by Walker, Rysa
Angelo shook his head and laughed. “Gods above, Kathy, you are te—”
Was he going to say I’m terrible? Tenacious? Testing his patience? And is it weird that the questions of what that last word might have been were what ran through my mind first, before anything else could register?
By the time Richard reached me, the shock of seeing Angelo, a man I’ve known almost my entire life, simply vanish had started to kick in. I remember asking Rich how the CHRONOS keys could still exist if the agency didn’t, but I can’t remember what he said. My mind had already moved on to the realization that if Angelo was gone and the agency was gone, then Saul was gone, too. I tried to text him on my retinal screen, but it wasn’t working. Not a huge surprise, given that it’s CHRONOS issue and CHRONOS is now missing. And if the agency didn’t exist, then my mom never worked there. She met my father after she started work at HQ. They probably never met. They could both be . . . anywhere. Or nowhere at all.
My mother has enough seniority that she gets longer weekends now, and they were supposed to be in West Virginia at the cabin they share with a few other couples. Without my comm-link, though, I have no immediate way to check on either of them.
But Saul had left for the Club just before I came down to meet with Angelo. The OC is in easy walking distance. I was terrified that the building wouldn’t even be there, but I forced myself to glance over my shoulder toward K Street.
The skyline looked very different. So, for that matter, did the sky. But the building was there. I hate the OC on general principle, but I’ve never been happier to see anything in my life because the existence of that building meant there was something I could check. Something concrete I could focus on. And I desperately needed to focus. I knew that if I didn’t get up from that bench, I was going to start screaming.
I was still pretty close to the screaming point when Tyson began lecturing me. The last thing I need is someone explaining the obvious and trying to talk me down. I already know the truth. All I want is to get to the OC and confirm it so that I can move on to finding a way to fix this mess.
But as I turn onto the sidewalk, a building on the left side of K Street comes into view, and the sight literally stops me in my tracks. The curved white symbol atop the temple is nearly identical to one that I sketched for Saul and Tate in the OC’s Redwing Hall. The arms are wrong, though. I’m quite certain of that, because I designed the stupid thing.
It was one of the rare evenings at the OC that wasn’t completely miserable, probably because Saul’s former roommate, Tate Poulsen, was there. Saul holds the mistaken opinion that I’m attracted to tall, blond Vikings. I suspect it’s Saul who’s attracted to tall, blond Vikings, and therefore assumes that everyone else must be. Personally, I’ve always been more inclined toward brains than brawn, which is probably a good thing for Saul, because even though he is exceptionally handsome, his build is long and lean, while Tate is a solid wall of muscle. Tate’s a nice guy, and I enjoy his company, but the main reason I was glad he was with us at the Club that night was because Saul’s jealousy of his former roommate meant he resisted the temptation to wander off upstairs for a bit of time chess or one of his verbal jousting matches with Morgen Campbell.
Even in his absence, however, Campbell had dominated the conversation that night. The time-chess scenario he and Saul had been working on back then was one of the longer varieties where you tweak societal variables, like the form of government, economic system, and so forth, at an early stage, with the goal of effecting a specific long-term change. As a religious historian, Saul tended to play to his strengths, and the fact that Campbell is a fervent atheist gave him added incentive to change the religious landscape. He had been following a strategy he’d employed in earlier games, where he’d changed the timeline by inserting a hybrid religion. Instead of starting from scratch, he built on this odd little group that had a few brief surges in popularity in the 20th and 21st centuries. Small cults like the Cyrists were a dime a dozen back then, and the only reason I can think of that this one stood out to him was that the name of their main prophet was the same as Morgen Campbell’s dog.
I remember wishing Saul and Tate would move on to talking about something else, because some part of my mind was (and is) offended by the Cyrists. That’s really the only word I can think of that comes close to describing it. It’s not their belief system that bothers me. I don’t even know that much about their faith, aside from the fact that most people considered the group a bit odd and then, briefly, they moved into the mainstream. The feeling is really more of a niggling sense that they shouldn’t be.
Tate and Saul had been joking about verses to include in The Book of Cyrus, a gag gift that Saul was planning to give Morgen once the simulation was done and Saul was declared the victor. Tate said they should come up with a symbol for the cover, something that reflected several of the different faiths Saul had cannibalized to create his Franken-religion. More out of boredom than anything else, I pulled out my device and made a few rough sketches. Saul had said the symbol needed elements of a cross, obviously, for Christianity. We added the ankh mostly because it was such a tiny tweak to draw that loop at the top. The lotus flower was for several different Asian religions. I was about to show the final sketch to Saul when I had the idea to turn the horizontal arms into an infinity symbol as a droll little nod to CHRONOS. Saul had declared it perfect, saying that was exactly the extra touch it needed.
I don’t think he won that particular time-chess match, although he’d clearly expected to, since he went to the trouble of creating and printing out the book. Instead of giving it to Campbell, he’d simply stashed the thin volume, with its much smaller gold-foil version of the Cyrist symbol, on top of his dresser. Did that copy have the infinity symbol? I’m almost certain that it did. I’ve seen it dozens of times since then, sitting on top of the dresser, collecting dust.
Or rather, it was sitting there. That dresser doesn’t exist anymore. Our apartment doesn’t exist. I force myself to look away from the temple on the hill, with its almost-Cyrist symbol. The only thing that’s important right now is to keep moving toward the OC and get this over with.
“Katherine,” Tyson says, matching his pace to mine. “Marching straight into the OC without any idea what this timeline is like and without knowing for certain what caused the shift . . . does that really sound like a good idea to you? We need to slow down. Find a place to get some information. My comm-link isn’t working. Is yours? All I’ve got showing up are two local contacts—you and Rich. My retinal screen isn’t connecting at all.”
Even though I want to keep walking, I know he’s right. So I stop and turn back toward the two of them. “Fine. What do you suggest?”
We briefly discuss our options, which are limited, to say the least. The lack of a comm-link means we don’t have credits, so whatever we do will have to be free. That rules out the sim café across the street. But maybe . . . I glance back at the building that stands where CHRONOS used to be.
“Good idea,” Richard says, following both my gaze and my train of thought. “That building was a library. Or a history center. Those are usually free.”
I think I’d been blocking out our surroundings and the people on the street while I was focused solely on getting to the OC. As we backtrack to the main entrance, however, I realize we don’t exactly blend in. Our clothes are wrong. The colors are too vivid, and the designs far too casual. There are only a few women on the sidewalk, and a few more at the park watching a group of kids at the play area. Only one of them is in pants, and hers are far more formal than what I’m wearing. Richard, Tyson, and I are dressed more like the children in the park. I feel conspicuous, and hurry toward the shadows near the entrance.
An engraving above the door reads PVBLIC LIBRARY, but the sign on the door indicates that the building is currently the DC History Center. That’s a major change in and of itself, since this area has been part of the East Coast administrative bloc (or EC) for well over a century. Tyso
n pulls out his key, sets a local point, then rolls the time back several minutes. I’m about to ask why, and then I realize he’s setting up an escape hatch. If we go in and something goes wrong, we can get out. Assuming the keys work.
He transfers the new stable point to our medallions. “It would be nice to test whether these are fully functional, but I think that would draw a bit more attention than we’d like. And if they don’t work,” he adds with a grim smile, “we’re pretty much screwed anyway.”
When Rich pushes the door open, I see several holostatues, including one that looks a lot like the Carnegie statue that was in the CHRONOS courtyard. Beyond the displays in the center of the room is a line of kiosks that stretches along the back wall. Either technology is a bit behind in this timeline or these are historical exhibits. If it’s the latter, I hope they’re functional. They remind me a bit of the computers in the preschool center I attended when I was small.
Luckily, the room is not crowded. A young man is at one of the kiosks with a small child, and an elderly woman is seated at another. There’s no librarian on duty, which is a bit strange. I’ve never been in a library that didn’t have a specialist at the desk to help locate data that’s cross-referenced or archived.
There is definitely a security system, though. As we step into the room, I feel the faint tingle of a body scan. It could be a simple sweep for weapons or other contraband, but it’s probably also biometric. Which is not unusual. We’re scanned each time we enter the nonpublic areas at CHRONOS, partly to make sure there are no unauthorized people in the complex, but also to ensure that no one is using the time-travel technology in unapproved ways. But this scan seems wrong. Like the kiosks, it triggers a feeling almost like nostalgia, because the tingle was a lot like the cheaper security scans I remember from ten to fifteen years ago, coupled with a second, milder dose of the sick feeling that hit me when Angelo blinked out. Rich and Tyson must notice something is off as well. They exchange a look, and then Rich nods toward one of the empty kiosks.
An animated display pops up when we’re a few steps into the room. It’s an eagle—I think—in a bright-red sports jersey. It appears to be speaking, but I can’t hear anything. I tap the comm-disk behind my ear automatically, but it doesn’t help, so they must have their audio on a different frequency. The eagle seems to be waiting for a response, and even though I have no idea what the thing asked us, I take a stab in the dark. “Twentieth century, please.”
I’d like to have asked for a more current era, but the fact that the door said DC History rather than EC worries me. It could simply mean the center only covers the period when the region was known by that name, before it was broadened to include most of the Eastern Seaboard in the late 2100s. Or maybe that didn’t happen in this reality, and asking for that information would raise suspicions. Better to settle for confirming that this is indeed the result of the game, and maybe we can gradually work our way over to another kiosk when we’re not being watched by an animated eagle.
There’s a brief pause and then the avatar begins moving toward the second kiosk from the left. The screen inside the kiosk blinks on, then the bird extends a wing in an after-you gesture. Its face shifts from the cheery grin to something more somber, and then the bird disappears.
“Wonder what that was about?” Tyson says.
Rich shrugs and steps up to the display. “No clue. If it was a human avatar, I might have been able to at least partially read its lips, but it’s kind of hard to read a beak.” He taps the right side of the screen, which is labeled 20th in a bold, black font. The display shifts to reveal buttons for each decade, with an additional button at the top labeled Overview. “Here goes nothing.”
He presses the button labeled 1940s and then 1941. The screen shifts to moving images. Newsreels. With no sound.
“Great,” Tyson mutters.
But the visual is enough. We roll through highlights of 1941, right into 1942, without any sign of the Pearl Harbor bombing and the declaration of war. The rest of the decade continues with occasional glimpses of battles in Europe and the Pacific, but no evidence of US forces being engaged. A negotiated surrender by the European Allies, although it’s impossible to tell the terms. No iconic images of Rosie the Riveter. No D-Day. No Manhattan Project. No United Nations.
He then goes back to 1940, since he skipped that one in the rush to check on Pearl Harbor. One of the first clips in 1940 shows a tall, blond man speaking to an auditorium, with the caption Lindbergh and Others Wounded at NYC Rally; Ends Senate Race to Protect Family. A row of seated individuals, mostly men, are behind him on the stage, and farther back, there’s a massive mural with George Washington flanked by American flags. The man staggers backward a step and then slumps forward over the podium. He seems familiar, but I can’t quite place him. One of the seated men is hit, too. Another guy, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and clerical robes, looks like he’s going to aid the speaker, but then he ducks behind the podium. The preacher seems vaguely familiar, too. I think he’s one of the odd evangelists that Saul studies.
When the clip ends, Richard is about to tap the next decade, but Tyson and I both stop him. “Go back and pause on the speech,” Tyson says.
Richard does.
Tyson stares at the image, and then shakes his head. “I thought at first this was Madison Square Garden. It was one of the places we considered going when I was doing my training with Glen.” He winces, no doubt remembering that Glen, who was one of his primary mentors, no longer exists. “We were looking at the connections between the American Nazi movement and the Klan. In the end, we did a couple of jumps to the Hitler Youth camps the Bund was running in rural New Jersey instead, but I read several accounts of this big rally for Washington’s birthday in 1939 when we were writing the research proposal. This is the next year, but . . . I’m almost positive that’s the same backdrop painting of Washington. They even had a video. There was a huge protest against the rally because, I mean, who wants their tax dollars going to pay for the police presence needed to protect an assembly of more than twenty thousand Nazis, right? One Jewish protestor stormed the stage, but no one was hurt. Lindbergh didn’t even take part in the 1939 event that I remember. It was strictly a German-American Bund rally. The other guy who was shot in the shoulder, that’s their leader. Fritz Kuhn, or maybe it’s Franz. And the tall, dark guy behind Lindbergh is Lawrence Dennis. Fascist writer. He also wasn’t there. I’d remember if he had been, because he’s on my long-term research agenda. Coughlin wasn’t there either.”
“That’s his name!” I say. “I thought I recognized him.” I step forward and tap the screen to zoom in on the preacher’s face, but the display goes blank, followed by the message Unregistered User.
I yank my hand away. Rich quickly taps the display and the home screen pops up again.
“Whoa,” he says in a low voice. “I guess that means there’s another me around here somewhere. Or at least someone who’s a close enough match that it fools the sensors. Not you, though.”
“Not a big surprise, really. The odds of my parents meeting if there’s no CHRONOS are very, very slim. Want to check and see if you have a doppelgänger, Tyce?”
“I’ll pass,” Tyson tells me, glancing toward the other side of the room. I don’t see anyone except the family who was at one of the kiosks when we came in. Tyson seems on edge, although I can’t pinpoint anything specific that should have his hackles up. Well, aside from the fact that we’re in a brand-new timeline where pretty much everyone we know seems to have been erased.
Richard starts the clip again. “Lindbergh is the only one of these guys I’d ever heard of before all of this. Mostly because of his son getting kidnapped. And there was a dance craze named after him in the late twenties, when everybody was going crazy over pilots. I didn’t know he was shot, though. Didn’t even know he was a politician.”
“He wasn’t in our timeline,” Tyson says. “Pretty sure he never ran for office. But he was a huge isolationist. Made a bunch of anti-
Jewish statements, too. His name is mentioned in two of the scenarios we included in the report, but I don’t think either of them had him getting shot.”
Richard groans. “The report we gave to Angelo. The report that we all have in our files that we can’t access without a functioning comm-link. How the hell are we supposed to counter their moves without that data?”
Tyson says that he has a few notes and images on the CHRONOS diary in his bag, but not the report.
“Lindbergh was in one of the scenarios that Saul and Morgen played,” I tell them. “They based it on some book, or maybe it was a movie. An alt-history thing where Lindbergh was elected in 1940 instead of FDR. Someone was shot in that scenario, but I don’t think it was Lindbergh. Zoom in on the preacher.”
Even though I hadn’t immediately remembered the preacher’s name, his face was instantly recognizable. The snarl seems a bit more subdued, but he still shakes his fist and screams into the mic, just like he did in the clips I watched with Saul.
Two things, however, are different. The man’s trademark raised fist now has a lotus tattoo. And beneath his clerical collar, stark white against his dark cassock, is a Cyrist symbol.
“The Cyrists converted Father Coughlin.” I peer more closely at the photo and see that he’s wearing the version with the infinity sign for the arms. Maybe that part of the symbol was just dropped over the centuries since 1938 in this timeline?
“Father . . . who?” Richard asks.
“Coughlin. Radio priest from—” Tyson stops abruptly, then says, “We need to go, okay? The tall guy keeps looking over here, and I’d prefer not to have to blink out if we can avoid it.”
He’s right. Two people—real, live humans, not weird bird avatars—are now standing on the far side of what I assume was once an information or circulation desk. They glance away when I look in that direction, but they’re definitely checking us out. And since we may need to come back to this time at some point, it’s probably best to keep our faces off their version of a most-wanted list.
