Time Travel Short Stories, page 30
I took a deep shaky breath. “I could. I could stop it. But then what about the next one? And the one after that? Do I devote the rest of my life to becoming Batman, preventing every crime before it occurs? What about after I turn into Grandpa? Who will stop it then?”
“You are profiting from the death of children.”
“I AM TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD.” I shouted. But of course, that was too emotional, I seemed unstable.
I blinked.
“I am trying to change the world.” I said calmly. “Please Mom. Don’t interfere. I can do this.”
* * *
The President reached towards the picture frame on the desk, and turned it down, flat against the table. Tony scribbled furiously, wishing he could get a look at that photo. He still wasn’t sure what was going on – madness or whimsical autobiography – but he knew that he could spin a story out of it.
Tony’s pen slowed, and then stopped entirely. Could he let this become a story? Really? When she was doing so much good? He looked up, and considered the woman in front of him. She had circles under her eyes, and he was reminded of the fact that no matter what else she was, she was human. “Madame President – why did you share your story with me today?” he asked.
Nina watched Tony wearily. “I suppose…I suppose I hoped that sharing my story with someone outside my immediate family would help, somehow. That it would unburden me.” She smiled ironically, ‘I’ve always found that the press are very good listeners.”
Tony considered everything the President had told him. He was a good listener. “You mentioned President Lincoln earlier, ma’am,” he said, “Perhaps one of his quotes, coined from the bible is relevant here: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’
Nina nodded. She stood up to escort him out.
Tony stood as well. He held her eyes as he deliberately placed his notes on her desk, leaving them behind.
At the door, Nina reached out impulsively and shook his hand. “Thank you, Tony.” His hand was large, and very warm, and as he smiled at her with his bright blue eyes, she felt a moment of connection.
This was a kind man, Nina thought. This was a man she would like to get to know better.
She blinked.
“Cancel the appointment with the reporter.” Nina told her secretary, “And ring my mother instead.”
* * *
It had been two years since Rosetta had visited her daughter at work. Now Nina’s office was oval – such a strange concept and so much more oppressive than the regular kind of walls. Rosetta inspected the paintings, the seal in the carpet, the bust of Abraham Lincoln. She lingered for some time at the photo that stood in prominent position on Nina’s desk.
It was of a young boy with bright red curly hair.
When Rosetta finally looked up, she could see the moment that her daughter’s heart buckled from the pressure. Rosetta opened her arms and Nina practically fell into them, burying her head into her mother’s shoulder.
When Nina’s sobs subsided, Rosetta gently pushed her back a little so that she could see her face. Nina’s eyes burned with a terrible anguish, and an even more terrible determination. Exactly like her mother’s eyes, that is what the newspapers said during the campaign. But to Rosetta, they were more like her grandfather’s eyes. He, too, always said he could save the world. But the world broke him first.
“We don’t waste time on guilt,” Rosetta murmured. She let go of Nina’s hand and stepped away. She stared at her daughter, silently pleading with her to see sense.
Nina stood straight back and unblinking, determined to see this madness through.
Rosetta blinked.
* * *
“I want to be the President,” Nina said at age ten.
Rosetta handed her daughter a sandwich and considered her words carefully. “Politics is a dirty business,” she said at last. “If you want to make a difference you should think about becoming a doctor. There is nothing more noble than saving a life.”
Nina nodded thoughtfully.
All for Bellkins
Tony Genova
Nobody was interested in time travel once we achieved immortality. Well, immortality isn’t the best word – someone could still die if their body suffered damage beyond repair. Cancer, heart disease, degenerative diseases – we solved those once we broke the cellular code. Time travel, however, was just too risky. There was no guarantee of success, and no way to know how the human body would handle it. There were too many variables to control for all of them. Why risk health and wellness to travel in time when there was a virtual guarantee of long life and prosperity going forward?
A small group of the brightest minds worked on it anyway. Once we determined you couldn’t go forward in time, half of the group dropped out. I don’t know what they were thinking – where would you go? Contrary to what some philosophers might say, the future didn’t exist yet. You couldn’t pinpoint it and figure out how to get there. Impossible.
Given 250 years to work on it, we knew we could figure out how to go backward. Most of us were in it for the scientific challenge. I lobbied a reclusive trillionaire for the funding and land to work on, and we built our research facility there. I was able to take control of the project. The others assumed it was for the glory. I let them assume.
First, we figured out how to send inanimate objects back in time. Then we sent a small cat. After that, a monkey. Once we figured out how to manipulate the timestream, it wasn’t difficult to increase the scope. The brilliance of it was that anyone could have done this years ago if they looked at it the right way. Creating the bubble and manipulating the properties on the surface was the trick. Anything inside the bubble was subject to the same manipulation. Build a big enough bubble and anything could go back in time.
I insisted I be the first human test. It was my drive that had fueled this project, I should have the glory of being the first man to not be subject to the brutality of time’s march. Of course, there was a catch. Isn’t there always? Once you go back, there was no going forward except through the normal movement of time.
We designed the test to send me one minute back in time, to a secure location elsewhere in the facility. They didn’t realize I had put an override deep in the code. I was going back 280 years. To them, I was a glory hound. They didn’t suspect my true motivation.
I ended up exactly when I intended to. The where was tricky – too many variables, remember – but I got it close enough. I landed gently. We designed it to ease down using gravity, and it performed perfectly. I targeted what I knew to be an open area 50 miles outside of the city. It was the only way to be sure that my margin of error wasn’t going to be deadly. I walked the ten miles to the nearest public transportation, which would take me into the city.
Our research group wasn’t sure how to deal with the possibility of interacting with our past selves. I knew I wouldn’t have time to waste, so in the years before leaving I changed my appearance enough that I didn’t think I’d recognize myself. I was sure my past self wouldn’t be looking for me, so I didn’t worry about it much.
Once I got to the city, I went right to the park. I knew it well, and it looked exactly as I remembered. The swing set was there. The swing was there – third swing in. Now, I had to wait a week. I waited 280 years, I could wait another week.
It wasn’t difficult to blend in, and I knew where I could stay and eat. It was a regional vacation week, and my parents were out of town. I knew how to get into to their condo, and I laid low. I even knew that Wednesday morning my past self would come by to check on the place. That week’s timeline etched itself into my mind so many years ago.
The regional vacation week is what destroyed my life to begin with. All schools and most places of employment were off for the week. That was the only reason my wife and daughter were on that swing that day.
I figure I had three options. First, I could prevent my wife and daughter from ever getting on the swing. Second, I could stop the businessman from walking through the park, or at least delay him. Third, I could figure out who the shooter was and stop him before this ever got started.
Any of those options could solve everything. The problem with the third option is that the authorities never figured out who the shooter was. They were able to track the car via CCTV, but it didn’t have proper registration and was only disguised to look like a self-driving model. Humans hadn’t driven cars in decades. Someone figured out how to modify a car so a person could drive it, and make the people in the car disappear before they could be identified. It shouldn’t have been possible, but with enough funding anything was.
I spent the week trying to call or otherwise communicate with the businessman. His people told me threats to his life were routine, and unless I had credible information they didn’t want to talk to me. What could I give them that wasn’t just hearsay at this point in time? I couldn’t say I knew for sure he will be shot. Even if they did believe me, saying that makes me the obvious shooter. I couldn’t come out and say that if he avoided that park, he would likely live long enough to live forever. People didn’t understand the impact of immortality yet.
The only solution was to make sure Sandy and Bella didn’t get on that swing.
I knew I wouldn’t have listened to a crazy sounding stranger no matter what the story. I’d have to make my play at the park. That was the only way to be sure.
I got to the park two hours before the incident. The sun was shining in the clear blue sky, the same as in my memory. The fresh cut grass left a sweet scent. A scent that made me sick for 280 years.
I walked over to the swing, sat on it, and began to rock back and forth. Thirty feet to my right was the bench I’d be sitting on later today. Twenty feet in front of me was the metal fencing that would refuse to block the bullets. I felt like pure chance had destroyed my life, and I was only going to have one chance to bring it back.
I sat there for two hours. I knew the timeline better than I knew anything else in my life. In five minutes, I would walk in with my family via the entrance to my right. I would sit on the bench, and Sandy and Bella would sit on this swing. Four minutes later, the businessman would walk in from the opposite entrance. He would stroll with his bodyguards directly through the park on his way to a lunch meeting. He would only make it to the swing set, and it would only take him a minute to get there.
At 11:30 I saw them – well, us – walk in. Bella was holding Sandy’s hand. If I could keep them by the bench long enough, I’d have done my job.
As my past self sat down on the bench, I crouched down in front of Bella, holding a flower I picked from the other side of the park. My hair was cut and colored differently, and I had facial hair now. Even though I was roughly the same age, I had to hope neither Sandy nor my past self recognized me.
“Hi honey,” I said, “this is for you.” I handed her the flower. She looked at me with her deep brown eyes, eyes I hadn’t seen in 280 years. Eyes I saw every night in my dreams. I saw her face light up.
She reached out for the flower, and when she took it she threw her arms around my neck. I began to sob.
Sandy reached for Bella’s arm and tugged her away. “Bella, come with me,” she said in that tone she used when she was deadly serious. I tried to hold on, but at the same time I felt someone grab my shirt and pull me up by the neck.
The person grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. It was me. I turned my head to the left. I could see the businessman and his bodyguards entering the park.
“What are you doing?” past me said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I just thought…Bellkins…your daughter…she was – is – adorable.”
He looked over at Sandy and Bella, who were walking over the swing set, and then back at me, He hadn’t let go of my shoulder yet. I was still crying. His face sparked with a look of recognition. He let go of my shoulder and back off a step. “Wait a second, who are you?”
I heard tires screech nearby. I didn’t remember that part. Self-driving cars don’t screech their tires when accelerating. I turned and looked, the businessman was twenty feet from Sandy and Bella.
“I’m sorry, there’s no time,” I said and pushed my past self onto the bench. I ran over to the swing set.
“Sandy!” I heard from behind me.
As I got near the swing set, I could see the terror in Sandy’s face. It broke my heart. I hesitated for a split second. Then I pulled Bella from her lap and pushed her off the swing backward.
I held Bella tight in my arms and began to run. I only made it two steps before someone tackled me. I began to lift myself up off the ground, but my past self was already pulling me up.
Shots rang out. A UZI. The bullets sounded like rapid hail on a roof, punctuated with the pings of those that hit the metal bars of the fence. I felt a number of rapid tugs on my side. Was Bella pulling at me? No, it wasn’t Bella. I fell to the ground next to my past self. The gunfire hit him as well.
I couldn’t move. Both Sandy and Bella were in my field of vision. Neither one had gotten up off the ground.
“Daddy! Daddy!” I heard Bella say. She jumped up and reached for her Dad. Sandy screamed my name and ran over, but she didn’t run to me.
The last thing I saw was the businessman sitting up. He shook his head and looked around. He then opened his shirt and inspected his bulletproof vest.
My vision faded. “Daddy? Daddy, are you OK?” I heard Bella ask, though it sounded distant.
The last thing I felt was a small hand grabbing mine. A familiar hand.
Murder or a Duck
Beth Goder
George called out, “Mrs. Whitman, you have a visitor.”
Mrs. Whitman strode from her workroom, her white hair skipping out of its hairpins. She straightened her work skirt, massaged her bad knee, then hurried down the hall.
“George, what’s happened to the lamp with the blue shade?”
“To which lamp are you referring?” George smoothed down a cravat embroidered with tiny trombones. Improper attire for a butler, but George had never been entirely proper.
Mrs. Whitman examined the sitting room in further depth. The blue lamp was gone, as were the doilies, thank goodness. An elegant table sat between the armchair and green sofa, which was infused with the stuffy smell of potpourri. Behind the sofa hung The Roses of Wiltshire, a painting that Mrs. Whitman had never cared for, despite its lush purples and pinks and reds. And the ficus was there, too, of course.
Mrs. Whitman pulled out a battered notebook. George’s trombone cravat indicated she was in a timeline where he was courting Sonia. A good sign, indeed. Perhaps, after six hundred and two tries, she’d finally landed in a timeline where Mr. Whitman would return home safely.
Consulting her charts, she circled some continuities and crossed out others, referring often to an appendix at the back. The notebook was worn, its blue cover faded. And it was the twelfth one she’d had since starting the project.
George cleared his throat. Mrs. Whitman didn’t even glance up. “You have a visitor,” he said.
“George, I need to ask you a few questions.”
George sighed, but made no comment.
“Has Mr. Whitman returned from his trip?” She always asked this question first, in the hope that George would direct her to the study, where she’d find Mr. Whitman reading a book or knitting socks.
“He’s due back sometime today.”
That was what George always said. Mrs. Whitman had been through it over and over again; she knew it was useless to organize a search until the evening, when everyone else would begin to worry.
Undeterred, Mrs. Whitman asked her control question. “Did you wear your navy suit anywhere this year?”
George raised an eyebrow, but said, “I wore my suit once to the Lacklustres’ evening ball, and again at the horse show for troubled teens.”
If the Lacklustres were holding a ball, then they hadn’t gone bankrupt yet, which meant she was in a timeline where Winston Tuppers hadn’t revealed Mr. Lacklustre’s banking fraud. And the horse show for troubled teens never appeared without a corresponding tea party later in June. Mrs. Whitman flipped busily through her charts.
“Which tea cakes are they selling at the market on Quill Lane? Chocolate? Lavender? Orange and cream?” she asked.
“There is no market on Quill Lane. It was torn down last year,” George said, a rare look of concern on his face. “Are you sure you’re feeling quite all right?”
“Just one more question,” said Mrs. Whitman, making a mark in her notebook. “Is it Sir Henry waiting in the foyer?”
“No,” he said. “Mrs. Lane requests your attention.”
Mrs. Whitman snapped the notebook closed. If Mrs. Lane was visiting, it could only mean one thing. She was either there to kill Mrs. Whitman or sell her a duck.
But if the market on Quill Lane was gone, perhaps she was truly in a new timeline. And if it was a new timeline, she needed to observe it, so she could cross it off her list.
“Shall I send Mrs. Lane in?” asked George.
Mrs. Whitman nodded, plopping down on the ugly green sofa. She flipped through her notebook, then sketched out a few calculations.
The convergence point, for once, was clear. To discover Mrs. Lane’s intentions, she only needed to determine if the park on Stanton Street still existed. If the park was there, murder. If not, the duck.
Mrs. Whitman was double checking her maths when Mrs. Lane glided into the room. Impeccably dressed, as always, Mrs. Lane ran her hand along a blue and eggshell scarf, which hung upon a white dress of the latest fashion. She clutched a large handbag.
“Harriet, dear. So good to see you,” Mrs. Lane said, smiling all the while.
Mrs. Whitman stuffed the notebook into a large pocket in her skirt. George guided Mrs. Lane to the armchair across from Mrs. Whitman. The two ladies exchanged pleasantries while George fetched the tea things.
