Now, Then, and Everywhen (Chronos Origins)

by Rysa Walker

  “How can the place be more or less desegregated?” Saul asks. “Seems like an either/or proposition.”

  “Easy,” Rich says. “Leave it up to the group renting the place. I think they’ll let Tyson in. They want as large a crowd as possible to counter the other concert, and no matter how segregated the churches are, they won’t want to make a scene. Tyce says they’ll tell him whites only because their daughters are in the audience. Whoever wins takes the other’s next three Q and A sessions.”

  “Ouch. Wouldn’t want to be the loser,” Saul says.

  He’s right. Public question-and-answer sessions are one assignment that almost every historian hates. Someone had the bright idea a few years back that the best way to ensure continued funding for our research was to improve our public image. Interact more. Share our lessons learned. There are thirty-six active CHRONOS agents, so each of us ends up fielding a three-hour shift as the historian on duty roughly once a month. It’s a stupid assignment, because we aren’t generalists. We each know about our own area of history and a few tangential subfields. I’ve yet to hold a session where someone didn’t ask me about the US Civil War or the Vikings or something else that is way the hell out of my area of expertise. The tour groups would be better served by an avatar that could access everything in the archives, so I’m convinced that Q&A is something that a sadist on the oversight board cooked up as a form of torture. The bet was my idea, and I seriously hope they never let me in the door.

  The line to get into the auditorium isn’t nearly as long as the one we’ll see at the Beatles concert, but it still snakes around the side of the building. Katherine is up ahead, and whatever she told Carol must have worked, because they are now whispering back and forth conspiratorially.

  Saul is pushing toward the front of the line. Which probably fits his cover, to be fair. But it also fits his personality.

  “I’m going to hang back until the crowd dies down a bit,” I tell Rich. “Not really a fair test of the system if I make it in because I was in the middle of the herd.”

  “Fine with me. Just makes it more likely you get stuck with the Q and A sessions.” Rich shifts closer to a group of older teens a few clusters away, and I fade back toward the alley.

  Agents often travel in pairs, and occasionally in larger groups like this one. Splitting off allows us to observe more, however, so we rarely stay together, except in cases where safety might be a major concern. The main restriction is that we try to stick fairly close to the stable point, since we have to return there in order to travel back to headquarters. One of the safety protocols to prevent rogue historians from using the equipment without permission is that the system doesn’t allow for side trips, which means the key will only return us to the jump room. How long we spend in the location is somewhat fluid. We arrive back at CHRONOS exactly one hour after we left, no matter how long we stay. But each scheduled jump is allowed a certain number of hours, days, or weeks, and we’re run through a fairly thorough physical check upon return. It’s partly to make sure we don’t bring back anything contagious, but also to make sure we haven’t aged an extra month or two because we decided to do a bit of unapproved time tourism while we were in the past.

  There’s a drugstore a few blocks down from the auditorium, still close enough to the stable point that it doesn’t make me nervous. I’ll hang out there for a bit. Grab a newspaper and a soda, maybe check out what’s on the comics rack in August 1966, and then head back.

  When I reach the store, I spot a group of girls in the empty lot next door. Three of them are leaning against the side wall, while a fourth, in a tight blue dress, paces in front of them. She reminds me a bit of the woman who usually sings lead for the Ronettes. One of the girls against the wall is reading a magazine. They all look to be in their late teens, except for one who is a good deal younger, maybe ten or eleven. All four are clearly dressed for something more important than hanging around outside the drugstore.

  Which probably means they’re headed to the Jesus rally.

  Damn it. Rich is going to win our bet, and I’ll get stuck with his Q&As.

  The girl who is pacing stops as I approach the door. Now that I’m closer, I see that she’s holding a cigarette.

  “You got a light?” she asks.

  On jumps to the last half of the twentieth century, I’ve found that offering a smoke is very often the best way to break the ice. Sometimes you just end up with small talk, but you can pick up bits and pieces even from talking about the weather or sports or whatever. I’d rather have my own—the fake kind that don’t rot your lungs—so I usually keep a pack in my pocket with a few of each. I left them at home this time, though, since I wasn’t entirely sure about the protocol at a religious concert.

  “Sorry,” I tell her. “I don’t smoke.”

  She rolls her eyes and starts pacing again.

  The girl closest to the door, who looks like she could be the youngest one’s older sister, is staring at me. She wears a vivid orange dress, sleeveless with a flared skirt, and her head is cocked to the side, like she’s trying to figure something out. As I get closer, she smiles and lifts her hand to wave, but then yanks it back down. She must have mistaken me for someone she knows. And it would have to be a mistake, unless I ran into a much-younger version of her before the Elvis concert. But she couldn’t have been more than seven or eight back then.

  So I nod and return her smile, then head into the store to make my purchases. Rather than heading to the comics rack, however, I add a cigarette lighter to the soda and gum the clerk is ringing up and go back outside. There are worse ways of whiling away a half hour or so than chatting up a pretty girl and her friends.

  I flick the lighter as I approach the girl in the blue dress.

  “Thanks! You’re a lifesaver.” She takes a long drag and then walks over to hand the smoke off to the girl reading the magazine, who puffs absently and then hands it to the one who smiled at me. She glances down at the younger girl and then hands the cigarette back to her friend in the blue dress.

  “You can smoke, Toni,” the younger one says. “I won’t tell.”

  “Oh, yes, you will. First time Mama gets onto you. Or when you want something of mine and I say no. I know you too well.”

  Definitely sisters. I pull out the pack of Doublemint. They both take a stick.

  “Thanks.” The older sister folds the gum neatly into thirds and pops it into her mouth. She’s still looking at me like she’s trying to place my face. “You from around here?”

  I shake my head. “Passin’ through on my way back to school up in Ohio. Had a summer job down in South Carolina. Tyson Roberts.”

  Her eyebrows rise slightly. She takes my hand when I extend it and gives me that same smile that tilts up just a bit higher on the left side. “Antoinette Robinson. Toni to my friends. This is my sister, Joanna.” She introduces the other girls—Gloria, in the blue dress, and Lois, with the magazine.

  “What school are you at?” Toni asks.

  “Antioch. Starting my third year.”

  “I thought I recognized you! You were there last year for commencement.” It’s more a statement than a question, and her smile widens. “Jo, this is one of the guys who helped Daddy with the car at Opal’s graduation, after we spoke to Dr. King. Remember?”

  Jo grins. “Oh, yeah! The one who—”

  Antoinette jabs her elbow into her sister’s shoulder, cutting her off. Jo gives her an angry look, but then seems a little embarrassed.

  I really wish she would have finished the sentence, because I need all the information I can get. I’m trying to keep my own expression neutral, but it’s hard, since this is precisely the sort of situation agents aim to avoid. While I know exactly what speech she’s talking about, I’m still very much looking forward to hearing it. That jump—to Yellow Springs, Ohio, in June 19, 1965—is still about six weeks away for me.

  When I chose Antioch as my cover, it was partly because the school was one of the first in the nation
to admit people of color. It seemed safe to assume that the people I interacted with in Spartanburg might have heard of it but wouldn’t know anyone who was actually attending a school that far away. Memphis is actually farther still from the school, so this is really, really bad luck.

  “You don’t remember,” Toni says, her face falling slightly. “But of course you wouldn’t. It was a big deal for us. Opal is the first college graduate in the family, and Jo and I had never been that far from Memphis. But I guess it was just another day on campus for you.”

  “No, no. I remember. Everything was just kind of a blur. Not every day you get to see a man like Dr. King in person. And I’m glad I could help. I hope you had a smooth trip back home?”

  “We did.” Her smile is back now, and I find myself getting a bit lost in it. “Were you able to get the stain out?” she asks.

  Again, I have no clue what she means, so I just nod and change the subject. “Are you ladies heading over to the rally at Ellis Auditorium?”

  On the one hand, I hope she says yes. On the other hand, things will be much less complicated if she says no, because I won’t have to worry about saying something wrong. Not that it would tip her off to the fact that our meeting at Antioch hasn’t happened yet for me. That wouldn’t even occur to her as a possibility. She’ll just think I’m crazy or that I really did forget meeting her. And even though I shouldn’t allow that to bother me, it does.

  The girl in the blue dress, who is now leaning against the wall next to her friend with the magazine, snorts when I mention the rally, then releases a slow stream of smoke.

  “No,” Jo says, pulling something out of her pocket. “We’re going to see the Ronettes. And the Beatles, too.”

  “Assuming Gloria’s boyfriend ever gets here.” The girl with the magazine rolls it up. I see a flash of orange and a picture of three young women on the cover.

  “He’s coming,” Gloria says. “Some people have jobs, you know.”

  As if on cue, a two-tone Ford pulls up to the curb. Jo lets out an excited little squeal and dashes to the car.

  “You sure they’re going to let you in over there?” Toni asks, glancing in the direction of Ellis Auditorium, as she climbs into the back seat with her sister.

  “That’s why I’m going, actually. To find out.”

  It’s true, in a sense. But the main reason I say it is to impress her. To make her think that even though I’m going to the decidedly less cool concert, I’m doing it for a noble cause.

  Antoinette Robinson does look impressed. She waves and gives me another one of those killer smiles as the car pulls away. “Be careful!” she calls back through the open window. “And try to stay on your feet this time!”

  I stare after the car for a moment, baffled. What the hell did she mean by that last comment?

  There’s still a half hour or so to kill, so I head back inside and pick up a few comics to take back to Edwina. I also grab an Amazing Spider-Man for Rich, mostly to rub in his uncanny resemblance to Peter Parker.

  I stash the comics in the inner pocket of my jacket and head back to the auditorium. When I arrive, there are still a few stragglers hanging around outside, but most of the crowd has gone in. Music is playing, much more upbeat than traditional gospel. Some electric guitar in the mix. Drums.

  It’s not good music, by any means. In fact, it’s pretty awful. But it’s also not what I imagined they’d be playing at a Christian counterrally for a Beatles concert.

  Even though this isn’t a ticketed event, I assumed someone would be at the entrance. But the door is unattended. So I follow the music and the couple ahead of me through the lobby.

  I scan the crowd as I step inside the auditorium, looking for the light of the CHRONOS keys. It’s usually fairly easy for me to spot—I see the light as a vivid purple. Rich sees it as a pale green. I can’t remember what color the light is for Katherine, and I don’t think I’ve ever asked Saul. Why we see it differently is a mystery to me and every other historian I’ve met. It’s clearly a variable that someone purposefully added to the genetic design, and the current design teams continue it. Maybe it’s simply out of tradition at this point, because I can’t really think of a reason we’d all see the light differently.

  It takes a minute, but I find Katherine, seated a few rows from the front. She’s no longer with the girl she started talking to on the sidewalk. In fact, she seems to be on her own. The other girl is a few seats over, slumped down in her seat, the very image of a disaffected teen.

  I can’t find Rich, but Saul is at the back of the auditorium, watching a rather heated argument between four angry individuals and a man in a dark suit. The couple yelling the loudest are both almost as round as they are tall, and the man keeps jabbing his finger into the chest of the guy in the suit.

  The music is too loud for me to make out exactly what they’re saying, so I tap the small clear disk in the hollow behind my ear that allows me to operate some of the peripheral equipment, like the CHRONOS diaries. When my retinal screen pops up, I open the settings and filter out the music so that I can hear the specifics of the argument.

  “. . . not what I signed up to sponsor, Stroud. Where is Dennis the Menace?”

  The guy in the suit, who must be the organizer, Jimmy Stroud, stammers. “He . . . he got held up. Maybe he’ll make it in time. I don’t know.”

  “And what the hell is that on the stage? You were supposed to hire Christian musicians.”

  “I did!” the thin man yells. “This is what the kids listen to, Douglas. You know that. At least it has a message, right? I don’t much like it, either, but if you’d listen to the lyrics . . . it’s the ‘Doxology.’ Praise God from whom—”

  “You ask me, it’s more like praise Satan,” the woman says. “If you’re gonna have dancing and play the devil’s music, we might as well have let them see the Beatles. Come on, Douglas. Let’s get our group and go.”

  Saul catches my eye as the group passes in front of me. He gives me a little nod before heading over to talk to Stroud. The chubby woman sees me, too. She gives me the stink eye. “See? I told you they wouldn’t keep it separate,” she says to her husband. “Like I said, we might as well have seen the Beatles.”

  I’m thinking the woman actually wanted to see the Beatles herself. I wonder which one she has a secret crush on. Paul, probably.

  Once she and her husband move on, I make my way a bit farther into the auditorium, looking for an empty seat. There are some near the middle, but none along the edge, so I lean back against a column and scan the room to see if I can find a spot that won’t require me to squeeze past half a dozen people.

  Someone taps my shoulder and I turn, expecting to see Rich. But it’s Jimmy Stroud.

  “Sorry, son. I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” He leans forward and says in a lower voice, “Although, if you really want to hear the music, I’d be okay with you going up to the balcony. We just need to keep folks happy, you understand?”

  Saul is still near the back, in the exact spot where he and Stroud had been talking a few minutes before. He gives me a little two-fingered salute and a smile, then heads back to the far side of the auditorium.

  If not for that smile, I’d have assumed Stroud just happened to see me.

  I’ve wondered for a while whether Saul has clued in to the fact that Rich is interested in Katherine. I think this settles the question. He’s just guaranteed that Rich will get three months of double Q&A duty.

  “Did you hear me, boy?” Stroud says.

  “Yessir. I’m going.”

  My failure to jump the first time he told me seems to have resulted in Stroud rescinding his offer of balcony accommodations. He accompanies me to the front door, and I step out into the tepid night air.

  Rich is waiting on a bench across the street. “Damn it,” he says when I join him. “You win.”

  “What did you do to get kicked out?” I ask. “Can’t have been your pale white face.”

  “Kicked myself out. T
hat music was shredding my brain.”

  “You could turn it down—or off—like I did.”

  “Nah. Let’s just go back early. You know the real shame is that there’s actually some decent Christian rock in the 1960s. A group called the Exceptions had an album. Rock ’n’ Roll Mass. One of the guys went on to start this band called Chicago that was pretty influential for about a decade, although . . .”

  Rich continues, but I’m only half listening. I can tell from his tone that the music, as awful as it may be, isn’t the reason he’s ready to go. He’s mostly pissed that this project has been hijacked by Saul, and he’s probably ready to get the last jump to the Beatles concert finished so that he can move on to something where he isn’t forced to watch the girl he loves with a guy he hates. A guy Rich would hate on general principle, even if Katherine wasn’t in the picture.

  A guy Rich would hate even more if he knew that he was the reason I won the bet.

  I’m kind of in agreement on wanting this project to wrap up quickly. I’ve got two more jumps scheduled before Dr. King’s commencement speech in Ohio. And while I know that absolutely nothing can come of it, given that we live three and a half centuries apart, I really want to see Antoinette Robinson’s smile again.

  Which I guess makes me almost as hopeless and hapless as Rich.

  FROM THE GENETICS WARS: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY, BY JAMES L. COLEMAN (2109)

  Unlike previous international wars where historians have largely been able to agree on precise dates, there is a wide variance of opinion on exactly when the Second Genetics War began or ended. Some historians argue that the term should not be used at all, since smaller skirmishes that employed targeted genetic weapons continued even after the generally accepted end of the First Genetics War in 2095. An international agreement on genetically targeted bioweapons was signed by all members of the United Nations, but there was considerable disagreement on the issue of genetic enhancement. Regional accords on this issue took the place of a firm international consensus. Some experts have argued that the failure to enforce any sort of limits on alterations was a core reason that the peace did not last, and a string of small conflicts again pulled more than a dozen countries into the Second Genetics War.