Last Year

by Robert Charles Wilson

  Barton cleared his throat and said, “The suspect is one Obie Stedmann of Calhoun’s Landing, Louisiana. A few months ago there was an encounter between what Stedmann calls his ‘rifle club’ and federal troops, a shoot-out that left fifteen dead, two of them soldiers and the rest of them Stedmann’s buddies. The army claims it prevented a lynching. Stedmann calls it murder and blames Reconstruction in general and Grant in particular. When he read in the papers that Grant would be visiting the City, he started to make plans. He traveled to Chicago, spent a night there, then came to Futurity Station, where he spent a week prior to Grant’s arrival. We don’t know what he did during that time, but we know what he didn’t do. He didn’t make an attempt on Grant when Grant’s Pullman car arrived at Futurity Station. Probably because it wasn’t possible. Guests bound for the City are escorted from their train to the coaches by a security detail, and Grant’s security was tight as a drumhead. We believe that’s why Stedmann decided to take Grant from inside the City.”

  “Which would have been a problem for him,” Kemp interjected, “because it’s not easy to buy a ticket on short notice. We’re generally booked up at least six months in advance.”

  “It’s not easy,” Barton said, “but it’s not impossible. Tickets come up for resale if guests cancel. We have a generous rebooking program, but not everyone takes advantage of it. Tickets can be resold. And while we discourage scalping, despite our best efforts, it happens. Stedmann managed to buy himself a ticket, though it must have cost him a small fortune.”

  “He bought something else, too,” Jesse said. “A pistol, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Kemp nodded as if Jesse had said something wise. Barton said, “You saw it yourself. A clip-loading handgun, not of contemporary design.”

  A Glock 19, specifically, Jesse thought.

  “We’ve gone to great lengths,” August Kemp said, “to keep a careful boundary between the City and this world. It was part of the design of the City from the beginning. Our concerns are both pragmatic and ethical. We want to protect locals from ideas and technology that might be destabilizing or dangerous out of their context. And we want to protect the City from misunderstanding and needless litigation. Obviously, the boundary is going to be a little porous no matter what we do. We permit a limited trade in authorized souvenirs, and if one of our Tower One visitors is out on tour and misplaces a smartphone or a wristwatch, so be it. No great harm done. But a weapon? Every handgun we allow through the Mirror is itemized and assigned to a member of the security detail. No unauthorized carries are permitted. Zero tolerance. Finding such a weapon inside the City would have been bad enough. The possibility that Stedmann bought it at the railway depot is shocking, absolutely unacceptable.”

  Elizabeth said, “Have you got anything out of Stedmann about the gun?”

  Barton said, “He gave us his backstory, but he won’t say anything about buying the weapon. So here’s what we want you and Jesse to do for us. First, you head out to Futurity Station and see if you can reconstruct Stedmann’s movements. Your focus should be on the purchase of the weapon—who was the vendor? Are there more weapons being sold? Contraband other than weapons?”

  Kemp addressed Elizabeth directly: “The details are in your inbox. This is your first trip into the field, isn’t it?”

  “I worked transit a few time between here and the railroad,” Elizabeth said. “So I’ve been out of the gates. But basically, yes.”

  “We’ll get you suitable clothing, but you’ll need to take cues from Jesse when it comes to deportment. Are you good with that?”

  “I had the orientation sessions—”

  “And that’s great,” Kemp said. “But a little brushup is always helpful. And Jesse’s a native. Remember that. It’s his world out there, not yours.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Jesse, are we on the same wavelength here?” Kemp registered Jesse’s blank expression and said, “Are we in agreement?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s wonderful. Elizabeth, again, we texted you details. Jesse, I probably don’t need to tell you this duty comes with a pay raise.”

  “That’s very kind,” Jesse said.

  “You’re one of our most loyal local employees and one of the least troublesome. And that’s the attitude you need to take into the field. Do you have any other questions before we break this up?

  Jesse thought about it. “We’re working as a team. Elizabeth and me, I mean. And I need to help her pass as local. Correct?”

  “Right.”

  “But if the gun was smuggled out of the City, the trail might lead right back to Tower One. And I’m happy to follow it. The trouble is, I’m conspicuous here. Twice today I got pegged as a local, and your clerks all peer at me like I’m Lazarus come forth. What am I doing wrong? Can you tell me that?”

  August Kemp looked at Barton, who looked back at Kemp. Neither spoke. Finally Elizabeth said, “It’s your beard.”

  “There are men with beards here.”

  “Not like yours. You look like a refugee from ZZ Top. You look like Zack Galifianakis auditioning for a Civil War comedy. Don’t guys in 1876 ever shave?”

  “Some do,” Jesse said stiffly. “And not all your men are beardless.”

  “Right. With a little trim you could pass in both worlds.”

  Kemp said, “We’ve got a styling salon in Tower One. Off hours, it’s available for staff. I’ll book you an appointment. You’ll need to learn to find your way around Tower One in any case, since we’re moving you here for the duration of this assignment.”

  “I thank you,” Jesse said uncertainly.

  “Any other questions?”

  Plenty, Jesse thought. But none he could bring himself to ask right now.

  “And, oh,” Kemp said, “I understand you need a new pair of Oakleys. Did you stop by the supply room?”

  “I did,” Jesse said. “They’re all out of Oakleys.”

  “I’ll look into it,” August Kemp said.

  3

  The clothes Jesse was issued for his trip to the railroad depot were strangely made.

  He had to wear them even so. The last “authentic” items of clothing he had owned were the trousers, shirt, and flannel underwear he had been wearing when he arrived at the City, and the first thing the City had done was to send them for delousing. Today—given that he was supposed to pass as a modestly successful businessman—a drifter’s shabby pants wouldn’t do. So he had been instructed to report to the supply room to be fitted for passable substitutes.

  Which they had given him, and which he had put on this very morning. And judging by the reflection in the mirror in his dormitory room, he did look more or less like the sort of modestly successful shopkeeper he had often passed in the streets of San Francisco. Except that the shirt was too perfectly clean. And the collar was too white. And the waistcoat felt slick, as if the cotton had been woven too closely. Add to that his recent shave and haircut, and he felt both newly minted and altogether ridiculous.

  “You’ll do,” Elizabeth said as he climbed into the coach and settled on the bench opposite her. He was grateful for the comment, but she was hardly in a position to judge. Her own clothes were imitations and, to Jesse’s eye, looked it.

  The carriage was also a replica, assembled in the twenty-first century and imported through the Mirror. From a distance it would be indistinguishable from an ordinary hackney coach, but it rode differently: the City people had installed a complex suspension. But the coach didn’t have to fool anyone. It was part of the fleet of coaches and horse-drawn omnibuses that conveyed guests from the City to the train station on a weekly schedule.

  The coach jolted as the driver urged his team through the gate and away from the City. Rain streaked the windows, rendering the Illinois prairie in a molten palate of greens and yellows, and Jesse’s mood wasn’t much sunnier. Trouble ahead, he thought. Or, to be fair, maybe not. Maybe he could winkle out enough facts to satisfy Elizabeth and her
bosses, and his life would resume its prior course uninterrupted. But there were other possibilities.

  Last night he had dreamed of his sister Phoebe. Again. The same dream, as familiar as it was terrible. He had been back at Madame Chao’s, and there had been a room in flames, and Phoebe in a box, and his father spilling blood from his cupped hands.

  He had awakened in a cold sweat. He showered and dressed, then made his way to the commissary for breakfast. He told Dorothy, the war widow who worked the counter at Starbucks, that she might not be seeing him so often now that he was being moved to Tower One.

  “New job,” she said, “that’s nice! Making a name for yourself. You look like it, too.”

  “This is special. They dressed me for a trip out to the depot.”

  “As a fashion plate?”

  “I’m not at liberty to speak of it,” Jesse said, meaning he didn’t want to.

  “You’ll have the ladies all agog, that’s certain.”

  One lady who was not all agog was Doris Vanderkamp, taking a break from her work cleaning guest rooms. Doris’s on-again, off-again case of the grippe seemed to be in abeyance today, and her face was more pretty than haggard, dark curls framing mischievous eyes. She joined Jesse at his table without waiting for an invitation. “Well, well, well! Jesse Cullum, spiff as a new dime. Almost enough to make a girl miss him.”

  “You’re looking fine as well, Doris.”

  “All this time I figured your only aim in life was to collect your wages and smile at the boss. But it turns out you’re ambitious.”

  “Pretty soon you’ll have fewer opportunities to insult me, so you might as well get the job done while I’m here.”

  “I don’t mean to insult you—at least not at the moment. But you’re an inconstant lover, Jesse, you have to admit it.”

  He wasn’t much of a lover at all. His entanglement with Doris had been born of his desire, her availability, and a certain spirit of recklessness that had arisen between them like a summer storm. There had never been a future in it. He suspected Doris had known that long before their intimate friendship ran on the rocks. Her consequent resentment of him was a form of social theater, for which she possessed a remarkable talent.

  “I hear they partnered you with a big old girl from the twenty-first century,” she said. “Some female ogre with pants on.”

  “Ogre’s not an apt word. Though she’s not as small and pert as you.”

  “That’s a pretty thing to say.” Doris reached out and covered his hand with hers. “I forgive you nothing, you idiot.” Then she took a handkerchief from the folds of her dress and blew her nose into it. Her cold was coming back, Jesse thought.

  * * *

  “I had a word with Dekker this morning,” Elizabeth said.

  Jesse turned his gaze from the window. The rain came down hard and heavy, as if children were pelting the coach with gravel. The City’s helicopter would remain in its hangar today. Outdoor events would be postponed and rescheduled, and both of the indoor pools in Tower Two—one for women, one for men—would be crowded with guests, who seemed to take a particular pleasure in bathing in heated water while a storm beat at the high glass walls.

  But all that was behind him. Ahead, the streets of Futurity Station would be awash in mud and worse.

  Dekker, Jesse thought: the man who had insulted him and then attempted to crush his hand. “Was he in a better mood today?”

  “Pretty much the opposite of a better mood. After you talked to him in the food court? His pass card went missing. He had to call the security office to get a new one. The old one turned up this morning, stuck in a flowerpot on the commissary floor.”

  “I’m sorry to hear of his troubles.”

  “Dekker blames you.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “There’s a security cam video of him hassling you, but it’s from the wrong angle, so it didn’t prove anything—assuming that’s when you lifted the card.”

  “Are you suggesting I stole it?”

  “I think, if you did steal it and dump it in a flowerpot, it would have served that asshole right. But I didn’t see you do it, and I was sitting less than a yard away. Are you a pickpocket?”

  Jesse considered the question. He didn’t want Elizabeth to think of him as someone who had gone around skinning wallets in his earlier life. Nor did he want to lie. “What you’re talking about sounds more like sleight of hand.”

  “What, like stage magic? So you’re a magician?”

  “No. Nor was my father … but he learned a few card tricks in his youth.”

  “And that’s how you lifted Dekker’s pass without anyone noticing, including Dekker?”

  “I imagine, if I had done such a thing, I might be reluctant to admit it.” In fact he was angry at himself for having done it at all. It had been an intolerable risk for a trivial act of revenge.

  “Your secret’s safe with me. Dekker can’t prove anything, and everyone in Tower One security except Dekker thinks it’s pretty funny.” She thought for a moment. “It’s important to you to keep your job.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I mean, yes.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “None that I care to discuss.”

  “Okay. That’s interesting, though, about your father being a magician.”

  “He wasn’t a magician. He earned his keep by opening doors. Do you come from a family of soldiers, Elizabeth?”

  She laughed. “No. My father was an electrical engineer until he smoked himself into a premature coronary. My mother worked as a beautician, but these days she mostly watches Fox News and goes to church.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine people.”

  “I’m glad somebody’s sure.” Moisture in the air had made the windows opaque, and Elizabeth scrubbed the glass with the heel of her hand. “But you know the saying? ‘All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’”

  “Who said that? Some wise man from your century?”

  She shrugged. “I think I heard it on Oprah.”

  * * *

  Futurity Station was a smudge on the northern horizon now, as if someone had run a sooty finger across the wet Illinois plains. If Jesse craned his head he could see the rest of this convoy of coaches and horse buses bending toward the rail town like ants to a cabbage. And when the veils of rain parted he could see a skyline of wooden structures, the largest and tallest of which was the three-story Excelsior Hotel, where they would be spending the night.

  The depot’s smell preceded it. Jesse saw Elizabeth wrinkle her nose. Two years ago the City had installed waste disposal amenities for Futurity Station, but the town had rapidly outgrown those niceties. The weather could only have made it worse, Jesse imagined; the streets would be flooded and wet air would enclose the stench like a dome. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re here at all.”

  “I’m here to make sure you don’t screw up.”

  He smiled at what she probably intended as a witticism. “Not you personally. You twenty-first-century people. The guests in Tower One. What do you come here for? I don’t see the attraction. I understand well enough how it works for my people: the wonders of the future, a better draw than anything Barnum ever dreamed up. We pay to see your moving pictures and swim in your heated pools and ride in your helicopter, and if we can’t afford a week in the City we can come to Futurity Station to buy trinkets and catch a glimpse of the airship. But your people, the people who leave the twenty-first century to come here—what’s the draw? I don’t see it. People are still out of work from the Panic of ’73. We’re little more than a decade gone from a war that filled the streets with widows and legless veterans. The Indians are in rebellion, and the South is proving as difficult to reconstruct as a broken egg. It’s a little surprising to me that so many guests should care to drop in and visit just now.”

  He was obscurely pleased that Elizabeth didn’t have an easy answer for him. She sat in thoughtful silence for a moment. Then she said,
“The Mirror is a machine. It has limitations. It won’t take you to last month, because it can’t do that kind of precision—a short jump is like threading a needle. And it won’t take you back much farther than a century or two, because a longer jump would require a ridiculous amount of energy. So we have a window of opportunity, and you’re in it.”

  “But that’s not the only reason.”

  “Well, no. And in a way you’re right—not everybody wants to visit. You notice we don’t get a lot of black tourists? Because a place with a recent history of slavery doesn’t seem like an ideal vacation spot to most African-Americans.”

  “I’ve seen black people in the tour groups.”

  “Sure, if they have an academic interest or a family history that matters to them. But think about what the City has to do to keep them safe. Armed escorts, gated hotels in San Francisco and New York.”

  All that was true. Just last winter the New York Tribune had managed to place a reporter in a tour group, and the result had been such sensational headlines as NEGRO PRESIDENT ELECTED IN THE FUTURE and IN FUTURE AMERICA VICE RUNS RAMPANT. But City authorities refused to confirm or deny the stories, and since there was an apparently endless supply of lies and rumors—no fewer than fifteen books had been published this year alone, all claiming to reveal “secrets the City won’t tell,” all mutually contradictory—the controversy had amounted to nothing substantial.

  “And yet you come,” Jesse said.

  “Because you’re what we used to be. Or we like to think so. If I say ‘1876’ to somebody back home they’re going to picture, I don’t know, cowboys and Indians, or maybe a shady New England town with an ice cream parlor and fat politicians in waistcoats and celluloid collars, some kind of Disneyland-Main Street-Frontierland deal…”

  “Dear God,” Jesse said.

  “Of course it’s bullshit, and we kind of know that, but—look at it this way: If somebody in 1876 invents a time machine and offers you a trip to see the Crusades, say, or the building of the pyramids, wouldn’t you accept?”

  “I suppose I might. As long as I was guaranteed protection from the Saracens or the pharaohs.”