In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  “You bunch of bastards!” the me in the hood exclaims.

  The video goes black.

  A second later, the scene of the men in the stone-walled room reappears. The man in the metal helmet steps closer to the camera. “We are capable of getting to anyone you love, Mrs. Travers. The choice is yours. Hand over the device, or watch them die. Don’t waste our time.”

  A set of temporal coordinates appears on screen for several seconds, then the video ends.

  Jermaine Clevis’s office comes back up on the view screen. He’s watching us intently. Evidently he’s still been able to see us even while he was off screen.

  Mym is standing shell-shocked, her hands covering her mouth.

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of such evil news,” Jermaine says. “But I knew you would want to be informed right away.”

  “You have any idea where they transmitted this from?” I ask. I key the download feature on my lenses to save the file.

  Jermaine frowns and shakes his head. “It came through a variety of channels that we’ve been unable to track. I can have our historians take a look. We may be able to narrow down the timestream and time period a bit if we study the imagery, but I didn’t know whether you’d be willing to share these images with anyone. I thought it best to get it to you directly first.”

  “We can’t have this out,” Mym replies. “Not without knowing who’s involved and how they got their hands on Ben.” She turns to me. “Are you okay?”

  I realize I’ve barely moved since the video ended. “Yeah. I’m okay. It’s just . . . that was really surreal.”

  “It’s possible that those versions of you may be from different timestreams,” Jermaine comments. “They may have nothing to do with your present trajectory in time.”

  Mym reaches for the transmitter controls. “Thank you for contacting us, director. We could use some time to weigh our options and discuss this.”

  “Of course, of course,” Jermaine says, putting up his hands. “Please rest assured that the resources of ASCOTT are at your disposal. Please let us know how you would like to proceed.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Mym says and signs us off from the transmission.

  She turns to me and just stares at my face. The mask of courage she was wearing with the director is already slipping.

  I step forward and wrap my arms around her. “I don’t know what that was, but we’ll figure it out.”

  Mym encircles me with her arms and hangs on. “That was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”

  My eyes drift to the empty wall where the screen was projected. “I know what you mean.”

  After the better part of a minute, Mym finally relaxes her grip on me.

  “These guys clearly mean business,” I say. My mind is reeling from what we’ve witnessed. “We’re going to need help with this one. We need to warn as many people as we can. Prevent them from taking any more hostages.”

  “And we need to find our daughter,” Mym says.

  I think about the little girl who disappeared into the slide at the playground. Alternate future or not, she’s still family. “Yeah. We can’t let them get their hands on her.”

  “They already have all they need for leverage, but she’s just a kid,” Mym says. “If they had her too . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “These aren’t the first loco time travelers we’ve been up against. They’re going to find out they’re messing with the wrong people. We’re going to find her first.”

  Mym exhales audibly and turns back to the controls of the tachyon pulse transmitter. “Okay. I’ll start making some calls.”

  “I’m going to make us something to drink.” I walk around the corner to the kitchen where I am out of sight and rest my hand on the refrigerator door handle. The image of the gunshot flashes through my mind again. It’s almost as if I can feel the impact in my chest. Some version of me is going to die that way. It could be me. Is it me?

  I open the refrigerator and find nothing helpful. There’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer but nothing to mix it with.

  I’m not that desperate.

  I fill the teakettle instead and set it atop the electric stove burner. I pull up the downloaded video on my meta lenses and watch it again. Colonial musket. Torn jeans. Gun smoke. The blood seeps through his shirt. I watch it over and over again, seeing the body of my other self hitting the ground.

  The kettle starts to scream.

  I make two mugs of tea and affix a positive expression on my face before walking back around the corner. I hand Mym her tea. “So who do we call first?”

  Then the incoming call chime starts to ring.

  5

  “Appreciate each year and decade you live through. Relish its quirks and eccentricities. Many time travelers would cross centuries and expend fortunes to experience what you take for granted.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1972

  “They’re prison escapees,” Carson says.

  Mym has pinged him with the tachyon pulse transmitter looking for advice, and his response was immediate. Of the time traveling friends we have, Carson is the most tuned-in to the criminal underworld, ever since he got a job in the future hunting down rogue time travelers.

  “Time travel prison?” I ask.

  “It’s called Rookwood Penitentiary,” he replies.

  We’re talking to him remotely via the TPT, but he’s enabled metaspace calling, meaning it looks like we’re occupying the same space. My meta lenses have transposed his setting over ours. I’m still not entirely comfortable using the metaspace, but Carson has adapted to it lately and likes using it for all of his calls. He commandeers the image matrix and transports us virtually to Rookwood Penitentiary.

  “It’s mostly used for cons running afoul of ASCOTT,” he explains. “Everything from gambling infractions to illegal organ harvesting. It can’t hold inmates forever, unfortunately, but it keeps the worst of the time travel criminals off the streets and flagged on the Grid. The inmates have nicknamed the prison ‘Time Out.’”

  “Cute,” I mutter. I study the virtual view of the prison’s exterior. It looks like a fortress, but obviously not impenetrable. “Too bad it couldn’t hold these guys.”

  “Yeah. The breakout happened fast. They had help, obviously. It’s a network of criminals.” Carson pivots us to a top-down view of the prison, making it seem like we’re floating hundreds of feet overhead. I grab Mym’s shoulder involuntarily. Carson doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort. “Seven escapees that we know of, plus whoever was helping them on the outside. The press is calling them ‘The Tempus Fugitives.’ Good news is, the guy you zapped at the funeral was a big clue. He was a legal parolee, so he didn’t trip the flagging system, but his affiliations helped clue us in to what he’s been involved with.”

  Carson flashes us back to his current location and starts rummaging around in some cabinets. I release Mym’s shoulder and she pats me gently on the back. We appear to be in a warehouse of some kind. There are a number of vehicles parked behind him and a wall of tools. My virtual self is partially embedded in a truck so I take a step sideways, not liking the idea of being fused with something, even in the metaspace.

  The cabinet Carson is looking through has a lot of electronics and some power packs. “It’s around here somewhere,” he mutters as he sifts through items. “Ah, here we go.” He holds up a data key with a logo on top in the shape of an eye. The eye has some familiar-looking rays coming out of it. “Confiscated this a few months back. Took it from a parole violator we caught scalping used concert tickets before rock shows. Seems he’s involved with the same underground group that sprung these guys. The parolee you zapped was a member of this church—The Way of the All Seeing Eye. Sometimes it’s called the Church of Providence. They adopted the ‘Eye of Providence’ as a symbol, but it’s not really a church in the traditional sense. These guys are involved with a group worshipping A.I. and the eventual technological singularity.”

  “They want to worship
an artificial intelligence?” I ask.

  “Idea’s been around a long time,” Carson says. “Since the early twenty-first century, actually. But this is a more evolved version. They assume that when the singularity happens, the A.I. will essentially be a god. They want to get on its good side now. A lot of the time that means sucking up to whatever A.I. they think might have a chance to evolve.

  “Hard to say if these cons were actually devout members or not, but they were using a church-run communications network to talk to each other. There must have been some code involved that the guards missed. In any case, the guys using the network figured out a way to connect with the outside and plan their escape. Now they are on the loose.”

  “And murdering people we love,” Mym says. “Why are they coming after the warp clock?”

  “From what you tell me, a device used to control chronometers would be highly valuable to escaped convicts. If they got their hands on some chronometers, they could stay off the ASCOTT radar permanently. ASCOTT only tracks Grid users and people using Temprovibe time traveling devices. That makes chronometers prized possessions for criminals. They could use them to get out of the central streams, hide out, and ASCOTT would never find them.”

  “They have to know we could use the warp clock to shut those chronometers down,” Mym says. “So it makes sense that they want it. Once they have control of the warp clock, they won’t have to worry about being stranded somewhere.”

  “Exactly,” Carson replies. “They’re staying off-Grid and out of sight for now. Not sure how they’re getting around, but from the video you showed me, we can assume they have at least two chronometers now. If you were to shut them down remotely, I’d say goodbye to our chances of getting the other versions of you back.”

  “They grabbed Abe from the funeral too,” I say. “If they force him to give them more chronometers, that might be as many as they could want.”

  “More reason they want control of the warp clock,” Carson says. “If they get that, they’re free and clear. Nothing to stop them from disappearing into the multiverse and causing whatever mayhem they desire. If they get the ability to retune chronometers and operate off-Grid, there’s no telling how many new timestreams they create,” Carson says. “The potential is unlimited.”

  I consider what he’s saying. As much as I’ve disliked ASCOTT’s methods over the years, the de facto governing agency for time travelers has done a reasonable job of avoiding paradoxes. The Grid tracking system they invented keeps travelers from jumping into one another, and the Temprovibe time traveling devices themselves are rigged to only function in certain timestreams. Thanks to ASCOTT’s interference, most of the fractal universe is still unexplored by time travelers, and therefore largely untampered with. A breach in that dam could unleash a flood of time travelers into other streams, creating untold numbers of paradoxes. It wouldn’t necessarily be catastrophic for the universe, but there would be no putting the lid back on it once it happened.

  “I’d say good riddance if they weren’t taking our people with them,” Mym says.

  “So what’s the plan?” I ask. “I feel like we have to warn the others. Anyone wearing a chronometer seems a likely target for these guys, and I hate to say it, but the closer they are to Mym and me, the more likely they are to get hurt.”

  Mym frowns. “I’m putting people in danger again. Just by knowing them.”

  I put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, this isn’t on you. Not one bit.”

  “Why now?” Mym asks Carson. “Why come after us at this period of our lives? They don’t seem to have gone after my dad. Why go after us?”

  Carson rubs his hands over his head, failing to straighten his unruly, red hair. “I’ve run into it before. It’s sort of a moral code. A certain segment of the underworld seems to follow it. Nobody goes after Quickly. It’s like they consider him to be, I don’t know . . . Grandfather Time. I think they respect that he’s the one who opened this world to them and they don’t want to mess with that. Harry Quickly is a hero.”

  “So the criminal underworld has more respect for Harry than ASCOTT does?” I ask. “They apparently never trusted him. That’s why we’re in this warp clock business to begin with.”

  “What can I say? He’s a man of the people,” Carson replies. “I’ve been to the houses of cons who have his picture on the wall, like he’s the pope or something.”

  “But that respect apparently doesn’t fall on his family,” Mym says.

  “Well, not the in-laws anyway,” Carson says, looking at me.

  “How about his granddaughter?” I ask. “Any hope they’ll leave her alone on principle?”

  Carson frowns. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Mym unfolds her arms and seems to have made a decision. “Okay, let’s get everyone we know into the Central Streams. That way if they do manage to get their hands on the warp clock we won’t be completely stranded. We could use Temprovibes if we had to. We wouldn’t be able to get everywhere we want to go, but we won’t be completely trapped in one timestream. Everybody stays close to home and hides out till we figure out how to get these other Bens and Abe back.”

  “That could work,” Carson says. “I can get on the horn and spread the word. What about your missing future daughter? I looked around a little but couldn’t find any information on her.”

  “I think we should handle that,” I say. “She found us once, there’s a good chance she’ll keep trying. Once we have her, we can get to a central stream and keep her safe.”

  “And I still need to locate the warp clock,” Mym says.

  “You know where it is?” I ask.

  Mym gathers a few items off the table to stuff into her bag. “I’ve only seen it once before, but it doesn’t matter. It won’t be there now. Dad never kept it with us. He and Abe kept it in a solitaire somewhere. I’ll have to ask him to get me there.”

  It’s been a while since I’ve heard the term, but I’m familiar with solitaires. They are timestreams deliberately cut off from others. No organic ways in or out without already having an anchor from there.

  “You plan to give it to them?” Carson asks.

  “Do I have a choice?” Mym asks. “They’re killing people. Killing Ben. I can’t just let that happen.”

  Carson doesn’t argue. He closes up the cabinets he’s been rummaging through and adjusts the video feed to show us back in the apartment. “Okay, I’ll do what I can on my end. I’ll see what else I can dig up on these guys and call you when I have something new.”

  “Be safe, man,” I say.

  “You too.” Carson gives me a long look, seems like he’s going to say something else, but then just nods and signs off.

  Mym turns to me. “You good with this plan?”

  “Except for the part where I have no idea where to start,” I say. “That kid could be anywhere right now.”

  Mym fidgets with the straps on her bag. “I don’t know how to find Piper, but I know someone who might be able to help us learn more about where your alternate selves are being held. That’s something I’d like to sort out. If they took Abe, then he might be there too.”

  “Any plan is better than no plan,” I say. “Yours wins.”

  “I have a place to start, but it will involve a bit of a trip. Your chronometer charged up?”

  “Ready when you are.”

  Mym sets to work degravitizing an anchor from her collection and moves it to a table. I rest my hand atop hers and give it a squeeze.

  Mym double-checks her chronometer settings, and I do my best to not think about the musket and the gunshot and the way the man in the hood thudded to the dirt. The bloodstain seeping slowly through his shirt . . .

  “Ready?” Mym is watching me.

  “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

  Mym presses the pin and we blink.

  6

  “Sometimes I’m asked which year has the best food. Many argue the merits of cuisines from specific decades or timestreams. I’m personally still tr
ying to recreate a lasagna I tasted in 1825.” –Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1980

  A red light is flashing in the corner of my right sunglasses lens. Disconnected. Wherever we’ve jumped to, there are no metaspace features. I pull the sunglasses off my face and look around.

  We’re in another safe house. Europe somewhere, if I had to guess based on the living room decor. Ambient noise from the street is coming in through the open window, but the curtains are covering the view. “Quiet,” Mym whispers, holding a finger to her lips. “Follow me.” She pulls me through a doorway into a small bedroom and closes the door till only a crack of light remains. She peers through it.

  Being roughly a head taller than Mym, I’m able to stand behind her to see what she’s looking at. A few moments pass, then a door somewhere else in the house opens and footsteps sound along the floorboards. They grow muffled when they reach the living room rug. Two people step into view. One is Mym, but she’s a teenager, fourteen or fifteen at most. The other person is Dr. Quickly.

  “You think that was enough time?” the young Mym asks.

  “It would seem so,” Dr. Quickly replies. “Assuming you get a chance to use it one day.”

  The young Mym is making notes in a journal. “You really think we’ll need anchors in this decade? We hardly ever come up this far.”

  “More reason to have safe places to jump to,” her father replies. “The most dangerous times require the most preparation.” He looks our way and notes the door we’re hiding behind. His eyes narrow slightly as he studies the crack we’re peering through. Mym eases the door shut. The scientist’s voice still carries from the other room. “Now come on, let’s get out of here. Plenty more stations to set up. Let’s see if we can get a few more in before lunch.”