Time Travel Omnibus, page 1135
The parquetry floor shook and the chandeliers tinkled as the guests shook and shimmied and stomped to the jazz band, its piano, trumpet, and Sharkey Malone’s whiskey-voice jumping across the night. No one looked lonesome in a corner, or was without one of Charlie’s fabulous gin martinis or old-fashioneds. Everything was going to plan.
“I would honestly love to know how that little barman doll works. He seems so like-life . . . lifely . . . um, real.” Geraldine had crept up behind Mary and slung an arm around her shoulder. Her voice was a little slurred and her headpiece of peacock feathers and jet sat askew.
“He’s always a hit. But now, I think, would be a good time for the main event, seeing as the band’s about to break.” She signaled to Sharkey Malone, who pulled a worn little hipflask from his pocket and toasted in reply. “If you’ll just get everyone to—”
“Darlings. My lovely katty-kits. No, wait—my kitty cats . . .” Geraldine giggled and swayed as all eyes turned towards her. She waved a hand at Mary, who felt a little thrill run through her. This was what she had been waiting for.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d like to form an orderly line in front of the bar, we have a rather special treat for the evening, courtesy of the lovely Geraldine,” Mary smiled winningly.
The crowd cheered as she walked to the bar and stood beside Charlie. Tiny ruby glasses, about twice the size of a thimble, were stacked on the right of his little bar. On the left were the bell-shaped bottle and two chrome cocktail shakers. The booze, she knew, would be on the shelf underneath.
“You really are an old pro, aren’t you, Charlie?” Mary whispered to him.
He replied with a wink.
“Whiskey or gin?” asked Mary of the first guest, a plump woman with a fur-trimmed neckline and tight rings that made her fingers look like sausages.
“Whiskey, thanks, honey.”
At this stage of the evening Charlie could relax a little. People were drunk enough not to notice that his movements were fluid, less like a spring-powered automaton. It was exhausting to keep that act up all night, she knew. He deserved to have a little fun with his favorite part of the night.
He poured the whiskey into the shaker, over crushed ice, followed by a shot of something shimmering that looked like liquid violets.
“Hang on a minute, honey. That’s not anything that’s stronger than booze now, is it? If you get my drift.” The plump woman looked concerned.
“Madam, I assure you we serve nothing dangerous.”
“Now who’s the old pro?” whispered Charlie under his moustache. The shaker frosted over as he gave it a quick, expert shake. He lifted it high in the air, straining the beverage into one of the ruby glasses. A fine mist wafted from the liquid as it waterfalled into it; the sound of children’s laughter splashed up from the drink.
“Now isn’t that just the strangest thing?” The woman’s pink-painted lips curved into a smile, her chubby cheeks shining. She held the glass up to the light; crimson sparkles shone on the wall behind it.
Mary smiled back. “Now if you’d like to make your way to the lawn?”
The plump woman stood aside for a man in a brown fedora.
“Whiskey or gin?”
They streamed to the bar, full of laughter and disinhibition. Mary watched Charlie pass another tiny glass of violet liquid to a smiling, swaying man, reveling in their abandonment.
Geraldine waved at Mary as the last guest wandered outside. “Bottoms up, darlings!” she cried, downing the drink in one mouthful as Mary switched off the lights.
Charlie wiped out the cocktail shakers as he looked out the window. “Admiring your handiwork?” Mary asked.
“It never gets dull, does it? I mean, I never quite know how they’re going to react . . .”
“Look,” she whispered. The crescent moon was slung low on the horizon, refusing to illuminate the garden with more than a wan glow. Geraldine laughed, a raucous guffaw from her belly. As it rang out, the laughter vapourized into yellow light, like boiling water into steam. It broke off into tiny pieces that flew up into amber lanterns that Mary had earlier strung through the trees, around the ironwork fencing, along the edges of the lawn. Luminous, the lanterns lit the party with the light of a worn-through sunset. Silhouettes of the ants and insect wings forever frozen in the amber filled the grounds.
“Beautiful as ever,” Charlie sighed. “It does seem sad, though, that they don’t ever remember it.”
“Perhaps. But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t change them, that they don’t carry it with them.” Laughing softly, she pointed toward the plump woman who had taken the first drink. All her flapper frippery had fallen off, discarded on the damp grass. She stretched, her body elongating, the soft white flesh stretching and curving around the changing bones. An unseen vessel tipped over her head, spilling shining liquid until she was coated head to foot in chrome. Naked, unadorned, she arched her back in an imitation of the Diana lamps and ashtrays of the day.
“Amazing, isn’t it, what people can do when you take back just a little time from them?” Mary never grew tired of the endless shapes, the form and formlessness that rested under the layers of time that humans wore like a shell. She wondered what would happen if it was age, the strangely complicated effect of time, that was stripped away. But the drink took back time itself, bringing out all the possibilities that the years steal away.
“So that’s how you do it, then.”
Mary jumped. The arrival of the owner of that low, sweet voice meant that they had a problem on their hands.
Charlie froze, the tiny white towel swaying in his hand.
Freya, in cloche hat and almond-colored wrapover coat, walked from the shadows, smiling. She looked like she was holding a secret inside her, beating like a second heart. Mary reached up to smooth down her hair, something she only did when she was unsettled.
“I don’t believe you’ve had one of Charlie’s drinks . . .”
Freya laughed. “I don’t know that I will, in any event.” She moved to the window; Mary felt a small electric shock as Freya’s arm brushed hers. They stood together and looked onto the changing quicksilver shapes in the flickering shadows. Mary was surprised that Freya didn’t seem shocked by any of it.
“Geraldine always was a scattered girl. Never too sure what she wanted.” Freya pointed to her sister, who was filled with light from within, illuminating the network of veins, arteries, capillaries under her skin. The light dimmed and she laughed as a monkey tail poked out from the waistband of her skirt and wound around her waist. The guests giggled and chattered, jazz dancing through the trees. A man looked down as his body transformed into a series of geometric, frosted glass panels separated by thin lead welds. His friend leaned down to peer through the glass, seemingly unperturbed by the snowy wings that had grown where his ears should be.
Geraldine laughed and swung her tail—quite flirtatiously, Mary thought—at a woman whose skin had turned a mottled sea-blue. Delicate leafy sea dragons swum around her wrists and wove through her hair as it drifted as though tugged by the tide and unseen currents.
“We don’t allow people to witness our parties if they aren’t prepared to participate.” Charlie sounded a lot less amiable than usual and Mary noticed he was holding an icepick, its point gleaming. She shook her head at him, not wanting to have to take Freya’s time by force. That was a messy business at best and could turn ugly. “Easy, Charlie. Easy,” she whispered.
“But I have seen one before. Don’t you remember?” Freya looked surprised, then took a step backwards as she glanced at Charlie’s icepick. “You told me to be patient because you’d come back and I would discover things way beyond what I had seen that night.” She held her left hand out to Mary, palm upturned.
The skin of her wrist was pale, the veins cobalt underneath. Between the delicate layers was a watch hand, pointing toward her palm.
Mary recognized it instantly. “That’s the second hand from your grandfather’s watch,” she said.
“So you do remember!”
Mary shook her head. “I’m afraid not. We’ve never met before, but . . . things that have happened in your past may be going to happen in our future, see?” Why am I telling her this? she wondered.
Charlie scowled as her words spilled out.
She hurried on. “So you had better tell your story so we can see exactly what’s going on.” And how on earth we’re going to deal with it, she thought.
Freya looked nervously at Charlie, the icepick still in his hand. Mary frowned. “Put it away Charlie.”
Grumbling, Charlie reluctantly stowed the weapon under his counter.
“I was only seven,” Freya began “when my grandparents had a party, just like this one. The world in 1889 was a lot different to the world now—it was all propriety and manners and rules—it was claustrophobic, especially for a child. I couldn’t sleep and lay in bed, listening to the party downstairs. And then I heard your voice, Mary, calling for everyone to line up for the evening’s special treat—just like you did earlier tonight. I crept to the top of the stairs and I, I saw . . . it was just like tonight, people changing into things I’d never dreamed of. Can you imagine what that was like for a child?”
A loud bang on the window made them all jump. An enormous peacock, still with human legs, lay sprawled on the grass, shaking its head.
“Amateur,” muttered Charlie.
“I wanted to join them,” Freya went on “and I crept out from my hiding place, made it to the first landing. That was when you saw me, Mary. You walked up the stairs towards me and I thought you were so lovely, so different. But as you got closer, I felt very peculiar . . . sort of still from the inside out.”
Mary glanced across at Charlie, who shrugged his shoulders. “You introduced yourself, held out your hand and when I shook it, the stillness filled me up entirely and we shone then, Mary, you and I, like a shooting star. ‘Here she is,’ you called quietly downstairs. And then you leaped up, Charlie, nimble as you please, to say hello.”
“And the watch hand?” he asked.
“My grandfather’s watch was there on the bureau. You fiddled about with it for a bit, then asked me to hold out my arm. You told me not to look and that it would feel a bit like a bee sting. When it was done, you said that it would remind me to wait for you. To wait for my new life. And I’ve been waiting ever since.”
Charlie began polishing the cocktail shakers, even though they were already clean. “And now that we’re back, what is it you want?”
Freya looked surprised. “To come with you, of course.”
The shaker clattered to the floor. “We’re not taking applications, here! This is a two-man gig.”
“But I’ve been waiting my whole life. It’s already happened, don’t you see? My past, your future, it must all lead to now. You talk about taking people’s time, but I’ve given all my time just waiting, knowing you’d come back.”
Mary turned toward the window, unable to look at Freya’s hopeful face. Geraldine’s guests were scattered across the lawn in little groups; some dancing, others with their arms, or fins or wings, wrapped around one another singing. They were all having the night of their lives, in exchange for just a little of their time.
“You know, Charlie and I have traveled an awful lot and seen some amazing things. This is a magical decade to be living through. You should be out there enjoying it, not wanting to come along with the two of us.” She turned to face Freya, who was twisting her hands anxiously. “Listen to that wonderful jazz. Doesn’t that make you want to forget everything and just be?”
In a shadowy corner of the garden, the band played, their instruments now part of them. The fat bellied bassist was the double bass, the trumpeter’s trumpet sprouted from his lips. Sharkey Malone, of course, was still Sharkey Malone, but with every gravelly note he sang, a bronze honey-bee flew from his lips and there was just a glimpse of the piano keys that had taken the place of his teeth. “When I hear it, it makes me think of timeless things, like I can see into forever. I’m not like them.” She looked mischievously at Charlie. “And I’ll prove it. I’ll have one of your special drinks, please. Gin,” she stated, before Charlie could ask.
Mary sighed, relieved, then smiled at Charlie, who was making a double for Freya. This would fix the whole issue once and for all. A drink, a transformation, a blissful forgetting would leave them in the clear. No matter what Freya said, she didn’t belong with them.
“One more question. What do you do with the time that you take back?”
“When we know that,” said Charlie “it’ll be time to go home.”
Freya lifted the tiny glass, the violet liquid shining. “To tomorrow,” she said, then downed it in one shot. She glided outside, where she was joined by a swarm of dragonflies, their wings shimmering Lalique-green and plum, which had previously been a rather prim man in a pinstripe suit.
“So that’s that, then,” said Charlie. “I think we better—”
“Go while we have the chance?”
“Couldn’t have said it better, old girl.”
Mary and Charlie whisked around the room, collecting bottles and glasses and packing them into the black bag. She snapped the case shut and picked it up as Charlie climbed up onto her shoulder.
They went out onto the lawn, for their traditional last walk-through of a party. To their left the plump woman who had become a chrome goddess lay sleeping, like a fallen statue. The dragonflies buzzed about in a man-shape, hovering around the amber lights. And the band played on, a sad, sweet dirge.
Ain’t no sun, my autumn girl
Ain’t no moon or rain
Got an empty home, an empty heart
Since the sunrise stole you away . . .
“Well, bugger me . . .”
“Charlie! Language.”
On their right was a giant willow tree; at its base stood Freya, her eyes dark and sparkling.
Mary stared, her eyes wide. “You’ve not changed one bit. And that was a double dose. How?”
“I told you, I’m not like them. I’m all still inside. Only after I had that drink, this happened.”
Mary and Charlie looked down at Freya’s wrist. The watch hand was moving, now, ticking away second by second. They reached out and rested their forefingers gently over it. Freya’s time pulsed through them and it felt like exaltation.
Mary clasped her hand. “Time is indeed the fabulous monster in us all. The difference is in what you do with it. Best you do come along with us, after all.”
They set out for the jetty, stretching out across the darkened river that held the night reflected.
On the shore sat Geraldine, propped against a fig tree and snoring softly. Her dark locks lifted gently in the breeze, rippling and shaking as they parted to reveal glossy black feathers. With a fierce beating of wings, the sky was filled with ravens from her hair.
Freya bent to kiss her sleeping sister, then followed her new companions waiting on the jetty. Mary sat on the edge, Charlie still on her shoulder.
“What time does the clock have, Charlie?”
He swung from her shoulder and began to climb down her back, deftly unclasping the square silver buttons that ran the length of her spine. As he undid the last one, the doors of her back opened wide. She heard Freya gasp as she looked inside and wondered what it must be like to see it for the first time; a giant hourglass in the center, surrounded by carefully hung fob watches, alarm clocks, chronographs, and wristwatches, with a stone sundial sitting at her left hip. They softly ticked and swung, the silvery river of time swirling and twisting around them and shivering the sand in the hourglass.
“Twenty-one July 1969, 2:56 a.m.” He shut the doors, then gave Mary a wink before hopping into the bag.
“Now that does feel like a celebration,” Freya said.
“You just wait,” replied Mary.
The air around them quivered and flowed as they walked toward the end of the jetty . . .
THE MYSTERY OF JOHN TITOR
Rick Paulas
A person named “John Titor” started posting on the Internet one day, claiming to be from the future and predicting the end of the world. Then he suddenly disappeared, never to be heard from again.
This is our planet’s bleak future: a second Civil War splinters America into five factions, leaving the new capital based in Omaha. World War III breaks out in 2015, starting with Russia and the U.S. trading nukes and ending with three billion dead. Then, to top it all off, a computer bug delivers where Y2K sputtered, destroying our world as we know it. That is, unless an audacious time traveler successfully traverses the space-time continuum to change the course of future history.
In late 2000, that person signed onto the Internet.
A poster going by the screennames “TimeTravel_0” and “John Titor” on a variety of message boards, beginning with the forum at the Time Travel Institute, claimed he was a soldier sent from 2036, the year the computer virus wiped the world. His mission was to head back to 1975 in order to snatch-and-grab an IBM 5100 computer, which had the necessary equipment to fight the future virus. (His detour to the year 2000 was simply to get a little R&R while visiting his three-year-old self, ignoring every fabric-of-time paradox rule from time-travel stories.) Over the next four months, Titor responded to every question other posters had, describing future events in poetically-phrased ways, always submitted with a general disclaimer that alternate realities do exist, so his reality may not be our own. In between dire urgings to learn first aid and stop eating beef—Mad Cow was a serious threat in his reality—Titor provided a number of technical specs regarding how time travel worked, with overly complex algorithms and grainy, hard-to-make-out photos of his actual machine. (Which, yes, of course, was an automobile: a 1987 Chevy Suburban.) He even showed off his cool futuristic military insignia.
