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A crash of falling dishes in the kitchen broke Yon’s reverie. The sun was dipping lower here in Lincoln City, and he wanted to take a stroll outside before his contact arrived.
He paid his bill in cash, left a handsome tip on the table and walked outside, rounding the corner and heading down the short wooden pier that overlooked the beach. He passed a digital pay-per-view telescope mounted on a rotating pillar and walked out to the end of the pier. The smell of burning driftwood – distinct from your standard campfire smoke – wafted past him as he stared along the sand at the goliath driftwood logs that the ocean had casually tossed ashore by the powerful waves. They sat as a silent testament to the fierce storms that had blown through in days gone by. Further out, the water shimmered as sunlight danced across the white caps.
Yon’s was a strange profession. He traveled constantly for several months of local time, then took a break for a few weeks to avoid temporal dysphasia. He was nearing the end of a work cycle, and held it as a matter of pride to successfully complete his final assignment for the period. And since he was one of the top Stewards – the last of the old-school pros – this was one of the most important missions on the table right now.
Despite the ability to travel through time, his ability to manipulate the continuum was limited by the technology. As a result, doing the work actually took time, real time that could not be retrieved, rewound, recycled or reused. And now he was under deadline, and he had to get this one right or run out of chances.
If he failed this time around, he’d be forced to pass his current assignment to another Steward. They called it a “rescue” mission – one where the job had to be done, regardless of who pulled it off.
As Yon pushed aside thoughts of a possible rescue, a hissing mist suddenly sprung out of the damp wooden deck boards beside Yon, rising in a tumultuous plume of fog. He took a step back and watched as the figure of a man began to resolve from the white steam.
The mist coalesced and drew itself together into a dense cloud, then began to look more and more solid. The whole process took about ten seconds – resulting in a tuxedo-clad black man with no hair, razor-sharp good looks, and a dazzling grin.
“Pretty dramatic entrance, Harley,” he said. “Not much of one for discretion, are you?”
“Fortune favors the bold, my old friend,” said Harley, emphasis on the old.
Yon rolled his eyes. “What are you doing here? And what’s with the duds?”
Yon’s stomach started to knot up at the sight of his chief rival Steward, the eternally cocky Zim Harley. Harley was a real pro – a rising star who was always called upon for the rescues. Yon hoped he was just here for the chowder. For Yon, having to be rescued was embarrassing enough. He was a seasoned professional, after all. But to have to have that hotshot kid Harley swoop in and take the credit, well, that would really chap Yon’s hide.
“I was at a party. And this . . . is a rescue,” said Harley with a flourish, not even trying to hide the gloat in his voice.
Yon turned to the deepening sunset and closed his eyes as if in pain, then exhaled a long sigh. This was it. His career was probably at an end, thrown over for the latest and greatest in the field. He turned back to Harley. “So, what’s your plan for this one?”
“I’ll answer your question with one of my own,” Harley sneered. “How come you can’t manage to take this guy out yourself, Yon?”
“As someone once said, ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly,’” said Yon.
“Wasn’t that RFK?”
Yon smiled bitterly. “You know your history.”
“Of course I do, that’s how I score. After all, if I recall correctly I had to clean up after you on that job, too.”
Yon scowled. “My guy choked, for cryin’ out loud.”
“You choked, my man. At least that’s how it looks on the scoreboard. You didn’t see my man Sirhan suckin’ peanuts down his throat at game time, did you? And why’s that? Because I know how to pick my crazy guys. It’s a gift, really.”
Yon muttered under his breath, “Takes one to know one.” Then, to Harley, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You mean my game plan for this one? Easy.”
Harley laid out a standard early twenty-first century end-game scenario, with a minor twist or two – mostly thrown in for style, Yon could tell.
“Alright then,” Yon said. “Good luck with that. I’ll see you back at base.”
Harley looked shocked. “What, that’s it? No crying and whining and sad, dejected looks? No picking apart my scenario to tell me it won’t fly? Are you blown away by my genius, or are you just losing heart, Yon?”
Yon looked past Harley to watch the sun dip beneath the horizon. The wind picked up almost immediately, and Yon let his gaze move up into the darkening heavens, following the light spectrum painted on the sky from red at the horizon to deep indigo overhead, where the night’s first stars were popping into view one by one. He looked back at Harley, and as the plan hit him, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Nope,” he said, looking directly into Harley’s dark shining eyes. “Not at all.”
Time and Again: A Collection of Crazy Chronology Page 23
