Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel

by Michael Bunker

This girl is a bit more perceptive than others I’ve met, able to think beyond the first level of consequence. She says, “And some of them are probably dying without thinking that they should go back and never pick it up.”

  She looks to me for approval or confirmation, so I nod again.

  “So those changes won’t revert, will they?”

  “No, Sarah, I don’t think they will,” I answer. “I think we would have seen more shifting if that had happened. But you said it’s still just rock and water out there.”

  “So then, how will the last person alive be able to change it? Get it back?” she asks.

  I hate to break her heart, but I owe her whatever truth I can offer, even if I’m only using a theory as my truth. “I don’t say that they can get it all back. I only say that the last person will be able to decide what happens. What happened in the past.”

  Her face crumples in disappointment and sadness, but there are no tears. I think she’s well beyond that. “What will they be able to make, then? Something close to what we had?”

  “No. I don’t think so. There are too many variables for that. Whoever is the last one with an object would have to be able to undo every action by every object in the exact order it was done. No one can do that. But a cautious and careful person, one with good intentions and an understanding of consequences, might be able to make something quite beautiful in its own right.”

  She nods again. She sighs a long, relieved sigh. It’s so deep that she seems to grow smaller as it leaves her body. The way her eyes meet mine after that sigh tells me that she understands what I’ve been moving toward from the moment I saw her frightened and hunched form coming out of the mist.

  “Will it be quick?” she asks.

  “Instantaneous,” I answer confidently. “We don’t have to right this minute.”

  She eases up from the pillow to sit cross-legged on the mattress and I do the same, ready in case some fight-or-flight impulse makes her come for me. She isn’t armed, but I’m constrained by my web of wires. I’m more like a bug trapped in a web than the spider that spins it, and she’s young and unfettered. But there’s nothing to worry about. She eases a clump of my wires out of the way of my foot as I try to get comfortable. It’s a solicitous act by someone with a good heart.

  Once I’m settled, Sarah looks at the mattress and its plain blue sheet, and smooths a hand across the surface. She seems to feel the plastic underneath the fabric of the sheet for the first time. There’s a question in her eyes.

  “We’ll need to step off the bed,” I say, and pull the gun out of my waistband. It has been there, at my back, since the exact moment I saw her. Before then, it had rested on the mattress no more than a few inches from my hand. It’s never far from me. You never know what a new person passing by will do.

  Sarah gets off the bed without hesitation. She holds my wires for me so I can scoot off and stand at the edge of it where there’s a gap in my fort of supplies. We stand close to each other, face to face, and for some reason I can’t define, I reach out and fold her into my arms. The hug I give her is the kind reserved for mothers, daughters, and those we love more than we can adequately express.

  When we disengage, I say, “Move back about two steps. No more.”

  She does, then asks, “What should I do, just wish for it all to go back?”

  I shake my head and say, “No. Just focus on never letting that man give you the shell. Focus hard on it. Close your eyes and cover them with your hands so you can focus.”

  She pops the shell into her mouth and moves it to her cheek, which is a smart move, because even a head shot doesn’t mean that death will be complete before the hand opens and the object falls. She turns to the side a little, which I didn’t instruct her to do, but she’s a young girl and the thought of getting shot in the face is probably just too much for her.

  Around the shell, she says, “Make sure you’re the last one.”

  “I will. I won’t give up. The Earth needs life and life needs the Earth.”

  She gives one more approving nod and puts her hands over her eyes. I can see how hard she’s focusing; the lines of her mouth are as tight as her shoulders. I fire.

  She disappears almost before the sound of the shot is over, so I know it was a good shot. She’s so completely gone that there’s no hint she ever existed. I can’t feel any shifting here, but that doesn’t matter. It’s one less object giving conflicting directions to the world outside the mist. And that is good.

  Sound carries strangely here in the mist, so I swivel around in my web of wires to see if there’s any darkening anywhere that would signify the presence of another person coming into view. But there’s nothing save uniform white, and I sigh in relief.

  After a different shot—a shot that had erased another who had come across me and my mattress—I had turned to find an old man staring at me from only a few paces away, a look of horror stamped on his features. He’d shuffled backwards so quickly I’d had no chance to explain, and I’ve not seen him since. He’s probably dead by now, given how frail he had appeared even then. And he’d had nothing with him save the clothes on his back that I could see.

  Most aren’t like Sarah, willing to end what has become a nightmare instead of a life. I can usually tell which way they’ll go. Most of them, I have to trick. With some, I claim that I can help: that I’ve stayed behind with my giant nest in order to help those still inside to get out. Depending on their story, I might tell them it’s a prayer, or a meditation, or a way of using their object. Eyes closed and a wish in their minds is all I need to do what needs doing. It doesn’t make me feel good about what I do, though.

  For now, all I can do is wait for the next one to happen by. I’m so tired that I can barely function, and Sarah’s visit has drained every bit of my energy reserves. I need sleep, but sleep is dangerous. Anyone could come upon me. Maybe even Cutter.

  I work my way back up onto my mattress and pull the motion sensors out of their storage box. They aren’t connected to me, precisely. Instead, I’ve worked wires from the sensors to the heaviest of my containers, and joined those wires to the one that connects it to me. It’s filled with rice, so my small movements when I sleep won’t jar it and set the motion sensors off. At least, not usually.

  Once I’m set and all the sensors are in place, I put my gun on top of a container near my arm and lean back on my pillows. The pillow on top smells different now. It was the one Sarah used. Even through the smells of sweat and dirt, I can detect the faint scent of someone different. Some things do remain behind.

  All I can do now is sleep and wait for the next person to find me. I have my support system, anchored by my wires and my mattress, and I doubt there are too many others who managed to get so organized before the mist took us permanently away. I’m confident I can outlast most—and maybe all—of the others out there with their objects. I’m committed, and that gives me another edge.

  Unless he dies on his own, loses a fight with someone else, or finds me, one day I’m going to have to seek out Cutter. There are still more out there, but I have a feeling that in the end, it will be me and him deciding the issue—with force. Me on the side of life, and him on the side without it. It’s almost poetic.

  But no matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, I want to be the last. Biology may not be my strong suit, but I’m patient and I understand consequences. I’ll guide the planet back through time and let life lead the way. Erase what comes to destroy it if I can. It probably won’t end in humans, or even anything I can recognize as remotely like humans; but I know I can leave the Earth with something that can see the world and understand the glory of life. That’s all I can do.

  And after that—well, I’ve got a knife. I won’t need my little pebble anymore.

  A Word From Ann Christy

  I have a confession to make. I’m an accidental author.

  As a career naval officer, I’m adept at telling myself stories. When it comes to thinking up new worlds or fantas
tic tales during the dark midnight watches on the bridge of a ship, I’m a champ. But never did I think to write them down.

  That all changed when I read WOOL by Hugh Howey. After reading it, I made up my own “silo story,” set in the world of WOOL, and felt so excited about it that I asked him if I could write and publish it. Writing the Silo 49 series has been such a gratifying experience that now I simply can’t stop. That so many people liked my writing amazes me anew each and every day.

  My writing slate is full, with many new releases in the works for the next year and a half. Yet when I was asked to provide a story for this anthology, I happily dropped everything to jump in with both feet. It is outside my comfort zone and short stories are a challenge I relish. Leveraging the reader’s imagination with only a few words is work of the most enjoyable kind. What I most enjoy is hearing what the reader saw—and comparing it with what I saw while writing it.

  I call writing a form of mental zombie-ism in reverse. I get to put a little piece of my brain into yours and stay there with you for as long as you remember the story. It is my hope that you enjoyed the meal.

  You can contact me and find out about new work at my website: www.annchristy.com

  The Mirror

  by Irving Belateche

  After my mother died, I decided that it was time to go for broke. I would raise my station in life by moving to Manhattan and making something of myself through hard work. If the American Dream was alive, I’d be its poster child. Poor boy from Maury, Indiana moves to the big city, and through pluck, desire, and hard work, makes it big. Even to me this sounded corny, but all big dreams sound corny.

  I’d stayed in Maury to take care of my mother, just as she’d taken care of me. Not only did I want to take care of her, but I felt I owed it her. She kept insisting I go out into the world and make my mark, but I knew it wasn’t right to abandon her in her time of need. She’d sacrificed for me, worked long hours so I could go to St. John’s rather than the neglected public school down the block.

  She’d also saved enough money for me to go to college, where—though I didn’t excel there—I discovered I had a knack for sales. People trusted me, listened to me, because I always educated myself about whatever I was selling. And maybe, in part, it was also because I was basically a loner. I liked to spend hours reading, watching movies, and listening to podcasts. So sales was my outlet for all that time spent alone, and I poured all my energy into it.

  My first two months in Manhattan were a slog. I couldn’t sell the one thing I needed to sell most to get a job: me. I didn’t get a single job offer—not even one word of encouragement. No one gave a shit about my college degree, or my pluck, or that I enjoyed a good book or movie.

  I’d walked from small business to small business—Internet start-ups, independent financial services firms, boutiques, art galleries—resume in hand, the old fashioned way, asking for a ground-floor opportunity. And it turned out the ground floor was packed. The down economy provided an endless number of overqualified applicants, and when I wasn’t competing with them, I was competing with Ivy League grads with connections.

  I was determined not to look for employment with a large company, because I knew that was no way to make it big. I was willing to work hard, but only in a business small enough to make a difference. Yet as it stood, the whole endeavor was beginning to look foolish. It was time for a reality check.

  Why not try a smaller town?

  There were plenty of small towns and small businesses across the state of Indiana, as well as in upstate New York. But just as I was seriously considering the move—googling small cities with vibrant start-up sectors, making lists, comparing living expenses, et cetera—the tide turned.

  I was on my way to an interview with a company that two NYU film-school grads had started. Their business catered to the wealthy by making films on demand, written and directed by their clients. Apparently this was becoming a hot thing among the one percent.

  On the way to the interview, I passed a small antique shop. The words Remembrance of Things Past were embossed in faded gold lettering across its bay window. And judging from what I saw through that window, the business wasn’t doing too well. The antique furniture inside may have been valuable, but it was scattered about as if it were part of a Saturday morning yard sale thrown together at the last minute. There was no organizing principle behind the presentation, and anyone taking a cursory look would assume the pieces were nothing but junk.

  Before I moved on, a man stepped out of the shop and stuck a handwritten note on the door. Sale! Going out of business! The man made eye contact with me. He had a kind face; laugh lines edged his blue eyes. Those lines were now taut with worry.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, motioning to the sign.

  “Don’t be. I should’ve wrapped this up years ago. You want to look over the inventory? I’ve got some wonderful closeout deals.”

  “I’m more of a seller than a buyer.”

  “What are you selling?”

  “Right now, I’m selling my ability to sell.”

  “You’re a little late. At least when it comes to Remembrance.”

  “Better late than never, right?”

  He chuckled, and his laugh lines relaxed.

  * * *

  Ten years later, Remembrance was thriving. Inventory had expanded, we had a long list of regular clients, and the small shop now boasted a quality showroom whose layout often enticed clients to buy more than they’d intended to when they’d first set foot in the shop.

  Melvin Tishner, the owner of the shop—the man who’d hired me on the spot that day—was planning to retire in two weeks. Though he’d enjoyed every minute of the shop’s revival, he said he was feeling too old and tired to participate actively in the business anymore. By this time he trusted me with every aspect of running the shop, and he never stopped marveling at how I’d been able to turn the place around.

  From day one he’d taken me under his wing, gradually teaching me everything he knew about antiques. Each day, Melvin had given me a specific lesson. From recognizing types of wood finishes to understanding the difference between a highboy and a chest-on-chest, his lessons were designed to help me acquire the knowledge I’d need to become a bona fide antique dealer. And each evening, as soon as the shop closed for the day, I’d go online and do more research into the lesson of the day.

  When I wasn’t learning about antiques, I was employing every method of sales I knew to move the store’s inventory and keep the business afloat. And when my knowledge of antiques finally caught up to my sales abilities, that’s when the business took off.

  In addition to a good paycheck—and what I hoped would eventually be an ownership stake in the business—there was another benefit to working at Remembrance. It made me a frequent guest at dinner parties, cocktail parties, gallery openings, show openings, and other gatherings sponsored and attended by Manhattan’s wealthiest residents. Old money, new money, famous and infamous. It wasn’t as if I were part of this Manhattan royalty, but still, I got to move in some pretty rarefied circles.

  It was quite a different story when I retreated to my Upper West Side apartment. There, I was still the boy from Indiana—the boy who loved nothing more than to spend his time reading a good book or watching a good movie. I also discovered movie revivals, which were a real treat, as I’d never imagined I’d get to see some of my favorite movies on a big screen.

  It was in my tenth year of working with Melvin that my life took a major turn. I was working late as usual, when our new employee—Dolores, whom I’d hired myself—came into the back office, now my office, to let me know that a Rebecca Ward was on the phone and wanted to have Remembrance broker a sale for an antique mirror she owned. Ms. Ward wasn’t a regular client, so I asked Dolores to email her a questionnaire. It was a routine set of questions to help determine whether a piece was worth appraising.

  Ten minutes later, Dolores returned with the questionnaire already filled out. Apparently Ms. Wa
rd was in a hurry to sell this mirror. She’d had Dolores read her the questions over the phone and had supplied the answers on the spot. I perused the form and determined that it was worth a trip uptown, not just because the answers indicated the piece might be authentic—including a proper chain of title—but also because Ms. Ward’s address indicated wealth, and that increased the odds that this piece was genuine.

  On Friday afternoon, I left the shop in Dolores’s hands—Friday afternoons were the slowest hours of the week—and took a cab to the Upper East Side. Ms. Ward lived in one of those grand old Manhattan buildings where the apartments have more rooms than sprawling country estates.

  Rebecca greeted me at the door to her apartment. I was immediately taken by her pale gray eyes, her lush raven hair, and her extraordinary beauty. She reminded me of a rare, exotic bird.

  She led me through the apartment, explaining that she lived there with her parents, and that the west part of the apartment was hers, complete with its own kitchen. On our way to the mirror, I noticed a variety of antique pieces—Hepplewhite, Queen Anne—throughout the tastefully adorned home. Not only did this trip yield the benefit of meeting Rebecca, but it looked like it might also be good for business.

  We stepped into her living room, and my eyes immediately fell on the mirror in question—a stately cheval, framed in mahogany.

  “I bought it at an estate sale,” Rebecca explained. “And I’d like to sell it. It just doesn’t quite fit in the way I thought it would.”

  I scanned the rest of the furnishings. She was right; the mirror didn’t fit in. But it wasn’t just that it didn’t fit with these furnishings; I wondered if it would fit with any furnishings. Something about the mirror seemed peculiar. Yet, as an antique dealer, it wasn’t my job to vet a piece using my personal taste; I’d brokered the sale of plenty of pieces that I didn’t care for. Also, to be honest, my mind wasn’t really on the job: I was already planning to appraise the mirror just so I’d have a reason to talk to her again.