In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  I’m woefully aware that I have no money. I don’t even have a chronometer to use to resolve my problems. Looking at Piper, it’s clear I have an obligation regardless. She’s been running on a partial bowl of acorn porridge, and I don’t even have a good sense of how long ago that was. Having her pass out from exhaustion would be unlikely to earn me any dad points.

  “I want you to stay right here, okay? Don’t move from this spot. I’m going to see what I can do.”

  “Okay.”

  I stride across the walkway and join the short line. The near proximity to the food isn’t helping my brain think any clearer. What am I supposed to do, steal something?

  The cashier at the snack stand is a burly man in an apron and paper crown. His pimply teenage coworker hands a basket of fries to a waiting patron, then vanishes back to the grill. The cashier eyes my dirty clothes and scuffed jacket as I walk up. I can almost smell the judgment over the scent of the fries.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “What’ll it be?” the man asks.

  “Uh, do you have any free samples?”

  “Samples?”

  “Yeah. Like to see what’s good? I’ve got my daughter back there and she’s really hungry, but her mom has my wallet. We can’t find her at the moment. I thought maybe we could have a sample till she gets here?” I gesture toward Piper, who is waiting patiently on the far side of the walkway, face obscured by the oversized sunglasses. She seems to be staring into space.

  The cashier sighs. “Look, mac, I got people linin’ up here all day. You want something or you don’t. It ain’t a soup kitchen.”

  “I know. I know. I just don’t have any money on me at the moment.” I try to look like a sympathetic case, but it’s clear he’s not having it. Someone behind me in line clears their throat.

  “I got people waiting here,” the cashier says. “I’m gonna need you to step aside.”

  “Okay, wait a minute.” I hold up a hand. “I’ve got something you might want.” I dig in my pocket and find the multi-tool. “You look like a handy guy. You ever see one of these?”

  The cashier finally looks interested as I fold out the pliers and show him the other features.

  He leans across the counter to have a closer look.

  I let him hold the multi-tool.

  “It’s worth quite a bit,” I add. “Hard to come by.” He turns it over in his hands approvingly. My growling stomach is feeling hopeful. “I use it all the time. My daughter and I just had the knife out a bit ago . . . to . . .” I turn to gesture to Piper, but freeze.

  Piper is gone.

  I spin around to search the other side of the line, then take a few steps away from the snack stand.

  “Hey. You staying in line, or what?” The comment comes from a teenage boy with his gum-chewing girlfriend on his arm. She blows a slow bubble in my direction.

  Where on earth did she go?

  I take a few more steps away from the snack stand, and then I spot her. She’s running away, headed along the walkway toward the exit of the medieval zone. Her untidy braid is bouncing on her back as she flees.

  What the heck?

  “Piper!” I cup my hands and shout, then take off after her.

  “Hey buddy! You forgot your knife,” the cashier shouts, but I don’t have time to turn around. Piper has already disappeared between the faux rock walls of the exit arch. I barrel past surprised patrons holding cotton candy and Cracker Jack, then race across the drawbridge making up the exit from this section of the park. I catch a quick glimpse of Piper climbing a twisting pathway ahead, leading toward another section of the park—Independence Corner.

  As she rushes onward, I can only guess what’s happening. Did something startle her? Did she see something I didn’t and get scared? She’s not running like she’s scared. It seems like she’s running toward something. I shout after her as she vanishes into Liberty Village, a theme park hamlet made up to look like a colonial town. We rush past a teacup ride that threatens to dunk riders in the harbor before whisking them away again amid cheerful fife music. A sign reads, “You’re Invited to Our Boston Tea Party.”

  By the time we’ve passed Paul Revere’s Wild Ride, I’m almost caught up. Piper is forced to stop, searching to find her way. She’s looking for something specific. I notice she’s grabbed a park map similar to ones we studied before.

  “Piper! Wait up!” I call.

  She sees me coming and starts to run again.

  Surprised, I put on some extra speed and finally catch her by the arm just before she reaches a wooden footbridge.

  “Hey! What’s going on?”

  Piper spins and flails at my arm. “Let me go!”

  People are staring but I hold on to her.

  “What are you—”

  “You lied to me!” she shouts. “You knew! You knew this whole time!” Her face is streaked with tears.

  “Knew what?” I’m as baffled as I’ve ever been. “Just calm down, okay? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to calm down!” Piper yells. “You lied to me! You told me you didn’t know where he was, but you did know. You knew it from the beginning!”

  The situation dawns on me. The sunglasses. She found the video.

  “What happens at the end?” she demands. “Do you know? You do, don’t you!”

  “The end of what?”

  She flings her hand out and shakes the sunglasses at me. “With this! The power died. Right when I could see him. What happens? Did you know? Why did you lie to me?”

  “Hey, hold up, okay? I’ve been in the same mess as you all day. I’ve been trying to find him too.”

  “No you weren’t,” Piper argues. “If you knew he was here you should have come here first. You should have told me!”

  I don’t have an argument for that. She’s right. I did have a suspicion that her father was in the colonial time, but I didn’t want to believe it was this timeline. More precisely, I wanted to avoid a scenario where the other me in the video was me. Actual me.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the video,” I say. “But I didn’t know for sure. I wasn’t positive it was him.”

  “That’s my dad. I saw him,” Piper says. “You have to tell me what happens. Does he get out at the end? They had a bag. They put it over his head . . .”

  She watched almost to the end. She must not have seen the shooting, but she’s probably figuring it out. Nothing good usually comes from being led places blindfolded by thugs, no matter the century. Today has been proof of that.

  “I have to find him. I have to get him back.” Piper waves the map. It’s an earlier version, a 1958 version, no glossy paper or fancy colors, but it must still have the clock symbols. Time travelers have definitely been here. She turns and continues to search for her destination. When she finds what she’s looking for, she keeps going, half-walking, half-running as I try to keep up.

  “We can’t keep jumping into places where we know these guys are,” I say. “We need reinforcements.”

  “We need to save my dad!” Piper shouts.

  A married couple walking past pull their little boy a bit closer to them as they skirt around us. Apparently we’re causing a scene.

  “There’s another gate,” Piper says. “It’s in there.” She points to a building made up to look like a pub. The sign on the door reads “Green Dragon Tavern.”

  “Well, what do you know about that . . .” I mutter.

  “What?” Piper says.

  “Nothing. I’ve just been there before. Not that one, but the real one. They put a time gate in there?”

  “I have to go get him,” Piper says, and marches toward the pub.

  The Tavern is just a façade. The door does open, but there is only a small space inside.

  Children have carved their names on the support beams for the structure, but even the graffiti looks milder in the 1950s. It’s almost charming. Several bundles of wires have been mounted to the structure. To the untrained eye, they look lik
e the electrical wiring for the tavern window lights and signs, but the reality is much more complicated.

  Piper discovers the time gate control panel mounted beneath a fuse box for the lights. It doesn’t appear to have been there long. She reaches for the controls.

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” I say, grabbing her by the arm. “Not like this. Not yet.”

  Piper glares at me. “You said you’d help me save him. You promised.”

  I sigh and squat so I am below her eye level. “Listen to me, kiddo. You can’t go in there. Not this time. It’s not safe.”

  “If it’s not safe then we have to go get him,” Piper argues.

  “That’s not how this works. Not for kids.”

  “I’m not a little kid,” Piper says. “I’m almost ten.”

  “And that seems old to you. I get that. But if I take you knowingly into danger when there is a better option available, that makes me a really bad dad. You’ll be safer if you stay here.”

  “You said you aren’t even my dad,” Piper says. “I told you I know how it works. You don’t have to keep me safe, but we still have to save him.”

  “Not we,” I say. “Not this time.”

  Piper stares at me, her sky-blue eyes searching mine. “But we have to.”

  “I’m going to go,” I say. “I’ll find your dad and I’ll bring him back.”

  “You said that before. You promised me, but you lied. I don’t believe you.”

  “Look, I’m going to go in there.” I say. “And I’m going to find him. And you are going to stay safe. Because the only way I’m going to be able to convince him to come with me is if he knows you are somewhere out of danger. If I put you in danger, well, then he’s not going to like me very much, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

  Piper seems to be considering this. “Who will work the time gate on the other side?”

  “I feel like I have the hang of it now,” I say. “And besides, if I have your dad with me, he can do it, right?”

  Piper nods. She seems to be searching for any holes in my logic. No doubt another trait she’s inherited from Mym.

  “I just need you to stay here, okay? If I’m going to succeed, I need to know you are safe.”

  “I’ll be safe,” Piper replies. “It’s okay here. It’s nice.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” I say. “I know you’re hungry, and you’re probably tired, but we can still get out of this. We just need to find a way to contact your mom and get her here. If we can figure out any connections between this 1958 and one of ours from the Central Streams, maybe we can make contact. I don’t know. But we can figure something out. We just need to find the warp clock. . .”

  “After you save my dad.”

  I study the little girl in front of me. She’s as determined a person as I’ve ever met. It makes me wonder how he did it. What wonders did he conjure to make her love him with such devotion? Will my own children love me that much?

  I stand up and face the gate.

  “If for some reason I don’t come back, I want you to find a police officer. Tell them that your dad is missing and make them keep you safe. But don’t come after me. Understand?”

  “How long do I wait?” Piper says.

  “At least till whatever the next exit interval on the gate is,” I say. “Or until you can’t wait any longer. But I’m going to make sure you aren’t alone, okay? Your dad is going to walk back out of this gate.”

  “Okay.”

  “Does it say where we are now? I just need to know the coordinates to jump back to.”

  Piper powers on the gate, then pulls up the destination identifiers for where we are currently. It’s no stream I’ve ever heard of, but I memorize the coordinates anyway.

  I don’t have any weapons. I’ve honestly got nothing going for me right now other than sheer willpower. There’s no telling what’s going to be on the other side of the gate.

  We locate a cluster of destination coordinates that were used last. They are grouped closely together. A menu on the control panel shows temporal data, and one of the options shows timestream signatures from people who have made jumps through the gate. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but one of them looks a lot like my own temporal signature. If that’s not Piper’s dad, I don’t know what else to choose.

  I opt for the time slot a few hours after he went through. It’s my best bet.

  Once the temporal field stabilizes, I turn to Piper one more time. “You’ve done really great today. I know your dad is going to be super proud of you when I tell him.”

  “I guess you did pretty good too,” she replies.

  I lean over and give her a hug.

  When I straighten up again, there’s nothing left to be done. The time gate is open, and the question of my destiny is lingering in the ether. I recall the image of the musket—the smoke and the blast. On the other side of this gate, someone is going to get shot, and either way it’s one of me. Another leap of faith. Will I survive this one?

  I know there is only one way to find out.

  I step through the gate.

  19

  “It’s a strange feeling to know a time traveler is nowhere to be found in the universe at a present moment, but to have faith that they’ll be back one day.” –Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2087

  I’ve never respected colonial times very much.

  I suppose it was mostly the fashion. A three-cornered hat? Buckles on shoes? Who thought these were good choices? I need buttons on the calves of breeches about as much as I need another hole in me somewhere.

  And the powdered wigs are just ridiculous. I don’t know how I’m expected to take a man seriously with that on his head.

  But nobody asked me.

  They also didn’t consult me when setting up this time gate. The barn I’ve wandered into smells of bovine flatulence and hay dust. I wish I could say that was the worst of it.

  The two men with rifles standing guard at the gate don’t look happy to see me at all. One of them is wearing a wig.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man in the wig says.

  It is apparently a rhetorical question as his companion immediately raises his gun. It doesn’t look very colonial. “Get on the ground.”

  I put my hands up and kneel. Today really isn’t my day.

  “Just passing through, fellas. You really don’t have to trouble yourselves.” I attempt a smile.

  “Franco said we were only getting one hostage to manage,” the man with the gun says. He’s black, broad-chested and dressed in simple laborer’s clothing. “What’s with sending us another one?”

  His companion in the wig moves around behind me and grumbles as he checks my pockets and waistband for weapons. “He always seems to think we’ll just jump whenever he says. Would’ve been nice to get a heads up.”

  “Actually Franco said to send his love,” I comment. “He gets a little busy hosting his festival of fiends all day, but he wanted to pass along a hug.”

  “Shut up,” the man with the rifle says. “We don’t need your lip. You don’t zip it, we’ll knock your ass out.”

  Friendly bunch.

  “It’s like he thinks we have nothing else to do all day but babysit his hostages. And I’ll bet he still wants the job done at the same time.” Wig guy looks at me. “Take off that jacket.”

  “What?”

  “Take it off. We can’t have you seen in these clothes. Nobody is going to believe you’re a British spy wearing that.”

  “Because I’m not a British spy?” I offer.

  They still don’t want my opinion.

  I’m forced to strip out of my jacket and shirt and don a loose-sleeved bit of ridiculousness that must be what passes for a shirt around here. It laces up at the collar. Not that I can lace anything once they tie my hands. I’m getting really tired of being tied up.

  “Where are we?” I ask. The coordinates on the time gate had given a year—1777—but I couldn’t decipher the physical location.

  Wig For Br
ains doesn’t answer. He walks behind me and begins addressing someone else. That’s when I notice the other prisoner. He’s wearing a shirt similar to mine, but there’s a bag over his head.

  “You villains will meet a merciless end,” the man says. “You do a disservice to God and to your country by laying hands on me!”

  “Figure the country will do just fine without you, turncoat.” The man in the wig guides the prisoner over to the time gate.

  “I have never betrayed our new country’s cause,” the man argues.

  “Doesn’t mean you won’t,” his captor replies. The time gate gets reactivated and the man in the wig sets the coordinates. “Don’t suspect you’re gonna like this destination much, but maybe you’ll do okay, being a war hero and all.” The temporal emitters connect across the doorway and stabilize. The prisoner blusters a bit more, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s shoved unceremoniously through the gate and vanishes.

  The man in the wig shuts the time gate down, then turns back to me. “One less villain in history.”

  “Turncoat . . .” I reply. “Benedict Arnold?”

  My captor smiles. “I see you paid attention in school.”

  “Not for all of it, but enough to know that Benedict Arnold did the American Revolution a fair amount of good too. Do you guys have any idea what the repercussions of removing him from history will do?”

  “Don’t have to know,” the man replies. “Not my job. I wasn’t one of the guys that paid much attention in school, you know what I mean? But I know an opportunity when I see it.”

  “You could be changing everything,” I argue. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “Don’t care,” he replies. “Only care that I get what I was promised. The planning shit is up to the boss.”

  The boss.

  I still have no idea who this TRIK character is or what he’s up to.

  “Whoever your boss is, he’s going to screw up a lot of timelines. Who knows what he’s creating? It could be catastrophic.”

  “Why don’t you shut your mouth?” This time it’s the big guy with the gun speaking. “Ain’t none of your business. Once your old lady gives up the goods, none of your friends will be able to mess with us. After that, we don’t care what the boss does.”