Time Travel Omnibus, page 1017
“Er, ‘catching point,’ ” Evan extemporized. “Office lingo. What is the impediment to customers trampling each other in a frenzied desire to purchase your services? Price?”
“High,” replied Eckerton, “but affordable, especially given the unique service we offer.” He tilted his head to one side and pursed his lips. “Overall, I think we are satisfied with our total volume of interested customers.”
Evan’s brow furrowed involuntarily, but he quickly unfurrowed it. Not only was it bad form to show confusion or consternation to the customer, he didn’t want to accelerate the time when he would need a Botox treatment. He looked at his clients with a calm, friendly smile. “If you have all the customers you want at a price you are happy with, then I don’t understand what you are looking for from us here at WR&B,” he said, then increased the wattage of his smile. “Not that we’re not always happy to help. A few subsidized trips for movers and shakers will make your vacations in history the ‘in’ thing to do. We can have people standing in line at your offices as if they were at the latest nightclub, if that’s what you want. Adds a cachet of exclusivity to a volume business.”
“That’s not it at all,” replied Eckerton. “We have a product mix problem.”
“Product mix?” queried Evan. “You only have the one product, right?”
“Yes and no.” Eckerton relaxed back into his chair. “We only offer time travel vacations, but we have multiple destinations. That’s where the product mix issue comes in.”
Evan thought hard. The furrow on his brow returned, but he let it slide. “But you said you can go anywhere anytime. Right?”
Colby spoke up. “Subject to certain technical limitations.”
Aha! “Such as?”
Colby shrugged. “The time portal is fixed in location and needs to be somewhere inconspicuous. So we can’t, for example, take anyone to the doomed voyage of the Titanic. The ship moves, so when they wanted to return, the portal would be miles away, hovering over the water. Same with airplanes, space shuttles, and submarines.”
Evan frowned. “But everything moves. The Earth rotates on its axis. It revolves around the sun.”
Colby smiled. “Orbital mechanics are fixed and predictable. Everything else is a bit problematic, although we have had some success with trains. Of course, the timing is a bit tricky.”
The furrow disappeared on its own. “That makes sense. And the portal needs to be inconspicuous because you don’t want people just popping into existence where there are witnesses, right?”
“Quite right, Mr. Pogue,” replied Eckerton. “This isn’t like a movie or a virtual world. It’s not remote viewing. This is reality. The vacationers are actually at that time and place they visit. They can be seen and heard and can interact, although there are stringent rules about the interactions. You know, the obvious things: no out of time objects, No anachronistic references or incongruent references to technology, Leave nothing behind. The rules are strict, but everyone understands the need.
“The inconspicuous imperative does limit destinational choices, however, even if the rules are followed. You can’t just walk into the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis—the Secret Service would be all over you. Although I am pleased to report that we have filled in all of the empty seats in Ford’s Theatre the night of Lincoln’s assassination.”
“Even with those limitations, there’s still a lot of world and a lot of time available,” Evan said with a nod. “What’s the problem exactly? I can’t help you until I understand it completely.”
“Precisely why we are here,” Eckerton responded. He motioned toward his companion. “Let me have Flynn here explain. He’s on the front lines of customer satisfaction from the intake and destination selection phase to the post-return customer comment cards.”
Flynn Colby opened a folder, scanned some notes, and then looked back up at Evan. “Despite the relatively few technical limitations on Timeshare’s time travel encounter adventures, there are a number of practical impediments that limit the menu of desirable sites. In some cases, the inconspicuousness factor comes tangentially into play. Since the Timeshare visitors are actually there at that time, since in fact all Timeshare visitors that shall ever visit that time and place are actually there at that time, certain visits have inherent caps on the number of slots available. Warner’s reference earlier to Ford’s Theatre is a simple example. We can’t put people in the Presidential box or in the aisles or on the stage, but we can put them in otherwise empty seats. Open areas with large crowds are the easiest for our kind of travel. The reason more and more aging baby-boomers claim to have been at Woodstock as time goes on isn’t because they are all lying, it is because Timeshare injects vacationers into the mix on a regular basis.”
Evan laughed. One of the great mysteries of the modern age explained. Could they possibly solve another? “You mean, if I wanted to be in Dallas . . .”
“Yes,” sighed Colby, “we could put you into an available spot on the grassy knoll.”
“And . . .” prompted Evan. “What would I see?”
Colby shook his head. “Sorry, our lips are sealed on that score. You’ll just have to go see for yourself if you want to know.”
“Don’t put it off, though. Numbers are limited there,” Eckerton interjected. “So we’ve jacked up the price on that one to what the market will bear.”
“Like many of our customers,” said Colby, “you’ve focused right in on near history in your home country. And there’s good reason for that. Reality imposes its own limits, language chief among them. Going back to a place where people speak a foreign language you don’t understand can be a big disappointment according to the customer comments I’ve reviewed. Even middle English is incomprehensible to most modern Americans. The discomfort of the required period costume, the smells, the air quality, and the lack of decent sanitation facilities are also often cited by customers as detracting from the quality of the vacation experience.”
Eckerton leaned forward again. “That’s why we want to run a campaign to get out of our battles and brothels rut.”
“Battles and brothels?”
Colby winced. “We don’t use that term in the customer satisfaction department. But what Warner is saying is that given the language barriers and the limits on how conspicuous we can be, a lot of our business has gravitated to two types of activities—both of which are somewhat distasteful to the powers that be in our company. The first is—to put it bluntly—sex tours. Certain customers wish to go to a time before AIDS, before current mores and laws, and simply cat about.”
Evan grimaced. “There were diseases back then, too, weren’t there?”
“Most can be handled with a simple prescription these days,” explained Colby.
“But wouldn’t those visitors be breaking the rules of Timeshares not to, er, leave anything behind?”
Eckerton gave a broad smile. “The time travel process has a radioactive component. By arranging the shielding appropriately, we are able to induce temporary sterility in our travelers with no long-term effects. Our waiver warns travelers that those attempting to start a family should not travel.”
Yikes! Evan found himself crossing his legs without having consciously thought about it.
Eckerton gave a knowing laugh at the movement. “It’s just like irradiating fruit at the supermarket to kill pathogens.”
Colby laughed, too. “Except here we’re irradiating nuts.”
Uh-huh. “Let’s move along,” said Evan. “You said something about battles?”
“Sure,” said Colby, his eyes flicking down to his notes. “Seven of our top ten destinations are violence-oriented. Civil War reenactors, history buffs, and fans of slasher films are among the hobbies of that market demographic.”
No surprise there. “What’s your top travel site? Gettysburg? Little Big Horn?”
Eckerton gave the answer. “Those are popular, but both relatively limited by conspicuousness and danger factors. Our top destination by far is the pass at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
It took Evan a few seconds to figure it out.
“The Three Hundred.”
Eckerton nodded. “Where three hundred Spartan soldiers held off an army of a million Persians.”
“That sounds a bit conspicuous and dangerous itself.”
“Not really,” sniffed Colby. “Though some historical accounts put the count into the millions, there were actually only seventy-four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight Persians in the fight, so we can fill the hills behind the brutally violent skirmish lines with thousands and thousands of spectators, all while still fitting well within the parameters of the available historical record. We’ve actually set the site capacity limit at close to two hundred fifty thousand, not counting the actual Persians who get slaughtered or the Spartans who defend to the last man. Crowd-size estimation techniques sucked in ancient times.”
Evan was appalled. “Wouldn’t somebody notice the difference between the size of the crowd and the number of bodies eventually?”
Eckerton reddened. “We’ve contracted for body disposal activities with . . . a number of organizations. We take the bodies in when we pull the vacationers out. All in period costume, with injuries appropriate to the situation. We weed out anyone with metal plates, pins, and prosthetics. We pull any crowns or teeth with fillings.” He cast his eyes down at the table. “We don’t talk about it much. Strictly confidential, you understand.”
Evan understood the distaste the creators of Timeshare must have felt about how their device was being used. “History buffs. Let me guess. Watching snuff films is not among the categories of hobbies listed on the customer comment card.”
Colby bristled at the reference to snuff films. “History is all about dead people. If you go far enough back, everyone you encounter is dead by now. We don’t kill anyone.”
“You just let people watch.”
Eckerton jumped into the exchange. “This is precisely the product mix issue we have. Our current mix is . . . embarrassing. Our founders didn’t invent time travel so that we could pimp out history to man’s baser instincts. Instead, we would like to emphasize other aspects of our travel opportunities. That’s why we came up with our Sects and Violins tours.”
Evan ground his teeth together at the sound of the punny product name. This guy was vice president of marketing? But Evan kept his mouth shut and let the client blather on.
“You see, given the language barriers, we thought that we might get increased travel to Europe and to premodern centuries by packaging a set of tours around great musical performances—a Woodstock thing for the more discriminating musical palate. You can hear Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, each performing or conducting his own works. You can listen to the first performance ever of the 1812 Overture and marvel at the coordination required to make the sound of the cannons arrive at the precise moment needed, though they were situated miles away. You can listen to the glory of every church bell in Moscow joining in for the closing crescendo.”
Evan could see the appeal to the symphony set, but that was a limited crowd. “Just classical?”
“Rock and roll is big, as we mentioned before. And blues has some hardcore fanatics, but is pretty severely volume limited. So, we’ve upped the price on those, although you do get a quality bootleg recording with every blues vacation.”
Made sense. “What about the Sects part?”
“Great moments in religion,” Eckerton gushed. “Hide in the shadows as Martin Luther tacks his theses onto the door at the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Join the masses at the Sermon on the Mount, lunch included!”
Evan understood the marketing play in being able to partake in an actual miracle of loaves and fishes as you listened to the Beatitudes, but he wondered if sitting in a crowd in the sun for hours while people spoke in incomprehensible languages about you was really that great of a vacation experience.
What the hell. People went to the beach all the time. At least no one would be playing a radio too loud next to you.
His mind began to piece together the components of a campaign to promote musical and religious destinations for Timeshares. It would take a lot of work. A lot. First thing, get rid of the awful Sects and Violins moniker for the package deals. But enough of those details for now. Time to compliment the client and close the deal.
“I think that we can help move more culturally rewarding religious and musical destinations into your top spots. What sort of budget did you have in mind?”
“I don’t think you understand,” said Eckerton with obvious concern.
“Several of our ten top sites are religious destinations or at least related to religion in some way,” interjected Colby.
“But you said seven of the ten were violence oriented.”
“There’s some overlap. Let’s see, there’s the sacking of Jerusalem and the razing of Solomon’s temple, burning Joan of Arc at the stake, the mass suicide at Masada, and, of course the Nazi death camps in operation. Religious persecution is popular in some quarters.” Colby looked down at his notes. “I think there’s one more religious destination in the top ten. Let me see . . .”
Of course. “Jesus,” blurted Evan. “The resurrection. The top religious destination’s got to be the resurrection of Jesus, right?”
His would-be clients looked at him as if he were a crazed child.
“Not even in the top one hundred,” intoned Eckerton.
“Not really dramatic,” added Colby. “Just a guy you don’t recognize walking around with his friends chatting in a language you don’t understand. Nothing to see, really.” He tapped his notebook with his finger. “Here it is. I should have remembered. It is one of the reasons we came.” He looked up at Evan.
Evan couldn’t stand the tension. “The Ten Commandments? The parting of the Red Sea? Mohammed moving a freaking mountain? What?”
“The Crucifixion. Big crowds, so not space limited, and plenty of cruelty, violence, and death. We’ve been packing them into the Hills of Galilee since we first opened for business. Popular stuff. Ask Mel Gibson. Second only to the Three Hundred in attracting the death and torture fetishists.”
“Very distasteful,” droned Eckerton.
Evan’s mind was awhirl. Distasteful was too mild a word for peddling the Crucifixion like a no-holds-barred cage match. His lip twitched as his blood pressure rose, but he maintained a rigid hold on his outward demeanor. “What exactly do you want WR&B to do about it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” replied Eckerton, a look of surprise on his face. “We want a campaign that will make our customers seek enriching, ennobling, and educational cultural experiences filled with music and art instead of seeking violent, gory, and sadistic experiences filled with sex and death.”
“Instead of?” Evan threw up his hands. “Instead of? That goes against everything in television, movies, literature, games, sports, and advertising since time began.” Clients expected the impossible. With a hefty budget and a good campaign, he could increase customer demand for time trips featuring music and religiously uplifting themes, but decreasing the demand for lust and mayhem was impossible—crazy impossible. “You want an ad campaign that will make people stop wanting sex and violence?”
“We have money,” Eckerton replied.
“And time,” interjected Colby. “We have all the time in the world.”
“Not enough,” shouted Evan, his friendly facade shattering. “Not enough to change human nature, not for the better.” He couldn’t work miracles, and the public was apparently only interested in seeing someone who could if they were being brutally murdered.
The anger flooded over Evan, his heart rate increasing, his fists clenching, adrenaline racing through his body. He hated clients who were unreasonable. He wanted to punch Eckerton with animalistic fury. His hands longed to strangle Colby until his eyes bulged out.
That was the problem, the problem no amount of mild-mannered marketing could ever fix.
Evan crushed his half-full bottle of overpriced, over-marketed Tahitian water and flung it across the room, storming out past his buxom assistant, sending advertising tear sheets for the latest torture porn flick and upcoming World Championship Cage Match fluttering in disarray in his wake.
Evan had a passion for advertising, sure, but mankind had a passion for the Passion. Neither was likely to find any peace.
Not anywhere.
Not anywhen.
A PORTRAIT OF TIME
Kelly Swails
Gina stood outside her sister’s rented townhome. She shivered in the frigid February air as a tinge of nausea rippled through her body.
An angry wind that smelled of a neighbor’s fire pushed through her thin houndstooth coat. Wisps of vapor puffed from her mouth as she blew into her gloved hands and stomped her feet.
Twenty below, at least. She’d forgotten how cold it had been. She could have bought a warmer coat but she hadn’t spent a year’s salary to be warm. She’d spent it on this trip. She would stand here in a bikini if it meant saving her identical twin, Lucy. She had six hours to do it, Timeshares waivers and warnings be damned.
A storm a few days prior had blanketed the area with a foot of snow, and now Gina squinted against the daylight glaring off its surface. She checked her watch: eleven thirty. Perfect. The current Gina’s plane had just left for a week-long business trip, so there would be no chance she’d run into her past self and cause a time-fracturing paradox.
Gina clutched a plastic grocery bag as she climbed the short flight of stairs. She paused—come on, Gina, can’t do what you came here to do if you don’t go inside—before knocking once and swinging the door open. Warmth slammed into her body—her sister had always kept the thermostat somewhere between inferno and Hades—as her eyes fell onto Lucy’s paintings and supplies strewn around the living room. Her voice cracked as she said, “Lucy? You here?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Lucy called from the kitchen. “I thought you’d be at thirty thousand feet by now.”
Tears filled Gina’s eyes. Dizziness overcame her, and she couldn’t tell if it was from the trip or from hearing Lucy’s voice. She managed to croak, “Canceled,” as Lucy walked into the living room, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
