Authors: Cam Rogers
Jack wasn’t saying anything.
“I know. I had the same problems. Will was very patient with me on that front, actually.”
“If I’m understanding this … that doesn’t make sense. I mean, there has to be a point somewhere in there when that happens for the first time, right? When you don’t have any of that information? When you
can’t
set the bombs for the right times?”
“Yes and no. Yes, and this
is
the first time, right now. And no, there is never a moment when I don’t have the information. How much do you know about this stuff?”
“I skimmed a
Terminator
argument on Reddit once.”
“No. The bottom line is: it works. The paradox is accounted for or factored out, because the behavior of fundamental particles on the quantum scale under certain conditions aren’t strictly deterministic. They follow ‘fuzzy rules.’”
“What?”
“General relativity works just fine for predicting paradoxes, but once those paradoxes are considered in, or subjected to, quantum mechanical terms they pretty much vanish—provided causality is maintained.”
“Says Will.”
“The dude built a time machine. I’ll take his opinion over Reddit’s. Also”—she waved the book again—“I
have
the times.”
“Jesus.”
“You should have been there when I explained this to Will. He was really upset. He said this observation could be critical in formulating a theory that unifies general relativity with quantum mechanics but, ironically, he didn’t have time to look into it. He was too busy building the Countermeasure and trying to save the future.”
“I thought science wasn’t your thing.”
He took each of her hands in his. She was still Beth. Still Zed. Still the person he fell for.
“Jack, how much do you remember about being sixteen?”
Weird question. “Not a lot, it was twelve years ago.”
“Jack,” she said. “You remember being sixteen the way I remember you. I haven’t seen you in that long.” Beth steeled herself and said, as gently as she could, “If it wasn’t for me watching you grow up I probably wouldn’t remember what you looked like. It’s been eleven years of living off the grid, staying out of the way of the future, and trying to keep both you and Will alive. I don’t need love, I don’t need romance, I don’t need drama. I just want to go home.”
Jack let go of her hands, stepped away, and turned back toward the Overlook. Paul was standing alone. Zed had led Aberfoyle away from Jack. Aberfoyle raised his gun, level with Zed’s head.
“I know you have feelings for that girl over there, but she’s gone. Love the memory. Okay?”
He really did.
Beth’s phone chirruped. Onscreen was a message. It was from William Joyce. It read:
COMPLETED
.
Jack said, “It’s happening.”
At Bannerman’s Overlook, Zed pointed to the horizon.
The first building went up in flames.
Sunday, 4 July 2010. 7:23
A
.
M
. Riverport, Massachusetts.
Beth drove, her notebook propped on the dash, her phone nestled in the crook of her shoulder.
“I’d like to report a suspicious vehicle. Bannerman’s Overlook. I heard gunshots, and then a black town car tore right past me. Well, I believe I saw bullet holes in it. Yes, ma’am. As a matter of fact I did, yes. Do you have a pen?” Beth rattled off the license plate of Aberfoyle’s town car, and then hung up before the operator could ask for her details.
“I could murder for a frozen lemonade and a stuffie.”
“It’s seven
A.M
., for Christ’s sake.”
“Can’t get ’em in Future Riverport.”
“If your cash was printed after 2010 it’s effectively counterfeit.”
“It’s 2010, they don’t check.”
“What we’re doing is heading back to my place, sanitizing it, and then we’re going home to 2016.”
“Beth, we’re clear. Let’s take one last look around—enjoy it.”
“This might be novel for you, kiddo, but I’m done.”
* * *
The woods embraced the Joyce family home, the eastern fence line being the only side open to the world. Beth drove them to the southern perimeter, the side facing away from Riverport. The mesh fence on that side had a section that could be pulled aside. She drove the car through the gap, swept the grass upright behind her, and rolled the mesh back in place, clipping it shut.
There was a dip in the land into which she nestled the car, and a mess of camouflage netting that she threw over the top.
“Come on, this way.”
This was all Joyce land. Back in ’99 she had identified the best place for her to build a place to live while still being able to keep an eye on the house: a spot deep in the woods, but on enough of a rise that she had a good view of the property, and close enough that she could get there in a minute or two at a dead run.
A few trees had been felled strategically, and she’d limited her construction hours to when young Jack wasn’t home.
“Welcome to where the magic happens.”
At first glance he didn’t know what Beth meant. Then he realized he was looking at a shelter so well camouflaged it was almost invisible against the side of the small outcrop against which it was built. The shelter had a wide-but-narrow frontage made of pine logs, wattle, and daub. Beth flipped a latch and pulled open a handmade door camouflaged with greenery, scraping up earth and needles as it opened.
The interior was beautiful, dug into the side of the hill. The room was about thirty feet long, paved with stones that had been carefully selected for their flatness. The left wall had a long bench before a window that ran the full length of the room. Beth propped the window upward and open with a length of timber. Against the right wall was a raised stone shelf, insulated with foam matting, atop which was her bed: a good mattress, thick with covers. She had fashioned a simple four-cornered frame that she could drape mosquito netting over for the summer months.
“Paul and I used to play here,” he said. “Well, we never came in. We were scared shitless.”
“The witch in the woods,” she said. “I know. You two weren’t as quiet as you thought you were.”
“Will warned me off. Grounded me once because I wouldn’t stop poking around here.” His chest ached. “The whole time it was you.”
The sight of her bed and the earthy, floral scents of the place made his heart hurt. How many thousands of nights had she lain down here, waiting to catch up to the future? What had life meant for her here, day after day?
“Come on,” she said. “I need this place stripped and burned. Tools and such in the drawer under the bed.” Beth opened the door on the right and stepped inside. He heard gear being moved around.
A long recess was dug into the wall, home to books, a glass of water, candles. The walls were wooden on all sides. Jack noticed electricity outlets, a space heater, and against the far wall was a small fireplace and opening. A couple of colorful rugs lined the floor, a broom by the door. On the right wall, adjacent to the fireplace, was a door—leading farther into the earth.
Through the now-open window hatch on his left he had a panoramic view of the woods, sloping downward toward the south side of the house: greenhouse, garage, barn. He wondered if Will was there now.
Crouching by the bed he lifted the soft, floral covers, finding the large drawer built into the base of the shelf. Inside was a red metal tool chest, which he hefted out. Something hanging from the bed frame caught his eye as he prepared to lift the chest onto the bench behind him.
Hanging from the canopy, above the pillow, was a silver bullet on a long, thin chain. Leaving the tool kit on the rug, Jack stood up and cupped the bullet in one hand. She had inscribed it with a collection of scratches: two sets of four vertical strokes and one cross-stroke, and one single vertical stroke. Eleven. Marking off the years as she did her time here.
He rotated the bullet. She had inscribed the casing again, beneath the marks, with a single word: “Trouble.”
“I borrowed a metal detector.” She was standing by the fireplace with a gym bag in one hand. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
He didn’t know if he was feeling joy or grief. “Why not?”
“Because it’ll make what happens next harder than it needs to be.” She put the bag down, crossed the room, and took the bullet from him, unlooping it from the frame.
* * *
It had been quick work to dismantle her home. All of the wood, rugs, curtains, netting, sacking, anything flammable they piled in a nearby clearing. Jack doused the collection in gasoline. Beth tossed the match. As they watched it burn, she reached and took his hand in hers.
“Is this what you did the first time? In 2010?” he asked.
“First rule of a good disappearance,” she said. “Zed’s burning her gear right now, at her place, which your past self will discover in about an hour.”
“Why didn’t you want me to see the bullet?”
She looked him in the eye. “When I was Zed … I never saw my future self after today. So—”
“So it means everything goes to plan. We get the Countermeasure and leave.”
“Maybe. But we need your head squarely in the game. The Countermeasure makes it to 2016. Nothing else matters.”
“Not to me.”
“Jack…”
“Knowing you changed my life. You showed me what life could be. That I could change things. I loved you for that.” He shrugged. “Take that away, that’s when nothing matters.”
Sunday, 4 July 2010. 10:10
A
.
M
. Riverport dockyard.
“Are you sure this is all just ‘playing safe’?” Jack wore Kevlar beneath his shirt and jacket, a 2016-era Monarch-issued assault carbine slung from his shoulder. Beth was decked out paramilitary; also Monarch-issued.
A tanked shipbuilding industry meant 2010 prices for dockside real estate were mighty low. That’s how Will was able to buy and outfit a workshop for himself, away from the house and without Jack’s knowledge.
Jack and Beth were two doors down from that workshop. Parked between two large warehouses, Jack had heard his past self tear up on his motorcycle, throw open the workshop door, and immediately start shouting at Will. Accusations of stupidity, irresponsibility, neglect. Theft.
This was happening in the hour before past Jack found Zed gone and pointed his motorcycle toward the nearest Greyhound station, in the futile hope of finding her again: the beginning of a meandering four-year quest for answers.
Now Beth was beside him, leaning against the cooling hood of the car with a carbine in her hand, waiting for the final moments of that quest to run out.
Jack could hear his brother feebly defending himself, caught red-handed, surrounded by everything family money had bought.
There came sounds of violence: Jack remembered picking up a chair, smashing it into whatever he could find. Will shouting
no no no.
He remembered an object that Will had made: a geometric sphere about the size of a volleyball. Something about the workshop told Jack that this was what all the money had gone into. So he had taken to it with a chair, smashed it once, twice …
“Stop! You’re killing the universe! Stop! St—!”
Jack’s nails bit into his palms. That was the moment his past self had punched Will in the face. Will’s dumbfounded expression—baffled, hurt, childlike—stayed with Jack for years. And then Jack had left.
Jack and Beth heard the motorcycle kick to life. Seconds later, Jack’s past self roared past the alley in which they were parked, heading for Zed’s place.
“Wait,” Jack said.
Beth stopped, threw a questioning look.
Will called Jack’s name, heartbroken. Then the sound of a car starting, and Jack caught a glimpse of his brother as he drove past.
That would be the last time he would see Will alive.
“You okay?”
He wasn’t ready to say anything. Just needed a second.
“Remember what I showed you by the river, with the revolver? I couldn’t die because it wasn’t my time, and you couldn’t have said anything to Will that would have—”
“Enough,” Jack said. “Let’s go.”
The warehouse was no small affair: two stories tall and three times the size of the family home. Beth had a key for the front door, and pulled the ten-foot-high rolling mass of steel aside. It led into a smaller anteroom with a security door. Beth punched in the code, and the lock popped.
“My birth date?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Jesus, Will. Security.”
They moved inside. They took no more than a few steps before having to stop.
The majesty of Will’s workshop made Jack believe in his brother’s genius in much the same way that Notre Dame de Paris had made twelfth-century peasants believe in God. Vast and complex, everything with a purpose, the workshop was a meticulously ordered warren of raw technology. Jack appreciated the inner workings of that place as much as he could the inner workings of a person: the incomprehensibility was as unsettling as it was astounding.
Above and around: wonder. At his feet a spray of smaller items scattered across the floor, the smashed body of a laptop—evidence of the furious violence Jack remembered inflicting.
Directly in front of them was a glass chamber, thirty feet a side, atop a three-foot-high square platform beneath which was buried a jumble of heavy-duty technology. A canopy of wires and cabling attached the transparent box to scaffolding that housed two floors of unidentifiable machinery.
The door to the box was slid aside. Inside, at the center of the glassed-in space, was a spindly stainless steel dais. Delicate upraised pincers, designed to support something delicately and precisely, held nothing. On the floor next to the dais was the chair Jack remembered using to knock a geometric sphere from the grip of those claws.
He walked around the box, checking it out from all angles. Beth trailed along behind, glancing at her watch.
The sphere—the Countermeasure—lay on the room’s insulated floor. A couple of its faces were now slightly deformed. An access panel had divorced itself from the housing.