Asimov's Science Fiction

by Penny Publications

  Three A.M. FDA Annex D. Taylor met me at the double glass doors. I slipped off my flip-flops as soon as I came inside, while Taylor latched the door behind me.

  “This is your shtick? Shoeless Joe Parson?”

  I picked up the sandals and clipped them to my keys. “I’ve gotta get back into character; it’s been three weeks.” Chico had been kidding when he called me Brando, but he’d been right: I really am committed to Stanislavski’s System, even if that seems pretty ridiculous for a guy whose very limited claim to fame is doing voice work for a cartoon fish injured in a fender-bender. But the system is the system, and the system works, regardless of the role.

  Taylor shrugged as he led me past the empty reception desk. “It’s been three weeks for them, too; I wouldn’t sweat it.” We passed through the little cubicle farm, heading toward the bright door of the conference/portal room.

  “Oh,” I said, mostly just making small talk, “I assumed that I’d go back to right after my last visit, the next day or something.”

  “No sense in that. We keep it real time. The user interface for the portal controller is suckier than the suckiest corporate-CRUD software you’ve ever seen. Once we have an initial state, it wants to auto-increment it in order to keep something about the something-something persistent,” he squinted, “or maybe consistent. The manual is even worse than the interface. So we don’t monkey with it too much, if we can avoid it.”

  “You guys do this a lot?” I asked—still just trying to be conversational. It was only my second show, and I had opening-night jitters. I kept patting my pockets to make sure I hadn’t accidentally brought my phone again.

  Taylor scratched his head and yawned, but it was a fake yawn. He was stalling. “With Chico?” he asked, a little too casually. “Naw, this is only the second attempt. The first foray was kind of a bust.”

  “Why?”

  “I screwed up the date, and there was no Revere silver yet.” We crossed into the crappy little beige conference room that had been outfitted with the portal. Chico, who had been lounging in one of the abandoned Aeron knock-offs, leapt to his feet.

  “Okay, Pablocito!” he slapped me on the back, seeming way too jolly for three A.M.I wondered if he was getting high on his own supply. “You ready to go get us a big ole tea set or something?” He braced my shoulders, giving them a politician’s squeeze.

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” I set my sandals and keys on one of the empty office chairs, gave my pockets one final sweep, then dug the sandglass and leather cord out of my satchel.

  “¡Que Padre!” He dug in his pocket, then tossed me the little snuffbox. I slid it into my satchel. Taylor prodded his touchscreen, and the blank stretch of wall marked off with masking tape bloomed its deep, dark tunnel. I stepped in, like stepping into a cataract of giggle-shivers and butterfly kisses. As soon as I was in I was through.

  Colonial Massachusetts was a lot gloomier upon my return—the air was heavy and the day so overcast I couldn’t immediately get a sense of whether it was morning or afternoon. I assumed morning, but didn’t really dwell on it, because there was a Mohican staring at me. He was half-crouched in the bushes, decked out in buckskins accented by long strips of trade cloth embroidered with stylized poppies. Looped over one wrist was a birch basket he’d been filling with early morels when Taylor’s little portal forced its way into his reality.

  The portal snapped closed. Without even thinking I turned over the thirty-minute glass I was holding and tied it around my waist; wouldn’t want to miss my ride home.

  The Native American was slack-jawed and pop-eyed—which I figured was just amazement at seeing a preacher step through a curtain of fire—but also unnaturally pale. His skin looked almost gray, and was greased with an unhealthy sheen of fever sweat. His scalp—roughly shorn, save for a floppy, crooked mohawk—was dappled with flea-bites and scabs. Around his neck he wore a rough crucifix made from two slivers of broken bottle glass, lashed with some sort of twine. He stumbled out of the brush and made the sign of the cross, then fell to his knees, hands palm-to-palm in the universal sign of prayer. His accent was husky and strange and it took me a while to realize he was speaking two English words over and over: “Sacrament” and “communion.”

  It seemed that the handsome blacksmith had indeed been spreading the Good Word during my nearly three weeks’ hiatus.

  I set my hands on either side of the sloppy mohawk, mumbled something indistinct, then fished the snuffbox out of my satchel and scooped out a little dollop of meth with my pinky nail. I tenderly set my nail against the rim of his right nostril, said:

  “This, too, could be my body,” and he snorted. An animal frisson of pure pleasure shivered through him. I scooped a second dollop, set my nail against his left nostril, and solemnly said, “This, too, could be my vital spirit.”

  He snorted, then gasped exultantly and sprang to his feet. A howl of joy came up out of him, long and strong and seemingly unbidden, as though it got a running start at his toes and gained momentum all the way through his body, until it burst out of his mouth hell-bent for the moon.

  He was glowing, thrumming with the Universe’s One True Song. The Native American sprang off down the creek like a deer dodging bullets, heading toward the village, and I followed.

  I called out “Hullo!” as I broke through the tree line, but the smith was already jogging out from his cabin. He was smiling with relief but looked awful, like someone who’s been up three nights running with stomach flu.

  “Welcome, Parson!” He took me up in a big, enveloping hug. It was just a brotherly hug, and he wasn’t rough by any measure, but my God, his arms and chest; it was like being hugged by Thor.

  Also, not to be gross, but people stink differently in the past. I don’t know if it’s what we eat or all the deodorants and antiperspirants messing with our natural skin flora, but a sweaty man in 1770 smells wonderful. It’s like that good musky smell that you get if you hug a big dog that’s been lying in the sun all afternoon.

  “Thank God you return,” he sighed. “The double-portion hardly lasted us the Sabbath, now that our congregation increases. We grow ill with privation from the Lord.” He released me, and I was chilled all down my front with the absence of his heat. “Wannakusket is gathering the rest of our flock, Parson. And their offerings.”

  Once he’d let me go and I could focus on something other than his arms holding me tight against his beating heart, I saw that at least a dozen colonial bit-players— milkmaids and coopers, farmers and goodwives with babes in arms, a barefoot girl with crooked pigtails—were jogging down the broad dirt lane. Lots more glass-shard crucifixes, which struck me as a pretty risky fashion statement. It had started to drizzle—a warm mist that seemed to congeal out of the hot, heavy air—but no one noticed, let alone gave a crap. They called out their greetings and blessings as they came.

  But Young Charles’s co-religionists didn’t look so great: They were sweaty, pale, scabby. And they were pitifully relieved to see their parson. I let myself believe that there was probably a stomach bug hitting the village. I mean, there was just no way that a sixteenth of an ounce of meth split a dozen ways more than three weeks ago hooked them. That’s probably not much more than a bump each; first-graders on Adderall are taking more speed than that.

  “I beg your indulgence, Parson,” the smith muttered, standing at my elbow, “I know the Lord requires silver alms, but I’ve got naught but iron nails.”

  I turned back to look at him, to see that strained, wheedling smile, the greasy mixture of hope and shame. I recognized it, because I remembered feeling it on my own face, back in the days after Wei Xen had stopped cooking, but I was still using.

  “I grow weak in the Lord’s word, Parson, and suffer mightily for want of his Manifest Blessing.”

  “Certainly, Young Charles,” I said beatifically. He smiled with stupid relief. “Certainly you may take sacrament. Today.” I looked him in the eye coolly, and Young Charles’ smile faltered. “But tell me, Young C
harles: How great is the Lord’s manifest love? Is it just a meager teaspoon’s dollop of love the Lord begrudges you?”

  “No!” Young Charles gasped, “When I take his New Communion, I feel it to my bones! It’s bucket upon trough of love! A great rushing cataract of love!”

  “Indeed. The Lord showers you in His love—and yet, you expect to dole out the Lord’s tankards of love by the teaspoon?” He was totally gobsmacked—which was the intended effect. “When next you trade in Boston, I’m certain you’ll return with an offering worthy of the Lord’s love.” I smiled innocuously. Young Charles looked like a knife was twisting in his gut.

  Just for the record, standing there, I hated the villainous prick saying those words as much as you do. And there was a millisecond of lag before it caught up to my brain that I was that villainous prick. That’s the thing about having a great character and an audience that’s really invested: Your brain splits, and the judgy audience part of you leans back to watch, so that the hollow actor part can expand to channel the role. It’s like speaking in tongues: Some people get taken by the spirit of the Lord; I got taken by the spirit of Willy Loman, and the spirit of Mercutio, and the spirit of Amos “Mr. Cellophane” Hart, even the spirit of Whiplash Bass. Right then, I was taken by the Spirit of Parson Brown.

  I know that’s not much of a defense, but it’s what I’ve got.

  “Parson,” he was careful, “Our work is humble—candles and weaving, crops and meat enough to feed ourselves year round, supplemented as it is by the forest’s bounty. Already we suffer for want of nails, for all my production goes to market in Boston town. Smyth and Alton have slaughtered and cured every hog we had so that they could be sold, and that fetched us just the humble offerings you’ve already—”

  And then the other parishioners were upon us. I turned and greeted them, holding my arms broad and offering a brief benediction. They knelt in a semicircle around me. Young Charles dropped to his knees mid-word, and clasped his empty hands in front of his mouth in supplication. Just as with Mr. Last of the Mohicans, I set my hands on the blacksmith’s head, mumbled something vaguely ecclesiastical, then brought out the snuffbox and administered a bump to each nostril. He shivered exultantly, but kept his supplicant posture. The man to his left held a spoon peeking up above the fingers of his clasped hands. This I took and used as a scoop, offering two small bumps before dropping the spoon into my satchel. I continued down the line, mumbling and scooping, juggling the little snuffbox awkwardly as I laid hands on each parishioner. One held a buckle instead of a spoon, so I pocketed that and gave him a single toot from my nail. He frowned when I stepped away, but didn’t open his eyes or say a word.

  I didn’t notice, not until I was right in front of her, that the little girl held a spoon as well. I set my hands on her head. I’d assumed her hair—which was a frizzy, dull brown—would be coarse and greasy, but it was soft as bunny fur. I mumbled my blessing, gently took her spoon, and stepped away to her mother without offering the sacrament.

  I don’t imagine that will earn me any points with anyone, not now, but I wanted to go on the record: I did not give a little girl crystal meth.

  Once I was down the line I dumped the little bit of crystal that remained into a mussel shell, as I had last time—there were lots of these shells littering the open stretch between the town and stream, and I was supposed to leave the leftover meth to help “spread the love.” The little girl with the crooked pigtails snuffled, and I looked up to see her bent in prayer, struggling not to cry, puzzled that she’d been passed over by the Lord’s messenger. I looked at the remaining meth—not much more than a quarter-line clumped in the damp mussel shell.

  “Tomorrow!” Young Charles had risen and was again at my elbow, giddy with the Lord’s Chemical Communion.

  “Pardon?”

  “By morning prayers tomorrow,” he whispered, failing to suppress his jubilation, “I’ll have returned from Boston town with an offering suitable to the Lord’s largess.”

  “There’s no sense in that, Young Charles; I’ll not return for a fortnight or more.”

  He looked charmingly confused. “You say that every day, Parson. And yet each morn you arrive at daybreak to lead our orisons and offer His Manifest Gospel. You grow distant from the things of this world,” he scolded. “Why do you never take the New Communion with us, Parson?” It was a guileless question, asked out of real concern for me and the state of my soul. Young Charles reached out then, but instead of taking the meth on a half-shell I was still holding, he folded my hand closed over it. “He is a Tree of Life for those who hold fast to Him,” he said earnestly. “Bind yourself back to the Lord, Parson.”

  I clasped my free hand over his and closed my eyes, bowing my head in mock prayer over Young Charles. Then I got him started leading the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer, and slipped away back upstream before they’d even gotten to “Shall not want.”

  Halfway back to the portal clearing I tossed the mussel shell and its baby bump of meth into the creek to wash away. Then I stopped, crouched, and dipped my hand in the cold, clear water. But that wasn’t good enough, so I took up a handful of the sandy bottom and used it to scour my palm. I didn’t like the idea of any little grain of crystal sticking to my skin. Bowed down on my knees like a Muslim at prayer, I scrubbed my hands, and then my face, then my hands again. And when I stood, I felt remarkably refreshed. Not bump-of-meth-in-the-middle-of-a-busy-Saturday-nightshift refreshed, but clean and new.

  As I waited for the portal to pop back up I dug out the ten spoons and buckle. As I’d suspected, the buckle was just a buckle. But every single spoon was a stamped REVERE. Chico was just about through the roof when I handed them over with his empty snuffbox. He didn’t notice that I wasn’t able to muster his level of excitement.

  Some actor I am, I guess.

  I met James for brunch the next day at Fond, and the first thing he asked was where I’d been at three A.M. the night before. He’d swung by my apartment after finishing his shift—he tends bar during Fond’s dinner service—but I wasn’t home.

  My first inclination was to lie—which probably doesn’t say terrific things about me. But there wasn’t really anything to lie about, was there? I wasn’t doing meth. I wasn’t even really dealing meth, not any more than I was dealing that crappy 2016 Beaujolais Nouveau the owners had us pushing at Stalk.

  So I told James about the new acting gig.

  Or started to, anyway—as soon as I said, “I’ve got this—” one of the matronly ladies getting up from the neighboring table swung around and growled, “turrrrrible pain in my neck, Mr. Attorney Man!” Her tablemates cackled their delight.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, setting one hand on my shoulder. “But I couldn’t help myself; you sound just like that Whiplash Bass in the television commercials.”

  James smirked, stirring his Bloody Mary with a perfect stalk of local organic celery. “Ma’am,” he said, “That’s because he is Whiplash Bass.” He crunched into his celery, equally relishing the zing of the cocktail and my reddening face.

  “No!” The woman gasped.

  “Yup,” I said, smiling my best “And He Was Such a Nice Guy” smile.

  “No!” she gasped again, then turned back to her three friends. “Marlene, did you hear that! This is the Whiplash Bass!”

  “Turrible tuuuuurrrible pain, Mr. Attorney Man!” Marlene bellowed in turn, shaking her head through the turribles like someone doing an impersonation of Richard Nixon impersonating Mr. Ed. Her companions cackled, then sang out the attorney’s phone number in a distressing inharmonic imitation of the little kick line of lampreys at the end of the television spot.

  You’ve never seen that ad?

  Well, that jingle is an apocalyptically perfect earworm. It’s exactly the kind of dreadful local-TV spot that everyone adores, like it or not. Sullivan Green, Esq. will probably be sending both his kids and his mistresses through college just on the business that ad brings in. I was paid ninety-five dol
lars for the day, plus one hundred dollars for the buyout—chump change for a guy who charges two hundred and fifty per hour. The only thing that keeps me from being bitter is this: Everyone knows his number, and everyone calls him for their DUIs, slip-and-falls, and petty drug charges, but no one can ever remember his name. Once that ad started airing, Sullivan Green was forevermore “Mr. Attorney Man.”

  The coven of Whiplash Bass fanatics wanted a group photo, and I obliged. By the time I sat down again, James was halfway through his Bloody Mary and all the way through his celery.

  “Sherry’s bringing us next week’s special,” James said. My face fell. I’d been looking forward to eggs Benedict; Fond’s Hollandaise is the platonic ideal to which all other Hollandaises aspire. James took my hand. “Don’t fret, Paul; there will be Hollandaise sauce. Now tell me about the new gig.”

  And so I told him that I was playing an itinerant preacher in Colonial Massachusetts preaching a “New Gospel”—sort of a generic Episcopalianism with some spiritualist mumbo-jumbo sprinkled on top—and collecting “alms” that just happened to be highly collectible Paul Revere silver. And, oh yeah, I wasn’t doing this for a historical museum reenactment or an insurance guy’s ad—I was actually going through a time portal and actually doing this before the hardest audience: The folks parting with the silver, and primed to see the devil’s work in any mistake I might make.

  You might have noticed the details I glossed over.

  Meanwhile, Sherry set down our plates: Sous-vide poached eggs on corn arepas with Fond’s house-cured tasso “bacon” and micro-herbs, drizzled with a ghost-pepper Hollandaise sauce as hot and sweet as the silky giggles of the damned.

  James frowned as I spoke, but it wasn’t his frown of disapproval. It was his frown of measured consideration.

  “A time portal?” James asked once I’d finished. “Didn’t those turn some Chinese guys inside out a couple years back?”