Now, Then, and Everywhen (Chronos Origins)

by Rysa Walker

  We carry the wine, the neatly sliced candy bar, and a cheese plate I prepared earlier back into the living room. Once we’re seated, Alex takes a long sip from his glass and then says, “So. You found a time-travel device—one that only you appear to be able to use—buried in your backyard. Let’s start with an easy question. Why would anyone bury it? I’d think dropping it into the ocean would be a wiser choice if you wanted to dispose of it and couldn’t just . . . disable it.”

  “True. But I don’t think it was a person that buried the key. And the thing actually did drop me into the ocean yesterday, which was the first time I used it. Perhaps it was trying to tell me something.” I pull two oddly shaped items from under the coffee table. “As you can see from the etching on the side, these are called Nylabones. There was also a different sort of dog toy buried there, but it didn’t hold up as well. I had to toss it.”

  “You think a dog buried that medallion?” Jack says. “Why? And when?”

  “No clue. But Nora called while I was planting the garden, right after I dug the thing up. She said her father never owned a dog, but she’s pretty sure his mom did, and she also said the medallion looked like something that her Grandma Kate owned. Nora recognized it as a religious medal, too, although she said her grandmother hated the Cyrists. And Nora is convinced that her grandmother’s medallion was buried with her, although I don’t know why anyone would want to be buried with a symbol of something she hated.”

  “Maybe she had two of them?” Jack says.

  I shrug. “Maybe. I didn’t even realize it had religious connections until Nora told me. It looked like one of those handheld VR toys to me. When Nora said it was something of her grandmother’s, I offered to send it to her. But she told me she had plenty of things to remember Grandma Kate by. She actually said it was drab looking.”

  “Well, she’s not wrong,” Alex says. “It’s kind of ugly.”

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point. I wouldn’t say it’s pretty, exactly, but it’s very much the opposite of drab for me. Anyway, I was looking at the key while talking to Nora, and a holographic display popped up. Nine squares, three rows of three, each with an image. Some of them seemed static, but I’m pretty sure now that it’s just because they’re closets or dark alleys or whatever. The visual navigation is fairly standard, so I swiped with my eyes and discovered a second set of screens. One of them caught my attention—an underwater scene, with a concrete crypt of some sort on the ocean floor. Fish swimming around. It was pretty. Kind of hypnotic. I got caught up in watching the fish move in and out of the picture, and I missed something Nora was saying. She said my name again, louder, which startled me into blinking. And the next thing I know, I’m in the ocean.”

  “Actually in the ocean?” Alex asks.

  “Yes. I still thought it was a VRE. A damn good one, but . . . what else could it be, right? I was tempted to just start breathing and see if I’d sprout gills or something, like you would in a game. But I’ve been swimming since before I could walk, and the don’t-breathe-underwater thing is hardwired at this point. So I kicked off from the bottom and headed toward the surface. Didn’t make it before my air ran out. When I came to, I was on the beach with a teenage girl trying to resuscitate me. There was a guy with her, and some woman approaching from a house up the shore. They were all dressed weird—I mean, all three of them were on the beach, but pretty much every bit of skin was covered.”

  “Maybe they didn’t want to burn,” Alex suggests.

  “I guess. But the clothes were just . . . wrong. Bulky skirts, odd shoes. And the woman, a doctor named June, had one of these medallions. She told the other two to go back to the compound or commune or whatever. Long story somewhat shorter, that beach was Estero Island, Florida. The date was October 12, 1906. This June person tried to convince me to stay. Said that the Cyrists could use more jumpers, that I could be part of this glorious new world they were planning. When I made it clear I wanted to leave, she reluctantly showed me how to use the interface to change the date. I eventually made it back to 2136, but the closest I could get to here was a stable point at the Lincoln Memorial. I paged a car, and that’s when I called Jack and invited the two of you over for dinner tonight.”

  “Why do you think you were in 1906?” Jack asks as I grab one of the candy-bar slices.

  “Well, the woman told me, for one thing. The display on the medallion—the CHRONOS key, as she called it—confirmed it, as well. But I think the thing that really convinced me was getting dumped back into the ocean.”

  They both look confused, so I continue. “I had to make a quick exit. Another one of these Cyrists showed up unexpectedly, and I didn’t have time to scan for a stable point in DC. So I just changed the date. I’d been sitting on a bed, inside a beach house a good hundred meters from the shore back in 1906. But when I reached 2136, I found myself underwater again. That entire end of the island is submerged now, except for a tiny strip where the group erected a giant Cyrist symbol—you know the one that looks a bit like an Egyptian ankh?”

  Alex nods. “I’ve seen them. Like I said, my aunt is Cyrist—at least she used to be. Not sure if she’s still a member, but she has one of those lotus-flower tats on her hand.”

  I nod. We’ve all seen those tattoos. Occasionally they’re worn by someone younger, but more often, it’s a faded pink relic on the hand of someone’s grandmother. Or blue, if it’s their grandfather.

  “Anyway, the water was fairly shallow at the location I’d set, so I easily made it to what’s left of the Cyrist symbol—” I stop, realizing that I can show them what I saw. “Hold on. Jarvis, pull up a map of the southern end of Estero Island and send it to the wall display.”

  My virtual assistant turns on the screen. After the map appears, I tell him to zoom in on the sandbar and the concrete pillar.

  “Now superimpose a Cyrist symbol over the map.” An image pops up—basically an ankh with an infinity symbol for arms and a lotus flower in the middle. “See that upside-down U in the sand? That’s one of the arms. The statue must have gotten damaged in a storm.”

  They’re both silent for a moment and then Alex says, “No offense, but this doesn’t prove anything. You could have searched for a location on the map and built your story around that.”

  “True,” Jack says. “But that slice of candy bar you’re eating, the newspaper on the table, the sickly sweet soda over there, and the fact that Madi vanished and reappeared? That clearly indicates that something is going on.”

  “It could be a portable cloaking device. Maybe she cloaked and then walked over to that shed, where she had this stuff hidden.” Alex runs one hand through his short blond hair and gives me a pleading look, like he feels he should apologize for calling me a liar. He’s a nice guy, who generally hates making waves, but he’s also a scientist. I can’t really blame him for wanting to find a rational answer.

  “But why?” Jack asks. “What reason would she have to lie about this?”

  “It’s okay, Jack. I probably wouldn’t believe me, either. But . . . I dug around in the library today and found something odd. Something that I’d have thought was just one of James Coleman’s weird alt-history books if not for this medallion, but . . .”

  I open the drawer on the side of the living-room console, extract a thin book, and hold it out toward Alex. The title, A Brief History of CHRONOS, is embossed on the front cover. I found this particular volume wedged inside one of the climate-controlled cabinets surrounding most of the bookshelves. There was no title on the spine, and I’m not sure if I’d have found it at all if not for the clunky, error-ridden file catalog in the house’s computer system. It’s nearly useless unless you know precisely what you’re searching for. Fortunately, I had a specific keyword—CHRONOS—to guide my search today.

  “It’s a . . . book,” he says, arching one eyebrow. “Not exactly an odd find in a library.”

  “Open it to the preface,” I tell him.

  He does, although I get th
e sense that he’s humoring me. As he reads the first sentence, color drains from his face.

  The scientific principles of time travel were discovered in the mid-22nd century by a small team of researchers, headed by Ian Alexander, Ryan Jefferson, and Madison Grace.

  “I don’t know this Ryan Jefferson person,” I say. “But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that people call you Alex because your last name is Alexander?”

  He nods, still looking kind of numb.

  I take the book from Alex’s hands and give it to Jack, who reads it and then looks back at me. “You’ve met Ryan Jefferson, too. Alex’s cousin. Goes by RJ? He and his wife, Lorena, were at the soccer game last week.”

  The names bring up a hazy image of a couple in their late twenties, but I can’t remember speaking more than a few words to either of them. Jack’s weekly soccer games have a shifting roster of players and are really more an excuse to drink and goof off than serious sport. I even took the field once when they were short a player, and my football skills are limited, to put it mildly.

  “When did you find this?” Jack asks.

  “Last night. It was odd, because I’d already told you to bring Alex and then I saw his name listed there. Although . . . maybe not so odd, since he’s the only temporal physicist I’ve ever met. It did take me a moment to connect the two . . . I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call him anything other than Alex.”

  “You could have found out my last name,” Alex says. “It’s not exactly a state secret. And you have to know how easy it is to forge a book.”

  “True,” I admit. “This would be a lot easier to fake than me using the equipment. I just thought you might want to see it. But, if you need more evidence . . .”

  I tell Jarvis to put up the list I made earlier today of stable points. Each entry includes the physical location, the specific date and time that has been preset into the key, and also a date range that the location is usable. The only things I didn’t type in were the long strings of numbers that I’m pretty sure are encoded versions of the geographic locations.

  “Pick a new date and place from that list. I have a preference for the New York stable point—”

  “Why do you call them stable points?” Alex asks.

  “Because that’s what the doctor at Estero called them. If I had to guess, the dates listed give us the period of time when these geographic points are stable . . . thus, stable points. But that’s just a guess. As I was saying, I have a preference for New York, because there is a newsstand really close by. And a date in the 1920s or 1930s would be best, because my time-traveling wardrobe is currently limited to what you see. But I’ll jump to any of these you want—”

  “Wait a minute,” Jack says. “How many times have you used that thing today?”

  I mentally tabulate the various jumps. “Seven . . . no, wait. Eight. I think.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “Seven jumps to 1929?”

  “No. Three jumps to 1929. One to Memphis, 1952. One to Montgomery, 1965. One to Liverpool, 1957. Whoever had this key was into music, because the only thing I could find significant about that last date was that it was when two members of some band first performed together. The others were concerts. All of them were quick in-and-out trips, just to see if I could do it. I wasn’t really dressed to stick around. But, after I bought the dress, I actually did hang out for a bit at the Lincoln Memorial in April of 1939 so that I could hear Marian Anderson sing. I recorded it, even. Jarvis, play—”

  Alex cuts me off. “I don’t know who that is, but if it’s someone famous, you could have gotten it from—”

  And then Jack cuts him off. “Maybe some precautions are in order? Did you ever stop to consider that there might be limits on how often you can use that thing? What if you get stranded in one of those places?”

  “He’s right,” Alex says. “You don’t even know how it works.”

  “Of course, I considered the risk.”

  It’s true, although I wouldn’t really say it gave me serious pause until that last jump, when I thought about the possibility of someone stealing the key. Earlier in the day, I’d been too caught up in the sheer excitement of what was happening to really think about potential problems.

  After taking a deep breath, I continue. “I needed to get proof, okay? I needed to figure out some way to convince the two of you that I’m telling the truth. That this is really happening, and not the product of a mental breakdown. I need someone to believe me.”

  We’re all silent for a moment and then Alex says, “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you. It would actually help confirm some research I kind of . . . stumbled upon earlier this year. Old stuff, from decades ago. Do you have any idea how incredible this discovery will be if it’s real? I want it to be real. I want the paragraph in that book to be real. But the fact that I want to believe is precisely why I can’t let myself believe it. I’m already biased.”

  “Okay,” Jack says. “You’re a scientist. You need scientific proof. I get that.” Then he turns to look at me. “But I’m not a scientist, and I’m willing to go on gut instinct. So if it makes you feel better, you’ve convinced one of us. I can’t think of any reason you’d have to lie to us about this.”

  I’m not entirely certain if Jack means he believes what I’m saying is true, or if he believes that I believe it’s true. But either way, it’s a start.

  “As for our skeptic,” Jack says, “go ahead and pick a date and time. Or several, if you’d like. But could we place a moratorium on Madi actually using this thing again, at least until tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” Alex says. “That will give me some time to dig a bit deeper into the theories of the handful of physicists who believe that time travel is possible for human beings, rather than just packets of information. Or, you know, lunatics, as my colleagues call them.”

  FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY INTREPID (AUGUST 28, 1963)

  Crowds Flock to DC to Attend March for Jobs and Freedom

  (Washington) Over 200,000 attendees, both Negro and white, gathered today at the memorial to Abraham Lincoln, “the Great Emancipator,” demanding an end to racial discrimination. Today’s massive “March for Jobs and Freedom,” the largest demonstration in DC history, was organized by civil rights leaders seeking equal education and the removal of all race barriers to employment.

  Marchers made their way to the capital via plane, on a specially chartered train, in thousands of buses, and by private automobiles, with some even entering the city on foot. Gathering at the base of the Washington Monument, the group proceeded toward the Lincoln Memorial, singing the civil rights hymn “We Shall Overcome.”

  National Guard and police patrolled the area, dispersing a small counterprotest by the American Nazi Party. Despite concerns about possible violence, the march was orderly and peaceful, with remarks by more than a dozen civil rights advocates. The highlight was a stirring speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who shared his dream of a nation where all people are equal and judged by their character, rather than by the color of their skin.

  ∞3∞

  TYSON

  SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA

  SEPTEMBER 3, 1963

  “Hold on, hold on.” Miss Ida drops a second foil-wrapped package of hush puppies into the brown paper sack, then folds the edge over three times and creases it neatly. “I almost forgot his extras. Knowin’ Judge Turner, he’d send you all the way back to get them. I expect he’ll have someone downstairs to meet you this time, but if he don’t, his office is the third from the right, up on the second floor.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “No.” She laughs bitterly. “I think it’s an awful idea. Then again, so is tellin’ a sittin’ judge no when he calls up and orders a chicken box. No good choices here. But, sweet Jesus, go through the back door this time, Tyson. I don’t know how folks are doin’ things up in Chicago, but that ain’t how we do down here.�
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  Ida must realize it’s a bit unfair to rehash my error two weeks later, because her dark eyes soften and a tiny smile lifts the corners of her mouth as she pushes the bag into my hands. “Go on, now. Take your break on the way back if you want. But I need you here for the lunch rush, so don’t dillydally reading the funny books at Woolworth’s.”

  I’m confused for a moment, and then realize funny books must be some weird vernacular for comics. One of her many gossipy patrons has been telling tales.

  Once outside, I lift my face to catch the faint breeze. It’s still hot and humid, but it’s at least ten degrees cooler out here than it was inside. Ida claims it’s pointless to try to cool down the kitchen. She’s probably right, but when you’re stuck over a steaming sink—or worse yet, the deep fryer—it feels like you’re being boiled alive.

  This is almost certainly the only fresh air I’ll catch until my shift ends at nine tonight. The double shift is my own doing, though, not Ida’s. I paid the regular waitress a dollar to swap out so I can work the dining room this afternoon, in addition to my usual split shift bussing tables during the breakfast and dinner hours. Today is Tuesday, when the deacons from Mount Moriah Baptist have their weekly fellowship lunch. They don’t tip worth a damn, and the waitress clearly thought I was crazy to fork out a whole dollar to get that shift. But this is their first fellowship meeting since two of them returned from participating in the March on Washington. They’ll have a lot to say, and I don’t want to miss it.

  Of course, I’d really rather have been in DC, watching King’s speech in person. There were at least a dozen CHRONOS agents in that crowd. For that matter, it would have been more interesting to make this trip to the Spartanburg of three years ago, in the summer of 1960, when Woolworth’s national office ordered stores to integrate their lunch counters. Spartanburg’s city council responded with a proclamation against the order, and the black community responded in turn with a sit-in at the local Woolworth’s. That would have been something worth witnessing.