Then what happened?
Then we left. We returned the car and found a safe place for the time jump.
“When and where to next, sir?”
“Set your timepiece for 03:32, 02-29, 2080. Adjust coordinates to 4.602 degrees latitude, -74.0726 degrees longitude.”
I fiddled with the dial. “Bogotá. We’re going to Colombia?” I smacked the side of the timepiece with my open palm, “That’s odd; the clock is reporting an error.”
“It does that with leap years; it won’t affect the jump.” Stark lit up another one of those rolled up papers and took a puff. He saw that I was curious but afraid to ask him what it was a second time. “It’s called a cigarette. Want one?” He handed me his last stick before I could refuse.
“Can I chew it?”
He began to cough violently, choking on his own saliva as he bent over. When he was able to calm himself he wiped away salty tears and shook his head at me. “You smoke it, kid. You breathe it in. What time period did you say you were from?” He lit my cigarette.
“The Daedalus Era.”
“Great. That’s all this bureau needs: another trigger-happy flying man from the year twenty-three-and-I-could-give-a-rat’s-ass,” he said to me (but, just so we’re clear: not all of us can fly). “You gonna take a puff or not?”
I inhaled, and I immediately began to heave. My throat burned and I tasted charred ash. Eyes watering, lungs seizing up… I started coughing the way he did, uncontrollably. I recall thinking that I was going to be remembered as the only idiot Time Keeper who died on his first day on the job.
When I finished lurching and pounding my own chest with my fist, I handed him back the disgusting cigarette. With his in his mouth, he licked his fingers and doused the cherry ember on the one I returned before putting it back into the pack. “Alright then,” I managed while scraping my tongue with my teeth, “what time period are you from?”
“Me? Nineteenth century. My mentor plucked me right outta London around 1846. I was a bobby sergeant on my way to becoming inspector before I joined the I.B.T.R.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it?” he asked. I don’t think he expected a response. I don’t think he cared for a response, or for the conversation (or for me, for that matter). But he really cared about that cigarette; he couldn’t take his eyes off it—that or he was lost somewhere in that big head of his.
“Wasn’t Strickland from London?” I asked.
“Who?” he asked, eyes still fixed on the cigarette.
“Ugh… The first time traveller, went back in time, changed a few things, ripple effect, and then boom! No more Prime History, enter History-S?” He still wasn’t listening. “You know, ‘S’ is for Strickland? He is the reason the International Bureau of Timeline Restoration even exists? That Strickland?”
“Right, yeah, he was from London too.” It was the latter; he was lost in his head. He saw now that I was watching him, and he knew that at any moment I would ask him what was going on in his head. He flicked the cigarette away and removed his timepiece, setting it to 03:32 in Bogotá, 02-29, 2080. “Let’s get a move on. Time’s a wastin’.” It seemed he wasn’t sharing today.
I activated my timepiece and found myself standing in a park, surrounded by many tall buildings. Stark was standing next to me.
“You know, I always thought there’d be an effect.”
“What’s that now?”
“Star Trek had teleporting devices with lights and a humming sound; we press the switch and there isn’t even a pop sound. One second we’re in Scarborough and the next we’re in Bogotá. There’s no effect.”
“What the heck is a star track? Whatever, don’t answer that—time is money. Chop-chop.” He put away his timepiece and unbuttoned his jacket. I did the same. It was hot here, very hot. Here, the sun from the day would reflect off the grey steel buildings, turning the park into a veritable sauna. Now, even in the middle of night, the park wasn’t much cooler.
We walked as I enquired about our next assignment. “Where’s the target?”
“Office of State Revenue. Gimme that folder.” I handed him the manila envelope that contained our assignments for the day. He opened it as we walked onto the tarmac road and handed me a sheet of paper. “Memorize this.”
I scanned the page. “It’s a script. What’s it for?”
“All in due time, kid.” He hastened his pace. I rolled up the paper, meaning to read it later as I strode to catch up to him.
We walked for some time before we saw anyone else. It didn’t surprise me. For one, it was nearly four in the morning here, and (if I remember my History-S correctly) not many people still travelled along the ground by the twenty-eighties.
“You know that it was a Daedalus Man who killed Strickland before he could tell us where his original time-jump occurred?” I didn’t want to dignify his rather hollow jab at me with a response, but it did give me a bit of insight as to why he spoke to me the way he did. I truly felt he’d be loath to give me the time of day if I asked for it, and I don’t think I ever did anything to deserve it.
We entered the large, marbleized lobby of Estructura Número Cuatro-Siete—that is, ‘Structure Number Four Dash Seven’—of the parliament offices (they never closed, it seemed) and made our way to the elevators. There weren’t any plants, or carpets…or any sort of décor for that matter. If the lobby had a personality it would be as blunt as a baseball bat. Stark fit right in. He pressed eleven, the doors closed, and then he handed me a government key card with my face on it.
“Clip this to your lapel,” he said. He had come prepared for the day’s work. “Here comes test question number two, kid: who was the crooked Board of Directors member in Colombia’s revenue department that was convicted of attempted murder of five other board members in 2083?”
“That’s an easy one. Antanas Gorge Dão. He planted a bomb in the elevator shaft and ushered each of his fellow board members into the lift after their morning meeting.” I felt a chill as we gained altitude, watching the numbers slowly rise from one to eleven. I tell you: I never suffered from claustrophobia before that day. “He triggered the explosive but didn’t know the lift had a failsafe mechanism installed, preventing the elevator from actually falling. DNA found in the elevator shaft matched that of Antanas Gorge Dão, and he later confessed to planting the bomb.”
“Give the man a gold star,” replied Stark, rather sardonically.
“Learning about his indictment was part of the regular high school curriculum in my time. I believe it was in our World History class, section three, on Colombia becoming a superpower. Dão’s trial was a big deal in Colombia.”
“Yeah well, in my time Colombia was where we got our coffee and our cocaine, and it wasn’t very big.” The elevator opened and we stepped out onto the eleventh floor. “This way. I hope you’ve memorized your script.”
We walked down an empty hallway, turned, and then followed another. There were very few lights on, and only a handful of security guards patrolling the floor. Of the three that passed us in the hallway, only one of them glanced at our key cards.
“That’s the thing, Stark,” I said, hoping to rekindle the flame of conversation once our unnerving walk through the dark corridors of Estructura Número Cuatro-Siete had reached its end. “After the biological attack on the northern part of Brazil in 2026, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru’s crops had all but perished. The land became unable to support the growth of either coffee or the coca plant for cocaine. When the drug lords no longer found it profitable to stay in Colombia, they moved elsewhere, leaving Colombia’s government to flourish in the hands of some of their most admired and respected people.”
“Thanks, professor. Time and again you amaze me with your knowledge.”
No, mentor of mine, thank you for your attentiveness and your warm words of wisdom… Jerk.
We found an office in one of the quieter wings. Stark pointed at the desk chair as he left the door open a crack. Keeping the lights off, he joined me at the desk. The lights of the other buildings shone through the office window, illuminating one side of Stark’s face. He reminded me of my favourite Batman villain.
We just restored that… You know, in History-S, Batman was called ‘The Cricket.’
Really! Strickland did quite the number on the timeline, didn’t he?
“So,” I said, “I’m guessing Antanas Dão is the key subject in this ripple, but where is the axis?”
“Keep your voice down! And there isn’t one. We must create an axis. In about ten minutes Dão is going to walk past that door, and we need to make sure he overhears our conversation.”
I hadn’t had the chance to look over the script; it was only then when I became curious to read what it was about. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, looking it over.
“I said keep your voice down.”
“I’m not saying this. It isn’t right.”
“If you don’t say it, then we’ll fail in this assignment, the thread will be lost, and we’ll be that much further away from restoring our history to Prime. I’m sure you don’t want that lingering on your conscience, newbie.”
“If I’m reading between the lines correctly and this script does what I think it’ll do, then you’re asking me to help Dão kill those board members. I won’t do it. There has to be another way.”
“There ain’t, and you’re not helping Dão kill anyone. In the original timeline he does it all on his own. If those board members live, the bureau may lose any chance it had of finding Strickland’s original incursion. Now, I might give a shiitake mushroom about the lives of five questionably innocent board members if it weren’t my job to iron these ripples out, but it is my job,” and then, with two pointed fingers he added, “and it is your job too. Look, try not to think about it. We do this slightly reprehensible deed now for the greater good of tomorrow. A stitch in time saves nine, right?”
“A stitch in time was what caused all of this. I don’t think I can condone this, even if it will help to restore the timeline.” My anger welled up in my throat. What can I say? It was my first day in the field. I suppose I thought we’d just be swapping record albums all day long. “Look, I know we’re here to set things right, but we have an opportunity to make a better history for ourselves—the best history,” and as soon as I said it I knew I was wrong, for wasn’t that what Strickland tried to do?
“A better history for ourselves…” echoed Stark, and then he didn’t speak for a very long time. I knew what he was going to say to me when, finally, he did speak. I knew he’d tell me my line of thinking was going to get me fired—if he hadn’t already decided to report my behaviour, in which case I’d be packing my bags at the end of the day. I knew he’d berate me for my lack of fortitude, for being on the job one day and already ready to disobey my sworn edict not to meddle.
We didn’t look at one another for the next few minutes. He knew I realized what I’d said was wrong, and didn’t want to waste his smoke breath on me. As we sat in silence, the song ‘Brian Wilson’ got stuck in my head. I then thought of the parallel song, ‘John Lennon’, and tried to overlap the two. I knew I’d go to sleep tonight, and when I awoke the next morning my brain would (in a sense) reboot, and I would no longer remember the song from History-S. It’s amazing how the human brain works—how it protects us from the discrepancies of time alteration.
Stark removed his timepiece. The wood-framed mechanism told him how much time remained before Dão would walk by, but all I could see was the gauge on its flipped-up front side, indicating the lifespan of its power cell. Such marvellous contraptions those time pieces are.
“It’s time,” he said at last, and I was glad for the silence to be over.
I unrolled the script, set it on my lap just so the light of the next building illuminated it, and began to read. “I hope you’ve prepared your report for tomorrow’s levy assessment.”
“I only finished it now. Why do you think I’m up so late?” replied Stark, reading from his own script.
“Good. I think we have a real shot at convincing the governor to lower our lines by four percent in the next quarter.”
“What is this?” I whispered to him, but then I heard footsteps.
He ignored my unscripted question. “Do you think the treasurer will go for it?”
“I don’t see why she wouldn’t. The numbers are there, and everyone stands to gain from the plan. Look, I’ve got to head home. It’s late, and we have an early start tomorrow. Plus, my ride is parked four flights up, and I’m not looking forward to the climb.”
“After all this time you still don’t trust the lift.”
“It shakes a lot.”
“Yeah, but it’s got a failsafe mechanism to stop anything from happening. You need to relax.”
“I need to sleep.” I deserved an Academy Award.
“He is gone,” said Stark after a time. “That should do it. He’s now aware of the failsafe and will take proper measures to ensure the bombing succeeds.” His voice seemed level, without emotion. He rose from his seat, snatched the script from my hand, and headed for the door.
“I still don’t like it.”
“It’s not our job to like what we do.”
We headed for the stairwell so as to avoid running into Dão while he rigged the elevator for tomorrow’s main event. We went up two flights in silence, until we found a deserted room. “Where to next?”
He didn’t respond right away. “I think you’ve learned enough for one day. Why don’t you head back to the bureau, and I’ll meet you there after I finish this last job?”
“I’m good, sir. I can stay.”
“I don’t think you should, kid. I’d better do this last one alone.”
“This is because of what I said earlier, isn’t it?” He rolled his eyes. It was because of what I said earlier; he just wouldn’t confirm it. “Look, I get why we’re here, but I admit I’m having some difficulty coming to terms with what we just did.” He was looking at me now with his cold, grey eyes. I continued, “What if we’re wrong about all of this? What if History-S is the true history, and Strickland was meant to go back in time and change things?”
He leaned in close, and I remember smelling his cigarette breath as I tried to return his penetrating gaze. What he said next, I would not have expected.
“Why don’t we just find out?”
He tore open the flaps of my jacket and retrieved my timepiece from the inner pocket. He then adjusted the dial and returned it to me. I looked at the readout. London, England, circa 1822, July. “That’s where you were born. Is this some kind of joke?”
“You wanted to know if what we are doing here is right. I’ve been on the job coming on seventeen years now, and frankly, I’m quite tired of asking myself that very same question. I think it’s time we tried out a little experiment.”
“We aren’t authorized to go to 1822.”
He removed his timepiece and began to fiddle with the dial. “Heh… 1822, that would make me about fourteen years old.”
“I get it—” I said, creaking my neck to get the knot out.
“My sister was twelve. She died.”
“You’re testing me. This is a test. You aren’t really going to go back in time to meddle with your own past. You want me to solve the issue logically. I just have to think about it for a moment.”
He smiled—it was the only time I remember seeing it—and then he pressed the button. He was gone.
I didn’t think he would actually do it. Should I go after him? Should I report what had happened? I could either go back with him now (while I still had a window to do so) or I could stay and report him, though no one would ever know what kind of mischief he might have caused during his unsanctioned leap.
