In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Nathan Van Coops

  I smile. This is fun.

  Tucket guides us into an elevator that’s pretending to be the London Eye on the inside. As we step into the car, we’re lifted skyward over the city and the landscape keeps changing from one major city of the world to another.

  “These are all the different campuses of the Academy,” Tucket explains. “They like to advertise to future students this way. Show them all the options they’ll have.”

  As I look around the elevator I’m startled to notice a red blinking light hovering just to the corner of my vision. It’s blinking the words “Hello Reggie. Start Here” in bold letters. It takes me a moment to recall that the message is for me. I nudge Mym. “Hey, what’s this?” I point to the blinking light.

  “What’s what?”

  I explain what I’m seeing and she finally nods in understanding. “Oh, that’s just the operating system on your glasses trying to link your mind to the metaspace. It’s probably going to ask you a bunch of questions and test you. It’s trying to understand your brain so it can optimize the inputs it gives you.”

  “Do I want to do that?”

  “Sure, it’s mostly harmless. It thinks you’re a new user named Reggie so it won’t be making a file on the real you anyway. Have fun with it.”

  Tucket grins. “There are lots of great quizzes to take to get optimized. The better the program understands you, the more vivid and tangible the metaspace will feel. It runs real life scenarios to gauge your reactions to stimuli. The scenarios differ from one brand of perceptor to another. I’ve never tried your kind, but most software really does a good job customizing the metaspace for each person. Mine came with a dog you got to play fetch with. The dog kept bringing back something new for you to feel or interact with every time you threw something.”

  “Okay, I guess I’ll give it a shot.” I reach for the blinking red button that only I can see and press it. I feel a bit ridiculous, but as soon as I press it, it disappears.

  I wait for something to happen, but nothing immediately does. The doors ding open on our floor and we step out.

  The administration floor is not terribly different in construction from an office building in my century. A long corridor branches off into various individual offices. It’s these that stick out. As we walk past one after another, I notice that each occupant has been able to customize their space the way they’ve wanted. Each doorway we pass leads somewhere different. Some have chosen alpine views, others cityscapes or serene deserts. One man’s avatar is Darth Vader and he is working in front of an expansive backdrop of the Death Star. Glad to See Star Wars fandom has survived into the twenty-second century.

  We reach a door labeled “Student Services” and walk through. An elderly woman is sitting at a desk, fiddling with something in her lap. Her hair looks like it ought to be gray, but still shows a few hints of red. She’s wearing a thin gold necklace with an hourglass pendant on it—the emblem of the Academy. She doesn’t look up when we walk in, she simply speaks toward the desk. “Shut the door behind you.”

  I turn around to comply with her request, swinging the door closed, and jump back at the sight of a little man in sturdy overalls standing behind the door. “Oh sorry, didn’t see you there.” The little man is only about two and a half feet tall with a bristly red beard and is holding a clipboard. He looks up at me with a grumpy expression.

  “What are you looking at?” he asks sternly.

  “Uh, nothing. Sorry.” I turn around and find the old woman at the desk giving me a disapproving stare. She glances behind me to see who I was talking to, then frowns at me once more before giving her attention to “Julia.” I glance behind myself again and find that the little man with the clipboard has disappeared.

  Tucket is asking the woman at the desk about accessing his alumni correspondence and she listens with a bored expression on her face. She looks me over and seems to be studying me. I get the feeling that whatever criteria she’s judging me on is one I’m lacking in. I give her a closed-lipped smile and try to appear non-threatening. She finally turns her attention back to Tucket, but makes him repeat himself more slowly this time.

  I look around the room to test out more of my metaspace abilities and am surprised to notice a little wooden door stuck behind two armchairs in the waiting area. The miniature door looks like it could be something out of a Tolkien book. It’s made of rough-hewn boards and has an elaborate but weatherworn brass doorknocker on it. Curious, I move closer to investigate. The doorknocker is in the shape of a lion with a ring fashioned like a mustache. I’m reaching toward the knocker when I hear the scratchy voice again. “Nosy one, aren’t you?”

  The little man in the overalls is appraising me from one of the armchairs. He scribbles something furiously on his clipboard. Next he lays the clipboard in his lap and holds out both hands, curled into fists. “Which one?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Left or right?”

  I study the little man’s two hairy fists, then glance back to Mym, but find her still involved with the conversation at the desk.

  “It’s not rocket science, Reggie. Left or right?”

  The situation finally dawns on me. “Oh, you’re the test program. Sorry I wasn’t expecting—”

  “Left or right, dickhead?” The little man is not hiding his frustration.

  “Uh, that seems a bit—”

  “Are you one of those sensitive types, doesn’t like bad language?” The little man picks up his clipboard again and scribbles something else.

  “No, I’m just not used to computer programs that—”

  “Left or right?” The little man’s fists are back up.

  “Uh, right, I guess.”

  The little man sets his clipboard on the table next to him, hops out of the chair and steps over to stand directly in front of me. He holds his right fist up and I open my left palm, expecting him to drop something into it. Instead, he pulls his arm back and punches me hard in the nuts.

  “Ow! You son of a bitch!” I grope my groin protectively. I’ve turned away from the little man to find Mym, Tucket, and the administration woman all staring at me.

  “What are you doing, Reggie?” Mym asks, her eyes dropping to my groin where my hands are still lingering.

  “This little—” I turn to find that the man in the overalls has disappeared again. The pain in my groin and the tiny door in the wall have vanished as well and I’m left standing awkwardly with the armchairs, no evidence of the incident to be had. “I think it’s the quiz program. Doesn’t seem to like me very much. Maybe we should have bought a different brand.”

  “Perhaps your friend would like to wait in the hall,” the administration woman mutters. She gives me another disapproving glare.

  Mym motions toward the door and I slide toward it, excusing myself from the room. I can just hear Mym/Julia explaining before I close the door. “Sorry. Reggie is a new user. Still learning the ropes.” I let the door click solidly behind me.

  Not wanting to wander too far from my companions, I look for what else may be of interest in the hallway. Tropical music is coming from a nearby doorway, so I investigate. Inside this office, the theme is set to a Hawaiian vacation motif and looks non-threatening. The desk for the occupant sits beneath a reed-thatched tiki hut. The palm branches in the trees overhead are swaying in a warm breeze. To my surprise, I can feel the breeze and even smell the salty air from the pounding surf in the distance. Thinking that the occupant of the office must not be around, I browse the entrance briefly, experimenting with the textures of the trees and objects in my vicinity. I lift the glasses from my nose and am surprised to still be seeing things in the metaspace even without looking through the lenses. It’s only when I take the glasses completely off and move the perceptor in them farther away from my head that I stop seeing the images. Donning the glasses again, I marvel at the level of detail that the office contains. Even the floor feels like real sand even though I’m standing on industrial carpet.

  I’ve ju
st turned to leave when I bump into a woman coming around the corner. With dark hair and skin, and a shell necklace on, she clearly fits the theme of the office. The woman isn’t wearing a grass skirt, but has a sort of sarong wrapped about her, and a flower blossom tucked behind her right ear.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” I hold my hands up. “Just enjoying your great office.”

  The woman smiles with radiant white teeth and bows slightly. “It’s no trouble at all. What brings you here today?” She brushes a strand of her long black hair behind her bare shoulder and takes a step closer. She’s a beautiful woman and smells vaguely of coconut sunscreen and something else floral that I can’t quite place. Her fingertips brush my arm and I get a tingling up my neck. “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Uh, no. Just here with some friends, doing a bit of research. Nothing major really—” There is a name banner above the woman that reads Kailani. She steps even closer, her hand moving from my arm up onto my shoulder, then letting her fingertips brush the side of my face.

  “It’s wonderful that you’re here. Would you like to sit down?”

  I shy away from her hand. “Uh, no. I’m good. I should probably be—”

  She’s gotten even closer now, her hand around my neck and her body pushing up against me. I back-pedal, but hit the wall with no place to go. Kailani is stronger than she looks and even though I plant my palms firmly against her hips, my attempts to move her aside are ineffective. She grabs my face with both of her hands and kisses me, clenching me to her and forcefully keeping her lips on mine.

  “Oh, Reggie,” she murmurs between kisses.

  My mumbled protestations go unheeded and she flattens herself against me even harder.

  “Excuse me, what are you doing?” A middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt has stepped into the room with a bag of what appears to be take-out food in his hand. He’s staring at me with an expression of unveiled hostility.

  Kailani is gone. I find I’m merely wedged into the corner of this man’s office, hands still clutching an imaginary woman with, once again, no evidence of the encounter to explain myself.

  “Goddamnit,” I mutter. “I’m sorry, dude. Didn’t mean to, um, mess up your . . .” I don’t bother with the rest. I just lower my gaze and slide out of the office past him. He merely glares at me and shuts the door as soon as I’m back in the hallway.

  Frazzled at this latest turn of events, I decide to curtail my exploration and simply find a place to sit down and wait for Mym. There are no chairs in this section of the hallway, but I see a sort of common area midway down the hall. I start toward that, but stop short when the tiny little man in overalls emerges from behind one of the armchairs wielding his clipboard. “Oh, hell no.” I spin around immediately and search for the nearest doorway. There is one marked ‘stairs’ just to my left so I shove through that and into the stairwell, slamming the door forcefully behind me.

  “Ben.”

  “WHAT!” I yell, scanning the empty stairwell and seeing no one. “WHAT NOW?” It’s only after my initial outburst that I realize the voice has used my real name.

  “Ben. Can you hear me?”

  My mind is still reeling from the strange metaspace encounters, but I finally recognize the voice. It’s me. The other me from my dreams.

  “Ben? I hear you. Where are you?” I look around for any sign of my other self, ripping the meta-lenses off my face as I do so.

  “Where are you?” The voice echoes back and I’m not sure if it belongs to the other me or is really just an echo.

  I respond quickly. “I’m here. I’m at the Academy in 2150, where are you?” There is nothing in the hallway that gives any clue to the origin of the voice, only bare walls and unnatural fluorescent lighting. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on the voice. “What are you trying to tell me? What happened to you?”

  I hear a whispering noise and something unintelligible, but then a couple of words I understand “. . . protect Mym. Keep her from . . .” The voice fades out again and I miss the remainder of the sentence.

  “Speak louder! I can’t quite hear.”

  I listen intently, but hear nothing else. Finally, after about five minutes of tense waiting, I give up. It feels like my dreams, but the more I try to hold onto the connection, the more it slips away. Frustrated, I open the door to the hallway again, intent on finding Mym, not sure whether the other me was trying to tell me to check on her right now or at some other point. As I retrace my steps down the hallway, I absentmindedly slip the metaspace glasses back onto my face. There is a red message flashing in the corner of my vision again. This one says. “Error. User profile testing unsuccessful. Please limit to a single user.” I rip the glasses off my face, remove the earphones and gloves and stuff the whole mess into the nearest trashcan.

  I fling open the door to student records and find Mym and Tucket on their way out. Mym smiles when she sees me. “Hey, you okay?”

  I take her hand, running my thumb over top of it, then pull her closer to me. “I am now. Did you guys get the message?”

  “Yep.” Tucket holds up an envelope. “Now I know why I couldn’t access the message via the metaspace. He sent it using paper mail. It looks like ASCOTT relayed a copy to every campus, just to make sure it would get to me. Pretty cool, huh?”

  I take the envelope, noting that it cost over twenty dollars in postage, and study the return address. It’s a county in England.

  Jonah E. Sprocket.

  285 Porthpean Beach Rd.

  St. Austell, Cornwall, UK.

  “What did he say?”

  “You can read it,” Tucket says. “It’s actually a message for you. The Academy was supposed to put it into my travel packet when I got sent back to visit you, but I guess it got held up. I don’t think the Academy Liaison prep team is used to searching for paper mail deliveries.”

  Affixed to the back of the envelope is a message to ASCOTT requesting that the note be delivered to me in 2009, via whatever method is most convenient. There is a relay notice showing it being forwarded to The Academy of Temporal Sciences and another notice rerouting it to delivery via The Academy Liaison Program, then specifically to their newest recruit, Tucket Morris. I unclip this memo and reach inside the envelope. The message inside is a typewritten formal invitation to visit the Sprocket house on a date in April of 2165. No particular event or occasion is listed. I check the back, but there is nothing else on it.

  Tucket studies me as he steps into the hall. “What happened to Reggie?”

  “I don’t think Reggie was destined for success at this school.”

  Tucket shrugs and leads the way down the hallway toward the elevator.

  I fold up the invitation and stuff it into my back pocket.

  Mym interlaces her fingers though mine. I breathe a little easier with her warm palm pressed to my own. The voice in my head was wrong for now. She doesn’t seem to be in any danger. Mym stares up at me. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I squeeze her hand. “I didn’t, but I’m getting closer.”

  Chapter 9

  “Arriving from different decades of your life to visit close friends in linear time can confuse them. But not if they are dogs. A dog doesn’t care that one day you are forty-five and the next day you are sixty. As long as you are consistently good at rubbing bellies and reaching the treats jar, it alleviates all of their concerns.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1967.

  The Neverwhere

  I’m back in the memory of my apartment, camped on my couch. The cemetery was too depressing. I may be a ghost, but even I have standards. This apartment is solid and well defined. As solid as a memory can be anyway. It is a room of hard edges and minute details accurately depicted; the scuff on the wall from my bike tire, the corner of brittle plastic missing from the base of my TV from when I broke it moving in. This is as close to reality as I can get in this place. I’m hoping that this grounding in details will help me remember more. I need a pl
ace to talk to myself.

  I’ve been attempting to open new windows to the past, but so far I’m failing miserably. Seeing the real world version of my apartment has been simple enough. I can flash back and forth from the Neverwhere to the real world location quickly now, turning into my ghostly self and back. The location is so familiar that making the transition comes easily.

  Seated cross-legged on the couch cushion, I make the transition to the real world and poke the coffee table. My finger disappears into the top of the water-stained wood. I make the transition back and poke it again, this time hitting the solid wood of my memory.

  Neverwhere Ben.

  Ghost Ben.

  Neverwhere Ben . . . ghost Ben.

  I fall back onto the cushions. God, I need a life.

  While being able to put my hand through the furniture is mildly diverting, it’s not getting me any closer to finding myself in the real world. In this space in 2009, there is only ever the imposter me—Benji—making a mess of my life. I’ve shouted at him a few more times when I’ve found him home, but he’s been oblivious. Not even a hint of a connection. Whatever differences there are between his story and mine, they are too much of a gap to bridge. I need different locations and a me that will listen.

  I thought remembering was easy. You just reach back and recall the moments you want to envision. Only it’s not that simple. When I recall a face, I don’t always get the right context. I recall a place, but perhaps in the wrong year. In some cases I get a jumble, like the varied time periods of the rooms in my parents’ house. Relics from competing eras, vying for real estate in my mind.

  Finally, I settle down and concentrate. I want the recent past. That should be the most vivid, except my most recent past is a dangerous race through snippets of history. Castles resounding with the clash of steel. Giant worms writhing through underground tunnels. A man with cold, gray eyes stalking my friends. No. I don’t want those memories. I need the calm ones. Quiet places. Places I found a moment of relief or peace.