“Now, when I say that you’re the last one; I do, not mean in America.”
“I know. I’ve seen your handy work in France, Canada… Oh, and in China. Let’s not forget the birthday party in China.”
“Very impressive. You’ve been to Xianghe? Then you already know that their not coming back. I thought maybe you still believed you could just wait for the next shift and Maria would be waiting for you to come get her.”
“Bastard!” Lovelle growled.
“I’m sorry, Curtis. I am not gloating. I am most sincere when I say that I regret having taken her from you. Hell, I regret all of the killings. Well, maybe not the first. But that is a story I’m sure we will get to. Whether you choose to believe it or not. I am not a cold blooded killer. A killer I am, most assuredly. But I do it out of necessity, and I am remorseful each time. I wish that it could be another way. But, I am not the architect of this crazy dilemma in which we find ourselves.
“So, you are aware that this is at least the third life that I have been killing other, what did you call them…. Time Skippers? In reality, not counting the first, I have been doing this for the last six time shifts. I have been around the world several times over. I have killed one hundred and sixty two Time Skippers. I was never able to tell him, but, Cedric’s estimate was quite good. So good, in fact, that I was relatively sure you would turn out to be the vigilante based on your birth record alone. Of course, there was always the possibility that there was a clerical error in the exact time of birth. But, I was sure enough I might have just killed you just to see if I was right. But, as I’ve said, I had already decided that you were to be the last. And not just so that you could finish your work if you bested me. But because, if I am not to be the final one, then I think it should be you.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?” Lovelle spat. “I get the chance to live on forever without Maria. Thanks a bunch?”
“No!” Hardy’s composure cracked just a little. “It’s not about living on forever. It’s about time finally continuing. The world will be free of this incessant Merry-Go-Round when there is only one of us left.” There was a pause, then Hardy spoke again with his composure restored. “Or none. I’m afraid that is the other reason it had to be you. Because releasing the world may come down to trading your own life. And I could not leave that choice in the hands of someone else. I have seen how you have consciously risked your life time and again to do what you believe in.”
Lovelle regained his own composure now that he knew what this was all about. Crazy as Hardy might be, Lovelle could at least now understand his motivation. “Self-sacrifice is really not a big part of my personal ethos. You may have misjudged me. Maybe I’ve read a little too much Ayn Rand over the years but, I don’t exactly live my life for the sake of others. Besides, how much have I actually been risking, when I know I’ll just show up again in 1985?”
“I don’t believe for a moment that you have continued to work so hard at destroying all of those monsters, life after life, without harboring a belief that someday your work would become permanent. And if their deaths could become permanent, then so could your own. Besides, You couldn’t have possibly known that time would shift back again when you set about to stop 9/11 the first time.” Lovelle made no reply. “I don’t know what you went through to make that happen, and I must say that I regret that we will never be on such terms as would allow you to regale me with that story, but, I am quite sure it was not without some risk to yourself.” Another pause, and Hardy took Lovelle’s silence as confirmation of his point. “So, I am quite confident that you are the worthiest person to be the last, save maybe for myself.”
“Maybe yourself?” Lovelle questioned.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that we have both earned the right to be alive today. Who is more worthy? I don’t know. I guess whoever remains will be the most worthy. I expect it to be me, but, as I said, I have no delusions of grandeur. But, I will do whatever I have to do to prevail. I have given over some of my advantage by reaching out to you this way, but, it was necessary to ensure you would be prepared in case I was to fail.”
“So what makes you so sure we are the last two? How could you know? Don’t you think that in all this world there is one Skipper who has done nothing to reveal himself? Some tribal guy in Africa, or aboriginal Australian. Some Taliban fighter who doesn’t dare let his Mufti know that he isn’t exactly what they think he is?”
“As a matter of fact, there was one in a tribe in Uganda. He used his foreknowledge to become the chieftain when he was just nineteen years old. Stood out like a sore thumb. I’ve been around the world at least three times over. One way or another, Skippers always stand out. The only time they don’t stand out is when they group together. In either case, if you look you will find them. One hundred and sixty year-old people with the vitality of 25 year-olds do not sit around reliving the same old life without doing something to tip you off. You just have to know what to look for.”
“And what if you’re wrong? I mean, let’s assume your right about us. That we’re the last two. What makes you so sure that time moves on when there is only one of us?”
“Because there is an unmistakable feeling that comes over me when I have killed a Skipper.”
Immediately Lovelle thought Oh, here we go, he’s a nut job after all. The guy has some psychotic reaction to killing and believes it’s a sign from God or something. He thought of some movies he had seen where guys who never aged went around cutting each other’s heads off and exclaiming “there can be only one!” He had never given much credence to claims that movies or songs caused people to commit crimes. He had always believed they were more excuse than inspiration. But, he wondered now if Hardy hadn’t taken those films too much to heart.
Hardy continued, “I felt it for the first time during our third life. It happened not long before time shifted back for a fourth go around. I had met Thomas early on in that life. Like pretty much all the Skippers we had realized that we were probably not alone when the World Trade Center towers never fell. By the by, if you don’t mind my asking, what tipped you to the presence of other Skippers? Since it couldn’t have been what you did yourself.”
“I came home from the Middle East and there was no Microsoft Windows.”
“Ahhh. Not quite the same bit of drama I fear.”
“It was plenty dramatic for me. Or maybe traumatic is a better word for it. I came home feeling sure that I had just done what I was supposed to do to move time. Thinking I was the only one, I had convinced myself that 9/11 was the reason I had been skipped back. That my failure to put an end to Al Qaeda the first time was why I was having to go through it all again. Finding out that I wasn’t the only one shook that conviction.”
Hendy went on with his own story. “Yes, well, I had no illusions that there was something I might do about the shifts. Before I entered the Army for the third time I put an ad in the paper. Something to the effect of, if you know what 9/11 means call this number. I guess I could have been a little more precise. I got some calls from crackpots who thought there was some significant numerological or astrological meaning. And there were some cranks just having a little fun with me. But when Thomas rang me, he simply said, ‘The World Trade Center!’. ‘Al Qaeda’ I replied and we were instantly bonded. With our shared experience we had so much to discuss. I told him everything about me. About both of my lives and about the things I had tried to accomplish and my disappointments. And he told me… well, he told me lies. He wove a tale for me that was almost completely fabricated. He made up a story for me, but not to impress or shock me, as one might expect. No, his was a story so banal as to make me wish never to think of it again. He created a life that was intended to make me believe him to be completely boring.
“What Thomas was, in fact, was a murderer. He was a serial killer. Not a killer with a cause. Not even a flawed cause. His only purpose was his own self-gratification. I learned what he had been doing when I caught him while covering up his crime some fi
fteen years into our friendship. Caught red handed, he tried to convince me to join him in his hedonistic rampage.
“In his first life, Thomas had been in an unhappy marriage. He had married his secondary school sweetheart, and she had turned cold almost as soon as their nuptials were consummated. He insisted that she had simply turned that way once she had a ring on her finger. If that was in fact true, I suspect he did something to bring such behavior about. None of which really matters. Plenty of people fail at marriage over and over. And while it isn’t a trait to be admired or emulated, it is no concern of mine. But, Thomas decided that murder was the simplest way out.
In his first life he had been so afraid of conflict that he had stayed in the verbally abusive marriage right up until the time shift. When he found himself a teen again he believed he had been given another chance. But, he was still terribly afraid to confront her. So he murdered her instead. This, he found, was an incredibly satisfying act.
Twice more he tried his hand at marriage, but, apparently he was very bad at it. To hear him tell it you would have to conclude that he was drawn to abusive women. After the third murder a detective spotted the pattern and Thomas spent the final four years of that second life in the penitentiary. Imagine his delight to find himself resurrected as a sixteen year-old yet again. Like the rest of us, he was coming to the conclusion that not only was he an immortal, of a sorts, but that any consequences of his behavior were only temporary. This is a very bad realization for a man already suffering from a lack of impulse control.
“Freed from whatever semblance of inhibition that had restrained him in his past life, he set off on a killing spree. Having learned from that past; he no longer bothered with having any sort of relationship with his victims. He killed with the impunity of his unique nature. The brutality of his crimes escalated; as did the frequency. When he decided to dispose of the corpse of his latest victim just minutes before he knew I was due to arrive, I’m not sure what motivated him. I don’t know if he wanted me to catch him, hoping I would join him, or was thrilled by the risk he knew he was taking. Possibly he simply didn’t care. What I do know was that he tried very hard to convince me that we were not bound by normal conventions of morality.
“I entertained his rambling’s until I felt I could no longer learn anything of use, then I shot him. I don’t believe he knew that I carried a pistol. I have often wondered if, as he lay there dying, he realized his error. Was he thinking the same thing that I was? That he had revealed himself to the one person whose memory would not be wiped clean when time shifted again? Did he expect to pass from that life into the beginning of the next one only to be a hunted man? I certainly expected that to be my lot in life. Every eighteen years I would have to put the miserable cur down. Even the strange sensation that came over me the moment he stopped gasping for air did not prepare me to find no trace of Thomas when I went to fulfill my duty in the next life. And I do mean there was no trace of him. Thomas was not simply dead. He had been wiped from existence. I visited his parents and they were amused by my inquiry, as they were childless. I have checked on his family during several lives and, aside from my own memories, I can find no evidence of his existence. Until this moment, his murder was the most perfect crime ever. When his body was discovered so were those of some of his victims. In light of the evidence of his own inhumanity very little real effort was put into finding his killer. When the shift occurred again, all evidence against me was erased. Only my confession to you this very moment serves to make his murder something tangible. And only your own knowledge of time can credit my story.
“When I discovered his absence I remembered that strange sensation when he died. I might have simply written off the feeling had he been the only man I had killed. But, I am a veteran of the first Persian Gulf War and was stationed in Afghanistan at the time of the first reset. I had killed more than one man in my first two lives, and I had never felt anything of the sort before. I knew right then what had to be done. And as I’ve gone through my many missions I have only become more sure. As I near the end, each death is like an exclamation point.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“I’m afraid that is very difficult to explain. You simply cannot know what that feeling is without experiencing it. I have thought many times of how I would explain the feeling to you. I simply do not have the words to express it. I’m afraid you will have to accept my word.”
“Your word doesn’t mean squat to me.” Lovelle shot back angrily.
“Yes, well, it doesn’t really matter if you believe me now or not. You can only really know if you kill a Skipper. So I pray you never find out. The only way it will matter is if you kill me, and then there will be no need for argument. The almost crushing feeling that will come over you will be all the proof you will ever need to know that I was right.”
“And what if you’re wrong? What if what you’re doing doesn’t just end the time skip? What if it ends the world?”
“I am not wrong.” Hardy was starting to get impatient, but kept his tone even. “If I was ever uncertain, I am no longer. I will grant you that in the early days the feeling was difficult to interpret. That is why I ignored it until I discovered what had happened to Thomas. But, the intensity and clarity of the message has grown with each death. When I blew up the birthday party in China the intensity of feeling from all of those deaths at the same time was really the end of all possible doubt.”
“And all the people you killed before that? You just thought ‘Maybe if I kill them the world will move on’. Like it was just a perfectly reasonable thing to sacrifice their lives, not just their lives, but, their very existence, because you were pretty sure that would smack the side of the record player and the record would finally jump the scratch and time would move on.” Lovelle was almost shouting.
Hardy shouted back defensively, “No. I was always certain. The message wasn’t always loud. But it was clear. Something was telling me what needed to be done.”
“You pompous ass. Did you ever stop to think that maybe, whatever or whoever it is that’s making this happen just might be sending you a lie?”
Hardy hesitated long enough for Lovelle to realize he’d shaken the man’s convictions, if only a little. “It’s not like that. The message is unmistakable.”
“I’m not arguing about what the message is. What makes you think it’s true? Do you think your internal bullshit detector is that good? Do you think you can sniff out a lie told by an entity that can beam it directly to your brain? An entity that can make the entire world relive the same eighteen years over and over?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Hardy was seething. “Do you think such an entity would need to manipulate me by trickery if ending the world was its goal? And what would you do, leave the world on this endless, pointless carousel?”
“I’ll let it skip forever before I’ll risk ending it all.”
“You damned fool. Do you really think you can stop me? It’s too late for that. All the others are gone. One of us is going to kill the other and it will be over, whether you like it or not.”
“Ohhh, you’re overestimating yourself.” Lovelle said with confidence. “If I don’t want to be found, you’ll never find me. There isn’t going to be some final showdown. There’s no high noon in our future.”
“I believe you’re underestimating me.” Hardy had regained his own composure and spoke with equal confidence. “You will come to confront me. Because if you don’t, it will cost your parents their lives. And when I finally catch up to you, and time continues, their deaths will become permanent. I promise you, it will happen if it takes me ten lives to find you. You can’t elude me forever. And if you somehow manage to convince them to hide from me in our future lives, then I’ll kill your friends. I’m sure it won’t be hard for the sixteen year-old me to find out who your school chums are.”
“Bastard!” Was Lovelle’s only reply.
“I can be when I need to be.” Hardy said coolly
>
A long pause then, “Do what you have to do. I don’t believe the world is going to do anything different than it has done for the last eight skips, regardless of what happens to us. But, just in case I’m wrong, I’ll never let you get near me. If you kill my parents all you’re going to do is give me more incentive to go further underground.
“We’ll see about that. If you don’t show…” Hardy stopped as he heard the click of Lovelle’s receiver breaking the connection.
***
After hanging up the phone Lovelle sat for a long time just thinking. If he let Hardy bait him into a confrontation now, Hardy had the clear upper hand. But, if Lovelle let the man think he was going to disappear and Hardy held to his threat, then Lovelle might just turn the tables on him. Right now, Hardy did not know they were both in Detroit. If Hardy meant to go to his parent’s house he would do it right away, then Lovelle might have the element of surprise. He just needed to decide if that was a good idea or not. Suppose the man were not completely off his rocker. Suppose the end of one of them were to mean the end of the world. Suppose he killed Hardy without meaning to. Was that a chance he should be taking? Even if it meant the death of his own parents in this lifetime, he didn’t know if he could justify the risk.
And if Hardy were completely right, and Lovelle was unable to stop him before he got to his parents. Then he would be risking them even more by being in striking distance himself. Living to fight another day seemed the clear safe course. But, it was hard to stomach. Not trying to protect his parents seemed like cowardice. It was logical, because they would be back, so long as he kept away for the next 11 years. But he wasn’t sure he could do it.
Time Skip (Book 2): The Time Skippers Page 17
