next day.”
“I suppose." Maria responded thoughtfully, "But, outside of the club, when is the last time you heard the name Al Qaeda?”
“Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that killing Bin Laden does work. Give them the benefit of the doubt that there are no unintended consequences. That is still not how things are done in a civilized society. We don't take the law into our own hands.”
“Is that what you would call killing Bin Laden, taking the law into your own hands?”
“It doesn’t matter what you call it, the principle is the same. Besides, Bin Laden is just the tip of the iceberg.” Caroline was getting upset. No one in the club ever opposed Baker on this subject.
“Oh, you’re talking about the vigilante. So you believe they’re the same person?”
“Of course.” Caroline answered confidently.
“What what makes you so sure?”
“Timothy McVeigh.” Caroline answered. Maria's eyebrows rose questioningly. “He was the one who blew up the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. It hasn’t happened in a long time, but, you must have heard about it.” Marie nodded and Caroline continued, “That was actually the vigilante’s first intervention. His trial run you might say. Most of us didn’t even notice at the time. But Cedric did. That was when he knew he wasn’t the only one reliving the past. He was probably the first of us to realize that. Cedric noted when the Branch Davidian compound burned down in Waco Texas, and was waiting for the second anniversary and the Murrah bombing. Timothy McVeigh was arrested just days before he could go through with the plot. Then, following the same script, the terrorist plotters were arrested before they could attempt to crash the planes into buildings.”
That was a surprisingly good description of how things had played out after the first skip. Although Lovelle had intended to stop the Murrah bombing for its own sake, he had also used it as a bit of a trial run, as well as to lay the ground work for his future interaction with the FBI. Rather than remaining completely anonymous, he had given himself a pseudonym. And that had saved him from the German authorities as he was able to call in the FBI and take credit for that earlier success.
Time Skip (Book 2): The Time Skippers Page 6
