Now, Then, and Everywhen (Chronos Origins)

by Rysa Walker

On the fifth house, however, I notice something I hadn’t seen when I was there in person. When I zoom in, a handwritten sign is propped up inside the screened porch. For Rent—Inquire Two Doors Down. Below the words, an arrow points to the right.

  I don’t see anyone on the roof, but at 9:22:10 one of the slats from the ventilation window in the attic pops out and pings off the sloped roof to land in the bushes below. Twenty-eight seconds later, I see the first muzzle flash.

  Eight more flashes and then it ends. I continue watching, looking for a shadow inside the house or someone running off through the neighborhood. But I don’t see anything. The street looks eerily quiet until I pan back around to the City of St. Jude. Several men with guns are running toward the gate of the chain-link fence surrounding the field, which seems to be locked. Two of the armed men decide not to wait. They scale the fence and come storming across Stephens Street, so clearly I’m not the only one who saw where the muzzle flashes came from.

  I really want to jump forward to tomorrow and go set up the stable point. But I remember what Angelo said about having to explain every one of the extra jumps when this is over. I don’t want to make it harder for him than it has to be. And I’ve been awake for at least twenty hours, maybe longer. I put the key aside and settle in to get some sleep.

  I sleep restlessly. Around three o’clock in the morning, I wake and realize I’ve dozed off with the stupid blue lenses still in my eyes. After I remove them, it’s hard to fall back asleep. I keep seeing Campbell’s expression when he told Shelton that his sniper friend enjoyed his work. Something about that smile makes me wonder if Campbell’s friend is imaginary. Maybe Campbell himself is the one up in that attic with the rifle?

  I toss around for a bit more, but eventually get tired of fighting it, so I grab the key and scan the stable points in the lobby. Campbell left the building around eleven. Chambliss and Wilkins stayed in the bar a bit longer, staggering off to the elevators around a little after one.

  Campbell won’t come back until a little after nine, when he’ll join the other two men in the restaurant for breakfast. They have the same waitress I did last night, which makes me wonder how many hours a day that poor woman works. Although I guess she could have split shifts like I did at the diner.

  My mind keeps wandering away to totally pointless thoughts like that one, but I still can’t sleep. I finally pop one of the sleep aids in my briefcase, and after a few minutes, I doze back off.

  Setting an alarm would have been a good idea, in retrospect. I wake around noon, with barely enough time to get a shower before housekeeping taps on the door to say it’s time to check out. I dress quickly, pop the lenses back in, and make it out the door in five minutes.

  When I arrive at the City of St. Jude, I find that it’s a bit more active today than it was yesterday. There are kids out on the playground, but they’re having a hard time focusing on their kickball game, because they keep craning their necks to stare at the police and military vehicles parked on the far side of the chapel. Just two of each for now, although I know from my surveillance earlier that they’ll be joined by many more once the marchers arrive. A few dozen men in military uniform are hanging around the vehicles now. Not patrolling. Just waiting.

  And that same blond girl is here. At the bus stop today, rather than getting out of a cab. It’s around the same time as yesterday, so I guess it’s not that odd. She’s reading a newspaper, and she must not like what she’s reading, because she looks upset. I fight the temptation to stop and tell her to steer clear of this area tonight. Yes, I know she doesn’t get shot, but being there, hearing the gunfire, knowing that people are being murdered not fifty feet from where you are standing is pretty traumatic in and of itself. But I can’t imagine how I’d explain that, so I just keep walking.

  I’m definitely not criminal by nature, and I wasn’t looking forward to doing it, but my original intention had been to go around to the back of the house, check for open windows or doors, and barring that, do a little discreet breaking and entering. But as soon as I turn onto Stephens Street, I can see that’s going to be a problem. For one thing, there’s a woman next door hanging out her laundry. I might be able to wait that one out, but the contingent of federal troops and police officers across the street is only going to get larger. Instead, I follow the instructions of the sign and go to the second house to the right to ask about renting the place.

  A middle-aged black woman opens the door almost immediately. She’s wearing a dress and holding a purse, so she must be heading out. When I ask her about the house, she cocks her head to the side and peers closely at me.

  “Yes. It’s available. The rent is seventy-five a month, unfurnished. You sure you don’t want to look over on the other side of Cleveland, though? I saw a place over on Douglas Street that probably wouldn’t be much more expensive than this.”

  It takes me a moment to realize that she means Cleveland Avenue, which will be renamed Rosa Parks Avenue later this year, rather than the city of Cleveland. I’m still not quite sure why she’s pointing me to a different house, though.

  Something about my expression must change her mind, because she laughs and gives me a more genuine smile. “Guess maybe you do belong over on this side. Those baby blues threw me off.”

  Damn. I hadn’t even thought about the contacts. The school over at St. Jude is predominantly black, but as a private religious institution serving the poor, they have a few white students, too. The nuns I saw yesterday were white, too. But the rest of this neighborhood is black. The color line cuts both ways, and there are fairly distinct racial boundaries for housing in this city long after 1965.

  “I don’t suppose you could come back around five thirty?” she asks. “I’m due back from lunch in twenty minutes, and it’s almost that long a walk.”

  “No, ma’am. I work evenings.”

  “Okay.” She sighs and begins rummaging around in her purse as we walk toward the other house. “The key has to be in here somewhere. I’m guessing you’re married?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Two years ago next week. We’re expecting in July, so I’m looking for somethin’ a little bigger.”

  “Well, it’s a good little house, and you’d have good neighbors. St. Jude’s across the street don’t mind in the least if kids around here use the playground, although I guess it will be a few years before you need to think about that.” She opens the door to the tiny porch and then steps inside and slides the key into the lock on the front door. “Tell you what, I really don’t want to be late, so I’ll just let you in. You can take your time that way. Not like there’s anything in there you could run off with, aside from a can of paint. Just be sure to pull the door all the way closed when you leave, to make sure it locks. If you decide the house suits you, pop into the library, and we can talk about the deposit and other details. If I’m not at the desk, tell them you need to speak to Bertha Williams.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, Mrs. Williams. I sure do appreciate it.”

  She smiles again. “Tell your wife I said congratulations on that baby.”

  I thank her again and step into the tiny living room, which smells of fresh paint and Pine-Sol. Despite the shaky start with Mrs. Williams, having her leave me here alone is an excellent bit of luck. I was thinking I would have a prospective landlord staring over my shoulder the entire time and would have a tough time managing to even set a stable point so that I could return later. Getting up into an almost-certainly-unfinished attic to set the observation point I’ll need to see who is doing the shooting would have been out of the question, so I’d resigned myself to racking up one more jump that Angelo would need to eventually explain or cover up.

  It takes a few minutes, but I finally locate the entrance to the attic on the ceiling inside a bedroom closet. There’s a small stepladder folded against the wall. The door has one of those cord pulls, and I yank to tug it down. It’s stuck, apparently painted shut. I yank again, harder. This time, it cracks open slightly. Finally, I shove the
door upward, and it opens far enough to reveal a bunch of boxes near the edge. Apparently, no one wanted to actually climb up inside, so they just stood at the top of the ladder and jammed the boxes into the attic when they needed to store something. As my eyes adjust to the dim light, I make out a disassembled crib propped up against the exposed beams of the sloped wall, and a large, dust-covered metal footlocker a few yards into the attic. It looks like it’s military issue.

  I move one of the boxes away from the opening, stirring up a cloud of dust as I pull myself up. Even at the highest point, the room is only about five feet tall. As much as I’d just like to set the stable point here and be done with it, the window that the sniper uses is at the far end and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to see his face. That wouldn’t be a big deal, really—it might actually be better not to see the face of the guy I’m almost certainly going to have to shoot. But I still think there’s a decent chance it’s Campbell, and if so, that’s something I’m going to need to see up close.

  So, I set the first stable point and push the attic door back into place. Then I begin crouch-walking toward the vent window at the front of the narrow attic. The plywood doesn’t seem to be nailed down, because it keeps shifting as I move forward. When I reach the window, I set the observation point and then start making my way back to the door.

  I’m about six feet from the doorway when the plywood cracks and my heel slips down into the crevice. Already slightly off-balance from being crouched over, I pinwheel my arms, trying to stay upright. But it’s a lost cause. I pitch backward, smacking my head hard against the metal trunk.

  I have just enough time for the fleeting thought that this is not a good thing, and then everything goes dark.

  FROM THE DIARY OF KATE PIERCE-KELLER

  January 19, 2089

  To the person who now holds my key:

  I’ve had the strangest sense these past few days that I’m being watched. Not in a sinister or intrusive way. Just curious eyes, and I have no doubt that they are yours, staring into the stable point. Maybe even here in this house, if it’s still standing.

  At first, I kind of hoped you’d visit. Are you the one who caused the shift? Are you the one stuck fixing it? The two aren’t mutually exclusive, I know, and the fact that you are almost certainly someone with my DNA, one-quarter of which I inherited from Saul Rand, is a little troubling. I suspect that there is a genetic component to his insanity, a component he passed along to Prudence and to Simon, although they were both shaped by their environment, as well. And still, even when they were manipulated by Saul in so many ways, they both retained the capacity to love, something that I’m quite certain Saul lacked.

  I hope you were raised with love. I also hope that the awful traits Saul Rand possessed have withered away on our family tree. To be honest, I’m gambling quite a lot on those two hopes. I had three other grandparents, all of whom were good people. Good historians, too. None of them were into mass murder, nor would they have considered playing games with the timeline to further their own interests. My children had a good man for their father, and they were good men, too, so barring some bizarre throwback to the genocidal maniac we share as an ancestor, I believe the odds are in my favor.

  If you haven’t read my earlier entries, you should do that now. Otherwise, most of what follows will make little sense. You do have time to read the entire thing. Yes, the circumstances are dire. I knew that when I entered the library several weeks ago and heard the theme from Jaws playing as that damned list of anomalies scrolled across Katherine’s ancient computer. But you have a tool in your hands that can pack a whole lot of time into any given day. It’s not unlimited time, obviously. You’ll still grow old just as I have. But that key can help you shove extra hours into the days that need them, and that can tilt the playing field in your direction when everything seems to be stacked against you.

  If you’ve already read my story, you have a better understanding of why I would leave behind that key for you to find. Why I didn’t destroy every last one of the damned things. We tried, but I knew we didn’t have all of them. The Cyrists were still in control of the government . . .“reformed” Cyrists, but still, I didn’t trust them. I don’t trust them. They also had two, maybe three CHRONOS keys that I had no way of getting.

  Simply put, I wanted to know if they changed something. If they reneged on their promises, if one of them started screwing around with the timeline again, God help me, I wanted to know. Even after I could have used the key to stop them, I wanted to know. Even when the Cyrists had devolved into little more than an isolated cult of greed, I still wanted to know.

  And that made everyone around me less happy. Myself included.

  Before you write me off as a crotchety old bigot, I do know that all greedy bastards aren’t Cyrists. And I know that there are good people who get pulled into their cult. Some very good people are born into it, as well, including one of my oldest and dearest friends. The members with good hearts pick and choose from the teachings in the Book of Cyrus, ignore or reinterpret the horrible parts, and manage to live good, productive, even helpful lives. But I’d maintain that they do this despite their affiliation with Cyrist International, not because of it.

  It took a long time, but I finally reconciled with the fact that there will always be Cyrists. Even if I’d found a way to completely erase that foul excuse for a religion from this timeline, there would still be Cyrists, because there will always be people who put their own wealth over everyone else’s well-being, even the well-being of the planet, shouting all the while that their big, fat bank accounts prove that they are the Blessed. That they know The Way. That their own personal god has shown them favor. There will always be Cyrists.

  Whether this time shift was caused by something you did after finding the key or something they’ve done, you’ll obviously have to fix it. Or undo it. You have my sympathy for the double memories that are going to hit you if it comes to that.

  And you have my sympathy for the dreams that may follow. Strangely enough, the dreams of the bodies that I saw at Six Bridges and elsewhere faded more quickly than the dreams about the people who vanished. Maybe it’s because we are conditioned for death, but nothing in my experience had prepared me to see someone simply blink out of existence when they were no longer under a CHRONOS field. Mostly I dreamed about Connor, reaching for the key a second too late. Eve, too. And yes, even Saul. It was poetic justice, but it haunted me. Hopefully the key will be kinder to you in that regard.

  But here’s my advice: Change the things you can, but once you’ve done your best, even if there are pieces that don’t fit, you can’t spend your entire life blaming yourself. Get on with the business of living. Blame me if you need to. I’m the one whose final wish put the key into your hands. One of my sons, possibly both if they actually managed to work together on something, agreed to grant that wish. We took a risk, and it may have been an unwise one.

  But either way, I believe the lion’s share of blame rests on the people who use the key for personal gain. And unless we can find a way to stuff the genie back into the bottle, someone must keep them in check.

  I’ve scanned the list of anomalies, and I can’t figure out how the Cyrists are involved. But you need to assume that they are. I suspect they have a few people who can jump, and I’m fairly certain they have at least one key. But they’ve been reluctant to use it, because there was a CHRONOS in the previous timeline. There’s a CHRONOS in this one, too. Otherwise, I’d have blinked out of existence when I left the house to visit the doctor earlier this week. But there’s no guarantee that will be true with every time shift. If CHRONOS never exists, Saul Rand can’t go back in time to start their religion, and most of them will never be born. So the practical Cyrists have no desire to change the timeline. The true believers, however? The ones who thought Saul’s idea for the Culling was the best hope for humanity? They’re the ones you have to watch out for.

  The fact that you are watching me, that you didn’t
simply jump in without considering the consequences, gives me hope that you will be wiser than I was. I don’t mean in terms of how you fix the immediate crisis. All these years later, I’m still not sure what else I could have done. The real test is how you face what comes after.

  Because there will be no perfect answer. Whatever you choose, you will be playing God. Some people in this reality will never breathe life if you restore the previous timeline. And some who are alive in the other timeline will be ghosts who exist only in records protected by a CHRONOS field if you choose to do nothing.

  You’ll have to make that decision based on your conscience. The greatest good for the greatest number is a good rule of thumb, but I can’t decide for you. The power is now in your hands, and for the role I played in putting it there, I am truly sorry.

  ∞24∞

  MADI

  BETHESDA, MARYLAND

  NOVEMBER 14, 2136

  I place the CHRONOS key on the nightstand, remove the little disk from behind my ear, and rub my eyes. The sun has gone down since I came in here a few hours ago, and the light from the holographic display against the dark room leaves an afterimage on the back of my eyelids. I’ve spent almost an hour staring at the stable point where a ninety-year-old Kate Pierce-Keller is napping on a sofa in this very room, her head tilted onto her shoulder. Whatever she was watching continued to play long after she nodded off. I could see the reflection of her wall screen in the glass table in front of the sofa, distorted into a hypnotic dance of shapes and colors as the sun outside the window slowly dropped behind the trees across the street. She looked old and frail, but she also looked at peace. And I can’t bring myself to change that. It feels selfish. And I’m no longer certain that it’s needed.

  “So . . . are you going?” Jack gives me a sympathetic smile and puts Katherine Shaw’s diary aside. He’s currently on a couch in almost the same spot where Kate was sitting, in front of the very same window. It’s night outside, however, and the room is lit for reading.