by Walker, Rysa
“Maybe they latched on to Max’s signal,” Katherine suggests.
“Who’s Max?” Angelo asks.
“The other historian I told you about,” I say, eyebrows raised slightly. “The one from the future cadre.”
It takes a moment for that to process. Angelo is usually extremely quick on the uptake, but I doubt he’s had much sleep over the past few days. His days haven’t been a standard twenty-four hours any more than my own, and he gave himself several sets of double memories during our effort to correct the previous time shift.
“Oh,” he says. “Her. Yeah. I remember now.”
I cross over to push one of the buttons positioned along the right margin of the display, which would normally give me more details about the proposed game of Temporal Dilemma. The display just shimmers a bit and remains on the same screen. I press another button at random, with the same result.
“It’s not part of the actual game,” Angelo says. “Just a static message that popped up on every TD interface a couple of hours ago.”
“Every interface?” Katherine asks.
“As far as we can tell. It’s temporary, though. If you disconnect from the network, it resets to the usual game controls. We’ve passed it off so far as someone hacking into our system and using it to hack into the Temporal Dilemma network. But I’m not sure how long that explanation’s going to hold. Sutter has already messaged me twice.”
He gives us a grim smile, because we all know what that means. Sutter, who is head of CHRONOS security, can’t tell exactly what you’re hiding. He can, however, be fairly sure if you’re hiding something, thanks to a prosthetic eye that gauges changes in body temperature, heart rate, and so forth, and he is tenacious about following each and every lead. There was a case, back when I was still in classroom training, where rumors began circulating that one of the historians was smuggling small samples of DNA and selling them on the side. A speck of Lincoln’s dandruff, for example—the sort of thing that wouldn’t show up on the standard Temporal Monitoring check we go through after a jump. Sutter figured out who had done it during the first interview, and the woman was out of the building by nightfall. But she told him she wasn’t the only one engaged in that sort of activity, and apparently what she said registered as true on his scanner because it was like the Spanish Inquisition for the next few months. He questioned every active agent, every analyst, pretty much everyone in the building, aside from the students. We were quaking in our boots at the idea of that creepy eye scanning us, certain we were next. And we likely would have been, had the jump committee not told him to back off.
“He’s probably getting calls from the security folks at Temporal Dilemma,” Angelo adds. “Maybe even their lawyers. Their subscriber-assistance office has apparently been flooded with complaints because players had to shut down active games in order to get rid of the message.”
“Which is very bad news for those of us whose names are on that message,” Katherine says. “We’re going to be targeted by the entire time-chess community.”
I’m not sure who dubbed the game time chess. It’s nothing like actual chess, aside from the fact that it emphasizes strategy and your moves are usually contingent on those made by your opponent. The level of complexity grows with the player, with the more advanced levels requiring a fairly nuanced understanding of not only history, but also economics, sociology, and government. You can play against the computer, one-on-one, or as part of a team, and there are time-chess leagues at every age level, from primary school through college, as well as recreational and professional leagues for adults. A few years back, a time-chess modification was added as a genetic alteration that parents could request as their child’s one chosen gift, and it has proved to be popular. Fairly lucrative, too, since time-chess teams pay a decent salary and prize money at the professional level can be substantial if your team is highly ranked.
Within CHRONOS, time chess is known simply as The Game, and while it would be an excellent teaching tool for the classroom stage of our training, it’s not part of the curriculum. I’ve heard rumors that it was used briefly when Temporal Dilemma released the original version, but the directors of the agency later decided that the principles of time chess were at odds with the core values we were being taught. While there are various game modes in time chess, most of them involve changing a historical event in a set number of moves.
That’s one reason active historians rarely play. It just feels wrong to practice doing something that is essentially the cardinal sin of our profession. Our prime directive is to avoid changing history. We are simply there to observe and learn. But I suspect another reason most historians steer clear of The Game is those of us who have been in the field understand that time chess is a lousy substitute for actually being there. No matter how detailed a simulation may be, real life is always more complex.
Saul Rand is one of the few historians who do play. In fact, judging from the amount of time he spends at the Objectivist Club with Morgen Campbell, and also from the occasional snide comments Katherine makes, the man is a bit obsessed with it. He and Campbell are both highly competitive, and they’ve been known to spend weeks of their spare time on a single three-scenario tournament. Campbell at least has an excuse. The ability to time travel is the one thing his money hasn’t been able to buy, at least in this timeline. Over on Earth Two or whatever, he seems to have found a way to get around those restrictions, both for himself and for his daughter, Alisa.
Katherine’s eyes flick to one side in response to something on her retinal screen. She glances at the message on the TD display once more, then turns to Angelo. “I’m sorry. I have to go. It’s urgent. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, tops.”
Angelo gives her an exasperated look. “Fine. Fifteen minutes. But not here. Meet these two in isolation room one and they can fill you in. I’ve been awake for nearly forty-eight hours, I’m juggling three sets of memories, and I’ve still got phone calls to make before I can sleep. But before you go . . .” He nods toward the display. “This situation doesn’t go beyond the people in this room. Not to anyone. Understand?”
A hurt look flashes across her face. “Completely. In case you’ve forgotten,” she adds with a defiant tilt of her chin, “I’m quite capable of keeping a secret. Even from Saul.”
Her last comment seems to have chastened Angelo, although I have no idea why. I exchange a look with Rich, who gives me a tiny shrug as Katherine hurries toward the door.
“Katherine?” Angelo waits for her to look back and then says, “When you see Saul, tell him to get his ass over to the TMU right now, and I want to see him in my office tomorrow at eight. Apparently, he skipped out-processing after today’s jump. I get that he was annoyed with Grant about something, but that’s unacceptable.”
She gives him a curt nod and pushes the door open.
The three of us stand awkwardly for a moment, then Angelo says, “Anyway, this message was broadcast to a couple million Temporal Dilemma players before we were able to shut it down, so Kathy’s right. Regardless of what else happens, expect to be grilled by the time-chess community. The TD folks said they were getting inundated with calls asking whether this was an announcement for an upcoming expansion module.”
“Has anyone questioned the whole ‘fluctuation in the CHRONOS field’ excuse for the previous shift?” I ask. “And how many people know what actually happened?”
Angelo shrugs. “The four who were on duty know some of it. They’ll have to wrestle with an hour’s worth of conflicting memories. From everyone else’s perspective, everyone who wasn’t in ops at the time, there’s no overlap. The timeline was fixed before it was ever broken from their point of view. There are records in the system of course. The jumps the three of you made from the tank are going to show up, and I haven’t exactly decided how to deal with that. I thought we might be able to keep it inside the agency when it looked like it was just an isolated error on our part, but . . .”
What he means is an is
olated error on my part. I was the one in the field at the time, at the speech in Ohio where Dr. King was shot, three years before his actual assassination in Memphis. I’d been too far away to alert him, but I’d tackled the girl next to me to the ground, almost certainly saving her life . . . and sticking her with a bunch of double memories in the process, since she’d been within the range of my CHRONOS key when the shift occurred. Historians and people on our support team understand the concept of a double memory, and it’s tough even if you only have a few minutes of overlap. In the course of saving her life, I’d saddled Toni Robinson with several years’ worth of memories that made no sense to anyone around her. Restoring the timeline also restored her sanity. The fact that I’m almost equally relieved by those two results tells me I need to steer clear of Memphis 1966.
“But,” Angelo continues, “keeping all of this secret is a moot point, now. This message means we’re under threat of attack. I briefed the White House immediately, and I have a face-to-face meeting tomorrow afternoon with the president, as well as the head of CHRONOS and the other members of the jump committee.”
“What makes you think Morgen and his buddies will hold off that long?” I ask, nodding toward the message.
“I don’t know that they will, but President Freidman is at some economic forum in Europe. And she wants to include the Solons and heads of the relevant departments, which means a lot of schedules to sync up. My preference was to meet today, but that would have meant talking with VP Graham, and he’s in our corner even less than Freidman. If I could still use the key, I’d have jumped back a few days and given her advance warning. I even thought about having one of you go back and give me a heads-up so that I could do that, but . . . maybe it’s for the best. Hopefully I can catch at least a few hours of sleep in the interim. And maybe then my mind will be clear enough to figure out how to pitch this disaster in a way that does the least damage to the agency.”
“I think that’s a lost cause,” Rich says, slumping down into one of the chairs. “They’re going to decide we’re too big of a risk. And as much as I’d like to continue existing, they’re probably correct.”
“Hold on, though.” I’d been thinking the same thing only a few minutes earlier, but as I heard the words from Rich, I realized there was a major flaw in our knee-jerk pessimism. “If this message is real, they can’t erase CHRONOS. Think about it. You just need to make them see that we’re their only hope of defense. Even if they find some way to block incursions from other timelines, there’s no guarantee that solution will hold. I think the worst-case scenario is that they militarize us. Maybe they’ll eventually change the nature of training for future cadres, but they’re going to want to make sure we have people who can counter this sort of attack in the interim. I mean, unless they’ve found a way to insert the CHRONOS gene after birth, it will be a few decades before they have any other group to take our place. Erasing the agency would give the enemy carte blanche to use our timeline as their playground.”
“That’s an excellent point.” Angelo’s tone is somehow both relieved and apprehensive. “Even if they go all the way back and prevent the invention of time travel, it strains credulity to think that it would undo the development of the technology in all other timelines. Erasing CHRONOS would leave our timeline defenseless. Hell, once I make them aware of that, they might even increase our funding.”
FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY INTREPID
AVIATRIX LAURA INGALLS INVADES WHITE HOUSE RESTRICTED ZONE
(Washington, September 27, 1939) Famed pilot Laura Ingalls has been ordered by the Civil Aeronautics Authority to explain why her license should not be revoked after an incident yesterday near the White House. Ingalls, who recently came in second in the Bendix Transcontinental air race and is the only woman to have flown solo around South America, violated two separate civil air regulations today when she released hundreds of pamphlets from her Lockheed-Orion plane. The first regulation restricts aircraft from entering the zone surrounding the White House and the second prohibits the dropping of any material from an aircraft inside a municipality without permission of city officials and the CAA.
The pamphlets were the work of the Women’s National Committee to Keep the United States Out of the War, an organization of isolationist women. Miss Ingalls claimed that while some of the papers might have drifted onto the White House grounds, the intended target was Congress. The flyers were, in fact, addressed “To All Members of Congress” and included the plea that Congress reject President Roosevelt’s request to repeal arms embargo provisions of the Neutrality Act, claiming that “American women do not intend to again have their men sent to die on foreign soil.”
Miss Ingalls continued her flight above the nation’s capitol for several hours before landing at Washington Airport. Upon touchdown, she was met by officials of the CAA and taken in for questioning.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the pilot as Laura Ingalls Wilder, a children’s author. Laura Houghtaling Ingalls is a distant cousin of Mrs. Wilder.
∞3∞
KATHERINE
CHRONOS HQ
WASHINGTON, EC
NOVEMBER 10, 2304
I’ve just finished noting that we’re going to get reamed by the entire time-chess community when a green light flashes in the corner of my retinal screen, signaling an incoming message from Saul. I slide my eyes to the right automatically, intending to scan through the message quickly and send an automated reply telling him that I’m in a meeting.
As it turns out, there’s not much to scan. The entire message is three short sentences. Urgent. I need you. Bring first aid kit. And then Saul’s name goes dark, indicating that he’s switched off his comm-link.
Great. In all the time we’ve been together, Saul has never once messaged me that anything was an emergency. Small details never seem to stress him out, and he has an uncanny knack for remaining unruffled even in the midst of chaos. I came home shortly after we moved in together to find that the zephyr in our new quarters had gone haywire. The eco-friendly shower’s thermostat malfunctioned, melting a hole in one of the shower walls and the bath so the suite positively reeked of melted plastic and cologne—both his and mine. Saul, who was reading in the front room, apparently oblivious to the stench, calmly informed me that repairs were scheduled for the next day.
Why the hell does he need a first aid kit? Adhesive bandages and analgesic gel are standard equipment in all kitchens. Saul knows where they are, because he tossed me a bandage a few months back when I shattered a glass and nicked my palm. And for anything more serious than a small cut or burn, you simply hop into the lift and head down to the fifth floor, which houses our primary med unit. Or, in the case of a major emergency, you message the med unit, and they can have a team anywhere in the facility within a matter of minutes. If he were seriously injured, help would arrive in far less time than it will take me to find a first aid kit and get it up to our quarters.
Obviously, this is a test. Will I come when he needs me? Or will I ignore him the way his mother did? Saul Rand is thirty-one, nearly eight years older than I am, and yet sometimes it’s like he’s still a little kid.
Given the message that everyone else is looking at, the one flashing on the front of the SimMaster 8560 display, I really need to stay. I would stay, in fact, if I’d never peeked at Saul’s journal entries about his mother. But I did read them, so I’m going to tell Angelo I need to go. Because in every way that matters, there’s a ten-year-old boy on the seventh floor right now, waiting to see if anyone loves him enough to come when he cries for help.
Plus, I need to see him. That’s where I was headed when the message came in from Angelo. If Rich hadn’t been on the lift with me, I’d have ignored the order long enough to find Saul. Even though I know, logically, that he’s not the same person I saw in the auditorium in Memphis 1966, I need to see his face, without that stupid scar snaking down his right cheek. I need to see his eyes, without that weird implant I spotted
in the brief moment before Max-from-the-Future blasted him with her stun gun.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. It’s urgent. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, tops.”
Angelo is visibly annoyed, and he adds a totally unnecessary reminder that I am not to tell Saul about the message on the screen. I know the man is tired. I know he’s under stress. But it still stings. Angelo Coletti knows better than anyone that I can keep a secret. Even from Saul.
I pause outside the jump room, trying to figure out where I might possibly find a first aid kit. The med unit is the obvious answer, but loyalty tests aside, if Saul wanted the med unit involved, he would have gone there in the first place. The prop room seems like the second most likely location. I’m almost certain Adrienne was carrying a medical kit of some sort when she did that series of battlefield-nursing jumps last year.
The wing that handles jump prep—costuming, props, makeup, and the like—is silent when I reach that section of the corridor, something that’s fairly typical for this time of day. Earlier this morning, the hallway was bustling as the various technicians rushed about trying to get twelve historians ready for their jumps. It’s barely noon now, but the wing is empty, and costuming is closed until tomorrow morning. The door isn’t locked, however. I’ve gone in on a few occasions in the past if I needed something for an upcoming trip and wanted to avoid the prejump rush. It’s not like there’s anything in there you can steal, and you have to log in to the system to use the replicators.
My only hope of justifying this is to tie it to my current research agenda. The last place I remember seeing a med kit was at the Beatles concert, when Coliseum security and medical personnel tried to revive the people I’d stunned with the Timex gadget Angelo gave us prior to departure. If anyone asks, I can come up with some excuse for why I need to examine a kit from that era before the next jump on my schedule. Of course, if the message Angelo just showed us is real, that probably won’t be my next jump, and explaining this print job will be the least of my worries. CHRONOS will be shut down before anyone has time to wonder why I’m printing out antique medical supplies.
