by Bob Mayer
Of course, she knew that much, rather that little, about herself, so . . .
She stopped at a desk, where a small engraved wooden plaque proclaimed:
North America. 1929.
She stood there long enough for the old woman sitting at the desk to finally look up from a scroll she’d been perusing with all the attention of degenerate gambler at the next race’s odds. The woman peered over a pair of reading glasses, irritated at the interruption.
“May I help you?”
“The Saint Valentines Day Massacre,” Lara said.
“Yes?”
“One of my friends just went there.”
“Oh!” The woman blinked furiously, as if the race had gone off and she’d missed the start. “You’re one of them?” She lowered her voice at the question, looking left and right. “One of the Team?”
“Yes,” Lara said. “How important are the men who get killed that day? What if they live?”
“Oh, we don’t do that,” the woman said, as if Lara had suggested they partake of some obscene sexual act. “As the administrator says, the vagaries of the variables make such a thing futile. Our century chief has her own saying: conjecture is confusing.”
“Sure,” Lara said. “Everybody’s got a saying here.”
“There’s a reason for them, young lady.”
Lara accepted the rebuke without comment. “Is there a timeline where the massacre didn’t happen?” She indicated the scrolls. “Don’t you compare data from various timelines?”
“Only ones we get reports on via the Space Between and—“ the woman paused and looked about guiltily.
“I’m on the Team,” Lara reminded her. “I have a need to know.”
“From the refugees,” the woman said. She indicated her fellow analysts. “We’re mostly refugees from other timelines. From other times. I lived 1929 when I was in my thirties. But in my home timeline.”
“What happened to it?” Lara asked. “Why did you have to leave? Did the Shadow destroy it?”
“I left in 1947, during the Second World War.” She shook her head. “There was no end in sight, even though Berlin and Washington DC had been nuked. The Japanese were holding on to their Empire in the Pacific, including Hawaii, which they’d invaded on the 8th of December after destroying the American fleet. Europe was a wasteland. There was fighting still going on, but over scraps. As soon as either the U.S. or the Nazis managed to patch together a nuke, they used it. Not often, but often enough. The U.S. took out not just Berlin but also Hamburg. The Nazis used their second on Moscow and that got Stalin and his top people. The Russians essentially fell apart and out of the war. England shouldered on, but London was a ghost town as it was inevitable a V-3 with a nuke would hit as soon as the Germans put together their third bomb. People were laying bets on whether the US would take out Tokyo with some sort of replay of the failed Doolittle Raid strike or Paris, to wipe out Hitler and his top people since they’d relocated there, figuring it wouldn’t get nuked. It was hopeless.”
“Charming,” Lara said. “What was different in your timeline to cause that divergence? From what’s happened in this timeline? What did the Shadow do?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know if the Shadow did anything to my timeline. We did most of it to ourselves. I’ve researched it. Believe me, I’ve gone over this timeline’s history with a fine tooth comb to find the divergence spot. But there were many, going back centuries. Little things that were different in my history. I can’t pinpoint just one. It was so similar, yet started going so different. I think the largest divergence was that the United States didn’t enter World War I. The war ended, but only after the Communists revolted in Germany, overthrew the Kaiser, and sued for peace. But Hitler was still Hitler. Instead of wiping out the Communists like he did in your timeline, he became one, eventually taking over the party. Then he invaded France. And betrayed Stalin. But some of the scientists stayed in Germany who fled in your timeline to the United States. Physicists who were communist.” She sighed. “I could tell you many, many things that were different.” The woman stood up and walked around her desk. She held out her hand. “I’m Beth.”
“Lara.”
Beth indicated the Pit. “Everything below us, in this timeline, is pretty much the same as my timeline.”
“So the United States not fighting in World War I caused such a big change?”
Beth nodded. “You’d think all those lives saved, over one hundred thousand Americans died in your World War I, would be a good thing. But.” She shrugged. “That’s why we can’t predict the future. Besides the fact we can’t predict it,” she added with a wry smile. “And it’s why, as long as the present is stable, the past must stay intact. Why didn’t the U.S. enter World War I in my timeline? A lot of small things adding up to a big thing. So it’s our job to try to make sure all the things in this history, big and small, stay the same.”
“Hold on,” Lara said. “How old are you?”
“Sixty-one.”
“The math doesn’t add up,” Lara said. “If you lived 1929 then you should be—“
“I came through the Space Between,” Beth said, referring to the timeless area that was crisscrossed with Gates between timelines. “Somewhere in there I skipped a bunch of years. But I’ve been here for over thirty years since I came through.”
“Did you have a Saint Valentines Day massacre in your timeline?” Lara asked.
“Yes. It happened the same. It’s curious how one part of history, sociological, can be the same, while another part, political, can be so different. Of course, the delineation isn’t clear cut. ”
Lara put her hand on the wood railing that kept them from tumbling downward, into the past and most likely their death in the gray swirl below. She assumed there was a bottom, a physical one, since the Pit was real. But who knew?
“Your timeline didn’t have a Time Patrol?”
Beth shook her head. “No. We just fumbled along. As I said, I’m not certain even now if the Shadow was attacking my timeline using Time Travel.”
“So you don’t know if the Shadow caused the Cascades? Or the ripples that caused the Cascades?”
“No,” Beth said. “That’s the strange thing. It could have just been the natural progression of my timeline. There was no overt attack by the Shadow that I was aware of. But, of course, there’s so much I’m not aware of. That many of us aren’t aware of.”
“You got that right,” Lara agreed.
“What I do know,” Beth said, “is that it’s gone now. Blacked out of existence in 1948. Something happened not long after I left. Something final. It’s gone and everyone I knew is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Lara said, knowing it was a vastly insufficient thing to say about an entire timeline of people that no longer existed.
“It’s why we work so hard,” Beth said. “We know what can happen.”
Lara closed her eyes. “I can feel them. Hear faint voices.”
“Who?” Beth asked.
Lara opened her eyes. “The billions of people who existed. Who lived this timeline to the present. They’re out there. Part of history. Part of the fabric that makes the whole.”
Beth nodded. “Sometimes I sense it. Almost hear it. Faint whispers. It makes me wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
Beth pointed up. “Where this is all heading.”
The Missions Phase II
“In this life all that I have is my word and my balls and I do not break them for nobody.”
—Al Capone
Chicago, 14 February 1929 A.D.
“It’s time,” Strings said as a car drove past, then turned into an alley on the side of the S.M.C. Cartage Company and disappeared.
Ivar had actually been enjoying the breakfast; sausage patties and an omelet the waitress had recommended. And he knew Moran wasn’t in the car, but that was as it was, is, supposed to be. Whatever. “All right. What now? Where’s my police uniform?” he asked.
; “Now we calls the other guys,” Strings said. “Don’t worry about no uniform.” He indicated the plate. “You done?”
As if killing would wait on his breakfast, Ivar thought. Any delay and Moran might actually show up, but the download informed him that historically Moran had spotted the police car with the two mobsters dressed as cops idling a few blocks away and that was why he hadn’t been one of the victims.
There was something wrong with that since the two other hitters they were supposed to meet were the guys with the Thompsons.
“Yeah,” Ivar said, trying to make sense of the situation, but it wasn’t making sense. Welcome to time travel he thought.
Strings went over to the phone and picked up the receiver. Ivar couldn’t hear what he was saying from his position by the booth.
“You all finished, honey?” the waitress asked.
Ivar nodded, his focus on the garage across the street, his mind on possible ways this could end up going awry. Of course, he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect about being in there when it happened as recorded by history.
“Don’t go,” the waitress whispered as she passed by him, taking his plate off the table.
Ivar was startled. “What?”
“Don’t go over there,” the waitress said, jerking her head toward the garage. “It’s a bad place.”
“Stop chatting with the old lady,” Strings called from the phone. He hung up and gestured for the door. “Time to deliver our valentines.”
The waitress pushed her way through a swinging door into the kitchen and Ivar paused, watching the door go back and forth, slower each time, feeling like he was the same, bouncing, slower and slower and . . .
The pressure of a gun muzzle against the back of his head got his attention.
“If I was gonna kill you, I’d have the string around your neck,” Strings said. “There’s some folks want to talk to you. So let’s not keep ‘em waiting.”
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”
—President Franklin Roosevelt
The Great Bitter Lake, 14 February 1945 A.D.
“Berlin?”
Watson shrugged. “Germany first. That’s always been the policy. We atomize the Nazis first when the bomb is ready.”
Eagle relaxed slightly. The good news was that the war in Europe would be over before the A-Bomb was ready. The bad news was that getting Roosevelt to switch the target for the A-Bomb didn’t appear to be his mission; it made sense that the first target planned would be in Europe. “And if the war is over with Germany? Then what?”
“Then the Japanese,” Watson said, confirming history. “I tell you though. Between you and me, and I’m only telling you because you already know what’s going to happen, Franklin doesn’t want to use it at all. He doesn’t trust the scientists. But, more than that, he sees beyond that first use. Uncorking the bottle as it were.” Watson made a noise that sounded like a cough but might have been a chuckle. “Appropriate for where we are. Letting the genie out of the bottle. You can’t put it back in.”
Eagle knew it would be of some solace for both Watson and Roosevelt to know that those first two bombs would be the last two actually used—so far to Eagle’s present. That the threat of nuclear weapons used in a mutually assured destruction scenario made even despots pause.
So far, Eagle reminded himself. In his last mission, Eagle had kept the Shadow from hijacking the largest nuclear weapon ever built, Tsar Bomba.
“Is that what you’re here about?” Watson asked. “Should we tell the boys in Los Alamos to shut down?”
That gave Eagle pause. What if they did stop the Manhattan Project now? The Trinity Test was still some months off, to occur on 16 July. The test that Moms often claimed was the beginning of when it all changed, eventually leading to the opening of the first Rift. The Demon Core wouldn’t even be created at the Hanford Site and shipped to Los Alamos for a while. And if there were no Demon Core, there would be no Rifts. And if there were no Rifts, there would be no Nightstalkers. And if there were no Nightstalkers, there wouldn’t be the Time Patrol. And if--
Eagle’s mind was racing, shifting lanes, drawing on his vast knowledge of history. Shut down Los Alamos? There would be no Hiroshima or Nagasaki explosions. But then the Japanese would most likely not capitulate and Operation Downfall, the invasion of mainland Japan, would go ahead with estimated casualties in the millions for both American and the Japanese. So many more than perished in those two blasts. And if—
But someone would invent the bomb. Eventually. And it might not be the USA. And if--
“You all right, son?” Watson asked.
Eagle blinked. Mission first. “Yes. I’m fine. No. I’m not here to get Los Alamos shut down.”
“So they make the thing and it works?” Watson asked. “Because their record so far isn’t so great.”
“Is anything strange going on?” Eagle asked. “Do you have any idea why I’m here? Today? Did the old woman tell you anything about why I would be here?”
Watson shrugged. “The President is meeting with King Saud later today. But the heavy lifting was done at Yalta. They chopped up Europe for after the war. Lots of folks not happy about that, especially the Poles. But that’s done and a small price for getting the Russians into the war in the Pacific. Stalin is back in Moscow. Churchill is heading home. We’re only meeting this sandlot King because of the oil. The war is using a lot and we’re going to need more than the U.S. can produce.”
It was hard to believe that the United States had been an exporter of oil prior to and during World War II. In fact, part of the reason Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 was a sanction on U.S. oil to the Japanese.
“But didn’t you send some sort of message into the future?” Eagle asked. “An alert that something was off today?”
“If I sent it,” Watson said, “wouldn’t I send it in my future, your past? How would I know something is off, until it’s off?”
The conundrum of past and future coming into the same moment. Watson only had six more days to get a message out. But if the message came as a result of this meeting, wasn’t that a fundamentally flawed paradox? Unless Fate--
“But,” Watson cut into Eagle’s thoughts, “the President wants to meet you.”
“What? Excuse me, sir, but the First Rule.”
Watson nodded. “Yes, yes. He doesn’t know you come from the future. He just knows you’re, shall we say, different? Just as he knows I’m a little different.” Watson put a hand on Eagle’s shoulder. “He’s sick, son. The least you can do is meet him. Maybe say what you can say. That things are going to turn out all right?”
What if they don’t was Eagle’s instinct, but he didn’t voice it.
Watson, however, was ahead of him. “After all, you wouldn’t be here if people weren’t still around whenever you come from. So those A-Bomb boys don’t blow up the world. There’s some who are afraid that once they initiate that thing, they won’t be able to stop it. And the whole world will explode.”
Watson nudged Eagle down the passageway. “The old man is resting, waiting for the King to arrive. It will just be the three of us.”
Eagle had met George Washington on the Ides mission and the nation’s first President had been larger than life. The prospect of meeting the only four-term President of the United States was enticing. And he did have to get to the root of the mission.
And he knew he was equivocating, but he allowed Watson to lead him.
Watson stopped at a hatch. “Here.” He turned the wheel.
Eagle felt that tingle, the one he’d experienced in combat.
Watson tried to push the hatch open. “Give me a hand, if you will?”
“What’s going on?”
“You’re meeting the President,” Watson said.
Eagle felt something, but he wasn’t certain what.
Watson sighed. “I’ll go first. You can follow.” He ducked his head and went through.
Eagle reluctantly, yet with anticipation, followed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was inside. A porthole was open and an electric fan was making a futile attempt to move the sullen, hot air.
Roosevelt spoke as soon as Eagle was in. “You’re a nervous fellow, aren’t you?”
“Sir.” Eagle wasn’t sure what to do, snapping automatically to a position of attention.
Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, a blanket draped strategically across his lap, hiding most of the contraption. The random thought that it must be hot beneath that blanket crossed Eagle’s mind.
“Relax, my friend,” Roosevelt said, his voice edged with the timbre Eagle had listened to from recordings of the President’s fireside chats. “I wanted to meet you because I needed to know if Oppenheimer’s vision was correct.”
“His vision, sir?” Eagle felt a chill at the mention of the physicist’s name. Moms often quoted Oppenheimer’s reciting of the Hindu poem after the Trinity Test: I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
Roosevelt glanced at Watson, then back at Eagle. “This is all very strange to me. But there are many things that are strange to me. Seems more and more so every day.” Roosevelt grimaced as he fidgeted in the chair. “My dear friend here—“ he indicated Watson—“won’t tell me his terrible secret. One that has afflicted him all his life. Something to do with you and some sort of secret, which I only become aware of when, apparently, I need to be aware of it.
“I’m not following, sir,” Eagle said.
“I could ask how you got on board this ship since I’ve never seen you before,” Roosevelt said. “And I have an eye for people. And the Quincy, mighty though she is, isn’t that large. And, no insult intended, young man, just fact, you do stick out. But my dear friend asked me not to ask. So I will not ask.” He sighed.
“I don’t understand the science,” Roosevelt said, “but a year ago Professor Oppenheimer called me in quite the panic. Told me that something had gotten out of control. Going critical was the term he used. And something weird happened and an angel—that’s the word Oppenheimer used—an angel, appeared out of nowhere and told Op he could show him how to fix it, but only if a deal was struck. This Angel could direct Oppenheimer how to get the thing, a pile Oppenheimer called it, back under control. The deal was that when asked, I do as requested. That I give my word.”
